No. 200. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1752. Nemo petit modicis quæ mittebantur amicis No man expects (for who so much a sot To all their titles, all that height of pow'r, Which turns the brains of fools, and fools alone adore. "Tis all we ask, receive him as a friend : Descend to this, and then we ask no more; "Of the fancy in manhood. Ambit.-stocks-bargains.— Of the wise and sober in old age-seriousness-formality -maxims, but general-only of the rich, otherwise age is happy-but at last everything referred to riches-no having fame, honour, influence, without subjection to caprice. "Horace [The motto is from Horace]. "Hard it would be if men entered life with the same views with which they leave it, or left as they enter it.-No hope -no undertaking-no regard to benevolence-no fear of disgrace, &c. "Youth to be taught the piety of age-age to retain the honour of youth."-Boswell's Johnson, i. 205. 1 Juvenal, Satires, v. 108. To the RAMBLER. MR. RAMBLER, UCH is the tenderness or infirmity of many minds, that when any affliction oppresses them, they have immediate recourse to lamentation and complaint, which, though it can only be allowed reasonable when evils admit of remedy, and then only when addressed to those from whom the remedy is expected, yet seems even in hopeless and incurable distresses to be natural, since those by whom it is not indulged, imagine that they give a proof of extraordinary fortitude by suppressing it. I am one of those who, with the Sancho of Cervantes, leave to higher characters the merit of suffering in silence, and give vent without scruple to any sorrow that swells in my heart It is therefore to me a severe aggravation of a calamity, when it is such as in the common opinion will not justify the acerbity of exclamation, or support the 1 "Pray, sir,' said Sancho, 'sit a little more upright in your saddle; for you seem to me to ride sideling, occasioned doubtless by your being so sorely bruised.' 'It is certainly so,' answered Don Quixote, and if I do not complain, it is because Knights-errant are not allowed to complain of any wound whatever, even though their entrails should come out of the body.' 'If that be the case, I have nothing to reply,' answered Sancho; 'but God knows I should be glad to hear your worship complain when anything ails you. As for myself, I shall be apt to complain of the least pain I feel, unless this business of not complaining be understood to extend to the squires as well as the knights.”—Don Quixote, bk i., ch. viii. solemnity of vocal grief. Yet many pains are incident to a man of delicacy, which the unfeeling world cannot be persuaded to pity, and which, when they are separated from their peculiar and personal circumstances, will never be considered as important enough to claim attention, or deserve redress. Of this kind will appear to gross and vulgar apprehensions, the miseries which I endured in a morning visit to Prospero,1 a man lately raised to wealth by a lucky project, and too much intoxicated by sudden elevation, or too little polished by thought and conversation, to enjoy his present fortune with elegance and decency. We set out in the world together2; and for a long time mutually assisted each other in our exigencies, as either happened to have money or influence beyond his immediate necessities. You know that nothing generally endears men SO 1 "Some of the characters in The Rambler are believed to have been actually drawn from the life, particularly that of Prospero from Garrick, who never entirely forgave its pointed satire."-Boswell's Johnson, i. 216. 2 "Both Johnson and Garrick used to talk pleasantly of their first journey to London. Garrick, evidently meaning to embellish a little, said one day in my hearing, 'We rode and tied.' And the Bishop of Killaloe informed me, that at another time, when Johnson and Garrick were dining together in a pretty large company, Johnson humorously ascertaining the chronology of something, expressed himself thus:-'That was the year when I came to London with twopence halfpenny in my pocket.' Garrick overhearing him, exclaimed, 'Eh? What do you say? With twopence halfpenny in your pocket?' JOHNSON. 'Why, yes; when I came with twopence halfpenny in my pocket, and thou, Davy, with threehalfpence in thine.'"-Ib., i. 101. much as participation of dangers and misfortunes; I therefore always considered Prospero as united with me in the strongest league of kindness, and imagined that our friendship was only to be broken by the hand of death. I felt at his sudden shoot of success1 an honest and disinterested joy ; but as I want no part of his superfluities, am not willing to descend from that equality in which we hitherto have lived. Our intimacy was regarded by me as a dispensation from ceremonial visits; and it was so long before I saw him at his new house, that he gently complained of my neglect, and obliged me to come on a day appointed. I kept my promise, but found that the impatience of my friend arose not from any desire to communicate his happiness, but to enjoy his superiority. When I told my name at the door, the footman went to see if his master was at home, and, by the tardiness of his return, gave me reason to suspect that time was taken to deliberate. He then informed me, that Prospero desired my company, and showed the staircase carefully secured by mats from the pollution of my feet. The best apartments were ostentatiously set open, that I might have a distant view of the magnificence which I was not permitted to approach; and my old friend receiving me with all the insolence of condescension at the top of the stairs, conducted 1 Gray, writing in the end of 1741 or early in 1742, says : -"Did I tell you about Mr. Garrick, that the town are horn-mad after: there are a dozen dukes of a night at Goodman's Fields sometimes."-Gray's Works, ed. 1858, ii. 185. me to a back room, where he told me he always breakfasted when he had not great company. On the floor where we sat, lay a carpet covered with a cloth, of which Prospero ordered his servant to lift up a corner, that I might contemplate the brightness of the colours, and the elegance of the texture, and asked me whether I had ever seen any thing so fine before? I did not gratify his folly with any outcries of admiration, but coldly bade the footman let down the cloth. We then sat down, and I began to hope that pride was glutted with persecution, when Prospero desired that I would give the servant leave to adjust the cover of my chair, which was slipt a little aside, to show the damask; he informed me that he had bespoke ordinary chairs for common use, but had been disappointed by his tradesman. I put the chair aside with my foot, and drew another so hastily, that I was entreated not to rumple the carpet. Breakfast was at last set, and as I was not willing to indulge the peevishness that began to seize me, I commended the teal; Prospero then told me, that another time I should taste his finest sort, but that he had only a very small quantity remaining, and reserved it for those 1 "Dr. Scorr. 'Garrick has been represented as very saving.' JOHNSON. 'With his domestic saving we have nothing to do. I remember drinking tea with him long ago, when Peg Woffington made it, and he grumbled at her for making it too strong.' When Johnson told this little anecdote to Sir Joshua Reynolds, he mentioned a circumstance which he omitted to-day :-'Why (said Garrick) it is as red as blood."-Boswell's Johnson, iii. 264. |