brutality, was hopeless. I went away I knew not whither, and wandered
about without any settled purpose, unacquainted with the usual
expedients of misery, unqualified for laborious offices, afraid to meet
an eye that had seen me before, and hopeless of relief from those who
were strangers to my former condition. Night came on in the midst of my
distraction, and I still continued to wander till the menaces of the
watch obliged me to shelter myself in a covered passage.
Next day, I procured a lodging in the backward garret of a mean house,
and employed my landlady to inquire for a service. My applications were
generally rejected for want of a character. At length I was received at
a draper's, but when it was known to my mistress that I had only one
gown, and that of silk, she was of opinion that I looked like a thief,
and without warning hurried me away. I then tried to support myself by
my needle; and, by my landlady's recommendation obtained a little work
from a shop, and for three weeks lived without repining; but when my
punctuality had gained me so much reputation, that I was trusted to make
up a head of some value, one of my fellow-lodgers stole the lace, and I
was obliged to fly from a prosecution.
Thus driven again into the streets, I lived upon the least that could
support me, and at night accommodated myself under pent-houses as well
as I could. At length I became absolutely pennyless, and having strolled
all day without sustenance, was, at the close of evening, accosted by an
elderly man, with an invitation to a tavern. I refused him with
hesitation; he seized me by the hand, and drew me into a neighbouring
house, where, when he saw my face pale with hunger, and my eyes swelling
with tears, he spurned me from him, and bade me cant and whine in some
other place; he for his part would take care of his pockets.
I still continued to stand in the way, having scarcely strength to walk
further, when another soon addressed me in the same manner. When he saw
the same tokens of calamity, he considered that I might be obtained at a
cheap rate, and therefore quickly made overtures, which I no longer had
firmness to reject. By this man I was maintained four months in
penurious wickedness, and then abandoned to my former condition, from
which I was delivered by another keeper.
In this abject state I have now passed four years, the drudge of
extortion and the sport of drunkenness; sometimes the property of one
man, and sometimes the common prey of accidental lewdness; at one time
tricked up for sale by the mistress of a brothel, at another begging in
the streets to be relieved from hunger by wickedness; without any hope
in the day but of finding some whom folly or excess may expose to my
allurements, and without any reflections at night, but such as guilt and
terrour impress upon me.
If those who pass their days in plenty and security, could visit for an
hour the dismal receptacles to which the prostitute retires from her
nocturnal excursions, and see the wretches that lie crowded together,
mad with intemperance, ghastly with famine, nauseous with filth, and
noisome with disease; it would not be easy for any degree of abhorrence
to harden them against compassion, or to repress the desire which they
must immediately feel to rescue such numbers of human beings from a
state so dreadful.
It is said, that in France they annually evacuate their streets, and
ship their prostitutes and vagabonds to their colonies. If the women
that infest this city had the same opportunity of escaping from their
miseries, I believe very little force would be necessary; for who among
them can dread any change? Many of us indeed are wholly unqualified for
any but the most servile employments, and those perhaps would require
the care of a magistrate to hinder them from following the same
practices in another country; but others are only precluded by infamy
from reformation, and would gladly be delivered on any terms from the
necessity of guilt, and the tyranny of chance. No place but a populous
city, can afford opportunities for open prostitution; and where the eye
of justice can attend to individuals, those who cannot be made good may
be restrained from mischief. For my part, I should exult at the
privilege of banishment, and think myself happy in any region that
should restore me once again to honesty and peace.
I am, Sir, &c.
MISELLA.
No. 172. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 1751.
_Sæpe rogare soles, qualis sim, Prisce, futurus,
Si fiam locuples, simque repente potens.
Quemquam posse putas mores narrare futuros?
Die mihi, si fias tu leo, qualis eris?_ MART. Lib. xii. Ep. 93.
Priscus, you've often ask'd me how I'd live,
Should fate at once both wealth and honour give.
What soul his future conduct can foresee?
Tell me what sort of lion you would be. F. LEWIS.
