Si gaudet, si flet, si tacet, hanc loquitur:
Coenat, propinat, poscit, negat, annuit, una est
Noevia; si non sit Noevia, mutus erit.
Scriberet hesterna patri cum luce salutem,
Noevia lux, inquit, Noevia numen, ave._
Epig. lxix. 1. I.
Let _Rufus_ weep, rejoice, stand, sit, or walk,
Still he can nothing but of Noevia talk;
Let him eat, drink, ask questions, or dispute,
Still he must speak of Noevia, or be mute.
He writ to his father, ending with this line,
I am, my lovely Noevia, ever thine.
No. 114. WEDNESDAY, JULY 11.
_Paupertalis pudor & fuga._
HOR. Ep. xviii. 1. I. v. 24.
The dread of nothing more
Than to be thought necessitous and poor.
POOLY.
Oeconomy in our affairs has the same effect upon our fortunes which
good-breeding has upon our conversations. There is a pretending
behaviour in both cases, which, instead of making men esteemed renders
them both miserable and contemptible. We had yesterday at Sir ROGER'S a
set of country gentlemen who dined with him; and after dinner the glass
was taken, by those who pleased, pretty plentifully. Among others I
observed a person of a tolerable good aspect, who seemed to be more
greedy of liquor than any of the company, and yet, methought, he did not
taste it with delight As he grew warm, he was suspicious of every thing
that was said; and as he advanced towards being fuddled, his humour grew
worse. At the same time his bitterness seemed to be rather an inward
dissatisfaction in his own mind, than any dislike he had taken to the
company. Upon hearing his name, I knew him to be a gentleman of a
considerable fortune in this county, but greatly in debt. What gives the
unhappy man this peevishness of spirit is, that his estate is dipped,
and is eating out with usury; and yet he has not the heart to sell any
part of it. His proud stomach, at the cost of restless nights, constant
inquietudes, danger of affronts, and a thousand nameless inconveniences,
preserves this canker in his fortune, rather than it shall be said he is
a man of fewer hundreds a year than he has been commonly reputed. Thus,
he endures the torment of poverty, to avoid the name of being less rich.
If you go to his house you see great plenty; but served in a manner that
shews it is all unnatural, and that the master's mind is not at home.
There is a certain waste and carelessness in the air of every thing, and
the whole appears but a covered indigence, a magnificent poverty. That
neatness and chearfulness, which attends the table of him who lives
within compass, is wanting, and exchanged for a libertine way of service
in all about him.
This gentleman's conduct, though a very common way of management, is as
ridiculous as the officer's would be, who had but few men under his
command, and should take the charge of an extent of country rather than
of a small pass. To pay for, personate, and keep in a man's hands, a
greater estate than he really has, is of all others the most
unpardonable vanity, and must in the end reduce the man who is guilty of
it to dishonour. Yet if we look round us in any county of _Great
Britain_, we shall see many in this fatal error; if that may be
called by so soft a name, which proceeds from a false shame of appearing
what they really are, when the contrary behaviour would in a short time
advance them to the condition which they pretend to.
_Laertes_ has fifteen hundred pounds a year; which is mortgaged for
six thousand pounds; but it is impossible to convince him that if he
sold as much as would pay off that debt, he would save four shillings in
the pound, which he gives for the vanity of being the reputed master of
it. Yet if _Laertes_ did this, he would, perhaps, be easier in his
own fortune; but then _Irus_, a fellow of yesterday, who has but
twelve hundred a year, would be his equal. Rather than this shall be,
_Laertes_ goes on to bring wellborn beggars into the world, and
every twelvemonth charges his estate with at least one year's rent more
by the birth of a child.
_Laertes_ and _Irus_ are neighbours, whose way of living are
an abomination to each other. _Irus_ is moved by the fear of
poverty, and _Laertes_ by the shame of it. Though the motive of
action is of so near affinity in both, and may be resolved into this,
'That to each of them poverty is the greatest of all evils,' yet are
their manners very widely different. Shame of poverty makes
_Laertes_ launch into unnecessary equipage, vain expence, and
lavish entertainments; fear of poverty makes _Irus_ allow himself
only plain necessaries, appear without a servant, sell his own corn,
attend his labourers, and be himself a labourer. Shame of poverty makes
_Laertes_ go every day a step nearer to it; and fear of poverty
stirs up _Irus_ to make every day some further progress from it.
