mwpmmwwfr I - UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES If &fje GCetnpte 3Lfbratg SELECT ESSAYS OF DR. JOHNSON r This Edition is limited to Seven Hundred and Fifty copies for England, and Five Hundred copies for America (acquired by Messrs. Macmillan and Co.). There is also an Edition on large paper, limited to Two Hundred and Fifty copies. J. M. Dent & Co. SELECT ESSAYS OF DR. JOHNSON EDITED BY GEORGE BIRKBECK HILL, D.CL. Pembroke College, Oxford WITH ETCHINGS BY HERBERT RAILTON VOL. n LONDON J. M. DENT AND CO. 69 GREAT EASTERN STREET I889 CONTENTS. W .1 THE RAMBLER— (continued). No. 148. The Cruelty of Parental Tyranny 159. The Nature and Remedies of Bashfulness 160. Rules for the Choice of Associates 169. Labour Necessary to Excellence . 173. Unreasonable Fears of Pedantry . 176. Directions to Authors Attacked by Critics. The Various Degrees of Critical Perspicacity . 178. Many Advantages not to be Enjoyed Together . 180. The Study of Life not to be Neglected for the Sake of Books 185. The Prohibition of Revenge Justifiable by Reason. The Meanness of Regulating our Conduct by the Opinions of Men 196. Human Opinions Mutable. The Hopes of Youth Fallacious 200. Asper's Complaint of the Insolence of Prospero. Unpoliteness not always the Effect of Pride . 202. The Different Acceptations of Poverty. Cynics and Monks not Poor 203. The Pleasures of Life to be Sought in Prospects of Futurity- Future Fame Uncertain 208. The Rambler's Reception. His Design . PAGE 1 8 13 18 3' 36 40 56 62 70 70 82 THE ADVENTURER. 69. Idle Hope 93 99. Projectors Injudiciously Censured and Applauded :oi - No. 1 08. in. 120. 131- CONTENTS. PAGE IIO On the Uncertainty of Human Things The Pleasures and Advantages of Ignorance . 117 The Miseries of Life • 124 Singularities Censured 131 THE IDLER. Character 4. Charities and Hospitals 8. Plan of Military Discipline 11. Discourses on the Weather 16. Drugget's Retirement 19. Whirler's Character 22. Imprisonment of Debtors 27. Power of Habits . 30. Corruption of News-Writers 31. Disguises of Idleness — Sobers 38. Debtors in Prison . 41. On the Death of a Friend 48. The Bustles of Idleness . 57. Character of Sophron the Prudent . 58. Expectations of Pleasure Frustrated 60. Minim the Critic .... 61. Minim the Critic .... 65. Fate of Posthumous Works . 74. Memory Rarely Deficient 78. Steady, Snug, Startle, Solid, and Misty. 81. An Indian's Speech to his Countrymen 83. Scruple, Wormwood, Sturdy, and Gentle 84. Biography How Best Performed . 102. Authors Inattentive to Themselves 103. Horror of the Last 143 149 154 1 59 163 167 171 175 179 184 191 198 199 203 206 216 223 228 233 238 242 247 252 256 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Temple Bar— By J. Jellicoe & H. Railton . . Front. Butcher Row, Strand— By H. Railton . . face page 93 The Old Cheshire Cheese „ i „ 143 T^fXPZ^Q* THE RAMBLER. No. 148. SATURDAY, AUGUST 17, 1751. Me pater scevis onsret catenis Quod viro clermns misero peberci, Me vel extremis Numidarum in agros Classe releget. — Hon. 1 Ms let my father load with chains, Or banish to Numidia's farthest plains ! My crime, that I, a loyal wife, In kind compassion, sav'd my husband's life. — Fr.ynxis. jOLITICIANS remark, that no oppres- sion is so heavy or lasting as that which is inflicted by the perversion and exorbitance of legal authority. The robber may be seized, and the invader repelled, whenever they are found ; they who pretend no right but that of force, may by force be punished or suppressed. But when plunder bears the name of impost, and murder is per- petrated by a judicial sentence, fortitude is intimidated, and wisdom confounded : resistance 1 Horace, 3 Odes, xi. -is. II B 2 ESSA YS OF DR. JOHNSON. shrinks from an alliance with rebellion, and the villain remains secure in the robes of the magis- trate. 1 Equally dangerous and equally detestable are the cruelties often exercised in private families, under the venerable sanction of parental authority 2 , the power which we are taught to honour from the first moments of reason ; which is guarded from insult and violation by all that can impress awe upon the mind of man ; and which therefore may wanton in cruelty without controul, and trample the bounds of right with innumerable transgressions, before duty and piety will dare to seek redress, or think themselves at liberty to recur to any other means of deliverance than supplications by which insolence is elated, and tears by which cruelty is gratified. It was for a long time imagined by the Romans, that no son could be the murderer of his father ; and they had therefore no punishment appropriated to parricide. They seem likewise to have believed with equal confidence, that no father could be cruel to his child ; and therefore they allowed every man the supreme judicature in his own house, and put the lives of his offspring into his 1 " Robes and furr'd gowns hide all." —King Lear, Act iv., sc. 6, 1. 169. 2 In The Rambler, No. 39, Johnson, considering the harth control often exercised by paients over their daughters in marrying, says :— " It may be urged in extenuation of this crime which parents, not in any other respect to be numbered with robbers and assassins, frequently commit, that, in their estimation, riches and happiness are equivalent terms." THE RAMBLER. J hands. But experience informed them by degrees, that they determined too hastily in favour of human nature ; they found that instinct and habit were not able to contend with avarice or malice ; that the nearest relation might be violated ; and that power, to whomsoever intrusted, might be ill employed. They were therefore obliged to supply and to change their institutions ; to deter the parricide by a new law, and to transfer capital punishments from the parent to the magistrate. There are indeed many houses which it is im- possible to enter familiarly, without discovering that parents are by no means exempt from the intoxications of dominion ; and that he who is in no danger of hearing remonstrances but from his own conscience, will seldom be long without the art of controuling his convictions, and modifying justice by his own will. If in any situation the heart were inaccessible to malignity, it might be supposed to be sufficiently secured by parental relation. To have volun- tarily become to any being the occasion of its existence, produces an obligation to make that existence happy. To see helpless infancy stretch- ing out her hands, and pouring out her cries in testimony of dependence, without any powers to alarm jealousy, or any guilt to alienate affection must surely awaken tenderness in every human mind ; and tenderness once excited will be hourly increased by the natural contagion of felicity, by the repercussion of communicated pleasure, by the consciousness of the dignity of benefaction. I believe no generous or benevolent man can see 4 ESSA YS OF DR. JOHNSON. the vilest animal courting his regard, and shrink- ing at his anger, playing his gambols of delight before him, calling on him in distress, and flying to him in danger, without more kindness than he can persuade himself to feel for the wild and unsocial inhabitants of the air and water. We naturally endear to ourselves those to whom we impart any kind of pleasure, because we imagine their affection and esteem secured to us by the benefits which they receive. There is, indeed, another method by which the pride of superiority may be likewise gratified. He that has extinguished all the sensations of humanity, and has no longer any satisfaction in the reflection that he is loved as the distributor of happiness, may please himself with exciting terror as the infiictor of pain : he may delight his solitude with contemplating the extent of his power and the force of his commands ; in imagining the desires that flutter on the tongue which is forbidden to utter them, or the discontent which preys on the heart in which fear confines it : he may amuse himself with new contrivances of detection, multiplications of prohibition, and varieties of punishment ; and swell with exultation when he considers how little of the homage that he receives he owes to choice. That princes of this character have been known , the history of all absolute kingdoms will inform us ; and since, as Aristotle observes, t} oiicovofiiKi} fiovapxia, the government of a family is naturally monarchical} 1 Johnson refers, I think, to the Politics, bk. iii., ch. 14, 15 ; but the exact words which he quotes are not found there. THE RAMBLER. 5 it is, like other monarchies, too often arbitrarily administered. The regal and parental tyrant differ only in the extent of their dominions, and the number of their slaves. The same passions cause the same miseries ; except that seldom any prince, however despotic, has so far shaken off all awe of the public eye, as to venture upon those freaks of injustice, which are sometimes indulged under the secrecy of a private dwelling. Capricious injunctions, partial decisions, unequal allotments, distributions of reward, not by merit, but by fancy, and punishments, regulated not by the degree of the offence, but by the humour of the judge, are too frequent where no power is known but that of a father. That he delights in the misery of others, no man will confess, and yet what other motive can make a father cruel ? The king may be instigated by one man to the destruction of another ; he may sometimes think himself endangered by the virtues of a subject ; he may dread the successful general or the popular orator ; his avarice may point out golden confiscations ; and his guilt may whisper that he can only be secure by cutting off all power of revenge. But what can a parent hope from the oppression of those who were born to his protection, of those who can disturb him with no competition, who can enrich him with no spoils ? Why cowards are cruel may be easily discovered ; but for what reason, not more infamous than cowardice, can that man delight in oppression who has nothing to fear ? 6 ESSA YS OF DR. JOHNSON. The unjustifiable severity of a parent is loaded with this aggravation, that those whom he injures are always in his sight. The injustice of a prince is often exercised upon those of whom he never had any personal or particular knowledge ; and the sentence which he pronounces, whether of banishment, imprisonment, or death, removes from his view the man whom he condemns. But the domestic oppressor dooms himself to gaze upon those faces which he clouds with terror and with sorrow ; and beholds every moment the effects of his own barbarities. He that can bear to give continual pain to those who surround him, and can walk with satisfaction in the gloom of his own presence ; he that can see submissive misery without relenting, and meet without emotion the eye that implores mercy, or demands justice, will scarcely be amended by remonstrance or admoni- tion ; he has found means of stopping the avenues of tenderness, and arming his heart against the force of reason. Even though no consideration should be paid to the great law of social beings, by which every individual is commanded to consult the happiness of others, yet the harsh parent is less to be vindicated than any other criminal, because he less provides for the happiness of himself. Every man, however little he loves others, would willingly be loved ; every man hopes to live long, and therefore hopes for that time at which he shall sink back to imbecility, and must depend for ease and cheerfulness upon the offkiousness of others. But how has he obviated the inconveniencies of THE RAMBLER. 7 old age, who alienates from him the assistance of his children, and whose bed must be surrounded in the last hours, in the hours of languor and dejection, of impatience and of pain, by strangers to whom his life is indifferent, or by enemies to whom his death is desirable ? Piety will, indeed, in good minds overcome provocation, and those who have been harassed by brutality will forget the injuries which they have suffered, so far as to perform the last duties with alacrity and zeal. But surely no resentment can be equally painful with kindness thus undeserved, nor can severer punishment be imprecated upon a man not wholly lost in meanness and stupidity, than, through the tediousness of decrepitude, to be reproached by the kindness of his own children, to receive not the tribute but the alms of attendance, and to owe every relief of his miseries, not to gratitude but to mercy. ESSA YS OF DR. JOHNSON. No. 159. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1751. Sunt verba et voces, quibus hunc lenire dolorem Possis, et magnam morbi deponere partem. — Hor. 1 The power of words, and soothing sounds, appease The raging pain, and lessen the disease. — Francis. ; HE imbecility with which Yerecundulus'- complains that the presence of a nume- rous assembly freezes his faculties, is particularly incident to the studious part of mankind, whose education necessarily secludes them in their earlier years from mingled converse, till, at their dismission from schools and academies, they plunge at once into the tumult of the world, and, coming forth from the gloom of solitude, are overpowered by the blaze of public life. It is, perhaps, kindly provided by nature, that as the feathers and strength of a bird grow together, and her wings are not completed till she is able to fly, so some proportion should be preserved in the human kind between judgment and courage ; the precipitation of inexperience is therefore restrained by shame, and we remain shackled by timidity, till we have learned to speak and act with propriety. 1 Horace, I Epistles, i. 34. 2 The Rambler, No. 157, is in the form of a letter signed Verecunduius. THE RAMBLER. 9 I believe few can review the days of their youth, without recollecting temptations, which shame, rather than virtue, enabled them to resist ; and opinions which, however erroneous in their prin- ciples, and dangerous in their consequences, they have panted to advance at the hazard of contempt and hatred, when they found themselves irresis- tibly depressed by a languid anxiety, which seized them at the moment of utterance, and still gathered strength from their endeavours to resist it. It generally happens that assurance keeps an even pace with ability, and the fear of miscarriage, which hinders our first attempts, is gradually dis- sipated as our skill advances towards certainty of success. That bashfulness, therefore, which pre- vents disgrace, that short and temporary shame, which secures us from the danger of lasting re- proach, cannot be properly counted among our misfortunes. Eashfulness, however it may incommode for a moment, scarcely ever produces evils of long con- tinuance ; it may flush the cheek, flutter in the heart, deject the eyes, and enchain the tongue, but its mischiefs soon pass off without remembrance. It may sometimes exclude pleasure, but seldom opens any avenue to sorrow or remorse. It is ob- served somewhere that " few have repented of having forborne to speak." To excite opposition, and inflame malevolence, is the unhappy privilege of courage made arrogant by consciousness of strength. No man finds in himself any inclination to attack or oppose him io ESSAYS OF DR. JOHNSON. who confesses his superiority by blushing in his presence. Qualities exerted with apparent fear- fulness, receive applause from every voice, and support from every hand. Diffidence may check resolution and obstruct performance, but compen- sates its embarrassments by more important advan- tages ; it conciliates the proud, and softens the severe, averts envy from excellence, and censure from miscarriage. It may indeed happen that knowledge and virtue remain too long congealed by this frigorific power, as the principles of vegetation are sometimes obstructed by lingering frosts. He that enters late into a public station, though with all the abilities requisite to the discharge of his duty, will find his powers at first impeded by a timidity which he himself knows to be vicious, and must struggle long against dejection and reluctance, before he obtains the full command of his own attention, and adds the gracefulness of ease to the dignity of merit. For this disease of the mind I know not whether any remedies of much efficacy can be found. To advise a man unaccustomed to the eyes of multi- tudes to mount a tribunal without perturbation, to tell him whose life was passed in the shades of con- templation, that he must not be disconcerted or perplexed in receiving and returning the compli- ments of a splendid assembly, is to advise an inhabitant of Brasil or Sumatra not to shiver at an English winter, or him who has always lived upon a plain to look from a precipice without emotion. It is to suppose custom instantaneously THE RAMBLER. n controllable by reason, and to endeavour to com- municate, by precept, that which only time and habit can bestow. He that hopes by philosophy and contem- plation alone to fortify himself against that awe which all, at their first appearance on the stage of life, must feel from the spectators, will, at the hour of need, be mocked by his resolution ; and I doubt whether the preservatives which Plato relates Alcibiades to have received from Socrates, when he was about to speak in public, proved sufficient to secure him from the powerful fascination. 1 Yet, as the effects of time may by art and industry be accelerated or retarded, it cannot be improper to consider how this troublesome instinct may be opposed when it exceeds its just propor- tion, and, instead of repressing petulance and temerity, silences eloquence, and debilitates force ; since, though it cannot be hoped that anxiety should be immediately dissipated, it may be at least somewhat abated ; and the passions will operate with less violence, when reason rises against them, than while she either slumbers in 1 " Sir William Scott mentioned that Johnson had told him that he had several times tried to speak in the Society of Arts and Sciences, but ' had found he could not get on.' From Mr. William Gerard Hamilton I have heard that Johnson, when observing to him that it was prudent for a man who had not been accustomed to speak in public, to begin his speech in as simple a manner as possible, acknowledged that he rose in that society to deliver a speech which he had prepared, ' but,' said he, 'all my flowers of oratory forsook me.'" — Boswell's Johnson, ii. 139. 12 ESSAYS OF DR. JOHNSOX. neutrality, or, mistaking her interest, lends them her assistance. No cause more frequently produces bashfulness than too high an opinion of our own importance. He that imagines an assembly filled with his merit, panting with expectation, and hushed with attention, easily terrifies himself with the dread of disappointing them, and strains his imagination in pursuit of something that may vindicate the veracity of fame, and show that his reputation was not gained by chance. He considers that what he shall say or do will never be forgotten ; that re- nown or infamy is suspended upon every syllable, and that nothing ought to fall from him which will not bear the test of time. Under such solici- tude, who can wonder that the mind is over- whelmed, and, by struggling with attempts above her strength, quickly sinks into languishment and despondency ? The most useful medicines are often unpleasin^ to the taste. Those who are oppressed by their own reputation, will, perhaps, not be comforted by hearing that their cares are unnecessary. But the truth is, that no man is much regarded by the rest of the world. He that considers how little he dwells upon the condition of others, will learn how little the attention of others is attracted by himself. While we see multitudes passing before us, of whom, perhaps, not one appears to deserve our notice, or excite our sympathy, we should remember, that we likewise are lost in the same throng ; that the eye which happens to glance upon us is turned in a moment on him that follows THE RAMBLER. us, and that the utmost which we can reasonably hope or fear is, to fill a vacant hour with prattle, and be forgotten. No. 1 60. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 1751. Inter se convem't ursis. — Juv.l Beasts of each kind th;:r fellows spare; Bear lives in amity with bear. HE world," says Locke, " has people of all sorts." As in the general hurry produced by the superfluities of some, and necessities of others, no man needs to stand still for want of employment, so in the innumerable gradations of ability, and endless varieties of study and inclination, no employment can be vacant for want of a man qualified to discharge it. Such is probably the natural state of the uni- verse ; but it is so much deformed by interest and passion, that the benefit of this adaptation of men to things is not always perceived. The folly or indigence of those who set their services to sale, inclines them to boast of qualifications which they do not possess, and attempt business which they do not not understand ; and they who have the power of assigning to others the task of life, are seldom honest or seldom happy in their 1 Juvenal, Satires, xv. 164. 14 ESSAYS OF DR. JOHNSON. nomination. Patrons are corrupted by avarice, cheated by credulity, or overpowered by resistless solicitation. They are sometimes too strongly influenced by honest prejudices of friendship, or the prevalence of virtuous compassion. For, whatever cool reason may direct, it is not easy for a man of tender and scrupulous goodness to overlook the immediate effect of his own actions, by turning his eyes upon remoter con- sequences, and to do that which must give present pain, for the sake of obviating evil yet unfelt, or securing advantage in time to come. What is distant is in itself obscure, and, when we have no wish to see it, easily escapes our notice, or takes such a form as desire or imagination bestows upon it. Every man might, for the same reason, in the multitudes that swarm about him, find some kindred mind with which he could unite in confidence and friendship ; yet we see many straggling single about the world, unhappy for want of an associate, and pining with the necessity of confining their sentiments to their own bosoms. This inconvenience arises, in like manner, from struggles of the will against the understanding. It is not often difficult to find a suitable com- panion, if every man would be content with such as he is qualified to please. But if vanity tempts him to forsake his rank, and post himself among those with whom no common interest or mutual pleasure can ever unite him, he must always live in a state of unsocial separation, without tender- ness and without trust. THE RAMBLER. 15 There are many natures which can never ap- proach within a certain distance, and which, when any irregular motive impels them towards contact, seem to start back from each other by some invin- cible repulsion. There are others which imme- diately cohere whenever they come into the reach of mutual attraction and with very little formality of preparation mingle intimately as soon as they meet. Every man, whom either business or curiosity has thrown at large into the world, will recollect many instances of fondness and dislike, which ha\e forced themselves upon him without the intervention of his judgment ; of dispositions to court some and avoid others, when he could assign no reason for the preference, or none adequate to the violence of his passions ; of influence that acted instantaneously upon his mind, and which no arguments or persuasions could ever overcome. Amone those with whom time and intercourse have made us familiar, we feel our affections divided in different proportions without much regard to moral or intellectual merit. Every man knows some whom he cannot induce himself to trust, though he has no reason to suspect that they would betray him ; those to whom he cannot complain, though he never observed them to want compassion ; those in whose pre- sence he never can be gay, though excited by invitations to mirth and freedom ; and those from whom he cannot be content to receive instruction, though they never insulted his ignorance by contempt or ostentation. 1 6 ESSAYS OF DR. JOHNSON. That much regard is to be had to those instincts of kindness and dislike, or that reason should blindly follow them, I am far from intending to inculcate ; it is very certain, that by indulgence we may give them strength which they have not from nature, and almost every example of ingrati- tude and treachery proves, that by obeying them we may commit our happiness to those who are very unworthy of so great a trust. But it may deserve to be remarked, that since few contend much with their inclinations, it is generally vain to solicit the good-will of those whom we perceive thus involuntarily alienated from us ; neither knowledge nor virtue will reconcile antipathy, and though ofhciousness may for a time be admitted, and diligence applauded, they will at last be dis- missed with coldness, or discouraged by neglect. Some have indeed an occult power of stealing upon the affections, of exciting universal benevo- lence, and disposing every heart to fondness and friendship. But this is a felicity granted only to the favourites of nature. The greater part of mankind find a different reception from different dispositions ; they sometimes obtain unexpected caresses from those whom they never flattered with uncommon regard, and sometimes exhaust all their arts of pleasing without effect. To these it is necessary to look round, and attempt every breast in which they find virtue sufficient for the foundation of friendship ; to enter into the crowd, and try whom chance will offer to their notice, till they fix on some temper congenial to their own, as the magnet rolled in the dust collects the THE RAMBLER. 17 fragments of its kindred metal from a thousand particles of other substances. Every man must have remarked the facility with which the kindness of others is sometimes gained by those to whom he never could have imparted his own. We are by our occupations, education, and habits of life, divided almost into different species, which regard one another, for the most part, with scorn and malignity. 1 Each of these classes of the human race has desires, fears, and conversation, vexations and merriment peculiar to itself ; cares which another cannot feel ; pleasures which he cannot partake ; and modes of express- ing every sensation which he cannot understand. That frolic which shakes one man with laughter, will convulse another with indignation ; the strain of jocularity which in one place obtains treats and patronage, would in another be heard with indifference, and in a third with abhorrence. To raise esteem we must benefit others, to procure love we must please them. Aristotle observes, that old men do not readily form friend- ships, because they are not easily susceptible of pleasure. 2 He that can contribute to the hilarity of the vacant hour, or partake with equal gust the favourite amusement ; he whose mind is em- ployed on the same objects, and who therefore I Johnson nearly thirty years later said : — " From my experience I have found mankind worse in commercial deal- ings, more disposed to cheat, than I had any notion of ; but more disposed to do one another good than I had conceived." — Boswell's Johnson, iii. 236. Perhaps Johnson refers to Aristotle's Ethics, viii. 6, 1. II C 1 8 ESS A YS OF DR. JOHNSON. never harasses the understanding with unaccus- tomed ideas, will be welcomed with ardour, and left with regret, unless he destroys those recom- mendations by faults with which peace and security cannot consist. It were happy, if, in forming friendships, virtue could concur with pleasure ; but the greatest part of human gratifications approach so nearly to vice, that few who make the delight of others their rule of conduct, can avoid disingenuous compliances ; yet certainly he that suffers himself to be driveli or allured from virtue, mistakes his own interest, since he gains succour by means, for which his friend, if ever he becomes wise, must scorn him, and for which at last he must scorn himself. No 169. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1751. Nee plutcum ceedit, nee de?norsos safit ungues. — Persius. 1 No blood from bitten nails those poems drew ; But churn'd, like spittle, from the lips they flew. — Dryden. lATURAL historians assert, that what- ever is formed for long duration arrives slowly to its maturity. Thus the £?u^Ssir3 firmest timber is of tardy growth, and animals generally exceed each other in longevity, in proportion to the time between their conception and their birth. The same observation ma}' be extended to the 1 Satires, i. 106. THE RAMBLER. :g offspring of the mind. Hasty compositions, how- ever they please at first by flowery luxuriance, and spread in the sunshine of temporary favour, can seldom endure the change of seasons, but perish at the first blast of criticism, or frost of neglect. When Apelles was reproached with the paucity of his productions, and the incessant attention with which he retouched his pieces, he condescended to make no other answer than that he painted for perpetuity. No vanity can more justly incur contempt and indignation than that which boasts of negligence and hurry. For who can bear with patience the writer who claims such superiority to the rest of his species, as to imagine that mankind are at leisure for attention to his extemporary sallies, and that posterity will reposite his casual effusions among the treasures of ancient wisdom ? Men have sometimes appeared of such trans- cendent abilities, that their slightest and most cursory performances excel all that labour and study can enable meaner intellects to compose ; as there are regions of which the spontaneous products cannot be equalled in other soils by care and culture. But it is no less dangerous for any man to place himself in this rank of understand- ing, and fancy that he is born to be illustrious with- out labour, than to omit the cares of husbandry and expect from his ground the blossoms of Arabia. The greatest part of those who congratulate themselves upon their intellectual dignity, and usurp the privileges of genius, are men whom only themselves would ever have marked out as J0 ESSAYS OF DR. JOHNSON. enriched by uncommon liberalities of nature, or entitled to veneration and immortality on easy terms. This ardour of confidence is usually found among those who, having not enlarged their notions by books or conversation, are persuaded, by the partiality which we all feel in our own favour, that they have reached the summit of excellence, because they discover none higher than them- selves ; and who acquiesce in the first thoughts that occur, because their scantiness of knowledge allows them little choice ; and the narrowness of their views affords them no glimpse of perfection, of that sublime idea which human industry has from the first ages been vainly toiling to approach. They see a little, and believe that there is nothing beyond their sphere of vision, as the Patuecos of Spain, who inhabited a small valley, conceived the surrounding mountains to be the boundaries of the world. 1 In proportion as perfection is more dis- tinctly conceived, the pleasure of contemplating our own performances will be lessened ; it may therefore be observed, that they who most deserve 1 Johnson refers, I think, to a passage in Howell's Instruc- tion for Forreine Travel! (ed. 1869, p. 51) where the author mentions " a strange discovery that was made not much above halfe a hundared yeares ago, about the very middle of Spaine, of the Pattuecos, a people that were never knowne upon the face of the Earth before. . . . Some Faulkners clammeringup and down, from hill to hill, and luring all along they lighted at last upon a large pleasant valley, where they spied a company of naked Savage people, locked in between an assembly of huge crags and hills indented and hemmed in (as it were) one in another." Howell does not mention that the Patuecos thought their mountains the boundaries of the world. THE RAMBLER. 21 praise are often afraid to decide in favour of their own performances ; they know how much is still wanting to their completion, and wait with anxiety and terror the determination of the public. " I please every one else (says Tully) but never satisfy myself." It has often been inquired, why, notwithstanding the advances of later ages in science, and the assistance which the infusion of so many new ideas has given us, we fall below the ancients in the art of composition. Some part of their superiority may be justly ascribed to the graces of their language, from which the most rjolished of the present European tongues are nothing more than barbarous degenerations. 1 Some advantage they might gain merely by priority, which put them in possession of the most natural sentiments, and left us nothing but servile repetition or forced conceits. But the greater part of their praise seems to have been the just reward of modesty and labour. Their sense of human weakness confined them commonly to one study, which their knowledge of the extent of every science engaged them to pro- secute with indefatigable diligence. Among the writers of antiquity I remember none except Statius who ventures to mention the speedy production of his writings, either as an 1 Drvden in his Essay of Dramatick Poesie describes how " by the inundation of the Goths and Vandals into Italy new languages were brought in, and barbarously mingled with the Latin, of which the Italian, Spanish, French and ours (made out of them and the Teutonic) are dialects." — Dryden's Works, ed. 1701, i. 25. 22 ESS A YS OF DR. JOHNSON. extenuation of his faults, or a proof of his facility. Nor did Statius, when he considered himself as a candidate for lasting reputation, think a closer attention unnecessary, but amidst all his pride and indigence, the two great hasteners of modern poems, employed twelve years upon the Thebaid, and thinks, his claim to renown proportionate to his labour. Thcbais, mult a cruciata lima, Tentat, audaci fide, Mantuance Gaudia famce- 1 Polish'd with endless toil, my lays At length aspire to Mantuan praise. Ovid indeed apologizes in his banishment for the imperfection of his letters, but mentions his want of leisure to polish them as an addition to his calamities 2 ; and was so far from imagining revisals and corrections unnecessary, that at his departure from Rome, he threw his Metamorphoses into the fire, lest he should be disgraced by a book which he could not hope to finish. It seems not often to have happened that the same writer aspired to reputation in verse and prose ; and of those few that attempted such diver- sity of excellence, I know not that even one suc- ceeded. Contrary characters they never imagined a single mind able to support, and therefore no man is recorded to have undertaken more than one kind of dramatic poetry. 1 Statius, Silvx, iv. 7, 26. - Perhaps Johnson refers to Eft's, ex Ponto, iii. 9, 49. " Musa mea est index nimium quoque vera malorum, Atque incorruptae pondera testis habet." Cf. also ib. i. 5, iv. 13, and Tristia i. 1. THE RAMBLER. 23 What the}' had written, they did not venture in their first fondness to thrust into the world, but, considering the impropriety of sending forth in- considerately that which cannot be recalled, de- ferred the publication, if not nine years, according to the direction of Horace, 1 yet till their fancy was cooled after the raptures of invention, and the glare of novelty had ceased'to dazzle the judgment. There were in those days no weekly or diurnal writers ; multa dies, et multa liturd 1 , much time, and many rasures, were considered as indispensable requisites ; and that no other method of attaining lasting praise has been yet discovered, may be con- jectured from the blotted manuscripts of Milton now remaining, 3 and from the tardy emission of Pope's compositions, 4 delayed more than once till the incidents to which they alluded were forgotten, till his enemies were secure from his satire, and what to an honest mind must be more painful, his friends were deaf to his encomiums. To him, whose eagerness of praise hurries his productions soon into the light, many imper- fections are unavoidable, even where the mind 1 Ars Poetica, 1. 388. 2 n,., 1. 293. 3 " That in the early part of his life Milton wrote with much care appears from his manuscript, happily preserved at Cambridge, in which many of his smaller works are found as they were first written, with the subsequent corrections. Such relics show how excellence is acquired ; what we hope ever ^\ to do with ease we must learn first to do with diligence." — Johnson's Works, vii. 119. * " Pope's publications were never hasty. He is said to - have sent nothing to the press till it had lain two years under - his inspection." — lb., viii. 322. 24 ESSA YS OF DR. JOHNSON. furnishes the materials, as well as regulates their dispositions, and nothing depends upon search or information. Delay opens new veins of thought, the subject dismissed for a time appears with a new train of dependent images, the accidents of reading or conversation supply new ornaments or allusions, or mere intermission of the fatigue of thinking enables the mind to collect new force, and make new excursions. But all those benefits come too late for him, who, when he was weary with labour, snatched at the recompense, and gave his work to his friends and his enemies, as soon as impatience and pride persuaded him to conclude it. One of the most pernicious effects of haste, is obscurity. He that teems with a quick succes- sion of ideas, and perceives how one sentiment produces another, easily believes that he can clearly express what he so strongly comprehends ; he seldom suspects his thoughts of embarrassment, while he preserves in his own memory the series of connexion, or his diction of ambiguity, while only one sense is present to his mind. Yet if he has been employed on an abstruse, or complicated argument, he will find, when he has awhile with- drawn his mind, and returns as a new reader to his work, that he has only a conjectural glimpse of his own meaning, and that to explain it to those whom he desires to instruct, he must open his sentiments, disentangle his method, and alter his arrangement. Authors and lovers always suffer some infatua- tion, from which only absence can set them free ; THE RAMBLER. 25 and every man ought to restore himself to the full exercise of his judgment, before he does that which he cannot do improperly, without injuring his honour and his quiet. No. 173. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 1751. Quo virtus, quo ferat error f— Hor. 1 Now say, where virtue stops, and vice begins ? S any action or posture, long continued, will distort and disfigure the limbs ; so the mind likewise is crippled and con- tracted by perpetual application to the same set of ideas. It is easy to guess the trade of an artizan by his knees, his fingers, or his shoulders : and there are few among men of the more liberal professions, whose minds do not carry the brand of their calling, or whose conversation does not quickly discover to what class of the community they belong. These peculiarities have been of great use, in the general hostility which every part of mankind exercises against the rest, to furnish insults and sarcasms. Every art has its dialect, uncouth and ungrateful to all whom custom has not reconciled to its sound, and which therefore becomes ridiculous by a slight misapplication, or unneces- sary repetition. 