No More Learning

Before disappointments have enforced the dictates of philosophy, we
believe it in our power to shorten the interval between the first cause
and the last effect; we laugh at the timorous delays of plodding
industry, and fancy that, by increasing the fire, we can at pleasure
accelerate the projection.

At our entrance into the world, when health and vigour give us fair
promises of time sufficient for the regular maturation of our schemes,
and a long enjoyment of our acquisitions, we are eager to seize the
present moment; we pluck every gratification within our reach, without
suffering it to ripen into perfection, and crowd all the varieties of
delight into a narrow compass; but age seldom fails to change our
conduct; we grow negligent of time in proportion as we have less
remaining, and suffer the last part of life to steal from us in languid
preparations for future undertakings, or slow approaches to remote
advantages, in weak hopes of some fortuitous occurrence, or drowsy
equilibrations of undetermined counsel: whether it be that the aged,
having tasted the pleasures of man's condition, and found them delusive,
become less anxious for their attainment; or that frequent miscarriages
have depressed them to despair, and frozen them to inactivity; or that
death shocks them more as it advances upon them, and they are afraid to
remind themselves of their decay, or to discover to their own hearts
that the time of trifling is past. A perpetual conflict with natural
desires seems to be the lot of our present state. In youth we require
something of the tardiness and frigidity of age; and in age we must
labour to recal the fire and impetuosity of youth; in youth we must
learn to expect, and in age to enjoy.

The torment of expectation is, indeed, not easily to be borne at a time
when every idea of gratification fires the blood, and flashes on the
fancy; when the heart is vacant to every fresh form of delight, and has
no rival engagements to withdraw it from the importunities of a new
desire. Yet, since the fear of missing what we seek must always be
proportionable to the happiness expected from possessing it, the
passions, even in this tempestuous state, might be somewhat moderated by
frequent inculcation of the mischief of temerity, and the hazard of
losing that which we endeavour to seize before our time.

He that too early aspires to honours, must resolve to encounter not only
the opposition of interest, but the malignity of envy. He that is too
eager to be rich, generally endangers his fortune in wild adventures,
and uncertain projects; and he that hastens too speedily to reputation,
often raises his character by artifices and fallacies, decks himself in
colours which quickly fade, or in plumes which accident may shake off,
or competition pluck away.

The danger of early eminence has been extended by some, even to the
gifts of nature; and an opinion has been long conceived, that quickness
of invention, accuracy of judgment, or extent of knowledge, appearing
before the usual time, presage a short life. Even those who are less
inclined to form general conclusions, from instances which by their own
nature must be rare, have yet been inclined to prognosticate no suitable
progress from the first sallies of rapid wits; but have observed, that
after a short effort they either loiter or faint, and suffer themselves
to be surpassed by the even and regular perseverance of slower
understandings.

It frequently happens, that applause abates diligence. Whoever finds
himself to have performed more than was demanded, will be contented to
spare the labour of unnecessary performances, and sit down to enjoy at
ease his superfluities of honour. He whom success has made confident of
his abilities, quickly claims the privilege of negligence, and looks
contemptuously on the gradual advances of a rival, whom he imagines
himself able to leave behind whenever he shall again summon his force to
the contest. But long intervals of pleasure dissipate attention, and
weaken constancy; nor is it easy for him that has sunk from diligence
into sloth, to rouse out of his lethargy, to recollect his notions,
rekindle his curiosity, and engage with his former ardour in the toils
of study.

Even that friendship which intends the reward of genius, too often tends
to obstruct it. The pleasure of being caressed, distinguished, and
admired, easily seduces the student from literary solitude. He is ready
to follow the call which summons him to hear his own praise, and which,
perhaps, at once flatters his appetite with certainty of pleasures, and
his ambition with hopes of patronage; pleasures which he conceives
inexhaustible, and hopes which he has not yet learned to distrust.

These evils, indeed, are by no means to be imputed to nature, or
considered as inseparable from an early display of uncommon abilities.
They may be certainly escaped by prudence and resolution, and must
therefore be recounted rather as consolations to those who are less
liberally endowed, than as discouragements to such as are born with
uncommon qualities. Beauty is well known to draw after it the
persecutions of impertinence, to incite the artifices of envy, and to
raise the flames of unlawful love; yet, among the ladies whom prudence
or modesty have made most eminent, who has ever complained of the
inconveniences of an amiable form? or would have purchased safety by the
loss of charms?

Neither grace of person, nor vigour of understanding, are to be regarded
otherwise than as blessings, as means of happiness indulged by the
Supreme Benefactor; but the advantages of either may be lost by too much
eagerness to obtain them. A thousand beauties in their first blossom, by
an imprudent exposure to the open world, have suddenly withered at the
blast of infamy; and men who might have subjected new regions to the
empire of learning, have been lured by the praise of their first
productions from academical retirement, and wasted their days in vice
and dependance. The virgin who too soon aspires to celebrity and
conquest, perishes by childish vanity, ignorant credulity, or guiltless
indiscretion. The genius who catches at laurels and preferment before
his time, mocks the hopes that he had excited, and loses those years
which might have been most usefully employed, the years of youth, of
spirit, and vivacity.

It is one of the innumerable absurdities of pride, that we are never
more impatient of direction, than in that part of life when we need it
most; we are in haste to meet enemies whom we have not strength to
overcome, and to undertake tasks which we cannot perform: and as he that
once miscarries does not easily persuade mankind to favour another
attempt, an ineffectual struggle for fame is often followed by perpetual
obscurity.

[Footnote b: The perusal of these profound remarks on penance and
repentance had so powerful an effect on one of the English Benedictine
monks (The Rev. James Compton) at Paris, as to lead him from the errours
of Popery! For an account of Dr. Johnson's true benevolence through the
whole of this interesting occasion, see Malone's note to Boswell's Life
of Johnson, vol. iv. p. 210--edit. 1822. ]



No. 112. SATURDAY, APRIL 13, 1751.

_In mea vesanas habui dispendia vires,
Et valui pænam fortis in ipse meain_. OVID, Am. Lib. i. vii. 25.

Of strength pernicious to myself I boast;
The pow'rs I have were given me to my cost. F. LEWIS.

We are taught by Celsus, that health is best preserved by avoiding
settled habits of life, and deviating sometimes into slight aberrations
from the laws of medicine; by varying the proportions of food and
exercise, interrupting the successions of rest and labour, and mingling
hardships with indulgence. The body, long accustomed to stated
quantities and uniform periods, is disordered by the smallest
irregularity; and since we cannot adjust every day by the balance or
barometer, it is fit sometimes to depart from rigid accuracy, that we
may be able to comply with necessary affairs, or strong inclinations. He
that too long observes nice punctualities, condemns himself to voluntary
imbecility, and will not long escape the miseries of disease.

The same laxity of regimen is equally necessary to intellectual health,
and to a perpetual susceptibility of occasional pleasure. Long
confinement to the same company which perhaps similitude of taste
brought first together, quickly contracts the faculties, and makes a
thousand things offensive that are in themselves indifferent; a man
accustomed to hear only the echo of his own sentiments, soon bars all
the common avenues of delight, and has no part in the general
gratifications of mankind.

In things which are not immediately subject to religious or moral
consideration, it is dangerous to be too rigidly in the right.
Sensibility may, by an incessant attention to elegance and propriety, be
quickened to a tenderness inconsistent with the condition of humanity,
irritable by the smallest asperity, and vulnerable by the gentlest
touch. He that pleases himself too much with minute exactness, and
submits to endure nothing in accommodations, attendance, or address,
below the point of perfection, will, whenever he enters the crowd of
life, be harassed with innumerable distresses, from which those who have
not in the same manner increased their sensations find no disturbance.
His exotick softness will shrink at the coarseness of vulgar felicity,
like a plant transplanted to northern nurseries, from the dews and
sunshine of the tropical regions.

