which mortals are deluded; show the insufficien- | upon another, authority which shall this night cy of wealth, honours, and power, to real happiness; and please himself, and his auditors, with learned lectures on the vanity of life. expire for ever, and praise which, however merited, or however sincere, shall, after a few moments, be heard no more. In those hours of seriousness and wisdom, nothing appeared to raise his spirits, or gladden his heart, but the recollection of acts of goodness; nor to excite his attention, but some opportunity for the exercise of the duties of religion. Every thing that terminated on this side of the grave was received with coldness and indifference, and regarded rather in consequence of the habit of valuing it, than from any opinion that it deserved value; it had little more prevalence over his mind than a bubble that was now broken, a dream from which he was awake. His whole powers were engrossed by the consideration of another state, and all conversation was tedious, that had not some tendency to disengage him from human affairs, and open his prospects into futurity. But though the speculatist may see and show the folly of terrestrial hopes, fears, and desires, every hour will give proofs that he never felt it. Trace him through the day or year, and you will find him acting upon principles which he has in common with the illiterate and unenlightened, angry and pleased, like the lowest of the vulgar, pursuing with the same ardour, the same designs, grasping, with all the eagerness of transport, those riches which he knows he cannot keep, and swelling with the applause which he has gained by proving that applause is of no value. The only conviction that rushes upon the soul, and takes away from our appetites and passions the power of resistance, is to be found, where I have received it, at the bed of a dying friend. To enter this school of wisdom is not the peculiar privilege of geometricians; the most sublime and important precepts require no uncommon opportunities, nor laborious preparations; they are enforced without the aid of eloquence, and understood without skill in analytic science. Every tongue can utter them, and every understanding can conceive them. He that wishes in earnest to obtain just sentiments concerning his condition, and would be intimately acquainted with the world, may find instructions on every side. He that desires to enter behind the scene, which I have from that time frequently revolved in every art has been employed to decorate, and my mind the effects which the observation of every passion labours to illuminate, and wishes death produces, in those who are not whollyto see life stripped of those ornaments which without the power and use of reflection; for by make it glitter on the stage, and exposed in its far the greater part it is wholly unregarded. natural meanness, impotence, and nakedness, Their friends and their enemies sink into the may find all the delusion laid open in the cham-grave without raising any uncommon emotion, ber of disease: he will there find vanity divested of her robes, power deprived of her sceptre, and hypocrisy without her mask. It is now past; we have closed his eyes, and heard him breathe the groan of expiration. At the sight of this last conflict, I felt a sensation never known to me before; a confusion of passions, an awful stillness of sorrow, a gloomy terror without a name. The thoughts that entered my soul were too strong to be diverted, and too piercing to be endured; but such violence cannot be lasting, the storm subsided in a short time, I wept, retired, and grew calm. or reminding them that they are themselves on the edge of the precipice, and that they must soon plunge into the gulf of eternity. envied, as Horace observes, because they eclipsed our own, can now no longer obstruct our reputation, and we have therefore no interest to sup press their praise. That wickedness, which we feared for its malignity, is now become impotent, and the man whose name filled us with alarm, and rage, and indignation, can at last be considered only with pity or contempt. The friend whom I have lost was a man emi- It seems to me remarkable that death increases nent for genius, and, like others of the same our veneration for the good, and extenuates our class, sufficiently pleased with acceptance and ap-hatred of the bad. Those virtues which once we plause. Being caressed by those who have preferments and riches in their disposal, he consider ed himself as in the direct road of advancement, and had caught the flame of ambition by approaches to its object. But in the midst of his hopes, his projects, and his gayeties, he was seized by a lingering disease, which, from its first stage, he knew to be incurable. Here was an end of all his visions of greatness and happiness; from the first hour that his health declined, all his former pleasures grew tasteless. His friends expected to please him by those accounts of the growth of his reputation, which were formerly certain of being well received; but they soon found how little he was now affected by compliments, and how vainly they attempted, by flattery, to exhilarate the languor of weakness, and relieve the solicitude of approaching death. Whoever would know how much piety and vir- There is not, perhaps, to a mind well instructthe surpass all external goods, might here haveed, a more painful occurrence than the death of seen them weighed against each other, where all that gives motion to the active, and elevation to the eminent, all that sparkles in the eye of hope, and pants in the bosom of suspicion, at once became dust in the balance, without weight and without regard. Riches, authority, and praise, lose all their influence when they are considered as riches which to-morrow