Nothing has been longer observed, than that a change of fortune causes a
change of manners; and that it is difficult to conjecture from the
conduct of him whom we see in a low condition, how he would act, if
wealth and power were put into his hands. But it is generally agreed,
that few men are made better by affluence or exaltation; and that the
powers of the mind, when they are unbound and expanded by the sunshine
of felicity, more frequently luxuriate into follies, than blossom into
goodness.
Many observations have concurred to establish this opinion, and it is
not likely soon to become obsolete, for want of new occasions to revive
it. The greater part of mankind are corrupt in every condition, and
differ in high and in low stations, only as they have more or fewer
opportunities of gratifying their desires, or as they are more or less
restrained by human censures. Many vitiate their principles in the
acquisition of riches; and who can wonder that what is gained by fraud
and extortion is enjoyed with tyranny and excess?
Yet I am willing to believe that the depravation of the mind by external
advantages, though certainly not uncommon, yet approaches not so nearly
to universality, as some have asserted in the bitterness of resentment,
or heat of declamation.
Whoever rises above those who once pleased themselves with equality,
will have many malevolent gazers at his eminence. To gain sooner than
others that which all pursue with the same ardour, and to which all
imagine themselves entitled, will for ever be a crime. When those who
started with us in the race of life, leave us so far behind, that we
have little hope to overtake them, we revenge our disappointment by
remarks on the arts of supplantation by which they gained the advantage,
or on the folly and arrogance with which they possess it. Of them, whose
rise we could not hinder, we solace ourselves by prognosticating the
fall.
It is impossible for human purity not to betray to an eye, thus
sharpened by malignity, some stains which lay concealed and unregarded,
while none thought it their interest to discover them; nor can the most
circumspect attention, or steady rectitude, escape blame from censors,
who have no inclination to approve. Riches therefore, perhaps, do not so
often produce crimes as incite accusers.
The common charge against those who rise above their original condition,
is that of pride. It is certain that success naturally confirms us in a
favourable opinion of our own abilities. Scarce any man is willing to
allot to accident, friendship, and a thousand causes, which concur in
every event without human contrivance or interposition, the part which
they may justly claim in his advancement. We rate ourselves by our
fortune rather than our virtues, and exorbitant claims are quickly
produced by imaginary merit. But captiousness and jealousy are likewise
easily offended, and to him who studiously looks for an affront, every
mode of behaviour will supply it; freedom will be rudeness, and reserve
sullenness; mirth will be negligence, and seriousness formality; when he
is received with ceremony, distance and respect are inculcated; if he is
treated with familiarity, he concludes himself insulted by
condescensions.
It must however be confessed, that as all sudden changes are dangerous,
a quick transition from poverty to abundance can seldom be made with
safety. He that has long lived within sight of pleasures which he could
not reach, will need more than common moderation, not to lose his reason
in unbounded riot, when they are first put into his power.
Every possession is endeared by novelty; every gratification is
exaggerated by desire. It is difficult not to estimate what is lately
gained above its real value; it is impossible not to annex greater
happiness to that condition from which we are unwillingly excluded, than
nature has qualified us to obtain. For this reason, the remote inheritor
of an unexpected fortune, may be generally distinguished from those who
are enriched in the common course of lineal descent, by his greater
haste to enjoy his wealth, by the finery of his dress, the pomp of his
equipage, the splendour of his furniture, and the luxury of his table.
A thousand things which familiarity discovers to be of little value,
have power for a time to seize the imagination. A Virginian king, when
the Europeans had fixed a lock on his door, was so delighted to find his
subjects admitted or excluded with such facility, that it was from
morning to evening his whole employment to turn the key. We, among whom
locks and keys have been longer in use, are inclined to laugh at this
American amusement; yet I doubt whether this paper will have a single
reader that may not apply the story to himself, and recollect some hours
of his life in which he has been equally overpowered by the transitory
charms of trifling novelty.
