is to claim the priority of everything else. Unless that be _duly
attended to_, there can be no real pleasure in any other employment of
a portion of your time. Men, however, must have some leisure, some
relaxation from business; and in the choice of this relaxation much of
your happiness will depend. Where fields and gardens are at hand, they
present the most rational scenes for leisure. As to company, I have
said enough in the former letter to deter any young man from that of
drunkards and rioting companions; but there is such a thing as your
quiet '_pipe-and-pot-companions_,' which are, perhaps, the most fatal
of all. Nothing can be conceived more dull, more stupid, more the
contrary of edification and rational amusement, than sitting, sotting,
over a pot and a glass, sending out smoke from the head, and
articulating, at intervals, nonsense about all sorts of things. Seven
years service as a galley-slave would be more bearable to a man of
sense, than seven months confinement to society like this. Yet, such is
the effect of habit, that, if a young man become a frequenter of such
scenes, the idle propensity sticks to him for life. Some companions,
however, every man must have; but these every well-behaved man will find
in private houses, where families are found residing and where the
suitable intercourse takes place between women and men. A man that
cannot pass an evening without drink merits the name of a sot. Why
should there be drink for the purpose of carrying on conversation? Women
stand in need of no drink to stimulate them to converse; and I have a
thousand times admired their patience in sitting quietly at their work,
while their husbands are engaged, in the same room, with bottles and
glasses before them, thinking nothing of the expense and still less of
the shame which the distinction reflects upon them. We have to thank the
women for many things, and particularly for their sobriety, for fear of
following their example in which men drive them from the table, as if
they said to them: 'You have had enough; food is sufficient for you; but
we must remain to fill ourselves with drink, and to talk in language
which your ears ought not to endure.' When women are getting up to
retire from the table, men rise _in honour of_ them; but they take
special care not to follow their excellent example. That which is not
fit to be uttered before women is not fit to be uttered at all; and it
is next to a proclamation, tolerating drunkenness and indecency, to send
women from the table the moment they have swallowed their food. The
practice has been ascribed to a desire to leave them to themselves; but
why should they be left to themselves? Their conversation is always the
most lively, while their persons are generally the most agreeable
objects. No: the plain truth is, that it is the love of the drink and of
the indecent talk that send women from the table; and it is a practice
which I have always abhorred. I like to see young men, especially,
follow them out of the room, and prefer their company to that of the
sots who are left behind.
74. Another mode of spending the leisure time is that of books. Rational
and well-informed companions may be still more instructive; but books
never annoy; they cost little; and they are always at hand, and ready at
your call. The sort of books must, in some degree, depend upon your
pursuit in life; but there are some books necessary to every one who
aims at the character of a well-informed man. I have slightly mentioned
HISTORY and Geography in the preceding letter; but I must here observe,
that, as to both these, you should begin with your own country, and make
yourself well acquainted, not only with its ancient state, but with the
_origin_ of all its principal institutions. To read of the battles which
it has fought, and of the intrigues by which one king or one minister
has succeeded another, is very little more profitable than the reading
of a romance. To understand well the history of the country, you should
first understand how it came to be divided into counties, hundreds, and
into parishes; how judges, sheriffs, and juries, first arose; to what
end they were all invented, and how the changes with respect to any of
them have been produced. But it is of particular consequence that you
ascertain the _state of the people_ in former times, which is to be
ascertained by _comparing the then price of labour with the then price
of food_. You hear enough, and you read enough, about the _glorious
wars_ in the reign of KING EDWARD the THIRD; and it is very proper that
those glories should be recorded and remembered; but you never read, in
the works of the historians, that, in that reign, a common labourer
earned threepence-halfpenny a day; and that a _fat sheep_ was sold, at
the same time, for one shilling and twopence, and a fat hog, two years
old, for three shillings and fourpence, and a fat goose for
twopence-halfpenny. You never read that women received a penny a day for
hay-making or weeding in the corn, and that a gallon of red wine was
sold for fourpence. These are matters which historians have deemed to be
beneath their notice; but they are matters of real importance: they are
matters which ought to have practical effect at this time; for these
furnish the criterion whereby we are to judge of our condition compared
with that of our forefathers. The poor-rates form a great feature in the
laws and customs of this country. Put to a thousand persons who have
read what is called the history of England; put to them the question,
how the poor-rates came? and nine hundred and ninety-nine of the
thousand will tell you, that they know nothing at all of the matter.
