post by every petty incident, that he is the mere | interview, alienate by some sudden transport his slave of casualty, and that his reason and virtue are in the power of the wind.

One motive there is of these loud extravagances, which a man is careful to conceal from others, and does not always discover to himself. He that finds his knowledge narrow, and his arguments weak, and by consequence his suffrage not much regarded, is sometimes in hope of gaining that attention by his clamours which he cannot otherwise obtain, and is pleased with remembering, that at least he made himself heard, that he had the power to interrupt those whom he could not confute, and suspend the decision which he could not guide.

Of this kind is the fury to which many men give way among their servants and domestics; they feel their own ignorance, they see their own insignificance; and therefore they endeavour, by their fury, to fright away contempt from before them, when they know it must follow them behind, and think themselves eminently masters, when they see one folly tamely complied with, only lest refusal or delay should provoke them to a greater.

dearest friend; or break out, upon some slight contradiction, into such terms of rudeness as can never be perfectly forgotten. Whoever converses with him, lives with the suspicion and solicitude of a man that plays with a tame tiger, always under a necessity of watching the mo ment in which the capricious savage shall begin to growl.

It is told by Prior, in a panegyric on the Earl of Dorset, that his servants used to put themselves in his way when he was angry, because he was sure to recompense them for any indignities which he made them suffer. This is the round of a passionate man's life; he contracts debts when he is furious, which his virtue, if he has virtue, obliges him to discharge at the return of reason. He spends his time in outrage and acknowledgment, injury and reparation. Or, if there be any who hardens himself in oppression, and justifies the wrong, because he has done it, his insensibility can make small part of his praise, or his happiness; he only adds deliberate to hasty folly, aggravates petulance by contumacy, and destroys the only plea that he can offer for the tenderness and patience of mankind.

These temptations cannot but be owned to have some force. It is so little pleasing to any man to see himself wholly overlooked in the mass of things, that he may be allowed to try a few expedients for procuring some kind of supplemental dignity, and use some endeavour to add weight, by the violence of his temper, to the lightness of his other powers. But this has now been long practised, and found, upon the most exact estimate, not to produce advantages equal to its inconveniences; for it appears not that a man can by uproar, tumult, and bluster, alter any one's opinion of his understanding, or gain influence, except over those whom fortune or nature have made his dependents. He may, by a steady perseverance in his ferocity, fright his children, and harass his servants, but the rest No. 12.] SATURday, April 28, 1750.

Yet even this degree of depravity we may be content to pity, because it seldom wants a pu nishment equal to its guilt. Nothing is more despicable or more miserable than the old age of a passionate man. When the vigour of youth fails him, and his amusements pall with frequent repetition, his occasional rage sinks by decay of strength into peevishness; that peevishness, for want of novelty and variety, becomes habitual; the world falls off from around him, and he is left, as Homer expresses it pb‹vv0wv pídov xňp to devour his own heart in solitude and contempt.

of the world will look on and laugh; and he will have the comfort at last of thinking that he lives only to raise contempt and hatred, emotions to which wisdom and virtue would be always unwilling to give occasion. He has contrived only to make those fear him, whom every reasonable being is endeavouring to endear by kindness, and must content himself with the pleasure of a triumph obtained by trampling on them who could not resist. He must perceive that the apprehension which his presence causes is not the awe of his virtue, but the dread of his brutality, and that he has given up the felicity of being loved, without gaining the honour of being reverenced.

But this is not the only ill consequence of the frequent indulgence of this blustering passion, which a man, by often calling to his assistance, will teach in a short time, to intrude before the summons, to rush upon him with resistless violence, and without any previous notice of its approach. He will find himself liable to be inflamed at the first touch of provocation, and unable to retain his resentment, till he has a full conviction of the offence, to proportion his anger to the cause, or to regulate it by prudence or by duty. When a man has once suffered his mind to be thus vitiated, he becomes one of the most hateful and unhappy beings. He can give no security to himself that he shall not, at the next

Miserum

parva stipe focillat, ut pudibundos
Exercere sales inter convivia possit.-
Tu mitis, et acri

Asperitate carens, positoque per omnia fastu
Inter ut æquales unus numeraris amicos,
Obsequiumque doces, et amorem quæris amando.
LUCANUS ad PISONEM.

