No. 63. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1750.
_----Habebat sæpe ducentos,_
_Sæpe decem servos: modo Reges, atque Tetrarchus,_
_Omnia magna loquens; modo, Sit mihi mensa tripes, et_
_Concha salis puri, et toga, quæ defendere frigus,_
_Quamvis crassa, queat._
HOR. Lib. i. Sat. iii. 11.
Now with two hundred slaves he crowds his train;
Now walks with ten. In high and haughty strain
At morn, of kings and governors he prates;
At night--"A frugal table, O ye fates,
"A little shell the sacred salt to hold,
"And clothes, tho' coarse, to keep me from the cold."
FRANCIS.
It has been remarked, perhaps, by every writer who has left behind him
observations upon life, that no man is pleased with his present state;
which proves equally unsatisfactory, says Horace, whether fallen upon by
chance, or chosen with deliberation; we are always disgusted with some
circumstance or other of our situation, and imagine the condition of
others more abundant in blessings, or less exposed to calamities.
This universal discontent has been generally mentioned with great severity
of censure, as unreasonable in itself, since of two, equally envious of
each other, both cannot have the larger share of happiness, and as tending
to darken life with unnecessary gloom, by withdrawing our minds from the
contemplation and enjoyment of that happiness which our state affords us,
and fixing our attention upon foreign objects, which we only behold to
depress ourselves, and increase our misery by injurious comparisons.
When this opinion of the felicity of others predominates in the heart, so
as to excite resolutions of obtaining, at whatever price, the condition
to which such transcendent privileges are supposed to be annexed; when it
bursts into action, and produces fraud, violence, and injustice, it is to
be pursued with all the rigour of legal punishments. But while operating
only upon the thoughts it disturbs none but him who has happened to admit
it, and, however it may interrupt content, makes no attack on piety or
virtue, I cannot think it so far criminal or ridiculous, but that it may
deserve some pity, and admit some excuse.
That all are equally happy, or miserable, I suppose none is sufficiently
enthusiastical to maintain; because though we cannot judge of the
condition of others, yet every man has found frequent vicissitudes in
his own state, and must therefore be convinced that life is susceptible
of more or less felicity. What then shall forbid us to endeavour the
alteration of that which is capable of being improved, and to grasp at
augmentations of good, when we know it possible to be increased, and
believe that any particular change of situation will increase it?
If he that finds himself uneasy may reasonably make efforts to rid
himself from vexation, all mankind have a sufficient plea for some degree
of restlessness, and the fault seems to be little more than too much
temerity of conclusion, in favour of something not yet experienced, and
too much readiness to believe, that the misery which our own passions and
appetites produce, is brought upon us by accidental causes, and external
efficients.
It is, indeed, frequently discovered by us, that we complained too
hastily of peculiar hardships, and imagined ourselves distinguished by
embarrassments, in which other classes of men are equally entangled. We
often change a lighter for a greater evil, and wish ourselves restored
again to the state from which we thought it desirable to be delivered.
But this knowledge, though it is easily gained by the trial, is not
always attainable any other way; and that errour cannot justly be
reproached, which reason could not obviate, nor prudence avoid.
To take a view at once distinct and comprehensive of human life, with all
its intricacies of combination, and varities of connexion, is beyond the
power of mortal intelligences. Of the state with which practice has not
acquainted us we snatch a glimpse, we discern a point, and regulate the
rest by passion, and by fancy. In this inquiry every favourite prejudice,
every innate desire, is busy to deceive us. We are unhappy, at least
less happy than our nature seems to admit; we necessarily desire the
melioration of our lot; what we desire we very reasonably seek, and
what we seek we are naturally eager to believe that we have found. Our
confidence is often disappointed, but our reason is not convinced,
and there is no man who does not hope for something which he has not,
though perhaps his wishes lie unactive, because he foresees the difficulty
of attainment. As among the numerous students of Hermetick philosophy,
not one appears to have desisted from the task of transmutation, from
conviction of its impossibility, but from weariness of toil, or impatience
of delay, a broken body, or exhausted fortune.
Irresolution and mutability are often the faults of men, whose views
are wide, and whose imagination is vigorous and excursive, because they
cannot confine their thoughts within their own boundaries of action,
but are continually ranging over all the scenes of human existence, and
consequently are often apt to conceive that they fall upon new regions of
pleasure, and start new possibilities of happiness. Thus they are busied
with a perpetual succession of schemes, and pass their lives in alternate
elation and sorrow, for want of that calm and immovable acquiescence
in their condition, by which men of slower understandings are fixed for
ever to a certain point, or led on in the plain beaten track, which their
fathers and grandsires have trod before them.
Of two conditions of life equally inviting to the prospect, that will
always have the disadvantage which we have already tried; because the
evils which we have felt we cannot extenuate; and though we have, perhaps
from nature, the power as well of aggravating the calamity which we
fear, as of heightening the blessing we expect, yet in those meditations
which we indulge by choice, and which are not forced upon the mind by
necessity, we have always the art of fixing our regard upon the more
pleasing images, and suffer hope to dispose the lights by which we look
upon futurity.
The good and ill of different modes of life are sometimes so equally
opposed, that perhaps no man ever yet made his choice between them upon
a full conviction, and adequate knowledge; and therefore fluctuation
of will is not more wonderful, when they are proposed to the election,
than oscillations of a beam charged with equal weights. The mind no
sooner imagines itself determined by some prevalent advantage, than some
convenience of equal weight is discovered on the other side, and the
resolutions, which are suggested by the nicest examination, are often
repented as soon as they are taken.
Eumenes, a young man of great abilities, inherited a large estate
from a father, long eminent in conspicuous employments. His father,
harassed with competitions, and perplexed with multiplicity of business,
recommended the quiet of a private station with so much force, that
Eumenes for some years resisted every motion of ambitious wishes; but
being once provoked by the sight of oppression, which he could not
redress, he began to think it the duty of an honest man to enable himself
to protect others, and gradually felt a desire of greatness, excited by
a thousand projects of advantage to his country. His fortune placed him
in the senate, his knowledge and eloquence advanced him at court, and he
possessed that authority and influence which he had resolved to exert for
the happiness of mankind.
He now became acquainted with greatness, and was in a short time
convinced, that in proportion as the power of doing well is enlarged,
the temptations to do ill are multiplied and enforced. He felt himself
every moment in danger of being either seduced or driven from his honest
purposes. Sometimes a friend was to be gratified, and sometimes a rival
to be crushed, by means which his conscience could not approve. Sometimes
he was forced to comply with the prejudices of the publick, and sometimes
with the schemes of the ministry. He was by degrees wearied with perpetual
struggles to unite policy and virtue, and went back to retirement as the
shelter of innocence, persuaded that he could only hope to benefit mankind
by a blameless example of private virtue. Here he spent some years in
tranquillity and beneficence; but finding that corruption increased,
and false opinions in government prevailed, he thought himself again
summoned to posts of publick trust, from which new evidence of his own
weakness again determined him to retire.
Thus men may be made inconstant by virtue and by vice, by too much or
too little thought; yet inconstancy, however dignified by its motives,
is always to be avoided, because life allows us but a small time for
inquiry and experiment, and he that steadily endeavours at excellence, in
whatever employment, will more benefit mankind than he that hesitates in
chusing his part till he is called to the performance. The traveller that
resolutely follows a rough and winding path, will sooner reach the end of
his journey, than he that is always changing his direction, and wastes the
hours of day-light in looking for smoother ground and shorter passages.
No. 64. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1750.
_Idem velle, et idem nolle, ea demum firma amicitia est._
SALL. Bell. Cat. 20.
To live in friendship is to have the same desires and the same aversions.
