my patron had carried all my powers of pleasing to the grave. I had formerly been celebrated as a wit; and not perceiving any languor in my imagination, I essayed to revive that gayety which had hitherto broken out involuntarily before my sentences were finished. My remarks were now heard with a steady countenance; and if a girl happened to give way to habitual merriment, her forwardness was repressed with a frown by her mother or her aunt. Wherever I come I scatter infirmities and disease; every lady whom I meet in the Mall is too weary to walk; all whom I entreat to sing are troubled with colds: if I propose cards, they are afHicted with the headach; if I invite them to the gardens, they cannot bear a crowd. All this might be endured; but there is a class of mortals who think my understanding impaired with my fortune, exalt themselves to the dignity of advice, and, whenever we happen to meet, presume to prescribe my conduct, regulate my economy, and direct my pursuits. Another race, equally impertinent and equally despicable, are every moment recommending to me an attention to my interest, and think themselves entitled, by their superior prudence, to reproach me if I speak or move without regard to profit. Men who have flattered themselves into this opinion of their own abilities, look down on all who waste their lives over books as a race of inferior beings, condemned by nature to perpetual pupilage, and fruitlessly endeavouring to remedy their barrenness by incessant cultivation, or succour their feebleness by subsidiary strength. They presume that none would be more industrious than they, if they were not more sensible of deficiencies; and readily conclude, that he who places no confidence in his own powers, owes his modesty only to his weakness. It is however certain that no estimate is more in danger of erroneous calculations than those by which a man computes the force of his own genius. It generally happens at our entrance into the world, that by the natural attraction of similitude, we associate with men like ourselves, young, sprightly, and ignorant, and rate our accomplishments by comparison with theirs: when we have once obtained an acknowledged superiority over our acquaintances, imagination and desires easily extend it over the rest of mankind; and if no accident forces us into new emulations, we grow old, and die in admiration of ourselves. Vanity, thus confirmed in her dominion, readily listens to the voice of idleness, and soothes the slumber of life with continual dreams of excellence and greatness. A man, elated by confidence in his natural vigour of fancy and sagacity of conjecture, soon concludes that he already pos Such, Mr. Rambler, is the power of wealth, that it commands the ear of greatness and the eye of beauty, gives spirit to the dull, and authority to the timorous, and leaves him from whom it departs, without virtue and without understand-sessess whatever toil and inquiry can confer. He ing, the sport of caprice, the scoff of insolence, the slave of meanness, and the pupil of ignorance. I am, &c. THE direction of Aristotle to those that study politics, is, first to examine and understand what has been written by the ancients upon government; then to cast their eyes round upon the world, and consider by what causes the prosperity of communities is visibly influenced, and why some are worse and others better administered." The same method must be pursued by him who hopes to become eminent in any other part of knowledge. The first task is to search books, the next to contemplate nature. He must first possess himself of the intellectual treasures which the diligence of former ages has accumulated, and then endeavour to increase them by his own collections. The mental disease of the present generation is impatience of study, contempt of the great masters of ancient wisdom, and a disposition to rely wholly upon unassisted genius and natural sagacity. The wits of these happy days have discovered a way to fame, which the dull caution of our laborious ancestors durst never attempt; they cut the knots of sophistry which it was formerly the business of years to untie, solve difficulties by sudden irradiations of intelligence, and comprehend long processes of argument by immediate intuition then listens with eagerness to the wild objections which folly has raised against the common means of improvement; talks of the dark chaos of indigested knowledge; describes the mischievous effects of heterogeneous sciences fermenting in the mind; relates the blunders of lettered ignorance; expatiates on the heroic merit of those who deviate from prescription, or shake off authority; and gives vent to the inflations of his heart by declaring that he owes nothing to pedants and universities. All these pretensions, however confident, are very often vain. The laurels which superficial acuteness gains in triumphs over ignorance unsupported by vivacity, are observed by Locke to be lost, whenever real learning and rational diligence appear against her; the sallies of gayety are soon repressed by calm confidence; and the artifices of subtilty are readily detected by those who, having