good, it is certain that no man can review the time past without heaviness of heart. He remembers many calamities incurred by folly, many oppotunities lost by negligence. The shades of the dead rise up before him; and he laments the companions of his youth, the partners of his amusements, the assistants of his labours, whom the hand of death has snatched away.

When an offer was made to Themistocles of teaching him the art of memory, he answered, that he would rather wish for the art of forgetfulness. He felt his imagination haunted by phantoms of misery which he was unable to suppress, and would gladly have calmed his thoughts with some oblivious antidote. this we all resemble one another: the hero and the sage are like vulgar mortals, overburdened by the weight of life; all shrink from recollection, and all wish for an art of forgetfulness.

In

empty splendour and to airy fiction, that art which is now employed in diffusing friendship, in reviving tenderness, in quickening the affections of the absent, and continuing the presence of the dead.

Yet in a nation, great and opulent, there is room, and ought to be patronage, for an art like that of painting through all its diversities; and it is to be wished, that the reward now offered for an historical picture may excite an honest emulation, and give beginning to an English school.

It is not very easy to find an action or event that can be efficaciously represented by a painter.

He must have an action not successive, but instantaneous; for the time of a picture is a single moment. For this reason the death of Hercules cannot well be painted, though at the first view it flatters the imagination with very glittering ideas; the gloomy mountain overhanging the sea, and covered with trees, some bending to the wind, and some torn from the root by the raging hero; the violence with which he sends from his shoulders the envenomed garment; the propriety with which his muscular THERE is in many minds a kind of vanity ex-nakedness may be displayed: the death of erted to the disadvantage of themselves; a de-Lycas whirled from the promontory; the gigansire to be praised for superior acuteness disco- tic presence of Philoctetes; the blaze of the vered only in the degradation of their species, fatal pile, which the deities behold with grief or censure of their country. and terror from the sky.

No. 45.] SATURDAY, FEB. 24, 1758.

Defamation is sufficiently copious. The gen All these images fill the mind, but will not eral lampooner of mankind my find long exer- compose a picture, because they cannot be cise for his zeal or wit, in the defects of nature, united in a single moment. Hercules must the vexations of life, the follies of opinion, and have rent his flesh at one time, and tossed the corruptions of practice. But fiction is easi-Lycas into the air at another; he must first er than discernment; and most of these writers spare themselves the labour of inquiry, and ex-pile. haust their virulence upon imaginary crimes, which, as they never existed can never be mended.

That the painters find no encouragement among the English for many other works than portraits, has been imputed to national selfish

ness.

'Tis vain, says the satirist, to set before any Englishman the scenes of landscapes, or the heroes of history; nature and antiquity are nothing in his eye; he has no value but for himself, nor desires any copy but of his own

form.

Whoever is delighted with his own picture must derive his pleasure from the pleasure of another. Every man is always present to himself, and has, therefore, little need of his own resemblance, nor can desire it, but for the sake of those whom he loves, and by whom he hopes to be remembered. This use of the art is a natural and reasonable consequence of affection; and though, like other human actions, it is often complicated with pride, yet even such pride is more laudable than that, by which palaces are covered with pictures, that, however excellent, neither imply the owner's virtue nor excite it.

tear up the trees, and then lie down upon the

The action must be circumstantial and distinct. There is a passage in the Iliad which cannot be read without strong emotions. A Trojan prince, seized by Achilles in the battle, falls at his feet, and in moving terms supplicates for life. "How can a wretch like thee," says the haughty Greek, "intreat to live when thou knowest that the time must come when Achilles is to die ?" This cannot be painted, because no peculiarity of attitude or disposition can so supply the place of language as to impress the

sentiment.

The event painted must be such as excites passions, and different passions in the several actors or a tumult of contending passion in the chief.

Perhaps the discovery of Ulysses by his nurse is of this kind. The surprise of the nurse mingled with joy; that of Ulysses checked by prudence, and clouded by solicitude; and the distinctness of the action by which the scar is found; all concur to complete the subject. But the picture, having only two figures, will want variety.

