with more attention, seems to open more exten- | finds it difficult to refrain from laughter, when sive happiness, and spreads, by degrees, into the they who are not prepossessed by the same acc boundless regions of ternity. But if all our dental association, are utterly unable to guess prudence has been vain, and we are doomed to the reason of his merriment. Words which con give one instance more of the uncertainty of vey ideas of dignity in one age, are banished from human discernment, we shall comfort ourselves elegant writing or conversation in another, beamidst our disappointments, that we were not cause they are in time debased by vulgar mouths, betrayed by such delusions as caution could not and can be no longer heard without the involunescape, since we sought happiness only in the tary recollection of unpleasing images. arms of virtue. We are, Sir, Your humble servants, HYMEN ÆUS, TRANQUILLA. No. 168.] SATURDAY, OCT. 26, 1751. -Decipit Frons prima multos, rara mens intelligit Quod interiore condidit cura angulo. The tinsel glitter, and the specious mien, Delude the most; few pry behind the scene. When Macbeth is confirming himself in the horrid purpose of stabbing his king, he breaks out amidst his emotions into a wish natural for a murderer: -Come, thick night! And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, That my keen knife see not the wound it makes; PHEDRUS. In this passage is exerted all the force of poetry, IT has been observed by Boileau, that "a mean or common thought, expressed in pompous diction, generally pleases more than a new or noble sentiment delivered in low and vulgar language; because the number is greater of those whom custom has enabled to judge of words, than whom study has qualified to examine things." This solution might satisfy, if such only were offended with meanness of expression as are unable to distinguish propriety of thought, and to separate propositions or images from the vehicles by which they are conveyed to the understanding. But this kind of disgust is by no means confined to the ignorant or superficial; it operates uniformly and universally upon readers of all classes; every man, however profound or abstracted, perceives himself irresistibly alienated by low terms; they who profess the most zealous adherence to truth are forced to admit that she owes part of her charms to her ornaments; and loses much of her power over the soul when she appears disgraced by a dress uncouth or ill-adjusted. We are all offended by low terms, but are not disgusted alike by the same compositions, because we do not all agree to censure the same terms as low. No word is naturally or intrinsically meaner than another; our opinion therefore of words, as of other things arbitrarily and capriciously established, depends wholly upon accident and custom. The cottager thinks those apartments splendid and spacious, which an inhabitant of palaces will despise for their inelegance; and to him who has passed most of his hours with the delicate and polite, many expressions will seem sordid, which another, equally acute, may hear without offence; but a mean term never fails to displease him to whom it appears mean, as poverty is certainly and invariably despised, though he who is poor in the eyes of some, may, by others, be envied for his wealth. Words become low by the occasions to which they are applied, or the general character of them who use them; and the disgust which they produce arises from the revival of those images with which they are commonly united. Thus, if, in the most solemn discourse, a phrase happens to occur which has been successfully employed in some ludicrous narrative, the gravest auditor If we start into raptures when some hero of the Iliad tells us that dópu palverat, his lance rages with eagerness to destroy; if we are alarmed at the terror of the soldiers commanded by Cæsar to hew down the sacred grove, who dreaded, says Lucan, lest the axe aimed at the oak should fly back upon the striker: Si robora sacra ferirent, In sua credebant redituras membra secures, None dares with impious steel the grove to rend we cannot surely but sympathise with the hor rors of a wretch about to murder his master, his friend, his benefactor, who suspects that the weapon will refuse its office, and start back from the breast which he is preparing to violate. Yet this sentiment is weakened by the name of an instrument used by butchers and cooks in the meanest employments; we do not immediately conceive that any crime of importance is to be committed with a knife; or who does not, at last, from the long habit of connecting a knife with sordid offices, feel aversion rather than terror? Macbeth proceeds to wish, in the madness of guilt, that the inspection of Heaven may be intercepted, and that he may in the involutions of infernal darkness, escape the eye of Providence. This is the utmost extravagance of determined wickedness: yet this is so debased by two unfor tunate words, that while I endeavour to impress on my reader the energy of the