1. in_ernet_dli_2015_172834_2015_172834_English-Prose--Vol-iii
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ENGLISH
PROSE
H.
CRAIK
VOL.
III
SEVENTEENTH
CENTURY
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MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA · MADRAS
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO
DALLAS · SAN FRANCISCO
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.
TORONTO
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ENGLISH PROSE
SELECTIONS
WITH CRITICAL INTRODUCTIONS
BY VARIOUS WRITERS
AND GENERAL INTRODUCTIONS TO EACH PERIOD
EDITED BY
HENRY CRAIK
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON
1922
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COPYRIGHT
First Edition 1894. Reprinted 1906, 1922
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
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CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION
. . . . The Editor . . . I
Bishop Pearson . . . J. H. Overton . 7
The True Notion of Saints . . . . 9
John Evelyn . . . The Editor . . . II
Foreign Travel . . . . . 15
Public Employment . . . . . 17
The Work of the Royal Society . . . 19
The Groans of the Forest . . . . 22
The Great Fire . . . . . 24
Ill Government of the Navy . . . . 26
Mr. Samuel Pepys . . . . . 28
A Funeral Sermon . . . . . 28
Andrew Marvell . . . W. P. Ker . . . 31
Jocular Divinity * . . . . 35
Algernon Sidney . . . F. H. Trench . . 41
The Degradation of Italy . . . . 45
The Wisdom of Flexible Constitutions . . . 46
✓ The Virtues of Liberty . . . . 47
Folly of Hereditary Kingship . . . . 48
The Right to Change Rulers . . . . 49
The Basis of Social Order . . . . 49
The Invisible King . . . . . 50
George Fox . . . A. I. Fitzroy . . 53
A Sense of the Blood of Martyrs . . . 55
A Youthful Martyr . . . . 56
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PAGE
A Man of a Tender Conscience . . . 57
An Appeal . . . 59
Greeting to Charles II. on his Restoration . 61
Robert Boyle . . . G. S. Street . 63
The Value of Natural Philosophy . . 66
The Holy Scriptures . . . 68
An Experiment . . . . 69
The Writing of a Romance . . . 69
John Bunyan . . . H. C. Beeching . 73
The Story of Bunyan's Conversion . . 78
Christian Loses his Roll . . . 84
The Trial of Christian and Faithful . . 87
Mr. By-ends . . . . 91
Christiana's Neighbours . . . 93
Letters to and from Diabolus . . 96
Sir William Temple . George Saintsbury 101
Temple on his Way to Munster . . 104
The Garden of Moor Park in Hertfordshire . 105
Peroration on Poetry . . . 107
The Limits of Human Faculties . . 109
John Ray . . . Norman Moore . 113
An Augment of Providence . . 114
Hurling . . . . 114
Isaac Barrow . . . George Saintsbury 117
As we would be done by . . 121
The Kingdom of Heaven . . . 123
The Silence of History and Tradition on the Pope's Supremacy 125
John Tillotson . . . George Saintsbury 129
Scattered Thoughts upon several Subjects and Occasions . 132
Of Society and Vanity . . . 135
John Dryden . . . W. J. Courthope . 139
A Defence of Rhyme in Tragedy . . 148
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CONTENTS
vii
Abandonment of Rhyme in Tragedy: Imitation of Shakespeare
Shakespeare.
Beaumont and Fletcher.
Ben Jonson
The Old Dramatists and the New
. . .
The Wits of King Charles II.'s Days
. . .
An Apology for The Duke of Guise
. . .
Dryden and his Critics
. . .
Dryden and Collier
. . .
Chaucer
. . .
Religio Laici
. . .
His Old Age
. . .
Antony Wood .
F. II. Trench
Ancient Oxford .
. . .
The King's Coming to Oxon
. . .
The Author of Oceana .
. . .
John Locke .
. . .
The Editor
Perception
. . .
The Greater Good does not Determine the Will
. . .
Adam's Monarchy
. . .
Force without Right, a State of War
. . .
School Verses .
. . .
Prose Style
. . .
To Mr. Molyneux
. . .
To the Same
. . .
Bishop Cumberland .
A. I. Fitzroy
Providence in the Conquest of Canaan
. . .
The Primitive Arcadians called Pelasgi
. . .
The Egyptian Standard in the Time of Joseph
. . .
Halifax .
A. W. Ward
Liberty, and the English Constitution
. . .
Truth and Trimmers
. . .
Concluding Considerations on the Character of Charles II.
On the Treatment of Children
. . .
Samuel Pepys .
W. P. Ker
Sir C. Mings
. . .
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151
152
154
156
158
160
161
163
164
165
167
171
172
174
177
180
182
183
186
192
193
195
199
201
203
204
205
207
213
214
215
217
219
222
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The Fire . . . . . . . 223
Epsom Downs . . . . . . . 227
Robert South . . . George Saintsbury 231
The Happiness of Adam . . . 235
† Of the Light within us . . . 237
The Loss of Shame . . . 239
The ultima ratio of Belief . . . 242
Thomas Burnet . . . Edmund Gosse . 245
The Deluge . . . . . 249
Paradise . . . . . 250
The Conflagration . . . . 251
Edward Stillingfleet . . . J. H. Overton . 255
The Judgment of Fire . . . 257
‡ Fools make a Mock at Sin . . . 258
Knowledge and Names . . . . 258
Sir George Mackenzie . . . W. A. Raleigh . 261
A Defence of Romances . . . 264
✓ Why Man Fell . . . . 265
Thomas Sprat . . . W. A. Raleigh . 269
A Simple and an Ornate Style . . 271
The Error of Extempore Prayer and Preaching . 273
The Defence of English Eloquence and Letters . 274
Bishop Ken . . . . J. H. Overton . 277
Daniel, a Man Greatly Beloved . . 280
God's Blessing on the Baths . . . 282
Thomas Ellwood . . . . W. P. Ker . 285
An Adventure . . . . . 288
Thomas Rymer . . . . W. P. Ker . 291
A Tragedy called the “Invincible Armada” . . 293
William and Thomas Sherlock . . George Saintsbury 297
William Sherlock—
Preparation for Death a Cure for Fear of Death . . 301
† Conscience Powerful and Impotent . . 302
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CONTENTS
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PAGE
Thomas Sherlock—
The Responsibility of Parents .
304
The Resurrection and Evidence
305
Sir Isaac Newton .
E. K. Chambers .
311
On the Belief in a God
313
Bishop Burnet .
F. C. Montague .
317
The National Blessing of Religion
320
The Character of William III.
322
The Character of Sir Matthew Hale .
325
William Penn .
A. I. Fitzroy .
333
An Exhortation
335
A Plea for Toleration .
336
Dr. Edward Browne .
Norman Moore .
341
Unicorns’ Horns .
342
The Emperor Leopoldus .
343
Fletcher of Saltoun .
W. Wallace .
345
Love of Country .
349
Enslavement of Vagabonds .
350
The Origin of Beggary .
351
Defoe .
John W. Hales .
355
An Academy for Women
360
Selfish Preachers of Toleration
367
A Footprint .
372
Bentley .
The Editor .
377
An Apology for Resentment .
379
The Commonplaces of Scepticism
381
Captious Arguments answered .
382
Flattery of Epicurus .
384
Jonathan Swift .
The Editor .
387
Dedication : to the Right Honourable John Lord Somers
391
The Epistle Dedicatory, to His Royal Highness Prince
Posterity .
394
The Philosophy of Clothes
398
A Digression concerning Critics .
400
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PAGE
Sweetness and Light . . . . . 402
Political Lying . . . . . 405
Arguments of Weight . . . . . 408
Ireland an Independent Kingdom . . . 414
Irish Misery . . . . 415
The Emperor of Lilliput . . . . 417
The King of Brobdingnag inquires into the State of Europe . 419
True and False Rallery . . . . 423
ARBUTHNOT . . . The Editor . 425
Newton's Discovery . . . 428
Mother Church . . . . . 429
Sister Peg . . . . . 430
Physical Philosophy . . . . . 432
A Farewell Letter . . . . . 435
BERNARD DE MANDEVILLE George Saintsbury
437
The Genesis of Vanity . . . . 440
♦ Diamond cut Diamond . . . . . 441
Gin . . . . . . 442
A Parable of Small Bees . . . . 444
LORD SHAFTESBURY . . . E. K. Chambers . 447
On Enthusiasm . . . . . 449
♦ The Pleasure of the Natural Affections . . 452
ATTERBURY . . . The Editor 457
Waller's Influence on Style . . . . 460
To the House of Lords . . . . . 462
The Uses of Harmony . . . . . 464
To his Daughter . . . . . 466
♦ RICHARD STEELE . . . . Austin Dobson . 469
Mr. Bickerstaff Visits a Friend . . . . 473
Recollections of Childhood . . . . 477
The Story of Brunetta and Phillis . . . . 480
The Coverley Portrait Gallery . . . . 482
The Story of Alexander Selkirk♦ . . . . 485
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CONTENTS
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JOSEPH ADDISON . . . W. J. Courthope .
The Spectator and its Purpose . . . 498
To see Ourselves as Others see Us . . 501
The Spectator's anticipation of the Verdict of Posterity . 504
The Royal Exchange . . . . 507
Head-dresses . . . . . 510
Hoods . . . . . . 512
Will Wimble . . . . . 515
Sir Roger de Coverley at the Play . . 517
The News at the Club of Sir Roger de Coverley's Death . 520
The Visions of Mirzah . . . . 523
The Various Kinds of Wit . . . . 527
Imagination and Science . . . . 532
SAMUEL CLARKE . . . . A. J. Fitzroy . 537
Arguments to the Being of God . . . 539
On Human Fallibility . . . . 540
On the Necessity of Morality in Religion . . 541
On Hypocrites . . . . . 543
Paraphrase of Matthew xxvi. . . . 544
BENJAMIN HOADLY . . . . A. J. Fitzroy . 547
The Simplicity of Christianity spoilt by Additions . . 549
On the Ecclesiasticism of the Church of England . . 552
Upon Political Jealousies . . . . 554
BOLINGBROKE . . . . The Editor . 557
The Uses of History . . . . 563
Eloquence . . . . . . 565
Discarded Service . . . . . 568
A Religion of Hypocrisy . . . . 570
ALEXANDER POPE . . . . W. J. Courthope . 573
Letters—To Lady Mary Wortley Montagu . . . 576
To Mrs. Martha Blount . . . . 579
To the Bishop of Rochester . . . . 580
To Swift . . . . . . 582
To the Earl of Burlington . . . . 584
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PAGE
Shakespeare . . . . . . 587
Dedications . . . . . . 592
LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU . A. W. Ward . 597
Ideals . . . . . . 602
The Fair Fatima . . . . . 603
The Anaout Religion . . . . . 606
Self-restraint . . . . . 607
Among the Italian Lakes . . . . 608
As Proud as the Marchioness Lyscinnia . 609
JOHN, LORD HERVEY : . . G. S. Street . 613
The Character of Bolingbroke . . . 615
The Death of Queen Caroline . . . 616
NOTES . . . . . . 617
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INTRODUCTION
In the period just preceding that covered by the present volume,
English prose had passed through a critical and disordered phase.
In spite of some notable achievements even in prose, and occasional
flashes of consummate perfection in style, the Elizabethans left us,
in that sphere, no permanent inheritance, no accepted standard
of diction. They had, indeed, enriched the language by free
adaptations from various sources; they had kept alive the tradition
of a racy colloquialism, instinct with life and vigour; and they
had added the polished deftness—albeit somewhat affected—
of Euphuism, with its copiousness of rich metaphor and quaint
antithesis. The resources of the language were bewildering in
their multiplicity, and had need of the ease and leisure of peace
and quiet for their orderly development. Instead of that, as the
seventeenth century advanced, men's minds were made restless,
first by intricacy in thought, with its corresponding involution of
style, and then by the hot controversies of politics and religion,
which made prose laboured, earnest, and even eloquent, but shut
it out from the calmness necessary for artistic grace or literary
finish. Its earlier qualities were not indeed lost, although they
were under a cloud that hindered their free development. There
were still those who, to use the words of Atterbury, would prize
"that dance of words which good ears are so much pleased with."
The rich draperies of Euphuism were not altogether abandoned;
and the very earnestness that moved the generation which lived
through the struggle between loyalty and puritanism, served to
keep alive the tradition of directness, of vivid colloquialism, which
never disappeared from English prose. But we have only to
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glance through the authors represented in the preceding volume
in order to see how hard was the struggle through which our
prose style had to pass, and how disordered and even lurid were
some of its phases. The manner of writing was subordinated to
the immediate needs of the strife : men had to argue, to contend,
to preach, or to narrate, and they had no time for literary art.
They lost themselves in the development of obscure systems :
they were over-burdened with a learning that had no sense of
proportion. They often attained, it is true, to impressive force and
dignity of eloquence, but it is by the very tragic energy of their
earnestness. We find no unity of aim, no natural resemblance in
their methods. The solemn eloquence of Clarendon, the fascina-
tion of Browne's religious melancholy—these are inheritances,
rich, indeed, but, like so much in the literary work of the age,
they are monuments, not examples or types. Side by side with
them, we find a bewildering contrast of miscellaneous effort, by
turns fantastic, reckless, solemn and portentous ; always instinct
with force of a kind ; often depressed by pedantry ; but having in
it no principle of development, upon which literary art could
make a sure and steady advance.
Before the close of that period, some calm had succeeded to
the storm. In Hales and Chillingworth, philosophy had reached
a more restful haven ; in Jeremy Taylor, Herbert, and Leighton,
devotional writings had escaped from the hurtle of controversy,
and breathed in a more peaceful atmosphere. As it recovered
rest, English prose became more dignified and stately, and on
these lines of dignity and stateliness, its forward movement was
to take its course. "I found myself in a storm," writes Locke,
just after the Restoration, "which had lasted almost hitherto, and
therefore cannot but entertain the approaches of a calm with
the greatest joy and satisfaction." He puts into words what
might have been uttered by the spirit of our literature, which
breathed more freely after an intense,but, for her, a gloomystruggle.
The new period is typified by the names which meet us at
the beginning of this volume. It is not for his style, orderly,
methodical, and dignified as it is, that Bishop Pearson is chiefly
remarkable ; but when we come to Evelyn, we have in him one
who fitly represents the new spirit in English prose. His style
may be cumbrous, artificial, even tedious ; but it is impossible to
deny its stateliness, its dignity, its consummate calm. It lacked
much which the succeeding generation was to bring, and which
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was fully attained by those who follow him in this volume. The
long roll of his sentences was monotonous, and the reader
instinctively calls for the relief of variety. But the essential
elements of regularity, formal order, and restraint, were distinctly
present. He retains much of the pedantic learning and far-fetched
allusion which were so rife in the preceding age; but he retains
also—and for this we have to thank him—the richness of orna-
ment and metaphor that prevent an impression of dulness and
barrenness. Luxuriance of fancy had yet to be pruned; the spirit
of the succeeding generation was to bring greater lucidity and
exactness of thought and method, and as a result the cumbrous
period was to be shortened, and the movement of our prose made
more quick and natural. But even what is best in the full ripeness
of the later harvest owes something to the luxuriance of such
prose as that of Evelyn.
As we pass in review the various specimens which this volume
presents to us, the differences and contrasts are apt to perplex,
and to leave upon us the impression of a confused and miscel-
laneous aggregate, with no definite aim, and no principle of
development. To some extent the impression is a true one.
The struggle of the previous generation was not entirely over,
and it was a hard task to attain to any orderly style out of the
mass of various material from which the slection had to be
made. But as we proceed to classify and arrange our authors,
we find that the advance was gradual but sure, and that the new
generation was evolving order out of chaos. First we have a
regular sequence of writers, who attended very little to niceties of
style, but confined themselves to methodical treatment of their
subject; who aimed at clearness and definition, and avoided
those more intricate disquisitions that had perplexed their pre-
decessors. The series fitly opens with Bishop Pearson; it
proceeds through Barrow and South, Stillingfleet and Sprat on
the one hand, and through Boyle, Locke, Newton, and Shaftesbury
on the other, representing different phases of the same literary
method. All of these, in their varying degrees, are in strong
contrast with the preceding generation; all of them are fore-
runners of the exact and restrained method, and the more ordered
and regular style which was to be distinctive of the eighteenth
century. On a lower level, but with the same avoidance of way-
wardness, extravagance, and intricacy, we have the plain and
straightforward style of Bishop Burnet and Sidney, the common-
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sense philosophy and somewhat commonplace rationalising of Clarke, Cudworth, and Hoadly ; and the religious outpourings--
simple even to uncouthness--of such men as Ellwood, Fox, and Penn. To none of these classes are we to look for the real de-
velopment of prose style. Only a few of those named gave much thought to its niceties or graces ; but they contributed something
if it were only by the logical method of their exposition, and by the plain directness of their narrative. There were others, how-
ever, whose literary work is far more important in this connexion. Evelyn's style is often cumbrous, artificial, and pedantic. But it
preserved the rich vein of ornament and fancy that descended from the older Euphuism ; and it added to abundance of metaphor,
an orderly regularity, and an absence of involution, which Euphuism had not mastered. Evelyn wrote with a courtly grace
that gave a tradition of dignity to English prose. Thomas Burnet had something of the older extravagance ; but there was a
rich vein in his eloquence which was not without its effect on his ' successors, although posterity accorded to him no such important
place as he occupied in his own generation. From Evelyn to Temple was only a small step ; but yet the luxuriance was pruned
in Temple's periods, and the courtliness has more of ease and less of artificiality. As is shown in the preface to the specimens
of Temple's prose in this volume, he shares with Tillotson, Halifax, and Dryden the distinction of typifying the strongest
tendency in the prose of that generation. It is difficult to describe this by any short definition ; but its most marked char-
acteristics were ease and familiarity, combined with dignity and regularity. The qualities which Tillotson brought to the treat-
ment of religious subjects were essentially of the same kind. Halifax typifies the same characteristics in his Political and
Moral Reflections : and the consummate genius of Dryden brought these qualities to perfection in his critical essays. The debt
which Dryden owed to Tillotson, was exaggerated by his own generosity ; but his acknowledgment at least shows that the two
were akin in their literary taste and judgment.
The work which Dryden accomplished for English prose is treated fully in the preface to the selections from his prose in this volume.
In him, as is there remarked, we have "an isthmus between two seas," touching, on the one hand, the imagination and richness of
the past, and on the other, the calmer and more critical instincts of the succeeding generation. To him we owe that perfection of
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ease, that familiar intercourse between author and reader, that
constant reference to the common judgment of educated men,
which gave its best note to English prose. When we pass from
him to Steele and Addison, we find that the model he had formed
has been adapted to new purposes for which by its nature, it was
admirably fitted. It has lost some of the wealth of imagination
which was the product partly of Dryden's contact with the past,
partly of his own genius. But it has gained, in the miscellaneous
essay, a theme for which, of all others, its easy and yet graceful
conversational tone was best suited, and in the treatment of which
it acquired, in the hands of such successors, new delicacy and
precision, even if it lost something of the exuberance which had
belonged to it in the hands of Dryden.
It is thus through Evelyn, Temple, and Tillotson, that we may
trace the growth of English prose during this period, until it
culminates in the rich storehouse of Dryden's essays, and is
refined and adapted to a tone of courtly and yet familiar conversa-
tion, varied and embellished by a subtle literary flavour, in the
hands of Addison and Steele. The growing precision of thought,
towards this, and the authors previously named, although their
purely literary claims are inferior, yet deserve some credit for
their share in the work. But there are others, of more out-
standing genius, who defy classification, who belonged to no
hereditary line, and neither received from predecessors, nor
transmitted to successors, the distinctive traits of their genius;
but who, nevertheless, powerfully affected the prose style of our
language. The first of these is Bunyan. We cannot detach
from one another the elements of his style: its raciness, its
homeliness, its copiousness, and its directness and force. Just
as little can we distinguish his style from the earnestness of
feeling, the vividness of description, the quaint turns of thought,
that make his work a masterpiece. We cannot attempt to trace
his literary genealogy, and must be content to accept his genius,
without appraising it, as an addition to the literary wealth of our
country. The next is Defoe. In both there is the same vivid-
ness of imagination which gives to its products all the force of
reality, and which makes the language fluent, direct, and homely,
because no trace of artificiality intervenes between the subject
and the style. No man ever wielded his pen with more con-
summate ease : and no man ever made his style fit so aptly to
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his theme, and clothe imaginative creations with such an irresistible air of reality, as Defoe. It was impossible that any language could be handled as Defoe handled it, and yet not carry on its face the impress of his genius : but it is nevertheless true that his position is unique, and that we cannot look upon him, as we look upon Dryden or upon Addison, as marking a distinct phase in the development of English prose.
The same may be said of the third and greatest of these masters of language, who belong to no class or school—Jonathan Swift. To use his own words, his “English was his own.” It may well be doubted whether in absolute command over language, any English prose author has ever equalled Swift. His style defies description or classification. It lends itself less than any, to imitation or to parody. It varies according to every mood. Its lucid simplicity is so perfect that its phrases once read, seemed to be only the natural utterances of careless thought, produced without effort and without art. Its very neglect of rule, and its frequent defiance of grammatical regularity, help to give to it force and directness. But such a style refuses to transmit the secret of its power, and must needs remain unique and solitary in its kind.
H. CRAIK.
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BISHOP PEARSON
[John Pearson (1612-1686), was the son of a country clergyman, and was born at Snoring, in Norfolk, in 1612. He was educated at Eton, whence he proceeded to King's College, Cambridge, where he became a Fellow in 1634. He received holy orders in 1639, and was appointed chaplain to the Lord Keeper Finch, who presented him to the living of Torrington in Suffolk. On the breaking out of the Civil War he took the Royalist side ; and a sermon preached by him at Cambridge in 1643 shows that he had the courage of his convictions. He was, however, allowed to hold a lectureship at St. Clement's, Eastcheap, and his immortal Exposition of the Creed was, in the first instance, nothing more than a series of lectures delivered to the congregation of St. Clement's, about the year 1654. After the Restoration he rose rapidly. In 1660 he was made Archdeacon of Surrey, Prebendary of Ely, and Master of Jesus College, Cambridge ; in 1661, Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity ; in 1662, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge ; and in 1672, Bishop of Chester. His faculties gave way some years before his death, which took place 16th July 1686. He took a leading part in the Savoy Conference, where his fairness won the approbation of Baxter, and he was one of the founders of the Royal Society. After his appointment to the bishopric he does not appear to have taken any prominent part in the church life of the period. According to Burnet he was "a much better divine than bishop" ; but Burnet's evidence must be accepted with caution, for the two men differed widely from one another, not only in their opinions, but in their whole tone of mind, habits, and character ; according to another almost contemporary historian, Laurence Echard, "he filled the bishopric of Chester with honour and reputation."]
Bishop Pearson is in the popular estimation essentially homo unius libri. Everybody has heard of, and many have read "Pearson on the Creed," but few have read anything else that he wrote. And yet, as matter of fact, he was a voluminous writer. Archdeacon Churton, in his excellent edition of Bishop Pearson's Minor Works, specifies no less than thirty-one publications bearing his name. Of these, however, several are in Latin (one—Vindiciae Ignatianæ—being of permanent value) some are single sermons, and some, notes and prefaces to other people's writings.
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Pearson therefore may fairly be estimated as a writer of English prose by his great work, the Exposition of the Creed. If he had written nothing else, this alone, with the Notes, would have been more than enough to make any man's reputation. Bishop Pearson depends wholly upon his matter, not at all upon his manner, for the value of his work; for as the best editor of the Exposition of the Creed (Professor Burton) remarks, "his style is rugged and antiquated even for the age in which he lived"; but his calm, rational judgment, his power of argument, his honest determination to sift to the bottom every difficult question that could possibly arise, and his profound knowledge of theology, especially of patristic theology, as shown in the marginal notes, which are at least as valuable, and nearly as lengthy as the text, have all contributed to make his work an exhaustive and final one. Later expounders of the Apostles' Creed can do little more than follow Bishop Pearson's lines, that is, of course, if they hold like him high Anglican views. He nobly employed his enforced leisure during "the troubles" in elaborating a work, which has not only become classical, but which has more completely covered the ground that it occupies, than any other work in any department of theology; for we gather from his dedication "to the Right Worshipful and Well-Beloved the Parishioners of St. Clement's, East Cheap," that he employed much time in putting the lectures he had delivered to them into the shape of a formal treatise. The lectures were delivered about 1654; the book did not appear until 1659. Bishop Pearson carefully avoids any quotations from "any learned language," or any English word which would not be understood by the unlearned reader, reserving what is intended for scholars for his elaborate notes. He ranks high among the great divines of the golden age of English theology, and if he cannot be cited as an example of style, it is because he deliberately chose to write in that style which seemed to him most suitable for his purpose.
J. H. OVERTON.
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THE TRUE NOTION OF SAINTS
THE true notion of saints is expressed by Moses, both as to the
subject, and the affection or qualification of it; for they are called
by him men of holiness; such are the persons understood in this
article, -which is the communion of men of holiness. Now
holiness in the first acceptation of it signifieth separation, and that
with the relation of a double term, of one from which the
separation is made, of the other to which that which is separated
is applied. Those things which were counted holy under the
law were separated from common use, and applied to the service
of God; and their sanctity was nothing else but that separation
from and to those terms, from an use and exercise profane and
common, to an use and exercise peculiar and divine. Thus all
such persons as are called from the vulgar and common condition
of the world unto any particular service or relation unto God, are
hereby denominated holy, and in some sense receive the name of
saints. The penmen of the Old Testament do often speak of the
people of Israel as of an holy nation, and God doth speak unto
them as to a people holy unto himself; because he had chosen
them out of all the nations of the world, and appropriated them
to himself. Although therefore most of that nation were
rebellious to him which called them, and void of all true inherent
and actual sanctity; yet, because they were all in that manner
separated, they were all, as to that separation, called holy. In
the like manner those of the New Testament writing to such
as were called, and had received, and were baptised in, the faith,
give unto them all the name of saints, as being in some manner
such, by being called and baptised. For being baptism is a
washing away of sin, and the purification from sin is a proper
sanctification; being every one who is so called and baptised is
thereby separated from the rest of the world which are not so,
and all such separation is some kind of sanctification; being,
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though the work of grace be not perfectly wrought, yet when the
means are used, without something appearing to the contrary, we
ought to presume of the good effect ; therefore all such as have
been received into the Church, may be in some sense called holy.
But because there is more than an outward vocation, and a
charitable presumption, necessary to make a man holy ; therefore
we must find some other qualification which must make him
really and truly such, not only by an extrinsical denomination,
but by a real and internal affection. What this sanctity is, and
who are capable of this title properly, we must learn out of the
Gospel of Christ ; by which alone, ever since the Church of
Christ was founded, any man can become a saint. Now by the
tenure of the Gospel we shall find that those are truly and
properly saints which are sanctified in Christ Jesus : first, in
respect of their holy faith, by which they are regenerated ; for
whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God ; by
which they are purged, God himself purifying their hearts by
faith, whereby they are washed, sanctified, and justified in the
name of the Lord Jesus, in whom also after that they believe, they
are sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. Secondly, in respect
of their conversation : For as he which hath called them is holy,
so are they holy in all manner of conversation : adding to their
faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temper-
ance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness, and
to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity,
that they may neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Such persons then as are called by a
holy calling, and not disobedient unto it, such as are endued with
a holy faith, and purified thereby ; such as are sanctified by the
Holy Spirit of God, and by virtue thereof do lead a holy life,
perfecting holiness in the fear of God, such persons, I say, are
really and truly saints ; and being of the Church of Christ (as all
such now must of necessity be) are the proper subject of this
part of the article, the communion of saints, as it is added to the
former, the holy Catholic Church.
(From the Exposition of the Creed.)
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JOHN EVELYN
[John Evelyn (1620-1706), was born at Wotton, in Surrey, the seat of his
family for some generations, to the possession of which he afterwards succeeded on the death of his brother. He was educated at the school of Lewes,
and afterwards at Balliol College, Oxford, whence he proceeded to the study
of the Law at the Middle Temple. Upon the breaking out of the Civil War,
his sympathies were entirely on the Royalist side, but he saw little of the
actual progress of the war, having received the Royal license to travel abroad
in 1643. It was in making the tour of Europe that he first developed those
artistic and scientific tastes, which he ardently cultivated during a long life
spent in researches more diffuse than arduous. His knowledge of Italian
art was probably beyond that of any other Englishman of his age ; and to
appreciation of art, he added considerable technical skill. His first works
were a translation from La Motte le Vayer, entitled Liberty and Servitude
(1649), A Character of England (1651), and The State of France (1652).
