Page:Johnson - Rambler 3.djvu/262

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252
THE RAMBLER.
N° 148.

suffer a more lively tatler to recount the casualties of a game, or a nimbler fop to pick up a fan, I am censured between pity and contempt, as a wretch doomed to grovel in obscurity for want of assurance.

I have found many young persons harassed in the same manner, by those to whom age has given nothing but the assurance which they recommend; and therefore cannot but think it useful to inform them, that cowardice and delicacy are not to be confounded; and that he whose stupidity has armed him against the shafts of ridicule, will always act and speak with greater audacity, than they whose sensibility represses their ardour, and who dare never let their confidence outgrow their abilities.



Numb. 148.Saturday, August 17, 1751.

Me pater sævis oneret catenis,
Quod viro clemens misero peperci,
Me vel extremis Numidarum in oris
Classe releget.

Hor.

 Me let my father load with chains,
Or banish to Numidia's farthest plains!
My crime, that I a loyal wife,
In kind compassion spar'd my husband's life.

Francis.

POLITICIANS remark, that no oppression is so heavy or lasting as that which is inflicted by the perversion and exorbitance of legal authority. The robber may be seized, and the invader repelled, whenever they are found; they who pretend no right but that of force, may by