sentiment, I can scarcely check my risibility, when the expression forces itself upon my mind; for who, without some relaxation of his gravity, can hear of the avengers of guilt peeping through a blanket? These imperfections of diction are less obviousto the reader, as he is less acquainted with common usages; they are therefore wholly imperceptible to a foreigner, who learns our language from Men have sometimes appeared of such tranbooks, and will strike a solitary academic less | scendant abilities, that their slightest and most forcibly than a modish lady. cursory performances excel all that labour and Among the numerous requisites that most con- study can enable meaner intellects to compose; cur to complete an author, few are of more im- as there are regions of which the spontaneous Dortance than an early entrance into the living products cannot be equalled in other soils by care world. The seeds of knowledge may be planted and culture. But it is no less dangerous for any in solitude, but must be cultivated in public. Ar- man to place himself in this rank of understandgumentation may be taught in colleges, and theo-ing, and fancy that he is born to be illustrious ries formed in retirement; but the artifice of embellishment, and the powers of attraction, can be gained only by general converse. without labour, than to omit the cares of hus bandry, and expect from his ground the blos soms of Arabia. An acquaintance with prevailing customs and The greatest part of those who congratulate fashionable elegance is necessary likewise for themselves upon their intellectual dignity, and other purposes. The injury that grand imagery usurp the privileges of genius are men whom suffers from unsuitable language, personal merit | only themselves would ever have marked out as may fear from rudeness and indelicacy. When enriched by uncommon liberalities of nature, or the success of Eneas depended on the favour of entitled to veneration and immortality on easy the queen upon whose coasts he was driven, his terms. This ardour of confidence is usually found celestial protectress thought him not sufficiently among those who, having not enlarged their no. secured against rejection by his piety or bravery, tions by books or conversation, are persuaded by but decorated him for the interview with preter- the partiality which we all feel in our own fanatural beauty. Whoever desires, for his writ-vour, that they have reached the summit of exings or himself, what none can reasonably con- cellence, because they discover none higher temn, the favour of mankind, must add grace to than themselves; and who acquiesce in the first strength, and make his thoughts agreeable as thoughts that occur, because their scantiness of well as useful. Many complain of neglect who knowledge allows them little choice; and the never tried to attract regard. It cannot be ex- narrowness of their views affords them no pected that the patrons of science or virtue should glimpse of perfection, of that sublime idea which be solicitous to discover excellences, which they human industry has from the first ages been who possess them shade and disguise. Few have vainly toiling to approach. They see a little, abilities so much needed by the rest of the world and believe that there is nothing beyond their as to be caressed on their own terms; and he sphere of vision, as the Patuecos of Spain, who that will not condescend to recommend himself inhabited a small valley, conceived the surroundby external embellishments, must submit to the ing mountains to be the boundaries of the world. fate of just sentiments meanly expressed, and be In proportion as perfection is more distinctly ridiculed and forgotten before he is understood. conceived, the pleasure of contemplating our own performances will be lessened; it may therefore be observed, that they who most deserve praise are often afraid to decide in favour of their own performances; they know how much is still wanting to their completion, and wait with anxiety and terror the determination of the public. "I please every one else," says Tully, "but ne ver satisfy myself." No 169.] TUESDAY, OCT. 29, 1751. PERSIUS. No blood from bitten nails those poems drew; DRYDEN. It has often been inquired, why, notwithstanding the advances of latter ages in science, and NATURAL historians assert that whatever is form- the assistance which the infusion of so many new ed for long duration arrives slowly to its maturity. ideas has given us, we still fall below the ancients Thus the firmest timber is of tardy growth, and in the art of composition. Some part of their animals generally exceed each other in longevi-superiority may be justly ascribed to the graces ty, in proportion to the time between their conception and their birth. of their language, from which the most polished of the present European tongues are nothing The same observation may be extended to the more than barbarous degenerations. Some adoffspring of the mind. Hasty compositions, how-vantage they might gain merely by priority, ever