Quem puerum, nemo credidit esse senem_. GROT.
The age's miracle, his father's joy!
Nor old you would pronounce him, nor a boy. F. LEWIS.
And Prior was indebted for a pretty illustration to Alleyne's poetical
history of Henry the Seventh:
For nought but light itself, itself can shew,
And only kings can write, what kings can do. ALLEYNE.
Your musick's pow'r, your musick must disclose,
For what light is, 'tis only light that shews. PRIOR.
And with yet more certainty may the same writer be censured, for
endeavouring the clandestine appropriation of a thought which he
borrowed, surely without thinking himself disgraced, from an epigram of
Plato:
[Greek: Tae Paphiae to katoptron, epei toiae men orasthai
Ouk ethelo, oiae d' aen paros, ou dunamai.]
Venus, take my votive glass,
Since I am not what I was;
What from this day I shall be,
Venus, let me never see.
As not every instance of similitude can be considered as a proof of
imitation, so not every imitation ought to be stigmatized as plagiarism.
The adoption of a noble sentiment, or the insertion of a borrowed
ornament, may sometimes display so much judgment as will almost
compensate for invention: and an inferior genius may, without any
imputation of servility, pursue the path of the ancients, provided he
declines to tread in their footsteps.
No. 144. SATURDAY, AUGUST 3, 1751.
--_Daphnidis arcum
Fregisti et calamos: quae tu, perverse Menalea,
Et quum vidisti puero donata, dolebas;
Et si non aliqua nocuisses, mortuus esses._ VIRG. EC. iii. 12.
The bow of Daphnis and the shafts you broke;
When the fair boy receiv'd the gift of right;
And but for mischief, you had dy'd for spite. DRYDEN.
It is impossible to mingle in conversation without observing the
difficulty with which a new name makes its way into the world. The first
appearance of excellence unites multitudes against it; unexpected
opposition rises up on every side; the celebrated and the obscure join
in the confederacy; subtlety furnishes arms to impudence, and invention
leads on credulity.
The strength and unanimity of this alliance is not easily conceived. It
might be expected that no man should suffer his heart to be inflamed
with malice, but by injuries; that none should busy himself in
contesting the pretensions of another, but when some right of his own
was involved in the question; that at least hostilities, commenced
without cause, should quickly cease; that the armies of malignity should
soon disperse, when no common interest could be found to hold them
together; and that the attack upon a rising character should be left to
those who had something to hope or fear from the event.
The hazards of those that aspire to eminence, would be much diminished
if they had none but acknowledged rivals to encounter. Their enemies
would then be few, and, what is yet of greater importance, would be
known. But what caution is sufficient to ward off the blows of invisible
assailants, or what force can stand against uninterrupted attacks, and a
continual succession of enemies? Yet such is the state of the world,
that no sooner can any man emerge from the crowd, and fix the eyes of
the publick upon him, than he stands as a mark to the arrows of lurking
calumny, and receives in the tumult of hostility, from distant and from
nameless hands, wounds not always easy to be cured.
It is probable that the onset against the candidates for renown, is
originally incited by those who imagine themselves in danger of
suffering by their success; but, when war is once declared, volunteers
flock to the standard, multitudes follow the camp only for want of
employment, and flying squadrons are dispersed to every part, so pleased
with an opportunity of mischief, that they toil without prospect of
praise, and pillage without hope of profit.
When any man has endeavoured to deserve distinction, he will be
surprised to hear himself censured where he could not expect to have
been named; he will find the utmost acrimony of malice among those whom
he never could have offended.
As there are to be found in the service of envy men of every diversity
of temper and degree of understanding, calumny is diffused by all arts
and methods of propagation. Nothing is too gross or too refined, too
cruel or too trifling, to be practised; very little regard is had to the
rules of honourable hostility, but every weapon is accounted lawful, and
those that cannot make a thrust at life are content to keep themselves
in play with petty malevolence, to tease with feeble blows and impotent
disturbance.
