added to the task of dedication, the work on which all the power of
modern wit has been exhausted. How few of these initial panegyricks had
appeared, if the author had been obliged first to find a man of virtue,
then to distinguish the distinct species and degree of his desert, and
at last to pay him only the honours which he might justly claim. It is
much easier to learn the name of the last man whom chance has exalted to
wealth and power, to obtain by the intervention of some of his
domesticks the privilege of addressing him, or, in confidence of the
general acceptance of flattery, to venture on an address without any
previous solicitation; and after having heaped upon him all the virtues
to which philosophy had assigned a name, inform him how much more might
be truly said, did not the fear of giving pain to his modesty repress
the raptures of wonder and the zeal of veneration.
Nothing has so much degraded literature from its natural rank, as the
practice of indecent and promiscuous dedication; for what credit can he
expect who professes himself the hireling of vanity, however profligate,
and without shame or scruple, celebrates the worthless, dignifies the
mean, and gives to the corrupt, licentious, and oppressive, the
ornaments which ought only to add grace to truth, and loveliness to
innocence? Every other kind of adulation, however shameful, however
mischievous, is less detestable than the crime of counterfeiting
characters, and fixing the stamp of literary sanction upon the dross and
refuse of the world.
Yet I would not overwhelm the authors with the whole load of infamy, of
which part, perhaps the greater part, ought to fall upon their patrons.
If he that hires a bravo, partakes the guilt of murder, why should he
who bribes a flatterer, hope to be exempted from the shame of falsehood?
The unhappy dedicator is seldom without some motives which obstruct,
though not destroy, the liberty of choice; he is oppressed by miseries
which he hopes to relieve, or inflamed by ambition which he expects to
gratify. But the patron has no incitements equally violent; he can
receive only a short gratification, with which nothing but stupidity
could dispose him to be pleased. The real satisfaction which praise can
afford is by repeating aloud the whispers of conscience, and by shewing
us that we have not endeavoured to deserve well in vain. Every other
encomium is, to an intelligent mind, satire and reproach; the
celebration of those virtues which we feel ourselves to want, can only
impress a quicker sense of our own defects, and shew that we have not
yet satisfied the expectations of the world, by forcing us to observe
how much fiction must contribute to the completion of our character.
Yet sometimes the patron may claim indulgence; for it does not always
happen, that the encomiast has been much encouraged to his attempt. Many
a hapless author, when his book, and perhaps his dedication, was ready
for the press, has waited long before any one would pay the price of
prostitution, or consent to hear the praises destined to insure his name
against the casualties of time; and many a complaint has been vented
against the decline of learning, and neglect of genius, when either
parsimonious prudence has declined expense, or honest indignation
rejected falsehood. But if at last, after long inquiry and innumerable
disappointments, he find a lord willing to hear of his own eloquence and
taste, a statesman desirous of knowing how a friendly historian will
represent his conduct, or a lady delighted to leave to the world some
memorial of her wit and beauty, such weakness cannot be censured as an
instance of enormous depravity. The wisest man may, by a diligent
solicitor, be surprised in the hour of weakness, and persuaded to solace
vexation, or invigorate hope, with the musick of flattery.
To censure all dedications as adulatory and servile, would discover
rather envy than justice. Praise is the tribute of merit, and he that
has incontestably distinguished himself by any publick performance, has
a right to all the honours which the publick can bestow. To men thus
raised above the rest of the community, there is no need that the book
or its author should have any particular relation; that the patron is
known to deserve respect, is sufficient to vindicate him that pays it.
To the same regard from particular persons, private virtue and less
conspicuous excellence may be sometimes entitled. An author may with
great propriety inscribe his work to him by whose encouragement it was
undertaken, or by whose liberality he has been enabled to prosecute it,
and he may justly rejoice in his own fortitude that dares to rescue
merit from obscurity.
