If he that finds himself uneasy may reasonably j by necessity, we have always the art of fixing make efforts to rid himself from vexation, all our regard upon the more pleasing images, and mankind have a sufficient plea for some degree suffer hope to dispose the lights by which we of restlessness, and the fault seems to be little look upon futurity. more than too much temerity of conclusion, in favour of something not yet experienced, and too much readiness to believe, that the misery which our own passions and appetites produce, is brought upon us by accidental causes and external efficients. The good and ill of different modes of life are sometimes so equally opposed, that perhaps no man ever yet made his choice between them upon a full conviction and adequate knowledge; and therefore fluctuation of will is not more wonderful, when they are proposed to the election, than oscillations of a beam charged with equal weights. The mind no sooner imagines itself determined by some prevalent advantage, than some convenience of equal weight is discovered on the other side, and the resolutions which are suggested by the nicest examination, are often repented as soon as they are taken. It is, indeed, frequently discovered by us, that we complained too hastily of peculiar hardships, and imagined ourselves distinguished by embarrassments, in which other classes of men are equally entangled. We often change a lighter for a greater evil, and wish ourselves restored again to the state from which we thought it desirable to be delivered. But this knowledge Eumenes, a young man of great abilities, inhethough it is easily gained by the trial, is not al- rited a large estate from a father long eminent ir ways attainable any other way; and that error conspicuous employments. His father harassed cannot justly be reproached which reason could with competitions, and perplexed with multiplinot obviate, nor prudence avoid. city of business, recommended the quiet of a priTo take a view at once distinct and compre-vate station with so much force, that Eumenes hensive of human life, with all its intricacies of combination, and varieties of connexion, is beyond the power of mortal intelligences. Of the state with which practice has not acquainted us we snatch a glimpse, we discern a point, and regulate the rest by passion and by fancy. In this inquiry every favourite prejudice, every innate desire, is busy to deceive us. We are unhappy, at least less happy than our nature seems to admit; we necessarily desire the melioration of our lot; what we desire we very reasonably seek, and what we seek we are naturally eager to believe that we have found. Our confidence is often disappointed, but our reason is not convinced, and there is no man who does not hope for something which he has not, though perhaps his wishes lie inactive, because he foresees the difficulty of attainment. As among the numerous students of Hermetic philosophy, not one appears to have desisted from the task of transmutation, from conviction of its impossibility, but from weariness of toil, or impatience of delay, a broken body, or exhausted fortune. for some years resisted every motion of ambitious wishes; but being once provoked by the sight of oppression, which he could not redress, he began to think it the duty of an honest man to enable himself to protect others, and gradually felt a desire of greatness, excited by a thousand projects of advantage to his country. His fortune placed him in the senate, his knowledge and eloquence advanced him at court, and he possessed that authority and influence which he had resolved to exert for the happiness of mankind. He now became acquainted with greatness, and was in a short time convinced, that in proportion as the power of doing well is enlarged, the temptations to do ill are multiplied and enforced. He felt himself every moment in dan ger of being either seduced or driven from his honest purposes. Sometimes a friend was to be gratified, and sometimes a rival to be crushed, by means which his conscience could not approve. Sometimes he was forced to comply with the prejudices of the public, and sometimes with the schemes of the ministry. He was by degrees wearied with perpetual struggles to unite policy and virtue, and went back to retirement as the shelter of innocence, persuaded that he could only hope to benefit mankind, by a blameless example of private virtue. Here he spent some years in tranquillity and beneficence; but finding that corruption increased and false opinions in government prevailed, he thought himself again summoned to posts of public trust, from which new evidence of his own weakness Irresolution and immutability are often the faults of men whose views are wide and whose imagination is vigorous and excursive because they cannot confine their thoughts within their own boundaries of action, but are continually ranging over all the scenes of human existence, and consequently are often apt to conceive that they fall upon new regions of pleasure, and start new possibilities of happiness. Thus they are busied with a perpetual succession of schemes, and pass their lives in alternate elation and sorrow, for want of that calm and immoveable ac-again determined him to retire. quiescence in their condition, by