No More Learning

TO THE RAMBLER.

SIR,

If you feel any of that compassion which you recommend to others, you will
not disregard a case which I have reason from observation to believe very
common, and which I know by experience to be very miserable. And though
the querulous are seldom received with great ardour of kindness, I hope
to escape the mortification of finding that my lamentations spread the
contagion of impatience, and produce anger rather than tenderness. I
write not merely to vent the swelling of my heart, but to inquire by what
means I may recover my tranquillity; and shall endeavour at brevity in
my narrative, having long known that complaint quickly tires, however
elegant, or however just.

I was born in a remote county, of a family that boasts alliances with the
greatest names in English history, and extends its claims of affinity to
the Tudors and Plantagenets. My ancestors, by little and little, wasted
their patrimony, till my father had not enough left for the support
of a family, without descending to the cultivation of his own grounds,
being condemned to pay three sisters the fortunes allotted them by my
grandfather, who is suspected to have made his will when he was incapable
of adjusting properly the claims of his children, and who, perhaps without
design, enriched his daughters by beggaring his son. My aunts being, at
the death of their father, neither young nor beautiful, nor very eminent
for softness of behaviour, were suffered to live unsolicited, and by
accumulating the interest of their portions grew every day richer and
prouder. My father pleased himself with foreseeing that the possessions
of those ladies must revert at last to the hereditary estate, and that
his family might lose none of its dignity, resolved to keep me untainted
with a lucrative employment; whenever therefore I discovered any
inclination to the improvement of my condition, my mother never failed
to put me in mind of my birth, and charged me to do nothing with which I
might be reproached when I should come to my aunts' estate.

In all the perplexities or vexations which want of money brought upon
us, it was our constant practice to have recourse to futurity. If any
of our neighbours surpassed us in appearance, we went home and contrived
an equipage, with which the death of my aunts was to supply us. If any
purse-proud upstart was deficient in respect, vengeance was referred to
the time in which our estate was to be repaired. We registered every act
of civility and rudeness, inquired the number of dishes at every feast,
and minuted the furniture of every house, that we might, when the hour
of affluence should come, be able to eclipse all their splendour, and
surpass all their magnificence.

Upon plans of elegance and schemes of pleasure the day rose and set,
and the year went round unregarded, while we were busied in laying out
plantations on ground not yet our own, and deliberating whether the
manor-house should be rebuilt or repaired. This was the amusement of
our leisure, and the solace of our exigencies; we met together only to
contrive how our approaching fortune should be enjoyed; for in this our
conversation always ended, on whatever subject it began. We had none of
the collateral interests which diversify the life of others with joys and
hopes, but had turned our whole attention on one event, which we could
neither hasten nor retard, and had no other object of curiosity than the
health or sickness of my aunts, of which we were careful to procure very
exact and early intelligence.

This visionary opulence for a while soothed our imagination, but
afterwards fired our wishes, and exasperated our necessities, and my
father could not always restrain himself from exclaiming, that _no
creature had so many lives as a cat and an old maid_. At last, upon
the recovery of his sister from an ague, which she was supposed to have
caught by sparing fire, he began to lose his stomach, and four months
afterwards sunk into his grave.

My mother, who loved her husband, survived him but a little while, and
left me the sole heir of their lands, their schemes, and their wishes.
As I had not enlarged my conceptions either by books or conversation,
I differed only from my father by the freshness of my cheeks, and the
vigour of my step; and, like him, gave way to no thoughts but of enjoying
the wealth which my aunts were hoarding.

At length the eldest fell ill. I paid the civilities and compliments which
sickness requires with the utmost punctuality. I dreamed every night
of escutcheons and white gloves, and inquired every morning at an early
hour, whether there were any news of my dear aunt. At last a messenger
was sent to inform me that I must come to her without the delay of a
moment. I went and heard her last advice, but opening her will, found
that she had left her fortune to her second sister.

I hung my head; the youngest sister threatened to be married, and every
thing was disappointment and discontent. I was in danger of losing
irreparably one third of my hopes, and was condemned still to wait for
the rest. Of part of my terror I was soon eased; for the youth whom his
relations would have compelled to marry the old lady, after innumerable
stipulations, articles, and settlements, ran away with the daughter of
his father's groom; and my aunt, upon this conviction of the perfidy of
man, resolved never to listen more to amorous addresses.

Ten years longer I dragged the shackles of expectation, without ever
suffering a day to pass, in which I did not compute how much my chance
was improved of being rich to-morrow. At last the second lady died,
after a short illness, which yet was long enough to afford her time for
the disposal of her estate, which she gave to me after the death of her
sister.

I was now relieved from part of my misery; a larger fortune, though not
in my power, was certain and unalienable; nor was there now any danger,
that I might at last be frustrated of my hopes by a fret of dotage,
the flatteries of a chambermaid, the whispers of a tale-bearer, or the
officiousness of a nurse. But my wealth was yet in reversion, my aunt was
to be buried before I could emerge to grandeur and pleasure; and there
were yet, according to my father's observation, nine lives between me
and happiness.

I however lived on, without any clamours of discontent, and comforted
myself with considering, that all are mortal, and they who are
continually decaying must at last be destroyed.

But let no man from this time suffer his felicity to depend on the death
of his aunt. The good gentlewoman was very regular in her hours, and
simple in her diet, and in walking or sitting still, waking or sleeping,
had always in view the preservation of her health. She was subject to
no disorder but hypochondriac dejection; by which, without intention,
she increased my miseries, for whenever the weather was cloudy, she would
take her bed and send me notice that her time was come. I went with all
the haste of eagerness, and sometimes received passionate injunctions
to be kind to her maid, and directions how the last offices should be
performed; but if before my arrival the sun happened to break out, or
the wind to change, I met her at the door, or found her in the garden,
bustling and vigilant, with all the tokens of long life.

Sometimes, however, she fell into distempers, and was thrice given over by
the doctor, yet she found means of slipping through the gripe of death,
and after having tortured me three months at each time with violent
alternations of hope and fear, came out of her chamber without any other
hurt than the loss of flesh, which in a few weeks she recovered by broths
and jellies.

As most have sagacity sufficient to guess at the desires of an heir, it
was the constant practice of those who were hoping at second hand, and
endeavoured to secure my favour against the time when I should be rich,
to pay their court, by informing me that my aunt began to droop, that
she had lately a bad night, that she coughed feebly, and that she could
never climb May-hill; or, at least, that the autumn would carry her off.
Thus was I flattered in the winter with the piercing winds of March, and
in summer, with the fogs of September. But she lived through spring and
fall, and set heat and cold at defiance, till, after near half a century,
I buried her on the fourteenth of last June, aged ninety-three years,
five months, and six days.

For two months after her death I was rich, and was pleased with that
obsequiousness and reverence which wealth instantaneously procures.
But this joy is now past, and I have returned again to my old habit of
wishing. Being accustomed to give the future full power over my mind,
and to start away from the scene before me to some expected enjoyment,
I deliver up myself to the tyranny of every desire which fancy suggests,
and long for a thousand things which I am unable to procure. Money
has much less power than is ascribed to it by those that want it. I had
formed schemes which I cannot execute, I had supposed events which do not
come to pass, and the rest of my life must pass in craving solicitude,
unless you can find some remedy for a mind, corrupted with an inveterate
disease of wishing, and unable to think on any thing but wants, which
reason tells me will never be supplied.

I am, &c.

CUPIDUS.




No. 74. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1750.


_Rixatur de lana sæpe caprina. _
HOR. Lib i. Ep. xviii. 15.

For nought tormented, she for nought torments.
ELPHINSTON.