_Acribus exemplis videor te claudere: misce
Ergo aliquid nostris de moribus.--_
Thus much I will indulge thee for thy ease,
And mingle something of our times to please. Dryden, jun.
I know not whether greater relaxation may not he indulged, and whether
hope as well as gratitude may not unblamably produce a dedication; but
let the writer who pours out his praises only to propitiate power, or
attract the attention of greatness, be cautious lest his desire betray
him to exuberant eulogies. We are naturally more apt to please ourselves
with the future than the past, and while we luxuriate in expectation,
may be easily persuaded to purchase what we yet rate, only by
imagination, at a higher price than experience will warrant.
But no private views of personal regard can discharge any man from his
general obligations to virtue and to truth. It may happen in the various
combinations of life, that a good man may receive favours from one, who,
notwithstanding his accidental beneficence, cannot be justly proposed to
the imitation of others, and whom therefore he must find some other way
of rewarding than by public celebrations. Self-love has indeed many
powers of seducement; but it surely ought not to exalt any individual to
equality with the collective body of mankind, or persuade him that a
benefit conferred on him is equivalent to every other virtue. Yet many,
upon false principles of gratitude, have ventured to extol wretches,
whom all but their dependents numbered among the reproaches of the
species, and whom they would likewise have beheld with the same scorn,
had they not been hired to dishonest approbation.
To encourage merit with praise is the great business of literature; but
praise must lose its influence, by unjust or negligent distribution; and
he that impairs its value may be charged with misapplication of the
power that genius puts into his hands, and with squandering on guilt the
recompense of virtue.
No. 137. TUESDAY, JULY 9, 1751.
_Dum vitant stulti vitia, in contraria currunt_.
Hor. Lib. i. Sat. ii. 24.
--Whilst fools one vice condemn,
They run into the opposite extreme. CREECH.
That wonder is the effect of ignorance, has been often observed. The
awful stillness of attention, with which the mind is overspread at the
first view of an unexpected effect, ceases when we have leisure to
disentangle complications and investigate causes. Wonder is a pause of
reason, a sudden cessation of the mental progress, which lasts only
while the understanding is fixed upon some single idea, and is at an end
when it recovers force enough to divide the object into its parts, or
mark the intermediate gradations from the first agent to the last
consequence.
It may be remarked with equal truth, that ignorance is often the effect
of wonder. It is common for those who have never accustomed themselves
to the labour of inquiry, nor invigorated their confidence by conquests
over difficulty, to sleep in the gloomy quiescence of astonishment,
without any effort to animate inquiry, or dispel obscurity. What they
cannot immediately conceive, they consider as too high to be reached, or
too extensive to be comprehended; they therefore content themselves with
the gaze of folly, forbear to attempt what they have no hopes of
performing, and resign the pleasure of rational contemplation to more
pertinacious study, or more active faculties.
Among the productions of mechanick art, many are of a form so different
from that of their first materials, and many consist of parts so
numerous and so nicely adapted to each other, that it is not possible to
view them without amazement. But when we enter the shops of artificers,
observe the various tools by which every operation is facilitated, and
trace the progress of a manufacture through the different hands, that,
in succession to each other, contribute to its perfection, we soon
discover that every single man has an easy task, and that the extremes,
however remote, of natural rudeness and artificial elegance, are joined
by a regular concatenation of effects, of which every one is introduced
by that which precedes it, and equally introduces that which is to
follow.
The same is the state of intellectual and manual performances. Long
calculations or complex diagrams affright the timorous and unexperienced
from a second view; but if we have skill sufficient to analyze them into
simple principles, it will be discovered that our fear was groundless.
_Divide and conquer_, is a principle equally just in science as in
policy. Complication is a species of confederacy, which, while it
continues united, bids defiance to the most active and vigorous
intellect; but of which every member is separately weak, and which may
therefore be quickly subdued, if it can once be broken.
