it may yet be enjoyed, as Anacreon calls upon his companions to give him for prefent use the wine and garlands which they purpose to bestow upon his tomb. The advocates for the love of fame allege in its vindication, that it is a paffion natural and univerfal; a flame lighted by heaven, and always burning with greatest vigour in the moft enlarged and elevated minds. That the defire of being praifed by posterity implies a refolution to deferve their praises, and that the folly charged upon it, is only a noble and difinterested generofity, which is not felt, and therefore not understood, by those who have been always accustomed to refer every thing to themselves, and whofe felfifhnefs has contracted their underftandings. That the foul of man,, formed for eterpal life, naturally fprings forward beyond the limits of corporeal exiftence, and rejoices to confider herfelf as co-operating with future ages, and as co-extended with endless duration. That the reproach urged with fo much petulance, the reproach of labouring for what cannot be enjoyed, is founded on an opinion which may with great probability bẹ doubted; for fince we fuppofe the powers of the foul to be enlarged by its feparation, why should we conclude that its knowledge of fublunary tranfactions is contracted or extinguifhed? Upon an attentive and impartial review of the argument, it will appear that the love of fame is to be regulated rather than extinguished; and that men fhould be taught not to be wholly careless about their memory, but to endeavour that they may be remembered chiefly for their virtues, fince no other repu reputation will be able to tranfmit any pleasure beyond the grave. It is evident that fame, confidered merely as the immortality of a name, is not lefs likely to be the reward of bad actions than of good; he therefore has no certain principle for the regulation of his conduct, whose single aim is not to be forgotten. And hiftory will inform us, that this blind and undiftinguishing appetite of renown has always been uncertain in its effects, and directed by accident or opportunity, indifferently to the benefit or devaftation of the world. When Themiftocles complained that the trophies of Miltiades hindered him from fleep, he was animated by them to perform the fame fervices in the fame caufe. But Cæfar, when he wept at the fight of Alexander's picture, having no honest opportunities of action, let his ambition break out to the ruin of his country. If, therefore, the love of fame is fo far indulged by the mind as to become independent and predo. minant, it is dangerous and irregular; but it may be usefully employed as an inferior and fecondary motive, and will ferve fometimes to revive our activity, when we begin to languifh and lofe fight of that more certain, more valuable, and more durable reward, which ought always to be our first hope and our laft. But it must be ftrongly impreffed upon our minds, that virtue is not to be pursued as one of the means to fame, but fame to be accepted as the only recompence which mortals can bestow on virtue; to be accepted with complacence, but not fought with eagerness. Simply to be remembered is no advantage; it is a pri vilege which fatire as well as panegyrick can confer, and is not more enjoyed by Titus or Conftantine, than by Timocreon of Rhodes, of whom we only know from his epitaph, that he had eaten many a meal, drank many a flaggon, and uttered many a reproach. Πολλὰ φαγών, καὶ πολλὰ πινῶν, καὶ πολλὰ κακ' είπων The true fatisfaction which is to be drawn from the consciousness that we shall share the attention of future times, must arise from the hope, that, with our name, our virtues will be propagated; and that those whom we cannot benefit in our lives, may receive instruction from our examples, and incitement from our renown. NUMB. 50. SATURDAY, Sept. 8, 1750. Credebant hoc grande nefas, et morte piandum, Si juvenis vetulo non affurrexerat, atque And had not men the hoary head rever'd, And boys paid rev'rence when a man appear'd, Juv I Both must have died, though richer fkins they wore, CREECH. HAVE always thought it the business of those who turn their speculations upon the living world, to commend the virtues, as well as to expofe the faults of their contemporaries, and to confute a falfe as well as to support a just accufation; not only because it is peculiarly the business of a monitor to keep his own reputation untainted, left those who can once charge him with partiality, fhould indulge themselves afterwards in difbelieving him at pleafure; but because he may find real crimes fufficient to give full employment to caution or repentance, without distracting the mind by needlefs fcruples and vain folicitudes. There are certain fixed and ftated reproaches that one part of mankind has in all ages thrown upon another, which are regularly tranfinitted through continued fucceffions, and which he that has once fuffered them is certain to ufe with the fame undiftinguishing vehemence, when he has changed his ftation, and gained the prefcriptive right of inflicting on others, what he had formerly endured himfelf. To these hereditary imputations, of which no man fees the juftice, till it becomes his interest to see it, very little regard is to be fhewn; fince it does not appear that they are produced by ratiocination or enquiry, but received implicitly, or caught by a kind of inftantaneous contagion, and supported rather by willingness to credit than ability to prove them. It has been always the practice of those who are defirous to believe themfelves made venerable by length of time, to cenfure the new comers into life, for want of respect to grey hairs and fage experience, for heady confidence in their own understandings, for hafty conclufions upon partial views, for difregard of counfels, which their fathers and grandfires are ready to afford them, and a rebellious impatience of that fubordination to which youth is condemned by nature, as neceffary to its fecurity from evils into which it would be otherwife precipitated, by the rafhnefs of paffion, and the blindness of ignorance. Every old man complains of the growing depravity of the world, of the petulance and infolence of the rifing generation. He recounts the decency and regularity of former times, and celebrates the difcipline and fobriety of the age in which his youth was paffed; a happy age which is now no more to be expected, fince confufion has broken in upon the world, and thrown down all the boundaries of civility and re verence. It is not fufficiently confidered how much he affumes who dares to claim the privilege of complaining for as every man has, in his own opinion, a full fhare of the miseries of life, he is inclined to confider |