they please at first by flowery luxuriance, which put them in possession of the most natural and spread in the sunshine of temporary favour, sentiments, and left us nothing but servile repecan seldom endure the change of seasons, but tition or forced conceits. But the greater part of perish at the first blast of criticism, or frost of their praise seems to have been the just reward neglect. When Apelles was reproached with the of modesty and labour. Their sense of human paucity of his productions, and the incessant at-weakness confined them commonly to one study, tention with which he retouched his pieces, he condescended to make no other answer than that he painted for perpetuity. No vanity can more justly incur contempt and indignation than that which boasts of negligence and hurry. For who can bear with patience the writer who claims such superiority to the rest of his species, as to imagine that mankind are at leisure for attention to his extemporary sallies, and that posterity will reposit his casual effusions among the treasures of ancient wisdom? which their knowledge of the extent of every science engaged them to prosecute with indefatigable diligence. Among the writers of antiquity I remember none except Statius who ventures to mention the speedy production of his writings either as an extenuation of his faults, or a proof of his facility. Nor did Statius, when he considered himself as a candidate for lasting reputation, think a closer attention unnecessary, but amidst all his pride and indigence, the two great hasteners of modern poems, employed twelve years upon the The- | ambiguity, while only one sense is present to his baid, and thinks his claim to renown proportion-mind. Yet if he has been employed on an abate to his labour. Thebais, multa cruciata lima, Polished with endless toil, my lays At length aspire to Mantuan praise. Ovid indeed apologizes in his banishment for the imperfection of his letters, but mentions his want of leisure to polish them, as an addition to his calamities; and was so far from imagining revisals and corrections unnecessary, that at his departure from Rome he threw his Metamorphoses into the fire, lest he should be disgraced by a book which he could not hope to finish. It seems not often to have happened that the same writer aspired to reputation in verse and prose; and of those few that attempted such diversity of excellence, I know not that even one succeeded. Contrary characters they never imagined a single mind able to support, and therefore no man is recorded to have undertaken more than one kind of dramatic poetry. What they had written, they did not venture in their first fondness to thrust into the world, but, considering the impropriety of sending forth inconsiderately that which cannot be recalled, deferred the publication, if not nine years, according to the direction of Horace, yet till their fancy was cooled after the raptures of invention and the glare of novelty had ceased to dazzle the judgment. There were in those days no weekly or diurnal writers; multa dies, et multa litura, much time, and many rasures, were considered as indispensable requisites; and that no other method of attaining lasting praise has been yet discovered, may be conjectured from the blotted manuscripts of Milton now remaining, and from the tardy emission of Pope's compositions, delayed more than once till the incidents to which they alluded were forgotten, till his enemies were secure from his satire, and, what to an honest mind must be more painful, his friends were deaf to his encomiums. struse or complicated argument, he will find, when he has a while withdrawn his mind, and returns as a new reader to his work, that he has only a conjectural glimpse of his own meaning, and that to explain it to those whom he desires to instruct, he must open his sentiments, disen tangle his method, and alter his arrangement. Authors and lovers always suffer some infatuation, from which only absence can set them free; and every man ought to restore himself to that which he cannot do improperly, without in the full exercise of his judgment, before he does juring his honour and his quiet. I AM one of those beings from whom many, that melt at the sight of all other misery, think it meritorious to withhold relief; one whom the rigour of virtuous indignation dooms to suffer without complaint, and perish without regard; and whom I myself have formerly insulted in the pride of reputation and security of innocence. I am of a good family, but my father was bur dened with more children than he could decently support. A wealthy relation, as he travelled from London to his country-seat, condescending to make him a visit, was touched with compassion of his narrow fortune, and resolved to ease him of part of his charge, by taking the care of a child upon himself. Distress on one side, and ambition on the other, were too powerful for parental fondness, and the little family passed in review before him, that he might make his choice. I was then ten years