temper, to the lightness of his other powers. But this has now been long practifed, and found, upon the most exact estimate, not to produce advantages equal to its inconveniencies; for it appears not that a man can by uproar, tumult, and blufter, alter any one's opinion of his understanding, or gain influence, except over thofe whom fortune or nature have made his dependants. He may, by a fteady perfeverance in his ferocity, fright his children, and harass his fervants, but the rest of the world will look on and laugh; and he will have the comfort at laft of thinking that he lives only to raise contempt and hatred, emotions to which wisdom and virtue would be always unwilling to give occafion. He has contrived only to make thofe fear him, whom every reafonable being is endeavouring to endear by kindness, and muft content himself with the pleasure of a triumph obtained by trampling on them who could not refift. He muft perceive that the apprehenfion which his prefence caufes is not the awe of his virtue, but the dread of his brutality, and that he has given up the felicity of being loved, without gaining the honour of being reverenced. But this is not the only ill confequence of the frequent indulgence of this bluftering paffion, which a man, by often calling to his affiftance, will teach, in a fhort time, to intrude before the fummons, to rush upon him with refiftless violence, and without any previous notice of its approach. He will find him, felf liable to be inflamed at the firft touch of provocation, and unable to retain his refentment, till he has a full conviction of the offence, to proportion his anger to the caufe, or to regulate it by prudence or by by duty. When a man has once fuffered his mind to be thus vitiated, he becomes one of the moft hateful and unhappy beings. He can give no fecurity to himself that he fhall not, at the next interview, alienate by fome fudden tranfport his dearest friend; or break out, upon fome flight contradiction, into fuch terms of rudeness as can never be perfectly forgotten. Whoever converses with him, lives with the fufpicion and folicitude of a man that plays with a tame tiger, always under a neceffity of watching the moment in which the capricious favage fhall begin to growl. It is told by Prior, in a panegyrick on the duke of Dorfet, that his fervants ufed to put themselves in his way when he was angry, because he was fure to recompenfe them for any indignities which he made them fuffer. This is the round of a paffionate man's life; he contracts debts when he is furious, which his virtue, if he has virtue, obliges him to discharge at the return of reason. He spends his time in outrage and acknowledgment, injury and reparation. Or, if there be any who hardens himself in oppreffion, and juftifies the wrong, because he has done it, his infenfibility can make fmall part of his praife, or his happinefs; he only adds deliberate to hafty folly, aggravates petulance by contumacy, and destroys the only plea that he can offer for the tenderness and patience of mankind, Yet, even in this degree of depravity we may be content to pity, because it feldom wants a punithment equal to its guilt. Nothing is more defpicable or more miferable than the old age of a paffionate man, When the vigour of youth fails him, and his amusements pall with frequent repetition, his occafional rage finks by decay of ftrength into peevishnefs; that peevishness, for want of novelty and variety, becomes babitual; the world falls off from around him, and he is left, as Homer expreffes it, φθινύθων φίλον κῆς, to devour his own heart in folitude and contempt. NUMB. 12. SATURDAY, April 28, 1750, -Miferum parvâ ftipe fecilat, ut pudibundes -Tu mitis, & acri Afperitate carens, pofitoque per omnia fafu, Lucanus ad Pifonem, Unlike the ribald whofe licentious jeft No focial care the gracious lord difdains; Love prompts to love, and rev'rence rev'rence gains. SIR, To the RAMBLER. As you feem to have devoted your labours to AS virtue, I cannot forbear to inform you of one fpecies of cruelty with which the life of a man of letters perhaps does not often make him acquainted; and which, as it feems to produce no other advantage to those that practise it than a short gratification of thoughtless vanity, may become less common when it has been once exposed in its various forms, and its full magnitude. I am the daughter of a country gentleman, whofe family is numerous, and whofe eftate, not at firft fufficient to fupply us with affluence, has been lately fo much impaired by an unfuccefsful law fuit, that all the younger children are obliged to try fuch means, as their education affords them, for procuring the neceffaries of life. Diftrefs and curiofity concurred to bring me to London, where I was received by a relation with the coldnefs which misfortune generally finds. A week, a long week, I lived with my coufin, before the most vigilant inquiry could procure us the least hopes of a place, in which time I was much better qualified to bear all the vexations of fervitude. The first two days fhe was content to pity me, and only wished I had not been quite fo well bred; but people must comply with their circumftances. This lenity, however, was foon at an end; and, for the remaining part of the week, I heard every hour of the pride of my family, the obstinacy of my father, and of people better born than myfelf that were common fervants. At last, on Saturday noon, fhe told me, with very vifible fatisfaction, that Mrs. Bombafine, the great filkmercer's lady, wanted a maid, and a fine place it would be, for there would be nothing to do but to clean my iniftrefs's room, get up her linen, drefs the young ladies, wait at tea in the morning, take care of a little mifs juft come from nurse, and then fit down to my needle. But madam was a woman of great fpirit, and would not be contradicted, and therefore I fhould take care, for good places were not eafily to be got. With thefe cautions I waited on madam Bom bafine, of whom the firft fight gave me no ravishing ideas. |