resort and conversation throughout England had contributed. Clamours on
public affairs were assembled in this spot from the clubs of London, the
coffee-rooms of all the towns in the kingdom, the dinner tables of
country gentlemen, and innumerable other places where men talk for the
welfare of their country; and since every Englishman is both a statesman
and an orator, it may be imagined there is here a noble exhibition of
eloquence. I heard with some amusement these voices talking with all the
zeal of men engaged in a public duty; for most of those who are
politicians in private believe that their country cannot prosper if they
are silent. I listened to several of those who are statesmen out of
history, and in their reasonings about present events always argue two
hundred years back. I heard the dispute of two voices, which contrived
to embroil Hampden in all the transactions of the present time. There
were many other reasoners who combated on the events of former ages with
as much zeal and anger as they could have done on the laws which
concerned their own property. Indeed, few Englishmen are neutral readers
of history: almost all enrol themselves as party men in all contests
since Elizabeth, and with great fidelity adhere to their friends in
every page. A true Englishman is persuaded that his own credit depends
on the reputation of certain statesmen of past times, in whose designs
he is so deeply engaged that he must share their praise or ignominy, and
he is defending his own character when he decries their adversaries, who
must be villains before he can be an honest man.
After listening to these historical disputes, I advanced a few steps,
and found myself in modern times, where all the late vicissitudes were
debated with much indignation. I heard animadversions on certain
politicians, in voices which by an earnest sincerity of tone betrayed
suffering for the want of office.
I amused myself here with observing the several arts of controversy
which are practised by private disputants, and perhaps are in greatest
perfection on political subjects, such as a louder voice than the
adversary may be willing or able to arrive at; a sudden anger, which may
make him silent from fear or decency; the not hearing any thing that he
says, a resolution which must baffle the best reasoner; the beginning to
talk while he is in the crisis of his argument. I found here an
admirable expedient for making an argument unanswerable, which is to
repeat it till the adversary is tired of answering it. Another artifice,
much practised in this place, was, that when one disputant had urged
something inconvenient, the other, with great confidence, would say
something wholly foreign to the question, as if in answer, and then the
surprise and silence of the first, while he considers how this can be
applied to the subject, must be construed into a defeat.
There are other arts, perhaps, not less victorious than these, as a
contemptuous silence, and disdaining to argue any longer; a smile of
superiority, a look of having much more to say were it worth the
trouble, a pretended yielding to the adversary, as if encouraging him to
talk, and expose his ignorance.
Being tired of politics, I wandered through the valley, and heard
innumerable subjects debated. I here found a proof that nature leaves no
creature altogether without defence; for when she does not empower a man
to argue, she enables him to be angry.
I had occasion to consider the extravagance of those philosophers, who
from time to time have embraced a singular project of bringing all the
world to one opinion, for I observed here how naturally our friend, by
maintaining one side of a question, provokes us to undertake the other.
And yet this wild design of making men unanimous is still entertained by
certain persons, who believe that they are appointed to think for all
the world, and that mankind have nothing to do but think after them. It
is true, they allow, that men are now stubborn; but the age of thinking
alike will arrive.
I remarked, in this valley, that there is nothing so efficacious in
prolonging and enforcing a controversy as for men not to know what they
are disputing about. There were also many instances of another endless
way of reasoning, when two disputants agree without suspecting it, and
in different words contend vehemently for the same thing.
I found in this valley a great number of what may be called domestic
disputes, being those contests in which some families pass all their
leisure and retirement. I listened to some of these, and greatly admired
the invention of the reasoners, and their vigilance in seizing
opportunities for a difference of opinion. I heard a lady and six
daughters debating whether a certain person had grey eyes or hazel: the
mother and two daughters contended for the hazel, while the four others
supported grey. Both sides maintained their own hypothesis with great
vehemence, dexterity, and strength of argument. Each reasoner insisted
on her own superior opportunities of information, for one had seen the
eyes most frequently, but another had viewed them in the most
advantageous light. Neither party could gain a proselyte from the other.
I heard another family disputing with equal earnestness, whether a
certain person, lately dead, had been good-natured or not. I listened
to several other controversies of the same kind, as acute, angry, and
useful, as many famous disputes amongst scholars and divines.