When Socrates was building himself a house at Athens, being asked by one
that observed the littleness of the design, why a man so eminent would
not have an abode more suitable to his dignity? he replied, that he
should think himself sufficiently accommodated, if he could see that
narrow habitation filled with real friends[48]. Such was the opinion of
this great master of human life, concerning the infrequency of such an
union of minds as might deserve the name of friendship, that among the
multitudes whom vanity or curiosity, civility or veneration, crowded
about him, he did not expect, that very spacious apartments would be
necessary to contain all that should regard him with sincere kindness,
or adhere to him with steady fidelity.
So many qualities are indeed requisite to the possibility of friendship,
and so many accidents must concur to its rise and continuance, that the
greatest part of mankind content themselves without it, and supply its
place as they can, with interest and dependance.
Multitudes are unqualified for a constant and warm reciprocation of
benevolence, as they are incapacitated for any other elevated excellence,
by perpetual attention to their interest, and unresisting subjection to
their passions. Long habits may superinduce inability to deny any desire,
or repress, by superior motives, the importunities of any immediate
gratification, and an inveterate selfishness will imagine all advantages
diminished in proportion as they are communicated.
But not only this hateful and confirmed corruption, but many varieties of
disposition, not inconsistent with common degrees of virtue, may exclude
friendship from the heart. Some ardent enough in their benevolence,
and defective neither in officiousness nor liberality, are mutable and
uncertain, soon attracted by new objects, disgusted without offence, and
alienated without enmity. Others are soft and flexible, easily influenced
by reports or whispers, ready to catch alarms from every dubious
circumstance, and to listen to every suspicion which envy and flattery
shall suggest, to follow the opinion of every confident adviser, and move
by the impulse of the last breath. Some are impatient of contradiction,
more willing to go wrong by their own judgment, than to be indebted for
a better or a safer way to the sagacity of another, inclined to consider
counsel as insult, and inquiry as want of confidence, and to confer
their regard on no other terms than unreserved submission, and implicit
compliance. Some are dark and involved, equally careful to conceal good
and bad purposes; and pleased with producing effects by invisible means,
and shewing their design only in its execution. Others are universally
communicative, alike open to every eye, and equally profuse of their
own secrets and those of others, without the necessary vigilance of
caution, or the honest arts of prudent integrity, ready to accuse without
malice, and to betray without treachery. Any of these may be useful to
the community, and pass through the world with the reputation of good
purposes and uncorrupted morals, but they are unfit for close and tender
intimacies. He cannot properly be chosen for a friend, whose kindness
is exhaled by its own warmth, or frozen by the first blast of slander;
he cannot be a useful counsellor who will hear no opinion but his own;
he will not much invite confidence whose principal maxim is to suspect;
nor can the candour and frankness of that man be much esteemed, who
spreads his arms to humankind, and makes every man, without distinction,
a denizen of his bosom.
That friendship may be at once fond and lasting, there must not only be
equal virtue on each part, but virtue of the same kind; not only the
same end must be proposed, but the same means must be approved by both.
We are often, by superficial accomplishments and accidental endearments,
induced to love those whom we cannot esteem; we are sometimes, by great
abilities, and incontestable evidences of virtue, compelled to esteem
those whom we cannot love. But friendship, compounded of esteem and love,
derives from one its tenderness, and its permanence from the other;
and therefore requires not only that its candidates should gain the
judgment, but that they should attract the affections; that they should
not only be firm in the day of distress, but gay in the hour of jollity;
not only useful in exigencies, but pleasing in familiar life; their
presence should give cheerfulness as well as courage, and dispel alike
the gloom of fear and of melancholy.
To this mutual complacency is generally requisite an uniformity of
opinions, at least of those active and conspicuous principles which
discriminate parties in government, and sects in religion, and which
every day operate more or less on the common business of life. For though
great tenderness has, perhaps, been sometimes known to continue between
men eminent in contrary factions; yet such friends are to be shewn rather
as prodigies than examples, and it is no more proper to regulate our
conduct by such instances, than to leap a precipice, because some have
fallen from it and escaped with life.
It cannot but be extremely difficult to preserve private kindness in
the midst of publick opposition, in which will necessarily be involved
a thousand incidents, extending their influence to conversation and
privacy. Men engaged, by moral or religious motives, in contrary parties,
will generally look with different eyes upon every man, and decide almost
every question upon different principles. When such occasions of dispute
happen, to comply is to betray our cause, and to maintain friendship by
ceasing to deserve it; to be silent is to lose the happiness and dignity
of independence, to live in perpetual constraint, and to desert, if not
to betray: and who shall determine which of two friends shall yield,
where neither believes himself mistaken, and both confess the importance
of the question? What then remains but contradiction and debate? and from
those what can be expected, but acrimony and vehemence, the insolence of
triumph, the vexation of defeat, and, in time, a weariness of contest,
and an extinction of benevolence? Exchange of endearments and intercourse
of civility may continue, indeed, as boughs may for a while be verdant,
when the root is wounded; but the poison of discord is infused, and
though the countenance may preserve its smile, the heart is hardening
and contracting.
That man will not be long agreeable, whom we see only in times of
seriousness and severity; and therefore to maintain the softness and
serenity of benevolence, it is necessary that friends partake each
other's pleasures as well as cares, and be led to the same diversions
by similitude of taste. This is, however, not to be considered as
equally indispensable with conformity of principles, because any man may
honestly, according to the precepts of Horace, resign the gratifications
of taste to the humour of another, and friendship may well deserve the
sacrifice of pleasure, though not of conscience.
It was once confessed to me, by a painter, that no professor of his art
ever loved another. This declaration is so far justified by the knowledge
of life, as to damp the hopes of warm and constant friendship, between
men whom their studies have made competitors, and whom every favourer
and every censurer are hourly inciting against each other. The utmost
expectation that experience can warrant, is, that they should forbear
open hostilities and secret machinations, and when the whole fraternity
is attacked, be able to unite against a common foe. Some, however,
though few, may perhaps be found, in whom emulation has not been able to
overpower generosity, who are distinguished from lower beings by nobler
motives than the love of fame, and can preserve the sacred flame of
friendship from the gusts of pride, and the rubbish of interest.
Friendship is seldom lasting but between equals, or where the superiority
on one side is reduced by some equivalent advantage on the other.
Benefits which cannot be repaid, and obligations which cannot be
discharged, are not commonly found to increase affection; they excite
gratitude indeed, and heighten veneration; but commonly take away that
easy freedom and familiarity of intercourse, without which, though
there may be fidelity, and zeal, and admiration, there cannot be
friendship. Thus imperfect are all earthly blessings; the great effect
of friendship is beneficence, yet by the first act of uncommon kindness
it is endangered, like plants that bear their fruit and die. Yet this
consideration ought not to restrain bounty, or repress compassion; for
duty is to be preferred before convenience, and he that loses part of
the pleasures of friendship by his generosity, gains in its place the
gratulation of his conscience.
[Footnote 48: This passage is almost a literal translation from Phædrus,
lib. iii. 9.
Vulgare amici nomen, sed rara est fides.
Quum parvas ædes sibi fundasset Socrates,
(Cujus non fugio mortem, si famam adsequar,
Et cedo invidiæ, dum modo absolvar cinis.)
E populo sic, nescio quis, ut fieri solet:
Quæso tam angustam, talis vir, ponis domum?
Utinam, inquit, veris hanc amicis impleam.]
No. 65. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1750.
_----Garrit aniles_
_Ex re fabellas.----_
HOR. Lib. i. Sat. vi. 77.
The cheerful sage, when solemn dictates fail,
Conceals the moral counsel in a tale.
