rufticks will crowd about them; plan the laws of a new affembly; or contrive to delude provincial ignorance with a fictitious mode. A thoufand pleafing expectations fwarm in the fancy; and all the approaching weeks are filled with distinctions, honours, and authority.

But others, who have lately entered the world, or have yet had no proofs of it's inconftancy 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 vexa tion and defire extort from thofe exiled tyrants of the town, against the inexorable fun, who purfues 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 praife of ignorance, and the fubjection of weakness, are little regarded by beauties who have been accuítomed 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 contest with the ruddy milkmaid. How then must four long months be worn away? Four months, in which there will be no routs, no fhews, no ridottos; in which vifits must be regulated by the wea ther, and affemblies will depend upon the moon! The Platonifts imagine, that the future punishment of those who have in this life debafed their reafon by fubjection to their fenfes, 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 incans of appeafing them. I cannot but fufpect that this month, bright with funshine, and fragrant with perfumes; this month, which covers the meadow with verdure, and decks the gardens with all the mixtures of colorihick radiance; this month, from which the man of fancy expects new infufions of imagery, and the naturalift new scenes of obfervation; this month will chain down multitudes to the Platonick pe

nance of defire without enjoyment, and harry them from the highest fatisfactions, 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 tedioufnefs 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 would gladly find the way to rational happinefs, though it fhould be neceffary to ftruggle with habit, and abandon fashion. To thefe, many arts of spending time might be recommended, which would neither fadden the present hour with wearinefs, nor the future with repentance.

It would feem 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 midft 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 neceflary to preferve eagerness and alacrity; but art and nature have stores inexhauftible by human intellects; and every moment produces fomething new to him who has quickened his faculties by diligent obfervation.

Some ftudies, for which the country and the fummer afford peculiar opportunities, I 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 obitructions 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 meanest, and to exercife the highest, understanding. That mind will never be vacant, which is frequently recalled by ftated duties to meditations on eternal interefts; nor can any hour be long, which is fpent in obtaining fome new qualifica tion for celeftial happiness.

N° CXXV.

T is one of the maxims of the civil

HOR.

FRANCIS.

by which the comick writers attain their

Things modified by human understandings, fubject to varieties of complication, and changeable as experience advances knowledge, or accident influences caprice, are scarcely to be included in any standing form of expreffion, because they are always fuffering fome alteration of their state, 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 diffused in their relations, and the performances of art too inconftant and uncertain to be reduced to any determinate idea. It is impoffible to imprefs upon our minds an adequate and just reprefentation of an object fo great that we can never take into our view, or fo mutable that it is always changing under our eye, and has already loft it's form while we are labouring to conceive it.

Definitions have been no lefs difficult or uncertain in criticisms than in law. Imagination, a licentious and vagrant faculty, unfufceptible of limitations, and impatient of reftraint, has always endeavoured to baffle the logician, to perplex the confines of distinction, and burit the inclofures of regularity. There is therefore fcarcely any species of writing, of which we can tell what is it's effence, and what are it's confstituents; every new genius produces fome innovation, which, when invented and approved, fubverts the rules which the practice of foregoing authors had eftablished.

Comedy has been particularly unpropitious to definers; for though perhaps they might properly have contented themfelves with declaring it to be fuch a dramatick reprefentation of human life as may excite mirth, they have embarraffed their definition with the means

ous methods of exhilarating their audience, not being limited by nature, cannot be comprised in precept. Thus, fome make comedy a reprefentation of mean, and others of bad men; fome think that it's effence confifts in the unimportance, others in the fictitiousness of the tranfaction. But any man's reflections will inform him, that every dramatick compofition which raises mirth is comick; and that, to raise mirth, it is by no means univerfally necessary that the perfonages fhould be either mean or corrupt, nor always requifite that the action fhould be trivial, nor ever that it fhould be fictitious,