During the Commonwealth he withdrew altogether from public life, and spent
his time chiefly in forestry and gardening, and, in 1659, published a translation
of the Golden Book of Chrysostom, on education. On the eve of the Restoration he came forward as the vindicator of the Royalists and of the king, in
An Apology for the Royal Party (1659), and A Panegyric at the Coronation
(1661). An ardent member of the Royal Society, he published his best known
book, Silva, under its auspices, in 1664. He wrote also upon architecture
and gardening; and a rather characteristic tract is that on Public Employment
preferred to Solitude, which was a reply (1667), to Sir George Mackenzie's
Panegyric on Solitude. In 1675, he published Terra, a Philosophical Dis-
course of Earth; and until his death in 1706, at the age of 87, he was constantly writing on some of the many subjects which claimed his attention
as connoisseur and virtuoso. He filled some public offices after the Restoration; but they interfered but little with his learned and cultured leisure.
Evelyn's Diary was first published from his MSS. at Wotton, in 1819.]
EVELYN is one of those for the dignity of whose character it is
impossible not to have respect, and whose wide culture, and
graceful treatment of a subject it is equally impossible to deny;
but he is also one of those whose reputation in his own day was
far higher than his fame or influence have since proved to be.
His treatises are models of elegant, dignified,—sometimes even
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eloquent—prose ; but none the less they are cumbrous, artificial
and vastly more wordy than their matter requires. He never
drops the somewhat artificial manner of the cultured, dignified
gentleman—with a mind open to appreciate all the best which
his age had to give him on the side of science, miscellaneous
information, artistic taste ; but never harassing his mind with any
imaginative or speculative effort of his own. In some respects he
offers a curious parallel and yet contrast to Clarendon. Their
political standpoint towards the struggles of the time was almost
identical. They viewed the earlier part of the reign of Charles I.
with the same affection, the Commonwealth with the same de-
testation, the corroding profligacy of the later Stuarts with the
same bitterness of regret. They had the same love of cultured
society ; the same acquaintance with men, at home and abroad ;
the same faculty of discerning motives. But Evelyn was essen-
tially the student, calm and equable in temper, carried away by
none of the fiery heat of the contest ; as much despising as un-
fitted for the active part of the strife. Such a man may have a
high place in the esteem of his contemporaries—especially of his
learned contemporaries ; but his weight is apt to be small with
posterity. He may equip himself, quietly and leisurely, with
much varied learning ; but it is apt to be learning which is not
reckoned very valuable by later ages. He may polish his style,
and even set a model of which later writers may feel the in-
fluence ; but his prose can never reach the pregnant force, or
tragic dignity, which we find in Clarendon—speaking, as Clarendon
does, from the thick of the struggle, with the burden of the
nation's fate heavy upon him, with the bitterness of disappoint-
ment gnawing at his heart. Hence it is that with all his elegance,
Evelyn is apt to pall upon us, and the works that his own age —
especially its scholars and virtuosos—rated so highly, remain
unread. He tells his own scheme in the advertisement to the
Silva: “As I have frequently inserted diverse historical and
other passages, apposite and agreeable to the subject, abstaining
from a number more which I might have added, let it be remem-
bered that I did not altogether compile this work for the sake of
our ordinary rustics, mere foresters and woodmen, but for the
benefit and diversion of gentlemen and persons of quality, who
often refresh themselves in these agreeable toils of planting and
gardening.” We all know that literary men, from Virgil down-
wards, have not written their georgics for “ordinary rustics” ;
Page 25
but when they know their business a little better than Evelyn,
they refrain from telling us so. They doubtless are prone to
introduce illustrations, “apposite and agreeable”; only, unlike
Evelyn, they make us believe that the illustrations are absolutely
essential to the work. Evelyn hangs his tags of whimsical and
far-fetched illustration upon every bough. Their quaintness and
oddity at first perhaps charm us; but the weariness inevitably
comes. We need not forget to thank Evelyn, however, for his
adding some new graces to our prose, and for the service he has
done in perpetuating the tradition of ornament and elegance,
without which our prose, as it lost the spring of its old lightness
and simplicity, would have been poor indeed.
In his early work (of which the first extract here given is a
specimen) we see a lightness and sprightliness of touch which
certainly do not reach to true humour, but yet preserve him from
dullness. The Sylva was really a labour of love, and although it
is prolix, it is saved from being fantastic by its steadiness of
purpose, which is evident even behind its long words, its arti-
ficiality, its over-methodical construction. The answer to Sir
George Mackenzie on Public Employment (of which also a
specimen is given) is purely a piece of word fencing, with no real
purpose or meaning at the root of it. It is just such a treatise as
a well-trained schoolboy might write upon a given theme.
The Diary has an interest and value of its own. It rarely
gives the writer's own thoughts. It is minute, careful, and
methodical in the description of places and buildings and works
of art ; but it is carefully restrained, for the most part, in regard
to all that touches on the burning questions of the day. It might
serve as a model for the simple and succinct recounting of facts ;
and where it does betray some feeling, the effect is all the more
striking from the consistency with which the ordinary narrative is
toned down to the barest simplicity of narration.
One subject could stir Evelyn, as it stirred Clarendon, to
eloquence—an intense and whole-hearted faith in the Church of
England. The historian has yet to appear who will draw in its
true colours the picture of what was noblest in the Royalist party
of that day, which stirred alike Laud and Clarendon, and Evelyn
—the intense devotion to the Church of England, with all the
beneficent influence which they believed it might exert. It was
this that gave force to the easy humour which, in the succeeding
age, the writers for the Church and against the Dissenters, found
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altogether on their own side. We may esteem it narrow and
dogmatic. We may talk of possible comprehension, and of the
errors that prevented it. But all this only blinds us to the
central movement that stirred the heart of the age, and that gives
us its true key. He who was not entirely for the Church was
against her; there was no halting between two opinions. It is
thus that Evelyn, in the same tone as Clarendon, regrets the
profligate wrecking of a great cause :-
"What opportunities he (Charles II.) had to have made him-
self the most renowned king that ever swayed the British sceptre,
had he been firm to that Church for which his martyred and
blessed father suffered. The emissaries and instruments of the
Church of Rome will never rest till they have crushed the Church
of England, as knowing that alone to be able to cope with them,
and that they can never answer her, but lie abundantly open to
the irresistible force of her arguments, antiquity, and purity of her
doctrine, so that albeit it may move God for the punishment of a
nation so unworthy, to eclipse again the profession of her here,
and darkness and superstition may prevail, I am most confident
the doctrine of the Church of England will never be extinguished,
but will remain visible, if not eminent, to the consummation of
the world. In all events, whatever do become of the Church of
England, it is certainly, of all the Christian professions on the
earth, the most primitive, apostolical, and excellent."
H. CRAIK.
Page 27
FOREIGN TRAVEL
To proceed, therefore; presuppose travel ut suscipiatur propter unum aliquem finem as we have already constituted it :
we are yet to give our young subject leave to be so far practical as that he do not slip any opportunity by which he may
inform himself as well in things even mechanically curious and uscful, as altogether in the mysteries of government and polity,
which indeed are more appositely termed philosophical. Those who have imposed on themselves and others so many different
species of travel as it may be said to contain theoretical parts in it, that is to say, the metaphysical, physical, and mathematical,
are, in my apprehension, more exact and tedious in their analysing than perhaps they needed to have been ; of them,
therefore, I say no more : it shall be sufficient for him whom I send abroad, that he conform himself to such precepts as are
only necessary, not cumbersome ; which rule he shall likewise do well to observe even in his very necessary accoutrements
and portmanteau.
First then, supposing him to be a young gentleman apt for all impressions, but from his primary education inclined to the
most worthy : having set foot upon the continent, his first study shall be to master the tongue of the country, wherein he resolves
to reside: which ought to be understood perfectly, written congruously, and spoken intelligently ; after which, he may do
well to accomplish himself in such exercises as are most commendable at home, and best attained abroad ; which will be a
means of rendering him very fit and apt for the general society of that nation amongst whom he converses, and consequently
the better qualify him to frequent, without blush, such particular places and persons by whom he may best profit himself in the
mysteries of their polity, or what other perfection they are renowned for, according as his particular genius and inclinations
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import him. But this he shall never attain unto, till he begin
to be somewhat ripened and seasoned in a place; for it is
not every man that crosses the seas, hath been of an academy,
learned a corranto, and speaks the language, whom I esteem a
traveller (of which piece most of our English are in these
countries at present); but he that instead of taking the tour,
as they call it, or (as a late ambassador of ours facetiously
but sharply reproached), like a goose swims down the river,
having mastered the tongue, frequented the court, looked into
their customs, been present at their pleadings, observed their
military discipline, contracted acquaintance with their learned
men, studied their arts, and is familiar with their dispositions,
makes this account of his time.
The principal advantages
which a gentleman, thus made, may observe and apply are,
truth, taciturnity, facetiousness without morosity, courage, modesty,
hardiness, patience, frugality, and an excellent temper in the
regimen of his health and affections, especially in the point
of drink and tobacco, which is our northern, national, and most
sordid of vices. It is (I confess) a thing extremely difficult to
be at all times and in all places thus reserved, and, as it were,
obliged to a temper so static and exact among all conversations;
nor, for mine own part, do I esteem it in all cases necessary,
provided a man be furnished with such a stock of prudence as
he know how and when to make use even of his companions'
extravagances (as then frequently betraying more freely their
inclinations, than at times of their more serious recollection and
first addresses). Seeing I find it generally impossible for a
traveller to evade some occasions and encounters, which (if he
be at all practical) he will, nolens volens, perceive himself
engaged into at some one time or other. But to recover this
deviation, and return to our purpose; the virtues which our
traveller is to bring home when he doth repaiatriare (as Solinus
terms it) are either public, such namely as concern the service
of his country; or private, and altogether personal, in order to
his particular advantage and satisfaction: and believe it, sir,
if he reap some contentment extraordinary from what he hath
observed abroad, the pains, solicitations, watchings, perils, journeys, ill entertainment, absence from friends, and innumerable like
inconveniencies, joined to his vast expenses, do very dearly, and by
a strange kind of extortion, purchase that small experience and
reputation which he can vaunt to have acquired from abroad.
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JOHN EVELYN
17
Those who boast of philological peregrinations (falsely so called) which they undertake mercly for the flourish and tongue of a place, possess only a parrot-virtue: it is one of the shells of travel, though I confess, the kernel is not to be procured without it; and topical; in which I find the Dutch ὀδοιπορικὸν generally most accurate and industrious; both of them serve well for the entertainment of women and children, who are commonly more imported with wonder and romance, than that solid and real emolument which is (through these instruments) to be conveyed us from abroad.
It is written of Ulysses, that he saw many cities indeed, but, withal, his remarks of men's manners and customs were ever preferred to his counting steepies, and making tours; it is this ethical and moral part of travel, which embellishes a gentleman, in the first place having a due respect to the religion which accomplishcth a Christian: in short, they are all severally very commendable, accommodated to persons and professions; nor should a cavalier neglect to be seen in all of them: but for that my intention is here to make an introduction only into my own observations, I shall forbear to enter so large and ample a field, as the thorough handling of this argument would insensibly oblige me to do; it having likewise been so abundantly treated of, almost by every pen which hath prevaricated on this subject; though, in my slender judgment, and, under favour, I must confess, without any real and ingenious satisfaction either to truth or curiosity.
(From The Statie of France.)
PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT
LET us therefore rather celebrate public employment and an active life, which renders us so nearly allied to virtue, defines and maintains our being, supports society, preserves kingdoms in peace, protects them in war; has discovered new worlds, planted the Gospel, increases knowledge, cultivates arts, relieves the afflicted; and in sum, without which the whole universe itself had still been but a rude and indigested chaos. Or if (to vie landscapes with our Celador) you had rather see it represented
VOL. III
C
Page 30
in picture, behold here a sovereign sitting in his august assembly
of Parliament enacting wholesome laws : next him my Lord
Chancellor and the rest of the reverend judges and magistrates
dispensing them for the good of the people ; figure to yourself a
Secretary of State making his dispatches and receiving intelli-
gence : a statesman countermining some pernicious plot against
the commonwealth ; here a general bravely embattling his forces
and vanquishing the enemy ; there a colony planting an island,
and a barbarous and solitary nation reduced to civility ; cities,
houses, forts, ships, building for society, shelter, defence, and
commerce. In another table, the poor relieved and set to work,
the naked clad, the oppressed delivered, the malefactor punished,
the labourer busied, and the whole world employed for the
benefit of mankind. In a word, behold him in the nearest
resemblance to his Almighty Maker, always in action, and always
doing good.
On the reverse, now represent to yourself, the goodliest piece
of the creation, sitting on a cushion picking his teeth ; his country
gentleman taking tobacco, and sleeping after a gorgeous meal ;
there walks a contemplator, like a ghost in a churchyard, or sits
poring on a book while his family starves ; here lies a gallant at
the feet of his pretty female, sighing and looking babies in her
eyes, while she is reading the last new romance, and laughs at
his folly ; on yonder rock an anchorite at his beads ; there one
picking daisies, another playing at push-pin, and abroad the
young poacher with his dog and kite, breaking his neighbour's
hedges or trampling over his corn for a bird not worth sixpence :
this sits basking himself in the sun, that quivering in the cold ;
here one drinks poison: another hangs himself ; for all these, and
a thousand more, seem to prefer solitude and an inactive life as
the most happy and eligible state of it. And thus have you
landscape for your landscape.
The result of all is, solitude produces ignorance, renders us
barbarous, feeds revenge, disposes us to envy, creates witches,
dispeoples the world, renders it a desert, and would soon dissolve
it ; and if after all this, yet he admit not an active life to be by
infinite degrees more noble ; let the gentleman whose first con-
templative piece he produces to establish his discourse, confute
him by his example ; since, I am confident, there lives not a person
whose moments are more employed than Mr. Boyle's, and that
more confirms his contemplations by his actions and experience ;
Page 31
and if it be objected, that his employments are not public, I can
assure him there is nothing more public than the good he is
always doing.
How happy in the mean time were it for this ingenious
adventurer, could it produce us more such examples, were they
but such as himself; for I cannot imagine, but that he who writes
so well, must act well; and that he who declaims against public
employment in essay, would refuse to essay a public employment
that were worthy of him. These notices are not the result of
inactive contemplation only, but of a public, refined, and generous
spirit ; or if in truth I be mistaken, I wish him store of proselytes,
and that we had more such solitary gentlemen that could render
an account of their retirements, and whilst they argue against
conversation (which is the last of the appanages he disputes
against) prove the sweetest conversation in the world.
(From Public Employment preferred to Solitude.)
THE WORK OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY
Those who perfectly comprehend the scope and end of that noble
institution, which is to improve natural knowledge, and enlarge
the empire of operative philosophy, not by an abolition of old, but
by the real effects of the experimental—collecting, examining, and
improving their scattered phenomena, with a view to establish
even the reccived methods and principles of the schools, as far as
were consistent with truth and matter of fact, thought it long
enough that the world had been imposed upon by that notional
and formal way of delivering divers systems and bodies of philo-
sophy, falsely so called, beyond which there was no more country
to discover ; which being brought to the test and trial, vapours
all away in fume and empty sound.
This structure then being thus ruinous and crazy, it is obvious
what they were to do—even the same which skilful architects do
every day before us—by pulling down the decayed and sinking
wall, to erect a better and more substantial in its place. They
not only take down the old, reject the useless and decayed, but
sever such materials as are solid, and will serve again ; bring new
ones in, prepare and frame a model suitable to so magnificent a
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design : this Solomon did in order to the building of the material
temple, and this is here to be pursued in the intellectual : nay,
here was abundance of rubbish to be cleared, that the area might
be free ; and then was the foundation to be deeply searched, the
materials accurately examined, squared, and adjusted before it
could be laid : nor was this the labour of a few ; less than a much
longer time, more cost and encouragement than any which the
Society has yet met withal, could not in season be sufficient
effectually to go through so chargeable a work, and highly
necessary.
A long time it was they had been surveying the decays of what
was ready now to drop in pieces. Whatever show the outside
made with a noise of elements and qualities, occult and evident,
abhorrence of vacuum, sympathies, antipathies, substantial forms,
and prime matter courting form ; epicycles, Ptoleman hypothesis,
magisterial definitions, peremptory maxims, speculative and posi-
tive doctrines, and anti-sonant phrases, with a thousand other
precarious and unintelligible notions (all which they have been
turning over to see if they could find anything sincere and useful
among this pedantic rubbish, but in vain), here was nothing
of moment, mathematical or mechanical, and which had not been
miserably sophisticated, on which to lay the stress ; nothing in a
manner whereby any further progress could be made, for the
raising and ennobling the dignity of mankind in the sublimest
operations of the rational faculty, by clearing the obscurities,
and healing the defects of most of the physiological hypotheses,
repugnant, as they hitherto seemed to be, to the principles of
real knowledge and experience.
Now, although it was neither in their hopes or in their prospect
to consummate a design requiring so mighty aids, environed
as they have been with these prejudices, yet have they not desisted
from the enterprise ; but rather than so noble and illustrious
an undertaking should not proceed for want of some generous
and industrious spirits to promote the work, they have themselves
submitted to those mean employments of digging in the very
quarry ; yea, even of making bricks where there was no straw
but what they gleaned, and lay dispersed up and down ; nor did
they think their pains yet ill bestowed, if, through the assiduous
labour and train of continual experiments they might at last
furnish and leave solid and uncorrupt materials to a succeeding
and more grateful age, for the building up a body of real and
substantial
Page 33
philosophy, which should never succumb to time, but with the
ruins of nature and the world itself.
In order to this how many, and almost innumerable, have been
their trials and experiments through the large and ample field
of art and nature ! we call our journals, registers, correspondence,
and transactions to witness ; and may, with modesty, provoke all
our systematical methodists, natural historians, and pretenders,
hitherto extant from the beginning of letters to this period, to
show us so ample, so worthy, and so useful a collection. It is a
fatality and an injury to be deplored, that those who give us hard
words will not first vouchsafe impartially to examine these par-
ticulars, since all ingenious spirits could not but be abundantly
satisfied, that this illustrious assembly has not met so many years
purely for speculation only ; though I take even that to be no
ignoble culture of the mind, or time misspent, for persons who
have so few friends, and slender obligations to those who should
patronise and encourage them; but they have aimed at greater
things, and greater things produced. By emancipating and freeing
themselves from the tyranny of opinion, delusory and fallacious
shows, they receive nothing upon trust, but bring all things to the
Lydian touch ; make them pass the fire, the anvil, and the file,
till they come forth perfectly repurged, and of consistence. They
are not hasty in pronouncing from a single or incompetent number
of experiments the ecstatic Εὔρηκα, and offer hecatombs ; but,
after the most diligent scrutiny, and by degrees, and wary induc-
tions honestly and faithfully made, record the truth and event of
trials, and transmit them to posterity. They resort not immedi-
ately to general propositions upon every specious appearance, but
stay for light and information from particulars, and make report
de facto, and as sense informs them. They reject no sect of
philosophers, no mechanic helps, except no persons of men, but
cheerfully embracing all, cull out of all, and alone retain what
abides the test ; that, from a plentiful and well-furnished magazine
of true experiments they may in time advance to solemn and
established axioms, general rules and maxims ; and a structure
may indeed lift up its head, such as may stand the shock of time,
and render a solid account of the phenomena and effects of nature,
the aspectable works of God, and their combinations ; so as, by
causes and effects, certain and useful consequences may be deduced.
Therefore they do not fill their papers with transcripts out of
rhapsodies, mountebanks, and compilers of receipts and secrets,
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to the loss of oil and labour; but, as it were, eviscerating nature,
disclosing the resorts and springs of motion, have collected in-
numerable experiments, histories, and discourses, and brought in
specimens for the improvement of astronomy, geography, naviga-
tion, optics, all the parts of agriculture, the garden, and the forest,
anatomy of plants and animals, mines and ores, measures and
equations of time by accurate pendulums and other motions, hydro-
and hygro-statics, divers engines, powers, and automata, with
innumerable more luciferous particulars subservient to human life,
of which Dr. Glanvil has given an ample and ingenious account
in his learned essay, and since in the posthumous works of Dr.
Hooke, lately published by the most obliging Mr. Waller, already
mentioned.
This is, reader, what they have done, and they are but part of
the materials which the Society have hitherto amassed and pre-
pared for this great and illustrious work; not to pass over an
infinity of solitary and loose experiments subsidiary to it, gathered
at no small pains and cost: for so have they hitherto borne the
burden and heat of the day alone, sapping and mining to lay the
foundation deep, and raise a superstructure to be one day perfected
by the joint endeavours of those who shall in a kinder age have
little else to do but the putting and cementing of the parts together,
which, to collect and fit have cost them so much solicitude and
care. Solomon indeed built the glorious temple, but David
provided the materials. Did men in those days insolently ask,
What had he done in all the time of that tedious preparation? I
beseech you what obligation has the Royal Society to render an
account of their proceedings to any who are not of the body,
especially when they carry on the work at their own expense
amidst so many contradictions? It is an evil spirit and an evil
age, which, having sadly debauched the minds of men, seeks with
industry to blast and undermine all attempts and endeavours that
signify, to the illustration of truth, the discovery of imposture and
its sandy foundation.
(From the Address to the Reader in Silva.)
THE GROANS OF THE FOREST
In the meanwhile, as the fall of a very aged oak, giving a crack
like thunder, has often been heard at many miles' distance (con-
Page 35
strained though I often am to fell them with reluctancy), I do
not at any time remember to have heard the groans of those
nymphs (grieving to be dispossessed of their ancient habitations)
without some emotion and pity. Now to show that many such
disasters as that which befel Erisichthon have happened to the
owners of places where goodly trees have been felled, I cannot
forget one, who giving the first stroke of the axe with his own
hand, and doubtless pursuing it with more, killed his own father
by the fall of the tree, not without giving the incautious
knight (for so he was) sufficient warning to avoid it. . And here
I must not pass by the groaning-board which they kept for a
while in Southwark, drawing abundance of people to see the
wonder ; such another plant had been formerly, it seems,
exposed as a miracle at Caumont near Toulouse, in France,
and the like sometimes happens in woods and forests, through
the inclusion of the air within the cavities of the timber, and
something of this kind, perhaps, was heretofore the occasion of
the fabulous Dodonean oracle. But, however this were, methinks
I still hear, sure I am that I still feel, the dismal groans of our
forests, when that late dreadful hurricane (happening on the
26th of November 1703) subverted so many thousands of
goodly oaks, prostrating the trees, laying them in ghastly postures,
like whole regiments fallen in battle by the sword of the con-
queror, and crushing all that grew beneath them. Such was
the prospect of many miles in several places, resembling that
of Mount Taurus, so naturally described by the poet, speaking
of the fall of the Minotaurs slain by Theseus :-
Illa procul radicibus exturbata
Prona cadit, late quæcum vis obvia frangens.
The losses and dreadful stories of this ruin were indeed great,
but how much greater the universal devastation through the
kingdom! The public accounts reckon no less than 3000 brave
oaks in one part only of the Forest of Dean blown down ; in
New-Forest in Hampshire, about 4000 ; and in about 450
parks and groves from 200 large trees to 1000, of excellent
timber, without counting fruit and orchard trees sans number
and proportionally the same through all the considerable woods
of the nation.
Sir Edward Harley had 1300 blown down ; myself above
2000 : several of which, torn up by their fall, raised mounds of
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earth near twenty feet high, with great stones entangled among
the roots and rubbish; and this almost within sight of my
dwelling (now no longer Wotton), sufficient to mortify and
change my too great affection and application to this work,
which, as I contentedly submit to, so I thank God for what are
yet left standing : Nepotibus umbram.
(From Silva.)
THE GREAT FIRE
I WENT this morning on foot from Whitehall as far as London
Bridge, through the late Fleet Street, Ludgate Hill, by St.
Paul's, Cheapside, Exchange, Bishopsgate, Aldersgate, and out
to Moorfields, thence through Cornhill, etc., with extraordinary
difficulty, clambering over heaps of yet smoking rubbish, and
frequently mistaking where I was. The ground under my feet
so hot that it even burnt the soles of my shoes. In the mean-
time His Majesty got to the Tower by water, to demolish the
houses about the graff, which being built entirely about it,
had they taken fire and attacked the White Tower, where the
magazine of powder lay, would undoubtedly not only have
beaten down and destroyed all the bridge, but sunk and torn
the vessels in the river, and rendered the demolition beyond
all expression for several miles about the country.
At return I was infinitely concerned to find that goodly
Church St. Paul's now a sad ruin, and that beautiful portico
(for structure comparable to any in Europe, as not long before
repaired by the late king), now rent in pieces, flakes of vast
stone split asunder, and nothing remaining entire but the
inscription in the architrave, showing by whom it was built,
which had not one letter of it defaced. It was astonishing to
see what immense stones the heat had in a manner calcined,
so that all the ornaments, columns, friezes, capitals, and pro-
jectures of massy Portland stone flew off, even to the very
roof, where a sheet of lead covering a great space (no less than
six acres by measure) was totally melted; the ruins of the
vaulted roof falling broke into St. Faith's, which being filled
with the magazines of books, belonging to the Stationers, and
carried thither for safety, they were all consumed, burning for
a week following. It is also observable that the lead over the
Page 37
altar at the east end was untouched, and among the divers monuments, the body of one bishop remained entire. Thus lay in ashes that most venerable Church, one of the most ancient pieces of early piety in the Christian world, besides near a hundred more. The lead, iron work, bells, plate, etc., melted, the exquisitely wrought Mercer's Chapel, the sumptuous Exchange, the august fabric of Christ Church, all the rest of the Companies' Halls, splendid buildings, arches, entries, all in dust; the fountains dried up and ruined, whilst the very waters remained boiling; the voragos of subterranean cellars, wells, and dungeons, formerly warehouses, still burning in stench and dark clouds of smoke, so that in five or six miles traversing about, I did not see one load of timber unconsumed, nor many stones, but that were calcined white as snow. The people who now walked about the ruins appeared like men in some dismal desert, or rather in some great city laid waste by a cruel enemy: to which was added the stench that came from some poor creatures' bodies, beds, and other combustible goods. Sir Thomas Gresham's statue, though fallen from its niche in the Royal Exchange, remained entire, when all those of the kings since the Conquest were broken to pieces; also the standard in Cornhill, and Queen Elizabeth's effigies, with some arms on Ludgate, continued with but little detriment, whilst the vast iron chains of the city strects, hinges, bars, and gates of prisons, were many of them melted and reduced to cinders by the vehement heat. Nor was I yet able to pass through any of the narrower streets, but kept the widest; the ground and air, smoke and fiery vapour, continued so intense that my hair was almost singed, and my feet unsufferably surbated. The bye-lanes and narrower streets were quite filled up with rubbish, nor could one have possibly known where he was, but by the ruins of some Church or Hall, that had some remarkable tower or pinnacle remaining. I then went towards Islington and Highgate, where one might have seen 200,000 people of all ranks and degrees dispersed and lying along by their heaps of what they could save from the fire, deploring their loss, and though ready to perish for hunger and destitution, yet not asking one penny for relief, which to me appeared a stranger sight than any I had yet beheld. His Majesty and Council indeed took all imaginable care for their relief by proclamation for the country to come in and refresh them with
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provisions. In the midst of all this calamity and confusion there was, I know not how, an alarm begun that the French and Dutch with whom we were now in hostility, were not only landed but even entering the city. There was, in truth, some days before, great suspicion of these two nations joining; and now, that they had been the occasion of firing the town. This report did so terrify, that on a sudden there was such an uproar and tumult that they ran from their goods, and taking what weapons they could come at, they could not be stopped from falling on some of those nations when they casually met, without sense or reason. The clamour and peril grew so excessive that it made the whole Court amazed, and they did with infinite pains and great difficulty reduce and appease the people, sending troops of soldiers and guards to cause them to retire into the fields again, where they were watched all this night. I left them pretty quiet, and came home sufficiently weary and broken. Their spirits thus a little calmed, and the affright abated, they now began to repair into the suburbs about the city, where such as had friends or opportunity got shelter for the present, to which His Majesty's proclamation also invited them.
Still, the plague continuing in our parish, I could not without danger adventure to our church.
(From The Diary.)
