and circumvention, which must have been produced by an unbounded eagerness of wealth, arising from an unshaken conviction that to be rich is to be happy. Others have retired from high stations, and vo- | life, by hindering that fraud and violence, rapine luntarily condemned themselves to privacy and obscurity. But even these will not afford many occasions of triumph to the philosopher; for they have commonly either quitted that only which they 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. Whoever finds himself incited, by some violent 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. 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 When therefore the desire of wealth is taking has not afforded them the light of moral or reli- hold of the heart, let us look round and see how gious instruction, and who collect all their ideas it operates upon those whose industry or fortune by their own eyes, and digest them by their own has obtained it. When we find them oppressed understandings, seem to consider those who are with their own abundance, luxurious without placed in ranks of remote superiority, as almost pleasure, idle without ease, impatient and queruanother and higher species of beings. As them-lous in themselves, and despised or hated by the selves 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. 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; It is common to distinguish men by the names | tern commissions. For a genius in the cerch, 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 appella- and deep study, who have never had an opportution of vulture, and a fop the title of monkey.nity to speak in the courts: and meeting SereThere is also among the various anomalies of nus the physician, "Ah, doctor," says he, "what, character, which a survey of the world exhibits, a-foot still, when so many blockheads are rata species of beings in human form, which may tling in their chariots? I told you seven years be properly marked out as the screech-owls of ago that you would never meet with encouragemankind. ment, and I hope you will now take more notice, when I tell you that your Greek, and your diligence, and your honesty, will never enable you to live like yonder apothecary, who prescribes to his own shop, and laughs at the physician." po These screech-owls seem to be settled in an opinion that the great business of life is to complain, and that they were born for no other purthan 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 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 pursuits, 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, VUKTIKboat acì davarýdopos, 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 conIdolence 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 destroyed 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 ease. 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 vulta simulat, premit altum corde dolorem. dents in one great transaction, afford few lessons applicable to private life, which derives its comforts and its wretchedness from the right or wrong management of things, which nothing but their frequency makes considerable, Parva 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 numyet it cannot be denied, that he who complains bers in the same condition with himself, to whom acts like a man, like a social being, who looks for his mistakes and miscarriages, escapes and expehelp from his fellow-creatures. Pity is to many dients, would be of immediate and apparent use; of the unhappy a source of comfort in hopeless but there is such a uniformity in the state of man, distress, as it contributes to recommend them to considered apart from adventitious and separable themselves, by proving that they have not lost decorations and disguises, that there is scarce any the regard of others; and heaven seems to indi- possibility of good or ill, but is common to human cate the duty even of barren compassion, by in-kind. A great part of the time of those who are clining us to weep for evils which we cannot remedy. No. 60.] SATURDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1750. -Quid sit pulchrum quid turpe, quid utile, quid non, HOR. FRANCIS. 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. Whose works the beautiful and base contain, Of vice and virtue more instructive rules, Than all the sober sages of the schools. 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 particu tion, 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 merwe 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 proOur 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. 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 biographer is often to pass slightly over those performances and incidents, which produce vulgar greatness, 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. 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 There are many invisible circumstances which, delightful or more useful, none can more cer- whether we read as inquirers after natural or motainly enchain the heart by irresistible interest, ral knowledge, whether we intend to enlarge our or more widely diffuse instruction to every diver-science, or increase our virtue, are more importsity of condition. The general and rapid narratives of history, which involve a thousand fortunes in the busi ant than public occurrences. Thus Sallust, the great master of nature, has not forgotten in his 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. fixed, that the day might not run out in the idleness of suspense and all the plans and enterprises of De Witt are now of less importance to the world than that part of his personal character, which represents him as careful of his health, and negligent of his life. 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. If now and then they condescend to inform the world of particular facts, they are not always so happy as to select the most important. I know not well what advantage posterity can receive (from the only circumstance by which Tickell has distinguished Addison from the rest of mankind, the irregularity of his pulse: nor can I think my self overpaid for the time spent in reading the life of Malherb, by being enabled to relate, after the learned biographer, that Malherb had two predominant opinions; one, that the looseness of a single woman might destroy all her boast of ancient descent; the other, that the French beggars made use very improperly and barbarously of the phrase noble Gentleman, because either word included the sense of both. Falsus honor juvat, et mendax infamia terret HOR. False praise can charm, unreal shame control,- 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 till 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 the hopes of the ambitious; what changes of public measures are approaching; who is likely to be crushed in the collision of parties; who is climbing to the top of power, and who is tottering on the precipice of disgrace. But as it is very common for us to desire most what we are least qualified to obtain, I have suffered this appetite of news to outgrow all the gratifications