No More Learning

In a remission of the gout,
the drunkard returns to his wine, and the glutton to his feast; and if
neither disease nor poverty were felt or dreaded, every one would sink
down in idle sensuality, without any care of others, or of himself. To
eat and drink, and lie down to sleep, would be the whole business of
mankind.

Righteousness, or the system of social duty, may be subdivided into
justice and charity. Of justice one of the Heathen sages has shown, with
great acuteness, that it was impressed upon mankind only by the
inconveniencies which injustice had produced. "In the first ages," says
he, "men acted without any rule but the impulse of desire; they
practised injustice upon others, and suffered it from others in their
turn; but in time it was discovered, that the pain of suffering wrong
was greater than the pleasure of doing it; and mankind, by a general
compact, submitted to the restraint of laws, and resigned the pleasure
to escape the pain. "

Of charity it is superfluous to observe, that it could have no place if
there were no want; for of a virtue which could not be practised, the
omission could not be culpable. Evil is not only the occasional, but the
efficient cause of charity; we are incited to the relief of misery by
the consciousness that we have the same nature with the sufferer, that
we are in danger of the same distresses, and may sometimes implore the
same assistance.

Godliness, or piety, is elevation of the mind towards the Supreme Being,
and extension of the thoughts to another life. The other life is future,
and the Supreme Being is invisible. None would have recourse to an
invisible power, but that all other subjects have eluded their hopes.
None would fix their attention upon the future, but that they are
discontented with the present. If the senses were feasted with perpetual
pleasure, they would always keep the mind in subjection. Reason has no
authority over us, but by its power to warn us against evil.

In childhood, while our minds are yet unoccupied, religion is impressed
upon them, and the first years of almost all who have been well educated
are passed in a regular discharge of the duties of piety. But as we
advance forward into the crowds of life, innumerable delights solicit
our inclinations, and innumerable cares distract our attention; the time
of youth is passed in noisy frolicks; manhood is led on from hope to
hope, and from project to project; the dissoluteness of pleasure, the
inebriation of success, the ardour of expectation, and the vehemence of
competition, chain down the mind alike to the present scene, nor is it
remembered how soon this mist of trifles must be scattered, and the
bubbles that float upon the rivulet of life be lost for ever in the
gulph of eternity. To this consideration scarcely any man is awakened
but by some pressing and resistless evil. The death of those from whom
he derived his pleasures, or to whom he destined his possessions, some
disease which shows him the vanity of all external acquisitions, or the
gloom of age, which intercepts his prospects of long enjoyment, forces
him to fix his hopes upon another state; and when he has contended with
the tempests of life till his strength fails him, he flies at last to
the shelter of religion.

That misery does not make all virtuous, experience too certainly informs
us; but it is no less certain that of what virtue there is, misery
produces far the greater part. Physical evil may be, therefore, endured
with patience, since it is the cause of moral good; and patience itself
is one virtue by which we are prepared for that state in which evil
shall be no more[1].

[1] For a fuller exposition of Johnson's sentiments on this dark and
deep subject, see his Review of Soame Jenyns' Nature and Origin of
Evil.




No. 90. SATURDAY, JANUARY 5, 1760.

It is a complaint which has been made from time to time, and which seems
to have lately become more frequent, that English oratory, however
forcible in argument, or elegant in expression, is deficient and
inefficacious, because our speakers want the grace and energy of action.

Among the numerous projectors who are desirous to refine our manners,
and improve our faculties, some are willing to supply the deficiency of
our speakers[1]. We have had more than one exhortation to study the
neglected art of moving the passions, and have been encouraged to
believe that our tongues, however feeble in themselves, may, by the help
of our hands and legs, obtain an uncontroulable dominion over the most
stubborn audience, animate the insensible, engage the careless, force
tears from the obdurate, and money from the avaricious.

If by sleight of hand, or nimbleness of foot, all these wonders can be
performed, he that shall neglect to attain the free use of his limbs may
be justly censured as criminally lazy. But I am afraid that no specimen
of such effects will easily be shown. If I could once find a speaker in
'Change-Alley raising the price of stocks by the power of persuasive
gestures, I should very zealously recommend the study of his art; but
having never seen any action by which language was much assisted, I have
been hitherto inclined to doubt whether my countrymen are not blamed too
hastily for their calm and motionless utterance.

Foreigners of many nations accompany their speech with action; but why
should their example have more influence upon us than ours upon them?
Customs are not to be changed but for better. Let those who desire to
reform us show the benefits of the change proposed. When the Frenchman
waves his hands and writhes his body in recounting the revolutions of a
game at cards, or the Neapolitan, who tells the hour of the day, shows
upon his fingers the number which he mentions; I do not perceive that
their manual exercise is of much use, or that they leave any image more
deeply impressed by their bustle and vehemence of communication.

Upon the English stage there is no want of action; but the difficulty of
making it at once various and proper, and its perpetual tendency to
become ridiculous, notwithstanding all the advantages which art and
show, and custom and prejudice can give it, may prove how little it can
be admitted into any other place, where it can have no recommendation
but from truth and nature.

The use of English oratory is only at the bar, in the parliament, and in
the church. Neither the judges of our laws nor the representatives of
our people would be much affected by laboured gesticulation, or believe
any man the more because he rolled his eyes, or puffed his cheeks, or
spread abroad his arms, or stamped the ground, or thumped his breast, or
turned his eyes sometimes to the ceiling and sometimes to the floor.
Upon men intent only upon truth, the arm of an orator has little power;
a credible testimony, or a cogent argument will overcome all the art of
modulation, and all the violence of contortion.

It is well known that, in the city which may be called the parent of
oratory, all the arts of mechanical persuasion were banished from the
court of supreme judicature. The judges of the Areopagus considered
action and vociferation as a foolish appeal to the external senses, and
unworthy to be practised before those who had no desire of idle
amusement, and whose only pleasure was to discover right.

Whether action may not be yet of use in churches, where the preacher
addresses a mingled audience, may deserve inquiry. It is certain that
the senses are more powerful as the reason is weaker; and that he whose
ears convey little to his mind, may sometimes listen with his eyes till
truth may gradually take possession of his heart. If there be any use of
gesticulation, it must be applied to the ignorant and rude, who will be
more affected by vehemence than delighted by propriety. In the pulpit
little action can be proper, for action can illustrate nothing but that
to which it may be referred by nature or by custom. He that imitates by
his hand a motion which he describes, explains it by natural similitude;
he that lays his hand on his breast, when he expresses pity, enforces
his words by a customary allusion. But theology has few topicks to which
action can be appropriated; that action which is vague and indeterminate
will at last settle into habit, and habitual peculiarities are quickly
ridiculous.