Men seldom give pleasure, where they are not pleased themselves; it is
necessary, therefore, to cultivate an habitual alacrity and cheerfulness,
that in whatever state we may be placed by Providence, whether we
are appointed to confer or receive benefits, to implore or to afford
protection, we may secure the love of those with whom we transact. For
though it is generally imagined, that he who grants favours, may spare
any attention to his behaviour, and that usefulness will always procure
friends; yet it has been found, that there is an art of granting requests,
an art very difficult of attainment; that officiousness and liberality
may be so adulterated, as to lose the greater part of their effect; that
compliance may provoke, relief may harass, and liberality distress.

No disease of the mind can more fatally disable it from benevolence, the
chief duty of social beings, than ill-humour or peevishness; for though
it breaks not out in paroxysms of outrage, nor bursts into clamour,
turbulence, and bloodshed, it wears out happiness by slow corrosion,
and small injuries incessantly repeated. It may be considered as the
canker of life, that destroys its vigour, and checks its improvement,
that creeps on with hourly depredations, and taints and vitiates what
it cannot consume.

Peevishness, when it has been so far indulged, as to outrun the motions
of the will, and discover itself without premeditation, is a species of
depravity in the highest degree disgusting and offensive, because no
rectitude of intention, nor softness of address, can ensure a moment's
exemption from affront and indignity. While we are courting the favour
of a peevish man, and exerting ourselves in the most diligent civility,
an unlucky syllable displeases, an unheeded circumstance ruffles and
exasperates; and in the moment when we congratulate ourselves upon having
gained a friend, our endeavours are frustrated at once, and all our
assiduity forgotten, in the casual tumult of some trifling irritation.

This troublesome impatience is sometimes nothing more than the symptom
of some deeper malady. He that is angry without daring to confess his
resentment, or sorrowful without the liberty of telling his grief, is
too frequently inclined to give vent to the fermentations of his mind
at the first passages that are opened, and to let his passions boil over
upon those whom accident throws in his way. A painful and tedious course
of sickness frequently produces such an alarming apprehension of the
least increase of uneasiness, as keeps the soul perpetually on the watch,
such a restless and incessant solicitude, as no care or tenderness can
appease, and can only be pacified by the cure of the distemper, and the
removal of that pain by which it is excited.

Nearly approaching to this weakness, is the captiousness of old age. When
the strength is crushed, the senses dulled, and the common pleasures
of life become insipid by repetition, we are willing to impute our
uneasiness to causes not wholly out of our power, and please ourselves
with fancying that we suffer by neglect, unkindness, or any evil which
admits a remedy, rather than by the decays of nature, which cannot be
prevented or repaired. We therefore revenge our pains upon those on whom
we resolve to charge them; and too often drive mankind away at the time
we have the greatest need of tenderness and assistance.

But though peevishness may sometimes claim our compassion, as the
consequence or concomitant of misery, it is very often found, where
nothing can justify or excuse its admission. It is frequently one of the
attendants on the prosperous, and is employed by insolence in exacting
homage, or by tyranny in harassing subjection. It is the offspring of
idleness or pride; of idleness anxious for trifles; or pride unwilling to
endure the least obstruction of her wishes. Those who have long lived in
solitude indeed naturally contract this unsocial quality, because, having
long had only themselves to please, they do not readily depart from their
own inclinations; their singularities therefore are only blameable, when
they have imprudently or morosely withdrawn themselves from the world;
but there are others, who have, without any necessity, nursed up this
habit in their minds, by making implicit submissiveness the condition of
their favour, and suffering none to approach them, but those who never
speak but to applaud, or move but to obey.

He that gives himself up to his own fancy, and converses with none but
such as he hires to lull him on the down of absolute authority, to
sooth him with obsequiousness, and regale him with flattery, soon grows
too slothful for the labour of contest, too tender for the asperity of
contradiction, and too delicate for the coarseness of truth; a little
opposition offends, a little restraint enrages, and a little difficulty
perplexes him; having been accustomed to see every thing give way to his
humour, he soon forgets his own littleness, and expects to find the world
rolling at his beck, and all mankind employed to accommodate and delight
him.

Tetrica had a large fortune bequeathed to her by an aunt, which made
her very early independent, and placed her in a state of superiority
to all about her. Having no superfluity of understanding, she was soon
intoxicated by the flatteries of her maid, who informed her that ladies,
such as she, had nothing to do but take pleasure their own way; that she
wanted nothing from others, and had therefore no reason to value their
opinion; that money was every thing; and that they who thought themselves
ill-treated, should look for better usage among their equals.

Warm with these generous sentiments, Tetrica came forth into the world,
in which she endeavoured to force respect by haughtiness of mien and
vehemence of language; but having neither birth, beauty, nor wit, in any
uncommon degree, she suffered such mortifications from those who thought
themselves at liberty to return her insults, as reduced her turbulence
to cooler malignity, and taught her to practise her arts of vexation only
where she might hope to tyrannize without resistance. She continued from
her twentieth to her fifty-fifth year to torment all her inferiors with
so much diligence, that she has formed a principle of disapprobation, and
finds in every place something to grate her mind, and disturb her quiet.

If she takes the air, she is offended with the heat or cold, the glare of
the sun, or the gloom of the clouds; if she makes a visit, the room in
which she is to be received is too light, or too dark, or furnished with
something which she cannot see without aversion. Her tea is never of the
right sort; the figures on the China give her disgust. Where there are
children, she hates the gabble of brats; where there are none, she cannot
bear a place without some cheerfulness and rattle. If many servants are
kept in a house, she never fails to tell how lord Lavish was ruined by a
numerous retinue; if few, she relates the story of a miser that made his
company wait on themselves. She quarrelled with one family, because she
had an unpleasant view from their windows; with another, because the
squirrel leaped within two yards of her; and with a third, because she
could not bear the noise of the parrot.

Of milliners and mantua-makers she is the proverbial torment. She compels
them to alter their work, then to unmake it, and contrive it after another
fashion; then changes her mind, and likes it better as it was at first;
then will have a small improvement. Thus she proceeds till no profit can
recompense the vexation; they at last leave the clothes at her house, and
refuse to serve her. Her maid, the only being who can endure her tyranny,
professes to take her own course, and hear her mistress talk. Such is the
consequence of peevishness; it can be borne only when it is despised.

It sometimes happens that too close an attention to minute exactness,
or a too rigorous habit of examining every thing by the standard of
perfection, vitiates the temper, rather than improves the understanding,
and teaches the mind to discern faults with unhappy penetration. It is
incident likewise to men of vigorous imagination to please themselves
too much with futurities, and to fret because those expectations
are disappointed, which should never have been formed. Knowledge and
genius are often enemies to quiet, by suggesting ideas of excellence,
which men and the performances of men cannot attain. But let no man
rashly determine, that his unwillingness to be pleased is a proof
of understanding, unless his superiority appears from less doubtful
evidence; for though peevishness may sometimes justly boast its descent
from learning or from wit, it is much oftener of a base extraction, the
child of vanity and nursling of ignorance.




No. 75. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1750.


_Diligitur nemo, nisi cui Fortuna secunda est. _
_Quæ, simul intonuit, proxima quæque fugat. _
OVID, Ex Ponto. Lib. ii. Ep. iii. 23.

When smiling Fortune spreads her golden ray,
All crowd around to flatter and obey:
But when she thunders from an angry sky,
Our friends, our flatterers, our lovers fly.
Miss A. W. [49]


TO THE RAMBLER.

SIR,

The diligence with which you endeavour to cultivate the knowledge of
nature, manners, and life, will perhaps incline you to pay some regard
to the observations of one who has been taught to know mankind by
unwelcome information, and whose opinions are the result, not of solitary
conjectures, but of practice and experience.

I was born to a large fortune, and bred to the knowledge of those arts
which are supposed to accomplish the mind, and adorn the person of a
woman. To these attainments, which custom and education almost forced
upon me, I added some voluntary acquisitions by the use of books, and
the conversation of that species of men whom the ladies generally mention
with terrour and aversion under the name of scholars, but whom I have
found a harmless and inoffensive order of beings, not so much wiser than
ourselves, but that they may receive as well as communicate knowledge,
and more inclined to degrade their own character by cowardly submission,
than to overbear or oppress us with their learning or their wit.

