sibility; yet absurd as it is, the sudden fall of some families, and the sudden rise of others, prove it to be common; and every year sees many wretches reduced to contempt and want, by their costly sacrifices to pleasure and vanity.

excesses, wantoned in greater abundance, and
indulged his appetites with more profuseness?
It appears evident that frugality is necessary
even to complete the pleasure of expense; for it
may be generally remarked of those who squan-
der what they know their fortune not sufficient
to allow, that in their most jovial expense, there
always breaks out some proof of discontent and
impatience; they either scatter with a kind of wild
desperation, and affected lavishness, as criminals
brave the gallows when they cannot escape it,
or pay their money with a peevish anxiety, and
endeavour at once to spend idly, and to save
meanly: having neither firmness to deny their
passions, nor courage to gratify them, they mur-
mur at their own enjoyments, and poison the
bowl of pleasure by reflection on the cost.

It is the fate of almost every passion, when it nas passed the bounds which nature prescribes, to counteract its own purpose. Too much rage hinders the warrior from circumspection, too much eagerness of profit hurts the credit of the trader, too much ardour takes away from the lover that easiness of address with which ladies are delight ed. Thus extravagance, though dictated by vanity, and incited by voluptuousness, seldom procures ultimately either applause or pleasure. If praise be justly estimated by the character of those from whom it is received, little satisfaction will be given to the spendthrift by the enco- Among these men there is often the vocifera. miums which he purchases. For who are they tion of merriment, but very seldom the tranquillithat animate him in his pursuits, but young men, ty of cheerfulness; they inflame their imaginathoughtless and abandoned like himself, unac- tions to a kind of momentary jollity, by the help quainted with all on which the wisdom of nations of wine and riot, and consider it as the first busihas impressed the stamp of excellence, and de-ness of the night to stupify recollection, and lay void alike of knowledge and of virtue! By whom is his profusion praised, but by wretches who consider him as subservient to their purposes, sirens that entice him to shipwreck, and Cyclops that are gaping to devour him?

that reason asleep which disturbs their gayety, and calls upon them to retreat from ruin.

But this poor broken satisfaction is of short continuance, and must be expiated by a long series of misery and regret. In a short time the creditor Every man whose knowledge, or whose vir- grows impatient, the last acre is sold, the pastue, can give value to his opinion, looks with sions and appetites still continue their tyranny, scorn, or pity, neither of which can afford much with incessant calls for their usual gratifications, gratification to pride, on him whom the panders and the remainder of life passes away in vain reof luxury have drawn into the circle of their influ-pentance, or impotent desire. ence, and whom he sees parcelled out among the different ministers of folly, and about to be torn

Truditur dies die,

to pieces by tailors and jockeys, vintners and No. 54.] Saturday, Sept. 22, 1750.
attorneys, who at once rob and ridicule him, and
who are secretly triumphing over his weakness,
when they present new incitements to his appe
tite, and heighten his desires by counterfeited
applause.

Such is the praise that is purchased by prodigality. Even when it is yet not discovered to be false, it is the praise only of those whom it is reproachful to please, and whose sincerity is corrupted by their interest; men who live by the riots which they encourage, and who know that whenever their pupil grows wise, they shall lose their power. Yet with such flatteries, if they could last, might the cravings of vanity, which is seldom very delicate, be satisfied; but the time is always hastening forward when this triumph, poor as it is, shall vanish, and when those who now surround him with obsequiousness and compliments, fawn among his equipage, and animate his riots, shall turn upon him with insolence, and reproach him with the vices promoted by them

selves.

And as little pretensions has the man who squanders his estate, by vain or vicious expenses to greater degrees of pleasure than are obtained by others. To make any happiness sincere, it is necessary that we believe it to be lasting; since whatever we suppose ourselves in danger of losing, must be enjoyed with solicitude and uneasiness, and the more value we set upon it, the more must the present possession be embittered. How can he then be envied for his felicity, who knows that its continuance cannot be expected, and who is conscious that a very short time will give him up to the gripe of poverty, which will be harder to be borne, as ho has given way to more

SIR,

Novaque pergunt interire luna

Tu secanda marmora
Locas sub ipsum furus; et sepulchri
Immemor, struis domos.