This is not history; a list of battles and a string of intrigues are not
history, they communicate no knowledge applicable to our present state;
and it really is better to amuse oneself with an avowed romance, which
latter is a great deal worse than passing one's time in counting the
trees.
75. History has been described as affording arguments of experience; as
a record of what has been, in order to guide us as to what is likely to
be, or what ought to be; but, from this romancing history, no such
experience is to be derived: for it furnishes no facts on which to found
arguments relative to the existing or future state of things. To come at
the true history of a country you must read its laws: you must read
books treating of its usages and customs in former times; and you must
particularly inform yourself as to _prices of labour and of food_. By
reading the single Act of the 23rd year of EDWARD the THIRD, specifying
the price of labour at that time; by reading an Act of Parliament passed
in the 24th year of HENRY the EIGHTH; by reading these two Acts, and
then reading the CHRONICON PRECIOSUM of BISHOP FLEETWOOD, which shows
the price of food in the former reign, you come into full possession of
the knowledge of what England was in former times. Divers books teach
how the divisions of the country arose, and how its great institutions
were established; and the result of this reading is a store of
knowledge, which will afford you pleasure for the whole of your life.
76. History, however, is by no means the only thing about which every
man's leisure furnishes him with the means of reading; besides which,
every man has not the same taste. Poetry, geography, moral essays, the
divers subjects of philosophy, travels, natural history, books on
sciences; and, in short, the whole range of book-knowledge is before
you; but there is one thing always to be guarded against; and that is,
not to admire and applaud anything you read, merely because it is the
_fashion_ to admire and applaud it. Read, consider well what you read,
form _your own judgment_, and stand by that judgment in despite of the
sayings of what are called learned men, until fact or argument be
offered to convince you of your error. One writer praises another; and
it is very possible for writers so to combine as to cry down and, in
some sort, to destroy the reputation of any one who meddles with the
combination, unless the person thus assailed be blessed with uncommon
talent and uncommon perseverance. When I read the works of POPE and of
SWIFT, I was greatly delighted with their lashing of DENNIS; but
wondered, at the same time, why they should have taken so much pains in
running down such a _fool_. By the merest accident in the world, being
at a tavern in the woods of America, I took up an old book, in order to
pass away the time while my travelling companions were drinking in the
next room; but seeing the book contained the criticisms of DENNIS, I was
about to lay it down, when the play of 'CATO' caught my eye; and having
been accustomed to read books in which this play was lauded to the
skies, and knowing it to have been written by ADDISON, every line of
whose works I had been taught to believe teemed with wisdom and genius,
I condescended to begin to read, though the work was from the pen of
that _fool_ DENNIS. I read on, and soon began to _laugh_, not at Dennis,
but at Addison. I laughed so much and so loud, that the landlord, who
was in the passage, came in to see what I was laughing at. In short, I
found it a most masterly production, one of the most witty things that I
had ever read in my life. I was delighted with DENNIS, and was heartily
ashamed of my former admiration of CATO, and felt no little resentment
against POPE and SWIFT for their endless reviling of this most able and
witty critic. This, as far as I recollect, was the first _emancipation_
that had assisted me in my reading. I have, since that time, never taken
any thing upon trust: I have judged for myself, trusting neither to the
opinions of writers nor in the fashions of the day. Having been told by
DR. BLAIR, in his lectures on Rhetoric, that, if I meant to write
correctly, I must 'give my days and nights to ADDISON,' I read a few
numbers of the Spectator at the time I was writing my English Grammar: I
gave neither my nights nor my days to him; but I found an abundance of
matter to afford examples _of false grammar_; and, upon a reperusal, I
found that the criticisms of DENNIS might have been extended to this
book too.
