disguise, and learning in distress; and was somewhat mortified when I heard that the first tenant was a tailor, of whom nothing was remembered but that he complained of his room for want of light; and, after having lodged in it a month, and paid only a week's rent, pawned a piece of cloth which he was trusted to cut out, and was forced to make a precipitate retreat from this quarter of the town.

The next was a young woman newly arrived from the country, who lived for five weeks with great regularity, and became by frequent treats very much the favourite of the family, but at last received visits so frequently from a cousin in Cheapside, that she brought the reputation of the house into danger, and was therefore dismissed with good advice.

ants of the next floor by unseasonable noises. He was generally in bed at noon; but from evening to midnight he sometimes talked aloud with great vehemence, sometimes stamped as in rage, sometimes threw down his poker, then clattered his chairs, then sat down in deep thought, and again burst out into loud vociferations; sometimes he would sigh as oppressed with misery, and sometimes shake with convul sive laughter. When he encountered any of the family, he gave way or bowed, but rarely spoke, except that as he went up stairs he often repeated,

- Ος ὑπέρτατα δώματα ναίει.

This habitant th' aerial regions boast: hard words, to which his neighbours listened so often that they learned them without understanding them. What was his employment she did not venture to ask him, but at last heard a printer's boy inquire for the author.

My landlady was very often advised to beware of this strange man, who, though he was quiet for the present, might perhaps become outrage ous in the hot months; but as she was punctually paid, she could not find any sufficient rea son for dismissing him, till one night he con vinced her, by setting fire to his curtains, that it was not safe to have an author for her inmate.

The room then stood empty for a fortnight; my landlady began to think that she had judged hardly, and often wished for such another lodger. At last, an elderly man of a grave aspect read the bill, and bargained for the room at the very first price that was asked. He lived in close retirement, seldom went out till evening, and then returned early, sometimes cheerful, and at other times dejected. It was remarkable, that whatever he purchased, he never had small money in his pocket; and, though cool and temperate on other occasions, was always vehement and stormy till he received his change. He paid his rent with great exactness, and seldom failed She had then for six weeks a succession of once a week to requite my landlady's civility tenants who left the house on Saturday, and, inwith a supper. At last, such is the fate of hu- stead of paying their rent, stormed at their landman felicity, the house was alarmed at midnight lady. At last she took in two sisters, one of by the constable, who demanded to search the whom had spent her little fortune in procuring garrets. My landlady assuring him that he had remedies for a lingering disease, and was now mistaken the door, conducted him up stairs, supported and attended by the other: she climbed where he found the tools of a coiner; but the with difficulty to the apartment, where she lantenant had crawled along the roof to an empty guished eight weeks without impatience, or lahouse, and escaped; much to the joy of my mentation, except for the expense and fatigue landlady, who declares him a very honest man, which her sister suffered, and then calmly and and wonders why any body should be hanged contentedly expired. The sister followed her to for making money when such numbers are in the grave, paid the few debts which they had want of it. She however confesses that she contracted, wiped away the tears of useless sor shall, for the future, always question the charac-row, and returning to the business of common ter of those who take her garret without beating down the price.

The bill was then placed again in the window, and the poor woman was teased for seven weeks by innumerable passengers, who obliged her to climb with them every hour up five stories, and then disliked the prospect, hated the noise of a public street, thought the stairs narrow, objected to a low ceiling, required the walls to be hung with fresher paper, asked questions about the neighbourhood, could not think of living so far from their acquaintance, wished the windows had looked to the south rather than the west, told how the door and chimney might have been better disposed, bid her half the price that she asked, or promised to give her earnest the next day, and came no more.

At last, a short meagre man, in a tarnished waistcoat, desired to see the garret, and, when he had stipulated for two long shelves, and a larger table, hired it at a low rate. When the affair was completed, he looked round him with great satisfaction, and repeated some words which the woman did not understand. In two days he brought a great box of books, took possession of his room and lived very inoffensively, except that he frequently disturbed the inhabit

life, resigned to me the vacant habitation.