But as the industry of observation has divided the most miscellaneous
and confused assemblages into proper classes, and ranged the insects of
the summer, that torment us with their drones or stings, by their
several tribes; the persecutors of merit, notwithstanding their numbers,
may be likewise commodiously distinguished into Roarers, Whisperers, and
Moderators.
The Roarer is an enemy rather terrible than dangerous. He has no other
qualification for a champion of controversy than a hardened front and
strong voice. Having seldom so much desire to confute as to silence, he
depends rather upon vociferation than argument, and has very little care
to adjust one part of his accusation to another, to preserve decency in
his language, or probability in his narratives.
He has always a store of reproachful epithets and contemptuous
appellations, ready to be produced as occasion may require, which by
constant use he pours out with resistless volubility. If the wealth of a
trader is mentioned, he without hesitation devotes him to bankruptcy; if
the beauty and elegance of a lady be commended, he wonders how the town
can fall in love with rustick deformity; if a new performance of genius
happens to be celebrated, he pronounces the writer a hopeless idiot,
without knowledge of books or life, and without the understanding by
which it must be acquired. His exaggerations are generally without
effect upon those whom he compels to hear them; and though it will
sometimes happen that the timorous are awed by his violence, and the
credulous mistake his confidence for knowledge, yet the opinions which
he endeavours to suppress soon recover their former strength, as the
trees that bend to the tempest erect themselves again when its force is
past.
The Whisperer is more dangerous. He easily gains attention by a soft
address, and excites curiosity by an air of importance. As secrets are
not to be made cheap by promiscuous publication, he calls a select
audience about him, and gratifies their vanity with an appearance of
trust by communicating his intelligence in a low voice. Of the trader he
can tell that, though he seems to manage an extensive commerce, and
talks in high terms of the funds, yet his wealth is not equal to his
reputation; he has lately suffered much by an expensive project, and had
a greater share than is acknowledged in the rich ship that perished by
the storm. Of the beauty he has little to say, but that they who see her
in a morning do not discover all those graces which are admired in the
Park. Of the writer he affirms with great certainty, that though the
excellence of the work be incontestible, he can claim but a small part
of the reputation; that he owed most of the images and sentiments to a
secret friend; and that the accuracy and equality of the style was
produced by the successive correction of the chief criticks of the age.
As every one is pleased with imagining that he knows something not yet
commonly divulged, secret history easily gains credit; but it is for the
most part believed only while it circulates in whispers; and when once
it is openly told, is openly confuted.
The most pernicious enemy is the man of Moderation. Without interest in
the question, or any motive but honest curiosity, this impartial and
zealous inquirer after truth is ready to hear either side, and always
disposed to kind interpretations and favourable opinions. He hath heard
the trader's affairs reported with great variation, and, after a
diligent comparison of the evidence, concludes it probable that the
splendid superstructure of business being originally built upon a narrow
basis, has lately been found to totter; but between dilatory payment and
bankruptcy there is a great distance; many merchants have supported
themselves by expedients for a time, without any final injury to their
creditors; and what is lost by one adventure may be recovered by
another. He believes that a young lady pleased with admiration, and
desirous to make perfect what is already excellent, may heighten her
charms by artificial improvements, but surely most of her beauties must
be genuine, and who can say that he is wholly what he endeavours to
appear? The author he knows to be a man of diligence, who perhaps does
not sparkle with the fire of Homer, but has the judgment to discover his
own deficiencies, and to supply them by the help of others; and, in his
opinion, modesty is a quality so amiable and rare, that it ought to find
a patron wherever it appears, and may justly be preferred by the publick
suffrage to petulant wit and ostentatious literature.
He who thus discovers failings with unwillingness, and extenuates the
faults which cannot be denied, puts an end at once to doubt or
vindication; his hearers repose upon his candour and veracity, and admit
the charge without allowing the excuse.
