_Charon_.--Here is a fellow who is very unwilling to land in our
territories. He says he is rich, has a great deal of business in the
other world, and must needs return to it; he is so troublesome and
obstreperous I know not what to do with him. Take him under your care,
therefore, good Plutarch; you will easily awe him into order and decency
by the superiority an author has over a bookseller.
_Bookseller_.--Am I got into a world so absolutely the reverse of that I
left, that here authors domineer over booksellers? Dear Charon, let me
go back, and I will pay any price for my passage; but, if I must stay,
leave me not with any of those who are styled classical authors. As to
you, Plutarch, I have a particular animosity against you for having
almost occasioned my ruin. When I first set up shop, understanding but
little of business, I unadvisedly bought an edition of your "Lives," a
pack of old Greeks and Romans, which cost me a great sum of money. I
could never get off above twenty sets of them. I sold a few to the
Universities, and some to Eton and Westminster, for it is reckoned a
pretty book for boys and undergraduates; but, unless a man has the luck
to light on a pedant, he shall not sell a set of them in twenty years.
_Plutarch_.--From the merit of the subjects, I had hoped another
reception for my works. I will own, indeed, that I am not always
perfectly accurate in every circumstance, nor do I give so exact and
circumstantial a detail of the actions of my heroes as may be expected
from a biographer who has confined himself to one or two characters. A
zeal to preserve the memory of great men, and to extend the influence of
such noble examples, made me undertake more than I could accomplish in
the first degree of perfection; but surely the characters of my
illustrious men are not so imperfectly sketched that they will not stand
forth to all ages as patterns of virtue and incitements to glory. My
reflections are allowed to be deep and sagacious; and what can be more
useful to a reader than a wise man's judgment on a great man's conduct?
In my writings you will find no rash censures, no undeserved encomiums,
no mean compliance with popular opinions, no vain ostentation of critical
skill, nor any affected finesse. In my "Parallels," which used to be
admired as pieces of excellent judgment, I compare with perfect
impartiality one great man with another, and each with the rule of
justice. If, indeed, latter ages have produced greater men and better
writers, my heroes and my works ought to give place to them. As the
world has now the advantage of much better rules of morality than the
unassisted reason of poor Pagans could form, I do not wonder that those
vices, which appeared to us as mere blemishes in great characters, should
seem most horrid deformities in the purer eyes of the present age--a
delicacy I do not blame, but admire and commend. And I must censure you
for endeavouring, if you could publish better examples, to obtrude on
your countrymen such as were defective. I rejoice at the preference
which they give to perfect and unalloyed virtue; and as I shall ever
retain a high veneration for the illustrious men of every age, I should
be glad if you would give me some account of those persons who in wisdom,
justice, valour, patriotism, have eclipsed my Solon, Numa, Camillus, and
other boasts of Greece or Rome.
_Bookseller_.--Why, Master Plutarch, you are talking Greek indeed. That
work which repaired the loss I sustained by the costly edition of your
books was "The Lives of the Highwaymen;" but I should never have grown
rich if it had not been by publishing "The Lives of Men that Never
Lived." You must know that, though in all times it was possible to have
a great deal of learning and very little wisdom, yet it is only by a
modern improvement in the art of writing that a man may read all his life
and have no learning or knowledge at all, which begins to be an advantage
of the greatest importance. There is as natural a war between your men
of science and fools as between the cranes and the pigmies of old. Most
of our young men having deserted to the fools, the party of the learned
is near being beaten out of the field; and I hope in a little while they
will not dare to peep out of their forts and fastnesses at Oxford and
Cambridge. There let them stay and study old musty moralists till one
falls in love with the Greek, another with the Roman virtue; but our men
of the world should read our new books, which teach them to have no
virtue at all. No book is fit for a gentleman's reading which is not
void of facts and of doctrines, that he may not grow a pedant in his
morals or conversation. I look upon history (I mean real history) to be
one of the worst kinds of study. Whatever has happened may happen again,
and a well-bred man may unwarily mention a parallel instance he had met
with in history and be betrayed into the awkwardness of introducing into
his discourse a Greek, a Roman, or even a Gothic name; but when a
gentleman has spent his time in reading adventures that never occurred,
exploits that never were achieved, and events that not only never did,
but never can happen, it is impossible that in life or in discourse he
should ever apply them. A secret history, in which there is no secret
and no history, cannot tempt indiscretion to blab or vanity to quote; and
by this means modern conversation flows gentle and easy, unencumbered
with matter and unburdened of instruction. As the present studies throw
no weight or gravity into discourse and manners, the women are not afraid
to read our books, which not only dispose to gallantry and coquetry, but
give rules for them. Caesar's "Commentaries," and the "Account of
Xenophon's Expedition," are not more studied by military commanders than
our novels are by the fair--to a different purpose, indeed; for their
military maxims teach to conquer, ours to yield. Those inflame the vain
and idle love of glory: these inculcate a noble contempt of reputation.