The chief art of learning, as Locke has observed, is to attempt but
little at a time. The widest excursions of the mind are made by short
flights frequently repeated; the most lofty fabricks of science are
formed by the continued accumulation of single propositions.
It often happens, whatever be the cause, that impatience of labour, or
dread of miscarriage, seizes those who are most distinguished for
quickness of apprehension; and that they who might with greatest reason
promise themselves victory, are least willing to hazard the encounter.
This diffidence, where the attention is not laid asleep by laziness, or
dissipated by pleasures, can arise only from confused and general views,
such as negligence snatches in haste, or from the disappointment of the
first hopes formed by arrogance without reflection. To expect that the
intricacies of science will be pierced by a careless glance, or the
eminences of fame ascended without labour, is to expect a particular
privilege, a power denied to the rest of mankind; but to suppose that
the maze is inscrutable to diligence, or the heights inaccessible to
perseverance, is to submit tamely to the tyranny of fancy, and enchain
the mind in voluntary shackles.
It is the proper ambition of the heroes in literature to enlarge the
boundaries of knowledge by discovering and conquering new regions of the
intellectual world. To the success of such undertakings perhaps some
degree of fortuitous happiness is necessary, which no man can promise or
procure to himself; and therefore doubt and irresolution may be forgiven
in him that ventures into the unexplored abysses of truth, and attempts
to find his way through the fluctuations of uncertainty, and the
conflicts of contradiction. But when nothing more is required, than to
pursue a path already beaten, and to trample obstacles which others have
demolished, why should any man so much distrust his own intellect as to
imagine himself unequal to the attempt?
It were to be wished that they who devote their lives to study would at
once believe nothing too great for their attainment, and consider
nothing as too little for their regard; that they would extend their
notice alike to science and to life, and unite some knowledge of the
present world to their acquaintance with past ages and remote events.
Nothing has so much exposed men of learning to contempt and ridicule, as
their ignorance of things which are known to all but themselves. Those
who have been taught to consider the institutions of the schools, as
giving the last perfection to human abilities, are surprised to see men
wrinkled with study, yet wanting to be instructed in the minute
circumstances of propriety, or the necessary forms of daily transaction;
and quickly shake off their reverence for modes of education, which they
find to produce no ability above the rest of mankind.
"Books," says Bacon, "can never teach the use of books." The student
must learn by commerce with mankind to reduce his speculations to
practice, and accommodate his knowledge to the purposes of life.
It is too common for those who have been bred to scholastick
professions, and passed much of their time in academies where nothing
but learning confers honours, to disregard every other qualification,
and to imagine that they shall find mankind ready to pay homage to their
knowledge, and to crowd about them for instruction. They therefore step
out from their cells into the open world with all the confidence of
authority and dignity of importance; they look round about them at once
with ignorance and scorn on a race of beings to whom they are equally
unknown and equally contemptible, but whose manners they must imitate,
and with whose opinions they must comply, if they desire to pass their
time happily among them.
To lessen that disdain with which scholars are inclined to look on the
common business of the world, and the unwillingness with which they
condescend to learn what is not to be found in any system of philosophy,
it may be necessary to consider that though admiration is excited by
abstruse researches and remote discoveries, yet pleasure is not given,
nor affection conciliated, but by softer accomplishments, and qualities
more easily communicable to those about us. He that can only converse
upon questions, about which only a small part of mankind has knowledge
sufficient to make them curious, must lose his days in unsocial silence,
and live in the crowd of life without a companion. He that can only be
useful on great occasions, may die without exerting his abilities, and
stand a helpless spectator of a thousand vexations which fret away
happiness, and which nothing is required to remove but a little
dexterity of conduct and readiness of expedients.
No degree of knowledge attainable by man is able to set him above the
want of hourly assistance, or to extinguish the desire of fond
endearments, and tender officiousness; and therefore, no one should
think it unnecessary to learn those arts by which friendship may be
gained. Kindness is preserved by a constant reciprocation of benefits or
interchange of pleasures; but such benefits only can be bestowed, as
others are capable to receive, and such pleasures only imparted, as
others are qualified to enjoy.
