by what hands it has been bestowed. It has never yet been found, that the tyrant, the plunderer, the oppreffor, the most hateful of the hateful, the most profligate of the profligate, have been denied any celebrations which they were willing to purchase, or that wickedness and folly have not found correfpondent flatterers through all their fubordinations, except when they have been affociated with avarice or poverty, and have wanted either inclination or ability to hire a panegyrist.

As there is no character fo deformed as to fright away from it the prostitutes of praife, there is no degree of encomiaftick veneration which pride has` refused. The emperors of Rome fuffered themselves to be worshipped in their lives with altars and facrifices, and in an age more enlightened, the terms peculiar to the praise and worship of the Supreme Being, have been applied to wretches whom it was the reproach of humanity to number among men; and whom nothing but riches or power hindered those that read or wrote their deification, from hunting into the toils of justice, as difturbers of the peace of nature.

There are, indeed, many among the poetical flatterers, who must be refigned to infamy without vindication, and whom we must confefs to have deferted the cause of virtue for pay: they have committed, against full conviction, the crime of obliterating the diftinctions between good and evil, and instead of oppofing the encroachments of vice, have incited her progrefs, and celebrated her conquefts. But there is a lower class of fycophants, whose understanding has not made them capable of equal

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equal guilt. Every man of high rank is furrounded with numbers, who have no other rule of thought or action, than his maxims, and his conduct; whom the honour of being numbered among his acquaintance, reconciles to all his vices, and all his abfurdities; and who eafily perfuade themselves to esteem him, by whose regard they confider themfelves as diftinguished and exalted.

It is dangerous for mean minds to venture themfelves within the sphere of greatness. Stupidity is foon blinded by the fplendor of wealth, and cowardice is eafily fettered in the fhackles of dependance. To folicit patronage, is, at least, in the event, to fet virtue to fale. None can be pleased without praise, and few can be praised without falfehood; few can be affiduous without fervility, and none can be fervile without corruption.

NUMB. 105. TUESDAY, March 19, 1751.

Animorum

Impulsu, et cæca magnáque cupidine duɛti.

Vain man runs headlong, to caprice refign'd;
Impell'd by paffion, and with folly blind.

IW

Juv.

WAS lately confidering, among other objects of fpeculation, the new attempt of an univerfal register, an office, in which every man may lodge an account of his fuperfluities and wants, of whatever he defires to purchase or to fell. My imagination foon presented to me the latitude to which this defign may be extended by integrity and industry, and the advantages which may be justly hoped from a general mart of intelligence, when once its reputation fhall be fo established, that neither reproach nor fraud fhall be feared from it; when an application to it shall not be cenfured as the laft refource of defperation, nor its informations fufpected as the fortuitous fuggeftions of men obliged not to appear ignorant. A place where every exuberance may be discharged, and every deficiency supplied, where every lawful passion may find its gratifications, and every honeft curiofity receive fatisfaction, where the stock of a nation, pecuniary and intellectual, may be brought together, and where all conditions of humanity may hope to find relief, pleasure, and accommodation, muft equally deserve the attention of the merchant and philosopher, of him who mingles in the tumult of business, and him who only lives to amufe himself with the various employ

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employments and pursuits of others. Nor will it be an uninftructing school to the greatest mafters of method and dispatch, if fuch multiplicity can be preferved from embarraffment, and fuch tumult from inaccuracy.

While I was concerting this fplendid project, and filling my thoughts with its regulation, its conveniencies, its variety, and its confequences, I funk gradually into flumber; but the fame images, though lefs diftinct, ftill continued to float upon my fancy. I perceived myself at the gate of an immenfe edifice, where innumerable multitudes were paffing without confufion; every face on which I fixed my eyes, feemed fettled in the contemplation of fome important purpose, and every foot was haftened by eagernefs and expectation. I followed the crowd without knowing whither I fhould be drawn, and remained a while in the unpleafing state of an idler, where all other beings were bufy, giving place every moment to those who had more importance in their looks. Afhamed to ftand ignorant, and afraid to ask questions, at last I saw a lady fweeping by me, whom, by the quickness of her eyes, the agility of her steps, and a mixture of levity and impatience, I knew to be my long-lov'd protect refs, CURIOSITY. << Great goddefs," faid I, "may thy votary be permitted "to implore thy favour; if thou hast been my di"rectress from the firft dawn of reafon, if I have "followed thee through the maze of life with in"variable fidelity, if I have turned to every new call, "and quitted at thy nod one purfuit for another, "if I have never stopped at the invitations of for

tune, nor forgot thy authority in the bowers of

« pleasure,

pleasure, inform me now whither chance has con"ducted me."

"Thou art now," replied the fmiling power, "in the presence of JUSTICE, and of TRUTH, whom "the father of gods and men has fent down to regif"ter the demands and pretenfions of mankind, that "the world may at last be reduced to order, and that "none may complain hereafter of being doomed to "tasks for which they are unqualified, of poffeffing "faculties for which they cannot find employment, "or virtues that languifh unobferved for want of op

portunities to exert them, of being encumbered "with fuperfluities which they would willingly re"fign, or of wafting away in defires which ought "to be fatisfied. JUSTICE is now to examine every "man's wishes, and TRUTH is to record them; let "us approach, and obferve the progress of this great "tranfaction."

She then moved forward, and TRUTH, who knew her among the most faithful of her followers, beckoned her to advance, till we were placed near the feat of JUSTICE. The first who required the affiftance of the office, came forward with a flow pace, and tumour of dignity, and fhaking a weighty purse in his hand, demanded to be registered by TRUTH, as the MACENAS of the present age, the chief encourager of literary merit, to whom men of learning and wit might apply in any exigence or diftrefs with certainty of fuccour. JUSTICE very mildly enquired, whether he had calculated the expence of fuch a declaration? whether he had been informed what number of petitioners would fwarm about him? whether he could distinguish idleness and negligence from calamity,

often