however importunate, are too often vain; and that many who mark with
such accuracy the course of time, appear to have little sensibility of
the decline of life. Every man has something to do which he neglects;
every man has faults to conquer which he delays to combat.
So little do we accustom ourselves to consider the effects of time, that
things necessary and certain often surprise us like unexpected
contingencies. We leave the beauty in her bloom, and, after an absence
of twenty years, wonder, at our return, to find her faded. We meet those
whom we left children, and can scarcely persuade ourselves to treat them
as men. The traveller visits in age those countries through which he
rambled in his youth, and hopes for merriment at the old place. The man
of business, wearied with unsatisfactory prosperity, retires to the town
of his nativity, and expects to play away the last years with the
companions of his childhood, and recover youth in the fields, where he
once was young.
From this inattention, so general and so mischievous, let it be every
man's study to exempt himself. Let him that desires to see others happy
make haste to give, while his gift can be enjoyed, and remember that
every moment of delay takes away something from the value of his
benefaction. And let him, who purposes his own happiness, reflect, that
while he forms his purpose the day rolls on, and _the night cometh when
no man can work_.
No. 44. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1759.
Memory is, among the faculties of the human mind, that of which we make
the most frequent use, or rather that of which the agency is incessant,
or perpetual. Memory is the primary and fundamental power, without which
there could be no other intellectual operation. Judgment and
ratiocination suppose something already known, and draw their decisions
only from experience. Imagination selects ideas from the treasures of
remembrance, and produces novelty only by varied combinations. We do not
even form conjectures of distant, or anticipations of future events, but
by concluding what is possible from what is past.
The two offices of memory are collection and distribution; by one images
are accumulated, and by the other produced for use. Collection is always
the employment of our first years; and distribution commonly that of our
advanced age.
To collect and reposite the various forms of things, is far the most
pleasing part of mental occupation. We are naturally delighted with
novelty, and there is a time when all that we see is new. When first we
enter into the world, whithersoever we turn our eyes, they meet
knowledge with pleasure at her side; every diversity of nature pours
ideas in upon the soul; neither search nor labour are necessary; we have
nothing more to do than to open our eyes, and curiosity is gratified.
Much of the pleasure which the first survey of the world affords, is
exhausted before we are conscious of our own felicity, or able to
compare our condition with some other possible state. We have,
therefore, few traces of the joy of our earliest discoveries; yet we all
remember a time, when nature had so many untasted gratifications, that
every excursion gave delight which, can now be found no longer, when the
noise of a torrent, the rustle of a wood, the song of birds, or the play
of lambs, had power to fill the attention, and suspend all perception of
the course of time.
But these easy pleasures are soon at an end; we have seen in a very
little time so much, that we call out for new objects of observation,
and endeavour to find variety in books and life. But study is laborious,
and not always satisfactory; and conversation has its pains as well
pleasures; we are willing to learn, but not willing to be taught; we are
pained by ignorance, but pained yet more by another's knowledge.
From the vexation of pupilage men commonly set themselves free about the
middle of life, by shutting up the avenues of intelligence, and
resolving to rest in their present state; and they, whose ardour of
inquiry continues longer, find themselves insensibly forsaken by their
instructors. As every man advances in life, the proportion between those
that are younger and that are older than himself is continually
changing; and he that has lived half a century finds few that do not
require from him that information which he once expected from those that
went before him.
Then it is, that the magazines of memory are opened, and the stores of
accumulated knowledge are displayed by vanity or benevolence, or in
honest commerce of mutual interest. Every man wants others, and is,
therefore, glad when he is wanted by them. And as few men will endure
the labour of intense meditation without necessity, he that has learned
enough for his profit or his honour, seldom endeavours after further
acquisitions.
The pleasure of recollecting speculative notions would not be much less
than that of gaining them, if they could be kept pure and unmingled with
the passages of life; but such is the necessary concatenation of our
thoughts, that good and evil are linked together, and no pleasure recurs
but associated with pain. Every revived idea reminds us of a time when
something was enjoyed that is now lost, when some hope was not yet
blasted, when some purpose had yet not languished into sluggishness or
indifference.
