My worthy friend, Sir Roger, when we are talking of the
malice of parties, very frequently tells us an accident that
happened to him when he was a schoolboy, which was at a
time when the feuds ran high between the Roundheads
and Cavaliers. This worthy knight, being then but a stripling, (155: 5)
had occasion to inquire which was the way to St. Anne's
Lane; upon which the person whom he spoke to, instead
of answering his question, called him a young popish cur,
and asked him who had made Anne a saint! The boy,
being in some confusion, inquired of the next he met, (10)
which was the way to Anne's Lane; but was called a
prick-eared cur for his pains, and instead of being shown
the way, was told that she had been a saint before he was
born, and would be one after he was hanged. "Upon
this," says sir Roger, "I did not think fit to repeat the (15)
former question, but going into every lane of the neighbourhood,
asked what they called the name of that lane."
By which ingenious artifice, he found out the place he
inquired after without giving offence to any party. Sir
Roger generally closes this narrative with reflections on
the mischief that parties do in the country; how they spoil
good neighbourhood, and make honest gentlemen hate one
another; besides that they manifestly tend to the prejudice
of the land-tax, and the destruction of the game. (156: 5)
There cannot a greater judgment befall a country than
such a dreadful spirit of division as rends a government
into two distinct people, and makes them greater strangers
and more averse to one another than if they were
actually two different nations. The effects of such a division (10)
are pernicious to the last degree, not only with regard
to those advantages which they give the common enemy,
but to those private evils which they produce in the heart
of almost every particular person. This influence is very
fatal both to men's morals and their understandings; it (15)
sinks the virtue of a nation, and not only so, but destroys
even common sense.
A furious party spirit, when it rages in its full violence,
exerts itself in civil war and bloodshed; and when it is
under its greatest restraints naturally breaks out in false-hood, (20)
detraction, calumny, and a partial administration of
justice. In a word, it fills a nation with spleen and rancour,
and extinguishes all the seeds of good-nature, compassion,
and humanity.
Plutarch says, very finely, that a man should not allow (25)
himself to hate even his enemies;--"Because," says he,
"if you indulge this passion in some occasions, it will rise
of itself in others; if you hate your enemies, you will contract
such a vicious habit of mind as by degrees will break
out upon those who are your friends, or those who are
indifferent to you." I might here observe how admirably
this precept of morality--which derives the malignity of
hatred from the passion itself, and not from its object--answers
to that great rule which was dictated to the world (157: 5)
about an hundred years before this philosopher wrote;
but instead of that, I shall only take notice, with a real
grief of heart, that the minds of many good men among
us appear soured with party principles, and alienated from
one another in such a manner as seems to me altogether (10)
inconsistent with the dictates either of reason or religion.
Zeal for a public cause is apt to breed passions in the
hearts of virtuous persons to which the regard of their
own private interest would never have betrayed them.
If this party spirit has so ill an effect on our morals, it (15)
has likewise a very great one upon our judgements. We
often hear a poor, insipid paper or pamphlet cried up,
and sometimes a noble piece depreciated, by those who
are of a different principle from the author. One who is
actuated by this spirit is almost under an incapacity of (20)
discerning either real blemishes or beauties. A man
of merit in a different principle,[117] is like an object seen in
two different mediums,[118] that appears crooked or broken,
however straight or entire it may be in itself. For this
reason, there is scarce a person of any figure in England (25)
who does not go by two contrary characters, as opposite
to one another as light and darkness. Knowledge and
learning suffer in a particular manner from this strange
prejudice, which at present prevails amongst all ranks and
degrees in the British nation. As men formerly became
eminent in learned societies by their parts and acquisitions,
they now distinguish themselves by the warmth and (158: 5)
violence with which they espouse their respective parties.
Books are valued upon the like consideration: an abusive,
scurrilous style passes for satire, and a dull scheme of
party notions is called fine writing.
[117] Of a different opinion.
[118] As a stick partly in the water and partly out.
There is one piece of sophistry practiced by both sides; (10)
and that is the taking any scandalous story that has been
ever whispered or invented of a private man, for a known,
undoubted truth, and raising suitable speculations upon it.
Calumnies that have been never proved, or have been often
refuted, are the ordinary _postulatums_[119] of these infamous (15)
scribblers, upon which they proceed as upon first principles
granted by all men, though in their hearts they know
they are false, or at best very doubtful. When they have
laid these foundations of scurrility, it is no wonder that
their superstructure is every way answerable to them. If (20)
this shameless practice of the present age endures much
longer, praise and reproach will cease to be motives of
action in good men.
[119] Assumptions, propositions taken for granted in argument. If the
Latin form is used, the plural should be _postulata_.
There are certain periods of time in all governments when
this inhuman spirit prevails. Italy was long torn in pieces (25)
by the Guelphs and Ghibellines, and France by those who
were for and against the League; but it is very unhappy
for a man to be born in such a stormy and tempestuous
season. It is the restless ambition of artful men that
thus breaks a people into factions, and draws several well-meaning
persons to their interest by a specious concern
for their country. How many honest minds are filled with (159: 5)
uncharitable and barbarous notions, out of their zeal for
the public good! What cruelties and outrages would they
not commit against men of an adverse party, whom they
would honour and esteem, if, instead of considering them
as they are represented, they knew them as they are! (10)
Thus are persons of the greatest probity seduced into
shameful errors and prejudices, and made bad men even
by that noblest of principles, the "love of their country."
I cannot here forbear mentioning the famous Spanish
proverb, "If there were neither fools nor knaves in the (15)
world, all people would be of one mind."
For my own part, I could heartily wish that all honest
men would enter into an association for the support of one
another against the endeavours of those whom they ought
to look upon as their common enemies, whatsoever side (20)
they may belong to. Were there such an honest body of
neutral forces, we should never see the worst of men in
great figures of life, because they are useful to a party;
nor the best unregarded, because they are above practising
those methods which would be grateful to their (25)
faction. We should then single every criminal out of
the herd, and hunt him down, however formidable and
overgrown he might appear: on the contrary, we should
shelter distressed innocence, and defend virtue, however
beset with contempt or ridicule, envy, or defamation. In
short, we should not any longer regard our fellow subjects
as Whigs or Tories, but should make the man of merit our
friend, and the villain our enemy. C.