The old gentlewoman thought herself wiser tages, which encouraged us to hope, that we races, only that he might show the gentlemen should by degrees supplant our competitors. My how a sailor sat upon a horse. father, by his profession, made himself necessary in their affairs; for the sailor and the chamber-than both, for she lived with no servant but a maid, he inquired out mortgages and securities, and wrote bonds and contracts; and had endeared himself to the old woman, who once rashly lent a hundred pounds without consulting him, by informing her that her debtor was on the point of bankruptcy, and posting so expeditiously with an execution that all the other creditors were defrauded. maid, and saved her money. The others were indeed sufficiently frugal; but the squire could not live without dogs and horses, and the sailor never suffered the day to pass but over a bowl of punch, to which, as he was not critical in the choice of his company, every man was welcome that could roar out a catch, or tell a story. All these, however, I was to please; an arTo the squire he was a kind of steward, and duous task; but what will not youth and avahad distinguished himself in his office by his ad- rice undertake? I had an unresisting suppleness dress in raising the rents, his inflexibility in dis-of temper, and an unsatiable wish for riches; I tressing the tardy tenants, and his acuteness in was perpetually instigated by the ambition of my setting the parish free from burdensome inhabit-parents, and assisted occasionally by their inants, by shifting them off to some other settle-structions. What these advantages enabled me to perform, shall be told in the next letter of, ment. Business made frequent attendance necessary; trust soon produced intimacy; and success gave a claim to kindness; so that we had opportunity to practise all the arts of flattery and endearment. Yours, &c. CAPTATOR. Nil mihi das vivus, dicis post fata daturum, Si non insanis, scis, Maro, quid cupiam. My mother, who could not support the thought No. 198.] SATURDAY, FEB. 8, 1752. She trained me by these precepts to the utmost ductility of obedience, and the closest attention to profit. At an age when other boys are sporting the fields, or murmuring in the school, I was contriving some new method of paying my court; inquiring the age of my future benefactors; or considering how I should employ their lega cies. If our eagerness of money could have been satisfied with the possessions of any one of my relations, they might perhaps have been obtained, but as it was impossible to be always present with all three, our competitors were busy to efface any trace of affection which we might have left behind; and since there was not, on any part, such superiority of merit as could enforce a constant and unshaken preference, whoever was the last that flattered or obliged had for a time the ascendant. My relations maintained a regular exchange of courtesy, took care to miss no occasion of condolence or congratulation, and sent presents at stated times, but had in their hearts not much esteem for one another. The seaman looked with contempt upon the squire as a milksop and a landman, who had lived without knowing the points of the compass, or seeing any part of the world beyond the county-town; and, whenever they met, would talk of longitude and latitude, and circles and tropics, would scarcely tell him the hour without some mention of the horizon and meridian, nor show him the news without detecting his ignorance of the situation of other countries. The squire considered the sailor as a rude uncultivated savage, with little more of human than his form, and diverted himself with his ignorance of all common objects and affairs; when he could persuade him to go into the fields, he always exposed him to the sportsmen, by sending him to look for game in improper places; and once prevailed upon him to be present at the You've told me, Maro, whilst you live, MR. RAMBLER. MART F. LEWIS SIR, You, who must have observed the inclination which almost every man, however unactive or insignificant, discovers of representing his life as distinguished by extraordinary events, will not wonder that Captator thinks his narrative important enough to be continued. Nothing is more common than for those to teaze their companions with their history, who have neither done nor suffered any thing that can excite curiosity, or afford instruction. As I was taught to flatter with the first essays of speech, and had very early lost every other passion in the desire of money, I began my pursuit with omens of success; for I divided my officiousness so judiciously among my relations, that I was equally the favourite of all. When any of them entered the door, I went to welcome him with raptures; when he went away, I hung down my head, and sometimes entreated to go with him with so much importunity, that I very narrowly escaped a consent which I dreaded in my heart. When at an annual entertainment they were all together, I had a harder task; but plied them so impatiently with caresses, that none could charge me with neglect; and when they were wearied with my fondness and civilities, I was always dismissed with money to buy playthings. Life cannot be kept at a stand; the years of innocence and prattle were soon at an end, and other qualifications were necessary to recommend me to continuance of kindness. It luckily happened that none of my friends had high notions of book-learning. The sailor hated to see tall boys shut up in a school, when they might more properly be seeing the world, and making | When she heard of my exploits in the field, she their fortunes; and was of opinion that, when the first rules of arithmetic were known, all that was necessary to make a man complete might be learned on ship-board. The squire only insisted that so much scholarship was indispensably necessary as might confer