There will always be a wide interval between practical and ideal
excellence; and, therefore, if we allow not ourselves to be satisfied
while we can perceive any errour or defect, we must refer our hopes of
ease to some other period of existence. It is well known, that, exposed
to a microscope, the smoothest polish of the most solid bodies discovers
cavities and prominences; and that the softest bloom of roseate
virginity repels the eye with excrescences and discolorations. The
perceptions as well as the senses may be improved to our own disquiet,
and we may, by diligent cultivation of the powers of dislike, raise in
time an artificial fastidiousness, which shall fill the imagination with
phantoms of turpitude, shew us the naked skeleton of every delight, and
present us only with the pains of pleasure, and the deformities of
beauty.

Peevishness, indeed, would perhaps very little disturb the peace of
mankind, were it always the consequence of superfluous delicacy; for it
is the privilege only of deep reflection, or lively fancy, to destroy
happiness by art and refinement. But by continual indulgence of a
particular humour, or by long enjoyment of undisputed superiority, the
dull and thoughtless may likewise acquire the power of tormenting
themselves and others, and become sufficiently ridiculous or hateful to
those who are within sight of their conduct, or reach of their
influence.

They that have grown old in a single state are generally found to be
morose, fretful, and captious; tenacious of their own practices and
maxims; soon offended by contradiction or negligence; and impatient of
any association, but with those that will watch their nod, and submit
themselves to unlimited authority. Such is the effect of having lived
without the necessity of consulting any inclination but their own.

The irascibility of this class of tyrants is generally exerted upon
petty provocations, such as are incident to understandings not far
extended beyond the instincts of animal life; but, unhappily, he that
fixes his attention on things always before him, will never have long
cessations of anger. There are many veterans of luxury upon whom every
noon brings a paroxysm of violence, fury, and execration; they never sit
down to their dinner without finding the meat so injudiciously bought,
or so unskilfully dressed, such blunders in the seasoning, or such
improprieties in the sauce, as can scarcely be expiated without blood;
and, in the transports of resentment, make very little distinction
between guilt and innocence, but let fly their menaces, or growl out
their discontent, upon all whom fortune exposes to the storm.

It is not easy to imagine a more unhappy condition than that of
dependance on a peevish man. In every other state of inferiority the
certainty of pleasing is perpetually increased by a fuller knowledge of
our duty; and kindness and confidence are strengthened by every new act
of trust, and proof of fidelity. But peevishness sacrifices to a
momentory offence the obsequiousness or usefulness of half a life, and,
as more is performed, increases her exactions.

Chrysalus gained a fortune by trade, and retired into the country; and,
having a brother burthened by the number of his children, adopted one of
his sons. The boy was dismissed with many prudent admonitions; informed
of his father's inability to maintain him in his native rank; cautioned
against all opposition to the opinions or precepts of his uncle; and
animated to perseverance by the hopes of supporting the honour of the
family, and overtopping his elder brother. He had a natural ductility of
mind, without much warmth of affection, or elevation of sentiment; and
therefore readily complied with every variety of caprice; patiently
endured contradictory reproofs; heard false accusations without pain,
and opprobrious reproaches without reply; laughed obstreperously at the
ninetieth repetition of a joke; asked questions about the universal
decay of trade; admired the strength of those heads by which the price
of stocks is changed and adjusted; and behaved with such prudence and
circumspection, that after six years the will was made, and Juvenculus
was declared heir. But unhappily, a month afterwards, retiring at night
from his uncle's chamber, he left the door open behind him: the old man
tore his will, and being then perceptibly declining, for want of time to
deliberate, left his money to a trading company.

When female minds are embittered by age or solitude, their malignity is
generally exerted in a rigorous and spiteful superintendance of domestic
trifles. Eriphile has employed her eloquence for twenty years upon the
degeneracy of servants, the nastiness of her house, the ruin of her
furniture, the difficulty of preserving tapestry from the moths, and the
carelessness of the sluts whom she employs in brushing it. It is her
business every morning to visit all the rooms, in hopes of finding a
chair without its cover, a window shut or open contrary to her orders, a
spot on the hearth, or a feather on the floor, that the rest of the day
may be justifiably spent in taunts of contempt, and vociferations of
anger. She lives for no other purpose but to preserve the neatness of a
house and gardens, and feels neither inclination to pleasure, nor
aspiration after virtue, while she is engrossed by the great employment
of keeping gravel from grass, and wainscot from dust. Of three amiable
nieces she has declared herself an irreconcileable enemy; to one,
because she broke off a tulip with her hoop; to another, because she
spilt her coffee on a Turkey carpet; and to the third, because she let a
wet dog run into the parlour. She has broken off her intercourse of
visits, because company makes a house dirty; and resolves to confine
herself more to her own affairs, and to live no longer in mire by
foolish lenity.

Peevishness is generally the vice of narrow minds, and, except when it
is the effect of anguish and disease, by which the resolution is broken,
and the mind made too feeble to bear the lightest addition to its
miseries, proceeds from an unreasonable persuasion of the importance of
trifles. The proper remedy against it is, to consider the dignity of
human nature, and the folly of suffering perturbation and uneasiness
from causes unworthy of our notice.

He that resigns his peace to little casualties, and suffers the course
of his life to be interrupted by fortuitous inadvertencies, or offences,
delivers up himself to the direction of the wind, and loses all that
constancy and equanimity which constitute the chief praise of a wise
man.

The province of prudence lies between the greatest things and the least;
some surpass our power by their magnitude, and some escape our notice by
their number and their frequency. But the indispensable business of life
will afford sufficient exercise to every understanding; and such is the
limitation of the human powers, that by attention to trifles we must let
things of importance pass unobserved: when we examine a mite with a
glass, we see nothing but a mite.

That it is every man's interest to be pleased, will need little proof:
that it is his interest to please others, experience will inform him. It
is therefore not less necessary to happiness than to virtue, that he rid
his mind of passions which make him uneasy to himself, and hateful to
the world, which enchain his intellects, and obstruct his improvement.



No. 113. TUESDAY, APRIL 16, 1751.

--_Uxorem, Postume, ducis?
Die, qua Tisiphone, quibus exagitere colubris? _ JUV. Sat. vi. 28.

A sober man like thee to change his life!
What fury would possess thee with a wife? DRYDEN.

TO THE RAMBLER.

SIR,

I know not whether it is always a proof of innocence to treat censure
with contempt. We owe so much reverence to the wisdom of mankind, as
justly to wish, that our own opinion of our merit may be ratified by the
concurrence of other suffrages; and since guilt and infamy must have the
same effect upon intelligences unable to pierce beyond external
appearance, and influenced often rather by example than precept, we are
obliged to refute a false charge, lest we should countenance the crime
which we have never committed. To turn away from an accusation with
supercilious silence, is equally in the power of him that is hardened by
villany, and inspirited by innocence. The wall of brass which Horace
erects upon a clear conscience, may be sometimes raised by impudence or
power; and we should always wish to preserve the dignity of virtue by
adorning her with graces which wickedness cannot assume.

For this reason I have determined no longer to endure, with either
patient or sullen resignation, a reproach, which is, at least in my
opinion, unjust; but will lay my case honestly before you, that you or
your readers may at length decide it.

Whether you will be able to preserve your boasted impartiality, when you
hear that I am considered as an adversary by half the female world, you
may surely pardon me for doubting, notwithstanding the veneration to
which you may imagine yourself entitled by your age, your learning, your
abstraction, or your virtue. Beauty, Mr. Rambler, has often overpowered
the resolutions of the firm, and the reasonings of the wise, roused the
old to sensibility, and subdued the rigorous to softness.

I am one of those unhappy beings, who have been marked out as husbands
for many different women, and deliberated a hundred times on the brink
of matrimony. I have discussed all the nuptial preliminaries so often,
that I can repeat the forms in which jointures are settled, pin-money
secured, and provisions for younger children ascertained; but am at last
doomed by general consent to everlasting solitude, and excluded by an
irreversible decree from all hopes of connubial felicity. I am pointed
out by every mother, as a man whose visits cannot be admitted without
reproach; who raises hopes only to embitter disappointment, and makes
offers only to seduce girls into a waste of that part of life, in which
they might gain advantageous matches, and become mistresses and mothers.

