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pofitions, as applied to a good and laudable purpose, or fuffered to fume away in ufelefs evaporations.

That I have intended well, I have the atteftation of my own heart: but good intentions may be fruftrated, when they are executed without fuitable skill, or directed to an end unattainable in itself.

Some there are, who leave writers very little room for felf-congratulation; fome who affirm, that books have no influence upon the public, that no age was ever made better by it's authors, and that to call upon mankind to correct their manners, is like Xerxes, to scourge the wind or fhackle the torrent.

This opinion they pretend to fupport by unfailing experience. The world is full of fraud and corruption, rapine, or malignity; intereft is the ruling motive of mankind, and every one is endeavouring to increase his own ftores of happinefs by perpetual accumulation, without reflecting upon the numbers whom his fuperfluity condemns to want: in this ftate of things a book of morality is publifhed, in which charity and benevolence are ftrongly enforced; and it is proved beyond oppofition, that men are happy in proportion as they are virtuous, and rich as they are liberal. The book is applauded, and the author is preferred; he imagines his applaufe deferved, and receives lefs pleasure from the acquifition of reward than the confcioufnels of merit. Let us look again upon mankind: intereft is ftill the ruling motive, and the world is yet full of fraud and corruption, malevolence and rapine.

The difficulty of confuting this affertion arifes merely from it's generality and comprehenfion: to overthrow it by a detail of distinct facts, requires a wider furvey of the world than human eyes can take; the progress of reformation is gradual and filent, as the extenfion of evening fhadows; we know that they were fhort at noon, and are long at funfet, but our fenfes were not able to difcern their increase: we know of every civil nation, that it was once favage; and how was it reclaimed but by precept and admonition?

Mankind are univerfally corrupt, but corrupt in different degrees; as they are univerfally ignorant, yet with greater or lefs irradiations of knowledge. How or virtue been increased lace beyond ano...” P

has knowledge and preferved in one

ther, but by diligent inculcation and rational inforcement.

Books of morality are daily written, yet it's influence is still little in the world; fo the ground is annually ploughed, and yet multitudes are in want of bread. But, furely, neither the labours of the moralift nor of the husbandman are vain: let them for a while neglect their tasks, and their usefulness will be known; the wickedness that is now frequent would become univerfal, the bread that is now. fcarce would wholly fail.

The power, indeed, of every individual is fmall, and the confequence of his endeavours imperceptible in a general profpect of the world. Providence has given no man ability to do much,. that fomething might be left for every man to do. The bufinefs of life is carried on by a general co-operation; in which the part of any fingle man can be no more diftinguished, than the effect of a particular drop when the meadows are floated by a fummer fhower; yet every drop increafes the inundation, and every hand adds to the happiness or mifery of mankind.

That a writer, however zealous or eloquent, feldom works a visible effect upon cities or nations, will readily be granted. The book which is read mott, is read by few, compared with thofe that read it not; and of thofe few, the greater part perufe it with difpofitions that very little favour their own improvement.

It is difficult to enumerate the feveral motives which procure to books the honour of perufal: fpite, vanity, and curiofity, hope and fear, love and hatred,, every paffion which incites to any other action, ferves at one time or other to stimulate a reader.

Some are fond to take a celebrated volume into their hands, because they. hope to distinguish their penetration, by finding faults which have efcaped the public; others eagerly buy it in the first bloom of reputation, that they may join the chorus of praife, and not lag, as Falstaff terms it, in the rearward of the 'fashion.'

Some read for style, and some for argument: one has little care about the fentiment, he obferves only how it is expreffed; another regards not the conclufion, but is diligent to mark how it is inferred: they read for other purposes than the attainment of practical know

ledge;

ledge; and are no more likely to grow wife by an examination of a treatife of moral prudence, than an architect to inflame his devotion by confidering attentively the proportions of a temple.

Some read that they may embellish their converfation, or thine in difpute; fome that they may not be detected in ignorance, or want the reputation of literary accomplishments: but the moft general and prevalent reafon of ftudy is the impoffibility of finding another amufement equally cheap or conftant, equally dependent on the hour or the weather. He that wants money to follow the chace of pleafure through her yearly circuit, and is left at home when the gay world rolls to Bath or Tunbridge; he whofe gout compels him, to hear from his chamber the rattle of chariots transporting happier beings to plays and affemblies, will be forced to fee in books a refuge from himself.

