[Footnote 49: Anna Williams, of whom an account is given in the Life of Dr.
Johnson, prefixed to this edition.]
No. 76. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1750.
_----Silvis, ubi passim_
_Palantes error certo de tramite pellit,_
_Ille sinistrorsum, hic dextrorsum abit; unus utrique_
_Error, sed variis illudit partibus._
HOR. Lib. ii. Sat iii. 48.
While mazy error draws mankind astray
From truth's sure path, each takes his devious way;
One to the right, one to the left recedes,
Alike deluded, as each fancy leads.
ELPHINSTON.
It is easy for every man, whatever be his character with others, to
find reasons for esteeming himself, and therefore censure, contempt,
or conviction of crimes, seldom deprive him of his own favour. Those,
indeed, who can see only external facts, may look upon him with
abhorrence? but when he calls himself to his own tribunal, he finds every
fault, if not absolutely effaced, yet so much palliated by the goodness
of his intention, and the cogency of the motive, that very little
guilt or turpitude remains; and when he takes a survey of the whole
complication of his character, he discovers so many latent excellencies,
so many virtues that want but an opportunity to exert themselves in act,
and so many kind wishes for universal happiness, that he looks on himself
as suffering unjustly under the infamy of single failings, while the
general temper of his mind is unknown or unregarded.
It is natural to mean well, when only abstracted ideas of virtue are
proposed to the mind, and no particular passion turns us aside from
rectitude; and so willing is every man to flatter himself, that the
difference between approving laws, and obeying them, is frequently
forgotten; he that acknowledges the obligations of morality, and pleases
his vanity with enforcing them to others, concludes himself zealous in
the cause of virtue, though he has no longer any regard to her precepts,
than they conform to his own desires; and counts himself among her warmest
lovers, because he praises her beauty, though every rival steals away
his heart.
There are, however, great numbers who have little recourse to the
refinements of speculation, but who yet live at peace with themselves,
by means which require less understanding, or less attention. When
their hearts are burthened with the consciousness of a crime, instead
of seeking for some remedy within themselves, they look round upon the
rest of mankind, to find others tainted with the same guilt: they please
themselves with observing, that they have numbers on their side; and
that, though they are hunted out from the society of good men, they are
not likely to be condemned to solitude.
It may be observed, perhaps without exception, that none are so
industrious to detect wickedness, or so ready to impute it, as they
whose crimes are apparent and confessed. They envy an unblemished
reputation, and what they envy they are busy to destroy; they are
unwilling to suppose themselves meaner and more corrupt than others, and
therefore willingly pull down from their elevations those with whom they
cannot rise to an equality. No man yet was ever wicked without secret
discontent, and according to the different degrees of remaining virtue,
or unextinguished reason, he either endeavours to reform himself, or
corrupt others; either to regain the station which he has quitted, or
prevail on others to imitate his defection.
It has always been considered as an alleviation of misery not to suffer
alone, even when union and society can contribute nothing to resistance
or escape; some comfort of the same kind seems to incite wickedness
to seek associates, though indeed another reason may be given, for as
guilt is propagated the power of reproach is diminished, and among numbers
equally detestable every individual may be sheltered from shame, though
not from conscience.
Another lenitive by which the throbs of the breast are assuaged, is, the
contemplation, not of the same, but of different crimes. He that cannot
justify himself by his resemblance to others, is ready to try some other
expedient, and to inquire what will rise to his advantage from opposition
and dissimilitude. He easily finds some faults in every human being,
which he weighs against his own, and easily makes them preponderate
while he keeps the balance in his own hand, and throws in or takes out
at his pleasure circumstances that make them heavier or lighter. He then
triumphs in his comparative purity, and sets himself at ease, not because
he can refute the charges advanced against him, but because he can
censure his accusers with equal justice, and no longer fears the arrows
of reproach, when he has stored his magazine of malice with weapons
equally sharp and equally envenomed.
This practice, though never just, is yet specious and artful, when the
censure is directed against deviations to the contrary extreme. The man
who is branded with cowardice, may, with some appearance of propriety,
turn all his force of argument against a stupid contempt of life, and
rash precipitation into unnecessary danger. Every recession from temerity
is an approach towards cowardice, and though it be confessed that
bravery, like other virtues, stands between faults on either hand, yet
the place of the middle point may always be disputed; he may therefore
often impose upon careless understandings, by turning the attention
wholly from himself, and keeping it fixed invariably on the opposite
fault; and by shewing how many evils are avoided by his behaviour, he
may conceal for a time those which are incurred.
