No More Learning

I am, &c.




No. 46. SATURDAY, AUGUST 25, 1750.


_----Genus, et proavos, et quæ non fecimus ipsi,_
_Via ea nostra voco. _
OVID, Metam. xiii. 140.

Nought from my birth or ancestors I claim;
All is my own, my honour and my shame.


TO THE RAMBLER.

SIR,

Since I find that you have paid so much regard to my complaints as to
publish them, I am inclined by vanity, or gratitude, to continue our
correspondence; and indeed, without either of these motives, am glad of an
opportunity to write, for I am not accustomed to keep in any thing that
swells my heart, and have here none with whom I can freely converse. While
I am thus employed, some tedious hours will slip away, and when I return
to watch the clock, I shall find that I have disburdened myself of part
of the day.

You perceive that I do not pretend to write with much consideration
of any thing but my own convenience; and, not to conceal from you my
real sentiments, the little time which I have spent, against my will,
in solitary meditation, has not much contributed to my veneration for
authors. I have now sufficient reason to suspect, that, with all your
splendid professions of wisdom, and seeming regard for truth, you have
very little sincerity; that you either write what you do not think, and
willingly impose upon mankind, or that you take no care to think right,
but while you set up yourselves as guides, mislead your followers by
credulity or negligence; that you produce to the publick whatever notions
you can speciously maintain, or elegantly express, without enquiring
whether they are just, and transcribe hereditary falsehoods from old
authors perhaps as ignorant and careless as yourselves.

You may perhaps wonder that I express myself with so much acrimony on a
question in which women are supposed to have very little interest; and
you are likely enough, for I have seen many instances of the sauciness
of scholars, to tell me, that I am more properly employed in playing with
my kittens, than in giving myself airs of criticism, and censuring the
learned. But you are mistaken, if you imagine that I am to be intimidated
by your contempt, or silenced by your reproofs. As I read, I have a
right to judge; as I am injured, I have a right to complain; and these
privileges, which I have purchased at so dear a rate, I shall not easily
be persuaded to resign.

To read has, indeed, never been my business, but as there are hours of
leisure in the most active life, I have passed the superfluities of
time, which the diversions of the town left upon my hands, in turning
over a large collection of tragedies and romances, where, amongst other
sentiments common to all authors of this class, I have found almost every
page filled with the charms and happiness of a country life; that life
to which every statesman in the highest elevation of his prosperity is
contriving to retire; that life to which every tragic heroine in some
scene or other wishes to have been born, and which is represented as a
certain refuge from folly, from anxiety, from passion, and from guilt.

It was impossible to read so many passionate exclamations, and soothing
descriptions, without feeling some desire to enjoy the state in which all
this felicity was to be enjoyed; and therefore I received with raptures
the invitation of my good aunt, and expected that by some unknown
influence I should find all hopes and fears, jealousies and competitions,
vanish from my heart upon my first arrival at the seats of innocence
and tranquillity; that I should sleep in halcyon bowers, and wander in
elysian gardens, where I should meet with nothing but the softness of
benevolence, the candour of simplicity, and the cheerfulness of content;
where I should see reason exerting her sovereignty over life, without any
interruption from envy, avarice, or ambition, and every day passing in
such a manner as the severest wisdom should approve.

This, Mr. Rambler, I tell you I expected, and this I had by an hundred
authors been taught to expect. By this expectation I was led hither, and
here I live in perpetual uneasiness, without any other comfort than that
of hoping to return to London.

Having, since I wrote my former letter, been driven by the mere necessity
of escaping from absolute inactivity, to make myself more acquainted
with the affairs and inhabitants of this place, I am now no longer an
absolute stranger to rural conversation and employments, but am far from
discovering in them more innocence or wisdom, than in the sentiments
or conduct of those with whom I have passed more cheerful and more
fashionable hours.

It is common to reproach the tea-table, and the park, with given
opportunities and encouragement to scandal. I cannot wholly clear them
from the charge; but must, however, observe in favour of the modish
prattlers, that if not by principle, we are at least by accident, less
guilty of defamation than the country ladies. For having greater numbers
to observe and censure, we are commonly content to charge them only with
their own faults or follies, and seldom give way to malevolence, but
such as arises from some injury or affront, real or imaginary, offered
to ourselves. But in these distant provinces, where the same families
inhabit the same houses from age to age, they transmit and recount the
faults of a whole succession. I have been informed how every estate
in the neighbourhood was originally got, and find, if I may credit the
accounts given me, that there is not a single acre in the hands of the
right owner. I have been told of intrigues between beaux and toasts
that have been now three centuries in their quiet graves, and am often
entertained with traditional scandal on persons of whose names there
would have been no remembrance, had they not committed somewhat that
might disgrace their descendants.

