I had once a round of visits, which I paid very regularly; but I have now tired most of my friends.  When I have sat down I forget to rise, and have more than once overheard one asking another, when I would be gone.  I perceive the company tired, I observe the mistress of the family whispering to her servants, I find orders given to put off business till to-morrow, I see the watches frequently inspected, and yet cannot withdraw to the vacuity of solitude, or venture myself in my own company.

Thus burdensome to myself and others, I form many schemes of employment which may make my life useful or agreeable, and exempt me from the ignominy of living by sufferance.  This new course I have long designed, but have not yet begun.  The present moment is never proper for the change, but there is always a time in view when all obstacles will be removed, and I shall surprise all that know me with a new distribution of my time.  Twenty years have past since I have resolved a complete amendment, and twenty years have been lost in delays.  Age is coming upon me; and I should look back with rage and despair upon the waste of life, but that I am now beginning in earnest to begin a reformation.

I am, Sir,
Your humble servant,

DICK LINGER.

No. 22.  SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1758.

Oh nomen dulce libertatis!  Oh jus eximium nostra civitatis!
CICERO.

TO THE IDLER.

Sir,

As I was passing lately under one of the gates of this city, I was struck with horrour by a rueful cry, which summoned me to remember the poor debtors.

The wisdom and justice of the English laws are, by Englishmen at least, loudly celebrated:  but scarcely the most zealous admirers of our institutions can think that law wise, which, when men are capable of work, obliges them to beg; or just, which exposes the liberty of one to the passions of another.

The prosperity of a people is proportionate to the number of hands and minds usefully employed.  To the community, sedition is a fever, corruption is a gangrene, and idleness an atrophy.  Whatever body, and whatever society, wastes more than it acquires, must gradually decay; and every being that continues to be fed, and ceases to labour, takes away something from the publick stock.

The confinement, therefore, of any man in the sloth and darkness of a prison, is a loss to the nation, and no gain to the creditor.  For of the multitudes who are pining in those cells of misery, a very small part is suspected of any fraudulent act by which they retain what belongs to others.  The rest are imprisoned by the wantonness of pride, the malignity of revenge, or the acrimony of disappointed expectation.