a fairer interpretation. And why impute as a fault to me, what the
reverend SPRAT, as well as DRYDEN, did not disdain to countenance by
their examples? Besides, as an argument of the unsullied purity of
intention, you might remember, methinks, that I asked no recompence,
and accepted none, for the willing honours my muse paid him.
DR. MORE.
It must be a sordid muse indeed, that submits to a venal prostitution.
And, to do your profession justice, it is not so much avarice, or even
ambition, as a certain gentler passion, the vanity, shall I call it? of
being well with the _great_, that is fatal to you poets.
MR. WALLER.
I can allow for the satire of this reproof, in a man of ancient and
bookish manners. But, to shew my disinterestedness still more, you may
recollect, if you please, that I embalmed his memory, when neither his
favour nor his smile were to be apprehended.
DR. MORE.
In the short reign of his son.—But what then? you made amends for all,
by the congratulation on the happy return of his present majesty. You
know who it was that somebody complimented in these lines:
“He best can turn, enforce and soften things,
To praise great conquerors, and flatter kings.”
MR. WALLER.
Was it for me to stem the torrent of a nation’s joys by a froward and
unseasonable silence? Did not HORACE, who fought at _Philippi_, do
as much for AUGUSTUS? And should I, who had suffered for his cause,
not embrace the goodness, and salute the returning fortunes, of so
gracious, so accomplished a master? His majesty himself, as I truly say
of him, in the poem you object to me,
“with wisdom fraught,
Not such as books, but such as practice, taught,”
did me the justice to understand my address after another manner. He,
who had so often been forced by the necessities of his affairs to make
compliances with the time, never resented it from me, a private man
and a poet, that I had made some sacrifices of a like nature. All this
might convince you of the great truth I meant to inculcate by this long
recital, that not a sullen and inflexible _Sincerity_, but a fair and
seasonable _accommodation of one’s self_, to the various exigencies of
the times, is the golden virtue that ought to predominate in a man
of life and business. All the rest, believe me, is the very cant of
philosophy and unexperienced wisdom.
DR. MORE.
Wisdom—and must the sanctity of that name—
MR. WALLER.
Hear me, Sir—no exclamations against the evidence of plain fact. I
have a right to expect another conduct from him, who is grown grey in
the studies of moral science.
DR. MORE.
You learned another lesson in the school of FALKLAND, HYDE, and
CHILLINGWORTH.
MR. WALLER.
Yes, one I was obliged to unlearn. But, since you remind me of that
school, what was the effect of adhering pertinaciously to its false
maxims? To what purpose were the lives of _two_ of them prodigally
thrown away; and the honour, the wisdom, the talents of the _other_,
still left to languish in banishment[29] and obscurity?
DR. MORE.
O! prophane not the glories of immortal, though successless virtue,
with such reproaches.—Those adored names shall preach honour to future
ages, and enthrone the majesty of virtue in the hearts of men, when
wit and parts, and eloquence and poetry, have not a leaf of all their
withered bays to recommend them.
MR. WALLER.
Raptures and chimeras!——Rather judge of the sentiments of future
ages, from the present. Where is the man, (I speak it without
boasting,) that enjoys a fairer fame; who is better received in all
places; who is more listened to in all companies; who reaps the fruits
of a reasonable and practicable virtue in every return of honour, more
unquestionably, than he whose life and principles your outrageous
virtue leads you to undervalue so unworthily? And take it from me as
an oracle, which long age and experience enable me to deliver with all
assurance, “Whoever, in succeeding times, shall form himself on the
plan here given shall meet with the safety, credit, applause, and,
if he chuses, honour and fortune in the world, which may be promised
indeed, but never will be obtained, by any other method.”
DR. MORE.
You have spoken. But hear me now, I conjure you, whilst a poor despised
philosopher—
MR. WALLER.
