15. This somewhat disturbed my dream of constant affluence, but I was three days after completely awaked; for entering the tavern, where we met every evening, I found the waiters remitted their complaisance, and instead of contending to light me up stairs, suffered me to wait for some minutes by the bar.

16. When I came to my company I found them unusually grave and formal, and one of them took a hint to turn the conversation upon the misconduct of young men, and enlarged upon the folly of frequenting the company of men of fortune, without being able to support the expence; an observation which the rest contributed either to enforce by repet.i.tion, or to ill.u.s.trate by examples. Only one of them tried to divert the discourse, and endeavoured to direct my attention to remote questions, and common topics.

17. A man guilty of poverty easily believes himself suspected. I went, however, next morning to breakfast with him, who appeared ignorant of the drift of the conversation, and by a series of enquiries, drawing still nearer to the point, prevailed on him, not, perhaps, much against his will, to inform me, that Mr. _Dash_, whose father was a wealthy attorney near my native place, had the morning before received an account of my uncle's resentment, and communicated his intelligence with the utmost industry of groveling insolence.

18. It was no longer practicable to consort with my former friends, unless I would be content to be used as an inferior guest, who was to pay for his wine by mirth and flattery; a character which, if I could not escape it, I resolved to endure only among those who had never known me in the pride of plenty.

19. I changed my lodgings, and frequented the coffee houses in a different region of the town; where I was very quickly distinguished by several young gentlemen of high birth, and large estates, and began again to amuse my imagination with hopes of preferment, though not quite so confidently as when I had less experience.

20. The first great conquest which this new scene enabled me to gain over myself was, when I submitted to confess to a party, who invited me to an expensive diversion, that my revenues were not equal to such golden pleasures; they would not suffer me, however, to stay behind, and with great reluctance I yielded to be treated. I took that opportunity of recommending myself to some office or employment, which they unanimously promised to procure me by their joint interest.

21. I had now entered into a state of dependence, and had hopes, or fears, from almost every man I saw. If it be unhappy to have one patron, what is his misery who has so many? I was obliged to comply with a thousand caprices, to concur in a thousand follies, and to countenance a thousand errors. I endured innumerable mortifications, if not from cruelty, at least from negligence, which will creep in upon the kindest and most delicate minds, when they converse without the mutual awe of equal condition.

22. I found the spirit and vigour of liberty every moment sinking in me, and a servile fear of displeasing, stealing by degrees upon all my behaviour, till no word, or look, or action, was my own. As the solicitude to please increased, the power of pleasing grew less, and I was always clouded with diffidence where it was most my interest and wish to shine.

23. My patrons, considering me as belonging to the community, and, therefore, not the charge of any particular person, made no scruple of neglecting any opportunity of promoting me, which every one thought more properly the business of another. An account of my expectations and disappointments, and the succeeding vicissitudes of my life, I shall give you in my following letter, which will be, I hope, of use to shew how ill he forms his schemes, who expects happiness without freedom.

_I am, &c._

_The Misery of depending upon the Great._

RAMBLER, NO. 27.

1. As it is natural for every man to think himself of importance, your knowledge of the world will incline you to forgive me, if I imagine your curiosity so much excited by the former part of my narration, as to make you desire that I should proceed without any unnecessary arts of connection. I shall, therefore, not keep you longer in such suspence, as perhaps my performance may not compensate.

2. In the gay company with which I was now united, I found those allurements and delights, which the friendship of young men always affords; there was that openness which naturally produced confidence, and that ardour of profession which excited hope.

3. When our hearts were dilated with merriment, promises were poured out with unlimited profusion, and life and fortune were but a scanty sacrifice to friendship; but when the hour came, at which any effort was to be made, I had generally the vexation to find, that my interest weighed nothing against the slightest amus.e.m.e.nt, and that every petty avocation was found a sufficient plea for continuing me in uncertainty and want.

4. Their kindness was indeed sincere, when they promised they had no intention to deceive; but the same juvenile warmth which kindled their benevolence, gave force in the same proportion to every other pa.s.sion, and I was forgotten as soon as any new pleasure seized on their attention.

