t of evil. On the other hand, those who judge of mere appearances without charity may remark that no conduct was ever condemned with less show of injurious severity, nor yet with less justice than mine. Whether my narrative will be believed indeed I cannot determine; but where innocence is possible, it is dangerous to impute guilt, because with whatsoever judgment men judge they shall be judged;' a truth which, if it was remembered and believed by all who profess to receive it upon Divine Authority, would impose silence upon the censorious, and extort candour from the selfish. And I hope that the ladies, who read my story, will never hear, but with indignation, that the understanding of a libertine is a pledge of reformation; for his life cannot be known without abhorrence, nor shared without ruin. "I am, sir, "Your humble servant, "DESDEMONA." No. 119. TUESDAY, DEC. 25, 1753. Latiùs regnes, avidum domando By virtue's precepts to control HOR, And both the Carthages were thine. FRANCIS. WHEN Socrates was asked, "which of mortal men was to be accounted nearest to the Gods in happiness?" he answered, "that man who is in want of the fewest things." In this answer Socrates left it to be guessed by his auditors, whether, by the exemption from want which was to constitute happiness, he meant amplitude of possessions or contraction of desire. And, indeed, there is so little difference between them that Alexander the Great confessed the inhabitant of a tub the next man to the master of the world; and left a declaration to future ages, that if he was not Alexander, he should wish to be Diogenes. These two states, however, though they resemble each other in their consequence, differ widely with respect to the facility with which they may be attained. To make great acquisitions can happen to very few; and in the uncertainty of human affairs, to many it will be incident to labour without reward, and to lose what they already possess by endeavours to make it more; some will always want abili-` ties, and others opportunities, to accumulate wealth. It is therefore happy that nature has allowed us a more certain and easy road to plenty; every man may grow rich by contracting his wishes, and, by quiet acquiescence in what has been given him supply the absence of more. Yet so far is almost every man from emulating the happiness of the Gods, by any other means than grasping at their power, that it seems to be the great business of life to create wants as fast as they are satisfied. It has been long observed by moralists, that every man squanders or loses a great part of that life, of which every man knows and deplores the shortness: and it may be remarked with equal justness, that though every man laments his own insufficiency to his happiness, and knows himself a necessitous and precarious being, incessantly soliciting the assistance of others, and feeling wants which his own art or strength cannot supply; yet there is no man who does not, by the superaddition of unnatural cares, render himself still more dependent; who does not create an artificial poverty, and suffer himself to feel pain for the want of that, of which, when it is gained, he can have no enjoyment. It must, indeed, be allowed, that as we lose part of our time because it steals away silent and invisible, and many an hour is passed before we recollect that it is passing; so unnatural desires insinuate themselves unobserved into the mind, and we do not perceive that they are gaining upon us till the pain which they give us awakens us to notice. No man is sufficiently vigilant to take account of every minute of his life, or to watch every motion of his heart. Much of our time likewise is sacrificed to custom; we trifle, because we see others trifle: in the same manner we catch from example the contagion of desire; we see all about us busied in pursuit of imaginary good, and begin to bustle in the same chase, lest greater activity should triumph · over us. It is true, that to man, as a member of society, many things become necessary, which, perhaps, in a state of nature are superfluous; and that many things, not absolutely necessary, are yet so useful and convenient that they cannot easily be spared. I will make yet a more ample and liberal concession. In opulent states and regular governments, the temptations to wealth and rank, and to the distinctions that follow them, are such as no force of understanding finds it easy to resist. x If, therefore, I saw the quiet of life disturbed only by endeavours after wealth and honour; by solicitude, which the world, whether justly or not, considered as important: I should scarcely have had courage to inculcate any precepts of moderation and forbearance. He that is engaged in a pur suit in which all mankind profess to be his rivals is supported by the authority of all mankind in the prosecution of his design, and will, therefore, scarcely stop to hear the lectures of a solitary philosopher. Nor am I certain, that the accumulation of honest gain ought to be hindered, or the ambition of just honours ought always to be repressed. Whatever can enable the possessor to confer any benefit upon others may be desired upon virtuous principles; and we ought not too rashly to accuse any man of intending to confine the influence of his acquisitions to himself. But if we look round upon mankind, whom shall we find among those whom fortune permits to form their own manners, that is not tormenting himself with a wish for something of which, all the pleasure and all the benefit will cease at the moment of attainment? One man is beggaring his posterity to build a house, which when finished he never will inhabit; another is leveling mountains to open a prospect, which, when he has once enjoyed it, he can enjoy no more; another is painting ceilings, carving wainscot, and filling his apartments with costly furniture, only that some neighbouring house may not be richer or finer than his own. That splendour and elegance are not desirable, I am not so abstracted from life as to inculcate; but if we inquire closely into the reason for which they are esteemed, we shall find them valued principally as evidences of wealth. Nothing, therefore, can show greater depravity of understanding than to delight in the show when the reality is wanting; or voluntarily to become poor that strangers may time imagine us to be rich. for a But there are yet minuter objects and more trifling anxieties. Men may be found who are kept from sleep by the want of a shell particularly variegated; who are wasting their lives in stratagems to obtain a book in a language which they do not understand; who pine with envy at the flowers of another man's parterre; who hover like vultures round the owner of a fossil, in hopes to plunder his cabinet at his death; and who would not much regret to see a street in flames if a box of medals might be scattered in the tumult. He that imagines me to speak of these sages in terms exaggerated and hyberbolical has conversed but little with the race of virtuosos. A slight acquaintance with their studies, and a few visits to their assemblies, would inform him that nothing is so worthless but that prejudice and caprice can give it value; nor any thing of so little use but that by indulging an idle competition or unreasonable pride, a man may make it to himself one of the necessaries of life. Desires like these, I may surely, without incurring the censure of moroseness, advise every man to repel when they invade his mind; or if he admits them, never to allow them any greater influence than is necessary to give petty employments the power of pleasing, and diversify the day with slight amuse ments. An ardent wish, whatever be its object, will always be able to interrupt tranquillity. What we believe ourselves to want torments us not in proportion to its real value, but according to the estimation by which we have rated it in our own minds: in some diseases, the patient has been observed to long for food which scarce any extremity of hunger would in health have compelled him to swallow; but while his organs were thus depraved the craving was irresistible, nor could any rest be obtained till it was appeased by compliance. Of the same nature are the irregular appetites of the mind; though |