HOR.

Day presses on the heels of day,
And moons increase to their decay;
But you, with thoughtless pride elate,
Unconscious of impending fate,
Command the pillar'd dome to rise,
When lo! thy tomb forgotten lies.—FRANCIS

TO THE RAMBLER

I HAVE lately been called, from a mingled lite of business and amusement, to attend the last hours of an old friend; an office which has filled me, if not with melancholy, at least with serious reflections, and turned my thoughts towards the contemplation of those subjects, which though of the utmost importance, and of indubitable certainty, are generally secluded from our regard, by the jollity of health, the hurry of employment, and even by the calmer diversions of study and speculation; or if they become accidental topics of conversation and argument, yet rarely sink deep into the heart, but give occasion only to some subtilties of reasoning, or elegances of declamation, which are heard, applauded, and forgotten.

It is, indeed, not hard to conceive how a man accustomed to extend his views through a long concatenation of causes and effects, to trace things from their origin to their period, and com pare means with ends, may discover the weakness of human schemes; detect the fallacier by

which mortals are deluded; show the insufficien- | upon another, authority which shall this night cy of wealth, honours, and power, to real happiness; and please himself, and his auditors, with learned lectures on the vanity of life.

expire for ever, and praise which, however merited, or however sincere, shall, after a few moments, be heard no more.

In those hours of seriousness and wisdom, nothing appeared to raise his spirits, or gladden his heart, but the recollection of acts of goodness; nor to excite his attention, but some opportunity for the exercise of the duties of religion. Every thing that terminated on this side of the grave was received with coldness and indifference, and regarded rather in consequence of the habit of valuing it, than from any opinion that it deserved value; it had little more prevalence over his mind than a bubble that was now broken, a dream from which he was awake. His whole powers were engrossed by the consideration of another state, and all conversation was tedious, that had not some tendency to disengage him from human affairs, and open his prospects into futurity.

But though the speculatist may see and show the folly of terrestrial hopes, fears, and desices, every hour will give proofs that he never felt it. Trace him through the day or year, and you will find him acting upon principles which he has in common with the illiterate and unenlightened, angry and pleased, like the lowest of the vulgar, pursuing with the same ardour, the same de signs, grasping, with all the eagerness of transport, those riches which he knows he cannot keep, and swelling with the applause which he has gained by proving that applause is of no value. The only conviction that rushes upon the soul, and takes away from our appetites and passions the power of resistance, is to be found, where I have received it, at the bed of a dying friend. To enter this school of wisdom is not the peculiar privilege of geometricians; the most sublime and It is now past; we have closed his eyes, and important precepts require no uncommon oppor-heard him breathe the groan of expiration. At tunities, nor laborious preparations; they are en- the sight of this last conflict, I felt a sensation forced without the aid of eloquence, and under- never known to me before; a confusion of pas stood without skill in analytic science. Every sions, an awful stillness of sorrow, a gloomy tertongue can utter them, and every understanding ror without a name. The thoughts that entered can conceive them. He that wishes in earnest my soul were too strong to be diverted, and too to obtain just sentiments concerning his condi- piercing to be endured; but such violence cantion, and would be intimately acquainted with not be lasting, the storm subsided in a short time, the world, may find instructions on every side. I wept, retired, and grew calm. He that desires to enter behind the scene, which every art has been employed to decorate, and every passion labours to illuminate, and wishes to see life stripped of those ornaments which make it glitter on the stage, and exposed in its natural meanness, impotence, and nakedness, may find all the delusion laid open in the chamber of disease: he will there find vanity divested of her robes, power deprived of her sceptre, and hypocrisy without her mask.

