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To us who are regaled every morning and ing authors might divide an event between evening with intelligence, and are supplied them; a single action, and that not of much from day to day with materials for conversa- importance, might be gradually discovered, so tion, it is difficult to conceive how man can sub-as to vary a whole week with joy, anxiety, and sist without a newspaper, or to what entertain-conjecture. ment companies can assemble in those wide We know that a French ship of war was regions of the earth that have neither Chronicles nor Magazines, neither Gazettes nor Advertisers, neither Journals nor Evening Posts.

lately taken by a ship of England; but this event was suffered to burst upon us all at once, and then what we knew already was echoed from day to day, and from week to week.

On Monday morning the captain of a ship might arrive, who left the Friseur of France, and the Bull-dog, captain Grim, in sight of one another, so that an engagement seemed unavoidable.

There are never great numbers in any nation, whose reason or invention can find employment Let us suppose these spiders of literature to for their tongues, who can raise a pleasing dis- spin together, and inquire to what an extencourse from their own stock of sentiments and sive web such another event might be regularly images; and those few who have qualified them-drawn, and how six morning and six evening selves by speculation for general disquisitions writers might agree to retail their articles. are soon left without an audience. The common talk of men must relate to facts in which the talkers have, or think they have an interest; and where such facts cannot be known, the pleasures of society will be merely sensual. Thus the natives of the Mahometan empires, who approach most nearly to European civility, have no higher pleasure at their convivial assembles than to hear a piper, or gaze upon a tumbler; and no company can keep together longer than they are diverted by sounds or

shows.

Monday evening. A sound of cannon was heard off Cape Finisterre, supposed to be those of the Buli-dog and Friseur.

Tuesday morning. It was this morning reported, that the Bull-dog engaged the Friseur, yard-arm and yard-arm, three glasses and a half, but was obliged to sheer off for want of powder. It is hoped that inquiry will be made into this affair in a proper place.

All foreigners remark, that the knowledge of the common people of England is greater than that of any other vulgar. This superi- Tuesday evening. The account of the enority we undoubtedly owe to the rivulets of intel-gagement between the Bull-dog and Friseur figence which are continually trickling among was premature. us, which every one may catch, and of which every one partakes.

This universal diffusion of instruction is, perhaps, not wholly without its inconveniences; it certainly fills the nation with superficial disputants; enables those to talk who were born to work; and affords information sufficient to elate vanity, and stiffen obstinacy, but too little to enlarge the mind into complete skill for full comprehension.

Whatever is found to gratify the public will be multiplied, by the emulation of venders, beyond necessity or use. This plenty, indeed, produces cheapnes, but cheapness always ends in negligence and depravation.

Wednesday morning. Another express is arrived, which brings news, that the Friseur had lost all her masts, and three hundred of her men, in the late engagement; and that captain Grim is come into harbour much shattered.

Wednesday evening. We hear that the brave captain Grim, having expended his powder, proposed to enter the Friseur, sword in hand; but that his lieutenant, the nephew of a certain nobleman, remonstrated against it.

Thursday morning. We wait impatiently for a full account of the late engagement between the Bull-dog and Friseur.

Thursday evening. It is said the order of the Bath will be sent to captain Grim.

The compilation of newspapers often com- Friday morning. A certain Lord of the Admitted to narrow and mercenary minds, not miralty has been heard to say of a certain capqualified for the task of delighting or instruct-tain, that if he had done his duty, a certain ing; who are content to fill their paper, with French ship might have been taken. It was whatever matter, without industry to gather, not thus that merit was rewarded in the days of or discernment to select. Cromwell.

Thus journals are daily multiplied without increase of knowledge. The tale of the morning paper is told again in the evening, and the narratives of the evening are bought again in the morning. These repetitions, indeed, waste time, but they do not shorten it. The most eager peruser of news is tired before he has completed his labour; and many a man, who enters the coffee-house in his night-gown and slippers, is called away to his shop, or his dinner, before he has well considered the state of Europe.