Such are the arts by which the envious, the idle, the peevish, and the
thoughtless, obstruct that worth which they cannot equal, and, by
artifices thus easy, sordid, and detestable, is industry defeated,
beauty blasted, and genius depressed.
No. 145. TUESDAY, AUGUST 6, 1751.
_Non, si priores Maeonius tenet
Sedes Homerus, Pindaricae latent,
Ceaeque, et Alcaei minaces,
Stesichorique graves Camoenae_. HOR. Lib. iv. Od. ix. 5.
What though the muse her Homer thrones
High above all the immortal quire;
Nor Pindar's raptures she disowns,
Nor hides the plaintive Caean lyre;
Alcaeus strikes the tyrant soul with dread,
Nor yet is grave Stesichorus unread. FRANCIS.
It is allowed that vocations and employments of least dignity are of the
most apparent use; that the meanest artizan or manufacturer contributes
more to the accommodation of life, than the profound scholar and
argumentative theorist; and that the publick would suffer less present
inconvenience from the banishment of philosophers than from the
extinction of any common trade.
Some have been so forcibly struck with this observation, that they have,
in the first warmth of their discovery, thought it reasonable to alter
the common distribution of dignity, and ventured to condemn mankind of
universal ingratitude. For justice exacts, that those by whom we are
most benefited should be most honoured. And what labour can be more
useful than that which procures to families and communities those
necessaries which supply the wants of nature, or those conveniencies by
which ease, security, and elegance, are conferred?
This is one of the innumerable theories which the first attempt to
reduce them into practice certainly destroys. If we estimate dignity by
immediate usefulness, agriculture is undoubtedly the first and noblest
science; yet we see the plough driven, the clod broken, the manure
spread, the seeds scattered, and the harvest reaped, by men whom those
that feed upon their industry will never be persuaded to admit into the
same rank with heroes, or with sages; and who, after all the confessions
which truth may extort in favour of their occupation, must be content to
fill up the lowest class of the commonwealth, to form the base of the
pyramid of subordination, and lie buried in obscurity themselves, while
they support all that is splendid, conspicuous, or exalted.
It will be found upon a closer inspection, that this part of the conduct
of mankind is by no means contrary to reason or equity. Remuneratory
honours are proportioned at once to the usefulness and difficulty of
performances, and are properly adjusted by comparison of the mental and
corporeal abilities, which they appear to employ. That work, however
necessary, which is carried on only by muscular strength and manual
dexterity, is not of equal esteem, in the consideration of rational
beings, with the tasks that exercise the intellectual powers, and
require the active vigour of imagination or the gradual and laborious
investigations of reason.
The merit of all manual occupations seems to terminate in the inventor;
and surely the first ages cannot be charged with ingratitude; since
those who civilized barbarians, and taught them how to secure themselves
from cold and hunger, were numbered amongst their deities. But these
arts once discovered by philosophy, and facilitated by experience, are
afterwards practised with very little assistance from the faculties of
the soul; nor is any thing necessary to the regular discharge of these
inferior duties, beyond that rude observation which the most sluggish
intellect may practise, and that industry which the stimulations of
necessity naturally enforce.
Yet though the refusal of statues and panegyrick to those who employ
only their hands and feet in the service of mankind may be easily
justified, I am far from intending to incite the petulance of pride, to
justify the superciliousness of grandeur, or to intercept any part of
that tenderness and benevolence which, by the privilege of their common
nature, one may claim from another.
That it would be neither wise nor equitable to discourage the
husbandman, the labourer, the miner, or the smith, is generally granted;
but there is another race of beings equally obscure and equally
indigent, who, because their usefulness is less obvious to vulgar
apprehensions, live unrewarded and die unpitied, and who have been long
exposed to insult without a defender, and to censure without an
apologist.
