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THE

ADVENTURER.

No. 94. SATURDAY, SEPT, 29, 1753.

Monstro quod ipse tibi possis dare.

Juv.

What I show,

Thyself may freely on thyself bestow.

"SIR,

66 TO THE ADVENTURER.

DRYDEN.

"You have somewhere discouraged the hope of idleness by showing, that whoever compares the number of those who have possessed fortuitous advantages, and of those who have been disappointed in their expectations, will have little reason to register himself in the lucky catalogue.

"But as we have seen thousands snbscribe to a raffle, of which one only could obtain the prize; so idleness will still presume to hope, if the advantages, however improbable, are admitted to lie within the bounds of possibility. Let the drone, therefore, be told, that if by the error of fortune he obtains the stores of the bee, he cannot enjoy the felicity; that the honey which is not gathered by industry will be eaten without relish, if it is not wasted in riot; and that all who become possessed of the immediate object of their hope, without any

VOL. III.

B

efforts of their own, will be disappointed of enjoy-,

ment.

"No life can be happy but that which is spent in the prosecution of some purpose to which our powers are equal, and which we, therefore, prosecute with success; for this reason it is absurd to dread business upon pretence that it will leave few intervals to pleasure. Business is that by which industry pursues its purpose, and the purpose of industry is seldom disappointed: he who endeavours to arrive at a certain point, which he perceives himself perpetually to approach, enjoys all the happiness which nature has allotted to those hours that are not spent in the immediate gratification of appetites by which our own wants are indicated, or of affections by which we are prompted to supply the wants of others. The end proposed by the busy is various as their temper, constitution, habits, and circumstances: but in the labour itself is the enjoyment, whether it be pursued to supply the necessaries or the conveniences of life, whether to cultivate a farm or decorate a palace; for when the palace is decorated, and the barn filled, the pleasure is at an end till the object of desire is again placed at a distance, and our powers are again employed to obtain it with apparent success. Nor is the value of life less than if our enjoyment did not thus consist in anticipation; for by anticipation, the pleasure which would otherwise be contracted within an hour is diffused through a week; and if the dread which exaggerates future evil is confessed to be an increase of misery, the hope which magnifies future good cannot be denied to be an accession of happiness.

"The most numerous class of those who presume to hope for miraculous advantages is that of gamesters. But by gamesters, I do not mean the gentlemen who stake an estate against the cunning of

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