The province of prudence lies between the greateft things and the leaft; fome furpafs our power by their magnitude, and fome escape our notice by their number and their frequency. But the indifpenfable business of life will afford fufficient exercise to every understanding; and fuch is the limitation of the human powers, that by attention to trifles we must let things of importance pafs unobserved: when we examine a mite with a glass, we fee nothing but a mite.

That it is every man's intereft to be pleased, will need little proof: that it is his intereft to please others, experience will inform him. It is therefore not lefs neceffary to happiness than to virtue, that he rid his mind of paffions which make him uneasy to himself, and hateful to the world, which enchain his intellects, and obftruct his improvement.

NUMB. 113. TUESDAY, April 16, 1751.

KNOW not whether it is always a proof of in

I nocence to treat cenfure with contempt.

We owe so much reverence to the wisdom of mankind, as justly to wish, that our own opinion of our merit may be ratified by the concurrence of other fuffrages; and fince guilt and infamy must have the fame effect upon intelligencies unable to pierce beyond external appearance, and influenced often rather by example than precept, we are obliged to refute a falfe charge, left we fhould countenance the crime which we have never committed. To turn away from an accufation with fupercilious filence, is equally in the power of him that is hardened by villany, and infpirited by innocence. The wall of brafs which Horace erects upon a clear confcience, may be fometimes raised by impudence or power; and we fhould always wish to preserve the dignity of virtue by adorning her with graces which wickedness cannot affume.

For this reafon I have determined no longer to endure, with either patient or fullen refignation, a reproach,

reproach, which is, at leaft in my opinion, unjuft; but will lay my cafe honeftly before you, that you or your readers may at length decide it.

Whether you will be able to preserve your boafted impartiality, when you hear, that I am confidered as an adverfary by half the female world, you may furely pardon me for doubting, nothwithstanding the veneration to which you may imagine yourself entitled by your age, your learning, your abstraction, or your virtue. Beauty, Mr. RAMBLER, has often overpowered the refolutions of the firm, and the reasonings of the wife, roufed the old to fenfibility, and fubdued the rigorous to softness.

I am one of thofe unhappy beings, who have been marked out as hufbands for many different women, and deliberated a hundred times on the brink of matrimony. I have difcuffed all the nuptial preliminaries fo often, that I can repeat the forms in which jointures are fettled, pin-money fecured, and provifions for younger children afcertained; but am at laft doomed by general confent to everlasting folitude, and excluded by an irreversible decree from all hopes of connubial felicity. I am pointed out by every mother, as a man whofe vifits cannot be admitted without reproach; who raises hopes only to embitter disappointment, and makes offers only to seduce girls into a waste of that part of life, in which they might gain advantageous matches, and become mistreffes and mothers.

I hope you will think, that fome part of this penal severity may justly be remitted, when I inform you, that I never yet profeffed love to a woman without fincere intentions of marriage; that I have never

continued

continued an appearance of intimacy from the hour that my inclination changed, but to preserve her whom I was leaving from the fhock of abruptnefs, or the ignominy of contempt; that I always endeayoured to give the ladies an opportunity of seeming to discard me; and that I never forfook a mistress for larger fortune, or brighter beauty, but because I discovered fome irregularity in her conduct, or fome depravity in her mind; not because I was charmed by another, but because I was offended by herself.

I was very early tired of that fucceffion of amusements by which the thoughts of moft young men are diffipated, and had not long glittered in the fplendour of an ample patrimony before I wifhed for the calm of domestick happiness. Youth is naturally delighted with sprightliness and ardour, and therefore I breathed out the fighs of my firft affection at the feet of the gay, the sparkling, the vivacious Ferocula. I fancied to myfelf a perpetual fource of happiness in wit never exhausted, and fpirit never depreffed; looked with veneration on her readiness of expedients, contempt of difficulty, affurance of addrefs, and promptitude of reply; confidered her as exempt by fome prerogative of nature from the weakness and timidity of female minds; and congratulated myfelf upon a companion fuperiour to all common troubles and embarraffments. I was, indeed, fomewhat difturbed by the unfhaken perfeverance with which the enforced her demands of an unreasonable settlement; yet I fhould have confented to pass my life in union with her, had not

my curiofity led me to a crowd gathered in the street, where I found Ferocula, in the prefence of hundreds, difputing for fix-pence with a chairman. I faw her in fo little need of affiftance, that it was no breach of the laws of chivalry to forbear interpofition, and I fpared myself the fhame of owning her acquaintance. I forgot fome point of ceremony at our next interview, and foon provoked her to forbid me her prefence.

My next attempt was upon a lady of great eminence for learning and philofophy. I had frequently obferved the barrennefs and uniformity of connubial conversation, and therefore thought highly of my own prudence and difcernment, when I felected from a multitude of wealthy beauties, the deep-read Mifothea, who declared herself the inexorable enemy of ignorant pertnefs, and puerile levity; and scarcely condefcended to make tea, but for the linguift, the geometrician, the aftronomer, or the poet. The queen of the Amazons was only to be gained by the hero who could conquer her in fingle combat; and Mifothea's heart was only to blefs the fcholar who could overpower her by difputation. Amidst the fondeft tranfports of courtship fhe could call for a definition of terms, and treated every argument with contempt that could not be reduced to regular fyl. logifm. You may easily imagine, that I wifhed this courtship at an end; but when I defired her to fhorten my torments, and fix the day of my felicity, we were led into a long converfation, in which Misothea endeavoured to demonftrate the folly of attributing choice and felf-direction to any human being.