wealth, fuch expectations are commonly formed as no zeal or induftry can fatisfy; and what regard can he hope who has done lefs than was demanded from him? There are indeed kindneffes conferred which were never purchafed by precedent favours, and there is an affection not arifing from gratitude or grofs intereit, by which fimilar natures are attracted to each other, without profpect of any other advantage than the pleafure of exchanging fentiments, and the hope of confirming their efteem of themfelves by the approbation of each other. But this fpontaneous fondness feldom rifes at the fight of poverty, which every one regards with habitual contempt, and of which the applaufe is no more courted by vanity, than the countenance is folicited by ambition. The most generous and difinterested friendship must be refolved at laft into the love of ourfelves; he therefore whofe reputation or dignity inclines us to confider his esteem as a teftimonial of defert, will always find our hearts open to his endearments. e every day fee men of eminence fol

We

lowed with all the obfequiousness of dependance, and courted with all the blandifhments of flattery, by thofe who want nothing from them but profeffions of regard, and who think themselves liberally rewarded by a bow, a finile, or an embrace.

But those prejudices which every mind feels more or lefs in favour of riches, ought, like other opinions which only custom and example have impressed upon us, to be in time fubjected to reafon. We must learn how to feparate the real character from extraneous adhesions and cafual circumstances, to confider clofely him whom we are about to adopt or to reject; to regard his inclinations as well as his actions; to trace our those virtues which lie torpid in the heart for want of opportunity, and thofe vices that lurk unteen by the absence of temptation; that when we find worth faintly hooting in the fhades of obscurity, we. may let in light and funfhine upon it, and ripen barren volition into efficacy and power.

IT

SIR,

MART.

TO THE RAMBLER.

T is not common to envy thofe with whom we cannot easily be placed in comparifon. Every man fees without malevolence the progrets of another in the tracks of life which he has himself no defire to tread, and hears, without inclination to cavils or contradiction, the renown of those whofe diftance will not fuffer them to draw the attention of mankind from his own merit. The failor never thinks it necessary to contest the lawyer's abilities; nor would the Rambler, however jealous of his reputation, be much difturbed by the fuccefs of rival wits at Agra or Ifpahan.

We do not therefore afcribe to you

F. LEWIS.

any fuperlative degree of virtue, when we believe that we may inform you of our change of condition without danger of malignant fafcination; and that when you read of the marriage of your correfpondents Hymenæus and Tranquilla, you will join your wishes to thofe of their other friends for the happy event of an union in which caprice and selfishnefs had fo little part.

There is at leaft this reafon why we fhould be lefs deceived in our connubial hopes than many who enter into the fame ftate, that we have allowed our minds to form no unreasonable expecta tions, nor vitiated our fancies, in the foft hours of courtship, with visions of felicity which human power cannot be ftow, or of perfection which human vir3 B

tue

tue cannot attain. That impartiality with which we endeavoured to inspect the manners of all whom we have known was never so much overpowered by our paffion, but that we difcovered fome faults and weaknesses in each other; and joined our hands in conviction, that as there are advantages to be enjoyed in marriage, there are inconveniencies likewife to be endured; and that, together with confederate intellects and auxiliary virtues, we must find different opinions and oppofite inclinations.

We however flatter ourselves, for who is not flattered by himself as well as by others on the day of marriage, that we are eminently qualified to give mutual pleasure. Our birth is without any fuch remarkable difparity as can give either an opportunity of infulting the other with pompous names and fplendid alliances, or of calling in, upon any domeftick controverfy, the overbearing affiftance of powerful relations. Our fortune was equally fuitable, fo that we meet without any of thofe obligations which always produce reproach, or fufpicion of reproach, which, though they may be forgotten in the gaieties of the firft month, no delicacy will always fupprefs, or of which the fuppreffion mult be confidered as a new favour, to be repaid by tameness and submiffion, till gratitude takes the place of love, and the defire of pleafing degenerates by degrees into the fear of offending.

