who should happen to have least, might notwith-be, perhaps, imagined easy to comply; yet if standing have enough. those whom profusion has buried in prisons, or But without entering too far into speculations driven into banishment, were examined, it would which I do not remember that any political cal- be found that very few were ruined by their own culator has attempted, and in which the most choice, or purchased pleasure with the loss of perspicacious reasoner may be easily bewildered, their estates; but that they suffered themselves it is evident that they to whom Providence has to be borne away by the violence of those with allotted no other care but of their own fortune and whom they conversed, and yielded reluctantly to their own virtue, which make far the greater part a thousand prodigalities, either from a trivial of mankind, have sufficient incitements to per-emulation of wealth and spirit, or a mean fear of sonal frugality, since, whatever might be its gene- contempt and ridicule; an emulation for the ral effect upon provinces or nations, by which it prize of folly, or the dread of the laugh of fools. is never likely to be tried, we know with certainty, that there is scarcely any individual entering the world, who, by prudent parsimony, may not reasonably promise himself a cheerful competence in the decline of life. The prospect of penury in age is so gloomy 1 am, Sir, Your humble servant, SOPHRON. Improba Crescunt divitia, tamen Curta nescio quid semper abest rei. and terrifying, that every man who looks before No. 58.] SATURDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1750. HOR. But, while in heaps, his wicked wealth ascends, FRANCIS. As the love of money has been, in all ages, one You must not therefore think me sinking be- of the passions that have given great disturbance low the dignity of a practical philosopher, when to the tranquillity of the world, there is no topic I recommend to the consideration of your read more copiously treated by the ancient moralists ers, from the statesman to the apprentice, a posi- than the folly of devoting the heart to the accution replete with mercantile wisdom, A penny mulation of riches. They who are acquainted saved is two-pence got; which may, I think, be ac- with these authors need not be told how riches commodated to all conditions, by observing not excite pity, contempt, or reproach, whenever only that they who pursue any lucrative employ- they are mentioned; with what numbers of ex ment will save time when they forbear expense, amples the dangers of large possessions is illusand that the time may be employed to the in- trated; and how all the powers of reason and crease of profit; but that they who are above eloquence have been exhausted in endeavours to such minute considerations will find, by every eradicate a desire, which seems to have envictory over appetite or passion, new strength trenched itself too strongly in the mind to be added to the mind, will gain the power of refus-driven out, and which, perhaps, had not lost its ing those solicitations by which the young and vivacious are hourly assaulted, and in time set themselves above the reach of extravagance and folly. It may, perhaps, be inquired by those who are willing rather to cavil than to learn, what is the just measure of frugality? and when expense, not absolutely necessary, degenerates into profusion? To such questions no general answer can be returned; since the liberty of spending, or necessity of parsimony, may be varied without end, by different circumstances. It may, however, be laid down as a rule never to be broken, that a man's voluntary expense should not exceed his revenue. A maxim so obvious and incontrovertible, that the civil law ranks the prodigal with the madman, and debars them equally from the conduct of their own affairs. Another precept arising from the former, and indeed included in it, is yet necessary to be distinctly impressed upon the warm, the fanciful, and the brave; Let no man anticipate uncertain profits. Let no man presume to spend upon hopes, to trust his own abilities for means of deliverance from penury, to give a loose to his present desires, and leave the reckoning to fortune or to virtue. To these cautions, which I suppose are, at least among the graver part of mankind, undisputed, I will add another, Let no man squander against his inclination. With this precept, it may power, even over those who declaimed against it, but would have broken out in the poet or the sage, if it had been excited by opportunity, and invigorated by the approximation of its proper object. Their arguments have been, indeed, so unsuccessful, that I know not whether it can be shown, that by all the wit and reason which this favourite cause has called forth, a single convert was ever made; that even one man has refused to be rich, when to be rich was in his power, from the conviction of the greater happiness of a narrow fortune; or disburdened himself of wealth when he had tried its inquietudes, merely