1 fages that are opened, and to let his paffions boil over upon those whom accident throws in his way. A painful and tedious' courfe of fickness frequently produces fuch an alarming apprehenfion of the least increase of uneafinefs, as keeps the foul perpetually on the watch, fuch a restless and inceffant folicitude, as no care or tenderness can appease, and can only be pacified by the cure of the distemper, and the removal of that pain by which it is excited. Nearly approaching to this weakness, is the captiousness of old age. When the ftrength is crushed, the fenfes dulled, and the common pleasures of life become infipid by repetition, we are willing to impute our uneafiness to caufes not wholly out of our power, and please ourselves with fancying that we fuffer by neglect, unkindness, or any evil which admits a remedy, rather than by the decays of nature, which cannot be prevented or repaired. We therefore revenge our pains upon thofe on whom we refolve to charge them; and too often drive mankind away at the time we have the greatest need of tendernefs and affiftance. But though peevishness may fometimes claim our compaffion, as the confequence or concomitant of mifery, it is very often found, where nothing can juftify or excufe its admiffion. It is frequently one of the attendants on the profperous, and is employed by infolence in exacting homage, or by ty. ranny in haraffing fubjection. It is the offspring of idleness or pride; of idlenefs anxious for trifles; or pride unwilling to endure the leaft obftruction of her wishes. Those who have long lived in folitude indeed naturally contract this unfocial quality, because, because, having long had only themfelves to pleafe, they do not readily depart from their own inclinations; their fingularities therefore are only blameable, when they have imprudently or morofely withdrawn themselves from the world; but there are others, who have, without any neceffity, nurfed up this habit in their minds, by making implicit fubmiffiveness the condition of their favour, and fuffering none to approach them, but those who never fpeak but to applaud, or move but to obey. He that gives himself up to his own fancy, and converses with none but fuch as he hires to lull him on the down of abfolute authority, to footh him with obfequioufnefs, and regale him with flattery, foon grows too flothful for the labour of conteft, too tender for the afperity of contradiction, and too delicate for the coarseness of truth; a little oppofition offends, a little restraint enrages, and a little difficulty perplexes him; having been accustomed to fee every thing give way to his humour, he foon forgets his own littleness, and expects to find the world rolling at his beck, and all mankind employed to accommodate and delight him. Tetrica had a large fortune bequeathed to her by an aunt, which made her very early independent, and placed her in a state of fuperiority to all about her. Having no fuperfluity of understanding, fhe was foon intoxicated by the flatteries of her maid, who informed her that ladies, fuch as fhe, had nothing to do but take pleasure their own way; that she wanted nothing from others, and had therefore no reason to value their opinion; that money was every thing; and that they who thought themselves C 3 ill. ill-treated, should look for better ufage among their equals. Warm with these generous fentiments, Tetrica came forth into the world, in which the endeavoured to force respect by haughtiness of mien and vehemence of language; but having neither birth, beau ty, nor wit, in any uncommon degree, fhe fuffered fuch mortifications from thofe who thought themselves at liberty to return her infults, as reduced her turbulence to cooler malignity, and taught her to practise her arts of vexation only where fhe might hope to tyrannize without refiftance. She continued from her twentieth to her fifty-fifth year to torment all her inferiors with fo much diligence, that she has formed a principle of difapprobation, and finds in every place fomething to grate her mind, and disturb her quiet. If she takes the air, fhe is offended with the heat or cold, the glare of the fun, or the gloom of the clouds; if she makes a visit, the room in which she is to be received, is too light, or too dark, or furnished with fomething which the cannot fee without averfion. Her tea is never of the right fort; the figures on the China give her difguft. Where there are children, fhe hates the gabble of brats; where there are none, fhe cannot bear a place without fome cheerfulness and rattle. If many fervants are kept in a house, fhe never fails to tell how lord Lavish was ruined by a numerous retinue; if few, fhe relates the story of a mifer that made his company wait on themselves. She quarrelled with one family, because she had an unpleasant view from their windows; with another, because the fquirrel leaped within two yards of her; and with a third, because she could not bear the noife of the parrot. Of milliners and mantua-makers fhe is the proverbial torment. She compels them to alter their work, then to unmake it, and contrive it after another fashion; then changes her mind, and likes it better as it was at firft; then will have a fmall improvement. Thus fhe proceeds till no profit can recompenfe the vexation; they at laft leave the clothes at her house, and refuse to serve her. Her maid, the only being that can endure her tyranny, profeffes to take her own course, and hear her mistress talk. Such is the confequence of peevishness; it can be borne only when it is despised. It fometimes happens that too close an attention to minute exactness, or a too rigorous habit of examining every thing by the ftandard of perfection, vitiates the temper, rather than improves the underftanding, and teaches the mind to difcern faults. with unhappy penetration. It is incident likewife to men of vigorous imagination to please themselves too much with futurities, and to fret because those expectations are difappointed, which fhould never have been formed. Knowledge and genius are often enemies to quiet, by fuggefting ideas of excellence, which men and the performances of men cannot attain. But let no man rafhly determine, that his unwillingness to be pleased is a proof of understanding, unless his fuperiority appears from lefs doubtful evidence; for though peevifhnefs may fometimes juftly boast its descent from learning or from wit, it is much oftener of a base extraction, the child of vanity and purfling of ignorance. NUMB. 75. TUESDAY, December 4, 1750. Diligitur nemo, nifi cui Fortuna fecunda eft, When smiling Fortune spreads her golden ray, SIR, To the RAMBLER. THE diligence with which you endeavour to cultivate the knowledge of nature, manners, and life, will perhaps incline you to pay fome regard to the obfervations of one who has been taught to know mankind by unwelcome information, and whofe opinions are the refult, not of folitary conjec,tures, but of practice and experience. I was born to a large fortune, and bred to the knowledge of those arts which are supposed to accomplish the mind, and adorn the perfon of a wo man. To these attainments, which cuftom and education almost forced upon me, I added fome voluntary acquifitions by the use of books, and the converfation of that fpecies of men whom the ladies generally mention with terror and ayerfion under the name of scholars, but whom I have found a harmlefs and inoffenfive order of beings, not fo much wifer than ourselves, but that they may receive as well as communicate knowledge, and more inclined to |