the tombs and graves. Among others, I observed one with this notable memorial:

'Here lies the body of T. B.'

This fantastical desire of being remembered only by the two first letters of a name, led me into the contemplation of the vanity and imperfect attainments of ambition in general. When I run back in my imagination all the men whom I have ever known and conversed with in my whole life, there are but very few who have not used their faculties in the pursuit of what it is 10 impossible to acquire; or left the possession of what they might have been, at their setting out, masters, to search for it where it was out of their reach. In this thought it was not possible to forget the instance of Pyrrhus", who proposing to himself in discourse with a philosopher, one, and another, and another conquest, was asked, what he would do after all that? 'Then,' says the king, 'we will make merry.' He was well answered, 'What hinders your doing that in the condition you are already?' The restless desire of exerting themselves above the common level of mankind is not to be resisted in some tempers; and 20 minds of this make may be observed in every condition of life. Where such men do not make to themselves, or meet with employment, the soil of their constitution runs into tares and weeds. An old friend of mine, who lost a major's post forty years ago, and quitted, has ever since studied maps, encampments, retreats, and countermarches; with no other design but to feed his spleen and ill-humour, and furnish himself with matter for arguing against all the successful actions of others. He that, at his first setting out in the world, was the gayest man in our regiment; ventured his life with alacrity, and enjoyed it with satisfaction; 30 encouraged men below him, and was courted by men above him, has been ever since the most froward creature breathing. His warm complexion spends itself now only in a general spirit of contradiction: for which he watches all occasions, and is in his conversation still upon sentry, treats all men like enemies, with every other impertinence of a speculative warrior.

He that observes in himself this natural inquietude, should take all imaginable care to put his mind in some method of gratification; or he will soon find himself grow into the condition of this disappointed major. Instead of courting proper

occasions to rise above others, he will be ever studious of pulling others down to him: it being the common refuge of disappointed ambition, to ease themselves by detraction. It would be no great argument against ambition, that there are such mortal things in the disappointment of it; but it certainly is a forcible exception, that there can be no solid happiness in the success of it. If we value popular praise, it is in the power of the meanest of the people to disturb us by calumny. If the fame of being happy, we cannot look into a village, but we see crowds in actual 10 possession of what we seek only the appearance. To this may be added, that there is I know not what malignity in the minds of ordinary men, to oppose you in what they see you fond of; and it is a certain exception against a man's receiving applause, that he visibly courts it. However, this is not only the passion of great and undertaking spirits; but you see it in the lives of such as, one would believe, were far enough removed from the ways of ambition. The rural esquires of this nation even eat and drink out of vanity. A vain-glorious fox-hunter shall entertain half a county, for the ostentation of his beef and beer, with20 out the least affection for any of the crowd about him. He feeds them, because he thinks it a superiority over them that he does so; and they devour him, because they know he treats them out of insolence. This indeed is ambition in grotesque ; but may figure to us the condition of politer men, whose only pursuit is glory. When the superior acts out of a principle of vanity, the dependant will be sure to allow it him; because he knows it destructive of the very applause which is courted by the man who favours him, and consequently makes him nearer himself.

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But as every man living has more or less of this incentive, which makes men impatient of an inactive condition, and urges men to attempt what may tend to their reputation, it is absolutely necessary they should form to themselves an ambition, which is in every man's power to gratify. This ambition would be independent, and would consist only in acting what, to a man's own mind, appears most great and laudable. It is a pursuit in the power of every man, and is only a regular prosecution of what he himself approves. It is what can be interrupted by no outward accidents; for no man can be robbed of his good 40 intention. One of our society of the Trumpet" therefore started

last night a notion, which I thought had reason in it. 'It is, methinks,' said he, 'an unreasonable thing, that heroic virtue should, as it seems to be at present, be confined to a certain order of men, and be attainable by none but those whom fortune has elevated to the most conspicuous stations. I would have every thing to be esteemed as heroic, which is great and uncommon in the circumstances of the man who performs it.' Thus there would be no virtue in human life, which every one of the species would not have a pretence to arrive at, and an 10 ardency to exert. Since fortune is not in our power, let us be as little as possible in hers. Why should it be necessary that a man should be rich, to be generous? If we measured by the quality and not the quantity of things, the particulars which accompany an action is what should denominate it mean or great. The highest station of human life is to be attained by each man that pretends to it: for every man can be as valiant, as generous, as wise, and as merciful, as the faculties and opportunities which he has from heaven and fortune will permit. He that can say to himself, 'I do as much good, and am as virtuous 20 as my most earnest endeavours will allow me,' whatever is his station in the world, is to see himself possessed of the highest honour. If ambition is not thus turned, it is no other than a continual succession of anxiety and vexation. But when it has this cast, it invigorates the mind; and the consciousness of its own worth is a reward, which is not in the power of envy, reproach, or detraction, to take from it. Thus the seat of solid honour is in a man's own bosom; and no one can want support who is in possession of an honest conscience, but he who would suffer the reproaches of it for other greatness. Tatler, No. 202.]

