influence upon us, and make the draught of life sweet or bitter by imperceptible instillations. They operate unseen and unregarded, as change of air makes us sick or healthy, though we breathe it without attention, and only know the particles that impregnate it by their salutary or malignant ment; and it often happens, that sluggishness So deeply is this fallacy rooted in the heart, and so strongly guarded by hope and fear against the approach of reason, that neither science nor experience can' shake it, and we act as if life were without end, though we see and confess its uncertainty and shortness. Divines have, with great strength and ardour, shown the absurdity of delaying reformation and repentance; a degree of folly, indeed, which sets eternity to hazard. It is the same weakness, in proportion to the importance of the neglect, to transfer any care, which now claims our attention, to a future time; we subject ourselves to needless dangers from accidents which early diligence would have obviated, or perplex our minds by vain precautions, and make provision for the execution of designs, of which the opportunity once missed never will return. As he that lives longest lives but a little while, every man may be certain that he has no time to waste. The duties of life are commensurate to its duration, and every day brings its task, which if neglected is doubled on the morrow. But he that has already trifled away those months and years, in which he should have laboured, must remember that he has now only a part of that of which the whole is little; and that since the few moments remaining are to be considered as the last trust of Heaven, not one is to be lost. SIR, THOSE who exalt themselves into the chair of instruction, without inquiring whether any will submit to their authority, have not sufficiently considered how much of human life passes in little incidents, cursory conversation, slight business, and casual amusements; and therefore they have endeavoured only to inculcate the more awful virtues, without condescending to regard those petty qualities, which grow important only by their frequency, and which, though they produce no single acts of heroism, nor astonish us by great events, yet are every moment exerting their You have shown yourself not ignorant of the value of those subaltern endowments, yet have hitherto neglected to recommend good-humour to the world, though a little reflection will show you that it is the balm of being, the quality to which all that adorns or elevates mankind must owe its power of pleasing. Without good-humour, learning and bravery can only confer that superiority which swells the heart of the lion in the desert, where he roars without reply, and ravages without resistance. Without good-humour, virtue may awe by its dignity, and amaze by its brightness; but must always be viewed at a distance, and will scarcely gain a friend or attract an imitator. Good-humour may be defined a habit of being pleased; a constant and perennial softness of manner, easiness of approach, and suavity of disposition; like that which every man perceives in himself, when the first transports of new felicity have subsided, and his thoughts are only kept in motion by a slow succession of soft impulses. Good-humour is a state between gayety and unconcern, the act or emanation of a mind at leisure to regard the gratification of another. But It is imagined by many, that whenever they aspire to please, they are required to be merry, and to show the gladness of their souls by flights of pleasantry, and bursts of laughter. though these men may be for a time heard with applause and admiration, they seldom delight us long. We enjoy them a little, and then retire to easiness and good-humour, as the eye gazes awhile on eminence glittering with the sun, but soon turns aching away to verdure and to flowers. Gayety is to good-humour as animal perfumes to vegetable fragrance; the one overpowers weak spirits, and the other recreates and revives them. Gayety seldom fails to give some pain; the hearers either strain their faculties to accompany its towerings, or are left behind in envy and despair. Good-humour boasts no faculties which every one does not believe in his own power, and pleases principally by not offending. It is well known that the most certain way to give any man pleasure, is to persuade him that you receive pleasure from him, to encourage him to freedom and confidence, and to avoid any such appearance of superiority as may overbear and depress him. We see many that by this art only, spend their days in the midst of caresses, invitations, and civilities; and without any extraordinary qualities or attainments, are the universal favourites of both sexes, and certainly find a friend in every place. The darlings of the world will, indeed, be generally found such as excite neither jealousy nor fear, and are not considered as candidates for any eminent degree of reputation, but content themselves with common accomplishments, and endeavour rather