subdued by clamour on one side, and gravity on | all who require our assistance. It is common the other, and shall be obliged to tell the town for men of the most unwieldy corpulence to that three days ago Timothy Mushroon, an eminent crowd themselves into a chair, and demand to oilman in Sea-Coal-lane, was married to Miss be carried for a shilling as far as an airy young Polly Mohair, of Lothbury, a beautiful young lady | lady whom we scarcely feel upon our poles. with a large fortune. Surely we ought to be paid like all other mortals, in proportion to our labour. Engines should be fixed in proper places to weigh chairs as they weigh wagons; and those, whom ease and plenty have made unable to carry themselves, should give part of their superfluities to those who carry them. SIR, I am, Sir, &c. SIR, I am, Sir, &c. SATURDAY, Nov. 4, 1758. TO THE IDLER. I HAVE often observed that friends are lost by discontinuance of intercourse, without any of fence on either part, and have long known, that it is more dangerous to be forgotten than to be blamed; I therefore make haste to send you the rest of my story, lest, by the delay of another fortnight, the name of Betty Broom might be no longer rememberd by you or your I AM the unfortunate wife of the grocer whose Having left the last place in haste, to avoid the charge or the suspicion of theft, I had not secured another service, and was forced to take a lodging in a back street. I had now got good clothes. The woman who lived in the garret opposite to mine was very officious, and offered to take care of my room and clean it, while I went round to my acquaintance to inquire for a mistress. I knew not why she was so kind, nor how I could recompense her; but in a few days I missed some of my linen, went to another lodging, and resolved not to have another friend in the next garret. In six weeks I became under-maid at the On a Sunday, it is true, I make him walk abroad, and sometimes carry the child;-I won-house of a mercer in Cornhill, whose son was der who should carry it! But I never take him out till after church-time, nor would I do it then, but that if he is left alone, he will be upon the bed. On a Sunday, if he stays at home he has six meals; and, when he can eat no longer, has twenty stratagems to escape from me to the ale-house; but I commonly keep the door locked, till Monday produces something for him to do. This is the true state of the case, and these are the provocations for which he has written his letter to you. I hope you will write a paper to show that if a wife must spend her whole time in watching her husband, she cannot conveniently tend her child, or sit at her needle. SIR, I am, Sir, &c. THERE is in this town a species of oppression which the law has not hitherto prevented or redressed. his apprentice. The young gentleman used to sit late at the tavern, without the knowledge of his father; and I was ordered by my mistress to let him in silently to his bed under the counter, and to be very careful to take away his candle. The hours which I was obliged to watch, whilst the rest of the family was in bed, I considered as supernumerary, and, having no business assigned for them, thought myself at liberty to spend them my own way: I kept myself awake with a book, and for some time liked my state the better for this opportunity of reading. At last, the upper-maid found my book, and showed it to my mistress, who told me, that wenches like me might spend their time better; that she never knew any of the readers that had good designs in their heads; that she could always find something else to do with her time, than to puzzle over books; and did not like that such a fine lady should sit up for her young master. This was the first time that I found it thought criminal or dangerous to know how to read. I was dismissed decently, lest I should tell tales, and had a small gratuity above my I am a chairman. You know, Sir, we come when we are called, and are expected to carry | wages. I then lived with a gentlewoman of a small fortune. This was the only happy part of a my life. My mistress, for whom public diversions were too expensive, spent her time with books, and was pleased to find a maid who could partake her amusements. I rose early in the inorning, that I might have time in the afternoon to read or listen, and was suffered to tell my opinion, or express my delight. Thus fifteen months stole away, in which I did not repine that I was born to servitude. But a burning fever seized my mistress, of whom I shall say no more, than that her servant wept upon her grave, I had lived in a kind of luxury which made me very unfit for another place; and was rather too delicate for the conversation of a kitchen; so that when I was hired in the family of an East India director, my behaviour was so different, as they said, from that of a common servant, that they concluded me a gentlewoman in disguise, and turned me out in three weeks, on suspicion of some design which they could not comprehend. her chicken. A third was made, and destroyed Your humb.e servant, No. 30.] SATURDAY, Nov. 11, 1758. THE desires of man increase with his acquisitions; every step which he advances brings something within his view, which he did not see before, and which, as soon as he