Idler No. 69. Saturday, August 11, 1759. He that reviews the progress of English literature, will find that translation was very early cultivated among us, but that some principles, either wholly erroneous or too far extended, hindered our success from being always equal to our diligence. Chaucer, who is generally considered as the father of […]

Idler No. 70. Saturday, August 18, 1759. Few faults of style, whether real or imaginary, excite the malignity of a more numerous class of readers, than the use of hard words. If an author be supposed to involve his thoughts in voluntary obscurity, and to obstruct, by unnecessary difficulties, a mind eager in pursuit of […]

Idler No. 71. Saturday, August 25, 1759. Celan le selve angui, leoni, ed orsiDentro il lor verde.TASSO, L’AMINTA. Dick Shifter was born in Cheapside, and, having passed reputably through all the classes of St. Paul’s school, has been for some years a student in the Temple. He is of opinion, that intense application dulls the […]

Idler No. 72. Saturday, September 1, 1759. Men complain of nothing more frequently than of deficient memory; and, indeed, every one finds that many of the ideas which he desired to retain have slipped irretrievably away; that the acquisitions of the mind are sometimes equally fugitive with the gifts of fortune; and that a short […]

Idler No. 73. Saturday, September 8, 1759. That every man would be rich if a wish could obtain riches, is a position which I believe few will contest, at least in a nation like ours, in which commerce has kindled an universal emulation of wealth, and in which money receives all the honours which are […]

Idler No. 74. Saturday, September 15, 1759. In the mythological pedigree of learning, memory is made the mother of the muses, by which the masters of ancient wisdom, perhaps, meant to show the necessity of storing the mind copiously with true notions, before the imagination should be suffered to form fictions or collect embellishments; for […]

Idler No. 75. Saturday, September 22, 1759. In the time when Bassora was considered as the school of Asia, and flourished by the reputation of its professors and the confluence of its students, among the pupils that listened round the chair of Albumazar was Gelaleddin, a native of Tauris, in Persia, a young man amiable […]

Idler No. 61. Saturday, June 15, 1759. Mr. Minim had now advanced himself to the zenith of critical reputation; when he was in the pit, every eye in the boxes was fixed upon him; when he entered his coffee-house, he was surrounded by circles of candidates, who passed their noviciate of literature under his tuition: […]

Idler No. 62. Saturday, June 23, 1759. Quid faciam, proescribe. Quiescas.–HOR. Lib. ii. Sat. i. 5. TO THE IDLER. Sir, An opinion prevails almost universally in the world, that he who has money has every thing. This is not a modern paradox, or the tenet of a small and obscure sect, but a persuasion which […]

Idler No. 63. Saturday, June 30, 1759. The natural progress of the works of men is from rudeness to convenience, from convenience to elegance, and from elegance to nicety. The first labour is enforced by necessity. The savage finds himself incommoded by heat and cold, by rain and wind; he shelters himself in the hollow […]

Idler No. 64. Saturday, July 1, 1759. Quid faciam, praescribe. Quiescas.–HOR. Lib. ii. Sat. i. 5. TO THE IDLER. Sir, As nature has made every man desirous of happiness, I flatter myself, that you and your readers cannot but feel some curiosity to know the sequel of my story; for though, by trying the different […]

Idler No. 65. Saturday, July 14, 1759. This sequel of Clarendon’s history, at last happily published, is an accession to English literature equally agreeable to the admirers of elegance and the lovers of truth; many doubtful facts may now be ascertained, and many questions, after long debate, may be determined by decisive authority. He that […]

Idler No. 66. Saturday, July 21, 1759. No complaint is more frequently repeated among the learned, than that of the waste made by time among the labours of antiquity. Of those who once filled the civilized world with their renown, nothing is now left but their names, which are left only to raise desires that […]

Idler No. 54. Saturday, April 28, 1759. TO THE IDLER. Sir, You have lately entertained your admirers with the case of an unfortunate husband, and, thereby, given a demonstrative proof you are not averse even to hear appeals and terminate differences between man and wife; I, therefore, take the liberty to present you with the […]

Idler No. 55. Saturday, May 5, 1759. TO THE IDLER. Mr. Idler, I have taken the liberty of laying before you my complaint, and of desiring advice or consolation with the greater confidence, because I believe many other writers have suffered the same indignities with myself, and hope my quarrel will be regarded by you […]

Idler No. 67. Saturday, July 28, 1759. TO THE IDLER. Sir, In the observations which you have made on the various opinions and pursuits of mankind, you must often, in literary conversations, have met with men who consider dissipation as the great enemy of the intellect; and maintain, that, in proportion as the student keeps […]

Idler No. 68. Saturday, August 4, 1759. Among the studies which have exercised the ingenious and the learned for more than three centuries, none has been more diligently or more successfully cultivated than the art of translation; by which the impediments which bar the way to science are, in some measure, removed, and the multiplicity […]

Idler No. 56. Saturday, May 12, 1759. There is such difference between the pursuits of men, that one part of the inhabitants of a great city lives to little other purpose than to wonder at the rest. Some have hopes and fears, wishes and aversions, which never enter into the thoughts of others, and inquiry […]

Idler No. 57. Saturday, May 19, 1759. Prudence is of more frequent use than any other intellectual quality; it is exerted on slight occasions, and called into act by the cursory business of common life. Whatever is universally necessary, has been granted to mankind on easy terms. Prudence, as it is always wanted, is without […]

Idler No. 58. Saturday, May 26, 1759. Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought. Our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks. The flowers which scatter their odours, from time to time, in the paths of life, grow up without culture from seeds scattered by chance. Nothing is more hopeless […]