the slaves of pride, the most rapturous of the gazers upon wealth, the
most officious of the whisperers of greatness, are collected from
seminaries appropriated to the study of wisdom and of virtue, where it
was intended that appetite should learn to be content with little, and
that hope should aspire only to honours which no human power can give or
take away[j].
The student, when he comes forth into the world, instead of
congratulating himself upon his exemption from the errours of those
whose opinions have been formed by accident or custom, and who live
without any certain principles of conduct, is commonly in haste to
mingle with the multitude, and shew his sprightliness and ductility by
an expeditious compliance with fashions or vices. The first smile of a
man, whose fortune gives him power to reward his dependants, commonly
enchants him beyond resistance; the glare of equipage, the sweets of
luxury, the liberality of general promises, the softness of habitual
affability, fill his imagination; and he soon ceases to have any other
wish than to be well received, or any measure of right and wrong but the
opinion of his patron.
A man flattered and obeyed, learns to exact grosser adulation, and
enjoin lower submission. Neither our virtues nor vices are all our own.
If there were no cowardice, there would be little insolence; pride
cannot rise to any great degree, but by the concurrence of blandishment
or the sufferance of tameness. The wretch who would shrink and crouch
before one that should dart his eyes upon him with the spirit of natural
equality, becomes capricious and tyrannical when he sees himself
approached with a downcast look, and hears the soft address of awe and
servility. To those who are willing to purchase favour by cringes and
compliance, is to be imputed the haughtiness that leaves nothing to be
hoped by firmness and integrity.
If, instead of wandering after the meteors of philosophy, which fill the
world with splendour for a while, and then sink and are forgotten, the
candidates of learning fixed their eyes upon the permanent lustre of
moral and religious truth, they would find a more certain direction to
happiness. A little plausibility of discourse, and acquaintance with
unnecessary speculations, is dearly purchased, when it excludes those
instructions which fortify the heart with resolution, and exalt the
spirit to independence.
[Footnote j: "Such are a sort of sacrilegious ministers in the temple of
intellect. They profane its shew-bread to pamper the palate, its
everlasting lamp they use to light unholy fires within their breast, and
show them the way to the sensual chambers of sense and worldliness."
IRVING.]
No. 181. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 1751.
_--Neu fluitem dubue spe pendulus horae_. HOR. Lib. i. Ep. xviii. 110.
Nor let me float in fortune's pow'r,
Dependent on the future hour. FRANCIS.
TO THE RAMBLER.
SIR,
As I have passed much of my life in disquiet and suspense, and lost many
opportunities of advantage by a passion which I have reason to believe
prevalent in different degrees over a great part of mankind, I cannot
but think myself well qualified to warn those who are yet uncaptivated,
of the danger which they incur by placing themselves within its
influence.
I served an apprenticeship to a linen-draper, with uncommon reputation
for diligence and fidelity; and at the age of three-and-twenty opened a
shop for myself with a large stock, and such credit among all the
merchants, who were acquainted with my master, that I could command
whatever was imported curious or valuable. For five years I proceeded
with success proportionate to close application and untainted integrity;
was a daring bidder at every sale; always paid my notes before they were
due; and advanced so fast in commercial reputation, that I was
proverbially marked out as the model of young traders, and every one
expected that a few years would make me an alderman.
In this course of even prosperity, I was one day persuaded to buy a
ticket in the lottery. The sum was inconsiderable, part was to be repaid
though fortune might fail to favour me, and therefore my established
maxims of frugality did not restrain me from so trifling an experiment.
The ticket lay almost forgotten till the time at which every man's fate
was to be determined; nor did the affair even then seem of any
importance, till I discovered by the publick papers that the number next
to mine had conferred the great prize.
My heart leaped at the thought of such an approach to sudden riches,
which I considered myself, however contrarily to the laws of
computation, as having missed by a single chance; and I could not
forbear to revolve the consequences which such a bounteous allotment
would have produced, if it had happened to me. This dream of felicity,
by degrees, took possession of my imagination. The great delight of my
solitary hours was to purchase an estate, and form plantations with
money which once might have been mine, and I never met my friends but I
spoiled all their merriment by perpetual complaints of my ill luck.