which men of slower understandings are fixed for ever to a certain point, or led or in the plain beaten track which their fathers and grandsires have trodden before them. Thus men may be made inconstant by virtue and by vice, by too much or too little thought; yet inconstancy, however dignified by its motives, is always to be avoided, because life allows us but a small time for inquiry and experiment, Of two conditions of life equally inviting to and he that steadily endeavours at excellence, in the prospect, that will always have the disadvan- whatever employment, will more benefit mantage which we have already tried; because the kind than he that hesitates in choosing his part evils which we have felt we cannot extenuate; till he is called to the performance. The traveland though we have, perhaps from nature, the ler that resolutely follows a rough and winding power as well of aggravating the calamity which path, will sooner reach the end of his journey we fear, as of heightening the blessing we ex-than he that is always changing his direction, pect, yet in those meditations which we indulge and wastes the hours of day-light in looking for by choice, and which are not forced upon the mind I smoother ground and shorter passages. No. 64.] SATURDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1750. Idem velle, et idem nolle, ea demum firma amicitia est. SALLUST. of good purposes and uncorrupted morals, but they are unfit for close and tender intimacies. He cannot properly be chosen for a friend, whose kindness is exhaled by its own warmth, or frozen To live in friendship is to have the same desires and the by the first blast of slander; he cannot be a use same aversions. ful counsellor who will hear no opinion but his own; he will not much invite confidence whose WHEN Socrates was building himself a house at principal maxim is to suspect; nor can the canAthens, being asked by one that observed the dour and frankness of that man be much esteemlittleness of the design, why a man so eminented, who spreads his arms to human kind, and would not have an abode more suitable to his makes every man without distinction, a denizen dignity? he replied, that he should think himself of his bosom. sufficiently accommodated if he could see that That friendship may be at once fond and lastnarrow habitation filled with real friends. Suching, there must not only be equal virtue on each was the opinion of this great master of human part, but virtue of the same kind; not only the life, concerning the infrequency of such a union same end must be proposed, but the same means of minds as might deserve the name of friendship, must be approved by both. We are often, by that among the multitudes whom vanity or curi- superficial accomplishments and accidental enosity, civility or veneration, crowded about him, dearments, induced to love those whom we canhe did not expect, that very spacious apartments not esteem; we are sometimes, by great abilities, would be necessary to contain all that should re- and incontestable evidences of virtue, compelled gard him with sincere kindness, or adhere to him to esteem those whom we cannot love. But with steady fidelity. friendship, compounded of esteem and love, derives from one its tenderness, and its permanence from the other; and therefore requires not only that its candidates should gain the judgment, but that they should attract the affections; that they should not only be firm in the day of distress, but gay in the hour of jollity; not only useful in exigences, but pleasing in familiar life; their presence should give cheerfulness as well as courage, and dispel alike the gloom of fear and of melancholy. So many qualities are indeed requisite to the possibility of friendship, and so many accidents must concur to its rise and its continuance, that the greatest part of mankind content themselves without it, and supply its place as they can, with interest and dependance. Multitudes are unqualified for a constant and warm reciprocation of benevolence, as they are incapacitated for any other elevated excellence, by perpetual attention to their interest, and unresisting subjection to their passions. Long habits may superinduce inability to deny any desire, or repress, by superior motives, the importunities of any immediate gratification, and an inveterate selfishness will imagine all advantages diminished in proportion as they are communicated. To this mutual complacency is generally requisite a uniformity of opinions, at least of those active and conspicuous principles which discriminate parties in government, and sects in religion, and which every day operate more or less on the common business of life. For though great tenderness has, perhaps, been sometimes known to continue between men eminent in contrary factions; yet such friends are to be shown rather as prodigies than examples, and it is no more proper to regulate our conduct by such instances, than to leap a precipice, because some have fallen from it and escaped with life. But not only this hateful and confirmed corruption, but many varieties of disposition, not inconsistent with common degrees of virtue, may exclude friendship from the heart. Some ardent enough in their benevolence, and defective neither in