Unlike the ribald whose licentious jest
Pollutes his banquet, and insults his guest;
From wealth and grandeur easy to descend,
Thou joy'st to lose the master in the friend:
We round thy board the cheerful menials see,
Gay with the smile of bland equality;
No social care the gracious lord disdains;
Love prompts to love, and reverence reverence gains.

SIR,

TO THE RAMBLER.

As you seem to have devoted your labours to virtue, I cannot forbear to inform you of one species of cruelty with which the life of a man of letters perhaps does not often make him acquainted; and which, as it seems to produce no other advantage to those that practise it than a short gratification of thoughtless vanity, may become less common when it has been once exposed in its various forms, and its full magnitude.

I am the daughter of a country gentleman, whose family is numerous, and whose estate, not at first sufficient to supply us with affluence,

has been lately so much impaired by an unsuc- | with two of her company. There was a smell of cessful lawsuit, that all the younger children are obliged to try such means as their education affords them, for procuring the necessaries of life. Distress and curiosity concurred to bring me to London, where I was received by a relation with the coldness which misfortune generally finds. A week, a long week, I lived with my cousin, before the most vigilant inquiry could procure us the least hopes of a place, in which time, I was much better qualified to bear all the vexations of servitude. The first two days she was content to pity me, and only wished I had not been quite so well bred; but people must comply with their circumstances. This lenity, however, was soon at an end; and, for the remaining part of the week, I heard every hour of the pride of my family, the obstinacy of my father, and of people better born than myself

go away laughing.-Madam will stretch her courses. But in the morning she came and told small shanks in the entry; she will know theme that she had one trial more for me; Euphe house again. At sunset the two first days I was mia wanted a maid, and perhaps I might do for told, that my lady would see me to-morrow, and on the third, that her woman stayed.

My week was now near its end, and I had no hopes of a place. My relation, who always laid upon me the blame of every miscarriage, told me that I must learn to humble myself, and that all great ladies had particular ways: that if I went on in that manner, she could not tell who would keep me; she had known many that had refused places, sell their clothes and beg in the

in town.

her; for, like me, she must fall her crest, being forced to lay down her chariot upon the loss of half her fortune by bad securities, and with her way of giving her money to every body that pretended to want it, she could have little beforehand; therefore I might serve her; for, with all her fine sense, she must not pretend to be nice. I went immediately, and met at the door a young gentlewoman, who told me she had herself been hired that morning, but that she was ordered to bring any that offered up stairs. I was accordingly introduced to Euphemia, who, when I came in, laid down her book, and told me that she sent for me not to gratify an idle curiosity, but lest my disappointment might be made still more grating by incivility; that she was in pain to deny any thing, much more what was no favour; that she saw nothing in my appearance which did not make her wish for my company; but that another, whose claims might perhaps be equal, had come before me. The thought of being so near to such a place, and missing it, brought tears into my eyes, and my sobs hindered me from returning my acknowledgments. She rose up confused, and supposing by my concern that I was distressed, placed me by her, and made me tell her my story; which when she had heard, she put two guineas in my hand, ordering me to lodge near her, and make use of her table till she could provide for me. I am now under her protection, and know not how to show my gratitude better than by giving this account to the Rambler.

No. 13.]

ZOSIMA.

TUESDAY, MAY 1, 1750. Commissumque teges, et vino tortus et ira.- HOR. And let not wine or anger wrest

Th' intrusted secret from your breast.—

FRANCIS.

