licitations to sing, for that her manner was some what ungraceful, and her voice had no great compass. It is true, says Floretta, when I sung three nights ago at Lady Sprightly's I was hoarse with a cold; but I sing for my own satisfaction, and am not in the least pain whether I am liked. However, my dear Felicia's kindness is not the less, and I shall always think myself happy in so true a friend. its reward. For this reason it is common to find | ment, it was by too frequent compliance with so men break out into rage at any insinuations to the disadvantage of their wit, who have borne with great patience reflections on their morals; and of women it has been always known, that no censures wound so deeply, or rankle so long, as that which charges them with want of beauty. As men frequently fill their imaginations with trifling pursuits, and please themselves most with things of small importance, I have often known very severe and lasting malevolence excited by unlucky censures, which would have fallen without any effect, had they not happened to wound a part remarkably tender. Gustulus, who valued himself upon the nicety of his palate, disinherited his eldest son, for telling him that the wine, which he was then commending, was the same which he had sent away the day before not fit to be drunk. Proculus withdrew his kindness from a nephew, whom he had always considered as the most promising genius of the age, for happening to praise in his presence the graceful horsemanship of Marius. And Fortunio, when he was privy-counsellor, procured a clerk to be dismissed from one of the public offices, in which he was eminent for his skill and assiduity, because he had been heard to say that there was another man in the kingdom on whose skill at billiard's he would lay his money against Fortunio's. From this time they never saw each other without mutual professions of esteem, and declarations of confidence, but went soon after into the country to visit their relations. When they came back, they were prevailed on, by the importunity of new acquaintance, to take lodgings in different parts of the town, and had frequent occasion, when they met, to bewail the distance at which they were placed, and the uncertainty which each experienced of finding the other at home. Thus are the fondest and firmest friendships dissolved, by such openness and sincerity as interrupt our enjoyment of our own approbation, or recall us to the remembrance of those failings which we are more willing to indulge than to correct. character, we are no more disturbed at an accu sation, than we are alarmed by an enemy whom we are sure to conquer; and whose attack, therefore, will bring us honour without danger. But when a man feels the reprehension of a friend seconded by his own heart, he is easily heated into resentment and revenge, either because he hoped that the fault of which he was conscious had escaped the notice of others; or that his friend had looked upon it with tenderness and extenuation, and excused it for the sake of his other virtues; or had considered him as too wise to need advice, or too delicate to be shocked with reproach: or, because we cannot feel without pain those reflections roused which we have been endeavouring to lay asleep; and when pain has produced anger, who would not willingly believe, that it ought to be discharged on others, rather than on himself? It is by no means necessary to imagine, that he who is offended at advice, was ignorant of the fault, and resents the admonition as a false charge; for perhaps it is most natural to be en Felicia and Floretta had been bred up in one raged, when there is the strongest conviction of house, and shared all the pleasures and endear-our own guilt. While we can easily defend our ments of infancy together. They entered upon life at the same time, and continued their confidence and friendship; consulted each other in every change of their dress, and every admission of a new lover; thought every diversion more entertaining whenever it happened that both were present, and when separated justified the conduct, and celebrated the excellencies, of one another. Such was their intimacy, and such their fidelity, till a birth-night approached, when Floretta took one morning an opportunity, as they were consulting upon new clothes, to advise her friend not to dance at the ball, and informed her that her performance the year before had not answered the expectation which her other accomplishments had raised. Felicia commended her sincerity, and thanked her for the caution; but told her that she danced to please herself, and was in very little concern what the men might take the liberty of saying, but that if her appearance gave her dear Floretta any uneasiness, she would stay away. Floretta had now nothing left but to make new protestations of sincerity and affection, with which Felicia was so well satisfied, that they parted with more than usual fondness. They still continued to visit, with this only difference, that Felicia was more punctual than before, and often declared how high a value she put upon sincerity, how much she thought that goodness to be esteemed which would venture to admonish a friend of an error, and with It is decreed by Providence, that nothing truly what gratitude advice was to be received, even valuable shall be obtained in our present state, when it might happen to proceed from mistake. but with difficulty and danger. He that hopes In a few months, Felicia, with great serious- for that advantage which is to be gained from unness, told Floretta, that though her beauty was restrained communication, must sometimes hasuch as gave charins to whatever she did, and zard, by unpleasing truths, that friendship which her qualifications so extensive, that she could not he aspires to merit. The chief rule to be observ. fail of excellence in any attempt, yet she thought ed in the exercise of this dangerous office, is to herself obliged by the duties of friendship to in- preserve it pure from all mixture of interest or form her, that if ever she betrayed want of judg-vanity; to forbear admonition or reproof, when K The resentment produced by sincerity, whatever be its immediate cause, is so certain, and generally so keen, that very few have magnani mity sufficient for the practice of a duty, which, above most others, exposes its votaries to hardships and persecution; yet friendship without it is of very little value, since the great use of so close an intimacy is, that our virtues may be guarded and encouraged, and our vices repressed in their first appearance by timely detection and salutary remonstrances. 