[Footnote 1: 'Poetics', Part II. § 13.]
* * * * *
No. 43. Thursday, April 19, 1711. Steele.
'Ha tibi erunt artes; pacisque imponere morem,
Parcere Subjectis, et debellare Superbos.'
Virg.
There are Crowds of Men, whose great Misfortune it is that they were not
bound to Mechanick Arts or Trades; it being absolutely necessary for
them to be led by some continual Task or Employment. These are such as
we commonly call dull Fellows; Persons, who for want of something to do,
out of a certain Vacancy of Thought, rather than Curiosity, are ever
meddling with things for which they are unfit. I cannot give you a
Notion of them better than by presenting you with a Letter from a
Gentleman, who belongs to a Society of this Order of Men, residing at
_Oxford_.
Oxford, April 13, 1711. Four a Clock in the Morning.