[Footnote 46: Institut. i. 23. 3. De furiosis et prodigis.]
No. 58. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1750.
_----Improbæ_
_Crescunt divitiæ; tamen_
_Curtæ nescio quid semper abest rei._
HOR. Lib. iii. Ode xxiv. 62.
But, while in heaps his wicked wealth ascends,
He is not of his wish possess'd;
There's something wanting still to make him bless'd.
FRANCIS.
As the love of money has been, in all ages, one of the passions that have
given great disturbance to the tranquillity of the world, there is no
topick more copiously treated by the ancient moralists than the folly of
devoting the heart to the accumulation of riches. They who are acquainted
with these authors need not be told how riches excite pity, contempt,
or reproach, whenever they are mentioned; with what numbers of examples
the danger of large possessions is illustrated; and how all the powers
of reason and eloquence have been exhausted in endeavours to eradicate a
desire, which seems to have intrenched itself too strongly in the mind
to be driven out, and which, perhaps, had not lost its power, even over
those who declaimed against it, but would have broken out in the poet or
the sage, if it had been excited by opportunity, and invigorated by the
approximation of its proper object.
Their arguments have been, indeed, so unsuccessful, that I know not
whether it can be shewn, that by all the wit and reason which this
favourite cause has called forth, a single convert was ever made; that
even one man has refused to be rich, when to be rich was in his power,
from the conviction of the greater happiness of a narrow fortune; or
disburthened himself of wealth when he had tried its inquietudes, merely
to enjoy the peace and leisure and security of a mean and unenvied state.
It is true, indeed, that many have neglected opportunities of raising
themselves to honours and to wealth, and rejected the kindest offers of
fortune: but however their moderation may be boasted by themselves, or
admired by such as only view them at a distance, it will be, perhaps,
seldom found that they value riches less, but that they dread labour
or danger more, than others; they are unable to rouse themselves to
action, to strain in the race of competition, or to stand the shock of
contest; but though they, therefore, decline the toil of climbing, they
nevertheless wish themselves aloft, and would willingly enjoy what they
dare not seize.
Others have retired from high stations, and voluntarily condemned
themselves to privacy and obscurity. But even these will not afford
many occasions of triumph to the philosopher; for they have commonly
either quitted that only which they thought themselves unable to hold,
and prevented disgrace by resignation; or they have been induced to try
new measures by general inconstancy, which always dreams of happiness
in novelty, or by a gloomy disposition, which is disgusted in the same
degree with every state, and wishes every scene of life to change as soon
as it is beheld. Such men found high and low stations equally unable to
satisfy the wishes of a distempered mind, and were unable to shelter
themselves in the closest retreat from disappointment, solicitude, and
misery.
Yet though these admonitions have been thus neglected by those who either
enjoyed riches, or were able to procure them, it is not rashly to be
determined that they are altogether without use; for since far the
greatest part of mankind must be confined to conditions comparatively
mean, and placed in situations from which they naturally look up with
envy to the eminences before them, those writers cannot be thought ill
employed that have administered remedies to discontent almost universal,
by shewing, that what we cannot reach may very well be forborne; that the
inequality of distribution, at which we murmur, is for the most part less
than it seems, and that the greatness, which we admire at a distance, has
much fewer advantages, and much less splendour, when we are suffered to
approach it.
It is the business of moralists to detect the frauds of fortune, and to
shew that she imposes upon the careless eye, by a quick succession of
shadows, which will shrink to nothing in the gripe; that she disguises
life in extrinsick ornaments, which serve only for shew, and are laid
aside in the hours of solitude, and of pleasure; and that when greatness
aspires either to felicity or to wisdom, it shakes off those distinctions
which dazzle the gazer, and awe the supplicant.
It may be remarked, that they whose condition has not afforded them the
light of moral or religious instruction, and who collect all their ideas
by their own eyes, and digest them by their own understandings, seem to
consider those who are placed in ranks of remote superiority, as almost
another and higher species of beings. As themselves have known little
other misery than the consequences of want, they are with difficulty
persuaded that where there is wealth there can be sorrow, or that those
who glitter in dignity, and glide along in affluence, can be acquainted
with pains and cares like those which lie heavy upon the rest of mankind.