Whether it be, that life has more vexations than comforts, or, what is
in the event just the same, that evil makes deeper impression than good,
it is certain that few can review the time past without heaviness of
heart. He remembers many calamities incurred by folly, many
opportunities lost by negligence. The shades of the dead rise up before
him; and he laments the companions of his youth, the partners of his
amusements, the assistants of his labours, whom the hand of death has
snatched away.
When an offer was made to Themistocles of teaching him the art of
memory, he answered, that he would rather wish for the art of
forgetfulness. He felt his imagination haunted by phantoms of misery
which he was unable to suppress, and would gladly have calmed his
thoughts with some _oblivious antidote_. In this we all resemble one
another; the hero and the sage are, like vulgar mortals, overburdened by
the weight of life; all shrink from recollection, and all wish for an
art of forgetfulness[1].
[1] Read the sublime story of Sadak in search of the waters of oblivion
the Tales of the Genii. Those who have seen Martin's picture on the
subject, have failed almost to recognise the respective limits of
poetry and of painting.
No. 45. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1759.
There is in many minds a kind of vanity exerted to the disadvantage of
themselves; a desire to be praised for superior acuteness discovered
only in the degradation of their species, or censure of their country.
Defamation is sufficiently copious. The general lampooner of mankind may
find long exercise for his zeal or wit, in the defects of nature, the
vexations of life, the follies of opinion, and the corruptions of
practice. But fiction is easier than discernment; and most of these
writers spare themselves the labour of inquiry, and exhaust their
virulence upon imaginary crimes, which, as they never existed, can never
be amended.
That the painters find no encouragement among the English for many other
works than portraits, has been imputed to national selfishness. 'Tis
vain, says the satirist, to set before, any Englishman the scenes of
landscape, or the heroes of history; nature and antiquity are nothing in
his eye; he has no value but for himself, nor desires any copy but of
his own form.
Whoever is delighted with his own picture must derive his pleasure from
the pleasure of another. Every man is always present to himself, and
has, therefore, little need of his own resemblance, nor can desire it,
but for the sake of those whom he loves, and by whom he hopes to be
remembered. This use of the art is a natural and reasonable consequence
of affection; and though, like other human actions, it is often
complicated with pride, yet even such pride is more laudable than that
by which palaces are covered with pictures, that, however excellent,
neither imply the owner's virtue, nor excite it.
Genius is chiefly exerted in historical pictures; and the art of the
painter of portraits is often lost in the obscurity of his subject. But
it is in painting as in life; what is greatest is not always best. I
should grieve to see Reynolds transfer to heroes and to goddesses, to
empty splendour and to airy fiction, that art which is now employed in
diffusing friendship, in reviving tenderness, in quickening the
affections of the absent, and continuing the presence of the dead[1].
Yet in a nation great and opulent there is room, and ought to be
patronage, for an art like that of painting through all its diversities;
and it is to be wished, that the reward now offered for an historical
picture may excite an honest emulation, and give beginning to an English
school.
It is not very easy to find an action or event that can be efficaciously
represented by a painter.
He must have an action not successive but instantaneous; for the time of
a picture is a single moment. For this reason, the death of Hercules
cannot well be painted, though, at the first view, it flatters the
imagination with very glittering ideas: the gloomy mountain, overhanging
the sea, and covered with trees, some bending to the wind, and some torn
from their roots by the raging hero; the violence with which he rends
from his shoulders the envenomed garment; the propriety with which his
muscular nakedness may be displayed; the death of Lycas whirled from the
promontory; the gigantick presence of Philoctetes; the blaze of the
fatal pile, which the deities behold with grief and terrour from the
sky.
All these images fill the mind, but will not compose a picture, because
they cannot be united in a single moment[2]. Hercules must have rent his
flesh at one time, and tossed Lycas into the air at another; he must
first tear up the trees, and then lie down upon the pile.