to solicit kindness than to raise esteem; therefore, in assemblies and places of resort, it seldom fails to happen, that though at the entrance of some particular person, every face brightens with gladness, and every hand is extended in salutation, yet if you pursue him beyond the first exchange of civilities, 1 of the power, or show more cruelty than to choose you will find him of very small importance, and any kind of influence before that of kindness. only welcome to the company, as one by whom He that regards the welfare of others, should all conceive themselves admired, and with whom make his virtue approachabie, that it may be any one is at liberty to amuse himself when he loved and copied; and he that considers the can find no other auditor or companion; as one want which every man feels, or will feel, of exwith whom all are at ease, who will hear a jest ternal assistance, must rather wish to be surwithout criticism, and a narrative without con-rounded by those that love him, than by those tradiction, who laughs with every wit, and yields to every disputer. I am, &c. PHILOMIDES. that admire his excellences, or solicit his favours; for admiration ceases with novelty, and interest There are many whose vanity always inclines gains its end and retires. A man whose great them to associate with those from whom they qualities want the ornament of superficial attrachave no reason to fear mortification; and theretions, is like a naked mountain with mines of are times in which the wise and the knowing are gold, which will be frequented only till the treawilling to receive praise without the labour of de- sure is exhausted. serving it, in which the most elevated mind is willing to descend, and the most active to be at rest. All therefore are at some hour or another fond of companions whom they can entertain upon easy terms, and who will relieve them from solitude, without condemning them to vigilance No. 73.] and caution. We are most inclined to love when we have nothing to fear, and he that encourages us to please ourselves, will not be long without preference in our affection to those whose learning holds us at the distance of pupils, or whose wit calls all attention from us, and leaves us without importance and without regard. TUESDAY, NOV. 27, 1750. Stulte, quid O frustra votis puerilibus optas' Why thinks the fool, with childish hope, to see SIR, TO THE RAMBLER. OVID. ELPHINSTON. It is remarked by Prince Henry, when he sees Falstaff lying on the ground, that he could have better spared a better man. He was well ac- Ir you feel any of that compassion which you quainted with the vices and follies of him whom recommend to others, you will not disregard a he lamented; but while his conviction compelled case which I have reason from observation to behim to do justice to superior qualities, his tender-lieve very common, and which I know by expeness still broke out at the remembrance of Fal-rience to be very miserable. And though the staff, of the cheerful companion, the loud buffoon, with whom he had passed his time in all the luxury of idleness, who had gladded him with unenvied merriment, and whom he could at once enjoy and despise. You may perhaps think this account of those who are distinguished for their good humour, not very consistent with the praises which I have bestowed upon it. But surely nothing can more evidently show the value of this quality, than that it recommends those who are destitute of all other excellences, and procures regard to the trifling, friendship to the worthless, and affection to the dull. querulous are seldom received with great ardour of kindness, I hope to escape the mortification of finding that my lamentations spread the contagion of impatience, and produce anger rather than tenderness. I write not merely to vent the swelling of my heart, but to inquire by what means I may recover my tranquillity: and shall endeavour at brevity in my narrative, having long known that complaint quickly tires, howe ver elegant or however just. I was born in a remote county, of a family that boasts alliances with the greatest names in English history, and extends its claims of affinity to the Tudors and Plantagenets. My ancestors by Good humour is indeed generally degraded by little and little wasted their patrimony, till my the characters in which it is found; for, being father had not enough left for the support of a considered as a cheap and vulgar quality, we find family, without descending to the cultivation of it often neglected by those that, having excel- his own grounds, being condemned to pay three lences of higher reputation and brighter splen- sisters the fortunes allotted them by my grandfadour, perhaps imagine that they have some right to ther, who is suspected to have made his will gratify themselves at the expense of others, and when he was incapable of adjusting properly the are to demand compliance rather than to practice claims of his children, and who, perhaps, withit. It is by some unfortunate mistake that al-out