vociferation than argument, and has very little care to adjust one part of his accufation to another, to preferve decency in his language, or probability in his narratives. He has always a ftore of reproachful epithets and contemptuous appellations, ready to be produced as occafion may require, which by conftant ufe he pours out with refiftlefs volubility. If the wealth of a trader is mentioned, he without hesitation devotes him to bankruptcy; if the beauty and elegance of a lady be commended, he wonders how the town can fall in love with ruftick deformity; if a new performance of genius happens to be celebrated, he pronounces the writer a hopelefs idiot, without knowledge of books or life, and without the understanding by which it must be acquired. His exaggerations are generally without effect upon those whom he compels to hear them; and though it will fometimes happen that the timorous are awed by his violence, and the credulous mittake his confidence for knowledge, yet the opinions which he endeavours to fupprefs foon recover their former ftrength, as the trees that bend to the tempelt erect themselves again when it's force is paft. The Whisperer is more dangerous. He easily gains attention by a foft addrefs, and excites curiofity by an air of importance. As fecrets are not to be made cheap by promiscuous publication, he calls a felect audience about him, and gratifies their vanity with an appearance of truft by cominunicating his intelligence in a low voice. Of the trader he can tell, that though he feems to manage an extenfive commerce, and talks in high terms of the funds, yet his wealth is not equal to his reputation; he has lately fuffered much by an expenfive project, and had a greater fhare than is acknowledged in the rich fhip that perished by the ftorm. Of the beauty he has little to fay, but that they who fee her in a morning do not discover all thofe graces which are admired in the park. Of the writer he affirms with great certainty, that, though the excellence of the work be incontestable, he can claim but a small part of the reputation; that he owed most of the images and fentiments to a fecret friend; and that the accuracy and equality of the ftyle was produced by the fucceffive correction of the chief criticks of the age.

As every one is pleafed with imagining that he knows fomething not yet commonly divulged, fecret history eafily gains credit; but it is for the moft part believed only while it circulates in whifpers; and when once it is openly told, is openly confuted.

The most pernicious enemy is the man of Moderation. Without interest in the question, or any motive but honeft curiofity, this impartial and zealous enquirer after truth is ready to hear either fide, and always difpofed to kind interpretations and favourable opinions. He hath heard the trader's affairs reported with great variation, and after a diligent comparison of the evidence, concludes it probable that the fplendid fuperftructure of business being originally built upon a narrow bafis, has lately been found to totter: but between dilatory payment and bankruptcy there is a great diftance; many merchants have fupported themselves by expedients for a time, without any final injury to their creditors; and what is loft by one adventure may be recovered by another. He believes that a young lady pleated with admiration, and defirous to make. perfect what is already excellent, may heighten her charms by artificial improvements, but furely moft of her beauties muit be genuine, and who can fay that he is wholly what he endeavours to appear? The author he knows to be a man of diligence, who perhaps does not fparkle with the fire of Homer, but has the judgment to difcover his own deficiencies, and to fupply them by the help of others; and in his opinion modefty is a quality fo amiable and rare, that it ought to find a patron wherever it pears, and may justly be preferred by the publick fuffrage to petulant wit and oftentatious literature.

ap-.

He who thus difcovers failings with unwillinguefs, and extenuates the faults which cannot be denied, puts an end at once to doubt or vindication; his hearers repofe upon his candour and veracity, and admit the charge without allowing the excufe.

Such are the arts by which the envious, the idle, the peevith, and the thoughtless, obftruct that worth which they cannot equal; and by artifices thus eaty, fordid, and detestable, is industry defeated, beauty blafted, and genius depreffed.

that tenderness and benevolence which by the privilege of their common nature one man may claim from another.

That it would be neither wife nor equitable to discourage the husbandman, the labourer, the miner, or the fmith, is generally granted; but there is another race of beings equally obfcure and equally indigent, who, because their usefulness is lefs obvious to vulgar apprehenfions, live unrewarded and die unpitied, and who have been long expofed to infult without a defender, and to cenfure without an apologist.

The authors of London were formerly computed by Swift at feveral thoufands; and there is not any reafon for fufpecting that their number has decreafed. Of thefe only a very few can be faid to produce, or endeavour to produce, new ideas, to extend any principle of fcience, or gratify the imagination with any uncommon train of images or contexture of events; the reft, however laborious, however arrogant, can only be confidered as the drudges of the pen, the manufacturers of literature, who have fet up for authors, either with or without a regular initiation, and, like other artificers, have no other care than to deliver their tale of wares at the stated time.