Obidah, the son of Abensina, left the caravansera early in the morning,
and pursued his journey through the plains of Indostan. He was fresh and
vigorous with rest; he was animated with hope; he was incited by desire;
he walked swiftly forward over the valleys, and saw the hills gradually
rising before him. As he passed along, his ears were delighted with the
morning song of the bird of paradise, he was fanned by the last flutters
of the sinking breeze, and sprinkled with dew by groves of spices; he
sometimes contemplated the towering height of the oak, monarch of the
hills; and sometimes caught the gentle fragrance of the primrose, eldest
daughter of the spring; all his senses were gratified, and all care was
banished from his heart.
Thus he went on till the sun approached his meridian, and the increasing
heat preyed upon his strength; he then looked round about him for some
more commodious path. He saw, on his right hand, a grove that seemed to
wave its shades as a sign of invitation; he entered it, and found the
coolness and verdure irresistibly pleasant. He did not, however, forget
whither he was travelling, but found a narrow way bordered with flowers,
which appeared to have the same direction with the main road, and was
pleased that, by this happy experiment, he had found means to unite
pleasure with business, and to gain the rewards of diligence without
suffering its fatigues. He, therefore, still continued to walk for a time,
without the least remission of his ardour, except that he was sometimes
tempted to stop by the musick of the birds whom the heat had assembled
in the shade; and sometimes amused himself with plucking the flowers
that covered the banks on either side, or the fruits that hung upon
the branches. At last the green path began to decline from its first
tendency, and to wind among hills and thickets, cooled with fountains
and murmuring with waterfalls. Here Obidah paused for a time, and began
to consider whether it were longer safe to forsake the known and common
track; but remembering that the heat was now in its greatest violence,
and that the plain was dusty and uneven, he resolved to pursue the new
path, which he supposed only to make a few meanders, in compliance with
the varieties of the ground, and to end at last in the common road.
Having thus calmed his solicitude, he renewed his pace, though he suspected
that he was not gaining ground. This uneasiness of his mind inclined him
to lay hold on every new object, and give way to every sensation that
might sooth or divert him. He listened to every echo, he mounted every
hill for a fresh prospect, he turned aside to every cascade, and pleased
himself with tracing the course of a gentle river that rolled among the
trees, and watered a large region with innumerable circumvolutions. In
these amusements the hours passed away uncounted, his deviations had
perplexed his memory, and he knew not towards what point to travel. He
stood pensive and confused, afraid to go forward lest he should go wrong,
yet conscious that the time of loitering was now past. While he was thus
tortured with uncertainty, the sky was overspread with clouds, the
day vanished from before him, and a sudden tempest gathered round his
head. He was now roused by his danger to a quick and painful remembrance
of his folly; he now saw how happiness is lost when ease is consulted;
he lamented the unmanly impatience that prompted him to seek shelter
in the grove, and despised the petty curiosity that led him on from
trifle to trifle. While he was thus reflecting, the air grew blacker,
and a clap of thunder broke his meditation.
He now resolved to do what remained yet in his power, to tread back the
ground which he had passed, and try to find some issue where the wood
might open into the plain. He prostrated himself on the ground, and
commended his life to the Lord of nature. He rose with confidence and
tranquillity, and pressed on with his sabre in his hand, for the beasts
of the desert were in motion, and on every hand were heard the mingled
howls of rage and fear, and ravage and expiration; all the horrours of
darkness and solitude surrounded him; the winds roared in the woods, and
the torrents tumbled from the hills,
----χειμαρῥοι ποταμοι κατ' ορεσφι ῥεοντες
Ες μισγαγκειαν συμβαλλετον οβριμον ὑδωρ,
Τονδε τε τηλοσε δουπον εν ουρεσιν εκλυε ποιμην.
Work'd into sudden rage by wintry show'rs,
Down the steep hill the roaring torrent pours;
The mountain shepherd hears the distant noise.
Thus forlorn and distressed, he wandered through the wild, without knowing
whither he was going, or whether he was every moment drawing nearer to
safety or to destruction. At length not fear but labour began to overcome
him; his breath grew short, and his knees trembled, he was on the point
of lying down in resignation to his fate, when he beheld through the
brambles the glimmer of a taper. He advanced towards the light, and
finding that it proceeded from the cottage of a hermit, he called humbly
at the door, and obtained admission. The old man set before him such
provisions as he had collected for himself, on which Obidah fed with
eagerness and gratitude.
When the repast was over, "Tell me," said the hermit, "by what chance thou
hast been brought hither; I have been now twenty years an inhabitant of
the wilderness, in which I never saw a man before." Obidah then related
the occurrences of his journey, without any concealment or palliation.
"Son," said the hermit, "let the errours and follies, the dangers and
escape of this day, sink deep into thy heart. Remember, my son, that
human life is the journey of a day. We rise in the morning of youth,
full of vigour and full of expectation; we set forward with spirit
and hope, with gaiety and with diligence, and travel on a while in the
straight road of piety towards the mansions of rest. In a short time we
remit our fervour, and endeavour to find some mitigation of our duty,
and some more easy means of obtaining the same end. We then relax our
vigour, and resolve no longer to be terrified with crimes at a distance,
but rely upon our own constancy, and venture to approach what we resolve
never to touch. We thus enter the bowers of ease, and repose in the shades
of security. Here the heart softens and vigilance subsides; we are then
willing to inquire whether another advance cannot be made, and whether
we may not, at least, turn our eyes upon the gardens of pleasure. We
approach them with scruple and hesitation; we enter them, but enter
timorous and trembling, and always hope to pass through them without
losing the road of virtue, which we, for a while, keep in our sight,
and to which we propose to return. But temptation succeeds temptation,
and one compliance prepares us for another; we in time lose the happiness
of innocence, and solace our disquiet with sensual gratifications. By
degrees we let fall the remembrance of our original intention, and quit
the only adequate object of rational desire. We entangle ourselves in
business, immerge ourselves in luxury, and rove through the labyrinths
of inconstancy, till the darkness of old age begins to invade us, and
disease and anxiety obstruct our way. We then look back upon our lives
with horrour, with sorrow, with repentance; and wish, but too often vainly
wish, that we had not forsaken the ways of virtue. Happy are they, my son,
who shall learn from thy example not to despair, but shall remember, that
though the day is past, and their strength is wasted, there yet remains
one effort to be made; that reformation is never hopeless, nor sincere
endeavours ever unassisted; that the wanderer may at length return after
all his errours, and that he who implores strength and courage from above,
shall find danger and difficulty give way before him. Go now, my son,
to thy repose, commit thyself to the care of Omnipotence, and when the
morning calls again to toil, begin anew thy journey and thy life."
No. 66. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1750.
_----Pauci dignoscere possunt_
_Vera bona, atque illis multum diversa, remotâ_
_Erroris nebula._
JUV. Sat. x. 2.
----How few
Know their own good; or, knowing it, pursue!
How void of reason are our hopes and fears!
DRYDEN.
The folly of human wishes and pursuits has always been a standing subject
of mirth and declamation, and has been ridiculed and lamented from age
to age; till perhaps the fruitless repetition of complaints and censures,
may be justly numbered among the subjects of censure and complaint.
Some of these instructors of mankind have not contented themselves with
checking the overflows of passion, and lopping the exuberance of desire,
but have attempted to destroy the root as well as the branches; and not
only to confine the mind within bounds, but to smooth it for ever by a
dead calm. They have employed their reason and eloquence to persuade us,
that nothing is worth the wish of a wise man, have represented all earthly
good and evil as indifferent, and counted among vulgar errours the dread
of pain, and the love of life.
It is almost always the unhappiness of a victorious disputant, to destroy
his own authority by claiming too many consequences, or diffusing his
proposition to an indefensible extent. When we have heated our zeal in a
cause, and elated our confidence with success, we are naturally inclined
to pursue the same train of reasoning, to establish some collateral
truth, to remove some adjacent difficulty, and to take in the whole
comprehension of our system. As a prince, in the ardour of acquisition,
is willing to secure his first conquest by the addition of another, add
fortress to fortress, and city to city, till despair and opportunity turn
his enemies upon him, and he loses in a moment the glory of a reign.
