TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 1751
_Turba Remi? Sequitur Fortunam, ut semper, et odit
Damnatos_. JUV. Sat. x. 73.
The fickle crowd with fortune comes and goes;
Wealth still finds followers, and misfortune foes.
TO THE RAMBLER.
SIR,
There are occasions on which all apology is rudeness. He that has an
unwelcome message to deliver, may give some proof of tenderness and
delicacy, by a ceremonial introduction and gradual discovery, because
the mind, upon which the weight of sorrow is to fall, gains time for the
collection of its powers; but nothing is more absurd than to delay the
communication of pleasure, to torment curiosity by impatience, and to
delude hope by anticipation.
I shall therefore forbear the arts by which correspondents generally
secure admission, for I have too long remarked the power of vanity, to
doubt that I shall be read by you with a disposition to approve, when I
declare that my narrative has no other tendency than to illustrate and
corroborate your own observations.
I was the second son of a gentleman, whose patrimony had been wasted by
a long succession of squanderers, till he was unable to support any of
his children, except his heir, in the hereditary dignity of idleness.
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