No More Learning

At
last, an elderly man of a grave aspect read the bill, and bargained for
the room at the very first price that was asked. He lived in close
retirement, seldom went out till evening, and then returned early,
sometimes cheerful, and at other times dejected. It was remarkable, that
whatever he purchased, he never had small money in his pocket; and,
though cool and temperate on other occasions, was always vehement and
stormy, till he received his change. He paid his rent with great
exactness, and seldom failed once a week to requite my landlady's
civility with a supper. At last, such is the fate of human felicity, the
house was alarmed at midnight by the constable, who demanded to search
the garrets. My landlady assuring him that he had mistaken the door,
conducted him up stairs, where he found the tools of a coiner; but the
tenant had crawled along the roof to an empty house, and escaped; much
to the joy of my landlady, who declares him a very honest man, and
wonders why any body should be hanged for making money when such numbers
are in want of it. She however confesses that she shall, for the future,
always question the character of those who take her garret without
beating down the price.

The bill was then placed again in the window, and the poor woman was
teased for seven weeks by innumerable passengers, who obliged her to
climb with them every hour up five stories, and then disliked the
prospect, hated the noise of a publick street, thought the stairs
narrow, objected to a low ceiling, required the walls to be hung with
fresher paper, asked questions about the neighbourhood, could not think
of living so far from their acquaintance, wished the windows had looked
to the south rather than the west, told how the door and chimney might
have been better disposed, bid her half the price that she asked, or
promised to give her earnest the next day, and came no more.

At last, a short meagre man, in a tarnished waistcoat, desired to see
the garret, and when he had stipulated for two long shelves, and a
larger table, hired it at a low rate. When the affair was completed, he
looked round him with great satisfaction, and repeated some words which
the woman did not understand. In two days he brought a great box of
books, took possession of his room, and lived very inoffensively, except
that he frequently disturbed the inhabitants of the next floor by
unseasonable noises. He was generally in bed at noon, but from evening
to midnight he sometimes talked aloud with great vehemence, sometimes
stamped as in rage, sometimes threw down his poker, then clattered his
chairs, then sat down in deep thought, and again burst out into loud
vociferations; sometimes he would sigh as oppressed with misery, and
sometimes shaked with convulsive laughter. When he encountered any of
the family, he gave way or bowed, but rarely spoke, except that as he
went up stairs he often repeated,

[Greek:--Hos hupertata domata naiei].

This habitant th' aerial regions boast;

hard words, to which his neighbours listened so often, that they learned
them without understanding them. What was his employment she did not
venture to ask him, but at last heard a printer's boy inquire for the
author.

My landlady was very often advised to beware of this strange man, who,
though he was quiet for the present, might perhaps become outrageous in
the hot months; but, as she was punctually paid, she could not find any
sufficient reason for dismissing him, till one night he convinced her,
by setting fire to his curtains, that it was not safe to have an author
for her inmate.

She had then for six weeks a succession of tenants, who left the house
on Saturday, and, instead of paying their rent, stormed at their
landlady. At last she took in two sisters, one of whom had spent her
little fortune in procuring remedies for a lingering disease, and was
now supported and attended by the other: she climbed with difficulty to
the apartment, where she languished eight weeks without impatience, or
lamentation, except for the expense and fatigue which her sister
suffered, and then calmly and contentedly expired. The sister followed
her to the grave, paid the few debts which they had contracted, wiped
away the tears of useless sorrow, and, returning to the business of
common life, resigned to me the vacant habitation.

Such, Mr. Rambler, are the changes which have happened in the narrow
space where my present fortune has fixed my residence. So true it is
that amusement and instruction are always at hand for those who have
skill and willingness to find them; and, so just is the observation of
Juvenal, that a single house will shew whatever is done or suffered in
the world.

I am, Sir, &c.



No. 162. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 5, 1751.

Orbus es, et locuples, et Bruto consule natus,
Esse tibi veras credis amicitias?
Sunt veræ: sed quas juvenis, quas pauper habebas:
Qui novus est, mortem diligit ille tuam. MART. Lib. xi. Ep. 44.

What! old, and rich, and childless too,
And yet believe your friends are true?
Truth might perhaps to those belong,
To those who lov'd you poor and young;
But, trust me, for the new you have,
They'll love you dearly--in your grave. F. LEWIS.

One of the complaints uttered by Milton's Samson, in the anguish of
blindness, is, that he shall pass his life under the direction of
others; that he cannot regulate his conduct by his own knowledge, but
must lie at the mercy of those who undertake to guide him.

There is no state more contrary to the dignity of wisdom than perpetual
and unlimited dependance, in which the understanding lies useless, and
every motion is received from external impulse. Reason is the great
distinction of human nature, the faculty by which we approach to some
degree of association with celestial intelligences; but as the
excellence of every power appears only in its operations, not to have
reason, and to have it useless and unemployed, is nearly the same.

Such is the weakness of man, that the essence of things is seldom so
much regarded as external and accidental appendages. A small variation
of trifling circumstances, a slight change of form by an artificial
dress, or a casual difference of appearance, by a new light and
situation, will conciliate affection or excite abhorrence, and determine
us to pursue or to avoid. Every man considers a necessity of compliance
with any will but his own, as the lowest state of ignominy and meanness;
few are so far lost in cowardice or negligence, as not to rouse at the
first insult of tyranny, and exert all their force against him who
usurps their property, or invades any privilege of speech or action. Yet
we see often those who never wanted spirit to repel encroachment or
oppose violence, at last, by a gradual relaxation of vigilance,
delivering up, without capitulation, the fortress which they defended
against assault, and laying down unbidden the weapons which they grasp
the harder for every attempt to wrest them from their hands. Men eminent
for spirit and wisdom often resign themselves to voluntary pupilage, and
suffer their lives to be modelled by officious ignorance, and their
choice to be regulated by presumptuous stupidity.

This unresisting acquiescence in the determination of others, may be the
consequence of application to some study remote from the beaten track of
life, some employment which does not allow leisure for sufficient
inspection of those petty affairs, by which nature has decreed a great
part of our duration to be filled. To a mind thus withdrawn from common
objects, it is more eligible to repose on the prudence of another, than
to be exposed every moment to slight interruptions. The submission which
such confidence requires, is paid without pain, because it implies no
confession of inferiority. The business from which we withdraw our
cognizance, is not above our abilities, but below our notice. We please
our pride with the effects of our influence thus weakly exerted, and
fancy ourselves placed in a higher orb, for which we regulate
subordinate agents by a slight and distant superintendance. But,
whatever vanity or abstraction may suggest, no man can safely do that by
others which might be done by himself; he that indulges negligence will
quickly become ignorant of his own affairs; and he that trusts without
reserve will at last be deceived.

It is, however, impossible but that, as the attention tends strongly
towards one thing, it must retire from another; and he that omits the
care of domestick business, because he is engrossed by inquiries of more
importance to mankind, has, at least, the merit of suffering in a good
cause. But there are many who can plead no such extenuation of their
folly; who shake off the burden of their situation, not that they may
soar with less incumbrance to the heights of knowledge or virtue, but
that they may loiter at ease and sleep in quiet; and who select for
friendship and confidence not the faithful and the virtuous, but the
soft, the civil, and compliant.