A much nobler assemblage may be furnished by the death of Epaminondas. The mixture of Genius is chiefly exerted in historical pic- gladness and grief in the face of the messenger tures; and the art of the painter of portraits is who brings his dying general an account of often lost in the obscurity of his subject. But the victory; the various passions of the attenit is in painting as in life, what is greatest is dants; the sublimity of composure in the henot always best. I should grieve to see Rey-ro, while the dart is by his own command nolds transfer to heroes and to goddesses, to drawn from his side, and the faint gleam of

tell. She always gives her directions oblique and allusively, by the mention of something relative or consequential, without any other purpose than to exercise my acuteness and her own.

satisfaction that diffuses itself over the languor | She has nothing to hide, yet nothing will she of death, are worthy of that pencil which yet I do not wish to see employed upon them. If the design were not too multifarious and extensive, I should wish that our painters would attempt the dissolution of the parliament by Cromwell. The point of time may be chosen when Cromwell looked round the Pandemonium with contempt, ordered the bauble to be taken away; and Harrison laid hands on the speaker to drag him from the chair.

The various appearances which rage, and terror, and astonishment, and guilt, might exhibit in the faces of that hateful assembly, of whom the principal persons may be faithfully drawn from portraits or prints; the irresolute repugnance of some, the hypocritical submission of others, the ferocious insolence of Cromwell, the rugged brutality of Harrison, and the general trepidation of fear and wickedness, would, if some proper disposition could be contrived, make a picture of unexampled variety, and irresistible instruction.

No. 46.] SATURday, March 3, 1759.

MR. IDLER,

I AM encouraged, by the notice you have taken of Betty Broom, to represent the miseries which I suffer from a species of tyranny which, I believe, is not very uncommon, though perhaps it may have escaped the observation of those who converse little with fine ladies, or see them only in their public characters.

It is impossible to give a notion of this style otherwise than by examples. One night, when she had sat writing letters till it was time to be dressed, "Molly," said she, "the ladies are all to be at court to-night in white aprons." When she means that I should send to order the chair, she says, "I think the streets are clean I may venture to walk." When she would have something put into its place, she bids me "lay it on the floor." If she would have me snuff the candles, she asks, “whether I think her eyes are like a cat's?" she thinks her chocolate delayed, she talks of the benefit of abstinence. If any needlework is forgotten, she supposes that I have heard of the lady who died by pricking her finger.

If

She always imagines that I can recall every thing past from a single word. If she wants her head from the milliner she only says, "Molly, you know Mrs. Tape." If she would have the mantua-maker sent for, she remarks that "Mr. Taffety, the mercer, was here last week." She ordered, a fortnight ago, that the first time she was abroad all-day I should choose her a new set of coffee-cups at the china-shop; of this she reminded me yesterday, as she was going down stairs, by saying, You can't find your way now to Pall-Mall."

All this would not vex me, if, by increasing To this method of venting my vexation I my trouble, she spared her own; but, dear am the more inclined, because if I do not com- Mr. Idler, is it not as easy to say coffee-cups, plain to you, I must burst in silence; for my as Pall-Mall? and to tell me in plain words what mistress has teased me, and teased me till II am to do, and when it is to be done, as to can hold no longer, and yet I must not tell torment her own head with the labour of findher of her tricks. The girls that live in com- ing hints, and mine with that of understandmon services can quarrel, and give warning, ing them? and find other places; but we that live with great ladies, if we once offend them, have nothing left but to return into the country.

When first I came to this lady, I had nothing like the learning that I have now; for she has many books, and I have much time to read; so I am waiting maid to a lady who keeps the that of late I have seldom missed her meaning: best company, and is seen at every place of fa- but when she first took me I was an ignorant shionable resort. I am envied by all the maids girl; and she, who, as is very common, conin the square, for few countesses leave off so founded want of knowledge with want of unmany clothes as my mistress, and nobody shares derstanding, began once to despair of bringing with me; so that I supply two families in the me to any thing, because, when I came into her country with finery for the assizes and horse-chamber at the call of her bell, she asked me, races, besides what I wear myself. The steward and house-keeper have joined against me to procure my removal, that they may advance a relation of their own; but their designs are found out by my lady, who says I need not fear them, for she will never have dow dies about her.

You would think, Mr. Idler, like others, that I am very happy, and may well be contented with my lot. But I will tell you. My lady has an odd humour. She never orders any thing in direct words, for she loves a sharp girl that can take a hint.

I would not have you suspect that she has any thing to hint which she is ashamed to speak at length; for none can have greater purity of sentiment, or rectitude of intention.

"Whether we lived in Zembla ;" and I did not guess the meaning of inquiry, but modestly answered that I could not tell. She had happened to ring once when I did not hear her, and meant to put me in mind of that country where sounds are said to be congealed by the frost.

Another time, as I was dressing her head, she began to talk on a sudden of Medusa and snakes, and "men turned into stone, and maids that, if they were not watched, would let their mistresses be Gorgons." I looked round me half frightened, and quite bewildered; till at last, finding that her literature was thrown away upon me, she bid me, with great vehemence, reach the curling-irons.