From these men, however, if they are by kind treatment encouraged to talk,
something may be gained, which, embellished with elegancy, and softened
by modesty, will always add dignity and value to female conversation; and
from my acquaintance with the bookish part of the world I derived many
principles of judgment and maxims of prudence, by which I was enabled
to draw upon myself the general regard in every place of concourse or
pleasure. My opinion was the great rule of approbation, my remarks were
remembered by those who desired the second degree of fame, my mien was
studied, my dress was imitated, my letters were handed from one family
to another, and read by those who copied them as sent to themselves; my
visits were solicited as honours, and multitudes boasted of an intimacy
with Melissa, who had only seen me by accident, and whose familiarity
had never proceeded beyond the exchange of a compliment, or return of
a courtesy.

I shall make no scruple of confessing that I was pleased with this
universal veneration, because I always considered it as paid to my
intrinsick qualities and inseparable merit, and very easily persuaded
myself that fortune had no part in my superiority. When I looked upon my
glass, I saw youth and beauty, with health that might give me reason to
hope their continuance; when I examined my mind, I found some strength
of judgment, and fertility of fancy; and was told that every action was
grace, and that every accent was persuasion.

In this manner my life passed like a continual triumph, amidst
acclamations, and envy, and courtship, and caresses: to please Melissa
was the general ambition, and every stratagem of artful flattery was
practised upon me. To be flattered is grateful, even when we know that
our praises are not believed by those who pronounce them; for they prove,
at least, our power, and show that our favour is valued, since it is
purchased by the meanness of falsehood. But, perhaps, the flatterer is
not often detected, for an honest mind is not apt to suspect, and no one
exerts the power of discernment with much vigour when self-love favours
the deceit.

The number of adorers, and the perpetual distraction of my thoughts by new
schemes of pleasure, prevented me from listening to any of those who crowd
in multitudes to give girls advice, and kept me unmarried and unengaged
to my twenty-seventh year, when, as I was towering in all the pride of
uncontested excellency, with a face yet little impaired, and a mind
hourly improving, the failure of a fund, in which my money was placed,
reduced me to a frugal competency, which allowed little beyond neatness
and independence.

I bore the diminution of my riches without any outrages of sorrow, or
pusillanimity of dejection. Indeed I did not know how much I had lost,
for having always heard and thought more of my wit and beauty, than of
my fortune, it did not suddenly enter my imagination, that Melissa could
sink beneath her established rank, while her form and her mind continued
the same; that she could cease to raise admiration but by ceasing to
deserve it, or feel any stroke but from the hand of time.

It was in my power to have concealed the loss, and to have married,
by continuing the same appearance, with all the credit of my original
fortune; but I was not so far sunk in my own esteem, as to submit to the
baseness of fraud, or to desire any other recommendation than sense and
virtue. I, therefore, dismissed my equipage, sold those ornaments which
were become unsuitable to my new condition, and appeared among those with
whom I used to converse with less glitter, but with equal spirit.

I found myself received at every visit, with sorrow beyond what is
naturally felt for calamities in which we have no part, and was
entertained with condolence and consolation so frequently repeated, that
my friends plainly consulted rather their own gratification, than my
relief. Some from that time refused my acquaintance, and forbore, without
any provocation, to repay my visits; some visited me, but after a longer
interval than usual, and every return was still with more delay; nor
did any of my female acquaintances fail to introduce the mention of my
misfortunes, to compare my present and former condition, to tell me how
much it must trouble me to want the splendour which I became so well, to
look at pleasures which I had formerly enjoyed, and to sink to a level
with those by whom I had been considered as moving in a higher sphere,
and who had hitherto approached me with reverence and submission, which
I was now no longer to expect.

Observations like these, are commonly nothing better than covert insults,
which serve to give vent to the flatulence of pride, but they are now
and then imprudently uttered by honesty and benevolence, and inflict
pain where kindness is intended; I will, therefore, so far maintain my
antiquated claim to politeness, as to venture the establishment of this
rule, that no one ought to remind another of misfortunes of which the
sufferer does not complain, and which there are no means proposed of
alleviating. You have no right to excite thoughts which necessarily give
pain whenever they return, and which perhaps might not have revived but
by absurd and unseasonable compassion.

My endless train of lovers immediately withdrew, without raising any
emotions. The greater part had indeed always professed to court, as it is
termed, upon the square, had inquired my fortune, and offered settlements;
these had undoubtedly a right to retire without censure, since they had
openly treated for money, as necessary to their happiness, and who can
tell how little they wanted any other portion? I have always thought the
clamours of women unreasonable, who imagine themselves injured because
the men who followed them upon the supposition of a greater fortune,
reject them when they are discovered to have less. I have never known
any lady, who did not think wealth a title to some stipulations in her
favour; and surely what is claimed by the possession of money is justly
forfeited by its loss. She that has once demanded a settlement has
allowed the importance of fortune: and when she cannot shew pecuniary
merit, why should she think her cheapener obliged to purchase?

My lovers were not all contented with silent desertion. Some of them
revenged the neglect which they had formerly endured by wanton and
superfluous insults, and endeavoured to mortify me, by paying, in my
presence, those civilities to other ladies, which were once devoted only
to me. But, as it had been my rule to treat men according to the rank
of their intellect, I had never suffered any one to waste his life in
suspense, who could have employed it to better purpose, and had therefore
no enemies but coxcombs, whose resentment and respect were equally below
my consideration.

The only pain which I have felt from degradation, is the loss of that
influence which I had always exerted on the side of virtue, in the
defence of innocence, and the assertion of truth. I now find my opinions
slighted, my sentiments criticised, and my arguments opposed by those
that used to listen to me without reply, and struggle to be first in
expressing their conviction.

The female disputants have wholly thrown off my authority; and if I
endeavour to enforce my reasons by an appeal to the scholars that happen
to be present, the wretches are certain to pay their court by sacrificing
me and my system to a finer gown, and I am every hour insulted with
contradiction by cowards, who could never find till lately that Melissa
was liable to errour.

There are two persons only whom I cannot charge with having changed their
conduct with my change of fortune. One is an old curate that has passed
his life in the duties of his profession, with great reputation for his
knowledge and piety; the other is a lieutenant of dragoons. The parson
made no difficulty in the height of my elevation to check me when I was
pert, and instruct me when I blundered; and if there is any alteration,
he is now more timorous, lest his freedom should be thought rudeness. The
soldier never paid me any particular addresses, but very rigidly observed
all the rules of politeness, which he is now so far from relaxing, that
whenever he serves the tea, he obstinately carries me the first dish, in
defiance of the frowns and whispers of the table,

This, Mr. Rambler, is _to see the world_. It is impossible for those
that have only known affluence and prosperity, to judge of themselves
or others. The rich and the powerful live in a perpetual masquerade, in
which all about them wear borrowed characters; and we only discover in
what estimation we are held, when we can no longer give hopes or fears.

I am, &c.

MELISSA.

[Footnote 49: Anna Williams, of whom an account is given in the Life of Dr.
Johnson, prefixed to this edition. ]




No. 76. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1750.


_----Silvis, ubi passim_
_Palantes error certo de tramite pellit,_
_Ille sinistrorsum, hic dextrorsum abit; unus utrique_
_Error, sed variis illudit partibus. _
HOR. Lib. ii. Sat iii. 48.

While mazy error draws mankind astray
From truth's sure path, each takes his devious way;
One to the right, one to the left recedes,
Alike deluded, as each fancy leads.
ELPHINSTON.