The authors of London were formerly computed by Swift at several
thousands, and there is not any reason for suspecting that their number
has decreased. Of these only a very few can be said to produce, or
endeavour to produce, new ideas, to extend any principle of science, or
gratify the imagination with any uncommon train of images or contexture
of events; the rest, however laborious, however arrogant, can only be
considered as the drudges of the pen, the manufacturers of literature,
who have set up for authors, either with or without a regular
initiation, and, like other artificers, have no other care than to
deliver their tale of wares at the stated time.
It has been formerly imagined, that he who intends the entertainment or
instruction of others, must feel in himself some peculiar impulse of
genius; that he must watch the happy minute in which his natural fire is
excited, in which his mind is elevated with nobler sentiments,
enlightened with clearer views, and invigorated with stronger
comprehension; that he must carefully select his thoughts and polish his
expressions; and animate his efforts with the hope of raising a monument
of learning, which neither time nor envy shall be able to destroy.
But the authors whom I am now endeavouring to recommend have been too
long _hackneyed in the ways of men_ to indulge the chimerical ambition
of immortality; they have seldom any claim to the trade of writing, but
that they have tried some other without success; they perceive no
particular summons to composition, except the sound of the clock; they
have no other rule than the law or the fashion for admitting their
thoughts or rejecting them; and about the opinion of posterity they have
little solicitude, for their productions are seldom intended to remain
in the world longer than a week.
That such authors are not to be rewarded with praise is evident, since
nothing can be admired when it ceases to exist; but surely, though they
cannot aspire to honour, they may be exempted from ignominy, and adopted
in that order of men which deserves our kindness, though not our
reverence. These papers of the day, the _Ephemerae_ of learning, have
uses more adequate to the purposes of common life than more pompous and
durable volumes. If it is necessary for every man to be more acquainted
with his contemporaries than with past generations, and to rather know
the events which may immediately affect his fortune or quiet, than the
revolutions of ancient kingdoms, in which he has neither possessions nor
expectations; if it be pleasing to hear of the preferment and dismission
of statesmen, the birth of heirs, and the marriage of beauties, the
humble author of journals and gazettes must be considered as a liberal
dispenser of beneficial knowledge.
Even the abridger, compiler, and translator, though their labours cannot
be ranked with those of the diurnal historiographer, yet must not be
rashly doomed to annihilation. Every size of readers requires a genius
of correspondent capacity; some delight in abstracts and epitomes,
because they want room in their memory for long details, and content
themselves with effects, without inquiry after causes; some minds are
overpowered by splendour of sentiment, as some eyes are offended by a
glaring light; such will gladly contemplate an author in an humble
imitation, as we look without pain upon the sun in the water.
As every writer has his use, every writer ought to have his patrons; and
since no man, however high he may now stand, can be certain that he
shall not be soon thrown down from his elevation by criticism or
caprice, the common interest of learning requires that her sons should
cease from intestine hostilities, and, instead of sacrificing each other
to malice and contempt, endeavour to avert persecution from the meanest
of their fraternity.
No. 146. SATURDAY, AUGUST 10, 1751.
_Sunt illic duo, tresve, qui revolvant
Nostrarum tineas ineptiarum;
Sed cum sponsio, fabultaeque lassae
De scarpo fuerint incitato_. MART.
'Tis possible that one or two
These fooleries of mine may view;
But then the bettings must be o'er,
Nor Crab or Childers talk'd of more. F. LEWIS.
None of the projects or designs which exercise the mind of man are
equally subject to obstructions and disappointments with the pursuit of
fame. Riches cannot easily be denied to them who have something of
greater value to offer in exchange; he whose fortune is endangered by
litigation, will not refuse to augment the wealth of the lawyer; he
whose days are darkened by langour, or whose nerves are excruciated by
pain, is compelled to pay tribute to the science of healing. But praise
may be always omitted without inconvenience. When once a man has made
celebrity necessary to his happiness, he has put it in the power of the
weakest and most timorous malignity, if not to take away his
satisfaction, at least to withhold it. His enemies may indulge their
pride by airy negligence, and gratify their malice by quiet neutrality.