I hope you will think, that some part of this penal severity may justly
be remitted, when I inform you, that I never yet professed love to a
woman without sincere intentions of marriage; that I have never
continued an appearance of intimacy from the hour that my inclination
changed, but to preserve her whom I was leaving from the shock of
abruptness, or the ignominy of contempt; that I always endeavoured to
give the ladies an opportunity of seeming to discard me; and that I
never forsook a mistress for larger fortune, or brighter beauty, but
because I discovered some irregularity in her conduct, or some depravity
in her mind; not because I was charmed by another, but because I was
offended by herself.

I was very early tired of that succession of amusements by which the
thoughts of most young men are dissipated, and had not long glittered in
the splendour of an ample patrimomy [Transcriber's note: sic] before I
wished for the calm of domestick happiness. Youth is naturally delighted
with sprightliness and ardour, and therefore I breathed out the sighs of
my first affection at the feet of the gay, the sparkling, the vivacious
Ferocula. I fancied to myself a perpetual source of happiness in wit
never exhausted, and spirit never depressed; looked with veneration on
her readiness of expedients, contempt of difficulty, assurance of
address, and promptitude of reply; considered her as exempt by some
prerogative of nature from the weakness and timidity of female minds;
and congratulated myself upon a companion superior to all common
troubles and embarrassments. I was, indeed, somewhat disturbed by the
unshaken perseverance with which she enforced her demands of an
unreasonable settlement; yet I should have consented to pass my life in
union with her, had not my curiosity led me to a crowd gathered in the
street, where I found Ferocula, in the presence of hundreds, disputing
for six-pence with a chairman. I saw her in so little need of
assistance, that it was no breach of the laws of chivalry to forbear
interposition, and I spared myself the shame of owning her acquaintance.
I forgot some point of ceremony at our next interview, and soon provoked
her to forbid me her presence.

My next attempt was upon a lady of great eminence for learning and
philosophy. I had frequently observed the barrenness and uniformity of
connubial conversation, and therefore thought highly of my own prudence
and discernment, when I selected from a multitude of wealthy beauties,
the deep-read Misothea, who declared herself the inexorable enemy of
ignorant pertness, and puerile levity; and scarcely condescended to make
tea, but for the linguist, the geometrician, the astronomer, or the
poet. The queen of the Amazons was only to be gained by the hero who
could conquer her in single combat; and Misothea's heart was only to
bless the scholar who could overpower her by disputation. Amidst the
fondest transports of courtship she could call for a definition of
terms, and treated every argument with contempt that could not be
reduced to regular syllogism. You may easily imagine, that I wished this
courtship at an end; but when I desired her to shorten my torments, and
fix the day of my felicity, we were led into a long conversation, in
which Misothea endeavoured to demonstrate the folly of attributing
choice and self-direction to any human being. It was not difficult to
discover the danger of committing myself for ever to the arms of one who
might at any time mistake the dictates of passion, or the calls of
appetite, for the decree of fate; or consider cuckoldom as necessary to
the general system, as a link in the everlasting chain of successive
causes. I therefore told her, that destiny had ordained us to part, and
that nothing should have torn me from her but the talons of necessity.

I then solicited the regard of the calm, the prudent, the economical
Sophronia, a lady who considered wit as dangerous, and learning as
superfluous, and thought that the woman who kept her house clean, and
her accounts exact, took receipts for every payment, and could find them
at a sudden call, inquired nicely after the condition of the tenants,
read the price of stocks once a-week, and purchased every thing at the
best market, could want no accomplishments necessary to the happiness of
a wise man. She discoursed with great solemnity on the care and
vigilance which the superintendance of a family demands; observed how
many were ruined by confidence in servants; and told me, that she never
expected honesty but from a strong chest, and that the best storekeeper
was the mistress's eye. Many such oracles of generosity she uttered, and
made every day new improvements in her schemes for the regulations of
her servants, and the distribution of her time. I was convinced that,
whatever I might suffer from Sophronia, I should escape poverty; and we
therefore proceeded to adjust the settlements according to her own rule,
fair and softly. But one morning her maid came to me in tears to intreat
my interest for a reconciliation with her mistress, who had turned her
out at night for breaking six teeth in a tortoise-shell comb; she had
attended her lady from a distant province, and having not lived long
enough to save much money, was destitute among strangers, and, though of
a good family, in danger of perishing in the streets, or of being
compelled by hunger to prostitution. I made no scruple of promising to
restore her; but upon my first application to Sophronia, was answered
with an air which called for approbation, that if she neglected her own
affairs, I might suspect her of neglecting mine; that the comb stood her
in three half crowns; that no servant should wrong her twice; and that
indeed she took the first opportunity of parting with Phillida, because,
though she was honest, her constitution was bad, and she thought her
very likely to fall sick. Of our conferrence I need not tell you the
effect; it surely may be forgiven me, if on this occasion I forgot the
decency of common forms.

From two more ladies I was disengaged by finding, that they entertained
my rivals at the same time, and determined their choice by the
liberality of our settlements. Another, I thought myself justified in
forsaking, because she gave my attorney a bribe to favour her in the
bargain; another because I could never soften her to tenderness, till
she heard that most of my family had died young; and another, because,
to increase her fortune by expectations, she represented her sister as
languishing and consumptive.

I shall in another letter give the remaining part of my history of
courtship. I presume that I should hitherto have injured the majesty of
female virtue, had I not hoped to transfer my affection to higher merit.

I am, &c.

HYMENAEUS.



No. 114. SATURDAY, APRIL 20, 1751.

--_Audi,
Nulla umquum de morte hominis cunctatio longa est. _ JUV. Sat. vi. 220.

--When man's life is in debate,
The judge can ne'er too long deliberate. DRYDEN.

Power and superiority are so flattering and delightful, that, fraught
with temptation, and exposed to danger, as they are, scarcely any virtue
is so cautious, or any prudence so timorous, as to decline them. Even
those that have most reverence for the laws of right, are pleased with
shewing that not fear, but choice, regulates their behaviour; and would
be thought to comply, rather than obey. We love to overlook the
boundaries which we do not wish to pass; and, as the Roman satirist
remarks, he that has no design to take the life of another, is yet glad
to have it in his hands.

From the same principle, tending yet more to degeneracy and corruption,
proceeds the desire of investing lawful authority with terrour, and
governing by force rather than persuasion. Pride is unwilling to believe
the necessity of assigning any other reason than her own will; and would
rather maintain the most equitable claims by violence and penalties,
than descend from the dignity of command to dispute and expostulation.

It may, I think, be suspected, that this political arrogance has
sometimes found its way into legislative assemblies, and mingled with
deliberations upon property and life. A slight perusal of the laws by
which the measures of vindictive and coercive justice are established,
will discover so many disproportions between crimes and punishments,
such capricious distinctions of guilt, and such confusion of remissness
and severity, as can scarcely be believed to have been produced by
publick wisdom, sincerely and calmly studious of publick happiness.

The learned, the judicious, the pious Boerhaave relates, that he never
saw a criminal dragged to execution without asking himself, "Who knows
whether this man is not less culpable than me? " On the days when the
prisons of this city are emptied into the grave, let every spectator of
the dreadful procession put the same question to his own heart. Few
among those that crowd in thousands to the legal massacre, and look with
carelessness, perhaps with triumph, on the utmost exacerbations of human
misery, would then be able to return without horrour and dejection. For,
who can congratulate himself upon a life passed without some act more
mischievous to the peace or prosperity of others, than the theft of a
piece of money?

It has been always the practice, when any particular species of robbery
becomes prevalent and common, to endeavour its suppression by capital
denunciations. Thus one generation of malefactors is commonly cut off,
and their successors are frighted into new expedients; the art of
thievery is augmented with greater variety of fraud, and subtilized to
higher degrees of dexterity, and more occult methods of conveyance. The
law then renews the pursuit in the heat of anger, and overtakes the
offender again with death. By this practice capital inflictions are
multiplied, and crimes, very different in their degrees of enormity, are
equally subjected to the severest punishment that man has the power of
exercising upon man.

