the
retreats to which he fled from infamy, he should issue again with the
confidence of conquests, and call upon mankind for praise. Yet we see
men that waste their patrimony in luxury, destroy their health with
debauchery, and enervate their minds with idleness, because there have
been some whom luxury never could sink into contempt, nor idleness
hinder from the praise of genius.

This general inclination of mankind to copy characters in the gross, and
the force which the recommendation of illustrious examples adds to the
allurements of vice, ought to be considered by all whose character
excludes them from the shades of secrecy, as incitements to scrupulous
caution and universal purity of manners. No man, however enslaved to his
appetites, or hurried by his passions, can, while he preserves his
intellects unimpaired, please himself with promoting the corruption of
others. He whose merit has enlarged his influence, would surely wish to
exert it for the benefit of mankind. Yet such will be the effect of his
reputation, while he suffers himself to indulge in any favourite fault,
that they who have no hope to reach his excellence will catch at his
failings, and his virtues will be cited to justify the copiers of his
vices.

It is particularly the duty of those who consign illustrious names to
posterity, to take care lest their readers be misled by ambiguous
examples. That writer may be justly condemned as an enemy to goodness,
who suffers fondness or interest to confound right with wrong, or to
shelter the faults which even the wisest and the best have committed
from that ignominy which guilt ought always to suffer, and with which it
should be more deeply stigmatized when dignified by its neighbourhood to
uncommon worth, since we shall be in danger of beholding it without
abhorrence, unless its turpitude be laid open, and the eye secured from
the deception of surrounding splendour.

No. 165. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1751.

[Greek: Aen neos, alla penaes nun gaeron, plousios eimi
O monos ek panton oiktros en amphoterois,
Os tote men chraesthai dunamaen, hopot oud' en eichon.
Nun d' opote chraesthai mae dunamai, tot echo.] ANTIPHILUS.

Young was I once and poor, now rich and old;
A harder case than mine was never told;
Blest with the power to use them--I had none;
Loaded with _riches_ now, the power is gone. F. LEWIS.

TO THE RAMBLER.

SIR,

The writers who have undertaken the unpromising task