I had not waited two hours before I was called up, and found Mr. Courtly and his lady at piquet, in the height of good humour. This I looked on as a favourable sign, and stood at the lower end of the room, in expectation of the common questions. At last Mr. Courtly called out, after a whisper, Stand facing the light, that one may see you. I changed my place and blushed. They frequently turned their eyes upon me, and seemed to discover many subjects of merriment; for at every look they whispered and laughed with the most violent agitations of delight. At last Mr. Courtly cried out, Is that colour your own, child?-Yes, says the lady, if she has not robbed the kitchen hearth.-This was so happy a conceit, that it renewed the storm of laughter, and they threw down their cards in hopes of better sport. The lady then called me to her, and began with an affected gravity to inquire what I could do? But first turn about, and let us sce your fine shape. Well, what are you fit for, Mrs. Mum? You would find your tongue, I suppose, in the kitchen.-No, no, says Mr. Courtly, the girl's a good girl yet, but I am afraid a brisk young fellow, with fine tags on his shoulder- It is related by Quintus Curtius, that the PerCome, child, hold up your head; What! you sians always conceived an invincible contempt have stole nothing.-Not yet, says the lady, but of a man who had violated the laws of secrecy; she hopes to steal your heart quickly. Here for they thought that, however he might be dewas a laugh of happiness and triumph, prolong- ficient in the qualities requisite to actual exceled by the confusion which I could no longer re-lence, the negative virtues at least were in his press. At last the lady recollected herself: power, and though he perhaps could not speak Stole! no-but if I had her, I should watch her: well if he was to try, it was still easy for him not for that downcast eye-why cannot you look to speak. people in the face?-Steal! says her husband, she would steal nothing but, perhaps, a few ribands before they were left off by her lady.-Sir, answered I, why should you, by supposing me a thief, insult one from whom you have received no injury?-Insult! says the lady; are you come here to be a servant, you saucy baggage, and talk of insulting! What will this world come to, if a gentleman may not jest with a servant! Well, such servants! pray be gone, and see when you will have the honour to be so insulted again. Servants insulted!—a fine time !-Insulted! Get down stairs, you slut, or the footman shall insult

In forming this opinion of the easiness of secrecy, they seem to have considered it as opposed, not to treachery, but loquacity, and to have conceived the man whom they thus censured, not frighted by menaces to reveal, or bribed by promises to betray, but incited by the mere pleasure of talking, or some other motive equally trifling, to lay open his heart without reflection and to let whatever he knew slip from him, only for want of power to retain it. Whether, by their settled and avowed scorn of thoughtless talkers, the Persians were able to diffuse to any great extent the virtue of taciturnity, we are hindered by the distance of those times from being able to diseover, there being very few memoirs remaining of the court of Persepolis, nor any distinct accounts handed down to us of their office

clerks, their ladies of the bed-chamber, their at- | are intrusted is always treachery, and treachery
torneys, their chamber-maids, or their footmen. for the most part combined with folly.
In these latter ages, though the old animosity There have, indeed, been some enthusiastic
against a prattler is still retained, it appears and irrational zealots for friendship, who have
wholly to have lost its effect upon the conduct maintained, and perhaps believed, that one
of mankind; for secrets are so seldom kept, that friend has a right to all that is in possession of
it may with some reason be doubted, whether another; and that, therefore, it is a violation of
the ancients were not mistaken in their first kindness to exempt any secret from this bound-
postulate, whether the quality of retention be so less confidence. Accordingly, a late female
generally bestowed, and whether a secret has minister of state* has been shameless enough to
not some subtle volatility, by which it escapes inform the world, that she used, when she
imperceptibly at the smallest vent, or some wanted to extract any thing from her sovereign,
power of fermentation, by which it expands it-to remind her of Montaigne's reasoning, who has
self so as to burst the heart that will not give determined, that to tell a secret to a friend is no
it way.
breach of fidelity, because the number of persons
trusted is not multiplied, a man and his friend
being virtually the same.