sees it, he begins to want. Where necessity ends, curiosity begins; and no sooner are we supplied with every thing that nature can demand, than we sit down to contrive artificial appetites. By this restlessness of mind, every populous and wealthy city is filled with innumerable employments, for which the greater part of man I then fled for refuge to the other end of the town, where I hoped to find no obstruction from my new accomplishments, and was hired under the housekeeper in a splendid family. Here I was too wise for the maids, and too nice for the footman; yet I might have lived on without much uneasiness, had not my mis-kind is without a name; with artificers, whose tress, the housekeeper, who used to employ me in buying necessaries for the family, found a bill which I had made of one day's expense. I suppose it did not quite agree with her own book, for she fiercely declared her resolution, that there should be no pen and ink in that kitchen but her own. labour is exerted in producing such petty conveniences, that many shops are furnished with instruments of which the use can hardly be found without inquiry, but which he that once knows them quickly learns to number among necessary things. Such is the diligence with which, in countries completely civilized, one part of mankind labours for another, that wants are supplied faster than they can be formed, and the idle and luxurious find life stagnate for want of some desire to keep it in motion. This species of distress furnishes a new set of occupations; and multitudes are busied from day to day, in finding the rich and the fortunate something to do. She had the justice, or the prudence, not to injare my reputation; and I was easily admitted into another house in the neighbourhood, where my business was, to sweep the rooms and make the beds. Here I was for some time the favourite of Mrs. Simper, my lady's woman, who could not bear the vulgar girls, and was happy in the attendance of a young woman of some education. Mrs. Simper loved a novel, though she could not read hard words, and It is very common to reproach those artists therefore when her lady was abroad, we always as useless, who produce only such superfluities laid hold on her books. At last, my abilities as neither accommodate the body, nor improve became so much celebrated, that the house- the mind; and of which no other effect can be steward used to employ me in keeping his ac-imagined, than that they are the occasions of counts. Mrs. Simper then found out, that my sauciness was grown to such a height that nobody could endure it, and told my lady, that there had never been a room well swept since Betty Broom came into the house. I was then hired by a consumptive lady, who wanted a maid that could read and write. I attended her four years, and though she was never pleased, yet when I declared my resolution to leave her, she burst into tears, and told me that I must bear the peevishness of a sick bed, and I should find myself remembered in her will. I complied, and a codicil was added in my favour; but in less than a week, when I set her gruel before her, I laid the spoon on the left side, and she thew her will into the fire. In two days she made another, which she burnt in the same manner, because she could not eat spending money and consuming time. But this censure will be mitigated when it is seriously considered that money and time are the heaviest burdens of life, and that the unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than they know how to use. To set himself free from these incumbrances, one hurries to Newmarket; another travels over Europe; one pulls down his house and calls architects about him; another buys a seat in the country, and follows his hounds over hedges and through rivers; one makes collections of shells; and another searches the world for tulips and carnations. He is surely a public benefactor who finds employment for those to whom it is thus difficult to find it for themselves. It is true, that this is seldom done merely from generosity or compassion; almost every man seeks his own | No. 31.] SATURDAY, Nov. 18, 1758. We all know that it is more profitable to be loved than esteemed; and ministers of pleasure will always be found, who study to make themselves necessary, and to supplant those who are practising the same arts. One of the amusements of idleness is read ing without the fatigue of close attention; and the world, therefore, swarms with writers whose wish is not to be studied, but to be read. No species of literary men has lately been so much multiplied as the writers of news. Not many years ago the nation was content with one gazette; but now we have not only in the metropolis papers for every morning and every evening, but almost every large town has its weekly historian, who regularly circulates his periodical intelligence, and fills the villages of his district with conjectures on the events of war, and with debates on the true interests of Europe. MANY moralists have remarked, that pride has of all human vices the widest dominion, appears in the greatest multiplicity of forms, and lies hid under the greatest variety of disguises; of disguises which, like the moon's veil of brightness, are both its lustre and its shade, and betray it