It is easy for every man, whatever be his character with others, to
find reasons for esteeming himself, and therefore censure, contempt,
or conviction of crimes, seldom deprive him of his own favour. Those,
indeed, who can see only external facts, may look upon him with
abhorrence? but when he calls himself to his own tribunal, he finds every
fault, if not absolutely effaced, yet so much palliated by the goodness
of his intention, and the cogency of the motive, that very little
guilt or turpitude remains; and when he takes a survey of the whole
complication of his character, he discovers so many latent excellencies,
so many virtues that want but an opportunity to exert themselves in act,
and so many kind wishes for universal happiness, that he looks on himself
as suffering unjustly under the infamy of single failings, while the
general temper of his mind is unknown or unregarded.

It is natural to mean well, when only abstracted ideas of virtue are
proposed to the mind, and no particular passion turns us aside from
rectitude; and so willing is every man to flatter himself, that the
difference between approving laws, and obeying them, is frequently
forgotten; he that acknowledges the obligations of morality, and pleases
his vanity with enforcing them to others, concludes himself zealous in
the cause of virtue, though he has no longer any regard to her precepts,
than they conform to his own desires; and counts himself among her warmest
lovers, because he praises her beauty, though every rival steals away
his heart.

There are, however, great numbers who have little recourse to the
refinements of speculation, but who yet live at peace with themselves,
by means which require less understanding, or less attention. When
their hearts are burthened with the consciousness of a crime, instead
of seeking for some remedy within themselves, they look round upon the
rest of mankind, to find others tainted with the same guilt: they please
themselves with observing, that they have numbers on their side; and
that, though they are hunted out from the society of good men, they are
not likely to be condemned to solitude.

It may be observed, perhaps without exception, that none are so
industrious to detect wickedness, or so ready to impute it, as they
whose crimes are apparent and confessed. They envy an unblemished
reputation, and what they envy they are busy to destroy; they are
unwilling to suppose themselves meaner and more corrupt than others, and
therefore willingly pull down from their elevations those with whom they
cannot rise to an equality. No man yet was ever wicked without secret
discontent, and according to the different degrees of remaining virtue,
or unextinguished reason, he either endeavours to reform himself, or
corrupt others; either to regain the station which he has quitted, or
prevail on others to imitate his defection.

It has always been considered as an alleviation of misery not to suffer
alone, even when union and society can contribute nothing to resistance
or escape; some comfort of the same kind seems to incite wickedness
to seek associates, though indeed another reason may be given, for as
guilt is propagated the power of reproach is diminished, and among numbers
equally detestable every individual may be sheltered from shame, though
not from conscience.

Another lenitive by which the throbs of the breast are assuaged, is, the
contemplation, not of the same, but of different crimes. He that cannot
justify himself by his resemblance to others, is ready to try some other
expedient, and to inquire what will rise to his advantage from opposition
and dissimilitude. He easily finds some faults in every human being,
which he weighs against his own, and easily makes them preponderate
while he keeps the balance in his own hand, and throws in or takes out
at his pleasure circumstances that make them heavier or lighter. He then
triumphs in his comparative purity, and sets himself at ease, not because
he can refute the charges advanced against him, but because he can
censure his accusers with equal justice, and no longer fears the arrows
of reproach, when he has stored his magazine of malice with weapons
equally sharp and equally envenomed.

This practice, though never just, is yet specious and artful, when the
censure is directed against deviations to the contrary extreme. The man
who is branded with cowardice, may, with some appearance of propriety,
turn all his force of argument against a stupid contempt of life, and
rash precipitation into unnecessary danger. Every recession from temerity
is an approach towards cowardice, and though it be confessed that
bravery, like other virtues, stands between faults on either hand, yet
the place of the middle point may always be disputed; he may therefore
often impose upon careless understandings, by turning the attention
wholly from himself, and keeping it fixed invariably on the opposite
fault; and by shewing how many evils are avoided by his behaviour, he
may conceal for a time those which are incurred.

But vice has not always opportunities or address for such artful
subterfuges; men often extenuate their own guilt, only by vague and
general charges upon others, or endeavour to gain rest to themselves,
by pointing some other prey to the pursuit of censure.

Every whisper of infamy is industriously circulated, every hint of
suspicion eagerly improved, and every failure of conduct joyfully
published, by those whose interest it is, that the eye and voice of the
publick should be employed on any rather than on themselves.

All these artifices, and a thousand others equally vain and equally
despicable, are incited by that conviction of the deformity of
wickedness, from which none can set himself free, and by an absurd
desire to separate the cause from the effects, and to enjoy the profit of
crimes without suffering the shame. Men are willing to try all methods of
reconciling guilt and quiet, and when their understandings are stubborn
and uncomplying, raise their passions against them, and hope to overpower
their own knowledge.

It is generally not so much the desire of men, sunk into depravity, to
deceive the world as themselves, for when no particular circumstances make
them dependant on others, infamy disturbs them little, but as it revives
their remorse, and is echoed to them from their own hearts. The sentence
most dreaded is that of reason and conscience, which they would engage
on their side at any price but the labours of duty, and the sorrows of
repentance. For this purpose every seducement and fallacy is sought, the
hopes still rest upon some new experiment till life is at an end; and
the last hour steals on unperceived, while the faculties are engaged in
resisting reason, and repressing the sense of the Divine disapprobation.




No. 77. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1750.


_Os dignum æterno nitidum quod fulgeat auro,_
_Si mallet laudare Deum, cui sordida monstra_
_Prætulit, et liquidam temeravit crimine vocem. _
PRUDENT.

A golden statue such a wit might claim,
Had God and virtue rais'd the noble flame;
But ah! how lewd a subject has he sung,
What vile obscenity profanes his tongue.
F. LEWIS.


Among those, whose hopes of distinction, or riches, arise from an opinion
of their intellectual attainments, it has been, from age to age, an
established custom to complain of the ingratitude of mankind to their
instructors, and the discouragement which men of genius and study suffer
from avarice and ignorance, from the prevalence of false taste, and the
encroachment of barbarity.

Men are most powerfully affected by those evils which themselves feel, or
which appear before their own eyes; and as there has never been a time of
such general felicity, but that many have failed to obtain the rewards to
which they had, in their own judgment, a just claim, some offended writer
has always declaimed, in the rage of disappointment, against his age or
nation; nor is there one who has not fallen upon times more unfavourable
to learning than any former century, or who does not wish, that he had
been reserved in the insensibility of non-existence to some happier
hour, when literary merit shall no longer be despised, and the gifts and
caresses of mankind shall recompense the toils of study, and add lustre
to the charms of wit.

Many of these clamours are undoubtedly to be considered only as the bursts
of pride never to be satisfied, as the prattle of affectation, mimicking
distresses unfelt, or as the common places of vanity solicitous for
splendour of sentences, and acuteness of remark. Yet it cannot be denied
that frequent discontent must proceed from frequent hardships, and though
it is evident, that not more than one age or people can deserve the
censure of being more averse from learning than any other, yet at all
times knowledge must have encountered impediments, and wit been mortified
with contempt, or harassed with persecution.

It is not necessary, however, to join immediately in the outcry, or to
condemn mankind as pleased with ignorance, or always envious of superior
abilities. The miseries of the learned have been related by themselves,
and since they have not been found exempt from that partiality with which
men look upon their own actions and sufferings, we may conclude that
they have not forgotten to deck their cause with the brightest ornaments,
and strongest colours. The logician collected all his subtilties when
they were to be employed in his own defence; and the master of rhetorick
exerted against his adversary all the arts by which hatred is embittered,
and indignation inflamed.
To believe no man in his own cause, is the standing and perpetual rule
of distributive justice. Since therefore, in the controversy between the
learned and their enemies, we have only the pleas of one party, of the
party more able to delude our understandings, and engage our passions,
we must determine our opinion by facts uncontested, and evidences on each
side allowed to be genuine.

