Perpetuo risu pulmonem agitare solebat. JUV. Sat. x. 33.
Democritus would feed his spleen, and shake
His sides and shoulders till he felt them ake. DRYDEN.
EVERY man, says Tully, has two characters;
one which he partakes with all mankind, and
by which he is distinguished from brute animals;
another which discriminates him from the rest of
his own species, and impresses on him a manner and
temper peculiar to himself; this particular character,
if it be not repugnant to the laws of general
humanity, it is always his business to cultivate and
preserve.
Every hour furnishes some confirmation of Tully's
precept. It seldom happens, that an assembly of
pleasure is so happily selected, but that some one
finds admission, with whom the rest are deservedly
offended; and it will appear, on a close inspection,
that scarce any man becomes eminently disagreeable,
but by a departure from his real character, and
an attempt at something for which nature or
education have left him unqualified.
Ignorance or dulness have indeed no power of
affording delight, but they never give disgust except
when they assume the dignity of knowledge, or ape
the sprightliness of wit. Awkwardness and inelegance
have none of those attractions by which ease
and politeness take possession of the heart; but
ridicule and censure seldom rise against them,
unless they appear associated with that confidence
which belongs only to long acquaintance with the
modes of life, and to consciousness of unfailing
propriety of behaviour. Deformity itself is regarded
with tenderness rather than aversion, when it does
not attempt to deceive the sight by dress and
decoration, and to seize upon fictitious claims the
prerogatives of beauty.
He that stands to contemplate the crowds that
fill the streets of a populous city, will see many
passengers whose air and motion it will be difficult
to behold without contempt and laughter; but if he
examines what are the appearances that thus
powerfully excite his risibility, he will find among them
neither poverty nor disease, nor any involuntary or
painful defect. The disposition to derision and insult
is awakened by the softness of foppery, the swell
of insolence, the liveliness of levity, or the solemnity
of grandeur; by the sprightly trip, the stately stalk,
the formal strut, the lofty mien; by gestures
intended to catch the eye, and by looks elaborately
formed as evidences of importance.
It has, I think, been sometimes urged in favour
of affectation, that it is only a mistake of the means
to a good end, and that the intention with which it
is practised is always to please. If all attempts to
innovate the constitutional or habitual character
have really proceeded from public spirit and love of
others, the world has hitherto been sufficiently
ungrateful, since no return but scorn has yet been
made to the most difficult of all enterprises, a
contest with nature; nor has any pity been shown to
the fatigues of labour which never succeeded, and
the uneasiness of disguise by which nothing was
concealed.
It seems therefore to be determined by the
general suffrage of mankind, that he who decks
himself in adscititious qualities rather purposes to
command applause than impart pleasure: and he is
therefore treated as a man who, by an unreasonable
ambition, usurps the place in society to which he
has no right. Praise is seldom paid with willingness
even to incontestable merit, and it can be no wonder
that he who calls for it without desert is repulsed
with universal indignation.
Affectation naturally counterfeits those
excellencies which are placed at the greatest distance from
possibility of attainment. We are conscious of our
own defects, and eagerly endeavour to supply them
by artificial excellence; nor would such efforts be
wholly without excuse, were they not often excited
by ornamental trifles, which he, that thus anxiously
struggles for the reputation of possessing them,
would not have been known to want, had not his
industry quickened observation.
Gelasimus passed the first part of his life in
academical privacy and rural retirement, without any
other conversation than that of scholars, grave,
studious, and abstracted as himself. He cultivated
the mathematical sciences with indefatigable diligence,
discovered many useful theorems, discussed
with great accuracy the resistance of fluids, and,
though his priority was not generally acknowledged,
was the first who fully explained all the properties
of the catenarian curve.
Learning, when it rises to eminence, will be
observed in time, whatever mists may happen to
surround it. Gelasimus, in his forty-ninth year, was
distinguished by those who have the rewards of
knowledge in their hands, and called out to display
his acquisitions for the honour of his country, and
add dignity by his presence to philosophical
assemblies. As he did not suspect his unfitness for
common affairs, he felt no reluctance to obey the
invitation, and what he did not feel he had yet too
much honesty to feign. He entered into the world
as a larger and more populous college, where his
performances would be more publick, and his
renown further extended; and imagined that he should
find his reputation universally prevalent, and the
influence of learning every where the same.
His merit introduced him to splendid tables and
elegant acquaintance; but he did not find himself
always qualified to join in the conversation. He was
distressed by civilities, which he knew not how to
repay, and entangled in many ceremonial perplexities,
from which his books and diagrams could not
extricate him. He was sometimes unluckily
engaged in disputes with ladies, with whom algebraick
axioms had no great weight, and saw many whose
favour and esteem he could not but desire, to whom
he was very little recommended by his theories of
the tides, or his approximations to the quadrature
of the circle.
Gelasimus did not want penetration to discover,
that no charm was more generally irresistible than
that of easy facetiousness and flowing hilarity. He
saw that diversion was more frequently welcome
than improvement; that authority and seriousness
were rather feared than loved; and that the grave
scholar was a kind of imperious ally, hastily
dismissed when his assistance was no longer necessary.
He came to a sudden resolution of throwing off
those cumbrous ornaments of learning which
hindered his reception, and commenced a man of wit
and jocularity. Utterly unacquainted with every
topick of merriment, ignorant of the modes and
follies, the vices and virtues of mankind, and
unfurnished with any ideas but such as Pappas and
Archimedes had given him, he began to silence all inquiries
with a jest instead of a solution, extended his face
with a grin, which he mistook for a smile, and in the
place of scientifick discourse, retailed in a new
language, formed between the college and the tavern,
the intelligence of the newspaper.
Laughter, he knew, was a token of alacrity; and,
therefore, whatever he said or heard, he was careful
not to fail in that great duty of a wit. If he asked
or told the hour of the day, if he complained of
heat or cold, stirred the fire, or filled a glass,
removed his chair, or snuffed a candle, he always found
some occasion to laugh. The jest was indeed a secret
to all but himself; but habitual confidence in his
own discernment hindered him from suspecting any
weakness or mistake. He wondered that his wit was
so little understood, but expected that his audience
would comprehend it by degrees, and persisted all
his life to shew by gross buffoonery, how little the
strongest faculties can perform beyond the limits of
their own province.