the Roman satirist, to save life by losing all for | may be justly denied the protection of their nawhich a wise man would live.* tive country. When in the diet of the German empire, as Whoever commits a fraud is guilty not only of Camerarius relates, the princes were once dis- the particular injury to him whom he deceives, playing their felicity, and each boasting the ad- but of the diminution of that confidence which vantages of his own dominion, one who possess-constitutes not only the ease but the existence of ed a country not remarkable for the grandeur of its cities, or the fertility of its soil, rose to speak, and the rest listened between pity and contempt, till he declared, in honour of his territories, that he could travel through them without a guard, and if he was weary, sleep in safety upon the lap of the first man whom he should meet; a commendation which would have been ill exchanged for the boast of palaces, pastures, or streams.

Suspicion is not less an enemy to virtue than

society. He that suffers by imposture has too often his virtue more impaired than his fortune. But as it is necessary not to invite robbery by supineness, so it is our duty not to suppress tenderness by suspicion; it is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.

Vides ut alta stet nive candidum
Soracte, nec jam sustineant onus
Silva laborantes-

Behold yon mountain's hoary height
Made higher with new mounts of snow;
Again behold the winter's weight

to happiness; he that is already corrupt is na- No. 80.] SATURday, Dec. 22, 1750.
turally suspicious, and he that becomes suspi-
cious will quickly be corrupt. It is too common
for us to learn the frauds by which ourselves have
suffered; men who are once persuaded that de-
ceit will be employed against them, sometimes
think the same arts justified by the necessity of
defence. Even they whose virtue is too well es-
tablished to give way to example, or be shaken
by sophistry, must yet feel their love of mankind
diminished with their esteem, and grow less zeal-
ous for the happiness of those by whom they
imagine their own happiness endangered.

Thus we find old age, upon which suspicion has been strongly impressed, by long intercourse with the world, inflexible and severe, not easily softened by submission, melted by complaint, or subdued by supplication. Frequent experience of counterfeited miseries, and dissembled virtue, in time overcomes that disposition to tenderness and sympathy, which is so powerful in our younger years; and they that happen to petition the old for compassion or assistance, are doomed to languish without regard, and suffer for the crimes of men who have formerly been found undeserving or ungrateful.

Oppress the labouring woods below.

HOR.

DRYDEN

As Providence has made the human soul an active being always impatient for novelty, and struggling for something yet unenjoyed with unwearied progression, the world seems to have been eminently adapted to this disposition of the mind; it is formed to raise expectations by constant vicissitudes, and to obviate satiety by perpetual change.

Wherever we turn our eyes, we find something to revive our curiosity, and engage our attention. In the dusk of the morning we watch the rising of the sun, and see the day diversify the clouds, and open new prospects in its gradual advance. After a few hours we see the shades lengthen, and the light decline, till the sky is resigned to a multitude of shining orbs different from each other in magnitude and splendour. The earth varies its appearance as we move upon it; the woods offer their shades, and the fields their harvests; the hill flatters with an extensive view, and the valley invites with shelter, fra

Historians are certainly chargeable with the depravation of mankind, when they relate without censure those stratagems of war by which the virtues of an enemy are engaged to his destruction. A ship comes before a port, weather-grance, and flowers. beaten and shattered, and the crew implore the The poets have numbered among the felicities liberty of repairing their breaches, supplying of the golden age, an exemption from the change themselves with necessaries, or burying their of seasons, and a perpetuity of spring; but I am dead. The humanity of the inhabitants inclines not certain that in this state of imaginary happithem to consent; the strangers enter the town ness they have made sufficient provision for that with weapons concealed, fall suddenly upon their insatiable demand of new gratifications, which benefactors, destroy those that make resistance, seems particularly to characterize the nature of and become masters of the place; they return man. Our sense of delight is in a great measure home rich with plunder, and their success is re-comparative, and arises at once from the sensacorded to encourage imitation.

