sometimes that a dead body lay across the track. He sat still awhile to recollect his thoughts; and as he was about to alight and explore the darkness, out stepped a man with a lantern, and opened the turnpike. He hired a guide to the town, arrived in safety, and slept in quiet.

been used to gain their approbation; that men and women should at first come together by chance, like each other so well as to commence acquaintance, improve acquaintance into fondness, increase or extinguish fondness by marriage, and have children of different degrees of intellects and virtue, some of whom die before their parents, and others survive them.

Yet let any tell his own story, and nothing of all this has ever befallen him according to the common order of things; something has always discriminated his case; some unusual concurrence of events has appeared which made him more happy or more miserable than other mortals; for in pleasures or calamities, however common, every one has comforts and afflictions of his own.

It is certain that without some artificial aug

The rest of his journey was nothing but danger. He climbed and descended precipices on which vulgar mortals tremble to look; he passed marshes like the "Serbonian bog, where armies whole have sunk;" he forded rivers where the current roared like the Egre or the Severn; or ventured himself on bridges that trembled under him, from which he looked down on foaming whirlpools, or dreadful abysses: he wandered over houseless heaths, amidst all the rage of the elements, with the snow driving in his face, and the tempest howl-mentations, many of the pleasures of life, and ing in his ears. almost all its embellishments, would fall to the ground. If no man was to express more delight than he felt, those who felt most would raise little envy. If travellers were to describe the most laboured performances of art with the same coldness as the survey them, all expectations of happiness from change of place would cease. The pictures of Raphael would hang without spectators, and the gardens of Versailles might be inhabited by hermits. All the pleasure that is received ends in an opportunity of splendid falsehood, in the power of gaining notice by the display of beauties which the eye was weary of beholding, and a history of happy moments, of which in reality the most happy was the last.

Such are the colours in which Marvel paints his adventures. He has accustomed himself to sounding words and hyperbolical images, till he has lost the power of true description. In a road through which the heaviest carriages pass without difficulty, and the post-boy every day and night goes and returns, he meets with hardships like those which are endured in Siberian deserts, and misses nothing of romantic danger but a giant and a dragon. When his dreadful story is told in proper terms, it is only that the way was dirty in winter, and that he experienced the common vicissitudes of rain

and sun-shine.

No. 50.] SATURDAY, MARCH 31, 1759.

THE character of Mr. Marvel has raised the merriment of some and the contempt of others, who do not sufficiently consider how often they hear and practise the same arts of exaggerated narration.

There is not, perhaps, among the multitudes of all conditions that swarm upon the earth, a single man who does not believe that he has something extraordinary to relate of himself; and who does not, at one time or other, summon the attention of his friends to the casualties of his adventures, and the vicissitudes of his fortune; casualties and vicissitudes that happen alike in lives uniform and diversified; to the commander of armies, and the writer at a desk, to the sailor who resigns himself to the wind and water, and the farmer whose longest journey is to the market.

In the present state of the world men may pass through Shakspeare's seven stages of life, and meet nothing singular and wonderful. But such is every man's attention to himself, that what is common and unheeded when it is only seen, becomes remarkable and peculiar when we happen to feel it.

It is well enough known to be according to the usual process of nature that men should sicken and recover, that some designs should succeed and others miscarry, that friends should be separated, and meet again, that some should be made angry by endeavours to please them, and some be pleased when no care has

The ambition of superior sensibility and superior eloquence disposes the lovers of arts to receive rapture at one time, and communicate it at another; and each labours first to impose upon himself, and then to propagate the imposture.

Pain is less subject than pleasure to caprices of expression. The torments of disease, and the grief for irremediable misfortunes, sometimes, are such as no words can declare, and can only be signified by groans, or sobs, or inarticulate ejaculations. Man has from nature a mode of utterance peculiar to pain, but he has none peculiar to pleasure, because he never has pleasure, but in such degrees as the ordinary use of language may equal or surpass.

It is nevertheless certain, that many pains as well as pleasures are heightened by rhetorical affectation, and that the picture is, for the most part, bigger thar the life.

When we describe our sensations of another's sorrow either in friendly or ceremonious condolence, the customs of the world scarcely admit of rigid veracity. Perhaps the fondest friendship would enrage oftener than comfort, were the tongue on such occasions faithfully to represent the sentiments of the heart; and I think the strictest moralists allow forms of address to be used without much regard to their literal acceptation, when either respect or tenderness requires them, because they are universally know to denote not the degree but the species of our sentiments.