Such, Mr. Rambler, are the changes which have happened in the narrow space where my present fortune has fixed my residence. So true it is, that amusement and instruction are always at hand for those who have skill and willingness to find them; and so just is the observation of Juvenal, that a single house will show whatever is done or suffered in the world.

No. 162.]

I am, Sir, &c.

TUESDAY, OCT. 5, 1751.

pass his life under the direction of others; that | Le cannot regulate his conduct by his own knowledge, but must lie at the mercy of those who undertake to guide him.

least, the merit of suffering in a good cause. But there are many who can plead no such extenuation of their folly; who shake off the burden of their station, not that they may soar with less incumbrance to the heights of knowledge or virtue, but that they may loiter at ease and sleep in quiet; and who select for friendship and confidence not the faithful and the virtuous, but the soft, the civil, and compliant.

There is no state more contrary to the dignity of wisdom than perpetual and unlimited dependance, in which the understanding lies useless, and every motion is received from external impulse. Reason is the great distinction of human nature, the faculty by which we approach to some degree of association with celestial intelligences; but as the excellence of every power ap-ness increasing on them, they naturally desire pears only in its operations, not to have reason, and to have it useless and unemployed, is nearly the same.

This openness to flattery is the common disgrace of declining life. When men feel weak

Thus

to rest from the struggles of contradiction, the
fatigue of reasoning, the anxiety of circumspec-
tion; when they are hourly tormented with pains
and diseases, they are unable to bear any new
disturbance, and consider all opposition as an
addition to misery, of which they feel already
more than they can patiently endure.
desirous of peace, and thus fearful of pain, the
old man seldom inquires after any other quali-
ties in those whom he caresses, than quickness
in conjecturing his desires, activity in supplying
his wants, dexterity in intercepting complaints
before they approach near enough to disturb him,
flexibility to his present humour, submission to
hasty petulance, and attention to wearisome nar-
rations. By these arts alone many have been
able to defeat the claims of kindred and of me-
rit, and to enrich themselves with presents and
legacies.

Thrasybulus inherited a large fortune, and augmented it by the revenues of several lucrative employments, which he discharged with honour and dexterity. He was at last wise enough to consider that life should not be de voted wholly to accumulation; and, therefore, retiring to his estate, applied himself to the edu cation of his children, and the cultivation of domestic happiness.

Such is the weakness of man, that the essence of things is seldom so much regarded as external and accidental appendages. A small variation of trifling circumstances, a slight change of form by an artificial dress, or a casual difference of appearance by a new light and situation, will conciliate affection or excite abhorrence, and determine us to pursue or to avoid. Every man considers a necessity of compliance with any will but his own as the lowest state of ignominy and meanness; few are so far lost in cowardice or negligence as not to rouse at the first insult of tyranny, and exert all their force against him who usurps their property, or invades any privilege of speech or action. Yet we see often those who never wanted spirit to repel encroachment or oppose violence, at last by a gradual relaxation of vigilance, delivering up, without capitulation, the fortress which they defended against assault, and laying down unbidden the weapons which they grasped the harder for every attempt to wrest them from their hands. Men eminent for spirit and wisdom often resign themselves to voluntary pupilage, and suffer their lives to be modelled by officious ignorance, and their choice to be regulated by presumptuous He passed several years in this pleasing stupidity. amusement, and saw his care amply recomThis unresisting acquiescence in the determi-pensed; his daughters were celebrated for monation of others, may be the consequence of ap-desty and elegance, and his sons for learning, plication to some study remote from the beaten track of life, some employment which does not allow leisure for sufficient inspection of those petty affairs by which nature has decreed a great part of our duration to be filled. To a mind thus withdrawn from common objects, it is more eligible to repose on the prudence of another, than to be exposed every moment to slight interruptions. The submission which such confidence requires is paid without pain, because it implies no confession of inferiority. The business from which we withdraw our cognizance is not above our abilities, but below our notice. We please our pride with the effects of our influence thus weakly exerted, and fancy ourselves placed in a higher orb, from which we regulate subordinate agents by a slight and distant superintendence. But whatever vanity or abstraction may suggest, no man can safely do that by others which might be done by himself: he that indulges negligence will quickly become ignorant of his own affairs; and he that trusts without reserve will at