1 Horace, Ars Poctica, 1. 308. =6 ESSAYS OF DR. JOHNSON. The general reproach with which ignorance revenges the superciliousness of learning, is that of pedantry ; a censure which every man incurs, who has at any time the misfortune to talk to those who cannot understand him, and by which the modest and timorous are sometimes frightened from the display of their acquisitions, and the exertion of their powers. The name of a pedant is so formidable to young men when they first sally from their colleges, and is so liberally scattered by those who mean to boast their elegance of education, easiness of manners, and knowledge of the world, that it seems to require particular consideration ; since, perhaps, if it were once understood, many a heart might be freed from painful apprehensions, and many a tongue delivered from restraint. Pedantry is the unseasonable ostentation of learning. It may be discovered either in the choice of a subject, or in the manner of treating it. He is undoubtedly guilty of pedantry, who, when he has made himself master of some abstruse and uncultivated part of knowledge, obtrudes his remarks and discoveries upon those whom he believes unable to judge of his proficiency, and from whom, as he cannot fear contradiction, he cannot properly expect applause. To this error the student is sometimes betrayed by the natural recurrence of the mind to its common employment, by the pleasure which every man receives from the recollection of pleasing images, and the desire of dwelling upon topics, on which he knows himself able to speak with THE RAMBLER. 27 justness. But because we are seldom so far prejudiced in favour of each other, as to search out for palliations, this failure of politeness is imputed always to vanity ; and the harmless collegiate, who, perhaps, intended entertainment and instruction, or at worst only spoke without sufficient reflection upon the character of his hearers, is censured as arrogant or overbearing, and eager to extend his renown, in contempt of the convenience of society, and the laws of con- versation. All discourse of which others cannot partake, is not only an irksome usurpation of the time devoted to pleasure and entertainment, but what never fails to excite very keen resentment, an insolent assertion of superiority, and a triumph over less enlightened understandings. The pedant is, there- fore, not only heard with weariness, but malignity ; and those who conceive themselves insulted by his knowledge, never fail to tell with acrimony how injudiciously it was exerted. To avoid this dangerous imputation, scholars sometimes divest themselves with too much haste of their academical formality, and in their endeavours to accommodate their notions and their style to common conceptions, talk rather of any thing than of that which they understand, and sink into insipidity of sentiment and meanness of expression. There prevails among men of letters an opinion that all appearance of science is particularly hateful to women ; and that therefore, whoever desires to be well received in female assemblies, J 8 ESS A YS OF DR. JOHN SOX. must qualify himself by a total rejection of all that is serious, rational, or important ; must con- sider argument or criticism, as perpetually inter- dicted ; and devote all his attention to trifles, and all his eloquence to compliment. Students often form their notions of the present generation from the writings of the past, and are not very early informed of those changes which the gradual diffusion of knowledge, or the sudden caprice of fashion, produces in the world. What- ever might be the state of female literature in the last century, there is now no longer any danger lest the scholar should want an adequate audience at the tea-table 1 ; and whoever thinks it necessary to regulate his conversation by antiquated rules, will be rather despised for his futility than caressed for his politeness. To talk intentionally in a manner above the comprehension of those whom we address, is unquestionable pedantry ; but surely complaisance requires, that no man should, without proof, con- clude his company incapable of following him to the highest elevation of his fancy, or the utmost extent of his knowledge. It is always safer to err in favour of others than of ourselves, and 1 " The call for books was not in Milton's age what it is in the present. To read was not then a general amusement. . . . The women had not then aspired to literature." — Johnson's Works, vii. 107. "That general knowledge which now circulates in common talk was in Addison's time rarely to be found. Men not professing learning were not ashamed of ignorance ; and in the female world any acquaintance with books was distinguished only to be censured." — lb., p. 470. THE RAMBLER. 29 therefore we seldom hazard much by endeavouring to excel. 1 It ought at least to be the care of learning when she quits her exaltation, to descend with dignity. Nothing is more despicable than the airiness and jocularity of a man bred to severe science, and solitary meditation. To trifle agree- ably is a secret which schools cannot impart; that gay negligence and vivacious levity, which charm down resistance wherever they appear, are never attainable by him who, having spent his first years among the dust of libraries, enters late into the gay world with an unpliant attention and established habits. It is observed in the panegyric on Fabricius the mechanist, 2 that though forced by public employments into mingled conversation, he never lost the modesty and seriousness of the convent, nor drew ridicule upon himself by an affected imitation of fashionable life. To the same praise every man devoted to learning ought to aspire. 1 " Sir Joshua once observed to Johnson that he had talked above the capacity of some people with whom they had been in company together. ' No matter, sir (said Johnson) ; they consider it as a compliment to be talked to as if they were wisei than they are. So true is this, sir, that Baxter made it a rule in every sermon that he preached to say something that was above the capacity of his audience.' " — Boswell's Johnson, iv. 185. 2 In the first edition mechanician. If the correction is Johnson's it is of some interest, as mechanist is not in his Dictionary. Among the numerous Germans of the name of Fabricius mentioned in the Biographic Generate I find no one so described. David Fabricius (1564 — 1617) an astro- nomer made his own instruments, and perhaps he is meant. 3 o ESSA YS OF DR. JOHXSOX. If he attempts the softer arts of pleasing, and endeavours to learn the graceful bow and the familiar embrace, the insinuating accent and the genial smile, he will lose the respect due to the character of learning, without arriving at the envied honour of doing any thing with elegance and facility. Theophrastus was discovered not to be a native of Athens, by so strict an adherence to the Attic dialect, as shewed that he had learned it not by custom, but by rule. A man not early formed to habitual elegance, betrays in like manner the effects of his education, by an unnecessary anxiety of behaviour. It is as possible to become pedantic by fear of pedantry, as to be troublesome by ill- timed civility. There is no kind of impertinence more justly censurable, than his who is always labouring to level thoughts to intellects higher than his own ; who apologizes for every word which his own narrowness of converse inclines him to think unusual ; keeps the exuberance of his faculties under visible restraint ; is solicitous to anticipate inquiries by needless explanations ; and endeavours to shade his own abilities, lest weak eyes should be dazzled with their lustre. 1 1 " There is (said Johnson) nothing more likely to betray a man into absurdity than condescension ; when he seems to suppose his understanding too powerful for his company."— Boswell's Johnson, iv. 3. THE RAMBLER. 31 No. 176. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1751. Naso suspendis adunco. — Hor. 1 On me you turn the nose. 5HERE are many vexatious accidents and uneasy situations which raise little compassion for the sufferer, and which no man but those whom they im- mediately distress can regard with seriousness. Petty mischiefs, that have no influence on futurity, nor extend their effects to the rest of life, are always seen with a kind of malicious pleasure. A mistake or embarrassment, which for the present moment fills the face with blushes, and the mind with confusion, will have no other effect upon those who observe it, than that of convulsing them with irresistible laughter. Some circum- stances of misery are so powerfully ridiculous, that neither kindness nor duty can withstand them ; they bear down love, interest, and reverence, and force the friend, the dependant, or the child, to give away to instantaneous motions of merri- ment. Among the principal of comic calamities, may be reckoned the pain which an author, not yet hardened into insensibility, feels at the onset of a furious critic, whose age, rank, or fortune, gives 1 Horace, i Satires, vi. 5. 3 2 ESSAYS OF DR. JOHNSON. him confidence to speak without reserve ; who heaps one objection upon another, and obtrudes his remarks, and enforces his corrections, without tenderness or awe. The author, full of the importance of his work, and anxious for the justification of every syllable, starts and kindles at the slightest attack ; the critic, eager to establish his superiority, triumph- ing in every discovery of failure, and zealous to impress the cogency of his arguments, pursues him from line to line without cessation or remorse. The critic, who hazards little, proceeds with vehemence, impetuosity, and fearlessness ; the author, whose quiet and fame, and life and im- mortality, are involved in the controversy, tries every art of subterfuge and defence ; maintains modestly what he resolves never to yield, and yields unwillingly what cannot be maintained. The critic's purpose is to conquer, the author only hopes to escape ; the critic therefore knits his brow, and raises his voice, and rejoices when- ever he perceives any tokens of pain excited by the pressure of his assertions, or the point of his sarcasms. The author, whose endeavour is at once to mollify and elude his persecutor, com- poses his features and softens his accent, breaks the force of assault by retreat, and rather steps aside than flies or advances. As it very seldom happens that the range of extemporary criticism inflicts fatal or lasting wounds, I know not that the laws of benevo- lence entitle this distress to much sympathy. The diversion of baiting an author has the sanction THE RAMBLER. 33 of all ages and nations, and is more lawful than the sport of teasing other animals, because, for the most part, he comes voluntarily to the stake, furnished, as he imagines, by the patron powers of literature, with resistless weapons, and im- penetrable armour, with the mail of the boar of Erymanth, and the paws of the lion ofNemea. But the works of genius are sometimes pro- duced by other motives than vanity ; and he whom necessity or duty enforces to write, is not always so well satisfied with himself, as not to be discouraged by censorious impudence. It may therefore be necessary to consider, how they whom publication lays open to the insults of such as their obscurity secures against reprisals, may extricate themselves from unex- pected encounters. Vida, 1 a man of considerable skill in the politics of literature, directs his pupil wholly to abandon his defence, and even when he can irrefragably refute all objections to suffer tamely the exulta- tions of his antagonist. This rule may perhaps be just, when advice is asked, and severity solicited, because no man tells his opinion so freely as when he imagines it received with implicit veneration ; and critics 1 " With sweeter notes each rising temple rung ; A Raphael painted, and a Vida sung. Immortal Vida ! on whose honour'd brow The poet's bays and critic's ivy grow." — Pope, Essay on Criticism, 1. 703. " Christopher Pitt, probably about this time (1724), trans- lated Vida's Art of Poetry, which Tristram's splendid edition had then made popular."— Johnson's Works, viii. 363. II D 34 ESSAYS OF DR. JOIIXSO.V. ought never to be consulted, but while errors may yet be rectified or insipidity suppressed. But when the book has once been dismissed into ihe world, and can be no more retouched, I know not whether a very different conduct should not be prescribed, and whether firmness and spirit may not sometimes be of use to overpower arrogance and repel brutality. Softness, diffidence, and moderation, will often be mistaken for imbecility and dejection ; they lure cowardice to the attack by the hopes of easy victory, and it will soon be found that he whom every man thinks he can conquer, shall never be at peace. 1 The animadversions of critics are commonly such as may easily provoke the sedatest writer to some quickness of resentment and asperity of reply. A man who by long consideration has familiarized a subject to his own mind, carefully surveyed the series of his thoughts, and planned all the parts of composition into a regular dependence on each other, will often start at the sinistrous interpretations, or absurd remarks 1 " Boswell. ' Goldsmith is the better for attacks.' John- son. 'Yes, sir ; but he does not think so yet. When Gold- smith and I published each of us something at the same time, we were given to understand that we might review each other. Goldsmith was for accepting the offer. I said, No ; set reviewers at defiance. It was said to old Bentley upon the attacks against him, " Why, they'll write you down." " No, sir," he replied, "depend upon it, no man was ever written down but by himself." He observed to me afterwards that the advantages derived from attacks were chiefly in subjects of taste, where you cannot confute, as so much may be said on either side.' " — Boswell's Johnson, v. 274. THE RAMBLER. 35 of haste and ignorance, and wonder by what infatuation they have been led away from the obvious sense, and upon what peculiar principles of judgment they decide against him. The eye of the intellect, like that of the body, is not equally perfect in all, nor equally adapted in any to all objects ; the end of criticism is to supply its defects ; rules are the instruments of mental vision, which may indeed assist our facul- ties when properly used, but produce confusion and obscurity by unskilful application. Some seem always to read with the microscope of criticism, and employ their whole attention upon minute elegance, or faults scarcely visible to common observation. The dissonance of a syllable, the recurrence of the same sound, the repetition of a particle, the smallest deviation from propriety, the slightest defect in construction or arrangement, swell before their eyes into enormities. As they discern with great exact- ness, they comprehend but a narrow compass, and know nothing of the justness of the design, the general spirit of the performance, the artifice of connexion, or the harmony of the parts ; they never conceive how small a proportion that which they are busy in contemplating bears to the whole, or how the petty inaccuracies with which they are offended, are absorbed and lost in general excellence. Others are furnished by criticism with a tele- scope. They see with great clearness whatever is too remote to be discovered by the rest of mankind, but are totally blind to all that lies 36 ESSA YS OF DR. JOHNSOX. immediately before them. They discover in every passage some secret meaning, some remote allusion, some artful allegory, or some occult imitation, which no other reader ever suspected ; but they have no perception of the cogency of arguments, the force of pathetic sentiments, the various colours of diction, or the flowery em- bellishments of fancy ; of all that engages the attention of others, they are totally insensible, while they pry into worlds of conjecture, and amuse themselves with phantoms in the clouds. In criticism, as in every other art, we fail some- times by our weakness, but more frequently by our fault. We are sometimes bewildered b}- ignorance, and sometimes by prejudice, but we seldom deviate far from the right, but when we deliver ourselves up to the direction of vanity. No. 178. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 1751. Pars sanitatis Velle Sanari fuit. — Seneca.1 To yield to remedies is half the cure. ^YTHAGORAS is reported to have required from those whom he in- structed in philosophy a probationary silence of five years. Whether this prohibition of speech extended to all the parts of 1 Hippolytus, I. 250. In three editions of Johnson's Works which I have examined — those of 1806, 1820, and the Oxford edition of 1825 — sanari is printed saruiria. THE RAMBLER. 37 this time, as seems generally to be supposed, or was to be observed only in the school or in the presence of their master, as is more probable, it was sufficient to discover the pupil's disposition ; to try whether he was willing to pay the price of learning, or whether he was one of those whose ardour was rather violent than lasting, and who expected to grow wise on other terms than those of patience and obedience. Many of the blessings universally desired, are very frequently wanted, because most men, when they should labour, content themselves to com- plain, and rather linger in a state in which they cannot be at rest, than improve their condition by vigour and resolution. Providence has fixed the limits of human en- joyment by immovable boundaries, and has set different gratifications at such a distance from each other, that no art or power can bring them together. This great law it is the business of every rational being to understand, that life may not pass away in an attempt to make contradic- tions consistent, to combine opposite qualities, and to unite things which the nature of their being must always keep asunder. Of two objects tempting at a distance on con- trary sides, it is impossible to approach one but by receding from the other ; by long delibera- tion and dilatory projects, they may be both lost, but can never be both gained. It is, therefore, necessary to compare them, and, when we have determined the preference, to withdraw our eyes and our thoughts at once from that which reason '&' ?8 ESS A YS OF DR. JOHNSOX. directs us to reject. This is more necessary, if that which we are forsaking has the power of delighting the senses, or firing the fancy. He that once turns aside to the allurements of un- lawful pleasure, can have no security that he shall ever regain the paths of virtue. The philosophic goddess of Boethius, having related the story of Orpheus, who, when he had recovered his wife from the dominions of death, lost her again by looking back upon her in the confines of light, concludes with a very elegant and forcible application. " Whoever you are that endeavour to elevate your minds to the illumina- tions of Heaven, consider yourselves as repre- sented in this fable ; for he that is once so far overcome as to turn back his eyes towards the infernal caverns, loses at the first sight all that influence which attracted him on high:" Vos haec fabula respicit, Ouicunque in superum diem Mc-ntem ducere quaeritis. Nam qui Tartareum in specus Victus lumina flexerit, Quidquid praecipuum trahit. Perdit, dum videt inferos. It may be observed, in general, that the future is purchased by the present. It is not possible to secure instant or permanent happiness but by the forbearance of some immediate gratification. This is so evidently true with regard to the whole of our existence, that all the precepts of theology have no other tendency than to enforce a life of faith ; a life regulated not by our senses but THE RAMBLER. 