But the same indulgence cannot be allowed to him who aggravates dangers incurred or

sorrow endured by himself, because he darkens | all sink to the common level. We are all nakthe prospect of futurity, and multiplies the ed till we are dressed, and hungry till we are pains of our condition by useless terror. Those fed; and the general's triumph, and sage's who magnify their delights are less criminal disputation, end, like the humble labours of deceivers, yet they raise hopes which are sure the smith or ploughman, in a dinner or in to be disappointed. It would be undoubtedly sleep. best, if we could see and hear every thing as it is, that nothing might be too anxiously dreaded, or too ardently pursued.

No. 51.] SATURDAY, APRIL 7, 1759.

Those notions which are to be collected by reason, in opposition to the senses, will seldom stand forward in the mind, but lie treasured in the remoter repositories of memory, to be found only when they are sought. Whatever any man may have written or done, his precepts or his It has been commonly remarked, that eminent tant uniformity which runs through his time. valour will scarcely overbalance the unimpor men are least eminent at home, that bright We do not easily consider him as great, whom characters lose much of their splendour at a nearer view, and many who fill the world with to keep present to our thoughts the latent excelour own eyes show us to be little; nor labour their fame, excite very little reverence among lencies of him who shares with us all our weakthose that surround them in their domestic nesses and many of our follies; who like us is privacies. To blame or to suspect is easy and natural. delighted with slight amusements, busied with When the fact is evident, and the cause doubt-trifling employments, and disturbed by little ful, some accusation is always engendered between idleness and malignity. This disparity of general and familiar esteem is therefore imputed to hidden vices, and to practises indulged in secret, but carefully covered from the public eye.

Vice will indeed always produce contempt. The dignity of Alexander, though nations fell prostrate before him, was certainly held in little veneration by the partakers of his midnight revels, who had seen him, in the madness of wine, murder his friend, or set fire to the Persian palace at the instigation of a harlot; and it is well remembered among us, that the avarice of Marlborough kept him in subjection to his wife while he was dreaded by France as her conqueror, and honoured by the emperor

as his deliverer.

But though, where there is vice there must be want of reverence, it is not reciprocally true

that when there is want of reverence there is

always vice. That awe which great actions or abilities impress will be inevitably diminished by acquaintance, though nothing either mean or criminal should be found.

Of men, as of every thing else, we must judge according to our knowledge. When we see of a hero only his battles, or of a writer only his books, we have nothing to allay our ideas of their greatness. We consider the one only as the guardian of his country, and the other only as the instructor of mankind. We have neither opportunity nor motive to examine the minuter parts of their lives, or the less apparent peculiarities of their characters; we name them with habitual respect, and forget, what we still coninue to know, that they are men like other mortals.

vexations.

Great powers cannot be exerted, but when great exigencies make them necessary. Great exigencies can happen but seldom, and thereveneration of mankind lie hid, for the most fore those qualities which have a claim to the the foot passes as on common ground, till ne part, like subterranean treasures, over which cessity breaks open the golden cavern.

that he was a man.

In the ancient celebration of victory, a slave was placed on a triumphal car, by the side of the general, who reminded him by a short sentence, might be lest a leader, in his passage to the Whatever danger there there was surely no need of such an admonicapitol, should forget the frailties of his nature, tion: the intoxication could not have continued long; he would have been at home but a few forgot his greatness, and shown him, that nothours before some of his dependents would have withstanding his laurels, he was yet a man.

tic degradation, by labouring to appear always There are some who try to escape this domeswise or always great; but he that strives against nature will for ever strive in vain. To be grave of mien and slow of utterance; to look with

solicitude and speak with hesitation, is attainable at will; but the show of wisdom is ridiculous when there is nothing to cause doubt, as that of valour where there is nothing to be

feared.

of his being will contentedly yield to the course A man who has duly considered the condition of things; he will not pant for distinction where distinction would imply no merit; but though on great occasions he may wish to be greater than others, he will be satisfied in com

mon occurrences not to be less.

Responsare cupidinibus.

HOR.

But such is the constitution of the world, that much of life must be spent in the same manner No. 52.] SATURDay, April 14, 1759. by the wise and the ignorant, the exalted and the low. Men, however distinguished by external accidents or intrinsic qualities, have all the same wants, the same pains, and, as far as THE practice of self-denial, or the forebearance the senses are consulted, the same pleasure. of lawful pleasures, has been considered by The petty cares and petty duties are the same almost every nation, from the remotest ages, in every station to every understanding, and as the highest exaltation of human virtue; every hour brings some occasion on which we and all have agreed to pay respect and vene

ration to those who abstained from the delights | fixed, beyond which, if he passes he will not of life, even when they did not censure those who enjoy them.

