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 (jdaetting of aotnion, d^olb&miti), anb 2?oatoctl after tfje firsft 
 performance of "'Cfje ©oob-^aturcb /USan") 
 
 Photogravure from the original' painting by Eyre Crowt 
 
 OLIVER GOLDSMITH'S brilliant comedy, "The Good-Natured 
 Man," was first acted in 1768, Samuel Johnson writing for it 
 the prologue beginning, 
 
 "Pressed with the load of life the weary mind 
 Surveys tht general toil of human-kind." 
 The picture represents an imaginary, though highly probable, inci- 
 dent, according to which the great lexicographer and his biographer 
 are entertaining Goldsmith after the successful performance of the 
 drama. Artistically the picture is valuable as a study both in por- 
 traiture (contrasts of physiognomy) and in decorative setting. 
 The deep-toned woodwork and wall clock form a rich background to 
 the powderet" wigs of the guests, the geld lace of Goldsmith's coat, 
 the flowered gown of the buxom waitress, the table ware on board 
 and tray, and the burnished metal of the grate, of the sconces on 
 the mantel, and of the sword bung on the partition.
 
 ESSAYS 
 
 OF 
 
 BRITISH ESSAYISTS 
 
 INCLUDING BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SKETCHES 
 
 WITH A SPECIAL INTRODUCTION BY 
 
 CHAUNCEY C. STARKWEATHER, A.B., LL.B 
 
 REVISED EDITION 
 
 VOLUME I 
 
 I t I - 
 
 * J 03 1 , 
 
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 NEW YORK AND LONDON 
 
 THE CO-OPERATIVE PUBLICATION SOCIETY
 
 %, 
 
 Copyright, 1900 
 By the colonial PRESS 
 
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 SPECIAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 '' I "HE essay will always be a popular form of literature. 
 
 I Not so profound as the philosophical treatise, it inter- 
 
 ^ ests, entertains^ and amuses the reader. Not dull with 
 
 ^ inconsequential details as history, it is cheery with pleasant 
 
 _ banter and raillery. Not rising to the grandeur of epic sublim- 
 
 f^ ity, not soaring in the pure ether of poetic rapture, it has a 
 
 / kindly nod and smile and handshake for the every-day mortal 
 
 •n of all the walks of life. It neither preaches nor commands; 
 
 it suggests. And suggestion is often more effective than ful- 
 
 mination or homily. By its winsome manner a suggestion 
 
 deprecates opposition, and friendly advice succeeds where 
 
 decretals fail. So the power for good of the essayist is enor- 
 
 \ mous. Without the animosity of partisan pamphleteering, 
 
 Y without the formal authority of the pulpit, the essay may teach 
 I a thousand lessons of goodness and virtue. 
 
 Y We may find in the essay philosophy, but it is in gay attire ; 
 J we may discover erudition, but it is presented with drawing- 
 
 f x^oom graces and a cheery urbanity. There may be pronuncia- 
 
 inentos, but they come from the library as a throne. The essay 
 
 ^ is the hyphen between erudition and the people. A sentence 
 
 P^ may be the crystallization of fifty books, which, perhaps pon- 
 
 ^- derous and profound and technical, would never have come to 
 
 \ the common household. A sparkling epigram may be the 
 
 ^ epitome of a life comedy. In touch with men and books, the 
 
 ^ Vessayist gives one an " epic in a paragraph." The essay is not 
 
 ^ a treatise. There is in it not so much demonstration as scin- 
 
 V-tillation. It is not Euclid, it is a flashlight. It is not proof, 
 
 it is representation. It is not persuasion, it is vision. An 
 
 edict, a general order, a code, is not an essay. 
 
 The essay is a confession ; we might almost say a chat. The 
 keynote to the essay is its personality. The lack of this person- 
 ality and individuality takes Cicero out of the ranks of perfect 
 
 " 1— Vol. 57
 
 iv SPECIAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 essayists. He is too general, too remote, too stately, too 
 formal. In the essay we should see the open fireplace, or the 
 cool veranda. It is philosophy in its house-coat. The flames 
 and smoke are not from an altar pr a Delphic tripod, they are 
 from the hearthstone. 
 
 In reading an essay you somehow feel as if you were the au- 
 thor's special audience, and were personally being " made 
 something of," in that the writer is addressing you individually. 
 This is because the essay is personal, conversational, direct, 
 pithy, impulsive, and unpretending. It resembles a letter. 
 Does it not seem as if the writer had in mind some particular 
 friend or " intimate enemy " to whom his pages are addressed, 
 although dedicated to the public? To this definite or imaginary 
 person the author speaks of fashion, manners, character, books, 
 or politics, avoiding mere scholasticism, or pedantry, or the 
 vitriolic force of the philippic. 
 
 An essential quality of the essay is style. Whatever license 
 of dulness or unevenness may be permitted to the writer of a 
 long epic or history, the essayist must be alert, clear, concise, 
 and polished. Obscureness is fatal, tediousness is suicidal. 
 The manners of the camp, the acrimony of the forum, the 
 technicality of the treatise, the ponderousness of the pulpit, are 
 alike out of place. It is the courtly and debonair, the rapier 
 thrust and not the bludgeon, the mobility and dash of the light 
 cavalry and not the weight of the leviathan artillery, that one 
 demands in the essay. In so far as one departs from these 
 characteristics one leaves its true field. 
 
 Of course everyone knows that all the essayists hark back to 
 Montaigne. It is a long cry, and yet they have not improved 
 upon him, nor are they likely so to do. Like Walt Whitman 
 Montaigne " celebrates himself," but so charmingly that interest 
 in his works has never waned. The field of the English essay 
 is very rich. Not to know the essayists is to have absolutely no 
 adequate knowledge of English literature. They are of its very 
 warp and woof. From Bacon down to the present day their 
 names are among the brightest in the galaxy of English 
 writers. If it be said that Bacon was too stately and severe, it 
 may be remarked that this stateliness was part of his character, 
 and that in his essays he unbent as much as he could, and his at- 
 titude is strictly individual.
 
 SPECIAL INTRODUCTION v 
 
 How quaint is his dedication to the Duke of Buckingham! 
 In this he says : " I do now pubHsh my essays, which of all my 
 works have been the most current; for that as it is seen they 
 come the most home to men's business and bosoms," 
 
 The philosopher, lawyer, and statesman could not be trivial, 
 meditating upon the greatest affairs and highest fortunes of 
 men. 
 
 Times changed and the essay changed with them, the essayist 
 becoming the satirist of society, as in the sparkling brilliancy 
 and grand manners of Steele and Addison. Here we see the 
 fashionable world of beaux and belles, of " lace ruffles, and card- 
 tables and sedan-chairs, and coffee-houses." Here the writer 
 deals with social foibles, foppish airs, and gentlemanly badinage, 
 essentially the spirit and gossip of the town. 
 
 The field broadened for Lamb, Hazlitt, and Hunt ; they had 
 a larger audience, made up of both town and country, and a 
 thousand added topics. Lamb laughed to keep from weeping, 
 a sweet and gentle soul, his sister's guardian angel and a life- 
 long martyr to a sacred duty. The shadow of a great grief hung 
 over all his days like the relentless destiny of a Greek tragedy. 
 Leigh Hunt was jaunty and poetic, full of pretty fancies. With 
 quieter days came Lord Macaulay and Carlyle. The latter 
 stands perhaps at the head of the critical and biographical essay- 
 ists, while Lord Macaulay is first among the writers of the 
 historical essay. He excelled in the pictorial and descriptive, 
 with an inexhaustible vocabulary and a flowing style. 
 
 In the essay we seem to get a glimpse of the inner man. We 
 seem to see gruff, scholarly Johnson, with Boswell dogging his 
 steps, and faithfully worshipping at his shrine. What an audi- 
 ence Johnson always had when the great biographer was pres- 
 ent? One can almost fancy he can see Boswell as he listens and 
 admires. And witty, Bohemian Goldsmith, wandering up and 
 down in careless fashion, piping for his supper. His element 
 was ink, for when he talked he babbled. Yet he holds the 
 stage to-day. And shrinking Cowper, playing with his hares, 
 morbid and timorous, fearful of the great rough outside world at 
 large. Modern therapeutic methods would perhaps have kept 
 him mentally vigorous and added years to his blameless life. 
 We can see Burke in his study, rounding stately periods, polish- 
 ing and elaborating, careful of his style. We walk with Cole-
 
 vi SPECIAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 ridge, mystical and dreaming, planning and neglecting, with the 
 taint of the Orient-drug poisoning his life, and we leave him 
 with a sense that he might have done so much more. We hear 
 Landor talking of the ancient worthies who have come back to 
 life again in his pages. We can imagine him saying: " Now, 
 don't you suppose Shakespeare would have said that? " And so 
 down through the years we go, noting the ethereal delicacy and 
 altruistic, visionary yearnings of Shelley, the buoyant wit of 
 Jerrold and the kindly satire of Thackeray, the breeziness of 
 Dickens, and the art-morality of Ruskin, the splendor of Spen- 
 cer's philosophy and the culture-alembic of Matthew Arnold. 
 If we read the essay we see the man, " in his habit as he lived." 
 
 7/^Ca^CM/OCLfi^
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Francis Bacon i 
 
 Of Seeming Wise 3 
 
   Of Studies 5 
 
 Of Truth 7 
 
 Of Revenge 11 
 
 Of Envy 13 
 
 Of Love 19 
 
 Of Friendship 21 
 
 Of Youth and Age 29 
 
 Robert Burton 31 
 
 Perturbation of the Mind Rectified 33 
 
 Sir Thomas Browne 41 
 
 Of Toleration 43 
 
 Of Providence 45 
 
 Thomas Fuller 49 
 
 Of Jesting 51 
 
 Of Self- Praising 53 
 
 Of Company 55 
 
 John Milton , 59 
 
 On Education 61 
 
 Abraham Cowley 75 
 
 Of Greatness 77 
 
 Of Myself 85 
 
 Sir William Temple 91 
 
 Against Excessive Grief 93 
 
 John Dryden 103 
 
 Of Heroic Plays 105 
 
 John Locke 115 
 
 Of Practice and Habits 117 
 
 Of Principles 119 
 
 Of Prejudices 125 
 
 Of Observation 127 
 
 Of Reading 129 
 
 Some Thoughts Concerning Education 131 
 
 vii
 
 viii CONTENTS 
 
 PACK 
 
 Daniel Defoe 1 37 
 
 The Instability of Human Glory 139 
 
 Description of a Quack Doctor 143 
 
 Jonathan Swift 149 
 
 On Style 151 
 
 The Vindication of Isaac Bickerstaff 1 57 
 
 Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury 163 
 
 The Deity Unfolded in His Works 165 
 
 Sir Richard Steele 169 
 
 A Scene of Domestic Felicity 171 
 
 A Death-Bed Scene 177 
 
 The Trumpet Club 181 
 
 On the Death of Friends 185 
 
 The Spectator Club 189 
 
 The Ugly Club 195 
 
 Sir Roger and the Widow 199 
 
 Joseph Addison 205 
 
 The Character of Ned Softly 207 
 
 Nicolini and the Lions 211 
 
 Fans 215 
 
 Sir Roger at the Assizes 219 
 
 The Vision of Mirza 223 
 
 The Art of Grinning 229 
 
 Sir Roger at the Abbey 233 
 
 Sir Roger at the Play 237 
 
 The Tory Fox-Hunter 241 
 
 Alexander Pope 247 
 
 On Dedications 249 
 
 On Epic Poetry 255 
 
 Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield 261 
 
 On Passion 263 
 
 Henry Fielding 269 
 
 The Commonwealth of Letters 271 
 
 Samuel Johnson 277 
 
 The Advantages of Living in a Garret 279 
 
 Literary Courage 285 
 
 David Hume 289 
 
 Of the Delicacy of Taste and Passion 291 
 
 Of Simplicity and Refinement in Writing 295 
 
 William Shenstone 3°^ 
 
 A Humorist 3^3 
 
 On Reserve 3^7 
 
 An Opinion of Ghosts 3^ * 
 
 On Writing and Books 315
 
 CONTENTS ix 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Thomas Gray 319 
 
 On Norman Architecture 321 
 
 On the Philosophy of Lord Bolingbroke 327 
 
 Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford 331 
 
 Change of Style 333 
 
 Oliver Goldsmith 339 
 
 National Prejudice , 341 
 
 The Man in Black , ... 345 
 
 A Club of Authors 349 
 
 Beau Tibbs 355 
 
 A City Night-Piece 361 
 
 Edmund Burke 363 
 
 On Taste 365 
 
 William Cowper 375 
 
 On Conversation 377 
 
 George Colman and Bonnell Thornton 381 
 
 The Ocean of Ink 383 
 
 Henry Mackenzie 389 
 
 Extraordinary Account of Robert Bums, the Ayrshire Plough- 
 man 391 
 
 Sydney Smith 399 
 
 Fallacies of Anti-Reformers 401 
 
 Samuel Taylor Coleridge 429 
 
 On Poesy or Art , 431 
 
 Francis Jeffrey , 441 
 
 Waverley, or 'Tis Sixty Years Since 443
 
 OF SEEMING WISE 
 OF STUDIES 
 
 OF TRUTH 
 
 OF REVENGE 
 
 OF ENVY 
 
 OF LOVE 
 
 OF FRIENDSHIP 
 
 OF YOUTH AND AGE 
 
 BY 
 
 FRANCIS BACON 
 
 Lord yerulam
 
 FRANCIS BACON, LORD VERULAM 
 1561 — 1626 
 
 The advent of Francis Bacon marks the beginning of the essay as 
 a literary force in England. To him the English essay owes, if not 
 inception, at least the first masterly exhibition of its strength. Born 
 in 1561, of aristocratic parents, he lived in the age of Shakespeare, 
 Jonson, Spenser, and Raleigh, and was brilliantly educated in the 
 learning of that day. His legal acumen was remarkable. From a 
 solicitor-generalship in 1607 he rose, step by step, to the summit of his 
 profession, being made Lord High Chancellor in 1618, with the title 
 of Baron Verulam. After three years in office he was charged with 
 bribery and corruption. He pleaded guilty to having received presents 
 from litigants in his courts, though it may be said in extenuation of his 
 conduct that such was the common practice of the judges of his time. 
 He was sentenced to pay a fine and to lie in the Tower during the 
 pleasure of the King. King James was magnanimous enough to remit 
 the sentence, and Bacon retired to his country home, where he died 
 in 1626. 
 
 Bacon's position as an essayist is peculiar. He cannot be compared 
 with Addison or Hazlitt; for he has no resemblance to them. He 
 was in the habit of jotting down his ideas in a Promus or common- 
 place book ; and occasionally brought two or three thoughts on the 
 same subject together and followed them out or added others which 
 suggested themselves. By and by he published them under various 
 headings — " Virtue," " Fame," " Empire," and the like. This was the 
 origin of the " Essays." He illustrates them by many quotations from 
 his favorite authors and some images of his own. He is no mere 
 maximist like La Rochefoucauld; for each is a connected whole, though 
 sometimes the thread of connection is slight. They are miracles of 
 conciseness; there is not a superfluous word. But this very brevity 
 admirably suits the matter. Bacon cuts deep into the nature of man 
 and lays bare his inmost heart. Some were evidently written from his 
 court experience. Others, like " Of Truth," breathe the spirit of a 
 noble and high-minded philosopher who had seen through the vain 
 shows of the world. 
 
 If Bacon resembles any writer it is Montaigne. There is the same 
 old-time flavor about both, the same habit of moralizing on human life. 
 But the Frenchman is the lighter character; he is gossipy and, occa- 
 sionally, provincial. Bacon is always grave, and his writings, except- 
 ing the language, have nothing distinctively English about them. He 
 writes as the philosopher in his study, not as the observer of every- 
 day life in field and street. It is abstract truth he gives us, but relieved 
 from all aridness by illustration and quotation. They both drew f4-om 
 the same sources ; they were both keen noticers of human character ; 
 but they presented the fruits of their study in different ways. Mon- 
 taigne's essays smell of the Gascon fields; the Frenchman comes 
 through on every page. Bacon poured the ore of his brain into a 
 refining furnace and drew off from it all " turbid mixture of contem- 
 poraneousness." Hence his work will have charms for men of every 
 age and every nation. 
 
 The essays are rough sketches to be filled up at will. They suggest 
 rather than satisfy. Many since the author's day have thought it 
 advisable to tag on to them their own reflections, some good, some 
 indifferent, but all very far below the " brave original." He has left 
 us not a book for the hour, but a book for all time. One can revert 
 to it again and again and each time find rich treasure. It is a mine of 
 quaint conceits and wise saws, a very orchard of the apples of wisdom. 
 
 z .
 
 OF SEEMING WISE 
 
 IT hath been an opinion, that the French are wiser than 
 they seem, and the Spaniards seem wiser than they are; 
 but howsoever it be between nations, certainly it is so 
 between man and man. For, as the Apostle saith of godliness, 
 " having a show of godliness, but denying the power thereof," 
 so certainly there are, in points of wisdom and sufficiency,* 
 that do nothing or little very solemnly — " Magno conattt nu- 
 gas." ^ It is a ridiculous thing and fit for a satire to persons of 
 judgment, to see what shifts these formalists ' have, and what 
 prospectives to make superficies to seem body that hath depth 
 and bulk. Some are so close and reserved, as they will not show 
 their wares but by a dark light, and seem always to keep back 
 somewhat : and when they know within themselves they speak 
 of that they do not well know, would nevertheless seem to 
 others to know of that which they may not well speak. Some 
 help themselves with countenance and gesture, and are wise 
 by signs ; as Cicero saith of Piso, that when he answered him 
 he fetched one of his brows up to his forehead, and bent the 
 other down to his chin — " Respondes, altera ad frontem sublato, 
 altera ad mentum depresso supercilia, crudelitatem tibi nan 
 placere." Some think to bear it by speaking a great word, and 
 being peremptory; and go on, and take by admittance that 
 which they cannot make good. Some, whatsoever is beyond 
 their reach, will seem to despise or make light of it, as imperti- 
 nent or curious,* and so would have their ignorance seem judg- 
 ment. Some are never without a difference, and commonly by 
 amusing men with a subtilty, blanch * the matter ; of whom 
 A, Gellius saith : " Haminem delirtim, qui verborum minutiis 
 rerum frangit pondera."* Of which kind also Hato, in his 
 
 » Ability. • Evade. 
 
 • Terence, ** Heaut" iv. tt Ik • The quotation is not from Gellias, 
 
 * i.e. The seemingr wise, but from Quintilian " on Seneca," iv. u 
 •Irrelevant or trifliag;. (Whately).
 
 4 BACON 
 
 " Protagoras," bringeth in Prodicus in scorn and maketh him 
 make a speech that consisteth of distinctions from the begin- 
 ning to the end. Generally, such men in all deliberations find 
 ease to be of the negative side, and affect a credit to object and 
 foretell difficulties: for when propositions are denied there is 
 an end of them; but if they be allowed, it requireth a new 
 work: which false point of wisdom is the bane of business. 
 To conclude, there is no decaying merchant or inward beggar '' 
 hath so many tricks to uphold the credit of their wealth as 
 these empty persons have to maintain the credit of their suf- 
 ficiency. Seeming wise men may make shift to get opinion: 
 but let no man choose them for employment ; for certainly you 
 were better take for business a man somewhat absurd ® than 
 over-formal.^ 
 
 ' One secretly a bankrupt (Whately). • Defective in judgment 
 
 •Too pretentious.
 
 OF STUDIES 
 
 STUDIES serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. 
 Their chief use for delight, is in privateness and retir- 
 ing ; for ornament, is in discourse ; and for ability, is in 
 the judgment and disposition of business. For expert men 
 can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; 
 but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of 
 affairs, come best from those that are learned. To spend too 
 much time in studies is sloth ; to use them too much for orna- 
 ment is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules 
 is the humor of a scholar. They perfect nature and are per- 
 fected by experience: for natural abilities are like natural 
 plants, that need pruning by study: and studies themselves 
 do give forth directions too much at large, except they be 
 bounded in by experience. Crafty men contemn studies ; sim- 
 ple men admire them ; and wise men use them : for they teach 
 not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and 
 above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and 
 confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk 
 and discourse, but to weigh and consider. Some books are to 
 be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed 
 and digested : that is, some books are to be read only in parts ; 
 others to be read, but not curiously ; ^ and some few to be read 
 wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also 
 may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others : 
 but that would be only in the less important arguments, and 
 the meaner sort of books : else distilled books are, like common 
 distilled waters, flashy ^ things. Reading maketh a full man, 
 conference a ready man, and writing an exact man. And 
 therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great mem- 
 ory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; and 
 
 * Attentively. he remarks that the most offensive 
 
 9 Bacon ases the word in the sense of tastes are " bitter, sour, harsh, water* 
 •* tasteless." In his " Natural History " ish, or flashy." 
 
 5 .
 
 BACON 
 
 if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to sefcm to 
 know that he doth not. Histories make men wise; poets 
 witty; the mathematics subtle; natural philosophy deep; 
 moral, grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend: Abeunt 
 studia in mores. Nay, there is no stond ^ or impediment in 
 the wit, but may be wrought out by fit studies : like as diseases 
 of the body may have appropriate exercises. Bowling is good 
 for the stone and reins ; shooting for the lungs and breast ; a 
 gentle walking for the stomach ; riding for the head ; and the 
 like. So, if a man's wits be wandering, let him study the 
 mathematics ; for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away 
 never so little, he must begin again: if his wit be not apt to 
 distinguish or find differences, let him study the school-men; 
 for they are Cymini sec tores.* If he be not apt to beat over 
 matters, and to call up one thing to prove and illustrate an- 
 other, let him study the lawyer's cases : so every defect of the 
 mind may have a special receipt. 
 
 * Obstacle. min-seed, which is one of the least 
 
 'Mail-splitters; lit. "dividers of cum> «ecds " (Bacon).
 
 OF TRUTH 
 
 WHAT is truth ? said jesting Pilate ; and would not stay 
 for an answer. Certainly there be that delight in 
 giddiness; and count it a bondage to fix a belief; 
 affecting free-will in thinking, as well as in acting. And though 
 the sect of philosophers of that kind be gone, yet there remain 
 certain discoursing wits, which are of the same veins, though 
 there be not so much blood in them as was in those of the 
 ancients. But it is not only the difficulty and labor which men 
 take in finding out of truth ; nor again, that when it is found, 
 it imposeth upon men's thoughts ; that doth bring lyes in favor : 
 but a natural though corrupt love of the lye itself. One of 
 the later school of the Grecians ^ examineth the matter, and 
 is at a stand to think what should be in it, that men should love 
 lyes ; where neither they make for pleasure, as with poets ; 
 nor for advantage, as with the merchant ; but for the lye's sake. 
 But I cannot tell: this same truth is a naked and open day- 
 light, that doth not show the masks, and mummeries, and tri- 
 umphs of the world, half so stately and daintily as candle-lights. 
 Truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl, that showeth 
 best by day ; but it will not rise to the price of a diamond or 
 carbuncle, that showeth best in varied lights. A mixture of a 
 lye doth ever add pleasure. Doth any man doubt, that if there 
 were taken out of men's minds, vain opinions, flattering hopes, 
 false valuations, imaginations as one would, and the like ; but 
 it would leave the minds of a number of men, poor shrunken 
 things; full of melancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing 
 to themselves? One of the fathers, in great severity, called 
 poesy, vinum damonum;'^ because it filleth the imagination, and 
 yet it is but with the shadow of a lye. But it is not the lye 
 that passeth through the mind, but the lye that sinketh in, and 
 settleth in it, that doth the hurt^ such as we spake of before. 
 
 > Lucian in the " Philopseudes." • " Wine of Atv'iLs."— August ine. 
 
 7
 
 8 BACON 
 
 But howsoever these things are thus in men's depraved judg- 
 ments and affections, yet truth, which only doth judge itself, 
 teacheth, that the inquiry of truth, which is the love-making, 
 or wooing of it ; the knowledge of truth, which is the presence 
 of it ; and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it ; is the 
 sovereign good of human nature. The first creature of God, 
 in the works of the days, was the light of the sense ; the last 
 was the light of reason ; and his Sabbath work ever since is the 
 illumination of his Spirit. First he breathed light upon the 
 face of the matter, or chaos ; then he breathed light into the face 
 of man ; and still he breatheth and inspireth light into the fac« 
 of his chosen. The poet ^ that beautified the sect, that wa» 
 otherwise inferior to the rest, saith yet excellently well : " It is 
 a pleasure to stand upon the shore and to see ships tost upon 
 the sea ; a pleasure to stand in the window of a castle, and to 
 see a battle, and the adventures thereof, below ; but no pleasure 
 is comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground of 
 truth, a hill not to be commanded, and where the air is always 
 clear and serene : and to see the errors, and wanderings, and 
 mists, and tempests, in the vale below:" so always, that this 
 prospect be with pity, and not with sweUing or pride. Cer- 
 tainly, it is heaven upon earth to have a man's mind move in 
 charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth. 
 
 To pass from theological and philosophical truth, to the 
 truth of civil business ; it will be acknowledged, even by those 
 that practise it not, that clear and round dealing is the honor 
 of man's nature ; and that mixture of falsehood is like alloy 
 in coin of gold and silver: which may make the metal work 
 the better, but it embaseth it. For these winding and crooked 
 courses are the goings of the serpent; which goeth basely 
 upon the belly, and not upon the feet. There is no vice that 
 doth so cover a man with shame, as to be found false and 
 perfidious. And therefore Montaigne saith prettily, when he 
 inquired the reason, why the word of the lye should be such a 
 disgrace, and such an odious charge? Saith he, "If it be 
 well weighed, to say that a man lyeth, is as much as to say, 
 that he is brave towards God, and a coward towards men. For 
 a lye faces God, and shrinks from man." Surely the wicked- 
 
 • Lucretius. The sect referred to is the Epicurean.
 
 OF TRUTH 9 
 
 ness of falsehood, and breach of faith, cannot possibly be so 
 highly expressed, as in that it shall be the last peal to call the 
 judgments of God upon the generations of men : it being fore- 
 told, that when Christ cometh " he shall not find faith upon the 
 earth."
 
 OF REVENGE 
 
 REVENGE is a kind of wild justice, which the more a 
 man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it 
 out. For as for the first wrong, it doth but offend the 
 law; but the revenge of that wrong putteth the law out of 
 office. Certainly in taking revenge, a man is but even with 
 his enemy ; but in passing it over, he is superior : for it is a 
 prince's part to pardon. And Solomon, I am sure, saith, " It 
 is the glory of a man to pass by an offence." That which is 
 past is gone and irrevocable, and wise men have enough to 
 do with things present and to come: therefore they do but 
 trifle with themselves that labor in past matters. There is no 
 man doth a wrong for the wrong's sake ; but thereby to pur- 
 chase himself profit, or pleasure, or honor, or the like. There- 
 fore why should I be angry with a man for loving himself better 
 than me? And if any man should do wrong, merely out of 
 ill-nature, why, yet it is but like the thorn or brier, which prick 
 or scratch, because they can do no other. The most tolerable 
 sort of revenge is for those wrongs which there is no law to 
 remedy : but then let a man take heed the revenge be such as 
 there is no law to punish ; else a man's enemy is still before- 
 hand, and it is two for one. Some, when they take revenge, 
 are desirous the party should know whence it cometh : this is 
 the more generous. For the delight seemeth to be not so much 
 in doing the hurt, as in making the party repent : but base and 
 crafty cowards are like the arrow that flieth in the dark. Cos- 
 mus, Duke of Florence, had a desperate saying against per- 
 fidious or neglecting friends, as if those wrongs were unpar- 
 donable. " You shall read," saith he, " that we are commanded 
 to forgave our enemies ; but you never read, that we are con- 
 manded to forgive our friends." But yet the spirit of Job was 
 in a better tune ; " Shall we," saith he, " take good at God's 
 hands, and not be content to take evil also ? " And so of 
 
 II
 
 xa BACON 
 
 friends in a proportion. This is certain, that a man that 
 studieth revenge, keeps his own wounds green, which other- 
 wise would heal and do well. Public revenges are for the most 
 part fortunate: as that for the death of Caesar; for the death 
 of Pertinax ; for the death of Henry III of France ; and many 
 more : but in private revenges it is not so ; nay, rather, vindic- 
 tive persons live the life of witches; who as they are mis- 
 chievous, so end they unfortunate.
 
 OF ENVY 
 
 THERE be none of the affections which have been noted 
 to fascinate or bewitch, but love and envy. They both 
 have vehement wishes ; they frame themselves readily 
 into imaginations and suggestions : and they come easily into 
 the eye ; especially upon the presence of the objects ; which 
 are the points that conduce to fascination, if any such thing 
 there be. We see likewise, the scripture calleth envy an evil 
 eye: and the astrologers call the evil influences of the stars 
 evil aspects ; so that still there seemeth to be acknowledged 
 in the act of envy, an ejaculation, or irradiation of the eye. 
 Nay, some have been so curious, as to note that the times 
 when the stroke or percussion of an envious eye doth most 
 hurt, are when the party envied is beheld in glory or triumph ; 
 for that sets an edge upon envy : and, besides, at such times, 
 the spirits of the person envied do come forth most into the 
 outward parts, and so meet the blow. 
 
 But leaving these curiosities, though not unworthy to be 
 thought on in fit place, we will handle : what persons are apt 
 to envy others; what persons are most subject to be envied 
 themselves ; and what is the difference between public and 
 private envy. 
 
 A man that hath no virtue in himself, ever envieth virtue in 
 others. For men's minds will either feed upon their own good, 
 or upon others' evil ; and who wanteth the one, will prey upon 
 the other: and whoso is out of hope to attain to another's 
 virtue, will seek to come at even hand by depressing another's 
 fortune. 
 
 A man that is busy and inquisitive is commonly envious: 
 for to know much of other men's matters cannot be, because 
 all that ado may concern his own estate: therefore it must 
 needs be, that he taketh a kind of play-pleasure in looking 
 upon the fortunes of others ; neither can he that mindeth but 
 
 13
 
 14 BACON 
 
 his own business find much matter for envy. For envy is a 
 gadding passion, and walketh the streets, and doth not keep 
 home ; " Non est curiosus, quin idem sit malevolus." * 
 
 Men of noble birth are noted to be envious towards new 
 men when they rise : for the distance is altered : and it is like 
 a deceit of the eye, that when others come on, they think them- 
 selves go back. 
 
 Deformed persons and eunuchs, and old men and bastards, 
 are envious : for he that cannot possibly mend his own case, 
 will do what he can to impair another's ; except these defects 
 light upon a very brave and heroical nature, which thinketh 
 to make his natural wants part of his honor ; in that it should 
 be said, that a eunuch or a lame man did such great matters ; 
 afifecting the honor of a miracle ; as it was in Narses the eunuch, 
 and Agesilaus and Tamerlane, that were lame men. 
 
 The same is the case of men that rise after calamities and 
 misfortunes ; for they are as men fallen out of the times ; and 
 think other men's harm a redemption of their own suflferings. 
 
 They that desire to excel in too many matters, out of levity 
 and vainglory, are ever envious, for they cannot want work; 
 it being impossible but many, in some one of those things, 
 should surpass them. Which was the character of Adrian the 
 emperor, that mortally envied poets, and painters, and artificers, 
 in works wherein he had a vein to excel. 
 
 Lastly, near kinsfolks, and. fellows in office, and those that 
 have been bred together, are more apt to envy their equals 
 when they are raised. For it doth upbraid unto them their 
 own fortunes, and pointeth at them, and cometh oftener in 
 their remembrance, and incurrcth likewise more into the note 
 of others ; and envy ever redoubleth from speech and fame. 
 Cain's envy was the more vile and malignant towards his 
 brother Abel, because, when his sacrifice was better accepted, 
 there was nobody to look on. Thus much for those that are 
 apt to envy. 
 
 Concerning those that are more or less subject to envy: 
 First, persons of eminent virtue, when they are advanced, are 
 less envied. For their fortune seemeth but due unto them ; 
 and no man envieth the payment of a debt, but rewards, and 
 
 * " There is no man inquisitive who is not also malevolent."— F/att/M5, " Stich." 
 i. sec. 55.
 
 OF ENVY 
 
 15 
 
 liberality rather. Again envy is ever joined with the compar- 
 ing of a man's self ; and where there is no comparison, no envy ; 
 and therefore kings are not envied but by kings. Nevertheless 
 it is to be noted, that unworthy persons are most envied at 
 their first coming in, and afterwards overcome it better ; where- 
 as contrariwise, persons of worth and merit are most envied 
 when their fortune continueth long. For by that time, though 
 their virtue be the same, yet it hath not the same lustre ; for 
 fresh men grow up that darken it. 
 
 Persons of noble blood are less envied in their rising; for 
 it seemeth but right done to their birth : besides, there seemeth 
 not much added to their fortune : and envy is as the sun-beams, 
 that beat hotter upon a bank or steep rising ground than upon 
 a flat. And for the same reason, those that are advanced by 
 degrees, are less envied than those that are advanced suddenly, 
 and per saltum. 
 
 Those that have joined with their honor, great travels, cares, 
 or perils, are less subject to envy: for men think that they 
 earn their honors hardly, and pity them sometimes ; and pity 
 ever healeth envy : wherefore you shall observe, that the more 
 deep and sober sort of politic persons, in their greatness, are 
 ever bemoaning themselves what a life they lead, chanting a 
 " Quanta patimur " : not that they feel it so, but only to abate 
 the edge of envy. But this is to be understood of business that 
 is laid upon men, and not such as they call unto themselves: 
 for nothing increaseth envy more, than an unnecessary and 
 ambitious engrossing of business : and nothing doth extinguish 
 envy more, than for a great person to preserve all other in- 
 ferior officers in their full rights and pre-eminence of their 
 places : for by that means there be so many screens between 
 him and envy. 
 
 Above all, those are most subject to envy, which carry the 
 greatness of their fortunes in an insolent and proud manner: 
 being never well but while they are showing how great they 
 are, either by outward pomp, or by triumphing over all oppo- 
 sition or competition ; whereas wise men will rather do sacri- 
 fice to envy, in suffering themselves sometimes of purpose to 
 be crossed and overborne in things that do not much concern 
 them. Notwithstanding, so much is true : that the carriage of 
 greatness in a plain and open manner, so it be without arro-
 
 I6 BACON 
 
 gancy and vainglory, doth draw less envy, than if it be in a 
 more crafty and cunning fashion. For in that course a man 
 doth but disavow fortune, and seemeth to be conscious of his 
 own want in worth, and doth but teach others to envy him. 
 
 Lastly, to conclude this part; as we said in the beginning, 
 that the act of envy had somewhat in it of witchcraft, so there 
 is no other cure of envy, but the cure of witchcraft : and that 
 is, to remove the lot, as they call it, and to lay it upon another. 
 For which purpose, the wiser sort of great persons bring in 
 ever upon the stage somebody upon whom to derive the envy 
 that would come upon themselves : sometimes upon ministers 
 and servants, sometimes upon colleagues and associates, and 
 the like : and for that turn, there are never wanting some per- 
 sons of violent and undertaking natures, who, so they may have 
 power and business, will take it at any cost. 
 
 Now to speak of public envy. There is yet some good in 
 public envy, whereas in private there is none. For pubHc envy 
 is as an ostracism, that eclipseth men when they grow too great : 
 and therefore it is a bridle also to great ones, to keep them 
 within bounds. 
 
 This envy, being in the Latin word invidia, goeth in the 
 modern languages by the name of " discontent " ; of which we 
 shall speak in handling " sedition." It is a disease in a state 
 like to infection : for as infection spreadeth upon that which 
 is sound, and tainteth it ; so when envy is gotten once into 
 a state, it traduceth even the best actions thereof, and turneth 
 them into an ill-odor ; and therefore there is little won by in- 
 termingling of plausible actions: for that doth argue but a 
 weakness and fear of envy, which hurteth so much the more; 
 as it is likewise usual in infections, which if you fear them, 
 you call them upon you. 
 
 This public envy seemeth to beat chiefly upon principal offi- 
 cers or ministers, rather than upon kings and estates them- 
 selves. But this is a sure rule, that if the envy upon the min- 
 ister be great, when the cause of it in him is small ; or if the 
 envy be general in a manner upon all the ministers of an estate, 
 then the envy, though hidden, is truly upon the estate itself. 
 And so much of public envy or discontentment, and the differ- 
 ence thereof from private envy, which was handled in the first 
 place.
 
 OF ENVY 17 
 
 We will add this in general touching- the affection of envy : 
 that of all other affections it is the most importune and con- 
 tinual : for of other affections there is occasion given but now 
 and then ; and therefore it is well said, " Invidia festos dies non 
 agit " : ^ for it is ever working upon some other. And it is 
 also noted, that love and envy to make a man pine, which other 
 affections do not, because they are not so continual. 
 
 It is also the vilest affection, and the most depraved; for 
 which cause it is the proper attribute of the devil, who is 
 called " the envious man, that soweth tares among the wheat 
 by night " : as it always cometh to pass, that envy worketh 
 subtilely, and in the dark ; and to the prejudice of good things, 
 such as is the wheat. 
 
 ' " Envy keeps no holidays." 
 
 2— Vol. 57
 
 OF LOVE 
 
 THE stage is more beholden to love, than the life of man. 
 For as to the stage, love is ever a matter of comedies, 
 and now and then of tragedies ; but in life it doth 
 much mischief, sometimes like a siren, sometimes like a fury. 
 You may observe, that amongst all the great and worthy 
 persons, whereof the memory remaineth, either ancient or re- 
 cent, there is not one that hath been transported to the mad 
 degree of love; which shows, that great spirits and great 
 business do keep out this weak passion. You must except, 
 nevertheless, Marcus Antonius the half partner of the Empire 
 of Rome, and Appius Claudius the Decemvir and lawgiver; 
 whereof the former was indeed a voluptuous man and inordi- 
 nate ; but the latter was an austere and wise man : and there- 
 fore it seems, though rarely, that love can find entrance, not 
 only into an open heart, but also into a heart well fortified, 
 if watch be not well kept. It is a poor saying of Epicurus: 
 " Satis magnum alter alteri theatrum sumus; " ^ as if man, made 
 for the contemplation of heaven, and all noble objects, should 
 do nothing but kneel before a little idol, and make himself 
 subject, though not of the mouth, as beasts are, yet of the eye, 
 which was given him for higher purposes. It is a strange 
 thing to note the excess of this passion ; and how it braves 
 the nature and value of things by this, that the speaking in a 
 perpetual hyperbole is comely in nothing but in love. Neither 
 is it merely in the phrase ; for whereas it hath been well said, 
 that the arch-fliatterer, with whom all the petty flatterers have 
 intelligence, is a man's self ; certainly the lover is more. For 
 there was never proud man thought so absurdly well of him- 
 self as the lover doth of the person loved; and therefore it 
 was well said, that it is impossible to love, and to be wise. 
 Neither doth this weakness appear to others only, and not to 
 
 * " We are a sufficiently great spectacle to one another."— Sen^co, " Ep.'* 
 f. 7, sec. II. 
 
 19
 
 so BACON 
 
 the party loved, but to the loved most of all ; except the love 
 be reciproque. For it is a true rule, that love is ever rewarded 
 either with the reciproque, or with an inward and secret con- 
 tempt: by how much the more men ought to beware of this 
 passion, which loseth not only other things but itself. As for 
 the other losses, the poet's relation doth well figure them; 
 that he that preferred Helena quitted the gifts of Juno and 
 Pallas : for whosoever esteemeth too much of amorous affec- 
 tion quitteth both riches and wisdom. This passion hath its 
 floods in the very times of weakness, which are great pros- 
 perity, and great adversity; though this latter hath been less 
 observed : which both times kindle love, and make it more 
 fervent, and therefore show it to be the child of folly. They 
 do best who, if they cannot but admit love, yet make it keep 
 quarter; and sever it wholly from their serious affairs and 
 actions of life : for if it check once with business, it troubleth 
 men's fortunes, and maketh men that they can no ways be 
 true to their own ends. I know not how, but martial men are 
 given to love: I think it is, but as they are given to wine; 
 for perils commonly ask to be paid in pleasures. There is in 
 man's nature a secret inclination and motion towards love of 
 others, which, if it be not spent upon some one or a few, doth 
 naturally spread itself towards many, and maketh men to be- 
 come humane and charitable ; as it is seen sometimes in friars. 
 Nuptial love maketh mankind ; friendly love perfecteth it ; 
 but wanton love corrupteth and embaseth it.
 
 OF FRIENDSHIP 
 
 IT had been hard for him that spake it to have put more 
 truth and untruth together, in few words, than in that 
 speech : " Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either 
 a wild beast or a god." ^ For it is most true, that a natural 
 and secret hatred, and aversation towards society, in any man, 
 hath somewhat of the savage beast: but it is most untrue, 
 that it should have any character at all of the divine nature, 
 except it proceed, not out of a pleasure in solitude, but out 
 of a love and desire to sequester a man's self for a higher con- 
 versation ; such as is found to have been falsely and feignedly 
 in some of the heathen ; as Epimenides the Candian, Numa 
 the Roman, Empedocles the Sicilian, and Apollonius of Tyana ; 
 and truly and really in divers of the ancient hermits and holy 
 fathers of the Church. But little do men perceive what sol- 
 itude is, and how far it extendeth. For a crowd is not com- 
 pany, and faces are but a gallery of pictures ; and talk but a 
 tinkling cymbal, where there is no love. The Latin adage 
 meeteth with it a little,. " Magna civitas, magna solitudo " ; ^ 
 because in a great town friends are scattered, so that there is 
 not that fellowship, for the most part, which is in less neigh- 
 borhoods. But we may go further, and aflfirm most truly, 
 that it is a mere and miserable solitude, to want true friends, 
 without which the world is but a wilderness. And even in this 
 sense also of solitude, whosoever in the frame of his nature 
 and affections is unfit for friendship, he taketh it of the beast, 
 and not from humanity. 
 
 A principal fruit of friendship is the ease and discharge of 
 the fulness and swellings of the heart, which passions of all 
 kinds do cause and induce. We know diseases of stoppings 
 and suffocations are the most dangerous in the body; and 
 it is not much otherwise in the mind ; you may take sarza to 
 
 * Aristotle, " Politics," i. i. sentence of a comic poet quoted by 
 
   " A great city, a great solitude "—a Strabo, xvi. 
 
 21
 
 33 BACON 
 
 open the liver, steel to open the spleen, flour of sulphur for the 
 lungs, castoreum for the brain; but no receipt openeth the 
 heart but a true friend, to whom you may impart griefs, joys, 
 fears, hopes, suspicions, counsels, and whatsoever lieth upon 
 the heart, to oppress it, in a kind of civil shrift or confession. 
 
 It is a strange thing to observe how high a rate great kings 
 and monarchs do set upon this fruit of friendship, whereof we 
 speak ; so great, as they purchase it many times at the hazard 
 of their own safety and greatness. For princes, in regard of 
 the distance of their fortune from that of their subjects and 
 servants, cannot gather this fruit, except, to make themselves 
 capable thereof, they raise some persons to be, as it were, com- 
 panions, and almost equals to themselves, which many times 
 sorteth to inconvenience. The modern languages give unto 
 such persons the name of favorites or privadoes, as if it were 
 matter of grace or conversation; but the Roman name at- 
 taineth the true use and cause thereof, naming them " participes 
 curarum "; ^ for it is that which tieth the knot. And we see 
 plainly, that this hath been done, not by weak and passionate 
 princes only, but by the wisest and most politic that ever 
 reigned, who have oftentimes joined to themselves some of 
 their servants, whom both themselves have called friends, and 
 allowed others likewise to call them in the same manner, using 
 the word which is received between private men. 
 
 L. Sylla, when he commanded Rome, raised Pompey, after 
 surnamed the Great, to that height, that Pompey vaunted 
 himself for Sylla's over-match. For when he had carried the 
 consulship for a friend of his against the pursuit of Sylla, and 
 that Sylla did a little resent thereat, and began to speak great, 
 Pompey turned upon him again, and in effect bade him be 
 quiet : for that more men adored the sun rising, than the sun 
 setting. With Julius Caesar, Decimus Brutus had obtained 
 that interest, as he set him down in his testament for heir in 
 remainder after his nephew. And this was the man that had 
 power with him to draw him forth to his death. For when 
 Caesar would have discharged the Senate, in regard of some 
 ill-presages, and especially a dream of Calpurnia, this man lifted 
 him gently by the arm out of his chair, telling him, he hoped 
 he would not dismiss the Senate till his wife had dreamed a 
 'Tiberius called Scjanus " socinm laborum."^Tacitus, " Annales," ir. 2.
 
 OF FRIENDSHIP 
 
 23 
 
 better dream. And it seemeth, his favor was so great, as An- 
 tonius, in a letter which is recited verbatim in one of Cicero's 
 Philippics,* calleth him " venehca," witch ; as if he had en- 
 chanted Caesar. Augustus raised Agrippa, though of mean 
 birth, to that height, as when he consulted with Maecenas about 
 the marriage of his daughter Julia, Maecenas took the liberty 
 to tell him, that he must either marry his daughter to Agrippa, 
 or take away his life ; there was no third way, he had made him 
 so great. With Tiberius Caesar Sejanus had ascended to that 
 height, as they two were termed and reckoned as a pair of 
 friends. Tiberius in a letter to him saith, " Hac pro amicitia 
 nostra non occultavi ": ^ and the whole Senate dedicated an 
 altar to friendship as to a goddess, in respect of the great dear- 
 ness of friendship between them two. The like or more was 
 between Septimus Severus and Plantianus. For he forced his 
 eldest son to marry the daughter of Plantianus, and would 
 often maintain Plantianus in doing affronts to his son: and 
 did write also in a letter to the Senate, by these words : " I 
 love the man so well, as I wish he may overlive me." " Now 
 if these princes had been as a Trajan, or a Marcus Aurelius, 
 a man might have thought that this had proceeded of an 
 abundant goodness of nature ; but being men so wise, of such 
 strength and severity of mind, and so extreme lovers of them- 
 selves, as all these were, it proveth most plainly, that they 
 found their own felicity, though as great as ever happened to 
 mortal men, but as a half-piece, except they might have a 
 friend to make it entire; and yet, which is more, they were 
 princes which had wives, sons, nephews; and yet all these 
 could not supply the comfort of friendship. 
 
 It is not to be forgotten what Comminius observeth of his 
 first master Duke Charles the Hardy, namely, that he would 
 communicate his secrets with none; and least of all those 
 secrets which troubled him most. Whereupon he goeth on, 
 and saith, that towards his latter time, that closeness did impair, 
 and a little perish, his understanding.' Surely Comminius 
 might have made the same judgment also, if it had pleased 
 him, of his second master Louis XI, whose closeness was in- 
 
 * Cicero, "Philippics," xiii. 11. 'Dion Cassius, Ixxv. 15. 
 
 * " These things on account of our » " History of Philip de Commines,'* 
 
 friendship I have not concealed."— roc- v. 5. 
 itus, " Annales," iv. 4»
 
 «4 
 
 BACON 
 
 deed his tormentor. The parable of Pythagoras is dark, but 
 true, " Cor ne edito " ^ — " Eat not the heart." Certainly, if a 
 man would give it a hard phrase, those that want friends to 
 open themselves unto, are cannibals of their own hearts. But 
 one thing is most admirable, wherewith I will conclude this 
 first fruit of friendship, which is, that this communicating of 
 a man's self to his friend works two contrary effects ; for it 
 redoubleth joys, and cutteth griefs in halves. For there is no 
 man that imparteth his joys to his friends, but he joyeth the 
 more ; and no man that imparteth his griefs to his friend, but 
 he grieveth the less. So that it is in truth of operation upon 
 a man's mind of like virtue, as the alchemists used to attribute 
 to their stone, for man's body; that it worketh all contrary 
 effects, but still to the good and benefit of nature. But yet, 
 without praying in aid of alchemists, there is a manifest image 
 of this in the ordinary course of nature. For in bodies, union 
 strengtheneth and cherisheth any natural action; and, on the 
 other side, weakeneth and dulleth any violent impression ; and 
 even so it is of minds. 
 
 The second fruit of friendship is healthful and sovereign for 
 the understanding, as the first is for the affections. For friend- 
 ship maketh indeed a fair day in the affections, from storm 
 and tempests ; but it maketh daylight in the understanding, 
 out of darkness and confusion of thoughts : neither is this to 
 be understood only of faithful counsel, which a man receiveth 
 from his friend ; but before you come to that, certain it is, that 
 whosoever hath his mind fraught with many thoughts, his 
 wits and understanding do clarify and break up in the com- 
 municating and discoursing with another : he tosseth his 
 thoughts more easily ; he marshalleth them more orderly ; he 
 seeth how they look when they are turned into words ; finally, 
 he waxeth wiser than himself; and that more by an hour's 
 discourse, than by a day's meditations. It was well said by 
 Themistocles to the King of Persia, that speech was like cloth 
 of Arras, opened and put abroad, whereby the imagery doth 
 appear in figure ; whereas in thoughts they lie but as in packs.® 
 Neither is this second fruit of friendship, in opening the un- 
 derstanding, restrained only to such friends as are able to give 
 a man counsel : they indeed are best : but even, without that, 
 
 • Plutarch, " De Educat. Puer." 17. • Plutarch, " Vit. Themist." 28.
 
 OF FRIENDSHIP 25 
 
 a man learneth of himself and bringeth his own thoughts to 
 light, and whetteth his wits as against a stone, which itself 
 cuts not. In a word, a man were better relate himself to a 
 statue or picture, than to suffer his thoughts to pass in smother. 
 Add now, to make this second fruit of friendship complete, 
 that other point which lieth more open, and falleth within 
 vulgar observation; which is faithful counsel from a friend. 
 Heraclitus saith well in one of his enigmas, " Dry light is ever 
 the best." ^ And certain it is, that the light that a man re- 
 ceiveth by counsel from another is drier and purer, than that 
 which cometh from his own understanding and judgment; 
 which is ever infused and drenched in his affections and cus- 
 toms. So as there is as much difference between the counsel 
 that a friend giveth, and that a man giveth himself, as there 
 is between the counsel of a friend and of a flatterer. For there 
 is no such flatterer as is a man's self; and there is no such 
 remedy against flattery of a man's self, as the liberty of a friend. 
 Counsel is of two sorts ; the one concerning manners, the other 
 concerning business. For the first, the best preservative to 
 keep the mind in health is the faithful admonition of a friend. 
 The calling a man's self to a strict account is a medicine some- 
 times too piercing and corrosive. Reading good books of 
 morality is a little flat and dead. Observing our faults in 
 others is sometimes improper for our case: but the best re- 
 ceipt, best, I say, to work, and best to take, is the admonition 
 of a friend. It is a strange thing to behold what gross errors 
 and extreme absurdities many, especially of the greater sort, 
 do commit for want of a friend to tell them of them, to the 
 great damage both of their fame and fortune. For as St. 
 James saith, they are as men " that look sometimes into a glass, 
 and presently forget their own shape and favor." As for busi- 
 ness, a man may think if he will, that two eyes see no more 
 than one ; or that a gamester seeth always more than a looker- 
 on ; or that a man in anger is as wise as he that hath said over 
 the four-and-twenty letters ; or that a musket may be shot oflf 
 as well upon the arm as upon a rest ; and such other fond and 
 high imaginations, to think himself all in all. But when all is 
 done, the help of good counsel is that which setteth business 
 straight. And if any man think that he will take counsel, but 
 
 *A saying quoted by Galen.
 
 S6 BACON 
 
 it shall be by pieces; asking counsel in one business of one 
 man, and in another business of another man ; it is well, that 
 is to say, better perhaps than if he asked none at all, but he 
 runneth two dangers: one, that he shall not be faithfully 
 counselled ; for it is a rare thing, except it be from a perfect 
 and entire friend, to have counsel given, but such as shall be 
 bowed and crooked to some ends which he hath that giveth 
 it. The other, that he shall have counsel given, hurtful and 
 unsafe, though with good meaning, and mixed partly of mis- 
 chief, and partly of remedy : even as if you would call a physi- 
 cian that is thought good for the cure of the disease you com- 
 plain of, but is unacquainted with your body; and therefore 
 may put you in way for a present cure, but overthroweth 
 your health in some other kind, and so cure the disease and 
 kill the patient. But a friend that is wholly acquainted with 
 a man's estate, will beware by furthering any present business 
 how he dasheth upon other inconvenience. And therefore 
 rest not upon scattered counsels ; they will rather distract and 
 mislead, than settle and direct. 
 
 After these two noble fruits of friendship, peace in the af- 
 fections, and support of the judgment, followeth the last fruit, 
 which is like the pomegranate, full of many kernels ; I mean 
 aid, and bearing a part in all actions and occasions. Here the 
 best way to represent to life the manifold use of friendship, is 
 to cast and see how many things there are which a man cannot 
 do himself ; and then it will appear that it was a sparing speech 
 of the ancients to say, that " a friend is another himself " ; for 
 that a friend is far more than himself. Men have their time, 
 and die many times in desire of some things which they prin- 
 cipally take to heart ; the bestowing of a child, the finishing 
 of a work, or the like. If a man have a true friend, he may 
 rest almost secure, that the care of those things will continue 
 after him. So that a man hath, as it were, two lives in his 
 desires. A man hath a body, and that body is confined to a 
 place ; but where friendship is, all offices of life are as it were 
 granted to him and his deputy : for he may exercise them by 
 his friend. How many things are there, which a man cannot 
 with any face or comeliness, say or do himself? A man can 
 scarce allege his own merits with modesty, much less extol 
 them: a man cannot sometimes brook to supplicate or beg;
 
 OF FRIENDSHIP 27 
 
 and a number of the like. But all these things are graceful in 
 a friend's mouth, which are blushing in a man's own. So 
 again, a man's person hath many proper relations, which he 
 cannot put off. A man cannot speak to his son, but as a 
 father; to his wife, but as a husband; to his enemy, but upon 
 terms ; whereas a friend may speak as the case requires, and 
 not as it sorteth with the person. But to enumerate these 
 things were endless ; I have given a rule, where a man cannot 
 fitly play his own part; if he have not a friend, he may quit 
 the stage.
 
 OF YOUTH AND AGE 
 
 A MAN that is young in years may be old in hours, if he 
 have lost no time. But that happeneth rarely. Gen- 
 erally youth is like the first cogitations, not so wise as 
 the second. For there is a youth in thoughts, as well as in 
 ages. And yet the invention of young men is more lively 
 than that of old; and imaginations stream into their minds 
 better, and as it were more divinely. Natures that have much 
 heat, and great and violent desires and perturbations, are not 
 ripe for action, till they have passed the meridian of their years : 
 as it was with Julius Caesar and Septimius Severus. Of the 
 latter of whom it is said, " Juventutem egit erroribus, imo 
 fnroribiis, plenam." ^ And yet he was the ablest emperor al- 
 most of all the list. But reposed natures may do well in youth : 
 as it is seen in Augustus Caesar, Cosmos, Duke of Florence, 
 Gaston de Fois, and others. On the other side, heat and vivac- 
 ity in age are an excellent composition for business. Young 
 men are fitter to invent than to judge ; fitter for execution than 
 for counsel; and fitter for new projects than for settled busi- 
 ness. For the experience of age, in things that fall within the 
 compass of it, directeth them ; but in new things abuseth them. 
 The errors of young men are the ruin of business; but the 
 errors of aged men amount but to this, that more might have 
 been done, or sooner. Young men, in the conduct and man- 
 age of actions, embrace more than they can hold ; stir more 
 than they can quiet ; fly to the end, without consideration of the 
 means and degrees ; pursue some few principles, which they 
 have chanced upon, absurdly; care not to innovate, which 
 draws unknown inconveniences ; use extreme remedies at 
 first ; and, that which doubleth all errors, will not acknowledge 
 or retract them : like an unready horse, that will neither stop 
 nor turn. Men of age object too much, consult too long, ad- 
 
 * " His youth was full of errors, yea, of evil passions." — Spartian, " Vit. 
 Scv." 
 
 29
 
 30 
 
 BACON 
 
 venture too little, repent too soon, and seldom drive business 
 home to the full period ; but content themselves with the 
 mediocrity of success. Certainly it is good to compound em- 
 ployments of both ; for that will be good for the present, be- 
 cause the virtues of either age may correct the defects of both : 
 and good for succession, that young men may be learners, while 
 men in age are actors: and lastly, good for extern accidents, 
 because authority followeth old men, and favor and popu- 
 larity youth. But for the moral part, perhaps youth will have 
 the pre-eminence, as age hath for the politic. A certain rab- 
 bin - upon the text " Your young men shall see visions, and 
 your old men shall dream dreams," inferreth that young men 
 are admitted nearer to God than old, because vision is a clearer 
 revelation than a dream. And certainly the more a man drink- 
 eth of the world, the more it intoxicateth ; and age doth profit 
 rather in the powers of understanding, than in the virtues of 
 the will and affections. There be some have an over-early 
 ripeness in their years, which fadeth betimes : these are first, 
 such as have brittle wits, the edge whereof is soon turned ; such 
 as was Hermogenes the rhetorician, whose books are exceed- 
 ing subtle, who afterwards waxed stupid. A second sort is 
 of those that have some natural dispositions, which have bet- 
 ter grace in youth than in age : such as is a fluent and luxuriant 
 speech ; which becomes youth well, but not age. So Tully 
 saith of Hortensius, " Idem manebat, neque idem decebat." * 
 The third is, of such as take too high a strain at the first, and 
 are magnanimous, more than tract of years can uphold. As 
 was Scipio Africanus, of whom Livy saith in effect, " Ultima 
 prihiis cedebant." * 
 
 - Abrabanel, in his " Commentary on same things no longer became him." 
 Joel." — Cicero, " Brut." 05. 
 
 * " He remained the same; but the * " The latter end was worse than the 
 
 hetmniQg."—Lh'y, xxxviii. 53.
 
 PERTURBATION OF THE MIND 
 RECTIFIED 
 
 BY 
 
 ROBERT BURTON
 
 ROBERT BURTON 
 1576—1640 
 
 Robert Burton was an English divine, a native of Lindley in Leices- 
 tershire. He studied at Oxford University, and became rector of 
 Segrave. Born in 1576, he died in 1640. His claim to rank as an 
 essayist rests on that wonderful book, the " Anatomy of Melancholy," 
 written by way of alleviating his own melancholy. With Dr. Johnson 
 this volume was a great favorite, so much so that he would turn earlier 
 out of bed to read it. Two chapters, which give a fair idea of the 
 style of the book, are given in a detached essay form. The " Anatomy 
 of Melancholy " is in fact, though not in name, a collection of essays 
 about everything that ever entered the author's far-ranging and richly 
 furnished mind. 
 
 Burton was a good mathematician and classical scholar, an omnivor- 
 ous reader, and a merry companion. His book, written, he says, by 
 way of alleviation to his own melancholy, is an immense compilation 
 of quotations on all manner of topics from an infinite variety of sources, 
 familiar and out of the common track. It is described by Archbishop 
 Herring as " the pleasantest, the most learned, and the most full of 
 sterling sense." The archbishop adds that the wits of the reigns of 
 Anne and the first George were deeply indebted to Burton ; and we 
 may venture to say that the " wits " of the succeeding reigns have 
 been no less so. 
 
 32
 
 PERTURBATION OF THE MIND RECTIFIED 
 
 WHOSOEVER he is that shall hope to cure this malady 
 in himself or any other, must first rectify these pas- 
 sions and perturbations of the mind : the chiefest cure 
 consists in them. A quiet mind is that voluptas or summum 
 bonum of Epicurus ; non dolere, ciiris vacare, animo tranquillo 
 esse, not to grieve, but to want cares, and to have a quiet soul, 
 is the only pleasure in the world, as Seneca truly recites his 
 opinion, not that of eating and drinking, which injurious Aris- 
 totle maliciously puts upon him, and for which he is still mis- 
 taken, male audit et vapulat, slandered without a cause, and 
 lashed by all posterity. " Fear and sorrow, therefore, are es- 
 pecially to be avoided, and the mind to be mitigated with mirth, 
 constancy, good hope; vain terror, bad objects are to be re- 
 moved, and all such persons in whose companies they be not 
 well pleased." Gualter Bruel, Fernelius, consil. 43 ; Mercurialis, 
 consil. 6; Piso Jacchinus, cap. 15, in 9. Rhasis, Capivaccius, 
 Hildesheim, etc., all inculcate this as an especial means of their 
 cure, that their " minds be quietly pacified, vain conceits di- 
 verted, if it be possible, with terrors, cares, fixed studies, cogi- 
 tations, and whatsoever it is that shall any way molest or trouble 
 the soul," because that otherwise there is no good to be done. 
 " The body's mischiefs," as Plato proves, " proceed from the 
 soul ; and if the mirid be not first satisfied, the body can never 
 be cured." Alcibiades raves (saith Maximus Tyrius) and is 
 sick, his furious desires carry him from Lyceus to the pleading- 
 place, thence to the sea, so into Sicily, thence to Lacedsemon, 
 thence to Persia, thence to Samos, then again to Athens ; Critias 
 tyrannizeth over all the city ; Sardanapalus is love-sick ; these 
 men are ill-affected all, and can never be cured till their minds 
 be otherwise qualified. Crato, therefore, in that often-cited 
 counsel of his for a nobleman his patient, when he had suf- 
 ficiently informed him in diet, air, exercise, Venus, sleep, con- 
 
 33
 
 34 
 
 BURTON 
 
 eludes with these as matters of greatest moment, Quod reliquum 
 est, animco accidentia corrigantur, from which alone proceeds 
 melancholy; they are the fountain, the subject, the hinges 
 whereon it turns, and must necessarily be reformed. " For 
 anger stirs choler, heats the blood and vital spirits ; sorrow on 
 the other side refrigerates the body, and extinguisheth natural 
 heat, overthrows appetite, hinders concoction, dries up the tem- 
 perature, and perverts the understanding : " fear dissolves the 
 spirits, infects the heart, attenuates the soul: and for these 
 causes all passions and perturbations must, to the utmost of our 
 power and most seriously, be removed, ^lianus Montaltus 
 attributes so much to them, " that he holds the rectification of 
 them alone to be sufficient to the cure of melancholy in most 
 patients." Many are fully cured when they have seen or heard, 
 etc., enjoy their desires, or be secured and satisfied in their 
 minds; Galen, the common master of them all, from whose 
 fountain they fetch water, brags, lib. i, de san. tuend., that he, 
 for his part, hath cured divers of this infirmity, solum animis 
 ad rectum institutis, by right settling alone of their minds. 
 
 Yea, but you will here infer that this is excellent good in- 
 deed if it could be done ; but how shall it be efifected, by whom, 
 what art, what means ? hie labor, hoc opus est. It is a natural 
 infirmity, a most powerful adversary; all men are subject to 
 passions, and melancholy above all others, as being distem- 
 pered by their innate humors, abundance of choler adust, weak- 
 ness of parts, outward occurrences; and how shall they be 
 avoided? the wisest men, greatest philosophers of most excel- 
 lent wit, reason, judgment, divine spirits, cannot moderate 
 themselves in this behalf ; such as are sound in body and mind. 
 Stoics, heroes. Homer's gods, all are passionate, and furiously 
 carried sometimes ; and how shall we that are already crazed, 
 fracti animis, sick in body, sick in mind, resist? we cannot per- 
 form it. You may advise and give good precepts, as who can- 
 not? But how shall they be put in practice? I may not deny 
 but our passions are violent, and tyrannize of us, yet there be 
 means to curb them ; though they be headstrong, they may 
 be tamed, they may be qualified, if he himself or his friends will 
 but use their honest endeavors, or make use of such ordinary 
 helps as are commonly prescribed. 
 
 He himself (I say) ; from the patient himself the first and
 
 PERTURBATION OF THE MIND RECTIFIED 35 
 
 chiefest remedy must be had ; for if he be averse, peevish, wasp- 
 ish, give way wholly to his passions, will not seek to be helped, 
 or be ruled by his friends, how is it possible he should be cured ? 
 But if he be willing, at least, gentle, tractable, and desire his 
 own good, no doubt but he may magnam niorhi deponere partem, 
 be eased at least, if not cured. He himself must do his utmost 
 endeavor to resist and withstand the beginnings. Principiis 
 obsta, " Give not water passage, no not a little " (Ecclus. xxv. 
 27). If they open a little, they will make a greater breach at 
 length. Whatsoever it is that runneth in his mind, vain conceit 
 be it pleasing or displeasing, which so much affects or troubleth 
 him, " by all possible means he must withstand it, expel those 
 vain, false, frivolous imaginations, absurd conceits, feigned 
 fears and sorrows ; from which," saith Piso, " this disease 
 primarily proceeds, and takes his first occasion or beginning, 
 by doing something or other that shall be opposite unto them, 
 thinking of something else, persuading by reason, or howso- 
 ever to make a sudden alteration of them." Though he have 
 hitherto run in a full career, and precipitated himself, follow- 
 ing his passions, giving reins to his appetite, let him now stop 
 upon a sudden, curb himself in; and as Lemnius adviseth, 
 " strive against with all his power, to the utmost of his endeavor, 
 and not cherish those fond imaginations, which so covertly creep 
 into his mind, most pleasing and amiable at first, but bitter as 
 gall at last, and so headstrong, that by no reason,^ art, counsel, 
 or persuasion, they may be shaken off." Though he be far 
 gone, and habituated unto such fantastical imaginations, yet 
 as Tully and Plutarch advise, let him oppose, fortify, or pre- 
 pare himself against them, by premeditation, reason, or as we 
 do by a crooked staff, bend himself another way. 
 
 *' Tu tamen tnterea effugito qti(B tristia mentem 
 Solicitant, procul essejube curasque metiimque 
 Pallentemy ultrices iras, sini omnia lo:*aP 
 
 ** In the mean time expel them from my mind, 
 Pale fears, sad cares, and griefs which do it grind 
 Revengeful anger, pain and discontent, 
 Let all thy soul be set on merriment. " 
 
 Curas tolles graves, irasci crede profanum. If it be idle- 
 ness hath caused this infirmity, or that he perceive himself
 
 30 BURTON 
 
 given to solitariness, to walk alone, and please himself with 
 fond imagination, let him by all means avoid it ; it is a bosom 
 enemy, it is delightful melancholy, a friend in show, but a secret 
 devil, a sweet poison, it will in the end be his undoing ; let him 
 go presently, task or set himself a work, get some good com- 
 pany. If he proceed, as a gnat flies about a candle so long till 
 at length he burn his body, so in the end he will undo himself ; 
 if it be any harsh object, ill company, let him presently go from 
 it. If by his own default, through ill diet, bad air, want of ex- 
 ercise, etc., let him now begin to reform himself. " It would be 
 a perfect remedy against all corruption, if," as Roger Bacon 
 hath it, " we could but moderate ourselves in those six non-nat- 
 ural things." " If it be any disgrace, abuse, temporal loss, 
 calumny, death of friends, imprisonment, banishment, be not 
 troubled with it, do not fear, be not angry, grieve not at it, but 
 with all courage sustain it " (Gordonius, lib. r, c. 15, de conser, 
 vit.). Til contra aitdentior ito. If it be sickness, ill success, or 
 any adversity that hath caused it, oppose an invincible courage, 
 " fortify thyself by God's Word or otherwise," mala bonis per- 
 suadenda, set prosperity against adversity, as we refresh our 
 eyes by seeing some pleasant meadow, fountain, picture, or the 
 like; recreate thy mind by some contrary object, with some 
 more pleasing meditation divert thy thoughts. 
 
 Yea, but thou infer again, facile consilium damns aliis, we 
 can easily give counsel to others ; every man, as the saying is, 
 can tame a shrew, but he that hath her; si hie esses, aliter 
 sentires; if you were in our misery, you would find it other- 
 wise; it is not easily performed. We know this to be true; 
 we should moderate ourselves; but we are furiously carried; 
 we cannot make use of such precepts; we are overcome, sick, 
 male sani, distempered, and habituated to these courses; we 
 can make no resistance ; you may as well bid him that is dis- 
 eased, not to feel pain, as a melancholy man not to fear, not to 
 be sad : it is within his blood, his brains, his whole temperature : 
 it cannot be removed. But he may choose whether he will give 
 way too far unto it ; he may in some sort correct himself. A. 
 philosopher was bitten with a mad dog; and, as the nature of 
 that disease is to abhor all waters, and liquid things, and to 
 think still they see the picture of a dog before them, he went, for 
 all this, reluctante se, to the bath, and seeing there (as he
 
 PERTURBATION OF THE MIND RECTIFIED 37 
 
 thought) in the water the picture of a dog, with reason over- 
 came this conceit: quid cani cum balneo? — what should a dog 
 do in a bath ? a mere conceit. Thou thinkest thou hearest and 
 seest devils, black men, etc., it is not so ; it is thy corrupt fan- 
 tasy; settle thine imagination; thou art well. Thou thinkest 
 thou hast a great nose, thou art sick, every man observes thee, 
 laughs thee to scorn; persuade thyself it is no such matter: 
 this is fear only, and vain suspicion. Thou art discontent, thou 
 art sad and heavy, but why ? upon what ground ? consider of 
 it: thou art jealous, timorous, suspicious; for what cause? 
 examine it thoroughly ; thou shalt find none at all, or such as 
 is to be contemned, such as thou wilt surely deride, and contemn 
 in thyself, when it is past. Rule thyself then with reason ; sat- 
 isfy thyself; accustom thyself; wean thyself from such fond 
 conceits, vain fears, strong imaginations, restless thoughts. 
 Thou mayest do it ; Est in nobis assuescere (as Plutarch saith) : 
 we may frame ourselves as we will. As he that useth an up- 
 right shoe, may correct the obliquity or crookedness by wear- 
 ing it on the other side ; we may overcome passions if we will. 
 Quicquid sibi imperavit animus, obtinuit (as Seneca saith) 
 nulli tarn ferti aifectus, ut non disciplina perdomentur: what- 
 soever the will desires, she may command : no such cruel affec- 
 tions, but by discipline they may be tamed. Voluntarily thou 
 wilt not do this or that, which thou oughtest to do, or refrain, 
 etc., but when thou art lashed like a dull jade, thou wilt reform 
 it ; fear of a whip will make thee do or not do. Do that volun- 
 tarily then what thou canst do, and must do by compulsion ; thou 
 mayest refrain if thou wilt, and master thine affections. " As, 
 in a city," saith Melanchthon, " they do by stubborn rebellious 
 rogues, that will not submit themselves to political judgment, 
 compel them by force ; so must we do by our affections. If the 
 heart will not lay aside those vicious motions, and the fantasy 
 those fond imaginations, we have another form of government 
 to enforce and refrain our outward members, that they be not 
 led by our passions. If appetite will not obey, let the moving 
 faculty overrule her ; let her resist and compel her to do other- 
 wise." In an ague, the appetite would drink; sore eyes that 
 itch would be rubbed ; but reason saith no ; and therefore the 
 moving faculty will not do it. Our fantasy would intrude a 
 thousand fears, suspicious chimeras upon us; but we have
 
 38 BURTON 
 
 reason to resist; yet we let it be overborne by our appetite. 
 " Imagination enforceth spirits, which by an admirable league 
 of nature compel the nerves to obey, and they our several 
 limbs : " we give too much way to our passions. And as, to 
 him that is sick of an ague, all things are distasteful and un- 
 pleasant, non ex cihi vitio, saith Plutarch, not in the meat, but 
 in our taste : so many things are offensive to us, not of them- 
 selves, but out of our corrupt judgment, jealousy, suspicion, 
 and the like ; we pull these mischiefs upon our own heads. 
 
 If then our judgment be so depraved, our reason overruled, 
 will precipitated, that we cannot seek our own good, or mod- 
 erate ourselves, as in this disease commonly it is, the best way 
 for ease is to impart our misery to some friend, not to smother 
 it up in our own breast ; alitnr vitium crescitque, tegendo, etc., 
 and that which was most offensive to us, a cause of fear and 
 grief, quod nunc te coquit, another hell ; for strangulat inclusiis 
 dolor, atqiie exccstiiat intiis — grief concealed strangles the soul; 
 but when as we shall but impart it to some discreet, trusty, lov- 
 ing friend, it is instantly removed by his counsel happily, wis- 
 dom, persuasion, advice, his good means, which we could not 
 otherwise apply unto ourselves, A friend's counsel is a charm ; 
 like mandrake wine, curas sopit; and as a bull that is tied to a 
 fig-tree becomes gentle on a sudden (which some, saith Plu- 
 tarch, interpret of good words), so is a savage, obdurate heart 
 mollified by fair speeches. " All adversity finds ease in com- 
 plaining," as Isidore holds, " and it is a solace to relate it " 
 *A<ya6fi Se 7rapai(f)a<n<; iariv eTolpov. Friends' confabulations 
 are comfortable at all times, as fire in winter, shade in summer ; 
 quale sopor fessis in graminc, meat and drink to him that is 
 hungry or athirst. Democritus's collyrium is not so sovereign 
 to the eyes, as this is to the heart ; good words are cheerful and 
 powerful of themselves, but much more from friends, as so 
 many props, mutually sustaining each other, like ivy and a wall, 
 which Camerarius hath well illustrated in an emblem. Lenit 
 animiim simplex vel scepe narratio, the simple narration many 
 times easeth our distressed mind ; and in the midst of greatest 
 extremities, so divers have been relieved, by exonerating them- 
 selves to a faithful friend ; he sees that which we cannot see for 
 passion and discontent : he pacifies our minds ; he will ease our 
 pain, assuage our anger; Quanta inde voluptas, quanta seciiri'
 
 PERTURBATION OF THE MIND RECTIFIED 39 
 
 tas, Chrysostom adds: what pleasure! what security by that 
 means ! " Nothing so available, or that so much refresheth the 
 soul of man." TuUy, as I remember, in an epistle to his dear 
 friend Atticus, much condoles the defect of such a friend. " I 
 live here," saith he, " in a great city, where I have a multitude 
 of acquaintance, but not a man of all that company, with whom 
 I dare familiarly breathe, or freely jest. Wherefore I expect 
 thee, I desire thee, I send for thee; for there be many things 
 which trouble and molest me, which, had I but thee in presence, 
 I could quickly disburden myself of in a walking discourse." 
 The like peradventure may he and he say with that old man in 
 the comedy : 
 
 *' Nemo est meorum amicorum kodie, 
 Apud quern expromere occulta mea audeam ; " 
 
 and much inconvenience may both he and he suffer in the mean- 
 time by it. He or he, or whosoever then labors of this malady, 
 by all means let him get some trusty friend, Semper habens 
 Pylademque aliquem, cui curet Oresten, a Pylades, to whom 
 freely and securely he may open himself. For, as in all other 
 occurrences, so it is in this, si qiiis in caelum ascendisset, etc., 
 as he said in Tully, if a man had gone to heaven, " seen the 
 beauty of the skies," stars errant, fixed, etc., insuavis erit ad- 
 miratio, it will do him no pleasure, except he have somebody 
 to impart to what he hath seen. It is the best thing in the 
 world, as Seneca therefore adviseth in such a case, " to get a 
 trusty friend, to whom we may freely and sincerely pour out 
 our secrets. Nothing so delighteth and easeth the mind, as 
 when we have a prepared bosom, to which our secrets may de- 
 scend, of whose conscience we are assured as our own, whose 
 speech may ease our succorless estate, counsel relieve, mirth 
 expel our mourning, and whose very sight may be acceptable 
 unto us." It was the counsel which that politic Commines 
 gave to all princes, and others distressed in mind, by occasion 
 of Charles, Duke of Burgundy, that was much perplexed, " first 
 to pray to God, and lay himself open to Him, and then to some 
 special friend, whom we hold most dear, to tell all our griev- 
 ances to him. Nothing so forcible to strengthen, recreate, and 
 heal the wounded soul of a miserable man."
 
 OF TOLERATIO 
 
 OF PROVIDENCE 
 
 BY 
 
 SIR THOMAS BROWN 
 
 3— Vol, 57
 
 SIR THOMAS BROWNE 
 
 1605—1682 
 
 Thomas Browne was born in St. Michael's, Cheapside, in the year 
 1605. He was sent to Winchester School, and studied and graduated 
 in arts at Oxford. Afterwards he practised medicine in the counties 
 surrounding the university. He travelled in Ireland, France, and Italy, 
 and returning through Holland, took the degree of Doctor of Medicine 
 at Leyden. In 1636 he settled in Norwich, where he lived for forty- 
 six years practising his profession extensively. In 1637 he was in- 
 corporated M.D. at Oxford. He was married in 1641 ; his wife sur- 
 vived him. In 1664 he was chosen an Honorary Fellow of the College 
 of Physicians, and received the honor of knighthood from Charles II 
 on the occasion of his paying a visit to the city of Norwich in 1671. 
 He died at Norwich in 1682 at the mature age of seventy-seven. 
 
 His writings are numerous, and generally desultory. The most re- 
 markable and the best known are a work on the religion of a physician, 
 " Religio Medici," and a treatise on vulgar or common errors, " Pseu- 
 dodoxia Epidemica." The " Religio Medici " was written shortly after 
 his return from travel, and during a residence of two or three years at 
 Halifax, and was published soon after he went to reside at Norwich. 
 The work excited immediate attention by the liberality of sentiment 
 and the freedom from prejudice which marked it, as well as by its 
 novel paradoxes, subtle disquisitions, strength of language, and dignity 
 of style. Sir Kenelm Digby produced a volume of acute comment 
 and mixed censure and speculation, which gave the work further im- 
 portance. " Pseudodoxia " appeared ^ ten years later, and passed 
 through six editions in the lifetime of its author; it is noteworthy as 
 much for the strangeness of the errors as for the quaintness of the 
 refutations. In 1658 the discovery of some ancient urns in Norfolk 
 gave rise to his treatise on urn burial, " Hydriotaphia " — a work full 
 of antiquarian learning. 
 
 Sir Thomas Browne's style is flowing, rich with illustrations, and 
 here and there poetical. It is marred by a want of uniformity. The 
 reader is surprised by eccentric changes from polished thoughts to 
 the most uncouth ideas. Coleridge has characterized Browne as " rich 
 in various knowledge, exuberant in conceptions and conceits, con- 
 templative, imaginative, often truly great in his style and diction, 
 though doubtless too often big, stiff, and hyperlatinistic. In him the 
 humorist constantly mingles with the philosopher." The two essays, 
 " Of Toleration," and " Of Providence," are excellent cxamplei of his 
 stjrlc. 
 
 «a
 
 OF TOLERATION 
 
 I COULD never divide myself from any man upon the 
 difference of an opinion, or be angry with his judgment 
 for not agreeing with me in that from which, perhaps, 
 within a few days, I should dissent myself. I have no genius 
 to disputes in religion: and have often thought it wisdom to 
 decline them, especially upon a disadvantage, or when the cause 
 of truth might suffer in the weakness of my patronage. Where 
 we desire to be informed, it is good to contest with men above 
 ourselves; but, to confirm and establish our opinions, it is 
 best to argue with judgments below our own, that the frequent 
 spoils and victories over their reasons may settle in ourselves 
 an esteem and confirmed opinion of our own. Every man is 
 not a proper champion for truth, nor fit to take up the gauntlet 
 in the cause of verity; many, from the ignorance of these 
 maxims, and an inconsiderate zeal unto truth, have too rashly 
 charged the troops of error, and remain as trophies unto the 
 enemies of truth. A man may be in as just possession of truth 
 as of a city, and yet be forced to surrender; it is therefore 
 far better to enjoy her with peace than to hazard her on a 
 battle. If, therefore, there rise any doubts in my way, I do 
 forget them, or at least defer them, till my better settled judg- 
 ment and more manly reason be able to resolve them; for I 
 perceive every man's own reason is his best CEdipus, and will, 
 upon a reasonable truce, find a way to loose those bonds where- 
 with the subtleties of error have enchained our more flexible 
 and tender judgments. In philosophy, where truth seems 
 double-faced, there is no man more paradoxical than myself: 
 but in divinity I love to keep the road ; and, though not in an 
 implicit, yet a humble faith, follow the great wheel of the 
 Church, by which I move ; not reserving any proper poles, or 
 motion from the epicycle of my own brain. By this means I 
 have no gap for heresy, schisms, or errors, of which at present, 
 
 43
 
 44 BROWNE 
 
 I hoj>e I shall not injure truth to say, I have no taint or tincture. 
 I must confess my greener studies have been polluted with 
 two or three; not any begotten in the latter centuries, but 
 old and obsolete, such as could never have been revived but 
 by such extravagant and irregular heads as mine. For, in- 
 deed, heresies perish not with their authors ; but, like the river 
 Arethusa, though they lose their currents in one place, they 
 rise up again in another. One general council is not able to 
 extirpate one single heresy: it may be cancelled for the pres- 
 ent; but revolution of time, and the like aspects from heaven, 
 will restore it, when it will flourish till it be condemned again. 
 For, as though there were metempsychosis, and the soul of 
 one man passed into another, opinions do find, after certain 
 revolutions, men and minds like those that first begat them. 
 To see ourselves again, we need not look for Plato's year : * 
 every man is not only himself ; there have been many Diogenes, 
 and as many Timons, though but few of that name ; men are 
 lived over again; the world is now as it was in ages past; 
 there was none then, but there hath been someone since, that 
 parallels him, and is, as it were, his revived self. 
 
 ^ A revolution of certain thousand years, when all things should retura 
 unto their former estate.
 
 OF PROVIDENCE 
 
 THIS is the ordinary and open way of His providence, 
 which art and industry have in good part discovered; 
 whose effects we may foretell without an oracle. To 
 foreshow these is not prophecy, but prognostication. There 
 is another way, full of meanders and labyrinths, whereof the 
 devil and spirits have no exact ephemerides: and that is a 
 more particular and obscure method of His providence ; direct- 
 ing the operations of individual and single essences : this we 
 call fortune; that serpentine and crooked line, whereby He 
 draws those actions His wisdom intends in a more unknown 
 and secret way ; this cryptic and involved method of His provi- 
 dence have I ever admired; nor can I relate the history of 
 my life, the occurrences of my days, the escapes, or dangers, 
 and hits of chance, with a beao las manos to fortune, or a bare 
 gramercy to my good stars. Abraham might have thought the 
 ram in the thicket came thither by accident: human reason 
 would have said that mere chance conveyed Moses in the ark 
 to the sight of Pharaoh's daughter. What a labyrinth is there 
 in the story of Joseph ! able to convert a Stoic. Surely there 
 are in every man's life certain rubs, doublings, and wrenches, 
 which pass a while under the effects of chance; but at the 
 last, well examined, prove the mere hand of God. It was not 
 dumb chance that, to discover the fougade, or powder plot, ' 
 contrived a miscarriage in the letter. I like the victory of '88 
 the better for that one occurrence which our enemies imputed 
 to our dishonor, and the partiality of fortune; to wit, the 
 tempests and contrariety of winds. King Philip did not detract 
 from the nation, when he said he sent his Armada to fight with 
 men, and not to combat with the winds. Where there is a 
 manifest disproportion between the powers and forces of two 
 several agents, upon a maxim of reason we may promise the 
 victory to the superior: but when unexpected accidents slip 
 
 45
 
 46 BROWNE 
 
 in, and unthought of occurrences intervene, these must pro- 
 ceed from a power that owes no obedience to those axioms ; 
 where, as in the writing upon the wall, we may behold the 
 hand, but see not the spring that moves it. The success of 
 that petty province of Holland (of which the Grand Seignior 
 proudly said, if they should trouble him, as they did the Span- 
 iard, he would send his men with shovels and pickaxes, and 
 throw it into the sea) I cannot altogether ascribe to the in- 
 genuity and industry of the people, but the mercy of God, that 
 hath disposed them to such a thriving genius ; and to the will 
 of His providence, that disposeth her favor to each country 
 in their preordinate season. All cannot be happy at once ; for 
 because the glory of one state depends upon the ruin of an- 
 other, there is a revolution and vicissitude of their greatness, 
 and must obey the swing of that wheel, not moved by intelli- 
 gences, but by the hand of God, whereby all estates arise to 
 their zenith and vertical points, according to their predestinated 
 periods. For the lives, not only of men, but of commonwealths 
 and the whole world, run not upon a helix that still enlargeth ; 
 but on a circle, where, arriving to their meridian, they decline 
 in obscurity, and fall under the horizon again. 
 
 These must not therefore be named the effects of fortune 
 but in a relative way, and as we turn the works of nature. It 
 was the ignorance of man's reason that begat this very name, 
 and by a careless term miscalled the providence of God: for 
 there is no liberty for causes to operate in a loose and strag- 
 gling way; nor any effect whatsoever but hath its warrant 
 from some universal or superior cause. It is not a ridiculous 
 devotion to say a prayer before a game at tables ; for even 
 in sortileges and matters of greatest uncertainty, there is a 
 settled and preordered course of effects. It is we that are 
 blind, not fortune. Because our eye is too dim to discover 
 the mystery of her effects, we foolishly paint her blind, and 
 hoodwink the providence of the Almighty. I cannot justify 
 that contemptible proverb, that " fools only are fortunate " ; 
 or that insolent paradox, that " a wise man is out of the reach 
 of fortune " : much less those opprobrious epithets of poets — 
 " whore," " bawd," and " strumpet." It is, I confess, the com- 
 mon fate of men of singular gifts of mind to be destitute of 
 those of fortune ; which doth not any way deject the spirit of
 
 OF PROVIDENCE 47 
 
 wiser judgments who thoroughly understand the justice of this 
 proceeding; and, being enriched with higher donatives, cast 
 a more careless eye on these vulgar parts of felicity. It is a 
 most unjust ambition, to desire to engross the mercies of the 
 Almighty, not to be content with the goods of mind, without 
 a possession of those of body or fortune: and it is an error, 
 worse than heresy, to adore these complemental and circum- 
 stantial pieces of felicity, and undervalue those perfections and 
 essential points of happiness, wherein we resemble our Maker. 
 To wiser desires it is satisfaction enough to deserve, though 
 not to enjoy, the favors of fortune. Let Providence provide 
 for fools : it is not partiality, but equity, in God, who deals with 
 us but as our natural parents. Those that are able of body and 
 mind He leaves to their deserts ; to those of weaker merits He 
 imparts a larger portion ; and pieces out the defect of one by 
 the excess of the other. Thus have we no just quarrel with 
 nature for leaving us naked ; or to envy the horns, hoofs, skins, 
 and furs of other creatures ; being provided with reason, that 
 can supply them all. We need not labor, with so many argu- 
 ments, to confute judicial astrolog>' ; for, if there be a truth 
 therein, it doth not injure divinity. If to be born under Mer- 
 cury disposeth us to be witty ; under Jupiter to be wealthy ; I 
 do not owe a knee unto these, but unto that merciful hand that 
 hath ordered my indifferent and uncertain nativity unto sucH 
 benevolent aspects. Those that hold that all things are gov- 
 erned by fortune had not erred, had they not persisted there. 
 The Romans, that erected a temple to fortune, acknowledged 
 therein, though in a blinder way, somewhat of divinity ; for, in 
 a wise supputation, all things begin and end in the Almighty. 
 There is a nearer way to heaven than Homer's chain ; an easy 
 logic may conjoin a heaven and earth in one argument, and, 
 with less than a sorites, resolve all things to God. For though 
 we christen effects by their most sensible and nearest causes, 
 yet is God the true and infallible cause of all ; whose concourse, 
 though it be general, yet doth subdivide itself into the par- 
 ticular actions of everything, and is that spirit, by which each 
 singular essence not only subsists, but performs its operation.
 
 OF JESTING 
 
 OF SELF-PRAISING 
 
 OF COMPANY 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS FULLER
 
 THOMAS FULLER 
 1608 — 1661 
 
 Thomas Fuller was born at Aldvvinkle, in Northamptonshire, in 
 1608. His father, rector of that parish, was probably his only teacher 
 till, at the age of twelve, he sent him to Cambridge, where in 1628 he 
 took the degree of Master of Arts. At the age of twenty-three he 
 became prebend of Salisbury, and vicar of Broad Windsor. Here he 
 spent some ten quiet years working in his parish and writing his " Holy 
 War " and " Pisgah-Sight of Palestine." Tidings came to him from 
 time to time of the struggle which was growing fiercer every day be- 
 tween the nation and the King. To Fuller, the son of a High-Church- 
 man, and bred in the loyal University of Cambridge, devotion to the 
 existing sovereign was the natural expression of allegiance to the 
 King of kings, and it was with grief and horror that he heard of his 
 country's apostasy. At last, impatient of inaction, he hastened to 
 London. There, in many pulpits, chiefly those of the Savoy and the 
 Inns of Court, he boldly preached submission to the Lord's Anointed. 
 His earnestness and brilliant wit attracted crowds to listen to him, 
 and drew upon him the observation of the Long Parliament, which was 
 then sitting. In 1643 he was required to sign a declaration that he 
 would support the measures of Parliament. He signed, with too many 
 reservations to satisfy the authorities, and the oath was on the point 
 of being tendered to him again, when Fuller quietly betook himself to 
 the King's quarteis at Oxford, saving thereby his conscience and losing 
 his preferment. Lord Hopton made him his chaplain, and he became 
 " preacher militant " to the King's soldiers. As he wandered about 
 with the army he gathered materials for his " Worthies of England." 
 But such a life was less favorable to his " Church History." It is of 
 no value as a history till it reaches his own times, and yet it charms 
 by the wit which sparkles in every page. In the spring of 1644 he left 
 the army and took refuge in Exeter. It was during this lull that he 
 wrote his " Good Thoughts in Bad Times." On the surrender of 
 Exeter, Fuller obtained special terms from Fairfax, under which he 
 returned to London. He was living in a small lodging, working at his 
 " Worthies " and praying for the King's return, when " that royal 
 martyr was murdered," and " the foul deed " so completely crushed him 
 that it was long before he could take heart to work again. After 1655 
 the Protector allowed him freely to preach, though other Royalists 
 were silenced. On the Restoration he was made Chaplain extraor- 
 dinary to Charles II, and Doctor of Divinity by the University of 
 Cambridge at the King's request. He died on August 12, 1661. He 
 was twice married. His writings are full of graphic touches and deep 
 wisdom, and though his quaint fancy often led him beyond the bounds 
 of good taste, he was never irreverent in meaning. His piety and 
 genial humor might well atone for greater faults. 
 
 Few writers tell a story better than Fuller; and none, perhaps, have 
 equalled him in the art of conveying the truth under the guise of a 
 familiar-sounding proverb. Fuller's style is free to a great extent from 
 the Latinisms which form so large an element in those of most of 
 his contemporaries. He is more idiomatic in diction, the structure of 
 his sentences is simpler, and a larger proportion of the words are of 
 Saxon derivation. 
 
 50
 
 OF JESTING 
 
 HARMLESS mirth is the best cordial against the con- 
 sumption of the spirits : wherefore jesting is not un- 
 lawful if it trespasseth not in quantity, quality, or 
 season. 
 
 // is good to make a jest, but not to make a trade of jesting. 
 The Earl of Leicester, knowing that Queen Elizabeth was 
 much delighted to see a gentleman dance well, brought the 
 master of the dancing-school to dance before her. " Pish," 
 said the queen, " it is his profession, I will not see him." She 
 liked it not where it was a master quality, but where it attended 
 on other perfections. The same may we say of jesting. 
 
 Jest not with the two-edged sword of God's IVord.^ Will 
 nothing please thee to wash thy hands in, but the font, or to 
 drink healths in, but the church chalice ? And know the whole 
 art is learnt at the first admission, and profane jests will come 
 without calling. If in the troublesome days of King Edward 
 the Fourth, a citizen in Cheapside was executed as a traitor for 
 saying he would make his son heir to the Crown,^ though he 
 only meant his own house, having a crown for the sign ; more 
 dangerous it is to wit-wanton it with the majesty of God. 
 Wherefore, if without thine intention, and against thy will, by 
 chance medley thou hittest Scripture in ordinary discourse, yet 
 fly to the city of refuge, and pray to God to forgive thee. 
 
 Wanton jests make fools laugh, and wise men froivn. See- 
 ing we are civilized Englishmen, let us not be naked savages in 
 our talk. Such rotten speeches are worst in withered age, when 
 men run after that sin in their words which flieth from them 
 in the deed. 
 
 Let not thy jests, like mummy, he made of dead men's flesh. 
 Abuse not any that are departed ; for to wrong their memories 
 is to rob their ghosts of their winding-sheets. 
 
 > VAx*ip*v Sivrofiof (,Hd>. iv. u). * Speed, in " Edward the Fourth." 
 
 51
 
 52 
 
 FULLER 
 
 Scoff not at the natural defects of any which are not in tKeir 
 power to amend. Oh, it is cruelty to beat a cripple with his 
 own crutches ! Neither flout any for his profession, if honest, 
 though poor and painful. Mock not a cobbler for his black 
 thumbs. 
 
 He that relates another man's wicked jests zvith delight 
 adopts them to be his ozvn. Purge them therefore from their 
 poison. If the profaneness may be severed from the wit, it is 
 like a lamprey ; take out the string in the back, it may make 
 good meat. But if the staple conceit consists in profaneness, 
 then it is a viper, all poison, and meddle not with it. 
 
 He that ivill lose his friend for a jest, deserves to die \a 
 beggar by the bargain. Yet some think their conceits, like 
 mustard, not good except they bite. We read that all those 
 who were born in England the year after the beginning of the 
 great mortality 1349,* wanted their four cheek-teeth. Such let 
 thy jests be, that may not grind the credit of thy friend, and 
 make not jests so long till thou becomest one. 
 
 No time to break jests when the heart-strings are about to 
 be broken. No more showing of wit when the head is to be 
 cut off, like that dying man, who, when the priest coming to 
 him to give him extreme unction, asked of him where his feet 
 were, answered, " At the end of my legs." But at such a time 
 jests are an unmannerly crepitus ingenii. And let those take 
 heed who end here with Democritus, that they begin not with 
 Heraclitus hereafter. 
 
 *Tho. Walsingham, in eodem anno.
 
 ^OF SELF-PRAISING 
 
 y y £ whose own zvorth doth speak, need not speak his own 
 / / worth. Such boasting sounds proceed from empti- 
 ness of desert: whereas the conquerors in the Olym- 
 pian games did not put on the laurels on their own heads, but 
 waited till some other did it. Only anchorets that want com- 
 pany may crown themselves with their own commendations. 
 
 It showeth more wit but no less vanity to commend one's 
 self, not in a straight line, but by rejection. Some sail to the 
 port of their own praise by a side wind ; as when they dispraise 
 themselves, stripping themselves naked of what is their due, 
 that the modesty of the beholders may clothe them with it again, 
 or when they flatter another to his face, tossing the ball to 
 him that he may throw it back again to them; or when they 
 commend that quality wherein themselves excel, in another man, 
 though absent, whom all know far their inferior in that faculty ; 
 or lastly, to omit other ambushes men set to surprise praise, 
 when they send the children of their own brain to be nursed 
 by another man, and commend their own works in a third per- 
 son ; but if challenged by the company that they were authors 
 of them themselves, with their tongues they faintly deny it, 
 and with their faces strongly affirm it. 
 
 Self-praising comes most naturally from a man when it comes 
 most violently from him in his own defence. For though mod- 
 esty binds a man's tongue to the peace in this point, yet being 
 assaulted in his credit he may stand upon his guard, and then 
 he doth not so much praise as purge himself. One braved a 
 gentleman to his face, that in skill and valor he came far behind 
 him : " It is true," said the other, " for when I fought with 
 you, you ran away before me." In such a case, it was well 
 returned, and without any just aspersion of pride. 
 
 He that falls into sin is a man; that grieves at it is a saint; 
 thai boasteth of it is a devil. Yet some glory in their shame. 
 
