ftrife and fraud were totally excluded, and every turbulent paffion was ftilled by plenty and equality. Such were indeed happy times, but fuch times can return no more. Community of poffeffion must include fpontaneity of production; for what is obtained by labour will be of right the property of him by whofe labour it is gained. And while a rightful claim to pleasure or to affluence must be procured either by flow induftry or uncertain hazard, there will always be multitudes whom cowardice or impatience incite to more fafe and more fpeedy methods, who ftrive to pluck the fruit without cultivating the tree, and to share the advantages of victory without partaking the danger of the battle. In later ages, the conviction of the danger to which virtue is expofed while the mind continues open to the influence of riches, has determined many to vows of perpetual poverty; they have fuppreffed defire by cutting off the poffibility of gratification, and fecured their peace by deftroying the enemy whom they had no hope of reducing to quiet fubjection. But by debarring themselves from evil, they have refcinded many opportunities of good; they have too often funk into inactivity and ufeleffness; and though they have forborn to injure fociety, have not fully paid their contributions to its happinefs. While riches are fo neceffary to prefent convenience, and fo much more easily obtained by crimes than virtues, the mind can only be fecured from yielding to the continual impulfe of covetoufnefs by the preponderation of unchangeable and eternal motives. Gold will turn the intellectual balance, when ཞི་ weighed only against reputation; but will be light and ineffectual when the oppofite fcale is charged with juftice, veracity, and piety. I NUMB. 132. SATURDAY, June 22, 1751. Dociles imitandis Turpibus ac pravis omnes fumus. The mind of mortals, in perverfenefs ftrong, To the RAMBLER. Mr. RAMBLER, Juv. WAS bred a fcholar, and after the ufual courfe of education, found it neceffary to employ for the fupport of life that learning which I had almost exhaufted my little fortune in acquiring. The lucrative profeffions drew my regard with equal attraction; each prefented ideas which excited my curiolity, and each impofed duties which terrified my apprehenfion. There is no temper more unpropitious to intereft than defultory application and unlimited enquiry, by which the defires are held in a perpetual equipoife, and the mind fluctuates between different purpofes without determination. I had books of every kind round me, among which I divided my time as caprice or accident directed. I often spent the first hours of the day, in confidering to what study I fhould should devote the reft; and at laft fnatched up any author that lay upon the table, or perhaps fled to a coffee-house for deliverance from the anxiety of irrefolution, and the gloominefs of folitude. Thus my little patrimony grew imperceptibly lefs, till I was roufed from my literary flumber by a creditor, whofe importunity obliged me to pacify him with fo large a fum, that what remained was not fufficient to fupport me more than eight months. I hope you will not reproach me with avarice or cowardice, if I acknowledge that I now thought myfelf in danger of diftrefs, and obliged to endeavour after fome certain competence. There have been heroes of negligence, who have laid the price of their laft acre in a drawer, and, without the leaft interruption of their tranquillity, or abatement of their expences, taken out one piece after another, till there was no more remaining. But I was not born to fuch dignity of imprudence, or fuch exaltation above the cares and neceffities of life: I therefore immediately engaged my friends to procure me a little employment, which might fet me free from the dread of poverty, and afford me time to plan out fome final scheme of lafting advantage. My friends were ftruck with honeft folicitude, and immediately promised their endeavours for my extrication. They did not fuffer their kindness to languish by delay, but profecuted their enquiries with fuch fuccefs, that in less than a month I was perplexed with variety of offers and contrariety of profpects. I had however no time for long paufes of confideration; and therefore foon refolved to accept the Cc 3 office office of inftructing a young nobleman in the house of his father: I went to the feat at which the family then happened to refide, was received with great politenefs, and invited to enter immediately on my charge. The terms offered were fuch as I fhould willingly have accepted, though my fortune had allowed me greater liberty of choice: the respect with which I was treated flattered my vanity; and perhaps the fplendor of the apartments, and the luxury of the table, were not wholly without their influence. I immediately complied with the proposals, and received the young lord into my care. Having no defire to gain more than I fhould truly deferve, I very diligently profecuted my undertaking, and had the fatisfaction of difcovering in my pupil a flexible temper, a quick apprehenfion, and a retentive memory. I did not much doubt that my care would, in time, produce a wife and useful counsellor to the ftate, though my labours were fomewhat obftrusted by want of authority, and the neceffity of complying with the freaks of negligence, and of waiting patiently for the lucky moment of voluntary attention. To a man, whofe imagination was filled with the dignity of knowledge, and to whom a ftudious life had made all the common amufements infipid and contemptible, it was not very easy to fupprefs his indignation, when he faw himfelf forfaken in the midst of his lecture, for an opportunity to catch an infect, and found his inftructions debarred from accefs to the intellectual faculties, by the memory of a childish frolick, or the defire of a new plaything. 6 Thofe Thofe vexations would have recurred lefs frequently, had not his mamma, by entreating at one time that he fhould be excufed from a task as a reward for fome petty compliance, and withholding him from his book at another, to gratify herself or her vifitants with his vivacity, fhewn him that every thing was more pleafing and more important than knowledge, and that study was to be endured rather than chofen, and was only the bufinefs of those hours which pleasure left vacant, or difcipline ufurped. I thought it my duty to complain, in tender terms, of these frequent avocations; but was answered, that rank and fortune might reasonably hope for fome indulgence; that the retardation of my pupil's progrefs would not be imputed to any negligence or inability of mine; and that with the fuccefs which fatisfied every body elfe, I might furely fatisfy myfelf. I had now done my duty, and without more remonftrances continued to inculcate my precepts whenever they could be heard, gained every day new influence, and found that by degrees my fcholar began to feel the quick impulfes of curiofity, and the honeft ardour of ftudious ambition. At length it was refolved to pass a winter in London. The lady had too much fondness for her fon to live five months without him, and too high an opinion of his wit and learning to refufe her vanity the gratification of exhibiting him to the publick. I remonstrated against too early an acquaintance with cards and company; but with a foft contempt of my ignorance and pedantry, she said that he had been already confined too long to folitary study, and it was now time to fhew him the world; nothing was |