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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/13350-0.txt b/13350-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..459b8ab --- /dev/null +++ b/13350-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1203 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13350 *** + +The Augustan Reprint Society + + +SAMUEL JOHNSON + +_The Vanity of Human Wishes_ +(1749) + +and + +Two _Rambler_ papers +(1750) + + +With an Introduction by +Bertrand H. Bronson + + +Publication Number 22 +(Series VI, No. 2) + + +Los Angeles +William Andrews Clark Memorial Library +University of California +1950 + + + + +_GENERAL EDITORS_ + +H. RICHARD ARCHER, _Clark Memorial Library_ +RICHARD C. BOYS, _University of Michigan_ +EDWARD NILES HOOKER, _University of California, Los Angeles_ +H.T. SWEDENBERG, JR., _University of California, Los Angeles_ + +_ASSISTANT EDITORS_ + +W. EARL BRITTON, _University of Michigan_ +JOHN LOFTIS, _University of California, Los Angeles_ + +_ADVISORY EDITORS_ + +EMMETT L. AVERY, _State College of Washington_ +BENJAMIN BOYCE, _University of Nebraska_ +LOUIS I. BREDVOLD, _University of Michigan_ +CLEANTH BROOKS, _Yale University_ +JAMES L. CLIFFORD, _Columbia University_ +ARTHUR FRIEDMAN, _University of Chicago_ +SAMUEL H. MONK, _University of Minnesota_ +ERNEST MOSSNER, _University of Texas_ +JAMES SUTHERLAND, _Queen Mary College, London_ + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +The pieces reproduced in this little volume are now beginning to bid for +notice from their third century of readers. At the time they were written, +although Johnson had already done enough miscellaneous literary work to +fill several substantial volumes, his name, far from identifying an "Age", +was virtually unknown to the general public. _The Vanity of Human Wishes_ +was the first of his writings to bear his name on its face. There were +some who knew him to be the author of the vigorous satire, _London_, and +of the still more remarkable biographical study, _An Account of the Life +of Mr. Richard Savage_; and a few interested persons were aware that he +was engaged in compiling an English Dictionary, and intended to edit +Shakespeare. He was also, at the moment, attracting brief but not +over-favorable attention as the author of one of the season's new crop of +tragedies at Drury Lane. But _The Vanity of Human Wishes_ and _The +Rambler_ were a potent force in establishing Johnson's claim to a +permanent place in English letters. _The Vanity_ appeared early in +January, 1749; _The Rambler_ ran from March 20, 1749/50 to March 14, 1752. +With the exception of five numbers and two quoted letters, the periodical +was written entirely by Johnson. + +As moral essays, the Ramblers deeply stirred some readers and bored +others. Young Boswell, not unduly saturnine in temperament, was profoundly +impressed by them and determined on their account to seek out the author. +Taine, a century later, discovered that he already knew by heart all they +had to teach and warned his readers away from them. Generally speaking, +they were valued as they deserved by the eighteenth century and +undervalued by the nineteenth. The first half of the twentieth has shown a +marked impulse to restore them, as a series, to a place of honor second +only to the work of Addison and Steele in the same form. Raleigh, in 1907, +paid discriminating tribute to their humanity. If read, he observed, +against a knowledge of their author's life, "the pages of _The Rambler_ +are aglow with the earnestness of dear-bought conviction, and rich in +conclusions gathered not from books but from life and suffering." And +later: "We come to closer quarters with Johnson in the best pages of _The +Rambler_ than in the most brilliant of the conversations recalled by +Boswell. The hero of a hundred fights puts off his armour, and becomes a +wise and tender confessor." Latterly, the style of Johnson's essays has +been subjected to a closer scrutiny than ever before. What Taine found as +inflexible and inert as a pudding-mold is now seen to be charged with life +and movement, vibrant with light and shadow and color. More particularly, +Wimsatt has shown how intimately connected is the vocabulary of _The +Rambler_ with Johnson's reading for the Dictionary, and how, having +mastered the words of the experimental scientists of the previous century, +Johnson proceeded to put them to original uses, generating with them new +stylistic overtones in contexts now humorously precise, now +philosophically metaphorical, employing them now for purposes of irony and +satire, and again for striking directly home to the roots of morality and +religion. In a playful mood, he is never more characteristic than when he +is his own mimic, propounding with mock seriousness some preposterous +theory like that of the intellectual advantages of living in a garret: + + I have discovered ... that the tenuity of a defecated air at a proper + distance from the surface of the earth accelerates the fancy, and sets + at liberty those intellectual powers which were before shackled by too + strong attraction, and unable to expand themselves under the pressure of + a gross atmosphere. I have found dullness to quicken into sentiment in a + thin ether, as water, though not very hot, boils in a receiver partly + exhausted; and heads, in appearance empty, have teemed with notions upon + rising ground, as the flaccid sides of a football would have swelled out + into stiffness and extension. + +This is one side of his genius; but another, and profounder, appears in +the eloquent simplicity of such a passage as the following, against our +fears of lessening ourselves in the eyes of others: + + The most useful medicines are often unpleasing to the taste. Those who + are oppressed by their own reputation will, perhaps, not be comforted by + hearing that their cares are unnecessary. But the truth is that no man + is much regarded by the rest of the world. He that considers how little + he dwells upon the condition of others, will learn how little the + attention of others is attracted to himself. While we see multitudes + passing before us, of whom, perhaps, not one appears to deserve our + notice, or excite our sympathy, we should remember that we likewise are + lost in the same throng; that the eye which happens to glance upon us is + turned in a moment on him that follows us, and that the utmost which we + can reasonably hope or fear is, to fill a vacant hour with prattle, and + be forgotten. + +When we approach Johnson's poetry, the revolution of taste becomes a more +acute consideration. It seems very nearly impossible to compare or +contrast eighteenth-century poetry and that of the twentieth without +wilfully tipping the scales in one direction or the other, judgment in +this area being so much influenced by preference. But let us begin with +titles. For a start, let us take, from a recent Pulitzer Prize-winner: +"The Day's No Rounder Than Its Angles Are", and "Don't Look Now But +Mary Is Everybody"; from another distinguished current volume, these: +"The Trance", "Lost", "Meeting"; from another, "After This, Sea", "Lineman +Calling", "Meaning Motion"; and from a fourth, "Terror", "Picnic +Remembered", "Eidolon", and "Monologue at Midnight". Here are individual +assertions, suggestive of individual ways of looking at things; here +are headings that signalize particular events in the authors' +experience,--moments' monuments. Beside them, Johnson's title, "The Vanity +of Human Wishes", looks very dogged and downright. + +Titles are not poems but they have a barometric function. The modern +titles cited above are evocative of a world with which, for the past +century and a half, we have been growing increasingly familiar. This air +we are accustomed to breathe: it requires no unusual effort of adjustment +from us. We readily understand that we are being invited to participate in +a private experience and, by sharing it, to help in giving it as much +universality as may be. It is by no means easy for readers of to-day to +reverse the process, to start with the general and find in it their +personal account. We are more likely to feel a resentment, or at least a +prejudice, against the writer who solicits our attention to a topic +without even the pretense of novelty. + +Johnson's generation would have found it equally hard to see the matter +from our point of view, or to allow that the authors of the poems named +above were being less than impudent or at best flippant in thus brazenly +obtruding their private experience, undisguised, before the reader. We +ought, moreover, to realize that in this judgment they would have the +suffrages of all previous generations, including the greatest writers, +from classical times down to their own. It is we who are singular, not +they. Quite apart from considerations of moral right or wrong, of artistic +good or bad, it obviously, therefore, behooves us to try to cultivate a +habit of mind free from initial bias against so large a proportion of +recorded testimony. + +Very early in _The Rambler_ Johnson remarks characteristically that "men +more frequently require to be reminded than informed." He believed this, +and his generation believed it, because they thought that human nature +changed little from age to age. The problems of conduct that confront the +living individual have been faced countless times by his predecessors, and +the accumulated experience of mankind has arrived at conclusions which in +the main are just and therefore helpful to-day. The most important truths +are those which have been known for a very long time. For that very reason +they tend to be ignored or slighted unless they are restated in such a way +as to arrest attention while they compel assent. Hence the best writing is +that which most successfully resolves the paradox of combining the +sharpest surprise with the widest recognition. Such an ideal is so +difficult of attainment that, inevitably, many who subscribed to it +succeeded only in unleavened platitude and others rejected it for the +easier goal of novelty. + +In this most difficult class _The Vanity of Human Wishes_ has won a +respectable place. It is freighted with a double cargo, the wisdom of two +great civilizations, pagan and Christian. Although based upon Juvenal's +tenth Satire, it is so free a paraphrase as to be an original poem. The +English reader who sets it against Dryden's closer version will sense +immediately its greater weight. It is informed with Johnson's own sombre +and most deeply rooted emotional responses to the meaning of experience. +These, although emanating from a devout practising Christian and certainly +not inconsistent with Christianity, neither reflect the specific articles +of Christian doctrine nor are lightened by the happiness of Christian +faith: they are strongly infused with classical resignation. + +The poem is difficult as well as weighty. At times its expression is so +condensed that the meaning must be wrestled for. Statements so packed as, +for example, + + Fate wings with ev'ry wish th' afflictive dart, + Each gift of nature, and each grace of art, + +do not yield their full intention to the running reader. One line, +indeed,--the eighth from the end (361)--has perhaps never been +satisfactorily explained by any commentator. (The eighteenth paragraph of +Johnson's first sermon might go far to clarify it.) But such difficulties +are worth the effort they demand, because there is always a rational and +unesoteric solution to be gained. + +The work as a whole has form, is shapely, even dramatic; but it is +discontinuous and episodic in its conduct, and is most memorable in its +separate parts. No one can forget the magnificent "set pieces" of Wolsey +and Charles XII; but hardly less noteworthy are the two parallel +invocations interspersed, the one addressed to the young scholar, the +other to young beauties "of rosy lips and radiant eyes",--superb +admonitions both, each containing such felicities of grave, compacted +statement as will hardly be surpassed. The assuaging, marmoreal majesty of +the concluding lines of the poem are a final demonstration of the virtue +of this formal dignity in poetry. If it did not appear invidious, one +would like to quote by way of contrast some lines oddly parallel, but on a +pitch deliberately subdued to a less rhetorical level, from what is +indubitably one of the very greatest poems written in our own century, Mr. +Eliot's _Four Quartets_: + + I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope + For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love + For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith + But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting. + Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: + So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing. + +From _The Vanity of Human Wishes_: + + Still raise for good the supplicating voice, + But leave to heav'n the measure and the choice, + Safe in his pow'r, whose eyes discern afar + The secret ambush of a specious pray'r. + Implore his aid, in his decisions rest, + Secure whate'er he gives, he gives the best.... + Pour forth thy fervours for a healthful mind, + Obedient passions, and a will resign'd; + For love, which scarce collective man can fill; + For patience sov'reign o'er transmuted ill; + For faith, that panting for a happier seat, + Counts death kind