officiousness nor liberality, are mutable and uncertain, soon attracted by new objects, disgusted without offence, and alienated without en- It cannot but be extremely difficult to preserve mity. Others are soft and flexible, easily influ- private kindness in the midst of public opposi enced by reports or whispers, ready to catch tion, in which will necessarily be involved a alarms from every dubious circumstance, and to thousand incidents extending their influence to listen to every suspicion which envy and flattery conversation and privacy. Men engaged, by shall suggest, to follow the opinion of every con- moral or religious motives, in contrary parties, fident adviser, and move by the impulse of the will generally look with different eyes upon last breath. Some are impatient of contradiction, every man, and decide almost every question more willing to go wrong by their own judgment, upon different principles. When such occasions than to be indebted for a better or a safer way to of dispute happen, to comply is to betray our the sagacity of another, inclined to consider cause, and to maintain friendship by ceasing to counsel as insult, and inquiry as want of confi- deserve it; to be silent is to lose the happiness dence, and to confer their regard on no other and dignity of independence, to live in perpetual terms than unreserved submission and implicit constraint, and to desert, if not to betray: and compliance. Some are dark and involved, equal- who shall determine which of two friends shall ly careful to conceal good and bad purposes; yield, where neither believes himself mistaken, and pleased with producing effects by invisible and both confess the importance of the question? means, and showing their design only in its exe- What then remains but contradiction and decution. Others are universally communicative, bate? And from those what can be expected, but alike open to every eye, and equally profuse of acrimony, and vehemence, the insolence of tritheir own secrets and those of others, without umph, the vexation of defeat, and, in time, a the necessary vigilance of caution, or the honest weariness of contest, and an extinction of benearts of prudent integrity, ready to accuse with-volence? Exchange of endearments and inout malice, and to betray without treachery. tercourse of civility may continue, indeed, as Any of these may be useful to the community, boughs may for a while be verdant, when the and pass through the world with the reputation root is wounded: but the poison of discord is infused, and though the countenance may pre- | the last flutters of the sinking breeze, and sprinkserve its smile, the heart is hardening and con- led with dew by groves of spices; he sometimes tracting. contemplated the towering height of the oak, monarch of the hills; and sometimes caught the gentle fragrance of the primrose, eldest daughter of the spring; all his senses were gratified, and all care was banished from his heart. That man will not be long agreeable, whom we see only in times of seriousness and severity; and, therefore, to maintain the softness and serenity of benevolence, it is necessary that friends partake each other's pleasures as well as cares, and be led to the same diversions by similitude of taste This is, however, not to be considered as equally indispensable with conformity of principles, because any man may honestly, according to the precepts of Horace, resign the gratifications of taste to the humour of another, and friendship may well deserve the sacrifice of plea-sant. He did not, however, forget whither he sure, though not of conscience. Thus he went on till the sun approached his meridian, and the increasing heat preyed upon his strength; he then looked round about him for some more commodious path. He saw, on his right hand, a grove that seemed to wave in shades as a sign of invitation; he entered it, and found the coolness and verdure irresistibly plea was travelling, but found a narrow way bordered It was once confessed to me by a painter, with flowers, which appeared to have the same that no professor of his art ever loved another. direction with the main road, and was pleased This declaration is so far justified by the know- that, by this happy experiment, he had found ledge of life, as to damp the hopes of warm and means to unite pleasure with business, and to constant friendship between men whom their gain the rewards of diligence, without suffering studies have made competitors, and whom every its fatigues. He, therefore, still continued to favourer and every censurer are hourly inciting walk for a time, without the least remission of against each other. The utmost expectation his ardour, except that he was sometimes tempted that experience can warrant, is, that they should to stop by the music of the birds whom the heat forbear open hostilities and secret machinations had assembled in the shade; and sometimes and, when the whole fraternity is attacked, be amused himself with plucking the flowers that able to unite against a common foe. Some, covered the banks on either side, or the fruits however, though few, may perhaps be found, in that hung upon the branches. At last the green whom emulation has not been able to overpower path began to decline from its first tendency, and