 Si
 
 54 
 
 FULLER 
 
 counting the stains of sin the best complexion for their souls. 
 These men make me believe it may be true what Mandeville 
 writes of the isle of Somabarre, in the East Indies, that all the 
 nobility thereof brand their faces with a hot iron in token of 
 honor. 
 
 He that boasts of sms never committed is a double devil. 
 Many brag how many gardens of virginity they have deflow- 
 ered, who never came near the walls thereof. . . . Others, 
 who would sooner creep into a scabbard than draw a sword, 
 boast of their robberies, to usurp the esteem of valor. Whereas 
 first let them be well whipped for their lying, and as they like 
 that, let them come afterward and entitle themselves to the 
 gallows.
 
 OF COMPANY 
 
 y^OMPANY is one of the greatest pleasures of the nature 
 i y of man. For the beams of joy are made hotter by re- 
 flection, when related to another ; and otherwise glad- 
 ness itself must grieve for want of one to express itself to. 
 
 It is unnatural for a man to court and hug solitariness. It is 
 observed, that the farthest islands in the world are so seated 
 that there is none so remote but that from some shore of it 
 another island or continent may be discerned; as if hereby 
 nature invited countries to a mutual commerce, one with an- 
 other. Why then should any man affect to environ himself 
 with so deep and great reservedness, as not to communicate with 
 the society of others? And though we pity those who made 
 solitariness their refuge in time of persecution, we must con- 
 demn such as choose it in the Church's prosperity. For well 
 may we count him not well in his wits who will live always 
 under a bush, because others in a storm shelter themselves 
 under it. 
 
 Yet a desert is better than a debauched companion. For the 
 wildness of the place is but uncheerful, whilst the wildness of 
 bad persons is also infectious. Better therefore ride alone than 
 have a thief's company. And such is a wicked man who will 
 rob thee of precious time, if he doth no more mischief. The 
 Nazarites, who might drink no wine, were also forbidden 
 (Num. vi. 3) to eat grapes, whereof wine is made. We must 
 not only avoid sin itself, but also the causes and occasions 
 thereof; amongst which bad company (the lime-twigs of the 
 devil) is the chief est, especially to catch those natures which, 
 like the good-fellow planet. Mercury, are most swayed by 
 others. 
 
 // thoti beest cast into bad company, like Hercules thou must 
 sleep zuith thy club in thine hand, and stand on thy guard. I 
 mean if against thy will the tempest of an unexpected occasion 
 
 55
 
 $6 FULLER 
 
 drives thee amongst such rocks ; be thou like the river Dee, ifl 
 Merionethshire in Wales,^ which running through Pimblemere 
 remains entire, and mingles not her streams with the waters 
 of the lake. Though with them, be not of them; keep civil 
 communion with them, but separate from their sins. And if 
 against thy will thou fallest amongst wicked men, know to 
 thy comfort thou art still in thy calling, and therefore in God's 
 keeping, who on thy prayers will preserve thee. 
 
 The company he keeps is the comment by help whereof men 
 expound the most close and mystical man; understanding him 
 for one of the same religion, life, and manners with his associ- 
 ates. And though perchance he be not such a one, it is just he 
 should be counted so for conversing wuth them. Augustus 
 Caesar came thus to discern his two daughters' inclinations : for 
 being once at a public show, where much people were present, he 
 observed that the grave senators talked with Livia, but loose 
 youngsters and riotous persons with Julia.^ 
 
 He that eats cherries with noblemen shall have his eyes 
 spirted out with the stones. This outlandish proverb hath in it 
 an English truth, that they who constantly converse with men 
 far above their estates, shall reap shame and loss thereby; if 
 thou payest nothing they will count thee a sucker, no branch ; a 
 wen, no member of their company ; if in payments thou keepest 
 pace with them, their long strides will soon tire thy short legs. 
 The beavers in New England, when some ten of them together 
 draw a stick to the building of their lodging, set the weakest 
 beavers to the lighter end of the log,^ and the strongest take the 
 heaviest part thereof : whereas men often lay the greatest bur- 
 then on the weakest back ; and great persons to teach meaner 
 men to learn their distance, take pleasure to make them pay for 
 their company. I expect such men who, having some excellent 
 quality, are gratis very welcome to their betters ; such a one, 
 though he pays not a penny of the shot, spends enough in lend- 
 ing them his time and discourse. 
 
 To affect ahvays to be the best of the company argues a base 
 disposition. Gold always worn in the same purse with silver 
 loses both of the color and weight ; and so to converse always 
 with inferiors, degrades a man of his worth. Such there are 
 
 > " Cambd. Brit, in Merioneth." • Wood, in his " Description of Ne» 
 
 * Sueton., in " August. Cacs." England."
 
 OF COMPANY 57 
 
 that love to be the lords of the company, whilst the rest must 
 be their tenants ; as if bound by their lease to approve, praise, 
 and admire whatsoever they say. These, knowing the lowness 
 of their parts, love to live with dwarfs, that they may seem 
 proper men. To come amongst their equals, they count it an 
 abridgment of their freedom, but to be with their betters, they 
 deem it flat slavery. 
 
 It is excellent for one to have a library of scholars, especially 
 if they be plain to be read. I mean of a communicative nature, 
 whose discourses are as full as fluent, and their judgments as 
 right as their tongues ready: such men's talk shall be thy 
 lectures. To conclude, good company is not only profitable 
 whilst a man lives^ but sometimes when he is dead. For he 
 that was buried with the bones of Elisha, by a posthumous 
 miracle of that prophet, recovered his life by lodging with such a 
 grave-fellow.* 
 
 *a Kings xiii. 21.
 
 ON EDUCATION 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN MILTON
 
 JOHN MILTON 
 
 1608 — 1674 
 
 Far above all poets of his own age, and in learning, sublimity, and 
 invention without an equal in the whole range of English literature, 
 stands John Milton. He was born in London on December 9, 1608. 
 In youth he was a hard student, and devoted his time most assiduously 
 to classical literature. A remark of his has often been quoted, that 
 he " cared not how late he came into life, only that he came fit." That 
 he believed himself destined to become of note appears from his own 
 words: "By labor and intense study (which I take to be my portion 
 in this life), joined with the strong propensity of nature, I might 
 perhaps leave something to after-times, as they should not willingly 
 let it die." The idea of his unequalled poem of " Paradise Lost " was 
 probably conceived as early as 1642, but it was not published till about 
 twenty-five years after that date. When it was written, the British 
 press was subject to a censorship, and he experienced some difficulty 
 in getting it licensed, the sapient gentleman who then possessed the 
 power of rejecting or sanctioning any works submitted to him, imag- 
 ining that in the noble simile of the sun in an eclipse he discovered 
 treason. It was, however, licensed, and sold to Samuel Simmons, a 
 bookseller, for an immediate payment of £5, with a condition that on 
 1,300 copies being sold the author should receive £5 more, and the 
 same for the second and third editions. In two years the sale of the 
 poem gave the poet a right to his second payment, the receipt for which 
 was signed April 2&, 1669. The second edition was printed in 1674, 
 but the author did not live to receive the stipulated payment ; the third 
 edition was published in 1678, when, the copyright devolving on Mil- 
 ton's widow, she agreed with Simmons to receive £8 for it; so that 
 £18 was the sum-total paid for the best poem of the first of British 
 poets. Milton died at his house in Bunhill Row, London, November 
 8, 1674. 
 
 Milton's chief prose works are: "Two Books on Reformation in 
 England," " Prelatical Episcopacy," " Eikonoklastes," " Areopagitica," 
 and " Treatise on Education." His prose, like that of many of our 
 early writers, is of very unequal quality. Hallam says that his inter- 
 mixture of familiar with learned phraseology is unpleasing, and the 
 structure of his sentences elaborate; that he seldom reaches any har- 
 mony, and that his wit is poor and without ease. If the justness of 
 Hallam's strictures must be admitted, we may also accept his praise 
 that these writings glow with an intense love of liberty and truth, 
 and contain frequent passages of the highest imaginative power, in 
 which the majestic soul of Milton breathes such high thoughts as had 
 not been uttered before. 
 
 60
 
 ON EDUCATION 
 
 TO MASTER SAMUEL HARTLIB 
 
 I AM long since persuaded, Master Hartlib/ that to say or 
 do aught worth memory and imitation, no purpose or 
 respect should sooner move us than simply the love of 
 God, and of mankind. Nevertheless to write now the reform- 
 ing of education, though it be one of the greatest and noblest 
 designs that can be thought on, and for the want whereof this 
 nation perishes; I had not yet at this time been induced, but 
 by your earnest entreaties and serious conjurements; as hav- 
 ing my mind for the present half diverted in the pursuance of 
 some other assertions, the knowledge and the use of which can- 
 not but be a great furtherance both to the enlargement of truth, 
 and honest living with much more peace. Nor should the laws 
 of any private friendship have prevailed with me to divide 
 thus, or transpose my former thoughts, but that I see those 
 aims, those actions, which have won you with me the esteem 
 of a person sent hither by some good providence from a far 
 country to be the occasion and incitement of great good to 
 this island. 
 
 2. And, as I hear, you have obtained the same repute with men 
 of most approved wisdom, and some of the highest authority 
 among us ; not to mention the learned correspondence which 
 you hold in foreign parts, and the extraordinary pains and 
 diligence which you have used in this matter, both here and 
 beyond the seas ; either by the definite will of God so ruling, 
 or the peculiar sway of nature, which also is God's working. 
 Neither can I think that so reputed and so valued as you are, 
 you would, to the forfeit of your own discerning ability, impose 
 
 * Of Hartlib little more is known than expressions in this and the folIowiniT 
 
 that he was a friend of Milton, who had paragraphs, he would appear to have 
 
 studied with peculiar diligence the sci- been a foreigner; for he is spoken of 
 
 ence of education, and to whom Sir as one sent hither from a far country, 
 
 William Petty subsequentlr dedicated and allusion is made to his labors be* 
 
 one of his earliest works. From several yond the seas. 
 
 6i
 
 62 MILTON 
 
 upon me an unfit and overponderous argument; but that the 
 satisfaction which you profess to have received, from those in- 
 cidental discourses which we have wandered into, hath pressed 
 and almost constrained you into a persuasion, that what you 
 require from me in this point, I neither ought nor can in con- 
 science defer beyond this time both of so much need at once^ 
 and so much opportunity to try what God hath determined, 
 
 3. I will not resist therefore whatever it is, either of divine 
 or human obligement, that you lay upon me ; but will forthwith 
 set down in writing, as you request me, that voluntary idea, 
 which hath long, in silence, presented itself to me, of a better 
 education, in extent and comprehension far more large, and 
 yet of time far shorter, and of attainment far more certain, 
 than hath been yet in practice. Brief I shall endeavor to be; 
 for that which I have to say, assuredly this nation hath ex- 
 treme need should be done sooner than spoken. To tell you 
 therefore what I have benefited herein among old renowned 
 authors, I shall spare ; and to search what many modern Januas 
 and Didactics, more than ever I shall read, have projected, 
 my inclination leads me not. But if you can accept of these 
 few observations which have flowered off, and are as it were 
 the burnishing of many studious and contemplative years, 
 altogether spent in the search of religious and civil knowledge, 
 and such as pleased you so well in the relating, I here give 
 you them to dispose of. 
 
 4. The end then of learning is to repair the ruins of our first 
 parents by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowl- 
 edge to love him, to imitate him, to be like him, as we may 
 the nearest by possessing our souls of true virtue, which being 
 united to the heavenly grace of faith, makes up the highest 
 perfection. But because our understanding cannot in this body 
 found itself but on sensible things, nor arrive so clearly to the 
 knowledge of God and things invisible, as by orderly conning 
 over the visible and inferior creature, the same method is neces- 
 sarily to be followed in all discreet teaching. And seeing every 
 nation affords not experience and tradition enough for all kinds 
 of learning, therefore we are chiefly taught the languages of 
 those people who have at any time been most industrious after 
 wisdom ; so that language is but the instrument conveying to 
 us things useful to be known. And though a linguist should
 
 ON EDUCATION 
 
 63 
 
 pride himself to have all the tongues that Babel cleft the world 
 into,^ yet if he have not studied the solid things in them, as 
 well as the words and lexicons, he were nothing so much to 
 be esteemed a learned man, as any yeoman or tradesman com- 
 petently wise in his mother dialect only. 
 
 5. Hence appear the many mistakes which have made learning 
 generally so unpleasing and so unsuccessful ; first, we do amiss 
 to spend seven or eight years merely in scraping together so 
 much miserable Latin and Greek, as might be learned other- 
 wise easily and delightfully in one year.^ And that which 
 casts our proficiency therein so much behind, is our time lost 
 partly in too oft idle vacancies given both to schools and uni- 
 versities ; partly in a preposterous exaction, forcing the empty 
 wits of children to compose themes, verses, and orations, which 
 are the acts of ripest judgment, and the final work of a head 
 filled by long reading and observing, with elegant maxims and 
 copious invention. These are not matters to be wrung from 
 poor striplings, like blood out of the nose, or the plucking of 
 untimely fruit. Besides the ill habit which they get of wretched 
 barbarizing against the Latin and Greek idiom, with their un- 
 tutored Anglicisms, odious to be read, yet not to be avoided 
 without a well-continued and judicious conversing among pure 
 authors digested, which they scarce taste.* Whereas, if after 
 some preparatory grounds of speech by their certain forms got 
 into memory, they were led to the praxis thereof in some chosen 
 short book lessoned thoroughly to them, they might then forth- 
 with proceed to learn the substance of good things, and arts 
 in due order, which would bring the whole language quickly 
 into their power. This I take to be the most rational and most 
 profitable way of learning languages, and whereby we may 
 best hope to give account to God of our youth spent herein. 
 
 6. And for the usual method of teaching arts, I deem it to be 
 
 • Though he himself understood many 
 languages, and appears to have pos- 
 sessed a peculiar aptitude for this kind 
 of learning, no one could be further 
 than he from pedantry. In his view, 
 language was merely the instrument of 
 knowledge. 
 
 * On this subject, see Locke's '* Essay 
 on Education. 
 
 ♦Philips, a pupil of Milton, furnishes 
 us with a list of the books which he 
 himself made use of in teaching: these 
 were, in Latin, the agricultural works 
 oi Cato, Columella, Varro, and Pal* 
 
 ladius, Celsus on " Medicine," Pliny's 
 " Natural History." Vitruvius's " Ar- 
 chitecture," FrontmuB's " Stratagems, 
 and the " Philosophical Poems of Lu- 
 cretius and Manilius"; in Greek, 
 Hesiod. Aratus, Dionysius Periegesis. 
 Oppian s " Cynegetica and Halieutics," 
 Apollonius Khodius, Quintus Calaber, 
 certain of Plutarch's philosophical 
 works, Geminus's " Astronomv," Xeno; 
 phon's •• Cyropaedia " and " Anabasis.'' 
 Folyxnus's " Stratagems," and JEHw* 
 " Tactics."
 
 64 MILTON 
 
 an old error of universities, not yet well recovered from the 
 scholastic grossness of barbarous ages, that instead of begin- 
 ning with arts most easy (and those be such as are most obvious 
 to the sense), they present their young unmatriculated novices, 
 at first coming, with the most intellective abstractions of logic 
 and metaphysics; so that they having but newly left those 
 grammatic flats and shallows, where they stuck unreasonably 
 to learn a few words with lamentable construction, and now 
 on the sudden transported under another climate, to be tossed 
 and turmoiled with their unballasted wits in fathomless and un- 
 quiet deeps of controversy, do for the most part grow into hatred 
 and contempt of learning, mocked and deluded all this while 
 Vfith ragged notions and babblements, while they expected 
 worthy and delightful knowledge; till poverty or youthful 
 years call them importunately their several ways, and hasten 
 them, with the sway of friends, either to an ambitious and mer- 
 cenary or ignorantly zealous divinity ; some allured to the trade 
 of law, grounding their purposes not on the prudent and 
 heavenly contemplation of justice and equity, which was never 
 taught them, but on the promising and pleasing thoughts of 
 litigious terms, fat contentions, and flowing fees ; others betake 
 them to state affairs, with souls so unprincipled in virtue and 
 true generous breeding, that flattery and court-shifts and tyran- 
 nous aphorisms "^ appear to them the highest points of wisdom ; 
 instilling their barren hearts with a conscientious slavery; if, 
 as I rather think, it be not feigned. Others, lastly, of a more 
 delicious and air}' spirit, retire themselves (knowing no better) 
 to the enjoyments of ease and luxury, living out their days in 
 feast and jollity ; which indeed is the wisest and safest course 
 of all these, unless they were with more integrity undertaken. 
 And these are the errors, and these are the fruits of misspend- 
 ing our prime youth at the schools and universities as we do, 
 either in learning mere words or such things chiefly as were 
 better unlearned. 
 
 7. I shall detain you now no longer in the demonstration of 
 what we should not do, but straight conduct you to a hill-side, 
 where I will point you out the right path of a virtuous and 
 
 • His hatred and contempt of tyranny the law, which appears to have a natural 
 
 everywhere break forth. Bacon, him- tendency to narrow and enfeeble the 
 
 eelf a lawyer, likewise notices the too mind. Our history, however, furnishes 
 
 comiQoa cfiect of a laborious study of some brilliant exceptions.
 
 ON EDUCATION 
 
 65 
 
 noble education; laborious indeed at the first ascent, but else 
 so smooth, so green, so full of goodly prospect, and melodious 
 sounds on every side, that the harp of Orpheus was not more 
 charming.* I doubt not but ye shall have more ado to drive 
 our dullest and laziest youth, our stocks and stubs, from the in- 
 finite desire of such a happy nurture, than we have now to hale 
 and drag our choicest and hopefullest wits to that asinine feast 
 of sowthistles and brambles, which is commonly set before them 
 as all the food and entertainment of their tenderest and most 
 docible age. I call therefore a complete and generous educa- 
 tion, that which fits a man to perform justly, skilfully, and 
 magnanimously all the offices, both private and public, of peace 
 and war. And how all this may be done between twelve and one 
 and twenty, less time than is now bestowed in pure trifling at 
 grammar and sophistry, is to be thus ordered. 
 
 8. First, to find out a spacious house and ground about it fit 
 for an academy, and big enough to lodge a hundred and fifty 
 persons,'^ whereof twenty or thereabout may be attendants, all 
 under the government of one, who shall be thought of desert 
 sufficient, and ability either to do all, or wisely to direct and 
 oversee it done. This place should be at once both school and 
 university, not needing a remove to any other house of scholar- 
 ship, except it be some peculiar college of law, or physic, where 
 they mean to be practitioners ; but as for those general studies 
 which take up all our time from Lilly to commencing, as they 
 term it, master of art, it should be absolute. After this pattern, 
 as many edifices may be converted to this use as shall be needful 
 in every city throughout this land, which would tend much to 
 the increase of learning and civility everywhere. This number, 
 less or more thus collected, to the convenience of a foot com- 
 pany, or interchangeably two troops of cavalry, should divide 
 their day's work into three parts as it lies orderly ; their studies, 
 their exercise, and their diet. 
 
 « He had already, in Comus, described 
 the delight derivable from the study of 
 philosophy : 
 
 " How charming is divine philosophy 1 
 Not harsh and crabbed as dull fools 
 
 suppose, 
 But musical as is Apollo's lute, 
 And a perpetual feast of nectared 
 
 sweets 
 Where no crude surfeit reigns." 
 ' Nowhere has the material framc- 
 
 Virork of Milton's system of education 
 
 been more nearly approached than in 
 the public schools of Egypt. The Col- 
 lege of Kasserlyne, on the banks of the 
 Nile, is such " a spacious house," with 
 beautiful and ample grounds about it; 
 but in the interior arrangements, the 
 studies, and the results, we must not 
 look for anything resembling what the 
 poet proposed in this democratic estab- 
 lishment. See " Egypt and Mohammed 
 All," voL ii. p. 395 sq, 
 
 4— Vol. 57
 
 06 MILTON 
 
 9. For their studies ; first, they should begin with the chief and 
 ■necessary rules of some good grammar, either that now used, 
 or any better; and while this is doing, their speech is to be 
 fashioned to a distinct and clear pronunciation, as near as may 
 be to the Italian, especially in the vowels. For we English- 
 men being far northerly, do not open our mouths in the cold 
 air wide enough to grace a southern tongue ; but are observed 
 by all other nations to speak exceeding close and inward; so 
 that to smatter Latin with an English mouth, is as ill a hearing 
 as law French. Next, to make them expert in the usefullest 
 points of grammar ; and withal to season them and win them 
 early to the love of virtue and true labor, ere any flattering 
 seducement or vain principle seize them wandering, some easy 
 and delightful book of education would be read to them; 
 whereof the Greeks have store, as Cebes, Plutarch, and other 
 Socratic discourses. But in Latin we have none of classic 
 authority extant, except the two or three first books of Quin- 
 tilian, and some select pieces elsewhere. 
 
 13. But here the main skill and groundwork will be to temper 
 them such lectures and explanations upon every opportunity, 
 as may lead and draw them in willing obedience, inflamed with 
 the study of learning, and the admiration of virtue ; stirred up 
 with high hopes of living to be brave men, and worthy patriots, 
 dear to God, and famous to all ages. That they may despise 
 and scorn all their childish and ill-taught qualities, to delight 
 in manly and liberal exercises ; which he who hath the art and 
 proper eloquence to catch them with, what with mild and 
 eflfectual persuasions, and what with the intimation of some fear, 
 if need be, but chiefly by his own example, might in a short 
 space gain them to an incredible diligence and courage ; infus- 
 ing into their young breasts such an ingenuous and noble ardor, 
 as would not fail to make many of them renowned and match- 
 less men.^ At the same time, some other hour of the day, might 
 be taught them the rules of arithmetic, and soon after the ele- 
 ments of geometry, even playing, as the old manner was. 
 After evening repast, till bedtime, their thoughts would be best 
 
 • He here alludes to the Socratic sys- would profit no less less than the pu- 
 
 tern of education, frequently glanced at pils — perhaps more. Adam Smith ob- 
 
 in all the dialogues of Plato, but more serves that almost all the great writers 
 
 fully developed in the Protagoras. In of Greece Lad been engaged in th€ 
 
 pursuing a plan of this kind, the teacher business of education.
 
 ON EDUCATION 67 
 
 taken up in the easy grounds of religion, and the story of 
 Scripture. 
 
 The next step would be to the authors of agriculture, Cato, 
 Varro, and Columella, for the matter is most easy ; and if the 
 language be difficult, so much the better, it is not a difficulty 
 above their years. And here will be an occasion of inciting 
 and enabling them hereafter to improve the tillage of their 
 country, to recover the bad soil, and to remedy the waste that 
 is made of good ; ^ for this was one of Hercules's praises. 
 Ere half these authors be read (which will soon be with plying 
 hard and daily) they cannot choose but be masters of any 
 ordinary prose. So that it will be then seasonable for them to 
 learn in any modern author the use of the globes, and all the 
 maps, first, with the old names, and then with the new ; ^"^ or 
 they might be then capable to read any compendious method 
 of natural philosophy. 
 
 12. And at the same time might be entering into the Greek 
 tongue, after the same manner as was before prescribed in the 
 Latin ; whereby the difficulties of grammar being soon over- 
 come, all the historical physiology of Aristotle and Theophrastus 
 are open before them, and, as I may say, under contribution. 
 The like access will be to Vitruvius, to Seneca's natural ques- 
 tions, to Mela, Celsus, Pliny, or Solinus. And having thus 
 passed the principles of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and 
 geography, with a general compact of physics, they may descend 
 in mathematics to the instrumental science of trigonometry, 
 and from thence to fortification, architecture, enginery, or 
 navigation. And in natural philosophy they may proceed lei- 
 surely from the history of meteors, minerals, plants, and living 
 creatures, as far as anatomy. 
 
 13. Then also in course might be read to them, out of some not 
 tedious writer, the institution of physic,*^ that they may know 
 
 • Dr. Symmons remarks, that in agri- has since been adopted, particularly at 
 
 culture no benefit could now be derived Eton, where, with the help of Arrow- 
 
 from the study of ancient authors. But smith's " Comparative Atlas," in which 
 
 Milton never intended that his pupils the ancient and modern maps of coun- 
 
 should seek to improve themselves in tries are bound up face to face, a lad 
 
 husbandry by reading Varro or Cato. may quickly acquire a knowledge at 
 
 His design extended no further than to least of the elements of this useful 
 
 render their boyish studies a means of science. 
 
 awakening in their minds a love of rural " Like Locke, Milton is said to have 
 
 pursuits, which age and experience might been fond of the study of medicine, and, 
 
 afterwards enable them to to turn to good by unskilfully tampering with it, to 
 
 account. have injured his sight. But this report 
 
 >» This mode of studying geography appears to rest on no good foundation, j
 
 68 
 
 MILTON 
 
 the tempers, the humors, the seasons, and how to manage a cru- 
 dity; which he who can wisely and timely do, is not only a 
 great physician to himself and to his friends, but also may, at 
 some time or other, save an army by this frugal and expenseless 
 means only ; and not let the healthy and stout bodies of young 
 men rot away under him for want of this discipline ; which is a 
 great pity, and no less a shame to the commander. To set for- 
 ward all these proceedings in nature and mathematics, what 
 hinders but that they may procure, as oft as shall be needful, 
 the helpful experience of hunters, fowlers, fishermen, shep- 
 herds, gardeners, apothecaries ; and in the other sciences, archi- 
 tects, engineers, mariners, anatomists ; who doubtless would be 
 ready, some for reward, and some to favor such a hopeful 
 seminary. And this will give them such a real tincture of 
 natural knowledge, as they shall never forget, but daily aug- 
 ment with delight. Then also those poets which are now 
 counted most hard will be both facile and pleasant, Orpheus, 
 Hesiod, Theocritus, Aratus, Nicander, Oppian, Dionysius ; and 
 in Latin, Lucretius, Manilius, and the rural part of Vergil. 
 
 14. By this time, years and good general precepts, will have 
 furnished them more distinctly with that act of reason which in 
 ethics is called Proairesis; that they may with some judgment 
 contemplate upon moral good and evil. Then will be required 
 a special reinforcement of constant and sound indoctrinating, 
 to set them right and firm, instructing them more amply in the 
 knowledge of virtue and the hatred of vice ; while their young 
 and pliant affections are led through all the moral works of 
 Plato, Xenophon, Cicero, Plutarch, Laertius, and those Locrian 
 remnants ; ^- but still to be reduced in their nightward studies 
 wherewith they close the day's work, under the determinate 
 sentence of David or Solomon, or the evangelists and apostolic 
 Scriptures. Being perfect in the knowledge of personal duty, 
 they may then begin the study of economics.^^ And either 
 
 '* Timaeus of Locris, who flourished 
 about 390 B.C., was one of the masters 
 of Plato. There remains, under his 
 name, a treatise \yritten in the Doric 
 dialect, tltpi i/(wvo9 Koutiov <col i/)i/Vioe 
 that is, " On the Soul of the World, and 
 Nature." Its authenticity has been 
 much disputed. In 1762, the Marquis 
 d'Argens published at Berlin the Greek 
 text, accompanied by a French transla- 
 tion, with philosophical dissertations. 
 
 1' The works here alluded to are: i. 
 the 'OiKOMv/niicb? Adyos, of Xenophon, 
 a Socratic dialogue, containing instruc- 
 tive details on Greek agriculture^ and 
 several anecdotes of the younger Cyrus. 
 Cicero translated the work into Latin. 
 2. The OiicoioMnca. attributed to Aris- 
 totle, but falsely, according to Schnei- 
 der, who published a new edition of it, 
 in 1815, at Leipsic. And, 3. The riw- 
 TTOfiKd of Cassianus Bassus, which.
 
 ON EDUCATION 
 
 59 
 
 now or before this, they may have easily learnea, at any odd 
 hour, the ItaHan tongue. And soon after, but with wariness 
 and good antidote, it would be wholesome enough to let them 
 taste some choice comedies, Greek, Latin, <5r Italian; those 
 tragedies also, that treat of household matters, as Trachiniae, 
 Alcestis, and the like. 
 
 15. The next removal must be to the study of politics ; to know 
 the beginning, end, and reasons of political societies ; " that they 
 may not, in a dangerous fit of the commonwealth, be such poor, 
 shaken, uncertain reeds, of such a tottering conscience, as 
 many of our great counsellors have lately shown themselves, 
 but steadfast pillars of the state. After this, they are to dive 
 into the grounds of law, and legal justice; delivered first and 
 with best warrant by Moses; and as far as human prudence 
 can be trusted, in those extolled remains of Grecian lawgivers, 
 Lycurgus, Solon, Zaleucus, Charondas, and thence to all the 
 Roman edicts and tables with their Justinian : and so down to 
 the Saxon and common laws of England, and the statutes. 
 
 16. Sundays also and every evening may be now understand- 
 ingly spent in the highest matters of theology, and church his- 
 tory, ancient and modern ; and ere this time the Hebrew tongue 
 at a set hour might have been gained, that the Scriptures may 
 be now read in their own original ; whereto it would be no 
 impossibility to add the Chaldee and the Syrian dialect.^^ 
 When all these employments are well conquered, then will the 
 choice histories, heroic poems, and Attic tragedies of stateliest 
 and most regal argument, with all the famous political orations, 
 offer themselves ; which if they were not only read, but some 
 of them got by memory,^® and solemnly pronounced with right 
 accent and grace, as might be taught, would endue them even 
 with the spirit and vigor of Demosthenes or Cicero, Euripides 
 or Sophocles. 
 
 17. And now, lastly, will be the time to read with them those 
 organic arts, which enable men to discourse and write perspicu- 
 
 atnidst much that 15. worthless, contains 
 many curious and interesting particu- 
 lars. 
 
 " Politics were studied as a science 
 in Milton's age; and the taste appears 
 to be reviving. 
 
 " He here recommends nothing but 
 what he himself understood. 
 
 " From the Phaedrus we learn that it 
 was the practice among the young men 
 
 of Athens to commit entire speeches to 
 memory. Xenophon, in the Memora- 
 bilia, mtroduces a youth who could 
 repeat the whole Iliad; Cicero, De Ora- 
 tore, speaks with commendation of this 
 kind of mental exercise; and it may be 
 observed, generally, that the science of 
 mnemonics was cultivated much more 
 carefully among the ancients than it haa 
 ever been in modern times.
 
 70 MILTON 
 
 ously, elegantly, and according to the fittest style, of lofty, mean, 
 or lowly. Logic, *^ therefore, so much as is useful, is to be 
 referred to this due place with all her well-couched heads and 
 topics, until it be time to open her contracted palm into a gracCv 
 ful and ornate rhetoric, taught out of the rule of Plato, Aristo- 
 tle, Phalereus, Cicero, Hermogenes, Longinus." To which 
 poetry would be made subsequent, or indeed rather precedent, 
 as being- less subtile and fine, but more simple, sensuous, and 
 passionate. I mean not here the prosody of a verse, which 
 they could not but have hit on before among the rudiments of 
 grammar ; but that sublime art which in Aristotle's poetics, in 
 Horace, and the Italian commentaries of Castelvetro," Tasso, 
 Mazzoni, and others, teaches what the laws are of a true epic 
 poem, what of a dramatic, what of a lyric, what decorum is, 
 which is the grand masterpiece to observe. This would make 
 them soon perceive what despicable creatures our common 
 rhymers and play-writers be; and show them what religious, 
 what glorious and magnificent use might be made of poetry, 
 both in divine and human things. 
 
 1 8. From hence, and not till now, will be the right season of 
 forming them to be able writers and composers in every excel- 
 lent matter, when they shall be thus fraught with an universal 
 insight into things. Or whether they be to speak in parliament 
 or council, honor and attention would be waiting on their lips. 
 iThere would then also appear in pulpits other visages, other 
 gestures, and stuff otherwise wrought than what we now sit 
 under, ofttimes to as great a trial of our patience as any other 
 that they preach to us. These are the studies wherein our 
 noble and our gentle youth ought to bestow their time, in a 
 disciplinary way, from twelve to one and twenty : unless tfiey 
 rely more upon their ancestors dead, than upon themselves 
 living. In which methodical course it is so supposed they must 
 proceed by the steady pace of learning onward, as at convenient 
 times, for memory's sake, to retire back into the middle ward, 
 and sometimes into the rear of w-hat they have been taught, un- 
 
 " In 1672, Milton himself published a ter of whom has, by his compendious 
 
 work on Logic, entitled " Artis Logicae Rhetoric, done good service to the cause 
 
 Plcnior Institutio, ad Petri Rami Me- of eloquence. Of this work the second 
 
 thodum Concinnata, Adjecta est Praxis and best edition was published at Ley- 
 
 Analytica, ct Patri Rami Vita. Libris den, 1637. 
 
 Duobus." '* Piccolomini and Beni deserve als« 
 
 " To these should undoubtedly be to be enumerated among the excellent 
 
 added Quinctilian and Vossius, the lat- commentators of the Poetics.
 
 ON EDUCATION 
 
 71 
 
 til they have confirmed and solidly united the whole body of 
 their perfected knowledge, like the last embattling of a Roman 
 legion. Now will be worth the seeing, what exercises and 
 recreations may best agree, and become these studies. 
 
 19. The course of study hitherto briefly described is what I 
 can guess by reading, likest to those ancient and famous schools 
 of Pythagoras, Plato, Isocrates, Aristotle, and such others, out 
 of which were bred such a number of renowned philosophers, 
 orators, historians, poets, and princes all over Greece, Italy, and 
 Asia, besides the flourishing studies of Cyrene and Alexandria. 
 But herein it shall exceed them, and supply a defect as great 
 as that which Plato noted in the commonwealth of Sparta ; ^* 
 whereas that city trained up their youth most for war, and 
 these in their academies and Lyceum all for the gown, this 
 institution of breeding which I here delineate shall be equally 
 good both for peace and war. Therefore about an hour and a 
 half ere they eat at noon should be allowed them for exercise, 
 and due rest afterwards ; but the time for this may be enlarged 
 at pleasure, according as their rising in the morning shall be 
 early. 
 
 20. The exercise which I commend first is the exact use of 
 their weapon, to guard, and to strike safely with edge or point ; 
 this will keep them healthy, nimble, strong, and well in breath ; 
 is also the likeliest means to make them grow large, and tall, and 
 to inspire them with a gallant and fearless courage, which 
 being tempered with seasonable lectures and precepts to them 
 of true fortitude and patience will turn into a native and heroic 
 valor, and meke them hate the cowardice of doing wrong. 
 They must be also practised in all the locks and gripes of wres- 
 tling, wherein Englishmen were wont to excel,^^ as need may 
 
 *» See Plato, " De Legibus," 1. i. 
 Opera, t. vii. p. 181 sq. edit. Bekk. 
 Aristotle notices the same defect in the 
 Spartan government; and adds that, 
 though military superiority was the ob- 
 ject aimed at by Lycurgus, they had 
 been excelled by their neighbors (the 
 Athenians?) no less in the virtues of 
 war than in the arts of peace. — "Politics," 
 1. ii. and 1. v. c. 4. Muller, in his " His- 
 tory and Antiquity of the Doric Race," 
 endeavors to exalt the political institu- 
 tions of the Spartans above the popular 
 governments of the lonians. — Vol. ii., 
 p. 1-269. 
 
 ^ Aristotle's remarks on the employ- 
 ment of exercise in education are full 
 of good sense. He allows, as might 
 
 have been expected, that the culture of 
 the body should precede that of the 
 mind; but is far from inculcating, with 
 many writers, the necessity of acquiring 
 athletic habits of body, which have, on 
 the growth and shape, efifects no less 
 injurious than on the intellect. At 
 Sparta, where gymnastic exercises were 
 not pursued as a profession, excessive 
 labor produced no less dangerous re- 
 sults — unfeeling and ferocious habits. 
 During the years preceding puberty all 
 violent exercises and forced regimens 
 are pernicious; which is clear from the 
 fact that, of those who won the prize in 
 boyhood in the Olympic contests, not 
 above two or three had again proved 
 victors in manhood.— "Politics," 1. v. c. 4;
 
 72 MILTON 
 
 often be in fight to tug, to grapple, and to close. And this 
 perhaps will be enough, wherein to prove and heat their single 
 strength. 
 
 21. The interim of unsweating themselves regularly, and con- 
 venient rest before meat, may, both with profit and delight, be 
 taken up in recreating and composing their travailed spirits with 
 the solemn and divine harmonies of music,^^ heard or learned ; 
 either whilst the skilful organist plies his grave and fancied 
 descant in lofty fugues, or the whole symphony with artful 
 and unimaginable touches adorn and grace the well-studied 
 chords of some choice composer; sometimes the lute or soft 
 organ-stop waiting on elegant voices, either to religious, mar- 
 tial, or civil ditties ; which, if wise men and prophets be not 
 extremely out, have a great power over dispositions and man- 
 ners, to smooth and make them gentle from rustic harshness 
 and distempered passions. The like also would not be inex- 
 pedient after meat, to assist and cherish nature in her first 
 concoction, and send their minds back to study in good tune and 
 satisfaction. Where having followed it close under vigilant 
 eyes, till about two hours before supper, they are, by a sudden 
 alarum or watchword, to be called out to their military mo- 
 tions, imder sky or covert, according to the season, as was the 
 Roman wont; first on foot, then, as their age permits, on 
 horseback, to all the art of cavalry ; that having in sport, but 
 with much exactness and daily muster, served out the rudi- 
 ments of their soldiership, in all the skill of embattling, march- 
 ing, encamping, fortifying, besieging, and battering, with all 
 the helps of ancient and modern stratagems, tactics, and war- 
 like maxims, they may as it were out of a long war come forth 
 renowned and perfect commanders in the service of their coun- 
 try. They would not then, if they were trusted with fair and 
 hopeful armies, suffer them, for want of just and wise dis- 
 cipline, to shed away from about them like sick feathers, though 
 they be never so oft supplied; they would not suffer their 
 
 see also 1. ii. c. 3. Plato, in his " Re- Married to immortal verse, 
 
 public," observes that too continuous Such as the meeting soul may pierctf 
 
 an application to gymnastics, to the In notes, with many a winding bouf 
 
 neglect of music, engenders ferocity.— Of linked sweetness long drawn out, 
 
 " Opera," t. vi. 152. With wanton heed, and giddy cun- 
 
 M In his " L' Allegro " he thus d«- ning, 
 
 scribes the delights of music: The melting voice through mazes rutt 
 *' And ever against eating cares, ning, 
 
 Lap me in soft Lydian airs, Untwisting all the chains that tie 
 
 The hidden soul of harmony.
 
 ON EDUCATION 
 
 73 
 
 empty and unrecruitable colonels of twenty men in a company, 
 to quaff out or convey into secret hoards, the wages of a delu- 
 sive list, and a miserable remnant ; yet in the mean while to be 
 overmastered with a score or two of drunkards, the only soldiery 
 left about them, or else to comply with all rapines and violences. 
 No, certainly, if they knew aught of that knowledge that be- 
 longs to good men or good governors, they would not suffer 
 these things. 
 
 22. But to return to our own institute ; besides these constant 
 exercises at home, there is another opportunity of gaining ex- 
 perience to be won from pleasure itself abroad ; in those vernal 
 seasons of the year when the air is calm and pleasant, it were an 
 injury and sullenness against nature, not to go out and see her 
 riches, and partake in her rejoicing with heaven and earth. I 
 should not therefore be a persuader to them of studying much 
 then, after two or three years that they have well laid their 
 grounds, but to ride out in companies, with prudent and stai'd 
 guides, to all the quarters of the land : learning and observing 
 all places of strength, all commodities of building and of soil, 
 for towns and tillage, harbors and ports for trade. Sometimes 
 taking sea as far as to our navy, to learn there also what th«y 
 can in the practical knowledge of sailing and of sea-fight. 
 
 2^. These ways would try all their peculiar gifts of nature; 
 and if there were any secret excellence among them would fetch 
 it out, and give it fair opportunities to advance itself by, which 
 could not but mightily redound to the good of this nation, and 
 bring into fashion again those old admired virtues and excel- 
 lencies, with far more advantage now in this purity of Chris- 
 tian knowledge. Nor shall we then need the monsieurs of 
 Paris to take our hopeful youth into their slight and prodigal 
 custodies, and send them over, back again, transformed into' 
 mimics, apes, and kickshaws. But if they desire to see other 
 countries at three or four and twenty years of age, not to learn 
 principles, but to enlarge experience, and make wise observa- 
 tion, they will by that time be such as shall deserve the regard 
 and honor of all men where they pass, and the society and 
 friendship of those in all places who are best and most eminent. 
 And, perhaps, then other nations will be glad to visit us for their 
 breeding, or else to imitate us in their own country. 
 
 24. Now, lastly, for their diet there cannot be much to say.
 
 74 MILTON 
 
 save only that it would be best in the same house ; for much time 
 else would be lost abroad, and many ill habits got ; and that it 
 should be plain, healthful, and moderate, I suppose is out of con- 
 troversy. Thus, Mr. Hartlib, you have a general view in writ- 
 ing, as your desire was, of that which at several times I had 
 discoursed with you concerning the best and noblest way of 
 education ; not beginning, as some have done, from the cradle, 
 which yet might be worth many considerations, if brevity had 
 not been my scope ; many other circumstances also I could have 
 mentioned, but this, to such as have the worth in them to make 
 trial, for light and direction may be enough. Only I believe that 
 this is not a bow for every man to shoot in, that counts himself 
 a teacher; but will require sinews almost equal to those which 
 Homer gave Ulysses ; yet I am withal persuaded that it may 
 prove much more easy in the assay, than it now seems at dis- 
 tance, and much more illustrious ; howbeit, not more difficult 
 than I imagine, and that imagination presents me with nothing 
 but very happy, and very possible according to best wishes; 
 if God have so decreed, and this age have spirit and capacitj' 
 enough to apprehend.
 
 OF GREATNES 
 
 OF PvIYSELF 
 
 BY 
 
 ABRAHAM COWLE
 
 ABRAHAM COWLEY 
 1618— 1667 
 
 Literature has changed greatly in the last two hundred years, not 
 only in form and substance, but in relation to the basis upon which it 
 rests. In the seventeenth century writing was a gentle accomplish- 
 ment, an after-dinner pastime, an art to be acquired by the study of 
 Latin authors. Courtiers, in starched ruff and doublet, told their 
 affection for Dresden-china mistresses in coldly passionate sonnets, 
 of regular rhyme and metre. No one felt at liberty to write without 
 the Greek mythology at his elbow, for it was the fashion to weave the 
 gentle by-play of nymphs and naiads into polite writing. Men learned 
 to write as we now learn to play golf, and the result bears the same 
 relation to potential literature as the play of golf bears to modern 
 business. So there grew up in that period a band of essayists and 
 poets whose productions were those of the hot-house and the boudoir, 
 artificial, inert, vacuous. Cowley was of this school, though he pos- 
 sessed some true literary genius, which was almost stifled by the false 
 training of the age, and by the false ideals he set up for himself. 
 
 Much of his work was precocious. In 1633, when he was but fifteen 
 years of age, he published a small volume, called " Poetical Blossoms." 
 This work contains many passages of genuine poetic feeling, and is 
 a marvellous production for a schoolboy. Cowley was a Royalist, and 
 he followed the exiled Stuarts to France, where he was in intimate 
 relation with many prominent persons of the exiled court. After the 
 Restoration he was disappointed in not receiving the political prefer- 
 ment he hoped for, so he retired to his country house on the Thames, 
 where the remainder of his life was spent in study and writing. He 
 died there in 1667. 
 
 It is hard to realize that Cowley was considered a great poet in his 
 day. He has left to posterity " The Mistress," the " Davideis," and 
 many odes after the manner of Pindar — all stilted, tedious, and arti- 
 ficial. But in his essays his style is natural and simple. The essay 
 on " Myself " is probably the best of his shorter prose writings. The 
 study of Cowley is useful only from the standpoint of historical 
 criticism. He has no place in the breathing, moving, vital literature of 
 to-day. The message he brought has long since been assimilated, and 
 the readers of to-day are upon a broader and higher plane of culture. 
 
 76
 
 OF GREATNESS 
 
 SINCE we cannot attain to greatness," says the Sieur de 
 Montaigne, " let us have our revenge by railing at it : " 
 this he spoke but in jest. I believe he desired it no 
 more than I do, and had less reason ; for he enjoyed so plenti- 
 ful and honorable a fortune in a most excellent country, as 
 allowed him all the real conveniences of it, separated and purged 
 from the incommodities. If I were but in his condition, I should 
 think it hard measure, without being convinced of any crime, 
 to be sequestrated from it, and made one of the principal officers 
 of state. But the reader may think that what I now say is of 
 small authority, because I never was, nor ever shall be, put to 
 the trial : I can therefore only make my protestation : 
 
 If ever I more riches did desire 
 Than cleanliness and quiet do require: 
 If e'er ambition did my fancy cheat, 
 With any wish, so mean as to be great, 
 Continue, Heaven, still from me to remove 
 The humble blessings of that life I love. 
 
 I know very many men will despise, and some pity me, for this 
 humor, as a poor-spirited fellow; but I am content, and, like 
 Horace, thank God for being so. 
 
 *' Di bene fecerunt, inopis me guodque ptiszlli, 
 Finxerunt animi. " * 
 
 I confess I love littleness almost in all things. A little con- 
 venient estate, a little cheerful house, a little company, and a 
 very little feast ; and, if I were to fall in love again (which is a 
 great passion, and therefore, I hope, I have done with it), it 
 would be, I think, with prettiness, rather than with majestical 
 beauty. I would neither wish that my mistress, nor my fortune, 
 
 1 Horace, Sat. I. iv. 17: " The gods have done well in making me a humble 
 end small-spirited fellow." 
 
 77
 
 7& COWLEY 
 
 should be a bona roba, nor, as Homer uses to describe his 
 beauties, hke a daughter of great Jupiter, for the statehness and 
 largeness of her person ; but, as Lucretius says, 
 
 *' Parvula, pumt'lio, Xapiruv ula, toia merum sal." 
 
 Where there is one man of this, I believe there are a thoiw 
 sand of Senecio's mind, whose ridiculous affectation of gran- 
 deur Seneca the elder describes to this effect : Senecio was a 
 man of a turbid and confused wit, who could not endure to 
 speak any but mighty words and sentences, till this humor 
 grew at last into so notorious a habit, or rather disease, as be- 
 |came the sport of the whole town : he would have no servants, 
 but huge, massy fellows ; no plate or household stuff, but thrice 
 as big as the fashion : you may believe me, for I speak it with- 
 out raillery, his extravagancy came at Jast into such a madness 
 that he would not put on a pair of shoes, each of which was not 
 big enough for both his feet: he would eat nothing but what 
 was great, nor touch any fruit but horse-plums and pound- 
 pears : he kept a concubine that was a very giantess, and made 
 her walk too always in chiopins, till at last he got the surname 
 of Senecio Grandio, which, Messala said, was not his cognomen, 
 but his cognomentum: when he declaimed for the three hun- 
 dred Lacedaemonians, who alone opposed Xerxes's army of 
 above three hundred thousand, he stretched out his arms, and 
 stood on tiptoes, that he might appear the taller, and cried out, 
 in a very loud voice : " I rejoice, I rejoice " — we wondered, I 
 remember what new great fortune had befallen his eminence — 
 " Xerxes," says he, " is all mine own. He who took away the 
 sight of the sea with the canvas veils of so many ships " — and 
 then he goes on so, as I know not what to make of the rest, 
 whether it be the fault of the edition, or the orator's own burly 
 way of nonsense. 
 
 This is the character that Seneca gives of this hyperbolical 
 fop, whom we stand amazed at, and yet there are very few men 
 who are not in some things, and to some degrees, grandios. 
 Is anything more common than to see our ladies of quality wear 
 such high shoes as they cannot walk in, without one to lead 
 them ; and a gown as long again as their body, so that they can- 
 not stir to the next room, without a page or two to hold it up? 
 I may safely say that all the ostentation of our grandees is just
 
 OF GREATNESS 79 
 
 like a train, of no use in the world, but horribly cumbersome 
 and incommodious. What is all this but a spice of gr audio f 
 how tedious would this be if we were always bound to it! I 
 do believe there is no king who would not rather be deposed 
 than endure, every day of his reign, all the ceremonies of his 
 coronation. 
 
 The mightiest princes are glad to fly often from these ma- 
 jestic pleasures (which is, methinks, no small disparagement 
 to them) as it were for refuge, to the most contemptible diver- 
 tisements, and meanest recreations, of the vulgar, nay, even 
 of children. One of the most powerful and fortunate princes 
 of the world,^ of late, could find out no delight so satisfactory, 
 as the keeping of little singing birds, and hearing of them, and 
 whistling to them. What did the emperors of the whole world ? 
 If ever any men had the free and full enjoyment of all human 
 greatness (nay, that would not suffice, for they would be gods 
 too), they certainly possessed it: and yet one of them, who 
 styled himself lord and god of the earth, could not tell how to 
 pass his whole day pleasantly, without spending constantly 
 two or three hours in catching of flies, and killing them with a 
 bodkin, as if his godship had been Beelzebub.^ One of his pred- 
 ecessors, Nero (who never put any bounds, nor met with any 
 stop to his appetite), could divert himself with no pastime more 
 agreeable than to run about the streets all night in a disguise, 
 and abuse the women, and affront the men whom he met, and 
 sometimes to beat them, and sometimes to be beaten by them : 
 this was one of his imperial nocturnal pleasures. His chiefest 
 in the day was to sing and play upon a fiddle, in the habit of a 
 minstrel, upon the public stage : he was prouder of the garlands 
 that were given to his divine voice (as they called it then) in 
 those kind of prizes than all his forefathers were of their tri- 
 umphs over nations : he did not at his death complain that so 
 mighty an emperor, and the last of all the Caesarian race of 
 deities, should be brought to so shameful and miserable an end ; 
 but only cried out, " Alas ! what pity it is that so excellent a 
 musician should perish in this manner ! " His uncle Claudius 
 spent half his time at playing at dice ; that was the main fruit 
 
 * Louis XIII. The Duke of Luynes, by training up singing birds for him.— 
 Constable of France, is said to have Anonymous. 
 
 gained the favor of this powerful prince ^ Beelzebub signifies the Lord oi 
 
 Flies. — Cowley,
 
 go COWLEY 
 
 of his sovereignty. I omit the madnesses of Caligula's delights, 
 and the execrable sordidness of those of Tiberius. Would one 
 think that Augustus himself, the highest and most fortunate 
 of mankind, a person endowed too with many excellent parts 
 of nature, should be so hard put to it sometimes for want of 
 recreations, as to be found playing at nuts and bounding-stones 
 with little Syrian and Moorish boys, whose company he took 
 delight in, for their prating and their wantonness ? 
 
 Was it for this that Rome's best blood he spilt, 
 
 With so much falsehood, so much guilt? 
 
 Was it for this, that his ambition strove 
 
 To equal Caesar, first; and after, Jove? 
 
 Greatness is barren, sure, of solid joys; 
 
 Her merchandise (I fear) is all in toys: 
 
 She could not else, sure, so uncivil be. 
 
 To treat his universal majesty. 
 
 His new-created deity, 
 
 With nuts and bounding-stones and boys. 
 
 But we must excuse her for this meagre entertainment ; she 
 has not really wherewithal to make such feasts as we imagine. 
 Her guests must be contented sometimes with but slender cates, 
 and with the same cold meats served over and over again, even 
 till they become nauseous. When you have pared away all the 
 vanity, what solid and natural contentment does there remain, 
 which may not be had with five hundred pounds a year ? Not 
 so many servants or horses; but a few good ones, which will 
 do all the business as well : not so many choice dishes at every 
 meal ; but at several meals all of them, which makes them both 
 the more healthy, and the more pleasant : not so rich garments, 
 nor so frequent changes; but as warm and as comely, and so 
 frequent change too, as is every jot as good for the master, 
 though not for the tailor or valet de chambre: not such a 
 stately palace, nor gilt rooms, or the costliest sorts of tapestry ; 
 but a convenient brick house, with decent wainscot, and pretty 
 forest-work hangings. Lastly (for I omit all other particulars, 
 and will end with that which I love most in both conditions), 
 not whole woods cut in walks, nor vast parks, nor fountain or 
 cascade gardens ; but herb, and flower, and fruit gardens, which 
 are more useful, and the water every whit as clear and whole- 
 some as if it darted from the breasts of a marble nymph, or the 
 um of a river god.
 
 OF GREATNESS 8i 
 
 If, for all this, you like better the substance of that former 
 estate of life, do but consider the inseparable accidents of both : 
 servitude, disquiet, danger, and, most commonly, guilt, inherent 
 in the one ; in the other, liberty, tranquillity, security, and inno- 
 cence. And when you have thought upon this, you will con- 
 fess that to be a truth which appeared to you before but a ridicu- 
 lous paradox, that a low fortune is better guarded and attended 
 than a high one. If, indeed, we look only upon the flourishing 
 head of the tree, it appears a most beautiful object, 
 
 " Sed quantum vert ice ad auras 
 ^therz'as, tanium radice in Tartar a tendit." 
 
 As far as up towards heaven the branches grow, 
 So far the roots sink down to hell below. 
 
 Another horrible disgrace to greatness is, that it is for the 
 most part in pitiful want and di'stress. What a wonderful thing 
 is this ! Unless it degenerate into avarice, and so cease to be 
 greatness, it falls perpetually into such necessities as drive it 
 into all the meanest and most sordid ways of borrowing, cozen- 
 age, and robbery: 
 
 ** Mancipiis locuples, eget ceris Cappadocum rex." 
 
 This is the case of almost all great men, as well as of the poof 
 King of Cappadocia : they abound with slaves, but are in- 
 digent of money. The ancient Roman emperors, who had the 
 riches of the whole world for their revenue, had wherewithal 
 to live (one would have thought) pretty well at ease, and to 
 have been exempt from the pressures of extreme poverty. But, 
 yet with most of them it was much otherwise; and they fell 
 perpetually into such miserable penury, that they were forced 
 to devour or squeeze most of their friends and servants, to 
 cheat with infamous projects, to ransack and pillage all their 
 provinces. This fashion of imperial grandeur is imitated by 
 all inferior and subordinate sorts of it, as if it were a point of 
 honor. They must be cheated of a third part of their estates ; 
 two other thirds they must expend in vanity ; so that they re- 
 main debtors for all the necessary provisions of life, and have 
 no way to satisfy those debts, but out of the succors and sup- 
 plies of rapine : " As riches increase," says Solomon, " so do
 
 82 COWLEY 
 
 the mouths that devour them." * The master mouth has no 
 more than before. The owner, methinks, is like Ocnus in the 
 fable, who is perpetually winding a rope of hay, and an ass 
 at the end perpetually eating it. 
 
 Out of these inconveniences arises naturally one more, which 
 is, that no greatness can be satisfied or contented with itself: 
 still, if it could mount up a little higher, it would be happy ; if 
 it could gain but that point, it would obtain all its desires ; but 
 yet at last, when it is got up to the very top of the Peak of 
 Teneriffe, it is in very great danger of breaking its neck down- 
 wards, but in no possibility of ascending upwards into the seat 
 of tranquillity above the moon. The first ambitious men in 
 the world, the old giants, are said to have made an heroical 
 attempt of scaling heaven in despite of the gods ; and they cast 
 Ossa upon Olympus, and Pelion upon Ossa: two or three 
 mountains more, they thought, would have done their business ; 
 but the thunder spoilt all the work, when they were come up to 
 the third story. 
 
 And wihat a noble plot was crossed! 
 And what a brave design was lost! 
 
 A famous person of their offspring, the late giant of our 
 nation, when, from the condition of a very inconsiderable cap- 
 tain, he made himself liewtenant-general of an army of little 
 Titans, which was his first mountain, and afterwards general, 
 which was his second, and after that, absolute tyrant of three 
 kingdoms, which was the third, and almost touched the heaven 
 which he aflfected, is believed to have died with grief and dis- 
 content, because he could not attain to the honest name of a 
 king, and the old formality of a crown, though he had before 
 exceeded the power by a wicked usurpation. If he could have 
 compassed that, he would perhaps have wanted something else 
 that is necessary to felicity, and pined away for the want of the 
 title of an emperor or a god. The reason of this is, that great- 
 ness has no reality in nature, but is a creature of the fancy, a 
 notion that consists only in relation and comparison: it is in- 
 'deed an idol ; but St. Paul teaches us " that an idol is worth 
 nothing in the world." There is, in truth, no rising or meridian 
 of the sun, but only in respect to several places: there is no 
 
 * Eccles. V. II.
 
 OF GREATNESS 83 
 
 right or left, no upper hand, in nature ; everything is little, and 
 everything is great, according as it is diversely compared. 
 There may be perhaps some village in Scotland or Ireland, 
 where I might be a great man ; and in that case I should be like 
 Caesar (you would wonder how Caesar and I should be like one 
 another in anything) ; and choose rather to be the first man 
 of the village, than second at Rome. Our country is called Great 
 Britainy, in regard only of a lesser of the same name ; it would 
 be but a ridiculous epithet for it, when we consider it together 
 with the Kingdom of China. That, too, is but a pitiful rood of 
 ground, in comparison of the whole earth besides: and this 
 whole globe of earth, which we account so immense a body, is 
 but one point or atom in relation to those numberless worlds 
 that are scattered up and down in the infinite space of the sky 
 which we behold.
 
 OF MYSELF 
 
 IT is a hard and nice subject for a man to write of himself ; * 
 it grates his own heart to say anything of disparagenaent 
 and the reader's ears to hear anything of praise from 
 him. There is no danger from me of offending him in this 
 kind; neither my mind, nor my body, nor my fortune allow 
 me any materials for that vanity. It is sufficient for my own 
 contentment that they have preserved me from being scandal- 
 ous, or remarkable on the defective side. But besides that, I 
 shall here speak of myself only in relation to the subject of 
 these precedent discourses,^ and shall be likelier thereby to fall 
 into the contempt than rise up to the estimation of most peo- 
 ple. As far as my memory can return back into my past life, 
 before I knew or was capable of guessing what the world, or 
 glories, or business of it were, the natural affections of my 
 soul gave me a secret bent of aversion from them, as some 
 plants are said to turn away from others, by an antipathy im- 
 perceptible to themselves and inscrutable to man's understand- 
 ing. Even when I was a very young boy at school,^ instead 
 of running about on holidays and playing with my fellows, I 
 was wont to steal from them and walk into the fields, either 
 alone with a book, or with some one companion, if I could find 
 any of the same temper. I was then, too, so much an enemy 
 to all constraint, that my masters could never prevail on me, 
 by any persuasions or encouragements, to learn without book 
 the common rules of grammar, in which they dispensed with 
 me alone, because they found I made a shift to do the usual 
 exercise out of my own reading and observation. That I was 
 then of the same mind as I am now (which I confess I wonder 
 
 *C/. " Spectator," No. 562, where Ad- eral Discourses by way of Essays in 
 
 dison discourses on " Egotism," and Prose and Verse." _ r, , , 
 
 misquotes this sentence from Cowley. ^ Cowley entered Westminster School 
 
 ' " Of Myself " is the last of eleven when about ten years old. In 1636 he 
 
 essays comprised under the title " Sev- became a scholar of Trinity College, 
 
 Cambridge. 
 
 85
 
 86 COWLEY 
 
 at myself) may appear by the latter end of an ode * which I 
 made when I was but thirteen years old, and which was then 
 printed with many other verses. The beginning of it is boyish, 
 but of this part which I here set down, if a very little were 
 corrected, I should hardly now be much ashamed. 
 
 IX 
 
 This only grant me, that my means may lie 
 Too low for envy, for contempt too high. 
 
 Some honor I would have, 
 Not from great deeds, but good alone. 
 The unknown are better than ill known. 
 
 Rumor can ope the grave ; 
 Acquaintance I would have, but when 't depends 
 Not on the number, but the choice of friends. 
 
 Books should, not business, entertain the light, 
 And sleep, as undisturbed as death, the night. 
 
 My house a cottage, more 
 Than palace, and should fitting be 
 For all my use, no luxury. 
 
 My garden painted o'er 
 With Nature's hand, not Art's ; and pleasures yield, 
 Horace might envy in his Sabine field. 
 
 XI 
 
 Thus would I double my life's fading space, 
 For he that runs it well, twice runs his race. 
 
 And in this true delight. 
 These unbought sports, this happy state, 
 I would not fear, nor wish my fate. 
 
 But boldly say each night. 
 To-morrow let my sun his beams display. 
 Or in clouds hide them — I have lived to-day. 
 
 You may see by it I was even then acquainted with the poets 
 (for the conclusion is taken out of Horace),^ and perhaps it 
 Vv^as the immature and immoderate love of them which stamped 
 first, or rather engraved, these characters in me. They were 
 like letters cut into the bark of a young tree, which with the 
 tree still grow proportionably. But how this love came to be 
 
 * The stanzas quoted form the conclu- '^ " Odes," III. xxix. 41. 
 
 sion of a poem entitled " A Vote," 
 which appeared in " Sylva " of 1636.
 
 OF MYSELF 87 
 
 produced in me so early is a hard question. I believe I can tell 
 the particular little chance that filled my head first with such 
 chimes of verse as have never since left ringing there. For I 
 remember when I began to read, and to take some pleasure in 
 it, there was wont to lie in my mother's parlor (I know not by - 
 what accident, for she herself never in her life read any book 
 but of devotion), but there was wont to he Spenser's works; 
 this I happened to fall upon, and was infinitely delighted with 
 the stories of the knights, and giants, and monsters, and brave 
 houses, which I found everywhere there (though my under- 
 standing had little to do with all this) ; and by degrees with 
 the tinkling of the rhyme and dance of the numbers, so that I 
 think I had read him all over before I was twelve years old, 
 and was thus made a poet as irrenjediably as a child is made a 
 eunuch. With these affections of mind, and my heart wholly 
 set upon letters, I went to the university, but was soon torn 
 frem thence by that violent public storm ^ which would suffer 
 nofning to stand where it did, but rooted up every plant, even 
 from the princely cedars to me, the hyssop. Yet I had as good 
 fortune as could have befallen me in such a tempest ; for I was 
 cast by it into the family of one of the best persons, and into 
 the court of one of the best princesses of the world. Now 
 though I was here engaged in ways most contrary to the origi- 
 nal design of my life, that is, into much company, and no small 
 business, and into a daily sight of greatness, both militant and 
 triumphant, for that was the state then of the English and 
 French courts ; yet all this was so far from altering my opin- 
 ion, that it only added the confirmation of reason to that which 
 was before but natural inclination. I saw plainly all the paint 
 of that kind of life, the nearer I came to it; and that beauty 
 which I did not fall in love with when, for aught I knew, it was 
 real, was not like to bewitch or entice me when I saw that it 
 was adulterate. I met with several great persons, whom I 
 liked very well, but could not perceive that any part of their 
 greatness was to be liked or desired, no more than I would be 
 glad or content to be in a storm, though I saw many ships which 
 rid safely and bravely in it. A storm would not agree with my 
 stomach, if it did with my courage. Though I was in a crowd 
 
 1 In 1643 Cowley, as a Loyalist, had to to Paris, as secretary to Lord Jermyti, 
 leave Cambridge. A year after, he went the adviser of Queen Henrietta Maria.
 
 88 COWLEY 
 
 of as good company as could be found anywhere, though I was 
 in business of great and honorable trust, though I ate at the 
 best table, and enjoyed the best conveniences for present sub- 
 sistence that ought to be desired by a man of my condition in 
 banishment and public distresses, yet I could not abstain from 
 renewing my old schoolboy's wish in a copy of verses to the 
 same effect : — 
 
 Well then ; I now do plainly see, 
 
 This busy world and I shall ne'er agree, etc.^ 
 
 And I never then proposed to myself any other advantage 
 from His Majesty's happy restoration, but the getting into 
 some moderately convenient retreat in the country, which I 
 thought in that case I might easily have compassed, as well as 
 some others, with no greater probabilities or pretences, have 
 arrived to extraordinary fortunes. But I had before written 
 a shrewd prophecy against myself, and I think Apollo inspired 
 me in the truth, though not in the elegance of it^ : — 
 
 Thou, neither great at court nor in the war. 
 
 Nor at th' exchange shalt be, nor at the wrangling bar; 
 
 Content thyself with the small barren praise, 
 
 Which neglected verse does raise. 
 
 She spoke ; and all my years to come 
 
 Took their unlucky doom. 
 Their several ways of life let others chuse, 
 Their several pleasures let them use ; 
 But I was born for Love and for a Muse. 
 
 What Fate what boots it to contend ? 
 Such I began, such am, and so must end. 
 
 The star that did my being frame 
 
 Was but a lambent flame. 
 
 And some small light it did dispense, 
 
 But neither heat nor influence. 
 No matter, Cowley ; let proud Fortune see 
 That thou canst her despise no less than she does thet 
 
 Let all her gifts the portion be 
 Of folly, lust, and flattery. 
 Fraud, extortion, calumny, 
 
 Murder, infidelity, 
 
 Rebellion and hypocrisy. 
 
 •The opening lines of "The Wish," » The following poem is from " Des- 
 
 one of the poems published in 1647 un- tiny," the seventh of Cowley's fifteen 
 
 der the collective name of " The Mis- " Pindaric Odes," published m 1656. 
 tress."
 
 OF MYSELF 89 
 
 Do thou not grieve nor blush to be, 
 
 As all th' inspired tuneful men, 
 
 And all thy great forefathers were, from Homer down to Ben. 
 
 However, by the failing of the forces which I had expected, 
 I did not quit the design which I had resolved on ; I cast my- 
 self into it A corps perdu, without making capitulations or 
 taking counsel of fortune. But God laughs at a man who says 
 to his soul, " Take thy ease " : I met presently not only with 
 many little encumbrances and impediments, but with so much 
 sickness (a new misfortune to me) as would have spoiled the 
 happiness of an emperor as well as mine. Yet I do neither 
 repent nor alter my course. Non ego periidum dixi sacramen- 
 turn. Nothing shall separate me from a mistress which I have 
 loved so long, and have now at last married, though she neither 
 has brought me a rich portion, nor lived yet so quietly with 
 me as I hoped from her. 
 
 Nee vos, duleissima mundi 
 
 Nomina, vos Musce, libertas, otia, libri, 
 Hortique sylvaque anima remanente reliquam. 
 
 Nor by me e'er shall you, 
 You of all names the sweetest, and the best, 
 You Muses, books, and liberty, and rest ; 
 You gardens, fields, and woods forsaken be, 
 As long as life itself forsakes not me. 
 
 But this is a very petty ejaculation. Because I have con- 
 cluded all the other chapters with a copy of verses, I will main- 
 tain the humor to the last. 
 
 Martial, Lib. 10, Ep. 47 
 
 Vitam quce faciunt beatiorem, etc. 
 
 Since, dearest friend, 'tis your desire to see 
 
 A true receipt of happiness from me ; 
 
 These are the chief ingredients, if not all : 
 
 Take an estate neither too great nor small, 
 
 Which quantum sufHeit the doctors call ; 
 
 Let this estate from parents' care descend: 
 
 The getting it too much of life does spend. 
 
 Take such a ground, whose gratitude may bc 
 
 A fair encouragement for industry. ^
 
 9© COWLEY 
 
 Let constant fires the winter's fury tame, 
 
 And let thy kitchens be a vestal flame. 
 
 Thee to the town let never suit at law, 
 
 And rarely, very rarely, business draw. 
 
 Thy active mind in equal temper keep, 
 
 In undisturbed peace, yet not in sleep. 
 
 Let exercise a vigorous health maintain, 
 
 Without which all the composition's vain. 
 
 In the same weight prudence and innocence take. 
 
 Ana * of each does the just mixture make. 
 
 But a few friendships wear, and let them be 
 
 By Nature and by Fortune fit for thee. 
 
 *An equal quantity.
 
 AGAINST EXCESSIVE GRIEF 
 
 BY 
 
 SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE
 
 SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE 
 1628 — 1699 
 
 Sir William Temple, the son of Sir John Temple, Master of the 
 Rolls in Ireland, was born in 1628, and studied at Cambridge, under 
 the learned Dr. Hammond, his maternal uncle. He began to travel in 
 his twenty-fifth year, and spent six years in France, Holland, Flanders, 
 and Germany. In 1655 he was engaged in promoting an alliance be- 
 tween England, Sweden, and Holland. Becoming resident minister at 
 the Hague, he was useful in promoting the marriage of the Prince of 
 Orange with Mary, eldest daughter of the Duke of York, which took 
 place in 1677. On refusing to sanction an intended breach with Hol- 
 land, he was recalled from his post in 1671, and formally dismissed 
 from his ambassador's office, when he retired into private life at Sheen. 
 Here he wrote an " Essay on Government " and part of his " Mis- 
 cellanies." He was again ambassador to the States-General in 1674; 
 and in 1679 he was appointed Secretary of State, but resigned in the 
 following year. He now retired to his country-seat in Surrey, where 
 he was often visited by Charles II, James II, and William III. As a 
 statesman and man of the world. Temple is said to have been wanting 
 in unselfish devotion, but in private he was respectable and decorous. 
 He died at Moor Park in January, 1699. 
 
 Dr. Johnson once made the remark that " Sir William Temple was 
 the first writer who gave cadence to English prose; before his time 
 they were careless of arrangement." This may be taken as only 
 comparatively true. 
 
 Sir William Temple has a place of his own among English writers, 
 and will be studied for the purity and elegance of his English when 
 greater thinkers, whose forms of expression are uncouth, are neglected. 
 He is master of a style which is seen to most advantage in memoirs 
 and essays of the lighter kind. This style he may almost be said to 
 have originated. He seldom fails to gratify his reader, and he has 
 occasional passages of great splendor and dignity. Sir James Mackin- 
 tosh says of Temple, " in an age of extremes he was attached to 
 liberty, and yet averse from endangering the public quiet." It is not 
 altogether fanciful to say that the political and domestic character of 
 Temple is reflected in his "Letters," " Essavs," and "Memoirs." In 
 an evil hour for his reputation as a critic, he lavished praise on the 
 so-called " Letters of Philaris," and provoked a controversy forever 
 memorable in literary annals. He was the patron of Swift, who has 
 hardly done justice to his memory. 
 
 92
 
 AGAINST EXCESSIVE GRIEF 
 
 THE honor I received by a letter from your ladyship * was 
 too great and too sensible not to be acknowledged ; but 
 yet I doubted whether that occasion could bear me out 
 in the confidence of giving your ladyship any further troubles 
 of this kind, without as good an errand as my last. This I have 
 reckoned upon a good while by another visit my sister and I had 
 designed to my Lord Capell. How we came to have deferred it 
 so long, I think we are neither of us like to tell you at this 
 distance, though we make ourselves believe it could not be 
 helped. Your ladyship at least has had the advantage of being 
 thereby excused some time from this trouble, which I could 
 no longer forbear, upon the sensible wounds that have so often 
 of late been given your friends here by such desperate expres- 
 sions in several of your letters concerning your humor, your 
 health, and your life ; in all which, if they are your friends, you 
 must allow them to be extremely concerned. Perhaps none 
 can be at heart more partial than I am to whatever touches your 
 ladyship, nor more inclined to defend you upon this very occa- 
 sion, how unjust and unkind soever you are to yourself. But 
 when you go about to throw away your health, or your life, so 
 great a remainder of your own family, and so great hopes of that 
 into which you are entered, and all by a desperate melancholy, 
 upon an accident past remedy, and to which all mortal race is 
 perpetually subject. For God's sake, madam, give me leave to 
 tell you, that what you do is not at all agreeable either with so 
 good a Christian, or so reasonable and so great a person as your 
 ladyship appears to the world in all other lights. 
 
 I know no duty in religion more generally agreed on, nor 
 more justly required by God Almighty, than a perfect submis- 
 sion to His will in all things ; nor do I think any disposition of 
 
 1 Addressed to the Countess of Essex, January 29, 1674, on the death of her 
 only daughter. 
 
 93
 
 94 TEMPLE 
 
 mind can either please Him more, or become us better, than that 
 of being satisfied with all He gives, and contented with all He 
 takes away. None I am sure can be of more honor to God, nor 
 of more ease to ourselves: for if we consider Him as our 
 Maker, we cannot contend with Him; if as our Father, we 
 ought not to distrust Him ; so that we may be confident, what- 
 ever He does is intended for our good, and whatever happens 
 that we interpret otherwise, yet we can get nothing by repining, 
 nor save anything by resisting. 
 
 But if it were fit for us to reason with God Almighty, and 
 your ladyship's loss be acknowledged as great as it could have 
 been to anyone alive ; yet I doubt, you would have but ill grace 
 to complain at the rate you have done, or rather as you do: 
 for the first motions or passions, how violent soever, may be 
 pardoned; and it is only the course of them which makes them 
 inexcusable. In this world, madam, there is nothing perfectly 
 good, and whatever is called so, is but either comparatively 
 .with other things of its kind, or else with the evil that is min- 
 gled in its composition ; so he is a good man that is better than 
 men commonly are, or in whom the good qualities are more 
 than the bad: so in the course of life, his condition is esteemed 
 good, which is better than that of most other men, or wherein 
 the good circumstances are more than the ill. By this meas- 
 ure, I doubt, madam, your complaints ought to be turned into 
 acknowledgments, and your friends would have cause to re- 
 joice rather than condole with you ; for the goods or blessings 
 of life are usually esteemed to be birth, health, beauty, friends, 
 children, honor, riches. Now when your ladyship has fairly 
 considered how God Almighty has dealt with you in what He 
 has given you of all these, you may be left to judge yourself 
 how you have dealt with Him in your complaints for what He 
 has taken away. But if you look about you, and consider other 
 lives as well as your own, and what your lot is in comparison 
 with those that have been drawn in the circle of your knowl- 
 edge; if you think how few are born with honor, how many 
 die without name or children, how little beauty we see, how 
 few friends we hear of, how many diseases, and how much 
 poverty there is in the world, you will fall down upon your 
 knees, and instead of repining at one affliction, will admire so 
 many blessing^s as you have received at the hand of God.
 
 AGAINST EXCESSIVE GRIEF 95 
 
 To put your ladyship in mind of what you are, and the ad- 
 vantages you have in all these points, would look like a design 
 to flatter you : but this I may say, that we will pity you as much 
 as you please, if you will tell us who they are that you think 
 upon all circumstances you have reason to envy. Now if I 
 had a master that gave me all I could ask, but thought fit to 
 take one thing from me again, either because I used it ill, or 
 gave myself so much over to it, as to neglect what I owed 
 either to him or the rest of the world ; or perhaps because he 
 would show his power, and put me in mind from whom I held 
 all the rest ; would you think I had much reason to complain 
 of hard usage, and never to remember any more what was 
 left me, never to forget what was taken away ? 
 
 It is true you have lost a child, and therein all that could be 
 lost in a child of that age; but you have kept one child, and 
 are likely to do so long; you have the assurance of another, 
 and the hopes of many more. You have kept a husband great 
 in employment, and in fortune, and (which is more) in the 
 esteem of good men. You have kept your beauty and your 
 health, unless you have destroyed them yourself, or discour- 
 aged them to stay with you by using them ill. You have friends 
 that are as kind to you as you can wish or as you can give 
 them leave to be by their fears of losing you, and being there- 
 by so much the unhappier, the kinder they are to you. But 
 you have honor and esteem from all that know you ; or if ever 
 it fails in any degree, it is only upon that point of your seem- 
 ing to be fallen out with God and the whole world, and neither 
 to care for yourself, or anything else, after what you have lost. 
 
 You will say perhaps that one thing was all to you, and your 
 fondness of it made you indififerent to everything else. But 
 this, I doubt, will be so far from justifying you, that it will 
 prove to be your fault as well as your misfortune. God Al- 
 mighty gave you all the blessings of life, and you set your 
 heart wholly upon one, and despise or undervalue all the rest ; 
 is this His fault or yours? Nay, is it not to be very unthank- 
 ful to Heaven, as well as very scornful to the rest of the world ; 
 is it not to say, because you have lost one thing God hath given 
 you, you thank Him for nothing He has left, and care not 
 what He takes away? Is it not to say, since that one thing is 
 gone out of the world, there is nothing left in it which you
 
 g6 TEMPLE 
 
 think can deserve your kindness or esteem? A friend makes 
 me a feast, and sets all before me that his care or kindness 
 could provide ; but I set my heart upon one dish alone, and if 
 that happen to be thrown down, I scorn all the rest ; and though 
 he sends for another of the same, yet I rise from the table in 
 a rage, and say my friend is my enemy, and has done me the 
 greatest wrong in the world ; have I reason, madam, or good 
 grace in what I do? Or would it become me better to eat 
 of the rest that is before me, and think no more of what had 
 happened, and could not be remedied? 
 
 All the precepts of Christianity agree to teach and command 
 us to moderate our passions, to temper our affections towards 
 all things below ; to be thankful for the possession, and patient 
 under the loss whenever He that gave it shall see fit to take 
 away. Your extreme fondness was perhaps as displeasing to 
 God before, as now your extreme affliction; and your loss 
 may have been a punishment for your faults in the manner of 
 enjoying what you had. It is at least pious to ascribe all the 
 ill that befalls us to our own demerits rather than to injustice 
 in God ; and becomes us better to adore all the issues of His 
 providence in the effects, than inquire into the causes. For 
 submission is the only way of reasoning between a creature 
 and its Maker; and contentment in His will is the greatest 
 duty we can pretend to, and the best remedy we can apply to 
 all our misfortunes. 
 
 But, madam, though religion were no party in your case, 
 and that for so violent and injurious a grief you had nothing 
 to answer to God, but only to the world and yourself; yet I 
 very much doubt how you would be acquitted. We bring into 
 the world with us a poor, needy, uncertain life, short at the 
 longest, and unquiet at the best; all the imaginations of the 
 witty and the wise have been perpetually busied to find out 
 the ways how to revive it with pleasures, or relieve it with di- 
 versions ; how to compose it with ease, and settle it with safety. 
 To some of these ends have been employed the institutions of 
 lawgivers, the reasonings of philosophers, the inventions of 
 poets, the pains of laboring, and the extravagances of volup- 
 tuous men. All the world is perpetually at work about noth- 
 ing else, but only that our poor mortal lives should pass the 
 easier and happier for that little time we possess them, or else
 
 AGAINST EXCESSIVE GRIEF 97 
 
 end the better when we lose them. Upon this occasion riches 
 came to be coveted, honors to be esteemed, friendship and love 
 to be pursued, and virtues themselves to be admired in the 
 world. Now, madam, is it not to bid defiance to all man- 
 kind, to condemn their universal opinions and designs, if in- 
 stead of passing your life as well and easily, you resolve to 
 pass it as ill and as miserably as you can? You grow insen- 
 sible to the conveniences of riches, the delights of honor and 
 praise, the charms of kindness or friendship, nay, to the ob- 
 servance or applause of virtues themselves; for who can you 
 expect, in these excesses of passions, will allow you to show 
 either temperance or fortitude, to be either prudent or just? 
 And for your friends, I suppose, you reckon upon losing their 
 kindness, when you have sufficiently convinced them, they can 
 never hope for any of yours, since you have none left for your- 
 self or anything else. You declare upon all occasions you are 
 incapable of receiving any comfort or pleasure in anything 
 that is left in this world ; and I assure you, madam, none can 
 ever love you, that can have no hopes ever to please you. 
 
 Among the several inquiries and endeavors after the happi- 
 ness of life, the sensual men agree in pursuit of every pleasure 
 they can start, without regarding the pains of the chase, the 
 weariness when it ends, or how little the quarry is worth. 
 The busy and ambitious fall into the more lasting pursuits of 
 power and riches; the speculative men prefer tranquillity of 
 mind, before the different motions of passion and appetite, or 
 the common successions of desire and satiety, of pleasure and 
 pain : but this may seem too dull a principle for the happiness 
 of life, which is ever in motion : and passions are perhaps the 
 stings, without which they say no honey is made ; yet I think 
 all sorts of men have ever agreed, they ought to be our ser- 
 vants, and not our masters ; to give us some agitation for en- 
 tertainment or exercise, but never to throw our reason out of 
 its seat. Perhaps I would not always sit still, or would be 
 sometimes on horseback ; but I would never ride a horse that 
 galls my flesh, or shakes my bones, or that runs away with me 
 as he pleases, so as I can neither stop at a river or precipice. 
 Better no passions at all, than have them too violent ; or such 
 alone, as instead of heightening our pleasures, afford us noth- 
 ing but vexation and pain.
 
 98 TEMPLE 
 
 In all such losses as your ladyship's has been, there is some- 
 thing that common nature cannot be denied, there is a gjeat 
 deal that good-nature may be allowed ; but all excessive and 
 outrageous grief or lamentation for the dead, was accounted 
 among the ancient Christians, to have something of heathen- 
 ish ; and among the civil nations of old, to have something of 
 barbarous; and therefore it has been the care of the first to 
 moderate it by their precepts, and the latter to restrain it by 
 their law. The longest time that has been allowed to the forms 
 of mourning by the custom of any country, and in any rela- 
 tion, has been but that of a year, in which space the body is 
 commonly supposed to be mouldered away to earth, and to 
 retain no more figure of what it was ; but this has been given 
 only to the loss of parents, of husband, or wife. On the other 
 side, to children under age, nothing has been allowed; and 
 I suppose with particular reason (the common ground of all 
 general customs), perhaps because they die in innocence, and 
 without having tasted the miseries of life, so as we are sure 
 they are well when they leave us, and escape much ill that 
 would in all appearance have befallen them if they had stayed 
 longer with us. Besides, a parent may have twenty children, 
 and so his mourning may run through all the best of his life, 
 if his losses are frequent of that kind ; and our kindness to 
 children so young, is taken to proceed from common opinions, 
 or fond imaginations, not friendship or esteem ; and to be 
 grounded upon entertainment, rather than use in the many 
 offices of life : nor would it pass from any person besides your 
 ladyship, to say you lost a companion and a friend at nine 
 years old, though you lost one indeed, who gave the fairest 
 hopes that could be of being both in time, and everything else 
 that was estimable and good. But yet, that itself God only 
 knows, considering the changes of humor and disposition, 
 which are as great as those of feature and shape the first six- 
 teen years of our lives, considering the chances of time, the 
 infection of company, the snares of the world, and the passions 
 of youth, so that the most excellent and agreeable creature of 
 that tender age, and that seemed born under the happiest stars, 
 might by the course of years and accidents, come to be the 
 most miserable herself, and more trouble to her friends by 
 living long, than she could have been by dying young.
 
 AGAINST EXCESSIVE GRIEF 99 
 
 Yet after all, madam, I think your loss so great, and some 
 measure of your grief so deserved, that would all your pas- 
 sionate complaints, all the anguish of your heart do anything 
 to retrieve it; could tears water the lovely plant, so as to 
 make it grow again after once it is cut down; would sighs 
 furnish new breath, or could it draw life and spirits from the 
 wasting of yours — I am sure your friends would be so far 
 from accusing your passion, that they would encourage it as 
 much, and share it as deep as they could. But, alas ! the 
 eternal laws of the creation extinguish all such hopes, forbid 
 all such designs; nature gives us many children and friends 
 to take them away, but takes none away to give them us again. 
 And this makes the excesses of grief to have been so universally 
 condemned, as a thing unnatural, because so much in vain, 
 whereas nature, they say, does nothing in vain ; as a thing so 
 unreasonable, because so contrary to our own designs ; for we all 
 design to be well and at ease, and by grief we make ourselves ill 
 of imaginary wounds, and raise ourselves troubles most prop- 
 erly out of the dust, whilst our ravings and complaints are but 
 like arrows shot up into the air, at no mark, and so to no pur- 
 pose, but only to fall back upon our heads, and destroy our- 
 selves, instead of recovering or revenging our friends. 
 
 Perhaps, madam, you will say this is your design, or if not, 
 your desire; but I hope you are not yet so far gone, or so 
 desperately bent. Your ladyship knows very w^ell your life is 
 not your own, but His that lent it to you to manage and pre- 
 serve the best you could, and not to throw it away as if it 
 came from some common hand. It belongs in a great meas- 
 ure to your country and your family ; and therefore, by all 
 human laws, as well as divine, self-murder has ever been agreed 
 on as the greatest crime, and is punished here with the utmost 
 shame, which is all that can be inflicted upon the dead. But 
 is the crime much less to kill ourselves by a slow poison than 
 by a sudden wound? Now, if we do it, and know we do it, 
 by a long and a continual grief, can we think ourselves inno- 
 cent? What great difference is there if we break our hearts 
 or consume them; if we pierce them, or bruise them; since 
 all determines in the same death, as all arises from the same 
 despair? But what if it goes not so far? It is not, indeed, 
 so bad as mi^ht be, but that does not excuse it from being very
 
 loo TEMPLE 
 
 ill. Though I do not kill my neighbor, is it no hurt to wound 
 him, or to spoil him of the conveniences of life ? The greatest 
 crime is for a man to kill himself ; is it a small one to wound 
 himself by anguish of heart, by grief, or despair, to ruin his 
 health, to shorten his age, to deprive himself of all the pleas- 
 ures, or eases, or enjoyments of life? 
 
 Next to the mischiefs we do ourselves are those we do our 
 children and our friends, as those who deserve best of us, or 
 at least deserve no ill. The child you carry about you, what 
 has that done that you should endeavor to deprive it of life 
 almost as soon as you bestow it ; or if, at the best, you suffer 
 it to live to be born, yet by your ill usage of yourself, should 
 so much impair the strength of its body and health, and per- 
 haps the very temper of its mind, by giving it such an infusion 
 of melancholy, as may serve to discolor the objects and dis- 
 relish the accidents it may meet with in the common train of 
 life? But this is one you are not yet acquainted with. What 
 will you say to another you are? Were it a small injury to 
 my Lord Capell, to deprive him of a mother, from whose 
 prudence and kindness he may justly expect the cares of his 
 health and education, the forming of his body, and the culti- 
 vating of his mind ; the seeds of honor and virtue, and thereby 
 the true principles of a happy liie. How has my Lord of 
 Essex deserved that you should go about to lose him a wife 
 he loves with so much passion, and, which is more, with so 
 much reason ; so great an honor and support to his family, 
 so great a hope to his fortune, and comfort to his life? Are 
 there so many left of your own great family that you should 
 desire in a manner wholly to reduce it by suffering the greatest 
 and almost last branch of it to wither away before its time? 
 or is your country in this age so stored with great persons that 
 you should envy it those we may justly expect from so noble 
 a race? 
 
 Whilst I had any hopes your tears would ease you, or that 
 your grief would consume itself by liberty and time, your 
 ladyship knows very well I never once accused it, nor ever 
 increased it, like many others, by the common formal ways of 
 assuaging it, and this, I am sure, is the first office of this kind 
 I ever went about to perform otherwise than in the most or- 
 dinary forms. I was in the hope what was so violent could
 
 AGAINST EXCESSIVE GRIEF loi 
 
 not be so long ; but when I observed it to grow stronger with 
 age, and increase like a stream the farther it ran ; when I 
 saw it draw out to so many unhappy consequences, and threaten 
 no less than your child, your health, and your life, I could no 
 longer forbear this endeavor, nor end it without begging of 
 your ladyship, for God's sake and for your own, for your 
 children's and your friends', for your country's and your fam- 
 ily's, that you would no longer abandon yourself to so dis- 
 consolate a passion, but that you would at length awaken your 
 piety, give way to your prudence, or at least rouse up the in- 
 vincible spirit of the Percies, that never yet shrank at any 
 disaster; that you would sometimes remember the great hon- 
 ors and fortunes of your family, not always the losses ; cherish 
 those veins of good humor that are sometimes so natural to 
 you, and sear up those of ill that would make you so unnatural 
 to your children and to yourself. But above all, that you would 
 enter upon the cares of your health and your life, for your 
 friends' sake at least, if not for your own.
 
 OF HEROIC PLAYS 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN DRYDEN
 
 JOHN DRYDEN 
 
 1631 — 1700 
 
 John Dryden was born in 1631 at Aldwinkle in Northamptonshire. 
 He received the rudiments of education at Tichmarsh in his native 
 county. He was afterwards admitted King's scholar at Westminster, 
 and under the celebrated Dr. Busby made rapid progress in classical 
 learning. From Westminster he was elected, 1650, Scholar of Trinity 
 College, Cambridge. He took his degree in 1654, and three years later 
 finally left his university for London, where he at once entered on the 
 career of a literary man, which he pursued to the very end of his life. 
 He occupied in his relations with men of genius, of rank, and political 
 influence as high a station in the very foremost circles as literary repu- 
 tation could gain for its owner. Dryden attached himself to the court 
 party in the reigns of Charles H and James II, in the latter of which 
 he left the Church of England for the Church of Rome. At the Revo- 
 lution he was dismissed from the place of Poet Laureate, which he 
 had held since 1670, as the successor of Davenant, and lived in com- 
 parative obscurity, though he was still patronized by several of the 
 nobility. By the loss of this office he became again almost wholly 
 dependent on literary labor for bread. Dryden was married to Lady 
 Elizabeth Howard, daughter of the Earl of Berkshire, and had several 
 children, none however of whom long survived him. He died in 1700, 
 and was buried in Westminster Abbey. 
 
 Dryden was the most popular and (putting aside Milton, who be- 
 longs to an earlier period) most eminent poet of the latter half of the 
 seventeenth century. His works consist of plays, satires, translations, 
 and occasional poems. Of these, the plays are much the most volu- 
 minous, and in their time were doubtless considered the most im- 
 portant ; but later generations have bestowed very little attention on 
 them. They, however, gave occasion to several of those compositions 
 which have made him distinguished as a prose writer, critical prefaces, 
 explaining the nature of the works they introduce, and vindications, 
 rebutting the attacks of literary rivals or political opponents. These 
 prose pieces have had very warm admirers, including Gray and Charles 
 James Fox ; and are characterized by Johnson in words that may be 
 worth quoting: "Criticism, either didactic or defensive, occupies al- 
 most all his prose, except those pages which he has devoted to his 
 patrons : but none of his prefaces were ever thought tedious. They 
 have not the formality of a settled style, in which the first half of the 
 sentence betrays the other. The clauses are never balanced, nor the 
 periods modelled ; every word seems to drop by chance, though it falls 
 into its proper place. Nothing is cold or languid ; the whole is airy, 
 animated, and vigorous; what is little is gay; what is great is splendid. 
 He may be thought to mention himself too frequently; but while he 
 forces himself upon our esteem, we cannot refuse him to stand high 
 in his own. Everything is excused by the play of images and the 
 sprightliness of expression. Though all is easy, nothing is feeble; 
 though all seems careless, there is nothing harsh; and though, since 
 his earlier works were written several centuries have passed, they 
 contain nothing uncouth or obsolete. 
 
 ICv^
 
 OF HEROIC PLAYS 
 
 WHETHER heroic verse ought to be admitted into 
 serious plays is not now to be disputed :^ it is already 
 in possession of the stage; and I dare confidently 
 affirm that very few tragedies, in this age, shall be received 
 without it. All the arguments which are formed against it 
 can amount to no more than this — that it is not so near con- 
 versation as prose; and therefore not so natural. But it is 
 very clear to all who understand poetry that serious plays ought 
 not to imitate conversation too nearly. If nothing were to be 
 raised above that level the foundation of poetry would be de- 
 stroyed. And if you once admit of a latitude, that thoughts 
 may be exalted, and that images and actions may be raised 
 above the life, and described in measure without rhyme, that 
 leads you insensibly from your own principles to mine: you 
 are already so far onward of your way that you have forsaken 
 the imitation of ordinary converse; you are gone beyond it; 
 and to continue where you are is to lodge in the open field, 
 betwixt two inns. You have lost that which you call natural, 
 and have not acquired the last perfection of art. But it was 
 only custom which cozened us so long: we thought, because 
 Shakespeare and Fletcher went no farther, that there the pillars 
 of poetry were to be erected; that, because they excellently 
 described passion without rhyme, therefore rhyme was not ca- 
 pable of describing it. But time has now convinced most men 
 of that error. It is indeed so difficult to write verse that the 
 adversaries of it have a good plea against many who under- 
 take that task without being formed by art or nature for it. 
 
 1 This essay was originally prefixed attained his fortieth year. He was bom 
 
 to Dryden's " Conquest of Granada," in August, 1631. In the preface to 
 
 which was first published in 1672. That " The Mock Astrologer," which ap- 
 
 play, however, appears to have been peared in 1671, as we have already seen, 
 
 first acted in the year 1670; for the au- he mentions "The Conquest of Gra- 
 
 thor in the epilogue to the First Part nada " as having been previously acted, 
 
 tells the audience that he had not yet though not then published.
 
 io6 DRYDEN 
 
 Yet even they who have written worst in it would have written 
 worse without it : they have cozened many with their sound who 
 never took the pains to examine their sense. In fine, they 
 have succeeded; though it is true they have more dishonored 
 rhyme by their good success than they could have done by 
 their ill. But I am willing to let fall this argument: it is 
 free for every man to write, or not to write, in verse, as he 
 judges it to be or not to be his talent; or as he imagines the 
 audience will receive it. 
 
 ; For heroic plays (in which only I have used it without the 
 mixture of prose) the first light we had of them on the Eng- 
 lish theatre was from the late Sir William D'Avenant. It be- 
 
 ,' ing forbidden him in the rebellious times to act tragedies and 
 comedies, because they contained some matter of scandal to 
 those good people, who could more easily dispossess their law- 
 ful sovereign than endure a wanton jest, he was forced to turn 
 his thoughts another way, and to introduce the examples of 
 moral virtue, writ in verse, and performed in recitative music.^ 
 The original of this music, and of the scenes * which adorned 
 his work, he had from the Italian operas; but he heightened 
 his characters (as I may probably imagine) from the example 
 of Corneille and some French poets. In this condition did this 
 part of poetry remain at his Majesty's return; when growing 
 bolder, as being now owned by a public authority, he reviewed 
 his " Siege of Rhodes," and caused it to be acted as a just 
 drama. But as few men have the happiness to begin and 
 finish any new project, so neither did he live to make his de- 
 sign perfect : there wanted the fulness of a plot and the variety 
 of characters to form it as it ought; and perhaps something 
 might have been added to the beauty of the style. All which 
 he would have performed with more exactness had he pleased 
 to have given us another work of the same nature. For my- 
 self and others who come after him, we are bound, with all 
 veneration to his memory, to acknowledge what advantage we 
 received from that excellent groundwork which he laid; and 
 since it is an easy thing to add to what already is invented, we 
 
 •The first edition of Sir William sung in recitative music— At the back 
 
 D'Avenant's " Siege of Rhodes " was part of Rutland House, m the upper 
 
 published in quarto in 1656, with the end of Aldersgate-street, London, 
 
 following title: "The Siege of Rhodes, » In the time of Shakespeare, and 
 
 made a representation by the art of long afterwards, our English theatres 
 
 prospective in scenes; and the story were unfurnished with scer.es.
 
 OF HEROIC PLAYS 107 
 
 ought all of us, without envy to him, or partiality to ourselves, 
 to yield him the precedence in it. 
 
 Having done him this justice, as my guide, I may do myself 
 so much, as to give an account of what I have performed after 
 him. I observed then, as I said, what was wanting to the 
 perfection of his " Siege of Rhodes ; " which was design and 
 variety of characters. And in the midst of this consideration, 
 by mere accident I opened the next book that lay by me, which 
 was an Ariosto in Italian ; and the very first two lines of that 
 poem gave me light to all I could desire: 
 
 "Z^ donne, i cavalier, I'arme, gli amort, 
 Le cortesie, I'audaci imprese to canto" &^c. 
 
