SIR, THOUGH I have so long found myself deluded by projects of honour and distinction, that I often resolve to admit them no more into my heart; yet, how determinately soever excluded, they always recover their dominion by force or stratagem; and whenever, after the shortest relaxation of vigilance, reason and caution return to their charge, they find hope again in possession, with all her train of pleasures dancing about her.

Even while I am preparing to write a history of disappointed expectations, I cannot forbear to flatter myself, that you and your readers are impatient for my performance; and that the sons of learning have laid down several of your late papers with discontent, when they found that Misocapelus had delayed to continue his narrative.

But the desire of gratifying the expectations that I have raised, is not the only motive of this relation, which, having once promised it, I think myself no longer at liberty to forbear. For, however I may have wished to clear myself from every other adhesion of trade, I hope I shall be always wise enough to retain my punctuality, and amidst all my new arts of politeness, continue to despise negligence, and detest falsehood.

confidence, by the habit of accosting me, staid at home till it was made.

This week of confinement I passed in practis ing a forbidding frown, a smile of condescension, a slight salutation, and an abrupt departure; and in four mornings was able to turn upon my heel, with so much levity and sprightliness, that I made no doubt of discouraging all public attempts upon my dignity. I therefore issued forth in my new coat, with a resolution of dazzling intimacy to a fitter distance; and pleased myself with the timidity and reverence, which I should impress upon all who had hitherto presumed to harass me with their freedoms. But, whatever was the cause, I did not find myself received with any new degree of respect: those whom I intended to drive from me, ventured to advance with their usual phrases of benevolence; and those. whose acquaintance I solicited, grew more supercilious and reserved. I began soon to repent the expense, by which I had procured no advantage, and to suspect that a shining dress, like a weighty weapon, has no force in itself, but owes all its ef ficacy to him that wears it.

Many were the mortifications and calamities which I was condemned to suffer in my initiation to politeness. I was so inuch tortured by the incessant civilities of my companions, that I never passed through that region of the city but in a chair with the curtains drawn; and at last left my lodgings, and fixed myself in the verge of the court. Here I endeavoured to be thought a gentleman just returned from his travels, and was pleased to have my landlord believe that I was in some danger from importunate creditors; but this scheme was quickly defeated by a formal deputation sent to offer me, though I had now re tired from business, the freedom of my company.

I was now detected in trade, and therefore resolved to stay no longer. I hired another apart. ment, and changed my servants. Here I lived very happily for three months, and, with secret satisfaction, often overheard the family cele brating the greatness and felicity of the esquire; though the conversation seldom ended without some complaint of my covetousness, or some remark upon my language, or my gait. I now be gan to venture into the public walks, and to know the faces of nobles and beauties; but could not observe, without wonder, as I passed by thein, how frequently they were talking of a tailor. Í longed, however, to be admitted to conversation, and was somewhat weary of walking in crowds

When the death of my brother had dismissed me from the duties of a shop, I considered myself as restored to the rights of my birth, and entitled to the rank and reception which my ancestors obtained. I was, however, embarrassed with many difficulties at my first re-entrance into the world; for my haste to be a gentleman inclined me to precipitate measures; and every accident that forced me back towards my old station, was considered by me as an obstruction of my hap-without a companion, yet continued to come and piness.

go with the rest, till a lady, whom I endeavoured It was with no common grief and indignation, to protect in a crowded passage, as she was that I found my former companions still daring about to step into her chariot, thanked me for my to claim my notice, and the journeymen and ap- civility, and told me, that as she had often distinprentices sometimes pulling me by the sleeve as I tinguished me for my modest and respectful bewas walking in the street, and, without any ter-haviour, whenever I set up for myself, I night or of my new sword, which was, notwithstand- expect to see her among my first customers. ing, of an uncommon size, inviting me to partake Here was an end of all my ambulatory pro of a bottle at the old house, and entertaining me with histories of the girls in the neighbourhood. I had always, in my officinal state, been kept in awe by lace and embroidery; and imagined that, to fright away these unwelcome familiarities, nothing was necessary, but that I should, by splendour of dress, proclaim my re-union with a higher rank. I therefore sent for my tailor; ordered a suit with twice the usual quantity of lace; and, that I might not let my persecutors increase their Ꮓ

