No. 131. TUESDAY, AUGUST 11, 1713.

Iter pigrorum quasi sepes spinarum.

EX LATIN. PROV.

The way of the slothful man is an hedge of thorns.

PROV. XV. 19.

THERE are two sorts of persons within the consideration of my frontispiece; the first are the mighty body of Lingerers, persons who do not indeed employ their time criminally, but are such pretty innocents, who, as the poet says,

waste away

In gentle inactivity the day.

The others being something more vivacious, are such as do not only omit to spend their time well, but are in the constant pursuit of criminal satisfactions. Whatever the divine may think, the case of the first seems to be the most deplorable, as the habit of sloth is more invincible than that of vice. The first is preferred even when the man is fully possessed of himself, and submitted to with constant deliberation, and cool thought. The other we are driven into generally through the heat of wine, or youth, which Mr. Hobbes calls a natural drunkenness; and therefore consequently are more excusable for any errors committed during the deprivation or suspension of our reason, than in the possession of it. The irregular starts of vicious appetites are in time destroyed by the gratification of them; but a well-ordered life of sloth receives daily strength from its continuance. I went, says Solomon, by the field of the slothful, and the vineyard of the man void of understanding; and lo! it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down.' To raise the image of

this person, the same author adds, The slothful man hideth his hand in his bosom, and it grieveth him to bring it again to his mouth.' If there were no future account expected of spending our time, the immediate inconvenience that attends a life of idleness should of itself be persuasion enough to the men of sense to avoid it. I say to the men of sense, because there are of these that give into it, and for these chiefly is this paper designed. Arguments drawn from future rewards and punishments, are things too remote for the consideration of stubborn sanguine youth. They are affected by such only as propose immediate pleasure or pain; as the strongest persuasive to the children of Israel was a land flowing with milk and honey. I believe I may say there is more toil, fatigue, and uneasiness in sloth, than can be found in any employment a man will put himself upon.. When a thoughtful man is once fixed this way, spleen is the necessary consequence. This directs him instantly to the contemplation of his health or circumstances, which must ever be found extremely bad upon these melancholy inquiries. If he have any common business upon his hands, numberless objections arise, that make the despatch of it impossible; and he cries out with Solomon, There is a lion in the way, a lion in the streets; that is, there is some difficulty or other, which to his imagination is as invincible as a lion really would be. The man, on the contrary, that applies himself to books, or business, contracts a cheerful confidence in all his undertakings, from the daily improvement of his knowledge or fortune, and instead of giving himself up to

6

Thick-ey'd musing, and cursed melancholy.'

SHAKSPEARE.

has that constant life in his visage and conversation,

which the idle splenetic man borrows sometimes from the sun-shine, exercise, or an agreeable friend. A recluse idle sobriety must be attended with more bitter remorse, than the most active debauchery can at any intervals be molested with. The rake, if he is a cautious manager, will allow himself very little time to examine his own conduct, and will bestow as few reflections upon himself, as the lingerer does upon any thing else, unless he has the misfortune to repent. I repeat the misfortune to repent, because I have put the great day of account out of the present case, and am now inquiring, not whose life is most irreligious, but most inconvenient. A gentleman that has formerly been a very eminent lingerer, and something splenetic, informs me, that in one winter he drank six hampers of Spa-water, several gallons of chalybeate tincture, two hogsheads of bitters, at the rate of sixty pound an hogshead, laid one hundred and fifty infallible schemes, in every one of which he was disappointed, received a thousand affronts during the north-easterly winds, and in short run through more misery and expense, than the most meritorious brave could boast of. Another tells me, that he fell into this way at the university, where the youth are too apt to be lulled into a state of such tranquillity as prejudices them against the bustle of that worldly business, for which this part of their education should them. As he could with the utmost secrecy prepare them. be Idle in his own chamber, he says he was for some years irrecoverably sunk, and immersed in the luxury of an easy-chair, though at the same time, in the general opinion, he passed for a hard student. During this lethargy he had some intervals of application to books, which rather aggravated than suspended the painful thoughts of a mis-spent life. Thus his sup

posed relief became his punishment, and like the damned in Milton, upon their conveyance at certain revolutions from fire to ice,

He felt by turns the bitter change

Of fierce extremes, extremes by change more fierce.'

When he had a mind to go out, he was so scrupulous as to form some excuse or other, which the Idle are ever provided with, and could not satisfy himself without this ridiculous appearance of justice. Sometimes by his own contrivance and insinuation, the woman that looked after his chamber would convince him of the necessity of washing his room, or any other matter of the like joyous import, to which he always submitted, after having decently opposed it, and made his exit with much seeming reluctance and inward delight. Thus did he pass the noon of his life in the solitude of a monk, and the guilt of a libertine. He is since awakened, by application, out of slumber; has no more spleen than a Dutchman, who, as sir W. Temple observes, is not delicate or idle enough to suffer from this enemy, but is always well when he is not ill, always pleased when he is not angry.

There is a gentleman I have seen at a coffee-house, near the place of my abode, who having a pretty good estate, and a disinclination to books or business, to secure himself from some of the above-mentioned misfortunes, employs himself with much alacrity in the following method. Being vehemently disposed to loquacity, he has a person constantly with him, to whom he gives an annual pension, for no other merit but being very attentive, and never interrupting him by question and answer, whatever he may utter that may seemingly require it. To secure to himself discourse, his fundamental maxim seems to be, by no

means to consider what he is going to say. He delivers, therefore, every thought as it first intrudes itself upon him, and then, with all the freedom you could wish, will examine it, and rally the impertinence, or evince the truth of it. In short, he took the same pleasure in confuting himself, as he could have done in discomfiting an opponent; and his discourse was as that of two persons attacking each other with exceeding warmth, incoherence, and good-nature. There is another, whom I have seen in the park, employing himself with the same industry, though not with the same innocence. He is very dexterous in taking flies, and fixing one at each end of a horse hair, which his periwig supplies him with. He hangs them over a little stick, which suspension inclines them immediately to war upon each other, there being no possibility of retreat. From the frequent attention of his eye to these combats, he perceives the several turns and advantages of the battle, which are altogether invisible to a common spectator. I the other day found him in the enjoyment of a couple of gigantic blue-bottles, which were hung out and embattled in the aforesaid warlike appointments. That I might enter into the secret shocks of this conflict, he lent me a magnifying glass, which presented me with an engagement between two of the most rueful monsters I have ever read of even in romance.

If we cannot bring ourselves to appoint and perform such tasks as would be of considerable advantage to us; let us resolve upon some other, however trifling, to be performed at appointed times. By this we may gain a victory over a wandering unsettled mind, and by this regulation of the impulse of our wills, may in time make them obedient to the dictates. of our reason.

When I am disposed to treat of the irreligion of