of him whom perhaps he has first corrupted, by making him fubfervient to his vices; and whofe fidelity he therefore cannot enforce by any precepts of honesty or reafon. It is feldom known, that authority thus acquired, is poffeffed without infolence; or that the master is not forced to confefs, by his tameness or forbearance, that he has enflaved himself by fome foolish confidence. And his crime is equally punished, whatever part he takes of the choice to which he is reduced; and he is, from that fatal hour in which he facrificed his dignity to his paffions, in perpetual dread of infolence or defamation; of a controuler at home, or an accufer abroad. He is condemned to purchafe by continual bribes, that fecrecy which bribes never secured, and which, after a long course of fubmiffion, promises, and anxieties, will be violated in a fit of rage, or a frolic of drunkenness.

To dread no eye, and to suspect no tongue, is the great prerogative of innocence; an exemption granted only to invariable virtue. But guilt has always its horrors and folicitudes; and, to make it yet more fhameful and deteftable, is doomed often to stand in awe of those to whom nothing could give influence, or weight, but their power of betraying.

THE

RAMBLER.

NUMBER LXIX.

LONDON, Tuesday, November 13. 1750.

Flet quoque, ut in fpeculo rugas adfpexit aniles, Tyndaris: et fecum, cur fit bis rapta, requirit. Tempus edax rerum, tuque invidiofa vetuftas, Omnia deftruitis: vitiataque dentibus avi Paulatim lenta confumitis omnia morte.

A

OVID.

N old Greek epigrammatift, intending to fhew the miferies that attend the laft ftage of life, imprecates upon thofe who are fo foolish as to wish for old age, the calamity of continuing to grow old from century to century. He VOL. III.

R

thought,

thought, that no adventitious or foreign pain was requifite, that decrepitude itself was an epitome of all that is dreadful, and that nothing could be added to the curfe of age, but that it should be extended beyond its natural limits.

The moft indifferent or negligent spectator can indeed scarcely retire without heaviness of heart, from a view of the last scenes of the tragedy of life; in which he finds those who in the former parts of the drama were diftinguifhed by oppofition of conduct, contrariety of defigns, and diffimilitude of personal qualities, all involved in one common distress, and all struggling with affliction which they cannot hope.to overcome.

All the other miferies which way-lay our paffage. through the world, wisdom may escape, and fortitude may conquer. By caution and circumspection we may steal along with very little to obstruct or incommode us; by fpirit and vigour we may force a way, and reward the vexation of conteft by the pleasures of victory. But there is a time when all our policy and our bravery will be equally ufelefs; when we fhall all fink into helpleffnefs and fadnefs, without any power of receiving folace from the pleafures which have formerly delighted us, or any profpect of emerging into a fecond poffeffion of the bleflings which we have loft,

The industry of man has, indeed, not been wanting in endeavours to procure comforts for these hours of dejection and melancholy, and to gild the dreadful gloom with artificial light. The most ufual fupport of old age, is wealth. He whofe poffeffions are large, and whose chefts are full, ima