 For the very next reflection which I made, was this — that an 
 heroic play ought to be an imitation, in little, of an heroic 
 poem; and consequently, that love and valor ought to be the 
 subject of it. Both these Sir William D'Avenant had begun 
 to shadow ; but it was so, as first discoverers draw their maps, 
 with head-lands, and promontories, and some few outlines of 
 somewhat taken at a distance, and which the designer saw not 
 clearly. The common drama obliged him to a plot well-formed 
 and pleasant, or as the ancients called it, one entire and great 
 action. But this he afforded not himself in a story, which he 
 neither filled with persons, nor beautified with characters, nor 
 varied with accidents. The laws of an heroic poem did not 
 dispense with those of the other, but raised them to a greater 
 height; and indulged him a farther liberty of fancy, and of 
 drawing all things as far above the ordinary proportion of the 
 stage as that is beyond the common words and actions of hu- 
 man life; and therefore, in the scanting of his images, and 
 design, he complied not enough with the greatness and majesty 
 of an heroic poem. 
 
 I am sorry I cannot discover my opinion of this kind of 
 writing without dissenting much from his, whose memory I 
 love and honor. But I will do it with the same respect to him, 
 as if he were now alive, and overlooking my paper while I 
 write. His judgment of an heroic poem was this : " That it 
 ought to be dressed in a more familiar and easy shape; more 
 fitted to the common actions and passions of human life ; and, 
 in short, more like a glass of nature, shewing us ourselves in
 
 io8 DRYDEN 
 
 our ordinary habits, and figuring a more practicable virtue to 
 us, than was done by the ancients or moderns." Thus, he 
 takes the image of an heroic poem from the drama, or stage- 
 poetry; and accordingly intended to divide it into five books, 
 representing the same number of acts, and every book into 
 several cantos, imitating the scenes which compose our acts. 
 But this, I think, is rather a play in narration, as I may call 
 it, than an heroic poem. If at least you will not prefer the 
 opinion of a single man to the practice of the most excellent 
 authors both of ancient and latter ages. I am no admirer of 
 quotations; but you shall hear, if you please, one of the an- 
 cients delivering his judgment on this question; it is Petronius 
 Arbiter, the most elegant, and one of the most judicious authors 
 of the Latin tongue ; who, after he had given many admirable 
 rules for the structure and beauties of an epic poem, concludes 
 all in these following words : " Non enim res gestae versibus 
 comprehendendcE sunt, quod longe melius historici faciunt: 
 sed, per ambages, deorumque ministeria, prcecipitandus est 
 liber spiritus, ut potius furentis animi vaticinatio appareat, 
 quant religiosce orationis, sub testibus, fides." In which sen- 
 tence, and his own " Essay of a Poem " which immediately he 
 gives you, it is thought he taxes Lucan, who followed too much 
 the truth of history ; crowded sentences together ; was too full 
 of points ; and too often offered at somewhat which had more 
 of the sting of an epigram than of the dignity and state of an 
 heroic poem. Lucan used not much the help of his heathen 
 deities: there was neither the ministry of the gods, nor the 
 precipitation of the soul, nor the fury of a prophet (of which 
 my author speaks) in his "Pharsalia:" he treats you more 
 like a philosopher than a poet ; and instructs you in verse, 
 with what he had been taught by his uncle Seneca in prose. 
 In one word, he walks soberly a-foot, when he might fly. Yet 
 Lucan is not always this religious historian. The oracle of 
 Appius and the witchcraft of Erictho will somewhat atone for 
 him, who was, indeed, bound up by an ill-chosen and known 
 argument, to follow truth with great exactness. For my part, 
 I am of opinion that neither Homer, Vergil, Statius, Ariosto, 
 Tasso, nor our English Spenser, could have formed their 
 poems half so beautiful without those gods and spirits and 
 those enthusiastic parts of poetry which compose the most
 
 OF HEROIC PLAYS 109 
 
 noble parts of all their writings. And I will ask any man who 
 loves heroic poetry (for I will not dispute their tastes who 
 do not) if the ghost of Polydorus in Vergil, the enchanted 
 wood in Tasso, and the bower of bliss in Spenser (which he 
 borrows from that admirable Italian), could have been omit- 
 ted without taking from their works some of the greatest 
 beauties in them? And if any man object the improbabilities 
 of a spirit appearing, or of a palace raised by magic, I boldly 
 answer him that an heroic poet is not tied to a bare repre- 
 sentation of what is true, or exceeding probable, but that he 
 may let himself loose to visionary objects, and to the repre- 
 sentation of such things as depending not on sense, and there- 
 fore not to be comprehended by knowledge, may give him a 
 freer scope for imagination. It is enough, that in all ages 
 and religions the greatest part of mankind have believed the 
 power of magic, and that there are spirits or spectres which 
 have appeared. This, I say, is foundation enough for poetry : 
 and I dare farther affirm that the whole doctrine of separated 
 beings, whether those spirits are incorporeal substances (which 
 Mr. Hobbes, with some reason, thinks to imply a contradic- 
 tion), or that they are a thinner and more aerial sort of bodies 
 (as some of the fathers have conjectured) may better be ex- 
 plicated by poets, than by philosophers or divines. For their 
 speculations on this subject are wholly poetical ; they have only 
 their fancy for their guide ; and that, being sharper in an ex- 
 cellent poet than it is likely it should be in a phlegmatic, heavy 
 gown-man, will see farther in its own empire, and produce 
 more satisfactory notions on those dark and doubtful problems. 
 Some men think they have raised a great argument against 
 the use of spectres and magic in heroic poetry by saying — they 
 are unnatural: but whether they or I believe there are such 
 things is not material; it is enough that, for aught we know, 
 they may be in nature; and whatever is or may be is not 
 properly unnatural. Neither am I much concerned at Mr. 
 Cowley's verses before Gondibert; though his authority is al- 
 most sacred to me. It is true he has resembled the old epic 
 poetry to a fantastic fairy-land; but he has contradicted him- 
 self by his own example ; for he has himself made use of angels 
 and visions in his " Davideis," as well as Tasso in his " God- 
 frey."
 
 no DRYDEN 
 
 What I have written on this subject will not be thought 
 digression by the reader if he please to remember what I said 
 in the beginning of this Essay — that I have modelled my heroic 
 plays by the rules of an heroic poem. And if that be the most 
 noble, the most pleasant, and the most instructive way of writ- 
 ing in verse, and, withal, the highest pattern of human life, 
 as all poets have agreed, I shall need no other argument to 
 justify my choice in this imitation. One advantage the drama 
 has above the other, namely, that it represents to view what 
 the poem only does relate ; and " Segnius irritant animum de- 
 missa per aurem, quam quce sunt oculis suhjecta Udelihus," as 
 Horace tells us. 
 
 To those who object my frequent use of drums and trum- 
 pets, and my representations of battles — I answer, I introduced 
 them not on the English stage : Shakespeare used them fre- 
 quently ; and, though Jonson shows no battle in his " Catiline," 
 yet you hear from behind the scenes the sounding of trumpets 
 and the shouts of fighting armies. But I add farther; that 
 these warlike instruments, and, even their presentations of 
 fighting on the stage, are no more than necessary to produce 
 the effects of an heroic play; that is, to raise the imagination 
 of the audience and to persuade them, for the time, that what 
 they behold on the theatre is really performed. The poet is, 
 then, to endeavor an absolute dominion over the minds of the 
 spectators ; for though our fancy will contribute to its own 
 deceit, yet a writer ought to help its operation. And that the 
 Red Bull has formerly done the same is no more an argument 
 against our practice than it would be for a physician to forbear 
 an approved medicine because a mountebank has used it with 
 success. 
 
 Thus I have given a short account of heroic plays. I might 
 now, with the usual eagerness of an author, make a particular 
 defence of this. But the common opinion (how unjust soever) 
 has been so much to my advantage that I have reason to be 
 satisfied ; and to suffer with patience all that can be urged 
 against it. 
 
 For, otherwise, what can be more easy for me than to defend 
 the character of Almanzor, which is one great exception that 
 is made against the play? It is said that Almanzor is no
 
 OF HEROIC PLAYS m 
 
 perfect pattern of heroic virtue; that he is a contemner of 
 kings ; and that he is made to perform impossibihties. 
 
 I must, therefore avow, in the first place, from whence I 
 took the character. The first image I had of him was from 
 the Achilles of Homer; the next from Tasso's RinaldOj who 
 was a copy of the former; and the third from the Artaban of 
 Monsieur Calpranede, who has imitated both. The original 
 of these, Achilles, is taken by Homer for his hero ; and is de- 
 scribed by him as one, who in strength and courage surpassed 
 the rest of the Grecian army, but, withal, of so fiery a temper, 
 so impatient of an injury, even from his king and general, that, 
 when his mistress was to be forced from him by the command 
 of Agamemnon, he not only disobeyed it, but returned him an 
 answer full of contumely, and in the most opprobious terms 
 he could imagine. They are Homer's words which follow, 
 and I have cited but some few amongst a multitude : 
 
 Olvofiapes, Kvvhs o/xfiar lx<*"'i KpaSltjv S' i\d<poio. — I. o. V, 225. 
 ArifnofiSpos fiacriKevs, &C. — I. a. V.23I. 
 
 Nay, he proceeded so far in his insolence, as to draw out his 
 sword, with intention to kill him : 
 
 "EXKero 8' s'k Ko\eo7o fieya ^l(pos. — I. a. v, 1 94. 
 
 and, if Minerva had not appeared, and held his hand, he had 
 executed his design ; and it was all she could do to dissuade 
 him from it. The event was that he left the army and would 
 fight no more. Agamemnon gives his character thus to Nes- 
 tor: 
 
 'AAA' 38' avi]p i^€\€i vepi rrdvTiai' e/nfievai EWoii; 
 
 TldvTuv fxey Kpareeu/ e^sAet, iravreaai 8' avdaffeiv. — I. a. v. 287, 288. 
 
 and Horace gives the same description of him in his " Art of 
 
 Poetry " : 
 
 '' Honoratuni si forte reponis Achillem, 
 
 Impiger, iracundus, inexorabilis, acer. 
 
 Jura neget sibi nata, nihil non arroget armis,"
 
 112 DRYDEN 
 
 Tasso's chief character, Rinaldo, was a man of the same 
 temper; for when he had slain Gernando, in his heat of pas- 
 sion, he not only refused to be judged by Godfrey, his general, 
 but threatened, that if he came to seize him, he would right 
 himself by arms upon him; witness these following lines of 
 Tasso : 
 
 •' Venga egli, o mandi, io terrd fermo il piede ; 
 Giudici fian tra not la sorte, e I'artne : 
 Ferra tragedia vuol che s' appresenti. 
 Per lor diporto, alle nemic he genii." 
 
 You see how little these great authors did esteem the point 
 of honor, so much magnified by the French, and so ridiculously 
 aped by us. They made their heroes men of honor ; but so as 
 not to divest them quite of human passions and frailties : they 
 content themselves to show you what men of great spirits 
 would certainly do when they were provoked, not what they 
 were obliged to do by the strict rules of moral virtue. For 
 my own part, I declare myself for Homer and Tasso ; and am 
 more in love with Achilles and Rinaldo than with Cyrus and 
 Oroondates. I shall never subject my characters to the 
 French standard, where love and honor are to be weighed by 
 drachms and scruples; yet, where I have designed the pat- 
 terns of exact virtues, such as in this play are the parts of 
 Almahide, of Ozmyn, and Benzayda, I may safely challenge 
 the best of theirs. 
 
 But Almanzor is taxed with changing sides : and what tie 
 has he on him to the contrary? He is not born their subject 
 whom he serves ; and he is injured by them to a very high de- 
 gree. He threatens them, and speaks insolently of sovereign 
 power ; but so do Achilles and Rinaldo, who were subjects and 
 soldiers to Agamemnon and Godfrey of Bouillon. He talks 
 extravagantly in his passion ; but, if I would take the pains to 
 quote an hundred passages of Ben Jonson's " Cethegus," I 
 could easily show you that the rhodomontades of Almanzor are 
 neither so irrational as his, nor so impossible to be put in exe- 
 cution; for Cethegus threatens to destroy nature, and to raise 
 a new one out of it; to kill all the Senate for his part of the 
 action ; to look Cato dead ; and a thousand other things as ex- 
 travagant, he says, but performs not one action in the play.
 
 OF HEROIC PLAYS 
 
 "3 
 
 But none of the former calumnies will stick: and therefore, 
 it is at last charged upon me that Almanzor does all things ; or 
 if you will have an absurd accusation, in their nonsense who 
 make it, that he performs impossibilities : they say, that being 
 a stranger, he appeases two fighting factions, when the au- 
 thority of their lawful sovereign could not. This is, indeed, 
 the most improbable of all his actions ; but, it is far from being 
 impossible. Their king had made himself contemptible to his 
 people — as the " History of Granada " tells us ; and Almanzor, 
 though a stranger, yet was already known to them by his gal- 
 lantry in the juego de toros, his engagement on the weaker 
 side, and more especially by the character of his person and 
 brave actions, given by Abdalla just before. And, after all, 
 the greatness of the enterprise consisted only in the daring; 
 for he had the king's guards to second him ; but we have read 
 both of Caesar, and many other generals, who have not only 
 calmed a mutiny with a word, but have presented themselves 
 single before an army of their enemies; which, upon sight of 
 them, has revolted from their own leaders, and come over to 
 their trenches. In the rest of Almanzor's actions, you see 
 him for the most part victorious ; but the same fortune has 
 constantly attended many heroes who were not imaginary. 
 Yet, you see it no inheritance to him ; for, in the first part, he 
 is made a prisoner, and, in the last, defeated, and not able to 
 preserve the city from being taken. If the history of the late 
 Duke of Guise be true, he hazarded more, and performed not 
 less in Naples than Almanzor is feigned to have done in 
 Granada.* 
 
 I have been too tedious in this apology; but to make some 
 satisfaction, I will leave the rest of my play exposed to the 
 critics, without defence. 
 
 * " The two parts of ' The Conquest 
 of Granada,' " says Dr. Johnson, are 
 written with a seeming determination 
 to glut the public with dramatic won- 
 ders; to exhibit, in its highest eleva- 
 tion, a theatrical meteor of incredible 
 love and impossible valor, and to leave 
 no room for a wilder flight to the ex- 
 travagance of posterity. All the rays 
 of romantic heat, whether amorous or 
 warlike, glow in Almanzor by a kind 
 of concentration. He is above all laws; 
 he is exempt from all restraints; he 
 
 ranges the world at will, and governs 
 wherever he appears. He fights with- 
 out inquiring the cause, and loves in 
 spite of the obligations of justice, of 
 rejection by his mistress, and of pro- 
 hibition from the dead. Yet the scenes 
 are for the most part delightful ; they 
 exhibit a kind of illustrious depravity 
 and majestic madness: such as, if it is 
 sometimes despised, is often reverenced, 
 and in which the ridiculous is often 
 mingled with the astonishing." 
 
 6— Vol. 57
 
 114 DRYDEN 
 
 The concernment of it is wholly passed from me, and ought 
 to be in them who have been favorable to it, and are somewhat 
 obliged to defend their own opinions. That there are errors 
 in it, I deny not ; 
 
 "As^ opere in tantofas est obrepere sotmium." * 
 
 But I have already swept the stakes ; and, with the common 
 good fortune of prosperous gamesters, can be content to sit 
 quietly — to hear my fortune cursed by some, and my faults 
 arraigned by others ; and to suffer both without reply. 
 
 * Horace's line is, " Verum opere in longo fas est obrepere somiium."
 
 F PRACTICE AND HABITS 
 
 OF PRINCIPLES 
 
 OF PREJUDICES 
 
 OF OBSERVATION 
 
 OF READING 
 
 SOME THOUGHTS CONCERNING 
 EDUCATION 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN LOCKE
 
 JOHN LOCKE 
 1632 — 1704 
 
 John Locke was born at Wrington, in Somersetshire, in 1632. He 
 was educated at Westminster, from which he was removed to a stu- 
 dentship at Christ Church, Oxford, where he was greatly distinguished 
 no less by industry than by superior ability. The writings of Descartes 
 appear early to have excited his interest in the study of philosophy. 
 After having taken the degree of M.A. in 1658 he applied himself to 
 the study of medicine, but his health prevented his pursuing that pro- 
 fession. In 1666 he formed the acquaintance of Lord Ashley, after- 
 wards Earl of Shaftesbury, to whose fortunes he was attached for 
 many years, sharing his prosperity and his disgrace, and for a time 
 acting first as tutor to his son, and then to his grandson, the future au- 
 thor of the " Characteristics." Locke commenced his famous " Essay 
 Concerning Human Understanding " in 1670, but it was not till 1687 
 that he was able to complete it. It attracted great and immediate atten- 
 tion, not only in philosophical circles, but in the wider world of thought- 
 ful readers. It was followed in the next few years by the " Letters 
 on Toleration " and the " Treatises on Government " and " Thoughts 
 on Education," as well as by several minor essays in vindication of 
 opinions advanced in his larger works. He suffered severely from 
 asthma during the later part of his life, and lived at Gates in the re- 
 tirement of Sir Francis Masham's house for the last fourteen years. 
 He died in 1704 in the seventy-third year of his age. 
 
 Locke is one of the most prominent of our philosophical and political 
 authors ; there is probably no writer on philosophy who has produced 
 such a broad and solid effect on the mind of the English people. Few 
 have turned their attention to metaphysical inquiries without reading 
 his " Essay Concerning Human Understanding," which has lent to 
 such inquiries whatever popularity they possess. D'Alembert says that 
 Locke created the science of metaphysics in somewhat the same way 
 as Newton created that of physics; and his inquiry into the origin, 
 development, and combination of our thoughts justly entitle him to be 
 called the founder of psychology in England. There is scarcely any 
 English writer whose works bear such an impress of originality, power, 
 patient sagacity, and good sense. The style of Locke has fine qualities, 
 but is too incorrect to be taken as a model of English language. It is 
 homely, racy, and masculine, though wanting in philosophical precision 
 and sometimes too idiomatic and colloquial, or too indefinite and fig- 
 urative for the abstruse subjects with which he has to deal. The six 
 essays that follow have been carefully selected. The essay entitled 
 " Some Thoughts Concerning Education " has many valuable sug- 
 gestions, and is generally considered to fill an important place in the 
 literature on that subject. 
 
 M6
 
 OF PRACTICE AND HABITS 
 
 WE are born with faculties and powers capable almost 
 of anything, such at least as would carry us further 
 than can be easily imagined ; but it is only the exer- 
 cise of those powers which gives us ability and skill in any- 
 thing, and leads us towards perfection. 
 
 A middle-aged ploughman will scarce ever be brought to 
 the carriage and language of a gentleman, though his body be 
 as well proportioned, and his joints as supple, and his natural 
 parts not any way inferior. The legs of a dancing-master, and 
 the fingers of a musician, fall as it were naturally, without 
 thought or pains, into regular and admirable motions. Bid 
 them change their parts, and they will in vain endeavor to 
 produce like motions in the members not used to them, and it 
 will require length of time and long practice to attain but some 
 degrees of a like ability. What incredible and astonishing ac- 
 tions do we find rope-dancers and tumblers bring their bodies 
 to ! — not but that sundry in almost all manual arts are as won- 
 derful ; but I name those which the world takes notice of for 
 such, because, on that very account, they give money to see 
 them. All these admired motions, beyond the reach, and al- 
 most the conception, of unpractised spectators, are nothing but 
 the mere effects of use and industry in men whose bodies have 
 nothing peculiar in them from those of the amazed lookers-on. 
 
 As it is in the body, so it is in the mind ; practice makes it 
 what it is: and most, even of those excellencies which are 
 looked on as natural endowments, will be found, when exam- 
 ined into more narrowly, to be the product of exercise, and to 
 be raised to that pitch only by repeated actions. Some men 
 are remarked for pleasantness in raillery ; others for apologues 
 and apposite diverting stories. This is apt to be taken for the 
 effect of pure nature, and, that the rather, because it is not got 
 by rules ; and those who excel in either of them never pur- 
 posely set themselves to the study of it as an art to be learned. 
 
 "7
 
 ,i8 LOCKE 
 
 But yet it is true that at first some lucky hit which took with 
 somebody, and gained him commendation, encouraged him to 
 try again, inclined his thoughts and endeavors that way, till 
 at last he insensibly got a facility in it without perceiving how ; 
 and that is attributed wholly to nature, which was much more 
 the effect of use and practice. I do not deny that natural dis- 
 position may often give the first rise to it; but that never car- 
 ries a man far without use and exercise, and it is practice alone 
 that brings the powers of the mind, as well as those of the body, 
 to their perfection. Many a good poetic vein is buried under 
 a trade, and never produces anything, for want of improve- 
 ment. We see the ways of discourse and reasoning are very 
 different, even concerning the same matter at court and in the 
 university. And he that will go but from Westminster Hall 
 to the Exchange will find a different genius and turn in their 
 ways of talking: and yet one cannot think that all whose lot 
 fell in the city were born with different parts from those who 
 .were bred at the university or inns of court. 
 
 To what purpose all this, but to show that the difference so 
 observable in men's understandings and parts does not arise so 
 much from the natural faculties as acquired habits ? He would 
 be laughed at that should go about to make a fine dancer out 
 of a country hedger at past fifty. And he will not have much 
 better success who shall endeavor at that age to make a man 
 reason well, or speak handsomely, who has never been used to 
 it, though you should lay before him a collection of all the 
 best precepts of logic or oratory. Nobody is made anything 
 by hearing of rules, or laying them up in his memory ; practice 
 must settle the habit of doing, without reflecting on the rule: 
 and you may as well hope to make a good painter or musician 
 extempore by a lecture and instruction in the arts of music and 
 painting, as a coherent thinker, or strict reasoner, by a set of 
 rules showing him wherein right reasoning consists. 
 
 This being so, that defects and weakness in men's under- 
 standings, as well as other faculties, come from a want of a 
 right use of their own minds, I am apt to think the fault is 
 generally mislaid upon nature, and there is often a complaint 
 of want of parts, when the fault lies in want of a due improve- 
 ment of them. We see men frequently dexterous and sharp 
 enough in making a bargain, who, if you reason with them 
 about matters of religion, appear perfectly stupid.
 
 OF PRINCIPLES 
 
 THERE is another fault that stops or misleads men in 
 their knowledge, which I have also spoken something 
 of, but yet is necessary to mention here again, that we 
 may examine it to the bottom, and see the root is springs from, 
 and that is the custom of taking up with principles that are not 
 self-evident, and very often not so much as true. It is not un- 
 usual to see men rest their opinions upon foundations that have 
 no more certainty nor solidity than the propositions built on 
 them, and embraced for their sake. Such foundations are 
 these, and the like, namely: The founders or leaders of my 
 party are good men, and therefore their tenets are true; it is 
 the opinion of a sect that is erroneous, therefore it is false : it 
 hath been long received in the world, therefore it is true ; or, it 
 is new, and therefore false. 
 
 These, and many the like, which are by no means the meas- 
 ures of truth and falsehood, the generality of men make the 
 standards by which they accustom their understanding to judge. 
 And thus, they falling into a habit of determining of truth and 
 falsehood by such wrong measures, it is no wonder they should 
 embrace error for certainty, and be very positive in things they 
 have no ground for. 
 
 There is not any who pretends to the least reason, but when 
 any of these his false maxims are brought to the test, must 
 acknowledge them to be fallible, and such as he will not allow 
 in those that differ from him; and yet, after he is convinced 
 of this, you shall see him go on in the use of them, and the 
 very next occasion that offers, argue again upon the same 
 grounds. Would one not be ready to think that men are will- 
 ing to impose upon themselves, and mislead their own under- 
 standing, who conduct them by such wrong measures, even 
 1 after they see they cannot be relied on ? But yet, they will not 
 
 "9
 
 120 LOCKE 
 
 appear so blamable as may be thought at first sight ; for I think 
 there are a great many that argue thus in earnest, and do it 
 not to impose on themselves or others. They are persuaded 
 of what they say, and think there is weight in it, though, in a 
 like case, they have been convinced there is none; but men 
 would be intolerable to themselves, and contemptible to others, 
 if they should embrace opinions without any ground, and hold 
 what they could give no manner of reason for. True or false, 
 solid or sandy, the mind must have some foundation to rest 
 itself upon; and, as I have remarked in another place, it no 
 sooner entertains any proposition, but it presently hastens to 
 some hypothesis to bottom it on : till then it is unquiet and un- 
 settled. So much do our own very tempers dispose us to a 
 right use of our understandings, if we would follow as we 
 should the inclinations of our nature. 
 
 In some matters of concernment, especially those of religion, 
 men are not permitted to be always wavering and uncertain, 
 they must embrace and profess some tenets or other ; and it 
 would be a shame, nry, a contradiction too heavy for anyone's 
 mind to lie constantly under, for him to pretend seriously to be 
 persuaded of the truth of any religion, and yet not to be able 
 to give any reason of his belief, or to say anything for his 
 preference of this to any other opinion ; and, therefore, they 
 must make use of some principles or other, and those can be no 
 other than such as they have and can manage ; and to say they 
 are not in earnest persuaded by them, and do not rest upon 
 those they make use of, is contrary to experience, and to allege 
 that they are not misled when we complain they are. 
 
 If this be so, it will be urged why, then, do they not rather 
 make use of sure and unquestionable principles, rather than 
 rest on such grounds as may deceive them, and will, as is 
 visible, serve to support error as well as truth ? 
 
 To this I answer, the reason why they do not make use of 
 better and surer principles is because they cannot : but this in- 
 ability proceeds not from want of natural parts (for those few 
 whose case that is, are to be excused), but for want of use and 
 exercise. Few men are from their youth accustomed to strict 
 reasoning, and to trace the dependence of any truth in a long 
 train of consequences to its remote principles, and to observe 
 its connection; and he that by frequent practice has not been
 
 OF PRINCIPLES lai 
 
 used to this employment of his understanding, it is no more 
 wonder that he should not, when he is grown into years, be 
 able to bring his mind to it, than that he should not be on a 
 sudden able to grave or design, dance on the ropes, or write 
 a good hand, who has never practised either of them. 
 
 Nay, the most of men are so wholly strangers to this, that 
 they do not so much as perceive their want of it ; they despatch 
 the ordinary business of their callings by rote, as we say, as 
 they have learned it ; and if at any time they miss success, they 
 impute it to anything rather than want of thought or skill ; that, 
 they conclude (because they know no better), they have in 
 perfection : or, if there be any subject that interest or fancy has 
 recommended to their thoughts, their reasoning about it is still 
 after their own fashion, be it better or worse; it serves their 
 turns, and is the best they are acquainted with ; and, therefore, 
 when they are led by it into mistakes, and their business suc- 
 ceeds accordingly, they impute it to any cross accident or de- 
 fault of others, rather than to their own want of understanding ; 
 that is what nobody discovers or complains of in himself. 
 Whatsoever made his business to miscarry, it was not want of 
 right thought or judgment in himself: he sees no such defect 
 in himself, but is satisfied that he carries on his designs well 
 enough by his own reasoning; or, at least, should have done, 
 had it not been for unlucky traverses not in his power. Thus, 
 being content with this short and very imperfect use of his 
 understanding, he never troubles himself to seek out methods 
 of improving his mind, and lives all his life without any notion 
 of close reasoning, in a continued connection of a long train 
 of consequences from sure foundations, such as is requisite for 
 the making out and clearing most of the speculative truths 
 most men own to believe and are most concerned in. Not to 
 mention here what I shall have occasion to insist on by and by 
 more fully, namely, that, in many cases, it is not one series of 
 consequences will serve the turn, but many different and op- 
 posite deductions must be examined and laid together, before 
 a man can come to make a right judgment of the point in ques- 
 tion. What, then, can be expected from men that neither see 
 the want of any such kind of reasoning as this ; nor, if they do, 
 know they how to set about it, or could perform it ? You may 
 as well set a countryman, who scarce knows the figures, and
 
 122 LOCKE 
 
 never casts up a sum of three particulars, to state a merchant's 
 long account, and find the true balance of it. 
 
 What, then, should be done in the case ? I answer, we should 
 always remember what I said above, that the faculties of our 
 souls are improved and made useful to us, just after the same 
 manner as our bodies are. Would you have a man write or 
 paint, dance or fence well, or perform any other manual opera- 
 tion dexterously and with ease, let him have never so much 
 vigor and activity, suppleness and address, naturally, yet no- 
 body expects this from him unless he has been used to it, and 
 has employed time and pains in fashioning and forming his 
 hand, or outward parts, to these motions. Just so it is in the 
 mind — would you have a man reason well, you must use him 
 to it betimes, exercise his mind in observing the connection of 
 ideas, and following them in train. Nothing docs this better 
 than mathematics, which, therefore, I think, should be taught 
 all those who have the time and opportunity ; not so much to 
 make them mathematicians, as to make them reasonable creat- 
 ures ; for though we all call ourselves so, because we are born 
 to it, if we please, yet we may truly say, nature gives us but 
 the seeds of it ; we are born to be, if we please, rational creat- 
 ures, but it is use and exercise only that make us so, and we are 
 indeed so no further than industry and application have carried 
 us. And, therefore, in ways of reasoning which men have not 
 been used to, he that will observe the conclusions they take up 
 must be satisfied they are not at all rational. 
 
 This has been the less taken notice of because everyone in 
 his private affairs uses some sort of reasoning or other, enough 
 to denominate him reasonable. But the mistake is that he that 
 is found reasonable in one thing is concluded to be so in all ; 
 and to think or say otherwise is thought so unjust an affront, 
 and so senseless a censure, that nobody ventures to do it. It 
 looks like the degradation of a man below the dignity of his 
 nature. It is true that he that reasons well in any one thing 
 has a mind naturally capable of reasoning well in others, and 
 to the same degree of strength and clearness, and possibly much 
 greater, had his understanding been so employed. But it is as 
 true that he who can reason well to-day about one sort of mat- 
 ters cannot at all reason to-day about others, though perhaps 
 a year hence he may, But wherever a man's rational faculty
 
 OF PRINCIPLES 123 
 
 fails him, and will not serve him to reason, there we cannot 
 say he is rational, how capable soever he may be by time and 
 exercise to become so. 
 
 Try in men of low and mean education, who have never ele- 
 vated their thoughts above the spade and the plough, nor looked 
 beyond the ordinary drudgery of a day laborer. Take the 
 thoughts of such a one, used for many years to one tract, out 
 of that narrow compass he has been all his life confined to, you 
 will find him no more capable of reasoning than almost a per- 
 fect natural. Some one or two rules, on which their conclu- 
 sions immediately depend, you will find, in most men, have 
 governed all their thoughts ; these, true or false, have been the 
 maxims they have been guided by — take these from them, and 
 they are perfectly at a loss ; their compass and pole-star then 
 are gone, and their understanding is perfectly at a nonplus: 
 and, therefore, they either immediately return to their old max- 
 ims again as the foundations of all truth to them, notwithstand- 
 ing all that can be said to show their weakness ; or if they give 
 them up to their reasons, they with them give up all truth and 
 further inquiry, and think there is no such thing as certainty. 
 For if you would enlarge their thoughts, and settle them upon 
 more remote and surer principles, they either cannot easily 
 apprehend them, or, if they can, know not what use to make 
 of them ; for long deductions from remote principles is what 
 they have not been used to, and cannot manage. 
 
 What then ! can grown men never be improved or enlarged 
 in their understandings ? I say not so ; but this I think I may 
 say, that it will not be done without industry and application, 
 which will require more time and pains than grown men, set- 
 tled in their course of life, will allow to it, and therefore very 
 seldom is done. And this very capacity of attaining it by use 
 and exercise only brings us back to that which I laid down be- 
 fore, that it is only practice that improves our minds as well 
 as bodies, and we must expect nothing from our understand- 
 ings any further than they are perfected by habits. 
 
 The Americans are not at all born with worse understand- 
 ings than the Europeans, though we see none of them have 
 such reaches in the arts and sciences. And among the children 
 of a poor countryman the lucky chance of education and get- 
 ting into the world gives one infinitely the superiority in parts
 
 124 LOCKE 
 
 over the rest, who, continuing at home, had continued also just 
 of the same size with his brethren. 
 
 He that has to do with young scholars, especially in mathe- 
 matics, may perceive how their minds open by degrees, and 
 how it is exercise alone that opens them. Sometimes they will 
 stick a long time at a part of a demonstration, not for want of 
 will or application, but really for want of perceiving the con- 
 nection of two ideas, that, to one whose understanding is more 
 exercised, is as visible as anything can be. The same would 
 be with a grown man beginning to study mathematics — the 
 understanding, for want of use, often sticks in a very plain way 
 — and he himself that is so puzzled, when he comes to see the 
 connection, wonders what it was he stuck at in a case so plain.
 
 OF PREJUDICES 
 
 EVERYONE is forward to complain of the prejudices that 
 mislead other men or parties, as if he were free, and 
 had none of his own. This being objected on all sides, 
 it is agreed that it is a fault and a hinderance to knowledge. 
 What, now, is the cure? No other but this — that every man 
 should let alone others' prejudices, and examine his own. No- 
 body is convinced of his by the accusation of another : he re- 
 criminates by the same rule, and is clear. The only way to 
 remove this great cause of ignorance and error out of the world 
 is for everyone impartially to examine himself. If others will 
 not deal fairly with their own minds, does that make my errors 
 truths, or ought it to make me in love with them, and willing to 
 impose on myself? If others love cataracts on their eyes, 
 should that hinder me from couching of mine as soon as I 
 could? Everyone declares against blindness, and yet who al- 
 most is not fond of that which dims his sight, and keeps the 
 clear light out of his mind, which should lead him into truth 
 and knowledge ? False and doubtful positions, relied upon as 
 unquestionable maxims, keep those in the dark from truth who 
 build on them. Such are usually the prejudices imbibed from 
 education, party, reverence, fashion, interest, etc. This is the 
 mote which everyone sees in his brother's eye, but never re- 
 gards the beam in his own. For who is there, almost, that is 
 ever brought fairly to examine his own principles, and see 
 whether they are such as will bear the trial? But yet this 
 should be one of the first things everyone should set about, and 
 be scrupulous in, who would rightly conduct his understand- 
 ing in the search of truth and knowledge. 
 
 To those who are willing to get rid of this great hinderance 
 of knowledge (for to such only I write) — to those who would 
 shake off this great and dangerous impostor prejudice, who 
 dresses up falsehood in the likeness of truth, and so dexterously 
 
 125
 
 126 LOCKE 
 
 hoodwinks men's minds, as to keep them in the dark, with a 
 behef that they are more in the Hght than any that do not see 
 with their eyes, I shall offer this one mark whereby prejudice 
 may be known. He that is strongly of any opinion must sup- 
 pose (unless he be self-condemned) that his persuasion is built 
 upon good grounds, and that his assent is no greater than what 
 the evidence of the truth he holds forces him to ; and that they 
 are arguments, and not inclination of fancy, that make him 
 so confident and positive in his tenets. Now if, after all his 
 profession, he cannot bear any opposition to his opinion — if he 
 cannot so much as give a patient hearing, much less examine 
 and weigh the arguments on the other side — does he not plainly 
 confess it is prejudice governs him? And it is not the evidence 
 of truth, but some lazy anticipation, some beloved presumption, 
 that he desires to rest undisturbed in. For if what he holds 
 be as he gives out, well fenced with evidence, and he sees it to 
 be true, what need he fear to put it to the proof ? If his opinion 
 be settled upon a firm foundation, if the arguments that support 
 it, and have obtained his assent, be clear, good, and convincing, 
 why should he be shy to have it tried whether they be proof or 
 not ? He whose assent goes beyond his evidence owes this ex- 
 cess of his adherence only to prejudice, and does in effect own 
 it when he refuses to hear what is offered against it ; declaring 
 thereby that it is not evidence he seeks, but the quiet enjoy- 
 ment of the opinion he is fond of, with a forward condemnation 
 of all that may stand in opposition to it, unheard and unex- 
 amined.
 
 OF OBSERVATION 
 
 PARTICULAR matters of fact are the undoubted founda- 
 tions on which our civil and natural knowledge is built : 
 the benefit the understanding makes of them is to draw 
 from them conclusions which may be as standing rules of 
 knowledge, and consequently of practice. The mind often 
 makes not that benefit it should of the information it receives 
 from the accounts of civil or natural historians, in being too 
 forward, or too slow, in making observations on the particular 
 facts recorded in them. 
 
 There are those who are very assiduous in reading, and yet 
 do not much advance their knowledge by it. They are de- 
 lighted with the stories that are told, and perhaps can tell them 
 again, for they make all they read nothing but history to them- 
 selves; but not reflecting on it, not making to themselves ob- 
 servations from what they read, they are very little improved 
 by all that crowd of particulars that either pass through, or 
 lodge themselves in, their understandings. They dream on in 
 a constant course of reading and cramming themselves, but, 
 not digesting an3^hing, it produces nothing but a heap of crudi- 
 ties. 
 
 If their memories retain well, one may say they have the 
 materials of knowledge; but, like those for building, they are 
 of no advantage if there be no other use made of them but to 
 let them lie heaped up together. Opposite to these, there are 
 others who lose the improvement they should make of matters 
 of fact by a quite contrary conduct. They are apt to draw gen- 
 eral conclusions and raise axioms from every particular they 
 meet with. These make as little true benefit of history as the 
 other, nay, being of forward and active spirits, receive more 
 harm by it; it being of worse consequence to steer one's 
 thoughts by a wrong rule than to have none at all : error doing 
 to busy men much more harm than ignorance to the slow and 
 
 127
 
 128 LOCKE 
 
 sluggish. Between these, those seem to do best who, taking 
 material and useful hints, sometimes from single matters of 
 fact, carry them in their minds to be judged of, by what they 
 shall find in history to confirm or reverse these imperfect ob- 
 servations ; which may be established into rules fit to be relied 
 on, when they are justified by a sufficient and wary induction 
 of particulars. He that makes no such reflections on what he 
 reads only loads his mind with a rhapsody of tales, fit in winter 
 nights for the entertainment of others ; and he that will im- 
 prove every matter of fact into a maxim will abound in contrary 
 observations that can be of no other use but to perplex and 
 pudder him if he compares them ; or else to misguide him, if 
 he gives himself up to the authority of that, which for its nov- 
 elty, or for some other fancy, best pleases him.
 
 OF READING 
 
 THIS is that which I think great readers are apt to be mis- 
 taken in. Those who have read of everything are 
 thought to understand everything too ; but it is not al- 
 ways so. Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of 
 knowledge : it is thinking makes what we read ours. We are 
 of the ruminating kind, and it is not enough to cram ourselyes 
 with a great load of collections ; unless we chew them over 
 again, they will not give us strength and nourishment. There 
 are indeed in some waiters visible instances of deep thought, 
 close and acute reasoning, and ideas well pursued. The light 
 these would give would be of great use if their readers would 
 observe and imitate them : all the rest at best are but particulars 
 fit to be turned into knowledge ; but that can be done only by 
 our own meditation, and examining the reach, force, and coher- 
 ence of what is said ; and then, as far as we apprehend and see 
 the connection of ideas, so far it is ours ; without that, it is but 
 so much loose matter floating in our brain. The memory may 
 be stored, but the judgment is little better, and the stock of 
 knowledge not increased, by being able to repeat what others 
 have said, or produce the arguments we have found in them. 
 Such a knowledge as this is but a knowledge by hearsay, and 
 the ostentation of it is at best but talking by rote, and very often 
 upon weak and wrong principles. For all that is to be found 
 in books is not built upon true foundations, nor always rightly 
 deduced from the principles it is pretended to be built on. Such 
 an examen as is requisite to discover that, every reader's mind 
 is not forward to make; especially in those who have given 
 themselves up to a party, and only hunt for what they can scrape 
 together that may favor and support the tenets of it. Such 
 men wilfully exclude themselves from truth, and from all true 
 benefit to be received by reading. Others, of more indiffer- 
 ency, often want attention and industry. The mind is back- 
 
 129
 
 _ I30 
 
 LOCKE 
 
 ward in itself to be at the pains to trace every argument to its 
 original, and to see upon what basis it stands, and how firmly; 
 but yet it is this that gives so much the advantage to one man 
 more than another in reading. The mind should, by severe 
 rules, be tied down to this, at first, uneasy task ; use and exer- 
 cise will give it facility. So that those who are accustomed to 
 it, readily, as it were with one cast of the eye, take a view of 
 the argument, and presently, in most cases, see where it bot- 
 toms. Those who have got this faculty, one may say, have got 
 the true key of books, and the clew to lead them through the 
 mizmaze of variety of opinions and authors to truth and cer- 
 tainty. This young beginners should be entered in, and shown 
 the use of, that they might profit by their reading. Those who 
 are strangers to it will be apt to think it too great a clog in the 
 way of men's studies ; and they will suspect they shall make but 
 small progress, if, in the books they read, they must stand to 
 examine and unravel every argument, and follow it step by step 
 up to its original. 
 
 I answer, this is a good objection, and ought to weigh with 
 those whose reading is designed for much talk and little knowl- 
 edge, and I have nothing to say to it. But I am here inquiring 
 into the conduct of the understanding in its progress towards 
 knowledge; and to those who aim at that, I may say, that he 
 who fair and softly goes steadily forward in a course that points 
 right, will sooner be at his journey's end, than he that runs 
 after everyone he meets, though he gallop all day full speed. 
 
 To which, let me add that this way of thinking on, and profit- 
 ing by, what we read, will be a clog and rub to anyone only in 
 the beginning ; when custom and exercise have made it familiar, 
 it will be despatched, in most occasions, without resting or 
 interruption in the course of our reading. The motions and 
 views of a mind exercised that way are wonderfully quick ; and 
 a man used to such sort of reflections sees as much at one 
 glimpse as would require a long discourse to lay before an- 
 other, and make out an entire and gradual deduction. Besides 
 that, when the first difficulties are over, the delight and sensible 
 advantage it brings mightily encourage and enliven the mind 
 in reading, which, without this, is very improperly called study.
 
 SOME THOUGHTS CONCERNING EDUCATION 
 
 A SOUND mind in a sound body is a short but full de- 
 scription of a happy state in this world. He that has 
 these two has little more to wish for, and he that wants 
 either of them will be but little the better for anything else. 
 Men's happiness or misery is most part of their own making. 
 He whose mind directs not wisely will never take the right 
 away, and he whose body is crazy and feeble will never be able 
 to advance in it. I confess there are some men's constitutions 
 of body and mind so vigorous and well framed by nature that 
 they need not much assistance from others, but by the strength 
 of their natural genius, they are from their cradles carried 
 towards what is excellent ; and by the privilege of their happy 
 constitutions, are able to do wonders. But examples of this 
 kind are but few, and I think I may say, that of all the men we 
 meet with, nine parts of ten are what they are, good or evil, 
 useful or not, by their education. It is that which makes the 
 great difference in mankind. The little or almost insensible 
 impressions on our tender infancies have very important and 
 lasting consequences. And there it is, as in the fountains of 
 some rivers, where a gentle application of the hand turns the 
 flexible waters into channels, that make them take quite con- 
 trary courses ; and by this little direction, given them at first 
 in the source, they receive diflferent tendencies, and arrive at 
 last at very remote and distant places. 
 
 Those that intend ever to govern their children should begin 
 it whilst they are very little, and look that they perfectly comply 
 with the will of their parents. Would you have your son obedi- 
 ent to you when past a child, be sure then to establish the au- 
 thority of a father as soon as he is capable of submission, and 
 can understand in whose power he is. If you would have him 
 stand in awe of you, imprint it in his infancy; and as he ap- 
 
 «3i
 
 132 LOCKE 
 
 preaches more to a man, admit him nearer to your familiarityT 
 so shall you have him your obedient subject (as is fit) whilst 
 he is a child, and your affectionate friend when he is a man. 
 For methinks they mightily misplace the treatment due to their 
 children, who are indulgent and familiar when they are little, 
 but severe to them, and keep them at a distance when they are 
 grown up. For liberty and indulgence can do no good to chil- 
 dren; their want of judgment makes them stand in need of 
 restraint and discipline; and, on the contrary, imperiousness 
 and severity is but an ill way of treating men who have reason 
 of their own to guide them, unless you have a mind to make 
 your children, when grown up, weary of you, and secretly to 
 say within yourselves, " When will you die, father ? " 
 
 The child's natural genius and constitution must be consid- 
 ered in a right education. We must not hope wholly to change 
 their original tempers, nor make the gay pensive and grave, nor 
 the melancholy sportive, without spoiling them. God has 
 stamped certain characters upon men's minds, which, like their 
 shapes, may perhaps be a little mended, but can hardly be 
 totally altered and transformed into the contrary. He, there- 
 fore, that is about children should w^ell study their natures and 
 aptitudes, and see by often trials what turn they easily take, and 
 what becomes them, observe what their native stock is, how it 
 may be improved, and what it is fit for. He should consider 
 what they want, whether they be capable of having it wrought 
 into them by industry, and incorporated there by practice, and 
 whether it be worth while to endeavor it. For in many cases 
 all that w^e can do, or should aim at, is to make the best of 
 what nature has given, to prevent the vices and faults to which 
 such a constitution is most inclined, and give it all the advan- 
 tages it is capable of. Everyone's natural genius should be car- 
 ried as far as it could ; but to attempt the putting another upon 
 him will be but labor in vain ; and what is so plastered on will 
 at best fit but untowardly, and have always hanging to it the 
 ungracefulness of constraint and affectation. 
 
 Of all the ways whereby children are to be instructed and 
 their manners formed, the plainest, easiest, and most efficacious 
 is to set before their eyes the examples of those things you 
 would have them do or avoid, which, when they are pointed out 
 to them, in the practice of persons within their knowledge, with
 
 SOME THOUGHTS CONCERNING EDUCATION 133 
 
 some reflections on their beauty and unbecomingness, are of 
 more force to draw or deter their imitation, than any discourses 
 which can be made to them. Virtues and vices can by no words 
 be so plainly set before their understandings as the actions of 
 other men will show them, when you direct their observation, 
 and bid them view this or that good or bad quality in their 
 practice. And the beauty or uncomeliness of many things, in 
 good and ill breeding, will be better learned, and make deeper 
 impressions on them, in the examples of others, than from any 
 rules or instructions which can be given about them. This is 
 a method to be used, not only whilst they are young, but to be 
 continued even as long as they shall be under another's tuition 
 or conduct ; nay, I know not whether it be not the best way to be 
 used by a father, as long as he should think fit, on any occasion, 
 to reform anything he wishes mended in his son ; nothing sink- 
 ing so gently, and so deep, into men's minds, as example. And 
 what ill they either overlook or indulge in themselves they can- 
 not but dislike, and be ashamed of, when it is set before them 
 in another. 
 
 The great work of a governor is to fashion the carriage, and 
 form the mind ; to settle in his pupil good habits, and the prin- 
 ciples of virtue and wisdom ; to give him by little and little a 
 view of mankind, and work him into a love and imitation of 
 what is excellent and praiseworthy ; and in the prosecution of 
 it, to give him vigor, activity, and industry. The studies which 
 he sets him upon are but as it were the exercises of his facul- 
 ties and employment of his time, to keep him from sauntering 
 and idleness, to teach him application, and accustom him to 
 take pains, and to give him some little taste of what his own 
 industry must perfect. 
 
 Latin I look upon as absolutely necessary to a gentleman ; and 
 indeed custom, which prevails over everything, has made it so 
 much a part of education that even those children are whipped 
 to it, and made spend many hours of their precious time un- 
 easily in Latin, who, after they are once gone from school, are 
 never to have more to do with it as long as they live. Can 
 there be anything more ridiculous than that a father should 
 waste his own money and his son's time in setting him to learn' 
 the Roman language, when at the same time he designs him 
 for a trade, wherein he, having no use for Latin, fails not to
 
 134 LOCKE 
 
 forget that little which he brought from school, and which it is 
 ten to one he abhors for the ill-usage it procured him ? 
 
 The great skill of a teacher is to get and keep the attention 
 of his scholar ; whilst he has that, he is sure to advance as fast 
 as the learner's abilities will carry him ; and without that, all 
 his bustle and pudder will be to little or no purpose. To attain 
 this, he should make the child comprehend (as much as may 
 be) the usefulness of what he teaches him, and let him see, 
 by what he has learned, that he can do something which he 
 could not before ; something which gives him some power 
 and real advantage above others who are ignorant of it. To 
 this he should add sweetness in all his instructions, and, by a 
 certain tenderness in his whole carriage, make the child sen- 
 sible that he loves him, and designs nothing but his good, the 
 only way to beget love in the child, which will make him 
 hearken to his lessons, and relish what he teaches him. Noth- 
 ing but obstinacy should meet with any imperiousness, or rough 
 usage. All other faults should be corrected with a gentle hand ; 
 and kind, engaging words will work better and more effectu- 
 ally upon a willing mind, and even prevent a good deal of that 
 perverseness which rough and imperious usage often produces 
 in well-disposed and generous minds. It is true obstinacy and 
 wilful neglects must be mastered, even though it costs blows 
 to do it. But I am apt to think perverseness in the pupils is 
 often the effect of frowardness in the tutor; and that most 
 children would seldom have deserved blows, if needless and 
 misapplied roughness had not taught them ill-nature, and given 
 them an aversion for their teacher, and all that comes from him. 
 
 To write and speak correctly gives a grace, and gains a fa- 
 vorable attention to what one has to say. And since it is Eng- 
 lish that an English gentleman will have constant use of, that 
 is the language he should chiefly cultivate, and wherein most 
 care should be taken to polish and perfect his style. To speak 
 or write better Latin than English may make a man be talked 
 of, but he will find it more to his purpose to express himself 
 well in his own tongue that he uses every moment, than to have 
 the vain commendation of others for a very insignificant 
 quality. This I find universally neglected, nor no care taken 
 anywhere to improve young men in their own language, that 
 they may thoroughly understand and be masters of it. If any-
 
 SOME THOUGHTS CONCERNING EDUCATION 135 
 
 one among us have a facility or purity more than ordinary in 
 his mother tongue, it is owing to chance, or his genius, or any- 
 thing, rather than to his education, or any care of his teacher. 
 To mind what Enghsh his pupil speaks or writes is below the 
 dignity of one bred up amongst Greek and Latin, though he 
 have but little of them himself. These are the learned lan- 
 guages, fit only for learned men to meddle with and teach; 
 English is the language of the illiterate vulgar.
 
 THE INSTABILITY OF HUMAN GLORY 
 DESCRIPTION OF A QUACK DOCTOR 
 
 BY 
 
 DANIEL DEFOE 
 
 •?— Vol. 57
 
 DANIEL DEFOE 
 
 1661 — 1731 
 
 Defoe was an irrepressible journalist, for in enterprise, energy, and 
 rapidity of execution he appears to have equalled the nimble-witted 
 newsgatherers of to-day. Not only was he a journalist in spirit, but 
 also in fact, as he was connected for many years with the political news- 
 papers that sprang into existence near the close of the seventeenth and 
 at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Defoe was born in 1661, 
 and before he was twenty-one he had written a book; at the age of 
 twenty-three he took up arms as a follower of the Duke of Monmouth; 
 a few years later he was an ardent advocate of the Revolution ; in 
 1692 he was declared a bankrupt, and was forced to flee from his 
 creditors. In the gaps of leisure from his more pressing business he 
 was an author and a journalist, and the vehemence of his political 
 articles frequently made him the object of prosecution. It was with 
 such stirring side-issues that young Defoe played his part in the literary 
 arena. Debarred from the aristocratic community of letters because 
 of his lack of a classical education, encountering failure after failure in 
 business, harassed by political enemies, he faced his difficulties with 
 stoical courage and went his busy way, untroubled and unabashed. 
 From him emanated such literary work as might be expected from a 
 man of strong realistic genius, educated as a tradesman, and placed 
 in his peculiar circumstances. He certainly did not have posterity in 
 his mind's eye when he wrote his two hundred and ten volumes of 
 fiction, biography, and essays. He was a writer for the hour, and for 
 the pecuniary reward that his work brought. All his work that is 
 preserved shows his strong, limited, realistic, and vivid imagination. 
 He had the power of wrapping the cloak of realism around a bare 
 fiction as it has been possessed by no other writer, before or since. 
 Millions of people still believe his " Adventures of Robinson Crusoe " 
 to be the actual experiences of a shipwrecked sailor. His intensely 
 vital, simple, and serious " History of the Plague of 1666 in London " 
 remains to this day the best and most accurate account. Despite the 
 obvious defects, the crudities of style, the almost mechanical efforts 
 to gain attention that mar all of Defoe's work, there can certainly be 
 no question that he possessed an originality of a very high order that 
 has never been successfully imitated. The essays given here are from 
 his journalistic writings. Defoe died in 1731. 
 
 138
 
 THE INSTABILITY OF HUMAN GLORY 
 
 SIR, I have employed myself of late pretty much in the study 
 of history/ and have been reading the stories of the great 
 men of past ages, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, the 
 great Augustus, and many more down, down, down, to the still 
 greater Louis XIV, and even to the still greatest John, Duke 
 of Marlborough.^ In my way I met with Tamerlane^ the 
 Scythian, Tomornbejus* the Egyptian, Solyman^ the Magnifi- 
 cent, and others of the Mahometan or Ottoman race ; and after 
 all the great things they have done I find it said of them all, one 
 after another, AND THEN HE DIED, all dead, dead, dead! 
 hie jacet is the finishing part of their history. Some lie in the 
 bed of honor, and some in honor's truckle-bed; some were 
 bravely slain in battle on the field of honor, some in the storm 
 of a counterscarp and died in the ditch of honor ; some here, 
 some there ; — the bones of the bold and the brave, the cowardly 
 and the base, the hero and the scoundrel, are heaped up to- 
 gether ; — there they lie in oblivion, and under the ruins of the 
 earth, undistinguished from one another, nay, even from the 
 common earth. 
 
 " Huddled in dirt the blust'ring engine lies, 
 That was so great, and thought himself so wise." 
 
 How many hundreds of thousands of the bravest fellows then 
 in the world lie on heaps in the ground, whose bones are to 
 this day ploughed up by the rustics, or dug up by the laborer, 
 
 ^ This essay appeared on July 21, 1722, 
 in " The Original Weekly Journal and 
 Saturday's Post," started by Applebee 
 on October 2, 1714. From 1720 to 1726 
 Defoe contributed weekly articles in the 
 foriH of " letters introductory." These 
 letters — admittedly the prototypes of 
 " leading articles " — were first intro- 
 duced by Defoe in the sixty-eighth num- 
 ber of Mist's " Journal," 1718. 
 
 •The duke died five weeks before the 
 date of Defoe's essay. 
 
 •Timour (1336- 1405) made war on the 
 
 whole world in support of what he re- 
 garded as the true Mahometan faith. 
 He defeated the Ottoman Sultan, and 
 died when preparing to invade China. 
 
 * Tumanbeg or Tumanbai, the last 
 Mameluke Sultan, was defeated and put 
 to death by Selim in 1517. 
 
 5 Suleiman the Magnificent, the Law- 
 giver (1490-1566), was the greatest con- 
 structor of the Ottoman power. The 
 capture of Rhodes, the invasion of Hun- 
 gary, and the siege of Vienna were his 
 most famous exploits. 
 
 139
 
 I40 DEFOE 
 
 and the earth their more noble vital parts are converted to has 
 been perhaps applied to the meanest uses ! 
 
 How have we screened the ashes of heroes to make our mor- 
 tar, and mingled the remains of a Roman general to make a 
 hog-sty ! Where are the ashes of a Caesar, and the remains of a 
 Pompey, a Scipio, or a Hannibal ? All are vanished, they and 
 their very monuments are mouldered into earth, their dust is 
 lost, and their place knows them no more. They live only in 
 the immortal writings of their historians and poets, the re- 
 nowned flatterers of the age they lived in, and who have made 
 us think of the persons, not as they really were, but as they were 
 pleased to represent them. 
 
 As the greatest men, so even the longest-lived. The Me- 
 thusalems of the antediluvian world — the accounts of them all 
 end with the same : Methusalem lived nine hundred sixty and 
 nine years and begat sons and daughters — and what then? 
 AND THEN HE DIED. 
 
 " Death like an overflowing stream 
 Sweeps us away; our life's a dream." 
 
 We are now solemnizing the obsequies of the great Marl- 
 borough ; all his victories, all his glories, his great projected 
 schemes of war, his uninterrupted series of conquests, which 
 are called his, as if he alone had fought and conquered by his 
 arm, what so many men obtained for him with their blood — all 
 is ended, where other men, and, indeed, where all men ended: 
 HE IS DEAD. 
 
 Not all his immense wealth, the spoils and trophies of his 
 enemies, the bounty of his grateful mistress, and the treasure 
 amassed in war and peace, not all that mighty bulk of gold — 
 which some suggest is such, and so great, as I care not to men- 
 tion — could either give him life, or continue it one moment, but 
 he is dead ; and some say the great treasure he was possessed of 
 here had one strange particular quality attending it, which 
 might have been very dissatisfying to him if he had considered 
 much on it, namely, that he could not carry much of it with him. 
 
 We have now nothing left us of this great man that we can 
 converse with but his monument and his history. He is now 
 numbered among things passed. The funeral as well as the 
 battles of the Duke of Marlborough are like to adorn our houses
 
 THE INSTABILITY OF HUMAN GLORY 141 
 
 in sculpture as things equally gay and to be looked on with 
 pleasure. Such is the end of human glory, and so little is the 
 world able to do for the greatest men that come into it, and for 
 the greatest merit those men can arrive to. 
 
 What then is the work of life ? What the business of great 
 men, that pass the stage of the world in seeming triumph as 
 these men, we call heroes, have done? Is it to grow great in 
 the mouth of fame and take up many pages in history ? Alas ! 
 that is no more than making a tale for the reading of posterity 
 till it turns into fable and romance. Is it to furnish subject to 
 the poets, and live in their immortal rhymes, as they call them? 
 That is, in short, no more than to be hereafter turned into ballad 
 and song and be sung by old women to quiet children, or at 
 the corner of a street to gather crowds in aid of the pickpocket 
 and the poor. Or is their business rather to add virtue and 
 piety to their glory, which alone will pass them into eternity 
 and make them truly immortal ? What is glory without virtue ? 
 A great man without religion is no more than a great beast 
 without a soul. What is honor without merit ? And what can 
 be called true merit but that which makes a person be a good 
 man as well as a great man ? 
 
 If we believe in a future state of life, a place for the re- 
 wards of good men and for the punishment of the haters of 
 virtue, how few of heroes and famous men crowd in among the 
 last! How few crowned heads wear the crowns of immortal 
 felicity ! 
 
 Let no man envy the great and glorious men, as we call them ! 
 Could we see them now, how many of them would move our 
 pity rather than call for our congratulations! These few 
 thoughts, sir, I send to prepare your readers' minds when they 
 go to see the magnificent funeral of the late Duke of Marl- 
 borough.
 
 DESCRIPTION OF A QUACK DOCTOR 
 
 MR. MIST, passing occasionally the other day through a 
 little village, at some distance from town, I was en- 
 tertained with the view of a very handsome equipage 
 moving towards me.^ The gravity of the gentleman who sat 
 in it, and the eagerness wherewith the coachman drove along, 
 engaged my whole attention ; and I immediately concluded that 
 it could be nothing less than some minister of state, who was 
 posting this way upon some very important affair. They were 
 now got about the middle of the place, when making a full 
 stand, the footman, deserting his station behind and making 
 up abreast of his master, gave us a very fine blast with a trum- 
 pet. I was surprised to see a skip ^ transformed so speedily 
 into a trumpeter, and began to wonder what should be the 
 meaning of such an unusual phenomenon ; when the coach- 
 man, jumping from his box, laying by his whip, and slipping 
 off his great coat, in an instant rose up a complete merry- 
 andrew. My surprise was now heightened, and though honest 
 pickle ^ with a world of grimace and gesticulation endeavored 
 to move my gayety, I began to be very fearful where the meta- 
 morphosis might end. I looked very earnestly first at the horse 
 and then at the wheels, and expected every minute to have seen 
 them take their turn in the farce, and laying aside their present 
 appearances assume other shapes. By this time the gentleman, 
 who had hitherto appeared wonderfully sedate and composed, 
 began to throw off his disguise ; and having pocketed all his 
 former modesty and demureness, and flushed his forehead with 
 all the impudence of a thorough-paced quack, I immediately 
 discovered him to be a very eminent and learned mountebank. 
 
 1 This essay appeared on December s, Sedition," and in January, 1728, " took 
 
 J719, in Nathaniel Mist's " Weekly Jour- the opportunity of slinking away in a 
 
 nal or Saturday's Post," started on De- mist." 
 
 cember 15. 1716. On March 29, 1718, De- 2 l^ackey. 
 
 foe contributed the first leading article. *A harlequin in old comedy. The 
 
 The paper ran until 1728, when it passed fuller form of the word is " pickle-her- 
 
 into the hands of Fog. Mist was a Jac- ring." 
 obite, and a " vendor of Scandal and 
 
 143
 
 144 DEFOE 
 
 This discovery raised my curiosity as much as it abated my 
 surprise, so that being very desirous to hear what new proposal 
 the doctor had to make, or what new arcanum in physic he had 
 found out, I quitted my former station and joined myself to 
 the crowd that encompassed him. After a short preamble, he 
 began to open the design of his embassy, setting forth at large 
 the great affection which he bore in particular to the people of 
 that place ; amplifying on his own merits and qualifications, 
 specifying great numbers of cures which he had wrought on 
 incurable distempers, expatiating on the extreme danger of 
 being without his physic, and offering health and immortality 
 to sale for the price of a tester. 
 
 You'd have burst your sides, Mr. Mist, had you but heard 
 the foolish allusions, quaint expressions, and inconsistent meta- 
 phors, which fell from the mouth of this eloquent declaimer. 
 For my part I should have wondered where he could have 
 raked up nonsense enough to furnish out such a wordy ha- 
 rangue, but that I am told he has studied the " Flying Post " * 
 with a great deal of application, and that most of the silly things 
 in his speech are borrowed from that excellent author. Some- 
 times he'd creep in the most vulgar phrases imaginable, by and 
 by he'd soar out of sight and traverse the spacious realms of 
 fustian and bombast. He was, indeed, very sparing of his Latin 
 and Greek, as (God knows) having a very slender stock of those 
 commodities ; but then, for hard words and terms, which 
 neither he, nor you, nor I, nor anybody else understand, he 
 poured them out in such abundance that you'd have sworn he 
 had been rehearsing some of the occult philosophy of Agrippa ^ 
 or Rosicrusius, or reading a lecture out of Cabala. 
 
 After the doctor had given such ample indications of the 
 greatest humanity, skill, and erudition, who d'ye think would 
 be so incredulous as not to believe him, or so uncourteous as to 
 refuse to purchase one of his packets ? Lest any of us, however, 
 should be too tenacious of our money to part with it on these 
 considerations, he had one other motive which did not fail to 
 do the business ; this was by persuading us that there were the 
 
 * This is obviously a thrust at Defoe's " To dulness Ridpath is as dear as 
 enemy, George Ridpath, the writer of Mist."—" Dunciad." I. 208. 
 the " Flying Post." Defoe contributed "Henry Cornelius Agrippa (i486. Go- 
 to another paper of the same name, logne) was a famous alchemist, author 
 hence Ridpath s scornful allusion to a of " De Occulta Philosophia," etc. 
 "Sham Flying Post"
 
 DESCRIPTION OF A QUACK DOCTOR 145 
 
 seeds of some malignant distemper lurking in every one of our 
 bodies, and that there was nothing in nature could save us but 
 some one or other of his medicines. He threatened us with 
 death in case of refusal, and assured us with a prophetic air that 
 without his physic every mother's son of us would be in our 
 graves by that day twelve-month. The poor people were in- 
 finitely terrified with the imminent danger they found them- 
 selves under, but were as much pleased to find how easy it was 
 to be evaded ; so that, without more ado, every man bought his 
 packet, and turned the doctor adrift to pursue further adven- 
 tures. 
 
 The scene being now removed, I was at leisure to reflect on 
 what had passed, and could really have either cry'd or laugh'd 
 very heartily at what I had seen. The arrogance of the doctor 
 and the silliness of his patients were each of them ridiculous 
 enough to have set a person of more gravity than myself a- 
 laughing; but then to consider the tragical issue to which 
 these things tended, and the fatal effect so many murthering 
 medicines might have on several of His Majesty's good sub- 
 jects, would have made the merriest buffoon alive serious. I 
 have not often observed a more hale, robust crowd of people 
 than that which encircled this doughty doctor ; methinks one 
 might have read health in their very faces, and there was not a 
 countenance among them which did not give the lie to the doc- 
 tor's suggestions. Could but one see a little into futurity, and 
 observe the condition they will be in a few months hence, what 
 an alteration would one find! How many of those brawny 
 youths are already puking in chimney corners? And how 
 many rosy complexioned girls are by this time reduced to the 
 paleness of a cockney ? 
 
 I propose in a little time to make a second journey to this 
 place in order to see how the doctor's physic has operated. By 
 searching the parish register and comparing the number of fun- 
 erals made weekly before the doctor's visit with those which have 
 followed, it will be easy to form an estimate of the havoc which 
 this itinerant man-slayer made in the space of two hours. I 
 shall then proceed to compute the number of quacks ^ in the 
 three kingdoms, from which it will be no hard matter to deter- 
 
 1 Cf. " Tatler," 240, and " Spectator," had reason to know about the subject, 
 572. The latter by Zachary Pearce is as his " Review " was filled with quack 
 largely similar to Defoe's «ssay. Defoe advertisements.
 
 146 DEFOE 
 
 mine the number of people carried off per annum by the whole 
 fraternity. Lastly, I shall calculate the loss which the govern- 
 ment sustains by the death of every subject ; from all of which 
 the immense damages accruing to His Majesty will evidently 
 appear, and the public will be fully convinced of the truth of 
 what I had heretofore asserted, viz. that the quacks contribute 
 more towards keeping us poor than all our national debts, and 
 that to suppress the former would be an infallible means of re- 
 deeming the latter. The whole scheme shall be drawn up in 
 due form and presented to the Parliament in the ensuing ses- 
 sion, and that august assembly, I don't doubt, will pay all regard 
 thereto, which the importance of the subject and the weight 
 of my argument shall require. 
 
 Methinks the course of justice, which has hitherto obtained 
 among us, is chargeable with great absurdities. Petty villains 
 are hanged or transported, while great ones are suffered to pass 
 itnpune. A man cannot take a purse upon the highway, or cut 
 a single throat, but he must presently be called to answer for it 
 at the Old Bailey, and perhaps to suffer for it at Tyburn ; and 
 yet, here are wretches suffered to commit murthers by whole- 
 sale, and to plunder, not only private persons and pockets, but 
 even the King and the Exchequer, without having any ques- 
 tions asked ! Pray, Mr. Mist, what were gibbets, gallows, and 
 whipping-posts made for? 
 
 But to return to Doctor Thornhill. I have had the curiosity 
 to examine several of his medicines in a reverberatory, reduc- 
 ing compounds into their simples by a chemical analysis, and 
 have constantly found a considerable proportion of some poi- 
 sonous plant or mineral in every one of them. Arsenic, wolfs- 
 bane, mercury, and hemlock are sine qnihus non, and he could no 
 more make up a medicament without some of these than remove 
 a mountain. Accordingly as they are variously mixed and dis- 
 posed among other drugs, he gives them various names, calling 
 them pills, boluses, electuaries, etc. His pills I would prescribe 
 as a siiccedaneum to a halter, so that such persons as are weary 
 of this troublesome world and would willingly quit it for a 
 better, but are too squeamish to take up with that queer old- 
 fashioned recipe called hanging, may have their business done 
 as securely and more decently by some of these excellent pills. 
 His bolus, too, is very good in its kind; I have made experi-
 
 DESCRIPTION OF A QUACK DOCTOR 147 
 
 liients with it on several animals, and find that it poisons to a 
 miracle. A moderate dose of it has perfectly silenced a bawl- 
 ing dog that used to disturb my morning slumbers, and a like 
 quantity of it has quieted several other snarling curs in my 
 neighborhood. And then, if you be troubled with rats, Mr. 
 Mist, there the doctor's electuary is an infallible remedy, as 
 I myself have experienced. I have effectually cleared my house 
 of those troublesome animals by disposing little packets of it 
 in the places they frequent, and do recommend it to you and 
 your readers as the most powerful ratsbane in the world. It 
 would be needless to enumerate all the virtues of the doctor's 
 several medicines, but I dare affirm that what the ancients 
 fabulously reported of Pandora's box is strictly true of the doc- 
 tor's packet, and that it contains in it the seeds and principles 
 of all diseases. 
 
 I must ask your pardon, Mr. Mist, for being so grave on so 
 ludicrous a subject and spending so many words on an empty 
 fluack. Mr. Mist, Your humble servant Philygeia.
 
 ON STYLE 
 
 THE VINDICATION OF ISAAC BICK- 
 
 ERSTAFF 
 
 BY 
 
 JONATHAN SWIFT
 
 JONATHAN SWIFT 
 
 1667— 1745 
 
 Jonathan Swift, born in 1667, was the son of an English gentleman 
 settled in Ireland ; he began life as secretary to Sir William Temple 
 (1689 — 1699). After that statesman's death he obtained some small 
 preferment in Ireland; but in 1710 came back to England, and for 
 some years supported Harley and Bolingbroke, the heads of the Tory 
 party, by a series of political pamphlets. With the accession of George 
 I, the Tory Ministry was irretrievably ruined, and Swift was com- 
 pelled to return to Ireland, to the Deanery of St. Patrick, the only 
 reward he had received for his services. The rest of his life was spent 
 in what he regarded as banishment, and was further embittered by his 
 unhappy relations with two ladies, Esther Johnson and Hester Van- 
 homrigh, the Stella and Vanessa of his journals and his verse. To 
 the former, whom he had first known in the house of Sir William 
 Temple, in which she was brought up, he was united for many years 
 in marriage, but the tie was never acknowledged during his lifetime, 
 and was thus the cause of much suffering if also of much happiness 
 to both. With the latter he formed a friendship of the most ardent 
 kind, which the lady desired should lead to marriage, and she died 
 broken-hearted on discovering the fact that he was already legally 
 bound to another. Later in life, disease of the brain came on, and he 
 died mad in 1745. 
 
 There is no greater master of satire than Swift. He thought clearly, 
 wrote a singularly pure English, and could make every sentence an 
 epigram, without impairing the continuous flow of his argument. Two 
 of his best-known works have an allegorical character. The " Tale o£ 
 a Tub " is directed against religious sects, and was written with such 
 license of illustration that Queen Anne would never permit the author 
 to obtain the preferment he coveted in England. In " Gulliver's 
 Travels " the satire is rather against abuses of government and the 
 pleasant vices of society. In the latter part of this, as in several of 
 his minor pieces, he is at times very coarse. This fault grew upon 
 him in later life, perhaps partly in connection with a diseased brain, 
 and has caused his writings to be regarded with suspicion. Yet, judged 
 by the standard of his better works. Swift is a moralist of high stamp. 
 He attacked the sceptics of his day with scathing irony. He was the 
 first man who had the heart to feel for the oppressed Irish peasantry, 
 and the courage to denounce the injustice of English misrule. His 
 " Drapier's Letters" form an epoch in constitutional history; and the 
 peaceful struggle for Irish independence dates from them. The " Jour- 
 nal to Stella " has passages of infinite tenderness. There have been 
 more faultless and purer-minded men than Swift; but few have seen 
 more clearly where wrong lay, or have attacked it more fearlessly. 
 
 The prose works of Swift are among the best specimens we possess 
 of a thorough English style, as may be seen in the two essays selected. 
 The essay " On Style " was contributed to " The Tatler." 
 
 150
 
 ON STYLE 
 
 THE following letter has laid before me many great and 
 manifest evils in the world of letters, which I had over- 
 looked ; but they open to me a very busy scene, and it 
 will require no small care and application to amend errors 
 which are become so universal. The affection of politeness is 
 exposed in this epistle with a great deal of wit and discern- 
 ment; so that whatever discourses I may fall into hereafter 
 upon the subjects the writer treats of, I shall at present lay 
 the matter before the world, without the least alteration from 
 the words of my correspondent : 
 
 " To Isaac Bickerstaff, Esquire — Sir : 
 
 " There are some abuses among us of great consequence, the 
 reformation of which is properly your province; though, as 
 far as I have been conversant in your papers, you have not yet 
 considered them. These are the deplorable ignorance that for 
 some years hath reigned among our English writers, the great 
 depravity of our taste, and the continual corruption of our style. 
 I say nothing here of those who handle particular sciences, 
 divinity, law, physic, and the like; I mean the traders in his- 
 tory, politics, and the belles-lettres, together with those by 
 whom books are not translated, but, as the common expressions 
 are, ' done ' out of French, Latin, or other language, and made 
 English. I cannot but observe to you that until of late years 
 a Grub-street book was always bound in sheepskin, with suit- 
 able print and paper, the price never above a shilling, and 
 taken off wholly by common tradesmen or country pedlars; 
 but now they appear in all sizes and shapes, and in all places. 
 They are handed about from lapfuls in every coffee-house to 
 persons of quality; are shown in Westminster-hall and the 
 Court of Requests. You may see them gilt, and in royal paper 
 of five or six hundred pages, and rated accordingly. I would 
 
 151
 
 152 
 
 SWIFT 
 
 engage to furnish you with a catalogue of English books, pub- 
 lished within the compass of seven years past, which at the 
 first hand would cost you £ioo, wherein you shall not be able 
 to find ten lines together of common grammar or common- 
 sense. 
 
 " These two evils, ignorance and want of taste, have produced 
 a third ; I mean the continual corruption of our English tongue, 
 which, without some timely remedy, will suffer more by the 
 false refinements of twenty years past than it hath been im- 
 proved in the foregoing hundred. And this is what I design 
 chiefly to enlarge upon, leaving the former evils to your ani- 
 madversion. 
 
 " But instead of giving you a list of the late refinements 
 crept into our language, I here send you the copy of a letter I 
 received, some time ago, from a most accomplished person in 
 this way of writing; upon which I shall make some remarks. 
 It is in these terms: 
 
 " ' Sir : I cou'd n't get the things you sent for all about town 
 *— I thot to ha come down myself, and then I'd h' brot 'um; but 
 I ha'nt don't, and I believe I can't do 't, that's pozz — Tom be- 
 gins to gi 'mself airs, because he 's going with the plenipo's — 
 'T is said the French king will bamboozl us agen, which causes 
 many speculations. The Jacks and others of that kidney are 
 very uppish and alert upon 't, as you may see by their phizs's — 
 Will Hazard has got the hipps, having lost to the tune of five 
 ^hundr'd pound, tho' he understands play very well, no body bet- 
 ter. He has promis't me upon rep, to leave off play ; but you 
 know 't is a weakness he's too apt to give in to, tho' he has as 
 much wit as any man, no body more. He has lain incog ever 
 since — The mob's very quiet with us now — I believe you thot 
 I banter'd you in my last, like a country put — I shan't leave 
 town this month, etc' 
 
 " This letter is in every point an admirable pattern of the 
 present polite way of writing; nor is it of less authority for 
 being an epistle. You may gather every flower in it, with a 
 thousand more of equal sweetness, from the books, pamphlets, 
 and single papers offered us every day in the coffee-houses: 
 and these are the beauties introduced to supply the want of 
 wit, sense, humor, and learning, which formerly were looked 
 upon as qualifications for a writer. If a man of wit, who died
 
 ON STYLE 153 
 
 forty years ago, were to rise from the grave on purpose, how 
 would he be able to read this letter? and after he had got 
 through that difficulty, how would he be able to understand it? 
 The first thing that strikes your eye, is the breaks at the end of 
 almost every sentence ; of which I know not the use, only that 
 it is a refinement, and very frequently practised. Then you 
 will observe the abbreviations and elisions, by which consonants 
 of most obdurate sound are joined together, without one soft- 
 ening vowel to intervene ; and all this only to make one syllable 
 of two, directly contrary to the example of the Greek and 
 Romans, altogether of the Gothic strain, and a natural ten- 
 dency towards relapsing into barbarity, which delights in 
 monosyllables, and uniting of mute consonants, as it is ob- 
 servable in all the Northern languages. And this is still more 
 visible in the next refinement, which consists in pronouncing 
 the first syllable in a word that has many, and dismissing the 
 rest, such as phisz, hipps, mob, pozz, rep, and many more, 
 when we are already overloaded with monosyllables, which are 
 the disgrace of our language. Thus we cram one syllable, 
 and cut ofif the rest, as the owl fattened her mice after she had 
 bit off their legs to prevent them from running away ; and if 
 ours be the same reason for maiming our words, it will certainly 
 answer the end; for I am sure no other nation will desire to 
 borrow them. Some words are hitherto but fairly split, and 
 therefore only in their way to perfection, as incog and plenipo: 
 but in a short time it is to be hoped they will be further docked 
 to inc and plen. This reflection has made me of late years very 
 impatient for a peace, which I believe would save the lives of 
 many brave words, as well as men. The war has introduced 
 abundance of polysyllables,^ which will never be able to live 
 many more campaigns : speculations, operations, preliminaries, 
 ambassadors, pallisadoes, communication, circumvallation, bat- 
 talions: as numerous as they are, if they attack us too frequently 
 in our coffee-houses, we shall certainly put them to flight, and 
 cut off the rear. 
 
 " The third refinement observable in the letter I send you 
 consists in the choice of certain words,^ invented by some pretty 
 
 1 Several of those cited by Swift are are of uncertain origin. *' Kidney " is 
 sed by Shakespeare, Milton, and Dry- used ' ' . ^. . 
 en. " Me: 
 
 2 "Banter," " bamboozle," and " put " sc. 5. 
 
 used by Shakespeare, Milton, and Dry- used in the same sense by Shakespeare, 
 den. " Merry Wives of Windsor," act iii.
 
 154 SWIFT 
 
 fellows, such as banter, bamboozle, country put, and kidney, 
 as it is there applied; some of which are now struggling for 
 the vogue, and others are in possession of it. I have done my 
 utmost for some years past to stop the progress of jnob and 
 banter, but have been plainly borne down by numbers, and 
 betrayed by those who promised to assist me. 
 
 " In the last place, you are to take notice of certain choice 
 phrases scattered through the letter, some of them tolerable 
 enough, until they were worn to rags by servile imitators. 
 You might easily find them though they were not in a different 
 print, and therefore I need not disturb them. 
 
 " These are the false refinements in our style which you 
 ought to correct: first, by argument and fair means; but if 
 these fail, I think you are to make use of your authority as 
 censor, and by an annual index expnrgatorius expunge all 
 words and phrases that are offensive to good sense, and con- 
 demn those barbarous mutilations of vowels and syllables. In 
 this last point the usual pretence is, that they spell as they speak. 
 A noble standard for language ! to depend upon the caprice of 
 every coxcomb who, because words are the clothing of our 
 thoughts, cuts them out and shapes them as he pleases, and 
 changes them oftener than his dress. I believe all reasonable 
 people would be content that such refiners were more sparing 
 in their words, and liberal in their syllables : and upon this head 
 I should be glad you would bestow some advice upon several 
 young readers in our churches, who, coming up from the uni- 
 versity full fraught with admiration of our town politeness, 
 will needs correct the style of their prayer-books. In reading 
 the Absolution, they are very careful to say pardons and ab- 
 solves: and in the prayer for the royal family, it must be 
 endue'nm, enrich'iini, prosper'mn, and bring'nni. Then in 
 their sermons they use all the modern terms of art, sham, ban- 
 ter, mob, bubble,^ bully, cutting, shuffling, and palming; all 
 which, and many more of the like stamp, as I have heard them 
 often in the pulpit from such young sophisters, so I have read 
 them in some of * those sermons that have made most noise of 
 late.' The design, it seems, is to avoid the dreadful imputation 
 of pedantry ; to show us that they know the town, understand 
 
 i) Aayouc defrauded. So used after the time of the South Sea Bubble.
 
 ON STYLE 
 
 155 
 
 men and manners, and have not been poring upon old, un- 
 fashionable books in the university. 
 
 " I should be glad to see you the instrument of introducing 
 into our style that simplicity which is the best and truest orna- 
 ment of most things in life, which the politer age always aimed 
 at in their building and dress, simplex munditiis, as well as in 
 their productions of wit. It is manifest that all new affected 
 modes of speech, whether borrowed from the court, the town, 
 or the theatre, are the first perishing parts in any language; 
 and, as I could prove by many hundred instances, have been 
 so in ours. The writings of Hooker,* who was a country clergy- 
 man, and of Parsons ^ the Jesuit, both in the reign of Queen 
 Elizabeth, are in a style that, with very few allowances, would 
 not offend any present reader, and are much more clear and 
 intelligible than those of Sir Harry Wotton,^ Sir Robert Naun- 
 ton,^ Osborn,^ Daniel ^ the historian, and several others who 
 writ later ; but being men of the court, and affecting the phrases 
 then in fashion, they are often either not to be understood, or 
 appear perfectly ridiculous. 
 
 '* What remedies are to be applied to these evils I have not 
 room to consider, having, I fear, already taken up most of 
 your paper. Besides, I think it is our office only to represent 
 abuses, and yours to redress them. I am, with great respect, 
 sir, 
 
 " Yours, etc." 
 
 * 1553-1600. For some years rector of 
 Boscombe, Salisbury. Cf. Hallam's ver- 
 dict: — " So little is there of vulgarity in 
 his racy idiom, of pedantry in his learned 
 phrase, that I know not whether any 
 later writer has more admirably dis- 
 played the capacities of our language." 
 
 ■* Robert Parsons (1546-1610), a famous 
 Jesuit agitator in the reign of Elizabeth. 
 
 8 Sir Henry Wotton (1568-1639). The 
 " Reliquiae Wottonianae " 'were edited 
 by Izaak Walton, 1651. 
 
 ^ Sir R. Naunton (1563-1635) was 
 author of " Fragmenta Regalia," an ac 
 count of certain Elizabethan celebrities. 
 
 * Francis Osborn (1589-1658) was au- 
 thor of " Advice to a Son," concerning 
 which Johnson said, that " were a man 
 to write so now, the boys would throw 
 stones at him." 
 
 » Sam. Daniel (1562-1619), a poet and 
 historian. Swift's criticism is unjust, 
 for Daniel's style has always bees 
 praised for its perspicuity.
 
 THE VINDICATION OF ISAAC BICKERSTAFF 
 
 MR. PARTRIDGE ^ has been lately pleased to treat me 
 after a very rough manner, in that which is called 
 his "Almanac" for the present year: such usage i" 
 very indecent from one gentleman to another, and does not at 
 all contribute to the discovery of truth, which ought to be the 
 great end in all disputes of the learned. To call a man a fool 
 and villain, an impudent fellow, only for differing from him 
 in a point merely speculative, is, in my humble opinion, a veiy 
 improper style for a person of his education. I appeal to the 
 learned world, whether, in last year's predictions, I gave him 
 the least provocation for such unworthy treatment. Philoso 
 phers have differed in all ages ; but the discreetest among them 
 have always differed as became philosophers. Scurrility and 
 passion, in a controversy among scholars, is just so much of 
 nothing to the purpose, and at best a tacit confession of a weak 
 cause : my concern is not so much for my own reputation, as 
 that of the republic of letters, which Mr. Partridge has en- 
 deavored to wound through my sides. If men of public spirit 
 must be superciliously treated for their ingenious attempts, how 
 will true, useful knowledge be ever advanced? I wish Mr. 
 Partridge knew the thoughts which foreign universities have 
 conceived of his ungenerous proceedings with me; but I am 
 too tender of his reputation to publish them to the world. That 
 spirit of envy and pride, which blasts so many rising geniuses 
 
 ' The history of the famous joke is Partridge's death, and many wits fc • 
 
 briefly this. In 1708, Swift, in ridicule lowed this up with numerous epitaphs, 
 
 of the pretensions of almanac-makers. Later appeared " Bickerstait Detected, 
 
 published under the name of Bick- by J. Partridge," an attempt to turn the 
 
 erstaff his sham " Predictions for the joke against Swift, which has been vari- 
 
 year 1708," one of the predictions being ously attributed to Congreve, Rowe, and 
 
 the death of John Partridge on March Dr. Yalden. Then, in 1709, Swift vin- 
 
 29, 1708. Partridge was a well-known dicated himself in this ironical paper, 
 
 prophet of the time, whose book was Partridge really lived till 1715, and there 
 
 called " Merlinus Liberatus, by John is an epitaph to him in Mortlake 
 
 Partridge, Student in Physick and As- Churchyard, but he issued no almanac 
 
 trology, at the Blue Bell in Salisbury after 1709, for his fame did not survive 
 
 Street, in the Strand, London." In his metaphorical death at the hands of 
 
 April Swift published an account of Swift. 
 
 157
 
 158 
 
 SWIFT 
 
 in our nation, is yet unknown among professors abroad: the 
 necessity of justifying myself will excuse my vanity, when I 
 tell the reader, that I have near a hundred honorary letters 
 from several parts of Europe (some as far as Muscovy) in 
 praise of my performance, beside several others which, as I 
 have been credibly informed, were opened in the post-office, 
 and never sent me. It is true, the Inquisition ^ in Portugal 
 was pleased to burn my predictions, and condemn the author 
 and the readers of them : but I hope, at the same time, it will bf 
 considered in how deplorable a state learning lies at present in 
 that kingdom: and with the profoundest veneration for 
 crowned heads, I will presume to add, that it a little concerned 
 His Majesty of Portugal to interpose his authority in behalf of 
 a scholar and a gentleman, the subject of a nation with which 
 he is now in so strict an alliance. But the other kingdoms and 
 States of Europe have treated me with more candor and gen- 
 erosity. If I had leave to print the Latin letters transmitted 
 to me from foreign parts, they would fill a volume, and be a full 
 defence against all that Mr. Partridge, or his accomplices of 
 the Portugal Inquisition, will be ever able to object ; who, by 
 the way, are the only enemies my predictions have ever met 
 with at home or abroad. But I hope I know better what is due 
 to the honor of a learned correspondence in so tender a point. 
 Yet some of those illustrious persons will perhaps excuse me 
 for transcribing a passage or two ^ in my vindication. The 
 most learned Monsieur Leibnitz thus addresses to me his third 
 letter : " Ilhistrissimo Bickerstaifio astrologice instauratori," 
 etc. Monsieur Le Clerc, quoting my predictions in a treatise 
 he published last year, is pleased to say, " Ita nuperimme Bick- 
 erstaffius magnmn illud Anglio' sidus." Another great pro- 
 fessor writing of me has these words : " BickerstafHiis nobilis 
 Anglns, astrologoriim hujusce scrculi facile princeps." Sig- 
 nior Magliabecchi, the great duke's famous library-keeper, 
 spends almost his whole letter in compliments and praises. It 
 is true, the renowned professor of astronomy at Utrecht seems 
 to differ from me in one article ; but it is after the modest man- 
 ner that becomes a philosopher; as, pace tanti viri dixerim: 
 
 * Swift had predicted that the pope   These ludicrous quotations are a 
 
 would die on September nth, and it burlesque of the style of Swift's old ai»- 
 
 was reported by an ambassador that his tagonist, Bentley (Nichols), 
 book was actually burnt.
 
 THE VINDICATION OF ISAAC BICKERSTAFF 159 
 
 and page 55, he seems to lay the error upon the printer (as in- 
 deed it ought), and says, vel forsan error typographi, cum 
 alioquin Bickerstafhus vir doctissimus, etc. 
 
 If Mr. Partridge had followed these examples in the con- 
 troversy between us, he might have spared me the trouble of 
 justifying myself in so public a manner. I believe no man is 
 readier to own his errors than I, or more thankful to those 
 who will please to inform him of them. But it seems, this 
 gentleman, instead of encouraging the progress of his own art, 
 is pleased to look upon all attempts of that kind as an invasion 
 of his province. He has been indeed so wise as to make no 
 objection against the truth of my predictions, except in one 
 single point relating to himself : and to demonstrate how much 
 men are blinded by their own partiality, I do solemnly assure 
 the reader, that he is the only person, from whom I ever heard 
 that objection offered ; which consideration alone, I think, will 
 take off all its weight. 
 
 With my utmost endeavors I have not been able to trace 
 above two objections ever made against the truth of my last 
 year's prophecies: the first was of a Frenchman who was 
 pleased to publish to the world " that the Cardinal de Noailles 
 was still alive, notwithstanding the pretended prophecy of Mon- 
 sieur Biquerstaffe," but how far a Frenchman, a papist, and 
 an enemy is to be believed in his own cause, against an English 
 Protestant who is true to the government, I shall leave to the 
 candid and impartial reader. 
 
 The other objection is the unhappy occasion of this dis- 
 course, and relates to an article in my " Predictions," which 
 foretold the death of Mr. Partridge to happen on March 29, 
 1708. This he is pleased to contradict absolutely in the " Al- 
 manac " he has published for the present year, and in that un- 
 gentlemanly manner (pardon the expression) as I have above 
 related. In that work he very roundly asserts that he " is not 
 only now alive, but was likewise alive upon that very twenty- 
 ninth of March, when I had foretold he should die." This is 
 the subject of the present controversy between us; which I 
 design to handle with all brevity, perspicuity, and calmness. 
 In this dispute, I am sensible the eyes not only of England but 
 of all Europe will be upon us : and the learned in every coun-
 
 I Co SWIFT 
 
 r 
 
 try will, I doubt not, take part on that side where they find 
 most appearance of reason and truth. 
 
 Without entering into criticisms of chronology about the 
 hour of his death, I shall only prove that Mr. Partridge is not 
 alive. And my first argument is this : about a thousand gen- 
 tlemen having bought his " Almanacs " for this year merely 
 to find what he said against me, at every line they read, they 
 would lift up their eyes, and cry out, betwixt rage and laughter, 
 " they were sure no man alive ever writ such damned stuff as 
 this." Neither did I ever hear that opinion disputed, so that 
 Mr. Partridge lies under a dilemma, either of disowning his 
 " Almanac," or allowing himself to be no man alive. Secondly, 
 Death is defined by all philosophers, a separation of the soul 
 and body. Now it is certain, that the poor woman who has 
 best reason to know, has gone about for some time into every 
 alley in the neighborhood, and sworn to the gossips that her 
 husband had neither life nor soul in him. Therefore, if an 
 uninformed carcass walks still about, and is pleased to call 
 itself Partridge, Mr. Bickerstaff does not think himself any 
 way answerable for that. Neither had the said carcass any 
 right to beat the poor boy who happened to pass by it in the 
 street, crying, " a full and true account of Dr. Partridge's 
 death," etc. 
 
 Thirdly, Mr. Partridge pretends to tell fortunes, and re- 
 cover stolen goods ; which all the parish says he must do by 
 conversing with the devil and other evil spirits; and no wise 
 man will ever allow he could converse personally with either till 
 after he was dead. 
 
 Fourthly, I will plainly prove him to be dead, out of his 
 own " Almanac " for this year and from the very passage 
 which he produces to make us think him alive. He there saj-s, 
 " he is not only now alive, but was also alive upon that very 
 twenty-ninth of March which I foretold he should die on " : 
 by this he declares his opinion that a man may be alive now 
 who was not alive a twelvemonth ago. And, indeed, there 
 lies the sophistry of his argument. He dares not assert he was 
 alive ever since that twenty-ninth of March, but that he " is 
 now alive, and was so on that day." I grant the latter ; for he 
 did not die till night, as appears by the printed account of his 
 death in a " Letter to a Lord " ; and whether he be since re-
 
 THE VINDICATION OF ISAAC BICKERSTAFF i6i 
 
 vived I leave the world to judge. This indeed is perfect cavil- 
 ling, and I am ashamed to dwell any longer upon it. 
 
 Fifthly, I will appeal to Mr. Partridge himself whether it 
 be probable I could have been so indiscreet to begin my pre- 
 dictions with the only falsehood that ever was pretended to 
 be in them ? and this in an affair at home where I had so many 
 opportunities to be exact ; and must have given such advantages 
 against me to a person of Mr. Partridge's wit and learning, 
 who, if he could possibly have raised one single objection more 
 against the truth of my prophe'iies, would hardly have spared 
 me. 
 
 And here I must take occasion to reprove the above-men- 
 tioned writer of the relation of Mr. Partridge's death in a 
 " Letter to a Lord," who was pleased to tax me with a mis- 
 take of four whole hours in my calculation of that event. I 
 must confess, this censure, pronounced with an air of certainty, 
 in a matter that so nearly concerned me, and by a grave, judi- 
 cious author, moved me not a little. But though I was at that 
 time out of town, yet several of my friends, whose curiosity 
 had led them to be exactly informed (for as to my own part, 
 having no doubt at all in the matter, I never once thought of 
 it) assured me I computed to something under half an hour, 
 which (I speak my private opinion) is an error of no very 
 great magnitude that men should raise a clamor about it. I 
 shall only say, it would not be amiss if that author would 
 henceforth be more tender of other men's reputations as well as 
 his own. It is well there were no more mistakes of that kind ; 
 if there had, I presume he would have told me of them with 
 as little ceremony. 
 
 There is one objection against Mr. Partridge's death which 
 I have sometimes met with, though indeed very slightly of- 
 fered, that he still continues to write " Almanacs." But this 
 is no more than what is common to all of that profession : Gad- 
 bury,* Poor Robin, Dove, Wing, and several others do yearly 
 publish their almanacs though several of them have been dead 
 since before the Revolution. Now the natural reason of this 
 I take to be, that whereas it is the privilege of authors to live 
 after their death, almanac-makers are alone excluded, because 
 
 * A contemporary almanac-maker, 1662 to 1828. The others are advertised 
 whose life was written by Partridge. in the " Daily Courant " in 1705. 
 " Poor Robin's Almanac " lasted from g — Vol. 5?
 
 I62 SWIFT 
 
 their dissertations, treating only upon the minutes as they pass, 
 become useless as those go off. In consideration of which, 
 Time, whose registers they are, gives them a lease in reversion, 
 to continue their works after death. 
 
 I should not have given the public or myself the trouble of 
 this vindication if my name had not been made use of by several 
 persons to whom I never lent it ; one of which, a few days ago, 
 was pleased to father on me a new set of predictions. But I 
 think these are things too serious to be trifled with. It grieved 
 me to the heart, when I saw my labors, which had cost me so 
 much thought and watching, bawled about by the common 
 hawkers of Grub-street, which I only intended for the weighty 
 consideration of the gravest persons. This prejudiced the 
 world so much at first, that several of my friends had the as- 
 surance to ask me whether I were in jest? to which I only 
 answered coldly, " that the event would show." But it is the 
 talent of our age and nation to turn things of the greatest im- 
 portance into ridicule. When the end of the year had verified 
 all my predictions, out comes Mr. Partridge's " Almanac," dis- 
 puting the point of his death ; so that I am employed, like the 
 general who was forced to kill his enemies twice over, whom a 
 necromancer had raised to life. If Mr. Partridge have prac- 
 tised the same experiment upon himself, and be again alive, 
 long may he continue so ; that does not the least contradict my 
 veracity : but I think I have clearly proved, by invincible 
 demonstration, that he died, at furthest, within half an hour 
 of the time I foretold, and not four hours sooner, as the above- 
 mentioned author, in his " Letter to a Lord," has maliciously 
 suggested, with design to blast my credit, by charging me with 
 so gross a mistake.
 
 THE DEITY UNFOLDED IN HIS WORKS 
 
 BY 
 
 ANTHONY ASHLEY COOPER 
 
 Earl of Shaftesbury
 
 ANTHONY ASHLEY COOPER, EARL OF SHAFTESBURY 
 
 1671— 1713 
 
 Anthony Ashley Cooper, the author of the " Characteristics," was 
 the grandson of the great statesman, Dryden's Achitophel, who was 
 the first Earl of Shaftesbury. He had the best means of becoming 
 versed in classical literature and in philosophy. He was taught Greek 
 and Latin orally by a Mrs. Birch, who is said to have spoken those 
 languages fluently, and to have taught her pupil to speak them by the 
 time he was eleven years old. In his grandfather's household he had 
 constant opportunity of intercourse with Locke, and had already at 
 the age of eighteen begun a regular correspondence with him on 
 philosophical questions. 
 