By this descent from the pinnacles of art no honour will be lost; for
the condescensions of learning are always overpaid by gratitude. An
elevated genius employed in little things, appears, to use the simile of
Longinus, like the sun in his evening declination: he remits his
splendour but retains his magnitude, and pleases more though he dazzles
less.
No. 138. SATURDAY, JULY 13, 1751.
_O tantum libeat mecum tibi sordida rura,
Atque humiles habitare casas, et figere cervos_. VIRG. EC. ii 28.
With me retire, and leave the pomp of courts
For humble cottages and rural sports.
TO THE RAMBLER.
SIR,
Though the contempt with which you have treated the annual migrations of
the gay and busy part of mankind is justified by daily observation;
since most of those who leave the town, neither vary their
entertainments nor enlarge their notions; yet I suppose you do not
intend to represent the practice itself as ridiculous, or to declare
that he whose condition puts the distribution of his time into his own
power may not properly divide it between the town and country.
That the country, and only the country, displays the inexhaustible
varieties of nature, and supplies the philosophical mind with matter for
admiration and inquiry, never was denied; but my curiosity is very
little attracted by the colour of a flower, the anatomy of an insect, or
the structure of a nest; I am generally employed upon human manners, and
therefore fill up the months of rural leisure with remarks on those who
live within the circle of my notice. If writers would more frequently
visit those regions of negligence and liberty, they might diversify
their representations, and multiply their images, for in the country are
original characters chiefly to be found. In cities, and yet more in
courts, the minute discriminations which distinguish one from another
are for the most part effaced, the peculiarities of temper and opinion
are gradually worn away by promiscuous converse, as angular bodies and
uneven surfaces lose their points and asperities by frequent attrition
against one another, and approach by degrees to uniform rotundity. The
prevalence of fashion, the influence of example, the desire of applause,
and the dread of censure, obstruct the natural tendencies of the mind,
and check the fancy in its first efforts to break forth into experiments
of caprice.
Few inclinations are so strong as to grow up into habits, when they must
struggle with the constant opposition of settled forms and established
customs. But in the country every man is a separate and independent
being: solitude flatters irregularity with hopes of secrecy; and wealth,
removed from the mortification of comparison, and the awe of equality,
swells into contemptuous confidence, and sets blame and laughter at
defiance; the impulses of nature act unrestrained, and the disposition
dares to shew itself in its true form, without any disguise of
hypocrisy, or decorations of elegance. Every one indulges the full
enjoyment of his own choice, and talks and lives with no other view than
to please himself, without inquiring how far he deviates from the
general practice, or considering others as entitled to any account of
his sentiments or actions. If he builds or demolishes, opens or
encloses, deluges or drains, it is not his care what may be the opinion
of those who are skilled in perspective or architecture, it is
sufficient that he has no landlord to controul him, and that none has
any right to examine in what projects the lord of the manour spends his
own money on his own grounds.
For this reason it is not very common to want subjects for rural
conversation. Almost every man is daily doing something which produces
merriment, wonder, or resentment, among his neighbours. This utter
exemption from restraint leaves every anomalous quality to operate in
its full extent, and suffers the natural character to diffuse itself to
every part of life. The pride which, under the check of publick
observation, would have been only vented among servants and domesticks,
becomes in a country baronet the torment of a province, and instead of
terminating in the destruction of China-ware and glasses, ruins tenants,
dispossesses cottagers, and harasses villages with actions of trespass
and bills of indictment.
It frequently happens that, even without violent passions, or enormous
corruption, the freedom and laxity of a rustick life produces remarkable
particularities of conduct or manner. In the province where I now
reside, we have one lady eminent for wearing a gown always of the same
cut and colour; another for shaking hands with those that visit her; and
a third for unshaken resolution never to let tea or coffee enter her
house.