old, and, without knowing for what purpose, I was called to my great cousin, endeavoured to recommend myself by my best courtesy, sung him my prettiest song, told the last story that I had read, and so much To him, whose eagerness of praise hurries his endeared myself by my innocence, that he deproductions soon into the light, many imperfec-clared his resolution to adopt me, and to educate tions are unavoidable, even where the mind fur-me with his own daughters. nishes the materials, as well as regulates their disposition, and nothing depends upon search or information. Delay opens new veins of thought, the subject dismissed for a time appears with a new train of dependent images, the accidents of reading or conversation supply new ornaments or allusions, or mere intermission of the fatigue of thinking enables the mind to collect new force, and make new excursions. But all those benefits come too late for him, who, when he was weary with labour, snatched at the recompense, and gave his work to his friends and his enemies as soon as impatience and pride persuaded him to conclude it. My parents felt the common struggles at the thought of parting, and some natural tears they dropp'd, but wiped them soon. They considered, not without that false estimation of the value of wealth which poverty long continued always produces, that I was raised to higher rank than they could give me, and to hopes of more ample fortune than they could bequeath. My mother sold some of her ornaments to dress me in such a manner as might secure me from contempt at my first arrival; and, when she dismissed me, pressed me to her bosom with an embrace that I still feel, gave me some precepts of piety, which, however neglected, I have not forgotten, and utOne of the most pernicious effects of haste is tered prayers for my final happiness, of which I obscurity. He that teems with a quick succes-have not yet ceased to hope that they will at last sion of ideas, and perceives how one sentiment be granted. produces another, easily believes that he can My sisters envied my new finery, and seemed clearly express what he so strongly compre-not much to regret our separation; my father hends; he seldom suspects his thoughts of embarrassment, while he preserves in his own memory the series of connexion, or his diction of conducted me to the stage-coach with a kind of cheerful tenderness; and in a very short time J was transported to splendid apartments, and a luxurious table, and grew familiar to show, noise, | relation, and the submission which he exacted and gayety. as my benefactor, to complete the ruin of an orIn three years my mother died, having im-phan, whom his own promises had made indiplored a blessing on her family with her last gent, whom his indulgence had melted, and his breath. I had little opportunity to indulge a authority subdued. sorrow which there was none to partake with me, and therefore soon ceased to reflect much upon my loss. My father turned all his care upon his other children, whom some fortunate adventures and unexpected legacies enabled him, when he died four years after my mother, to leave in a condition above their expectations. I should have shared the increase of his fortune, and had once a fortune assigned me in his will; but my cousin assuring him that all care for me was needless, since he had resolved to place me happily in the world, directed him to divide my part amongst my sisters. Thus I was thrown upon dependance without resource. Being now at an age in which young women are initiated into company, I was no longer to be supported in my former character but at considerable expense; so that partly lest I should waste money, and partly lest my appearance might draw too many compliments and assiduities, I was insensibly degraded from my equality, and enjoyed few privileges above the head servant but that of receiving no wages. know not why it should afford subject of exultation, to overpower on any terms the resolution, or surprise the caution of a girl; but of all the boasters that deck themselves in the spoils of innocence and beauty, they surely have the least pretensions to triumph, who submit to owe their success to some casual influence. They neither employ the graces of fancy, nor the force of understanding, in their attempts; they cannot please their vanity with the art of their approaches, the delicacy of their adulations, the elegance of their address, or the efficacy of their cloquence; nor applaud themselves as possessed of any qualities by which affection is attracted. They surmount no obstacles, they defeat no rivals, but attack only those who cannot resist, and are often content to possess the body, without any solicitude to gain the heart. Many of these despicable wretches does my present acquaintance with infamy and wickedness enable me to number among the heroes of debauchery; reptiles whom their own servants would have despised, had they not been their I felt every indignity, but knew that resent- servants, and with whom beggary would have ment would