design, enriched his daughters by beggaring most all those who have any claim to esteem or his son. My aunts being, at the death of their falove, press their pretensions with too little con- ther, neither young nor beautiful, nor very emisideration of others. This mistake, my own in-nent for softness of behaviour, were suffered to terest, as well as my zeal for general happiness, makes me desirous to rectify; for I have a friend, who, because he knows his own fidelity and usefulness, is never willing to sink into a companion: I have a wife, whose beauty first subdued me, and whose wit confirmed her conquest, but whose beauty now serves no other purpose than to entitle her to tyranny, and whose wit is only used to Justify perverseness. Surely nothing can be more unreasonable than to lose the will to please, when we are conscious live unsolicited, and by accumulating the interest of their portions, grew every day richer and prouder. My father pleased himself with foreseeing that the possessions of those ladies must revert at last to the hereditary estate, and, that his family might lose none of its dignity, resolved to keep me untainted with a lucrative employment: whenever therefore I discovered any inclination to the improvement of my condition, my mother never failed to put me in mind of my birth, and charged me to do nothing with which I was now relieved from part of my misery; a large fortune, though not in my power, was cer tain and unalienable; nor was there now any danger that I might at last be frustrated of my hopes by fret of dotage, the flatteries of a chamber-maid, the whispers of a tale-bearer, or the officiousness of a nurse. But my wealth was yet in reversion, my aunt was to be buried before I could emerge to grandeur and pleasure; and there was yet, according to my father's observation, nine lives between me and happiness. I might be reproached when I should come to | tions, articles, and settlements, ran away with my aunt's estate. the daughter of his father's groom; and my aunt, In all the perplexities or vexations which want upon this conviction of the perfidy of man, resolv of money brought upon us, it was our constanted never to listen more to amorous addresses. practice to have recourse to futurity. If any Ten years longer I dragged the shackles of exof our neighbours surpassed us in appearance, pectation, without ever suffering a day to pass in we went home and contrived an equipage, with which I did not compute how much my chance which the death of my aunts was to supply us. I was improved of being rich to-morrow. At last If any purseproud upstart was deficient in re- the second lady died, after a short illness, which spect, vengeance was referred to the time in yet was long enough to afford her time for the which our estate was to be repaired. We register-disposal of her estate, which she gave to me after ed every act of civility and rudeness, inquired the the death of her sister. number of dishes at every feast, and minuted the furniture of every house, that we might, when the hour of affluence should come, be able to eclipse all their splendour, and surpass all their magnificence. Upon plans of elegance, and schemes of pleasure, the day rose and set, and the year went round unregarded, while we were busied in laying out plantations on ground not yet our own, and deliberating whether the manor-house should be rebuilt or repaired. This was the amusement of our leisure, and the solace of our exigences; we met together only to contrive how our ap- I however lived on, without any clamours of proaching fortune should be enjoyed; for in this discontent, and comforted myself with considerour conversation always ended, on whatever sub-ing that all are mortal, and they who are contiject it began. We had none of the collateral in-nually decaying, must at last be destroyed. terests, which diversify the life of others with But let no man from this time suffer his felicity joys and hopes, but had turned our whole atten- to depend on the death of his aunt. The good tion on one event, which we could neither hasten gentlewoman was very regular in her hours, and nor retard, and had no other object of curiosity simple in her diet; and in walking or sitting still, than the health or sickness of my aunts, of which waking or sleeping, had always in view the prewe were careful to procure very exact and early servation of her health. She was subject to no intelligence. disorder but hypochondriac dejection; by which, without intention, she increased my miseries, for whenever the weather was cloudy, she would take her bed and send me notice that her time was come. I went with all the haste of eagerness, and sometimes received passionate injunctions to be kind to her maid, and directions how the last offices should be performed; but if before my arrival the sun happened to break out, or the wind to change, I met her at the door, or found her in the garden, bustling and vigilant, with all the tokens of long life. This visionary opulence for a