74 our consciences tell us that they are incited, not by the hopes of reforming faults, but the desire of showing our discernment, or gratifying our own pride by the mortification of another. It is not indeed certain, that the most refined caution will find a proper time for bringing a man to the knowledge of his own failings, or the most zeal ous benevolence reconcile him to that judgment, by which they are detected; but he who endeavours only the happiness of him whom he reproves, will always have either the satisfaction of obtaining or deserving kindness; if he succeeds, he benefits his friend; and if he fails, he has at least the consciousness that he suffers for only doing well. No day's remembrance shall the good regret, So few of the hours of life are filled up with ob- [No. 4! her first nest the ensuing season, of the same materials, and with the same art, as in any fol lowing year; and the hen conducts and shelters her first brood of chickens with all the prudence that she ever attains. It has been asked by men who love to perplex any thing that is plain to common understandings, how reason differs from instinct: and Prior has with no great propriety made Solomon himself declare, that to distinguish them is the fool's ignorance, and the pedant's pride. To give an accurate answer to a question, of which the terms are not completely understood, is impossible; we do not know in what either reason or instinct consist, and therefore cannot tell with exactness how they differ; but surely he that contemplates a ship and a bird's nest, will not be long without finding out, that the idea of the one was impressed at once, and continued through all the progressive descents of the species, without variation or improvement; and that the other is the result of experiments compared with experiments; has grown, by accumulated observation, from less to greater excellence; and exhibits the collective knowledge of different ages and various professions. Memory is the purveyor of reason, the power which the judgment is to be exercised, and which which places those images before the mind upon treasures up the determinations that are once passed, as the rules of future action, or grounds of subsequent conclusions. be pushed forward by an invincible fatality, without power or reason for the most part to prefer one thing to another, because we could make no comparison but of objects which might both hap pen to be present. may be said to place us in the class of moral It is, indeed, the faculty of remembrance, which agents. If we were to act only in consequence I cannot but consider this necessity of search-rection from internal motives of choice, we should of some immediate impulse, and receive no diing on every side for matter on which the attention may be employed, as a strong proof of the superior and celestial nature of the soul of man. We have no reason to believe that other creatures have higher faculties, or more extensive capacities, than the preservation of themselves, or their species requires; they seem always to be fully employed, or to be completely at ease without employment, to feel few intellectual miseries or pleasures, and to have no exuberance of understanding to lay out upon curiosity or caprice, but to have their minds exactly adapted to their bodies, with few other ideas than such as corporeal pain or pleasure impress upon them. Of memory, which makes so large a part of the excellence of the human soul, and which has so much influence upon all its other powers, but a small portion has been allotted to the animal world. We do not find the grief with which the dams lament the loss of their young, proportionate to the tenderness with which they caress, the assiduity with which they feed, or the vehemence with which they defend them. Their regard for their offspring, when it is before their eyes, is not, in appearance, less than that of a human parent; but when it is taken away, it is very soon forgotten, and, after a short absence, if brought again, wholly disregarded. That they have very little remembrance of any thing once out of the reach of their senses, and scarce any power of comparing the present with the past, and regulating their conclusions from experience, may be gathered from this, that their intellects are produced in their full perfection. The sparrow that was hatched last spring makes our knowledge and our progress in rational in. We owe to memory not only the increase of quiries, but many other intellectual pleasures, Indeed, almost all that we can be said to enjoy is past or future; the present is in perpetual mo tion, leaves us as soon as it arrives, ceases to be present before its presence is well perceived, and is only known to have existed by the effects which arises, therefore, from the view before or behind it leaves behind. The greatest part of our ideas us, and we are happy or miserable, according as prospect of future existence. we are affected by the survey of our life, or our such a distance from us that we cannot take the With regard to futurity, when events are at whole concatenation into our view, we have ge nerally power enough over our imagination to turn it upon pleasing scenes, and can promise ourselves, riches, honours, and delights without intermingling those vexations and anxieties with which all human enjoyments are polluted. If fear breaks in on one side, and alarms us with danthe other, to solace us with rewards, and escapes, gers and disappointments, we can call in hope on and victories; so that we are seldom without means of palliating remote evils, and