The author is not wholly useless, who provides innocent amulements forminds like thefe. There are in the prefent state of things fo many more inftigations to evil, than incitements to good, that he who keeps me in a neutral state, may be juftly confidered as a benefactor to life.

But, perhaps, it feldom happens that ftudy terminates in mere paftime. Books have always a fecret influence on the understanding; we cannot at pleafure obliterate ideas: he that reads books of fcience, though without any fixed defire of improvement, will grow more knowing; he that entertains himself with moral or religious treatifes, will imperceptibly advance in goodness; the ideas which are often offered to the mind, will at laft find a lucky moment when it is difpofed to receive them.

It is, therefore, urged without reafon, as a difcouragement to writers, that there are already books fufficient in the world; that all the topics of perfuafion have been difcuffed, and every important quef

tion clearly flated and juftly decided; and that, therefore, there is no room to hope that pigmies fhould conquer where he roes have been defeated, or that the petty copiers of the prefent time thould advance the great work of reformation, which their predeceffors were forced to leave unfinished.

Whatever be the prefent extent of human knowledge, it is not only finite, and therefore in it's own nature capable of increafe; but fo narrow, that almost every understanding may, by a diligent application of it's powers, hope to enlarge it. It is, however, not neceffary, that a man fhould for bear to write, till he has difcovered fome truth unknown before; he may be fufficiently ufeful, by only diverfifying the furface of knowledge, and luring the mind by a new appearance to a fecond view of thofe beauties which it had paffed over inattentively before. Every writer may find intellects correfpondent to his own, to whom his expreffions are familiar, and his thoughts congenial; and, perhaps, truth is often more fuccefsfully propagated by men of moderate abilities, who, adopting the opinions of others, have no care but to explain them clearly, than by fubtile fpeculatifts and curious fearchers, who exact from their readers powers equal to their own, and if their fabrics of fcience be strong, take no care to render them acceffible.

For my part, I do not regret the hours which I have laid out in thefe little compofitions. That the world has grown apparently better, fince the publication of the Adventurer, I have not obferved; but am willing to think, that many have been affected by fingle fentiments, of which it is their bufmefs to renew the impreffion; that many have caught hints of truth, which it is now their duty to purfue; and that thofe who have received no improvement, have wanted not opportunity but intention to improve. T

N° CXVIL.

N° CXXXVIII. SATURDAY, MARCH 2, 1754.

QUID PURE TRANQUILLET? HONOS, AN DULCE LUCELLUM,
AN SECRETUM ITER, ET FALLENTIS SEMITA VITA?

WHETHER THE TRANQUIL MIND AND PURE,
HONOURS OF WEALTH OUR BLISS INSURE;

OR DOWN THROUGH LIFE UNKNOWN TO STRAY,
WHERE LONELY LEADS THE SILENT WAY.

AVING confidered the import

the public, I am led by a natural train of thought, to reflect on their condition with regard to themfelves; and to enquire what degree of happiness or vexation is annexed to the difficult and laborious employment of providing inftruction or entertainment for mankind. In estimating the pain or pleasure of any particular ftate, every man, indeed, draws his decifions from his own breast, and cannot with certainty determine, whether other minds are affected by the fame caufes in the fame manner. Yet by this criterion we must be content to judge, becaufe no other can be obtained; and, indeed, we have no reafon to think it very fallacious, for excepting here and there an anomalous mind, which either does not feel like others, or diffembles it's fenfibility, we find men unanimouf ly concur in attributing happiness or mifery to particular conditions, as they agree in acknowledging the cold of win

ter and the heat of autumn.

If we apply to authors themselves for an account of their state, it will appear very little to deferve envy; for they have in all ages been addicted to complaint. The neglect of learning, the ingratitude of the prefent age, and the abfurd preference by which ignorance and dullnefs often obtain favour and rewards, have been from age to age topics of invective; and few have left their names to pofterity, without fome appeal to future candour from the perverseness and malice of their own times.

I have, neverthelefs, been often inclined to doubt, whether authors, however querulous, are in reality more miferable than their fellow mortals. The prefent life is to all a fate of infelicity; every man, like at. author, believes himfelf to merit more than he obtains, and folaces the prefent with the profpect of the future; others, indeed, fuffer thofe

HOR.

FRANCIS.

difappointments in filence, of which the

has learnt the art of lamentation.

