by the uneasiness of ignorance than the hope of profit. Nothing can be of less importance te any present interest, than the fortune of those who have been long lost in the grave, and from whom nothing now can be hoped or feared. upon the affections, of exciting universal benevolence, and disposing every heart to fondness and friendship. But this is a felicity granted only to the favourite of nature. The greater part of mankind find a different reception from different dispositions; they sometimes obtain unexpected ca-Yet, to rouse the zeal of a true antiquary, little resses from those whom they never flattered with uncommon regard, and sometimes exhaust all their arts of pleasing without effect. To these it is necessary to look round, and attempt every breast in which they find virtue sufficient for the foundation of friendship; to enter into the crowd, and try whom chance will offer to their notice, till they fix on some temper congenial to their own, as the magnet rolled in the dust collects the fragments of its kindred metal from a thousand particles of other substances. Every man must have remarked the facility with which the kindness of others is sometimes gained by those to whom he never could have imparted his own. We are, by our occupations, education, and habits of life, divided almost into different species, which regard one another, for the most part with scorn and malignity. Each of these classes of the human race has desires, fears, and conversation, vexations and merriment, peculiar to itself; cares which another cannot feel; pleasures which he cannot partake; and modes of expressing every sensation which he cannot understand. That frolic which shakes one man with laughter, will convulse another with indignation; the strain of jocularity which in one place obtains treats and patronage, would in another be heard with indifference, and in a third with abhorrence. To raise esteem we must benefit others, to procure love we must please them. Aristotle observes, that old men do not readily form friendships, because they are not easily susceptible of pleasure. He that can contribute to the hilarity of the vacant hour, or partake with equal gust the favourite amusement; he whose mind is employed on the same objects, and who therefore never harasses the understanding with unaccustomed ideas, will be welcomed with ardour, and left with regret, unless he destroys those recommendations by faults with which peace and security cannot consist. It were happy, if in forming friendships, virtue could concur with pleasure; but the greatest part of human gratifications approach so nearly to vice, that few who make the delight of others their rule of conduct, can avoid disingenuous compliances; yet certainly he that suffers himself to be driven or allured from virtue, mistakes his own interest, since he gains succour by means for which his friend, if ever he becomes wise, must scorn him, and for which at last he must scorn himself. more is necessary than to mention a name which mankind have conspired to forget; he will make his way to remote scenes of action through obscurity and contradiction, as Tully sought amidst bushes and brambles the tomb of Archimedes. It is not easy to discover how it concerns him that gathers the produce, or receives the rent of an estate, to know through what families the land has passed, who is registered in the Conqueror's survey as its possessor, how often it has been forfeited by treason, or how often sold by prodigality. The power or wealth of the present inhabitants of a country cannot be much increased by an inquiry after the names of those barbarians, who destroyed one another twenty centuries ago, in contests for the shelter of woods, or convenience of pasturage. Yet we see that no man can be at rest in the enjoyment of a new purchase, till he has learned the history of his grounds from the ancient inhabitants of the parish, and that no nation omits to record the actions of their ancestors, however bloody, savage, and rapacious. The same disposition, as different opportunities call it forth, discovers itself in great or little things. I have always thought it unworthy of a wise man to slumber in total inactivity, only because he happens to have no employment equal to his ambition or genius; it is therefore my custom to apply my attention to the objects before me; and as I cannot think any place wholly unworthy of notice that affords a habitation to a man of letters, I have collected the history and antiquities of the several garrets in which I have resided. Quantulacunque estis, vos ego magna voco How small to others, but how great to me. Many of these narratives my industry has been able to extend to a considerable length; but the woman with whom I now lodge has lived only eighteen months in the house, and can give no account of its ancient revolutions; the plas terer having, at her entrance, obliterated, by his white-wash, all the smoky memorials which former