The lawgiver is undoubtedly allowed to estimate the malignity of an
offence, not merely by the loss or pain which single acts may produce,
but by the general alarm and anxiety arising from the fear of mischief,
and insecurity of possession: he therefore exercises the right which
societies are supposed to have over the lives of those that compose
them, not simply to punish a transgression, but to maintain order, and
preserve quiet; he enforces those laws with severity, that are most in
danger of violation, as the commander of a garrison doubles the guard on
that side which is threatened by the enemy.

This method has been long tried, but tried with so little success, that
rapine and violence are hourly increasing, yet few seem willing to
despair of its efficacy; and of those who employ their speculations upon
the present corruption of the people, some propose the introduction of
more horrid, lingering, and terrifick punishments; some are inclined to
accelerate the executions; some to discourage pardons; and all seem to
think that lenity has given confidence to wickedness, and that we can
only be rescued from the talons of robbery by inflexible rigour, and
sanguinary justice.

Yet, since the right of setting an uncertain and arbitrary value upon
life has been disputed, and since experience of past times gives us
little reason to hope that any reformation will be effected by a
periodical havock of our fellow-beings, perhaps it will not be useless
to consider what consequences might arise from relaxations of the law,
and a more rational and equitable adaptation of penalties to offences.

Death is, as one of the ancients observes, [Greek: to ton phoberon
phoberotaton], _of dreadful things the most dreadful_: an evil, beyond
which nothing can be threatened by sublunary power, or feared from human
enmity or vengeance. This terrour should, therefore, be reserved as the
last resort of authority, as the strongest and most operative of
prohibitory sanctions, and placed before the treasure of life, to guard
from invasion what cannot be restored. To equal robbery with murder is
to reduce murder to robbery; to confound in common minds the gradations
of iniquity, and incite the commission of a greater crime to prevent the
detection of a less. If only murder were punished with death, very few
robbers would stain their hands in blood; but when, by the last act of
cruelty, no new danger is incurred, and greater security may be
obtained, upon what principle shall we bid them forbear?

It may be urged, that the sentence is often mitigated to simple robbery;
but surely this is to confess that our laws are unreasonable in our own
opinion; and, indeed, it may be observed, that all but murderers have,
at their last hour, the common sensations of mankind pleading in their
favour.

From this conviction of the inequality of the punishment to the offence,
proceeds the frequent solicitation of pardons. They who would rejoice at
the correction of a thief, are yet shocked at the thought of destroying
him. His crime shrinks to nothing, compared with his misery; and
severity defeats itself by exciting pity.

The gibbet, indeed, certainly disables those who die upon it from
infesting the community; but their death seems not to contribute more to
the reformation of their associates, than any other method of
separation. A thief seldom passes much of his time in recollection or
anticipation, but from robbery hastens to riot, and from riot to
robbery; nor, when the grave closes on his companion, has any other care
than to find another.

The frequency of capital punishments, therefore, rarely hinders the
commission of a crime, but naturally and commonly prevents its
detection, and is, if we proceed only upon prudential principles,
chiefly for that reason to be avoided. Whatever may be urged by casuists
or politicians, the greater part of mankind, as they can never think
that to pick the pocket and to pierce the heart is equally criminal,
will scarcely believe that two malefactors so different in guilt can be
justly doomed to the same punishment: nor is the necessity of submitting
the conscience to human laws so plainly evinced, so clearly stated, or
so generally allowed, but that the pious, the tender, and the just, will
always scruple to concur with the community in an act which their
private judgment cannot approve.

He who knows not how often rigorous laws produce total impunity, and how
many crimes are concealed and forgotten for fear of hurrying the
offender to that state in which there is no repentance, has conversed
very little with mankind. And whatever epithets of reproach or contempt
this compassion may incur from those who confound cruelty with firmness,
I know not whether any wise man would wish it less powerful, or less
extensive.

If those whom the wisdom of our laws has condemned to die, had been
detected in their rudiments of robbery, they might, by proper discipline
and useful labour, have been disentangled from their habits, they might
have escaped all the temptation to subsequent crimes, and passed their
days in reparation and penitence; and detected they might all have been,
had the prosecutors been certain that their lives would have been
spared. I believe, every thief will confess, that he has been more than
once seized and dismissed; and that he has sometimes ventured upon
capital crimes, because he knew, that those whom he injured would rather
connive at his escape, than cloud their minds with the horrours of his
death.

All laws against wickedness are ineffectual, unless some will inform,
and some will prosecute; but till we mitigate the penalties for mere
violations of property, information will always be hated, and
prosecution dreaded. The heart of a good man cannot but recoil at the
thought of punishing a slight injury with death; especially when he
remembers that the thief might have procured safety by another crime,
from which he was restrained only by his remaining virtue.

The obligations to assist the exercise of publick justice are indeed
strong; but they will certainly be overpowered by tenderness for life.
What is punished with severity contrary to our ideas of adequate
retribution, will be seldom discovered; and multitudes will be suffered
to advance from crime to crime, till they deserve death, because, if
they had been sooner prosecuted, they would have suffered death before
they deserved it.

This scheme of invigorating the laws by relaxation, and extirpating
wickedness by lenity, is so remote from common practice, that I might
reasonably fear to expose it to the publick, could it be supported only
by my own observations: I shall, therefore, by ascribing it to its
author, Sir Thomas More, endeavour to procure it that attention, which I
wish always paid to prudence, to justice, and to mercy. [c]



No. 115. TUESDAY, APRIL 23, 1751.

_Quaedam parvu quidem; sed non toleranda maritis_. JUV. Sat vi. 184.

Some faults, though small, intolerable grow. DRYDEN.

TO THE RAMBLER.

SIR,

I sit down, in pursuance of my late engagement, to recount the remaining
part of the adventures that befel me in my long quest of conjugal
felicity, which, though I have not yet been so happy as to obtain it, I
have at least endeavoured to deserve by unwearied diligence, without
suffering from repeated disappointments any abatement of my hope, or
repression of my activity.

You must have observed in the world a species of mortals who employ
themselves in promoting matrimony, and without any visible motive of
interest or vanity, without any discoverable impulse of malice or
benevolence, without any reason, but that they want objects of attention
and topicks of conversation, are incessantly busy in procuring wives and
husbands. They fill the ears of every single man and woman with some
convenient match; and when they are informed of your age and fortune,
offer a partner for life with the same readiness, and the same
indifference, as a salesman, when he has taken measure by his eye, fits
his customer with a coat.

It might be expected that they should soon be discouraged from this
officious interposition by resentment or contempt; and that every man
should determine the choice on which so much of his happiness must
depend, by his own judgment and observation: yet it happens, that as
these proposals are generally made with a shew of kindness, they seldom
provoke anger, but are at worst heard with patience, and forgotten. They
influence weak minds to approbation; for many are sure to find in a new
acquaintance, whatever qualities report has taught them to expect; and
in more powerful and active understandings they excite curiosity, and
sometimes, by a lucky chance, bring persons of similar tempers within
the attraction of each other.

