delighted when he finds "the sound an echo to the sense." He has read
all our poets, with particular attention to this delicacy of
versification, and wonders at the supineness with which their works have
been hitherto perused, so that no man has found the sound of a drum in
this distich:
"When pulpit, drum ecclesiastic,
Was beat with fist instead of a stick;"
and that the wonderful lines upon honour and a bubble have hitherto
passed without notice:
"Honour is like the glassy bubble,
Which costs philosophers such trouble;
Where, one part crack'd, the whole does fly,
And wits are crack'd to find out why."
In these verses, says Minim, we have two striking accommodations of the
sound to the sense. It is impossible to utter the first two lines
emphatically without an act like that which they describe; _bubble_ and
_trouble_ causing a momentary inflation of the cheeks by the retention
of the breath, which is afterwards forcibly emitted, as in the practice
of _blowing bubbles_. But the greatest excellence is in the third line,
which is _crack'd_ in the middle to express a crack, and then shivers
into monosyllables. Yet has this diamond lain neglected with common
stones, and among the innumerable admirers of Hudibras the observation
of this superlative passage has been reserved for the sagacity of Minim.
No. 61. SATURDAY, JUNE 15, 1759.
Mr. Minim had now advanced himself to the zenith of critical reputation;
when he was in the pit, every eye in the boxes was fixed upon him; when
he entered his coffee-house, he was surrounded by circles of candidates,
who passed their noviciate of literature under his tuition: his opinion
was asked by all who had no opinion of their own, and yet loved to
debate and decide; and no composition was supposed to pass in safety to
posterity, till it had been secured by Minim's approbation.
Minim professes great admiration of the wisdom and munificence by which
the academies of the continent were raised; and often wishes for some
standard of taste, for some tribunal, to which merit may appeal from
caprice, prejudice and malignity. He has formed a plan for an academy of
criticism, where every work of imagination may be read before it is
printed, and which shall authoritatively direct the theatres what pieces
to receive or reject, to exclude or to revive.
Such an institution would, in Dick's opinion, spread the fame of English
literature over Europe, and make London the metropolis of elegance and
politeness, the place to which the learned and ingenious of all
countries would repair for instruction and improvement, and where
nothing would any longer be applauded or endured that was not conformed
to the nicest rules, and finished with the highest elegance.
Till some happy conjunction of the planets shall dispose our princes or
ministers to make themselves immortal by such an academy, Minim contents
himself to preside four nights in a week in a critical society selected
by himself, where he is heard without contradiction, and whence his
judgment is disseminated through the great vulgar and the small.
When he is placed in the chair of criticism, he declares loudly for the
noble simplicity of our ancestors, in opposition to the petty
refinements, and ornamental luxuriance. Sometimes he is sunk in despair,
and perceives false delicacy daily gaining ground, and sometimes
brightens his countenance with a gleam of hope, and predicts the revival
of the true sublime. He then fulminates his loudest censures against the
monkish barbarity of rhyme; wonders how beings that pretend to reason
can be pleased with one line always ending like another; tells how
unjustly and unnaturally sense is sacrificed to sound; how often the
best thoughts are mangled by the necessity of confining or extending
them to the dimensions of a couplet; and rejoices that genius has, in
our days, shaken off the shackles which had encumbered it so long. Yet
he allows that rhyme may sometimes be borne, if the lines be often
broken, and the pauses judiciously diversified.
From blank verse he makes an easy transition to Milton, whom he produces
as an example of the slow advance of lasting reputation. Milton is the
only writer in whose books Minim can read for ever without weariness.
What cause it is that exempts this pleasure from satiety he has long and
diligently inquired, and believes it to consist in the perpetual
variation of the numbers, by which the ear is gratified and the
attention awakened. The lines that are commonly thought rugged and
unmusical, he conceives to have been written to temper the melodious
luxury of the rest, or to express things by a proper cadence: for he
scarcely finds a verse that has not this favourite beauty; he declares
that he could shiver in a hot-house when he reads that
"the ground
Burns frore, and cold performs th' effect of fire;"
and that, when Milton bewails his blindness, the verse,
"So thick a drop serene has quench'd these orbs,"
has, he knows not how, something that strikes him with an obscure
sensation like that which he fancies would be felt from the sound of
darkness.