39 our belief ; a life in which pleasures are to be refused for fear of invisible punishments, and calamities sometimes to be sought, and always endured, in hope of rewards that shall be obtained in another state. Even if we take into our view only that particle of our duration which is terminated by the grave, it will be found that we cannot enjoy one part of life beyond the common limitations of pleasure, but by anticipating some of the satisfaction which should exhilarate the following years. The heat of youth may spread happiness into wild luxuri- ance, but the radical vigour requisite to make it perennial is exhausted, and all that can be hoped afterwards is languor and sterility. The reigning error of mankind is, that we are not content with the conditions on which the goods of life are granted. 1 No man is insensible of the whole of knowledge, the advantages of health, or the convenience of plenty, but every day shows us those on whom the conviction is without effect. Knowledge is praised and desired by multitudes whom her charms could never rouse from the couch of sloth ; whom the faintest invitation of pleasure draws away from their studies ; to whom 1 " Every man is to take existence on the terms on which it is given to him. To some men it is given on condition of not taking liberties, which other men may take without much harm. One may drink wine, and be nothing the worse for it : on another, wine may have effects so inflamma- tory as to injure him both in body and mind, and perhaps make him commit something for which he may deserve to be hanged." — Boswell's Jo!i7ison, iii. 58. 40 ESSA YS OF DR. JOHNSOX. any other method of wearing out the day is more eligible than the use of books, and who are more easily engaged by any conversation, than such as may rectify their notions or enlarge their com- prehension. Every man that has felt pain, knows how little all other comforts can gladden him to whom health is denied. Yet who is there does not some- times hazard it for the enjoyment of an hour ? All assemblies of jollity, all places of public enter- tainment, exhibit examples of strength wasting in riot, and beauty withering in irregularity ; nor is it easy to enter a house in which part of the family is not groaning in repentance of past intem- perance, and part admitting disease by negligence, or soliciting it by luxury. There is no pleasure which men of every age and sect have more generally agreed to mention with contempt, than the gratifications of the palate ; an entertainment so far removed from intellectual happiness, that scarcely the most shameless of the sensual herd have dared to defend it : yet even to this, the lowest of our delights, to this, though neither quick or lasting, is health with all its activity and sprightliness daily sacrificed ; and for this are half the miseries endured which urge impatience to call on death. 1 1 " At supper this night Dr. Johnson talked of good eating with uncommon satisfaction. 'Some people,' said he, 'have a foolish way of not minding, or pretending not to mind, what they eat. For my part, I mind my belly very studiously, and very carefully ; for I look upon it, that he who does not mind his belly will hardly mind anything else.' He now appeared to me Jea?i Bull philosophe, and he was for the THE RAMBLER. 41 The whole world is put in motion by the wish for riches and the dread of poverty. Who, then, would not imagine that such conduct as will in- evitably destroy what all are thus labouring to acquire, must be generally avoided ? That he who spends more than he receives, must in time become indigent, cannot be doubted ; but, how evident soever this consequence may appear, the spendthrift moves in the whirl of pleasure with too much rapidity to keep it before his eyes, and, in the intoxication of gaiety, grows every day poorer, without anj' such sense of approaching ruin as is sufficient to wake him into caution. Many complaints are made of the misery of life ; and indeed it must be confessed that we are sub- ject to calamities by which the good and bad, the diligent and slothful, the vigilant and heedless, are equally afflicted. But surely, though some indulgence may be allowed to groans extorted by inevitable misery, no man has a right to repine at evils which, against warning, against experience, he deliberately and leisurely brings upon his own head ; or to consider himself as debarred from happiness by such obstacles as resolution may break or dexterity may put aside. moment, not only serious, but vehement. Yet I have heard him, upon other occasions, talk with great contempt of people who were anxious to gratify their palates ; and the 206th number of his Rambler is a masterly essay against gulosity. His practice, indeed, I must acknowledge, may be considered as casting the balance of his different opinions upon this subject ; for I never knew any man who relished good eating more than he did."— Boswell's Johnson, i. 467. 42 ESSAYS OF DR. JOHNSON. Great numbers who quarrel with their condition, have wanted not the power but the will to obtain a better state. They have never contemplated the difference between good and evil sufficiently to quicken aversion, or invigorate desire ; they have indulged a drowsy thoughtlessness or giddy levity; have committed the balance of choice to the management of caprice ; and when they have long accustomed themselves to receive all that chance offered them without examination, lament at last that they find themselves deceived. No. i So. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1751. Tupt' ( ISwi O-O0OV \spei. — CaLI.IMACHUS. From no affliction is the poor exempt, He thinks each eye surveys him with contempt, Unmanly poverty subdues the heart, Cankers each wound, and sharpens ev'ry dart. — F. Lewis. .2 Ip^MONG those who have endeavoured to promote learning, and rectify judg- LdP|r\^: ment, it has been long customary to LJS^^e^ complain of the abuse of words which are often admitted to signify things so different, that, instead of assisting the understanding as vehicles of knowledge, they produce error, dissen- sion, and perplexity, because what is affirmed in one sense, is received in another. THE RAMBLER. 71 If this ambiguity sometimes embarrasses the most solemn controversies, and obscures the demonstrations of science, it may be well expected to infest the pompous periods of declaimers, whose purpose is often only to amuse with fallacies, and change the colours of truth and falsehood ; or the musical compositions of poets, whose style is professedly figurative, and whose art is imagined to consist in distorting words from their original meaning. There are few words of which the reader believes himself better to know the import, than of poverty ; yet, whoever studies either the poets or philo- sophers, will find such an account of the condition expressed by that term as his experience or obser- vation will not easily discover to be true. Instead of the meanness, distress, complaint, anxiety, and dependence, which have hitherto been combined in his ideas of poverty, he will read of content, in- nocence, and cheerfulness, of health and safety, tranquillity and freedom ; of pleasures not known but to men unencumbered with possessions ; and of sleep that sheds his balsamic anodynes only on the cottage. Such are the blessings to be obtained by the resignation of riches, that kings might de- scend from their thrones, and generals retire from a triumph, only to slumber undisturbed in the elysium of poverty. 1 1 " Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee, And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber, Than in the perfumed chambers of the great," &c. — Henry IV. Second Part, Act iii. sc. i., 1. q. 72 ESSA YS OF DR. JOHNSON. If these authors do not deceive us, nothing can be more absurd than that perpetual contest for wealth which keeps the world in commotion ; nor any complaints more justly censured than those which proceed from want of the gifts of fortune, which we are taught by the great masters of moral wisdom to consider as golden shackles, by which the wearer is at once disabled and adorned ; as luscious poisons which may for a time please the palate, but soon betray their malignity by languor and by pain. It is the great privilege of poverty to be happy unenvied, to be healthful without physic, and secure without a guard ; to obtain from the bounty of nature what the great and wealthy are com- pelled to procure by the help of artists and attendants, of flatterers and spies. 1 But it will be found upon a nearer view, that they who extol the happiness of poverty, do not mean the same state with those who deplore its miseries. Poets have their imaginations filled with ideas of magnificence ; and being accustomed to contemplate the downfall of empires, or to con- trive forms of lamentations for monarchs in dis- tress, rank all the classes of mankind in a state of poverty, who make no approaches to the dignity of 1 Boswell describes how he and Johnson entered a hut in the Island of Col : — " There was but one bed for all the family, and the hut was very smoky. When he came out he said to me, 'Et hoc secundum sententiam philosophorum est esse beatus.' Boswell. 'The philosophers, when they placed happiness in a cottage, supposed cleanliness and no smoke.' Johnson. ' Sir, they did not think about either.'" — Boswell's Johnson, v. 293. THE RAMBLER. 73 crowns. To be poor, in the epic language, is only not to command the wealth of nations, nor to have fleets and armies in pay. Vanity has perhaps contributed to this impro- priety of style. He that wishes to become a philo- sopher at a cheap rate, easily gratifies his ambition by submitting to poverty when he does not feel it, and by boasting his contempt of riches, when he has already more than he enjoys. He who would show the extent of his views, and grandeur of his conceptions, or discover his acquaintance with splendour and magnificence, may talk like Cowley, of an humble station and quiet obscurity, of the paucity of nature's wants, and the inconveniencies of superfluity, and at last, like him, limit his desires to five hundred pounds a year 1 ; a fortune, indeed, not exuberant, when we compare it with the ex- pences of pride and luxury, but to which it little becomes a philosopher to affix the name of poverty, since no man can, with any propriety, be termed 1 " When you have pared away all the vanity, what solid and natural contentment does there remain which may not be had with five hundred pounds a year ? " — Cowley's Works, ed. 1674, last part, p. 123. In the beginning of the same essay he says : — " If ever I more riches did desire Than cleanliness and quiet do require, If e'er ambition did my fancy cheat With any wish so mean as to be great, Continue, Heav'n, still from me to remove The humble blessings of that life I love." Johnson, in the last year of his life, said that if his pension were doubled, so that he should receive six hundred pounds a year, " he would have the consciousness that he should pass the remainder of his life in splendour." — Boswell's Johnson, iv. 337- 74 ESSAYS OF DR. JOHNSON. poor, who does not see the greater part of mankind richer than himself. As little is the general condition of human life understood by the panegyrists and historians, who amuse us with accounts of the poverty of heroes and sages. Riches are of no value in themselves, their use is discovered only in that which they procure. They are not coveted, unless by narrow understandings, which confound the means with the end, but for the sake of power, influence, and esteem ; or, by some of less elevated and refined sentiments, as necessary to sensual enjoyment. The pleasures of luxury many have, without uncommon virtue, been able to despise, even when affluence and idleness have concurred to tempt them ; and therefore he who feels nothing from indigence but the want of gratifications which he could not in any other condition make consistent with innocence, has given no proof of eminent patience. Esteem and influence every man de- sires, but they are equally pleasing, and equally valuable, by whatever means they are obtained ; and whoever has found the art of securing them without the help of money, ought, in reality, to be accounted rich, since he has all that riches can purchase to a wise man. Cincinnatus, though he lived upon a few acres cultivated by his own hand, was sufficiently removed from all the evils generally comprehended under the name of poverty, when his reputation was such that the voice of his country called him from his farm to take absolute command into his hand ; nor was Diogenes much mortified by his residence in a tub, where he THE RAMBLER. 75 was honoured with the visit of Alexander the Great. The same fallacy has conciliated veneration to the religious orders. When we behold a man abdicating the hope of terrestrial possessions, and precluding himself, by an irrevocable vow, from the pursuit and acquisition of all that his fellow- beings consider as worthy of wishes and en- deavours, we are immediately struck with the pvirity, abstraction, and firmness of his mind, and regard him as wholly employed in securing the interests of futurity, and devoid of any other care than to gain at whatever price the surest passage to eternal rest. Yet, what can the votary be justly said to have lost of his present happiness ? If he resides in a convent, he converses only with men whose con- dition is the same with his own ; he has, from the munificence of the founder, all the necessaries of life, and is safe from that " destitution which Hooker declares to be such an impediment to virtue, as, till it be removed, suffereth not the mind of man to admit any other care." All temptations to envy and competition are shut out from his retreat ; he is not pained with the sight of un- attainable dignity, nor insulted with the bluster of insolence, or the smile of forced familiarity. If he wanders abroad, the sanctity of his character amply compensates all other distinctions ; he is seldom seen but with reverence, nor heard but with submission. It has been remarked that death, though often defied in the field, seldom fails to terrify when it 76 ESS A YS OF DR. JOHNSON. approaches the bed of sickness in its natural horror ; J so poverty may easily be endured, while associated with dignity and reputation, but will always be shunned and dreaded, when it is accom- panied with ignominy and contempt. No. 203. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 1752. Quum volet ilia dies, qua nil nisi corf oris hujus Jus habet, incerti spatium mihi finiat cevi. — Ovid. 2 Come, soon or late, death's undetermin'd day, This mortal being only can decay. — Welsted. f^j&ejoT seems to be the fate of man to seek t^lffi^ all his consolations in futurity. The ('^f^E^J t ' me P resent IS seldom able to fill }o&issiAi£ desire or imagination with immediate enjoyment, and we are forced to supply its defi- ciencies by recollection or anticipation. Every one has so often detected the fallacious- ness of hope, and the inconvenience of teaching himself to expect what a thousand accidents may preclude, that, when time has abated the confi- dence with which youth rushes out to take posses- sion of the world, we endeavour, or wish, to find entertainment in the review of life, and to repose 1 " Or i'ay pense souvent d'ou venoit cela, qu'aux guerres le visage de la mort, soit que nous la veoyions en nous ou en aultruy, nous semble sans comparaison moins effroyable qu'en nos maisons (aultrement ceseroit une armee de medecins et de pleurars)." — Essais de Montaigne, i. 19. " Metamorphoses, xv. 873. THE RAMBLER. 77 upon real facts, and certain experience. This is perhaps one reason, among many, why age delights in narratives. But so full is the world of calamity, that every source of pleasure is polluted, and every retire- ment of tranquillity disturbed. When time has supplied us with events sufficient to employ our thoughts, it has mingled them with so many disas- ters, that we shrink from their remembrance, dread their intrusion upon our minds, and fly from them as from enemies that pursue us with torture. No man past the middle point of life can sit down to feast upon the pleasures of youth without finding the banquet embittered by the cup of sorrow ; he may revive lucky accidents and pleasing extrava- gancies ; many days of harmless frolic, or nights of honest festivity, will perhaps recur ; or, if he has been engaged in scenes of action, and acquainted with affairs of difficulty and vicissitudes of fortune, he may enjoy the nobler pleasure of looking back upon distress firmly supported, dangers resolutely encountered, and opposition artfully defeated. /Eneas properly comforts his companions, when, after the horrors of a storm, they have landed on an unknown and desolate country, with the hope that their miseries will be at some distant time recounted with delight. 1 There are few higher gratifications than that of reflection on sur- mounted evils, when they ivere not incurred nor protracted by our fault, and neither reproach us with cowardice nor guilt. 1 " forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit." — JEneid, i. 203. 78 ESSA YS OF DR. JOHNSON. But this felicity is almost always abated by the reflection that they with whom we should be most pleased to share it are now in the grave. A few years make such havoc in human genera- tions, that we soon see ourselves deprived of those with whom we entered the world, and whom the participation of pleasures or fatigues had endeared to our remembrance. The man of enterprise recounts his adventures and expedients, but is forced, at the close of the relation, to pay a sigh to the names of those that contributed to his success ; he that passes his life among the gayer part of mankind, has his remembrance stored with remarks and repartees of wits, whose sprightliness and merriment are now lost in per- petual silence ; the trader, whose industry has supplied the want of inheritance, repines in solitary plenty at the absence of companions, with whom he had planned out amusements for his latter years ; and the scholar, whose merit, after a long series of efforts, raises him from obscurity, looks round in vain from his exaltation for his old friends or enemies, whose applause or mortifi- cation would heighten his triumph. Among Martial's requisites to happiness is, Res non parta labore, sed relkta 1 , an estate not gained by industry, but left by inheritance. It is necessary to the completion of every good, that it be timely obtained ; for whatever comes at the 1 " Vitam quae faciant beatiorem, Jucundissime Martialis, haeo sunt : Res non parta labore, sed relicta," &c. —Martial, x. 47. THE RAMBLER. 