ILL GOVERNMENT OF THE NAVY
7th March 1689/90.—I dined with Mr. Pepys, late secretary to the Admiralty, where that excellent shipwright and seaman (for so he had been, and also a commissioner of the Navy), Sir Anthy. Deane. Amongst other discourse, and deploring the sad condition of our Navy, as now governed by unexperienced men since this Revolution, he mentioned what exceeding advantage we of this nation had by being the first who built frigates, the first of which ever built was that vessel which was afterwards called The Constant Warwick, and was the work of Pett of Chatham, for a trial of making a vessel that would sail swiftly; it was built with low decks, the guns lying near the water, and was so light and swift of sailing, that in a short time he told us
Page 39
JOHN EVELYN
27
she had, ere the Dutch war was ended, taken as much money
from privateers as would have laden her; and that more such
being built did in a year or two scour the Channel from those
of Dunkirk and others which had exceedingly infested it. He
added that it would be the best and only infallible expedient to
be masters of the sea, and able to destroy the greatest navy of
any enemy, if instead of building huge great ships and second
and third rates, they would leave off building such high decks,
which were for nothing but to gratify gentlemen commanders,
who must have all their effeminate accommodations, and for pomp;
that it would be the ruin of our fleets if such persons were
continued in command, they neither having experience nor being
capable of learning, because they would not submit to the fatigue
and inconvenience which those who were bred seamen would
undergo, in those so otherwise useful swift frigates. These,
being to encounter the greatest ships, would be able to protect, set on,
and bring off, those who should manage the fire-ships; and the
prince who should first store himself with numbers of such fire-
ships would, through the help and countenance of such frigates,
be able to ruin the greatest force of such vast ships as could be
sent to sea, by the dexterity of working those light swift ships to
guard the fire-ships. He concluded there would shortly be no
other method of sea-fight, and that great ships and men of war,
however stored with guns and men, must submit to those who
should encounter them with far less number. He represented to
us the dreadful effect of these fire-ships; that he continually
observed in our late maritime war with the Dutch, that when an
enemy's fire-ship approached, the most valiant commander and
common sailors were in such consternation, that though then of
all times, there was most need of the guns, bombs, etc. to keep
the mischief off, they grew pale and astonished, as if of a quite
other mean soul; that they slunk about, forsook their guns and
work as if in despair, every one looking about to see which way
they might get out of their ship, though sure to be drowned if
they did so. This he said was likely to prove hereafter the
method of sea-fight, likely to be the misfortune of England if
they continued to put gentlemen commanders over experienced
seamen, on account of their ignorance, effeminacy, and insolence.
(From the Same.)
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MR. SAMUEL PEPYS
26th May 1703.—This day died Mr. Sam. Pepys, a very worthy, industrious, and curious person, none in England exceeding him in knowledge of the Navy, in which he had passed through all the most considerable offices (clerk of the Acts, and secretary of the Admiralty), all which he performed with great integrity. When King James II. went out of England, he laid down his office, and would serve no more, but withdrawing himself from all public affairs, he lived at Clapham with his partner Mr. Hewer, formerly his clerk, in a very noble house and sweet place, where he enjoyed the fruit of his labours in great prosperity. He was universally beloved, hospitable, generous, learned in many things, skilled in music, a very great cherisher of learned men of whom he had the conversation. His library and collection of other curiosities were of the most considerable, the models of ships especially. Besides what he published of an account of the Navy, as he found and left it, he had for divers years under his hand the History of the Navy, or Navalia as he called it ; but how far advanced, and what will follow of his, is left, I suppose, to his sister's son Mr. Jackson, a young gentleman whom Mr. Pepys had educated in all sorts of useful learning, sending him to travel abroad, from whence he returned with extraordinary accomplishments, and worthy to be heir. Mr. Pepys had been for near forty years so much my particular friend, that Mr. Jackson sent me complete mourning, desiring me to be one to hold up the pall at his magnificent obsequies, but my indisposition hindered me from doing him this last office.
(From the Same.)
A FUNERAL SERMON
6th Jan. 1691/92.—At the funeral of Mr. Boyle at St. Martin's, Dr. Burnet, Bp. of Salisbury, preached on Eccles. ii. 26. He concluded with an eulogy due to the deceased, who made God and religion the scope of all his excellent talents in the knowledge of nature, and who had arrived to so high a
Page 41
degree in it—accompanied with such zeal and extraordinary
piety, which he showed in the whole course of his life, particularly
in his exemplary charity on all occasions—that he gave £1000
yearly to the distressed refugees of Fiance and Ireland ; was at
the charge of translating the Scriptures into the Irish and Indian
tongues, and was now promoting a Turkish translation, as he had
formerly done of Grotius on The Truth of the Christian Religion
into Arabic, which he caused to be dispersed in the Eastern
countries ; that he had settled a fund for preachers who should
preach expressly against Atheists, Libertines, Socinians, and
Jews ; that he had in his will given £8000 to charitable uses ;
but that his private charities were extraordinary. He dilated on
his learning in Hebrew and Greek, his reading of the Fathers,
and solid knowledge in theology, once deliberating about taking
holy orders, and that at the time of the restoration of King
Charles II. when he might have made a great figure in the nation
as to secular honour and titles, his fear of not being able to
discharge so weighty a duty as the first, made him decline that,
and his humility the other. He spake of his civility to strangers,
the great good which he did by his experience in medicine and
chemistry, and to what noble ends he applied himself to his
darling studies ; the works, both pious and useful, which he
published ; the exact life he led, and the happy end he made.
Something was touched of his sister, the Lady Ranelagh, who
died but a few days before him. And truly all this was but his
due, without any grain of flattery. (From the Same.)
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ANDREW MARVELL
[Andrew Marvell (1621-1678) was carried away from his poetry by political interests and controversies. His poems belong for the most part to the two years (1650-1652) which he spent at Nun Appleton as tutor to Lord Fairfax's daughter Mary. The verse of his later years is in satirical couplets, sometimes vigorous enough, with a spirit unlike that of his contemplative youth. His remarkable prose essays were written in answer to certain pieces of ecclesiastical theory which seemed to Marvell to make too great pretentions.
The Rehearsal Transprosed (1672) was an attack on Samuel Parker, Archdeacon of Canterbury (afterwards Bishop of Oxford), for his Ecclesiastical Polity (1670), as well as for other arguments proving "the mischiefs and inconvenience of Toleration." A number of apologists for Parker came out to punish Marvell, who answered them in a second part of the Rehearsal Transprosed (1672). In 1676 Marvell found another subject in the Master of St. John's College, Cambridge, who had written Animadversions on the Naked Truth. The Naked Truth, or the True State of the Primitive Church was a plea for reconciliation with Nonconformists, published by Bishop Croft of Hereford in 1675. Marvell's answer to the Animadversions is the best of his prose writings, the title of which, Mr. Smirke, or the Divine in Mode, was suggested by Etheridge's new comedy, the Man of Mode, or Sir Fopling Flutter.
A Short Historical Essay touching General Councils, Creeds, and Impositions in Religion, forms part of the volume. Marvell also wrote an Account of the Growth of Popery and Arbitrary Government in England, more particularly from the Long Prorogation of November 1675, ending the 15th of February 1676, till the last Meeting of Parliament the 16th of July 1677 (1677); and a defence of John Howe, Remarks upon a late disingenuous Discourse writ by me, T. D—, by a Protestant (1678).
Marvell was elected Member of Parliament for Hull in 1659, and wrote a number of newsletters to his constituents between 1660 and the year of his death. The Poems, Satires, Prose Essays, and Correspondence have been edited by Dr. Grosart in his Fuller Worthies Library (1872-1875).]
The Rehearsal Transprosed and Mr. Smirke may still be read, but to come to them from The Garden and from Appleton House, is even a sorrier business than to pass from Milton's early poems into the thick of the warfare with Salmasius. Marvell can rail as well as Milton, but he has not Milton's dignity of anger at its
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highest. Both, in dealing with their adversaries, seem fully
possessed by Dante's opinion that it is courtesy to spurn them in
the face; and both seem to be pleased, as Dante is not, with the
poor sport. Milton often makes some amends for this by the
magnificence of his invective, but Marvell does not attempt to
follow him. And even considered as invective, scolding, railing,
"flyting" (or whatever may be the right term for this, one of the
oldest kinds of literature in the world), the Rehearsal Transprosed
is apt to drag and grow wearisome. It is not as good as some
things in Marvell's satiric couplets. The lines on Holland have
more of the true Fescennine license in them ; none of the jokes
in prose are as good as the opening of An Historical Poem :-
"Of a tall stature, and of sable hue,
Much like the son of Kish, that lofty Jew,
Twelve years complete he suffered in exile,
And kept his father's asses all the while."
The Proclamation of "Bayes R."—a Declaration for the tolerating
of Debauchery—is the liveliest part of the Rehearsal Transprosed—a
travesty of a solemn proclamation, bringing together all the
fallacies picked out by Marvell from Parker's argument, especially,
the theory that private vice is rather to be encouraged in the State
than Nonconformity.
The serious part of the case against Parker is too much
obscured and overlaid with railing accusations ; but sometimes
Marvell lets "Bayes" alone, and argues more gravely than usual :-
"But you, not content to have said that the 'magistrate hath
power to make that a particular of the Divine Law which God
hath not made so,' do avowedly and plainly make all human
laws that do not countenance vice, or disgrace the Deity, 'to be
particulars of the Divine Law,' . . . and that 'all laws, civil as
well as ecclesiastical, equally oblige the conscience,' and upon
pain of damnation. So that hereby whatsoever is enacted on
earth is at the same time enacted in heaven. Every law carries
along with it the pain of excommunication. Whatsoever the
magistrate binds in earth is bound in heaven: and he delivers every
man who transgresses in cart-wheels and the number of horses in
his team, or that buries not in flannel, over to Satan."—Rehearsal
Transprosed, Part ii. ed. Grosart, p. 395.)
Here the fencing is good, the attack is not a noisy one.
Page 45
Marvell, in this and in some other places, by his close reasoning,
and his self-command, makes his readers wish that Bayes
and the Rehearsal had been out of the argument. It is
thus, and not by anything like Milton's solemn denunciations, that
Marvell shows his real strength.
The Divine in Mode is very much better than the Rehearsal
Transprosed: there is more irony and less irrelevance. The
comic invention is more effective: this passage on the author of
the Animadversions is redeemed by one phrase from mere
"And indeed the Animadverter hath many times in the day
such fits take him, wherein he is lifted up in the air, that six men
cannot hold him down; tears, raves, and foams at the mouth,
casts up all kind of trash, sometimes speuks Greek and Latin,
that no man but would swear he is bewitched."
There is great comfort also in the allusion to 'the primitive
times,' 'when the Defenders of the Faith were all heathens, and
most of them persecutors of Christianity.'
One of the best continuous passages of Marvell's prose is that
which opens the description of Mr. Smirke. The 'voluntary
humility' of it, the carefulness not to exact too much from the
other side, the irony, which one misses in the earlier book, may
be found in this one, at any rate in the beginning of it.
"For all are not of my mind, who could never see any
elevated to that dignity [of Bishop], but I presently conceived a
greater opinion of his wit than ever I had formerly."
"However it goes with excommunication, they should take
good heed to what manner of person they delegate the keys of
Laughter. It is not every man that is qualified to sustain the
dignity of the Church's jester."
This same passage, in praising the original essay of the
Bishop of Hereford, rises to one of the few heights of serious
eloquence to be found in Marvell's prose, where for a moment
he converses again, in a sudden lull of the storm of controversy,
with the Ideas of Truth and Justice, and once again his mind,
as in the Platonic rapture of the Garden, 'withdraws into its
happiness.' Passages of this sort, however, are as uncommon in
the prose essays as in the satires of Marvell.
The Account of the Growth of Arbitrary Government is much
less emphatic, and at the same time a more elaborate piece of
argument and historical exposition, than the earlier treatises.
VOL III
D
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Addressed as it is "to all English Protestants," it escapes the
temptation of the more personal controversies, and can afford to
be generous to the old Cavaliers and the English Catholics,
contrasting them with "such as lie under no temptation of
religion," "obliged by all the most sacred ties of malice and
ambition to advance the ruin of the king and kingdom, and
qualified much better than others, under the name of good
Protestants, to effect it."
In the style of Marvell's prose, as in the style of his satiric
couplets, there are the marks of hesitation between two different
manners. He is sometimes clear, quick, and succinct, sometimes
he falls back into the heavier manner of the older writers. His
vocabulary is various. His practice on "Bayes" involved a good
deal of slang ; his satiric medley is dashed with a number of
spices from different languages, even from the Malay. He uses,
without distress, the heavier Latin armoury—"it is not wisdom
in the Church to pretend to, or however to exercise, that power of
angariating men further than their occasions or understandings
will permit." His reference in one place to "the music and
cadence of the period" is significant.
W. P. KER.
Page 47
JOCULAR DIVINITY
IT hath been the good-nature (and politicians will have it the
wisdom) of most governors to entertain the people with public
recreations ; and therefore to encourage such as could best con-
tribute to their divertisement. And hence doubtless it is, that our
ecclesiastical governors also (who as they yield to none for prud-
ence, so in good humour they exceed all others) have not disdained
of late years to afford the laity no inconsiderable pastime. Yea,
so great hath been their condescension that, rather than fail, they
have carried on the merriment by men of their own faculty, who
might otherwise, by the gravity of their calling, have claimed an
exemption from such offices. They have ordained, from time to
time, several of the most ingenious and pregnant of their clergy
to supply the press continually with new books of ridiculous and
facetious argument. Wherein divers of them have succeeded
even to admiration ; insomuch that by the reading thercof, the
ancient sobriety and seriousness of the English nation hath been
in some good measure discussed and worn out of fashion. Yet,
though the clergy have hereby manifested that nothing comes
amiss to them ; and particularly, that when they give their minds
to it, no sort of men are more proper or capable to make sport
for spectators ; it hath so happened by the rewards and pro-
motions bestowed upon those who have labour'd in this province,
that many others in hopes of the like preferment, although
otherwise by their parts, their complexion, and education unfitted
for this jocular divinity, have, in order to it, wholly neglected the
more weighty cares of their function. And from hence it procccds,
that to the no small scandal and disreputation of our church, a
great arcanum of their state hath been discovcred and divulged ;
that, albeit wit be not inconsistent and incompatible with a clergy-
man, yet neither is it inseparable from them. So that it is of
concernment to my lords the bishops henceforward to repress those
Page 48
of 'em who have no wit, from writing, and to take care that even those that have, do husband it better, as not knowing to what exigency they may be reduced: but however that they the bishops be not too forward in licensing and prefixing their venerable names to such pamphlets. For admitting—though I am not too positive in it—that our episcopacy is of apostolic right,
yet we do not find that among all those gifts then given to men, that which we call wit is enumerated; nor yet among those qualifications requisite to a bishop. And therefore should they, out of complacency for an author, or delight in the argument, or facility of their judgments, approve of a dull book, their own understandings will be answerable, and irreverent people, that cannot distinguish, will be ready to think that such of them differ from men of wit, not only in degree, but in order. For all are not of my mind, who could never see any elevated to that dignity,
but I presently conceived a greater opinion of his wit than ever I had formerly. But some do not stick to affirm that even they, the bishops, come by theirs not by inspiration, not by teaching, but even as the poor laity do light upon it sometimes, by a good mother; which has occasioned the homely Scotch proverb that "an ounce of mother-wit is worth a pound of clergy." And as they come by it as do other men, so they possess it on the same condition: that they cannot transmit it by breathing, touching, or any other natural effluvium, to other persons; not so much as to their most domestic chaplain, or to the closest residentiary.
That the king himself, who is no less the spring of that than he is the fountain of honour, yet has never used the dubbing or creating of wits as a flower of his prerogative; much less can the ecclesiastical power confer it with the same ease as they do the holy orders. That whatsoever they can do of that kind is at uttermost, to empower men by their authority and commission, no otherwise than in the licensing of midwives or physicians.
But that as to their collating of any internal talent or ability, they could never pretend to it; their grants and their prohibitions are alike invalid, and they can neither capacitate one man to be witty, nor hinder another from being so, further than as the press is at their devotion. Which if it be the case, they cannot be too circumspect in their management, and should be very exquisite, —seeing this way of writing is found so necessary,—in making choice of fit instruments. The Church's credit is more interested in an ecclesiastical droll, than in a lay chancellor. It is no small
Page 49
trust that is reposed in him to whom the bishop shall commit,
omne et omnimodum suum ingenium, tam temporale quam spirit-
uale; and however it goes with excommunication, they should
take good heed to what manner of persons they delegatc the keys
of laughter. It is not every man that is qualificd to sustain the
dignity of the church's jester ; and should they take as exact a
scrutiny of them as of the Nonconformists through their dioceses,
the number would appear inconsiderable upon this Easter visitation.
Before men be admitted to so important an employment, it were
fit they underwent a severe examination ; and that it might appear
first, whether they have any sense ; for without that how can any
man pretend—and yet they do—to be ingenious ? Then,
whether they have any modesty ; for without that they can only
be scurrilous and impudent. Next, whether they have any truth :
for true jests are those that do the greatest execution. And lastly,
it were not amiss that they gave some account too of their
Christianity ; for the world has always been so uncivil as to
expect something of that from the clergy, in the design and style
even of their most uncanonical writings. And though I am no
rigid imposer of a discipline of mine own devising, yet had any-
thing of this nature entered into the minds of other men it is not
impossible that a late pamphlet, published by authority and
proclaimed by the Gazette, "Animadversions upon a late pamphlet,
entitled The Naked Truth; or, The True State of the Primitive
Church," might have been spared.
That book so called, The Naked Truth, is a treatise, that,
were it not for this its opposer, needs no commendation ; being
writ with that evidence and demonstration of spirit, that all sober
men cannot but give their assent and consent to it, unasked. It
is a book of that kind, that no Christian scarce can peruse it
without wishing himself had been the author, and almost
imagining that he is so ; the conceptions therein being of so
eternal an idea, that every man finds it to be but the copy of an
original in his own mind, and though he never read it till now,
wonders it could be so long before he remembered it. Neither,
although there be a time when as they say all truths are not to be
spoken, could there ever have come forth anything more season-
able ; when the sickly nation had been so long indisposed and
knew not the remedy, but (having taken so many things that
rather did it harm than good) only longed for some moderation,
and as soon as it had tasted this, seemed to itself sensibly to
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recover ; when their representatives in Parliament had been of late so frequent in consultations of this nature, and they, the physicians of the nation, were ready to have received any advice for the cure of our malady.
It appears moreover plainly that the author is judicious, learned, conscientious, a sincere Protestant, and a true son, if not a father, of the Church of England.
For the rest, the book cannot be free from the imperfection incident to all human endeavours, but those so small, and guarded every-where with so much modesty, but it seems there was none left for the animadverter, who might otherwise have blushed to reproach him.
But some there were who thought Holy Church was concerned in it, and that no true-born son of our mother of England but ought to have it in detestation.
Not only the churches but the coffee-houses rung against it.
They itinerated like excise-spies from one house to another, and some of the morning and evening chaplains burnt their lips with perpetual discoursing it out of reputation, and loading the author, whoever he were, with all contempt, malice, and obloquy.
Nor could this suffice them, but a lasting pillar of infamy must be erected to eternise his crime and his punishment.
There must be an answer to him, in print, and that not according to the ordinary rules of civility, or in the sober way of arguing controversy, but with the utmost extremity of jeer, disdain, and indignation ; and happy the man whose lot it should be to be deputed to that performance.
It was Shrove Tuesday with them, and, not having yet forgot their boys' play, they had set up this cock, and would have been content some of them to have ventured their coffee-farthings, yea their Easter-pence by advance, to have a fling at him.
But there was this close youth who treads always upon the heels of ecclesiastical preferment, but hath come nearer the heels of The Naked Truth than were for his service, that rather by favour than any tolerable sufficiency carned away this employment, as he hath done many others from them.
So that being the man pitched upon, he took up an unfortunate resolution that he would be witty : unfortunate, I say, and no less criminal ; for I dare aver that never any person was more manifestly guilty of the sin against nature.
But, however, to write a book of that virulence, and at such a season, was very improper ; even in the holy time of Lent, when, whether upon the sacred account, it behoved him rather to have subjugated and mortified the swelling of his passions ; or whether upon the political reason, he might well
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ANDREW MARVELL
39
have forborn his young wit, but newly pigg'd or calv'd, in order
to the growth of the yearly summer provisions. Yet to work he
fell, not omitting first to sum himself up in the whole wardrobe
of his function; as well because his wit consisting wholly in his
dress, he would (and 'twas his concernment to) have it all about
him: as to the end that being huff'd up in all his ecclesiastical
fluster, he might appear more formidable, and, in the pride of
his heart and habit, out-boniface an humble moderator. So that
there was more to do in equipping of Mr. Smirke than there is
about Doriman, and the Divine in Mode might have vied with
Sir Fopling Flutter. The vestry and the tiring-room were both
exhausted, and 'tis hard to say whether there went more attend-
ants toward the composing of himself, or of his pamphlet.
Being thus dressed up, at last forth he comes in print. No poet
either the first or the third day could be more concern'd; and
his little party, like men hired for the purpose, had posted them-
selves at every corner to feign a more numerous applause; but
clapped out of time, and disturbed the whole company.
(From Mr. Smirke, or the Divine in Mode, 1676.)
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ALGERNON SIDNEY
[Algernon Sidney was the second son of Robert, Earl of Leicester, by
Lady Dorothy Piercy. In 1632 and 1636 he accompanied his father, as a
little boy, on embassies to Denmark and France. In 1641 (æt. 19) he took
a troop of horse in the regiment of his father, then Lord-Lieutenant of
Ireland, and in 1644 joined the parliamentary forces : rising to be Lieutenant-
General of horse in Ireland, and Governor of Dublin. He was badly wounded,
and in 1647 received the thanks of the Commons. In 1649 he was
nominated one of the king's judges, but did not vote. He violently opposed
Oliver Cromwell and his son, and in 1659 was sent as commissioner with
Whitelocke, to mediate between Sweden and Denmark. He was dissuaded
from returning at the Restoration, and till 1677 remained on the Continent,
in Germany, Italy, and Switzerland, where he visited Edmund Ludlow. In
1678 he stood unsuccessfully for Parliament at Guildford, being opposed by
the Court. In 1683 he was accused of being in the Rye House Plot, was
tried, and executed for treason, without legal evidence of his guilt. His
attainder was subsequently reversed by Parliament.]
In the case of Algernon Sidney it would impair criticism to con-
sider the life and writings apart. It would be unfitting because
Sidney's was not an artistic or impressionable nature, but one
practical and intellectually self-determined ; and as he wrote upon
political principles by which his whole life was governed, his
character is of a piece with his book, and is its most vivid
illustration.
There seem to be writings whose imperfections charm ; they
are those to which the life of the writer imparts the absolute
finish that fate denied to his pen. The abrupt, profuse, and
rough-hewn masses of the Discourses on Government are not
completed into a citadel of that proud Liberty whom it was
Sidney's long task to defend. The ramparts are heaped in haste,
the plain sentences are eloquent of practical activities. But from
such shortcomings the axe absolves him. The arguments
amassed at the desk are driven home on the scaffold.
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In Sidney the natural courage is high and indomitable. In the new-found Essay on Love, the effusion of a boy, and written not ill, but for his private eye alone, we detect the chivalrous note: “For the beauty and loveliness of the person I love . . . my passion hath made itself master of all the faculties of my mind . . . I live in and by it, it is all that I am,” is the naive confession of our amorous Roman citizen. Astonished at the mockeıs of womanhood, he says, “some men seem to have just so much soul as serves them instead of salt only, to keep them from corruption.” And this natural force became independent even to obstinacy. “How unfriendly and unkindly you have rejected those exhortations and admonitions of mine. . . . How little weight my opinions and counsels have been with you,” are constant complaints in the letters of the Earl his father. As a mere boy he exercised military command, and the free habit of thinking that freshens the air of those times, fostered by the example of the heroic group of great Dutchmen, was nourished in Sidney as in Milton by life-long study of classical, and chiefly Latin writers. As the poet consciously imitates the rhythm of Virgilian passages, the statesman takes Brutus for beacon and exemplar. In letters he chiefly quotes and admires (although he does not imitate) the terse and pithy Tacitus. At the Turk’s Head in Palace Yard, Westminster, used to meet a club of Commonwealth’s men, where Sidney, with Dr. William Petty, Cyriac Skinner, Harrington, and the rest, discussed Rotas and dreamed Oceanas. “By reading of these Greek and Latin authors,” Hobbes avouches with asperity, “men have gotten a habit of favouring tumults and licentious contollers of the habit of their sovereigns. Never was anything so dearly bought as these Western parts have bought their learning.” Deeper yet, we may discern in Sidney a strange and solitary religious spirit, a Christianity which was to be “like a divine philosophy in the mind.”1 These were the elements that formed our last Roman.
Writing, thinking, living upon the lofty levels of ancient republicanism, Sidney saw his hope of a Republic dashed not only by Cromwell, but by a Restoration that turned the family of the chief magistrate into the scene of adulterous riot. “Where Vane, Lambert, Haselrigge cannot live in safety,” he said, “I cannot live at all;” and from his vagrant exile came these wandering Discourses, unpublished in his lifetime. Whether or no on his
1 Burget.
Page 55
return he deigned to conspire, is unproven ; but to the soul he
was in rebellion.
The High Royalist views of the Restoration times are em-
bodied in the Patriarcha of Sir Robert Filmer. Now Sidney’s
Discourses on Government are a magnificent attack on that book,
and upon all that it represents. Sidney not only uses the Pat-
riarcha as an anvil on which to beat out thoughts. It is more ;
it is the boast of victorious Philistia, to be withstood to the end.
Sidney’s Discourses on Government are in fact precisely analogous
to Milton’s Samson Agonistes.
The Discourses are therefore a book with the virtues and
defects of protracted contention. The thews and sinews of
style are fully developed ; but when he has crushed Filmer's cob-
web monarch with a mace, he proceeds again to slay the slain.
Not that though the style be vigorous its reasoning is violent.
He defeats not unfairly by boisterous bluster, but by redundance
of dignified reasoning. And notwithstanding that the kind of
argument is in some cases out of fashion ;-that at the head of
Filmer Tarquin is too often flung, or the convincing history of
Nimrod and Cush, still the doctrine remains sound yet. Its
truths, then treasons, are become platitudes,—too familiar to be
justly appraised.
As prose, it is not of course to be compared with the exquisite
clearness and balance of the prose of Halifax, or the finished
strength of Dryden and Temple. Its place in the development
of controversial English is between the style of Hobbes (which it
excels in rhythm and colour) and that of Locke. In gait and
pace it not seldom recalls Landor’s Conversations between Milton
and Marvell and to Landor by temperament and education
Sidney bears resemblances. Like Milton's, his style is deficient
in lightness and in humour. But it has a rough and splendid
earnestness which arrests, abashes, and perturbs. The book
reads·like a great and unprepared oration, by a master of his
theme, in the third and last parliament of the Protectorate.
His sentences, though plain and free from literary graces, are
not seldom finely cadenced ;-terse and succinct, even while the
main passage is ill-knit, loose, and large. Of the degradation of
passive obedience, he writes, "they worship what they find in the
temple, though it be the vilest of idols," and of the divine right
by patriarchal lineage : "the adoption of fathers is a whimsical
piece of nonsense." Of absolute kingship : "I believe no man is
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wise enough to govern us all," and "If it be liberty to live under
such a government, I desire to know what is meant by slavery:"
yet also, "he who takes upon himself the government of a people
can do no greater evil than by doing nothing." In the deaf
wisdom, the equal and inflexible restraint of law, he sternly
rejoices, and Grotius evidently inspires many an illumined passage.
But he owns no unreasoned submission. "Laws are made to
keep things in good order without recourse to force;" and they
were "made by our ancestors according to the light they had,
and their present occasions." "We are not so much to enquire
after what is most ancient, as to that which is best, and most
conducing to the ends for which it was directed." He foreruns
the volonté de tous: "All human constitutions are subject to
corruption and must perish unless they are timely renewed and
reduced to their first principles. This was chiefly done by means
of those tumults which our author ignorantly blames."