But surely war has its laws, and ought to be conducted with some regard to the universal interest of man. Those may justly be pursued as enemies to the community of nature, who suffer hostility to vacate the unalterable laws of right, and pursue their private advantage by means which, if once established, must destroy kindness, cut off from every man all hopes of assistance from another, and fill the world with perpetual suspicion and implacable malevolence. Whatever is thus gained ought to be restored, and those who have conquered by such treachery

* Propter vitam vivendi perdere causas.

tions which we feel, and those which we remember: thus ease after torment is pleasure for a time, and we are very agreeably recreated, when the body, chilled with the weather, is gradually recovering its natural tepidity; but the joy ceases when we have forgot the cold; we must fall below ease again, if we desire to rise above it, and purchase new felicity by voluntary pain. It is therefore not unlikely that however the fancy may be amused with the description of regions in which no wind is heard but the gentle zephyr, and no scenes are displayed but valleys enamelled with unfading flowers, and woods waving them perennial verdure, we should soon grow weary of uniformity, find our thoughts languish for want of other subjects, call on Heaven for our

wonted round of seasons, and think ourselves liberally recompensed for the inconveniences of summer and winter, by new perceptions of the calmness and mildness of the intermediate variations.

called in to assist the flight of time, they can find new subjects of inquiry, and preserve themselves from that weariness, which hangs always flagging upon the vacant mind.

It cannot indeed be expected of all to be poets and philosophers; it is necessary that the greater part of mankind should be employed in the minute business of common life; minute, indeed, not if we consider its influence upon our happi

Every season has its particular power of striking the mind. The nakedness and asperity of the wintry world always fill the beholder with pensive and profound astonishment; as the variety of the scene is lessened, its grandeur is in-ness, but if we respect the abilities requisite to creased; and the mind is swelled at once by the mingled ideas of the present and the past, of the beauties which have vanished from the eyes, and the waste and desolation that are now before them.

It is observed by Milton, that he who neglects to visit the country in spring, and rejects the pleasures that are then in their first bloom and fragrance, is guilty of sullenness against nature. If we allot different duties to different seasons, he may be charged with equal disobedience to the voice of nature, who looks on the bleak hills and leafless woods, without seriousness and awe. Spring is the season of gayety, and winter of terror; in spring the heart of tranquillity dances to the melody of the groves, and the eye of benevolence sparkles at the sight of happiness and plenty. In the winter, compassion melts at universal calamity, and the tear of softness starts at the wailings of hunger, and the cries of the creation in distress.

conduct it. These must necessarily be more dependent on accident for the means of spending agreeably those hours which their occupations leave unengaged, or nature obliges them to allow to relaxation. Yet even on these I would will ingly impress such a sense of the value of time, as may incline them to find out for their careless hours amusements of more use and dignity than the common games, which not only weary the mind without improving it, but strengthen the passions of envy and avarice, and often lead to fraud and to profusion, to corruption and to ruin. It is unworthy of a reasonable being to spend any of the little time allotted us, without some tendency, either direct or oblique, to the end o our existence. And though every moment can not be laid out on the formal and regular improve ment of our knowledge, or in the stated practice of a moral or religious duty, yet none should be so spent as to exclude wisdom or virtue, or pass without possibility of qualifying us more or less for the better employment of those which are to come.

Few minds have much inclination to indulge heaviness and sorrow, nor do I recommend them beyond the degree necessary to maintain in its It is scarcely possible to pass an hour in honest full vigour that habitual sympathy and tender- conversation, without being able, when we rise ness, which, in a world of so much misery, is from it, to please ourselves with having given or necessary to the ready discharge of our most im- received some advantages; but a man may shufportant duties. The winter therefore is general-fle cards, or rattle dice, from noon to midnight, ly celebrated as the proper season for domestic merriment and gavety. We are seldom invited by the votaries of pleasure to look abroad for any other purpose, than that we may shrink back with more satisfaction to our coverts, and when we have heard the howl of the tempest, and felt the gripe of the frost, congratulate each other with more gladness upon a close room, an easy chair, a large fire, and a smoking dinner.

without tracing any new idea in his mind, or be ing able to recollect the day by any other token than his gain or loss, and a confused remem brance of agitated passions and clamorous alter cations.

