No More Learning

But national customs can arise only from general agreement; they are not
imposed, but chosen, and are continued only by the continuance of their
cause. An Englishman's notice of the weather is the natural consequence
of changeable skies and uncertain seasons. In many parts of the world,
wet weather and dry are regularly expected at certain periods; but in
our island every man goes to sleep, unable to guess whether he shall
behold in the morning a bright or cloudy atmosphere, whether his rest
shall be lulled by a shower, or broken by a tempest. We therefore
rejoice mutually at good weather, as at an escape from something that we
feared; and mutually complain of bad, as of the loss of something that
we hoped.

Such is the reason of our practice; and who shall treat it with
contempt? Surely not the attendant on a court, whose business is to
watch the looks of a being weak and foolish as himself, and whose vanity
is to recount the names of men, who might drop into nothing, and leave
no vacuity; nor the proprietor of funds, who stops his acquaintance in
the street to tell him of the loss of half-a-crown; nor the inquirer
after news, who fills his head with foreign events, and talks of
skirmishes and sieges, of which no consequence will ever reach his
hearers or himself. The weather is a nobler and more interesting
subject; it is the present state of the skies, and of the earth, on
which plenty and famine are suspended, on which millions depend for the
necessaries of life.

The weather is frequently mentioned for another reason, less honourable
to my dear countrymen. Our dispositions too frequently change with the
colour of the sky; and when we find ourselves cheerful and good-natured,
we naturally pay our acknowledgments to the powers of sunshine; or, if
we sink into dulness and peevishness, look round the horizon for an
excuse, and charge our discontent upon an easterly wind or a cloudy day.

Surely nothing is more reproachful to a being endowed with reason, than
to resign its powers to the influence of the air, and live in dependence
on the weather and the wind, for the only blessings which nature has put
into our power, tranquillity and benevolence. To look up to the sky for
the nutriment of our bodies, is the condition of nature; to call upon
the sun for peace and gaiety, or deprecate the clouds lest sorrow should
overwhelm us, is the cowardice of idleness, and the idolatry of folly.

Yet even in this age of inquiry and knowledge, when superstition is
driven away, and omens and prodigies have lost their terrours, we find
this folly countenanced by frequent examples. Those that laugh at the
portentous glare of a comet, and hear a crow with equal tranquillity
from the right or left, will yet talk of times and situations proper for
intellectual performances, will imagine the fancy exalted by vernal
breezes, and the reason invigorated by a bright calm.

If men who have given up themselves to fanciful credulity would confine
their conceits in their own minds, they might regulate their lives by
the barometer, with inconvenience only to themselves; but to fill the
world with accounts of intellects subject to ebb and flow, of one genius
that awakened in the spring, and another that ripened in the autumn, of
one mind expanded in the summer, and of another concentrated in the
winter, is no less dangerous than to tell children of bugbears and
goblins. Fear will find every house haunted; and idleness will wait for
ever for the moment of illumination.

This distinction of seasons is produced only by imagination operating on
luxury. To temperance every day is bright, and every hour is propitious
to diligence. He that shall resolutely excite his faculties, or exert
his virtues, will soon make himself superior to the seasons, and may set
at defiance the morning mist, and the evening damp, the blasts of the
east, and the clouds of the south.

It was the boast of the Stoick philosophy, to make man unshaken by
calamity, and unelated by success, incorruptible by pleasure, and
invulnerable by pain; these are heights of wisdom which none ever
attained, and to which few can aspire; but there are lower degrees of
constancy necessary to common virtue; and every man, however he may
distrust himself in the extremes of good or evil, might at least
struggle against the tyranny of the climate, and refuse to enslave his
virtue or his reason to the most variable of all variations, the changes
of the weather.




No. 12. SATURDAY, JULY 1, 1758.

That every man is important in his own eyes, is a position of which we
all either voluntarily or unwarily at least once an hour confess the
truth; and it will unavoidably follow, that every man believes himself
important to the publick. The right which this importance gives us to
general notice and visible distinction, is one of those disputable
privileges which we have not always courage to assert; and which we
therefore suffer to lie dormant till some elation of mind, or
vicissitude of fortune, incites us to declare our pretensions and
enforce our demands. And hopeless as the claim of vulgar characters may
seem to the supercilious and severe, there are few who do not at one
time or other endeavour to step forward beyond their rank; who do not
make some struggles for fame, and show that they think all other
conveniencies and delights imperfectly enjoyed without a name.

To get a name, can happen but to few. A name, even in the most
commercial nation, is one of the few things which cannot be bought. It
is the free gift of mankind, which must be deserved before it will be
granted, and is at last unwillingly bestowed. But this unwillingness
only increases desire in him who believes his merit sufficient to
overcome it.

There is a particular period of life, in which this fondness for a name
seems principally to predominate in both sexes. Scarce any couple comes
together but the nuptials are declared in the newspapers with encomiums
on each party. Many an eye, ranging over the page with eager curiosity
in quest of statesmen and heroes, is stopped by a marriage celebrated
between Mr. Buckram, an eminent salesman in Threadneedle-street, and
Miss Dolly Juniper, the only daughter of an eminent distiller, of the
parish of St. Giles's in the Fields, a young lady adorned with every
accomplishment that can give happiness to the married state. Or we are
told, amidst our impatience for the event of a battle, that on a certain
day Mr. Winker, a tide-waiter at Yarmouth, was married to Mrs. Cackle, a
widow lady of great accomplishments, and that as soon as the ceremony
was performed they set out in a post-chaise for Yarmouth.

Many are the inquiries which such intelligence must undoubtedly raise,
but nothing in this world is lasting. When the reader has contemplated
with envy, or with gladness, the felicity of Mr. Buckram and Mr. Winker,
and ransacked his memory for the names of Juniper and Cackle, his
attention is diverted to other thoughts, by finding that Mirza will not
cover this season; or that a spaniel has been lost or stolen, that
answers to the name of Ranger.

Whence it arises that on the day of marriage all agree to call thus
openly for honours, I am not able to discover. Some, perhaps, think it
kind, by a publick declaration, to put an end to the hopes of rivalry
and the fears of jealousy, to let parents know that they may set their
daughters at liberty whom they have locked up for fear of the
bridegroom, or to dismiss to their counters and their offices the
amorous youths that had been used to hover round the dwelling of the
bride.

These connubial praises may have another cause. It may be the intention
of the husband and wife to dignify themselves in the eyes of each other,
and, according to their different tempers or expectations, to win
affection, or enforce respect.