Friday evening. There is certain information at the Admiralty, that the Friseur is taken, after a resistance of two hours.

Saturday morning. A letter from one of the gunners of the Bull-dog, mentions the taking of the Friseur, and attributes their success wholly to the bravery and resolution of captain Grim, who never owed any of his advancement to borough-jobbers, or any other corrupters of the people.

Saturday evening. Captain Grim arrived at the Admiralty, with an account that he engag It is discovered by Reaumur, that spiders ed the Friseur, a ship of equal force with his might make silk, if they could be persuaded to own, off Cape Finisterre, and took her, after live in peace together. The writers of news, an obstinate resistance, having killed one hunif they could be confederated, might give more dred and fifty of the French, with the loss of pleasure to the public. The morning and even-ninety-five of his own men.

No. 8.] SATURDAY, June 3, 1758.

SIR,

TO THE IDLER.

In the time of public danger, it is every man's duty to withdraw his thoughts in some measure from his private interest, and employ part of his time for the general welfare. National conduct ought to be the result of national wisdom, a plan formed by mature consideration and diligent selection out of all the schemes which may be offered, and all the information which can be procured.

In a battle, every man should fight as if he was the single champion; in preparations for war, every man should think, as if the last event depended on his counsel. None can tell what discoveries are within his reach, or how much he may contribute to the public safety.

lon, or Paris itself, with all the usual preparation for defence: let the inclosure be filled with beef and ale; let the soldiers from some proper eminence, see shirts waving upon lines, and here and there a plump landlady hurrying about with pots in their hands. When they are sufficiently animated to advance, lead them in exact order, with fife and drum, to that side whence the wind blows, till they come within the scent of roast meat and tobacco.Contrive that they may approach the place fasting, about half an hour after dinner-time, assure them that there is no danger, and command an attack.

If nobody within either moves or speaks, it is not unlikely that they may carry the place by storm; but if a panic should seize them, it will be proper to defer the enterprise to a more hungry hour. When they have entered, let them fill their bellies and return to the camp.

Full of these considerations, I have carefully On the next day let the same place be shown reviewed the process of the war, and find, what them again, but with some additions of strength every other man has found, that we have or terror. I cannot pretend to inform our genhitherto added nothing to our military reputa-erals through what gradations of danger they tion: that at one time we have been beaten by enemies whom we did not see; and, at another, have avoided the sight of enemies lest we should be beaten.

Whether our troops are defective in discipline or in courage, is not very useful to inquire; they evidently want something necessary to success; and he that shall supply that want will deserve well of his country.

should train their men to fortitude. They best know what the soldiers and what themselves can bear. It will be proper that the war should every day vary its appearance. Sometimes, as they mount the rampart, a cook may throw fat upon the fire, to accustom them to a sudden blaze; and sometimes by the clatter of empty pots, they may be inured to formidable noises. But let it never be forgotten, that victory must repose with a full belly.

By this method our army will soon be brought to look an enemy in the face. But it has been lately observed, that fear is received by the ear as well as the eyes; and the Indian war-cry is represented as too dreadful to be endured; as a sound that will force the bravest veteran to drop his weapon, and desert his rank; that will deafen his ear and chill his breast; that will neither suffer him to hear orders or to feel shame, or retain any sensibility but the dread of death.