Nature's signal of retreat: + These goods for man the laws of heav'n ordain, + These goods he grants, who grants the pow'r to gain; + With these celestial wisdom calms the mind, + And makes the happiness she does not find. + +_The Vanity of Human Wishes_ is reproduced from a copy in the William +Andrews Clark Memorial Library; the _Rambler_ papers from copies in +possession of Professor E.N. Hooker. The lines from T.S. Eliot's _Four +Quartets_ are quoted with the permission of Harcourt, Brace and Company. + +_Bertrand H. Bronson +University of California +Berkeley_ + + + + +THE VANITY OF HUMAN WISHES. + +THE +Tenth Satire of _Juvenal_, +IMITATED +By _SAMUEL JOHNSON_. + +LONDON: + +Printed for R. DODSLEY at Tully's Head in Pall-Mall, +and Sold by M. COOPER in Pater-noster Row. + +M.DCC.XLIX. + + + + +THE +TENTH SATIRE +OF +_JUVENAL_. + + +Let[a] Observation with extensive View, +Survey Mankind, from _China_ to _Peru_; +Remark each anxious Toil, each eager Strife, +And watch the busy Scenes of crouded Life; +Then say how Hope and Fear, Desire and Hate, +O'erspread with Snares the clouded Maze of Fate, +Where wav'ring Man, betray'd by venturous Pride, +To tread the dreary Paths without a Guide; +As treach'rous Phantoms in the Mist delude, +Shuns fancied Ills, or chases airy Good. +How rarely Reason guides the stubborn Choice, +Rules the bold Hand, or prompts the suppliant Voice, +How Nations sink, by darling Schemes oppress'd, +When Vengeance listens to the Fool's Request. +Fate wings with ev'ry Wish th' afflictive Dart, +Each Gift of Nature, and each Grace of Art, +With fatal Heat impetuous Courage glows, +With fatal Sweetness Elocution flows, +Impeachment stops the Speaker's pow'rful Breath, +And restless Fire precipitates on Death. +[Footnote a: Ver. 1-11.] + +[b]But scarce observ'd the Knowing and the Bold, +Fall in the general Massacre of Gold; +Wide-wasting Pest! that rages unconfin'd, +And crouds with Crimes the Records of Mankind, +For Gold his Sword the Hireling Ruffian draws, +For Gold the hireling Judge distorts the Laws; +Wealth heap'd on Wealth, nor Truth nor Safety buys, +The Dangers gather as the Treasures rise. +[Footnote b: Ver. 12-22.] + +Let Hist'ry tell where rival Kings command, +And dubious Title shakes the madded Land, +When Statutes glean the Refuse of the Sword, +How much more safe the Vassal than the Lord, +Low sculks the Hind beneath the Rage of Pow'r, +And leaves the _bonny Traytor_ in the _Tow'r_, +Untouch'd his Cottage, and his Slumbers found, +Tho' Confiscation's Vulturs clang around. + +The needy Traveller, serene and gay, +Walks the wild Heath, and sings his Toil away. +Does Envy seize thee? crush th' upbraiding Joy, +Encrease his Riches and his Peace destroy, +New Fears in dire Vicissitude invade, +The rustling Brake alarms, and quiv'ring Shade, +Nor Light nor Darkness bring his Pain Relief, +One shews the Plunder, and one hides the Thief. + +Yet[c] still the gen'ral Cry the Skies assails +And Gain and Grandeur load the tainted Gales; +Few know the toiling States man's Fear or Care, +Th' insidious Rival and the gaping Heir. +[Footnote c: Ver. 23-27.] + +Once[d] more, _Democritus_, arise on Earth, +With chearful Wisdom and instructive Mirth, +See motley Life in modern Trappings dress'd, +And feed with varied Fools th' eternal Jest: +Thou who couldst laugh where Want enchain'd Caprice, +Toil crush'd Conceit, and Man was of a Piece; +Where Wealth unlov'd without a Mourner dy'd; +And scarce a Sycophant was fed by Pride; +Where ne'er was known the Form of mock Debate, +Or seen a new-made Mayor's unwieldy State; +Where change of Fav'rites made no Change of Laws, +And Senates heard before they judg'd a Cause; +How wouldst thou shake at _Britain's_ modish Tribe, +Dart the quick Taunt, and edge the piercing Gibe? +Attentive Truth and Nature to descry, +And pierce each Scene with Philosophic Eye. +To thee were solemn Toys or empty Shew, +The Robes of Pleasure and the Veils of Woe: +All aid the Farce, and all thy Mirth maintain, +Whose Joys are causeless, or whose Griefs are vain. +[Footnote d: Ver. 28-55.] + +Such was the Scorn that fill'd the Sage's Mind, +Renew'd at ev'ry Glance on Humankind; +How just that Scorn ere yet thy Voice declare, +Search every State, and canvass ev'ry Pray'r. + +[e]Unnumber'd Suppliants croud Preferment's Gate, +Athirst for Wealth, and burning to be great; +Delusive Fortune hears th' incessant Call, +They mount, they shine, evaporate, and fall. +On ev'ry Stage the Foes of Peace attend, +Hate dogs their Flight, and Insult mocks their End. +Love ends with Hope, the sinking Statesman's Door +Pours in the Morning Worshiper no more; +For growing Names the weekly Scribbler lies, +To growing Wealth the Dedicator flies, +From every Room descends the painted Face, +That hung the bright _Palladium_ of the Place, +And smoak'd in Kitchens, or in Auctions sold, +To better Features yields the Frame of Gold; +For now no more we trace in ev'ry Line +Heroic Worth, Benevolence Divine: +The Form distorted justifies the Fall, +And Detestation rids th' indignant Wall. +[Footnote e: Ver. 56-107.] + +But will not _Britain_ hear the last Appeal, +Sign her Foes Doom, or guard her Fav'rites Zeal; +Through Freedom's Sons no more Remonstrance rings; +Degrading Nobles and controuling Kings; +Our supple Tribes repress their Patriot Throats, +And ask no Questions but the Price of Votes; +With Weekly Libels and Septennial Ale, +Their Wish is full to riot and to rail. + +In full-blown Dignity, see _Wolsey_ stand, +Law in his Voice, and Fortune in his Hand: +To him the Church, the Realm, their Pow'rs consign, +Thro' him the Rays of regal Bounty shine, +Turned by his Nod the Stream of Honour flows, +His Smile alone Security bestows: +Still to new Heights his restless Wishes tow'r, +Claim leads to Claim, and Pow'r advances Pow'r; +Till Conquest unresisted ceas'd to please, +And Rights submitted, left him none to seize. +At length his Sov'reign frowns--the Train of State +Mark the keen Glance, and watch the Sign to hate. +Where-e'er he turns he meets a Stranger's Eye, +His Suppliants scorn him, and his Followers fly; +Now drops at once the Pride of aweful State, +The golden Canopy, the glitt'ring Plate, +The regal Palace, the luxurious Board, +The liv'ried Army and the menial Lord. +With Age, with Cares, with Maladies oppress'd, +He seeks the Refuge of Monastic Rest. +Grief aids Disease, remember'd Folly stings, +And his last Sighs reproach the Faith of Kings. + +Speak thou, whose Thoughts at humble Peace repine, +Shall _Wolsey_'s Wealth, with _Wolsey_'s End be thine? +Or liv'st thou now, with safer Pride content, +The richest Landlord on the Banks of _Trent_? +For why did _Wolsey_ by the Steps of Fate, +On weak Foundations raise th' enormous Weight? +Why but to sink beneath Misfortune's Blow, +With louder Ruin to the Gulphs below? + +What[f] gave great _Villiers_ to th' Assassin's Knife, +And fix'd Disease on _Harley_'s closing Life? +What murder'd _Wentworth_, and what exil'd _Hyde_, +By Kings protected and to Kings ally'd? +What but their Wish indulg' in Courts to shine, +And Pow'r too great to keep or to resign? + [Footnote f: Ver. 108-113.] + +When[g] first the College Rolls receive his Name, +The young Enthusiast quits his Ease for Fame; +Resistless burns the Fever of Renown, +Caught from the strong Contagion of the Gown; +O'er _Bodley_'s Dome his future Labours spread, +And _Bacon_'s Mansion trembles o'er his Head; +Are these thy Views? proceed, illustrious Youth, +And Virtue guard thee to the Throne of Truth, +Yet should thy Soul indulge the gen'rous Heat, +Till captive Science yields her last Retreat; +Should Reason guide thee with her brightest Ray, +And pour on misty Doubt resistless Day; +Should no false Kindness lure to loose Delight, +Nor Praise relax, nor Difficulty fright; +Should tempting Novelty thy Cell refrain, +And Sloth's bland Opiates shed their Fumes in vain; +Should Beauty blunt on Fops her fatal Dart, +Nor claim the Triumph of a letter'd Heart; +Should no Disease thy torpid Veins invade, +Nor Melancholy's Phantoms haunt thy Shade; +Yet hope not Life from Grief or Danger free, +Nor think the Doom of Man revers'd for thee: +Deign on the passing World to turn thine Eyes, +And pause awhile from Learning to be wise; +There mark what Ills the Scholar's Life assail; +Toil, Envy, Want, the Garret, and the Jail. +See Nations slowly wise, and meanly just; +To buried Merit raise the tardy Bust. +If Dreams yet flatter, once again attend, +Hear _Lydiat_'s Life, and _Galileo_'s End. +[Footnote g: Ver. 114-132.] + +Nor deem, when Learning her lost Prize bestows +The glitt'ring Eminence exempt from Foes; +See when the Vulgar 'scap'd, despis'd or aw'd, +Rebellion's vengeful Talons seize on _Laud_. +From meaner Minds, tho' smaller Fines content +The plunder'd Palace or sequester'd Rent; +Mark'd out by dangerous Parts he meets the Shock, +And fatal Learning leads him to the Block: +Around his Tomb let Art and Genius weep, +But hear his Death, ye Blockheads, hear and sleep. + +The[h] festal Blazes, the triumphal Show, +The ravish'd Standard, and the captive Foe, +The Senate's Thanks, the Gazette's pompous Tale, +With Force resistless o'er the Brave prevail. +Such Bribes the rapid _Greek_ o'er _Asia_ whirl'd, +For such the steady _Romans_ shook the World; +For such in distant Lands the _Britons_ shine, +And stain with Blood the _Danube_ or the _Rhine_; +This Pow'r has Praise, that Virtue scarce can warm, +Till Fame supplies the universal Charm. +Yet Reason frowns on War's unequal Game, +Where wasted Nations raise a single Name, +And mortgag'd States their Grandsires Wreaths regret +From Age to Age in everlasting Debt; +Wreaths which at last the dear-bought Right convey +To rust on Medals, or on Stones decay. +[Footnote h: Ver. 133-146.] + +On[i] what Foundation stands the Warrior's Pride? +How just his Hopes let _Swedish Charles_ decide; +A Frame of Adamant, a Soul of Fire, +No Dangers fright him, and no Labours tire; +O'er Love, o'er Force, extends his wide Domain, +Unconquer'd Lord of Pleasure and of Pain; +No Joys to him pacific Scepters yield, +War sounds the Trump, he rushes to the Field; +Behold surrounding Kings their Pow'r combine, +And One capitulate, and One resign; +Peace courts his Hand, but spread her Charms in vain; +"Think Nothing gain'd, he cries, till nought remain, +On _Moscow_'s Walls till _Gothic_ Standards fly, +And all is Mine beneath the Polar Sky." +The March begins in Military State, +And Nations on his Eye suspended wait; +Stern Famine guards the solitary Coast, +And Winter barricades the Realms of Frost; +He comes, nor Want nor Cold his Course delay;-- +Hide, blushing Glory, hide _Pultowa_'s Day: +The vanquish'd Hero leaves his broken Bands, +And shews his Miseries in distant Lands; +Condemn'd a needy Supplicant to wait, +While Ladies interpose, and Slaves debate. +But did not Chance at length her Error mend? +Did no subverted Empire mark his End? +Did rival Monarchs give the fatal Wound? +Or hostile Millions press him to the Ground? +His Fall was destin'd to a barren Strand, +A petty Fortress, and a dubious Hand; +He left the Name, at which the World grew pale, +To point a Moral, or adorn a Tale. +[Footnote i: Ver. 147-167.] + +All[k] Times their Scenes of pompous Woes afford, +From _Persia_'s Tyrant to _Bavaria_'s Lord. +In gay Hostility, and barb'rous Pride, +With half Mankind embattled at his Side, +Great _Xerxes_ comes to seize the certain Prey, +And starves exhausted Regions in his Way; +Attendant Flatt'ry counts his Myriads o'er, +Till counted Myriads sooth his Pride no more; +Fresh Praise is try'd till Madness fires his Mind, +The Waves he lashes, and enchains the Wind; +New Pow'rs are claim'd, new Pow'rs are still bestow'd, +Till rude Resistance lops the spreading God; +The daring _Greeks_ deride the Martial Shew, +And heap their Vallies with the gaudy Foe; +Th' insulted Sea with humbler Thoughts he gains, +A single Skiff to speed his Flight remains; +Th' incumber'd Oar scarce leaves the dreaded Coast +Through purple Billows and a floating Host. +[Footnote k: Ver. 168-187.] + +The bold _Bavarian_, in a luckless Hour, +Tries the dread Summits of _Cesarean_ Pow'r, +With unexpected Legions bursts away, +And sees defenceless Realms receive his Sway; +Short Sway! fair _Austria_ spreads her mournful Charms, +The Queen, the Beauty, sets the World in Arms; +From Hill to Hill the Beacons rousing Blaze +Spreads wide the Hope of Plunder and of Praise; +The fierce _Croatian_, and the wild _Hussar_, +And all the Sons of Ravage croud the War; +The baffled Prince in Honour's flatt'ring Bloom +Of hasty Greatness finds the fatal Doom, +His Foes Derision, and his Subjects Blame, +And steals to Death from Anguish and from Shame. + +Enlarge[l] my Life with Multitude of Days, +In Health, in Sickness, thus the Suppliant prays; +Hides from himself his State, and shuns to know, +That Life protracted is protracted Woe. +Time hovers o'er, impatient to destroy, +And shuts up all the Passages of Joy: +In vain their Gifts the bounteous Seasons pour, +The Fruit Autumnal, and the Vernal Flow'r, +With listless Eyes the Dotard views the Store, +He views, and wonders that they please no more; +Now pall the tastless Meats, and joyless Wines, +And Luxury with Sighs her Slave resigns. +Approach, ye Minstrels, try the soothing Strain, +And yield the tuneful Lenitives of Pain: +No Sounds alas would touch th' impervious Ear, +Though dancing Mountains witness'd _Orpheus_ near; +Nor Lute nor Lyre his feeble Pow'rs attend, +Nor sweeter Musick of a virtuous Friend, +But everlasting Dictates croud his Tongue, +Perversely grave, or positively wrong. +The still returning Tale, and ling'ring Jest, +Perplex the fawning Niece and pamper'd Guest, +While growing Hopes scarce awe the gath'ring Sneer, +And scarce a Legacy can bribe to hear; +The watchful Guests still hint the last Offence, +The Daughter's Petulance, the Son's Expence, +Improve his heady Rage with treach'rous Skill, +And mould his Passions till they make his Will. +[Footnote l: Ver. 188.