However, as experience is of more weight than precept, any of my readers, who are contriving how to spend the dreary months before them, may consider which of their past amusements fills them now with the greatest satisfaction, and resolve to repeat those gratifications of which the

Winter brings natural inducements to jollity and conversation. Differences, we know, are never so effectually laid asleep, as by some com-pleasure is most durable. mon calamity: an enemy unites all to whom he threatens danger. The rigour of winter brings generally to the same fire-side, those, who by the opposition of inclinations, or difference of em-No. 81.] ployment, moved in various directions through the other parts of the year; and when they have met, and find it their mutual interest to remain together, they endear each other by mutual compliances, and often wish for the continuance of the social season, with all its bleakness and all its severities.

TUESDAY, DEC. 16, 1750.
Discite Justitiam moniti

Hear, and be just.

VIRG

a subject of dispute to men whose leisure sent them out into the intellectual world in search of employment, and who have, perhaps, been sometimes withheld from the practice of their favourite duty, by zeal for its advancement, and dili gence in its celebration.

AMONG questions which have been discussed, without any approach to decision, may be numbered the precedency, or superior excellence of To the men of study and imagination the win-one virtue to another, which has long furnished ter is generally the chief time of labour. Gloom and silence produce composure of mind and concentration of ideas; and the privation of external pleasure naturally causes an effort to find entertainment within. This is the time, in which those whom literature enables to find amusements for themselves, have more than common convictions of their own happiness. When they are condemned by the elements to retirement, and debarred from most of the diversions which are

R

The intricacy of this dispute may be alleged as a proof of that tenderness for mankind which Providence has, I think, universally displayed, by making attainments easy in proportion as

they are necessary. That all the duties of mo- | bearance as may promote wickedness, and lessen rality ought to be practised, is without difficulty the general confidence and security in which all discoverable, because ignorance or uncertainty have an equal interest, and which all are therewould im.nediately involve the world in confu- fore bound to maintain. For this reason the sion and distress; but which duty ought to be state has not a right to erect a general sanctuary most esteemed, we may continue to debate with- for fugitives, or give protection to such as have out inconvenience; so all be diligently performed forfeited their lives by crimes against the laws of as there is opportunity or need: for upon prac- common morality equally acknowledged by all tice, not upon opinion, depends the happiness of nations, because no people can, without infracmankind: and controversies, merely speculative, tion of the universal league of social beings, inare of small importance in themselves, however | cite, by prospects of impunity and safety, those they may have sometimes heated a disputant, or practices in another dominion, which they would provoked a faction. themselves punish in their own.

Of the Divine Author of our religion it is impossible to peruse the evangelical histories, with-in those by whom this great rule has been com out observing how little he favoured the vanity of inquisitiveness; how much more rarely he condescended to satisfy curiosity than to relieve distress; and how much he desired that his followers should rather excel in goodness than in knowledge. His precepts tend immediately to the rectification of the moral principles, and the direction of daily conduct, without ostentation, without art, at once irrefragable and plain, such as well-meaning simplicity may readily conceive, and of which we cannot mistake the meaning, but when we are afraid to find it.

determine against their own inclinations, and secure themselves from deficiency, by doing more than they believe strictly necessary. For of this every man may be certain, that if he were to exchange conditions with his dependent, he should expect more than, with the utmost exertion of his ardour, he now will prevail upon himself to perform; and when reason has no settled rule, and our passions are striving to mislead us, it is surely the part of a wise man to err on the side of safety.

It will not be necessary to solicit your good-will by any formal preface, when I have informed you, that I have long been known as the most laborious and zealous virtuoso that the present age has had the honour of producing, and that inconveniences have been brought upon me by en unextinguishable ardour of curiosity, and an unshaken perseverance in the acquisition of the productions of art and nature.

hear me offering for the sting of a hornet, though it was a cold moist summer, in which very few hornets had been seen. He often recommended to me the study of physic, in which, said he, you may at once gratify your curiosity after natural history, and increase your fortune by benefiting mankind. I heard him, Mr. Rambler, with pity, and, as there was no prospect of elevating a mind formed to grovel, suffered him to please himself with hoping that I should some time follow his advice. For you know that there are men with whom, when they have once settled a notion in their heads, it is to very little purpose to dispute.