It was said of the family of Lucas, that it was _noble_, for _all the
brothers were valiant, and all the sisters were virtuous_. What would a
stranger say of the _English_ nation, in which on the day of marriage
all the men are _eminent_, and all the women _beautiful, accomplished_,
and _rich_?

How long the wife will be persuaded of the eminence of her husband, or
the husband continue to believe that his wife has the qualities required
to make marriage happy, may reasonably be questioned. I am afraid that
much time seldom passes before each is convinced that praises are
fallacious, and particularly those praises which we confer upon
ourselves.

I should therefore think, that this custom might be omitted without any
loss to the community; and that the sons and daughters of lanes and
alleys might go hereafter to the next church, with no witnesses of their
worth or happiness but their parents and their friends; but if they
cannot be happy on the bridal day without some gratification of their
vanity, I hope they will be willing to encourage a friend of mine who
proposes to devote his powers to their service.

Mr. Settle, a man whose _eminence_ was once allowed by the _eminent_,
and whose _accomplishments_ were confessed by the _accomplished_, in the
latter part of a long life supported himself by an uncommon expedient.
He had a standing elegy and epithalamium, of which only the first and
last were leaves varied occasionally, and the intermediate pages were,
by general terms, left applicable alike to every character. When any
marriage became known, Settle ran to the bridegroom with his
epithalamium; and when he heard of any death, ran to the heir with his
elegy.

Who can think himself disgraced by a trade that was practised so long by
the rival of Dryden, by the poet whose "Empress of Morocco" was played
before princes by ladies of the court?

My friend purposes to open an office in the Fleet for matrimonial
panegyricks, and will accommodate all with praise who think their own
powers of expression inadequate to their merit. He will sell any man or
woman the virtue or qualification which is most fashionable or most
desired; but desires his customers to remember, that he sets beauty at
the highest price, and riches at the next, and, if he be well paid,
throws in virtue for nothing.




No. 13. SATURDAY, JULY 8, 1758.

TO THE IDLER.

Dear Mr. Idler,

Though few men of prudence are much inclined to interpose in disputes
between man and wife, who commonly make peace at the expense of the
arbitrator; yet I will venture to lay before you a controversy, by which
the quiet of my house has been long disturbed, and which, unless you can
decide it, is likely to produce lasting evils, and embitter those hours
which nature seems to have appropriated to tenderness and repose.

I married a wife with no great fortune, but of a family remarkable for
domestick prudence, and elegant frugality. I lived with her at ease, if
not with happiness, and seldom had any reason of complaint. The house
was always clean, the servants were active and regular, dinner was on
the table every day at the same minute, and the ladies of the
neighbourhood were frightened when I invited their husbands, lest their
own economy should be less esteemed.

During this gentle lapse of life, my dear brought me three daughters. I
wished for a son, to continue the family; but my wife often tells me,
that boys are dirty things, and are always troublesome in a house; and
declares that she has hated the sight of them ever since she saw lady
Fondle's eldest son ride over a carpet with his hobby-horse all mire.

I did not much attend to her opinion, but knew that girls could not be
made boys; and therefore composed myself to bear what I could not
remedy, and resolved to bestow that care on my daughters, to which only
the sons are commonly thought entitled.

But my wife's notions of education differ widely from mine. She is an
irreconcilable enemy to idleness, and considers every state of life as
idleness, in which the hands are not employed, or some art acquired, by
which she thinks money may be got or saved.

In pursuance of this principle, she calls up her daughters at a certain
hour, and appoints them a task of needlework to be performed before
breakfast. They are confined in a garret, which has its window in the
roof, both because work is best done at a sky-light, and because
children are apt to lose time by looking about them.

They bring down their work to breakfast, and as they deserve are
commended or reproved; they are then sent up with a new task till
dinner; if no company is expected, their mother sits with them the whole
afternoon, to direct their operations, and to draw patterns, and is
sometimes denied to her nearest relations when she is engaged in
teaching them a new stitch.

By this continual exercise of their diligence, she has obtained a very
considerable number of laborious performances. We have twice as many
fire-skreens as chimneys, and three flourished quilts for every bed.
Half the rooms are adorned with a kind of _sutile pictures_, which
imitate tapestry. But all their work is not set out to show; she has
boxes filled with knit garters and braided shoes. She has twenty covers
for side-saddles embroidered with silver flowers, and has curtains
wrought with gold in various figures, which she resolves some time or
other to hang up. All these she displays to her company whenever she is
elate with merit, and eager for praise; and amidst the praises which her
friends and herself bestow upon her merit, she never fails to turn to
me, and ask what all these would cost, if I had been to buy them.

I sometimes venture to tell her, that many of the ornaments are
superfluous; that what is done with so much labour might have been
supplied by a very easy purchase; that the work is not always worth the
materials; and that I know not why the children should be persecuted
with useless tasks, or obliged to make shoes that are never worn. She
answers with a look of contempt, that men never care how money goes, and
proceeds to tell of a dozen new chairs for which she is contriving
covers, and of a couch which she intends to stand as a monument of
needle-work.

In the mean time, the girls grow up in total ignorance of every thing
past, present, and future. Molly asked me the other day, whether Ireland
was in France, and was ordered by her mother to mend her hem. Kitty
knows not, at sixteen, the difference between a Protestant and a Papist,
because she has been employed three years in filling the side of a
closet with a hanging that is to represent Cranmer in the flames. And
Dolly, my eldest girl, is now unable to read a chapter in the Bible,
having spent all the time, which other children pass at school, in
working the interview between Solomon and the queen of Sheba.

About a month ago, Tent and Turkey-stitch seemed at a stand; my wife
knew not what new work to introduce; I ventured to propose that the
girls should now learn to read and write, and mentioned the necessity of
a little arithmetick; but, unhappily, my wife has discovered that linen
wears out, and has bought the girls three little wheels, that they may
spin huckaback for the servants' table. I remonstrated, that with larger
wheels they might despatch in an hour what must now cost them a day; but
she told me, with irresistible authority, that any business is better
than idleness; that when these wheels are set upon a table, with mats
under them, they will turn without noise, and keep the girls upright;
that great wheels are not fit for gentlewomen; and that with these,
small as they are, she does not doubt but that the three girls, if they
are kept close, will spin every year as much cloth as would cost five
pounds if one were to buy it.



No 14. SATURDAY, JULY 15, 1758.