If the two kinds of dramatick poetry had been defined only by their effects upon the mind, fome abfurdities might have been prevented, with which the compofitions of our greateft poets are difgraced, who, for want of fome fettled ideas and accurate diftinctions, have unhappily confounded tragick with comick fentiments. They feem to have thought, that as the meannefs of perfonages conftituted comedy, their greatnefs was fufficient to form a tragedy; and that nothing was neceffary but that they should croud the scene with monarchs, and generals, and guards; and make them talk, at certain intervals, of the downfal of kingdoms, and the rout of armies. They have not con. fidered that thoughts or incidents, in themfelves ridiculous, grow ftill more grotesque by the folemnity of fuch characters; that reafon and nature are uniform and inflexible; and that what is defpicable and abfurd will not, by any affociation with fplendid titles, become rational or great; that the most important affairs, by an intermixture of an unfeafonable levity, may be made contemptible; and that the robes of royalty can give no dignity to nonfenfe or to folly.

• Comedy,

You frown, and I obey with speed, before That dreadful fentence comes, See me no

more.

In this fcene, every circumftance concurs to turn tragedy to farce. The wild abfurdity of the expedient; the contemptible fubjection of the lover; the folly of obliging him to read the letter, only because it ought to have been concealed from him; the frequent interruptions of amorous impatience; the faint expoftulations of a voluntary flave; the imperious haughtiness of a tyrant without power; the deep reflection of the yielding rebel upon fate and freewill; and his wife wifh to lofe his reafon as foon as he finds himself about to do what he cannot perfuade his reafon to approve, are furely fufficient to awaken the moft torpid rifibility.

There is fearce a tragedy of the laft century which has not debased it's most important incidents, and polluted it's

SIR,

moft ferious interlocutions with buffoonery and meannefs; but though perhaps it cannot be pretended that the prefent age has added much to the force and efficacy of the drama, it has at leaft been able to efcape many faults, which either ignorance had overlooked, or indulgence had licenfed. The later tragedies indeed have faults of another kind, perhaps more deftructive to delight, though lefs open to cenfure. That perpetual tumour of phrafe with which every thought is now expreffed by every perfonage, the paucity of adventures which regularly admits, and the unvaried equality of flowing dialogue, has taken away from our prefent writers almost all that dominion over the paffions which was the boaft of their predeceffors. Yet they may at least claim this commendation, that they avoid grofs faults, and that, if they cannot often move terror or pity, they are always careful not to provoke laughter.

TO THE RAMBLER.

MONG other topicks of conver

YOUNG.

or which might be overfet by accident, or negligence, or by the force of a fudden guft, or the rush of a larger veffel. It was his cuftom, he faid, to keep the

I was lately engaged in a difcuffion of the character given by Tranquilla of her lover Venuitulus, whom, notwithstanding the severity of his mittrefs, the greater number feemed inclined to acquit of unmanly or culpable timidity.

One of the company remarked, that prudence ought to be distinguished from fear; and, that if Venuftulus was afraid of nocturnal adventures, no man who confidered how much every avenue of the town was infeited with robbers, could think him blameable; for why fhould life be hazarded without profpect of honour or advantage? Another was of opinion, that a brave man might be afraid of croffing the river in the calmeft weather; and declared, that, for his part, while there were coaches and a bridge, he would never be seen tottering in a wooden cafe, out of which he might be thrown by any irregular agitation,

for it was a maxim with him, that no wife man ever perished by water, or was loft in the dark.

