A man may carefully avoid every thing that in the eye of the world,

is esteemed to be the result of pride, without mortifying himself,

or making the least conquest of his passion. It is possible that he

only sacrifices the insipid outward part of his pride, which none but

silly ignorant people take delight in, to that part we all feel within,

and which the men of the highest spirit and most exalted genius feed

on with so much ecstacy in silence. The pride of great and polite

men is no where more conspicuous than in the debates about ceremony

and precedency, where they have an opportunity of giving their vices

the appearance of virtues, and can make the world believe that it is

their care, their tenderness for the dignity of their office, or the

honour of their masters, what is the result of their own personal pride

and vanity. This is most manifest in all negotiations of ambassadors

and plenipotentiaries, and must be known by all that observe what is

transacted at public treaties; and it will ever be true, that men of

the best taste have no relish in their pride, as long as any mortal

can find out that they are proud.

Line 125. For there was not a bee but would

Get more, I won't say, than he should;

But than, &c.

The vast esteem we have of ourselves, and the small value we have

for others, make us all very unfair judges in our own cases. Few

men can be persuaded that they get too much by those they sell to,

how extraordinary soever their gains are, when, at the same time,

there is hardly a profit so inconsiderable, but they will grudge

it to those they buy from; for this reason the smallest of the

seller's advantage being the greatest persuasive to the buyer;

tradesmen are generally forced to tell lies in their own defence,

and invent a thousand improbable stories, rather than discover what

they really get by their commodities. Some old standers, indeed, that

pretend to more honesty (or what is more likely, have more pride),

than their neighbours, are used to make but few words with their

customers, and refuse to sell at a lower price than what they ask at

first. But these are commonly cunning foxes that are above the world,

and know that those who have money, get often more by being surly,

than others by being obliging. The vulgar imagine they can find

more sincerity in the sour looks of a grave old fellow, than there

appears in the submissive air and inviting complacency of a young

beginner. But this is a grand mistake; and if they are mercers,

drapers, or others, that have many sorts of the same commodity, you

may soon be satisfied; look upon their goods and you will find each

of them have their private marks, which is a certain sign that both

are equally careful in concealing the prime cost of what they sell.

Line 128. --------As your gamesters do,

That, though at fair play ne'er will own

Before the losers what they've won.

This being a general practice, which no body can be ignorant of,

that has ever seen any play, there must be something in the make of

man that is the occasion of it: but as the searching into this will

seem very trifling to many, I desire the reader to skip this remark,

unless he be in perfect good humour, and has nothing at all to do.

That gamesters generally endeavour to conceal their gains before the

losers, seems to me to proceed from a mixture of gratitude, pity, and

self-preservation. All men are naturally grateful while they receive a

benefit, and what they say or do, while it affects and feels warm about

them, is real, and comes from the heart; but when that is over, the

returns we make generally proceed from virtue, good manners, reason,

and the thoughts of duty, but not from gratitude, which is a motive

of the inclination. If we consider, how tyrannically the immoderate

love we bear to ourselves, obliges us to esteem every body that with

or without design acts in our favour, and how often we extend our

affection to things inanimate, when we imagine them to contribute to

our present advantage: if, I say, we consider this, it will not be

difficult to find out which way our being pleased with those whose

money we win is owing to a principle of gratitude. The next motive

is our pity, which proceeds from our consciousness of the vexation

there is in losing; and as we love the esteem of every body, we are

afraid of forfeiting theirs by being the cause of their loss. Lastly,

we apprehend their envy, and so self-preservation makes that we

strive to extenuate first the obligation, then the reason why we

ought to pity, in hopes that we shall have less of their ill-will and

envy. When the passions show themselves in their full strength, they

are known by every body: When a man in power gives a great place to

one that did him a small kindness in his youth, we call it gratitude:

When a woman howls and wrings her hands at the loss of her child, the

prevalent passion is grief; and the uneasiness we feel at the sight

of great misfortunes, as a man's breaking his legs, or dashing his

brains out, is every where called pity. But the gentle strokes, the

slight touches of the passions, are generally overlooked or mistaken.

To prove my assertion, we have but to observe what generally passes

between the winner and the loser. The first is always complaisant, and

if the other will but keep his temper, more than ordinary obliging; he

is ever ready to humour the loser, and willing to rectify his mistakes

with precaution, and the height of good manners. The loser is uneasy,

captious, morose, and perhaps swears and storms; yet as long as he says

or does nothing designedly affronting, the winner takes all in good

part, without offending, disturbing, or contradicting him. Losers,

says the proverb, must have leave to rail: All which shows that the

loser is thought in the right to complain, and for that very reason

pitied. That we are afraid of the loser's ill-will, is plain from

our being conscious that we are displeased with those we lose to,

and envy we always dread when we think ourselves happier than others:

From whence it follows, that when the winner endeavours to conceal

his gains, his design is to avert the mischiefs he apprehends, and

this is self-preservation; the cares of which continue to affect us

as long as the motives that first produced them remain.

But a month, a week, or perhaps a much shorter time after, when the

thoughts of the obligation, and consequently the winner's gratitude,

are worn off, when the loser has recovered his temper, laughs at his

loss, and the reason of the winner's pity ceases; when the winner's

apprehension of drawing upon him the ill-will and envy of the loser

is gone; that is to say, as soon as all the passions are over,

and the cares of self-preservation employ the winner's thoughts no

longer, he will not only make no scruple of owning what he has won,

but will, if his vanity steps in, likewise, with pleasure, brag off,

if not exaggerate his gains.

It is possible, that when people play together who are at enmity,

and perhaps desirous of picking a quarrel, or where men playing

for trifles contend for superiority of skill, and aim chiefly at

the glory of conquest, nothing shall happen of what I have been

talking of. Different passions oblige us to take different measures;

what I have said I would have understood of ordinary play for money,

at which men endeavour to get, and venture to lose what they value:

And even here I know it will be objected by many, that though they

have been guilty of concealing their gains, yet they never observed

those passions which I allege as the causes of that frailty; which is

no wonder, because few men will give themselves leisure, and fewer yet

take the right method of examining themselves as they should do. It is

with the passions in men, as it is with colours in cloth: It is easy

to know a red, a green, a blue, a yellow, a black, &c. in as many

different places; but it must be an artist that can unravel all the

various colours and their proportions, that make up the compound of a

well-mixed cloth. In the same manner, may the passions be discovered

by every body whilst they are distinct, and a single one employs the

whole man; but it is very difficult to trace every motive of those

actions that are the result of a mixture of passions.

Line 163. And virtue, who from politics

Has learn'd a thousand cunning tricks,

Was, by their happy influence,

Made friends with vice.----

It may be said, that virtue is made friends with vice, when industrious

good people, who maintain their families, and bring up their children

handsomely, pay taxes, and are several ways useful members of the

society, get a livelihood by something that chiefly depends on, or is

very much influenced by the vices of others, without being themselves

guilty of, or accessary to them, any otherwise than by way of trade,

as a druggist may be to poisoning, or a sword-cutler to blood-shed.

Thus the merchant, that sends corn or cloth into foreign parts to

purchase wines and brandies, encourages the growth or manufactory

of his own country; he is a benefactor to navigation, increases

the customs, and is many ways beneficial to the public; yet it is

not to be denied, but that his greatest dependence is lavishness

and drunkenness: For, if none were to drink wine but such only as

stand in need of it, nor any body more than his health required, that

multitude of wine-merchants, vintners, coopers, &c. that make such a

considerable show in this flourishing city, would be in a miserable

condition. The same may be said not only of card and dice-makers,

that are the immediate ministers to a legion of vices; but that

of mercers, upholsterers, tailors, and many others, that would be

starved in half a year's time, if pride and luxury were at once to

be banished the nation.

Line 167. The worst of all the multitude

Did something for the common good.

This, I know, will seem to be a strange paradox to many; and I

shall be asked what benefit the public receives from thieves and

house-breakers. They are, I own, very pernicious to human society,

and every government ought to take all imaginable care to root out

and destroy them; yet if all people were strictly honest, and nobody

would meddle with, or pry into any thing but his own, half the smiths

of the nation would want employment; and abundance of workmanship

(which now serves for ornament as well as defence) is to be seen every

where both in town and country, that would never have been thought of,

but to secure us against the attempts of pilferers and robbers.

If what I have said be thought far fetched, and my assertion seems

still a paradox, I desire the reader to look upon the consumption

of things, and he will find that the laziest and most unactive, the

profligate and most mischievous, are all forced to do something for

the common good, and whilst their mouths are not sowed up, and they

continue to wear and otherwise destroy what the industrious are daily

employed about to make, fetch and procure, in spite of their teeth

obliged to help, maintain the poor and the public charges. The labour

of millions would soon be at an end, if there were not other millions,

as I say, in the fable.

--------Employ'd,

To see their handy-works destroy'd.

But men are not to be judged by the consequences that may succeed

their actions, but the facts themselves, and the motives which it

shall appear they acted from. If an ill-natured miser, who is almost

a plumb, and spends but fifty pounds a-year, though he has no relation

to inherit his wealth, should be robbed of five hundred or a thousand

guineas, it is certain, that as soon as this money should come to

circulate, the nation would be the better for the robbery, and receive

the same, and as real a benefit from it, as if an archbishop had left

the same sum to the public; yet justice, and the peace of society,

require that he or they who robbed the miser should be hanged, though

there were half a dozen of them concerned.

Thieves and pick-pockets steal for a livelihood, and either what they

can get honestly is not sufficient to keep them, or else they have

an aversion to constant working: they want to gratify their senses,

have victuals, strong drink, lewd women, and to be idle when they

please. The victualler, who entertains them, and takes their money,

knowing which way they come at it, is very near as great a villain

as his guests. But if he fleeces them well, minds his business,

and is a prudent man, he may get money, and be punctual with them

he deals with: The trusty out-clerk, whose chief aim is his master's

profit, sends him in what beer he wants, and takes care not to lose

his custom; while the man's money is good, he thinks it no business

of his to examine whom he gets it by. In the mean time, the wealthy

brewer, who leaves all the management to his servants, knows nothing

of the matter, but keeps his coach, treats his friends, and enjoys

his pleasure with ease and a good conscience; he gets an estate;

builds houses, and educates his children in plenty, without ever

thinking on the labour which wretches perform, the shifts fools make,

and the tricks knaves play to come at the commodity, by the vast sale

of which he amasses his great riches.

