may sometimes be stimulated to vigour and activity. He may descend into profoundness, or tower into sublimity; for the diligence of an Idler is rapid and impetuous, as ponderous bodies forced into velocity move with violence proportionate to their weight.

But these vehement exertions of intellect cannot be frequent, and he will therefore gladly receive help from any correspondent, who shall enable him to please without his own labour. He excludes no style, he prohibits no subject; only let him that writes to the Idler remember, that his letters must not be long: no words are to be squandered in declaration of esteem, or confessions of inability; conscious dullness has little right to be prolix, and praise is not so welcome to the Idler as quiet.

MANY positions are often on the tongue, and seldom in the mind; there are many truths which every human being acknowledges and forgets. It is generally known, that he who expects much will he often disappointed; yet disappointment seldom cures us of expectation, or has any other effect than that of producing a moral sentence, or peevish exclamation. He that embarks in the voyage of life, will always wish to advance rather by the impulse of the wind, than the strokes of the oar; and many founder in the passage, while they lie waiting for the gale that is to waft them to their wish. It will naturally be suspected that the Idler has lately suffered some disappointment, and that he does not talk thus gravely for nothing. No man is required to betray his own secrets. I will, however, confess, that I have now been a writer almost a week, and have not yet heard a single word of praise, nor received one hint from any correspondent.

thrasher vociferates his heroics in the barn; when our traders deal out knowledge in bulky volumes, and our girls forsake their samplers to teach kingdoms wisdom, it may seem very unnecessary to draw any more from their proper occupations, by affording new opportunities of literary fame.

I should be, indeed, unwilling to find that, for the sake of corresponding with the Idler, the smith's iron had cooled on the anvil, or the spinster's distaff stood unemployed. I solicit only the contributions of those who have already devoted themselves to literature, or, without any determinate intention, wander at large through the expanse of life, and wear out the day in hearing at one place what they utter at

another.

Of these the great part are already writers. One has a friend in the country upon whom he exercises his powers; whose passions he raises and depresses; whose understanding he perplexes with paradoxes, or strengthens by argu ment; whose admiration he courts, whose praises he enjoys; and who serves him instead of a senate or a theatre; As the young soldiers in the Roman camp learned the use of their weapons by fencing against a post in the place of an enemy.

Another has his pockets filled with essays and epigrams which he reads from house to house, to select parties, and which his acquaintances are daily entreating him to with hold no longer from the impatience of the public.

If among these any one is persuaded that, by such preludes of composition, he has qualified himself to appear in the open world, and is yet afraid of those censures which they who have already written, and they who cannot write, are equally ready to fulminate against public pretenders to fame, he may, by transmitting his performances to the Idler, make a cheap experiment of his abilities, and enjoy the pleasure of success, without the hazard of miscarriage.

Whence this negligence proceeds I am not able to discover. Many of my predecessors Many advantages not generally known arise have thought themselves obliged to return their from this method of stealing on the public. acknowledgments in the second paper, for the The standing author of the paper is always the kind reception of the first, and in a short time object of critical malignity. Whatever is mean apologies have become necessary to those inge- will be imputed to him, and whatever is excelnious gentlemen and ladies whose performan- lent be ascribed to his assistants. It does not ces, though in the highest degree elegant and much alter the event, that the author and his learned, have been unavoidably delayed. correspondents are equally unknown; for the What then will be thought of me, who hav-author, whoever he be, is an individual, of ing experienced no kindness, have no thanks to return; whom no gentleman or lady has yet enabled to give any cause of discontent, and who have, therefore, no opportunity of showing how skilfully I can pacify resentment, extenuate negligence, or palliate rejection ?

I have long known that splendour of reputation is not to be counted among the necessaries of life, and therefore shall not much repine if praise be withheld till it is better deserved. But surely I may be allowed to complain that, in a nation of authors, not one has thought me worthy of notice after so fair an invitation.

At the time when the rage of writing had seized the old and the young, when the cook warbles her lyrics in the kitchen, and the

whom every reader has some fixed idea, and whom he is, therefore, unwilling to gratify with applause; but the praises given to his correspondents are scattered in the air, none can tell on whom they will light, and therefore none are unwilling to bestow them.

He that is known to contribute to a periodi cal work, needs no other caution than not to tell what particular pieces are his own; such secre cy is, indeed, very difficult; but if it can be maintained, it is scarcely to be imagined at how small an expense he may grow considerable.