to enjoy the peace and leisure and security of a mean and unenvied state. It is true, indeed, that many have neglected opportunities of raising themselves to honours and to wealth, and rejected the kindest offers of fortune; but however their moderation may be boasted by themselves, or admired by such as only view them at a distance, it will be, perhaps, seldom found that they value riches less, but that they dread labour or danger more than others; they are unable to rouse themselves to action, to strain the race of competition, or to stand the shock of contest; but though they, therefore, decline the toil of climbing, they nevertheless wish themselves aloft, and would willingly enjov what they dare not seize. Others have retired from high stations, and vo- | life, by hindering that fraud and violence, rapine luntarily condemned themselves to privacy and and circumvention, which must have been proobscurity. But even these will not afford many duced by an unbounded eagerness of wealth, occasions of triumph to the philosopher; for they arising from an unshaken conviction that to be have commonly either quitted that only which they rich is to be happy. thought themselves unable to hold, and prevented disgrace by resignation; or they have been induced to try new measures by general inconstancy, which always dreams of happiness in novelty, or by a gloomy disposition, which is disgusted in the same degree with every state, and wishes every scene of life to change as soon as it is beheld. Such men found high and low stations equally unable to satisfy the wishes of a distempered mind, and were unable to shelter themselves in the closest retreat from disappointment, solicitude, and misery. Yet though these admonitions have been thus neglected by those, who either enjoyed riches, or were able to procure them, it is not rashly to be determined that they are altogether without use; for since far the greatest part of mankind must be confined to conditions comparatively mean, and placed in situations from which they naturally look up with envy to the eminences before them, those writers cannot be thought ill employed that have administered remedies to discontent almost universal, by showing, that what we cannot reach may very well be forborne, that the inequality of distribution, at which we murmur, is for the most part less than it seems, and that the greatness, which we admire at a distance, has much fewer advantages, and much less splendour, when we are suffered to approach it. It is the business of moralists to detect the frauds of fortune, and to show that she imposes upon the careless eye, by a quick succession of shadows, which will shrink to nothing in the gripe: that she disguises life in extrinsic ornaments, which serve only for show, and are laid aside in the hours of solitude, and of pleasure; and that when greatness aspires either to felicity or to wisdom, it shakes off those distinctions which dazzle the gazer, and awe the supplicant. It may be remarked, that they whose condition has not afforded them the light of moral or religious instruction, and who collect all their ideas by their own eyes, and digest them by their own understandings, seem to consider those who are placed in ranks of remote superiority, as almost another and higher species of beings. As themselves have known little other misery than the consequences of want, they are with difficulty persuaded that where there is wealth there can be sorrow, or that those who glitter in dignity, and glide along in affluence, can be acquainted with pains and cares like those which lie heavy upon the rest of mankind. Whoever finds himself incited, by some vio lent impulse of passion, to pursue riches as the chief end of being, must surely be so much alarm ed by the successive admonitions of those whose experience and sagacity have recommended them as the guides of mankind, as to stop and consider whether he is about to engage in an undertaking that will reward his toil, and to examine, before he rushes to wealth, through right and wrong, what it will confer when he has acquired it; and his examination will seldom fail to repress his ardour, and retard his violence. Wealth is nothing in itself, it is not useful but when it departs from us; its value is found only in that which it can purchase, which, if we suppose it put to its best use by those that possess it, seems not much to deserve the desire or envy of a wise man. It is certain that, with regard to corporeal enjoyment, money can neither open new avenues to pleasure, nor block up the passages of anguish. Disease and infirmity still continue to torture and enfeeble, perhaps exasperated by luxury, or promoted by softness. With respect to the mind, it has rarely been observed, that wealth contributes much to quicken the discernment, enlarge the capacity, or elevate the imagination; but may, by hiring flattery, or laying diligence asleep, confirm error and harden stupidity. Wealth cannot confer greatness, for nothing can make that