I

I unhappily told my aunt, in the first warmth of our embraces, that I had leave to stay with her ten weeks. Six only are yet gone, and how shall I live through the remaining four? I go out and return; I pluck a flower, and throw it away; catch an infect, and when I have examined its colours, fet it at liberty; I fling a pebble into the water, and fee one circle spread after another. When it chances to rain, I walk in the great hall, and watch the minute hand upon the dial, or play with a litter of kittens, which the cat happens to have brought in a lucky time.

My aunt is afraid I fhall grow melancholy, and therefore encourages the neighbouring gentry to vifit us. They came at firft with great eagerness to fee the fine lady from London, but when we met, we had no common topick on which we could converfe; they had no curiofity after plays, operas, or mufick; and I find as little fatisfaction from their accounts of the quarrels, or alliances of families, whofe names, when once I can escape, I fhall never hear. The women have now seen me, know how my gown is made, and are satisfied; the men are generally afraid of me, and fay little because they think themselves not at liberty to talk rudely.

tance.

Thus am I condemned to folitude; the day moves flowly forward, and I fee the dawn with uneafinefs, because I confider that night is at a great difI have tried to fleep by a brook, but find its murmurs ineffectual; so that I am forced to be awake at least twelve hours, without vifits, without cards, without laughter, and without flattery. I walk because I am difgufted with fitting ftill, and fit down because I am weary with walking. I have no motive to action, nor any object of love, or hate, or fear, or inclination. I cannot drefs with fpirit, for I have neither rival nor admirer. I can

not

not dance without a partner, nor be kind, or cruel, without a lover.

Such is the life of Euphelia, and fuch it is likely to continue for a month to come. I have not yet declared against existence, nor called upon the deftinies to cut my thread; but I have fincerely refolved not to condemn myfelf to fuch another fummer, nor too haftily to flatter myfelf with happinefs. Yet I have heard, Mr. Rambler, of those who never thought themselves fo much at ease as in folitude, and cannot but fufpect it to be fome way or other my own fault, that, without great pain, either of mind or body, I am thus weary of myself: that the current of youth ftagnates, and that I am languishing in a dead calm, for want of fome external impulfe. I fhall therefore think you a benefactor to our sex, if you will teach me the art of living alone; for I am confident that a thoufand and a thousand and a thousand ladies, who affect to talk with ecftacies of the pleasures of the country, are in reality, like me, longing for the winter, and wishing to be delivered from themselves by company and diverfion.

I am,

SIR,

Yours,

EUPHELIA.

NUMB.

NUMB. 43. TUESDAY, August 14, 1750.

Flumine perpetuo torrens folet acrius ire,

Sed tamen bac brevis eft, illa perennis aqua.

In courfe impetuous foon the torrent dries,

OVID.

The brook a conftant peaceful stream fupplies. F. LEWIS.

Tis obferved by those who have written on the conftitution of the human body, and the original of thofe difeafes by which it is afflicted, that, every man comes into the world morbid, that there is no temperature fo exactly regulated but that fome humour is fatally predominant, and that we are generally impregnated, in our firft entrance upon life, with the feeds of that malady, which, in tine, shall bring us to the grave.

This remark has been extended by others to the intellectual faculties. Some that imagine themfelves. to have looked with more than common penetration; into human nature, have endeavoured to perfuade us, that each man is born with a mind formed peculiarly for certain purposes, and with defires unalterably determined to particular objects, from which the attention cannot be long diverted, and which alone, as they are well or ill pursued, must produce the praise or blame, the happiness or misery, of his future life.

This pofition has not, indeed, been hitherto proved with ftrength proportionate to the affurance with which it has been advanced, and, perhaps, will never gain much prevalence by a close examination.

If the doctrine of innate ideas be itself difputable, there feems to be little hope of establishing an opinion, which fuppofes that even complications of ideas have been given us at our birth, and that we

are

are made by nature ambitious, or covetous, before we know the meaning of either power or money.

Yet as every step in the progreffion of existence changes our pofition with respect to the things about us, fo as to lay us open to new affaults and particular dangers, and fubjects us to inconveniencies from which any other fituation is exempt; as a publick or a private life, youth and age, wealth and poverty, have all fome evil clofely adherent, which cannot wholly be efcaped but by quitting the state to which it is annexed, and fubmitting to the incumbrances of fome other condition; fo it cannot be denied that every difference in the structure of the mind has its advantages and its wants; and that failures and defects, infeparable from humanity, however the powers of understanding be extended or contracted, there will on one fide or the other always be an avenue to error and miscarriage.

There feem to be fome fouls fuited to great, and others to little employments; fome formed to foar aloft, and take in wide views, and others to grovel on the ground, and confine their regard to a narrow fphere. Of these the one is always in danger of becoming useless by a daring negligence, the other by a fcrupulous folicitude; the one collects many ideas, but confused and'indiftin&t; the other is bufied in minute accuracy, but without compass and without dignity.

The general error of those who poffefs powerful and elevated understandings, is, that they form fchemes of too great extent, and flatter themselves too haftily with fuccefs; they feel their own force to be great, and, by the complacency with which every man furveys himself, imagine it ftill greater: they therefore look out for undertakings worthy of their abilities, and engage in them with very little precaution, for they imagine that without premeditated measures, they fhall be able to find expedients in all

difficulties. They are naturally apt to confider all prudential maxims as below their regard, to treat with contempt thofe fecurities and refources which others know themfelves obliged to provide, and difdain to accomplish their purposes by established means, and common gradations.

Precipitation, thus incited by the pride of intellectual fuperiority, is very fatal to great defigns. The refolution of the combat is feldom equal to the vehemence of the charge. He that meets with an oppofition which he did not expect, lofes his courage. The violence of his firft onfet is fucceeded by a lasting and unconquerable languor; mifcarriage makes him fearful of giving way to new hopes; and the contemplation of an attempt, in which he has fallen below his own expectations, is painful and vexatious; he therefore naturally turns his attention to more pleasing objects, and habituates his imagination to other entertainments, till, by flow degrees, he quits his first purfuit, and fuffers fome other project to take poffeffion of his thoughts, in which the fame ardour of mind promifes him again certain fuccefs, and which difappointments of the fame kind compel him to abandon.

Thus too much vigour in the beginning of an undertaking, often intercepts and prevents the fteadi-' nefs and perfeverance always neceffary in the conduct of a complicated fcheme, where many interests are to be connected, many movements to be adjusted," and the joint effort of diftinct and independent powers to be directed to a fingle point. In all important events which have been fuddenly brought to pass, chance has been the agent rather than reafon; and therefore, however thofe, who feemed to prefide in the tranfaction, may have been celebrated by fuch as loved or feared them, fucceeding times have commonly confidered them as fortunate rather than prudent. Every defign in which the connexion is

re