Surly, an heir in the neighbourhood, remarkable for his love of fighting-cocks, as an advantageous match; and was extremely pleafed with the civilities which he used to pay me, till under Flavia's tuition I learned to talk of fubjects which he could not underland. This, fhe fays, is the confequence of female ftudy; girls grow too wife to be advised, and too stubborn to be commanded; but the is refolved to try who fhall govern, and will thwart my humour till the breaks my fpirit.

Thefe menaces, Mr. Rambler, fometimes make me quite angry; for I have been fixteen thefe ten weeks, and think myfelf exempted from the dominion of a governefs, who has no pretenfions to more fenfe or knowledge than myfelf. I am refolved, fince I am as tall and as wife as other women, to be no longer treated like a girl. Mifs Flavia has often told me, that ladies of my age go to affemblies and routes, without their mothers and their aunts; I fhall therefore, from this time, leave afking advice, and refuse to give accounts. I wish you would state the time at which young ladies may judge for themfelves, which I am fure you cannot but think ought to begin before fixteen; if you are inclined to delay it longer, I fhall have very little regard to your opinion.

My aunt often tells me of the advantages of experience, and of the deference due to feniority; and both fhe, and all the antiquated part of the world, talk of the unreferved obedience which they paid to the commands of their parents, and the undoubting confidence with which they listened to their precepts; of the terrors which they felt at a frown,

and the humility with which they fupplicated forgiveness whenever they had offended. I cannot but fancy that this boast is too general to be true, and that the young and the old were always at variance. I have, however, told my aunt, that I will mend whatever she will prove to be wrong; but she replies that she has reasons of her own, and that she is forry to live in an age when girls have the impudence to ask for proofs.

I beg once again, Mr. Rambler, to know whether I am not as wife as my aunt, and whether, when she presumes to check me as a baby, I may not pluck up a spirit and return her infolence. I fhall not proceed to extremities without your advice, which is therefore impatiently expected by

NUMB. 85. TUESDAY, January 8, 1751.

Otia fi tellas periere Cupidinis arcus
Contempta que jacent, et fine luce faces.

At bufy hearts in vain love's arrows fly;
Dim, fcorn'd, and impotent, his torches lie.

MA

OVID.

ANY writers of eminence in phyfick have laid out their diligence upon the confideration of those diftempers to which men are expofed by particular ftates of life, and very learned treatifes have been produced upon the maladies of the camp, the fea, and the mines. There are, indeed, few employments which a man accustomed to anatomical enquiries, and medical refinements, would not find reasons for declining as dangerous to health, did not his learning or experience inform him, that almoft every occupation, however inconvenient or formidable, is happier and fafer than a life of floth.

The neceffity of action is not only demonftrable from the fabrick of the body, but evident from obfervation of the univerfal practice of mankind, who for the prefervation of health, in those whose rank or wealth exempts them from the neceffity of lucrative labour, have invented fports and diverfions, though not of equal ufe to the world with manual trades, yet of equal fatigue to thofe that practise them, and differing only from the drudgery of the hufbandman or manufacturer, as they are acts of choice, and therefore performed without the painful fenfe of compulfion.

pulfion. The huntsman rises early, pursues his game through all the dangers and obftructions of the chace, fwims rivers, and fcales precipices, till he returns home no less haraffed than the foldier, and has perhaps fometimes incurred as great hazard of wounds or death: Yet he has no motive to incite his ardour; he is neither fubject to the commands of a general, nor dreads any penalties for neglect and difobedience; he has neither profit or honour to expect from his perils and his conquefts, but toils without the hope of mural or civick garlands, and muft content himself with the praise of his tenants and companions.

But fuch is the conftitution of man, that labour may be styled its own reward; nor will any external incitements be requifite, if it be confidered how much happiness is gained, and how much mifery escaped, by frequent and violent agitation of the body.

Eafe is the most that can be hoped from a fedentary and unactive habit; ease, a neutral state between pain and pleasure. The dance of fpirits, the bound of vigour, readinefs of enterprize, and defiance of fatigue, are referved for him that braces his nerves, and hardens his fibres, that keeps his limbs pliant with motion, and by frequent exposure fortifies his frame against the common accidents of cold and heat.

With ease, however, if it could be fecured, many would be content; but nothing terreftrial can be kept at a stand. Eafe, if it is not rifing into pleafure, will be falling towards pain; and whatever hope the dreams of fpeculation may fuggeft of obferving the proportion between nutriment and labour, and keeping the body in a healthy state by supplies exactly equal to its wafte, we know that, in ef

fect, the vital powers unexcited by motion, grow gradually languid; that as their vigour fails, obstructions are generated; and that from obstructions proceed most of thofe pains which wear us away flowly with periodical tortures, and which, though they fometimes fuffer life to be long, condemn it to be useless, chain us down to the couch of mifery, and mock us with the hopes of death.

Exercife cannot fecure us from that diffolution to which we are decreed; but while the foul and body continue united, it can make the affociation pleafing, and give probable hopes that they fhall be disjoined by an eafy feparation. It was a principle among the ancients, that acute difeafes are from heaven, and chronical from ourselves; the dart of death indeed falls from heaven, but we poifon it by our own mifconduct; to die is the fate of man, but to die with lingering anguifh is generally his folly.

It is neceffary to that perfection of which our prefent ftate is capable, that the mind and body fhould both be kept in action; that neither the faculties of the one nor of the other be fuffered to grow lax or torpid for want of ufe; that neither health be purchafed by voluntary fubmiffion to ignorance, nor knowledge cultivated at the expence of that health, which muft enable it either to give pleafure to its poffeffor, or affiftance to others. It is too frequently the pride of ftudents to defpife thofe amufements and recreations, which give to the rest of mankind ftrength of limbs and cheerfulnefs of heart. Solitude and contemplation are indeed feldom confiftent with fuch fkill in common exercifes or fports as is neceffary to make them practifed with delight, and no man