C.

[Footnote 1: This letter is by John Hughes.]

[Footnote 2: Mrs. Barbier]

[Footnote 3: Iliad, i. 225.]

* * * * *

No. 232. Monday, November 26, 1711. Hughes [1].

Nihil largiundo gloriam adeptus est.

Sallust.

My wise and good Friend, Sir _Andrew Freeport_, divides himself almost

equally between the Town and the Country: His Time in Town is given up

to the Publick, and the Management of his private Fortune; and after

every three or four Days spent in this Manner, he retires for as many to

his Seat within a few Miles of the Town, to the Enjoyment of himself,

his Family, and his Friend. Thus Business and Pleasure, or rather, in

Sir _Andrew_, Labour and Rest, recommend each other. They take their

Turns with so quick a Vicissitude, that neither becomes a Habit, or

takes Possession of the whole Man; nor is it possible he should be

surfeited with either. I often see him at our Club in good Humour, and

yet sometimes too with an Air of Care in his Looks: But in his Country

Retreat he is always unbent, and such a Companion as I could desire; and

therefore I seldom fail to make one with him when he is pleased to

invite me.

The other Day, as soon as we were got into his Chariot, two or three

Beggars on each Side hung upon the Doors, and solicited our Charity with

the usual Rhetorick of a sick Wife or Husband at home, three or four

helpless little Children all starving with Cold and Hunger. We were

forced to part with some Money to get rid of their Importunity; and then

we proceeded on our Journey with the Blessings and Acclamations of these

People.

Well then, says _Sir Andrew_, we go off with the Prayers and good

Wishes of the Beggars, and perhaps too our Healths will be drunk at

the next Ale-house: So all we shall be able to value ourselves upon,

is, that we have promoted the Trade of the Victualler and the Excises

of the Government. But how few Ounces of Wooll do we see upon the

Backs of those poor Creatures? And when they shall next fall in our

Way, they will hardly be better dress'd; they must always live in Rags

to look like Objects of Compassion. If their Families too are such as

they are represented, tis certain they cannot be better clothed, and

must be a great deal worse fed: One would think Potatoes should be all

their Bread, and their Drink the pure Element; and then what goodly

Customers are the Farmers like to have for their Wooll, Corn and

Cattle? Such Customers, and such a Consumption, cannot choose but

advance the landed Interest, and hold up the Rents of the Gentlemen.

But of all Men living, we Merchants, who live by Buying and Selling,

ought never to encourage Beggars. The Goods which we export are indeed

the Product of the lands, but much the greatest Part of their Value is

the Labour of the People: but how much of these Peoples Labour shall

we export whilst we hire them to sit still? The very Alms they receive

from us, are the Wages of Idleness. I have often thought that no Man

should be permitted to take Relief from the Parish, or to ask it in

the Street, till he has first purchased as much as possible of his own

Livelihood by the Labour of his own Hands; and then the Publick ought

only to be taxed to make good the Deficiency. If this Rule was

strictly observed, we should see every where such a Multitude of new

Labourers, as would in all probability reduce the Prices of all our

Manufactures. It is the very Life of Merchandise to buy cheap and sell

dear. The Merchant ought to make his Outset as cheap as possible, that

he may find the greater Profit upon his Returns; and nothing will

enable him to do this like the Reduction of the Price of Labour upon

all our Manufactures. This too would be the ready Way to increase the

Number of our Foreign Markets: The Abatement of the Price of the

Manufacture would pay for the Carriage of it to more distant

Countries; and this Consequence would be equally beneficial both to

the Landed and Trading Interests. As so great an Addition of labouring

Hands would produce this happy Consequence both to the Merchant and

the Gentle man; our Liberality to common Beggars, and every other

Obstruction to the Increase of Labourers, must be equally pernicious

to both.

Sir _Andrew_ then went on to affirm, That the Reduction of the Prices of

our Manufactures by the Addition of so many new Hands, would be no

Inconvenience to any Man: But observing I was something startled at the

Assertion, he made a short Pause, and then resumed the Discourse.