A highwayman having met with a considerable booty, gives a poor

common harlot, he fancies, ten pounds to new-rig her from top to toe;

is there a spruce mercer so conscientious that he will refuse to sell

her a thread sattin, though he knew who she was? She must have shoes

and stockings, gloves, the stay and mantua maker, the sempstress, the

linen-draper, all must get something by her, and a hundred different

tradesmen dependent on those she laid her money out with, may touch

part of it before a month is at an end. The generous gentleman, in the

mean time, his money being near spent, ventured again on the road, but

the second day having committed a robbery near Highgate, he was taken

with one of his accomplices, and the next sessions both were condemned,

and suffered the law. The money due on their conviction fell to three

country fellows, on whom it was admirably well bestowed. One was an

honest farmer, a sober pains-taking man, but reduced by misfortunes:

The summer before, by the mortality among the cattle, he had lost

six cows out of ten, and now his landlord, to whom he owed thirty

pounds, had seized on all his stock. The other was a day-labourer,

who struggled hard with the world, had a sick wife at home, and

several small children to provide for. The third was a gentleman's

gardener, who maintained his father in prison, where, being bound

for a neighbour, he had lain for twelve pounds almost a year and a

half; this act of filial duty was the more meritorious, because he

had for some time been engaged to a young woman, whose parents lived

in good circumstances, but would not give their consent before our

gardener had fifty guineas of his own to show. They received above

fourscore pounds each, which extricated every one of them out of the

difficulties they laboured under, and made them, in their opinion,

the happiest people in the world.

Nothing is more destructive, either in regard to the health or the

vigilance and industry of the poor, than the infamous liquor, the

name of which, derived from Juniper in Dutch, is now, by frequent

use, and the laconic spirit of the nation, from a word of middling

length, shrunk into a monosyllable, intoxicating gin, that charms

the unactive, the desperate and crazy of either sex, and makes the

starving sot behold his rags and nakedness with stupid indolence,

or banter both in senseless laughter, and more insipid jests! It is

a fiery lake that sets the brain in flame, burns up the entrails,

and scorches every part within; and, at the same time, a Lethe of

oblivion, in which the wretch immersed drowns his most pinching cares,

and with his reason, all anxious reflection on brats that cry for food,

hard winters frosts, and horrid empty home.

In hot and adust tempers it makes men quarrelsome, renders them

brutes and savages, sets them on to fight for nothing, and has often

been the cause of murder. It has broke and destroyed the strongest

constitutions, thrown them into consumptions, and been the fatal and

immediate occasion of apoplexies, phrenzies, and sudden death. But,

as these latter mischiefs happen but seldom, they might be overlooked

and connived at: but this cannot be said of the many diseases that

are familiar to the liquor, and which are daily and hourly produced

by it; such as loss of appetite, fevers, black and yellow jaundice,

convulsions, stone and gravel, dropsies, and leucophlegmacies.

Among the doting admirers of this liquid poison, many of the meanest

rank, from a sincere affection to the commodity itself, become dealers

in it, and take delight to help others to what they love themselves,

as whores commence bawds to make the profits of one trade subservient

to the pleasures of the other. But as these starvelings commonly drink

more than their gains, they seldom, by selling, mend the wretchedness

of condition they laboured under while they were only buyers. In the

fag-end and outskirts of the town, and all places of the vilest resort,

it is sold in some part or other of almost every house, frequently in

cellars, and sometimes in the garret. The petty traders in this Stygian

comfort, are supplied by others in somewhat higher station, that keep

professed brandy shops, and are as little to be envied as the former;

and among the middling people, I know not a more miserable shift for

a livelihood than their calling; whoever would thrive in it must, in

the first place, be of a watchful and suspicious, as well as a bold

and resolute temper, that he may not be imposed upon by cheats and

sharpers, nor out-bullied by the oaths and imprecations of hackney

coachmen and foot soldiers: in the second, he ought to be a dabster

at gross jokes and loud laughter, and have all the winning ways to

allure customers and draw out their money, and be well versed in the

low jests and raileries the mob make use of to banter prudence and

frugality. He must be affable and obsequious to the most despicable;

always ready and officious to help a porter down with his load, shake

hands with a basket woman, pull off his hat to an oyster wench, and

be familiar with a beggar; with patience and good humour he must be

able to endure the filthy actions and viler language of nasty drabs,

and the lewdest rakehells, and without a frown, or the least aversion,

bear with all the stench and squalor, noise and impertinence, that

the utmost indigence, laziness, and ebriety, can produce in the most

shameless and abandoned vulgar.

The vast number of the shops I speak of throughout the city and

suburbs, are an astonishing evidence of the many seducers, that, in

a lawful occupation, are accessary to the introduction and increase

of all the sloth, sottishness, want, and misery, which the abuse of

strong waters is the immediate cause of, to lift above mediocrity

perhaps half a score men that deal in the same commodity by wholesale,

while, among the retailers, though qualified as I required, a much

greater number are broke and ruined, for not abstaining from the

Circean cup they hold out to others, and the more fortunate are

their whole lifetime obliged to take the uncommon pains, endure the

hardships, and swallow all the ungrateful and shocking things I named,

for little or nothing beyond a bare sustenance, and their daily bread.

The short-sighted vulgar in the chain of causes seldom can see further

than one link; but those who can enlarge their view, and will give

themselves the leisure of gazing on the prospect of concatenated

events, may, in a hundred places, see good spring up and pullulate from

evil, as naturally as chickens do from eggs. The money that arises from

the duties upon malt is a considerable part of the national revenue,

and should no spirits be distilled from it, the public treasure would

prodigiously suffer on that head. But if we would set in a true

light the many advantages, and large catalogue of solid blessings

that accrue from, and are owing to the evil I treat of, we are to

consider the rents that are received, the ground that is tilled,

the tools that are made, the cattle that are employed, and above all,

the multitude of poor that are maintained, by the variety of labour,

requited in husbandry, in malting, in carriage and distillation, before

we can have the product of malt, which we call low wines, and is but

the beginning from which the various spirits are afterwards to be made.

Besides this, a sharp-sighted good-humoured man might pick up abundance

of good from the rubbish, which I have all flung away for evil. He

would tell me, that whatever sloth and sottishness might be occasioned

by the abuse of malt-spirits, the moderate use of it was of inestimable

benefit to the poor, who could purchase no cordials of higher prices,

that it was an universal comfort, not only in cold and weariness,

but most of the afflictions that are peculiar to the necessitous,

and had often to the most destitute supplied the places of meat,

drink, clothes, and lodging. That the stupid indolence in the most

wretched condition occasioned by those composing draughts, which

I complained of, was a blessing to thousands, for that certainly

those were the happiest, who felt the least pain. As to diseases,

he would say, that, as it caused some, so it cured others, and that

if the excess in those liquors had been sudden death to some few, the

habit of drinking them daily prolonged the lives of many, whom once

it agreed with; that for the loss sustained from the insignificant

quarrels it created at home, we were overpaid in the advantage we

received from it abroad, by upholding the courage of soldiers, and

animating the sailors to the combat; and that in the two last wars

no considerable victory had been obtained without.

To the dismal account I have given of the retailers, and what they

are forced to submit to, he would answer, that not many acquired more

than middling riches in any trade, and that what I had counted so

offensive and intolerable in the calling, was trifling to those who

were used to it; that what seemed irksome and calamitous to some,

was delightful and often ravishing to others; as men differed in

circumstances and education. He would put me in mind, that the profit

of an employment ever made amends for the toil and labour that belonged

to it, nor forget, Dulcis odor lucri e re qualibet; or to tell me,

that the smell of gain was fragrant even to night-workers.

If I should ever urge to him, that to have here and there one great

and eminent distiller, was a poor equivalent for the vile means, the

certain want, and lasting misery of so many thousand wretches, as were

necessary to raise them, he would answer, that of this I could be no

judge, because I do not know what vast benefit they might afterwards

be of to the commonwealth. Perhaps, would he say, the man thus raised

will exert himself in the commission of the peace, or other station,

with vigilance and zeal against the dissolute and disaffected, and

retaining his stirring temper, be as industrious in spreading loyalty,

and the reformation of manners, throughout every cranny of the wide

populous town, as once he was in filling it with spirits; till he

becomes at last the scourge of whores, of vagabonds and beggars,

the terror of rioters and discontented rabbles, and constant plague

to sabbath-breaking butchers. Here my good-humoured antagonist would

exult and triumph over me, especially if he could instance to me

such a bright example, what an uncommon blessing, would he cry out,

is this man to his country! how shining and illustrious his virtue!

To justify his exclamation, he would demonstrate to me, that it was

impossible to give a fuller evidence of self-denial in a grateful mind,

than to see him at the expence of his quiet and hazard of his life

and limbs, be always harassing, and even for trifles, persecuting

that very class of men to whom he owes his fortune, from no other

motive than his aversion to idleness, and great concern for religion

and the public welfare.

Line 173. Parties directly opposite,

Assist each other, as 'twere for spite.

Nothing was more instrumental in forwarding the Reformation, than the

sloth and stupidity of the Roman clergy; yet the same reformation

has roused them from the laziness and ignorance they then laboured

under; and the followers of Luther, Calvin, and others, may be said

to have reformed not only those whom they drew into their sentiment,

but likewise those who remained their greatest opposers. The clergy

of England, by being severe upon the Schismatics, and upbraiding them

with want of learning, have raised themselves such formidable enemies

as are not easily answered; and again, the Dissenters by prying into

the lives, and diligently watching all the actions of their powerful

antagonists, render those of the Established Church more cautious of

giving offence, than in all probability they would, if they had no

malicious over-lookers to fear. It is very much owing to the great

number of Huguenots that have always been in France, since the late

utter extirpation of them, that that kingdom has a less dissolute

and more learned clergy to boast of than any other Roman Catholic

country. The clergy of that church are no where more sovereign than

in Italy, and therefore no where more debauched; nor any where more

ignorant than they are in Spain, because their doctrine is nowhere

less opposed.