jects. I indeed sometimes entered the walks again, but was always blasted by this destructive lady, whose mischievous generosity recommended me to her acquaintance. Being therefore forced to practice my adscititious character upon another stage, I betook myself to a coffee-house frequented by wits, among whom I learned in a short time the cant of criticism, and talked so loudly and volubly of nature, and manners, and sentiment, and diction, and similes, and con

trasts, and action, and pronunciation, that I was | saken; the regions of luxury are for awhile unoften desired to lead the hiss and clap, and was peopled, and pleasure leads out her votaries to feared and hated by the players and the poets. groves and gardens, to still scenes and erratic Many a sentence have I hissed, which I did not gratifications. Those who have passed many understand, and many a groan have I uttered, months in a continual tumult of diversion; who when the ladies were weeping in the boxes. At have never opened their eyes in the morning, last a malignant author, whose performance I but upon some new appointment; nor slept at had persecuted through the nine nights, wrote an night without a dream of dances, music, and good epigram upon Tape the critic, which drove me hands, or of soft sighs and humble supplications; from the pit for ever. must now retire to distant provinces, where the syrens of flattery are scarcely to be heard, where beauty sparkles without praise or envy, and wit is repeated only by the echo.

My desire to be a fine gentleman still continued: I therefore, after a short suspense, chose a new set of friends at the gaming-table, and was for some time pleased with the civility and open- As I think it one of the most important duties ness with which I found myself treated. I was of social benevolence to give warning of the ap indeed obliged to play; but being naturally timo-proach of calamity, when by timely prevention it rous and vigilant, was never surprised into large may be turned aside, or by preparatory measures sums. What might have been the consequence be more easily endured, I cannot feel the inof long familiarity with these plunderers I had not an opportunity of knowing; for one night the constables entered and seized us, and I was once more compelled to sink into my former condition, by sending for my old master to attest my character.

creasing warmth, or observe the lengthening days, without considering the condition of my fair readers, who are now preparing to leave all that has so long filled up their hours, all from which they have been accustomed to hope for delight; and who, till fashion proclaims the liberty of returning to the seats of mirth and elegance, must endure the rugged 'squire, the sober housewife, the loud huntsman, or the formal parson, the roar of obstreperous jollity, or the dulness of prudential instruction; without any retreat but to the gloom of solitude, where they will yet find greater inconveniences, and must learn, however unwillingly, to endure themselves.

When I was deliberating to what new qualifications I should aspire, I was summoned into the country, by an account of my father's death. Here I had hopes of being able to distinguish myself, and to support the honour of my family. I therefore bought guns and horses, and, contrary to the expectation of the tenants, increased the salary of the huntsman. But when I entered the field, it was soon discovered that I was not destined to the glories of the chase. I was afraid of thorns in the thicket, and of dirt in the marsh; I shivered on the brink of a river while the sportsmen crossed it, and trembled at the sight of a five-bar gate. When the sport and danger were over, I was still equally disconcert-themselves in progression, and careless whither ed; for I was effeminate, though not delicate, and could only join a feebly-whispering voice in the clamours of their triumph.

A fall, by which my ribs were broken, soon recalled me to domestic pleasures, and I exerted all my art to obtain the favour of the neighbouring ladies; but, wherever I came, there was always some unlucky conversation upon ribands, fillets, pins, or thread, which drove all my stock of compliments out of my memory, and overwhelmed me with shame and dejection.

Thus I passed the ten first years after the death of my brother, in which I have learned at last to repress that ambition, which I could never gratify; and, instead of wasting more of my life in vain endeavours after accomplishments, which if not early acquired, no endeavours can obtain, I shall confine my care to those higher excellences which are in every man's power, and though I cannot enchant affection by elegance and ease, hope to secure esteem by honesty and I am, &c. MISOCAPELUS.

truth.