tenants had left upon the ceiling, and perhaps drawn the veil of oblivion over politicians, philosophers, and poets. When I first cheapened my lodgings, the landlady told me, that she hoped I was not an author, for the lodgers on the first floor had stipulated that the upper rooms should not be occupied by a noisy trade. I very readily promised to give no disturbance to her family, and soon despatched a bargain on the usual terms. I had not slept many nights in my new apartment, before I began to inquire after my prede cessors, and found my landlady, whose imagina tion is filled chiefly with her own affairs, very ready to give me information. Curiosity, like all other desires, produces pain as well as pleasure. Before she began her narrative, I had heated my head with expectations of adventures and discoveries, of elegance in disguise, and learning in distress; and was some-ants of the next floor by unseasonable noises. what mortified when I heard that the first tenant He was generally in bed at noon; but fron, was a tailor, of whom nothing was remembered evening to midnight he sometimes talked aloud but that he complained of his room for want of with great vehemence, sometimes stamped as in light; and, after having lodged in it a month, rage, sometimes threw down his poker, ther and paid only a week's rent, pawned a piece of clattered his chairs, then sat down in deep cloth which he was trusted to cut out, and was thought, and again burst out into loud vociferaforced to make a precipitate retreat from this tions; sometimes he would sigh as oppressed quarter of the town. with misery, and sometimes shake with convulsive laughter. When he encountered any of the family, he gave way or bowed, but rarely spoke, except that as he went up stairs he often repeated, The next was a young woman newly arrived from the country, who lived for five weeks with great regularity, and became by frequent treats very much the favourite of the family, but at last received visits so frequently from a cousin in Cheapside, that she brought the reputation of the house into danger, and was therefore dismissed with good advice. - Ος ὑπέρτατα δώματα ναίει. This habitant th' aerial regions boast: hard words, to which his neighbours listened so often that they learned them without understanding them. What was his employment she did not venture to ask him, but at last heard a printer's boy inquire for the author. My landlady was very often advised to beware of this strange man, who, though he was quiet for the present, might perhaps become outrage ous in the hot months; but as she was punctually paid, she could not find any sufficient reason for dismissing him, till one night he con vinced her, by setting fire to his curtains, that it was not safe to have an author for her inmate. The room then stood empty for a fortnight; my landlady began to think that she had judged hardly, and often wished for such another lodger. At last, an elderly man of a grave aspect read the bill, and bargained for the room at the very first price that was asked. He lived in close retirement, seldom went out till evening, and then returned early, sometimes cheerful, and at other times dejected. It was remarkable, that whatever he purchased, he never had small money in his pocket; and, though cool and temperate on other occasions, was always vehement and stormy till he received his change. He paid his rent with great exactness, and seldom failed She had then for six weeks a succession of once a week to requite my landlady's civility tenants who left the house on Saturday, and, inwith a supper. At last, such is the fate of hu- stead of paying their rent, stormed at their landman felicity, the house was alarmed at midnight lady. At last she took in two sisters, one of by the constable, who demanded to search the whom had spent her little fortune in procuring garrets. My landlady assuring him that he had remedies for a lingering disease, and was now mistaken the door, conducted him up stairs, supported and attended by the other: she climbed where he found the tools of a coiner; but the with difficulty to the apartment, where she lantenant had crawled along the roof to an empty guished eight weeks without impatience, or lahouse, and escaped; much to the joy of my mentation, except for the expense and fatigue landlady, who declares him a very honest man, which her sister suffered, and then calmly and and wonders why any body should be hanged contentedly expired. The sister followed her to for making money when such numbers are in the grave, paid the few debts which they had want of it. She however confesses that she contracted, wiped away the tears of useless sor shall, for the future, always question the charac-row, and returning to the business of common ter of those who take her garret without beating down the price. The bill was then placed again in the window, and the poor woman was teased for seven weeks by innumerable passengers, who obliged