The Rambler, Vol. II | Page 6

the streets
with nakedness and hunger.
How frequently have the gay and thoughtless, in their evening frolicks,
seen a band of those miserable females, covered with rags, shivering
with cold, and pining with hunger; and, without either pitying their
calamities, or reflecting upon the cruelty of those who, perhaps, first
seduced them by caresses of fondness, or magnificence of promises, go
on to reduce others to the same wretchedness by the same means!
To stop the increase of this deplorable multitude, is undoubtedly the
first and most pressing consideration. To prevent evil is the great end of
government, the end for which vigilance and severity are properly
employed. But surely those whom passion or interest has already
depraved, have some claim to compassion, from beings equally frail
and fallible with themselves. Nor will they long groan in their present
afflictions, if none were to refuse them relief, but those that owe their
exemption from the same distress only to their wisdom and their virtue.
I am, &c.
AMICUS[a].
[Footnote a: The letter from Amicus was from an unknown
correspondent. It breathes a tenderness of spirit worthy of Johnson
himself. But he practised the lesson which it inculcates;--a harder task!
Sterne could write sentiment.]

No. 108. SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 1751.
_--Sapere aude: Incipe. Vivendi recte qui prorogat horam, Rusticus
expectat dum defluat amnis; at ille Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis
aevum_. HOR. Lib. i. Ep. ii. 39.
Begin, be bold, and venture to be wise; He who defers this work from
day to day, Does on a river's bank expecting stay, Till the whole stream,
which stopp'd him, should be gone, That runs, and as it runs, for ever
will run on. COWLEY.
An ancient poet, unreasonably discontented at the present state of
things, which his system of opinions obliged him to represent in its
worst form, has observed of the earth, "that its greater part is covered
by the uninhabitable ocean; that of the rest some is encumbered with
naked mountains, and some lost under barren sands; some scorched
with unintermitted heat, and some petrified with perpetual frost; so that

only a few regions remain for the production of fruits, the pasture of
cattle, and the accommodation of man."
The same observation may be transferred to the time allotted us in our
present state. When we have deducted all that is absorbed in sleep, all
that is inevitably appropriated to the demands of nature, or irresistibly
engrossed by the tyranny of custom; all that passes in regulating the
superficial decorations of life, or is given up in the reciprocations of
civility to the disposal of others; all that is torn from us by the violence
of disease, or stolen imperceptibly away by lassitude and languor; we
shall find that part of our duration very small of which we can truly call
ourselves masters, or which we can spend wholly at our own choice.
Many of our hours are lost in a rotation of petty cares, in a constant
recurrence of the same employments; many of our provisions for ease
or happiness are always exhausted by the present day; and a great part
of our existence serves no other purpose, than that of enabling us to
enjoy the rest.
Of the few moments which are left in our disposal, it may reasonably
be expected, that we should be so frugal, as to let none of them slip
from us without some equivalent; and perhaps it might be found, that as
the earth, however straitened by rocks and waters, is capable of
producing more than all its inhabitants are able to consume, our lives,
though much contracted by incidental distraction, would yet afford us a
large space vacant to the exercise of reason and virtue; that we want not
time, but diligence, for great performances; and that we squander much
of our allowance, even while we think it sparing and insufficient.
This natural and necessary comminution of our lives, perhaps, often
makes us insensible of the negligence with which we suffer them to
slide away. We never consider ourselves as possessed at once of time
sufficient for any great design, and therefore indulge ourselves, in
fortuitous amusements. We think it unnecessary to take an account of a
few supernumerary moments, which, however employed, could have
produced little advantage, and which were exposed to a thousand
chances of disturbance and interruption.
It is observable, that, either by nature or by habit, our faculties are fitted
to images of a certain extent, to which we adjust great things by
division, and little things by accumulation. Of extensive surfaces we
can only take a survey, as the parts succeed one another; and atoms we

cannot perceive till they are united into masses. Thus we break the vast
periods of time into centuries and years; and