But vice has not always opportunities or address for such artful
subterfuges; men often extenuate their own guilt, only by vague and
general charges upon others, or endeavour to gain rest to themselves,
by pointing some other prey to the pursuit of censure.
Every whisper of infamy is industriously circulated, every hint of
suspicion eagerly improved, and every failure of conduct joyfully
published, by those whose interest it is, that the eye and voice of the
publick should be employed on any rather than on themselves.
All these artifices, and a thousand others equally vain and equally
despicable, are incited by that conviction of the deformity of
wickedness, from which none can set himself free, and by an absurd
desire to separate the cause from the effects, and to enjoy the profit of
crimes without suffering the shame. Men are willing to try all methods of
reconciling guilt and quiet, and when their understandings are stubborn
and uncomplying, raise their passions against them, and hope to overpower
their own knowledge.
It is generally not so much the desire of men, sunk into depravity, to
deceive the world as themselves, for when no particular circumstances make
them dependant on others, infamy disturbs them little, but as it revives
their remorse, and is echoed to them from their own hearts. The sentence
most dreaded is that of reason and conscience, which they would engage
on their side at any price but the labours of duty, and the sorrows of
repentance. For this purpose every seducement and fallacy is sought, the
hopes still rest upon some new experiment till life is at an end; and
the last hour steals on unperceived, while the faculties are engaged in
resisting reason, and repressing the sense of the Divine disapprobation.
No. 77. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1750.
_Os dignum æterno nitidum quod fulgeat auro,_
_Si mallet laudare Deum, cui sordida monstra_
_Prætulit, et liquidam temeravit crimine vocem._
PRUDENT.
A golden statue such a wit might claim,
Had God and virtue rais'd the noble flame;
But ah! how lewd a subject has he sung,
What vile obscenity profanes his tongue.
F. LEWIS.
Among those, whose hopes of distinction, or riches, arise from an opinion
of their intellectual attainments, it has been, from age to age, an
established custom to complain of the ingratitude of mankind to their
instructors, and the discouragement which men of genius and study suffer
from avarice and ignorance, from the prevalence of false taste, and the
encroachment of barbarity.
Men are most powerfully affected by those evils which themselves feel, or
which appear before their own eyes; and as there has never been a time of
such general felicity, but that many have failed to obtain the rewards to
which they had, in their own judgment, a just claim, some offended writer
has always declaimed, in the rage of disappointment, against his age or
nation; nor is there one who has not fallen upon times more unfavourable
to learning than any former century, or who does not wish, that he had
been reserved in the insensibility of non-existence to some happier
hour, when literary merit shall no longer be despised, and the gifts and
caresses of mankind shall recompense the toils of study, and add lustre
to the charms of wit.
Many of these clamours are undoubtedly to be considered only as the bursts
of pride never to be satisfied, as the prattle of affectation, mimicking
distresses unfelt, or as the common places of vanity solicitous for
splendour of sentences, and acuteness of remark. Yet it cannot be denied
that frequent discontent must proceed from frequent hardships, and though
it is evident, that not more than one age or people can deserve the
censure of being more averse from learning than any other, yet at all
times knowledge must have encountered impediments, and wit been mortified
with contempt, or harassed with persecution.
It is not necessary, however, to join immediately in the outcry, or to
condemn mankind as pleased with ignorance, or always envious of superior
abilities. The miseries of the learned have been related by themselves,
and since they have not been found exempt from that partiality with which
men look upon their own actions and sufferings, we may conclude that
they have not forgotten to deck their cause with the brightest ornaments,
and strongest colours. The logician collected all his subtilties when
they were to be employed in his own defence; and the master of rhetorick
exerted against his adversary all the arts by which hatred is embittered,
and indignation inflamed.
To believe no man in his own cause, is the standing and perpetual rule
of distributive justice. Since therefore, in the controversy between the
learned and their enemies, we have only the pleas of one party, of the
party more able to delude our understandings, and engage our passions,
we must determine our opinion by facts uncontested, and evidences on each
side allowed to be genuine.