In one of my visits I happened to commend the air and dignity of a young
lady, who had just left the company; upon which two grave matrons looked
with great sliness at each other, and the elder asked me whether I had
ever seen the picture of Henry the eighth. You may imagine that I did
not immediately perceive the propriety of the question: but after having
waited awhile for information, I was told that the lady's grandmother
had a great-great-grandmother that was an attendant on Anna Bullen, and
supposed to have been too much a favourite of the king.

If once there happens a quarrel between the principal persons of two
families, the malignity is continued without end, and it is common for
old maids to fall out about some election, in which their grandfathers
were competitors; the heart-burnings of the civil war are not yet
extinguished; there are two families in the neighbourhood who have
destroyed each other's game from the time of Philip and Mary; and when
an account came of an inundation, which had injured the plantations of
a worthy gentleman, one of the hearers remarked, with exultation, that
he might now have some notion of the ravages committed by his ancestors
in their retreat from Bosworth.

Thus malice and hatred descend here with an inheritance, and it is
necessary to be well versed in history, that the various factions of
this county may be understood. You cannot expect to be on good terms with
families who are resolved to love nothing in common; and, in selecting
your intimates, you are perhaps to consider which party you most favour
in the barons' wars. I have often lost the good opinion of my aunt's
visitants by confounding the interests of York and Lancaster, and was
once censured for sitting silent when William Rufus was called a tyrant.
I have, however, now thrown aside all pretences to circumspection, for
I find it impossible in less than seven years to learn all the requisite
cautions. At London, if you know your company, and their parents,
you are safe; but you are here suspected of alluding to the slips of
great-grandmothers, and of reviving contests which were decided in armour
by the redoubted knights of ancient times. I hope, therefore, that you
will not condemn my impatience, if I am weary of attending where nothing
can be learned, and of quarrelling where there is nothing to contest, and
that you will contribute to divert me while I stay here by some facetious
performance.

I am, sir,

EUPHELIA.




No. 47. TUESDAY, AUGUST 28, 1750.


_Quamquam his solatiis acquiescam, debilitor et frangor eadem
illa humanitate quæ me, ut hoc ipsum permitterem, induxit. Non
ideo tamen velim durior fieri: nec ignoro alios hujusmodi casus
nihil amplius vocare quam damnum; eoque sibi magnos homines
et sapientes videri. Qui an magni sapientesque sint, nescio;
homines non sunt. Hominis est enim affici dolore, sentire:
resistere tamen, et solatia admittere. _
PLIN. Epist. viii. 16.

These proceedings have afforded me some comfort in my distress;
notwithstanding which, I am still dispirited and unhinged
by the same motives of humanity that induced me to grant such
indulgences. However, I by no means wish to become less susceptible
of tenderness. I know these kind of misfortunes would be estimated
by other persons only as common losses, and from such sensations
they would conceive themselves great and wise men. I shall not
determine either their greatness or their wisdom; but I am certain
they have no humanity. It is the part of a man to be affected with
grief; to feel sorrow, at the same time that he is to resist it,
and to admit of comfort.
Earl of ORRERY.


Of the passions with which the mind of man is agitated, it may be
observed, that they naturally hasten towards their own extinction, by
inciting and quickening the attainment of their objects. Thus fear urges
our flight, and desire animates our progress; and if there are some which
perhaps may be indulged till they outgrow the good appropriated to their
satisfaction, as it is frequently observed of avarice and ambition, yet
their immediate tendency is to some means of happiness really existing,
and generally within the prospect. The miser always imagines that
there is a certain sum that will fill his heart to the brim; and every
ambitious man, like king Pyrrhus, has an acquisition in his thoughts that
is to terminate his labours, after which he shall pass the rest of his
life in ease or gaiety, in repose or devotion.

Sorrow is perhaps the only affection of the breast that can be expected
from this general remark, and it therefore deserves the particular
attention of those who have assumed the arduous province of preserving
the balance of the mental constitution. The other passions are diseases
indeed, but they necessarily direct us to their proper cure. A man at
once feels the pain and knows the medicine, to which he is carried with
greater haste as the evil which requires it is more excruciating,
and cures himself by unerring instinct, as the wounded stags of Crete
are related by Ælian to have recourse to vulnerary herbs. But for
sorrow there is no remedy provided by nature; it is often occasioned by
accidents irreparable, and dwells upon objects that have lost or changed
their existence; it required what it cannot hope, that the laws of the
universe should be repealed; that the dead should return, or the past
should be recalled.

Sorrow is not that regret for negligence or errour which may animate us to
future care or activity, or that repentance of crimes for which, however
irrevocable, our Creator has promised to accept it as an atonement; the
pain which arises from these causes has very salutary effects, and is
every hour extenuating itself by the reparation of those miscarriages
that produce it. Sorrow is properly that state of the mind in which our
desires are fixed upon the past, without looking forward to the future,
an incessant wish that something were otherwise than it has been, a
tormenting and harassing want of some enjoyment or possession which
we have lost, and which no endeavours can possibly regain. Into such
anguish many have sunk upon some sudden diminution of their fortune,
an unexpected blast of their reputation, or the loss of children or of
friends. They have suffered all sensibility of pleasure to be destroyed
by a single blow, have given up for ever the hopes of substituting any
other object in the room of that which they lament, resigned their lives
to gloom and despondency, and worn themselves out in unavailing misery.