It is, perhaps, the character of the English to despise trifles; and
that art may surely be accounted a trifle which is at once useless and
ostentatious, which can seldom be practised with propriety, and which,
as the mind is more cultivated, is less powerful. Yet as all innocent
means are to be used for the propagation of truth, I would not deter
those who are employed in preaching to common congregations from any
practice which they may find persuasive: for, compared with the
conversion of sinners, propriety and elegance are less than nothing.

[1] Johnson might here be glancing at the oratorical lectures of the
modern _Rhetor_ Sheridan, whose plans he delighted incessantly to
ridicule. See Boswell. Many acute remarks occur in Hume's Essay on
Eloquence.




No. 91. SATURDAY, JANUARY 12, 1760.

It is common to overlook what is near, by keeping the eye fixed upon
something remote. In the same manner present opportunities are
neglected, and attainable good is slighted, by minds busied in extensive
ranges, and intent upon future advantages. Life, however short, is made
still shorter by waste of time, and its progress towards happiness,
though naturally slow, is yet retarded by unnecessary labour.

The difficulty of obtaining knowledge is universally confessed. To fix
deeply in the mind the principles of science, to settle their
limitations, and deduce the long succession of their consequences; to
comprehend the whole compass of complicated systems, with all the
arguments, objections and solutions, and to reposite in the intellectual
treasury the numberless facts, experiments, apophthegms and positions,
which must stand single in the memory, and of which none has any
perceptible connexion with the rest, is a task which, though undertaken
with ardour and pursued with diligence, must at last be left unfinished
by the frailty of our nature.

To make the way to learning either less short or less smooth, is
certainly absurd; yet this is the apparent effect of the prejudice which
seems to prevail among us in favour of foreign authors, and of the
contempt of our native literature, which this excursive curiosity must
necessarily produce. Every man is more speedily instructed by his own
language, than by any other; before we search the rest of the world for
teachers, let us try whether we may not spare our trouble by finding
them at home.

The riches of the English language are much greater than they are
commonly supposed. Many useful and valuable books lie buried in shops
and libraries, unknown and unexamined, unless some lucky compiler opens
them by chance, and finds an easy spoil of wit and learning. I am far
from intending to insinuate, that other languages are not necessary to
him who aspires to eminence, and whose whole life is devoted to study;
but to him who reads only for amusement, or whose purpose is not to deck
himself with the honours of literature, but to be qualified for
domestick usefulness, and sit down content with subordinate reputation,
we have authors sufficient to fill up all the vacancies of his time, and
gratify most of his wishes for information.

Of our poets I need say little, because they are, perhaps, the only
authors to whom their country has done justice. We consider the whole
succession from Spenser to Pope as superior to any names which the
continent can boast; and, therefore, the poets of other nations, however
familiarly they may be sometimes mentioned, are very little read, except
by those who design to borrow their beauties.

There is, I think, not one of the liberal arts which may not be
competently learned in the English language. He that searches after
mathematical knowledge may busy himself among his own countrymen, and
will find one or other able to instruct him in every part of those
abstruse sciences. He that is delighted with experiments, and wishes to
know the nature of bodies from certain and visible effects, is happily
placed where the mechanical philosophy was first established by a
publick institution, and from which it was spread to all other
countries.

The more airy and elegant studies of philology and criticism have little
need of any foreign help. Though our language, not being very
analogical, gives few opportunities for grammatical researches, yet we
have not wanted authors who have considered the principles of speech;
and with critical writings we abound sufficiently to enable pedantry to
impose rules which can seldom be observed, and vanity to talk of books
which are seldom read.

But our own language has, from the Reformation to the present time, been
chiefly dignified and adorned by the works of our divines, who,
considered as commentators, controvertists, or preachers, have
undoubtedly left all other nations far behind them. No vulgar language
can boast such treasures of theological knowledge, or such multitudes of
authors at once learned, elegant and pious. Other countries and other
communions have authors, perhaps, equal in abilities and diligence to
ours; but if we unite number with excellence, there is certainly no
nation which must not allow us to be superior. Of morality little is
necessary to be said, because it is comprehended in practical divinity,
and is, perhaps, better taught in English sermons than in any other
books, ancient and modern. Nor shall I dwell on our excellence in
metaphysical speculations, because he that reads the works of our
divines will easily discover how far human subtilty has been able to
penetrate.

Political knowledge is forced upon us by the form of our constitution;
and all the mysteries of government are discovered in the attack or
defence of every minister. The original law of society, the rights of
subjects and the prerogatives of kings, have been considered with the
utmost nicety, sometimes profoundly investigated, and sometimes
familiarly explained.

Thus copiously instructive is the English language; and thus needless is
all recourse to foreign writers. Let us not, therefore, make our
neighbours proud by soliciting help which we do not want, nor discourage
our own industry by difficulties which we need not suffer.




No. 92. SATURDAY, JANUARY 19, 1760.

Whatever is useful or honourable will be desired by many who never can
obtain it; and that which cannot be obtained when it is desired,
artifice or folly will be diligent to counterfeit. Those to whom fortune
has denied gold and diamonds decorate themselves with stones and metals,
which have something of the show, but little of the value; and every
moral excellence or intellectual faculty has some vice or folly which
imitates its appearance.

Every man wishes to be wise, and they who cannot be wise are almost
always cunning. The less is the real discernment of those whom business
or conversation brings together, the more illusions are practised; nor
is caution ever so necessary as with associates or opponents of feeble
minds.

Cunning differs from wisdom as twilight from open day. He that walks in
the sunshine goes boldly forward by the nearest way; he sees that where
the path is straight and even, he may proceed in security, and where it
is rough and crooked he easily complies with the turns, and avoids the
obstructions. But the traveller in the dusk fears more as he sees less;
he knows there may be danger, and, therefore, suspects that he is never
safe, tries every step before he fixes his foot, and shrinks at every
noise lest violence should approach him. Wisdom comprehends at once the
end and the means, estimates easiness or difficulty, and is cautious or
confident in due proportion. Cunning discovers little at a time, and has
no other means of certainty than multiplication of stratagems and
superfluity of suspicion. The man of cunning always considers that he
can never be too safe, and, therefore, always keeps himself enveloped in
a mist, impenetrable, as he hopes, to the eye of rivalry or curiosity.