carefully studied the question, are not easily confounded or surprised. But, though the contemner of books had nei ther been deceived by others nor himself, and was really born with a genius surpassing the ordinary abilities of mankind; yet surely such gifts of Providence may be more properly urged as incitements to labour, than encouragements to negligence. He that neglects the culture of ground naturally fertile, is more shamefully culpable than he whose field would scarcely recompense his husbandry. Cicero remarks, that not to know what has been transacted in former times, is to continue always a child. If no use is made of the labours of past ages, the world must remain always in the infancy of knowledge. The discoveries of every man must terminate in his own advantage, and the studies of every age be employed on questions which the past generation had discussed and determined. We may with as little reproach borrow science as manufactures from our ancestors; and it is as rational to live in caves till our own hands have erected a palace, as to reject all knowledge of architecture which our understandings will not supply. To the strongest and quickest mind it is far easier to learn than to invent. The principles of arithmetic and geometry may be comprehended by a close attention in a few days; yet who can flatter himself that the study of a long life would have enabled him to discover them, when he sees them yet unknown to so many nations, whom he cannot suppose less liberally endowed with natural reason than the Grecians or Egyptians. evidence, facilitated by clearer method, or elucidated by brighter illustrations. Fame cannot spread wide or endure long that is not rooted in nature, and manured by art. That which hopes to resist the blast of malignity, and stand firm against the attacks of time, must contain in itself some original principle of growth. The reputation which arises from the detail of transposition of borrowed sentiments may spread for a while like ivy on the rind of antiquity, but will be torn away by accident or contempt, and suffered to rot unheeded on the ground. Tuesday, Sept. 10, 1751. Steriles transmisimus annos -Our barren years are past; Every science was thus far advanced towards perfection, by the emulous diligence of contemporary students, and the gradual discoveries of No. 155.] one age improving on another. Sometimes unexpected flashes of instruction were struck by the fortuitous collision of happy incidents, or an involuntary concurrence of ideas, in which the philosopher to whom they happened had no other merit than that of knowing their value, and transmitting, unclouded, to posterity, that light which had been kindled by causes out of his power. The happiness of these casual illuminations no man can promise to himself, because no endearments can procure them: and, therefore, whatever be our abilities or application, we must submit to learn from others what perhaps would have lain hid for ever from human penetration, had not some remote inquiry brought it to view; as treasures are thrown up by the ploughman and the digger in the rude exercise of their common occupations. The man whose genius qualifies him for great undertakings, must at least be content to learn from books the present state of human knowledge; that he may not ascribe to himself the invention of arts generally known; weary his attention with experiments of which the event has been long registered; and waste, in attempts which have already succeeded or miscarried, that time which might have been spent with usefulness and honour upon new undertakings. STAT ELPHINSTON No weakness of the human mind has more frequently incurred animadversion, than the negligence with which men overlook their own faults, however flagrant, and the easiness with which they pardon them, however frequently repeated. It seems generally believed, that, as the eye cannot see itself, the mind has no faculties by which it can contemplate its own state, and that therefore we have not means of becoming acquainted with our real characters; an opinion which, like innumerable other postulates, an inquirer finds himself inclined to admit upon very little evidence, because it affords a ready solution of many difficulties. It will explain why the greatest abilities frequently fail to promote the happiness of those who possess them; why those who can distinguish with the utmost nicety the boundaries of vice and virtue, suffer them to be confounded in their own conduct; why the active and vigilant resign their affairs implicitly to the management of others; and why the cautious and fearful make hourly ap proaches towards ruin, without one sigh of soli But, though the study of books is necessary, it is not sufficient to constitute literary eminence. He that wishes to be counted among the bene-citude or struggle for escape. factors of posterity, must add by his own toil to the acquisitions of his ancestors, and secure his memory from neglect by some valuable improvement. This can only be effected by looking out upon the wastes of the intellectual world, and extending the power of learning over regions yet undisciplined and barbarous