Yet so much is this passion the natural consequence of tenderness and
endearment, that, however painful and however useless, it is justly
reproachful not to feel it on some occasions; and so widely and
constantly has it always prevailed, that the laws of some nations, and
the customs of others, have limited a time for the external appearances
of grief caused by the dissolution of close alliances, and the breach of
domestick union.

It seems determined by the general suffrage of mankind, that sorrow
is to a certain point laudable, as the offspring of love, or at least
pardonable, as the effect of weakness; but that it ought not to be
suffered to increase by indulgence, but must give way, after a stated
time, to social duties, and the common avocations of life. It is at
first unavoidable, and therefore must be allowed, whether with or without
our choice; it may afterwards be admitted as a decent and affectionate
testimony of kindness and esteem; something will be extorted by nature,
and something may be given to the world. But all beyond the bursts of
passion, or the forms of solemnity, is not only useless, but culpable;
for we have no right to sacrifice, to the vain longings of affection,
that time which Providence allows us for the task of our station.

Yet it too often happens that sorrow, thus lawfully entering, gains such
a firm possession of the mind, that it is not afterwards to be ejected;
the mournful ideas, first violently impressed and afterwards willingly
received, so much engross the attention, as to predominate in every
thought, to darken gaiety, and perplex ratiocination. An habitual sadness
seizes upon the soul, and the faculties are chained to a single object,
which can never be contemplated but with hopeless uneasiness.

From this state of dejection it is very difficult to rise to cheerfulness
and alacrity; and therefore many who have laid down rules of intellectual
health, think preservatives easier than remedies, and teach us not to
trust ourselves with favourite enjoyments, not to indulge the luxury of
fondness, but to keep our minds always suspended in such indifference,
that we may change the objects about us without emotion.

An exact compliance with this rule might, perhaps, contribute to
tranquillity, but surely it would never produce happiness. He that
regards none so much as to be afraid of losing them, must live for ever
without the gentle pleasures of sympathy and confidence; he must feel no
melting fondness, no warmth of benevolence, nor any of those honest joys
which nature annexes to the power of pleasing. And as no man can justly
claim more tenderness than he pays, he must forfeit his share in that
officious and watchful kindness which love only can dictate, and those
lenient endearments by which love only can soften life. He may justly
be overlooked and neglected by such as have more warmth in their heart;
for who would be the friend of him, whom, with whatever assiduity he may
be courted, and with whatever services obliged, his principles will not
suffer to make equal returns, and who, when you have exhausted all the
instances of good-will, can only be prevailed on not to be an enemy?

An attempt to preserve life in a state of neutrality and indifference, is
unreasonable and vain. If by excluding joy we could shut out grief, the
scheme would deserve very serious attention; but since, however we may
debar ourselves from happiness, misery will find its way at many inlets,
and the assaults of pain will force our regard, though we may withhold it
from the invitations of pleasure, we may surely endeavour to raise life
above the middle point of apathy at one time, since it will necessarily
sink below it at another.

But though it cannot be reasonable not to gain happiness for fear of
losing it, yet it must be confessed, that in proportion to the pleasure
of possession, will be for some time our sorrow for the loss; it is
therefore the province of the moralist to enquire whether such pains
may not quickly give way to mitigation. Some have thought that the most
certain way to clear the heart from its embarrassment is to drag it by
force into scenes of merriment. Others imagine, that such a transition
is too violent, and recommend rather to sooth it into tranquillity, by
making it acquainted with miseries more dreadful and afflictive, and
diverting to the calamities of others the regards which we are inclined
to fix too closely upon our own misfortunes.

It may be doubted whether either of those remedies will be sufficiently
powerful. The efficacy of mirth it is not always easy to try, and the
indulgence of melancholy may be suspected to be one of those medicines,
which will destroy, if it happens not to cure.

The safe and general antidote against sorrow is employment. It is commonly
observed, that among soldiers and seamen, though there is much kindness,
there is little grief; they see their friend fall without any of that
lamentation which is indulged in security and idleness, because they
have no leisure to spare from the care of themselves; and whoever shall
keep his thoughts equally busy, will find himself equally unaffected with
irretrievable losses.

Time is observed generally to wear out sorrow, and its effects might
doubtless be accelerated by quickening the succession, and enlarging the
variety of objects.

_----Si tempore reddi_
_Pax animo tranquilla potest, tu sperne morari:_
_Qui sapiet, sibi tempus erit. ----_
GROTIUS, Consol. ad Patrem.

'Tis long ere time can mitigate your grief;
To wisdom fly, she quickly brings relief.
F. LEWIS.