When Diogenes received a visit in his tub from Alexander the Great, and
was asked, according to the ancient forms of royal courtesy, what
petition he had to offer; "I have nothing," said he, "to ask, but that
you would remove to the other side, that you may not, by intercepting
the sunshine, take from me what you cannot give me. "

Such was the demand of Diogenes from the greatest monarch of the earth,
which those, who have less power than Alexander, may, with yet more
propriety, apply to themselves. He that does much good, may be allowed
to do sometimes a little harm. But if the opportunities of beneficence
be denied by fortune, innocence should at least be vigilantly preserved.

It is well known, that time once passed never returns; and that the
moment which is lost, is lost for ever. Time therefore ought, above all
other kinds of property, to be free from invasion; and yet there is no
man who does not claim the power of wasting that time which is the right
of others.

This usurpation is so general, that a very small part of the year is
spent by choice; scarcely any thing is done when it is intended, or
obtained when it is desired. Life is continually ravaged by invaders;
one steals away an hour, and another a day; one conceals the robbery by
hurrying us into business, another by lulling us with amusement; the
depredation is continued through a thousand vicissitudes of tumult and
tranquillity, till, having lost all, we can lose no more.

This waste of the lives of men has been very frequently charged upon the
Great, whose followers linger from year to year in expectations, and die
at last with petitions in their hands. Those who raise envy will easily
incur censure. I know not whether statesmen and patrons do not suffer
more reproaches than they deserve, and may not rather themselves
complain, that they are given up a prey to pretensions without merit,
and to importunity without shame.

The truth is, that the inconveniencies of attendance are more lamented
than felt. To the greater number solicitation is its own reward. To be
seen in good company, to talk of familiarities with men of power, to be
able to tell the freshest news, to gratify an inferior circle with
predictions of increase or decline of favour, and to be regarded as a
candidate for high offices, are compensations more than equivalent to
the delay of favours, which, perhaps, he that begs them has hardly
confidence to expect.

A man conspicuous in a high station, who multiplies hopes that he may
multiply dependants, may be considered as a beast of prey, justly
dreaded, but easily avoided; his den is known, and they who would not be
devoured, need not approach it. The great danger of the waste of time is
from caterpillars and moths, who are not resisted, because they are not
feared, and who work on with unheeded mischiefs, and invisible
encroachments.

He, whose rank or merit procures him the notice of mankind, must give up
himself, in a great measure, to the convenience or humour of those who
surround him. Every man, who is sick of himself, will fly to him for
relief; he that wants to speak will require him to hear; and he that
wants to hear will expect him to speak. Hour passes after hour, the noon
succeeds to morning, and the evening to noon, while a thousand objects
are forced upon his attention, which he rejects as fast as they are
offered, but which the custom of the world requires to be received with
appearance of regard.

If we will have the kindness of others, we must endure their follies. He
who cannot persuade himself to withdraw from society, must be content to
pay a tribute of his time to a multitude of tyrants; to the loiterer,
who makes appointments which he never keeps; to the consulter, who asks
advice which he never takes; to the boaster, who blusters only to be
praised; to the complainer, who whines only to be pitied; to the
projector, whose happiness is to entertain his friends with expectations
which all but himself know to be vain; to the economist, who tells of
bargains and settlements; to the politician, who predicts the fate of
battles and breach of alliances; to the usurer, who compares the
different funds; and to the talker, who talks only because he loves to
be talking.

To put every man in possession of his own time, and rescue the day from
this succession of usurpers, is beyond my power, and beyond my hope.
Yet, perhaps, some stop might be put to this unmerciful persecution, if
all would seriously reflect, that whoever pays a visit that is not
desired, or talks longer than the hearer is willing to attend, is guilty
of an injury which he cannot repair, and takes away that which he cannot
give.




No. 15. SATURDAY, JULY 22, 1758.

TO THE IDLER.

Sir,

I have the misfortune to be a man of business; that, you will say, is a
most grievous one; but what makes it the more so to me, is, that my wife
has nothing to do: at least she had too good an education, and the
prospect of too good a fortune in reversion when I married her, to think
of employing herself either in my shop-affairs, or the management of my
family.

Her time, you know, as well as my own, must be filled up some way or
other. For my part, I have enough to mind in weighing my goods out, and
waiting on my customers: but my wife, though she could be of as much use
as a shopman to me, if she would put her hand to it, is now only in my
way. She walks all the morning sauntering about the shop with her arms
through her pocket-holes or stands gaping at the door-sill, and looking
at every person that passes by. She is continually asking me a thousand
frivolous questions about every customer that comes in and goes out; and
all the while that I am entering any thing in my day-book, she is
lolling over the counter, and staring at it, as if I was only scribbling
or drawing figures for her amusement. Sometimes, indeed, she will take a
needle; but as she always works at the door, or in the middle of the
shop, she has so many interruptions, that she is longer hemming a towel,
or darning a stocking, than I am in breaking forty loaves of sugar, and
making it up into pounds.

In the afternoons I am sure likewise to have her company, except she is
called upon by some of her acquaintance: and then, as we let out all the
upper part of our house, and have only a little room backwards for
ourselves, they either keep such a chattering, or else are calling out
every moment to me, that I cannot mind my business for them.

My wife, I am sure, might do all the little matters our family requires;
and I could wish that she would employ herself in them; but, instead of
that, we have a girl to do the work, and look after a little boy about
two years old, which, I may fairly say, is the mother's own child. The
brat must be humoured in every thing: he is therefore suffered
constantly to play in the shop, pull all the goods about, and clamber up
the shelves to get at the plums and sugar. I dare not correct him;
because, if I did, I should have wife and maid both upon me at once. As
to the latter, she is as lazy and sluttish as her mistress; and because
she complains she has too much work, we can scarcely get her to do any
thing at all: nay, what is worse than that, I am afraid she is hardly
honest; and as she is intrusted to buy-in all our provisions, the jade,
I am sure, makes a market-penny out of every article.

But to return to my deary. --The evenings are the only time, when it is
fine weather, that I am left to myself; for then she generally takes the
child out to give it milk in the Park. When she comes home again, she is
so fatigued with walking, that she cannot stir from her chair: and it is
an hour, after shop is shut, before I can get a bit of supper, while the
maid is taken up in undressing and putting the child to bed.