To learn of an enemy has always been accounted politic and honourable; and, therefore, In time it will be proper to bring our French I hope it will raise no prejudice against my prisoners from the coast, and place them upon project, to confess that I borrowed it from a the walls in martial order. At their first apFrenchman. pearance their hands must be tied, but they When the Isle of Rhodes was, many centu-may be allowed to grin. In a month the may ries ago, in the hands of that military order, guard the place with their hands loosed, pronow called the Knights of Malta, it was rava-vided that on pain of death they be forbidden ged by a dragon, who inhabited a den under a to strike. rock, from which he issued forth when he was hungry or wanton, and without fear or mercy devoured men and beasts as they came in his way. Many councils were held, and many devices offered, for his destruction; but as his back was armed with impenetrable scales, none would venture to attack him. At last Dudon, a French knight, undertook the deliverance of the island. From some place of security he took a view of the dragon, or, as a modern soldier would say, reconnoitered him, and observed that his belly was naked and vulnerable. He then returned home to take his arrangements; and, by a very exact imitation of nature, made a dragon of pasteboard, in the belly of which he put beef and mutton, and accustomed two sturdy mastiffs to feed themselves by tearing their way to the concealed flesh. When his dogs were well practised in this method of plunder, he marched out with them at his heels, and showed them the dragon, they rushed upon him in quest of their dinner; Dudon battered his skull, while they lacerated his belly; and neither his sting nor claws were able to defend him.

Something like this might be practised in our present state. Let a fortification be raised on Salisbury-Plain, resembling Brest, or Tou

That the savage clamours of naked barbarians should thus terrify troops disciplined to war, and ranged in array with arms in their hands, is surely strange. But this is no time to reason. I am of opinion, that by a proper mixture of asses, bulls, turkeys, geese, and tragedians, a noise might be procured equally horrid with the war-cry. When our men have been encouraged by frequent victories, nothing will remain but to qualify them for extreme danger, by a sudden concert of terrific vociferation. When they have endured this last trial, let them be led to action, as men who are no longer to be frightened; as men who can bear at once the grimaces of the Gauls, and the howl of the Americans.

No.9.] SATURDay, June 10, 1758.

SIR,

TO THE IDLER.

THIS Correspondent, whoever he be, is not to be dismissed without some tokens of regard. There is no mark more certain of a genuine Idler than uneasiness without molestation, and complaint without a grievance.

I have read you; that is a favour few authors Yet my gratitude to the contributor of half can boast of having received from me besides a paper shall not wholly overpower my sincer. yourself. My intention in telling you of it is ity. I must inform you, that, with all his preto inform you, that you have both pleased and tensions, he that calls for directions to be idle, angered me. Never did writer appear so de- is yet but in the rudiments of idleness, and has lightful to me as you did when you adopted attained neither the practice nor theory of wast the name of the Idler. But what a falling-off ing life. The true nature of idleness he will was there when your first production was know in time, by continuing to be idle. Virbrought to light! A natural, irresistible at-gil tells us of an impetuous and rapid being, tachment to that favourite passion, idling, had led me to hope for indulgence from the Idler, but I find him a stranger to the title.

What rules has he proposed totally to unbrace the slackened nerve; to shade the heavy eye of inattention; to give the smooth feature and the uncontracted muscle; or procure insensibility to the whole animal composition ?

These were some of the placid blessings I promised myself the enjoyment of, when I committed violence upon myself by mustering up all my strength to set about reading you; but I am disappointed in them all, and the stroke of eleven in the morning is still as terrible to me as before, and I find putting on my clothes still as painful and laborious. Oh that our climate would permit that original nakedness which the thrice happy Indians to this day enjoy! How many unsolicitous hours should I bask away, warmed in bed by the sun's glorious beams, could I, like them, tumble from thence in a moment, when necessity obliges me to endure the torment of getting upon my legs!

that acquires strength by motion. The Idler acquires weight by lying still.

The vis inertia, the quality of resisting all external impulse, is hourly increasing; the restless and troublesome faculties of attention and distinction, reflection on the the past, and solitude for the future, by a long indulgence of idleness, will, like tapers in unelastic air, be gradually extinguished; and the officious lover, the vigilant soldier, the busy trader, may, by a judicious composure of his mind, sink into a state approaching to that of brute matter; in which he shall retain the consciousness of his own existence, only by an obtuse langour and drowsy discontent.

