to the University without some degree of pecuniary inconvenience to
themselves. It is, indeed, hard upon them, when, in addition to an
annual allowance, which, probably, they have furnished not without
difficulty, they are called upon for a considerable sum, in order to
save their sons' credit--perhaps in order to enable him to take his
degree. For you are aware that an unpaid tradesman has the power, if he
thinks fit to exert it, of stopping the degree of a spendthrift
under-graduate. This power, I believe, is seldom, if ever, exercised.
But surely the being liable to it, through your own misconduct and
extravagance, would be attended with a feeling of painful humiliation.
I remain,
My dear Nephew,
Your affectionate Uncle.
FOOTNOTES:
[101:1] June, 1832.
[112:1] Cowper.
LETTER IX.
TEMPERANCE.
MY DEAR NEPHEW,
In the present state of society, it is, perhaps, less necessary than it
would have been formerly, that I should give you any caution or advice
on the subject of _temperance_. Five-and-thirty years ago, it was
customary to drink a good deal of wine after dinner, and young men at
Oxford were not behind-hand with the rest of the world in complying with
this bad custom.
It was _then_ generally the system, to initiate a freshman by making
him completely drunk. Scripture is by no means sufficiently listened to
_now_, but perhaps its warnings were less known and less regarded
_then_. The master of the revels and his abettors were ignorant, or
unmindful, of the threatenings denounced by the voice of
Inspiration,--_Woe unto him that giveth his neighbour drink, that
puttest thy bottle to him, and makest him drunken also_: and again--_Woe
unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle
strong drink_. Regardless of these denunciations, and trusting to the
strength of their own heads, and the practised discipline of their own
stomachs, their _noble_ ambition was to make drunk as many of their
guests as possible, especially any luckless freshman who chanced to be
of the party. Those who, whether from religious principle or from
manliness of character, did not choose to submit to be made drunk, were
obliged either to encounter these _kind_ endeavours with sturdy
resistance,--resistance which sometimes occasioned a total cessation of
intercourse and acquaintance,--or to evade them by stratagem. Glass
after glass was dexterously emptied upon the carpet under the table, or
the purple stream sought concealment under heaps of walnut-shells and
orange-peel. In short, at a tolerably large wine-party there was wasted,
or _worse than wasted_, a quantity of Port wine sufficient to check the
ravages of a typhus fever in an entire village.
These days of _Celtic barbarism_ are, I hope, utterly passed away. As in
general society very little wine is consumed, (_excepting at dinner_,)
so Oxford has caught the spirit of the times, and the bacchanalian
revels to which I have alluded are, I believe, much less common than
they were formerly, if not entirely exploded. I am afraid, however, that
even now more wine is drunk in some colleges, than is consistent either
with Christian temperance, or with habits of study, or with the
preservation of health.
I need not point out to _you_, my dear nephew, the evils which, in a
religious point of view, result from drinking to excess. You, I well
know, would shudder at the idea of wilfully depriving yourself of
reason, and of sinking yourself to the situation of a beast or of a
maniac. A man, who has thrown away his reason, has little right to hope
for the continuance of the assisting and preventing grace of God. And
destitute of the controlling guidance, both of reason and of Divine
Grace, what is there left to prevent his ungoverned passions from
carrying him into the most perilous excesses? There are deadly vices, to
which young men are, at all times, but too powerfully solicited by their
natural appetites; and when those appetites are stimulated by drinking,
and all salutary control shaken off, the danger is great indeed. You
perhaps may remember an Eastern apologue to the following effect, (I
know not where to find it): The Devil having, by the impulse of terror,
induced a holy man to consent to commit _some_ crime, allowed him to
choose, whether he would get drunk, or be guilty of either of two of the
most horrible enormities he could conceive. The poor victim chose
drunkenness, as being the least offence, but in the state to which he
had thus brought himself, was guilty of all three.
And even if you are kept back from any additional guilt, yet you well
know, that by throwing away your reason, you become capable of being
guilty of all sorts of absurdities,--that you are liable to say and do a
hundred foolish things, of which, when you return to your senses, you
will be heartily ashamed,--that you expose yourself to the ridicule and
contempt of those, who witness the degraded state to which you have
reduced yourself.