The women have greater obligations to our writers than the men. By the
commerce of the world men might learn much of what they get from books;
but the poor women, who in their early youth are confined and restrained,
if it were not for the friendly assistance of books, would remain long in
an insipid purity of mind, with a discouraging reserve of behaviour.
_Plutarch_.--As to your men who have quitted the study of virtue for the
study of vice, useful truth for absurd fancy, and real history for
monstrous fiction, I have neither regard nor compassion for them; but I
am concerned for the women who are betrayed into these dangerous studies;
and I wish for their sakes I had expatiated more on the character of
Lucretia and some other heroines.
_Bookseller_.--I tell you, our women do not read in order to live or to
die like Lucretia. If you would inform us that a _billet-doux_ was found
in her cabinet after her death, or give a hint as if Tarquin really saw
her in the arms of a slave, and that she killed herself not to suffer the
shame of a discovery, such anecdotes would sell very well. Or if, even
by tradition, but better still, if by papers in the Portian family, you
could show some probability that Portia died of dram drinking, you would
oblige the world very much; for you must know, that next to new-invented
characters, we are fond of new lights upon ancient characters; I mean
such lights as show a reputed honest man to have been a concealed knave,
an illustrious hero a pitiful coward, &c. Nay, we are so fond of these
kinds of information as to be pleased sometimes to see a character
cleared from a vice or crime it has been charged with, provided the
person concerned be actually dead. But in this case the evidence must be
authentic, and amount to a demonstration; in the other, a detection is
not necessary; a slight suspicion will do, if it concerns a really good
and great character.
_Plutarch_.--I am the more surprised at what you say of the taste of your
contemporaries, as I met with a Frenchman who assured me that less than a
century ago he had written a much admired "Life of Cyrus," under the name
of Artamenes, in which he ascribed to him far greater actions than those
recorded of him by Xenophon and Herodotus; and that many of the great
heroes of history had been treated in the same manner; that empires were
gained and battles decided by the valour of a single man, imagination
bestowing what nature has denied, and the system of human affairs
rendered impossible.
_Bookseller_.--I assure you those books were very useful to the authors
and their booksellers; and for whose benefit besides should a man write?
These romances were very fashionable and had a great sale: they fell in
luckily with the humour of the age.
_Plutarch_.--Monsieur Scuderi tells me they were written in the times of
vigour and spirit, in the evening of the gallant days of chivalry, which,
though then declining, had left in the hearts of men a warm glow of
courage and heroism; and they were to be called to books as to battle, by
the sound of the trumpet. He says, too, that if writers had not
accommodated themselves to the prejudices of the age, and written of
bloody battles and desperate encounters, their works would have been
esteemed too effeminate an amusement for gentlemen. Histories of
chivalry, instead of enervating, tend to invigorate the mind, and
endeavour to raise human nature above the condition which is naturally
prescribed to it; but as strict justice, patriotic motives, prudent
counsels, and a dispassionate choice of what upon the whole is fittest
and best, do not direct these heroes of romance, they cannot serve for
instruction and example, like the great characters of true history. It
has ever been my opinion, that only the clear and steady light of truth
can guide men to virtue, and that the lesson which is impracticable must
be unuseful. Whoever shall design to regulate his conduct by these
visionary characters will be in the condition of superstitious people,
who choose rather to act by intimations they receive in the dreams of the
night, than by the sober counsels of morning meditation. Yet I confess
it has been the practice of many nations to incite men to virtue by
relating the deeds of fabulous heroes: but surely it is the custom only
of yours to incite them to vice by the history of fabulous scoundrels.