The fettlements caufed no delay; for we did not truft our affairs to the negociation of wretches who would have paid their court by multiplying ftipulations. Tranquilla fcorned to detain any part of her fortune from him into whofe hands the delivered up her perfon; and Hymenæus thought no act of bafenefs more criminal than his who enflaves his wife by her own generofity, who by marrying without a jointure condemns her to all the dangers of accident and caprice, and at laft boats his liberality, by granting what only the indifcretion of her kindness enabled him to withhold. He therefore received on the common terms the portion which any other woman might have brought him, and referved all the exuberance of acknowledgment for thofe excellencies which he has yet been able to difcover only in Tranquilla.

We did not pefs the weeks of courtfhip like those who confider themselves

as taking the laft draught of pleasure, and refolve not to quit the bowl without a furfeit, or who know themselves about to set happiness to hazard, and endeavour to lose their fenfe of danger in the ebriety of perpetual amusement, and whirl round the gulph before they fink. Hymenæus often repeated a medical axiom, that the fuccours of fickness ought not to be wafted in health. We know that however our eyes may yet sparkle, and our hearts bound at the prefence of each other, the time of liftleffness and fatiety, of peevishness and discontent, must come at last, in which we shall be driven for relief to fhows and recreations; that the uniformity of life muft be fometimes diverfified, and the vacuities of converfation fometimes fupplied. We rejoice in the reflection that we have ftores of novelty yet unexhaufted, which may be opened when repletion shall call for change, and gratifications yet untafted, by which life, when it thail become vapid or bitter, may be restored to it's former fweetness and sprightliness, and again irritate the appetite, and again fparkle in the cup.

Our time will probably be less tastelefs than that of those whom the authority and avarice of parents unites almoft without their confent in their early years, before they have accumulated any fund of reflection, or collected materials for mutual entertainment. Such we have often seen rifing in the morning to cards, and retiring in the afternoon to dofe, whofe happiness was celebrated by their neighbours, because they happened to grow rich by parfimony, and to be kept quiet by infenfibility, and agreed to eat and to fleep together.

We have both mingled with the world, and are therefore no ftrangers to the faults and virtues, the defigns and competitions, the hopes and fears, of our cotemporaries. We have both amufed our leifure with books, and can therefore recount the events of former times, or cite the dictates of ancient wisdom. Every occurrence furnishes us with fome hint which one or the other can improve ; and if it should happen that memory or imagination fail us, we can retire to no idle or unimproving folitude.

Though our characters, beheld at a diftance, exhibit this general refemblance, yet a nearer infpection difeovers fuch a diffimilitude of our habitudes and fentiments, as leaves each some pe

culiar advantages, and affords that concordia difcors, that fuitable difagreement which is always necessary to intellectual harmony. There may be a total diverfity of ideas which admits no participation of the fame delight, and there may likewife be fuch a conformity of notions, as leaves neither any thing to add to the decifions of the other. With fuch contrariety there can be no peace, with fuch similarity there can be no pleasure. Our reafonings, though often formed upon different views, terminate generally in the fame conclufion. Our thoughts, like rivulets iffuing from diftant fprings, are each impregnated in it's courfe with various mixtures, and tinged by infufions unknown to the other, yet at laft easily unite into one ftream, and purify themselves by the gentle effervefcence of contrary qualities.

These benefits we receive in a greater degree as we converse without referve, because we have nothing to conceal. We have no debts to be paid by imperceptible deductions from avowed expences, no habits to be indulged by the private fubferviency of a favoured fervant, no private interviews of needy relations, no intelligence with spies placed upon each other. We confidered marriage as the most folemn league of perpetual friendship, a ftate from which artifice and concealment are to be banished for

ever, and in which every act of diffimulation is a breach of faith.

The impetuous vivacity of youth, and that ardor of defire, which the first fight of pleasure naturally produces, have long ceafed to hurry us into irregularity and vehemence; and experience has fhewn us that few gratifications are too valuable to be facrificed to complaisance. We have thought it convenient to rest from the fatigue of pleasure, and now only continue that courfe of life into which we had before entered, confirmed in our choice by mutual approbation, fupported in our refolution by mutual encouragement, and affifted in our efforts by mutual exhortation.