These different motives produce the excesses which men are guilty of in
the negligence of and provision for themselves. Usury, stock-jobbing,
extortion, and oppression, have their seed in the dread of want; and
vanity, riot and prodigality, from the shame of it: But both these
excesses are infinitely below the pursuit of a reasonable creature.
After we have taken care to command so much as is necessary for
maintaining ourselves in the order of men suitable to our character, the
care of superfluities is a vice no less extravagant, than the neglect of
necessaries would have been before.
Certain it is, that they are both out of nature, when she is followed
with reason and good sense. It is from this reflexion that I always read
Mr. _Cowley_ with the greatest pleasure: His magnanimity is as much
above that of other considerable men, as his understanding; and it is a
true distinguishing spirit in the elegant author who published his
works, to dwell so much upon the temper of his mind and the moderation
of his desires: By this means he has rendered his friend as amiable as
famous. That state of life which bears the face of poverty with Mr.
_Cowley's great Vulgar_, is admirably described; and it is no small
satisfaction to those of the same turn of desire, that he produces the
authority of the wisest men of the best age of the world, to strengthen
his opinion of the ordinary pursuits of mankind.
It would methinks be no ill maxim of life, if according to that ancestor
of Sir ROGER, whom I lately mentioned, every man would point to himself
what sum he would resolve not to exceed. He might by this means cheat
himself into a tranquillity on this side of that expectation, or convert
what he should get above it to nobler uses than his own pleasures or
necessities. This temper of mind would exempt a man from an ignorant
envy of restless men above him, and a more inexcusable contempt of happy
men below him. This would be sailing by some compass, living with some
design; but to be eternally bewildered in prospects of future gain, and
putting on unnecessary armour against improbable blows of fortune, is a
mechanick being which has not good sense for its direction, but is
carried on by a sort of acquired instinct towards things below our
consideration and unworthy our esteem. It is possible that the
tranquillity I now enjoy at Sir ROGER'S may have created in me this way
of thinking, which is so abstracted from the common relish of the world:
But as I am now in a pleasing arbour surrounded with a beautiful
landscape, I find no inclination so strong as to continue in these
mansions, so remote from the ostentatious scenes of life; and am at this
present writing philosopher enough to conclude with Mr. Cowley:
If e'er ambition did my fancy cheat,
With any wish so mean as to be great;
Continue heav'n, still from me to remove
The humble blessings of that life I love.
No. 115. THURSDAY, JULY 12.
_Ut sit mens sana in corpore sano._
Juv. Sat. x. v. 356.
A healthy body and a mind at ease.
Bodily labour is of two kinds, either that which a man submits to for
his livelihood, or that which he undergoes for his pleasure. The latter
of them generally changes the name of labour for that of exercise, but
differs only from ordinary labour as it rises from another motive.
A country life abounds in both these kinds of labour, and for that
reason gives a man a greater stock of health, and consequently a more
perfect enjoyment of himself, than any other way of life. I consider the
body as a system of tubes and glands, or to use a more rustic phrase, a
bundle of pipes and strainers, fitted to one another after so wonderful
a manner as to make a proper engine for the soul to work with. This
description does not only comprehend the bowels, bones, tendons, veins,
nerves, and arteries, but every muscle and every ligature, which is a
composition of fibres, that are so many imperceptible tubes or pipes
interwoven on all sides with invisible glands or strainers.
This general idea of a human body, without considering it in its
niceties of anatomy, lets us see how absolutely necessary labour is for
the right preservation of it. There must be frequent motions and
agitations, to mix, digest, and separate the juices contained in it, as
well as to clear and cleanse that infinitude of pipes and strainers of
which it is composed, and to give their solid parts a more firm and
lasting tone. Labour or exercise ferments the humours, casts them into
their proper channels, throws off redundancies, and helps nature in
those secret distributions, without which the body cannot subsist in its
vigour, nor the soul act with cheerfulness.