while soothed our imagination, but afterwards fired our wishes, and exasperated our necessities, and my father could not always restrain himself from exclaiming, that no creature had so many lives as a cat and an old maid. At last upon the recovery of his sister from an ague, which she was supposed to have caught by sparing fire, he began to lose his stomach, and four months afterwards sunk into the grave. My mother, who loved her husband, survived him but a little while, and left me the sole heir of their lands, their schemes, and their wishes. As I had not enlarged my conceptions either by books or conversation, I differed only from my father by the freshness of my cheeks, and the vigour of my step: and, like him, gave way to no thoughts but of enjoying the wealth which my aunts were hoarding. At length the eldest fell ill. I paid the civilities and compliments which sickness requires with the utmost punctuality. I dreamed every night of escutcheons and white gloves, and inquired every morning at an early hour, whether there were any news of my dear aunt. At last a messenger was sent to inform me that I must come to her without the delay of a moment. I went and heard her last advice, but opening her will, found that she had left her fortune to her second sister. I hung my head; the youngest sister threatened to be married, and every thing was disappointment and discontent. I was in danger of losing irreparably one third of iny hopes, and was condemned still to wait for the rest. Of part of my terror I was soon eased; for the youth, whom his relations would have compelled to marry the old lady, after innumerable stipula Sometimes, however, she fell into distempers, and was thrice given over by the doctor, yet she found means of slipping through the gripe of death, and after having tortured me three months at each time with violent alternations of hope and fear, came out of her chamber without any other hurt than the loss of flesh, which in a few weeks she recovered by broths and jellies. As most have sagacity sufficient to guess at the desires of an heir, it was the constant practice of those who were hoping at second hand, and endeavoured to secure my favour against the time when I should be rich, to pay their court, by informing me that my aunt began to droop, that she had lately a bad night, that she coughed fee bly, and that she could never climb May hill; or, at least, that the autumn would carry her off. Thus was I flattered in the winter with the pierc ing winds of March, and in summer with the foga of September. But she lived through spring and fall, and set heat and cold at defiance, till, after near half a century, I buried her on the four. teenth of last June, aged ninety-three years, five months, and six days. For two months after her death I was rich, and was pleased with that obsequiousness and reverence which wealth instantaneously pro cures. But this joy is now past, and I have re-thing more than the symptoms of some deeper turned again to my old habit of wishing. Being accustomed to give the future full power over my mind, and to start away from the scene before me to some expected enjoyment, I deliver up my self to the tyranny of every desire which fancy suggests, and long for a thousand things which I am unable to procure. Money has much less power than is ascribed to it by those that want it. I had formed schemes which I cannot execute, I had supposed events which do not come to pass, and the rest of my life must pass in craving solicitude, unless you can find some remedy for a mind corrupted with an inveterate disease of wishing, and unable to think on any thing but wants, which reason tells me will never be supplied. I am, &c. MEN seldom give pleasure when they are not pleased themselves; it is necessary, therefore, to cultivate an habitual alacrity and cheerfulness, that in whatever state we may be placed by Providence, whether we are appointed to confer or receive benefits, to implore or to afford protection, we may secure the love of those with whom we transact. For though it is generally imagined, that he who grants favours, may spare any attention to his behaviour, and that usefulness will always procure friends; yet it has been found, that there is an art of granting requests, an art very difficult of attainment; that officiousness and liberality may be so adulterated, as to lose the greater part of their effect; that compliance may provoke, relief may harass, and liberality distress. malady. He that is angry without daring to confess his resentment, or sorrowful without the liberty of telling his grief, is too frequently inclined to give vent to the fermentations of his mind at the first passages that are opened, and to let his passions boil over upon those whom accident throws in his way. A painful and te dious course of sickness frequently produces such an alarming apprehension of the least increase of uneasiness, as keeps the soul perpetually on the watch, such a restless and incessant solicitude, as no care or