vail upon himself to perform; and when reafon has no settled rule, and our paffions are striving to mislead us, it is furely the part of a wife man to err on the fide of fafety.

NUMB. 82. SATURDAY, December 29, 1750.

Omnia Castor emit, fic fiet ut omnia vendat.

MART

Who buys without difcretion, buys to fell.

SIR,

To the RAMBLER.

IT will not be neceffary to folicit your good-will by any formal preface, when I have informed you, that I have long been known as the most laborious and zealous virtuofo that the prefent age has had the honour of producing, and that inconveniencies have been brought upon me by an unextinguishable ardour of curiofity, and an unfhaken perfeverance in the acquifition of the productions of art and

nature.

It was observed, from my entrance into the world, that I had fomething uncommon in my difpofition, and that there appeared in me very early tokens of fuperior genius. I was always an enemy to trifles; the playthings which my mother beftowed upon me I immediately broke, that I might discover the method of their structure, and the causes of their mo tions; of all the toys with which children are de

lighted

lighted I valued only my coral, and as foon as I could speak, afked, like Pierefc, innumerable questions which the maids about me could not refolve. As I grew older I was more thoughtful and ferious, and inftead of amufing myself with puerile diverfions, made collections of natural rarities, and never walked into the fields without bringing home ftones of remarkable forms, or infects of fome uncommon fpecies. I never entered an old houfe, from which I did not take away the painted glass, and often lamented that I was not one of that happy generation who demolished the convents and monafteries, and broke windows by law.

Being thus early poffeffed by a tafte for folid knowledge, I paffed my youth with very little dif turbance from paffions and appetites; and having no pleasure in the company of boys and girls, who talked of plays, politicks, fashions, or love, I carried on my enquiries with inceffant diligence, and had amaffed more stones, moffes, and fhells, than are to be found in many celebrated collections, at an age in which the greatest part of young men are ftudying under tutors, or endeavouring to recommend themselves to notice by their drefs, their air, and their levities.

When I was two and twenty years old, I became, by the death of my father, poffeffed of a fmall eftate in land, with a very large fum of money in the publick funds, and muft confefs that I did not much lament him, for he was a man of mean parts, bent rather upon growing rich than wife. He once fretted at the expence of only ten fhillings, which he happened to overhear me offering for the VOL. V.

F

fting

sting of a hornet, though it was a cold moist summer, in which very few hornets had been feen. He often recommended to me the ftudy of phyfick, in which, faid he, you may at once gratify your curiofity after natural history, and increase your fortune by benefiting mankind. I heard him, Mr. Rambler, with pity, and as there was no profpect of elevating a mind formed to grovel, fuffered him to please himself with hoping that I fhould fome time follow his advice. For you know that there are men with whom, when they have once fettled a notion in their heads, it is to very little purpose to difpute.

Being now left wholly to my own inclinations, I very foon enlarged the bounds of my curiofity, and contented myself no longer with fuch rarities as required only judgment and industry, and when once found, might be had for nothing. I now turned my thoughts to Exoticks and Antiques, and became fo well known for my generous patronage of ingenious men, that my levee was crowded with vifitants, fome to fee my mufeum, and others to increase its treasures, by felling me whatever they had brought from other countries.

I had always a contempt for that narrowness of conception, which contents itself with cultivating fome fingle corner of the field of fcience; I took the whole region into my view, and wished it of yet greater extent. But no man's power can be equal to his will. I was forced to proceed by flow degrees, and to purchase what chance or kindness happened to prefent. I did not however proceed without fome defign, or imitate the indiscretion of those who begin a thousand collections, and finish none. Having

been

been always a lover of geography, I determined to collect the maps drawn in the rude and barbarous times, before any regular furveys, or juft obfervations; and have, at a great expence, brought toge ther a volume, in which, perhaps, not a fingle country is laid down according to its true fituation, and by which, he that defires to know the errors of the ancient geographers may be amply informed.

But my ruling paffion is patriotifm: my chief care has been to procure the products of our own country; and as Alfred received the tribute of the Welch in wolves' heads, I allowed my tenants to pay their rents in butterflies, till I had exhausted the papilio. naceous tribe. I then directed them to the pursuit of other animals, and obtained, by this easy method, most of the grubs and infects, which land, air, or water, can fupply. I have three fpecies of earthworms not known to the naturalifts, have discovered a new ephemera, and can fhew four wafps that were taken torpid in their winter quarters. I have, from my own ground, the longest blade of grafs upon record, and once accepted, as a half year's rent for a field of wheat, an ear containing more grains than had been feen before upon a single stem.

One of my tenants fo much neglected his own intereft, as to fupply me, in a whole fummer, with only two horse-flies, and those of little more than the common fize; and I was upon the brink of feizing for arrears, when his good fortune threw a white mole in his way, for which he was not only forgiven but rewarded.

These, however, were petty acquifitions, and made at fmall expence; nor fhould I have ventured

to rank myself among the virtuofi without better claims. I have fuffered nothing worthy the regard of a wife man to escape my notice: I have ranfacked the old and the new world, and been equally attentive to past ages and the prefent. For the illuftration of ancient hiftory, I can fhew a marble, of which the infcription, though it is not now legible, appears, from some broken remains of the letters, to have been Tufcan, and therefore probably engraved before the foundation of Rome. I have two pieces of porphyry found among the ruins of Ephefus, and three letters broken off by a learned traveller from the monuments of Perfepolis; a piece of stone which paved the Areopagus of Athens, and a plate without figures or characters, which was found at Corinth, and which I therefore believe to be that metal which was once valued before gold. I have fand gathered out of the Granicus; a fragment of Trajan's bridge over the Danube; fome of the mortar which cemented the watercourse of Tarquin; a horfefhoe broken on the Flaminian way; and a turf with five daifies dug from the field of Pharfalia.

I do not wish to raise the envy of unsuccessful collectors, by too pompous a difplay of my fcientifick wealth, but cannot forbear to obferve, that there are few regions of the globe which are not honoured with fome memorial in my cabinets. The Perfian monarchs are faid to have boasted the greatnes of their empire, by being ferved at their tables with drink from the Ganges and the Danube: I can fhew one vial, of which the water was formerly an icicle on the crags of Caucafus, and another that contains what once was fnow on the top of Atlas; in a