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might have benefitted 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.

No. 94.] SATURDAY, FEB. 2, 1760.

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 consider all as equally fallacious. grows weary of examining, and is tempted to

Ir 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 lawful, because they never deceive. He that There are, indeed, some repetitions always engage them in literary inquiries, pass the lat-writes the history of past times, undertakes ter 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.

only to decorate known facts by new beauties
of method or style, or at most to illustrate
them by his own reflections. The author of a
to nothing beyond care of selection and regu
whether moral or physical, is obliged
system,
larity 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, de-
scribing the productions of a narrow island,
recounts all that it has in common with every
other part of the world; the collector of anti-
quities, 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.

TO THE IDLER.

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 No. 95.] SATURDAY, FEB. 9, 1760. 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

MR. IDLER,

Ir 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 at 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 | tleman; says that his soul is too great for a when he had learned arithmetic, and wrote a counting-house; ridicules the conversation of good hand, I took him into the shop, designing, city taverns; talks of new plays, and boxes, and in about ten years, to retire to Stratford or ladies; gives dutchesses for his toasts; carries Hackney, and leave him established in the silver, for readiness, in his waistcoat pocket; business. 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.

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 practise to peruse the ledger. 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 alder

man.

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 his life hehind 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.

Little expenses will not hurt us: and I could forgive a few juvenile frolics, if he would be careful of the main: but his favourite topic 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 public 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 He returned sullen and thoughtful; I sup- from dress, but my booby looks always more posed him sorry for the hard fortune of his meanly for his finery. Dear Mr. Idler, tell him friends; and tried to comfort him by saying what must at last become of a fop, whom pride that the war would soon be at an end, and will not suffer to be a trader, and whom long that, if they had any honest occupation, half-habits in a shop forbid to be a gentleman. 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 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 gen

I am, Sir, &c.

TIM WAINSCOT.

No. 96.] SATURDAY, FEB. 16, 1760.

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 Gothic 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 al

ways buckled." To show that the most pros- | meet him. Both armies joined battle in the perous condition of life is often hazardous, his forest where Hacho had been lost after hunt lesson was, "When you slide on the smooth-ing; and it so happened, that the king of est ice, beware of pits beneath." He consoled Norway challenged him to single combat, near his countrymen, when they were once prepar- the place where he had tasted the honey. The ing to leave the frozen deserts of Lapland, Lapland chief, languid and long disused to and resolved to seek some warmer climate, by arms, was soon overpowered; he fell to the teg them, that the Eastern nations, notwith- ground; and before his insulting adversary standing their boasted fertility, passed every struck his head from his body, uttered this exnight amidst the horrors of anxious apprehen- clamation, which the Laplanders still use as sion, and were inexpressibly affrighted, and an early lesson to their children: "The vicious almost stunned, every morning, with the noise man should date his destruction from the first of the sun while he was rising. 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."

His temperance and severity of manner 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.

No. 97.] SATURDAY, Feb. 23, 1760.

Ir 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

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 un-pleasure of others, and who is able to enlarge touched, 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 aromatic fir, and commanded his helmet to be ornamented with beautiful rows of the teeth of the rein-deer. 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 drank 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

arks of veteran valour, marched forward to

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 al its works of genius, its medicines, its agrishow of knowledge, which, without some culture, its customs, and its policy. He only. power of intuition, unknown to other mortals, he never could attain?

is a useful traveller, who brings home something by which his country may be benefitted, who procures some supply of want, or some mitigation of evil, which may enable his rea ders to compare their condition with that of others, to improve it whenever it is worse, and whenever it is better to enjoy it.

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 No. 98.] 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 dis

SIR,

SATURDAY, MARCH 1, 1760.

TO THE IDLER.

tance like a castle with towers, but which he | I AM the daughter of a gentleman, who during discovered afterward to be a craggy rock; that his life-time enjoyed a small income which he then entered a valley, in which he saw arose from a pension from the court, by which several trees tall and flourishing, watered by a he was enabled to live in a genteel and comrivulet not marked in the maps, of which he fortable manner. was not able to learn the name; that the road By the situation of life in which he was afterward grew stony, and the country une-placed, he was frequently introduced into the ven, where he observed among the hills many company of those of much greater fortunes hollows worn by torrents, and was told that the than his own, among whom he was always road was passable only part of the year, that received with complaisance, and treated with going on they found the remains of a building, civility. 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 particular in its manufactures,

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 a 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. this character I always endeavoured to acquit myself, if not with applause, at least without censure.

In

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 & 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 re covery, in a few davs 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.

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 of fered 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 vizier, who having returned from the divan, was entering his palace.

ing themselves. That man is surely the most
wretched of the sons of wretchedness, who
lives with his own faults and follies always be-
fore him, who has none to reconcile him to
I have long
himself by praise and veneration.
sought content, and have not found it; I will
from this moment endeavour to be rich.

Full of his new resolution, he shuts himself
in his chamber for six months, to deliberate
how he should grow rich: he sometimes pro-
posed 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 whether to direct his steps,
his father appeared on a sudden standing be-
fore him. Ortogrul, said the old man, I know
thy perplexity; listen to thy father; turn thine
eye on the opposite mountain. Ortogrul look-
ed, and saw a torrent tumbling down the rocks,
roaring with the noise of thunder, and scat-
tering its foam on the impending woods. Now,
said his father, behold the valley that lies be-
tween the hills. Ortogrul looked, and espied
a little well out of which issued a small rivu-
let. 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 glid-
ing 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.

Ortogrul mingled with the attendants, and being supposed to have some petition for the vizier, was permitted to enter. He surveyed the spaciousness of the apartments, admired the walls hung with golden tapestry, and the Having sold his patrimony, he engaged in floors covered with silken carpets, and despis-merchandise, and in twenty years purchased ed the simple neatness of his own little habi- lands, on which he raised a house, equal in tation. sumptuousness to that of the vizier, 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 per suaded 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. Or togrul heard his flatterers without delight, be cause 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 flat, tered.

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 has no amusement in thy power that can withhold thee from thy own reflections! They tell thee that thou art wise; but what does wisdom ayail with poverty? None will flatter the poor, and the wise have very little power of flatter

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