acquaintance. One ftudy is inconfiftent with a lively imagination, another with a folid judgment; one is improper in the early parts of life, another requires fo much time, that it is not to be attempted at an advanced age; one is dry and contracts the fentiments, another is diffufe and overburdens the memory; one is infufferable to tafte and delicacy, and another wears out life in the ftudy of words, and is ufclefs to a wife man, who defires only the knowledge of things. But of all the bugbears by which the Infantes barbati, boys both young and old, have been hitherto frighted from digreffing into new tracts of learning, none has been more mifchievously efficacious than an opinion that every kind of knowledge requires a peculiar genius, or mental conftitution, framed for the reception of fome ideas, and the exclufion of others; and that to him whofe genius is not adapted to the study which he profecutes, all labour fhall be vain and fruitlefs, vain as an endeavour to mingle oil and water, or, in the language of chemistry, to amalgamate bodies of heterogeneous principles. This opinion we may reasonably fufpect to have been propagated, by vanity, beyond the truth. It is natural for those who have raised a reputation by any science, to exalt themfelves as endowed by Keaven with peculiar powers, or marked out by an extraordinary defignation for their profeffion; and to fright competitors away by reprefenting the difficulties with which they muft contend, and the neceffity of qualities which are fuppofed to be not generally conferred, and which no man can know, but by experience, whether he enjoys. To this difcouragement it may be poffibly anfwered, that fince a genius, whatever it be, is like fire in the flint, only to be produced by collifion with a proper fubject, it is the business of every man to 139 to try whether his faculties may not happily co-operate with his defires; and fince they whofe proficiency he admires, knew their own force only by the event, he needs but engage in the fame undertaking, with equal fpirit, and may reasonably hope for equal fuccefs. There is another fpecies of falfe intelligence, given by those who profefs to fhew the way to the fummit of knowledge, of equal tendency to deprefs the mind with falfe diftruft of itself, and weaken it by needlefs folicitude and dejection. When a scholar, whom they defire to animate, confults them at his entrance on some new study, it is common to make flattering reprefentations of its pleafantnefs and facility. Thus they generally attain one of two ends almoft equally defireable; they either incite his induftry by elevating his hope, or produce a high opinion of their own abilities, fince they are fupposed to relate only what they have found, and to have proceeded with no lefs eafe than they promife to their followers. The ftudent, inflamed by this encouragement, fets forward in the new path, and proceeds a few fteps with great alacrity, but he foon finds afperities and intricacies of which he has not been forewarned, and imagining that none ever were fo entangled or fatigued before him, finks fuddenly into defpair, and defifts as from an expedition in which fate oppofes him. Thus his terrors are multiplied by his hopes, and he is defeated without refiftance, because he had no expectation of an enemy. Of these treacherous inftructors, the one deftroys induftry, by declaring that induftry is vain, the other by reprefenting it as needlefs; the one cuts away the root of hope, the other raises it only to be blafted. The one confines his pupil to the fhore, by telling him that his wreck is certain, the other fends him to fea, without preparing him for tempeft. Falfe Falfe hopes and falfe terrors are equally to be avoided. Every man, who proposes to grow eminent by learning, fhould carry in his mind, at once, the difficulty of excellence, and the force of indufry; and remember that fame is not conferred but as the recompence of labour, and that labour, vigorously continued, has not often failed of its reward. NUMB. 26. SATURDAY, June 14, 1750. Ingentes dominos, et claræ nomina famæ, Devita, et longè cautus fuge; contrabe vela, Each mighty lord, big with a pompous name, Mr. RAMBLER, I SENICA. ELPHINSTON, T is ufual for men, engaged in the fame pursuits, to be inquifitive after the conduct and fortune of cach other; and, therefore, I suppose it will not be unpleafing to you, to read an account of the various changes which have happened in part of a life devoted to literature. My narrative will not exhibit any great variety of events, or extraordinary revolutrons; but may, perhaps, be no lefs useful, because I fhall relate nothing which is not likely to happen to a thoufand others. I was born heir to a very small fortune, and left by my father, whom I cannot remember, to the care of an uncle. He having no children, always treated me as his fon, and finding in me thofe qualities which old men eafily difcover in fprightly chil dren, dren, when they happen to love them, declared that a genius like mine fhould never be loft for want of cultivation. He therefore placed me, for the ufuat time, at a great school, and then fent me to the univerfity, with a larger allowance than my own patrimony would have afforded, that I might not keep mean company, but learn to become my dignity when I fhould be made lord chancellor, which he often lamented, that the increase of his infirmities was very likely to preclude him from feeing. This exuberance of money difplayed itself in gayety of appearance, and wantonnefs of expence, and introduced me to the acquaintance of those whom the same superfluity of fortune betrayed to the fame licence and oftentation: Young heirs, who pleased themselves with a remark very frequent in their mouths, that though they were fent by their fathers to the university, they were not under the neceffity of living by their learning. Among men of this class I eafily obtained the reputation of a great genius, and was perfuaded that, with fuch livelinefs of imagination, and delicacy of fentiment, I fhould never be able to fubmit to the drudgery of the law. I therefore gave myself wholly to the more airy and elegant parts of learning, and was often fo much elated with my fuperiority to the youths with whom I converfed, that I began to liften, with great attention, to those that recommended to me a wider and more confpicuous theatre; and was particularly touched with an obfervation, made by one of my friends; that it was not by lingering in the university, that Prior became ambaffador, or Addifon fecretary of state. This defire was hourly increafed by the folicitation of my companions, who removing one by one to London, as the caprice of their relations allowed them, or the legal difmiffion from the hands of their guardians put it in their power, never failed to fend an an account of the beauty and felicity of the new world, and to remonftrate how much was loft by every hour's continuance in a place of retirement and constraint. My uncle in the mean time frequently harraffed me with monitory letters, which I fometimes neglected to open for a week after I received them, and generally read in a tavern with fuch comments as might fhew how much I was fuperior to inftruction or advice. I could not but wonder, how a man confined to the country, and unacquainted with the prefent fyftem of things, fhould imagine himself qualified to inftruct a rifing genius, born to give laws to the age, refine its tafte, and multiply its pleasures. The poftman, however, ftill continued to bring me new remonftrances; for my uncle was very little depreffed by the ridicule and reproach which he never heard. But men of parts have quick refentments; it was impoffible to bear his ufurpations for ever; and I refolved, once for all, to make him an example to thofe who imagine themfelves wife becaufe they are old, and to teach young men, who are too tame under representation, in what manner greybearded infolence ought to be treated. 1, therefore, one evening took my pen in hand, and, after having animated myself with a catch, wrote a general anfwer to all his precepts, with fuch vivacity of turn, fuch elegance of irony, and fuch afperity of farcafm, that I convulfed a large company with universal laughter, difturbed the neighbourhood with vociferations of applaufe, and five days afterwards was anfwered, that I must be content to live upon my own eftate. This contraction of my income gave me no difturbance, for a genius like mine was out of the reach of want. I had friends that would be proud to open their purfes at my call, and profpects of fuch ad |