I was known to possess a fortune, and to want a wife; and therefore was
frequently attended by these hymeneal solicitors, with whose importunity
I was sometimes diverted, and sometimes perplexed; for they contended
for me as vultures for a carcase; each employing all his eloquence, and
all his artifices, to enforce and promote his own scheme, from the
success of which he was to receive no other advantage than the pleasure
of defeating others equally eager, and equally industrious.
An invitation to sup with one of those busy friends, made me, by a
concerted chance, acquainted with Camilla, by whom it was expected that
I should be suddenly and irresistibly enslaved. The lady, whom the same
kindness had brought without her own concurrence into the lists of love,
seemed to think me at least worthy of the honour of captivity; and
exerted the power, both of her eyes and wit, with so much art and
spirit, that though I had been too often deceived by appearances to
devote myself irrevocably at the first interview, yet I could not
suppress some raptures of admiration, and flutters of desire. I was
easily persuaded to make nearer approaches; but soon discovered, that an
union with Camilla was not much to be wished. Camilla professed a
boundless contempt for the folly, levity, ignorance, and impertinence of
her own sex; and very frequently expressed her wonder that men of
learning or experience could submit to trifle away life with beings
incapable of solid thought. In mixed companies, she always associated
with the men, and declared her satisfaction when the ladies retired. If
any short excursion into the country was proposed, she commonly insisted
upon the exclusion of women from the party; because, where they were
admitted, the time was wasted in frothy compliments, weak indulgences,
and idle ceremonies. To shew the greatness of her mind, she avoided all
compliance with the fashion; and to boast the profundity of her
knowledge, mistook the various textures of silk, confounded tabbies with
damasks, and sent for ribands by wrong names. She despised the commerce
of stated visits, a farce of empty form without instruction; and
congratulated herself, that she never learned to write message cards.
She often applauded the noble sentiment of Plato, who rejoiced that he
was born a man rather than a woman; proclaimed her approbation of
Swift's opinion, that women are only a higher species of monkeys; and
confessed, that when she considered the behaviour, or heard the
conversation, of her sex, she could not but forgive the Turks for
suspecting them to want souls.

It was the joy and pride of Camilla to have provoked, by this insolence,
all the rage of hatred, and all the persecutions of calumny; nor was she
ever more elevated with her own superiority, than when she talked of
female anger, and female cunning. Well, says she, has nature provided
that such virulence should be disabled by folly, and such cruelty be
restrained by impotence.

Camilla doubtless expected, that what she lost on one side, she should
gain on the other; and imagined that every male heart would be open to a
lady, who made such generous advances to the borders of virility. But
man, ungrateful man, instead of springing forward to meet her, shrunk
back at her approach. She was persecuted by the ladies as a deserter,
and at best received by the men only as a fugitive. I, for my part,
amused myself awhile with her fopperies, but novelty soon gave way to
detestation, for nothing out of the common order of nature can be long
borne. I had no inclination to a wife who had the ruggedness of a man
without his force, and the ignorance of a woman without her softness;
nor could I think my quiet and honour to be entrusted to such audacious
virtue as was hourly courting danger, and soliciting assault.

My next mistress was Nitella, a lady of gentle mien, and soft voice,
always speaking to approve, and ready to receive direction from those
with whom chance had brought her into company. In Nitella I promised
myself an easy friend, with whom I might loiter away the day without
disturbance or altercation. I therefore soon resolved to address her,
but was discouraged from prosecuting my courtship, by observing, that
her apartments were superstitiously regular; and that, unless she had
notice of my visit, she was never to be seen. There is a kind of anxious
cleanliness which I have always noted as the characteristick of a
slattern; it is the superfluous scrupulosity of guilt, dreading
discovery, and shunning suspicion: it is the violence of an effort
against habit, which, being impelled by external motives, cannot stop at
the middle point.

Nitella was always tricked out rather with nicety than elegance; and
seldom could forbear to discover, by her uneasiness and constraint, that
her attention was burdened, and her imagination engrossed: I therefore
concluded, that being only occasionally and ambitiously dressed, she was
not familiarized to her own ornaments. There are so many competitors for
the fame of cleanliness, that it is not hard to gain information of
those that fail, from those that desire to excel: I quickly found that
Nitella passed her time between finery and dirt; and was always in a
wrapper, night-cap, and slippers, when she was not decorated for
immediate show.

I was then led by my evil destiny to Charybdis, who never neglected an
opportunity of seizing a new prey when it came within her reach. I
thought myself quickly made happy by permission to attend her to publick
places; and pleased my own vanity with imagining the envy which I should
raise in a thousand hearts, by appearing as the acknowledged favourite
of Charybdis. She soon after hinted her intention to take a ramble for a
fortnight, into a part of the kingdom which she had never seen. I
solicited the happiness of accompanying her, which, after a short
reluctance, was indulged me. She had no other curiosity on her journey,
than after all possible means of expense; and was every moment taking
occasion to mention some delicacy, which I knew it my duty upon such
notices to procure.

After our return, being now more familiar, she told me, whenever we met,
of some new diversion; at night she had notice of a charming company
that would breakfast in the gardens; and in the morning had been
informed of some new song in the opera, some new dress at the playhouse,
or some performer at a concert whom she longed to hear. Her intelligence
was such, that there never was a show, to which she did not summon me on
the second day; and as she hated a crowd, and could not go alone, I was
obliged to attend at some intermediate hour, and pay the price of a
whole company. When we passed the streets, she was often charmed with
some trinket in the toy-shops; and from moderate desires of seals and
snuff-boxes, rose, by degrees, to gold and diamonds. I now began to find
the smile of Charybdis too costly for a private purse, and added one
more to six and forty lovers, whose fortune and patience her rapacity
had exhausted.

Imperia then took possession of my affections; but kept them only for a
short time. She had newly inherited a large fortune, and having spent
the early part of her life in the perusal of romances, brought with her
into the gay world all the pride of Cleopatra; expected nothing less
than vows, altars, and sacrifices; and thought her charms dishonoured,
and her power infringed, by the softest opposition to her sentiments, or
the smallest transgression of her commands. Time might indeed cure this
species of pride in a mind not naturally undiscerning, and vitiated only
by false representations; but the operations of time are slow; and I
therefore left her to grow wise at leisure, or to continue in errour at
her own expense.

Thus I have hitherto, in spite of myself, passed my life in frozen
celibacy. My friends, indeed, often tell me, that I flatter my
imagination with higher hopes than human nature can gratify; that I
dress up an ideal charmer in all the radiance of perfection, and then
enter the world to look for the same excellence in corporeal beauty. But
surely, Mr. Rambler, it is not madness to hope for some terrestrial lady
unstained by the spots which I have been describing; at least I am
resolved to pursue my search; for I am so far from thinking meanly of
marriage, that I believe it able to afford the highest happiness decreed
to our present state; and if, after all these miscarriages, I find a
woman that fills up my expectation, you shall hear once more from,

Yours, &c.

HYMENAEUS.

[Footnote c: The arguments of the revered Sir Samuel Romilly on Criminal
Law, have almost been anticipated in this luminous paper, which would
have gained praise even for a legislator. On the correction of our
English Criminal Code, see Mr. Buxton's speech in the House of Commons,
1820. It is a fund of practical information, and, apart from its own
merits, will repay perusal by the valuable collection of opinions which
it contains on this momentous and interesting subject. ED. ]



No. 116. SATURDAY, APRIL 27, 1751.

_Optat ephippia bos piger: optat arare caballus_.
HOR. Lib. i. Ep. xiv. 43.

Thus the slow ox would gaudy trappings claim;
The sprightly horse would plough. --FRANCIS.

TO THE RAMBLER.

SIR,

I was the second son of a country gentleman by the daughter of a wealthy
citizen of London. My father having by his marriage freed the estate
from a heavy mortgage, and paid his sisters their portions, thought
himself discharged from all obligation to further thought, and entitled
to spend the rest of his life in rural pleasures. He therefore spared
nothing that might contribute to the completion of his felicity; he
procured the best guns and horses that the kingdom could supply, paid
large salaries to his groom and huntsman, and became the envy of the
country for the discipline of his hounds. But, above all his other
attainments, he was eminent for a breed of pointers and setting-dogs,
which by long and vigilant cultivation he had so much improved, that not
a partridge or heathcock could rest in security, and game of whatever
species that dared to light upon his manor, was beaten down by his shot,
or covered with his nets.

My elder brother was very early initiated in the chace, and, at an age
when other boys are _creeping like snails unwillingly to school_, he
could wind the horn, beat the bushes, bound over hedges, and swim
rivers. When the huntsman one day broke his leg, he supplied his place
with equal abilities, and came home with the scut in his hat, amidst the
acclamations of the whole village. I being either delicate or timorous,
less desirous of honour, or less capable of sylvan heroism, was always
the favourite of my mother; because I kept my coat clean, and my
complexion free from freckles, and did not come home, like my brother,
mired and tanned, nor carry corn in my hat to the horse, nor bring dirty
curs into the parlour.