79 close of life will come too late to give much delight 1 ; yet all human happiness has its defects. Of what we do not gain for ourselves we have only a faint and imperfect fruition, because we cannot compare the difference between want and possession, or at least can derive from it no con- viction of our own abilities, nor any increase of self-esteem ; what we acquire by bravery or science, by mental or corporal diligence, comes at last when we cannot communicate, and therefore cannot enjoy it. Thus every period of life is obliged to borrow its happiness from the time to come. In youth we have nothing past to entertain us, and in age, we derive little from retrospect but hopeless sorrow. Yet the future likewise has its limits, which the imagination dreads to approach, but which we see to be not far distant. The loss of our friends and companions impresses hourly upon us the necessity of our own departure ; we know that the schemes of man are quickly at an end, that we must soon lie down in the grave with the forgotten multitudes of former ages, and yield our place to others, who, like us, shall be driven a while by hope or fear, about the surface of the earth, and then like us be lost in the shades of death. 1 Johnson wrote this Rambler when his wife was on her death-bed. Three years later, in his letter to Lord Chester- field, he says : — " The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labours, had it been early, had been kind ; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it ; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it ; till I am known, and do not want it." — Boswell's Johnson, i. 262. «o ESSA YS OF DR. JOHNSON. Beyond this termination of our material exist- ence, we are therefore obliged to extend our hopes ; and almost every man indulges his imagination with something, which is not to happen till he has changed his manner of being ; some amuse themselves with entails and settle- ments, provide for the perpetuation of families and honours, or contrive to obviate the dissipa- tion of the fortunes, which it has been their business to accumulate ; others, more refined or exalted, congratulate their own hearts upon the future extent of their reputation, the reverence of distant nations, and the gratitude of unprejudiced posterity. They whose souls are so chained down to coffers and tenements, that they cannot conceive a state in which they shall look upon them with less solicitude, are seldom attentive or flexible to arguments ; but the votaries of fame are capable of reflection, and therefore may be called to re- consider the probability of their expectations. Whether to be remembered in remote times be worthy of a wise man's wish, has not yet been satisfactorily decided ; and, indeed, to be long remembered, can happen to so small a number, that the bulk of mankind has very little interest in the question. There is never room in the world for more than a certain quantity or measure of renown. 1 The necessary business of life, the 1 " Sir Joshua Reynolds said that Goldsmith considered fame as one great parcel, to the whole of which he laid claim, and whoever partook of any part of it, whether dancer, singer, sleight of hand man, or tumbler, deprived him of his right." — Northcote's Life of Reynolds, i. 248. THE RAMBLER. Ri immediate pleasures or pains of every condition, leave us not leisure beyond a fixed proportion for contemplations which do not forcibly influence our present welfare. When this vacuity is filled, no characters can be admitted into the circulation of fame, but by occupying the place of some that must be thrust into oblivion. The eye of the mind, like that of the body, can only extend its view to new objects, by losing sight of those which are now before it. Reputation is therefore a meteor, which blazes a while and disappears for ever ; and, if we except a few transcendent and invincible names, which no revolutions of opinion or length of time is able to suppress ; all those that engage our thoughts, or diversify our conversation, are every moment hasting to obscurity, as new favourites are adopted by fashion. It is not therefore from this world, that any ray of comfort can proceed, to cheer the gloom of the last hour. But futurity has still its prospects ; there is yet happiness in reserve, which, if we transfer our attention to it, will support us in the pains of disease, and the languor of decay. This happiness we may expect with confidence, because it is out of the power of chance, and may be at- tained by all that sincerely desire and earnestly pursue it. On this therefore every mind ought finally to rest. Hope is the chief blessing of man, and that hope only is rational, of which we are certain that it cannot deceive us. II 82 ESSAYS OF DR. JOHNSON. No. 208. SATURDAY, MARCH, 14, 1 1752. ' 1 Ipd/oVfiro? iyw ti fxe }.3 Celestial pow'rs ! that piety regard, From You my labours wait their last reward. 1 " The real satisfaction which praise can afford is by re- peating aloud the whispers of conscience, and by showing us that we have not endeavoured to deserve well in vain." — Rambler, No. 136. - The last line in this paragraph Colonel Myddelton, of Gwaynynog, near Denbigh, inscribed on an urn which he set up " on the banks of a rivulet in his park, where Johnson delighted to stand and repeat verses." — Boswell's Johnson, iv. 421. 3 Dr. Pan-, who wrote the ponderous inscription on THE RAMBLER. 89 Johnson's monument in St. Paul's Cathedral, says : — "After I had written the epitaph Sir Joshua Reynolds told me there was a scroll. I was in a rage. A scroll. Why, Ned, this is vile modern contrivance. I wanted one train of ideas. What could I do with the scroll ? Johnson held it, and Johnson must speak in it. . . . Mr. Seward, hearing of my difficulty, and no scholar, suggested the closing line in The Rambler ; had I looked there I should have anticipated the suggestion. It is the closing line in Dionysius's Pcricgesis. I adopted it and gave Seward the praise. ' Oh,' quoth Sir William Scott, '/xaKaptav is Heathenish, and the Dean and Chapter will hesitate.' ' The more fools they,' said I. Rut to prevent disputes I have altered it :— 'Ei» ^aKopeo-(7i novaiv dirafios tt») aixoifir).' — Boswell's Johnson, iv. 443. THE ADVENTURER. to. THE ADVENTURER. Tentanda via est ; qua vie quoque possim Tollere humo, vietorque virion volitare f>er era. — Virgil. 1 On vent'rous wing in quest of praise I go, And leave the gazing multitude below. No. 69. TUESDAY, JULY 3, 1753. Fere Ubenter homines id quod volunt credunt.—CMSAR." Men willingly believe what they wish to be true. ULLY has 'long ago observed, that no man, however weakened by long life, is so conscious of his own decrepitude, as not to imagine that he may yet hold his station in the world for another year. 3 Of the truth of this remark every day furnishes new confirmation : there is no time of life, in which men for the most part seem less to expect the stroke of death, than when every other eye 1 Georgics, iii. 8. 2 Gallic War, iii. 18. s "Nemo enim est tam senex qui se annum non putet posse vivere." — De Senectute, vii. 24. 94 ESSA YS OF DR. JOHNSON. sees it impending ; or are more busy in providing for another year than when it is plain to all but themselves, that at another year they cannot arrive. Though every funeral that passes before their eyes evinces the deceitfulness of such expec- tations, since every man who is borne to the grave thought himself equally certain of living at least to the next year ; the survivor still continues to flatter himself, and is never at a loss for some reason why his life should be protracted, and the voracity of death continue to be pacified with some other prey. But this is only one of the innumerable artifices practised in the universal conspiracy of mankind against themselves : every age and every condi- tion indulges some darling fallacy ; every man amuses himself with projects which he knows to be improbable, and which, therefore, he resolves to pursue without daring to examine them. What- ever any man ardently desires, he very readily believes that he shall some time attain : he whose intemperance has overwhelmed him with diseases, while he languishes in the spring, expects vigour and recovery from the summer sun ; and while he melts away in the summer, transfers his hopes to the frosts of winter : he that gazes upon elegance or pleasure, which want of money hinders him from imitating or partaking, comforts himself that the time of distress will soon be at an end, and that every day brings him nearer to a state of happiness ; though he knows it has passed net only without acquisition of advantage, but perhaps without endeavours after it, in the formation of THE ADVENTURER. 95 schemes that cannot be executed, and in the contemplation of prospects that cannot be ap- proached. Such is the general dream in which we all slumber out our time : every man thinks the day coming, in which he shall be gratified with all his wishes, in which he shall leave all those competitors behind, who are now rejoicing like himself in the expectation of victory ; the day is always coming to the servile in which they shall be powerful, to the obscure in which they shall be eminent, and to the deformed in which they shall be beautiful. If any of my readers has looked with so little attention on the world about him, as to imagine this representation exaggerated beyond probabil- ity, let him reflect a little upon his own life ; let him consider what were his hopes and prospects ten years ago, and what additions he then ex- pected to be made by ten years to his happiness : those years are now elapsed ; have they made good the promise that was extorted from them, have they advanced his fortune, enlarged his knowledge, or reformed his conduct, to the degree that was once expected ? I am afraid, every man that recollects his hopes, must confess his dis- appointment ; and own that day has glided un- profitably after day, and that he is still at the same distance from the point of happiness. With what consolations can those, who have thus miscarried in their chief design, elude the memory of their ill success ? with what amuse- ments can they pacify their discontent, after the 9 6 ESSA YS OF DR. JOHNSON. loss of so large a portion of life ? they can give themselves up again to the same delusions, they can form new schemes of airy gratifications, and fix another period of felicity ; they can again re- solve to trust the promise which they know will be broken, they can walk in a circle with their eyes shut, and persuade themselves to think that they go forward. Of every great and complicated event, part depends upon causes out of our power, and part must be effected by rigour and perseverance. With regard to that which is styled in common language the work of chance, men will always find reasons for confidence or distrust, according to their different tempers or inclinations ; and he that has been long accustomed to please himself with possibilities of fortuitous happiness, will not easily or willingly be reclaimed from his mistake. But the effects of human industry and skill are more easily subjected to calculation : whatever can be completed in a year, is divisible into parts, of which each may be performed in the compass of a day 1 ; he, therefore, that has passed the day without attention to the task assigned him, may be certain that the lapse of life has brought him no nearer to his object ; for whatever idleness may 1 Johnson recorded in his Diary on Advent-Sunday, 1774 :— " I began to read the Greek Testament regularly at 160 verses "every Sunday." On this Boswell says:— "It is remarkable that he was very fond of the precision which cal- culation produces. Thus we find in one of his manuscript diaries, ' 12 pages in 4to. Gr. Test., and 30 pages in Beza's folio, comprise the whole in 40 days.'"— Boswell's Johnson, ii. 388. THE ADVENTURER. 9- expect from time, its produce will be only in pro- portion to the diligence with which it has been used. He that floats lazily down the stream, in pursuit of something borne along by the same current, will find himself indeed moved forward ; but unless he lays his hand to the oar, and increases his speed by his own labour, must be always at the same distance from that which he is following. There have happened in ever)'' age some con- tingencies of unexpected and undeserved success, by which those who are determined to believe whatever favours their inclinations, have been encouraged to delight themselves with future ad- vantages ; they support confidence by considera- tions, of which the only proper use is to chase away despair : it is equally absurd to sit down in idleness because some have been enriched without labour, as to leap a precipice because some have fallen and escaped with life, or to put to sea in a storm because some have been driven from a wreck upon the coast to which they were bound. We are all ready to confess, that belief ought to be proportioned to evidence or probability : let any man, therefore, compare the number of those who have been thus favoured by fortune, and of those who have failed of their expectations, and he will easily determine, with what justness he has registered himself in the lucky catalogue. But there is no need on these occasions for deep inquiries or laborious calculations ; there is a far easier method of distinguishing the hopes of folly II H 98 ESSAYS OF DR. JOHNSON. from those of reason, of finding the difference between prospects that exist before the eyes, and those that are only painted on a fond imagination. Tom Drowsy had accustomed himself to compute the profit of a darling project, till he had no longer any doubt of its success ; it was at last matured by close consideration, all the measures were accurately adjusted, and he wanted only five hundred pounds to become master of a fortune that might be envied by a director of a trading company. Tom was generous and grateful, and was resolved to recompense this small assistance with an ample fortune : he, therefore, deliberated for a time, to whom amongst his friends he should declare his necessities ; not that he suspected a refusal, but because he could not suddenly deter- mine which of them would make the best use of riches, and was, therefore, most worthy of his favour. At last his choice was settled ; and knowing that in order to borrow he must shew the probability of re-payment, he prepared for a minute and copious explanation of his project. But here the golden dream was at an end : he soon discovered the impossibility of imposing upon others the notions by which he had so long im- posed upon himself ; which way soever he turned his thoughts, impossibility and absurdity arose in opposition on every side ; even credulity and prejudice were at last forced to give way, and he grew ashamed of crediting himself what shame would not suffer him to communicate to another. To this test let every man bring his imagi- THE ADVENTURER. 99 nations, before they have been too long predomi- nant in his mind. Whatever is true will bear to be related, whatever is rational will endure to be explained ; but when we delight to brood in secret over future happiness, and silently to em- ploy our meditations upon schemes of which we are conscious that the bare mention would expose us to derision and contempt ; we should then remember, that we are cheating ourselves by voluntary delusions ; and giving up to the unreal mockeries of fancy, those hours in which solid advantages might be attained by sober thought and rational assiduity. There is, indeed, so little certainty in human affairs, that the most cautious and severe examiner may be allowed to indulge some hopes which he cannot prove to be much favoured by probability ; since after his utmost endeavours to ascertain events, he must often leave the issue in the hands of chance. And so scanty is our present allowance of happiness, that in many situations life could scarcely be supported, if hope were not allowed to relieve the present hour by pleasures borrowed from futurity : and re-animate the languor of de- jection to new efforts, by pointing to distant regions of felicity, which yet no resolution or perseverance shall ever reach. But these, like all other cordials, though they may invigorate in a small quantity, intoxicate in a greater ; these pleasures, like the rest, are lawful only in certain circumstances, and to certain de- grees ; they may be useful in a due subserviency to. nobler purposes, but become dangerous and ioo £SSA YS OF DR. JOHNSON. destructive when once they gain the ascendant in the heart : to soothe the mind to tranquillity by hope, even when that hope is likely to deceive us, may be sometimes useful ; but to lull our faculties in a lethargy, is poor and despicable. Vices and errors are differently modified, ac- cording to the state of the minds to which they are incident ; to indulge hope beyond the warrant of reason, is the failure alike of mean and elevated understandings ; but its foundation and its effects are totally different : the man of high courage and great abilities is apt to place too much confi- dence in himself, and to expect from a vigorous exertion of his powers more than spirit or diligence can attain : between him and his wish he sees obstacles indeed, but he expects to overleap or break them ; his mistaken ardour hurries him forward ; and though perhaps he misses his end, he nevertheless obtains some collateral good, and performs something useful to mankind and honour- able to himself. The drone of timidity presumes likewise to hope, but without ground and without consequence ; the bliss with which he solaces his hours, he always expects from others, though very often he knows not from whom : he folds his arms about him, and sits in expectation of some revolution in the state that shall raise him to greatness, or some golden shower that shall load him with wealth ; he dozes away the day in musing upon the morrow ; and at the end of life is roused from his dream only to discover that the time of action is past, and that he can now shew his wisdom only by repentance. THE ADVENTURER. No. 99. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 16, 1753. Magnis tamen excidit ausis. — Ovid. 1 But in the glorious enterprise he died. — Addison. 2 JT has always been the practice of man- kind, to judge of actions by the event. The same attempts, conducted in the same manner, but terminated by dif- ferent success, produce different judgments : they who attain their wishes, never want celebrators of their wisdom and their virtue ; and they that miscarry, are quickly discovered to have been de- fective not only in mental but in moral qualities. The world will never be long without some good reason to hate the unhappy : their real faults are immediately detected ; and if those are not suffi- cient to sink them into infamy, an additional weight of calumny will be superadded ; he that fails in his endeavours after wealth or power, will not long retain either honesty or courage. This species of injustice has so long prevailed in universal practice, that it seems likewise to have infected speculation : so few minds are able to separate the ideas of greatness and prosperity, that even Sir William Temple has determined, 1 Mt-tamorphoses, ii. 328. 2 Addison's Works, ed. 1862 i. 96. io2 ESSAYS OF DR. JOHNSON. " that he who can deserve the name of a hero, " must not only be virtuous but fortunate." l By this unreasonable distribution of praise and blame, none have suffered oftener than projectors, whose rapidity of imagination and vastness of design raise such envy in their fellow-mortals, that every eye watches for their fall, and every heart exults at their distresses : yet even a pro- jector may gain favour by success ; and the tongue that was prepared to hiss, then endeavours to excel others in loudness of applause. When Coriolanus, in Shakespeare, deserted to Aufidius, the Volscian servants at first insulted him, even while he stood under the protection of the household gods ; but when they saw that the project took effect, and the stranger was seated at the head of the table, one of them very judiciously observes, " that he always thought there was more " in him than he could think." 