The graces bf writing and conversation arc of disferent kinds, and though he who excels in one might have been with opportunities and application equally successsul in the other, yet as many please by extemporary talk, though utterly unacquainted with the more accurate method, and more laboured beauties, which compofition requires; so it is very possible that men, wholly accustomed to works of study, may be without that readiness of conception, and asfluence of language, always necessary to colloquial entertainment. They may want address to watch the hints which converfation offers for the display of their particular attainments, or they may be so much unsurnished with matter on common subjects, that discourse not prosessedly literary glides over them as heterogeneous bodies, Without admitting their conceptions to mix in the circulation. A transition from an author's book to his converfation, is too often like an entrance into a large city, aster a distant profpect. Remotely, we sec nothing but spires of temples, and turrets of palaces, and imagine it the residence of splendor, grandeur, and magnificence; but, when we have passed the gates, we find it perplexed with narrow passages, disgraced with despicable cottages, embarrassed with obstructions, and clouded with smoke. • Numb. 15. Tuesday, May 8, 1750. j£> quando uhtrior <vitiorum eopia? Quando What age so large a crop of vices bore* Or when was avarice extended more? When were the dice with more prosusion' thrown > Dryde*. THERE is no grievance, publick or private* of which, since I took upon me the office of a periodical monitor, I have received so many, or so earnest complaints, as of the predominance of play; of a fatal passion for cards and dice, which seems to have overturned, not only the ambition of excellence, but the desire of pleasure; to have extinguished the flames of the lover, as well as of the patriot; and threatens, in its surther progress, to destroy all distinctions, both of rank and sex, to crush all emulation but that of fraud, to corrupt all thofe classes of our people, whofe ancestors have, by their virtue, their industry, or their parsimony, given them the power of living in extravagance, idleness, and vice, and to leave them without knowledge, but of the modish games, and without wishes, but for lucky hands. I have found by long experience, that there are sew enterprises so hopeless as contests with the fashion, in which the opponents are not only made consident by their numbers, and strong by their union, union, but are hardened by contempt of their antagonist, whom they always look upon as a wretch of low notions, contracted views, mean conversation, and narrow sortune, who envies the elevations which he cannot reach, who would gladly imbitter the happiness which his inelegance or indigence deny him to partake, and who has no other end in his advice, than to revenge his own mortification by hindering thofe whom their birth and taste have set above him, from the enjoyment of their superiority, and bringing them down to a level with himself. Though I have never found myself much affected by this formidable censure, which I have incurred often enough to be acquainted with its sull force, yet I shall, in some measure, obviate it on this occasion, by offering very little in my own name, either of argument or intreaty, since those who suffer by this general insatuation may be supposed best able to relate its effects. S I R, r"r. HERE seems to be so little knowledge left in the world, and so little of that reflection practised, by which knowledge is to be gained, that I am in doubt, whether I shall be understood, when I complain of want of opportunity for thinking; or whether a condemnation, which at present seems irreversible, to perpetual ignorance, will raise any companion, either in you, or your readers: yet I will venture to lay my state before you, because, I believe, it is natural, to most minds, to take some pleasure in complaining ihg of evils, of which they have no reason to be ashamed. I am the daughter of a man of great fortune, whofe disfidence of mankind, and, perhaps, the pleasure of continual accumulation, incline him to reside upon his own estate, and to educate his children in his own house, where I was bred, is not with the most brilliant examples of virtue before my eyes, at least remote enough from any incitements to vice; and wanting neither leisure nor books, nor the acquaintance of some persons of learning in the neighbourhood, I endeavoured to acquire such knowledge as might most recommend me to esteem, and thought myself able to support a converfation upon most of the subjects, which my sex and condition made it proper for me to understand. I had, besides my knowledge, as my mamma and. my maid told me, a very fine face, and elegant shape, and with all these advantages had been seventeen months the reigning toast for twelve miles round, and never came to the monthly assembly, but I heard the old ladies thac fat by wishing that it might end well, and their daughters criticising my air, my seatures, or my dress. You know, Mr. Rambler, that ambition is natural to youth, and curiofity to understanding, and theresore will hear, without wonder, that I was desirous to extend my victories over thofe who might give more honour to the conqueror; and that I found in a country lise a continual re Vol. V. H petition petition of the same pleasures, which was not sufficient to fill up the mind for the present, or raise any expectations of the suture; and I will consess to you, that I was impatient for a sight of the town, and filled my thoughts with the discoveries which I should make, the triumphs that I should obtain, and the praises that I should receive. At last the time came. My aunt, whofe husband has a seat in parliament, and a place at court, buried her only child, and sent for me to supply the lofs. The hope that I should so sar insinuate myself into their savour, as to obtain a considerable augmentation of my fortune, procured me every convenience for my departure, with great expedition; and I could not, amidst all my transports, forbear some indignation to see with what readiness the natural guardians of my virtue sold me to a state, which they thought more hazardous than it really was, as soon as a new accession of fortune glittered in their eyes. Three days I was upon the road, and on the fourth morning my heart danced at the sight of London. I was set down at my aunt's, and entered upon the scene of action. I expected now, from the age and experience of my aunt, some prudential lessons; but, after the first civilities and first tears were over, was told what pity it was to have kept so fine a girl so long in the country; for the people who did not begin young, seldom dealt their cards handsomely or played them tolerably. Young |