NUMB. 117. TUESDAY, April 30, 1751. Οσσαν ἐπ' Ουλύμπῳ μίμησαν θέμεν αὐτὰς ἐπ' ὀσσὴ Πηλιον εινοσίφυλλον, ἵν ̓ ἐρανὸς ἀμβατὸς εἴη. HoM. The gods they challenge, and affect the fkies: a stood; On Offa, Pelion nods with all his wood. POPE To the RAMBLER. SIR, OTHING has more retarded the advancement of learning than the difpofition of vulgar minds to ridicule and vilify what they cannot comprehend. All industry must be excited by hope; and as the student often propofes no other reward to himself than praife, he is eafily difcouraged by contempt and infult. He who brings with him into a clamorous multitude the timidity of reclufe fpeculation, and has never hardened his front in public life, or accustomed his paffions to the viciffitudes and accidents, the triumphs and defeats of mixed conversation, will blush at the ftare of petulant incredulity, and fuffer himself to be driven by a burst of laughter, from the fortreffes of demonftration. The mechanist will be afraid to affert before hardy contradiction, the poffibility of tearing down bulwarks with a filkworm's thread; and the aftronomer of relating the rapidity of light, the diftance of the fixed stars, and the height of the lunar mountains. If I could by any efforts have fhaken off this cowardice, I had not fheltered myself under a borrowed name, nor applied to you for the means of communicating to the publick the theory of a garret; a fubject which, except fome flight and tranfient ftrictures, has been hitherto neglected by thofe who were beft qualified to adorn it, either for want of leifure to profecute the various researches in which a nice difcuffion muft engage them, or because it requires fuch diverfity of knowledge, and fuch extent of curiofity, as is fcarcely to be found in any fingle intellect or perhaps others forefaw the tumults which would be raised against them, and confined their knowledge to their own breafts, and abandoned prejudice and folly to the direction of chance. That the profeffors of literature generally refide in the highest stories, has been immemorially obferved. The wisdom of the ancients was well acquainted with the intellectual advantages of an elevated fituation: why else were the Mufes ftationed on Olympus or Parnaffus by thofe who could with equal right have raised them bowers in the vale of Tempe or erected their altars among the flexures of Meander? Why was Jove himself nurfed upon a mountain? or why did the goddeffes, when the prize of beauty was contested, try the cause upon the top of Ida? Such were the fictions by which the great mafters of the earlier ages endeavoured to inculcate to pofterity the importance of a garret, which, though they had been long obfcured by the negligence and ignorance of fucceeding times, were well enforced by the celebrated fymbol of Pythagoras, ανεμῶν πνεόντων τὴν ἠχῶ #poσ; "when the wind blows, worship its echo." U 3 This This could not but be understood by his difciples as an inviolable injunction to live in a garret, which I have found frequently vifited by the echo and the wind. Nor was the tradition wholly obliterated in the age of Auguftus, for Tibullus evidently congratulates himself upon his garret, not without fome allufion to the Pythagorean precept. Quàm juvat immites ventos audire cubantem- How fweet in fleep to pafs the careless hours, And it is impoffible not to discover the fondness of Lucretius, an earlier writer, for a garret, in his defcription of the lofty towers of ferene learning, and of the pleasure with which a wife man looks down upon the confufed and erratick ftate of the world moving below him. Sed nil dulcius eft, bene quàm munita tenere 'Tis fweet thy lab'ring steps to guide DRYDEN. The inftitution has, indeed, continued to our own ; the garret is ftill the ufual receptacle of the Topher and poet; but this, like many ancient customs, customs, is perpetuated only by an accidental imitation, without knowledge of the original reafon for which it was established. Caufa latet; res eft notiffima. The caufe is fecret, but th' effect is known. ADDISON. Conjectures have, indeed, been advanced concerning thefe habitations of literature, but without much fatisfaction to the judicious enquirer. Some have imagined, that the garret is generally chofen by the wits, as moft eafily rented; and concluded that no man rejoices in his aerial abode, but on the days of payment. Others fufpect, that a garret is chiefly convenient, as it is remoter than any other part of the house from the outer door, which is often obferved to be infefted by vifitants, who talk inceffantly of beer, or linen, or a coat, and repeat the fame founds every morning, and fometimes again in the afternoon, without any variation, except that they grow daily more importunate and clamorous, and raife their voices in time from mournful murmurs to raging vociferations. This eternal monotony is always deteftable to a man whofe chief pleasure is to enlarge his knowledge, and vary his ideas. Others talk of freedom from noife, and abstraction from common business or amusements; and fome yet more vifionary, tell us that the faculties are enlarged by open profpects, and that the fancy is more at liberty, when the eye ranges without confinement. These conveniencies may perhaps all be found in a well-chofen garret; but furely they cannot be fuppofed fufficiently important to have operated unvariably upon different climates, distant ages, and separate nations. Of an univerfal practice, there muft ftill be prefumed an univerfal caufe, which, however recondite and abftrufe, may be perhaps referved to make me illuftrious by its difcovery, and you by its promulgation. It is univerfally known that the faculties of the mind are invigorated or weakened by the ftate of the body, and that the body is in a great measure regulated by the various compreffions of the ambient element. The effects of the air in the production or cure of corporeal maladies have been acknowledged from the time of Hippocrates; but no man has yet fufficiently confidered how far it may influence the operations of the genius, though every day affords inftances of local understanding, of wits and reafoners, whofe faculties are adapted to fome fingle fpot, and who, when they are removed to any other place, fink at once into filence and ftupidity. I have difcovered, by a long feries of obfervations, that invention and elocution fuffer great impediments from denfe and impure vapours, and that the tenuity of a defecated air at a proper diftance fro.n the furface of the earth, accelerates the fancy, and fets at liberty thofe intellectual powers which were before fhackled by too ftrong attraction, and unable to expand themselves under the preffure of a grofs atmosphere. I have found dulnefs to quicken into lentinient in a thin ether, as water, though not very hot, boils in a receiver partly exhaufted; and Leads, in appearance empty, have teemed with noons upon rifing ground, as the flaccid fides of a football |