This is the lowest stage to which the favourites of idleness can descend: these regions of undelighted quiet can be entered by few.Of those that are prepared to sink down into their shade, some are roused into action by avarice or ambition, some are awakened by the voice of fame, some allured by the smile of beauty, and many withheld by the importunities of want. Of all the enemies of idleness,

want is the most formidable. Fame is soon But wherefore do I talk to you upon subjects found to be a sound, and love a dream; avaof this delicate nature? you, who seem igno- rice and ambition may be justly suspected of rant of the inexpressible charms of the elbow-privy confederacies with idleness; for when chair, attended with a soft stool for the elevation of the feet! Thus, vacant of thought, do I indulge the live-long day.

they have for a while protected their votaries, they often deliver them up to end their lives under her dominion. Want always struggles against idleness, but Want her herself is often overcome; and every hour shows the careful observer those who had rather live in ease than in plenty.

You may define happiness as you please; I embrace that opinion which makes it consist in the absence of pain. To reflect is pain; to stir is pain; therefore I never reflect or stir but when I cannot help it. Perhaps you will So wide is the region of Idleness, and so call my scheme of life indolence, and therefore powerful her influence. But she does not imthink the Idler excused from taking any no-mediately confer all her gifts. My correspontice of me: but I have always looked upon indolence and idleness as the same; and so desire you will now and then, while you profess yourself of our fraternity, take some notice of me, and others in my situation, who think they have a right to your assistance; or relinquish the name.

You may publish, burn, or destroy this, just as you are in the humour; it is ten to one but I forget that I wrote it before it reaches you. I believe you may find a motto for it in Horace, but I cannot reach him without getting out of my chair; that is a sufficient reason for my not affixing any.-And being obliged to sit upright to ring the bell for my servant to convey this to the penny-post, if I slip the opportunity of his being now in the room, makes be break off abruptly

dent, who seems, with all his errors, worthy of advice, must be told, that, he is calling too hastily for the last effusion of total insensibility. Whatever he may have been taught by unskilful Idlers to believe, labour is necessary in his initiation to idleness. He that never labours may know the pains of idleness, but not the pleasure. The comfort is, that if he devotes himself to insensibility, he will daily lengthen the intervals of idleness, and shorten those of labour, till at last he will lie down to rest, and no longer disturb the world or himself by bustle or competition.

Thus I have endeavoured to give him that information which, perhaps, after all, he did not want: for a true Idler often calls for that which he knows is never to be had, and asks ques

tions which he does not desire ever to be an- | in our ships, nor caterpillars in our trees. He swered.

No. 10.] SATURDAY, JUNE 17, 1758.

CREDULITY, or confidence of opinion too great for the evidence from which opinion is derived, we find to be a general weakness imputed by every sect and party to all others; and, indeed. by every man to every other man.

Of all kinds of credulity, the most obstinate and wonderful is that of political zealots; of men, who being numbered, they know not how or why, in any of the parties that divide a state, resign the use of their own eyes and ears, and resolve to believe nothing that does not favour those whom they profess to follow.

The bigot of philosophy is seduced by authorities which he has not always opportunities to examine, is entangled in systems by which truth and falsehood are inextricably complicated, or undertakes to talk on subjects which nature did not form him able to comprehend.

The Cartesian, who denies that his horse feels the spur, or that the hare is afraid when the hounds approach her; the disciple of Malbranche, who maintains that the man was not hurt by the bullet, which, according to vulgar apprehension, swept away his legs; the follower of Berkely, who, while he sits writing at his table, declares that he has neither table, paper, nor fingers; have all the honour at least of being deceived by fallacies not easily detected, and may plead that they did not forsake truth, but for appearances which they were not able to distinguish from it.

