[Footnote 1: Among his Moral Essays is that showing 'How one shall be
helped by Enemies.' In his 'Lives,' also, Plutarch applauds in Pericles
the noble sentiment which led him to think it his most excellent
attainment never to have given way to envy or anger, notwithstanding the
greatness of his power, nor to have nourished an implacable hatred
against his greatest foe. This, he says, was his only real title to the
name of Olympius.]
[Footnote 2: Luke vi. 27--32.]
[Footnote 3: Characters altogether different]
[Footnote 4: a very]
[Footnote 5: People]
[Footnote 6: Neutral Body of]
* * * * *
No. 126. Wednesday, July 25, 1711. Addison.
'Tros Rutulusve fuat, nullo discrimine habebo.'
Virg.
In my Yesterday's Paper I proposed, that the honest Men of all Parties
should enter into a kind of Association for the Defence of one another,
and [the] Confusion of their common Enemies. As it is designed this
neutral Body should act with a Regard to nothing but Truth and Equity,
and divest themselves of the little Heats and Prepossessions that cleave
to Parties of all Kinds, I have prepared for them the following Form of
an Association, which may express their Intentions in the most plain and
simple Manner.
_We whose Names are hereunto subscribed do solemnly declare, That we
do in our Consciences believe two and two make four; and that we shall
adjudge any Man whatsoever to be our Enemy who endeavours to persuade
us to the contrary. We are likewise ready to maintain, with the Hazard
of all that is near and dear to us, That six is less than seven in all
Times and all Places, and that ten will not be more three Years hence
than it is at present. We do also firmly declare, That it is our
Resolution as long as we live to call Black black, and White white.
And we shall upon all Occasions oppose such Persons that upon any Day
of the Year shall call Black white, or White black, with the utmost
Peril of our Lives and Fortunes._
Were there such a Combination of honest Men, who without any Regard to
Places would endeavour to extirpate all such furious Zealots as would
sacrifice one half of their Country to the Passion and Interest of the
other; as also such infamous Hypocrites, that are for promoting their
own Advantage, under Colour of the Publick Good; with all the profligate
immoral Retainers to each Side, that have nothing to recommend them but
an implicit Submission to their Leaders; we should soon see that furious
Party-Spirit extinguished, which may in time expose us to the Derision
and Contempt of all the Nations about us.
A Member of this Society, that would thus carefully employ himself in
making Room for Merit, by throwing down the worthless and depraved Part
of Mankind from those conspicuous Stations of Life to which they have
been sometimes advanced, and all this without any Regard to his private
Interest, would be no small Benefactor to his Country.
I remember to have read in _Diodorus Siculus_[1] an Account of a very
active little Animal, which I think he calls the _Ichneumon_, that makes
it the whole Business of his Life to break the Eggs of the Crocodile,
which he is always in search after. This instinct is the more
remarkable, because the _Ichneumon_ never feeds upon the Eggs he has
broken, nor in any other Way finds his Account in them. Were it not for
the incessant Labours of this industrious Animal, _Ægypt_, says the
Historian, would be over-run with Crocodiles: for the _Ægyptians_ are so
far from destroying those pernicious Creatures, that they worship them
as Gods.
If we look into the Behaviour of ordinary Partizans, we shall find them
far from resembling this disinterested Animal; and rather acting after
the Example of the wild _Tartars_, who are ambitious of destroying a Man
of the most extraordinary Parts and Accomplishments, as thinking that
upon his Decease the same Talents, whatever Post they qualified him for,
enter of course into his Destroyer.
As in the whole Train of my Speculations, I have endeavoured as much as
I am able to extinguish that pernicious Spirit of Passion and Prejudice,
which rages with the same Violence in all Parties, I am still the more
desirous of doing some Good in this Particular, because I observe that
the Spirit of Party reigns more in the Country than in the Town. It here
contracts a kind of Brutality and rustick Fierceness, to which Men of a
politer Conversation are wholly Strangers. It extends it self even to
the Return of the Bow and the Hat; and at the same time that the Heads
of Parties preserve toward one another an outward Shew of Good-breeding,
and keep up a perpetual Intercourse of Civilities, their Tools that are
dispersed in these outlying Parts will not so much as mingle together at
a Cockmatch. This Humour fills the Country with several periodical
Meetings of Whig Jockies and Tory Fox-hunters; not to mention the
innumerable Curses, Frowns, and Whispers it produces at a
Quarter-Sessions.
I do not know whether I have observed in any of my former Papers, that
my Friends Sir ROGER DE COVERLEY and Sir ANDREW FREEPORT are of
different Principles, the first of them inclined to the _landed_ and the
other to the _monyed_ Interest. This Humour is so moderate in each of
them, that it proceeds no farther than to an agreeable Raillery, which
very often diverts the rest of the Club. I find however that the Knight
is a much stronger Tory in the Country than in Town, which, as he has
told me in my Ear, is absolutely necessary for the keeping up his
Interest. In all our Journey from _London_ to his House we did not so
much as bait at a Whig Inn; or if by chance the Coachman stopped at a
wrong Place, one of Sir ROGER'S Servants would ride up to his Master
full speed, and whisper to him that the Master of the House was against
such an one in the last Election. This often betray'd us into hard Beds
and bad Chear; for we were not so inquisitive about the Inn as the
Inn-keeper; and, provided our Landlord's Principles were sound, did not
take any Notice of the Staleness of his Provisions. This I found still
the more inconvenient, because the better the Host was, the worse
generally were his Accommodations; the Fellow knowing very well, that
those who were his Friends would take up with coarse Diet and an hard
Lodging. For these Reasons, all the while I was upon the Road I dreaded
entering into an House of any one that Sir Roger had applauded for an
honest Man.
Since my Stay at Sir ROGER'S in the Country, I daily find more Instances
of this narrow Party-Humour. Being upon a Bowling-green at a
Neighbouring Market-Town the other Day, (for that is the Place where the
Gentlemen of one Side meet once a Week) I observed a Stranger among them
of a better Presence and genteeler Behaviour than ordinary; but was much
surprised, that notwithstanding he was a very fair _Bettor_, no Body
would take him up. But upon Enquiry I found, that he was one who had
given a disagreeable Vote in a former Parliament, for which Reason there
was not a Man upon that Bowling-green who would have so much
Correspondence with him as to Win his Money of him.
Among other Instances of this Nature, I must not omit one which
[concerns [2]] my self. _Will. Wimble _was the other Day relating
several strange Stories that he had picked up no Body knows where of a
certain great Man; and upon my staring at him, as one that was surprised
to hear such things in the Country [which [3]] had never been so much as
whispered in the Town, _Will_. stopped short in the Thread of his
Discourse, and after Dinner asked my Friend Sir ROGER in his Ear
if he was sure that I was not a Fanatick.
It gives me a serious Concern to see such a Spirit of Dissention in the
Country; not only as it destroys Virtue and Common Sense, and renders us
in a Manner Barbarians towards one another, but as it perpetuates our
Animosities, widens our Breaches, and transmits our present Passions and
Prejudices to our Posterity. For my own Part, I am sometimes afraid that
I discover the Seeds of a Civil War in these our Divisions; and
therefore cannot but bewail, as in their first Principles, the Miseries
and Calamities of our Children.