It may seem, says he, a Paradox, that the Price of Labour should be

reduced without an Abatement of Wages, or that Wages can be abated

without any Inconvenience to the Labourer, and yet nothing is more

certain than that both those Things may happen. The Wages of the

Labourers make the greatest Part of the Price of every Thing that is

useful; and if in Proportion with the Wages the Prices of all other

Things should be abated, every Labourer with less Wages would be still

able to purchase as many Necessaries of Life; where then would be the

Inconvenience? But the Price of Labour may be reduced by the Addition

of more Hands to a Manufacture, and yet the Wages of Persons remain as

high as ever. The admirable Sir William Petty [2] has given Examples

of this in some of his Writings: One of them, as I remember, is that

of a Watch, which I shall endeavour to explain so as shall suit my

present Purpose. It is certain that a single Watch could not be made

so cheap in Proportion by one only Man, as a hundred Watches by a

hundred; for as there is vast Variety in the Work, no one Person could

equally suit himself to all the Parts of it; the Manufacture would be

tedious, and at last but clumsily performed: But if an hundred Watches

were to be made by a hundred Men, the Cases may be assigned to one,

the Dials to another, the Wheels to another, the Springs to another,

and every other Part to a proper Artist; as there would be no need of

perplexing any one Person with too much Variety, every one would be

able to perform his single Part with greater Skill and Expedition; and

the hundred Watches would be finished in one fourth Part of the Time

of the first one, and every one of them at one fourth Part of the

Cost, tho the Wages of every Man were equal. The Reduction of the

Price of the Manufacture would increase the Demand of it, all the same

Hands would be still employed and as well paid. The same Rule will

hold in the Clothing, the Shipping, and all the other Trades

whatsoever. And thus an Addition of Hands to our Manufactures will

only reduce the Price of them; the Labourer will still have as much

Wages, and will consequently be enabled to purchase more Conveniencies

of Life; so that every Interest in the Nation would receive a Benefit

from the Increase of our Working People.

Besides, I see no Occasion for this Charity to common Beggars, since

every Beggar is an Inhabitant of a Parish, and every Parish is taxed

to the Maintenance of their own Poor. [3]

For my own part, I cannot be mightily pleased with the Laws which have

done this, which have provided better to feed than employ the Poor. We

have a Tradition from our Forefathers, that after the first of those

Laws was made, they were insulted with that famous Song;

Hang Sorrow, and cast away Care,

The Parish is bound to find us, &c.

And if we will be so good-natured as to maintain them without Work,

they can do no less in Return than sing us _The Merry Beggars_.

What then? Am I against all Acts of Charity? God forbid! I know of no

Virtue in the Gospel that is in more pathetical Expressions

recommended to our Practice. _I was hungry and [ye] [4] gave me no

Meat, thirsty and ye gave me no Drink, naked and ye clothed me not, a

Stranger and ye took me not in, sick and in prison and ye visited me

not_. Our Blessed Saviour treats the Exercise or Neglect of Charity

towards a poor Man, as the Performance or Breach of this Duty towards

himself. I shall endeavour to obey the Will of my Lord and Master: And

therefore if an industrious Man shall submit to the hardest Labour and

coarsest Fare, rather than endure the Shame of taking Relief from the

Parish, or asking it in the Street, this is the Hungry, the Thirsty,

the Naked; and I ought to believe, if any Man is come hither for

Shelter against Persecution or Oppression, this is the Stranger, and I

ought to take him in. If any Countryman of our own is fallen into the

Hands of Infidels, and lives in a State of miserable Captivity, this

is the Man in Prison, and I should contribute to his Ransom. I ought

to give to an Hospital of Invalids, to recover as many useful Subjects

as I can; but I shall bestow none of my Bounties upon an Alms-house of

idle People; and for the same Reason I should not think it a Reproach

to me if I had withheld my Charity from those common Beggars. But we

prescribe better Rules than we are able to practise; we are ashamed

not to give into the mistaken Customs of our Country: But at the same

time, I cannot but think it a Reproach worse than that of common

Swearing, that the Idle and the Abandoned are suffered in the Name of

Heaven and all that is sacred, to extort from Christian and tender

Minds a Supply to a profligate Way of Life, that is always to be

supported, but never relieved.

