invited me to dinner; and if he bespeaks me | preserve me from a shower. To be wet, may the day before, never fails to regale me with a fillet of veal.

His riches neither make 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.

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 exhi bits the dust of a marygold separated from the flower with a dexterity worthy of Leuwenhoeck himself. Some turn the wheel of electricity: some suspend rings to a loadstone, 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 strange, and mingle them again.

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 over-is looked the high road, amusing himself with The Idlers that sport only with inanimate nalooking through the window, which the clouds ture may claim some indulgence; if they are of dust would not suffer him to open. He em- useless, they are still innocent; but there are braced me, told me I was welcome into the others, whom I know not how to mention withcountry, and asked me, if I did not feel myself out more emotion than my love of quiet willrefreshed. He then desired that dinner might|ingly admits. Among the inferior professors be hastened, for fresh air always sharpened of medical knowledge, is a race of wretches, his appetite, and ordered me a toast and a glass whose lives are only varied by varieties of of wine after may walk. He told me much of cruelty; whose favourite amusement is, to the pleasure he found in retirement, and won-nail dogs to tables and open them alive; to try dered 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 car-lasting agonies are produced by poison forced riages as they passed before him.

No. 17. SATurday, Aug. 5, 1758.

THE rainy weather, which has continued the last month is said to have given great disturbance to the inspectors of barometers. The oracalous 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 nave lost their gloss, and many curls have 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

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how long life may be continued in various de grees of mutilation, or with the excision or laceration of the vital parts; to examine whe ther burning irons are felt more acutely by the bone or tendon; and whether the more

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 con ceived; 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 preten sions 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.

No. 18.] SATURDAY, AUG. 12, 1758.
TO THE IDLER.

SIR,

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 music is the balm of life.

Ir commonly happens to him who endeavours All assemblies of gayety are brought together to obtain distinction by ridicule, or censure, that by motives of the saine kind. The theatre is ne teaches others to practise his own arts not filled with those that know or regard the against himself; and that, after a short enjoy-skill of the actor, nor the ball-room by those ment 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.

who dance, or attend to the dancers. To all places of general resort, where the standard of pleasure is erected, we run with equal eager. ness, 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.

You cannot, therefore wonder that your observations on human folly, if they produce daughter at one time, awaken criticism at ano- To every place of entertainment we go with ther; and that among the numbers whom you expectation and desire of being pleased; we have taught to scoff at the retirement of Drug-meet others who are brought by the same moget there is one who offers his apology.

tives; no one will be the first to own the disapThe mistake of your old friend is by no means pointment; one face reflects the smile of anpeculiar. The public pleasures of far the other, till each believes the rest delighted, and greater part of mankind are counterfeit. Very endeavours to catch and transmit the circulatfew carry their philosophy to places of diver-ing rapture. In time all are deceived by the sion, or are very careful to analyse 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.

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 voluntaThe mind is seldom quickened to very vigor-ry dream is at an end, lament that bliss is of so ous operations but by pain, or the dread of pain. short a duration. We do not disturb ourselves with the detection If Drugget pretended to pleasures of which of fallacies which do us no harm, nor willingly he had no perception, or boasted of one amusedecline a pleasing effect to investigate its cause. ment where he was indulging another, what did He that is happy, by whatever means, desires he which is not done by all those who read his nothing but the continuance of happiness, and story? of whom some pretend delight in conis no more solicitous to distribute his sensations versation, only because they dare not be alone; into their proper species, than the common ga- some praise the quiet of solitude, becase they zer on the beauties of the spring to separate are envious of sense, and impatient of folly; light into its original rayɛ.

and some gratify their pride, by writing cha- I will be at home exactly at two; you wait at racters which expose the vanity of life.

No. 20.] SATUrday, Aug. 26, 1758.

THERE is no crime more infamous than the riolation 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.

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.
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

Atlast

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 will-few days the artillery was landed, the batteries ing to credit what they wish, and encourage rather those who gratify them with pleasures, 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.

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

The English historian will imagine himself barely doing justice to English virtue, when he relates the capture of Louisbourg in the follow-people, who from the mean insolence of weal ing 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.

thy traders, and the lawless confidence of successful robbers, were now sunk in despair and stupified with horror. He called in the ships which had been dispersed over the ocean to guard their merchants, and sent a fleet and ar. army, in which almost the whole strength of England was comprised, to secure their posses sions 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 cruelity of a pirate.

"They had long looked with envy and with terror upon the influence which the French ex"In the beginning of June the ships of war erted over all the northern regions of America and vessels containing the land forces appeared by the possession of Louisbourg, a place nabefore Louisbourg, a place so secure by nature turally strong, and new fortified with some that art was almost superfluous, and yet forti- slight outworks. They hoped to surprise the fied by art as if nature had left it open. The garrison unprovided; but that sluggishness French boasted that it was impregnable, and which always defeats their malice, gave us time spoke with scorn of all attempts that could be to send supplies, and to station ships for the made against it. The garrison was numerous, defence of the harbour. They came before the stores equal to the longest siege, and their Louisbourg in June, and were for some time in engineers and commanders high in reputation. doubt whether they should land. But the com"The mouth of the harbour was so narrow, manders, who had lately seen an admiral bethat three ships within might easily defend it headed for not having done what he had not against all attacks from the sea. The French power to do, durst not leave the place unassaulthad, with that caution which cowards borrowed. An Englishman has no ardour for honour, from fear, and attribute to policy, eluded our nor zeal for duty; he neither values glory nor feets, and sent into that port five great ships loves his king, but balances one danger with

another, and will fight rather than be hanged. I rage than other men, yet was often involuntaThey therefore landed, but with great loss, rily wishing for a war, but of a war at that time their engineers had, in the last war with the I had no prospect; and being enabled, by the French, learned something of the military sci- death of an uncle, to live without my pay, I ence, and made their approaches with sufficient quitted the army, and resolved to regulate my skil; but all their efforts had been without ef- own motions. fect, had not a ball unfortunately fallen into the powder of one 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, SEPT. 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 some
thing to do.

Of the unhappiness of this state I do not expect all your readers to have an adequate idea. Many are overburthened 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 sympathise 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 nie 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 heare 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 cou

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 around me. I wondered by what malignant power my peace was blasted, till I discovered at last that I had no thing 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 set 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 burthensome 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 passed 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