All envy would be extinguished, if it were universally known that there are none to be envied, and surely none can be much envied who are not pleased with themselves.  There is reason to suspect, that the distinctions of mankind have more show than value, when it is found that all agree to be weary alike of pleasures and of cares; that the powerful and the weak, the celebrated and obscure, join in one common wish, and implore from nature’s hand the nectar of oblivion.

Such is our desire of abstraction from ourselves, that very few are satisfied with the quantity of stupefaction which the needs of the body force upon the mind.  Alexander himself added intemperance to sleep, and solaced with the fumes of wine the sovereignty of the world:  and almost every man has some art by which he steals his thoughts away from his present state.

It is not much of life that is spent in close attention to any important duty.  Many hours of every day are suffered to fly away without any traces left upon the intellects.  We suffer phantoms to rise up before us, and amuse ourselves with the dance of airy images, which, after a time, we dismiss for ever, and know not how we have been busied.

Many have no happier moments than those that they pass in solitude, abandoned to their own imagination, which sometimes puts sceptres in their hands or mitres on their heads, shifts the scene of pleasure with endless variety, bids all the forms of beauty sparkle before them, and gluts them with every change of visionary luxury.

It is easy in these semi-slumbers to collect all the possibilities of happiness, to alter the course of the sun, to bring back the past, and anticipate the future, to unite all the beauties of all seasons, and all the blessings of all climates, to receive and bestow felicity, and forget that misery is the lot of man.  All this is a voluntary dream, a temporary recession from the realities of life to airy fictions; and habitual subjection of reason to fancy.

Others are afraid to be alone, and amuse themselves by a perpetual succession of companions:  but the difference is not great; in solitude we have our dreams to ourselves, and in company we agree to dream in concert.  The end sought in both is forgetfulness of ourselves.

[1] “For half their life,” says Aristotle, “the happy differ not from
    the wretched.".—­Nichom.  Ethic, i. 13.

  [Greek:  Hypn odunas adaaes, Hypne d algeon
  Euaaes haemin elthois,
  Euaion, euaion anax.] Soph.  Philoct. 827.

 No. 33.  SATURDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1758.

[I hope the author of the following letter[1] will excuse the omission of some parts, and allow me to remark, that the Journal of the Citizen in the Spectator has almost precluded the attempt of any future writer.]

—­Non ita Romuli Praescriptum, et intonsi Catonis Auspiciis, veterumque norma.  HOR.  Lib. ii.  Ode xv. 10.