with contempt. We owe so much reverence to the wisdom of mankind, as
justly to wish, that our own opinion of our merit may be ratified by the
concurrence of other suffrages; and since guilt and infamy must have the
same effect upon intelligences unable to pierce beyond external
appearance, and influenced often rather by example than precept, we are
obliged to refute a false charge, lest we should countenance the crime
which we have never committed. To turn away from an accusation with
supercilious silence, is equally in the power of him that is hardened by
villany, and inspirited by innocence. The wall of brass which Horace
erects upon a clear conscience, may be sometimes raised by impudence or
power; and we should always wish to preserve the dignity of virtue by
adorning her with graces which wickedness cannot assume.
For this reason I have determined no longer to endure, with either
patient or sullen resignation, a reproach, which is, at least in my
opinion, unjust; but will lay my case honestly before you, that you or
your readers may at length decide it.
Whether you will be able to preserve your boasted impartiality, when you
hear that I am considered as an adversary by half the female world, you
may surely pardon me for doubting, notwithstanding the veneration to
which you may imagine yourself entitled by your age, your learning, your
abstraction, or your virtue. Beauty, Mr. Rambler, has often overpowered
the resolutions of the firm, and the reasonings of the wise, roused the
old to sensibility, and subdued the rigorous to softness.
I am one of those unhappy beings, who have been marked out as husbands
for many different women, and deliberated a hundred times on the brink
of matrimony. I have discussed all the nuptial preliminaries so often,
that I can repeat the forms in which jointures are settled, pin-money
secured, and provisions for younger children ascertained; but am at last
doomed by general consent to everlasting solitude, and excluded by an
irreversible decree from all hopes of connubial felicity. I am pointed
out by every mother, as a man whose visits cannot be admitted without
reproach; who raises hopes only to embitter disappointment, and makes
offers only to seduce girls into a waste of that part of life, in which
they might gain advantageous matches, and become mistresses and mothers.
I hope you will think, that some part of this penal severity may justly
be remitted, when I inform you, that I never yet professed love to a
woman without sincere intentions of marriage; that I have never
continued an appearance of intimacy from the hour that my inclination
changed, but to preserve her whom I was leaving from the shock of
abruptness, or the ignominy of contempt; that I always endeavoured to
give the ladies an opportunity of seeming to discard me; and that I
never forsook a mistress for larger fortune, or brighter beauty, but
because I discovered some irregularity in her conduct, or some depravity
in her mind; not because I was charmed by another, but because I was
offended by herself.
I was very early tired of that succession of amusements by which the
thoughts of most young men are dissipated, and had not long glittered in
the splendour of an ample patrimomy [Transcriber's note: sic] before I
wished for the calm of domestick happiness. Youth is naturally delighted
with sprightliness and ardour, and therefore I breathed out the sighs of
my first affection at the feet of the gay, the sparkling, the vivacious
Ferocula. I fancied to myself a perpetual source of happiness in wit
never exhausted, and spirit never depressed; looked with veneration on
her readiness of expedients, contempt of difficulty, assurance of
address, and promptitude of reply; considered her as exempt by some
prerogative of nature from the weakness and timidity of female minds;
and congratulated myself upon a companion superior to all common
troubles and embarrassments. I was, indeed, somewhat disturbed by the
unshaken perseverance with which she enforced her demands of an
unreasonable settlement; yet I should have consented to pass my life in
union with her, had not my curiosity led me to a crowd gathered in the
street, where I found Ferocula, in the presence of hundreds, disputing
for six-pence with a chairman. I saw her in so little need of
assistance, that it was no breach of the laws of chivalry to forbear
interposition, and I spared myself the shame of owning her acquaintance.
I forgot some point of ceremony at our next interview, and soon provoked
her to forbid me her presence.