A drunken _Christian_ is almost a contradiction in terms; and something
the same may be said of a drunken _gentleman_. Among many in the middle
and the industrious classes of society, there is much intelligence, much
quick perception of what is morally right, and of general propriety of
behaviour. As such men are not backward in shewing respect, where
respect is really due, so they are keen-sighted in detecting gross
inconsistencies of conduct, and ready to bestow the full measure of
contempt upon those, who, while placed above them by the advantages of
birth, and fortune, and education, yet meanly condescend, by their vices
and their excesses, to degrade themselves below them.
The inconsistency of any excess in drinking, with the main purpose for
which you were sent to Oxford, is palpable. You go to Oxford professedly
for study. Independently of the time actually occupied by a wine-party,
any excess will, probably, indispose you for study the morning after;
Corpus onustum
Hesternis vitiis animum quoque prægravat una,
Atque affigit humo divinæ particulam auræ.
You will rise from your bed heavy and languid, probably with some
disposition to headache; and will be far more inclined to lounge in an
easy-chair, or to saunter about in listless idleness, than to sit down
to active mental exertion.
I must add, that the habit of drinking much wine during your continuance
at Oxford, is not unlikely materially to injure your health in the
succeeding periods of your life. Such habit has a tendency permanently
to derange and weaken the digestive powers, and to injure and harden the
internal coats and the orifices of the stomach. I am persuaded, that
much of the tendency to apoplectic and paralytic affections; much of the
general indisposition, which we often witness in men advanced beyond the
middle period of the usual term of human life,--men who have of late
perhaps, lived temperately--is to be attributed to the wine which they
drank when young.
But I will not dwell longer on the evils of excessive drinking. You know
the admonitions of Scripture,--_Take heed lest at any time your hearts
be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness. Be not drunk with wine,
wherein is excess._ You know that _drunkards cannot inherit the kingdom
of God_; you know that drunkenness is spoken of by St. Paul as being the
vice of those, who remain sunk in the thick darkness of ignorance and
heathenism, and as utterly unbefitting those who are blessed with the
light of the Gospel. Indeed, it is unworthy of any man possessed only of
common sense.
Guard, then, my dear nephew, against this degrading habit with
determined resolution. Let neither the example, nor the solicitations,
nor the taunting jests of your companions, induce you to demean yourself
so far, as to be guilty of a vice so utterly unworthy of you, both as a
man and as a Christian. If they, for their amusement, were to request
you to cut off your right hand, you would not feel bound to comply with
them. Do not, for their gratification, expose yourself in the condition
of a fool, or an idiot. Do not, in order to please a party of
thoughtless revellers, incur the displeasure of Almighty God, and run
the hazard of eternal ruin.
And take care, that you do not yourself _acquire_ a taste for any such
sensual indulgences. "The appetite for intoxicating liquors," says
Paley, "appears to be almost always _acquired_." Guard against the first
beginnings of intemperance. _Principiis obsta._ If you are not on your
guard, you will be in danger of being carried on, step by step, until
retreat becomes out of the question.
You would avoid many trials of your firmness, and be relieved probably
from much irksome importunity, if you could make up your mind to
renounce wine altogether. This you would do with the less difficulty, if
backed by the sanction of medical advice. I apprehend that most medical
men, if desired to give their _candid_ opinion, would recommend
abstinence from wine as conducive to a _young_ man's health both of body
and mind. I knew _water-drinkers_ at Oxford, who yielded to none of
their companions in liveliness and all social qualities, either in their
own room or at the wine-party of a friend. Many young men in the army,
I believe, adopt this system, from motives both of moral and of
economical prudence. A pint, or even half a pint, of wine per day, makes
a considerable hole in the pay of a subaltern, or in the stipend of a
country curate, or in the allowance of a briefless barrister. Avoid
acquiring factitious wants. Do not by habit make wine necessary to your
comfort. It is wise, when young, not to indulge in luxuries which in any
future period of your life you probably will not be able to afford,
consistently with the claims which will then be pressing upon you. I
throw out this idea, however, for your own consideration, without urging
it as matter of positive advice. I think, however, that your intellect
will be clearer, and your mind often more cheerful, if you comply with
the suggestion.