The action must be circumstantial and distinct. There is a passage in
the Iliad which cannot be read without strong emotions. A Trojan prince,
seized by Achilles in the battle, falls at his feet, and in moving terms
supplicates for life. "How can a wretch like thee," says the haughty
Greek, "intreat to live, when thou knowest that the time must come when
Achilles is to die?" This cannot be painted, because no peculiarity of
attitude or disposition can so supply the place of language as to
impress the sentiment.
The event painted must be such as excites passion, and different
passions in the several actors, or a tumult of contending passions in
the chief.
Perhaps the discovery of Ulysses by his nurse is of this kind. The
surprise of the nurse mingled with joy; that of Ulysses checked by
prudence, and clouded by solicitude; and the distinctness of the action
by which the scar is found; all concur to complete the subject. But the
picture, having only two figures, will want variety.
A much nobler assemblage may be furnished by the death of Epaminondas.
The mixture of gladness and grief in the face of the messenger who
brings his dying general an account of the victory; the various passions
of the attendants; the sublimity of composure in the hero, while the
dart is by his own command drawn from his side, and the faint gleam of
satisfaction that diffuses itself over the languor of death; are worthy
of that pencil which yet I do not wish to see employed upon them.
If the design were not too multifarious and extensive, I should wish
that our painters would attempt the dissolution of the parliament by
Cromwell[3]. The point of time may be chosen when Cromwell, looking
round the Pandaemonium with contempt, ordered the bauble to be taken
away; and Harrison laid hands on the Speaker to drag him from the chair.
The various appearances which rage, and terrour, and astonishment, and
guilt, might exhibit in the faces of that hateful assembly, of whom the
principal persons may be faithfully drawn from portraits or prints; the
irresolute repugnance of some, the hypocritical submissions of others,
the ferocious insolence of Cromwell, the rugged brutality of Harrison,
and the general trepidation of fear and wickedness, would, if some
proper disposition could be contrived, make a picture of unexampled
variety, and irresistible instruction.
[1] Some judicious remarks on portrait painting may be found in
Chalmers' Preface to Idler, Brit. Ess. 33.
The difference between the French and English schools, in this
department of the Art, well proves that mind has scope for its
powers in portrait, and that genius alone can so generalize the
details "as to identify the individual man with the dignity of his
thinking powers."
[2] Has that picture, which is considered the finest in the world, the
transfiguration, this requisite? Could any human eye, at one and the
same moment, have beheld the apostles baffled with the stubborn
spirit which they had not faith to quell, and the glories on the
Mount?
[3] This subject has now been most successfully handled by West. Hall's
exquisite engraving has rendered the picture familiar.
No. 40. SATURDAY, MARCH 3, 1759.
_Fugit ad salices, sed, se cupit ante videri_. VIRGIL.
Mr. Idler,
I am encouraged, by the notice you have taken of Betty Broom, to
represent the miseries which I suffer from a species of tyranny, which,
I believe, is not very uncommon, though perhaps it may have escaped the
observation of those who converse little with fine ladies, or see them
only in their publick characters.
To this method of venting my vexation I am the more inclined, because if
I do not complain to you, I must burst in silence; for my mistress has
teased me and teased me till I can hold no longer, and yet I must not
tell her of her tricks. The girls that live in common services can
quarrel, and give warning, and find other places; but we that live with
great ladies, if we once offend them, have, nothing left but to return
into the country.
I am waiting-maid to a lady who keeps the best company, and is seen at
every place of fashionable resort. I am envied by all the maids in the
square, for few countesses leave off so many clothes as my mistress, and
nobody shares with me: so that I supply two families in the country with
finery for the assizes and horse-races, besides what I wear myself. The
steward and housekeeper have joined against me to procure my removal,
that they may advance a relation of their own; but their designs are
found out by my lady, who says I need not fear them, for she will never
have dowdies about her.