My next attempt was upon a lady of great eminence for learning and
philosophy. I had frequently observed the barrenness and uniformity of
connubial conversation, and therefore thought highly of my own prudence
and discernment, when I selected from a multitude of wealthy beauties,
the deep-read Misothea, who declared herself the inexorable enemy of
ignorant pertness, and puerile levity; and scarcely condescended to make
tea, but for the linguist, the geometrician, the astronomer, or the
poet. The queen of the Amazons was only to be gained by the hero who
could conquer her in single combat; and Misothea's heart was only to
bless the scholar who could overpower her by disputation. Amidst the
fondest transports of courtship she could call for a definition of
terms, and treated every argument with contempt that could not be
reduced to regular syllogism. You may easily imagine, that I wished this
courtship at an end; but when I desired her to shorten my torments, and
fix the day of my felicity, we were led into a long conversation, in
which Misothea endeavoured to demonstrate the folly of attributing
choice and self-direction to any human being. It was not difficult to
discover the danger of committing myself for ever to the arms of one who
might at any time mistake the dictates of passion, or the calls of
appetite, for the decree of fate; or consider cuckoldom as necessary to
the general system, as a link in the everlasting chain of successive
causes. I therefore told her, that destiny had ordained us to part, and
that nothing should have torn me from her but the talons of necessity.
I then solicited the regard of the calm, the prudent, the economical
Sophronia, a lady who considered wit as dangerous, and learning as
superfluous, and thought that the woman who kept her house clean, and
her accounts exact, took receipts for every payment, and could find them
at a sudden call, inquired nicely after the condition of the tenants,
read the price of stocks once a-week, and purchased every thing at the
best market, could want no accomplishments necessary to the happiness of
a wise man. She discoursed with great solemnity on the care and
vigilance which the superintendance of a family demands; observed how
many were ruined by confidence in servants; and told me, that she never
expected honesty but from a strong chest, and that the best storekeeper
was the mistress's eye. Many such oracles of generosity she uttered, and
made every day new improvements in her schemes for the regulations of
her servants, and the distribution of her time. I was convinced that,
whatever I might suffer from Sophronia, I should escape poverty; and we
therefore proceeded to adjust the settlements according to her own rule,
fair and softly. But one morning her maid came to me in tears to intreat
my interest for a reconciliation with her mistress, who had turned her
out at night for breaking six teeth in a tortoise-shell comb; she had
attended her lady from a distant province, and having not lived long
enough to save much money, was destitute among strangers, and, though of
a good family, in danger of perishing in the streets, or of being
compelled by hunger to prostitution. I made no scruple of promising to
restore her; but upon my first application to Sophronia, was answered
with an air which called for approbation, that if she neglected her own
affairs, I might suspect her of neglecting mine; that the comb stood her
in three half crowns; that no servant should wrong her twice; and that
indeed she took the first opportunity of parting with Phillida, because,
though she was honest, her constitution was bad, and she thought her
very likely to fall sick. Of our conferrence I need not tell you the
effect; it surely may be forgiven me, if on this occasion I forgot the
decency of common forms.
From two more ladies I was disengaged by finding, that they entertained
my rivals at the same time, and determined their choice by the
liberality of our settlements. Another, I thought myself justified in
forsaking, because she gave my attorney a bribe to favour her in the
bargain; another because I could never soften her to tenderness, till
she heard that most of my family had died young; and another, because,
to increase her fortune by expectations, she represented her sister as
languishing and consumptive.
I shall in another letter give the remaining part of my history of
courtship. I presume that I should hitherto have injured the majesty of
female virtue, had I not hoped to transfer my affection to higher merit.
I am, &c.
HYMENAEUS.
No. 114. SATURDAY, APRIL 20, 1751.
--_Audi,
Nulla umquum de morte hominis cunctatio longa est._ JUV. Sat. vi. 220.
--When man's life is in debate,
The judge can ne'er too long deliberate. DRYDEN.