77. But that which never ought to have been forgotten by those who were
men at the time, and that which ought to be _made known to every young
man of the present day_, in order that he may be induced to exercise his
own judgment with regard to books, is, the transactions relative to the
writings of SHAKSPEARE, which transactions took place about thirty years
ago. It is still, and it was then much more, the practice to extol every
line of SHAKSPEARE to the skies: not to admire SHAKSPEARE has been
deemed to be a proof of want of understanding and taste. MR. GARRICK,
and some others after him, had their own good and profitable reasons for
crying up the works of this poet. When I was a very little boy, there
was a _jubilee_ in honour of SHAKSPEARE, and as he was said to have
planted a _Mulberry tree_, boxes, and other little ornamental things in
wood, were sold all over the country, as having been made out of the
trunk or limbs of this ancient and sacred tree. We Protestants laugh at
the _relics_ so highly prized by Catholics; but never was a Catholic
people half so much duped by the relics of saints, as this nation was by
the mulberry tree, of which, probably, more wood was sold than would
have been sufficient in quantity to build a ship of war, or a large
house. This madness abated for some years; but, towards the end of the
last century it broke out again with more fury than ever. SHAKSPEARE'S
works were published by BOYDELL, an Alderman of London, at a
subscription of _five hundred pounds for each copy_, accompanied by
plates, each forming a large picture. Amongst the mad men of the day was
a MR. IRELAND, who seemed to be more mad than any of the rest. His
adoration of the poet led him to perform a pilgrimage to an old
farm-house, near Stratford-upon-Avon, said to have been the birth-place
of the poet. Arrived at the spot, he requested the farmer and his wife
to let him search the house for papers, _first going upon his knees_,
and praying, in the poetic style, the gods to aid him in his quest. He
found no papers; but he found that the farmer's wife, in clearing out a
garret some years before, had found some rubbishy old papers which she
had _burnt_, and which had probably been papers used in the wrapping up
of pigs' cheeks to keep them from the bats. 'O, wretched woman!'
exclaimed he; 'do you know what you have done?' 'O dear, no!' said the
woman, half frightened out of her wits: 'no harm, I hope; for the papers
were _very old_; I dare say as old as the house itself.' This threw him
into an additional degree of _excitement_, as it is now fashionably
called: he raved, he stamped, he foamed, and at last quitted the house,
covering the poor woman with very term of reproach; and hastening back
to Stratford, took post-chaise for London, to relate to his brother
madmen the horrible sacrilege of this heathenish woman. Unfortunately
for MR. IRELAND, unfortunately for his learned brothers in the
metropolis, and unfortunately for the reputation of SHAKSPEARE, MR.
IRELAND took with him to the scene of his adoration _a son, about
sixteen years of age_, who was articled to an attorney in London. The
son was by no means so sharply bitten as the father; and, upon returning
to town, he conceived the idea of _supplying the place of the invaluable
papers_ which the farm-house heathen had destroyed. He thought, and he
thought rightly, that he should have little difficulty in writing plays
_just like those of Shakspeare_! To get _paper_ that should seem to have
been made in the reign of QUEEN ELIZABETH, and _ink_ that should give to
writing the appearance of having the same age, was somewhat difficult;
but both were overcome. Young IRELAND was acquainted with a son of a
bookseller, who dealt in _old books_: the blank leaves of these books
supplied the young author with paper; and he found out the way of making
proper ink for his purpose. To work he went, _wrote several plays_, some
_love-letters_, and other things; and having got a Bible, extant in the
time of SHAKSPEARE, he wrote _notes_ in the margin. All these, together
with _sonnets_ in abundance, and other little detached pieces, he
produced to his father, telling him he got them from a gentleman, who
had _made him swear that he would not divulge his name_. The father
announced the invaluable discovery to the literary world: the literary
world rushed to him; the manuscripts were regarded as genuine by the
most grave and learned Doctors, some of whom (and amongst these were
DOCTORS PARR and WARTON) gave, _under their hands_, an opinion, that the
manuscripts _must have been written_ by SHAKSPEARE; for that _no other
man in the world could have been capable of writing them_!
78. MR. IRELAND opened a subscription, published these new and
invaluable manuscripts at an enormous price; and preparations were
instantly made for _performing one of the plays_, called VORTIGERN. Soon
after the acting of the play, the indiscretion of the lad caused the
secret to explode; and, instantly, those who had declared that he had
written as well as SHAKSPEARE, did every thing in their power _to
destroy him_! The attorney drove him from his office; the father drove
him from his house; and, in short, he was hunted down as if he had been
a malefactor of the worst description. The truth of this relation is
undeniable; it is recorded in numberless books. The young man is, I
believe, yet alive; and, in short, no man will question any one of the
facts.
