and the eye fecured from the deception of furrounding fplendor.

NUMB. 165. TUESDAY, October 15, 1751.

Ἦν νέος, ἀλλὰ πένης; νῦν γηρῶν, πλέσιος εἴμι.

Ὦ μόνος ἐκ πάντων οἰκτρὸς ἐν ἀμφοτέροις, Ὃς τότε μὲν χρῆσθαι δυνάμην, ὁπότ ̓ ἐδε ὲν εἶχον. Νῦν δ ̓ ὁπότε χρῆσθαι μή δύναμαι, τότ ̓ ἔχω. ANTIPHILUS.

To the RAM BLER.

SIR,

TH

HE writers who have undertaken the unpromising task of moderating defire, exert all the power of their eloquence, to fhew that happiness is not the lot of man, and have by many arguments and examples proved the instability of every condition by which envy or ambition are excited. They have set before our eyes all the calamities to which we are expofed from the frailty of nature, the influence of accident, or the stratagems of malice; they have terrified great

nefs

nefs with confpiracies, and riches with anxieties, wit with criticism, and beauty with disease.

ALL the force of reason and all. the charms of language are indeed neceffary to fupport pofitions which every man hears with a wifh to confute them. Truth finds an easy entrance into the mind when he is introduced by defire, and attended by pleasure; but when fhe intrudes uncalled and brings only fear and forrow in her train, the paffes of the intellect are barred against her by prejudice and paffion; if the fometimes forces her way by the batteries of argument, fhe feldom long keeps poffeffion of her conqueft, but is ejected by fome favoured enemy, or at best obtains only a nominal fovereignty without influence and without authority.

THAT life is fhort we are all convinced, and yet fuffer not that conviction to reprefs our projects or limit our expectations; that life is miferable we all feel, and yet we believe that the time is near when we fhall feel it no longer. But to hope happiness and immortality is equally vain. Our ftate may indeed be more or less imbittered, as our duration

may be more or less contracted; yet the utmoft felicity which we can ever attain, will be little better than alleviation of mifery, and we fhall always feel more pain from our wants than pleafure from our enjoyments. To defroy the effect of all our fuccefs, it is not neceffery that any fignal calamity should fall upon us, that we fhould be harraffed by implacable perfecution, or excruciated by irremediable pains; the brighteft hours of profperity have their clouds, and the ftream of life, if it is not ruffled by obftructions, will grow putrid by ftagnation.

I WAS defcended of an ancient family, but my father refolving not to imitate the folly of his ancefters, who had hitherto left the younger fons as encumbrances on the eldeft, deftined me to a lucrative profeffion, and excited my diligence from my earliest years by reprefentations of the penury and meanness in which I muft pafs my time, if I did not raise myself to independence and plenty by honeft application. I heard him with reverence, and endeavoured to obey him; and being careful to lofe no opportunity of improvement, was at the ufual time in which young men enter the

world,

world, well qualified for the exercife of the bufinefs which I had chofen.

My eagerness to diftinguish myself in publick, and my impatience of the narrow scheme of life to which my indigence confined me, did not fuffer me to continue long in the town where I was born, and had always lived, except when the Univerfity exacted my attendance. I went away as from a place of confinement, with a refolution to return no more, till I fhould be able to dazzle with my fplen. dor those who now looked upon me with contempt, to reward thofe who had paid honours to my dawning merit, and to fhow all who had fuffered me to glide by them unknown and neglected, how much they miftook their intereft in omitting to propitiate a genius like mine.

SUCH were my intentions when I fallied forth into the unknown world in queft of riches and honours, which, with the confidence of unexperienced vivacity, I expected to procure in a very fhort time; for what could withold them from industry and knowledge? He that indulges hope will always be difappointed. Reputation indeed I very foon obtained.

M 4

tained, but as merit is much more cheaply acknowledged than rewarded, I did not find myself yet enriched in proportion to my celebrity. I was therefore foon awakened from my dream of fudden affluence, but however was fufficiently encouraged to perfeverance by the gradual encrease of profit, and the prospect which every step of progreffive fortune opens to new advantages.

I HAD in time furmounted the obftacles by which envy and competition obftruct the first attempts of a new claimant, and faw my opponents and cenfurers tacitly confeffing their despair of fuccefs, by courting my friendship and yielding to my influence. They who once perfued me, were now fatisfied to escape from me; and they who had before thought me prefumptuous in hoping to overtake them, had now their utmoft wifh, if they were permitted at no great distance quietly to follow me.

I DID not fuffer my fuccefs to elate me to infolence, nor made ufe of my fuperiority to return the injuries which I had fuffered only for endeavouring to gain it. I confidered not myself as exempted from the neceffity of caution; but remembered that, as no man can

truly