best method of bringing it to its usual state of tranquillity, is, as
much as we possibly can, to turn our thoughts to the adversities of
persons of higher consideration in virtue and merit than ourselves.
By this means all the little incidents of our own lives, if they are
unfortunate, seem to be the effect of justice upon our faults and
indiscretions. When those whom we know to be excellent and deserving
of a better fate are wretched, we cannot but resign ourselves, whom
most of us know to merit a much worse state than that we are placed
in. For such and many other occasions, there is one admirable relation
which one might recommend for certain periods of one's life, to touch,
comfort, and improve the heart of man. Tully says, somewhere, the
pleasures of a husbandman are next to those of a philosopher. In like
manner one may say (for methinks they bear the same proportion one to
another), the pleasures of humanity are next to those of devotion. In
both these latter satisfactions, there is a certain humiliation which
exalts the soul above its ordinary state. At the same time that it
lessens our value of ourselves, it enlarges our estimation of others.
The history I am going to speak of, is that of Joseph in Holy Writ,
which is related with such majestic simplicity, that all the parts
of it strike us with strong touches of nature and compassion, and he
must be a stranger to both who can read it with attention, and not be
overwhelmed with the vicissitudes of joy and sorrow. I hope it will not
be a profanation to tell it one's own way here, that they who may be
unthinking enough to be more frequently readers of such papers as this
than of Sacred Writ, may be advertised, that the greatest pleasures the
imagination can be entertained with are to be found there, and that
even the style of the Scriptures is more than human.
Joseph, a beloved child of Israel, became invidious to his elder
brethren, for no other reason but his superior beauty and excellence of
body and mind, insomuch that they could not bear his growing virtue,
and let him live. They therefore conspire his death; but nature pleaded
so strongly for him in the heart of one of them, that by his persuasion
they determined rather to bury him in a pit, than be his immediate
executioners with their own hands. When thus much was obtained for him,
their minds still softened towards him, and they took the opportunity
of some passengers to sell him into Egypt. Israel was persuaded by
the artifice of his sons, that the youth was torn to pieces by wild
beasts: but Joseph was sold to slavery, and still exposed to new
misfortunes, from the same cause as before, his beauty and his virtue.
By a false accusation he was committed to prison, but in process of
time delivered from it, in consideration of his wisdom and knowledge,
and made the governor of Pharaoh's house. In this elevation of his
fortune, his brothers were sent into Egypt to buy necessaries of life
in a famine. As soon as they are brought into his presence, he beholds,
but he beholds with compassion, the men who had sold him to slavery
approaching him with awe and reverence. While he was looking over his
brethren, he takes a resolution to indulge himself in the pleasure of
stirring their and his own affections, by keeping himself concealed,
and examining into the circumstances of their family. For this end,
with an air of severity, as a watchful minister to Pharaoh, he accuses
them as spies, who are come into Egypt with designs against the State.
This led them into the account which he wanted of them, the condition
of their ancient father and little brother, whom they had left behind
them. When he had learned that his brother was living, he demands the
bringing him to Egypt, as a proof of their veracity.
But it would be a vain and empty endeavour to attempt laying this
excellent representation of the passions of man in the same colours
as they appear in the Sacred Writ in any other manner, or almost
any other words, than those made use of in the page itself. I am
obliged therefore to turn my designed narration rather into a comment
upon the several parts of that beautiful and passionate scene. When
Joseph expects to see Benjamin, how natural and how forcible is the
reflection, "This affliction is come upon us in that we saw the anguish
of our brother's soul without pity!" How moving must it be to Joseph to
hear Reuben accuse the rest, that they would not hear what he pleaded
in behalf of his innocence and distress! He turns from them and weeps,
but commands his passion so far as to give orders for binding one of
them in the presence of the rest, while he at leisure observed their
different sentiments and concern in their gesture and countenance. When
Benjamin is demanded in bondage for stealing the cup, with what force
and what resignation does Judah address his brother!
"In what words shall I speak to my lord; with what confidence can I say
anything? Our guilt is but too apparent; we submit to our fate. We are
my lord's servants, both we and he also with whom the cup is found."