By this procedure, I know not whether the students will find their cause
promoted, or the compassion which they expect much increased. Let their
conduct be impartially surveyed; let them be allowed no longer to direct
attention at their pleasure, by expatiating on their own deserts; let
neither the dignity of knowledge overawe the judgment, nor the graces of
elegance seduce it. It will then, perhaps, be found, that they were not
able to produce claims to kinder treatment, but provoked the calamities
which they suffered, and seldom wanted friends, but when they wanted
virtue.
That few men, celebrated for theoretick wisdom, live with conformity to
their precepts, must be readily confessed; and we cannot wonder that the
indignation of mankind rises with great vehemence against those, who
neglect the duties which they appear to know with so strong conviction the
necessity of performing. Yet since no man has power of acting equal to
that of thinking, I know not whether the speculatist may not sometimes
incur censures too severe, and by those who form ideas of his life from
their knowledge of his books, be considered as worse than others, only
because he was expected to be better.
He, by whose writings the heart is rectified, the appetites counteracted,
and the passions repressed, may be considered as not unprofitable to the
great republick of humanity, even though his behaviour should not always
exemplify his rules. His instructions may diffuse their influence to
regions, in which it will not be inquired, whether the author be _albus
an ater_, good or bad; to times, when all his faults and all his follies
shall be lost in forgetfulness, among things of no concern or importance
to the world; and he may kindle in thousands and ten thousands that flame
which burnt but dimly in himself, through the fumes of passion, or the
damps of cowardice. The vicious moralist may be considered as a taper,
by which we are lighted through the labyrinth of complicated passions:
he extends his radiance further than his heat, and guides all that are
within view, but burns only those who make too near approaches.
Yet since good or harm must be received for the most part from those to
whom we are familiarly known, he whose vices overpower his virtues, in
the compass to which his vices can extend, has no reason to complain that
he meets not with affection or veneration, when those with whom he passes
his life are more corrupted by his practice than enlightened by his
ideas. Admiration begins where acquaintance ceases; and his favourers are
distant, but his enemies at hand.
Yet many have dared to boast of neglected merit, and to challenge their
age for cruelty and folly, of whom it cannot be alledged that they have
endeavoured to increase the wisdom or virtue of their readers. They
have been at once profligate in their lives, and licentious in their
compositions; have not only forsaken the paths of virtue, but attempted
to lure others after them. They have smoothed the road of perdition,
covered with flowers the thorns of guilt, and taught temptation sweeter
notes, softer blandishments, and stronger allurements.
It has been apparently the settled purpose of some writers, whose powers
and acquisitions place them high in the rank of literature, to set
fashion on the side of wickedness; to recommend debauchery and lewdness,
by associating them with qualities most likely to dazzle the discernment,
and attract the affections; and to shew innocence and goodness with such
attendant weaknesses as necessarily expose them to contempt and derision.
Such naturally found intimates among the corrupt, the thoughtless, and the
intemperate; passed their lives amidst the levities of sportive idleness,
or the warm professions of drunken friendship; and fed their hopes with
the promises of wretches, whom their precepts had taught to scoff at
truth. But when fools had laughed away their sprightliness, and the
languors of excess could no longer be relieved, they saw their protectors
hourly drop away, and wondered and stormed to find themselves abandoned.
Whether their companions persisted in wickedness, or returned to virtue,
they were left equally without assistance; for debauchery is selfish and
negligent, and from virtue the virtuous only can expect regard.
It is said by Florus of Catiline, who died in the midst of slaughtered
enemies, that _his death had been illustrious, had it been suffered
for his country_. Of the wits who have languished away life under the
pressures of poverty, or in the restlessness of suspense, caressed and
rejected, flattered and despised, as they were of more or less use to
those who styled themselves their patrons, it might be observed, that
their miseries would enforce compassion, had they been brought upon them
by honesty and religion.
The wickedness of a loose or profane author is more atrocious than that of
the giddy libertine, or drunken ravisher, not only because it extends its
effects wider, as a pestilence that taints the air is more destructive
than poison infused in a draught, but because it is committed with cool
deliberation. By the instantaneous violence of desire, a good man may
sometimes be surprised before reflection can come to his rescue; when
the appetites have strengthened their influence by habit, they are not
easily resisted or suppressed; but for the frigid villainy of studious
lewdness, for the calm malignity of laboured impiety, what apology can
be invented? What punishment can be adequate to the crime of him who
retires to solitudes for the refinement of debauchery; who tortures his
fancy, and ransacks his memory, only that he may leave the world less
virtuous than he found it; that he may intercept the hopes of the rising
generation; and spread snares for the soul with more dexterity?