Sorrow is a kind of rust of the soul, which every new idea contributes in
its passage to scour away. It is the putrefaction of stagnant life, and
is remedied by exercise and motion.




No. 48. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1750.


_Non est vivere, sed valere, vita. _
MART. Lib. vi. Ep, 70. 15.

For life is not to live, but to be well.
ELPHINSTON.


Among the innumerable follies, by which we lay up in our youth repentance
and remorse for the succeeding part of our lives, there is scarce any
against which warnings are of less efficacy, than the neglect of health.
When the springs of motion are yet elastick, when the heart bounds with
vigour, and the eye sparkles with spirit, it is with difficulty that we
are taught to conceive the imbecility that every hour is bringing upon
us, or to imagine that the nerves which are now braced with so much
strength, and the limbs which play with so much activity, will lose all
their power under the gripe of time, relax with numbness, and totter with
debility.

To the arguments which have been used against complaints under the
miseries of life, the philosophers have, I think, forgot to add the
incredulity of those to whom we recount our sufferings. But if the
purpose of lamentation be to excite pity, it is surely superfluous for
age and weakness to tell their plaintive stories; for pity pre-supposes
sympathy, and a little attention will shew them, that those who do not
feel pain, seldom think that it is felt; and a short recollection will
inform almost every man, that he is only repaid the insult which he has
given, since he may remember how often he has mocked infirmity, laughed
at its cautions, and censured its impatience.

The valetudinarian race have made the care of health ridiculous by
suffering it to prevail over all other considerations, as the miser has
brought frugality into contempt, by permitting the love of money not to
share, but to engross his mind: they both err alike, by confounding the
means with the end; they grasp at health only to be well, as at money
only to be rich; and forget that every terrestrial advantage is chiefly
valuable, as it furnishes abilities for the exercise of virtue.

Health is indeed so necessary to all the duties, as well as pleasures of
life, that the crime of squandering it is equal to the folly; and he that
for a short gratification brings weakness and diseases upon himself, and
for the pleasure of a very few years passed in the tumults of diversion,
and clamours of merriment, condemns the maturer and more experienced
part of his life to the chamber and the couch, may be justly reproached,
not only as a spendthrift of his own happiness, but as a robber of the
publick; as a wretch that has voluntarily disqualified himself for the
business of his station, and refused that part which Providence assigns
him in the general task of human nature.

There are perhaps very few conditions more to be pitied than that of an
active and elevated mind, labouring under the weight of a distempered
body. The time of such a man is always spent in forming schemes, which
a change of wind hinders him from executing, his powers fume away in
projects and in hope, and the day of action never arrives. He lies down
delighted with the thoughts of to-morrow, pleases his ambition with
the fame he shall acquire, or his benevolence with the good he shall
confer. But in the night the skies are overcast, the temper of the air
is changed, he wakes in langour, impatience, and distraction, and has
no longer any wish but for ease, nor any attention but to misery. It
may be said that disease generally begins that equality which death
completes; the distinctions which set one man so much above another are
very little perceived in the gloom of a sick chamber, where it will be
vain to expect entertainment from the gay, or instruction from the wise;
where all human glory is obliterated, the wit is clouded, the reasoner
perplexed, and the hero subdued; where the highest and brightest of
mortal beings finds nothing left him but the consciousness of innocence.

There is among the fragments of the Greek poets a short Hymn to Health,
in which her power of exalting the happiness of life, of heightening the
gifts of fortune, and adding enjoyment to possession, is inculcated with
so much force and beauty, that no one, who has ever languished under the
discomforts and infirmities of a lingering disease, can read it without
feeling the images dance in his heart, and adding from his own experience
new vigour to the wish, and from his own imagination new colours to
the picture. The particular occasion of this little composition is not
known, but it is probable that the author had been sick, and in the first
raptures of returning vigour addressed Health in the following manner:

Ὑγιεια πρεσβιστα Μακαρων,
Μετα σου ναιοιμι
Το λειπομενον βιοτας·
Συ δε μοι προφρων συνοικος ειης.
Ει γαρ τις η πλουτου χαρις η τεκεων,
Τας ευδαιμονος τ' ανθρωποις
Βασιληιδος αρχας, η ποθων,
Ους κρυφιοις Αφροδιτης αρκυσιν θηρευομεν,
Η ει τις αλλα θεοθεν ανθρωποις τερψις,
Η πονων αμπνοα πεφανται·
Μετα σειο, μακαιρα, Ὑγιεια,
Τεθηλε παντα, και λαμπει χαριτων εαρ·
Σεθεν δε χωρις, ουδεις ευδαιμων πελει.


Health, most venerable of the powers of heaven! with thee may
the remaining part of my life be passed, nor do thou refuse to
bless me with thy residence. For whatever there is of beauty or
of pleasure in wealth, in descendants, or in sovereign command,
the highest summit of human enjoyment, or in those objects of
desire which we endeavour to chase into the toils of love; whatever
delight, or whatever solace is granted by the celestials, to
soften our fatigues, in thy presence, thou parent of happiness,
all those joys spread out and flourish; in thy presence blooms
the spring of pleasure, and without thee no man is happy.

