the ufe of books, and who are more easily engaged by any conversation, than fuch as may rectify their notions or enlarge their comprehenfion. Every man that has felt pain, knows how little #l other comforts can gladden him to whom health is denied. Yet who is there does not fometimes hazard it for the enjoyment of an hour? All affemblies of jollity, all places of publick entertainment, exhibit examples of strength wafting in riot, and beauty withering in irregularity; nor is it easy to enter a house in which part of the family is not groaning in repentance of past intemperance, and part admitting disease by negligence, or foliciting it by luxury. There is no pleasure which men of every age and fect have more generally agreed to mention with contempt, than the gratifications of the palate; an entertainment so far removed from intellectual happiness, that scarcely the most shameless of the fenfual herd have dared to defend it: yet even to this, the lowest of our delights, to this, though neither quick nor lasting, is health with all its activity and sprightliness daily facrificed; and for this are half the miseries endured which urge impatience to call on death. The whole world is put in motion by the wifh for riches, and the dread of poverty. Who, then, would not imagine that fuch conduct as will inevitably deftroy what all are thus labouring to acquire, must generally be avoided? That he who spends more than he receives, muft in time become indigent, cannot be doubted; but how evident foever this confequence may appear, the spendthrift moves in the whirl of pleasure with too much rapidity to keep it before his eyes, and, in the intoxication of gaiety, grows every every day poorer without any such sense of approaching ruin as is fufficient to wake him into caution. Many complaints are made of the mifery of life; and indeed it must be confeffed that we are fubject to calamities by which the good and bad, the diligent and flothful, the vigilant and heedlefs, are equally afflicted. But furely, though fome indulgence may be allowed to groans extorted by inevitable mifery, no man has a right to repine at evils which, against warning, against experience, he deliberately and leifurely brings upon his own head; or to confider himfelf as debarred from happiness by fuch obftacles as refolution may break, or dexterity may put afide. Great numbers who quarrel with their condition, have wanted not the power but the will to obtain a better state. They have never contemplated the difference between good and evil fufficiently to quicken averfion, or invigorate defire; they have indulged a drowsy thoughtleffness or giddy levity; have committed the balance of choice to the management of caprice; and when they have long accuftomed themfelves to receive all that chance offered them, without examination, lament at last that they find themfelves deceived. VOL. VI. NUMB. 179. TUESDAY, December 3, 1751. Perpetuo rifu pulmonem agitare folebat. Democritus would feed his spleen, and shake Juv. DRYDEN. VERY man, fays Tully, has two characters; EVE one which he partakes with all mankind, and by which he is diftinguished from brute animals; another which difcriminates him from the rest of his own species, and impreffes on him a manner and temper peculiar to himself; this particular character, if it be not repugnant to the laws of general humanity, it is always his business to cultivate and preferve. Every hour furnishes fome confirmation of Tully's precept. It feldom happens, that an affembly of pleasure is so happily selected, but that fome one finds admiffion, with whom the reft are deservedly offended; and it will appear, on a close inspection, that fcarce any man becomes eminently disagreeable, but by a departure from his real character, and an attempt at fomething for which nature or education have left him unqualified. Ignorance or dulnefs have indeed no power of affording delight, but they never give difguft except when they affume the dignity of knowledge, or ape the fprightlinefs of wit. Awkwardnefs and inelegance have none of thofe attractions by which ease and politeness take poffeffion of the heart; but ridicule and cenfure cenfure feldom rife against them, unless they appear affociated with that confidence which belongs only to long acquaintance with the modes of life, and to consciousness of unfailing propriety of behaviour. Deformity itself is regarded with tenderness rather than averfion, when it does not attempt to deceive the fight by dress and decoration, and to feize upon fictitious claims the prerogatives of beauty. He that stands to contemplate the crowds that fill the streets of a populous city, will fee many paffengers whofe air and motion it will be difficult to behold without contempt and laughter; but if he examines what are the appearances that thus powerfully excite his rifibility, he will find among them neither poverty nor difeafe, nor any involuntary or painful defect. The difpofition to derifion and infult is awakened by the foftnefs of foppery, the fwell of infolence, the livelinefs of levity, or the folemnity of grandeur; by the fprightly trip, the stately stalk, the formal strut, and the lofty mien; by gestures intended to catch the eye, and by looks elaborately formed as evidences of importance. It has, I think, been fometimes urged in favour of affectation, that it is only a mistake of the means to a good end, and that the intention with which it is practifed is always to pleafe. If all attempts to innovate the conftitutional or habitual character have really proceeded from publick fpirit and love of others, the world has hitherto been fufficiently ungrateful, fince no return but fcorn has yet been made to the most difficult of all enterprizes, a conteft with nature; nor has any pity been fhown to the fatigues of labour which never fucceeded, and the uneafiness of disguise by which nothing was concealed. It seems therefore to be determined by the general fuffrage of mankind, that he who decks himfelf in adfcititious qualities rather purposes to command applause than impart pleasure; and he is therefore treated as a man who by an unreasonable ambition ufurps the place in fociety to which he has no right. Praise is seldom paid with willingness even to inconteftible merit, and it can be no wonder that he who calls for it without defert is repulfed with universal indignation. Affectation naturally counterfeits thofe excellencies which are placed at the greatest distance from poffibility of attainment. We are conscious of our own defects, and eagerly endeavour to fupply them by artificial excellence; nor would fuch efforts be wholly without excufe, were they not often excited by ornamental trifles, which he, that thus anxiously truggles for the reputation of poffeffing them, would not have been known to want, had not his industry quickened obfervation. Gelafimus paffed the first part of his life in academical privacy and rural retirement, without any other converfation than that of scholars, grave, ftudious, and abstracted as himself. He cultivated the mathematical sciences with indefatigable diligence, difcovered many useful theorems, difcuffed with great accuracy the refiftance of fluids, and though his priority was not generally acknowledged, was the first who fully explained all the properties of the catenarian curve. Learning, |