There is at least one gleam of felicity, of which few writers have miffed the enjoyment: he whofe hopes have so far overpowered his fears, as that he has refolved to ftand forth a candidate for fame, feldom fails to amufe himself, before his appearance, with pleating fcenes of affluence or honour; while his fortune is yet under the regulation of fancy, he eafily models it to his with, fuffers no thoughts of critics or rivals to intrude upon his mind, but counts over the bounties of patronage, or listens to the voice of praife.

Some there are, that talk very luxuriously of the fecond period of an au thor's happinefs, and tell of the tumultuous raptures of invention, when the mind riots in imagery, and the choice ftands fufpended between different fentiments.

These pleasures, I believe, may fometimes be indulged to thofe who come to a fubject of difquifitions with minds full of ideas, and with fancies fo vigorous, as easily to excite, felect, and arrange them. To write is, indeed, no unpleafing employment, when one fentiment readily produces another, and both ideas and expreffions prefent themselves at the firft fummons: but fuch happiness the greateft genius does not always obtain; and common writers know it only to fuch a degree, as to credit it's poffibility. Compofition is, for the most part, an effort of flow diligence and fteady perfeverance, to which the mind is dragged by neceffity or refolution, and from which the attention is every moment ftarting to more delightful aniufements.

It frequently happens, that a defign which, when confidered at a distance, gave flattering hopes of facility, mocks us in the execution with unexpected difficulties; the mind which, while it con

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fidered it in the grofs, imagined itself amply furnished with materials, finds fometimes an unexpected barrennefs and vacuity, and wonders whither all thote ideas are vanifhed, which a little before feemed ftruggling for emiffion.

Sometimes many thoughts prefent themselves; but fo confufed and unconnected, that they are not without difficulty reduced to method, or concatenated in a regular and dependent feries: the mind falls at once into a labyrinth, of which neither the beginning nor end can be discovered, and toils and truggles without progrefs or extrication.

It is afferted by Horace, that if matter be once got together, words will be found with very little difficulty; a pofition which, though fufficiently plaufible to be inferted in poetical precepts, is by no means strictly and philofophically true. If words were naturally and neceffarily confequential to fentiments, it would always follow, that he who has most knowledge must have moft eloquence, and that every man would clearly exprefs what he fully understood: yet we find, that to think and difcourfe are often the qualities of different perfons: and many books might furely be produced, where just and noble fentiments are degraded and obfcured by unfuitable diction.

Words, therefore, as well as things, claim the care of an author. Indeed of many authors, and thofe not ufelefs or contemptible, words are almoft the only care: many make it their study, not fo much to frike out new fentiments, as to recommend thofe which are already known to more favourable notice by fairer decorations; but every man, whether he copies or invents, whether he delivers his own thoughts or thote of another, has often found himself deficient in the power of expr ffion, big with ideas which he could not utter, obliged to ranfack his memory for terms adequate to his concep.ions, and at lat unable to improfs upon his reader the image exifting in his own mind.

It is one of the commor diftreffes of a writer, to be within a word of a happy period, to want only a fingle epithet to give amplification it's full force, to require only a correfpondent term in order to finif a paragraph with elegance, and make one of it's members anfwer to the other: but thefe deficiencies cannot-always be supplied; and after a long study

and vexation, the paffage is turned anew, and the web unwoven that was fo nearly finifhed.

But when thoughts and words are collected and adjusted, and the whole compofition at laft concluded, it seldom gratifies the author, when he comes coolly and deliberately to review it, with the hopes which had been excited in the fury of the performance: novelty always cap. tivates the mind; as our thoughts rife fresh upon us, we readily believe them juft and original, which, when the pleafure of production is over, we find to be inean and common, or borrowed from the works of others, and fupplied by memory rather than invention.

But though it fhould happen that the writer finds no fuch faults in his performance, he is ftill to remember, that he looks upon it with partial eyes: and when he confiders how much men who could judge of others with great exactnefs, have often failed of judging of themfelves, he will be afraid of deciding too haftily in his own favour, or of allowing himself to contemplate with too much complacence, treasure that has not yet been brought to the teft, nor paffed the only trial that can stamp it's value.