This openness to flattery is the common disgrace of declining life. When
men feel weakness increasing on them, they naturally desire to rest from
the struggles of contradiction, the fatigue of reasoning, the anxiety of
circumspection; when they are hourly tormented with pains and diseases,
they are unable to bear any new disturbance, and consider all opposition
as an addition to misery, of which they feel already more than they can
patiently endure. Thus desirous of peace, and thus fearful of pain, the
old man seldom inquires after any other qualities in those whom he
caresses, than quickness in conjecturing his desires, activity in
supplying his wants, dexterity in intercepting complaints before they
approach near enough to disturb him, flexibility to his present humour,
submission to hasty petulance, and attention to wearisome narrations. By
these arts alone many have been able to defeat the claims of kindred and
of merit, and to enrich themselves with presents and legacies.

Thrasybulus inherited a large fortune, and augmented it by the revenues
of several lucrative employments, which he discharged with honour and
dexterity. He was at last wise enough to consider, that life should not
be devoted wholly to accumulation, and therefore retiring to his estate,
applied himself to the education of his children, and the cultivation of
domestick happiness.

He passed several years in this pleasing amusement, and saw his care
amply recompensed; his daughters were celebrated for modesty and
elegance, and his sons for learning, prudence, and spirit. In time the
eagerness with which the neighbouring gentlemen courted his alliance,
obliged him to resign his daughters to other families; the vivacity and
curiosity of his sons hurried them out of rural privacy into the open
world, from whence they had not soon an inclination to return. This,
however, he had always hoped; he pleased himself with the success of his
schemes, and felt no inconvenience from solitude till an apoplexy
deprived him of his wife.

Thrasybulus had now no companion; and the maladies of increasing years
having taken from him much of the power of procuring amusement for
himself, he thought it necessary to procure some inferior friend, who
might ease him of his economical solicitudes, and divert him by cheerful
conversation. All these qualities he soon recollected in Vafer, a clerk
in one of the offices over which he had formerly presided. Vafer was
invited to visit his old patron, and being by his station acquainted
with the present modes of life, and by constant practice dexterous in
business, entertained him with so many novelties, and so readily
disentangled his affairs, that he was desired to resign his clerkship,
and accept a liberal salary in the house of Thrasybulus.

Vafer, having always lived in a state of dependance, was well versed in
the arts by which favour is obtained, and could, without repugnance or
hesitation, accommodate himself to every caprice, and echo every
opinion. He never doubted but to be convinced, nor attempted opposition
but to flatter Thrasybulus with the pleasure of a victory. By this
practice he found his way into his patron's heart, and, having first
made himself agreeable, soon became important. His insidious diligence,
by which the laziness of age was gratified, engrossed the management of
affairs; and his petty offices of civility, and occasional
intercessions, persuaded the tenants to consider him as their friend and
benefactor, and to entreat his enforcement of their representations of
hard years, and his countenance to petitions for abatement of rent.

Thrasybulus had now banqueted on flattery, till he could no longer bear
the harshness of remonstrance or the insipidity of truth. All
contrariety to his own opinion shocked him like a violation of some
natural right, and all recommendation of his affairs to his own
inspection was dreaded by him as a summons to torture. His children were
alarmed by the sudden riches of Vafer, but their complaints were heard
by their father with impatience, as the result of a conspiracy against
his quiet, and a design to condemn him, for their own advantage, to
groan out his last hours in perplexity and drudgery. The daughters
retired with tears in their eyes, but the son continued his
importunities till he found his inheritance hazarded by his obstinacy.

Vafer triumphed over all their efforts, and, continuing to confirm
himself in authority, at the death of his master, purchased an estate,
and bade defiance to inquiry and justice.



No. 163. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1751.

Mitte superba pati fastidia, spemque caducam
Despice; vive tibi, nam moriere tibi. SENECA.

Bow to no patron's insolence; rely
On no frail hopes, in freedom live and die. F. LEWIS.

None of the cruelties exercised by wealth and power upon indigence and
dependance is more mischievous in its consequences, or more frequently
practised with wanton negligence, than the encouragement of expectations
which are never to be gratified, and the elation and depression of the
heart by needless vicissitudes of hope and disappointment.

Every man is rich or poor, according to the proportion between his
desires and enjoyments; any enlargement of wishes is therefore equally
destructive to happiness with the diminution of possession; and he that
teaches another to long for what he never shall obtain, is no less an
enemy to his quiet, than if he had robbed him of part of his patrimony.

But representations thus refined exhibit no adequate idea of the guilt
of pretended friendship; of artifices by which followers are attracted
only to decorate the retinue of pomp, and swell the shout of popularity,
and to be dismissed with contempt and ignominy, when their leader has
succeeded or miscarried, when he is sick of show, and weary of noise.
While a man infatuated with the promises of greatness, wastes his hours
and days in attendance and solicitation, the honest opportunities of
improving his condition pass by without his notice; he neglects to
cultivate his own barren soil, because he expects every moment to be
placed in regions of spontaneous fertility, and is seldom roused from
his delusion, but by the gripe of distress which he cannot resist, and
the sense of evils which cannot be remedied.

The punishment of Tantalus in the infernal regions affords a just image
of hungry servility, flattered with the approach of advantage, doomed to
lose it before it comes into his reach, always within a few days of
felicity, and always sinking back to his former wants:

[Greek:
Kai maen Tantalon eiseidon, chalep alge echonta,
Estaot en limnae hae de proseplaze geneio.
Steuto de dipsaon, pieein d ouk eichen elesthai.
Ossaki gar kupsei ho geron pieein meneainon,
Tossach hudor apolesket anabrochen. amphi de possi
Gaia melaina phaneske katazaenaske de daimon,
Dendrea d hupsipeteala katakoeathen chee kaopon
Onchnai, kai roiai, kai maeleai aglaokarpoi,
Sukai te glukeoai, kai elaiai taelethoosai.
Ton opot ithusei o geoon epi cheosi masasthai,
Tasd anemos riptaske poti nephea skioenta. ]
HOM. Od. [Greek: A'. ] 581.

"I saw," says Homer's Ulysses, "the severe punishment of Tantalus. In a
lake, whose waters approached to his lips, he stood burning with thirst,
without the power to drink. Whenever he inclined his head to the stream,
some deity commanded it to be dry, and the dark earth appeared at his
feet. Around him lofty trees spread their fruits to view; the pear, the
pomegranate and the apple, the green olive and the luscious fig quivered
before him, which, whenever he extended his hand to seize them, were
snatched by the winds into clouds and obscurity. "

This image of misery was perhaps originally suggested to some poet by
the conduct of his patron, by the daily contemplation of splendour which
he never must partake, by fruitless attempts to catch at interdicted
happiness, and by the sudden evanescence of his reward, when he thought
his labours almost at an end. To groan with poverty, when all about him
was opulence, riot, and superfluity, and to find the favours which he
had long been encouraged to hope, and had long endeavoured to deserve,
squandered at last on nameless ignorance, was to thirst with water
flowing before him, and to see the fruits, to which his hunger was
hastening, scattered by the wind. Nor can my correspondent, whatever he
may have suffered, express with more justness or force the vexations of
dependance.

TO THE RAMBLER.

SIR,

I am one of those mortals who have been courted and envied as the
favourites of the great. Having often gained the prize of composition at
the university, I began to hope that I should obtain the same
distinction in every other place, and determined to forsake the
profession to which I was destined by my parents, and in which the
interest of my family would have procured me a very advantageous
settlement. The pride of wit fluttered in my heart, and when I prepared
to leave the college, nothing entered my imagination but honours,
caresses, and rewards, riches without labour, and luxury without
expense.

