We all know that it is more profitable to be loved than esteemed; and ministers of pleasure will always be found, who study to make themselves necessary, and to supplant those who are practising the same arts.

One of the amusements of idleness is reading without the fatigue of close attention, and the world therefore swarms with writers whose wish is not to be studied, but to be read.

No species of literary men has lately been so much multiplied as the writers of news. Not many years ago the nation was content with one gazette; but now we have not only in the metropolis papers for every morning and every evening, but almost every large town has its weekly historian,' who regularly circulates his periodical intelligence, and fills the villages of his district with conjectures on the event of war, and with debates on the true interests of Europe.

To write news in its perfection requires such a combination of qualities, that a man completely fitted for the task is not always to be found. In Sir Henry Wotton's jocular definition, An ambassador is said to be a man of virtue sent abroad to tell lies for the advantage of his country; a

2

1 The Birmingham Journal, for which Johnson wrote some essays, was started in 1732.-Boswell's Johnson, i. 85.

2 Wotton, passing through Germany on his way to Venice as ambassador, wrote in an album the following "pleasant definition :-Legatus est vir bonus, peregre missus ad mentiendum Reipublicæ causa. Which he could have been content should have been thus Englished:-An Am

news-writer is a man without virtue, who writes lies at home for his own profit. To these compositions is required neither genius nor knowledge, neither industry nor sprightliness; but contempt of shame and indifference to truth are absolutely necessary. He who by a long familiarity with infamy has obtained these qualities, may confidently tell today what he intends to contradict to-morrow; he may affirm fearlessly what he knows that he shall be obliged to recant, and may write letters from Amsterdam or Dresden to himself.

In a time of war the nation is always of one mind, eager to hear something good of themselves and ill of the enemy. At this time the task of news-writers is easy: they have nothing to do but to tell that a battle is expected, and afterwards that a battle has been fought, in which we and our friends, whether con. quering or conquered, did all, and our enemies did nothing.

Scarcely any thing awakens attention like a tale of cruelty. The writer of news never fails in the

bassador is an honest man, sent to lie abroad for the good of his country. But the word for lie-being the hinge upon which the conceit was to turn-was not so expressed in Latin as would admit-in the hands of an enemy especially-so fair a construction as Sir Henry thought in English." This pleasantry brought him into some trouble, being used against him and the English Court by "Scioppius, a Romanist, a man of a restless spirit and a malicious pen."-Walton's Lives, ed. 1838, p. 123. Dryden, referring to this story, says:"Sure a poet is as much privileged to lie as an ambassador, for the honour and interest of his country."-Dryden's Works, xiv. 175.

intermission of action to tell how the enemies murdered children and ravished virgins; and, if the scene of action be somewhat distant, scalps half the inhabitants of a province.

Among the calamities of war may be justly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates, and credulity encourages. A peace will equally leave the warrior and relator of wars destitute of employment; and I know not whether more is to be dreaded from streets filled with soldiers accustomed to plunder, or from garrets filled with scribblers accustomed to lie.1

No. 31. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 18,

M

1758.

ANY moralists have remarked, that pride has of all human vices the widest dominion, appears in the greatest multiplicity of forms, and lies hid under the greatest variety of disguises; of disguises, which, like the moon's veil of brightness,

1 With this attack on the writers of news we may compare the discussion in which Johnson, speaking of the ancient Greeks and Romans, said :-"Sir, the mass of both of them were barbarians. The mass of every people must be barbarous where there is no printing, and consequently knowledge is not generally diffused. Knowledge is diffused among our people by the newspapers."-Boswell's Johnson, ii. 170.

are both its lustre and its shade,1 and betray it to others, though they hide it from ourselves.

It is not my intention to degrade pride from this pre-eminence of mischief; yet I know not whether idleness may not maintain a very doubtful and obstinate competition.

There are some that profess idleness in its full dignity, who call themselves the Idle, as Busiris in the play calls himself the proud;2 who boast that they do nothing, and thank their stars that they have nothing to do; who sleep every night till they can sleep no longer, and rise only that exercise may enable them to sleep again; who prolong the reign of darkness by double curtains, and never see the sun but to tell him how they hate his beams, whose whole labour is to vary the posture of indulgence, and whose day differs from their night but as a couch or chair differs from a bed.

These are the true and open votaries of idleness, for whom she weaves the garlands of poppies, and into whose cup she pours the waters of oblivion; who exist in a state of unruffled 1 "The moon pull'd off her veil of light, That hides her face by day from sight, (Mysterious veil, of brightness made, That's both her lustre and her shade) And in the lanthorn of the night,

3

With shining horns hung out her light."

-Hudibras, ii. 1, 905.

"He calls himself The Proud, and glories in it." -Dr. Young, Busiris, act i. 1. 14.

to thee I call,

"But with no friendly voice, and add thy name,

O Sun, to tell thee how I hate thy beams."

-Paradise Lost, iv. 35.

stupidity, forgetting and forgotten; who have long ceased to live, and at whose death the sur vivors can only say, that they have ceased to breathe.

But idleness predominates in many lives where it is not suspected; for, being a vice which terminates in itself, it may be enjoyed without injury to others; and it is therefore not watched like fraud, which endangers property; or like pride, which naturally seeks its gratifications in another's inferiority. Idleness is a silent and peaceful quality, that neither raises envy by ostentation, nor hatred by opposition; and therefore nobody is busy to censure or detect it.

As pride sometimes is hid under humility, idleness is often covered by turbulence and hurry. He that neglects his known duty and real employment, naturally endeavours to crowd his mind with something that may bar out the remembrance of his own folly, and does any thing but what he ought to do with eager diligence, that he may keep himself in his own favour.

Some are always in a state of preparation, occupied in previous measures, forming plans, accumulating materials, and providing for the main affair. These are certainly under the secret power of idleness. Nothing is to be expected from the workman whose tools are for ever to be sought. I was once told by a great master,' that no man ever excelled in painting, who was eminently curious about pencils and colours. There are others to whom idleness dictates

1 Johnson knew Hogarth and Reynolds.