Being at last quite weary of all this wrangling, I continued my journey,
and soon reached a building that contains lost experience, being the
opportunities which men have neglected of becoming wise at their own
expense. Over the door is a statue representing Experience. It is the
figure of an old man, expressing very significantly the pretence to
wisdom, from a long life, appearing to be in the act of imparting
caution, and asserting a title to know more than others, from having
lived longer. This figure reminded me of several old men whom I have
known to gain great confidence in their own opinion from a long
seclusion, supposing themselves practised in the conduct of life by a
continuance of infirmity and decay, and concluding that by an absence of
twenty years from the world they must understand it better than those
who are still conversant with it. Most old men need to be told that the
being alive is not experience, and that the longer their old age has
been, the more time they have had to forget.
I entered the building, and found one large room of the same appearance
as I have before described, being full of bottles, which preserve the
wasted experience. Each bottle had a label giving a history of its
contents. This room made me consider how erroneous is the common
opinion concerning the efficacy of experience. It is usually said, that
we are not to be taught by what happens to others, but only by what
befalls ourselves, yet I think most who reflect on their lives must
confess that the warnings they give themselves are to little purpose. To
prove the vanity of experience, I would have any man consider how often
he has failed to effect that improvement in his own character or
conduct, which he now promises himself shall be very soon concluded.
When we have every day endeavoured not to do a thing, and have yet done
it every day for some years past, we are still convinced that to-morrow
it really will be omitted; such is the authority of experience over our
judgment. A stone, says Aristotle, being thrown up a thousand times does
not learn to ascend. In many laudable endeavours, men benefit no more by
experience than the stone, but still come back to the same place. I
think, therefore, it may be said that experience has just force enough
to make men lament that they are doing wrong, but not enough to make
them do right.
In this room I saw many persons examining their own bottles, where they
found the follies which they had diligently repeated after learning the
bad consequences of them. They all were struck with melancholy at
finding how many occasions of becoming prudent they had neglected.
Gamblers found here the frequent losses and turns of fortune which had
warned them of ruin, and in defiance of which they had proceeded with
admirable resolution. The spendthrift was reproached with having still
forgotten the want and difficulty which many times in his life had
admonished him of the habits by which he was now a beggar.
I read with some amusement the histories on many of these bottles. One
of them containing the wasted experience of a friend of mine, a member
of parliament, records his endeavours to be an orator. Though every
experiment has been conclusive in favour of silence, he still persists
in his design of being the first orator in the House of Commons. Next to
this bottle is one, which proves that experience has no greater force
against poetry. It belongs to the author of a yearly volume, the
reception of which every year has bid him desist from being a poet, but
has not retarded the composition for the year following.
I observed a gentleman of my acquaintance studying attentively the label
of his own bottle, which was covered with a long narration of neglected
warnings, for he is thoroughly conversant with almost every enterprise
of imprudence. He told me that he should take possession of his bottle,
and carrying it to the earth make use of it to resist temptations; for
he had seen another man drink a small quantity out of his bottle, by
which he was immediately inspired with experience, and resolute against
all follies. My friend, therefore, intended to have recourse to his
bottle upon every urgent occasion, and so keep himself prudent as long
as its contents lasted. I have since inquired the success of his scheme,
and learned that at first, on the approach of any dangerous allurement,
he applied himself to his bottle, and by a few drops mixed with water
was quite fortified against it, having a painful remembrance and awe of
former evils. While the influence of his draught continued, he
remembered only the satiety and weariness of pleasure, with every
inconvenience and shame of his several transgressions. These visions of
prudence soon passed away, and each separate temptation required a new
draught. But when the first charm of temperance was over, another
difficulty occurred; for when an opportunity of being frail was
expected, it required as much firmness to drink from the bottle as to
resist without drinking. He still, however, continued this excellent
medicine; but took care to be austere only when there was no occasion of
enjoyment, and when any pleasure was near, he carefully abstained from
the bottle. Timing his draughts thus judiciously, he still benefits by
past experience.
Not long after I had quitted this house, I arrived at a valley which
yielded a sound quite different from all the rest, not resembling either
the human voice or any instrument that I had ever heard. Being told
that it was the valley of Cant I did not wonder that it should give an
unintelligible noise. I entered the valley, and found myself in the
midst of these sounds, which I had been unable to interpret, and I then
discovered that they were the religious tones which have prevailed in
England since the first introduction of cant. There were no articulate
words, but only tones in every variety of zeal and devotion.
I found here a gentleman very learned in antiquities, who was delighted
with this multitude of noises; for he said that the most eloquent and
faithful historian being unable to describe a sound, we have had no real
knowledge of the tones of different sects, though we read much about
them, but here he had found the authentic whining of every persuasion in
past times. He listened attentively, endeavouring to assign the tones to
their respective ages, which he imagined himself able to do with great
exactness, though I knew not by what rules he was guided. He declared he
should catch specimens of all these sounds, and shut them up in a box,
so as to have by him all the tones in which our ancestors have served
God, and thus supply a great defect in history.