to others, though they hide it from ourselves. It is not my intention to degrade pride from this pre-eminence of mischief; yet I know not whether idleness may not maintain a very doubtful and obstinate competition. There are some that profess idleness in its full dignity, who call themselves the Idle as Busiris in the play calls himself the Proud; who boast that they can do nothing, and thank their stars that they have nothing to do; who sleep every night till they can sleep no longer, and rise only that exercise may enable them to sleep again; who prolong the reign of darkness by double curtains; and never see the sun but to tell him how they hate his beams; whose whole labour is to vary the posture of indulgence, and whose day differs from their night but as a couch or chair differs from a bed. pies, and into whose cup she pours the waters of oblivion; who exist in a state of unruffled stupidity forgetting and forgotten; who have long ceased to live, and at whose death the survivors can only say that they have ceased to breathe. To write news in its perfection requires such a combination of qualities, that a man completely fitted for the task is not always to be These are the true and open votaries of idlefound. In Sir Henry Wotton's jocular defini-ness, for whom she weaves the garlands of poption, Ah ambassador is said to be a man of virtue sent abroad to tell lies for the advantage of his country; a newswriter is a man without virtue, who writes lies at home for his own profit. To these compositions is required neither genius nor knowledge, neither industry nor sprightliness; but contempt of shame, and indifference to truth, are absolutely necessary. He who by a long familiarity with infamy has obtained these qualities, may confidently tell to-day what he intends to contradict to-morrow; he may affirm fearlessly what he knows that he shall be obliged to recant, and may write letters from Amsterdam or Dresden to himself. In a time of war the nation is always of one mind, eager to hear something good of themselves, and ill of the enemy. At this time the task of news-writers is easy; they have nothing to do but to tell that the battle is expected, and afterwards that a battle has been fought, in which we and our friends, whether conquering or conquered, did all, and our enemies did nothing. Scarcely any thing awakens attention like a tale of cruelty. The writer of news never fails in the intermission of action to tell how the enemies murdered children and ravished virgins; and if the scene of action be somewhat distant, scalps half the inhabitants of a province. Among the calamities of war, may be justly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates, and credulity encourages. A peace will equally leave the warrior and relator of wars destitute of employment; and I know not whether more is to be dreaded from streets filled with soldiers accustomed to plunder, or from garrets filled with scribblers accustomed to lie. But idleness predominates in many lives where it is not suspected; for, being a vice which terminates in itself, it may be enjoyed without injury to others; and it is therefore not watched like fraud, which endangers property; or like pride, which naturally seeks its gratifications in another's inferiority. Idleness is a silent and peaceful quality, that neither raises envy by ostentation, nor hatred by opposition; and therefore nobody is busy to censure or detect it. As pride sometimes is hid under humility, idleness is often covered by turbulence and hurry. He that neglects his known duty and real employment, naturally endeavours to crowd his mind with something that may bar out the remembrance of his own folly, and does any thing but what he ought to do with eager diligence, that he may keep himself in his own favour. Some are always in a state of preparation, occupied in previous measures, forming plans, accumulating materials, and providing for the main affair. These are certainly under the secret power of idleness. Nothing is to be expected from the workman whose tools are for ever to be sought. I was once told by a great master that no man ever excelled in painting, who was eminently curious about pencils and colours. There are others to whom idleness dictates another expedient, by which life may be passed unprofitably away without the tediousness of many vacant hours. The art is, to fill the day with petty business, to have always something in hand which may raise curiosity, but not solicitude, and keep the mind in a state of action, but not of labour. This art has for many years been practised by my old friend Sober with wonderful success. Sober is a man of strong desires and quick imagination, so exactly balanced by the love of ease, that they can seldom stimulate him to any difficult undertaking; they have, however, so much power, that they will not suffer him to lie quite at rest; and though they do not make him sufficiently useful to others, they make him ut least weary of himself. Mr. Sober's chief pleasure is conversation; there is no end of his talk or his attention; to speak or to hear is equally pleasing; for he still fancies that he is teaching or learning something, and is free for the time from his own reproaches. But there is one time at night when he