tenderness can appease, and can only be pacified by the cure of the distemper, and the removal of that pain by which it is excited. Nearly approaching to this weakness, is the captiousness of old age. When the strength is crushed, the senses are dulled, and the common pleasures of life become insipid by repetition, we are willing to impute our uneasiness to causes not wholly out of our power, and please ourselves with fancying that we suffer by neglect, unkindness, or any evil which admits a remedy, rather than by the decays of nature, which cannot be prevented or repaired. We therefore revenge our pains upon those on whom we resolve to charge them; and too often drive mankind away at the time we have the greatest need of tenderness and assistance. But though peevishness may sometimes claim our compassion, as the consequence or concomitant of misery, it is very often found, where nothing can justify or excuse its admission. It is frequently one of the attendants on the prosper ous, and is employed by insolence in exacting homage, or by tyranny in harassing subjection. It is the offspring of idleness or pride; of idleness anxious for trifles; or pride unwilling to endure the least obstruction of her wishes. Those who have long lived in solitude, indeed naturally contract this unsocial quality, because, having long had only themselves to please, they do not readily depart from their own inclinations; their singu larities therefore are only blameable, when they No disease of the mind can more fatally disa- have imprudently or morosely withdrawn them ble it from benevolence, the chief duty of social selves from the world; but there are others, who beings, than ill humour or peevishness; for have, without any necessity, nursed up this habit though it breaks not out in paroxysms of outrage, in their minds, by making implicit submissive nor bursts into clamour, turbulence, and blood-ness the condition of their favour, and suffering shed, it wears out happiness by slow corrosion, and small injuries incessantly repeated. It may be considered as the canker of life, that destroys its vigour, and checks its improvement, that creeps on with hourly depredations, and taints and vitiates what it cannot consume. none to approach them, but those who never speak but to applaud, or move but to obey. He that gives himself up to his own fancy, and converses with none but such as he hires to lull him on the down of absolute authority, to sooth him with obsequiousness, and regale him with Peevishness, when it has been so far indulged, flattery, soon grows too slothful for the labour of as to outrun the motions of the will, and discover contest, too tender for the asperity of contradicitself without premeditation, is a species of de- tion, and too delicate for the coarseness of truth, pravity in the highest degree disgusting and of a little opposition offends, a little restraint enfensive, because no rectitude of intention, nor rages, and a little difficulty perplexes him; having softness of address, can ensure a moment's ex-been accustomed to see every thing give way to emption from affront and indignity. While we are courting the favour of a peevish man, and exerting ourselves in the most diligent civility, an unlucky syllable displeases, an unheeded circumstance ruffles and exasperates; and in the moment when we congratulate ourselves upon having gained a friend, our endeavours are frustrated at once; and all our assiduity forgotten in the casual tumult of some trifling irritation. This troublesome impatience is sometimes no his humour, he soon forgets his own littleness, and expects to find the world rolling at his beck, and all mankind employed to acommodate and delight him. Tetrica had a large fortune bequeathed to het by an aunt, which made her very early inde pendent, and placed her in a state of superiority to all about her. Having no superfluity of un derstanding, she was soon intoxicated by the flatteries of her maid, who informed her that ladies, such as she, had nothing to do but take it is much oftener of base extraction, the child of pleasure their own way; that she wanted nothing vanity, and nursling of ignorance. from others, and had therefore no reason to value their opinion; that money was every thing; and TUESDAY, DEC. 4, 1750. Diligitur nemo, nisi cui Fortuna secunda est, When smiling Fortune spreads her golden ray, OVID. MISS A. W.