-288.] + +Unnumber'd Maladies each Joint invade, +Lay Siege to Life and press the dire Blockade; +But unextinguish'd Av'rice still remains, +And dreaded Losses aggravate his Pains; +He turns, with anxious Heart and cripled Hands, +His Bonds of Debt, and Mortgages of Lands; +Or views his Coffers with suspicious Eyes, +Unlocks his Gold, and counts it till he dies. + +But grant, the Virtues of a temp'rate Prime +Bless with an Age exempt from Scorn or Crime; +An Age that melts in unperceiv'd Decay, +And glides in modest Innocence away; +Whose peaceful Day Benevolence endears, +Whose Night congratulating Conscience cheers; +The gen'ral Fav'rite as the gen'ral Friend: +Such Age there is, and who could wish its End? + +Yet ev'n on this her Load Misfortune flings, +To press the weary Minutes flagging Wings: +New Sorrow rises as the Day returns, +A Sister sickens, or a Daughter mourns. +Now Kindred Merit fills the fable Bier, +Now lacerated Friendship claims a Tear. +Year chases Year, Decay pursues Decay, +Still drops some Joy from with'ring Life away; +New Forms arise, and diff'rent Views engage, +Superfluous lags the Vet'ran on the Stage, +Till pitying Nature signs the last Release, +And bids afflicted Worth retire to Peace. + +But few there are whom Hours like these await, +Who set unclouded in the Gulphs of Fate. +From _Lydia_'s Monarch should the Search descend, +By _Solon_ caution'd to regard his End, +In Life's last Scene what Prodigies surprise, +Fears of the Brave, and Follies of the Wise? +From _Marlb'rough_'s Eyes the Streams of Dotage flow, +And _Swift_ expires a Driv'ler and a Show. + +The[m] teeming Mother, anxious for her Race, +Begs for each Birth the Fortune of a Face: +Yet _Vane_ could tell what Ills from Beauty spring; +And _Sedley_ curs'd the Form that pleas'd a King. +Ye Nymphs of rosy Lips and radiant Eyes, +Whom Pleasure keeps too busy to be wise, +Whom Joys with soft Varieties invite +By Day the Frolick, and the Dance by Night, +Who frown with Vanity, who smile with Art, +And ask the latest Fashion of the Heart, +What Care, what Rules your heedless Charms shall save, +Each Nymph your Rival, and each Youth your Slave? +An envious Breast with certain Mischief glows, +And Slaves, the Maxim tells, are always Foes, +Against your Fame with Fondness Hate combines, +The Rival batters, and the Lover mines. +With distant Voice neglected Virtue calls, +Less heard, and less the faint Remonstrance falls; +Tir'd with Contempt, she quits the slipp'ry Reign, +And Pride and Prudence take her Seat in vain. +In croud at once, where none the Pass defend, +The harmless Freedom, and the private Friend. +The Guardians yield, by Force superior ply'd; +By Int'rest, Prudence; and by Flatt'ry, Pride. +Here Beauty falls betray'd, despis'd, distress'd, +And hissing Infamy proclaims the rest. +[Footnote m: Ver. 289-345.] + +Where[n] then shall Hope and Fear their Objects find? +Must dull Suspence corrupt the stagnant Mind? +Must helpless Man, in Ignorance sedate, +Swim darkling down the Current of his Fate? +Must no Dislike alarm, no Wishes rise, +No Cries attempt the Mercies of the Skies? +Enquirer, cease, Petitions yet remain, +Which Heav'n may hear, nor deem Religion vain. +Still raise for Good the supplicating Voice, +But leave to Heav'n the Measure and the Choice. +Safe in his Pow'r, whose Eyes discern afar +The secret Ambush of a specious Pray'r. +Implore his Aid, in his Decisions rest, +Secure whate'er he gives, he gives the best. +Yet with the Sense of sacred Presence prest, +When strong Devotion fills thy glowing Breast, +Pour forth thy Fervours for a healthful Mind, +Obedient Passions, and a Will resign'd; +For Love, which scarce collective Man can fill; +For Patience sov'reign o'er transmuted Ill; +For Faith, that panting for a happier Seat, +Thinks Death kind Nature's Signal of Retreat: +These Goods for Man the Laws of Heav'n ordain, +These Goods he grants, who grants the Pow'r to gain; +With these celestial Wisdom calms the Mind, +And makes the Happiness she does not find. +[Footnote n: Ver. 346-366.] + +_FINIS._ + + + + +THE RAMBLER. + + +NUMB. 5. Price 2 _d._ + +TUESDAY, _April 3, 1750_. + +_To be continued on_ TUESDAYS _and_ SATURDAYS. + + + _Et nunc omnis Ager, nunc omnis parturit Arbos, + Nunc frondent Silvae, nunc formosissimus Annus_. + VIRG. + + +Every Man is sufficiently discontented with some Circumstances of his +present State, to suffer his Imagination to range more or less in quest of +future Happiness, and to fix upon some Point of Time, in which he shall, +by the Removal of the Inconvenience which now perplexes him, or the +Acquisition of Advantage which he at present wants, find his Condition of +Life very much improved. + +When this Time, which is too often expected with great Impatience, at last +arrives, it generally comes without the Blessing for which it was desired; +but we solace ourselves with some new Prospect, and press forward again +with equal Eagerness. + +It is some Advantage to a Man, in whom this Temper prevails in any great +Degree, when he turns his Hopes upon Things wholly out of his own Power, +since he forbears then to precipitate his Affairs, for the Sake of the +great Event that is to complete his Felicity, and waits for the blissful +Hour, without neglecting such Measures as are necessary to be taken in the +mean Time. + +I have long known a Person of this Temper, who indulged his Dream of +Happiness with less Hurt to himself than such chimerical Wishes commonly +produce, and adjusted his Scheme with such Address, that his Hopes were in +full bloom three parts of the Year, and in the other part never wholly +blasted. Many, perhaps, would be desirous of learning by what Means he +procured to himself such a cheap and lasting Satisfaction. It was gained +only by a constant Practice of referring the Removal of all his Uneasiness +to the Coming of the next Spring. If his Affairs were disordered, he could +regulate them in the Spring; if a Regimen was prescribed him, the Spring +was the proper Time of pursuing it; if what he wanted was at a high Price, +it would fall its Value in the Spring. + +The Spring, indeed, did often come without any of these Effects; but he +was always certain that the next would be more propitious; and was never +convinced that the present Spring would fail him until the Middle of +Summer; for he always talked of the Spring as coming 'till it was past, +and when it was once past, every one agreed with him that it was coming. + +By long Converse with this Man, I am, perhaps, in some Degree brought to +feel the same immoderate Pleasure in the Contemplation of this delightful +Season; but I have the Satisfaction of finding many, whom it can be no +Shame to resemble, infected with the same Enthusiasm; for there is, I +believe, scarce any Poet of Eminence, who has not left some Testimony of +his Fondness for the Flowers, the Zephyrs, and the Warblers of the Spring. +Nor has the most luxuriant Imagination been able to describe the Serenity +and Happiness of the golden Age otherwise than by giving a perpetual +Spring, as the highest Reward of uncorrupted Innocence. + +There is, indeed, something inexpressibly pleasing in the annual +Renovation of the World, and the new Display of the Treasures of Nature. +The Cold and Darkness of Winter, with the naked Deformity of every Object +on which we turn our Eyes, makes us necessarily rejoice at the succeeding +Season, as well for what we have escaped, as for what we may enjoy; and +every budding Flower, which a warm Situation brings early to our View, is +considered by us as a Messenger, to inform us of the Approach of more +joyous Days. + +The Spring affords to a Mind, so free from the Disturbance of Cares or +Passions as to be vacant to calm Amusements, almost every Thing that our +present State makes us capable of enjoying. The variegated Verdure of the +Fields and Woods, the Succession of grateful Odours, the Voice of Pleasure +pouring out its Notes on every Side, with the Observation of the Gladness +apparently conceived by every Animal, from the Growth of his Food, and the +Clemency of the Weather, throw over the whole Earth an Air of Gayety, +which is very significantly expressed by the Smile of Nature. + +There are Men to whom these Scenes are able to give no Delight, and who +hurry away from all the Varieties of rural Beauty, to lose their Hours, +and divert their Thoughts by Cards, or publick Assemblies, a Tavern +Dinner, or the Prattle of the Day. + +It may be laid down as a Position which will seldom deceive, that when a +Man cannot bear his own Company there is something wrong. He must fly from +himself, either because he feels a Tediousness in Life from the Equipoise +of an empty Mind, which, having no Tendency to one Motion more than +another but as it is impelled by some external Power, must always have +recourse to foreign Objects; or he must be afraid of the Intrusion of some +unpleasing Ideas, and, perhaps, is always struggling to escape from the +Remembrance of a Loss, the Fear of a Calamity, or some other Thought of +greater Horror. + +Those, who are incapacitated to enjoy the Pleasures of Contemplation, by +their Griefs, may, very properly, apply to such Diversions, provided they +are innocent, as lay strong hold on the Attention; and those, whom Fear of +any future Calamity chains down to Misery, must endeavour to obviate the +Danger. + +My Considerations shall, on this Occasion, be turned on such as are +burthensome to themselves merely because they want Subjects for +Reflection, and to whom the Volume of Nature is thrown open without +affording them Pleasure or Instruction, because they never learned to read +the Characters. + +A French Author has advanced this seeming Paradox, that _very few Men know +how to take a Walk_; and, indeed, it is very true, that few Men know how +to take a Walk with a Prospect of any other Pleasure, than the same +Company would have afforded them in any other Circumstances. + +There are Animals that borrow their Colour from the neighbouring Body, +and, consequently, vary their Hue as they happen to change their Place. In +like manner it ought to be the Endeavour of every Man to derive his +Reflexions from the Objects about him; for it is to no purpose that he +alters his Position, if his Attention continues fixt to the same Point. +The Mind should be kept open to the Access of every new Idea, and so far +disengaged from the Predominance of particular Thoughts, as to be able to +accommodate itself to emergent Occasions, and remark every Thing that +offers itself to present Examination. + +A Man that has formed this Habit of turning every new Object to his +Entertainment, finds in the Productions of Nature an inexhaustible Stock +of Materials, upon which he can employ himself, without any Temptations to +Envy or Malevolence; Faults, perhaps, seldom totally avoided by those, +whose Judgment is much exercised upon the Works of Art. He has always a +certain Prospect of discovering new Reasons for adoring the Sovereign +Author of the Universe, and probable Hopes of making some Discovery of +Benefit to others, or of Profit to himself. There is no doubt but many +Vegetables and Animals have Qualities that might be of great Use; to the +Knowledge of which there is required no great Sagacity of Penetration, or +Fatigue of Study, but only frequent Experiments, and close Attention. What +is said by the Chymists of their darling Mercury, is, perhaps, true of +every Body through the whole Creation, that, if a thousand Lives should be +spent upon it, all its Properties would not be found out. + +Mankind must necessarily be diversified by various Tastes, since Life +affords and requires such multiplicity of Employments; and a Nation of +Naturalists is neither to be hoped, or desired, but it is surely not +improper to point out a fresh Amusement to those who langush in Health, +and repine in Plenty, for want of some Source of Diversion that may be +less easily exhausted, and to inform the Multitudes of both Sexes, who are +burthened with every new Day, that there are many Shews which they have +not seen. + +He that enlarges his Curiosity after the Works of Nature, demonstrably +multiplies the Inlets to Happiness, and, therefore, the younger Part of my +Readers, to whom I dedicate this vernal Speculation, must excuse me for +calling upon them to make use at once of the Spring of the Year, and the +Spring of Life; to acquire, while their Minds may be yet impressed with +new Images, a Love of innocent Pleasures, and an ardour for useful +Knowledge; and to remember, that a blighted Spring makes a barren Year, +and that the vernal Flowers, however beautiful and gay, are only intended +by Nature as Preparatives to Autumnal Fruits. + + +_LONDON_: +Printed for J. PAYNE, and J. BOUQUET, in Pater-noster-Row; +where Letters for the RAMBLER are received, and the preceding +Numbers may