At length another lottery was opened, and I had now so heated my
imagination with the prospect of a prize, that I should have pressed
among the first purchasers, had not my ardour been withheld by
deliberation upon the probability of success from one ticket rather than
another. I hesitated long between even and odd; considered the square
and cubick numbers through the lottery; examined all those to which good
luck had been hitherto annexed; and at last fixed upon one, which, by
some secret relation to the events of my life, I thought predestined to
make me happy. Delay in great affairs is often mischievous; the ticket
was sold, and its possessor could not be found.
I returned to my conjectures, and after many arts of prognostication,
fixed upon another chance, but with less confidence. Never did captive,
heir, or lover, feel so much vexation from the slow pace of time, as I
suffered between the purchase of my ticket and the distribution of the
prizes. I solaced my uneasiness as well as I could, by frequent
contemplation of approaching happiness; when the sun rose I knew it
would set, and congratulated myself at night that I was so much nearer
to my wishes. At last the day came, my ticket appeared, and rewarded all
my care and sagacity with a despicable prize of fifty pounds.
My friends, who honestly rejoiced upon my success, were very coldly
received; I hid myself a fortnight in the country, that my chagrin might
fume away without observation, and then returning to my shop, began to
listen after another lottery.
With the news of a lottery I was soon gratified, and having now found
the vanity of conjecture, and inefficacy of computation, I resolved to
take the prize by violence, and therefore bought forty tickets, not
omitting, however, to divide them between the even and odd numbers, that
I might not miss the lucky class. Many conclusions did I form, and many
experiments did I try, to determine from which of those tickets I might
most reasonably expect riches. At last, being unable to satisfy myself
by any modes of reasoning, I wrote the numbers upon dice, and allotted
five hours every day to the amusement of throwing them in a garret; and,
examining the event by an exact register, found, on the evening before
the lottery was drawn, that one of my numbers had been turned up five
times more than any of the rest in three hundred and thirty thousand
throws.
This experiment was fallacious; the first day presented the hopeful
ticket, a detestable blank. The rest came out with different fortune,
and in conclusion I lost thirty pounds by this great adventure.
I had now wholly changed the cast of my behaviour and the conduct of my
life. The shop was for the most part abandoned to my servants, and if I
entered it, my thoughts were so engrossed by my tickets, that I scarcely
heard or answered a question, but considered every customer as an
intruder upon my meditations, whom I was in haste to despatch. I mistook
the price of my goods, committed blunders in my bills, forgot to file my
receipts, and neglected to regulate my books. My acquaintances by
degrees began to fall away; but I perceived the decline of my business
with little emotion, because whatever deficience there might be in my
gains, I expected the next lottery to supply.
Miscarriage naturally produces diffidence; I began now to seek
assistance against ill luck, by an alliance with those that had been
more successful. I inquired diligently at what office any prize had been
sold, that I might purchase of a propitious vender; solicited those who
had been fortunate in former lotteries, to partake with me in my new
tickets; and whenever I met with one that had in any event of his life
been eminently prosperous, I invited him to take a larger share. I had,
by this rule of conduct, so diffused my interest, that I had a fourth
part of fifteen tickets, an eighth of forty, and a sixteenth of ninety.
I waited for the decision of my fate with my former palpitations, and
looked upon the business of my trade with the usual neglect. The wheel
at last was turned, and its revolutions brought me a long succession of
sorrows and disappointments. I indeed often partook of a small prize,
and the loss of one day was generally balanced by the gain of the next;
but my desires yet remained unsatisfied, and when one of my chances had
failed, all my expectation was suspended on those which remained yet
undetermined. At last a prize of five thousand pounds was proclaimed; I
caught fire at the cry, and inquiring the number, found it to be one of
my own tickets, which I had divided among those on whose luck I
depended, and of which I had retained only a sixteenth part.
