Quod tam grande Sophos clamat tibi turba togata;
Non tu, Pomponi; caena diserta tua est.
MART. Lib. vi. Ep. xlviii.
Resounding plaudits though the crowd have rung
Thy treat is eloquent, and not thy tongue. F. Lewis.
THE world scarcely affords opportunities of
making any observation more frequently, than on
false claims to commendation. Almost every man
wastes part of his life in attempts to display qualities
which he does not possess, and to gain applause
which he cannot keep; so that scarcely can two persons
casually meet, but one is offended or diverted
by the ostentation of the other,
Of these pretenders it is fit to distinguish those
who endeavour to deceive from them who are deceived;
those who by designed impostures promote
their interest, or gratify their pride, from them who
mean only to force into regard their latent excellencies
and neglected virtues; who believe themselves
qualified to instruct or please, and therefore invite
the notice of mankind.
The artful and fraudulent usurpers of distinction
deserve greater severities than ridicule and contempt,
since they are seldom content with empty
praise, but are instigated by passions more pernicious
than vanity. They consider the reputation which
they endeavour to establish as necessary to the
accomplishment of some subsequent design, and value
praise only as it may conduce to the success of avarice
or ambition.
The commercial world is very frequently put into
confusion by the bankruptcy of merchants, that
assumed the splendour of wealth only to obtain the
privilege of trading with the stock of other men, and
of contracting debts which nothing but lucky casualties
could enable them to pay; till after having
supported their appearance a while by tumultuous
magnifience of boundless traffick, they sink at once,
and drag down into poverty those whom their equipages
had induced to trust them.
Among wretches that place their happiness in the
favour of the great, of beings whom only high titles
or large estates set above themselves, nothing is
more common than to boast of confidence which they
do not enjoy; to sell promises which they know their
interest unable to perform; and to reimburse the
tribute which they pay to an imperious master, from
the contributions of meaner dependants, whom they
can amuse with tales of their influence, and hopes
of their solicitation.
Even among some, too thoughtless and volatile
for avarice or ambition, may be found a species of
falsehood more detestable than the levee or exchange
can shew. There are men that boast of debaucheries,
of which they never had address to be guilty; ruin,
by lewd tales, the characters of women to whom
they are scarcely known, or by whom they have
been rejected; destroy in a drunken frolick the
happiness of families; blast the bloom of beauty, and
intercept the reward of virtue.
Other artifices of falsehood, though utterly
unworthy of an ingenuous mind, are not yet to be
ranked with flagitious enormities, nor is it necessary
to incite sanguinary justice against them, since they
may be adequately punished by detection and laughter.
The traveller who describes cities which he has
never seen; the squire, who, at his return from
London, tells of his intimacy with nobles to whom he
has only bowed in the park or coffee-house; the
author who entertains his admirers with stories of the
assistance which he gives to wits of a higher rank;
the city dame who talks of her visits at great houses,
where she happens to know the cook-maid, are
surely such harmless animals as truth herself may
be content to despise without desiring to hurt them.
But of the multitudes who struggle in vain for
distinction, and display their own merits only to
feel more acutely the sting of neglect, a great part
are wholly innocent of deceit, and are betrayed, by
infatuation and credulity, to that scorn with which
the universal love of praise incites us all to drive
feeble competitors out of our way.
Few men survey themselves with so much severity,
as not to admit prejudices in their own favour,
which an artful flatterer may gradually strengthen,
till wishes for a particular qualification are improved
to hopes of attainment, and hopes of attainment to
belief of possession. Such flatterers every one will
find, who has power to reward their assiduities.
Wherever there is wealth there will be dependance
and expectation, and wherever there is dependance,
there will be an emulation of servility.
Many of the follies which provoke general
censure, are the effects of such vanity as, however it
might have wantoned in the imagination, would
scarcely have dared the publick eye, had it not been
animated and emboldened by flattery. Whatever
difficulty there may be in the knowledge of
ourselves, scarcely any one fails to suspect his own
imperfections, till he is elevated by others to
confidence. We are almost all naturally modest and
timorous; but fear and shame are uneasy sensations,
and whosoever helps to remove them is received
with kindness.
Turpicula was the heiress of a large estate, and
having lost her mother in infancy, was committed
to a governess, whom misfortunes had reduced to
suppleness and humility. The fondness of Turpicula's
father would not suffer him to trust her at a
publick school, but he hired domestick teachers,
and bestowed on her all the accomplishments that
wealth could purchase. But how many things are
necessary to happiness which money cannot obtain!
Thus secluded from all with whom she might converse
on terms of equality, she heard none of those
intimations of her defects, which envy, petulance,
or anger, produce among children, where they are
not afraid of telling what they think.
Turpicula saw nothing but obsequiousness, and
heard nothing but commendations. None are so
little acquainted with the heart, as not to know that
woman's first wish is to be handsome, and that
consequently the readiest method of obtaining her
kindness is to praise her beauty. Turpicula had a distorted
shape and a dark complexion; yet, when the impudence
of adulation had ventured to tell her of the
commanding dignity of her motion, and the soft
enchantment of her smile, she was easily convinced,
that she was the delight or torment of every eye,
and that all who gazed upon her felt the fire of
envy or love. She therefore neglected the culture
of an understanding which might have supplied the
defects of her form, and applied all her care to the
decoration of her person; for she considered that
more could judge of beauty than of wit, and was,
like the rest of human beings, in haste to be admired.
The desire of conquest naturally led her to
the lists in which beauty signalizes her power. She
glittered at court, fluttered in the park, and talked
aloud in the front box; but after a thousand experiments
of her charms, was at last convinced that she
had been flattered, and that her glass was honester
than her maid.