I however delayed my departure for a time, to finish the performance by
which I was to draw the first notice of mankind upon me. When it was
completed I hurried to London, and considered every moment that passed
before its publication, as lost in a kind of neutral existence, and cut
off from the golden hours of happiness and fame. The piece was at last
printed and disseminated by a rapid sale; I wandered from one place of
concourse to another, feasted from morning to night on the repetition of
my own praises, and enjoyed the various conjectures of criticks, the
mistaken candour of my friends, and the impotent malice of my enemies.
Some had read the manuscript, and rectified its inaccuracies; others had
seen it in a state so imperfect, that they could not forbear to wonder
at its present excellence; some had conversed with the author at the
coffeehouse; and others gave hints that they had lent him money.

I knew that no performance is so favourably read as that of a writer who
suppresses his name, and therefore resolved to remain concealed, till
those by whom literary reputation is established had given their
suffrages too publickly to retract them. At length my bookseller
informed me that Aurantius, the standing patron of merit, had sent
inquiries after me, and invited me to his acquaintance.

The time which I had long expected was now arrived. I went to Aurantius
with a beating heart, for I looked upon our interview as the critical
moment of my destiny. I was received with civilities which my academick
rudeness made me unable to repay; but when I had recovered from my
confusion, I prosecuted the conversation with such liveliness and
propriety, that I confirmed my new friend in his esteem of my abilities,
and was dismissed with the utmost ardour of profession, and raptures of
fondness.

I was soon summoned to dine with Aurantius, who had assembled the most
judicious of his friends to partake of the entertainment. Again I
exerted my powers of sentiment and expression, and again found every eye
sparkling with delight, and every tongue silent with attention. I now
became familiar at the table of Aurantius, but could never, in his most
private or jocund hours, obtain more from him than general declarations
of esteem, or endearments of tenderness, which included no particular
promise, and therefore conferred no claim. This frigid reserve somewhat
disgusted me, and when he complained of three days absence, I took care
to inform him with how much importunity of kindness I had been detained
by his rival Pollio.

Aurantius now considered his honour as endangered by the desertion of a
wit, and, lest I should have an inclination to wander, told me that I
could never find a friend more constant and zealous than himself; that
indeed he had made no promises, because he hoped to surprise me with
advancement, but had been silently promoting my interest, and should
continue his good offices, unless he found the kindness of others more
desired.

If you, Mr. Rambler, have ever ventured your philosophy within the
attraction of greatness, you know the force of such language introduced
with a smile of gracious tenderness, and impressed at the conclusion
with an air of solemn sincerity. From that instant I gave myself up
wholly to Aurantius, and, as he immediately resumed his former gaiety,
expected every morning a summons to some employment of dignity and
profit. One month succeeded another, and, in defiance of appearances, I
still fancied myself nearer to my wishes, and continued to dream of
success, and wake to disappointment. At last the failure of my little
fortune compelled me to abate the finery which I hitherto thought
necessary to the company with whom I associated, and the rank to which I
should be raised. Aurantius, from the moment in which he discovered my
poverty, considered me as fully in his power, and afterwards rather
permitted my attendance than invited it; thought himself at liberty to
refuse my visits, whenever he had other amusements within reach, and
often suffered me to wait, without pretending any necessary business.
When I was admitted to his table, if any man of rank equal to his own
was present, he took occasion to mention my writings, and commend my
ingenuity, by which he intended to apologize for the confusion of
distinctions, and the improper assortment of his company; and often
called upon me to entertain his friends with my productions, as a
sportsman delights the squires of his neighbourhood with the curvets of
his horse, or the obedience of his spaniels.

To complete my mortification, it was his practice to impose tasks upon
me, by requiring me to write upon such subjects as he thought
susceptible of ornament and illustration. With these extorted
performances he was little satisfied, because he rarely found in them
the ideas which his own imagination had suggested, and which he
therefore thought more natural than mine.

When the pale of ceremony is broken, rudeness and insult soon enter the
breach. He now found that he might safely harass me with vexation, that
he had fixed the shackles of patronage upon me, and that I could neither
resist him nor escape. At last, in the eighth year of my servitude, when
the clamour of creditors was vehement, and my necessity known to be
extreme, he offered me a small office, but hinted his expectation, that
I should marry a young woman with whom he had been acquainted.

I was not so far depressed by my calamities as to comply with this
proposal; but, knowing that complaints and expostulations would but
gratify his insolence, I turned away with that contempt with which I
shall never want spirit to treat the wretch who can outgo the guilt of a
robber without the temptation of his profit, and who lures the credulous
and thoughtless to maintain the show of his levee, and the mirth of his
table, at the expense of honour, happiness, and life.

I am, Sir, &c.

LIBERALIS.



No. 164. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 12, 1751.

_--Vitium, Gaure, Catonis habes_. MART. Lib. ii. Ep. lxxxix. 2.

Gaurus pretends to Cato's fame;
And proves--by Cato's vice, his claim.

Distinction is so pleasing to the pride of man, that a great part of the
pain and pleasure of life arises from the gratification or
disappointment of an incessant wish for superiority, from the success or
miscarriage of secret competitions, from victories and defeats, of
which, though they appear to us of great importance, in reality none are
conscious except ourselves.

Proportionate to the prevalence of this love of praise is the variety of
means by which its attainment is attempted. Every man however hopeless
his pretensions may appear to all but himself, has some project by which
he hopes to rise to reputation; some art by which he imagines that the
notice of the world will be attracted; some quality, good or bad, which
discriminates him from the common herd of mortals, and by which others
maybe persuaded to love, or compelled to fear him. The ascents of
honour, however steep, never appear inaccessible; he that despairs to
scale the precipices by which learning and valour have conducted their
favourites, discovers some by-bath, or easier acclivity, which, though
it cannot bring him to the summit, will yet enable him to overlook those
with whom he is now contending for eminence; and we seldom require more
to the happiness of the present hour, than to surpass him that stands
next before us.

As the greater part of human kind speak and act wholly by imitation,
most of those who aspire to honour and applause propose to themselves
some example which serves as the model of their conduct, and the limit
of their hopes. Almost every man, if closely examined, will be found to
have enlisted himself under some leader whom he expects to conduct him
to renown; to have some hero or other, living or dead, in his view,
whose character he endeavours to assume, and whose performances he
labours to equal.

When the original is well chosen, and judiciously copied, the imitator
often arrives at excellence, which he could never have attained without
direction; for few are formed with abilities to discover new
possibilities of excellence, and to distinguish themselves by means
never tried before.

But folly and idleness often contrive to gratify pride at a cheaper
rate: not the qualities which are most illustrious, but those which are
of easiest attainment, are selected for imitation; and the honours and
rewards which publick gratitude has paid to the benefactors of mankind,
are expected by wretches who can only imitate them in their vices and
defects, or adopt some petty singularities of which those from whom they
are borrowed were secretly ashamed.