O! I have marked the emotion this discourse of mine hath awakened in
you. I have seen your impatience: I have watched your eyes when they
sparkled defiance and contradiction to my argument. But your warmth
makes you forget yourself. I gave a patient hearing to all your
eloquence could suggest in this cause. I even favoured your zeal, and
helped to blow up your enthusiasm. The rest fell to my turn; and
besides, the evening, as you see, shuts in upon us. Let us escape, at
least, from its dews, which, in this decline of the year, they say, are
not the most wholesome, into a warm apartment within doors; and then I
shall not be averse, especially when you have taken a few minutes to
recollect yourself, to debate with you what further remains upon this
argument[30].
DIALOGUE II.
ON RETIREMENT.
BETWEEN
MR. ABRAHAM COWLEY,
AND
THE REV. MR. THOMAS SPRAT.
DIALOGUE II.
ON RETIREMENT.
MR. ABRAHAM COWLEY—THE REV. MR. SPRAT.
TO THE EARL OF ST. ALBANS[31].
MY LORD,
The duty I owe your LORDSHIP, as well as my friendship for Mr. COWLEY,
determined me to lose no time in executing the commission you was
pleased to charge me with by Mr. D***. I went early the next morning
to _Barn Elms_[32]; intending to pass the whole day with him, and to
try if what I might be able to suggest on the occasion, together with
the weight of your lordship’s advice, could not divert him from his
strange project of _Retirement_. Your lordship, no doubt, as all his
other friends, had observed his bias that way to be very strong; but
who, that knew his great sense, could have thought of it its carrying
him to so extravagant a resolution? For my own part, I suspected it so
little, that, though he would often talk of retiring, and especially
since your lordship’s favour to him[33], I considered it only as the
usual language of poets, which they take up one after another, and
love to indulge in, as what they suppose becomes their family and
profession. It could never come into my thoughts, that one, who knew
the world so well as Mr. COWLEY, and had lived so long in it, who had
so fair hopes and so noble a patron, could seriously think of quitting
the scene at his years, and all for so fantastic a purpose as that of
growing old in the corner of a country village.
These, my lord, were my sentiments, when your friendly message alarmed
me with the apprehension of there being more in the matter than I had
suspected. Yet still I considered it only as a hasty thought, which
a fit of the spleen, or of the muse it may be, had raised; and which
the free remonstrance of a friend would easily disperse, or prevent at
least from coming to any fixed and settled resolution. But how shall
I express to your lordship the surprise I was in, to find that this
resolution was not only taken, but rooted so deeply in him, that no
arguments, nor even your lordship’s authority, could shake it? I have
ever admired Mr. COWLEY, as a man of the happiest temper and truest
judgment; but, to say the least, there was something so particular, I
had almost said perverse, in what he had to allege for himself on this
occasion, that I cannot think I acquit myself to your lordship, without
laying before you the whole of this extraordinary conversation; and, as
far as my recollection will serve, in the very words in which it passed
betwixt us.
I went, as I told your lordship, pretty early to _Barn Elms_; but my
friend had gotten the start of me by some hours. He was busying himself
with some improvements of his garden, and the fields that lie about
his house. The whole circuit of his domain was not so large, but that
I presently came up with him. “My dear friend,” said he, embracing
me, but with a look of some reserve and disgust, “and is it you then
I have the happiness to see, at length, in my new settlement? Though
I fled hither from the rest of the world, I had no design to get out
of the reach of my friends. And, to be plain with you, I took it a
little amiss from one whose entire affection I had reckoned upon,
that he should leave me to myself for these two whole months, without
discovering an inclination, either from friendship or curiosity, to
know how this retirement agreed with me. What could induce my best
friend to use me so unkindly?”
Surely, said I, you forget the suddenness of your flight, and the
secresy with which the resolution was taken. We supposed you gone only
for a few days, to see to the management of your affairs; and could
not dream of your _rusticating_ thus long, at a time when the town
and court are so busy; when the occasions of your friends and your
own interests seemed to require your speedy return to us. However,
continued I, it doth not displease me to find you so dissatisfied
with this solitude. It looks as if the short experience, you have
had of this recluse life, did not recommend it to you in the manner
you expected. Retirement is a fine thing in imagination, and is apt
to possess you poets with strange visions. But the charm is rarely
lasting; and a short trial, I find, hath served to correct these
fancies. You feel yourself born for society and the world, and, by your
kind complaints of your friend, confess how unnatural it is to deny
yourself the proper delights of a man, the delights of conversation.