A person of quality, by a single paper, may engross the honour of a volume. Fame is, in deed, dealt with a hand less and less bounteous through the subordinate ranks, till it descends

to the professed author, who will find it very difficult to get more than he deserves; but every man who does not want it, or who needs not value it, may have liberal allowances; and, for five letters in the year sent to the Idler, of which perhaps only two are printed, will be promoted to the first rank of writers by those who are weary of the present race of wits, and wish to sink them into obscurity before the lustre of a name not yet known enough to be detested.

last our time, and we may leave posterity to shift for themselves.

But if the stores of nature are limited, much more narrow bounds must be set to the modes of life; and mankind may want a moral or amusing paper, many years before they shall be deprived of drink or day-light. This want, which to the busy and inventive may seem easily remediable by some substitute or other, the whole race of Idlers will feel with all the sensibility that such torpid animals can suffer.

When I consider the innumerable multitudes that, having no motive of desire, or determination of will, lie freezing in perpetual inactivity, till some external impulse puts them in motion; who awake in the morning vacant of thought, with minds gaping for the intellectual food, which some kind essayist has been accustomed to supply, I am moved by the commiseration with which all human beings ought to behold the distresses of each other, to try some expedients for their relief, and to inquire by what methods the listless may be actuated, and the empty be replenished.

IT has long been the complaint of those who frequent the theatre, that all the dramatic art has been long exhausted, and that the vicissitudes of fortune, and accidents of life, have been shown in every possible combination, till the first scene informs us of the last, and the play no sooner opens, than every auditor knows There are said to be pleasures in madness how it will conclude. When a conspiracy is known only to madmen. There are certainly formed in a tragedy, we guess by whom it will miseries in idleness which the Idler only can be detected; when a letter is dropt in a come- conceive. These miseries I have often felt dy, we can tell by whom it will be found. and often bewailed. I know by experience how Nothing is now left for the poet but character welcome is every avocation that summons the and sentiment, which are to make their way thoughts to a new image; and how much lanas they can without the soft anxiety of sus-guor and lassitude are relieved by that officiouspensc, or the enlivening agitation of surprise. ness which offers a momentary amusement to A new paper lies under the same disadvan-him who is unable to find it for himself. tages as a new play. There is danger lest it be new without novelty.

My earlier predecessors had their choice of vices and follies, and selected such as were most likely to raise meriment or attract attention; they had the whole field of life before them, untrodden and unsurveyed; characters of every kind shot up in their way, and those of the most luxuriant growth, or most conspicuous colours, were naturally cropt by the first sickle. They that follow are forced to peep into neglected corners, to note the casual varieties of the same species, and to recommend themselves by minute industry, and distinctions too subtle for common eyes.

Sometimes it may happen that the haste or negligence of the first inquirers has left enough behind to reward another search; sometimes new objects start up under the eye, and he that is looking for one kind of matter is amply gratified by the discovery of another. But still it must be allowed that as more is taken less can remain; and every truth brought newly to light impoverishes the mine from which succeeding intellects are to dig their treasures.

Many philosophers imagine that the elements themselves may be in time exhausted; that the sun, by shining long, will effuse all its light; and that by the continual waste of aqueous particles, the whole earth will at last become a sandy desert.

I would not advise my readers to disturb themselves by contriving how they shall live without light and water. For the days of universal thirst and perpetual darkness are at a great distance. The ocean and the sun will

It is naturally indifferent to this race of men what entertainment they receive, so they are but entertained. They catch with equal eagerness, at a moral lecture, or the memoirs of a robber; a prediction of the appearance of a comet, or the calculation of the chances of a lottery.

They might therefore easily be pleased if they consulted only their own minds; but those who will not take the trouble to think for themselves, have always somebody that thinks for them; and the difficulty of writing is to please those from whom others learn to be pleased.

Much mischief is done in the world with very little interest or design. He that assumes the character of a critic, and justifies his claim by perpetual censure, and imagines that he is hurting none but the author, and him he considers as a pestilent animal, whom every other being has a right to persecute; little does he think how many harmless men he involves in his own guilt, by teaching them to be noxious without malignity, and to repeat objections which they do not understand; or how many honest minds he debars from pleasure, by exciting an artificiai fastidiousness, and making them too wise to concur with their own sensations. He who is taught by a critic to dislike that which pleased him in his natural state, has the same reason to complain of his instructor, as the madman to rail at his doctor, who when he thought himself master of Peru, physicked him to poverty.