Being now left wholly to my own inclinations, I very soon enlarged the bounds of my curiosity, and contented myself no longer with such rarities as required only judgment and industry, and when once found, might be had for nothing. I now turned my thoughts to exotics and antiques, and became so well known for my generous patronage of ingenious men, that my levee was crowded with visitants; some to see my museum, and others to increase its treasures, by selling me whatever they had brought from other countries

I

maps drawn in the rude and barbarous times, be. fore any regular surveys, or just observations; and have, at a great expense, brought together a volume, in which, perhaps, not a single country is laid down according to its true situation, and by which, he that desires to know the errors of the ancient geographers may be amply informed.

I had always a contempt for that narrowness of conception, which contents itself with culti vating some single corner of the field of science, took the whole region into my view, and wished it of yet greater extent. But no man's power It was observed, from my entrance into the can be equal to his will. I was forced to proceed world, that I had something uncommon in my by slow degrees, and to purchase what chance disposition, and that there appeared in me very or kindness happened to present. I did not howearly tokens of superior genius. I was always ever proceed without some design, or imitate the an enemy to trifles; the playthings which my indiscretion of those who begin a thousand colmother bestowed upon me I immediately broke, lections, and finish none. Having been always that I might discover the method of their struc-a lover of geography, I determined to collect the ture, and the causes of their motions: of all the toys with which children are delighted I valued only my coral, and as soon as I could speak, asked like Pieresc, innumerable questions, which the maids about me could not resolve. As I grew older I was more thoughtful and serious, and instead of amusing myself with puerile diversions, made collections of natural rarities, and But my ruling passion is patriotism: my chief never walked in the fields without bringing care has been to procure the products of our own home stones of remarkable forms, or insects of country; and as Alfred received the tribute of some uncommon species. I never entered an the Welsh in wolves' heads, I allowed my teold house, from which I did not take away the nants to pay their rents in butterflies, till Í had painted glass, and often lamented that I was not exhausted the papilionaceous tribe. I then dione of that happy generation who demolished rected them to the pursuit of other animals, and the convents and monasteries, and broke win-obtained, by this easy method, most of the grubs dows by law. and insects, which land, air, or water, can supply. Being thus early possessed by a taste for solidI have three species of earth-worms not known knowledge, I passed my youth with very little disturbance from passions and appetites; and having no pleasure in the company of boys and girls, who talked of plays, politics, fashions, or love, I carried on my inquiries with incessant diligence, and had amassed more stones, mosses, and shells, than are to be found in many celebrated collections, at an age in which the greatest part of young men are studying under tutors, or endeavouring to recommend themselves to notice by their dress, their air, and their levities.

When I was two-and-twenty years old, I became, by the death of my father, possessed of a small estate in land, with a very large sum of money in the public funds, and must confess that I did not much lament him, for he was a man of mean parts, bent rather upon growing rich than wise. He once fretted at the expense of only ten shillings, which he happened to over

to the naturalists, have discovered a new ephe mera, and can show four wasps that were taken torpid in their winter quarters. I have, from my own ground, the longest blade of grass upon record, and once accepted, as a half year's rent for a field of wheat, an ear containing more grains than had been seen before upon a single stem.

One of my tenants so much neglected his own interest, as to supply me, in a whole summer, with only two horse-flies, and those of little more than the common size; and I was upon the brink of seizing for arrears, when his good fortune threw a white mole in his way, for which he was not only forgiven, but rewarded.

These, however, were petty acquisitions, and made at small expense; nor should I have ven tured to rank myself among the virtuosi without better claims. I have suffered nothing worthy the regard of a wise man to escape my notice: 1

have ransacked the old and the new world, and been equally attentive to past ages and the present. For the illustration of ancient history, I can show a marble, of which the inscription, though it is not now legible, appears from some broken remains of the letters, to have been Tus-length bought till I can buy no longer, and the can, and therefore probably engraved before the foundation of Rome. I have two pieces of porphyry found among the ruins of Ephesus, and three letters broken off by a learned traveller from the monuments of Persepolis; a piece of stone which paved the Areopagus of Athens, and a plate without figures or characters, which was found at Corinth, and which I therefore be ieve to be that metal which was once valued be!ore gold. I have sand gathered out of the Granicus; a fragment of Trajan's bridge over the Danube; some of the mortar which cemented the watercourse of Tarquin; a horse-shoe broken un the Flaminian way; and a turf with five daisies dug from the field of Pharsalia.