Such, Mr. Rambler, is our prospect of life; a prospect which, as it is beheld with more attention, feems to open more extenfive happiness, and spreads by degrees into the boundless regions of eternity. But if all our prudence has been vain, and we are doomed to give one inftance more of the uncertainty of human difcernment, we fhall comfort ourselves amidst our disappointments, that we were not betrayed but by such delufions as caution could not escape, fince we fought happiness only in the arms of virtue. We are, Sir, your humble fervants,

HYMENAUS. TRANQUILLA.

PHEDRUS.

among But the kind of digut is

by no means confined to the ignorant or fuperficial; it operates uniformly and univerfally upon readers of all claffes; every man, however profound or abftracted, perceives himself irresistibly alienated by low terms; they who profefs the most zealous adherence to truth, are forced to admit that the owes part of her charms to her ornaments; and lofes much of her power over the foul, when fhe appears difgraced by a dress uncouth or ill-adjusted.

We are all offended by low terms, but are not disgusted alike by the fame com. 3 B 2 pofitions,

pofitions, because we do not all agree to cenfure the fame terms as low. No word is naturally or intrinfically meaner than another; our opinion therefore of words, as of other things arbitrarily and capriciously established, depends wholly upon accident and cuftom. The cottager thinks thofe apartments fplendid and fpacious, which an inhabitant. of palaces will defpife for their inelegance; and to him who has paffed most of his hours with the delicate and polite, many expreffions will teem fordid, which another, equally acute, may hear without offence; but a mean term never fails to displease him to whom it appears mean, as poverty is certainly and invariably defpifed, though he who is poor in the eyes of fome may by others be envied for his wealth.

Words become low by the occafions to which they are applied, or the generai character of them who afe them; and the difguft which they produce arifes, from the revival of thofe images with which they are commonly united. Thus if, in the most folemn difcourfe, a phrafe happens to occur which has been fuccesfully employed in fome ludicrous narrative, the graveft auditor finds it difficult to refrain from laughter, when they who are not prepoffeffed by the fame accidental affociation are utterly unable to guess the reafon of his merriment. Words which convey ideas of dignity in one age, are banished from elegant writing or converfation in another, because they are in time debafed by vulgar mouths, and can be no longer heard without the involuntary recollection of unpleafing images.

When Mackbeth is confirming himfelf in the honid purpofe of ftabbing his king, he breaks out amidst his emotions into a wifh natural to a murderer

--Come, thick night! And pall thee in the dunneft fmoke of hell, That my keen knife fee not the wound it makes; Nor Heav'n peep through the blanket of the dark, To cry, Hold, hold!

In this paffage is exerted all the force of poctry, that force which calls new pow. els into being, which embodies fentiment, and animates matter; yet perhaps fcarce any man now perufes it without fome difturbance of his attention

from the counteraction of the words to the ideas. What can be more dreadful than to implore the prefence of night, invefted not in common obfcurity, but in the fmoke of hell? Yet the efficacy of this invocation is destroyed by the infertion of an epithet now feldom heard but in the ftable, and dua night may come or go without any other notice than contempt.

If we start into raptures when some hero of the Iliad tells us that dopr his lance rages with eagernels to deltroy; if we are alarmed at the terror of the foldiers commanded by Cæfar to hew down the facred grove, who dreaded, fays I.ucan, left the axe aimed at the oak fhould fly back upon the striker

-Si rebora facra ferirent,

In fua credebant redituras membra fecures;

None dares with impious fteel the grove to Left on himfelf the deftin'd stroke defcend; rend,

the horrors of a wretch about to murwe cannot forely but fympathife with der his mafter, his friend, his benefacrefufe it's office, and start back from the tor, who fufpects that the weapon will breast which he is preparing to violate. Yet this fentiment is weakened by the name of an inftrument ufed by butchers and cooks in the meanest employments; we do not immediately conceive that any crime of importance is to be committed with a knife; or who does not, at laft, from the long habit of connecting a knife with fordid offices, feel aver

fion rather than terror?