ability to draw a lease and read the court-hands; and the old chambermaid declared loudly her contempt of books, and her opinion that they only took the head of the main chance. To unite, as well as we could, all their systems, I was bred at home. Each was taught to believe that I followed his directions, and I gained likewise, as my mother observed, this advantage, that I was always in the way; for she had known many favourite children sent to schools or academies, and forgotten. As I grew fitter to be trusted to my own discretion, I was often despatched upon various pretences to visit my relations, with directions from my parents how to ingratiate myself, and drive away competitors. would shake her head, inquire how much I should be the richer for all my performances, and lament that such sums should be spent upon dogs and horses. If the sailor told her of my inclination to travel, she was sure there was no place like England, and could not imagine why any man that can live in his own country should leave it. This sullen and frigid being I found means, however, to propitiate by frequent commendations of frugality, and perpetual care to avoid expense. From the sailor was our first and most considerable expectation; for he was richer than the chambermaid, and older than the squire. He was so awkward and bashful among women, that we concluded him secure from matrimony; and the noisy fondness with which he used to welcome me to his house, made us imagine that he would look out for no other heir, and that we had nothing to do but wait patiently for his death. But in the midst of our triumph, my uncle saluted us one morning with a cry of transport, and clapping his hand hard on my shoulder, told me, I was a happy fellow to have a friend like him in the world, for he came to fit me out for a voyage with one of his old acquaintances. I turned pale and trembled; my father told him that he believed my constitution not fitted to the sea; and my mother, bursting into tears, cried out that her heart would break if she lost me. All this had no effect; the sailor was wholly insusceptive of the softer passions, and, without regard to tears or arguments, persisted in his resolution to make me a man. I was, from my infancy, considered by the sailor as a promising genius, because I liked punch better than wine; and I took care to improve this prepossession by continual inquiries about the art of navigation, the degree of heat and cold in different climates, the profits of trade, and the dangers of shipwreck. I admired the courage of the seaman, and gained his heart by importuning him for a recital of his adventures, and a sight of his foreign curiosities. I listened with an appearance of close attention to stories which I could already repeat, and at the close never failed to express my resolution to visit We were obliged to comply in appearance, and distant countries, and my contempt of the cow-preparations were accordingly made. I took ards and drones that spend all their lives in their leave of my friends with great alacrity, proclaimnative parish; though I had in reality no desire ed the beneficence of my uncle with the highest of any thing but money, nor ever felt the stimu- strains of gratitude, and rejoiced at the opportulations of curiosity or ardour of adventure, but nity now put into my hands of gratifying my thirst would contentedly have passed the years of of knowledge. But a week before the day apNestor in receiving rents, and lending upon pointed for my departure I fell sick by my momortgages. ther's direction, and refused all food but what The squire I was able to please with less hy- she privately brought me; whenever my uncle pocrisy, for I really thought it pleasant enough to visited me I was lethargic or delirious, but took kill the game and eat it. Some arts of falsehood, care in my raving fits to talk incessantly of travel however, the hunger of gold persuaded me to prac- and merchandize. The room was kept dark; tise, by which, though no other mischief was pro- the table was filled with vials and gallipots; my duced, the purity of my thoughts was vitiated, mother was with difficulty persuaded not to enand the reverence for truth gradually destroyed. danger her life with nocturnal attendance; my I sometimes purchased fish, and pretended to father lamented the loss of the profits of the have caught them; I hired the countrymen to voyages; and such superfluity of artifices was show me partridges, and then gave my uncle in- employed, as perhaps might have discovered the telligence of their haunt; I learned the seats of cheat to a man of penetration. But the sailor, hares at night, and discovered them in the morn-unacquainted with subtilties and stratagems, was ing with a sagacity that raised the wonder and envy of old sportsmen. One only obstruction to the advancement of my reputation I could never fully surmount; I was naturally a coward, and was therefore always left shamefully behind, when there was a necessity to leap a hedge, to swim a river, or force the horses to their utmost speed; but as these exigencies did not frequently happen, I maintained my honour with sufficient success, and was never left out of a hunting party. The old chambermaid was not so certainly, nor so easily pleased, for she had no predominant passion but avarice, and was therefore cold and inaccessible. She had no conception of any virtue in a young man but that of saving his money. easily deluded; and as the ship could not stay for my recovery, sold the cargo, and left me to reestablish my health at leisure. I was sent to regain my flesh in a purer air, lest it should appear never to have been wasted, and in two months returned to deplore my disappointment. My uncle pitied my dejection, and bid me prepare myself against next year, for no land-lubber should touch his money. A reprieve however was obtained, and perhaps some new