prudence, and spirit. In time, the eagerness with which the neighbouring gentlemen courted his alliance obliged him to resign his daughters to other families; the vivacity and curiosity of his sons hurried them out of rural privacy into the open world, from whence they had not soon an inclination to return. This, however, he had always hoped; he pleased himself with the success of his schemes, and felt no inconvenience from solitude till an apoplexy deprived him of his wife.

Thrasybulus had now no companion; and the maladies of increasing years having taken from him much of the power of procuring amusement for himself, he thought it necessary to procure some inferior friend who might ease him of his economical solicitudes, and divert him by cheerful conversation. All these qualities he soon recollected in Vafer, a clerk in one of the offices over which he had formerly presided. Vafer was invited to visit his old patron, and being by his station acquainted with the present modes of life, and by constant practice dexterous in busiIt is, however, impossible but that, as the at-ness, entertained him with so many novelties, tention tends strongly towards one thing, it must retire from another: and he that omits the care of domestic business, because he is engrossed by inquiries of more importance to mankind, has, at

last be deceived.

and so readily disentangled his affairs, that he was desired to resign his clerkship, and accept a liberal salary in the house of Thrasybulus.

Vafer, having always lived in a state of de

nest opportunities of improving his condition pass by without his notice; he neglects to cultivate his own barren soil, because he expects every moment to be placed in regions of spontaneous fertility, and is seldom roused from his delusion, but by the gripe of distress which he cannot resist, and the sense of evils which cannot be remedied.

pendence, was well versed in the arts by which | and days in attendance and solicitation, the hofavour is obtained, and could, without repugnance, or hesitation, accommodate himself to every caprice, and echo every opinion. He never doubted but to be convinced, nor attempted opposition but to flatter Thrasybulus with the pleasure of a victory. By this practice he found his way into his patron's heart; and, having first nade himself agreeable, soon became important. His insidious diligence, by which the laziness of age was gratified, engrossed the management of affairs; and his petty offices of civility, and occasional intercessions, persuaded the tenants to consider him as their friend and benefactor, and to entreat his enforcement of their representations of hard years, and his countenance, to petitions for abatement of rent.

Thrasybulus had now banqueted on flattery, till he could no longer bear the harshness of remonstrance or the insipidity of truth. All contrariety to his own opinion shocked him like a violation of some natural right, and all recommendation of his affairs to his own inspection was dreaded by him as a summons to torture. His children were alarmed by the sudden riches of Vafer, but their complaints were heard by their father with impatience, as the result of a conspiracy against his quiet, and a design to condemn him, for their own advantage, to groan out his last hours in perplexity and drudgery. The daughters retired with tears in their eyes, but the son continued his importunities till he found his inheritance hazarded by his obstinacy. Vafer triumphed over all their efforts, and continuing to confirm himself in authority, at the death of his master purchased an estate, and bade defiance to inquiry and justice.

NONE of the cruelties exercised by wealth and power upon indigence and dependance is more mischievous in its consequences, or more frequently practised with wanton negligence, than the encouragement of expectations which are never to be gratified, and the elation and depression of the heart by needless vicissitudes of hopes and disappointment.

Every man is rich or poor, according to the proportion between his desires and enjoyments; any enlargement of wishes is therefore equally destructive to happiness with the diminution of possessions; and he that teaches another to long for what he never shall obtain, is no less an enemy to his quiet, than if he had robbed him of part of his patrimony.