The general voice of mankind, civil and barbarous, confesses that the mind and body are at variance, and that neither can be made happy by its proper gratifications but at the expense of the other; that a pampered body will darken the mind, and an enlightened mind will macerate the body. And none have failed to confer their esteem on those who prefer intellect to sense, who control their lower by their higher faculties, and forget the wants and desires of animal life for rational disquisitions or pious contemplations.

The earth has scarcely a country so far advanced towards political regularity as to divide the inhabitants into classes, where some orders of men or women are not distinguished by voluntary severities, and where the reputation of their sanctity is not increased in proportion to the rigour of their rules, and the exactness of their performance.

easily return. It is certainly most wise, as it is most safe, to stop before he touches the utmost limit, since every step of advance will more and more entice him to go forward, till he shall at last enter into the recesses of voluptuousness, and sloth and despondency close the passage behind them.

To deny early and inflexibly, is the only art of checking the importunity of desire, and of preserving quiet and innocence. Innocent gratifications must be sometimes withheld; he that complies with all lawful desires will certainly lose his empire over himself, and in time either submit his reason to his wishes, and think all his desires lawful, or dismiss his reason as troublesome and intrusive and resolve to snatch what he may happen to wish, without inquiring about right and wrong.

No man whose appetites are his masters, can perform the duties of his nature with strictness and regularity; he that would be superior to external influences must first become superior his own passions.

When an opinion to which there is no temp-to tation of interest spreads wide and continues long, it may reasonably be presumed to have been issued by nature or dictated by reason. It has been often observed that the fictions of imposture, and illusions of fancy soon give way to time and experience; and that nothing keeps its ground but truth, which gains every day new influence by new confirmation.

But truth, when it is reduced to practice, easily becomes subject to caprice and imagination; and many particular acts will be wrong, though their general principal be right. It cannot be denied that a just conviction of the restraint necessary to be laid upon the appetites has produced extravagant and unnatural modes of mortification, and institutions, which, however favourably considered, will be found to violate nature without promoting piety.

When the Roman general, sitting at supper with a plate of turnips before him, was solicited by large presents to betray his trust, he asked the messengers whether he that could sup on turnips was a man likely to sell his own country. Upon him who has reduced his senses to obedience, temptation has lost its power; he is able to attend impartially to virtue, and execute her commands without hesitation.

To set the mind above the appetites is the end of abstinence, which one of the fathers observes to be not a virtue, but the ground-work of virtue. By forbearing to do what may innocently be done, we may add hourly new vigour or resolution, and secure the power of resistance when pleasure or interest shall lend their charms to guilt.

TO THE IDLER.

But the doctrine of self-denial is not weaken- No. 53.] SATURDAY, April 21, 1759. ed in itself by the errors of those who misinterpret or misapply it; the encroachment of the appetites upon the understanding is hourly perceived; and the state of those, whom sensuality has enslaved, is known to be in the highest degree despicable and wretched.

The dread of such shameful captivity may justly raise alarms, and wisdom will endeavour to keep danger at a distance. By timely caution and suspicious vigilance those desires may be repressed, to which indulgence would soon give absolute dominion; those enemies may be overcome, which, when they have been a while accustomed to victory, can no longer be resisted.

Nothing is more fatal to happiness or virtue, than that confidence which flatters us with an opinion of our own strength, and by assuring us of the power of retreat, precipitates us into hazard. Some may safely venture farther than others into the regions of delight, lay themselves more open to the golden shafts of pleasure, and advance nearer to the residence of the Sirens; but he that is best armed with constancy and reason is yet vulnerable in one part or other, and to every man there is a point

SIR,

I HAVE a wife that keeps good company. You know that the word good varies its meaning according to the value set upon different qualities in different places. To be a good man in a college, is to be learned; in a camp, to be brave; and in the city, to be rich. By good company in the place which I have the misfortune to inhabit, we understand not always those from whom any good can be learned, whether wisdom or virtue; or by whom any good can be conferred, whether profit or reputation. Good company is the company of those whose birth is high, and whose riches are great; or of those whom the rich and noble admit to familiarity.

I am a gentleman of fortune by no means exuberant, but more than equal to the wants of my family, and for some years equal to our desires. My wife, who had never been accustomed to splendour, joined her endeavours to mine in the superintendence of our economy;

we lived in decent plenty, and were not ex-languor of weariness. To dress and to uncluded from moderate pleasures.