79. After this, where is the person of sense who will be guided in these
matters by _fashion_? where is the man, who wishes not to be deluded,
who will not, when he has read a book, _judge for himself_? After all
these jubilees and pilgrimages; after BOYDELL'S subscription of 500_l._
for one single copy; after it had been deemed almost impiety to doubt of
the genius of SHAKSPEARE surpassing that of all the rest of mankind;
after he had been called the '_Immortal Bard_,' as a matter of course,
as we speak of MOSES and AARON, there having been but one of each in the
world; after all this, comes a lad of sixteen years of age, writes that
which learned Doctors declare could have been written by no man but
SHAKSPEARE, and, when it is discovered that this laughing boy is the
real author, the DOCTORS turn round upon him, with all the newspapers,
magazines, and reviews, and, of course, the public at their back, revile
him as an _impostor_; and, under that odious name, hunt him out of
society, and doom him to starve! This lesson, at any rate, he has given
us: not to rely on the judgment of Doctors and other pretenders to
literary superiority. Every young man, when he takes up a book for the
first time, ought to remember this story; and if he do remember it, he
will disregard fashion with regard to the book, and will pay little
attention to the decision of those who call themselves critics.
80. I hope that your taste would keep you aloof from the writings of
those detestable villains, who employ the powers of their mind in
debauching the minds of others, or in endeavours to do it. They present
their poison in such captivating forms, that it requires great virtue
and resolution to withstand their temptations; and, they have, perhaps,
done a thousand times as much mischief in the world as all the infidels
and atheists put together. These men ought to be called _literary
pimps_: they ought to be held in universal abhorrence, and never spoken
of but with execration. Any appeal to bad passions is to be despised;
any appeal to ignorance and prejudice; but here is an appeal to the
frailties of human nature, and an endeavour to make the mind corrupt,
just as it is beginning to possess its powers. I never have known any
but bad men, worthless men, men unworthy of any portion of respect, who
took delight in, or even kept in their possession, writings of the
description to which I here allude. The writings of SWIFT have this
blemish; and, though he is not a teacher of _lewdness_, but rather the
contrary, there are certain parts of his poems which are much too filthy
for any decent person to read. It was beneath him to stoop to such means
of setting forth that wit which would have been far more brilliant
without them. I have heard, that, in the library of what is called an
'_illustrious_ person,' sold some time ago, there was an immense
collection of books of this infamous description; and from this
circumstance, if from no other, I should have formed my judgment of the
character of that person.
81. Besides reading, a young man ought to write, if he have the capacity
and the leisure. If you wish to remember a thing well, put it into
writing, even if you burn the paper immediately after you have done; for
the eye greatly assists the mind. Memory consists of a concatenation of
ideas, the place, the time, and other circumstances, lead to the
recollection of facts; and no circumstance more effectually than stating
the facts upon paper. A JOURNAL should be kept by every young man. Put
down something against every day in the year, if it be merely a
description of the weather. You will not have done this for one year
without finding the benefit of it. It disburthens the mind of many
things to be recollected; it is amusing and useful, and ought by no
means to be neglected. How often does it happen that we cannot make a
statement of facts, sometimes very interesting to ourselves and our
friends, for the want of a record of the places where we were, and of
things that occurred on such and such a day! How often does it happen
that we get into disagreeable disputes about things that have passed,
and about the time and other circumstances attending them! As a thing of
mere curiosity, it is of some value, and may frequently prove of very
great utility. It demands not more than a minute in the twenty-four
hours; and that minute is most agreeably and advantageously employed. It
tends greatly to produce regularity in the conducting of affairs: it is
a thing demanding a small portion of attention _once in every day_; I
myself have found it to be attended with great and numerous benefits,
and I therefore strongly recommend it to the practice of every reader.