great, which the decree of nature has ordained to be little. The bramble may be placed in a hot-bed, but can never become an oak. Even royalty itself is not able to give that dignity which it happens not to find, but oppresses feeble minds, though it may elevate the strong. The world has been governed in the name of kings, whose existence has scarcely been perceived by any real effects beyond their own palaces. When therefore the desire of wealth is taking hold of the heart, let us look round and see how it operates upon those whose industry or fortune has obtained it. When we find them oppressed with their own abundance, luxurious without pleasure, idle without ease, impatient and querulous in themselves, and despised or hated by the rest of mankind, we shall soon be convinced, that if the real wants of our condition are satisfied, there remains little to be sought with solicitude, or desired with eagerness. This prejudice is, indeed, confined to the low- No. 59.] TUESDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1750. est meanness, and the darkest ignorance; but it is so confined only because others have been shown its folly, and its falsehood, because it has been opposed in its progress by history and philosophy, and hindered from spreading its infection by powerful preservatives. The doctrine of the contempt of wealth, though it has not been able to extinguish avarice or ambition, or suppress that reluctance with which a man passes his days in a state of inferiority, must, at least, have made the lower conditions less grating and wearisome, and has consequently contributed to the general security of Est aliquid, fatale malum per verba levare: OVID Complaining oft gives respite to our grief; Tis common to distinguish men by the names | tern commissions. For a genius in the orch, of animals which they are supposed to resemble. he is always provided with a curacy for life. The Thus a hero is frequently termed a lion, and a lawyer he informs of many men of great parts statesman a fox, an extortioner gains the appellation of vulture, and a fop the title of monkey. There is also among the various anomalies of character, which a survey of the world exhibits, a species of beings in human form, which may be properly marked out as the screech-owls of mankind. and deep study, who have never had an opportu nity to speak in the courts: and meeting Serenus the physician, "Ah, doctor," says he, "what, a-foot still, when so many blockheads are rattling in their chariots? I told you seven years ago that you would never meet with encourage ment, and I hope you will now take more notice, when I tell you that your Greek, and your dili to live like yonder apothecary, who prescribes to his own shop, and laughs at the physician." These screech-owls seem to be settled in an opinion that the great business of life is to com-gence, and your honesty, will never enable you plain, and that they were born for no other purpose than to disturb the happiness of others, to lessen the little comforts, and shorten the short pleasures of our condition, by painful remembrances of the past, or melancholy prognostics of the future; their only care is to crush the rising hope, to damp the kindling transport, and allay the golden hours of gayety with the hateful dross of grief and suspicion. To those whose weakness of spirits, or timidity of temper, subjects them to impressions from others, and who are apt to suffer by fascination, and catch the contagion of misery, it is extremely unhappy to live within the compass of a screechowl's voice; for it will often fill their ears in the hour of dejection, terrify them with apprehensions which their own thoughts would never have produced, and sadden, by intruded sorrows, the day which might have been passed in amusements or in business; it will burden the heart with unnecessary discontents, and weaken for a time that love of life which is necessary to the vigorous prosecution of any undertaking. Though I have, like the rest of mankind, many failings and weaknesses, I have not yet, by either friends or enemies, been charged with superstition; I never count the company which I enter, and I look at the new moon indifferently over either shoulder. I have, like most other philosophers, often heard the cuckoo without money in my pocket, and have been sometimes reproached as fool-hardy for not turning down my eyes when a raven flew over my head. I never go home abruptly because a snake crosses my way, nor have any particular dread of a climacterical year: yet I confess that, with all my scorn of old women, and their tales, I consider it as an unhappy day when I happen to be greeted, in the morning, by Suspirius the screech-owl." I have now known Suspirius fifty-eight years and four months, and have never yet passed an hour with him in which he has not made some attack upon my quiet. When we were first acquainted, his great topic was the misery of youth without riches; and whenever we walked out together he solaced me with a long