or by surveying more exactly our ancient dominions, and driving ignorance from the fortresses and retreats where she sculks undetected and undisturbed. Every science has its difficulties, wh ch yet call for solution before we attempt new systems of knowledge; as every country has its forests and marshes, which it would be wise to cultivate and drain, before distant colonies are projected as a necessary discharge of the exuberance of the inhabitants. When a position teems thus with commodious consequences, who can without regret confess it to be false? Yet it is certain that declaimers have indulged a disposition to describe the dominion of the passions as extended beyond the limits that nature assigned. Self-love is often rather arrogant than blind: it does not hide our faults from ourselves, but persuades us that they escape the notice of others, and disposes us to resent censures lest we should confess them to be just. We are secretly conscious of defects and vices which we hope to conceal from the public eye, and please ourselves with innumerable impostures, by which, in reality, nobody is deceived. In proof of the dimness of our internal sight, or the general inability of man to determine No man ever yet became great by imitation. rightly concerning his own character, it is comWhoever hopes for the veneration of mankind mon to urge the success of the most absurd and must have invention in the design or the execu-incredible flattery, and the resentment always tion; either the effect must itself be new, or the means by which it is produced. Either truths hitherto unknown must be discovered, or those which are already known enforced by stronger raised by advice, however soft, benevolent, and reasonable. But flattery, if its operation be nearly examined, will be found to owe its acceptance, not to our ignorance but knowledge of our failures, and to delight us rather as it consoles our wants than displays our possessions. He that shall solicit the favour of his patron by praising him for qualities which he can find in himself, will be defeated by the more daring panegyrist who enriches him with adscititious excellence. Just praise is only a debt, but flattery is a present. The acknowledgment of those virtues on which conscience congratulates us, is a tribute that we can at any time exact with confidence; but the celebration of those which we only feign, or desire without any vigorous endeavours to attain them, is received as a confession of sovereignty over regions never conquered, as a favourable decision of disputable claims, and is more welcome as it is more gratuitous. Advice is offensive, not because it lays us open to unexpected regret, or convicts us of any fault which has escaped our notice, but because it shows us that we are known to others as well as to ourselves; and the officious monitor is persecuted with hatred, not because his accusation is false, but because he assumes that superiority which we are not willing to grant him, and has dared to detect what we desired to conceal. For this reason advice is commonly ineffectual. If those who follow the call of their desires, without inquiry whither they are going, had deviated ignorantly from the paths of wisdom, and were rushing upon dangers unforeseen, they would readily listen to information that recalls them from their errors, and catch the first alarm by which destruction or infamy is denounced. Few that wander in the wrong way mistake it for the right; they only find it more smooth and flowery, and indulge their own choice rather than approve it: therefore few are persuaded to quit it by admonition or reproof, since it impresses no new conviction, nor confers any powers of action or resistance. He that is gravely informed how soon profusion will annihilate his fortune, hears with little advantage what he knew before, and catches at the next occasion of expense, because advice has no force to suppress his vanity. He that is told how certainly intemperance will hurry him to the grave, runs with his usual speed to a new course of luxury, because his reason is not invigorated, nor his appetite weakened. The mischief of flattery is, not that it persuades any man that he is what he is not, but that it suppresses the influence of honest ambition, by raising an opinion that honour may be gained without the toil of merit; and the benefit of advice arises commonly, not from any new light imparted to the mind, but from the discovery which it affords of the public suffrages. He that could withstand conscience is frighted at infamy, and shame prevails when reason was defeated. As we all know our own faults, and know them commonly with many aggravations which human perspicacity cannot discover, there is, perhaps, no man, however hardened by impudence or dissipated by ievity, sheltered by hypocrisy or blasted by disgrace, who does not intend some time to review his conduct, and to regulate the remainder of his life by the laws of virtue. New temptations indeed attack him, new invitations are offered by pleasure and interest, and the hour of reformation is always delayed; every delay gives vice another opportunity of fortifying itself