But you will pity me much more, when I tell you the manner in which we
generally pass our Sundays. In the morning she is commonly too ill to
dress herself to go to church; she therefore never gets up till noon;
and, what is still more vexatious, keeps me in bed with her, when I
ought to be busily engaged in better employment. It is well if she can
get her things on by dinner-time; and, when that is over, I am sure to
be dragged out by her either to Georgia, or Hornsey Wood, or the White
Conduit House. Yet even these near excursions are so very fatiguing to
her, that, besides what it costs me in tea and hot rolls, and sillabubs,
and cakes for the boy, I am frequently forced to take a hackney-coach,
or drive them out in a one-horse chair. At other times, as my wife is
rather of the fattest, and a very poor walker, besides bearing her whole
weight upon my arm, I am obliged to carry the child myself.

Thus, Sir, does she constantly drawl out her time, without either profit
or satisfaction; and, while I see my neighbours' wives helping in the
shop, and almost earning as much as their husbands, I have the
mortification to find that mine is nothing but a dead weight upon me. In
short, I do not know any greater misfortune can happen to a plain
hard-working tradesman, as I am, than to be joined to such a woman, who
is rather a clog than a helpmate to him.

I am, Sir,
Your humble servant,

ZACHARY TREACLE. [1]

[1]An unknown correspondent.




No. 16. SATURDAY, JULY 29, 1758.

I paid a visit yesterday to my old friend Ned Drugget, at his
country-lodgings. Ned began trade with a very small fortune; he took a
small house in an obscure street, and for some years dealt only in
remnants. Knowing that _light gains make a heavy purse_, he was content
with moderate profit: having observed or heard the effects of civility,
he bowed down to the counter-edge at the entrance and departure of every
customer, listened without impatience to the objections of the ignorant,
and refused without resentment the offers of the penurious. His only
recreation was to stand at his own door and look into the street. His
dinner was sent him from a neighbouring alehouse, and he opened and shut
the shop at a certain hour with his own hands.

His reputation soon extended from one end of the street to the other;
and Mr. Drugget's exemplary conduct was recommended by every master to
his apprentice, and by every father to his son. Ned was not only
considered as a thriving trader, but as a man of elegance and
politeness, for he was remarkably neat in his dress, and would wear his
coat threadbare without spotting it; his hat was always brushed, his
shoes glossy, his wig nicely curled, and his stockings without a
wrinkle. With such qualifications it was not very difficult for him to
gain the heart of Miss Comfit, the only daughter of Mr. Comfit the
confectioner.

Ned is one of those whose happiness marriage has increased. His wife had
the same disposition with himself; and his method of life was very
little changed, except that he dismissed the lodgers from the first
floor, and took the whole house into his own hands.

He had already, by his parsimony, accumulated a considerable sum, to
which the fortune of his wife was now added. From this time he began to
grasp at greater acquisitions, and was always ready, with money in his
hand, to pick up the refuse of a sale, or to buy the stock of a trader
who retired from business. He soon added his parlour to his shop, and
was obliged a few months afterwards to hire a warehouse.

He had now a shop splendidly and copiously furnished with every thing
that time had injured, or fashion had degraded, with fragments of
tissues, odd yards of brocade, vast bales of faded silk, and innumerable
boxes of antiquated ribbons. His shop was soon celebrated through all
quarters of the town, and frequented by every form of ostentatious
poverty. Every maid, whose misfortune it was to be taller than her lady,
matched her gown at Mr. Drugget's; and many a maiden, who had passed a
winter with her aunt in London, dazzled the rusticks, at her return,
with cheap finery which Drugget had supplied. His shop was often visited
in a morning by ladies who left their coaches in the next street, and
crept through the alley in linen gowns. Drugget knows the rank of his
customers by their bashfulness; and, when he finds them unwilling to be
seen, invites them up stairs, or retires with them to the back window.

I rejoiced at the increasing prosperity of my friend, and imagined that,
as he grew rich, he was growing happy. His mind has partaken the
enlargement of his fortune. When I stepped in for the first five years,
I was welcomed only with a shake of the hand; in the next period of his
life, he beckoned across the way for a pot of beer; but for six years
past, he invites me to dinner; and, if he bespeaks me the day before,
never fails to regale me with a fillet of veal.

His riches neither made him uncivil nor negligent; he rose at the same
hour, attended with the same assiduity, and bowed with the same
gentleness. But for some years he has been much inclined to talk of the
fatigues of business, and the confinement of a shop, and to wish that he
had been so happy as to have renewed his uncle's lease of a farm, that
he might have lived without noise and hurry, in a pure air, in the
artless society of honest villagers, and the contemplation of the works
of nature.

I soon discovered the cause of my friend's philosophy. He thought
himself grown rich enough to have a lodging in the country, like the
mercers on Ludgate-hill, and was resolved to enjoy himself in the
decline of life. This was a revolution not to be made suddenly. He
talked three years of the pleasures of the country, but passed every
night over his own shop. But at last he resolved to be happy, and hired
a lodging in the country, that he may steal some hours in the week from
business; for, says he, _when a man advances in life, he loves to
entertain himself sometimes with his own thoughts. _

I was invited to this seat of quiet and contemplation, among those whom
Mr. Drugget considers as his most reputable friends, and desires to make
the first witnesses of his elevation to the highest dignities of a
shopkeeper. I found him at Islington, in a room which overlooked the
high road, amusing himself with looking through the window, which the
clouds of dust would not suffer him to open. He embraced me, told me I
was welcome into the country, and asked me if I did not feel myself
refreshed. He then desired that dinner might be hastened, for fresh air
always sharpened his appetite, and ordered me a toast and a glass of
wine after my walk. He told me much of the pleasures he found in
retirement, and wondered what had kept him so long out of the country.
After dinner company came in, and Mr. Drugget again repeated the praises
of the country, recommended the pleasures of meditation, and told them
that he had been all the morning at the window, counting the carriages
as they passed before him.




No. 17. SATURDAY, AUGUST 5, 1758.

_Surge tandem Carnifex_[1]. MAECENAS AD AUGUSTUM.

The rainy weather, which has continued the last month, is said to have
given great disturbance to the inspectors of barometers. The oraculous
glasses have deceived their votaries; shower has succeeded shower,
though they predicted sunshine and dry skies; and, by fatal confidence
in these fallacious promises, many coats have lost their gloss, and many
curls been moistened to flaccidity.