Who would imagine, that virtuous women, unknowingly, should be

instrumental in promoting the advantage of prostitutes? Or (what

still seems the greater paradox) that incontinence should be made

serviceable to the preservation of chastity? and yet nothing is more

true. A vicious young fellow, after having been an hour or two at

church, a ball, or any other assembly, where there is a great parcel of

handsome women dressed to the best advantage, will have his imagination

more fired, than if he had the same time been poling at Guildhall,

or walking in the country among a flock of sheep. The consequence of

this is, that he will strive to satisfy the appetite that is raised

in him; and when he finds honest women obstinate and uncomatable,

it is very natural to think, that he will hasten to others that

are more compliable. Who would so much as surmise, that this is the

fault of the virtuous women? They have no thoughts of men in dressing

themselves, poor souls, and endeavour only to appear clean and decent,

every one according to her quality.

I am far from encouraging vice, and think it would be an unspeakable

felicity to a state, if the sin of uncleanness could be utterly

banished from it; but I am afraid it is impossible: The passions of

some people are too violent to be curbed by any law or precept; and

it is wisdom in all governments to bear with lesser inconveniencies

to prevent greater. If courtezans and strumpets were to be prosecuted

with as much rigour as some silly people would have it, what locks

or bars would be sufficient to preserve the honour of our wives

and daughters? For it is not only that the women in general would

meet with far greater temptations, and the attempts to ensnare the

innocence of virgins would seem more excusable, even to the sober

part of mankind, than they do now: but some men would grow outrageous,

and ravishing would become a common crime. Where six or seven thousand

sailors arrive at once, as it often happens, at Amsterdam, that have

seen none but their own sex for many months together, how is it to

be supposed that honest women should walk the streets unmolested,

if there were no harlots to be had at reasonable prices? for which

reason, the wise rulers of that well-ordered city always tolerate an

uncertain number of houses, in which women are hired as publicly as

horses at a livery stable; and there being in this toleration a great

deal of prudence and economy to be seen, a short account of it will

be no tiresome digression.

In the first place, the houses I speak of are allowed to be no where

but in the most slovenly and unpolished part of the town, where seamen

and strangers of no repute chiefly lodge and resort. The street in

which most of them stand is counted scandalous, and the infamy is

extended to all the neighbourhood round it. In the second, they are

only places to meet and bargain in, to make appointments in order to

promote interviews of greater secrecy, and no manner of lewdness is

ever suffered to be transacted in them: which order is so strictly

observed, that bar the ill manners and noise of the company that

frequent them, you will meet with no more indecency, and generally

less lasciviousness there, than with us are to be seen at a playhouse.

Thirdly, the female traders that come to these evening exchanges are

always the scum of the people, and generally such as in the day time

carry fruit and other eatables about in wheel-barrows. The habits,

indeed, they appear in at night are very different from their ordinary

ones; yet they are commonly so ridiculously gay, that they look

more like the Roman dresses of strolling actresses than gentlewomen's

clothes: if to this you add the awkwardness, the hard hands, and coarse

breeding of the damsels that wear them, there is no great reason to

fear, that many of the better sort of people will be tempted by them.

The music in these temples of Venus is performed by organs, not out

of respect to the deity that is worshipped in them, but the frugality

of the owners, whose business it is to procure as much sound for

as little money as they can, and the policy of the government,

who endeavour, as little as is possible to encourage the breed of

pipers and scrapers. All seafaring men, especially the Dutch, are

like the element they belong to, much given to loudness and roaring,

and the noise of half-a-dozen of them, when they call themselves

merry, is sufficient to drown twice the number of flutes or violins;

whereas, with one pair of organs, they can make the whole house ring,

and are at no other charge than the keeping of one scurvy musician,

which can cost them but little: yet notwithstanding the good rules

and strict discipline that are observed in these markets of love,

the schout and his officers are always vexing, mulcting, and,

upon the least complaint, removing the miserable keepers of them:

which policy is of two great uses; first, it gives an opportunity

to a large parcel of officers, the magistrates make use of on many

occasions, and which they could not be without, to squeeze a living

out of the immoderate gains accruing from the worst of employments,

and, at the same time, punish those necessary profligates, the bawds

and panders, which, though they abominate, they desire yet not wholly

to destroy. Secondly, as on several accounts it might be dangerous to

let the multitude into the secret, that those houses and the trade

that is drove in them are connived at, so by this means appearing

unblameable, the wary magistrates preserve themselves in the good

opinion of the weaker sort of people, who imagine that the government

is always endeavouring, though unable, to suppress what it actually

tolerates: whereas, if they had a mind to root them out, their power

in the administration of justice is so sovereign and extensive,

and they know so well how to have it executed, that one week, nay,

one night might send them all a packing.

In Italy, the toleration of strumpets is yet more barefaced, as is

evident from their public stews. At Venice and Naples, impurity is

a kind of merchandise and traffic; the courtezans at Rome, and the

cantoneras in Spain, compose a body in the state, and are under a legal

tax and impost. It is well known, that the reason why so many good

politicians as these tolerate lewd houses, is not their irreligion,

but to prevent a worse evil, an impurity of a more execrable kind,

and to provide for the safety of women of honour. "About two hundred

and fifty years ago," says Monsieur de St. Didier, "Venice being

in want of courtezans, the republic was obliged to procure a great

number from foreign parts." Doglioni, who has written the memorable

affairs of Venice, highly extols the wisdom of the republic in this

point, which secured the chastity of women of honour, daily exposed

to public violences, the churches and consecrated places not being

a sufficient asylum for their chastity.

Our universities in England are much belied, if in some colleges

there was not a monthly allowance ad expurgandos renes: and time was

when monks and priests in Germany were allowed concubines on paying

a certain yearly duty to their prelate. "It is generally believed"

says Monsieur Bayle, (to whom I owe the last paragraph) "that avarice

was the cause of this shameful indulgence; but it is more probable

their design was to prevent their tempting modest women, and to quiet

the uneasiness of husbands, whose resentments the clergy do well

to avoid." From what has been said, it is manifest that there is a

necessity of sacrificing one part of womankind to preserve the other,

and prevent a filthiness of a more heinous nature. From whence I think

I may justly conclude (what was the seeming paradox I went about to

prove) that chastity may be supported by incontinence, and the best

of virtues want the assistance of the worst of vices.

Line 177. The root of evil, avarice,

That damn'd ill-natur'd baneful vice,

Was slave to prodigality.

I have joined so many odious epithets to the word avarice, in

compliance to the vogue of mankind, who generally bestow more

ill language upon this than upon any other vice, and indeed not

undeservedly; for there is hardly a mischief to be named which it has

not produced at one time or other: but the true reason why every body

exclaims so much against it, is, that almost every body suffers by

it; for the more the money is hoarded up by some, the scarcer it must

grow among the rest, and therefore when men rail very much at misers,

there is generally self-interest at bottom.

As there is no living without money, so those that are unprovided,

and have nobody to give them any, are obliged to do some service

or other to the society, before they can come at it; but every

body esteeming his labour as he does himself, which is generally

not under the value, most people that want money only to spend it

again presently, imagine they do more for it than it is worth. Men

cannot forbear looking upon the necessaries of life as their due,

whether they work or not; because they find that nature, without

consulting whether they have victuals or not, bids them eat whenever

they are hungry; for which reason, every body endeavours to get what

he wants with as much ease as he can; and therefore when men find that

the trouble they are put to in getting money is either more or less,

according as those they would have it from are more or less tenacious,

it is very natural for them to be angry at covetousness in general;

for it obliges them either to go without what they have occasion for,

or else to take greater pains for it than they are willing.

Avarice, notwithstanding it is the occasion of so many evils, is yet

very necessary to the society, to glean and gather what has been

dropt and scattered by the contrary vice. Was it not for avarice,

spendthrifts would soon want materials; and if none would lay up

and get faster than they spend, very few could spend faster than they

get. That it is a slave to prodigality, as I have called it, is evident

from so many misers as we daily see toil and labour, pinch and starve

themselves, to enrich a lavish heir. Though these two vices appear very

opposite, yet they often assist each other. Florio is an extravagant

young blade, of a very profuse temper; as he is the only son of a very

rich father, he wants to live high, keep horses and dogs, and throw his

money about, as he sees some of his companions do; but the old hunks

will part with no money, and hardly allows him necessaries. Florio

would have borrowed money upon his own credit long ago; but as all

would be lost, if he died before his father, no prudent man would lend

him any. At last he has met with the greedy Cornaro, who lets him

have money at thirty per cent. and now Florio thinks himself happy,

and spends a thousand a-year. Where would Cornaro ever have got such

a prodigious interest, if it was not for such a fool as Florio, who

will give so great a price for money to fling it away? And how would

Florio get it to spend, if he had not lit of such a greedy usurer as

Cornaro, whose excessive covetousness makes him overlook the great risk

he runs in venturing such great sums upon the life of a wild debauchee.

Avarice is no longer the reverse of profuseness, than while it

signifies that sordid love of money, and narrowness of soul that

hinders misers from parting with what they have, and makes them covet

it only to hoard up. But there is a sort of avarice which consists in a

greedy desire of riches, in order to spend them, and this often meets

with prodigality in the same persons, as is evident in most courtiers

and great officers, both civil and military. In their buildings and

furniture, equipages and entertainments, their gallantry is displayed

with the greatest profusion; while the base actions they submit to

for lucre, and the many frauds and impositions they are guilty of,

discover the utmost avarice. This mixture of contrary vices, comes

up exactly to the character of Catiline, of whom it is said, that he

was appetens alieni & sui profusus, greedy after the goods of others,

and lavish of his own.

Line 180. That noble sin----

The prodigality, I call a noble sin, is not that which has avarice

for its companion, and makes men unreasonably profuse to some of what

they unjustly extort from others, but that agreeable good-natured

vice that makes the chimney smoke, and all the tradesmen smile;

I mean the unmixed prodigality of heedless and voluptuous men,

that being educated in plenty, abhor the vile thoughts of lucre,

and lavish away only what others took pains to scrape together;

such as indulge their inclinations at their own expence, that have

the continual satisfaction of bartering old gold for new pleasures,

and from the excessive largeness of a diffusive soul, are made guilty

of despising too much what most people overvalue.