2 Machiavel has justly animadverted on the different notice taken by all succeeding times of the two great projectors Catiline and Caesar. Both formed the same project, and intended, to 1 Johnson twice more quoted Temple's saying, once as reported by Boswell in the Life (ii. 234), and once in writing to Mrs. Thrale (Piozzi Letters, ii. 93). He refers, I believe, to Temple's Essay Of Heroich Virtue, where that writer says that " the excellency of genius " must not only " be cultivated by education and instruction," but also "must be assisted by fortune to preserve it to maturity ; because the noblest spirit or genius in the world, if it falls, though never so bravely, in its first enterprises, cannot deserve enough of mankind to pretend to so great a reward as the esteem of heroic virtue." 2 " But I thought there was more in him than I could think." — Coriolanus, Act iv., sc. 5, 1. 166. THE ADVENTURER. 103 raise themselves to power, by subverting the com- monwealth ; they pursued their design, perhaps, with equal abilities, and with equal virtue ; but Catiline perished in the field, and Caesar returned from Pharsalia with unlimited authority : and from that time, every monarch of the earth has thought himself honoured by a comparison with Caesar ; and Catiline has been never mentioned, but that his name might be applied to traitors and incen- diaries. In an age more remote, Xerxes projected the conquest of Greece, and brought down the power of Asia against it : but after the world had been filled with expectation and terror, his army was beaten, his fleet was destroyed, and Xerxes has never been mentioned without contempt. A few years afterwards, Greece likewise had her turn of giving birth to a projector ; who invading Asia with a small army, went forward in search of adventures, and by his escape from one danger j gained only more rashness to rush into another : he stormed city after city, over-ran kingdom after kingdom, fought battles only for barren victory, and invaded nations only that he might make his way through them to new invasions : but having been fortunate in the execution of his projects, he died with the name of Alexander the Great. These are, indeed, events of ancient times ; but human nature is always the same, and every age will afford us instances of public censures influenced by events. The great business of the middle centuries, was the holy war; which undoubt- edly was a noble project, and was for a long time 104 ESS A YS OF DR. JOHNSON. prosecuted with a spirit equal to that with which it had been contrived : but the ardour of the Euro- pean heroes only hurried them to destruction ; for a long time they could not gain the territories for which they fought, and, when at last gained, they could not keep them : their expeditions, therefore, have been the scoff of idleness and ignorance, their understanding and their virtue have been equally vilified, their conduct has been ridiculed, and their cause has been defamed. When Columbus had engaged king Ferdinand in the discovery of the other hemisphere, the sailors, with whom he embarked in the expedition, had so little confidence in their commander, that after having been long at sea looking for coasts, which they expected never to find, they raised a general mutiny, and demanded to return. He found means to sooth them into a permission to continue the same course three days longer, and on the evening of the third day descried land. Had the impatience of his crew denied him a few hours of the time requested, what had been his fate but to have come back with the infamy of a vain projector, who had betrayed the king's credulity to useless expences, and risked his life in seeking countries that had no existence ? how would those that had rejected his proposals, have triumphed in their acuteness ? and when would his name have been mentioned, but with the makers of potable gold 1 and malleable glass. 1 " Tertio monemus ut homines nugari desinant, nee tam faciles tint ut credant, grande illud opus quale est naturae cursum remorari et retrovertere, posse haustu aliquo matutinOi THE ADVENTURER. 105 The last royal projectors with whom the world has been troubled, were Charles of Sweden and the Czar of Muscovy. Charles, if any judgment may be formed of his designs by his measures and his inquiries, had purposed first to dethrone the Czar, then to lead his army through pathless deserts into China, thence to make his way by the sword through the whole circuit of Asia, and by the conquest of Turkey to unite Sweden with his new dominions : but this mighty project was crushed at Pultowa 1 ; and Charles has since been considered as a madman by those powers, who $ent their ambassadors to solicit his friendship, and their generals " to learn under him the art " of war." The Czar found employment sufficient in his own dominions, and amused himself in digging canals, and building cities ; murdering his subjects with insufferable fatigues, and transplanting nations from one corner of his dominions to another, without regretting the thousands that perished on the way : but he attained his end, he made his people formidable, and is numbered by fame among the demi-gods. aut usu alicujus pretiosae medicinae, ad exitum perduci : non auro potabili, non margaritarum essentiis, et similibus nugis." — Bacon's Works, ed. 1803, vii. 227. ' " The march begins in military state, And nations on his eye suspended wait ; Stern famine guards the solitary coast, And winter barricades the realms of frost ; He comes, nor want nor cold his course delay ; — Hide, blushing glory, hide Pultowa's day." — The Vanity of Human Wishes, 1. 205. io6 ESSAYS OF DR. JOHNSON. I am far from intending to vindicate the sangui- nary! projects of heroes and conquerors, and would wish rather to diminish the reputation of their success, than the infamy of their miscarriages : for I cannot conceive, why he that has burnt cities, wasted nations, and filled the world with horror and desolation, should be more kindly regarded by mankind, than he that died in the rudiments of wickedness ; why he that accomplished mischief should be glorious, and he that only endeavoured it should be criminal. I would wish Caesar and Catiline, Xerxes and Alexander, Charles and Peter, huddled together in obscurity or detesta- tion. But there is another species of projectors, to whom I would willingly conciliate mankind ; whose ends are generally laudable, and whose labours are innocent ; who are searching out new powers of nature, or contriving new works of art ; but who are yet persecuted with incessant obloquy, and whom the universal contempt with which they are treated, often debars from that success which their industry would obtain, if it were permitted to act without opposition. They who find themselves inclined to censure new undertakings, only because they are new, should consider, that the folly of projection is very seldom the folly of a fool ; it is commonly the ebullition of a capacious mind, crowded with variety of knowledge, and heated with intenseness of thought ; it proceeds often from the conscious- ness of uncommon powers, from the confidence of those, who having already done much, are easily THE ADVENTURER. 107 persuaded that they can do more. When Rowley had completed the orrery, 1 he attempted the perpetual motion ; when Boyle had exhausted the secrets of vulgar chemistry, he turned his thoughts to the work of transmutation .- A projector generally unites those qualities which have the fairest claim to veneration, extent of knowledge, and greatness of design ; it was said of Catiline, " immoderata, incredibilia, nimis " alta semper cupiebat." 3 Projectors of all kinds agree in their intellects, though they differ in their morals ; they all fail by attempting things beyond their power, by despising vulgar attain- ments, and aspiring to performances, to which, 1 According to an account quoted in the Penny Cylcopaedia, ed. 1840, xvii. 38.it was not Rowley, but George Graham who. about the year 1700, invented the orrery. Rowley, it seems, was an instrument-maker who made the first for the Earl of Orrery. 2 Boyle had " a process for ' multiplying gold ' by com- bining a certain red earth with mercury." Before his death he communicated it to Locke and Newton. Newton having received some of this earth from Locke told him " that though he had no inclination to prosecute the process," yet as he [Locke] had " a mind to prosecute it," he would be glad to assist him. — Brewster's Life of Newton, ed. 1855, ii. 121. Boswell says that " as to alchemy, Johnson was not a posi- tive unbeliever, but rather delighted in considering what pro- gress had actually been made in the transmutation of metals, what near approaches there had been to the making of gold." — Boswell's Johnson, ii. 376. The writer of the article on Robert Boyle in Knight's Cyclo. of Biog. points out "that faith in alchemy now and the same in the middle of the seventeenth century are two things so different in kind that to laugh at both in one shows nothing but the ignorance of the laugher." S Sallust : Catilina, ch. 5. io8 ESSAYS OF DR. JOHNSON. perhaps, nature has not proportioned the force of man : when they fail, therefore, they fail not by idleness or timidity, but by rash adventure and fruitless diligence. That the attempts of such men will often mis- carry, we may reasonably expect ; yet from such men, and such only, are we to hope for the cultivation of those parts of nature which lie yet waste, and the invention of those arts which are yet wanting to the felicity of life. If they are, therefore, universally discouraged, art and dis- covery can make no advances. 1 Whatever is attempted without previous certainty of success, may be considered as a project, and amongst narrow minds may, therefore, expose its author to censure and contempt ; and if the liberty of laughing be once indulged, every man will laugh at what he does not understand, every project will be considered as madness and every great or new design will be censured as a project. .Men, unaccustomed to reason and researches, think every enterprise impracticable, which is extended beyond common effects, or comprises many intermediate operations. Many that pre- sume to laugh at projectors, would consider a flight through the air in a winged chariot, and the movement of a mighty engine by the steam 1 An old sea-faring man wrote to Swift that he had found out the longitude. The Dean replied " that he never knew but two projectors, one of whom ruined himself and his family, and the other hanged himself ; and desired him to desist lest one or other might happen to him." — Swift's Works, ed. 1803, svii. 157. THE ADVENTURER. ic 9 of water, as equally the dreams of mechanic lunacy ; and would hear with equal negligence, of the union of the Thames and Severn by a canal, 1 and the scheme of Albuquerque, the viceroy of the Indies, who in the rage of hostility had contrived 2 to make Egypt a barren desert, by turning the Nile into the Red Sea. Those who have attempted much, have seldom failed to perform more than those who never deviate from the common roads of action : many valuable preparations of chemistry are supposed to have risen from unsuccessful inquiries after the grand elixir 3 : it is, therefore, just to encourage those who endeavour to enlarge the power of art, since they often succeed beyond expectation ; and when they fail, may sometimes benefit the world even by their miscarriages. 1 No canal in England had as yet been made. " Their origin dates from the year 1755, when an Act of Parliament was passed for constructing one from the Mersey to St. Helens." — Penny Cycle, first ed., vi. 219. The Thames and Severn Canal was finished in 1789. 2 Johnson defines to contrive as to flan out ; to excogitate. The sense of planning out successfully seems to be more modern than the date of his Dictionary. It was under Albu- querque that the Portuguese founded theirrule in the East Indies, Johnson in his translation of Lobo's Voyage to Abyssinia, p. 218, says that, according to Albuquerque's son, "nothing more was required to turn the Nile into a new channel than to dig through a little mountain that lies along it in the country of Prester John." 3 Johnson defines elixir as the liquor, or whatever it be, with which chemists hope to transmute metals to gold. no ESSAYS OF DR. JOHNSON. No. 108. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1753- Nobis quttm simul occidit brevis lux, Nox est perpetuo una dormietida.—CATVL.LVS. 1 When once the short-lived mortal dies, A night eternal seals his eyes. — Addison. DT ma) f have been observed by every reader, that there are certain topics which never are exhausted. Of some images and sentiments the mind of man may be said to be enamoured ; it meets them, however often they occur, with the same ardour which a lover feels at the sight of his mistress, and parts from them with the same regret when they can no longer be enjoyed. Of this kind are many descriptions which the poets have transcribed from each other, and their successors will probably copy to the end of time ; which will continue to engage, or, as the French term it, to flatter the imagination, as long as human nature shall remain the same. When a poet mentions the spring, we know that the zephyrs are about to whisper, that the groves are to recover their verdure, the linnets to warble forth their notes of love, and the flocks and herds to frisk over vales painted with flowers : yet, who is there so insensible of the beauties of nature, so little delighted with the renovation of the world, 1 Catullus, v. 5. THE ADVENTURER. m as not to feel his heart bound at the mention of the spring ? When night overshadows a romantic scene, all is stillness, silence, and quiet ; the poets of the grove cease their melody, the moon towers over the world in gentle majesty, men forget their labours and their cares, and every passion and pursuit is for a while suspended. All this we know already, yet we hear it repeated without weariness ; because such is generally the life of man, that he is pleased to think on the time when he shall pause from a sense of his condition. When a poetical grove invites us to its covert, we know that we shall find what we have already seen, a limpid brook murmuring over pebbles, a bank diversified with flowers, a green arch that excludes the sun, and a natural grot shaded with myrtles 1 ; yet who can forbear to enter the pleasing gloom, to enjoy coolness and privacy, and gratify himself once more by scenes with which nature has formed him to be delighted ? Many moral sentiments likewise are so adapted to our state, that we find approbation whenever they solicit it, and are seldom read without ex- citing a gentle emotion in the mind : such is the comparison of the life of man with the duration of a flower, a thought which, perhaps, every nation 1 " While they ring round the same unvaried chimes With sure returns of still expected rhymes ; Where'er you find ' the cooling western breeze,' In the next line it ' whispers through the trees ; ' If crystal streams ' with pleasing murmurs creep,' The reader's threaten'd (not in vain) with sleep." —Pope, Essay on Criticism, 1. 348. H2 ESSAYS OF DR. JOHN SOX. has heard warbled in its own language, from the inspired poets of the Hebrews to our own times : yet this comparison must always please, because every heart feels its justness, and every hour confirms it by example. Such, likewise, is the precept that directs us to use the present hour, and refer nothing to a distant time, which we are uncertain whether we shall reach ; this every moralist may venture to inculcate, because it will always be approved, and because it is always forgotten. This rule is, indeed, every day enforced, by arguments more powerful than the dissertations of moralists : we see men pleasing themselves with future happiness, fixing a certain hour for the completion of their wishes, and perishing some at a greater and some at a less distance from the happy time ; all complaining of their disappoint- ments, and lamenting that they had suffered the years which Heaven allowed them, to pass without improvement, and deferred the principal purpose of their lives to the time when life itself was to forsake them. It is not only uncertain, whether, through all the casualties and dangers which beset the life of man, we shall be able to reach the time appointed for happiness or wisdom ; but it is likely, that whatever now hinders us from doing that which our reason and conscience declare necessary to be done, will equally obstruct us in times to come. It is easy for the imagination, operating on things not yet existing, to please itself with scenes of unmingled felicity, or plan out courses of uniform THE ADVENTURER. 113 virtue : but good and evil are in real life insepar- ably united ; habits grow stronger by indulgence ; and reason loses her dignity, in proportion as she lias oftener yielded to temptation : " he that can- " not live well to-day," says Martial, "will be less " qualified to live well to-morrow." 1 Of the uncertainty of every human good, every human being seems to be convinced ; yet this uncertainty is voluntarily increased by unnecessary delay, whether we respect external causes, or consider the nature of our own minds. He that now feels a desire to do right, and wishes to regu- late his life according to his reason, is not sure that, at any future time assignable, he shall be able to rekindle the same ardour ; he that has now an opportunity offered him of breaking loose from vice and folly, cannot know, but that he shall hereafter be more entangled, and struggle for freedom without obtaining it. We are so unwilling to believe any thing to our own disadvantage, that we will always imagine the perspicacity of our own judgment and the strength of our resolution more likely to increase than to grow less by time ; and, therefore, con- clude, that the will to pursue laudable purposes, will be always seconded by the power. But however we may be deceived in calculating the strength of our faculties, we cannot doubt the uncertainty of that life in which they must be employed : we see every day the unexpected death of our friends and our enemies, we see new graves hourly opened for men older and younger " Qui non est hodie, eras minus aptus erit." II I iH ESSAYS OF DR. JOHNSON. than ourselves, for the cautious and the careless, the dissolute and the temperate, for men who like us were providing to enjoy or improve hours now irreversibly cut off ; we see all this, and yet, instead of living, let year glide after year in preparations to live. Men are so frequently cut off in the midst of their projections, 1 that sudden death causes little emotion in them that behold it, unless it be impressed upon the attention by uncommon circumstances. I, like every other man, have out- lived multitudes, have seen ambition sink in its triumphs, and beauty perish in its bloom ; but have been seldom so much affected as by the fate of Euryalus, whom I lately lost as I began to love him. Euryalus had for some time flourished in a lucrative profession ; but having suffered his imagination to be fired by an unextinguishable curiosity, he grew weary of the same dull round of life, 2 resolved to harass himself no longer with the drudgery of getting money, but to quit his 1 Johnson gives in his Dictionary as one of the meanings of projection ; scheme, plan 0/ action. 2 "Johnson repeated with great emotion Shenstons's lines: — 4 Whoe'er has travell'd life's dull round, Where'er his stages may have been, May sigh to think he still has found The warmest welcome at an inn.' " — Boswells Johnson, ii. 452. These verses, it should seem, were first published in Dodsley's Collection of Poems, vol. v., p. 51. As this did not appear till 1758, Shenstone borrowed the "life's dull round" from Johnson. THE ADVENTURER. 