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❝enced in

offer he has made of it to every

every new writer of every new paper, but he comforts "himfelf by thinking, without vanity, that this "has been from a peculiar favour of the muses, "who faved his performance from being buried in "trafh, and reserved it to appear with luftre in the "Rambler."

I am equally a friend to modefty and enterprize; and therefore fhall think it an honour to correfpond with a young man who poffeffes both in fo eminent a degree. Youth is, indeed, the time in which these qualities ought chiefly to be found; modefty fuits well with inexperience, and enterprize with health and vigour, and an extensive prospect of life. One of my predeceffors has juftly observed, that, though modefty has an amiable and winning appearance, it ought not to hinder the exertion of the active powers, but that a man should show under his blushes a latent refolution. This point of perfection, nice as it is, my correfpondent feems to have attained. That he is modeft, his own declaration may evince; and, I think, the latent refolution may be difcovered in his letter by an acute obferver. I will advise him, fince he fo well deferves my precepts, not to be difcouraged, though the Rambler fhould prove equally envious, or taftelefs, with the reft of this fraternity. If his paper is refufed, the preffes of England are open, let him try the judgment of the public. If, as it has fometimes happened in general combinations against merit, he cannot perfuade the world to buy his works, he may prefent them to his friends; and if his friends are feized with the epidemical infatuation, and cannot find his genius, or will not confefs it, let him then refer his caufe to pofterity, and reserve his labours for a wifer age.

Thus have I difpatched fome of my correfpondents, in the ufual manner, with fair words, and ge

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neral civility. But to Flirtilla, the gay Flirtilla, what fhall I reply? Unable as I am to fly, at her command, over land and feas, or to fupply her, from week to week, with the fashions of Paris, or the intrigues of Madrid, I am yet not willing to incur her further difpleasure, and would fave my papers from her monkey on any reasonable terms. By what propitiation, therefore, may I atone for my former gravity, and open, without trembling, the future letters of this fprightly perfecutor? To write in defence of masquerades is no eafy tafk; yet fomething difficult and daring may well be required, as the price of fo important an approbation. I therefore confulted, in this great emergency, a man of high reputation in gay life, who having added, to his other accomplishments, no mean proficiency in the minute philofophy, after the fifth perufal of her letter, broke out with rapture into these words: And can you, Mr. Rambler, ftand out against this charming creature? Let her know, at least, that from this moment Nigrinus devotes his life and his labours to her fervice. Is there any ftubborn prejudice of education, that ftands between thee and the most amiable of mankind? Behold, Flirtilla, at thy feet, a man grown grey in the ftudy of those noble arts, by which right and wrong may be confounded; by which reafon may be blinded, when we have a mind to escape, from her infpection; and caprice and appetite inftated in uncontroulled command, and boundless dominion! Such a cafuift may furely engage, with certainty of fuccefs, in vindication of an entertainment, which in an instant gives confidence to the timorous, and kindles ardour in the cold; an entertainment where the vigilance of jealoufy has fo often been eluded, and the virgin is fet free from the neceffity of languishing in filence; where all the outworks of chastity are at once demo

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lifhed; where the heart is laid open without a 'bluth; where bashfulness may furvive virtue, and no wish is crush'd under the frown of modefty. Far weaker influence than Flirtilla's might gain over an advocate for fuch amufements. It was declared by Pompey, that, if the commonwealth was violated, he could ftamp with his foot, and raise an army out of the ground; if the rights of pleasure are again invaded, let but Flirtilla crack her fan, neither pens, nor fwords, fhall be wanting at the fummons; the wit and the colonel fhall march out at her command, and neither law nor 'reafon fhall ftand before us.'

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NUMB. II. TUESDAY, April 24, 1750.

Non Dindymene, non adytis quatit
Mentem facerdotum incola Pythius,
Non Liber aque, non acuta
Sic geminant Corybantes ara,

Triftes ut iræ..

Yet O! remember, nor the god of wine,
Nor Pythian Phæbus from his inmost shrine,
Nor Dindymene, nor her priests poffeft,,

HOR.

Can with their founding cymbals shake the breast,
Like furious anger.

T

FRANCIS.

HE maxim which Periander of Corinth, one of the feven fages of Greece, left as a memorial of his knowledge and benovelence was xóλa upare, Be mafter of thy anger. He confidered anger as the great disturber of human life, the chief enemy both of publick happiness and private tranquillity, and thought that he could not lay on pofterity a ftronger obligation to reverence his memory, than

by leaving them a falutary caution against this outrageous paffion.

To what latitude Periander might extend the word, the brevity of his precept will fcarce allow us to conjecture. From anger, in its full import, protracted into malevolence, and exerted in revenge, arife, indeed, many of the evils to which the life of man is exposed. By anger operating upon power are produced the fubverfion of cities, the defolation of countries, the maffacre of nations, and all thofe dreadful and aftonishing calamities which fill the hiftories of the world, and which could not be read at any diftant point of time, when the paffions ftand neutral, and every motive and principle is left to its natural force, without fome doubt of the truth of the relation, did we not fee the fame caufes ftill tending to the fame effects, and only acting with lefs vigour for want of the fame concurrent opportunities.

But this gigantick and enormous fpecies of anger falls not properly under the animadverfion of a writer, whofe chief end is the regulation of common life, and whofe precepts are to recommend themselves by their general ufe. Nor is this effay intended to expofe the tragical or fatal effects even of private malignity. The anger which I propose now for my fubject is fuch as makes thofe who indulge it more troublefome than formidable, and ranks them rather with hornets and wafps, than with bafilifks and lions. I have, therefore, prefixed a motto, which characterises this paffion, not fo much by the mifchief that it caufes, as by the noife that it utters.

There is in the world a certain clafs of mortals, known, and contentedly known, by the appellation of paffionate men, who imagine themselves entitled by that diftinction to be provoked on every flight occafion, and to vent their rage in vehc

ment

ment and fierce vociferations, in furious menaces and licentious reproaches. Their rage, indeed, for the most part, fumes away in outcries of injury, and protestations of vengeance, and feldom proceeds to actual violence, unless a drawer or linkboy falls in their way; but they interrupt the quiet of those that happen to be within the reach of their clamours, obftruct the courfe of converfation and difturb the enjoyment of fociety.

Men of this kind are fometimes not without understanding or virtue, and are, therefore, not always treated with the feverity which their neglect of the ease of all about them might juftly provoke; they have obtained a kind of prefcription for their folly, and are confidered by their companions as under a predominant influence that leaves them not masters of their conduct or language, as acting without confcioufnefs, and rufhing into mifchief with a mift before their eyes; they are therefore pitied rather than cenfured, and their fallies are paffed over as the involuntary blows of a man agitated by the fpafms of a convulfion.

It is furely not to be observed without indignation, that men may be found of minds mean enough to be fatisfied with this treatment; wretches who are proud to obtain the privilege of madmen, and can, without fhame, and without regret, confider themselves as receiving hourly pardons from their companions, and giving them continual opportunities of exercifing their patience, and boafting their clemency.

Pride is undoubtedly the original of anger: but pride, like every other paffion, if it once breaks loose from reason, counteracts its own purposes. A paffionate man, upon the review of his day, will have very few gratifications to offer to his pride, when he has confidered how his outrages were

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