What were their motives, or what their excuses, is below the dignity of
reason to examine. If having extinguished in themselves the distinction
of right and wrong, they were insensible of the mischief which they
promoted, they deserved to be hunted down by the general compact, as no
longer partaking of social nature; if influenced by the corruption of
patrons, or readers, they sacrificed their own convictions to vanity or
interest, they were to be abhorred with more acrimony than he that murders
for pay; since they committed greater crimes without greater temptations.
_Of him, to whom much is given, much shall be required._ Those, whom God
has favoured with superior faculties, and made eminent for quickness
of intuition, and accuracy of distinctions, will certainly be regarded
as culpable in his eye, for defects and deviations which, in souls
less enlightened, may be guiltless. But, surely, none can think without
horrour on that man's condition, who has been more wicked in proportion
as he had more means of excelling in virtue, and used the light imparted
from heaven only to embellish folly, and shed lustre upon crimes.
No. 78. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1750.
_----Mors sola fatetur,_
_Quantula sint hominum corpuscula._
JUV. Sat. x. 172.
Death only this mysterious truth unfolds,
The mighty soul how small a body holds.
DRYDEN.
Corporal sensation is known to depend so much upon novelty, that custom
takes away from many things their power of giving pleasure or pain. Thus
a new dress becomes easy by wearing it, and the palate is reconciled
by degrees to dishes which at first disgusted it. That by long habit
of carrying a burden, we lose, in great part, our sensibility of its
weight, any man may be convinced by putting on for an hour the armour
of our ancestors; for he will scarcely believe that men would have had
much inclination to marches and battles, encumbered and oppressed, as he
will find himself, with the ancient panoply. Yet the heroes that overran
regions, and stormed towns in iron accoutrements, he knows not to have
been bigger, and has no reason to imagine them stronger, than the present
race of men; he therefore must conclude, that their peculiar powers were
conferred only by peculiar habits, and that their familiarity with the
dress of war enabled them to move in it with ease, vigour, and agility.
Yet it seems to be the condition of our present state, that pain should
be more fixed and permanent than pleasure. Uneasiness gives way by slow
degrees, and is long before it quits its possession of the sensory; but
all our gratifications are volatile, vagrant, and easily dissipated.
The fragrance of the jessamine bower is lost after the enjoyment of a
few moments, and the Indian wanders among his native spices without any
sense of their exhalations. It is, indeed, not necessary to shew by many
instances what all mankind confess, by an incessant call for variety, and
restless pursuit of enjoyments, which they value only because unpossessed.
Something similar, or analogous, may be observed in effects produced
immediately upon the mind; nothing can strongly strike or affect us,
but what is rare or sudden. The most important events, when they become
familiar, are no longer considered with wonder or solicitude, and that
which at first filled up our whole attention, and left no place for
any other thought, is soon thrust aside into some remote repository
of the mind, and lies among other lumber of the memory, overlooked and
neglected. Thus far the mind resembles the body, but here the similitude
is at an end.
The manner in which external force acts upon the body is very little
subject to the regulation of the will; no man can at pleasure obtund or
invigorate his senses, prolong the agency of any impulse, or continue
the presence of any image traced upon the eye, or any sound infused
into the ear. But our ideas are more subjected to choice; we can call
them before us, and command their stay, we can facilitate and promote
their recurrence, we can either repress their intrusion, or hasten their
retreat. It is therefore the business of wisdom and virtue, to select
among numberless objects striving for our notice, such as may enable us
to exalt our reason, extend our views, and secure our happiness. But this
choice is to be made with very little regard to rareness or frequency;
for nothing is valuable merely because it is either rare or common, but
because it is adapted to some useful purpose, and enables us to supply
some deficiency of our nature.