It is not without some indignation, Mr. Idler,

that I discover, in these artifices of vexation, something worse than foppery or caprice; a mean delight in superiority, which knows itself in no danger of reproof or opposition; a cruel pleasure in seeing the perplexity of a mind obliged to find what is studiously concealed, and a mean indulgence of petty malevolence in the sharp censure of involuntary, and very often of inevitable failings. When, beyond her expectation, I hit upon her meaning I can perceive a sudden cloud of disappointment spread over her face; and have sometimes been afraid lest I should lose her favour by understanding her when she means to puzzle me.

In time he found that ale disagreed with his constitution, and went every night to drink his pint at a tavern, where he met with a set of critics, who disputed upon the merits of the different theatrical performers. By these idle fellows he was taken to the play, which at first he did not seem much to heed; for he owned, that he very seldom knew what they were doing, and that, while his companions would let him alone, he was commonly thinking on his last bargain.

Having once gone, however, he went again and again, though I often told him that three shillings were thrown away; at last he grew uneasy if he missed a night, and importuned me to go with him. I went to a tragedy which they called Macbeth; and, when I came home, told him, that I could not bear to see men and women make themselves such fools, by pretend

This day, however, she has conquered my sagacity. When she went out of her dressingroom she said nothing but "Molly, you know," and hastened to her chariot. What I am to know is yet a secret; but if I do not knowing to be witches and ghosts, generals and before she comes back, what I have yet no means of discovering, she will make my dulness a pretence for a fortnight's ill humour, treat me as a creature devoid of the faculties necessary to the common duties of life, and perhaps give the next gown to the housekeeper. I am, Sir,

Your humble servant,

MOLLY QUICK.

No. 47.] SATURDAY, MARCH 10, 1759.

TO THE IDLER.

MR. IDLER,

I AM the unfortunate wife of a city wit, and cannot but think that my case may deserve equal compassion with any of those which have been represented in your paper.

I married my husband within three months after the expiration of his apprenticeship; we put our money together, and furnished a large and splendid shop, in which he was for five years and a half diligent and civil. The notice which curiosity or kindness commonly bestows on beginners, was continued by confidence and esteem; one customer, pleased with his treatment and his bargain recommended another; and we were busy behind the counter from morning to night.

Thus every day increased our wealth and our reputation. My husband was often invited to dinner openly on the Exchange by hundredthousand-pounds men; and whenever I went to any of the halls, the wives of the aldermen made me low courtesies. We always took up our notes before the day, and made all considerable payments by drafts upon our banker.

kings, and to walk in their sleep when they were as much awake as those that looked at them. He told me that I must get higher notions, and that a play was the most rational of all entertainments, and most proper to relax the mind after the business of the day.

By degrees he gained knowledge of some of the players; and when the play was over, very frequently treated them with suppers; for which he was admitted to stand behind the

scenes.

He soon began to lose some of his morning hours in the same folly, and was for one winter very diligent in his attendance on the rehearsals; but of this species of idleness he grew weary, and said, that the play was nothing without the company.

His ardour for the diversion of the evening increased; he bought a sword, and paid five shillings a night to sit in the boxes; he went sometimes into a place which he calls the greenroom where all the wits of the age assembled ; and, when he had been there, could do nothing for two or three days but repeat their jests, or tell their disputesd

He has now lost his regard for every thing but the play-house: he invites, three times a week, one or other to drink claret, and talk of the drama. His first care in the morning is to read the play-bills; and, if he remembers any lines of the tragedy which is to be represented, walks about the shop, repeating them so loud, and with such strange gestures, that the passengers gather round the door.

His greatest pleasure, when I married him, was to hear the situation of his shop commended, and to be told how many estates have been got in it by the same trade; but of late he grows peevish at any mention of business, and delights in nothing so much as to be told that he speaks like Mossop.

You will easily believe that I was well enough pleased with my condition; for what Among his new associates he has learned happiness can be greater than that of growing another language, and speaks in such a strain every day richer and richer? I will not deny that his neighbours cannot understand him. that, imagining myself likely to be in a short If a customer talks longer than he is willing time the sheriff's lady, I broke off my acquain- to hear, he will complain that he has been tance with some of my neighbours; and advis-excrutiated with unmeaning verbosity; he ed my husband to keep good company, and laughs at the letters of his friends for their not to be seen with men that were worth no- tameness of expression, and often declarest thing.

himself weary of attending to the minutia of] a shop.