by habit; and the change of manners, though sincerely intended and rationally planned, is referred to the time when some craving passion shall be fully gratified, or some powerful al lurement cease its importunity. Thus procrastination is accumulated on pro crastination, and one impediment succeeds ano ther, till age shatters our resolution, or death intercepts the project of amendment. Such is often the end of salutary purposes, after they have long delighted the imagination, and appeased that disquiet which every mind feels from known misconduct, when the attention is not diverted by business or by pleasure. Nothing surely can be more unworthy of a reasonable nature, than to continue in a state so opposite to real happiness, as that all the peace of solitude, and felicity of meditation, must arise from resolutions of forsaking it. Yet the world will often afford examples of men, who pass months and years in a continual war with their own convictions, and are daily dragged by habit, or betrayed by passion, into practices which they closed and opened their eyes with purposes to avoid; purposes which though settled on conviction, the first impulse of momentary desire totally overthrows. The influence of custom is indeed such, that to conquer it will require the utmost efforts of fortitude and virtue; nor can I think any men more worthy of veneration and renown than those who have burst the shackles of habitual vice. This victory, however, has different degrees of glory as of difficulty; it is more heroic as the objects of guilty gratification are more familiar, and the recurrence of solicitation more frequent. He that, from experience of the folly of ambition, resigns his offices, may set himself free at once from temptation to squander his life in courts, because he cannot regain his former station. He who is enslaved by an amorous passion, may quit his tyrant in disgust, and absence will, without the help of reason, overcome by degrees the desire of returning. But those appetites to which every place affords their proper object, and which require no preparatory measures or gradual advances, are more tenaciously adhesive; the wish is so near the enjoyment, that compliance often precedes consideration; and, before the powers of reason can be summoned, the time for employing them is past. Indolence is, therefore, one of the vices from which those whom it once infects are seldom reformed. Every other species of luxury operates upon some appetite that is quickly satiated, and requires some concurrence of art or accident which every place will not supply; but the desire of ease acts equally at all hours, and the longer it is indulged is the more increased. To do nothing is in every man's power; we can never want an opportunity of omitting duties. The lapse to indolence is soft and imperceptible, because it is only a mere cessation of activity; but the return to diligence is difficult, because it implies a change from rest to motion, from privation to reality. Facilis descensus Averni: The gates of hell are open night and day; DRYDEN. herself; and, like the ancient Scythians, by extending her conquests over distant regions, she has left her throne vacant to her slaves. Among the laws of which the desire of extendOf this vice, as of all others, every man who ing authority, or ardour of promoting knowledge, indulges it is conscious: we all know our own has prompted the prescription, all which writers state, if we could be induced to consider it; and have received, had not the same original right to it might perhaps be useful to the conquest of all our regard. Some are to be considered as funthese ensnarers of the mind, if, at certain stated damental and indispensable, others only as usedays, life was reviewed. Many things necessary ful and convenient; some as dictated by reason are omitted, because we vainly imagine that they and necessity, others as enacted by despotic anmay be always performed; and what cannot be tiquity; some as invincibly supported by their done without pain will for ever be delayed, if the conformity to the order of nature and operations time of doing it be left unsettled. No corruption of the intellect; others as formed by accident, or is great but by long negligence, which can instituted by example, and therefore always liable scarcely prevail in a mind regularly and frequent-to dispute and alteration. ly awakened by periodical remorse. He that That many rules have been advanced without thus breaks his life into parts, will find in himself consulting nature or reason, we cannot but susa desire to distinguish every stage of his exist-pect, when we find it peremptorily decreed by the ence by some improvement, and delight himself with the approach of the day of recollection, as of the time which is to begin a new series of virtue and felicity. No. 156.] SATURDAY, SEPT. 14, 1751. Nunquam aliud natura, aliud sapientia dicit. JUV. For wisdom ever echoes nature's voice. ancient masters, that only three speaking personages should appear at once upon the stage; a law which, as the variety and intricacy of modern plays has made it impossible to be observed, we now violate without