precipitate my fall. I therefore en- disdained intercourse, had she not been allured deavoured to continue my importance by little by hopes of relief. Many of the beings which services and active officiousness, and, for a time, are now rioting in taverns, or shivering in the preserved myself from neglect, by withdrawing streets, have been corrupted, not by arts of galall pretences to competition, and studying to lantry which stole gradually upon the affections please rather than to shine. But my interest, and laid prudence asleep, but by the fear of losing notwithstanding this expedient, hourly declined, benefits which were never intended, or of incurand my cousin's favourite maid began to ex-ring resentment which they could not escape; change repartees with me, and consult me about alterations of a cast gown. I was now completely depressed; and though I had seen mankind enough to know the necessity of outward cheerfulness, I often withdrew to my chamber to vent my grief, or turn my condition in my mind, and examine by what means I might escape from perpetual mortification. At last my schemes and sorrows were interrupted by a sudden change of my relation's behaviour, who one day took an occasion, when we were left together in a room, to bid me suffer myself no longer to be insulted, but assume the place which he always intended me to hold in the family. He assured me that his wife's preference of her own daughters should never hurt me; and, accompanying his professions with a purse of gold, ordered me to bespeak a rich suit at the mercer's, and to apply privately to him for money when I wanted it, and insinuate that my other friends supplied me, which he would take care to confirm. some have been frighted by masters, and some awed by guardians into ruin. Our crime had its usual consequence, and he soon perceived that I could not long continue in his family. I was distracted at the thought of the reproach which I now believed inevitable. He comforted me with hopes of eluding all discovery, and often upbraided me with the anxiety which perhaps none but himself saw in my countenance; but at last mingled his assurances of protection and maintenence with menaces of total desertion, if, in the moments of perturbation, I should suffer his secret to escape, or endeavour to throw on him any part of my infamy. Thus passed the dismal hours, till my retreat could no longer be delayed. It was pretended that my relations had sent for me to a distant country, and I entered upon a state which shall be described in my next letter. I am, Sir, &c. MISELLA. -Tadet cali convexa tueri. VIRG. By this stratagem, which I did not then understand, he filled me with tenderness and grati- No. 171.] TUESDAY, Nov. 5, 1751. tude, compelled me to repose on him as my only support, and produced a necessity of private conversation. He often appointed interviews at the house of an acquaintance, and sometimes called on me with a coach, and carried me abroad. TO THE RAMBLER. My sense of his favour, and the desire of retain- SIR, ing it, disposed me to unlimited complaisance, MISELLA now sits down to continue her narraand, though I saw his kindness grow every day tive. I am convinced that nothing would more more fond, I did not suffer any suspicion to enter powerfully preserve youth from irregularity, or my thoughts. At last the wretch took advan-guard inexperience from seduction, than a just. tage of the familiarity which he enjoyed as my description of the condition into which the wan ton plunges herself, and therefore hope that my; my speedy return, and was therefore outrage letter may be a sufficient antidote to my example. ously impatient of his delays, which I now perceived to be only artifices of lewdnces He told me at last, with an appearance of sorrow, that all hopes of restoration to my former state were for ever precluded; that chance had discovered my secret, and malice divulged it; and that nothing now remained, but to seek a retreat more private, where curiosity or hatred could never find us. The rage, anguish, and resentment, which I felt at this account are not to be expressed. I After the distraction, hesitation, and delays which the timidity of guilt naturally produces, I was removed to lodgings in a distant part of the town, under one of the characters commonly as sumed upon such occasions. Here being by my circumstances condemned to solitude, I passed most of my hours in bitterness and anguish. The conversation of the people with whom I was placed was not at all capable of engaging my at-was in so much dread of reproach and infamy, tention, or dispossessing the reigning ideas. The books which I carried to my retreat were such as heightened my abhorrence of myself; for I was not so far abandoned as to sink voluntarily into corruption, or endeavour to conceal from my own mind the enormity of my crime. which he represented as pursuing me with full cry, that I yielded myself implicitly to his disposal, and was removed, with a thousand studied precautions, through by-ways and dark passages to