He is in favour then of a kind of aristocratic republicanism
based on private virtue ; and though well aware that those fittest
to exercise power are usually slow to seek it, yet affirms with
Plato that heaven-sent rulers carry the true marks of sovereignty
upon them, and no country ever lacked great numbers of excellent
men where excellence is held in honour. "Rome conquered the
best part of the world and never wanted men to defend what was
gained." Sometimes a grim touch occurs. "From which
it will appear whose throne he seeks to advance, and whose
servant he is, while he pretends to serve the king." "There is
not in the world a piece of wood out of which a Mercury cannot
be made," or : "The peace that the Romans had under Augustus
was like that which the devil allowed to the child in the gospel,
whom he rent sorely and left as dead." But his mind is evidently
most in such clear sayings as "God is constant to himself ; and
no consequences can destroy any truth."
Sidney and Milton may be accounted types, in letters as in
politics, of a character not uncommon in that century, but singularly
rare in our own. Noble in style because full of sustained purpose
and intellectual self-respect ; unenfeebled by effeminate sentiment,
stoical in private and public fortitude ; not seldom exalted, as
though granite were burning, by passion and awe.
F. H. TRENCH.
Page 57
THE DEGRADATION OF ITALY
WHILST Italy was inhabited by nations governing themselves by their own will, they fell sometimes into domestic seditions, and had frequent wars with their neighbours. When they were free, they loved their country, and were always ready to fight in its defence. Such as succeeded well, increased in vigour and power ; and even those who were the most unfortunate in one age found means to repair their greatest losses, if their government continued. While they had a property in their goods, they would not suffer the country to be invaded, since they knew they could have none, if it were lost. This gave occasion to wars and tumults ; but it sharpened their courage, kept up a good discipline, and the nations that were most exercised by them always increased in power and number : so that no country seems ever to have been of greater strength than Italy was, when Hannibal invaded it : and after his defeat the rest of the world was not able to resist their valour and power. They sometimes killed one another, but their enemies never got anything but burying-places within their territories. All things are now brought into a very different method by the blessed governments they are under. The fatherly care of the King of Spain, the pope, and other princes, has established peace among them. We have not in many ages heard of any sedition among the Latins, Sabines, VolscI, Equi, Samnites, or others. The thin, half-starved inhabitants of walls supported by ivy fear neither popular tumults nor foreign alarms ; and their sleep is only interrupted by hunger, the cries of their children, or the howling of wolves. Instead of many turbulent, contentious cities, they have a few scattered, silent cottages ; and the fierceness of those nations is so tempered, that every rascally collector of taxes extorts, without fear, from every man, that which should be the nourishment of his family. And if any of those countries are free from these pernicious vermin, it is through the
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extremity of their poverty. Even in Rome a man may be circum-
vented by the fraud of a priest, or poisoned by one who would
have his estate, wife, whore, or child; but nothing is done that
looks like tumult or violence. The governors do as little fear
Gracchus as Hannibal; and instead of wearying their subjects in
wars, they only seek, by perverted laws, corrupt judges, false
witnesses, and vexatious suits, to cheat them of their money and
inheritance. This is the best part of their condition. Where
these arts are used, there are men, and they have something to
lose; but for the most part the lands be waste; and they, who
were formerly troubled with the disorders incident to populous
cities, now enjoy the quiet and peaceable estate of a wilderness.
(From Discourses on Government.)
THE WISDOM OF FLEXIBLE CONSTITUTIONS
IT ought to be considered, that the wisdom of man is imperfect,
and unable to foresee the effects that may proceed from an
infinite variety of accidents, which according to emergencies,
necessarily require new constitutions, to prevent or cure the mis-
chiefs arising from them, or to advance a good that at the first
was not thought of. And as the noblest work in which the wit
of man can be exercised, were (if it could be done) to constitute
a government that should last for ever, the next to that is to suit
laws to present exigencies, and so much as is in the power of man
to foresee. He that would resolve to persist obstinately in the
way he first entered upon, or to blame those who go out of that
in which their fathers had walked, when they find it necessary,
does, as far as in him lies, render the worst of errors perpetual.
Changes therefore are unavoidable; and the wit of man can go
no farther than to institute such as in relation to the forces,
manners, nature, religion, or interests of a people, and their
neighbours, are suitable and adequate to what is seen, or appre-
hended to be seen. He who would oblige all nations at all times
to take the same course, would prove as foolish as a physician
who should apply the same medicine to all distempers, or an
architect that would build the same kind of house for all persons,
without considering their estates, dignities, the number of their
children or servants, the time or climate in which they live, and
Page 59
other circumstances : or, which is, if possible, more sottish, a general who should obstinately resolve always to make war in the same way and to draw up his army in the same form, without examining the nature, number, and strength of his own and his enemies' forces, or the advantages and disadvantages of the ground.
But as there may be some universal rules in physic, architecture, and military discipline, from which men ought never to depart, so there are some in politics also which ought always to be observed ; and wise legislators, adhering to them only, will be ready to change all others, as occasion may require, in order to the public good.
(From the Same.)
THE VIRTUES OF LIBERTY
THE secret counsels of God are impenetrable ; but the ways by which He accomplishes His designs are often evident. When He intends to exalt a people, He fills both them and their leaders with the virtues suitable to the accomplishment of His end ; and takes away all wisdom and virtue from those He resolves to destroy.
The pride of the Babylonians and Assyrians fell through the baseness of Sardanapalus ; and the great city was taken while Belshazzar lay drunk amongst his whores. The empire was transported to the Persians and Grecians by the valour of Cyrus, Alexander, and the brave armics that followed them.
Histories furnish us with innumerable examples of this kind: but I think none can be found of a cowardly, weak, effeminate, foolish, ill-disciplined people, that have ever subdued such as were eminent in strength, wisdom, valour, and good discipline ; or that those qualities have been found or subsisted anywhere, unless they were cultivated and nourished by a well-ordered government.
If this, therefore, were found among the Romans, and not in the kingdoms they overthrew, they had the order and stability which the monarchies had not ; and the strength and virtue, by which they obtained such success, was the product of them.
But if this virtue, and the glorious effects of it, did begin with liberty, it also expired with the same. The best men that had not fallen in battle were gleaned up by the proscriptions, or circumvented for the most part by false and frivolous accusations.
Mankind is
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inclined to vice, and the way to virtue is so hard, that it wants encouragement; but when all honours, advantages, and prefer-
ments are given to vice, and despised virtue finds no other reward than hatred, persecution, and death, there are few who will
follow it.
(From the Same.)
FOLLY OF HEREDITARY KINGSHIP
THOUGH it may be fit to use some ceremonies, before a man be admitted to practise physic, or set up a trade, it is his own skill
that makes him a doctor, or an artificer, and others do but declare it. An ass will not leave his stupidity, though he be
covered with scarlet ; and he, that is by nature a slave, will be so still, though a crown be put upon his head. And it is hard to
imagine a more violent inversion of the laws of God and nature, than to raise him to the throne, whom nature intended for the
chain ; or to make them slaves to slaves, whom God hath endowed with the virtues required in kings. Nothing can be more prepos-
terous, than to impute to God the frantic domination, which is often exercised by wicked, foolish, and vile persons, over the
wise, valiant, just, and good ; or to subject the best to the rage of the worst. If there be any family therefore in the world, which
can by the law of God and nature, distinct from the ordinance of man, pretend to an hereditary right of dominion over any people,
it must be one that never did, and never can produce any person, who is not free from all the infirmities and vices, which render
him unable to exercise the sovereign power ; and is endowed with all the virtues required to that end ; or at least a promise from
God verified by experience, that the next in blood shall ever be able and fit for that work. But since we do not know, that any
such has yet appeared in the world, we have no reason to believe that there is, or ever was any such ; and consequently none, upon
whom God has conferred the rights that cannot be exercised without them.
(From the Same.)
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ALGERNON SIDNEY
49
THE RIGHT TO CHANGE RULERS
HE doubts who shall judge of the lawful cause of changing the
government; and says, it is a pestilent conclusion to place that
power in the multitude. But why should this be esteemed pesti-
lent? or to whom? If the allowance of such a power to the
senate was pestilent to Nero, it was beneficial to mankind; and
the denial of it, which would have given to Nero an opportunity
of continuing in his villainies, would have been pestilent to the
best of men, whom he endeavoured to destroy, and to all others
that received benefit from them. But this question depends upon
another: for if governments are constituted for the pleasure,
greatness, or profit of one man, he must not be interrupted: the
opposing of his will is to overthrow the institution. On the other
side, if the good of the government be sought, care must be
taken that the end be accomplished, though it be with the pre-
judice of the governor. If the power be originally in the multi-
tude, and one or more men, to whom the exercise of it, or a part
of it, was committed, had no more than their brethren, till it was
conferred on him or them, it cannot be believed that rational
creatures would advance one, or a few of their equals above
themselves, unless in a consideration of their own good; and then
I find no inconvenience in leaving to them a right of judging,
whether this be duly performed or not. We say in general:—“he
that institutes, may also abrogate”; more especially when the
institution is not only by, but for himself. If the multitude there-
fore do institute, the multitude may abrogate; and they them-
selves, or those who succeed in the same right, can only be fit
judges of the performance of the ends of the institution. Our
author may perhaps say, the public peace may be hereby dis-
turbed: but he ought to know, there can be no peace, where
there is no justice; nor any justice, if the government instituted
for the good of a nation be turned to its ruin.
(From the Same.)
THE BASIS OF SOCIAL ORDER
THE weakness in which we are born renders us unable to attain
the good of ourselves: we want help in all things, especially in
VOL. III
E
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the greatest. The fierce barbarity of a loose multitude, bound by
no law, and regulated by no discipline, is wholly repugnant to it.
Whilst every man fears his neighbour, and has no other defence
than his own strength, he must live in that perpetual anxiety,
which is equally contrary to that happiness, and that sedate
temper of mind, which is required for the search of it. The first
step towards the cure of this pestilent evil is for many to join in
one body, that every one may be protected by the united force of
all; and the various talents that men possess, may by good
discipline be rendered useful to the whole: as the meanest piece
of wood or stone, being placed by a wise architect, conduces to
the beauty of the most glorious building. But every man bearing
in his own breast affections, passions, and vices, repugnant to this
end, and no man owing any submission to his neighbour, none
will subject the correction or restriction of themselves to another,
unless he also submit to the same rule. They are rough pieces of
timber or stone, which it is necessary to cleave, saw, or cut: this is
the work of a skilful builder, and he only is capable of erecting a
great fabric, who is so. Magistrates are political architects; and
they only can perform the work incumbent on them, who excel in
political virtues. Nature, in variously framing the minds of men,
according to the variety of uses, in which they may be employed,
in order to the institution and preservation of civil societies, must
be our guide, in alloting to every one his proper work. And
Plato, observing this variety, affirms that the laws of nature
cannot be more absurdly violated than by giving the government
of a people to such as do not excel others in those arts and
virtues that tend to the ultimate ends for which governments are
instituted. And this means those who are slaves by nature, or
rendered so by their vices, as often set above those that God and
nature had fitted for the highest commands; and societies, which
subsist only by order, fall into corruption, when all order is so
preposterously inverted.
(From the Same.)
THE INVISIBLE KING
A noble lord, who was irregularly detained in prison in 1681,
being by habeas corpus brought to the bar of the King's Bench,
where he sued to be released upon bail; and an ignorant judge
telling him he must apply himself to the king, he replied, that he
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came thither for that end; that the king might eat, drink, or sleep where he pleased; but when he rendered justice, he was always in that place. The king that renders justice is indeed always there; he never sleeps; he is subject to no infirmity; he never dies, unless the nation be extinguished, or so dissipated as to have no government. No nation that has a sovereign power within itself does ever want this king. He was in Athens and Rome, as well as in Babylon and Susa; and is as properly said to be now in Venice, Switzeland, or Holland, as in France, Morocco, or Turkey. This is he to whom we all owe a simple and unconditional obedience. This is he who never does any wrong; it is before him we appear, when we demand justice, or render an account of our actions. All juries give their verdict in his sight: they are his commands that the judges are bound and sworn to obey, when they are not at all to consider such as they receive from the person that wears the crown. It was for treason against him, that Tresilian and others like to him in several ages were hanged. They gratified the lusts of the visible powers; but the invisible king would not be mocked. He caused justice to be executed upon Empson and Dudley. He was injured, when the perjured wretches, who gave that accursed judgment in the case of ship-money, were suffered to escape the like punishment by means of the ensuing troubles which they had chiefly raised. And I leave it to those who are concerned, to consider how many in our days may expect vengeance for the like crimes.
(From the Same.)
Page 65
GEORGE FOX
[George Fox, the founder of the Quakers, was born at Drayton, in Leicester-shire, in 1624. He was the son of a weaver, " an honest man," George tells us, with "a seed of God in him." He inherited from his mother, whose maiden name was Lago, the martyr spirit of her family. From his earliest years he appears to have been earnest and religious, to have shrunk more and more from the fellowship of men, finally breaking off from both old and young, at, as he thought, the command of God. He appears to have had some private means, and soon took to wandering about England preaching and exhorting. He gradually severed himself from the visible church, and from all formal assemblies of religious people, coming to believe in his own special inspiration. He suffered much and frequent ill-usage at the hands of the mob, and was repeatedly imprisoned for conscience' sake. From the year 1647 to his death in 1690, except when interrupted by imprisonment, he went preaching and praying through the length and breadth of England again and again, visiting also Ireland, Scotland, the Barbadoes, Jamaica, America, and the Netherlands. Even from gaol he wrote exhortations to his friends and admonitions to the government. He married in 1669 Margaret, the widow of one Judge Fell, who had repeatedly used her influence both with her first husband and with the king on Fox's behalf. He believed himself possessed of the power of discerning witches, of healing the sick and of casting out devils ]
THE most important of the writings of George Fox is his Journal, or Historical Account of the Life, Trials, Sufferings, Christian Experiences, and Labour of Love in the Work of the Ministry of that Ancient, Eminent, and Faithful Servant of Jesus Christ, George Fox, which was published after his death. In addition to this record of his experiences he wrote sundry tracts and addresses to the king, and a volume has been collected of his epistles.
The style of his journal is simple, unaffected, and earnest. He makes a fairly liberal use of Scripture phraseology, but not so as to break the continuity of his own writing. He is dignified and temperate, never indulging in grotesque metaphors nor in recon díte biblical allusions. He is often quite eloquent from the force of his convictions, speaking straight out of the heart, as God gave
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him utterance, he would have said, without any attempt at effect or beauty of diction.
He does not appear to have been learned in other books than the Bible, though he is evidently not wholly unacquainted with some commentaries.
He makes no appeal to the emotions, nor does he, in relating the cruel persecutions of himself or his followers, make any endeavour to over-excite the sympathies of his readers. He is rarely, if ever, fanatical.
His remonstrances to Oliver Cromwell for his persecution of the Quakers, and his admonitions of Charles II. on his restoration, are eloquent and dignified.
He is deficient in imagination and poetry. Stern, bare facts are his province, and he lays them before the reader with absolute impartiality. Of much the same religious opinions as John Bunyan, he differs widely from him, looking upon life with the eye of a moralist, and not of a poet. There are no flowers of imagination in his writings. He is no genius, no great writer. A plain earnest man, thinking only of his mission and never of himself, he tells us the story of his life in plain earnest words, without self-consciousness and without effort.
He is a man of sound common sense, great readiness of wit and undaunted courage. He, here and there, displays a certain grim humour and occasionally a touch of pathos. The main charms of his journal seem to consist in its sincerity and truthfulness.
George Fox's style is emphatically the right sort for his matter. The interest of the reader is sustained but never inflamed. He carries conviction and arouses our sympathies by his unaffectedness and simplicity.
A. I. Fitzroy.
Page 67
A SENSE OF THE BLOOD OF MARTYRS
AND as I was walking along with several friends, I lifted up my head, and I saw three steeple-house spires, and they struck at my life; and I asked friends what place that was, and they said Lichfield; immediately the word of the Lord came to me, that I must go thither.
So being come to the house we were going to, I wished friends that were with me to walk into the house, saying nothing to them whither I was to go; and as soon as they were gone, I stepped away, and went by my eye over hedge and ditch, till I came within a mile of Lichfield, where, in a great field, there were shepherds keeping their sheep.
Then I was commanded by the Lord to pull off my shoes; and I stood still (for it was winter); and the word of the Lord was like a fire in me.
So I put off my shoes, and left them with the shepherds, and the poor shepherds trembled and were astonished.
Then I walked on about a mile till I came into the city, and as soon as I was got within the city, the word of the Lord came to me again, saying, “Cry, Woe unto the bloody city of Lichfield.”
So I went up and down the streets, crying with a loud voice, “Woe to the bloody city of Lichfield!” And it being market day, I went into the market place, and to and fro in the several parts of it and made stands, crying as before, “Woe to the bloody city of Lichfield!”
And no one laid hands on me; but as I went thus crying through the streets, there seemed to me to be a channel of blood running down the streets, and the market place appeared like a pool of blood.
Now when I had declared what was upon me, and felt myself clear, I went out of the town in peace, and returning to the shepherds, gave them some money, and took my shoes of them again.
But the fire of the Lord was so in my feet, and all over me, that I did not matter to put on my shoes any more, and was at a stand whether I should or no, till I felt freedom from the Lord so to do; and then, after I had washed my feet, I put on my shoes again.
After this a deep consideration came upon
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me, why, or for what reason, I should be sent to cry against that
city, and call it the bloody city. For though the parliament had
the minster one while and the king another while, and much
blood had been shed in the town during the wars between them,
yet that was no more than had befallen many other places. But
afterwards I came to understand that in the emperor Diocletian's
time, a thousand Christians were martyred in Lichfield. So I
was to go, without my shoes, through the channel of their blood,
and into the pool of their blood in the market place, that I might
raise up the memorial of the blood of those martyrs which had
been shed above a thousand years before, and lay cold in their
streets. So the sense of this blood was upon me, and I obeyed
the word of the Lord. Ancient records testify how many of the
Christian Britons suffered there ; and much I could write of the
sense I had of the blood of the martyrs that hath been shed in this
nation, for the name of Christ, both under the ten persecutions
and since ; but I leave it to the Lord, and to His book, out of
which all shall be judged ; for His book is a most certain, true
record, and His spirit a true recorder.
(From the Journal.)
A YOUTHFUL MARTYR
WHILST I was in the dungeon at Carlisle, one James Parnel, a
little lad of about sixteen years of age came to see me, and was
convinced ; and the Lord quickly made him a powerful minister
of the word of life, and many were turned to Christ by him ;
though he lived not long ; for travelling into Essex, in the work
of the ministry, in the year 1655, he was committed to Colchester
castle, where he endured very great hardships and sufferings,
being put by the cruel jailor into a hole in the castle wall, called
the oven, so high from the ground, that he went up to it by a
ladder ; which being six feet too short, he was fain to climb from the
ladder to the hole by a rope that was fastened above. And when
friends would have given him a cord and a basket, to have drawn
up his victuals in, the inhuman jailor would not suffer them, but
forced him to go down and up by that short ladder and rope, to
fetch his victuals (which for a long time he did) or else he might
have famished in the hole. At length, his limbs being much
benumbed with lying in that place, yet being constrained to go
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down to take up some victuals, as he came up the ladder again
with his victuals in one hand, and catched at the rope with the
other, he missed the rope, and fell down from a very great height
upon the stones ; by which fall he was exceedingly wounded in
his head and arms, and his body much bruised ; and he died in
a short time after. And when he was dead, the wicked professors,
to cover their own cruelty, writ a book of him, and said he fasted
himself to death ; which was an abominable falsehood, and was
manifested so to be by another book, which was written in answer
to that, and was called "The Lamb's Defence against Lies."
(From the Same.)
A MAN OF A TENDER CONSCIENCE
I was brought before judge Twisden on the 14th day of the
month called March, in the latter end of the year 1663. When
I was set up to the bar, I said, Peace be amongst you all. The
judge looked upon me, and said, What, do you come into the
court with your hat on ! Upon which words the jailor taking it
off, I said, The hat is not the honour that comes from God.
Then said the judge to me, Will you take the oath of allegiance,
George Fox ? I said, I never took any oath in my life, nor any
covenant or engagement. Well, said he, will you swear or no ?
I answered, I am a Christian, and Christ commands me not to
swear, and so does the apostle James likewise ; and whether I
should obey God or man, do thou judge. I ask you again, said
he, whether you will swear or no ? I answered again, I am
neither Turk, Jew, nor heathen, but a Christian, and should shew
forth Christianity. And I asked him, if he did not know that
Christians in the primitive times under the ten persecutions, and
some also of the martyrs in queen Mary's days refused swearing,
because Christ and the apostle had forbidden it. I told him also,
they had had experience enough, how many men had first sworn
for the king and then against the king ; but as for me, I had
never taken an oath in all my life ; and my allegiance did not lie
in swearing, but in truth and faithfulness, for I honour all men,
much more the king. But Christ, who is the great prophet, who
is the King of kings, who is the Saviour of the world, and the
great judge of the whole world, he saith I must not swear ; now,
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whether must I obey, Christ or thee? For it is in tenderness of
conscience, and in obedience to the commands of Christ, that I
do not swear ; and we have the word of a king for tender con-
sciences. Then I asked the judge if he did own the king. Yes,
said he, I do own the king. Why then, said I, dost thou not
observe his declaration from Breda, and his promises made since
he came into England, that no man should be called in question
for matters of religion, so long as they lived peaceably. Now if thou
ownest the king, said I, why dost thou call me into question, and put
me upon taking an oath, which is a matter of religion, seeing thou
nor none else can charge me with unpeaceable living. Then he
was moved, and looking angrily at me, said, Sirrah, will you
swear. I told him, I was none of his sirrahs, I was a Christian ;
and for him, that was an old man and a judge, to sit there and
give nick-names to prisoners, it did not become either his gray
hairs or his office. Well, said he, I am a Christian too. Then
do Christians' works, said I. Sirrah, said he, thou thinkest to
frighten me with thy words. Then catching himself and looking
aside, he said, Hark! I am using the word (sirrah) again, and so
checked himself. I said, I spake to thee in love, for that language
did not become thee, a judge ; thou oughtest to instruct a prisoner
in the law, if he were ignorant and out of the way. And I speak
in love to thee too, said he. But, said I, love gives no nick-
names. Then he roused himself up and said, I will not be afraid
of thee, George Fox ; thou speakest so loud thy voice drowns
mine and the court's, I must call for three or four criers to drown
thy voice ; thou hast good lungs. I am a prisoner here, said I,
for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake ; for his sake do I suffer, and for
him do I stand this day ; and if my voice were five times louder
yet I should lift it up, and sound it out for Christ's sake, for
whose cause I stand this day before your judgment seat, in
obedience to Christ, who commands not to swear, before whose
judgment seat you must all be brought, and must give an account.
Well, said the judge, George Fox, say whether thou wilt take the
oath, yea or nay? I replied, I say as I said before, whether
ought I to obey God or man, judge thou? If I could take any
oath at all, I should take this ; for I do not deny some oaths
only, or on some occasion, but all oaths, according to Christ's
doctrine, who hath commanded his not to swear at all. Now if
thou or any of you, or any of your ministers or priests here, will
prove that ever Christ or his apostles after they had forbidden all
Page 71
swearing, commanded Christians to swear, then I will swear. I
saw several priests there, but never an one of them offered to
speak. Then said the judge, I am a servant of the king, and
the king sent me not to dispute with you, but to put the laws in
execution ; therefore tender him the oath of allegiance. " If thou
love the king," said I, "why dost thou break his word, and not
keep his declarations and speeches wherein he promised liberty
to tender consciences. I am a man of a tender conscience, and
in obedience to Christ's command I cannot swear. Then you
will not swear, said the judge ; take him away, jailor. I said, It
is for Christ's sake that I cannot swear, and for obedience to his
command I suffer, and so the Lord forgive you all. So the
jailor took me away ; but I felt the mighty power of the Lord
was over them all.
(From the Same.)
AN APPEAL
SOUND, sound abroad, you faithful servants of the Lord, and
witnesses in his name, and faithful servants and prophets of the
Highest, and angels of the Lord ! Sound ye all abroad in the
world, to the awakening and raising of the dead, that they may
be awakened and raised up out of the grave, to hear the voice
that is living. For the dead have long heard the dead, and the
blind have long wandered amongst the blind, and the deaf amongst
the deaf ; therefore sound, sound, ye servants and prophets, and
angels of the Lord, ye trumpets of the Lord, that you may awaken
the dead, and awaken them that be asleep in their graves of sin,
death and hell, and sepulchres, and sea, and earth, and who lie
in the tombs. Sound, sound abroad, ye trumpets, and raise up
the dead, that the dead may hear the voice of the Son of God,
the voice of the second Adam, that never fell; the voice of the
light, and the voice of the life ; the voice of the power, and the
voice of the truth ; the voice of the righteous, and the voice of
the just. Sound, sound the pleasant and melodious sound !
Sound, sound, ye the trumpets, the melodious sound abroad, that
all the deaf ears may be opened to hear the pleasant sound of the
trumpet to judgement and life, to condemnation and light. Sound,
sound your trumpets all abroad, you angels of the Lord, sons and
daughters, prophets of the highest, that all that are dead and
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asleep in the graves, and been long dreaming and slumbering,
may be awakened, and hear the voice of the Lamb, who have long
heard the voice of the beast ; that now they may hear the voice
of the Bridegroom, now they may hear the voice of the Bride,
now they may hear the voice of the great Prophet, now they may
hear the voice of the great King, now they may hear the voice of
the great Shepherd, and the great Bishop of their souls. Sound,
sound it all abroad, ye trumpets, among the dead in Adam, for
Christ is come, the second Adam, that they might have life, yea
have it abundantly. Awaken the dead, awaken the slumberers.
awaken the dreamers, awaken them that be asleep, awaken them
out of their graves, out of their tombs, out of their sepulchres, out
of the seas ! Sound, sound abroad you trumpets ! you trumpets
that awaken the dead, that they may all hear the sound of it in
the graves, and they that hear may live, and come to the life that
is the Son of God ; He is risen from the dead, the grave could
not hold nor contain Him, neither could all the watchers of the
earth, with all their guards, keep Him therein. Sound, sound, ye
trumpets of the Lord, to all the seekers of the living among the
dead, that He is risen from the dead ; to all the seekers of the
living among the dead, and in the graves that the watchers keep,
He is not in the grave, but He is risen ; and there is that under
the grave of the watchers of the outward grave, which must be
awakened and come to hear His voice, which is risen from the
dead, that they might come to live. Therefore sound abroad,
you trumpets of the Lord, that the grave might give up her dead,
and hell and the sea might give up their dead ; and all might
come forth to judgment, to the judgment of the Lord before his
throne, and to have their sentence and reward according to their
works.
And sound, sound, all ye angels and faithful servants of the
Most High, you trumpets of the Lord, amongst all the night
watchers and watchers of the graves, sepulchres, and tombs, and
overseers of those watchers of the seas, graves, and sepulchres,
sound the trumpet amongst them and over them all ; make the
sound to be heard, that the dead may arise at the sound of the
trumpet, that they may come out of their graves, and live and
praise the Lord ; that all the dead in the seas, and all the dead
in the tombs and sepulchres may hear the sound of the trumpet,
and come to judgment, and come to hear the voice of the Son of
God and live, in whom there is life.
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GEORGE FOX
61
Away with all the chaff and the husks, and contentions and strife, that the swine feed upon in the mire and in the fall; and the keepers of them of Adam and Eve's house in the fall, that lies in the mire, out of light and life.
(From the Same.)
GREETING TO CHARLES II. ON HIS RESTORATION
LET thy moderation be known unto all men, for the Lord is at hand whose presence filleth Heaven and earth; and let such a nobility appear in thee as to try all things and to hold fast that which is good; and either to read or to hear with patience before thou judge; for wisdom becometh a king, and true reason, solidity and patience, him that is a ruler of the people. The God of Heaven hath put into my heart to write unto thee, and in tender love both to thy soul and body, to lay before thee several things whereby thou mayest come to me and consider, how the mighty hand and justice of the invisible God hath been in these over-turnings and changes, which have happened in these nations of late years. Therefore, consider these things. The mighty God, the everlasting Father, He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords; and the whole earth is His, and the fulness thereof, and He ruleth over the kingdoms of men, and giveth them to whomsoever He pleaseth. Yea, He pulleth down one and setteth up another, and there is no overturning or changing in kingdoms but it is either by His commission or permission, and the Lord doth not do anything, neither suffereth He anything to be done unto persons or kingdoms without a cause (though he may do whatsoever he pleaseth) and who shall call Him to an account? Yet all His doings are righteous, and His ways are just and equal altogether; and it is for the unrighteousness, sometimes of a king or kings, and sometimes of a people, and other times of both, that the Lord doth break or suffer a nation or nations to be broken; and when He determines to break a people, or to change governors (or to suffer such things to be done) in vain do men strive to preserve or uphold them; and the Lord may, and doth make whomsoever He placeth His instruments for to do His determined work; and when they have done His work, thus He may do whatsoever He pleaseth with them; and
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many times His instruments, when they begin His determined work, appear very contemptible unto many; yet, such speak foolishly and without understanding, who say that such instruments are too weak and cannot prevail, seeing all power is in the hand of God, who can give wisdom and strength and courage unto whomsoever He pleaseth; . . . and when His instruments have done this work (and he determines to break or to suffer them to be broken again) let them appear never so wise, bold, and mighty, yet vainly do they speak who say such a wise, bold, and mighty people cannot be broken, seeing the Lord can do whatsoever He pleaseth, who suddenly can turn man's wisdom into folly, his strength into weakness, and his boldness into dauntedness of spirit.