 He lived a studious and retired life, spending much of his time 
 abroad, either in Italy, where he studied the fine arts elaborately, or in 
 Holland, where he conversed with Bayle, and other free spirits, who 
 found a refuge there. He took little part in English politics. He sat 
 in the Commons during one Parliament (1694 — 1698), but broke down 
 as a speaker. Afterwards, as a peer, he was active in the election of 
 William's last Parliament (1701), and is said to have had a hand in 
 the composition of the celebrated speech in which the King called on 
 this Parliament for support in the new war with France. He was a 
 friend of Somers, to whom he addressed the letter on " Enthusiasm," 
 and a faithful Whig. 
 
 He died at Naples in 1713. His treatises were all written (at least 
 in their complete form) during the last five years of his life. The 
 letter on " Enthusiasm " (1708) was occasioned by the excitement 
 about the " French Prophets," and was followed by the " Essay on 
 the Freedom of Wit and Humor." Both deal with the legitimacy of 
 the application of ridicule to religious pretensions. The " Advice to 
 an Author," which exhibits true self-knowledge as the basis of literary 
 art, was published in 1710. Then came his two distinctly philosophical 
 treatises, the "Inquiry Concerning Virtue" and the "Moralists: a 
 Rhapsody." The above, with " Miscellaneous Reflections " and an 
 " Essay on Art," purporting to be a " notion " of a possible " Tabla- 
 ture of the Judgment of Hercules," form the " Characteristics," which 
 were first published complete after his death. 
 
 He had a real love for classical literature, and believed himself, as he 
 was believed by his contemporaries, to write a specially classical style. 
 To later readers he has seemed to have lost vernacular vigor without 
 acquiring classical ease. Questions of religion and philosophy he ap- 
 proached too much in the attitude of a well-bred connoisseur to get 
 to the bottom of them. He vigorously maintained, however, as against 
 Hobbes, the " disinterestedness " of virtue, and introduced the doctrine 
 of a " moral sense," i.e., of a specific feeling of pleasure in good actions, 
 as the source of moral judgments. He was a great student of Epictetus 
 and Antoninus, and had a genuine stoical belief in one divine mind, 
 expressed in nature and communicated to man. " The Deity Unfolded 
 In His Works " is one of the essays in his " Characteristics." 
 
 164
 
 THE DEITY UNFOLDED IN HIS WORKS 
 
 HOW oblique and faintly looks the sun on yonder cli- 
 mates, far removed from him ! How tedious are the 
 winters there! How deep the horrors of the night, 
 and how uncomfortable even the light of day! The freezing 
 winds employ their fiercest breath, yet are not spent with blow- 
 ing. The sea, which elsewhere is scarce confined within its 
 limits, lies here immured in walls of crystal. The snow covers 
 the hills, and almost fills the lowest valleys. How wide and 
 deep it lies, incumbent o'er the plains, hiding the sluggish riv- 
 ers, the shrubs and trees, the dens of beasts, and mansions of 
 distressed and feeble men ! See where they lie confined, hardly 
 secure against the raging cold, or the attacks of the wild beasts, 
 now masters of the wasted field, and forced by hunger out of 
 the naked wood. Yet not disheartened (such is the force of 
 human breasts), but thus provided for by art and prudence, 
 the kind compensating gifts of Heaven, men and their herds 
 may wait for a release. For, at length, the sun approaching 
 melts the snow, sets longing men at liberty, and affords them 
 means and time to make provision against the next return of 
 cold. It breaks the icy fetters of the main, where vast sea- 
 monsters pierce through floating islands, with arms which can 
 withstand the crystal rock ; whilst others, who of themselves 
 seem great as islands, are by their bulk alone armed against all 
 but man, whose superiority over creatures of such stupendous 
 size and force should make him mindful of his privilege of rea- 
 son, and force him humbly to adore the great Composer of these 
 wondrous frames, and Author of his own superior wisdom. 
 
 But leaving these dull climates, so little favored by the sun, 
 for those happier regions on which he looks more kindly, mak- 
 ing perpetual summer, how great an alteration do we find? 
 His purer light confounds weak-sighted mortals, pierced by his 
 scorching beams. Scarce can they tread the glowing ground. 
 
 165
 
 l66 COOPER 
 
 The air they breathe cannot enough abate the fire which burns 
 within their panting breasts. Their bodies melt. O'ercome 
 and fainting, they seek the shade, and wait the cool refresh- 
 ments of the night. Yet oft the bounteous Creator bestows 
 other refreshments. He casts a veil of clouds before them, and 
 raises gentle gales ; favored by which, the men and beasts pur- 
 sue their labors, and plants refreshed by dews and showers can 
 gladly bear the warmest sunbeams. 
 
 And here the varying scene opens to new wonders. We see 
 a country rich with gems, but richer with the fragrant spices it 
 affords. How gravely move the largest of land-creatures on 
 the banks of this fair river ! How ponderous are their arms, 
 and vast their strength, with courage and a sense superior to 
 the other beasts! Yet are they tamed (we see) by mankind, 
 and brought even to fight their battles rather as allies and con- 
 federates than as slaves. But let us turn our eyes towards these 
 smaller and more curious objects — the numerous and devouring 
 insects on the trees in these wide plains. How shining, strong, 
 and lasting are the subtle threads spun from their artful 
 mouths ! Who beside the All-wise has taught them to compose 
 the beautiful soft shells, in which recluse and buried, yet still 
 alive, they undergo such a surprising change, when not de- 
 stroyed by men, who clothe and adorn themselves with the 
 labors and lives of these weak creatures, and are proud of wear- 
 ing such inglorious spoils? How sumptuously apparelled, 
 gay, and splendid, are all the various insects which feed on the 
 other plants of this warm region ! How beautiful the plants 
 themselves in all their various growths, from the triumphant 
 palm down to the humble moss ! 
 
 Now may we see that happy country where precious gums 
 and balsams flow from trees, and nature yields her most de- 
 licious fruits. How tame and tractable, how patient of labor 
 and of thirst, are those large creatures, who, lifting up their 
 lofty heads, go led and laden through those dry and barren 
 places ! Their shape and temper show them framed by nature 
 to submit to man, and fitted for his service, who from hence 
 ought to be more sensible of his wants, and of the Divine bounty 
 thus supplying them. 
 
 But behold ! through a vast tract of sky before us, the mighty 
 Atlas rears his lofty head, covered with snow, above the clouds.
 
 THE DEITY UNFOLDED IN HIS WORKS 167 
 
 Beneath the mountain's foot the rocky country rises into hills, 
 a proper basis of the ponderous mass above, where huge em- 
 bodied rocks lie piled on one another, and seem to prop the 
 high arch of heaven. See! with what trembling steps poor 
 mankind tread the narrow brink of the deep precipice ! From 
 whence, with giddy horror, they look down, mistrusting even 
 the ground which bears them, whilst they hear the hollow 
 sound of torrents underneath, and see the ruin of the impend- 
 ing rock, with falling trees which hang with their roots up- 
 wards, and seem to drive more ruin after them. Here thought- 
 less men, seized with the newness of such objects, become 
 thoughtful, and willingly contemplate the incessant changes of 
 this earth's surface. They see, as in one instant, the revolu- 
 tions of past ages, the fleeting forms of things, and the decay 
 even of this our globe, whose youth and first formation they 
 consider, whilst the apparent spoil and irreparable breaches of 
 the wasted mountain show them the world itself only as a noble 
 ruin, and make them think of its approaching period. But here 
 midway the mountain, a specious border of thick wood harbors 
 our wearied travellers, who now are come among the ever green 
 and lofty pines, the firs, and noble cedars, whose towering heads 
 seem endless in the sky, the rest of trees appearing only as 
 shrubs beside them. And here a different horror seizes our 
 sheltered travellers, when they see the day diminished by the 
 deep shades of the vast wood; which closing thick above, 
 spreads darkness and eternal night below. The faint and 
 gloomy light looks horrid as the shade itself ; and the profound 
 stillness of these places imposes silence upon men, struck with 
 the hoarse echoings of every sound within the spacious caverns 
 of the wood. Here space astonishes. Silence itself seems 
 pregnant; whilst an unknown force works on the mind, and 
 dubious objects move the wakeful sense. Mysterious voices 
 are either heard or fancied, and various forms of deity seem 
 to present themselves, and appear more manifest in these sacred 
 sylvan scenes, such as of old gave rise to temples, and favored 
 the religion of the ancient world. Even we ourselves, who in 
 plain characters may read divinity from so many bright parts 
 of earth, choose rather these obscurer places to spell out that 
 mysterious Being, which, to our weak eyes, appears at best un- 
 der a veil of cloud«
 
 A SCENE OF DOMESTIC FELICITY 
 
 A DEATH-BED SCENE 
 
 THE TRUMPET CLUB 
 
 N THE DEATH OF FRIENDS 
 
 THE SPECTATOR CLUB 
 
 THE UGLY CLU 
 
 SIR ROGER AND THE WIDOW 
 
 BY 
 
 SIR RICHARD STEELE
 
 SIR RICHARD STEELE 
 1671 — 1729 
 
 Richard Steele was born in 1671, of English parents, in Dublin, 
 where his father was secretary to the Duke of Ormond. He lost his 
 fatlier when he was very young, and was sent by the Duke of Ormond 
 to the Charterhouse, where he was the schoolfellow of Addison. He 
 was admitted a postmaster of Merton College, Oxford, in 1691, but 
 left the university without taking a degree, and entered the army, 
 enlisting as a private in the horse-guards. For this he was disinherited 
 by a rich relation, but his convivial and popular qualities attracted the 
 good-will of his officers, and he obtained a commission and rose to 
 the rank of captain ere he quitted the service in 1703. At the begin- 
 ning of the reign of Queen Anne he obtained the appointment of 
 Gazetteer. In 1713 Steele entered Parliament as a member for Stock- 
 bridge, but two years later was expelled from the House for alleged 
 seditious libels, contained in the " Englishman " and the " Crisis," for 
 which he was certainly only in part responsible. On the accession of 
 George I he obtained some minor offices, received a gratuity, and was 
 knighted. In 1715 he again entered Parliament as member for Borough- 
 bridge, in Yorkshire. Some years before his death he was struck with 
 paralysis, and retired to his country-seat in Wales, where he died 
 in 1729. 
 
 Steele commenced his career as an author with a " Poem on the 
 Funeral of Queen Mary." It was quickly followed by a treatise in 
 prose, " The Christian Hero " — written in the first instance for his 
 own use while in the army, and then published in order that he might 
 thus bind himself publicly to the principles he had advocated. Steele's 
 first comedy, " Grief a la Mode," had much success and long held a 
 place on the stage. It was followed by several other pieces with vary- 
 ing fortune. As a dramatic writer Steele was anxious, as many of 
 his papers show, together with Addison and others, to hasten the 
 time when the morals of the age should be reformed by a well-regulated 
 theatre. But though Steele had considerable success both as a play- 
 writer and as a pamphleteer, he owes his chief reputation to his efforts 
 as an essayist. The " Tatler," which he commenced in 1709, was the 
 beginning of a new era in periodical writing. The paper appeared 
 three times a week, with some items of news, especially on foreign 
 affairs, respecting which his position as Gazetteer enabled him to ob- 
 tain the earliest information ; but the distinctive point of the " Tatler " 
 was the papers which it contained on the moral, social, and economical 
 topics of the day, interspersed with literary and theatrical notices; the 
 model thus formed has been copied down to the present day in many 
 contemporary weekly journals. The "Tatler" was followed in 171 1 
 by the " Spectator," in 1713 by the " Guardian," and by a succession i 
 of other journals of similar nature, among which were the " Rambler " ,' 
 and the " Idler." To his association with the great name of Addison, 
 even more than to his own merits, Steele owes the reputation he has 
 acquired in English literature. He possesses considerable dramatic 
 and descriptive power; his style is ordinarily light and graceful, well 
 fitted to the somewhat ephemeral subjects about which he commonly 
 writes. But in his more serious moods he is not without a certain 
 unaffected tenderness, which has the powerful charm of sincerity. The 
 essays given here were contributed to the " Tatler " and the " Spec- 
 tator," respectively. 
 
 170
 
 A SCENE OF DOMESTIC FELICITY 
 
 Interea dulces pendent circum oscula nati, 
 
 Casta pudicitiam servat donius. — Virgil, " Georgics," ii, 523. 
 
 His cares are eas'd with intervals of bliss ; 
 
 His little children, climbing for a kiss, 
 
 Welcome their father's late return at night. 
 
 His faithful bed is crown'd with chaste delight. — Dry den. 
 
 THERE are several persons who have many pleasures and 
 entertainments in their possession, which they do not 
 enjoy. It is, therefore, a kind and good office to ac- 
 quaint them with their own happiness, and turn their attention 
 to such instances of their good fortune as they are apt to over- 
 look. Persons in the married state often want such a monitor ; 
 and pine away their days, by looking upon the same condition 
 in anguish and murmur, which carries with it in the opinion 
 of others a complication of all the pleasures of life, and a retreat 
 from its inquietudes. 
 
 I am led into this thought by a visit I made an old friend, 
 who was formerly my schoolfellow. He came to town last 
 week with his family for the winter, and yesterday morning sent 
 me word his wife expected me to dinner. I am, as it were, at 
 home at that house, and every member of it knows me for their 
 well-wisher. I cannot, indeed, express the pleasures it is, to be 
 met by the children with so much joy as I am when I go thither. 
 The boys and girls strive who shall come first, when they think 
 it is I that am knocking at the door ; and that child which loses 
 the race to me runs back again to tell the father it is Mr. Bicker- 
 staflf.* This day I was led in by a pretty girl, that we all thought 
 must have forgot me, for the family has been out of town these 
 two years. Her knowing me again was a mighty subject with 
 us, and took up our discourse at the first entrance. After which, 
 they began to rally me upon a thousand little stories they heard 
 
 1 Swift borrowed the name from a sure to gain " an audience of all who 
 locksmith's sign, and Steele adoi)ted it had any taste of wit." 
 because, from Swift's use of it, it was 
 
 171
 
 172 STEELE 
 
 in the country, about my marriage to one of my neighbor's 
 daughters. Upon which the gentleman, my friend, said, " Nay, 
 if Mr. Bickerstaff marries a child of any of his old companions, 
 I hope mine shall have the preference ; there is Mrs. Mary is 
 ttozv sixteen, and would make him as fine a widow as the best of 
 them. But I know him too well : he is so enamoured with the 
 very memory of those who flourished in our youth, that he will 
 not so much as look upon the modern beauties. I remember, 
 old gentleman, how often you went home in a day to refresh 
 your countenance and dress when Teraminta reigned in your 
 heart. As we came up in the coach, I repeated to my wife some 
 of your verses on her." With such reflections on little passages 
 which happened long ago, we passed our time, during a cheerful 
 and elegant meal. After dinner, his lady left the room, as did 
 also the children. As soon as we were alone, he took me by the 
 hand ; " Well, my good friend," says he, " I am heartily glad to 
 see thee ; I was afraid you would never have seen all the com- 
 pany that dined with you to-day again. Do not you think the 
 good woman of the house a little altered, since you followed her 
 from the playhouse, to find out who she was, for me ? " I per- 
 ceived a tear fall down his cheek as he spoke, which moved me 
 not a little. But, to turn the discourse, I said, " She is not in- 
 deed quite that creature she was, when she returned me the 
 letter I carried from you ; and told me, ' she hoped, as I was a 
 gentleman, I would be employed no more to trouble her, who 
 had never offended me ; but would be so much the gentleman's 
 friend, as to dissuade him from a pursuit, which he could never 
 succeed in.' You may remember, I thought her in earnest; 
 and you were forced to employ your cousin Will, who made 
 his sister get acquainted with her, for you. You cannot expect 
 her to be forever fifteen." " Fifteen ! " replied my good friend : 
 " Ah ! you little understand, you that have lived a bachelor, 
 how great, how exquisite a pleasure there is, in being really be- 
 loved ! It is impossible, that the most beauteous face in nature 
 should raise in me such pleasing ideas, as when I look upon that 
 excellent woman. That fading in her countenance is chiefly 
 caused by her watching with me in my fever. This was fol- 
 lowed by a fit of sickness, which had like to have carried her 
 off last winter. I tell you sincerely, I have so many obligations 
 to her, that I cannot, with any sort of moderation, think of her
 
 A SCENE OF DOMESTIC FELICITY 
 
 173 
 
 present state of health. But as to what you say of fifteen, she 
 gives me every day pleasures beyond what I ever knew in the 
 possession of her beauty, when I was in the vigor of youth. 
 Every moment of her life brings me fresh instances of her com- 
 placency to my inclinations, and her prudence in regard to my 
 fortune. Her face is to me much more beautiful than when I 
 first saw it ; there is no decay in any feature, which I cannot 
 trace, from the very instant it was occasioned by some anxious 
 concern for my welfare and interests. Thus, at the same time, 
 methinks, the love I conceived towards her for what she was, 
 is heightened by my gratitude for what she is. The love of a 
 wife is as much above the idle passion commonly called by that 
 name, as the loud laughter of bufifoons is inferior to the elegant 
 mirth of gentlemen. Oh, she is an inestimable jewel ! In her 
 examination of her household affairs, she shows a certain fear- 
 fulness to find a fault, which makes her servants obey her like 
 children ; and the meanest we have has an ingenuous shame for 
 an offence, not always to be seen in children in other families. 
 I speak freely to you, my old friend ; ever since her sickness, 
 things that gave me the quickest joy before, turn now to a cer- 
 tain anxiety. As the children play in the next room, I know the 
 poor things by their steps, and am considering what they must 
 do, should they lose their mother in their tender years. The 
 pleasure I used to take in telling my boy stories of battles, and 
 asking my girl questions about the disposal of her baby, and the 
 gossiping of it, is turned into inward reflection and melancholy." 
 He would have gone on in this tender way, when the good 
 lady entered, and with an inexpressible sweetness in her coun- 
 tenance told us, " she had been searching her closet for some- 
 thing very good, to treat such an old friend as I was." Her 
 husband's eye sparkled with pleasure at the cheerfulness of her 
 countenance ; and I saw all his fears vanish in an instant. The 
 lady observing something in our looks which showed we had 
 been more serious than ordinary, and seeing her husband re- 
 ceive her with great concern under a forced cheerfulness, im- 
 mediately guessed at what we had been talking of; and ap- 
 plying herself to me, said, with a smile, " Mr. Bickerstaff, do 
 not believe a word of what he tells you ; I shall still live to have 
 you for my second, as I have often promised you, unless he 
 takes more care of himself than he has done since his coming
 
 174 STEELE 
 
 to town. You must know, he tells me he finds London is a 
 much more healthy place than the country ; for he sees several 
 of his old acquaintances and schoolfellows are here young fel- 
 lows with fair full-bottomed periwigs.^ I could scarce keep 
 him this morning from going out open-breasted." My friend, 
 who is always extremely delighted with her agreeable humor, 
 made her sit down with us. She did it with that easiness which 
 is peculiar to women of sense ; and to keep up the good humor 
 she had brought in with her, turned her raillery upon me. 
 " Mr. Bickerstaff, you remember you followed me one night 
 from the play-house : suppose you should carry me thither to- 
 morrow night, and lead me into the front box." This put us 
 into a long field of discourse about the beauties, who were 
 mothers to the present, and shined in the boxes twenty years 
 ago. I told her, " I was glad she had transferred so many of her 
 charms, and I did not question but her eldest daughter was 
 within half a year of being a toast." ^ 
 
 We were pleasing ourselves with this fantastical preferment 
 of the young lady, when on a sudden we were alarmed with the 
 noise of a drum, and immediately entered my little godson to 
 give me a point of war. His mother, between laughing and 
 chiding, would have put him out of the room ; but I would not 
 part with him so. I found, upon conversation with him, though 
 he was a little noisy in his mirth, that the child had excellent 
 parts, and was a great master of all the learning on the other 
 side eight years old. I perceived him a very great historian in 
 iEsop's Fables : but he frankly declared to me his mind, " that 
 he did not delight in that learning, because he did not believe 
 they were true " ; for which reason I found he had very much 
 turned his studies, for about a twelvemonth past, into the lives 
 and adventures of Don Bellianis of Greece, Guy of Warwick, 
 the Seven Champions, and other historians of that age. I could 
 not but observe the satisfaction the father took in the forward- 
 ness of his son ; and that these diversions might turn to some 
 profit, I found the boy had made remarks which might be of 
 service to him during the course of his whole life. He would 
 
 'A privilece allowed only to youngf vogue in Anne's reign. At the age of 
 
 beaux. In Tatler," No. 246, Steele seventeen every young lady of quality 
 
 reproves " a fat fellow for wearing his expected to become a toast at some club, 
 
 breast open in the midst of winter out more especially at the _Kit-Cat._ The 
 
 of an affectation of youth." locus classicus on the subject is in the 
 
 » An institution that first came into 24th " Tatler."
 
 A SCENE OF DOMESTIC FELICITY 175 
 
 tell you the mismanagements of John Hickathrift, find fault 
 with the passionate temper in Bevis of Southampton, and loved 
 Saint George for being the champion of England ; and by this 
 means had his thoughts insensibly moulded into the notions of 
 discretion, virtue, and honor. I was extolling his accomplish- 
 ments, when his mother told me that the little girl who led me 
 in this morning was in her way a better scholar than he. " Bet- 
 ty," said she, " deals chiefly in fairies and sprites, and some- 
 times in a winter night will terrify the maids with her accounts, 
 until they are afraid to go up to bed." 
 
 I sat with them until it was very late, sometimes in merry, 
 sometimes in serious discourse, with this particular pleasure, 
 which gives the only true relish to all conversation, a sense that 
 every one of us liked each other. I went home considering the 
 different conditions of a married life and that of a bachelor ; and 
 I must confess it struck me with a secret concern, to reflect, that 
 whenever I go off I shall leave no traces behind me. In this 
 pensive mood I return to my family : that is to say, to my maid, 
 my dog, and my cat, who only can be the better or worse for 
 what happens to me.
 
 A DEATH-BED SCENE 
 
 Ut in vita, sic in studiis, pulcherrimum et hunianissimum existimo 
 severitatetn comitatemque miscere, ne ilia in tristitiam, hcec in petulan- 
 tiam procedat. — Pliny. 
 
 As in a man's life, so in his studies, I think it the most beautiful and 
 humane thing in the world, so to mingle gravity with pleasantry, that 
 the one may not sink into melancholy, nor the other rise up into wanton- 
 ness. 
 
 I WAS walking about my chamber this morning in a verj^ 
 gay humor, when I saw a coach stop at my door, and a 
 youth about fifteen alighting out of it, whom I perceived 
 to be the eldest son of my bosom friend that I gave some account 
 of in my paper of the seventeenth of the last month. I felt a 
 sensible pleasure rising in me at the sight of him, my ac- 
 quaintance having begun with his father when he was just such 
 a stripling, and about that very age. When he came up to me 
 he took me by the hand, and burst out in tears. I was extremely 
 moved, and immediately said, " Child, how does your father 
 
 do ? " He began to reply, " My mother " but could not go 
 
 on for weeping. I went down with him into the coach, and 
 gathered out of him, that his mother was then dying ; and that, 
 while the holy man was doing the last offices to her, he had 
 taken that time to come and call me to his father, who, he said, 
 would certainly break his heart, if I did not go and comfort 
 him. The child's discretion in coming to me of his own head, 
 and the tenderness he showed for his parents, would have quite 
 overpowered me, had I not resolved to fortify myself for the 
 seasonable performances of those duties which I owed to my 
 friend. As we were going, I could not but reflect upon the 
 character of that excellent woman, and the greatness of his 
 grief for the loss of one who has ever been the support to him 
 under all other afflictions. How, thought I, will he be able to 
 
 bear the hour of her death, that could not, when I was lately 
 
 177
 
 178 STEELE 
 
 with him, speak of a sickness, which was then past, without 
 sorrow? We were now got pretty far into Westminster, and 
 arrived at my friend's house. At the door of it I met P'avonius, 
 not without a secret satisfaction to find he had been there. I 
 had formerly conversed with him at this house ; and as he 
 abounds with that sort of virtue and knowledge which make 
 religion beautiful, and never leads the conversation into the 
 violence and rage of party disputes, I listened to him with great 
 pleasure. Our discourse chanced to be upon the subject of 
 death, which he treated with such a strength of reason, and 
 greatness of soul, that, instead of being terrible, it appeared to 
 a mind rightly cultivated, altogether to be contemned, or rather 
 to be desired. As I met him at the door, I saw in his face a 
 certain glowing of grief and humanity, heightened with an air 
 of fortitude and resolution, which, as I afterwards found, had 
 such an irresistible force, as to suspend the pains of the dying, 
 and the lamentation of the nearest friends who attended her. 
 I went up directly to the room where she lay, and was met at the 
 entrance by my friend, who, notwithstanding his thoughts had 
 been composed a little before, at the sight of me turned away his 
 face and wept. The little family of children renewed the ex- 
 pressions of their sorrow according to their several ages and 
 degrees of understanding. The eldest daughter was in tears, 
 busied in attendance upon her mother; others were kneeling 
 about the bedside ; and what troubled me most, was, to see a 
 little boy, who was too young to know the reason, weeping only 
 because his sisters did. The only one in the room who seemed 
 resigned and comforted was the dying person. At my ap- 
 proach to the bedside she told me, with a low broken voice, 
 " This is kindly done — take care of your friend — do not go from 
 him." She had before taken leave of her husband and children, 
 in a manner proper for so solemn a parting, and with a grace- 
 fulness peculiar to a woman of her character. My heart was 
 torn in pieces, to see the husband on one side suppressing and 
 keeping down the swellings of his grief, for fear of disturbing 
 her in her last moments; and the wife, even at that time, con- 
 cealing the pains she endured, for fear of increasing his afflic- 
 tion. She kept her eyes upon him for some moments after she 
 grew speechless, and soon after closed them forever. In the mo- 
 ment of her departure, my friend, who had thus far commanded
 
 A DEATH-BED SCENE fjg 
 
 himself, gave a deep groan, and fell into a swoon by her bed- 
 side.^ The distraction of the children, who thought they saw 
 both their parents expiring together, and now lying dead before 
 them, would have melted the hardest heart ; but they soon per- 
 ceived their father recover, whom I helped to remove into 
 another room, with a resolution to accompany him until the 
 first pangs of his affliction were abated. I knew consolation 
 would now be impertinent, and therefore contented myself to 
 sit by him, and condole with him in silence. For I shall here 
 use the method of an ancient author,^ who, in one of his epistles, 
 relating the virtues and death of Macrinus's wife, expresses 
 himself thus : " I shall suspend my advice to this best of friends 
 until he is made capable of receiving it by those three great 
 remedies, the necessity of submission, length of time, and sati- 
 ety of grief." 
 
 In the mean time, I cannot but consider, with much commis- 
 eration, the melancholy state of one who has had such a part of 
 himself torn from him, and which he misses in every circum- 
 stance of life. His condition is like that of one who has lately 
 lost his right arm, and is every moment offering to help himself 
 with it. He does not appear to himself the same person in his 
 house, at his table, in company, or in retirement ; and loses the 
 relish of all the pleasures and diversions that were before enter- 
 taining to him by her participation of them. The most agreeable 
 objects recall the sorrow for her with whom he used to enjoy 
 them. This additional satisfaction, from the taste of pleasures 
 in the society of one we love, is admirably described by Mil- 
 ton, who represents Eve, though in Paradise itself, no further 
 pleased with the beautiful objects around her, than as she sees 
 them in company with Adam, in that passage so inexpressibly 
 charming : 
 
 " With thee conversing, I forget all time ; 
 All seasons, and their change ; all please alike. 
 Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet 
 With charm of earliest birds ; pleasant the sun, 
 
 ^With this sentence Steele's share in pression. Thus, while Addison ends 
 the paper stops. The rest has always this essay incongruously .with_ a frag^ 
 been assigned to Addison, and it is in- ment of criticism, Steele is quite over- 
 structive to compare his conclusion come, and " commended the hamper of 
 with Steele's in " Tatler," 281. Steele's wine until two of the clock this mom- 
 emotion kept pace with his imagination, ing." 
 while Addison constantly checked his ^ Seneca, 
 from an over-regard for " elegant " ex-
 
 iSo STEELE 
 
 When first on this delightful land he spreads 
 His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flower, 
 Glistering with dew ; fragrant the fertile earth 
 After soft showers ; and sweet the coming on 
 Of grateful evening mild ; the silent night. 
 With this her solemn bird, and this fair moon, 
 And these the gems of heaven, her starry train. 
 But neither breath of morn when she ascends 
 With charm of earliest birds ; nor rising sun 
 On this delightful land ; nor herb, fruit, flower, 
 Glistering with dew; nor fragrance after showers; 
 Nor grateful evening mild ; nor silent night, 
 With this her solemn bird, nor walk by moon. 
 Or glittering star-light, without thee is sweet." 
 
 The variety of images in this passage is infinitely pleasing, 
 and the recapitulation of each particular image, with a little 
 varying of the expression, makes one of the finest turns of words 
 that I have ever seen; which I rather mention because Mr. 
 Dryden^ has said, in his preface to Juvenal, that he could meet 
 with no turn of words in Milton. 
 
 It may be further observed, that though the sweetness of 
 these verses has something in it of a pastoral, yet it excels the 
 ordinary kind, as much as the scene of it is above an ordinary 
 field or meadow. I might here, since I am accidentally led into 
 this subject, show several passages in Milton that have as ex- 
 cellent turns of this nature as any of our English poets what- 
 soever ; but shall only mention that which follows, in which he 
 describes the fallen angels engaged in the intricate disputes of 
 predestination, free-will, and fore-knowledge ; and, to humor 
 the perplexity, makes a kind of labyrinth in the very words that 
 describe it: 
 
 " Others apart sat on a hill retir'd. 
 In thoughts more elevate, and reason'd high 
 Of providence, fore-knowledge, will, and fate, 
 Fix'd fate, free-will, fore-knowledge absolute, 
 And found no end, in wandering mazes lost." 
 
 » Near the end of his " Discourse on turns of thoughts and words," but that 
 Satire." Dryden says that he searched he found none in Cowley or in Milton. 
 the older poets in quest of " beautiful
 
 THE TRUMPET CLUB 
 
 Hdbeo senectuti magnam gratiam, qua mihi sermonis aviditatetn auxti, 
 potionis et cibi sustulit. — Cicero, " de Senectute." 
 
 I am much beholden to old age, which has increased my eagerness for 
 conversation, in proportion as it has lessened my appetites of hunger and 
 thirst. 
 
 AFTER having applied my mind with more than ordinary 
 attention to my studies, it is my usual custom to relax 
 and unbend it in the conversation of such as are rather 
 easy than shining companions.^ This I find particularly neces- 
 sary for me before I retire to rest, in order to draw my slum- 
 bers upon me by degrees, and fall asleep insensibly. This is 
 the particular use I make of a set of heavy honest men, with 
 whom I have passed many hours with much indolence, though 
 not with great pleasure. Their conversation is a kind of pre- 
 parative for sleep ; it takes the mind down from its abstractions, 
 leads it into the familiar traces of thought, and lulls it into that 
 state of tranquillity, which is the condition of a thinking man, 
 when he is but half awake. After this, my reader will not be 
 surprised to hear the account which I am about to give of a 
 club of my own contemporaries, among whom I pass two or 
 three hours every evening. This I look upon as taking my 
 first nap before I go to bed. The truth of it is, I should think 
 myself unjust to posterity, as well as to the society at the Trum- 
 pet,^ of which I am a member, did not I in some part of my 
 writings give an account of the persons among whom I have 
 passed almost a sixth part of my time for these last forty years. 
 Our club consisted originally of fifteen ; but, partly by the se- 
 verity of the law in arbitrary times, and partly by the natural 
 
 * As clubs are of some interest to stu- the present writer has to express spe- 
 
 dents of the English essay, reference cial obligations. 
 
 may be made to Timbs's " History of "A tavern in Shire Lane, near the 
 
 Clubs and Club Life," and to Ashton's new Courts of Justice. The Kit-Cat 
 
 " Social Life in the Reign of Queen Club also originated here about 1700. 
 Anne." To the latter excellent book 
 
 181
 
 i82 STEELE 
 
 effects of old age, we are at present reduced to a third part of 
 that number ; in which, however, we have this consolation, that 
 the best company is said to consist of five persons. I must con- 
 fess, besides the aforementioned benefit which I meet with in 
 the conversation of this select society, I am not the less pleased 
 with the company, in that I find myself the greatest wit among 
 them, and am heard as their oracle in all points of learning and 
 difficulty. 
 
 Sir Jeoffery Notch, who is the oldest of the club, has been in 
 possession of the right-hand chair time out of mind, and is the 
 only man among us that has the liberty of stirring the fire. This 
 our foreman is a gentleman of an ancient family, that came to 
 a great estate some years before he had discretion, and run it 
 out in hounds, horses, and cock-fighting; for which reason he 
 looks upon himself as an honest, worthy gentleman, who has 
 had misfortunes in the world, and calls every thriving man a 
 pitiful upstart.. 
 
 Major Matchlock is the next senior, who served in the last 
 civil wars, and has all the battles by heart. He does not think 
 any action in Europe worth talking of since the fight of Marston 
 Moor ; and every night tells us of having been knocked off his 
 horse at the rising^ of the London apprentices ; for which he is 
 in great esteem among us. 
 
 Honest old Dick Reptile is the third of our society. He is a 
 good-natured indolent man, who speaks little himself, but 
 laughs at our jokes ; and brings his young nephew along with 
 him, a youth of eighteen years old, to show him good company, 
 and give him a taste of the world. This young fellow sits gen- 
 erally silent ; but whenever he opens his mouth, or laughs at 
 anything that passes, he is constantly told by his uncle, after a 
 jocular manner, " Ay, ay, Jack, you young men think us fools ; 
 but we old men know you are." 
 
 The greatest wit of our company, next to myself, is a 
 bencher of the neighboring inn, who in his youth frequented 
 the ordinaries* about Charing-cross, and pretends to have been 
 intimate with Jack Ogle. He has about ten distichs of Hudi- 
 bras without book, and never leaves the club until he has applied 
 
 •July 14, 1647. of the time. Cf. "Tale of a Tub,"- 
 
 * Locket's Ordinary at Charing-cross sec, 2, 
 
 was one of the fashionable resuurants
 
 THE TRUMPET CLUB 183 
 
 them all. If any modern wit be mentioned, or any town-frolic 
 spoken of, he shakes his head at the dulness of the present age, 
 and tells us a story of Jack Ogle. 
 
 For my own part, I am esteemed among them, because they 
 see I am something respected by others; though at the same 
 time I understand by their behavior, that I am considered by 
 them as a man of a great deal of learning, but no knowledge of 
 the world ; insomuch, that the major sometimes, in the height 
 of his military pride, calls me the Philosopher : and Sir Jeoffery, 
 no longer ago than last night, upon a dispute what day of the 
 ' month it was then in Holland, pulled his pipe out of his mouth, 
 and cried, " What does the scholar say to it? " 
 
 Our club meets precisely at six o'clock in the evening ; but I 
 did not come last night until half an hour after seven, by which 
 means I escaped the battle of Naseby, which the major usually 
 begins at about three-quarters after six : I found also, that my 
 good friend the bencher had already spent three of his distichs ; 
 and only waited an opportunity to hear a sermon spoken of, that 
 he might introduce the couplet where " a stick " rhymes to 
 " ecclesiastic." At my entrance into the room, they were nam- 
 ing a red petticoat and a cloak, by which I found that the 
 bencher had been diverting them with a story of Jack Ogle. 
 
 I had no sooner taken my seat, but Sir JeofFery, to show his 
 goodwill towards me, gave me a pipe of his own tobacco, and 
 stirred up the fire. I look upon it as a point of morality, to be 
 obliged by those who endeavor to oblige me ; and therefore, in 
 requital for his kindness, and to set the conversation a-going, I 
 took the best occasion I could to put him upon telling us the 
 story of old Gantlett,*^ which he always does with very particu- 
 lar concern. He traced up his descent on both sides for several 
 generations, describing his diet and manner of life, with his 
 several battles, and particularly that in which he fell. This 
 Gantlett was a game cock, upon whose head the knight, in his 
 youth, had won five hundred pounds, and lost two thousand. 
 This naturally set the major upon the account of Edge-hill fight, 
 and ended in a duel of Jack Ogle's. 
 
 Old Reptile was extremely attentive to all that was said, 
 though it was the same he had heard every night for these 
 
 ^ Cock-fighting was then a favorite pastime. As much as 500 guineas was 
 staked on an inter-county match.
 
 l84 STEELE 
 
 twenty years, and, upon all occasions, winked upon his nephew 
 to mind what passed. 
 
 This may suffice to give the world a taste of our innocent 
 conversation, which we spun out until about ten of the clock, 
 when my maid came with a lantern to light me home. I could 
 not but reflect with myself, as I was going out, upon the talk- 
 ative humor of old men, and the little figure which that part of 
 life makes in one who cannot employ his natural propensity in 
 discourses which would make him venerable. I must own, it 
 makes me very melancholy in company, when I hear a young 
 man begin a story ; and have often observed, that one of a quarter 
 of an hour long in a man of five-and-twenty, gathers circum- 
 stances every time he tells it, until it grows into a long Canter- 
 bury tale of two hours, by that time he is threescore. 
 
 The only way of avoiding such a trifling and frivolous old 
 age, is to lay up in our way to it such stores of knowledge and 
 observation, as may make us useful and agreeable in our de- 
 clining years. The mind of man in a long life will become a 
 magazine of wisdom or folly, and will consequently discharge 
 itself in something impertinent or improving. For which rea- 
 son, as there is nothing more ridiculous than an old trifling 
 story-teller, so there is nothing more venerable than one who 
 has turned his experience to the entertainment and advantage 
 of mankind. 
 
 In short, we, who are in the last stage of life, and are apt to 
 indulge ourselves in talk, ought to consider if what we speak 
 be worth being heard, and endeavor to make our discourse like 
 that of Nestor, which Homer compares to the flowing of honey 
 for its sweetness. 
 
 I am afraid I shall be thought guilty of this excess I am 
 speaking of, when I cannot conclude without observing that 
 Milton certainly thought of this passage in Homer, when, in hie 
 description of an eloquent spirit, he says: — 
 " His tonjfue dropped manna."
 
 ON THE DEATH OF FRIENDS 
 
 Dies, ni fallor, adest, quein semper acerhum, 
 Semper honoratum, sic dii voluistis, habebo. — Virgil, " ^neid," v. 49, 
 
 And HOW the rising day renews the year, 
 A day forever sad, forever dear. — Dryden. 
 
 THERE are those among mankind, who can enjoy no relish' 
 of their being, except the world is made acquainted with 
 all that relates to them, and think everything lost that 
 passes unobserved; but others find a solid delight in stealing 
 by the crowd, and modelling their life after such a manner as is 
 as much above the approbation as the practice of the vulgar. 
 Life being too short to give instances great enough of true 
 friendship or goodwill, some sages have thought it pious to pre- 
 serve a certain reverence for the Manes of their deceased 
 friends; and have withdrawn themselves from the rest of the 
 world at certain seasons, to commemorate in their own thoughts 
 such of their acquaintance who have gone before them out of 
 this life. And indeed, when we are advanced in years, there is 
 not a more pleasing entertainment, than to recollect in a gloomy 
 moment the many we have parted with that have been dear and 
 agreeable to us, and to cast a melancholy thought or two after 
 those with whom, perhaps, we have indulged ourselves in whole 
 nights of mirth and jollity. With such inclinations in my heart 
 I went to my closet yesterday in the evening, and resolved to 
 be sorrowful; upon which occasion I could not but look with 
 disdain upon myself, that though all the reasons which I had 
 to lament the loss of many of my friends are now as forcible as 
 at the moment of their departure, yet did not my heart swell 
 with the same sorrow which I felt at that time; but I could, 
 without tears, reflect upon many pleasing adventures I have had 
 with some, who have long been blended with common earth. 
 Though it is by the benefit of nature that length of time thus 
 blots out the violence of afflictions ; yet, with tempers too much 
 
 185 9— Vol. 57
 
 l86 STEELE 
 
 given to pleasure, it is almost necessary to revive the old places 
 of grief in our memory ; and ponder step by step on past life, to 
 lead the mind into that sobriety of thought which poises the 
 heart, and makes it beat with due time, without being quick- 
 ened by desire, or retarded with despair, from its proper and 
 equal motion. When we wind up a clock that is out of order, 
 to make it go well for the future, we do not immediately set 
 the hand to the present instant, but we make it strike the round 
 of all its hours, before it can recover the regularity of its time. 
 Such, thought I, shall be my method this evening; and since 
 it is that day of the year which I dedicate to the memory of 
 such in another life as I much delighted in when living, an hour 
 or two shall be sacred to sorrow and their memory, while I run 
 over all the melancholy circumstances of this kind which have 
 occurred to me in my whole life. 
 
 The first sense of sorrow I ever knew was upon the death of 
 my father,^ at which time I was not quite five years of age ; but 
 was rather amazed at what all the house meant than possessed 
 with a real understanding why nobody was willing to play with 
 me. I remember I went into the room where his body lay, and 
 my mother sat weeping alone by it. I had my battledore in my 
 hand, and fell a-beating the coffin, and calling papa ; for, I know 
 not how, I had some slight idea that he was locked up there. 
 My mother catched me in her arms, and, transported beyond all 
 patience of the silent grief she was before in, she almost smoth- 
 ered me in her embraces ; and told me in a flood of tears, " Papa 
 could not hear me, and would play with me no more, for they 
 were going to put him under ground, whence he could never 
 come to us again." She was a very beautiful woman, of a noble 
 spirit, and there was a dignity in her grief amidst all the wild- 
 ness of her transport which, methought, struck me with an 
 instinct of sorrow, that, before I was sensible of what it was to 
 grieve, seized my very soul, and has made pity the weakness of 
 my heart ever since. The mind in infancy is, methinks, like 
 the body in embryo ; and receives impressions so forcible, that 
 they are as hard to be removed by reason as any mark with 
 which a child is born is to be taken away by any future applica- 
 
 ' Steele's father was a lawyer, and foundation at the Charterhouse, wherS 
 was once secretary to the Duke of Or- his friendship with Addison began, 
 mond, who procured the essayist a
 
 ON THE DEATH OF FRIENDS 187 
 
 tion. Hence it is that good-nature in me is no merit ; but hav- 
 ing been so frequently overwhelmed with her tears before I 
 knew the cause of any affliction, or could draw defences from 
 my own judgment, I imbibed commiseration, remorse, and an 
 unmanly gentleness of mind, which has since ensnared me into 
 ten thousand calamities ; from whence I can reap no advantage, 
 except it be that, in such a humor as I am now in, I can the bet- 
 ter indulge myself in the softness of humanity, and enjoy that 
 sweet anxiety which arises from the memory of past afflictions. 
 
 We, that are very old, are better able to remember things 
 which befell us in our distant youth than the passages of later 
 days. For this reason it is that the companions of my strong 
 and vigorous years present themselves more immediately to me 
 in this office of sorrow. Untimely and unhappy deaths are 
 what we are most apt to lament ; so little are we able to make it 
 indifferent when a thing happens, though we know it must hap- 
 pen. Thus we groan under life, and bewail those who are re- 
 lieved from it. Every object that returns to our imagination 
 raises different passions, according to the circumstance of their 
 departure. Who can have lived in an army, and in a serious 
 hour reflect upon the many gay and agreeable men that might 
 long have flourished in the arts of peace, and not join with the 
 imprecations of the fatherless and widow on the tyrant to whose 
 ambition they fell sacrifices? But gallant men, who are cut 
 off by the sword, move rather our veneration than our pity; 
 and we gather relief enough from their own contempt of death, 
 to make that no evil, which was approached with so much cheer- 
 fulness, and attended with so much honor. But when we turn 
 our thoughts from the great parts of life on such occasions, and 
 instead of lamenting those who stood ready to give death to 
 those from whom they had the fortune to receive it ; I say, when 
 we let our thoughts wander from such noble objects, and con- 
 sider the havoc which is made among the tender and the inno- 
 cent, pity enters with an unmixed softness, and possesses all our 
 souls at once. 
 
 Here (were there words to express such sentiments with 
 proper tenderness) I should record the beauty, innocence, and 
 untimely death of the first object my eyes ever beheld with love. 
 The beauteous virgin ! how ignorantly did she charm, how 
 carelessly excel ! O Death ! thou hast right to the bold, to the
 
 i88 STEELE 
 
 ambitious, to the high, and to the haughty ; but why this cruehy 
 to the humble, to the meek, to the undiscerning, to the thought- 
 less? Nor age, nor business, nor distress can erase the dear 
 image from my imagination. In the same week, I saw her 
 dressed for a ball, and in a shroud. How ill did the habit of 
 death become the pretty trifler! I still behold the smiling 
 earth A large train of disasters were coming on to my mem- 
 ory, when my servant knocked at my closet-door, and inter- 
 rupted me with a letter, attended with a hamper of wine, of the 
 same sort with that which is to be put to sale on Thursday next 
 at Garraway's cofifee-house.^ Upon the receipt of it I sent for 
 three of my friends. We are so intimate that we can be com- 
 pany in whatever state of mind we meet, and can entertain each 
 other without expecting always to rejoice. The wine we found 
 to be generous and warming, but with such a heat as moved us 
 rather to be cheerful than frolicsome. It revived the spirits, 
 without firing the blood. We commended it until two of the 
 clock this morning ; and having to-day met a little before din- 
 ner, we found that, though we drank two bottles a man, we had 
 much more reason to recollect than forget what had passed the 
 night before. 
 
 2 A noted coffee-house in Change-al- by Thomas Garraway who was the first 
 ley, Cornhill. It was opened about 1660 to sell tea.
 
 THE SPECTATOR CLUB 
 
 Ast alii sex 
 Et plures uno conclamant ore. — Juvenal^ " Satires," vii. 166. 
 
 Six more at least join their consenting voice. 
 
 THE first of our society is a gentleman of Worcestershire, 
 of an ancient descent, a baronet, his name Sir Roger de 
 Coverley.^ His great-grandfather was inventor of that 
 famous country-dance which is called after him. All who know 
 that shire are very well acquainted with the parts and merits of 
 Sir Roger. He is a gentleman that is very singular in his be- 
 havior, but his singularities proceed from his good sense, and 
 are contradictions to the manners of the world, only as he thinks 
 the world is in the wrong. However, this humor creates him 
 no enemies, for he does nothing with sourness or obstinacy; 
 and his being unconfined to modes and forms makes him but 
 the readier and more capable to please and oblige all who know 
 him. When he is in town he lives in Soho Square. It is said 
 he keeps himself a bachelor by reason he was crossed in love by 
 a perverse beautiful widow of the next county to him. Before 
 this disappointment, Sir Roger was what you call a fine gentle- 
 man,^ had often supped with my Lord Rochester^ and Sir George 
 Etherege,* fought a duel upon his first coming to town, and 
 kicked bully Dawson^ in a public coffee-house for calling him 
 
 ^ The tune and dance are said to have 
 been named after a Yorkshire knight, 
 Roger Calverley, who lived in the reign 
 of Richard I (Chappell's " Music of the 
 Olden Time"). 
 
 2 This describes those whom Steele 
 calls " ambitious young men, every 
 night employed in roasting Porters, 
 smoaking Coblers, knocking down 
 Watchmen, overturning Constables, 
 etc." ("Tatler," 77.) 
 
 8 John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester 
 (1647-1680), a poet of some ability. 
 Rochester and Sedley anticipated the 
 Mohocks of Queen Anne's reign, and 
 were notorious even in the Restoration 
 age. 
 
 * This dramatist (1634-1694) closely re- 
 sembled the two writers mentioned 
 
 above. His plays are of little value, 
 but one of them, " The Comical Re- 
 venge " (1664), has the distinction of 
 having founded the English Comedy of 
 Manners. 
 
 ^ A tavern swashbuckler, who is rep- 
 resented in Brown's " Letters from the 
 Living to the Dead " as thus challeng- 
 ing a rival bully: — *' If ever you intend 
 to be my Rival in Glory, you must fight 
 a Bailiff once a Dav, Stand Kick and 
 CufT once a Week, Challenge some Cow- 
 ard or Other once a Month, Bilk your 
 Lodgings once a Quarter, and Cheat a 
 Taylor once a Year. Never till then 
 will the fame of W— n (Wharton?) ring 
 like Dawson's in every coflfee-house, and 
 be the merry subject of every Tavem 
 Tittle-Tattle." 
 
 IS9
 
 190 
 
 STEELE 
 
 youngster. But being ill-used by the above-mentioned widow, 
 he was very serious for a year and a half ; and though, his tem- 
 per being naturally jovial, he at last got over it, he grew careless 
 of himself and never dressed afterwards. He continues to wear 
 a coat and doublet of the same cut that were in fashion at the 
 time of his repulse, which, in his merry humors, he tells us, has 
 been in and out twelve times since he first wore it. It is said 
 Sir Roger grew humble in his desires after he had forgot his 
 cruel beauty, insomuch that it is reported he has frequently 
 offended with beggars and gypsies ; but this is looked upon, by 
 his friends, rather as matter of raillery than truth. He is now 
 in his fifty-sixth year, cheerful, gay, and hearty ; keeps a good 
 house both in town and country ; a great lover of mankind ; but 
 there is such a mirthful cast in his behavior, that he is rather 
 beloved than esteemed.^ His tenants grow rich, his servants 
 look satisfied, all the young women profess love to him, and the 
 young men are glad of his company. When he comes into a 
 house, he calls the servants by their names, and talks all the way 
 upstairs to a visit. I must not omit that Sir Roger is a justice 
 of the quorum ; that he fills the chair at a quarter-session with 
 great abilities, and three months ago gained universal applause, 
 by explaining a passage in the Game Act. 
 
 The gentleman next in esteem and authority among us is 
 another bachelor, who is a member of the Inner Temple, a man 
 of great probity, wit, and understanding; but he has chosen 
 his place of residence rather to obey the direction of an old 
 humorsome father than in pursuit of his own inclinations. He 
 was placed there to study the laws of the land, and is the most 
 learned of any of the house in those of the stage. Aristotle and 
 Longinus are much better understood by him than Littleton or 
 
 * The Coverley papers properly 
 amount to thirty-one tn number, of 
 which Addison wrote sixteen, Steele 
 s£ven, Budgell three, and Tickell one. 
 (No. 410, signed T, has been ascribed 
 to Steele, but internal evidence favors 
 its assignment to Tickell.) The natural 
 outcome of this joint-authorship is the 
 presence of some incongruities in the 
 sketch. To mention but one example, the 
 simple knight who makes guileless com- 
 ments on tne Tombs (Addison's " Spec- 
 tator," 329) could never have been such 
 a beau in his youth as to have supped 
 with Etherege and Rochester (Steele, 
 " Spectator, 2). It can hardly be 
 doubted that Addison indulged in some 
 irony at the knight's expense, thereby 
 
 aiming a left-handed blow at Tory 
 squiredom. It is only hero-worship 
 that could make a critic see in Addi- 
 son's picture nothing but "a sweet 
 image of simplicity and goodness " (Ar- 
 nold's " Spectator "). Nor is it quite 
 i'ust to say, as Mr. Gosse does, that Sir 
 ioger is the peculiar property of Ad- 
 dison." This is merely to re-echo what 
 Mr. Forster truly called " the braying 
 of Hurd." Some of the finest touches 
 in the picture are entirely due to Steele, 
 and a very competent critic, after a sub- 
 tle analysis of the character, arrived at 
 the conclusion that *' all that is amiable 
 in the conception belongs to Steele 
 (Minto's " Manual of English Prose 
 Literature," p. 457).
 
 THE SPECTATOR CLUB 191 
 
 Coke. The father sends up every post questions relating to 
 marriage-articles, leases, and tenures, in the neighborhood ; all 
 which questions he agrees with an attorney to answer and take 
 care of in the lump. He is studying the passions themselves, 
 when he should be inquiring into the debates among men which 
 arise from them. He knows the argument of each of the ora- 
 tions of Demosthenes and Tully, but not one case in the reports 
 of our own courts. No one ever took him for a fool ; but none, 
 except his intimate friends, know he has a great deal of wit. 
 This turn makes him at once both disinterested and agreeable. 
 As few of his thoughts are drawn from business, they are most 
 of them fit for conversation. His taste for books is a Httle too 
 just for the age he lives in; he has read all, but approves of 
 very few. His familiarity with the customs, manners, actions, 
 and writings of the ancients, makes him a very delicate observer 
 of what occurs to him in the present world. He is an excellent 
 critic, and the time of the play is his hour of business ; exactly 
 at five he passes through New-Inn, crosses through Russell- 
 court, and takes a turn at Will's till the play begins ; he has his 
 shoes rubbed and his periwig powdered at the barber's as you 
 go into the Rose. It is for the good of the audience when he is 
 at the play, for the actors have an ambition to please him. 
 
 The person of next consideration is Sir Andrew Freeport, a 
 merchant of great eminence in the city of London ; a person of 
 indefatigable industry, strong reason, and great experience. 
 His notions of trade are noble and generous, and (as every rich 
 man has usually some sly way of jesting, which would make no 
 great figure were he not a rich man) he calls the sea the British 
 Common. He is acquainted with commerce in all its parts, and 
 will tell you that it is a stupid and barbarous way to extend 
 dominion by arms ; for true power is to be got by arts and in- 
 dustry. He will often argue that, if this part of our trade were 
 well cultivated, we should gain from one nation; and if an- 
 other, from another. I have heard him prove that diligence 
 makes more lasting acquisitions than valor, and that sloth has 
 ruined more nations than the sword. He abounds in several 
 frugal maxims, amongst w^hich the greatest favorite is, " A 
 penny saved is a penny got." A general trader of good sense 
 is pleasanter company than a general scholar ; and Sir Andrew 
 having a natural unaffected eloquence, the perspicuity of his
 
 192 
 
 STEELE 
 
 discourse gives the same pleasure that wit would in another 
 man. He has made his fortune himself; and says that Eng- 
 land may be richer than other kingdoms by as plain methods as 
 he himself is richer than other men ; though at the same time 
 I can say this of him, that there is not a point in the compass 
 but blows home a ship in which he is an owner. 
 
 Next to Sir Andrew in the clubroom sits Captain Sentry, a 
 gentleman of great courage, good understanding, but invincible 
 modesty. He is one of those that deserve very well, but are 
 very awkward at putting their talents within the observation of 
 such as should take notice of them. He was some years a cap- 
 tain, and behaved himself with great gallantry in several en- 
 gagements and at several sieges ; but having a small estate of 
 his own, and being next heir to Sir Roger, he has quitted a way 
 of life in which no man can rise suitably to his merit, who is not 
 something of a courtier as well as a soldier. I have heard him 
 often lament that, in a profession where merit is placed in so 
 conspicuous a view, impudence should get the better of mod- 
 esty. When he has talked to this purpose, I never heard him 
 make a sour expression, but frankly confess that he left the 
 world, because he was not fit for it. A strict honesty and an 
 even regular behavior are in themselves obstacles to him that 
 must press through crowds, who endeavor at the same end with 
 himself, the favor of a commander. He will, however, in his 
 way of talk excuse generals for not disposing according to men's 
 dessert, or inquiring into it ; for, says he, that great man who 
 has a mind to help me has as many to break through to come 
 to me as I have to come at him : therefore he will conclude that 
 the man who would make a figure, especially in a military way, 
 must get over all false modesty, and assist his patron against 
 the importunity of other pretenders, by a proper assurance in 
 his own vindication. He says it is a civil cowardice to be back- 
 ward in asserting what you ought to expect, as it is a military 
 fear to be slow in attacking when it is your duty. With this 
 candor does the gentleman speak of himself and others. The 
 same frankness runs through all his conversation. The mili- 
 tary part of his life has furnished him with many adventures, in 
 the relation of which he is very agreeable to the company ; for 
 he is never overbearing, though accustomed to command men
 
 THE SPECTATOR CLUB 193 
 
 in the utmost degree below him ; nor ever too obsequious, from 
 an habit of obeying men highly above him. 
 
 But that our society may not appear a set of humorists, un- 
 acquainted with the gallantries and pleasures of the age, we 
 have amongst us the gallant Will Honeycomb, a gentleman 
 who, according to his years, should be in the decline of his life ; 
 but having ever been very careful of his person, and always had 
 a very easy fortune, time has made but a very little impression 
 either by wrinkles on his forehead, or traces on his brain. His 
 person is well turned, and of a good height. He is very ready 
 at that sort of discourse with which men usually entertain wom- 
 en. He has all his life dressed very well, and remembers habits 
 as others do men. He can smile when one speaks to him, and 
 laughs easily. He knows the history of every mode, and can 
 inform you from which of the French king's wenches our 
 wives and daughters had this manner of curling their hair, 
 that way of placing their hoods ; whose frailty was covered by 
 such a sort of a petticoat, and whose vanity to show her foot 
 made that part of the dress so short in such a year. In a word, 
 all his conversation and knowledge have been in the female 
 world. As other men of his age will take notice 'to you what 
 such a minister said upon such and such an occasion, he will 
 tell you when the Duke of Monmouth danced at court, such a 
 woman was then smitten, another was taken with him at the 
 head of his troop in the park. In all these important relations, 
 he has ever about the same time received a kind glance, or a 
 blow of a fan from some celebrated beauty, mother of the pres- 
 ent Lord Such-a-one. If you speak of a young commoner that 
 said a lively thing in the House, he starts up, " He has good 
 blood in his veins ; Tom Mirable begot him ; the rogue cheated 
 me in that affair; that young fellow's mother used me more 
 like a dog than any woman I ever made advances to." This 
 way of talking of his very much enlivens the conversation among 
 us of a more sedate turn, and I find there is not one of the com- 
 pany, but myself, who rarely speak at all, but speaks of him as 
 of that sort of a man who is usually called a well-bred fine gen- 
 tleman. To conclude his character, where women are not con- 
 cerned, he is an honest worthy man. 
 , I cannot tell whether I am to account him, whom I am next
 
 194 
 
 STEELE 
 
 to speak of, as one of our company ; for he visits us but seldom, 
 but when he does, it adds to every man else a new enjoyment 
 of himself. He is a clergyman, a very philosophic man, of gen- 
 eral learning, great sanctity of life, and the most exact good 
 breeding. He has the misfortune to be of a very weak consti- 
 tution, and consequently cannot accept of such cares and busi- 
 ness as preferments in his function would oblige him to ; he is 
 therefore among divines what a chamber-counsellor is among 
 lawyers. The probity of his mind, and the integrity of his life, 
 create him followers, as being eloquent or loud advances others. 
 He seldom introduces the subject he speaks upon; but we are 
 so far gone in years that he observes, when he is among us, an 
 earnestness to have him fall on some divine topic, which he al- 
 ways treats with much authority, as one who has no interest in 
 this world, as one who is hastening to the object of all his wishes, 
 and conceives hope from his decays and infirmities. These are 
 my ordinary companions.
 
 THE UGLY CLUB 
 
 Tetrum ante omnia vultum. — Juvenal, " Satires," x. 191. 
 
 A visage rough, 
 Deform'd, unfeatur'd. — Dryden. 
 
 SINCE our persons are not of our own making, when they 
 are such as appear defective or uncomely, it is, methinks, 
 an honest and laudable fortitude to dare to be ugly ; at 
 least to keep ourselves from being abashed with a consciousness 
 of imperfections which we cannot help, and in which there is no 
 guilt. I would not defend a haggard beau for passing away 
 much time at a glass, and giving softness and languishing 
 graces to deformity : all I intend is, that we ought to be con- 
 tented with our countenance and shape, so far as never to give 
 ourselves an uneasy reflection on that subject. It is to the 
 ordinary people, who are not accustomed to make very proper 
 remarks on any occasion, matter of great jest if a man enters 
 with a prominent pair of shoulders into an assembly, or is dis- 
 tinguished by an expansion of mouth, or obliquity of aspect. 
 It is happy for a man that has any of these oddnesses about him, 
 if he can be as merry upon himself as others are apt to be upon 
 that occasion. When he can possess himself with such a cheer- 
 fulness, women and children, who are at first frightened at him, 
 will afterwards be as much pleased with him. As it is barbar- 
 ous in others to rally him for natural defects, it is extremely 
 agreeable when he can jest upon himself for them. 
 
 Madame Maintenon's first husband ^ was a hero in this kind, 
 and has drawn many pleasantries from the irregularity of his 
 shape, which he describes as very much resembling the letter 
 Z. He diverts himself likewise by representing to his reader 
 the make of an engine and pulley, with which he used to take oflE 
 his hat. When there happens to be anything ridiculous in a 
 visage, and the owner of it thinks it an aspect of dignity, he must 
 
 ^ Scarron. 
 195
 
 jg6 STEELE 
 
 be of very great quality to be exempt from raillery. The best 
 expedient, therefore, is to be pleasant upon himself. Prince 
 Harry and Falstaff, in Shakespeare, have carried the ridicule 
 upon fat and lean as far as it will go. Falstaff is humorously 
 called woolsack, bedpresser, and hill of flesh ; Harry, a starvel- 
 ing, an elfskin, a sheath, a bowcase, and a tuck. There is, in 
 several incidents of the conversation between them, the jest still 
 kept up upon the person. Great tenderness and sensibility in 
 this point is one of the greatest weaknesses of self-love. For my 
 own part, I am a little unhappy in the mould of my face, which 
 is not quite so long as it is broad. Whether this might not 
 partly arise from my opening my mouth much seldomer than 
 other people, and by consequence not so much lengthening the 
 fibres of my visage, I am not at leisure to determine. However 
 it be, I have been often put out of countenance by the shortness 
 of my face,- and was formerly at great pains in concealing it by 
 wearing a periwig with a high fore-top, and letting my beard 
 grow. But now I have thoroughly got over this delicacy, and 
 could be contented with a much shorter, provided it might qual- 
 ify me for a member of the merry club, which the following let- 
 ter gives me an account of. I have received it from Oxford, 
 and as it abounds with the spirit of mirth and good humor, 
 which is natural to that place, I shall set it down word for word 
 as it came to me. 
 
 " Most Profound Sir : 
 
 " Having been very well entertained, in the last of your 
 speculations that I have yet seen, by your specimen upon clubs, 
 which I therefore hope you will continue, I shall take the lib- 
 erty to furnish you with a brief account of such a one as, per- 
 haps, you have not seen in all your travels, unless it was your 
 fortune to touch upon some of the woody parts of the African 
 continent, in your voyage to or from Grand Cairo. There have 
 arose in this university (long since you left us without saying 
 anything) several of these inferior hebdomadal societies, as the 
 Punning Club, the Witty Club, and, amongst the rest, the 
 Handsome Club; as a burlesque upon which, a certain merry 
 species that seem to have come into the world in masquerade, 
 
 • This was made use of by the savage picture of somebody over a farmer's 
 John Dennis in his attack on SteeJe, chimney." Steele vanquished his surly 
 mho had, he said, " a shape like the critic with the suavest good-humor.
 
 THE UGLY CLUB j^y 
 
 for some years last past have associated themselves together, 
 and assumed the name of the Ugly Club. This ill-favored fra- 
 ternity consists of a president and twelve fellows ; the choice 
 of which is not confined by patent to any particular foundation 
 (as St. John's men would have the world believe, and have there- 
 fore erected a separate society within themselves), but liberty is 
 left to elect from any school in Great Britain, provided the can- 
 didates be within the rules of the club, as set forth in a table 
 entitled, ' The Act of Deformity,' a clause or two of which I 
 shall transmit to you. 
 
 " * I. That no person whatsoever shall be admitted without a 
 visible queerity in his aspect, or peculiar cast of countenance ; 
 of which the president and officers for the time being are to 
 determine, and the president to have the casting voice. 
 
 " ' II. That a singular regard be had upon examination to 
 the gibbosity of the gentlemen that offer themselves as found- 
 er's kinsmen ; or to the obliquity of their figure, in what sort 
 soever. 
 
 " ' III. That if the quantity of any man's nose be eminently 
 miscalculated, whether as to length or breadth, he shall have a 
 just pretence to be elected. 
 
 " ' Lastly, That if there shall be two or more competitors for 
 the same vacancy, cceteris paribus, he that has the thickest skin 
 to have the preference.' 
 
 " Every fresh member, upon his first night, is to entertain the 
 company with a dish of codfish, and a speech in praise of ^sop, 
 whose portraiture they have in full proportion, or rather dis- 
 proportion, over the chimney ; and their design is, as soon as 
 their funds are sufficient, to purchase the heads of Thersites, 
 Duns Scotus,^ Scarron, Hudibras,* and the old gentleman in 
 Oldham,^ with all the celebrated ill faces of antiquity, as furni- 
 ture for the clubroom. 
 
 " As they have always been professed admirers of the other 
 sex, so they unanimously declare that they will give all pos- 
 sible encouragement to such as will take the benefit of the stat- 
 ute, though none yet have appeared to do it. 
 
 » The disciples of Aquinas maligned his beard, which was a mixture of whejr^ 
 the personal appearance as well as the orange, and gray. 
 doctrines of Duns Scotus. ^ Ignatius Loyola as described in the 
 
 * Admitted to the club for the sake of third of the " Satires upon the Jesuits * 
 
 by John Oldham, 1679.
 
 198 STEELE 
 
 " The worthy president, who is their most devoted champion, 
 has lately shown me two copies of verses, composed by a gen- 
 tleman of his society ; the first, a congratulatory ode, inscribed 
 to Mrs. Touchwood, upon the loss of her two fore-teeth ; the 
 other, a panegyric upon Mrs. Andiron's left shoulder. Mrs. 
 Vizard, he says, since the small-pox, has grown tolerably ugly, 
 and a top toast in the club ; but I never heard him so lavish of 
 his fine things as upon old Nell Trot, who constantly officiates 
 at their table ; her he even adores and extols as the very coun- 
 terpart of Mother Shipton ; in short, Nell, says he, is one of the 
 extraordinary works of nature ; but as for complexion, shape, 
 and features, so valued by others, they are all mere outside and 
 symmetry, which is his aversion. Give me leave to add that the 
 president is a facetious, pleasant gentleman, and never more so 
 than when he has got (as he calls them) his dear mummers about 
 him ; and he often protests it does him good to meet a fellow 
 with a right genuine grimace in his air (which is so agreeable in 
 the generality of the French nation) ; and, as an instance of his 
 sincerity in this particular, he gave me a sight of a list in his 
 pocketbook of all this class, who for these five years have fallen 
 under his observation, with himself at the head of them, and in 
 the rear (as one of a promising and improving aspect). Sir, 
 " Your obliged and humble servant, 
 
 " Alexander Carbuncle. 
 " Oxford, March 12, 1710."
 
 SIR ROGER AND THE WIDOW 
 
 Hcerent iniixi pectore vultus, — Virgil, " ^neid," iv. 4. 
 Her looks were deep imprinted in his heart. 
 
 IN my first description of the company in which I pass most 
 of my time, it may be remembered that I mentioned a 
 great affliction which my friend Sir Roger had met with 
 in his youth, which was no less than a disappointment in love. 
 It happened this evening that we fell into a very pleasing walk 
 at a distance from his house. As soon as we came into it, " It 
 is," quoth the good old man, looking round him with a smile, 
 " very hard that any part of my land should be settled upon 
 one who has used me so ill as the perverse widow ^ did ; and 
 yet I am sure I could not see a sprig of any bough of this whole 
 walk of trees, but I should reflect upon her and her severity. 
 She has certainly the finest hand of any woman in the world. 
 You are to know this was the place wherein I used to muse 
 upon her; and by that custom I can never come into it, but 
 the same tender sentiments revive in my mind as if I had actu- 
 ally walked with that beautiful creature under these shades. I 
 have been fool enough to carve her name on the bark of several 
 of these trees ; so unhappy is the condition of men in love to 
 attempt the removing of their passion by the methods which 
 serve only to imprint it deeper. She has certainly the finest 
 hand of any woman in the world." 
 
 Here followed a profound silence ; and I was not displeased 
 to observe my friend falling so naturally into a discourse, which 
 I had ever before taken notice he industriously avoided. After 
 a very long pause, he entered upon an account of this great cir- 
 cumstance in his life, with an air which I thought raised my idea 
 of him above what I had ever had before ; and gave me the 
 picture of that cheerful mind of his befoje it received that stroke 
 
 1 It has been conjectured that the i8i— was Mrs. Catherine Bovcy, to 
 widow— and also, with less probability, whom Steele dedicated the second vol- 
 the sweetheart alluded to in "Tatler," ume of his " Lady's Library." 
 
 IQQ
 
 200 STEELE 
 
 which has ever since affected his words and actions. But He 
 went on as follows : 
 
 " I came to my estate in my twenty-second year, and resolved 
 to follow the steps of the most worthy of my ancestors who 
 have inhabited this spot of earth before me, in all the methods 
 of hospitality and good neighborhood, for the sake of my fame ; 
 and in country sports and recreations, for the sake of my health. 
 In my twenty-third year, I was obliged to serve as Sheriff of my 
 county ; and in my servants, officers, and whole equipage, in- 
 dulged the pleasure of a young man (who did not think ill of 
 his own person) in taking that public occasion of showing my 
 figure and behavior to advantage. You may easily imagine 
 to yourself what appearance I made, who am pretty tall, rode 
 well, and was very well dressed, at the head of a whole county, 
 with music before me, a feather in my hat, and my horse well 
 bitted. I can assure you I was not a little pleased with the kind 
 looks and glances I had from all the balconies and windows as 
 I rode to the hall where the assizes were held. But when I 
 came there, a beautiful creature, in a widow's habit, sat in 
 court to hear the event of a cause concerning her dower. This 
 commanding creature (who was born for the destruction of all 
 who beheld her) put on such a resignation in her countenance, 
 and bore the whispers of all around the court with such a pretty 
 uneasiness, I warrant you, and then recovered herself from one 
 eye to another, until she was perfectly confused by meeting 
 something so wistful in all she encountered, that at last, with a 
 murrain to her, she cast her bewitching eye upon me. I no 
 sooner met it but I bowed, like a great surprised booby ; and 
 knowing her cause to be the first which came on, I cried, like a 
 captivated calf as I was, ' Make way for the defendant's wit- 
 nesses.' This sudden partiality made all the county see the 
 sheriff also was become a slave to the fine widow. During the 
 time her cause was upon trial, she behaved herself, I warrant 
 you, with such a deep attention to her business, took opportuni- 
 ties to have little billets handed to her counsel, then would be 
 in such a pretty confusion, occasioned, you must know, by act- 
 ing before so much company, that not only I, but the whole 
 court, was prejudiced in her favor ; and all that the next heir 
 to her husband had to urge was thought so groundless and 
 frivolous that when it came to her counsel to reply, there was
 
 SIR ROGER AND THE WIDOW 201 
 
 not half so much said as everyone besides in the court thought 
 he could have urged to her advantage. You must understand, 
 sir, this perverse woman is one of those unaccountable creatures 
 that secretly rejoice in the admiration of men, but indulge them- 
 selves in no further consequences. Hence it is that she has ever 
 had a train of admirers, and she removes from her slaves in 
 town to those in the country according to the seasons of the 
 year. She is a reading lady, and far gone in the pleasures of 
 friendship. She is always accompanied by a confidant who is 
 witness to her daily protestations against our sex, and conse- 
 quently a bar to her first steps towards love, upon the strength 
 of her own maxims and declarations. 
 
 " However, I must needs say, this accomplished mistress of 
 mine has distinguished me above the rest, and has been known 
 to declare Sir Roger de Coverley was the tamest and most hu- 
 mane of all the brutes in the country. I was told she said so by 
 one who thought he rallied me ; but upon the strength of this 
 slender encouragement of being thought least detestable, I 
 made new liveries, new-paired my coach-horses, sent them all 
 to town to be bitted, and taught to throw their legs well, and 
 move all together, before I pretended to cross the country and 
 wait upon her. As soon as I thought my retinue suitable to the 
 character of my fortune and youth, I set out from hence to 
 make my addresses. The particular skill of this lady has ever 
 been to inflame your wishes, and yet command respect. To 
 make her mistress of this art, she has a greater share of knowl- 
 edge, wit, and good sense than is usual even among men of 
 merit. Then she is beautiful beyond the race of women. If you 
 will not let her go on with a certain artifice with her eyes, and 
 the skill of beauty, she will arm herself with her real charms, 
 and strike you with admiration instead of desire. It is certain 
 that if you were to behold the whole woman, there is that dig- 
 nity in her aspect, that composure in her motion, that com- 
 placency in her manner, that if her form makes you hope, her 
 merit makes you fear. But then again she is such a desperate 
 scholar that no country gentleman can approach her without 
 being a jest. As I was going to tell you, when I came to her 
 house, I was admitted to her presence with great civility ; at the 
 same time she placed herself to be first seen by me in such an 
 attitude as I think you call the posture of a picture, that she dis-
 
 202 STEELE 
 
 covered new charms, and I at last came towards her with such 
 an awe as made nie speechless. This she no sooner observed 
 but she made her advantage of it, and began a discourse to me 
 concerning love and honor, as they both are followed by pre- 
 tenders, and the real votaries to them. When she discussed 
 these points in a discourse, which I verily believe was as learned 
 as the best philosopher in Europe could possibly make, she 
 asked me whether she was so happy as to fall in with my senti- 
 ments on these important particulars. Her confidant sat by 
 her, and upon my being in the last confusion and silence, this 
 malicious aid of hers, turning to her, says, ' I am very glad to 
 observe Sir Roger pauses upon this subject, and seems resolved 
 to deliver all his sentiments upon the matter when he pleases 
 to speak.' They both kept their countenances, and after I had 
 sat half an hour meditating how to behave before such profound 
 casuists, I rose up and took my leave. Chance has since that 
 time thrown me very often in her way, and she as often has di- 
 rected a discourse to me which I do not understand. This bar- 
 barity has kept me ever at a distance from the most beautiful 
 object my eyes ever beheld. It is thus also she deals with all 
 mankind, and you must make love to her, as you would conquer 
 the sphinx, by posing her. But were she like other women, 
 and that there were any talking to her, how constant must the 
 pleasure of that man be who would converse with a creature — 
 But, after all, you may be sure her heart is fixed on some one or 
 other ; and yet I have been credibly informed — but who can 
 believe half that is said? — after she had done speaking to me 
 she put her hand to her bosom and adjusted her tucker. Then 
 she cast her eyes a little down upon my beholding her too ear- 
 nestly. They say she sings excellently : her voice in her ordinary 
 speech has something in it inexpressibly sweet. You must 
 know I dined with her at a public table the day after I first saw 
 her, and she helped me to some tansy in the eye of all the gentle- 
 men in the country. She has certainly the finest hand of any 
 woman in the world. I can assure you, sir, were you to behold 
 her you would be in the same condition ; for as her speech is 
 music, her form is angelic. But I find I grow irregular while I 
 am talking of her ; but indeed it would be stupidity to be un- 
 concerned at such perfection. Oh, the excellent creature ! she 
 is as inimitable to all women as she is inaccessible to all men—"-
 
 SIR ROGER AND THE WIDOW 203 
 
 I found my friend begin to rave, and insensibly led him 
 towards the house that we might be joined by some other com- 
 pany ; and am convinced that the widow is the secret cause of 
 all that inconsistency which appears in some parts of my friend's 
 discourse ; though he has so much command of himself as not 
 directly to mention her, yet, according to that of Martial, which 
 one knows not how to render into English, Dum facet, hanc 
 loquitur; I shall end this paper with that whole epigram, 
 which represents with much humor my honest friend's condi- 
 tion : — 
 
 Quicquid agit Rufus, nihil est nisi Ncevia Rufo, 
 
 Si gaudctjsi Het, si tacet, hanc loquitur: 
 Ccenat, propinat, poscit, negat, innuit, una est 
 
 Ncevia: si non sit Ncevia, mutus erit. 
 Scriberet hesterna patri cum luce salutem, 
 
 Ncevia lux, inquit, Ncevia! lumen, ave. — " Epigrams," i. 69. 
 
 " Let Rufus weep, rejoice, stand, sit or walk, 
 Still he can nothing but of Naevia talk ; 
 Let him eat, drink, ask questions or dispute, 
 Still he must speak of Naevia, or be mute. 
 He writ to his father, ending with this line, 
 I am, my lovely Naevia, ever thine."
 
 THE CHARACTER OF NED SOFTLY 
 
 NICOLINI AND THE LIONS 
 
 FANS 
 
 SIR ROGER AT THE ASSIZES 
 
 THE VISION OF MIRZA 
 
 THE ART OF GRINNING 
 
 SIR ROGER AT THE ABBEY 
 
 SIR ROGER AT THE PLAY 
 
 THE TORY FOX-HUNTER 
 
 BY 
 
 JOSEPH ADDISON
 
 JOSEPH ADDISON 
 1672 — 1719 
 
 Joseph Addison was born at Milston, his father's rectory, in Wilt- 
 shire, in 1672. He learned the rudiments of education at schools in 
 the neighborhood of his home, and was then sent to the Charterhouse. 
 At fifteen he was entered at Queen's College, Oxford, but he had not 
 been there many months when a copy of Latin verses, which attracted 
 the notice of Dr. Lancaster, gained him admittance at Magdalen Col- 
 lege. As Demy and afterwards as Fellow he resided for ten years at 
 Magdalen, and the college is still proud of his name. During his 
 residence at the university he appears to have concentrated his atten- 
 tion on the study of the Latin poets, and to have had some thought of 
 devoting himself to poetry; his position as Fellow of a college, lich 
 in preferment, would naturally have led him to the Church as a pro- 
 fession, but the influence of the Lord Keeper Somers and of Montague, 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer, together with a pension obtained for 
 him through Lord Somers, determined his choice otherwise. In 1699 
 he left Oxford and remained on the Continent for more than four 
 years. On his return to England, at the end of 1703, Addison's pros- 
 pects of employment were for a while clouded by the fall of his friend 
 Lord Somers and rise of Godolphin to power at the accession of Anne. 
 But this exclusion from office did not last long, and in 1706 he was 
 made Under Secretary and employed on a foreign mission. He be- 
 came afterwards Chief Secretary for Ireland — an office which he filled 
 twice — Secretary to the Lord Justices, and finally, in 1717, Secretary 
 of State. This completes the tale of Addison's public career. It was 
 like his private life — unblemished and stainless in its integrity. He 
 married, in 1716, the Countess of Warwick, and died in 1719, having 
 just completed his forty-seventh year. 
 
 As an author, Addison has left poems, among which was the " Cam- 
 paign," written to celebrate Marlborough's victory at Blenheim ; plays, 
 of which the most successful was "Cato;" his "Italian Travels;" 
 and lastly, the immortal papers which have given enduring fame to the 
 " Tatler," " Spectator," " Guardian," and one or two other short-lived 
 periodicals. Addison's style has always been looked upon as the model 
 of classical English. " His prose," in the words of Dr. Johnson. " is 
 the model of the middle style; on grave subjects not formal, on light 
 occasions not grovelling, pure without scrupulosity, and exact without 
 apparent elaboration ; always equable and always easy, it was apparently 
 his principal endeavor to avoid all harshness and severity of diction." 
 In delicacy of wit, fertility of imagination, and grace of expression, 
 his best essays, Lord Macaulay truly says, approach near to absolute 
 perfection. Mr. Thackeray holds Addison to have been " one of the 
 most enviable of mankind. A life prosperous and beautiful — a calm 
 death — an immense fame and affection afterwards for his happy and 
 spotless name." The essays selected were contributed to the " Spec- 
 tator," " Tatler," and " Freeholder," respectively. 
 
 20b
 
 THE CHARACTER OF NED SOFTLY 
 
 Idetn iniiceto est inHcetior rure, 
 
 Simul poemata attigit; neque idem unquam 
 
 Mque est beatus, ac poema cum scribit: 
 
 Tain gaudet in se, tamque se ipse miratur. 
 
 Nimirum idem omnes fallimur; neque est quisquam 
 
 Quern non in aliqua re videre Suffenum 
 
 Possis. — Catullus, " de Suffeno," xx. 14. 
 
 Suffenus has no more wit than a mere down when he attempts to 
 write verses ; and yet he is never happier than when he is scribbling : so 
 much does he admire himself and his compositions. And, indeed, this 
 is the foible of every one of us ; for there is no man living who is not a 
 Suflfenus in one thing or other. 
 
 I YESTERDAY came hither about two hours before the 
 company generally make their appearance, with a design 
 to read over all the newspapers ; but, upon my sitting 
 down, I was accosted by Ned Softly, who saw me from a corner 
 in the other end of the room, where I found he had been writ- 
 ing something. " Mr. Bickerstafif," says he, " I observe by a 
 late paper of yours, that you and I are just of a humor ; for you 
 must know, of all impertinences, there is nothing which I so 
 much hate as news. I never read a gazette in my life ; and 
 never trouble my head about our armies, whether they win or 
 lose, or in what part of the world they lie encamped." Without 
 giving me time to reply, he drew a paper of verses out of his 
 pocket, telling me, " that he had something .which would en- 
 tertain me more agreeably ; and that he would desire my judg- 
 ment upon every Hne, for that we had time enough before us 
 until the company came in," 
 
 Ned Softly is a very pretty poet, and a great admirer of easy 
 lines. Waller is his favorite : and as that admirable writer has 
 the best and worst verses of any among our great English poets, 
 Ned Softly has got all the bad ones without book : which he 
 repeats upon occasion, to show his reading, and garnish his 
 
 207
 
 2o8 ADDISON 
 
 conversation. Ned is indeed a true English reader, incapable 
 of relishing the great and masterly strokes of this art ; but won- 
 derfully pleased with the Httle Gothic ornaments of epigram- 
 matical conceits, turns, points, and quibbles, which are so fre- 
 quent in the most admired of our English poets, and practised 
 by those who want genius and strength to represent, after the 
 manner of the ancients, simplicity in its natural beauty and per- 
 fection. 
 
 Finding myself unavoidably engaged in such a conversation, 
 I was resolved to tutn my pain into a pleasure, and to divert 
 myself as well as I could with so very odd a fellow. " You must 
 understand," says Ned, " that the sonnet I am going to read to 
 you was written upon a lady, who showed me some verses of 
 her own making, and is, perhaps, the best poet of our age. But 
 you shall hear it." Upon which he began to read as follows : 
 
 "TO MIRA, ON HER INCOMPARABLE POEMS. 
 
 I 
 
 " When dress'd in laurel wreaths you shine, 
 And tune your soft melodious notes, 
 You seem a sister of the Nine, 
 Or Phcebus' self in petticoats. 
 
 II 
 
 " I fancy, when your song you sing, 
 
 (Your song you sing with so much art) 
 Your pen was pluck'd from Cupid's wing; 
 For, ah ! it wounds me like his dart." 
 
 " Why," says I, " this is a little nosegay of conceits, a very 
 lump of salt : every verse has something in it that piques ; and 
 then the dart in the last line is certainly as pretty a sting in the 
 tail of an epigram, for so I think you critics call it, as ever en- 
 tered into the thought of a poet." " Dear Mr. Bickerstafif," says 
 he, shaking me by the hand, " everybody knows you to be a 
 judge of these things ; and to tell you truly, I read over Ros- 
 common's translation of Horace's * Art of Poetry ' three sev- 
 eral times before I sat down to write the sonnet which I have 
 shown you. But you shall hear it again, and pray observe every 
 line of it ; for not one of them shall pass without your approba- 
 tion — 
 
 " When dress'd in laurel wreaths you shine.
 
 THE CHARACTER OF NED SOFTLY 209 
 
 " That is," says he, " when you have your garland on ; when 
 you are writing verses." To which I repHed, " I know your 
 meaning ; a metaphor ! " " The same," said he, and went on-^ 
 
 " And tune your soft melodious notes. 
 
 " Pray observe the gliding of that verse ; there is scarce a 
 consonant in it ; I took care to make it run upon liquids. Give 
 me your opinion of it." " Truly," said I, " I think it as good as 
 the former." " I am very glad to hear you say so," says he, 
 " but mind the next — 
 
 " You seem a sister of the Nine. 
 
 " That is," says he, " you seem a sister of the muses ; for, if 
 you look into ancient authors, you will find it was their opinion 
 that there were nine of them." " I remember it very well," said 
 I ; " but pray proceed." 
 
 " Or Phoebus' self in petticoats. 
 
 " Phoebus," says he, " was the god of poetry. These little 
 instances, Mr. Bickerstaff, show a gentleman's reading. Then, 
 to take off from the air of learning, which Phoebus and the 
 muses had given to this first stanza, you may observe, how it 
 falls all of a sudden into the familiar, ' in petticoats ' ! 
 
 " Let us now," says I, " enter upon the second stanza ; I find 
 the first line is still a continuation of the metaphor — 
 
 " I fancy, when your song you sing." 
 
 " It is very right," says he ; " but pray observe the turn of 
 words in those two lines. I was a whole hour in adjusting of 
 them, and have still a doubt upon me whether in the second 
 line it should be, * Your song you sing ; ' or, ' You sing your 
 song.' You shall hear them both — 
 
 " I fancy, when your song you sing, 
 (Your song you sing with so much art) ; 
 
 or, 
 
 " I fancy, when your song you sing, 
 (You sing your song with so much art)." 
 
 " Truly," said I, " the turn is so natural either way, that yot! 
 
 (have made me almost giddy with it." " Dear sir," said he. 
 
 10— Vol. 57
 
 2IO ADDISON 
 
 grasping mc by the hand, " you have a great deal of patience ; 
 but pray what do you think of the next verse — 
 
 " Your pen was pluck'd from Cupid's wing." 
 
 « 
 
 Think ! " says I, " I think you have made Cupid look like 
 a little goose." " That was my meaning," says he, " I think the 
 ridicule is well enough hit off. But we come now to the last, 
 which sums up the whole matter — 
 
 " For, ah ! it wounds me like his dart. 
 
 " Pray how do you like that * Ah ! * doth it not make a pretty 
 figure in that place ? ' Ah ! ' — it looks as if I felt the dart, and 
 cried out as being pricked with it — 
 
 " For, ah! it wounds me like his dart. 
 
 " My friend, Dick Easy," continued he, " assured me he 
 would rather have written that ' Ah ! ' than to have been the 
 author of the ' JEneid.' He indeed objected, that I made Mira's 
 pen like a quill in one of the lines, and like a dart in the other. 
 But as to that — " " Oh ! as to that," says I, " it is but suppos- 
 ing Cupid to be Hke a porcupine, and his quills and darts will 
 be the same thing." He was going to embrace me for the hint ; 
 but half a dozen critics coming into the room, whose faces he 
 did not like, he conveyed the sonnet into his pocket, and whis- 
 pered me in the ear, " he would show it me again as soon as his 
 man had written it over fair."
 
 NICOLINl AND THE LIONS 
 
 Die mihi, si fueris tu leo, qualis eris? — Mart. 
 Were you a lion, how would you behave? 
 
 THERE is nothing that of late years has afforded matter 
 of greater amusement to the town than Signor Nico- 
 lini's ^ combat with a Hon in the Haymarket, which has 
 been very often exhibited to the general satisfaction of most 
 of the nobility and gentry in the kingdom of Great Britain. 
 Upon the first rumor of his intended combat, it was confidently 
 affirmed, and is still believed, by many in both galleries, that 
 there would be a tame lion sent from the Tower every opera 
 night in order to be killed by Hydaspes.^ This report, though 
 altogether groundless, so universally prevailed in the upper 
 regions of the playhouse that some of the most refined politi- 
 cians in those parts of the audience gave it out in whisper that 
 the lion was a cousin-german of the tiger who made his ap- 
 pearance in King William's days, and that the stage would be 
 supplied with lions at the public expense during the whole ses- 
 sion. Many likewise were the conjectures of the treatment 
 which this lion was to meet with from the hands of Signor 
 Nicolini ; some supposed that he was to subdue him in recita- 
 tivo, as Orpheus used to serve the wild beasts in his time, and 
 afterwards to knock him on the head ; some fancied that the 
 lion would not pretend to lay his paws upon the hero, by reason 
 of the received opinion, that a lion will not hurt a virgin. Sev- 
 eral, who pretended to have seen the opera in Italy, had in- 
 formed their friends that the lion was to act a part in high Dutch, 
 and roar twice or thrice to a thorough bass before he fell at the 
 
 1 The Cavaliere Nicolino Grimaldi, a perhaps ever appeared on a stage " 
 
 Neapolitan, came to London in 1708. (*' Spectator," 405). He is alluded to by 
 
 He performed first in " Pyrrhus and Addison in " Spectator, 5, as acting m 
 
 Demetrius " in 1710, the last of the mon- the opera " Rinaldo " by Mynheer 
 
 grel Anglo-Italian operas. In 1712 he Handel." . . 
 
 left England, after gaining the name of ''An opera by Francesco Mancini, 
 
 being " the greatest performer in dra- produced at the Haymarket, 1710. 
 matick music that is now living, or that 
 
 211
 
 212 ADDISON 
 
 feet of Hydaspes. To clear up a matter that was so variously 
 reported, I have made it my business to examine whether this 
 pretended Hon is really the savage he appears to be, or only a 
 counterfeit. 
 
 But before I communicate my discoveries, I must acquaint 
 the reader, that upon my walking behind the scenes last win- 
 ter, as I was thinking on something else, I accidentally jostled 
 against a monstrous animal that extremely startled me, and, 
 upon my nearer survey of it, appeared to be a lion rampant. 
 The lion seeing me very much surprised told me, in a gentle 
 voice, that I might come by him if I pleased ; " for," says he, " I 
 do not intend to hurt anybody." I thanked him very kindly, 
 and passed by him : and in a httle time after saw him leap upon 
 the stage, and act his part with very great applause. It has 
 been observed by several that the lion has changed his manner 
 of acting twice or thrice since his first appearance ; which will 
 not seem strange when I acquaint my reader that the lion has 
 been changed upon the audience three several times. The first 
 lion was a candle-snuffer, who, being a fellow of a testy, choleric 
 temper, overdid his part, and would not suffer himself to be 
 killed as easily as he ought to have done ; besides, it was ob- 
 served of him, that he grew more surly every time that he came 
 out of the lion ; and having dropt some words in ordinary con- 
 versation, as if he had not fought his best, and that he suffered 
 himself to be thrown upon his back in the scuffle, and that he 
 would wrestle with Mr. Nicolini for what he pleased, out of his 
 lion's skin, it was thought proper to discard him : and it is verily 
 believed to this day, that had he been brought upon the stage 
 another time, he would certainly have done mischief. Besides, 
 it was objected against the first lion, that he reared himself so 
 high upon his hinder paws, and walked in so erect a posture, 
 that he looked more like an old man than a lion. 
 
 The second lion was a tailor by trade, who belonged to the 
 playhouse, and had the character of a mild and peaceable man 
 in his profession. If the former was too furious, this was too 
 sheepish for his part ; insomuch, that after a short modest walk 
 upon the stage, he would fall at the first touch of Hydaspes, 
 without grappling with him, and giving him an opportunity of 
 showing his variety of Italian trips. It is said, indeed, that he 
 once gave him a rip in his flesh-colored doublet : but this was
 
 NICOLINI AND THE LIONS 213 
 
 only to make work for himself, in his private character of a 
 tailor. I must not omit that it was this second lion who treated 
 me with so much humanity behind the scenes. 
 
 The acting lion at present is, as I am informed, a country 
 gentleman, who does it for his diversion, but desires his name 
 may be concealed. He says very handsomely in his own ex- 
 cuse, that he does not act for gain, that he indulges an innocent 
 pleasure in it ; and that it is better to pass away an evening in 
 this manner than in gaming and drinking : but at the same time 
 says, with a very agreeable raillery upon himself, that if his 
 name should be known, the ill-natured world might call him, 
 " The ass in the lion's skin." This gentleman's temper is made 
 out of such a happy mixture of the mild and the choleric that he 
 outdoes both his predecessors, and has drawn together greater 
 audiences than have been known in the memory of man. 
 
 I must not conclude my narrative without first taking notice 
 of a groundless report that has been raised to a gentleman's 
 disadvantage of whom I must declare myself an admirer; 
 namely, that Signor Nicolini and the lion have been seen set- 
 ting peaceably by one another, and smoking a pipe together be- 
 hind the scenes ; by which their common enemies would in- 
 sinuate that it is but a sham combat which they represent upon 
 the stage ; but upon inquiry I find, that if any such correspond- 
 ence has passed between them, it was not till the combat was 
 over, when the lion was to be looked upon as dead, according 
 to the received rules of the drama. Besides, this is what is prac- 
 tised every day in Westminster Hall, where nothing is more 
 usual than to see a couple of lawyers, who have been tearing 
 each other to pieces in the court, embracing one another as soon 
 as they are out of it. 
 
 I would not be thought in any part of this relation to reflect 
 upon Signor Nicolini, who in acting this part only complies with 
 the wretched taste of his audience ; he knows very well that the 
 lion has many more admirers than himself; as they say of the 
 famous equestrian statue on the Pont-Neuf at Paris, that more 
 people go to see the horse than the king who sits upon it. On 
 the contrary, it gives me a just indignation to see a person whose 
 action gives new majesty to kings, resolution to heroes, and 
 softness to lovers, thus sinking from the greatness of his be- 
 havior, and degraded into the character of the London 'prentice.
 
 214 ADDISON 
 
 I have often wished that our tragedians would copy after this 
 great master of action. Could they make the same use of their 
 arms and legs, and inform their faces with as significant looks 
 and passions, how glorious would an English tragedy appear 
 with that action, which is capable of giving dignity to the forced 
 thoughts, cold conceits, and unnatural expressions of an Italian 
 opera ! In the meantime, I have related this combat of the lion, 
 to show what are at present the reigning entertainments of the 
 politer part of Great Britain. 
 
 Audiences have often been reproached by writers for the 
 coarseness of their tastes, but our present grievance does not 
 seem to be the want of a good taste, but of common sense.
 
 FANS 
 
 Lusus animo debent aliquando dari, 
 "Ad cogitandum melior ut redeat sibi. 
 
 —Phcedrus, " Fables," xiv. 5. 
 
 The mind ought sometimes to be diverted, that it may return the better 
 to thinking. 
 
 I DO not know whether to call the following letter a satire 
 upon coquettes, or a representation of their several fan- 
 tastical accomplishments, or what other title to give it; 
 but, as it is, I shall communicate it to the public. It will suffi- 
 ciently explain its own intentions, so that I shall give it my 
 reader at length, without either preface or postscript : 
 
 " Mr. Spectator : 
 
 " Women are armed with fans as men with swords, and some- 
 times do more execution with them. To the end therefore that 
 ladies may be entire mistresses of the weapons which they bear, 
 I have erected an academy for the training up of young women 
 in the exercise of the fan, according to the most fashionable airs 
 and motions that are now practised at court. The ladies who 
 carry fans under me are drawn up twice a day in my great hall, 
 where they are instructed in the use of their arms, and exer- 
 cised by the following words of command : — Handle your fans, 
 Unfurl your fans. Discharge your fans, Ground your fans. Re- 
 cover your fans. Flutter your fans. By the right observation 
 of these few plain words of command, a woman of a tolerable 
 genius, who will apply herself diligently to her exercise for the 
 space of but one half-year, shall be able to give her fan all the 
 graces that can possibly enter into that little modish machine. 
 
 " But to the end that my readers may form to themselves a 
 right notion of this exercise, I beg leave to explain it to them 
 in all its parts. When my female regiment is drawn up in ar- 
 ray, with everyone her weapon in her hand, upon my giving 
 
 215
 
 2i6 ADDISON 
 
 the word to handle their fans, each of them shakes her fan at 
 me with a smile, then gives her right-hand woman a tap upon 
 the shoulder, then presses her lips with the extremity of her 
 fan, then lets her arms fall in an easy motion, and stands in 
 readiness to receive the next word of command. All this is 
 done with a close fan, and is generally learned in the first week. 
 