I did not stay long amongst these strange noises, which at different
times have served as piety, but passing further into the valley, I found
cant under another representation. I was surrounded by a vast multitude
of faces, or appearances of faces, which hovered in the air without
being allied to bodies, or any other visible support. These faces were
employed in the different contortions and grimaces which have been
thought acceptable to God by adherents of the several sects. I was not a
little amused by the violent endeavours of these faces; I saw features
let out to an immoderate length; eye-brows with wonderful skill conveyed
to a place far remote from that where nature had settled them: and eyes
most ingeniously put out of sight without the lids being shut. Some of
these artists had great advantages from nature in uncommon gifts of
ugliness, and others had by industry supplied their natural defects in
that endowment.
Being soon satisfied with this morality I left the faces frowning for
their faith, and walking on saw a crowd of hands in the air performing
their office also in the rites of cant. Some pairs of hands appeared to
be preaching, and others praying; some were held upwards for a time,
then stretched out, probably to the conviction of all who listened; some
were clasped together with a violent effort of the muscles.
As soon as I had walked out of the district of hands, I found the air
darkened by a flight of religious tracts, a crowd of which hovered round
me in the air. When I appeared amongst them they rushed to me and opened
themselves before my eyes that I might read them, struggling and
contending with each other for the preference. Many of these tracts had
been great travellers, and bore on the outside the names of the places
they had visited. Some of them had preached in the East Indies, others
in the West; and I felt a pride in considering how great a part of the
world we supply with cant; nor is there the least fear of our stock
being exhausted.
In another part of the valley I found a book recording the designs of
cant, which are not yet completed. The first I cast my eye upon was a
project to suppress eating, drinking, and breathing on a Sunday,
particularly amongst tradesmen. Rabelais mentions some people whose
practice was to breakfast on yawning; but this proposed law would make
it serve for breakfast and dinner too on one day in every week. It
appeared that the authors of this design have great hopes of persuading
parliament very soon to enforce yawning on Sunday, and also of inducing
people voluntarily to devote fifty-two days of the year to that laudable
exercise, most advantageous to the public and most pleasing to heaven.
After this valley I came to another, whence issued a great uproar, which
I found was the debates of parliament. I was soon in the midst of them,
and heard a formidable din on various subjects, together with the many
sounds of acquiescence and dissent. English orators will be pleased to
find their speeches preserved in this manner; for it may spare them the
expense and solicitation by which they must obtain a place in certain
volumes for what they have said. I observed here several renowned
senators who listened with exemplary attention to their own harangues.
The speeches are preserved by this valley more faithfully than they can
be by printing; for they are uttered without the loss of a single
hesitation, repetition, or any other beauty with which they were first
delivered. A speech, by losing these delays loses much of its length,
which is now acknowledged the chief merit of oratory, as appears by the
practice in both our houses of parliament. Cicero being asked which
oration of Demosthenes he thought the best, answered, "The longest." All
speeches are now estimated by the same rule, but our English orators far
excel the ancients in duration; and we have many who, on any important
subject, are at least two hours more eloquent than Demosthenes. In
judging of speeches by their length there is this great convenience,
that there can be no dispute about the superiority of one to another;
for when speeches were praised according to the force of reasoning,
choice of words, and other particulars once in esteem, it was impossible
from the difference of taste in men that they should agree which of two
speeches had those merits in the greatest perfection; but now the
preference between two orations can make no question, provided the clock
be carefully consulted.
I may mention in this place a project which I have devised for greatly
improving the debates in parliament, and freeing the despatch of
business. In explaining my plan, I must confess that it is borrowed,
having been practised in the following case with great success. A
married woman once complained to a female friend of the bitter and
incessant disputes between herself and her husband, and asked advice
about the means of avoiding them. Her friend answered that she had in
her possession a certain water, of singular virtue in preventing
quarrels between married people, and she would give her a bottle of it,
with instructions for using it to that excellent purpose. Having filled
a bottle with the peaceful liquid, she presented it to her friend,
desiring that whenever her husband was beginning to be angry and
contentious, she would fill her mouth with this water, and keep it there
till he had become perfectly quiet. Soon after, the wife came back to
have the bottle replenished, and to thank her friend for the miraculous
cure and peace effected in her household, for the water had put an end
to all disputes. Now I have been informed by a great chemist that the
water of the Thames has the same wonderful property; and my contrivance
is, that every member of parliament, at the beginning of each debate,
should hold a sufficient quantity of it in his mouth, until the question
be passed. I am convinced that this practice would infinitely improve
the deliberations of our senate, by preventing the delays of business,
and the perplexing of many subjects.