115 business and his profit, and enjoy for a few years the pleasures of travel. His friends heard him proclaim his resolution without suspecting that he intended to pursue it ; but he was constant to his purpose, and with great expedition closed his accounts and sold his moveables, passed a few days in bidding farewell to his companions, and with all the eagerness of romantic chivalry crossed the sea in search of happiness. Whatever place was renowned in ancient or modem history, what- ever region art or nature had distinguished, he determined to visit : full of design and hope he landed on the continent ; his friends expected accounts from him of the new scenes that opened in his progress, but were informed in a few days that Euryalus was dead. Such was the end of Euryalus. He is entered that state, whence none ever shall return ; and can now only benefit his friends, by remaining in their memories a permanent and efficacious instance of the blindness of desire, and the uncer- tainty of all terrestrial good. But, perhaps, ever}* man has like me lost an Euryalus, has known a friend die with happiness in his grasp ; and yet ■"" every man continues to think himself secure of life, and defers to some future time of leisure what • he knows it will be fatal to have finally omitted. ^' It is, indeed, with this as with other frailties inherent in our nature ; the desire of deferring -' to another time, what cannot be done without ' endurance of some pain, or forbearance of some - pleasure, will, perhaps, never be totally overcome ■ or suppressed ; there will always be something * no ESSAYS OF DR. JOHNSON. that we shall wish to have finished, and be nevertheless unwilling to begin : but against this unwillingness it is our duty to struggle, and every conquest over our passions will make way for an easier conquest ; custom is equally forcible to 1 bad and good ; nature will always be at variance with reason, but will rebel more feebly as she is oftener subdued. The common neglect of the present hour is more shameful and criminal, as no man is betrayed to it by error, but admits it by negligence. Of the instability of life, the weakest understanding never thinks wrong, though the strongest often omits to think justly : reason and experience are always ready to inform us of our real state ; but we refuse to listen to their suggestions, because we feel our hearts unwilling to obey them : but, surely, nothing is more unworthy of a reasonable being, than to shut his eyes, when he sees the road which he is commanded to travel, that he may deviate with fewer reproaches from himself ; nor could any motive to tenderness, except the consciousness that we have all been guilty of the same fault, dispose us to pity those who thus consign themselves to voluntary ruin. 1 Johnson in his Dictionary quotes from Hooker : — " That punishment which hath been sometimes forcible to bridle sin." THE ADVENTURER. it? No. in. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1753- Qua: non fecimus ipsi, Vix ea nostra voco.— Ovid. 1 The deeds of long-descended ancestors Are bat by grace of imputation ours. — Drydzn. FS^QS^HE evils inseparably annexed to the ^ present condition of man, are so nume- rous and afflictive, that it has been, from age to age, the task of some to bewail, and of others to solace them ; and he, therefore, will be in danger of seeming a common enemy, who shall attempt to depreciate the few pleasures and felicities which nature has allowed us. Yet I will confess, that I have sometimes em- ployed my thoughts in examining the pretensions that are made to happiness, by the splendid and envied condition of life ; and have not thought the hour unprofitably spent, when I have detected the imposture of counterfeit advantages, and found disquiet lurking under false appearances of gaiety and greatness. 1 Metamorphoses, xiii. 140. The motto to the Rambler No. 46, is " Genus et proavos et qua? non fecimus ipsi, Vix ea nostra voco." which Johnson translates, " Nought from my birth or ancestors I claim ; All is my own, my honour and my shame." n8 ESSAYS OF DR. JOHNSON. It is asserted by a tragic poet, that " est miser " nemo nisi comparatus," "no man is miserable, " but as he is compared with others happier " than himself ; " this position is not strictly and philosophically true. He might have said with rigorous propriety, that no man is happy but as he is compared with the miserable ; for such is the state of this world, that we find in it absolute misery, but happiness only comparative ; we may incur as much pain as we can possibly endure, though we can never obtain as much happiness as we might possibly enjoy. Yet it is certain likewise, that many of our miseries are merely comparative : we are often made unhappy, not by the presence of any real evil, but by the absence of some fictitious good ; of something which is not required by any real want of nature, which has not in itself any power of gratification, and which neither reason nor fancy would have prompted us to wish, did we not see it in the possession of others. For a mind diseased with vain longings after unattainable advantages, no medicine can be pre- scribed, but an impartial inquiry into the real worth of that which is so ardently desired. It is well known, how much the mind, as well as the eye, is deceived by distance ; and, perhaps, it will be found, that of many imagined blessings it may be doubted, whether he that wants or possesses them has more reason to be satisfied with his lot. The dignity of high birth and long extraction, no man, to whom nature has denied it, can confer upon himself; and, therefore, it deserves to be THE ADVENTURER. 119 considered, whether the want of that which can never be gained, may not easily be endured. It is true, that if we consider the triumph and delight with which most of those recount their ancestors who have ancestors to recount, and the artifices by which some who have risen to unexpected fortune endeavour to insert themselves into an honourable stem, we shall be inclined to fancy that wisdom or virtue may be had by inheritance, or that all the excellencies of a line of progenitors are accumulated on their descendant. Reason, indeed, will soon inform us, that our estimation of birth is arbitrary and capricious, and that dead ancestors can have no influence but upon imagi- nation : let it then be examined, whether one dream may not operate in the place of another ; whether he that owes nothing to forefathers, may not receive equal pleasure from the conscious- ness of owing all to himself ; whether he may not, with little meditation, find it more honourable to found than to continue a family, and to gain dignity than transmit it ; whether if he receive no dignity from the virtues of his family, he does not likewise escape the danger of being disgraced by their crimes ; and whether he that brings a new name into the world, has not the convenience of playing the game of life without a stake, and opportunity of winning much though he has nothing to lose. 1 1 " I heard Dr. Johnson once say, ' I have great merit in being zealous for subordination and the honours of birth ; for I can hardly tell who was my grandfather.' " — Boswell's Johnson, ii. 261. ISO ESSAYS OF DR. JOHNSON. There is another opinion concerning happiness, which approaches much more nearly to universality, but which may, perhaps, with equal reason be dis- puted. The pretensions to ancestral honours many of the sons of earth easily see to be ill- grounded ; but all agree to celebrate the advantage of hereditary riches, and to consider those as the minions of fortune, who are wealthy from their cradles, whose estate is " res non parta labore sed " relicta 1 ; " " the acquisition of another, not of " themselves ; " and whom a father's industry has dispensed from a laborious attention to arts or commerce, and left at liberty to dispose of life as fancy shall direct them. If every man were wise and virtuous, capable to discern the best use of time, and resolute to practise it ; it might be granted, I think, without hesitation, that total liberty would be a bless- in? : and that it would be desirable to be left at large to the exercise of religious and social duties, without the interruption of importunate avocations. But since felicity is relative, and that which is the means of happiness to one man may be to another the cause of misery, we are to consider what state is best adapted to human nature in its present degeneracy and frailty. And, surely, to far the greater number it is highly expedient, that they should by some settled scheme of duties be rescued from the tyranny of caprice, that they should be driven on by necessity through the paths of life with their attention confined to a 1 See ante, p. 78. THE ADVENTURER. 121 stated task, that they may be less at leisure to deviate into mischief at the call of folly. When we observe the lives of those whom an ample inheritance has let loose to their own direc- tion, what do we discover that can excite our envy ? Their time seems not to pass with much applause from others, or satisfaction to themselves: many squander their exuberance of fortune in luxury and debauchery, and have no other use of money than to inflame their passions, and riot in a wide range of licentiousness ; others, less criminal indeed, but, surely, not so much to be praised, lie down to sleep, and rise up to trifle, are employed every morning in finding expedients to rid themselves of the day, chase pleasure through all the places of public resort, fly from London to Bath, and from Bath to London, with- out any other reason for changing place, but that they go in quest of company as idle and as vagrant as themselves, always endeavouring to raise some new desire that they may have some- thing to pursue, to rekindle some hope which they know will be disappointed, changing one amusement for another which a few months will make equally insipid, or sinking into languor and disease for want of something to actuate their bodies or exhilarate their minds. Whoever has frequented those places, where idlers assemble to escape from solitude, knows that this is generally the state of the wealthy ; and from this state it is no great hardship to be debarred. No man can be happy in total idle- ness : he that should be condemned to lie torpid :2 7 ESS A YS OF DR. JOHNSON. and motionless, " would fly for recreation," says South, "to the mines and the galleys 1 ;" and it is well, when nature or fortune find employ- ment for those, who would not have known how to procure it for themselves. He, whose mind is engaged by the acquisition or improvement of a fortune, not only escapes the insipidity of indifference, and the tediousness of inactivity, but gains enjoyments wholly unknown to those, who live lazily on the toil of others ; for life affords no higher pleasure than that of sur- mounting difficulties, passing from one step of success to another, forming new wishes, and seeing them gratified. He that labours in any great or laudable undertaking, has his fatigues first sup- ported by hope, and afterwards rewarded by joy ; he is always moving to a certain end, and when he has attained it, an end more distant invites him to a new pursuit. It does not, indeed, always happen, that dili- gence is fortunate ; the wisest schemes are broken by unexpected accidents ; the most constant per- severance sometimes toils through life without a recompence ; but labour, though unsuccessful, is more eligible than idleness ; he that prosecutes a lawful purpose by lawful means, acts always with the approbation of his own reason ; he is animated 1 " The most voluptuous person, were he tied to follow his hawks and his hounds, his dice and his courtships every day, would find it the greatest torment that could befall him ; he would fly to the mines and the galleys for his recreation, and to the spade and the mattock for a diversion from the misery of a continual uninterrupted pleasure." — Johnson's Dictionary under Galley. THE ADVENTURER. 123 through the course of his endeavours by an ex- pectation which, though not certain, he knows to be just ; and is at last comforted in his disappoint- ment, by the consciousness that he has not failed by his own fault. That kind of life is most happy which affords us most opportunities of gaining our own esteem ; and what can any man infer in his own favour from a condition to which, however prosperous, he contributed nothing, and which the vilest and weakest of the species would have obtained by the same right, had he happened to be the son of the same father ? To strive with difficulties, and to conquer them, is the highest human felicity ; the next, is to strive, and deserve to conquer : but he whose life has passed without a contest, and who can boast neither success nor merit, can survey himself only as a useless filler of existence ; and if he is content with his own character, must owe his satisfaction to insensibility. Thus it appears that the satirist advised rightly, when he directed us to resign ourselves to the hands of Heaven, and to leave to superior powers the determination of our lot : Permittes ipsis expendere Numinibus, quid Conveniat nobis, rebusque sit utile nostris : Carior est Mis homo quant sibi. 1 Intrust thy fortune to trie powers above : Leave them to manage for thee, and to grant What their unerring wisdom sees thee want. In goodness as in greatness they excel : Ah ! that we lov'd ourselves but half so well. — Dryden. 1 Juvenal, Satires x. 347. i2 4 ESSAYS OF DR. JOHNSON. What state of life admits most happiness, is uncertain ; but that uncertainty ought to repress the petulance of comparison, and silence the murmurs of discontent. No. 120. SATURDAY, DECEMBER, 29, 1753- -Ultima semper J^"3l Expect 'anda dies homini, dicique beat us Ante obitum nemo supremaque funera debet.— Ovid.1 But no frail man, however great or high, Can be concluded blest before he die.— Addison. }HE numerous miseries of human life have extorted in all ages an universal complaint. The wisest of men ter- minated all his experiments in search of happiness, by the mournful confession, that " all is vanity 2 ;" and the ancient patriarchs lamented, that "the days of their pilgrimage were " few and evil." 3 There is, indeed, no topic on which it is more superfluous to accumulate authorities, nor any assertion of which our own eyes will more easily discover, or our sensations more frequently im- press the truth, than, that misery is the lot of man, that our present state is a state of danger and infelicity. When we take the most distant prospect of life, 1 Metamorphoses, iii. 135. 2 Ecclesiastes xii. 8. 3 Genesis xlvii. 9. THE ADVENTURER. 1*5 what does it present us but a chaos of unhappiness, a confused and tumultuous scene of labour and contest, disappointment and defeat? If we view past ages in the reflection of history, what do they offer to our meditation but crimes and calamities ? One year is distinguished by a famine, another by an earthquake ; kingdoms are made desolate, sometimes by wars, and sometimes by pestilence ; the peace of the world is interrupted at one time by the caprices of a tyrant, at another by the rage of a conqueror. The memory is stored only with vicissitudes of evil ; and the happiness, such as it is, of one part of mankind, is found to arise commonly from sanguinary success, from vic- tories which confer upon them the power, not so much of improving life by any new enjoyment as of inflicting miser)' on others, and gratifying their own pride by comparative greatness. But by him that examines life with a more close attention, the happiness of the world will be found still less than it appears. In some intervals of public prosperity, or to use terms more proper, in some intermissions of calamity, a general dif- fusion of happiness may seem to overspread a people ; all is triumph and exultation, jollity and plenty ; there are no public fears and dangers, and " no complainings in the streets." 1 But the condition of individuals is very little mended by this general calm : pain and malice and discon- tent still continue their havoc ; the silent depre- dation goes incessantly forward ; and the grave continues to be filled by the victims of sorrow. 1 No complaining in our sUeets. — Psalms cxliv. 14. 126 ESSAYS OF DR. JOHNSON. He that enters a gay assembly, beholds the cheerfulness displayed in every countenance, and finds all sitting vacant and disengaged, with no other attention than to give or to receive plea- sure ; would naturally imagine, that he had reached at last the metropolis of felicity, the place sacred to gladness of heart, from whence all fear and anxiety were irreversibly excluded. Such, indeed, we may often find to be the opinion of those, who from a lower station look up to the pomp and gaiety which they cannot reach : but who is there of those who frequent these luxurious assemblies, that will not confess his own uneasiness, or cannot recount the vexations and distresses that prey upon the lives of his gay companions P 1 The world, in its best state, is nothing more than a larger assembly of beings, combining to counterfeit happiness which they do not feel, em- ploying every art and contrivance to embellish life, and to hide their real condition from the eyes of one another. The species of happiness most obvious to the observation of others, is that which depends upon the goods of fortune ; yet even this is often fictitious. There is in the world more poverty 1 Boswell and Johnson visited the Pantheon in Oxford Street on March 31, 1772. "' I said there was not half a guinea's worth of pleasure in seeing this place.' — Johnson. 'But, sir, there is half a guinea's worth of inferiority to other people in not having seen it.' — Boswell. ' I doubt, sir, whether there are many happy people here.' — Johnson. ' Yes, sir, there are many happy people here. There are many people here who are watching hundreds, and who think hundreds are watching them.' " — Boswell's Johnson, ii. 169. THE ADVENTURER. 127 than is generally imagined ; not only because many whose possessions are large have desires still larger, and many measure their wants by the gratifications which others enjoy : but great numbers are pressed by real necessities which it is their chief ambition to conceal, and are forced to purchase the appearance of competence and cheerfulness at the expence of many comforts and conveniences of life. Man) 7 , however, are confessedly rich, and many more are sufficiently removed from all danger of real poverty : but it has been long ago remarked, that money cannot purchase quiet ; the highest of mankind can promise themselves no exemp- tion from that discord or suspicion, by which the sweetness of domestic retirement is destroyed ; and must always be even more exposed, in the same degree as they are elevated above others, to the treachery of dependents, the calumny of defamers, and the violence of opponents. Affliction is inseparable from our present state ; it adheres to all the inhabitants of this world, in different proportions indeed, but with an allotment which seems very little regulated by our own conduct. It has been the boast of some swelling moralists, 1 that every man's fortune was in his own power, that prudence supplied the place of all other divinities, and that happiness is the un- failing consequence of virtue. But, surely the 1 Of the Psalmist among others, who says : — " I have been young and now am old ; and yet saw I never the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging their bread." — Psalms xxxvii. 