You would think, Mr. Idler, like others, that I am very happy, and may
well be contented with my lot. But I will tell you. My lady has an odd
humour. She never orders any thing in direct words, for she loves a
sharp girl that can take a hint.
I would not have you suspect that she has any thing to hint which she is
ashamed to speak at length; for none can have greater purity of
sentiment, or rectitude of intention. She has nothing to hide, yet
nothing will she tell. She always gives her directions obliquely and
allusively, by the mention of something relative or consequential,
without any other purpose than to exercise my acuteness and her own.
It is impossible to give a notion of this style otherwise than by
examples. One night, when she had sat writing letters till it was time
to be dressed, _Molly_, said she, _the Ladies are all to be at Court
to-night in white aprons_. When she means that I should send to order the
chair, she says, _I think the streets are clean, I may venture to walk_.
When she would have something put into its place, she bids me _lay it on
the floor_. If she would have me snuff the candles, she asks _whether I
think her eyes are like a cat's_? If she thinks her chocolate delayed,
she talks of _the benefit of abstinence_. If any needle-work is
forgotten, she supposes _that I have heard of the lady who died by
pricking her finger_.
She always imagines that I can recall every thing past from a single
word. If she wants her head from the milliner, she only says, _Molly,
you know Mrs. Tape_. If she would have the mantua-maker sent for, she
remarks _that Mr. Taffety, the mercer, was here last week_. She ordered,
a fortnight ago, that the first time she was abroad all day I should
choose her a new set of coffee-cups at the china-shop: of this she
reminded me yesterday, as she was going down stairs, by saying, _You
can't find your way now to Pall-mall_.
All this would never vex me, if, by increasing my trouble, she spared
her own; but, dear Mr. Idler, is it not as easy to say _coffee-cups_, as
_Pall-mall_? and to tell me in plain words what I am to do, and when it
is to be done, as to torment her own head with the labour of finding
hints, and mine with that of understanding them?
When first I came to this lady, I had nothing like the learning that I
have now; for she has many books, and I have much time to read; so that
of late I seldom have missed her meaning: but when she first took me I
was an ignorant girl; and she, who, as is very common, confounded want
of knowledge with want of understanding, began once to despair of
bringing me to any thing, because, when I came into her chamber at the
call of her bell, she asked me, _Whether we lived in Zembla_; and I did
not guess the meaning of her inquiry, but modestly answered, that _I
could not tell_. She had happened to ring once when I did not hear her,
and meant to put me in mind of that country where sounds are said to be
congealed by the frost.
Another time, as I was dressing her head, she began to talk on a sudden
of _Medusa_, and _snakes_, and _men turned into stone, and maids that,
if they were not watched, would let their mistresses be Gorgons_. I
looked round me half frightened, and quite bewildered; till at last,
finding that her literature was thrown away upon me, she bid me with
great vehemence, reach the curling-irons.
It is not without some indignation, Mr. Idler, that I discover, in these
artifices of vexation, something worse than foppery or caprice; a mean
delight in superiority, which knows itself in no danger of reproof or
opposition; a cruel pleasure in seeing the perplexity of a mind obliged
to find what is studiously concealed, and a mean indulgence of petty
malevolence, in the sharp censure of involuntary, and very often of
inevitable, failings. When, beyond her expectation, I hit upon her
meaning, I can perceive a sudden cloud of disappointment spread over her
face; and have sometimes been afraid, lest I should lose her favour by
understanding her when she means to puzzle me.
This day, however, she has conquered my sagacity. When she went out of
her dressing-room, she said nothing, but, _Molly, you know_, and
hastened to her chariot. What I am to know is yet a secret; but if I do
not know before she comes back, what I yet have no means of discovering,
she will make my dullness a pretence for a fortnight's ill humour, treat
me as a creature devoid of the faculties necessary to the common duties
of life, and perhaps give the next gown to the housekeeper.
I am, Sir,
Your humble servant,
MOLLY QUICK.