 " The next motion is that of unfurling the fan, in which are 
 comprehended several little flirts and vibrations, as also gradual 
 and deliberate openings, with many voluntary fallings asunder 
 in the fan itself, that are seldom learned under a month's prac- 
 tice. This part of the exercise pleases the spectators more than 
 any other, as it discovers on a sudden an infinite number of 
 cupids, garlands, altars, birds, beasts, rainbows, and the like 
 agreeable figures, that display themselves to view, whilst every- 
 one in the regiment holds a picture in her hand. 
 
 " Upon my giving the word to discharge their fans, they give 
 one general crack that may be heard at a considerable distance 
 when the wind sits fair. This is one of the most difficult parts 
 of the exercise, but I have several ladies with me, who at their 
 first entrance could not give a pop loud enough to be heard at 
 the farther end of a room, who can now discharge a fan in such 
 a manner, that it shall make a report like a pocket-pistol. I have 
 likewise taken care (in order to hinder young women from let- 
 ting off their fans in wrong places or on unsuitable occasions) 
 to show upon what subject the crack of a fan may come in 
 properly: I have likewise invented a fan, with which a girl of 
 sixteen, by the help of a little wind which is enclosed about one 
 of the largest sticks, can make as loud a crack as a woman of 
 fifty with an ordinary fan. 
 
 " When the fans are thus discharged, the word of command 
 in course is to ground their fans. This teaches a lady to quit 
 her fan gracefully when she throws it aside in order to take up 
 a pack of cards, adjust a curl of hair, replace a falling pin, or 
 apply herself to any other matter of importance. This part of 
 the exercise, as it only consists in tossing a fan with an air upon 
 a long table (which stands by for that purpose), may be learned 
 in two days' time as well as in a twelvemonth. 
 
 " When my female regiment is thus disarmed, I generally let 
 them walk about the room for some time ; when on a sudden 
 (like ladies that look upon their watches after a long visit) they
 
 FANS 217 
 
 all of them hasten to theit* arms, catch them up in a hurry, and 
 place themselves in their proper stations upon my calling out, 
 Recover your fans. This part of the exercise is not difficult, 
 provided a woman applies her thoughts to it. 
 
 " The fluttering of the fan is the last, and indeed the master- 
 piece of the whole exercise ; but if a lady does not misspend her 
 time, she may make herself mistress of it in three months. I 
 generally lay aside the dog-days and the hot time of the summer 
 for the teaching of this part of the exercise ; for as soon as ever 
 I pronounce. Flutter your fans, the place is filled with so many 
 zephyrs and gentle breezes as are very refreshing in that season 
 of the year, though they might be dangerous to ladies of a tender 
 constitution in any other. 
 
 *' There is an infinite variety of motions to be made use of in 
 the flutter of a fan. There is the angry flutter, the modest 
 flutter, the timorous flutter, the confused flutter, the merry 
 flutter, and the amorous flutter. Not to be tedious, there 
 is scarce any emotion in the mind which does not produce 
 a suitable agitation in the fan ; insomuch, that if I only see 
 the fan of a disciplined lady, I know very well whether she 
 laughs, frowns, or blushes. I have seen a fan so very angry, 
 that it would have been dangerous for the absent lover who pro- 
 voked it to have come within the wind of it ; and at other times 
 j so very languishing, that I have been glad for the lady's sake 
 !the lover was at sufficient distance from it. I need not add, 
 that a fan is either a prude or coquette, according to the nature 
 of the person who bears it. To conclude my letter, I must ac- 
 quaint you that I have from my own observations compiled a 
 little treatise for the use of my scholars, entitled. The Passions 
 of the Fan ; which I will communicate to you, if you think it 
 may be of use to the public. I shall have a general review on 
 iThursday next ; to which you shall be very welcome if you will 
 honor it with your presence. 
 
 " I am, etc. 
 
 " P.S. I teach young gentlemen the whole art of gallanting 
 a fan. 
 
 " N.B. I have several little plain fans made for this use, to 
 avoid expense."
 
 SIR ROGER AT THE ASSIZES 
 
 Comes jucundus in via pro vehictdo est. — Puhl. Syr. " Frag." 
 An agreeable companion upon the road is as good as a coach. 
 
 A MAN'S first care should be to avoid the reproaches of 
 of his own heart ; his next, to escape the censures of 
 the world. If the last interferes with the former, it 
 ought to be entirely neglected ; but otherwise there cannot be 
 a greater satisfaction to an honest mind than to see those ap- 
 probations which it gives itself seconded by the applauses of 
 the public. A man is more sure of his conduct when the verdict 
 which he passes upon his own behavior is thus warranted and 
 confirmed by the opinion of all that know him. 
 
 My worthy friend Sir Roger is one of those who is not only 
 at peace within himself, but beloved and esteemed by all about 
 him. He receives a suitable tribute for his universal benevo- 
 lence to mankind in the returns of affection and goodwill which 
 are paid him by everyone that lives within his neighborhood. 
 I lately met with two or three odd instances of that general re- 
 spect which is shown to the good old knight. He would needs 
 carry Will Wimble and myself with him to the country assizes. 
 'As we were upon the road. Will Wimble joined a couple of plain 
 men who rid before us, and conversed with them for some time, 
 during which my friend Sir Roger acquainted me with their 
 characters. 
 
 " The first of them," says he, " that has a spaniel by his side, 
 is a yeoman of about £ioo a year, an honest man. He is just 
 within the Game Act, and qualified to kill a hare or a pheasant. 
 He knocks down his dinner with his gun twice or thrice a week ; 
 and by that means lives much cheaper than those who have not 
 so good an estate as himself. He would be a good neighbor if 
 he did not destroy so many partridges. In short, he is a very 
 sensible man, shoots flying, and has been several times foreman 
 of the petty jury. 
 
 2ig
 
 220 ADDISON 
 
 " The other that rides along with him is Tom Touchy, a fel- 
 low famous for ' taking the law ' of everybody. There is not 
 one in the town where he lives that he has not sued at a quarter- 
 sessions. The rogue had once the impudence to go to law with 
 the widow. His head is full of costs, damages, and ejectments. 
 He plagued a couple of honest gentlemen so long for a trespass 
 in breaking one of his hedges, till he was forced to sell the 
 ground it enclosed to defray the charges of the prosecution. 
 His father left him fourscore pounds a year; but he has cast 
 and been cast so often that he is not now worth thirty. I sup- 
 pose he is going upon the old business of the willow-tree." 
 
 As Sir Roger was giving me this account of Tom Touchy, 
 Will Wimble and his two companions stopped short till we came 
 up to them. After having paid their respects to Sir Roger, 
 Will told him that Mr. Touchy and he must appeal to him upon 
 a dispute that arose between them. Will, it seems, had been 
 giving his fellow-traveller an account of his angling one day in 
 such a hole, when Tom Touchy, instead of hearing out his story, 
 told him that Mr. Such-a-one, if he pleased, might " take the 
 law of him " for fishing in that part of the river. My friend 
 Sir Roger heard them both upon a round trot ; and after hav- 
 ing paused some time, told them, with the air of a man who 
 would not give his judgment rashly, that " much might be said 
 on both sides." They were neither of them dissatisfied with 
 the knight's determination, because neither of them found him- 
 self in the wrong by it. Upon which we made the best of our 
 way to the assizes. 
 
 The court was sat before Sir Roger came ; but notwithstand- 
 ing all the justices had taken their places upon the bench, they 
 made room for the old knight at the head of them ; who, for his 
 reputation in the country, took occasion to whisper in the judge's 
 ear, " that he was glad his lordship had met with so much good 
 weather in his circuit." I was listening to the proceeding of 
 the court with much attention, and infinitely pleased with that 
 great appearance of solemnity which so properly accompanies 
 such a public administration of our laws ; when, after about an 
 hour's sitting, I observed, to my great surprise, in the midst of 
 a trial, that my friend Sir Roger was getting up to speak. I 
 ,was in some pain for him, until I found he had acquitted him-
 
 SIR ROGER AT THE ASSIZES 221 
 
 self of two or three sentences, with a look of much business and 
 great intrepidity. 
 
 Upon his first rising the court was hushed, and a general 
 whisper ran among the country people that Sir Roger " was 
 up." The speech he made was so little to the purpose that I 
 shall not trouble my readers with an account of it; and I be- 
 lieve was not so much designed by the knight himself to inform 
 the court, as to give him a figure in my eye, and keep up his 
 credit in the country. 
 
 I was highly delighted, when the court rose, to see the gen- 
 tlemen of the country gathering about my old friend, and striv- 
 ing who should compliment him most; at the same time that 
 the ordinary people gazed upon him at a distance, not a little 
 admiring his courage that was not afraid to speak to the judge. 
 
 In our return home we met with a very odd accident, which 
 I cannot forbear relating, because it shows how desirous all who 
 know Sir Roger are of giving him marks of their esteem. When 
 we arrived upon the verge of his estate, we stopped at a little 
 inn to rest ourselves and our horses. The man of the house 
 had, it seems, been formerly a servant in the knight's family; 
 and to do honor to his old master, had some time since, unknown 
 to Sir Roger, put him up in a sign-post before the door; so 
 that the knight's head had hung out upon the road about a week 
 before he himself knew anything of the matter. As soon as 
 Sir Roger was acquainted with it, finding that his servant's 
 indiscretion proceeded wholly from affection and goodwill, he 
 only told him that he had made him too high a compliment; 
 and when the fellow seemed to think that could hardly be, added 
 with a more decisive look, that it was too great an honor for any 
 man under a duke ; but told him at the same time that it might 
 be altered with a very few touches, and that he himself would 
 be at the charge of it. Accordingly they got a painter by the 
 knight's directions to add a pair of whiskers to the face, and by 
 a little aggravation of the features to change it into the Sara- 
 cen's Head. I should not have known this story had not the 
 innkeeper, upon Sir Roger's alighting, told him in my hearing 
 that his honor's head was brought back last night with the al- 
 terations that he had ordered to be made in it. Upon this, my 
 friend, with his usual cheerfulness, related the particulars above 
 mentioned, and ordered the head to be brought into the room.
 
 22 2 ADDISON 
 
 I could not forbear discovering- greater expressions of mirth 
 than ordinary upon the appearance of this monstrous face, un- 
 der which, notwithstanding it was made to frown and stare in 
 a most extraordinary manner, I could still discover a distant 
 resemblance to my old friend. Sir Roger, upon seeing me 
 laugh, desired me to tell him truly if I thought it possible for 
 people to know him in that disguise. I at first kept my usual 
 silence ; but upon the knight's conjuring me to tell him whether 
 it was not still more like himself than a Saracen, I composed 
 my countenance in the best manner I could, and replied that 
 " much might be said on both sides." 
 
 These several adventures, with the knight's behavior in them, 
 gave me as pleasant a day as ever I met with in any of my 
 travels.
 
 THE VISION OF MIRZA 
 
 Omneni, qucE nunc obducta tuenti 
 'Mortales hehetat visus tibi, et humida circum 
 Caligat, nubem eripiam. — Virgil, " ^neid," v. 604. 
 
 The cloud, which, intercepting the clear light, 
 Hangs o'er thy eyes, and blunts thy mortal sight, 
 I will remove. 
 
 WHEN I was at Grand Cairo, I picked up several orien- 
 tal manuscripts, which I have still by me. Among 
 others I met with one entitled " The Visions of 
 Mirsa" which I have read over with great pleasure. I intend 
 to give it to the public when I have no other entertainment for 
 them, and shall begin with the first vision, which I have trans- 
 lated word for word, as follows: — 
 
 " On the fifth day of the moon, which according to the cus- 
 tom of my forefathers I always keep holy, after having washed 
 myself and offered up my morning devotions, I ascended the 
 high hills of Bagdad, in order to pass the rest of the day in 
 meditation and prayer. As I was here airing myself on the 
 tops of the mountains, I fell into a profound contemplation on 
 the vanity of human life, and passing from one thought to an- 
 other, ' Surely,' said I, ' man is but a shadow, and life a dream.' 
 Whilst I was thus musing, I cast my eyes towards the summit 
 of a rock that was not far from me, where I discovered one 
 in the habit of a shepherd, with a little musical instrument in 
 his hand. As I looked upon him he applied it to his lips, and 
 began to play upon it. The sound of it was exceeding sweet, 
 and wrought into a variety of tunes that were inexpressibly 
 melodious and altogether different from anything I had ever 
 heard. They put me in mind of those heavenly airs that are 
 played to the departed souls of good men upon their first ar- 
 rival in Paradise, to wear out the impressions of the last agonies, 
 
 223
 
 224 ADDISON 
 
 and qualify them for the pleasures of that happy place. My 
 heart melted away in secret raptures, 
 
 " I had been often told that the rock before me was the haunt 
 of a genius ; and that several had been entertained with music 
 who had passed by it, but never heard that the musician had 
 before made himself visible. When he had raised my thoughts 
 by those transporting airs which he played, to taste the pleas- 
 ures of his conversation, as I looked upon him like one aston- 
 ished, he beckoned to me, and by the waving of his hand directed 
 me to approach the place where he sat. I drew near with that 
 reverence which is due to a superior nature ; and as my heart 
 was entirely subdued by the captivating strains I had heard, I 
 fell down at his feet and wept. The genius smiled upon me with 
 a look of compassion and affability that familiarized him to my 
 imagination, and at once dispelled all the fears and apprehen- 
 sions with which I approached him. He lifted me from the 
 ground, and taking me by the hand, * Mirza,' said he, ' I have 
 heard thee in thy soliloquies ; follow me.' 
 
 "He then led me to the highest pinnacle of the rock, and 
 placing me on the top of it, ' Cast thy eyes eastward,' said he, 
 
 * and tell me what thou seest.' ' I see,' said I, ' a huge valley 
 and a prodigious tide of water rolling through it.' ' The valley 
 that thou seest,' said he, ' is the Vale of Misery, and the tide of 
 water that thou seest is part of the great tide of eternity.' 
 
 * What is the reason,' said I, ' that the tide I see rises out of a 
 thick mi?t at one end, and again loses itself in a thick mist at 
 the other?' 'What thou seest,' said he, 'is that portion of 
 eternity which is called time, measured out by the sun, and 
 reaching from the beginning of the \vorld to its consummation. 
 Examine now,' said he, ' this sea that is thus bounded with 
 darkness at both ends, and tell me what thou discoverest in it.' 
 
 * I see a bridge,' said I, ' standing in the midst of the tide.' ' The 
 bridge thou seest,' said he, * is human life; consider it atten- 
 tively.' Upon a more leisurely survey of it I found that it con- 
 sisted of more than threescore and ten entire arches, with several 
 broken arches, which, added to those that were entire, made up 
 the number to about a hundred. As I was counting the arches, 
 the genius told me that this bridge consisted at first of a thou- 
 sand arches ; but that a great flood swept away the rest, and 
 left the bridge in the ruinous condition I now beheld it. ' But
 
 THE VISION OF MIRZA 225 
 
 tell me further,' said he, ' what thou discoverest on it.' ' I see 
 multitudes of people passing over it,' said I, ' and a black cloud 
 hanging on each end of it.' As I looked more attentively, I saw 
 several of the passengers dropping through the bridge into the 
 great tide that flowed underneath it ; and upon further exam- 
 ination, perceived there were innumerable trap-doors that lay 
 concealed in the bridge, which the passengers no sooner trod 
 upon, but they fell through them into the tide and immediately 
 disappeared. These hidden pitfalls were set very thick at the 
 entrance of the bridge, so that throngs of people no sooner broke 
 through the cloud, but many of them fell into them. They 
 grew thinner towards the middle, but multiplied and lay closer 
 together towards the end of the arches that were entire. 
 
 " There were indeed some persons, but their number was very 
 small, that continued a kind of hobbling march on the broken 
 arches, but fell through one after another, being quite tired and 
 spent with so long a walk. 
 
 " I passed some time in the contemplation of this wonderful 
 structure, and the great variety of objects which it presented. 
 My heart was filled with a deep melancholy to see several drop- 
 ping unexpectedly in the midst of mirth and jollity, and catch- 
 ing at everything that stood by them to save themselves. Some 
 were looking up towards the heavens in a thoughtful posture, 
 and in the midst of a speculation stumbled and fell out of sight. 
 Multitudes were very busy in the pursuit of bubbles that glit- 
 tered in their eyes and danced before them, but often when they 
 thought themselves within the reach of them their footing failed 
 and down they sunk. In this confusion of objects, I observed 
 some with scimitars in their hands, and others with urinals, who 
 ran to and fro upon the bridge, thrusting several persons on 
 trap-doors which did not seem to lie in their way, and which 
 they might have escaped had they not been thus forced upon 
 them. 
 
 " The genius, seeing me indulge myself on this melancholy 
 prospect, told me I had dwelt long enough upon it. ' Take thine 
 eyes off the bridge,' said he, ' and tell me if thou yet seest any- 
 thing thou dost not comprehend.' Upon looking up, 'What 
 mean,' said I, ' those great flights of birds that are perpetually 
 hovering about the bridge, and settling upon it from time to 
 time ? I see vultures, harpies, ravens, cormorants, and among
 
 2 26 ADDISON 
 
 many other feathered creatures several little winged boys that 
 perch in great numberg upon the middle arches.' * These,' said 
 the genius, * are Envy, Avarice, Superstition, Despair, Love, 
 with the like cares and passions that infest human life.' 
 
 " I here fetched a deep sigh. ' Alas,' said I, ' man was made 
 in vain : how is he given away to misery and mortality, tortured 
 in life, and swallowed up in death ! ' The genius being moved 
 with compassion towards me, bid me quit so uncomfortable a 
 prospect. ' Look no more,' said he, ' on man in the first stage 
 of his existence, in his setting out for eternity ; but cast thine 
 eye on that thick mist into which the tide bears the several gen- 
 erations of mortals that fall into it.' I directed my sight as I 
 was ordered, and (whether or no the good genius strengthened 
 it with any supernatural force, or dissipated part of the mist 
 that was before too thick for eye to penetrate) I saw the valley 
 opening at the farther end, and spreading forth into an im- 
 mense ocean that had a huge rock of adamant running through 
 the midst of it, and dividing it into two equal parts. The clouds 
 still rested on one half of it, insomuch that I could discover 
 nothing in it ; but the other appeared to me a vast ocean planted 
 with innumerable islands, that were covered with fruits and 
 flowers, and interwoven with a thousand little shining seas that 
 ran among them. I could see persons dressed in glorious hab- 
 its with garlands upon their heads, passing among the trees, 
 lying down by the sides of fountains, or resting on beds of flow- 
 ers ; and could hear a confused harmony of singing birds, fall- 
 ing waters, human voices, and musical instruments. Gladness 
 grew in me upon the discovery of so delightful a scene. I 
 wished for the wings of an eagle that I might fly away to those 
 happy seats ; but the genius told me there was no passage to 
 them except through the gates of death that I saw opening every 
 moment upon the bridge. ' The islands,' said he, ' that lie so 
 fresh and green before thee, and with which the whole face of 
 the ocean appears spotted as far as thou canst see, are more in 
 number than the sands on the seashore ; there are myriads of 
 islands behind those which thou here discoverest, reaching far- 
 ther than thine eye, or even thine imagination can extend itself. 
 These are the mansions of good men after death, who, according 
 to the degree and kinds of virtue in which they excelled, are 
 distributed among these several islands, which abound with
 
 THE VISION OF MIRZA 227 
 
 pleasures of different kinds and degrees suitable to the relishes 
 and perfections of those who are settled in them ; every island 
 is a paradise accommodated to its respective inhabitants. Are 
 not these, O Mirza, habitations worth contending for? Does 
 life appear miserable that gives thee opportunities of earning 
 such a reward ? Is death to be feared that will convey thee to 
 so happy an existence ? Think not man was made in vain who 
 has such an eternity reserved for hirri.' I gazed with inexpres- 
 sible pleasure on these happy islands. At length, said I, ' Show 
 me now, I beseech thee, the secrets that lie hid under those dark 
 clouds which cover the ocean on the other side of the rock of 
 adamant.' The genius making me no answer, I turned me 
 about to address myself to him a second time, but I found that 
 he had left me ; I then turned again to the vision which I had 
 been so long contemplating ; but, instead of the rolling tide, the 
 arched bridge, and the happy islands, I saw nothing but the 
 long valley of Bagdad, with oxen, sheep, and camels grazing 
 upon the sides of it." 
 
 (The end of the First Vision of Mirza)
 
 THE ART OF GRINNING 
 
 Remove fera monsira, tuceqtie 
 SaxiUcos vultus, qturcunque ea, tolle Medusa. 
 
 — Ovid, " Metamorphoses," v. 2l6. 
 
 Hence with those monstrous features, and, O ! spare 
 That Gorgon's look, and petrifying stare. — P. 
 
 IN a late paper I mentioned the project of an ingenious 
 author for the erecting of several handicraft prizes to be 
 contended for by our British artisans, and the influence 
 they might have towards the improvement of our several manu- 
 factures. I have since that been very much surprised by the 
 following advertisement, which I find in the " Post-Boy " ^ of 
 the eleventh instant, and again repeated in the " Post-Boy " of 
 the fifteenth : — 
 
 " On the ninth of October next will be run for upon Coleshill- 
 heath in Warwickshire, a plate of six guineas value, three heats, 
 by any horse, mare, or gelding, that hath not won above the 
 value of is, the winning horse to be sold for iio. To carry 
 ten stone weight, if fourteen hands high; if above or under 
 to carry or be allowed weight for inches, and to be entered Fri- 
 day the fifteenth at the Swan in Coleshill, before six in the 
 evening. Also a plate of less value to be run for by asses. The 
 same day a gold ring to be grinned for by men." 
 
 The first of these diversions that is to be exhibited by the £io 
 racehorses, may probably have its use ; but the two last, in which 
 the asses and men are concerned, seem to me altogether extra- 
 ordinary and unaccountable. Why they should keep running 
 asses at Coleshill, or how making mouths turns to account in 
 Warwickshire, more than in any other parts of England, I can- 
 not comprehend. I have looked over all the Olympic games, 
 and do not find anything in them like an ass-race, or a match 
 at grinning. However it be, I am informed that several asses 
 
 * A triweekly which began in May, 1695. 
 229
 
 230 ADDISON 
 
 are now kept in body-clothes, and sweated every morning 
 upon the heath; and that all the country-fellows within ten 
 miles of the Swan grin an hour or two in their glasses every 
 morning, in order to qualify themselves for the ninth of Oc- 
 tober. The prize which is proposed to be grinned for has raised 
 such an ambition among the common people of out-grinning one 
 another, that many very discerning persons are afraid it should 
 spoil most of the faces in the county ; and that a Warwickshire 
 man will be known by his grin, as Roman Catholics imagine a 
 Kentish man is by his tail. The gold ring, which is made the 
 prize of deformity, is just the reverse of the golden apple that 
 was formerly made the prize of beauty, and should carry for its 
 poesy the old motto inverted : 
 
 " Detur tetriori." 
 
 Or, to accommodate it to the capacity of the combatants, 
 
 " The frightfull'st grinner 
 Be the winner." 
 
 In the mean while I would advise a Dutch painter to be pres- 
 ent at this great controversy of faces, in order to make a col- 
 lection of the most remarkable grins that shall be there ex- 
 hibited. 
 
 I must not here omit an account which I lately received of 
 one of these grinning-matches from a gentleman, who, upon 
 reading the above-mentioned advertisement, entertained a cof- 
 fee-house with the following narrative : — Upon the taking of 
 Namur,- amidst other public rejoicings made on that occasion, 
 there was a gold ring given by a whig justice of peace to be 
 grinned for. The first competitor that entered the lists was a 
 black swarthy Frenchman, who accidentally passed that way, 
 and being a man naturally of a withered look, and hard features, 
 promised himself good success. He was placed upon a table 
 in the great point of view, and looking upon the company like 
 Milton's death, 
 
 " Grinn'd horribly a ghastly smile." 
 
 His muscles were so drawn together on each side of his face, 
 that he showed twenty teeth at a grin, and put the country in 
 
 * Captured by William in 1695.
 
 THE ART OF GRINNING 231 
 
 some pain, lest a foreigner should carry away the honor of the 
 day ; but upon a further trial they found he was master only of 
 the merry grin. 
 
 The next that mounted the table was a malcontent in those 
 days, and a great master in the whole art of grinning, but par- 
 ticularly excelled in the angry grin. He did his part so well 
 that he is said to have made half a dozen women miscarry ; but 
 the justice being apprised by one who stood near him that the 
 fellow who grinned in his face was a Jacobite, and being un- 
 willing that a disaffected person should win the gold ring, and 
 be looked upon as the best grinner in the country, he ordered 
 the oaths to be tendered unto him upon his quitting the table, 
 which, the grinner refusing, he was set aside as an unqualified 
 person. There were several other grotesque figures that pre- 
 sented themselves, which it would be too tedious to describe. 
 I must not however omit a ploughman, who lived in the farther 
 part of the country, and being very lucky in a pair of long lan- 
 tern-jaws,^ wrung his face into such a hideous grimace, that 
 every feature of it appeared under a different distortion. The 
 whole company stood astonished at such a complicated grin, and 
 were ready to assign the prize to him, had it not been proved by 
 one of his antagonists that he had practised with verjuice for 
 some days before, and had a crab found upon him at the very, 
 time of grinning; upon which the best judges of grinning de- 
 clared it as their opinion that he was not to be looked upon as a 
 fair grinner, and therefore ordered him to be set aside as a 
 
 cheat. 
 
 The prize it seems at length fell upon a cobbler, Giles Gorgon 
 by name, who produced several new grins of his own invention, 
 having been used to cut faces for many years together over his 
 last. At the very first grin he cast every human feature out of 
 his countenance, at the second he became the face of a spout, 
 at the third a baboon, at the fourth a head of a bass-viol, and at 
 the fifth a pair of nut-crackers. The whole assembly wondered 
 at his accomplishments, and bestowed the ring upon him unani- 
 mously ; but, what he esteemed more than all the rest, a country 
 wench, whom he had wooed in vain for above five years before, 
 was so charmed with his grins, and the applauses which he re- 
 
 s " A term used of a thin visage, such as if a candle were burning in the mouth 
 might transmit the light " (Johnson).
 
 232 ADDISON 
 
 ceived on all sides, that she married him the week following, 
 and to this day wears the prize upon her finger, the cobbler hav- 
 ing made use of it as his wedding-ring. 
 
 This paper might perhaps seem very impertinent, if it grew 
 serious in the conclusion. I would nevertheless leave to the 
 consideration of those who are the patrons of this monstrous » 
 trial of skill, whether or no they are not guilty, in some measure, 
 of an affront to their species, in treating after this manner the 
 " human face divine," and turning that part of us, which has so 
 great an image impressed upon it, into the image of a monkey ; 
 whether the raising such silly competitions among the ignorant, 
 proposing prizes for such useless accomplishments, filling the 
 common people's heads with such senseless ambitions, and in- 
 spiring them with such absurd ideas of superiority and pre- 
 eminence, has not in it something immoral as well as ridiculous.
 
 SIR ROGER AT THE ABBEY 
 
 Ire tamen restat Numa quo devenit et Ancus. — Horace, " Ep." i. 6, 27. 
 
 With Ancus, and with Numa, kings of Rome, 
 We must descend into the silent tomb. 
 
 MY friend Sir Roger de Coverley told me t'other night, 
 that he had been reading my paper ^ upon Westmin- 
 ster Abbey, in which, says he, there are a great many 
 ingenious fancies. He told me at the same time that he ob- 
 served I had promised another paper upon the tombs, and that 
 he should be glad to go and see them with me, not having visited 
 them since he had read history. I could not imagine how this 
 came into the knight's head, till I recollected that he had been 
 very busy all last summer upon " Baker's Chronicle," which he 
 has quoted several times in his disputes with Sir Andrew Free- 
 port since his last coming to town. Accordingly, I promised 
 to call upon him the next morning, that we might go together 
 to the abbey. 
 
 I found the knight under his butler's hands, who always 
 shaves him. He was no sooner dressed than he called for a 
 glass of the Widow Trueby's water, which he told me he always 
 drank before he went abroad. He recommended to me a dram 
 of it at the same time, with so much heartiness, that I could not 
 forbear drinking it. As soon as I had got it down, I found it 
 very unpalatable ; upon which the knight, observing that I had 
 made several wry faces, told me that he knew I should not like 
 it at first, but that it was the best thing in the world against the 
 stone or gravel. 
 
 I could have wished indeed that he had acquainted me with 
 the virtues of it sooner ; but it was too late to complain, and I 
 knew what he had done was out of goodwill. Sir Roger told 
 me further, that he looked upon it to be very good for a man 
 whilst he stayed in town, to keep oflf infection, and that he got 
 
 » " spectator," 26. 
 
 233 11-Vol. 57
 
 234 
 
 ADDISON 
 
 together a quantity of it upon the first news of the sickness be- 
 ing at Dantzic : when, of a sudden, turning short to one of his 
 servants, who stood behind him, he bid him call a hackney- 
 coach and take care it was an elderly man that drove it. 
 
 He then resumed his discourse upon Mrs. Trueby's water, 
 telling me that the Widow Trueby was one who did more good 
 than all the doctors and apothecaries in the county ; that she 
 distilled every poppy that grew within five miles of her; that 
 she distributed her water gratis among all sorts of people : to 
 which the knight added that she had a very great jointure, and 
 that the whole country would fain have it a match between him 
 and her ; " and truly," says Sir Roger, " if I had not been en- 
 gaged, perhaps I could not have done better." 
 
 His discourse was broken off by his man's telling him he had 
 called a coach. Upon our going to it, after having cast his eye 
 upon the wheels, he asked the coachman if his axle-tree was 
 good : upon the fellow's telling him he would warrant it, the 
 knight turned to me, told me he looked like an honest man, and 
 .went in without further ceremony. 
 
 We had not gone far, when Sir Roger, popping out his head, 
 called the coachman down from his box, and upon presenting 
 himself at the window, asked him if he smoked. As I was con- 
 sidering what this would end in, he bid him stop by the way at 
 any good tobacconist's, and take in a roll of their best Virginia. 
 •Nothing material happened in the remaining part of our jour- 
 ney, till we were set down at the west end of the abbey. 
 
 As we went up the body of the church, the knight pointed at 
 the trophies upon one of the new monuments, and cried out, 
 " A brave man, I warrant him ! " Passing afterwards by Sir, 
 Cloudsley Shovel,^ he flung his hand that way, and cried " Sir 
 Cloudsley Shovel ! a very gallant man." As we stood before 
 Busby's 3 tomb, the knight uttered himself again after the same 
 manner : " Dr. Busby ! a great man : he whipped my grand- 
 father ; a very great man ! I should have gone to him myself, 
 if I had not been a blockhead — a very great man ! " 
 
 We were immediately conducted into the little chapel on the 
 right hand. Sir Roger, planting himself at our historian's el- 
 bow, was very attentive to everything he said, particularly to 
 
 « Drowned off the Scilly Isles, Oc- ' Headmaster of Westminster (b. 1606, 
 
 tober 22, 1707. d. 1695).
 
 SIR ROGER AT THE ABBEY 235 
 
 the account he gave us of the lord who had cut ofif the King of 
 Morocco's head. Among several other figures, he was very 
 well pleased to see the statesman Cecil upon his knees ; and con- 
 cluding them all to be great men, was conducted to the figure 
 which represents that martyr to good housewifery * who died 
 by the prick of a needle. Upon our interpreter's telling us that 
 she was a maid-of-honor to Queen Elizabeth, the knight was 
 very inquisitive into her name and family ; and, after having 
 regarded her finger for some time, " I wonder," says he, " that 
 Sir Richard Baker has said nothing of her in his Chronicle." 
 
 We were then conveyed to the two coronation chairs,^ where 
 my old friend, after having heard that the stone underneath the 
 most ancient of them, which was brought from Scotland, was 
 called Jacob's pillow, sat himself down in the chair, and, looking 
 like the figure of an old Gothic king, asked our interpreter, what 
 authority they had to say that Jacob had ever been in Scotland? 
 The fellow, instead of returning him an answer, told him, that 
 he hoped his honor would pay his forfeit. I could observe Sir 
 Roger a little ruffled upon being thus trepanned, but our guide 
 not insisting upon his demand, the knight soon recovered his 
 good humor, and whispered in my ear, that if Will Wimble 
 were with us, and saw those two chairs, it would go hard but 
 he would get a tobacco stopper out of one or t'other of them. 
 
 Sir Roger, in the next place, laid his hand upon Edward Ill's 
 sword, and, leaning upon the pommel of it, gave us the whole 
 history of the Black Prince ; concluding, that, in Sir Richard 
 Baker's opinion, Edward III was one of the greatest princes 
 that ever sat upon the English throne. 
 
 We were then shown Edward the Confessor's tomb; upon 
 which Sir Roger acquainted us, that he was the first who touched 
 for the evil : and afterwards Henry I V's ; upon which he shook 
 his head, and told us there was fine reading in the casualties of 
 that reign. 
 
 Our conductor then pointed to that monument where there is 
 the figure of one of our English kings without a head ; ^ and 
 
 * Lady Elizabeth Russel, one of whose other is Edward's chair, the seat of 
 
 sisters married Lord Burleigh, and an- which was carried off from Scone in 
 
 other was the mother of Francis Bacon. 1296, and was said by tradition to have 
 
 The story here alluded to is an absurd been Jacob's pillow. 
 
 legend. ^ -phe head of Henry V, cast in silver, 
 
 ^ In the chapel of Edward the Con- was stolen at the time of the Reforma- 
 
 fessor. One of the chairs was made for tion. 
 the coronation of Queen Mary. The
 
 236 ADDISON 
 
 upon giving us to know that the head, which was of beaten sil- 
 ver, had been stolen away several years since, " Some Whig, I'll 
 warrant you," says Sir Roger ; " you ought to lock up your kings 
 better ; they will carry off the body too, if you don't take care." 
 
 The glorious names of Henry V and Queen Elizabeth gave 
 the knight great opportunities of shining, and of doing justice 
 to Sir Richard Baker, who, as our knight observed with some 
 surprise, had a great many kings in him, whose monuments he 
 had not seen in the abbey. 
 
 For my own part, I could not but be pleased to see the knight 
 show such an honest passion for the glory of his country, and 
 such a respectful gratitude to the memory of its princes. 
 
 I must not omit that the benevolence of my good old friend, 
 which flows out towards everyone he converses with, made him 
 very kind to our interpreter, whom he looked upon as an extra- 
 ordinary man : for which reason he shook him by the hand at 
 parting, telling him that he should be very glad to see him at 
 his lodgings in Norfolk Buildings, and talk over these matters 
 with him more at leisure.
 
 SIR ROGER AT THE PLAY 
 
 Respicere exemplar vitce morumque juheho 
 Doctunt imitatorem, et veras hinc ducere voces. 
 
 — Horace, " Ars Poetica," 317, 
 
 Keep Nature's great original in view, 
 
 And thence the living images pursue. — Francis. 
 
 MY friend Sir Roger de Coverley, when we last met to- 
 gether at the club, told me that he had a great mind 
 to see the new tragedy ^ with me, assuring me at the 
 same time that he had not been at a play these twenty years. 
 " The last I saw," said Sir Roger, " was ' The Committee,'^ 
 which I should not have gone to neither, had not I been told be- 
 forehand that it was a good Church of England comedy." He 
 then proceeded to inquire of me who this distressed mother was ; 
 and upon hearing that she was Hector's widow, he told me that 
 her husband was a brave man, and that when he was a school- 
 boy he had read his life at the end of the dictionary. My friend 
 asked me, in the next place, if there would not be some danger 
 in coming home late, in case the Mohocks ^ should be abroad. 
 " I assure you," says he, " I thought I had fallen into their hands 
 last night ; for I observed two or three lusty black men that fol- 
 lowed me half way up Fleet-street, and mended their pace be- 
 hind me in proportion as I put on to get away from them. You 
 must know," continued the knight with a smile, " I fancied they 
 had a mind to hunt me ; for I remember an honest gentleman 
 in my neighborhood, who was served such a trick in King 
 
 1 "The Distrest Mother," by Ambrose 
 Philips, 1712, founded on Racine's 
 " And-romaque." 
 
 2 A play (1665) by Sir Robert How- 
 ard, who collaborated with Dryden in 
 "The Indian Queen." 
 
 • Who has not trembled at the Mohock's 
 
 name? 
 Was there a watchman took his hourly 
 
 rounds, 
 Safe from their blows or new invented 
 
 wounds?— Ga^i, " Trivia," bk. III. 
 
 The Mohocks corresponded to the 
 Restoration Scowrers. There was a 
 special scare at the time of this es- 
 say. 
 
 On March 9, 1712, Swift wrote to Stella 
 that " it is not safe being in the streets 
 at night, for them." So great was the 
 alarm that on March 17th a royal proC' 
 lamation offered £100 reward for tb'^i* 
 detection. 
 
 237
 
 238 
 
 ADDISON 
 
 Charles II's time, for which reason he has not ventured himself 
 in town ever since. I might have shown them very good sport, 
 had this been their design ; for, as I am an old fox-hunter, I 
 should have turned and dodged and have played them a thou- 
 sand tricks they had never seen in their lives before." Sir 
 Roger added, that " if these gentlemen had any such intention, 
 they did not succeed very well in it ; for I threw them out," says 
 he, " at the end of Norfolk-street, where I doubled the corner, 
 and got shelter in my lodgings before they could imagine what 
 was become of me. However," says the knight, " if Captain 
 Sentry will make one with us to-morrow night, and you will 
 both of you call upon me about four o'clock, that we may be at 
 the house before it is full, I will have my own coach in readiness 
 to attend you, for John tells me he has got the fore-wheels 
 mended." 
 
 The captain, who did not fail to meet me there at the appointed 
 hour, bid Sir Roger fear nothing, for that he had put on the 
 same sword which he made use of at the battle of Steenkirk.* 
 Sir Roger's servants, and among the rest my old friend the but- 
 ler, had, I found, provided themselves with good oaken plants, 
 to attend their master upon this occasion. When we had placed 
 him in his coach, with myself at his left hand, the captain before 
 him, and his butler at the head of his footmen in the rear, we 
 convoyed him in safety to the playhouse, where, after having 
 marched up the entry in good order, the captain and I went in 
 with him, and seated him betwixt us in the pit. As soon as the 
 house was full, and the candles lighted, my old friend stood up, 
 and looked about him with that pleasure which a mind seasoned 
 .with humanity naturally feels in itself, at the sight of a multi- 
 tude of people who seem pleased with one another, and partake 
 of the same common entertainment. I could not but fancy to 
 myself, as the old man stood up in the middle of the pit, that he 
 made a very proper centre to a tragic audience. Upon the en- 
 tering of Pyrrhus, the knight told me that he did not believe 
 the King of France himself had a better strut. I was indeed 
 very attentive to my old friend's remarks, because I looked upon 
 them as a piece of natural criticism, and was well pleased to hear 
 
 • King William was forced to retreat fray that they did not take time to ad- 
 at Steenkirk on July 24, 1692, before the just their neckcloths. Hence the fash- 
 Duke of Luxemburg. The French gen- ion in Queen Anne's reign of wearing a 
 crals, it is said, were so eager for the scarf with studied negligence.
 
 SIR ROGER AT THE PLAY «39 
 
 him, at the conclusion of almost every scene, telling me that he 
 could not imagine how the play would end. One while he ap- 
 peared much concerned for Andromache ; and a little while 
 after as much for Hermione; and was extremely puzzled to 
 think what would become of Pyrrhus. 
 
 When Sir Roger saw Andromache's obstinate refusal to her 
 lover's importunities, he whispered me in the ear, that he was 
 sure she would never have him ; to which he added, with a more 
 than ordinary vehemence, " You can't imagine, sir, what it is 
 to have to do with a widow." Upon Pyrrhus's threatening af- 
 terwards to leave her, the knight shook his head, and muttered 
 to himself, " Ay, do if you can." This part dwelt so much upon 
 my friend's imagination, that at the close of the third act, as I 
 was thinking of something else, he whispered me in my ear, 
 " These widows, sir, are the most perverse creatures in the 
 world. But pray," says he, " you that are a critic, is the play 
 according to your dramatic rules, as you call them? Should 
 your people in tragedy always talk to be understood? Why, 
 there is not a single sentence in this play that I do not know the 
 meaning of." 
 
 The fourth act very luckily began before I had time to give 
 the old gentleman an answer. " Well," says the knight, sitting 
 down with great satisfaction, " I suppose we are now to see 
 Hector's ghost." He then renewed his attention, and, from 
 time to time, fell a-praising the widow. He made, indeed, a 
 little mistake as to one of her pages, whom at his first entering 
 he took for Astyanax ; but quickly set himself right in that par- 
 ticular, though, at the same time, he owned he should have been 
 very glad to have seen the little boy, who, says he, must needs 
 be a very fine child by the account that is given of him. Upon 
 Hermione's going off with a menace to Pyrrhus, the audience 
 gave a loud clap, to which Sir Roger added, " On my word, a 
 notable young baggage ! " 
 
 As there was a very remarkable silence and stillness in the 
 audience during the whole action, it was natural for them to 
 take the opportunity of these intervals between the acts to ex- 
 press their opinion of the players and of their respective parts. 
 Sir Roger, hearing a cluster of them praise Orestes, struck in 
 with them, and told them that he thought his friend Pylades 
 was a very sensible man. As they were afterwards applauding
 
 240 ADDISON 
 
 Pyrrhus, Sir Roger put in a second time, " And let me tell you,* 
 says he, " though he speaks but little, I like the old fellow in 
 whiskers as well as any of them." Captain Sentry, seeing two 
 or three wags who sat near us lean with an attentive ear towards 
 Sir Roger, and fearing lest they should smoke the knight, 
 plucked him by the elbow, and whispered something in his ear, 
 that lasted till the opening of the fifth act. The knight was 
 wonderfully attentive to the account which Orestes gives of 
 Pyrrhus's death, and at the conclusion of it, told me it was such 
 a bloody piece of work that he was glad it was not done upon 
 the stage. Seeing afterwards Orestes in his raving fit, he grew 
 more than ordinarily serious, and took occasion to moralize (in 
 his way) upon an evil conscience, adding, that Orestes, in his 
 madness, looked as if he saw something. 
 
 As we were the first that came into the house, so we were the 
 last that went out of it ; being resolved to have a clear passage 
 for our old friend, whom we did not care to venture among the 
 jostling of the crowd. Sir Roger went out fully satisfied with 
 his entertainment, and we guarded him to his lodging in the 
 same manner that we brought him to the playhouse ; being 
 highly pleased for my own part, not only with the performance 
 of the excellent piece which had been presented, but with the 
 satisfaction which it had given to the good old man.
 
 THE TORY FOX-HUNTER 
 
 'Studiis rudis, sermone harharus, impetu strenuus, manu promptus, cogi- 
 tatione celer. — Veil. Paterc. 
 
 FOR the honor of His Majesty, and the safety of his gov- 
 ernment/ we cannot but observe that those who have 
 appeared the greatest enemies to both are of that rank 
 of men who are commonly distinguished by the title of fox- 
 hunters. As several of these have had no part of their educa- 
 tion in cities, camps, or courts, it is doubtful whether they are 
 of greater ornament or use to the nation in which they live. It 
 would be an everlasting reproach to politics should such men 
 be able to overturn an establishment which has been formed by 
 the wisest laws, and is supported by the ablest heads. The 
 wrong notions and prejudices which cleave to many of these 
 country gentlemen, who have always lived out of the way of 
 being better informed, are not easy to be conceived by a person 
 who has never conversed with them. 
 
 That I may give my readers an image of these rural states- 
 men, I shall, without further preface, set down an account of a 
 discourse I chanced to have with one of them some time ago. 
 I was travelling towards one of the remote parts of England, 
 .when about three o'clock in the afternoon seeing a country gen- 
 tleman trotting before me with a spaniel by his horse's side, I 
 made up to him. Our conversation opened, as usual, upon the 
 weather, in which we were very unanimous, having both agreed 
 that it was too dry for the season of the year. My fellow- 
 traveller, upon this, observed to me that there had been no good 
 weather since the Revolution. I was a little startled at so ex- 
 traordinary a remark, but would not interrupt him till he pro- 
 ceeded to tell me of the fine weather they used to have in King 
 
 » This essay is from " The Free- was purely political, and its main 
 
 holder." This paper was written en- topics were " the enormity of rebellion 
 
 tJrely by Addison, and consisted of and the prejudices of ignorance and fac- 
 
 fifty-five numbers, from December 23, tion." The " Tory Fox-hunter " is 
 
 171S, to June 29, 1716. Its object painted manifestly by a Whig brush. 
 
 a4X
 
 «42 ADDISON 
 
 Charles II's reign. I only answered that I did not see how 
 the badness of the weather could be the king's fault ; and, with- 
 out waiting for his reply, asked him whose house it was we saw 
 upon a rising ground at a little distance from us. He told me 
 it belonged to an old fanatical cur, Mr. Such-a-one. " You 
 must have heard of him," says he, " he's one of the Rump." I 
 knew the gentleman's character upon hearing his name, but as- 
 sured him that to my knowledge he was a good churchman. 
 " Ay," says he, with a kind of surprise, " we were told in the 
 country that he spoke twice, in the Queen's time, against taking 
 off the duties upon French claret." This naturally led us in 
 the proceedings of late parliaments, upon which occasion he 
 affirmed roundly that there had not been one good law passed 
 since King William's accession to the throne, except the act for 
 preserving the game. I had a mind to see him out, and there- 
 fore did not care foi contradicting him. " Is it not hard," says 
 he, " that honest gentlemen should be taken into custody of 
 messengers to prevent them from acting according to their con- 
 sciences ? But," says he, " what can we expect when a parcel of 
 factious scoundrels — ." He was going on in great passion, but 
 chanced to miss his dog, who was amusing himself about a bush 
 that grew at some distance behind us. We stood still till he had 
 whistled him up, when he fell into a long panegyric upon his 
 spaniel, who seemed, indeed, excellent in his kind ; but I found 
 the most remarkable adventure of his life was that he had once 
 like to have worried a dissenting teacher.^ The master could 
 hardly sit on his horse for laughing all the while he was giving 
 me the particulars of this story, which I found had mightily 
 endeared his dog to him, and as he himself told me, had made 
 him a great favorite among all the honest gentlemen of the 
 country. We were at length diverted from this piece of mirth 
 by a post-boy, who winding his horn at us, my companion gave 
 him two or three curses, and left the way clear for him. " I 
 fancy," said I, " that post brings news from Scotland. I shall 
 long to see the next * Gazette.* '* " Sir," says he, " I make 
 it a rule never to believe any of your printed news. We never 
 see, sir, how things go, except now and then in * Dyer's Letter,'" 
 and I read that more for the style than the news. The man has 
 
 * Fielding probably profited by Ad- drews " the squire who set his dogs on 
 dison's sketch, when twenty-six years Parson Adams. 
 later he described in " Joseph An- » " Dyer's News-Letter " began about
 
 THE TORY FOX-HUNTER . 243 
 
 a clever pen, it must be owned. But is it not strange that we 
 should be making war upon Church of England men, with 
 Dutch and Swiss soldiers, men of anti-monarchical principles ? 
 These foreigners will never be loved in England, sir ; they have 
 not that wit and good-breeding that we have." I must confess 
 I did not expect to hear my new acquaintance value himself upon 
 these qualifications, but finding him such a critic upon foreign- 
 ers, I asked him if he had ever travelled. He told me he did not 
 know what travelling was good for, but to teach a man to ride 
 the great horse, to jabber French, and to talk against passive 
 obedience ; to which he added that he scarce ever knew a travel- 
 ler in his life who had not forsook his principles and lost his 
 hunting-seat. " For my part," says he, " I and my father be- 
 fore me have always been for passive obedience, and shall be 
 always for opposing a prince who makes use of ministers that 
 are of another opinion. But where do you intend to inn to- 
 night? (for we were now come in sight of the next town). I 
 can help you to a very good landlord if you will go along with 
 me. He is a lusty jolly fellow, that lives well, at least three 
 yards in the girt, and the best Church of England man upon the 
 road." I had a curiosity to see this High-church innkeeper, as 
 .well as to enjoy more of the conversation of my fellow-traveller, 
 and therefore readily consented to set our horses together for 
 that night. As we rode side by side through the town, I was 
 let into the characters of all the principal inhabitants whom we 
 met in our way. One was a dog, another a whelp, another 
 a cur, and another a mongrel, under which several denomi- 
 nations were comprehended all that voted on the Whig side 
 in the last election of burgesses. As for those of his own 
 party, he distinguished them by a nod of his head, and asking 
 them how they did by their Christian names. Upon our ar- 
 rival at the inn my companion fetched out the jolly landlord, 
 who knew him by his whistle. Many endearments and private 
 whispers passed between them, though it was easy to see, by 
 the landlord's scratching his head, that things did not go to 
 their wishes. The landlord had swelled his body to a pro- 
 digious size, and worked up his complexion to a standing crim- 
 
 1690. Steele in " Tatler," 18, states that " I believe he is still living, because 
 
 it was specially esteemed by fox-hunt- the news of his death was first pubHsbed 
 
 ers for the marvels in which it dealt. in * Dyer's Letter.' " 
 Cf. Addison's " Drummer," act ii. sc. i:
 
 /44 ADDISON 
 
 son by his zeal for the prosperity of the Church, which he ex- 
 pressed every hour of the day, as his customers dropped in, by 
 repeated bumpers. He had not time to go to church himself, 
 but, as my friend told me in my ear, had headed a mob at the 
 pulling down of two or three meeting-houses. While supper 
 was preparing, he enlarged upon the happiness of the neighbor- 
 ing shire ; " for," says he, " there is scarce a Presbyterian in the 
 whole county, except the bishop." In short, I found by his 
 discourse that he had learned a great deal of politics, but not 
 one word of religion, from the parson of his parish; and, in- 
 deed, that he had scarce any other notion of religion but that it 
 consisted in hating Presbyterians. I had a remarkable instance 
 of his notions in this particular. Upon seeing a poor decrepit 
 old woman pass under the window where we sat, he desired me 
 to take notice of her ; and afterwards informed me that she was 
 generally reputed a witch by the country people, but that, for 
 his part, he was apt to believe she was a Presbyterian. 
 
 Supper was no sooner served in that he took occasion, from 
 a shoulder of mutton that lay before us, to cry up the plenty of 
 England, which would be the happiest country in the world, 
 provided we would live within ourselves. Upon which he ex- 
 patiated on the inconveniences of trade, that carried from us 
 the commodities of our country, and made a parcel of upstarts 
 as rich as men of the most ancient families of England. He 
 then declared frankly that he had always been against all treaties 
 and alliances with foreigners. " Our wooden walls," says he, 
 " are our security, and we may bid defiance to the whole world, 
 especially if they should attack us when the militia is out." I 
 ventured to reply that I had as great an opinion of the English 
 fleet as he had ; but I could not see how they could be paid, and 
 manned, and fitted out, unless we encouraged trade and naviga- 
 tion. He replied, with some vehemence, that he would under- 
 take to prove trade would be the ruin of the English nation. I 
 would fain have put him upon it ; but he contented himself with 
 affirming it more eagerly, to which he added two or three curses 
 upon the London merchants, not forgetting the directors of the 
 bank. After supper he asked me if I was an admirer of punch, 
 and immediately called for a sneaker. I took this occasion to 
 insinuate the advantages of trade by observing to him that water 
 was the only native of England that could be made use of on
 
 THE TORY FOX-HUNTER 245 
 
 this occasion, but that the lemons, the brandy, the sugar, and 
 the nutmeg were all foreigners. This put him into confusion ; 
 but the landlord, who overheard me, brought him off, by affirm- 
 ing, that for constant use, there was no liquor like a cup of 
 English water, provided it had malt enough in it. My squire 
 laughed heartily at the conceit, and made the landlord sit down 
 with us. We sat pretty late over our punch; and, amidst a 
 great deal of improving discourse, drank the healths of several 
 persons in the country, whom I had never heard of, that, they 
 both assured me, were the ablest statesmen in the nation : and 
 of some Londoners, whom they extolled to the skies for their 
 wit, and who, I knew, passed in town for silly fellows. It being 
 now midnight, and my friend perceiving by his almanac that the 
 moon was up, he called for his horses, and took a sudden resolu- 
 tion to go to his house, which was at three miles distance from 
 the town, after having bethought himself that he never slept 
 well out of his own bed. He shook me very heartily by the hand 
 at parting, and discovered a great air of satisfaction in his looks, 
 that he had met with an opportunity of showing his parts, and 
 left me a much wiser man than he found me.
 
 ON DEDICATIONS 
 
 ON EPIC POETRY 
 
 BY 
 
 ALEXANDER POPE
 
 ALEXANDER POPE 
 
 1688 — 1744 
 
 Alexander Pope was born in London in 1688. He was the son of 
 a linen-draper who had made some fortune in that trade. In childhood 
 he was noted for the sweetness and gentleness of his temper — qualities 
 which certainly did not distinguish his later years — for the beauty of 
 his voice, and for his manual dexterity in writing. At eight years of 
 age he began the study of Latin and Greek. He was next sent to 
 a Roman Catholic seminary at Twyford, whence he was removed 
 for a lampoon — one of his first efforts in poetry — on his master. In 
 1700, when twelve years old, he retired with his father, who, like 
 other Romanists of the time, was attached to the fortunes of James 
 II, to Binfield, in Berkshire. Here, at this early age, he determined 
 to become a poet. To indulge this passion, he left no calling or pro- 
 fession, as so many have done. He was invariably and solely a poet 
 from the beginning of his life to its end. His " Ode to Solitude " was 
 written when he was twelve, the " Pastorals " at sixteen, and the 
 " Essay on Criticism " at twenty. With the money received for the 
 first books of his translation of the " Iliad " he purchased the villa at 
 Twickenham, which has ever since been associated with his name. 
 Here and in London he lived until the end of his days, at times the 
 foe, but oftener the associate and companion and friend of the wits 
 and men of letters of the day. He suffered through life from physical 
 infirmity and constant ill-health. He died in 1744. 
 
 Pope was confessedly the most eminent poet of his age, and he still 
 remains unequalled in his particular style of poetry. Less vigorous 
 and various than Dryden, on whom he modelled himself, he was a 
 greater artist. His life was uneventful, varied only by the successive 
 publication of his poems, and by literary quarrels into which a vain 
 and jealous temperament was constantly leading him. Like Dryden, 
 he modernized stories from Chaucer, wrote satires, and translated a 
 great ancient poet. But in his satires (the " Dunciad " excepted) he 
 is more didactic than Dryden ; and in his " Moral Epistles," and still 
 more in his " Essay on Man," he aims at the character of a philosophical 
 writer. His translation of Homer, though utterly unlike the Greek 
 in its general features, and far from an accurate representation of it 
 in details, will probably keep his name alive as long as any of his 
 original poems, brilliant and highly finished as these undoubtedly are. 
 His prose writings consist chiefly of one or two prefaces, three or four 
 occasional papers, and a large number of letters, which he elaborated 
 with great care, and contrived to have published during his own life- 
 time. They are marked by great rhetorical adroitness and dexterity; 
 but there is an absence of ease about them, even when the style is most 
 familiar. Gray, however, himself a delightful letter-writer, said of the 
 letters, that though not good letters, they were better things ; while 
 Cowper, on the other hand, thought him the most disagreeable maker 
 of epistles he ever met with. The essays " On Dedications " and 
 " On Epic Poetry " were both contributed to " The Guardian." 
 
 248
 
 ON DEDICATIONS 
 
 It matters not how false or forc'd 
 So the best things be said o' th' worst, 
 It goes for nothing when 'tis said, 
 Only the arrow 's drawn to th' head, 
 Whether it be a swan or goose 
 They level at: so shepherds use 
 To set the same mark on the hip 
 Both of their sound and rotten sheep. 
 
 — " Hudibras," pt. II. canto i. 627. 
 
 THOUGH most things which are wrong in their own 
 nature are at once confessed and absolved in that single 
 word " custom " ; yet there are some which, as they 
 have a dangerous tendency, a thinking man will the less excuse 
 on that very account. Among these I cannot but reckon the 
 common practice of dedications, which is of so much the worse 
 consequence, as it is generally used by the people of politeness, 
 and whom a learned education for the most part ought to have 
 inspired with nobler and juster sentiments. This prostitution 
 of praise is not only a deceit upon the gross of mankind, who 
 take their notion of characters from the learned ; but also the 
 better sort must by this means lose some part at least of that 
 desire of fame which is the incentive to generous actions, when 
 they find it promiscuously bestowed on the meritorious and un- 
 deserving : nay, the author himself, let him be supposed to have 
 ever so true a value for the patron, can find no terms to express 
 it, but what have been already used and rendered suspected by 
 flatterers. Even truth itself in a dedication is like an honest 
 man in a disguise or vizor-mask, and will appear a cheat by 
 being dressed so like one. Though the merit of the person is 
 beyond dispute, I see no reason that because one man is emi- 
 nent, therefore another has a right to be impertinent, and throw 
 praises in his face. 'Tis just the reverse of the practice of the 
 ancient Romans when a person was advanced to triumph for 
 
 249
 
 2 5© POPE 
 
 his services. As they hired people to rail at him in that circum- 
 stance to make him as humble as they could, we have fellows to 
 flatter him, and make him as proud as they can. Supposing the 
 writer not to be mercenary, yet the great man is not more in 
 reason obliged to thank him for his picture in a dedication, than 
 to thank a painter for that on a sign-post ; except it be a less in- 
 jury to touch the most sacred part of him, his character, than 
 to make free with his countenance only. I should think noth- 
 ing justified me in this point but the patron's permission before- 
 hand, that I should draw him as like as I could ; whereas most 
 authors proceed in this affair just as a dauber I have heard of, 
 who, not being able to draw portraits after the life, was used to 
 paint faces at random, and look out afterwards for people whom 
 he might persuade to be like them. To express my notion of 
 the thing in a word : to say more to a man than one thinks, with 
 a prospect of interest, is dishonest; and without it, foolish.* 
 And whoever has had success in such an undertaking, must of 
 necessity at once think himself in his heart a knave for having 
 done it, and his patron a fool for having believed it. 
 
 I have sometimes been entertained with considering dedica- 
 tions in no very common light. By observing what qualities 
 our writers think it will be most pleasing to others to compli- 
 ment them with, one may form some judgment which are most 
 so to themselves ; and in consequence, what sort of people they 
 are. Without this view one can read very few dedications but 
 will give us cause to wonder how such things came to be said at 
 all, or how they were said to such persons? I have known a 
 hero complimented upon the decent majesty and state he as- 
 sumed after victory, and a nobleman of a different character ap- 
 plauded for his condescension to inferiors. This would have 
 seemed very strange to me, but that I happened to know the 
 authors. He who made the first compliment was a lofty gen- 
 tleman, whose air and gait discovered when he had published a 
 new book ; and the other tippled every night with the fellows 
 who labored at the press while his own writings were working 
 off. It is observable of the female poets, and ladies dedicatory, 
 that here (as elsewhere) they far exceed us in any strain or rant. 
 As beauty is the thing that sex are piqued upon, they speak of 
 it generally in a more elevated style than is used by the men. 
 They adore in the same manner as they would be adored. So
 
 ON DEDICATIONS 251 
 
 when the authoress of a famous modern romance begs a young 
 nobleman's permission to pay him her " kneeling adorations," 
 I am far from censuring the expression, as some critics would 
 do, as deficient in grammar or sense ; but I reflect, that adora- 
 tions paid in that posture are what a lady might expect herself, 
 and my wonder immediately ceases. These, when they flatter 
 most, do but as they would be done unto : for, as none are so 
 much concerned at being injured by calumnies as they who are 
 readiest to cast them upon their neighbors, so it is certain none 
 are so guilty of flattery to others as those who most ardently de- 
 sire it themselves. 
 
 What led me into these thoughts was a dedication I happened 
 upon this morning. The reader must understand that I treat 
 the least instances or remains of ingenuity with respect, in what 
 places soever found, or under whatever circumstances of disad- 
 vantage. From this love to letters 1 have been so happy in my 
 searches after knowledge, that I have found unvalued reposi- 
 tories of learning in the lining of bandboxes. I look upon these 
 pasteboard edifices, adorned with the fragments of the ingen- 
 ious, with the same veneration as antiquaries upon ruined build- 
 ings, whose walls preserve divers inscriptions and names, which 
 are nowhere else to be found in the world. This morning, when 
 one of the Lady Lizard's daughters was looking over some 
 hoods and ribands, brought by her tire-woman, with great care 
 and diligence, I employed no less in examining the box which 
 contained them ; it was lined with certain scenes of a tragedy, 
 written (as appeared by part of the title there extant) by one of 
 the fair sex. What was most legible was the dedication ; which, 
 by reason of the largeness of the characters, was least defaced by 
 those gothic ornaments of flourishes and foliage, wherewith the 
 compilers of these sort of structures do often industriously ob- 
 scure the works of the learned. As much of it as I could read 
 with any ease, I shall communicate to the reader as follows : 
 
 " Though it is a kind of profanation to approach your grace 
 with so poor an offering, yet when I reflect how acceptable a 
 sacrifice of first-fruits was to heaven, in the earliest and purest 
 ages of religion, that they were honored with solemn feasts, and 
 consecrated to altars by a divine command, . . . upon that 
 consideration, as an argument of particular zeal, I dedicate, 
 , . . It is impossible to behold you without adoring; yet.
 
 852 POPE 
 
 dazzled and awed by the glory that surrounds you, men feel a 
 sacred power that refines their flames, and renders them pure 
 as those we ought to offer to the Deity. . . . The shrine is 
 worthy the divinity that inhabits it. In your grace we see what 
 woman was before she fell, how nearly allied to the purity and 
 perfection of angels. And We Adore and Bless the Glorious 
 Work." 
 
 Undoubtedly these and other periods of this most pious dedi- 
 cation could not but convince the duchess of what the eloquent 
 authoress assures her at the end, that she was her servant with 
 most ardent devotion. I think this a pattern of a new sort of 
 style, not yet taken notice of by the critics, which is above the 
 sublime, and may be called the celestial ; that is, when the most 
 sacred phrases appropriated to the honor of the Deity are ap- 
 plied to a mortal of good quality. As I am naturally emulous, 
 I cannot but endeavor, in imitation of this lady, to be the in- 
 ventor, or, at least, the first producer of a kind of dedication, 
 very different from hers and most others, since it has not a word 
 but what the author religiously thinks in it. It may serve for 
 almost any book, either prose or verse, that has been, is, or shall 
 be published, and might run in this manner : 
 
 THE AUTHOR TO HIMSELF. 
 
 " Most Honored Sir : 
 
 " These labors, upon many considerations, so properly belong 
 to none as to you. First, as it was your most earnest desire 
 alone that could prevail upon me to make them public. Then 
 as I am secure (from that constant indulgence you have ever 
 shown to all which is mine) that no man will so readily take 
 them into protection, or so zealously defend them. Moreover, 
 there is none can so soon discover the beauties ; and there are 
 some parts which, it is possible, few besides yourself are capable 
 of understanding. Sir, the honor, affection, and value I have 
 for you are beyond expression ; as great, I am sure, or greater, 
 than any man else can bear you. As for any defects which 
 others may pretend to discover in you, I do faithfully declare I 
 was never able to perceive them ; and doubt not but those per- 
 sons are actuated purely by a spirit of malice or envy, the in- 
 separable attendants on shining merit and parts, such as I have 
 always esteemed yours to be. It may perhaps be looked upon
 
 ON DEDICATIONS 253 
 
 as a kind of violence to modesty, to say this to you in public ; 
 but you may believe me it is no more than I have a thousand 
 times thought of you in private. Might I follow the impulse of 
 my soul, there is no subject I could launch into with more pleas- 
 ure than your panegyric. But, since something is due to mod- 
 esty, let me conclude by telling you, that there is nothing so 
 much I desire as to know you more thoroughly than I have yet 
 the happiness of doing. I may then hope to be capable to do 
 you some real service ; but till then can only assure you, that 
 I shall continue to be, as I am more than any man alive, Dear- 
 est Sir, your affectionate friend, and the greatest of your ad- 
 mirers."
 
 ON EPIC POETRY 
 
 Doceho 
 Unde parentur opes; quid alat formetque poetam. 
 
 — Horace, " Ars Poetica," 306. 
 
 I will teach to write, 
 Tell what the duty of a poet is, 
 Wherein his wealth and ornament consist, 
 And how he may be form'd and how improv'd. — Roscommon. 
 
 IT is no small pleasure to me, who am zealous in the inter- 
 ests of learning, to think I may have the honor of leading 
 the town into a very new and uncommon road of criticism. 
 As that kind of literature is at present carried on, it consists 
 only in a knowledge of mechanic rules which contribute to the 
 structure of different sorts of poetry ; as the receipts of good 
 housewives do to the making puddings of flour, oranges, plums, 
 or any other ingredients. It would, methinks, make these my 
 instructions more easily intelligible to ordinary readers, if I 
 discoursed of these matters in the style in which ladies learned 
 in economies dictate to their pupils for the improvement of the 
 kitchen and larder. 
 
 I shall begin with epic poetry, because the critics agree it is 
 the greatest work human nature is capable of. I know the 
 French have already laid down many mechanical rules for com- 
 positions of this sort, but at the same time they cut ofif almost all 
 undertakers from the possibility of ever performing them ; for 
 the first qualification they unanimously require in a poet, is a 
 genius. I shall here endeavor (for the benefit of my country- 
 men) to make it manifest, that epic poems may be made " with- 
 out a genius," nay, without learning or much reading. This 
 must necessarily be of great use to all those poets who confess 
 they never read, and of whom the world is convinced they never 
 learn. What Moliere observes of making a dinner, that any 
 man can do it with money, and if a professed cook cannot with- 
 
 255
 
 256 POPE 
 
 out, he has his art for nothing ; the same may be said of mak- 
 ing a poem, it is easily brought by him that has a genius, but 
 the si<ill hes in doing it without one. In pursuance of this end, 
 I shall present the reader with a plain and certain receipt, by 
 which even sonneteers and ladies may be qualified for this grand 
 performance. 
 
 I know it will be objected that one of the chief qualifications 
 of an epic poet is to be knowing in all arts and sciences. But 
 this ought not to discourage those that have no learning, as long 
 as indexes and dictionaries may be had, which are the com- 
 pendium of all knowledge. Besides, since it is an established 
 rule that none of the terms of those arts and sciences are to be 
 made use of, one may venture to affirm, our poet cannot im- 
 pertinently offend in this point. The learning which will be 
 more particularly necessary to him, is the ancient geography of 
 towns, mountains, and rivers : for this let him take Cluverius,* 
 value fourpence. 
 
 Another quality required is a complete skill in languages. 
 To this I answer, that it is notorious persons of no genius have 
 been oftentimes great linguists. To instance in the Greek, of 
 which there are two sorts; the original Greek and that from 
 which our modern authors translate. I should be unwilling 
 to promise impossibilities, but modestly speaking, this may be 
 learned in about an hour's time with ease. I have known one, 
 who became a sudden professor of Greek immediately upon 
 application of the left-hand page of the Cambridge Homer* 
 to his eye. It is in these days with authors as with other 
 men, the well-bred are familiarly acquainted with them at first 
 sight ; and as it is sufficient for a good general to have sur- 
 veyed the ground he is to conquer, so it is enough for a good 
 poet to have seen the author he is to be master of. But to 
 proceed to the purpose of this paper. 
 
 ' The allusion is to the " Germania called epoch-making in the history of 
 Antiaua " and " Italia Antiqua " (1624) ancient geography. 
 
 of Cluverius, works which have been ^ The editions of the time had an Eng« 
 
 lish version on the left-hand pages.
 
 ON EPIC POETRY 257 
 
 A RECEIPT TO MAKE AN EPIC POEM 
 For the Fable 
 
 Take out of any old poem, history book, romance, or legend 
 (for instance, Geoffrey of Monmouth, or Don Behanis ^ of 
 Greece), those parts of story which afford most scope for long 
 descriptions. Put these pieces together, and throw all the ad- 
 ventures you fancy into one tale. Then take a hero whom you 
 nmy choose for the sound of his name, and put him into the 
 midst of these adventures. There let him work for twelve 
 books; at the end of which you may take him out ready pre- 
 pared to conquer, or to marry ; it being necessary that the con- 
 clusion of an epic poem be fortunate. 
 
 To make an Episode. — Take any remaining adventure of 
 your former collection, in which you could no way involve your 
 hero; or any unfortunate accident that was too good to be 
 thrown away ; and it will be of use applied to any other person, 
 who may be lost and evaporate in the course of the work, with- 
 out the least damage to the composition. 
 
 For the Moral and Allegory. — These you may extract out 
 of the fable afterwards, at your leisure. Be sure you strain 
 them sufficiently. 
 
 For the Manners 
 
 For those of the hero, take all the best qualities you can find 
 in all the celebrated heroes of antiquity; if they will not be 
 reduced to a consistency, lay them all on a heap upon him. 
 But be sure they are qualities which your patron would be 
 thought to have ; and, to prevent any mistake which the world 
 may be subject to, select from the alphabet those capital letters 
 that compose his name, and set them at the head of a dedication 
 before your poem. However, do not absolutely observe the 
 exact quantity of these virtues, it not being determined whether 
 or no it be necessary for the hero of the poem to be an honest 
 man. For the under characters, gather them from Homer and 
 Vergil, and change the names as occasion serves. 
 
 » " The Famous and Delectable His- mances of chivalry, and was reprieved 
 
 tory of Don Belianis of Greece " was by the curate in " Don Quixote," when 
 
 translated into English in isj8. It was the barber made a bonfire of the Don's 
 
 one of the most celebrated Spanish ro- library. ^2 Y . f.„
 
 2SS POPE 
 
 For the Machines 
 
 Take of deities, male and female, as many as you can use. 
 Separate them into two equal parts, and keep Jupiter in the 
 middle. Let Juno put him in a ferment, and Venus mollify 
 him. Remember on all occasions to make use of volatile Mer- 
 cury. If you have need of devils, draw them out of Milton's 
 " Paradise," and extract your spirits from Tasso. The use 
 of these machines is evident ; and since no epic poem can pos- 
 sibly subsist without them, the wisest way is to reserve them 
 for your greatest necessities. When you cannot extricate your 
 hero by any human means, or yourself by your own wits, seek 
 relief from heaven, and the gods will do your business very 
 readily. This is according to the direct prescription of Horace 
 in his " Art of Poetry " : 
 
 " Nee deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice Nodus 
 Inciderit." 
 
 Never to presume to make a god appear, 
 
 But for a business worthy of a god. — Roscommon. 
 
 That is to say, a poet should never call upon the gods for their 
 assistance but when he is in great perplexity. 
 
 For the Descriptions 
 
 For a Tempest. — Take Eurus, Zephyr, Auster, and Boreas, 
 and cast them together in one verse. Add to these of rain, 
 lightning, and of thunder (the loudest you can) quantum suf- 
 ficif. Mix your clouds and billows well together until they 
 foam, and thicken your description here and there with a quick- 
 sand. Brew your tempest well in your head, before you set a 
 blowing. 
 
 For a Battle. — Pick a large quantity of images and descrip- 
 tions from Homer's " Iliad," with a spice or two of Vergil, and 
 if there remain any overplus you may lay them by for a 
 skirmish. Season it well with similes, and it will make an 
 excellent battle. 
 
 For Burning a Town. — If such a description be necessary, 
 because it is certain there is one in Vergil, Old Troy is ready 
 burnt to your hands. But if you fear that would be thought
 
 ON EPIC POETRY 259 
 
 Borrowed, a chapter or two of the " Theory of the Conflagra- 
 tion," * well circumstanced, and done into verse, will be a 
 good succedaneum. 
 
 As for Similes and Metaphors, they may be found all over 
 the creation ; the most ignorant may gather them, but the 
 danger is in applying them. For this, advise with your book- 
 seller. 
 
 For the Language 
 
 (I mean the diction.) Here it will do well to be an imitator 
 of Milton, for you will find it easier to imitate him in this 
 than anything else. Hebraisms and Grecisms are to be found 
 in him, without the trouble of learning the languages. I knew 
 a painter, who (like our poet) had no genius, made his daub- 
 ings to be thought originals by setting them in the smoke. 
 You may in the same manner give the venerable air of antiquity 
 to your piece, by darkening it up and down with Old English. 
 With this you may be easily furnished upon any occasion by 
 the dictionary commonly printed at the end of Chaucer. 
 
 I must not conclude, without cautioning all writers without 
 genius in one material point, which is never to be afraid of 
 having too much fire in their works. I should advise rather 
 to take their warmest thoughts, and spread them abroad upon 
 paper; for they are observed to cool before they are read. 
 
 * A reference to the " Sacred Theory of the Earth," by Thomas Burnet, D.D.. 
 1689.
 
 ON PASSION 
 
 BY 
 
 PHILIP DORMER STANHOPE 
 
 Earl of Chesterfield
 
 PHILIP DORMER STANHOPE, EARL OF CHESTERFIELD 
 
 1694— 1773 
 
 Philip Dormer Stanhope, one of the most shining characters of his 
 age, was born in 1694. He lost his mother early, and being neglected 
 l)y his father, was brought up chiefly under the care of his grand- 
 mother. He was sent when eighteen years of age to Cambridge, and 
 appears even there to have devoted much attention to the formation of 
 style, of which he afterwards became so great a master. On leaving 
 the university he made the customary tour of Europe. The converse 
 of foreign courts stimulated his taste for the courtesies of polite life 
 and for the attainment of that knowledge of the world which he pur- 
 sued so steadfastly through later years. The extensive possession of 
 this knowledge became his chief characteristic in after life, and its 
 display is the most notable feature of his writings. He entered Parlia- 
 ment as member for St. Germains before he was of age, but took 
 little part in public affairs till after the death of his father in 1726, 
 when he became a member of the Upper House. His first public em- 
 ployment was an embassy to Holland, in 1728, in which he displayed 
 great skill, diplomacy being peculiarly suited to his tastes and talents 
 from his conciliatory temper and manners, his quick insight into char- 
 acter, and his knowledge of foreign languages and history. A second 
 embassy to the same country confirmed his reputation as a statesman. 
 In 1745, at the moment of the Rebellion in Scotland, Chesterfield be- 
 came Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and entered on the most brilliant 
 and useful part of his career. By impartial justice, by firmness, modera- 
 tion, and clemency, he kept that country tranquil, and his administration 
 deserves the praise due to a humane, liberal, and far-sighted policy. 
 At the close of 1746 he became Secretary of State, and in 1748 he finally 
 withdrew from official life. In 1751, Chesterfield, with the aid of Lord 
 Macclesfield and of the astronomer Bradley, carried out, in spite of 
 popular prejudice, the reformation of the calendar. After this, and 
 till his death, an increasing deafness excluded Lord Chesterfield from 
 taking part in public life. He died in 1773, " satiated," as he himself 
 said, " with the pompous follies of this life." 
 
 Lord Chesterfield left a number of miscellaneous pieces which have 
 been collected from the periodicals in which for the most part they 
 appeared. One of his essays from the " World " is given here. As an 
 author, however, says Lord Mahon, Chesterfield's character must stand 
 or fall by the celebrated " Letters " addressed to his natural son, Philip 
 Stanhope. Viewed as compositions, these letters appear almost un- 
 rivalled as models for a serious epistolary style; clear, elegant, and 
 terse, never straining at eflfect, and yet never hurried into carelessness. 
 They have incurred just reprehension on two grounds — that they insist 
 too much on manners and graces instead of on more solid acquire- 
 ments, and that some of their maxims are repugnant to good morals; 
 even when right in themselves, the maxims laid down seldom rest on 
 higher motives than expediency, reputation, or personal advantage. 
 
 262
 
 ON PASSION 
 
 IT is a vulgar notion, and worthy of the vulgar, for it is both 
 false and absurd, that passionate people are the best nat- 
 ured people in the world. " They are a little hasty, it is 
 true ; a trifle will put them in a fury ; and while they are in that 
 fury, they neither know nor care what they say or do : but then, 
 as soon as it is over, they are extremely sorry and penitent for 
 any injury or mischief they did." This panegyric on these 
 choleric good-natured people, when examined and simplified, 
 amounts in plain common-sense and English to this : that they 
 are good-natured when they are not ill-natured ; and that when 
 in their fits of rage they have said or done things that have 
 brought them to the jail or the gallows, they are extremely sorry 
 for it. It is indeed highly probable that they are ; but where 
 is the reparation to those whose reputations, limbs, or lives they 
 have either wounded or destroyed? This concern comes too 
 late, and is only for themselves. Self-love was the cause of the 
 injury, and is the only motive of the repentance. 
 
 Had these furious people real good-nature their first offence 
 would be their last, and they would resolve at all events never to 
 relapse. The moment they felt their choler rising, they would 
 enjoin themselves an absolute silence and inaction, and by that 
 sudden check rather expose themselves to a momentary ridicule 
 (which, by the way, would be followed by universal applause), 
 than run the least risk of being irreparably mischievous. 
 
 I know it is said in their behalf, that this impulse to wrath is 
 constitutionally so sudden and so strong that they cannot stifle 
 it, even in its birth ; but experience shows us, that this allega- 
 tion is notoriously false ; for we daily observe that these stormy 
 persons both can and do lay those gusts of passion, when awed 
 by respect, restrained by interest, or intimidated by fear. The 
 most outrageous furioso does not give loose to his anger in 
 presence of his sovereign, or his mistress; nor the expectant 
 
 263
 
 204 STANHOPE 
 
 heir in presence of the peevish dotard from whom he hopes for 
 an inheritance. The soliciting courtier, though perhaps under 
 the strongest provocations, from unjust delays and broken 
 promises, calmly swallows his unavailing wrath, disguises it 
 even under smiles, and gently waits for more favorable mo- 
 ments ; nor does the criminal fly in a passion at his judge or his 
 jury. 
 
 There is then but one solid excuse to be alleged in favor of 
 these people ; and if they will frankly urge it, I will candidly ad' 
 mit it, because it points out its own remedy. I mean, let them 
 fairly confess themselves mad, as they most unquestionably 
 are ; for what plea can those that are frantic ten times a day 
 bring against shaving, bleeding, and a dark room, when so 
 many much more harmless madmen are confined in their cells 
 at Bedlam for being mad only once in a moon ? Nay, I have 
 been assured by the late ingenious Doctor Monro, that such of 
 his patients who were really of a good-natured disposition^ and 
 who in their lucid intervals were allowed the liberty of walking 
 about the hospital, would frequently, when they found the 
 previous symptoms of their returning madness, voluntarily ap- 
 ply for confinement, conscious of the mischief which they might 
 possibly do if at liberty. If those who pretend not to be mad, 
 but who really are so, had the same fund of good-nature, they 
 would make the same application to their friends, if they have 
 any. 
 
 There is in the Menagiana,* a very pretty story of one of 
 these angry gentlemen, which sets their extravagancy in a very 
 ridiculous light. 
 
 Two gentlemen were riding together, one of whom, who was 
 a choleric one, happened to be mounted on a high-mettled 
 horse. The horse grew a little troublesome, at which the rider 
 grew very angry, and whipped and spurred him with great fury ; 
 to which the horse, almost as wrong-headed as his master, re- 
 plied with kicking and plunging. The companion, concerned 
 for the danger, and ashamed of the folly of his friend, said to 
 him coolly, " Be quiet, be quiet, and show yourself the wiser of 
 the two." 
 
 This sort of madness, for I will call it by no other name, flows 
 
 * One of the many popular books of Menage, poet and grammarian, wh«!i 
 " ana " produced in France in the sev- died in Paris, 1692. 
 enteenth century, and so named from
 
 ON PASSION 265 
 
 from various causes, of which I shall now enumerate the most 
 
 general. 
 
 Light unballasted heads are very apt to be overset by every 
 gust, or even breeze of passion ; they appreciate things wrong, 
 and think everything of importance, but what really is so; 
 hence those frequent and sudden transitions from silly joy to 
 silUer anger, according as the present silly humor is gratified or 
 thwarted. This is the never-failing characteristic of the unedu- 
 cated vulgar, who often in the same half-hour fight with fury, 
 and shake hands with affection. Such heads give themselves 
 no time to reason ; and if you attempt to reason with them they 
 think you rally them, and resent the affront. They are, in short, 
 overgrown children, and continue so in the most advanced age. 
 Far be it from me to insinuate, what some ill-bred authors 
 have bluntly asserted, that this is in general the case of the 
 fairest part of our species, whose great vivacity does not always 
 allow them time to reason consequentially, but hurries them 
 into testiness upon the least opposition to their will ; but at the 
 same time, with all the partiality which I have for them, and 
 nobody can have more than I have, I must confess that, in all 
 their debates, I have much more admired the copiousness of 
 their rhetoric than the conclusiveness of their logic. 
 
 People of strong animal spirits, warm constitutions, and a 
 cold genius (a most unfortunate and ridiculous, though com- 
 mon compound) are most irascible animals, and very dangerous 
 in their wrath. They are active, puzzling, blundering, and petu- 
 lantly enterprising and persevering. They are impatient of the 
 least contradiction, having neither arguments nor words to 
 reply with ; and the animal part of their composition bursts out 
 into furious explosions, which have often mischievous conse- 
 quences. Nothing is too outrageous or criminal for them to say 
 or do in these fits ; but as the beginning of their frenzy is easily 
 discoverable by their glaring eyes, inflamed countenances, and 
 rapid motions, the company, as conservators of the peace 
 (which, by the way, every man is, till the authority of a magis- 
 trate can be produced), should forcibly seize these madmen, and 
 confine them, in the mean time, in some dark closet, vault, or 
 coal-hole. 
 
 Men of nice honor, without one grain of common honesty 
 (for such there are), are wonderfully combustible. The honor-
 
 266 STANHOPE 
 
 able is to support and protect the dishonest part of their char- 
 acter. The consciousness of their guilt makes them both sore 
 and jealous. 
 
 There is another very irascible sort of human animals, whose 
 madness proceeds from pride. These are generally the peo- 
 ple, who, having just fortunes sufficient to live idle and useless 
 to society, create themselves gentlemen, and are scrupulously 
 tender of the rank and dignity which they have not. They re- 
 quire the more respect, from being conscious that they have 
 no right to any. They construe everything into a slight, ask ex- 
 planations with heat, and misunderstand them with fury. 
 " Who are you ? What are you ? Do you know who you 
 speak to? I'll teach you to be insolent to a gentleman," are 
 their daily idioms of speech, which frequently end in assault and 
 battery, to the great emolument of the Round-house and Crown 
 office. 
 
 I have known many young fellows, who, at their first setting 
 out in the world, or in the army, have simulated a passion which 
 they did not feel, merely as an indication of spirit, which word is 
 falsely looked upon as synonymous with courage. They dress 
 and look fierce, swear enormously, and rage furiously, seduced 
 by that popular word " spirit," But I beg leave to inform these 
 mistaken young gentlemen, whose error I compassionate, that 
 the true spirit of a rational being consists in cool and steady 
 resolution, which can only be the result of reflection and virtue. 
 
 I am very sorry to be obliged to own that there is not a more 
 irritable part of the species than my brother authors. Criticism, 
 censure, or even the slightest disapprobation of their immortal 
 works excite their most furious indignation. It is true indeed 
 that they express their resentment in a manner less dangerous, 
 both to others and to themselves. Like incensed porcupines, 
 they dart their quills at the objects of their wrath. The wounds 
 given by these shafts are not mortal, and only painful in propor- 
 tion to the distance from whence they fly. Those which are dis- 
 charged (as by much the greatest number are) from great 
 heights, such as garrets or four-pair-of-stairs rooms, are puffed 
 away by the wind, and never hit the mark ; but those which are 
 let off from a first or second floor, are apt to occasion a little 
 smarting, and sometimes festering, especially if the party 
 wounded be unsound.
 
 ON PASSION 267 
 
 Our great Creator has wisely given us passions to rouse us 
 into action, and to engage our gratitude to him by the pleasures 
 they procure us ; but at the same time he has kindly given us 
 reason sufficient, if we will but give that reason fair play, to 
 control those passions ; and has delegated authority to say to 
 them, as he said to the waters, " Thus far shall ye go, and no 
 farther." The angry man is his own severest tormentor; his 
 breast knows no peace, while his raging passions are restrained 
 by no sense of either religious or moral duties. What would 
 be his case, if his unforgiving example (if I may use such an ex- 
 pression) were followed by his all-merciful Maker, whose for- 
 giveness he can only hope for, in proportion as he himself for- 
 gives and loves his fellow-creatures ?
 
 THE COMMONWEALTH OF LETTERS 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY FIELDING
 
 HENRY FIELDING 
 1707—1754 
 
 Henry Fielding was born in 1707. at Sharpham Fark, in Somerset- 
 shire. His father, General Edmund Fielding, who belonged to a younger 
 branch of the Denbigh family, had served under Marlborough, and was 
 a person of good position in society, but seems to have set his son the 
 bad example of extravagance. Henry Fielding was educated at Eton, 
 where he is said to have acquired a great familiarity with the Latin 
 and Greek classics. He afterwards studied jurisprudence at Leyden, 
 1 but was compelled to return to England in consequence of his father's 
 inability to support him at that university. Finding himself at the age 
 of twenty thrown upon his own resources, " with an allowance from 
 his father," as he said himself, which " anyone might pay who could, 
 and with no choice but to be a hackney writer or a hackney coachman," 
 he preferred the former alternative, and became a dramatic author. 
 None of his farces or comedies obtained, or indeed deserved, any con- 
 siderable success ; they can hardly be said to contain any promise of 
 his future excellence. At the age of twenty-eight he married, and, 
 inheriting at the same time a small estate, retired to the country. Here, 
 however, in two years he had completely ruined himself by a ludicrous 
 extravagance, and returned to London to study law. To maintain 
 himself and his family he again wrote plays, and was besides concerned 
 in more than one of the periodicals of the day. At thirty-five the de- 
 sire of ridiculing Richardson's " Pamela " suggested to him the com- 
 position of " Joseph Andrews," and having once found the true bent 
 of his genius, he followed it up with ardor, and, while still occupied 
 with periodical writing and with the duties of a stipendiary magistracy, 
 he. found time for the production of his later and equally celebrated 
 novels. But his health, which had long been declining, at last gave 
 way altogether, and in 1754, as a last chance for life, he sailed for 
 Lisbon, but only to die there in the autumn of the same year. 
 
 Fielding's English is pure, simple, and unaffected. But his high 
 place in English literature is due not so much to his style, though 
 original and excellent in its kind, as to his transcendent genius as a 
 novelist; to his wide human sympathies, his just conception and sharp 
 delineation of character, his humor, so copious as to extend with un- 
 diminished force over his voluminous writings, and the buoyant sense 
 of the enjoyment of life which he has infused into pages composed not 
 unfrequently under the pressure of much physical suffering. His 
 essay on "The Commonwealth of Letters" first appeared in the 
 " Covent Garden Journal." It is characterized by his robust common 
 sense, his vigorous, easy style, and his good-humored, racy wit. 
 
 270
 
 THE COMMONWEALTH OF LETTERS 
 
 OiiK ayaOhv TToKvKoipavlt}, us Koipavos IffTW, 
 Ets BaaiKeliSy S> eSwKe Kp6vov va7s &7KvAvM^Tec0 
 'SKfjirrpdv r'riSe Btfiiarai, Xva a<pi<nv 4iJ.fiaai\fhf. — Homer, 
 
 Here is not allowed 
 That worst of tyrants, an usurping crowd. 
 To one sole monarch Jove commits the sway ; 
 His are the laws, and him let all obey. — Pope. 
 
 THOUGH of the three forms of government acknowl- 
 edged in the schools all have been very warmly opposed 
 and as warmly defended, yet in this point the different 
 advocates will, I believe, very readily agree, that there is not 
 one of the three which is not greatly to be preferred to total 
 anarchy — a State in which there is no subordination, no lawful 
 power, and no settled government, but where every man is at 
 liberty to act in whatever manner it pleaseth him best. 
 
 As this is in reality a most deplorable state, I have long la- 
 mented, with great anguish of heart, that it is at present the case 
 of a very large body of people in this kingdom — an assertion 
 which, as it may surprise most of my readers, I will make haste 
 to explain, by declaring that I mean the fraternity of the quill, 
 that body of men to whom the public assign the name of 
 authors. 
 
 However absurd politicians may have been pleased to repre- 
 sent the imperium in imperio, it will here, I doubt not, be found 
 on a strict examination to be extremely necessary, the common- 
 wealth of Hterature being indeed totally distinct from the 
 greater commonwealth, and no more dependent upon it than 
 the kingdom of England is on that of France. Of this our leg- 
 islature seems to have been at all times sensible, as they have 
 never attempted any provision for the regulation or correction 
 of this body. In one instance, it is true, there are (I should 
 rather, I believe, say there were) some laws to restrain themj 
 
 271
 
 272 
 
 FIELDING 
 
 for writers, if I am not mistaken, have been formerly punished 
 for blasphemy against God and libels against the government ; 
 nay, I have been told that to slander the reputation of private 
 ffersons was once thought unlawful here as well as among the 
 Romans, who, as Horace tells us, had a severe law for this 
 purpose. 
 
 In promulging these laws (whatever may be the reason of 
 suffering them to grow obsolete) the State seems to have acted 
 very wisely, as such kind of writings are really of most mis- 
 chievous consequence to the public ; but, alas ! there are many 
 abuses, many horrid evils, daily springing up in the common- 
 wealth of literature, which appear to affect only that common- 
 wealth, at least immediately, of which none of the political leg- 
 islators have ever taken any notice, nor hath any civil court of 
 judicature ever pretended to any cognizance of them. Non- 
 sense and dulness are no crimes iti foro civili; no man can be 
 questioned for bad verses in Westminster Hall ; and, amongst 
 the many indictments for battery, not one can be produced for 
 breaking poor Priscian's head,^ though it is done almost every 
 day. 
 
 But though immediately, as I have said, these evils do not 
 affect the greater commonwealth, yet, as they tend to the utter 
 ruin of the lesser, so they have a remote evil consequence, even 
 on the State itself; which seems, by having l»ft them unpro- 
 vided for, to have remitted them, for the sake of convenience, 
 to the government of laws and to the superintendence of magis- 
 trates of this lesser commonwealth, and never to have foreseen 
 or suspected that dreadful state of anarchy which at present pre- 
 vails in this lesser empire — an empire which hath formerly made 
 so great a figure in this kingdom, and that, indeed, almost with- 
 in our own memories. 
 
 It may appear strange that none of our English historians 
 have spoken clearly and distinctly of this lesser empire ; but 
 this may be well accounted for when we consider that all these 
 histories have been written by two sorts of persons — that is to 
 say, either politicians or lawyers. Now, the former of these 
 have had their imaginations so entirely filled with the affairs of 
 
 ' " To commit a grammatical error," " And hold no sin so deeply red, 
 Priscian being a famous grammarian in As that of breaking Priscian's head." 
 
 the time of Justinian. Cf, " lludibras," 
 pt. II. can. 2, 1. 22],.
 
 THE COMMONWEALTH OF LETTERS 273 
 
 the greater empire that it is no wonder the business of the 
 lesser should have totally escaped their observation. And as 
 to the lawyers, they are well known to have been very little 
 acquainted with the commonwealth of literature, and to have 
 always acted and written in defiance to its laws. 
 
 From these reasons it is very difficult to fix, with certainty, 
 the exact period when this commonwealth first began among 
 us. Indeed, if the originals of all the greater empires upon 
 earth, and even of our own, be wrapped in such obscurity that 
 they elude the inquiries of the most diligent sifters of antiquity, 
 we cannot be surprised that this fate should attend our little 
 empire, opposed as it hath been by the pen of the lawyer, over- 
 looked by the eye of the historian, and never once smelt aiter 
 by the nose of the antiquary. 
 
 In the earliest ages the literary state seems to have been an 
 ecclesiastical democracy, for the clergy are then said to have had 
 all the learning among them ; and the great reverence paid at 
 that time to it by the laity appears from hence, that whoever 
 could prove in a court of justice that he belonged to this state, 
 by only reading a single verse in the Testament, was vested with 
 the highest privileges, and might do almost what he pleased, 
 even commit murder with impunity. And this privilege was 
 called the benefit of the clergy. 
 
 This commonwealth, however, can scarce be said to have 
 been in any flourishing state of old time even among the clergy 
 themselves ; inasmuch as we are told that a rector of a parish, 
 going to law with his parishioners about paving the church, 
 quoted this authority from St. Peter, Paveant illi, non paveam 
 ego, which he construed thus : " They are to pave the church, 
 and not I." And this, by a judge who was likewise an ecclesi- 
 astic, was allowed to be very good law. 
 
 The nobility had clearlv no ancient connection with this com- 
 monwealth, nor would submit to be bound by any of its laws ; 
 witness that provision in an old act of Parliament, " That a 
 nobleman shall be entitled to the benefit of his clergy " (the 
 privilege above mentioned) " even though he cannot read." 
 Nay, the whole body of the laity, though they gave such hon- 
 ors to this commonwealth, appear to have been very few of them 
 tinder its jurisdiction, as appears by a law cited by Judge Rolls 
 in his " Abridgment," with the reason which he gives for it :
 
 274 FIELDING 
 
 "The command of the sheriff," says this writer, " to his officer* 
 by word of mouth and without writing, is good ; for it may be 
 that neither the sheriff nor his officer can write or read." 
 
 But not to dwell on these obscure times, when so very little 
 authentic can be found concerning this commonwealth, let us 
 come at once to the days of Henry VIII, when no less a revo- 
 lution happened in the lesser than in the greater empire, for the 
 literary government became absolute, together with the polit- 
 ical, in the hands of one and the same monarch, who was him- 
 self a writer, and dictated, not only law, but common-sense too, 
 to all his people, suffering no one to write or speak but accord- 
 ing to his will and pleasure. 
 
 After this king's demise the literary commonwealth was 
 again separated from the political, for I do not find that his suc- 
 cessor on the greater throne succeeded him likewise in the les- 
 ser. Nor did either of the two queens, as I can learn, pretend to 
 any authority in this empire, in which the Salic law hath uni- 
 versally prevailed, for though there have been some consider- 
 able subjects of the female sex in the literary commonwealth, I 
 never remember to have read of a queen. 
 
 It is not easy to say with any great exactness what form of 
 government was preserved in this commonwealth during the 
 reigns of Edward VI, Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth, for 
 though there were some great men in those times, none of them 
 seem to have affected the throne of wit ; nay, Shakespeare, who 
 flourished in the latter end of the last reign, and who seemed so 
 justly qualified to enjoy this crown, never thought of challeng- 
 ing it. 
 
 In the reign of James I the literary government was an aris- 
 tocracy, for I do not choose to give it the evil name of oligarchy, 
 though it consisted only of four, namely. Master William Shake- 
 speare, Master Benjamin Jonson, Master John Fletcher, and 
 Master Francis Beaumont. This quadrumvirate, as they intro- 
 duced a new form of government, thought proper, according to 
 Machiavel's advice, to introduce new names ; they therefore 
 called themselves " The Wits," a name which hath been affected 
 since by the reigning monarchs in this empire. 
 
 The last of this quadrumvirate enjoyed the government alone 
 (during his life ; after which the troubles that shortly after en- 
 sued involved this lesser commonwealth in all the confusion
 
 THE COMMONWEALTH OF LETTERS 275 
 
 and ruin of the greater, nor can anything be found of it with 
 sufficient certainty till the " Wits," in the reign of Charles II, 
 after many struggles among themselves for superiority, at last 
 agreed to elect John Dryden to be their king. 
 