[Z.] [5]

[Footnote 1: Or Henry Martyn?]

[Footnote 2: Surveyor-general of Ireland to Charles II. See his

Discourse of Taxes (1689).]

[Footnote 3: Our idle poor till the time of Henry VIII. lived upon alms.

After the dissolution of the monasteries experiments were made for their

care, and by a statute 43 Eliz. overseers were appointed and Parishes

charged to maintain their helpless poor and find work for the sturdy. In

Queen Annes time the Poor Law had been made more intricate and

troublesome by the legislation on the subject that had been attempted

after the Restoration.]

[Footnote 4: [_you_] throughout, and in first reprint.]

[Footnote 5: X.]

* * * * *

No. 233. Tuesday, Nov. 27, 1711. Addison.

--Tanquam hec sint nostri medicina furoris,

Aut Deus ille malis hominum mitescere discat.

Virg.

I shall, in this Paper, discharge myself of the Promise I have made to

the Publick, by obliging them with a Translation of the little _Greek_

Manuscript, which is said to have been a Piece of those Records that

were preserved in the Temple of _Apollo_, upon the Promontory of

_Leucate_: It is a short History of the Lovers Leap, and is inscribed,

_An Account of Persons Male and Female, who offered up their Vows in the

Temple of the_ Pythian Apollo, _in the Forty sixth Olympiad, and leaped

from the Promontory of_ Leucate _into the_ Ionian Sea, _in order to cure

themselves of the Passion of Love_.

This Account is very dry in many Parts, as only mentioning the Name of

the Lover who leaped, the Person he leaped for, and relating, in short,

that he was either cured, or killed, or maimed by the Fall. It indeed

gives the Names of so many who died by it, that it would have looked

like a Bill of Mortality, had I translated it at full length; I have

therefore made an Abridgment of it, and only extracted such particular

Passages as have something extraordinary, either in the Case, or in the

Cure, or in the Fate of the Person who is mentioned in it. After this

short Preface take the Account as follows.

_Battus_, the Son of _Menalcas_ the _Sicilian_, leaped for _Bombyca_

the Musician: Got rid of his Passion with the Loss of his Right Leg

and Arm, which were broken in the Fall.

_Melissa_, in Love with _Daphnis_, very much bruised, but escaped with

Life.

_Cynisca_, the Wife of _Æschines_, being in Love with _Lycus_; and

_Æschines_ her Husband being in Love with _Eurilla_; (which had made

this married Couple very uneasy to one another for several Years) both

the Husband and the Wife took the Leap by Consent; they both of them

escaped, and have lived very happily together ever since.

_Larissa_, a Virgin of _Thessaly_, deserted by _Plexippus_, after a

Courtship of three Years; she stood upon the Brow of the Promontory

for some time, and after having thrown down a Ring, a Bracelet, and a

little Picture, with other Presents which she had received from

_Plexippus_, she threw her self into the Sea, and was taken up alive.

_N. B. Larissa_, before she leaped, made an Offering of a Silver

_Cupid_ in the Temple of _Apollo_.

_Simaetha_, in Love with _Daphnis_ the _Myndian_, perished in the

Fall.

_Charixus_, the Brother of _Sappho_, in Love with _Rhodope_ the

Courtesan, having spent his whole Estate upon her, was advised by his

Sister to leap in the Beginning of his Amour, but would not hearken to

her till he was reduced to his last Talent; being forsaken by

_Rhodope_, at length resolved to take the Leap. Perished in it.