But representations thus refined exhibit no adequate idea of the guilt of pretended friendship; of artifices by which followers are attracted only to decorate the retinue of pomp, and swell the shout of popularity, and to be dismissed with contempt and ignominy, when their leader has succeeded or miscarried, when he is sick of show, and weary of noise. While a man, infatuated with the promises of greatness, wastes his hours

The punishment of Tantalus in the infernal regions affords a just image of hungry servility, flattered with the approach of advantage, doomed to lose it before it comes into his reach, always within a few days of felicity, and always sinking back to his former wants;

Καὶ μὴν Τάνταλον εἰσεῖδον, χαλέπ' ἄλγε' ἔχοντα, Εσταότ' ἐν λίμνῃ· ἡ δὲ προσέπλαζε γενείῳ Στεῦτο δὲ διψάων, πιέειν δ' οὐκ εἶχεν ἑλέσθαι· Οσσάκι γὰρ κάψει ὁ γέρων, πιέειν μενεαίνων, Τοσσάχ ̓ ὕδωρ ἀπολέσκετ' ἀναβροχέν· ἀμφὶ δὲ ποσσί Γαῖα μέλαινα φάνεσκε, καταζήνασκε δὲ δαίμων. Δένδρεα δ' ὑψιπέτηλα κατακρῆθεν χέε καρπὸν, Ογχναι, καὶ ροιαὶ, καὶ μηλέαι ἀγλαόκαρποι, Συκαῖ τε γλυκεραὶ, καὶ ἐλαῖαι τηλεθόωσαι Τῶν ὁπότ' ἐθύσει ὁ γέρων ἐπὶ χερσὶ μάσασθαι. Τάσδ' ἄνεμος ρίπτασκε ποτὺ νέφεα σκιόεντα. "I saw," says Homer's Ulysses, "the severe pu nishment of Tantalus. In a lake, whose water approached to his lips, he stood burning with thirst, without the power to drink. Whenever he inclined his head to the stream, some deity commanded it to be dry, and the dark earth appeared at his feet. Around him lofty trees spread their fruits to view: the pear, the pomegranate, and the apple, the green olive, and the luscious fig, quivered before him, which, whenever he extended his hand to seize them, were snatched by the winds into clouds and obscurity."

This image of misery was perhaps originally suggested to some poet by the conduct of his patron, by the daily contemplation of splendour which he never must partake, by fruitless attempts to catch at interdicted happiness, and by the sudden evanescence of his reward, when he thought his labours almost at an end. To groan with poverty, when all about him was opulence, riot, and superfluity, and to find the favours which he had long been encouraged to hope, and had long endeavoured to deserve, squandered at last on nameless ignorance, was to thirst with water flowing before him, and to see the fruits, to which his hunger was hastening, scattered by the wind. Nor can my correspondent, whatever he may have suffered, express with more justness or force the vexations of dependance.

SIR,

TO THE RAMBLER,

I AM one of those mortals who have been courted and envied as the favourite of the great. Having often gained the prize of composition at the university, I began to hope that I should obtain the same distinction in every other place, and determined to forsake the profession to which I was destined by my parents, and in which the interest of my family would have procured me a very advantageous settlement. The pride of wit fluttered in my heart; and when I prepared to leave the college, nothing entered my imagination but honours, caresses, and rewards; riches without labour, and luxury without expense.

cerity. From that instant 1 gave myself up wholly to Aurantius; and as he immediately resumed his former gayety, expected every morn ing a summons to some employment of dignity and profit. One month succeeded another, and, in defiance of appearances, I still fancied myself nearer to my wishes, and continued to dream of success and wake to disappointment. At last the failure of my little fortune compelled me to abate the finery which I hitherto thought necessary to the company with whom I associated, and the rank to which I should be raised. Aurantius, from the moment in which he discovered my poverty, considered me as fully in his power, and afterwards rather permitted my attendance than invited it; thought himself at liberty to re

I however delayed my departure for a time, to finish the performance by which I was to draw the first notice of mankind upon me. When it was completed I hurried to London, and considered every moment that passed before its pub lication, as lost in a kind of neutral existence, and cut off from the golden hours of happiness and fame. The piece was at last printed and disseminated by a rapid sale; I wandered from one place of concourse to another, feasted from morning to night on the repetition of my own praises, and enjoyed the various conjectures of critics, the mistaken candour of my friends, and the impotent malice of my enemies. Some had read the manuscript, and rectified its inaccuracies; others had seen it in a state so imperfect, that they could not forbear to wonder at its present excel-fuse my visits, whenever he had other amuselence; some had conversed with the author at the coffee-house; and others gave hints that they had lent him money.