When I speak thus honourably of this vice, and treat it with so

much tenderness and good manners as I do, I have the same thing

at heart that made me give so many ill names to the reverse of it,

viz. the interest of the public; for as the avaricious does no good to

himself, and is injurious to all the world besides, except his heir,

so the prodigal is a blessing to the whole society, and injures no

body but himself. It is true, that as most of the first are knaves,

so the latter are all fools; yet they are delicious morsels for the

public to feast on, and may with as much justice, as the French call

the monks the patridges of the women, be styled the woodcocks of the

society. Was it not for prodigality, nothing could make us amends for

the rapine and extortion of avarice in power. When a covetous statesman

is gone, who spent his whole life in fattening himself with the spoils

of the nation, and had by pinching and plundering heaped up an immense

treasure, it ought to fill every good member of the society with joy,

to behold the uncommon profuseness of his son. This is refunding to the

public what was robbed from it. Resuming of grants is a barbarous way

of stripping, and it is ignoble to ruin a man faster than he does it

himself, when he sets about it in such good earnest. Does he not feed

an infinite number of dogs of all sorts and sizes, though he never

hunts; keep more horses than any nobleman in the kingdom, though he

never rides them; and give as large an allowance to an ill-favoured

whore as would keep a dutchess, though he never lies with her? Is he

not still more extravagant in those things he makes use of? Therefore

let him alone, or praise him, call him public-spirited lord, nobly

bountiful and magnificently generous, and in a few years he will

suffer himself to be stript his own way. As long as the nation has

its own back again, we ought not to quarrel with the manner in which

the plunder is repaid.

Abundance of moderate men, I know, that are enemies to extremes,

will tell me, that frugality might happily supply the place of the

two vices I speak of, that if men had not so many profuse ways of

spending wealth, they would not be tempted to so many evil practices

to scrape it together, and consequently that the same number of men,

by equally avoiding both extremes, might render themselves more happy,

and be less vicious without, than they could with them. Whoever argues

thus, shows himself a better man than he is a politician. Frugality

is like honesty, a mean starving virtue, that is only fit for small

societies of good peaceable men, who are contented to be poor, so

they may be easy; but, in a large stirring nation, you may have soon

enough of it. It is an idle dreaming virtue that employs no hands,

and therefore very useless in a trading country, where there are vast

numbers that one way or other must be all set to work. Prodigality

has a thousand inventions to keep people from sitting still, that

frugality would never think of; and as this must consume a prodigious

wealth, so avarice again knows innumerable tricks to raise it together,

which frugality would scorn to make use of.

Authors are always allowed to compare small things to great ones,

especially if they ask leave first. Si licit exemplis, &c. but to

compare great things to mean trivial ones, is unsufferable, unless it

be in burlesque; otherwise I would compare the body politic (I confess

the simile is very low) to a bowl of punch. Avarice should be the

souring, and prodigality the sweetening of it. The water I would call

the ignorance, folly, and credulity of the floating insipid multitude;

while wisdom, honour, fortitude, and the rest of the sublime qualities

of men, which separated by art from the dregs of nature, the fire of

glory has exalted and refined into a spiritual essence, should be an

equivalent to brandy. I do not doubt but a Westphalian, Laplander,

or any other dull stranger that is unacquainted with the wholesome

composition, if he was to sell the several ingredients apart, would

think it impossible they should make any tolerable liquor. The lemons

would be too sour, the sugar too luscious, the brandy he will say is

too strong ever to be drank in any quantity, and the water he will

call a tasteless liquor, only fit for cows and horses: yet experience

teaches us, that the ingredients I named, judiciously mixed, will make

an excellent liquor, liked of, and admired by men of exquisite palates.

As to our vices in particular, I could compare avarice, that causes so

much mischief, and is complained of by every body who is not a miser,

to a griping acid that sets our teeth on edge, and is unpleasant to

every palate that is not debauched: I could compare the gaudy trimming

and splendid equipage of a profuse beau, to the glistening brightness

of the finest loaf sugar; for as the one, by correcting the sharpness,

prevent the injuries which a gnawing sour might do to the bowels,

so the other is a pleasing balsam that heals and makes amends for

the smart, which the multitude always suffers from the gripes of the

avaricious; while the substances of both melt away alike, and they

consume themselves by being beneficial to the several compositions they

belong to. I could carry on the simile as to proportions, and the exact

nicety to be observed in them, which would make it appear how little

any of the ingredients could be spared in either of the mixtures; but

I will not tire my reader by pursuing too far a ludicrous comparison,

when I have other matters to entertain him with of greater importance;

and to sum up what I have said in this and the foregoing remark, shall

only add, that I look upon avarice and prodigality in the society, as

I do upon two contrary poisons in physic, of which it is certain that

the noxious qualities being by mutual mischief corrected in both, they

may assist each other, and often make a good medicine between them.

Line 180. --------Whilst luxury

Employ'd a million of the poor, &c.

If every thing is to be luxury (as in strictness it ought) that is not

immediately necessary to make man subsist as he is a living creature,

there is nothing else to be found in the world, no not even among

the naked savages; of which it is not probable that there are any

but what by this time have made some improvements upon their former

manner of living; and either in the preparation of their eatables,

the ordering of their huts, or otherwise, added something to what

once sufficed them. This definition every body will say is too

rigorous: I am of the same opinion; but if we are to abate one inch

of this severity, I am afraid we shall not know where to stop. When

people tell us they only desire to keep themselves sweet and clean,

there is no understanding what they would be at: if they made use of

these words in their genuine proper literal sense, they might be soon

satisfied without much cost or trouble, if they did not want water:

but these two little adjectives are so comprehensive, especially

in the dialect of some ladies, that nobody can guess how far they

may be stretched. The comforts of life are likewise so various and

extensive, that nobody can tell what people mean by them, except

he knows what sort of life they lead. The same obscurity I observe

in the words decency and conveniency, and I never understand them,

unless I am acquainted with the quality of the persons that make use

of them. People may go to church together, and be all of one mind

as much as they please, I am apt to believe that when they pray for

their daily bread, the bishop includes several things in that petition

which the sexton does not think on.

By what I have said hitherto I would only show, that if once we depart

from calling every thing luxury that is not absolutely necessary to

keep a man alive, that then there is no luxury at all; for if the

wants of men are innumerable, then what ought to supply them has

no bounds; what is called superfluous, to some degree of people,

will be thought requisite to those of higher quality; and neither

the world, nor the skill of man can produce any thing so curious or

extravagant, but some most gracious sovereign or other, if it either

eases or diverts him, will reckon it among the necessaries of life;

not meaning every body's life, but that of his sacred person.

It is a received notion, that luxury is as destructive to the wealth

of the whole body politic, as it is to that of every individual

person who is guilty of it, and that a national frugality enriches a

country in the same manner, as that which is less general increases

the estates of private families. I confess, that though I have found

men of much better understanding than myself of this opinion, I cannot

help dissenting from them in this point. They argue thus: We send, say

they, for example, to Turkey of woollen manufactury, and other things

of our own growth, a million's worth every year; for this we bring

back silk, mohair, drugs, &c. to the value of twelve hundred thousand

pounds, that are all spent in our own country. By this, say they, we

get nothing; but if most of us would be content with our own growth,

and so consume but half the quantity of those foreign commodities,

then those in Turkey, who would still want the same quantity of

our manufactures, would be forced to pay ready money for the rest,

and so by the balance of that trade only, the nation should get six

hundred thousand pounds per annum.

To examine the force of this argument, we will suppose (what they

would have) that but half the silk, &c. shall be consumed in England

of what there is now; we will suppose likewise, that those in Turkey,

though we refuse to buy above half as much of their commodities as

we used to do, either can or will not be without the same quantity of

our manufactures they had before, and that they will pay the balance

in money; that is to say, that they shall give us as much gold or

silver, as the value of what they buy from us, exceeds the value of

what we buy from them. Though what we suppose might perhaps be done

for one year, it is impossible it should last: Buying is bartering;

and no nation can buy goods of others, that has none of her own to

purchase them with. Spain and Portugal, that are yearly supplied with

new gold and silver from their mines, may for ever buy for ready money,

as long as their yearly increase of gold or silver continues; but then

money is their growth, and the commodity of the country. We know that

we could not continue long to purchase the goods of other nations,

if they would not take our manufactures in payment for them; and why

should we judge otherwise of other nations? If those in Turkey, then,

had no more money fall from the skies than we, let us see what would be

the consequence of what we supposed. The six hundred thousand pounds

in silk, mohair, &c. that are left upon their hands the first year,

must make those commodities fall considerably: Of this the Dutch and

French will reap the benefit as much as ourselves; and if we continue

to refuse taking their commodities in payment for our manufactures,

they can trade no longer with us, but must content themselves with

buying what they want of such nations as are willing to take what

we refuse, though their goods are much worse than ours; and thus our

commerce with Turkey must in few years be infallibly lost.

But they will say, perhaps, that to prevent the ill consequence I have

showed, we shall take the Turkish merchandise as formerly, and only

be so frugal as to consume but half the quantity of them ourselves,

and send the rest abroad to be sold to others. Let us see what this

will do, and whether it will enrich the nation by the balance of that

trade with six hundred thousand pounds. In the first place, I will

grant them that our people at home making use of so much more of our

own manufactures, those who were employed in silk, mohair, &c. will

get a living by the various preparations of woollen goods. But, in

the second, I cannot allow that the goods can be sold as formerly;

for suppose the half that is wore at home to be sold at the same rate

as before, certainly the other half that is sent abroad will want very

much of it: For we must send those goods to markets already supplied;

and besides that, there must be freight, insurance, provision, and all

other charges deducted, and the merchants in general must lose much

more by this half that is reshipped, than they got by the half that

is consumed here. For, though the woollen manufactures are our own

product, yet they stand the merchant that ships them off to foreign

countries, in as much as they do the shopkeeper here that retails

them: so that if the returns for what he sends abroad repay him not

what his goods cost him here, with all other charges, till he has the

money and a good interest for it in cash, the merchant must run out,

and the upshot would be, that the merchants in general, finding they

lost by the Turkish commodities they sent abroad, would ship no more

of our manufactures, than what would pay for as much silk, mohair,

&c. as would be consumed here. Other nations would soon find ways

to supply them with as much as we should send short, and some where

or other to dispose of the goods we should refuse: So that all we

should get by this frugality, would be, that those in Turkey would

take but half the quantity of our manufactures of what they do now,

while we encourage and wear their merchandises, without which they

are not able to purchase ours.