From the public, and only from the public, is he to await a confirmation of his claim, and a final justification of selfesteem; but the public is not easily perfuaded to favour an author. If mankind were left to judge for themselves, it is reasonable to imagine, that of fuch writings, at least, as defcribe the movements of the human paffions, and of which every man carries the archetype within him, a juft opinion would be formed; but whoever has remarked the fate of books, must have found it governed by other caufes than general confent arifing from general conviction. If a new performance happens not to fall into the hands of fome, who have courage to tell, and authority to propagate their opinion, it often remains lor in obscurity, and perhaps perishes at known and unexamined. A fe few, commonly conftitute the time; the judgment which key h once pronounced, fome dients, and force too toons fo tradit: it may, however, ht, Ink. obferved, that their power is greater to deprefs the exit, as mankind are more credules of cenfure that of praise.

Tservertion of Le public judgment

is not to be rafhly numbered amongst the mileries of an author; fince it commonly ferves, after mifcarriage, to reconcile him to himfelf. Because the world has fometimes paffed an unjust fentence, he readily concludes the fentence unjust by which his performance is condemned; because fome have been

exalted above their merits by partiality, hé is fure to afcribe the fuccefs of a rival, not to the merit of his work, but the zeal of his patrons. Upon the whole, as the author feems to fhare all the common miferies of life, he appears to partake likewife of it's lenitives and abate

ments.

T

N° CXXXIX. TUESDAY, MARCH 5, 1754.

IPSE VIAM TANTUM POTUI DOCUISSE REPERTAM
AONAS AD MONTES, LONGEQUE OSTENDERE MUSAS,
PLAUDENTES CELSE CHOREAS IN VERTICE RUPIS.

I ONLY POINTED OUT THE PATHS THAT LEAD
THE PANTING YOUTH TO STEEP PARNASSUS' HEAD,
AND SHEW'D THE TUNEFUL MUSES FROM AFAR,
MIX'D IN A SOLEMN CHOIR AND DANCING THERE,

E that undertakes to fuperintend

VIDA,

PITT.

claffical quotations with the fame labour,

HE to of the affectation, and infignificance, truths

public, fhould attentively confider what are the peculiar irregularities and defects that characterize the times: for though fome have contended, that men have always been vicious and foolish in the fame degree, yet their vices and follies are known to have been not only different but oppofite in their kind. The difeafe of the time has been fometimes a fever, and fometimes a lethargy; and he, therefore, who fhould always prefcribe the fame remedy, would be justly fcorned as a quack, the difpenfer of a noftrum, which, however efficacious, muft, if indifcriminately applied, produce as much evil as good. There was a time, when every man, who was ambitious of religion or virtue, enlifted himfelf in a crufade, or buried himself in a herinitage: and he who fhould then have declaimed against lukewarmness and fcepticism, would have acted just as abfurdly as he who should warn the prefent age againft prieftcraft and fuperftition, or fet himself gravely to prove the lawfulnefs of pleafure, to lure the hermit from his cell, and deliver the penitent from fuicide.

But as vicious manners have not differed more than vicious taste, there was a time when every literary character was difgraced by an impertinent oftentation of skill in abftrufe fcience, and an habitual familiarity with books written in the dead languages; every man, therefore, was a pedant, in proportion as he defired to be thought a fcholar. The pitacher and the pleader ftrung together

however obvious, and opinions however indifputable, were illuftrated and confirmed by the teftimonies of Tully or Horace; and Seneca and Epictetus were folemnly cited, to evince the certainty of death or the fickleness of fortune. The difcourfes of Taylor are crouded with extracts from the writers of the porch and the academy; and it is fcarcely poffible to forbear fmiling at a marginal note of Lord Coke, in which he gravely acquaints his reader with an excellence that he might otherwife have overlooked: This, fays he, is the • thirty-third time that Virgil hath been quoted in this work.' The mixture, however, is fo prepofterous, that to thofe who can read Coke with pleasure, thefe paffages will appear like a dancer who fhould intrude on the folemnity of a fenate; and to those who have a taste only for polite literature, like a fountain or a palm-tree in the defarts of Arabia.

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It appears by the eflays of Montaigne and La Motte le Vayer, that this affectation extended to France; but the abfurdity was too grofs to remain long after the revival of literature. It was ridiculed here fo early as the Silent Woman of Ben Jontfon; and afterwards more ftrongly and profeffedly in the character of Hudibras, who decorates his flimfy orations with gawdy patches of Latin, and fcraps of tifiue from the fchoolmen. The fame task was alfo undertaken in France by Balzac, in a fatire called Barbon,

Wit is more rarely difappointed of it's Y ya pur

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