[339] This passage was censured by Thomas Baker in No. 72 of the
_Female Tatler_ (December 21, 1707): "Wisdom, virtue, and laboriousness
have always been inseparable from the famous Bickerstaff; but if the
characters that have first recommended him to the public, and by which
only he was known to the world, are no more to be found in those
works that go under his name, the author is dead, and the papers are
spurious," &c.
No. 108. [ADDISON.
From _Thursday, Dec. 15_, to _Saturday, Dec. 17, 1709_.
Pronaque cum spectent animalia cætera terram,
Os homini sublime dedit, cælumque tueri
Jussit.----
OVID, Met. i. 85.
_Sheer Lane, Dec. 16._
It is not to be imagined, how great an effect well-disposed lights,
with proper forms and orders in assemblies, have upon some tempers. I
am sure I feel it in so extraordinary a manner, that I cannot in a day
or two get out of my imagination any very beautiful or disagreeable
impression which I receive on such occasions. For this reason I
frequently look in at the play-house, in order to enlarge my thoughts,
and warm my mind with some new ideas, that may be serviceable to me in
my lucubrations. In this disposition I entered the theatre the other
day, and placed myself in a corner of it, very convenient for seeing,
without being myself observed. I found the audience hushed in a very
deep attention, and did not question but some noble tragedy was just
then in its crisis, or that an incident was to be unravelled which
would determine the fate of a hero. While I was in this suspense,
expecting every moment to see my old friend Mr. Betterton[340] appear
in all the majesty of distress, to my unspeakable amazement, there came
up a monster with a face between his feet; and as I was looking on, he
raised himself on one leg in such a perpendicular posture, that the
other grew in a direct line above his head.[341] It afterwards twisted
itself into the motions and wreathings of several different animals,
and after great variety of shapes and transformations, went off the
stage in the figure of a human creature. The admiration, the applause,
the satisfaction, of the audience, during this strange entertainment,
is not to be expressed. I was very much out of countenance for my
dear countrymen, and looked about with some apprehension for fear any
foreigner should be present. Is it possible, thought I, that human
nature can rejoice in its disgrace, and take pleasure in seeing its
own figure turned to ridicule, and distorted into forms that raise
horror and aversion? There is something disingenuous and immoral in
the being able to bear such a sight. Men of elegant and noble minds
are shocked at seeing the characters of persons who deserve esteem
for their virtue, knowledge, or services to their country, placed in
wrong lights, and by misrepresentation made the subject of buffoonery.
Such a nice abhorrence is not indeed to be found among the vulgar; but
methinks it is wonderful, that those who have nothing but the outward
figure to distinguish them as men, should delight in seeing it abused,
vilified, and disgraced.
I must confess, there is nothing that more pleases me in all that I
read in books, or see among mankind, than such passages as represent
human nature in its proper dignity. As man is a creature made up of
different extremes, he has something in him very great and very mean:
a skilful artist may draw an excellent picture of him in either of
these views. The finest authors of antiquity have taken him on the more
advantageous side. They cultivate the natural grandeur of the soul,
raise in her a generous ambition, feed her with hopes of immortality
and perfection, and do all they can to widen the partition between the
virtuous and the vicious, by making the difference betwixt them as
great as between gods and brutes. In short, it is impossible to read a
page in Plato, Tully, and a thousand other ancient moralists, without
being a greater and a better man for it. On the contrary, I could never
read any of our modish French authors, or those of our own country who
are the imitators and admirers of that trifling nation, without being
for some time out of humour with myself, and at everything about me.
Their business is to depreciate human nature, and consider it under its
worst appearances. They give mean interpretations and base motives to
the worthiest actions: they resolve virtue and vice into constitution.
In short, they endeavour to make no distinction between man and man, or
between the species of men and that of brutes. As an instance of this
kind of authors, among many others, let any one examine the celebrated
Rochefoucault, who is the great philosopher for administering of
consolation to the idle, the envious, and worthless part of mankind.