5. _Vagrio_ told me one evening, that all my perplexities should soon be at an end, and desired me, from that instant, to throw upon him all care of my fortune, for a post of considerable value was that day become vacant, and he knew his interest sufficient to procure it in the morning. He desired me to call on him early, that he might be dressed soon enough to wait upon the minister before any other application should be made.

6. I came as he appointed, with all the flame of grat.i.tude, and was told by his servant, that having found at his lodgings, when he came home, an acquaintance who was going to travel, he had been persuaded to accompany him to Dover, and that they had taken post-horses two hours before day.

7. I was once very near to preferment by the kindness of _Charinus_; who, at my request, went to beg a place, which he thought me likely to fill with great reputation, and in which I should have many opportunities of promoting his interest in return; and he pleased himself with imagining the mutual benefits that we should confer, and the advances that we should make by our united strength.

8. Away, therefore, he went, equally warm with friendship and ambition, and left me to prepare acknowledgements against his return. At length he came back, and told me that he had met in his way a party going to breakfast in the country, that the ladies importuned him too much to be refused, and that having pa.s.sed the morning with them, he was come back to dress himself for a ball, to which he was invited for the evening.

9. I have suffered several disappointments from taylors and perriwig-makers, who, by neglecting to perform their work, withheld my patrons from court, and once failed of an establishment for life by the delay of a servant, sent to a neighbouring shop to replenish a snuff-box.

10. At last I thought my solicitude at an end, for an office fell into the gift of _Hippodamus_'s father, who being then in the country, could not very speedily fill it, and whose fondness would not have suffered him to refuse his son a less reasonable request. _Hippodamus_ therefore set forward with great expedition, and I expected every hour an account of his success.

11. A long time I waited without any intelligence, but at last received a letter from Newmarket, by which I was informed, that the races were begun, and I knew the vehemence of his pa.s.sion too well to imagine that he could refuse himself his favourite amus.e.m.e.nt.

12. You will not wonder that I was at last weary of the patronage of young men, especially as I found them not generally to promise much greater fidelity as they advanced in life; for I observed that what they gained in steadiness, they lost in benevolence, and grew colder to my interest as they became more diligent to promote their own.

13. I was convinced that their liberality was only profuseness, that, as chance directed, they were equally generous to vice and virtue, that they were warm, but because they were thoughtless, and counted the support of a friend only amongst other gratifications of pa.s.sion.

14. My resolution was now to ingratiate myself with men whose reputation was established, whose high stations enabled them to prefer me, and whose age exempted them from sudden changes of inclination; I was considered as a man of parts, and therefore easily found admission to the table of _Hilarius_, the celebrated orator, renowned equally for the extent of his knowledge, the elegance of his diction, and the acuteness of his wit.

15. _Hilarius_ received me with an appearance of great satisfaction, produced to me all his friends, and directed to me that part of his discourse in which he most endeavoured to display his imagination. I had now learned my own interest enough to supply him with opportunities for smart remarks and gay sallies, which I never failed to echo and applaud.

16. Thus I was gaining every hour on his affections, till, unfortunately, when the a.s.sembly was more splendid than usual, his desire of admiration prompted him to turn raillery upon me. I bore it for some time with great submission, and success encouraged him to redouble his attacks; at last my vanity prevailed over my prudence; I retorted his irony with such spirit, that _Hilarius_, unaccustomed to resistance, was disconcerted, and soon found means of convincing me, that his purpose was not to encourage a rival, but to foster a parasite.

17. I was then taken into the familiarity of _Argurio_, a n.o.bleman eminent for judgment and criticism. He had contributed to my reputation, by the praises which he had often bestowed upon my writings, in which he owned that there were proofs of a genius that might rise high to degrees of excellence, when time, or information, had reduced its exuberance.

18. He therefore required me to consult him before the publication of any new performance, and commonly proposed innumerable alterations, without, sufficient attention to the general design, or regard to my form of style, and mode of imagination.