be had. + + + + +THE RAMBLER. + + +NUMB. 60. Price 2 _d._ + +_To be continued on_ TUESDAYS _and_ SATURDAYS. + +SATURDAY, _October_ 13, 1750. + + --_Quid fit pulchrum, quid turpe, quid utile, quid non, + Plenius et melius_ Chrysippo _et_ Crantore _dicit_. HOR. + + +All Joy or Sorrow for the Happiness or Calamities of others is produced by +an Act of the Imagination, that realises the Event however fictitious, or +approximates it however remote, by placing us, for a Time, in the +Condition of him whose Fortune we contemplate; so that we feel, while the +Deception lasts, whatever Motions would be excited by the same Good or +Evil happening to ourselves. + +Our Passions are therefore more strongly moved, in proportion as we can +more readily adopt the Pains or Pleasures proposed to our Minds, by +recognising them as once our own, or considering them as naturally +incident to our State of Life. It is not easy for the most artful Writer +to give us an Interest in Happiness or Misery, which we think ourselves +never likely to feel, and with which we have never yet been made +acquainted. Histories of the Downfall of Kingdoms, and Revolutions of +Empires are read with great Tranquillity; the imperial Tragedy pleases +common Auditors only by its Pomp of Ornament, and Grandeur of Ideas; and +the Man whose Faculties have been engrossed by Business, and whose Heart +never fluttered but at the Rise or Fall of Stocks, wonders how the +Attention can be seized, or the Affections agitated by a Tale of Love. + +Those parallel Circumstances, and kindred Images to which we readily +conform our Minds, are, above all other Writings, to be found in +Narratives of the Lives of particular Persons; and there seems therefore +no Species of Writing more worthy of Cultivation than Biography, since +none can be more delightful, or more useful, none can more certainly +enchain the Heart by irresistible Interest, or more widely diffuse +Instruction to every Diversity of Condition. + +The general and rapid Narratives of History, which involve a thousand +Fortunes in the Business of a Day, and complicate innumerable Incidents in +one great Transaction, afford few Lessons applicable to private Life, +which derives its Comforts and its Wretchedness from the right or wrong +Management of Things that nothing but their Frequency makes considerable, +_Parva si non fiunt quotidie_, says _Pliny_, and which can have no Place +in those Relations which never descend below the Consultation of Senates, +the Motions of Armies, and the Schemes of Conspirators. + +I have often thought that there has rarely passed a Life of which a +judicious and faithful Narrative would not be useful. For, not only every +Man has in the mighty Mass of the World great Numbers in the same +Condition with himself, to whom his Mistakes and Miscarriages, Escapes and +Expedients would be of immediate and apparent Use; but there is such an +Uniformity in the Life of Man, if it be considered apart from adventitious +and separable Decorations and Disguises, that there is scarce any +Possibility of Good or Ill, but is common to Humankind. A great Part of +the Time of those who are placed at the greatest Distance by Fortune, or +by Temper, must unavoidably pass in the same Manner; and though, when the +Claims of Nature are satisfied, Caprice, and Vanity, and Accident, begin +to produce Discriminations, and Peculiarities, yet the Eye is not very +heedful, or quick, which cannot discover the same Causes still terminating +their Influence in the same Effects, though sometimes accelerated, +sometimes retarded, or perplexed by multiplied Combinations. We are all +prompted by the same Motives, all deceived by the same Fallacies, all +animated by Hope, obstructed by Danger, entangled by Desire, and seduced +by Pleasure. + +It is frequently objected to Relations of particular Lives, that they are +not distinguished by any striking or wonderful Vicissitude. The Scholar +who passes his Life among his Books, the Merchant who conducted only his +own Affairs, the Priest whose Sphere of Action was not extended beyond +that of his Duty, are considered as no proper Objects of publick Regard, +however they might have excelled in their several Stations, whatever might +have been their Learning, Integrity, and Piety. But this Notion arises +from false Measures of Excellence and Dignity, and must be eradicated by +considering, that, in the Eye of uncorrupted Reason, what is of most Use +is of most Value. + +It is, indeed, not improper to take honest Advantages of Prejudice, and to +gain Attention by a great Name; but the Business of the Biographer is +often to pass slightly over those Performances and Incidents, which +produce vulgar Greatness, to lead the Thoughts into domestick Privacies, +and display the minute Details of daily Life, where exterior Appendages +are cast aside, and Men excel each other only by Prudence, and by Virtue. +The Life of _Thuanus_ is, with great Propriety, said by its Author to have +been written, that it might lay open to Posterity the private and familiar +Character of that Man, _cujus Ingenium et Candorem ex ipsius Scriptis sunt +olim simper miraturi_, whose Candour and Genius his Writings will to the +End of Time preserve in Admiration. + +There are many invisible Circumstances, which whether we read as Enquirers +after natural or moral Knowledge, whether we intend to enlarge our +Science, or encrease our Virtue, are more important than publick +Occurrences. Thus _Salust_, the great Master, has not forgot, in his +Account of _Catiline_, to remark that _his Walk was now quick, and again +slow_, as an Indication of a Mind revolving something with violent +Commotion. Thus the Story of _Melancthon_ affords a striking Lecture on +the Value of Time, by informing us that when he made an Appointment, he +expected not only the Hour, but the Minute to be fixed, that Life might +not run out in the Idleness of Suspense; and all the Plans and Enterprizes +of _De Wit_ are now of less Importance to the World, than that Part of his +personal Character which represents him as careful of his Health, and +negligent of his Life. + +But Biography has often been allotted to Writers who seem very little +acquainted with the Nature of their Task, or very negligent about the +Performance. They rarely afford any other Account than might be collected +from publick Papers, and imagine themselves writing a Life when they +exhibit a chronological Series of Actions or Preferments; and so little +regard the Manners or Behaviour of their Heroes, that more Knowledge may +be gained of a Man's real Character, by a short Conversation with one of +his Servants, than from a formal and studied Narrative, begun with his +Pedigree, and ended with his Funeral. + +If now and then they condescend to inform the World of particular Facts, +they are not always so happy as to select those which are of most +Importance. I know not well what Advantage Posterity can receive from the +only Circumstance by which _Tickell_ has distinguished _Addison_ from the +Rest of Mankind, the Irregularity of his Pulse: nor can I think myself +overpaid for the Time spent in reading the Life of _Malherb_, by being +enabled to relate, after the learned Biographer, that _Malherb_ had two +predominant Opinions; one, that the Looseness of a single Woman might +destroy all the Boast of ancient Descent; the other, that the _French_ +Beggers made use very improperly and barbarously of the Phrase _noble +Gentleman_, because either Word included the Sense of both. + +There are, indeed, some natural Reasons why these Narratives are often +written by such as were not likely to give much Instruction or Delight, +and why most Accounts of particular Persons are barren and useless. If a +Life be delayed till all Interest and Envy are at an End, and all Motives +to Calumny or Flattery are suppressed, we may hope for Impartiality, but +must expect little Intelligence; for the Incidents which give Excellence +to Biography are of a volatile and evanescent Kind, such as soon escape +the Memory, and are rarely transmitted by Tradition. We know how few can +portray a living Acquaintance, except by his most prominent and observable +Particularities, and the grosser Features of his Mind; and it may be +easily imagined how much of this little Knowledge may be lost in imparting +it, and how soon a Succession of Copies will lose all Resemblance of the +Original. + +If the Biographer writes from personal Knowledge, and makes haste to +gratify the publick Curiosity, there is Danger left his Interest, his +Fear, his Gratitude, or his Tenderness, overpower his Fidelity, and tempt +him to conceal, if not to invent. There are many who think it an Act of +Piety to hide the Faults or Failings of their Friends, even when they can +no longer suffer by their Detection; we therefore see whole Ranks of +Characters adorned with uniform Panegyrick, and not to be known from one +another, but by extrinsick and casual Circumstances. "Let me remember, +says _Hale_, when I find myself inclined to pity a Criminal, that there is +likewise a Pity due to the Country." If there is a Regard due to the +Memory of the Dead, there is yet more Respect to be paid to Knowledge, to +Virtue, and to Truth. + + +_LONDON_: +Printed for J. PAYNE, and J. BOUQUET, in Pater-noster-Row, +where Letters for the RAMBLER are received, and the preceding +Numbers may be had. + + + + +PUBLICATIONS OF THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY + + +First Year (1946-1947) + +1. Richard Blackmore's _Essay upon Wit_ (1716), and Addison's _Freeholder_ +No. 45 (1716). (I, 1) + +2. Samuel Cobb's _Of Poetry_ and _Discourse on Criticism_ (1707). (II, 1) + +3. _Letter to A.H. Esq.; concerning the Stage_ (1698), and Richard Willis' +_Occasional Paper No. IX_ (1698). (III, 1) + +4. _Essay on Wit_ (1748), together with Characters by Flecknoe, and Joseph +Warton's _Adventurer_ Nos. 127 and 133. (I, 2) + +5. Samuel Wesley's _Epistle to a Friend Concerning Poetry_ (1700) and +_Essay on Heroic Poetry_ (1693). (II, 2) + +6. _Representation of the Impiety and Immorality of the Stage_ (1704) and +_Some Thoughts Concerning the Stage_ (1704). (III, 2) + + +Second Year (1947-1948) + +7. John Gay's _The Present State of Wit_ (1711); and a section on Wit from +_The English Theophrastus_ (1702). (I, 3) + +8. Rapin's _De Carmine Pastorali_, translated by Creech (1684). (II, 3) + +9. T. Hanmer's (?) _Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet_ (1736). (III, +3) + +10. Corbyn Morris' _Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, etc._ +(1744). (I, 4) + +11. Thomas Purney's _Discourse on the Pastoral_ (1717). (II, 4) + +12. Essays on the Stage, selected, with an Introduction by Joseph Wood +Krutch. (III, 4) + + +Third Year (1948-1949) + +13. Sir John Falstaff (pseud.), _The Theatre_ (1720). (IV, 1) + +14. Edward Moore's _The Gamester_ (1753). (V, 1) + +15. John Oldmixon's _Reflections on Dr. Swift's Letter to Harley_ (1712); +and Arthur Mainwaring's _The British Academy_ (1712). (VI, 1) + +16. Nevil Payne's _Fatal Jealousy_ (1673). (V, 2) + +17. Nicholas Rowe's _Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespear_ +(1709). (Extra Series, 1) + +18. Aaron Hill's Preface to _The Creation_; and Thomas Brereton's +Preface to _Esther_. (IV, 2) + + + +_The Editors of_ THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY +_are pleased to announce that_ + +THE WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK MEMORIAL LIBRARY +_of The University of California, Los Angeles_ + +will become the publisher of the Augustan Reprints in May, 1949. The +editorial policy of the Society will continue unchanged. As in the past, +the editors will strive to furnish members inexpensive reprints of rare +seventeenth and eighteenth century works. + +All correspondence concerning subscriptions in the United States and +Canada should be addressed to the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, +2205 West Adams Blvd., Los Angeles 7, California. Correspondence +concerning editorial matters may be addressed to any of the general +editors. Membership fee continues $2.50 per year ($2.75 in Great Britain +and the continent). British and European subscribers should address B.H. +Blackwell, Broad Street, Oxford, England. + + +Publications for the fourth year (1949-1950) +(_At least six items will be printed in the main from the following list_) + + +SERIES IV: MEN, MANNERS, AND CRITICS + +John Dryden, _His Majesties Declaration Defended_ (1681) + +Daniel Defoe (?), _Vindication of the Press_ (1718) _Critical Remarks on +Sir Charles Grandison, Clarissa, and Pamela_ (1754) + + +SERIES V: DRAMA + +Thomas Southerne, _Oroonoko_ (1696) + +Mrs. Centlivre, _The Busie Body_ (1709) + +Charles Johnson, _Caelia_ (1733) + +Charles Macklin, _Man of the World_ (1781) + + +SERIES VI: POETRY AND LANGUAGE + +Andre Dacier, _Essay on Lyric Poetry_ + +_Poems_ by Thomas Sprat + +_Poems_ by the Earl of Dorset + +Samuel Johnson, _Vanity of Human Wishes_ (1749), and one of the 1750 +_Rambler_ papers. + + +EXTRA SERIES: + +Lewis Theobald, _Preface to Shakespeare's Works_ (1733) + +A few copies of the early publications of the Society are still available +at the original rate. + + +GENERAL EDITORS + +H. RICHARD ARCHER, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library +R.C. BOYS, University of Michigan +E.N. HOOKER, University of California, Los Angeles +H.T. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) and Two Rambler papers (1750) + +Author: Samuel Johnson + +Release Date: September 2, 2004 [EBook #13350] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VANITY OF HUMAN WISHES *** + + + + +Produced by David Starner, Charles Bidwell and PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + + + + + +The Augustan Reprint Society + + +SAMUEL JOHNSON + +_The Vanity of Human Wishes_ +(1749) + +and + +Two _Rambler_ papers +(1750) + + +With an Introduction by +Bertrand H. Bronson + + +Publication Number 22 +(Series VI, No. 2) + + +Los Angeles +William Andrews Clark Memorial Library +University of California +1950 + + + + +_GENERAL EDITORS_ + +H. RICHARD ARCHER, _Clark Memorial Library_ +RICHARD C. BOYS, _University of Michigan_ +EDWARD NILES HOOKER, _University of California, Los Angeles_ +H.T. SWEDENBERG, JR., _University of California, Los Angeles_ + +_ASSISTANT EDITORS_ + +W. EARL BRITTON, _University of Michigan_ +JOHN LOFTIS, _University of California, Los Angeles_ + +_ADVISORY EDITORS_ + +EMMETT L. AVERY, _State College of Washington_ +BENJAMIN BOYCE, _University of Nebraska_ +LOUIS I. BREDVOLD, _University of Michigan_ +CLEANTH BROOKS, _Yale University_ +JAMES L. CLIFFORD, _Columbia University_ +ARTHUR FRIEDMAN, _University of Chicago_ +SAMUEL H. MONK, _University of Minnesota_ +ERNEST MOSSNER, _University of Texas_ +JAMES SUTHERLAND, _Queen Mary College, London_ + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +The pieces reproduced in this little volume are now beginning to bid for +notice from their third century of readers. At the time they were written, +although Johnson had already done enough miscellaneous literary work to +fill several substantial volumes, his name, far from identifying an "Age", +was virtually unknown to the general public. _The Vanity of Human Wishes_ +was the first of his writings to bear his name on its face. There were +some who knew him to be the author of the vigorous satire, _London_, and +of the still more remarkable biographical study, _An Account of the Life +of Mr. Richard Savage_; and a few interested persons were aware that he +was engaged in compiling an English Dictionary, and intended to edit +Shakespeare. He was also, at the moment, attracting brief but not +over-favorable attention as the author of one of the season's new crop of +tragedies at Drury Lane. But _The Vanity of Human Wishes_ and _The +Rambler_ were a potent force in establishing Johnson's claim to a +permanent place in English letters. _The Vanity_ appeared early in +January, 1749; _The Rambler_ ran from March 20, 1749/50 to March 14, 1752. +With the exception of five numbers and two quoted letters, the periodical +was written entirely by Johnson. + +As moral essays, the Ramblers deeply stirred some readers and bored +others. Young Boswell, not unduly saturnine in temperament, was profoundly +impressed by them and determined on their account to seek out the author. +Taine, a century later, discovered that he already knew by heart all they +had to teach and warned his readers away from them. Generally speaking, +they were valued as they deserved by the eighteenth century and +undervalued by the nineteenth. The first half of the twentieth has shown a +marked impulse to restore them, as a series, to a place of honor second +only to the work of Addison and Steele in the same form. Raleigh, in 1907, +paid discriminating tribute to their humanity. If read, he observed, +against a knowledge of their author's life, "the pages of _The Rambler_ +are aglow with the earnestness of dear-bought conviction, and rich in +conclusions gathered not from books but from life and suffering." And +later: "We come to closer quarters with Johnson in the best pages of _The +Rambler_ than in the most brilliant of the conversations recalled by +Boswell. The hero of a hundred fights puts off his armour, and becomes a +wise and tender confessor." Latterly, the style of Johnson's essays has +been subjected to a closer scrutiny than ever before. What Taine found as +inflexible and inert as a pudding-mold is now seen to be charged with life +and movement, vibrant with light and shadow and color. More particularly, +Wimsatt has shown how intimately connected is the vocabulary of _The +Rambler_ with Johnson's reading for the Dictionary, and how, having +mastered the words of the experimental scientists of the previous century, +Johnson proceeded to put them to original uses, generating with them new +stylistic overtones in contexts now humorously precise, now +philosophically metaphorical, employing them now for purposes of irony and +satire, and again for striking directly home to the roots of morality and +religion. In a playful mood, he is never more characteristic than when he +is his own mimic, propounding with mock seriousness some preposterous +theory like that of the intellectual advantages of living in a garret: + + I have discovered ... that the tenuity of a defecated air at a proper + distance from the surface of the earth accelerates the fancy, and sets + at liberty those intellectual powers which were before shackled by too + strong attraction, and unable to expand themselves under the pressure of + a gross atmosphere. I have found dullness to quicken into sentiment in a + thin ether, as water, though not very hot, boils in a receiver partly + exhausted; and heads, in appearance empty, have teemed with notions upon + rising ground, as the flaccid sides of a football would have swelled out + into stiffness and extension. + +This is one side of his genius; but another, and profounder, appears in +the eloquent simplicity of such a passage as the following, against our +fears of lessening ourselves in the eyes of others: + + The most useful medicines are often unpleasing to the taste. Those who + are oppressed by their own reputation will, perhaps, not be comforted by + hearing that their cares are unnecessary. But the truth is that no man + is much regarded by the rest of the world. He that considers how little + he dwells upon the condition of others, will learn how little the + attention of others is attracted to himself. While we see multitudes + passing before us, of whom, perhaps, not one appears to deserve our + notice, or excite our sympathy, we should remember that we likewise are + lost in the same throng; that the eye which happens to glance upon us is + turned in a moment on him that follows us, and that the utmost which we + can reasonably hope or fear is, to fill a vacant hour with prattle, and + be forgotten. + +When we approach Johnson's poetry, the revolution of taste becomes a more +acute consideration. It seems very nearly impossible to compare or +contrast eighteenth-century poetry and that of the twentieth without +wilfully tipping the scales in one direction or the other, judgment in +this area being so much influenced by preference. But let us begin with +titles. For a start, let us take, from a recent Pulitzer Prize-winner: +"The Day's No Rounder Than Its Angles Are", and "Don't Look Now But +Mary Is Everybody"; from another distinguished current volume, these: +"The Trance", "Lost", "Meeting"; from another, "After This, Sea", "Lineman +Calling", "Meaning Motion"; and from a fourth, "Terror", "Picnic +Remembered", "Eidolon", and "Monologue at Midnight". Here are individual +assertions, suggestive of individual ways of looking at things; here +are headings that signalize particular events in the authors' +experience,--moments' monuments. Beside them, Johnson's title, "The Vanity +of Human Wishes", looks very dogged and downright. + +Titles are not poems but they have a barometric function. The modern +titles cited above are evocative of a world with which, for the past +century and a half, we have been growing increasingly familiar. This air +we are accustomed to breathe: it requires no unusual effort of adjustment +from us. We readily understand that we are being invited to participate in +a private experience and, by sharing it, to help in giving it as much +universality as may be. It is by no means easy for readers of to-day to +reverse the process, to start with the general and find in it their +personal account. We are more likely to feel a resentment, or at least a +prejudice, against the writer who solicits our attention to a topic +without even the pretense of novelty. + +Johnson's generation would have found it equally hard to see the matter +from our point of view, or to allow that the authors of the poems named +above were being less than impudent or at best flippant in thus brazenly +obtruding their private experience, undisguised, before the reader. We +ought, moreover, to realize that in this judgment they would have the +suffrages of all previous generations, including the greatest writers, +from classical times down to their own. It is we who are singular, not +they. Quite apart from considerations of moral right or wrong, of artistic +good or bad, it obviously, therefore, behooves us to try to cultivate a +habit of mind free from initial bias against so large a proportion of +recorded testimony. + +Very early in _The Rambler_ Johnson remarks characteristically that "men +more frequently require to be reminded than informed." He believed this, +and his generation believed it, because they thought that human nature +changed little from age to age. The problems of conduct that confront the +living individual have been faced countless times by his predecessors, and +the accumulated experience of mankind has arrived at conclusions which in +the main are just and therefore helpful to-day. The most important truths +are those which have been known for a very long time. For that very reason +they tend to be ignored or slighted unless they are restated in such a way +as to arrest attention while they compel assent. Hence the best writing is +that which most successfully resolves the paradox of combining the +sharpest surprise with the widest recognition. Such an ideal is so +difficult of attainment that, inevitably, many who subscribed to it +succeeded only in unleavened platitude and others rejected it for the +easier goal of novelty. + +In this most difficult class _The Vanity of Human Wishes_ has won a +respectable place. It is freighted with a double cargo, the wisdom of two +great civilizations, pagan and Christian. Although based upon Juvenal's +tenth Satire, it is so free a paraphrase as to be an original poem. The +English reader who sets it against Dryden's closer version will sense +immediately its greater weight. It is informed with Johnson's own sombre +and most deeply rooted emotional responses to the meaning of experience. +These, although emanating from a devout practising Christian and certainly +not inconsistent with Christianity, neither reflect the specific articles +of Christian doctrine nor are lightened by the happiness of Christian +faith: they are strongly infused with classical resignation. + +The poem is difficult as well as weighty. At times its expression is so +condensed that the meaning must be wrestled for. Statements so packed as, +for example, + + Fate wings with ev'ry wish th' afflictive dart, + Each gift of nature, and each grace of art, + +do not yield their full intention to the running reader. One line, +indeed,--the eighth from the end (361)--has perhaps never been +satisfactorily explained by any commentator. (The eighteenth paragraph of +Johnson's first sermon might go far to clarify it.) But such difficulties +are worth the effort they demand, because there is always a rational and +unesoteric solution to be gained. + +The work as a whole has form, is shapely, even dramatic; but it is +discontinuous and episodic in its conduct, and is most memorable in its +separate parts. No one can forget the magnificent "set pieces" of Wolsey +and Charles XII; but hardly less noteworthy are the two parallel +invocations interspersed, the one addressed to the young scholar, the +other to young beauties "of rosy lips and radiant eyes",--superb +admonitions both, each containing such felicities of grave, compacted +statement as will hardly be surpassed. The assuaging, marmoreal majesty of +the concluding lines of the poem are a final demonstration of the virtue +of this formal dignity in poetry. If it did not appear invidious, one +would like to quote by way of contrast some lines oddly parallel, but on a +pitch deliberately subdued to a less rhetorical level, from what is +indubitably one of the very greatest poems written in our own century, Mr. +Eliot's _Four Quartets_: + + I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope + For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love + For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith + But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting. + Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: + So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing. + +From _The Vanity of Human Wishes_: + + Still raise for good the supplicating voice, + But leave to heav'n the measure and the choice, + Safe in his pow'r, whose eyes discern afar + The secret ambush of a specious pray'r. + Implore his aid, in his decisions rest, + Secure whate'er he gives, he gives the best.... + Pour forth thy fervours for a healthful mind, + Obedient passions, and a will resign'd; + For love, which scarce collective man can fill; + For patience sov'reign o'er transmuted ill; + For faith, that panting for a happier seat, + Counts death kind Nature's signal of