But the man who engages in a party has seldom to do with any thing remote or abstruse. The present state of things is before his eyes; and, if he cannot be satisfied without retrospection, yet he seldom extends his views beyond the historical events of the last century. All the knowledge, that he can want is within his attainment, and most of the arguments which he can hear are within his capacity.

wonders that the nation was not awakened by the hard frost to a revocation of the true king, and is hourly afraid that the whole island will be lost in the sea. He believes that king William burnt Whitehall that he might steal the furniture; and that Tillotson died an atheist. Ofqueen Anne he speaks with more tenderness, owns that she meant well, and can tell by whom and why she was poisoned. In the succeeding reigns all has been corruption, malice, and design. He believes that nothing ill has ever happened for these forty years by chance or error; he holds that the battle of Dittingen was won by mistake, and that of Fontenoy lost by contract; that the Victory was sunk by a private order; that Cornhill was fired by emissaries from the council; and the arch of Westminster-bridge was so contrived as to sink, on purpose that the nation might be put to charge. He considers the new road to Islington as an encroachment on liberty, and often asserts that broad wheel will be the ruin of England.

Tom is generally vehement and noisy, but nevertheless has some secrets which he always communicates in a whisper. Many and many a time has Tom told me, in a corner, that our miseries were almost at an end, and that we should see, in a month, another monarch on the throne; the time elapses without a revolution; Tom meets me again with new intelligence, the whole scheme is now settled, and we shall see great events in another month.

Jack Sneakeris a hearty adherent to the present establishment; he has known those who saw the bed into which the Pretender was conveyed in a warming-pan. He often rejoices that the nation was not enslaved by the Irish.— He believes that king William never lost a battle, and that if he had lived one year longer he would have conquered France. He holds that Charles the First was a Papist. He allows there were some good men in the reign of queen Anne, but the peace of Utrecht brought a blast upon the nation, and has been the cause of all the evil that we have suffered to the preYet so it is that an Idler meets every hour of sent hour. He believes that the scheme of his life with men who have different opinions the South Sea was well intended, but that it upon every thing past, present, and future; miscarried by the influence of France. He who deny the most notorious facts, contradict considers a standing army as the bulwark of the most cogent truths, and persist in assert-liberty; thinks us secured from corruption by ing to-day what they asserted yesterday, in defiance of evidence, and contempt of confutation.

er.

septennial parliaments; relates how we are enriched and strengthened by the electoral dominions, and declares that the public debt is a blessing to the nation.

Two of my companions, who are grown old in idleness, are Tom Tempest and Jack Sneak- Yet, amidst all this prosperity, poor Jack is Both of them consider themselves as neg-hourly disturbed by the dread of Popery.lected by their parties, and therefore entitled He wonders that some stricter laws are not to credit; for why should they favour ingrati-made against Papists, and is sometimes afraid tude? They are both men of integrity, where that they are busy with French gold among no factious interest is to be promoted; and the bishops and Judges. both lovers of truth, when they are not heated with political debate.

Tom Tempest is a steady friend to the house of Stuart. He can recount the prodigies that have appeared in the sky, and the calamities that have afflicted the nation every year from the Revolution; and is of opinion, that, if the exiled family had continued to reign, there would have neither been worms

He cannot believe that the Nonjurors are so quiet for nothing; they must certainly be forming some plot for the establishment of popery; he does not think the present oath sufficiently binding, and wishes that some better security could be found for the succession of Hanover. He is zealous for the naturalization of foreign Protestants, and rejoiced at the admission of the Jews to the English privileges

because he thought a Jew would never be a Papist.

No. 11.] SATURDAY, JUNE 24, 1758.

It is uncommonly observed, that when two Englishman meet, their first talk is of the weather; they are in haste to tell each other, what each must already know, that it is hot or cold, bright or cloudy, windy or calm.

There are, among the numerous lovers of subtilties and paradoxes, some who derive the civil institutions of every country from its climate, who impute freedom and slavery to the temperature, of the air, can fix the meridian of vice and virtue, and tell at what degree of latitude we are to expect courage or timidity, knowledge or ignorance.

we find ourselves cheerful and good-natured, we naturally pay our acknowledgements to the powers of sunshine; or, if we sink into dulness and peevishness, look round the horizon for an excuse, and charge our discontent upon an easterly wind or a cloudy day.