As I have had the mortification, for several years, to meet with

abundance of sensible people against this opinion, and who always

thought me wrong in this calculation, so I had the pleasure at

last to see the wisdom of the nation fall into the same sentiments,

as is so manifest from an act of parliament made in the year 1721,

where the legislature disobliges a powerful and valuable company,

and overlooks very weighty inconveniences at home, to promote the

interest of the Turkey trade, and not only encourages the consumption

of silk and mohair, but forces the subjects, on penalties, to make

use of them whether they will or not.

What is laid to the charge of luxury besides, is, that it increases

avarice and rapine: And where they are reigning vices, offices of

the greatest trust are bought and sold; the ministers that should

serve the public, both great and small, corrupted, and the countries

every moment in danger of being betrayed to the highest bidders: And,

lastly, that it effeminates and enervates the people, by which the

nations become an easy prey to the first invaders. These are indeed

terrible things; but what is put to the account of luxury belongs to

male-administration, and is the fault of bad politics. Every government

ought to be thoroughly acquainted with, and stedfastly to pursue the

interest of the country. Good politicians, by dexterous management,

laying heavy impositions on some goods, or totally prohibiting them,

and lowering the duties on others, may always turn and divert the

course of trade which way they please; and as they will ever prefer,

if it be equally considerable, the commerce with such countries as can

pay with money as well as goods, to those that can make no returns

for what they buy, but in the commodities of their own growth and

manufactures, so they will always carefully prevent the traffic with

such nations as refuse the goods of others, and will take nothing

but money for their own. But, above all, they will keep a watchful

eye over the balance of trade in general, and never suffer that all

the foreign commodities together, that are imported in one year,

shall exceed in value what of their own growth or manufacture is in

the same imported to others. Note, That I speak now of the interest

of those nations that have no gold or silver of their own growth,

otherwise this maxim need not to be so much insisted on.

If what I urged last, be but diligently looked after, and the imports

are never allowed to be superior to the exports, no nation can ever

be impoverished by foreign luxury; and they may improve it as much

as they please, if they can but in proportion raise the fund of their

own that is to purchase it.

Trade is the principal, but not the only requisite to aggrandize

a nation: there are other things to be taken care of besides. The

meum and tuum must be secured, crimes punished, and all other laws

concerning the administration of justice, wisely contrived, and

strictly executed. Foreign affairs must be likewise prudently managed,

and the ministry of every nation ought to have a good intelligence

abroad, and be well acquainted with the public transactions of all

those countries, that either by their neighbourhood, strength, or

interest, may be hurtful or beneficial to them, to take the necessary

measures accordingly, of crossing some, and assisting others, as

policy, and the balance of power direct. The multitude must be awed,

no man's conscience forced, and the clergy allowed no greater share in

state affairs, than our Saviour has bequeathed in his testament. These

are the arts that lead to worldly greatness: What sovereign power

soever makes a good use of them, that has any considerable nation to

govern, whether it be a monarchy, a commonwealth, or a mixture of both,

can never fail of making it flourish in spite of all the other powers

upon earth, and no luxury, or other vice, is ever able to shake their

constitution.----But here I expect a full-mouthed cry against me;

What! has God never punished and destroyed great nations for their

sins? Yes, but not without means, by infatuating their governors,

and suffering them to depart from either all or some of those general

maxims I have mentioned; and of all the famous states and empires

the world has had to boast of hitherto, none ever came to ruin, whose

destruction was not principally owing to the bad politics, neglects,

or mismanagements of the rulers.

There is no doubt, but more health and vigour is expected among

the people, and their offspring, from temperance and sobriety,

than there is from gluttony and drunkenness; yet I confess, that as

to luxury's effeminating and enervating a nation, I have not such

frightful notions now, as I have had formerly. When we hear or read

of things which we are altogether strangers to, they commonly bring

to our imagination such ideas of what we have seen, as (according to

our apprehension) must come the nearest to them: And I remember, that

when I have read of the luxury of Persia, Egypt, and other countries

where it has been a reigning vice, and that were effeminated and

enervated by it, it has sometimes put me in mind of the cramming and

swilling of ordinary tradesmen at a city feast, and the beastliness

their overgorging themselves is often attended with; at other times,

it has made me think on the distraction of dissolute sailors, as I

had seen them in company of half a dozen lewd women, roaring along

with fiddles before them; and was I to have been carried into any of

their great cities, I would have expected to have found one third of

the people sick a-bed with surfeits; another laid up with the gout,

or crippled by a more ignominious distemper; and the rest, that could

go without leading, walk along the streets in petticoats.

It is happy for us to have fear for a keeper, as long as our reason is

not strong enough to govern our appetites: And I believe, that the

great dread I had more particularly against the word, to enervate,

and some consequent thoughts on the etymology of it, did me abundance

of good when I was a school boy: But since I have seen something

in the world, the consequences of luxury to a nation seem not so

dreadful to me as they did. As long as men have the same appetites,

the same vices will remain. In all large societies, some will love

whoring, and others drinking. The lustful that can get no handsome

clean women, will content themselves with dirty drabs: and those

that cannot purchase true Hermitage or Pontack, will be glad of

more ordinary French claret. Those that cannot reach wine, take up

with most liquors, and a foot soldier or a beggar may make himself

as drunk with stale beer or malt spirits, as a lord with Burgundy,

Champaign, or Tockay. The cheapest and most slovenly way of indulging

our passions, does as much mischief to a man's constitution, as the

most elegant and expensive.

The greatest excesses of luxury are shown in buildings, furniture,

equipages, and clothes: Clean linen weakens a man no more than flannel;

tapestry, fine painting, or good wainscot, are no more unwholesome than

bare walls; and a rich couch, or a gilt chariot, are no more enervating

than the cold floor, or a country cart. The refined pleasures of men

of sense are seldom injurious to their constitution, and there are

many great epicures that will refuse to eat or drink more than their

heads or stomachs can bear. Sensual people may take as great care of

themselves as any: and the errors of the most viciously luxurious,

do not so much consist in the frequent repetitions of their lewdness,

and their eating and drinking too much (which are the things which

would most enervate them), as they do in the operose contrivances,

the profuseness and nicety they are served with, and the vast expence

they are at in their tables and amours.

But let us once suppose, that the ease and pleasures, the grandees,

and the rich people of every nation live in, render them unfit

to endure hardships, and undergo the toils of war. I will allow

that most of the common council of the city would make but very

indifferent foot soldiers; and I believe heartily, that if your

horse was to be composed of aldermen, and such as most of them are,

a small artillery of squibs would be sufficient to route them. But

what have the aldermen, the common council, or indeed all people of

any substance to do with the war, but to pay taxes? The hardships and

fatigues of war that are personally suffered, fall upon them that bear

the brunt of every thing, the meanest indigent part of the nation,

the working slaving people: For how excessive soever the plenty and

luxury of a nation may be, some body must do the work, houses and

ships must be built, merchandises must be removed, and the ground

tilled. Such a variety of labours in every great nation, require a

vast multitude, in which there are always loose, idle, extravagant

fellows enough to spare for an army; and those that are robust enough

to hedge and ditch, plow and thrash, or else not too much enervated

to be smiths, carpenters, sawyers, cloth-workers, porters or carmen,

will always be strong and hardy enough in a campaign or two to make

good soldiers, who, where good orders are kept, have seldom so much

plenty and superfluity come to their share, as to do them any hurt.

The mischief, then, to be feared from luxury among the people of war,

cannot extend itself beyond the officers. The greatest of them are

either men of a very high birth and princely education, or else

extraordinary parts, and no less experience; and whoever is made

choice of by a wise government to command an army en chef, should have

a consummate knowledge in martial affairs, intrepidity to keep him

calm in the midst of danger, and many other qualifications that must

be the work of time and application, on men of a quick penetration,

a distinguished genius, and a world of honour. Strong sinews and supple

joints are trifling advantages, not regarded in persons of their reach

and grandeur, that can destroy cities a-bed, and ruin whole countries

while they are at dinner. As they are most commonly men of great age,

it would be ridiculous to expect a hale constitution and agility of

limbs from them: So their heads be but active and well furnished, it

is no great matter what the rest of their bodies are. If they cannot

bear the fatigue of being on horseback, they may ride in coaches, or

be carried in litters. Mens conduct and sagacity are never the less

for their being cripples, and the best general the king of France

has now, can hardly crawl along. Those that are immediately under

the chief commanders must be very nigh of the same abilities, and

are generally men that have raised themselves to those posts by their

merit. The other officers are all of them in their several stations

obliged to lay out so large a share of their pay in fine clothes,

accoutrements, and other things, by the luxury of the times called

necessary, that they can spare but little money for debauches; for,

as they are advanced, and their salaries raised, so they are likewise

forced to increase their expences and their equipages, which, as well

as every thing else, must still be proportionable to their quality:

by which means, the greatest part of them are in a manner hindered

from those excesses that might be destructive to health; while their

luxury thus turned another way, serves, moreover, to heighten their

pride and vanity, the greatest motives to make them behave themselves

like what they would be thought to be (See Remark on l. 321).

There is nothing refines mankind more than love and honour. Those two

passions are equivalent to many virtues, and therefore the greatest

schools of breeding and good manners, are courts and armies; the

first to accomplish the women, the other to polish the men. What

the generality of officers among civilized nations affect, is a

perfect knowledge of the world and the rules of honour; an air of

frankness, and humanity peculiar to military men of experience, and

such a mixture of modesty and undauntedness, as may bespeak them both

courteous and valiant. Where good sense is fashionable, and a genteel

behaviour is in esteem, gluttony and drunkenness can be no reigning

vices. What officers of distinction chiefly aim at, is not a beastly,

but a splendid way of living, and the wishes of the most luxurious,

in their several degrees of quality, are to appear handsomely, and

excel each other in finery of equipage, politeness of entertainments,

and the reputation of a judicious fancy in every thing about them.