The next was humbly of opinion, that if Tranquilla had feen, like him, the cattle run roaring about the meadows in the hot months, he would not have thought meanly of her lover for not venturing his fafety among them. His neighbour then told us, that for his part, he was not ashamed to confefs, that he could not fee a rat, though it was dead, without palpitation; that he had been driven fix times out of his lodgings either by rats or mice; and that he always had a bed in the clofet for his fervant, whom he called up whenever the enemy was in motion. Another wondered that any man fhould think himself difgraced by a precipitate retreat from a dog; for there was always a poffibility that a dog might be mad; aud that furely,

though

though there was no danger but of being bit by a fierce animal, there was more wifdom in flight than conteft. By all these declarations another was en couraged to confefs, that if he had been admitted to the honour of paying his addreffes to Tranquilla, he should have been likely to incur the fame cenfure; for among all the animals upon which nature has impreffed deformity and horror, there was none whom he durft not encounter rather than a beetle.

Thus, Sir, though cowardice is univerfally defined to close and anxious an attention to perfonal safety, there will be found fcarcely any fear, however exceffive in it's degree, or unreasonable in it's object, which will be allowed to characterize a coward. Fear is a paffion which every man feels fo frequently predominant in his own breast, that he is unwilling to hear it cenfured with great afperity; and, perhaps, if we confefs the truth, the fame restraint which would hinder a man from declaiming against the frauds of any employment among those who profefs it, fhould withhold him from treating fear with contempt among human beings.

Yet fince fortitude is one of thofe virtues which the condition of our nature makes hourly neceffary, I think you cannot better direct your admonitions than against fuperfluous and panick terrors. Fear is implanted in us as a prefervative from evil; but it's duty, like that of other paffions, is not to overbear reason, but to assist it; nor should it be fuffered to tyrannize in the imagination, to raise phantoms of horror, or befet life with fupernumerary diftrefies.

To be always afraid of lofing life is, indeed, fcarcely to enjoy a life that can deferve the care of prefervation. He that once indulges idle fears will never be at reft. Our prefent flate admits only a kind of negative fecurity; we muft conclude ourfelves fafe when we fee no danger, or none adequate to our powers of oppofition. Death indeed continually hovers about us, but hovers commonly unfeen, unlefs we fharpen our fight by ufelefs curiofity.

There is always a point at which caution, however folicitous, muft limit it's preservatives, because one terror often counteracts another. I once knew one' of the fpeculatifts of cowardice, whofe reigning disturbance was the dread of houfe-breakers. His enquiries were for

nine years employed upon the best me. thod of barring a window, or a door; and many an hour has he spent in establishing the preference of a bolt to a lock. He had at last, by the daily fuperaddition of new expedients, contriveda door which could never be forced; for one bar was fecured by another with fuch intricacy of fubordination, that he was himself not always able to difengage them in the proper method. He was happy in this fortification, till being afked how he would efcape if he was threatened by fire, he discovered, that with all his care and expence, he had only been affifting his own deftruction. He then immediately tore off his bolts, and now leaves at night his outer-door half-locked, that he may not by his own folly perish in the flames.

There is one fpecies of terror which those who are unwilling to suffer the reproach of cowardice have wifely dignified with the name of antipathy. Aman who talks with intrepidity of the monfters of the wilderness while they are out of fight, will readily confefs his antipa thy to a mole, a weafel, or a frog. He has indeed no dread of harm from an infect or worm, but his antipathy turns him pale whenever they approach him. He believes that a boat will transport him with as much fafety as his neighbours, but he cannot conquer his antipathy to the water. Thus he goes on without any reproach from his own reflections, and every day multiplies antipathies, till he becomes contemptible to others, and burthenfome to himself.

It is indeed certain, that impreffions of dread may fometimes be unluckily made by objects not in themfelves juftly formidable; but when fear is discovered to be groundlefs, it is to be eradicated like other falfe opinions, and antipathies are generally fuperable by a fingle effort. He that has been taught to fhudder at a moufe, if he can perfuade himself to rifque one encounter, will find his own fuperiority, and exchange his terrors for the pride of conqueft. I am, Sir, &c.

SIR,

THRASO.

AS you profefs to extend your regard

to the minutenefs of decency, as well as to the dignity of fcience, I cannot forbear to lay before you a mode of perfecution by which I have been exiled

to