It has been formerly imagined, that he who intends the entertainment or inftruction of others, mult feel in himfelf fome peculiar impulfe of genius; that he must watch the happy minute in which his natural fire is excited, in which his mind is elevated with nobler fentiments, enlightened with clearer views, and invigorated with ftronger comprehension; that he must carefully felect his thoughts and polith his expreffions; and animate his efforts with the hope of railing a monument of learning, which neither time nor envy fhall be able to destroy.

But the authors whom I am now endeavouring to recommend have been too long hackneyed in the ways of men to indulge the chimerical ambition of immortality; they have feldom any claim to the trade of writing, but that they have tried fome other without fuccefs; they perceive no particular fummons to compofition, except the found of the clock; they have no other rule than the law or the fashion for admitting their thoughts or rejecting them; and about

the opinion of pofterity they have little folicitude, for their productions are feldom intended to remain in the world longer than a week.

That fuch authors are not to be rewarded with praife is evident, since nothing can be admired when it ceases to exift; but furely, though they cannot afpire to honour, they may be exempted from ignominy, and adopted in that order of men which deferves our kindnefs, though not our reverence. These papers of the day, the Ephemeræ of learning, have ufes more adequate to the purpofes of common life than more pompous and durable volumes. If it is neceffary for every man to be more acquainted with his contemporaries than with paft generations, and to rather know the events which may immediately affect his fortune or quiet, than the revolutions of ancient kingdoms, in which he has neither poffeffions nor expectations; if it be pleafing to hear of the preferment and difmifiion of statesmen, the birth of heirs, and the marriage of beauties; the humble author of journals and gazettes must be confidered as a liberal difpenfer of beneficial knowledge,

Even the abridger, compiler, and tranflator, though their labours cannot be ranked with thofe of the diurnal hiftoriographer, yet muft not be rafhly doomed to annihilation. Every size of readers requires a genius of correspondent capacity; fome delight in abstracts and epitomes, becaufe they want room in their memory for long details, and content themfelves with effects, without enquiry after caufes; fome minds are overpowered by 1plendor of fentiment, as fome eyes are offended by a glaring light; fuch will gladly contemplate an author in an humble imitation, as we look without pain upon the fun in the

MART.

TONE of the projects or defigns

NO

which exercife the mind of man are equally fubject to obstructions and difappointments with the pursuit of fame. Riches cannot cafily be denied to them who have fomething of greater value to offer in exchange; he whofe fortune is endangered by litigation, will not refufe to augment the wealth of the lawyer; he whole days are darkened by languor, or whofe nerves are excruciated by pain, is compelled to pay tribute to the science of healing. But praife may be always omitted without inconvenience. When once a man has made celebrity neceflary to his happiness, he has put it in the power of the weakest and most timorous malignity, if not to take away his fatisfaction, at least to withhold it. His enemics may indulge their pride by airy negligence, and gratify their malice by quiet neutrality. They that could never have injured a character by invectives, may combine to annihilate it by filence; "as the women of Rome threatened to put an end to conqueft and dominion, by fupplying no children to the common wealth.

When a writer has with long toil produced a work intended to burit upon mankind with unexpected lustre, and withdraw the attention of the learned world from every other controverfy or enquiry, he is feldom contented to wait long without the enjoyment of his new praifes. With an imagination full of his own importance, he walks out, like a monarch in difguife, to learn the various opinions of his readers. Prepared to eat upon admiration; compofed to encounter cenfures without emotion; and determined not to fuffer his quiet to be injured by a fenfibility too exquilite of praise or blame, but to jaugh with equal contempt at vain ob

F. LEWIS.

jections and injudicious commendations, he enters the places of mingled converfation, fits down to his tea in an obscure corner, and while he appears to examine a file of antiquated journals, catches the converfation of the whole room. He liftens, but hears no mention of his book, and therefore fuppofes that he has disappointed his curiofity by delay; and that as men of learning would naturally begin their converfation with fuch a wonderful novelty, they had digreffed to other fubjects before his arrival. The company difperfes, and their places are fupplied by others equally ignorant, or equally careless. The fame expectation hurries him to another place, from which the fame difappointinent drives him foou away. His impatience then grows violent and tumultuous; he ranges over the town with reftlefs curiofity, and hears in one quarter of a cricket-match, in another of a pick-pocket; is told by fome of an unexpected bankruptcy, by others of a turtle-feaft; is fometimes provoked by importunate enquiries after the white bear, and fometimes with praifes of the dancing dog; he is afterwards entreated to give his judgment upon a wager about the height of the Monument; invited to fee a foot-race in the adjacent villages; defired to read a ludicrous advertisement; or confulted about the most effectual method of making enquiry after a favourite cat. The whole world is bufied in affairs, which he thinks below the notice of reasonable creatures, and which are nevertheles fufficient to withdraw all regard from his labours and his merits.

