the road to greatness was open to none but authors, and that by writing alone riches and honour were to be obtained. every man is inclined to think well of his own intellect, by what test he may try his abilities, without hazarding the contempt or resentment of the public. But since it is true, that writers, like other competitors, are very little disposed to favour one The first qualification of a writer, is a perfect another, it is not to be expected that at a time knowledge of the subject which he undertakes when every man writes, any man will patronize; to treat; since we cannot teach what we do not and accordingly, there is not one that I can re- know, nor can properly undertake to instruct collect at present, who professes the least re- others while we are ourselves in want of ingard for the votaries of science, invites the ad-struction. The next requisite is, that he be dresses of learned men, or seems to hope for reputation from any pen but his own. The cause, therefore, of this epidemical conspiracy for the destruction of paper, must remain a secret; nor can I discover, whether we owe it to the influences of the constellations, or the intemperature of seasons: whether the long continuance of the wind at any single point, or intoxicating vapours exhaled from the earth, have turned our nobles and our peasants, our soldiers and traders, our men and women, all into wits, philosophers, and writers. It is, indeed, of more importance to search out the cure than the cause of this intellectual malady; and he would deserve well of his country, who, instead of amusing himself with conjectural speculations, should find means of persuading the peer to inspect his steward's accounts, or repair the rural mansion of his ancestors, who could replace the tradesman behind his counter, and send back the farmer to the mattock and the flail. master of the language in which he delivers his sentiments: if he treats of science and demonstration, that he has attained a style clear, pure, nervous, and expressive; if his topics be probable and persuasory, that he be able to recommend them by the superaddition of elegance and imagery, to display the colours of varied diction, and pour forth the music of modulated periods. If it be again inquired, upon what principles any man shall conclude that he wants those powers, it may be readily answered, that no end is attained but by the proper means; he only can rationally presume that he understands a subject, who has read and compared the writers that have hitherto discussed it, familiarized their arguments to himself by long meditation, consulted the foundations of different systems, and separated truth from error by a rigorous examination. In like manner, he only has a right to suppose that he can express his thoughts, whatever they are, with perspicuity or elegance, who has carefully perused the best authors, accurately noted their diversities of style, diligently selected the best modes of diction, and familiarized them by General irregularities are known in time to remedy themselves. By the constitution of ancient Egypt, the priesthood was continually increasing, till at length there was no people be-long habits of attentive practice. side themselves; the establishment was then dissolved, and the number of priests was reduced and limited. Thus among us, writers will perhaps be multiplied, till no readers will be found, and then the ambition of writing must necessarily cease. No man is a rhetorician or philosopher by chance. He who knows that he undertakes to write on questions which he has never studied, may without hesitation determine, that he is about to waste his own time and that of his reader, and expose himself to the derision of those whom he aspires to instruct; he that without But as it will be long before the cure is thus gradually effected, and the evil should be stop-forming his style by the study of the best models ped, if it be possible, before it rises to so great a height, I could wish that both sexes would fix their thoughts upon some salutary considerations, which might repress their ardour for that reputation which not one of many thousands is fated to obtain. hastens to obtrude his compositions on the public, may be certain, that whatever hope or flat tery may suggest, he shall shock the learned ear with barbarisms, and contribute, wherever his work shall be received, to the depravation of taste and the corruption of language. TUESDAY, DEC. 25, 1753. atius regnes avidum domando Spiritum, quam si Lybium remotis Gadibus jung as, et uterque Panus Let it be deeply impressed and frequently recollected, that he who has not obtained the proper qualifications of an author, can have no excuse for the arrogance of writing, but the power No. 119.] of imparting to mankind something necessary to be known. A man uneducated or unlettered may sometimes start a useful thought, or make a lucky discovery, or obtain by chance some secret of nature, or some intelligence of facts, of which the most enlightened mind may be ignorant, and which it is better to reveal, though by a rude and unskilful communication, than to lose for ever by suppressing it. But few will be justified by this plea; for of the innumerable books and pamphlets that have overflowed the nation, scarce one has made any addition to real knowledge, or contained more than a transposition of common sentiments and a repetition of common phrases. It will be naturally inquired, when the man who feels an inclination to write, may venture to suppose himself properly qualified; and, since Serviat uni. By virtue's precepts to control FRANCIS. WHEN Socrates was asked, "which of mortal men was to be accounted nearest to the gods in happiness?" he answered, "that man who is in want of the fewest things." In this answer, Socrates, left it to be guessed by his auditors, whether, by the exemption from want which was to constitute happiness, ho meant amplitude of possessions or contraction of desire. And, indeed, there is so little difference between them, that Alexander the Great confessed the inhabitant of a tub the next man to the master of the world; and left a declaration to future ages, that if he was not Alexander, he should wish to be Diogenes. solicitude, which the world, whether justly or