is willing to do that of which the neceffity is not preffing and immediate, when he knows that his aukwardnefs must make him ridiculous. Ludere qui nefcit, campeftribus abftinet armis, He that's unfkilful will not tofs a ball, HOR. CREECH. Thus the man of learning is often refigned, almost by his own confent, to languor and pain; and while in the profecution of his ftudies he fuffers the wearinefs of labour, is fubject by his courfe of life to the maladies of idleness. It was, perhaps, from the obfervation of this mifchievous omiffion in those who are employed about intellectual objects, that Locke has, in his Syftem of Education, urged the neceffity of a trade to men of all ranks and profeffions, that when the mind is weary with its proper tafk, it may be relaxed by a flighter attention to fome mechanical operation; and that while the vital functions are refufcitated and awakened by vigorous motion, the understanding may be restrained from that vagrance and diffipation by which it relieves itself after a long intenfeness of thought, unless fome allurement be prefented that may engage application without anxiety. There is fo little reafon for expecting frequent conformity to Locke's precept, that it is not neceffary to enquire whether the practice of mechanical arts might not give occafion to petty emulation, and degenerate ambition; and whether, if our divines and phyficians were taught the lathe and the chizzel, they would not think more of their tools than their books; as Nero neglected the care of his empire for his chariot and his fiddle. It is certainly dangerous to be too much pleafed with little things; but what is there which may not be perverted? Let us remember how much worse employment might have been found for thofe hours, which a manual occupation. appears to engrofs; let us compute the profit with the lofs, and when we reflect how often a genius is allured from his ftudies, confider likewife that perhaps by the fame attractions he is fometimes withheld from debauchery, or recalled from malice, from ambition, from envy, and from luft. I have always admired the wifdom of thofe by whom our female education was inftituted, for having contrived, that every woman of whatever condition fhould be taught fome arts of manufacture, by which the vacuities of reclufe and domeftick leifure may be filled up. Thefe arts are more neceffary as the weakness of their fex and the general fyftem of life debar ladies from many employments which, by diverfifying the circumftances of men, preferve them from being cankered by the ruft of their own thoughts. I know not how much of the virtue and happiness of the world may be the confequence of this judicious regulation. Perhaps, the most powerful fancy might be unable to figure the confufion and ughter that would be produced by fo many piercing and vivid understandings, turned loofe at once mankind, with no other bufinefs than to fparAle and intrigue, to perplex and to deftroy. For my part, whenever chance brings within my obfervation a knot of miffes bufy at their needles, I confider myself as in the fchool of virtue; and though I have no extraordinary skill in plain work or embroidery, look upon their operations with as much fatisfaction as their governefs, because I regard them as providing a fecurity against the most dangerous enfnarers of the foul, by enabling themfelves to exclude idlenefs from their folitary moments, and with idleness her attendant train of paffions, fancies, and chimeras, fears, forrows, and defires. Ovid and Cervantes will inform them that love has no power but over those whom he catches unemployed; and Hector, in the Iliad, when he fees Andromache overwhelmed with terrors, fends her for confolation to the loom and the distaff. It is certain that any wild wifh or vain imagination never takes fuch firm poffeffion of the mind, as when it is found empty and unoccupied. The old peripatetick principle, that Nature abbors a vacuum, may be properly applied to the intellect, which will embrace any thing, however abfurd or criminal, rather than be wholly without an object. Perhaps every man may date the predominance of those defires that disturb his life and contaminate his confcience, from fome unhappy hour when too much leisure exposed him to their incurfions; for he has lived with little obfervation either on himfelf or others, who does not know that to be idle is to be vicious. NUMB. 86. SATURDAY, January 12, 1751. Ο Legitimumque fonum digitis callemus et aure. By fingers, or by car, we numbers scan. HOR. ELPHINSTON. NE of the ancients has obferved, that the burthen of government is encreafed upon princes by the virtues of their immediate predeceffors. It is, indeed, always dangerous to be placed in a ftate of unavoidable comparifon with excellence, and the danger is ftill greater when that excellence is consecrated by death; when envy and intereft ceafe to act against it, and thofe paffions by which it was at first vilified and oppofed, now ftand in its defence, and turn their vehemence against honeft emulation. He that fucceeds a celebrated writer, has the fame difficulties to encounter; he ftands under the shade of exalted merit, and is hindered from rifing to his natural height, by the interception of thofe beams which fhould invigorate and quicken him. He ap plies to that attention which is already engaged, and unwilling to be drawn off from certain fatisfaction ; or perhaps to an attention already wearied, and not to be recalled to the fame object. One of the old poets congratulates himself that he has the untrodden regions of Parnaffus before him, and that his garland will be gathered from plantations which no writer had yet culled. But the imitator treads a beaten walk, and with all his diligence can only hope to find a few flowers or branches un touched touched by his predeceffor, the refufe of contempt, or the omiffions of negligence. The Macedonian conqueror, when he was once invited to hear a man that fung like a nightingale, replied with contempt, "that he had heard the nightingale herself;" and the fame treatment must every man expect, whofe praise is that he imitates another. Yet, in the midst of these difcouraging reflections, I am about to offer to my reader fome obfervations upon Paradife Loft, and hope, that, however I may fall below the illuftrious writer who has fo long dictated to the commonwealth of learning, my attempt may not be wholly useless. There are, in every age; new errors to be rectified, and new prejudices to be opposed. False tafte is always busy to mislead those that are entering upon the regions of learning; and the traveller, uncertain of his way, and forfaken by the fun, will be pleased to see a fainter orb arise on the horizon, that may rescue him from total darkness, though with weak and borrowed luftre. Addison, though he has confidered this poem under most of the general topicks of criticifm, has barely touched upon the verfification; not probably because he thought the art of numbers unworthy of his notice, for he knew with how minute attention the ancient criticks confidered the difpofition of fyllables, and had himself given hopes of fome metrical poet; but being the first who undertook to difplay the beauties, and point out the defects of Milton, he had many objects at once before him, and paffed willingly over those which were most barren of ideas, and required labour, rather than genius. obfervations upon the great Roman poet; Yet |