25- 128 ESSAYS OF DR. JOHN SOX. quiver of Omnipotence is stored with arrows, against which the shield of human virtue, however adamantine it has been boasted, is held up in vain : we do not always suffer by our crimes ; we are not always protected by our innocence. A good man is by no means exempt from the danger of suffering by the crimes of others ; even his goodness may raise him enemies of implacable malice and restless perseverance : the good man has never been warranted by Heaven from the treachery of friends, the disobedience of children, or the dishonesty of a wife ; he may see his cares made useless by profusion, his instructions defeated by perverseness, and his kindness rejected by in- gratitude : he may languish under the infamy of false accusations, or perish reproachfully by an unjust sentence. A good man is subject, like other mortals, to all the influences of natural evil ; his harvest is not spared by the tempest, nor his cattle by the murrain ; his house flames like others in a conflagration ; nor have his ships any peculiar power of resisting hurricanes : his mind, how- ever elevated, inhabits a body subject to innumer- able casualties, of which he must always share the dangers and the pains ; he bears about him the seeds of disease, and may linger away a great part of his life under the tortures of the gout or stone ; at one time groaning with insufferable anguish, at another dissolved in listlessness and languor. From this general and indiscriminate distribution of misery, the moralists have always derived one THE ADVENTURER. 1:9 of their strongest moral arguments for a future state : for since the common events of the present life happen alike to the good and bad, it follows from the justice of the Supreme Being, that there must be another state of existence, in which a just retribution shall be made, and every man shall be happy and miserable according to his works. The miseries of life may, perhaps, afford some proof of a future state, compared as well with the mercy as the justice of God. It is scarcely to be imagined, that Infinite Benevolence would create a being capable of enjoying so much more than is here to be enjoyed, and qualified by nature to pro- long pain by remembrance, and anticipate it by terror, if he was not designed for something nobler and better than a state, in which many of his faculties can serve only for his torment ; in which he is to be importuned by desires that never can be satisfied, to feel many evils which he had no power to avoid, and to fear many which he shall never feel : there will surely come a time when every capacity of happiness shall be filled, and none shall be wretched but by his own fault. 1 In the mean time, it is by affliction chiefly that the heart of man is purified, and that the thoughts are fixed upon a better state. Prosperity, allayed and imperfect as it is, has power to intoxicate the imagination, to fix the mind upon the present scene, to produce confidence and elation, and to I " All that virtue can afford is quietness of conscience, a steady prospect of a happier state ; this may enable us to endure calamity with patience, but remember that patience must suppose pain." — Rasselas, ch. 27. II K 130 ESSAYS OF DR. JOHNSON. make him who enjoys affluence and honours for- get the hand by which they were bestowed. It is seldom that we are otherwise, than by affliction, awakened to a sense of our own imbecility, or taught to know how little all our acquisitions can conduce to safety or to quiet : and how justly we may ascribe to the superintendence of a higher Power, those blessings which in the wantonness of success we considered as the attainments of our policy or courage. Nothing confers so much ability to resist the temptations that perpetually surround us, as an habitual consideration of the shortness of life, and the uncertainty of those pleasures that solicit our pursuit ; and this consideration can be inculcated only by affliction. " O Death ! how bitter is the remembrance of thee, to a man that lives at ease in his possessions!" If our present state were one continued succession of delights, or one uni- form flow of calmness and tranquillity, we should never willingly think upon its end ; death would then surely surprise us as " a thief in the night ;"* and our task of duty would remain unfinished, till " the night came when no man can work." 2 While affliction thus prepares us for felicity, we 1 I Thessalom'ans v. 2. 3 St. John ix. 4. On the dial-plate of Johnson's watch was inscribed the first part of this verse in the Greek characters. " He afterwards laid aside this dial-plate ; and when I asked him the reason, he said, ' It might do very well upon a clock which a man keeps in his closet ; but to have it upon his watch which he carries about with him, and which is often looked at by others, might be censured as ostentatious.' " — Boswell's Johnson, ii. 57. THE ADVENTURER. 131 may console ourselves under its pressures, by remembering, that they are no particular marks of divine displeasure ; since all the distresses of per- secution have been suffered by those, " of whom the world was not worthy j" 1 and the Redeemer of Mankind himself was " a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." 2 No. 131. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1754. Misce Ergo aliquid nostris de moribus. — Juvenal.3 And mingle something of our times to please. — DRYDEN.jlin.* 'ONTENELLE, in his panegyric on Sir Isaac Newton, closes a long enumera- tion of that great philosopher's virtues and attainments, with an observation, that " he was not distinguished from other men by any singularity either natural or affected." 5 It is an eminent instance of Newton's superiority to the rest of mankind, that he was able to sepa- rate knowledge from those weaknesses by which knowledge is generally disgraced ; that he was ■ 1 Hebrews xi. 38. 2 Isaiah liii. 3. S Satires xiv. 322. 4 Dryden's sons " in 1693 appeared among the translators of Juvenal." — Johnson's Works, vii. 290. 3 " II 6tait simple, affable, toujours de niveau avec tout le monde. Les genies du premier ordre ne meprisent point ce qui est au-dessous deux, tandis que les autres meprisent meme ce qui est au-dessus. II ne se croyait dispense, ni par son merite, ni par sa reputation, d'aucun des devoirs du 132 ESSAYS OF DR. JOHNSON. able to excel in science and wisdom, without purchasing them by the neglect of little things, and that he stood alone merely because he had left the rest of mankind behind him, not because he deviated from the beaten track. Whoever, after the example of Plutarch, should compare the lives of illustrious men, might set this part of Newton's character to view with great advantage, by opposing it to that of Bacon, perhaps the only man of later ages, who has any pretensions to dispute with him the palm of genius or science. Bacon, after he had added to a long and care- ful contemplation of almost every other object of knowledge a curious inspection into common life, and after having surveyed nature as a philosopher, had examined " men's business and bosoms "- 1 as a statesman ; yet failed so much in the conduct commerce ordinaire de la vie ; nulle singularity, ni naturelle ni affectee ; il savait n'gtre, des qu'il le fallait, qu'un homme dti commun." CEuvres de Fontenelle, ed. 1818, i. 402. "There is in human nature (said Johnson) a general inclination to make people stare ; and every wise man has himself to cure of it, and does cure himself." — Boswell"s Joh>iso7i, ii. 74. Writing of Swift, he says : — " Whatever he did, he seemed willing to do in a manner peculiar to himself, without suffi- ciently considering that singularity, as it implies a contempt of the general practice, is a kind of defiance which justly pro- vokes the hostility of ridicule." — Johnson's Works, viii. 223. 1 " I do now publish my Essays, which of all my other works have been most current : for that, as it seems, they come home to men's business and bosoms." — Bacon's Essays, Dedi- cation to the edition of 1625. Johnson had quoted this passage earlier in the Rambler, No. 106. " He told me," writes Boswell, " that Bacon was a favourite author with him. but he bad THE ADVENTURER. 133 of domestic affairs, that, in the most lucrative post to which a great and wealthy kingdom could advance him, he felt all the miseries of distressful poverty, and committed all the crimes to which poverty incites. Such were at once his negli- gence and rapacity, that as it is said, he would gain by unworthy practices that money, which, when so acquired, his servants might steal from one end of the table, while he sat studious and abstracted at the other. As scarcely any man has reached the excellence, very few have sunk to the weakness of Bacon ; but almost all the studious tribe, as they obtain any participation of his knowledge, feel likewise some contagion of his defects ; and obstruct the veneration which learning would procure, by follies greater or less, to which only learning could betray them. It has been formerly remarked by The Guardian, that the world punishes with too great severity the error of those, who imagine that the ignorance of little things may be compensated by the know- ledge of great ; for so it is, that as more can detect petty failings than can distinguish or esteem great qualifications, and as mankind is in general never read his works till he was compiling the English Dic- tionary, in which, he said, I might see Bacon very often quoted." — Boswell's Johnson, iii. 194. According to Sir Joshua Reynolds, " Mr. Burke, speaking of Bacon's Essays, said he thought them the best of his works. Dr. Johnson was of opinion that their excellence and their value consisted in being the observations of a strong mind operating upon life, and in consequence you find there what you seldom find in other books." — Northcote's Life of Reynolds, ii. 281. 134 ESSAYS OF DR. JOHNSON. more easily disposed to censure than to admira- tion, contempt is often incurred by slight mistakes which real virtue or usefulness cannot counter- balance. 1 Yet such mistakes and inadvertencies, it is not easy for a man deeply immersed in study to avoid ; no man can become qualified for the common intercourses of life, by private meditation ; the manners of the world are not a regular system, planned by philosophers upon settled principles, in which every cause has a congruous effect, and one part has a just reference to another. Of the fashions prevalent in every country, a few have arisen, perhaps, from particular temperatures of the climate ; a few more from the constitution of the government ; but the greater part have grown up by chance ; been started by caprice, been con- trived by affectation, or borrowed without any just motives of choice from other countries. Of all these, the savage that hunts his prey upon the mountains, and the sage that speculates in his closet, must necessarily live in equal igno- rance ; yet by the observation of these trifles it is, that the ranks of mankind are kept in order, that the address of one to another is regulated, and the general business of the world carried on with facility and method. 1 " The indiscretion of believing that great qualities make up for the want of things less considerable is punished too severely in those who are guilty of it. Every day's experience shows us, among variety of people with whom we are not acquainted, that we take impressions too favourable and too disadvantageous of men at first sight from their habit." — Guardian, No. 10, by Steele. THE ADVENTURER. 135 These things, therefore, though small in them- selves, become great by their frequency ; and he very much mistakes his own interest, who, to the unavoidable unskilfulness of abstraction and retire- ment, adds a voluntary neglect of common forms, and increases the disadvantages of a studious course of life by an arrogant contempt of those practices, by which others endeavour to gain favour and multiply friendships. 1 A real and interior disdain of fashion and cere- mony, is, indeed, not very often to be found : much the greater part of those who pretend to laugh at foppery and formality, secretly wish to have possessed those qualifications which they pretend to despise : and because they find it difficult to wash away the tincture which they have so deeply imbibed, endeavour to harden themselves in a sullen approbation of their own colour. Neutrality is a state, into which the busy passions of man cannot easily subside ; and he who is in danger of the pangs of envy, is generally forced to recreate his imagination with an effort of comfort. 1 " Mr. Johnson," writes Mrs. Piozzi, " was indeed un- justly supposed to be a lover of singularity. Few people had a more settled reverence for the world than he, or was less captivated by new modes of behaviour introduced, or innova- tions on the long-received customs of common life." — Piozzi's Anecdotes, p. 108. Addison in the Tatler, No. 103, had attacked singularity. " However slightly," he writes, " men may regard these particularities and little follies in dress and behaviour, they lead to greater evils. The bearing to be laughed at for such singularities teaches us insensibly an impertinent fortitude, and enables us to bear public censure for things which more substantially deserve it." I3<5 ESSAYS OF BR. JOHXSON. Some, however, may be found, who, supported by the consciousness of great abilities, and elevated by a long course of reputation and applause, voluntarily consign themselves to singularity, affect to cross the roads of life because they know that they shall not be justled, and indulge a boundless gratification of will because they per- ceive that they shall be quietly obeyed. Men of this kind are generally known by the name of Humourists, an appellation by which he that has obtained it, and can be contented to keep it, is set free at once from the shackles of fashion : and can go in or out, sit or stand, be talkative or silent, gloomy or merry, advance absurdities or oppose demonstration, •without any other repre- hension from mankind, than that it is his wayi that he is an odd fellow, and must be let alone. This seems to many an easy passport through the various factions of mankind ; and those on whom it is bestowed, appear too frequently to consider the patience with which their caprices are suffered as an undoubted evidence of their own importance, of a genius to which submission is universally paid, and whose irregularities are only considered as consequences of its vigour. These peculiarities, however, are always found to spot a character, though they may not totally obscure it ; and he who expects from mankind, that they should give up established customs in compliance with his single will, and exacts that deference which he does not pay, may be endured, but can never be approved. Singularity is, I think, in its own nature THE ADVENTURER. tyj universally and invariably displeasing. In what- ever respect a man differs from others, he must be considered by them as either worse or better : by being better, it is well known that a man gains admiration oftener than love, since all approbation of his practice must necessarily condemn him that gives it : and though a man often pleases by inferiority, there are few who desire to give such pleasure. Yet the truth is, that singularity is almost always regarded as a brand of slight reproach ; and where it is asso- ciated with acknowledged merit, serves as an abatement or an allay of excellence, by which weak eyes are reconciled to its lustre, and by which, though kindness is not gained, at least envy is averted. But let no man be in haste to conclude his own merit so great or conspicuous as to require or justify singularity : it is as hazardous for a moderate understanding to usurp the prerogatives of genius, as for a common form to play over the airs of uncontested beauty. The pride of men will not patiently endure to see one, whose understanding or attainments are but level with their own, break the rules by which they have consented to be bound, or forsake the direction which they submissively follow. All violation of established practice implies in its own nature a rejection of the common opinion, a defiance of common censure, and an appeal from general laws to private judgment : he, therefore, who differs from others without apparent advantage, ought not to be angry if his arrogance is 138 ESSA YS OF DR. JOHNSON. punished with ridicule ; if those, whose example he superciliously overlooks, point him out to deri- sion, and hoot him back again into the common road. The pride of singularity is often exerted in little things, where right and wrong are inde- terminable, and where, therefore, vanity is with- out excuse. But there are occasions on which it is noble to dare to stand alone. To be pious among infidels, to be disinterested in a time of general venality, to lead a life of virtue and reason in the midst of sensualists, is a proof of a mind intent on nobler things than the praise or blame of men, of a soul fixed in the con- templation of the highest good, and superior to the tyranny of custom and example. In moral and religious questions only, a wise man will hold no consultations with fashion, because these duties are constant and immutable, and depend not on the notions of men, but the commands of Heaven : yet even of these, the external mode is to be in some measure regu- lated by the prevailing taste of the age in which we live ; for he is certainly no friend of virtue, who neglects to give it any lawful attraction, or suffers it to deceive the eye or alienate the affections for want of innocent compliance with fashionable decorations. 1 1 Johnson did not avoid singularity when, in Scotland, he refused to attend the services of the Established Church. " I will hear Dr. Robertson (said he) if he will get up into a tree and preach ; but I will not give a sanction by my presence to a Presbyterian assembly."— Eoswell's Johnson, v. 121. THE ADVENTURER. 139 It is yet remembered of the learned and pious Nelson, that he was remarkably elegant in his manners, and splendid in his dress. 1 He knew, that the eminence of his character drew many eyes upon him ; and he was careful not to drive the young or the gay away from religion, by representing it as an enemy to any distinc- tion or enjoyment in which human nature may innocently delight. In this censure of singularity, I have, therefore, no intention to subject reason or conscience to custom or example. To comply with the notions and practices of mankind, is in some degree the duty of a social being ; because by compliance only he can please, and by pleasing only he can become useful : but as the end is not to be lost for the sake of the means, we are not to give up virtue to complaisance ; for the end of complaisance is only to gain the kindness of our fellow-beings, whose kindness is desirable only as instrumental to happiness, and happiness must be always lost by departure from virtue. i Boswell says that "he understands that the excellent Mr. Nelson's Festivals and Fasts has the greatest sale of any book ever printed in England, except the Bible." — Boswell's Johnson, ii. 458. According to Mr. Seward, " Dr. Johnson always supposed that Mr. Richardson had Mr. Nelson in his thoughts when he delineated the character of Sir Charles Grandison."— Seward's Anecdotes, ii. 223. :<«•■> ji'F ,-j icjj£££Si> 1S$E msa THE IDLER. ' fir* . '■/•"■} y(v\ THE IDLER. Duplex libelli dos est, quod risum movet. El quod prudenti vilam consilio monet. — Phjediu'S * No. 4. SATURDAY, MAY 6, 1758.* rUiiTaS 1<'p