Some indulgence is due to him whom a happy gale of fortune has suddenly
transported into new regions, where unaccustomed lustre dazzles his
eyes, and untasted delicacies solicit his appetite. Let him not be
considered as lost in hopeless degeneracy, though he for a while forgets
the regard due to others, to indulge the contemplation of himself, and
in the extravagance of his first raptures expects that his eye should
regulate the motions of all that approach him, and his opinion be
received as decisive and oraculous. His intoxication will give way to
time; the madness of joy will fume imperceptibly away; the sense of his
insufficiency will soon return; he will remember that the co-operation
of others is necessary to his happiness, and learn to conciliate their
regard by reciprocal beneficence.
There is, at least, one consideration which ought to alleviate our
censures of the powerful and rich. To imagine them chargeable with all
the guilt and folly of their own actions, is to be very little
acquainted with the world.
_De l'absolu pouvoir vous ignorez l'yvresse,
Et du lache flateur la voix enchanteresse_.
Thou hast not known the giddy whirls of fate,
Nor servile flatteries which enchant the great. Miss A. W.
He that can do much good or harm, will not find many whom ambition or
cowardice will suffer to be sincere. While we live upon the level with
the rest of mankind, we are reminded of our duty by the admonitions of
friends and reproaches of enemies; but men who stand in the highest
ranks of society, seldom hear of their faults; if by any accident an
opprobrious clamour reaches their ears, flattery is always at hand to
pour in her opiates, to quiet conviction, and obtund remorse.
Favour is seldom gained but by conformity in vice. Virtue can stand
without assistance, and considers herself as very little obliged by
countenance and approbation: but vice, spiritless and timorous, seeks
the shelter of crowds, and support of confederacy. The sycophant,
therefore, neglects the good qualities of his patron, and employs all
his art on his weaknesses and follies, regales his reigning vanity, or
stimulates his prevalent desires.
Virtue is sufficiently difficult with any circumstances, but the
difficulty is increased when reproof and advice are frighted away. In
common life, reason and conscience have only the appetites and passions
to encounter; but in higher stations, they must oppose artifice and
adulation. He, therefore, that yields to such temptations, cannot give
those who look upon his miscarriage much reason for exultation, since
few can justly presume that from the same snare they should have been
able to escape.
No. 173. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 1751.
_Quo virtus, quo ferat error_. HOR. De Ar. Poet. 308.
Now say, where virtue stops, and vice begins?
As any action or posture, long continued, will distort and disfigure the
limbs; so the mind likewise is crippled and contracted by perpetual
application to the same set of ideas. It is easy to guess the trade of
an artizan by his knees, his fingers, or his shoulders: and there are
few among men of the more liberal professions, whose minds do not carry
the brand of their calling, or whose conversation does not quickly
discover to what class of the community they belong.
These peculiarities have been of great use, in the general hostility
which every part of mankind exercises against the rest, to furnish
insults and sarcasms. Every art has its dialect, uncouth and ungrateful
to all whom custom has not reconciled to its sound, and which therefore
becomes ridiculous by a slight misapplication, or unnecessary
repetition.
The general reproach with which ignorance revenges the superciliousness
of learning, is that of pedantry; a censure which every man incurs, who
has at any time the misfortune to talk to those who cannot understand
him, and by which the modest and timorous are sometimes frighted from
the display of their acquisitions, and the exertion of their powers.
The name of a pedant is so formidable to young men when they first sally
from their colleges, and is so liberally scattered by those who mean to
boast their elegance of education, easiness of manners, and knowledge of
the world, that it seems to require particular consideration; since,
perhaps, if it were once understood, many a heart might be freed from
painful apprehensions, and many a tongue, delivered from restraint.
Pedantry is the unseasonable ostentation of learning. It may be
discovered either in the choice of a subject, or in the manner of
treating it. He is undoubtedly guilty of pedantry, who, when he has made
himself master of some abstruse and uncultivated part of knowledge,
obtrudes his remarks and discoveries upon those whom he believes unable
to judge of his proficiency, and from whom, as he cannot fear
contradiction, he cannot properly expect applause.