shall be bestowed When a friend is carried to his grave, we at once find excuses for every weakness, and palli ations of every fault; we recollect a thousand en dearments, which before glided off our minds without impression, a thousand favours unre paid, a thousand duties unperformed, and wish, vainly wish, for his return, not so much that we may receive, as that we may bestow, happiness, and recompense that kindness which before we never understood. one whom we have injured without reparation. Our crime seems now irretrievable, it is indelibly recorded, and the stamp of fate is fixed upon it. We consider, with the most afflictive anguish, the pain which we have given, and now cannot alleviate, and the losses which we have causea, and now cannot repair. Of the same kind are the emotions which the death of an emulator or competitor produces. Tune etiam morieris? Ah! quid me linquis, Erasme, Art thou too fallen? ere anger could subside Such are the sentiments with which we finally review the effects of passion, but which we sometimes delay till we can no longer rectify our er rors. Let us therefore make haste to do what we shall certainly at last wish to have done; let as return the caresses of our friends, and endeavour by mutual endearments to heighten that tenderness which is the balm of life. Let us be quick to repent of injuries while repentance may not be a barren anguish, and let us open our eyes to every rival excellence, and pay early and willingly those honours which justice will compel us to pay at last. No. 55.] ATHANATUS. TUESDAY, SEPT. 25, 1750. Now near to death that comes but slow, TO THE RAMBLER. HOR. CREECH. No. 55. I expect, at least that you will divest yourself of partiality, and that whatever your age or solemnity may be, you will not, with the dotard's insolence, pronounce me ignorant and foolish, perverse and refractory, only because you perceive that I am young. My father dying when I was but ten years old, left me, and a brother two years younger than myself, to the care of my mother, a woman of birth and education, whose prudence or virtue he had no reason to distrust. She felt, for some time, all the sorrow which nature calls forth, upon the final separation of persons dear to one another; and as her grief was exhausted by its own violence, it subsided into tenderness for me and my brother, and the year of mourning was spent in caresses, consolations, and instruction, in celeperpetual regard to his memory, and hourly inbration of my father's virtues, in professions of stances of such fondness as gratitude will not easily suffer me to forget. But when the term of this mournful felicity was expired, and my mother appeared again without the ensigns of sorrow, the ladies of her acquaintance began to tell her, upon whatever motives, that it was time to live like the rest of the world; a powerful argument, which is seldom used to a woman without effect. Lady Giddy was incessantly relating the occurrences of the town, and Mrs. Gravely told her privately, with great ten derness, that it began to be publicly observed how much she overacted her part, and that most of her acquaintance suspected her hope of procuring another husband to be the true ground of all that appearance of tenderness and piety. All the officiousness of kindness and folly was busied to change her conduct. She was at one time alarmed with censure, and at another fired with praise. She was told of balls, where others shone only because she was absent; of new comedies, to which all the town was crowding; and of many ingenious ironies, by which domestic diligence was made contemptible. It is difficult for virtue to stand alone against fear on one side, and pleasure on the other; especially when no actual crime is proposed, and prudence itself can suggest many reasons for relaxation and indulgence. My mamma was at last persuaded to accompany Miss Giddy to a SIR, play. She was received with a boundless proI HAVE been but a little time conversant in the very fine gentleman. Next day she was with less fusion of compliments, and attended home by a word, yet I have already had frequent oppor- difficulty prevailed on to play at Mrs. Gravely's, tunities of observing the little efficacy of remon- and came home gay and lively; for the distinc strance and complaint, which, however extorted tions that had been paid her awakened her vaniby oppression, or supported by reason, are de-ty, and good luck had kept her principles of frutested by one part of the world as rebellion, censured by another as peevishness, by some heard with an appearance of compassion, only to betray any of those sallies of vehemence and resentment, which are apt to break out upon encouragement, and by others passed over with indifference and neglect, as matters in which they have no concern, and which, if they should endeavour to examine or regulate, they might draw mischief upon themselves. gality from giving her disturbance. She now made her second entrance into the world, and her friends were sufficiently industrious to prebrought messages of invitation, and every evenvent any return to her former life; every morning ing was passed in places of diversion, from which she for some time complained that she had rather be absent. In a short time she began to feel the happiness of acting without control, of being unYet since it is no less natural for those who company; and learned by degrees to drop an accountable for her hours, her expenses, and her think themselves injured to complain, than for expression of contempt, or pity, at the mention others to neglect their complaints, I shall venture of ladies whose husbands were suspected of reto lay my case before you, in hopes that you will straining their pleasures, or their play, and conenforce my opinion, if you