I might here mention the effects which this has upon all the faculties
of the mind, by keeping the understanding clear, the imagination
untroubled, and refining those spirits that are necessary for the proper
exertion of our intellectual faculties, during the present laws of union
between soul and body. It is to a neglect in this particular, that we
must ascribe the spleen, which is so frequent in men of studious and
sedentary tempers, as well as the vapours to which those of the other
sex are so often subject.
Had not exercise been absolutely necessary for our well-being, nature
would not have made the body so proper for it, by giving such an
activity to the limbs, and such a pliancy to every part as necessarily
produce these compressions, extensions, contortions, dilatations, and
all other kinds of motions that are necessary for the preservation of
such a system of tubes and glands as has been before mentioned. And that
we might not want inducements to engage us in such an exercise of the
body as is proper for its welfare, it is so ordered that nothing
valuable can be procured without it. Not to mention riches and honour,
even food and raiment are not to be come at without the toil of the
hands and sweat of the brows. Providence furnishes materials, but
expects that we should work them up ourselves. The earth must be
laboured before it gives its increase, and when it is forced into its
several products, how many hands must they pass through before they are
fit for use? Manufactures, trade, and agriculture, naturally employ more
than nineteen parts of the species in twenty; and as for those who are
not obliged to labour, by the condition in which they are born, they are
more miserable than the rest of mankind, unless they indulge themselves
in that voluntary labour which goes by the name of exercise.
My friend Sir ROGER has been an indefatigable man in business of this
kind, and has hung several parts of his house with the trophies of his
former labours. The walls of his great hall are covered with the horns
of several kinds of deer that he has killed in the chace, which he
thinks the most valuable furniture of his house, as they afford him
frequent topics of discourse, and shew that he has not been idle. At the
lower end of the hall is a large otter's skin stuffed with hay, which
his mother ordered to be hung up in that manner, and the Knight looks
upon it with great satisfaction, because it seems he was but nine years
old when his dog killed him. A little room adjoining to the hall is a
kind of arsenal filled with guns of several sizes and inventions, with
which the Knight has made great havock in the woods, and destroyed many
thousands of pheasants, partridges and woodcocks. His stable-doors are
patched with noses that belonged to foxes of the Knight's own hunting
down. Sir ROGER shewed me one of them, that for distinction sake has a
brass nail struck through it, which cost him about fifteen hours riding,
carried him through half a dozen counties, killed him a brace of
geldings, and lost above half his dogs. This the knight looks upon as
one of the greatest exploits of his life. The perverse widow, whom I
have given some account of, was the death of several foxes; for Sir
ROGER has told me that in the course of his amours he patched the
western door of his stable. Whenever the widow was cruel, the foxes were
sure to pay for it. In proportion as his passion for the widow abated
and old age came on, he left off fox-hunting; but a hare is not yet safe
that sits within ten miles of his house.
There is no kind of exercise which I would so recommend to my readers of
both sexes as this of riding, as there is none which so much conduces to
health, and is every way accommodated to the body, according to the Idea
which I have given of it. Doctor _Sydenham_ is very lavish in its
praises; and if the _English_ reader will see the mechanical
effects of it described at length, he may find them in a book published
not many years since, under the title of _Medicina Gymnastica._ For
my own part, when I am in town, for want of these opportunities, I
exercise myself an hour every morning upon a dumb bell that is placed in
a corner of my room, and pleases me the more because it does every thing
I require of it in the most profound silence. My landlady and her
daughters are so well acquainted with my hours of exercise, that they
never come into my room to disturb me whilst I am ringing.
When I was some years younger than I am at present, I used to employ
myself in a more laborious diversion, which I learned from a Latin
treatise of exercises that is written with great erudition: It is there
called the skiomachia, or the fighting with a man's own shadow, and
consists in the brandishing of two short sticks grasped in each hand,
and loaden with plugs of lead at either end. This opens the chest,
exercises the limbs, and gives a man all the pleasure of boxing, without
the blows. I could wish that several learned men would lay out that time
which they employ in controversies and disputes about nothing, in this
method of fighting with their own shadows. It might conduce very much to
evaporate the spleen, which makes them uneasy to the public as well as
to themselves.