 This King John had a very long reign, though a very un- 
 quiet one ; for there were several pretenders to the throne of 
 wit in his time, who formed very considerable parties against 
 him, and gave him great uneasiness, of which his successor 
 hath made mention in the following lines : — 
 
 Pride, folly, malice, against Dryden rose, 
 In various shapes of parsons, critics, beaux. 2 
 
 Besides which, his finances were in such disorder, that it is 
 affirmed his treasury was more than once entirely empty. 
 
 He died, nevertheless, in a good old age, possessed of the 
 kingdom of Wit, and was succeeded by King Alexander, sur- 
 named Pope. 
 
 This prince enjoyed the crown many years, and is thought to 
 have stretched the prerogative much further than his predeces- 
 sor ; he is said to have been extremely jealous of the affections 
 of his subjects, and to have employed various spies, by whom 
 if he was informed of the least suggestion against his title, he 
 never failed of branding the accused person with the word 
 " dunce " on his forehead in broad letters ; after which the un- 
 happy culprit was obliged to lay by his pen forever, for no book- 
 seller would venture to print a word that he wrote. 
 
 He did indeed put a total restraint on the liberty of the press ; 
 for no person durst read anything which was writ without his 
 license and approbation ; and this license he granted only to 
 four during his reign, namely, to the celebrated Dr. Swift, to 
 the ingenious Dr. Young, to Dr. Arbuthnot, and to one Mr. 
 Gay, four of his principal courtiers and favorites. 
 
 But without diving any deeper into his character, we must 
 allow that King Alexander had great merit as a writer, and his 
 title to the kingdom of Wit was better founded at least than his 
 enemies have pretended. 
 
 After the demise of King Alexander, the literary state re- 
 lapsed again into democracy, or rather, indeed, into downright 
 anarchy ; of which, as well as of the consequences, I shall treat 
 in a future paper, 
 
 » Pope's " Essay on Criticism," 1. 458.
 
 THE ADVANTAGES OF LIVING IN A 
 
 GARRET 
 
 LITERARY COURAGE 
 
 BY 
 
 SAMUEL JOHNSON
 
 SAMUEL JOHNSON 
 1709— 1784 
 
 Samuel Johnson was born at Lichfield in 1709. His father was a 
 bookseller in that city. He received his early education at the free 
 school under Mr. Hawkins. For about two years before going up to 
 Oxford he was at Stourbridge School. From the university he re- 
 turned to Lichfield, and became usher at a school. This task proving 
 imgrateful, he turned to his first literary occupation as a translator. 
 On his marriage, in 1736, he again attempted teaching, opening an 
 academy near Lichfield, and in 1737 he and Garrick betook themselves 
 together to London as candidates for the fame which awaited them. 
 Johnson now began the struggle of a literary life, and continued it 
 with ever increasing renown, but with uncertain pecuniary success, 
 until in 1762 he received the grant of £300 a year from the Crown as 
 the reward of his labors in the field of letters. The last twenty years 
 of his life were passed in comparative ease, checkered only by the 
 loss of friends and by the ill-health which beset his latter days. He 
 died in 1784, and was buried with honor in Westminster Abbey, near 
 to the monument of Shakespeare, and close beside the grave of Garrick. 
 
 Johnson was the chief literary man of his time; he wrote poems, 
 moral and controversial essays, and biographies. While he composed 
 these, he also prepared his celebrated " English Dictionary," which 
 appeared in 1755. His best known works are two satires, in verse, 
 written in imitation of Juvenal, " London," and the " Vanity of Hu- 
 man Wishes ; " moral essays, published in the " Rambler " and the 
 " Idler ; " " Rasselas," which was written to defray the expense of 
 his mother's funeral, and to pay her last debts. His edition of " Shake- 
 speare," and his " Lives of the Poets " were his most important publica- 
 tions subsequent to the appearance of the " Dictionary." His satires, 
 his controversial works, his moral essays, and even his dictionary, 
 were among the most popular works of their day, and were considered 
 no less remarkable for beauty of style than for vigor of thought. The 
 verdict of posterity has not altogether ratified the judgment of John- 
 son's contemporaries. His style, which was the source of his popu- 
 larity, in the eighteenth century, injures his reputation with modern 
 readers. His settled preference for words derived frorn Latin sources 
 is opposed to modern taste, and frequently gives to his sentences an 
 air of cumbrous pedantry. Moreover, his thoughts are more remark- 
 able for their vigorous good sense than for their originality or pro- 
 foundness. It is Johnson's great merit that he never wrote unless he 
 had something to say, and that he could always express exactly what 
 he meant to say in precise language. Few writers who have filled as 
 many volumes have written as little that was not worth writing as 
 Johnson. The essays given here are from the " Rambler " and the 
 " Idler," respectively. 
 
 278
 
 THE ADVANTAGES OF LIVING IN A GARRET 
 
 The gods they challenge, and affect the skies: 
 
 Heaved on Olympus, tottering Ossa stood ; 
 
 On Ossa, Pelion nods with all his wood. — Pope. 
 
 NOTHING has more retarded the advancement of learn- 
 ing than the disposition of vulgar minds to ridicule and 
 vilify what they cannot comprehend. All industry 
 must be excited by hope ; and as the student often proposes no 
 other reward to himself than praise, he is easily discouraged by 
 contempt and insult. He who brings with him into a clamorous 
 multitude the timidity of recluse speculation, and has never 
 hardened his front in public life, or accustomed his passions to 
 the vicissitudes and accidents, the triumphs and defeats of mixed 
 conversation, will blush at the stare of petulant incredulity, and 
 suffer himself to be driven by a burst of laughter from the for- 
 tresses of demonstration. The mechanist will be afraid to as- 
 sert before hardy contradiction the possibility of tearing down 
 bulwarks with a silkworm's thread ; and the astronomer of re- 
 lating the rapidity of light, the distance of the fixed stars, and 
 the height of the lunar mountains. 
 
 If I could by any efforts have shaken off this cowardice I had 
 not sheltered myself under a borrowed name, nor applied to you 
 for the means of communicating to the public the theory of a 
 garret : a subject which, except some slight and transient strict- 
 ures, has been hitherto neglected by those who were best quali- 
 fied to adorn it, either for want of leisure to prosecute the various 
 researches in which a nice discussion must engage them, or be- 
 cause it requires such diversity of knowledge, and such extent 
 of curiosity, as is scarcely to be found in any single intellect ; or 
 perhaps others foresaw the tumults which would be raised 
 against them, and confined their knowledge to their own 
 breasts, and abandoned prejudice and folly to the direction of 
 chance. 
 
 That the professors of literature generally reside in the high- 
 
 279
 
 28o JOHNSON 
 
 est stories has been immemorially observed. The wisdom of 
 the ancients was well acquainted with the intellectual advan- 
 tages of an elevated situation: why else were the Muses sta- 
 tioned on Olympus, or Parnassus, by those who could with 
 equal right have raised them bowers in the vale of Tempe, or 
 erected their altars among the flexures of Meander ? Why was 
 Jove himself nursed upon a mountain? or why did the god- 
 desses, when the prize of beauty was contested, try the cause 
 upon the top of Ida? Such were the fictions by which the 
 great masters of the earlier ages endeavored to inculcate to 
 posterity the importance of a garret, which, though they had 
 been long obscured by the negligence and ignorance of suc- 
 ceeding times, were well enforced by the celebrated symbol of 
 Pythagoras, 
 
 " When the wind blows, worship its echo." 
 
 This could not but be understood by his disciples as an inviol- 
 able injunction to live in a garret, which I have found frequently 
 visited by the echo and the wind. Nor was the tradition wholly 
 obliterated in the age of Augustus, for TibuUus evidently con- 
 gratulates himself upon his garret, not without some allusion 
 to the Pythagorean precept : 
 
 " Quam juvat immites ventos audire cubantem — 
 Aut, gelidas hihernus aquas cum fuderit auster 
 Securum somnos, imbre juvante, sequi." 
 
 " How sweet in sleep to pass the careless hours, 
 LuU'd by the beating winds and dashing showers." 
 
 And it is impossible not to discover the fondness of Lucretius, 
 an earlier writer, for a garret, in his description of the lofty 
 towers of serene learning, and of the pleasure with which a 
 wise man looks down upon the confused and erratic state of the 
 world moving below him : 
 
 " Sed nil dulcius est, bene quam munita tenere 
 Edita doctrina sapientum templa serena; 
 Despicere unde qiicas alios, passimquc videre 
 Errare, atque viam palanteis quarere vita:." 
 
 'Tis sweet thy laboring steps to guide 
 To virtue's heights, with wisdom well supplied. 
 And all the magazine of learning fortified : 
 From thence to look below on humankind. 
 Bewildered in the maze of life, and hVind.—Dryden.
 
 THE ADVANTAGES OF LIVING IN A GARRET 281 
 
 The institution has, indeed, continued to our own time; the 
 garret is still the usual receptacle of the philosopher and poet; 
 but this, like many ancient customs, is perpetuated only by an 
 accidental imitation, without knowledge of the original reason 
 for which it was established : 
 
 " Causa latet: res est notissima." 
 The cause is secret, but th' effect is known. — Addison. 
 
 Conjectures have, indeed, been advanced concerning these 
 habitations of literature, but without much satisfaction to the 
 judicious inquirer. Some have imagined that the garret is gen- 
 erally chosen by the wits as most easily rented ; and concluded 
 that no man rejoices in his aerial abode, but on the days of pay- 
 ment. Others suspect that a garret is chiefly convenient, as it 
 it remoter than any other part of the house from the outer door, 
 which is often observed to be infested by visitants, who talk in- 
 cessantly of beer, or linen, or a coat, and repeat the same sounds 
 every morning, and sometimes again in the afternoon, without 
 any variation, except that they grow daily more importunate 
 and clamorous, and raise their voices in time from mournful 
 murmurs to raging vociferations. This eternal monotony is 
 always detestable to a man whose chief pleasure is to enlarge 
 his knowledge and vary his ideas. Others talk of freedom from 
 noise, and abstraction from common business or amusements; 
 and some, yet more visionary, tell us that the faculties are en- 
 larged by open prospects, and that the fancy is more at liberty 
 when the eye ranges without confinement. 
 
 These conveniences may perhaps all be found in a well-chosen 
 garret ; but surely they cannot be supposed sufficiently impor- 
 tant to have operated invariably upon different climates, distant 
 ages, and separate nations. Of a universal practice, there must 
 still be presumed a universal cause, which, however recondite 
 and abstruse, may be perhaps reserved to make me illustrious by 
 its discovery, and you by its promulgation. 
 
 It is universally known that the faculties of the mind are in- 
 vigorated or weakened by the state of the body, and that the 
 body is in a great measure regulated by the various compres- 
 sions of the ambient element. The effects of the air in the pro- 
 duction or cure of corporeal maladies have been acknowledged 
 from the time of Hippocrates ; but no man has yet sufficiently 
 
 13— Vol. 57
 
 282 JOHNSON 
 
 considered how far it may influence the operations of the genius, 
 though every day affords instances of local understanding, of 
 wits and reasoners, whose faculties are adapted to some single 
 spot, and who, when they are removed to any other place, sink 
 at once into silence and stupidity. I have discovered, by a long 
 series of observations, that invention and elocution suffer great 
 impediments from dense and impure vapors, and that the 
 tenuity of a defecated air, at a proper distance from the surface 
 of the earth, accelerates the fancy, and sets at liberty those in- 
 tellectual powers which were before shackled by too strong at- 
 traction, and unable to expand themselves under the pressure 
 of a gross atmosphere. I have found dulness to quicken into 
 sentiment in a thin ether, as water, though not very hot, boils in 
 a receiver partly exhausted; and heads, in appearance empty, 
 have teemed with notions upon rising ground, as the flaccid 
 sides of a football would have swelled out into stiffness and 
 extension. 
 
 For this reason I never think myself qualified to judge de- 
 cisively of any man's faculties whom I have only known in one 
 degree of elevation; but take some opportunity of attending 
 him from the cellar to the garret, and try upon him all the 
 various degrees of rarefaction and condensation, tension and 
 laxity. If he is neither vivacious aloft, nor serious below, I 
 then consider him as hopeless ; but as it seldom happens that I 
 do not find the temper to which the texture of his brain is fitted, 
 I accommodate him in time with a tube of mercury, first mark- 
 ing the point most favorable to his intellects, according to rules 
 which I have long studied, and which I may, perhaps, reveal to 
 mankind in a complete treatise of barometrical pneumatology. 
 
 Another cause of the gayety and sprightliness of the dwellers 
 in garrets is probably the increase of that vertiginous motion, 
 with which we are carried round by the diurnal revolution of 
 the earth. The power of agitation -upon the spirits is well 
 known ; every man has felt his heart lightened in a rapid ve- 
 hicle, or on a galloping horse ; and nothing is plainer, than that 
 he who towers to the fifth story, is whirled through more space 
 by every circumrotation than another that grovels upon the 
 ground-floor. The nations between the tropics are known to 
 be fiery, inconstant, inventive, and fanciful ; because, living at 
 the utmost length of the earth's diameter, they are carried about
 
 THE ADVANTAGES OF LIVING IN A GARRET 283 
 
 with more swiftness than those whom nature has placed nearer 
 to the poles ; and, therefore, as it becomes a wise man to strug- 
 gle with riie inconveniences of his country, we must actuate our 
 languor by taking a few turns round the centre in a garret. 
 
 If you imagine that I ascribe to air and motion effects which 
 they cannot produce, I desire you to consult your own memory, 
 and consider whether you have never known a man acquire a 
 reputation in his garret, which, when fortune or a patron had 
 placed him upon the first floor, he was unable to maintain ; and 
 who never recovered his former vigor of understanding till he 
 was restored to his original situation. That a garret will make 
 every man a wit I am very far from supposing ; I know there are 
 some who would continue blockheads even on the summit of the 
 Andes or on the peak of Teneriffe. But let not any man be 
 considered as unimprovable till this potent remedy has been 
 tried ; for perhaps he was formed to be great only in a garret, 
 as the joiner of Aretseus was rational in no other place but in 
 his own shop. 
 
 I think a frequent removal to various distances from the cen- 
 tre so necessary to a just estimate of intellectual abilities, and 
 consequently of so great use in education, that if I hoped that 
 the public could be persuaded to so expensive an experiment, 
 I would propose, that there should be a cavern dug, and a tower 
 erected, like those which Bacon describes in Solomon's house, 
 for the expansion and concentration of understanding, accord- 
 ing to the exigence of different employments, or constitutions. 
 Perhaps some that fume away in meditations upon time and 
 space in the tower might compose tables of interest at a certain 
 depth ; and he that upon level ground stagnates in silence, or 
 creeps in narrative, might, at the height of half a mile, ferment 
 into merriment, sparkle with repartee, and froth with declama- 
 tion. 
 
 Addison observes that we may find the heat of Vergil's cli- 
 mate in some lines of his Georgic ; so when I read a composition 
 I immediately determine the height of the author's habitation. 
 As an elaborate performance is commonly said to smell of the 
 lamp, my commendation of a noble thought, a sprightly sally, 
 or a bold figure, is to pronounce it fresh from the garret ; an 
 expression which would break from me upon the perusal of 
 most of your papers, did I not believe that you sometimes quit 
 the garret, and ascend into the cock-loft*
 
 LITERARY COURAGE 
 
 Dum vitant stulti vitia, in contraria currunt. — Horace. 
 
 Whilst fools one vice condemn, 
 They run into the opposite extreme. — CreecK 
 
 THAT wonder is the effect of ignorance has been ofteil 
 observed. The awful stillness of attention with which 
 the mind is overspread at the first view of an unex- 
 pected effect ceases when we have leisure to disentangle com- 
 plications and investigate causes. Wonder is a pause of rea- 
 son, a sudden cessation of the mental progress, which lasts only 
 while the understanding is fixed upon some single idea, and is 
 at an end when it recovers force enough to divide the object into 
 its parts or mark the intermediate gradations from the first 
 agent to the last consequence. 
 
 It may be remarked with equal truth that ignorance is often 
 the effect of wonder. It is common for those who have never 
 accustomed themselves to the labor of inquiry, nor invigorated 
 their confidence by conquests over difficulty, to sleep in the 
 gloomy quiescence of astonishment without any effect to ani- 
 mate inquiry or dispel obscurity. What they cannot immedi- 
 ately conceive they consider as too high to be reached, or too 
 extensive to be comprehended; they therefore content them- 
 selves with the gaze of folly, forbear to attempt what they have 
 no hope of performing, and resign the pleasure of rational con- 
 templation to more pertinacious study or more active faculties. 
 
 Among the productions of mechanic art, many are of a form 
 so different from that of their first materials, and many consist 
 of parts so numerous and so nicely adapted to each other that 
 it is not possible to view them without amazement. But when 
 we enter the shops of artificers, observe the various tools by 
 which every operation is facilitated, and trace the progress of a 
 manufacture through the different hands that, in succession to 
 each other, contribute to its perfection, we soon discover that 
 
 285
 
 286 JOHNSON 
 
 every single man has an easy task, and that the extremes, how- 
 ever remote, of natural rudeness and artificial elegance are 
 joined by a regular concatenation of effects, of which every one 
 is introduced by that which precedes it, and equally introduces 
 that which is to follow. 
 
 The same is the state of intellectual and manual performances. 
 Long calculations or complex diagrams affright the timorous 
 and unexperienced from a second view; but if we have skill 
 sufficient to analyze them into simple principles, it will be dis- 
 covered that our fear was groundless. " Divide and conquer " 
 is a principle equally just in science as in policy. Complication 
 is a species of confederacy which, while it continues united, 
 bids defiance to the most active and vigorous intellect, but of 
 which every member is separately weak, and which may there- 
 fore be quickly subdued, if it can once be broken. 
 
 The chief art of learning, as Locke has observed, is to at- 
 tempt but little at a time. The widest excursions of the mind 
 are made by short flights frequently repeated; the most lofty 
 fabrics of science are formed by the continued accumulation of 
 single propositions. 
 
 It often happens, whatever be the cause, that impatience of 
 labor, or dread of miscarriage, seizes those who are most dis- 
 tinguished for quickness of apprehension ; and that they who 
 might with greatest reason promise themselves victory are least 
 willing to hazard the encounter. This diffidence, where the at- 
 tention is not laid asleep by laziness, or dissipated by pleasures, 
 can arise only from confused and general views, such as negli- 
 gence snatches in haste, or from the disappointment of the first 
 hopes formed by arrogance without reflection. To expect that 
 the intricacies of science will be pierced by a careless glance, or 
 the eminences of fame ascended without labor, is to expect a 
 peculiar privilege, a power denied to the rest of mankind ; but 
 to suppose that the maze is inscrutable to diligence or the 
 heights inaccessible to perseverance, is to submit tamely to the 
 tyranny of fancy, and enchain the mind in voluntary shackles. 
 
 It is the proper ambition of the heroes of literature to enlarge 
 the boundaries of knowledge by discovering and conquering 
 new regions of the intellectual world. To the success of such 
 undertakings, perhaps, some degree of fortuitous happiness is 
 necessary, which no man can promise or procure to himself;
 
 LITERARY COURAGE 287 
 
 and therefore doubt and irresolution may be forgiven in him 
 that ventures into the unexplored abysses of truth, and attempts 
 to find his way through the fluctuations of uncertainty, and the 
 conflicts of contradiction. But when nothing more is required 
 than to pursue a path already beaten, and to trample obstacles 
 which others have demolished, why should any man so much 
 distrust his own intellect as to imagine himself unequal to the 
 attempt ? 
 
 It were to be wished that they who devote their lives to study 
 would at once believe nothing too great for their attainment, 
 and consider nothing as too little for their regard ; that they 
 would extend their notice alike to science and to life, and unite 
 some knowledge of the present world to their acquaintance with 
 past ages and remote events. 
 
 Nothing has so much exposed men of learning to contempt 
 and ridicule as their ignorance of things which are known to all 
 but themselves. Those who have been taught to consider the 
 institutions of the schools as giving the last perfection to human 
 abilities are surprised to see men wrinkled with study, yet want- 
 ing to be instructed in the minute circumstances of propriety, 
 or the necessary forms of daily transaction ; and quickly shake 
 off their reverence for modes of education, which they find to 
 produce no ability above the rest of mankind. 
 
 " Books," says Bacon, " can never teach the use of books." 
 The student must learn by commerce with mankind to reduce 
 his speculations to practice, and accommodate his knowledge to 
 the purposes of life. 
 
 It is too common for those who have been bred to scholastic 
 professions, and passed much of their time in academies where 
 nothing but learning confers honors, to disregard every other 
 qualification, and to imagine that they shall find mankind ready 
 to pay homage to their knowledge, and to crowd about them for 
 instruction. They therefore step out from their cells into the 
 open world with all the confidence of authority and dignity of 
 importance ; they look round about them at once with ignorance 
 and scorn on a race of beings to whom they are equally un- 
 known and equally contemptible, but whose manners they must 
 imitate, and with whose opinions they must comply, if they de- 
 sire to pass their time happily among them. 
 
 To lessen that disdain with which scholars are inclined to look
 
 288 JOHNSON 
 
 on the common business of the world, and the unwillingness 
 with which they condescend to learn what is not to be found in 
 any system of philosophy, it may be necessary to consider that, 
 though admiration is excited by abstruse researches and remote 
 discoveries, yet pleasure is not given, nor afifection conciliated, 
 but by softer accomplishments, and qualities more easily com- 
 municable to those about us. He that can only converse upon 
 questions about which only a small part of mankind has knowl- 
 edge sufficient to make them curious, must lose his days in un- 
 social silence, and live in the crowd of life without a compan- 
 ion. He that can only be useful on great occasions may die 
 without exerting his abilities, and stand a helpless spectator of 
 a thousand vexations which fret away happiness, and which 
 nothing is required to remove but a little dexterity of conduct 
 and readiness of expedients. 
 
 No degree of knowledge attainable by man is able to set 
 him above the want of hourly assistance, or to extinguish the 
 desire of fond endearments and tender ofificiousness ; and there- 
 fore no one should think it unnecessary to learn those arts by 
 which friendship may be gained. Kindness is preserved by a 
 constant reciprocation of benefits or interchange of pleasures ; 
 but such benefits only can be bestowed as others are capable 
 to receive, and such pleasures only imparted as others are quali- 
 fied to enjoy. 
 
 By this descent from the pinnacles of art no honor will be 
 lost ; for the condescensions of learning are always overpaid by 
 gratitude. An elevated genius employed in little things ap- 
 pears, to use the simile of Longinus, like the sun in his even- 
 ing declination ; he remits his splendor but retains his magni- 
 tude, and pleases more though he dazzles less.
 
 OF THE DELICACY OF TASTE AND 
 
 PASSION 
 
 OF SIMPLICITY AND REFINEMENT 
 
 IN WRITING 
 
 BY 
 
 DAVID HUME
 
 DAVID HUME 
 1711 — 1776 
 
 David Hume was born at Edinburgh in 1711, and died there in 1776. 
 His father was a small Scottish laird of the great border clan of Home 
 or Hume. His mother was a daughter of Sir David Falconer, Presi- 
 dent of the College of Justice. She was a woman of singular merit; 
 and being left a widow with several young children, devoted herself 
 to their education. David, the second son, was left with a very slender 
 inheritance, and it was resolved that he should try his fortunes at the 
 law. But this study was distasteful to him, and for a few months he 
 entered the house of a merchant at Bristol. Business, however, he 
 disliked even more than law, and at twenty-three he resolved to devote 
 his life to philosophy and literature. For the next three years he lived 
 with great frugality in a French country town, where he wrote his 
 " Treatise on Human Nature," and then came to London to publish it. 
 At his brother's house in Scotland he heard that it iiad fallen " dead- 
 born from the press." He continued to reside with his brother for 
 some years, and in 1742 published the first part of his " Essays," which 
 were received somewhat more favorably. His studious habits were a 
 few years later interrupted by an engagement to serve as secretary to 
 General Sinclair, during that officer's military embassy to Vienna and 
 Turin. Returning to his brother's hospitable house, he published in 
 1751 the second part of his " Essays," and recast the first part. This 
 first part related to the principles of morals, and he considered it his 
 best work ; but it failed to achieve so high a place in popular esteem 
 as the political discourses which formed the second part. 
 
 He now made Edinburgh his headquarters, and being appointed 
 librarian to the Faculty of Advocates, obtained what he chiefly valued, 
 a great command of books. This led him to historical studies ; and in 
 1754 he published his " History of Charles I." But his first trial in 
 this department met with no encouragement; in twelve months only 
 forty-five copies were sold. Notwithstanding, in two years' time he 
 put out a continuation of the " History of the Stuarts, from the Death 
 of Charles I to the Revolution of 1688 ; " and this volume had much 
 greater success. In the following year he completed his " History of 
 England; " the " House of Tudor" furnishing the subject of his next 
 volumes, and the " Early Annals " being published last in order. His 
 name had now become famous; and in 1763, when he visited Paris 
 as attached to Lord Hertford's embassy, he was received by the literary 
 society of that city with extraordinary enthusiasm. Returning to Eng- 
 land in 1766, he was appointed Under-Secretary of State by General 
 Conway, brother of Lord Hertford, and served for two or three years 
 in the Home Office. In 1769 he retired for the last time to Edinburgh, 
 in the possession of a handsome income. But in 1775 he was attacked 
 by a lingering disorder, which he bore with unfailing patience and 
 cheerfulness till he died in his sixty-fifth year. The style in which he 
 wrote reflects his character with great exactness: it is simple and 
 luminous ; not calculated to raise high admiration or greatly excite 
 the feelings, but seldom failing to win the reader by its singular grace 
 and unaffected ease. No writer except Addison has equalled Hume 
 as an essayist in purity of diction, and the three essays given here 
 are models of their kind, abounding in critical acumen and intellectual 
 sparkle. 
 
 390
 
 OF THE DELICACY OF TASTE AND PASSION 
 
 SOME people are subject to a certain delicacy of passion 
 which makes them extremely sensible to all the accidents 
 of life, and gives them a lively joy upon every prosper- 
 ous event, as well as a piercing grief when they meet with 
 misfortunes and adversity. Favors and good offices easily en- 
 gage their friendship; while the smallest injury provokes their 
 resentment. Any honor or mark of distinction elevates them 
 above measure ; but they are as sensibly touched with contempt. 
 People of this character have, no doubt, more lively enjoy- 
 ments, as well as more pungent sorrows, than men of cool and 
 sedate tempers: but, I believe, when everything is balanced, 
 there is no one who would not rather be of the latter character, 
 were he entirely master of his own disposition. Good or ill 
 fortune is very little at our disposal : and when a person that 
 has this sensibility of temper meets with any misfortune, his 
 sorrow or resentment takes entire possession of him, and de- 
 prives him of all relish in the common occurrences of life ; the 
 right enjoyment of which forms the chief part of our happi- 
 ness. Great pleasures are much less frequent than great pains ; 
 so that a sensible temper must meet with fewer trials in the 
 former way than in the latter. Not to mention that men of 
 such lively passions are apt to be transported beyond all bounds 
 of prudence and discretion, and to take false steps in the con- 
 duct of life which are often irretrievable. 
 
 There is a delicacy of taste observable in some men, which 
 very much resembles this delicacy of passion, and produces the 
 same sensibility to beauty and deformity of every kind, as that 
 does to prosperity and adversity, obligations and injuries. 
 When you present a poem or a picture to a man possessed of 
 this talent, the delicacy of his feelings makes him be sensibly 
 touched with every part of it; nor are the masterly strokes 
 perceived with more exquisite relish and satisfaction than the 
 
 291
 
 292 
 
 HUME 
 
 negligences or absurdities with disgust and uneasiness. A po- 
 lite and judicious conversation affords him the highest enter- 
 tainment ; rudeness or impertinence is as great a punishment 
 to him. In short, dehcacy of taste has the same effect as deli- 
 cacy of passion: it enlarges the sphere both of our happiness 
 and misery, and makes us sensible to the pains as well as to 
 the pleasures which escape the rest of mankind. 
 
 I believe, however, everyone will agree with me that, not- 
 withstanding this resemblance, delicacy of taste is as much to 
 be desired and cultivated as delicacy of passion is to be la- 
 mented, and to be remedied, if possible. The good or ill ac- 
 cidents of life are very little at our disposal, but we are pretty 
 much masters what books we shall read, what diversions we 
 shall partake of, and what company we shall keep. Philoso- 
 phers have endeavored to render happiness entirely independ- 
 dent of everything external. The degree of perfection is 
 impossible to be attained ; but every wise man will endeavor 
 to place his happiness on such objects chiefly as depend upon 
 himself: and that is not to be attained so much by any other 
 means as by this delicacy of sentiment. When a man is pos- 
 sessed of that talent, he is more happy by what pleases his 
 taste than by what gratifies his appetites ; and receives more 
 enjoyment from a poem or a piece of reasoning than the most 
 expensive luxury can afford. 
 
 Whatever connection there may be originally between these 
 two species of delicacy, I am persuaded that nothing is so 
 proper to cure us of this delicacy of passion as the cultivating 
 of that higher and more refined taste, which enables us to judge 
 of the characters of men, of compositions of genius, and of the 
 productions of the nobler arts. A greater or less relish for 
 those obvious beauties, which strike the senses, depends en- 
 tirely upon the greater or less sensibility of the temper: but 
 with regard to the sciences and liberal arts, a fine taste is, in 
 some measure, the same with strong sense, or at least depends 
 so much upon it that they are inseparable. In order to judge 
 aright of a composition of genius, there are so many views to 
 be taken in, so many circumstances to be compared, and such a 
 knowledge of human nature requisite, that no man, who is not 
 possessed of the soundest judgment, will ever make a tolerable 
 critic in such performances. And this is a new reason for
 
 OF THE DELICACY OF TASTE AND PASSION 293 
 
 cultivating a relish in the liberal arts. Our judgment will 
 strengthen by this exercise: we shall form juster notions of 
 life. Many things which please or afflict others will appear to 
 us too frivolous to engage our attention: and we shall lose by 
 degrees that sensibility and delicacy of passion which are so in- 
 commodious. 
 
 But perhaps I have gone too far in saying that a cultivated 
 taste for the polite arts extinguishes the passions, and renders 
 us indifferent to those objects which are so fondly pursued by 
 the rest of mankind. On further reflection, I find that it rather 
 improves our sensibility for all the tender and agreeable pas- 
 sions; at the same time that it renders the mind incapable of 
 the rougher and more boisterous emotions. 
 
 "Ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes, 
 Emollit mores, nee sinit esse/eros." 
 
 For this, I think, there may be assigned two very natural 
 reasons : 
 
 I. Nothing is so improving to the temper as the study of the 
 beauties, either of poetry, eloquence, music, or painting. They 
 give a certain elegance of sentiment to which the rest of man- 
 kind are strangers. The emotions which they excite are soft 
 and tender. They draw off the mind from the hurry of busi- 
 ness and interest; cherish reflection; dispose to tranquillity; 
 and produce an agreeable melancholy, which, of all dispositions 
 of the mind, is best suited to love and friendship. 
 
 II. A delicacy of taste is favorable to love and friendship, by 
 confining our choice to few people, and making us indifferent 
 to the company and conversation of the greater part of men. 
 You will seldom find that mere men of the world, whatever 
 strong sense they may be endowed with, are very nice in dis- 
 tinguishing characters, or in marking those insensible differ- 
 ences and gradations, which make one man preferable to an- 
 other. Anyone that has competent sense is sufficient for their 
 entertainment: they talk to him of their pleasures and affairs, 
 with the same frankness that they would to another ; and find- 
 ing many who are fit to supply his place, they never feel any 
 vacancy or want in his absence. But to make use of the allu- 
 sion of a celebrated French author,^ the judgment may be com- 
 
 • Fontenellc, " PluralUe des Monies," Sixierae Soir.
 
 294 HUME 
 
 pared to a clock or watch, where the most ordinary machinery 
 is sufficient to tell the hours; but the most elaborate alone can 
 point out the minutes and seconds, and distinguish the smallest 
 differences of time. One that has well digested his knowledge 
 both of books and men has little enjoyment but in the company 
 of a few select companions. He feels too sensibly how much 
 all the rest of mankind fall short of the notions which he has 
 entertained. And, his affections being thus confined within a 
 narrow circle, no wonder he carries them further than if they 
 were more general and undistinguished. The gayety and frolic 
 of a bottle companion improves with him into a solid friend- 
 ship : and the ardors of a youthful appetite become an elegant 
 passion.
 
 OF SIMPLICITY AND REFINEMENT IN 
 
 WRITING 
 
 FINE writing, according to Addison, consists of senti- 
 ments which are natural, without being obvious. There 
 cannot be a juster and more concise definition of fine 
 writing. 
 
 Sentiments which are merely natural affect not the mind with 
 any pleasure, and seem not worthy of our attention. The 
 pleasantries of a waterman, the observations of a peasant, the 
 ribaldry of a porter or hackney coachman, all of these are nat- 
 ural and disagreeable. What an insipid comedy should we 
 make of the chit-chat of the tea-table, copied faithfully and at 
 full length? Nothing can please persons of taste, but nature 
 drawn with all her graces and ornaments, la belle nature; or if 
 we copy low life, the strokes must be strong and remarkable, 
 and must convey a lively image to the mind. The absurd 
 naivete of Sancho Panza is represented in such inimitable 
 colors by Cervantes that it entertains as much as the picture of 
 the most magnanimous hero or the softest lover. 
 
 The case is the same with orators, philosophers, critics, or 
 any author who speaks in his own person, without introducing 
 other speakers or actors. If his language be not elegant, his 
 observations uncommon, his sense strong and masculine, he 
 will in vain boast his nature and simplicity. He may be cor- 
 rect ; but he never will be agreeable. It is the unhappiness of 
 such authors that they are never blamed or censured. The 
 good fortune of a book, and that of a man, are not the same. 
 The secret deceiving path of life, which Horace talks of, " fal- 
 lentis semita vitce," may be the happiest lot of the one; but it 
 is the greatest misfortune which the other can possibly fall 
 into. 
 
 On the other hand, productions which are merely surprising, 
 without being natural, can never give any lasting entertainment 
 
 295
 
 296 HUME 
 
 to the mind. To draw chimeras is not, properly speaking, to 
 copy or imitate. The justness of representation is lost, and the 
 mind is displeased to find a picture which bears no resemblance 
 to any original. Nor are such excessive refinements more 
 agreeable in the epistolary or philosophic style than in the epic 
 or tragic. Too much ornament is a fault in every kind of 
 production. Uncommon expressions, strong flashes of wit, 
 pointed similes, and epigrammatic turns, especially when they 
 recur too frequently, are a disfigurement rather than any em- 
 bellishment of discourse. As the eye, in surveying a Gothic 
 building, is distracted by the multiplicity of ornaments, and 
 loses the whole by a minute attention to the parts ; so the mind, 
 in perusing a work overstocked with wit, is fatigued and dis- 
 gusted with the constant endeavor to shine and surprise. This 
 is the case where a writer overabounds in wit, even though that 
 wit in itself should be just and agreeable. But it commonly 
 happens to such writers that they seek for their favorite orna- 
 ments, even where the subject does not afford them ; and by 
 that means have twenty insipid conceits for one thought which 
 is really beautiful. 
 
 There is no object in critical learning more copious than this 
 of the just mixture of simplicity and refinement in writing; 
 and therefore, not to wander in too large a field, I shall con- 
 fine myself to a few general observations on that head. 
 
 I. I observe that though excesses of both kinds are to be 
 avoided, and though a proper medium ought to be studied in 
 all productions, yet this medium lies not in a point, but admits 
 of a considerable latitude. Consider the wide distance, in this 
 respect, between Pope and Lucretius. These seem to lie in the 
 two greatest extremes of refinement and simplicity in which 
 a poet can indulge himself, without being guilty of any blam- 
 able excess. All this interval may be filled with poets, who 
 may differ from each other, but may be equally admirable, each 
 in his peculiar style and manner. Corneille and Congreve, who 
 carry their wit and refinement somewhat further than Pope (if 
 poets of so different a kind can be compared together), and 
 Sophocles and Terence, who are more simple than Lucretius, 
 seem to have gone out of that medium, in which the most per- 
 fect productions are found, and to be guilty of some excess 
 in these opposite characters. Of all the great poets, Vergil and
 
 OF SIMPLICITY AND REFINEMENT IN WRITING 297 
 
 Racine, in my opinion, lie nearest the centre, and are the fur- 
 thest removed from both the extremities. 
 
 II. My observation on this head is that it is very difficult, 
 if not impossible, to explain by words where the just medium 
 lies between the excesses of simplicity and refinement, or to 
 give any rule by which we can know precisely the bounds be- 
 tween the fault and the beauty. A critic may not only discourse 
 very judiciously on this head without instructing his readers, 
 but even without understanding the matter perfectly himself. 
 There is not a finer piece of criticism than the " Dissertation 
 on Pastorals," by Fontenelle ; in which, by a number of reflec- 
 tions and philosophical reasonings, he endeavors to fix the just 
 medium which is suitable to that species of writing. But let 
 anyone read the pastorals of that author, and he will be con- 
 vinced that this judicious critic, notwithstanding his fine rea- 
 sonings, had a false taste, and fixed the point of perfection 
 much nearer the extreme of refinement than pastoral poetry 
 will admit of. The sentiments of his shepherds are better 
 suited to the toilettes of Paris than to the forests of Arcadia. 
 But this it is impossible to discover from his critical reasonings. 
 He blames all excessive painting and ornament as much as 
 Vergil could have done, had that great poet written a disserta- 
 tion on this species of poetry. However dififerent the tastes of 
 men their general discourse on these subjects is commonly the 
 same. No criticism can be instructive which descends not to 
 particulars, and is not full of examples and illustrations. It is 
 allowed on all hands that beauty, as well as virtue, always lies 
 in a medium ; but where this medium is placed is a great ques- 
 tion, and can never be sufficiently explained by general reason- 
 ings. 
 
 III. I shall deliver on this subject : That we ought to be more 
 on our guard against the excess of refinement than that of sim- 
 plicity ; and that because the former excess is both less beauti- 
 ful and more dangerous than the latter. 
 
 It is a certain rule that wit and passion are entirely incom- 
 patible. When the affections are moved there is no place for 
 the imagination. The mind of man being naturally limited, it 
 is impossible that all its faculties can operate at once: and the 
 more any one predominates, the less room is there for the others 
 to exert their vigor. For this reason, a greater simplicity is
 
 298 HUME 
 
 required in all compositions, where men and actions and pas- 
 sions are painted, than in such as consist of reflections and 
 observations. And, as the former species of writing is the 
 more engaging- and beautiful, one may safely, upon this ac- 
 count, give the preference to the extreme of simplicity above 
 that of refinement. 
 
 We may also observe that those compositions which we read 
 the oftenest, and which every man of taste has got by heart, 
 have the recommendation of simplicity, and have nothing sur- 
 prising in the thought, when divested of that elegance of ex- 
 pression, and harmony of numbers, with which it is clothed. 
 If the merit of the composition lie in a point of wit, it may 
 strike at first ; but the mind anticipates the thought in the sec- 
 ond perusal, and is no longer affected by it. When I read an 
 epigram of Martial, the first line recalls the whole ; and I have 
 no pleasure in repeating to myself what I know already. But 
 each line, each word in Catullus, has its merit ; and I am never 
 tired with the perusal of him. It is sufficient to run over Cow- 
 ley once ; but Parnel, after the fiftieth reading, is as fresh as at 
 the first. Besides, it is with books as with women, where a 
 certain plainness of manner and of dress is more engaging, than 
 that glare of paint, and airs, and apparel, which may dazzle 
 the eye, but reaches not the affections. Terence is a modest 
 and bashful beauty, to whom we grant everything, because he 
 assumes nothing, and whose purity and nature make a durable 
 though not a violent impression on us. 
 
 But refinement, as it is the less beautiful, so is it the more 
 dangerous extreme, and what we are the aptest to fall into. 
 Simplicity passes for dulness, when it is not accompanied with 
 great elegance and propriety. On the contrary, there is some- 
 thing surprising in a blaze of wit and conceit. Ordinary read- 
 ers are mightily struck with it, and falsely imagine it to be the 
 most difficult, as well as most excellent way of writing. Seneca 
 abounds with agreeable faults, says Quintilian, " abundat dul- 
 cibus vitiis"; and for that reason is the more dangerous, and 
 the more apt to pervert the taste of the young and the incon- 
 siderate. 
 
 I shall add that the excess of refinement is now more to be 
 guarded against than ever; because it is the extreme which 
 men are the most apt to fall into, after learning has made some
 
 OF SIMPLICITY AND REFINEMENT IN WRITING 299 
 
 progress, and after eminent writers have appeared in every 
 species of composition. The endeavor to please by novelty 
 leads men wide of simplicity and nature, and fills their writings 
 with affectation and conceit. It was thus the Asiatic eloquence 
 degenerated so much from the Attic. It was thus the age of 
 Claudius and Nero became so much inferior to that of Augustus 
 in taste and genius. And perhaps there are at present some 
 symptoms of a like degeneracy of taste in France as well as in 
 England.
 
 A HUMORIST 
 
 ON RESERVE 
 
 AN OPINION OF GHOSTS 
 
 ON WRITING AND BOOKS 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM SHENSTONE
 
 WILLIAM SHENSTONE 
 1714— 1763 
 
 William Shenstone was born at Leasowes, in the parish of Hales 
 Owen, Shropshire, in November, 1714. He was taught to read at what 
 is termed a dame-school, and his venerable preceptress has been im- 
 mortalized by his poem of the " Schoolmistress." In the year 1732 
 he was sent to Pembroke College, Oxford, where he remained four 
 years. In 1745 the paternal estate fell to his own care and manage- 
 ment, and he began from this time, as Johnson characteristically de- 
 scribes it, " to point his prospects, to diversify his surface, to entangle 
 his walks, and to wind his waters; which he did with such judgment 
 and fancy as made his little domain the envy of the great and the 
 admiration of the skilful ; a place to be visited by travellers and copied 
 by designers." Descriptions of the Leasowes have been written by 
 Dodsley and Goldsmith. The property was altogether not worth more 
 than £300 per annum, and Shenstone had devoted so much of his means 
 to external embellishment that he was compelled to live in a dilapidated 
 house, not fit, as he acknowledges, to receive " polite friends." An 
 unfortunate attachment to a young lady, and disappointed ambition — 
 for he aimed at political as well as poetical celebrity — conspired, with 
 his passion for gardening and improvement, to fix him in his solitary 
 situation. He became querulous and dejected, and pined at the un- 
 equal gifts of fortune. Yet Shenstone was essentially kind and benevo- 
 lent, and he must at times have experienced exquisite pleasure in his 
 romantic retreat, to which every year would give fresh beauty, and 
 develop more distinctly the creations of his taste and labor. This 
 advantage he possessed with the additional charm of a love of literature ; 
 but Shenstone sighed for more than inward peace and satisfaction. He 
 built his happiness on the applause of others, and died in solitude a 
 votary of the world. His death took place at the Leasowes, February 
 n, 1763. 
 
 The works of Shenstone were collected and published after his death 
 by his friend Dodsley, in three volumes. The first contains his poems, 
 the second his prose essays, and the third his letters and other pieces. 
 Gray remarks of his correspondence, that it is " about nothing else but 
 the Leasowes, and his writings with two or three neighboring clergy- 
 men who wrote verses too." The essays are good, displaying an ease 
 and grace of style united to judgment and discrimination. They have 
 not the mellow ripeness of thought and learning of Cowley's essays, 
 but they resemble them more closely than any others we possess. In 
 poetry, Shenstone tried different styles: his elegies barely reach medi- 
 ocrity; his levities, or pieces of humor, are dull and spiritless. His 
 highest effort is the " Schoolmistress," published in 1742, but said to 
 be " written at college, 1736." It was altered and enlarged after its 
 first publication. This poem is a descriptive sketch in imitation of 
 Spenser, so delightfully quaint and ludicrous, yet true to nature, that 
 it has all the force and vividness of a painting by Teniers or Wilkie. 
 His " Pastoral Ballad," in four parts, is also the finest English poem 
 of that order. The four essays given here are among the best of his 
 prose writings. 
 
 302
 
 A HUMORIST 
 
 TO form an estimate of the proportion which one man's 
 happiness bears to another's, we are to consider the 
 mind that is allotted him with as much attention as the 
 circumstances. It were superfluous to evince that the same 
 objects which one despises are frequently to another the sub- 
 stantial source of admiration. The man of business and the 
 man of pleasure are to each other mutually contemptible ; and 
 a blue garter has less charms for some than they can discover 
 in a butterfly. The more candid and sage observer condemns 
 neither for his pursuits; but for the derision he so profusely 
 lavishes upon the disposition of his neighbor. He concludes 
 that schemes infinitely various were at first intended for our 
 pursuit and pleasures, and that some find their account in head- 
 ing a cry of hounds, as much as others in the dignity of Lord 
 Chief Justice. 
 
 Having premised thus much, I proceed to give some account 
 of a character which came within the sphere of my own ob- 
 servation. 
 
 Not the entrance of a cathedral, not the sound of a passing 
 bell, not the furs of a magistrate, nor the sables of a funeral, 
 were fraught with half the solemnity of face ! 
 
 Nay, so wonderfully serious was he observed to be on all 
 occasions, that it was found hardly possible to be otherwise 
 in his company. He quashed the loudest tempest of laughter, 
 whenever he entered the room ; and men's features, though 
 ever so much roughened, were sure to grow smooth at his ap- 
 proach. 
 
 The man had nothing vicious, or even ill-natured in his char- 
 acter; yet he was the dread of all jovial conversation; the 
 young, the gay, found their spirits fly before him. Even the 
 kitten and the puppy, as it were by instinct, would forego their 
 frolics, and be still. The depression he occasioned was like 
 
 303
 
 304 SHENSTONE 
 
 that of a damp or vitiated air. Unconscious of any apparent 
 cause, you found your spirits sink insensibly : and were anyone 
 to sit for the picture of ill-luck, it is not possible the painter 
 could select a more proper person. 
 
 Yet he did not fail to boast of a superior share of reason, 
 even for the want of that very faculty, risibility, with which it 
 is supposed to be always joined. 
 
 Indeed he acquired the character of the most ingenious per- 
 son of his county, from this meditative temper. Not that he 
 had ever made any great discovery of his talents; but a few 
 oracular declarations, joined with a common opinion that he 
 was writing somewhat for posterity, completed his reputation. 
 
 Numbers would have willingly depreciated his character had 
 not his known sobriety and reputed sense deterred them. 
 
 He was one day overheard at his devotions, returning his 
 most fervent thanks for some particularities in his situation, 
 which the generality of mankind would have but little re- 
 garded. 
 
 " Accept," said he, " the gratitude of Thy most humble, yet 
 most happy creature, not for silver or gold, the tinsel of man- 
 kind, but for those amiable peculiarities which Thou hast so 
 graciously interwoven both with my fortune and my complex- 
 ion : for those treasures so well adapted to that frame of mind 
 Thou hast assigned me. 
 
 " That the surname which has descended to me is liable to 
 no pun. 
 
 " That it runs chiefly upon vowels and liquids. 
 
 " That I have a picturesque countenance rather than one 
 that is esteemed of regular features. 
 
 " That there is an intermediate hill, intercepting my view of 
 a nobleman's seat, whose ill-obtained superiority I cannot bear 
 to recollect. 
 
 " That my estate is overrun with brambles, resounds with 
 cataracts, and is beautifully varied with rocks and precipices, 
 rather than an even cultivated spot, fertile of corn, or wine, or 
 oil ; or those kinds of productions in which the sons of men 
 delight themselves. 
 
 " That as Thou dividest Thy bounties impartially ; giving 
 riches to one, and the contempt of riches to another, so Thou 
 hast given me, in the midst of poverty, to despise the insolence
 
 A HUMORIST 
 
 305 
 
 of riches, and by declining all emulation that is founded upon 
 wealth, to maintain the dignity and superiority of the Muses. 
 
 " That I have a disposition either so elevated or so ingenu- 
 ous that I can derive to myself amusement from the very ex- 
 pedients and contrivances with which rigorous necessity fur- 
 nishes my invention. 
 
 " That I can laugh at my own follies, foibles, and infirmities ; 
 and that I do not want infirmities to employ this disposition." 
 
 This poor gentleman caught cold one winter's night, as he 
 was contemplating, by the side of a crystal stream, by moon- 
 shine. This afterwards terminated in a fever that was fatal 
 to him. Since his death I have been favored with the inspec- 
 tion of his poetry, of which I preserved a catalogue for the 
 benefit of my readers. 
 
 OCCASIONAL POEMS 
 
 On his dog, that growing corpulent, refused a crust when it 
 was offered him. 
 
 To the memory of a pair of breeches, that had done him ex- 
 cellent service. 
 
 Having lost his trusty walking-stafif, he complaineth. 
 
 To his mistress, on her declaring that she loved parsnips 
 better than potatoes. 
 
 On an ear-wig that crept into a nectarine that it might be 
 swallowed by Cloe. 
 
 On cutting an artichoke in his garden the day that Queen 
 Anne cut her little finger. 
 
 Epigram on a wooden peg. 
 
 Ode to the memory of the great modern — who first invented 
 shoe-buckles. 
 
 14— Vol. 57
 
 ON RESERVE 
 
 TAKING an evening's walk with a friend in the country, 
 among many grave remarks, he was making the fol- 
 lowing observation : " There is not," says he, " any one 
 quality so inconsistent with respect as what is commonly called 
 familiarity. You do not find one in fifty whose regard is proof 
 against it. At the same time, it is hardly possible to insist upon 
 such a deference as will render you ridiculous, if it be sup- 
 ported by common-sense. Thus much at least is evident, that 
 your demands will be so successful as to procure a greater share 
 than if you had made no such demand. I may frankly own to 
 you, Leander, that I frequently derived uneasiness from a 
 familiarity with such persons as despised everything they could 
 obtain with ease. Were it not better therefore to be somewhat 
 frugal of our affability, at least to allot it only to few persons 
 of discernment who can make the proper distinction betwixt 
 real dignity and pretended : to neglect those characters which, 
 being impatient to grow familiar, are at the same time very far 
 from familiarity-proof: to have posthumous fame in view, 
 which affords us the most pleasing landscape: to enjoy the 
 amusement of reading, and the consciousness that reading 
 paves the way to general esteem : to preserve a constant regu- 
 larity of temper, and also of constitution, for the most part but 
 little consistent with a promiscuous intercourse with men: to 
 shun all illiterate, though ever so jovial assemblies, insipid, 
 perhaps, when present, and upon reflection painful : to meditate 
 on those absent or departed friends, who value or valued us 
 for those qualities with which they were best acquainted : to 
 partake with such a friend as you the delights of a studious and 
 rational retirement — are not these the paths that lead to hap- 
 piness ? " 
 
 In answer to this (for he seemed to feel some late mortifica- 
 tion) I observed that what we lost by familiarity in respect was 
 
 307
 
 3o8 SHENSTONE 
 
 generally made up to us by the affection it procured ; and that 
 an absolute solitude was so very contrary to our natures, that 
 were he excluded from society but for a single fortnight, he 
 would be exhilarated at the sight of the first beggar that he saw. 
 
 What follows were thoughts thrown out in our further dis- 
 course upon the subject ; without order or connection, as they 
 occur to my remembrance. 
 
 Some reserve is a debt to prudence; as freedom and sim- 
 plicity of conversation is a debt to good-nature. 
 
 There would not be any absolute necessity for reserve, if the 
 world were honest: yet, even then, it would prove expedient. 
 For, in order to attain any degree of deference, it seems neces- 
 sary that people should imagine you have more accomplish- 
 ments than you discover. 
 
 It is on this depends one of the excellences of the judicious 
 Vergil. He leaves you something ever to imagine: and such 
 is the constitution of the human mind, that we think so highly 
 of nothing as of that whereof we do not see the bounds. This, 
 as Mr. Burke ingeniously observes, affords the pleasure when 
 ,we survey a cylinder j^ and Sir John Suckling says : 
 
 " They who know all the wealth they have are poor ; 
 He's only rich who cannot tell his store." 
 
 A person who would secure to himself great deference will, 
 perhaps, gain his point by silence as effectually as by anything 
 he can say. 
 
 To be, however, a niggard of one's observation is so much 
 worse than to hoard up one's money, as the former may be both 
 imparted and retained at the same time. 
 
 Men oftentimes pretend to proportion their respect to real 
 desert; but a supercilious reserve and distance weary them 
 into a compliance with more. This appears so very manifest 
 to many persons of the lofty character that they use no better 
 means to acquire respect than like highwaymen to make a de- 
 mand of it. They will, like Empedocles, jump into the fire 
 rather than betray the mortal part of their character. 
 
 It is from the same principle of distance that nations are 
 brought to believe that their great duke knoweth all things; 
 as is the case in some countries. 
 
 * " Treatise on the Sublime and Beautiful."
 
 ON RESERVE 309 
 
 *• Men, while no human form or fault they see, 
 Excuse the want of even humanity ; 
 And Eastern kings, who vulgar views disdain, 
 Require no worth to fix their awful reign. 
 You cannot say in truth what may disgrace them, 
 You know in what predicament to place them. 
 Alas ! in all the glare of light revealed, 
 Even virtue charms us less than vice concealed ! 
 
 " For some small worth he had, the man was prized ; 
 He added frankness — and he grew despised." 
 
 • We want comets, not ordinary planets : 
 * Tcedit quotidianarum harum formarum* " 
 
 *' Hunc caelum, et Stellas, et decendentia certis 
 Tempora momentis, sunt qui fortnidz'ne nulla 
 Imbuti spec tent." 
 
 Virtues, like essences, lose their fragrance when exposed. 
 They are sensitive plants, which will not bear too familiar ap- 
 proaches. 
 
 Let us be careful to distinguish modesty, which is ever ami- 
 able, from reserve, which is only prudent. A man is hated 
 sometimes for pride, when it was an excess of humility gave 
 the occasion. 
 
 What is often termed shyness is nothing more than refined 
 sense, and an indifference to common observations. 
 
 The reserved man's intimate acquaintance are, for the most 
 part, fonder of him than the persons of a more affable charac- 
 ter, i.e., he pays them a greater compliment than the other can 
 do his, as he distinguishes them more. 
 
 It is indolence, and the pain of being upon one's guard, that 
 makes one hate an artful character. 
 
 The most reserved of men, who would not exchange two 
 syllables together in an English coiTee-house, should they meet 
 at Ispahan, would drink sherbet and eat a mess of rice to- 
 gether. 
 
 The man of show is vain: the reserved man is proud more 
 properly. The one has greater depth : the other a more lively 
 imagination. The one is more frequently respected : the other 
 more generally beloved. The one a Cato; the other a Caesar. 
 Wide Sallust.
 
 3IO SHENSTONE 
 
 What Caesar said of " Ruhicupdos amo; pallidas timeo," 
 may be applied to familiarity and reserve. 
 
 A reserved man often makes it a rule to leave company with 
 a good speech : and I believe sometimes proceeds so far as to 
 leave company because he has made one. Yet it is fate often, 
 like the mole, to imagine himself deep when he is near the sur- 
 face. 
 
 Were it prudent to decline this reserve, and this horror of 
 disclosing foibles ; to give up a part of character to secure the 
 rest? The world will certainly insist upon having some part 
 to pull to pieces. Let us throw out some follies to the envious ; 
 as we give up counters to a highwayman, or a barrel to a whale, 
 in order to save one's money and one's ship: to let it make 
 exceptions to one's head of hair, if one can escape being stabbed 
 in the heart. 
 
 The reserved man should drink double glasses. 
 
 Prudent men lock up their motives ; letting familiars have a 
 key to their heart as to their garden. 
 
 A reserved man is in continual conflict with the social part of 
 his nature ; and even grudges himself the laugh into which he 
 is sometimes betrayed. 
 
 " Seldom he smiles — 
 And smiles in such a sort as he disdained 
 Himself— that could be moved to smile at anything." 
 
 ** A fool and his words are soon parted ; " for so should the 
 proverb run. 
 
 Common understanding, like cits in gardening, allow no 
 shades to their picture. 
 
 Modesty often passes for errant haughtiness: as what is 
 deemed spirit in a horse proceeds from fear. 
 
 The higher character a person supports, the more he should 
 regard his minutest actions. 
 
 The reserved man should bring a certificate of his honesty, 
 before he be admitted into company. 
 
 Reserve is no more essentially connected with understand- 
 ing than a church organ with devotion, or wine with good- 
 nature.
 
 AN OPINION OF GHOSTS 
 
 IT is remarkable how much the beUef of ghosts and appari- 
 tions of persons departed has lost ground within these 
 fifty years. This may perhaps be explained by the gen- 
 eral growth of knowledge, and by the consequent decay of 
 superstition, even in those kingdoms where it is most essen- 
 tially interwoven with religion. 
 
 The same credulity which disposed the mind to believe the 
 miracles of a popish saint set aside at once the interposition of 
 reason, and produced a fondness for the marvellous, which it 
 was the priest's advantage to promote. 
 
 It may be natural enough to suppose that a belief of this 
 kind might spread in the days of popish infatuation. A belief, 
 as much supported by ignorance, as the ghosts themselves were 
 indebted to the night. 
 
 But whence comes it that narratives of this kind have at 
 any time been given by persons of veracity, of judgment, and 
 of learning — men neither liable to be deceived themselves, nor 
 to be suspected of an inclination to deceive others, though it 
 were their interest ; nor who could be supposed to have any 
 interest in it, even though it were their inclination? 
 
 Here seems a further explanation wanting than what can 
 be drawn from superstition. 
 
 I go upon a supposition that the relations themselves were 
 false. For as to the arguments sometimes used in this case, 
 that had there been no true shilling there had been no counter- 
 feit, it seems wholly a piece of sophistry. The true shilling 
 here should mean the living person; and the counterfeit re- 
 semblance, the posthumous figure of him that either strikes 
 our senses or our imagination. 
 
 Supposing no ghost then ever appeared, is it a consequence 
 that no man could ever imagine that they saw the figure of a 
 
 311
 
 312 SHENSTONE 
 
 person deceased? Surely those who say this little know the 
 force, the caprice, or the defects of the imagination. 
 
 Persons after a debauch of liquor, or under the influence of 
 terror, or in the deliria of a fever, or in a fit of lunacy, or even 
 walking in their sleep, have had their brain as deeply impressed 
 with chimerical representations as they could possibly have been 
 had their representations struck their senses. 
 
 I have mentioned but a few instances wherein the brain is 
 primarily affected. Others may be given, perhaps not quite so 
 common, where the stronger passions, either acute or chroni- 
 cal, have impressed their object upon the brain ; and this in so 
 lively a manner as to leave the visionary no room to doubt of 
 their real presence. 
 
 How difficult then must it be to undeceive a person as to 
 objects thus imprinted! imprinted absolutely with the same 
 force as their eyes themselves could have portrayed them ! and 
 how many persons must there needs be who could never be 
 undeceived at all ! 
 
 Some of these causes might not improbably have given rise 
 to the notion of apparitions ; and when the notion had been once 
 promulgated, it had a natural tendency to produce more in- 
 stances. 
 
 The gloom of night, that was productive of terror, would be 
 naturally productive of apparitions. The event confirmed it. 
 
 The passion of grief for a departed friend, of horror for a 
 murdered enemy, of remorse for a wronged testator, of love 
 for a mistress killed by inconstancy, of gratitude to a wife of 
 long fidelity, of desire to be reconciled to one who died at vari- 
 ance, of impatience to vindicate what was falsely construed, of 
 propensity to consult with an adviser that is lost — the more 
 faint as well as the more powerful passions, when bearing re- 
 lation to a person deceased, have often, I fancy, with concurrent 
 circumstances, been sufficient to exhibit the dead to the living. 
 
 But, what is more, there seems no other account that is ade- 
 quate to the case as I have stated it. Allow this, and you have 
 at once a reason why the most upright may have published a 
 falsehood, and the most judicious confirmed an absurdity. 
 
 Supposing then that apparitions of this kind may have some 
 real use in God's moral government : is not any moral purpose, 
 for which they may be employed, as effectually answered on my
 
 AN OPINION OF GHOSTS 313 
 
 supposition, as the other? for surely it cannot be of any im- 
 portance, by what means the brain receives these images. The 
 effect, the conviction, and the resolution consequent, may be 
 just the same in either of the cases. 
 
 Such appears, to me at least, to be the true existence of ap- 
 paritions. 
 
 The reasons against any external apparition, among others 
 that may be brought, are these that follow : 
 
 They are, I think, never seen by day ; and darkness being the 
 season of terror and uncertainty, and the imagination less re- 
 strained, they are never visible to more than one person : which 
 had more probably been the case were not the vision internal. 
 
 They have not been reported to have appeared these twenty 
 years. What cause can be assigned, were their existence real, 
 for so great a change as their discontinuance ? 
 
 The cause of superstition has lost ground for this last cen- 
 tury : the notion of ghosts has been altogether exploded : a rea- 
 son why the imagination should be less prone to conceive them ; 
 but not a reason why they themselves should cease. 
 
 Most of those who relate that these spectres have appeared to 
 them have been persons either deeply superstitious in other re- 
 spects ; of enthusiastic imaginations, or strong passions, which 
 are the consequence ; or else have allowedly felt some perturba- 
 tion at the time. 
 
 Some few instances may be supposed, where the caprice of 
 imagination, so very remarkable in dreams, may have presented 
 phantasms to those that waked. I believe there are few but 
 can recollect some, wherein it has wrought mistakes, at least 
 equal to that of a white horse for a winding-sheet. 
 
 To conclude. As my hypothesis supposes the chimera to give 
 terror equal to the reality, our best means of avoiding it is to 
 keep a strict guard over our passions, to avoid intemperance 
 as we would a charnel-house, and, by making frequent appeals 
 to cool reason and common-sense, secure to ourselves the prop*- 
 erty of a well-regulated imagination.
 
 ON WRITING AND BOOKS 
 
 FINE writing is generally the effect of spontaneous 
 thoughts and a labored style. 
 
 Long sentences in a short composition are like large 
 rooms in a little house. 
 
 The world may be divided into people that read, people that 
 write, people that think, and fox-hunters. 
 
 Superficial writers, like the mole, often fancy themselves 
 deep, when they are exceeding near the surface. 
 
 There is no word in the Latin language that signifies a female 
 friend. " Arnica " means a mistress ; and perhaps there is nc 
 friendship betwixt the sexes wholly disunited from a degree of 
 love. 
 
 The chief advantage that ancient writers can boast over mod- 
 ern ones seems owing to simplicity. Every noble truth and 
 sentiment was expressed by the former in the natural manner ; 
 in word and phrase, simple, perspicuous, and incapable of im- 
 provement. What then remained for later writers but affecta- 
 tion, witticism, and conceit ? 
 
 Perhaps an acquaintance with men of genius is rather repu- 
 table than satisfactory. It is as unaccountable, as it is certain, 
 that fancy heightens sensibility ; sensibility strengthens passion ; 
 and passion makes people humorists. 
 
 Yet a person of genius is often expected to show more dis- 
 cretion than another man; and this on account of that very 
 vivacity which is his greatest impediment. This happens for 
 want of distinguishing betwixt the fanciful talents and the dry 
 mathematical operations of the judgment, each of which in- 
 discriminately gives the denomination of a man of genius. 
 
 People in high or in distinguished life ought to have a greater 
 circumspection in regard to their most trivial actions. For in- 
 stance, I saw Mr. Pope — and what was he doing when you saw 
 him ? — why, to the best of my memory, he was picking his nose. 
 
 315
 
 3i6 SHENSTONE 
 
 It is obvious to discover that imperfections of one kind have 
 a visible tendency to produce perfections of another. Mr. 
 Pope's bodily disadvantages inclined him to a more labori- 
 ous cultivation of his talent, without which he foresaw that he 
 must have languished in obscurity. The advantages of person 
 are a good deal essential to popularity in the grave world as 
 well as the gay. Mr. Pope, by an unwearied application to 
 poetry, became not only the favorite of the learned, but also of 
 the ladies. 
 
 Pope's talent lay remarkably in what one may naturally 
 enough term the condensation of thoughts. I think no other 
 English poet ever brought so much sense into the same number 
 of lines with equal smoothness, ease, and poetical beauty. Let 
 him who doubts of this peruse his " Essay on Man " with at- 
 tention. Perhaps this was a talent from which he could not 
 easily have swerved : perhaps he could not have sufficiently 
 rarefied his thoughts to produce that flimsiness which is required 
 in a ballad or love-song. His monster of Ragusa and his trans- 
 lations from Chaucer have some little tendency to invalidate 
 this observation. 
 
 The plan of Spenser's " Faerie Queene " appears to me very 
 imperfect. His imagination, though very extensive, is some- 
 what less so, perhaps, than is generally allowed ; if one con- 
 siders the facility of realizing and equipping forth the virtues 
 and vices. His metre has some advantages, though, in many 
 respects, exceptionable. His good-nature is visible through 
 every part of his poem. His conjunction of the pagan and 
 Christian scheme (as he introduced the deities of both acting 
 simultaneously) is wholly inexcusable. Much art and judg- 
 ment are discovered in parts, and but little in the whole. One 
 may entertain some doubt whether the perusal of his monstrous 
 descriptions be not as prejudicial to true taste, as it is advan- 
 tageous to the extent of imagination. Spenser, to be sure, 
 expands the last ; but then he expands it beyond its due limits. 
 After all, there are many favorite passages in his " Faerie 
 Queene," which will be instances of a great and cultivated 
 genius misapplied. 
 
 Boileau has endeavored to prove, in one of his admirable 
 satires, that man has no manner of pretence to prefer his facul- 
 ties before those of the brute creation. Oldham has translated
 
 ON WRITING AND BOOKS 
 
 317 
 
 him : my Lord Rochester has imitated him : and even Mr. Pope 
 declares 
 
 " That, reason raise o'er instinct how you can, 
 In this 'tis God directs: in that 'tis man." 
 
 Indeed, the " Essay on Man " abounds with ilkistrations of 
 this maxim ; and it is amazing to find how many plausible 
 reasons may be urged to support it. It seems evident that 
 our itch of reasoning and spirit of curiosity preclude more 
 happiness than they can possibly advance. What numbers of 
 diseases are entirely artificial things, far from the ability of a 
 brute to contrive! We disrelish and deny ourselves cheap 
 and natural gratifications, through speculative presciences and 
 doubts about the future. We cannot discover the designs of 
 our Creator. We should learn then of brutes to be easy under 
 our ignorance, and, happy in those objects that seem intended, 
 obviously, for our happiness, not overlook the flowers of the 
 garden, and foolishly perplex ourselves with the intricacies of 
 the labyrinth.
 
 ON NORMAN ARCHITECTURE 
 
 ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF LORD 
 BOLINGBROKE 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS GRAY
 
 THOMAS GRAY 
 
 1716—1771 
 
 The poet, Thomas Gray, was a man of vast and varied acquire- 
 ments, whose life was devoted to the cultivation of letters. He was 
 the son of a respectable London money-scrivener, but his father was 
 a man of violent and arbitrary character, and the poet was early left 
 to the tender care of an excellent mother, who had been obliged to 
 separate from her tyrannical husband. He received his education at 
 Eton, and afterwards settled in learned retirement at Cambridge, where 
 he passed nearly the whole of his life. He travelled in France and 
 Italy as tutor to Horace Walpole, but quarrelling with his pupil he 
 returned home alone. Fixing himself at Cambridge, he soon acquired 
 a high poetical reputation by his beautiful " Ode on a Distant Prospect 
 of Eton College," published in 1747, which was followed, at rather 
 long intervals, by his other imposing and highly finished works, the 
 " Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard," the " Pindaric Odes," and 
 the far from numerous but splendid productions which make up his 
 works. His quiet and studious retirement was only broken by occa- 
 sional excursions to the north of England, and other holiday journeys, 
 of which he has given in his letters so vivid and animated a descrip- 
 tion. His correspondence with his friends, and particularly with the 
 poet Mason, is remarkable for interesting details, descriptions, and 
 reflections, and is indeed, like that of Cowley, among the most delight- 
 ful records of a thoughtful and literary life. Gray refused the offer 
 of the laureateship, which was proposed to him on the death of Cibber, 
 but accepted the appointment of professor of modern history in the 
 university, though he never performed the functions of that chair, his 
 fastidious temper and indolent self-indulgence keeping him perpetually 
 engaged in forming vast literary projects which he never executed. 
 He appears not to have been popular among his colleagues ; his haughty, 
 retiring, and somewhat effeminate character prevented him from sym- 
 pathizing with the tastes and studies that prevailed there; and he was 
 at little pains to conceal his contempt for academical society. 
 
 His industry was untiring, and his acquirements undoubtedly im- 
 mense; for he had pushed his researches far beyond the usual limits 
 of ancient classical philology, and was not only deeply versed in the 
 romance literature of the Middle Ages, in modern French and Italian, 
 but had studied the then almost unknown departments of Scandinavian 
 and Celtic poetry. Constant traces may be found in all his works of 
 the degree to which he had assimilated the spirit, not only of the 
 Greek lyric poetry, but the finest perfume of the great Italian writers: 
 many passages of his works are a kind of mosaic of thought and 
 imagery borrowed from Pindar, from the choral portions of the Attic 
 tragedy, and from the majestic lyrics of the Italian poets of the six- 
 teenth and seventeenth centuries; but though the substance of these 
 mosaics may be borrowed from a multitude of sources, the fragments 
 are, so to say, fused into one solid body by the intense flame of a 
 powerful and fervent imagination. His essays " On Norman Archi- 
 tecture " and " On the Philosophy of Lord Bolingbroke " show the 
 extent of his technical knowledge and his finished style. 
 
 320
 
 ON NORMAN ARCHITECTURE 
 
 THE characteristics of the old Norman or (as Sir Chris- 
 topher Wren calls it) Saxon architecture are great 
 solidity, heaviness, and rude simplicity, better adapted 
 to castles, walls of cities, and other places of defence, than to the 
 purposes of habitation, magnificence, or religious worship. It 
 seems indeed to be copied from the Roman style in that degener- 
 ate state to which it was reduced under the later emperors ; for 
 it seems but natural that the Franks ^ in Gaul, the Saxons in 
 England, and other barbarous nations in the several countries 
 which had made a part of the Roman empire (when they were 
 once settled there, and found leisure to apply themselves to the 
 arts of peace) should imitate those many monuments which were 
 everywhere before their eyes, and especially (as they themselves 
 were now become Christians) such as had been long consecrated 
 to the uses of religion, and were filled with the miraculous relics 
 and representations of those saints who were the principal ob- 
 jects of their worship. It may be asked, why then did they not 
 rather imitate the beautiful remains of a better age, of which 
 many were then in being, as some of them exist to this day ? I 
 answer, because taste had nothing to do in their choice ; because 
 the fabrics erected in the time and for the purpose of Christian- 
 ity had a nearer connection with their own faith ; and lastly, 
 because the artisans employed in them were probably their sub- 
 jects and natives of the country, who received these arts by tra- 
 dition from their fathers, and were unaccustomed to any other 
 style of building. 
 
 The particulars which distinguish this kind of architecture, 
 which seems to have lasted in England from the time of the 
 Conquest (if not earlier) to the beginning of Henry Ill's reign, 
 that is, from a. d. 1066 to about 1216, are chiefly these: 
 
 1 Including the Normans, who soon learned the language and customs of the 
 Franks. 
 
 321
 
 322 
 
 GRAY 
 
 First distinction. The semicircular, or round-headed/ arch, 
 generally, if not always, used in the three orders which com- 
 monly compose the nave, namely, the lower great one that opens 
 to the side ailes; the second, which runs in front of the two 
 corridors over those ailes ; and the uppermost, which forms a 
 sort of arcade before the higher range of windows. The doors, 
 the vault of the ailes, and even the windows, are in this form 
 too, and the arch is usually wide beyond the just proportion 
 of its height. 
 
 The same arching is frequently used to cover the long vacancy 
 of a dead wall, and forms an arcade adhering to it with tall 
 clumsy - pillars and extraordinary intercolumns ; and for a 
 like purpose they frequently employed a wider arch-work ris- 
 ing on short columns and interlaced, so that the curve of one 
 arch intersecting that of its neighbor, their pillars or legs stand 
 at only half the distance from each other that they otherwise 
 would do. This, though only an ornament, might perhaps sug- 
 gest the idea of building on pointed arches, afterwards in use, 
 as the intersection of two circular ones produces the same effect 
 to the eye. 
 
 Second distinction. The massy piers, or pillars, either of an 
 octagonal, round, or elliptical form, on which the arches rise. 
 They are sometimes decagons, or duodecagons, or even a mix- 
 ture of all these, without any correspondence or regularity at 
 all, as in the choir at Peterborough : their height is generally 
 far too short for their diameter, which gives them the appear- 
 ance of great strength joined with heaviness. This latter fault 
 seems to have struck even the eyes of that age itself, and, to 
 conceal it, they added a flat pilaster on four sides of the pier, 
 with a slender half-column projecting from it; or (to lighten 
 it still more) covered the pier almost entirely with clustered 
 pillars of small diameter, adhering to its surface, which in real- 
 ity bear little or nothing of the weight, and serve merely for 
 ornament. This latter had so good an effect, that it was adopted 
 
 * I cannot absolutely affirm that they 
 never made use of the pointed arch, 
 because the great western tower at Ely 
 now rises upon four such arches; some 
 of the ranges, too, which adorn the 
 outside of this and the galilee adjoin- 
 ing, are of like form, and the grand 
 arches in front under the middle tower 
 of Peterborough are pointed: but yet I 
 do suspect that all these were altera- 
 
 tions and additions made in succeeding 
 ages, which, I am persuaded, was a 
 common practice with regard to win- 
 dows, in order to let in more light, and 
 also to take off from the plain and heavy 
 appearance of those thick walls. 
 
 - They have no swell, nor gradual 
 diminution, which seems to be the cause 
 of this clumsy appearance; besides this, 
 they stand too close together.
 
 ON NORMAN ARCHITECTURE 323 
 
 by all architects of succeeding times, and continued till the 
 revival of the Greek and Roman style. There are very ancient 
 examples of these cluster-piers to be seen, sometimes intermixed 
 alternately with the plainer kind, as at Durham; sometimes 
 interspersed among them, as it were by chance, as at Peter- 
 borough ; and sometimes alone and unmixed, as in the views 
 of old St. Paul's, and at Ely. From the capital of the piers 
 usually rises a half-column of but small diameter, which, passing 
 between the arches of the two upper orders in the nave or choir, 
 etc., reaches quite up to the roof, and is a principal grace of 
 these buildings. 
 
 On the outside, as they have no buttresses, which were the 
 invention of later ages, the walls are commonly adorned either 
 with half-columns or with flat stripes of stone-work, resembling 
 a plain pilaster, at regular distances. 
 
 Third distinction. The capitals of the piers and smaller 
 columns have great variety in their forms ; the square, the octa- 
 gon, the cushioned, or swelling beneath, with four flat faces cut 
 in a semicircle, the convex part downward, and sometimes 
 adorned ^ with a mantling, or piece of drapery trussed like a 
 festoon. Some of the large ones there are which, swelling like 
 the last underneath, break above * into eight or sixteen angular 
 projections, something like the rostrum of an antique ship. 
 Others are rounds and decked with an awkward imitation ° of 
 acanthus leaves, curling at the point into a sort of volutes. 
 These, and many other uncouth forms and inventions, may be 
 seen in the arcade of the side ailes at Peterborough, where they 
 have studied to vary all the capitals, as far as their art reached, 
 and seem to have thought there was a beauty in this confusion : 
 they are all in general too squat and too gross for the pillars 
 which they are meant to adorn, not to mention the rudeness 
 they have in common with every other member of these build- 
 ings, that required any sculpture or delicacy of workman- 
 ship. 
 
 Fourth distinction. The ceilings, at least in the v/ider and 
 loftier parts, as of the nave, choir, and transepts, etc., were usu- 
 ally, I imagine, only of timber, perhaps because they wanted 
 the skill to vault with stone in these great intervals, though they 
 
 * At Durham. ^ In the prebend's narrow way, and 
 
 •In the choir at Peterborough. the south transept at Ely.
 
 324 
 
 GRAY 
 
 practised it in the smaller. They are either entirely flat, as at 
 Peterborough, or gable-fashioned with rafters, as in the tran- 
 septs at Ely, or covered with frame-work made of small scant- 
 lings of wood, and lying open to the leads, as in the nave of the 
 same church. 
 
 Fifth distinction. The ornaments, which are chiefly mould- 
 ings in front of the arches, and fasciae or broad lists of carving, 
 which run along the walls over them or beneath the windows, 
 are without any neatness, and full as clumsy as the capitals 
 above mentioned ; the most frequent of them is the zig-zag, or 
 chevron-work. There are also billeted-moulding, the nail-head, 
 as in the great tower at Hereford and in the pendants of arches 
 in the nave of old St. Paul's, resembling the heads of large nails 
 drove in at regular distances ; the nebule,' which I call by that 
 name from its likeness to a coat nebule in heraldry; and the 
 lozenge and triangle lattice-work. These, with the ranges of 
 arch-work rising one over another, with which they decorated 
 the fronts of buildings and the sides of their towers on the out- 
 side, are the principal inventions which they employed for orna- 
 ment. As to statues,^ niches,* canopies, finials, and tracery, 
 they were the improvements of another age. 
 
 Such are the most obvious distinctions of this early style of 
 building. An accurate inspection of those remains, which have 
 their dates well ascertained, might possibly discover many other 
 particulars, and also show us the gradual advances of the art 
 within the period which I have assigned ; for it is not to be 
 imagined that all the forms which I have described made their 
 appearance at one and the same time, or that the buildings, for 
 example, in the first years of Henry H were exactly like those 
 erected in the end of his reign. Any eye may perceive the 
 difference between the body and ailes of the choir at Peter- 
 borough with the east side of the transept, and the semi- 
 circular tribune which finishes the same choir, the two ends 
 and west side of the transept, and the whole nave of the church : 
 
 • Under the highest range of windows 
 on the outside of Peterborough Cathe- 
 dral, and elsewhere. 
 
 ' There may be some figures extant 
 in England, in stone or wood, older 
 than the period which I have here as- 
 signed, but they made no part of the 
 architect's design, and even on sepul- 
 chral monuments are very rare; besides 
 that their originality may well be dis- 
 
 puted; for example, that of King Ethel- 
 bald on Crowland Bridge, of King Osric 
 at Worcester, of Robert Courthose at 
 Gloucester, etc. 
 
 * These niches, when they had the 
 figure of any saint in them, were called 
 
 Eerks, whence comes our old phrase of 
 eing perked up, or exposed to public 
 view.
 
 ON NORMAN ARCHITECTURE 3*5 
 
 yet all these were built within the compass of five-and-thirty 
 years by two successive abbots. 
 
 Upon the whole, these huge structures claim not only the 
 veneration due to their great antiquity, but (though far sur- 
 passed in beauty by the buildings of the three succeeding cen- 
 turies) have really a rude kind of majesty, resulting from the 
 loftiness of their naves, the gloom of their ailes, and the huge- 
 ness of their massive members, which seem calculated for a 
 long duration.
 
 ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF LORD 
 BOLINGBROKE 
 
 I WILL allow Lord Bolingbroke that the moral, as well as 
 physical, attributes of God must be known to us only a 
 posteriori, and that this is the only real knowledge we can 
 have either of the one or the other ; I will allow too that per- 
 haps it may be an idle distinction which we make between them : 
 His moral attributes being as much in his nature and essence as 
 those we call his physical ; but the occasion of our making some 
 distinction is plainly this: His eternity, infinity, omniscience, 
 and almighty power, are not what connect him, if I may so 
 speak, with us his creatures. We adore him, not because he 
 always did in every place, and always will, exist ; but because 
 he gave, and still preserves to us our own existence by an 
 exertion of his goodness. We adore him, not because he 
 knows and can do all things, but because he made us capable 
 of knowing and of doing what may conduct us to happiness. It 
 is therefore his benevoience which we adore, not his greatness 
 or power ; and if we are made only to bear our part in a sys- 
 tem, without any regard to our own particular happiness, we 
 can no longer worship him as our all-bounteous parent. There 
 is no meaning in the term. The idea of his malevolence (an im- 
 piety I tremble to write) must succeed. We have nothing left 
 but our fears, and those too vain ; for whither can they lead 
 but to despair and the sad desire of annihilation ? " If then, 
 justice and goodness be not the same in God as in our ideas, we 
 mean nothing when we say that God is necessarily just and 
 good ; and for the same reason it may as well be said that we 
 know not what we mean when, according to Dr. Clarke ( Evid. 
 26th), we affirm that he is necessarily a wise and intelligent 
 Being." What then can Lord Bolingbroke mean, when he says 
 everything shows the wisdom of God ; and yet adds, everything 
 does not show in like manner the goodness of God, conformabl}^ 
 
 327
 
 328 GRAY 
 
 to our ideas of this attribute irt either! By wisdom he must 
 only mean, that God knows and employs the fittest means to a 
 certain end, no matter what that end may be. This indeed is a 
 proof of knowledge and intelligence; but these alone do not 
 constitute wisdom; the word implies the application of these 
 fittest means to the best and kindest end : or, who will call it 
 true wisdom ? Even amongst ourselves, it is not held as such. 
 All the attributes then that he seems to think apparent in the 
 constitution of things, are his unity, infinity, eternity, and in- 
 telligence; from no one of which, I boldly affirm, can result 
 any duty of gratitude or adoration incumbent on mankind, more 
 than if He and all things round him were produced, as some 
 have dared to think, by the necessary working of eternal matter 
 in an infinite vacuum : for what does it avail to add intelligence 
 to those other physical attributes, unless that intelligence be di- 
 rected, not only to the good of the whole, but also to the good 
 of every individual of which that whole is composed ? 
 
 It is therefore no impiety, but the direct contrary, to say that 
 human justice and the other virtues, which are indeed only 
 various applications of human benevolence, bear some resem- 
 blance to the moral attributes of the Supreme Being. It is only 
 by means of that resemblance we conceive them in him, or their 
 effects in his works. It is by the same means only that we 
 comprehend those physical attributes which his Lordship allows 
 to be demonstrable. How can we form any notion of his unity, 
 but from that unity of which we ourselves are conscious ? How 
 of his existence, but from our own consciousness of existing? 
 How of his power, but of that power which we experience in 
 ourselves? Yet neither Lord Bolingbroke nor any other man, 
 that thought on these subjects, ever believed that these our ideas 
 were real and full representations of these attributes in the 
 Divinity. They say he knows ; they do not mean that he com- 
 pares ideas which he acquired from sensation, and draws con- 
 clusions from them. They say he acts ; they do not mean by 
 impulse, nor as the soul acts on an organized body. They say 
 he is omnipotent and eternal ; yet on what are their ideas 
 founded, but on our own narrow conceptions of space and dura- 
 tion, prolonged beyond the bounds of place and time? Either, 
 therefore, there is a resemblance and analogy (however imper- 
 fect and distant) between the attributes of the Divinity and our
 
 ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF LORD BOLINGBROKE 329 
 
 conceptions of them, or we cannot have any conceptions of them 
 at all. He allows we ought to reason from earth, that we do 
 know, to heaven which we not know; how can we do so but 
 by that affinity which appears between one and the other? 
 
 In vain, then, does my lord attempt to ridicule the warm 
 but melancholy imagination of Mr. Wollaston in that fine solil- 
 oquy : " Must I then bid my last farewell to these walks when 
 I close these lids, and yonder blue regions and all this scene 
 darken upon me and go out ? Must I then only serve to furnish 
 dust to be mingled with the ashes of these herbs and plants, or 
 with this dirt under my feet? Have I been set so far above 
 them in life, only to be levelled with them in death ?" ^ No 
 thinking head, no heart, that has the least sensibility, but must 
 have made the same reflection; or at least must feel, not the 
 beauty alone, but the truth of it when he hears it from the 
 mouth of another. Now what reply will Lord Bolingbroke 
 make to these questions which are put to him, not only by 
 Wollaston, but by all mankind ? He will tell you, that we, that 
 is, the animals, vegetables, stones, and other clods of earth, are 
 all connected in one immense design, that we are all dramatis 
 personcB, in different characters, and that we were not made 
 for ourselves, but for the action : that it is foolish, presumptu- 
 ous, impious, and profane to murmur against the Almighty 
 Author of this drama, when we feel ourselves unavoidably un- 
 happy. On the contrary, we ought to rest our head on the soft 
 pillow of resignation, on the immovable rock of tranquillity; 
 secure, that, if our pains and afflictions grow violent indeed, 
 an immediate end will be put to our miserable being, and we 
 shall be mingled with the dirt under our feet, a thing common 
 to all the animal kind; and of which he who complains does 
 not seem to have been set by his reason so far above them in 
 life, as to deserve not to be mingled with them in death. Such 
 is the consolation his philosophy gives us, and such the hope 
 on which his tranquillity was founded. 
 
 • " Religion of Nature Delineated," sec. 9, p. 209, quarto. 
 
 15— Vol. 57
 
 CHANGE OF STYLE 
 
 BY 
 
 HORACE WALPOLi 
 
 'Earl of Orford
 
 HORACE WALPOLE, EARL OF ORFORD 
 171 7— 1797 
 
 Horace Walpole, the son of Sir Robert Walpole, the powerful min- 
 ister of George I, was born in London in 1717, and educated at Eton, 
 where his acquaintance with the poet Gray commenced. In 1734 he 
 went to King's College, Cambridge, and careless of any literary dis- 
 tinction beyond the indulgence of his own tastes, left it without taking 
 a degree. In 1739, after he had obtained by his father's patronage 
 several lucrative appointments, which he retained through life, he went 
 abroad, and travelled, for the most part in company with Gray, through 
 France and Italy. On his return to England, in 1741, he entered Parlia- 
 ment, and sat as member for Callington, Castle Rising, and lastly for 
 Lynn; but though he remained in Parliament till 1768, he appears, 
 after the personal interests attaching to his father's administration had 
 passed away, to have been rather a spectator than an actor in politics, 
 and seldom took any part in debate. For many years he devoted much 
 of his time to the building and embellishment of his Gothic villa at 
 Strawberry Hill, where he accumulated a large collection of pictures, 
 curiosities, and objets de vertu. Here also he established a private 
 printing-press, from which most of his own writings and many literary 
 and artistic works by other authors issued. In 1791 he succeeded his 
 nephew as Earl of Orford, but never took his seat in the House of 
 Lords. He died in 1797, in his eightieth year. 
 
 Horace Walpole was the author of " The Castle of Otranto," a very 
 successful and popular romance; of a tragedy — "The Mysterious 
 Mother," and of various pamphlets and essays which appeared in the 
 periodicals of the day, as well as of several important catalogues of 
 artists and artistic works; but it is by his "Letters" that he is best 
 known to a later generation. In his " Letters " and " Essays " he ap- 
 pears as a man of the world, witty, ingenious, entertaining, and always 
 graceful. His essay entitled " The Change of Style " was originally 
 contributed to " The World." o .7 & j 
 
 332
 
 CHANGE OF STYLE 
 
 THE great men who introduced the reformation * intoi 
 these kingdoms were so sensible of the necessity of 
 maintaining devotion in the minds of the vulgar by 
 some external objects, by somewhat of ceremony and form, 
 that they refrained from entirely ripping off all ornament 
 from the drapery of religion. When they were purging the 
 calendar of legions of visionary saints, they took due care to 
 defend the niches of real martyrs from profanation. They 
 preserved the holy festivals, which had been consecrated for 
 many ages to the great luminaries of the Church, and at once 
 laid proper observance to the memory of the good, and fell 
 in with the popular humor, which loves to rejoice and mourn 
 at the discretion of the almanac. 
 
 In so enlightened an age as the present, I shall perhaps be 
 ridiculed if I hint, as my opinion, that the observation of certain 
 festivals is something more than a mere political institution. I 
 cannot, however, help thinking that even nature itself concurs to 
 confirm my sentiment. Philosophers and freethinkers tell us 
 that a general system was laid down at first, and that no devia- 
 tions have been made to accommodate it to any subsequent 
 events, or to favor and authorize any human institutions. When 
 the reformation of the calendar was in agitation, to the great 
 disgust of many worthy persons, who urged how great the 
 harmony was in the old establishment between the holidays and 
 their attributes (if I may call them so), and what a confusion 
 would follow, if Michaelmas Day, for instance, was not to be 
 celebrated when stubble-geese are in their highest perfection; 
 it was replied that such a propriety was merely imaginary, and 
 would be lost of itself, even without any alteration of the calen- 
 dar by authority : for if the errors in it were suffered to go on, 
 they would in a certain number of years produce such a varia- 
 
 1 The change of style was introduced that the fourth of September of that 
 by act of Parliament in 1752, ordaining year should be reckoned the fourteenth. 
 
 333
 
 334 WALPOLE 
 
 tion, that we should be mourning for good King Charles on a 
 false thirtieth of January, at a time of year when our ancestors 
 used to be tumbling over head and heels in Greenwich Park in 
 honor of Whitsuntide; and at length, be choosing king and 
 queen for the Twelfth-night, when we ought to be admiring 
 the London Prentice at Bartholomew Fair.- 
 
 Cogent as these reasons may seem, yet I think I can confute 
 them from the testimony of a standing miracle, which, not hav- 
 ing submitted to the fallible authority of an act of parliament, 
 may well be said to put a supernatural negative on the wisdom 
 of this world. My readers, no doubt, are already aware that I 
 have in my eye the wonderful thorn of Glastonbury,^ which, 
 though hitherto regarded as a trunk of popish imposture, has 
 notably exerted itself as the most protestant plant in the uni- 
 verse. It is well known that the correction of the calendar was 
 enacted by Pope Gregory XIII, and that the reformed churches 
 have with a proper spirit of opposition adhered to the old cal- 
 culation of the Emperor Julius Caesar, who was by no means a 
 papist. Nearly two years ago the popish calendar was brought 
 in (I hope by persons well afifected). Certain it is, that the 
 Glastonbury thorn has preserved its inflexibility, and observes 
 its old anniversary. Many thousand spectators visited it on 
 the parliamentary Christmas Day. Not a bud was there to be 
 seen ! On the true nativity it was covered with blossoms. One 
 must be an infidel indeed to spurn at such authority. Had I 
 been consulted (and mathematical studies have not been the 
 most inconsiderable of my speculations), instead of turning the 
 calendar topsy-turvy, by fantastic calculations, I should have 
 proposed to regulate the year by the infallible Somersetshire 
 thorn, and to have reckoned the months from Christmas Day, 
 which should always have been kept as the Glastonbury thorn 
 should blow. 
 
 Many inconveniences, to be sure, would follow from this sys- 
 tem ; but as holy things ought to be the first consideration of a 
 
 « The fair began every year at Smith- by a paragraph in the " Gentleman's 
 
 field on August Z4th. Originally a cloth Magazine," 1733: " A vast concourse of 
 
 market, it lasted in one form or other people attended the noted thorn on 
 
 from the reign of Henry II to iSsS- Christmas Day, new style, but to their 
 
 " A famous hawthorn near CJlaston- great disappointment there was no an- 
 bury Abbey in Somersetshire, which pearance of its blowing, which made 
 was reputed to blossom on Christmas them watch it narrowly the fifth of Janu- 
 Day. Legend said it was the walking- ary, Christmas Day, old style, when it 
 ■tick of Joseph of Arimathea. This es- blowed as usual." 
 say was doubtless suggested to Walpole
 
 CHANGE OF STYLE 335 
 
 religious nation, the inconveniences should be overlooked. The 
 thorn can never blow but on the true Christmas Day ; and con- 
 sequently the apprehension of the year's becoming inverted by 
 sticking to the Julian account can never hold. If the course of 
 the sun varies, astronomers may find out some way to adjust 
 that; but it is preposterous, not to say presumptuous, to be 
 celebrating Christmas Day when the Glastonbury thorn, which 
 certainly must know times and seasons better than an almanac- 
 maker, declares it to be heresy. 
 
 Nor is Christmas Day the only jubilee which will be morally 
 disturbed by this innovation. There is another anniversary of 
 no less celebrity among Englishmen, equally marked by a mar- 
 vellous concomitance of circumstances, and which I venture to 
 prognosticate will not attend the erroneous calculation of the 
 present system. The day I mean is the first of April. The old- 
 est tradition affirms that such an infatuation attends the first 
 day of that month, as no foresight can escape, no vigilance can 
 defeat. Deceit is successful on that day out of the mouths of 
 babes and sucklings. Grave citizens have been bit upon it; 
 usurers have lent their money on bad security; experienced 
 matrons have married very disappointing young fellows ; mathe- 
 maticians have missed the longitude; alchemists, the philoso- 
 pher's stone ; and politicians, preferment, on that day. 
 
 What confusion will not follow, if the great body of the 
 nation are disappointed of their peculiar holiday ! This country 
 was formerly disturbed with very fatal quarrels about the cele- 
 bration of Easter ; and no wise man will tell me that it is not as 
 reasonable to fall out for the observance of April-fool Day. 
 Can any benefits arising from a regulated calendar make amends 
 for an occasion of new sects? How many warm men may re- 
 sent an attempt to play them off on a false first of April, who 
 would have submitted to the custom of being made fools on the 
 old computation? If our clergy come to be divided about 
 Folly's anniversary, we may well expect all the mischiefs at- 
 tendant on religious wars; and we shall have reason to wish 
 that the Glastonbury thorn would declare as remarkably in favor 
 of the true April-fool Day as it has in behalf of the genuine 
 Christmas. 
 
 There are many other inconveniences, which I might lament 
 very emphatically, but none of weight enough to be compared
 
 336 WALPOLE 
 
 with those I have mentioned. I shall only hint at a whole sys- 
 tem overturned by this revolution in the calendar, and no pro- 
 vision, that I have heard of, made by the legislature to remedy 
 it. Yet in a nation which bestows such ample rewards on new- 
 year and birthday odes, it is astonishing that the late act of 
 Parliament should have overlooked that useful branch of our 
 poetry, which consists of couplets, saws, and proverbs peculiar 
 to certain days and seasons. Why was not a new set of distichs 
 provided by the late reformers? Or at least a clause inserted 
 in the act enjoining the poet-laureate, or some beneficial genius, 
 to prepare and new-cast the established rhymes for public use? 
 Were our astronomers so ignorant as to think that the old 
 proverbs would serve for their new-fangled calendar? Could 
 they imagine that St. Swithin would accommodate his rainy 
 planet to the convenience of the calculations ? Who that hears 
 the following verses but must grieve for the shepherd and hus- 
 bandman, who may have all their prognostics confounded, and 
 be at a loss to know beforehand the fate of their markets? An- 
 cient sages sung, 
 
 " If St. Paul be fair and clear. 
 Then will betide a happy year ; 
 But if it either snow or rain, 
 Then will be dear all kind of grain : 
 And if the wind doth blow aloft, 
 Then wars will vex the realm full oft."* 
 
 I have declared against meddling with politics, and therefore 
 shall say nothing of the important hints contained in the last 
 lines : yet if certain ill-boding appearances abroad should have 
 an ugly end, I cannot help saying that I shall ascribe their evil 
 tendency to our having been lulled asleep by resting our faith on 
 the calm weather on the pretended conversion of St. Paul; 
 whereas it was very blustering on that festival, according to the 
 good old account, as I honestly, though vainly, endeavored to 
 convince a great minister of state, whom I do not think proper 
 to mention. 
 