They that could never have injured a character by invectives, may
combine to annihilate it by silence; as the women of Rome threatened to
put an end to conquest and dominion, by supplying no children to the
commonwealth.
When a writer has with long toil produced a work intended to burst upon
mankind with unexpected lustre, and withdraw the attention of the
learned world from every other controversy or inquiry, he is seldom
contented to wait long without the enjoyment of his new praises. With an
imagination full of his own importance, he walks out like a monarch in
disguise to learn the various opinions of his readers. Prepared to feast
upon admiration; composed to encounter censures without emotion; and
determined not to suffer his quiet to be injured by a sensibility too
exquisite of praise or blame, but to laugh with equal contempt at vain
objections and injudicious commendations, he enters the places of
mingled conversation, sits down to his tea in an obscure corner, and,
while he appears to examine a file of antiquated journals, catches the
conversation of the whole room. He listens, but hears no mention of his
book, and therefore supposes that he has disappointed his curiosity by
delay; and that as men of learning would naturally begin their
conversation with such a wonderful novelty, they had digressed to other
subjects before his arrival. The company disperses, and their places are
supplied by others equally ignorant, or equally careless. The same
expectation hurries him to another place, from which the same
disappointment drives him soon away. His impatience then grows violent
and tumultuous; he ranges over the town with restless curiosity, and
hears in one quarter of a cricket-match, in another of a pick-pocket; is
told by some of an unexpected bankruptcy; by others of a turtle feast;
is sometimes provoked by importunate inquiries after the white bear, and
sometimes with praises of the dancing dog; he is afterwards entreated to
give his judgment upon a wager about the height of the Monument; invited
to see a foot-race in the adjacent villages; desired to read a ludicrous
advertisement; or consulted about the most effectual method of making
inquiry after a favourite cat. The whole world is busied in affairs
which he thinks below the notice of reasonable creatures, and which are
nevertheless sufficient to withdraw all regard from his labours and his
merits.
He resolves at last to violate his own modesty, and to recall the
talkers from their folly by an inquiry after himself. He finds every one
provided with an answer; one has seen the work advertised, but never met
with any that had read it; another has been so often imposed upon by
specious titles, that he never buys a book till its character is
established; a third wonders what any man can hope to produce after so
many writers of greater eminence; the next has inquired after the
author, but can hear no account of him, and therefore suspects the name
to be fictitious; and another knows him to be a man condemned by
indigence to write too frequently what he does not understand.
Many are the consolations with which the unhappy author endeavours to
allay his vexation, and fortify his patience. He has written with too
little indulgence to the understanding of common readers; he has fallen
upon an age in which solid knowledge, and delicate refinement, have
given way to a low merriment, and idle buffoonery, and therefore no
writer can hope for distinction, who has any higher purpose than to
raise laughter. He finds that his enemies, such as superiority will
always raise, have been industrious, while his performance was in the
press, to vilify and blast it; and that the bookseller, whom he had
resolved to enrich, has rivals that obstruct the circulation of the
copies. He at last reposes upon the consideration, that the noblest
works of learning and genius have always made their way slowly against
ignorance and prejudice; and that reputation, which is never to be lost,
must be gradually obtained, as animals of longest life are observed not
soon to attain their full stature and strength.
By such arts of voluntary delusion does every man endeavour to conceal
his own unimportance from himself. It is long before we are convinced of
the small proportion which every individual bears to the collective body
of mankind; or learn how few can be interested in the fortune of any
single man; how little vacancy is left in the world for any new object
of attention; to how small extent the brightest blaze of merit can be
spread amidst the mists of business and of folly; and how soon it is
clouded by the intervention of other novelties. Not only the writer of
books, but the commander of armies, and the deliverer of nations, will
easily outlive all noisy and popular reputation; he may be celebrated
for a time by the publick voice, but his actions and his name will soon
be considered as remote and unaffecting, and be rarely mentioned but by
those whose alliance gives them some vanity to gratify by frequent
commemoration.