stratagem might have succeeded another spring; but my uncle unhappily made amorous advances to my mother's maid: who, to promote so advantageous a match, discovered the secret with which only she had been entrusted. He stormed, and raved, and declaring that he would have heirs of his own, and not give his | less under the shock of electricity; I have twice substance to cheats and cowards, married the dislocated my limbs, and once fractured my girl in two days, and has now four children. skull in essaying to fly, and four times endanCowardice is always scorned, and deceit uni-gered my life by submitting to the transfusion of versally detested. I found my friends, if not blood. wholly alienated, at least cooled in their affec- In the first period of my studies I exerted the tion; the squire, though he did not wholly dis-powers of my body more than those of my mind, card me, was less fond, and often inquired when and was not without hopes that fame might be I would go to sea. I was obliged to bear his in- purchased by a few broken bones without the sults, and endeavoured to rekindle his kindness toil of thinking; but having been shattered by by assiduity and respect; but all my care was some violent experiments; and constrained to vain; he died without a will, and the estate de- confine myself to my books, I passed six and volved to the legal heir. thirty years in searching the treasures of ancient wisdom, but am at last amply recompensed for all my perseverance. Thus has the folly of my parents condemned me to spend in flattery and attendance those years in which I might have been qualified to place myself above hope or fear. I am arrived at manhood without any useful art or generous sentiment; and if the old woman should like wise at last deceive me, am in danger at once of beggary and ignorance. I am, &c. CAPTATOR. No. 199.] TUESDAY, FEB. 11, 1752. Decolor, obscurus, vilis, non ille repe zam CLAUDIANUS. Obscure, unprized, and dark, the magnet lies, TO THE RAMBLER. SIR, THOUGH you have seldom digressed from moral subjects, I suppose you are not so rigorous or cynical as to deny the value or usefulness of natural philosophy; or to have lived in this age of inquiry and experiment, without any attention to the wonders every day produced by the pokers of magnetism and the wheels of electricity. At least, I may be allowed to hope that, since nothing is more contrary to moral excellence than envy, you will not refuse to promote the happiness of others, merely because you cannot partake of their enjoyments. In confidence, therefore, that your ignorance has not made you an enemy to knowledge, I offer you the honour of introducing to the notice of the public an adept, who, having long laboured for the benefit of mankind, is not willing, like too many of his predecessors, to conceal his secrets in the grave. The curiosity of the present race of philosophers, having been long exercised upon electricity, has been lately transformed to magnetism; the qualities of the loadstone have been investigated, if not with much advantage, yet with great applause; and as the highest praise of art is to imitate nature, I hope no man will think the makers of artificial magnets celebrated or reverenced above their deserts. I have for some time employed myself in the same practice, but with deeper knowledge and more extensive views. While my contempora ries were touching needles and raising weights, or busying themselves with inclination and variation, I have been examining those qualities of magnetism which may be applied to the accommodation and happiness of common life. I have left to inferior understandings the care of conducting the sailor through the hazards of the ocean, and reserved to myself the more difficult and illustrious province of preserving the connubial compact from violation, and setting mankind free for ever from the danger of supposititious children, and the torments of fruitless vigilance and anxious suspicion. To defraud any man of his due praise is un worthy of a philosopher; I shall therefore openly confess, that I owe the first hint of this inestimable secret to the rabbi Abraham Ben Hannase, who, in his treatise of precious stones, has left this account of the magnet: "The calamita, or loadstone that attracts iron, produces many bad fantasies in man. Women fly from this stone. If therefore any husband be disturbed with jealousy, and fear lest his wife converses with other men, let him lay this stone upon her while she is asleep. If she be pure, she will, when she wakes, clasp her husband fondly in her arms; but if she be guilty, she will fall out of bed, and run away." When I first read this wonderful passage, I could not easily conceive why it had remained hitherto unregarded in such a zealous competition for magnetical fame. It would surely be unjust to suspect that any of the candidates are strangers to the name or works of rabbi Abraham, or to conclude, from a late edict of the Royal Society in favour of the English language, that philosophy and literature are no longer to act in concert. Yet, how should a quality so useful escape promulgation, but by the obscurity of the language in which it was delivered? Why are footmen and chambermaids paid on every Many have signalized themselves my melting their estates in crucibles. I was born to no fortune, and therefore had only my mind and my body to devote to knowledge, and the gratitude of posterity will attest that neither mind nor body has been spared. I have sat whole weeks without sleep by the side of an athanor, to watch the movement of projection; I have made the first experiment in nineteen diving-engines of new house with a man who broke his legs in attempting to construction; I have fallen eleven times speech-ay.