It is well for me that I know how to keep a book, for of late he is scarcely ever in the way. Since one of his friends told him that he had a genius for tragic poetry, he has locked himself in an upper room six or seven hours a day; and, when I carry him any paper to be read or signed, I hear him talking vehemently to himself, sometimes of love and beauty, sometimes of friendship and virtue, but more frequently of liberty and his country.

I would gladly, Mr. Idler, be informed what to think of a shopkeeper who is incessantly talking about liberty; a word which, since his acquaintance with polite life, my husband has always in his mouth; he is, on all occasions, afraid of our liberty, and declares his resolution to hazard all for liberty. What can the man mean? I am sure he has liberty enough-it were better for him and me if his liberty was lessened.

To do nothing every man is ashamed; and do much almost every man is unwilling or afraid. Innumerable expedients have therefore been invented to produce motion without labour, and employment without solicitude. The greater part of those whom the kindness of fortune has left to their own direction, and whom want does not keep chained to the counter or the plough, play throughout life with the shadows of business, and know not at last what they have been doing.

These imitators of action are of all denominations. Some are seen at every auction without intention to purchase; others appear punctually at the Exchange, though they are known there only by their faces. Some are always making parties to visit collections for which they have no taste; and some neglect every pleasure and every duty to hear questions, in which they have no interest, debated in parliament.

These men never appear more ridiculous than He has a friend whom he calls a critic, that in the distress which they imagine themselves comes twice a week to read what he is writing. to feel, from some accidental interruption of This critic tells him that his piece is a little ir- those empty pursuits. A tiger newly imprisonregular, but that some detached scenes will ed is indeed more formidable, but not more anshine prodigiously, and that in the character of gry, than Jack Tulip withheld from a florist's Bombulus he is wonderfully great. My scrib-feast, or Tom Distich hindered from seeing the bler then squeezes his hand, calls him the best of friends, thanks him for his sincerity, and tells him that he hates to be flattered. I have reason to believe that he seldom parts with his dear friend without lending him two guineas, and am afraid that he gave bail for him three days

ago.

By this course of life our credit as traders is lessened, and I cannot forbear to suspect, that my husband's honour as a wit is not much advanced, for he seem to be always the lowest of the company, and is afraid to tell his opinion till the rest have spoken. When he was behind his counter, he used to be brisk, active, and jocular, like a man that knew what he was doing and did not fear to look another in the face; but among wits and critics he is timorous and awkward, and hangs down his head at his own table. Dear Mr. Idler, persuade him, if you can, to return once more to his native element. Tell him, that his wit will never make him rich, but that there are places where riches will always make a wit.

I am, Sir, &c.

first representation of a play.

As political affairs are the highest and most extensive of temporal concerns; the mimic of a politician is more busy and important than any other trifler. Monsieur le Noir, a man who, without property or importance in any corner of the earth, has, in the present confusion of the world, declared himself a steady adherent to the French, is made miserable by a wind that keeps back the packet boat, and still more miserable by every account of a Malouin privateer caught in his cruise; he knows well that nothing can be done or said by him which can produce any effect but that of laughter, that he can neither hasten or retard good or evil, that his joys and sorrows have scarcely any partakers; yet such is his zeal, and such his curiosity, that he would run barefooted to Gravesend, for the sake of knowing first that the English had lost a tender, and would ride out to meet every mail from the continent if he might be permitted to open it.

Learning is generally confessed to be desirable, and there are some who fancy themselves DEBORAH GINGER, always busy in acquiring it. Of these ambulatory students, one of the most busy is my friend Tom Restless.

No. 48.] SATUrday, March 17, 1759.

THERE is no kind of idleness, by which we are so easily seduced as that which dignifies itself by the appearance of business, and by taking the loiterer imagine that he has something to do which must not be neglected, keeps him in perpetual agitation, and hurries him rapidly from place to place.

He that sits still or reposes himself upon a /couch, no more deceives himself than he deceives others; he knows that he is doing nothing, and has no other solace of his insignificance than the resolution, which the lazy hourly make, of changing his mode of life.

Tom has long had a mind to be a man of knowledge, but he does not care to spend much time among authors; for he is of opinion that few books deserve the labour of perusal, that they give the mind an unfashionable cast, and destroy that freedom of thought and easiness of manners indispensably requisite to acceptance in the world. Tom has therefore found another way to wisdom. When he rises he goes into a coffee-house, where he creeps so near to men whom he takes to be reasoners as to hear their discourse, and endeavours to remember something which, when it has been strained through Tom's head, is so near nothing, that what it once was cannot be discovered. This

he carries round from friend to friend through a circle of visits, till, hearing what each says upon the question, he becomes able at dinner to say a little himself; and, as every great genius relaxes himself among his inferiors, meets with some who wonder how so young a man can talk so wisely.