her to climb with them every hour up five stories, and then disliked the prospect, hated the noise of a public street, thought the stairs narrow, objected to a low ceiling, required the walls to be hung with fresher paper, asked questions about the neighbourhood, could not think of living so far from their acquaintance, wished the windows had looked to the south rather than the west, told how the door and chimney might have been better disposed, bid her half the price that she asked, or promised to give her earnest the next day, and came no more. life, resigned to me the vacant habitation. Such, Mr. Rambler, are the changes which have happened in the narrow space where my present fortune has fixed my residence. So true it is, that amusement and instruction are always at hand for those who have skill and willingness to find them; and so just is the observation of Juvenal, that a single house will show whatever is done or suffered in the world. No. 162.] I am, Sir, &c. TUESDAY, OCT. 5, 1751. Orbus es, et locuples, et Bruto consule natus: Sunt vera; sed quas juvenis, quas pauper habebas. What! old, and rich, and childless too, At last, a short meagre man, in a tarnished waistcoat, desired to see the garret, and, when he had stipulated for two long shelves, and a larger table, hired it at a low rate. When the affair was completed, he looked round him with great satisfaction, and repeated some words which the woman did not understand. In two days he brought a great box of books, took possession of his room and lived very inoffensively, ONE of the complaints uttered by Milton's Samexcept that he frequently disturbed the inhabit-son, in the anguish of blindness, is, that he shall F. LEWI pass his life under the direction of others; that | he cannot regulate his conduct by his own knowledge, but must lie at the mercy of those who undertake to guide him. least, the merit of suffering in a good cause. But there are many who can plead no such extenu ation of their folly; who shake off the burden of their station, not that they may soar with less inThere is no state more contrary to the dignity cumbrance to the heights of knowledge or virtue, of wisdom than perpetual and unlimited depend- but that they may loiter at ease and sleep in ance, in which the understanding lies useless, quiet; and who select for friendship and confiand every motion is received from external im-dence not the faithful and the virtuous, but the pulse. Reason is the great distinction of human soft, the civil, and compliant. nature, the faculty by which we approach to This openness to flattery is the common dissome degree of association with celestial intelli- grace of declining life. When men feel weakgences; but as the excellence of every power ap-ness increasing on them, they naturally desire pears only in its operations, not to have reason, and to have it useless and unemployed, is nearly the same. Such is the weakness of man, that the essence of things is seldom so much regarded as external and accidental appendages. A small variation of trifling circumstances, a slight change of form by an artificial dress, or a casual difference of appearance by a new light and situation, will conciliate affection or excite abhorrence, and determine us to pursue or to avoid. Every man considers a necessity of compliance with any will but his own as the lowest state of ignominy and meanness; few are so far lost in cowardice or negligence as not to rouse at the first insult of tyranny, and exert all their force against him who usurps their property, or invades any privilege of speech or action. Yet we see often those who never wanted spirit to repel encroachment or oppose violence, at last by a gradual relaxation of vigilance, delivering up, without capitulation, the fortress which they defended against assault, and laying down unbidden the weapons which they grasped the harder for every attempt to wrest them from their hands. Men eminent for spirit and wisdom often resign themselves to voluntary pupilage, and suffer their lives to be modelled by officious ignorance, and their choice to be regulated by presumptuous stupidity. to rest from the struggles of contradiction, the fatigue of reasoning, the anxiety of circumspec tion; when they are hourly tormented with pains and diseases, they are unable to bear any new disturbance, and consider all opposition as an addition to misery, of which they feel already more than they can patiently endure. Thus desirous of peace, and thus fearful of pain, the old man seldom inquires after any other qualities in those whom he caresses, than quickness in conjecturing his desires, activity in supplying his wants, dexterity in intercepting complaints before they approach near enough to disturb him, flexibility to his present humour, submission to hasty petulance, and attention to wearisome narrations. By these arts alone many have been able to defeat the claims of kindred and of merit, and to enrich themselves