To this errour the student is sometimes betrayed by the natural
recurrence of the mind to its common employment, by the pleasure which
every man receives from the recollection of pleasing images, and the
desire of dwelling upon topicks, on which he knows himself able to speak
with justness. But because we are seldom so far prejudiced in favour of
each other, as to search out for palliations, this failure of politeness
is imputed always to vanity; and the harmless collegiate, who, perhaps,
intended entertainment and instruction, or at worst only spoke without
sufficient reflection upon the character of his hearers, is censured as
arrogant or overbearing, and eager to extend his renown, in contempt of
the convenience of society and the laws of conversation.
All discourse of which others cannot partake, is not only an irksome
usurpation of the time devoted to pleasure and entertainment, but what
never fails to excite very keen resentment, an insolent assertion of
superiority, and a triumph over less enlightened understandings. The
pedant is, therefore, not only heard with weariness, but malignity; and
those who conceive themselves insulted by his knowledge, never fail to
tell with acrimony how injudiciously it was exerted.
To avoid this dangerous imputation, scholars sometimes divest themselves
with too much haste of their academical formality, and in their
endeavours to accommodate their notions and their style to common
conceptions, talk rather of any thing than of that which they
understand, and sink into insipidity of sentiment and meanness of
expression.
There prevails among men of letters an opinion, that all appearance of
science is particularly hateful to women; and that therefore, whoever
desires to be well received in female assemblies, must qualify himself
by a total rejection of all that is serious, rational, or important;
must consider argument or criticism, as perpetually interdicted; and
devote all his attention to trifles, and all his eloquence to
compliment.
Students often form their notions of the present generation from the
writings of the past, and are not very early informed of those changes
which the gradual diffusion of knowledge, or the sudden caprice of
fashion, produces in the world. Whatever might be the state of female
literature in the last century, there is now no longer any danger lest
the scholar should want an adequate audience at the tea-table; and
whoever thinks it necessary to regulate his conversation by antiquated
rules, will be rather despised for his futility than caressed for his
politeness.
To talk intentionally in a manner above the comprehension of those whom
we address, is unquestionable pedantry; but surely complaisance
requires, that no man should, without proof, conclude his company
incapable of following him to the highest elevation of his fancy, or the
utmost extent of his knowledge. It is always safer to err in favour of
others than of ourselves, and therefore we seldom hazard much by
endeavouring to excel.
It ought at least to be the care of learning, when she quits her
exaltation, to descend with dignity. Nothing is more despicable than the
airiness and jocularity of a man bred to severe science, and solitary
meditation. To trifle agreeably is a secret which schools cannot impart;
that gay negligence and vivacious levity, which charm down resistance
wherever they appear, are never attainable by him who, having spent his
first years among the dust of libraries, enters late into the gay world
with an unpliant attention and established habits.
It is observed in the panegyrick on Fabricius the mechanist, that,
though forced by publick employments into mingled conversation, he never
lost the modesty and seriousness of the convent, nor drew ridicule upon
himself by an affected imitation of fashionable life. To the same praise
every man devoted to learning ought to aspire. If he attempts the softer
arts of pleasing, and endeavours to learn the graceful bow and the
familiar embrace, the insinuating accent and the general smile, he will
lose the respect due to the character of learning, without arriving at
the envied honour of doing any thing with elegance and facility.
Theophrastus was discovered not to be a native of Athens, by so strict
an adherence to the Attick dialect, as shewed that he had learned it not
by custom, but by rule. A man not early formed to habitual elegance,
betrays, in like manner, the effects of his education, by an unnecessary
anxiety of behaviour. It is as possible to become pedantick, by fear of
pedantry, as to be troublesome by ill-timed civility. There is no kind
of impertinence more justly censurable than his who is always labouring
to level thoughts to intellects higher than his own; who apologizes for
every word which his own narrowness of converse inclines him to think
unusual; keeps the exuberance of his faculties under visible restraint;
is solicitous to anticipate inquiries by needless explanations; and
endeavours to shade his own abilities, lest weak eyes should be dazzled
with their lustre.