Not so fast, interrupted he, if you please, in your conclusions about
the nature of retirement. I never meant to give up my right in the
affections of those few I call my friends. But what has this to do
with the general purpose of retreating from the anxieties of business,
the intrigues of policy, or the impertinencies of conversation? I have
lived but too long in a ceaseless round of these follies. The best part
of my time hath been spent _sub dio_. I have served in all weathers,
and in all climates, but chiefly in the torrid zone of politics, where
the passions of all men are on fire, and where such as have lived the
longest, and are thought the happiest, are scarcely able to reconcile
themselves to the sultry air of the place. But this warfare is now
happily at an end. I have languished these many years for the shade.
Thanks to my Lord ST. ALBANS, and another noble lord you know of, I
have now gained it. And it is not a small matter, I assure you, shall
force me out of this shelter.
Nothing is easier, said I, than for you men of wit to throw a ridicule
upon any thing. It is but applying a quaint figure, or a well-turned
sentence, and the business is done. But indeed, my best friend, it
gives me pain to find you not so much diverting as deceiving yourself
with this unseasonable ingenuity. So long as these sallies of fancy
were employed only to enliven conversation, or furnish matter for an
ode or an epigram, all was very well. But now that you seem disposed
to _act_ upon them, you must excuse me if I take the matter a little
more seriously. To deal plainly with you, I come to tell you my whole
mind on this subject: and, to give what I have to say the greater
consequence with you, I must not conceal from you, that I come
commissioned by the excellent lord you honour so much, and have just
now mentioned, to expostulate in the freest manner with you upon it.
We had continued walking all this time, and were now ascending a
sort of natural terras. It led to a small thicket, in the entrance
of which was a seat that commanded a pleasant view of the country
and the river. Taking me up to it, “Well,” said he, “my good friend,
since your purpose in coming hither is so kind, and my Lord ST. ALBANS
himself doth me the honour to think my private concerns deserving his
particular notice, it becomes me to receive your message with respect,
and to debate the matter, since you press it so home upon me, with all
possible calmness. But let us, if you please, sit down here. You will
find it the most agreeable spot I have to treat you with; and the shade
we have about us will not, I suppose, at this hour, be unwelcome.”
And now, turning himself to me, “Let me hear from you, what there
is in my retreat to this place, which a wise man can have reason to
censure, or which may deserve the disallowance of a friend. I know you
come prepared with every argument which men of the world have at any
time employed against retirement; and I know your ability to give to
each its full force. But look upon this scene before you, and tell me
what inducements I can possibly have to quit it for any thing you can
promise me in exchange? Is there in that vast labyrinth, you call the
world, where so many thousands lose themselves in endless wanderings
and perplexities, any corner where the mind can recollect itself so
perfectly, where it can attend to its own business, and pursue its
proper interests so conveniently, as in this quiet and sequestered
spot? Here the passions subside; or, if they continue to agitate,
do not however transport the mind with those feverish and vexatious
fervours, which distract us in public life. This is the seat of virtue
and of reason; here I can fashion my life by the precepts of duty
and conscience; and here I have leisure to make acquaintance, that
acquaintance which elsewhere is so rarely made, with the ways and works
of God.
Think again, my friend. Doth not the genius of the place seize you? Do
you not perceive a certain serenity steal in upon you? Doth not the
aspect of things around you, the very stillness of this retreat, infuse
a content and satisfaction which the world knows nothing of? Tell me,
in a word, is there not something like enchantment about us? Do you not
find your desires more composed, your purposes more pure, your thoughts
more elevated, and more active, since your entrance into this scene?”
He was proceeding in this strain, with an air of perfect enthusiasm,
when I broke in upon him with asking, “Whether this was what he called
_debating the matter calmly with me_. Surely,” said I, “this is poetry,
or something still more extravagant. You cannot think I come prepared
to encounter you in this way. I own myself no match for you at these
weapons: which indeed are too fine for my handling, and very unsuitable
to my purpose if they were not. The point is not which of us can say
the handsomest things, but the truest, on either side of the question.