Minim is not so confident of his rules of judgment as not very eagerly
to catch new light from the name of the author. He is commonly so
prudent as to spare those whom he cannot resist, unless, as will
sometimes happen, he finds the publick combined against them. But a
fresh pretender to fame he is strongly inclined to censure, till his own
honour requires that he commend him. Till he knows the success of a
composition, he intrenches himself in general terms; there are some new
thoughts and beautiful passages, but there is likewise much which he
would have advised the author to expunge. He has several favourite
epithets, of which he has never settled the meaning, but which are very
commodiously applied to books which he has not read, or cannot
understand. One is _manly_, another is _dry_, another _stiff_, and
another _flimsy_; sometimes he discovers delicacy of style, and
sometimes meets with _strange expressions_.
He is never so great, or so happy, as when a youth of promising parts is
brought to receive his directions for the prosecution of his studies. He
then puts on a very serious air; he advises the pupil to read none but
the best authors; and when he finds one congenial to his own mind, to
study his beauties, but avoid his faults; and, when he sits down to
write, to consider how his favourite author would think at the present
time on the present occasion. He exhorts him to catch those moments when
he finds his thoughts expanded and his genius exalted, but to take care
lest imagination hurry him beyond the bounds of nature. He holds
diligence the mother of success; yet enjoins him, with great
earnestness, not to read more than he can digest, and not to confuse his
mind by pursuing studies of contrary tendencies. He tells him, that
every man has his genius, and that Cicero could never be a poet. The boy
retires illuminated, resolves to follow his genius, and to think how
Milton would have thought: and Minim feasts upon his own beneficence
till another day brings another pupil.
No. 62. SATURDAY, JUNE 23, 1759.
_Quid faciam, proescribe. Quiescas_.--HOR. Lib. ii. Sat. i. 5.
TO THE IDLER.
Sir,
An opinion prevails almost universally in the world, that he who has
money has every thing. This is not a modern paradox, or the tenet of a
small and obscure sect, but a persuasion which appears to have operated
upon most minds in all ages, and which is supported by authorities so
numerous and so cogent, that nothing but long experience could have
given me confidence to question its truth.
But experience is the test by which all the philosophers of the present
age agree, that speculation must be tried; and I may be, therefore,
allowed to doubt the power of money, since I have been a long time rich,
and have not yet found that riches can make me happy.
My father was a farmer neither wealthy nor indigent, who gave me a
better education than was suitable to my birth, because my uncle in the
city designed me for his heir, and desired that I might be bred a
gentleman. My uncle's wealth was the perpetual subject of conversation
in the house; and when any little misfortune befell us, or any
mortification dejected us, my father always exhorted me to hold up my
head, for my uncle would never marry.
My uncle, indeed, kept his promise. Having his mind completely busied
between his warehouse and the 'Change, he felt no tediousness of life,
nor any want of domestick amusements. When my father died, he received
me kindly; but, after a few months, finding no great pleasure in the
conversation of each other, we parted; and he remitted me a small
annuity, on which I lived a quiet and studious life, without any wish to
grow great by the death of my benefactor.
But though I never suffered any malignant impatience to take hold on my
mind, I could not forbear sometimes to imagine to myself the pleasure of
being rich; and, when I read of diversions and magnificence, resolved to
try, when time should put the trial in my power, what pleasure they
could afford.
My uncle, in the latter spring of his life, when his ruddy cheek and his
firm nerves promised him a long and healthy age, died of an apoplexy.
His death gave me neither joy nor sorrow. He did me good, and I regarded
him with gratitude; but I could not please him, and, therefore, could
not love him.