When that is not accepted, how pathetically does he recapitulate the
whole story! And approaching nearer to Joseph, delivers himself as
follows; which, if we fix our thoughts upon the relation between the
pleader and the judge, it is impossible to read without tears:
"Sir, let me intrude so far upon you, even in the high condition
in which you are, and the miserable one in which you see me and my
brethren, to inform you of the circumstances of us unhappy men that
prostrate ourselves before you. When we were first examined by you,
you inquired (for what reason my lord inquired we know not), but you
inquired whether we had not a father or a brother? We then acquainted
you, that we had a father, an old man, who had a child of his old age,
and had buried another son whom he had by the same woman. You were
pleased to command us to bring the child he had remaining down to
us: we did so, and he has forfeited his liberty. But my father said
to us, 'You know that my wife bore me two sons: one of them was torn
in pieces: if mischief befall this also, it will bring my grey hairs
with sorrow to the grave. Accept, therefore, oh my lord! me for your
bondman, and let the lad return with his brethren, that I may not see
the evil that shall come on my father.' Here Joseph's passion grew too
great for further disguise, and he reveals himself with exclamations of
transport and tenderness.
"After their recovery from their first astonishment, his brethren were
seized with fear for the injuries they had done him; but how generously
does he keep them in countenance, and make an apology for them: 'Be not
angry with yourselves for selling me hither; call it not so, but think
Providence sent me before you to preserve life.'"
It would be endless to go through all the beauties of this sacred
narrative; but any who shall read it, at an hour when he is disengaged
from all other regard or interests than what arise from it, will feel
the alternate passion of a father, a brother, and a son, so warm in
him, that they will incline him to exert himself (in such of those
characters as happen to be his) much above the ordinary course of his
life.
=No. 234.= [STEELE.
From _Thursday, Oct. 5_, to _Saturday, Oct. 7, 1710_.
_From my own Apartment, Oct. 6._
I have reason to believe that certain of my contemporaries have made
use of an art I some time ago professed, of being often designedly
dull;[128] and for that reason shall not exert myself when I see them
lazy. He that has so much to struggle with as the man who pretends to
censure others, must keep up his fire for an onset, and may be allowed
to carry his arms a little carelessly upon an ordinary march. This
paper therefore shall be taken up by my correspondents, two of which
have sent me the two following plain, but sensible and honest letters,
upon subjects no less important than those of education and devotion:
* * * * *
"SIR,[129]
"I am an old man, retired from all acquaintance with the town, but what
I have from your papers (not the worst entertainment of my solitude);
yet being still a well-wisher to my country and the commonwealth of
learning (_a qua, confiteor, nullam ætatis meæ partem abhorruisse_),
and hoping the plain phrase in writing that was current in my younger
days would have lasted for my time, I was startled at the picture of
modern politeness transmitted by your ingenious correspondent, and
grieved to see our sterling English language fallen into the hands of
clippers and coiners. That mutilated epistle, consisting of _hipps_,
_reps_, and such-like enormous curtailings, was a mortifying spectacle,
but with the reserve of comfort to find this, and other abuses of our
mother-tongue, so pathetically complained of, and to the proper person
for redressing them, the Censor of Great Britain.
* * * * *
"He had before represented the deplorable ignorance that for several
years past has reigned amongst our English writers, the great
depravity of our taste, and continual corruption of our style: but,
sir, before you give yourself the trouble of prescribing remedies
for these distempers (which you own will require the greatest care
and application), give me leave (having long had my eye upon these
mischiefs, and thoughts exercised about them) to mention what I humbly
conceive to be the cause of them, and in your friend Horace's words,
"Quo fonte derivata clades In patriam populumque fluxit."[130]
* * * * *
"I take our corrupt ways of writing to proceed from the mistakes and
wrong measures in our common methods of education, which I always
looked upon as one of our national grievances, and a singularity that
renders us no less than our situation,
_----Penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos._[131]
This puts me upon consulting the most celebrated critics on that
subject, to compare our practice with their precepts, and find where it
was that we came short or went wide.
"But after all, I found our case required something more than these
doctors had directed, and the principal defect of our English
discipline to lie in the initiatory part, which, although it needs the
greatest care and skill, is usually left to the conduct of those blind
guides, viz., Chance and Ignorance.
"I shall trouble you with but a single instance, pursuant to what your
sagacious friend has said, that he could furnish you with a catalogue
of English books, that would cost you a hundred pounds at first hand,
wherein you could not find ten lines together of common grammar; which
is a necessary consequence of our mismanagement in that province.