Shall I add a word or two upon temperance in _eating_? I hope that there
are few young men who are apt to be guilty of the _porcine_ vice of
eating to excess; in plain English--of _gluttony_. Perhaps, however, the
temptations of a well-appointed dinner, prepared by an exquisite
_artiste_, may induce them occasionally to transgress. It is, perhaps,
hardly fair to quote from any thing so well known as Addison's paper on
Temperance, in the Spectator[128:1], but it is much to my purpose. "It
is said of Diogenes, that meeting a young man who was going to a feast,
he took him up in the street, and carried him home to his friends, as
one who was running into imminent danger, had not he prevented him. What
would that philosopher have said, had he been present at the luxury of a
modern meal? Would he not have thought the master of a family mad, and
have begged his servants to tie down his hands, had he seen him devour
fowl, fish, and flesh; swallow oil and vinegar, wines and spices; throw
down salads of twenty different sorts, sauces of a hundred ingredients,
confections and fruits of numberless sweets and flavours? What unnatural
motions and counter-ferments must such a medley of intemperance produce
in the body? For my part, when I behold a fashionable table, set out in
all its magnificence, I fancy that I see gouts and dropsies, fevers and
lethargies, with innumerable distempers, lying in ambuscade among the
dishes."
"Nature delights in the most plain and simple diet." He then gives some
rules for temperance, which are well worth attending to. This passage of
Addison is much in the spirit of that of Horace:
----"Variæ res
Ut noceant homini, credas, memor illius escæ
Quæ simplex olim tibi sederit. At simul assis
Miscueris elixa, simul conchylia turdis;
Dulcia se in bilem vertent, stomachoque tumultum
Lenta feret pituita."
Most of the modern writers on dietetics, as well as those who have
preceded them, recommend a very considerable abridgment of the quantity
of food, usually consumed at the table of the affluent.
And while I strongly advise you to be rather abstemious as to _quantity_
of food, so I wish you not to be in the slightest degree fastidious as
to its _quality_, provided it is wholesome, and free from qualities
absolutely revolting. You may naturally like one thing better than
another, and partake of what you prefer, when it comes in your way; but
it is painful to see a young man of any intellect indulging in the
niceties of an epicure, and really appearing to care much about what he
eats, and what he drinks. When I commenced the life of a country
clergyman, I was often received, with almost parental kindness, in a
house, in which good taste of all kinds,--moral, intellectual, social,
and _culinary_,--presided in an eminent degree. Every now and then, some
particular dish made its appearance, under the impression that I was
particularly fond of it. Probably I had eaten of it some days before,
because it chanced to be near me, or from some similar accident. I was
grateful for the kindness and attention, but felt mortified, almost
degraded, at its being supposed that I cared about one thing more than
another, where all were good and wholesome.
Do not get into the habit of spending your money in ices, and other
delicacies, at the pastry-cook's and confectioner's. You say that you
are hungry;--
"--------Panis
Latrantem stomachum bene leniet."
If your hunger would disdain a piece of dry bread, it certainly has no
claim to be attended to at all. You say that you can _afford_ to indulge
yourself in the delicacies to which I have alluded. I do not think that
you can; at all events, your money may be more worthily spent--
"Non est melius quo insumere possis?
Cur eget indignus quisquam, te divite? Quare
Templa ruunt antiqua Deûm?"
In other words, if you have the money to spare, give it to the
deserving poor, or to the Church-building Society. Few expenses are
more unsatisfactory in retrospect,--I had almost said, more
_disgraceful_,--than those which have been incurred by sensual
self-indulgence; incurred to gratify a vitiated palate and a pampered
appetite.
Self-denial is recommended by the classical writers of antiquity, as
well as by the most sensible of modern authors; and, what is of
infinitely more importance, is strongly inculcated by the Christian
religion. But how shall self-denial be practised _at all_, if it cannot
be practised in the low matter of eating and drinking?