By this procedure, I know not whether the students will find their cause
promoted, or the compassion which they expect much increased. Let their
conduct be impartially surveyed; let them be allowed no longer to direct
attention at their pleasure, by expatiating on their own deserts; let
neither the dignity of knowledge overawe the judgment, nor the graces of
elegance seduce it. It will then, perhaps, be found, that they were not
able to produce claims to kinder treatment, but provoked the calamities
which they suffered, and seldom wanted friends, but when they wanted
virtue.

That few men, celebrated for theoretick wisdom, live with conformity to
their precepts, must be readily confessed; and we cannot wonder that the
indignation of mankind rises with great vehemence against those, who
neglect the duties which they appear to know with so strong conviction the
necessity of performing. Yet since no man has power of acting equal to
that of thinking, I know not whether the speculatist may not sometimes
incur censures too severe, and by those who form ideas of his life from
their knowledge of his books, be considered as worse than others, only
because he was expected to be better.

He, by whose writings the heart is rectified, the appetites counteracted,
and the passions repressed, may be considered as not unprofitable to the
great republick of humanity, even though his behaviour should not always
exemplify his rules. His instructions may diffuse their influence to
regions, in which it will not be inquired, whether the author be _albus
an ater_, good or bad; to times, when all his faults and all his follies
shall be lost in forgetfulness, among things of no concern or importance
to the world; and he may kindle in thousands and ten thousands that flame
which burnt but dimly in himself, through the fumes of passion, or the
damps of cowardice. The vicious moralist may be considered as a taper,
by which we are lighted through the labyrinth of complicated passions:
he extends his radiance further than his heat, and guides all that are
within view, but burns only those who make too near approaches.

Yet since good or harm must be received for the most part from those to
whom we are familiarly known, he whose vices overpower his virtues, in
the compass to which his vices can extend, has no reason to complain that
he meets not with affection or veneration, when those with whom he passes
his life are more corrupted by his practice than enlightened by his
ideas. Admiration begins where acquaintance ceases; and his favourers are
distant, but his enemies at hand.

Yet many have dared to boast of neglected merit, and to challenge their
age for cruelty and folly, of whom it cannot be alledged that they have
endeavoured to increase the wisdom or virtue of their readers. They
have been at once profligate in their lives, and licentious in their
compositions; have not only forsaken the paths of virtue, but attempted
to lure others after them. They have smoothed the road of perdition,
covered with flowers the thorns of guilt, and taught temptation sweeter
notes, softer blandishments, and stronger allurements.

It has been apparently the settled purpose of some writers, whose powers
and acquisitions place them high in the rank of literature, to set
fashion on the side of wickedness; to recommend debauchery and lewdness,
by associating them with qualities most likely to dazzle the discernment,
and attract the affections; and to shew innocence and goodness with such
attendant weaknesses as necessarily expose them to contempt and derision.

Such naturally found intimates among the corrupt, the thoughtless, and the
intemperate; passed their lives amidst the levities of sportive idleness,
or the warm professions of drunken friendship; and fed their hopes with
the promises of wretches, whom their precepts had taught to scoff at
truth. But when fools had laughed away their sprightliness, and the
languors of excess could no longer be relieved, they saw their protectors
hourly drop away, and wondered and stormed to find themselves abandoned.
Whether their companions persisted in wickedness, or returned to virtue,
they were left equally without assistance; for debauchery is selfish and
negligent, and from virtue the virtuous only can expect regard.

It is said by Florus of Catiline, who died in the midst of slaughtered
enemies, that _his death had been illustrious, had it been suffered
for his country_. Of the wits who have languished away life under the
pressures of poverty, or in the restlessness of suspense, caressed and
rejected, flattered and despised, as they were of more or less use to
those who styled themselves their patrons, it might be observed, that
their miseries would enforce compassion, had they been brought upon them
by honesty and religion.

The wickedness of a loose or profane author is more atrocious than that of
the giddy libertine, or drunken ravisher, not only because it extends its
effects wider, as a pestilence that taints the air is more destructive
than poison infused in a draught, but because it is committed with cool
deliberation. By the instantaneous violence of desire, a good man may
sometimes be surprised before reflection can come to his rescue; when
the appetites have strengthened their influence by habit, they are not
easily resisted or suppressed; but for the frigid villainy of studious
lewdness, for the calm malignity of laboured impiety, what apology can
be invented? What punishment can be adequate to the crime of him who
retires to solitudes for the refinement of debauchery; who tortures his
fancy, and ransacks his memory, only that he may leave the world less
virtuous than he found it; that he may intercept the hopes of the rising
generation; and spread snares for the soul with more dexterity?

What were their motives, or what their excuses, is below the dignity of
reason to examine. If having extinguished in themselves the distinction
of right and wrong, they were insensible of the mischief which they
promoted, they deserved to be hunted down by the general compact, as no
longer partaking of social nature; if influenced by the corruption of
patrons, or readers, they sacrificed their own convictions to vanity or
interest, they were to be abhorred with more acrimony than he that murders
for pay; since they committed greater crimes without greater temptations.

_Of him, to whom much is given, much shall be required. _ Those, whom God
has favoured with superior faculties, and made eminent for quickness
of intuition, and accuracy of distinctions, will certainly be regarded
as culpable in his eye, for defects and deviations which, in souls
less enlightened, may be guiltless. But, surely, none can think without
horrour on that man's condition, who has been more wicked in proportion
as he had more means of excelling in virtue, and used the light imparted
from heaven only to embellish folly, and shed lustre upon crimes.




No. 78. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1750.


_----Mors sola fatetur,_
_Quantula sint hominum corpuscula. _
JUV. Sat. x. 172.

Death only this mysterious truth unfolds,
The mighty soul how small a body holds.
DRYDEN.


Corporal sensation is known to depend so much upon novelty, that custom
takes away from many things their power of giving pleasure or pain. Thus
a new dress becomes easy by wearing it, and the palate is reconciled
by degrees to dishes which at first disgusted it. That by long habit
of carrying a burden, we lose, in great part, our sensibility of its
weight, any man may be convinced by putting on for an hour the armour
of our ancestors; for he will scarcely believe that men would have had
much inclination to marches and battles, encumbered and oppressed, as he
will find himself, with the ancient panoply. Yet the heroes that overran
regions, and stormed towns in iron accoutrements, he knows not to have
been bigger, and has no reason to imagine them stronger, than the present
race of men; he therefore must conclude, that their peculiar powers were
conferred only by peculiar habits, and that their familiarity with the
dress of war enabled them to move in it with ease, vigour, and agility.

Yet it seems to be the condition of our present state, that pain should
be more fixed and permanent than pleasure. Uneasiness gives way by slow
degrees, and is long before it quits its possession of the sensory; but
all our gratifications are volatile, vagrant, and easily dissipated.
The fragrance of the jessamine bower is lost after the enjoyment of a
few moments, and the Indian wanders among his native spices without any
sense of their exhalations. It is, indeed, not necessary to shew by many
instances what all mankind confess, by an incessant call for variety, and
restless pursuit of enjoyments, which they value only because unpossessed.

Something similar, or analogous, may be observed in effects produced
immediately upon the mind; nothing can strongly strike or affect us,
but what is rare or sudden. The most important events, when they become
familiar, are no longer considered with wonder or solicitude, and that
which at first filled up our whole attention, and left no place for
any other thought, is soon thrust aside into some remote repository
of the mind, and lies among other lumber of the memory, overlooked and
neglected. Thus far the mind resembles the body, but here the similitude
is at an end.

The manner in which external force acts upon the body is very little
subject to the regulation of the will; no man can at pleasure obtund or
invigorate his senses, prolong the agency of any impulse, or continue
the presence of any image traced upon the eye, or any sound infused
into the ear. But our ideas are more subjected to choice; we can call
them before us, and command their stay, we can facilitate and promote
their recurrence, we can either repress their intrusion, or hasten their
retreat. It is therefore the business of wisdom and virtue, to select
among numberless objects striving for our notice, such as may enable us
to exalt our reason, extend our views, and secure our happiness. But this
choice is to be made with very little regard to rareness or frequency;
for nothing is valuable merely because it is either rare or common, but
because it is adapted to some useful purpose, and enables us to supply
some deficiency of our nature.