Upon this principle Tom Double has formed a habit of eluding the most
harmless question. What he has no inclination to answer, he pretends
sometimes not to hear, and endeavours to divert the inquirer's attention
by some other subject; but if he be pressed hard by repeated
interrogation, he always evades a direct reply. Ask him whom he likes
best on the stage; he is ready to tell that there are several excellent
performers. Inquire when he was last at the coffee-house; he replies,
that the weather has been bad lately. Desire him to tell the age of any
of his acquaintance; he immediately mentions another who is older or
younger.

Will Puzzle values himself upon a long reach. He foresees every thing
before it will happen, though he never relates his prognostications till
the event is past. Nothing has come to pass for these twenty years of
which Mr. Puzzle had not given broad hints, and told at least that it
was not proper to tell. Of those predictions, which every conclusion
will equally verify, he always claims the credit, and wonders that his
friends did not understand them. He supposes very truly that much may be
known which he knows not, and, therefore, pretends to know much of which
he and all mankind are equally ignorant. I desired his opinion yesterday
of the German war, and was told, that if the Prussians were well
supported, something great may be expected; but that they have very
powerful enemies to encounter; that the Austrian general has long
experience, and the Russians are hardy and resolute; but that no human
power is invincible. I then drew the conversation to our own affairs,
and invited him to balance the probabilities of war and peace. He told
me that war requires courage, and negociation judgment, and that the
time will come when it will be seen, whether our skill in treaty is
equal to our bravery in battle. To this general prattle he will appeal
hereafter, and will demand to have his foresight applauded, whoever
shall at last be conquered or victorious.

With Ned Smuggle all is a secret. He believes himself watched by
observation and malignity on every side, and rejoices in the dexterity
by which he has escaped snares that never were laid. Ned holds that a
man is never deceived if he never trusts, and, therefore, will not tell
the name of his tailor or his hatter. He rides out every morning for the
air, and pleases himself with thinking that nobody knows where he has
been. When he dines with a friend, he never goes to his house the
nearest way, but walks up a by-street to perplex the scent. When he has
a coach called, he never tells him at the door the true place to which
he is going, but stops him in the way that he may give him directions
where nobody can hear him. The price of what he buys or sells is always
concealed. He often takes lodgings in the country by a wrong name, and
thinks that the world is wondering where he can be hid. All these
transactions he registers in a book, which, he says, will some time or
other amaze posterity.

It is remarked by Bacon, that many men try to procure reputation only by
objections, of which, if they are once admitted, the nullity never
appears, because the design is laid aside. "This false feint of wisdom,"
says he, "is the ruin of business. " The whole power of cunning is
privative; to say nothing, and to do nothing, is the utmost of its
reach. Yet men thus narrow by nature, and mean by art, are sometimes
able to rise by the miscarriages of bravery and the openness of
integrity; and by watching failures and snatching opportunities, obtain
advantages which belong properly to higher characters.




No. 93. SATURDAY, JANUARY 26, 1760.

Sam Softly was bred a sugar-baker; but succeeding to a considerable
estate on the death of his elder brother, he retired early from
business, married a fortune, and settled in a country-house near
Kentish-town, Sam, who formerly was a sportsman, and in his
apprenticeship used to frequent Barnet races, keeps a high chaise, with
a brace of seasoned geldings. During the summer months, the principal
passion and employment of Sam's life is to visit, in this vehicle, the
most eminent seats of the nobility and gentry in different parts of the
kingdom, with his wife and some select friends. By these periodical
excursions Sam gratifies many important purposes. He assists the several
pregnancies of his wife; he shows his chaise to the best advantage; he
indulges his insatiable curiosity for finery, which, since he has turned
gentleman, has grown upon him to an extraordinary degree; he discovers
taste and spirit, and, what is above all, he finds frequent
opportunities of displaying to the party, at every house he sees, his
knowledge of family connexion. At first, Sam was contented with driving
a friend between London and his villa. Here he prided himself in
pointing out the boxes of the citizens on each side of the road, with an
accurate detail of their respective failures or successes in trade; and
harangued on the several equipages that were accidentally passing. Here,
too, the seats, interspersed on the surrounding hills, afforded ample
matter for Sam's curious discoveries. For one, he told his companion, a
rich Jew had offered money; and that a retired widow was courted at
another, by an eminent dry-salter. At the same time he discussed the
utility, and enumerated the expenses, of the Islington turnpike. But
Sam's ambition is at present raised to nobler undertakings.

When the happy hour of the annual expedition arrives, the seat of the
chaise is furnished with Ogilvy's Book of Roads, and a choice quantity
of cold tongues. The most alarming disaster which can happen to our
hero, who thinks he _throws a whip_ admirably well, is to be overtaken
in a road which affords no _quarter_ for wheels. Indeed, few men possess
more skill or discernment for concerting and conducting a _party of
pleasure_. When a seat is to be surveyed, he has a peculiar talent in
selecting some shady bench in the park, where the company may most
commodiously refresh themselves with cold tongue, chicken and French
rolls; and is very sagacious in discovering what cool temple in the
garden will be best adapted for drinking tea, brought for this purpose,
in the afternoon, and from which the chaise may be resumed with the
greatest convenience. In viewing the house itself, he is principally
attracted by the chairs and beds, concerning the cost of which his
minute inquiries generally gain the clearest information. An agate table
easily diverts his eyes from the most capital strokes of Rubens, and a
Turkey carpet has more charms than a Titian. Sam, however, dwells with
some attention on the family portraits, particularly the most modern
ones; and as this is a topick on which the housekeeper usually harangues
in a more copious manner, he takes this opportunity of improving his
knowledge of intermarriages. Yet, notwithstanding this appearance of
satisfaction, Sam has some objection to all he sees. One house has too
much gilding; at another, the chimney-pieces are all monuments; at a
third, he conjectures that the beautiful canal must certainly be dried
up in a hot summer. He despises the statues at Wilton, because he thinks
he can see much better carving in Westminster Abbey. But there is one
general objection which he is sure to make at almost every house,
particularly at those which are most distinguished. He allows that all
the apartments are extremely fine, but adds, with a sneer, that they are
too fine to be inhabited.

