hurry, and informed us with the abruptness of ecstacy, that his set of
halfpence was now complete; he had just received in a handful of change,
the piece that he had so long been seeking, and could now defy mankind
to outgo his collection of English copper.
Chartophylax then observed how fatally human sagacity was sometimes
baffled, and how often the most valuable discoveries are made by chance.
He had employed himself and his emissaries seven years at great expense
to perfect his series of Gazettes, but had long wanted a single paper,
which, when he despaired of obtaining it, was sent him wrapped round a
parcel of tobacco.
Cantilenus turned all his thoughts upon old ballads, for he considered
them as the genuine records of the national taste. He offered to shew me
a copy of "The Children in the Wood," which he firmly believed to be of
the first edition, and, by the help of which, the text might be freed
from several corruptions, if this age of barbarity had any claim to such
favours from him.
Many were admitted into this society as inferior members, because they
had collected old prints and neglected pamphlets, or possessed some
fragment of antiquity, as the seal of an ancient corporation, the
charter of a religious house, the genealogy of a family extinct, or a
letter written in the reign of Elizabeth.
Every one of these virtuosos looked on all his associates as wretches of
depraved taste and narrow notions. Their conversation was, therefore,
fretful and waspish, their behaviour brutal, their merriment bluntly
sarcastick, and their seriousness gloomy and suspicious. They were
totally ignorant of all that passes, or has lately passed, in the world;
unable to discuss any question of religious, political, or military
knowledge; equally strangers to science and politer learning, and
without any wish to improve their minds, or any other pleasure than that
of displaying rarities, of which they would not suffer others to make
the proper use.
Hirsutus graciously informed me, that the number of their society was
limited, but that I might sometimes attend as an auditor. I was pleased
to find myself in no danger of an honour, which I could not have
willingly accepted, nor gracefully refused, and left them without any
intention of returning; for I soon found that the suppression of those
habits with which I was vitiated, required association with men very
different from this solemn race.
I am, Sir, &c.
VIVACULUS.
It is natural to feel grief or indignation when any thing necessary or
useful is wantonly wasted, or negligently destroyed; and therefore my
correspondent cannot be blamed for looking with uneasiness on the waste
of life. Leisure and curiosity might soon make great advances in useful
knowledge, were they not diverted by minute emulation and laborious
trifles. It may, however, somewhat mollify his anger to reflect, that
perhaps none of the assembly which he describes, was capable of any
nobler employment, and that he who does his best, however little, is
always to be distinguished from him who does nothing. Whatever busies
the mind without corrupting it, has at least this use, that it rescues
the day from idleness, and he that is never idle will not often be
vicious.
No. 178. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 1751.
_Purs sanitatis velle sanuria fuit_. SENECA.
To yield to remedies is half the cure.
Pythagoras is reported to have required from those whom he instructed in
philosophy a probationary silence of five years. Whether this
prohibition of speech extended to all the parts of this time, as seems
generally to be supposed, or was to be observed only in the school or in
the presence of their master, as is more probable, it was sufficient to
discover the pupil's disposition; to try whether he was willing to pay
the price of learning, or whether he was one of those whose ardour was
rather violent than lasting, and who expected to grow wise on other
terms than those of patience and obedience.
Many of the blessings universally desired, are very frequently wanted,
because most men, when they should labour, content themselves to
complain, and rather linger in a state in which they cannot be at rest,
than improve their condition by vigour and resolution.
Providence has fixed the limits of human enjoyment by immoveable
boundaries, and has set different gratifications at such a distance from
each other, that no art or power can bring them together. This great law
it is the business of every rational being to understand, that life may
not pass away in an attempt to make contradictions consistent, to
combine opposite qualities, and to unite things which the nature of
their being must always keep asunder.
