uses, and have often lived a week upon an
expression, of which he who dropped it did not know the value. When
fortune did not favour my erratick industry, I gleaned jests at home
from obsolete farces. To collect wit was indeed safe, for I consorted
with none that looked much into books, but to disperse it was the
difficulty. A seeming negligence was often useful, and I have very
successfully made a reply not to what the lady had said, but to what it
was convenient for me to hear; for very few were so perverse as to
rectify a mistake which had given occasion to a burst of merriment.
Sometimes I drew the conversation up by degrees to a proper point, and
produced a conceit which I had treasured up, like sportsmen who boast of
killing the foxes which they lodge in the covert. Eminence is, however,
in some happy moments, gained at less expense; I have delighted a whole
circle at one time with a series of quibbles, and made myself good
company at another, by scalding my fingers, or mistaking a lady's lap
for my own chair.

These are artful deceits and useful expedients; but expedients are at
length exhausted, and deceits detected. Time itself, among other
injuries, diminishes the power of pleasing, and I now find, in my
forty-fifth year, many pranks and pleasantries very coldly received,
which had formerly filled a whole room with jollity and acclamation.
I am under the melancholy necessity of supporting that character by study,
which I gained by levity, having learned too late that gaiety must be
recommended by higher qualities, and that mirth can never please long
but as the efflorescence of a mind loved for its luxuriance, but
esteemed for its usefulness.

I am, &c.

PAPILIUS.

No. 142. SATURDAY, JULY 27, 1751.

[Greek: Entha d aner eniaue pelorios--
--oude, met allous
Poleit, all apaneuthen eon athemistia ede.
Kai gar Oaum etetukto pelorion oude epskei
Andri ge sitophagps.] HOMER. Od. [Greek: I'.] 187.

A giant shepherd here his flock maintains
Far from the rest, and solitary reigns,
In shelter thick of horrid shade reclin'd;
And gloomy mischiefs labour in the mind.
A form enormous! far unlike the race
Of human birth, in stature or in face. POPE.

TO THE RAMBLER.

SIR,

Having been accustomed to retire annually from the town, I lately
accepted the invitation of Eugenio, who has an estate and seat in a
distant county. As we were unwilling to travel without improvement, we
turned o