retreat: + These goods for man the laws of heav'n ordain, + These goods he grants, who grants the pow'r to gain; + With these celestial wisdom calms the mind, + And makes the happiness she does not find. + +_The Vanity of Human Wishes_ is reproduced from a copy in the William +Andrews Clark Memorial Library; the _Rambler_ papers from copies in +possession of Professor E.N. Hooker. The lines from T.S. Eliot's _Four +Quartets_ are quoted with the permission of Harcourt, Brace and Company. + +_Bertrand H. Bronson +University of California +Berkeley_ + + + + +THE VANITY OF HUMAN WISHES. + +THE +Tenth Satire of _Juvenal_, +IMITATED +By _SAMUEL JOHNSON_. + +LONDON: + +Printed for R. DODSLEY at Tully's Head in Pall-Mall, +and Sold by M. COOPER in Pater-noster Row. + +M.DCC.XLIX. + + + + +THE +TENTH SATIRE +OF +_JUVENAL_. + + +Let[a] Observation with extensive View, +Survey Mankind, from _China_ to _Peru_; +Remark each anxious Toil, each eager Strife, +And watch the busy Scenes of crouded Life; +Then say how Hope and Fear, Desire and Hate, +O'erspread with Snares the clouded Maze of Fate, +Where wav'ring Man, betray'd by venturous Pride, +To tread the dreary Paths without a Guide; +As treach'rous Phantoms in the Mist delude, +Shuns fancied Ills, or chases airy Good. +How rarely Reason guides the stubborn Choice, +Rules the bold Hand, or prompts the suppliant Voice, +How Nations sink, by darling Schemes oppress'd, +When Vengeance listens to the Fool's Request. +Fate wings with ev'ry Wish th' afflictive Dart, +Each Gift of Nature, and each Grace of Art, +With fatal Heat impetuous Courage glows, +With fatal Sweetness Elocution flows, +Impeachment stops the Speaker's pow'rful Breath, +And restless Fire precipitates on Death. +[Footnote a: Ver. 1-11.] + +[b]But scarce observ'd the Knowing and the Bold, +Fall in the general Massacre of Gold; +Wide-wasting Pest! that rages unconfin'd, +And crouds with Crimes the Records of Mankind, +For Gold his Sword the Hireling Ruffian draws, +For Gold the hireling Judge distorts the Laws; +Wealth heap'd on Wealth, nor Truth nor Safety buys, +The Dangers gather as the Treasures rise. +[Footnote b: Ver. 12-22.] + +Let Hist'ry tell where rival Kings command, +And dubious Title shakes the madded Land, +When Statutes glean the Refuse of the Sword, +How much more safe the Vassal than the Lord, +Low sculks the Hind beneath the Rage of Pow'r, +And leaves the _bonny Traytor_ in the _Tow'r_, +Untouch'd his Cottage, and his Slumbers found, +Tho' Confiscation's Vulturs clang around. + +The needy Traveller, serene and gay, +Walks the wild Heath, and sings his Toil away. +Does Envy seize thee? crush th' upbraiding Joy, +Encrease his Riches and his Peace destroy, +New Fears in dire Vicissitude invade, +The rustling Brake alarms, and quiv'ring Shade, +Nor Light nor Darkness bring his Pain Relief, +One shews the Plunder, and one hides the Thief. + +Yet[c] still the gen'ral Cry the Skies assails +And Gain and Grandeur load the tainted Gales; +Few know the toiling States man's Fear or Care, +Th' insidious Rival and the gaping Heir. +[Footnote c: Ver. 23-27.] + +Once[d] more, _Democritus_, arise on Earth, +With chearful Wisdom and instructive Mirth, +See motley Life in modern Trappings dress'd, +And feed with varied Fools th' eternal Jest: +Thou who couldst laugh where Want enchain'd Caprice, +Toil crush'd Conceit, and Man was of a Piece; +Where Wealth unlov'd without a Mourner dy'd; +And scarce a Sycophant was fed by Pride; +Where ne'er was known the Form of mock Debate, +Or seen a new-made Mayor's unwieldy State; +Where change of Fav'rites made no Change of Laws, +And Senates heard before they judg'd a Cause; +How wouldst thou shake at _Britain's_ modish Tribe, +Dart the quick Taunt, and edge the piercing Gibe? +Attentive Truth and Nature to descry, +And pierce each Scene with Philosophic Eye. +To thee were solemn Toys or empty Shew, +The Robes of Pleasure and the Veils of Woe: +All aid the Farce, and all thy Mirth maintain, +Whose Joys are causeless, or whose Griefs are vain. +[Footnote d: Ver. 28-55.] + +Such was the Scorn that fill'd the Sage's Mind, +Renew'd at ev'ry Glance on Humankind; +How just that Scorn ere yet thy Voice declare, +Search every State, and canvass ev'ry Pray'r. + +[e]Unnumber'd Suppliants croud Preferment's Gate, +Athirst for Wealth, and burning to be great; +Delusive Fortune hears th' incessant Call, +They mount, they shine, evaporate, and fall. +On ev'ry Stage the Foes of Peace attend, +Hate dogs their Flight, and Insult mocks their End. +Love ends with Hope, the sinking Statesman's Door +Pours in the Morning Worshiper no more; +For growing Names the weekly Scribbler lies, +To growing Wealth the Dedicator flies, +From every Room descends the painted Face, +That hung the bright _Palladium_ of the Place, +And smoak'd in Kitchens, or in Auctions sold, +To better Features yields the Frame of Gold; +For now no more we trace in ev'ry Line +Heroic Worth, Benevolence Divine: +The Form distorted justifies the Fall, +And Detestation rids th' indignant Wall. +[Footnote e: Ver. 56-107.] + +But will not _Britain_ hear the last Appeal, +Sign her Foes Doom, or guard her Fav'rites Zeal; +Through Freedom's Sons no more Remonstrance rings; +Degrading Nobles and controuling Kings; +Our supple Tribes repress their Patriot Throats, +And ask no Questions but the Price of Votes; +With Weekly Libels and Septennial Ale, +Their Wish is full to riot and to rail. + +In full-blown Dignity, see _Wolsey_ stand, +Law in his Voice, and Fortune in his Hand: +To him the Church, the Realm, their Pow'rs consign, +Thro' him the Rays of regal Bounty shine, +Turned by his Nod the Stream of Honour flows, +His Smile alone Security bestows: +Still to new Heights his restless Wishes tow'r, +Claim leads to Claim, and Pow'r advances Pow'r; +Till Conquest unresisted ceas'd to please, +And Rights submitted, left him none to seize. +At length his Sov'reign frowns--the Train of State +Mark the keen Glance, and watch the Sign to hate. +Where-e'er he turns he meets a Stranger's Eye, +His Suppliants scorn him, and his Followers fly; +Now drops at once the Pride of aweful State, +The golden Canopy, the glitt'ring Plate, +The regal Palace, the luxurious Board, +The liv'ried Army and the menial Lord. +With Age, with Cares, with Maladies oppress'd, +He seeks the Refuge of Monastic Rest. +Grief aids Disease, remember'd Folly stings, +And his last Sighs reproach the Faith of Kings. + +Speak thou, whose Thoughts at humble Peace repine, +Shall _Wolsey_'s Wealth, with _Wolsey_'s End be thine? +Or liv'st thou now, with safer Pride content, +The richest Landlord on the Banks of _Trent_? +For why did _Wolsey_ by the Steps of Fate, +On weak Foundations raise th' enormous Weight? +Why but to sink beneath Misfortune's Blow, +With louder Ruin to the Gulphs below? + +What[f] gave great _Villiers_ to th' Assassin's Knife, +And fix'd Disease on _Harley_'s closing Life? +What murder'd _Wentworth_, and what exil'd _Hyde_, +By Kings protected and to Kings ally'd? +What but their Wish indulg' in Courts to shine, +And Pow'r too great to keep or to resign? + [Footnote f: Ver. 108-113.] + +When[g] first the College Rolls receive his Name, +The young Enthusiast quits his Ease for Fame; +Resistless burns the Fever of Renown, +Caught from the strong Contagion of the Gown; +O'er _Bodley_'s Dome his future Labours spread, +And _Bacon_'s Mansion trembles o'er his Head; +Are these thy Views? proceed, illustrious Youth, +And Virtue guard thee to the Throne of Truth, +Yet should thy Soul indulge the gen'rous Heat, +Till captive Science yields her last Retreat; +Should Reason guide thee with her brightest Ray, +And pour on misty Doubt resistless Day; +Should no false Kindness lure to loose Delight, +Nor Praise relax, nor Difficulty fright; +Should tempting Novelty thy Cell refrain, +And Sloth's bland Opiates shed their Fumes in vain; +Should Beauty blunt on Fops her fatal Dart, +Nor claim the Triumph of a letter'd Heart; +Should no Disease thy torpid Veins invade, +Nor Melancholy's Phantoms haunt thy Shade; +Yet hope not Life from Grief or Danger free, +Nor think the Doom of Man revers'd for thee: +Deign on the passing World to turn thine Eyes, +And pause awhile from Learning to be wise; +There mark what Ills the Scholar's Life assail; +Toil, Envy, Want, the Garret, and the Jail. +See Nations slowly wise, and meanly just; +To buried Merit raise the tardy Bust. +If Dreams yet flatter, once again attend, +Hear _Lydiat_'s Life, and _Galileo_'s End. +[Footnote g: Ver. 114-132.] + +Nor deem, when Learning her lost Prize bestows +The glitt'ring Eminence exempt from Foes; +See when the Vulgar 'scap'd, despis'd or aw'd, +Rebellion's vengeful Talons seize on _Laud_. +From meaner Minds, tho' smaller Fines content +The plunder'd Palace or sequester'd Rent; +Mark'd out by dangerous Parts he meets the Shock, +And fatal Learning leads him to the Block: +Around his Tomb let Art and Genius weep, +But hear his Death, ye Blockheads, hear and sleep. + +The[h] festal Blazes, the triumphal Show, +The ravish'd Standard, and the captive Foe, +The Senate's Thanks, the Gazette's pompous Tale, +With Force resistless o'er the Brave prevail. +Such Bribes the rapid _Greek_ o'er _Asia_ whirl'd, +For such the steady _Romans_ shook the World; +For such in distant Lands the _Britons_ shine, +And stain with Blood the _Danube_ or the _Rhine_; +This Pow'r has Praise, that Virtue scarce can warm, +Till Fame supplies the universal Charm. +Yet Reason frowns on War's unequal Game, +Where wasted Nations raise a single Name, +And mortgag'd States their Grandsires Wreaths regret +From Age to Age in everlasting Debt; +Wreaths which at last the dear-bought Right convey +To rust on Medals, or on Stones decay. +[Footnote h: Ver. 133-146.] + +On[i] what Foundation stands the Warrior's Pride? +How just his Hopes let _Swedish Charles_ decide; +A Frame of Adamant, a Soul of Fire, +No Dangers fright him, and no Labours tire; +O'er Love, o'er Force, extends his wide Domain, +Unconquer'd Lord of Pleasure and of Pain; +No Joys to him pacific Scepters yield, +War sounds the Trump, he rushes to the Field; +Behold surrounding Kings their Pow'r combine, +And One capitulate, and One resign; +Peace courts his Hand, but spread her Charms in vain; +"Think Nothing gain'd, he cries, till nought remain, +On _Moscow_'s Walls till _Gothic_ Standards fly, +And all is Mine beneath the Polar Sky." +The March begins in Military State, +And Nations on his Eye suspended wait; +Stern Famine guards the solitary Coast, +And Winter barricades the Realms of Frost; +He comes, nor Want nor Cold his Course delay;-- +Hide, blushing Glory, hide _Pultowa_'s Day: +The vanquish'd Hero leaves his broken Bands, +And shews his Miseries in distant Lands; +Condemn'd a needy Supplicant to wait, +While Ladies interpose, and Slaves debate. +But did not Chance at length her Error mend? +Did no subverted Empire mark his End? +Did rival Monarchs give the fatal Wound? +Or hostile Millions press him to the Ground? +His Fall was destin'd to a barren Strand, +A petty Fortress, and a dubious Hand; +He left the Name, at which the World grew pale, +To point a Moral, or adorn a Tale. +[Footnote i: Ver. 147-167.] + +All[k] Times their Scenes of pompous Woes afford, +From _Persia_'s Tyrant to _Bavaria_'s Lord. +In gay Hostility, and barb'rous Pride, +With half Mankind embattled at his Side, +Great _Xerxes_ comes to seize the certain Prey, +And starves exhausted Regions in his Way; +Attendant Flatt'ry counts his Myriads o'er, +Till counted Myriads sooth his Pride no more; +Fresh Praise is try'd till Madness fires his Mind, +The Waves he lashes, and enchains the Wind; +New Pow'rs are claim'd, new Pow'rs are still bestow'd, +Till rude Resistance lops the spreading God; +The daring _Greeks_ deride the Martial Shew, +And heap their Vallies with the gaudy Foe; +Th' insulted Sea with humbler Thoughts he gains, +A single Skiff to speed his Flight remains; +Th' incumber'd Oar scarce leaves the dreaded Coast +Through purple Billows and a floating Host. +[Footnote k: Ver. 168-187.] + +The bold _Bavarian_, in a luckless Hour, +Tries the dread Summits of _Cesarean_ Pow'r, +With unexpected Legions bursts away, +And sees defenceless Realms receive his Sway; +Short Sway! fair _Austria_ spreads her mournful Charms, +The Queen, the Beauty, sets the World in Arms; +From Hill to Hill the Beacons rousing Blaze +Spreads wide the Hope of Plunder and of Praise; +The fierce _Croatian_, and the wild _Hussar_, +And all the Sons of Ravage croud the War; +The baffled Prince in Honour's flatt'ring Bloom +Of hasty Greatness finds the fatal Doom, +His Foes Derision, and his Subjects Blame, +And steals to Death from Anguish and from Shame. + +Enlarge[l] my Life with Multitude of Days, +In Health, in Sickness, thus the Suppliant prays; +Hides from himself his State, and shuns to know, +That Life protracted is protracted Woe. +Time hovers o'er, impatient to destroy, +And shuts up all the Passages of Joy: +In vain their Gifts the bounteous Seasons pour, +The Fruit Autumnal, and the Vernal Flow'r, +With listless Eyes the Dotard views the Store, +He views, and wonders that they please no more; +Now pall the tastless Meats, and joyless Wines, +And Luxury with Sighs her Slave resigns. +Approach, ye Minstrels, try the soothing Strain, +And yield the tuneful Lenitives of Pain: +No Sounds alas would touch th' impervious Ear, +Though dancing Mountains witness'd _Orpheus_ near; +Nor Lute nor Lyre his feeble Pow'rs attend, +Nor sweeter Musick of a virtuous Friend, +But everlasting Dictates croud his Tongue, +Perversely grave, or positively wrong. +The still returning Tale, and ling'ring Jest, +Perplex the fawning Niece and pamper'd Guest, +While growing Hopes scarce awe the gath'ring Sneer, +And scarce a Legacy can bribe to hear; +The watchful Guests still hint the last Offence, +The Daughter's Petulance, the Son's Expence, +Improve his heady Rage with treach'rous Skill, +And mould his Passions till they make his Will. +[Footnote l: Ver. 188.