-C. It is said that Dr. Johnson once lodged in the same side for keeping secrets, which no caution nor With these hopes I shall, in a short time, offer expense could secure from the all-penetrating to sale magnets armed with a particular metallic magnet? or, Why are so many witnesses sum- composition which concentrates their virtue, and moned, and so many artifices practised, to dis- determines their agency. It is known that the cover what so easy an experiment would infal-efficacy of the magnet in common operations ably reveal? depends much upon its armature; and it cannot be imagined, that a stone, naked, or cased only in the common manner, will discover the virtues ascribed to it by rabbi Abraham. The secret of this metal I shall carefully conceal, and therefore am not afraid of imitators, nor shall trouble the offices with solicitation for a patent. Full of this perplexity, I read the lines of Abraham to a friend, who advised me not to expose my life by a mad indulgence of the love of fame; he warned me, by the fate of Orpheus, that knowledge or genius could give no protection to the invader of female prerogatives; assured me that neither the armour of Achilles, nor the antidotes of Mithridates, would be able to preserve me; and counselled me, if I could not live without renown, to attempt the acquisition of universal empire, in which the honour would perhaps be equal, and the danger certainly be less. I, a solitary student, pretend not to much knowledge of the world, but am unwilling to think t so generally corrupt, as that a scheme for the detection of incontinence should bring any dan ger upon its inventor. My friend has indeed fold me that all the women will be my enemies, and that, however I flatter myself with hopes of defence from the men, I shall certainly find myself deserted in the hour of danger. Of the young men, said he, some will be afraid of sharing the disgrace of their mothers, and some the danger of their mistresses; of those who are married, part are already convinced of the falsehood of their wives, and part shut their eyes to avoid conviction; few ever sought for virtue in marriage, and therefore few will try whether they have found it. Almost every man is careless or timorous; and to trust is easier and safer than to examine. These observations discouraged me, till I began to consider what reception I was likely to find among the ladies, whom I have reviewed under the three classes of maids, wives and widows, and cannot but hope that I may obtain some countenance among them. The single ladies I suppose universally ready to patronize my method, by which connubial wickedness may be detected, since no woman marries with a previous design to be unfaithful to her husband. And, to keep them steady in my cause, I promise never to sell one of my magnets to a man who steals a girl from school, marries a woman forty years younger than himself, or employs the authority of parents to obtain a wife without her own consent. Among the married ladies, notwithstanding the insinuations of slander, I yet resolve to believe that the greater part are my friends, and am at least convinced, that they who demand the test, and appear on my side will supply by their spirit the deficiency of their numbers, and that their enemies will shrink and quake at the sight of a magnet, as the slaves of Scythia fled from the scourge. The widows will be confederated in my favour by their curiosity, if not by their virtue; for it may be observed, that women who have outlived their husbands always think themselves entitled to superintend the conduct of young wives; and as they are themselves in no danger from this magnetic trial, I shall expect them to be eminently and unanimously zealous in recommending it. I shall sell them of different sizes, and the various degrees of strength. I have some of a bulk proper to be hung at the bed's head, as scarecrows, and some so small that they may be easily concealed. Some I have ground into oval forms to be hung at watches; and some, for the curious, I have set in wedding-rings, that ladies may never want an attestation of their innocence. Some I can produce so sluggish and inert, that they will not act before the third failure; and others so vigorous and animated, that they exert their influence against unlawful wishes, if they have been willingly and deliberately indulged. As it is my practice honestly to tell my customers the properties of my magnets, I can judge, by their choice, of the delicacy of their sentiments. Many have been contented to spare cost by purchasing only the lowest degree of efficacy, and all have started with terror from those which operate upon the thoughts. One young lady only fitted on a ring of the strongest energy, and declared that she scorned to separate her wishes from her acts, or allow herself to think what she was forbidden to practise. I am, &c. HERMETICUS. No man expects (for who so much a sot? TO THE RAMBLER. BOWLES. MR. RAMBLER, SUCH is the tenderness or infirmity of many minds, that, when any affliction oppresses them, they have immediate recourse to lamentation and complaint, which, though it can only be allowed reasonable when evils admit of remedy, and then only when addressed to those from whom the remedy is expected, yet seems even in hopeless and incurable distresses to be natural, since those by whom it is not indulged, imagine that they give a proof of extraordinary fortitude, by sup pressing it. tradesman. I put the chair aside with my foot, and drew another so hastily, that I was entreated not to rumple the carpet. Breakfast was at last set; and as I was not willing to indulge the peevishness that began to seize me, I commended the tea. Prospero then told me, that another time I should taste his finest sort, but that he had only a very small quantity remaining, and reserved it for those whom he thought himself obliged to treat with particular respect. I am one of those who, with the Sancho of Cervantes, leave to higher characters the merit of suffering in silence, and