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pofed to the artifices of courts; I will "never pant for publick honours, nor "disturb my quiet with affairs of state. Such was my fcheme of life, which * I impreffed indelibly upon my me'mory.

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The first part of my enfuing time ' was to be spent in search of knowledge, and I know not how I was di♦ verted from my defign. I had no vi'fible impediments without, nor any ungovernable paffions within. I regarded knowledge as the higheft honour and the most engaging pleasure; yet day ftole upon day, and month glided after month, till I found that 'feven years of the firft ten had vanish• ed, and left nothing behind them. I now poftponed my purpofe of travelling; for why fhould I go abroad while fo much remained to be learned < at home? I immured myself for four f years, and ftudied the laws of the em'pire. The fame of my fkill reached the judges; I was found able to speak upon doubtful questions, and 'was ⚫ commanded to stand at the footstool of the Calif. I was heard with attention, • I was confulted with confidence, and the love of praise fattened on my heart.

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I ftill wifhed to fee diftant countries, liftened with rapture to the relations of travellers, and refolved fome time to ask my difmiffion, that I might feat my foul with novelty; but my prefence was always neceffary, and the ftream of bufinefs hurried me along. Sometimes I was afraid let I fhould be charged with ingratitude; but I ftill propofed to travel, and therefore would not confine myself by • marriage.

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In my fiftieth year I began to fufpect that the time of travelling was paft, and thought it beft to lay hold on the felicity yet in my power, and indulge myfelf in domeftick pleasures. But at fifty no man easily finds a woman beautiful as the Houries, and wife as Zobeide. I enquired and re'jected, confulted and deliberated, till the fixty-second year made me afhamed of gazing upon girls. I had now nothing left but retirement, and for retirement I never found a time, till difeafe forced me from publick employ

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Such was my fcheme, and fuch has been it's confequence. With an infatiable thirst for knowledge, I trifled away the years of improvement; with a reftlefs defire of feeing different 'countries, I have always refided in the

fame city; with the higheft expecta⚫tion of connubial felicity, I have lived unmarried; and with unalterable refolutions of contemplative retirement, I am going to die within the walls of Bagdat.'

N° CII. SATURDAY, MARCH 29.

T very feldom happens to man that his bufinefs is his pleafure. What is done from neceffity, is fo often to be done when against the prefent inclination, and fo often fills the mind with anxiety, that an habitual diflike steals upon us, and we fhrink involuntarily from the remembrance of our talk. This is the reason why almost every one wifhes to quit his employment; he does not like another state, but is difgufted with his

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commonly performed with reluctance, it proceeds that few authors write their own lives. Statemen, courtiers, ladies, generals, and feamen, have given to the world their own ftories, and the events with which their different stations have made them acquainted. They retired to the closet as to a place of quiet and amufement, and pleafed themselves with writing, because they could lay down the pen whenever they were weary. But the author, however confpicuous, or however important, either in the publick eye or in his own, leaves his life to be

related

related by his fucceffors, for he cannot gratify his vanity but by facrificing his

eafe.

It is commonly fuppofed that the uniformity of a ftudious life affords no matter for narration: but the truth is, that of the most studious life a great part paffes without study. An author partakes of the common condition of humanity; he is born and married like another man; he has hopes and fears, expectations and difappointments, griefs and joys, and friends and enemies, like a courtier or a ftatefiman; nor can I conceive why his affairs should not exeite curiofity as much as the whisper of a drawing-room, or the factions of a camp.

Nothing detains the reader's attention more powerfully than deep involutions of distress, or sudden viciffitudes of fortune; and these might be abundantly afforded by memoirs of the fons of li terature. They are intangled by contracts which they know not how to fulfil, and obliged to write on fubjects which they do not understand. Every publication is a new period of time from which fome encrease or declension of fame is to be reckoned. The gradations of a hero's life are from battle to battle, and of an author's from book to book.

Succefs and miscarriage have the fame effects in all conditions. The profperus are feared, hated, and flattered; and the unfortunate avoided, pitied, and defiled. No fooner is a book published than the writer may judge of the opinion of the world. If his acquaintance prefs round him in publick places, or falute him from the other fide of the ftreet; if invitations to dinner come thick upon him, and thofe with whom he dines keep him to fupper; if the ladies turn to him when his coat is plain, and the

footmen ferve him with attention and alacrity; he may be fure that his work has been praised by some leader of lite-rary fashions.

Of declining reputation the fymptoms are not lefs easily obferved. If the author enters a coffee-houfe, he has a box to himself; if he calls at a book seller's, the boy turns his back; and what is the moft fatal of all prognofticks, authors will visit him in a morning, and talk to him hour after hour of the malevolence of criticks, the neglect of merit, the bad taste of the age, and the candour of pofterity.

All this modified and varied by accident and custom would form very amusing fcenes of biography, and might recreate many a mind which is very little delighted with confpiracies or battles, intrigues of a court, or debates of a parliament: to this might be added all the changes of the countenance of a patron, traced from the firft glow which flattery rifes in his cheek, through ardour of fondnefs, vehemence of promife, magnificence of praife, excufe of delay, and lamentation of inability, to the laft chill look of final dismission, when the one grows weary of foliciting, and the other of hearing folicitation.