LETTER III
TO A LOVER
82. There are two descriptions of Lovers on whom all advice would be
wasted; namely, those in whose minds passion so wholly overpowers reason
as to deprive the party of his sober senses. Few people are entitled to
more compassion than young men thus affected: it is a species of
insanity that assails them; and, when it produces self-destruction,
which it does in England more frequently than in all the other countries
in the world put together, the mortal remains of the sufferer ought to
be dealt with in as tender a manner as that of which the most merciful
construction of the law will allow. If SIR SAMUEL ROMILLY'S remains
were, as they were, in fact, treated as those of a person labouring
under '_temporary mental derangement_,' surely the youth who destroys
his life on account of unrequited love, ought to be considered in as
mild a light! SIR SAMUEL was represented, in the evidence taken before
the Coroner's Jury, to have been _inconsolable for the loss of his
wife_; that this loss had so dreadful an effect upon his mind, that it
_bereft him of his reason_, made life insupportable, and led him to
commit the act of _suicide_: and, on _this ground alone_, his _remains_
and his _estate_ were rescued from the awful, though just and wise,
sentence of the law. But, unfortunately for the reputation of the
administration of that just and wise law, there had been, only about two
years before, a _poor_ man, at Manchester, _buried in crossroads_, and
under circumstances which entitled his remains to mercy much more
clearly than in the case of SIR SAMUEL ROMILLY.
83. This unfortunate youth, whose name was SMITH, and who was a
shoemaker, was in love with a young woman, who, in spite of all his
importunities and his proofs of ardent passion, refused to marry him,
and even discovered her liking for another; and he, unable to support
life, accompanied by the thought of her being in possession of any body
but himself, put an end to his life by the means of a rope. If, in any
case, we are to _presume_ the existence of insanity; if, in any case, we
are led to believe the thing _without positive proof_; if, in any case,
there can be an apology in human nature itself, for such an act; _this
was that case_. We all know (as I observed at the time); that is to say,
all of us who cannot wait to calculate upon the gains and losses of the
affair; all of us, except those who are endowed with this provident
frigidity, know well what youthful love is; and what its torments are,
when accompanied by even the smallest portion of jealousy. Every man,
and especially every Englishman (for here we seldom love or hate by
halves), will recollect how many mad pranks he has played; how many wild
and ridiculous things he has said and done between the age of sixteen
and that of twenty-two; how many times a kind glance has scattered all
his reasoning and resolutions to the winds; how many times a cool look
has plunged him into the deepest misery! Poor SMITH, who was at this age
of love and madness, might, surely, be presumed to have done the deed in
a moment of '_temporary mental derangement_.' He was an object of
compassion in every humane breast: he had parents and brethren and
kindred and friends to lament his death, and to feel shame at the
disgrace inflicted on his lifeless body: yet, HE was pronounced to be a
_felo de se_, or _self-murderer_, and his body was put into a hole by
the way-side, with a stake driven down through it; while that of ROMILLY
had mercy extended to it, on the ground that the act had been occasioned
by '_temporary mental derangement_' caused by his grief for the death of
his wife!
84. To _reason_ with passion like that of the unfortunate SMITH, is
perfectly useless; you may, with as much chance of success, reason and
remonstrate with the winds or the waves: if you make impression, it
lasts but for a moment: your effort, like an inadequate stoppage of
waters, only adds, in the end, to the violence of the torrent: the
current must have and will have its course, be the consequences what
they may. In cases not quite so decided, _absence_, the sight _of new
faces_, the sound _of new voices_, generally serve, if not as a radical
cure, as a mitigation, at least, of the disease. But, the worst of it
is, that, on this point, we have the girls (and women too) against us!
For they look upon it as right that every lover should be _a little
maddish_; and, every attempt to rescue him from the thraldom imposed by
their charms, they look upon as an overt act of treason against their
natural sovereignty. No girl ever liked a young man less for his having
done things foolish and wild and ridiculous, provided she was _sure_
that love of her had been the cause: let her but be satisfied upon this
score, and there are very few things which she will not forgive. And,
though wholly unconscious of the fact, she is a great and sound
philosopher after all. For, from the nature of things, the rearing of a
family always has been, is, and must ever be, attended with cares and
troubles, which must infallibly produce, at times, feelings to be
combated and overcome by nothing short of that ardent affection which
first brought the parties together. So that, talk as long as Parson
MALTHUS likes about 'moral _restraint_;' and report as long as the
Committees of Parliament please about preventing '_premature_ and
_improvident_ marriages' amongst the labouring classes, the passion that
they would _restrain_, while it is necessary to the existence of
mankind, is the greatest of all the compensations for the inevitable
cares, troubles, hardships, and sorrows of life; and, as to the
_marriages_, if they could once be rendered universally _provident_,
every generous sentiment would quickly be banished from the world.