Read again and again the paper of Addison, and the Satire of Horace,
(the second of the second Book), from which I have made my quotations.
Read also the following passages from that accurate observer of the
habits and manners of social life, the son of Sirach:
_If thou sit at a bountiful table, be not greedy upon it, and say not,
There is much meat on it.--Eat, as it becometh a man, those things that
are set before thee; and devour not, lest thou be hated. Leave off
first for manners' sake; and be not insatiable, lest thou offend._
_A very little is sufficient for a man well nurtured, and he fetcheth
not his wind short upon his bed._
_Sound sleep cometh of moderate eating; he riseth early, and his wits
are with him: but the pain of watching, and choler, and pangs of the
belly, are with an insatiable man._
I remain,
My dear Nephew,
Your affectionate Uncle.
FOOTNOTES:
[128:1] No. 195.
LETTER X.
ENGLISH READING.
MY DEAR NEPHEW,
When at Oxford, you will not have much time for any reading, excepting
that which has some reference to your examination. During the vacations,
however, which occupy about half the year, you are more at liberty, and
will do well, as I have already suggested to you, to give a good deal of
your leisure to increasing your acquaintance with the classical writers
of your own language.
Both at Oxford and home, endeavour, on most days, to catch some little
portion of time,--a quarter of an hour may be sufficient,--for religious
reading. Melmoth's "Great Importance of a Religious Life," and the
abridgment of Law's "Serious Call," adopted by the Society for Promoting
Christian Knowledge, are two of the best books that occur to me, for the
purpose of impressing you with the absolute necessity, of giving
religion the first place in your thoughts and your heart. You may read
either of them through in an hour. Of the former, 42,000 copies were
sold in the eighteen years preceding 1784. I mention this as an evidence
of its popularity.
Some thirty years ago I was requested by a friend, to recommend some
practical book to put into the hands of a young person. I named Nelson's
"Practice of True Devotion," and have since seen no reason to alter my
opinion. Let that be one of the first books that you make use of. If you
read _one_ chapter each day (and do not read more), it will last you
about three weeks. After an interval of a year or so, go through it
again.
Take next for this purpose Jeremy Taylor's "Holy Living and Dying,"
first reading (if you can borrow the book) what is said of this work by
his highly-gifted and most amiable editor, Bishop Heber. One passage
from Heber's remarks I must allow myself to quote: "But I will not
select, where all may be read with advantage, and can hardly be read
without admiration. To clothe virtue in its most picturesque and
attractive colouring; to enforce with all the terrors of the divine law,
its essential obligations; and to distinguish, in almost every instance
most successfully, between what is prudent and what is necessary; what
may fitly be done, and what cannot safely be left undone;--this is the
triumph of a Christian moralist; and this Jeremy Taylor has, in a great
degree, achieved in his Discourse on Holy Living." You will recollect
that this book was written nearly two hundred years ago, and must not be
surprised if you find a few expressions, and one or two sentiments,
rather obsolete. One of the five rules which Taylor gives in his
Dedication, "for the application of the counsels which follow," applies
to all books of a similar character. "They that will, with profit, make
use of the proper instruments of virtue, must so live as if they were
always under the physician's hand. For the counsels of religion are not
to be applied to the distempers of the soul, as men used to take
hellebore; _but they must dwell together with the spirit of a man, and
be twisted about his understanding for ever: they must be used like
nourishment, that is, by a daily care and meditation_--not like a single
medicine, and upon the actual pressure of a present necessity."
The genuine spirit of Jeremy Taylor, with more correctness of taste, is
found in that delightful book, "The Christian Year." Read it repeatedly.
It is every where full of poetry, and of the purest devotional feeling.
The more you are imbued with the spirit which pervades that beautiful
volume, the more fit you will be to have your part in "the communion of
saints," among _the spirits of just men made perfect_.
Archbishop Seeker's Lectures on the Catechism, contain a body of
divinity, doctrinal and practical, singularly judicious and useful. They
are full of good sense and accurate information. The style, perhaps, is
rather involved, and not very engaging; but you see a mind in full
possession of its subject, anxious to put you in full possession of it
also, without omitting any thing of importance.