Thus copious are the materials which have been hitherto fuffered to lie neglected, while the repofitories of every family that has produced a foldier or a minifter are ranfacked, and libraries are crouded with useless folios of state papers which will never be read, and which contribute nothing to valuable knowledge.

I hope the learned will be taught to know their own ftrength and their value, and instead of devoting their lives to the honour of those who feldom thank them for their labours, refolve at last to do justice to themselves.

N° CIII. SATURDAY, APRIL 5.

RESPICERE AD LONGE JUSSIT SPATIA ULTIMA VITÆ.

M mankind ariles from the conjec

UCH of the pain and pleasure of

tures which every one makes of the thoughts of others; we all enjoy praise which we do not hear, and refent contempt which we do not fee. The Idler

Juv.

may therefore be forgiven, if he suffers his imagination to reprefent to him what his readers will fay or think when they are informed that they have now his latt paper in their hands.

Value is more frequently raifed by fcarcity

Scarcity than by use. That which lay neglected when it was common, rifes in eftimation as it's quantity becomes lefs. We feldom learn the true want of what we have till it is discovered that we can have no more.

This effay will, perhaps, be read with care even by those who have not yet attended to any other; and he that finds this late attention recompenfed, will not forbear to wish that he had bestowed it fooner.

Though the Idler and his readers have contracted no close friendship, they are perhaps both unwilling to part. There are few things not purely evil, of which we can fay, without fome emotion of uneafiness, This is the laft. Those who never could agree together, fhed tears when mutual discontent has determined them to final feparation; of a place which has been frequently visited, though without pleasure, the last look is taken with heaviness of heart; and the Idler, with all his chillness of tranquillity, is not wholly unaffected by the thought that his laft effay is now before him.

This fecret horrour of the laft is infeparable from a thinking being, whose life is limited, and to whom death is dreadful. We always make a fecret comparison between a part and the whole; the termination of any period of life reminds us that life itself has like wife it's termination; when we have done any thing for the last time, we inwoluntarily reflect that a part of the days allotted us is past, and that as more is paft there is less remaining.

It is very happily and kindly provided, that in every life there are certain paufes and interruptions, which force confideration upon the careless, and seriousness upon the light; points of time where one courfe of action ends and another begins: and by viciffitude of fortune, or alteration of employment, by change of place, or lofs of friendship,

we are forced to say of something, This is the laft.

An even and unvatied tenour of life always hides from our apprehenfion the approach of it's end. Succeffion is not perceived but by variation; he that lives to-day as he lived yesterday, and expects that as the prefent day is, fuch will be the morrow, easily conceives time as running in a circle, and returning to itself. The uncertainty of our duration is impreffed commonly by diffimilitude of condition; it is only by finding life changeable that we are reminded of it's fhortness.

This conviction, however forcible at every new impreffion, is every moment fading from the mind; and partly by the inevitable incurfion of new images, and partly by voluntary exclufion of unwelcome thoughts, we are again expofed to the univerfal fallacy; and we must do another thing for the last time, before we confider that the time is nigh when we shall do no more.

As the laft Idler is published in that folemn week which the Chriftian world has always fet apart for the examination of the confcience, the review of life, the extinction of earthly defires, and the renovation of holy purposes, I hope that my readers are already difpofed to view every incident with seriousness, and improve it by meditation; and that when they fee this series of trifles brought to a conclufion, they will confider that, by outliving the Idler, they have passed weeks, months, and years, which are now no longer in their power; that an end must in time be put to every thing great as to every thing little; that to life must cone it's last hour, and to this fyftem of being it's laft day, the hour at which probation ceafes, and repentance will be vain; the day in which every work of the hand, and imagination of the heart, fhail be brought to judgment, and an everlafting futurity thall be determined by the past.

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CONTENT S.

VOLUME THE FIRST.

DLER's Character,

Invitation to Correfpondents,
Invitation to

III. Idler's Reason for writing,

IV. Charities and Hofpitals,
v. Propofal for a Female Army,
VI. Lady's Performance on Horfeback,
VII. Scheme for News-writers,
VIII. Plan of Military Difcipline,
1x. Progrefs of Idleness,
x. Political Credulity,

XI. Difcourfes on the Weather,

XII. Marriages why advertised,
XIII. The imaginary Housewife,
XIV. Robbery of Time,

xv. Treacle's Complaint of his Wife,
XVI. Drugget's Retirement,
XVII. Expedients of Idlers,

XVIII. Drugget vindicated,

XIX. Whirler's Character,
xx. Louisbourg's Hiftory,
XXI. Linger's Hiftory of Liftleffness,
XXII. Imprisonment of Debtors,
XXIII. Uncertainty of Friendship,
XXIV. Man does not always think,

XXV. New Actors on the Theatre,

xxvI. Betty Broom's History,

XXVII. Power of Habits,

XXVIII. Wedding Day-Grocer's Wife-Chairman,

XXIX. Betty Broom's Hiftory,

xxx. Corruption of New-writers,

XXXI. Difguifes of Idlenefs. Sober's Character,

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