He is never so great, or so happy, as when a youth of promising parts is brought to receive his directions for the prosecution of his studies.  He then puts on a very serious air; he advises the pupil to read none but the best authors; and when he finds one congenial to his own mind, to study his beauties, but avoid his faults; and, when he sits down to write, to consider how his favourite author would think at the present time on the present occasion.  He exhorts him to catch those moments when he finds his thoughts expanded and his genius exalted, but to take care lest imagination hurry him beyond the bounds of nature.  He holds diligence the mother of success; yet enjoins him, with great earnestness, not to read more than he can digest, and not to confuse his mind by pursuing studies of contrary tendencies.  He tells him, that every man has his genius, and that Cicero could never be a poet.  The boy retires illuminated, resolves to follow his genius, and to think how Milton would have thought:  and Minim feasts upon his own beneficence till another day brings another pupil.

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 appears to have operated upon most minds in all ages, and which is supported by authorities so numerous and so cogent, that nothing but long experience could have given me confidence to question its truth.

But experience is the test by which all the philosophers of the present age agree, that speculation must be tried; and I may be, therefore, allowed to doubt the power of money, since I have been a long time rich, and have not yet found that riches can make me happy.

My father was a farmer neither wealthy nor indigent, who gave me a better education than was suitable to my birth, because my uncle in the city designed me for his heir, and desired that I might be bred a gentleman.  My uncle’s wealth was the perpetual subject of conversation in the house; and when any little misfortune befell us, or any mortification dejected us, my father always exhorted me to hold up my head, for my uncle would never marry.

My uncle, indeed, kept his promise.  Having his mind completely busied between his warehouse and the ’Change, he felt no tediousness of life, nor any want of domestick amusements.  When my father died, he received me kindly; but, after a few months, finding no great pleasure in the conversation of each other, we parted; and he remitted me a small annuity, on which I lived a quiet and studious life, without any wish to grow great by the death of my benefactor.

But though I never suffered any malignant impatience to take hold on my mind, I could not forbear sometimes to imagine to myself the pleasure of being rich; and, when I read of diversions and magnificence, resolved to try, when time should put the trial in my power, what pleasure they could afford.