I knew that no performance is so favourably read as that of a writer who suppresses his name, and therefore resolved to remain concealed, till those by whom literary reputation is established had given their suffrages too publicly to retract them. At length my bookseller informed me that Aurantius, the standing patron of merit, had sent inquiries after me, and invited me to his acquaintance.

The time which I had long expected was now arrived. I went to Aurantius with a beating heart, for I looked upon our interview as the critical moment of my destiny. I was received with civilities, which my academic rudeness made me unable to repay; but when I had recovered from my confusion, I prosecuted the conversation with such liveliness and propriety, that I confirmed my new friend in his esteem of my abilities, and was dismissed with the utmost ardour of profes sion, and raptures of fondness.

ments within reach, and often suffered me to wait, without pretending any necessary business. When I was admitted to his table, if any man of rank equal to his own was present, he took occasion to mention my writings, and commend my ingenuity, by which he intended to apologize for the confusion of distinctions, and the improper assortment of his company; and often called upon me to entertain his friends with my productions, as a sportsman delights the squires of his neighbourhood with the curvets of his horse, or the obedience of his spaniels.

To complete my mortification, it was his prac tice to impose tasks upon me, by requiring me to write upon such subjects as he thought sus ceptible of ornament and illustration. With these extorted performances he was little satis fied, because he rarely found in them the ideas which his own imagination had suggested, and which he therefore thought more natural than mine.

When the pale of ceremony is broken, rudeness and insult soon enter the breach. He now I was soon summoned to dine with Aurantins, found that he might safely harass me with vexawho had assembled the most judicious of his tion, that he had fixed the shackles of patronage friends to partake of the entertainment. Again upon me, and that I could neither resist him nor I exerted my powers of sentiment and expres-escape. At last, in the eighth year of my servision, and again found every eye sparkling with tude, when the clamour of creditors was vehedelight, and every tongue silent with attention.ment, and my necessity known to be extreme, he I now become familiar at the table of Aurantius, offered me a small office, but hinted his expectabut could never, in his most private or jocund tion that I should marry a young woman with hours, obtain more from him than general declara-whom he had been acquainted. tions of esteem, or endearments of tenderness, I was not so far depressed by my calamities as which included no particular promise, and therefore conferred no claim. This frigid reserve somewhat disgusted me, and when he complained of three day's absence, I took care to inform him with how much importunity of kindness I had been detained by his rival Pollio.

o comply with this proposal; but, knowing that complaints and expostulations would but gratify his insolence, I turned away with that contempt with which I shall never want spirit to treat the wretch who can outgo the guilt of a robber without the temptation of his profit, and who Aurantius now considered his honour as endan-lures the credulous and thoughtless to maintain gered by the desertion of a wit; and, lest I should the show of his levee, and the mirth of his table, have an inclination to wander, told me that I at the expense of honour, happiness, and life. could never find a friend more constant and zealous than himself; that indeed he had made no promises, because he hoped to surprise me with advancement, but had been silently promoting my interest, and should continue his good offices, No. 164.] SATURDAY, OCT. 12, 1751. unless he found the kindness of others more de

sired.

If you, Mr. Rambler, have ever ventured your philosophy within the attraction of greatness, you know the force of such language introduced

I am, Sir, &c.

LIBERALIS.

-Vitium, Gaure, Catonis habes.
Gaurus pretends to Cato's fame;
And proves-by Cato's vice, his claim.

MART.

with a smile of gracious tenderness, and impress- DISTINCTION is so pleasing to the pride of man, ed at the conclusion with an air of solemn sin- I that a great part of the pain and pleasure of life