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hope for delight; and who, till fashion proclaims the liberty of returning to the feats of mirth and elegance, must endure the rugged 'fquire, the fober housewife, the loud huntfman, or the formal parfon, the roar of obftreperous jollity, or the dulnefs of prudential instruction; without any retreat, but to the gloom of folitude, where they will yet find greater inconveniencies, and muft learn, however unwillingly, to endure themselves.

In winter, the life of the polite and gay may be faid to roll on with a ftrong and rapid current; they float along from pleasure to pleasure, without the trouble of regulating their own motions, and pursue the course of the ftream in all the felicity of inattention; content that they find themselves in progref fion, and careless whither they are going. But the months of fummer are a kind of fleeping ftagnation without wind or tide, where they are left to force themselves forward by their own labour, and to direct their paffage by their own fkill; and where, if they have not fome internal principle of activity, they must be ftranded upon fhallows, or lie torpid in a perpetual calm.

There are, indeed, fome to whom this univerfal diffolution of gay focieties affords a welcome opportunity of quitting, without difgrace, the poft which they have found themfelves unable to maintain; and of feeming to retreat only at the call of nature, from affemblies where, after a fhort triumph of uncontested fuperiority, they are overpowered by fome new intruder of fofter elegance or fprightlier vivacity. By thefe, hopeless of victory, and yet afhamed to confefs a conqueft, the fummer is regarded as a releafe from

the

the fatiguing service of celebrity, a dismission to more certain joys and a safer empire. They now folace themselves with the influence which they fhall obtain, where they have no rival to fear; and with the luftre which they fhall effufe, when nothing can be feen of brighter fplendour. They imagine, while they are preparing for their journey, the admiration with which the rufticks will crowd about them; plan the laws of a new affembly; or contrive to delude provincial ignorance with a fictitious mode. A thoufand pleasing expectations fwarm in the fancy; and all the approaching weeks are filled with diftinctions, honours, and authority.

But others, who have lately entered the world, or have yet had no proofs of its inconstancy and defertion, are cut off, by this cruel interruption, from the enjoyment of their prerogatives, and doomed to lofe four months in inactive obfcurity. Many complaints do vexation and defire extort from thofe exiled tyrants of the town, against the inexorable fun, who pursues his courfe without any regard to love or beauty; and vifits either tropick at the stated time, whether fhunned or courted, deprecated or implored.

To them who leave the places of publick refort in the full bloom of reputation, and withdraw from admiration, courtship, fubmiffion, and applause, a rural triumph can give nothing equivalent. The praise of ignorance, and the subjection of weakness, are little regarded by beauties who have been accustomed to more important conquefts, and more valuable panegyricks. Nor indeed fhould the powers which have made havock in the theatres, or borne down rivalry in courts, be degraded to a mean attack upon

the untravelled heir, or ignoble conteft with the ruddy milkmaid.

How then must four long months be worn away? Four months, in which there will be no routes, no fhews, no ridottos; in which vifits must be regulated by the weather, and affemblies will depend upon the moon! The Platonists imagine, that the future punishment of those who have in this life debased their reason by subjection to their senses, and have preferred the grofs gratifications of lewdnefs and luxury, to the pure and fublime felicity of virtue and contemplation, will arife from the predominance and folicitations of the fame appetites, in a state which can furnish no means of appeafing them. I cannot but fufpect that this month, bright with funfhine, and fragrant with perfumes; this month, which covers the meadow with verdure, and decks the gardens with all the mixtures of colorofick radiance; this month, from which the man of fancy expects new infufions of imagery, and the naturalift new fcenes of obfervation; this month will chain down multitudes to the Platonick penance of defire without enjoyment, and hurry them from the highest satisfactions, which they have yet learned to conceive, into a state of hopeless wishes and pining recollection, where the eye of vanity will look round for admiration to no purpose, and the hand of avarice fhuffle cards in a bower with ineffectual dexterity.

From the tediousness of this melancholy fufpenfion of life, I would willingly preferve those who are exposed to it, only by inexperience; who want not inclination to wisdom or virtue, though they have been diffipated by negligence, or mifled by example; and

who

who would gladly find the way to rational happiness, though it should be neceffary to ftruggle with habit, and abandon fashion. To these many arts of spending time might be recommended, which would neither fadden the present hour with wearinefs, nor the future with repentance.

It would seem impoffible to a folitary fpeculatift, that a human being can want employment. To be born in ignorance with a capacity of knowledge, and to be placed in the midst of a world filled with variety, perpetually preffing upon the fenfes and irritating curiofity, is furely a fufficient fecurity against the languishment of inattention. Novelty is indeed neceffary to preserve eagerness and alacrity; but art and nature have ftores inexhaustible by human intellects; and every moment produces fomething new to him, who has quickened his faculties by diligent obfervation.

Some studies, for which the country and the summer afford peculiar opportunities, 1 fhall perhaps endeavour to recommend in a future effay; but if there be any apprehenfion not apt to admit unaccustomed ideas, or any attention fo ftubborn and inflexible, as not easily to comply with new directions, even these obstructions cannot exclude the pleasure of application; for there is a higher and nobler employment, to which all faculties are adapted by him who gave them. The duties of religion, fincerely and regularly performed, will always be fufficient to exalt the meaneft, and to exercise the highest understanding. That mind will never be vacant, which is frequently recalled by ftated duties to meditations on eternal interests; nor can any hour be long, which is spent in obtaining fome new qualification for celeftial happiness.

NUMB. 125, TUESDAY, May 28, 1751.

IT

Defcriptas fervare vices, operumque colores,
Cur ego, fi nequeo ignoroque, poëta falutor?

But if, through weaknefs, or my want of art,
I can't to every different ftyle impart
The proper ftrokes and colours it may claim,
Why am I honour'd with a poet's name?

HOR

FRANCIS.

T is one of the maxims of the civil law, that definitions are hazardous. Things modified by human understandings, fubject to varieties of complication, and changeable as experience advances knowledge, or accident influences caprice, are fcarcely to be included in any standing form of expreffion, because they are always suffering fomè alteration of their ftate. Definition is, indeed, not the province of man; every thing is fet above or below our faculties. The works and operations of nature are too great in their extent, or too much diffufed in their relations, and the performances of art too inconstant and uncertain, to be reduced to any determinate idea. It is impoffible to impress upon our minds an adequate and juft reprefentation of an object fo great, that we can never take it into our view, or fo mutable that it is always changing under our eye, and has already loft its form while we are labouring to conceive it.

Definitions have been no lefs difficult or uncertain

in criticisms than in law. Imagination, Imagination, a licentious and vagrant faculty, unfufceptible of limitations, and

impatient

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