No man rises to such a height as to become conspicuous, but he is on one
side censured by undiscerning malice, which reproaches him for his best
actions, and slanders his apparent and incontestable excellencies; and
idolized on the other by ignorant admiration, which exalts his faults
and follies into virtues. It may be observed, that he by whose intimacy
his acquaintances imagine themselves dignified, generally diffuses among
them his mien and his habits; and indeed, without more vigilance than is
generally applied to the regulation of the minuter parts of behaviour,
it is not easy, when we converse much with one whose general character
excites our veneration, to escape all contagion of his peculiarities,
even when we do not deliberately think them worthy of our notice, and
when they would have excited laughter or disgust, had they not been
protected by their alliance to nobler qualities, and accidentally
consorted with knowledge or with virtue.

The faults of a man loved or honoured, sometimes steal secretly and
imperceptibly upon the wise and virtuous, but, by injudicious fondness
or thoughtless vanity, are adopted with design. There is scarce any
failing of mind or body, any errour of opinion, or depravity of
practice, which instead of producing shame and discontent, its natural
effects, has not at one time or other gladdened vanity with the hopes of
praise, and been displayed with ostentatious industry by those who
sought kindred minds among the wits or heroes, and could prove their
relation only by similitude of deformity.

In consequence of this perverse ambition, every habit which reason
condemns may be indulged and avowed. When a man is upbraided with his
faults, he may indeed be pardoned if he endeavours to run for shelter to
some celebrated name; but it is not to be suffered that, from the
retreats to which he fled from infamy, he should issue again with the
confidence of conquests, and call upon mankind for praise. Yet we see
men that waste their patrimony in luxury, destroy their health with
debauchery, and enervate their minds with idleness, because there have
been some whom luxury never could sink into contempt, nor idleness
hinder from the praise of genius.

This general inclination of mankind to copy characters in the gross, and
the force which the recommendation of illustrious examples adds to the
allurements of vice, ought to be considered by all whose character
excludes them from the shades of secrecy, as incitements to scrupulous
caution and universal purity of manners. No man, however enslaved to his
appetites, or hurried by his passions, can, while he preserves his
intellects unimpaired, please himself with promoting the corruption of
others. He whose merit has enlarged his influence, would surely wish to
exert it for the benefit of mankind. Yet such will be the effect of his
reputation, while he suffers himself to indulge in any favourite fault,
that they who have no hope to reach his excellence will catch at his
failings, and his virtues will be cited to justify the copiers of his
vices.

It is particularly the duty of those who consign illustrious names to
posterity, to take care lest their readers be misled by ambiguous
examples. That writer may be justly condemned as an enemy to goodness,
who suffers fondness or interest to confound right with wrong, or to
shelter the faults which even the wisest and the best have committed
from that ignominy which guilt ought always to suffer, and with which it
should be more deeply stigmatized when dignified by its neighbourhood to
uncommon worth, since we shall be in danger of beholding it without
abhorrence, unless its turpitude be laid open, and the eye secured from
the deception of surrounding splendour.



No. 165. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1751.

[Greek: Aen neos, alla penaes nun gaeron, plousios eimi
O monos ek panton oiktros en amphoterois,
Os tote men chraesthai dunamaen, hopot oud' en eichon.
Nun d' opote chraesthai mae dunamai, tot echo. ] ANTIPHILUS.

Young was I once and poor, now rich and old;
A harder case than mine was never told;
Blest with the power to use them--I had none;
Loaded with _riches_ now, the power is gone. F. LEWIS.

TO THE RAMBLER.

SIR,

The writers who have undertaken the unpromising task of moderating
desire, exert all the power of their eloquence, to shew that happiness
is not the lot of man, and have, by many arguments and examples, proved
the instability of every condition by which envy or ambition are
excited. They have set before our eyes all the calamities to which we
are exposed from the frailty of nature, the influence of accident, or
the stratagems of malice; they have terrified greatness with
conspiracies, and riches with anxieties, wit with criticism, and beauty
with disease.

All the force of reason, and all the charms of language, are indeed
necessary to support positions which every man hears with a wish to
confute them. Truth finds an easy entrance into the mind when she is
introduced by desire, and attended by pleasure; but when she intrudes
uncalled, and brings only fear and sorrow in her train, the passes of
the intellect are barred against her by prejudice and passion; if she
sometimes forces her way by the batteries of argument, she seldom long
keeps possession of her conquests, but is ejected by some favoured
enemy, or at best obtains only a nominal sovereignty, without influence
and without authority.

That life is short we are all convinced, and yet suffer not that
conviction to repress our projects or limit our expectations; that life
is miserable we all feel, and yet we believe that the time is near when
we shall feel it no longer. But to hope happiness and immortality is
equally vain. Our state may indeed be more or less embittered as our
duration may be more or less contracted; yet the utmost felicity which
we can ever attain will be little better than alleviation of misery, and
we shall always feel more pain from our wants than pleasure from our
enjoyments. The incident which I am going to relate will shew, that to
destroy the effect of all our success, it is not necessary that any
signal calamity should fall upon us, that we should be harassed by
implacable persecution, or excruciated by irremediable pains: the
brightest hours of prosperity have their clouds, and the stream of life,
if it is not ruffled by obstructions, will grow putrid by stagnation.

My father, resolving not to imitate the folly of his ancestors, who had
hitherto left the younger sons encumbrances on the eldest, destined me
to a lucrative profession; and I, being careful to lose no opportunity
of improvement, was, at the usual time in which young men enter the
world, well qualified for the exercise of the business which I had
chosen.

My eagerness to distinguish myself in publick, and my impatience of the
narrow scheme of life to which my indigence confined me, did not suffer
me to continue long in the town where I was born. I went away as from a
place of confinement, with a resolution to return no more, till I should
be able to dazzle with my splendour those who now looked upon me with
contempt, to reward those who had paid honours to my dawning merit, and
to shew all who had suffered me to glide by them unknown and neglected,
how much they mistook their interest in omitting to propitiate a genius
like mine.

Such were my intentions when I sallied forth into the unknown world, in
quest of riches and honours, which I expected to procure in a very short
time; for what could withhold them from industry and knowledge? He that
indulges hope will always be disappointed. Reputation I very soon
obtained; but as merit is much more cheaply acknowledged than rewarded,
I did not find myself yet enriched in proportion to my celebrity.

I had, however, in time, surmounted the obstacles by which envy and
competition obstruct the first attempts of a new claimant, and saw my
opponents and censurers tacitly confessing their despair of success, by
courting my friendship and yielding to my influence. They who once
pursued me, were now satisfied to escape from me; and they who had
before thought me presumptuous in hoping to overtake them, had now their
utmost wish, if they were permitted, at no great distance, quietly to
follow me.

My wants were not madly multiplied as my acquisitions increased, and the
time came, at length, when I thought myself enabled to gratify all
reasonable desires, and when, therefore, I resolved to enjoy that plenty
and serenity which I had been hitherto labouring to procure, to enjoy
them while I was yet neither crushed by age into infirmity, nor so
habituated to a particular manner of life as to be unqualified for new
studies or entertainments.

I now quitted my profession, and, to set myself at once free from all
importunities to resume it, changed my residence, and devoted the
remaining part of my time to quiet and amusement. Amidst innumerable
projects of pleasure, which restless idleness incited me to form, and of
which most, when they came to the moment of execution, were rejected for
others of no longer continuance, some accident revived in my imagination
the pleasing ideas of my native place. It was now in my power to visit
those from whom I had been so long absent, in such a manner as was
consistent with my former resolution, and I wondered how it could happen
that I had so long delayed my own happiness.

Full of the admiration which I should excite, and the homage which I
should receive, I dressed my servants in a more ostentatious livery,
purchased a magnificent chariot, and resolved to dazzle the inhabitants
of the little town with an unexpected blaze of greatness.