scruple, and, as experience proves, without inconvenience. The original of this precept was merely accidental. Tragedy was a monody, or solitary song in honour of Bacchus, improved afterwards into a dialogue by the addition of another speaker: but the ancients remembering that the tragedy was at first pronounced only by one, durst not for some time venture beyond two; at last, when custom and impunity had made them daring, they extended their liberty to the admission of three, but restrained themselves by a critical edict from further exorbitance. EVERY government, say the politicians, is perpetually degenerating towards corruption, from which it must be rescued at certain periods by the resuscitation of its first principles, and the reestablishment of its original constitution. Every animal body, according to the methodic physi By what accident the number of acts was li cians, is, by the predominance of some exuberant mited to five, I know not that any author has in quality, continually declining towards disease and formed us; but certainly it is not determined by death, which must be obviated by a seasonable any necessity arising either from the nature of reduction of the peccant humour to the just equi-action or propriety of exhibition. An act is only poise which health requires. the representation of such a part of the business of In the same manner the studies of mankind, the play as proceeds in an unbroken tenor, or all at least which, not being subject to rigorous without any intermediate pause. Nothing is more demonstration, admit the influence of fancy and evident than that of every real, and by conse caprice, are perpetually tending to error and con- quence of every dramatic action, the intervals fusion. Of the great principles of truth which may be more or fewer than five; and indeed the the first speculatists discovered, the simplicity is rule is upon the English stage every day broken in embarrassed by ambitious additions, or the evi-effect, without any other mischief than that which dence obscured by inaccurate argumentation; arises from an absurd endeavour to observe it in and as they descend from one succession of writers appearance. Whenever the scene is shifted the to another, like light transmitted from room to act ceases, since some time is necessarily supposroom, they lose their strength and splendour,ed to elapse while the personages of the drama and fade at last in total evanescence. change their place. The systems of learning therefore must be sometimes reviewed, complications analysed into principles, and knowledge disentangled from opinion. It is not always possible, without a close inspection, to separate the genuine shoots of consequential reasoning, which grow out of some radical postulate, from the branches which art has engrafted on it. The accidental prescriptions of authority, when time has procured them veneration, are often confounded with the laws of nature, and those rules are supposed coeval with reason, of which the first rise cannot be discovered. Criticism has sometimes permitted fancy to dictate the laws by which fancy ought to be restrained, and fallacy to perplex the principles by which fallacy is to be detected; her superintendence of others has betrayed her to negligence of With no greater right to our obedience have the critics confined the dramatic action to a cer tain number of hours. Probability requires that the time of action should approach somewhat nearly to that of exhibition, and those plays will always be thought most happily conducted which crowd the greatest variety into the least space. But since it will frequently happen that some delusion must be admitted, I know not where the limits of imagination can be fixed. It is rarely observed that minds, not prepossessed by mechanical criticism, feel any offence from the extension of the intervals between the acts; nor can I conceive it absurd or impossible, that he who can multiply three hours into twelve or twenty-four, might image with equal ease a greater number. I know not whether he that professes to regard no other laws than those of nature, will not be Of aldus Γίγνεται ἡ ἄνδρας μέγα σινεται ἠδ ̓ ὀνίνησι. Shame greatly hurts or greatly helps mankind. SIR, TO THE RAMBLER. ELPHINSTON. inclined to receive tragi-comedy to his protec-| No. 157.] TUESDAY, Sept. 17, 1751. tion, whom, however generally condemned, her own laurels have hitherto shaded from the fulminations of criticism. For what is there in the mingled drama which impartial reason can condemn? The connexion of important with trivial incidents, since it is not only common but perpetual in the world, may surely be allowed upon the stage, which pretends only to be the mirror of life. The impropriety of suppressing passions THOUGH one of your correspondents has prebefore we have raised them to the intended agi-sumed to mention with some contempt that pretation, and of diverting the expection from an sence of attention, and easiness of address, which event which we keep suspended only to raise it, the polite have long agreed to celebrate and esmay be speciously urged. But will not expe- teem, yet I cannot be persuaded to