think it just, or endea-fessed that she loved to go and come as she pleased vour to rectify my sentiments, if I am mistaken, I was still favoured with some incidental pre cepts and transient endearments, and was now | picion, you will readily believe that it is difficult and then fondly kissed for smiling like my papa: to please. Every word and look is an offence. but most part of her morning was spent in comparing the opinion of her maid and milliner, contriving some variation in her dress, visiting shops, and sending compliments; and the rest of the day was too short for visits, cards, plays, and concerts. She now began to discover that it was impossible to educate children properly at home. Parents could not have them always in their sight; the society of servants was contagious; company produced boldness and spirit; emulation excited industry; and a large school was naturally the first step into the open world. A thousand other reasons she alleged, some of little force in themselves, but so well seconded by pleasure, vanity, and idleness, that they soon overcame all the remaining principles of kindness and piety, and both I and my brother were despatched to boarding schools. I never speak, but I pretend to some qualities and excellences, which it is criminal to possess; if I am gay, she thinks it early enough to coquette; if I am grave, she hates a prude in bibs; if I venture into company, I am in haste for a husband; if I retire to my chamber, such matronlike ladies are lovers of contemplation. I am on one pretence or other generally excluded from her assemblies, nor am I ever suffered to visit at the same place with my mamma. Every one wonders why she does not bring Miss more into the world, and when she comes home in vapours, I am certain that she has heard either of my beauty or my wit, and expect nothing for the ensuing week but taunts and menaces, contradiction and reproaches. Thus I live in a state of continual persecution, only because I was born ten years too soon, and cannot stop the course of nature or of time, but How my mamma spent her time when she was am unhappily a woman before my mother can thus disburdened I am not able to inform you, willingly cease to be a girl. I believe you would but I have reason to believe that trifles and amuse- contribute to the happiness of many families, it, ments took still faster hold of her heart. At by any arguments or persuasions, you could first, she visited me at school, and afterwards make mothers ashamed of rivalling their children; wrote to me; but, in a short time, both her visits if you could show them, that though they may reand her letters were at an end, and no other no-fuse to grow wise, they must inevitably grow old; tice was taken of me than to remit money for my support. When I came home at the vacation, I found myself coldly received, with an observation, "that this girl will presently be a woman." I was, after the usual stay, sent to school again, and overheard my mother say, as I was a-going, "Well, now I shall recover." and that the proper solaces of age are not music and compliments, but wisdom and devotion; that those who are so unwilling to quit the world will soon be driven from it; and that it is therefore their interest to retire while there yet remain a few hours for nobler employments. I am, &c. Valeat res ludicra, si me In six months more I came again, and with the usual childish alacrity, was running to my mother's embrace, when she stopped me with ex- No. 56.] SATUrday, Sept. 29, 1750. clamations at the suddenness and enormity of my growth, having, she said, never seen any body shoot up so much at my age. She was sure no other girls spread at that rate, and she hated to have children to look like women before their time. I was disconcerted, and retired without hearing any thing more than, "Nay, if you are angry, Madam Steeple, you may walk off." When once the forms of civility are violated, there remains little hope of return to kindness or decency. My mamma made this appearance of resentment a reason for continuing her malignity; and poor Miss Maypole, for that was my appellation, was never mentioned or spoken to but with some expression of anger or dislike, She had yet the pleasure of dressing me like a child, and I know not when I should have been thought fit to change my habit, had I not been rescued by a maiden sister of my father, who could not bear to see women in hanging sleeves, and therefore presented me with brocade for a gown, for which I should have thought myself under great obligations, had she not accompanied her favour with some hints that my mamma might now consider her age, and give me her ear-rings, which she had shown long enough in public places. I now left the school, and came to live with my mamma, who considered me as a usurper that had seized the rights of a woman before they were due, and was pushing down the precipice of age, that I might reign without a superior. While I am thus beheld with jealousy and sus Farewell the stage; for humbly I disclaim HOR FRANCIS NOTHING is more unpleasing than to find that offence has been received when none was intend ed, and that pain has been given to those who were not guilty of any provocation. As the great end of society is mutual beneficence, a good man is always uneasy when he finds himself acting in opposition to the purposes of life; because, though his conscience may easily acquit him of malice prepense, of settled hatred or contrivances of mischief, yet he seldom can be certain, that he has not failed by negligence or indolence; that he has not been hindered from consulting the common interest by too much regard to his own ease, or too much indifference to the happiness of others. Nor is it necessary, that, to feel this uneasiness, the mind should be