This is one of the distresses to which mortals subject themselves by the
pride of speculation. I had no part in this learned disappointment, who
am content to credit my senses, and to believe that rain will fall when
the air blackens, and that the weather will be dry when the sun is
bright. My caution, indeed, does not always preserve me from a shower.
To be wet may happen to the genuine Idler; but to be wet in opposition
to theory, can befall only the Idler that pretends to be busy. Of those
that spin out life in trifles and die without a memorial, many flatter
themselves with high opinions of their own importance, and imagine that
they are every day adding some improvement to human life. To be idle and
to be poor have always been reproaches, and therefore every man
endeavours, with his utmost care, to hide his poverty from others, and
his idleness from himself.

Among those whom I never could persuade to rank themselves with Idlers,
and who speak with indignation of my morning sleeps and nocturnal
rambles; one passes the day in catching spiders, that he may count their
eyes with a microscope; another erects his head, and exhibits the dust
of a marigold separated from the flower with a dexterity worthy of
Leuwenhoeck himself. Some turn the wheel of electricity; some suspend
rings to a load-stone, and find that what they did yesterday they can do
again to-day. Some register the changes of the wind, and die fully
convinced that the wind is changeable.

There are men yet more profound, who have heard that two colourless
liquors may produce a colour by union, and that two cold bodies will
grow hot if they are mingled; they mingle them, and produce the effect
expected, say it is strange, and mingle them again.

The Idlers that sport only with inanimate nature may claim some
indulgence; if they are useless, they are still innocent: but there are
others, whom I know not how to mention without more emotion than my love
of quiet willingly admits.
Among the inferior professors of medical
knowledge, is a race of wretches, whose lives are only varied by
varieties of cruelty; whose favourite amusement is to nail dogs to
tables and open them alive; to try how long life may be continued in
various degrees of mutilation, or with the excision or laceration of the
vital parts; to examine whether burning irons are felt more acutely by
the bone or tendon; and whether the more lasting agonies are produced by
poison forced into the mouth, or injected into the veins.

It is not without reluctance that I offend the sensibility of the tender
mind with images like these. If such cruelties were not practised, it
were to be desired that they should not be conceived; but, since they
are published every day with ostentation, let me be allowed once to
mention them, since I mention them with abhorrence.

Mead has invidiously remarked of Woodward, that he gathered shells and
stones, and would pass for a philosopher. With pretensions much less
reasonable, the anatomical novice tears out the living bowels of an
animal, and styles himself physician, prepares himself by familiar
cruelty for that profession which he is to exercise upon the tender and
the helpless, upon feeble bodies and broken minds, and by which he has
opportunities to extend his arts of torture, and continue those
experiments upon infancy and age, which he has hitherto tried upon cats
and dogs.

What is alleged in defence of these hateful practices, every one knows;
but the truth is, that by knives, fire, and poison, knowledge is not
always sought, and is very seldom attained. The experiments that have
been tried, are tried again; he that burned an animal with irons
yesterday, will be willing to amuse himself with burning another
to-morrow. I know not, that by living dissections any discovery has been
made by which a single malady is more easily cured. And if the knowledge
of physiology has been somewhat increased, he surely buys knowledge
dear, who learns the use of the lacteals at the expense of his humanity.
It is time that universal resentment should arise against these horrid
operations, which tend to harden the heart, extinguish those sensations
which give man confidence in man, and make the physician more dreadful
than the gout or stone.

[1] Dr. Johnson gave this, among other mottos, to Mrs. Piozzi. They will
be inserted in this Edition in their proper places, and indicated by
an asterisk. See Mrs. Piozzi's Anecdotes, and Chalmers' British
Essayists, vol. 33.




No. 18. SATURDAY, AUGUST 12, 1758.

TO THE IDLER.

Sir,

It commonly happens to him who endeavours to obtain distinction by
ridicule or censure, that he teaches others to practise his own arts
against himself; and that, after a short enjoyment of the applause paid
to his sagacity, or of the mirth excited by his wit, he is doomed to
suffer the same severities of scrutiny, to hear inquiry detecting his
faults, and exaggeration sporting with his failings.

The natural discontent of inferiority will seldom fail to operate in
some degree of malice against him who professes to superintend the
conduct of others, especially if he seats himself uncalled in the chair
of judicature, and exercises authority by his own commission.

You cannot, therefore, wonder that your observations on human folly, if
they produce laughter at one time, awaken criticism at another; and that
among the numbers whom you have taught to scoff at the retirement of
Drugget, there is one who offers his apology.

The mistake of your old friend is by no means peculiar. The publick
pleasures of far the greater part of mankind are counterfeit. Very few
carry their philosophy to places of diversion, or are very careful to
analyze their enjoyments. The general condition of life is so full of
misery, that we are glad to catch delight without inquiring whence it
comes, or by what power it is bestowed.

The mind is seldom quickened to very vigorous operations but by pain, or
the dread of pain. We do not disturb ourselves with the detection of
fallacies which do us no harm, nor willingly decline a pleasing effect
to investigate its cause. He that is happy, by whatever means, desires
nothing but the continuance of happiness, and is no more solicitous to
distribute his sensations into their proper species, than the common
gazer on the beauties of the spring to separate light into its original
rays.

Pleasure is therefore seldom such as it appears to others, nor often
such as we represent it to ourselves. Of the ladies that sparkle at a
musical performance, a very small number has any quick sensibility of
harmonious sounds. But every one that goes has her pleasure. She has the
pleasure of wearing fine clothes, and of showing them, of outshining
those whom she suspects to envy her; she has the pleasure of appearing
among other ladies in a place whither the race of meaner mortals seldom
intrudes, and of reflecting that, in the conversations of the next
morning, her name will be mentioned among those that sat in the first
row; she has the pleasure of returning courtesies, or refusing to return
them, of receiving compliments with civility, or rejecting them with
disdain. She has the pleasure of meeting some of her acquaintance, of
guessing why the rest are absent, and of telling them that she saw the
opera, on pretence of inquiring why they would miss it. She has the
pleasure of being supposed to be pleased with a refined amusement, and
of hoping to be numbered among the votaresses of harmony. She has the
pleasure of escaping for two hours the superiority of a sister, or the
control of a husband; and from all these pleasures she concludes, that
heavenly musick is the balm of life.

All assemblies of gaiety are brought together by motives of the same
kind. The theatre is not filled with those that know or regard the skill
of the actor, nor the ball-room by those who dance, or attend to the
dancers. To all places of general resort, where the standard of pleasure
is erected, we run with equal eagerness, or appearance of eagerness, for
very different reasons. One goes that he may say he has been there,
another because he never misses. This man goes to try what he can find,
and that to discover what others find. Whatever diversion is costly will
be frequented by those who desire to be thought rich; and whatever has,
by any accident, become fashionable, easily continues its reputation,
because every one is ashamed of not partaking it.