You will easily judge with what detestation of himself, a man thus
intent upon gain reflected that he had sold a prize which was once in
his possession. It was to no purpose, that I represented to my mind the
impossibility of recalling the past, or the folly of condemning an act,
which only its event, an event which no human intelligence could
foresee, proved to be wrong. The prize which, though put in my hands,
had been suffered to slip from me, filled me with anguish, and knowing
that complaint would only expose me to ridicule, I gave myself up
silently to grief, and lost by degrees my appetite and my rest.
My indisposition soon became visible; I was visited by my friends, and
among them by Eumathes, a clergyman, whose piety and learning gave him
such an ascendant over me, that I could not refuse to open my heart.
There are, said he, few minds sufficiently firm to be trusted in the
hands of chance. Whoever finds himself inclined to anticipate futurity,
and exalt possibility to certainty, should avoid every kind of casual
adventure, since his grief must be always proportionate to his hope. You
have long wasted that time, which, by a proper application, would have
certainly, though moderately, increased your fortune, in a laborious and
anxious pursuit of a species of gain, which no labour or anxiety, no art
or expedient, can secure or promote. You are now fretting away your life
in repentance of an act, against which repentance can give no caution,
but to avoid the occasion of committing it. Rouse from this lazy dream
of fortuitous riches, which, if obtained, you could scarcely have
enjoyed, because they could confer no consciousness of desert; return to
rational and manly industry, and consider the mere gift of luck as below
the care of a wise man.
No. 182. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1751.
_--Dives qui fieri vult,
Et cilo vult fieri.--_ JUV. Sat. xiv. 176
The lust of wealth can never bear delay.
It has been observed in a late paper, that we are unreasonably desirous
to separate the goods of life from those evils which Providence has
connected with them, and to catch advantages without paying the price at
which they are offered us. Every man wishes to be rich, but very few
have the powers necessary to raise a sudden fortune, either by new
discoveries, or by superiority of skill, in any necessary employment;
and among lower understandings, many want the firmness and industry
requisite to regular gain and gradual acquisitions.
From the hope of enjoying affluence by methods more compendious than
those of labour, and more generally practicable than those of genius,
proceeds the common inclination to experiment and hazard, and that
willingness to snatch all opportunities of growing rich by chance,
which, when it has once taken possession of the mind, is seldom driven
out either by time or argument, but continues to waste life in perpetual
delusion, and generally ends in wretchedness and want.
The folly of untimely exultation and visionary prosperity, is by no
means peculiar to the purchasers of tickets; there are multitudes whose
life is nothing but a continual lottery; who are always within a few
months of plenty and happiness, and how often soever they are mocked
with blanks, expect a prize from the next adventure.
Among the most resolute and ardent of the votaries of chance, may be
numbered the mortals whose hope is to raise themselves by a wealthy
match; who lay out all their industry on the assiduities of courtship,
and sleep and wake with no other ideas than of treats, compliments,
guardians and rivals.
One of the most indefatigable of this class, is my old friend Leviculus,
whom I have never known for thirty years without some matrimonial
project of advantage. Leviculus was bred under a merchant, and by the
graces of his person, the sprightliness of his prattle, and the neatness
of his dress, so much enamoured his master's second daughter, a girl of
sixteen, that she declared her resolution to have no other husband. Her
father, after having chidden her for undutifulness, consented to the
match, not much to the satisfaction of Leviculus, who was sufficiently
elated with his conquest to think himself entitled to a larger fortune.
He was, however, soon rid of his perplexity, for his mistress died
before their marriage.
He was now so well satisfied with his own accomplishments, that he
determined to commence fortune-hunter; and when his apprenticeship
expired, instead of beginning, as was expected, to walk the Exchange
with a face of importance, or associating himself with those who were
most eminent for their knowledge of the stocks, he at once threw off the
solemnity of the counting-house, equipped himself with a modish wig,
listened to wits in coffee-houses, passed his evenings behind the scenes
in the theatres, learned the names of beauties of quality, hummed the
last stanzas of fashionable songs, talked with familiarity of high play,
boasted of his achievements upon drawers and coachmen, was often brought
to his lodgings at midnight in a chair, told with negligence and
jocularity of bilking a tailor, and now and then let fly a shrewd jest
at a sober citizen.