Such is the power of health, that without its co-operation every other
comfort is torpid and lifeless as the powers of vegetation without
the sun. And yet this bliss is commonly thrown away in thoughtless
negligence, or in foolish experiments on our own strength; we let it
perish without remembering its value, or waste it to show how much we
have to spare; it is sometimes given up to the management of levity and
chance, and sometimes sold for the applause of jollity and debauchery.

Health is equally neglected, and with equal impropriety, by the votaries
of business and the followers of pleasure. Some men ruin the fabrick
of their bodies by incessant revels, and others by intemperate studies;
some batter it by excess, and others sap it by inactivity. To the noisy
route of bacchanalian rioters, it will be to little purpose that advice
is offered, though it requires no great abilities to prove, that he loses
pleasure who loses health; their clamours are too loud for the whispers
of caution, and they run the course of life with too much precipitance
to stop at the call of wisdom. Nor perhaps will they that are busied in
adding thousands to thousands, pay much regard to him that shall direct
them to hasten more slowly to their wishes. Yet since lovers of money are
generally cool, deliberate, and thoughtful, they might surely consider,
that the greater good ought not to be sacrificed to the less. Health is
certainly more valuable than money, because it is by health that money
is procured; but thousands and millions are of small avail to alleviate
the protracted tortures of the gout, to repair the broken organs of sense,
or resuscitate the powers of digestion. Poverty is, indeed, an evil from
which we naturally fly; but let us not run from one enemy to another,
nor take shelter in the arms of sickness.

_----Projecere animam! quàm vellent æthere in alto_
_Nunc et pauperiem, et duros tolerare labores! _

For healthful indigence in vain they pray,
In quest of wealth who throw their lives away.

Those who lose their health in an irregular and impetuous pursuit of
literary accomplishments are yet less to be excused; for they ought to
know that the body is not forced beyond its strength, but with the loss
of more vigour than is proportionate to the effect produced. Whoever
takes up life beforehand, by depriving himself of rest and refreshment,
must not only pay back the hours, but pay them back with usury: and
for the gain of a few months but half enjoyed, must give up years to
the listlessness of languor, and the implacability of pain. They whose
endeavour is mental excellence, will learn, perhaps too late, how much it
is endangered by diseases of the body, and find that knowledge may easily
be lost in the starts of melancholy, the flights of impatience, and the
peevishness of decrepitude.




No. 49. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1750.


_Non omnis moriar; multaque pars mei_
_Vitabit Libitinam, usque ego posterâ_
_Crescum lande recens. _
HOR. Lib. iii. Ode xxx. 6.

Whole Horace shall not die; his songs shall save
The greatest portion from the greedy grave
CREECH.


The first motives of human actions are those appetites which Providence
has given to man in common with the rest of the inhabitants of the earth.
Immediately after our birth, thirst and hunger incline us to the breast,
which we draw by instinct, like other young creatures, and when we are
satisfied, we express our uneasiness by importunate and incessant cries,
till we have obtained a place or posture proper for repose.

The next call that rouses us from a state of inactivity, is that of our
passions; we quickly begin to be sensible of hope and fear, love and
hatred, desire and aversion; these arising from the power of comparison
and reflection, extend their range wider, as our reason strengthens, and
our knowledge enlarges. At first we have no thought of pain, but when
we actually feel it; we afterwards begin to fear it, yet not before it
approaches us very nearly; but by degrees we discover it at a greater
distance, and find it lurking in remote consequences. Our terrour in
time improves into caution, and we learn to look round with vigilance
and solicitude, to stop all the avenues at which misery can enter, and
to perform or endure many things in themselves toilsome and unpleasing,
because we know by reason, or by experience, that our labour will be
overbalanced by the reward, that it will either procure some positive
good, or avert some evil greater than itself.

But as the soul advances to a fuller exercise of its powers, the animal
appetites, and the passions immediately arising from them, are not
sufficient to find it employment; the wants of nature are soon supplied,
the fear of their return is easily precluded, and something more is
necessary to relieve the long intervals of inactivity, and to give
those faculties, which cannot lie wholly quiescent, some particular
direction. For this reason, new desires and artificial passions are by
degrees produced; and, from having wishes only in consequence of our
wants, we begin to feel wants in consequence of our wishes; we persuade
ourselves to set a value upon things which are of no use, but because
we have agreed to value them; things which can neither satisfy hunger,
nor mitigate pain, nor secure us from any real calamity, and which,
therefore, we find of no esteem among those nations whose artless and
barbarous manners keep them always anxious for the necessaries of life.