While the preparations that vanity required were made for my departure,
which, as workmen will not easily be hurried beyond their ordinary rate,
I thought very tedious, I solaced my impatience with imaging the various
censures that my appearance would produce; the hopes which some would
feel from my bounty; the terrour which my power would strike on others;
the awkward respect with which I should be accosted by timorous
officiousness; and the distant reverence with which others, less
familiar to splendour and dignity, would be contented to gaze upon me.
I
deliberated a long time, whether I should immediately descend to a level
with my former acquaintances; or make my condescension more grateful by
a gentle transition from haughtiness and reserve. At length I determined
to forget some of my companions, till they discovered themselves by some
indubitable token, and to receive the congratulations of others upon my
good fortune with indifference, to shew that I always expected what I
had now obtained. The acclamations of the populace I purposed to reward
with six hogsheads of ale, and a roasted ox, and then recommend to them
to return to their work.

At last all the trappings of grandeur were fitted, and I began the
journey of triumph, which I could have wished to have ended in the same
moment; but my horses felt none of their master's ardour, and I was
shaken four days upon rugged roads. I then entered the town, and, having
graciously let fall the glasses, that my person might be seen, passed
slowly through the street. The noise of the wheels brought the
inhabitants to their doors, but I could not perceive that I was known by
them. At last I alighted, and my name, I suppose, was told by my
servants, for the barber stepped from the opposite house, and seized me
by the hand with honest joy in his countenance, which, according to the
rule that I had prescribed to myself, I repressed with a frigid
graciousness. The fellow, instead of sinking into dejection, turned away
with contempt, and left me to consider how the second salutation should
be received. The next fellow was better treated, for I soon found that I
must purchase by civility that regard which I had expected to enforce by
insolence.

There was yet no smoke of bonfires, no harmony of bells, no shout of
crowds, nor riot of joy; the business of the day went forward as before;
and, after having ordered a splendid supper, which no man came to
partake, and which my chagrin hindered me from tasting, I went to bed,
where the vexation of disappointment overpowered the fatigue of my
journey, and kept me from sleep.

I rose so much humbled by those mortifications, as to inquire after the
present state of the town, and found that I had been absent too long to
obtain the triumph which had flattered my expectation. Of the friends
whose compliments I expected, some had long ago moved to distant
provinces, some had lost in the maladies of age all sense of another's
prosperity, and some had forgotten our former intimacy amidst care and
distresses. Of three whom I had resolved to punish for their former
offences by a longer continuance of neglect, one was, by his own
industry, raised above my scorn, and two were sheltered from it in the
grave. All those whom I loved, feared, or hated, all whose envy or whose
kindness I had hopes of contemplating with pleasure, were swept away,
and their place was filled by a new generation with other views and
other competitions; and among many proofs of the impotence of wealth, I
found that it conferred upon me very few distinctions in my native
place.

I am, Sir, &c.

SEROTINUS.



No. 166. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1751.

_Semper, eris pauper si pauper es, Aemiliane:
Dantur opes nullis nunc nisi divitibus_. MART. Lib. v. Ep. xxxi.

Once poor, my friend, still poor you must remain,
The rich alone have all the means of gain. EDW. CAVF.
[Transcriber's note: Difficult to make out in original--possibly CAVE? ]

No complaint has been more frequently repeated in all ages than that of
the neglect of merit associated with poverty, and the difficulty with
which valuable or pleasing qualities force themselves into view, when
they are obscured by indigence. It has been long observed, that native
beauty has little power to charm without the ornaments which fortune
bestows, and that to want the favour of others is often sufficient to
hinder us from obtaining it.

Every day discovers that mankind are not yet convinced of their errour,
or that their conviction is without power to influence their conduct;
for poverty still continues to produce contempt, and still obstructs the
claims of kindred and of virtue. The eye of wealth is elevated towards
higher stations, and seldom descends to examine the actions of those who
are placed below the level of its notice, and who in distant regions and
lower situations are struggling with distress, or toiling for bread.
Among the multitudes overwhelmed with insuperable calamity, it is common
to find those whom a very little assistance would enable to support
themselves with decency, and who yet cannot obtain from near relations,
what they see hourly lavished in ostentation, luxury, or frolick.

There are natural reasons why poverty does not easily conciliate
affection. He that has been confined from his infancy to the
conversation of the lowest classes of mankind, must necessarily want
those accomplishments which are the usual means of attracting favour;
and though truth, fortitude, and probity, give an indisputable right to
reverence and kindness, they will not be distinguished by common eyes,
unless they are brightened by elegance of manners, but are cast aside
like unpolished gems, of which none but the artist knows the intrinsick
value, till their asperities are smoothed, and their incrustations
rubbed away.

The grossness of vulgar habits obstructs the efficacy of virtue, as
impurity and harshness of style impair the force of reason, and rugged
numbers turn off the mind from artifice of disposition, and fertility of
invention. Few have strength of reason to over-rule the perceptions of
sense; and yet fewer have curiosity or benevolence to struggle long
against the first impression; he therefore who fails to please in his
salutation and address, is at once rejected, and never obtains an
opportunity of shewing his latent excellencies, or essential qualities.

It is, indeed, not easy to prescribe a successful manner of approach to
the distressed or necessitous, whose condition subjects every kind of
behaviour equally to miscarriage. He whose confidence of merit incites
him to meet, without any apparent sense of inferiority, the eyes of
those who flattered themselves with their own dignity, is considered as
an insolent leveller, impatient of the just prerogatives of rank and
wealth, eager to usurp the station to which he has no right, and to
confound the subordinations of society; and who would contribute to the
exaltation of that spirit which even want and calamity are not able to
restrain from rudeness and rebellion?

But no better success will commonly be found to attend servility and
dejection, which often give pride the confidence to treat them with
contempt. A request made with diffidence and timidity is easily denied,
because the petitioner himself seems to doubt its fitness.

Kindness is generally reciprocal; we are desirous of pleasing others,
because we receive pleasure from them; but by what means can the man
please, whose attention is engrossed by his distresses, and who has no
leisure to be officious; whose will is restrained by his necessities,
and who has no power to confer benefits; whose temper is perhaps
vitiated by misery, and whose understanding is impeded by ignorance?

It is yet a more offensive discouragement, that the same actions
performed by different hands produce different effects, and, instead of
rating the man by his performances, we rate too frequently the
performance by the man. It sometimes happens in the combinations of
life, that important services are performed by inferiors; but though
their zeal and activity may be paid by pecuniary rewards, they seldom
excite that flow of gratitude, or obtain that accumulation of
recompense, with which all think it their duty to acknowledge the favour
of those who descend to their assistance from a higher elevation. To be
obliged, is to be in some respect inferior to another[h]; and few
willingly indulge the memory of an action which raises one whom they
have always been accustomed to think below them, but satisfy themselves
with faint praise and penurious payment, and then drive it from their
own minds, and endeavour to conceal it from the knowledge of others.

It may be always objected to the services of those who can be supposed
to want a reward, that they were produced not by kindness but interest;
they are, therefore, when they are no longer wanted, easily disregarded
as arts of insinuation, or stratagems of selfishness. Benefits which are
received as gifts from wealth, are exacted as debts from indigence; and
he that in a high station is celebrated for superfluous goodness, would
in a meaner condition have barely been confessed to have done his duty.