In winter the life of the polite and gay may be said to roll on with a strong and rapid current; they float along from pleasure to pleasure, without the trouble of regulating their own motions, and pursue the course of the stream in all the felicity of inattention; content that they find

they are going. But the months of summer are a kind of sleeping stagnation without wind or tide, where they are left to force themselves forward by their own labour, and to direct their passage by their own skill; and where, if they have not some internal principle of activity, they must be stranded upon shallows, or lie torpid in a perpetual calm.

There are, indeed, some to whom this universal dissolution of gay societies affords a welcome opportunity of quitting, without disgrace, the post which they have found themselves unable to maintain; and of seeming to retreat only at the call of nature, from assemblies where, after a short triumph of uncontested superiority, they are overpowered by some new intruder of softer elegance or sprightlier vivacity. By these, hopeless of victory, and yet ashamed to confess a conquest, the summer is regarded as a release from the fatiguing service of celebrity, a dismission to more certain joys and a safer empire. They now solace themselves with the influence which they shall obtain, where they have no rival to fear; and with the lustre which they shall effuse, when nothing can be seen of brighter splendour. They imagine, while they are preparing for their journey, the admiration with which the rastics will crowd about them; plan the laws of a new assembly; or contrive to delude provincial ignorance with a fictitious mode. A thousand pleas ing expectations swarm in the fancy; and ali the approaching weeks are filled with distine tions, honours, and authority,

But others, who have lately entered the world, or have yet had no proofs of its inconstancy and desertion, are cut off, by this cruel interruption, from the enjoyment of their prerogatives, and doomed to lose four months in unactive obscurity. Many complaints do vexation and desire extort from those exiled tyrants of the town, against the inexorable sun, who pursues his course without any regard to love or beauty; and visits either tropic at the stated time, whether shunned or courted, deprecated or implored.

To them who leave the places of public resort m the full bloom of reputation, and withdraw from admiration, courtship, submission, and applause, a rural triumph can give nothing equivalent. The praise of ignorance, and the subjection of weakness, are little regarded by beauties who have been accustomed to more important conquests, and more valuable panegyrics. Nor indeed should the powers which have made havoc in the theatres, or borne down rivalry in courts, be degraded to a mean attack upon the untravelled heir, or ignoble contest with the ruddy milkmaid.

inattention. Novelty is indeed necessary to preserve eagerness and alacrity; but art and nature have stores inexhaustible by human intellects; and every moment produces something new to him, who has quickened his faculties by diligent observation.

Some studies, for which the country and the summer afford peculiar opportunities, I shall perhaps endeavour to recommend in a future essay; but if there be any apprehension not apt to admit unaccustomed ideas, or any attention so stubborn and inflexible, as not easily to comply with new directions, even these obstructions cannot exclude the pleasure of application; for there is a higher and nobler employment, to which all faculties are adapted by him who gave them. The duties of religion, sincerely and regularly performed, will always be sufficient to exalt the meanest, and to exercise the highest understanding. That mind will never be vacant, which is frequently recalled by stated du ties to meditations on eternal interests; nor can any hour be long, which is spent in obtaining some new qualification for celestial happiness.

No. 125.] TUESDAY, May 28, 1751.

Descriptas servare vices, operumque colores,
Cur ego, si nequeo ignoroque poeta salutor.
But if, through weakness, or my want of art,
I can't to every different style impart
The proper strokes and colours it may claim,
Why am I honour'd with a poet's name?

HOR.

FRANCIS.