To every place of entertainment we go with expectation and desire of
being pleased; we meet others who are brought by the same motives; no
one will be the first to own the disappointment; one face reflects the
smile of another, till each believes the rest delighted, and endeavours
to catch and transmit the circulating rapture. In time all are deceived
by the cheat to which all contribute. The fiction of happiness is
propagated by every tongue, and confirmed by every look, till at last
all profess the joy which they do not feel, consent to yield to the
general delusion; and when the voluntary dream is at an end, lament that
bliss is of so short a duration.

If Drugget pretended to pleasures of which he had no perception, or
boasted of one amusement where he was indulging another, what did he
which is not done by all those who read his story? of whom some pretend
delight in conversation, only because they dare not be alone; some
praise the quiet of solitude, because they are envious of sense, and
impatient of folly; and some gratify their pride, by writing characters
which expose the vanity of life.

I am, Sir,

Your humble servant.




No. 19. SATURDAY, AUGUST 19, 1758.

Some of those ancient sages that have exercised their abilities in the
inquiry after the supreme good, have been of opinion, that the highest
degree of earthly happiness is quiet; a calm repose both of mind and
body, undisturbed by the sight of folly or the noise of business, the
tumults of publick commotion, or the agitations of private interest: a
state in which the mind has no other employment, but to observe and
regulate her own motions, to trace thought from thought, combine one
image with another, raise systems of science, and form theories of
virtue.

To the scheme of these solitary speculatists, it has been justly
objected, that if they are happy, they are happy only by being useless.
That mankind is one vast republick, where every individual receives many
benefits from the labours of others, which, by labouring in his turn for
others, he is obliged to repay; and that where the united efforts of all
are not able to exempt all from misery, none have a right to withdraw
from their task of vigilance, or to be indulged in idle wisdom or
solitary pleasures.

It is common for controvertists, in the heat of disputation, to add one
position to another till they reach the extremities of knowledge, where
truth and falsehood lose their distinction. Their admirers follow them
to the brink of absurdity, and then start back from each side towards
the middle point. So it has happened in this great disquisition. Many
perceive alike the force of the contrary arguments, find quiet shameful,
and business dangerous, and therefore pass their lives between them, in
bustle without business, and negligence without quiet.

Among the principal names of this moderate set is that great philosopher
Jack Whirler, whose business keeps him in perpetual motion, and whose
motion always eludes his business; who is always to do what he never
does, who cannot stand still because he is wanted in another place, and
who is wanted in many places because he stays in none.

Jack has more business than he can conveniently transact in one house;
he has therefore one habitation near Bow-church, and another about a
mile distant. By this ingenious distribution of himself between two
houses, Jack has contrived to be found at neither. Jack's trade is
extensive, and he has many dealers; his conversation is sprightly, and
he has many companions; his disposition is kind, and he has many
friends. Jack neither forbears pleasure for business, nor omits business
for pleasure, but is equally invisible to his friends and his customers;
to him that comes with an invitation to a club, and to him that waits to
settle an account.

When you call at his house, his clerk tells you that Mr. Whirler has
just stept out, but will be at home exactly at two; you wait at a
coffee-house till two, and then find that he has been at home, and is
gone out again, but left word that he should be at the Half-moon tavern
at seven, where he hopes to meet you. At seven you go to the tavern. At
eight in comes Mr. Whirler to tell you that he is glad to see you, and
only begs leave to run for a few minutes to a gentleman that lives near
the Exchange, from whom he will return before supper can be ready. Away
he runs to the Exchange, to tell those who are waiting for him that he
must beg them to defer the business till to-morrow, because his time is
come at the Half-moon.

Jack's cheerfulness and civility rank him among those whose presence
never gives pain, and whom all receive with fondness and caresses. He
calls often on his friends, to tell them that he will come again
to-morrow; on the morrow he comes again, to tell them how an unexpected
summons hurries him away. --When he enters a house, his first declaration
is, that he cannot sit down; and so short are his visits, that he seldom
appears to have come for any other reason, but to say, He must go.

The dogs of Egypt, when thirst brings them to the Nile, are said to run
as they drink for fear of the crocodiles. Jack Whirler always dines at
full speed. He enters, finds the family at table, sits familiarly down,
and fills his plate; but while the first morsel is in his mouth, hears
the clock strike, and rises; then goes to another house, sits down
again, recollects another engagement, has only time to taste the soup,
makes a short excuse to the company, and continues through another
street his desultory dinner.

But, overwhelmed as he is with business, his chief desire is to have
still more. Every new proposal takes possession of his thoughts; he soon
balances probabilities, engages in the project, brings it almost to
completion, and then forsakes it for another, which he catches with the
same alacrity, urges with the same vehemence, and abandons with the same
coldness.

Every man may be observed to have a certain strain of lamentation, some
peculiar theme of complaint, on which he dwells in his moments of
dejection. Jack's topick of sorrow is the want of time. Many an
excellent design languishes in empty theory for want of time. For the
omission of any civilities, want of time is his plea to others; for the
neglect of any affairs, want of time is his excuse to himself. That he
wants time, he sincerely believes; for he once pined away many months
with a lingering distemper, for want of time to attend to his health.

Thus Jack Whirler lives in perpetual fatigue without proportionate
advantage, because he does not consider that no man can see all with his
own eyes, or do all with his own hands; that whoever is engaged in
multiplicity of business, must transact much by substitution, and leave
something to hazard; and that he who attempts to do all, will waste his
life in doing little.




No. 20. SATURDAY, AUGUST 26, 1758.

There is no crime more infamous than the violation of truth. It is
apparent that men can be social beings no longer than they believe each
other. When speech is employed only as the vehicle of falsehood, every
man must disunite himself from others, inhabit his own cave, and seek
prey only for himself.

Yet the law of truth, thus sacred and necessary, is broken without
punishment, without censure, in compliance with inveterate prejudice and
prevailing passions. Men are willing to credit what they wish, and
encourage rather those who gratify them with pleasure, than those that
instruct them with fidelity.

For this reason every historian discovers his country; and it is
impossible to read the different accounts of any great event, without a
wish that truth had more power over partiality.

Amidst the joy of my countrymen for the acquisition of Louisbourg, I
could not forbear to consider how differently this revolution of
American power is not only now mentioned by the contending nations, but
will be represented by the writers of another century.