It is scarcely possible for the utmost benevolence to oblige, when
exerted under the disadvantages of great inferiority; for, by the
habitual arrogance of wealth, such expectations are commonly formed as
no zeal or industry can satisfy; and what regard can he hope, who has
done less than was demanded from him?

There are indeed kindnesses conferred which were never purchased by
precedent favours, and there is an affection not arising from gratitude
or gross interest, by which similar natures, are attracted to each
other, without prospect of any other advantage than the pleasure of
exchanging sentiments, and the hope of confirming their esteem of
themselves by the approbation of each other. But this spontaneous
fondness seldom rises at the sight of poverty, which every one regards
with habitual contempt, and of which the applause is no more courted by
vanity, than the countenance is solicited by ambition. The most generous
and disinterested friendship must be resolved at last into the love of
ourselves; he therefore whose reputation or dignity inclines us to
consider his esteem as a testimonial of desert, will always find our
hearts open to his endearments. We every day see men of eminence
followed with all the obsequiousness of dependance, and courted with all
the blandishments of flattery, by those who want nothing from them but
professions of regard, and who think themselves liberally rewarded by a
bow, a smile, or an embrace.

But those prejudices which every mind feels more or less in favour of
riches, ought, like other opinions, which only custom and example have
impressed upon us, to be in time subjected to reason. We must learn how
to separate the real character from extraneous adhesions and casual
circumstances, to consider closely him whom we are about to adopt or to
reject; to regard his inclinations as well as his actions; to trace out
those virtues which lie torpid in the heart for want of opportunity, and
those vices that lurk unseen by the absence of temptation; that when we
find worth faintly shooting in the shades of obscurity, we may let in
light and sunshine upon it, and ripen barren volition into efficacy and
power.

[Footnote h: Sir Joshua Reynolds evinced great reach of mind and
intimate acquaintance with humanity, when he observed, on overhearing a
person condoling with some ladies on the death of one who had conferred
the greatest favours upon them, that at all events they were relieved
from the burden of gratitude. ]



No. 167. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1751.

Candida perpetuo reside, Concordia, lecto,
Tamque pari semper sit Venus æqua jugo.
Diligat illa senem quondam: sed et ipsa marito,
Tum quoque cum fuerit, non videatur, anus. MART. Lib, w. xii. 7.

Their nuptial bed may smiling concord dress,
And Venus still the happy union bless!
Wrinkled with age, may mutual love and truth
To their dim eyes recal the bloom of youth. F. LEWIS.

TO THE RAMBLER.

SIR,

It is not common to envy those with whom we cannot easily be placed in
comparison. Every man sees without malevolence the progress of another
in the tracks of life, which he has himself no desire to tread, and
hears, without inclination to cavils or contradiction, the renown of
those whose distance will not suffer them to draw the attention of
mankind from his own merit. The sailor never thinks it necessary to
contest the lawyer's abilities; nor would the Rambler, however jealous
of his reputation, be much disturbed by the success of rival wits at
Agra or Ispahan.

We do not therefore ascribe to you any superlative degree of virtue,
when we believe that we may inform you of our change of condition
without danger of malignant fascination; and that when you read of the
marriage of your correspondents Hymenæus and Tranquilla, you will join
your wishes to those of their other friends for the happy event of an
union in which caprice and selfishness had so little part.

There is at least this reason why we should be less deceived in our
connubial hopes than many who enter into the same state, that we have
allowed our minds to form no unreasonable expectations, nor vitiated our
fancies in the soft hours of courtship, with visions of felicity which
human power cannot bestow, or of perfection which human virtue cannot
attain. That impartiality with which we endeavour to inspect the manners
of all whom we have known was never so much overpowered by our passion,
but that we discovered some faults and weaknesses in each other; and
joined our hands in conviction, that as there are advantages to be
enjoyed in marriage, there are inconveniencies likewise to be endured;
and that, together with confederate intellects and auxiliar virtues, we
must find different opinions and opposite inclinations.

We however flatter ourselves, for who is not flattered by himself as
well as by others on the day of marriage? that we are eminently
qualified to give mutual pleasure. Our birth is without any such
remarkable disparity as can give either an opportunity of insulting the
other with pompous names and splendid alliances, or of calling in, upon
any domestick controversy, the overbearing assistance of powerful
relations. Our fortune was equally suitable, so that we meet without any
of those obligations, which always produce reproach or suspicion of
reproach, which, though they may be forgotten in the gaities of the
first month, no delicacy will always suppress, or of which the
suppression must be considered as a new favour, to be repaid by tameness
and submission, till gratitude takes the place of love, and the desire
of pleasing degenerates by degrees into the fear of offending.

The settlements caused no delay; for we did not trust our affairs to the
negociation of wretches, who would have paid their court by multiplying
stipulations. Tranquilla scorned to detain any part of her fortune from
him into whose hands she delivered up her person; and Hymenæus thought
no act of baseness more criminal than his who enslaves his wife by her
own generosity, who by marrying without a jointure, condemns her to all
the dangers of accident and caprice, and at last boasts his liberality,
by granting what only the indiscretion of her kindness enabled him to
withhold. He therefore received on the common terms the portion which
any other woman might have brought him, and reserved all the exuberance
of acknowledgment for those excellencies which he has yet been able to
discover only in Tranquilla.

We did not pass the weeks of courtship like those who consider
themselves as taking the last draught of pleasure, and resolve not to
quit the bowl without a surfeit, or who know themselves about to set
happiness to hazard, and endeavour to lose their sense of danger in the
ebriety of perpetual amusement, and whirl round the gulph before they
sink. Hymenæus often repeated a medical axiom, that _the succours of
sickness ought not to be wasted in health_. We know that however our
eyes may yet sparkle, and our hearts bound at the presence of each
other, the time of listlessness and satiety, of peevishness and
discontent, must come at last, in which we shall be driven for relief to
shows and recreations; that the uniformity of life must be sometimes
diversified, and the vacuities of conversation sometimes supplied. We
rejoice in the reflection that we have stores of novelty yet
unexhausted, which may be opened when repletion shall call for change,
and gratifications yet untasted, by which life, when it shall become
vapid or bitter, may be restored to its former sweetness and
sprightliness, and again irritate the appetite, and again sparkle in the
cup.

Our time will probably be less tasteless than that of those whom the
authority and avarice of parents unite almost without their consent in
their early years, before they have accumulated any fund of reflection,
or collected materials for mutual entertainment. Such we have often seen
rising in the morning to cards, and retiring in the afternoon to doze,
whose happiness was celebrated by their neighbours, because they
happened to grow rich by parsimony, and to be kept quiet in
insensibility, and agreed to eat and to sleep together.

We have both mingled with the world, and are therefore no strangers to
the faults and virtues, the designs and competitions, the hopes and
fears of our contemporaries. We have both amused our leisure with books,
and can therefore recount the events of former times, or cite the
dictates of ancient wisdom. Every occurrence furnishes us with some hint
which one or the other can improve, and if it should happen that memory
or imagination fail us, we can retire to no idle or unimproving
solitude.