generosity, who are distinguished from lower to wind among hills and thickets, cooled with beings by nobler motives than the love of fame,fountains and murmuring with water-falls. Here and can preserve the sacred flame of friendship from the gusts of pride, and the rubbish of in terest. Obidah paused for a time, and began to consider whether it were longer safe to forsake the known and common track; but remembering that the heat was now in its greatest violence, and that the plain was dusty and uneven, he resolved to pursue the new path which he supposed only to make a few meanders, in compliance with the varieties of the ground, and to end at last in the common road. Friendship is seldom lasting but between equals, or where the superiority on one side is reduced by some equivalent advantage on the other. Benefits which cannot be repaid, and obligations which cannot be discharged, are not commonly found to increase affection; they excite gratitude, indeed, and heighten veneration; Having thus calmed his solicitude, he renewed but commonly take away that easy freedom and his pace, though he suspected that he was not familiarity of intercourse, without which, though gaining ground. This uneasiness of his mind there may be fidelity, and zeal, and admiration, inclined him to lay hold on every new object, and there cannot be friendship. Thus imperfect are give way to every sensation that might soothe all earthly blessings; the great effect of friend- or divert him. He listened to every echo, he ship is beneficence, yet by the first act of un-mounted every hill for a fresh prospect, he turned common kindness it is endangered, like plants aside to every cascade, and pleased himself with that bear their fruit and die. Yet this consider-tracing the course of a gentle river that rolled ation ought not to restrain bounty, or repress compassion; for duty is to be preferred before convenience, and he that loses part of the pleasures of friendship by his generosity, gains in its place the gratulation of his conscience. No. 65.] TUESDAY, OCT. 30, 1750. Garrit aniles Ex re fabellas. HOR. among the trees, and watered a 'arge region with innumerable circumvolutions. In these amusements the hours passed away uncounted, his deviations had perplexed his memory, and he knew not towards what point to travel. He stood pensive and confused, afraid to go forward lest he should go wrong, yet conscious that the time of loitering was now past. While he was thus tortured with uncertainty, the sky was overspread with clouds, the day vanished from before him, and a sudden tempest gathered round his head. He was now roused by his danger to a quick and painful remembrance of his folly; he OBIDAH, the son of Abensina, left the caravan- now saw how happiness is lost when ease is sary early in the morning, and pursued his jour-consulted; he lamented the unmanly impatience ney through the plains of Indostan. He was fresh and vigorous with rest; he was animated with hope; he was incited by desire; he walked swiftly forward over the valleys, and saw the hills gradually rising before him. As he passed along, his ears were delighted with the morning song of the bird of paradise, he was fanned by The cheerful sage, when solemn dictates fail, that prompted him to seek shelter in the grove, and despised the petty curiosity that led him on from trifle to trifle. While he was thus reflect ing, the air grew blacker, and a clap of thunder broke his meditation. He now resolved to do what remained yet in his power, to tread back the ground which he had passed, and try to find some issue where the wood might open into the plain. He prostrated himself on the ground, and commended his life to the Lord of nature. He rose with confidence and tranquillity, and pressed on with his sabre in his hand, for the beasts of the desert were in motion, and on every hand were heard the mingled howls of rage and fear, and ravage and expiration; all the horrors of darkness and solitude surrounded him: the winds roared in the woods, and the torrents tumbled from the hills, χείμαρροι ποταμοί, κατ' ὄρεσφι ρέοντες, Ἐς μισγάγκειαν συμβάλλετον ἔβριμον ὕδωρ, Τῶνδέ τε τηλύσε δοῦπον ἐν οὔρεσιν ἔκλυε ποιμήν. Work'd into sudden rage by wintry showers, quit the only adequate obje. rational desire We entangle ourselves in business, immerge ourselves in luxury, and rove through the labyrinths of inconstancy, till the darkness of old age begins to invade us, and disease and anxiety obstruct our way. We then look back upon our lives with horror, with sorrow, with repentance; and wish, but too often vainly wish, that we had not forsaken the ways of virtue. Happy are they, my son, who shall learn from thy example not to despair, but shall remember that though the day is past, and their strength is wasted, there yet remains one effort to be made; that reformation is never hopeless, nor sincere endeavours ever unassisted; that the wanderer may at length return after all his errors, and that he who implores strength and courage from above shalt find danger and difficulty give way before him. Go now, my son, to thy repose, commit thyself to the care of Omnipotence, and when the morning calls again to toil, begin anew thy journey and thy life." Thus forlorn and distressed, he