I have from that time frequently revolved in my mind the effects which the observation of death produces, in those who are not wholly without the power and use of reflection; for by far the greater part it is wholly unregarded. Their friends and their enemies sink into the grave without raising any uncommon emotion, or reminding them that they are themselves on the edge of the precipice, and that they must soon plunge into the gulf of eternity.

envied, as Horace observes, because they eclipsed our own, can now no longer obstruct our reputation, and we have therefore no interest to sup press their praise. That wickedness, which we feared for its malignity, is now become impotent, and the man whose name filled us with alarm, and rage, and indignation, can at last be considered only with pity or contempt.

The friend whom I have lost was a man emi- It seems to me remarkable that death increases nent for genius, and, like others of the same our veneration for the good, and extenuates our class, sufficiently pleased with acceptance and ap-hatred of the bad. Those virtues which once we plause. Being caressed by those who have preferments and riches in their disposal, he consider ed himself as in the direct road of advancement, and had caught the flame of ambition by approaches to its object. But in the midst of his hopes, his projects, and his gayeties, he was seized by a lingering disease, which, from its first stage, he knew to be incurable. Here was an end of all his visions of greatness and happiness; from the first hour that his health declined, all his former pleasures grew tasteless. His friends expected to please him by those accounts of the growth of his reputation, which were formerly certain of being well received; but they soon found how little he was now affected by compliments, and how vainly they attempted, by fattery, to exhilarate the languor of weakness, and relieve the solicitude of approaching death. Whoever would know how much piety and virtue surpass all external goods, might here have seen them weighed against each other, where all that gives motion to the active, and elevation to the eminent, all that sparkles in the eye of hope, and pants in the bosom of suspicion, at once became dust in the balance, without weight and without regard. Riches, authority, and praise, lose all their influence when they are considered as riches which to-morrow shall be bestowed

When a friend is carried to his grave, we at once find excuses for every weakness, and palli ations of every fault; we recollect a thousand en dearments, which before glided off our minds without impression, a thousand favours unrepaid, a thousand duties unperformed, and wish, vainly wish, for his return, not so much that we may receive, as that we may bestow, happiness, and recompense that kindness which before we never understood.

There is not, perhaps, to a mind well instructed, a more painful occurrence than the death of one whom we have injured without reparation. Our crime seems now irretrievable, it is indelibly recorded, and the stamp of fate is fixed upon it. We consider, with the most afflictive anguish, the pain which we have given, and now cannot alleviate, and the losses which we have caused, and now cannot repair.

Of the same kind are the emotions which the

cepts and transient endearments, and was now and then fondly kissed for smiling like my papa: but most part of her morning was spent in comparing the opinion of her maid and milliner, contriving some variation in her dress, visiting shops, and sending compliments; and the rest of the day was too short for visits, cards, plays, and

concerts.

picion, you will readily believe that it is difficult to please. Every word and look is an offence. I never speak, but I pretend to some qualities and excellences, which it is criminal to possess; if I am gay, she thinks it early enough to coquette; if I am grave, she hates a prude in bibs; if I venture into company, I am in haste for a husband; if I retire to my chamber, such matronlike ladies are lovers of contemplation. I am on one pretence or other generally excluded from her assemblies, nor am I ever suffered to visit at the same place with my mamina. Every one wonders why she does not bring Miss more into the world, and when she comes home in vapours, I am certain that she has heard either of my beauty or my wit, and expect nothing for the ensuing week but taunts and menaces, contradiction and reproaches.

She now began to discover that it was impossible to educate children properly at home. Parents could not have them always in their sight; the society of servants was contagious; company produced boldness and spirit; emulation excited industry; and a large school was naturally the first step into the open world. A thousand other reasons she alleged, some of little force in them selves, but so well seconded by pleasure, vanity, and idleness, that they soon overcame all the remaining principles of kindness and piety, and both I and my brother were despatched to board-only ing schools.

Thus I live in a state of continual persecution, because I was born ten years too soon, and cannot stop the course of nature or of time, but How my mamma spent her time when she was am unhappily a woman before my mother can thus disburdened I am not able to inform you, willingly cease to be a girl. I believe you would but I have reason to believe that trifles and amuse- contribute to the happiness of many families, it, ments took still faster hold of her heart. At by any arguments or persuasions, you could first, she visited me at school, and afterwards make mothers ashamed of rivalling their children; wrote to me; but, in a short time, both her visits if you could show them, that though they may reand her letters were at an end, and no other no-fuse to grow wise, they must inevitably grow old; tice was taken of me than to remit money for my support.