 But to return to April-fool Day ; I must beg my readers and 
 admirers to be very particular in their observations on that holi- 
 
 * It was long believed that the condi- of many translations of four medixval 
 
 tion of weather on St. Paul's Day, Janu- lines beginning, " Clara dies Fault bona 
 
 ary 25th, determined the character of the tempora aenotat anni." 
 ivhole year. The verses quoted are one
 
 CHANGE OF STYLE 337 
 
 day, both according to the new and old reckoning. And I beg 
 that they will transmit to me or my secretary, Mr. Dodsley, a 
 faithful and attested account of the hap that betides them or 
 their acquaintance on each of those days; how often and in 
 what manner they make or are made fools ; how they miscarry 
 in attempts to surprise, or baffle any snares laid for them. I do 
 not doubt but it will be found that the balance of folly lies 
 greatly on the side of the old first of April ; nay, I much ques- 
 tion whether infatuation will have any force on what I call 
 false April-fool Day. I should take it very kind if any of my 
 friends, who may happen to be sharpers, would try their success 
 on the fictitious festival ; and if they make fewer dupes than 
 ordinary, I flatter myself that they will unite their endeavors 
 with mine in decrying and exploding a reformation which only 
 tends to discountenance good old practices and venerable super- 
 stitions.
 
 NATIONAL PREJUDICE 
 
 THE MAN IN BLACK 
 
 A CLUB OF AUTHORS 
 
 BEAU TIBBS 
 
 A CITY NIGHT-PIECE 
 
 BY 
 
 OLIVER GOLDSMITH
 
 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 
 
 1728— 1774 
 
 Oliver Goldsmith, born 1728, at Pallasmore, in County Longford, 
 was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, 1745-49. After some 
 studies at Leyden he took a medical degree at Louvain, and travelled 
 on foot through a part of the Continent, 1754-55. Having tried 
 without success to earn his livelihood as a schoolmaster, he became a 
 hack-writer for booksellers in 1757. He attracted the attention of 
 critics by the essays entitled " The Citizen of the World," in 1760; 
 and in 1764 produced his two most successful works, " The Traveller," 
 a poem; and the " Vicar of Wakefield," a novel. From that time, 
 partly as an essayist, partly as a writer for the stage. Goldsmith kept 
 himself constantly before the public. He produced another classical 
 poem, the " Deserted Village," in 1770, and compiled school histories 
 of Rome, England, and Greece, and a " History of Animated Nature," 
 for the London booksellers, 1767-73. But, careless of making or 
 saving money. Goldsmith was always in difficulties, and his early death, 
 in 1774, was probably hastened by mental disquietude. 
 
 The peculiar merits of Goldsmith's writings are clearness of thought, 
 ease of style, and simple language. He never writes for effect, and 
 there is scarcely a sentence in his works that a child might not under- 
 stand. Yet in powers of judgment and thought, as well as in warm 
 and deep sympathies, he was far above the great mass of his con- 
 temporaries. He was the first to predict the French Revolution and the 
 Swedish coup d'etat. He is perhaps the only writer of his times who 
 thoroughly understood the social condition of the Continent. Nor was 
 he less observant of English society, and the " Deserted Village " has 
 been often quoted by economists in illustration of the change which 
 has gradually substituted large estates for the small holdings of a 
 numerous yeomanry. All the essays given here are taken from " The 
 Citizen of the World." 
 
 340
 
 NATIONAL PREJUDICE 
 
 THE English seem as silent as the Japanese, yet vainer 
 than the inhabitants of Siam. Upon my arrival I attrib- 
 uted that reserve to modesty, which I now find has its 
 origin in pride. Condescend to address them first and you are 
 sure of their acquaintance ; stoop to flattery and you conciliate 
 their friendship and esteem. They bear hunger, cold, fatigue, 
 and all the miseries of life without shrinking ; danger only calls 
 forth their fortitude; they even exult in calamity: but con- 
 tempt is what they cannot bear. An Englishman fears con- 
 tempt more than death ; he often flies to death as a refuge from 
 its pressure, and dies when he fancies the world has ceased to 
 esteem him. 
 
 Pride seems the source not only of their national vices, but 
 of their national virtues also. An Englishman is taught to love 
 the king as his friend, but to acknowledge no other master than 
 the laws which himself has contributed to enact. He despises 
 those nations who, that one may be free, are all content to be 
 slaves ; who first lift a tyrant into terror, and then shrink under 
 his power as if delegated from heaven. Liberty is echoed in all 
 their assemblies ; and thousands might be found ready to offer 
 up their lives for the sound, though perhaps not one of all the 
 number understands its meaning. The lowest mechanic, how- 
 ever, looks upon it as his duty to be a watchful guardian of his 
 country's freedom, and often uses a language that might seem 
 haughty even in the mouth of the great emperor who traces 
 his ancestry to the moon. 
 
 A few days ago, passing by one of their prisons, I could not 
 avoid stopping, in order to listen to a dialogue which I thought 
 might afiford me some entertainment. The conversation was 
 carried on between a debtor through the grate of his prison, a 
 porter, who had stopped to rest his burden, and a soldier at 
 the window. The subject was upon a threatened invasion from 
 
 341
 
 342 
 
 GOLDSMITH 
 
 France, and each seemed extremely anxious to rescue his coun- 
 try from the impending danger. " For my part," cries the pris- 
 oner, " the greatest of my apprehension is for our freedom ; if 
 the French should conquer, what would become of English 
 liberty ? My dear friends, liberty is the Englishman's preroga- 
 tive ; we must preserve that at the expense of our lives ; of that 
 the French shall never deprive us. It is not to be expected that 
 men who are slaves themselves would preserve our freedom 
 should they happen to conquer." " Ay, slaves," cries the por- 
 ter, " they are all slaves, fit only to carry burdens, every one of 
 them. Before I would stoop to slavery let this be my poison " 
 (and he held the goblet in his hand), " may this be my poison ; 
 but I would sooner list for a soldier." 
 
 The soldier, taking the goblet from his friend with much awe, 
 fervently cried out, " It is not so much our liberties as our re- 
 ligion that would sufifer by such a change : ay, our religion, my 
 lads. May the devil sink me into flames " (such was the solem- 
 nity of his adjuration) " if the French should come over, but our 
 religion would be utterly undone." So saying, instead of a liba- 
 tion, he applied the goblet to his lips, and confirmed his senti- 
 ments with a ceremony of the most persevering devotion. 
 
 In short, every man here pretends to be a politician ; even the 
 fair sex are sometimes found to mix the severity of national 
 altercation with the blandishments of love, and often become 
 conquerors by more weapons of destruction than their eyes. 
 
 This universal passion for politics is gratified by daily ga- 
 zettes, as with us in China. But as in ours the emperor en- 
 deavors to instruct his people, in theirs the people endeavor to 
 instruct the administration. You must not, however, imagine 
 that they who compile these papers have any actual knowledge 
 of the politics or the government of a state ; they only collect 
 their materials from the oracle of some cofifee-house, which 
 oracle has himself gathered them the night before from a beau 
 at a gaming-table, who has pillaged his knowledge from a great 
 man's porter, who has had his information from the great man's 
 gentleman, who has invented the whole story for his own 
 amusement the night preceding. 
 
 The English, in general, seem fonder of gaining the esteem 
 than the love of those they converse with. This gives a formal- 
 ity to their amusements : their gayest conversations have some-
 
 NATIONAL PREJUDICE 343 
 
 thing too wise for innocent relaxation : though in company you 
 are seldom disgusted with the absurdity of a fool, you are sel- 
 dom Hfted into rapture by those strokes of vivacity which give 
 instant though not permanent pleasure. 
 
 What they want, however, in gayety, they make up in polite- 
 ness. You smile at hearing me praise the English for their po- 
 liteness — you who have heard very different accounts from the 
 missionaries at Pekin, who have seen such a different behavior 
 in their merchants and seamen at home. But I must still repeat 
 it, the English seem more polite than any of their neighbors: 
 their great art in this respect lies in endeavoring, while they 
 oblige, to lessen the force of the favor. Other countries are 
 fond of obliging a stranger, but seem desirous that he should 
 be sensible of the obligation. The English confer their kind- 
 ness with an appearance of indifference, and give away benefits 
 with an air as if they despised them. 
 
 Walking, a few days ago, between an English and a French 
 man, into the suburbs of the city, we were overtaken by a heavy 
 shower of rain. I was unprepared ; but they had each large 
 coats, which defended them from what seemed to me a perfect 
 inundation. The Englishman, seeing me shrink from the 
 weather, accosted me thus: " Psha, man, what dost shrink at? 
 Here, take this coat ; I don't want it ; I find it no way useful to 
 me; I had as lief be without it." The Frenchman began to 
 show his politeness in turn. " My dear friend," cries he, " why 
 don't you oblige me by making use of my coat? you see how 
 well it defends me from the rain ; I should not choose to part 
 with it to others, but to such a friend as you I could even part 
 with my skin to do him service." 
 
 From such minute instances as these, most reverend Fum 
 Hoam, I am sensible your sagacity will collect instruction. The 
 volume of nature is the book of knowledge ; and he becomes 
 most wise who makes the most judicious selection. — Farewell.
 
 THE MAN IN BLACK 
 
 THOUGH fond of my acquaintances, I desire an intimacy 
 only with a few. Tlie Man in Black, whom I have of- 
 ten mentioned, is one whose friendship I could wish to 
 acquire, because he possesses my esteem. His manners, it is 
 true, are tinctured with some strange inconsistencies ; and he 
 may be justly termed a humorist in a nation of humorists. 
 Though he is generous even to profusion, he affects to be 
 thought a prodigy of parsimony and prudence : though his con- 
 versation be replete with the most sordid and selfish maxims, 
 his heart is dilated with the most unbounded love. I have 
 known him profess himself a man-hater, while his cheek was 
 glowing with compassion ; and while his looks were softened 
 into pity, I have heard him use the language of the most un- 
 bounded ill-nature. Some afifect humanity and tenderness, 
 others boast of having such dispositions from nature ; but he is 
 the only man I ever knew who seemed ashamed of his natural 
 benevolence. He takes as much pains to hide his feelings as 
 any hypocrite would to conceal his indifference ; but on every 
 unguarded moment the mask drops oflf, and reveals him to the 
 most superficial observer. 
 
 In one of our late excursions into the country, happening to 
 discourse upon the provision that was made for the poor in 
 England, he seemed amazed how any of his countrymen could 
 be so foolishly weak as to relieve occasional objects of charity, 
 when the laws had made such ample provision for their support. 
 " In every parish-house," says he, " the poor are supplied with 
 food, clothes, fire, and a bed to lie on ; they want no more, I 
 desire no more myself ; yet still they seem discontented. I am 
 surprised at the inactivity of our magistrates in not taking up 
 such vagrants, who are only a weight upon the industrious ; I 
 am surprised that the people are found to relieve them, when 
 they must be at the same time sensible that it in some measure 
 encourages idleness, extravagance, and imposture. Were I to 
 advise any man for whom I had the least regard, I would cau- 
 
 345
 
 346 GOLDSMITH 
 
 tion him by all means not to be imposed upon by their false 
 pretences : let me assure you, sir, they are impostors, every one 
 of them, and rather merit a prison than relief." 
 
 He was proceeding in this strain earnestly to dissuade me 
 from an imprudence of which I am seldom guilty, when an old 
 man, who still had about him the remnants of tattered finery, 
 implored our compassion. He assured us he was no common 
 beggar, but forced into the shameful profession to support a 
 dying wife and five hungry children. Being prepossessed 
 against such falsehoods, his story had not the least influence 
 upon me ; but it was quite otherwise with the Man in Black : I 
 could see it visibly operate upon his countenance, and effectu- 
 ally interrupt his harangue. I could easily perceive that his 
 heart burned to relieve the five starving children, but he seemed 
 ashamed to discover his weakness to me. While he thus hesi- 
 tated between compassion and pride, I pretended to look an- 
 other way, and he seized this opportunity of giving the poor 
 petitioner a piece of silver, bidding him at the same time, in 
 order that I should hear, go work for his bread, and not tease 
 passengers with such impertinent falsehoods for the future. 
 
 As he had fancied himself quite unperceived, he continued, as 
 we proceeded, to rail against begg<2rs with as much animosity 
 as before : he threw in some episodes on his own amazing pru- 
 dence and economy, with his profound skill in discovering im- 
 postors ; he explained the manner in which he would deal with 
 beggars were he a magistrate, hinted at enlarging some of the 
 prisons for their reception, and told two stories of ladies that 
 were robbed by beggar-men. He was beginning a third to the 
 same purpose, when a sailor with a wooden leg once more 
 crossed our walks, desiring our pity, and blessing our limbs. I 
 was for going on without taking any notice, but my friend, look- 
 ing wistfully upon the poor petitioner, bid me stop, and he 
 would show with how much ease he could at any time detect an 
 impostor. 
 
 He now, therefore, assumed a look of importance, and in an 
 angry tone began to examine the sailor, demanding in what en- 
 gagement he was thus disabled and rendered unfit for service. 
 The sailor replied, in a tone as angrily as he, that he had been an 
 officer on board a private ship of war, and that he had lost his 
 leg abroad in defence of those who did nothing at home. At 
 this reply, all my friend's importance vanished in a moment;
 
 THE MAN IN BLACK 347 
 
 he had not a single question more to ask ; he now only studied 
 what method he should adopt to relieve him unobserved. He 
 had, however, no easy part to act, as he was obliged to preserve 
 the appearance of ill-nature before me, and yet relieve himself 
 by relieving the sailor. Casting, therefore, a furious look upon 
 some bundles of chips which the fellow carried in a string at his 
 back, my friend demanded how he sold his matches ; but, not 
 waiting for a reply, desired, in a surly tone, to have a shilling's 
 worth. The sailor seemed at first surprised at his demand, but 
 soon recollecting himself, and presenting his whole bundle, 
 " Here, master," says he, " take all my cargo, and a blessing 
 into the bargain." 
 
 It is impossible to describe with what an air of triumph my 
 friend marched off with his new purchase : he assured me that 
 he was firmly of opinion that those fellows must have stolen 
 their goods, who could thus afford to sell them for half value. 
 He informed me of several different uses to which those chips 
 might be applied ; he expatiated largely upon the savings that 
 would result from lighting candles with a match, instead of 
 thrusting them into the fire. He averred that he would as soon 
 have parted with a tooth as his money to those vagabonds unless 
 for some valuable consideration. I cannot tell how long this 
 panegyric upon frugality and matches might have continued, 
 had not his attention been called off by another object more dis- 
 tressing than either of the former. A woman in rags, with one 
 child in her arms, and another on her back, was attempting to 
 sing ballads, but with such a mournful voice that it was difficult 
 to determine whether she was singing or crying. A wretch, 
 who in the deepest distress still aimed at good-humor, was an 
 object my friend was by no means capable of withstanding: his 
 vivacity and his discourse were instantly interrupted ; upon 
 this occasion, his very dissimulation had forsaken him. Even 
 in my presence he immediately applied his hands to his pock- 
 ets, in order to relieve her: but guess his confusion when he 
 found he had already given away all the money he carried about 
 him to former objects. The misery painted in the woman's 
 visage was not half so strongly expressed as the agony in his. 
 He continued to search for some time, but to no purpose, till, 
 it length recollecting himself, with a face of ineffable good- 
 nature, as he had no money, he put into her hands his shilling's 
 worth of matches. - ^
 
 A CLUB OF AUTHORS 
 
 BY my last advices from Moscow I find the caravan has 
 not yet departed from China. I still continue to write, 
 expecting that you may receive a large number of let- 
 ters at once. In them you will find rather a minute detail of 
 English peculiarities than a general picture of their manners or 
 dispositions. Happy it were for mankind, if all travellers would 
 thus, instead of characterizing a people in general terms, lead 
 us into a detail of those minute circumstances which first in- 
 fluenced their opinion. The genius of a country should be in- 
 vestigated with a kind of experimental inquiry ; by this means 
 we should have more precise and just^notions of foreign nations, 
 and detect travellers themselves when they happened to form 
 wrong conclusions. 
 
 My friend and I repeated our visit to the club of authors, 
 where, upon our entrance, we found the members all assembled 
 and engaged in a loud debate. 
 
 The poet in shabby finery, holding a manuscript in his nand, 
 was earnestly endeavoring to persuade the company to hear 
 him read the first book of a heroic poem which he had com- 
 posed the day before. But against this all the members very 
 warmly objected. They knew no reason why any member of 
 the club should be indulged with a particular hearing, when 
 many of them had published whole volumes which had never 
 been looked in. They insisted that the law should be observed, 
 where reading in company was expressly noticed. It was in 
 vain that the poet pleaded the peculiar merit of his piece ; he 
 spoke to an assembly insensible to all his remonstrances : the 
 book of laws was opened and read by the secretary, where it was 
 expressly enacted, " That whatsoever poet, speech-maker, critic, 
 or historian, should presume to engage the company by read- 
 ing his own works, he was to lay down sixpence previous to 
 opening the manuscript, and should be charged one shilling an 
 hour while he continued reading, the said shilling to be equally 
 
 349
 
 35° GOLDSMITH 
 
 distributed among the company as a recompense for their trou- 
 ble." 
 
 Our poet seemed at first to shrink at the penalty, hesitating 
 for some time whether he should deposit the fine or shut up the 
 poem ; but, looking round, and perceiving two strangers in the 
 room, his love of fame outweighed his prudence, and laying 
 down the sum by law established, he insisted on his prerogative. 
 
 A profound silence ensuing, he began by explaining his 
 design. " Gentlemen," says he, " the present piece is not one 
 of your common epic poems which come from the press like 
 paper kites in summer; there are none of your Turnuses or 
 Didos in it ; it is an heroical description of nature. I only beg 
 you'll endeavor to make your souls unison with mine, and hear 
 with the same enthusiasm with which I have written. The poem 
 begins with the description of an author's bedchamber; the 
 picture was sketched in my own apartment ; for you must know, 
 gentlemen, that I am myself the hero." Then, putting himself 
 into the attitude of an orator, with all the emphasis of voice and 
 action, he proceeded :-^ 
 
 " Where the Red Lion, flaring o'er the way, 
 Invites each passing stranger that can pay ; 
 Where Calvert's Butt and Parson's black champagne 
 Regale the drabs and bloods of Drury-lane : 
 There, in a lonely room, from bailiffs snug, 
 The Muse found Scroggen stretched beneath a rug. 
 A window, patched with paper, lent a ray, 
 That dimly showed the state in which he lay ; 
 The sanded floor, that grits beneath the tread ; 
 The humid wall, with paltry pictures spread ; 
 The royal game of goose was there in view, 
 And the twelve rules the Royal Martyr drew ; 
 The Seasons, framed with listing, found a place, 
 And brave Prince William showed his lampblack face. 
 The morn was cold ; he views with keen desire 
 The rusty grate, unconscious of a fire; 
 With beer and milk arrears the frieze was scored. 
 And five cracked teacups dressed the chimney board, 
 A night-cap decked his brows instead of bay; 
 A cap by night — a stocking all the day ! "> 
 
 * For the whole description cf. " The ing " is a frame of useless parings of 
 
 Deserted Village," 1. 225-236. The " game unpolished wood; " lampblack face^' re- 
 
 of goose" resembles backgammon; the fers to the cheap silhouettes of William 
 
 *' twelve rules " ascribed by tradition to and Mary, solcl in large numbers by 
 
 Charles I were such as " Reveal no Elizabeth Pyberg in 16^. 
 eecrcts," " Make no long meals "; " list-
 
 A CLUB OF AUTHORS 351 
 
 With this last line he seemed so much elated that he was 
 unable to proceed. " There, gentlemen ! " cries he, " there is a 
 description for you ; Rabelais's bedchamber is but a fool to it : 
 
 ' A cap by night— a stocking all the day ! ' 
 
 There is sound, and sense, and truth, and nature in the trifling 
 compass of ten little syllables." 
 
 He was too much employed in self-admiration to observe the 
 company, who, by nods, winks, shrugs, and stifled laughter, 
 testified every mark of contempt. He turned severally to each 
 for their opinion, and found all, however, ready to applaud. 
 One swore it was inimitable, another said it was damned fine, 
 and a third cried out in a rapture, " Clarissimo! " At last, ad- 
 dressing himself to the president, " And pray, Mr. Squint," says 
 he, " let us have your opinion." " Mine," answered the presi- 
 dent, taking the manuscript out of the author's hand ; " may 
 this glass suffocate me, but I think it equal to anything I have 
 seen; and I fancy," continued he, doubling up the poem and 
 forcing it into the author's pocket, " that you will get great 
 honor when it comes out; ex pede Herculem, we are satisfied, 
 perfectly satisfied." The author made two or three attempts to 
 pull it out a second time, and the president made as many to 
 prevent him. Thus, though with reluctance, he was at last 
 obliged to sit down, contented with the commendations for 
 which he had paid. 
 
 When this tempest of poetry and praise was blown over, one 
 of the company changed the subject, by wondering how any 
 man could be so dull as to write poetry at present, since prose 
 itself would hardly pay. " Would you think it, gentlemen," 
 continued he, " I have actually written last week sixteen pray- 
 ers, twelve ribald jests, and three sermons, all at the rate of six- 
 pence apiece ; and, what is still more extraordinary, the book- 
 seller had lost by the bargain ? Such sermons would once have 
 gained me a prebend's stall ; but now, alas ! we have neither 
 piety, taste, nor humor among us. Positively, if this season 
 does not turn out better than it has begun, unless the ministry 
 commit some blunders to furnish us with a new topic of abuse, 
 I shall resume my old business of working at the press, instead 
 of finding it employment" 
 
 The whole club seemed to join in condemning the season as
 
 352 GOLDSMITH 
 
 one of the worst that had come for some time : a gentleman par- 
 ticularly observed that the nobility were never known to sub- 
 scribe worse than at present. " I know not how it happens," 
 said he, " though I follow them up as close as possible, yet I 
 can hardly get a single subscription in a week. The houses of 
 the great are as inaccessible as a frontier garrison at midnight. 
 I never see a nobleman's door half opened, that some surly por- 
 ter or footman does not stand full in the breach. I was yester- 
 day to wait with a subscription proposal upon my Lord Squash, 
 the CreoHan. I had posted myself at his door the whole morn- 
 ing, and just as he was getting into his coach, thrust my pro- 
 posal snug into his hand, folded up in the form of a letter from 
 myself. He just glanced at the superscription, and, not know- 
 ing the hand, consigned it to his valet-de-chambre ; this respect- 
 able personage treated it as his master, and put it into the hands 
 of the porter ; the porter grasped my proposal frowning ; and, 
 measuring my figure from top to toe, put it back in my own 
 hands unopened." 
 
 " To the devil I pitch all the nobility," cries a little man in a 
 peculiar accent ; " I am sure they have of late used me most 
 scurvily. You must know, gentlemen, some time ago, upon the 
 arrival of a certain noble duke from his travels, I sat myself 
 down, and vamped up a fine flaunting poetical panegyric, which 
 I had written in such a strain that I fancied it would have even 
 wheedled milk from a mouse. In this I represented the whole 
 kingdom welcoming His Grace to his native soil, not forgetting 
 the loss France and Italy would sustain in their arts by his de- 
 parture. I expected to touch for a bank-bill at least ; so, fold- 
 ing up my verses in gilt paper, I gave my last half-crown to a 
 genteel servant to be the bearer. My letter was safely conveyed 
 to His Grace, and the servant, after four hours' absence, during 
 which time I led the life of a fiend, returned with a letter four 
 times as big as mine. Guess my ecstasy at the prospect of so 
 fine a return. I eagerly took the packet into my hands that 
 trembled to receive it. I kept it some time unopened before me, 
 brooding over the expected treasure it contained ; when open- 
 ing it, as I hope to be saved, gentlemen. His Grace had sent 
 me, in payment for my poem, no bank-bills, but six copies of 
 verses, each longer than mine, addressed to him upon the same 
 occasion,"
 
 A CLUB OF AUTHORS 353 
 
 " A nobleman," cries a member who had hitherto been silent, 
 *' is created as much for the confusion of us authors as the catch- 
 pole.^ I'll tell you a story, gentlemen, which is as true as that 
 this pipe is made of clay : — When I was delivered of my first 
 book, I owed my tailor for a suit of clothes ; but that is nothing 
 new, you know, and may be any man's case as well as mine. 
 Well, owing him for a suit of clothes, and hearing that my book 
 took very well, he sent for his money, and insisted upon being 
 paid immediately. Though I was at that time rich in fame — 
 for my book ran like wild-fire — yet I was very short in money, 
 and, being unable to satisfy his demand, prudently resolved to 
 keep my chamber, preferring a prison of my own choosing at 
 home to one of my tailor's choosing abroad. In vain the baiUffs 
 used all their arts to decoy me from my citadel ; in vain they 
 sent to let me know that a gentleman wanted to speak with me 
 at the next tavern ; in vain they came with an urgent message 
 from my aunt in the country ; in vain I was told that a particular 
 friend was at the point of death and desired to take his last fare- 
 well. I was deaf, insensible, rock, adamant ; the baiUfifs could 
 make no impression on my hard heart, for I effectually kept my 
 liberty by never stirring out of the room. 
 
 " This was very well for a fortnight ; when one morning I 
 received a most splendid message from the Earl of Doomsday, 
 importing that he had read my book, and was in raptures with 
 every line of it ; he impatiently longed to see the author, and 
 had some designs which might turn out greatly to my advan- 
 tage. I paused upon the contents of this message, and found 
 there could be no deceit, for the card was gilt at the edges, and 
 the bearer, I was told, had quite the looks of a gentleman. Wit- 
 ness, ye powers, how my heart triumphed at my own impor- 
 tance ! I saw a long perspective of felicity before me ; I ap- 
 plauded the taste of the times which never saw genius forsaken ; 
 t had prepared a set introductory speech for the occasion ; five 
 glaring compliments for his lordship, and two more modest 
 for myself. The next morning, therefore, in order to be punc- 
 tual to my appointment, I took coach, and ordered the fellow to 
 drive to the street and house mentioned in his lordship's ad- 
 dress. I had the precaution to pull up the window as I went 
 along, to keep off the busy part of mankind, and, big with ex- 
 
 « SherifE's officer. 
 
 16— Vol. 57
 
 354 GOLDSMITH 
 
 pectation, fancied the coach never went fast enough. At 
 length, however, the wished-for moment of its stopping arrived : 
 this for some time I impatiently expected, and letting down the 
 window in a transport, in order to take a previous view of his 
 lordship's magnificent palace and situation, I found — poison 
 to my sight ! — I found myself not in an elegant street, but a pal- 
 try lane, not at a nobleman's door, but the door of a spong- 
 ing-house. I found the coachman had all this while been 
 driving me to jail; and I saw the bailifif, with a devil's face, 
 coming out to secure me." 
 
 To a philosopher no circumstance, however trifling, is too 
 minute ; he finds instruction and entertainment in occurrences 
 which are passed over by the rest of mankind as low, trite, and 
 indifferent ; it is from the number of these particulars, which to 
 many appear insignificant, that he is at last enabled to form gen- 
 eral conclusions : this, therefore, must be my excuse for sending 
 so far as China accounts of manners and follies, which, though 
 minute in their own nature, serve more truly to characterize this 
 people than histories of their public treaties, courts, ministers, 
 negotiations and ambassadors. — Adieu.
 
 BEAU TIBBS 
 
 THE people of London are as fond of walking as our 
 friends at Pekin of riding : one of the principal enter- 
 tainments of the citizens here in summer is to repair 
 about nightfall to a garden ^ not far from town, where they 
 walk about, show their best clothes and best faces, and listen 
 to a concert provided for the occasion. 
 
 I accepted an invitation a few evenings ago from my old 
 friend, the Man in Black, to be one of a party that was to sup 
 there ; and at the appointed hour waited upon him at his lodg- 
 ings. There I found the company assembled, and expecting my 
 arrival. Our party consisted of my friend, in superlative finery, 
 his stockings rolled, a black velvet waistcoat, which was former- 
 ly new, and a gray wig combed down in imitation of hair ; a 
 pawnbroker's widow, of whom, by the by, my friend was a 
 professed admirer, dressed out in green damask, with three gold 
 rings on every finger ; Mr. Tibbs, the second-rate beau I have 
 formerly described ; together with his lady, in flimsy silk, dirty 
 gauze instead of linen, and a hat as big as an umbrella. 
 
 Our first difficulty was in settling how we should set out. 
 Mrs. Tibbs had a natural aversion to the water, and the widow, 
 being a little in flesh, as warmly protested against walking ; a 
 coach was therefore agreed upon ; which being too small to 
 carry five, Mr. Tibbs consented to sit in his wife's lap. 
 
 In this manner, therefore, we set forward, being entertained 
 by the way with the bodings of Mr. Tibbs, who assured us he 
 did not expect to see a single creature for the evening above 
 the degree of a cheesemonger ; that this was the last night of the 
 gardens, and that consequently we should be pestered with the 
 nobility and gentry from Thames-street and Crooked-lane ; with 
 
 » Spring Garden, the earlier name of pressed by the foot sprinkled the by- 
 
 the gardens, was taken from a pleasure slanders." For a charming account of 
 
 resort near St. James's Park, which con- Vauxhall and its associations see Mr. 
 
 tained a " playfully contrived water- Dobson's essay referred to in the note 
 
 work, which on being unguardedly on page 220. 
 
 355
 
 356 GOLDSMITH 
 
 several other prophetic ejaculations, probably inspired by the 
 uneasiness of his situation. 
 
 The illuminations began before we arrived, and I must con- 
 fess, that upon entering the gardens I found every sense over- 
 paid with more than expected pleasure : the lights everywhere 
 glimmering through the scarcely moving trees — the full-bodied 
 concert bursting on the stillness of the night — the natural con- 
 cert of the birds, in the more retired part of the grove, vying 
 with that which was formed by art — the company gayly dressed, 
 looking satisfaction — and the tables spread with various deli- 
 cacies — all conspired to fill my imagination with the visionary 
 happiness of the Arabian lawgiver, and lifted me into an ecstasy 
 of admiration. " Head of Confucius," cried I to my friend, 
 " this is fine ! this united rural beauty with courtly magnificence I 
 if we except the virgins of immortality, that hang on every 
 tree, I do not see how this falls short of Mahomet's paradise ! " 
 " As for that," cries my friend, " if ladies, as plenty as apples in 
 autumn, can content you, I fancy we have no need to go to 
 heaven for paradise." 
 
 I was going to second his remarks, when we were called to a 
 consultation by Mr. Tibbs and the rest of the company, to 
 know in what manner we were to lay out the evening to the 
 greatest advantage. Mrs. Tibbs was for keeping the genteel 
 walk of the garden, where, she observed, there was always the 
 very best company ; the widow, on the contrary, who came but 
 once a season, was for securing a good standing place to see the 
 waterworks, which she assured us would begin in less than an 
 hour at furthest ; a dispute therefore began, and as it was man- 
 aged between two of very opposite characters, it threatened to 
 grow more bitter at every reply. Mrs. Tibbs wondered how 
 people could pretend to know the polite world, who had re- 
 ceived all their rudiments of breeding behind a counter; to 
 which the other replied, that though some people sat behind 
 counters, yet they could sit at the head of their own tables too, 
 and carve three good dishes of hot meat whenever they thought 
 proper ; which was more than some people could say for them- 
 selves, that hardly knew a rabbit and onions from a green goose 
 and gooseberries. 
 
 It is hard to say where this might have ended, had not the hus- 
 band, who probably knew the impetuosity of his wife's disposi-
 
 BEAU TIBBS 357 
 
 tion, proposed to end the dispute by adjourning to a box, and 
 try if there was anything to be had for supper that was support- 
 able. To this we all consented ; but here a new distress arose; 
 Mr. and Mrs. Tibbs would sit in none but genteel box — a box 
 where they might see and be seen — one, as they expressed it, 
 in the very focus of public view ; but such a box was not easy to 
 be obtained, for though we were perfectly convinced of our own 
 gentility, and the gentility of our appearance, yet we found it a 
 difficult matter to persuade the keepers of the boxes to be of our 
 opinion ; they chose to reserve genteel boxes for what they 
 judged more genteel company. 
 
 At last, however, we were fixed, though somewhat obscurely, 
 and supplied with the usual entertainment of the place. The 
 widow found the supper excellent, but Mrs. Tibbs thought 
 everything detestable. " Come, come, my dear," cried the hus- 
 band, by way of consolation, " to be sure we can't find such 
 dressing here as we have at Lord Crump's or Lady Crimp's ; 
 but, for Vauxhall dressing, it is pretty good: it is not their 
 victuals, indeed, I find fault with, but their wine ; their wine," 
 cries he, drinking ofT a glass, " indeed, is most abominable." 
 
 By this last contradiction the widow was fairly conquered in 
 point of politeness. She perceived now that she had no preten- 
 sions in the world to taste ; her very senses were vulgar, since 
 she had praised detestable custard, and smacked at wretched 
 wine ; she was therefore content to yield the victory, and for the 
 rest of the night to listen and improve. It is true, she would 
 now and then forget herself, and confess she was pleased ; but 
 they soon brought her back again to miserable refinement. She 
 once praised the painting of the box in which we were sitting, 
 but was soon convinced that such paltry pieces ought rather to 
 excite horror than satisfaction : she ventured again to com- 
 mend one of the singers, but Mrs. Tibbs soon let her know, in 
 the style of a connoisseur, that the singer in question had neither 
 ear, voice, nor judgment. 
 
 Mr. Tibbs, now willing to prove that his wife's pretensions to 
 music were just, entreated her to favor the company with a 
 song ; but to this she gave a positive denial — " For you know 
 very well, my dear," says she, " that I am not in voice to-day, 
 and when one's voice is not equal to one's judgment, what sig- 
 nifies singing? besides, as there is no accompaniment, it would
 
 358 
 
 GOLDSMITH 
 
 be but spoiling music." All these excuses, however, were over- 
 ruled by the rest of the company, who, though one would think 
 they already had music enough, joined in the entreaty. But 
 particularly the widow, now willing to convince the company of 
 her breeding, pressed so warmly, that she seemed determined 
 to take no refusal. At last, then, the lady complied, and after 
 humming for some minutes, began with such a voice, and such 
 affectation, as I could perceive gave but little satisfaction to any 
 except her husband. He sat with rapture in his eye, and beat 
 time with his hand on the table. 
 
 You must observe, my friend, that it is the custom of this 
 country, when a lady or gentleman happens to sing, for the 
 company to sit as mute and motionless as statues. Every feat- 
 ure, every limb, must seem to correspond in fixed attention; 
 and while the song continues, they are to remain in a state of 
 universal petrifaction. In this mortifying situation we had con- 
 tinued for some time, listening to the song, and looking with 
 tranquillity, when the master of the box came to inform us, 
 that the waterworks - were going to begin. At this information 
 I could instantly perceive the widow bounce from her seat; 
 but, correcting herself, she sat down again, repressed by mo- 
 tives of good breeding. Mrs. Tibbs, who had seen the water- 
 works an hundred times, resolving not to be interrupted, con- 
 tinued her song without any share of mercy, nor had the 
 smallest pity on our impatience. The widow's face, I own, gave 
 me high entertainment ; in it I could plainly read the struggle 
 she felt between good breeding and curiosity ; she talked of the 
 waterworks the whole evening before, and seemed to have come 
 merely in order to see them ; but then she could not bounce 
 out in the very middle of a song, for that would be forfeiting all 
 pretensions to high life, or high-lived company, ever after. Mrs. 
 Tibbs, therefore, kept on singing, and we continued to listen, till 
 at last, when the song was just concluded, the waiter came to 
 inform us that the waterworks were over. 
 
 " The waterworks over ! " cried the widow ; " the water- 
 works over already ! that's impossible ! they can't be over so 
 
 •"In Goldsmith's day it (the water cade.' At the proper moment this last 
 
 show) was still in the elementary stage presented the exact appearance of water 
 
 described by Sylvanus Urban in August, flowing down a declivity, rising up in 
 
 1765, that is to say, it exhibited ' a beau- a foam at the bottom, and then gliding; 
 
 tiful landscape m perspective, with a away."— Dobson's " Vignettes," vol. 1. 
 
 miller's bouse, a water-mill, and a cas- p. 24,1.
 
 BEAU TIBBS 359 
 
 soon ! " " It is not my business," replied the fellow, " to con- 
 tradict your ladyship ; I'll run again and see." He went, and 
 soon returned with a confirmation of the dismal tidings. No 
 ceremony could now bind my friend's disappointed mistress. 
 She testified her displeasure in the openest manner ; in short, 
 she now began to find fault in turn, and at last insisted upon 
 going home, just at the time Mr. and Mrs. Tibbs assured the 
 company that the polite hours were going to begin, and that the 
 ladies would instantaneously be entertained with the horns.— 
 Adieu.
 
 A CITY NIGHT-PIECE 
 
 THE clock just struck two, the expiring taper rises and 
 sinks in the socket, the watchman forgets the hour in 
 slumber, the laborious and the happy are at rest, and 
 nothing wakes but meditation, guilt, revelry, and despair. The 
 drunkard once more fills the destroying bowl, the robber walks 
 his midnight round, and the suicide lifts his guilty arm against 
 his own sacred person. 
 
 Let me no longer waste the night over the page of antiquity, 
 or the sallies of contemporary genius, but pursue the solitary 
 walk, where vanity, ever changing, but a few hours past walked 
 before me; where she kept up the pageant, and now, Hke a 
 froward child, seems hushed with her own importunities. 
 
 What a gloom hangs all around! The dying lamp feebly 
 emits a yellow gleam ; no sound in heard but of the chiming 
 clock, or the distant watch-dog. All the bustle of human pride 
 is forgotten ; an hour like this may well display the emptiness of 
 human vanity. 
 
 There will come a time when this temporary solitude may be 
 made continual, and the city itself, like its inhabitants, fade 
 away, and leave a desert in its room. 
 
 What cities as great as this have once triumphed in existence, 
 had their victories as great, joy as just, and as unbounded ; and, 
 with short-sighted presumption, promised themselves immor- 
 tality ! Posterity can hardly trace the situation of some ; the 
 sorrowful traveller wanders over the awful ruins of others ; and, 
 as he beholds, he learns wisdom, and feels the transience of every 
 sublunary possession. 
 
 " Here," he cries, " stood their citadel, now grown over with 
 weeds ; there their senate house, but now the haunt of every 
 noxious reptile ; temples and theatres stood here, now only an 
 undistinguished heap of ruin. They are fallen, for luxury and 
 avarice first made them feeble. The rewards of the State were 
 conferred on amusing and not on useful members of society, 
 
 361
 
 362 GOLDSMITH 
 
 Their riches and opulence invited the invaders, who, though at 
 first repulsed, returned again, conquered by perseverance, and 
 at last swept the defendants into undistinguished destruction." 
 
 How few appear in those streets which but some few hours 
 ago were crowded ! and those who appear now no longer wear 
 their daily mask, nor attempt to hide their lewdness or their 
 misery. 
 
 But who are those who make the streets their couch, and find 
 a short repose from wretchedness at the doors of the opulent? 
 These are strangers, wanderers, and orphans, whose circum- 
 stances are too humble to expect redress, and whose distresses 
 are too great even for pity. Their wretchedness excites rather 
 horror than pity. Some are without the covering even of rags, 
 and others emaciated with disease ; the world has disclaimed 
 them ; society turns its back upon their distress, and has given 
 them up to nakedness and hunger. These poor shivering fe- 
 males have once seen happier days, and been flattered into 
 beauty. They have been prostituted to the gay luxurious vil- 
 lain, and are now turned out to meet the severity of winter. 
 Perhaps, now lying at the doors of their betrayers, they sue to 
 wretches whose hearts are insensible, to debauchees who may 
 curse but will not relieve them. 
 
 Why, why was I born a man, and yet see the sufferings of 
 wretches I cannot relieve? Poor houseless creatures! the 
 world will give you reproaches, but will not give you relief. 
 The slightest misfortunes of the great, the most imaginary un- 
 easiness of the rich, are aggravated with all the power of elo- 
 quence, and held up to engage our attention and sympathetic 
 sorrow. The poor weep unheeded, persecuted by every subor- 
 dinate species of tyranny ; and every law which gives others 
 security becomes an enemy to them. 
 
 Why was this heart of mine formed with so much sensibility? 
 or why was not my fortune adapted to its impulse ? Tender- 
 ness, without a capacity of relieving, only makes the man who 
 feels it more wretched than the object which sues for assistance. 
 — Adieu.
 
 ON TASTE 
 
 BY 
 
 EDMUND BURKE
 
 EDMUND BURKE 
 
 1729— 1797 
 
 Burke was a man of powerful and versatile genius, carrying the 
 fervor and imagery of a great orator into philosophical discussion, and 
 uniting in himself the highest qualities of the statesman, the writer, 
 and the philosopher. His predominant quality was a burning and 
 dazzling enthusiasm for whatever object attracted his sympathies, and 
 in the service of this enthusiasm he impressed all the disciplined forces 
 of his learning, his logic, and his historical and political knowledge. 
 His mind resembled the Puritan regiments of Cromwell, which moved 
 to battle with the precision of machines, while burning with the fiercest 
 ardor of fanaticism. His sympathies were indeed generally excited by 
 generous pity for misfortune, and horror at cruelty and injustice ; but, 
 as in the case of "his rupture with Fox, his splendid oratorical display 
 in the impeachment of Warren Hastings, and his furious denunciation 
 of the French Revolution, the very excess of his tenderness made him 
 cruel, and the vehemence of his detestation of injustice made him un- 
 just. He was the son of a Dublin attorney, came early to England to 
 study law, but commenced his career as a miscellaneous writer in 
 magazines. He was the founder and first author of the " Annual Reg- 
 ister," a useful epitome of political and general facts, and gained his 
 first reputation by his " Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful," a short 
 treatise in which ingenuity is more perceptible than solidity of reason- 
 ing, and he became one of the most constant and brilliant ornaments 
 of the club where Johnson, Reynolds, and Goldsmith used to assemble. 
 Burke's powers of conversation were most extraordinary; his immense 
 and varied stores of knowledge were poured forth in language un- 
 equalled for its splendor of illustration ; and Johnson, jealous as he 
 was of his own social supremacy, confessed that in Burke he encoun- 
 tered a fully equal antagonist. " On Taste " was written as an intro- 
 ductory essay to Burke's " Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful." 
 
 364
 
 ON TASTE 
 
 ON a superficial view we may seem to differ very widely 
 from each other in our reasonings, and no less in our 
 pleasures : but, notwithstanding this difference, which 
 I think to be rather apparent than real, it is probable that the 
 standard both of reason and taste is the same in all human 
 creatures; for, if there were not some principles of judgment 
 as well as of sentiment common to all mankind, no hold could 
 possibly be taken either on their reason or their passions suf- 
 ficient to maintain the ordinary correspondence of life. It 
 appears, indeed, to be generally acknowledged, that with re- 
 gard to truth and falsehood there is something fixed. We find 
 people in their disputes continually appealing to certain tests 
 and standards, which are allowed on all sides, and are sup- 
 posed to be established in our common nature. But there is 
 not the same obvious concurrence in any uniform or settled 
 principles which relate to taste. It is even commonly supposed 
 that this delicate and aerial faculty, which seems too volatile 
 to endure even the chains of a definition, cannot be properly 
 tried by any test, nor regulated by any standard. There is so 
 continual a call for the exercise of the reasoning faculty, and 
 it is so much strengthened by perpetual contention, that cer- 
 tain maxims of right reason seem to be tacitly settled amongst 
 the most ignorant. The learned have improved on this rude 
 science, and reduced those maxims into a system. If taste 
 had not been so happily cultivated, it was not that the subject 
 was barren, but that the laborers were few or negligent ; for, 
 to say the truth, there are not the same interesting motives to 
 impel us to fix the one which urge us to ascertain the other. 
 And, after all, if men differ in their opinion concerning such 
 matters their difference is not attended with the same impor- 
 tant consequences ; else I make no doubt but that the logic of 
 taste, if I may be allowed the expression, might very possibly 
 
 365
 
 366 BURKE 
 
 be as well digested, and we might come to discuss matters of 
 this nature with as much certainty as those which seem more 
 immediately within the province of mere reason. And indeed 
 it is very necessary, at the entrance into such an inquiry as our 
 present, to make this point as clear as possible ; for if taste 
 has no fixed principles, if the imagination is not affected ac- 
 cording to some invariable and certain laws, our labor is like 
 to be employed to very little purpose; as it must be judged 
 a useless, if not an absurd, undertaking, to lay down rules 
 for caprice, and to set up for a legislator of whims and fancies. 
 The term taste, like all other figurative terms, is not ex- 
 tremely accurate: the thing which we understand by it is far 
 from a simple and determinate idea in the minds of most men, 
 and it is therefore liable to uncertainty and confusion. I have 
 no great opinion of a definition, the celebrated remedy for the 
 cure of this disorder. For, when we define, we seem in danger 
 of circumscribing nature within the bounds of our own no- 
 tions, which we often take up by hazard, or embrace on trust, 
 or form out of a limited and partial consideration of the object 
 before us, instead of extending our ideas to take in all that 
 nature comprehends, according to her manner of combining. 
 We are limited in our inquiry by the strict laws to which we 
 have submitted at our setting out. 
 
 " Circa vilem patulumque tnorabimur orbem, 
 Undepudorproferrepedem vetat aui operislex" 
 
 A definition may be very exact, and yet go but a very little 
 way towards informing us of the nature of the thing defined ; 
 but let the virtue of a definition be what it will, in the order 
 of things, it seems rather to follow than to precede our in- 
 quiry, of which it ought to be considered as the result. It 
 must be acknowledged that the methods of disquisition and 
 teaching may be sometimes different, and on very good reason 
 undoubtedly ; but, for my part, I am convinced that the method 
 of teaching which approaches most nearly to the method of 
 investigation is incomparably the best ; since, not content with 
 serving up a few barren and lifeless truths, it leads to the 
 stock on which they grew ; it tends to set the reader himself 
 in the track of invention, and to direct him into those paths
 
 ON TASTE 357 
 
 in which the author has made his own discoveries, if he should 
 be so happy as to have made any that are valuable. 
 
 But, to cut off all pretence for cavilling, I mean by the word 
 taste no more than that faculty or those faculties of the mind 
 which are affected with, or which form a judgment of, the 
 works of imagination and the elegant arts. This is, I think, 
 the most general idea of that word, and what is the least con- 
 nected with any particular theory. And my point, in this in- 
 quiry, is to find whether there are any principles, on which the 
 imagination is affected, so common to all, so grounded and 
 certain, as to supply the means of reasoning satisfactorily about 
 them. And such principles of taste I fancy there are, however 
 paradoxical it may seem to those who, on a superficial view, 
 imagine that there is so great a diversity of tastes, both in kind 
 and degree, that nothing can be more indeterminate. 
 
 All the natural powers in man, which I know, that are con- 
 versant about external objects, are the senses, the imagination, 
 and the judgment. And, first, with regard to the senses. We 
 do, and we must, suppose, that, as the conformation of their 
 organs is nearly or altogether the same in all men, so the 
 manner of perceiving external objects is in all men the same, 
 or with little difference. We are satisfied that what appears 
 to be light to one eye appears light to another ; that what seems 
 sweet to one palate is sweet to another; that what is dark and 
 bitter to this man is likewise dark and bitter to that: and we 
 conclude in the same manner of great and little, hard and soft, 
 hot and cold, rough and smooth, and indeed of all the natural 
 qualities and affections of bodies. If we suffer ourselves to 
 imagine that their senses present to different men different 
 images of things, this sceptical proceeding will make every 
 sort of reasoning, on every subject, vain and frivolous, even 
 that sceptical reasoning itself which had persuaded us to enter- 
 tain a doubt concerning the agreement of our perceptions. 
 But, as there will be little doubt that bodies present similar 
 images to the whole species, it must necessarily be allowed that 
 the pleasures and the pains which every object excites in one 
 man, it must raise in all mankind, whilst it operates naturally, 
 simply, and by its proper powers only; for, if we deny this, 
 we must imagine that the same cause, operating in the same 
 manner, and on subjects of the same kind, will produce differ-
 
 368 BURKE 
 
 ent effects, which would be highly absurd. Let us first con- 
 sider this point in the sense of taste, and the rather as the 
 faculty in question has taken its name from that sense. All 
 men are agreed to call vinegar sour, honey sweet, and aloes 
 bitter : and as they are all agreed in finding these qualities in 
 those objects, they do not in the least differ concerning their 
 eft'ects with regard to pleasure and pain. They all concur in 
 calling sweetness pleasant, and sourness and bitterness unpleas- 
 ant. Here there is no diversity in their sentiments; and that 
 there is not appears fully from the consent of all men in the 
 metaphors which are taken from the sense of taste. A sour 
 temper, bitter expressions, bitter curses, a bitter fate, are terms 
 well and strongly understood by all. And we are altogether 
 as well understood when we say a sweet disposition, a sweet 
 person, a sweet condition, and the like. It is confessed that 
 custom and some other causes have made many deviations 
 from the natural pleasures or pains which belong to these sev- 
 eral tastes; but then the power of distinguishing between the 
 natural and the acquired relish remains to the very last. A 
 man frequently comes to prefer the taste of tobacco to that of 
 sugar, and the flavor of vinegar to that of milk ; but this makes 
 no confusion in tastes, whilst he is sensible that the tobacco and 
 vinegar are not sweet, and whilst he knows that habit alone 
 has reconciled his palate to these alien pleasures. Even with 
 such a person we may speak, and with sufficient precision, 
 concerning tastes. But should any man be found who de- 
 clares that to him tobacco has a taste like sugar, and that he 
 cannot distinguish between milk and vinegar; or that tobacco 
 and vinegar are sweet, milk bitter, and sugar sour; we im- 
 mediately conclude that the organs of this man are out of 
 order, and that his palate is utterly vitiated. We are as far 
 from conferring with such a person upon tastes as from rea- 
 soning concerning the relations of quantity with one who 
 should deny that all the parts together were equal to the whole. 
 We do not call a man of this kind wrong in his notions, but 
 absolutely mad. Exceptions of this sort, in either way, do not 
 at all impeach our general rule, nor make us conclude that 
 men have various principles concerning the relations of quan- 
 tity, or the taste of things. So that when it is said taste can- 
 not be disputed, it can only mean, that no one can strictly
 
 ON TASTE 569 
 
 answer what pleasure or pain some particular man may find 
 from the taste of some particular thing. This, indeed, can- 
 not be disputed ; but we may dispute, and with sufficient clear- 
 ness too, concerning the things which are naturally pleasing 
 or disagreeable to the sense. But when we talk of any peculiar 
 or acquired relish, then we must know the habits, the preju- 
 dices, or the distempers of this particular man, and we mu»* 
 draw our conclusion from those. 
 
 This agreement of mankind is not confined to the taste solely. 
 The principle of pleasure derived from sight is the same in 
 all. Light is more pleasing than darkness. Summer, when 
 the earth is clad in green, when the heavens are serene and 
 bright, is more agreeable than winter, when everything makes 
 a different appearance. I never remember that anything beau- 
 tiful, whether a man, a beast, a bird, or a plant, was ever 
 shown, though it were to an hundred people, that they did not 
 all immediately agree that it was beautiful, though some might 
 have thought that it fell short of their expectation, or that 
 other things were still finer. I believe no man thinks a goose 
 to be more beautiful than a swan, or imagines that what they 
 call a Friesland hen excels a peacock. It must be observed, too, 
 that the pleasures of the sight are not near so complicated and 
 confused and altered by unnatural habits and associations, as 
 the pleasures of the taste are; because the pleasures of the 
 sight more commonly acquiesce in themselves, and are not so 
 often altered by considerations which are independent of the 
 sight itself. But things do not spontaneously present them- 
 selves to the palate as they do to the sight : they are generally 
 applied to it, either as food or as medicine; and, from the 
 qualities which they possess for nutritive or medicinal pur- 
 poses, they often form the palate by degrees, and by force of 
 these associations. Thus, opium is pleasing to Turks on ac- 
 count of the agreeable delirium it produces. Tobacco is the 
 delight of Dutchmen ; as it diffuses a torpor and pleasing 
 stupefaction. Fermented spirits please our common people, 
 because they banish care, and all considerations of future or 
 present evils. All of these would lie absolutely neglected if 
 their properties had originally gone no further than the taste; 
 but all these, together with tea and coffee, and some other 
 things, have passed from the apothecary's shop to our tables,
 
 370 BURKE 
 
 and were taken for health long before they were thought of 
 for pleasure. The effect of the drug has made us use it fre- 
 quently ; and frequent use, combined with the agreeable effect, 
 has made the taste itself at last agreeable. But this does not 
 in the least perplex our reasoning; because we distinguish to 
 the last the acquired from the natural relish. In describing 
 the taste of an unknown fruit, you would scarcely say that it 
 had a sweet and pleasant flavor like tobacco, opium, or garlic, 
 although you spoke to those who were in the constant use of 
 these drugs, and had great pleasure in them. There is in all 
 men a sufficient remembrance of the original natural causes of 
 pleasure, to enable them to bring all things offered to their 
 senses to that standard, and to regulate their feelings and 
 opinions by it. Suppose one who had so vitiated his palate as 
 to take more pleasure in the taste of opium than in that of 
 butter or honey, to be presented with a bolus of squills ; there 
 is hardly any doubt but that he would prefer the butter or 
 honey to this nauseous morsel, or to any other bitter drug to 
 which he had not been accustomed; which proves that his 
 palate was naturally like that of other men in all things, that it 
 is still like the palate of other men in many things, and only 
 vitiated in some particular points. For, in judging of any 
 new thing, even of a taste similar to that which he has been 
 formed by habit to like, he finds his palate affected in the 
 natural manner, and on the common principles. Thus the pleas- 
 ure of all the senses, of the sight, and even of the taste, that 
 most ambiguous of the senses, is the same in all, high and low, 
 learned and unlearned. 
 
 Besides the ideas, with their annexed pains and pleasures, 
 which are presented by the sense, the mind of man possesses 
 a sort of creative power of its own ; either in representing at 
 pleasure the images of things in the order and manner in which 
 they were received by the senses, or in combining those images 
 in a new manner, and according to a different order. This 
 power is called imagination : and to this belongs whatever is 
 called wit, fancy, invention, and the like. But it must be 
 observed that the power of the imagination is incapable of 
 producing anything absolutely new : it can only vary the dis- 
 position of those ideas which it has received from the senses. 
 Now, the imagination is the most extensive province of pleas-
 
 ON TASTE 571 
 
 ure and pain, as it is the region of our fears and our hopes, 
 and of all our passions that are connected with them; and 
 whatever is calculated to affect the imagination with these com- 
 manding ideas, by force of any original natural impression, 
 must have the same power, pretty equally, over all men. For, 
 since the imagination is only the representation of the senses, 
 it can only be pleased or displeased with the images, from the 
 same principle on which the senses are pleased or displeased 
 with the realities; and consequently there must be just as 
 close an agreement in the imaginations as in the senses of 
 men. A little attention will convince us that this must of ne- 
 cessity be the case. 
 
 But, in the imagination, besides the pain or pleasure arising 
 from the properties of the natural object, a pleasure is per- 
 ceived from the resemblance which the imitation has to the 
 original : the imagination, I conceive, can have no pleasure 
 but what results from one or other of these causes. And these 
 causes operate pretty uniformly upon all men, because they 
 operate by principles in nature, and which are not derived 
 from any particular habits or advantage. Mr, Locke very 
 justly and finely observes of wit that it is chiefly conversant 
 in tracing resemblances: he remarks, at the same time, that 
 the business of judgment is rather in finding differences. It 
 may, perhaps, appear, on this supposition, that there is no ma- 
 terial distinction between the wit and the judgment, as they 
 both seem to result from different operations of the same fac- 
 ulty of comparing. But, in reality, whether they are or are 
 not dependent on the same power of the mind, they differ so 
 very materially in many respects that a perfect union of wit 
 and judgment is one of the rarest things in the world. When 
 two distinct objects are unlike to each other, it is only what we 
 expect; things are in their common way; and therefore they 
 make no impression on the imagination : but when two dis- 
 tinct objects have a resemblance, we are struck, we attend to 
 them, and we are pleased. The mind of man has naturally a 
 far greater alacrity and satisfaction in tracing resemblances 
 than in searching for differences: because, by making resem- 
 blances we produce new images ; we unite, we create, we en- 
 large our stock: but in making distinctions we offer no food 
 at all to the imagination; the task itself is more severe and
 
 372 BURKE 
 
 irksome, and what pleasure we derive from it is something of 
 a negative and indirect nature. A piece of news is told me in 
 the morning; this, merely as a piece of news, as a fact added 
 to my stock, gives me some pleasure. In the evening, I find 
 there was nothing in it. What do I gain by this but the dis- 
 satisfaction to find that I had been imposed upon? Hence it is 
 that men are much more naturally inclined to belief than to 
 incredulity. And it is upon this principle that the most 
 ignorant and barbarous nations have frequently excelled in 
 similitude, comparisons, metaphors, and allegories, who have 
 been weak and backward in distinguishing and sorting their 
 ideas. And it is for a reason of this kind that Homer and the 
 Oriental writers, though very fond of similitudes, and though 
 they often strike out such as are truly admirable, they seldom 
 take care to have them exact ; that is, they are taken with the 
 general resemblance, they paint it strongly, and they take no 
 notice of the difference which may be found between the things 
 compared. 
 
 Now, as the pleasure of resemblance is that which princi- 
 pally flatters the imagination, all men are nearly equal in this 
 point, as far as their knowledge of the things represented or 
 compared extends. The principle of this knowledge is very 
 much accidental ; as it depends upon experience and observa- 
 tion, and not on the strength or weakness of any natural fac- 
 ulty ; and it is from this diflference in knowledge that what 
 we commonly, though with no great exactness, call a differ- 
 ence in taste, proceeds. A man to whom sculpture is new 
 sees a barber's block, or some ordinary piece of statuary : he 
 is immediately struck and pleased, because he sees something 
 Hke a human figure ; and, entirely taken up with this likeness, 
 he does not at all attend to its defects. No person, I believe, 
 at the first time of seeing a piece of imitation, ever did. Some 
 time after, we suppose that this novice lights upon a more 
 artificial work of the same nature ; he now begins to look 
 with contempt on what he admired at first : not that he admired 
 it even then for its unlikeness to a man ; but for that general, 
 though inaccurate, resemblance which it bore to the human 
 figure. What he admired, at different times, in these so dif- 
 ferent figures, is strictly the same ; and, though his knowledge 
 is improved, his taste is not altered. Hitherto his mistake
 
 ON TASTE 373 
 
 was from a want of knowledge in art, and this arose from his 
 inexperience; but he may be still deficient from a want of 
 knowledge in nature. For it is possible that the man in ques- 
 tion may stop here, and that the masterpiece of a great hand 
 may please him no more than the middling performance of a 
 vulgar artist ; and this not for want of better or higher relish, 
 but because all men do not observe with sufficient accuracy 
 on the human figure, to enable them to judge properly of an 
 imitation of it. And that the critical taste does not depend upon 
 a superior principle in men, but upon superior knowledge, 
 may appear from several instances. The story of the ancient 
 painter and the shoemaker is very well known. The shoemaker 
 set the painter right, with regard to some mistakes he had 
 made in the shoe of one of his figures, and which the painter, 
 who had not made such accurate observations on shoes, and 
 was content with a general resemblance, had never observed. 
 But this was no impeachment to the taste of the painter: it 
 only showed some want of knowledge in the art of making 
 shoes. Let us imagine that an anatomist had come into the 
 painter's working-room : his piece is in general well done ; the 
 figure in question in a good attitude, and the parts well ad- 
 justed to their various movements : yet, the anatomist, critical 
 in his art, may observe the swell of some muscle not quite just 
 in the peculiar action of the figure. Here the anatomist ob- 
 serves what the painter had not observed; and he passes by 
 what the shoemaker had remarked. But a want of the last 
 critical knowledge in anatomy no more reflected on the natural 
 good taste of the painter, or of any common observer of his 
 piece, than the want of an exact knowledge in the formation 
 of a shoe. A fine piece of a decollated head of St. John the 
 Baptist was shown to a Turkish emperor: he praised many 
 things ; but he observed one defect : he observed that the skin 
 did not shrink from the wounded part of the neck. The sultan 
 on this occasion, though his observation was very just, dis- 
 covered no more natural taste than the painter who executed 
 this piece, or than a thousand European connoisseurs, who 
 probably never would have made the same observation. His 
 Turkish majesty had, indeed, been well acquainted with that 
 terrible spectacle, which the others could only have represented 
 in their imagination. On the subject of their dislike there is
 
 374 BURKE 
 
 a difference between all these people, arising from the different 
 kinds and degrees of their knowledge ; but there is something 
 in common to the painter, the shoemaker, the anatomist, and 
 the Turkish emperor : the pleasure arising from a natural ob- 
 ject, so far as each perceives it justly imitated; the satisfaction 
 in seeing an agreeable figure ; the sympathy proceeding from 
 a striking and affecting incident. So far as taste is natural, it 
 is nearly common to all.
 
 ON CONVERSATION 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM COWPE
 
 WILLIAM COWPER 
 1731 — 1800 
 
 William Cowper was born in 1731. The death of his mother when 
 he was only six years old deprived him of the care which was needed 
 for the well-being of a delicate and sensitive child; his recollections 
 of this early sorrow are commemorated in one of the most beautiful 
 of his minor poems. He was sent after her death to a private school 
 at Market Street, whence he was removed at the end of two years 
 because of an affection of his sight. At ten years of age he was sent 
 to Westminster, where he continued until he was eighteen. Though 
 he excelled in some youthful sports, and was therefore likely to have 
 been popular with his companions, he appears to have suffered much 
 both at Market Street and at Westminster from the tyranny of his 
 school-fellows, and ever after retained the strongest aversion to any 
 but home education. On leaving Westminster he was articled for 
 three years to a solicitor — his fellow-pupil in the office being the future 
 Lord Thurloe. In 1754 he was called to the bar, and resided in the 
 Temple for eleven years. During those years Cowper mixed in the 
 literary society of the day, and had considerable success both as a wit 
 and as the author of various fugitive pieces. Several lucrative offices 
 were obtained for him by the interest of friends, but each one of these 
 in succession was found to require some public appearance, for which 
 his nervous temperament disqualified him. In his last attempt to face 
 an ordeal of the kind he broke down, became insane, and was placed 
 in confinement for eighteen months. He now withdrew from London, 
 and settled at Huntingdon, where he became the friend and soon the 
 inmate of the family of the Unwins, with whom, there and at Olney, 
 and afterwards at Weston, he found a home for the remainder of his 
 days. Cowper suiTered through life from the nervous melancholy 
 which so often defeated his purposes in youth, and which at times 
 amounted to insanity. He died in 1800. 
 
 Cowper was the author of " Table Talk," " Expostulation," " The 
 Task," and other poems, besides hymns contributed to the Olney col- 
 lection, and translations of the " Iliad " and " Odyssey." His prose 
 writings consist chiefly of letters written to various friends, to whom 
 he was deeply attached. He lived in extreme retirement in the bosom 
 of the religious family with whom, as has been already said, he had 
 made his home, and his letters touch upon such subjects as naturally 
 belong to a quiet and contemplative life; they abound in religious 
 meditations, in descriptions of domestic scenes, and in disclosures of 
 his own feelings and states of mind, besides occasional allusions to 
 his own peculiar trials. Political reflections occasionally occur, given 
 with the modesty of a secluded observer. 
 
 Cowper's claim to rank as an essayist rests on his contributions to 
 the " Connoisseur," a weekly miscellany commenced by George Col- 
 man and Bonnel Thornton in 1754. How easily he might have 
 excelled in this kind of writing may be seen from his essay " On 
 Conversation." 
 
 376
 
 ON CONVERSATION 
 
 Servata semper lege et ratione loquendi. — Horace, 
 
 Your talk to decency and reason suit, 
 Nor prate like fools or gabble like a brute. 
 
 IN the comedy of the " Frenchman in London," which we 
 were told was acted at Paris with universal applause for 
 several nights together, there is a character of a rough 
 Englishman, who is represented as quite unskilled in the graces 
 of conversation ; and his dialogue consists almost entirely of a 
 repetition of the common salutation of " How do you do ? " 
 Our nation has, indeed, been generally supposed to be of a 
 sullen and uncommunicative disposition; while, on the other 
 hand, the loquacious French have been allowed to possess the 
 art of conversing beyond all other people. The Englishman 
 requires to be wound up frequently, and stops as soon as he is 
 down; but the Frenchman runs on in a continual alarum. 
 Yet it must be acknowledged that as the English consist of 
 very different humors, their manner of discourse admits of 
 great variety; but the whole French nation converse alike; 
 and there is no difference in address between a marquis and a 
 valet-de-chanibre. We may frequently see a couple of French 
 barbers accosting each other in the street, and paying their 
 compliments with the same volubility of speech, the same 
 grimace and action, as two courtiers in the Tuileries. 
 
 I shall not attempt to lay down any particular rules for con- 
 versation, but rather point out such faults in discourse and 
 behavior as render the company of half mankind rather tedious 
 than amusing. It is in vain, indeed, to look for conversation 
 where we might expect to find it in the greatest perfection, 
 among persons of fashion; there it is almost annihilated by 
 universal card-playing: insomuch that I have heard it given 
 as a reason why it is impossible for our present writers to suc- 
 ceed in the dialogue of genteel comedy, that our people of 
 
 2^^ 17— Vol. 57
 
 378 COWPER 
 
 quality scarce ever meet but to game. All their discourse turns 
 upon the odd trick and the four honors ; and it is no less a 
 maxim with the votaries of whist than with those of Bacchus, 
 that talking spoils company. 
 
 Everyone endeavors to make himself as agreeable to society 
 as he can ; but it often happens that those who most aim at 
 shining in conversation overshoot their mark. Though a man 
 succeeds, he should not (as is frequently the case) engross 
 the whole talk to himself; for that destroys the very essence 
 of conversation, which is talking together. We should try to 
 keep up conversation like a ball bandied to and fro from one to 
 the other, rather than seize it all to ourselves, and drive it 
 before us like a football. We should likewise be cautious to 
 adapt the matter of our discourse to our company, and not 
 talk Greek before ladies, or of the last new furbelow to a meet- 
 ing of country justices. 
 
 But nothing throws a more ridiculous air over our whole 
 conversation than certain peculiarities easily acquired, but very 
 difficultly conquered and discarded. In order to display these 
 absurdities in a truer light, it is my present purpose to enu- 
 merate such of them as are most commonly to be met with; 
 and first to take notice of those buffoons in society, the Attitu- 
 dinarians and Face-makers. These accompany every word 
 with a peculiar grimace or gesture ; they assent with a shrug, 
 and contradict with a twisting of the neck ; are angry by a 
 wry mouth, and pleased in a caper or minuet step. They may 
 be considered as speaking harlequins ; and their rules of elo- 
 quence are taken from the posture-master. These should be 
 condemned to converse only in dumb show with their own 
 persons in the looking-glass; as well as the Smirkers and 
 Smilers, who so prettily set off their faces, together with their 
 words, by a je-ne-sais-quoi between a grin and a dimple. With 
 these we may likewise rank the affected tribe of mimics, who 
 are constantly taking off the peculiar tone of voice or gesture 
 of their acquaintance, though they are such wretched imita- 
 tors, that (like bad painters) they are frequently forced to write 
 the name under the picture before we can discover any likeness. 
 
 Next to these whose elocution is absorbed in action, and who 
 converse chiefly with their arms and legs, we may consider the 
 Professed Speakers. And first, the Emphatical, who squeeze, 
 and press, and ram down every s;5;'llable with excessive vehe-
 
 ON CONVERSATION 379 
 
 mence and energy. These orators are remarkable for their dis- 
 tinct elocution and force of expression: they dwell on the 
 important particles of and the, and the significant conjunc- 
 tion and, which they seem to hawk up, with much difficulty, out 
 of their own throats, and to cram them, with no less pain, into 
 the ears of their auditors. These should be suffered only to 
 syringe (as it were) the ears of a deaf man, through a hearing- 
 trumpet ; though I must confess that I am equally offended with 
 the Whisperers or Low-speakers, who seem to fancy all their 
 acquaintance deaf, and come up so close to you that they may 
 be said to measure noses with you, and frequently overcome 
 you with the full exhalations of a foul breath. I would have 
 these oracular gentry obliged to speak at a distance through a 
 speaking-trumpet, or apply their lips to the walls of a whisper- 
 ing-gallery. The Wits, who will not condescend to utter any- 
 thing but a bon-mot, and the Whistlers or Tune-hummers, who 
 never articulate at all, may be joined very agreeably together in 
 concert; and to these tinkling cymbals I would also add the 
 sounding brass, the Bawler, who inquires after your health with 
 the bellowing of a town-crier. 
 
 The Tattlers, whose pliable pipes are admirably adapted to 
 the " soft parts of conversation," and sweetly " prattling out of 
 fashion," make very pretty music from a beautiful face and a 
 female tongue ; but from a rough manly voice and coarse feat- 
 ures mere nonsense is as harsh and dissonant as a jig from a 
 hurdy-gurdy. The Swearers I have spoken of in a former 
 paper ; but the Half-Swearers, who split, and mince, and fritter 
 their oaths into " gad's bud," " od's fish," and " demme," the 
 Gothic Humbuggers, and those who nickname God's creatures, 
 and call a man a cabbage, a crab, a queer cub, an odd fish, and 
 an unaccountable muskin, should never come into company 
 without an interpreter. But I will not tire my reader's patience 
 by pointing out all the pests of conversation ; nor dwell par- 
 ticularly on the Sensibles, who pronounce dogmaticallv on the 
 most trivial points, and speak in sentences ; the Wonderers, 
 who are always wondering what o'clock it is, or wondering 
 whether it will rain or no, or wondering when the moon 
 changes ; the Phraseologists, who explain a thing by all t'^at, or 
 enter into particulars, with this and that and t'other ; and lastly, 
 the Silent Men, who seem afraid of opening their mouths lest 
 they should catch cold, and literallv observe the precept of the
 
 380 COWPER 
 
 gospel, by letting their conversation be only yea yea, and nay 
 nay. 
 
 The rational intercourse kept up by conversation is one of 
 our principal distinctions from brutes. We should therefore 
 endeavor to turn this peculiar talent to our advantage, and con- 
 sider the organs of speech as the instruments of understanding: 
 we should be very careful not to use them as the weapons of 
 vice, or tools of folly, and do our utmost to unlearn any trivial 
 or ridiculous habits, which tend to lessen the value of such an 
 inestimable prerogative. It is, indeed, imagined by some phi- 
 losophers, that even birds and beasts (though without the power 
 of articulation) perfectly understand one another by the sounds 
 they utter ; and that dogs, cats, etc., have each a particular lan- 
 guage to themselves, like different nations. Thus it may be 
 supposed that the nightingales of Italy have as line an ear for 
 their own native woodnotes as any signor or signora for an 
 Italian air ; that the boars of Westphalia gruntle as expres- 
 sively through the nose as the inhabitants in High German ; 
 and that the frogs in the dykes of Holland croak as intelligibly 
 as the natives jabber their Low Dutch. However this may be, 
 we may consider those whose tongues hardly seem to be under 
 the influence of reason, and do not keep up the proper conver- 
 sation of human creatures, as imitating the language of differ- 
 ent animals. Thus, for instance, the affinity between Chatterers 
 and Monkeys, and Praters and Parrots, is too obvious not to 
 occur at once ; Grunters and Growlers may be justly compared 
 to Hogs ; Snarlers are Curs that continually show their teeth, 
 but never bite ; and the Spitfire passionate are a sort of wild 
 cats that will not bear stroking, but will purr when they are 
 pleased. Complainers are Screech-Owls ; and Story-tellers, al- 
 ways repeating the same dull note, are Cuckoos. Poets that 
 prick up their ears at their own hideous braying are no better 
 than Asses. Critics in general are venomous Serpents that de- 
 light in hissing, and some of them who have got by heart a few 
 technical terms without knowing their meaning are no other 
 than Magpies. I myself, who have crowed to the whole town 
 for near three years past, may perhaps put my readers in mind 
 of a Barnyard Cock ; but as I must acquaint them that they 
 will hear the last of me on this day fortnight, I hope they will 
 then consider me as a Swan, who is supposed to sing sweetly at 
 his dying moments.
 
 THE OCEAN OF INE 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE COLMAN 
 
 AND 
 
 BONNEL THORNTON
 
 GEORGE COLMAN 
 
 1733— 1794 
 
 George Colman, a dramatic writer and accomplished scholar, was 
 born at Florence, in 1733, where his father at that time resided as the 
 British envoy. After receiving his education at Westminster School 
 and at Christ Church, Oxford, he turned his attention to the law as 
 a profession; but his writings in "The Connoisseur" having met 
 with success, gave him a bias towards polite literature, and he accord- 
 ingly abandoned the graver pursuits of legal science. His first dra- 
 matic attempt was " Polly Honeycombe," which was performed at 
 Drury Lane with great, though only temporary, success. In the fol- 
 lowing year, 17C1, he produced his comedy of the " Jealous Wife," 
 which at once became popular and has ever since kept the stage. 
 " The Clandestine Marriage," " The English Merchant," etc., added 
 to his fame; and he wrote a number of other pieces, which, though 
 inferior to these, were by no means deficient in merit. Lord Bath 
 and General Pulteney, at their deaths, left him considerable legacies, 
 which enabled him to purchase a share in Covent Garden Theatre. 
 Disputes arising between himself and the other proprietors, he very 
 soon disposed of this property, and purchased the little theatre in the 
 Haymarket, which he conducted until an attack of paralysis reduced 
 him to a state of mental imbecility. In addition to his writings men- 
 tioned above, he translated the comedies of Terence, and Horace's 
 " De Arte Poetica." He died in 1794. 
 
 BONNEL THORNTON 
 1724— 1768 
 
 Bonnel Thornton, a humorous writer and poet, was born in Lon- 
 don, in 1724, and was educated at Westminster School and Christ 
 Church, Oxford. He made literature his profession, and was on terms 
 of intimacy with many of the wits of the age, united with the elder 
 Colman in " The Connoisseur," and was a fertile contributor to the 
 periodicals of the day. He projected an exhibition of sign paintings; 
 and brought out a burlesque " Ode for St. Cecilia's Day," which af- 
 forded much amusement. In 1766 he published a translation of 
 Plautus; and the year following a poem, entitled "The Battle of the 
 Wigs," in ridicule of the dispute between the licentiates and fellows 
 of the College of Physicians. He died in 1768. 
 
 " The Ocean of Ink " is taken from " The Connoisseur." Colman 
 and Thornton, according to their own statement, collaborated in every 
 essay, and wrote in such unison that almost every single paper is the 
 joint product of both. " The Connoisseur " lasted from January, 
 1754, to September, 1756, and was succeeded by Johnson's " Idler." 
 
 382
 
 THE OCEAN OF INK 
 
 Suave viiari maguo, turbantibus cequora ventis, 
 
 E terra magnum alterius spectare laborem. — Lucretius. 
 
 When raging winds the ruffled deep deform, 
 We look at distance, and enjoy the storm ; 
 Toss'd on the waves with pleasure others see, 
 Nor heed their dangers, while ourselves are free. 
 
 WE writers of essays, or (as they are termed) periodical 
 papers, justly claim to ourselves a place among the 
 modern improvers of literature. Neither Bentley 
 nor Burman,^ nor any other equally sagacious commentator, 
 has been able to discover the least traces of any similar pro- 
 ductions among the ancients : except we can suppose that the 
 history of Thucydides was retailed weekly in sixpenny num- 
 bers; that Seneca dealt out his morality every Saturday, or 
 that Tully wrote speeches and philosophical disquisitions, whilst 
 iVirgil and Horace clubbed together to furnish the poetry for a 
 Roman magazine. 
 
 There is a word, indeed, by which we are fond of distin- 
 guishing our works, and for which we must confess ourselves 
 indebted to the Latin. Myself, and every petty journalist, 
 affect to dignify our hasty performances by styling them " lucu- 
 brations " ; by which we mean, if we mean anything, that as 
 the day is too short for our labors, we are obliged to call in the 
 assistance of the night : not to mention the modest insinuation 
 that our compositions are so correct, that (like the orations of 
 Demosthenes) they may be said to smell of the lamp. We 
 would be understood to follow the directions of the Roman sat- 
 irist, " to grow pale by the midnight candle " ; though, perhaps, 
 as our own satirist ^ expresses it, we may be thought 
 
 " Sleepless ourselves, to give our readers sleep," 
 
 * Peter Burraan (d. 1741), an eminent * Pope, " Dunciad," i. 94. 
 
 classical commentator, and professor at 
 Leyden.
 
 384 COLMAN— THORNTON 
 
 But as a relief from the fatigue of so many restless hours, 
 we have frequently gone to sleep for the benefit of the public: 
 and surely we, whose labors are confined to a sheet and a half, 
 may be indulged in taking a nap now and then, as well as 
 those engaged in longer works; who (according to Horace) 
 are to be excused if a little drowsiness sometimes creeps in 
 upon them. 
 
 After this preface, the reader will not be surprised, if I take 
 the liberty to relate a dream of my own. It is usual on these 
 occasions to be lulled to sleep by some book : and most of my 
 brethren pay that compliment to Virgil or Shakespeare: but 
 as I could never discover any opiate qualities in those authors, 
 I chose rather to doze over some modern performance. I must 
 beg to be excused from mentioning particulars, as I would not 
 provoke the resentment of my contemporaries: nobody will 
 imagine that I dipped into any of our modern novels, or took 
 up any of our late tragedies. Let it suffice that I presently 
 fell fast asleep. 
 
 I found myself transported in an instant to the shore of 
 an immense sea, covered with innumerable vessels ; and though 
 many of them suddenly disappeared every minute, I saw others 
 continually launching forth, and pursuing the same course. 
 The seers of visions and dreamers of dreams have their or- 
 gans of sight so considerably improved, that they can take 
 in any object, however distant or minute. It is not, therefore, 
 to be wondered at that I could discern everything distinctly, 
 though the waters before me were of the deepest black. 
 
 While I stood contemplating this amazing scene, one of those 
 good-natured Genii, who never fail making their appearance 
 to extricate dreamers from their difficulties, rose from the 
 sable stream and planted himself at my elbow. His com- 
 plexion was of the darkest hue, not unlike that of the demons 
 of a printing-house ; his jetty beard shone like the bristles of 
 a blacking-brush ; on his head he wore a turban of imperial 
 paper ; and there hung a calfskin on his reverend limbs, which 
 was gilt on the back, and faced with robings of morocco, let- 
 tered (like a rubric-post) with the names of the most eminent 
 authors. In his left hand he bore a printed scroll, which from 
 the marginal corrections I imagined to be a proof-sheet ; and 
 in his right hand he waved the quill of a goose.
 
 THE OCEAN OF INK 3^5 
 
 He immediately accosted me. " Town," ' said he, «* I am 
 the Genius who is destined to conduct you through these tur- 
 bulent waves. The sea that you now behold is the Ocean of 
 Ink. Those towers, at a great distance, whose bases are 
 founded upon rocks, and whose tops seem lost in the clouds, 
 are situated in the Isle of Fame. Contiguous to these, you 
 may discern by the glittering of its golden sands, is the Coast 
 of Gain, which leads to a fertile and rich country. All the 
 vessels which are yonder sailing with a fair wind on the main 
 sea are making towards one or other of these ; but you will ob- 
 serve that on the first setting out they were irresistibly drawn 
 into the eddies of Criticism, where they were obliged to en- 
 counter the most dreadful tempests and hurricanes. In these 
 dangerous straits you see with what violence every bark is 
 tossed up and down ; some go to the bottom at once ; others, 
 after a faint struggle, are beat to pieces; many are much 
 damaged; while a few, by sound planks and tight rigging, 
 are enabled to weather the storm." 
 
 At this sight I started back with horror; and the remem- 
 brance still dwells so strong upon my fancy, that I even now 
 imagine the torrent of criticism bursting in upon me, and ready 
 to overwhelm me in an instant. 
 
 " Cast a look," resumed my instructor, " on that vast lake 
 divided into two parts, which lead to yonder magnificent 
 structures, erected by the Tragic and Comic Muse. There you 
 may observe many trying to force a passage without chart or 
 compass. Some have been overset by crowding too much sail, 
 and others have foundered by carrying too much ballast. An 
 Arcadian vessel * (the master an Irishman) was, through con- 
 trary squalls, scarce able to live nine days; but you see that 
 light Italian gondola, Gli Amanti Gelosi, skims along pleas- 
 antly before the wind, and outstrips the painted frigates of 
 our country, Didone and Artaserse. Observe that triumphant 
 squadron, to whose flag all the others pay homage. Most of 
 them are ships of the first-rate, and were fitted out many years 
 ago. Though somewhat irregular in their make, and but lit- 
 tle conformable to the exact rules of art, they will ever continue 
 
 » The pseudonym used by the joint dola refers to an Italian burlesque, and 
 
 editors, Colman and Thornton. the frigates to two Italian operas (Har- 
 
 4 The vessel is a tragedy, " Philoclea," risen), 
 based on Sidney's "Arcadia"; the gon-
 
 386 COLMAN— THORNTON 
 
 the pride and glory of these seas; for, as it is remarked by 
 the present Laureate,'^ in his prologue to Papal Tyranny, 
 
 " Shakespeare, whose art no playwright can excel, 
 Has launch'd us fleets of plays, and built them well." 
 
 The Genius then bade me turn my eye where the water 
 seemed to foam with perpetual agitation. " That," said he, "is 
 the strong current of PoHtics, often fatal to those who venture 
 on it." I could not but take notice of a poor wretch on the 
 opposite shore, fastened by the ears to a terrible machine. This, 
 the Genius informed me, was the memorable Defoe, set up there 
 as a landmark, to prevent future mariners from splitting on the 
 same rock. To this turbulent prospect succeeded objects of 
 a more placid nature. In a little creek, winding through flow- 
 ery meads and shady groves, I descried several gilded yachts 
 and pleasure boats, all of them keeping due time with their 
 silver oars, and gliding along the smooth, even, calm, regularly 
 flowing rivulets of Rhyme. Shepherds and shepherdesses 
 played on the banks; the sails were gently swelled with the 
 soft breezes of amorous sighs ; and little Loves sported in the 
 silken cordage. 
 
 My attention was now called oflF from these pacific scenes 
 to an obstinate engagement between several ships, distinguished 
 from all others by bearing the Holy Cross for their color.s. 
 These, the Genius told me, were employed in the Holy War of 
 Religious Controversy ; and he pointed out to me a few corsairs 
 in the service of the infidels, sometimes aiding one party, some- 
 times siding with the other, as might best contribute to the 
 general confusion. I observed in different parts of the ocean 
 several galleys, which were rowed by slaves. " Those," said 
 the Genius, " are fitted out by very oppressive owners, and are 
 all of them bound to the Coast of Gain. The miserable wretches 
 whom you see chained to the oars are obliged to tug without 
 the least respite ; and though the voyage should turn out suc- 
 cessful, they have little or no share in the profits. Some few 
 you may observe who rather choose to make a venture on their 
 own bottoms. These work as hard as the galley-slaves, and 
 are frequently cast away ; but though they are never so often 
 
 • Colley Gibber.
 
 THE OCEAN OF INK 387 
 
 wrecked, necessity still constrains them to put out to sea 
 
 again — 
 
 " Reficit rates 
 Quassas, indocilis pauperiem pati." — Horace. 
 
 Still must the wretch his shatter'd bark refit, 
 For who to starve can patiently submit ? 
 
 It were needless to enumerate many other particulars that 
 engaged my notice. Among the rest was a large fleet of An- 
 notators, Dutch-built, which sailed very heavy, were often 
 aground, and continually ran foul of each other. The whole 
 ocean, I also found, was infested by pirates, who ransacked 
 every rich vessel that came in their way. Most of these were 
 endeavoring to make the Coast of Gain, by hanging out false 
 colors, or by forging their passports, and pretending to be 
 freighted out by the most reputable traders. 
 
 My eyes were at last fixed, I know not how, on a spacious 
 channel running through the midst of a great city. I felt 
 such a secret impulse at this sight that I could not help in- 
 quiring particularly about it. " The discovery of that pas- 
 sage," said the Genius, " was first made by one Bickerstaflf, in 
 the good ship called ' The Tatler,' and who afterwards em- 
 barked in the ' Spectator ' and * Guardian.' These have been 
 followed since by a number of little sloops, skiffs, hoys, and 
 cock-boats, which have been most of them wrecked in the 
 attempt. Thither also must your course be directed." — At 
 this instant the Genius suddenly snatched me up in his arms, 
 and plunged me headlong into the inky flood. While I lay 
 gasping and struggling beneath the waves, methought I heard 
 a familiar voice calling me by name, which awaking me, I with 
 pleasure recollected the features of the Genius in those of my 
 publisher, who was standing by my bedside, and had called 
 upon me for copy.
 
 EXTRAORDINARY ACC O'U NT OF 
 
 ROBERT BURNS, THE AYRSHIRE 
 
 PLOUGHMAN 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY MACKENZIE
 
 HENRY MACKENZIE 
 1745— 1831 
 
 Henry Mackenzie was born in Edinburgh, in August, 1745. His 
 father, Dr. Joshua Mackenzie, was a physician in extensive practice. 
 He was educated at the High School, and afterwards studied law. 
 The department of law chosen by Mackenzie was the business of the 
 Exchequer Court, to improve himself in which he went to Lordon, 
 in 1765, to study the English Exchequer practice. His earliest and 
 most successful novel, " The Man of Feeling," was begun in London 
 about this time, and afterwards published anonymously in 1771. His 
 professional life in Edinburgh allowed him sufficient leisure to cul- 
 tivate literature. Besides his other works he was the editor of two 
 periodicals, the " Mirror " and the " Lounger." The " Mirror " con- 
 tinued to appear for seventeen months, from January, 1779; and the 
 " Lounger," which was commenced in February, 1785, ceased publi- 
 cation about two years afterwards. One of the most notable of Mac- 
 kenzie's contributions to these two periodicals is the kindly and well- 
 timed criticism on Burns's works. He wrote some dramatic pieces, 
 which were brought out at Edinburgh with but indifferent success. 
 Mackenzie supported the government of Mr. Pitt with som.e pamph- 
 lets written with great acuteness and discrimination. In real life the 
 novelist was shrewd and practical: he had early exhausted his vein 
 of romance, and was an active man of business. In 1804 the govern- 
 ment appointed him to the ofifice of comptroller of taxes for Scotland, 
 which entailed upon him considerable labor and drudgery, but was 
 highly lucrative. In this situation, with a numerous family (he mar- 
 ried Miss Penuel Grant — daughter of Sir Ludovic Grant, of Grant), 
 enjoying the society of his friends and his favorite sports of the 
 field, writing occasionally on subjects of taste and literature — for, he 
 said, " the old stump would still occasionally send forth a few green 
 shoots "—the author of " The Man of Feeling " lived to the advanced 
 age of eighty-six. 
 
 390
 
 EXTRAORDINARY ACCOUNT OF ROBERT 
 BURNS, THE AYRSHIRE PLOUGHMAN 
 
 TO the feeling and the susceptible there is something won- 
 derfully pleasing in the contemplation of genius, of 
 that super-eminent reach of mind by which some men 
 are distinguished.^ In the view of highly superior talents, as 
 in that of great and stupendous natural objects, there is a sub- 
 limity which fills the soul with wonder and delight, which 
 expands it, as it were, beyond its usual bounds, and which, 
 investing our nature with extraordinary powers and extraordi- 
 nary honors, interests our curiosity, and flatters our pride. 
 
 This divinity of genius, however, which admiration is fond to 
 worship, is best arrayed in the darkness of distant and remote 
 periods, and is not easily acknowledged in the present times, 
 or in places with which we are perfectly acquainted. Exclusive 
 of all the deductions which envy or jealousy may sometimes be 
 supposed to make, there is a familiarity in the near approach 
 of persons around us, not very consistent with the lofty ideas 
 which we wish to form of him, who has led captive our imagina- 
 tion in the triumph of his fancy, overpowered our feelings with 
 the tide of passion, or enlightened our reason with the investi- 
 gation of hidden truths. It may be true, that " in the olden 
 time " genius had some advantages which tended to its vigor 
 and its growth ; but it is not unlikely, that, even in these de- 
 generate days, it rises much oftener than it is observed; that 
 
 entitled the ' Lounger,' published in 
 Edinburgh by Mr. Creech. Mr. Mac- 
 kenzie read the poems with the usual 
 admiration, and lost no time in writing 
 upon them a generous critique, which 
 appeared in the ' Lounger ' for the pth 
 of December [1786]. By this alone the 
 fame of Burns was perfected in Scot- 
 land ; for, by the pronouncement of the 
 greatest tribunal in the country, all 
 lesser judges were set free to give their 
 judgment in the direction which their 
 feelings had already dictated." 
 
 ^ The story of this notice, which 
 helped to introduce, and finally settle, 
 Burns' fame as a poet in public estima- 
 tion, is thus told by Robert Chambers 
 in his " Life and Works of Burns " : 
 " Professor Stewart, on leaving the 
 banks of the Ayr at the beginning of 
 November to commence his winter ses- 
 sion at the university, carried with him 
 a copy of the Kilmarnock volume, 
 which he brought under the notice of 
 Mr. Henry Mackenzie, the well-known 
 author of the ' Man of Feeling/ and 
 who was now conducting a periodical 
 
 39 i
 
 392 MACKENZIE 
 
 in " the ignorant present time," our posterity may find names 
 which they will dignify, though we neglected, and pay to their 
 memory those honors which their contemporaries had denied 
 them. 
 
 There is, however, a natural, and indeed a fortunate, vanity in 
 trying to redress this wrong which genius is exposed to suffer. 
 In the discovery of talents generally unknown, men are apt to 
 indulge the same fond partiality as in all other discoveries which 
 themselves have made; and hence we have had repeated in- 
 stances of painters and of poets, who have been drawn from 
 obscure situations, and held forth to public notice and applause 
 by the extravagant encomiums of their introductors, yet in a 
 short time have sunk again to their former obscurity ; whose 
 merit, though perhaps somewhat neglected, did not appear to 
 have been much undervalued by the world, and could not sup- 
 port, by its own intrinsic excellence, that superior place which 
 the enthusiasm of its patrons would have assigned it. 
 
 I know not if I shall be accused of such enthusiasm and par- 
 tiality, when I introduce to the notice of my readers a poet of 
 our own country, with whose writings I have lately become 
 acquainted; but if I am not greatly deceived, I think I may 
 safely pronounce him a genius of no ordinary rank. The person 
 to whom I allude is Robert Burns, an Ayrshire ploughman, 
 whose poems were some time ago published in a county town 
 in the west of Scotland, with no other ambition, it would seem, 
 than to circulate among the inhabitants of the county where he 
 was born, to obtain a little fame from those who had heard of 
 his talents. I hope I shall not be thought to assume too much, if 
 I endeavor to place him in a higher point of view, to call for a 
 verdict of his country on the merit of his works, and to claim 
 for him those honors which their excellence appears to deserve. 
 
 In mentioning the circumstances of his humble station, I 
 mean not to rest his pretensions solely on that title, or to urge 
 the merits of his poetry when considered in relation to the low- 
 ness of his birth, and the little opportunity of improvement 
 which his education could afford. These particulars, indeed, 
 might excite our wonder at his productions ; but his poetry, con- 
 sidered abstractedly, and with the apologies arising from his 
 situation, seems to me fully entitled to command our feelings, 
 and to obtain our applause. One bar, indeed, his birth and edu-
 
 EXTRAORDINARY ACCOUNT OF ROBERT BURNS 393 
 
 cation have opposed to his fame — the language in which most 
 of his poems are written. Even in Scotland, the provincial dia- 
 lect which Ramsay and he have used is now read with a diffi- 
 culty which greatly damps the pleasure of the reader : in Eng- 
 land it cannot be read at all, without such a constant reference 
 to a glossary, as nearly to destroy that pleasure. 
 
 Some of his productions, however, especially those of the 
 grave style, are almost English. From one of those I shall first 
 present my readers with an extract, in which I think they will 
 discover a high tone of feeling, a power and energy of expres- 
 sion, particularly and strongly characteristic of the mind and the 
 voice of a poet. It is from his poem entitled " The Vision," in 
 which the genius of his native county, Ayrshire, is thus sup- 
 posed to address him : 
 
 " With future hope, I oft would gaze, 
 Fond, on thy little early ways, 
 Thy rudely carolled, chiming phrase, 
 
 In uncouth rhymes, 
 Fired at the simple, artless lays 
 
 Of other times. 
 
 ** I saw thee seek the sounding shore. 
 Delighted with the dashing roar; 
 Or, when the North his fleecy store 
 
 Drove through the sky, 
 I saw grim Nature's visage hoar 
 
 Strike thy young eye. 
 
 «< 
 
 Or when the deep-green mantled earth, 
 Warm-cherished every floweret's birth. 
 And joy and music pouring forth 
 
 In every grove, 
 I saw thee eye the general mirth 
 
 With boundless love. 
 
 "When ripened fields and azure skies 
 Called forth the reapers' rustling noise, 
 I saw thee leave their evening joys, 
 
 And lonely stalk. 
 To vent thy bosom's swelling rise 
 
 In pensive walk. 
 
 "When youthful love, warm-blushing strong, 
 Keen-shivering, shot thy nerves along,
 
 394 MACKENZIE 
 
 Those accents, grateful to thy tongue, 
 
 The adored name, 
 
 I taught thee how to pour in song. 
 
 To soothe thy flame, 
 
 *' I saw thy pulse's maddening play, 
 Wild, send thee Pleasure's devious way. 
 Misled by Fancy's meteor-ray. 
 
 By Passion driven; 
 But yet the light that led astray 
 
 Was light from heaven." 
 
 Of strains like the above, solemn and sublime, with that rapt 
 and inspired melancholy in which the poet li'fts his eye " above 
 this visible diurnal sphere," the poems entitled " Despondency," 
 " The Lament," " Winter: a Dirge," and the " Invocation to 
 Ruin " afford no less striking examples. Of the tender and 
 the moral, specimens equally advantageous might be drawn 
 from the elegiac verses, entitled, " Man was made to Mourn," 
 from " The Cottar's Saturday Night," the stanzas " To a 
 Mouse," or those " To a Mountain Daisy, on turning it down 
 •with the plough in April, 1786." This last poem I shall insert 
 entire, not from its superior merit, but because its length suits 
 the bounds of my paper : 
 
 " Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flower, 
 Thou's met me in an evil hour. 
 For I maun crush amang the stoure 
 
 Thy slender stem; 
 To spare thee now is past my power, 
 
 Thou bonnie gem. 
 
 "Alas! it's no thy neighbor sweet. 
 The bonnie lark, companion meet; 
 Bending thee 'mong the dewy weet 
 
 Wi' spreckled breast, 
 When upward-springing, blythe to greet 
 
 The purpling east. 
 
 ** Cauld blew the bitter-biting north 
 Upon thy early, humble birth; 
 Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth 
 
 Amid the storm, 
 Scarce reared above the parent-earth 
 
 Thy tender form.
 
 EXTRAORDINARY ACCOUNT OF ROBERT BURNS 395 
 
 " The flaunting flowers our gardens yield, 
 High-sheltering woods and wa's maun shield, 
 But thou beneath the random bield 
 
 Of clod or stane, 
 Adorns the histie stubble-field, 
 
 Unseen, alane. 
 
 " There, in thy scanty mantle clad, 
 Thy snowy bosom sunward spread, 
 Thou lifts thy unassuming head, 
 
 In humble guise; 
 But now the share uptears thy bed, 
 
 And low thou lies! 
 
 *' Such is the fate of artless maid, 
 Sweet floweret of the rural shade! 
 By love's simplicity betrayed. 
 
 And guileless trust, 
 Till she, like thee, all soiled, is laid 
 
 Low in the dust 
 
 " Such is the fate of simple bard, 
 On life's rough ocean luckless starred! 
 Unskilful he to note the card 
 
 Of prudent lore, 
 Till billows rage, and gales blow hard, 
 
 And whelm him o'er. 
 
 ** Such fate to sufifering worth is given. 
 Who long with wants and woes has striven. 
 By human pride or cunning driven 
 
 To misery's brink. 
 Till, wrenched of every stay but Heaven, 
 
 He ruined sink. 
 