How then must four long months be worn away? Four months, in which there will be no routs, no shows, no ridottos; in which visits must be regulated by the weather, and assemblies will depend upon the moon? The Platonists imagine, that the future punishment of those who have in this life debased their reason by subjection to their senses, and have preferred the gross gratifications of lewdness and luxury, to the pure and sublime felicity of virtue and contemplation, will arise from the predominance and solicitations of the same appetites, in a state IT is one of the maxims of the civil law, that dewhich can furnish no means of appeasing them. finitions are hazardous. Things modified by huI cannot but suspect that this month, bright man understandings, subject to varieties of comwith sunshine, and fragrant with perfumes; this plication, and changeable as experience advances month, which covers the meadow with verdure, knowledge, or accident influences caprice, are and decks the gardens with all the mixtures of scarcely to be included in any standing form of colorific radiance; this month, from which the expression, because they are always suffering man of fancy expects new infusions of imagery, some alteration of their state. Definition is, inand the naturalist new scenes of observation; deed, not the province of man; every thing is set this month will chain down multitudes to the above or below our faculties. The works and Platonic penance of desire without enjoyment, operations of nature are too great in their extent, and hurry them from the highest satisfactions, or too much diffused in their relations, and the which they have yet learned to conceive, into a performances of art are too inconsistent and unstate of hopeless wishes and pining recollec- certain, to be reduced to any determinate idea. tion, where the eye of vanity will look round for It is impossible to impress upon our minds an adeadmiration to no purpose, and the hand of ava- quate and just representation of an object so rice shuffle cards in a bower with ineffectual dex-great, that we can never take it into our view, or terity.

From the tediousness of this melancholy suspension of life, I would willingly preserve those who are exposed to it only by inexperience; who want not inclination to wisdom or virtue, though they have been dissipated by negligence, or misled by example; and who would gladly find the way to rational happiness, though it should be necessary to struggle with habit, and abandon fashion. To these many arts of spending time might be recommended, which would neither sadden the present hour with weariness, nor the future with repentance.

It would seem impossible to a solitary speculatist, that a human being can want employment. To be born in ignorance with a capacity of knowledge, and to be placed in the midst of a world filled with variety, perpetually pressing upon the senses and irritating curiosity, is surely a sufficient security against the languishment of

so mutable, that it is always changing under our eye, and has already lost its form while we are labouring to conceive it.

Definitions have been no less difficult or uncertain in criticisms than in law. Imagination, a licentious and vagrant faculty, unsusceptible of limitations, and impatient of restraint, has always endeavoured to baffle the logician, to perplex the confines of distinction, and burst the enclosures of regularity. There is, therefore, scarcely any species of writing, of which we can tell what is its essence, and what are its constituents; every new genius produces some innovation, which, when invented and improved, subverts the rules which the practice of foregoing authors had established.

Comedy has been particularly unpropitious to definers; though perhaps they might properly have contented themselves with declaring it to be such a dramatic representation of human life, as

M. Mol. I'll show thee for a monster through my Afric. That dreadful sentence comes, See me no more.

In this scene, every circumstance concurs to turn tragedy to farce. The wild absurdity of the expedient; the contemptible subjection of the lover; the folly of obliging him to read the letter only because it ought to have been concealed Benducar, the Minister. Sure, he would sleep. from him; the frequent interruptions of amorous This conversation, with the sly remark of the impatience; the faint expostulations of a volun minister, can only be found not to be comic, be-tary slave; the imperious haughtiness of a tyrant cause it wants the probability necessary to rePresentations of common life, and degenerates too much towards buffoonery and farce.

son to approve, are surely sufficient to awakened up whenever the enemy was in motion. Anthe most torpid risibility.

There is scarce a tragedy of the last century which has not debased its most important incidents and polluted its most serious interlocutions, with buffoonery and meanness: but though perhaps it cannot be pretended that the present age has added much to the force and efficacy of the drama, it has at least been able to escape many faults, which either ignorance had overlooked, or indulgence had licensed. The latter tragedies indeed have faults of another kind, perhaps more destructive to delight, though less open to censure. The perpetual tumour of phrase with which every thought is now expressed by every personage, the paucity of adventures, which regularity admits, and the unvaried equality of flowing dialogue, has taken away from our present writers almost all that dominion over the passions which was the boast of their predecessors. Yet they may at least claim this commendation, that they avoid gross faults, and that if they cannot often move terror or pity, they are always careful not to provoke laughter.

No. 126.] SATURDAY, JUNE 1, 1751.