enumeration of pleasures, which, as they were beyond the reach of my fortune, were without the verge of my desires, and which I should never have considered as the objects of a wish, had not his unseasonable representations placed them in my sight. Another of his topics is the neglect of merit, with which he never fails to amuse every man whom he sees not eminently fortunate. If he meets with a young officer, he always informs him of gentlemen whose personal courage is unquestioned, and whose military skill qualifies them to command armies, that have, notwithstanding all their merit, grown old with subal Suspirius has, in his time, intercepted fifteen authors in their way to the stage; persuaded nine and thirty merchants to retire from a prosperous trade for fear of bankruptcy, broke off a hundred and thirteen matches by prognostications of unhappiness, and enabled the small pox to kill nineteen ladies, by perpetual alarms of the loss of beauty. Whenever my evil stars bring us together, he never fails to represent to me the folly of my pur suits, and informs me that we are much older than when we begun our acquaintance, that the infirmities of decrepitude are coming fast upon me, that whatever I now get, I shall enjoy but a little time, that fame is to a man tottering on the edge of the grave of very little importance, and that the time is at hand when I ought to look for no other pleasures than a good dinner and an easy chair. Thus he goes on in his unharmonious strain, displaying present miseries, and foreboding more, vUKTIKopas àεì Javaτýpopos, every syllable is loaded with misfortune, and death is always brought nearer to the view. Yet, what always raises my resentment and indignation, I do not perceive that his mournful meditations have much effect upon himself. He talks and has long talked of calamities, without discovering otherwise than by the tone of his voice that he feels any of the evils which he bewails or threatens, but has the same habit of uttering lamentations, as others of telling stories, and falls into expressions of condolence for past, or apprehension of future mischiefs, as all men studious of their ease have recourse to those subjects upon which they can most fluently or copiously discourse. It is reported of the Sybarites, that they de stroyed all their cocks, that they might dream out their morning dreams without disturbance. Though I would not so far promote effeminacy as to propose the Sybarites for an example, yet since there is no man so corrupt or foolish, but something useful may be learned from him, I could wish that, in imitation of a people not often to be copied, some regulations might be made to exclude screech-owls from all company, as the enemies of mankind, and confine them to some proper receptacle, where they may mingle sighs at leisure, and thicken the gloom of one another. Thou prophet of evil, says Homer's Agamemnon, thou never fortellest me good, but the joy of thy heart is to predict misfortunes. Whoever is of the same temper, might there find the means of indulging his thoughts, and improving his vein of denunciation, and the flock of screech-owls, might hoot together without injury to the rest of the world. Yet, though I have so little kindness for this dark generation, I am very far from in-ness of a day, and complicate innumerable incitending to debar the soft and tender mind from the privilege of complaining, when the sigh arises from the desire not of giving pain, but of gaining case. To hear complaints with patience, even when complaints are vain, is one of the duties of friendship; and though it must be allowed that be suffers most like a hero that hides his grief in silence, Spem vulla simulat, premit altum corde dolorem. yet it cannot be denied, that he who complains dents in one great transaction, afford few lessons applicable to private life, which derives its com forts and its wretchedness from the right or wrong management of things, which nothing but their frequency makes considerable, Purva si non fiunt quotidie, says Pliny, and which can have no place in those relations which never descend below the consultation of senates, the motions of armies, and the schemes of conspirators. I have often thought that there has rarely passed a life of which a judicious and faithful narrative would not be useful. For, not only every man has, in the mighty mass of the world, great numbers in the same condition with himself, to whom his mistakes and miscarriages, escapes and expedients, would be of immediate and apparent use; but there is such a uniformity in the state of man, considered apart from adventitious and separable decorations and disguises, that there is scarce any possibility of good or ill, but is common to human kind. A great part of the time of those who are placed at the greatest distance by fortune, or by temper, must unavoidably pass in the same manner; and though, when the claims of nature are satisfied, caprice, and vanity, and accident, begin to produce discriminations