But if there should be more dissolute reprobates among officers,

than there are among men of other professions, which is not true,

yet the most debauched of them may be very serviceable, if they have

but a great share of honour. It is this that covers and makes up for a

multitude of defects in them, and it is this that none (how abandoned

soever they are to pleasure) dare pretend to be without. But as there

is no argument so convincing as matter of fact, let us look back on

what so lately happened in our two last wars with France. How many

puny young striplings have we had in our armies, tenderly educated,

nice in their dress, and curious in their diet, that underwent all

manner of duties with gallantry and cheerfulness?

Those that have such dismal apprehensions of luxury's enervating and

effeminating people, might, in Flanders and Spain have seen embroidered

beaux with fine laced shirts and powdered wigs stand as much fire,

and lead up to the mouth of a cannon, with as little concern as it

was possible for the most stinking slovens to have done in their own

hair, though it had not been combed in a month, and met with abundance

of wild rakes, who had actually impaired their healths, and broke

their constitutions with excesses of wine and women, that yet behaved

themselves with conduct and bravery against their enemies. Robustness

is the least thing required in an officer, and if sometimes strength

is of use, a firm resolution of mind, which the hopes of preferment,

emulation, and the love of glory inspire them with, will at a push

supply the place of bodily force.

Those that understand their business, and have a sufficient sense

of honour, as soon as they are used to danger will always be capable

officers: and their luxury, as long as they spend nobody's money but

their own, will never be prejudicial to a nation.

By all which, I think, I have proved what I designed in this remark

on luxury. First, that in one sense every thing may be called so,

and in another there is no such thing. Secondly, that with a wise

administration all people may swim in as much foreign luxury as

their product can purchase, without being impoverished by it. And,

lastly, that where military affairs are taken care of as they ought,

and the soldiers well paid and kept in good discipline, a wealthy

nation may live in all the ease and plenty imaginable; and in many

parts of it, show as much pomp and delicacy, as human wit can invent,

and at the same time be formidable to their neighbours, and come up

to the character of the bees in the fable, of which I said, that

Flatter'd in peace, and fear'd in wars,

They were th' esteem of foreigners;

And lavish of their wealth and lives,

The balance of all other hives.

(See what is farther said concerning luxury in the Remarks on line

182 and 307.)

Line 182. And odious pride a million more.

Pride is that natural faculty by which every mortal that has any

understanding over-values, and imagines better things of himself than

any impartial judge, thoroughly acquainted with all his qualities

and circumstances, could allow him. We are possessed of no other

quality so beneficial to society, and so necessary to render it

wealthy and flourishing as this, yet it is that which is most

generally detested. What is very peculiar to this faculty of ours,

is, that those who are the fullest of it, are the least willing to

connive at it in others; whereas the heinousness of other vices is

the most extenuated by those who are guilty of them themselves. The

chaste man hates fornication, and drunkenness is most abhorred by the

temperate; but none are so much offended at their neighbour's pride,

as the proudest of all; and if any one can pardon it, it is the most

humble: from which, I think, we may justly infer, that it being odious

to all the world, is a certain sign that all the world is troubled with

it. This all men of sense are ready to confess, and nobody denies but

that he has pride in general. But, if you come to particulars, you

will meet with few that will own any action you can name of theirs

to have proceeded from that principle. There are likewise many who

will allow, that among the sinful nations of the times, pride and

luxury are the great promoters of trade, but they refuse to own the

necessity there is, that in a more virtuous age (such a one as should

be free from pride), trade would in a great measure decay.

The Almighty, they say, has endowed us with the dominion over all

things which the earth and sea produce or contain; there is nothing

to be found in either, but what was made for the use of man; and his

skill and industry above other animals were given him, that he might

render both them and every thing else within the reach of his senses,

more serviceable to him. Upon this consideration they think it impious

to imagine, that humility, temperance, and other virtues should debar

people from the enjoyment of those comforts of life, which are not

denied to the most wicked nations; and so conclude, that without pride

or luxury, the same things might be eat, wore, and consumed; the same

number of handicrafts and artificers employed, and a nation be every

way as flourishing as where those vices are the most predominant.

As to wearing apparel in particular, they will tell you, that pride,

which sticks much nearer to us than our clothes, is only lodged in

the heart, and that rags often conceal a greater portion of it than

the most pompous attire; and that as it cannot be denied but that

there have always been virtuous princes, who, with humble hearts, have

wore their splendid diadems, and swayed their envied sceptres, void of

ambition, for the good of others; so it is very probable, that silver

and gold brocades, and the richest embroideries may, without a thought

of pride, be wore by many whose quality and fortune are suitable to

them. May not (say they) a good man of extraordinary revenues, make

every year a greater variety of suits than it is possible he should

wear out, and yet have no other ends than to set the poor at work,

to encourage trade, and by employing many, to promote the welfare of

his country? And considering food and raiment to be necessaries, and

the two chief articles to which all our worldly cares are extended, why

may not all mankind set aside a considerable part of their income for

the one as well as the other, without the least tincture of pride? Nay,

is not every member of the society in a manner obliged, according to

his ability, to contribute toward the maintenance of that branch of

trade on which the whole has so great a dependence? Besides that,

to appear decently is a civility, and often a duty, which, without

any regard to ourselves, we owe to those we converse with.

These are the objections generally made use of by haughty moralists,

who cannot endure to hear the dignity of their species arraigned;

but if we look narrowly into them, they may soon be answered.

If we had vices, I cannot see why any man should ever make more suits

than he has occasion for, though he was never so desirous of promoting

the good of the nation: for, though in the wearing of a well-wrought

silk, rather than a slight stuff, and the preferring curious fine

cloth to coarse, he had no other view but the setting of more people

to work, and consequently the public welfare, yet he could consider

clothes no otherwise than lovers of their country do taxes now;

they may pay them with alacrity, but nobody gives more than his due;

especially where all are justly rated according to their abilities,

as it could no otherwise be expected in a very virtuous age. Besides,

that in such golden times nobody would dress above his condition,

nobody pinch his family, cheat or over reach his neighbour to purchase

finery, and consequently there would not be half the consumption,

nor a third part of the people employed as now there are. But, to make

this more plain, and demonstrate, that for the support of trade there

can be nothing equivalent to pride, I shall examine the several views

men have in outward apparel, and set forth what daily experience may

teach every body as to dress.

Clothes were originally made for two ends, to hide our nakedness, and

to fence our bodies against the weather, and other outward injuries:

to these our boundless pride has added a third, which is ornament;

for what else but an excess of stupid vanity, could have prevailed

upon our reason to fancy that ornamental, which must continually put

us in mind of our wants and misery, beyond all other animals that

are ready clothed by nature herself? It is indeed to be admired

how so sensible a creature as man, that pretends to so many fine

qualities of his own, should condescend to value himself upon what

is robbed from so innocent and defenceless an animal as a sheep, or

what he is beholden for to the most insignificant thing upon earth,

a dying worm; yet while he is proud of such trifling depredations, he

has the folly to laugh at the Hottentots on the furthest promontory

of Afric, who adorn themselves with the guts of their dead enemies,

without considering that they are the ensigns of their valour those

barbarians are fine with, the true spolia opima, and that if their

pride be more savage than ours, it is certainly less ridiculous,

because they wear the spoils of the more noble animal.

But whatever reflections may be made on this head, the world has

long since decided the matter; handsome apparel is a main point,

fine feathers make fine birds, and people, where they are not

known, are generally honoured according to their clothes and other

accoutrements they have about them; from the richness of them we

judge of their wealth, and by their ordering of them we guess at

their understanding. It is this which encourages every body, who is

conscious of his little merit, if he is any ways able to wear clothes

above his rank, especially in large and populous cities, where obscure

men may hourly meet with fifty strangers to one acquaintance, and

consequently have the pleasure of being esteemed by a vast majority,

not as what they are, but what they appear to be: which is a greater

temptation than most people want to be vain.

Whoever takes delight in viewing the various scenes of low life, may,

on Easter, Whitsun, and other great holidays, meet with scores of

people, especially women, of almost the lowest rank, that wear good

and fashionable clothes: if coming to talk with them, you treat them

more courteously and with greater respect than what they are conscious

they deserve, they will commonly be ashamed of owning what they are;

and often you may, if you are a little inquisitive, discover in them

a most anxious care to conceal the business they follow, and the

place they live in. The reason is plain; while they receive those

civilities that are not usually paid them, and which they think only

due to their betters, they have the satisfaction to imagine, that they

appear what they would be, which, to weak minds, is a pleasure almost

as substantial as they could reap from the very accomplishments of

their wishes: this golden dream they are unwilling to be disturbed

in, and being sure that the meanness of their condition, if it is

known, must sink them very low in your opinion, they hug themselves

in their disguise, and take all imaginable precaution not to forfeit,

by a useless discovery, the esteem which they flatter themselves that

their good clothes have drawn from you.

Though every body allows, that as to apparel and manner of living,

we ought to behave ourselves suitable to our conditions, and follow

the examples of the most sensible, and prudent among our equals in

rank and fortune: yet how few, that are not either miserably covetous,

or else proud of singularity, have this discretion to boast of? We

all look above ourselves, and, as fast as we can, strive to imitate

those that some way or other are superior to us.

The poorest labourer's wife in the parish, who scorns to wear a

strong wholesome frize, as she might, will half starve herself and

her husband to purchase a second-hand gown and petticoat, that cannot

do her half the service; because, forsooth, it is more genteel. The

weaver, the shoemaker, the tailor, the barber, and every mean working

fellow, that can set up with little, has the impudence, with the

first money he gets, to dress himself like a tradesman of substance:

the ordinary retailer in the clothing of his wife, takes pattern

from his neighbour, that deals in the same commodity by wholesale,

and the reason he gives for it is, that twelve years ago the other

had not a bigger shop than himself. The druggist, mercer, draper,

and other creditable shopkeepers, can find no difference between

themselves and merchants, and therefore dress and live like them. The

merchant's lady, who cannot bear the assurance of those mechanics,

flies for refuge to the other end of the town, and scorns to follow

any fashion but what she takes from thence; this haughtiness alarms the

court, the women of quality are frightened to see merchants wives and

daughters dressed like themselves: this impudence of the city, they

cry, is intolerable; mantua-makers are sent for, and the contrivance

of fashions becomes all their study, that they may have always new

modes ready to take up, as soon as those saucy cits shall begin to

imitate those in being. The same emulation is continued through the

several degrees of quality, to an incredible expence, till at last

the prince's great favourites and those of the first rank of all,

having nothing left to outstrip some of their inferiors, are forced

to lay out vast estates in pompous equipages, magnificent furniture,

sumptuous gardens, and princely palaces.