The philosophers having found an easy victory over those desires which
we produce in ourselves, and which terminate in some imaginary state of
happiness unknown and unattainable, proceeded to make further inroads
upon the heart, and attacked at last our senses and our instincts. They
continued to war upon nature with arms, by which only folly could be
conquered; they therefore lost the trophies of their former combats, and
were considered no longer with reverence or regard.
Yet it cannot be with justice denied, that these men have been very useful
monitors, and have left many proofs of strong reason, deep penetration,
and accurate attention to the affairs of life, which it is now our
business to separate from the foam of a boiling imagination, and to apply
judiciously to our own use. They have shewn that most of the conditions
of life, which raise the envy of the timorous, and rouse the ambition
of the daring, are empty shows of felicity, which, when they become
familiar, lose their power of delighting; and that the most prosperous
and exalted have very few advantages over a meaner and more obscure
fortune, when their dangers and solicitudes are balanced against their
equipage, their banquets, and their palaces.
It is natural for every man uninstructed to murmur at his condition,
because, in the general infelicity of life, he feels his own miseries,
without knowing that they are common to all the rest of the species;
and therefore, though he will not be less sensible of pain by being
told that others are equally tormented, he will at least be freed from
the temptation of seeking, by perpetual changes, that ease which is no
where to be found; and though his disease still continues, he escapes the
hazard of exasperating it by remedies.
The gratifications which affluence of wealth, extent of power, and
eminence of reputation confer, must be always, by their own nature,
confined to a very small number; and the life of the greater part of
mankind must be lost in empty wishes and painful comparisons, were
not the balm of philosophy shed upon us, and our discontent at the
appearances of an unequal distribution soothed and appeased.
It seemed, perhaps, below the dignity of the great masters of moral
learning, to descend to familiar life, and caution mankind against that
petty ambition which is known among us by the name of Vanity; which
yet had been an undertaking not unworthy of the longest beard, and most
solemn austerity. For though the passions of little minds, acting in
low stations, do not fill the world with bloodshed and devastations, or
mark, by great events, the periods of time, yet they torture the breast
on which they seize, infest those that are placed within the reach of
their influence, destroy private quiet and private virtue, and undermine
insensibly the happiness of the world.
The desire of excellence is laudable, but is very frequently ill directed.
We fall, by chance, into some class of mankind, and, without consulting
nature or wisdom, resolve to gain their regard by those qualities which
they happen to esteem. I once knew a man remarkably dim-sighted, who,
by conversing much with country gentlemen, found himself irresistibly
determined to sylvan honours. His great ambition was to shoot flying,
and he therefore spent whole days in the woods pursuing game; which,
before he was near enough to see them, his approach frighted away.
When it happens that the desire tends to objects which produce no
competition, it may be overlooked with some indulgence, because, however
fruitless or absurd, it cannot have ill effects upon the morals. But most
of our enjoyments owe their value to the peculiarity of possession, and
when they are rated at too high a value, give occasion to stratagems of
malignity, and incite opposition, hatred, and defamation. The contest of
two rural beauties for preference and distinction, is often sufficiently
keen and rancorous to fill their breasts with all those passions, which
are generally thought the curse only of senates, of armies, and of
courts; and the rival dancers of an obscure assembly have their partizans
and abettors, often not less exasperated against each other, than those
who are promoting the interests of rival monarchs.
It is common to consider those whom we find infected with an unreasonable
regard for trifling accomplishments, as chargeable with all the
consequences of their folly, and as the authors of their own unhappiness:
but, perhaps, those whom we thus scorn or detest, have more claim to
tenderness than has been yet allowed them. Before we permit our severity
to break loose upon any fault or errour, we ought surely to consider how
much we have countenanced or promoted it. We see multitudes busy in the
pursuit of riches, at the expense of wisdom and of virtue; but we see the
rest of mankind approving their conduct, and inciting their eagerness, by
paying that regard and deference to wealth, which wisdom and virtue only
can deserve. We see women universally jealous of the reputation of their
beauty, and frequently look with contempt on the care with which they
study their complexions, endeavour to preserve or to supply the bloom
of youth, regulate every ornament, twist their hair into curls, and
shade their faces from the weather. We recommend the care of their nobler
part, and tell them how little addition is made by all their arts to
the graces of the mind. But when was it known that female goodness or
knowledge was able to attract that officiousness, or inspire that ardour,
which beauty produces whenever it appears? And with what hope can we
endeavour to persuade the ladies, that the time spent at the toilet is
lost in vanity, when they have every moment some new conviction, that
their interest is more effectually promoted by a riband well disposed,
than by the brightest act of heroick virtue?
In every instance of vanity it will be found that the blame ought to
be shared among more than it generally reaches; all who exalt trifles
by immoderate praise, or instigate needless emulation by invidious
incitements, are to be considered as perverters of reason, and corrupters
of the world: and since every man is obliged to promote happiness and
virtue, he should be careful not to mislead unwary minds, by appearing to
set too high a value upon things by which no real excellence is conferred.
No. 67. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1750.
Αι δ' ελπιδες βοσκουσι φυγαδας, ὡς λογος
Καλοις βλεπουσι γ' ομμασιν, μελλουσι δε.
EURIP. Phœn. 407.
Exiles, the proverb says, subsist on hope,
Delusive hope still points to distant good,
To good that mocks approach.
There is no temper so generally indulged as hope: other passions operate
by starts on particular occasions, or in certain parts of life; but hope
begins with the first power of comparing our actual with our possible
state, and attends us through every stage and period, always urging us
forward to new acquisitions, and holding out some distant blessing to our
view, promising us either relief from pain, or increase of happiness.
Hope is necessary in every condition. The miseries of poverty, of
sickness, of captivity, would, without this comfort, be insupportable;
nor does it appear that the happiest lot of terrestrial existence can set
us above the want of this general blessing; or that life, when the gifts
of nature and of fortune are accumulated upon it, would not still be
wretched, were it not elevated and delighted by the expectation of some
new possession, of some enjoyment yet behind, by which the wish shall be
at last satisfied, and the heart filled up to its utmost extent.
Hope, is indeed, very fallacious, and promises what it seldom gives; but
its promises are more valuable than the gifts of fortune, and it seldom
frustrates us without assuring us of recompensing the delay by a greater
bounty.
I was musing on this strange inclination which every man feels to deceive
himself, and considering the advantages and dangers proceeding from this
gay prospect of futurity, when, falling asleep, on a sudden I found myself
placed in a garden, of which my sight could descry no limits. Every scene
about me was gay and gladsome, light with sunshine, and fragrant with
perfumes; the ground was painted with all the variety of spring, and all
the choir of nature was singing in the groves. When I had recovered from
the first raptures, with which the confusion of pleasure had for a time
entranced me, I began to take a particular and deliberate view of this
delightful region. I then perceived that I had yet higher gratifications
to expect, and that, at a small distance from me, there were brighter
flowers, clearer fountains, and more lofty groves, where the birds, which
I yet heard but faintly, were exerting all the power of melody. The trees
about me were beautiful with verdure, and fragrant with blossoms; but I
was tempted to leave them by the sight of ripe fruits, which seemed to
hang only to be plucked. I therefore walked hastily forwards, but found,
as I proceeded, that the colours of the field faded at my approach, the
fruit fell before I reached it, the birds flew still singing before me,
and though I pressed onward with great celerity, I was still in sight
of pleasures of which I could not yet gain the possession, and which
seemed to mock my diligence, and to retire as I advanced.