To conclude, as I am a compound of soul and body, I consider myself as
obliged to a double scheme of duties; and think I have not fulfilled the
business of the day when I do not thus employ the one in labour and
exercise, as well as the other in study and contemplation. L.
No. 116. FRIDAY, JULY 13.
_Vocat ingenti clamore Cithaeron,
Taygetique canes._
Virg. Georg. iii. v. 43.
The echoing hills and chiding hounds invite.
Those who have searched into human nature observe that nothing so much
shews the nobleness of the soul as that its felicity consists in action.
Every man has such an active principle in him, that he will find out
something to employ himself upon, in whatever place or state of life he
is posted. I have heard of a gentleman who was under close confinement
in the _Bastile_ seven years; during which time he amused himself
in scattering a few small pins about his chamber, gathering them up
again, and placing them in different figures on the arm of a great
chair. He often told his friends afterwards, that unless he had found
out this piece of exercise, he verily believed he should have lost his
senses.
After what has been said, I need not inform my readers that Sir ROGER,
with whose character I hope they are at present pretty well acquainted,
has in his youth gone through the whole course of those rural diversions
which the country abounds in; and which seem to be extremely well suited
to that laborious industry a man may observe here in a far greater
degree than in towns and cities. I have before hinted at some of my
friend's exploits: He has in his youthful days taken forty coveys of
partridges in a season; and tired many a salmon with a line consisting
but of a single hair. The constant thanks and good wishes of the
neighbourhood always attended him, on account of his remarkable enmity
towards foxes; having destroyed more of those vermin in one year, than
it was thought the whole country could have produced. Indeed the knight
does not scruple to own among his most intimate friends, that in order
to establish his reputation this way, he has secretly sent for great
numbers of them out of other counties, which he used to turn loose about
the country by night, that he might the better signalize himself in
their destruction the next day. His hunting-horses were the finest and
best managed in all these parts: His tenants are still full of the
praises of a grey stone-horse that unhappily staked himself several
years since, and was buried with great solemnity in the orchard.
Sir ROGER, being at present too old for fox-hunting, to keep himself in
action, has disposed of his beagles and got a pack of _Stop-
hounds._ What these want in speed, he endeavours to make amends for
by the deepness of their mouths and the variety of their notes, which
are suited in such manner to each other, that the whole cry makes up a
complete concert. He is so nice in this particular, that a gentleman
having made him a present of a very fine hound the other day, the knight
returned it by the servant with a great many expressions of civility;
but desired him to tell his master, that the dog he had sent was indeed
a most excellent _Bass_, but that at present he only wanted a
_Counter-Tenor_. Could I believe my friend had ever read
_Shakespeare,_ I should certainly conclude he had taken the hint
from _Theseus_ in _the Midsummer Night's Dream_.
_My hounds are bred out of the_ Spartan _kind,
So flu'd, so sanded; and their heads are hung
With ears that sweep away the morning dew.
Crook-knee'd and dew-lap'd like_ Thessalian _bulls,
Slow in pursuit, but matched in mouths like bells,
Each under each: A cry more tuneable
Was never halloo'd to, nor cheer'd with horn._
Sir ROGER is so keen at this sport, that he has been out almost every
day since I came down; and upon the chaplain's offering to lend me his
easy pad, I was prevailed on yesterday morning to make one of the
company. I was extremely pleased, as we rid along, to observe the
general benevolence of all the neighbourhood towards my friend. The
farmer's sons thought themselves happy if they could open a gate for the
good old Knight as he passed by; which he generally requited with a nod
or a smile, and a kind inquiry after their fathers and uncles.
After we had rid about a mile from home, we came upon a large heath, and
the sportsmen began to beat. They had done so for some time, when, as I
was at a little distance from the rest of the company, I saw a hare pop
out from a small furze-brake almost under my horse's feet. I marked the
way she took, which I endeavoured to make the company sensible of by
extending my arm; but to no purpose, until Sir ROGER, who knows that
none of my extraordinary motions are insignificant, rode up to me, and
asked me _if puss was gone that way?_ Upon my answering _Yes,_
he immediately called in the dogs, and put them upon the scent. As they
were going off, I heard one of the country-fellows muttering to his
companion, _That it was a wonder they had not lost all their sport,
for want of the silent gentleman's crying Stole away_.