Milton has judiciously represented the father of mankind, as seized with
horrour and astonishment at the sight of death, exhibited to him on the
mount of vision. For surely, nothing can so much disturb the passions,
or perplex the intellects of man, as the disruption of his union with
visible nature; a separation from all that has hitherto delighted or
engaged him; a change not only of the place, but the manner of his being;
an entrance into a state not simply which he knows not, but which perhaps
he has not faculties to know; an immediate and perceptible communication
with the supreme Being, and, what is above all distressful and alarming,
the final sentence, and unalterable allotment.
Yet we to whom the shortness of life has given frequent occasions of
contemplating mortality, can, without emotion, see generations of men
pass away, and are at leisure to establish modes of sorrow, and adjust
the ceremonial of death. We can look upon funeral pomp as a common
spectacle in which we have no concern, and turn away from it to trifles
and amusements, without dejection of look, or inquietude of heart.
It is, indeed, apparent, from the constitution of the world, that there
must be a time for other thoughts; and a perpetual meditation upon
the last hour, however it may become the solitude of a monastery, is
inconsistent with many duties of common life. But surely the remembrance
of death ought to predominate in our minds, as an habitual and settled
principle, always operating, though not always perceived; and our
attention should seldom wander so far from our own condition, as not to
be recalled and fixed by sight of an event, which must soon, we know not
how soon, happen likewise to ourselves, and of which, though we cannot
appoint the time, we may secure the consequence.
Every instance of death may justly awaken our fears and quicken our
vigilance; but its frequency so much weakens its effect, that we are
seldom alarmed unless some close connexion is broken, some scheme
frustrated, or some hope defeated. Many therefore seem to pass on from
youth to decrepitude without any reflection on the end of life, because
they are wholly involved within themselves, and look on others only as
inhabitants of the common earth, without any expectation of receiving
good, or intention of bestowing it.
Events, of which we confess the importance, excite little sensibility,
unless they affect us more nearly than as sharers in the common interest
of mankind; that desire which every man feels of being remembered and
lamented, is often mortified when we remark how little concern is caused
by the eternal departure even of those who have passed their lives with
publick honours, and been distinguished by extraordinary performances.
It is not possible to be regarded with tenderness except by a few. That
merit which gives greatness and renown, diffuses its influence to a
wide compass, but acts weakly on every single breast; it is placed at a
distance from common spectators, and shines like one of the remote stars,
of which the light reaches us, but not the heat. The wit, the hero,
the philosopher, whom their tempers or their fortunes have hindered
from intimate relations, die, without any other effect than that of
adding a new topic to the conversation of the day. They impress none
with any fresh conviction of the fragility of our nature, because none
had any particular interest in their lives, or was united to them by a
reciprocation of benefits and endearments.
Thus it often happens, that those who in their lives were applauded and
admired, are laid at last in the ground without the common honour of a
stone; because by those excellencies with which many were delighted, none
had been obliged, and though they had many to celebrate, they had none to
love them.
Custom so far regulates the sentiments, at least of common minds, that
I believe men may be generally observed to grow less tender as they
advance in age. He, who, when life was new, melted at the loss of every
companion, can look in time, without concern, upon the grave into which
his last friend was thrown, and into which himself is ready to fall;
not that he is more willing to die than formerly, but that he is more
familiar to the death of others, and therefore is not alarmed so far
as to consider how much nearer he approaches to his end. But this is to
submit tamely to the tyranny of accident, and to suffer our reason to lie
useless. Every funeral may justly be considered as a summons to prepare
for that state, into which it shews us that we must some time enter; and
the summons is more loud and piercing, as the event of which it warns us
is at less distance. To neglect at any time preparation for death, is to
sleep on our post at a siege; but to omit it in old age, is to sleep at
an attack.
It has always appeared to me one of the most striking passages in the
Visions of Quevedo, which stigmatises those as fools who complain that
they failed of happiness by sudden death. "How," says he, "can death be
sudden to a being who always knew that he must die, and that the time of
his death was uncertain?"
Since business and gaiety are always drawing our attention away from a
future state, some admonition is frequently necessary to recall it to our
minds; and what can more properly renew the impression than the examples
of mortality which every day supplies? The great incentive to virtue is
the reflection that we must die; it will therefore be useful to accustom
ourselves, whenever we see a funeral, to consider how soon we may be
added to the number of those whose probation is past, and whose happiness
or misery shall endure for ever.[50]
[Footnote 50:
Death in itself is nothing; but we fear
To be we know not what, we know not where.
Aurung-Zebe, act. iv. sc. 1.