It is, as you said, plain argument, and not rhetorical flourishes, much
less poetical raptures, that must decide the matter in debate. Not but
a great deal might be said on my side, and, it may be, with more colour
of truth, had I the command of an eloquence proper to set it off.
I might ask, in my turn, “Where is mighty charm that draws you to this
inglorious solitude, from the duties of business and conversation,
from the proper end and employment of man? How comes it to pass, that
this stillness of a country landscape, this uninstructing, though
agreeable enough, scene of fields and waters, should have greater
beauty in your eye, than _flourishing peopled towns_, the scenes of
industry and art, of public wealth and happiness? Is not the _sublime
countenance_ of man, so one of your acquaintance terms it, a more
delightful object than any of these humble beauties that lie before
us? And are not the human virtues, with all their train of lovely and
beneficial effects in society, better worth contemplating, than the
products of inanimate nature in the field or wood? Where should we seek
for REASON, but in the minds of men tried and polished in the school
of civil conversation? And where hath VIRTUE so much as a being out of
the offices of social life? Look well into yourself, I might say: hath
not indeed the proper genius of solitude affected you! Doth not I know
not what of chagrin and discontent hang about you? Is there not a gloom
upon your mind, which darkens your views of human nature, and damps
those chearful thoughts and sprightly purposes, which friendship and
society inspire?”
You see, Sir, were I but disposed, and as able as you are, to pursue
this way of fancy and declamation, I might conjure up as many frightful
forms in these retired walks, as you have delightful ones. And the
enchantment in good hands would, I am persuaded, have more the
appearance of reality. But this is not the way in which I take upon
myself to contend with you. I would hear, if you please, what reasons,
that deserve to be so called, could determine you to so strange, and,
forgive me if at present I am forced to think it, so unreasonable a
project, as that of devoting your health and years to this monastic
retirement. I would lay before you the arguments, which, I presume,
should move you to quit a hasty, perhaps an unweighted, resolution:
so improper in itself, so alarming to all your friends, so injurious
to your own interest, and, permit me to say, to the public. I would
enforce all this with the mild persuasions of a friend; and with the
wisdom, the authority of a great person, to whose opinion you owe a
deference, and who deserves it too from the entire love and affection
he bears you.”
My dearest friend, replied he, with an earnestness that awed, and a
goodness that melted me, I am not to learn the affection which either
you or my noble friend bear me. I have had too many proofs of it from
both, to suffer me to doubt it. But why will you not allow me to judge
of what is proper to constitute my own happiness? And why must I be
denied the privilege of choosing for myself, in a matter where the
different taste or humour of others makes them so unfit to prescribe
to me? Yet I submit to these unequal terms; and if I cannot justify the
choice I have made, even in the way of serious reason and argument, I
promise to yield myself to your advice and authority. You have taken me
perhaps a little unprepared and unfurnished for this conflict. I have
not marshalled my forces in form, as you seem to have done; and it may
be difficult, on the sudden, to methodize my thoughts in the manner
you may possibly expect from me. But come, said he, I will do my best
in this emergency. You will excuse the rapture which hurried me at
setting out, beyond the bounds which your severer temper requires. The
subject always fires me; and I find it difficult, in entering on this
argument, to restrain those triumphant sallies, which had better have
been reserved for the close of it.
Here he paused a little; and recollecting himself, “But first,” resumed
he, “you will take notice, that I am not at all concerned in the
general question, so much, and, I think, so vainly agitated, “_whether
a life of retirement be preferable to one of action?_” I am not, I
assure you, for unpeopling our cities, and sending their industrious
and useful inhabitants into woods and cloisters. I acknowledge and
admire the improvements of arts, the conveniencies of society, the
policies of government[34]. I have no thought so mad or so silly, as
that of wishing to see the tribes of mankind disbanded, their interests
and connexions dissolved, and themselves turned loose into a single and
solitary existence. I would not even wish to see our courts deserted
of their homagers, though I cannot but be of opinion, that an airing
now and then at their country houses, and that not with the view of
diverting, but recollecting themselves, would prove as useful to their
sense and virtue, as to their estates. But all this, as I said, is so
far from coming into the scheme of my serious wishes, that it does not
so much as enter into my thoughts. Let wealth, and power, and pleasure,
be as eagerly sought after, as they ever will be: let thousands or
millions assemble in vast towns, for the sake of pursuing their several
ends, as it may chance, of profit, vanity, or amusement: All this
is nothing to me, who pretend not to determine for other men, but to
vindicate my own choice of this retirement.