Though our characters, beheld at a distance, exhibit this general
resemblance, yet a nearer inspection discovers such a dissimilitude of
our habitudes and sentiments, as leaves each some peculiar advantages,
and affords that _concordia discors_, that suitable disagreement which
is always necessary to intellectual harmony. There may be a total
diversity of ideas which admits no participation of the same delight,
and there may likewise be such a conformity of notions as leaves neither
any thing to add to the decisions of the other. With such contrariety
there can be no peace, with such similarity there can be no pleasure.
Our reasonings, though often formed upon different views, terminate
generally in the same conclusion. Our thoughts, like rivulets issuing
from distant springs, are each impregnated in its course with various
mixtures, and tinged by infusions unknown to the other, yet, at last,
easily unite into one stream, and purify themselves by the gentle
effervescence of contrary qualities.

These benefits we receive in a greater degree as we converse without
reserve, because we have nothing to conceal. We have no debts to be paid
by imperceptible deductions from avowed expenses, no habits to be
indulged by the private subserviency of a favoured servant, no private
interviews with needy relations, no intelligence with spies placed upon
each other. We considered marriage as the most solemn league of
perpetual friendship, a state from which artifice and concealment are to
be banished for ever, and in which every act of dissimulation is a
breach of faith.

The impetuous vivacity of youth, and that ardour of desire, which the
first sight of pleasure naturally produces, have long ceased to hurry us
into irregularity and vehemence; and experience has shewn us that few
gratifications are too valuable to be sacrificed to complaisance.

We have thought it convenient to rest from the fatigue of pleasure, and
now only continue that course of life into which we had before entered,
confirmed in our choice by mutual approbation, supported in our
resolution by mutual encouragement, and assisted in our efforts by
mutual exhortation.

Such, Mr. Rambler, is our prospect of life, a prospect which, as it is
beheld with more attention, seems to open more extensive happiness, and
spreads, by degrees, into the boundless regions of eternity. But if all
our prudence has been vain, and we are doomed to give one instance more
of the uncertainty of human discernment, we shall comfort ourselves
amidst our disappointments, that we were not betrayed but by such
delusions as caution could not escape, since we sought happiness only in
the arms of virtue.

We are, Sir,
Your humble Servants,
HYMENÆUS.
TRANQUILLA.



No. 168. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1751.

_--Decipit
Frons prima multos: rara mens intelligit,
Quod interiore condidit cura angulo_. PHÆDRUS, Lib. iv. Fab. i. 5.

The tinsel glitter, and the specious mien,
Delude the most; few pry behind the scene.

It has been observed by Boileau, that "a mean or common thought
expressed in pompous diction, generally pleases more than a new or noble
sentiment delivered in low and vulgar language; because the number is
greater of those whom custom has enabled to judge of words, than whom
study has qualified to examine things. " This solution might satisfy, if
such only were offended with meanness of expression as are unable to
distinguish propriety of thought, and to separate propositions or images
from the vehicles by which they are conveyed to the understanding. But
this kind of disgust is by no means confined to the ignorant or
superficial; it operates uniformly and universally upon readers of all
classes; every man, however profound or abstracted, perceives himself
irresistibly alienated by low terms; they who profess the most zealous
adherence to truth are forced to admit that she owes part of her charms
to her ornaments; and loses much of her power over the soul, when she
appears disgraced by a dress uncouth or ill-adjusted.

We are all offended by low terms, but are not disgusted alike by the
same compositions, because we do not all agree to censure the same terms
as low. No word is naturally or intrinsically meaner than another; our
opinion therefore of words, as of other things arbitrarily and
capriciously established, depends wholly upon accident and custom. The
cottager thinks those apartments splendid and spacious, which an
inhabitant of palaces will despise for their inelegance; and to him who
has passed most of his hours with the delicate and polite, many
expressions will seem sordid, which another, equally acute, may hear
without offence; but a mean term never fails to displease him to whom it
appears mean, as poverty is certainly and invariably despised, though he
who is poor in the eyes of some, may, by others, be envied for his
wealth.

Words become low by the occasions to which they are applied, or the
general character of them who use them; and the disgust which they
produce, arises from the revival of those images with which they are
commonly united. Thus if, in the most solemn discourse, a phrase happens
to occur which has been successfully employed in some ludicrous
narrative, the gravest auditor finds it difficult to refrain from
laughter, when they who are not prepossessed by the same accidental
association, are utterly unable to guess the reason of his merriment.
Words which convey ideas of dignity in one age, are banished from
elegant writing or conversation in another, because they are in time
debased by vulgar mouths, and can be no longer heard without the
involuntary recollection of unpleasing images.

When Macbeth is confirming himself in the horrid purpose of stabbing his
king, he breaks out amidst his emotions into a wish natural to a
murderer:

--Come, thick night!
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes;
Nor heav'n peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry, Hold! hold! --

In this passage is exerted all the force of poetry; that force which
calls new powers into being, which embodies sentiment, and animates
matter: yet, perhaps, scarce any man now peruses it without some
disturbance of his attention from the counteraction of the words to the
ideas. What can be more dreadful than to implore the presence of night,
invested, not in common obscurity, but in the smoke of hell? Yet the
efficacy of this invocation is destroyed by the insertion of an epithet
now seldom heard but in the stable, and _dun_ night may come or go
without any other notice than contempt.

If we start into raptures when some hero of the Iliad tells us that
[Greek: doru mainetai], his lance rages with eagerness to destroy; if we
are alarmed at the terrour of the soldiers commanded by Caesar to hew
down the sacred grove, who dreaded, says Lucan, lest the axe aimed at
the oak should fly back upon the striker:

--_Si robora sacra ferirent,
In sua credebaut redituras membra secures_;

None dares with impious steel the grove to rend,
Lest on himself the destin'd stroke descend;

we cannot surely but sympathise with the horrours of a wretch about to
murder his master, his friend, his benefactor, who suspects that the
weapon will refuse its office, and start back from the breast which he
is preparing to violate. Yet this sentiment is weakened by the name of
an instrument used by butchers and cooks in the meanest employments: we
do not immediately conceive that any crime of importance is to be
committed with a _knife_; or who does not, at last, from the long habit
of connecting a knife with sordid offices, feel aversion rather than
terrour?

Macbeth proceeds to wish, in the madness of guilt, that the inspection
of heaven may be intercepted, and that he may, in the involutions of
infernal darkness, escape the eye of Providence. This is the utmost
extravagance of determined wickedness; yet this is so debased by two
unfortunate words, that while I endeavour to impress on my reader the
energy of the sentiment, I can scarce check my risibility, when the
expression forces itself upon my mind; for who, without some relaxation
of his gravity, can hear of the avengers of guilt _peeping through a
blanket_?

These imperfections of diction are less obvious to the reader, as he is
less acquainted with common usages; they are therefore wholly
imperceptible to a foreigner, who learns our language from books, and
will strike a solitary academick less forcibly than a modish lady.

Among the numerous requisites that must concur to complete an author,
few are of more importance than an early entrance into the living world.
The seeds of knowledge may be planted in solitude, but must be
cultivated in publick. Argumentation may be taught in colleges, and
theories formed in retirement; but the artifice of embellishment, and
the powers of attraction, can be gained only by general converse.