He refolves at laft to violate his own modefty, and to recal the talkers from their folly by an enquiry after himself. He finds every one provided with an anfwer; one has feen the work advertis

ed,

ed, but never met with any that had read it; another has been fo often impofed upon by fpecious titles, that he never buys a book till it's character is eftablished; a third wonders what any man can hope to produce after fo many writers of greater eminence; the next has enquired after the author, but can hear no account of him, and therefore fufpects the name to be fictitious; and another knows him to be a man condemned by indigence to write too frequently what he does not understand.

Many are the confolations with which the unhappy author endeavours to allay his vexation, and fortify his patience. He has written with too little indulgence to the understanding of common readers; he has fallen upon an age in which folid knowledge, and delicate refine ment, have given way to low merriment and idle buffoonery, and therefore no writer can hope for diftinction, who has any higher purpose than to raise laughter. He finds that his enemies, fuch as fuperiority will always raife, have been induftrious, while his performance was in the prefs, to villify and blaft it; and that the bookfeller, whom he had refolved to enrich, has rivals that obstruct the circulation of his copies. He at laft repofes upon the confideration, that the nobleft works of learning and genius have always made their way flowly against ignorance and prejudice; and that reputation, which is never to be loft, must be gradually obtained, as animals of longest life are obferved not foon to attain their full ftature and Strength.

By fuch arts of voluntary delufion does every man endeavour to conceal his own unimportance from himfelf. It is long before we are convinced of the finall proportion which every individual bears to the collective body of mankind; or learn how few can be interested in the fortune of any fingle man; how little vacancy is left in the world for any new object of attention; to how fmall extent the brightest blaze of merit can be fpread amidst the mifts of bufinefs and of folly; and how foon it is clouded by the intervention of other novelties. Not only the writer of books, but the commander of armies, and the deliverer of nations, will eafily outlive all noi and popular reputation: he may be celebrated for a time by the publick voice, but his actions and his name will foon

be confidered as remote and unaffecting, and be rarely mentioned but by thofe whofe alliance gives them fome vanity to gratify by frequent commemoration.

It feems not to be fufficiently confi dered how little renown can be admitted in the world. Mankind are kept perpetually bufy by their fears or defires, and have not more leifure from their own affairs, than to acquaint themfelves with the accidents of the current day. Engaged in contriving fome refuge from calamity, or in fhortening the way to fome new poffeffion, they feldom fuffer their thoughts to wander to the paft or future; none but a few folitary ftudents have leifure to enquire into the claims of ancient heroes or fages; and names which hoped to range over kingdoms and continents fhrink at last into cloisters or colleges.

Nor is it certain, that even of thefe dark and narrow habitations, these laft retreats of fame, the poffeffion will be long kept. Of men devoted to literature very few extend their views beyond fome particular science, and the greater part feldom enquire, even in their own profeffion, for any authors but those whom the prefent mode or study happens to force upon their notice; they defire not to fill their minds with unfashionable knowledge, but contentedly reignto oblivion those books which they now find cenfured or neglected.

The hope of fame is neceffarily connected with fuch confiderations as mut abate the ardor of confidence, and reprefs the vigour of purfuit. Whoever claims renown from any kind of excellence, expects to fill the place which is now poffeffed by another; for there are already names of every clafs fufficient to employ all that will defire to remember them; and furely he that is pushing his predeceffors into the gulph of obicurity, cannot but fometimes fufpect, that he muft himself fink in like manner, and as he ftands upon the fame precipice, be fwept away with the fame violence.

It fometimes happens, that fame begins when life is at an erd; but far the greater number of candidates for applaufe have owed their reception in the world to fome favourable cafualties, and have therefore immediately funk into neg lect, when death ftripped them of tacir cafual influence, and neither fortune nor patronage operated in their favour. Among those who have better claims to

regard,