Misapplied genius most commonly proves ridiculous. Had Sam, as Nature
intended, contentedly continued in the calmer and less conspicuous
pursuits of sugar-baking, he might have been a respectable and useful
character. At present he dissipates his life in a specious idleness,
which neither improves himself nor his friends. Those talents, which
might have benefited society, he exposes to contempt by false
pretensions. He affects pleasures which he cannot enjoy, and is
acquainted only with those subjects on which he has no right to talk,
and which it is no merit to understand[1].

[1] This humorous paper was written by Mr. Thomas Warton, who is said to
have sketched from a character in real life, distantly related to
himself. --Drake's Essays, Vol. II.




No. 94. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 1760.

It is common to find young men ardent and diligent in the pursuit of
knowledge; but the progress of life very often produces laxity and
indifference; and not only those who are at liberty to choose their
business and amusements, but those likewise whose professions engage
them in literary inquiries, pass the latter part of their time without
improvement, and spend the day rather in any other entertainment than
that which they might find among their books.

This abatement of the vigour of curiosity is sometimes imputed to the
insufficiency of learning. Men are supposed to remit their labours,
because they find their labours to have been vain; and to search no
longer after truth and wisdom, because they at last despair of finding
them.

But this reason is, for the most part, very falsely assigned. Of
learning, as of virtue, it may be affirmed, that it is at once honoured
and neglected. Whoever forsakes it will for ever look after it with
longing, lament the loss which he does not endeavour to repair, and
desire the good which he wants resolution to seize and keep. The Idler
never applauds his own idleness, nor does any man repent of the
diligence of his youth.

So many hindrances may obstruct the acquisition of knowledge, that there
is little reason for wondering that it is in a few hands. To the greater
part of mankind the duties of life are inconsistent with much study; and
the hours which they would spend upon letters must be stolen from their
occupations and their families. Many suffer themselves to be lured by
more sprightly and luxurious pleasures from the shades of contemplation,
where they find seldom more than a calm delight, such as, though greater
than all others, its certainty and its duration being reckoned with its
power of gratification, is yet easily quitted for some extemporary joy,
which the present moment offers, and another, perhaps, will put out of
reach.

It is the great excellence of learning, that it borrows very little from
time or place; it is not confined to season or to climate, to cities or
to the country, but may be cultivated and enjoyed where no other
pleasure can be obtained. But this quality, which constitutes much of
its value, is one occasion of neglect; what may be done at all times
with equal propriety, is deferred from day to day, till the mind is
gradually reconciled to the omission, and the attention is turned to
other objects. Thus habitual idleness gains too much power to be
conquered, and the soul shrinks from the idea of intellectual labour and
intenseness of meditation.

That those who profess to advance learning sometimes obstruct it, cannot
be denied; the continual multiplication of books not only distracts
choice, but disappoints inquiry. To him that has moderately stored his
mind with images, few writers afford any novelty, or what little they
have to add to the common stock of learning, is so buried in the mass of
general notions, that, like silver mingled with the ore of lead, it is
too little to pay for the labour of separation; and he that has often
been deceived by the promise of a title, at last grows weary of
examining, and is tempted to consider all as equally fallacious.

There are indeed some repetitions always lawful, because they never
deceive. He that writes the history of past times, undertakes only to
decorate known facts by new beauties of method or of style, or at most
to illustrate them by his own reflections. The author of a system,
whether moral or physical, is obliged to nothing beyond care of
selection and regularity of disposition. But there are others who claim
the name of authors merely to disgrace it, and fill the world with
volumes only to bury letters in their own rubbish. The traveller, who
tells, in a pompous folio, that he saw the Pantheon at Rome, and the
Medicean Venus at Florence; the natural historian, who, describing the
productions of a narrow island, recounts all that it has in common with
every other part of the world; the collector of antiquities, that
accounts every thing a curiosity which the ruins of Herculaneum happen
to emit, though an instrument already shown in a thousand repositories,
or a cup common to the ancients, the moderns and all mankind; may be
justly censured as the persecutors of students, and the thieves of that
time which never can be restored.




No. 95. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1760.

TO THE IDLER.

Mr. Idler,

It is, I think, universally agreed, that seldom any good is gotten by
complaint; yet we find that few forbear to complain, but those who are
afraid of being reproached as the authors of their own miseries. I hope,
therefore, for the common permission to lay my case before you and your
readers, by which I shall disburden my heart, though I cannot hope to
receive either assistance or consolation.

I am a trader, and owe my fortune to frugality and industry. I began
with little; but by the easy and obvious method of spending less than I
gain, I have every year added something to my stock, and expect to have
a seat in the common-council at the next election.

My wife, who was as prudent as myself, died six years ago, and left me
one son and one daughter, for whose sake I resolved never to marry
again, and rejected the overtures of Mrs. Squeeze, the broker's widow,
who had ten thousand pounds at her own disposal.

I bred my son at a school near Islington; and when he had learned
arithmetick, and wrote a good hand, I took him into the shop, designing,
in about ten years, to retire to Stratford or Hackney, and leave him
established in the business.

For four years he was diligent and sedate, entered the shop before it
was opened, and when it was shut, always examined the pins of the
window. In any intermission of business it was his constant practice to
peruse the leger. I had always great hopes of him, when I observed how
sorrowfully he would shake his head over a bad debt, and how eagerly he
would listen to me when I told him that he might at one time or other
become an alderman.

We lived together with mutual confidence, till, unluckily, a visit was
paid him by two of his school-fellows, who were placed, I suppose, in
the army, because they were fit for nothing better: they came glittering
in their military dress, accosted their old acquaintance, and invited
him to a tavern, where, as I have been since informed, they ridiculed
the meanness of commerce, and wondered how a youth of spirit could spend
the prime of life behind a counter. I did not suspect any mischief. I
knew my son was never without money in his pocket, and was better able
to pay his reckoning than his companions; and expected to see him return
triumphing in his own advantages, and congratulating himself that he was
not one of those who expose their heads to a musket bullet for three
shillings a day.

He returned sullen and thoughtful; I supposed him sorry for the hard
fortune of his friends; and tried to comfort him, by saying that the war
would soon be at an end, and that, if they had any honest occupation,
half-pay would be a pretty help. He looked at me with indignation; and
snatching up his candle, told me, as he went up stairs, that _he hoped
to see a battle yet_.