An acquaintance with prevailing customs and fashionable elegance is
necessary likewise for other purposes. The injury that grand imagery
suffers from unsuitable language, personal merit may fear from rudeness
and indelicacy. When the success of Æneas depended on the favour of the
queen upon whose coasts he was driven, his celestial protectress thought
him not sufficiently secured against rejection by his piety or bravery,
but decorated him for the interview with preternatural beauty. Whoever
desires, for his writings or himself, what none can reasonably contemn,
the favour of mankind, must add grace to strength, and make his thoughts
agreeable as well as useful. Many complain of neglect who never tried to
attract regard. It cannot be expected that the patrons of science or
virtue should be solicitous to discover excellencies, which they who
possess them shade and disguise. Few have abilities so much needed by
the rest of the world as to be caressed on their own terms; and he that
will not condescend to recommend himself by external embellishments,
must submit to the fate of just sentiment meanly expressed, and be
ridiculed and forgotten before he is understood.



No. 169. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1751.

_Nec pluteum cædit, nec demorsos sapit ungues_. PER. Sat. i. 106.

No blood from bitten nails those poems drew;
But churn'd, like spittle, from the lips they flew. DRYDEN.

Natural historians assert, that whatever is formed for long duration
arrives slowly to its maturity. Thus the firmest timber is of tardy
growth, and animals generally exceed each other in longevity, in
proportion to the time between their conception and their birth.

The same observation may be extended to the offspring of the mind. Hasty
compositions, however they please at first by flowery luxuriance, and
spread in the sunshine of temporary favour, can seldom endure the change
of seasons, but perish at the first blast of criticism, or frost of
neglect. When Apelles was reproached with the paucity of his
productions, and the incessant attention with which he retouched his
pieces, he condescended to make no other answer than that _he painted
for perpetuity_.

No vanity can more justly incur contempt and indignation than that which
boasts of negligence and hurry. For who can bear with patience the
writer who claims such superiority to the rest of his species, as to
imagine mankind are at leisure for attention to his extemporary sallies,
and that posterity will reposite his casual effusions among the
treasures of ancient wisdom?

Men have sometimes appeared of such transcendent abilities, that their
slightest and most cursory performances excel all that labour and study
can enable meaner intellects to compose; as there are regions of which
the spontaneous products cannot be equalled in other soils by care and
culture. But it is no less dangerous for any man to place himself in
this rank of understanding, and fancy that he is born to be illustrious
without labour, than to omit the cares of husbandry, and expect from his
ground the blossoms of Arabia.

The greatest part of those who congratulate themselves upon their
intellectual dignity, and usurp the privileges of genius, are men whom
only themselves would ever have marked out as enriched by uncommon
liberalities of nature, or entitled to veneration and immortality on
easy terms. This ardour of confidence is usually found among those who,
having not enlarged their notions by books or conversation, are
persuaded, by the partiality which we all feel in our own favour, that
they have reached the summit of excellence, because they discover none
higher than themselves; and who acquiesce in the first thoughts that
occur, because their scantiness of knowledge allows them little choice;
and the narrowness of their views affords them no glimpse of perfection,
of that sublime idea which human industry has from the first ages been
vainly toiling to approach. They see a little, and believe that there is
nothing beyond their sphere of vision, as the Patuecos of Spain, who
inhabited a small valley, conceived the surrounding mountains to be the
boundaries of the world. In proportion as perfection is more distinctly
conceived, the pleasure of contemplating our own performances will be
lessened; it may therefore be observed, that they who most deserve
praise are often afraid to decide in favour of their own performances;
they know how much is still wanting to their completion, and wait with
anxiety and terrour the determination of the publick. _I please every
one else_, says Tally, _but never satisfy myself_.

It has often been inquired, why, notwithstanding the advances of later
ages in science, and the assistance which the infusion of so many new
ideas has given us, we fall below the ancients in the art of
composition. Some part of their superiority may be justly ascribed to
the graces of their language, from which the most polished of the
present European tongues are nothing more than barbarous degenerations.
Some advantage they might gain merely by priority, which put them in
possession of the most natural sentiments, and left us nothing but
servile repetition or forced conceits. But the greater part of their
praise seems to have been the just reward of modesty and labour. Their
sense of human weakness confined them commonly to one study, which their
knowledge of the extent of every science engaged them to prosecute with
indefatigable diligence.

Among the writers of antiquity I remember none except Statius who
ventures to mention the speedy production of his writings, either as an
extenuation of his faults, or a proof of his facility. Nor did Statius,
when he considered himself as a candidate for lasting reputation, think
a closer attention unnecessary, but amidst all his pride and indigence,
the two great hasteners of modern poems, employed twelve years upon the
Thebaid, and thinks his claim to renown proportionate to his labour.

_Thebais, multa cruciata lima,
Tentat, audaci fide, Mantuanæ
Gaudia famæ_.

Polish'd with endless toil, my lays
At length aspire to Mantuan praise.

Ovid indeed apologizes in his banishment for the imperfection of his
letters, but mentions his want of leisure to polish them as an addition
to his calamities; and was so far from imagining revisals and
corrections unnecessary, that at his departure from Rome, he threw his
Metamorphoses into the fire, lest he should be disgraced by a book which
he could not hope to finish.

It seems not often to have happened that the same writer aspired to
reputation in verse and prose; and of those few that attempted such
diversity of excellence, I know not that even one succeeded. Contrary
characters they never imagined a single mind able to support, and
therefore no man is recorded to have undertaken more than one kind of
dramatick poetry.

What they had written, they did not venture in their first fondness to
thrust into the world, but, considering the impropriety of sending forth
inconsiderately that which cannot be recalled, deferred the publication,
if not nine years, according to the direction of Horace, yet till their
fancy was cooled after the raptures of invention, and the glare of
novelty had ceased to dazzle the judgment.

There were in those days no weekly or diurnal writers; _multa dies et
multa litura_, much time, and many rasures, were considered as
indispensable requisites; and that no other method of attaining lasting
praise has been yet discovered, may be conjectured from the blotted
manuscripts of Milton now remaining, and from the tardy emission of
Pope's compositions, delayed more than once till the incidents to which
they alluded were forgotten, till his enemies were secure from his
satire, and, what to an honest mind must be more painful, his friends
were deaf to his encomiums.

To him, whose eagerness of praise hurries his productions soon into the
light, many imperfections are unavoidable, even where the mind furnishes
the materials, as well as regulates their disposition, and nothing
depends upon search or information. Delay opens new veins of thought,
the subject dismissed for a time appears with a new train of dependent
images, the accidents of reading our conversation supply new ornaments
or allusions, or mere intermission of the fatigue of thinking enables
the mind to collect new force, and make new excursions. But all those
benefits come too late for him, who, when he was weary with labour,
snatched at the recompense, and gave his work to his friends and his
enemies, as soon as impatience and pride persuaded him to conclude it.

One of the most pernicious effects of haste, is obscurity. He that teems
with a quick succession of ideas, and perceives how one sentiment
produces another, easily believes that he can clearly express what he so
strongly comprehends; he seldom suspects his thoughts of embarrassment,
while he preserves in his own memory the series of connection, or his
diction of ambiguity, while only one sense is present to his mind. Yet
if he has been employed on an abstruse, or complicated argument, he will
find, when he has awhile withdrawn his mind, and returns as a new reader
to his work, that he has only a conjectural glimpse of his own meaning,
and that to explain it to those whom he desires to instruct, he must
open his sentiments, disentangle his method, and alter his arrangement.

Authors and lovers always suffer some infatuation, from which only
absence can set them free; and every man ought to restore himself to the
full exercise of his judgment, before he does that which he cannot do
improperly, without injuring his honour and his quiet.



No. 170. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1751.

_Confiteor; si quid prodest delicta fateri_.
OVID. Am. Lib. i. El.