VET. AUCT.

-Nihil est aliud magnum quam multa minuta.
Sands form the mountain, moments make the year.

TO THE RAMBLER.

YOUNG.

other wondered that any man should think himself disgraced by a precipitate retreat from a dog; for there was always a possibility that a dog might be mad; and that surely, though there was no danger but of being bit by a fierce animal, there was more wisdom in flight than contest. By all these declarations another was encourag ed to confess, that if he had been admitted to the honour of paying his addresses to Tranquilla, he should have been likely to incur the same censure; for, among all the animals upon which nature has impressed deformity and horror, there is none whom he durst not encounter rather than a beetle.

Thus, Sir, though cowardice is universally defined too close and anious an attention to personal safety, there will be found scarcely any fear, however excessive in its degree, or unreasonable in its object, which will be allowed to characterise a coward. Fear is a passion which every man feels so frequently predominant in his own breast, that he is unwilling to hear it censured with great asperity; and, perhaps, if we confess the truth, the same restraint which would hinder a man from declaiming against the frauds of any employment among those who profess it, should withhold him from treating fear with con tempt among human beings.

Yet since fortitude is one of those virtues which the condition of our nature makes hourly necessary, I think you cannot better direct your admonitions than against superfluous and panic terrors. Fear is implanted in us as a preservative SIR, from evil; but its duty, like that of other passions is AMONG other topics of conversation which your not to overbear reason, but to assist it; nor should papers supply, I was lately engaged in a discus-it be suffered to tyrannize in the imagination, to sion of the character given by Tranquilla of her raise phantoms of horror, or beset life with super lover Venustulus, whom, notwithstanding the se- numerary distresses. verity of his mistress, the greater number seemed inclined to acquit of unmanly or culpable timidity.

One of the company remarked, that prudence ought to be distinguished from fear; and that if Venustulus was afraid of nocturnal adventures, no man who considered how much every avenue of the town was infested with robbers could think him blameable; for why should life be hazarded without prospect of honour or advantage? Another was of opinion, that a brave man might be afraid of crossing the river in the calmest weather, and declared that, for his part, while there were coaches and a bridge, he would never be seen tottering in a wooden case, out of which he might be thrown by any irregular agitation, or which might be overset by accident or negligence, or by the force of a sudden gust, or the rush of a larger vessel. It was his custom, he said, to keep the security of day-light, and dry ground; for it was a maxim with him, that no wise man ever perished by water, or was lost in the dark. The next was humbly of opinion, that if Tranquilla had seen, like him, the cattle run roaring about the meadows in the hot months, she would not have thought meanly of her lover for not venturing his safety among them. His neighbour then told us, that for his part he was not ashamed to confess, that he could not see a rat, though it was dead, without paipitation; that he had been driven six times out of his lodgings either by rats or mice; and that he always had a bed in the closet for his servant, whom he call

To be always afraid of losing life is, indeed, scarely to enjoy a life that can deserve the care of preservation. He that once indulges idle fears will never be at rest. Our present state admits only of a kind of negative security; we must conclude ourselves safe when we see no danger, or none inadequate to our powers of opposition. Death indeed continually hovers about us, but hovers commonly unseen, unless we sharpen our sight by useless curiosity.

There is always a point at which caution, however solicitous, must limit its prescrvatives, because one terror often counteracts another. I once knew one of the speculatists of cowardice, whose reigning disturbance was the dread of house-breakers. His inquiries were for nine years employed upon the best method of barring a window, or a door; and many an hour has he spent in establishing the preference of a bolt to a lock. He had at last, by the daily superaddition of new expedients, contrived a door which could never be forced; for one bar was secured by another with such intricacy of subordination that he was himself not always able to disengage them in the proper method. He was happy in this for tification, till being asked how he would escape if he was threatened by fire, he discovered, that, with all his care and expense, he had only been assisting his own destruction. He then immediately tore off his bolts, and now leaves at night his outer door half-locked, that he may not by his own folly perish in the flames.

There is one species of terror which those who