This is the original of avarice, vanity, ambition, and generally of all
those desires which arise from the comparison of our condition with that
of others. He that thinks himself poor because his neighbour is richer;
he that, like Cæsar, would rather be the first man of a village, than
the second in the capital of the world, has apparently kindled in himself
desires which he never received from nature, and acts upon principles
established only by the authority of custom.

Of these adscititious passions, some, as avarice and envy, are universally
condemned; some, as friendship and curiosity, generally praised; but
there are others about which the suffrages of the wise are divided, and
of which it is doubted, whether they tend most to promote the happiness,
or increase the miseries of mankind.

Of this ambiguous and disputable kind is the love of fame, a desire of
filling the minds of others with admiration, and of being celebrated by
generations to come with praises which we shall not hear. This ardour
has been considered by some as nothing better than splendid madness,
as a flame kindled by pride, and fanned by folly; for what, say they,
can be more remote from wisdom, than to direct all our actions by the
hope of that which is not to exist till we ourselves are in the grave?
To pant after that which can never be possessed, and of which the value
thus wildly put upon it, arises from this particular condition, that,
during life, it is not to be obtained? To gain the favour, and hear the
applauses of our contemporaries, is indeed equally desirable with any
other prerogative of superiority, because fame may be of use to smooth
the paths of life, to terrify opposition, and fortify tranquillity; but
to what end shall we be the darlings of mankind, when we can no longer
receive any benefits from their favour? It is more reasonable to wish
for reputation, while it may yet be enjoyed, as Anacreon calls upon his
companions to give him for present use the wine and garlands which they
purpose to bestow upon his tomb.

The advocates for the love of fame allege in its vindication, that it
is a passion natural and universal; a flame lighted by Heaven, and
always burning with greatest vigour in the most enlarged and elevated
minds. That the desire of being praised by posterity implies a resolution
to deserve their praises, and that the folly charged upon it, is only a
noble and disinterested generosity, which is not felt, and therefore not
understood, by those who have been always accustomed to refer every thing
to themselves, and whose selfishness has contracted their understandings.
That the soul of man, formed for eternal life, naturally springs forward
beyond the limits of corporeal existence, and rejoices to consider
herself as co-operating with future ages, and as co-extended with endless
duration. That the reproach urged with so much petulance, the reproach
of labouring for what cannot be enjoyed, is founded on an opinion which
may with great probability be doubted; for since we suppose the powers
of the soul to be enlarged by its separation, why should we conclude that
its knowledge of sublunary transactions is contracted or extinguished?

Upon an attentive and impartial review of the argument, it will appear that
the love of fame is to be regulated rather than extinguished: and that
men should be taught not to be wholly careless about their memory, but to
endeavour that they may be remembered chiefly for their virtues, since no
other reputation will be able to transmit any pleasure beyond the grave.

It is evident that fame, considered merely as the immortality of a name,
is not less likely to be the reward of bad actions than of good; he
therefore has no certain principle for the regulation of his conduct,
whose single aim is not to be forgotten. And history will inform us,
that this blind and undistinguishing appetite of renown has always
been uncertain in its effects, and directed by accident or opportunity,
indifferently to the benefit or devastation of the world. When
Themistocles complained that the trophies of Miltiades hindered him from
sleep, he was animated by them to perform the same services in the same
cause. But Cæsar, when he wept at the sight of Alexander's picture, having
no honest opportunities of action, let his ambition break out to the
ruin of his country.

If, therefore, the love of fame is so far indulged by the mind as to
become independent and predominant, it is dangerous and irregular; but
it may be usefully employed as an inferior and secondary motive, and will
serve sometimes to revive our activity, when we begin to languish and
lose sight of that more certain, more valuable, and more durable reward,
which ought always to be our first hope and our last. But it must be
strongly impressed upon our minds that virtue is not to be pursued as
one of the means to fame, but fame to be accepted as the only recompence
which mortals can bestow on virtue; to be accepted with complacence, but
not sought with eagerness. Simply to be remembered is no advantage; it
is a privilege which satire as well as penegyrick can confer, and is not
more enjoyed by Titus or Constantine, than by Timocreon of Rhodes, of
whom we only know from his epitaph, _that he had eaten many a meal, drunk
many a flaggon, and uttered many a reproach_.

Πολλα φαγων, και πολλα πιων, και πολλα κακ' ειπων
Ανθρωπους, κειμαι Τιμοκρεων Ρὁδιος.

The true satisfaction which is to be drawn from the consciousness that we
shall share the attention of future times, must arise from the hope, that
with our name, our virtues will be propagated; and that those whom we
cannot benefit in our lives, may receive instruction from our examples,
and incitement from our renown.




No. 50. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1750.


_Credebant hoc grande nefas, et morte piandum,_
_Si juvenis vetulo non assurrexerat, atque_
_Barbato cuicunque puer, licet ipse videret_
_Plura domi fraga, et majores glandis acervos. _
JUV. Sat. xiii. 54.

