N° 59. SATURDAY, March 18. 1786.

NE of the pleasures of which the idle

are deprived, is that of relaxation from bufinefs. Those whom intricate and weighty affairs embarrass and fatigue, talk with envy of the leifure of the unemployed, of the bliss of retirement. But in their hours of occafional amufement, they know not the grievance of liftless days, and months and years of idleness; nor, when they pant for rest from their labours, are they aware that it is from labour alone that rest acquires its name, and derives its enjoyment.

When, in the course of my ufual walk, I paffed the other morning through the place where but a few days before I had met fo many bufy faces, and been joftled by so many hurried steps; when I faw the court-doors fhut, and heard no hum within; I confefs it ftruck me with a melancholy fort of feeling. But the first lawyer whom I encountered had a fmile of fatisfaction on his countenance, and congratulated himself on the fufpenfion of those labours which laft week he faid had lain fo heavy on him. "You are free from

that

that plague," faid he, "you have no feffion or term-time."-" But you forget, my friend, that I have no vacation."

I contrive, however, to get through the nobufinefs of my life with tolerable fatisfaction, and if at any time an hour hangs heavy on me, I do not carry my misfortune into the ftreets, but like decent beggars keep my diftreffes at home, and am relieved by the private contributions of the humane and the charitable.

It is not fo with every one who labours under the afflicting hand of time. When I had got a little further on my accustomed walk, I was catched in a fhower, and took fhelter in the houfe of an acquaintance in Prince's-ftreet. As I paffed the coffee-house and confectioner's fhop, I was ftruck with compaffion at the fight of the many vacant and melancholy faces which appeared at the doors and windows. It was but a little after mid-day, and confequently the gentlemen to whom these faces belonged had a great while to look forward to the hour when they could with propriety pull off their boots, and drefs for the bufinefs of the table. The weather did not permit of their getting rid of this interval by a gallop, which is one of the happiest expedients for the purpose in the world, as it removes the headach of yesterday's dinner, gets through the time

till the dinner of to-day, and gives an appetite But my

for enjoying that meal when it comes. poor friends in Prince's-ftreet had no hope of getting through the tedious interval in the fociety of their horfes; they had before them the dif mal profpect of spending three long hours in their own company, or in the company of their fellowfufferers; and, after all, of fitting down to dinner with muddy heads, and fqueamish ftomachs.

"Mentem mortalia tangunt," fays the Poet. The diftreffes incident to humanity are the great nourishers of moral fpeculation. The mortals of Prince's-ftreet touched my mind, and I could not think, without a great degree of commiferation, of the difficulty they would find in paffing the time till the arrival of that important aera in the hiftory of the day-the hour of dinner. The more I reflected, the more I was diftreffed on their account: For I suspect that it is not only when morning is rainy that our gentlemen of fafhion find their time heavy. The langour and reftleffness which are fo frequently to be obferved united in their looks and behaviour, are too evident fymptoms of this quotidian diforder, this malady of time, under which they have the miffortune to labour.

To fay the truth, in spite of our complaints and the fhortnefs of life, yet four-and-twenty

hours

hours returning every day are by far too much for persons who have no other object but amufement. It is almost impoffible to continue longer in bed than eleven hours; few people are able to lie more than eight or nine. Here, then, upon the most moderate calculation, we have at least thirteen hours to be filled up every day by people who have nothing to do but to be amufed. Now, although a chace, a bottle of wine, a dance, and fome other expedients, to which these gentlemen have recourse, may give occafional fill-ups to their fpirits, yet it is not in man, not even in a man of fashion, to be both idle and comfortable for thirteen hours together, day after day.

There feems to be here an incongruity which is not obfervable any where else in the works of Nature. All the other animals have their duration pretty well adjusted to the purposes for which they seem to have been intended, or to their capacity for filling up the time allotted to them with tolerable fatisfaction. The gay fluttering tribe of butterflies, who have no other business under the fun but pleasure, do not live long enough to have any languid intervals, or fits of the vapours. Geefe, on the other hand, are very long lived: But then it is to be obferved, that geefe undertake the important and laborious task of rearing a family every feafon; they have likewife many

enter

enterprising excurfions to make both by land and water in fearch of their food; and befides, they can fill up their leifure hours agreeably by means of two very fortunate circumftances, their power of commanding fleep when they please, and their talent for converfation. By thefe means, geefe, when they are faved from the hand of the poulterer, are able to go on to a refpectable old age, without ever being at a lofs how to kill the time.

But men of fashion are an anomaly in the creation. Indeed, to adjust matters one of two things is neceffary; either to abridge the duration of their life, or elfe to improve their means of enjoying it.

3

With regard to the first method of abridgement, I humbly conceive, that if, from the time when our men of fashion break loofe from their parents and preceptors, with the full command of money or credit, they were to fink quietly to reft in the courfe of nature at the end of a twelvemonth, their life would be pretty nearly fufficient for all they have to do. They would not fail within that space to run round the whole circle of pleafure again and again, which is evidently what they confider as the chief end of man. At the fame time, they would be feasonably delivered from the infipidity of pleasure, when it becomes too familiar, from the unhappy devices which

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they