which we stand, with fortitude, equanimity, and moderation, according to men's respective circumstances. If our past actions reproach us, they cannot be atoned for by our own severe reflections so effectually as by a contrary behavior. If they are praiseworthy, the memory of them is of no use but to act suitably to them. Thus a good present behavior is an implicit repentance for any miscarriage in what is past; but present slackness will not make up for past activity. Time has swallowed up all that we cotemporaries did yesterday as irrevocably as it has the actions of the antediluvians. But we are again awake, and what shall we do to-day-to-day, which passes while we are yet speaking? Shall we remember the folly of last night, or resolve upon the exercise of virtue to-morrow? Last night is certainly gone, and tomorrow may never arrive. This instant make use

of.

Can you oblige any man of honor and virtue? Do it immediately. Can you visit a sick friend? Will it revive him to see you enter, and suspend your own ease and pleasure to comfort his weakness, and hear the impertinences of a wretch in pain? Do not stay to take coach, but be gone. Your mistress will bring sorrow, and your bottle madness. Go to neither -such virtues and diversions as these are mentioned because they occur to all men. But every man is sufficiently convinced, that to suspend the use of the present moment, and resolve better for the future only, is an unpardonable folly. What I attempted to consider, was the mischief of setting such a value upon what is past, as to think we have done enough. Let a man have filled all the offices of life with the highest dignity till yesterday, and begin to live only to himself to-day, he must expect he will, in the effects upon his reputation, be considered as the man who died yesterday. The man who distinguishes himself

from the rest, stands in a press of people: those before him intercept his progress; and those behind him, if he does not urge on, will tread him down. Cæsar, of whom it was said that he thought nothing done while there was anything left for him to do, went on in performing the greatest exploits, without assuming to himself a privilege of taking rest upon the foundation of the merit of his former actions. It was the manner of that glorious captain to write down what scenes he had passed through; but it was rather to keep his affairs in method, and capable of a clear review in case they should be examined by others, than that he built a renown upon anything that was past. I shall produce two fragments of his, to demonstrate that it was his rule of life to support himself rather by what he should perform, than what he had done already. In the tablet which he wore about him the same year in which he obtained the battle of Pharsalia, there were found these loose notes of his own conduct. It is supposed, by the circumstances they alluded to, that they might be set down the evening of the same night.

"My part is now but begun, and my glory must be sustained by the use I make of this victory, otherwise my loss will be greater than that of Pompey. Our personal reputation will rise or fall as we bear our respective fortunes. All my private enemies among the prisoners shall be spared. I will forget this, in order to obtain such another day. Trebutius is ashamed to see me; I will go to his tent, and be reconciled in private. Give all the men of honor, who take part with me, the terms I offered before the battle. Let them owe this to their friends who have been long in my interests. Power is weakened by the full use of it, but extended by moderation. Galbinius is proud, and will be servile in his present fortune: let

him wait. Send for Stertinius: he is modest, and his virtue is worth gaining. I have cooled my heart with reflection, and am fit to rejoice with the army to-morrow. He is a popular general, who can expose himself like a private man during a battle; but he is more popular who can rejoice but like a private man after a victory."

What is particularly proper for the example of all who pretend to industry in the pursuit of honor and virtue, is, that this hero was more than ordinarily solicitous about his reputation, when a common mind would have thought itself in security, and given itself a loose to joy and triumph. But though this is a very great instance of his temper, I must confess I am more taken with his reflections when he retired to his closet in some disturbance upon the repeated ill omens of Calphurnia's dream, the night before his death. The literal translation of that fragment shall conclude this paper.

66 Be it so then. If I am to die to-morrow, that is what I am to do to-morrow. It will not be then, because I am willing it should be then; nor shall I escape it, because I am unwilling. It is in the gods when, but in myself how, I shall die. If Calphurnia's dreams are fumes of indigestion, how shall I behold the day after to-morrow! If they are from the gods, their admonition is not to prepare me to escape from their decree, but to meet it. I have lived a fullness of days and of glory: what is there that Cæsar has not done with as much honor as ancient heroes?-Cæsar has not yet died! Cæsar is prepared to die."-T.

No. 379.]

THURSDAY, MAY 15, 1712.

Scire tuum nihil est, nisi te scire hoc sciat alter.

PERS. Sat. i, 27.

-Science is not science till reveal'd.-DRyden.

I HAVE often wondered at that ill-natured position which has sometime been maintained in the schools, and is comprised in an old Latin verse, namely, that "A man's knowledge is worth nothing if he communicates what he knows to any one beside." There is certainly no more sensible pleasure to a good-natured man, than if he can by any means gratify or inform the mind of another. I might add, that this virtue naturally carries its own reward along with it, since it is almost impossible it should be exercised without the improvement of the person who practices it. The reading of books, and the daily occurrences of life, are continually furnishing us with matter for thought and reflection. It is extremely natural for us to desire to see such of our thoughts put in the dress of words, without which, indeed, we can scarce have a clear and distinct idea of them ourselves. When they are thus clothed in expressions, nothing so truly shows us whether they are just or false, as those effects which they produce in the minds of others.

I am apt to flatter myself, that, in the course of these my speculations, I have treated of several subjects, and laid down many such rules for the conduct of a man's life, which my readers were either wholly ignorant of before, or which at least those few who were acquainted with them, looked upon as so many secrets they have found out for the conduct of themselves, but were resolved never to have made public.

I am the more confirmed in this opinion from my

having received several letters, wherein I am censured for having prostituted Learning to the embraces of the vulgar, and made her, as one of my correspondents phrases it, a common strumpet. I am charged by another with laying open the arcana or secrets of prudence to the eyes of every reader.

The narrow spirit which appears in the letters of these my correspondents is the less surprising, as it has shown itself in all ages: there is still extant an epistle written by Alexander the Great to his tutor Aristotle, upon that philosopher's publishing some part of his writings; in which the prince complains of his having made known to all the world those secrets in learning which he had before communicated to him in private lectures: concluding, that he had rather excel the rest of mankind in knowledge than in power.

Louisa de Padilla, a lady of great learning, and countess of Aranda, was in like manner angry with the famous Gratian, upon his publishing his treatise of the Discreto, wherein she fancied that he had laid open those maxims to common readers which ought only to have been reserved for the knowledge of the great.

These objections are thought by many of so much weight, that they often defend the above-mentioned authors by affirming they have affected such an obscurity in their style and manner of writing, that, though every one may read their works, there will be but very few who can comprehend their meaning.

Persius, the Latin satirist, affected obscurity for another reason; with which, however, Mr. Cowley is so offended, that, writing to one of his friends, "You," says he, "tell me, that you do not know whether Persius be a good poet or no, because you cannot understand him; for which very reason I affirm that he is not so."