Why he should hope to see a battle, I could not conceive, but let him go
quietly to sleep away his folly. Next day he made two mistakes in the
first bill, disobliged a customer by surly answers, and dated all his
entries in the journal in a wrong month. At night he met his military
companions again, came home late, and quarrelled with the maid.
From this fatal interview he has gradually lost all his laudable
passions and desires. He soon grew useless in the shop, where, indeed, I
did not willingly trust him any longer; for he often mistook the price
of goods to his own loss, and once gave a promissory note instead of a
receipt.

I did not know to what degree he was corrupted, till an honest tailor
gave me notice that he had bespoke a laced suit, which was to be left
for him at a house kept by the sister of one of my journeymen. I went to
this clandestine lodging, and found, to my amazement, all the ornaments
of a fine gentleman, which I know not whether he has taken upon credit,
or purchased with money subducted from the shop.

This detection has made him desperate. He now openly declares his
resolution to be a gentleman; says that his soul is too great for a
counting-house; ridicules the conversation of city taverns; talks of new
plays, and boxes and ladies; gives duchesses for his toasts; carries
silver, for readiness, in his waistcoat-pocket; and comes home at night
in a chair, with such thunders at the door, as have more than once
brought the watchmen from their stands.

Little expenses will not hurt us; and I could forgive a few juvenile
frolicks, if he would be careful of the main; but his favourite topick
is contempt of money, which, he says, is of no use but to be spent.
Riches, without honour, he holds empty things; and once told me to my
face, that wealthy plodders were only purveyors to men of spirit.

He is always impatient in the company of his old friends, and seldom
speaks till he is warmed with wine; he then entertains us with accounts
that we do not desire to hear, of intrigues among lords and ladies, and
quarrels between officers of the guards; shows a miniature on his
snuff-box, and wonders that any man can look upon the new dancer without
rapture.

All this is very provoking; and yet all this might be borne, if the boy
could support his pretensions. But, whatever he may think, he is yet far
from the accomplishments which he has endeavoured to purchase at so dear
a rate. I have watched him in publick places. He sneaks in like a man
that knows he is where he should not be; he is proud to catch the
slightest salutation, and often claims it when it is not intended. Other
men receive dignity from dress, but my booby looks always more meanly
for his finery. Dear Mr. Idler, tell him what must at last become of a
fop, whom pride will not suffer to be a trader, and whom long habits in
a shop forbid to be a gentleman.

I am, Sir, &c.

TIM WAINSCOT.




No. 96. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1760.

_Qui se volet esse potentem,
Animos domet ille feroces:
Nec victa libidine colla
Foedis submittat habenis. _ BOETHIUS.

Hacho, a king of Lapland, was in his youth the most renowned of the
Northern warriors. His martial achievements remain engraved on a pillar
of flint in the rocks of Hanga, and are to this day solemnly carolled to
the harp by the Laplanders, at the fires with which, they celebrate
their nightly festivities. Such was his intrepid spirit, that he
ventured to pass the lake Vether to the isle of Wizards, where he
descended alone into the dreary vault in which a magician had been kept
bound for six ages, and read the Gothick characters inscribed on his
brazen mace. His eye was so piercing, that, as ancient chronicles
report, he could blunt the weapons of his enemies only by looking at
them. At twelve years of age he carried an iron vessel of a prodigious
weight, for the length of five furlongs, in the presence of all the
chiefs of his father's castle.

Nor was he less celebrated for his prudence and wisdom. Two of his
proverbs are yet remembered and repeated among Laplanders. To express
the vigilance of the Supreme Being, he was wont to say, "Odin's belt is
always buckled. " To show that the most prosperous condition of life is
often hazardous, his lesson was, "When you slide on the smoothest ice,
beware of pits beneath. " He consoled his countrymen, when they were once
preparing to leave the frozen deserts of Lapland, and resolved to seek
some warmer climate, by telling them, that the Eastern nations,
notwithstanding their boasted fertility, passed every night amidst the
horrours of anxious apprehension, and were inexpressibly affrighted, and
almost stunned, every morning, with the noise of the sun while he was
rising.

His temperance and severity of manners were his chief praise. In his
early years he never tasted wine; nor would he drink out of a painted
cup. He constantly slept in his armour, with his spear in his hand; nor
would he use a battle-axe whose handle was inlaid with brass. He did
not, however, persevere in this contempt of luxury; nor did he close his
days with honour.

One evening, after hunting the gulos or wild-dog, being bewildered in a
solitary forest, and having passed the fatigues of the day without any
interval of refreshment, he discovered a large store of honey in the
hollow of a pine. This was a dainty which he had never tasted before;
and being at once faint and hungry, he fed greedily upon it. From this
unusual and delicious repast he received so much satisfaction, that, at
his return home, he commanded honey to be served up at his table every
day. His palate, by degrees, became refined and vitiated; he began to
lose his native relish for simple fare, and contracted a habit of
indulging himself in delicacies; he ordered the delightful gardens of
his castle to be thrown open, in which the most luscious fruits had been
suffered to ripen and decay, unobserved and untouched, for many
revolving autumns, and gratified his appetite with luxurious desserts.
At length he found it expedient to introduce wine, as an agreeable
improvement, or a necessary ingredient, to his new way of living; and
having once tasted it, he was tempted, by little and little, to give a
loose to the excesses of intoxication. His general simplicity of life
was changed; he perfumed his apartments by burning the wood of the most
aromatick fir, and commanded his helmet to be ornamented with beautiful
rows of the teeth of the raindeer. Indolence and effeminacy stole upon
him by pleasing and imperceptible gradations, relaxed the sinews of his
resolution, and extinguished his thirst of military glory.

While Hacho was thus immersed in pleasure and in repose, it was reported
to him, one morning, that the preceding night, a disastrous omen had
been discovered, and that bats and hideous birds had drunk up the oil
which nourished the perpetual lamp in the temple of Odin. About the same
time, a messenger arrived to tell him, that the king of Norway had
invaded his kingdom with a formidable army. Hacho, terrified as he was
with the omen of the night, and enervated with indulgence, roused
himself from his voluptuous lethargy, and, recollecting some faint and
few sparks of veteran valour, marched forward to meet him. Both armies
joined battle in the forest where Hacho had been lost after hunting; and
it so happened, that the king of Norway challenged him to single combat,
near the place where he had tasted the honey. The Lapland chief, languid
and long disused to arms, was soon overpowered; he fell to the ground;
and before his insulting adversary struck his head from his body,
uttered this exclamation, which the Laplanders still use as an early
lesson to their children: "The vicious man should date his destruction
from the first temptation. How justly do I fall a sacrifice to sloth and
luxury, in the place where I first yielded to those allurements which
seduced me to deviate from temperance and innocence! The honey which I
tasted in this forest, and not the hand of the king of Norway, conquers
Hacho[1]. "

[1] By Mr. Thomas Warton.