Milton has judiciously represented the father of mankind, as seized with
horrour and astonishment at the sight of death, exhibited to him on the
mount of vision. For surely, nothing can so much disturb the passions,
or perplex the intellects of man, as the disruption of his union with
visible nature; a separation from all that has hitherto delighted or
engaged him; a change not only of the place, but the manner of his being;
an entrance into a state not simply which he knows not, but which perhaps
he has not faculties to know; an immediate and perceptible communication
with the supreme Being, and, what is above all distressful and alarming,
the final sentence, and unalterable allotment.

Yet we to whom the shortness of life has given frequent occasions of
contemplating mortality, can, without emotion, see generations of men
pass away, and are at leisure to establish modes of sorrow, and adjust
the ceremonial of death. We can look upon funeral pomp as a common
spectacle in which we have no concern, and turn away from it to trifles
and amusements, without dejection of look, or inquietude of heart.

It is, indeed, apparent, from the constitution of the world, that there
must be a time for other thoughts; and a perpetual meditation upon
the last hour, however it may become the solitude of a monastery, is
inconsistent with many duties of common life. But surely the remembrance
of death ought to predominate in our minds, as an habitual and settled
principle, always operating, though not always perceived; and our
attention should seldom wander so far from our own condition, as not to
be recalled and fixed by sight of an event, which must soon, we know not
how soon, happen likewise to ourselves, and of which, though we cannot
appoint the time, we may secure the consequence.

Every instance of death may justly awaken our fears and quicken our
vigilance; but its frequency so much weakens its effect, that we are
seldom alarmed unless some close connexion is broken, some scheme
frustrated, or some hope defeated. Many therefore seem to pass on from
youth to decrepitude without any reflection on the end of life, because
they are wholly involved within themselves, and look on others only as
inhabitants of the common earth, without any expectation of receiving
good, or intention of bestowing it.

Events, of which we confess the importance, excite little sensibility,
unless they affect us more nearly than as sharers in the common interest
of mankind; that desire which every man feels of being remembered and
lamented, is often mortified when we remark how little concern is caused
by the eternal departure even of those who have passed their lives with
publick honours, and been distinguished by extraordinary performances.
It is not possible to be regarded with tenderness except by a few. That
merit which gives greatness and renown, diffuses its influence to a
wide compass, but acts weakly on every single breast; it is placed at a
distance from common spectators, and shines like one of the remote stars,
of which the light reaches us, but not the heat. The wit, the hero,
the philosopher, whom their tempers or their fortunes have hindered
from intimate relations, die, without any other effect than that of
adding a new topic to the conversation of the day. They impress none
with any fresh conviction of the fragility of our nature, because none
had any particular interest in their lives, or was united to them by a
reciprocation of benefits and endearments.

Thus it often happens, that those who in their lives were applauded and
admired, are laid at last in the ground without the common honour of a
stone; because by those excellencies with which many were delighted, none
had been obliged, and though they had many to celebrate, they had none to
love them.

Custom so far regulates the sentiments, at least of common minds, that
I believe men may be generally observed to grow less tender as they
advance in age. He, who, when life was new, melted at the loss of every
companion, can look in time, without concern, upon the grave into which
his last friend was thrown, and into which himself is ready to fall;
not that he is more willing to die than formerly, but that he is more
familiar to the death of others, and therefore is not alarmed so far
as to consider how much nearer he approaches to his end. But this is to
submit tamely to the tyranny of accident, and to suffer our reason to lie
useless. Every funeral may justly be considered as a summons to prepare
for that state, into which it shews us that we must some time enter; and
the summons is more loud and piercing, as the event of which it warns us
is at less distance. To neglect at any time preparation for death, is to
sleep on our post at a siege; but to omit it in old age, is to sleep at
an attack.

It has always appeared to me one of the most striking passages in the
Visions of Quevedo, which stigmatises those as fools who complain that
they failed of happiness by sudden death. "How," says he, "can death be
sudden to a being who always knew that he must die, and that the time of
his death was uncertain? "

Since business and gaiety are always drawing our attention away from a
future state, some admonition is frequently necessary to recall it to our
minds; and what can more properly renew the impression than the examples
of mortality which every day supplies? The great incentive to virtue is
the reflection that we must die; it will therefore be useful to accustom
ourselves, whenever we see a funeral, to consider how soon we may be
added to the number of those whose probation is past, and whose happiness
or misery shall endure for ever. [50]

[Footnote 50:

Death in itself is nothing; but we fear
To be we know not what, we know not where.
Aurung-Zebe, act. iv. sc. 1.

See also Claudio's speech in Shakspeare's "Measure for Measure. "]




No. 79. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1750.


_Tam sæpe nostrum decipi Fabulinum_
_Miraris, Aule? Semper bonus homo tiro est. _
MART. Lib. xii. Ep. 51.

You wonder I've so little wit,
Friend John, so often to be bit--
None better guard against a cheat
Than he who is a knave complete.
F. LEWIS.


Suspicion, however necessary it may be to our safe passage through ways
beset on all sides by fraud and malice, has been always considered, when
it exceeds the common measures, as a token of depravity and corruption;
and a Greek writer of sentences has laid down as a standing maxim, that
_he who believes not another on his oath, knows himself to be perjured_.

We can form our opinions of that which we know not, only by placing it in
comparison with something that we know; whoever, therefore, is over-run
with suspicion, and detects artifice and stratagem in every proposal,
must either have learned by experience or observation the wickedness of
mankind, and been taught to avoid fraud by having often suffered or seen
treachery, or he must derive his judgment from the consciousness of his
own disposition, and impute to others the same inclinations, which he
feels predominant in himself.

To learn caution by turning our eyes upon life, and observing the arts
by which negligence is surprized, timidity overborne, and credulity
amused, requires either great latitude of converse and long acquaintance
with business, or uncommon activity of vigilance, and acuteness of
penetration. When, therefore, a young man, not distinguished by vigour
of intellect, comes into the world full of scruples and diffidence; makes
a bargain with many provisional limitations; hesitates in his answer to
a common question, lest more should be intended than he can immediately
discover; has a long reach in detecting the projects of his acquaintance;
considers every caress as an act of hypocrisy, and feels neither
gratitude nor affection from the tenderness of his friends, because he
believes no one to have any real tenderness but for himself; whatever
expectations this early sagacity may raise of his future eminence or
riches, I can seldom forbear to consider him as a wretch incapable of
generosity or benevolence; as a villain early completed beyond the need
of common opportunities and gradual temptations.

Upon men of this class instruction and admonition are generally
thrown away, because they consider artifice and deceit as proofs of
understanding; they are misled at the same time by the two great seducers
of the world, vanity and interest, and not only look upon those who act
with openness and confidence, as condemned by their principles to
obscurity and want, but as contemptible for narrowness of comprehension,
shortness of views, and slowness of contrivance.

The world has been long amused with the mention of policy in publick
transactions, and of art in private affairs; they have been considered as
the effects of great qualities, and as unattainable by men of the common
level: yet I have not found many performances either of art or policy,
that required such stupendous efforts of intellect, or might not have
been effected by falsehood and impudence, without the assistance of any
other powers. To profess what he does not mean, to promise what he cannot
perform, to flatter ambition with prospects of promotion, and misery
with hopes of relief, to sooth pride with appearances of submission, and
appease enmity by blandishments and bribes, can surely imply nothing more
or greater than a mind devoted wholly to its own purposes, a face that
cannot blush, and a heart that cannot feel.

These practices are so mean and base, that he who finds in himself no
tendency to use them, cannot easily believe that they are considered by
others with less detestation; he therefore suffers himself to slumber
in false security, and becomes a prey to those who applaud their own
subtilty, because they know how to steal upon his sleep, and exult in
the success which they could never have obtained, had they not attempted
a man better than themselves, who was hindered from obviating their
stratagems, not by folly, but by innocence.

