and we therefore eafily indulge the liberty of gratifying ourselves with a pleasing choice. To pick and cull among poffible advantages is, as the civil law terms it, in vacuum venire, to take what belongs to nobody; but it has this hazard in it, that we fhall be unwilling to quit what we have feized, though an owner should be found. It is eafy to think on that which may be gained, till at last we resolve to gain it, and to image the happiness of particular conditions till we can be easy in no other. We ought, at least, to let our defires fix upon nothing in another's power for the fake of our quiet, or in another's poffeffion for the fake of our innocence. When a man finds himself led, though by a train of honeft fentiments, to wish for that to which he has no right, he should start back as from a pitfal covered with flowers. He that fancies he fhould benefit the public more in a great station than the man that fills it, will in time imagine it an act of virtue to fupplant him; and as oppofition readily kindles into hatred, his eagernefs to do that good, to which he is not called, will betray him to crimes, which in his original scheme were never propofed. He therefore that would govern his actions by the laws of virtue, muft regulate his thoughts by those of reason; he must keep guilt from the receffes of his heart, and remember that the pleasures of fancy, and the emotions of defire, are more dangerous as they are more hidden, fince they efcape the awe of obfervation, and operate equally in every fituation, without the concurrence of external opportunities. NUMB. 9. TUESDAY, April 17, 1750. IT Quod fis effe velis, nihilque malis. MART. Chufe what you are; no other state prefer. ELPHINSTON. T is juftly remarked by Horace, that howfoever every man may complain occafionally of the hardships of his condition, he is feldom willing to change it for any other on the fame level: for whether it be that he, who follows an employment, made choice of it at firft on account of its fuitablenefs to his inclination; or that when accident, or the determination of others, have placed him in a particular station, he, by endeavouring to reconcile himself to it, gets the cuftom of viewing it only on the fairest fide; or whether every man thinks that class to which he belongs the most illuftrious, merely because he has honoured it with his name; it is certain that, whatever be the reason, most men have a very strong and active prejudice in favour of their own vocation, always working upon their minds, and influencing their behaviour. This partiality is fufficiently visible in every rank of the human species; but it exerts itself more frequently and with greater force among those who have never learned to conceal their fentiments for reasons of policy, or to model their expreffions by the laws of politeness; and therefore the chief contests of wit among artificers and handicraftsmen arise from a mutual endeavour to exalt one trade by depreciating another. From the fame principles are derived many confolations to alleviate the inconveniencies to which every calling is peculiarly expofed. A blacksmith was lately pleafing himself at his anvil, with obferving that, though his trade was hot and footy, laborious and unhealthy, yet he had the honour of living by his hammer, he got his bread like a man, and if his fon fhould rife in the world, and keep his coach, nobody could reproach him that his father was a tailor. A man, truly zealous for his fraternity, is never fo irresistibly flattered, as when fome rival calling is mentioned with contempt. Upon this principle a linen-draper boafted that he had got a new customer, whom he could fafely truft, for he could have no doubt of his honefty, fince it was known, from unqueftionable anthority, that he was now filing a bill in chancery to delay payment for the clothes which he had worn the last seven years; and he himself had heard him declare, in a publick coffee-house, that he looked upon the whole generation of woollendrapers to be fuch despicable wretches, that no gentleman ought to pay them. It has been obferved that phyficians and lawyers are no friends to religion; and many conjectures have been formed to discover the reafon of fuch a combination between men who agree in nothing elfe, and who feem lefs to be affected, in their own provinces, by religious opinions, than any other part of the community. The truth is, very few of them have thought about religion; but they have all feen a parfon ; a parfon; feen him in a habit different from their own, and therefore declared war against him. A young student from the inns of court, who has often attacked the curate of his father's parish with fuch arguments as his acquaintances could furnish, and returned to town without fuccefs, is now gone down with a refolution to deftroy him; for he has learned at laft how to manage a prig, and if he pretends to hold him again to fyllogifm, he has a catch in reserve, which neither logick nor metaphyficks can refift. I laugh to think how your unfhaken Gato The malignity of foldiers and failors against each other has been often experienced at the coft of their country; and, perhaps, no orders of men have an enmity of more acrimony, or longer continuance. When, upon our late fucceffes at fea, fome new regulations were concerted for establishing the rank of the naval commanders, a captain of foot very acutely remarked, that nothing was more abfurd than to give any honorary rewards to feamen, "for ho"nour," fays he, "ought only to be won by bra"very, and all the world knows that in a fea-fight "there is no danger, and therefore no evidence of " courage." But although this general defire of aggrandizing themselves by raising their profeffion betrays men to a thousand ridiculous and mifchievous acts of fupplantation and detraction, yet as almost all paffions have their good as well as bad effects, it like E 4 wife wife excites ingenuity, and fometimes raises an honeft and useful emulation of diligence. It may be observed in general, that no trade had ever reached the excellence to which it is now improved, had its profeffors looked upon it with the eyes of indifferent fpectators; the advances, from the firft rude effays, muft have been made by men who valued themselves for performances, for which scarce any other would be perfuaded to esteem them.. It is pleafing to contemplate a manufacture rising gradually from its firft mean ftate by the fucceffive labours of innumerable minds; to confider the first hollow trunk of an oak, in which, perhaps, the fhepherd could fcarce venture to crofs a brook fwelled with a fhower, enlarged at laft into a ship of war, attacking fortreffes, terrifying nations, fetting storms and billows at defiance, and visiting the remotest parts of the globe. And it might contribute to dispose us to a kinder regard for the labours of one another, if we were to confider from what unpromifing beginnings the most useful productions of art have probably arisen. Who, when he faw the firft fand or afhes, by a cafual intenseness of heat melted into a metalline form, rugged with excrefcences, and clouded with impurities, would have imagined, that in this fhapeless lump lay concealed fo many conveniencies of life, as would in time conftitute a great part of the happiness of the world? Yet by fome fuch fortuitous liquefaction was mankind taught to procure a body at once in a high degree folid and transparent, which might admit the light of the fun, and exclude the violence |