Power and superiority are so flattering and delightful, that, fraught
with temptation, and exposed to danger, as they are, scarcely any virtue
is so cautious, or any prudence so timorous, as to decline them. Even
those that have most reverence for the laws of right, are pleased with
shewing that not fear, but choice, regulates their behaviour; and would
be thought to comply, rather than obey. We love to overlook the
boundaries which we do not wish to pass; and, as the Roman satirist
remarks, he that has no design to take the life of another, is yet glad
to have it in his hands.
From the same principle, tending yet more to degeneracy and corruption,
proceeds the desire of investing lawful authority with terrour, and
governing by force rather than persuasion. Pride is unwilling to believe
the necessity of assigning any other reason than her own will; and would
rather maintain the most equitable claims by violence and penalties,
than descend from the dignity of command to dispute and expostulation.
It may, I think, be suspected, that this political arrogance has
sometimes found its way into legislative assemblies, and mingled with
deliberations upon property and life. A slight perusal of the laws by
which the measures of vindictive and coercive justice are established,
will discover so many disproportions between crimes and punishments,
such capricious distinctions of guilt, and such confusion of remissness
and severity, as can scarcely be believed to have been produced by
publick wisdom, sincerely and calmly studious of publick happiness.
The learned, the judicious, the pious Boerhaave relates, that he never
saw a criminal dragged to execution without asking himself, "Who knows
whether this man is not less culpable than me?" On the days when the
prisons of this city are emptied into the grave, let every spectator of
the dreadful procession put the same question to his own heart. Few
among those that crowd in thousands to the legal massacre, and look with
carelessness, perhaps with triumph, on the utmost exacerbations of human
misery, would then be able to return without horrour and dejection. For,
who can congratulate himself upon a life passed without some act more
mischievous to the peace or prosperity of others, than the theft of a
piece of money?
It has been always the practice, when any particular species of robbery
becomes prevalent and common, to endeavour its suppression by capital
denunciations. Thus one generation of malefactors is commonly cut off,
and their successors are frighted into new expedients; the art of
thievery is augmented with greater variety of fraud, and subtilized to
higher degrees of dexterity, and more occult methods of conveyance. The
law then renews the pursuit in the heat of anger, and overtakes the
offender again with death. By this practice capital inflictions are
multiplied, and crimes, very different in their degrees of enormity, are
equally subjected to the severest punishment that man has the power of
exercising upon man.
The lawgiver is undoubtedly allowed to estimate the malignity of an
offence, not merely by the loss or pain which single acts may produce,
but by the general alarm and anxiety arising from the fear of mischief,
and insecurity of possession: he therefore exercises the right which
societies are supposed to have over the lives of those that compose
them, not simply to punish a transgression, but to maintain order, and
preserve quiet; he enforces those laws with severity, that are most in
danger of violation, as the commander of a garrison doubles the guard on
that side which is threatened by the enemy.
This method has been long tried, but tried with so little success, that
rapine and violence are hourly increasing, yet few seem willing to
despair of its efficacy; and of those who employ their speculations upon
the present corruption of the people, some propose the introduction of
more horrid, lingering, and terrifick punishments; some are inclined to
accelerate the executions; some to discourage pardons; and all seem to
think that lenity has given confidence to wickedness, and that we can
only be rescued from the talons of robbery by inflexible rigour, and
sanguinary justice.
Yet, since the right of setting an uncertain and arbitrary value upon
life has been disputed, and since experience of past times gives us
little reason to hope that any reformation will be effected by a
periodical havock of our fellow-beings, perhaps it will not be useless
to consider what consequences might arise from relaxations of the law,
and a more rational and equitable adaptation of penalties to offences.
Death is, as one of the ancients observes, [Greek: to ton phoberon
phoberotaton], _of dreadful things the most dreadful_: an evil, beyond
which nothing can be threatened by sublunary power, or feared from human
enmity or vengeance. This terrour should, therefore, be reserved as the
last resort of authority, as the strongest and most operative of
prohibitory sanctions, and placed before the treasure of life, to guard
from invasion what cannot be restored. To equal robbery with murder is
to reduce murder to robbery; to confound in common minds the gradations
of iniquity, and incite the commission of a greater crime to prevent the
detection of a less. If only murder were punished with death, very few
robbers would stain their hands in blood; but when, by the last act of
cruelty, no new danger is incurred, and greater security may be
obtained, upon what principle shall we bid them forbear?