No. 97. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1760.

It may, I think, be justly observed, that few books disappoint their
readers more than the narrations of travellers. One part of mankind is
naturally curious to learn the sentiments, manners, and condition of the
rest; and every mind that has leisure or power to extend its views, must
be desirous of knowing in what proportion Providence has distributed the
blessings of nature, or the advantages of art, among the several nations
of the earth.

This general desire easily procures readers to every book from which it
can expect gratification. The adventurer upon unknown coasts, and the
describer of distant regions, is always welcomed as a man who has
laboured for the pleasure of others, and who is able to enlarge our
knowledge and rectify our opinions; but when the volume is opened,
nothing is found but such general accounts as leave no distinct idea
behind them, or such minute enumerations as few can read with either
profit or delight.

Every writer of travels should consider, that, like all other authors,
he undertakes either to instruct or please, or to mingle pleasure with
instruction. He that instructs must offer to the mind something to be
imitated, or something to be avoided; he that pleases must offer new
images to his reader, and enable him to form a tacit comparison of his
own state with that of others.

The greater part of travellers tell nothing, because their method of
travelling supplies them with nothing to be told. He that enters a town
at night, and surveys it in the morning, and then hastens away to
another place, and guesses at the manners of the inhabitants by the
entertainment which his inn afforded him, may please himself for a time
with a hasty change of scenes, and a confused remembrance of palaces and
churches; he may gratify his eye with a variety of landscapes, and
regale his palate with a succession of vintages; but let him be
contented to please himself without endeavouring to disturb others.

Why should he record excursions by which nothing could be learned, or
wish to make a show of knowledge, which, without some power of intuition
unknown to other mortals, he never could attain?

Of those who crowd the world with their itineraries, some have no other
purpose than to describe the face of the country; those who sit idle at
home, and are curious to know what is done or suffered in distant
countries, may be informed by one of these wanderers, that on a certain
day he set out early with the caravan, and in the first hour's march
saw, towards the south, a hill covered with trees, then passed over a
stream, which ran northward with a swift course, but which is probably
dry in the summer months; that an hour after he saw something to the
right which looked at a distance like a castle with towers, but which he
discovered afterwards to be a craggy rock; that he then entered a
valley, in which he saw several trees tall and flourishing, watered by a
rivulet not marked in the maps, of which he was not able to learn the
name; that the road afterward grew stony, and the country uneven, where
he observed among the hills many hollows worn by torrents, and was told
that the road was passable only part of the year; that going on they
found the remains of a building, once, perhaps, a fortress to secure the
pass, or to restrain the robbers, of which the present inhabitants can
give no other account than that it is haunted by fairies; that they went
to dine at the foot of a rock, and travelled the rest of the day along
the banks of a river, from which the road turned aside towards evening,
and brought them within sight of a village, which was once a
considerable town, but which afforded them neither good victuals nor
commodious lodging.

Thus he conducts his reader through wet and dry, over rough and smooth,
without incidents, without reflection; and, if he obtains his company
for another day, will dismiss him again at night, equally fatigued with
a like succession of rocks and streams, mountains and ruins.

This is the common style of those sons of enterprise, who visit savage
countries, and range through solitude and desolation; who pass a desert,
and tell that it is sandy; who cross a valley, and find that it is
green. There are others of more delicate sensibility, that visit only
the realms of elegance and softness; that wander through Italian
palaces, and amuse the gentle reader with catalogues of pictures; that
hear masses in magnificent churches, and recount the number of the
pillars or variegations of the pavement. And there are yet others, who,
in disdain of trifles, copy inscriptions elegant and rude, ancient and
modern; and transcribe into their book the walls of every edifice,
sacred or civil. He that reads these books must consider his labour as
its own reward; for he will find nothing on which attention can fix, or
which memory can retain.

He that would travel for the entertainment of others, should remember
that the great object of remark is human life. Every nation has
something peculiar in its manufactures, its works of genius, its
medicines, its agriculture, its customs and its policy. He only is a
useful traveller, who brings home something by which his country may be
benefited; who procures some supply of want, or some mitigation of evil,
which may enable his readers to compare their condition with that of
others, to improve it whenever it is worse, and whenever it is better to
enjoy it.




No. 98. SATURDAY, MARCH 1, 1760.

TO THE IDLER.

Sir,

I am the daughter of a gentleman, who during his lifetime enjoyed a
small income which arose from a pension from the court, by which he was
enabled to live in a genteel and comfortable manner.

By the situation of life in which he was placed, he was frequently
introduced into the company of those of much greater fortunes than his
own, among whom he was always received with complaisance, and treated
with civility.

At six years of age I was sent to a boarding-school in the country, at
which I continued till my father's death. This melancholy event happened
at a time when I was by no means of sufficient age to manage for myself,
while the passions of youth continued unsubdued, and before experience
could guide my sentiments or my actions.

I was then taken from school by an uncle, to the care of whom my father
had committed me on his dying-bed. With him I lived several years; and,
as he was unmarried, the management of his family was committed to me.
In this character I always endeavoured to acquit myself, if not with
applause, at least without censure.

At the age of twenty-one, a young gentleman of some fortune paid his
addresses to me, and offered me terms of marriage. This proposal I
should readily have accepted, because from vicinity of residence, and
from many opportunities of observing his behaviour, I had, in some sort,
contracted an affection for him. My uncle, for what reason I do not
know, refused his consent to this alliance, though it would have been
complied with by the father of the young gentleman; and, as the future
condition of my life was wholly dependant on him, I was not willing to
disoblige him, and, therefore, though unwillingly, declined the offer.

My uncle, who possessed a plentiful fortune, frequently hinted to me in
conversation, that at his death I should be provided for in such a
manner that I should be able to make my future life comfortable and
happy. As this promise was often repeated, I was the less anxious about
any provision for myself. In a short time my uncle was taken ill, and
though all possible means were made use of for his recovery, in a few
days he died.