Of two objects tempting at a distance on contrary sides, it is
impossible to approach one but by receding from the other; by long
deliberation and dilatory projects, they may be both lost, but can never
be both gained. It is, therefore, necessary to compare them, and, when
we have determined the preference, to withdraw our eyes and our thoughts
at once from that which reason directs us to reject. This is more
necessary, if that which we are forsaking has the power of delighting
the senses, or firing the fancy. He that once turns aside to the
allurements of unlawful pleasure, can have no security that he shall
ever regain the paths of virtue.
The philosophick goddess of Boethius, having related the story of
Orpheus, who, when he had recovered his wife from the dominions of
death, lost her again by looking back upon her in the confines of light,
concludes with a very elegant and forcible application. "Whoever you are
that endeavour to elevate your minds to the illuminations of Heaven,
consider yourselves as represented in this fable; for he that is once so
far overcome as to turn back his eyes towards the infernal caverns,
loses at the first sight all that influence which attracted him on
high:"
Vos haec fabula respicit,
Quicunque in superum diem
Mentem ducere quaeritis.
Nam qui Tartareum in specus
Victus lumina flexerit,
Quidquid praecipuum trahit,
Perdit, dum videt inferos.
It may be observed, in general, that the future is purchased by the
present. It is not possible to secure instant or permanent happiness but
by the forbearance of some immediate gratification. This is so evidently
true with regard to the whole of our existence, that all the precepts of
theology have no other tendency than to enforce a life of faith; a life
regulated not by our senses but our belief; a life in which pleasures
are to be refused for fear of invisible punishments, and calamities
sometimes to be sought, and always endured, in hope of rewards that
shall be obtained in another state.
Even if we take into our view only that particle of our duration which
is terminated by the grave, it will be found that we cannot enjoy one
part of life beyond the common limitations of pleasure, but by
anticipating some of the satisfaction which should exhilarate the
following years. The heat of youth may spread happiness into wild
luxuriance, but the radical vigour requisite to make it perennial is
exhausted, and all that can be hoped afterwards is languor and
sterility.
The reigning errour of mankind is, that we are not content with the
conditions on which the goods of life are granted. No man is insensible
of the value of knowledge, the advantages of health, or the convenience
of plenty, but every day shews us those on whom the conviction is
without effect.
Knowledge is praised and desired by multitudes whom her charms could
never rouse from the couch of sloth; whom the faintest invitation of
pleasure draws away from their studies; to whom any other method of
wearing out the day is more eligible than the use of books, and who are
more easily engaged by any conversation, than such as may rectify their
notions or enlarge their comprehension.
Every man that has felt pain, knows how little all other comforts can
gladden him to whom health is denied. Yet who is there does not
sometimes hazard it for the enjoyment of an hour? All assemblies of
jollity, all places of public entertainment, exhibit examples of
strength wasting in riot, and beauty withering in irregularity; nor is
it easy to enter a house in which part of the family is not groaning in
repentance of past intemperance, and part admitting disease by
negligence, or soliciting it by luxury.
There is no pleasure which men of every age and sect have more generally
agreed to mention with contempt, than the gratifications of the palate;
an entertainment so far removed from intellectual happiness, that
scarcely the most shameless of the sensual herd have dared to defend it:
yet even to this, the lowest of our delights, to this, though neither
quick nor lasting, is health with all its activity and sprightliness
daily sacrificed; and for this are half the miseries endured which urge
impatience to call on death.
The whole world is put in motion by the wish for riches and the dread of
poverty. Who, then, would not imagine that such conduct as will
inevitably destroy what all are thus labouring to acquire, must
generally be avoided? That he who spends more than he receives, must in
time become indigent, cannot be doubted; but, how evident soever this
consequence may appear, the spendthrift moves in the whirl of pleasure
with too much rapidity to keep it before his eyes, and, in the
intoxication of gaiety, grows every day poorer without any such sense of
approaching ruin as is sufficient to wake him into caution.