It may be urged, that the sentence is often mitigated to simple robbery;
but surely this is to confess that our laws are unreasonable in our own
opinion; and, indeed, it may be observed, that all but murderers have,
at their last hour, the common sensations of mankind pleading in their
favour.
From this conviction of the inequality of the punishment to the offence,
proceeds the frequent solicitation of pardons. They who would rejoice at
the correction of a thief, are yet shocked at the thought of destroying
him. His crime shrinks to nothing, compared with his misery; and
severity defeats itself by exciting pity.
The gibbet, indeed, certainly disables those who die upon it from
infesting the community; but their death seems not to contribute more to
the reformation of their associates, than any other method of
separation. A thief seldom passes much of his time in recollection or
anticipation, but from robbery hastens to riot, and from riot to
robbery; nor, when the grave closes on his companion, has any other care
than to find another.
The frequency of capital punishments, therefore, rarely hinders the
commission of a crime, but naturally and commonly prevents its
detection, and is, if we proceed only upon prudential principles,
chiefly for that reason to be avoided. Whatever may be urged by casuists
or politicians, the greater part of mankind, as they can never think
that to pick the pocket and to pierce the heart is equally criminal,
will scarcely believe that two malefactors so different in guilt can be
justly doomed to the same punishment: nor is the necessity of submitting
the conscience to human laws so plainly evinced, so clearly stated, or
so generally allowed, but that the pious, the tender, and the just, will
always scruple to concur with the community in an act which their
private judgment cannot approve.
He who knows not how often rigorous laws produce total impunity, and how
many crimes are concealed and forgotten for fear of hurrying the
offender to that state in which there is no repentance, has conversed
very little with mankind. And whatever epithets of reproach or contempt
this compassion may incur from those who confound cruelty with firmness,
I know not whether any wise man would wish it less powerful, or less
extensive.
If those whom the wisdom of our laws has condemned to die, had been
detected in their rudiments of robbery, they might, by proper discipline
and useful labour, have been disentangled from their habits, they might
have escaped all the temptation to subsequent crimes, and passed their
days in reparation and penitence; and detected they might all have been,
had the prosecutors been certain that their lives would have been
spared. I believe, every thief will confess, that he has been more than
once seized and dismissed; and that he has sometimes ventured upon
capital crimes, because he knew, that those whom he injured would rather
connive at his escape, than cloud their minds with the horrours of his
death.
All laws against wickedness are ineffectual, unless some will inform,
and some will prosecute; but till we mitigate the penalties for mere
violations of property, information will always be hated, and
prosecution dreaded. The heart of a good man cannot but recoil at the
thought of punishing a slight injury with death; especially when he
remembers that the thief might have procured safety by another crime,
from which he was restrained only by his remaining virtue.
The obligations to assist the exercise of publick justice are indeed
strong; but they will certainly be overpowered by tenderness for life.
What is punished with severity contrary to our ideas of adequate
retribution, will be seldom discovered; and multitudes will be suffered
to advance from crime to crime, till they deserve death, because, if
they had been sooner prosecuted, they would have suffered death before
they deserved it.
This scheme of invigorating the laws by relaxation, and extirpating
wickedness by lenity, is so remote from common practice, that I might
reasonably fear to expose it to the publick, could it be supported only
by my own observations: I shall, therefore, by ascribing it to its
author, Sir Thomas More, endeavour to procure it that attention, which I
wish always paid to prudence, to justice, and to mercy.[c]
No. 115. TUESDAY, APRIL 23, 1751.
_Quaedam parvu quidem; sed non toleranda maritis_. JUV. Sat vi. 184.