Now such things as these, O king, come oft to pass, and some of them without a cause, and they that are truly wise learn further and get understanding through all these things. Therefore is true wisdom better than strength, and a right understanding is better than an earthly crown.
Therefore, O king, wait to feel the noble principle of wisdom, which God hath inspir'd thee withal; for there is a measure of it in thee, though it hath been hid, and that measure is the light, which Christ the wisdom of God hath enlightened thee withal, which light in thee is that which never had fellowship with darkness in thee, or its deeds, nor concord with the devil or his works, but makes manifest and reproves all such things, which light being received in the love of it and believed and united in, man becomes a child of it, and so it gives him a good understanding.
. . . Therefore, O king, give all diligence to receive the gift which God hath placed in thy heart, that so thou mayest be acquainted with wisdom, and that thou mayest be filled with moderation, gravity, and patience, and come to a right understanding and discerning, that so thou may'st rightly look upon things past, present, and to come; and see them as they were, are, or shall be.
Page 75
ROBERT BOYLE
[Robert Boyle was the seventh son of Richard, first Earl of Cork, one of
the most active and successful statesmen of his busy day, and of Catherine
Fenton his wife, and was born at Lismore Castle in Munster, on the 25th of
January 1627. His education at home gave him a mastery of French and
Latin, and he was afterwards distinguished for the purity and ease of his con-
versation in the language of learning. It was at Geneva, where he was resident
for a time on leaving Eton, with a greatly valued tutor, that he first experi-
enced, at the age of fourteen, an impulse to religious meditation which never
left him. By the death of his father in 1644 he inherited the manor of
Stalbridge, in Dorsetshire, and considerable wealth, which was largely in-
creased in after years by the favour of his sovereign, and devoted in abundant
measure (witness Bishop Burnet) to the spread of scriptural knowledge, and
to the aid of poor students of science. He was elected president of the Royal
Society in 1680, but declined the honour. He settled at Oxford in 1654 and
removed to London in 1668, where he died on the 30th of December 1691.
In these years he was incessantly engaged in chemical and physical investiga-
tions and in the writing of his scientific and religious works. They took the
form of essays, the complete edition of which was published in five folios by
Dr. Birch in 1744. In physics Boyle is' of course renowned as the dis-
coverer, or, to speak more accurately, as the adapter to scientific purposes of
the air-pump, and in a lesser degree for "Boyle's Law" of the relation
between elasticity and pressure; we may notice also his improvement in the
thermometer, and his experiments in electricity. In chemistry his service was
chiefly that of a clearer of the ground for others, in ridding it of confused and
erroneous antiquities, and in indicating the direction of further efforts; he was
a strict practitioner of experiment. He refused the provostship of Eton, which
Charles II. offered him in 1665, on the grounds that its holder should be in
orders, and that he could assist religion more valuably as a layman. He is
said to have refused a peerage offered by Charles II., whose friend he was, as
of James and William. Evelyn tells a love story of him which may or may not
be true; he never married, and is somewhat severe on the feminine character.]
In estimating the qualities of a writer of prose who was at few
pains to be an artist therein, it is a useful preliminary to observe
the essential stamp and direction of his intellect. Robert Boyle
had the strict temperament of a man of science, as distinguished
from that of a general philosopher. He guarded himself carefully
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from even the knowledge of a priori theory which might lead to
prepossessions inimical to the impartial conduct of experiment,
save, one must suppose, in so far as hypothesis is absolutely
necessary to the first stages. He liked to interrogate nature,
following very closely of his own impulse the design of Bacon.
But the excellent work in science that resulted was rather due to
an untiring persistence than to great gifts of intellect. He had
hardly a disinterested love of knowledge; he valued it as it "had
a tendency to use." And the advance he made on his time in
clearness of thought concerning things in general is not that of
one whose mental endowment was extraordinary. He was
immersed in his pursuit of experiment, only leaving it in obedience
to the calls which his birth and reputation as a savant made on
his society, calls which he regretted and endeavoured to avoid.
It is a reasonable supposition that if he had lived in our time he
would have given his results to the world in the roughest of
rough notes, for others to make books of. But having had the
training of a student of the humanities, and living when to be
learned meant a more diverse, a less specialised culture than the
wider data of learning make possible now, and when printing was
a graver undertaking than it seems with us, he gave of necessity
some form and literary completeness to his publications. We
find in them still the note of impatience of form: he had not time
to be brief. There is scarcely a trace in him of the first quality
of an artist in prose, rejection. Now and again a well-turned
phrase strikes the reader, but, given a certain condition of
language, the phrase is found to be that which would have
occurred at once to a certain order of intellect. Happily for Boyle
the English of his time was comparatively free from the more
vulgar sort of stereotyped phrase; had still a full and sonorous
tone. But from the greater masters of sonorous English, Boyle
was as far removed as from the clear-cut simplicity and directness
of Swift. His style is not involved, and is not affected; it is
merely rarified and verbose. In his religious writings the same
thing is noticeable as in his scientific. Here again he was
deeply interested in his subject, a sincerely pious man applying
his best powers, or trying so to do, to the subject he deemed of
first importance. And here again he is essentially impatient of
form; his sincerity gave him an infrequent warmth of phrase,
the general and vague nature of his reflections an occasional
rotundity, but again the average is jejune. One may often
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ROBERT BOYLE
collect very clearly the points of a writer by a comparison with a parodist. Swift was not likely to be a greatly indulgent parodist. But if a reader turn from an hour or two of Boyle's Occasional Reflexions to the immortal Meditation upon a Broomstick, he will see that Swift, neatly burlesquing the nature of his original's thoughts, is unable to compass his lack of directness and pungency. When Boyle turned to a lighter theme, he was still verbose, though there is a certain charm and demureness which recall the accounts we have of the kindly and pleasant nature of the man. It is said that he tried to correct his diffuseness, but we may surmise that he tried to mitigate its inconvenience rather than to correct its deficiency of form. In fine, his attainments as a scholar, while they impelled him to attempt a literary form for his thoughts and discoveries, were not strong enough in the balance of his mind to compel the sacrifices necessary to an artistic result.
G. S. STREET.
VOL. III
F
Page 78
THE VALUE OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY
THE natural philosophy wont to be taught in schools, being little other than a system of the opinions of Aristotle and some few other writers, is not, I confess, Pyrophilus, very difficult to be learned; as being attainable by the perusal of a few of the more current authors. But, Pyrophilus, that experimental philosophy which you will find treated of in the following essays is a study, if duly prosecuted, so difficult, so changeable, and so toilsome that I think it requisite, before I propose any particular subjects to your inquiries, to possess you with a just value of true and solid physiology ; and to convince you that, by endeavouring to addict you to it, I invite you not to misspend your time or trouble on a science unable to merit and requite it. In order, Pyrophilus, to the giving you this satisfaction, give me leave to mind you that it was a saying of Pythagoras, worthy so celebrated a philosopher, that there are two things which most ennoble man, and make him resemble the gods ; to know the truth, and to do good. For, Pyrophilus, that diviner part of man, the soul, which alone is capable of wearing the glorious image of its author, being endowed with two chief faculties, the understanding and the will, the former is blest and perfectionated by knowledge, and the latter's loveliest and most improving property is goodness. A due reflection upon this excellent sentence of him to whom philosophers owe that modest name, should, methinks, Pyrophilus, very much endear to us the study of natural philosophy; For there is no human science that does more gratify and enrich the understanding with variety of choice and acceptable truths ; nor scarce any, that does more enable a willing mind to exercise a goodness beneficial to others.
To manifest these truths more distinctly, Pyrophilus, and yet without exceeding that brevity my avocations and the bounds of an essay exact of me, I shall, among the numerous advantages accruing to men from the study of the book of nature, content
Page 79
myself to instance only in a couple that relate more properly
to the improving of men's understandings, and to mention a
few of those many by which it increases their power.
The two great advantages which a real acquaintance with
nature brings to our minds are, first, by instructing our under-
standings, and gratifying our curiosities; and next, by exciting
and cherishing our devotion.
And for the first of these; since, as Aristotle teacheth, and
was taught himself by common experience, all men are naturally
desirous to know; that propensity cannot but be powerfully
engaged to the works of nature, which, being incessantly present
to our senses, do continually solicit our curiosities; of whose
potent inclining us to the contemplation of nature's wonders, it
is not, perhaps, the inconsiderablest instance, that, though the
natural philosophy hitherto taught in most schools hath been so
litigious in its theory, and so barren as to its productions, yet
it hath found numbers of zealous and learned cultivators, whom
sure nothing but men's inbred fondness for the object it converses
with, and the end it pretends to, could so passionately devote to it.
And since that (as the same Aristotle, taught by his master
Plato, well observes) admiration is the parent of philosophy, by
engaging us to enquire into the causes of things at which we
marvel, we cannot but be powerfully invited to the contemplation
of nature, by living and conversing among wonders, some of
which are obvious and conspicuous enough to amaze even ordinary
beholders, and others admirable and abstruse enough to astonish
the most inquisitive spectators.
The bare prospect of this magnificent fabric of the universe,
furnished and adorned with such strange variety of curious and
useful creatures, would suffice to transport us both with wonder
and joy if their commonness did not hinder their operations.
Of which truth Mr. Stepkins, the famous oculist, did not long
since supply us with a memorable instance; for (as both himself
and an illustrious person that was present at the cure, informed
me) a maid of about eighteen years of age, having by a couple
of cataracts that she brought with her into the world, lived
absolutely blind from the moment of her birth, being brought
to the free use of her eyes, was so ravished at the surprising
spectacle of so many and various objects as presented themselves
to her unacquainted sight, that almost everything she saw
transported her with such admiration and delight that she was
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in danger to lose the eyes of her mind by those of her body,
and expound that mystical Arabian proverb which advises to
shut the windows that the house may be light.
(From Usefulness of Natural Philosophy.)
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES
IT is not that I think all the books that constitute the Bible
of equal necessity or equal usefulness because they are of equal
extraction, or that I esteem the Church would lose as much in
the prophecy of Nahum as that of Isaiah, or in the book of
Ruth as in the Epistle to the Romans or the gospel of John (as
the fixed stars themselves, though of the same heaven, are not
all of the same magnitude and lustre). But I esteem all the
constituent books of Scripture necessary to the canon of it ; as
two eyes, two ears, and the rest of the members are all necessary
to the body ; without divers of which it may be, but not be so
perfect, and which are all of great though not of equal useful-
ness. And perhaps it might, without, too, hyperbole, be said
further, that as amongst the stars that shine in the firmament,
though there be a disparity of greatness compared one to another,
yet they are all of them lucid and celestial bodies, and the least
of them far vaster than any thing on earth, so of the two Testa-
ments that compose the Bible, though there may be some
disparity in relation to themselves, yet they are both heavenly
and instructive volumes, and inestimably out-valuing any the
earth affords, or human pens ever traced. And I must add,
that as mineralists observe that rich mines are wont to lie hid
in those grounds whose surface bears no fruit trees (too much
maligned by the arsenical and resembling fumes), nor is well
stored with useful plants or verdure (as if God would endeav
those ill-favoured lands by giving them great portions), so divers
passages of Holy Writ, which appear barren and unpromising to our
first survey, and hold not obviously forth instructions or promises,
being by a sedulous artist searched into (and the original word
ἐρευνᾶν used in that text of Search the Scriptures does properly
enough signify the searching for hid treasure) afford, out of their
penetrated bowels, rich and precious mysteries of divinity.
(From Some Considerations touching the Style of the Holy
Scriptures.)
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ROBERT BOYLE
69
AN EXPERIMENT
Among the more familiar phenomena of the Machina Boyleiana, as they now call it, none leaves so much scruple in the minds of some sorts of men as this, that when one's finger is laid close upon the orifice of the little pipe by which the air is wont to pass from the receiver into the exhausted cylinder, the pulp of the finger is made to enter a good way into the cavity of the pipe, which doth not happen without a considerable sense of pain in the lower part of the finger. For most of those that are strangers to hydrostatics, especially if they be prepossessed with the opinions generally received both in the peripatetic and other schools, persuade themselves that they feel the newly mentioned and painful protuberance of the pulp of the finger to be effected, not by pressure, as we would have it, but distinctly by attraction.
To this we are wont to answer that, common air being a body not devoid of weight, the phenomenon is clearly explicable by the pressure of it ; for, when the finger is first laid upon the orifice of the pipe, no pain nor swelling is produced, because the air which is in the pipe presses as well against that part of the finger which covereth the orifice, as the ambient air doth against the other parts of the same finger. But when, by pumping, the air in the pipe, or the most part of it, is made to pass out of the pipe into the exhausted cylinder, then there is nothing left in the pipe whose pressure can anything near countervail the undiminished pressure of the external air on the other parts of the finger ; and consequently, that air thrusts the most yielding and fleshy part of the finger, which is the pulp, into that place where its pressure is unresisted, that is, into the cavity of the pipe, where this forcible intrusion causeth a pain in those tender parts of the finger.
(From The Cause of Attraction by Suction.)
THE WRITING OF A ROMANCE
But, upon further thoughts, I soon foresaw that this task was not more worthy to be undertaken than it would prove difficult
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to be well performed; for the martyrologist being allowed scarce
one whole page to a relation that perhaps merited a volume,
had left so many chasms, and so many necessary things un-
mentioned, that I plainly perceived I wanted a far greater number
of circumstances than that he had supplied me with, to make
up so maimed a story tolerably complete. And as the relation
denied me matter enough to work upon, so the nature of the
subject refused most of those embellishments, which in other
themes, where young gallants and fair ladies are the chief actors,
are wont to supply the deficiencies of the matter. Besides, my
task was not near so easy, as it would have been, if I had been
only to recite the intrigues of an amour, with the liberty to feign
surprising adventures to adorn the historical part of the account,
and to make a lover speak as passionately as I could, and his
mistress as kindly as the indulgentes laws of decency would
permit. But I was to introduce a Christian and a pious lover,
who was to contain the expressions of his flame within the narrow
bounds of his religion; and a virgin, who, being as modest and
discreet as handsome, and as devout as either, was to own an
high esteem for an excellent lover, and an uncommon gratitude
to a transcendent benefactor, without entrenching either upon
her virtue, or her reservedness. And I perceived the difficulty
of my task would be increased, by that of reconciling Theodora's
scrupulousness to the humours of some young persons of quality
of either sex, who were earnest to engage my pen on this
occasion, and would expect, that I should make Theodora more
kind, than I thought her great piety and strict modesty would
permit. But for all this, the esteem that I had for the fair
martyr's excellences, and the compliance I had for those, that
desired to receive an account of so rare a person's actions and
sufferings, made me resolve to try what I could do; which I
adventured upon with the less reluctancy, because, though I
esteemed it a kind of profaneness to transform a piece of
martyrology into a romance, yet I thought it allowable enough,
where a narrative was written so concisely, and left so imperfect,
as that I had to descant upon, to make such supplements of
circumstances, as were not improbable in the nature of the thing,
and were little less than necessary to the clearness and entireness
of the story, and the decent connection of the parts it should
consist of. I supposed too, that I need not scruple to lend
speeches to the persons I brought upon the stage, provided they
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ROBERT BOYLE
were suitable to the speakers, and occasions ; since I was
warranted by the examples of Livy, Plutarch, and other grave
and judicious historians, who make no scruple to give us set
orations of their own framing, and sometimes put them into the
mouths of generals at the head of their armies, just going to
give battle; though at such times the hurry and distraction that
both they and their auditors must be in, must make it very
unlikely, either that they should make elaborate speeches, or
their hearers mind and remember them well enough to repeat
them to the historians.
(From The Martyrdom of Theodora.)
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JOHN BUNYAN
[John Bunyan was born, the son of a tinker, at Elstow, near Bedford, in
- In his seventeenth year he enlisted, but whether on the side of King or
Parliament is undetermined ; the fact is noteworthy because of the use he made
of his military experiences in the Holy War. He married early a wife who
brought him for dowry The Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven, and The
Practice of Piety, books which first attracted him to godliness and literature.
His earliest writings were against the Quakers (1656). He was arrested in
1660 for preaching, and imprisoned for twelve years, during which time he
wrote various tracts, and notably Grace Abounding, the history of his con-
version. He was a licensed preacher from 1672-75, but when the Declaration of
Indulgence was cancelled, was again arrested. In the six months of imprison-
ment that followed he wrote the first part of the Pilgrim's Progress (1677),
several of the best passages being added in the second edition of the next
year. Other works followed, The Life and Death of Mr. Badman (1680),
The Holy War (1682), the second part of the Pilgrim's Progress (1684). For
the next sixteen years he was pastor of a church in Bedford, writing in all
some sixty volumes, none of which retain vitality but those mentioned. He
died 31st August 1688.]
" HE had a sharp quick eye, accomplished with an excellent
discerning of persons, being of good judgment and quick wit."
So writes Bunyan's first biographer. "I never went to school to
Aristotle or Plato, but was brought up in my father's house in a
very mean condition among a company of poor countrymen." So
writes Bunyan in his religious autobiography Grace Abounding to
the Chief of Sinners. And these two sentences give us more than
half the explanation of the charm of Bunyan's writing ; for that
charm lies, first of all, in the excellent discerning of persons, the
quick comprehension of the various mixtures of simple and radical
virtues and vices, of which his "poor countrymen" were composed,
and then in the vivid homely phrases in which the sketches were
made. It is more especially the first of these great qualities, the
discernment of spirits, which gives permanence to the permanent
residue of Bunyan's vast literary production ; for whilst in all his
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ENGLISH PROSE
writing there is abundant evidence of brain-power, and his skill
in marshalling texts to defend his dogmatic positions is admirable,
yet this general cleverness would not have raised him above the
rank of the popular preacher whose performances in the next
generation cumber the book-stalls, had it not been for that
drop of precious elixir which nature infused into his eyes at birth,
as into those of such different people as Geoffrey Chaucer and
Jane Austen. It is this which divides Bunyan from one in other
respects so like him as George Fox. Both were children of the
people, both were intensely religious, both were given to hearing
voices in their ears speaking the words of God or of Satan, both
for their faith were "in prisons oft"; but the discriminating eye,
and the sense of humour which accompanies it, were lacking to
Fox, as his Journal makes abundantly conspicuous.
One outcome of this gift of vivid realisation was of course the
corresponding vigour of the characters in the allegories; it is
a commonplace to acknowledge that Mr. By-ends, Mr. Talkative,
and the rest are as familiar to us as people we have met in real
life. They were no doubt drawn from the quick, and the
descriptive touches are put in with a sure pencil so that they live
to us. Examples will be found on nearly every page, but the
epithet "gentlemanlike" by which he describes the attitude of
Demas, is one of the simplest and most effective. And how
happy he is in the names of persons and places, "Mr. Worldly
Wiseman," "Sir Having Greedy," "Mrs. Bats-eyes," "Mr. Facing-
both-ways," "A young woman her name was Dull," "Vanity
Fair," "The Slough of Despond," "Flesh Lane" (where Forget-
good dwelt) "right opposite to the Church." His vocabulary as a
rule is homely enough, but it is copious, and it is always justly and
accurately employed. In the preface to Grace Abounding Bunyan
says, "I could have stepped into a style much higher than this in
which I have here discoursed, and could have adorned all things
more than here I have seemed to do, but I dare not. I may not play
in the relating of them, but be plain and simple, and lay down the
thing as it was." The accurate delineation which in that book he
gives of "the thing as it was," in that case the growth of his
religious feelings and ideas, depends upon his vivid perception,
and this again enables him to clothe his experiences in adequate
and nervous language; and so too when the thing he has to
represent is some neighbour whom he knows, or some coinage of
his fancy, the fit words are equally at command. Had the poor
Page 87
tinker's son been sent to grammar-school or university; this natural
freedom of style, though probably from his preacher's habit it
could never have been pestered in such a pinfold as Milton
affected, yet it could not but have grown more abstract, and perhaps
have made him a more lively Howe; as it was, the words and
phrases and images remained racy of the soil. Here are some
sentences from the Holy War: "Nor did the silly Mansoul stick
or boggle at all at this most monstrous engagement, but as if it
had been a sprat in the mouth of a whale, they swallowed it with-
out any chewing." "He had for his malapertness one of his
legs broken, and he that did it wished it had been his neck."
"At this they were all of them struck into their dumps."
"When Mr. Cerberus and Mr. Profane did meet they were
presently as great as beggars"; and there are a hundred other
quaint expressions for which it would be hard to find a parallel in
religious literature, such as "quat and close," "in the very nick and
first trip," "ticking and toying," "put to my plunge." The same
freshness may be noted in such phrases as "a tongue bravely
hung," "to clap up in prison," "gird them up from the ground,
and let them not lag with dust and dirt," "he saw something like
a lion, and it came a great padding pace after," "I saw the clouds
rack at an unusual rate." Free scope is given for such lively
turns of phrase by the large use of dialogue.1
Bunyan's literary education was based upon two books, Foxe's
Acts and Monuments, and the Genevan version of the Bible.
The former supplied him with the model of a homely and yet forc-
ible mode of writing, and to this example we probably owe it that
Bunyan was contented to write in the vernacular. He borrowed
from it further the practice of using the margin for notes and
comments, very desirable appendages to an allegory. Occasion-
ally some of his are pungent summaries of the text, and
1 Bunyan frequently employs the contraction a for have, especially in the
second part of the Pilgrim's Progress, which is the more homely in style as in
matter; e.g. "What could you a done to a helped yourself?" A still more
interesting colloquialism is a narrative use of should, which occurs repeatedly
in Grace Abounding, e.g. "I should at these years be greatly afflicted . . .
"for I used to be." I have not noticed this in other works of Bunyan, but
there is a curious use of shall, half narrative, half conditional, in the Holy
War. "This was the condition of Mansoul for about two years and a half—
what rest then could be to the inhabitants? Had the enemy lain so long
without, it had been enough to have famished them; but now when they
shall be within, when the terror shall be in their tent, this was terrible, and yet
this was now the state of Mansoul."
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some are exclamations; e.g.: "Hopeful swaggers," "Christian snibbeth his fellows," "O brave Talkative!" "O good riddance!"
"O sweet prince!" "That's false, Satan!" again, "Mark this!" "Take heed, Mansoul!" "Look to it, Mansoul!" the last of these repeated very effectively at each period in the Infernal Conclave.
The Bible Bunyan must have known by heart; its phraseology and imagery he made so thoroughly his own, that many passages of description are simply a cento of quotations; elsewhere he intermingles them with those of his own day without any sense of incongruity.
At times to us the incongruity is sufficiently manifest, as when Mercy falls down before the Keeper of the Gate, and says "Let my Lord accept of the sacrifice which I now offer Him with the calves of my lips";
at times also his extreme familiarity with the text seems to have led him to quote more than he meant, as in the close of the Preface to the Holy War.
"If thou wouldst know
My riddle, and would with my heifer plow,
It lies there in the window."
But such singularities are but trifles in comparison with the magnificent use he made of the book generally.
Two passages in Grace Abounding show the passionate intuition he brought to the sacred text: "When I have considered also the truth of his resurrection and have remembered that word, Touch me not Mary, etc., I have seen as if he leaped at the grave's mouth for joy that he was risen again."
"At this time also I saw more in those words Heirs of God, than ever I shall be able to express while I live in this world.
Heirs of God! God himself is the portion of the saints.
This I saw and wondered at, but cannot tell you what I saw."
As a consequence of this penetrating appreciation he was able to vivify not only the events of the narrative, but the images and the very metaphors, which were thus erected into the machinery of his allegories.
Outside the Bible he had nothing to draw upon but his own observation, and this, while it afforded a sufficient variety of persons, left him little choice in the matter of scenery.
He was born and bred, as Kingsley says "in the monotonous Midland," and so, while his meadows and streams and sloughs are described graphically (though sometime idealised as, e.g. the meadow by the River of God, which was "curiously beautified with lilies")
, his hills and the farrior natura have no verisimili-
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tude; in one place he allows himself to speak of "a wide field
full of dark mountains"; in another of Emmanuel "leaping over
the mountains," a phrase which a verse in Canticles (ii. 8) may
account for, but will not justify. But where his eye has once rested
upon the object the descriptions are very lively.
"By this time they were got to the enchanted ground, where
the air naturally tended to make one drowsy. And that place
was all grown over with briars and thorns. The way also was here
very wearisome through dirt and slabbiness. Nor was there on all
this ground so much as one inn or victualling-house, therein to
refresh the feebler sort. Here therefore was grunting, and
puffing, and sighing; while one tumbleth over a bush, another
sticks fast in the dirt, and the children, some of them lost their
shoes in the mire. While one cries out, I am down, and
another, Ho, where are you? and a third, The bushes have got
such fast hold on me I think I cannot get away from them."
H. C. BEECHING.
Page 90
THE STORY OF BUNYAN'S CONVERSION
I.
FURTHER, in these days I should find my heart to shut itself up against the Lord, and against His Holy Word. I have found my unbelief to set, as it were, the shoulder to the door to keep Him out, and that, too, even then, when I have with many a bitter sigh cried "Good Lord, break it open; Lord, break these gates of brass, and cut these bars of iron asunder." Yet that word would sometimes create in my heart a peaceable pause, "I girded thee, though thou hast not known me."
But all this while as to the act of sinning, I never was more tender than now. I durst not take a pin or a stick, though but so big as a straw, for my conscience now was sore, and would smart at every touch; I could not now tell how to speak my words, for fear I should misplace them. Oh how gingerly did I then go in all I did or said! I found myself as on a miry bog that shook if I did but stir; and was as there left both of God and Christ, and the Spirit and all good things.
In this condition I went a great while; but when comforting time was come, I heard one preach a sermon upon those words in the song, "Behold thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair." But I got nothing by what he said at present, only when he came to the application of the fourth particular, this was the word he said : "If it be so, that the saved soul is Christ's love when under temptation, and desertion; then poor, tempted soul, when thou art assaulted and afflicted with temptation, and the hidings of God's face, yet think on these two words, 'my love,' still."
So as I was a going home, these words came again into my thoughts; and I well remember, as they came in, I said thus in my heart, "What shall I get by thinking on these two words?" This thought had no sooner passed through my heart, but the
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JOHN BUNYAN
words began thus to kindle in my spirit, "Thou art my love, thou
art my love," twenty times together ; and still as they ran thus in
my mind, they waxed stronger and warmer, and began to make
me look up. But being as yet between hope and fear, I still
replied in my heart, "But is it true, but is it true?" At which,
that sentence fell in upon me, "He wist not that it was true which
was done by the angel."
Then I began to give place to the Word, which, with power,
did over and over make this joyful sound within my soul, "Thou
art my love, thou art my love ; and nothing shall separate thee
from my love ; and with that Romans eight, thirty-nine, came into
my mind. Now was my heart filled full of comfort and hope,
and now I could believe that my sins should be forgiven me ; yea,
I was now so taken with the love and mercy of God, that I
remember I could not tell how to contain till I got home. I
thought I could have spoken of His love and of His mercy to me,
even to the very crows that sat upon the ploughed lands before
me, had they been capable to have understood me; wherefore I
said in my soul, with much gladness, "Well, I would I had a pen
and ink here, I would write this down before I go any farther, for
surely I will not forget this forty years hence." But alas ! within
less than forty days, I began to question all again ; which made
me begin to question all still.
Yet still at times I was helped to believe that it was a true
manifestation of grace unto my soul, though I had lost much of
the life and savour of it. Now about a week or fortnight after
this I was much followed by this Scripture, "Simon, Simon, behold
Satan hath desired to have you." And sometimes it would sound
so loud within me, yea, and as it were call so strongly after me,
that once above all the rest, I turned my head over my shoulder,
thinking verily that some man had, behind, called to me ; being
at a great distance, methought he called so loud. It came, as I
have thought since, to have stirred me up to prayer, and to watchfulness ; it came to acquaint me that a cloud and a storm was coming
down upon me, but I understood it not.