My mother had not been taught to amuse herself with books, and being
much inclined to despise the ignorance and barbarity of the country
ladies, disdained to learn their sentiments or conversation, and had
made no addition to the notions which she had brought from the precincts
of Cornhill. She was, therefore, always recounting the glories of the
city; enumerating the succession of mayors; celebrating the magnificence
of the banquets at Guildhall; and relating the civilities paid her at
the companies' feasts by men of whom some are now made aldermen, some
have fined for sheriffs, and none are worth less than forty thousand
pounds. She frequently displayed her father's greatness; told of the
large bills which he had paid at sight; of the sums for which his word
would pass upon the Exchange; the heaps of gold which he used on
Saturday night to toss about with a shovel; the extent of his warehouse,
and the strength of his doors; and when she relaxed her imagination with
lower subjects, described the furniture of their country-house, or
repeated the wit of the clerks and porters.

By these narratives I was fired with the splendour and dignity of
London, and of trade. I therefore devoted myself to a shop, and warmed
my imagination from year to year with inquiries about the privileges of
a freeman, the power of the common council, the dignity of a wholesale
dealer, and the grandeur of mayoralty, to which my mother assured me
that many had arrived who began the world with less than myself.

I was very impatient to enter into a path, which led to such honour and
felicity; but was forced for a time to endure some repression of my
eagerness, for it was my grandfather's maxim, that a _young man seldom
makes much money, who is out of his time before two-and-twenty_. They
thought it necessary, therefore, to keep me at home till the proper age,
without any other employment than that of learning merchants' accounts,
and the art of regulating books; but at length the tedious days elapsed,
I was transplanted to town, and, with great satisfaction to myself,
bound to a haberdasher.

My master, who had no conception of any virtue, merit, or dignity, but
that of being rich, had all the good qualities which naturally arise
from a close and unwearied attention to the main chance; his desire to
gain wealth was so well tempered by the vanity of shewing it, that
without any other principle of action, he lived in the esteem of the
whole commercial world; and was always treated with respect by the only
men whose good opinion he valued or solicited, those who were
universally allowed to be richer than himself.

By his instructions I learned in a few weeks to handle a yard with great
dexterity, to wind tape neatly upon the ends of my fingers, and to make
up parcels with exact frugality of paper and packthread; and soon caught
from my fellow-apprentices the true grace of a counter-bow, the careless
air with which a small pair of scales is to be held between the fingers,
and the vigour and sprightliness with which the box, after the riband
has been cut, is returned into its place. Having no desire of any higher
employment, and therefore applying all my powers to the knowledge of my
trade, I was quickly master of all that could be known, became a critick
in small wares, contrived new variations of figures, and new mixtures of
colours, and was sometimes consulted by the weavers when they projected
fashions for the ensuing spring.

With all these accomplishments, in the fourth year of my apprenticeship,
I paid a visit to my friends in the country, where I expected to be
received as a new ornament of the family, and consulted by the
neighbouring gentlemen as a master of pecuniary knowledge, and by the
ladies as an oracle of the mode. But, unhappily, at the first publick
table to which I was invited, appeared a student of the Temple, and an
officer of the guards, who looked upon me with a smile of contempt,
which destroyed at once all my hopes of distinction, so that I durst
hardly raise my eyes for fear of encountering their superiority of mien.
Nor was my courage revived by any opportunities of displaying my
knowledge; for the templar entertained the company for part of the day
with historical narratives and political observations; and the colonel
afterwards detailed the adventures of a birth-night, told the claims and
expectations of the courtiers, and gave an account of assemblies,
gardens, and diversions. I, indeed, essayed to fill up a pause in a
parliamentary debate with a faint mention of trade and Spaniards; and
once attempted, with some warmth, to correct a gross mistake about a
silver breast-knot; but neither of my antagonists seemed to think a
reply necessary; they resumed their discourse without emotion, and again
engrossed the attention of the company; nor did one of the ladies appear
desirous to know my opinion of her dress, or to hear how long the
carnation shot with white, that was then new amongst them, had been
antiquated in town.

As I knew that neither of these gentlemen had more money than myself, I
could not discover what had depressed me in their presence; nor why they
were considered by others as more worthy of attention and respect; and
therefore resolved, when we met again, to rouse my spirit, and force
myself into notice. I went very early to the next weekly meeting, and
was entertaining a small circle very successfully with a minute
representation of my lord mayor's show, when the colonel entered
careless and gay, sat down with a kind of unceremonious civility, and
without appearing to intend any interruption, drew my audience away to
the other part of the room, to which I had not the courage to follow
them. Soon after came in the lawyer, not indeed with the same attraction
of mien, but with greater powers of language: and by one or other the
company was so happily amused, that I was neither heard nor seen, nor
was able to give any other proof of my existence than that I put round
the glass, and was in my turn permitted to name the toast.

My mother, indeed, endeavoured to comfort me in my vexation, by telling
me, that perhaps these showy talkers were hardly able to pay every one
his own; that he who has money in his pocket need not care what any man
says of him; that, if I minded my trade, the time will come when lawyers
and soldiers would be glad to borrow out of my purse; and that it is
fine, when a man can set his hands to his sides, and say he is worth
forty thousand pounds every day of the year. These and many more such
consolations and encouragements, I received from my good mother, which,
however, did not much allay my uneasiness; for having by some accident
heard, that the country ladies despised her as a cit, I had therefore no
longer much reverence for her opinions, but considered her as one whose
ignorance and prejudice had hurried me, though without ill intentions,
into a state of meanness and ignominy, from which I could not find any
possibility of rising to the rank which my ancestors had always held.

I returned, however, to my master, and busied myself among thread, and
silks, and laces, but without my former cheerfulness and alacrity. I had
now no longer any felicity in contemplating the exact disposition of my
powdered curls, the equal plaits of my ruffles, or the glossy blackness
of my shoes; nor heard with my former elevation those compliments which
ladies sometimes condescended to pay me upon my readiness in twisting a
paper, or counting out the change. The term of Young Man, with which I
was sometimes honoured, as I carried a parcel to the door of a coach,
tortured my imagination; I grew negligent of my person, and sullen in my
temper; often mistook the demands of the customers, treated their
caprices and objections with contempt, and received and dismissed them
with surly silence.

My master was afraid lest the shop should suffer by this change of my
behaviour; and, therefore, after some expostulations, posted me in the
warehouse, and preserved me from the danger and reproach of desertion,
to which my discontent would certainly have urged me, had I continued
any longer behind the counter.

In the sixth year of my servitude my brother died of drunken joy, for
having run down a fox that had baffled all the packs in the province. I
was now heir, and with the hearty consent of my master commenced
gentleman. The adventures in which my new character engaged me shall be
communicated in another letter, by, Sir,

Yours, &c.

MISOCAPELUS.



No. 117. TUESDAY, APRIL 30, 1751.

[Greek: Hossan ep Oulumpo memasan Themen autar ep Ossae
Paelion einosiphullon, in ouranos ambatos eiae. ] HOMER, Od.
[Greek: L] 314.

The gods they challenge, and affect the skies:
Heav'd on Olympus tott'ring Ossa stood;
On Ossa, Pelion nods with all his wood. POPE.

TO THE RAMBLER.

SIR,

Nothing has more retarded the advancement of learning than the
disposition of vulgar minds to ridicule and vilify what they cannot
comprehend. All industry must be excited by hope; and as the student
often proposes no other reward to himself than praise, he is easily
discouraged by contempt and insult. He who brings with him into a
clamorous multitude the timidity of recluse speculation, and has never
hardened his front in publick life, or accustomed his passions to the
vicissitudes and accidents, the triumphs and defeats of mixed
conversation, will blush at the stare of petulant incredulity, and
suffer himself to be driven by a burst of laughter, from the fortresses
of demonstration. The mechanist will be afraid to assert before hardy
contradiction, the possibility of tearing down bulwarks with a
silk-worm's thread; and the astronomer of relating the rapidity of
light, the distance of the fixed stars, and the height of the lunar
mountains.