which my present situation can afford it; for being placed in a remote country, I am condemned always to confound the future with the past, to form prognostications of events no longer doubtful, and to consider the expediency of schemes already executed or defeated. I am 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 wretch 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 prolost 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 ar rival of one of these disseminators of knowledge | link-boys. When he is with ladies, he tells them known in the country, than we crowd about him from every quarter, and by innumerable inquiries flatter him into an opinion of his own importance. He sees himself surrounded by multitudes, who propose their doubts, and refer their controversies, to him, as to a being descended from some nobler region, and he grows on a sudden oraculous and infallible, solves all difficulties, and sets all objections at defiance. of the innumerable pleasures to which he can introduce them; but never fails to hint how much they will be deficient, at their first arrival, in the knowledge of the town. What it is to know the town, he has not indeed hitherto informed us, though there is no phrase so frequent in his mouth, nor any science which he appears to think of so great a value, or so difficult attainment. But my curiosity has been most engaged by the recital of his own adventures and achievements. I have heard of the union of various characters in single persons, but never met with such a constellation of great qualities as this man's the hero; whatever has elevated the wit; whatever has endeared the lover, are all concentrated in Mr. Frolic, whose life has, for seven years, been a regular interchange of intrigues, dangers, and waggeries, and who has distinguished himself in every character that can be feared, envied, or admired. There is, in my opinion, great reason for suspecting, that they sometimes take advantage of this reverential modesty, and impose upon rustic understandings, with a false show of universal intelligence; for I do not find that they are will-narrative affords. Whatever has distinguished ing to own themselves ignorant of any thing, or that they dismiss any inquirer with a positive and decisive answer. The court, the city, the park, and exchange, are to those men of unbounded observation equally familiar, and they are alike ready to tell the hour at which stocks will rise, or the ministry be changed. A short residence at London entitles a man to knowledge, to wit, to politeness, and to a despotic and dictatorial power of prescribing to the rude multitude, whom he condescends to honour with a biennial visit; yet, I know not well upon what motives, I have lately found myself inclined to cavil at this prescription, and to doubt whether it be not, on some occasions, proper to withhold our veneration, till we are more authentically convinced of the merits of the claimant. I question whether all the officers of the royal navy can bring together, from all their journals, a collection of so many wonderful escapes as this man has known upon the Thames, on which he has been a thousand and a thousand times on the point of perishing, sometimes by the terrors of foolish women in the same boat, sometimes by his own acknowledged imprudence in passing the river in the dark, and sometimes by shooting the bridge under which he has rencountered mountainous waves and dreadful cataracts. It is well remembered here, that, about seven years ago, one Frolic, a tall boy, with lank hair, Nor less has been his temerity by land, nor remarkable for stealing eggs, and sucking them, fewer his hazards. He has reeled with giddiwas taken from the school in this parish, and sentness on the top of the monument; he has crossed up to London to study the law. As he had given the street amidst the rush of coaches; he has amongst us no proofs of a genius designed by been surrounded by robbers without number; nature for extraordinary performances, he was, he has headed parties at the playhouse; he has from the time of his departure, totally forgotten, scaled the windows of every toast, of whatever nor was there any talk of his vices or virtues, his condition; he has been hunted for whole winters. good or his ill fortune, till last summer a report by his rivals; he has slept upon bulks, he has burst upon us, that Mr. Frolic was come down in cut chairs, he has bilked coachmen; he has rethe first post-chaise which this village had seen, scued his friends from the bailiffs; has knocked having travelled with such rapidity that one of his down the constable, has bullied the justice, and postilions had broken his leg, and another nar- performed many other exploits, that have filled rowly escaped suffocation in a quicksand; but the town with wonder and with merriment. that Mr. Frolic seemed totally unconcerned, for such things were never heeded at London. But yet greater is the fame of his understanding than his bravery; for he informs us, that he Mr. Frolic next day appeared among the gen- is, at London, the established arbitrator of all tlemen at their weekly meeting on the bowling-points of honour, and the decisive judge of all green, and now were seen the effects of a Lon-performances of genius; that no musical perdon education. His dress, his language, his former is in reputation till the opinion of Frolic ideas, were all new, and he did not much endea- has ratified his pretensions; that the theatres vour to conceal his contempt of every thing that suspend their sentence till he begins the clap or differed from the opinions, or practice of the hiss, in which all are proud to concur; that no modish world. He showed us the deformity of public entertainment has failed or succeeded, but our skirts and sleeves, informed us where hats because he opposed or favoured it; that all conof the proper size were to be sold, and recom- troversies at the gaming-table are referred to his mended to us the reformation of a thousand ab- determination; that he adjusts the ceremonial at surdities in our clothes, our cookery, and our every assembly, and prescribes every fashion of conversation. When any of his phrases were pleasure or of dress. unintelligible, he could not suppress the joy of confessed superiority, but frequently delayed the explanation, that he might enjoy his triumph over our barbarity. When he is pleased to entertain us with a story, he takes care to crowd into it names of streets, squares, and buildings, with which he knows we are unacquainted. The favourite topics of his discourse are the pranks of drunkards, and the tricks put upon country gentlemen by porters and With every man whose name occurs in the papers of the day, he is intimately acquainted; and there are very few posts, either in the state or army, of which he has not more or less influenced the disposal. He has been very frequently consulted both upon war and peace; but the time is not yet come when the nation shall know how much it is indebted to the genius of Frolic. Yet, notwithstanding all these declarations, I cannot hitherto persuade myself to see that Mr. |