Suspicion is, indeed, a temper so uneasy and restless, that it is very
justly appointed the concomitant of guilt. It is said, that no torture
is equal to the inhibition of sleep long continued; a pain, to which the
state of that man bears a very exact analogy, who dares never give rest
to his vigilance and circumspection, but considers himself as surrounded
by secret foes, and fears to entrust his children, or his friend, with
the secret that throbs in his breast, and the anxieties that break into
his face. To avoid, at this expense, those evils to which easiness and
friendship might have exposed him, is surely to buy safety at too dear
a rate, and, in the language of the Roman satirist, to save life by
losing all for which a wise man would live[51].

When in the diet of the German empire, as Camararius relates, the princes
were once displaying their felicity, and each boasting the advantages
of his own dominions, one who possessed a country not remarkable for the
grandeur of its cities, or the fertility of its soil, rose to speak, and
the rest listened between pity and contempt, till he declared, in honour
of his territories, that he could travel through them without a guard,
and if he was weary, sleep in safety upon the lap of the first man whom
he should meet; a commendation which would have been ill exchanged for
the boast of palaces, pastures, or streams.

Suspicion is not less an enemy to virtue than to happiness; he that is
already corrupt is naturally suspicious, and he that becomes suspicious
will quickly be corrupt. It is too common for us to learn the frauds by
which ourselves have suffered; men who are once persuaded that deceit will
be employed against them, sometimes think the same arts justified by the
necessity of defence. Even they whose virtue is too well established to
give way to example, or be shaken by sophistry, must yet feel their love
of mankind diminished with their esteem, and grow less zealous for the
happiness of those by whom they imagine their own happiness endangered.

Thus we find old age, upon which suspicion has been strongly impressed,
by long intercourse with the world, inflexible and severe, not easily
softened by submission, melted by complaint, or subdued by supplication.
Frequent experience of counterfeited miseries, and dissembled virtue, in
time overcomes that disposition to tenderness and sympathy, which is so
powerful in our younger years; and they that happen to petition the old
for compassion or assistance, are doomed to languish without regard, and
suffer for the crimes of men who have formerly been found undeserving
or ungrateful.

Historians are certainly chargeable with the depravation of mankind,
when they relate without censure those stratagems of war by which the
virtues of an enemy are engaged to his destruction. A ship comes before
a port, weather beaten and shattered, and the crew implore the liberty
of repairing their breaches, supplying themselves with necessaries,
or burying their dead. The humanity of the inhabitants inclines them
to consent; the strangers enter the town with weapons concealed, fall
suddenly upon their benefactors, destroy those that make resistance,
and become masters of the place; they return home rich with plunder,
and their success is recorded to encourage imitation.

But surely war has its laws, and ought to be conducted with some regard to
the universal interest of man. Those may justly be pursued as enemies to
the community of nature, who suffer hostility to vacate the unalterable
laws of right, and pursue their private advantage by means, which, if
once established, must destroy kindness, cut off from every man all hopes
of assistance from another, and fill the world with perpetual suspicion
and implacable malevolence. Whatever is thus gained ought to be restored,
and those who have conquered by such treachery may be justly denied the
protection of their native country.

Whoever commits a fraud is guilty not only of the particular injury to
him whom he deceives, but of the diminution of that confidence which
constitutes not only the ease but the existence of society. He that
suffers by imposture has too often his virtue more impaired than his
fortune. But as it is necessary not to invite robbery by supineness, so
it is our duty not to suppress tenderness by suspicion; it is better to
suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not
to trust.

[Footnote 51: Propter vitam vivendi perdere causas. ]




No. 80. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 22, 1750.


_Vides, ut alta stet nive candidum_
_Soracte, nec jam sustineant onus_
_Silvæ laborantes. _
HOR. Lib. i. Ode ix. 1.

Behold yon mountain's hoary height
Made higher with new mounts of snow;
Again behold the winter's weight
Oppress the lab'ring woods below.
DRYDEN.


As Providence has made the human soul an active being, always impatient
for novelty, and struggling for something yet unenjoyed with unwearied
progression, the world seems to have been eminently adapted to this
disposition of the mind; it is formed to raise expectations by constant
vicissitudes, and to obviate satiety by perpetual change.

Wherever we turn our eyes, we find something to revive our curiosity, and
engage our attention. In the dusk of the morning we watch the rising of
the sun, and see the day diversify the clouds, and open new prospects in
its gradual advance. After a few hours, we see the shades lengthen, and
the light decline, till the sky is resigned to a multitude of shining
orbs different from each other in magnitude and splendour. The earth
varies its appearance as we move upon it; the woods offer their shades,
and the fields their harvests; the hill flatters with an extensive view,
and the valley invites with shelter, fragrance, and flowers.

The poets have numbered among the felicities of the golden age, an
exemption from the change of seasons, and a perpetuity of spring; but I
am not certain that in this state of imaginary happiness they have made
sufficient provision for that insatiable demand of new gratifications,
which seems particularly to characterize the nature of man. Our sense of
delight is in a great measure comparative, and arises at once from the
sensations, which we feel, and those which we remember. Thus ease after
torment is pleasure for a time, and we are very agreeably recreated,
when the body, chilled with the weather, is gradually recovering its
natural tepidity; but the joy ceases when we have forgot the cold: we
must fall below ease again, if we desire to rise above it, and purchase
new felicity by voluntary pain. It is therefore not unlikely, that
however the fancy may be amused with the description of regions in which
no wind is heard but the gentle zephyr, and no scenes are displayed but
valleys enamelled with unfading flowers, and woods waving their perennial
verdure, we should soon grow weary of uniformity, find our thoughts
languish for want of other subjects, call on heaven for our wonted
round of seasons, and think ourselves liberally recompensed for the
inconveniences of summer and winter, by new perceptions of the calmness
and mildness of the intermediate variations.

Every season has its particular power of striking the mind. The nakedness
and asperity of the wintry world always fill the beholder with pensive
and profound astonishment; as the variety of the scene is lessened, its
grandeur is increased; and the mind is swelled at once by the mingled
ideas of the present and the past, of the beauties which have vanished
from the eyes, and the waste and desolation that are now before them.

It is observed by Milton, that he who neglects to visit the country in
spring, and rejects the pleasures that are then in their first bloom
and fragrance, is guilty of _sullenness against nature_. If we allot
different duties to different seasons, he may be charged with equal
disobedience to the voice of nature, who looks on the bleak hills and
leafless woods, without seriousness and awe. Spring is the season of
gaiety, and winter of terrour; in spring the heart of tranquillity dances
to the melody of the groves, and the eye of benevolence sparkles at
the sight of happiness and plenty. In the winter, compassion melts at
universal calamity, and the tear of softness starts at the wailings of
hunger, and the cries of the creation in distress.

Few minds have much inclination to indulge heaviness and sorrow, nor do
I recommend them beyond the degree necessary to maintain in its full
vigour that habitual sympathy and tenderness, which, in a world of so
much misery, is necessary to the ready discharge of our most important
duties. The winter, therefore, is generally celebrated as the proper
season for domestick merriment and gaiety. We are seldom invited by the
votaries of pleasure to look abroad for any other purpose, than that
we may shrink back with more satisfaction to our coverts, and when we
have heard the howl of the tempest, and felt the gripe of the frost,
congratulate each other with more gladness upon a close room, an easy
chair, a large fire, and a smoaking dinner.

Winter brings natural inducements to jollity and conversation. Differences,
we know, are never so effectually laid asleep, as by some common
calamity. An enemy unites all to whom he threatens danger. The rigour
of winter brings generally to the same fire-side, those, who, by the
opposition of inclinations, or difference of employment, move in various
directions through the other parts of the year; and when they have met,
and find it their mutual interest to remain together, they endear each
other by mutual compliances, and often wish for the continuance of the
social season, with all its bleakness, and all its severities.