Though I was confounded with so many alternations of joy and grief, I yet
persisted to go forward, in hopes that these fugitive delights would in
time be overtaken. At length I saw an innumerable multitude of every age
and sex, who seemed all to partake of some general felicity; for every
cheek was flushed with confidence, and every eye sparkled with eagerness:
yet each appeared to have some particular and secret pleasure, and very
few were willing to communicate their intentions, or extend their concern
beyond themselves. Most of them seemed, by the rapidity of their motion,
too busy to gratify the curiosity of a stranger, and therefore I was
content for a while to gaze upon them, without interrupting them with
troublesome inquiries. At last I observed one man worn with time, and
unable to struggle in the crowd; and, therefore, supposing him more at
leisure, I began to accost him: but he turned from me with anger, and
told me he must not be disturbed, for the great hour of projection was
now come when Mercury should lose his wings, and slavery should no longer
dig the mine for gold.
I left him, and attempted another, whose softness of mien, and easy
movement, gave me reason to hope for a more agreeable reception; but he
told me, with a low bow, that nothing would make him more happy than an
opportunity of serving me, which he could not now want, for a place which
he had been twenty years soliciting would be soon vacant. From him I had
recourse to the next, who was departing in haste to take possession of
the estate of an uncle, who by the course of nature could not live long.
He that followed was preparing to dive for treasure in a new-invented
bell; and another was on the point of discovering the longitude.
Being thus rejected wheresoever I applied myself for information, I
began to imagine it best to desist from inquiry, and try what my own
observation would discover: but seeing a young man, gay and thoughtless,
I resolved upon one more experiment, and was informed that I was in the
garden of Hope, and daughter of Desire, and that all those whom I saw
thus tumultuously bustling round me were incited by the promises of Hope,
and hastening to seize the gifts which she held in her hand.
I turned my sight upward, and saw a goddess in the bloom of youth sitting
on a throne: around her lay all the gifts of fortune, and all the
blessings of life were spread abroad to view; she had a perpetual gaiety
of aspect, and every one imagined that her smile, which was impartial and
general, was directed to himself, and triumphed in his own superiority to
others, who had conceived the same confidence from the same mistake.
I then mounted an eminence, from which I had a more extensive view of
the whole place, and could with less perplexity consider the different
conduct of the crowds that filled it. From this station I observed,
that the entrance into the garden of Hope was by two gates, one of
which was kept by Reason, and the other by Fancy. Reason was surly and
scrupulous, and seldom turned the key without many interrogatories,
and long hesitation; but Fancy was a kind and gentle portress, she held
her gate wide open, and welcomed all equally to the district under her
superintendency; so that the passage was crowded by all those who either
feared the examination of Reason, or had been rejected by her.
From the gate of Reason there was a way to the throne of Hope, by a
craggy, slippery and winding path, called the _Streight of Difficulty_,
which those who entered with the permission of the guard endeavoured
to climb. But though they surveyed the way very carefully before they
began to rise, and marked out the several stages of their progress, they
commonly found unexpected obstacles, and were obliged frequently to stop
on the sudden, where they imagined the way plain and even. A thousand
intricacies embarrassed them, a thousand slips threw them back, and a
thousand pitfalls impeded their advance. So formidable were the dangers,
and so frequent the miscarriages, that many returned from the first
attempt, and many fainted in the midst of the way, and only a very small
number were led up to the summit of Hope, by the hand of Fortitude. Of
these few the greater part, when they had obtained the gift which Hope
had promised them, regretted the labour which it cost, and felt in their
success the regret of disappointment; the rest retired with their prize,
and were led by Wisdom to the bowers of Content.
Turning then towards the gate of Fancy, I could find no way to the seat
of Hope; but though she sat full in view, and held out her gifts with an
air of invitation, which filled every heart with rapture, the mountain
was, on that side, inaccessibly steep, but so channelled and shaded,
that none perceived the impossibility of ascending it, but each imagined
himself to have discovered a way to which the rest were strangers. Many
expedients were indeed tried by this industrious tribe, of whom some were
making themselves wings, which others were contriving to actuate by the
perpetual motion. But with all their labour, and all their artifices,
they never rose above the ground, or quickly fell back, nor ever
approached the throne of Hope, but continued still to gaze at a distance,
and laughed at the slow progress of those whom they saw toiling in the
_Streight of Difficulty_.
Part of the favourites of Fancy, when they had entered the garden,
without making, like the rest, an attempt to climb the mountain, turned
immediately to the vale of Idleness, a calm and undisturbed retirement,
from whence they could always have Hope in prospect, and to which they
pleased themselves with believing that she intended speedily to descend.
These were indeed scorned by all the rest; but they seemed very little
affected by contempt, advice, or reproof, but were resolved to expect at
ease the favour of the goddess.
Among this gay race I was wandering, and found them ready to answer all
my questions, and willing to communicate their mirth; but turning round,
I saw two dreadful monsters entering the vale, one of whom I knew to be
Age, and the other Want. Sport and revelling were now at an end, and an
universal shriek of affright and distress burst out and awaked me.
No. 68. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 1750.
_Vivendum recte est, cum propter plurima, tum his_
_Præcipæ causis, ut linguas mancipiorum_
_Contemnas. Nam lingua mali pars pessima servi._
JUV. ix. 118.
Let us live well: were it alone for this
The baneful tongues of servants to despise
Slander, that worst of poisons, ever finds
An easy entrance to ignoble minds.
HERVEY.
The younger Pliny has very justly observed, that of actions that deserve
our attention, the most splendid are not always the greatest. Fame, and
wonder, and applause, are not excited but by external and adventitious
circumstances, often distinct and separate from virtue and heroism.
Eminence of station, greatness of effect, and all the favours of
fortune, must concur to place excellence in publick view; but fortitude,
diligence, and patience, divested of their show, glide unobserved through
the crowd of life, and suffer and act, though with the same vigour and
constancy, yet without pity and without praise.
This remark may be extended to all parts of life. Nothing is to be
estimated by its effect upon common eyes and common ears. A thousand
miseries make silent and invisible inroads on mankind, and the heart
feels innumerable throbs, which never break into complaint. Perhaps,
likewise, our pleasures are for the most part equally secret, and most
are borne up by some private satisfaction, some internal consciousness,
some latent hope, some peculiar prospect, which they never communicate,
but reserve for solitary hours, and clandestine meditation.
The main of life is, indeed, composed of small incidents and petty
occurrences; of wishes for objects not remote, and grief for
disappointments of no fatal consequence; of insect vexations which
sting us and fly away, impertinences which buzz awhile about us, and
are heard no more; of meteorous pleasures which dance before us and are
dissipated; of compliments which glide off the soul like other musick,
and are forgotten by him that gave, and him that received them.
Such is the general heap out of which every man is to cull his own
condition: for, as the chemists tell us, that all bodies are resolvable
into the same elements, and that the boundless variety of things arises
from the different proportions of very few ingredients; so a few pains
and a few pleasures are all the materials of human life, and of these
the proportions are partly allotted by Providence, and partly left to the
arrangement of reason and of choice.
As these are well or ill disposed, man is for the most part happy or
miserable. For very few are involved in great events, or have their
thread of life entwisted with the chain of causes on which armies or
nations are suspended; and even those who seem wholly busied in publick
affairs, and elevated above low cares, or trivial pleasures, pass the
chief part of their time in familiar and domestick scenes; from these
they came into publick life, to these they are every hour recalled by
passions not to be suppressed; in these they have the reward of their
toils, and to these at last they retire.
The great end of prudence is to give cheerfulness to those hours, which
splendour cannot gild, and acclamation cannot exhilarate; those soft
intervals of unbended amusement, in which a man shrinks to his natural
dimensions, and throws aside the ornaments or disguises, which he feels
in privacy to be useless incumbrances, and to lose all effect when
they become familiar. To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all
ambition, the end to which every enterprise and labour tends, and of
which every desire prompts the prosecution.