think them rience show this objection to be rather subtile unworthy of regard or cultivation; but am inthan just? Is it not certain that the tragic and clined to believe that, as we seldom value rightly comic affections have been moved alternately what we have never known the misery of wantwith equal force; and that no plays have oftener ing, his judgment has been vitiated by his happifilled the eye with tears, and the breast withness; and that a natural exuberance of assurance palpitation, than those which are variegated with has hindered him from discovering its excellence interludes of mirth? and use. I do not however think it safe to judge of works of genius merely by the event. The resistless vicissitudes of the heart, this alternate prevalence of merriment and solemnity, may some times be more properly ascribed to the vigour of the writer than the justness of the design: and, instead of vindicating tragi-comedy by the success of Shakspeare, we ought, perhaps, to pay new honours to that transcendent and unbounded genius that could preside over the passions in sport; who, to actuate the affections, needed not the slow gradation of common means, but could fill the heart with instantaneous jollity to sorrow, and vary our disposition as he changed his scenes. Perhaps the effects even of Shakspeare's poetry might have been yet greater had he not counteracted himself; and we might have been more interested in the distresses of his heroes, had we not been so frequently diverted by the jokes of his buffoons. There are other rules more fixed and obligatory. It is necessary that of every play the chief action should be single; for, since a play represents some transaction through its regular maturation to its final event, two actions equally important must evidently constitute two plays. As the design of tragedy is to instruct by moving the passions, it must always have a hero, a personage, apparently and incontestably superior to the rest, upon whom the attention may be fixed, and the anxiety suspended. For though, of two persons opposing each other with equal abilities and equal virtue, the auditor will inevitably, in time, choose his favourite; yet, as that choice must be without any cogency of conviction, the hopes or fears which it raises will be faint and languid. Of two heroes acting in confederacy against a common enemy, the virtues or dangers will give little emotion, because each claims our concern with the same right, and the heart lies at rest between equal motives. It ought to be the first endeavour of a writer to distinguish nature from custom; or that which is established because it is right, from that which is right only because it is established; that he may neither violate essential principles by a desire of novelty, nor debar himself from the attainment of beauties within his view, by a needless fear of breaking rules which no literary dictator had authority to enact. This felicity, whether bestowed by constitution, or obtained by early habitudes, I can scarcely contemplate without envy. I was bred under a man of learning in the country, who inculcated nothing but the dignity of knowledge, and the happiness of virtue. By frequency of admonition, and confidence of assertion, he prevailed upon me to believe, that the splendour of literature would always attract reverence, if not darkened by corruption. I therefore pursued my studies with incessant industry, and avoided every thing which I had been taught to consider either as vicious or tending to vice, because I regarded guilt and reproach as inseparably united, and thought a tainted reputation the greatest calamity. At the university, I found no reason for changing my opinion: for though many among my fellow-students took the opportunity of a more remiss discipline to gratify their passions; yet virtue preserved her natural superiority, and those who ventured to neglect were not suffered to insult her. The ambition of petty accomplishments found its way into the receptacles of learning, but was observed to seize commonly on those who either neglected the sciences or could not attain them; and I was therefore confirmed in the doctrines of my old master, and thought nothing worthy of my care but the means of gaining or imparting knowledge. This purity of manners, and intenseness of ap plication, soon extended my renown, and I was applauded, by those whose opinion I then thought unlikely to deceive me, as a young man that gave uncommon hopes of future eminence. My performances in time reached my native province, and my relations congratulated them selves upon the new honours that were added to their family. I returned home covered with academical laurels, and fraught with criticism and philosophy. The wit and the scholar excited curiosity, and my acquaintance was solicited by innumerable invitations. To please will always be the wish of benevolence, to be admired must be the constant aim of ambition; and I therefore considered myself as about to receive the reward of my honest labours, and to find the efficacy of learning and of virtue. The third day after my arrival I dined at the house of a gentleman who had summoned a mul. |