Begone, ye blockheads, Herselitus cries,
And leave my labours to the learn'd and wise;
By wit, by knowledge, studious to be read,
I scorn the multitude, alive and dead.
TIME, which puts an end to all human pleasures
and sorrows, has likewise concluded the labours
of the Rambler. Having supported, for two years,
the anxious employment of a periodical writer, and
multiplied my essays to upwards of two hundred,
I have now determined to desist.
The reasons of this resolution it is of little
importance to declare, since justification is unnecessary
when no objection is made. I am far from
supposing, that the cessation of my performances
will raise any inquiry, for I have never been much
a favourite of the publick, nor can boast that, in
the progress of my undertaking, I have been animated
by the rewards of the liberal, the caresses of
the great, or the praises of the eminent.
But I have no design to gratify pride by
submission, or malice by lamentation; nor think it
reasonable to complain of neglect from those whose
regard I never solicited. If I have not been
distinguished by the distributors of literary honours, I
have seldom descended to the arts by which favour
is obtained. I have seen the meteors of fashions rise
and fall, without any attempt to add a moment to
their duration. I have never complied with temporary
curiosity, nor enabled my readers to discuss
the topick of the day; I have rarely exemplified
my assertions by living characters; in my papers,
no man could look for censures of his enemies, or
praises of himself; and they only were expected to
peruse them, whose passions left them leisure for
abstracted truth, and whom virtue could please by
its naked dignity.
To some, however, I am indebted for encouragement,
and to others for assistance. The number of
my friends was never great, but they have been
such as would not suffer me to think that I was
writing in vain, and I did not feel much dejection
from the want of popularity.
My obligations having not been frequent, my
acknowledgments may be soon despatched. I can
restore to all my correspondents their productions,
with little diminution of the bulk of my volumes,
though not without the loss of some pieces to
which particular honours have been paid.
The parts from which I claim no other praise
than that of having given them an opportunity of
appearing, are the four billets in the tenth paper,
the second letter in the fifteenth, the thirtieth, the
forty-fourth, the ninety-seventh, and the hundredth
papers, and the second letter in the hundred and
seventh.
Having thus deprived myself of many excuses
which candour might have admitted for the
inequality of my compositions, being no longer able
to allege the necessity of gratifying correspondents,
the importunity with which publication was
solicited, or obstinacy with which correction was
rejected, I must remain accountable for all my faults,
and submit, without subterfuge, to the censures of
criticism, which, however, I shall not endeavour to
soften by a formal deprecation, or to overbear by the
influence of a patron. The supplications of an author
never yet reprieved him a moment from oblivion;
and, though greatness has sometimes sheltered guilt,
it can afford no protection to ignorance or dulness.
Having hitherto attempted only the propagation of
truth, I will not at last violate it by the confession
of terrours which I do not feel; having laboured to
maintain the dignity of virtue, I will not now
degrade it by the meanness of dedication.
The seeming vanity with which I have sometimes
spoken of myself, would perhaps require an apology,
were it not extenuated by the example of those who
have published essays before me, and by the privilege
which every nameless writer has been hitherto
allowed. "A mask," say Castiglione, "confers a
right of acting and speaking with less restraint, even
when the wearer happens to be known." He that
is discovered without his own consent, may claim
some indulgence, and cannot be rigorously called to
justify those sallies or frolicks which his disguise
must prove him desirous to conceal.
But I have been cautious lest this offense should
be frequently or grossly committed; for, as one of
the philosophers directs us to live with a friend, as
with one that is some time to become an enemy, I
have always thought it the duty of an anonymous
author to write, as if he expected to be hereafter
known.
I am willing to flatter myself with hopes, that,
by collecting these papers, I am not preparing, for
my future life, either shame or repentance. That all
are happily imagined, or accurately polished, that
the same sentiments have not sometimes recurred, or
the same expressions been too frequently repeated,
I have not confidence in my abilities sufficient to
warrant. He that condemns himself to compose on
a stated day, will often bring to his task an attention
dissipated, a memory embarrassed, an imagination
overwhelmed, a mind distracted with anxieties,
a body languishing with disease: he will labour on
a barren topick, till it is too late to change it; or, in
the ardour of invention, diffuse his thoughts into
wild exuberance, which the pressing hour of publication
cannot suffer judgment to examine or reduce.
Whatever shall be the final sentence of mankind,
I have at least endeavoured to deserve their kindness.
I have laboured to refine our language to
grammatical purity, and to clear it from colloquial
barbarisms, licentious idioms, and irregular
combinations. Something, perhaps, I have added to the
elegance of its construction, and something to the
harmony of its cadence. When common words were
less pleasing to the ear, or less distinct in their
signification, I have familiarized the terms of
philosophy, by applying them to popular ideas, but have
rarely admitted any words not authorized by former
writers; for I believe that whoever knows the English
tongue in its present extent, will be able to express
his thoughts without further help from other nations.
As it has been my principal design to inculcate
wisdom or piety, I have allotted few papers to the
idle sports of imagination. Some, perhaps, may be
found, of which the highest excellence is harmless
merriment; but scarcely any man is so steadily
serious as not to complain, that the severity of
dictatorial instruction has been too seldom relieved, and
that he is driven by the sternness of the Rambler's
philosophy to more cheerful and airy companions.
Next to the excursions of fancy are the disquisitions
of criticism, which, in my opinion, is only to be
ranked among the subordinate and instrumental arts.
Arbitrary decision and general exclamation I have
carefully avoided, by asserting nothing without a
reason, and establishing all my principles of
judgment on unalterable and evident truth.
In the pictures of life I have never been so
studious of novelty or surprise, as to depart wholly
from all resemblance; a fault which writers
deservedly celebrated frequently commit, that they
may raise, as the occasion requires, either mirth or
abhorrence. Some enlargement may be allowed to
declamation, and some exaggeration to burlesque,
but as they deviate farther from reality, they become
less useful, because their lessons will fail of
application. The mind of the reader is carried away from
the contemplation of his own manner; he finds in
himself no likeness to the phantom before him; and
though he laughs or rages, is not reformed.
The essays professedly serious, if I have been able
to execute my own intentions, will be found exactly
conformable to the precepts of Christianity, without
any accommodation to the licentiousness and levity
of the present age. I therefore look back on this
part of my work with pleasure, which no blame or
praise of man shall diminish or augment. I shall
never envy the honours which wit and learning obtain
in any other cause, if I can be numbered among
the writers who have given ardour to virtue, and
confidence to truth.
<gr> Auoet<w?>n eoec macarwn aoentaxios eih aoemoib<h>.
Celestial pow'rs! that piety regard,
From you my labours wait their last reward.