, among those
who have contributed to the advancement of learning, many have risen to
eminence in opposition to all the obstacles which external circumstances
could place in their way, amidst the tumult of business, the distresses
of poverty, or the dissipations of a wandering and unsettled state. A
great part of the life of Erasmus was one continual peregrination; ill
supplied with the gifts of fortune, and led from city to city, and from
kingdom to kingdom, by the hopes of patrons and preferment, hopes which
always flattered and always deceived him; he yet found means, by
unshaken constancy, and a vigilant improvement of those hours, which, in
the midst of the most restless activity, will remain unengaged, to write
more than another in the same condition would have hoped to read.
Compelled by want to attendance and solicitation, and so much versed in
common life, that he has transmitted to us the most perfect delineation
of the manners of his age, he joined to his knowledge of the world such
application to books, that he will stand for ever in the first rank of
literary heroes. How this proficiency was obtained he sufficiently
discovers, by informing us, that the "Praise of Folly," one of his most
celebrated performances, was composed by him on the road to Italy; _ne
totum illud tempus quo equo fuit insidendum, illiteratis fabulis
terreretur_: "lest the hours which he was obliged to spend on horseback
should be tattled away without regard to literature."

An Italian philosopher expressed in his motto, that _time was his
estate_; an estate, indeed, which will produce nothing without
cultivation, but will always abundantly repay the labours of industry,
and satisfy the most extensive desires, if no part of it be suffered to
lie waste by negligence, to be over-run with noxious plants, or laid out
for shew, rather than for use.

No. 109. TUESDAY, APRIL 2, 1751.

_Gratum est, quod patriae civem populoque dedisti,
Si facis, ut patriae sit idoneus, utilis agris,
Utilis et bellorum et pacis rebus agendis.
Plurimum enim intererit, quibus artibus, et quibus hunc tu
Moribus instituas_ Juv. SAT, xiv. 70.

Grateful the gift! a member to the state,
If you that member useful shall create;
Train'd both to war, and, when the war shall cease,
As fond, as fit t'improve the arts of peace.
For much it boots which way you train your boy,
The hopeful object of your future joy. ELPHINSTON.

TO THE RAMBLER.