Mackbeth proceeds to wifh, in the madness of guilt, that the inspection of Heaven may be intercepted, and that he may, in the involutions of infernal darknefs, efcape theeye of Providence. This is the utmost extravagance of determined wickedness; yet this is fo debased by two unfortunate words, that while I endeavour to imprefs on my reader the energy of the fentiment, I can fcarce check my rifibility, when the expreffion forces itfelf upon my mind; for who, without fome relaxation of his gravity, can hear of the avengers of guilt peeping through a blanket?

Thefe imperfections of diction are less obvious to the reader, as he is lefs acquainted with common ufages; they are therefore wholly imperceptible to a fo

reigner,

reigner, who learns our language from books, and will strike a folitary academick lefs forcibly than a mod sh lady.

Among the numerous requifites that molt concur to complete an author, few are of more importance than an early entrance into the living world. The feeds of knowledge may be planted in folitude, but must be cultivated in pub lick. Argumentation may be taught in colleges, and theories formed in retirement; but the artifice of embellishment, and the powers of a traction, can be gained only by general converfe.

An acquaintance with prevailing cuf. toms and fashionable elegance is necef fary likewife for other purposes. The injury that grand imagery fuffers from unfuitable language, perfonal merit may fear from rudeness and indelicacy. When the fuccefs of Æneas depended on the favour of the queen upon whofe coafts he was driven, his celestial pro

tect refs thought him not fufficiently fề.” cared against rejection by his piety or bravery, but decorated him for the interview with preternatural beauty. Whoever defires, for his writings or himself, what none can reasonably contemn, the favour of mankind, must add' grace to strength, and make his thoughts agreeable as well as useful. Many complain of neglect who never tried to attract regard. It cannot be expected that the patrons of fcience or virtue should be folicitous to di cover excellencies, which they who poffefs them hade and difguife. Few have abilities fo much needed by the rest of the world as to be careffed on their own terms; and he that will not cond-feend to recommend himfelf by external embellishments, muft fubmit to the fate of just sentiment meanly expreffed, and be ridiculed and forgotten before he is understood.

PERSIUS.

NATURAL hiftorians affert, that whatever is formed for long duration arrives flowly to it's maturity. Thus the firmett timber is of tardy growth, and animals generally exceed each other in longevity, in proportion to the time between their conception and

their birth.

The fame obfervation may be extended to the offspring of the mind.. Hafty compofitions, however they please at firit by flowery luxuriance, and ipread in the funfhine of temporary favour, can fel dom endure the change of feafons, but perish at the first blast of criticism, or froft of neglect. When Apelles was reproached with the paucity of his productions, and the inceffant attention with which he retouched his pieces, he condescended to make no other answer, than that be painted for perpetuity.

No vanity can more justly incur contempt and indignation than that which boats of negligence and hurry. For who can bear with patience the writer who claims fach fuperiority to the rest of his

DRYDEN.

species, as to imagine that mankind are

at leifure for attention to his extemporary fallies, and that pofterity will repofit his cafual effufions among the treasures of ancient wisdom?

Men have fometimes appeared of fuch tranfcendent abilities, that their flightest and most curfory performances exce) all. that labour and study can enable meaner intellects to compofe; as there are regions of which the fpontaneous products cannot be equalled in other foils by care and culture. But it is no lefs dangerous for any man to place himself in thisrank of understanding, and fancy that' he is born to be illuftrious without labour, than to omit the cares of husbandry, and expect from his ground the bloffoms of Arabia.

The greatest part of those who con-. gratulate themselves upon their intellectual dignity, and ufurp the privileges of genius, are men whom only themfelves would ever have marked out as enriched by uncommon liberalities of nature, or entitled to veneration and immortality

on