No. 47. SATURDAY, MARCH 10, 1759.
TO THE IDLER.
Mr. Idler,
I am the unfortunate wife of a city wit, and cannot but think that my
case may deserve equal compassion with any of those which have been
represented in your paper.
I married my husband within three months after the expiration of his
apprenticeship; we put our money together, and furnished a large and
splendid shop, in which he was for five years and a half diligent and
civil. The notice which curiosity or kindness commonly bestows on
beginners, was continued by confidence and esteem; one customer, pleased
with his treatment and his bargain, recommended another; and we were
busy behind the counter from morning to night.
Thus every day increased our wealth and our reputation. My husband was
often invited to dinner openly on the Exchange by hundred thousand
pounds men; and whenever I went to any of the halls, the wives of the
aldermen made me low courtesies. We always took up our notes before the
day, and made all considerable payments by draughts upon our banker.
You will easily believe that I was well enough pleased with my
condition; for what happiness can be greater than that of growing every
day richer and richer? I will not deny, that, imagining myself likely to
be in a short time the sheriff's lady, I broke off my acquaintance with
some of my neighbours; and advised my husband to keep good company, and
not to be seen with men that were worth nothing.
In time he found that ale disagreed with his constitution, and went
every night to drink his pint at a tavern, where he met with a set of
criticks, who disputed upon the merit of the different theatrical
performers. By these idle fellows he was taken to the play, which at
first he did not seem much to heed; for he owned, that he very seldom
knew what they were doing, and that, while his companions would let him
alone, he was commonly thinking on his last bargain.
Having once gone, however, he went again and again, though I often told
him that three shillings were thrown away: at last he grew uneasy if he
missed a night, and importuned me to go with him. I went to a tragedy,
which they called Macbeth; and, when I came home, told him, that I could
not bear to see men and women make themselves such fools, by pretending
to be witches and ghosts, generals and kings, and to walk in their sleep
when they were as much awake, as those that looked at them. He told me
that I must get higher notions, and that a play was the most rational of
all entertainments, and most proper to relax the mind after the business
of the day.
By degrees he gained knowledge of some of the players: and, when the
play was over, very frequently treated them with suppers; for which he
was admitted to stand behind the scenes.
He soon began to lose some of his morning hours in the same folly, and
was for one winter very diligent in his attendance on the rehearsals;
but of this species of idleness he grew weary, and said, that the play
was nothing without the company.
His ardour for the diversion of the evening increased; he bought a
sword, and paid five shillings a night to sit in the boxes; he went
sometimes into a place which he calls the green-room, where all the wits
of the age assemble and, when he had been there, could do nothing, for
two or three days, but repeat their jests, or tell their disputes.
He has now lost his regard for every thing but the playhouse; he
invites, three times a week, one or other to drink claret, and talk of
the drama. His first care in the morning is to read the play-bills; and,
if he remembers any lines of the tragedy which is to be represented,
walks about the shop, repeating them so loud, and with such strange
gestures, that the passengers gather round the door.
His greatest pleasure, when I married him, was to hear the situation of
his shop commended, and to be told how many estates have been got in it
by the same trade; but of late he grows peevish at any mention of
business, and delights in nothing so much as to be told that he speaks
like Mossop.
Among his new associates he has learned another language, and speaks in
such a strain that his neighbours cannot understand him. If a customer
talks longer than he is willing to hear, he will complain that he has
been excruciated with unmeaning verbosity; he laughs at the letters of
his friends for their tameness of expression, and often declares himself
weary of attending to the minutiæ of a shop.
It is well for me that I know how to keep a book, for of late he is
scarcely ever in the way. Since one of his friends told him that he had
a genius for tragick poetry, he has locked himself in an upper room six
or seven hours a day; and, when I carry him any paper to be read or
signed, I hear him talking vehemently to himself, sometimes of love and
beauty, sometimes of friendship and virtue, but more frequently of
liberty and his country.