another house, where I harassed him with perpetual solicitations for a small annuity that might enable me to live in the country in obscurity and innocence. My relation remitted none of his fondness, but visited me so often, that I was sometimes afraid lest his assiduity should expose him to suspicion. This demand he at first evaded with ardent Whenever he came he found me weeping, and professions, but in time appeared offended at my was therefore less delightfully entertained than importunity and distrust; and having one day enhe expected. After frequent expostulations upon deavoured to soothe me with uncommon expresthe unreasonableness of my sorrow, and innume-sions of tenderness, when he found my discontent rable protestations of everlasting regard, he at immoveable, left me with some inarticulate murlast found that I was more affected with the loss murs of anger. I was pleased that he was at of my innocence than the danger of my fame, last roused to sensibility, and expecting that at and, that he might not be disturbed by my remorse, his next visit he would comply with my request, began to lull my conscience with the opiates of lived with great tranquillity upon the money in irreligion. His arguments were such as my my hands, and was so much pleased with this course of life has since exposed me often to the pause of persecution, that I did not reflect how necessity of hearing, vulgar, empty, and falla- much his absence had exceeded the usual intercious; yet they at first confounded me by their vals, till I was alarmed with the danger of wantnovelty, filled me with doubt and perplexity, and ing subsistence. I then suddenly contracted my interrupted that peace which I began to feel from expenses, but was unwilling to supplicate for asthe sincerity of my repentance, without substi- sistance. Necessity, however, soon overcame tuting any other support. I listened awhile to my modesty or my pride, and I applied to him his impious gabble; but its influence was soon by letter, but had no answer. I writ in terms overpowered by natural reason and early educa- more pressing, but without effect. I then sent tion, and the convictions which this new attempt an agent to inquire after him, who informed me, gave me of his baseness completed my abhor- that he had quitted his house, and was gone with rence. I have heard of barbarians, who, when his family to reside for some time upon his estate tempests drive ships upon their coast, decoy them in Ireland. to the rocks that they may plunder their lading -and have always thought that wretches, thus merciless in their depredations, ought to be destroyed by a general insurrection of all social beings; yet, how light is this guilt to the crime of him, who, in the agitations of remorse, cuts away the anchor of piety, and, when he has drawn aside credulity from the paths of virtue, hides the light of heaven which would direct her to return! I had hitherto considered him as a man equally betrayed with myself by the concurrence of appetite and opportunity; but I now saw with horror that he was contriving to perpetuate his gratification, and was desirous to fit me to his purpose, by complete and radical corruption. To escape, however, was not yet in any power. I could support the expenses of my condition, only by the continuance of his favour. He provided all that was necessary, and in a few weeks congratulated me upon my escape from the danger which we had both expected with so much anxiety. Ithen began to remind him of his promise to restore me with my fame uninjured to the world. He promised me in general terms, that nothing should be wanting which his power could add to my happiness, but forebore to release me from my confinement. I knew how much my reception in the world depended upon However shocked at this abrupt departure, I was yet unwilling to believe that he could wholly abandon me, and therefore, by the sale of my clothes, I supported myself, expecting that every post would bring me relief. Thus I passed seven months between hope and dejection, in a gradual approach to poverty and distress, emaciated with discontent, and bewildered with uncertainty. At last, my landlady, after many hints of the necessity of a new lover, took the opportunity of my absence to search my boxes, and, missing some of my apparel, seized the remainder for rent, and led me to the door. To remonstrate against legal cruelty was vain: to supplicate obdurate brutality was hopeless. I went away I knew not whither, and wandered about without any settled purpose, unacquainted with the usual expedients of misery, unqualified for laborious offices, afraid to meet an eye that had seen me before, and hopeless of relief from those who were strangers to my former condition, Night came on in the midst of my distraction, and I still continued to wander till the me naces of the watch obliged me to shelter myself in a covered passage. Next day, I procured a lodging in the backward garret of a mean house, and employed my landlady to inquire for a service. My applica |