The English historian will imagine himself barely doing justice to
English virtue, when he relates the capture of Louisbourg in the
following manner:

"The English had hitherto seen, with great indignation, their attempts
baffled and their force defied by an enemy, whom they considered
themselves as entitled to conquer by the right of prescription, and whom
many ages of hereditary superiority had taught them to despise. Their
fleets were more numerous, and their seamen braver, than those of
France; yet they only floated useless on the ocean, and the French
derided them from their ports. Misfortunes, as is usual, produced
discontent, the people murmured at the ministers, and the ministers
censured the commanders.

"In the summer of this year, the English began to find their success
answerable to their cause. A fleet and an army were sent to America to
dislodge the enemies from the settlements which they had so perfidiously
made, and so insolently maintained, and to repress that power which was
growing more every day by the association of the Indians, with whom
these degenerate Europeans intermarried, and whom they secured to their
party by presents and promises.

"In the beginning of June the ships of war and vessels containing the
land-forces appeared before Louisbourg, a place so secured by nature
that art was almost superfluous, and yet fortified by art as if nature
had left it open. The French boasted that it was impregnable, and spoke
with scorn of all attempts that could be made against it. The garrison
was numerous, the stores equal to the longest siege, and their engineers
and commanders high in reputation. The mouth of the harbour was so
narrow, that three ships within might easily defend it against all
attacks from the sea. The French had, with that caution which cowards
borrow from fear, and attribute to policy, eluded our fleets, and sent
into that port five great ships and six smaller, of which they sunk four
in the mouth of the passage, having raised batteries and posted troops
at all the places where they thought it possible to make a descent. The
English, however, had more to dread from the roughness of the sea, than
from the skill or bravery of the defendants. Some days passed before the
surges, which rise very high round that island, would suffer them to
land. At last their impatience could be restrained no longer; they got
possession of the shore with little loss by the sea, and with less by
the enemy. In a few days the artillery was landed, the batteries were
raised, and the French had no other hope than to escape from one post to
another. A shot from the batteries fired the powder in one of their
largest ships, the flame spread to the two next, and all three were
destroyed; the English admiral sent his boats against the two large
ships yet remaining, took them without resistance, and terrified the
garrison to an immediate capitulation. "

Let us now oppose to this English narrative the relation which will be
produced, about the same time, by the writer of the age of Louis XV.

"About this time the English admitted to the conduct of affairs a man
who undertook to save from destruction that ferocious and turbulent
people, who, from the mean insolence of wealthy traders, and the lawless
confidence of successful robbers, were now sunk in despair and stupified
with horrour. He called in the ships which had been dispersed over the
ocean to guard their merchants, and sent a fleet and an army, in which
almost the whole strength of England was comprised, to secure their
possessions in America, which were endangered alike by the French arms
and the French virtue. We had taken the English fortresses by force, and
gained the Indian nations by humanity. The English, wherever they come,
are sure to have the natives for their enemies; for the only motive of
their settlements is avarice, and the only consequence of their success
is oppression. In this war they acted like other barbarians; and, with a
degree of outrageous cruelty, which the gentleness of our manners
scarcely suffers us to conceive, offered rewards by open proclamation to
those who should bring in the scalps of Indian women and children. A
trader always makes war with the cruelty of a pirate.

"They had long looked with envy and with terrour upon the influence
which the French exerted over all the northern regions of America by the
possession of Louisbourg, a place naturally strong, and new-fortified
with some slight outworks. They hoped to surprise the garrison
unprovided; but that sluggishness, which always defeats their malice,
gave us time to send supplies, and to station ships for the defence of
the harbour. They came before Louisbourg in June, and were for some time
in doubt whether they should land. But the commanders, who had lately
seen an admiral shot for not having done what he had not power to do,
durst not leave the place unassaulted. An Englishman has no ardour for
honour, nor zeal for duty; he neither values glory nor loves his king,
but balances one danger with another, and will fight rather than be
hanged. They therefore landed, but with great loss their engineers had,
in the last war with the French, learned something of the military
science, and made their approaches with sufficient skill; but all their
efforts had been without effect, had not a ball unfortunately fallen
into the powder of one of our ships, which communicated the fire to the
rest, and, by opening the passage of the harbour, obliged the garrison
to capitulate. Thus was Louisbourg lost, and our troops marched out with
the admiration of their enemies, who durst hardly think themselves
masters of the place. "




No. 21. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 1758.

TO THE IDLER.

Dear Mr. Idler,

There is a species of misery, or of disease, for which our language is
commonly supposed to be without a name, but which I think is
emphatically enough denominated _listlessness_, and which is commonly
termed a want of something to do.

Of the unhappiness of this state I do not expect all your readers to
have an adequate idea. Many are overburdened with business, and can
imagine no comfort but in rest; many have minds so placid, as willingly
to indulge a voluntary lethargy; or so narrow, as easily to be filled to
their utmost capacity. By these I shall not be understood, and therefore
cannot be pitied. Those only will sympathize with my complaint, whose
imagination is active, and resolution weak, whose desires are ardent,
and whose choice is delicate; who cannot satisfy themselves with
standing still, and yet cannot find a motive to direct their course.

I was the second son of a gentleman, whose estate was barely sufficient
to support himself and his heir in the dignity of killing game. He
therefore made use of the interest which the alliances of his family
afforded him, to procure me a post in the army. I passed some years in
the most contemptible of all human stations, that of a soldier in time
of peace. I wandered with the regiment as the quarters were changed,
without opportunity for business, taste for knowledge, or money for
pleasure. Wherever I came, I was for some time a stranger without
curiosity, and afterwards an acquaintance without friendship. Having
nothing to hope in these places of fortuitous residence, I resigned my
conduct to chance; I had no intention to offend, I had no ambition to
delight.

I suppose every man is shocked when he hears how frequently soldiers are
wishing for war. The wish is not always sincere; the greater part are
content with sleep and lace, and counterfeit an ardour which they do not
feel; but those who desire it most are neither prompted by malevolence
nor patriotism; they neither pant for laurels, nor delight in blood; but
long to be delivered from the tyranny of idleness, and restored to the
dignity of active beings.

I never imagined myself to have more courage than other men, yet was
often involuntarily wishing for a war, but of a war, at that time, I had
no prospect; and being enabled, by the death of an uncle, to live
without my pay, I quitted the army, and resolved to regulate my own
motions.