This prejudice is, indeed, confined to the lowest meanness, and the
darkest ignorance; but it is so confined only because others have been
shewn its folly, and its falsehood, because it has been opposed in its
progress by history and philosophy, and hindered from spreading its
infection by powerful preservatives.
The doctrine of the contempt of wealth, though it has not been able to
extinguish avarice or ambition, or suppress that reluctance with which a
man passes his days in a state of inferiority, must, at least, have made
the lower conditions less grating and wearisome, and has consequently
contributed to the general security of life, by hindering that fraud and
violence, rapine and circumvention, which must have been produced by an
unbounded eagerness of wealth, arising from an unshaken conviction that
to be rich is to be happy.
Whoever finds himself incited, by some violent impulse of passion, to
pursue riches as the chief end of being, must surely be so much alarmed
by the successive admonitions of those whose experience and sagacity
have recommended them as the guides of mankind, as to stop and consider
whether he is about to engage in an undertaking that will reward his
toil, and to examine, before he rushes to wealth, through right and
wrong, what it will confer when he has acquired it; and this examination
will seldom fail to repress his ardour, and retard his violence.
Wealth is nothing in itself, it is not useful but when it departs from
us; its value is found only in that which it can purchase, which, if
we suppose it put to its best use by those that possess it, seems not
much to deserve the desire or envy of a wise man. It is certain that,
with regard to corporal enjoyment, money can neither open new avenues
to pleasure, nor block up the passages of anguish. Disease and infirmity
still continue to torture and enfeeble, perhaps exasperated by luxury,
or promoted by softness. With respect to the mind, it has rarely been
observed, that wealth contributes much to quicken the discernment,
enlarge the capacity, or elevate the imagination; but may, by hiring
flattery, or laying diligence asleep, confirm errour, and harden stupidity.
Wealth cannot confer greatness, for nothing can make that great, which the
decree of nature has ordained to be little. The bramble may be placed in
a hot-bed, but can never become an oak. Even royalty itself is not able
to give that dignity which it happens not to find, but oppresses feeble
minds, though it may elevate the strong. The world has been governed in
the name of kings, whose existence has scarcely been perceived by any
real effects beyond their own palaces.
When therefore the desire of wealth is taking hold of the heart, let us
look round and see how it operates upon those whose industry or fortune
has obtained it. When we find them oppressed with their own abundance,
luxurious without pleasure, idle without ease, impatient and querulous in
themselves, and despised or hated by the rest of mankind, we shall soon
be convinced, that if the real wants of our condition are satisfied, there
remains little to be sought with solicitude, or desired with eagerness.
No. 59. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1750.
_Est aliquid fatale malum per verba levare,_
_Hoc querulam Prognen Halcyonenque facit:_
_Hoc erat in gelido quare Pæantius antro_
_Voce fatigaret Lemnia saxa sua._
_Strangulat inclusus dolor, atque exæstuat intus,_
_Cogitur et vires multiplicare suas._
OVID, Trist. vi. 59.
Complaining oft gives respite to our grief;
From hence the wretched Progne sought relief,
Hence the Pæantian chief his fate deplores,
And vents his sorrow to the Lemnian shores:
In vain by secrecy we would assuage
Our cares; conceal'd they gather tenfold rage.
F. LEWIS.
It is common to distinguish men by the names of animals which they are
supposed to resemble. Thus a hero is frequently termed a lion, and a
statesman a fox, an extortioner gains the appellation of vulture, and
a fop the title of monkey. There is also among the various anomalies of
character, which a survey of the world exhibits, a species of beings
in human form, which may be properly marked out as the screech-owls
of mankind.
These screech-owls seem to be settled in an opinion that the great business
of life is to complain, and that they were born for no other purpose than
to disturb the happiness of others, to lessen the little comforts, and
shorten the short pleasures of our condition, by painful remembrances of
the past, or melancholy prognosticks of the future; their only care is
to crush the rising hope, to damp the kindling transport, and allay the
golden hours of gaiety with the hateful dross of grief and suspicion.
To those whose weakness of spirits, or timidity of temper, subjects them
to impressions from others, and who are apt to suffer by fascination,
and catch the contagion of misery, it is extremely unhappy to live within
the compass of a screech-owl's voice; for it will often fill their ears
in the hour of dejection, terrify them with apprehensions, which their
own thoughts would never have produced, and sadden, by intruded sorrows,
the day which might have been passed in amusements or in business; it
will burthen the heart with unnecessary discontents, and weaken for a
time that love of life which is necessary to the vigorous prosecution of
any undertaking.