-288.] + +Unnumber'd Maladies each Joint invade, +Lay Siege to Life and press the dire Blockade; +But unextinguish'd Av'rice still remains, +And dreaded Losses aggravate his Pains; +He turns, with anxious Heart and cripled Hands, +His Bonds of Debt, and Mortgages of Lands; +Or views his Coffers with suspicious Eyes, +Unlocks his Gold, and counts it till he dies. + +But grant, the Virtues of a temp'rate Prime +Bless with an Age exempt from Scorn or Crime; +An Age that melts in unperceiv'd Decay, +And glides in modest Innocence away; +Whose peaceful Day Benevolence endears, +Whose Night congratulating Conscience cheers; +The gen'ral Fav'rite as the gen'ral Friend: +Such Age there is, and who could wish its End? + +Yet ev'n on this her Load Misfortune flings, +To press the weary Minutes flagging Wings: +New Sorrow rises as the Day returns, +A Sister sickens, or a Daughter mourns. +Now Kindred Merit fills the fable Bier, +Now lacerated Friendship claims a Tear. +Year chases Year, Decay pursues Decay, +Still drops some Joy from with'ring Life away; +New Forms arise, and diff'rent Views engage, +Superfluous lags the Vet'ran on the Stage, +Till pitying Nature signs the last Release, +And bids afflicted Worth retire to Peace. + +But few there are whom Hours like these await, +Who set unclouded in the Gulphs of Fate. +From _Lydia_'s Monarch should the Search descend, +By _Solon_ caution'd to regard his End, +In Life's last Scene what Prodigies surprise, +Fears of the Brave, and Follies of the Wise? +From _Marlb'rough_'s Eyes the Streams of Dotage flow, +And _Swift_ expires a Driv'ler and a Show. + +The[m] teeming Mother, anxious for her Race, +Begs for each Birth the Fortune of a Face: +Yet _Vane_ could tell what Ills from Beauty spring; +And _Sedley_ curs'd the Form that pleas'd a King. +Ye Nymphs of rosy Lips and radiant Eyes, +Whom Pleasure keeps too busy to be wise, +Whom Joys with soft Varieties invite +By Day the Frolick, and the Dance by Night, +Who frown with Vanity, who smile with Art, +And ask the latest Fashion of the Heart, +What Care, what Rules your heedless Charms shall save, +Each Nymph your Rival, and each Youth your Slave? +An envious Breast with certain Mischief glows, +And Slaves, the Maxim tells, are always Foes, +Against your Fame with Fondness Hate combines, +The Rival batters, and the Lover mines. +With distant Voice neglected Virtue calls, +Less heard, and less the faint Remonstrance falls; +Tir'd with Contempt, she quits the slipp'ry Reign, +And Pride and Prudence take her Seat in vain. +In croud at once, where none the Pass defend, +The harmless Freedom, and the private Friend. +The Guardians yield, by Force superior ply'd; +By Int'rest, Prudence; and by Flatt'ry, Pride. +Here Beauty falls betray'd, despis'd, distress'd, +And hissing Infamy proclaims the rest. +[Footnote m: Ver. 289-345.] + +Where[n] then shall Hope and Fear their Objects find? +Must dull Suspence corrupt the stagnant Mind? +Must helpless Man, in Ignorance sedate, +Swim darkling down the Current of his Fate? +Must no Dislike alarm, no Wishes rise, +No Cries attempt the Mercies of the Skies? +Enquirer, cease, Petitions yet remain, +Which Heav'n may hear, nor deem Religion vain. +Still raise for Good the supplicating Voice, +But leave to Heav'n the Measure and the Choice. +Safe in his Pow'r, whose Eyes discern afar +The secret Ambush of a specious Pray'r. +Implore his Aid, in his Decisions rest, +Secure whate'er he gives, he gives the best. +Yet with the Sense of sacred Presence prest, +When strong Devotion fills thy glowing Breast, +Pour forth thy Fervours for a healthful Mind, +Obedient Passions, and a Will resign'd; +For Love, which scarce collective Man can fill; +For Patience sov'reign o'er transmuted Ill; +For Faith, that panting for a happier Seat, +Thinks Death kind Nature's Signal of Retreat: +These Goods for Man the Laws of Heav'n ordain, +These Goods he grants, who grants the Pow'r to gain; +With these celestial Wisdom calms the Mind, +And makes the Happiness she does not find. +[Footnote n: Ver. 346-366.] + +_FINIS._ + + + + +THE RAMBLER. + + +NUMB. 5. Price 2 _d._ + +TUESDAY, _April 3, 1750_. + +_To be continued on_ TUESDAYS _and_ SATURDAYS. + + + _Et nunc omnis Ager, nunc omnis parturit Arbos, + Nunc frondent Silvae, nunc formosissimus Annus_. + VIRG. + + +Every Man is sufficiently discontented with some Circumstances of his +present State, to suffer his Imagination to range more or less in quest of +future Happiness, and to fix upon some Point of Time, in which he shall, +by the Removal of the Inconvenience which now perplexes him, or the +Acquisition of Advantage which he at present wants, find his Condition of +Life very much improved. + +When this Time, which is too often expected with great Impatience, at last +arrives, it generally comes without the Blessing for which it was desired; +but we solace ourselves with some new Prospect, and press forward again +with equal Eagerness. + +It is some Advantage to a Man, in whom this Temper prevails in any great +Degree, when he turns his Hopes upon Things wholly out of his own Power, +since he forbears then to precipitate his Affairs, for the Sake of the +great Event that is to complete his Felicity, and waits for the blissful +Hour, without neglecting such Measures as are necessary to be taken in the +mean Time. + +I have long known a Person of this Temper, who indulged his Dream of +Happiness with less Hurt to himself than such chimerical Wishes commonly +produce, and adjusted his Scheme with such Address, that his Hopes were in +full bloom three parts of the Year, and in the other part never wholly +blasted. Many, perhaps, would be desirous of learning by what Means he +procured to himself such a cheap and lasting Satisfaction. It was gained +only by a constant Practice of referring the Removal of all his Uneasiness +to the Coming of the next Spring. If his Affairs were disordered, he could +regulate them in the Spring; if a Regimen was prescribed him, the Spring +was the proper Time of pursuing it; if what he wanted was at a high Price, +it would fall its Value in the Spring. + +The Spring, indeed, did often come without any of these Effects; but he +was always certain that the next would be more propitious; and was never +convinced that the present Spring would fail him until the Middle of +Summer; for he always talked of the Spring as coming 'till it was past, +and when it was once past, every one agreed with him that it was coming. + +By long Converse with this Man, I am, perhaps, in some Degree brought to +feel the same immoderate Pleasure in the Contemplation of this delightful +Season; but I have the Satisfaction of finding many, whom it can be no +Shame to resemble, infected with the same Enthusiasm; for there is, I +believe, scarce any Poet of Eminence, who has not left some Testimony of +his Fondness for the Flowers, the Zephyrs, and the Warblers of the Spring. +Nor has the most luxuriant Imagination been able to describe the Serenity +and Happiness of the golden Age otherwise than by giving a perpetual +Spring, as the highest Reward of uncorrupted Innocence. + +There is, indeed, something inexpressibly pleasing in the annual +Renovation of the World, and the new Display of the Treasures of Nature. +The Cold and Darkness of Winter, with the naked Deformity of every Object +on which we turn our Eyes, makes us necessarily rejoice at the succeeding +Season, as well for what we have escaped, as for what we may enjoy; and +every budding Flower, which a warm Situation brings early to our View, is +considered by us as a Messenger, to inform us of the Approach of more +joyous Days. + +The Spring affords to a Mind, so free from the Disturbance of Cares or +Passions as to be vacant to calm Amusements, almost every Thing that our +present State makes us capable of enjoying. The variegated Verdure of the +Fields and Woods, the Succession of grateful Odours, the Voice of Pleasure +pouring out its Notes on every Side, with the Observation of the Gladness +apparently conceived by every Animal, from the Growth of his Food, and the +Clemency of the Weather, throw over the whole Earth an Air of Gayety, +which is very significantly expressed by the Smile of Nature. + +There are Men to whom these Scenes are able to give no Delight, and who +hurry away from all the Varieties of rural Beauty, to lose their Hours, +and divert their Thoughts by Cards, or publick Assemblies, a Tavern +Dinner, or the Prattle of the Day. + +It may be laid down as a Position which will seldom deceive, that when a +Man cannot bear his own Company there is something wrong. He must fly from +himself, either because he feels a Tediousness in Life from the Equipoise +of an empty Mind, which, having no Tendency to one Motion more than +another but as it is impelled by some external Power, must always have +recourse to foreign Objects; or he must be afraid of the Intrusion of some +unpleasing Ideas, and, perhaps, is always struggling to escape from the +Remembrance of a Loss, the Fear of a Calamity, or some other Thought of +greater Horror. + +Those, who are incapacitated to enjoy the Pleasures of Contemplation, by +their Griefs, may, very properly, apply to such Diversions, provided they +are innocent, as lay strong hold on the Attention; and those, whom Fear of +any future Calamity chains down to Misery, must endeavour to obviate the +Danger. + +My Considerations shall, on this Occasion, be turned on such as are +burthensome to themselves merely because they want Subjects for +Reflection, and to whom the Volume of Nature is thrown open without +affording them Pleasure or Instruction, because they never learned to read +the Characters. + +A French Author has advanced this seeming Paradox, that _very few Men know +how to take a Walk_; and, indeed, it is very true, that few Men know how +to take a Walk with a Prospect of any other Pleasure, than the same +Company would have afforded them in any other Circumstances. + +There are Animals that borrow their Colour from the neighbouring Body, +and, consequently, vary their Hue as they happen to change their Place. In +like manner it ought to be the Endeavour of every Man to derive his +Reflexions from the Objects about him; for it is to no purpose that he +alters his Position, if his Attention continues fixt to the same Point. +The Mind should be kept open to the Access of every new Idea, and so far +disengaged from the Predominance of particular Thoughts, as to be able to +accommodate itself to emergent Occasions, and remark every Thing that +offers itself to present Examination. + +A Man that has formed this Habit of turning every new Object to his +Entertainment, finds in the Productions of Nature an inexhaustible Stock +of Materials, upon which he can employ himself, without any Temptations to +Envy or Malevolence; Faults, perhaps, seldom totally avoided by those, +whose Judgment is much exercised upon the Works of Art. He has always a +certain Prospect of discovering new Reasons for adoring the Sovereign +Author of the Universe, and probable Hopes of making some Discovery of +Benefit to others, or of Profit to himself. There is no doubt but many +Vegetables and Animals have Qualities that might be of great Use; to the +Knowledge of which there is required no great Sagacity of Penetration, or +Fatigue of Study, but only frequent Experiments, and close Attention. What +is said by the Chymists of their darling Mercury, is, perhaps, true of +every Body through the whole Creation, that, if a thousand Lives should be +spent upon it, all its Properties would not be found out. + +Mankind must necessarily be diversified by various Tastes, since Life +affords and requires such multiplicity of Employments; and a Nation of +Naturalists is neither to be hoped, or desired, but it is surely not +improper to point out a fresh Amusement to those who langush in Health, +and repine in Plenty, for want of some Source of Diversion that may be +less easily exhausted, and to inform the Multitudes of both Sexes, who are +burthened with every new Day, that there are many Shews which they have +not seen. + +He that enlarges his Curiosity after the Works of Nature, demonstrably +multiplies the Inlets to Happiness, and, therefore, the younger Part of my +Readers, to whom I dedicate this vernal Speculation, must excuse me for +calling upon them to make use at once of the Spring of the Year, and the +Spring of Life; to acquire, while their Minds may be yet impressed with +new Images, a Love of innocent Pleasures, and an ardour for useful +Knowledge; and to remember, that a blighted Spring makes a barren Year, +and that the vernal Flowers, however beautiful and gay, are only intended +by Nature as Preparatives to Autumnal Fruits. + + +_LONDON_: +Printed for J. PAYNE, and J. BOUQUET, in Pater-noster-Row; +where Letters for the RAMBLER are received, and the preceding +Numbers may be had. + + + + +THE