II.
And now I found, as I thought, that I loved Christ dearly.
Oh ! methought my soul cleaved unto Him, my affections cleaved
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ENGLISH PROSE
unto Him. I felt love to Him as hot as fire; and now, as Job said,
I thought I should die in my nest; but I did quickly find that
my great love was but little, and that I, who had, as I thought,
such burning love to Jesus Christ, could let Him go again for a
very trifle. But God can tell how to abase us, and can hide pride
from man. Quickly after this my love was tried to purpose.
And that was, to sell and part with this most blessed Christ,
to exchange Him for the things of this life, for anything. The
temptation lay upon me for the space of a year, and did follow
me so continually that I was not rid of it one day in a month, no,
not sometimes one hour in many days together, unless when I
was asleep.
And though, in my judgment, I was persuaded that those who
were once effectually in Christ, as I hoped, through His grace, I
had seen myself, could never lose him for ever,—for the land shall
not be sold for ever, the land is mine, saith God,—yet it was a
continual vexation to me to think that I should have as much as
one such thought within me against a Christ, a Jesus, that had
done for me as He had done; and yet then I had almost none
others, but such blasphemous ones.
But it was neither my dislike of the thought, nor yet any
desire and endeavour to resist it that in the least did shake or
abate the continuation, or force and strength thereof; for it did
always, in almost whatever I thought, intermix itself therewith
in such sort that I could neither eat my food, stoop for a pin,
chop a stick, or cast mine eye to look on this or that, but still the
temptation would come, "Sell Christ for this, or sell Christ for
that; sell Him, sell Him."
Sometimes it would run in my thoughts, not so little as a
hundred times together, "Sell Him, sell Him, sell Him"; against
which I may say, for whole hours together, I have been forced
to stand as continually leaning and forcing my spirit against it,
lest haply, before I was aware some wicked thought might arise
in my heart that might consent thereto; and sometimes also the
tempter would make me believe I had consented to it, then should
I be as tortured upon the rack for whole days together.
This temptation did put me to such scares, lest I should at
sometimes, I say, consent thereto, and be overcome therewith,
that by the very force of my mind, in labouring to gainsay and
resist this wickedness, my very body also would be put into action
or motion by way of pushing or thrusting with my hands or elbows,
Page 93
still answering as fast as the destroyer said, "Sell Him"; "I will not, I will not, I will not; no, not for thousands, thousands, thousands of worlds." Thus reckoning lest I should, in the midst of these assaults, set too low a value of Him, even until I scarce well knew where I was, or how to be composed again.
At these seasons he would not let me eat my food at quiet; but, forsooth, when I was set at the table at my meat, I must go hence to pray; I must leave my food now, and fast now, so counterfeit holy also would this devil be. When I was thus tempted I should say in myself "Now I am at my meat, let me make an end." "No," said he, "you must do it now, or you will displease God, and despise Christ." Wherefore I was much afflicted with these things; and because of the sinfulness of my nature (imagining that these things were impulses from God), I should deny to do it as if I denied God; and then should I be as guilty, because I did not obey a temptation of the devil, as if I had broken the law of God indeed.
But to be brief, one morning, as I did lie in my bed, I was, as at other times, most fiercely assaulted with this temptation, to sell and part with Christ; the wicked suggestion still running in my mind, "Sell Him, sell Him, sell Him, sell Him," as fast as a man could speak. Against which also, in my mind, as at other times, I answered, "No, no, not for thousands, thousands, thousands," at least twenty times together. But at last, after much striving, even until I was almost out of breath, I felt this thought pass through my heart, Let Him go, if He will! And I thought also, that I felt my heart desperately consent thereto. Oh, the diligence of Satan! Oh, the desperateness of man's heart!
Now was the battle won, and down fell I, as a bird that is shot from the top of a tree, into great guilt and fearful despair. Thus getting out of my bed, I went moping into the field; but God knows, with as heavy a heart as mortal man, I think, could bear; where, for the space of two hours, I was like a man bereft of life, and as now past all recovery, and bound over to eternal punishment.
And withal, that Scripture did seize upon my soul, "or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat, sold his birthright; for ye know, how that afterwards, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected; for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears."
Now was I as one bound; I felt myself shut up into the judg-
VOL. III
G
Page 94
ment to come. Nothing now for two years together would abide with me but damnation, and an expectation of damnation. I say, nothing now would abide with me but this, save some few moments for relief, as in the sequel you will see.
Then began I with sad and careful heart to consider of the nature and largeness of my sin, and to search in the Word of God, if I could in any place espy a word of promise or any encouraging sentence by which I might take relief. Wherefore I began to consider that third of Mark, "All manner of sins and blasphemies shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, wherewith soever they shall blaspheme." Which place, methought, at a blush, did contain a large and glorious promise, for the pardon of high offences ;
but considering the place more fully, I thought it was rather to be understood as relating more chiefly to those who had, while in a natural estate, committed such things as there are mentioned ; but not to me, who had not only received light and mercy, but that had, both after, and also contrary to that, so slighted Christ as I had done.
Then again, being loath and unwilling to perish, I began to compare my sin with others, to see if I could find that any of those that were saved had done as I had done. So I considered David's adultery and murder, and found them most heinous crimes ; and those too committed after light and grace received. But yet by considering, I perceived that his transgressions were only such as were against the law of Moses ; from which the Lord Christ could, with the consent of His Word, deliver him. But mine was against the Gospel ; yea, against the Mediator thereof ; I had sold my Saviour.
Again, after I had thus considered the sins of the Saints in particular, and found mine went beyond them, then I began to think thus with myself:-Set the case I should put all theirs together, and mine alone against them, might I not then find some encouragement ? For if mine, though bigger than anyone, should but be equal to all, then there is hope ; for that blood that hath virtue enough in it to wash away all theirs, hath also virtue enough in it to do away mine, though this one be full as big; if not bigger, than all theirs. Here, again, I should consider the sin of David, of Solomon, of Manasseh, of Peter, and the rest of the great offenders ; and should also labour, what I might with fairness, to aggravate and heighten their sins by several circumstances : but alas ! it was all in vain.
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Then I thought on Solomon, and how he sinned in loving
strange women, in falling away to their idols, in building them
temples, in doing this after light, in his old age, after great mercy
received; but the same conclusion that cut me off in the former
consideration, cut me off as to this; namely, that all those were
but sins against the law, for which God had provided a remedy;
but I had sold my Saviour, and there now remained no more
sacrifice for sin.
This one consideration would always kill my heart; my sin
was point blank against my Saviour; and that too, at that height,
that I had in my heart said of Him, "Let Him go if He will."
Oh! methought, this sin was bigger than the sins of a country,
of a kingdom, or of the whole world, no one pardonable, nor all
of them together, was able to equal mine; mine outwent every
one.
About this time I took an opportunity to break my mind to
an ancient Christian, and told him all my case. I told him,
also, that I was afraid I had sinned the sin against the Holy
Ghost; and he told me—He thought so too. Here, therefore,
I had but cold comfort; but, talking a little more with him I
found him, though a good man, a stranger to much combat with
the devil. Wherefore, I went to God again, as well as I could,
for mercy still.
But one morning, when I was again at prayer, and trembling
under the fear of this, that no word of God could help me; that
piece of a sentence darted in upon me, My grace is sufficient.
At this methought I felt some stay, as if there might be hopes.
But oh how good a thing it is for God to send His word! For
about a fortnight before I was looking on this very place, and
then I thought it could not come near my soul with comfort,
therefore I threw down my book in a pet. Then I thought it
was not large enough for me; no, not large enough. But now,
it was as if it had arms of grace so wide that it could not only
enclose me, but many more besides.
By these words I was sustained; yet not without exceeding
conflicts, for the space of seven or eight weeks; for my peace
would be in and out, sometimes twenty times a day; comfort
now, and trouble presently; peace now, and before I could go a
furlong as full of fear and guilt as ever heart could hold; and
this was not only now and then, but my whole seven weeks'
experience; for this about the sufficiency of Grace, and that of
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ENGLISH PROSE
Esau's parting with his birthright, would be like a pair of scales within my mind, sometimes one end would be uppermost, and sometimes again the other ; according to which would be my peace or trouble.
And I remember one day, as I was in divers frames of spirits and considering that these frames were still according to the nature of the several Scriptures that came in upon my mind ; if this of grace, then was I quiet ; but if that of Esau, then tormented ; “Lord,” thought I, “if both these Scriptures would meet in my heart at once, I wonder which of them would get the better of me.” So methought I had a longing mind that they might both come together upon me ; yea, I desired of God they might.
Well, about two or three days after, so they did indeed ; they bolted both upon me at a time, and did work and struggle strangely in me for a while ; at last, that about Esau's birthright began to wax weak, and withdraw, and vanish ; and this about the sufficiency of Grace prevailed with peace and joy. And as I was in a muse about this thing, that Scripture came home upon me :—Mercy rejoiceth against judgment.
This was a wonderment to me ; yet truly I am apt to think it was of God. For the word of the law and wrath must give place to the word of life and grace ; because, though the word of condemnation be glorious, yet the word of life and salvation doth far exceed in glory. Also that Moses and Elias must both vanish, and leave Christ and His Saints alone.
(From Grace Abounding.)
CHRISTIAN LOSES HIS ROLL
I looked then after Christian, to see him go up the hill, when I perceived he fell from running to going, and from going to clambering upon his hands and his knees, because of the steepness of the place. Now about the midway to the top of the hill was a pleasant arbour, made by the lord of the hill, for the refreshing of weary travellers. Thither therefore Christian got, where also he sat down to rest him. Then he pulled his roll out of his bosom and read therein to his comfort : he also now began afresh to take a review of the coat or garment that was given
Page 97
him as he stood by the cross. Thus pleasing himself a while,
he at last fell into a slumber, and thence into a fast sleep, which
detained him in that place until it was almost night, and in his
sleep his roll fell out of his hand. Now as he was sleeping,
there came one to him, and awaked him saying, “go to the ant,
thou sluggard, consider her ways and be wise,” and with that
Christian suddenly started up, and sped him on his way, and
went apace till he came to the top of the hill.
Now when he was got to the top of the hill, there came two
men running against him amain ; the name of the one was
Timorous, and the name of the other Mistrust, to whom Christian
said, “Sirs, what's the matter you run the wrong way ?”
Timorous answered, that they were going to the City of Zion,
and had got up that difficult place ; “but,” said he, “the farther
we go, the more danger we meet with, wherefore we turned, and
are going back again.”
“Yes,” said Mistrust, “for just before us lie a couple of lions
in the way (whether sleeping or waking we know not) ; and we
could not think, if we came within reach, but they would presently
pull us to pieces.”
Then said Christian, “You make me afraid, but whither shall
I fly to be safe ? If I go back to mine own country, that is pre-
pared for fire and brimstone ; and I shall certainly perish there.
If I can get to the celestial city, I am sure to be in safety there.
I must venture. To go back is nothing but death ; to go forward
is fear of death, and life everlasting beyond it. I will yet go
forward.” So Mistrust and Timorous ran down the hill ; and
Christian went on his way. But thinking again of what he heard
from the men, he felt in his bosom for his roll, that he might
read therein and be comforted ; but he felt and found it not.
Then was Christian in great distress, and knew not what to do ;
for he wanted that which used to relieve him, and that which
should have been his pass into the celestial city. Here there-
fore he began to be much perplexed, and knew not what to do ;
at last he bethought himself that he had slept in the arbour that
is on the side of the hill : and falling down upon his knees, he
asked God forgiveness for that his foolish fact ; and then went
back to look for his roll. But all the way he went back, who
can sufficiently set forth the sorrow of Christian's heart ; some-
times he sighed, sometimes he wept, and oftentimes he chid
himself, for being so foolish as to fall asleep in that place which
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was erected only for a little refreshment from his weariness.
Thus therefore he went back ; carefully looking on this side and
on that, all the way as he went, if haply he might find his roll,
that had been his comfort so many times on his journey. He
went thus till he came again within sight of the arbour, where he
sat and slept ; but that sight renewed his sorrow the more, by
bringing again, even afresh, his evil of sleeping into his mind.
Thus therefore he now went on bewailing his sinful sleep, saying,
" O wretched man that I am, that I should sleep in the day-
time ! that I should sleep in the midst of difficulty ! that I should
so indulge the flesh, as to use that rest for ease to my flesh, which
the Lord of the hill hath erected only for the relief of the spirits
of pilgrims ! How many steps have I taken in vain ! (Thus it
happened to Israel for their sin, they were sent back again by
the way of the Red Sea), and I am made to tread those steps
with sorrow, which I might have trod with delight, had it not
been for this sinful sleep. How far might I have been on my
way by this time ! I am made to tread those steps thrice over,
which I needed not to have trod but once : 'Yea now also I am
like to be benighted, for the day is almost spent. O that I had
not slept !" Now by this time he was come to the arbour again,
where for awhile he sat down and wept, but at last (as Christian
would have it) looking sorrowfully down under the settle, there
he espied his roll ; the which he with trembling haste catched up,
and put it into his bosom. But who can tell how joyful this man
was, when he had gotten his roll again ! For this roll was the
assurance of his life and acceptance at the desired haven. There-
fore he laid it up in his bosom, gave thanks to God for directing
his eye to the place where it lay, and with joy and tears betook
himself again to his journey. But oh how nimbly now did he go
up the rest of the hill ! Yet before he got up, the sun went down
upon Christian, and this made him again recall the vanity of his
sleeping to his remembrance, and thus he again began to condole
with himself : " Oh thou sinful sleep ! how for thy sake am I like
to be benighted in my journey ! I must walk without the sun,
darkness must cover the path of my feet, and I must hear the
noise of doleful creatures, because of my sinful sleep ! " Now
also he remembered the story that Mistrust and Timorous told
him of, how they were frighted with the sight of the lions. Then
said Christian to himself again, " These beasts range in the night
for their prey, and if they should meet with me in the dark, how
Page 99
should I shift them ? how should I escape being by them torn in
pieces ? Thus he went on his way, but while he was thus be-
wailing his unhappy miscarriage, he lifted up his eyes, and behold
there was a very stately palace before him, the name of which
was Beautiful, and it stood just by the highway side.
(From The Pilgrim's Progress.)
THE TRIAL OF CHRISTIAN AND FAITHFUL
THEN a convenient time being appointed, they brought them
forth to their trial in order to their condemnation. When the
time was come, they were brought before their enemies and
arraigned ; the judge's name was Lord Hategood. Their indict-
ment was one and the same in substance, though somewhat
varying in form ; the contents whereof were this :-
That they were enemies to, and disturbers of their trade ; that
they had made commotions and divisions in the town, and had
won a party to their own most dangerous opinions, in contempt
of the law of their prince.
Then Faithful began to answer, That he had only set himself
against that which had set itself against Him that is higher than
the highest. And, said he, as for disturbance, I make none,
being myself a man of peace ; the parties that were won to us,
were won by beholding our truth and innocence, and they are
only turned from the worse to the better. And as to the king
you talk of, since he is Beelzebub, the enemy of our Lord, I defy
him and all his angels.
Then proclamation was made, that they that had aught to say
for their lord the king against the prisoner at the bar should
forthwith appear and give in their evidence. So there came in
three witnesses, to wit, Envy, Superstition, and Pickthank. They
were then asked, If they knew the prisoner at the bar ? and what
they had to say for their lord the king against him ?
Then stood forth Envy, and said to this effect: My lord, I
have known this man a long time, and will attest upon my oath
before the honourable Bench, that he is—
Judge. Hold, give him his oath.
So they sware him. Then he said, My lord, this man, not-
withstanding his plausible name, is one of the vilest men in our
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country ; he neither regardeth prince nor people, law nor custom ;
but doth all that he can to possess all men with certain of his
disloyal notions, which he in the general calls principles of faith
and holiness. And in particular, I heard him once affirm, That
Christianity and the customs of our town of Vanity were diametri-
cally opposite, and could not be reconciled. By which saying,
my lord, he doth at once not only condemn our laudable doings,
but us in the doing of them.
Then did the judge say to him, Hast thou any more to say?
Envy. My lord, I could say much more, only I would not be
tedious to the Court. Yet if need be, when the other gentlemen
have given in their evidence, rather than any thing shall be want-
ing that will dispatch him, I will enlarge my testimony against
him. So he was bid stand by. Then they called Superstition,
and bid him look upon the prisoner ; they also asked, What he
could say for their lord the king against him ? Then they
sware him, so he began.
Superstition. My lord, I have no great acquaintance with
this man, nor do I desire to have further knowledge of him ;
however this I know, that he is a very pestilent fellow, from some
discourse that the other day I had with him in this town ; for
then talking with him, I heard him say, That our religion was
naught, and such by which a man could by no means please God ;
which sayings of his, my lord, your lordship very well knows,
what necessity thence will follow, to wit, That we still do worship
in vain, are yet in our sins, and finally shall be damned ; and
this is that which I have to say.
Then was Pickthank sworn, and bid say what he knew, in
behalf of their lord the king against the prisoner at the bar.
Pickthank. My lord, and you gentlemen all, this fellow I have
known of a long time, and have heard him speak things that
ought not to be spoke. For he hath railed on our noble prince
Beelzebub, and hath spoke contemptibly of his honourable friends,
whose names are the Lord Oldman, the Lord Carnal-delight, the
Lord Luxurious, the Lord Desire of Vain-glory, my old Lord
Lechery, Sir Having Greedy, with all the rest of our nobility ;
and he hath said, moreover, that if all men were of his mind, if
possible, there is not one of these noblemen should have any
longer a being in this town. Besides, he hath not been afraid to
rail on you, my lord, who are now appointed to be his judge,
calling you an ungodly villain, with many other such vilifying
Page 101
terms, with which he hath bespattered most of the gentry of our town.
When this Pickthank had told his tale, the Judge directed his speech to the prisoner at the bar, saying, Thou runagate, heretic, and traitor, hast thou heard what these honest gentlemen have witnessed against thee?
Faithful. May I speak a few words in my own defence?
Judge. Sirrah, sirrah, thou deservest to live no longer, but to be slain immediately upon the place; yet that all men may see our gentleness towards thee, let us see what thou hast to say.
Faithful. I. I say then in answer to what Mr. Envy hath spoken, I never said ought but this, That what rule or laws or custom or people were flat against the Word of God are diametrically opposite to Christianity. If I have said amiss in this, convince me of my error, and I am ready here before you to make my recantation.
-
As to the second, to wit, Mr. Superstition, and his charge against me, I said only this, That in the worship of God there is required a divine faith; but there can be no divine faith without a divine revelation of the will of God: therefore whatever is thrust into the worship of God that is not agreeable to divine revelation, cannot be done but by a human faith; which faith will not be profit to eternal life.
-
As to what Mr. Pickthank hath said, I say (avoiding terms, as that I am said to rail, and the like), That the prince of this town, with all the rabblement his attendants, by this gentleman named, are more fit for a being in hell, than in this town and country; and so the Lord have mercy upon me.
Then the Judge called to the jury (who all this while stood by, to hear and observe), Gentlemen of the jury, you see this man about whom so great an uproar hath been made in this town; you have also heard what these worthy gentlemen have witnessed against him; also you have heard his reply and confession: it lieth now in your breasts to hang him, or save his life, but yet I think meet to instruct you into our law.
There was an act made in the days of Pharaoh the Great, servant to our prince, That lest those of a contrary religion should multiply and grow too strong for him, their males should be thrown into the river. There was also an act made in the days of Nebuchadnezzar the Great, another of his servants, that whoever would not fall down and worship his golden image, should be
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thrown into a fiery furnace. There was also an act made in the
days of Darius, That whoso, for some time, called upon any God
but him, should be cast into the lion's den. Now the substance
of these laws this rebel has broken, not only in thought (which is
not to be borne), but also in word and deed ; which must therefore
needs be intolerable.
For that of Pharaoh, his law was made upon a supposition, to
prevent mischief, no crime being yet apparent ; but here is a crime
apparent. For the second or third, you see he disputeth against
our religion, and for the treason he hath confessed, he deserveth
to die the death.
Then went the jury out, whose names were, Mr. Blind-man,
Mr. No-good, Mr. Malice, Mr. Love-lust, Mr. Live-loose, Mr.
Heady, Mr. High-mind, Mr. Enmity, Mr. Liar, Mr. Cruelty,
Mr. Hate-light, and Mr. Implacable, who every one gave in his
private verdict against him among themselves, and afterwards
unanimously concluded to bring him in guilty before the judge.
And first Mr. Blind-man the foreman said, I see clearly that this
man is a heretic. Then said Mr. No-good, away with such a
fellow from the earth. Ay, said Mr. Malice, for I hate the very
looks of him. Then said Mr. Love-lust, I could never endure
him. Nor I, said Mr. Live-loose, for he would always be con-
demning my way. Hang him, hang him, said Mr. Heady. A
sorry scrub, said Mr. High-mind. My heart riseth against him,
said Mr. Enmity. He is a rogue, said Mr. Liar. Hanging is
too good for him, said Mr. Cruelty. Let's dispatch him out of
the way, said Mr. Hate-light. Then said Mr. Implacable ; might
I have all the world given me, I could not be reconciled to him,
therefore let us forthwith bring him in guilty of death ; and so
they did, therefore he was presently condemned to be had from
the place where he was, to the place from whence he came, and
there to be put to the most cruel death that could be invented.
They therefore brought him out, to do with him according to
their law ; and first they scourged him, then they buffeted him,
then they lanced his flesh with knives ; after that they stoned
him with stones, then pricked him with their swords, and last of
all they burned him to ashes at the stake. Thus came Faithful
chariot and a couple of horses, waiting for Faithful, who (so soon
as his adversaries had dispatched him) was taken up into it, and
straightway was carried up through the clouds, the nearest way to
Page 103
the celestial gate. But as for Christian, he had some respite, and was remanded back to prison, so he there remained for a space. But He that over-rules all things, having the power of their rage in His own hand, so wrought it about, that Christian for that time escaped them, and went his way.
(From the Same.)
MR. BY-ENDS
So I saw that quickly after they were got out of the fair, they overtook one that was going before them, whose name was By-ends ; so they said to him, What country-man, sir ? and how far go you this way ? He told them, That he came from the town of Fair-speech, and he was going to the celestial city (but told them not his name).
From Fair-speech, said Christian ; is there any that be good live there ?
By-ends. Yes, said By-ends, I hope.
Christian. Pray, sir, what may I call you ?
By-ends. I am a stranger to you, and you to me ; if you be going this way, I shall be glad of your company ; if not, I must be content.
Christian. This town of Fair-speech, I have heard of it, and, as I remember, they say it's a wealthy place.
By-ends. Yes, I will assure you that it is, and I have very many rich kindred there.
Christian. Pray, who are your kindred there, if a man may be so bold ?
By-ends. Almost the whole town ; and, in particular, my Lord Turn-about, my Lord Fair-speech (from whose ancestors the town first took its name) ; Also Mr. Smooth-man, Mr. Facing-bothways, Mr. Anything, and the parson of our parish, Mr. Two-tongues, was my mother's own brother by father's side ; and, to tell you the truth, I am a gentleman of good quality ; yet my great-grandfather was but a waterman, looking one way, and rowing another, and I got most of my estate by the same occupation.
Christian. Are you a married man ?
By-ends. Yes, and my wife is a very virtuous woman, the
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daughter of a virtuous woman. She was my Lady Feigning's
daughter, therefore she came of a very honourable family, and is
arrived at such a pitch of breeding, that she knows how to carry
it to all, even to prince and peasant. 'Tis true, we somewhat
differ in religion from those of the stricter sort, yet but in two
small points ; First, we never strive against wind and tide.
Secondly, we are always most zealous when religion goes in his
silver slippers ; we love much to walk with him in the street, if
the sun shines, and the people applaud it.
Then Christian stepped a little aside to his fellow Hopeful,
saying, It runs in my mind that this is one By-ends of Fair-speech,
and if it be, we have as very a knave in our company as dwelleth
in all these parts. Then said Hopeful, Ask him ; methinks he
should not be ashamed of his name. So Christian came up with
him again, and said, Sir, you talk as if you knew something more
than all the world doth, and if I take not my mark amiss, I deem
I have half a guess of you : is not your name Mr. By-ends of
Fair-speech ?
By-ends. That is not my name, but indeed it is a nick-name
that is given me by some that cannot abide me, and I must be
content to bear it as a reproach, as other good men have borne
theirs before me.
Christian. But did you never give an occasion to men to call
you by this name?
By-ends. Never, never! The worst that ever I did to give
them an occasion to give me this name, was, that I had always
the luck to jump in my judgment with the present way of the
times, whatever it was, and my chance was to get thereby ; but
if things are thus cast upon me, let me count them a blessing,
but let not the malicious thereby load me with reproach.
Christian. I thought indeed that you was the man that I had
heard of, and to tell you what I think, I fear this name belongs
to you more properly than you are willing we should think it doth.
By-ends. Well, if you will thus imagine, I cannot help it.
You shall find me a fair company-keeper, if you will still admit
me your associate.
Christian. If you will go with us, you must go against wind
and tide, the which, I perceive, is against your opinion : you must
also own religion in his rags, as well as when in his silver slippers,
and stand by him, too, when bound in irons, as well as when he
walketh the streets with applause.
Page 105
JOHN BUNYAN
93
By-ends. You must not impose, nor lord it over my faith ;
leave me to my liberty, and let me go with you.
Christian. Not a step further, unless you will do in what I
propound, as we.
Then said By-ends, I shall never desert my old principles,
since they are harmless and profitable. If I may not go with
you, I must do as I did before you overtook me, even go by
myself, until some overtake me that will be glad of my company.
(From the Same.)
CHRISTIANA'S NEIGHBOURS
BUT while they were thus about to be gone, two of the women
that were Christiana's neighbours came up to her house and
knocked at her door. To whom she said as before, If you come
in God's name, come in. At this the women were stunned, for
this kind of language they used not to hear, or to perceive to
drop from the lips of Christiana. Yet they came in ; but behold
they found the good woman a-preparing to be gone from her
house.
So they began and said, Neighbour, pray what is your mean-
ing by this ?
Christiana answered and said to the eldest of them, whose
name was Mrs. Timorous, I am preparing for a journey. (This
Timorous was daughter to him that met Christian upon the hill
Difficulty ; and would a had him go back for fear of the lions.)
Timorous. For what journey, I pray you ?
Christiana. Even to go after my good husband ; and with
that she fell a weeping.
Timorous. I hope not so, good neighbour, pray, for these poor
children's sakes, do not so unwomanly cast away yourself.
Christiana. Nay, my children shall go with me ; not one of
them is willing to stay behind.
Timorous. I wonder in my very heart, what, or who has
brought you into this mind.
Christiana. Oh, neighbour, knew you but as much as I do, I
doubt not but that you would go with me.
Timorous. Prithee, what new knowledge hast thou got that
so worketh off thy mind from thy friends, and that tempteth thee
to go nobody knows where ?
Page 106
Christiana. Then Christiana replied, I have been sorely afflicted since my husband's departure from me: but specially since he went over the river. But that which troubleth me most, is my churlish carriages to him when he was under his distress. Besides, I am now, as he was then; nothing will serve me but going on pilgrimage. I was a dreaming last night that I saw him. Oh that my soul was with him. He dwelleth in the presence of the king of the country, he sits and eats with him at his table, he is become a companion of immortals, and has a house now given him to dwell in, to which the best palaces on earth, if compared, seem to me but as a dunghill. The prince of the place has also sent for me, with promise of entertainment if I shall come to him; his messenger was here even now, and has brought me a letter, which invites me to come. And with that she plucked out her letter and read it, and said to them, What now will you say to this?
Timorous. Oh the madness that has possessed thee and thy husband, to run yourselves upon such difficulties! You have heard, I am sure, what your husband did meet with, as our neighbour Obstinate can yet testify; for he went along with him, yea, and Pliable too, until they, like wise men, were afraid to go any further. We also heard, over and above, how he met with the lions, Apollyon, the Shadow of Death, and many other things. Nor is the danger that he met with at Vanity Fair to be forgotten by thee. For if he, though a man, was so hard put to it, what canst thou, being but a poor woman, do? Consider also that these four sweet babes are thy children, thy flesh and thy bones. Wherefore, though thou shouldest be so rash as to cast away thyself; yet for the sake of the fruit of thy body, keep thou at home.