wandered through the wild, without knowing whither he was going, or whether he was every moment drawing nearer to safety or to destruction. At length not fear but labour began to overcome him; his breath grew short, and his knees trembled, and he was on the point of lying down in resig- No. 66.] SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1750. nation to his fate, when he beheld through the brambles the glimmer of a taper. He advanced towards the light, and finding that it proceeded from the cottage of a hermit, he called humbly at the door, and obtained admission. The old man set before him such provisions as he had collected for himself, on which Obidah fed with eagerness and gratitude. -Pauci dignoscere possunt Vera bona, atque illis multum diversa, remota -How few Know their own good; or, knowing it, pursue? JUV DRYDEN. When the repast was over, "Tell me," said the THE folly of human wishes and pursuits has alhermit, "by what chance thou hast been brought ways been a standing subject of mirth and dehither; I have been now twenty years an inhabit- clamation, and has been ridiculed and lamented ant of the wilderness, in which I never saw a man from age to age; till perhaps the fruitless repebefore." Obidah then related the occurrences tition of complaints and censures may be justly of his journey, without any concealment or pal-numbered among the subjects of censure and liation. complaint. "Son," said the hermit, "let the errors and follies, the dangers and escape of this day, sink deep into thy heart. Remember, my son, that human life is the journey of a day. We rise in the morning of youth full of vigour and full of expectation; we set forward with spirit and hope, with gayety and with diligence, and travel on a while in the traight road of piety towards the mansions of rest. In a short time we remit our fervour, and endeavour to find some mitigation of our duty, and some more easy means of obtaining the same end. We then relax our vigour, and resolve no longer to be terrified with crimes at a distance, but rely upon our own constancy, and venture to approach what we resolve never to touch. We thus enter the bowers of case, and repose in the shades of security. Here the heart softens, and vigilance subsides; we are then willing to inquire whether another advance cannot be made, and whether we may not, at least, turn our eyes upon the gardens of pleasure. We approach them with scruple and hesitation; we enter them, but enter timorous and trembling, and always hope to pass through them without losing the road of virtue, which we, for awhile, keep in our sight, and to which we propose to return. But temptation succeeds temptation, and one compliance prepares us for another; we in time lose the happiness of innocence, and solace our disquiet with sensual gratifications. By degrees we let fall the remembrance of our original intention, and Some of these instructers of mankind have not contented themselves with checking the overflows of passion, and lopping the exuberance of desire, but have attempted to destroy the root as well as the branches; and not only to confine the mind within bounds, but to smooth it for ever by a dead calm. They have employed their rea son and eloquence to persuade us, that nothing is worth the wish of a wise man, have represented all earthly good and evil as indifferent, and counted among vulgar errors the dread of pain, and the love of life. It is almost always the unhappiness of a victorious disputant, to destroy his own authority by claiming too many consequences, or diffusing his proposition to an indefensible extent. When we have heated our zeal in a cause, and elated our confidence with success, we are naturally inclined to pursue the same train of reasoning to establish some collateral truth, to remove some adjacent difficulty, and to take in the whole comprehension of our system. As a prince, in the ardour of acquisition, is willing to secure his first conquest by the addition of another, adds for tress to fortress, and city to city, till despair and opportunity turn his enemies upon him, and he loses in a moment the glory of a reign. The philosophers having found an easy victory over those desires which we produce in ourselves, and which terminate in some imaginary state of happiness unknown and unattainable, proceeded to make further inroads upon the heart, and at- |jects which produce no competition, it may be tacked at last our senses and our instincts. They overlooked with some indulgence, because, howcontinued to war upon nature with arms, by ever fruitless or absurd, it cannot have ill effects which only folly could be conquered; they there- upon the morals. But most of our enjoyments fore lost the trophies of their former combats, owe their value to the peculiarity of possession, and were considered no longer with reverence and when they are rated at too high a value, give or regard. occasion to stratagems of malignity, and incite opposition, hatred, and defamation. The contest of two rural beauties for preference and distinction, is often sufficiently keen and rancorous to fill their breasts with all those passions, which are generally thought the curse only of senates, of armies, and of courts, and the rival dancers of an obscure assembly have