[July 25, 1710.

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No. 26. On wishing oneself younger.

Habet natura ut aliarum omnium rerum sic vivendi modum; senectus autem peractio ætatis est tanquam fabulæ. Cujus defatigationem fugere debemus, præsertim adjuncta satietate.-TULL. De Senect.

Of all the impertinent wishes which we hear expressed in conversation, there is not one more unworthy a gentleman or

a man of liberal education, than that of wishing one's self younger. I have observed this wish is usually made upon sight of some object which gives the idea of a past action, that it is no dishonour to us that we cannot now repeat; or else on what was in itself shameful when we performed it. It is a certain sign of a foolish or a dissolute mind if we want our youth again only for the strength of bones and sinews which we once were masters of. It is (as my author has it) as absurd in an old man to wish for the strength of youth, 10 as it would be in a young man to wish for the strength of a bull or a horse. These wishes are both equally out of nature, which should direct in all things that are not contradictory to justice, law, and reason. But though every old man has been young, and every young one hopes to be old, there seems to be a most unnatural misunderstanding between those two stages of life. This unhappy want of commerce arises from the insolent arrogance or exultation in youth, and the irrational despondence or self-pity in age. A young man whose passion and ambition is to be good and wise, and an old one who has 20 no inclination to be lewd or debauched, are quite unconcerned in this speculation; but the cocking young fellow who treads upon the toes of his elders, and the old fool who envies the saucy pride he sees in him, are the objects of our present contempt and derision. Contempt and derision are harsh words; but in what manner can one give advice to a youth in the pursuit and possession of sensual pleasures, or afford pity to an old man in the impotence and desire of enjoying them? When young men in public places betray in their deportment an abandoned resignation to their appetites, they 30 give to sober minds a prospect of a despicable age, which, if not interrupted by death in the midst of their follies, must certainly come. When an old man bewails the loss of such gratifications which are past, he discovers a monstrous inclination to that which it is not in the course of Providence to recall. The state of an old man, who is dissatisfied merely for his being such, is the most out of all measures of reason and good sense of any being we have any account of from the highest angel to the lowest worm. How miserable is the contemplation to consider an old man (while all created 40 beings, besides himself and devils, are following the order of

Providence) fretting at the course of things, and being almost the sole malecontent in the creation. But let us a little reflect upon what he has lost by the number of years. The passions which he had in youth are not to be obeyed as they were then, but reason is more powerful now without the disturbance of them. An old gentleman the other day in discourse with a friend of his (reflecting upon some adventures they had in youth together) cried out, 'Oh Jack, those were happy days!' 'That is true,' replied his friend, but methinks we go about 10 our business more quietly than we did then.' One would think it should be no small satisfaction to have gone so far in our journey that the heat of the day is over with us. When life itself is a fever, as it is in licentious youth, the pleasures of it are no other than the dreams of a man in that distemper; and it is as absurd to wish the return of that season of life, as for a man in health to be sorry for the loss of gilded palaces, fairy walks, and flowery pastures, with which he remembers he was entertained in the troubled slumbers of a fit of sickness.

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As to all the rational and worthy pleasures of our beingthe conscience of a good fame, the contemplation of another life, the respect and commerce of honest men, our capacities for such enjoyments are enlarged by years. While health endures, the latter part of life, in the eye of reason, is certainly the more eligible. The memory of a well-spent youth gives a peaceable, unmixed, and elegant pleasure to the mind; and to such who are so unfortunate as not to be able to look back on youth with satisfaction, they may give themselves no little consolation that they are under no 30 temptation to repeat their follies, and that they at present despise them. It was prettily said, 'He that would be long an old man, must begin early to be one.' It is too late to resign a thing after a man is robbed of it; therefore it is necessary that before the arrival of age we bid adieu to the pursuits of youth, otherwise sensual habits will live in our imaginations, when our limbs cannot be subservient to them. The poor fellow who lost his arm last siege, will tell you, he feels the fingers that are buried in Flanders ache every cold morning at Chelsea.

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The fond humour of appearing in the gay and fashionable

G