Thus furnished with irresistible artillery, he turned his batteries upon
the female world, and, in the first warmth of self-approbation, proposed
no less than the possession of riches and beauty united. He therefore
paid his civilities to Flavilla, the only daughter of a wealthy
shop-keeper, who not being accustomed to amorous blandishments, or
respectful addresses, was delighted with the novelty of love, and easily
suffered him to conduct her to the play, and to meet her where she
visited. Leviculus did not doubt but her father, however offended by a
clandestine marriage, would soon be reconciled by the tears of his
daughter, and the merit of his son-in-law, and was in haste to conclude
the affair. But the lady liked better to be courted than married, and
kept him three years in uncertainty and attendance. At last she fell in
love with a young ensign at a ball, and having danced with him all
night, married him in the morning.
Leviculus, to avoid the ridicule of his companions, took a journey to a
small estate in the country, where, after his usual inquiries concerning
the nymphs in the neighbourhood, he found it proper to fall in love with
Altilia, a maiden lady, twenty years older than himself, for whose
favour fifteen nephews and nieces were in perpetual contention. They
hovered round her with such jealous officiousness, as scarcely left a
moment vacant for a lover. Leviculus, nevertheless, discovered his
passion in a letter, and Altilia could not withstand the pleasure of
hearing vows and sighs, and flatteries and protestations. She admitted
his visits, enjoyed for five years the happiness of keeping all her
expectants in perpetual alarms, and amused herself with the various
stratagems which were practised to disengage her affections. Sometimes
she was advised with great earnestness to travel for her health, and
sometimes entreated to keep her brother's house. Many stories were
spread to the disadvantage of Leviculus, by which she commonly seemed
affected for a time, but took care soon afterwards to express her
conviction of their falsehood. But being at last satiated with this
ludicrous tyranny, she told her lover, when he pressed for the reward of
his services, that she was very sensible of his merit, but was resolved
not to impoverish an ancient family.
He then returned to the town, and soon after his arrival, became
acquainted with Latronia, a lady distinguished by the elegance of her
equipage, and the regularity of her conduct. Her wealth was evident in
her magnificence, and her prudence in her economy, and therefore
Leviculus, who had scarcely confidence to solicit her favour, readily
acquitted fortune of her former debts, when he found himself
distinguished by her with such marks of preference as a woman of modesty
is allowed to give. He now grew bolder, and ventured to breathe out his
impatience before her. She heard him without resentment, in time
permitted him to hope for happiness, and at last fixed the nuptial day,
without any distrustful reserve of pin-money, or sordid stipulations for
jointure, and settlements.
Leviculus was triumphing on the eve of marriage, when he heard on the
stairs the voice of Latronia's maid, whom frequent bribes had secured in
his service. She soon burst into his room, and told him that she could
not suffer him to be longer deceived; that her mistress was now spending
the last payment of her fortune, and was only supported in her expense
by the credit of his estate. Leviculus shuddered to see himself so near
a precipice, and found that he was indebted for his escape to the
resentment of the maid, who having assisted Latronia to gain the
conquest, quarrelled with her at last about the plunder.
Leviculus was now hopeless and disconsolate, till one Sunday he saw a
lady in the Mall, whom her dress declared a widow, and whom, by the
jolting prance of her gait, and the broad resplendence of her
countenance, he guessed to have lately buried some prosperous citizen.