Those that study either the body or the mind
of man, very often find the most specious and
pleasing theory falling under the weight of con- That such a fallacy could be imposed upon
trary experience; and, instead of gratifying their any human understanding, or that an author
vanity by inferring effects from causes, they are could have advanced a position so remote from
always reduced at last to conjecture causes from truth and reason, any other ways than as a de-
effects. That it is easy to be secret, the specu- claimer, to show to what extent he could stretch
latist can demonstrate in his retreat, and there- his imagination, and with what strength he
fore thinks himself justified in placing confi- could press his principle, would scarcely have
dence; the man of the world knows, that, whe-been credible, had not this lady kindly shown
ther difficult or not, it is uncommon, and there-
fore finds himself rather inclined to search after
the reason of this universal failure in one of the
most important duties of society.

us how far weakness may be deluded, or indolence amused. But since it appears, that even this sophistry, has been able, with the help of a strong desire, to repose in quiet upon the underThe vanity of being known to be trusted with standing of another to mislead honest intentions, a secret, is generally one of the chief motives to and an understanding not contemptible, it may disclose it; for however absurd it may be not be superfluous to remark, that those things thought to boast an honour by an act which which are common among friends are only such shows that it was conferred without merit, yet as either possesses in his own right, and can anost men seem rather inclined to confess the alienate or destroy without injury to any other want of virtue than of importance, and more person. Without this limitation, confidence willingly show their influence, though at the must run on without end, the second person expense of their probity, than glide through life may tell the secret to the third, upon the same with no other pleasure than the private con- principle as he received it from the first, and a sciousness of fidelity; which, while it is pre-third may hand it forward to a fourth, till at last served, must be without praise, except from the single person who tries and knows it.

There are many ways of telling a secret, by which a man exempts himself from the reproaches of his conscience, and gratifies his pride, without suffering himself to believe that he impairs his virtue. He tells the private affairs of his patron, or his friend, only to those from whom he would not conceal his own; he tells them to those who have no temptation to betray the trust, or with a denunciation of a certain forfeiture of his friendship, if he discovers that they become public.

Secrets are very frequently told in the first ardour of kindness, or of love, for the sake of proving, by so important a sacrifice, sincerity or tenderness; but with this motive, though it be strong in itself, vanity concurs, since every man desires to be most esteemed by those whom he loves, or with whom he converses, with whom he passes his hours of pleasure, and to whom he retires from business and from care.

When the discovery of secrets is under consideration, there is always a distinction carefully to be made between our own and those of another; those of which we are fully masters, as they affect only our own interest, and those which are reposited with us in trust, and involve the happiness or convenience of such as we have no right to expose to hazard. To tell our own secrets is generally folly, but that folly is without guilt; to communicate those with which we

it is told in the round of friendship to them from
whom it was the first intention to conceal it.

The confidence which Caius has of the faith-
fulness of Titius is nothing more than an opinion
which himself cannot know to be true, and
which Claudius, who first tells his secret to
Caius, may know to be false; and therefore the
trust is transferred by Caius, if he reveal what
has been told him, to one from whom the person
originally concerned would have withheld it,
and whatever may be the event, Caius has ha-
zarded the happiness of his friend, without ne-
cessity and without permission, and has put that
trust in the hand of fortune which was given
only to virtue.

All the arguments upon which a man who is telling the private affairs of another may ground his confidence of security, he must upon reflection know to be uncertain, because he finds them without effect upon himself. When he is imagining that Titius will be cautious, from a regard to his interest, his reputation, or his duty, he ought to reflect that he is himself at that instant acting in opposition to all these reasons, and revealing what interest, reputation, and duty, direct him to conceal.

Every one feels that in his own case he should consider the man incapable of trust, who believed himself at liberty to tell whatever he knew to the

*Sarah, Dutchess of Marlborough.--C.
That of Queen Anne.-C.

first whom he should conclude deserving of his own confidence; therefore Caius, in admitting Titius to the affairs imparted only to himself must know that he violates his faith, since he acts contrary to the intention of Claudius, to whom that faith was given. For promises of friendship are like all others, useless and vain, unless they are made in some known sense, adjusted and acknowledged by both parties.

character, and having preserved in a private and familiar interview, that reputation which his works had procured him.