It is, indeed, at home that every man must be known by those who would
make a just estimate either of his virtue or felicity; for smiles and
embroidery are alike occasional, and the mind is often dressed for show
in painted honour and fictitious benevolence.
Every man must have found some whose lives, in every house but their
own, was a continual series of hypocrisy, and who concealed under fair
appearances bad qualities, which, whenever they thought themselves out
of the reach of censure, broke out from their restraint, like winds
imprisoned in their caverns, and whom every one had reason to love, but
they whose love a wise man is chiefly solicitous to procure. And there
are others who, without any show of general goodness, and without the
attractions by which popularity is conciliated, are received among their
own families as bestowers of happiness, and reverenced as instructors,
guardians, and benefactors.
The most authentick witnesses of any man's character are those who
know him in his own family, and see him without any restraint or rule
of conduct, but such as he voluntarily prescribes to himself. If a
man carries virtue with him into his private apartments, and takes no
advantage of unlimited power or probable secrecy; if we trace him through
the round of his time, and find that his character, with those allowances
which mortal frailty must always want, is uniform and regular, we have
all the evidence of his sincerity that one man can have with regard to
another: and, indeed, as hypocrisy cannot be its own reward, we may,
without hesitation, determine that his heart is pure.
The highest panegyrick, therefore, that private virtue can receive, is the
praise of servants. For, however vanity or insolence may look down with
contempt on the suffrage of men undignified by wealth, and unenlightened
by education, it very seldom happens that they commend or blame without
justice. Vice and virtue are easily distinguished. Oppression, according
to Harrington's aphorism, will be felt by those that cannot see it;
and, perhaps, it falls out very often that, in moral questions, the
philosophers in the gown, and in the livery, differ not so much in their
sentiments, as in their language, and have equal power of discerning
right, though they cannot point it out to others with equal address.
There are very few faults to be committed in solitude, or without some
agents, partners, confederates, or witnesses; and, therefore, the servant
must commonly know the secrets of a master, who has any secrets to
entrust; and failings, merely personal, are so frequently exposed by that
security which pride and folly generally produce, and so inquisitively
watched by that desire of reducing the inequalities of condition, which
the lower orders of the world will always feel, that the testimony of
a menial domestick can seldom be considered as defective for want of
knowledge. And though its impartiality may be sometimes suspected, it is
at least as credible as that of equals, where rivalry instigates censure,
or friendship dictates palliations.
The danger of betraying our weakness to our servants, and the
impossibility of concealing it from them, may be justly considered as
one motive to a regular and irreproachable life. For no condition is
more hateful or despicable, than his who has put himself in the power of
his servant; in the power of him whom, perhaps, he has first corrupted
by making him subservient to his vices, and whose fidelity he therefore
cannot enforce by any precepts of honesty or reason. It is seldom known
that authority thus acquired, is possessed without insolence, or that the
master is not forced to confess by his tameness or forbearance, that he
has enslaved himself by some foolish confidence. And his crime is equally
punished, whatever part he takes of the choice to which he is reduced;
and he is from that fatal hour, in which he sacrificed his dignity to his
passions, in perpetual dread of insolence or defamation; of a controuler
at home, or an accuser abroad. He is condemned to purchase, by continual
bribes, that secrecy which bribes never secured, and which, after a long
course of submission, promises, and anxieties, he will find violated in
a fit of rage, or in a frolick of drunkenness.
To dread no eye, and to suspect no tongue, is the great prerogative of
innocence; an exemption granted only to invariable virtue. But guilt has
always its horrours and solicitudes; and to make it yet more shameful and
detestable, it is doomed often to stand in awe of those, to whom nothing
could give influence or weight, but their power of betraying.
No. 69. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 1750.
_Flet quoque, ut in speculo rugas adspexit aniles,_
_Tyndaris: et secum, cur sit bis rapta, requirit._
_Tempus edax rerum, tuque invidiosa vetustas,_
_Omnia destruitis: vitiataque dentibus ævi_
_Paulatim lentâ consumitis omnia morte._
OVID, Met. xv. 232.
The dreadful wrinkles when poor Helen spy'd,
Ah! why this second rape? with tears she cry'd,
Time, thou devourer, and thou, envious age,
Who all destroy with keen corroding rage,
Beneath your jaws, whate'er have pleas'd or please,
Must sink, consum'd by swift or slow degrees.
ELPHINSTON.
An old Greek epigrammatist, intending to shew the miseries that attend the
last stage of man, imprecates upon those who are so foolish as to wish
for long life, the calamity of continuing to grow old from century to
century. He thought that no adventitious or foreign pain was requisite;
that decrepitude itself was an epitome of whatever is dreadful; and
nothing could be added to the curse of age, but that it should be
extended beyond its natural limits.
The most indifferent or negligent spectator can indeed scarcely retire
without heaviness of heart, from a view of the last scenes of the tragedy
of life, in which he finds those who, in the former parts of the drama,
were distinguished by opposition of conduct, contrariety of designs, and
dissimilitude of personal qualities, all involved in one common distress,
and all struggling with affliction which they cannot hope to overcome.
The other miseries, which way-lay our passage through the world, wisdom
may escape, and fortitude may conquer: by caution and circumspection we
may steal along with very little to obstruct or incommode us; by spirit
and vigour we may force a way, and reward the vexation of contest by the
pleasures of victory. But a time must come when our policy and bravery
shall be equally useless; when we shall all sink into helplessness and
sadness, without any power of receiving solace from the pleasures that
have formerly delighted us, or any prospect of emerging into a second
possession of the blessings that we have lost.
The industry of man has, indeed, not been wanting in endeavours to procure
comforts for these hours of dejection and melancholy, and to gild the
dreadful gloom with artificial light. The most usual support of old age
is wealth. He whose possessions are large, and whose chests are full,
imagines himself always fortified against invasions on his authority. If
he has lost all other means of government, if his strength and his reason
fail him, he can at last alter his will; and therefore all that have
hopes must, likewise have fears, and he may still continue to give laws
to such as have not ceased to regard their own interest.
This is, indeed, too frequently the citadel of the dotard, the last
fortress to which age retires, and in which he makes the stand against the
upstart race that seizes his domains, disputes his commands, and cancels
his prescriptions. But here, though there may be safety, there is no
pleasure; and what remains is but a proof that more was once possessed.
Nothing seems to have been more universally dreaded by the ancients than
orbity, or want of children; and, indeed, to a man who has survived all
the companions of his youth, all who have participated his pleasures
and his cares, have been engaged in the same events, and filled their
minds with the same conceptions, this full-peopled world is a dismal
solitude. He stands forlorn and silent, neglected or insulted, in the
midst of multitudes, animated with hopes which he cannot share, and
employed in business which he is no longer able to forward or retard; nor
can he find any to whom his life or his death are of importance, unless
he has secured some domestick gratifications, some tender employments,
and endeared himself to some whose interest and gratitude may unite them
to him.
So different are the colours of life as we look forward to the future,
or backward to the past; and so different the opinions and sentiments
which this contrariety of appearance naturally produces, that the
conversation of the old and young ends generally with contempt or pity
on either side. To a young man entering the world with fulness of hope,
and ardour of pursuit, nothing is so unpleasing as the cold caution,
the faint expectations, the scrupulous diffidence, which experience and
disappointments certainly infuse; and the old man wonders in his turn that
the world never can grow wiser, that neither precepts, nor testimonies,
can cure boys of their credulity and sufficiency; and that not one can be
convinced that snares are laid for him, till he finds himself entangled.