Surely nothing is more reproachful to a being endowed with reason, than to resign its powers to the influence of the air, and live in dependence on the weather and the wind, for the only blessings which nature has put into our power, tranquillity and benevolence. To look up to the sky for the nutriment of our bodies, is the condition of nature; to call upon the sun for peace and gayety, to deprecate the clouds l'est sorrow should overwhelm us, is the cowardice of idleness, and idolatry of folly.

ledge, when superstition is driven away, and Yet, even in this age of inquiry and knowFrom these dreams of idle speculation, a omens and prodigies have lost their terrors, we slight survey of life, and a little knowledge of find this folly countenanced by frequent examhistory, is sufficient to awaken any inquirer, ples. Those that laugh at the portentous whose ambition of distinction has not overpow-glare of a comet, and hear a crow with equal ered his love of truth. Forms of government are seldom the result of much deliberation; they are framed by chance in popular assemblies, or in conquered countries by despotic authority. Laws are often occasional, often capricious, made always by a few, and sometimes by a single voice. Nations have changed their characters; slavery is now nowhere more patiently endured, than in countries once inhabited by the zealots of liberty.

In

tranquillity from the right or left, will yet talk of times and situations proper for intellectual performances, will imagine the fancy exalted by vernal breezes, and the reason invigorated by a bright calm.

If men who have given up themselves to fanciful credulity, would confine their conceits in their own minds, they might regulate their lives by the barometer, with inconvenience only to themselves; but to fill the world with accounts of intellects subject to ebb and flow, of one genius that awakened in the spring, and another that ripened in the autumn, of one mind expanded in the summer, and of another concentrated in the winter, is no less dangerous than to tell children of bugbears and goblins. Fear will find every house haunted; and idleness will wait for ever for the moment of

illumination.

This distinction of seasons is produced only by imagination operating on luxury. To temperance every day is bright, and every hour is He that shall resopropitious to diligence. lutely excite his faculties, or exert his virtues, will soon make himself superior to the seasons, and may set at defiance the morning mist, and the evening damp, the blasts of the east, and the clouds of the south.

But national customs can arise only from general agreement; they are not imposed, but chosen, and are continued only by the continuance of their cause. An Englishman's notice of the weather, is the natural censequence of changeable skies and uncertain seasons. many parts of the world, wet weather and dry are regularly expected at certain periods; but in our island every man goes to sleep, unable to guess whether he shall behold in the morning a bright or cloudy atmosphere, whether his rest shall be lulled by a shower, or broken by a tempest. We therefore rejoice mutually at good weather, as at an escape from something that we feared; and mutually complain of bad, as of the loss of something that we hoped. Such is the reason of our practice; and who shall treat it with contempt? Surely It was the boast of the Stoic philosophy, to not the attendant on a court, whose business is to watch the looks of a being weak and fool- make man unshaken by calamity, and unelatish as himself, and whose vanity is, to recounted by success; incorruptible by pleasure, and the names of men who might drop into nothing, and leave no vacuity; nor the proprietor of funds, who stops his acquaintance in the street to tell him of the loss of half-a-crown; nor the inquirer after news, who fills his head with foreign events; and talks of skirmishes and sieges, of which no consequence will ever reach his hearers or himself. The weather is a nobler and more interesting subject; it is the present to the most variable of all variations, the chanstate of the skies and of the earth, on which ges of the weather.

plenty and famine are suspended, on which

millions depend for the necessaries of life.

invulnerable by pain; these are heights of wisdom which none ever attained, and to which few can aspire; but there are lower degrees of constancy necessary to common virtue; and every man, however he may distrust himself in the extremes of good or evil, might at least struggle against the tyranny of the climate, and refuse to enslave his virtue or his reason

The weather is frequently mentioned for an- No. 12.] SATURDAY, JULY 1, 1758. other reason, less honourable to my dear coun

trymen. Our dispositions too frequently THAT every man is important in his own eyes, change with the colour of the sky; and when is a position of which we all, either voluntarily

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