In the building which I next entered, the lost friendships of English
people are preserved. I found a large room filled with urns of a
beautiful shape, each of which contains a past friendship. On the
outside of the urn is inscribed the cause which alienated the two
friends, the duration of their kindness, with some other circumstances.
I became melancholy at surveying this great assemblage of urns, and
reflecting on the instability of friendship. When we lose our kindness
towards a friend, we commonly pass into the contrary emotion, and
entertain something like aversion towards him. Two men thus altered
cannot meet without uneasiness; and I believe most people very early in
life can name several whose presence reproaches them in this manner.
There is often no reason to be assigned for these separations: we
formerly loved our friend without knowing why, and now his voice, his
countenance, his gestures give us offence, which is equally
inexplicable. We may be mortified that our judgment in reasoning is so
liable to vary at different times of our life; but perhaps this want of
firmness in our affections is still more lamentable.
It is said by Swift that every man is born with a certain portion of
friendship, which he is to distribute amongst those he lives with, so
that he cannot give to one without taking from another. I think there is
some truth in this observation; and it may explain the cessation of many
friendships, which otherwise would be very mysterious. There are some
who pretend to have an unlimited stock of this commodity, and are
liberal in bestowing it upon all who approach them; but this alacrity in
loving only confirms the maxim of Swift: for the little value of the
kindness, which in this case falls to the share of each, proves that
friendship is not to be so divided.
On many of these urns I read the causes of estrangement. Some friends
had lost their kindness for each other by being too long separate,
others by being too long together; some by having different interests,
and others by pursuing the same thing.
Lord Bacon says that admonition is the chief office and benefit of
friendship; but I found here numberless instances of friends having been
divided for ever by too faithful an execution of this office.
In wandering about when I had left the house of friendship I approached
a valley, which I learned was the receptacle of lost vanity, and I was
surprised to hear of such a place, because I had always thought that
this endowment is never lost, but remains with a man till his death.
Having often seen it in full vigour after the decay of strength, memory,
benevolence, and almost every faculty, I had supposed that where it once
is it must be inseparable from a human being, and consequently that it
wanted no asylum in the moon.
I had always thought it the chief mitigation of old age, that whoever is
in that difficulty, though he should lose every other ease, can still
keep his vanity, which is certainly the principal comfort of life.
But I found there was here a valley full of this excellent attribute
without any loss to the owners; for the vanity kept in this place is the
fruitless ostentation of those who erroneously believe themselves
admired, and are at the pains to assume a superiority which is
altogether groundless.
When I arrived at the edge of the valley, I saw first a crowd of what I
conceived to be young men employed in very singular movements; but on
walking amongst them, I found they were only the outsides of men, or
rather apparitions. They were all dressed with exact propriety; and I
soon discovered that these shadows represented the elaborate behaviour
of that race of men who claim greatness from a superiority in moving
about. Each of these figures was engaged in executing the gestures
peculiar to it in walking along a street, in entering a room, in bowing,
and in every other momentous transaction. They went through their arts
very rapidly, so as to make a great confusion in the different duties
and situations of life. Their gestures passed from the park to the
opera, and thence to a ball-room without the least delay, the exploits
of each place being performed with wonderful despatch. Many of these
figures smiled perpetually, and some with great skill. It was a
ridiculous thing to see them bowing without any provocation, and
performing other gestures, which there was nothing to justify.
They had no voice, but they moved their lips, and greatly excelled in
conversation so far as it is a beauty to the eye. But all the gifts
exhibited here had been lost by the dulness of mankind, the superiority
of these men being of such a nature that no one could discover the
grounds upon which they reasoned.
I had a wish to take one of these actors a prisoner, thinking he might
be an useful warning to certain young men of my acquaintance. I
therefore seized the one of greatest pretensions, and compressed him
till he was concealed within the palms of my hands, but, notwithstanding
this restraint, I felt him endeavouring to continue his exercises. I
then suddenly let him go, when, being instantly restored to his size and
shape, he began without delay to renew the practice of his
accomplishments. Supposing, therefore, that he would not lose his energy
by a temporary confinement, I again pressed him into a small compass and
secured him in a pocket-book. When, at my return to the earth, he was
released to his right dimensions, he retained all his vigour, and still
he goes through his manoeuvres without cessation.