To this emulation and continual striving to out-do one another it is

owing, that after so many various shiftings and changes of modes, in

trumping up new ones, and renewing of old ones, there is still a plus

ultra left for the ingenious; it is this, or at least the consequence

of it, that sets the poor to work, adds spurs to industry, and

encourages the skilful artificer to search after further improvements.

It may be objected, that many people of good fashion, who have been

used to be well dressed, out of custom, wear rich clothes with all

the indifferency imaginable, and that the benefit to trade accruing

from them cannot be ascribed to emulation or pride. To this I answer,

that it is impossible, that those who trouble their heads so little

with their dress, could ever have wore those rich clothes, if both

the stuffs and fashions had not been first invented to gratify the

vanity of others, who took greater delight in fine apparel, than they;

besides that every body is not without pride that appears to be so;

all the symptoms of that vice are not easily discovered; they are

manifold, and vary according to the age, humour, circumstances,

and often constitution of the people.

The choleric city captain seems impatient to come to action, and

expressing his warlike genius by the firmness of his steps, makes

his pike, for want of enemies, tremble at the valour of his arm:

his martial finery, as he marches along, inspires him with an unusual

elevation of mind, by which, endeavouring to forget his shop as well as

himself, he looks up at the balconies with the fierceness of a Saracen

conqueror: while the phlegmatic alderman, now become venerable both

for his age and his authority, contents himself with being thought

a considerable man; and knowing no easier way to express his vanity,

looks big in his coach, where being known by his paultry livery, he

receives, in sullen state, the homage that is paid him by the meaner

sort of people.

The beardless ensign counterfeits a gravity above his years, and with

ridiculous assurance strives to imitate the stern countenance of

his colonel, flattering himself, all the while, that by his daring

mien you will judge of his prowess. The youthful fair, in a vast

concern of being overlooked, by the continual changing of her posture,

betrays a violent desire of being observed, and catching, as it were,

at every body's eyes, courts with obliging looks the admiration of

her beholders. The conceited coxcomb, on the contrary, displaying an

air of sufficiency, is wholly taken up with the contemplation of his

own perfections, and in public places discovers such a disregard to

others, that the ignorant must imagine, he thinks himself to be alone.

These, and such like, are all manifest, though different tokens of

pride, that are obvious to all the world; but man's vanity is not

always so soon found out. When we perceive an air of humanity, and

men seem not to be employed in admiring themselves, nor altogether

unmindful of others, we are apt to pronounce them void of pride,

when, perhaps, they are only fatigued with gratifying their vanity,

and become languid from a satiety of enjoyments. That outward show

of peace within, and drowsy composure of careless negligence, with

which a great man is often seen in his plain chariot to loll at ease,

are not always so free from art, as they may seem to be. Nothing is

more ravishing to the proud, than to be thought happy.

The well-bred gentleman places his greatest pride in the skill he has

of covering it with dexterity, and some are so expert in concealing

this frailty, that when they are the most guilty of it, the vulgar

think them the most exempt from it. Thus the dissembling courtier,

when he appears in state, assumes an air of modesty and good humour;

and while he is ready to burst with vanity, seems to be wholly

ignorant of his greatness; well knowing, that those lovely qualities

must heighten him in the esteem of others, and be an addition to that

grandeur, which the coronets about his coach and harnesses, with the

rest of his equipage, cannot fail to proclaim without his assistance.

And as in these, pride is overlooked, because industriously concealed,

so in others again, it is denied that they have any, when they show

(or at least seem to show) it in the most public manner. The wealthy

parson being, as well as the rest of his profession, debarred from the

gaiety of laymen, makes it his business to look out for an admirable

black, and the finest cloth that money can purchase, and distinguishes

himself by the fullness of his noble and spotless garment; his wigs

are as fashionable as that form he is forced to comply with will

admit of; but as he is only stinted in their shape, so he takes

care that for goodness of hair, and colour, few noblemen shall be

able to match him; his body is ever clean, as well as his clothes,

his sleek face is kept constantly shaved, and his handsome nails

are diligently pared; his smooth white hand, and a brilliant of the

first water, mutually becoming, honour each other with double graces;

what linen he discovers is transparently curious, and he scorns ever

to be seen abroad with a worse beaver than what a rich banker would

be proud of on his wedding-day; to all these niceties in dress he

adds a majestic gait, and expresses a commanding loftiness in his

carriage; yet common civility, notwithstanding, the evidence of so

many concurring symptoms, will not allow us to suspect any of his

actions to be the result of pride: considering the dignity of his

office, it is only decency in him, what would be vanity in others;

and in good manners to his calling we ought to believe, that the worthy

gentleman, without any regard to his reverend person, puts himself to

all this trouble and expence, merely out of a respect which is due

to the divine order he belongs to, and a religious zeal to preserve

his holy function from the contempt of scoffers. With all my heart;

nothing of all this shall be called pride, let me only be allowed to

say, that to our human capacities it looks very like it.

But if at last I should grant, that there are men who enjoy all the

fineries of equipage and furniture, as well as clothes, and yet have

no pride in them; it is certain, that if all should be such, that

emulation I spoke of before must cease, and consequently trade, which

has so great a dependence upon it, suffer in every branch. For to say,

that if all men were truly virtuous, they might, without any regard to

themselves, consume as much out of zeal to serve their neighbours and

promote the public good, as they do now out of self-love and emulation,

is a miserable shift, and an unreasonable supposition. As there have

been good people in all ages, so, without doubt, we are not destitute

of them in this; but let us inquire of the periwig-makers and tailors,

in what gentlemen, even of the greatest wealth and highest quality,

they ever could discover such public-spirited views. Ask the lacemen,

the mercers, and the linen-drapers, whether the richest, and if

you will, the most virtuous ladies, if they buy with ready money,

or intend to pay in any reasonable time, will not drive from shop to

shop, to try the market, make as many words, and stand as hard with

them to save a groat or sixpence in a yard, as the most necessitous

jilts in town. If it be urged, that if there are not, it is possible

there might be such people; I answer that it is as possible that cats,

instead of killing rats and mice, should feed them, and go about the

house to suckle and nurse their young ones; or that a kite should call

the hens to their meat, as the cock does, and sit brooding over their

chickens instead of devouring them; but if they should all do so,

they would cease to be cats and kites; it is inconsistent with their

natures, and the species of creatures which now we mean, when we name

cats and kites, would be extinct as soon as that could come to pass.

Line 183. Envy itself, and vanity,

Were ministers of industry.

Envy is that baseness in our nature, which makes us grieve and pine at

what we conceive to be a happiness in others. I do not believe there

is a human creature in his senses arrived to maturity, that at one time

or other has not been carried away by this passion in good earnest; and

yet I never met with any one that dared own he was guilty of it, but in

jest. That we are so generally ashamed of this vice, is owing to that

strong habit of hypocrisy, by the help of which, we have learned from

our cradle to hide even from ourselves the vast extent of self-love,

and all its different branches. It is impossible man should wish

better for another than he does for himself, unless where he supposes

an impossibility that himself should attain to those wishes; and from

hence we may easily learn after what manner this passion is raised in

us. In order to it, we are to consider first, that as well as we think

of ourselves, so ill we think of our neighbour with equal injustice;

and when we apprehend, that others do or will enjoy what we think

they do not deserve, it afflicts and makes us angry with the cause

of that disturbance. Secondly, That we are employed in wishing well

for ourselves, every one according to his judgment and inclinations,

and when we observe something we like, and yet are destitute of,

in the possession of others; it occasions first sorrow in us for not

having the thing we like. This sorrow is incurable, while we continue

our esteem for the thing we want: but as self-defence is restless, and

never suffers us to leave any means untried how to remove evil from us,

as far and as well as we are able; experience teaches us, that nothing

in nature more alleviates this sorrow, than our anger against those

who are possessed of what we esteem and want. This latter passion,

therefore, we cherish and cultivate to save or relieve ourselves,

at least in part, from the uneasiness we felt from the first.

Envy, then, is a compound of grief and anger; the degrees of this

passion depend chiefly on the nearness or remoteness of the objects,

as to circumstances. If one, who is forced to walk on foot envies

a great man for keeping a coach and six, it will never be with that

violence, or give him that disturbance which it may to a man, who keeps

a coach himself, but can only afford to drive with four horses. The

symptoms of envy are as various, and as hard to describe, as those

of the plague; at some time it appears in one shape, at others in

another quite different. Among the fair, the disease is very common,

and the signs of it very conspicuous in their opinions and censures

of one another. In beautiful young women, you may often discover

this faculty to a high degree; they frequently will hate one another

mortally at first sight, from no other principle than envy; and you may

read this scorn, and unreasonable aversion, in their very countenances,

if they have not a great deal of art, and well learned to dissemble.

In the rude and unpolished multitude, this passion is very bare-faced;

especially when they envy others for the goods of fortune: They rail

at their betters, rip up their faults, and take pains to misconstrue

their most commendable actions: They murmur at Providence, and loudly

complain, that the good things of this world are chiefly enjoyed

by those who do not deserve them. The grosser sort of them it often

affects so violently, that if they were not withheld by the fear of the

laws, they would go directly and beat those their envy is levelled at,

from no other provocation than what that passion suggests to them.

The men of letters, labouring under this distemper, discover

quite different symptoms. When they envy a person for his parts

and erudition, their chief care is industriously to conceal their

frailty, which generally is attempted by denying and depreciating

the good qualities they envy: They carefully peruse his works, and

are displeased with every fine passage they meet with; they look for

nothing but his errors, and wish for no greater feast than a gross

mistake: In their censures they are captious, as well as severe,

make mountains of mole-hills, and will not pardon the least shadow

of a fault, but exaggerate the most trifling omission into a capital

blunder.

