NUMB. 80. SATURDAY, October 27, 1759.

THA

HAT every day has its pains and forrows is univerfally experienced, and almost univerfally confeffed; but let us not attend only to mournful truths; if we look impartially about us, we fhall find that every day has likewife its pleasures and its joys.

The time is now come when the town is again beginning to be full, and the 'rufticated beauty fees an end of her banishment. Those whom the tyranny of fashion had condemned to pass the summer among fhades and brooks, are now preparing to return to plays, balls, and affemblies, with health reftored by retirement, and fpirits kindled by expectation.

Many a mind which has languished some months without emotion or defire, now feels a fudden renovation of its faculties. It was long ago obferved by Pythagoras, that ability and neceffity dwell near each other. She that wandered in the garden without sense of its fragrance, and lay day after day ftretched. upon a couch behind a green curtain, unwilling to wake and unable to fleep, now fummons her thoughts to confider which of her last year's clothes hall be feen again, and to anticipate the raptures of a new fuit; the day and the night are now filled with occupation; the laces which were too fine to be worn among rufticks, are taken from the boxes and reviewed, and the eye is no fooner clofed after its labours, than whole fhops of filk bufy the fancy.

VOL. VIII.

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But

But happiness is nothing if it is not known, and very little if it is not envied. Before the day of departure a week is always appropriated to the payment and reception of ceremonial vifits, at which nothing can be mentioned but the delights of London. The lady who is haftening to the scene of action flutters her wings, difplays her profpects of felicity, tells how fhe grudges every moment of delay, and in the presence of thofe, whom she knows condemned to ftay at home, is fure to wonder by what arts life can be made fupportable through a winter in the country, and to tell how often amidft the extafies of an opera fhe fhall pity thofe friends whom fhe has left behind. Her hope of giving pain is feldom disappointed; the affected indifference of one, the faint congratulations of another, the wifhes of fome openly confeffed, and the filent dejection of the reft, all exalt her opinion of her own fuperiority.

But however we may labour for our own deception, truth, though unwelcome, will fometimes intrude upon the mind. They who have already enjoyed the crowds and noife of the great city, know that their desire to return is little more than the restleffness of a vacant mind, that they are not fo much led by hope as driven by disgust, and wish rather to leave the country than to fee the town. There is commonly in every coach a passenger enwrapped in filent expectation, whofe joy is more fincere, and whofe hopes are more exalted. The virgin whom the last fummer released from her governefs, and who is now going between her mother and her aunt to try the fortune of her wit and beauty, fufpects no fallacy in the gay reprefentation. She believes her

felf

felf paffing into another world, and images London as an elysian region, where every hour has its proper pleasure, where nothing is feen but the blaze of wealth, and nothing heard but merriment and flattery; where the morning always rifes on a fhow, and the evening closes on a ball; where the eyes are used only to fparkle, and the feet only to dance.

Her aunt and her mother amuse themselves on the road, with telling her of dangers to be dreaded, and cautions to be obferved. She hears them as they heard their predeceffors, with incredulity or contempt. She fees that they have ventured and escaped; and one of the pleasures which the promifes herself is to detect their falfehoods, and be freed from their admonitions.

We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know, because they never have deceived us. The fair adventurer may perhaps liften to the Idler, whom fhe cannot fufpect of rivalry or malice, yet he fcarcely expects to be credited when he tells her, that her expectations will likewife end in disappointment,

The uniform neceffities of human nature produce in a great measure uniformity of life, and for part of the day make one place like another: to drefs and to undress, to eat and to fleep, are the fame in London as in the country. The fupernumerary hours have indeed a greater variety both of pleasure and of pain. The ftranger gazed on by multitudes at her first appearance in the Park, is perhaps on the highest summit of female happiness; but how great is the anguish when the novelty of another face draws her worshippers away! The heart may leap for a time under a fine gown, but the fight of a gown yet finer

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puts

puts an end to rapture. In the first row at an opera two hours may be happily paffed in listening to the mufick on the ftage, and watching the glances of the company; but how will the night end in defpondency when the that imagined herself the sovereign of the place, fees lords contending to lead Iris to her chair? There is little pleasure in conversation to her whose wit is regarded but in the fecond place; and who can dance with ease or fpirit that fees Amaryllis led out before her? She that fancied nothing but a fucceffion of pleasures, will find herself engaged without defign in numberless competitions, and mortified without provocation with numberlefs afflictions.

But I do not mean to extinguish that ardour which I wish to moderate, or to difcourage those whom I am endeavouring to reftrain. To know the world is, neceffary, fince we were born for the help of one another; and to know it early is convenient, if it be only that we may learn early to despise it. She that brings to London a mind well prepared for improvement, though the miffes her hope of uninterrupted happiness, will gain in return an opportunity of adding knowledge to vivacity, and enlarging innocence to virtue.

NUMB. 81. SATURDAY, November 3, 1759.

S the English army was paffing towards Quebec

A along

along a foft favanna between a mountain and a lake, one of the petty chiefs of the inland regions stood upon a rock furrounded by his clan, and from behind the fhelter of the bushes contemplated the art and regularity of European war. It was evening, the tents were pitched: he observed the fecurity with which the troops refted in the night, and the order with which the march was renewed in the morning. He continued to pursue them with his eye till they could be feen no longer, and then stood for fome time filent and penfive.

Then turning to his followers, "My children " (faid he) I have often heard from men hoary "with long life, that there was a time when our " ancestors were abfolute lords of the woods, the "meadows, and the lakes, wherever the eye can "reach or the foot can pass. They fifhed and "hunted, feasted and danced, and when they "were weary lay down under the first thicket, "without danger and without fear. They changed "their habitations as the feafons required, con"venience prompted, or curiofity allured them, and fometimes gathered the fruits of the moun

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<tain,