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labours in any great or laudable undertaking, has his fatigues firft fupported by hope, and afterwards rewarded by joy; he is always moving to a certain end, and when he has attained it, an end more diftant invites him to a new purfuit.

It does not, indeed, always happen, that diligence is fortunate; the wifeft fchemes are broken by unexpected accidents; the moft conflant perfeverance fometimes toils through life without a recompence; but labour, though unfuccefsful, is more eligible than idleness; he that profecutes a lawful purpose by lawful means, acts always with the approbation of his own reafon; he is animated through the course of his endeavours by an expectation which, though not certain, he knows to be juft; and is at laft comforted in his difappointment, by the confcioufnefs that he has not failed by his own fault.

That kind of life is moft happy which affords us moft opportunities of gaining our own efteem; and what can any man infer in his own favour from a condition to which, however profperous, he contributed nothing, and which the vileft and weakeft of the fpecies would have obtained by the fame right, had he happened to be the fon of the fame father.

To ftrive with difficulties, and to conquer them, is the highest human felicity; the next, is to strive, and deferve to conquer: but he whofe life has paffed without a contest, and who can boaft neither fuccefs not merit, can furvey himself only as a useless filler of exiftence; and if he is content with his own character, muft owe his fatisfaction to infenfibility.

Thus it appears that the fatirift advised rightly, when he directed us to refign ourselves to the hands

of

of Heaven, and to leave to fuperior powers the determination of our lot

Permittes ipfis expendere Numinibus, quid
Conveniat nobis, rebufque fit utile noftris:
Carior eft illis homo quam fibi.

Intrust thy fortune to the powers above;
Leave them to manage for thee, and to grant
What their unerring wisdom fees thee want.
In goodness as in greatnefs they excel:
Ah! that we loy'd ourselves but half fo well.

DRYDEN,

What ftate of life admits moft happiness, is uncertain; but that uncertainty ought to reprefs the petulance of comparison, and filence the murmurs of discontent.

NUMB. 115. TUESDAY, December 11, 1753.

Scribimus inducti doctique.

All dare to write, who can or cannot read.

TH

HOR.

HEY who have attentively confidered the hiftory of mankind, know that every age has its peculiar character. At one time, no defire is felt but for military honours; every fummer affords battles and fieges, and the world is filled with ravage, bloodthed, and devaftation; this fanguinary fury at length fubfides, and nations are divided into factions, by controverfies about points that will never be decided. Men then grow weary of debate and altercation, and apply them felves to the arts of profit; trading companies are formed, manufactures improved, and navigation extended; and nothing is any longer thought on, but the increase and prefervation of property, the artifices of getting money, and the pleafures of fpending it.

The present age, if we confider chiefly the state of our own country, may be ftiled with great propriety The age of Authors; for, perhaps, there never was a time in which men of all degrees of ability, of every kind of education, of every profeffion and employment, were pofting with ardour fo general to the prefs. The province of writing was formerly left to

thofe,

thofe, who by study, or appearance of study, were fuppofed to have gained knowledge unattainable by the bufy part of mankind; but in thefe enlightened days, every man is qualified to inftruct every other man and he that beats the anvil, or guides the plough, not content with fupplying corporal neceffities, amufes himfelf in the hours of leifure with providing intellectual pleasures for his country

men.

It may be obferved, that of this, as of other evils, complaints have been made by every generation : but though it may, perhaps, be true, that at all times more have been willing than have been able to write, yet there is no reafon for believing, that the dogmatical legions of the prefent race were ever equailed in number by any former period; for fo widely is fpread the itch of literary praife, that almost every man is an author, either in act or in purpofe; has either beftowed his favours on the publick, or witholds them, that they may be more feafonably offered, or made more worthy of accept

ance.

In former times, the pen, like the fword, was confidered as configned by nature to the hands of men; the ladies contented themselves with private virtues and domeftick excellence; and a female writer, like a female warrior, was confidered as a kind of eccentric being, that deviated, however illuftriously, from her due fphere of motion, and was, therefore, rather to be gazed at with wonder, than countenanced by imitation. But as the times paft are faid to have been a nation of Amazons, who drew the bow

.

bow and wielded the battle-axe, formed encampments and wafted nations; the revolution of years has now produced a generation of Amazons of the pen, who with the fpirit of their predeceffors have fet masculine tyranny at defiance, afferted their claimi to the regions of science, and seem resolved to contest the ufurpations of virility.

Some, indeed, there are of both fexes, who are authors only in defire, but have not yet attained the power of executing their intentions; whofe performances have not arrived at bulk fufficient to form a volume, or who have not the confidence, however impatient of nameless obfcurity, to folicit openly the affistance of the printer. Among these are the innumerable correfpondents of publick papers, who are always offering affiftance which no man will receive, and fuggesting hints that are never taken, and who complain loudly of the perverfeness and arrogance of authors, lament their infenfibility of their own intereft, and fill the coffee-houses with dark stories of performances by eminent hands, which have been offered and rejected.

To what cause this univerfal eagernefs of writing can be properly afcribed, I have not yet been able to difcover. It is faid, that every art is propagated in proportion to the rewards conferred upon it; a pofition from which a stranger would naturally infer, that literature was now bleffed with patronage far transcending the candour or munificence of the Augustine age, that the road to greatnefs was open to-none but authors, and that by writing alone riches and honour were to be obtained.

But

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