He had the policy of little minds, who love to surprise; and, having
always represented his fortune as less than it was, had, I suppose,
often gratified himself with thinking, how I should be delighted to find
myself twice as rich as I expected. My wealth was such as exceeded all
the schemes of expense which I had formed; and I soon began to expand my
thoughts, and look round for some purchase of felicity.
The most striking effect of riches is the splendour of dress, which
every man has observed to enforce respect, and facilitate reception; and
my first desire was to be fine. I sent for a tailor who was employed by
the nobility, and ordered such a suit of clothes as I had often looked
on with involuntary submission, and am ashamed to remember with what
flutters of expectation I waited for the hour, when I should issue forth
in all the splendour of embroidery. The clothes were brought, and for
three days I observed many eyes turned towards me as I passed: but I
felt myself obstructed in the common intercourse of civility by an
uneasy consciousness of my new appearance; as I thought myself more
observed, I was more anxious about my mien and behaviour; and the mien
which is formed by care is commonly ridiculous. A short time accustomed
me to myself, and my dress was without pain, and without pleasure.
For a little while I tried to be a rake, but I began too late; and
having by nature no turn for a frolick, was in great danger of ending in
a drunkard. A fever, in which not one of my companions paid me a visit,
gave me time for reflection. I found that there was no great pleasure in
breaking windows and lying in the round-house; and resolved to associate
no longer with those whom, though I had treated and bailed them, I could
not make friends.
I then changed my measures, kept running horses, and had the comfort of
seeing my name very often in the news. I had a chesnut horse, the
grandson of Childers, who won four plates, and ten by-matches; and a bay
filly, who carried off the five years' old plate, and was expected to
perform much greater exploits, when my groom broke her wind, because I
happened to catch him selling oats for beer. This happiness was soon at
an end; there was no pleasure when I lost, and, when I won, I could not
much exalt myself by the virtues of my horse. I grew ashamed of the
company of jockey-lords, and resolved to spend no more of my time in the
stable.
It was now known that I had money, and would spend it, and I passed four
months in the company of architects, whose whole business was to
persuade me to build a house. I told them that I had more room than I
wanted, but could not get rid of their importunities. A new plan was
brought me every morning; till at last my constancy was overpowered, and
I began to build. The happiness of building lasted but a little while,
for though I love to spend, I hate to be cheated; and I soon found, that
to build is to be robbed.
How I proceed in the pursuit of happiness, you shall hear when I find
myself disposed to write.
I am, Sir, &c.
TIM. RANGER.
No. 63. SATURDAY, JUNE 30, 1759.
The natural progress of the works of men is from rudeness to
convenience, from convenience to elegance, and from elegance to nicety.
The first labour is enforced by necessity. The savage finds himself
incommoded by heat and cold, by rain and wind; he shelters himself in
the hollow of a rock, and learns to dig a cave where there was none
before. He finds the sun and the wind excluded by the thicket; and when
the accidents of the chase, or the convenience of pasturage, leads him
into more open places, he forms a thicket for himself, by planting
stakes at proper distances, and laying branches from one to another.
The next gradation of skill and industry produces a house closed with
doors, and divided by partitions; and apartments are multiplied and
disposed according to the various degrees of power or invention;
improvement succeeds improvement, as he that is freed from a greater
evil grows impatient of a less, till ease in time is advanced to
pleasure.
The mind, set free from the importunities of natural want, gains leisure
to go in search of superfluous gratifications, and adds to the uses of
habitation the delights of prospect. Then begins the reign of symmetry;
orders of architecture are invented, and one part of the edifice is
conformed to another, without any other reason, than that the eye may
not be offended.
The passage is very short from elegance to luxury, Ionick and Corinthian
columns are soon succeeded by gilt cornices, inlaid floors and petty
ornaments, which show rather the wealth than the taste of the
possessour.
