THE

LOOKER-ON.

N° 1. SATURDAY, MARCH 10, 1792.

Spargens rore levi et ramo felicis Olive.

VIRGIL.

And dipp'd an Olive-branch in holy dew,
Which next he sprinkled round.

DRYDEN.

I AM an old man, whose best years have been employed less in the service than the survey of my fellow-creatures. It has been with me as it fares with most of us; the season of action was spent in speculation, and in husbanding up wise resolutions to be executed by and by. This by-and-by is a sort of phantom which seduces us on till we drop into oldage; and upon the first serious attack of the gout, it vanishes for ever, and carries along with it all our gay projects and cherishing hopes. Thus a youth of expectation is sure to prepare an old-age of regret ; especially if, under favour of these holiday resolutions and speculative atonements, we think we may fairly contract a few debts to virtue, and intrench a little upon our future stock by the rule of anticipation. As

1 never went upon this calculation myself, and was culpable for the most part only on the side of omission, I have committed very little depredation on the health of my body or the integrity of my intellect; and though advancing towards my grand climacteric, have still a competency of vigour about me, and am in a better condition than most of my age, to fetch up the arrears of my youth.

These considerations tempt me to my present undertaking, as the gravest use I can make of this twilight that remains to me; and as it is the most salutary kind of atonement for evil, to render it productive of good, I consider myself as going the directest way to work, in thus turning the indolent contemplations of my younger years to the account of virtue and morality. The same assurance and consolation, which, as Cicero tells us, encouraged the old husbandman to plant his oak while he was drooping himself, animates me also in the culture of my little plantation, and gives me warmth and alacrity in my grey years. I thought it proper in the first place to announce my age to my readers, that they might lay their account to find some old-fashioned opinions and remarks in the course of my work, and to bespeak some excuse for those freedoms which I may allow myself with the fair-sex in particular. Not that I look upon them to stand most in need of my corrections, but because I consider them as maintaining a very great influence over our sex in general, and as the authors in some measure of the excellencies and depravities of our social conduct. If I can bargain for a little more liberty on that account, I will promise always to promote their interests and empire, and to follow the example of Socrates, who was ever their firm friend, and who once delivered a discourse at the feast of Xenophon, which sent home both

bachelors and married men, some to provide themselves with wives, and others to cultivate the possession of those they already enjoyed. As I have no aches or pains about me but such as arise from sympathy with the sufferings of others, my readers will find in general that I have some good-humour in my old blood, and that cast of good-humour which flows from inward complacency of mind, and not the heyday of animal spirits and constitutional ardour.

The present age, methinks, affords some proofs that the World is growing old as well as myself: and this crisis seems clearly to be announced by many characteristic infirmities. I do not pretend to discern any material change of physiognomy: she wears the, same freshness and floridity in her looks; and though her habit has always been somewhat dropsical and gouty, her constant motion seems to have maintained her in tolerable health. Her passion for finery, too, is as great as ever; she is still as gay as before in her green and azure, and the rose and the lily still bloom in her countenance; nor is it suspected that her long journeys are performed with less ease and dispatch than in her earlier years. Her symptoms of decay are of a moral, and not a physical nature. I think I have observed, that she grows every day more prone to talk, and less patient to hear: go where you will, it is a noisy World, always holding forth, always haranguing; nothing but long speeches, from the gallows to the conventicle. She is always pointing her proof, or proving her point, and using her best endeavours to reduce the price of eloquence by an economy of thought. I consider indeed the debatingclubs as a fortunate kind of drain to this superabundance of loquacity, where much of its impertinence does periodically expend itself. The reading-clubs also, where the World goes entirely to talk, very

much assist this object; and it is a sensible pleasure to look forward to the time, when the reading-clubs and debating-clubs together may prevent this garrulity from overflowing our churches. It is also a consolation to reflect how sacred from all this clamour is the gaming-table, where nothing interrupts the silence, the order, the religio loci, but now and then a hollow murmur of repentance, or a burst of pious resolutions,

The solace however which we feel in these considerations, is checked by the reflection, that the mental decay of the World is so apparent in many other instances. No small suspicion of it is conveyed in that nice and difficult humour which she has of late contracted; her many odd appetites and caprices; her strange affection for wizards, witches, and conjurers; her dotage in respect to some of her youngest children, who consume her substance on the lowest pleasures; her jealousy of such as discover any real worth, and growing promise; and above all, her unwearied course of repetition, and the manifest decay of her inventive and original powers. To repair this loss of intellectual vigour, and to remove these moral complaints, is fairly out of the reach of any medicines of the mind, however administered. I could wish it were not too sanguine to hope that something might yet be done, while there is a portion of stamina remaining, in the way of palliation and diversion. Medicines of rude operation do not much agree with the patient's habit; and I should doubt of the success of any but those which act in a slow and alterative manner, and require to be administered in slight and regular doses.

Here I think I may drop my allegory, and tell my readers in unfigurative terms, that it is my design

to devote four sheets of paper a-week, to such as can be amused without the sacrifice of decency, or the prostitution of language; who can be grave without chagrin, inquisitive without malice, merry without victims; who are parties to whatever touches humanity, and can view with just sorrow the follies and infirmities of our nature, but without any contractedness of heart, or unsocialness of sentiment. I have always found myself, I don't know how, insensibly drawn towards the opinion of the Philosophical Bedlamite, who, being visited by an old friend, called him aside with a look of much importance, in order to disclose to him a very valuable secret, the purport of which was, that the bulk of mankind were mad, and had shut up within those walls all the sensible people they could find. I shall not undertake for the whole and literal acceptation of my friend the Madman's remark: but perhaps it might only be a mad kind of figure, by which he meant no more, than that, if all those who are disturbed in their intellects were inclosed within the pale of that charity, the professions would be considerably thinned, and that we should have very good elbow-room in all our public places; that to go down a countrydance would no longer be fatiguing; and that grass enough would grow in our squares to maintain all our coach and saddle horses, while the asses and goats might soon pick up a very comfortable subsistence on the road side between Charing-Cross and Temple-Bar. If our Madman had any such meaning as this, I do not see it in a light of such great absurdity; and perhaps some of those who shall follow up my papers, may be more and more reconciled to it as they proceed. In the mean time I shall do no more than my duty, in giving some account of myself, and of my qualifications for this undertaking.