"For can anything be more absurd than our way of proceeding in this
part of literature? To push tender wits into the intricate mazes
of grammar, and a Latin grammar? To learn an unknown art by an
unknown tongue? To carry them a dark roundabout way to let them in
at a back-door? Whereas by teaching them first the grammar of their
mother-tongue (so easy to be learned), their advance to the grammars of
Latin and Greek would be gradual and easy; but our precipitate way of
hurrying them over such a gulf, before we have built them a bridge to
it, is a shock to their weak understandings, which they seldom, or very
late, recover. In the meantime we wrong nature, and slander infants,
who want neither capacity nor will to learn, till we put them upon
service beyond their strength, and then indeed we baulk them.
"The liberal arts and sciences are all beautiful as the Graces, nor
has Grammar (the severe mother of all) so frightful a face of her
own; it is the vizard put upon it that scares children. She is made
to speak hard words that to them sound like conjuring. Let her talk
intelligibly, and they will listen to her.
"In this, I think, as on other accounts, we show ourselves true
Britons, always overlooking our natural advantages. It has been the
practice of wisest nations to learn their own language by stated rules,
to avoid the confusion that would follow from leaving it to vulgar use.
Our English tongue, says a learned man, is the most determinate in its
construction, and reducible to the fewest rules: whatever language has
less grammar in it, is not intelligible; and whatever has more, all
that it has more is superfluous; for which reasons he would have it
made the foundation of learning Latin, and all other languages.
"To speak and write without absurdity the language of one's country,
is commendable in persons of all stations, and to some indispensably
necessary; and to this purpose, I would recommend above all things the
having a grammar of our mother-tongue first taught in our schools,
which would facilitate our youths learning their Latin and Greek
grammars, with spare time for arithmetic, astronomy, cosmography,
history, &c., that would make them pass the spring of their life
with profit and pleasure, that is now miserably spent in grammatical
perplexities.
"But here, methinks, I see the reader smile, and ready to ask me (as
the lawyer did sexton Diego on his bequeathing rich legacies to the
poor of the parish,[132] Where are these mighty sums to be raised?),
Where is there such a grammar to be had? I will not answer, as he did,
Even where your Worship pleases. No, it is our good fortune to have
such a grammar, with notes, now in the press, and to be published next
term.
"I hear it is a chargeable work, and wish the publisher to have
customers of all that have need of such a book; yet fancy that he
cannot be much a sufferer, if it is only bought by all that have more
need for it than they think they have.
"A certain author brought a poem to Mr. Cowley, for his perusal and
judgment of the performance, which he demanded at the next visit with a
poetaster's assurance; and Mr. Cowley, with his usual modesty, desired
that he would be pleased to look a little to the grammar of it. 'To
the grammar of it! What do you mean, sir? Would you send me to school
again?' 'Why, Mr. H----, would it do you any harm?'
"This put me on considering how this voyage of literature may be
made with more safety and profit, expedition and delight; and at
last, for completing so good a service, to request your directions
in so deplorable a case; hoping that, as you have had compassion on
our overgrown coxcombs in concerns of less consequence, you will
exert your charity towards innocents, and vouchsafe to be guardian to
the children and youth of Great Britain in this important affair of
education, wherein mistakes and wrong measures have so often occasioned
their aversion to books, that had otherwise proved the chief ornament
and pleasure of their life. I am with sincerest respect,
"Sir,
"Your, &c."
* * * * *
_St. Cl[eme]nts, Oct. 5_.
"Mr. BICKERSTAFF,
"I observe, as the season begins to grow cold, so does people's
devotion; insomuch that, instead of filling the churches, that united
zeal might keep one warm there, one is left to freeze in almost bare
walls, by those who in hot weather are troublesome the contrary way.
This, sir, needs a regulation that none but you can give to it, by
causing those who absent themselves on account of weather only this
winter time, to pay the apothecary's bills occasioned by coughs,
catarrhs, and other distempers contracted by sitting in empty seats.
Therefore to you I apply myself for redress, having gotten such a cold
on Sunday was sevennight, that has brought me almost to your worship's
age from sixty within less than a fortnight. I am,
"Your Worship's in all obedience,
"W. E."
FOOTNOTES:
[128] See Nos. 38 and 230.