and peculiarities, yet the eye is not very heedful or quick, which cannot discover the same causes still terminating their influence in the same effects, though sometimes accelerated, sometimes retarded, or perplexed by multiplied combinations. We are all prompted by the same motives, all deceived by the same fallacies, all animated by hope, obstructed by danger, entangled by desire, and seduced by pleasure. ALL joy or sorrow for the happiness or calamities of others is produced by an act of the imagina- It is frequently objected to relations of particution, that realizes the event however fictitious, or lar lives, that they are not distinguished by any approximates it however remote, by placing us, striking or wonderful vicissitudes. The scholar, for a time, in the condition of him whose fortune who passed his life among his books, the mer we contemplate; so that we feel, while the de- chant, who conducted only his own affairs, the ception lasts, whatever motions would be excited priest, whose sphere of action was not extended by the same good or evil happening to ourselves. beyond that of his duty, are considered as no pro Our passions are therefore more strongly mov- per objects of public regard, however they might ed, in proportion as we can more readily adopt have excelled in their several stations, whatever the pains or pleasure proposed to our minds, by might have been their learning, integrity, and pirecognizing them as once our own, or consider-ety. But this notion arises from false measures ing them as naturally incident to our state of life. It is not easy for the most artful writer to give us an interest in happiness or misery, which we think ourselves never likely to feel, and with which we have never yet been made acquainted. Histories of the downfall of kingdoms, and revolutions of empires, are read with great tranquillity: the imperial tragedy pleases common auditors only by its pomp of ornament and grandeur of ideas; and the men whose faculties have been engrossed by business, and whose heart never fluttered but at the rise or fall of stocks, wonders how the attention can be seized, or the affection agitated, by a tale of love. Those parallel circumstances and kindred images to which we readily conform our minds, are, above all other writings, to be found in narratives of the lives of particular persons; and therefore no species of writing seems more worthy of cultivation than biography, since none can be more delightful or more useful, none can more certainly enchain the heart by irresistible interest, or more widely diffuse instruction to every diversity of condition. of excellence and dignity, and must be eradicated by considering, that, in the esteem of uncorrupted reason, what is of most use is of most value. It is, indeed, not improper to take honest advantages of prejudice, and to gain attention by a celebrated name; but the business of the biogra pher is often to pass slightly over those perform ances and incidents, which produce vulgar great. ness, to lead the thoughts into domestic privacies, and display the minute details of daily life, where exterior appendages are cast aside, and men excel each other only by prudence and by virtue. The account of Thuanus is, with great propriety, said by its author to have been written, that it might lay open to posterity the private and familiar character of that man, cujus ingenium et candorem ex ipsius scriptis sunt olim sember miraturi, whose candour and genius will to the end of time be by his writings preserved in admiration. There are many invisible circumstances which, whether we read as inquirers after natural or moral knowledge, whether we intend to enlarge our science, or increase our virtue, are more important than public occurrences. Thus Sallust, the The general and rapid narratives of history, great master of nature, has not forgotten in his which involve a thousand fortunes in the busi-account of Cataline, to remark, that his walk was now quick, and again slow, as an indication of a | If we owe regard to the memory of the dead, mind revolving something with violent commo- there is yet more respect to be paid to knowledge, tion. Thus the story of Melancthon affords a to virtue, and to truth. striking lecture on the value of time, by informing us, that when he made an appointment, he ex pected not only the hour but the minute to be No. 61.] TUESDAY, OCTOber 16, 1750. But biography has often been allotted to writers who seem very little acquainted with the nature of their task, or very negligent about the performance. They rarely afford any other account than might be collected from public papers, but imagine themselves writing a life when they exhibit a chronological series of actions or preferments; and so little regard the manners or behaviour of their heroes, that more knowledge may be gained of a man's real character, by a short conversation with one of his servants, than from a formal and studied narrative, begun with his pedigree, and ended with his