_From my own Apartment, September_ 14.
The progress of our endeavours will of necessity be very much
interrupted, except the learned world will please to send their lists to
the Chamber of Fame with all expedition. There is nothing can so much
contribute to create a noble emulation in our youth, as the honourable
mention of such whose actions have outlived the injuries of time, and
recommended themselves so far to the world, that it is become learning to
know the least circumstance of their affairs. It is a great incentive to
see, that some men have raised themselves so highly above their
fellow-creatures; that the lives of ordinary men are spent in inquiries
after the particular actions of the most illustrious. True it is, that
without this impulse to fame and reputation, our industry would stagnate,
and that lively desire of pleasing each other die away. This opinion was
so established in the heathen world, that their sense of living appeared
insipid, except their being was enlivened with a consciousness, that they
were esteemed by the rest of the world.
Upon examining the proportion of men's fame for my table of twelve, I
thought it no ill way, since I had laid it down for a rule, that they
were to be ranked simply as they were famous, without regard to their
virtue, to ask my sister Jenny's advice, and particularly mentioned to
her the name of Aristotle. She immediately told me, he was a very great
scholar, and that she had read him at the boarding-school. She certainly
means a trifle sold by the hawkers, called, "Aristotle's Problems." [1]
But this raised a great scruple in me, whether a fame increased by
imposition of others is to be added to his account, or that these
excrescencies, which grow out of his real reputation, and give
encouragement to others to pass things under the covert of his name,
should be considered in giving him his seat in the Chamber? This
punctilio is referred to the learned. In the mean time, so ill-natured
are mankind, that I believe I have names already sent me sufficient to
fill up my lists for the dark room, and every one is apt enough to send
in their accounts of ill deservers. This malevolence does not proceed
from a real dislike of virtue, but a diabolical prejudice against it,
which makes men willing to destroy what they care not to imitate. Thus
you see the greatest characters among your acquaintance, and those you
live with, are traduced by all below them in virtue, who never mention
them but with an exception. However, I believe I shall not give the world
much trouble about filling my tables for those of evil fame, for I have
some thoughts of clapping up the sharpers there as fast as I can lay hold
of them.
At present, I am employed in looking over the several notices which I
have received of their manner of dexterity, and the way at dice of making
all _rugg_, as the cant is. The whole art of securing a die has lately
been sent me by a person who was of the fraternity, but is disabled by
the loss of a finger, by which means he cannot, as he used to do, secure
a die. But I am very much at a loss how to call some of the fair sex, who
are accomplices with the Knights of Industry; for my metaphorical dogs[2]
are easily enough understood; but the feminine gender of dogs has so
harsh a sound, that we know not how to name it. But I am credibly
informed, that there are female dogs as voracious as the males,
and make advances to young fellows, without any other design but coming
to a familiarity with their purses. I have also long lists of persons of
condition, who are certainly of the same regiment with these banditti,
and instrumental to their cheats upon undiscerning men of their own rank.
These add their good reputation to carry on the impostures of those,
whose very names would otherwise be defence enough against falling into
their hands. But for the honour of our nation, these shall be
unmentioned, provided we hear no more of such practices, and that they
shall not from henceforward suffer the society of such, as they know to
be the common enemies of order, discipline, and virtue. If it prove that
they go on in encouraging them, they must be proceeded against according
to severest rules of history, where all is to be laid before the world
with impartiality, and without respect to persons.
"So let the stricken deer go weep."[3]
[Footnote 1: This was not a translation of Aristotle's "Problemata," but
an indecent pamphlet with that title. [T.S.]]
[Footnote 2: In the 62nd number of "The Tatler" Steele wrote a paper
comparing some of the pests of society, such as the gamblers, to dogs,
and said: "It is humbly proposed that they may be all together
transported to America, where the dogs are few, and the wild beasts
many." Scott notes that when one of the fraternity referred to threatened
Steele with personal vengeance, Lord Forbes silenced him with these
words: "You will find it safer, sir, in this country, to cut a purse than
to cut a throat." [T.S.]]
[Footnote 3: "Why, let the stricken deer go weep."--_Hamlet_, iii. 2.
[T.S.]]