Gilpin's Lectures on the Catechism are of a different character. This
also is a very good and a very pleasing book, written with a particular
view to young persons engaged in reading the Greek and Latin Classics.
Ogden's Sermons, on Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments, &c. are
the offspring of a clear and powerful intellect, expressed in language
remarkably perspicuous and elegant.
_After_ these books, take some opportunity of reading the Sermons of
Bishop Butler, including the Preface. This is not a book to be read in a
room full of brothers and sisters. It demands close attention, and will
give some exercise to all your intellectual powers; but it richly merits
to have such attention and pains bestowed upon it. It deserves, indeed
requires, more than a single reading. After Butler's Sermons read his
"Analogy."
You will do well, at any odd intervals, or _snatches_ of time, to make
yourself familiar with Addison and Johnson. False delicacy shall not
prevent me from recommending the selection from the writings of Addison
which I made a few years ago. My reasons for making such selection are
given in the Preface. The same reasons now induce me to recommend it to
you.
Johnson requires no pruning. You can hardly read a paper in the Rambler
or Idler, and, I will add, the Adventurer, without deriving from it some
improvement, either moral or intellectual, or both. The structure and
cadence of Johnson's sentences is certainly monotonous; but I seldom
read half a page without being struck by the depth of his thought, the
accuracy and minuteness of his observation, and the astonishing extent
of his multifarious reading.
In order to enter with more discrimination into the style of our
different authors, read often "Blair's Lectures." They are, I believe,
sometimes spoken slightingly of by men of learning; I, however, as an
unlearned man, think them particularly useful. The Lecture on the Origin
of Language, indeed, the absurdity of which has been exposed with so
much playfulness by Cowper, might well have been omitted.
I have already advised you, during the two longer vacations, to acquire,
or to keep up, some knowledge of modern history. Russell's "Modern
Europe" is, upon the whole, a useful book. It is, perhaps, too
compendious; and I dislike its being given in the form of letters.
Robertson's "Charles the Fifth" you have probably read already; if not,
read it carefully when, in Russell, you arrive at the period at which it
commences. Pay particular attention to the First Book. Perhaps Robertson
was not sufficiently impressed with the importance and the effects of
the Reformation in Germany; and he formed, I think, an unfair estimate
of the character and motives of Luther. This matter will, I doubt not,
be shortly set right in the Life of Luther about to be given to the
public by one of the ablest and most learned men of the present
day[147:1].
With respect to the history of our own country, I hardly know what
advice to give you. Hume's style is very pleasing, but he cannot be
implicitly depended on, especially where religion and the ministers of
religion are concerned.
Henry's "History of Great Britain" is a very good and accurate book; but
the continuity of the narrative is broken by the multiplicity of
divisions in each period, (learning, arts, commerce, manners, &c. &c.),
and by the transitions to the history of Scotland.
Lingard I have not read; I am told that his style is good, and his
information extensive. It was natural that, as a zealous Romanist, he
should seek to extenuate the faults of men of his own persuasion, and to
exaggerate the failings, and place in an unfavourable point of view the
motives and actions of the assailants of Popery; but he has, I think,
been fully convicted of carrying misrepresentation beyond all reasonable
bounds. There was but too much of bigotry and persecution on both sides.
Turner's History is, I believe, strictly honest and impartial, and a
work of prodigious labour and research.
But in our attention to prose writers, we must not forget the classical
poets of our own country. Make yourself familiarly acquainted with
Shakspeare, Milton, and Pope. The more you read of Young and Cowper, the
better. Young is sometimes turgid, with a good deal of bad taste; but he
abounds in real poetry, and in strong truths most forcibly expressed.
Cowper sometimes carries simplicity to the verge of being prosaic; but
he is generally graceful, often pathetic, and sometimes approaches to
sublimity. Of both, it was the common object to increase the influence
of genuine Christianity; of both, the perusal has a direct tendency to
make you a better and a more religious man.