But of all the female characters which this place affords, I have found
none so worthy of attention as that of Mrs. Busy, a widow, who lost her
husband in her thirtieth year, and has since passed her time at the
manour-house in the government of her children, and the management of
the estate.
Mrs. Busy was married at eighteen from a boarding-school, where she had
passed her time like other young ladies, in needle-work, with a few
intervals of dancing and reading. When she became a bride she spent one
winter with her husband in town, where, having no idea of any
conversation beyond the formalities of a visit, she found nothing to
engage her passions: and when she had been one night at court, and two
at an opera, and seen the Monument, the Tombs, and the Tower, she
concluded that London had nothing more to shew, and wondered that when
women had once seen the world, they could not be content to stay at
home. She therefore went willingly to the ancient seat, and for some
years studied housewifery under Mr. Busy's mother, with so much
assiduity, that the old lady, when she died, bequeathed her a
caudle-cup, a soup-dish, two beakers, and a chest of table-linen spun
by herself.
Mr. Busy, finding the economical qualities of his lady, resigned his
affairs wholly into her hands, and devoted his life to his pointers and
his hounds. He never visited his estates but to destroy the partridges
or foxes; and often committed such devastations in the rage of pleasure,
that some of his tenants refused to hold their lands at the usual rent.
Their landlady persuaded them to be satisfied, and entreated her husband
to dismiss his dogs, with many exact calculations of the ale drunk by
his companions, and corn consumed by the horses, and remonstrances
against the insolence of the huntsman, and the frauds of the groom. The
huntsman was too necessary to his happiness to be discarded; and he had
still continued to ravage his own estate, had he not caught a cold and a
fever by shooting mallards in the fens. His fever was followed by a
consumption, which in a few months brought him to the grave.
Mrs. Busy was too much an economist to feel either joy or sorrow at his
death. She received the compliments and consolations of her neighbours
in a dark room, out of which she stole privately every night and morning
to see the cows milked; and after a few days declared that she thought a
widow might employ herself better than in nursing grief; and that, for
her part, she was resolved that the fortunes of her children should not
be impaired by her neglect.
She therefore immediately applied herself to the reformation of abuses.
She gave away the dogs, discharged the servants of the kennel and
stable, and sent the horses to the next fair, but rated at so high a
price that they returned unsold. She was resolved to have nothing idle
about her, and ordered them to be employed in common drudgery. They lost
their sleekness and grace, and were soon purchased at half the value.
She soon disencumbered herself from her weeds, and put on a riding-hood,
a coarse apron, and short petticoats, and has turned a large manour into
a farm, of which she takes the management wholly upon herself. She rises
before the sun to order the horses to their gears, and sees them well
rubbed down at their return from work; she attends the dairy morning and
evening, and watches when a calf falls that it may be carefully nursed;
she walks out among the sheep at noon, counts the lambs, and observes
the fences, and, where she finds a gap, stops it with a bush till it can
be better mended. In harvest she rides a-field in the waggon, and is
very liberal of her ale from a wooden bottle. At her leisure hours she
looks goose eggs, airs the wool-room, and turns the cheese.
When respect or curiosity brings visitants to her house, she entertains
them with prognosticks of a scarcity of wheat, or a rot among the sheep,
and always thinks herself privileged to dismiss them, when she is to see
the hogs fed, or to count her poultry on the roost.
The only things neglected about her are her children, whom she has
taught nothing but the lowest household duties. In my last visit I met
Miss Busy carrying grains to a sick cow, and was entertained with the
accomplishments of her eldest son, a youth of such early maturity, that
though he is only sixteen, she can trust him to sell corn in the market.
Her younger daughter, who is eminent for her beauty, though somewhat
tanned in making hay, was busy in pouring out ale to the ploughmen, that
every one might have an equal share.