RAMBLER. + + +NUMB. 60. Price 2 _d._ + +_To be continued on_ TUESDAYS _and_ SATURDAYS. + +SATURDAY, _October_ 13, 1750. + + --_Quid fit pulchrum, quid turpe, quid utile, quid non, + Plenius et melius_ Chrysippo _et_ Crantore _dicit_. HOR. + + +All Joy or Sorrow for the Happiness or Calamities of others is produced by +an Act of the Imagination, that realises the Event however fictitious, or +approximates it however remote, by placing us, for a Time, in the +Condition of him whose Fortune we contemplate; so that we feel, while the +Deception lasts, whatever Motions would be excited by the same Good or +Evil happening to ourselves. + +Our Passions are therefore more strongly moved, in proportion as we can +more readily adopt the Pains or Pleasures proposed to our Minds, by +recognising them as once our own, or considering them as naturally +incident to our State of Life. It is not easy for the most artful Writer +to give us an Interest in Happiness or Misery, which we think ourselves +never likely to feel, and with which we have never yet been made +acquainted. Histories of the Downfall of Kingdoms, and Revolutions of +Empires are read with great Tranquillity; the imperial Tragedy pleases +common Auditors only by its Pomp of Ornament, and Grandeur of Ideas; and +the Man whose Faculties have been engrossed by Business, and whose Heart +never fluttered but at the Rise or Fall of Stocks, wonders how the +Attention can be seized, or the Affections agitated by a Tale of Love. + +Those parallel Circumstances, and kindred Images to which we readily +conform our Minds, are, above all other Writings, to be found in +Narratives of the Lives of particular Persons; and there seems therefore +no Species of Writing more worthy of Cultivation than Biography, since +none can be more delightful, or more useful, none can more certainly +enchain the Heart by irresistible Interest, or more widely diffuse +Instruction to every Diversity of Condition. + +The general and rapid Narratives of History, which involve a thousand +Fortunes in the Business of a Day, and complicate innumerable Incidents in +one great Transaction, afford few Lessons applicable to private Life, +which derives its Comforts and its Wretchedness from the right or wrong +Management of Things that nothing but their Frequency makes considerable, +_Parva si non fiunt quotidie_, says _Pliny_, and which can have no Place +in those Relations which never descend below the Consultation of Senates, +the Motions of Armies, and the Schemes of Conspirators. + +I have often thought that there has rarely passed a Life of which a +judicious and faithful Narrative would not be useful. For, not only every +Man has in the mighty Mass of the World great Numbers in the same +Condition with himself, to whom his Mistakes and Miscarriages, Escapes and +Expedients would be of immediate and apparent Use; but there is such an +Uniformity in the Life of Man, if it be considered apart from adventitious +and separable Decorations and Disguises, that there is scarce any +Possibility of Good or Ill, but is common to Humankind. A great Part of +the Time of those who are placed at the greatest Distance by Fortune, or +by Temper, must unavoidably pass in the same Manner; and though, when the +Claims of Nature are satisfied, Caprice, and Vanity, and Accident, begin +to produce Discriminations, and Peculiarities, yet the Eye is not very +heedful, or quick, which cannot discover the same Causes still terminating +their Influence in the same Effects, though sometimes accelerated, +sometimes retarded, or perplexed by multiplied Combinations. We are all +prompted by the same Motives, all deceived by the same Fallacies, all +animated by Hope, obstructed by Danger, entangled by Desire, and seduced +by Pleasure. + +It is frequently objected to Relations of particular Lives, that they are +not distinguished by any striking or wonderful Vicissitude. The Scholar +who passes his Life among his Books, the Merchant who conducted only his +own Affairs, the Priest whose Sphere of Action was not extended beyond +that of his Duty, are considered as no proper Objects of publick Regard, +however they might have excelled in their several Stations, whatever might +have been their Learning, Integrity, and Piety. But this Notion arises +from false Measures of Excellence and Dignity, and must be eradicated by +considering, that, in the Eye of uncorrupted Reason, what is of most Use +is of most Value. + +It is, indeed, not improper to take honest Advantages of Prejudice, and to +gain Attention by a great Name; but the Business of the Biographer is +often to pass slightly over those Performances and Incidents, which +produce vulgar Greatness, to lead the Thoughts into domestick Privacies, +and display the minute Details of daily Life, where exterior Appendages +are cast aside, and Men excel each other only by Prudence, and by Virtue. +The Life of _Thuanus_ is, with great Propriety, said by its Author to have +been written, that it might lay open to Posterity the private and familiar +Character of that Man, _cujus Ingenium et Candorem ex ipsius Scriptis sunt +olim simper miraturi_, whose Candour and Genius his Writings will to the +End of Time preserve in Admiration. + +There are many invisible Circumstances, which whether we read as Enquirers +after natural or moral Knowledge, whether we intend to enlarge our +Science, or encrease our Virtue, are more important than publick +Occurrences. Thus _Salust_, the great Master, has not forgot, in his +Account of _Catiline_, to remark that _his Walk was now quick, and again +slow_, as an Indication of a Mind revolving something with violent +Commotion. Thus the Story of _Melancthon_ affords a striking Lecture on +the Value of Time, by informing us that when he made an Appointment, he +expected not only the Hour, but the Minute to be fixed, that Life might +not run out in the Idleness of Suspense; and all the Plans and Enterprizes +of _De Wit_ are now of less Importance to the World, than that Part of his +personal Character which represents him as careful of his Health, and +negligent of his Life. + +But Biography has often been allotted to Writers who seem very little +acquainted with the Nature of their Task, or very negligent about the +Performance. They rarely afford any other Account than might be collected +from publick Papers, and imagine themselves writing a Life when they +exhibit a chronological Series of Actions or Preferments; and so little +regard the Manners or Behaviour of their Heroes, that more Knowledge may +be gained of a Man's real Character, by a short Conversation with one of +his Servants, than from a formal and studied Narrative, begun with his +Pedigree, and ended with his Funeral. + +If now and then they condescend to inform the World of particular Facts, +they are not always so happy as to select those which are of most +Importance. I know not well what Advantage Posterity can receive from the +only Circumstance by which _Tickell_ has distinguished _Addison_ from the +Rest of Mankind, the Irregularity of his Pulse: nor can I think myself +overpaid for the Time spent in reading the Life of _Malherb_, by being +enabled to relate, after the learned Biographer, that _Malherb_ had two +predominant Opinions; one, that the Looseness of a single Woman might +destroy all the Boast of ancient Descent; the other, that the _French_ +Beggers made use very improperly and barbarously of the Phrase _noble +Gentleman_, because either Word included the Sense of both. + +There are, indeed, some natural Reasons why these Narratives are often +written by such as were not likely to give much Instruction or Delight, +and why most Accounts of particular Persons are barren and useless. If a +Life be delayed till all Interest and Envy are at an End, and all Motives +to Calumny or Flattery are suppressed, we may hope for Impartiality, but +must expect little Intelligence; for the Incidents which give Excellence +to Biography are of a volatile and evanescent Kind, such as soon escape +the Memory, and are rarely transmitted by Tradition. We know how few can +portray a living Acquaintance, except by his most prominent and observable +Particularities, and the grosser Features of his Mind; and it may be +easily imagined how much of this little Knowledge may be lost in imparting +it, and how soon a Succession of Copies will lose all Resemblance of the +Original. + +If the Biographer writes from personal Knowledge, and makes haste to +gratify the publick Curiosity, there is Danger left his Interest, his +Fear, his Gratitude, or his Tenderness, overpower his Fidelity, and tempt +him to conceal, if not to invent. There are many who think it an Act of +Piety to hide the Faults or Failings of their Friends, even when they can +no longer suffer by their Detection; we therefore see whole Ranks of +Characters adorned with uniform Panegyrick, and not to be known from one +another, but by extrinsick and casual Circumstances. "Let me remember, +says _Hale_, when I find myself inclined to pity a Criminal, that there is +likewise a Pity due to the Country." If there is a Regard due to the +Memory of the Dead, there is yet more Respect to be paid to Knowledge, to +Virtue, and to Truth. + + +_LONDON_: +Printed for J. PAYNE, and J. BOUQUET, in Pater-noster-Row, +where Letters for the RAMBLER are received, and the preceding +Numbers may be had. + + + + +PUBLICATIONS OF THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY + + +First Year (1946-1947) + +1. Richard Blackmore's _Essay upon Wit_ (1716), and Addison's _Freeholder_ +No. 45 (1716). (I, 1) + +2. Samuel Cobb's _Of Poetry_ and _Discourse on Criticism_ (1707). (II, 1) + +3. _Letter to A.H. Esq.; concerning the Stage_ (1698), and Richard Willis' +_Occasional Paper No. IX_ (1698). (III, 1) + +4. _Essay on Wit_ (1748), together with Characters by Flecknoe, and Joseph +Warton's _Adventurer_ Nos. 127 and 133. (I, 2) + +5. Samuel Wesley's _Epistle to a Friend Concerning Poetry_ (1700) and +_Essay on Heroic Poetry_ (1693). (II, 2) + +6. _Representation of the Impiety and Immorality of the Stage_ (1704) and +_Some Thoughts Concerning the Stage_ (1704). (III, 2) + + +Second Year (1947-1948) + +7. John Gay's _The Present State of Wit_ (1711); and a section on Wit from +_The English Theophrastus_ (1702). (I, 3) + +8. Rapin's _De Carmine Pastorali_, translated by Creech (1684). (II, 3) + +9. T. Hanmer's (?) _Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet_ (1736). (III, +3) + +10. Corbyn Morris' _Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, etc._ +(1744). (I, 4) + +11. Thomas Purney's _Discourse on the Pastoral_ (1717). (II, 4) + +12. Essays on the Stage, selected, with an Introduction by Joseph Wood +Krutch. (III, 4) + + +Third Year (1948-1949) + +13. Sir John Falstaff (pseud.), _The Theatre_ (1720). (IV, 1) + +14. Edward Moore's _The Gamester_ (1753). (V, 1) + +15. John Oldmixon's _Reflections on Dr. Swift's Letter to Harley_ (1712); +and Arthur Mainwaring's _The British Academy_ (1712). (VI, 1) + +16. Nevil Payne's _Fatal Jealousy_ (1673). (V, 2) + +17. Nicholas Rowe's _Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespear_ +(1709). (Extra Series, 1) + +18. Aaron Hill's Preface to _The Creation_; and Thomas Brereton's +Preface to _Esther_. (IV, 2) + + + +_The Editors of_ THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY +_are pleased to announce that_ + +THE WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK MEMORIAL LIBRARY +_of The University of California, Los Angeles_ + +will become the publisher of the Augustan Reprints in May, 1949. The +editorial policy of the Society will continue unchanged. As in the past, +the editors will strive to furnish members inexpensive reprints of rare +seventeenth and eighteenth century works. + +All correspondence concerning subscriptions in the United States and +Canada should be addressed to the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, +2205 West Adams Blvd., Los Angeles 7, California. Correspondence +concerning editorial matters may be addressed to any of the general +editors. Membership fee continues $2.50 per year ($2.75 in Great Britain +and the continent). British and European subscribers should address B.H. +Blackwell, Broad Street, Oxford, England. + + +Publications for the fourth year (1949-1950) +(_At least six items will be printed in the main from the following list_) + + +SERIES IV: MEN, MANNERS, AND CRITICS + +John Dryden, _His Majesties Declaration Defended_ (1681) + +Daniel Defoe (?), _Vindication of the Press_ (1718) _Critical Remarks on +Sir Charles Grandison, Clarissa, and Pamela_ (1754) + + +SERIES V: DRAMA + +Thomas Southerne, _Oroonoko_ (1696) + +Mrs. Centlivre, _The Busie Body_ (1709) + +Charles Johnson, _Caelia_ (1733) + +Charles Macklin, _Man of the World_ (1781) + + +SERIES VI: POETRY AND LANGUAGE + +Andre Dacier, _Essay on Lyric Poetry_ + +_Poems_ by Thomas Sprat + +_Poems_ by the Earl of Dorset + +Samuel Johnson, _Vanity of Human Wishes_ (1749), and one of the 1750 +_Rambler_ papers. + + +EXTRA SERIES: + +Lewis Theobald, _Preface to Shakespeare's Works_ (1733) + +A few copies of the early publications of the Society are still available +at the original rate. + + +GENERAL EDITORS + +H. RICHARD ARCHER, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library +R.C. BOYS, University of Michigan +E.N. HOOKER, University of California, Los Angeles +H.T. 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