ger in mire by
foolish lenity.

Peevishness is generally the vice of narrow minds, and, except when it
is the effect of anguish and disease, by which the resolution is broken,
and the mind made too feeble to bear the lightest addition to its
miseries, proceeds from an unreasonable persuasion of the importance of
trifles. The proper remedy against it is, to consider the dignity of
human nature, and the folly of suffering perturbation and uneasiness
from causes unworthy of our notice.

He that resigns his peace to little casualties, and suffers the course
of his life to be interrupted by fortuitous inadvertencies, or offences,
delivers up himself to the direction of the wind, and loses all that
constancy and equanimity which constitute the chief praise of a wise
man.

The province of prudence lies between the greatest things and the least;
some surpass our power by their magnitude, and some escape our notice by
their number and their frequency. But the indispensable business of life
will afford sufficient exercise to every understanding; and such is the
limitation of the human powers, that by attention to trifles we must let
things of importance pass unobserved: when we examine a mite with a
glass, we see nothing but a mite.

That it is every man's interest to be pleased, will need little proof:
that it is his interest to please others, experience will inform him. It
is therefore not less necessary to happiness than to virtue, that he rid
his mind of passions which make him uneasy to himself, and hateful to
the world, which enchain his intellects, and obstruct his improvement.

No. 113. TUESDAY, APRIL 16, 1751.

--_Uxorem, Postume, ducis?
Die, qua Tisiphone, quibus exagitere colubris?_ JUV. Sat. vi. 28.

A sober man like thee to change his life!
What fury would possess thee with a wife? DRYDEN.

TO THE RAMBLER.

SIR,

I know not whether it is always a proof of innocence to treat censure
with contempt. We owe so much reverence to the wisdom of mankind, as
justly to wish, that our own opinion of our merit may be ratified by the
concurrence of other suffrages; and since guilt and infamy must have the
same effect upon intelligences unable to pierce beyond external
appearance, and influenced often rather by example than precept, we are
obliged to refute a false charge, lest we should countenance the crime
which we have never committed. To turn away from an accusation with
supercilious silence, is equa