⭑ that they who thought themselves ill-treated, No. 75.] should look for better usage among their equals. Warm with these generous sentiments, Tetrica came forth into the world, in which she endeavoured to force respect by haughtiness of mien and vehemence of language; but having neither birth, beauty, nor wit, in any uncommon degree, she suffered such mortifications from those who thought themselves at liberty to return her insults, as reduced her turbulence to cooler malignity, and taught her to practise her arts of vexation only where she might hope to tyrannize without resistance. She continued from her twentieth to her fifty-fifth year to torment all her inferiors with THE diligence with which you endeavour to cultiso much diligence, that she has formed a princi-vate the knowledge of nature, manners, and life, ple of disapprobation, and finds in every place will perhaps incline you to pay some regard to something to grate her mind, and disturb her the observations of one who has been taught to quiet. know mankind by unwelcome information, and whose opinions are the result, not of solitary con jectures, but of practice and experience. SIR, TO THE RAMBLER. beings not so much wiser than ourselves, but that they may receive as well as communicate knowledge, and more inclined to degrade their own character by cowardly submission, than to overbear or oppress us with their learning or their wit. If she takes the air, she is offended with the heat or cold, the glare of the sun, or the gloom of the clouds; if she makes a visit, the room in I was born to a large fortune, and bred to the which she is to be received, is too light, or too knowledge of those arts which are supposed to dark, or furnished with something which she can- accomplish the mind, and adorn the person of a not see without aversion. Her tea is never of woman. To these attainments, which custom the right sort; the figures on the China give her and education almost forced upon me, I added disgust. Where there are children, she hates some voluntary acquisitions by the use of books, the gabble of brats; where there are none, she and the conversation of that species of men whom cannot bear a place without some cheerfulness the ladies generally mention with terror and averand rattle. If many servants are kept in a house, sion under the name of scholars, but whom I she never fails to tell how Lord Lavish was ru-have found a harmless and inoffensive order of ined by a numerous retinue; if few, she relates the story of a miser that made his company wait on themselves. She quarrelled with one family, because she had an unpleasant view from their windows; with another, because the squirrel leaped within two yards of her; and with a third, From these men, however, if they are by kind because she could not bear the noise of the parrot. treatment encouraged to talk, something may be Of milliners and mantua-makers she is the gained, which, embellished with elegancy, and proverbial torment. She compels them to alter softened by modesty, will always add dignity and their work, then to unmake it, and contrive it value to female conversation; and from my acafter another fashion; then changes her mind,quaintance with the bookish part of the world, I and likes it better as it was at first; then will have a small improvement. Thus she proceeds till no profit can recompense the vexation; they at last leave the clothes at her house and refuse to serve her. Her maid, the only being that can endure her tyranny, professes to take her own course, and hear her mistress talk. Such is the consequence of peevishness; it can be borne only when it is despised. derived many principles of judgment and maxims of prudence, by which I was enabled to draw upon myself the general regard in every place of concourse or pleasure. My opinion was the great rule of approbation, my remarks were remembered by those who desired the second degree of fame, my mien was studied, my dress was imitated, my letters were handed from one family to another, and read by those who copied them as sent to themselves; my visits were solicited as honours, and multitudes boasted of an intimacy with Melissa, who had only seen me by accident, and whose familiarity had never proceeded beyond the exchange of a compliment, or return of a courtesy. It sometimes happens that too close an attention to minute exactness, or a too rigorous habit of examining every thing by the standard of perfection, vitiates the temper, rather than improves the understanding, and teaches the mind to discern faults with unhappy penetration. It is incident likewise to men of vigorous imagination to I shall make no scruple of confessing that J please themselves too much with futurities, and was pleased with this universal veneration, be to fret because those expectations are disappoint- cause I always considered it as paid to my in ed, which should never have been formed. Know-trinsic qualities and inseparable merit, and very tedge and genius are often enemies to quiet, by suggesting ideas of excellence, which men and the performances of men cannot attain. But let no man rashly determine, that his unwillingness to be pleased is a proof of understanding, unless his superiority appears from less doubtful evidence; for though peevishness may sometimes justly boast its descent from learning or from wit, Q easily persuaded myself that fortune had no par in my superiority. When I looked upon my glass, I saw youth and beauty, with health that might give me reason to hope their continuance; when I examined my mind, I found some strength of judgment, and fertility of fancy: and was told *Anna Williams. |