Envy is visible in brute-beasts; horses show it in their endeavours of

outstripping one another; and the best spirited will run themselves

to death, before they will suffer another before them. In dogs,

this passion is likewise plainly to be seen, those who are used to be

caressed will never tamely bear that felicity in others. I have seen

a lap-dog that would choke himself with victuals, rather than leave

any thing for a competitor of his own kind; and we may often observe

the same behaviour in those creatures which we daily see in infants

that are froward, and by being over-fondled made humoursome. If out

of caprice they at any time refuse to eat what they have asked for,

and we can but make them believe that some body else, nay, even the

cat or the dog is going to take it from them, they will make an end

of their oughts with pleasure, and feed even against their appetite.

If envy was not rivetted in human nature, it would not be so common

in children, and youth would not be so generally spurred on by

emulation. Those who would derive every thing that is beneficial to

the society from a good principle, ascribe the effects of emulation in

school-boys to a virtue of the mind; as it requires labour and pains,

so it is evident, that they commit a self-denial, who act from that

disposition; but if we look narrowly into it, we shall find, that this

sacrifice of ease and pleasure is only made to envy, and the love of

glory. If there was not something very like this passion, mixed with

that pretended virtue, it would be impossible to raise and increase

it by the same means that create envy. The boy, who receives a reward

for the superiority of his performance, is conscious of the vexation

it would have been to him, if he should have fallen short of it:

This reflection makes him exert himself, not to be outdone by those

whom he looks upon as his inferiors, and the greater his pride is,

the more self-denial he will practise to maintain his conquest. The

other, who, in spite of the pains he took to do well, has missed of

the prize, is sorry, and consequently angry with him whom he must

look upon as the cause of his grief: But to show this anger, would

be ridiculous, and of no service to him, so that he must either be

contented to be less esteemed than the other boy; or, by renewing

his endeavours, become a greater proficient: and it is ten to one,

but the disinterested, good-humoured, and peaceable lad, will choose

the first, and so become indolent and inactive, while the covetous,

peevish, and quarrelsome rascal, shall take incredible pains, and

make himself a conqueror in his turn.

Envy, as it is very common among painters, so it is of great use

for their improvement: I do not mean, that little dawbers envy great

masters, but most of them are tainted with this vice against those

immediately above them. If the pupil of a famous artist is of a

bright genius, and uncommon application, he first adores his master;

but as his own skill increases, he begins insensibly to envy what

he admired before. To learn the nature of this passion, and that

it consists in what I have named, we are but to observe, that, if a

painter, by exerting himself, comes not only to equal, but to exceed

the man he envied, his sorrow is gone, and all his anger disarmed;

and if he hated him before, he is now glad to be friends with him,

if the other will condescend to it.

Married women, who are guilty of this vice, which few are not,

are always endeavouring to raise the same passion in their spouses;

and where they have prevailed, envy and emulation have kept more men

in bounds, and reformed more ill husbands from sloth, from drinking,

and other evil courses, than all the sermons that have been preached

since the time of the Apostles.

As every body would be happy, enjoy pleasure, and, avoid pain, if

he could, so self-love bids us look on every creature that seems

satisfied, as a rival in happiness; and the satisfaction we have in

seeing that felicity disturbed, without any advantage to ourselves,

but what springs from the pleasure we have in beholding it, is called

loving mischief for mischief's sake; and the motive of which that

frailty is the result, malice, another offspring derived from the same

original; for if there was no envy, there could be no malice. When

the passions lie dormant, we have no apprehension of them, and often

people think they have not such a frailty in their nature, because

that moment they are not affected with it.

A gentleman well dressed, who happens to be dirtied all over by a

coach or a cart, is laughed at, and by his inferiors much more than his

equals, because they envy him more: they know he is vexed at it, and,

imagining him to be happier than themselves, they are glad to see him

meet with displeasures in his turn! But a young lady, if she be in a

serious mood, instead of laughing at, pities him, because a clean man

is a sight she takes delight in, and there is no room for envy. At

disasters, we either laugh, or pity those that befal them, according

to the stock we are possessed of either malice or compassion. If a

man falls or hurts himself so slightly, that it moves not the latter,

we laugh, and here our pity and malice shake us alternately: Indeed,

Sir, I am very sorry for it, I beg your pardon for laughing, I am

the silliest creature in the world, then laugh again; and again,

I am indeed very sorry, and so on. Some are so malicious, they would

laugh if a man broke his leg, and others are so compassionate, that

they can heartily pity a man for the least spot in his clothes; but

nobody is so savage that no compassion can touch him, nor any man so

good-natured, as never to be affected with any malicious pleasure. How

strangely our passions govern us! We envy a man for being rich, and

then perfectly hate him: But if we come to be his equals, we are calm,

and the least condescension in him makes us friends; but if we become

visibly superior to him, we can pity his misfortunes. The reason

why men of true good sense envy less than others, is because they

admire themselves with less hesitation than fools and silly people;

for, though they do not show this to others, yet the solidity of their

thinking gives them an assurance of their real worth, which men of weak

understanding can never feel within, though they often counterfeit it.

The ostracism of the Greeks was a sacrifice of valuable men made

to epidemic envy, and often applied as an infallible remedy to cure

and prevent the mischiefs of popular spleen and rancour. A victim of

state often appeases the murmurs of a whole nation, and after-ages

frequently wonder at barbarities of this nature, which, under the

same circumstances, they would have committed themselves. They are

compliments to the people's malice, which is never better gratified,

than when they can see a great man humbled. We believe that we love

justice, and to see merit rewarded; but if men continue long in the

first posts of honour, half of us grow weary of them, look for their

faults, and, if we can find none, we suppose they hide them, and it

is much if the greatest part of us do not wish them discarded. This

foul play, the best of men ought ever to apprehend from all who are

not their immediate friends or acquaintance, because nothing is more

tiresome to us, than the repetition of praises we have no manner of

share in.

The more a passion is a compound of many others, the more difficult it

is to define it; and the more it is tormenting to those that labour

under it, the greater cruelty it is capable of inspiring them with

against others: Therefore nothing is more whimsical or mischievous

than jealousy, which is made up of love, hope, fear, and a great deal

of envy: The last has been sufficiently treated of already; and what I

have to say of fear, the reader will find under Remark on l. 321. So

that the better to explain and illustrate this odd mixture, the

ingredients I shall further speak of in this place, are hope and love.

Hoping is wishing with some degree of confidence, that the thing

wished for will come to pass. The firmness and imbecility of our hope

depend entirely on the greater or lesser degree of our confidence,

and all hope includes doubt; for when our confidence is arrived to

that height, as to exclude all doubts, it becomes a certainty, and

we take for granted what we only hoped for before. A silver inkhorn

may pass in speech, because every body knows what we mean by it,

but a certain hope cannot: For a man who makes use of an epithet that

destroys the essence of the substantive he joins it to, can have no

meaning at all; and the more clearly we understand the force of the

epithet, and the nature of the substantive, the more palpable is the

nonsense of the heterogeneous compound. The reason, therefore, why

it is not so shocking to some to hear a man speak of certain hope,

as if he should talk of hot ice, or liquid oak, is not because there

is less nonsense contained in the first, than there is in either

of the latter; but because the word hope, I mean the essence of it,

is not so clearly understood by the generality of the people, as the

words and essence of ice and oak are.

Love, in the first place, signifies affection, such as parents and

nurses bear to children, and friends to one another; it consists

in a liking and well-wishing to the person beloved. We give an

easy construction to his words and actions, and feel a proneness

to excuse and forgive his faults, if we see any; his interest we

make on all accounts our own, even to our prejudice, and receive

an inward satisfaction for sympathising with him in his sorrows,

as well as joys. What I said last is not impossible, whatever it may

seem to be; for, when we are sincere in sharing with one another in

his misfortunes, self-love makes us believe, that the sufferings we

feel must alleviate and lessen those of our friend; and while this

fond reflection is soothing our pain, a secret pleasure arises from

our grieving for the person we love.

Secondly, by love we understand a strong inclination, in its nature

distinct from all other affections of friendship, gratitude, and

consanguinity, that persons of different sexes, after liking, bear

to one another: it is in this signification, that love enters into

the compound of jealousy, and is the effect as well as happy disguise

of that passion that prompts us to labour for the preservation of our

species. This latter appetite is innate both in men and women, who are

not defective in their formation, as much as hunger or thirst, though

they are seldom affected with it before the years of puberty. Could we

undress nature, and pry into her deepest recesses, we should discover

the seeds of this passion before it exerts itself, as plainly as we

see the teeth in an embryo, before the gums are formed. There are

few healthy people of either sex, whom it has made no impression on

before twenty: yet, as the peace and happiness of the civil society

require that this should be kept a secret, never to be talked of in

public; so, among well-bred people, it is counted highly criminal to

mention, before company, any thing in plain words, that is, relating

to this mystery of succession: by which means, the very name of the

appetite, though the most necessary for the continuance of mankind,

is become odious, and the proper epithets commonly joined to lust,

are filthy and abominable.

This impulse of nature in people of strict morals, and rigid

modesty, often disturbs the body for a considerable time before it is

understood or known to be what it is, and it is remarkable, that the

most polished, and best instructed, are generally the most ignorant

as to this affair; and here I can but observe the difference between

man in the wild state of nature, and the same creature in the civil

society. In the first, men and women, if left rude and untaught in

the sciences of modes and manners, would quickly find out the cause

of that disturbance, and be at a loss no more than other animals

for a present remedy: besides, that it is not probable they would

want either precept or example from the more experienced. But, in

the second, where the rules of religion, law, and decency, are to

be followed, and obeyed, before any dictates of nature, the youth

of both sexes are to be armed and fortified against this impulse,

and from their infancy artfully frightened from the most remote

approaches of it. The appetite itself, and all the symptoms of it,

though they are plainly felt and understood, are to be stifled with

care and severity, and, in women, flatly disowned, and if there be

occasion, with obstinacy denied, even when themselves are affected by

them. If it throws them into distempers, they must be cured by physic,

or else patiently bear them in silence; and it is the interest of the

society to preserve decency and politeness; that women should linger,

waste, and die, rather than relieve themselves in an unlawful manner;

and among the fashionable part of mankind, the people of birth and

fortune, it is expected that matrimony should never be entered upon

without a curious regard to family, estate, and reputation, and, in the

making of matches, the call of nature be the very last consideration.