NUMB. 66. SATURDAY, July 21, 1759.

O complaint is more frequently repeated among

the learned, than that of the wafte made by time among the labours of antiquity. Of thofe who once filled the civilized world with their renown, nothing is now left but their names, which are left only to raise defires that never can be fatisfied, and forrow which never can be comforted.

Had all the writings of the ancients been faithfully delivered down from age to age, had the Alexandrian library been fpared, and the Palatine repofitories remained unimpaired, how much might we have known of which we are now doomed to be ignorant! how many laborious enquiries, and dark conjectures, how many collations of broken hints and mutilated paffages, might have been fpared! We fhould have known the fucceflions of princes, the revolutions of empire, the actions of the great, and opinions of the wife, the laws and conftitutions of every state, and the arts by which publick grandeur and happinefs are acquired and preferved; we should have traced the progress of life, feen colonies from diftant regions take poffeffion of European deferts, and troops of favages fettled into communities by the defire of keeping what they had acquired; we should have traced the gradations of civility, and travelled upward to the original of things by the light of hiftory, till in remoter times it had glimmered in fable, and at laft funk into darkness.

If the works of imagination had been lefs diminifhed, it is likely that all future times might have been fupplied with inexhauftible amufement by the fictions of antiquity. The tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides would have fhewn all the ftronger paffions in all their diverfities; and the comedies of Menander would have furnished all the maxims of domeftick life. Nothing would have been neceffary to moral wifdom but to have ftudied thefe great mafters, whofe knowledge would have guided doubt, and whofe authority would have filenced cavils.

Such are the thoughts that rife in every ftudent, when his curiofity is eluded, and his fearches are fruftrated; yet it may perhaps be doubted, whether our complaints are not fometimes inconfiderate, and whether we do not imagine more evil than we feel. Of the ancients, enough remains to excite our emulation, and direct our endeavours. Many of the works which time has left us, we know to have been thofe that were moft efteemed, and which antiquity itfelf confidered as models; fo that, having the originals, we may without much regret lofe the imitations. The obfcurity which the want of contemporary writers often produces, only darkens fingle paffages, and thofe commonly of flight importance. The general tendency of every piece may be known, and though that diligence deferves praife which leaves nothing unexamined, yet its mifcarriages are not much to be lamented; for the most useful truths are always univerfal, and unconnected with accidents and cuftoms.

Such is the general confpiracy of human nature against contemporary merit, that if we had inherited

from

from antiquity enough to afford employment for the laborious, and amufement for the idle, I know not what room would have been left for modern genius or modern induftry; almost every fubject would have been pre-occupied, and every ftyle would have been fixed by a precedent from which few would have ventured to depart. Every writer would have had a rival, whofe fuperiority was already acknowledged, and to whofe fame his work would, even before it was feen, be marked out for a facrifice.

We fee how little the united experience of mankind have been able to add to the heroick characters difplayed by Homer, and how few incidents the fertile imagination of modern Italy has yet produced, which may not be found in the Iliad and Ody fey. It is likely, that if all the works of the Athenian philofophers had been extant, Malbranche and Locke would have been condemned to be filent readers of the ancient metaphysicians; and it is ap parent, that if the old writers had all remained, the Idler could not have written a difquifition on the jofs.

NUMB. 67. SATURDAY, July 28, 1759.

SIR,

IN

To the IDLER.

N the obfervations which you have made on the Various opinions and various opinions and purfuits of mankind, you must often, in literary converfations, have met with men who confider diffipation as the great enemy of the intellect; and maintain, that in proportion as the ftudent keeps himfelf within the bounds of a fettled plan, he will more certainly advance in fcience.

This opinion is, perhaps, generally true; yet, when we contemplate the inquifitive nature of the human mind, and its perpetual impatience of all reftraint, it may be doubted whether the faculties may not be contracted by confining the attention; and whether it may not fometimes be proper to rifque the certainty of little for the chance of much. Acquifitions of knowledge, like blazes of genius, are often fortuitous. Thofe who had propofed to themfelves a methodical courfe of reading, light by accident on a new book, which feizes their thoughts and kindles their curiofity, and opens an unexpected profpect, to which the way which they had prescribed to themfelves would never have conducted them.

To enforce and illuftrate my meaning, I have fent you a journal of three days employment, found among

among the papers of a late intimate acquaintance; who, as will plainly appear, was a man of vaft defigns, and of vaft performances, though he fometimes defigned one thing and performed another. I allow that the Spectator's inimitable productions of this kind may well difcourage all fubfequent journalists; but, as the fubject of this is different from that of any which the Spectator has given us, I leave it to you to publifh or fupprefs it.

Mem. The following three days I propofe to give up to reading; and intend, after all the delays which have obtruded themselves upon me, to finish my Effay on the Extent of the Mental Powers; to revife my Treatise on Logick; to begin the Epick which I have long projected; to proceed in my perufal of the 'Scriptures with Grotius's Comment; and at my leifure to regale myself with the works of clafficks, ancient and modern, and to finifh my Ode to Aftro

nomy.

Monday.] Defigned to rife at fix, but, by my fervant's laziness, my fire was not lighted before eight, when I dropped into a flumber that lafted till nine; at which time I rofe, and, after breakfast, at ten fat down to study, propofing to begin upon my Essay; but finding occafion to confult a paffage in Plato, was abforbed in the perufal of the republick till twelve. I had neglected to forbid company, and now enters Tom Careless, who, after half an hour's chat, infifted upon my going with him to enjoy an abfurd character, that he had appointed, by an advertisement, to meet him at a particular coffeehoufe. After we had for fome time entertained our