with presents and legacies. Thrasybulus inherited a large fortune, and augmented it by the revenues of several lucrative employments, which he discharged with honour and dexterity. He was at last wise enough to consider that life should not be de voted wholly to accumulation; and, therefore, retiring to his estate, applied himself to the edu cation of his children, and the cultivation of domestic happiness. prudence, and spirit. In time, the eagerness with which the neighbouring gentlemen courted his alliance obliged him to resign his daughters to other families; the vivacity and curiosity of his sons hurried them out of rural privacy into the open world, from whence they had not soon an inclination to return. This, however, he had always hoped; he pleased himself with the suc cess of his schemes, and felt no inconvenience from solitude till an apoplexy deprived him of his wife. He passed several years in this pleasing amusement, and saw his care amply recomThis unresisting acquiescence in the determi- pensed; his daughters were celebrated for monation of others, may be the consequence of ap-desty and elegance, and his sons for learning, plication to some study remote from the beaten track of life, some employment which does not allow leisure for sufficient inspection of those petty affairs by which nature has decreed a great part of our duration to be filled. To a mind thus withdrawn from common objects, it is more cligible to repose on the prudence of another, than to be exposed every moment to slight interruptions. The submission which such confidence requires is paid without pain, because it implies no confession of inferiority. The business from which we withdraw our cognizance is not above our abilities, but below our notice. We please our pride with the effects of our influence thus weakly exerted, and fancy ourselves placed in a higher orb, from which we regulate subordinate agents by a slight and distant superintendence. But whatever vanity or abstraction may suggest, no man can safely do that by others which might be done by himself: he that indulges negligence will quickly become ignorant of his own affairs; and he that trusts without reserve will at last be deceived. Thrasybulus had now no companion; and the maladies of increasing years having taken from him much of the power of procuring amusement for himself, he thought it necessary to procure some inferior friend who might ease him of his economical solicitudes, and divert him by cheerful conversation. All these qualities he soon recollected in Vafer, a clerk in one of the offices over which he had formerly presided. Vafer was invited to visit his old patron, and being by his station acquainted with the present modes of life, and by constant practice dexterous in busiIt is, however, impossible but that, as the at-ness, entertained him with so many novelties, tention tends strongly towards one thing, it must retire from another: and he that omits the care of domestic business, because he is engrossed by inquiries of more importance to mankind, has, at and so readily disentangled his affairs, that he was desired to resign his clerkship, and accept a liberal salary in the house of Thrasybulus. Vafer, having always lived in a state of de pass by without his notice; he neglects to cultivate his own barren soil, because he expects every moment to be placed in regions of spontaneous fertility, and is seldom roused from his delusion, but by the gripe of distress which he cannot resist, and the sense of evils which cannot be remedied. pendence, was well versed in the arts by which | and days in attendance and solicitation, the hofavour is obtained, and could, without repug-nest opportunities of improving his condition nance, or hesitation, accommodate himself to every caprice, and echo every opinion. He never doubted but to be convinced, nor attempted opposition but to flatter Thrasybulus with the pleasure of a victory. By this practice he found his way into his patron's heart; and, having first nade himself agreeable, soon became important. His insidious diligence, by which the laziness of The punishment of Tantalus in the infernal age was gratified, engrossed the management of regions affords a just image of hungry servility, affairs; and his petty offices of civility, and occa-flattered with the approach of advantage, doomed sional intercessions, persuaded the tenants to to lose it before it comes into his reach, always consider him as their friend and benefactor, and within a few days of felicity, and always sinking to entreat his enforcement of their representa- back to his former wants; tions of hard years, and his countenance, to petitions for abatement of rent. His Καὶ μὴν Τάνταλον εἰσεῖδον, χαλέπ' ἄλγε' έχοντα, Thrasybulus had now banqueted on flattery, till he could no longer bear the harshness of remonstrance or the insipidity of truth. All contrariety to his own opinion shocked him like a violation of some natural