The sorrow arising from the loss of a relation, by whom I had been
always treated with the greatest kindness, however grievous, was not the
worst of my misfortunes. As he enjoyed an almost uninterrupted state of
health, he was the less mindful of his dissolution, and died intestate;
by which means his whole fortune devolved to a nearer relation, the heir
at law.

Thus excluded from all hopes of living in the manner with which I have
so long flattered myself, I am doubtful what method I shall take to
procure a decent maintenance. I have been educated in a manner that has
set me above a state of servitude, and my situation renders me unfit for
the company of those with whom I have hitherto conversed. But, though
disappointed in my expectations, I do not despair. I will hope that
assistance may still be obtained for innocent distress, and that
friendship, though rare, is yet not impossible to be found.

I am, Sir, Your humble servant,

SOPHIA HEEDFUL. [1]

[1] By an unknown correspondent.




No. 99. SATURDAY, MARCH 8, 1760.

As Ortogrul of Basra was one day wandering along the streets of Bagdat,
musing on the varieties of merchandise which the shops offered to his
view, and observing the different occupations which busied the
multitudes on every side, he was awakened from the tranquillity of
meditation by a crowd that obstructed his passage. He raised his eyes,
and saw the chief visier, who, having returned from the divan, was
entering his palace.

Ortogrul mingled with the attendants, and being supposed to have some
petition for the visier, was permitted to enter. He surveyed the
spaciousness of the apartments, admired the walls hung with golden
tapestry, and the floors covered with silken carpets, and despised the
simple neatness of his own little habitation.

Surely, said he to himself, this palace is the seat of happiness, where
pleasure succeeds to pleasure, and discontent and sorrow can have no
admission. Whatever Nature has provided for the delight of sense, is
here spread forth to be enjoyed. What can mortals hope or imagine, which
the master of this palace has not obtained? The dishes of luxury cover
his table, the voice of harmony lulls him in his bowers; he breathes the
fragrance of the groves of Java, and sleeps upon the down of the cygnets
of Ganges. He speaks, and his mandate is obeyed; he wishes, and his wish
is gratified; all whom he sees obey him, and all whom he hears flatter
him. How different, Ortogrul, is thy condition, who art doomed to the
perpetual torments of unsatisfied desire, and who hast no amusement in
thy power that can withhold thee from thy own reflections! They tell
thee that thou art wise; but what does wisdom avail with poverty? None
will flatter the poor, and the wise have very little power of flattering
themselves. That man is surely the most wretched of the sons of
wretchedness, who lives with his own faults and follies always before
him, and who has none to reconcile him to himself by praise and
veneration. I have long sought content, and have not found it; I will
from this moment endeavour to be rich.

Full of this new resolution, he shut himself up in his chamber for six
months, to deliberate how he should grow rich; he sometimes proposed to
offer himself as a counsellor to one of the kings of India, and
sometimes resolved to dig for diamonds in the mines of Golconda. One
day, after some hours passed in violent fluctuation of opinion, sleep
insensibly seized him in his chair; he dreamed that he was ranging a
desert country in search of some one that might teach him to grow rich;
and as he stood on the top of a hill shaded with cypress, in doubt
whither to direct his steps, his father appeared on a sudden standing
before him. Ortogrul, said the old man, I know thy perplexity; listen to
thy father; turn thine eye on the opposite mountain. Ortogrul looked,
and saw a torrent tumbling down the rocks, roaring with the noise of
thunder, and scattering its foam on the impending woods. Now, said his
father, behold the valley that lies between the hills. Ortogrul looked,
and espied a little well, out of which issued a small rivulet. Tell me
now, said his father, dost thou wish for sudden affluence, that may pour
upon thee like the mountain torrent, or for a slow and gradual increase,
resembling the rill gliding from the well? Let me be quickly rich, said
Ortogrul; let the golden stream be quick and violent. Look round thee,
said his father, once again. Ortogrul looked, and perceived the channel
of the torrent dry and dusty; but following the rivulet from the well,
he traced it to a wide lake, which the supply, slow and constant, kept
always full. He waked, and determined to grow rich by silent profit and
persevering industry.

Having sold his patrimony, he engaged in merchandise, and in twenty
years purchased lands, on which he raised a house, equal in
sumptuousness to that of the visier, to which he invited all the
ministers of pleasure, expecting to enjoy all the felicity which he had
imagined riches able to afford. Leisure soon made him weary of himself,
and he longed to be persuaded that he was great and happy. He was
courteous and liberal; he gave all that approached him hopes of pleasing
him, and all who should please him hopes of being rewarded. Every art of
praise was tried, and every source of adulatory fiction was exhausted.
Ortogrul heard his flatterers without delight, because he found himself
unable to believe them. His own heart told him its frailties, his own
understanding reproached him with his faults. How long, said he, with a
deep sigh, have I been labouring in vain to amass wealth which at last
is useless! Let no man hereafter wish to be rich, who is already too
wise to be flattered.




No. 100. SATURDAY, MARCH 15, 1760,

TO THE IDLER.

Sir,

The uncertainty and defects of language have produced very frequent
complaints among the learned; yet there still remain many words among us
undefined, which are very necessary to be rightly understood, and which
produce very mischievous mistakes when they are erroneously interpreted.

I lived in a state of celibacy beyond the usual time. In the hurry first
of pleasure, and afterwards of business, I felt no want of a domestick
companion; but becoming weary of labour, I soon grew more weary of
idleness, and thought it reasonable to follow the custom of life, and to
seek some solace of my cares in female tenderness, and some amusement of
my leisure in female cheerfulness.

The choice which has been long delayed is commonly made at last with
great caution. My resolution was, to keep my passions neutral, and to
marry only in compliance with my reason. I drew upon a page of my
pocket-book a scheme of all female virtues and vices, with the vices
which border upon every virtue, and the virtues which are allied to
every vice. I considered that wit was sarcastick, and magnanimity
imperious; that avarice was economical, and ignorance obsequious; and
having estimated the good and evil of every quality, employed my own
diligence, and that of my friends, to find the lady in whom nature and
reason had reached that happy mediocrity which is equally remote from
exuberance and deficience.

