he should meet would prove good or bad; but feeing an inn of a good appearance, he rode refolutely into the yard; and knowing that refpect is often paid in proportion as it is claimed, delivered his injunction to the hoftler with spirit, and entering the house, called vigorously about him.

On the third day up rose the fun and Mr. Marvel. His troubles and his dangers were now fuch, as he wishes no other man ever to encounter. The ways were lefs frequented, and the country more thinly inhabited. He rode many a lonely hour through mire and water, and met not a fingle foul for two miles together with whom he could exchange a word. He cannot deny that, looking round upon the dreary region, and feeing nothing but bleak fields and naked trees, hills obfcured by fogs, and flats covered with inundations, he did for fome time fuffer melancholy to prevail upon him, and wished himself again fafe at home. One comfort he had, which was to confider, that none of his friends were in the same diftrefs, for whom, if they had been with him, he should have fuffered more than for himfelf; he could not forbear fometimes to confider how happily the Idler is fettled in an eafier condition, who, furrounded like him with terrors, could have done nothing but lie down and die.

Amidst thefe reflections he came to a town and found a dinner, which difpofed him to more cheerful fentiments; but the joys of life are short, and its miferies are long; he mounted and travelled fifteen miles more through dirt and defolation.

At laft the fun fet, and all the horrors of darkness came upon him. He then repented the weak in

dulgence

dulgence in which he had gratified himfelf at noon with too long an interval of reft: yet he went forward along a path which he could no longer fee, fometimes rushing fuddenly into water, and fometimes incumbered with ftiff clay, ignorant whither he was going, and uncertain whether his next step might not be the last.

In this difmal gloom of nocturnal peregrination his horfe unexpectedly ftood ftill. Marvel had heard many relations of the inftinct of horses, and was in doubt what danger might be at hand. Sometimes he fancied that he was on the bank of a river ftill and deep, and fometimes that a dead body lay acrofs the track. He fat ftill awhile to recollect his thoughts; and as he was about to alight and explore the darkness, out stepped a man with a lantern, and opened the turnpike. He hired a guide to the town, arrived in safety, and slept in quiet.

The rest of his journey was nothing but danger, He climbed and defcended precipices on which vulgar mortals tremble to look; he paffed marshes like the Serbonian bog, where armies whole have funk; he forded rivers where the current roared like the Egre of the Severn; or ventured himself on bridges that trembled under him, from which he looked down on foaming whirlpools, or dreadful abyffes; he wandered over houseless heaths, amidst all the rage of the elements, with the fnow driving in his face, and the tempeft howling in his ears.

Such are the colours in which Marvel paints his adventures. He has accustomed himself to founding words and hyperbolical images, till he has loft the power of true defcription. In a road through

which the heavieft carriages pafs without difficulty, and the poft-boy every day and night goes and returns, he meets with hardships like thofe which are endured in Siberian deferts, and miffes nothing of romantick danger but a giant and a dragon. When his dreadful story is told in proper terms, it is only that the way was dirty in winter, and that he expe◄ rienced the common viciffitudes of rain and funfhine.

NUMB. 50. SATURDAY, March 31, 1759.

THE

HE .character of Mr. Marvel has raised the merriment of fome and the contempt of others, who do not fufficiently confider how often they hear and practise the fame arts of exaggerated narration.

There is not, perhaps, among the multitudes of all conditions that fwarm upon the earth, a fingle man who does not believe that he has fomething extraordinary to relate of himself; and who does not, at one time or other, fummon the attention of his friends to the cafualties of his adventures and the viciffitudes of his fortune; cafualties and viciffitudes that happen alike in lives uniform and diversified ; to the commander of armies, and the writer at a defk; to the failor who refigns himself to the wind and water, and the farmer whofe longest journey is to the market.

In the present ftate of the world man may pafs through Shakespeare's feven ftages of life, and meet

nothing

nothing fingular or wonderful. But fuch is every man's attention to himself, that what is common and unheeded when it is only feen, becomes remarkable and peculiar when we happen to feel it.

It is well enough known to be according to the ufual process of nature, that men fhould ficken and recover, that fome defigns fhould fucceed and others mifcarry, that friends fhould be feparated and meet again, that fome fhould be made angry by endeavours to please them, and fome be pleafed when no care has been used to gain their approbation; that men and women fhould at firft come together by chance, like each other fo well as to commence acquaintance, improve acquaintance into fondnefs, increase or extinguifh fondnefs by marriage, and have children of different degrees of intellects and virtue, fome of whom die before their parents, and others furvive them.

Yet let any man tell his own ftory, and nothing of all this has ever befallen him according to the common order of things; fomething has always difcriminated his cafe; fome unufual concurrence of events has appeared which made him more happy or more miserable than other mortals; for in pleafures or calamities, however common, every one has comforts and afflictions of his own.

It is certain that without fome artificial augmentations, many of the pleasures of life, and almost all its embellishments, would fall to the ground. If no man was to exprefs more delight than he felt, thofe who felt most would raise little envy. If travellers were to defcribe the most laboured performances of

art with the fame coldnefs as they furvey them, alı expectations of happinefs from change of place would ceafe. The pictures of Raphael would hang without fpectators, and the gardens of Versailles might be inhabited by hermits. All the pleasure that is received ends in an opportunity of splendid falsehood, in the power of gaining notice by the difplay of beauties which the eye was weary of beholding, and a hiftory of happy moments, of which, in reality, the most happy was the laft.

The ambition of fuperior fenfibility and superior eloquence difpofes the lovers of arts to receive rapture at one time, and communicate it at another; and each labours firft to impofe upon himself, and then to propagate the imposture.

Pain is lefs fubject than pleasure to caprices of expreffion. The torments of disease, and the grief for irremediable misfortunes, fometimes are fuch as no words can declare, and can only be fignified by groans, or fobs, or inarticulate ejaculations. Man has from nature a mode of utterance peculiar to pain, but he has none peculiar to pleasure, because he never has pleasure but in fuch degrees as the ordinary ufe of language may equal or furpass.

It is nevertheless certain, that many pains as well as pleasures are heightened by rhetorical affectation, and that the picture is, for the most part, bigger than the life.

When we defcribe our fenfations of another's for rows, either in friendly or ceremonious condolence, the customs of the world fcarcely admit of rigid veracity. Perhaps the fondcft friendship would enrage

oftener