right, and all recommendation of his affairs to his own inspection was dreaded by him as a summons to torture. children were alarmed by the sudden riches of Vafer, but their complaints were heard by their father with impatience, as the result of a conspi-"I saw," says Homer's Ulysses, "the severe pu racy against his quiet, and a design to condemn him, for their own advantage, to groan out his last hours in perplexity and drudgery. The daughters retired with tears in their eyes, but the aon continued his importunities till he found his inheritance hazarded by his obstinacy. Vafer triumphed over all their efforts, and continuing to confirm himself in authority, at the death of his master purchased an estate, and bade defiance to inquiry and justice. NONE of the cruelties exercised by wealth and power upon indigence and dependance is more mischievous in its consequences, or more frequently practised with wanton negligence, than the encouragement of expectations which are never to be gratified, and the elation and depression of the heart by needless vicissitudes of hopes and disappointment. Every man is rich or poor, according to the proportion between his desires and enjoyments; any enlargement of wishes is therefore equally destructive to happiness with the diminution of possessions; and he that teaches another to long for what he never shall obtain, is no less an enemy to his quiet, than if he had robbed him of part of his patrimony. But representations thus refined exhibit no adequate idea of the guilt of pretended friendship; of artifices by which followers are attracted only to decorate the retinue of pomp, and swell the shout of popularity, and to be dismissed with contempt and ignominy, when their leader has succeeded or miscarried, when he is sick of show, and weary of noise. While a man, infatuated with the promises of greatness, wastes his hours nishment of Tantalus. In a lake, whose water approached to his lips, he stood burning with thirst, without the power to drink. Whenever he inclined his head to the stream, some deity commanded it to be dry, and the dark earth appeared at his feet. Around him lofty trees spread their fruits to view: the pear, the pomegranate, and the apple, the green olive, and the luscious fig, quivered before him, which, whenever he extended his hand to seize them, were snatched by the winds into clouds and obscurity." This image of misery was perhaps originally suggested to some poet by the conduct of his pa tron, by the daily contemplation of splendour which he never must partake, by fruitless attempts to catch at interdicted happiness, and by the sudden evanescence of his reward, when he thought his labours almost at an end. To groan with poverty, when all about him was opulence, riot, and superfluity, and to find the favours which he had long been encouraged to hope, and had long endeavoured to deserve, squandered at last on nameless ignorance, was to thirst with water flowing before him, and to see the fruits, to which his hunger was hastening, scattered by the wind. Nor can my correspondent, whatever he may have suffered, express with more justness or force the vexations of dependance. SIR, TO THE RAMBLER. I AM one of those mortals who have been courted and envied as the favourite of the great. Having often gained the prize of composition at the un versity, I began to hope that I should obtain the same distinction in every other place, and determined to forsake the profession to which I was destined by my parents, and in which the interest of my family would have procured me a very advantageous settlement. The pride of wit fluttered in my heart; and when I prepared to leave the college, nothing entered my imagination but honours, caresses, and rewards; riches without labour, and luxury without expense. I however delayed my departure for a time, to finish the performance by which I was to draw the first notice of mankind upon me. When it was completed I hurried to London, and considered every moment that passed before its publication, as lost in a kind of neutral existence, and cut off from the golden hours of happiness and fame. The piece was at last printed and disseminated by a rapid sale; I wandered from one place of concourse to another, feasted from morning to night on the repetition of my own praises, and enjoyed the various conjectures of critics, the mistaken candour of my friends, and the impotent malice of my enemies. Some had read the manuscript, and rectified its inaccuracies; others had seen it in a state so imperfect, that they could not forbear to wonder at its present excellence; some had conversed with the author at the coffee-house; and others gave hints that they had lent him money. I knew that no performance is so favourably read as that of a writer who suppresses his name, and therefore resolved to remain concealed, till those by whom literary reputation is established had given their suffrages too publicly to retract them. At length