[129] This letter refers to the one by Swift in No. 230, on the
corruptions of the English language in ordinary writings. The present
letter, which is supposed to be by James Greenwood, closes with the
statement that an English grammar, with notes, would be published next
term. Soon afterwards there appeared, with the date 1711, "A Grammar
of the English Tongue, with Notes.... Printed for John Brightland,"
&c. This book was noticed in the _Works of the Learned_ for November
1710. Facing the title is a page bearing the head of Cato the Censor,
and the following lines: "The Approbation of Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq.:
'The following treatise being submitted to my censure, that I may
pass it with integrity, I must declare, that as grammar in general is
on all hands allowed to be the foundation of all arts and sciences,
so it appears to me that this Grammar of the English Tongue has done
that justice to our language which, till now, it never obtained. The
text will improve the most ignorant, and the notes will employ the
most learned. I therefore enjoin all my female correspondents to buy,
read, and study this grammar, that their letters may be something
less enigmatic; and on all my male correspondents likewise, who make
no conscience of false spelling and false English, I lay the same
injunction, on pain of having their epistles exposed in their own
proper dress in my Lucubrations.--Isaac Bickerstaff, Censor.'" There is
a Dedication to the Queen, and a Preface in which "the Authors" explain
how they have come to undertake a much-needed work at the request of
Mr. Brightland.
This book was followed by a pamphlet of six pages, "Reasons for an
English Education, by teaching the Youth of both Sexes the Arts of
Grammar, Rhetoric, Poetry, and Logic, in their own Mother-Tongue,
1711." On p. 5 the writer asks, "Has our Censor complained without
cause, and given a false alarm of danger to the language of our
country? (Lucubrat., Sept. 28, 1710);" and on the next page we are told
that I. B., encouraged by the success of his book, was industriously
correcting it for a second edition. This appeared in 1712, with an
increase in the number of pages from 180 to 264. Other editions
appeared in 1714 and 1720. The fifth is dated 1729, and is advertised
in the _Craftsman_ for July 5, 1729, as "recommended by Sir Richard
Steele, for the use of the schools of Great Britain;" but according to
the _Monthly Chronicle_, it really appeared on August 8, 1728, being
called in the Index, "Bickerstaffe's Grammar." The seventh and eighth
editions were published in 1746 and 1759.
In Nos. 254 and 255 of the _Tatler_ there was advertised, as shortly
to be published, "An Essay towards a Practical English Grammar, by
James Greenwood.... Particular care has been taken to render this
book useful and agreeable to the Fair Sex." This book is dated 1711,
and is noticed in the _Works of the Learned_ for July. The Preface
gives "part of a letter which I wrote about a twelvemonth ago to the
ingenious author of the _Tatler_ upon this head" (_i.e._ knowledge of
grammar among the fair sex). Greenwood's remarks on female education
were not printed in the _Tatler_; but they may have formed part of
the letter in this number (234), if this letter is by Greenwood. The
third edition, enlarged, of Greenwood's "Essay" appeared on May 24,
1729. Greenwood was sub-master at St. Paul's School, and afterwards
kept a boarding-school at Woodford, in Essex. He published "The London
Vocabulary, English and Latin," of which there was a third edition in
1713, with curious illustrations. By 1817 this book had passed through
twenty six-editions in England, besides several in America. Greenwood
also published in 1713 "The Virgin Muse," a collection of poetry for
"young gentlemen and ladies at school." Second and third editions
appeared in 1722 and 1731.
Michael Maittaire also issued, in 1712, "An English Grammar; or,
an Essay on the Art of Grammar, applied to and exemplified in the
English Tongue." In the same year a pamphlet appeared with the title,
"Bellum Grammatical, or the Grammatical Battle-Royal. In Reflections
on the three English Grammars published in about a year last past." It
consists chiefly of an attack on Greenwood's "Essay," and praise of
Brightland's "Grammar," which "merits what the Censor said of it." In
a postscript Maittaire's "Grammar" is described as the worst of all.
Brightland and Greenwood deserve to be remembered for their efforts
to spread abroad a knowledge of "the genius and nature of the English
tongue." (The facts in this note are taken from a paper by the present
writer in _Watford's Antiquarian_ for October 1885.)
[130] Horace, 3 Od. iv. 19.