extended to any great dif fusion of generosity, or melted by uncommon warmth of benevolence; for that prudence which the world teaches, and a quick sensibility of private interest, will direct us to shun needless enmities; since there is no man whose kindness we may not some time want, or by whose malice we may not some time suffer. I have therefore frequently looked with won. and vexatious, and imagine that they aggrandize themselves by wasting the time of others in use less attendance, by mortifying them with slights, and teasing them with affronts. Men of this kind are generally to be found among those that have not mingled much in general conversation, but spent their lives amidst the obsequiousness of dependents, and the flattery of parasites; and by long consulting only their own inclination, have forgotten that others have claim to the same deference. der, and now and then with pity, at the thought- | cause it is apparent that they are not only carelessness with which some alienate from them-less of pleasing, but studious to offend; that they selves the affections of all whom chance, busi- contrive to make all approaches to them difficult ness, or inclination, brings in their way. When we see a man pursuing some darling interest, without much regard to the opinion of the world, we justly consider him as corrupt and dangerous, but are not long in discovering his motives; we see him actuated by passions which are hard to be resisted, and deluded by appearances which have dazzled stronger eyes. But the greater part of those who set mankind at defiance by hourly irritation, and who live but to infuse malignity, and multiply enemies, have no hopes to foster, no designs to promote, nor any expectations of attaining power by insolence, or of climbing to greatness by trampling on others. They give up all the sweets of kindness, for the sake of peevishness, petulance, or gloom; and alienate the world by neglect of the common forms of civility, and breach of the established laws of conver-think nothing insupportable that produces gain, sation. Every one must, in the walks of life, have met with men of whom all speak with censure, though they are not chargeable with any crime, and whom none can be persuaded to love, though a reason can scarcely be assigned why they should be hated; and who, if their good qualities and actions sometimes force a commendation, have their panegyric always concluded with confessions of disgust; "he is a good man, but I cannot like him." Surely such persons have sold the esteem of the world at too low a price, since they have lost one of the rewards of virtue, without gaining the profits of wickedness. Tyranny thus avowed is indeed an exuberance of pride, by which all mankind is so much enraged, that it is never quietly endured, except in those who can reward the patience which they exact; and insolence is generally surrounded only by such whose baseness inclines them to and who can laugh at scurrility and rudeness with a luxurious table and an open purse. But though all wanton provocations and con temptuous insolence are to be diligently avoided, there is no less danger in timid compliance and tame resignation. It is common for soft and fear ful tempers to give themselves up implicitly to the direction of the bold, the turbulent, and the overbearing; of those whom they do not believe wiser or better than themselves; to recede from the best designs where opposition must be encountered, and to fall off from virtue for fear of censure. the right, and exerted with bitterness, if even to his own conviction he is detected in the wrong. Some firmness and resolution is necessary to This ill economy of fame is sometimes the ef- the discharge of duty; but it is a very unhappy fect of stupidity: men whose perceptions are state of life in which the necessity of such struglanguid and sluggish, who lament nothing but gles frequently occurs; for no man is defeated loss of money, and feel nothing but a blow, are without some resentment, which will be continuoften at a difficulty to guess why they are encom-ed with obstinacy while he believes himself in passed with enemies, though they neglect all those arts by which men are endeared to one another. They comfort themselves that they have lived irreproachably; that none can charge them with having endangered his life, or diminished his possessions; and therefore conclude that they suffer by some invincible fatality, or impute the malice of their neighbours to ignorance or envy. They wrap themselves up in their innocence, and enjoy the congratulations of their own hearts, without knowing or suspecting that they are every day deservedly incurring resentments, by withholding from those with whom they converse, that regard, or appearance of regard, to which every one is entitled by the customs of the world. Even though no regard be had to the external consequences of contrariety and dispute, it must be painful to a worthy mind to put others in pain, and there will be danger lest the kindest nature may be vitiated by too long a custom of debate and contest. I am afraid that I may be taxed with insensibility by many of my correspondents, who believe their contributions unjustly neglected. And, indeed, when I sit before a pile of papers, of which each is the production of laborious study, and the offspring of a fond parent, I, who know the passions of an author, cannot remember how long they have lain in my boxes unregarded, without imagining to myself the various changes of sorrow, impatience, and resentment, which the writ ers must have felt in this tedious interval. There are many injuries which almost every man feels, though he does not complain, and which, upon those whom virtue, elegance, or vanity, have made delicate and tender, fix deep and These