Though I have, like the rest of mankind, many failings and weaknesses,
I have not yet, by either friends or enemies, been charged with
superstition; I never count the company which I enter, and I look at
the new moon indifferently over either shoulder. I have, like most other
philosophers, often heard the cuckoo without money in my pocket, and
have been sometimes reproached as fool-hardy for not turning down my eyes
when a raven flew over my head. I never go home abruptly because a snake
crosses my way, nor have any particular dread of a climacterical year;
yet I confess that, with all my scorn of old women, and their tales,
I consider it as an unhappy day when I happen to be greeted, in the
morning, by Suspirius the screech-owl.
I have now known Suspirius fifty-eight years and four months, and have
never yet passed an hour with him in which he has not made some attack
upon my quiet. When we were first acquainted, his great topick was the
misery of youth without riches; and whenever we walked out together he
solaced me with a long enumeration of pleasures, which, as they were
beyond the reach of my fortune, were without the verge of my desires, and
which I should never have considered as the objects of a wish, had not
his unseasonable representations placed them in my sight.
Another of his topicks is the neglect of merit, with which he never fails
to amuse every man whom he sees not eminently fortunate. If he meets
with a young officer, he always informs him of gentlemen whose personal
courage is unquestioned, and whose military skill qualifies them to
command armies, that have, notwithstanding all their merit, grown old
with subaltern commissions. For a genius in the church, he is always
provided with a curacy for life. The lawyer he informs of many men of
great parts and deep study, who have never had an opportunity to speak
in the courts: and meeting Serenus the physician, "Ah, doctor," says
he, "what a-foot still, when so many block-heads are rattling in their
chariots? I told you seven years ago that you would never meet with
encouragement, and I hope you will now take more notice, when I tell you
that your Greek, and your diligence, and your honesty, will never enable
you to live like yonder apothecary, who prescribes to his own shop, and
laughs at the physician."
Suspirius has, in his time, intercepted fifteen authors in their way to
the stage; persuaded nine and thirty merchants to retire from a prosperous
trade for fear of bankruptcy, broke off an hundred and thirteen matches
by prognostications of unhappiness, and enabled the small-pox to kill
nineteen ladies, by perpetual alarms of the loss of beauty.
Whenever my evil stars bring us together, he never fails to represent to
me the folly of my pursuits, and informs me that we are much older than
when we began our acquaintance, that the infirmities of decrepitude are
coming fast upon me, that whatever I now get, I shall enjoy but a little
time, that fame is to a man tottering on the edge of the grave of very
little importance, and that the time is at hand when I ought to look for
no other pleasures than a good dinner and an easy chair.
Thus he goes on in his unharmonious strain, displaying present miseries,
and foreboding more, νυκτικοραξ αει θανατηφορος, every syllable is loaded
with misfortune, and death is always brought nearer to the view. Yet, what
always raises my resentment and indignation, I do not perceive that his
mournful meditations have much effect upon himself. He talks and has long
talked of calamities, without discovering otherwise than by the tone of
his voice, that he feels any of the evils which he bewails or threatens,
but has the same habit of uttering lamentations, as others of telling
stories, and falls into expressions of condolence for past, or
apprehension of future mischiefs, as all men studious of their ease have
recourse to those subjects upon which they can most fluently or copiously
discourse[47].
It is reported of the Sybarites, that they destroyed all their cocks, that
they might dream out their morning dreams without disturbance. Though I
would not so far promote effeminacy as to propose the Sabarites for an
example, yet since there is no man so corrupt or foolish, but something
useful may be learned from him, I could wish that, in imitation of a
people not often to be copied, some regulations might be made to exclude
screech-owls from all company, as the enemies of mankind, and confine
them to some proper receptacle, where they may mingle sighs at leisure,
and thicken the gloom of one another.
_Thou prophet of evil_, says Homer's Agamemnon, _thou never foretellest me
good, but the joy of thy heart is to predict misfortunes_. Whoever is of
the same temper, might there find the means of indulging his thoughts,
and improving his vein of denunciation, and the flock of screech-owls
might hoot together without injury to the rest of the world.