Language proceeds, like every thing else, through improvement to
degeneracy. The rovers who first took possession of a country, having
not many ideas, and those not nicely modified or discriminated, were
contented, if by general terms and abrupt sentences they could make
their thoughts known to one another: as life begins to be more
regulated, and property to become limited, disputes must be decided, and
claims adjusted; the differences of things are noted, and distinctness
and propriety of expression become necessary. In time, happiness and
plenty give rise to curiosity, and the sciences are cultivated for ease
and pleasure; to the arts, which are now to be taught, emulation soon
adds the art of teaching; and the studious and ambitious contend not
only who shall think best, but who shall tell their thoughts in the most
pleasing manner.
Then begin the arts of rhetorick and poetry, the regulation of figures,
the selection of words, the modulation of periods, the graces of
transition, the complication of clauses, and all the delicacies of style
and subtilties of composition, useful while they advance perspicuity,
and laudable while they increase pleasure, but easy to be refined by
needless scrupulosity till they shall more embarrass the writer than
assist the reader or delight him.
The first state is commonly antecedent to the practice of writing; the
ignorant essays of imperfect diction pass away with the savage
generation that uttered them. No nation can trace their language beyond
the second period, and even of that it does not often happen that many
monuments remain.
The fate of the English tongue is like that of others. We know nothing
of the scanty jargon of our barbarous ancestors; but we have specimens
of our language when it began to be adapted to civil and religious
purposes, and find it such as might naturally be expected, artless and
simple, unconnected and concise. The writers seem to have desired little
more than to be understood, and, perhaps, seldom aspired to the praise
of pleasing. Their verses were considered chiefly as memorial, and,
therefore, did not differ from prose but by the measure or the rhyme.
In this state, varied a little according to the different purposes or
abilities of writers, our language may be said to have continued to the
time of Gower, whom Chaucer calls his master, and who, however obscured
by his scholar's popularity, seems justly to claim the honour which has
been hitherto denied him, of showing his countrymen that something more
was to be desired, and that English verse might be exalted into poetry.
From the time of Gower and Chaucer, the English writers have studied
elegance, and advanced their language, by successive improvements, to as
much harmony as it can easily receive, and as much copiousness as human
knowledge has hitherto required. These advances have not been made at
all times with the same diligence or the same success. Negligence has
suspended the course of improvement, or affectation turned it aside;
time has elapsed with little change, or change has been made without
amendment. But elegance has been long kept in view with attention as
near to constancy as life permits, till every man now endeavours to
excel others in accuracy, or outshine them in splendour of style, and
the danger is, lest care should too soon pass to affectation.
No. 64. SATURDAY, JULY 1, 1759.
_Quid faciam, praescribe. Quiescas_.--HOR. Lib. ii. Sat. i. 5.
TO THE IDLER.
Sir,
As nature has made every man desirous of happiness, I flatter myself,
that you and your readers cannot but feel some curiosity to know the
sequel of my story; for though, by trying the different schemes of
pleasure, I have yet found nothing in which I could finally acquiesce;
yet the narrative of my attempts will not be wholly without use, since
we always approach nearer to truth as we detect more and more varieties
of errour.
When I had sold my racers, and put the orders of architecture out of my
head, my next resolution was to be a _fine gentleman_. I frequented the
polite coffee-houses, grew acquainted with all the men of humour, and
gained the right of bowing familiarly to half the nobility. In this new
scene of life my great labour was to learn to laugh. I had been used to
consider laughter as the effect of merriment; but I soon learned that it
is one of the arts of adulation, and, from laughing only to show that I
was pleased, I now began to laugh when I wished to please. This was at
first very difficult. I sometimes heard the story with dull
indifference, and, not exalting myself to merriment by due gradations,
burst out suddenly into an awkward noise, which was not always
favourably interpreted. Sometimes I was behind the rest of the company,
and lost the grace of laughing by delay, and sometimes, when I began at
the right time, was deficient in loudness or in length. But, by diligent
imitation of the best models, I attained at last such flexibility of
muscles, that I was always a welcome auditor of a story, and got the
reputation of a good-natured fellow.