He followed her home, and found her to be no less than the relict of
Prune the grocer, who, having no children, had bequeathed to her all his
debts and dues, and his estates real and personal. No formality was
necessary in addressing madam Prune, and therefore Leviculus went next
morning without an introductor. His declaration was received with a loud
laugh; she then collected her countenance, wondered at his impudence,
asked if he knew to whom he was talking, then shewed him the door, and
again laughed to find him confused. Leviculus discovered that this
coarseness was nothing more than the coquetry of Cornhill, and next day
returned to the attack. He soon grew familiar to her dialect, and in a
few weeks heard, without any emotion, hints of gay clothes with empty
pockets; concurred in many sage remarks on the regard due to people of
property; and agreed with her in detestation of the ladies at the other
end of the town, who pinched their bellies to buy fine laces, and then
pretended to laugh at the city.
He sometimes presumed to mention marriage; but was always answered with
a slap, a hoot, and a flounce. At last he began to press her closer, and
thought himself more favourably received; but going one morning, with a
resolution to trifle no longer, he found her gone to church with a young
journeyman from the neighbouring shop, of whom she had become enamoured
at her window.
In these, and a thousand intermediate adventures, has Leviculus spent
his time, till he is now grown grey with age, fatigue, and
disappointment. He begins at last to find that success is not to be
expected, and being unfit for any employment that might improve his
fortune, and unfurnished with any arts that might amuse his leisure, is
condemned to wear out a tasteless life in narratives which few will
hear, and complaints which none will pity.
No. 183. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1751.
_Nidla fides regni sociis, omnisque potestas
Impatiens consortis erit_. LUCAN. Lib. i. 92.
No faith of partnership dominion owns;
Still discord hovers o'er divided thrones.
The hostility perpetually exercised between one man and another, is
caused by the desire of many for that which only few can possess. Every
man would be rich, powerful, and famous; yet fame, power, and riches are
only the names of relative conditions, which imply the obscurity,
dependance, and poverty of greater numbers. This universal and incessant
competition produces injury and malice by two motives, interest and
envy; the prospect of adding to our possessions what we can take from
others, and the hope of alleviating the sense of our disparity by
lessening others, though we gain nothing to ourselves.
Of these two malignant and destructive powers, it seems probable at the
first view, that interest has the strongest and most extensive
influence. It is easy to conceive that opportunities to seize what has
been long wanted, may excite desires almost irresistible; but surely the
same eagerness cannot be kindled by an accidental power of destroying
that which gives happiness to another. It must be more natural to rob
for gain, than to ravage only for mischief.
Yet I am inclined to believe, that the great law of mutual benevolence
is oftener violated by envy than by interest, and that most of the
misery which the defamation of blameless actions, or the obstruction of
honest endeavours, brings upon the world, is inflicted by men that
propose no advantage to themselves but the satisfaction of poisoning the
banquet which they cannot taste, and blasting the harvest which they
have no right to reap.
Interest can diffuse itself but to a narrow compass. The number is never
large of those who can hope to fill the posts of degraded power, catch
the fragments of shattered fortune, or succeed to the honours of
depreciated beauty. But the empire of envy has no limits, as it requires
to its influence very little help from external circumstances. Envy may
always be produced by idleness and pride, and in what place will they
not be found?
Interest requires some qualities not universally bestowed. The ruin of
another will produce no profit to him who has not discernment to mark
his advantage, courage to seize, and activity to pursue it; but the cold
malignity of envy may be exerted in a torpid and quiescent state, amidst
the gloom of stupidity, in the coverts of cowardice. He that falls by
the attacks of interest, is torn by hungry tigers; he may discover and
resist his enemies. He that perishes in the ambushes of envy, is
destroyed by unknown and invisible assailants, and dies like a man
suffocated by a poisonous vapour, without knowledge of his danger, or
possibility of contest.
Interest is seldom pursued but at some hazard. He that hopes to gain
much, has commonly something to lose, and when he ventures to attack
superiority, if he fails to conquer, is irrecoverably crushed. But envy
may act without expense or danger. To spread suspicion, to invent
calumnies, to propagate scandal, requires neither labour nor courage. It
is easy for the author of a lie, however malignant, to escape detection,
and infamy needs very little industry to assist its circulation.