Yet, though I have so little kindness for this dark generation, I am very
far from intending to debar the soft and tender mind from the privilege of
complaining, when the sigh arises from the desire not of giving pain, but
of gaining ease. To hear complaints with patience, even when complaints
are vain, is one of the duties of friendship; and though it must be
allowed that he suffers most like a hero that hides his grief in silence,
_Spem vultu simulat, premit altum corde dolorem;_
His outward smiles conceal'd his inward smart;
DRYDEN.
yet it cannot be denied, that he who complains acts like a man, like a
social being, who looks for help from his fellow-creatures. Pity is to
many of the unhappy a source of comfort in hopeless distresses, as it
contributes to recommend them to themselves, by proving that they have
not lost the regard of others; and heaven seems to indicate the duty even
of barren compassion, by inclining us to weep for evils which we cannot
remedy.
[Footnote 47: Suspirius, the screech-owl, is presumed by some to have
suggested the character of Croaker to Goldsmith, in his Comedy of the
Good-natured Man.]
No. 60. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1750.
_Quid sit pulchrum, quid turpe, quid utile, quid non,_
_Plenius ac melius Chrysippo et Crantore dicit._
HOR. Lib. i. Epist. ii. 3.
Whose works the beautiful and base contain,
Of vice and virtue more instructive rules,
Than all the sober sages of the schools.
FRANCIS.
All joy or sorrow for the happiness or calamities of others is produced
by an act of the imagination, that realizes the event however fictitious,
or approximates it however remote, by placing us, for a time, in the
condition of him whose fortune we contemplate; so that we feel, while the
deception lasts, whatever motions would be excited by the same good or
evil happening to ourselves.
Our passions are therefore more strongly moved, in proportion as we
can more readily adopt the pains or pleasure proposed to our minds,
by recognising them as once our own, or considering them as naturally
incident to our state of life. It is not easy for the most artful
writer to give us an interest in happiness or misery, which we think
ourselves never likely to feel, and with which we have never yet been
made acquainted. Histories of the downfal of kingdoms, and revolutions of
empires, are read with great tranquillity; the imperial tragedy pleases
common auditors only by its pomp of ornament, and grandeur of ideas; and
the man whose faculties have been engrossed by business, and whose heart
never fluttered but at the rise or fall of the stocks, wonders how the
attention can be seized, or the affection agitated, by a tale of love.
Those parallel circumstances and kindred images, to which we readily
conform our minds, are, above all other writings, to be found in
narratives of the lives of particular persons; and therefore no species
of writing seems more worthy of cultivation than biography, since none
can be more delightful or more useful, none can more certainly enchain
the heart by irresistible interest, or more widely diffuse instruction to
every diversity of condition.
The general and rapid narratives of history, which involve a thousand
fortunes in the business of a day, and complicate innumerable incidents
in one great transaction, afford few lessons applicable to private
life, which derives its comforts and its wretchedness from the right
or wrong management of things, which nothing but their frequency makes
considerable, _Parva si non fiant quotidie_, says Pliny, and which
can have no place in those relations which never descend below the
consultation of senates, the motions of armies, and the schemes of
conspirators.
I have often thought that there has rarely passed a life of which a
judicious and faithful narrative would not be useful. For, not only
every man has, in the mighty mass of the world, great numbers in the same
condition with himself, to whom his mistakes and miscarriages, escapes
and expedients, would be of immediate and apparent use; but there is such
an uniformity in the state of man, considered apart from adventitious and
separable decorations and disguises, that there is scarce any possibility
of good or ill, but is common to human kind. A great part of the time of
those who are placed at the greatest distance by fortune, or by temper,
must unavoidably pass in the same manner; and though, when the claims of
nature are satisfied, caprice, and vanity, and accident, begin to produce
discriminations and peculiarities, yet the eye is not very heedful or
quick, which cannot discover the same causes still terminating their
influence in the same effects, though sometimes accelerated, sometimes
retarded, or perplexed by multiplied combinations. We are all prompted
by the same motives, all deceived by the same fallacies, all animated by
hope, obstructed by danger, entangled by desire, and seduced by pleasure.