To the men of study and imagination the winter is generally the chief time
of labour. Gloom and silence produce composure of mind, and concentration
of ideas; and the privation of external pleasure naturally causes an
effort to find entertainment within. This is the time in which those
whom literature enables to find amusements for themselves, have more than
common convictions of their own happiness. When they are condemned by the
elements to retirement, and debarred from most of the diversions which
are called in to assist the flight of time, they can find new subjects of
inquiry, and preserve themselves from that weariness which hangs always
flagging upon the vacant mind.

It cannot indeed be expected of all to be poets and philosophers; it is
necessary that the greater part of mankind should be employed in the
minute business of common life; minute, indeed, not if we consider its
influence upon our happiness, but if we respect the abilities requisite
to conduct it. These must necessarily be more dependant on accident
for the means of spending agreeably those hours which their occupations
leave unengaged, or nature obliges them to allow to relaxation. Yet even
on these I would willingly impress such a sense of the value of time,
as may incline them to find out for their careless hours amusements
of more use and dignity than the common games, which not only weary
the mind without improving it, but strengthen the passions of envy and
avarice, and often lead to fraud and to profusion, to corruption and to
ruin. It is unworthy of a reasonable being to spend any of the little
time allotted us, without some tendency, either direct or oblique, to
the end of our existence. And though every moment cannot be laid out on
the formal and regular improvement of our knowledge, or in the stated
practice of a moral or religious duty, yet none should be so spent as
to exclude wisdom or virtue, or pass without possibility of qualifying
us more or less for the better employment of those which are to come.

It is scarcely possible to pass an hour in honest conversation, without
being able, when we rise from it, to please ourselves with having given
or received some advantages; but a man may shuffle cards, or rattle dice,
from noon to midnight, without tracing any new idea in his mind, or being
able to recollect the day by any other token than his gain or loss, and a
confused remembrance of agitated passions, and clamorous altercations.

However, as experience is of more weight than precept, any of my readers,
who are contriving how to spend the dreary months before them, may
consider which of their past amusements fills them now with the greatest
satisfaction, and resolve to repeat those gratifications of which the
pleasure is most durable.




No. 81. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 25, 1750.


_Discite Justitiam moniti. _
VIRG. Æn. vi. 620.

Hear, and be just.


Among questions which have been discussed, without any approach to
decision, may be numbered the precedency or superior excellence of one
virtue to another, which has long furnished a subject of dispute to
men whose leisure sent them out into the intellectual world in search
of employment, and who have, perhaps, been sometimes withheld from
the practice of their favourite duty, by zeal for its advancement, and
diligence in its celebration.

The intricacy of this dispute may be alleged as a proof of that tenderness
for mankind which Providence has, I think, universally displayed, by
making attainments easy in proportion as they are necessary. That all
the duties of morality ought to be practised, is without difficulty
discoverable, because ignorance or uncertainty would immediately involve
the world in confusion and distress; but which duty ought to be most
esteemed, we may continue to debate without inconvenience, so all be
diligently performed as there is opportunity or need; for upon practice,
not upon opinion, depends the happiness of mankind; and controversies,
merely speculative, are of small importance in themselves, however they
may have sometimes heated a disputant, or provoked a faction.

Of the Divine Author of our religion it is impossible to peruse the
evangelical histories, without observing how little he favoured the
vanity of inquisitiveness; how much more rarely he condescended to
satisfy curiosity, than to relieve distress; and how much he desired
that his followers should rather excel in goodness than in knowledge. His
precepts tend immediately to the rectification of the moral principles,
and the direction of daily conduct, without ostentation, without art, at
once irrefragable and plain, such as well-meaning simplicity may readily
conceive, and of which we cannot mistake the meaning, but when we are
afraid to find it.

The measure of justice prescribed to us, in our transactions with others,
is remarkably clear and comprehensive: _Whatsoever ye would that men
should do unto you, even so do unto them_. A law by which every claim
of right may be immediately adjusted as far as the private conscience
requires to be informed; a law, of which every man may find the
exposition in his own breast, and which may always be observed without
any other qualifications than honesty of intention, and purity of will.

Over this law, indeed, some sons of sophistry have been subtle enough
to throw mists, which have darkened their own eyes. To perplex this
universal principle, they have inquired whether a man, conscious to
himself of unreasonable wishes, be bound to gratify them in another. But
surely there needed no long deliberation to conclude, that the desires,
which are to be considered by us as the measure of right, must be such as
we approve, and that we ought to pay no regard to those expectations in
others which we condemn in ourselves, and which, however they may intrude
upon our imagination, we know it our duty to resist and suppress.

One of the most celebrated cases which have been produced as requiring
some skill in the direction of conscience to adapt them to this great
rule, is that of a criminal asking mercy of his judge, who cannot but
know, that if he was in the state of the supplicant, he should desire
that pardon which he now denies. The difficulty of this sophism will
vanish, if we remember that the parties are, in reality, on one side the
criminal, and on the other the community, of which the magistrate is only
the minister, and by which he is intrusted with the publick safety. The
magistrate, therefore, in pardoning a man unworthy of pardon, betrays
the trust with which he is invested, gives away what is not his own, and,
apparently, does to others what he would not that others should do to
him. Even the community, whose right is still greater to arbitrary grants
of mercy, is bound by those laws which regard the great republick of
mankind, and cannot justify such forbearance as may promote wickedness,
and lessen the general confidence and security in which all have an equal
interest, and which all are therefore bound to maintain. For this reason
the state has not a right to erect a general sanctuary for fugitives, or
give protection to such as have forfeited their lives by crimes against
the laws of common morality equally acknowledged by all nations, because
no people can, without infraction of the universal league of social
beings, incite, by prospects of impunity and safety, those practices in
another dominion, which they would themselves punish in their own.

One occasion of uncertainty and hesitation, in those by whom this great
rule has been commented and dilated, is the confusion of what the exacter
casuists are careful to distinguish, _debts of justice_, and _debts
of charity_. The immediate and primary intention of this precept, is
to establish a rule of justice; and I know not whether invention, or
sophistry, can start a single difficulty to retard its application, when
it is thus expressed and explained, _let every man allow the claim of
right in another, which he should think himself entitled to make in the
like circumstances. _

The discharge of the _debts of charity_, or duties which we owe to others,
not merely as required by justice, but as dictated by benevolence, admits
in its own nature greater complication of circumstances, and greater
latitude of choice. Justice is indispensably and universally necessary,
and what is necessary must always be limited, uniform, and distinct.
But beneficence, though in general equally enjoined by our religion, and
equally needful to the conciliation of the Divine favour, is yet, for the
most part, with regard to its single acts, elective and voluntary. We may
certainly, without injury to our fellow-beings, allow in the distribution
of kindness something to our affections, and change the measure of our
liberality, according to our opinions and prospects, our hopes and fears.
This rule therefore is not equally determinate and absolute, with respect
to offices of kindness, and acts of liberality, because liberality
and kindness, absolutely determined, would lose their nature; for how
could we be called tender, or charitable, for giving that which we are
positively forbidden to withhold?

Yet, even in adjusting the extent of our beneficence, no other measure
can be taken than this precept affords us, for we can only know what
others suffer for want, by considering how we should be affected in
the same state; nor can we proportion our assistance by any other rule
than that of doing what we should then expect from others. It indeed
generally happens that the giver and receiver differ in their opinions
of generosity; the same partiality to his own interest inclines one to
large expectations, and the other to sparing distributions. Perhaps the
infirmity of human nature will scarcely suffer a man groaning under the
pressure of distress, to judge rightly of the kindness of his friends,
or think they have done enough till his deliverance is completed; not
therefore what we might wish, but what we could demand from others, we
are obliged to grant, since, though we can easily know how much we might
claim, it is impossible to determine what we should hope.