[131] Virgil, "Eclog." i. 67.
[132]
"_Bartolus_ (_a covetous lawyer_). Where shall I find these sums?
_Diego_ (_sexton to Lopez_). Even where you please, sir."
--_Beaumont and Fletcher's "Spanish Curate,"_ Act. iv. sc. i.
=No. 235.= [STEELE.[133]
From _Saturday, Oct. 7_, to _Tuesday, Oct. 10, 1710_.
Scit Genius, natale comes qui temperat astrum.
HOR., 2 Ep. ii. 187.
_From my own Apartment, Oct. 9._
Among those inclinations which are common to all men, there is none
more unaccountable than that unequal love by which parents distinguish
their children from each other. Sometimes vanity and self-love appear
to have a share towards this effect; and in other instances I have
been apt to attribute it to mere instinct: but however that is, we
frequently see the child that has been beholden to neither of these
impulses in their parents, in spite of being neglected, snubbed, and
thwarted at home, acquire a behaviour which makes it as agreeable to
all the rest of the world, as that of every one else of their family is
to each other. I fell into this way of thinking from an intimacy which
I have with a very good house in our neighbourhood, where there are
three daughters of a very different character and genius. The eldest
has a great deal of wit and cunning; the second has good sense, but
no artifice; the third has much vivacity, but little understanding.
The first is a fine, but scornful woman; the second is not charming,
but very winning; the third no way commendable, but very desirable.
The father of these young creatures was ever a great pretender to wit,
the mother a woman of as much coquetry. This turn in the parents has
biassed their affections towards their children. The old man supposes
the eldest of his own genius, and the mother looks upon the youngest
as herself renewed. By this means, all the lovers that approach the
house are discarded by the father for not observing Mrs. Mary's wit
and beauty, and by the mother for being blind to the mien and air of
Mrs. Biddy. Come never so many pretenders, they are not suspected to
have the least thoughts of Mrs. Betty, the middle daughter. Betty
therefore is mortified into a woman of a great deal of merit, and knows
she must depend on that only for her advancement. The middlemost is
thus the favourite of all her acquaintance as well as mine, while the
other two carry a certain insolence about them in all conversations,
and expect the partiality which they meet with at home to attend them
wherever they appear. So little do parents understand that they are of
all people the least judges of their children's merit, that what they
reckon such, is seldom anything else but a repetition of their own
faults and infirmities.
There is, methinks, some excuse for being particular when one of the
offspring has any defect in nature. In this case, the child, if we may
so speak, is so much the longer the child of its parents, and calls for
the continuance of their care and indulgence from the slowness of its
capacity, or the weakness of its body. But there is no enduring to see
men enamoured only at the sight of their own impertinences repeated,
and to observe, as we may sometimes, that they have a secret dislike
of their children for a degeneracy from their very crimes. Commend
me to Lady Goodly; she is equal to all her own children, but prefers
them to those of all the world beside. My lady is a perfect hen in the
care of her brood; she fights and squabbles with all that appear where
they come, but is wholly unbiassed in dispensing her favours among
them. It is no small pains she is at to defame all the young women in
her neighbourhood by visits, whispers, intimations, and hearsays; all
which she ends with thanking Heaven, that no one living is so blessed
with such obedient and well-inclined children as herself. Perhaps, says
she, Betty cannot dance like Mrs. Frontinett, and it is no great matter
whether she does or not; but she comes into a room with a good grace;
though she says it that should not, she looks like a gentlewoman. Then
if Mrs. Rebecca is not so talkative as the mighty wit Mrs. Clapper, yet
she is discreet, she knows better what she says when she does speak.
If her wit be slow, her tongue never runs before it. This kind parent
lifts up her eyes and hands in congratulation of her own good fortune,
and is maliciously thankful that none of her girls are like any of her
neighbours: but this preference of her own to all others, is grounded
upon an impulse of nature; while those who like one before another of
their own, are so unpardonably unjust, that it could hardly be equalled
in the children, though they preferred all the rest of the world to
such parents. It is no unpleasant entertainment to see a ball at a
dancing-school, and observe the joy of relations when the young ones,
for whom they are concerned, are in motion. You need not be told whom
the dancers belong to: at their first appearance the passion of their
parents are in their faces, and there is always a nod of approbation
stolen at a good step, or a graceful turn.