When I came home at the vacation, I found myself coldly received, with an observation, "that this girl will presently be a woman." I was, after the usual stay, sent to school again, and overheard my mother say, as I was a-going, "Well, now I shall recover."

and that the proper solaces of age are not music and compliments, but wisdom and devotion; that those who are so unwilling to quit the world will soon be driven from it; and that it is therefore their interest to retire while there yet remain a few hours for nobler employments.

I am, &c.

-Valeat res ludicra, si me
Palma negata macrum, donata reducit opimum.

In six months more I came again, and with the usual childish alacrity, was running to my mother's embrace, when she stopped me with ex- No. 56.] SATURDAY, SEPT. 29, 1750. clamations at the suddenness and enormity of my growth, having, she said, never seen any body shoot up so much at my age. She was sure no other girls spread at that rate, and she hated to have children to look like women before their time. I was disconcerted, and retired without hearing any thing more than, "Nay, if you are angry, Madam Steeple, you may walk off."

When once the forms of civility are violated, there remains little hope of return to kindness or decency. My mamma made this appearance of resentment a reason for continuing her malignity; and poor Miss Maypole, for that was my appellation, was never mentioned or spoken to but with some expression of anger or dislike.

She had yet the pleasure of dressing me like a child, and I know not when I should have been thought fit to change my habit, had I not been rescued by a maiden sister of my father, who could not bear to see women in hanging sleeves, and therefore presented me with brocade for a gown, for which I should have thought myself under great obligations, had she not accompanied her favour with some hints that my mamma might now consider her age, and give me her ear-rings, which she had shown long enough in public places.

I now left the school, and came to live with my mamma, who considered me as a usurper that had seized the rights of a woman before they were due, and was pushing down the precipice of age, that I might reign without a superior. While I am thus beheld with jealousy and sus

HOR.

FRANCIS.

Farewell the stage; for humbly I disclaim Such fond pursuits of pleasure, or of fame, If I must sink in shame, or swell with pride, As the gay palm is granted or denied. NOTHING is more unpleasing than to find that offence has been received when none was intended, and that pain has been given to those who were not guilty of any provocation. As the great end of society is mutual beneficence, a good man is always uneasy when he finds himself acting in opposition to the purposes of life; because, though his conscience may easily acquit him of malice prepense, of settled hatred or contrivances of mischief, yet he seldom can be certain, that he has not failed by negligence or indolence; that he has not been hindered from consulting the common interest by too much regard to his own ease, or too much indifference to the happiness of

others.

Nor is it necessary, that, to feel this uneasiness, the mind should be extended to any great dif fusion of generosity, or melted by uncommon warmth of benevolence; for that prudence which the world teaches, and a quick sensibility of private interest, will direct us to shun needless enmities; since there is no man whose kindness we may not some time want, or by whose malice we may not some time suffer.

I have therefore frequently looked with won

Men of this kind are generally to be found among those that have not mingled much in general conversation, but spent their lives amidst the obsequiousness of dependents, and the flattery of parasites; and by long consulting only their own inclination, have forgotten that others have claim to the same deference.

der, and now and then with pity, at the thought- | cause it is apparent that they are not only care lessness with which some alienate from them-less of pleasing, but studious to offend; that they selves the affections of all whom chance, busi- contrive to make all approaches to them difficult ness, or inclination, brings in their way. When and vexatious, and imagine that they aggrandize we see a man pursuing some darling interest, themselves by wasting the time of others in use without much regard to the opinion of the world, less attendance, by mortifying them with slights, we justly consider him as corrupt and danger- and teasing them with affronts. ous, but are not long in discovering his motives; we see him actuated by passions which are hard to be resisted, and deluded by appearances which have dazzled stronger eyes. But the greater part of those who set mankind at defiance by hourly irritation, and who live but to infuse malignity, and multiply enemies, have no hopes to foster, no designs to promote, nor any expectations of attaining power by insolence, or of climbing to greatness by trampling on others. They give up all the sweets of kindness, for the sake of peevishness, petulance, or gloom; and alienate the world by neglect of the common forms of civility, and breach of the established laws of conver-think nothing insupportable that produces gain, sation.