If I could by any efforts have shaken off this cowardice, I had not
sheltered myself under a borrowed name, nor applied to you for the means
of communicating to the publick the theory of a garret; a subject which,
except some slight and transient strictures, has been hitherto neglected
by those who were best qualified to adorn it, either for want of leisure
to prosecute the various researches in which a nice discussion must
engage them, or because it requires such diversity of knowledge, and
such extent of curiosity, as is scarcely to be found in any single
intellect: or perhaps others foresaw the tumults which would be raised
against them, and confined their knowledge to their own breasts, and
abandoned prejudice and folly to the direction of chance.

That the professors of literature generally reside in the highest
stories, has been immemorially observed. The wisdom of the ancients was
well acquainted with the intellectual advantages of an elevated
situation: why else were the Muses stationed on Olympus or Parnassus, by
those who could with equal right have raised them bowers in the vale of
Tempe, or erected their altars among the flexures of Meander? Why was
Jove himself nursed upon a mountain? or why did the goddesses, when the
prize of beauty was contested, try the cause upon the top of Ida? Such
were the fictions by which the great masters of the earlier ages
endeavoured to inculcate to posterity the importance of a garret, which,
though they had been long obscured by the negligence and ignorance of
succeeding times, were well enforced by the celebrated symbol of
Pythagoras, [Greek: anemon pneonton taen aecho proskunei]; "when the
wind blows, worship its echo. " This could not but be understood by his
disciples as an inviolable injunction to live in a garret, which I have
found frequently visited by the echo and the wind. Nor was the tradition
wholly obliterated in the age of Augustus, for Tibullus evidently
congratulates himself upon his garret, not without some allusion to the
Pythagorean precept:

_Quam juvat immites ventos audire cubantem--
Aut, gelidas hibernus aquas quum fuderit Auster,
Securum somnos imbre juvante sequi_! Lib. i. El. i. 45.

How sweet in sleep to pass the careless hours,
Lull'd by the beating winds and dashing show'rs!

And it is impossible not to discover the fondness of Lucretius, an
earlier writer, for a garret, in his description of the lofty towers of
serene learning, and of the pleasure with which a wise man looks down
upon the confused and erratick state of the world moving below him:

_Sed nil dulcius est, bene quam munita tenere
Edita doctrina Sapientum templa serena;
Despicere unde queas alios, passimque videre
Errare, atque viam palanteis quaerere vitae_. Lib. ii. 7.

--'Tis sweet thy lab'ring steps to guide
To virtue's heights, with wisdom well supplied,
And all the magazines of learning fortified:
From thence to look below on human kind,
Bewilder'd in the maze of life, and blind. DRYDEN.

The institution has, indeed, continued to our own time; the garret is
still the usual receptacle of the philosopher and poet; but this, like
many ancient customs, is perpetuated only by an accidental imitation,
without knowledge of the original reason for which it was established.

_Causa latet; res est notissima_.

The cause is secret, but th' effect is known. ADDISON.

Conjectures have, indeed, been advanced concerning these habitations of
literature, but without much satisfaction to the judicious inquirer.
Some have imagined, that the garret is generally chosen by the wits as
most easily rented; and concluded that no man rejoices in his aerial
abode, but on the days of payment. Others suspect, that a garret is
chiefly convenient, as it is remoter than any other part of the house
from the outer door, which is often observed to be infested by
visitants, who talk incessantly of beer, or linen, or a coat, and repeat
the same sounds every morning, and sometimes again in the afternoon,
without any variation, except that they grow daily more importunate and
clamorous, and raise their voices in time from mournful murmurs to
raging vociferations. This eternal monotony is always detestable to a
man whose chief pleasure is to enlarge his knowledge, and vary his
ideas. Others talk of freedom from noise, and abstraction from common
business or amusements; and some, yet more visionary, tell us, that the
faculties are enlarged by open prospects, and that the fancy is at more
liberty, when the eye ranges without confinement.

These conveniences may perhaps all be found in a well-chosen garret; but
surely they cannot be supposed sufficiently important to have operated
unvariably upon different climates, distant ages, and separate nations.
Of an universal practice, there must still be presumed an universal
cause, which, however recondite and abstruse, may be perhaps reserved to
make me illustrious by its discovery, and you by its promulgation.

It is universally known that the faculties of the mind are invigorated
or weakened by the state of the body, and that the body is in a great
measure regulated by the various compressions of the ambient element.
The effects of the air in the production or cure of corporeal maladies
have been acknowledged from the time of Hippocrates; but no man has yet
sufficiently considered how far it may influence the operations of the
genius, though every day affords instances of local understanding, of
wits and reasoners, whose faculties are adapted to some single spot, and
who, when they are removed to any other place, sink at once into silence
and stupidity. I have discovered, by a long series of observations, that
invention and elocution suffer great impediments from dense and impure
vapours, and that the tenuity of a defecated air at a proper distance
from the surface of the earth, accelerates the fancy, and sets at
liberty those intellectual powers which were before shackled by too
strong attraction, and unable to expand themselves under the pressure of
a gross atmosphere. I have found dulness to quicken into sentiment in a
thin ether, as water, though not very hot, boils in a receiver partly
exhausted; and heads, in appearance empty, have teemed with notions upon
rising ground, as the flaccid sides of a football would have swelled out
into stiffness and extension.

For this reason I never think myself qualified to judge decisively of
any man's faculties, whom I have only known in one degree of elevation;
but take some opportunity of attending him from the cellar to the
garret, and try upon him all the various degrees of rarefaction and
condensation, tension and laxity. If he is neither vivacious aloft, nor
serious below, I then consider him as hopeless; but as it seldom
happens, that I do not find the temper to which the texture of his brain
is fitted, I accommodate him in time with a tube of mercury, first
marking the points most favourable to his intellects, according to rules
which I have long studied, and which I may, perhaps, reveal to mankind
in a complete treatise of barometrical pneumatology.

Another cause of the gaiety and sprightliness of the dwellers in garrets
is probably the increase of that vertiginous motion, with which we are
carried round by the diurnal revolution of the earth. The power of
agitation upon the spirits is well known; every man has felt his heart
lightened in a rapid vehicle, or on a galloping horse; and nothing is
plainer, than that he who towers to the fifth story, is whirled through
more space by every circumrotation, than another that grovels upon the
ground-floor. The nations between the topicks are known to be fiery,
inconstant, inventive, and fanciful; because, living at the utmost
length of the earth's diameter, they are carried about with more
swiftness than those whom nature has placed nearer to the poles; and
therefore, as it becomes a wise man to struggle with the inconveniencies
of his country, whenever celerity and acuteness are requisite, we must
actuate our languor by taking a few turns round the centre in a garret.

If you imagine that I ascribe to air and motion effects which they
cannot produce, I desire you to consult your own memory, and consider
whether you have never known a man acquire reputation in his garret,
which, when fortune or a patron had placed him upon the first floor, he
was unable to maintain; and who never recovered his former vigour of
understanding, till he was restored to his original situation. That a
garret will make every man a wit, I am very far from supposing; I know
there are some who would continue blockheads even on the summit of the
Andes, or on the peak of Teneriffe. But let not any man be considered as
unimprovable till this potent remedy has been tried; for perhaps he was
formed to be great only in a garret, as the joiner of Aretaeus was
rational in no other place but his own shop.

I think a frequent removal to various distances from the centre, so
necessary to a just estimate of intellectual abilities, and consequently
of so great use in education, that if I hoped that the publick could be
persuaded to so expensive an experiment, I would propose, that there
should be a cavern dug, and a tower erected, like those which Bacon
describes in Solomon's house, for the expansion and concentration of
understanding, according to the exigence of different employments, or
constitutions. Perhaps some that fume away in meditations upon time and
space in the tower, might compose tables of interest at a certain depth;
and he that upon level ground stagnates in silence, or creeps in
narrative, might at the height of half a mile, ferment into merriment,
sparkle with repartee, and froth with declamation.