And had not men the hoary head rever'd,
And boys paid rev'rence when a man appear'd,
Both must have died, though richer skins they wore,
And saw more heaps of acorns in their store
CREECH.


I have always thought it the business of those who turn their speculations
upon the living world, to commend the virtues, as well as to expose the
faults of their contemporaries, and to confute a false as well as to
support a just accusation; not only because it is peculiarly the business
of a monitor to keep his own reputation untainted, lest those who can
once charge him with partiality, should indulge themselves afterwards
in disbelieving him at pleasure; but because he may find real crimes
sufficient to give full employment to caution or repentance, without
distracting the mind by needless scruples and vain solicitudes.

There are certain fixed and stated reproaches that one part of mankind
has in all ages thrown upon another, which are regularly transmitted
through continued successions, and which he that has once suffered them
is certain to use with the same undistinguishing vehemence, when he has
changed his station, and gained the prescriptive right of inflicting on
others what he had formerly endured himself.

To these hereditary imputations, of which no man sees the justice, till it
becomes his interest to see it, very little regard is to be shewn; since
it does not appear that they are produced by ratiocination or inquiry, but
received implicitly, or caught by a kind of instantaneous contagion, and
supported rather by willingness to credit, than ability to prove, them.

It has been always the practice of those who are desirous to believe
themselves made venerable by length of time, to censure the new comers
into life, for want of respect to grey hairs and sage experience, for
heady confidence in their own understandings, for hasty conclusions
upon partial views, for disregard of counsels, which their fathers and
grandsires are ready to afford them, and a rebellious impatience of that
subordination to which youth is condemned by nature, as necessary to
its security from evils into which it would be otherwise precipitated,
by the rashness of passion, and the blindness of ignorance.

Every old man complains of the growing depravity of the world, of the
petulance and insolence of the rising generation. He recounts the
decency and regularity of former times, and celebrates the discipline and
sobriety of the age in which his youth was passed; a happy age, which is
now no more to be expected, since confusion has broken in upon the world,
and thrown down all the boundaries of civility and reverence.

It is not sufficiently considered how much he assumes who dares to claim
the privilege of complaining; for as every man has, in his own opinion,
a full share of the miseries of life, he is inclined to consider all
clamorous uneasiness, as a proof of impatience rather than of affliction,
and to ask, what merit has this man to show, by which he has acquired a
right to repine at the distributions of nature? Or, why does he imagine
that exemptions should be granted him from the general condition of man?
We find ourselves excited rather to captiousness than pity, and instead
of being in haste to soothe his complaints by sympathy and tenderness,
we enquire, whether the pain be proportionate to the lamentation; and
whether, supposing the affliction real, it is not the effect of vice and
folly, rather than calamity.

The querulousness and indignation which is observed so often to disfigure
the last scene of life, naturally leads us to enquiries like these. For
surely it will be thought at the first view of things, that if age be
thus contemned and ridiculed, insulted and neglected, the crime must
at least be equal on either part. They who have had opportunities of
establishing their authority over minds ductile and unresisting, they
who have been the protectors of helplessness, and the instructors of
ignorance, and who yet retain in their own hands the power of wealth,
and the dignity of command, must defeat their influence by their own
misconduct, and make use of all these advantages with very little skill,
if they cannot secure to themselves an appearance of respect, and ward
off open mockery, and declared contempt.

The general story of mankind will evince, that lawful and settled
authority is very seldom resisted when it is well employed.
Gross
corruption, or evident imbecility, is necessary to the suppression
of that reverence with which the majority of mankind look upon their
governors, and on those whom they see surrounded by splendour, and
fortified by power. For though men are drawn by their passions into
forgetfulness of invisible rewards and punishments, yet they are easily
kept obedient to those who have temporal dominion in their hands, till
their veneration is dissipated by such wickedness and folly as can
neither be defended nor concealed.

It may, therefore, very reasonably be suspected that the old draw upon
themselves the greatest part of those insults which they so much lament,
and that age is rarely despised but when it is contemptible. If men
imagine that excess of debauchery can be made reverend by time, that
knowledge is the consequence of long life, however idly or thoughtlessly
employed, that priority of birth will supply the want of steadiness or
honesty, can it raise much wonder that their hopes are disappointed, and
that they see their posterity rather willing to trust their own eyes in
their progress into life, than enlist themselves under guides who have
lost their way?

There are, indeed, many truths which time necessarily and certainly
teaches, and which might, by those who have learned them from experience,
be communicated to their successors at a cheaper rate: but dictates,
though liberally enough bestowed, are generally without effect, the
teacher gains few proselytes by instruction which his own behaviour
contradicts; and young men miss the benefit of counsel, because they are
not very ready to believe that those who fell below them in practice, can
much excel them in theory. Thus the progress of knowledge is retarded,
the world is kept long in the same state, and every new race is to
gain the prudence of their predecessors by committing and redressing
the same miscarriages.

