Page:Johnson - Rambler 3.djvu/162

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152
THE RAMBLER.
N° 131.

consoled or alleviated by my mother, who grieved that I had not lost my life together with my beauty, and declared, that she thought a young woman divested of her charms, had nothing for which those who loved her could desire to save her from the grave.

Having thus continued my relation to the period from which my life took a new course, I shall conclude it in another letter, if, by publishing this, you shew any regard for the correspondence of,

SIR, &c.

Victoria.



Numb. 131. Tuesday, June 18, 1751.

——Fatis accede deisque,
Et cole felices; miseros fuge. Sidera cœlo
Ut distant, flamma mari, sic utile recto

Lucan.

 Still follow where auspicious fates invite;
Caress the happy, and the wretched slight.
Sooner shall jarring elements unite,
Than truth with gain, than interest with right.

F. Lewis.

THERE is scarcely any sentiment in which, amidst the innumerable varieties of inclination that nature or accident have scattered in the world, we find greater numbers concurring than in the wish for riches; a wish indeed so prevalent that it may be considered as universal and transcendental as the desire in which all other desires are included, and of which the various purposes which actuate mankind are only subordinate species and different modifications.