their partisans and abettors, often not less exasperated against each other than those who are promoting the interests of rival monarchs. Yet it cannot be with justice denied, that these men have been very useful monitors, and have left many proofs of strong reason, deep penetration, and accurate attention to the affairs of life, which it is now our business to separate from the foam of a boiling imagination, and to apply judiciously to our own use. They have shown that most of the conditions of life, which raise the envy of the timorous, and rouse the ambition of the daring, are empty shows of felicity, which when they become familiar, lose their power of delighting; and that the most prosperous and exalted have very few advantages over a meaner and more obscure fortune, when their dangers and solicitudes are balanced against their equipage, their banquets, and their palaces. It is natural for every man uninstructed to murmur at his condition, because, in the general infelicity of life, he feels his own miseries, without knowing that they are common to all the rest of the species; and, therefore, though he will not be less sensible of pain by being told that others are equally tormented, he will at least be freed from the temptation of seeking, by perpetual changes, that ease which is no where to be found; and, though his disease still continues, he escapes the hazard of exasperating it by remedies. It is common to consider those whom we find infected with an unreasonable regard for trifling accomplishments, as chargeable with all the consequences of their folly, and as the authors of their own unhappiness; but perhaps, those whom we thus scorn or detest, have more claim to tenderness than has been yet allowed them. Before we permit our severity to break loose upon any fault or error, we ought surely to consider how much we have countenanced or promoted it. We see multitudes busy in the pursuit of riches, at the expense of wisdom and of virtue; but we see the rest of mankind approving their conduct, and inciting their eagerness, by paying that regard and deference to wealth, which wisdom and virtue only can deserve. We see women universally jealous of the reputation of their beauty, and frequently look with contempt on the care with which they study their complexions, endeavour to preserve, or to supply the bloom of youth, regulate every ornament, twist their hair into curls, and shade their faces from the weather. We recommend the care of their nobler part, and tell them how little addi The gratifications which affluence of wealth, extent of power, and eminence of reputation confer, must be always, by their own nature, confined to a very small number; and the life of the greater part of mankind must be lost in empty wishes and painful comparisons, were not the balm of philosophy shed upon us, and our discontent at the appearances of an unequal distribution sooth-tion is made by all their arts to the graces of the ed and appeased. It seemed, perhaps, below the dignity of the great masters of moral learning, to descend to familiar life, and caution mankind against that petty ambition, which is known among us by the name of Vanity; which yet had been an undertaking not unworthy of the longest beard, and most solemn austerity. For though the passions of little minds, acting in low stations, do not fill the world with bloodshed and devastations, or mark, by great events, the periods of time, yet they torture the breast on which they seize, in fest those that are placed within the reach of their influence, destroy private quiet and private virtue, and undermine insensibly the happiness of the world. mind. But when was it known that female goodness or knowledge was able to attract that officiousness, or inspire that ardour, which beauty produces whenever it appears? And with what hope can we endeavour to persuade the ladies that the time spent at the toilet is lost in vanity when they have every moment some new con viction, that their interest is more effectually pro moted by a riband well disposed, than by the brightest act of heroic virtue? In every instance of vanity it will be found that the blame ought to be shared among more than it generally reaches; all who exalt trifles by immoderate praise, or instigate needless emula lation by invidious incitements, are to be consi sidered as perverters of reason, and corrupters o The desire of excellence is laudable, but is the world; and since every man is obliged to very frequently ill directed. We fall, by chance, promote happiness and virtue, he should be care. into some class of mankind, and without consult-ful not to mislead unwary minds, by appearing ing nature or wisdom, resolve to gain their regard to set too high a value upon things by which no by those qualities which they happen to esteem. real excellence is conferred. I once knew a man remarkably dim-sighted, who, by conversing much with country gentlemen, found himself irresistibly determined to sylvan honours. His great ambition was to shoot flying, and he therefore spent whole days in the woods pursuing game; which, before he was near enough to see them, his approach frighted No.67.] TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1750. Αἱ δ' ἐλπίδες βόσκουσι φυγάδας ὡς λογος, EURIP |