Thus one generation is always the scorn and wonder of the other; and the
notions of the old and young are like liquors of different gravity and
texture, which never can unite. The spirits of youth sublimed by health,
and volatilized by passion, soon leave behind them the phlegmatick
sediment of weariness and deliberation, and burst out in temerity and
enterprise. The tenderness, therefore, which nature infuses, and which
long habits of beneficence confirm, is necessary to reconcile such
opposition; and an old man must be a father to bear with patience those
follies and absurdities which he will perpetually imagine himself to find
in the schemes and expectations, the pleasures and the sorrows, of those
who have not yet been hardened by time, and chilled by frustration.
Yet it may be doubted, whether the pleasure of seeing children ripening
into strength, be not overbalanced by the pain of seeing some fall in
the blossom, and others blasted in their growth; some shaken down with
storms, some tainted with cankers, and some shrivelled in the shade; and
whether he that extends his care beyond himself, does not multiply his
anxieties more than his pleasures, and weary himself to no purpose, by
superintending what he cannot regulate.
But though age be to every order of human beings sufficiently terrible, it
is particularly to be dreaded by fine ladies, who have had no other end
or ambition than to fill up the day and the night with dress, diversions,
and flattery, and who, having made no acquaintance with knowledge, or
with business, have constantly caught all their ideas from the current
prattle of the hour, and been indebted for all their happiness to
compliments and treats. With these ladies, age begins early, and very
often lasts long; it begins when their beauty fades, when their mirth
loses its sprightliness, and their motion its ease. From that time all
which gave them joy vanishes from about them; they hear the praises
bestowed on others, which used to swell their bosoms with exultation.
They visit the seats of felicity, and endeavour to continue the habit of
being delighted. But pleasure is only received when we believe that we
give it in return. Neglect and petulance inform them that their power and
their value are past; and what then remains but a tedious and comfortless
uniformity of time, without any motion of the heart, or exercise of the
reason?
Yet, however age may discourage us by its appearance from considering
it in prospect, we shall all by degrees certainly be old; and therefore
we ought to inquire what provision can be made against that time of
distress? what happiness can be stored up against the winter of life? and
how we may pass our latter years with serenity and cheerfulness?
If it has been found by the experience of mankind, that not even the best
seasons of life are able to supply sufficient gratifications, without
anticipating uncertain felicities, it cannot surely be supposed that
old age, worn with labours, harassed with anxieties, and tortured with
diseases, should have any gladness of its own, or feel any satisfaction
from the contemplation of the present. All the comfort that can now be
expected must be recalled from the past, or borrowed from the future;
the past is very soon exhausted, all the events or actions which the
memory can afford pleasure are quickly recollected; and the future lies
beyond the grave, where it can be reached only by virtue and devotion.
Piety is the only proper and adequate relief of decaying man. He that
grows old without religious hopes, as he declines into imbecility, and
feels pains and sorrows incessantly crowding upon him, falls into a gulph
of bottomless misery, in which every reflection must plunge him deeper,
and where he finds only new gradations of anguish, and precipices of
horrour.
No. 70. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1750.
_----Argentea proles,_
_Auro deterior, fulvo pretiosior ære._
OVID, Met. i. 114.
Succeeding times a silver age behold,
Excelling brass, but more excell'd by gold.
DRYDEN.
Hesiod, in his celebrated distribution of mankind, divides them into three
orders of intellect. "The first place," says he, "belongs to him that
can by his own powers discern what is right and fit, and penetrate to the
remoter motives of action. The second is claimed by him that is willing
to hear instruction, and can perceive right and wrong when they are shewn
him by another; but he that has neither acuteness nor docility, who can
neither find the way by himself, nor will be led by others, is a wretch
without use or value."
If we survey the moral world, it will be found, that the same division
may be made of men, with regard to their virtue. There are some whose
principles are so firmly fixed, whose conviction is so constantly present
to their minds, and who have raised in themselves such ardent wishes for
the approbation of God, and the happiness with which he has promised to
reward obedience and perseverance, that they rise above all other cares
and considerations, and uniformly examine every action and desire, by
comparing it with the divine commands. There are others in a kind of
equipoise between good and ill; who are moved on the one part by riches
or pleasure, by the gratifications of passion and the delights of sense;
and, on the other, by laws of which they own the obligation, and rewards
of which they believe the reality, and whom a very small addition of
weight turns either way. The third class consists of beings immersed
in pleasure, or abandoned to passion, without any desire of higher
good, or any effort to extend their thoughts beyond immediate and gross
satisfactions.
The second class is so much the most numerous, that it may be considered
as comprising the whole body of mankind. Those of the last are not very
many, and those of the first are very few; and neither the one nor the
other fall much under the consideration of the moralists, whose precepts
are intended chiefly for those who are endeavouring to go forward up the
steeps of virtue, not for those who have already reached the summit, or
those who are resolved to stay for ever in their present situation.
To a man not versed in the living world, but accustomed to judge only by
speculative reason, it is scarcely credible that any one should be in
this state of indifference, or stand undetermined and unengaged, ready to
follow the first call to either side. It seems certain, that either a man
must believe that virtue will make him happy, and resolve therefore to
be virtuous, or think that he may be happy without virtue, and therefore
cast off all care but for his present interest. It seems impossible that
conviction should be on one side, and practice on the other; and that
he who has seen the right way should voluntarily shut his eyes, that
he may quit it with more tranquillity. Yet all these absurdities are
every hour to be found; the wisest and best men deviate from known and
acknowledged duties, by inadvertency or surprise; and most are good
no longer than while temptation is away, than while their passions are
without excitements, and their opinions are free from the counteraction
of any other motive.
Among the sentiments which almost every man changes as he advances into
years, is the expectation of uniformity of character. He that without
acquaintance with the power of desire, the cogency of distress, the
complications of affairs, or the force of partial influence, has filled
his mind with the excellence of virtue, and, having never tried his
resolution in any encounters with hope or fear, believes it able to
stand firm whatever shall oppose it, will be always clamorous against
the smallest failure, ready to exact the utmost punctualities of right,
and to consider every man that fails in any part of his duty, as without
conscience and without merit; unworthy of trust or love, of pity or
regard; as an enemy whom all should join to drive out of society, as a
pest which all should avoid, or as a weed which all should trample.
It is not but by experience, that we are taught the possibility of
retaining some virtues, and rejecting others, or of being good or bad
to a particular degree. For it is very easy to the solitary reasoner, to
prove that the same arguments by which the mind is fortified against one
crime are of equal force against all, and the consequence very naturally
follows, that he whom they fail to move on any occasion, has either never
considered them, or has by some fallacy taught himself to evade their
validity; and that, therefore, when a man is known to be guilty of one
crime, no farther evidence is needful of his depravity and corruption.
Yet such is the state of all mortal virtue, that it is always uncertain
and variable, sometimes extending to the whole compass of duty, and
sometimes shrinking into a narrow space, and fortifying only a few avenues
of the heart, while all the rest is left open to the incursions of
appetite, or given up to the dominion of wickedness. Nothing therefore
is more unjust than to judge of man by too short an acquaintance,
and too slight inspection; for it often happens, that in the loose,
and thoughtless, and dissipated, there is a secret radical worth, which
may shoot out by proper cultivation; that the spark of heaven, though
dimmed and obstructed, is yet not extinguished, but may, by the breath
of counsel and exhortation, be kindled into flame.
To imagine that every one who is not completely good is irrecoverably
abandoned, is to suppose that all are capable of the same degree
of excellence; it is indeed to exact from all that perfection which
none ever can attain. And since the purest virtue is consistent with
some vice, and the virtue of the greatest number with almost an equal
proportion of contrary qualities, let none too hastily conclude, that all
goodness is lost, though it may for a time be clouded and overwhelmed;
for most minds are the slaves of external circumstances, and conform to
any hand that undertakes to mould them, roll down any torrent of custom
in which they happen to be caught, or bend to any importunity that bears
hard against them.