not, considered as important, I should scarcely have had courage to inculate any precepts of moderation and forbearance. He that is engaged in a pursuit, in which all mankind profess to be his rivals, is supported by the authority of all mankind in the prosecution of his design, and These two states, however, though they re- will, therefore, scarely stop to hear the lectures semble each other in their consequence, differ of a solitary philosopher. Nor am I certain, that widely with respect to the facility with which the accumulation of honest gain ought to be hinthey may be attained. To make great acquisi-dered, or the ambition of just honours always to tions can happen to very few; and in the uncer- be repressed Whatever can enable the postainty of human affairs, to many it will be inci-sessor to coffer any benefit upon others, may be dent to labour without reward, and to lose what desired uron virtuous principles; and we ought they already possess by endeavours to make it not too rashly to accuse any man of intending to more; some will always want abilities, and others corfine the influence of his acquisitions to himopportunities to accumulate wealth. It is there-slf. fore happy, that nature has allowed us a more certain and easy road to plenty; every man may grow rich by contracting his wishes, and by quiet acquiescence in what has been given hin, supply the absence of more. ling mountains to open a prospect, which when he has enjoyed it, he can enjoy no more; another is painting ceilings, carving wainscot, and filling his apartments with costly furniture, only that some neighbouring house may not be richer or But if we look round upon mankind, whom shall we find among those that fortune permits to form their own manners, that is not tormenting himself with a wish for something, of which all the pleasure and all the benefit will cease at Yet so far is almost every man from epulat-the moment of attainment? One man is beggaring the happiness of the gods, by any other ing his posterity to build a house, which when means than grasping at their power that it finished he never will inhabit; another is levelseems to be the great business of life to create wants as fast as they are satisfied. has been long observed by moralists, that every man squanders or loses a great part that life, of which every man knows and depres the shortness and it may be remarked with equal just-finer than his own. ness, that though every man Aments his own That splendour and elegance are not desirable, insufficiency to his happiness and knows him- I am not so abstracted from life as to inculcate; self a necessitous and precious being, inces- but if we inquire closely into the reason for santly soliciting the assisance of others, and which they are esteemed, we shall find them feeling wants which his own art or strength can-valued principally as evidences of wealth. Nonot supply; yet there is man, who does not, by the superaddition of annatural cares, render himself still more depedent; who does not create an artificial povery, and suffer himself to feel pain for the want ofthat, of which, when it is gained, he can haveno enjoyment. thing, therefore, can show greater depravity of understanding, than to delight in the show when the reality is wanting; or voluntarily to become poor, that strangers may for a time imagine us to be rich. But there are yet minuter objects and more trifling anxieties. Men may be found, who are kept from sleep by the want of a shell particularly variegated; who are wasting their lives in stratagems to obtain a book in a language which they do not understand; who pine with envy at the flowers of another man's parterre; who hover like vultures round the owner of a fossil, in hopes to plunder his cabinet at his death; and who would not much regret to see a street in flames, if a box of medals might be scattered in the tumult. It must, indeed be allowed, that as we lose part of our time cause it steals away silent and invisible, and many an hour is passed before we recollect that is passing; so unnatural desires insinuate the selves unobserved into the mind, and we do ot perceive that they are gaining upon us, tilahe pain which they give us awakens us to notie. No man is sufficiently vigilant to take accunt of every minute of his life, or to watch every motion of his heart. Much of our time likewise is sacrificed to custom: we trifle, becaue we see others trifle; in the same man- He that imagines me to speak of these sages ner ve catch from example the contagion of de-in terms exaggerated and hyperbolical, has consire we see all about us busied in pursuit of imginary good, and begin to bustle in the same case, lest greater activity should triumph over versed but little with the race of virtuosos. A slight acquaintance with their studies, and a few visits to their assemblies, would inform him, that nothing is so worthless, but that prejudice and caprice can give it value; nor any thing of so little use, but that by indulging an idle competition or unreasonable pride, a man may make it to himself one of the necessaries of life. It is true that to man as a member of society, many things become necessary, which, perhaps, in a state of nature are superfluous; and that many things not absolutely necessary, are yet so useful and convenient, that they cannot ea- Desires like these, I may surely, without insily be spared. I will make yet a more ample curring the censure of moroseness, advise every and liberal concession. In opulent states, and man to repel when they invade his mind; or if regular governments, the temptations to wealth he admits them, never to allow them any greatand rank, and to the distinctions that follower influence than is necessary to give petty emthem, are such as no force of understanding finds ployments the power of pleasing, and diversify it easy to resist. the day with slight amusements. If, therefore, I saw the quiet of life disturbed only by endeavours after wealth and honour; by An ardent wish, whatever be its object, will always be able to interrupt tranquillity. What we believe ourselves to want, torments us not in | If we view past ages in the reflection of history * which the sweetness of domestic retirement is destroyed; and must always be even more exposed, in the same