 " Ev'n thou who mournst the daisy's fate. 
 
 That fate is thine No distant date; 
 
 Stern Ruin's plough-share drives, elate, 
 
 Full on thy bloom, 
 Till crushed beneath the furrow's weight. 
 
 Shall be thy doom." 
 
 f have seldom met with an image more truly pastoral than 
 that of the lark, in the second stanza. Such strokes as these 
 mark the pencil of the poet, which delineates nature with the 
 precision of intimacy, yet with the delicate coloring of beauty 
 and of taste.
 
 396 MACKENZIE 
 
 The power of genius is not less admirable in tracing the man- 
 ners, than in painting the passions, or in drawing the scenery of 
 nature. That intuitive glance with which a writer like Shake- 
 speare discerns the characters of men, with which he catches 
 the many changing hues of life, forms a sort of problem in the 
 science of mind, of which it is easier to see the truth than to 
 assign the cause. Though I am very far from meaning to com- 
 pare our rustic bard to Shakespeare, yet whoever will read his 
 lighter and more humorous poems, his " Dialogue of the Dogs," 
 
 his " Dedication to G H , Esq.," his " Epistles to a 
 
 Young Friend," and to " W. S n," will perceive with what 
 
 uncommon penetration and sagacity this heaven-taught plough- 
 man, from his humble and unlettered station, has looked upon 
 men and manners. 
 
 Against some passages of those last-mentioned poems it has 
 been objected that they breathe a spirit of libertinism and irre- 
 ligion. But if we consider the ignorance and fanaticism of the 
 lower class of people in the country where these poems were 
 written, a fanaticism of that pernicious sort which sets faith in 
 opposition to good works, the fallacy and danger of which a 
 mind so enlightened as our poet's could not but perceive; we 
 shall not look upon his lighter muse as the enemy of religion (of 
 which in several places he expresses the justest sentiments), 
 though she has sometimes been a little unguarded in her ridi- 
 cule of hypocrisy. 
 
 In this, as in other respects, it must be allowed, that there are 
 exceptionable parts of the volume he has given to the public 
 which caution would have suppressed, or correction struck out ; 
 but poets are seldom cautious, and our poet had, alas ! no 
 friends or companions from whom correction could be obtained. 
 When we reflect on his rank in life, the habits to which he must 
 have been subject, and the society in which he must have mixed, 
 we regret perhaps more than wonder that delicacy should be 
 so often offended in perusing a volume in which there is so 
 much to interest and to please us. 
 
 Burns possesses the spirit as well as the fancy of a poet. 
 That honest pride and independence of soul which are some- 
 times the muse's only dower break forth on every occasion in 
 his works. It may be, then, I shall wrong his feelings, while I 
 indulge my own, in calling the attention of the public to his
 
 EXTRAORDINARY ACCOUNT OF ROBERT BURNS 397 
 
 situation and circumstances. That condition, humble as it was, 
 in which he found content, and wooed the muse, might not have 
 been deemed uncomfortable; but grief and misfortunes have 
 reached him there ; and one or two of his poems hint, what I 
 have learned from some of his countrymen, that he has been 
 obliged to form the resolution of leaving his native land, to 
 seek under a West Indian clime that shelter and support which 
 Scotland has denied him. But I trust means may be found to 
 prevent this resolution from taking place; and that I do my 
 country no more than justice v.^hen I suppose her ready to 
 stretch out her hand to cherish and retain this native poet, \vhose 
 " woodnotes wild " possess so much excellence. To repair the 
 wrongs of suffering or neglected merit ; to call forth genius 
 from the obscurity in which it had pined indignant, and place 
 it where it may profit or delight the world ; these are exertions 
 which give to wealth an enviable superiority, to greatness and 
 to patronage a laudable pride.
 
 FALLACIES OF ANTI -REFORMERS 
 
 BY 
 
 SYDNEY SMITH
 
 SYDNEY SMITH 
 
 1771— 1845 
 
 Sydney Smith was born at Woodford, near London, in the year 
 1771. He was educated at Winchester School and at New College, 
 where he obtained a fellowship in 1790. He took orders, and settled 
 in his first curacy in a remote village on Salisbury Plain. At the end 
 of two years he resigned his charge in order to accompany the son 
 of the squire of the parish to Weimar, where he was to reside for his 
 education. The war of 1797 defeated this purpose, and tutor and 
 scholar were driven to Edinburgh, where Sydney Smith remained for 
 five years as minister of the Episcopal Church in that city. He be- 
 came the intimate friend of Jeflfrey, Murray, and Brougham, and in 
 company with them commenced the " Edinburgh Review," of which 
 he was the first editor as well as one of the founders. On his removal 
 to London he continued to be one of its principal contributors, advo- 
 cating in its pages the cause of progress in political matters, as well 
 as in many questions now best known under the name of social 
 science. In London he became both a popular preacher and also a 
 successful lecturer at the Royal Institution. During the greater part 
 of his life he was the friend of Lord Grey, Lord Holland, and the 
 other leaders of the Whig party. He was made a Canon of Bristol in 
 1828, and of St. Paul's in 1831. He died in 1845. 
 
 " Fallacies of Anti-Reformers " is highly characteristic of Sydney 
 Smith's style, displaying the fertility of his fancy and the richness of 
 his humor, at the same time driving home his argument with irre- 
 sistible eflfect. Like Swift, he seems never to have taken up his pen 
 from the mere love of composition, but to enforce practical views and 
 opinions on which he felt strongly. His wit and banter are equally 
 direct and cogent. Though a professed joker and convivial wit — " a 
 diner-out of the first lustre," as he has himself characterized Mr. Can- 
 ning — there is not one of his humorous or witty sallies that does not 
 seem to flow naturally, and without effort, as if struck out or remem- 
 bered at the moment it is used. He was a fine representative of the 
 intellectual Englishman — manly, fearless, and independent. His tal- 
 ents were always exercised on practical subjects; to correct what he 
 deemed abuses, to enforce religious toleration, to expose cant and 
 hypocrisy, and to inculcate timely reformation. No politician was 
 ever more disinterested or eflfective. He had the wit and energy of 
 Swift without his coarseness or cynicism, and if inferior to Swift in 
 the high attribute of original inventive genius, he had a peculiar and 
 inimitable breadth of humor and drollery of illustration that served as 
 potent auxiliaries to his clear and logical argument. 
 
 400
 
 FALLACIES OF ANTI-REFORMERS 
 
 The Book of Fallacies: from Unfinished Papers of Jeremy 
 Bentham. By a Friend 
 
 THERE are a vast number of absurd and mischievous 
 fallacies, which pass readily in the world for sense and 
 virtue, while in truth they tend only to fortify error 
 and encourage crime. Mr. Bentham has enumerated the most 
 conspicuous of these in the book before us. 
 
 Whether it be necessary there should be a middleman be- 
 tween the cultivator and the possessor, learned economists have 
 doubted; but neither gods, men, nor booksellers can doubt 
 the necessity of a middleman between Mr. Bentham and the 
 pubHc. Mr. Bentham is long; Mr. Bentham is occasionally 
 involved and obscure ; Mr. Bentham invents new and alarming 
 expressions ; Mr. Bentham loves division and subdivision — 
 and he loves method itself, more than its consequences. Those 
 only, therefore, who know his originality, his knowledge, his 
 vigor, and his boldness, will recur to the works themselves. 
 The great mass of readers will not purchase improvement at so 
 dear a rate ; but will choose rather to become acquainted with 
 Mr. Bentham through the medium of reviews — after that emi- 
 nent philosopher has been washed, trimmed, shaved, and 
 forced into clean linen. One great use of a review, indeed, 
 is to make men wise in ten pages, who have no appetite for a 
 hundred pages ; to condense nourishment, to work with pulp 
 and essence, and to guard the stomach from idle burden and 
 unmeaning bulk. For half a page, sometimes for a whole 
 page, Mr. Bentham writes with a power which few can equal ; 
 and by selecting and omitting, an admirable style may be 
 formed from the text. Using this liberty, we shall endeavor 
 to give an account of Mr. Bentham's doctrines, for the most 
 part in his own words. Wherever an expression is particu- 
 
 4°^ 18— Vol. 57
 
 402 SMITH 
 
 larly happy, let it be considered to be Mr. Bentham's — the 
 dulness we take to ourselves. 
 
 Our Wise Ancestors — The Wisdom of Our Ancestors — 
 The Wisdom of Ages — Venerable Antiquity — Wisdom of Old 
 Times. — This mischievous and absurd fallacy springs from the 
 grossest perversion of the meaning of words. Experience 
 is certainly the mother of wisdom, and the old have, of course, 
 a greater experience than the young ; but the question is who 
 are the old? and who are the young? Of individuals living 
 at the same period, the oldest has, of course, the greatest ex- 
 perience; but among generations of men the reverse of this 
 is true. Those who come first (our ancestors) are the young 
 people, and have the least experience. We have added to 
 their experience the experience of many centuries ; and, there- 
 fore, as far as experience goes, are wiser, and more capable 
 of forming an opinion than they were. The real feeling should 
 be, not can we be so presumptuous as to put our opinions in 
 opposition to those of our ancestors? but can such young, 
 ignorant, inexperienced persons as our ancestors necessarily 
 were, be expected to have understood a subject as well as 
 those who have seen so much more, lived so much longer, and 
 enjoyed the experience of so many centuries? All this cant, 
 then, about our ancestors is merely an abuse of words, by 
 transferring phrases true of contemporary men to succeeding 
 ages. Whereas (as we have before observed) of living men 
 the oldest has, cceteris paribus, the most experience; of gen- 
 erations, the oldest has, cceteris paribus, the least experience. 
 Our ancestors, up to the Conquest, were children in arms; 
 chubby boys in the time of Edward I ; striplings under Eliza- 
 beth ; men in the reign of Queen Anne ; and zve only are the 
 white-bearded, silver-headed ancients, who have treasured up, 
 and are prepared to profit by, all the experience which human 
 life can supply. We are not disputing with our ancestors the 
 palm of talent, in which they may or may not be our superiors, 
 but the palm of experience in which it is utterly impossible 
 they can be our superiors. And yet, whenever the Chancellor 
 comes forward to protect some abuse, or to oppose some plan 
 which has the increase of human happiness for its object, his 
 first appeal is always to the wisdom of our ancestors ; and he 
 himself, and many noble lords who vote with him, are, to this
 
 FALLACIES OF ANTI-REFORMERS 
 
 403 
 
 hour, persuaded that all alterations and amendments on their 
 devices are an unblushing controversy between youthful temer- 
 ity and mature experience ! — and so, in truth they are — only 
 that much-loved magistrate mistakes the young for the old, 
 and the old for the young — and is guilty of that very sin against 
 experience which he attributes to the lovers of innovation. 
 
 We cannot of course be supposed to maintain that our an- 
 cestors wanted wisdom, or that they were necessarily mistaken 
 in their institutions, because their means of information were 
 more limited than ours. But we do confidently maintain 
 that when we find it expedient to change anything which our 
 ancestors have enacted, we are the experienced persons, and 
 not they. The quantity of talent is always varying in any 
 great nation. To say that we are more or less able than our 
 ancestors is an assertion that requires to be explained. All 
 the able men of all ages, who have ever lived in England, 
 probably possessed, if taken altogether, more intellect than 
 all the able men England can now boast of. But if authority 
 must be resorted to rather than reason, the question is. What 
 was the wisdom of that single age which enacted the law, 
 compared with the wisdom of the age which proposes to alter 
 it? What are the eminent men of one and the other period? 
 If you say that our ancestors were wiser than us, mention your 
 date and year. If the splendor of names is equal, are the cir- 
 cumstances the same? If the circumstances are the same, we 
 have a superiority of experience, of which the difference be- 
 tween the two periods is the measure. It is necessary to insist 
 upon this ; for upon sacks of wool, and on benches forensic, 
 sit grave men, and agricolous persons in the Commons, crying 
 out: "Ancestors, ancestors! hodie non! Saxons, Danes, save 
 us ! Fiddlefrig, help us ! Howel, Ethelwolf, protect us ! " 
 Any cover for nonsense — any veil for trash — any pretext for 
 repelling the innovations of conscience and of duty ! 
 
 " So long as they keep to vague generalities — so long as the 
 two objects of comparison are each of them taken in the lump 
 — wise ancestors in one lump, ignorant and foolish mob of 
 modern times in the other — the weakness of the fallacy may 
 escape detection. But let them assign for the period of su- 
 perior wisdom any determinate period whatsoever, not only 
 will the groundlessness of the notion be apparent (class being
 
 404 
 
 SMITH 
 
 compared with class in that period and the present one), but, 
 unless the antecedent period be comparatively speaking a very 
 modern one, so wide will be the disparity, and to such an 
 amount in favor of modern times, that, in comparison of the 
 lowest class of the people in modern times (always supposing 
 them proficient in the art of reading, and their proficiency 
 employed in the reading of newspapers), the very highest and 
 best-informed class of these wise ancestors will turn out to be 
 grossly ignorant. 
 
 " Take, for example, any year in the reign of Henry VIII, 
 from 1509 to 1546. At that time the House of Lords would 
 probably have been in possession of by far the larger propor- 
 tion of what little instruction the age afforded ; in the House 
 of Lords, among the laity, it might even then be a question 
 whether, without exception, their lordships were all of them 
 able so much as to read. But even supposing them all in the 
 fullest possession of that useful art, political science being the 
 science in question, what instruction on the subject could they 
 meet with at that time of day? 
 
 " On no one branch of legislation was any book extant from 
 which, with regard to the circumstances of the then present 
 times, any useful instruction could be derived : distributive 
 law, penal law, international law, political economy, so far 
 from existing as sciences, had scarcely obtained a name : in 
 all those departments under the head of quid faciendum, a mere 
 blank : the whole literature of the age consisted of a meagre 
 chronicle or two, containing short memorandums of the usual 
 occurrences of war and peace, battles, sieges, executions, revels, 
 deaths, births, processions, ceremonies, and other external 
 events ; but with scarce a speech or an incident that could 
 enter into the composition of any such work as a history of the 
 human mind — with scarce an attempt at investigation into 
 causes, characters, or the state of the people at large. Even 
 when at last, little by little, a scrap or two of political instruc- 
 tion came to be obtainable, the proportion of error and mis- 
 chievous doctrine mixed up with it was so great, that whether 
 a blank unfilled might not have been less prejudicial than a 
 blank thus filled, may reasonably be matter of doubt. 
 
 " If we come down to the reign of James I, we shall find that 
 Solomon of his time eminently eloquent as well as learned, not
 
 FALLACIES OF ANTI-REFORMERS 405 
 
 only among crowned but among uncrowned heads, marking 
 out for prohibition and punishment the practices of devils and 
 witches, and without the slightest objection on the part of the 
 great characters of that day in their high situations, consign- 
 ing men to death and torment for the misfortune of not being 
 so well acquainted as he was with the composition of the God- 
 head. 
 
 " Under the name of exorcism the Catholic liturgy contains 
 a form of procedure for driving out devils ; — even with the 
 help of this instrument, the operation cannot be performed 
 with the desired success, but by an operator qualified by holy 
 orders for the working of this as well as so many other wonders. 
 In our days and in our country the same objtct is attained, 
 and beyond comparison more effectually, by so cheap an in- 
 strument as a common newspaper; before this talisman, not 
 only devils but ghosts, vampires, witches, and all" their kindred 
 tribes, are driven out of the land, never to return again ! The 
 touch of holy water is not so intolerable to them as the bare 
 smell of printers' ink." 
 
 Fallacy of Irrevocable Laws. — A law, says Mr. Ben- 
 tham (no matter to what effect) is proposed to a legislative 
 assembly, who are called upon to reject it, upon the single 
 ground that by those who in some former period exercised 
 the same power, a regulation was made, having for its object 
 to preclude forever, or to the end of an unexpired period, all 
 succeeding legislators from enacting a law to any such effect 
 as that now proposed. 
 
 Now it appears quite evident that, at every period of time, 
 every legislature must be endowed with all those powers which 
 the exigency of the times may require; and any attempt to 
 infringe on this power is inadmissible and absurd. The sov- 
 ereign power, at any one period, can only form a bUnd guess 
 at the measures which may be necessary for any future period ; 
 but by this principle of immutable laws, the government is 
 transferred from those who are necessarily the best judges of 
 what they want, to others who can know little or nothing about 
 the matter. The thirteenth century decides for the fourteenth. 
 The fourteenth makes laws for the fifteenth. The fifteenth 
 hermetically seals up the sixteenth, which tyrannizes over the 
 seventeenth, which again tells the eighteenth how it is to act,
 
 4o6 SMITH 
 
 under circumstances which cannot be foreseen, and how it is 
 to conduct itself in exigencies which no human wit can an- 
 ticipate. 
 
 " Men who have a century more experience to ground their 
 judgments on, surrender their intellect to men who had a 
 century less experience, and who, unless that deficiency con- 
 stitutes a claim, have no claim to preference. If the prior gen- 
 eration were, in respect of intellectual qualification, ever so 
 much superior to the subsequent generation — if it understood 
 so much better than the subsequent generation itself the in- 
 terest of that subsequent generation — could it have been in an 
 equal degree anxious to promote that interest, and conse- 
 quently equally attentive to those facts with which, though 
 in order to form a judgment it ought to have been, it is im- 
 possible that it should have been, acquainted ? In a word, will 
 its love for that subsequent generation be quite so great as that 
 same generation's love for itself? 
 
 " Not even here, after a moment's deliberate reflection, will 
 the assertion be in the affirmative. And yet it is their prodi- 
 gious anxiety for the welfare of their posterity that produces 
 the propensity of these sages to tie up the hands of this same 
 posterity forever more — to act as guardians to its perpetual 
 and incurable weakness, and take its conduct forever out of its 
 own hands. 
 
 " If it be right that the conduct of the nineteenth century 
 should be determined not by its own judgment but by that of 
 the eighteenth, it will be equally right that the conduct of the 
 twentieth century should be determined not by its own judg- 
 ment but by that of the nineteenth. And if the same principle 
 were still pursued, what at length would be the consequence? 
   — that in process of time the practice of legislation would be at 
 an end. The conduct and fate of all men would be determined 
 by those who neither knew nor cared anything about the mat- 
 ter ; and the aggregate body of the living would remain for- 
 ever in subjection to an inexorable tyranny, exercised as it 
 were by the aggregate body of the dead." 
 
 The despotism, as Mr. Bentham well observes, of Nero or 
 Caligula would be more tolerable than an " irrevocable law." 
 The despot, through fear or favor, or in a lucid interval, might 
 relent; but how are the Parliament who made the Scotch
 
 FALLACIES OF ANTI-REFORMERS 
 
 407 
 
 Union, for example, to be awakened from that dust in which 
 they repose — the jobber and the patriot, the speaker and the 
 doorkeeper, the silent voters and the men of rich allusions, 
 Cannings and cultivators, Barings and beggars — making irrev- 
 ocable laws for men who toss their remains about with spades, 
 and use the relics of these legislators to give breadth to 
 broccoli, and to aid the vernal eruption of asparagus ? 
 
 If the law be good, it will support itself; if bad, it should 
 not b , supported by " irrevocable theory," which is never re- 
 sorted to but as the veil of abuses. All living men must pos- 
 sess the supreme power over their own happiness at every 
 particular period. To suppose that there is anything which 
 a whole nation cannot do, which they deem to be essential to 
 their happiness, and that they cannot do it, because another 
 generation, long ago dead and gone, said it must not be done, 
 is mere nonsense. While you are captain of the vessel, do 
 what you please ; but the moment you quit the ship I become 
 as omnipotent as you. You may leave me as much advice as 
 you please, but you cannot leave me commands ; though, in 
 fact, this is the only meaning which can be applied to what are 
 called irrevocable laws. It appeared to the legislature for the 
 time being to be of immense importance to make such and 
 such a law. Great good was gained, or great evil avoided, by 
 enacting it. Pause before you alter an institution which has 
 been deemed to be of so much importance. This is prudence 
 and common-sense; the rest is the exaggeration of fools, or 
 the artifice of knaves, who eat up fools. What endless non- 
 sense has been talked of our navigation laws ! What wealth 
 has been sacrificed to either before they were repealed ! How 
 impossible it appeared to Noodledom to repeal them! They 
 were considered of the irrevocable class — a kind of law over 
 which the dead only were omnipotent, and the living had no 
 power. Frost, it is true, cannot be put oflf by act of Parliament, 
 nor can spring be accelerated by any majority of both houses. 
 It is, however, quite a mistake to suppose that any alteration 
 of any of the articles of union is as much out of the jurisdic- 
 tion of Parliament as these meteorological changes. In every 
 year, and every day of that year, living men have a right to 
 make their own laws and manage their own affairs ; to break 
 through the tyranny of the antespirants — the people who
 
 4o8 
 
 SMITH 
 
 breathed before them — and to do what they please for them- 
 selves. Such supreme power cannot indeed be well exercised 
 by the people at large ; it must be exercised therefore by the 
 delegates, or Parliament, whom the people choose; and such 
 Parliament, disregarding the superstitious reverence for " ir- 
 revocable laws," can have no other criterion of wrong and 
 right than that of public utility. 
 
 When a law is considered as immutable, and the immutable 
 law happens at the same time to be too foolish and mischievous 
 to be endured, instead of being repealed, it is clandestinely 
 evaded, or openly violated ; and thus the authority of all law 
 is weakened. 
 
 Where a nation has been ancestorially bound by foolish and 
 improvident treaties, ample notice must be given of their ter- 
 mination. Where the State has made ill-advised grants, or 
 rash bargains with individuals, it is necessary to grant proper 
 compensation. The most difficult case, certainly, is that of 
 the union of nations, where a smaller number of the weaker 
 nation is admitted into the larger senate of the greater nation, 
 and will be overpowered if the question come to a vote ; but 
 the lesser nation must run this risk; it is not probable that 
 any violation of articles will take place till they are absolutely 
 called for by extreme necessity. But let the danger be what 
 it may, no danger is so great, no supposition so foolish, as to 
 consider any human law as irrevocable. The shifting attitude 
 of human affairs would often render such a condition an in- 
 tolerable evil to all parties. The absurd jealousy of our coun- 
 trymen at the Union secured heritable jurisdiction to the own- 
 ers; nine and thirty years afterward they were abolished, in 
 the very teeth of the Act of Union, and to the evident promo- 
 tion of the public good. 
 
 Continuity of a Law by Oath. — The sovereign of Eng- 
 land at his coronation takes an oath to maintain the laws of 
 God, the true profession of the Gospel, and the Protestant re- 
 ligion, as established by law, and to preserve to the bishops and 
 clergy of this realm the rights and privileges which by law 
 appertain to them, and to preserve inviolate the doctrine, dis- 
 cipHne, worship, and the government of the Church. It has 
 been suggested that by this oath the King stands precluded 
 from granting those indulgences to the Irish Catholics which
 
 FALLACIES OF ANTI-REFORMERS 409 
 
 are included in the bill for their emancipation. The true mean- 
 ing of these provisions is of course to be decided, if doubtful, 
 by the same legislative authority which enacted them. But 
 a different notion it seems is now afloat. The King for the 
 time being (we are putting an imaginary case) thinks as an 
 individual that he is not maintaining the doctrine, discipline, 
 and rights of the Church of England, if he grant any extension 
 of civil rights to those who are not members of that Church ; 
 that he is violating his oath by so doing. This oath, then, ac- 
 cording to this reasoning, is the great palladium of the Church. 
 As long as it remains inviolate the Church is safe. How, 
 then, can any monarch who has taken it ever consent to repeal 
 it? How can he, consistently with his oath for the preserva- 
 tion of the privileges of the Church, contribute his part to 
 throw down so strong a bulwark as he deems his oath to be ! 
 The oath, then, cannot be altered. It must remain under all 
 circumstances of society the same. The King who has taken 
 it is bound to continue it, and to refuse his sanction to any 
 bill for its future alteration, because it prevents him, and, he 
 must needs think, will prevent others, from granting dangerous 
 immunities to the enemies of the Church. 
 
 Here, then, is an irrevocable law — a piece of absurd tyranny 
 exercised by the rulers of Queen Anne's time upon the gov- 
 ernment of 1825 — a certain art of potting and preserving a 
 kingdom in one shape, attitude, and flavor — and in this way 
 it is that an institution appears like old ladies' sweetmeats and 
 made wines — Apricot Jam 1822 — Currant Wine 1819 — Court 
 of Chancery 1427 — Penal Laws against Catholics 1676. The 
 difference is, that the ancient woman is a better judge of mouldy 
 commodities than the illiberal part of his Majesty's ministers. 
 The potting lady goes snififing about and admitting light and 
 air to prevent the progress of decay ; while to him of the wool- 
 sack all seems doubly dear in proportion as it is antiquated, 
 worthless, and unusable. It ought not to be in the power of 
 the sovereign to tie up his own hands, much less the hands of 
 his successors. If the sovereign were to oppose his own opin- 
 ion to that of the two other branches of the legislature, and 
 himself to decide what he considers to be for the benefit of the 
 Protestant Church, and what not, a king who has spent his 
 whole life in the frivolous occupation of a court may by per-
 
 41 o SMITH 
 
 version of understanding conceive measures most salutary to 
 the Church to be most pernicious, and, persevering obstinately 
 in his own error, may frustrate the wisdom of his parliament, 
 and perpetuate the most inconceivable folly ! If Henry VIII 
 had argued in this manner we should have had no Reforma- 
 tion. If George III had always argued in this manner the 
 Catholic code would never have been relaxed. And thus a 
 King, however incapable of forming an opinion upon serious 
 subjects, has nothing to do but pronounce the word " Con- 
 science," and the whole power of the country is at his feet. 
 
 Can there be greater absurdity than to say that a man is 
 acting contrary to his conscience who surrenders his opinion 
 upon any subject to those who must understand the subject 
 better than himself? I think my ward has a claim to the 
 estate ; but the best lawyers tell me he has none. I think my 
 son capable of undergoing the fatigues of a military life ; but 
 the best physicians say he is much too weak. My Parliament 
 say this measure will do the Church no harm ; but I think it 
 very pernicious to the Church. Am I acting contrary to my 
 conscience because I apply much higher intellectual powers 
 than my own to the investigation and protection of these high 
 interests ? 
 
 " According to the form in which it is conceived, any such 
 engagement is in effect either a check or a license : — a license 
 under the appearance of a check, and for that very reason but 
 the more efficiently operative. 
 
 " Chains to the man in power ? Yes : — but only such as he 
 figures with on the stage ; to the spectators as imposing, to 
 himself as light as possible. Modelled by the wearer to suit 
 his own purposes, they serve to rattle but not to restrain. 
 
 " Suppose a king of Great Britain and Ireland to have ex- 
 pressed his fixed determination, in the event of any proposed 
 law being tendered to him for his assent, to refuse such assent, 
 and this not on the persuasion that the law would not be ' for 
 the utility of the subjects,' but that by his coronation oath he 
 stands precluded from so doing, the course proper to be taken 
 by Parliament, the course pointed out by principle and prece- 
 dent, would be a vote of abdication — a vote declaring the king 
 to have abdicated his royal authority, and that, as in case of
 
 FALLACIES OF ANTI-REFORMERS 4" 
 
 death or incurable mental derangement, now is the time for 
 the person next in succession to take his place. 
 
 " In the celebrated case in which a vote to this effect was 
 actually passed, the declaration of abdication was, in lawyers' 
 language, a fiction — in plam truth, a falsehood, and that false- 
 hood a mockery ; not a particle of his power was it the wish 
 of James to abdicate, to part with, but to increase it to a maxi- 
 mum was the manifest object of all his eflforts. But in the case 
 here supposed, with respect to a part, and that a principal part 
 of the royal authority, the will and purpose to abdicate is act- 
 ually declared ; and this being such a part, without which the 
 remainder cannot, ' to the utility of the subjects,' be exercised, 
 the remainder must of necessity be, on their part and for their 
 sake, added." 
 
 Self-Trumpeter's Fallacy. — Mr. Bentham explains the 
 self-trumpeter's fallacy as follows : 
 
 '• There are certain men in office who, in discharge of their 
 functions, arrogate to themselves a degree of probity, which is 
 to exclude all imputations and all inquiry. Their assertions 
 are to be deemed equivalent to proof, their virtues are guaran- 
 ties for the faithful discharge of their duties, and the most im- 
 plicit confidence is to be reposed in them on all occasions. If 
 you expose any abuse, propose any reform, call for securities, 
 inquiry, or measures to promote publicity, they set up a cry of 
 surprise, amounting almost to indignation, as if their integrity 
 were questioned or their honor wounded. With all this, they 
 dexterously mix up intimations that the most exalted patriot- 
 ism, honor, and perhaps religion, are the only sources of all 
 their actions." 
 
 Of course every man will try what he can eflfect by these 
 means; but (as Mr. Bentham observes) if there be any one 
 maxim in politics more certain than another, it is that no pos- 
 sible degree of virtue in the governor can render it expedient 
 for the governed to dispense with good laws and good institu- 
 tions. Madame De Stael (to her disgrace) said to the Em- 
 peror of Russia : " Sire, your character is a constitution for 
 your country, and your conscience its guaranty." His reply 
 was : " Quand cela serait, je tie serais jamais qu'un accident 
 heureux; " and this we think one of the truest and most bril- 
 liant replies ever made by monarch.
 
 412 SMITH 
 
 Laudatory Personalities. — " The object of laudatory per- 
 sonalities is to effect the rejection of a measure on account of 
 the alleged good character of those who oppose it, and the argu- 
 ment advanced is : ' The measure is rendered unnecessary by the 
 virtues of those who are in power — their opposition is a suffi- 
 cient authority for the rejection of the measure. The measure 
 proposed implies a distrust of the members of his Majesty's 
 Government ; but so great is their integrity, so complete their 
 disinterestedness, so uniformly do they prefer the public ad- 
 vantage to their own, that such a measure is altogether unneces- 
 sary. Their disapproval is sufficient to warrant an opposition ; 
 precautions can only be requisite where danger is apprehended : 
 here the high character of the individuals in question is a suffi- 
 cient guaranty against any ground of alarm.' " 
 
 The panegyric goes on increasing with the dignity of the 
 lauded person. All are honorable and delightful men. The 
 person who opens the door of the office is a person of approved 
 fidelity ; the junior clerk is a model of assiduity ; all the clerks 
 are models — seven years' models, eight years' models, nine 
 years' models, and upward. The first clerk is a paragon, and 
 ministers the very perfection of probity and intelligence ; and as 
 for the highest magistrate of the State, no adulation is equal to 
 describe the extent of his various merits ! It is too condescend- 
 ing, perhaps, to refute such folly as this. But we would just 
 observe that, if the propriety of the measure in question be 
 established by direct arguments, these must be at least as con- 
 clusive against the character of those who oppose it as their 
 character can be against the measure. 
 
 The effect of such an argument is to give men of good or 
 reputed good character the power of putting a negative on any 
 question not agreeable to their inclinations. 
 
 " In every public trust the legislator should, for the purpose 
 of prevention, suppose the trustee disposed to break the trust 
 in every imaginable way in which it would be possible for him 
 to reap from the breach of it any personal advantage. This is 
 the principle on which public institutions ought to be formed, 
 and when it is applied to all men indiscriminately, it is injurious 
 to none. The practical inference is to oppose to such possible 
 (and what will always be probable) breaches of trust every bar 
 that can be opposed consistently with the power requisite for
 
 FALLACIES OF ANTI-REFORMERS 413 
 
 the efficient and due discharge of the trust. Indeed, these argu- 
 ments, drawn from the supposed virtues of men in power, are 
 opposed to the first principles on which all laws proceed. 
 
 " Such allegations of individual virtue are never supported 
 by specific proof, are scarce ever susceptible of specific disproof, 
 and specific disproof, if offered, could not be admitted in either 
 House of Parliament. If attempted elsewhere, the punishment 
 would fall not on the unworthy trustee, but on him by whom 
 the unworthiness had been proved." 
 
 Fallacies of Pretended Danger — Imputations of Bad De- 
 sign; of Bad Character; of Bad Motives; of Inconsistency; 
 of Suspicions Connections. — The object of this class of fallacies 
 is to draw aside attention from the measure to the man, and 
 this in such a manner that, for some real or supposed defect in 
 the author of the measure, a corresponding defect shall be im- 
 puted to the measure itself. Thus, " the author of the measure 
 entertains a bad design; therefore the measure is bad. His 
 character is bad, therefore the measure is bad ; his motive is bad, 
 I will vote against the measure. On former occasions this same 
 person who proposed the measure was its enemy, therefore the 
 measure is bad. He is on a footing of intimacy with this or that 
 dangerous man, or has been seen in his company, or is sus- 
 pected of entertaining some of his opinions, therefore the meas- 
 ure is bad. He bears a name that at a former period was borne 
 by a set of men now no more, by whom bad principles were en- 
 tertained, therefore the measure is bad ! " 
 
 Now, if the measure be really inexpedient, why not at once 
 show it to be so? If the measure be good, is it bad because a 
 bad man is its author? If bad, is it good because a good man 
 has produced it ? What are these arguments but to say to the 
 assembly who are to be the judges of any measure, that their 
 imbecility is too great to allow them to judge of the measure 
 by its own merits, and that they must have recourse to distant 
 and feebler probabilities for that purpose ? 
 
 " In proportion to the degree of efficiency with which a man 
 suffers these instruments of deception to operate upon his mind, 
 he enables bad men to exercise over him a sort of power, the 
 thought of which ought to cover him with shame. Allow this 
 argument the effect of a conclusive one, you put it into the power 
 of any man to draw you at pleasure from the support of every
 
 414 SMITH 
 
 measure which in your own eyes is good, to force you to give 
 your support to any and every measure which in your own eyes 
 is bad. Is it good? — the bad man embraces it, and by the sup- 
 position, you reject it. Is it bad? — he vituperates it, and that 
 suffices for driving you into its embrace. You spHt upon the 
 rocks because he has avoided them ; you miss the harbor because 
 he has steered into it ! Give yourself up to any such blind an- 
 tipathy, you are no less in the power of your adversaries than 
 if, by a correspondently irrational sympathy and obsequious- 
 ness, you put yourself into the power of your friends. 
 
 " Besides, nothing but laborious application and a clear and 
 comprehensive intellect can enable a man on any given subject 
 to employ successfully relevant arguments drawn from the sub- 
 ject itself. To employ personalities, neither labor nor intellect 
 is required. In this sort of contest the most idle and the most 
 ignorant are quite on a par with, if not superior to, the most 
 industrious and the most highly gifted individuals. Nothing 
 can be more convenient for those who would speak without the 
 trouble of thinking. The same ideas are brought forward over 
 and over again, and all that is required is to vary the turn of 
 expression. Close and relevant arguments have very little hold 
 on the passions, and serve rather to quell than to inflame them ; 
 while in personalities there is always something stimulant, 
 whether on the part of him who praises or him who blames. 
 Praise forms a kind of connection between the party praising 
 and the party praised, and vituperation gives an air of courage 
 and independence to the party who blames. 
 
 " Ignorance and indolence, friendship and enmity, concur- 
 ring and conflicting interest, servility and independence, all con- 
 spire to give personalities the ascendency they so unhappily 
 maintain. The more we lie under the influence of our own pas- 
 sions, the more we rely on others being affected in a similar de- 
 gree. A man who can repel these injuries with dignity may 
 often convert them into triumph : ' Strike me, but hear,' says 
 he, and the fury of his antagonist redounds to his own discom- 
 fiture." 
 
 No Innovation ! — To say that all things new are bad is to 
 say that all old things were bad in their commencement: for 
 of all the old things ever seen or heard of there is not one that 
 was not once new. Whatever is now establishment was once
 
 FALLACIES OF ANTI-REFORMERS 
 
 415 
 
 innovation. The first inventor of pews and parish clerks was no 
 doubt considered as a Jacobin in his day. Judges, juries, criers 
 of the court, are all the inventions of ardent spirits, who filled 
 the world with alarm, and were considered as the great pre- 
 cursors of ruin and dissolution. No inoculation, no turnpikes, 
 no reading, no writing, no popery I The fool sayeth in his heart 
 and crieth with his mouth, " I will have nothing new ! " 
 
 Fallacy of Distrust! — "What's at the Bottom?" — This 
 fallacy begins with a virtual admission of the propriety of the 
 measure considered in itself, and thus demonstrates its own 
 futility, and cuts up from under itself the ground which it en- 
 deavors to make. A measure is to be rejected for something 
 that, by bare possibility, may be found amiss in some other 
 measure! This is vicarious reprobation; upon this principle 
 Herod instituted his massacre. It is the argument of a driveller 
 to other drivellers, who says : " We are not able to decide upon 
 the evil when it arises; our only safe way is to act upon the 
 general apprehension of evil." 
 
 Official Malefactor's Screen — "Attack Us, You Attack 
 Government." — If this notion is acceded to, everyone who de- 
 rives at present any advantage from misrule has it in fee-simple, 
 and all abuses, present and future, are without remedy. So 
 long as there is anything amiss in conducting the business of 
 government, so long as it can be made better, there can be no 
 other mode of bringing it nearer to perfection than the indica- 
 tion of such imperfections as at the time being exist, 
 
 " But so far is it from being true that a man's aversion or 
 contempt for the hands by which the powers of government, or 
 even for the system under which they are exercised, is a proof 
 of his aversion or contempt toward government itself, that, 
 even in proportion to the strength of that aversion or contempt, 
 it is a proof of the opposite affection. What, in consequence of 
 such contempt or aversion, he wishes for is not that there be no 
 hands at all to exercise these powers, but that the hands may be 
 better regulated ; — not that those powers should not be exer- 
 cised at all, but that they should be better exercised ; — not that 
 in the exercise of them no rules at all should be pursued, but 
 that the rules by which they are exercised should be a better 
 set of rules. 
 
 " All government is a trust, every branch of government is a
 
 4i6 SMITH 
 
 trust, and immemorially acknowledged so to be ; it is only by 
 the magnitude of the scale that public differ from private trusts. 
 I complain of the conduct of a person in the character of guar- 
 dian, as domestic guardian, having the care of a minor or insane 
 person. In so doing do I say that guardianship is a bad institu- 
 tion? Does it enter into the head of anyone to suspect me of 
 so doing? I complain of an individual in the character of a 
 commercial agent or assignee of the effects of an insolvent. In 
 so doing do I say that commercial agency is a bad thing? that 
 the practice of vesting in the hands of trustees or assignees the 
 effects of an insolvent for the purpose of their being divided 
 among his creditors is a bad practice? Does any such conceit 
 ever enter into the head of man as that of suspecting me of so 
 doing?" 
 
 There are no complaints against government in Turkey — no 
 motions in Parliament, no " Morning Chronicles," and no 
 " Edinburgh Reviews " : yet of all countries in the world it is 
 that in which revolts and revolutions are the most frequent. 
 
 It is so far from true that no good government can exist con- 
 sistently with such disclosure, that no good government can 
 exist without it. It is quite obvious to all who are capable of re- 
 flection that by no other means than by lowering the governors 
 in the estimation of the people can there be hope or chance of 
 beneficial change. To infer from this wise endeavor to lessen 
 the existing rulers in the estimation of the people, a wish of dis- 
 solving the government, is either artifice or error. The physi- 
 cian who intentionally weakens the patient by bleeding him has 
 no intention he should perish. 
 
 The greater the quantity of respect a man receives, inde- 
 pendently of good conduct, the less good is his behavior likely to 
 be. It is the interest, therefore, of the public in the case of 
 each to see that the respect paid to him should, as completely as 
 possible, depend upon the goodness of his behavior in the execu- 
 tion of his trust. But it is, on the contrary, the interest of the 
 trustee that the respect, the money, or any other advantage he 
 receives in virtue of his office, should be as great, as secure, and 
 as independent of conduct as possible. Soldiers expect to be 
 shot at ; public men must expect to be attacked, and sometimes 
 unjustly. It keeps up the habit of considering their conduct 
 as exposed to scrutiny ; on the part of the people at large it
 
 FALLACIES OF ANTI-REFORMERS 417 
 
 keeps alive the expectation of witnessing such attacks, and the 
 habit of looking out for them. The friends and supporters of 
 government have always greater facility in keeping and raising 
 it up than its adversaries have for lowering it. 
 
 Accusation-scarer's Device — " Infamy Must Attach Some- 
 where." — This fallacy consists in representing the character of a 
 calumniator as necessarily and justly attaching upon him who, 
 having made a charge of misconduct against any person pos- 
 sessed of political power or influence, fails of producing evi- 
 dence sufficient for their conviction, 
 
 " If taken as a general proposition, applying to all public 
 accusations, nothing can be more mischievous as well as falla- 
 cious. Supposing the charge unfounded, the delivery of it may 
 have been accompanied with mala iides (consciousness of its 
 injustice), with temerity only, or it may have been perfectly 
 blameless. It is in the first case alone that infamy can with 
 propriety attach upon him who brings it forward. A charge 
 really groundless may have been honestly believed to be well 
 founded, i.e., believed with a sort of provisional credence, suffi- 
 cient for the purpose of engaging a man to do his part toward 
 the bringing about an investigation, but without sufficient rea- 
 sons. But a charge may be perfectly groundless without at- 
 taching the smallest particle of blame upon him who brings it 
 forward. Suppose him to have heard from one or more, 
 presenting themselves to him in the character of percipient wit- 
 nesses, a story which, either in toto, or perhaps only in circum- 
 stances, though in circumstances of the most material impor- 
 tance, should prove false and mendacious, how is the person who 
 hears this and acts accordingly to blame? What sagacity can 
 enable a man previously to legal investigation, a man who has 
 no power that can enable him to insure correctness or complete- 
 ness on the part of this extrajudicial testimony, to guard against 
 deception in such a case ? " 
 
 Fallacy of False Consolation — " What is the Matter 
 with Youf — What Would You Have? — Look at the People 
 There, and There; Think hozv much Better Oif You Are than 
 They Are — Your Prosperity and Liberty are Objects of Their 
 Envy; Your Institutions, Models of Their Imitation." — It is 
 not the desire to look to the bright side that is blamed, but when 
 a particular suffering, produced by an assigned cause, has been
 
 4iS SMITH 
 
 pointed out, the object of many apologists is to turn the eyes 
 of inquirers and judges into any other quarter in preference. 
 If a man's tenants were to come with a general encomium on the 
 prosperity of the country instead of a specified sum, would it 
 be accepted ? In a court of justice in an action for damages did 
 ever any such device occur as that of pleading assets in the hands 
 of a third person ? There is in fact no country so poor and so 
 wretched in every element of prosperity, in which matter for 
 this argument might not be found. Were the prosperity of the 
 country tenfold as great as at present, the absurdity of the argu- 
 ment would not in the least degree be lessened. Why should 
 the smallest evil be endured which can be cured because others 
 suffer patiently under greater evils? Should the smallest im- 
 provement attainable be neglected because others remain con- 
 tented in a state of still greater inferiority ? 
 
 " Seriously and pointedly in the character of a bar to any 
 measure of relief, no, nor to the most trivial improvement, can 
 it ever be employed. Suppose a bill brought in for converting an 
 impassable road anywhere into a passable one, would any man 
 stand up to oppose it wiio could find nothing better to urge 
 against it than the multitude and goodness of the roads we have 
 already ? No : when in the character of a serious bar to the 
 measure in hand, be that measure what it may, an argument so 
 palpably inapplicable is employed, it can only be for the pur- 
 pose of creating a diversion ; — of turning aside the minds of 
 men from the subject really in hand to a picture which, by its 
 beauty, it is hoped, may engross the attention of the assembly, 
 and make them forget for the moment for what purpose they 
 came there." 
 
 The Quietist, or No Complaint. — " A new law of measure 
 being proposed in the character of a remedy for some incon- 
 testable abuse or evil, an objection is frequently started to the 
 following effect : — ' The measure is unnecessary. Nobody com- 
 plains of disorder in that shape, in which it is the aim of your 
 measure to propose a remedy to it. But even when no cause of 
 complaint has been found to exist, especially under govern- 
 ments which admit of complaints, men have in general not been 
 slow to complain ; much less where any just cause of complaint 
 has existed.' The argument amounts to this: — Nobody com- 
 plains, therefore nobody suffers. It amounts to a veto on all
 
 FALLACIES OF ANTI-REFORMERS 419 
 
 measures of precaution or prevention, and goes to establish a 
 maxim in legislation directly opposed to the most ordinary pru- 
 dence of common life; it enjoins us to build no parapets to a 
 bridge till the number of accidents has raised a universal 
 clamor." 
 
 Procrastinator's Argument — " Wait a Little; This is Not 
 the Time." — This is the common argument of men who, being 
 in reality hostile to a measure, are ashamed or afraid of appear- 
 ing to be so. To-day is the plea — eternal exclusion commonly 
 the object. It is the same sort of quirk as a plea of abatement 
 in law — which is never employed but on the side of a dishonest 
 defendant, whose hope it is to obtain an ultimate triumph, by 
 overwhelming his adversary with despair, impoverishment, and 
 lassitude. Which is the properest day to do good ? which is the 
 properest day to remove a nuisance? We answer, the very 
 first day a man can be found to propose the removal of it ; and 
 whoever opposes the removal of it on that day will (if he dare) 
 oppose it on every other. There is in the minds of many feeble 
 friends to virtue and improvement, an imaginary period for the 
 removal of evils, which it would certainly be worth while to 
 ,wait for, if there was the smallest chance of its ever arriving — 
 a period of unexampled peace and prosperity, when a patriotic 
 king and an enlightened mob united their ardent efforts for the 
 amelioration of human affairs ; when the oppressor is as de- 
 lighted to give up the oppression, as the oppressed is to be 
 liberated from it; when the difficulty and the unpopularity 
 would be to continue the evil, not to abolish it ! These are the 
 periods when fair-weather philosophers are willing to venture 
 out and hazard a little for the general good. But the history of 
 human nature is so contrary to all this, that almost all improve- 
 ments are made after the bitterest resistance, and in the midst 
 of tumults and civil violence — the worst period at which they 
 can be made, compared to which any period is eligible, and 
 should be seized hold of by the friends of salutary reform. 
 
 Snail's Pace Argument — " One Thing at a Time! — Not 
 Too Fast! — Slow and Sure! — Importance of the business — ex« 
 treme difficulty of the business — danger of innovation — need of 
 caution and circumspection — impossibility of foreseeing all con- 
 sequences — danger of precipitation — everything should be 
 gradual — one thing at a time — this is not the time — great oc-
 
 420 
 
 SMITH 
 
 cupation at present — wait for more leisure — people well satiis- 
 fied — no petitions presented — no complaints heard — no such 
 mischief has yet taken place — stay till it has taken place ! Such 
 is the prattle which the magpie in office, who, understanding 
 nothing, yet understands that he must have something to say on 
 every subject, shouts out among his auditors as a succedaneum 
 to thought." 
 
 Vague Generalities. — Vague generalities comprehend a 
 numerous class of fallacies resorted to by those who, in pref- 
 erence to the determinate expressions which they might use, 
 adopt others more vague and indeterminate. 
 
 Take, for instance, the terms government, laws, morals, re- 
 ligion. Everybody will admit that there are in the world bad 
 governments, bad laws, bad morals, and bad religions. The 
 bare circumstance, therefore, of being engaged in exposing the 
 defects of government, law, morals, and religion, does not of 
 itself afford the slightest presumption that a writer is engaged 
 in anything blamable. If his attack be only directed against 
 that which is bad in each, his efforts may be productive of good 
 to any extent. This essential distinction, however, the de- 
 fender of abuses uniformly takes care to keep out of sight; 
 and boldly imputes to his antagonists an intention to subvert all 
 government, law, morals, and religion. Propose anything with 
 a view to the improvement of the existing practice, in relation ta 
 law, government, and religion, he will treat you with an oration 
 upon the necessity and utility of law, government, and religion. 
 Among the several cloudy appellatives which have been com- 
 monly employed as cloaks for misgovernment, there is none 
 more conspicuous in this atmosphere of illusion than the word 
 order. As often as any measure is brought forward which has 
 for its object to lessen the sacrifice made by the many to the 
 few, social order is the phrase commonly opposed to its progress. 
 
 " By a defalcation made from any part of the mass of ficti- 
 tious delay, vexation, and expense, out of which, and in propor- 
 tion to which, lawyers' profit is made to flow — by any defalca- 
 tion made from the mass of needless and worse than useless 
 emolument to office, with or without service or pretence of ser- 
 vice — by any addition endeavored to be made to the quantity, or 
 improvement in the quality of service rendered, or time be- 
 stowed in service rendered in return for such emolument — bf
 
 FALLACIES OF ANTI-REFORMERS 421 
 
 -every endeavor that has for its object the persuading the people 
 to place their fate at the disposal of any other agents than those 
 in whose hands breach of trust is certain, due fulfilment of it 
 morally and physically impossible — social order is said to be 
 endangered, and threatened to be destroyed." 
 
 In the same way " Establishment " is a word in use to pro- 
 tect the bad parts of establishments, by charging those who wish 
 to remove or alter them, with a wish to subvert all good estab- 
 lishments. 
 
 Mischievous fallacies also circulate from the convertible use 
 of what Mr. B. is pleased to call dyslogistic and eulogistic terms. 
 Thus, a vast concern is expressed for the " liberty of the press," 
 and the utmost abhorrence of its " licentiousness " : but then, 
 by the licentiousness of the press is meant every disclosure by 
 which any abuse is brought to light and exposed to shame — by 
 the " liberty of the press " is meant only publications from 
 which no such inconvenience is to be apprehended; and the 
 fallacy consists in employing the sham approbation of liberty as 
 a mask for the real opposition to all free discussion. To write 
 a pamphlet so ill that nobody will read it; to animadvert in 
 terms so weak and insipid upon great evils, that no disgust is 
 excited at the vice, and no apprehension in the evil-doer, is a fair 
 use of the liberty of the press, and is not only pardoned by the 
 friends of government, but draws from them the most fervent 
 eulogium. The licentiousness of the press consists in doing 
 the thing boldly and well, in striking terror into the guilty, and 
 in rousing the attention of the public to the defence of their 
 highest interests. This is the licentiousness of the press held in 
 the greatest horror by timid and corrupt men, and punished by 
 semi-animous, semi-cadaverous judges, with a captivity of many 
 years. In the same manner the dyslogistic and eulogistic fal- 
 lacies are used in the case of reform. 
 
 " Between all abuses whatsoever there exists that connection 
 — between all persons who see, each of them, any one abuse in 
 which an advantage results to himself, there exists, in point of 
 interest, that close and sufficiently understood connection, of 
 which intimation has been given already. To no one abuse can 
 correction be administered without endangering the existence 
 of every other. 
 
 " If, then, with this inward determination not to sufifer, so
 
 422 SMITH 
 
 far as depends upon himself, the adoption of any reform which 
 he is able to prevent, it should seem to him necessary or advis- 
 able to put on for a cover the profession or appearance of a de- 
 sire to contribute to such reform — in pursuance of the device or 
 fallacy here in question, he will represent that which goes by 
 the name of reform as distinguishable into two species ; one of 
 them a fit subject for approbation, the other for disapprobation. 
 That which he thus professes to have marked for approbation, 
 he will accordingly for the expression of such approbation, 
 characterize by some adjunct of the eulogistic cast, such as 
 moderate, for example, or temperate, or practical, or practicable. 
 
 " To the other of these nominally distinct species, he will, at 
 the same time, attach some adjunct of the dyslogistic cast, such 
 as violent, intemperate, extravagant, outrageous, theoretical, 
 speculative, and so forth, 
 
 " Thus, then, in profession and to appearance, there are in 
 his conception of the matter two distinct and opposite species of 
 reform, to one of which his approbation, to the other his disap- 
 probation, is attached. But the species to which his approbation 
 is attached is an empty species — a species in which no individual 
 is, or is intended to be, contained. 
 
 " The species to which his disapprobation is attached is, on 
 the contrary, a crowded species, a receptacle in which the whole 
 contents of the genus — of the genus ' Reform ' — are intended 
 to be included." 
 
 Anti-rational Fallacies. — When reason is in opposition 
 to a man's interests his study will naturally be to render the fac- 
 ulty itself, and whatever issues from it, an object of hatred and 
 contempt. The sarcasm and other figures of speech employed 
 on the occasion are directed not merely against reason but 
 against thought, as if there were something in the faculty of 
 thought that rendered the exercise of it incompatible with use- 
 ful and successful practice. Sometimes a plan, which would 
 not suit the official person's interest, is without more ado pro- 
 nounced a speculative one ; and, by this observation, all need 
 of rational and deliberate discussion is considered to be super- 
 seded. The first effort of the corruptionist is to fix the epithet 
 speculative upon any scheme which he thinks may cherish the 
 spirit of reform. The expression is hailed with the greatest de- 
 light by bad and feeble men, and repeated with the most un-
 
 FALLACIES OF ANTI-REFORMERS 423 
 
 wearied energy ; and to the word " speculative," by way of 
 reinforcement, are added : theoretical, visionary, chimerical, ro- 
 mantic, Utopian. 
 
 " Sometimes a distinction is taken, and thereupon a conces- 
 sion made. The plan is good in theory, but it would be bad in 
 practice, i.e., its being good in theory does not hinder its being 
 bad in practice. 
 
 " Sometimes, as if in consequence of a further progress made 
 in the art of irrationality, the plan is pronounced to be " too good 
 to be practicable " ; and its being so good as it is, is thus repre- 
 sented as the very cause of its being bad in practice. 
 
 " In short, such is the perfection at which this art is at length 
 arrived, that the very circumstance of a plan's being susceptible 
 of the appellation of a plan, has been gravely stated as a cir- 
 cumstance sufficient to warrant its being rejected — rejected, if 
 not with hatred, at any rate with a sort of accompaniment which, 
 to the million, is commonly felt still more galling — with con- 
 tempt." 
 
 There is a propensity to push theory too far ; but what is the 
 just inference? not that theoretical propositions (i.e., all propo- 
 sitions of any considerable comprehension or extent) should, 
 from such their extent, be considered to be false in toto, but only 
 that, in the particular case, should inquiry be made whether, sup- 
 posing the proposition to be in the character of a rule generally 
 true, an exception ought to be taken out of it. It might almost 
 be imagined that there was something wicked or unwise in the 
 exercise of thought; for everybody feels a necessity for dis- 
 claiming it. " I am not given to speculation, I am no friend to 
 theories." Can a man disclaim theory, can he disclaim specula- 
 tion, without disclaiming thought ? 
 
 The description of persons by whom this fallacy is chiefly 
 employed are those who, regarding a plan as adverse to their 
 interests, and not finding it on the ground of general utility ex- 
 posed to any preponderant objection, have recourse to this ob- 
 jection in the character of an instrument of contempt, in the 
 view of preventing those from looking into it who might have 
 been otherwise disposed. It is by the fear of seeing it practised 
 that they are drawn to speak of it as impracticable. " Upon the 
 face of it (exclaims some feeble or pensioned gentleman) it 
 carries that air of plausibility, that, if you were not upon your
 
 424 SMITH 
 
 guard, might engage you to bestow more or less attention upon 
 it; but were you to take the trouble, you would find that (as it 
 is with all these plans which promise so much) practicability 
 would at last be wanting to it. To save yourself from this 
 trouble, the wisest course you can take is to put the plan aside, 
 and to think no more about the matter." This is always accom- 
 panied with a peculiar grin of triumph. 
 
 The whole of these fallacies may be gathered together in a 
 little oration, which we will denominate the " Noodle's Ora- 
 tion " :— 
 
 " What would our ancestors say to this. Sir ? How does this 
 measure tally with their institutions ? How does it agree with 
 their experience? Are we to put the wisdom of yesterday in 
 competition with the wisdom of centuries ? [Hear! hear!] Is 
 beardless youth to show no respect for the decisions of mature 
 age? [Loud cries of hear! hear!] If this measure be right, 
 would it have escaped the wisdom of those Saxon progenitors 
 to whom we are indebted for so many of our best political insti- 
 tutions? Would the Dane have passed it over? Would the 
 Norman have rejected it? Would such a notable discovery 
 have been reserved for these modern and degenerate times? 
 Besides, Sir, if the measure itself is good, I ask the honorable 
 gentleman if this is the time for carrying it into execution — 
 whether, in fact, a more unfortunate period could have been se- 
 lected than that which he has chosen ? If this were an ordinary 
 measure I should not oppose it with so much vehemence ; but. 
 Sir, it calls in question the wisdom of an irrevocable law — of ai 
 law passed at the memorable period of the Revolution. What 
 right have we, Sir, to break down this firm column on which the 
 great men of that age stamped a character of eternity? Are 
 not all authorities against this measure — Pitt, Fox, Cicero, and 
 the Attorney- and Solicitor-General? The proposition is new. 
 Sir ; it is the first time it was ever heard in this House. I am 
 not prepared, Sir — this House is not prepared — to receive it. 
 The measure implies a distrust of his Majesty's Government; 
 their disapproval is sufficient to warrant opposition. Precau- 
 tion only is requisite where danger is apprehended. Here the 
 high character of the individuals in question is a sufficient guar- 
 antee against any ground of alarm. Give not, then, your sanc- 
 ticm to this measure ; for, whatever be its character, if you do
 
 FALLACIES OF ANTI-REFORMERS 425 
 
 give your sanction to it, the same man by whom this is pro- 
 posed will propose to you others to which it will be impossible to 
 give your consent. I care very little, Sir, for the ostensible 
 measure; but what is there behind? What are the honorable 
 gentleman's future schemes? If we pass this bill, what fresh 
 concessions may he not require ? What further degradation is 
 he planning for his country? Talk of evil and inconvenience, 
 Sir ! look to other countries — study other aggregations and so- 
 cieties of men, and then see whether the laws of this country 
 demand a remedy or deserve a panegyric. Was the honorable 
 gentleman (let me ask him) always of this way of thinking? 
 Do I not remember when he was the advocate, in this House, of 
 very opposite opinions? I not only quarrel with his present 
 sentiments. Sir, but I declare very frankly I do not like the party 
 with which he acts. If his own motives were as pure as possible, 
 they cannot but suffer contamination from those with whom 
 he is politically associated. This measure may be a boon to the 
 Constitution, but I will accept no favor to the Constitution from 
 such hands. [Loud cries of hear! hear!] I profess myself, Sir, 
 an honest and upright member of the British Parliament, and I 
 am not afraid to profess myself an enemy to all change and all 
 innovation. I am satisfied with things as they are ; and it will 
 be my pride and pleasure to hand down this country to my chil- 
 dren as I received it from those who preceded me. The honor- 
 able gentleman pretends to justify the severity with which he 
 has attacked the noble lord who presides in the Court of Chan- 
 cery. But I say such attacks are pregnant with mischief to 
 government itself. Oppose ministers, you oppose government ; 
 disgrace ministers, you disgrace government; bring ministers 
 into contempt, you bring government into contempt ; and an- 
 archy and civil war are the consequences. Besides, sir, the 
 measure is unnecessary. Nobody complains of disorder in that 
 shape in which it is the aim of your measure to propose a remedy 
 to it. The business is one of the greatest importance ; there is 
 need of the greatest caution and circumspection. Do not let 
 us be precipitate, Sir ; it is impossible to foresee all consequences. 
 Everything should be gradual ; the example of a neighboring 
 nation should fill us with alarm ! The honorable gentleman has 
 taxed me with illiberality, Sir ; I deny the charge. I hate inno- 
 vation, but I love improvement. I am an enemy to the corrup- 
 
 19— Vol 57
 
 426 SMITH 
 
 tion of government, but I defend its influence. I dread reform, 
 but I dread it only when it is intemperate. I consider the lib- 
 erty of the press as the great palladium of the Constitution ; but, 
 at the same time, I hold the licentiousness of the press in the 
 greatest abhorrence. Nobody is more conscious than I am of 
 the splendid abilities of the honorable mover, but I tell him at 
 once his scheme is too good to be practicable. It savors of 
 Utopia. It looks well in theory, but it won't do in practice. It 
 will not do, I repeat. Sir, in practice ; and so the advocates of the 
 measure will find, if, unfortunately, it should find its way 
 through Parliament. [Cheers.] The source of that c'orruption 
 to which the honorable member alludes is in the minds of the 
 people; so rank and extensive is that corruption, that no po- 
 litical reform can have any effect in removing it. Instead of 
 reforming others — instead of reforming the State, the Constitu- 
 tion, and everything that is most excellent, let each man reform 
 himself ! let him look at home, he will find there enough to do 
 without looking abroad and aiming at what is out of his power. 
 [Loud cheers.] And now. Sir, as it is frequently the custom in 
 this House to end with a quotation, and as the gentleman who 
 preceded me in the debate has anticipated me in my favorite quo- 
 tation of the ' Strong pull and the long pull,' I shall end with the 
 memorable words of the assembled barons : ' Nolumus leges 
 'Anglia: mutari.' " 
 
 " Upon the whole, the following are the characters which 
 appertain in common to all the several arguments here distin- 
 guished by the name of fallacies : — 
 
 " I. Whatsoever be the measure in hand, they are, with rela- 
 tion to it, irrelevant. 
 
 " 2. They are all of them such, that the application of these 
 irrelevant arguments affords a presumption either of the weak- 
 ness or total absence of relevant arguments on the side on which 
 they are employed. 
 
 " 3. To any good purpose they are all of them unnecessary. 
 
 " 4. They are all of them not only capable of being applied, 
 but actually in the habit of being applied, and with advantage, 
 to bad purposes, viz. : to the obstruction and defeat of all such 
 measures as have for their object the removal of the abuses or 
 other imperfections still discernible in the frame and practice 
 of the government.
 
 FALLACIES OF ANTI-REFORMERS 427 
 
 " 5. By means of the irrelevancy, they all of them consume 
 and misapply time, thereby obstructing the course and retarding 
 the progress of all necessary and useful business. 
 
 " 6. By that irritative quality which, in virtue of their ir- 
 relevancy, with the improbity or weakness of which it is indica- 
 tive, they possess, all of them, in a degree more or less consider- 
 able, but in a more particular degree such of them as consist in 
 personalities, are productive of ill-humor, which in some in- 
 stances has been productive of bloodshed, and is continually 
 productive, as above, of waste of time and hindrance of busi- 
 ness. 
 
 " 7. On the part of those who, whether in spoken or written 
 discourses, give utterance to them, they are indicative either of 
 improbity or intellectual weakness, or of a contempt for the un- 
 derstanding of those on whose minds they are destined tc 
 operate. 
 
 " 8. On the part of those on whom they operate, they are in- 
 dicative of intellectual weakness ; and on the part of those in 
 and by whom they are pretended to operate, they are indicative 
 of improbity, viz., in the shape of insincerity. 
 
 " The practical conclusion is, that in proportion as the ac- 
 ceptance, and thence the utterance, of them can be prevented, 
 the understanding of the public will be strengthened, the morals 
 of the public will be purified, and the practice of government im- 
 proved."
 
 ON POESY OR ART 
 
 BY 
 
 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
 
 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 
 
 1772— 1834 
 
 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the youngest of a numerous family, was 
 born at Ottery St. Mary, in Devonshire, on October 21, 1772. He re- 
 ceived his early education at Christ's Hospital, where Charles Lamb 
 was one of his school-fellows. His early love of poetry was nmsed 
 and inspired by a perusal of the sonnets of W. L. Bowles. When 
 nineteen years of age, on obtaining his presentation from Christ's hos- 
 pital, he entered Jesus College, Cambridge, gaining in classics a gold 
 medal for a Greek ode. About 1794 his acquaintance began with 
 Southey; Coleridge and Southey were afterwards married on the Si^me 
 day to two sisters, and settled at Nether Stowey, in Somersetshire, 
 where they also met Wordsworth. Some of Coleridge's finest pieces 
 were written there, such as the " Ancient Mariner," the " Ode on the 
 Departing Year," and the first part of " Christabel." Coleridge visited 
 Germany through the liberality of the Messrs. Wedgwood, the Staf- 
 fordshire potters, and on returning in 1800 went to reside with Southey 
 at Keswick, Wordsworth then staying at Grasmere. In 1804 he visited 
 Malta. In the latter part of his life he resided with his friend and 
 medical adviser, Mr. Gillman, at Highgate, delighting a large circle 
 by his splendid conversational powers. Here he died on July 20, 1834, 
 in the sixty-second year of his age. The plan of the periodical publi- 
 cation, the " Friend," occurred to Coleridge while staying at Keswick, 
 the first number of which appeared on June 8, 1809, and the last on 
 March 15, 1810. As a philosopher and theologian, the influence of 
 Coleridge has been very great, and probably is so still, notwithstand- 
 ing the apparent predominance of a less spiritual philosophy than his. 
 Although he did not live to complete the grand system of religious 
 philosophy which he appears to have projected, the massive frag- 
 ments he has left sufSce to show more than the outlines of the vast 
 whole. His writings are pervaded by a spirit not of this world; and 
 for every earnest student they are rich in lessons of truth, wisdoM, 
 and faith. " On Poesy or Art " is ranked as one of Coleridge's mo.^t 
 delightful essays. 
 
 430
 
 ON POESY OR ART 
 
 MAN communicates by articulation of sounds, and para- 
 mountly by the memory in the ear ; nature by the im- 
 pression of bounds and surfaces on the eye, and 
 through the eye it gives significance and appropriation, and 
 thus the conditions of memory, or the capabiHty of being re- 
 membered, to sounds, smells, etc. Now Art, used collectively 
 for painting, sculpture, architecture, and music, is the media- 
 tress between, and reconciler of nature and man. It is, there- 
 fore, the power of humanizing nature, of infusing the thoughts 
 and passions of man into everything which is the object of his 
 contemplation; color, form, motion, and sound, are the ele- 
 ments which it combines, and it stamps them into unity in the 
 mould of a moral idea. 
 
 The primary art is writing ; — primary, if we regard the pur- 
 pose abstracted from the different modes of realizing it, those 
 steps of progression of which the instances are still visible in 
 the lower degrees of civilization. First, there is mere gesticu- 
 lation ; then rosaries or wampum ; then picture-language ; then 
 hieroglyphics, and finally alphabetic letters. These all consist 
 of a translation of man into nature, of a substitution of the 
 visible for the audible. 
 
 The so-called music of savage tribes as little deserves the 
 name of art for the understanding as the ear warrants it for 
 music. Its lowest state is a mere expression of passion by 
 sounds which the passion itself necessitates; — the highest 
 amounts to no more than a voluntary reproduction of these 
 sounds in the absence of the occasioning causes, so as to give 
 the pleasure of contrast — for example, by the various outcries 
 of battle in the song of security and triumph. Poetry also is 
 purely human ; for all its materials are from the mind, and 
 all its products are for the mind. But it is the apotheosis 
 of the former state, in which by excitement of the associative 
 
 431
 
 432 
 
 COLERIDGE 
 
 power passion itself imitates order, and the order resulting 
 produces a pleasurable passion, and thus it elevates the mind 
 by making its feelings the object of its reflection. So like- 
 wise, while it recalls the sights and sounds that had accom- 
 panied the occasions of the original passions, poetry impreg- 
 nates them with an interest not their own by means of the 
 passions, and yet tempers the passion by the calming power 
 which all distinct images exert on the human soul. In this 
 way poetry is the preparation for art, inasmuch as it avails 
 itself of the forms of nature to recall, to express, and to modify 
 the thoughts and feelings of the mind. Still, however, poetry 
 can only act through the intervention of articulate speech, 
 which is so peculiarly human that in all languages it consti- 
 tutes the ordinary phrase by which man and nature are con- 
 tradistinguished. It is the original force of the word " brute," 
 and even " mute " and " dumb " do not convey the absence 
 of sound, but the absence of articulated sounds. 
 
 As soon as the human mind is intelligibly addressed by an 
 outward image exclusively of articulate speech, so soon does 
 art commence. But please to observe that I have laid par- 
 ticular stress on the words " human mind " — meaning to ex- 
 clude thereby all results common to man and all other sentient 
 creatures, and consequently confining myself to the effect pro- 
 duced by the congruity of the animal impression with the 
 reflective powers of the mind ; so that not the thing presented, 
 but that which is re-presented by the thing, shall be the source 
 of the pleasure. In this sense nature itself is to a religious 
 observer the art of God; and for the same cause art itself 
 might be defined as of a middle quality between a thought and 
 a thing, or as I said before, the union and reconciliation of 
 that which is nature with that which is exclusively human. 
 It is the figured language of thought, and is distinguished 
 from nature by the unity of all the parts in one thought or 
 idea. Hence nature itself would give us the impression of 
 a work of art, if we could see the thought which is present 
 at once in the whole and in every part; and a work of art 
 will be just in proportion as it adequately conveys the thought, 
 and rich in proportion to the variety of parts which it holds 
 in unity. 
 
 If, therefore, the term " mute " be taken as opposed not
 
 ON POESY AND ART 433 
 
 to sound but to articulate speech, the old definition of painting 
 will in fact be the true and best definition of the fine arts 
 in general, that is, muta poesis, mute poesy, and so of course 
 poesy. And, as all languages perfect themselves by a gradual 
 process of desynonymizing words originally equivalent, I have 
 cherished the wish to use the word " poesy " as the generic 
 or common term, and to distinguish that species of poesy 
 which is not muta poesis by its usual name " poetry " ; while 
 of all the other species which collectively form the fine arts, 
 there would remain this as the common definition — that they 
 all, Uke poetry, are to express intellectual purposes, thoughts, 
 conceptions, and sentiments which have their origin in the 
 human mind — not, however, as poetry does, by means of ar- 
 ticulate speech, but as nature or the divine art does, by form, 
 color, magnitude, proportion, or by sound, that is, silently or 
 musically. 
 
 Well ! it may be said — but who has ever thought otherwise ? 
 We all know that art is the imitatress of nature. And, doubt- 
 less, the truths which I hope to convey would be barren tru- 
 isms, if all men meant the same by the words " imitate " and 
 " nature." But it would be flattering mankind at large, to 
 presume that such is the fact. First, to imitate. The impres- 
 sion on the wax is not an imitation, but a copy, of the seal; 
 the seal itself is an imitation. But, further, in order to form 
 a philosophic conception, we must seek for the kind, as the 
 heat in ice, invisible light, etc., whilst, for practical purposes, 
 we must have reference to the degree. It is sufficient that 
 philosophically we understand that in all imitation two ele- 
 ments must coexist, and not only coexist, but must be per- 
 ceived as coexisting. These two constituent elements are 
 likeness and unlikeness, or sameness and difference, and in 
 all genuine creations of art there must be a union of these 
 disparates. The artist may take his point of view where he 
 pleases, provided that the desired effect be perceptibly pro- 
 duced — that there be likeness in the difference, difference in 
 the likeness, and a reconcilement of both in one. If there be 
 likeness to nature without any check of difference, the result is 
 disgusting, and the more complete the delusion, the more 
 loathsome the effect. Why are such simulations of nature, 
 as wax- work figures of men and women, so disagreeable?
 
 434 COLERIDGE 
 
 Because, not finding the motion and the life which we ex- 
 pected, we are shocked as by a falsehood, every circumstance 
 of detail, which before induced us to be interested, making 
 the distance from truth more palpable. You set out with a 
 supposed reality and are disappointed and disgusted with the 
 deception; while, in respect to a work of genuine imitation, 
 you begin with an acknowledged total difference, and then 
 every touch of nature gives you the pleasure of an approxi- 
 mation to truth. The fundamental principle of all this is un- 
 doubtedly the horror of falsehood and the love of truth in- 
 herent in the human breast. The Greek tragic dance rested 
 on these principles, and I can deeply sympathize in imagi- 
 nation with the Greeks in this favorite part of their theatrical 
 exhibitions, when I call to mind the pleasure I felt in beholding 
 the combat of the Horatii and Curiatii most exquisitely danced 
 in Italy to the music of Cimarosa. 
 
 Secondly, as to nature. We must imitate nature ! yes, but 
 what in nature — all and everything? No, the beautiful in 
 nature. And what then is the beautiful? What is beauty? 
 It is, in the abstract, the unity of the manifold, the coalescence 
 of the diverse ; in the concrete, it is the union of the shapely 
 (formosum) with the vital. In the dead organic it depends 
 on regularity of form, the first and lowest species of which 
 is the triangle with all its modifications, as in crystals, archi- 
 tecture, etc. ; in the living organic it is not mere regularity 
 of form, which would produce a sense of formality; neither 
 is it subservient to anything beside itself. It may be present 
 in a disagreeable object, in which the proportion of the parts 
 constitutes a whole ; it does not arise from association, as 
 the agreeable does, but sometimes lies in the rupture of asso- 
 ciation ; it is not different to different individuals and nations, 
 as has been said, nor is it connected with the ideas of the good, 
 or the fit, or the useful. The sense of beauty is intuitive, and 
 beauty itself is all that inspires pleasure without, and aloof 
 from, and even contrarily to, interest. 
 
 If the artist copies the mere nature, the natnra naturata, 
 what idle rivalry ! If he proceeds only from a given form, 
 which is supposed to answer to the notion of beauty, what 
 an emptiness, what an unreality there always is in his pro- 
 ductions, as in Cipriani's pictures! Believe me, you must
 
 ON POESY AND ART 435 
 
 master the essence, the natura natiirans, which presupposes a 
 bond between nature in the higher sense and the soul of man. 
 
 The wisdom in nature is distinguished from that in man 
 by the co-instantaneity of the plan and the execution; the 
 thought and the product are one, or are given at once ; but 
 there is no reflex act, and hence there is no moral responsi- 
 bility. In man there is reflection, freedom, and choice; he 
 is, therefore, the head of the visible creation. In the objects 
 of nature are presented, as in a mirror, all the possible ele- 
 ments, steps, and processes of intellect antecedent to con- 
 sciousness, and therefore to the full development of the in- 
 telligential act; and man's mind is the very focus of all the 
 rays of intellect which are scattered throughout the images 
 of nature. Now so to place these images, totalized, and fitted 
 to the limits of the human mind, as to elicit from, and to 
 superinduce upon, the forms themselves the moral reflections 
 to which they approximate, to make the external internal, the 
 internal external, to make nature thought, and thought nature 
 — this is the mystery of genius in the fine arts. Dare I add 
 that the genius must act on the feeling, that body is but a 
 striving to become mind — that it is mind in its essence? 
 
 In every work of art there is a reconcilement of the external 
 with the internal; the conscious is so impressed on the un- 
 conscious as to appear in it ; as compare mere letters inscribed 
 on a tomb with figures themselves constituting the tomb. He 
 who combines the two is the man of genius ; and for that reason 
 he must partake of both. Hence there is in genius itself an 
 unconscious activity; nay, that is the genius in the man of 
 genius. And this is the true exposition of the rule that the 
 artist must first eloign himself from nature in order to return 
 to her with full effect. Why this? Because if he were to 
 begin by mere painful copying, he would produce masks only, 
 not forms breathing life. He must out of his own mind create 
 forms according to the severe laws of the intellect, in order 
 to generate in himself that co-ordination of freedom and law, 
 that involution of obedience in the prescript, and of the pre- 
 script in the impulse to obey, which assimilates him to nature, 
 and enables him to understand her. He merely absents him- 
 self for a season from her, that his own spirit, which has the 
 same ground with nature, may learn her unspoken language
 
 436 COLERIDGE 
 
 in its main radicals, before he approaches to her endless com- 
 positions of them. Yes, not to acquire cold notions — lifeless 
 technical rules — but living and life-producing ideas, which 
 shall contain their own evidence, the certainty that they are 
 essentially one with the germinal causes in nature — his con- 
 sciousness being the focus and mirror of both — for this does 
 the artist for a time abandon the external real in order to re- 
 turn to it with a complete sympathy with its internal and 
 actual. For of all we see, hear, feel, and touch the substance 
 is and must be in ourselves; and therefore there is no alter- 
 native in reason between the dreary (and thank heaven ! al- 
 most impossible) behef that everything around us is but a 
 phantom, or that the life which is in us is in them likewise; 
 and that to know is to resemble, when we speak of objects out 
 of ourselves, even as within ourselves to learn is, according 
 to Plato, only to recollect ; — the only effective answer to which, 
 that I have been fortunate to meet with, is that which Pope 
 has consecrated for future use in the line — 
 
 "And coxcombs vanquish Berkeley with a grinl" 
 
 The artist must imitate that which is within the thing, that 
 which is active through form and figure, and discourses to 
 us by symbols — the Natur-geist, or spirit of nature, as we 
 unconsciously imitate those whom we love; for so only can 
 he hope to produce any work truly natural in the object and 
 truly human in the effect. The idea which puts the form to- 
 gether cannot itself be the form. It is above form, and is its 
 essence, the universal in the individual, or the individuality 
 itself — the glance and the exponent of the indwelling power. 
 Each thing that lives has its moment of self-exposition, 
 and so has each period of each thing, if we remove the dis- 
 turbing forces of accident. To do this is the business of ideal 
 art, whether in images of childhood, youth, or age, in man 
 or in woman. Hence a good portrait is the abstract of the 
 personal ; it is not the likeness for actual comparison, but for 
 recollection. This explains why the likeness of a very good 
 portrait is not always recognized ; because some persons never 
 abstract, and among these are especially to be numbered the 
 near relations and friends of the subject, in consequence of 
 the constant pressure and check exercised on their minds by
 
 ON POESY AND ART 437 
 
 the actual presence of the original. And each thing that only 
 appears to live has also its possible position of relation to 
 life, as nature herself testifies, who, where she cannot be, 
 prophesies her being in the crystallized metal, or the inhaling 
 plant. 
 
 The charm, the indispensable requisite, of sculpture is unity 
 of effect. But painting rests in a material remoter from nat- 
 ure, and its compass is therefore greater. Light and shade 
 g^ve external, as well internal, being even with all its acci- 
 dents, while sculpture is confined to the latter. And here I 
 may observe that the subjects chosen for works of art, whether 
 in sculpture or painting, should be such as really are capable 
 of being expressed and conveyed within the limits of those 
 arts. Moreover, they ought to be such as will affect the spec- 
 tator by their truth, their beauty, or their sublimity, and there- 
 fore they may be addressed to the judgment, the senses, or 
 the reason. The peculiarity of the impression which they may 
 make may be derived either from color and form, or from pro- 
 portion and fitness, or from the excitement of the moral feel- 
 ings ; or all these may be combined. Such works as do com- 
 bine these sources of effect must have the preference in 
 dignity. 
 
 Imitation of the antique may be too exclusive, and may 
 produce an injurious effect on modern sculpture: — first, gen- 
 erally, because such an imitation cannot fail to have a tendency 
 to keep the attention fixed on externals rather than on the 
 thought within; — secondly, because, accordingly, it leads the 
 artist to rest satisfied with that which is always imperfect, 
 namely, bodily form, and circumscribes his views of mental 
 expression to the ideas of power and grandeur only ; — thirdly, 
 because it induces an effort to combine together two incon- 
 gruous things, that is to say, modern feelings in antique forms ; 
 — fourthly, because it speaks in a language, as it were, learned 
 and dead, the tones of which, being unfamiHar, leave the com- 
 mon spectator cold and unimpressed ; — and lastly, because it 
 necessarily causes a neglect of thoughts, emotions, and images 
 of profounder interest and more exalted dignity, as motherly, 
 sisterly, and brotherly love, piety, devotion, the divine become 
 human — the Virgin, the Apostle, the Christ. The artist's prin- 
 ciple in the statue of a great man should be the illustration
 
 43S COLERIDGE 
 
 of departed merit ; and I cannot but think that a skilful adop- 
 tion of modern habiliments would, in many instances, give 
 a variety and force of effect which a bigoted adherence to 
 Greek or Roman costume precludes. It is, I believe, from 
 artists finding Greek models unfit for several important mod- 
 ern purposes that we see so many allegorical figures on mon- 
 uments and elsewhere. Painting was, as it were, a new art, 
 and being unshackled by old models it chose its own subjects, 
 and took an eagle's flight. And a new field seems opened 
 for modern sculpture in the symbolical expression of the ends 
 of life, as in Guy's monument, Chantrey's children in Worces- 
 ter Cathedral, etc. 
 
 Architecture exhibits the greatest extent of the difference 
 from nature which may exist in works of art. It involves all 
 the powers of design, and is sculpture and painting inclusively. 
 It shows the greatness of man, and should at the same time 
 teach him humility. 
 
 Music is the most entirely human of the fine arts, and has 
 the fewest analoga in nature. Its first delightfulness is simple 
 accordance with the ear; but it is an associated thing, and 
 recalls the deep emotions of the past with an intellectual sense 
 of proportion. Every human feeling is greater and larger 
 than the exciting cause — a proof, I think, that man is designed 
 for a higher state of existence ; and this is deeply implied in 
 music in which there is always something more and beyond 
 the immediate expression. 
 
 With regard to works in all the branches of the fine arts^ 
 I may remark that the pleasure arising from novelty must 
 of course be allowed its due place and weight. This pleasure 
 consists in the identity of two opposite elements — that is to 
 say, sameness and variety. If in the midst of the variety there 
 be not some fixed object for the attention, the unceasing suc- 
 cession of the variety will prevent the mind from observing 
 the difference of the individual objects ; and the only thing 
 remaining will be the succession, which will then produce pre- 
 cisely the same effect as sameness. This we experience when 
 we let the trees or hedges pass before the fixed eye during 
 a rapid movement in a carriage, or, on the other hand, when 
 we suffer a file of soldiers or ranks of men in procession to 
 go on before us without resting the eye on anyone in par-
 
 ON POESY AND ART 439 
 
 ticular. In order to derive pleasure from the occupation of 
 the mind, the principle of unity must always be present, so 
 that in the midst of the multeity the centripetal force be never 
 suspended, nor the sense be fatigued by the predominance 
 of the centrifugal force. This unity in multeity I have else- 
 where stated as the principle of beauty. It is equally the source 
 of pleasure in variety, and in fact a higher term including both. 
 What is the seclusive or distinguishing term between them ? 
 
 Remember that there is a difference between form as pro- 
 ceeding, and shape as superinduced ; — the latter is either the 
 death or the imprisonment of the thing ; — the former is its self- 
 witnessing and self-effected sphere of agency. Art would or 
 should be the abridgment of nature. Now the fulness of nat- 
 ure is without character, as water is purest when without taste, 
 smell, or color; but this is the highest, the apex only — it is 
 not the whole. The object of art is to give the whole ad hotn- 
 inem; hence each step of nature hath its ideal, and hence the 
 possibility of a climax up to the perfect form of a harmonized 
 chaos. 
 
 To the idea of life victory or strife is necessary; as virtue 
 consists not simply in the absence of vices, but in the over- 
 coming of them. So it is in beauty. The sight of what is 
 subordinated and conquered heightens the strength and the 
 pleasure; and this should be exhibited by the artist either 
 inclusively in his figure, or else out of it, and beside it to act 
 by way of supplement and contrast. And with a view to this, 
 remark the seeming identity of body and mind in infants, and 
 thence the loveliness of the former ; the commencing separa- 
 tion in boyhood, and the struggle of equilibrium in youth: 
 thence onward the body is first simply indifferent ; then de- 
 manding the translucency of the mind not to be worse than 
 indifferent ; and finally all that presents the body as body be- 
 coming almost of an excremental nature.
 
 WAVERLEY, OR 'TIS SIXTY YEARS 
 
 SINCE 
 
 BY 
 
 FRANCIS, LORD JEFFREY
 
 FRANCIS, LORD JEFFREY 
 1773— 1850 
 
 Francis Jeffrey, who exercised greater influence on the periodical 
 literature and criticism of this century than any of his contemporaries, 
 was a native of Edinburgh, born on October 23, 1773. After educa- 
 tion at the High School of Edinburgh, two sessions at the university 
 of Glasgow, and one session — from October to June, 1791-92 — at 
 Queen's College, Oxford, he studied law, and passed as an advocate 
 in 1794. For many years his income did not exceed £100 per annum, 
 but his admirable economy and independent spirit kept him free from 
 debt, and he was indefatigable in the cultivation of his intellectual 
 powers. He was a Whig in politics. His literary ambition and po- 
 litical sentiment found scope in the " Edinburgh Review," the first 
 number of which appeared in October, 1802. 
 
 The chief merit and labor attaching to the continuance and the suc- 
 cess of the " Edinburgh Review " fell on its accomplished editor. 
 From 1803 to 1829 Mr. Jeffrey had the sole management of the " Re- 
 view." Besides his general superintendence, Mr. Jeffrey was a large 
 contributor. As a moral writer he was unimpeachable. In poetical 
 criticism he sometimes failed. Where no prejudice or prepossession 
 intervened, he was an admirable critic. If he was not profound, he 
 was interesting and graceful. His little dissertations on the style and 
 works of Cowper, Crabbe, Byron, and Scott, as well as his observa- 
 tions on moral science and the philosophy of life, are eloquent and 
 discriminating, and conceived in a fine spirit of humanity. He seldom 
 gave full scope to the expression of his feelings and sympathies, but 
 they do occasionally break forth and kindle up the pages of his criti- 
 cism. At times, indeed, his language is poetical in a high degree. The 
 chief defect of his writing is the occasional diffuseness and carelessness 
 of his style. He wrote as he spoke, with great rapidity and with a 
 flood of illustration. 
 
 At the bar, Jeffrey's eloquence and intrepidity were not less con- 
 spicuous than his literary talents. In 1829 he was, by the unanimous 
 suffrages of his legal brethren, elected Dean of the Faculty of Advo- 
 cates, and he then resigned the editorship of the " Review " into the 
 hands of another Scottish advocate, Macvey Napier. In 1830, on the 
 formation of Earl Grey's ministry, Jeffrey was nominated to the first 
 of!ice under the crown in Scotland — Lord Advocate — and sat for some 
 time in Parliament. In 1834 he gladly exchanged the turmoil of pol- 
 itics for the duties of a Scottish judge; and as Lord Jeffrey, he sat 
 on the bench until within a few days of his death, on January 26, 1850. 
 As a judge he was noted for undeviating attention, uprightness, and 
 ability; as a citizen, he was esteemed and beloved. He practised a 
 generous though unostentatious hospitality, preserved all the finer 
 qualities of his mind undiminished to the last, and delighted a wide 
 circle of ever-welcome friends and visitors by his rich conversational 
 powers, candor, and humanity. The more important of Jeffrey's con- 
 tributions to the " Edinburgh Review " were collected by him in 1844, 
 and published in four volumes, since reprinted in one large voluniS. 
 His review of Scott's " Waverley " is taken from this collection. 
 
 442
 
 WAVERLEY, OR 'TIS SIXTY YEARS SINCE \ 
 
 IT is wonderful what genius and adherence to nature will 
 do, in spite of all disadvantages. Here is a thing obvi- 
 ously very hastily, and, in many places, somewhat un- 
 skilfully written — composed, one-half of it, in a dialect unin- 
 telligible to four-fifths of the reading population of the country 
 — relating to a period too recent to be romantic and too far 
 gone by to be familiar — and published, moreover, in a quarter 
 of the island where materials and talents for novel-writing have 
 been supposed to be equally wanting.^ And yet, by the mere 
 force and truth and vivacity of its coloring, already casting the 
 whole tribe of ordinary novels into the shade, and taking its 
 place rather with the rubbish of provincial romances. 
 
 The secret of this success, we take it, is merely that the 
 author is a man of genius ; and that he has, notwithstanding, 
 had virtue enough to be true to nature throughout; and to 
 content himself, even in the marvellous parts of his story, with 
 copying from actual existences, rather than from the phan- 
 tasms of his own imagination. The charm which this com- 
 
 1 1 have been a good deal at a loss what to do with these famous 
 novels of Sir Walter. On the one hand I could not bring myself to 
 let this collection go forth without some notice of works which, for 
 many years together, had occupied and delighted me more than any- 
 thing else that ever came under my critical survey; while, on the other, 
 I could not but feel that it would be absurd, and in some sense almost 
 dishonest, to fill these pages with long citations from books which, 
 for the last twenty-five years, have been in the hands of at least fifty 
 times as many readers as are ever likely to look into this publication 
 — and are still as familiar to the generation which has last come into 
 existence, as to those who can yet remember the sensation produced 
 by their first appearance. In point of fact I was informed, but the other 
 day, by Mr. Cadell, that he had actually sold not less than sixty thou- 
 sand volumes of these extraordinary productions in the course of the 
 preceding year! and that the demand for them, instead of slackening, 
 had been for some time sensibly on the increase. In these circum- 
 stances I think I may safely assume that their contents are still so per- 
 fectly known as not to require any citations to introduce such of the 
 remarks originally made on them as I may now wish to repeat. And 
 I have therefore come to the determination of omitting almost all the 
 
 443
 
 444 JEFFREY 
 
 municates to all works that deal in the representation of 
 human actions and character, is more readily felt than under- 
 stood ; and operates with unfailing efficacy even upon those 
 who have no acquaintance with the originals from which the 
 picture has been borrowed. It requires no ordinary talent, 
 indeed, to choose such realities as may outshine the bright 
 imaginations of the inventive, and so to combine them as to 
 produce the most advantageous effect ; but when this is once 
 accomplished the result is sure to be something more firm, 
 impressive, and engaging, than can ever be produced by mere 
 fiction. 
 
 The object of the work before us was evidently to present 
 a faithful and animated picture of the manners and state of 
 society that prevailed in this northern part of the island, in 
 the earlier part of last century ; and the author has judiciously 
 fixed upon the era of the Rebellion in 1745, not only as enrich- 
 ing his pages with the interest inseparably attached to the 
 narration of such occurrences, but as affording a fair oppor- 
 tunity for bringing out all the contrasted principles and habits 
 which distinguished the different classes of persons who then 
 divided the country, and formed among them the basis of al- 
 most all that was peculiar in the national character. That un- 
 fortunate contention brought conspicuously to light, and for 
 the last time, the fading image of feudal chivalry in the moun- 
 
 quotations and most of the detailed abstracts which appeared in the 
 original reviews; and to retain only the general criticism, and char- 
 acter, or estimate of each performance — together with such incidental 
 observations as may have been suggested by the tenor or success of 
 these wonderful productions. By this course, no doubt, a sad shrinking 
 will be effected in the primitive dimensions of the articles which are 
 here reproduced; and may probably give to what is retained some- 
 thing of a naked and jejune appearance. If it should be so, I can only 
 say that I do not see how I could have helped it; and, after all, it may 
 not be altogether without interest to see, from a contemporary record, 
 what were the first impressions produced by the appearance of this 
 new luminary on our horizon; while the secret of the authorship was 
 yet undivulged, and before the rapid accumulation of its glories had 
 forced on the dullest spectator a sense of its magnitude and power. I 
 may venture, perhaps, also to add, that some of the general specula- 
 tions of which these reviews suggested the occasion, may, probably, 
 be found as well worth preserving as most of those which have been 
 elsewhere embodied in this experimental and somewhat hazardous 
 publication. 
 
 Though living in familiar intercourse with Sir Walter, I need scarcely 
 say that I was not in the secret of his authorship; and, in truth, had no 
 assurance of the fact till the time of its promulgation.
 
 WAVERLEY , 445 
 
 tains, and vulgar fanaticism in the plains ; and startled the more 
 polished parts of the land with the wild but brilHant picture 
 of the devoted valor, incorruptible fidelity, patriarchal brother- 
 hood, and savage habits of the Celtic Clans, on the one hand, 
 and the dark, intractable, and domineering bigotry of the Cov- 
 enanters on the other. Both aspects of society had indeed been 
 formerly prevalent in other parts of the country, but had there 
 been so long superseded by more peaceable habits and milder 
 manners that their vestiges were almost effaced, and their very 
 memory nearly extinguished. The feudal principalities had 
 been destroyed in the South for near three hundred years, and 
 the dominion of the Puritans from the time of the Restoration. 
 When the glens and banded clans of the central Highlands, 
 therefore, were opened up to the gaze of the English, in the 
 course of that insurrection, it seemed as if they were carried 
 back to the days of the Heptarchy; and when they saw the 
 array of the West country Whigs, they might imagine them- 
 selves transported to the age of Cromwell. The effect, indeed, 
 is almost as startling at the present moment ; and one great 
 source of the interest which the volumes before us undoubtedly 
 possess is to be sought in the surprise that is excited by dis- 
 covering that in our own country, and almost in our own age, 
 manners and characters existed, and were conspicuous, which 
 we had been accustomed to consider as belonging to remote 
 antiquity, or extravagant romance. 
 
 The way in which they are here represented must satisfy 
 every reader, we think, by an inward tact and conviction, that 
 the delineation has been made from actual experience and ob- 
 servation — experience and observation employed perhaps only 
 on a few surviving relics and specimens of what was familiar 
 a little earlier, but generalized from instances suf^ciently nu- 
 merous and complete to warrant all that may have been added 
 to the portrait. And, indeed, the existing records and vestiges 
 of the more extraordinary parts of the representation are still 
 sufficiently abundant to satisfy all who have the means of con- 
 sulting them, as to the perfect accuracy of the picture. The 
 great traits of clannish dependence, pride, and fidelity may 
 still be detected in many districts of the Highlands, though they 
 do not now adhere to the chieftains when they mingle in gen- 
 eral society; and the existing contentions of Burghers and
 
 446 JEFFREY 
 
 Anti-Burghers, and Cameronians, though shrunk into compar- 
 ative insignificance, and left, indeed, without protection to the 
 ridicule of the profane, may still be referred to as complete 
 verifications of all that is here stated about Gifted Gilfillan, 
 or Ebenezer Cruickshank. The traits of Scottish national 
 character in the lower ranks can still be regarded as antiquated 
 or traditional ; nor is there anything in the whole compass of the 
 work which gives us a stronger impression of the nice observa- 
 tion and graphical talent of the author than the extraordinary 
 fidelity and felicity with which all the inferior agents in the 
 story are represented. No one who has not lived extensively 
 among the lower orders of all descriptions, and made himself 
 familiar with their various tempers and dialects, can perceive 
 the full merit of those rapid and characteristic sketches ; but 
 it requires only a general knowledge of human nature to feel 
 that they must be faithful copies from known originals ; and 
 to be aware of the extraordinary facility and flexibility of hand 
 which has touched, for instance, with such discriminating 
 shades, the various gradations of the Celtic character, from the 
 savage imperturbability of Dugald Mahony, who stalks grimly 
 about with his battle-axe on his shoulder, without speaking a 
 word to anyone, to the lively, unprincipled activity of Galium 
 Beg; the coarse unreflecting hardihood and heroism of Evan 
 Maccombich ; and the pride, gallantry, elegance, and ambition 
 of Fergus himself. In the lower class of the Lowland charac- 
 ters, again, the vulgarity of Mrs. Flockhart and of Lieutenant 
 Jinker is perfectly distinct and original, as well as the puritan- 
 ism of Gilfillan and Cruickshank, the atrocity of Mrs. Muckle- 
 vrrath, and the slow solemnity of Alexander Saunderson. The 
 Baron of Bradwardine, and Baillie Macwheeble, are carica- 
 tures, no doubt, after the fashion of the caricatures in the novels 
 of Smollett — or pictures, at the best, of individuals who must 
 always have been unique and extraordinary; but almost all 
 the other personages in the history are fair representatives of 
 classes that are still existing, or may be remembered at least 
 to have existed, by many whose recollections do not extend 
 quite so far back as to the year 1745. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 There has been much speculation, at least in this quarter of 
 the island, about the authorship of this singular performance.
 
 WAVERLEY 447 
 
 and certainly it is not easy to conjecture why it is still anony- 
 mous. Judging by internal evidence, to which alone we pre- 
 tend to have access, we should not scruple to ascribe it to the 
 highest of those authors to whom it has been assigned by the 
 sagacious conjectures of the public ; and this at least we will 
 venture to say, that if it be indeed the work of an author hith- 
 erto unknown, Mr. Scott would do well to look to his laurels, 
 and to rouse himself for a sturdier competition than any he 
 has yet had to encounter !
 
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