But slight causes produce great effects. All my happiness has been destroyed by change of place; virtue is too often merely local: in some situations the air diseases the body, and in others poisons the mind. Being obliged to remove my habitation, I was led by my evil genius to a convenient house in a street where many of the nobility reside. We had scarcely ranged our furniture, and aired our rooms, when my wife began to grow discontented, and to wonder what the neighbours would think when they saw so few chairs and chariots at her door.

dress is almost her whole business in private, and the servants take advantage of her negligence to increase expense. But I can supply her omission by my own diligence, and should not much regret this new course of life, if it did nothing more than transfer me to the care of our accounts. The changes which it has made are more vexatious. My wife has no longer the use of her understanding. She has no rule of action but the fashion. She has no opinion but that of the people of quality. She has no language but the dialect of her own set of company. She hates and admires in humble imitation; and echoes the words charming and detestable without consulting her own preceptions.

If for a few minutes we sit down together, she entertains me with the repartees of lady Cackle, or the conversation of lord Whiffler, and Miss Quick, and wonder to find me receiving with indifference sayings which put all the company into laughter.

Her acquaintance, who came to see her from the quarter that we had left, mortified her with out design, by continual inquiries about the ladies whose houses they viewed from our windows. She was ashamed to confess that she had no intercourse with them, and sheltered her distress under general answers, which always tended to raise suspicion that she knew more than she would tell; but she was often reduced to difficulties, when the course of talking to be seen, but she must not rid herself of introduced questions about the furniture or ornaments of their houses, which, when she could get no intelligence, she was forced to pass slightly over, as things which she saw so often that she never minded them.

By her old friends she is no longer very will

them all at once: and is sometimes surprised by her best visitants in company which she would not show and cannot hide; but from the moment that a countess enters, she takes care neither to hear nor see them; they soon find themselves neglected, and retire; and she tells her ladyship that they are somehow related at a great distance, and that as they are good sort of people she cannot be rude to them.

To all these vexations she was resolved to put an end, and redoubled her visits to those few of her friends who visited those who kept good company; and, if ever she met a lady of quality, forced herself into notice by respect and assiduity. Her advances were generally As by this ambitious union with those that rejected; and she heard them, as they went are above her, she is always forced upon disaddown stairs talk how some creatures put them-vantageous comparisons of her condition with selves forward,

She was not discouraged, but crept forward from one to another; and as perseverance will do great things, sapped her way unperceived, till, unexpectedly, she appeared at the card table of lady Biddy Porpoise, a lethargic virgin, of seventy-six, whom all the families in the next square visited very punctually when she was not at home.

This was the first step of that elevation to which my wife has since ascended. For five months she had no name in her mouth but that of lady Biddy, who, let the world say what it would, had a fine understanding, and such a command of her temper, that whether she won or lost, she slept over her cards.

theirs, she has a constant source of misery within; and never returns from glittering assemblies and magnificent apartments but she growls out her discontent, and wonders why she was doomed to so indigent a state. When she attends the dutchess to a sale, she always sees something she cannot buy; and, that she may not seem wholly insignificant, she will sometimes venture to bid, and often make acquisitions which she did not want, at prices which she cannot afford.

What adds to all this uneasiness is that this expense is without use, and this vanity without honour; she forsakes houses where she might be courted, for those where she is only suffered; her equals are daily made her enemies, and her superiors will never be her

I am, Sir, yours, &c.

At lady Biddy's she met with lady Tawdry, whose favour she gained by estimating her ear-friends. rings, which were counterfeit, at twice the value of real diamonds. When she once entered two houses of distinction, she was easily admitted into more, and in ten weeks had all her No.54.] SATURDAY, April 28, 1759. time anticipated by parties and engagements. Every morning she is bespoke, in the summer, for the gardens; in the winter, for a sale; every afternoon she has visits to pay, and every night brings an inviolable appointment, or an assembly in which the best company in the town were to appear.

You will easily imagine that much of my domestic comfort is withdrawn. I never see my wife but in the hurry of preparation or the

SIR,

TO THE IDLER.

You have lately entertained your admirers with the case of an unfortunate husband, and thereby given a demonstrative proof you are not averse even to hear appeals and terminate differences between man and wife; I therefore take the liberty to present you with the

case of an injured lady, which, as it chiefly relates to what I think the lawyers call a point of law, I shall do in as juridical a manner as I am capable, and submit it to the consideration of the learned gentlemen of that profession. Imprimis. In the style of my marriage articles, a marriage was "had and solemnized," about six months ago, between me and Mr. Savecharges, a gentleman possessed of a plentiful fortune of his own, and one who, I was persuaded, would improve, and not spend, mine.