It may be particularly observed of women, that they are for the most
part good or bad, as they fall among those who practise vice or virtue;
and that neither education nor reason gives them much security against
the influence of example. Whether it be that they have less courage to
stand against opposition, or that their desire of admiration makes them
sacrifice their principles to the poor pleasure of worthless praise, it
is certain, whatever be the cause, that female goodness seldom keeps its
ground against laughter, flattery, or fashion.
For this reason, every one should consider himself as entrusted, not only
with his own conduct, but with that of others; and as accountable, not
only for the duties which he neglects, or the crimes that he commits, but
for that negligence and irregularity which he may encourage or inculcate.
Every man, in whatever station, has, or endeavours to have, his followers,
admirers, and imitators, and has therefore the influence of his example
to watch with care; he ought to avoid not only crimes, but the appearance
of crimes, and not only to practise virtue, but to applaud, countenance,
and support it. For it is possible that for want of attention, we may
teach others faults from which ourselves are free, or by a cowardly
desertion of a cause which we ourselves approve, may pervert those who
fix their eyes upon us, and having no rule of their own to guide their
course, are easily misled by the aberrations of that example which they
choose for their direction.
No. 71. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1750.
_Vivere quod propero pauper, nec inutilis annis;_
_Da veniam: properat vivere nemo satis._
MART. Lib. ii. Ep. xc. 4.
True, sir, to live I haste, your pardon give,
For tell me, who makes haste enough to live?
F. LEWIS.
Many words and sentences are so frequently heard in the mouths of men,
that a superficial observer is inclined to believe, that they must
contain some primary principle, some great rule of action, which it is
proper always to have present to the attention, and by which the use of
every hour is to be adjusted. Yet, if we consider the conduct of those
sententious philosophers, it will often be found, that they repeat these
aphorisms, merely because they have somewhere heard them, because they
have nothing else to say, or because they think veneration gained by
such appearances of wisdom, but that no ideas are annexed to the words,
and that, according to the old blunder of the followers of Aristotle,
their souls are mere pipes or organs, which transmit sounds, but do not
understand them.
Of this kind is the well-known and well-attested position, that _life is
short_, which may be heard among mankind by an attentive auditor, many
times a day, but which never yet within my reach of observation left
any impression upon the mind; and perhaps, if my readers will turn their
thoughts back upon their old friends, they will find it difficult to call
a single man to remembrance, who appeared to know that life was short
till he was about to lose it.
It is observable that Horace, in his account of the characters of men, as
they are diversified by the various influence of time, remarks, that the
old man is _dilator, spe longus_, given to procrastination, and inclined
to extend his hopes to a great distance. So far are we generally from
thinking what we often say of the shortness of life, that at the time
when it is necessarily shortest, we form projects which we delay to
execute, indulge such expectations as nothing but a long train of events
can gratify, and suffer those passions to gain upon us, which are only
excusable in the prime of life.
These reflections were lately excited in my mind, by an evening's
conversation with my friend Prospero, who, at the age of fifty-five, has
bought an estate, and is now contriving to dispose and cultivate it with
uncommon elegance. His great pleasure is to walk among stately trees,
and lie musing in the heat of noon under their shade; he is therefore
maturely considering how he shall dispose his walks and his groves, and
has at last determined to send for the best plans from Italy, and forbear
planting till the next season.
Thus is life trifled away in preparations to do what never can be done,
if it be left unattempted till all the requisites which imagination can
suggest are gathered together. Where our design terminates only in our
own satisfaction, the mistake is of no great importance; for the pleasure
of expecting enjoyment is often greater than that of obtaining it, and
the completion of almost every wish is found a disappointment; but when
many others are interested in an undertaking, when any design is formed,
in which the improvement or security of mankind is involved, nothing
is more unworthy either of wisdom or benevolence, than to delay it from
time to time, or to forget how much every day that passes over us takes
away from our power, and how soon an idle purpose to do an action, sinks
into a mournful wish that it had once been done.
We are frequently importuned, by the bacchanalian writers, to lay hold on
the present hour, to catch the pleasures within our reach, and remember
that futurity is not at our command.
Το ῥοδον ακμαζει βαιον χρονον· ἡν δε παρελθης,
Ζητων ἑυρησεις ου ῥοδον, αλλα βατον.
Soon fades the rose; once past the fragrant hour,
The loiterer finds a bramble for a flow'r.
But surely these exhortations may, with equal propriety, be applied to
better purposes; it may be at least inculcated that pleasures are more
safely postponed than virtues, and that greater loss is suffered by
missing an opportunity of doing good, than an hour of giddy frolick and
noisy merriment.
When Baxter had lost a thousand pounds, which he had laid up for the
erection of a school, he used frequently to mention the misfortune as
an incitement to be charitable while God gives the power of bestowing,
and considered himself as culpable in some degree for having left a
good action in the hands of chance, and suffered his benevolence to be
defeated for want of quickness and diligence.
It is lamented by Hearne, the learned antiquary of Oxford, that this
general forgetfulness of the fragility of life, has remarkably infected
the students of monuments and records; as their employment consists first
in collecting, and afterwards in arranging or abstracting what libraries
afford them, they ought to amass no more than they can digest; but when
they have undertaken a work, they go on searching and transcribing,
call for new supplies, when they are already overburthened, and at last
leave their work unfinished. _It is_, says he, _the business of a good
antiquary, as of a good man, to have mortality always before him_.
Thus, not only in the slumber of sloth, but in the dissipation of
ill-directed industry, is the shortness of life generally forgotten. As
some men lose their hours in laziness, because they suppose, that there
is time enough for the reparation of neglect; others busy themselves
in providing that no length of life may want employment; and it often
happens, that sluggishness and activity are equally surprised by the
last summons, and perish not more differently from each other, than the
fowl that received the shot in her flight, from her that is killed upon
the bush.
Among the many improvements made by the last centuries in human knowledge,
may be numbered the exact calculations of the value of life; but whatever
may be their use in traffick, they seem very little to have advanced
morality. They have hitherto been rather applied to the acquisition of
money, than of wisdom; the computer refers none of his calculations to
his own tenure, but persists, in contempt of probability, to foretel old
age to himself, and believes that he is marked out to reach the utmost
verge of human existence, and see thousands and ten thousands fall into
the grave.
So deeply is this fallacy rooted in the heart, and so strongly guarded by
hope and fear against the approach of reason, that neither science nor
experience can shake it, and we act as if life were without end, though
we see and confess its uncertainty and shortness.
Divines have, with great strength and ardour, shewn the absurdity of
delaying reformation and repentance; a degree of folly, indeed, which
sets eternity to hazard. It is the same weakness, in proportion to the
importance of the neglect, to transfer any care, which now claims our
attention, to a future time; we subject ourselves to needless dangers
from accidents which early diligence would have obviated, or perplex
our minds by vain precautions, and make provision for the execution of
designs, of which the opportunity once missed never will return.
As he that lives longest lives but a little while, every man may be
certain that he has no time to waste. The duties of life are commensurate
to its duration, and every day brings its task, which if neglected is
doubled on the morrow. But he that has already trifled away those months
and years, in which he should have laboured, must remember that he has
now only a part of that of which the whole is little; and that since the
few moments remaining are to be considered as the last trust of heaven,
not one is to be lost.
No. 72. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 1750.
_Omnis Aristippum decuit color, et status, et res,_
_Tentantem majora, fere præsentibus æquum._
HOR. Lib. i. Ep. xvii. 23.
Yet Aristippus ev'ry dress became,
In ev'ry various change of life the same;
And though he aim'd at things of higher kind,
Yet to the present held an equal mind.
FRANCIS.