Every one must, in the walks of life, have met with men of whom all speak with censure, though they are not chargeable with any crime, and whom none can be persuaded to love, though a reason can scarcely be assigned why they should be hated; and who, if their good qualities and actions sometimes force a commendation, have their panegyric always concluded with confessions of disgust; "he is a good man, but I cannot like him." Surely such persons have sold the esteem of the world at too low a price, since they have lost one of the rewards of virtue, without gaining the profits of wickedness.

Tyranny thus avowed is indeed an exuberance of pride, by which all mankind is so much enraged, that it is never quietly endured, except in those who can reward the patience which they exact; and insolence is generally surrounded only by such whose baseness inclines them to

and who can laugh at scurrility and rudeness with a luxurious table and an open purse.

But though all wanton provocations and con temptuous insolence are to be diligently avoided, there is no less danger in timid compliance and tame resignation. It is common for soft and fear ful tempers to give themselves up implicitly to the direction of the bold, the turbulent, and the overbearing; of those whom they do not believe wiser or better than themselves; to recede from the best designs where opposition must be encountered, and to fall off from virtue for fear of censure.

the right, and exerted with bitterness, if even to his own conviction he is detected in the wrong.

Some firmness and resolution is necessary to This ill economy of fame is sometimes the ef- the discharge of duty; but it is a very unhappy fect of stupidity: men whose perceptions are state of life in which the necessity of such struglanguid and sluggish, who lament nothing but gles frequently occurs; for no man is defeated loss of money, and feel nothing but a blow, are without some resentment, which will be continuoften at a difficulty to guess why they are encom-ed with obstinacy while he believes himself in passed with enemies, though they neglect all those arts by which men are endeared to one another. They comfort themselves that they have lived irreproachably; that none can charge them with having endangered his life, or diminished his possessions; and therefore conclude that they suffer by some invincible fatality, or impute the malice of their neighbours to ignorance or envy. They wrap themselves up in their innocence, and enjoy the congratulations of their own hearts, without knowing or suspecting that they are every day deservedly incurring resentments, by withholding from those with whom they converse, that regard, or appearance of regard, to which every one is entitled by the customs of the world.

Even though no regard be had to the external consequences of contrariety and dispute, it must be painful to a worthy mind to put others in pain, and there will be danger lest the kindest nature may be vitiated by too long a custom of debate and contest.

I am afraid that I may be taxed with insensibility by many of my correspondents, who be lieve their contributions unjustly neglected. And, indeed, when I sit before a pile of papers, of which each is the production of laborious study, and tho offspring of a fond parent, I, who know the passions of an author, cannot remember how long they have lain in my boxes unregarded, without imagining to myself the various changes of sor row, impatience, and resentment, which the writ ers must have felt in this tedious interval.

There are many injuries which almost every man feels, though he does not complain, and which, upon those whom virtue, elegance, or vanity, have made delicate and tender, fix deep and These reflections are still more awakened, lasting impressions; as there are many arts of when, upon perusal, I find some of them calling graciousness and conciliation, which are to be for a place in the next paper, a place which they practised without expense, and by which those have never yet obtained: others writing in a style may be made our friends, who have never receiv- of superiority and haughtiness, as secure of deed from us any real benefit. Such arts, when ference, and above fear of criticism; others humthey include neither guilt nor meanness, it is sure-bly offering their weak assistance with softness ly reasonable to learn, for who would want that love which is so easily to be gained? And such injuries are to be avoided; for who would be hated without profit!

Some, indeed, there are, for whom the excuse of ignorance or negligence cannot be alleged, be

and submission, which they believe impossible to be resisted; some introducing their compositions with a menace of the contempt which he that re fuses them will incur; others applying privately to the booksellers for their interest and solicita tion; every one by different ways endeavouring