Those whom the appearance of virtue, or the evidence of genius, have tempted to a nearer knowledge of the writer in whose performances they may be found, have indeed had frequent reason to repent their curiosity: the bubble that sparkled before them has become common water at the touch; the phantom of perfection has vanished when they wished to press it to their bosom. They have lost the pleasure of imagining how far humanity may be exalted, and, perhaps, felt themselves less inclined to toil up the steeps of virtue, when they observe those who seem best able to point the way, loitering below, as either afraid of the labour, or doubtful of the reward.

I am not ignorant that many questions may be started relating to the duty of secrecy, where the affairs are of public concern; where subsequent reasons may arise to alter the appearance and nature of the trust; that the manner in which the secret was told may change the degree of obligation, and that the principles upon which a man is chosen for a confidant may not always equally constrain him. But these scruples, if not too intricate, are of too extensive consideration It has long been the custom of the oriental mofor my present purpose, nor are they such as ge-narchs to hide themselves in gardens and palaces, nerally occur in common life; and though casu- to avoid the conversation of mankind, and to be istical knowledge be useful in proper hands, yet known to their subjects only by their edicts. The it ought by no means to be carelessly exposed, same policy is no less necessary to him that since most will use it rather to lull than to awak-writes, than to him that governs; for men would en their own consciences; and the threads of reasoning, on which truth is suspended, are frequently drawn to such subtilty, that common eyes cannot perceive, and common sensibility cannot feel them.

The whole doctrine as well as practice of secrecy, is so perplexing and dangerous, that, next to him who is compelled to trust, I think him unhappy who is chosen to be trusted; for he is often involved in scruples without the liberty of calling in the help of any other understanding; he is frequently drawn into guilt under the appearance of friendship and honesty; and sometimes subjected to suspicion, by the treachery of others, who are engaged without his knowledge in the same schemes; for he that has one confidant has generally more, and when he is at last betrayed, is in doubt on whom he shall fix the crime.

The rules therefore that I shall propose concerning secrecy, and from which I think it not safe to deviate, without long and exact deliberation, are-Never to solicit the knowledge of a secret. Not willingly, nor without many limitations, to accept such confidence when it is offered. When a secret is once admitted, to consider the trust as of a very high nature, important as society, and sacred as truth, and therefore not to be violated for any incidental convenience, or slight appearance of contrary fitness.

not more patiently submit to be taught than commanded, by one known to have the same follies and weaknesses with themselves. A sudden intruder into the closet of an author would perhaps feel equal indignation with the officer, who having long solicited admission into the presence of Sardanapalus, saw him not consulting upon. laws, inquiring into grievances, or modelling armies, but employed in feminine amusements, and directing the ladies in their work.

It is not difficult to conceive, however, that for many reasons a man writes much better than he lives. For without entering into refined speculations, it may be shown much easier to design than to perform. A man proposes his schemes of life in a state of abstraction and disengagement, exempt from the enticements of hope, the solicitations of affection, the importunities of appetite, or the depressions of fear, and is in the same state with him that teaches upon land the art of navigation, to whom the sea is always smooth, and the wind always prosperous.

The mathematicians are well acquainted with the difference between pure science, which has to do only with ideas, and the application of its laws to the use of life, in which they are constrained to submit to the imperfection of matter and the influence of accidents. Thus, in moral discussions, it is to be remembered, that many impediments obstruct our practice, which very easily give way to theory. The speculatist is only in danger of erroneous reasoning; but the man involved in life has his own passions and those of others to encounter, and is embarrassed with a thousand inconveniences which confound him with variety of impulse, and either perplex or obstruct his way. He is forced to act without deliberation, and obliged to choose before he can examine; he is surprised by sudden alterations of the state of things, and changes his measures according to superficial appearances; he is led by others, either because he is indolent, or because he is timorous; he is sometimes afraid to know what is right, and sometimes finds friends or enemies diligent to deceive him.

We are, therefore, not to wonder that most fail, amidst tumult, and snares, and danger, in the observance of those precepts, which they lay