funeral. Falsus honor juvat, et mendax infamia terret TO THE RAMBLER. FRANCIS SIR, Ir is extremely vexatious to a man of eager and thirsty curiosity to be placed at a great distance from the fountain of intelligence, and not only never to receive the current of report ti!! it has satiated the greatest part of the nation, but at last to find it mudded in its course, and corrupted with taints or mixtures from every channel through which it flowed. One of the chief pleasures of my life is to hear what passes in the world, to know what are the schemes of the politic, the aims of the busy, and If now and then they condescend to inform the the hopes of the ambitious; what changes of pubworld of particular facts, they are not always so lic measures are approaching; who is likely to happy as to select the most important. I know be crushed in the collision of parties; who is not well what advantage posterity can receive climbing to the top of power, and who is tottering from the only circumstance by which Tickell has on the precipice of disgrace. But as it is very distinguished Addison from the rest of mankind, common for us to desire most what we are least the irregularity of his pulse: nor can I think my qualified to obtain, I have suffered this appetite self overpaid for the time spent in reading the life of news to outgrow all the gratifications which of Malherb, by being enabled to relate, after the my present situation can afford it; for being learned biographer, that Malherb had two predo-placed in a remote country, I am condemned alminant opinions; one, that the looseness of a ways to confound the future with the past, single woman might destroy all her boast of an- to form prognostications of events no longer cient descent; the other, that the French beg-doubtful, and to consider the expediency of gars made use very improperly and barbarously schemes already executed or defeated. I am of the phrase noble Gentleman, because either word included the sense of both. perplexed with a perpetual deception in my prospects, like a man pointing his telescope at a remote star, which before the light reaches his eye has forsaken the place from which it was emitted. There are, indeed, some natural reasons why these narratives are often written by such as were not likely to give much instruction or delight, and The mortification of being thus always behind why most accounts of particular persons are bar- the active world in my reflections and discoveren and useless. If a life be delayed till interest ries, is exceedingly aggravated by the petulance and envy are at an end, we may hope for impar- of those whose health, or business, or pleasure, tiality, but must expect little intelligence; for the brings them hither from London. For, without incidents which give excellence to biography are considering the insuperable disadvantages of my of a volatile and evanescent kind, such as soon condition, and the unavoidable ignorance which escape the memory, and are rarely transmitted absence must produce, they often treat me with by tradition. We know how few can portray the utmost superciliousness of contempt, for not a living acquaintance, except by his most promi- knowing what no human sagacity can discover; nent and observable particularities, and the grosser and sometimes seem to consider me as a wretchi features of his mind; and it may be easily ima- scarcely worthy of human converse, when I hapgined how much of this little knowledge may be pen to talk of the fortune of a bankrupt, or profost in imparting it, and how soon a succession pose the healths of the dead, when I warn them of copies will lose all resemblance of the original. of mischiefs already incurred, or wish for meaIf the biographer writes from personal know-sures that have been lately taken. They seem ledge, and makes haste to gratify the public curiosity, there is danger least his interest, his fear, his gratitude, or his tenderness, overpower his fidelity, and tempt him to conceal, if not to invent. There are many who think it an act of piety to hide the faults or failings of their friends, even when they can no longer suffer by their detection; we therefore see whole ranks of characters adorned with uniform panegyric, and not to be known from one another, but by extrinsic and casual circumstances. "Let me remember," says Hale, "when I find myself inclined to pity a criminal, that there is likewise a pity due to the country." to attribute to the superiority of their intellects what they only owe to the accident of their conditions, and think themselves indisputably entitled to airs of insolence and authority, when they find another ignorant of facts, which, because they echoed in the streets of London, they suppose equally public in all other places, and known where they could neither be seen, related, nor conjectured. To this haughtiness they are indeed too much encouraged by the respect which, they receive amongst us, for no other reason than that they come from London. For no sooner is the pr |