It is frequently objected to relations of particular lives, that they are
not distinguished by any striking or wonderful vicissitudes. The scholar
who passed his life among his books, the merchant who conducted only
his own affairs, the priest, whose sphere of action was not extended
beyond that of his duty, are considered as no proper objects of publick
regard, however they might have excelled in their several stations,
whatever might have been their learning, integrity, and piety. But this
notion arises from false measures of excellence and dignity, and must be
eradicated by considering, that in the esteem of uncorrupted reason, what
is of most use is of most value.
It is, indeed, not improper to take honest advantages of prejudice, and
to gain attention by a celebrated name; but the business of a biographer
is often to pass slightly over those performances and incidents, which
produce vulgar greatness, to lead the thoughts into domestick privacies,
and display the minute details of daily life, where exterior appendages
are cast aside, and men excel each other only by prudence and by virtue.
The account of Thuanus is, with great propriety, said by its author to
have been written, that it might lay open to posterity the private and
familiar character of that man, _cujus ingenium et candorem ex ipsius
scriptis sunt olim semper miraturi_, whose candour and genius will to
the end of time be by his writings preserved in admiration.
There are many invisible circumstances which, whether we read as inquirers
after natural and moral knowledge, whether we intend to enlarge our
science, or increase our virtue, are more important than publick
occurrences. Thus Sallust, the great master of nature, has not forgot,
in his account of Cataline, to remark that _his walk was now quick, and
again slow_, as an indication of a mind revolving something with violent
commotion. Thus the story of Melancthon affords a striking lecture on
the value of time, by informing us, that when he made an appointment,
he expected not only the hour, but the minute to be fixed, that the day
might not run out in the idleness of suspense: and all the plans and
enterprizes of De Witt are now of less importance to the world, than that
part of his personal character, which represents him as _careful of his
health, and negligent of his life_.
But biography has often been allotted to writers who seem very little
acquainted with the nature of their task, or very negligent about the
performance. They rarely afford any other account than might be collected
from publick papers, but imagine themselves writing a life when they
exhibit a chronological series of actions or preferments; and so little
regard the manners or behaviour of their heroes, that more knowledge may
be gained of a man's real character, by a short conversation with one of
his servants, than from a formal and studied narrative, begun with his
pedigree, and ended with his funeral.
If now and then they condescend to inform the world of particular facts,
they are not always so happy as to select the most important. I know not
well what advantage posterity can receive from the only circumstance by
which Tickell has distinguished Addison from the rest of mankind, _the
irregularity of his pulse_: nor can I think myself overpaid for the time
spent in reading the life of Malherb by being enabled to relate after
the learned biographer, that Malherb had two predominant opinions;
one, that the looseness of a single woman might destroy all her boast
of ancient descent; the other, that the French beggars made use very
improperly and barbarously of the phrase _noble Gentleman_, because
either word included the sense to both.
There are, indeed, some natural reasons why these narratives are often
written by such as were not likely to give much instruction or delight,
and why most accounts of particular persons are barren and useless. If
a life be delayed till interest and envy are at an end, we may hope for
impartiality, but must expect little intelligence; for the incidents
which give excellence to biography are of a volatile and evanescent kind,
such as soon escape the memory, and are rarely transmitted by tradition.
We know how few can pourtray a living acquaintance, except by his most
prominent and observable particularities, and the grosser features of his
mind; and it may be easily imagined how much of this little knowledge may
be lost in imparting it, and how soon a succession of copies will lose
all resemblance of the original.
If the biographer writes from personal knowledge, and makes haste to
gratify the public curiosity, there is danger lest his interest, his
fear, his gratitude, or his tenderness, overpower his fidelity, and tempt
him to conceal, if not to invent. There are many who think it an act of
piety to hide the faults or failings of their friends, even when they
can no longer suffer by their detection; we therefore see whole ranks of
characters adorned with uniform panegyrick, and not to be known from one
another, but by extrinsick and casual circumstances. "Let me remember,"
says Hale, "when I find myself inclined to pity a criminal, that there
is likewise a pity due to the country." If we owe regard to the memory of
the dead, there is yet more respect to be paid to knowledge, to virtue,
and to truth.
No. 61. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 16, 1750.
_Falsus honor juvat, et mendax infamia terret,_
_Quem, nisi mendosum et mendacem?_
HOR. Lib. i. Ep. xvi. 39.
False praise can charm, unreal shame controul,
Whom but a vicious or a sickly soul?
FRANCIS.