19. But these corrections he never failed to press as indispensably necessary, and thought the least delay of compliance an act of rebellion. The pride of an author made this treatment insufferable, and I thought any tyranny easier to be borne than that which took from me the use of my understanding.

20. My next patron was _Eutyches_ the statesman, who was wholly engaged in public affairs, and seemed to have no ambition but to be powerful and rich. I found his favour more permanent than that of the others, for there was a certain price at which it might be bought; he allowed nothing to humour or affection, but was always ready to pay liberally for the service he required.

21. His demands were, indeed, very often such as virtue could not easily consent to gratify; but virtue is not to be consulted when men are to raise their fortunes by favour of the great. His measures were censured; I wrote in his defence, and was recompensed with a place, of which the profits were never received by me without the pangs of remembering that they were the reward of wickedness; a reward which nothing but that necessity, which the consumption of my little estate in these wild pursuits had brought upon me, hindered me from throwing back in the face of my corruptor.

22. At this time my uncle died without a will, and I became heir to a small fortune. I had resolution to throw off the splendor which reproached me to myself, and retire to an humbler state, in which I am now endeavouring to recover the dignity of virtue, and hope to make some reparation for my crimes and follies, by informing others who may be led after the same pageants, that they are about to engage in a course of life, in which they are to purchase, by a thousand miseries, the privilege of repentance.

_I am_, &c.

EUBULUS.

_What it is to see the World; the Story of Melissa._

RAMBLER, No. 75.

1. The diligence with which you endeavour to cultivate the knowledge of nature, manners, and life, will perhaps incline you to pay some regard to the observations of one who has been taught to know mankind by unwelcome information, and whose opinions are the result, not of solitary conjectures, but of practice and experience.

2. I was born to a large fortune, and bred to the knowledge of those arts which are supposed to accomplish the mind, and adorn the person of a woman. To these attainments, which custom and education almost forced upon me, I added some voluntary acquisitions by the use of books and the conversation of that species of men whom the ladies generally mention with terror and aversion under the name of scholars, but whom I have found a harmless and inoffensive order of beings, not no much wiser than ourselves, but that they may receive as well as communicate knowledge, and more inclined to degrade their own character by cowardly submission, than to overbear or oppress us with their learning or their wit.

3. From these men, however, if they are by kind treatment encouraged to talk, something may be gained, which, embelished with elegancy, and softened by modesty, will always add dignity and value to female conversation; and from my acquaintance with the bookish part of the world, I derived many principles of judgment and maxims of prudence, by which I was enabled to draw upon myself the general regard in every place of concourse or pleasure.

4. My opinion was the great rule of approbation, my remarks were remembered by those who desired the second degree of fame, my mein was studied, my dress imitated, my letters were handed from one family to another, and read by those who copied them as sent to themselves; my visits were solicited as honours, and mult.i.tudes boasted of an intimacy with Melissa, who had only seen me by accident, whose familiarity had never proceeded beyond the exchange of a compliment, or return of a courtesy.

5. I shall make no scruple of confessing that I was pleased with this universal veneration, because I always considered it as paid to my intrinsic qualities and inseparable merit, and very easily persuaded myself, that fortune had no part in my superiority.

6. When I looked upon my gla.s.s, I saw youth and beauty, with health that might give me reason to hope their continuance: when I examined my mind, I found some strength of judgment and fertility of fancy, and was told that every action was grace, and that every accent was persuasion.

7. In this manner my life pa.s.sed like a continual triumph amidst acclamations, and envy, and courtship, and caresses: to please Melissa was the general ambition, and every stratagem of artful flattery was practised upon me. To be flattered is grateful, even when we know that our praises are not believed by those who p.r.o.nounce them: for they prove at least our power, and shew that our favour is valued, since it is purchased by the meanness of falsehood.

8. But perhaps the flatterer is not often detected, for an honest mind is not apt to suspect, and no one exerts the power of discernment with much vigour when self-love favours the deceit.