As much as I have been involved in the engagements of business, I
have not lived thus long without looking frequently, and sometimes
attentively into myself. I maintain, then, that to a person so moulded
as I am; of the _temper and turn of mind_, which Nature hath given me;
of _the sort of talents_, with which education or genius hath furnished
me; and, lastly, of the _circumstances_, in which fortune hath placed
me; I say, to a person so charactered and so situated, RETIREMENT is
not only his choice, but his duty; is not only what his inclination
leads him to, but his judgement. And upon these grounds, if you will, I
venture to undertake my own apology to you.”
Your proposal, said I, is fair, and I can have no objection to close
with you upon these terms; only you must take care, my friend, that
you do not mistake or misrepresent your own talents or character;
a miscarriage, which, allow me to say, is not very rare from the
partialities which an indulged humour, too easily taken for nature, is
apt to create in us.
Or what, replied he, if this humour, as you call it, be so rooted as to
become a _second_ nature? Can it, in the instance before us, be worth
the pains of correcting?
I should think so, returned I, in your case. But let me first hear the
judgement you form of yourself, before I trouble you with that which I
and your other friends make of you.
I cannot but think, resumed he, that my situation at present must
appear very ridiculous. I am forced into an _apology_ for my own
conduct, in a very nice affair, which it might become another, rather
than myself, to make for me. In order to this, I am constrained to
reveal to you the very secrets, that is, the foibles and weaknesses,
of my own heart. I am to lay myself open and naked before you. This
would be an unwelcome task to most men. But your friendship, and
the confidence I have in your affection, prevail over all scruples.
Hitherto your friend hath used the common privilege of wearing a
disguise, of masking himself, as the poet makes his hero, in a _cloud_,
which is of use to keep off the too near and curious inspection both of
friends and enemies. But, at your bidding, it falls off, and you are
now to see him in his just proportion and true features.
My best friend, proceeded he with an air of earnestness and
recollection, it is now above forty years that I have lived in this
world: and in all the rational part of that time there hath not, I
believe, a single day passed without an ardent longing for such a
retreat from it, as you see me at length blessed with. You have heard
me repeat some verses, which were made by me so early as the age of
_thirteen_, and in which that inclination is expressed as strongly, as
in any thing I have ever said or written on that subject[35]. Hence you
may guess the proper turn and bias of my nature; which began so soon,
and hath continued thus long, to shew itself in the constant workings
of that passion.
Even in my earliest years at school, you will hardly imagine how uneasy
constraint of every kind was to me, and with what delight I broke away
from the customary sports and pastimes of that age, to saunter the
time away by myself, or with a companion, if I could meet with any
such, of my own humour. The same inclination pursued me to college;
where a private walk, with a book or friend, was beyond any amusement,
which, in that sprightly season of life, I had any acquaintance with.
It is with a fond indulgence my memory even now returns to these past
pleasures. It was in those retired ramblings that a thousand charming
perceptions and bright ideas would stream in upon me. The Muse was
kindest in those hours: and, I know not how, Philosophy herself would
_oftner_ meet me amidst the willows of the CAM, than in the formal
schools of science, within the walls of my college, or in my tutor’s
chamber.
I understand, said I, the true secret of that matter. You had now
contracted an intimacy with the poets, and others of the fanciful
tribe. You was even admitted of their company; and it was but fit you
should adopt their sentiments, and speak their language. Hence those
day-dreams of _shade and silence_, and I know not what visions, which
transport the minds of young men, on their entrance into these regions
of _Parnassus_.
It should seem then, returned he, by your way of expressing it, as if
you thought this passion for _shade and silence_ was only pretended to
on a principle of _fashion_; or, at most, was catched by the lovers of
poetry from each other, in the way of _sympathy_, without nature’s
having any hand at all in the production of it.