must go home, that his friends may sleep; and another time in the morning, when all the world agrees to shut out interruption. These are the moments of which poor Sober trembles at the thought. But the misery of these irksome intervals he has many means of alleviating. He has persuaded himself that the manual arts are undeservedly overlooked; he has observed in many trades the effects of close thought, and just ratiocination. From speculation he proceeded to practice, and supplied himself with the tools of a carpenter, with which he mended his coalbox very successfully, and which he still continues to employ, as he finds occasion. He has attempted at other times the crafts of shoe-maker, tinman, plumber, and potter; in all these arts he has failed, and resolves to qualify himself for them, by better information. But his daily amusement is chemistry. He has a small furnace which he employs in distillation, and which has long been the solace of his life. He draws oils and waters and essences and spirits, which he knows to be of no use, sits and counts the drops as they come from his retort, and forgets that whilst a drop is falling, a moment flies away. Poor Sober! I have often teased him with reproof, and he has often promised reformation; for no man is so much open to conviction as the Idler, but there is none on which it operates so little. What will be the effect of this paper I know not; perhaps he will read it and laugh, and light the fire in his furnace; but my hope is that he will quit his trifles, and betake himself to rational and useful diligence. No. 32.] SATURDAY, Nov. 25, 1758. AMONG the innumerable mortifications that waylay human arrogance on every side, may well be reckoned our ignorance of the most common objects and effects a defect of which we become more sensible, by every attempt to supply it. Vulgar and inactive minds confound familiarity with knowledge, and conceive themselves informed of the whole nature of things, when they are shown their form or told their use; but the speculatist, who is not content with superficial views, harrasses himself with fruitless curiosity, and still as he acquires more, perceives only that he knows less. Sleep is a state in which a great part of every life is passed. No animal has yet been discovered, whose existence is not varied with intervals of insensibility; and some late philosophers have extended the empire of sleep over the vegetable world. Yet of this change, so frequent, so great, so general, and so necessary, no searcher has yet found either the efficient or final cause; or can tell by what power the mind and body are thus chained down in irresistible stupefaction; or what benefits the animal receives from this alternate suspension of its active powers. Whatever may be the multiplicity or contrariety of opinions upon this subject, Nature has taken sufficient care that theory shall have little influence on practice. The most diligent inquirer is not able long to keep his eyes open; the most eager disputant will begin about midnight to desert his argument; and once in four-and-twenty hours, the gay and the gloomy, the witty and the dull, the clamorous and the silent, the busy and the idle, are all overpowered by the gentle tyrant, and all lie down in the equality of sleep. Philosophy has often attempted to repress insolence, by asserting that all conditions are levelled by death; a position which, however it may deject the happy, will seldom afford much comfort to the wretched. It is far more pleasing to consider, that sleep is equally a leveller with death; that the time is never at a great distance, when the balm of rest shall be diffused alike upon every head, when the diversities of life shall stop their operation, and the high and low shall lie down together. It is somewhere recorded of Alexander, that in the pride of conquests, and intoxication of flattery, he declared that he only perceived himself to be a man by the necessity of sleep. Whether he considered sleep as necessary to his mind or body it was indeed a sufficient evidence of human infirmity; the body which required such frequency of renovation, gave but faint promises of immortality; and the mind which from time to time, sunk gladly into insensibility, had made no very near approaches to the felicity of the supreme and self-sufficient nature. I know not what can tend more to repress all the passions that disturb the peace of the world, than the consideration that there is no height of happiness or honour from which man does not eagerly descend to a state of unconcious repose; that the best condition of life is such, that we contentedly quit its good to be disentangled from its evils; that in a few hours splendour fades before the eye, and praise itself deadens in the ear; the senses withdraw from their objects, and reason favours the retreat. What then are the hopes and prospects of covetousness, ambition, and rapacity? Let him that desires most have all his desires gratified, he never shall attain a state which he can for a day and a night contemplate with satisfaction, or from which, if he had the power of perpetual vigilance, he would not long for periodical separations All envy would be extinguished, if it were universally known that there are none to be