my bookseller informed me that Aurantius, the standing patron of merit, had sent inquiries after me, and invited me to his acquaintance. The time which I had long expected was now arrived. I went to Aurantius with a beating heart, for I looked upon our interview as the critical moment of my destiny. I was received with civilities, which my academic rudeness made me unable to repay; but when I had recovered from my confusion, I prosecuted the conversation with such liveliness and propriety, that I confirmed my new friend in his esteem of my abilities, and was dismissed with the utmost ardour of profession, and raptures of fondness. cerity. From that instant I gave myself up wholly to Aurantius; and as he immediately resumed his former gayety, expected every morn ing a summons to some employment of dignity and profit. One month succeeded another, and, in defiance of appearances, I still fancied myself, nearer to my wishes, and continued to dream of success and wake to disappointinent. At last the failure of my little fortune compelled me to abate the finery which I hitherto thought neces sary to the company with whom I associated, and the rank to which I should be raised. Aurantius, from the moment in which he discovered my poverty, considered me as fully in his power, and afterwards rather permitted my attendance than invited it; thought himself at liberty to refuse my visits, whenever he had other amusements within reach, and often suffered me to wait, without pretending any necessary business. When I was admitted to his table, if any man of rank equal to his own was present, he took occasion to mention my writings, and commend my ingenuity, by which he intended to apologize for the confusion of distinctions, and the improper assortment of his company; and often called upon me to entertain his friends with my productions, as a sportsman delights the squires of his neighbourhood with the curvets of his horse, or the obedience of his spaniels. To complete my mortification, it was his praotice to impose tasks upon me, by requiring me to write upon such subjects as he thought susceptible of ornament and illustration. With these extorted performances he was little satis fied, because he rarely found in them the ideas which his own imagination had suggested, and which he therefore thought more natural than mine. When the pale of ceremony is broken, rudeness and insult soon enter the breach. He now found that he might safely harass me with vexation, that he had fixed the shackles of patronage upon me, and that I could neither resist him nor tude, when the clamour of creditors was vehe ment, and my necessity known to be extreme, he offered me a small office, but hinted his expectation that I should marry a young woman with whom he had been acquainted. I was soon summoned to dine with Aurantius, who had assembled the most judicious of his friends to partake of the entertainment. Again I exerted my powers of sentiment and expres-escape. At last, in the eighth year of my servi sion, and again found every eye sparkling with delight, and every tongue silent with attention. I now become familiar at the table of Aurantius, but could never, in his most private or jocund hours, obtain more from him than general declarations of esteem, or endearments of tenderness, which included no particular promise, and therefore conferred no claim. This frigid reserve somewhat disgusted me, and when he complained of three day's absence, I took care to inform him with how much importunity of kindness I had been detained by his rival Pollio. I was not so far depressed by my calamities as o comply with this proposal; but, knowing that complaints and expostulations would but gratify his insolence, I turned away with that contempt with which I shall never want spirit to treat the wretch who can outgo the guilt of a robber without the temptation of his profit, and who lures the credulous and thoughtless to maintain the show of his levee, and the mirth of his table, at the expense of honour, happiness, and life. I am, Sir, &c. LIBERALIS. Aurantius now considered his honour as endangered by the desertion of a wit; and, lest I should bave an inclination to wander, told me that I could never find a friend more constant and zealous than himself; that indeed he had made no promises, because he hoped to surprise me with advancement, but had been silently promoting my interest, and should continue his good offices, No. 164.] SATURDAY, OCT. 12, 1751. unless he found the kindness of others more desired. If you, Mr. Rambler, have ever ventured your philosophy within the attraction of greatness, you know the force of such language introduced with a smile of gracious tenderness, and impressed at the conclusion with an air of solemn sin MART. —Vitium, Gaure, Catonis habes. Gaurus pretends to Cato's fame; And proves-by Cato's vice, his claim. DISTINCTION is so pleasing to the pride of man, that a great part of the pain and pleasure of life |