There is no pleasure which men of every age and sect have more generally agreed to mention with contempt than the gratifications of the palate, an entertainment so far removed from intellectual happiness that scarcely the most shameless of the sensual herd have dared to defend it: yet even to this, the lowest of our delights, to this, though neither quick nor lasting, is health with all its activity and sprightliness daily sacrificed; and for this are half the miseries endured which urge impatience to call on death. The whole world is put in motion by the wish for riches and dread of poverty. Who, then, would not imagine that such conduct as will inevitably destroy what all are thus labouring to acquire must generally be avoided? That he who spends more than he receives must in time become indigent cannot be doubted; but how evident soever this consequence may appear, the spendthrift moves in the whirl of pleasure with too much rapadity to keep it before his eyes, and, in the intoxication of gaiety, grows every day poorer without any such sense of approaching ruin as is sufficient to wake him into caution. Many complaints are made of the misery of life; and indeed it must be confessed that we are subject to calamities by which the good and bad, the diligent and slothful, the vigilant and heedless are equally afflicted. But surely, though some indulgence may be allowed to groans extorted by inevit able misery, no man has a right to repine at evils which, against warning, against experience, he deli berately and leisurely brings upon his own head; or to consider himself as debarred from happiness by such obstacles as resolution may break, or dex terity may put aside. Great numbers who quarrel with their condition have wanted not the power but the will to obtain better state. They have never contemplated the lifference between good and evil sufficiently to quicken aversion or invigorate desire; they have infulged a drowsy thoughtlessness or giddy lenity; ave committed the balance of choice to the maagement of caprice; and when they have long accustomed themselves to receive all that chance offered them, without examination, lament at last hat they find themselves deceived. No. 179. TUESDAY, DEC. 3, 1751. Democritus would feed his spleen, and shake EVERY man, says Tully, has two characters; one, hich he partakes with all mankind, and by which e is distinguished from brute animals; another, hich discriminates him from the rest of his own pecies, and impresses on him a manner and temper eculiar to himself; this particular character, if it e not repugnant to the laws of general humanity, it always his business to cultivate and preserve. Every hour furnishes some confirmation of Tully's recept. It seldom happens that an assembly of leasure is so happily selected, but that some one nds admission, with whom the rest are deservedly fended; and it will appear on a close inspection, at scarce any man becomes eminently disagreeable it by a departure from his real character, and an tempt at something for which nature or education is left him unqualified. Ignorance or dulness have indeed no power of fording delight, but they never give disgust except VOL. III. T 179. when they assume the dignity of knowledge, or a the sprightliness of wit. Awkwardness and inel gance have none of those attractions by which ease and politeness take possession of the heart; but ridicule and censure seldom rise against them unless they appear associated with that confidence which belongs only to long acquaintance with the modes of life, and to consciousness of unfailing propriety of behaviour. Deformity itself is regarded with tenderness rather than aversion, when it does not attempt to deceive the sight by dress and decortion, and to seize, upon fictitious claims, the prero gatives of beauty. He that stands to contemplate the crowds that fill the streets of a populous city will see many passengers whose air and motion it will be difficult to behold without contempt and laughter; but if he examines what are the appearances that thus powerfully excite his risibility, he will find among the neither poverty nor disease, nor any involuntary or Isult is awakened by the softness of foppery, the painful defect. This disposition to derision and i swell of insolence, the liveliness of levity, or the solemnity of grandeur; by the sprightly trip, the stately stalk, the formal strut, and the lofty mien; by gestures intended to catch the eye, and by looks elaborately formed as evidences of importance. It has, I think, been sometimes urged in favour of affectation, that it is only a mistake of the means to a good end, and that the intention with which it is practised is always to please. If all attempts to innovate the constitutional or habitual character have really proceeded from public spirit and love of others, the world has hitherto been sufficiently ungrateful, since no return but scorn has made to the most difficult of all enterprises, a test with nature; nor has any pity been shown to yet been a con he fatigues of labour which never succeeded, and he uneasiness of disguise, by which nothing was oncealed. It seems, therefore, to be determined by the geeral suffrage of mankind, that he who decks himelf in adscititious qualities rather purposes to comand applause than impart pleasure; and he is herefore treated as a man who by an unreasonable unbition usurps the place in society to which he has 10 right. Praise is seldom paid with willingness even to incontestable merit, and it can be no wonder that he who calls it without desert is repulsed with universal indignation. Affectation naturally counterfeits those excellences which are placed at the greatest distance from possibility of entertainment. We are con scious of our own defects, and eagerly endeavour to supply them by artificial excellence; nor would such efforts be wholly without excuse, were they not often excited by ornamental trifles, which he that thus anxiously struggles for the reputation of possessing them would not have been known to want, had not his industry quickened observation. Gelasimus passed the first part of his life in academical privacy and rural retirement, without any other conversation than that of scholars grave, studious, and abstracted as himself. He cultivated the mathematical sciences with indefatigable diligence, discovered many useful theorems, discussed with great accuracy the resistance of fluids, and, though his priority was not generally acknowledged, was the first who fully explained all the properties of the catenarian curve. Learning, when it rises to eminence, will be observed in time, whatever mists may happen to surround it. Gelasimus, in his forty-ninth year, was distinguished by those who have the rewards of knowledge in their hands, and called out to display his acquisitions for the honour of his country, and add dignity by his presence to philosophical assemblies. As he did not suspect his unfitness for common affairs, he felt no reluctance to obey the invitation, and what he did not feel he had yet too much honesty to feign. He entered into the world as a larger and more populous college, where his performances would be more public, and his renown farther extended; and imagined that he should find his reputation universally prevalent, and the influence of learning every where the same. His merit introduced him to splendid tables and elegant acquaintance; but he did not find himself always qualified to join in the conversation. He was distressed by civilities, which he knew not how to repay, and entangled in many ceremonial perplexities, from which his books and diagrams could not extricate him. He was sometimes unluckily engaged in disputes with ladies, with whom algebraic axioms had no great weight, and saw many whose favour and esteem he could not but desire, to whom he was very little recommended by his theories of the tides, or his approximations to the qua drature of the circle. Gelasimus did not want penetration to discover that no charm was more generally irresistible than that of easy facetiousness and flowing hilarity. He saw that diversion was more frequently welcome than improvement, that authority and seriousness were rather feared than loved, and that the grave scholar was a kind of imperious ally, hastily dismissed when his assistance was no longer necessary. He came to a sudden resolution of throwing off those cumbrous ornaments of learning which hindered his reception, and commenced a man of wit and jocularity. Utterly unacquainted with every topic of |