But Christiana said unto her, Tempt me not, my neighbour: I have now a price put into mine hand to get gain, and I should be a fool of the greatest size if I should have no heart to strike in with the opportunity. And for that you tell me of all these troubles that I am like to meet with in the way, they are so far off being to me a discouragement; that they show I am in the right. The bitter must come before the sweet, and that also will make the sweet the sweeter. Wherefore since you came not to my house in God's name, as I said, I pray you to be gone, and not to disquiet me farther.
Then Timorous also reviled her, and said to her fellow, Come,
Page 107
neighbour Mercy, let's leave her in her own hands, since she
scorns our counsel and company. But Mercy was at a stand,
and could not so readily comply with her neighbour : and that for
a two-fold reason. First, her bowels yearned over Christiana :
so she said within herself, If my neighbour will needs be gone, I will
go a little way with her, and help her. Secondly, her bowels
yearned over her own soul (for what Christiana had said had
taken some hold upon her mind). Wherefore she said within
herself again, I will yet have more talk with this Christiana, and
if I find truth and life in what she shall say, myself with my heart
shall also go with her. Wherefore Mercy began thus to reply to
her neighbour Timorous.
Mercy. Neighbour, I did indeed come with you to see Chris-
tiana this morning, and since she is, as you see, a taking of her
last farewell of her country, I think to walk this sunshine morning
a little way with her to help her on the way. (But she told not
of her second reason, but kept that to herself.)
Timorous. Well, I see you have a mind to go fooling too :
but take heed in time, and be wise; while we are out of the
danger we are out, but when we are in, we are in. So Mrs.
Timorous returned to her house, and Christiana betook herself to
her journey. But when Timorous was got home to her house,
she sends for some of her neighbours, to wit, Mrs. Bats-cyes, Mrs.
Inconsiderate, Mrs. Light-mind, and Mrs. Know-nothing. So
when they were come to her house, she falls to telling of the
story of Christiana, and of her intended journey.
And thus she began her tale.
Timorous. Neighbours, having had little to do this morning,
I went to give Christiana a visit, and when I came at the door,
I knocked, as you know 'tis our custom. And she answered, If
you come in God's name, come in. So in I went, thinking all
was well. But when I came in, I found her preparing herself to
depart the town, she and also her children. So I asked her
what was her meaning by that, and she told me in short, that she
was now of a mind to go on pilgrimage, as did her husband.
She told me also a dream that she had, and how the king of the
country where her husband was, had sent her an inviting letter to
come thither.
Then said Mrs. Know-nothing, And what ! do you think she
will go ?
Timorous. Ay, go she will, whatever come on't; and methinks
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I know it by this, for that which was my great argument to per-
suade her to stay at home (to wit, the trouble she is like to meet
with on the way) is one great argument with her to put her
forward on her journey. For she told me in so many words, The
bitter goes before the sweet. Yea, and forasmuch as it so doth,
it makes the sweet the sweeter.
Mrs. Bats-eyes. Oh this blind and foolish woman, said she,
will she not take warning by her husband's afflictions ? For my
part, I see if he was here again he would rest him content in a
whole skin, and never run so many hazards for nothing.
Mrs. Inconsiderate also replied, saying, Away with such
fantastical fools from the town, a good riddance, for my part, I
say, of her. Should she stay where she dwells, and retain this
her mind, who could live quietly by her ? For she will either be
dumpish or unneighbourly, or talk of such matters as no wise
body can abide. Wherefore for my part I shall never be sorry
for her departure ; let her go and let better come in her room ;
'twas never a good world since these whimsical fools dwelt in it.
Then Mrs. Light-mind added as followeth : Come put this
kind of talk away. I was yesterday at Madame Wanton's, where
we were as merry as the maids. For who do you think should
be there, but I, and Mrs. Love-the-flesh, and three or four more,
with Mr. Lechery, Mrs. Filth, and some others. So there we
had music and dancing, and what else was meet to fill up the
pleasure. And I dare say my lady herself is an admirably well
bred gentlewoman, and Mr. Lechery is as pretty a fellow.
By this time Christiana was got on her way, and Mercy went
along with her.
(From the Same.)
LETTERS TO AND FROM DIABOLUS
LETTER I
To our great Lord, the Prince Diabolus, dwelling below in the
Infernal Cave.
Oh great father, and mighty Prince Diabolus, we, the true
Diabolonians yet remaining in the rebellious town of Mansoul,
having received our beings from thee, and our nourishment at
thy hands, cannot with content and quiet endure to behold, as we
do this day, how thou art dispraised, disgraced, and reproached
Page 109
among the inhabitants of this town; nor is thy long absence at
all delightful to us, because greatly to our detriment.
The reason of this our writing unto our lord, is for that we
are not altogether without hope that this town may become thy
habitation again; for it is greatly declined from its Prince
Emmanuel; and he is uprisen, and is departed from them:
yea, and though they send, and send, and send after him
to return to them, yet can they not prevail, nor get good words
from him.
There has been also of late, and is yet remaining, a very great
sickness and fainting among them; and that not only upon the
poorer sort of the town, but upon the lords, captains, and chief
gentry of the place (we only who are of the Diabolonians by
nature remain well, lively, and strong), so that through their great
transgression on the one hand, and their dangerous sickness on
the other, we judge they lie open to thy hand and power.
If
therefore, it shall stand with thy horrible cunning, and with the
cunning of the rest of the princes with thee, to come and make
an attempt to take Mansoul again, send us word, and we shall to
our utmost power be ready to deliver it unto thy hand.
Or, if
what we have said shall not by thy Fatherhood be thought best
and most meet to be done, send us thy mind in a few words, and
we are all ready to follow thy counsel to the hazarding of our
lives, and what else we have.
Given under our hands the day and date above written, after
a close consultation at the house of Mr. Mischief, who yet is alive,
and hath his place in our desirable town of Mansoul.
LETTER II
To our offspring, the high and mighty Diabolonians that yet
dwell in the town of Mansoul, Diabolus, the great Prince of Man-
soul wisheth a prosperous issue and conclusion of those many
brave enterprises, conspiracies, and designs that you, of your love
and respect to our honour, have in your hearts to attempt to do
against Mansoul.
Beloved children and disciples, my Lord Fornication, Adultery,
and the rest, we have here in our desolate den, received, to our
highest joy and content, your welcome letter, by the hand of our
trusty Mr. Profane; and to show how acceptable your tidings
VOL. III
Page 110
were, we rang out our bell for gladness ; for we rejoiced as much
as we could, when we perceived that yet we had friends in Man-
soul, and such as sought our honour and revenge in the ruin of
the town of Mansoul. We also rejoiced to hear that they are in
a degenerated condition, and that they have offended their prince,
and that he is gone. Their sickness also pleaseth us, as doth
your health, might, and strength. Glad also would we be, right
horribly beloved, could we get this town into our clutches again.
Nor will we be sparing of spending our wit, our cunning, our
craft, and hellish inventions to bring to a wicked conclusion this
your brave beginning in order thereto.
And take this for your comfort (our Birth, and our Offspring),
that shall we again surprize it and take it, we will attempt to put
all your foes to the sword, and will make you the great lords and
captains of the place. Nor need you fear, if ever we get it again,
that we after that shall be cast out any more ; for we will come
with more strength, and so lay far more fast hold than at the
first we did. Besides, it is the law of that prince that now
they own, that if we get them a second time, they shall be ours
for ever.
Do you, therefore, our trusty Diabolonians, yet more pry into
and endeavour to spy out the weakness of the town of Mansoul.
We also would that you yourselves do attempt to weaken them
more and more. Send us word also by what means you think we
had best to attempt the regaining thereof : namely, whether by
persuasion to a vain and loose life, or whether by tempting them
to doubt and despair ; or whether, by blowing up the town by
the gunpowder of pride and self-conceit. Do you also, oh
ye brave Diabolonians, and true sons of the pit, be always in a
readiness to make a most hideous assault within, when we
shall be ready to storm it without. Now speed you in your pro-
ject, and we in our desires, to the utmost power of our gates,
which is the wish of your great Diabolus, Mansoul's enemy,
and him that trembles when he thinks of judgment to come.
All the blessings of the pit be upon you, and so we close up our
letter.
Given at the pit's mouth, by the joint consent of all the princes
of darkness, to be sent to the Force and Power that we have yet
remaining in Mansoul, by the hand of Mr. Profane,
By me,
DIABOLUS.
Page 111
JOHN BUNYAN
99
LETTER III
The Lords of Looseness send to the great and high Diabolus from our dens, caves, holes, and strongholds, in and about the walls of the town of Mansoul, greeting.
Our great lord, and the nourisher of our lives, Diabolus—how glad we were when we heard of your Fatherhood's readiness to comply with us, and help forward our design in our attempts to ruin Mansoul, none can tell but those who, as we do, set themselves against all appearance of good, when and wheresoever we find it.
Touching the encouragement that your Greatness is pleased to give us to continue to devise, contrive, and study the utter desolation of Mansoul, that we are not solicitous about; for we know right well that it cannot be but pleasing and profitable to us to see our enemies, and them that seek our lives, die at our feet, or fly before us. We therefore are still contriving, and that to the best of our cunning, to make this work more facile and easy to your lordships, and to us.
First, we considered of that most hellishly cunning compacted three-fold project, that by you was propounded to us in your last ; and have concluded, that though to blow them up with the gunpowder of pride would do well, and to do it by tempting them to be loose and vain will help on, yet to contrive to bring them into the gulf of Desperation, we think will do best of all. Now we, who are at your beck, have thought of two ways to do this : first we, for our parts, will make them as vile as we can, and then you with us, at a time appointed, shall be ready to fall upon them with the utmost force. And of all the nations that are at your whistle, we think that an army of Doubters may be the most likely to attack and overcome the town of Mansoul. Thus shall we overcome these enemies, else the pit shall open her mouth upon them, and Desperation shall thrust them down into it. We have also, to effect this so much by us desired design, sent already three of our trusty Diabolonians among them ; they are disguised in garb, they have changed their names, and are now accepted of them ; namely, Covetousness, Lasciviousness, and Anger. The name of Covetousness is changed to Prudent-Thrity, and him Mr. Mind has hired, and is almost become as bad as our friend. Lasciviousness has changed his name to Harmless-Mirth, and he
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ENGLISH PROSE
is got to be the Lord Willbewill's lacquey ; but he has made his
master very wanton. Anger changed his name to Good-zeal, and
was entertained by Mr. Godly-Fear ; but the peevish old gentle-
man took pepper in the nose, and turned our companion out of
his house. Nay, he has informed us since that he ran away from
him, or else his old master had hanged him up for his labour.
Now these have helped forward our work and design upon
Mansoul ; for notwithstanding the spite and quarrelsome temper
of the old gentleman last mentioned, the other two ply their
business well, and are likely to ripen the work apace.
Our next project is, that it be concluded that you come upon
the town upon a market-day, and that when they are upon the
heat of their business ; for then, to be sure, they will be most
secure, and least think that an assault will be made upon them.
They will also at such a time be less able to defend themselves,
and to offend you in the prosecution of our design. And we your
trusty (and we are sure your beloved) ones shall, when you shall
make your furious assault without, be ready to second the business
within. So shall we, in all likelihood, be able to put Mansoul to
utter confusion, and to swallow them up before they can come to
themselves. If your serpentine heads, most subtle Dragons, and
our highly esteemed lords, can find out a better way than this,
let us quickly know your minds.
To the monsters of the infernal cave, from the house of Mr.
Mischief in Mansoul, by the hand of Mr. Profane.
(From The Holy War.)
Page 113
SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE
[William Temple was born in London in the year 1628, his father, Sir
John Temple, being the Irish Master of the Rolls. He was educated under
Cudworth at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, went the grand tour, and had
difficulties in his course of true love with Dorothy Osborne, whose delightful
letters to him have only in the last few years been made completely public.
In this affair the lady's parents objected to him both as the son of a Parlia-
mentarian (Sir Peter Osborne, the father, being a strong Cavalier) and as an
insufficient match Temple seems to have displayed constancy and affection ;
but we gather that the trimming and Laodicean character which afterwards
distinguished him was already suspected, if not displayed. It is supposed
that the marriage took place about 1654; and between that date and the
Restoration he resided chiefly in Ireland, where, on a regular Parliament
meeting after the King's return, he was chosen méember for Carlow. Migrating
to England in 1663, he seems to have attached himself chiefly to Arlington
(" Bennet's grave looks " may have suited him), and received diplomatic em-
ployment at Munster, at Brussels, and in the negotiation of the Triple Alliance
with De Witt. He was afterwards ambassador at the Hague till he was
recalled, owing to the intrigues of the Cabal with France. He then established
himself at Sheen, whence he moved later to Moor Park. On the fall of the
Cabal, he was once more employed in his old work at the Hague, where he
remained till 1679. He then formed part, and indeed was the deviser, of the
new Cabinet or Council of Thirty, which was tried after the fall of Danby,
and which failed, as it was certain to fail. Only after this, and then only for
a session, did he sit in the English House of Commons, and he speedily
retired altogether from politics, for which, at that juncture, his cautious and
timorous temper entirely unfitted him. Thenceforward, for nearly twenty
years, he lived at the two seats above mentioned, frequently consulted, but
never taking any active part, even in the reign of William, whose friendship
he had early acquired. His wife died in 1694, and he himself in 1699, both
having suffered a terrible blow by the suicide of their son John, who destroyed
himself in consequence of some official delinquencies, for which he was only
indirectly to blame. Temple perhaps secured a greater certainty of im-
mortality by having Swift as a member of his household in his later years than
by his not inconsiderable participation in historical affairs. In the same way,
though he wrote a good deal, and is, to exact critics of style, as will presently
be pointed out, a very memorable person, he made himself more certain
ground of remembrance by his rather unlucky participation in the " Ancient
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ENGLISH PROSE
and Modern " Dispute, whence arose Bentley's Dissertation on Phalaris. The standard edition of his works is in 4 vols. London : 1757.]
ONE magnificent though brief passage, Macaulay's essay, and Charles Lamb's curious and characteristic dissertation on his connection with " the genteel style," may be said to make up all the hold that Sir William Temple still exercises on the general consciousness of even reading Englishmen. The fuller modern publication of Dorothy Osborne's charming letters to him threw very little fresh light on his own character, which was already more than sufficiently known, to all who cared to inquire, by his Works, by Courtenay's life of him, by the references of the essayists above mentioned, and by his connection with the far greater name of Swift. With the small but tolerably constant number of students of literary history, however, Temple is sure of an equally lasting and a more correct and detailed remembrance. For he holds with Tillotson, Halifax, and Dryden the most distinguished place among those authors of the late seventeenth century who definitely expressed the tendencies of the present, and even of the future, among their contemporaries in matter of English prose style. It is, no doubt, possible to discover anticipations of this style in much earlier writers—in Jonson, in Cowley, and in others. But this possibility involves another—the possibility of inquiring too curiously. It is not the occasional flash here and flash there of " modernism " that is the important point, but the general presence of a tendency distinctly different from that of the main body of forerunners. And this general tendency is more discoverable in Temple, with the three above mentioned, than in any others. Nor is it irrelevant to observe that he was the eldest of the quartette, that he had an earlier and wider experience of public affairs both at home and abroad than any of them, and that he anticipated what was in the next generation to be the most prevailing form of the new style—that of the miscellaneous essay.
Of these four, Temple had beyond all doubt the least original genius, though there is not much to choose between him and Tillotson either in intellect or in literary form. To the universal competency of Dryden, or the admirable sense and terseness of Halifax, he could lay no claim. But he had, as has been said, an early practice in affairs. He was thrown by his diplomatic employments much in contact with the French, a nation where at
Page 115
that time every gentleman of capacity a little superior to the
average, thought it necessary to dabble in literature of a polished
and more or less serious kind ; and his education and subsequent
studies, if not exactly profound, supplied him with the raw material
of literature, as literature then went, to a certain, and even a con-
siderable extent. The cautious timidity, not to say time-serving-
ness, of his temperament, which induced him to quit the ship of
State whenever she got out of smooth water, gave him much
leisure, and his four volumes of Works are the result. Except
that purple patch above referred to, and a few others, the contents
are of no very great positive worth for matter. Yet it is agreeable
to hear what Sir William has to say on the gout, on gardening,
on the affairs of the Low Countries ; and it would not be dis-
agreeable to hear what he thinks about poetry and the ancients
if only he had had, on these subjects, a knowledge at all compar-
able in competence to his knowledge of gardening and of gout, of
diplomacy and of Dutchmen. Nor will he "spoil any fine gentle-
man," whatever he may have done in another famous case, by his
manner of dealing with these subjects. That manner is better
than genteel, even in the sense which in Lamb's day that now
degraded adjective still possessed. It is indeed not quite or not
always the grand style ; but except when the writer is discoursing
on subjects of which he is totally, or almost totally, ignorant, it is
a great deal more than the mere style of a well-bred gentleman
who writes with ease after good examples. It must never be
forgotten that Sir William was setting, not following, the fashion ;
that he was at the head of the van, not a mere private in the
main body. It may be that that famous sentence which, once
heard, never drops out of the memory as a criticism of life, pre-
judices the critic too favourably towards him ; but if it is his best,
it is not his only one. It is, on the contrary, but one of the
happiest discoveries in a new path, which all the "wits" were to
tread for more than a century, and in which few found things so
happy. The fifty volumes of the British essayists are in that little
passage—hardly more than a phrase—which begins, "When all is
done," and ends with "over" ; and in few passages of any day is
the philosophy of the time expressed with such touches of pathos
and true "prose poetry," or its style moulded with a happier
pressure of form and finish.
GEORGE SAINTSBURY,
Page 116
TEMPLE ON HIS WAY TO MUNSTER
I NEVER travelled a more savage country, over cruel hills, through
many great and thick woods, stony and rapid streams, never
hardly in any highway, and very few villages, till I came near
Dortmund, a city of the Empire, and within a day's journey, or
something more, of Munster. The night I came to Dortmund
was so advanced when I arrived, that the gates were shut, and
with all our eloquence, which was as moving as we could, we
were not able to prevail to have them opened; they advised us
to go to a village about a league distant, where they said we
might have lodging. When we came there, we found it all taken
up with a troop of Brandenburg horse, so as the poor Spanish
Envoy was fain to eat what he could get in a barn, and to sleep
upon a heap of straw, and lay my head upon my page instead of
a pillow. The best of it was, that he, understanding Dutch,
heard one of the Brandenburg soldiers coming into the barn, to
examine some of my guards about me and my journey; which,
when he was satisfied of, he asked if he had heard nothing upon
the way of an English Envoy that was expected; the fellow said,
he was upon the way, and might be at Dortmund within a day or
two, with which he was satisfied, and I slept as well as I could.
The next morning I went into Dortmund, and, hearing there
that, for five or six leagues round, all was full of Brandenburg
troops, I dispatched away a German gentleman I had in my
train, with a letter to the bishop of Munster, to let him know the
place and condition I was in, and desire he would send me guards
immediately, and strong enough to convey me. The night follow-
ing my messenger returned, and brought me word, that, by eight
o'clock the morning after, a Commander of the Bishop's would
come in sight of the town, at the head of twelve hundred horse,
and desired I would come and join them so soon as they appeared.
I did so, and, after an easy march till four o'clock, I came to a
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castle of the Bishop's, where I was received by Licutenant-General
Gorgas, a Scotsman in that service, who omitted nothing of
or entertainment that could be given me. There was nothing
here remarkable, but the most Episcopal way of drinking that
could be invented. As soon as we came in the great hall, there
stood many flagons ready charged, the General called for wine
to drink the King's health; they brought him a formal bell of
silver gilt, that might hold about two quarts or more; he took it
empty, pulled out the clapper, and gave it me, who he intended
to drink to, then had the bell filled, drank it off to his Majesty's
health, then asked me for the clapper, put it in, turned down the
bell, and rung it out, to show he had played fair, and left nothing
in it; took out the clapper, desired me to give it to whom I
pleased, then gave his bell to be filled again, and brought it to
me. I that never used to drink, and seldom would try, had
commonly some gentlomen with me that served for that purpose
when it was necessary; and so I had the entertainment of seeing
his health go current through about a dozen hands, with no more
share in it than just what I pleased.
(From Letters.)
THE GARDEN OF MOOR PARK IN
HERTFORDSHIRE
THE perfectest figure of a garden I ever saw, either at home or
abroad, was that of Moor Park, in Hertfordshire, when I knew it
about thirty years ago. It was made by the Countess of Bedford,
esteemed among the greatest wits of her time, and celebrated by
Doctor Donne: and with very great care, excellent contrivance,
and much cost; but greater sums may be thrown away without
effect or honour, if there want sense in proportion to money, or
if nature be not followed; which I take to be the great rule in
this, and perhaps in everything else, as far as the conduct not
only of our lives, but our governments. And whether the greatest
of mortal men should attempt the forcing of nature may best be
judged, by observing how seldom God Almighty does it Himself,
by so few, true and undisputed miracles, as we see or hear of in
the world. For my own part, I know not three wiser precepts
for the conduct either of princes or private men, than
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ENGLISH PROSE
"Servare modum, finemque tueri,
Naturamque sequi."
Because I take the garden I have named to have been in all
kinds the most beautiful and perfect, at least in the figure and
disposition, that I have ever seen, I will describe it for a model
to those that meet with such a situation, and are above the re-
gards of common expense. It lies on the side of a hill (upon
which the house stands), but not very steep. The length of the
house, where the best rooms and of most use or pleasure are, lies
upon the breadth of the garden, the great parlour opens into the
middle of a terras gravel-walk that lies even with it, and which
may be, as I remember, about three hundred paces long, and
broad in proportion ; the border set with standard laurels, and
at large distances, which have the beauty of orange-trees out of
flower and fruit : from this walk are three descents by many stone
steps, in the middle and at each end, into a very large parterre.
This is divided into quarters by gravel walks, and adorned with
two fountains and eight statues in the several quarters ; at the
end of the terras walk are two summer-houses, and the sides of
the parterre are ranged with two large cloisters, open to the
garden, upon arches of stone, and ending with two other summer-
houses even with the cloisters, which are paved with stone, and
designed for walks of shade, there being none other in the whole
parterre. Over these two cloisters are two terrasses covered with
lead, and fenced with balusters ; and the passage into these airy
walks is out of the two summer-houses, at the end of the first
terras-walk. The cloister facing the south is covered with vines,
and would have been proper for an orange-house, and the other
for myrtles, or other more common greens ; and had, I doubt not,
been cast for that purpose, if this piece of gardening had been
then in as much vogue as it is now.
From the middle of the parterre is a descent by many steps
flying on each side of a grotto that lies between them (covered
with lead, and flat) into the lower garden, which is all fruit-trees
ranged about the several quarters of a wilderness which is very
shady ; the walks here are all green, the grotto embellished with
figures of shell rock-work, fountains and water-works. If the hill
had not ended with the lower garden, and the wall were not
bounded by a common way that goes through the park, they
might have added a third quarter of all greens ; but this want is
supplied by a garden on the other side the house, which is all of
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that sort, very wild, shady, and adorned with rough rock-work and fountains.
This was Moor Park, when I was acquainted with it, and the sweetest place, I think, that I have seen in my life, either before or since, at home or abroad; what it is now, I can give little account, having passed through several hands that have made great changes in gardens as well as houses; but the remembrance of what it was is too pleasant ever to forget, and therefore I do not believe to have mistaken the figure of it, which may serve for a pattern to the best gardens of our manner, and that are most proper for our country and climate.
(From Miscellanea.)
PERORATION ON POETRY
BUT to spin off this thread, which is already grown too long: what honour and request the ancient poetry has lived in, may not only be observed from the universal reception and use in all nations from China to Peru, from Scythia to Arabia, but from the esteem of the best and the greatest men as well as the vulgar. Among the Hebrews, David and Solomon, the wisest kings, Job and Jeremiah, the holiest men, were the best poets of their nation and language. Among the Greeks, the two most renowned sages and lawgivers were Lycurgus and Solon, whercof the last is known to have excelled in poetry, and the first was so great a lover of it, that to his care and industry we are said (by some authors) to owe the collection and preservation of the loose and scattered pieces of Homer in the order wherein they have since appeared. Alexander is reported neither to have travelled nor slept without those admirable poems always in his company. Phalaris, that was inexorable to all other enemies, relented at the charms of Stesichorus, his muse. Among the Romans, the last and great Scipio passed the soft hours of his life in the conversation of Terence, and was thought to have a part in the composition of his comedies. Cæsar was an excellent poet as well as orator, and composed a poem in his voyage from Rome to Spain, relieving the tedious difficulties of his march with the entertainments of his muse. Augustus was not only a patron, but a friend and companion of Virgil and Horace, and was himself both an admirer of poetry and a pretender too, as far as his
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ENGLISH PROSE
genius would reach, or his busy scene allow. 'Tis true,'since his
age we have few such examples of great Princes favouring or
affecting poetry, and as few perhaps of great poets deserving it.
Whether it be that the fierceness of the Gothic humours, or noise
of their perpetual wars, frighted it away, or that the unequal
mixture of the modern languages would not bear it ; certain it is,
that the great heights and excellency both of poetry and music
fell with the Roman learning and empire, and have never since
recovered 'the admiration and applauses that before attended
them. Yet, such as they are amongst us, they must be confessed
to be the softest and sweetest, the most general and most innocent
amusements of common time and life. They still find room in
the Courts of Princes, and the cottages of shepherds. They
serve to revive and animate the dead calm of poor or idle lives,
and to allay or divert the violent passions and perturbations of
the greatest and the busiest men. And both these effects are of
equal use to human life ; for the mind of man is like the sea,
which is neither agreeable to the beholder nor the voyager in a
calm or in a storm, but is so to both when a little agitated by
gentle gales ; and so the mind, when moved by soft and easy
passions and affections. I know very well, that many, who
pretend to be wise by the forms of being grave, are apt to despise
both poetry and music as toys and trifles too light for the use or
entertainment of serious men. But, whoever find themselves
wholly insensible to these charms, would, I think, do well to keep
their own counsel, for fear of reproaching their own temper, and
bringing the goodness of their natures, if not of their understand-
ings, into question ; it may be thought at least an ill sign, if not
an ill constitution, since some of the fathers went so far as to
esteem the love of music a sign of predestination, as a thing
divine, and reserved for the felicities of heaven itself. While this
world lasts, I doubt not but the pleasure and requests of these
two entertainments will do so too : and happy those that content
themselves with these, or any other so easy and so innocent ;
and do not trouble the world, or other men, because they cannot
be quiet themselves, though no body hurts them !
When all is done, human life is, at the greatest and the best,
but like a froward child, that must be played with and humoured
a little to keep it quiet till it falls asleep, and then the care is
over.
(From the Same.)
Page 121
SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE
109
THE LIMITS OF HUMAN FACULTIES
IT were too great a mortification to think, that the same fate has
happened to us, even in our modern learning, as if the growth of
that, as well as of natural bodies, had some short periods, beyond
which it could not reach, and after which it must begin to decay.
It falls in one country or one age, and rises again in others, but
never beyond a certain pitch. One man, or one country, at a
certain time runs a great length in some certain kinds of know-
ledge, but loses as much ground in others, that were perhaps as
useful and as valuable. There is a certain degree of capacity in
the greatest vessel, and, when 'tis full, if you pour in still, it must
run out some way or other, and, the more it runs out on one side,
the less runs out at the other. So the greatest memory, after a
certain degree, as it learns or retains more of some things or
words, loses and forgets as much of others. The largest and
deepest reach of thought, the more it pursues some certain
subjects, the more it neglects otheis.
Besides, few men or none excel in all faculties of mind. A
great memory may fail of invention; both may want judgment
to digest or apply what they remember or invent. Great courage
may want caution; great prudence may want vigour; yet all are
necessary to make a great Commander. But how can a man
hope to excel in all qualities, when some are produced by the
heat, others by the coldness of brain and temper? The abilities
of man must fall short on one side or other, like too scanty a
blanket when you are a-bed, if you pull it upon your shoulders,
you leave your feet bare: if you thrust it down upon your feet,
your shoulders are uncovered.