degree as they are elevated above others, to the treachery of dependents, the calumny of defamers, and the violence of opponents. Affliction is inseparable from our present state; it adheres to all the inhabitants of this world, in different proportions indeed, but with an allotment which seems very little regulated by our own conduct. be filled, and none shall be wretched but by his own fault. In the mean time, it is by affliction chiefly that the heart of man is purified, and that the thoughts are fixed upon a better state. Prosperity, allayed and imperfect as it is, has power to intoxicate the imagination, to fix the mind upon the present scene, to produce confidence and elation, and to make him who enjoys affluence and honours forget the hand by which they were bestowed. It is seldom that we are otherwise, than by affliction, awakened to a sense of our own imbecility, or taught to know how little all our acquisitions. can conduce to safety or to quiet; and how justly we may ascribe to the superintendence of a higher Power, those blessings which in the wantonness of success we considered as the attainments of our policy or courage. It has been the boast of some swelling moralists, that every man's fortune was in his own power, that prudence supplied the place of all other divinities, and that happiness is the unfailing consequence of virtue. But, surely, the quiver of Omnipotence is stored with arrows, against which the shield of human virtue, however adamantine it has been boasted, is held up Nothing confers so much ability to resist the in vain: we do not always suffer by our crimes; temptations that perpetually surround us, as an habitual consideration of the shortness of life, we are not always protected by our innocence. A good man is by no means exempt from the and the uncertainty of those pleasures that, sodanger of suffering by the crimes of others; even licit our pursuit; and this consideration can be his goodness may raise him enemies of implaca- inculcated only by affliction. "O Death! how ble malice and restless perseverance: the good bitter is the remembrance of thee, to a man that man has never been warranted by Heaven from lives at ease in his possessions!" If our present the treachery of friends, the disobedience of chil-state were one continued succession of delights, dren, or the dishonesty of a wife; he may see his cares made useless by profusion, his instructions defeated by perverseness, and his kindness rejected by ingratitude: he may languish under the infamy of false accusations, or perish reproachfully by an unjust sentence. or one uniform flow of calmness and tranquillity, we should never willingly think upon its end; death would then surely surprise us as "a thief in the night;" and our task of duty would remain unfinished, till "the night came when no man can work." A good man is subject, like other mortals, to all the influences of natural evil; his harvest is not spared by the tempest, nor his cattle by the murrain; his house flames like others in a conflagration; nor have his ships any peculiar power of resisting hurricanes: his mind, however elevated, inhabits a body subject to innumerable casualties, of which he must always share the dangers and the pains; he bears about him the seeds of disease, and may linger away a great part of his life under the tortures of the gout or No. 126.] SATURDAY, JAN. 19, 1754. stone; at one time groaning with insufferable anguish, at another dissolved in listlessness and languor. While affliction thus prepares us for felicity, we may console ourselves under its pressures, by remembering, that they are no particular marks of divine displeasure: since all the distresses of persecution have been suffered by those "of whom the world was not worthy ;" and the Re66 a man of sordeemer of mankind himself was rows and acquainted with grief!" From this general and indiscriminate distribution of misery, the moralists have always derived one of their strongest moral arguments for a future state; for since the common events of the present life happey alike to the good and bad, it follows from the justice of the Supreme Being, that there must be another state of existence, in which a just retribution shall be made, and every man shall be happy and miserable according to his works. The miseries of life may, perhaps, afford some proof of a future state, compared as well with the mercy as the justice of God. It is scarcely to be in.agined that Infinite Benevolence would create a being capable of enjoying so much more than is here to be enjoyed, and qualified by nature to prolong pain by remembrance, and anticipate it by terror, if he was not designed for something nobler and better than a state, in which many of his faculties can serve only for his torment: in which he is to be importuned by desires that never can be satisfied, to feel many evils which he had no power to avoid, and to fear many which he shall never feel: there will surely come a time, when every capacity of happiness shall Steriles nec legit arenas Ut caneret paucis, mersitque hoc pulvere verum. Canst thou believe the vast eternal Mind And leave his truth in wilds and deserts drown'd? THERE has always prevailed among that part of mankind that addict their minds to speculation, a propensity to talk much of the delights of retirement: and some of the most pleasing compositions produced in every age contain descriptions of the peace and happiness of a country life. I know not whether those who thus ambitiously repeat the praises of solitude, have always considered, how much they depreciate mankind by declaring, that whatever is excellent or desirable is to be obtained by departing from them; that the assistance which we may derive from one another, is not equivalent to the evils which we have to fear; that the kindness of a few is overbalanced by the malice of many; and that the protection of society is too dearly purchased by encountering its dangers and enduring its oppressions. These specious representations of solitary happiness, however opprobrious to human nature, have so far spread their influence over the world, that almost every man delights his imagination with the hopes of obtaining some time an opportunity of retreat. Many, indeed, who enjoy retreat only in