shall raise him to greatness, or some golden shower that
shall load him with wealth; he dozes away the day in musing upon the
morrow; and at the end of life is roused from his dream only to discover
that the time of action is past, and that he can now shew his wisdom
only by repentance.

No. 74. SATURDAY, JULY 21, 1753.

_Insanientis dun sapientae
Consultus erro.--_ HOR. Lib. i. Od. xxxiv. 2.

I miss'd my end, and lost my way,
By crack-brain'd wisdom led astray.

TO THE ADVENTURER.

SIR,

It has long been charged by one part of mankind upon the other, that
they will not take advice; that counsel and instruction are generally
thrown away; and that, in defiance both of admonition and example, all
claim the right to choose their own measures, and to regulate their own
lives.

That there is something in advice very useful and salutary, seems to be
equally confessed on all hands: since even those that reject it, allow
for the most part that rejection to be wrong, but charge the fault upon
the unskilful manner in which it is given: they admit the efficacy of
the medicine, but abhor the nauseousness of the vehicle.

Thus mankind have gone on from century to century: some have been
advising others how to act, and some have been teaching the advisers how
to advise; yet very little alteration has been made in the world. As we
must all by the law of nature enter life in ignorance, we must all make
our way through it by the light of our own experience; and for any
security that advice has been yet able to afford, must endeavour after
success at the hazard of miscarriage, and learn to do right by venturing
to do wrong.

By advice I would not be understood to mean, the everlasting and
invariable principles of moral and religious truth, from which no change
of external circumstances can justify any deviation; but such directions
as respect merely the prudential part of conduct, and which may he
followed or neglected without any violation of essential duties.

It is, indeed, not so frequently to make us good as to make us wise,
that our friends employ the officiousness of counsel; and among the
rejectors of advice, who are mentioned by the grave and sententious with
so much acrimony, you will not so often find the vicious and abandoned,
as the pert and the petulant, the vivacious and the giddy.

As the great end of female education is to get a husband, this likewise
is the general subject of female advi