Many complaints are made of the misery of life; and indeed it must be
confessed that we are subject to calamities by which the good and bad,
the diligent and slothful, the vigilant and heedless, are equally
afflicted. But surely, though some indulgence may be allowed to groans
extorted by inevitable misery, no man has a right to repine at evils
which, against warning, against experience, he deliberately and
leisurely brings upon his own head; or to consider himself as debarred
from happiness by such obstacles as resolution may break or dexterity
may put aside.
Great numbers who quarrel with their condition, have wanted not the
power but the will to obtain a better state. They have never
contemplated the difference between good and evil sufficiently to
quicken aversion, or invigorate desire; they have indulged a drowsy
thoughtlessness or giddy levity; have committed the balance of choice to
the management of caprice; and when they have long accustomed themselves
to receive all that chance offered them, without examination, lament at
last that they find themselves deceived.
No. 179. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1751.
_Perpetuo risu pulmonem agitare solebat_. JUV. Sat. x. 33.
Democritus would feed his spleen, and shake
His sides and shoulders till he felt them ake. DRYDEN
Every man, says Tully, has two characters; one which he partakes with
all mankind, and by which he is distinguished from brute animals;
another which discriminates him from the rest of his own species, and
impresses on him a manner and temper peculiar to himself; this
particular character, if it be not repugnant to the laws of general
humanity, it is always his business to cultivate and preserve.
Every hour furnishes some confirmation of Tully's precept. It seldom
happens, that an assembly of pleasure is so happily selected, but that
some one finds admission, with whom the rest are deservedly offended;
and it will appear, on a close inspection, that scarce any man becomes
eminently disagreeable, but by a departure from his real character, and
an attempt at something for which nature or education have left him
unqualified.
Ignorance or dulness have indeed no power of affording delight, but they
never give disgust except when they assume the dignity of knowledge, or
ape the sprightliness of wit. Awkwardness and inelegance have none of
those attractions by which ease and politeness take possession of the
heart; but ridicule and censure seldom rise against them, unless they
appear associated with that confidence which belongs only to long
acquaintance with the modes of life, and to consciousness of unfailing
propriety of behaviour. Deformity itself is regarded with tenderness
rather than aversion, when it does not attempt to deceive the sight by
dress and decoration, and to seize upon fictitious claims the
prerogatives of beauty.
He that stands to contemplate the crowds that fill the streets of a
populous city, will see many passengers whose air and motion it will be
difficult to behold without contempt and laughter; but if he examines
what are the appearances that thus powerfully excite his risibility, he
will find among them neither poverty nor disease, nor any involuntary or
painful defect. The disposition to derision and insult is awakened by
the softness of foppery, the swell of insolence, the liveliness of
levity, or the solemnity of grandeur; by the sprightly trip, the stately
stalk, the formal strut, the lofty mien; by gestures intended to catch
the eye, and by looks elaborately formed as evidences of importance.
It, has, I think, been sometimes urged in favour of affectation, that it
is only a mistake of the means to a good end, and that the intention
with which it is practised is always to please. If all attempts to
innovate the constitutional or habitual character have really proceeded
from publick spirit and love of others, the world has hitherto been
sufficiently ungrateful, since no return but scorn has yet been made to
the most difficult of all enterprises, a contest with nature; nor has
any pity been shown to the fatigues of labour which never succeeded, and
the uneasiness of disguise by which nothing was concealed.
It seems therefore to be determined by the general suffrage of mankind,
that he who decks himself in adscititious qualities rather purposes to
command applause than impart pleasure: and he is therefore treated as a
man who, by an unreasonable ambition, usurps the place in society to
which he has no right. Praise is seldom paid with willingness even to
incontestable merit, and it can be no wonder that he who calls for it
without desert is repulsed with universal indignation.
Affectation naturally counterfeits those excellencies which are placed
at the greatest distance from possibility of attainment. We are
conscious of our own defects, and eagerly endeavour to supply them by
artificial excellence; nor would such efforts be wholly without excuse,
were they not often excited by ornamental trifles, which he, that thus
anxiously struggles for the reputation of possessing them, would not
have been known to want, had not his industry quickened observation.