can generally soothe ourselves to tranquillity, whenever any troublesome presage happens to attack us. for the solitary and thoughtful, to amuse thenIt is therefore, I believe, much more cominon those who wish to pass the last hours with comfort, to lay up such a treasure of pleasing ideas, as shall support the expenses of that time, which is to depend wholly upon the fund already acquired. selves with schemes of the future, than reviews afford. It ought, therefore, to be the care of of the past. For the future is pliant and ductile, and will be easily moulded by a strong fancy into any form: but the images which memory presents are of a stubborn and untractable nature, the objects of remembrance have already existed, and left their signature behind them impressed upon the mind, so as to defy all attempts of razure or of change. As the satisfactions, therefore, arising from memory are less arbitrary, they are more solid, and are, indeed, the only joys which we can call our own. Whatever we have once reposited, as Dryden expresses it, in the sacred treasure of the past, is out of the reach of accident, or violence, nor can be lost either by our own weakness, or another's malice: There is certainly no greater happiness than to be able to look back on a life usefully and virtuously employed, to trace our own progress in existence, by such tokens as excite neither shame nor sorrow. Life, in which nothing has been done or suffered, to distinguish one day from another, is to him that has passed it as if it had never been, except that he is conscious how ill he has husbanded the great deposit of his Creator. Life, made memorable by crimes, and diversified through its several periods by wickedness, is indeed easily reviewed, but reviewed only with horror and remorse. -Petite hinc, juvenesque senesque, Finem animo certum, miserisque viatica canis. I AM no great admirer of grave writings, and therefore very frequently lay your papers aside before I have read them through; yet I cannot but confess that, by slow degrees, you have raised my opinion of your understanding; and that, though I believe it will be long before I can be prevailed The great consideration which ought to influ- upon to regard you with much kindness, you ence us in the use of the present moment, is to have, however, more of my esteem than those arise from the effect, which, as well or ill applied, whom I sometimes make happy with opportuniit must have upon the time to come; for though ties to fill my tea-pot, or pick up my fan. I shall its actual existence, be inconceivably short, yet therefore choose you for the confidant of my disits effects are unlimited; and there is not the tresses, and ask your counsel with regard to the smallest point of time but may extend its con- means of conquering or escaping them, though sequences, either to our hurt or our advantage, I never expect from you any of that softness and through all eternity, and give us reason to re-pliancy, which constitutes the perfection of a member it for ever, with anguish or exultation.companion for the ladies: as, in the place where The time of life, in which memory seems par- I now am, I have recourse to the mastiff for proticularly to claim predominance over the other tection, though I have no intention of making faculties of the mind, is our declining age. It him a lap-dog. has been remarked by former writers, that old men are generally narrative, and fall easily into recitals of past transactions, and accounts of persons known to them in their youth. When we approach the verge of the grave it is more eminently true: My mamma is a very fine lady, who has more numerous and more frequent assemblies at her house than any other person in the same quarter of the town. I was bred from my earliest infancy in a perpetual tumult of pleasure, and remember to have heard of little else than messages, visits, play-houses, and balls; of the awkwardness of one woman, and the coquetry of another; the charming convenience of some rising fashion, the difficulty of playing a new game, the incidents of a masquerade, and the dresses of a court-night. I knew before I was ten years old all the rules of paying and receiving visits, and to how much civility every one of my acquaintance was entitled; and was able to return, with the proper degree of reserve or of vivacity, the stated and established answer to every compliment; so that I was very soon celebrated as a wit and a beauty, and had heard before I was thirteen all that is ever said to a young lady. My mother was generous to so uncommon a degree as to be pleased with my advances into life, and allowed me without envy or reproof, to enjoy the same happiness with herself; though most women about her own age were very angry to see young girls so forward, and many fine gentlemen told her how cruel it was to throw new chains upon mankind, and to tyrannize over them at the same time with her own charms and those of her daughter. I have now lived two and twenty years, and have passed of each year nine months in town, and three at Richmond; so that my time has been spent uniformly in the same company, and the same amusements, except as fashion has introduced new diversions, or the revolutions of the gay world have afforded new successions of wits and beaus. However, my mother is so good an economist of pleasure, that I have no spare hours upon my hands; for every morning brings some new appointment, and every night is hurried away by the necessity of making our appearance at different places, and of being with one lady at the opera, and with another at the card-table. When the time came of settling our scheme of felicity for the summer, it was determined that I should pay a visit to a rich aunt in a remote county. As you know the chief conversation of all tea-tables, in the spring, arises from a communication of the manner in which time is to be passed till winter, it was a great relief to the barrenness of our topics, to relate the pleasures that were in store for me, to describe my uncle's seat, with the park and gardens, the charming walks and beautiful