ftruggle with the inconveniencies of his country, whenever celerity and acutenefs are requifite, we must actuate our languor by taking a few turns round the center in a garret.

If you imagine that I afcribe to air and motion effects which they cannot produce, I defire you to confult your own memory, and confider whether you have ever known a man acquire reputation in his garret, which, when fortune or a patron had placed him upon the first floor, he was unable to maintain; and who never recovered his former vigour of understanding till he was reftored to his original fituation. That a garret will make every man a wit, I am very far from fuppofing; I know there are fome who would continue blockheads even on the fummit of the Andes, or on the peak of Teneriffe. But let not any man be confidered as unimproveable till this potent remedy has been tried; for perhaps he was formed to be great only in a garret, as the joiner of Aretaus was rational in no other place but his own fhop.

I think a frequent removal to various diftances from the center, fo neceffary to a just estimate of intellectual abilities, and confequently of fo great use in education, that if I hoped that the publick could be perfuaded to fo expenfive an experiment, I would propofe, that there fhould be a cavern dug, and a tower erected, like thofe which Bacon describes in Solomon's houfe, for the expanfion and concentration of understanding, according to the exigence of different employments, or conftitutions. Perhaps fome that fume away in meditations upon time and space in the tower, might compofe tables of intereft at a certain

certain depth; and he that upon level ground stagnates in filence, or creeps in narrative, might, at the height of half a mile, ferment into merriment, sparkle with repartee, and froth with declamation.

Addifon obferves, that we may find the heat of Virgil's climate, in fome lines of his Georgick: fo, when I read a compofition, I immediately determine the height of the author's habitation. As an elaborate performance is commonly faid to fmell of the lamp, my commendation of a noble thought, a fprightly fally, or a bold figure, is to pronounce it fresh from the garret; an expreflion which would break from me upon the perufal of moft of your papers, did I not believe, that you sometimes quit the garret, and afcend into the cock-loft.

HYPERTATUS,

NUMB. 118. SATURDAY, May 4, 1751.

--Omnes illacrymabiles
Urgentur, ignotique longâ

Note.

HOR.

In endless night they fleep, unwept, unknown. FRANCIS.

CICERO has, with his ufual elegance and

magnificence of language, attempted, in his relation of the dream of Scipio, to depreciate those honours for which he himself appears to have panted with restless folicitude, by fhewing within what narrow limits all that fame and celebrity which man can hope from men is circumfcribed.

"You fee," says Africanus, pointing at the earth from the celestial regions," that the globe affigned "to the refidence and habitation of human beings " is of fmall dimenfions: how then can you ob"tain from the praise of men, any glory worthy of "a wifh? Of this little world the inhabited parts "are neither numerous nor wide; even the fpots "where men are to be found are broken by inter"vening deferts; and the nations are fo feparated

as that nothing can be tranfinitted from one to "another. With the people of the fouth, by whom "the oppofite part of the earth is poffeffed, you have "no intercourfe; and by how fmall a tract do "you communicate with the countries of the "north? The territory which you inhabit is no more "than a fcanty ifland inclofed by a finall body of

water,

<< water, to which you give the name of the great fea "and the Atlantick ocean. And even in this known "and frequented continent, what hope can you en"tertain, that your renown will pass the stream of

Ganges, or the cliffs of Caucasus? or by whom will your name be uttered in the extremities of the "north or fouth, towards the rifing or the setting "fun? So narrow is the space to which your fame "can be propagated, and even there how long will "it remain ?"

He then proceeds to affign natural caufes why fame is not only narrow in its extent, but fhort in its duration; he obferves the difference between the computation of time in earth and heaven, and declares, that according to the celestial chronology, no human honours can laft a fingle year.

Such are the objections by which Tully has made a fhew of difcouraging the pursuit of fame; objections which fufficiently discover his tenderness and regard for his darling phantom. Homer, when the plan of his poem made the death of Patroclus neceffary, refolved, at least, that he should die with honour; and therefore brought down againft him the patron god of Troy, and left to Hector only the mean task of giving the last blow to an enemy whom a divine hand had difabled from refiftance. Thus Tully ennobles fame, which he profeffes to degrade, by oppofing it to celestial happiness; he confines not its extent but by the boundaries of nature, nor contracts its duration but by reprefenting it small in the estimation of fuperior beings. He still admits it the highest and nobleft of terreftrial objects, and alleges little more against it, than that it is neither without end, nor without limits.

What

What might be the effect of thefe obfervations conveyed in Ciceronian eloquence to Roman understandings, cannot be determined; but few of those who fhall in the prefent age read my humble version will find themfelves much depreffed in their hopes, or retarded in their defigns; for I am not inclined to believe, that they who among us pass their lives in the cultivation of knowledge, or acquifition of power, have very anxiously enquired what opinions prevail on the further banks of the Ganges, or invigorated any effort by the defire of fpreading their renown among the clans of Caucafus. The hopes and fears of modern minds are content to range in a narrower compass; a single nation, and a few years, have generally fufficient amplitude to fill our imaginations.

A little confideration will indeed teach us, that fame has other limits than mountains and oceans; and that he who places happiness in the frequent repetition of his name, may spend his life in propagating it, without any danger of weeping for new worlds, or neceffity of paffing the Atlantick fea.

The numbers to whom any real and perceptible good or evil can be derived by the greatest power, or most active diligence, are inconfiderable; and where neither benefit nor mifchief operate, the only motive to the mention or remembrance of others is curiosity; a paffion, which, though in fome degree univerfally affociated to reafon, is eafily confined, overborn, or diverted from any particular object.

Among the lower claffes of mankind, there will be found very little defire of any other knowledge, than what may contribute immediately to the relief of fome preffing uneafinefs, or the attainment of

fome