Men of fine imagination have soared into the regions of fancy to bring
back Astrea; you go thither in search of Pandora. Oh disgrace to
letters! Oh shame to the muses!
_Bookseller_.--You express great indignation at our present race of
writers; but believe me the fault lies chiefly on the side of the
readers. As Monsieur Scuderi observed to you, authors must comply with
the manners and disposition of those who are to read them. There must be
a certain sympathy between the book and the reader to create a good
liking. Would you present a modern fine gentleman, who is negligently
lolling in an easy chair, with the labours of Hercules for his
recreation? or make him climb the Alps with Hannibal when he is expiring
with the fatigue of last night's ball? Our readers must be amused,
flattered, soothed; such adventures must be offered to them as they would
like to have a share in.
_Plutarch_.--It should be the first object of writers to correct the
vices and follies of the age. I will allow as much compliance with the
mode of the times as will make truth and good morals agreeable. Your
love of fictitious characters might be turned to good purpose if those
presented to the public were to be formed on the rules of religion and
morality. It must be confessed that history, being employed only about
illustrious persons, public events, and celebrated actions, does not
supply us with such instances of domestic merit as one could wish. Our
heroes are great in the field and the senate, and act well in great
scenes on the theatre of the world; but the idea of a man, who in the
silent retired path of life never deviates into vice, who considers no
spectator but the Omniscient Being, and solicits no applause but His
approbation, is the noblest model that can be exhibited to mankind, and
would be of the most general use. Examples of domestic virtue would be
more particularly useful to women than those of great heroines. The
virtues of women are blasted by the breath of public fame, as flowers
that grow on an eminence are faded by the sun and wind which expand them.
But true female praise, like the music of the spheres, arises from a
gentle, a constant, and an equal progress in the path marked out for them
by their great Creator; and, like the heavenly harmony, it is not adapted
to the gross ear of mortals, but is reserved for the delight of higher
beings, by whose wise laws they were ordained to give a silent light and
shed a mild, benignant influence on the world.
_Bookseller_.--We have had some English and French writers who aimed at
what you suggest. In the supposed character of Clarissa (said a
clergyman to me a few days before I left the world) one finds the dignity
of heroism tempered by the meekness and humility of religion, a perfect
purity of mind, and sanctity of manners. In that of Sir Charles
Grandison, a noble pattern of every private virtue, with sentiments so
exalted as to render him equal to every public duty.
_Plutarch_.--Are both these characters by the same author?
_Bookseller_.--Ay, Master Plutarch, and what will surprise you more, this
author has printed for me.
_Plutarch_.--By what you say, it is pity he should print any work but his
own. Are there no other authors who write in this manner?
_Bookseller_.--Yes, we have another writer of these imaginary histories;
one who has not long since descended to these regions. His name is
Fielding, and his works, as I have heard the best judges say, have a true
spirit of comedy and an exact representation of nature, with fine moral
touches. He has not, indeed, given lessons of pure and consummate
virtue, but he has exposed vice and meanness with all the powers of
ridicule; and we have some other good wits who have exerted their talents
to the purposes you approve. Monsieur de Marivaux, and some other French
writers, have also proceeded much upon the same plan with a spirit and
elegance which give their works no mean rank among the _belles lettres_.
I will own that, when there is wit and entertainment enough in a book to
make it sell, it is not the worse for good morals.
_Charon_.--I think, Plutarch, you have made this gentleman a little more
humble, and now I will carry him the rest of his journey. But he is too
frivolous an animal to present to wise Minos. I wish Mercury were here;
he would damn him for his dulness. I have a good mind to carry him to
the Danaides, and leave him to pour water into their vessels which, like
his late readers, are destined to eternal emptiness. Or shall I chain
him to the rock, side to side by Prometheus, not for having attempted to
steal celestial fire, in order to animate human forms, but for having
endeavoured to extinguish that which Jupiter had imparted? Or shall we
constitute him _friseur_ to Tisiphone, and make him curl up her locks
with his satires and libels?
_Plutarch_.--Minos does not esteem anything frivolous that affects the
morals of mankind. He punishes authors as guilty of every fault they
have countenanced and every crime they have encouraged, and denounces
heavy vengeance for the injuries which virtue or the virtuous have
suffered in consequence of their writings.