To secure to the old that influence which they are willing to claim, and
which might so much contribute to the improvement of the arts of life,
it is absolutely necessary that they give themselves up to the duties
of declining years; and contentedly resign to youth its levity, its
pleasures, its frolicks, and its fopperies. It is a hopeless endeavour
to unite the contrarieties of spring and winter; it is unjust to claim
the privileges of age, and retain the playthings of childhood. The young
always form magnificent ideas of the wisdom and gravity of men, whom they
consider as placed at a distance from them in the ranks of existence, and
naturally look on those whom they find trifling with long beards, with
contempt and indignation, like that which women feel at the effeminacy
of men. If dotards will contend with boys in those performances in
which boys must always excel them; if they will dress crippled limbs
in embroidery, endeavour at gaiety with faultering voices, and darken
assemblies of pleasure with the ghastliness of disease, they may well
expect those who find their diversions obstructed will hoot them away;
and that if they descend to competition with youth, they must bear the
insolence of successful rivals.

_Lusisti satis, edisti satis atque bibisti:_
_Tempus abire tibi est. _

You've had your share of mirth, of meat and drink;
'Tis time to quit the scene--'tis time to think.
ELPHINSTON.

Another vice of age, by which the rising generation may be alienated
from it, is severity and censoriousness, that gives no allowance to
the failings of early life, that expects artfulness from childhood, and
constancy from youth, that is peremptory in every command, and inexorable
to every failure. There are many who live merely to hinder happiness, and
whose descendants can only tell of long life, that it produces suspicion,
malignity, peevishness, and persecution: and yet even these tyrants can
talk of the ingratitude of the age, curse their heirs for impatience,
and wonder that young men cannot take pleasure in their father's company.

He that would pass the latter part of life with honour and decency, must,
when he is young, consider that he shall one day be old; and remember,
when he is old, that he has once been young. In youth, he must lay up
knowledge for his support, when his powers of acting shall forsake him;
and in age forbear to animadvert with rigour on faults which experience
only can correct.




No. 51. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1750.


_----Stultus labor est ineptiarum. _
MART. Lib. ii. Ep. lxxxvi. 10.

How foolish is the toil of trifling cares!
ELPHINSTON.


TO THE RAMBLER.

SIR,

As you have allowed a place in your paper to Euphelia's letters from
the country, and appear to think no form of human life unworthy of
your attention, I have resolved, after many struggles with idleness and
diffidence, to give you some account of my entertainment in this sober
season of universal retreat, and to describe to you the employments of
those who look with contempt on the pleasures and diversions of polite
life, and employ all their powers of censure and invective upon the
uselessness, vanity, and folly, of dress, visits, and conversation.

When a tiresome and vexatious journey of four days had brought me to the
house, where invitation, regularly sent for seven years together, had at
last induced me to pass the summer, I was surprised, after the civilities
of my first reception, to find, instead of the leisure and tranquillity,
which a rural life always promises, and, if well conducted, might always
afford, a confused wildness of care, and a tumultuous hurry of diligence,
by which every face was clouded, and every motion agitated. The old lady,
who was my father's relation, was, indeed, very full of the happiness
which she received from my visit, and, according to the forms of obsolete
breeding, insisted that I should recompense the long delay of my company
with a promise not to leave her till winter. But, amidst all her kindness
and caresses, she very frequently turned her head aside, and whispered,
with anxious earnestness, some order to her daughters, which never failed
to send them out with unpolite precipitation. Sometimes her impatience
would not suffer her to stay behind; she begged my pardon, she must
leave me for a moment; she went, and returned and sat down again, but
was again disturbed by some new care, dismissed her daughters with the
same trepidation, and followed them with the same countenance of business
and solicitude.

However I was alarmed at this show of eagerness and disturbance, and
however my curiosity was excited by such busy preparations as naturally
promised some great event, I was yet too much a stranger to gratify myself
with enquiries; but finding none of the family in mourning, I pleased
myself with imagining that I should rather see a wedding than a funeral.

At last we sat down to supper, when I was informed that one of the young
ladies, after whom I thought myself obliged to enquire, was under a
necessity of attending some affair that could not be neglected. Soon
afterward my relation began to talk of the regularity of her family, and
the inconvenience of London hours; and at last let me know that they had
purposed that night to go to bed sooner than was usual, because they were
to rise early in the morning to make cheesecakes. This hint sent me to my
chamber, to which I was accompanied by all the ladies, who begged me to
excuse some large sieves of leaves and flowers that covered two-thirds
of the floor, for they intended to distil them when they were dry,
and they had no other room that so conveniently received the rising sun.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CORNELIA.




No. 52. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1750.


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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 45: Lucretius. ]




No. 53. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1750.


Φειδεο των κτεανων.
_Epigram. Vet. _

Husband thy possessions.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




No. 54. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1750.


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

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


TO THE RAMBLER.

SIR,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ATHANATUS.




No. 55.