give vent without scruple to any sorrow that swells in my heart. It is therefore to me a severe aggravation of a calamity, when it is such as in the common opinion will not justify the acerbity of exclamation, or support the solemnity of vocal grief. Yet many pains are incident to a man of delicacy, which the unfeeling world cannot be persuaded to pity, and which, when they are separated from their peculiar and personal circum- While we were conversing upon such subjects, stances, will never be considered as important as imagination happened to suggest he fre enough to claim attention, or deserve redress. quently digressed in directions to the servant Of this kind will appear, to gross and vulgar that waited, or made a slight inquiry after the apprehensions, the miseries which I endured in jeweller or silversmith; and once, as I was pura morning visit to Prospero, a man lately raised suing an argument with some degree of earnestto wealth by a lucky project, and too much intox-ness, he started from his posture of attention, icated by sudden elevation, or too little polished and ordered that if Lord Lofty called on hin by thought and conversation, to enjoy his present that morning, he should be shown into the best fortune with elegance and decency. parlour. We set out in the world together; and for a long time mutually assisted each other in our exigencies, as either happened to have money or influence beyond his immediate necessities. You know that nothing generally endears man so much as participation of dangers and misfortunes; I therefore always considered Prospero as united with me in the strongest league of kindness, and imagined that our friendship was only to be broken by the hand of death. I felt at his sudden shoot of success an honest and disinterested joy; but, as I want no part of his superfluities, am not willing to descend from that equality in which we hitherto have lived. My patience was yet not wholly subdued. I was willing to promote his satisfaction, and therefore observed that the figures on the china were eminently pretty. Prospero had now an opportunity of calling for his Dresden china, which, says he, I always associate with my chased tea-kettle. The cups were brought; I once resolved not to have looked upon them, but my curiosity prevailed. When I had examined them a little, Prospero desired me to set them down, for they who were accustomed only to common dishes seldom handled china with much care. You will, I hope, commend my philosophy, when I tell you that I did not dash his bau Our intimacy was regarded by me as a dispen-bles to the ground.. sation from ceremonial visits; and it was so long before I saw him at his new house, that he gently complained of my neglect, and obliged me to come on a day appointed. I kept my promise, but found that the impatience of my friend arose not from any desire to communicate his happiness, but to enjoy his superiority. When I told my name at the door, the footman went to see if his master was at home, and, by the tardiness of his return, gave me reason to suspect that time was taken to deliberate. He then informed me that Prospero desired my company, and showed the staircase carefully secured by mats from the pollution of my feet. The best apartments were ostentatiously set open, that I might have a distant view of the magnificence which I was not permitted to approach; and my old friend, receiving me with all the insolence of condescension at the top of the stairs, conducted me to a back room, where he told me he always breakfasted when he had not great company. On the floor where we sat, lay a carpet covered with a cloth, of which Prospero ordered his servant to lift up a corner, that I might contemplate the brightness of the colours, and the elegance of the texture, and asked me whether I had ever seen any thing so fine before. I did not gratify his folly with any outcries of admiration, but coldly bade the footman let down the cloth. We then sat down, and I began to hope that pride was glutted with persecution, when Prospero desired that I would give the servant leave to adjust the cover of my chair, which was slipped a little aside, to show the damask; he informed me that he had bespoke ordinary chairs for common use, but had been disappointed by his He was now so much elevated with his own greatness, that he thought some humility necessary to avert the glance of envy; and therefore told me with an air of soft composure, that I was not to estimate life by external appearance, that all these shining acquisitions had added little to his happiness, that he still remembered with pleasure the days in which he and I were upon the level, and had often, in the moment of reflection, been doubtful, whether he should lose much by changing his condition for mine. I began now to be afraid lest his pride should, by silence and submission, be emboldened to insults that could not easily be borne, and therefore coolly considered how I should repress it without such bitterness of reproof as I was yet unwilling to use. But he interrupted my meditation, by asking leave to be dressed, and told me, that he had promised to attend some ladies in the park, and, if I was going the same way, would take me in his chariot. I had no inclination to any other favours, and therefore left him without any intention of seeing him again, unless some misfortune should restore his understanding. I am, &c. ASPER. Though I am not wholly insensible of the pro vocations which my correspondent has received, I cannot altogether commend the keenness of his resentment, nor encourage him to persist in his resolution of breaking off all commerce with his old acquaintance. One of the golden precepts of Pythagoras directs, that a friend shoula not be hated for little faults: and surely he, upon whom nothing worse car be charged, than that he mats his stails, and covers his carpet, and sets |