reflections are still more awakened, lasting impressions; as there are many arts of when, upon perusal, I find some of them calling graciousness and conciliation, which are to be for a place in the next paper, a place which they practised without expense, and by which those have never yet obtained: others writing in a style may be made our friends, who have never receiv- of superiority and haughtiness, as secure of deed from us any real benefit. Such arts, when ference, and above fear of criticism; others humthey include neither guilt nor meanness, it is sure-bly offering their weak assistance with softness ly reasonable to learn, for who would want that love which is so easily to be gained? And such injuries are to be avoided; for who would be hated without profit! Some, indeed, there are, for whom the excuse of ignorance or negligence cannot be alleged, be and submission, which they believe impossible to be resisted; some introducing their compositions with a menace of the contempt which he that re fuses them will incur; others applying privately to the booksellers for their interest and solicitation; every one by different ways endeavouring THE RAMBLER, to secure the bliss of publication. I cannot but 97 and pleasing, but in my opinion, not sufficiently the world, so beneficial in its various forms to I know well how rarely an author, fired with the beauties of his new composition, contains his raptures in his own bosom, and how naturally he imparts to his friends his expectation of renown; and as I can easily conceive the eagerness with which a new paper is snatched up, by one who expects to find it filled with his own production, and perhaps has called his companions to share the pleasure of a second perusal, I grieve for the disappointment which he is to feel at the fatal inspection. His hopes, however, do not yet for-will allow frugality to be numbered among the sake him; he is certain of giving lustre the next day. The next day comes, and again he pants with expectation, and having dreamed of laurels and Parnassus, casts his eyes upon the barren page, with which he is doomed never more to be delighted. For such cruelty what atonement can be made? For such calamities what alleviation can be found? I am afraid that the mischief already done must be without reparation, and all that deserves my care is prevention for the future. Let therefore the next friendly contributor, whoever he be, observe the cautions of Swift, and write secretly in his own chamber, without communicating his design to his nearest friend, for the nearest friend will be pleased with an opportunity of laughing. Let him carry it to the post himself, and wait in silence for the event. If it is published and praised, he may then declare himself the author; if it be suppressed, he may wonder in private without much vexation; and if it be censured, he may join in the cry, and lament the dulness of the writing generation. Whether those who treat morals as a science virtues, I have not thought it necessary to inquire. For I, who draw my opinions from a careful observation of the world, am satisfied with know ing what is abundantly sufficient for practice, that if it be not a virtue, it is, at least, a quality, without which few virtues can exist. Frugality which can seldom exist without some virtues, and may be termed the daughter of Prudence, the sister of Temperance, and the parent of Liberty. He that is extravagant will quickly become poor, and poverty will enforce dependance, and invite corruption; it will almost always produce a pas sive compliance with the wickedness of others; and there are few who do not learn by degrees to practise those crimes which they cease to censure. dangerous to virtue, yet mankind seem unaniIf there are any who do not dread poverty as mous enough in abhorring it as destructive to happiness; and all to whom want is terrible upon whatever principle, ought to think themselves obliged to learn the sage maxims of our parsimonious ancestors, and attain the salutary arts of contracting expense; for without frugality none can be rich, and with it very few would be poor. To most other acts of virtue or exertions of wisdom, a concurrence of many circumstances is necessary, some previous knowledge must be Non intelligunt homines quam magnum vectigal sit par-attained, some uncommon gifts of nature pos simonía. TULL. The world has not yet learned the riches of frugality. SIR, TO THE RAMBLER. sessed, or some opportunity produced by an extraordinary combination of things; but the mere power of saving what is already in our hands, must be easy of acquisition to every mind; and I AM always pleased when I see literature made highest intellect cannot safely neglect it, a thouas the example of Bacon may show, that the useful, and scholars descending from that eleva-sand instances will every day prove, that the tion, which, as it raises them above common life, meanest may practise it with success. must likewise hinder them from beholding the ways of men otherwise than in a cloud of bustle and confusion. Having lived a life of business, and remarked how seldom any occurrences emerge for which great qualities are required, I have learned the necessity of regarding little things; and though I do not pretend to give laws to the legislators of mankind, or to limit the range of those powerful minds that carry light and heat through all the regions of knowledge, yet I have long thought, that the greatest part of those who lose themselves in studies by which I have not found that they grow much wiser, might, with more advantage both to the public and themselves apply their understandings to domestic arts, and store their minds with axioms of humble prudears and private economy. N numbers, because to be rich, is to possess more |