I was pleased, for a while, with the novelty of independence, and
imagined that I had now found what every man desires. My time was in my
own power, and my habitation was wherever my choice should fix it. I
amused myself for two years in passing from place to place, and
comparing one convenience with another; but being at last ashamed of
inquiry, and weary of uncertainty, I purchased a house, and established
my family.

I now expected to begin to be happy, and was happy for a short time with
that expectation. But I soon perceived my spirits to subside, and my
imagination to grow dark. The gloom thickened every day round me. I
wondered by what malignant power my peace was blasted, till I discovered
at last that I had nothing to do.

Time, with all its celerity, moves slowly to him whose whole employment
is to watch its flight. I am forced upon a thousand shifts to enable me
to endure the tediousness of the day. I rise when I can sleep no longer,
and take my morning-walk; I see what I have seen before, and return. I
sit down, and persuade myself that I sit down to think; find it
impossible to think without a subject, rise up to inquire after news,
and endeavour to kindle in myself an artificial impatience for
intelligence of events, which will never extend any consequence to me,
but that, a few minutes, they abstract me from myself.

When I have heard any thing that may gratify curiosity, I am busied for
a while in running to relate it. I hasten from one place of concourse,
to another, delighted with my own importance, and proud to think that I
am doing something, though I know that another hour would spare my
labour.

I had once a round of visits, which I paid very regularly; but I have
now tired most of my friends. When I have sat down I forget to rise, and
have more than once overheard one asking another, when I would be gone.
I perceive the company tired, I observe the mistress of the family
whispering to her servants, I find orders given to put off business till
to-morrow, I see the watches frequently inspected, and yet cannot
withdraw to the vacuity of solitude, or venture myself in my own
company.

Thus burdensome to myself and others, I form many schemes of employment
which may make my life useful or agreeable, and exempt me from the
ignominy of living by sufferance. This new course I have long designed,
but have not yet begun. The present moment is never proper for the
change, but there is always a time in view when all obstacles will be
removed, and I shall surprise all that know me with a new distribution
of my time. Twenty years have past since I have resolved a complete
amendment, and twenty years have been lost in delays. Age is coming upon
me; and I should look back with rage and despair upon the waste of life,
but that I am now beginning in earnest to begin a reformation.

I am, Sir,
Your humble servant,

DICK LINGER.




No. 22. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1758.

_Oh nomen dulce libertatis! Oh jus eximium nostra civitatis! _
CICERO.

TO THE IDLER.

Sir,

As I was passing lately under one of the gates of this city, I was
struck with horrour by a rueful cry, which summoned me _to remember the
poor debtors_.

The wisdom and justice of the English laws are, by Englishmen at least,
loudly celebrated: but scarcely the most zealous admirers of our
institutions can think that law wise, which, when men are capable of
work, obliges them to beg; or just, which exposes the liberty of one to
the passions of another.

The prosperity of a people is proportionate to the number of hands and
minds usefully employed. To the community, sedition is a fever,
corruption is a gangrene, and idleness an atrophy. Whatever body, and
whatever society, wastes more than it acquires, must gradually decay;
and every being that continues to be fed, and ceases to labour, takes
away something from the publick stock.

The confinement, therefore, of any man in the sloth and darkness of a
prison, is a loss to the nation, and no gain to the creditor. For of the
multitudes who are pining in those cells of misery, a very small part is
suspected of any fraudulent act by which they retain what belongs to
others. The rest are imprisoned by the wantonness of pride, the
malignity of revenge, or the acrimony of disappointed expectation.

If those, who thus rigorously exercise the power which the law has put
into their hands, be asked, why they continue to imprison those whom
they know to be unable to pay them; one will answer, that his debtor
once lived better than himself; another, that his wife looked above her
neighbours, and his children went in silk clothes to the dancing-school;
and another, that he pretended to be a joker and a wit. Some will reply,
that if they were in debt, they should meet with the same treatment;
some, that they owe no more than they can pay, and need therefore give
no account of their actions. Some will confess their resolution, that
their debtors shall rot in jail; and some will discover, that they hope,
by cruelty, to wring the payment from their friends.

The end of all civil regulations is to secure private happiness from
private malignity; to keep individuals from the power of one another;
but this end is apparently neglected, when a man, irritated with loss,
is allowed to be the judge of his own cause, and to assign the
punishment of his own pain; when the distinction between guilt and
happiness, between casualty and design, is intrusted to eyes blind with
interest, to understandings depraved by resentment.

Since poverty is punished among us as a crime, it ought at least to be
treated with the same lenity as other crimes; the offender ought not to
languish at the will of him whom he has offended, but to be allowed some
appeal to the justice of his country. There can be no reason why any
debtor should be imprisoned, but that he may be compelled to payment;
and a term should therefore be fixed, in which the creditor should
exhibit his accusation of concealed property. If such property can be
discovered, let it be given to the creditor; if the charge is not
offered, or cannot be proved, let the prisoner be dismissed.

Those who made the laws have apparently supposed, that every deficiency
of payment is the crime of the debtor. But the truth is, that the
creditor always shares the act, and often more than shares the guilt, of
improper trust. It seldom happens that any man imprisons another but for
debts which he suffered to be contracted in hope of advantage to
himself, and for bargains in which he proportioned his profit to his own
opinion of the hazard; and there is no reason why one should punish the
other for a contract in which both concurred.

Many of the inhabitants of prisons may justly complain of harder
treatment. He that once owes more than he can pay, is often obliged to
bribe his creditor to patience, by increasing his debt. Worse and worse
commodities, at a higher and higher price, are forced upon him; he is
impoverished by compulsive traffick, and at last overwhelmed, in the
common receptacles of misery, by debts, which, without his own consent,
were accumulated on his head. To the relief of this distress, no other
objection can be made, but that by an easy dissolution of debts fraud
will be left without punishment, and imprudence without awe; and that
when insolvency should be no longer punishable, credit will cease.

The motive to credit is the hope of advantage. Commerce can never be at
a stop, while one man wants what another can supply; and credit will
never be denied, while it is likely to be repaid with profit. He that
trusts one whom he designs to sue, is criminal by the act of trust: the
cessation of such insidious traffick is to be desired, and no reason can
be given why a change of the law should impair any other.

We see nation trade with nation, where no payment can be compelled.
Mutual convenience produces mutual confidence; and the merchants
continue to satisfy the demands of each other, though they have nothing
to dread but the loss of trade.

It is vain to continue an institution, which experience shows to be
ineffectual. We have now imprisoned one generation of debtors after
another, but we do not find that their numbers lessen.