imagination, content themselves with believing, that another year will transport them to rural tranquillity, and die while they talk of doing what, if they had lived longer, they would never have done. But many likewise there are, either of greater resolution or more credulity, who in earnest try the state which they have been taught to think thus secure from cares and dangers; and retire to privacy, either that they may improve their happiness, increase their knowledge, or exalt their virtue. portance, who having known nothing can find no entertainment in reviewing the past, and who intending nothing can form no hopes from prospects of the future? He can, surely, take no wiser course than that of losing himself again in the crowd, and filling the vacuities of his mind with the news of the day. Others consider solitude as the parent of philosophy, and retire in expectation of greater intimacies with science, as Numa_repaired to the groves when he conferred with Egeria. These men have not always reason to repent. Some studies require a continued prosecution of the same train of thought, such as is too often interrupted by the petty avocations of common life: sometimes, likewise, it is necessary, that a multiplicity of objects be at once present to the mind; and every thing, therefore, must be kept at a distance, which may perplex the memory, or dissipate the attention. The greater part of the admirers of solitude, as of all other classes of mankind, have no higher or remoter view, than the present gratification of their passions. Of these, some, haughty and But though learning may be conferred by soliimpetuous, fly from society only because they tude, its application must be attained by general cannot bear to repay to others the regard which converse. He has learned to no purpose, that is themselves exact; and think no state of life eli-not able to teach; and he will always teach ungible, but that which places them out of the successfully, who cannot recommend his sentireach of censure or control, and affords them op- ments by his diction or address. portunities of living in a perpetual compliance with their own inclinations, without the necessity of regulating their actions by any other man's convenience or opinion. Even the acquisition of knowledge is often much facilitated by the advantages of society; he that never compares his notions with those of others readily acquiesces in his first thoughts, There are others, of minds more delicate and and very seldom discovers the objections which tender, easily offended by every deviation from may be raised against his opinions: he, therefore, rectitude, soon disgusted by ignorance or imper- often thinks himself in possession of truth, when tinence, and always expecting from the conver- he is only fondling an error long since exploded. sation of mankind more elegance, purity, and He that has neither companions nor rivals in his truth, than the mingled mass of life will easily studies, will always applaud his own progress, afford. Such men are in haste to retire from and think highly of his performances, because grossness, falsehood, and brutality; and hope to he knows not that others have equalled or excellfind in private habitations at least a negative feed him. And I am afraid it may be added, that licity, an exemption from the shocks and perturbations with which public scenes are continually distressing them. To neither of these votaries will solitude afford that content, which she has been taught so lavishly to promise. The man of arrogance will quickly discover, that by escaping from his opponents he has lost his flatterers, that greatness is nothing where it is not seen, and power nothing where it cannot be felt: and he whose faculties are employed in too close an observation of failings and defects, will find his condition very little mended by transferring his attention from others to himself: he will probably soon come back in quest of new objects, and be glad to keep his captiousness employed on any character rather than his own. Others are seduced into solitude merely by the authority of great names, and expect to find those charms in tranquillity which have allured statesmen and conquerors to the shades: these likewise are apt to wonder at their disappointment, for want of considering, that those whom they aspire to imitate, carried with them to their country seats minds full fraught with subjects of reflection, the consciousness of great merit, the memory of illustrious actions, the knowledge of important events, and the seeds of mighty designs to be ripened by future meditation. Solitude was to such men a release from fatigue, and An opportunity of usefulness. But what can retrement confer upon him, who having done nothing, can receive no support from his own im the student who withdraws himself from the world, will soon feel that ardour extinguished which praise and emulation had enkindled, and take the advantage of secrecy to sleep, rather than to labour. There remains yet another set of recluses, whose intention entitles them to higher respect, and whose motives deserve a more serious consi deration. These retire from the world, not merely to bask in ease or gratify curiosity; but that being disengaged from common cares, they may employ more time in the duties of religion: that they may regulate their actions with stricter vigilance, and purify their thoughts by more frequent meditation. To men thus elevated above the mists of mortality, I am far from presuming myself qualified to give directions. On him that appears "to pass through things temporary," with no other care than "not to lose finally the things eternal," Ilcok with such veneration as inclines me to approve his conduct in the whole, without a minute examination of its parts; yet I could never forbear to wish, that while vice is every day multiplying seducements, and stalking forth with more hardened effrontery, virtue would not withdraw the influence of her presence, or forbear to assert her natural dignity by open and undaunted perseverance in the right. Piety practised in solitude, like the flower that blooms in the deserts, may give its fragrance to the winds of heaven, and delight those unbodied spirits that survey the works of God and the actions of men; but it |