Some faults, though small, intolerable grow. DRYDEN.
TO THE RAMBLER.
SIR,
I sit down, in pursuance of my late engagement, to recount the remaining
part of the adventures that befel me in my long quest of conjugal
felicity, which, though I have not yet been so happy as to obtain it, I
have at least endeavoured to deserve by unwearied diligence, without
suffering from repeated disappointments any abatement of my hope, or
repression of my activity.
You must have observed in the world a species of mortals who employ
themselves in promoting matrimony, and without any visible motive of
interest or vanity, without any discoverable impulse of malice or
benevolence, without any reason, but that they want objects of attention
and topicks of conversation, are incessantly busy in procuring wives and
husbands. They fill the ears of every single man and woman with some
convenient match; and when they are informed of your age and fortune,
offer a partner for life with the same readiness, and the same
indifference, as a salesman, when he has taken measure by his eye, fits
his customer with a coat.
It might be expected that they should soon be discouraged from this
officious interposition by resentment or contempt; and that every man
should determine the choice on which so much of his happiness must
depend, by his own judgment and observation: yet it happens, that as
these proposals are generally made with a shew of kindness, they seldom
provoke anger, but are at worst heard with patience, and forgotten. They
influence weak minds to approbation; for many are sure to find in a new
acquaintance, whatever qualities report has taught them to expect; and
in more powerful and active understandings they excite curiosity, and
sometimes, by a lucky chance, bring persons of similar tempers within
the attraction of each other.
I was known to possess a fortune, and to want a wife; and therefore was
frequently attended by these hymeneal solicitors, with whose importunity
I was sometimes diverted, and sometimes perplexed; for they contended
for me as vultures for a carcase; each employing all his eloquence, and
all his artifices, to enforce and promote his own scheme, from the
success of which he was to receive no other advantage than the pleasure
of defeating others equally eager, and equally industrious.
An invitation to sup with one of those busy friends, made me, by a
concerted chance, acquainted with Camilla, by whom it was expected that
I should be suddenly and irresistibly enslaved. The lady, whom the same
kindness had brought without her own concurrence into the lists of love,
seemed to think me at least worthy of the honour of captivity; and
exerted the power, both of her eyes and wit, with so much art and
spirit, that though I had been too often deceived by appearances to
devote myself irrevocably at the first interview, yet I could not
suppress some raptures of admiration, and flutters of desire. I was
easily persuaded to make nearer approaches; but soon discovered, that an
union with Camilla was not much to be wished. Camilla professed a
boundless contempt for the folly, levity, ignorance, and impertinence of
her own sex; and very frequently expressed her wonder that men of
learning or experience could submit to trifle away life with beings
incapable of solid thought. In mixed companies, she always associated
with the men, and declared her satisfaction when the ladies retired. If
any short excursion into the country was proposed, she commonly insisted
upon the exclusion of women from the party; because, where they were
admitted, the time was wasted in frothy compliments, weak indulgences,
and idle ceremonies. To shew the greatness of her mind, she avoided all
compliance with the fashion; and to boast the profundity of her
knowledge, mistook the various textures of silk, confounded tabbies with
damasks, and sent for ribands by wrong names. She despised the commerce
of stated visits, a farce of empty form without instruction; and
congratulated herself, that she never learned to write message cards.
She often applauded the noble sentiment of Plato, who rejoiced that he
was born a man rather than a woman; proclaimed her approbation of
Swift's opinion, that women are only a higher species of monkeys; and
confessed, that when she considered the behaviour, or heard the
conversation, of her sex, she could not but forgive the Turks for
suspecting them to want souls.
It was the joy and pride of Camilla to have provoked, by this insolence,
all the rage of hatred, and all the persecutions of calumny; nor was she
ever more elevated with her own superiority, than when she talked of
female anger, and female cunning. Well, says she, has nature provided
that such virulence should be disabled by folly, and such cruelty be
restrained by impotence.