This, with my aversion to leaping hedges, made me withdraw to a rising
ground, from whence I could have the pleasure of the whole chace,
without the fatigue of keeping in with the hounds. The hare immediately
threw them above a mile behind her; but I was pleased to find, that
instead of running straight forwards, or, in hunter's language,
_Flying the country_, as I was afraid she might have done, she
wheeled about, and described a sort of circle round the hill where I had
taken my station, in such manner as gave me a very distinct view of the
sport. I could see her first pass by, and the dogs some time afterwards
unravelling the whole track she had made, and following her through all
her doubles. I was at the same time delighted in observing that
deference which the rest of the pack paid to each particular hound,
according to the character he had acquired amongst them: If they were at
a fault, and an old hound of reputation opened but once, he was
immediately followed by the whole cry; while a raw dog, or one who was a
noted _Liar_, might have yelped his heart out without being taken
notice of.
The hare now, after having squatted two or three times, and been put up
again as often, came still nearer to the place where she was at first
started. The dogs pursued her, and these were followed by the jolly
Knight, who rode upon a white gelding, encompassed by his tenants and
servants, and cheering his hounds with all the gaiety of five and
twenty. One of the sportsmen rode up to me, and told me that he was sure
the chace was almost at an end, because the old dogs, which had hitherto
lain behind, now headed the pack. The fellow was in the right. Our hare
took a large field just under us, followed by the full cry _in
view_. I must confess the brightness of the weather, the cheerfulness
of every thing around me, the _chiding_ of the hounds, which was
returned upon us in a double echo from two neighbouring hills, with the
hallooing of the sportsmen and the sounding of the horn, lifted my
spirits into a most lively pleasure, which I freely indulged because I
knew it was _innocent_. If I was under any concern, it was on the
account of the poor hare, that was now quite spent and almost within the
reach of her enemies; when the huntsman, getting forward, threw down his
pole before the dogs. They were now within eight yards of that game
which they had been pursuing for almost as many hours; yet on the signal
before-mentioned they all made a sudden stand, and though they continued
opening as much as before, durst not once attempt to pass beyond the
pole. At the same time Sir ROGER rode forward, and alighting, took up
the hare in his arms; which he soon delivered to one of his servants,
with an order, if she could be kept alive, to let her go in his great
orchard; where it seems he has several of these prisoners of war, who
live together in a very comfortable captivity. I was highly pleased to
see the discipline of the pack, and the good nature of the Knight, who
could not find in his heart to murder a creature that had given him so
much diversion.
As we were returning home, I remembered that Monsieur _Paschal_ in
his most excellent discourse on _the misery of man_, tells us, that
_all our endeavours after greatness proceed from nothing but a desire
of being surrounded by a multitude of persons and affairs that may
hinder us from looking into ourselves, which is a view we cannot
bear_. He afterwards goes on to show that our love of sports comes
from the same reason, and is particularly severe upon hunting.
_What_, says he, _unless it be to drown thought, can make men
throw away so much time and pains upon a silly animal, which they might
buy cheaper in the market?_ The foregoing reflection is certainly
just, when a man suffers his whole mind to be drawn into his sports, and
altogether loses himself in the woods; but does not affect those who
propose a far more laudable end for this exercise; I mean, _The
preservation of health, and keeping all the organs of the soul in a
condition to execute her orders._ Had that incomparable person, whom
I last quoted, been a little more indulgent to himself in this point,
the world might probably have enjoyed him much longer: Whereas, through
too great an application to his studies in his youth, he contracted that
ill habit of body, which, after a tedious sickness, carried him off in
the fortieth year of his age; and the whole history we have of his life
till that time, is but one continued account of the behaviour of a noble
soul struggling under innumerable pains and distempers.
For my own part, I intend to hunt twice a week during my stay with Sir
ROGER; and shall prescribe the moderate use of this exercise to all my
country friends, as the best kind of physick for mending a bad
constitution, and preserving a good one.