That the attempts of such men will often miscarry, we may reasonably expect; yet from such men, and such only, are we to hope for the cultivation of those parts of nature which lie yet waste, and the invention of those arts which are yet wanting to the felicity of life.  If they are, therefore, universally discouraged, art and discovery can make no advances.  Whatever is attempted without previous certainty of success, may be considered as a project, and amongst narrow minds may, therefore, expose its author to censure and contempt; and if the liberty of laughing be once indulged, every man will laugh at what he does not understand, every project will be considered as madness, and every great or new design will be censured as a project.  Men unaccustomed to reason and researches, think every enterprise impracticable, which is extended beyond common effects, or comprises many intermediate operations.  Many that presume to laugh at projectors, would consider a flight through the air in a winged chariot, and the movement of a mighty engine by the steam of water as equally the dreams of mechanick lunacy; and would hear, with equal negligence, of the union of the Thames and Severn by a canal, and the scheme of Albuquerque, the viceroy of the Indies, who in the rage of hostility had contrived to make Egypt a barren desert, by turning the Nile into the Red Sea.

Those who have attempted much, have seldom failed to perform more than those who never deviate from the common roads of action:  many valuable preparations of chymistry are supposed to have risen from unsuccessful inquiries after the grand elixir:  it is, therefore, just to encourage those who endeavour to enlarge the power of art, since they often succeed beyond expectation; and when they fail, may sometimes benefit the world even by their miscarriages.

[1] Sir Richard Steele was infatuated, with notions of Alchemy, and
    wasted money in its visionary projects.  He had a laboratory at
    Poplar.  Addisoniana, vol i. p. 10.

The readers of Washington Irving’s Brace-Bridge Hall will recollect a pleasing and popular exposition of the alternately splendid and benevolent, and always passionate reveries of the Alchemist, in the affecting story of the Student of Salamanca.

No. 102.  SATURDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1753.

 —­Quid tam dextro pede concipis, ut te
  Conatus non poeniteat votique peracti? JUV.  Sat. x. 5.

  What in the conduct of our life appears
  So well design’d, so luckily begun,
  But when we have our wish, we wish undone.  DRYDEN.

TO THE ADVENTURER.

Sir,

I have been for many years a trader in London.  My beginning was narrow, and my stock small; I was, therefore, a long time brow-beaten and despised by those, who, having more money, thought they had more merit than myself.  I did not, however, suffer my resentment to instigate me to any mean arts of supplantation, nor my eagerness of riches to betray me to any indirect methods of gain; I pursued my business with incessant assiduity, supported by the hope of being one day richer than those who contemned me; and had, upon every annual review of my books, the satisfaction of finding my fortune increased beyond my expectation.