Gelasimus passed the first part of his life in academical privacy and
rural retirement, without any other conversation than that of scholars,
grave, studious, and abstracted as himself. He cultivated the
mathematical sciences with indefatigable diligence, discovered many
useful theorems, discussed with great accuracy the resistance of fluids,
and, though his priority was not generally acknowledged, was the first
who fully explained all the properties of the catenarian curve.
Learning, when if rises to eminence, will be observed in time, whatever
mists may happen to surround it. Gelasimus, in his forty-ninth year, was
distinguished by those who have the rewards of knowledge in their hands,
and called out to display his acquisitions for the honour of his
country, and add dignity by his presence to philosophical assemblies. As
he did not suspect his unfitness for common affairs, he fell no
reluctance to obey the invitation, and what he did not feel he had yet
too much honesty to feign. He entered into the world as a larger and
more populous college, where his performances would be more publick, and
his renown farther extended; and imagined that he should find his
reputation universally prevalent, and the influence of learning every
where the same.
His merit introduced him to splendid tables and elegant acquaintance;
but he did not find himself always qualified to join in the
conversation. He was distressed by civilities, which he knew not how to
repay, and entangled in many ceremonial perplexities, from which his
books and diagrams could not extricate him. He was sometimes unluckily
engaged in disputes with ladies, with whom algebraick axioms had no
great weight, and saw many whose favour and esteem he could not but
desire, to whom he was very little recommended by his theories of the
tides, or his approximations to the quadrature of the circle.
Gelasimus did not want penetration to discover, that no charm was more
generally irresistible than that of easy facetiousness and flowing
hilarity. He saw that diversion was more frequently welcome than
improvement; that authority and seriousness were rather feared than
loved; and that the grave scholar was a kind of imperious ally, hastily
dismissed when his assistance was no longer necessary. He came to a
sudden resolution of throwing off those cumbrous ornaments of learning
which hindered his reception, and commenced a man of wit and jocularity.
Utterly unacquainted with every topick of merriment, ignorant of the
modes and follies, the vices and virtues of mankind, and unfurnished
with any ideas but such as Pappas and Archimedes had given him, he began
to silence all inquiries with a jest instead of a solution, extended his
face with a grin, which he mistook for a smile, and in the place of
scientifick discourse, retailed in a new language, formed between the
college and the tavern, the intelligence of the newspaper.
Laughter, he knew, was a token of alacrity; and, therefore, whatever he
said or heard, he was careful not to fail in that great duty of a wit.
If he asked or told the hour of the day, if he complained of heat or
cold, stirred the fire, or filled a glass, removed his chair, or snuffed
a candle, he always found some occasion to laugh. The jest was indeed a
secret to all but himself; but habitual confidence in his own
discernment hindered him from suspecting any weakness or mistake. He
wondered that his wit was so little understood, but expected that his
audience would comprehend it by degrees, and persisted all his life to
shew by gross buffoonery, how little the strongest faculties can perform
beyond the limits of their own province.
No. 180. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1751.
[Greek: Taut eidos sophos isthi, mataen d' Epikouron eason
Poy to kenon zaetein, kai tines ai monades.] AUTOMEDON.
On life, on morals, be thy thoughts employ'd;
Leave to the schools their atoms and their void.
It is somewhere related by Le Clerc, that a wealthy trader of good
understanding, having the common ambition to breed his son a scholar,
carried him to an university, resolving to use his own judgment in the
choice of a tutor. He had been taught, by whatever intelligence, the
nearest way to the heart of an academick, and at his arrival entertained
all who came about him with such profusion, that the professors were
lured by the smell of his table from their books, and flocked round him
with all the cringes of awkward complaisance. This eagerness answered
the merchant's purpose: he glutted them with delicacies, and softened
them with caresses, till he prevailed upon one after another to open his
bosom, and make a discovery of his competitions, jealousies, and
resentments. Having thus learned each man's character, partly from
himself, and partly from his acquaintances, he resolved to find some
other education for his son, and went away convinced, that a scholastick
life has no other tendency than to vitiate the morals and contract the
understanding: nor would he afterwards hear with patience the praises of
the ancient authors, being persuaded that scholars of all ages must have
been the same, and that Xenophon and Cicero were professors of some
former university, and therefore mean and selfish, ignorant and servile,
like those whom he had lately visited and forsaken.
