tives and political observations; and the colonel afterwards detailed the adventures of a birth-night, told the claims and expectations of the courtiers, and gave an account of affemblies, gardens, and diverfions. I, indeed, effayed to fill up a pause in a parliamentary debate with a faint mention of trade and Spaniards; and once attempted, with fome warmth, to correct a grofs mistake about a filver breast-knot; but neither of my antagonists feemed to think a reply neceffary; they refumed their difcourfe without emotion, and again engroffed the attention of the company; nor did one of the ladies appear defirous to know my opinion of her dress, or to hear how long the carnation fhot with white, that was then new amongst them, had been antiquated in town. As I knew that neither of these gentlemen had more money than myself, I could not discover what had depreffed me in their prefence; nor why they were confidered by others as more worthy of attention and refpect; and therefore refolved, when we met again, to roufe my fpirit, and force myself into notice. I went very early to the next weekly meeting, and was entertaining a fmall circle very fuccefffully with a minute representation of my lord mayor's fhow, when the colonel entered carelefs and gay, fat down with a kind of unceremonious civility, and, without appearing to intend any interruption, drew my audience away to the other part of the room, to which I had not the courage to follow them. Soon after came in the lawyer, not indeed with the fame attraction of mien, but with greater powers of language; and by one or other the company was fo happily VOL. V. U happily amufed, that I was neither heard nor feen, nor was able to give any other proof of my existence than that I put round the glass, and was in my turn permitted to name the toast. My mother indeed endeavoured to comfort me in my vexation, by telling me, that perhaps these fhowy talkers were hardly able to pay every one his own; that he who has money in his pocket need not care what any man fays of him; that, if I minded my trade, the time will come when lawyers and foldiers would be glad to borrow out of my purse; and that it is fine, when a man can set his hands to his fides, and say he is worth forty thousand pounds every day of the year. These and many more fuch confola tions and encouragements I received from my good mother, which, however, did not much allay my uneafiness ; for having by fome accident heard, that the country ladies despised her as a cit, I had therefore no longer much reverence for her opinions, but confidered her as one whofe ignorance and prejudice. had hurried me, though without ill intentions, into a state of meanness and ignominy, from which I could not find any poffibility of rifing to the rank which my ancestors had always held. I returned, however, to my mafter, and bufied my felf among thread, and filks, and laces, but without my former cheerfulness and alacrity. I had now no longer any felicity in contemplating the exact difpofition of my powdered curls, the equal plaits of my ruffles, or the gloffy blackness of my fhoes; nor heard with my former elevation thofe compliments which ladies fometimes condefcended to pay me upon my readiness in twisting a paper, or counting out out the change. The term of Young Man, with which I was fometimes honoured, as I carried a parcel to the door of a coach, tortured my imagination; I grew negligent of my person, and fullen in my temper; often miftook the demands of the cuf tomers, treated their caprices and objections with contempt, and received and difmiffed them with furly filence. My master was afraid left the shop should suffer by this change of my behaviour; and, therefore, after fome expoftulations, pofted me in the warehouse, and preserved me from the danger and reproach of defertion, to which my discontent would certainly have urged me, had I continued any longer behind the counter. In the fixth year of my fervitude my brother died of drunken joy, for having run down a fox that had baffled all the packs in the province. I was now heir, and with the hearty confent of my mafter commenced gentleman. The adventures in which my new character engaged me fhall be communicated in another letter, by, Sir, Yours, &c. MISOCAPELUS. NUMB. 117. TUESDAY, April 30, 1751. Οσσαν ἐπὶ Οὐλύμπῳ μέμασαν θέμεν· αὐτὰς ἐπ ̓ Οσση HOM. The gods they challenge, and affect the skies: On Offa, Pelion nods with all his wood. POPE. SIR, Νο To the RAMBLER. OTHING has more retarded the advancement of learning than the disposition of vulgar minds to ridicule and vilify what they cannot comprehend. All industry must be excited by hope; and as the student often proposes no other reward to himself than praife, he is easily discouraged by contempt and infult. He who brings with him into a clamorous multitude the timidity of reclufe fpeculation, and has never hardened his front in publick life, or accustomed his paffions to the viciffitudes and accidents, the triumphs and defeats of mixed converfation, will blush at the ftare of petulant incredulity, and fuffer himself to be driven by a burst of laughter, from the fortreffes of demonftration. The mechanist will be afraid to affert before hardy contradiction, the poffibility of tearing down bulwarks with a filkworm's thread; and the astronomer of relating the rapidity of light, the distance of the fixed stars, and the height of the lunar mountains. If I could by any efforts have fhaken off this cowardice, I had not fheltered myself under a borrowed name, nor applied to you for the means of communicating to the publick the theory of a garret; a subject which, except fome flight and tranfient ftrictures, has been hitherto neglected by thofe who were beft qualified to adorn it, either for want of leisure to profecute the various researches in which a nice difcuffion must engage them, or because it requires fuch diversity of knowledge, and fuch extent of curiofity, as is fcarcely to be found in any fingle intellect; or perhaps others forefaw the tumults which would be raised against them, and confined their knowledge to their own breafts, and abandoned prejudice and folly to the direction of chance. That the profeffors of literature generally refide in the highest stories, has been immemorially observed. The wifdom of the ancients was well acquainted with the intellectual advantages of an elevated fituation why else were the Mufes ftationed on Olympus, or Parnaffus by those who could with equal right have raised them bowers in the vale of Tempe, or erected their altars among the flexures of Meander? Why was fove himself nursed upon a mountain? or why did the goddesses, when the prize of beauty was contested, try the cause upon the top of Ida? Such were the fictions by which the great mafters of the earlier ages endeavoured to inculcate to pofterity the importance of a garret, which, though they had been long obfcured by the negligence and ignorance of fucceeding times, were well enforced by the celebrated fymbol of Pythagoras, ανεμῶν πνεόντων τὴν ήχω προσκύνει Tроσx;"when the wind blows, worship its echo." U 3 This |