If men will struggle against their own advantage they are not to expect that the Idler will take much pains upon them; he has him

self to please as well as them, and has long | like fortified cities, to appropriate manors to relearned, or endeavoured to learn, not to make the pleasure of others too necessary to his own.

Of these ladies, some, I hope, have lap-dogs, and some monkeys; but they are unsatisfactory companions. Many useful offices are performed by men of scarlet, to which neither dog nor monkey has adequate abilities. A parrot, indeed, is as fine as a colonel, and if he has been much used to good company, is not wholly without conversation; but a parrot, after all is a poor little creature, and has neither sword nor shoulder knot, can neither dance nor play at cards.

Since the soldiers must obey the call of their duty, and go to that side of the kingdom which faces France, I know not why the ladies, who cannot live without them, should not follow them. The prejudices and pride of man have long presumed the sword and spindle made for different hands, and denied the other sex to partake the grandeur of military glory. This notion may be consistently enough received in France, where the salique law excludes females from the throne; but we, who allow them to be sovereigns, may surely suppose them capable to be soldiers.

This formidable armament, and splendid march, produce different effects upon different minds, according to the boundless diversities or temper, occupation, and habits of thought. Many a tender maiden considers her lover as already lost, because he cannot reach the camp but by crossing the sea; men of a more It were to be wished that some men, whose political understanding are persuaded that we experience and authority might enforce regard, shall now see, in a few days, the ambassadors would propose that our encampments for the of France supplicating for pity. Some are present year should comprise an equal number hoping for a bloody battle, because a bloody of men and women who should march and battle makes a vendible narrative; some are fight in mingled bodies. If proper colonels composing songs of victory; some planning were once appointed, and the drums ordered to arches of triumph; and some are mixing fire-beat for female volunteers, our regiments would works for the celebration of a peace. soon be filled without the reproach or cruelty Of all extensive and complicated objects dif- of an impress. ferent parts are selected by different minds are variously affected, as they vary their attention. The care of the public is now fixed upon our soldiers, who are leaving their native country to wander, none can tell how long, in the pathless deserts of the Isle of Wight. The tender sigh for their sufferings, and the gay drink to their success. I who look, or believe myself to look, with most philosophic eyes on human affairs, must confess, that I saw the troops march with little emotion; my thoughts were fixed upon other scenes, and the tear stole into my eyes, not for those who were going away, but for those who were left behind.

eyes;

and

We have no reason to doubt but our troops will proceed with proper caution; there are men among them who can take care of themselves. But how shall the ladies endure without them? By what arts can they, who have long had no joy but from the civilities of a soldier, now amuse their hours, and solace their separation?

Of these heroines some might serve on foot, under the denomination of the Female Buffs, and some on horseback, with the title of Lady Hussars.

What objections can be made to this scheme I have endeavoured maturely to consider, and cannot find that a modern soldier has any duties except that of obedience, which a lady cannot perform. If the hair has lost its powder, a lady has a puff; if a coat be spotted, a lady has a brush. Strength is of less importance since fire-arms have been used; blows of the hand are now seldom exchanged; and what is there to be done in the charge or the retreat beyond the powers of a sprightly maiden?

Our masculine squadrons will not suppose themselves disgraced by their auxiliaries, till they have done something which women could not have done. The troops of Braddock never saw their enemies, and perhaps were defeated by women. If our American general had headed an army of girls, he might still have built a fort and taken it. Had Minorca been defended by a female garrison, it might have been surrendered, as it was, without a breach; and I cannot but think, that seven thousand women might have ventured to look at Rochfort, sack a village, rob a vineyard, and return in safety.

Of fifty thousand men, now destined to different stations, if we allow each to have been occasionally necessary only to four women, a short computation will inform us, that two hundred thousand ladies are left to languish in distress; two hundred thousand ladies, who must run to sales and auctions without an attendant; sit at the play without a critic to direct their opinion; buy their fans by their own No. 6.] SATURDAY, MAY 20, 1758. judgment; dispose shells by their own invention; Walk in the Mall without a gallant; go to the gardens without a protector; and shuffle cards with vain impatience, for want of a fourth THE lady who had undertaken to ride on one to complete the party.

Ταμεῖον ἀρετῆς γεναῖα γυνή.

GR. PRO.

horse a thousand miles in a thousand hours, has