Envy, curiosity, and a sense of the imperfection of our present state,
incline us to estimate the advantages which are in the possession of
others above their real value. Every one must have remarked, what powers
and prerogatives the vulgar imagine to be conferred by learning. A man
of science is expected to excel the unlettered and unenlightened even on
occasions where literature is of no use, and among weak minds, loses
part of his reverence, by discovering no superiority in those parts of
life, in which all are unavoidably equal; as when a monarch makes a
progress to the remoter provinces, the rustics are said sometimes to
wonder that they find him of the same size with themselves.
These demands of prejudice and folly can never be satisfied; and
therefore many of the imputations which learning suffers from
disappointed ignorance, are without reproach. But there are some
failures, to which men of study are peculiarly exposed. Every condition
has its disadvantages. The circle of knowledge is too wide for the most
active and diligent intellect, and while science is pursued, other
accomplishments are neglected; as a small garrison must leave one part
of an extensive fortress naked, when an alarm calls them to another.
The learned, however, might generally support their dignity with more
success, if they suffered not themselves to be misled by the desire of
superfluous attainments. Raphael, in return to Adam's inquiries into the
courses of the stars, and the revolutions of heaven, counsels him to
withdraw his mind from idle speculations, and employ his faculties upon
nearer and more interesting objects, the survey of his own life, the
subjection of his passions, the knowledge of duties which must daily be
performed, and the detection of dangers which must daily be incurred.
This angelick counsel every man of letters should always have before
him. He that devotes himself to retired study naturally sinks from
omission to forgetfulness of social duties; he must be therefore
sometimes awakened and recalled to the general condition of mankind.
I am far from any intention to limit curiosity, or confine the labours
of learning to arts of immediate and necessary use. It is only from the
various essays of experimental industry, and the vague excursions of
minds sent out upon discovery, that any advancement of knowledge can be
expected; and, though many must be disappointed in their labours, yet
they are not to be charged with having spent their time in vain; their
example contributed to inspire emulation, and their miscarriages taught
others the way to success.
But the distant hope of being one day useful or eminent, ought not to
mislead us too far from that study which is equally requisite to the
great and mean, to the celebrated and obscure; the art of moderating the
desires, of repressing the appetites, and of conciliating or retaining
the favour of mankind.
No man can imagine the course of his own life, or the conduct of the
world around him, unworthy his attention; yet, among the sons of
learning, many seem to have thought of every thing rather than of
themselves, and to have observed every thing but what passes before
their eyes: many who toil through the intricacy of complicated systems,
are insuperably embarrassed with the least perplexity in common affairs;
many who compare the actions, and ascertain the characters of ancient
heroes, let their own days glide away without examination, and suffer
vicious habits to encroach upon their minds without resistance or
detection.
The most frequent reproach of the scholastick race is the want of
fortitude, not martial but philosophick. Men bred in shades and silence,
taught to immure themselves at sunset, and accustomed to no other weapon
than syllogism, may be allowed to feel terrour at personal danger, and
to be disconcerted by tumult and alarm. But why should he whose life is
spent in contemplation, and whose business is only to discover truth, be
unable to rectify the fallacies of imagination, or contend successfully
against prejudice and passion? To what end has he read and meditated, if
he gives up his understanding to false appearances, and suffers himself
to be enslaved by fear of evils to which only folly or vanity can expose
him, or elated by advantages to which, as they are equally conferred
upon the good and bad, no real dignity is annexed.