waterfalls; and every one told me how much she envied me, and what satisfaction she had once enjoyed in a situation of the same kind. kind requital for the trouble which she had taken to make herself fine against my arrival. The night and the next morning were driven along with inquiries about our family; my aunt then explained our pedigree, and told me stories of my great grandfather's bravery in the civil wars; nor was it less than three days before I could persuade her to leave me to myself. At last economy prevailed; she went in the usual manner about her own affairs, and I was at liberty to range in the wilderness, and sit by the cascade. The novelty of the objects about me pleased me for a while, but after a few days they were new no longer, and I soon began to perceive that the country was not my element; that shades, and flowers, and lawns, and waters, had very soon exhausted all their power of pleasing, and that I had not in myself any fund of satisfaction, with which I could supply the loss of my customary amusements. I unhappily told my aunt, in the first warmth of our embraces, that I had leave to stay with her ten weeks. Six only are yet gone, and how shall I live through the remaining four? I go out, and return; I pluck a flower, and throw it away; I catch an insect, and when I have examined its colours, set it at liberty; I fling a pebble into the water, and see one circle spread after another. When it chances to rain, I walk in the great hall, and watch the minute-hand upon the dial, or play with a litter of kittens, which the cat happens to have brought in a lucky time. My aunt is afraid I shall grow melancholy, and therefore encourages the neighbouring gen try to visit us. They came at first with great eagerness to see the fine lady from London, but when we met we had no common topic on which we could converse, they had no curiosity after plays, operas, or music: and I find as little satisfaction from the accounts of the quarrels or alliances of families, whose names, when once I can escape, I shall never hear. The women have now seen me, know how my gown is made, and are satisfied; the men are generally afraid of me, and say little, because they think themselves not at liberty to talk rudely. As we were all credulous in our own favour, and willing to imagine some latent satisfaction in any thing which we have not experienced, I will confess to you without restraint, that I had suffered my head to be filled with expectations of some nameless pleasure in a rural life, and that I hoped for the happy hour that should set me Thus I am condemned to solitude; the day free from noise, and flutter, and ceremony, dis- moves slowly forward, and I see the dawn with miss me to the peaceful shade, and lull me in uneasiness, because I consider that night is at a content and tranquillity. To solace myself under great distance. I have tried to sleep by a brook, the misery of delay, I sometimes heard a studi- but find its murmurs ineffectual: so that I am ous lady of my acquaintance read pastorals; I forced to be awake at least twelve hours, without was delighted with scarce any talk but of leav-visits, without cards, without laughter, and withing the town, and never went to bed without dreaming of groves, and meadows, and frisking lambs. out flattery. I walk because I am disgusted with sitting still, and sit down because I am weary with walking. I have no motive to action, nor any object of love, or hate, or fear, or inclination. I cannot dress with spirit, for I have neither rival nor admirer; I cannot dance without a partner; nor be kind or cruel, without a lover. At length I had all my clothes in a trunk, and saw the coach at the door; I sprung in with ecstacy, quarrelled with my maid for being too long in taking leave of the other servants, and rejoiced as the ground grew less, which lay between me and the completion of my wishes. A few days Such is the life of Euphelia, and such it is likebrought me to a large old house, encompassed only to continue for a month to come. I have not three sides with woody hills, and looking from the front on a gentle river, the sight of which renewed all my expectations of pleasure, and gave me some regret for having lived so long without the enjoyment which these delightful scenes were now to afford me. My aunt came out to receive me, but in a dress so far removed from the present fashion, that I could scarcely look upon her without laughter, which would have been no yet declared against existence, nor called upon the Destinies to cut my thread; but I have sincerely resolved not to condemn myself to such another summer, nor too hastily to flatter my self with happiness. Yet I have heard, Mr. Rambler, of those who never thought themselves so much at ease as in solitude, and cannot but suspect it to be some way or other my own fault, that, without great pain, either of mind or body No. 43.] THE RAMBLER. I am thus weary of myself: that the current of There seem to be some souls suited to great, If the doctrine of innate ideas be itself disputable, there seems to be little hope of establishing an opinion, which supposes that even complications of ideas have been given us at our birth, and that we are made by nature ambitious, or covetous, before we know the meaning of either power or money. Yet as every step in the progression of existence changes our position with respect to the things about us, so as to lay us open to new assaults and particular dangers, and subjects us to inconveniences from which any other situation is exempt; as a public or a private life, youth and age, wealth and poverty, have all some evil closely adherent, which cannot wholly be escaped but by quitting the state to which it is annexed, and submitting to the incumbrances of some other condition; so it cannot be denied that every difference in the structure of the mind has its advantages and its wants; and that failures and defects being inseparable from humanity, however the powers of understanding be extended or contracted, there will on one side or the other always be an avenue to error and miscarriage. |