_Aridaeus_, a beautiful Youth of _Epirus_, in Love with _Praxinoe_,

the Wife of _Thespis_, escaped without Damage, saving only that two of

his Fore-Teeth were struck out and his Nose a little flatted.

_Cleora_, a Widow of _Ephesus_, being inconsolable for the Death of

her Husband, was resolved to take this Leap in order to get rid of her

Passion for his Memory; but being arrived at the Promontory, she there

met with _Dimmachus_ the _Miletian_, and after a short Conversation

with him, laid aside the Thoughts of her Leap, and married him in the

Temple of _Apollo_.

_N. B._ Her Widows Weeds are still to be seen hanging up in the

Western Corner of the Temple.

_Olphis_, the Fisherman, having received a Box on the Ear from

_Thestylis_ the Day before, and being determined to have no more to do

with her, leaped, and escaped with Life.

_Atalanta_, an old Maid, whose Cruelty had several Years before driven

two or three despairing Lovers to this Leap; being now in the fifty

fifth Year of her Age, and in Love with an Officer of _Sparta_, broke

her Neck in the Fall.

_Hipparchus_ being passionately fond of his own Wife who was enamoured

of _Bathyllus_, leaped, and died of his Fall; upon which his Wife

married her Gallant.

_Tettyx_, the Dancing-Master, in Love with _Olympia_ an Athenian

Matron, threw himself from the Rock with great Agility, but was

crippled in the Fall.

_Diagoras_, the Usurer, in Love with his Cook-Maid; he peeped several

times over the Precipice, but his Heart misgiving him, he went back,

and married her that Evening.

_Cinaedus_, after having entered his own Name in the Pythian Records,

being asked the Name of the Person whom he leaped for, and being

ashamed to discover it, he was set aside, and not suffered to leap.

_Eunica_, a Maid of _Paphos_, aged Nineteen, in Love with _Eurybates_.

Hurt in the Fall, but recovered.

_N. B._ This was her second Time of Leaping.

_Hesperus_, a young Man of _Tarentum_, in Love with his Masters

Daughter. Drowned, the Boats not coming in soon enough to his Relief.

_Sappho_, the _Lesbian_, in Love with _Phaon_, arrived at the Temple

of _Apollo_, habited like a Bride in Garments as white as Snow. She

wore a Garland of Myrtle on her Head, and carried in her Hand the

little Musical Instrument of her own Invention. After having sung an

Hymn to _Apollo_, she hung up her Garland on one Side of his Altar,

and her Harp on the other. She then tuck'd up her Vestments, like a

_Spartan_ Virgin, and amidst thousands of Spectators, who were anxious

for her Safety, and offered up Vows for her Deliverance, [marched[1]]

directly forwards to the utmost Summit of the Promontory, where after

having repeated a Stanza of her own Verses, which we could not hear,

she threw herself off the Rock with such an Intrepidity as was never

before observed in any who had attempted that dangerous Leap. Many who

were present related, that they saw her fall into the Sea, from whence

she never rose again; tho there were others who affirmed, that she

never came to the Bottom of her Leap, but that she was changed into a

Swan as she fell, and that they saw her hovering in the Air under that

Shape. But whether or no the Whiteness and Fluttering of her Garments

might not deceive those who looked upon her, or whether she might not

really be metamorphosed into that musical and melancholy Bird, is

still a Doubt among the _Lesbians_.

_Alcæus_, the famous _Lyrick_ Poet, who had for some time been

passionately in Love with _Sappho_, arrived at the Promontory of

_Leucate_ that very Evening, in order to take the Leap upon her

Account; but hearing that _Sappho_ had been there before him, and that

her Body could be no where found, he very generously lamented her

Fall, and is said to have written his hundred and twenty fifth Ode

upon that Occasion.

_Leaped in this Olympiad_ [250 [2]]

Males 124

Females 126

_Cured_ [120[3]]

Males 51

Females 69