This was something; but much more was to be done, that I might be
universally allowed to be a fine gentleman. I appeared at court on all
publick days; betted at gaming-tables; and played at all the routs of
eminence. I went every night to the opera, took a fiddler of disputed
merit under my protection, became the head of a musical faction, and had
sometimes concerts at my own house. I once thought to have attained the
highest rank of elegance, by taking a foreign singer into keeping. But
my favourite fiddler contrived to be arrested, on the night of a
concert, for a finer suit of clothes than I had ever presumed to wear,
and I lost all the fame of patronage by refusing to bail him.
My next ambition was to sit for my picture. I spent a whole winter in
going from painter to painter, to bespeak a whole length of one, and a
half length of another; I talked of nothing but attitudes, draperies and
proper lights; took my friends to see the pictures after every sitting;
heard every day of a wonderful performer in crayons and miniature, and
sent my pictures to be copied; was told by the judges that they were not
like, and was recommended to other artists. At length, being not able to
please my friends, I grew less pleased myself, and at last resolved to
think no more about it.
It was impossible to live in total idleness: and wandering about in
search of something to do, I was invited to a weekly meeting of
virtuosos, and felt myself instantaneously seized with an
unextinguishable ardour for all natural curiosities. I ran from auction
to auction, became a critick in shells and fossils, bought a _Hortus
siccus_ of inestimable value, and purchased a secret art of preserving
insects, which made my collection the envy of the other philosophers. I
found this pleasure mingled with much vexation. All the faults of my
life were for nine months circulated through the town with the most
active malignity, because I happened to catch a moth of peculiar
variegation; and because I once out-bid all the lovers of shells, and
carried off a nautilus, it was hinted that the validity of my uncle's
will ought to be disputed. I will not deny that I was very proud both of
the moth and of the shell, and gratified myself with the envy of my
companions, perhaps, more than became a benevolent being. But in time I
grew weary of being hated for that which produced no advantage, gave my
shells to children that wanted play-things, and suppressed the art of
drying butterflies, because I would not tempt idleness and cruelty to
kill them.
I now began to feel life tedious, and wished to store myself with
friends, with whom I might grow old in the interchange of benevolence. I
had observed that popularity was most easily gained by an open table,
and, therefore, hired a French cook, furnished my sideboard with great
magnificence, filled my cellar with wines of pompous appellations,
bought every thing that was dear before it was good, and invited all
those who were most famous for judging of a dinner. In three weeks my
cook gave me warning, and, upon inquiry, told me that Lord Queasy, who
dined with me the day before, had sent him an offer of double wages. My
pride prevailed; I raised his wages, and invited his lordship to another
feast. I love plain meat, and was, therefore, soon weary of spreading a
table of which I could not partake. I found that my guests, when they
went away, criticised their entertainment, and censured my profusion; my
cook thought himself necessary, and took upon him the direction of the
house; and I could not rid myself of flatterers, or break from slavery,
but by shutting up my house, and declaring my resolution to live in
lodgings.
After all this, tell me, dear Idler, what I must do next; I have health,
I have money, and I hope that I have understanding; yet, with all these,
I have never been able to pass a single day which I did not wish at an
end before sun-set. Tell me, dear Idler, what I shall do.
I am
Your humble servant,
TIM. RANGER.
No. 65. SATURDAY, JULY 14, 1759.
This sequel of Clarendon's history, at last happily published, is an
accession to English literature equally agreeable to the admirers of
elegance and the lovers of truth; many doubtful facts may now be
ascertained, and many questions, after long debate, may be determined by
decisive authority. He that records transactions in which himself was
engaged, has not only an opportunity of knowing innumerable particulars
which escape spectators, but has his natural powers exalted by that
ardour which always rises at the remembrance of our own importance, and
by which every man is enabled to relate his own actions better than
another's.
The difficulties through which this work has struggled into light, and
the delays with which our hopes have been long mocked, naturally lead
the mind to the consideration of the common fate of posthumous
compositions.