Addison observes, that we may find the heat of Virgil's climate, in some
lines of his Georgick: so, when I read a composition, I immediately
determine the height of the author's habitation. As an elaborate
performance is commonly said to smell of the lamp, my commendation of a
noble thought, a sprightly sally, or a bold figure, is to pronounce it
fresh from the garret; an expression which would break from me upon the
perusal of most of your papers, did I not believe, that you sometimes
quit the garret, and ascend into the cock-loft.

HYPERTATUS.



No. 118. SATURDAY, MAY 4, 1751.

--Omnes illacrymabiles
Urgentur, ignotique longâ
Nocte. Hon. Lib. iv. Ode ix. 26.

In endless night they sleep, unwept, unknown. FRANCIS.

Cicero has, with his usual elegance and magnificence of language,
attempted, in his relation of the dream of Scipio, to depreciate those
honours for which he himself appears to have panted with restless
solicitude, by shewing within what narrow limits all that fame and
celebrity which man can hope for from men is circumscribed.

"You see," says Africanus, pointing at the earth, from the celestial
regions, "that the globe assigned to the residence and habitation of
human beings is of small dimensions: how then can you obtain from the
praise of men, any glory worthy of a wish? Of this little world the
inhabited parts are neither numerous nor wide; even the spots where men
are to be found are broken by intervening deserts, and the nations are
so separated as that nothing can be transmitted from one to another.
With the people of the south, by whom the opposite part of the earth is
possessed, you have no intercourse; and by how small a tract do you
communicate with the countries of the north? The territory which you
inhabit is no more than a scanty island, inclosed by a small body of
water, to which you give the name of the great sea and the Atlantick
ocean. And even in this known and frequented continent, what hope can
you entertain, that your renown will pass the stream of Ganges, or the
cliffs of Caucasus? or by whom will your name be uttered in the
extremities of the north or south, towards the rising or the setting
sun? So narrow is the space to which your fame can be propagated; and
even there how long will it remain? "

He then proceeds to assign natural causes why fame is not only narrow in
its extent, but short in its duration; he observes the difference
between the computation of time in earth and heaven, and declares, that
according to the celestial chronology, no human honours can last a
single year.

Such are the objections by which Tully has made a shew of discouraging
the pursuit of fame; objections which sufficiently discover his
tenderness and regard for his darling phantom. Homer, when the plan of
his poem made the death of Patroclus necessary, resolved, at least, that
he should die with honour; and therefore brought down against him the
patron god of Troy, and left to Hector only the mean task of giving the
last blow to an enemy whom a divine hand had disabled from resistance.
Thus Tully ennobles fame, which he professes to degrade, by opposing it
to celestial happiness; he confines not its extent but by the boundaries
of nature, nor contracts its duration but by representing it small in
the estimation of superior beings. He still admits it the highest and
noblest of terrestrial objects, and alleges little more against it, than
that it is neither without end, nor without limits.

What might be the effect of these observations conveyed in Ciceronian
eloquence to Roman understandings, cannot be determined; but few of
those who shall in the present age read my humble version will find
themselves much depressed in their hopes, or retarded in their designs;
for I am not inclined to believe, that they who among us pass their
lives in the cultivation of knowledge, or acquisition of power, have
very anxiously inquired what opinions prevail on the further banks of
the Ganges, or invigorated any effort by the desire of spreading their
renown among the clans of Caucasus. The hopes and fears of modern minds
are content to range in a narrower compass; a single nation, and a few
years, have generally sufficient amplitude to fill our imaginations.

A little consideration will indeed teach us, that fame has other limits
than mountains and oceans; and that he who places happiness in the
frequent repetition of his name, may spend his life in propagating it,
without any danger of weeping for new worlds, or necessity of passing
the Atlantick sea.

The numbers to whom any real and perceptible good or evil can be derived
by the greatest power, or most active diligence, are inconsiderable; and
where neither benefit nor mischief operate, the only motive to the
mention or remembrance of others is curiosity; a passion, which, though
in some degree universally associated to reason, is easily confined,
overborne, or diverted from any particular object.

Among the lower classes of mankind, there will be found very little
desire of any other knowledge, than what may contribute immediately to
the relief of some pressing uneasiness, or the attainment of some near
advantage. The Turks are said to hear with wonder a proposal to walk
out, only that they may walk back; and inquire why any man should labour
for nothing: so those whose condition has always restrained them to the
contemplation of their own necessities, and who have been accustomed to
look forward only to a small distance, will scarcely understand, why
nights and days should be spent in studies, which end in new studies,
and which, according to Malherbe's observation, do not tend to lessen
the price of bread; nor will the trader or manufacturer easily be
persuaded, that much pleasure can arise from the mere knowledge of
actions, performed in remote regions, or in distant times; or that any
thing can deserve their inquiry, of which, [Greek: kleos oion akouomen,
oide ti idmen], we can only hear the report, but which cannot influence
our lives by any consequences.

The truth is, that very few have leisure from indispensable business, to
employ their thoughts upon narrative or characters; and among those to
whom fortune has given the liberty of living more by their own choice,
many create to themselves engagements, by the indulgence of some petty
ambition, the admission of some insatiable desire, or the toleration of
some predominant passion. The man whose whole wish is to accumulate
money, has no other care than to collect interest, to estimate
securities, and to engage for mortgages: the lover disdains to turn his
ear to any other name than that of Corinna; and the courtier thinks the
hour lost which is not spent in promoting his interest, and facilitating
his advancement. The adventures of valour, and the discoveries of
science, will find a cold reception, when they are obtruded upon an
attention thus busy with its favourite amusement, and impatient of
interruption or disturbance.

But not only such employments as seduce attention by appearances of
dignity, or promises of happiness, may restrain the mind from excursion
and inquiry; curiosity may be equally destroyed by less formidable
enemies; it may be dissipated in trifles, or congealed by indolence. The
sportsman and the man of dress have their heads filled with a fox or a
horse-race, a feather or a ball; and live in ignorance of every thing
beside, with as much content as he that heaps up gold, or solicits
preferment, digs the field, or beats the anvil; and some yet lower in
the ranks of intellect, dream out their days without pleasure or
business, without joy or sorrow, nor ever rouse from their lethargy to
hear or think.

Even of those who have dedicated themselves to knowledge, the far
greater part have confined their curiosity to a few objects, and have
very little inclination to promote any fame, but that which their own
studies entitle them to partake. The naturalist has no desire to know
the opinions or conjectures of the philologer: the botanist looks upon
the astronomer as a being unworthy of his regard: the lawyer scarcely
hears the name of a physician without contempt; and he that is growing
great and happy by electrifying a bottle, wonders how the world can be
engaged by trifling prattle about war or peace.

If, therefore, he that imagines the world filled with his actions and
praises, shall subduct from the number of his encomiasts, all those who
are placed below the flight of fame, and who hear in the valleys of life
no voice but that of necessity; all those who imagine themselves too
important to regard him, and consider the mention of his name as an
usurpation of their time; all who are too much or too little pleased
with themselves, to attend to any thing external; all who are attracted
by pleasure, or chained down by pain, to unvaried ideas; all who are
withheld from attending his triumph by different pursuits; and all who
slumber in universal negligence; he will find his renown straitened by
nearer bounds than the rocks of Caucasus, and perceive that no man can
be venerable or formidable, but to a small part of his fellow-creatures.

That we may not languish in our endeavours after excellence, it is
necessary, that, as Africanus counsels his descendant, "we raise our
eyes to higher prospects, and contemplate our future and eternal state,
without giving up our hearts to the praise of crowds, or fixing our
hopes on such rewards as human power can bestow. "



No. 119. TUESDAY, MAY 7, 1751.

_Iliacos intra muros peccatur, et extra_. HOR. Lib. i. Ep. ii, 16.

Faults lay on either side the Trojan tow'rs.