"Censure," says a late ingenious author, "is the tax a man pays to the
public for being eminent." It is a folly for an eminent man to think of
escaping it, and a weakness to be affected with it. All the illustrious
persons of antiquity, and indeed of every age in the world, have passed
through this fiery persecution. There is no defence against reproach but
obscurity; it is a kind of concomitant to greatness, as satires and
invectives were an essential part of a Roman triumph.
If men of eminence are exposed to censure on one hand, they are as much
liable to flattery on the other. If they receive reproaches which are
not due to them, they likewise receive praises which they do not deserve.
In a word, the man in a high post is never regarded with an indifferent
eye, but always considered as a friend or an enemy. For this reason
persons in great stations have seldom their true characters drawn till
several years after their deaths. Their personal friendships and
enmities must cease, and the parties they were engaged in be at an end,
before their faults or their virtues can have justice done them. When
writers have the least opportunity of knowing the truth, they are in the
best disposition to tell it.
It is therefore the privilege of posterity to adjust the characters of
illustrious persons, and to set matters right between those antagonists
who by their rivalry for greatness divided a whole age into factions. We
can now allow Caesar to be a great man, without derogating from Pompey;
and celebrate the virtues of Cato, without detracting from those of
Caesar. Every one that has been long dead has a due proportion of praise
allotted him, in which, whilst he lived, his friends were too profuse,
and his enemies too sparing.
According to Sir Isaac Newton's calculations, the last comet that made
its appearance, in 1680, imbibed so much heat by its approaches to the
sun, that it would have been two thousand times hotter than red-hot iron,
had it been a globe of that metal; and that supposing it as big as the
earth, and at the same distance from the sun, it would be fifty thousand
years in cooling, before it recovered its natural temper. In the like
manner, if an Englishman considers the great ferment into which our
political world is thrown at present, and how intensely it is heated in
all its parts, he cannot suppose that it will cool again in less than
three hundred years. In such a tract of time it is possible that the
heats of the present age may be extinguished, and our several classes of
great men represented under their proper characters. Some eminent
historian may then probably arise that will not write _recentibus odiis_,
as Tacitus expresses it, with the passions and prejudices of a
contemporary author, but make an impartial distribution of fame among the
great men of the present age.
I cannot forbear entertaining myself very often with the idea of such an
imaginary historian describing the reign of Anne the First, and
introducing it with a preface to his reader, that he is now entering upon
the most shining part of the English story. The great rivals in fame
will be then distinguished according to their respective merits, and
shine in their proper points of light. Such an one, says the historian,
though variously represented by the writers of his own age, appears to
have been a man of more than ordinary abilities, great application, and
uncommon integrity: nor was such an one, though of an opposite party and
interest, inferior to him in any of these respects. The several
antagonists who now endeavour to depreciate one another, and are
celebrated or traduced by different parties, will then have the same body
of admirers, and appear illustrious in the opinion of the whole British
nation. The deserving man, who can now recommend himself to the esteem
of but half his countrymen, will then receive the approbations and
applauses of a whole age.
Among the several persons that flourish in this glorious reign, there is
no question but such a future historian, as the person of whom I am
speaking, will make mention of the men of genius and learning who have
now any figure in the British nation. For my own part, I often flatter
myself with the honourable mention which will then be made of me; and
have drawn up a paragraph in my own imagination, that I fancy will not be
altogether unlike what will be found in some page or other of this
imaginary historian.
It was under this reign, says he, that the _Spectator_ published those
little diurnal essays which are still extant. We know very little of the
name or person of this author, except only that he was a man of a very
short face, extremely addicted to silence, and so great a lover of
knowledge, that he made a voyage to Grand Cairo for no other reason but
to take the measure of a pyramid. His chief friend was one Sir Roger De
Coverley, a whimsical country knight, and a Templar, whose name he has
not transmitted to us. He lived as a lodger at the house of a
widow-woman, and was a great humorist in all parts of his life. This is
all we can affirm with any certainty of his person and character. As for
his speculations, notwithstanding the several obsolete words and obscure
phrases of the age in which he lived, we still understand enough of them
to see the diversions and characters of the English nation in his time:
not but that we are to make allowance for the mirth and humour of the
author, who has doubtless strained many representations of things beyond
the truth. For if we interpret his words in their literal meaning, we
must suppose that women of the first quality used to pass away whole
mornings at a puppet-show; that they attested their principles by their
patches; that an audience would sit out an evening to hear a dramatical
performance written in a language which they did not understand; that
chairs and flower-pots were introduced as actors upon the British stage;
that a promiscuous assembly of men and women were allowed to meet at
midnight in masks within the verge of the Court; with many
improbabilities of the like nature. We must therefore, in these and the
like cases, suppose that these remote hints and allusions aimed at some
certain follies which were then in vogue, and which at present we have
not any notion of. We may guess by several passages in the speculations,
that there were writers who endeavoured to detract from the works of this
author; but as nothing of this nature is come down to us, we cannot guess
at any objections that could be made to his paper. If we consider his
style with that indulgence which we must show to old English writers, or
if we look into the variety of his subjects, with those several critical
dissertations, moral reflections,
* * * * *
The following part of the paragraph is so much to my advantage, and
beyond anything I can pretend to, that I hope my reader will excuse me
for not inserting it.