I remember a young gentleman of moderate understanding, but great
vivacity, who by dipping into many authors of this nature, had got
a little smattering of knowledge, just enough to make an atheist or
a free-thinker, but not a philosopher or a man of sense. With these
accomplishments, he went to visit his father in the country, who was a
plain, rough, honest man, and wise, though not learned. The son, who
took all opportunities to show his learning, began to establish a new
religion in the family, and to enlarge the narrowness of their country
notions; in which he succeeded so well, that he had reduced the butler
by his table-talk, and staggered his eldest sister. The old gentleman
began to be alarmed at the schisms that arose among his children, but
did not yet believe his son's doctrine to be so pernicious as it really
was, till one day talking of his setting-dog, the son said, he did not
question but Tray was as immortal as any one of the family; and in the
heat of the argument told his father, that for his own part he expected
to die like a dog. Upon which the old man, starting up in a very great
passion, cried out, "Then, sirrah, you shall live like one;" and taking
his cane in his hand, cudgelled him out of his system. This had so good
an effect upon him, that he took up from that day, fell to reading good
books, and is now a Bencher in the Middle Temple.
I do not mention this cudgelling part of the story with a design to
engage the secular arm in matters of this nature; but certainly, if
it ever exerts itself in affairs of opinion and speculation, it ought
to do it on such shallow and despicable pretenders to knowledge, who
endeavour to give man dark and uncomfortable prospects of his being,
and destroy those principles which are the support, happiness, and
glory of all public societies, as well as private persons.
I think it is one of Pythagoras's Golden Sayings, that a man should
take care above all things to have a due respect for himself;[342]
and it is certain, that this licentious sort of authors, who are for
depreciating mankind, endeavour to disappoint and undo what the most
refined spirits have been labouring to advance since the beginning
of the world. The very design of dress, good-breeding, outward
ornaments, and ceremony, were to lift up human nature, and set it off
to advantage. Architecture, painting, and statuary were invented with
the same design; as indeed every art and science contributes to the
embellishment of life, and to the wearing off or throwing into shades
the mean or low parts of our nature. Poetry carries on this great end
more than all the rest, as may be seen in the following passage, taken
out of Sir Francis Bacon's "Advancement of Learning,"[343] which gives
a truer and better account of this art than all the volumes that were
ever written upon it.
"Poetry, especially heroical, seems to be raised altogether from a
noble foundation, which makes much for the dignity of man's nature.
For seeing this sensible world is in dignity inferior to the soul
of man, poesy seems to endow human nature with that which history
denies, and to give satisfaction to the mind, with at least the shadow
of things, where the substance cannot be had. For if the matter be
thoroughly considered, a strong argument may be drawn from poesy,
that a more stately greatness of things, a more perfect order, and a
more beautiful variety, delights the soul of man, than any way can be
found in nature since the Fall. Wherefore seeing the acts and events,
which are the subject of true history, are not of that amplitude as
to content the mind of man; poesy is ready at hand to feign acts more
heroical. Because true history reports the successes of business not
proportionable to the merit of virtues and vices, poesy corrects it,
and presents events and fortunes according to desert, and according
to the law of Providence. Because true history, through the frequent
satiety and similitude of things, works a distaste and misprision in
the mind of man, poesy cheereth and refresheth the soul, chanting
things rare and various, and full of vicissitudes. So as poesy
serveth and conferreth to delectation, magnanimity, and morality;
and therefore it may seem deservedly to have some participation of
divineness, because it doth raise the mind, and exalt the spirit with
high raptures, by proportioning the shows of things to the desires of
the mind; and not submitting the mind to things, as reason and history
do. And by these allurements and congruities, whereby it cherisheth the
soul of man, joined also with consort of music, whereby it may more
sweetly insinuate itself; it hath won such access, that it hath been
in estimation even in rude times and barbarous nations, when other
learning stood excluded."
But there is nothing which favours and falls in with this natural
greatness and dignity of human nature so much as religion, which does
not only promise the entire refinement of the mind, but the glorifying
of the body, and the immortality of both.