Every woman had her admirers and her censurers; and the expectations
which one raised were by another quickly depressed; yet there was one in
whose favour almost all suffrages concurred. Miss Gentle was universally
allowed to be a good sort of woman. Her fortune was not large, but so
prudently managed, that she wore finer clothes, and saw more company,
than many who were known to be twice as rich. Miss Gentle's visits were
every where welcome; and whatever family she favoured with her company,
she always left behind her such a degree of kindness as recommended her
to others. Every day extended her acquaintance; and all who knew her
declared, that they never met with a better sort of woman.

To Miss Gentle I made my addresses, and was received with great equality
of temper. She did not in the days of courtship assume the privilege of
imposing rigorous commands, or resenting slight offences. If I forgot
any of her injunctions, I was gently reminded; if I missed the minute of
appointment, I was easily forgiven. I foresaw nothing in marriage but a
halcyon calm, and longed for the happiness which was to be found in the
inseparable society of a good sort of woman.

The jointure was soon settled by the intervention of friends, and the
day came in which Miss Gentle was made mine for ever. The first month
was passed easily enough in receiving and repaying the civilities of our
friends. The bride practised with great exactness all the niceties of
ceremony, and distributed her notice in the most punctilious proportions
to the friends who surrounded us with their happy auguries.

But the time soon came when we were left to ourselves, and were to
receive our pleasures from each other; and I then began to perceive that
I was not formed to be much delighted by a good sort of woman. Her great
principle is, that the orders of a family must not be broken. Every hour
of the day has its employment inviolably appropriated; nor will any
importunity persuade her to walk in the garden at the time which she has
devoted to her needlework, or to sit up stairs in that part of the
forenoon which she has accustomed herself to spend in the back parlour.
She allows herself to sit half an hour after breakfast, and an hour
after dinner; while I am talking or reading to her, she keeps her eye
upon her watch, and when the minute of departure comes, will leave an
argument unfinished, or the intrigue of a play unravelled. She once
called me to supper when I was watching an eclipse, and summoned me at
another time to bed when I was going to give directions at a fire.

Her conversation is so habitually cautious, that she never talks to me
but in general terms, as to one whom it is dangerous to trust. For
discriminations of character she has no names: all whom she mentions are
honest men and agreeable women. She smiles not by sensation, but by
practice. Her laughter is never excited but by a joke, and her notion of
a joke is not very delicate. The repetition of a good joke does not
weaken its effect; if she has laughed once, she will laugh again.

She is an enemy to nothing but ill-nature and pride; but she has
frequent reason to lament that they are so frequent in the world. All
who are not equally pleased with the good and the bad, with the elegant
and gross, with the witty and the dull, all who distinguish excellence
from defect, she considers as ill-natured; and she condemns as proud all
who repress impertinence or quell presumption, or expect respect from
any other eminence than that of fortune, to which she is always willing
to pay homage.

There are none whom she openly hates, for if once she suffers, or
believes herself to suffer, any contempt or insult, she never dismisses
it from her mind, but takes all opportunities to tell how easily she can
forgive. There are none whom she loves much better than others; for when
any of her acquaintance decline in the opinion of the world, she always
finds it inconvenient to visit them; her affection continues unaltered,
but it is impossible to be intimate with the whole town.

She daily exercises her benevolence by pitying every misfortune that
happens to every family within her circle of notice; she is in hourly
terrours lest one should catch cold in the rain, and another be frighted
by the high wind. Her charity she shows by lamenting that so many poor
wretches should languish in the streets, and by wondering what the great
can think on that they do so little good with such large estates.

Her house is elegant, and her table dainty, though she has little taste
of elegance, and is wholly free from vicious luxury; but she comforts
herself that nobody can say that her house is dirty, or that her dishes
are not well drest.

This, Mr. Idler, I have found, by long experience, to be the character
of a good sort of woman, which I have sent you for the information of
those by whom a _good sort of woman_ and a _good woman_, may happen to
be used as equivalent terms, and who may suffer by the mistake, like

Your humble servant,

TIM WARNER.




No. 101. SATURDAY, MARCH 22, 1760.

_Carpe hilaris: fuget heu! non revocanda dies. _

Omar, the son of Hussan, had passed seventy-five years in honour and
prosperity. The favour of three successive califs had filled his house
with gold and silver; and, whenever he appeared, the benedictions of the
people proclaimed his passage.

Terrestrial happiness is of short continuance. The brightness of the
flame is wasting its fuel; the fragrant flower is passing away in its
own odours. The vigour of Omar began to fail, the curls of beauty fell
from his head, strength departed from his hands, and agility from his
feet. He gave back to the calif the keys of trust and the seals of
secrecy; and sought no other pleasure for the remains of life than the
converse of the wise, and the gratitude of the good.

The powers of his mind were yet unimpaired. His chamber was filled by
visitants, eager to catch the dictates of experience, and officious to
pay the tribute of admiration. Caled, the son of the viceroy of Egypt,
entered every day early, and retired late. He was beautiful and
eloquent; Omar admired his wit, and loved his docility. Tell me, said
Caled, thou to whose voice nations have listened, and whose wisdom is
known to the extremities of Asia, tell me how I may resemble Omar the
prudent. The arts by which you have gained power and preserved it, are
to you no longer necessary or useful; impart to me the secret of your
conduct, and teach me the plan upon which your wisdom has built your
fortune.

Young man, said Omar, it is of little use to form plans of life. When I
took my first survey of the world, in my twentieth year, having
considered the various conditions of mankind, in the hour of solitude I
said thus to myself, leaning against a cedar which spread its branches
over my head: Seventy years are allowed to man; I have yet fifty
remaining: ten years I will allot to the attainment of knowledge, and
ten I will pass in foreign countries; I shall be learned, and,
therefore, shall be honoured; every city will shout at my arrival, and
every student will solicit my friendship. Twenty years thus passed will
store my mind with images, which I shall be busy through the rest of my
life in combining and comparing. I shall revel in inexhaustible
accumulations of intellectual riches; I shall find new pleasures for
every moment, and shall never more be weary of myself. I will, however,
not deviate too far from the beaten track of life, but will try what can
be found in female delicacy. I will marry a wife beautiful as the
Houries, and wise as Zobeide; with her I will live twenty years within
the suburbs of Bagdat, in every pleasure that wealth can purchase and
fancy can invent. I will then retire to a rural dwelling, pass my last
days in obscurity and contemplation, and lie silently down on the bed of
death. Through my life it shall be my settled resolution, that I will
never depend upon the smile of princes; that I will never stand exposed
to the artifices of courts; I will never pant for publick honours, nor
disturb my quiet with affairs of state.