envied, and surely none can be much envied who are not pleased with themselves. There is reason to suspect, that the distinctions of mankind have more show than value, when it is found that all agree to be weary alike of pleasures and of cares; that the powerful and the weak, the celebrated and obscure, join in one common wish, and implore from nature's hand the nectar of oblivion. Such is our desire of abstraction from ourselves, that very few are satisfied with the quantity of stupefaction which the needs of the body force upon the mind. Alexander himself added intemperance to sleep, and solaced with the fumes of wine the sovereignty of the world; and almost every man has some art by which he steals his thoughts away from his present state. It is not much of life that is spent in close attention to any important duty. Many hours of every day are suffered to fly away without any traces left upon the intellects. We suffer phantoms to rise up before us, and amuse ourselves with the dance of airy images, which, after a time, we dismiss forever, and know not how we have been busied. Many have no happier moments than those that they pass in solitude, abandoned to their own imagination, which sometimes puts sceptres in their hand or mitres on their heads, shifts the scene of pleasure with endless variety, bids all the forms of beauty sparkle before them, and gluts them with every change of visionary luxury. It is easy in these semi-slumbers to collect all the possibilities of happiness, to alter the course of the sun, to bring back the past, and anticipate the future, to unite all the beauties of all seasons, and all the blessings of all climates, to receive and bestow felicity, and forget that misery is the lot of man. All this is a voluntary dream, a temporary recession from the realities of life to airy fiction; an habitual subjection of reason to fancy. Others are afraid to be alone, and amuse themselves by a perpetual succession of companions; but the difference is not great in solitude we have our dreams to ourselves, and in company we agree to dream in concert. The end sought in both is, forgetfulness of ourselves. No. 33.] SATURDAY, DEC. 2, 1758. [I hope the author of the following letter will excuse the omission of some parts, and allow me to remark, that the Journal of the Citizen in the Spectator has almost precluded the attempt of any future writer.] Non ita Romuli Præscriptum, & intonsi Catonis Auspiciis, veterumque norma. or Genuine Idler, just transmitted from Cambridge by a facetious correspondent, and warranted to have been transcribed from the common-place book of the journalist. Monday, nine o'clock. Turned off my bedmaker for waking me at night. Weather rainy. Consulted my weather-glass. No hopes of a ride before dinner. Ditto, ten. After breakfast transcribed half a sermon from Dr. Hickman. N. B. Never to transcribe any more from Calamy; Mrs. Pilcocks, at my curacy, having one volume of that author lying in her parlour-window. Ditto, eleven. Went down into my cellar, Mem. My mountain will be fit to drink in a month's time. N. B. To remove the five year old port into the new bin on the left hand. Ditto, twelve. Mended a pen. Looked at my weather-glass again. Quicksilver very low. Shaved. Barber's hand shakes. Ditto, one. Dined alone in my room on a soal. N. B. The shrimp-sauce not so good as Mr. H. of Peterhouse and I used to eat in London last winter, at the Mitre in Fleet-street. Sat down to a pint of Madeira. Mr. H. surprised me over it. We finished two bottles of port together, and were very cheerful. Mem. To dine with Mr. H. at Peterhouse next Wednesday. One of the dishes a leg of pork and pease, by my desire. Ditto, six. room. Newspaper in the common Ditto, seven. Returned to my room. Made a tiff of warm punch, and to bed before nine; did not fall asleep till ten, a young fellow-commoner being very noisy over my head. Tuesday, nine. Rose squeamish. A fine morning. Weather-glass very high. Ditto, ten. Ordered my horse, and rode to the five-mile stone on the Newmarket road. Appetite gets better. A pack of hounds in full cry crossed the road, aud startled my horse. Ditto, twelve. Dressed. Found a letter on my table to be in London the 19th inst. Bespoke a new wig. Ditto, one. At dinner in the hall. Too much water in the soup. Dr. Dry always orders the beef to be salted too much for me. Dr. Ditto, two. In the common-room. Dry gave us an instance of a gentleman who kept the gout out of his stomach by drinking old Madeira. Conversation chiefly on the expeditions. Company broke up at four. Dr. Dry and myself played at back-gammon for a brace of snipes. Won. Ditto, five. At the coffee-house. Met Mr. H. there. Could not get a sight of the Moni tor. Ditto, seven. Returned home, and stirred my fire. Went to the common-room, and supped on the snipes with Dr. Dry. Ditto, eight. Began the evening in the common-room. Dr. Dry told several stories. Were very merry. Our new fellow that studie physic, very talkative toward twelve. HOR. Pretends he will bring the youngest Missto drink tea with ine soon. Impertinent blockhead! SIR, You have often solicited correspondence. I have sent you the Journal of a Senior Fellow, Wednesday, nine. Alarmed with a pain in my ankle. 2. The gout? Fear I can't dine |