At night he has a new feast prepared for his intellects; he always runs to a disputing society, or a speaking club, where he half hears what, if he had heard the whole, he would but half understand; goes home pleased with the consciousness of a day well spent, lies down full of ideas, and rises in the morning empty as before.

No. 49.] SATUrday, March 24, 1759.

I SUPPED three nights ago with my friend Will Marvel. His affairs obliged him lately to take a journey into Devonshire, from which he has just returned. He knows me to be a very patient hearer, and was glad of my company, as it gave him an opportunity of disburdening himself by a minute relation of the casualties of his expedition.

to the place of dinner, though every step of his horse dashed the mud into the air.

In the afternoon, having parted from his company, he set forward alone, and passed many collections of water, of which it was impossible to guess the depth, and which he now cannot review without some censure of his own rashness; but what a man undertakes he must perform, and Marvel hates a coward at his heart.

Few that lie warm in their beds think what others undergo, who have perhaps been as tenderly educated, and have as acute sensations as themselves. My friend was now to lodge the second night almost fifty miles from home, in a house which he never had seen before, among people to whom he was totally a stranger, not knowing whether the next man he should meet would prove good or bad; but seeing an inn of a good appearance, he rode resolutely into the yard; and knowing that respect is often paid in proportion as it is claimed, delivered his injunctions to the hostler with spirit, and entering the house called vigorously about him.

On the third day up rose the sun and Mr. Marvel. His troubles and his dangers were Will is not one of those who go out and re- now such as he wishes no other man ever to turn with nothing to tell. He has a story of encounter. The ways were less frequented, his travels, which will strike a home-bred citi-and the country more thinly inhabited. He zen with horror, and has in ten days suffered so often the extremes of terror and joy, that he is in doubt whether he shall ever again expose either his body or mind to such danger and fatigue.

When he left London the morning was bright and a fair day was promised. But Will is born to struggle with difficulties. That happened to him, which has sometimes, perhaps, happened to others. Before he had gone more than ten ten miles it began to rain. What course was to be taken? His soul disdained to turn back. He did what the king of Prussia might have done; he flapped his hat, buttoned up his cape, and went forwards, fortifying his mind by the stoical consolation, that whatever is violent will be short.

His constancy was not long tried; at the distance of about half a mile he saw an inn, which he entered wet and weary, and found civil treatment and proper refreshment. After a respite of about two hours, he looked abroad, and seeing the sky clear, called for his horse, and passed the first stage without any other memorable accident.

rode many a lonely hour through mire and water, and met not a single soul for two miles together with whom he could exchange a word. He cannot deny that, looking round upon the dreary region, and seeing nothing but bleak fields and naked trees, hills obscured by fogs, and flats covered with inundations, he did for some time suffer melancholy to prevail upon him, and wished himself again safe at home. One comfort he had, which was to consider that none of his friends were in the same distress, for whom, if they had been with him, he should have suffered more than for himself; he could not forbear sometimes to consider how happy the Idler is, settled in an easier condition, who, surrounded like him with terrors, could have done nothing but lie down and die.

Admist these reflections he came to a town, and found a dinner which disposed him to more cheerful sentiments: but the joys of life are short, and its miseries are long; he mounted and travelled fiften miles more through dirt and desolation.

At last the sun set, and all the horrors of darkness came upon him. He then repented the weak indulgence in which he had gratified himself at noon with too long an interval of rest: yet he went forward along a path which he could no longer see, sometimes rushing suddenly into water, and sometimes incumbered with stiff clay, ignorant whither he was going, and uncertain whether his next step might not be the last.

Will considered, that labour must be relieved by pleasure, and that the strength which great undertakings require must be maintained by copious nutriment; he therefore ordered himself an elegant supper, drank two bottles of claret, and passed the beginning of the night in sound sleep; but, waking before light, was forewarned of the troubles of the next day, by a shower beating against his windows with such violence as to threaten the dissolution of In this dismal gloom of nocturnal peregrinanature. When he arose, he found what he ex-tion his horse unexpectedly stood still. Mar pected, that the country was under water. He vel had heard many relations of the insinct of joined himself, however, to a company that horses, and was in doubt what danger might was travelling the same way, and came safely be at hand. Sometimes he fancied that he was on the bank of a river, still and deep, and