No. 174. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 1751.
_Faenum habet in cornu, longe fuge; dummodo risum
Excutiat sibi, non hic cuiquam parcet amico_.
HOR. Lib. i. Sat. iv. 34.
Yonder he drives--avoid that furious beast:
If he may have his jest, he never cares
At whose expense; nor friend nor patron spares. FRANCIS.
TO THE RAMBLER.
MR. RAMBLER,
The laws of social benevolence require, that every man should endeavour
to assist others by his experience. He that has at last escaped into
port from the fluctuations of chance, and the gusts of opposition, ought
to make some improvements in the chart of life, by marking the rocks on
which he has been dashed, and the shallows where he has been stranded.
The errour into which I was betrayed, when custom first gave me up to my
own direction, is very frequently incident to the quick, the sprightly,
the fearless, and the gay; to all whose ardour hurries them into
precipitate execution of their designs, and imprudent declaration of
their opinions; who seldom count the cost of pleasure, or examine the
distant consequences of any practice that flatters them with immediate
gratification.
I came forth into the crowded world with the usual juvenile ambition,
and desired nothing beyond the title of a wit. Money I considered as
below my care; for I saw such multitudes grow rich without
understanding, that I could not forbear to look on wealth as an
acquisition easy to industry directed by genius, and therefore threw it
aside as a secondary convenience, to be procured when my principal wish
should be satisfied, and the claim to intellectual excellence
universally acknowledged.
With this view I regulated my behaviour in publick, and exercised my
meditations in solitude. My life was divided between the care of
providing topicks for the entertainment of my company, and that of
collecting company worthy to be entertained; for I soon found, that wit,
like every other power, has its boundaries; that its success depends
upon the aptitude of others to receive impressions; and that as some
bodies, indissoluble by heat, can set the furnace and crucible at
defiance, there are minds upon which the rays of fancy may be pointed
without effect, and which no fire of sentiment can agitate or exalt.
It was, however, not long before I fitted myself with a set of
companions who knew how to laugh, and to whom no other recommendation
was necessary than the power of striking out a jest. Among those I fixed
my residence, and for a time enjoyed the felicity of disturbing the
neighbours every night with the obstreperous applause which my sallies
forced from the audience. The reputation of our club every day
increased, and as my flights and remarks were circulated by my admirers,
every day brought new solicitations for admission into our society.
To support this perpetual fund of merriment, I frequented every place of
concourse, cultivated the acquaintance of all the fashionable race, and
passed the day in a continual succession of visits, in which I collected
a treasure of pleasantry for the expenses of the evening. Whatever
errour of conduct I could discover, whatever peculiarity of manner I
could observe, whatever weakness was betrayed by confidence, whatever
lapse was suffered by neglect, all was drawn together for the diversion
of my wild companions, who when they had been taught the art of
ridicule, never failed to signalize themselves by a zealous imitation,
and filled the town on the ensuing day with scandal and vexation, with
merriment and shame.
I can scarcely believe, when I recollect my own practice, that I could
have been so far deluded with petty praise, as to divulge the secrets of
trust, and to expose the levities of frankness; to waylay the walks of
the cautious, and surprise the security of the thoughtless. Yet it is
certain, that for many years I heard nothing but with design to tell it,
and saw nothing with any other curiosity than after some failure that
might furnish out a jest.
My heart, indeed, acquits me of deliberate malignity, or interested
insidiousness. I had no other purpose than to heighten the pleasure of
laughter by communication, nor ever raised any pecuniary advantage from
the calamities of others. I led weakness and negligence into
difficulties, only that I might divert myself with their perplexities
and distresses; and violated every law of friendship, with no other hope
than that of gaining the reputation of smartness and waggery.