Before our marriage, Mr. Savecharges had all along preferred the salutary exercise of walking on foot to the distempered ease, as he terms it, of lolling in a chariot; but, notwithstanding his fine panegyrics on walking, the great advantages the infantry were in the sole possession of, and the many dreadful dangers they escaped, he found I had very different notions of an equipage, and was not easily to be converted, or gained over to his party.

by Hymen in his saffron robes, retired to country-seat of my husband's, where the honeymoon flew over our heads ere we had time to recollect ourselves, or think of our engagements in town. Well, to town we came, and you may be sure, Sir, I expected to step into my coach on my arrival here; but what was my surprise and disappointment, when, instead of this, he began to sound in my ears, "That the interest of money was low, very low; and what a terrible thing it was to be incumbered with a little regiment of servants in these hard times!" I could easily perceive what all this tended to, but would not seem to understand him; which made it highly necessary for Mr. Savecharges to explain himself more intelligibly; to harp upon and protest he dreaded the expense of keeping a coach. And truly, for his part, he could not, conceive how the pleasure resulting from such a convenience could be any way adequate to the heavy expense attending it. I now thought it high time to speak with equal plainness, and told him, as the fortune I brought fairly entitled me to ride in my own coach, and as I was sensible his circumstances would very well afford it, he must pardon me if I insisted on a performance of his agreement.

An equipage I was determined to have, whenever I married. I too well knew the disposition of my intended consort to leave the providing one entirely to his honour, and flatter myself Mr. Savecharges has, in the articles made previous to our marriage, agreed to keep me a coach; but lest I should be I appeal to you, Mr. Idler, whether any mistaken, or the attorney should not have done thing could be more civil, more complaisant, me justice in methodising or legalising these than this? And, would you believe it, the creahalf dozen words, I will set about and tran- ture in return a few days after, accosted me, in scribe that part of the agreement, which will an offended tone, with "Madam, I can now explain the matter to you much better than can tell you your coach is ready; and since you are be done by one who is so deeply interested in so passionately fond of one I intend you the the event; and show on what foundation I honour of keeping a pair of horses.-You inbuild my hopes of being soon under the trans-sisted upon having an article of pin-money, porting, delightful denomination of a fashiona- and horses are no part of my agreement." ble lady, who enjoys the exalted and much- Base, designing wretch!-I beg your pardon, envied felicity of bowling about in her own coach.

Mr. Idler, the very recital of such mean, ungentleman-like behaviour fires my blood, and lights up a flame within me. But hence, thou worst of monsters, ill-timed Rage, and let me not spoil my cause for want of temper.

"And further the said Solomon Savecharges, for divers good causes and considerations him hereunto moving, hath agreed, and doth hereby agree, that the said Solomon Savecharges Now, though I am convinced I might make shall and will, so soon as conveniently may be a worse use of part of my pin-money, than by after the solemnization of the said intended extending my bounty towards the support o marriage, at his own proper cost and charges, so useful a part of the brute creation; yet find and provide a certain vehicle or four- like a true-born Englishwoman, I am so tena wheel carriage, commonly called or known by cious of my rights and privileges, and more. the name of a coach; which said vehicle or over so good a friend to the gentlemen of the wheel carriage, so called or known by the law, that I protest, Mr. Idler, sooner than tame name of a coach, shall be used and enjoyed by ly give up the point, and be quibbled out of my the said Sukey Modish, his intended wife, "right, I will receive my pin-money, as it were, (pray mind that, Mr. Idler,) "at such times with one hand, and pay it to them with the and in such manner as she the said Sukey other; provided they will give me, or, which Modish shall think fit and convenient." is the same thing, my trustees, encouragement Such, Mr. Idler, is the agreement my pas- to commence a suit against this dear, frugal sionate admirer entered into; and what the husband of mine. dear frugal husband calls a performance of And of this I can't have the least shadow of it remains to be described. Soon after the doubt, inasmuch as I have been told by very ceremony of signing and sealing was over, good authority, it is some way or other laid our wedding-clothes being sent home, and, in down as a rule, "That whenever the law doth short, every thing in readiness except the give any thing to one, it giveth impliedly what coach, my own shadow was scarcely more con-ever is necessary for the taking and enjoying stant than my passionate lover in his atten- the same."* Now, I would gladly know what dance on me wearied by his perpetual importunities for what he called a completion of his bliss, I consented to make him happy; in a

few days I gave him my hand, and, attended

Coke on Lyttelton.