But what would we have, unless it be other natures and beings
than God Almighty has given us? The height of our statures
may be six or seven feet, and we would have it sixteen; the
length of our age may reach to a hundred years, and we would
have it a thousand. We are born to grovel upon the earth, and
we would fain soar up to the skies. We cannot comprehend the
growth of a kernel or seed, the frame of an ant or bee: we are
amazed at the wisdom of the one, and industry of the other;
and yet we will know the substance, the figure, the courses, the
influences of all those glorious celestial bodies, and the end for
which they were made: we pretend to give a clear account how
Page 122
thunder and lightning (that great artillery of God Almighty) is produced ; and we cannot comprehend how the voice of a man is
framed, that poor little noise we make every time we speak. The motion of the sun is plain and evident to some astronomers, and
of the earth to others ; yet we none of us know which of them moves, and meet with many seeming impossibilities in both, and
beyond the fathom of human reason or comprehension. Nay, we do not so much as know what motion is, nor how a stone moves
from our hand, when we throw it cross the street. Of all these that most ancient and divine writer gives the best account in that
short satire, " Vain man would fain be wise, when he is born like a wild ass's colt."
But, God be thanked, his pride is greater than his ignorance ; and what he wants in knowledge, he supplies by sufficiency.
When he has looked about him as far as he can, he concludes there is no more to be seen ; when he is at the end of his line,
he is at the bottom of the ocean ; when he has shot his best, he is sure, none ever did nor ever can shoot better or beyond it.
His own reason is the certain measure of truth, his own know-ledge, of what is possible in nature ; though his mind and his
thoughts change every seven years, as well as his strength and his features : nay, though his opinions change every week or
every day, yet he is sure, or at least confident, that his present thoughts and conclusions are just and true, and cannot be
deceived : and, among all the miseries to which mankind is born and subjected in the whole course of his life, he has this one
felicity to comfort and support him, that, in all ages, in all things, every man is always in the right. A boy of fifteen is wiser than
his father at forty, the meanest subject than his prince or governors ; and the modern scholars, because they have, for a
hundred years past, learned their lesson pretty well, are much more knowing than the ancients their masters.
But let it be so, and proved by good reasons, is it so by experience too ? Have the studies, the writings, the productions of
Gresham College, or the late Academies of Paris, outshined or eclipsed the Lycæum of Plato, the Academy of Aristotle, the Stoa
of Zeno, the Garden of Epicurus ? Has Harvey out-done Hippocrates, or Wilkins, Archimedes ? Are D'Avila's and
Strada's histories beyond those of Herodotus and Livy ? Are Sleydèn's Commentaries beyond those of Cæsar ? the flights of
Boileau above those of Virgil ? If all this must be allowed, I
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SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE
III
will then yield Gondibert to have excelled Homer as is pretended;
and the modern French poetry, all that of the ancients. And
yet, I think, it may be as reasonably said, that the plays in Moor-
fields are beyond the Olympic games; a Welsh or Irish harp
excel those of Orpheus and Arion; the pyramid in London, those
of Memphis; and the French conquests in Flanders are greater
than those of Alexander and Cæsar, as their operas and
panegyrics would make us believe.
But the consideration of poetry ought to be a subject by itself.
For the books we have in prose, do any of the modern con-
verse with appear of such a spirit and force, as if they would live
longer than the ancients have done? If our wit and eloquence,
our knowledge or inventions would deserve it yet our languages
would not: there is no hopes of their lasting long, nor of any
thing in them; they change every hundred years so as to be
hardly known for the same, or any thing of the former styles to
be endured by the latter; so as they can no more last like the
ancients, than excellent carvings in wood, like those in marble or
brass.
(From the Same.)
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JOHN RAY
[John Ray (1628-1705), the first important writer on natural history in English, was born at Black Nettley, in Essex, on 29th November 1628, and, after education at Braintree School, entered at the College or Hall of St. Catharine at Cambridge, 28th June 1644. The chief exercises of the College were at that time philosophical and theological disputations, and after two academical years he migrated to Trinity College, where the regulations allowed him more time to pursue the studies in natural history to which he was already addicted. He was elected a Fellow with his friend Isaac Barrow, 8th September 1649, and his portrait hangs to this day in the College Hall. He preached in the days of the Rebellion both in his College chapel and the University Church, but was only ordained deacon and priest by the Bishop of Lincoln, 23rd December 1660, and resigned his Fellowship rather than make a declaration, in the terms of the Bartholomew Act, against the Covenant The rest of his life was spent in the pursuit of natural history, and especially of botany and ornithology, in travels on the Continent and in England, and in editing the works of his friend Willoughby. He died at his birthplace in Essex on 17th January 1705.]
RAY's scientific writings are chiefly in Latin, but he had given much consideration to his own language, and made a collection of English proverbs. Of his English works the most interesting are The Wisdom of God manifested in the Works of the Creation, published in 1691, and his Itineraries, published after his death by his friend Dr. William Derham, in 1710. The former may be regarded as the precursor of Paley's Natural Theology, written in the same University later in the century. The demonstration of the wisdom of the Deity from His works coincides in a large part of its extent with the proof of His existence from the evidence of design in the natural world. The Itineraries describe Ray's travels in England, Wales, and Scotland. He excels in simple description, and is, however technical his subject, always free from pedantry. Long sentences like those of his friend Isaac Barrow occasionally occur in his writings, but he has the great merit in a scientific writer of always making his subject clear, and of so expressing himself that his reader thinks of what is told without noticing the manner of telling.
VOL. III
NORMAN MOORE.
I
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AN ARGUMENT OF PROVIDENCE
ANOTHER argument of providence and counsel relating to animals is the various kinds of voices the same animal uses on divers occasions, and to different purposes. Hen birds, for example, have a peculiar sort of voice when they would call the male; which is so eminent in quails, that it is taken notice of by men, who by counterfeiting this voice with a quail-pipe, easily draw the cocks into their snares. The common hen, all the while she is broody, sits, and leads her chickens, uses a voice which we call clocking; another she employs when she calls her chickens to partake of any food she hath found for them, upon hearing whereof they speedily run to her; another when upon sight of a bird of prey, or apprehension of any danger, she would save them, bidding them as it were to shift for themselves, whereupon they speedily run away, and seek shelter among bushes, or in the thick grass, or elsewhere dispersing themselves far and wide. These actions do indeed necessarily infer knowledge and intention of, and direction to the ends and uses to which they serve, not in the birds themselves, but in a superior agent, who hath put an instinct in them of using such a voice upon such an occasion; and in the young, of doing that upon hearing of it, which by Providence was intended. Other voices she hath when angry, when she hath laid an egg, when in pain or in great fear, all significant; which may more easily be accounted for, as being effects of the several passions of anger, grief, fear, joy; which yet are all argumentative of Providence intending their several significations and uses.
(From The Wisdom of God in the Creation.)
HURLING
THERE are two kinds of hurling, the in-hurling and the out-hurling. In the first there are chosen 20 or 25 of a side, and
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two goals are set up; then comes one with a small hard leather
ball in his hand, and tosses it up in the midst between both
parties ; he that catches it endeavours to run with it to the
furthermore goal ; if he be stopped by one of the opposite side, he
either saith I will stand, and wrestles with him, letting fall the
ball by him (which one of the opposite side must not take up, but
one of his own) or else throws away the ball to one of his own
side (if any of them can catch it). He that is stopped may
chose whether he may wrestle, or throw away the ball ; but it is
more generous to wrestle. He that stops must answer, and
wrestle it out. When any one wrestles, one of his side takes up
the ball, and runs with it towards the goal, till he be stopped, and
then, as before, he either wrestles or throws away the ball, so
that there are commonly many pairs wrestling. An out-hurling is
played by one parish against another, or eastern men against
western, or Devonshire men against Cornish ; the manner they
enter upon it is as follows :-Any one that can get leave of a
justice, etc., goes into a market town, with a little wooden ball in
his hand, plated over with silver, and there proclaims the
hurling, and mentions the time and place. They play in the
same manner as in the other, only they make the churches their
goals, that party which can cast the ball into, or upon a church,
wins.
(From the Itineraries.)
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ISAAC BARROW
[Isaac Barrow, a great mathematician in an age of great mathematicians,
a great preacher in an age of great preachers, and a great theologian in an
age of great theologians, was born in London in 1630. His father, Thomas
Barrow (who outlived Isaac and shared with Tillotson the task of editing his
works), was “linen draper to Charles I ,” and so steady a royalist that he
shared the exile of his master's son. Barrow, whose uncle and namesake, later
Governor and Bishop of Man and Bishop of St. Asaph, was a fellow of Peter-
house at Cambridge, was entered at that college after a youth spent partly
at Charterhouse (where he gained the name of a terrible fighter), and partly
at Felstead where his great intellectual capacities first appeared. He shared
the full the political principles of his family ; and, his uncle having been
ejected, he went, not to Peterhouse but to Trinity, where his Cavalier tenets
were the only fault found with him. He was, however, elected Fellow in
- He was soon famous as a scholar, and would have been made Greek
Professor as early as 1654, but for his Cavalier and Arminian principles.
Then he went abroad and travelled for four years on the coasts of the
Mediterranean, having some adventures. In 1659 the Greek professorship
was actually conferred on him, but he was as expert in science as in scholar-
ship, and having been one of the first fellows of the Royal Society, he was in
1662 appointed Gresham Professor of Geometry in London, and next year
Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge. This post in 1669 he
resigned in favour of his pupil Newton. In 1672 Charles the Second, who
had a great admiration for his preaching, made him Master of Trinity. He
was chiefly instrumental in founding the famous library of that College ;
was Vice-Chancellor in 1675, and two years later died while on an official visit to
London in connection with the Westminster scholarships at Trinity, being
then only forty-seven. He was buried in Westminster Abbey. His non-
mathematical works, printed and reprinted in folio, came at last into a standard
edition by the good offices of the Clarendon Press at Oxford, in 1830. It
was some time later before his own University paid him the debt it owed ;
but the Rev. Alexander Napier (afterwards known as editor of Boswell)
thoroughly re-edited the theological works at Cambridge in 1859, and Dr.
Whewell, the mathematical, a year later.]
BARROW's work, as it was published chiefly after his death,
consists of three parts—the mathematical treatises (which do not
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concern us at all, but which were thought remarkable even in the century of Descartes, Pascal, and Newton), the Latin works in prose and verse (which, though not directly part of our subject, have a very close connection with it), and the English works proper. The largest single item of these latter is his posthumous Treatise of the Pope's Supremacy; besides which he left an Exposition of the Creed, which has been somewhat overshadowed by the similar work of his contemporary Pearson, and some minor tractates. But by far the larger part of the English works, as a whole, consists of Sermons. Considerable numbers of these are themselves connected in series, the longest of which connects itself with the above-mentioned Exposition by being devoted to the Creed. Barrow had the reputation of being a most unmerci-fully long-winded preacher; and the best known anecdote about him is that on one occasion in Westminster Abbey he preached for three hours and a half, till the desperate congregation managed to get the organist to "play him down." His published sermons are not on an average very long; but a few of them are, and it does not require very elaborate examination even of the others to discover signs that their author might easily have been prone to "take the other glass," as the play of words went in his own time. For the characteristics of Barrow are neither the gorgeous rhetoric of Taylor, which almost necessarily involves careful preparation and a sort of intellectual exhaustion after it is evolved, nor the sharp sarcasm and scholastic criticism of South, which almost necessarily imply succinctness and concentration. It is true that Barrow is not in the least exposed to the charge of slip-shod style, or of fluent verbosity. But his sermons are less the worklings out of a single argument than the outpouring of an extraordinarily well-stored mind in the discussion and inculcation of moral truth and religious duty. The moral side, indeed--the side of conduct--is very strong in Barrow, so strong as sometimes to give an eighteenth, rather than a seven-teenth, century tone and colour to his handling. This had no doubt something to do with his strong anti-Calvinism. He was as uncompromisingly Arminian as he was uncompromisingly orthodox: and one of his finest series of sermons is that which vindicates the Arminian "Doctrine of universal redemption," not of course to the extent of Origenism, but maintaining the unlimited efficacy and applicability of the sacrifice of Christ. Nothing seems to kindle Barrow's style, or to attract his energies
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so much as these two subjects—the inculcation of conduct in life and the Messianic doctrine that Christ died for all.
This combined quality of manly sense with practical and charitable spirit, enforced with logical powers less scholastic than South's, but at least as persuasive, and with a vigour not inferior to that of the great Oxonian, though far less harsh—was probably what captivated the always acute intellect, and the often not ignoble sympathies of Charles II. Of actual graces of style Barrow, as hinted above, has not very many, though he has some, and those no mean ones, when he chooses.
In general character and complexion his style is more modern than South's, less so than Tillotson's. His most archaic trick is the arrangement of antithetic similes from natural or other history, somewhat in the manner of Lyly's famous parallelisms, though of course infinitely less fantastic in substance and form.
His vocabulary is not very peculiar, though occasionally we come across obsolete classicisms like “evanid” (for “evanescent,”) or the serious use of words which have now become familiar or even slangy, such as “colloguing,” or the employment of exotic forms like “scrib-atious” and “discost” (the opposite of “accost,” and meaning “to part company with”).
He has a quaint phrase now and then as when he speaks of “a shining earthworm, a well-trapped ass, a gaudy statue, a theatrical grandee,” or describes the Pope's supposed duty of feeding all Christ's sheep as “a vast and crabbed province.”
But he is on the whole very little noticeable in these easy and trivial respects.
His great characteristic is a steady flow of nervous English, rising occasionally to higher things, examples of which will not be found missing in the extracts given here.
It is impossible to read Barrow long without coming across some weighty, and so to speak double-shotted sentence, which abides in the memory.
Here he will contrast “these shallow plashes of present inconvenience” with the abysses of future weal or woe ; there he will describe how in the case of ill-regulated life “every day our mind groweth more blind, our will more resty, our spirit more faint, our appetites more fierce, our passions more headstrong and untameable,” a sentence by the way which shows a strong intuitive appreciation of cadence and proportion.
He has a particular inclination to what may be called the sustained interrogatory—a common trick of orators, but not often carried off so well as in the extract given below, and in not a few other passages of Barrow.
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His best composition is to be looked for in his Sermons not
in his treatises. The Treatise on the Pope's Supremacy and the
Discourse on the Unity of the Church are, with a few cases of
connected argument or discourse, one of which I have selected,
rather immensely learned stretches and strings of scriptural and
patriotic authorities bearing on the points of dispute, than
instinctive and inventive compositions. In his Sermons also he
is not infrequently what Milton calls a "quotationist," though
assuredly not one of "narrow intellectuals" (as that great but
ill-tempered poet describes) such persons ; and it may be suspected
that it was by the use of quotation that he spread his sermons
out to a length so terrible. But as they are printed they do not
exhibit this peculiarity to a very faulty extent as a rule ; and the
serried but not too formal argument in which he delights has
fairer play than in the treatises. Nor is it by any means super-
fluous to compare his Latin style, of which we have abundant
examples, with his English. The verse, especially the lyrical
verse, is not very good ; nor can even the prose be pronounced
elegant as a rule. But it strongly resembles, and may be thought
to have had no small influence upon, his English manner in its
clear and strong simplicity, sometimes almost rugged, and never
much adorned, but still furnishing a thorough workman's style,
fit to exhibit premises and drive conclusions home.
GEORGE SAINTSBURY.
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AS WE WOULD BE DONE BY
WHEREFORE for information concerning our duty in each case and circumstance, we need only thus to consult and interrogate ourselves, hence forming resolutions concerning our practice.
Do we not much esteem and set by ourselves? Do we strive to maintain in our minds a good opinion of ourselves? Can any mischances befalling us, any defects observable in us, any faults committed by us, induce us to slight or despise ourselves?—
This may teach us what regard and value we should ever preserve for our neighbour.
Do we not sincerely and earnestly desire our own welfare and advantage in every kind? Do we not heartily wish good success to our own designs and undertakings? Are we unconcerned or coldly affected in any case touching our own safety, our estate, our credit, our satisfaction or pleasure? Do we not especially, if we rightly understand ourselves, desire the health and happiness of our souls?—This doth inform us, what we should wish and covet for our neighbour.
Have we not a sensible delight and complacency in our own prosperity? (Do we ever repine at any advantages accruing to our person or condition?) Are we not extremely glad to find ourselves thriving and flourishing in wealth, in reputation, in any accommodation or ornament of our state? Especially if we be sober and wise, doth not our spiritual proficiency and improvement in virtue yield joyous satisfaction to us? Are we not much comforted in apprehending ourselves to proceed in a hopeful way towards everlasting felicity?—This may instruct us what content we should feel in our neighbour's prosperity, both temporal and spiritual.
Do we not seriously grieve at our own disasters and disappointments? Are we not in sad dumps, whenever we incur any damage or disgrace? Do not our diseases and pains sorely
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afflict us? Do we not pity and bemoan ourselves in any want,
calamity, or distress? Can we especially, if we are ourselves,
without grievous displeasure apprehend ourselves enslaved to sin
and Satan, destitute of God's favour, exposed to endless misery?
—Hence may we learn how we should condole and commiserate
the misfortunes of our neighbour.
Do we not eagerly prosecute our own concerns? Do we not
with huge vigour and industry strive to acquire all conveniences
and comforts to ourselves, to rid ourselves of all wants and
molestations? Is our solicitous care or painful endeavour ever
wanting towards the support and succour of ourselves in any of
our needs? Are we satisfied in merely wishing ourselves well?
are we not also busy and active in procuring what we affect?
Especially, if we are well advised, do we not effectually provide
for the weal of our soul, and supply of our spiritual necessities;
labouring to rescue ourselves from ignorance and error, from the
tyranny of sin, from the torture of a bad conscience, from the
danger of hell?—This showeth how ready we should be really to
further our neighbour's good, ministering to him all kinds of assist-
ance and relief suitable to his needs, both corporal and spiritual.
Are we so proud or nice, that we disdain to yield attendance
or service needful for our own sustenance or convenience? Do
we not indeed gladly perform the meanest and most sordid offices
for ourselves?—This declareth how condescensive we should be
in helping our neighbour, how ready even to wash his feet, when
occasion doth require.
Do we love to vex ourselves, or cross our own humour? do
we not rather seek by all means to please and gratify ourselves?
—This may warn us how innocent and inoffensive, how compliant
and complacent we should be in our behaviour toward others;
endeavouring to please them in all things, especially for their
good to edification.
Are we easily angry with ourselves, do we retain implacable
grudges against ourselves, or do we execute upon ourselves
mischievous revenge? are we not rather very meek and patient
toward ourselves, mildly comporting with our own great weak-
nesses, our troublesome humours, our impertinences and follies;
readily forgiving ourselves the most heinous offences, neglects,
affronts, injuries, and outrages committed by us against our own
interest, honour, and welfare?—Hence may we derive lessons of
meekness and patience, to be exercised toward our neighbour,
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in bearing his infirmities and miscarriages, in remitting any
wrongs or discourtesies received from him.
Are we apt to be rude in our deportment, harsh in our
language, or rigorous in our dealing toward ourselves? do we
not rather in word and deed treat ourselves very softly, very
indulgently? Do we use to pry for faults, or to pick quarrels
with ourselves, to carp at anything said or done by us, rashly or
upon slight grounds to charge blame on ourselves, or to lay heavy
censures on our actions, to make foul constructions of our words,
to blazon our defects, or aggravate our failings? do we not rather
connive at and conceal our blemishes? do we not excuse and
extenuate our own crimes?
Can we find in our hearts to frame virulent invectives, or to
dart bitter taunts and scoffs against ourselves; to murder our
own credit by slander, to blast it by detraction, to maim it by
reproach, to prostitute it, to be defloured by jeering and scurrilous
abuse? Are we not rather very jealous of our reputation, and
studious to preserve it, as a precious ornament, a main fence, an
useful instrument of our welfare?
Do we delight to report, or like to hear ill stories of ourselves?
do we not rather endeavour all we can to stifle them; to tie the
tongues and stop the ears of men against them?—Hence may we
be acquainted how civil and courteous in our behaviour, how fair
and ingenuous in our dealing, how candid and mild in our judg-
ment or censure, we should be toward our neighbour; how very
tender and careful we should be of anywise wronging or hurting
his fame.
Thus reflecting on ourselves, and making our practice toward
ourselves the pattern of our dealing with others, we shall not fail
to discharge what is prescribed to us in this law : and so we have
here a rule of charity.
(From Sermon Of the Love of our Neighbour.)
THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN
BUT especially (that which as reason enables us, so due gratitude
obliges us, and prompts us especially to observe) there is an
evdient regard (so evident, that even Pliny, a professed Epicurean,
could not forbear acknowledging it) which all things bear to man,
the prince of creatures visible; they being all as on purpose
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ordered to yield tribute unto him; to supply his wants, to gratify
his desires; with profit and pleasure to exercise his faculties; to
content, as it were, even his humour and curiosity. All things
about us do minister (or at least may do so, if we improve the
natural instruments, and the opportunities afforded us) to our
preservation, ease, or delight. The hidden bowels of the earth
yield us treasures of metals and minerals, quarries of stone and
coal, so necessary, so serviceable to divers good uses, that we
could not commodiously be without them; the vilest and most
common stones we tread on (even in that we tread on them) are
useful, and serve to many good purposes: the surface of
the earth how is it bespread all over, as a table well furnished,
with variety of delicate fruits, herbs, and grains to nourish our
bodies, to please our tastes, to cheer our spirits, to cure our
diseases! how many fragrant and beautiful flowers offer them-
selves for the comfort of our smell and the delight of our sight!
Neither can our ears complain, since every wood breeds a quire
of natural musicians, ready to entertain them with easy and
unaffected harmony. The woods, I say, which also adorned
with stately trees afford us a pleasant view and a refreshing
shade, shelter from weather and sun, fuel for our fires, materials
for our houses and our shipping; with divers other needful
utensils. Even the barren mountains send us down fresh streams
of water, so necessary to the support of our lives, so profitable
for the fructification of our grounds, so commodious for convey-
ance of our wares and maintaining intercourse among us. Yea
the wide seas are not (altogether unprofitable) wastes; but freely
yield us, without our tillage, many rich harvests, transmitting our
commerce and traffic, furnishing our tables with stores of dainty
fish, supplying the bottles of heaven with waters to refresh the
earth, being inexhaustible cisterns, from whence our rivers and
fountains are derived; the very rude and boisterous winds them-
selves fulfil God's word (which once commanded all things to be
good, and approved them to be so) by yielding manifold services
to us; in brushing and cleansing the air for our health, in driving
forward our ships (which without their friendly help could not
stir) in gathering together, in scattering, in spreading abroad the
clouds; the clouds, those paths of God which drop fatness upon
our fields and pastures. As for our living subjects, all the inferior
sorts of animals, it is hardly possible to reckon the manifold
benefits we receive from them; how many ways they supply our
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needs with pleasant food and convenient clothing, how they ease
our labour, how they promote even our recreation and sport.
Thus have all things upon this earth (as is fit and seemly they
should have) by the wise and gracious disposal of the great
Creator, a reference to the benefit of its noblest inhabitant, most
worthy and most able to use them: many of them have an
immediate reference to man (as necessary to his being, or con-
ducive to his well-being; being fitted thereto, to his hand,
without his care, skill, or labour), others a reference to him, more
mediate indeed, yet as reasonable to suppose; I mean such
things, whose usefulness doth in part depend upon the exercise
of our reason, and the instruments subservient thereto: for what
is useful by the help of reason, doth as plainly refer to the benefit
of a thing naturally endowed with that faculty, as what is agree-
able to sense refers to a thing merely sensitive: we may therefore,
for instance, as reasonably suppose, that iron was designed for
our use, though first we be put to dig for it, then must employ
many arts, and much pains before it become fit for our use;
as that the stones were therefore made, which be open to our
view; and which without any preparation we easily apply to the
pavement of our streets, or the raising of our fences: also, the
grain we sow in our grounds, or the trees which we plant in our
orchards, we have reason to conceive as well provided for us, as
those plants which grow wildly and spontaneously; for that
sufficient means are bestowed on us of compassing such ends,
and rendering those things useful to us (a reason able to contrive
what is necessary in order thereto, and a hand ready to execute),
it being also reasonable, that something should be left for the
improvement of our reason, and employment of our industry, lest
our noblest powers should languish and decay by sloth, or want
of fit exercise.
(From Sermon On the Being of God proved from the
Frame of the World.)
THE SILENCE OF HISTORY AND TRADITION ON
THE POPE'S SUPREMACY
BUT however, sceing the Scripture is so strangely reserved, how
cometh it to pass that tradition is also so defective, and staunch
in so grand a case? We have in divers of the Fathers
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(particularly in Tertullian, in St. Basil, in St. Jerome) catalogues
of traditional doctrines and observances, which they recite to
assert tradition in some cases supplemental to Scripture; on
which their purpose did require, that they should set down
those of principal moment; and they are so punctual, as to
insert many of small consideration: how then came they to
neglect this, concerning the papal authority over the whole
church, which had been most pertinent to their design, and in
consequence did vastly surpass all the rest which they do
name?
The designation of the Roman bishop by succession to obtain
so high a degree in the church, being above all others a most
remarkable and noble piece of history, which it had been a
horrible fault in an ecclesiastical history to slip over, without
careful reporting and reflecting upon it; yet Eusebius, that
most diligent compiler of all passages relating to the original
constitution of the church, and to all transactions therein, hath
not one word about it! who yet studiously doth report the
successions of the Roman bishops, and all the notable occurrences
he knew concerning them, with favourable advantage.
Whereas this doctrine is pretended to be a point of faith,
of vast consequence to the subsistence of the church and to the
salvation of men, it is somewhat strange that it should not be
inserted into any one ancient summary of things to be believed
(of which summaries divers remain, some composed by public
consent, others by persons of eminence in the church) nor by
fair and forcible consequence should be deducible from any
article in them; especially considering that such summaries
were framed upon occasion of heresies springing up which
disregarded the pope's authority, and which by asserting it
were plainly confuted. We are therefore beholden to Pope
Innocent III., and his Lateran synod for first synodically defining
this point, together with other points no less new and unheard
of before. The Creed of Pope Pius IV. formed the other day,
is the first as I take it, which did contain this article of faith.
It is much that this point of faith should not be delivered in
any of those ancient expositions of the Creed (made by St.
Austin, Ruffin, etc.) which enlarge it to necessary points of
doctrine, connected with the articles therein, especially with
that of the Catholic Church, to which the pope's authority hath
so close a connexion; that it should not be touched in the
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catechetical discourses of Cyril, Ambrose, etc. ; that in the
systems of divinity composed by St. Austin, Lactantius, etc., it
should not be treated on : the world is now changed ; for the
Catechism of Trent doth not overlook so material a point ; and
it would pass for a lame body of theology which should omit
to treat on this subject.
It is more wonderful, that this point should never be defined,
in downright and full terms, by any ancient synod ; it being so
notoriously in those old times opposed by divers who dissented
in opinion, and discorded in practice from the pope ; it being
also a point of that consequence, that such a solemn declaration
of it would have much conduced to the ruin of all particular
errors and schisms, which were maintained then in opposition
to the church.
Indeed had this point been allowed by the main body of
orthodox bishops, the pope could not have been so drowsy or
stupid as not to have solicited for such a definition thereof ; nor
would the bishops have been backward in compliance thereto ;
it being, in our adversaries' conceit, so compendious and effectual
a way of suppressing all heresies, schisms, and disorders
(although indeed later experience hath showed it no less avail-
able to stifle truth, justice, and piety) ; the popes after Luther
were better advised, and so were the bishops adhering to his
opinions.
Whereas also it is most apparent that many persons disclaimed
this authority, not regarding either the doctrines or decrees of
the popes ; it is wonderful that such men should not be reckoned
in the large catalogues of heretics, wherein errors of less obvious
consideration, and of far less importance, did place men;
if Epiphanius, Theodorct, Leontius, etc., were so negligent or
unconcerned, yet St. Austin, Philastrius,—western men, should
not have overlooked this sort of desperate heretics : Aeritus, for
questioning the dignity of bishops, is set among the heretics ;
but who got that name for disavowing the pope's supremacy,
among the many who did it (it is but lately, that such as we
have been thrust in among heretics) ?
Whereas no point avowed by Christians could be so apt to
raise offence and jealousy in pagans against our religion as
this, which setteth up a power of so vast extent and huge
influence ; whereas no novelty could be more surprising or
startling, than the erection of an universal empire over the
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consciences and religious practices of men; whereas also this doctrine could not but be very conspicuous and glaring in ordinary practice; it is prodigious, that all pagans should not loudly exclaim against it.
It is strange that pagan historians (such as Marcellinus, who often speaketh of popes, and blameth them for their luxurious way of living and pompous garb; as Zozimus, who bore a great spite at Christianity; as all the writers of the imperial history before Constantine) should not report it; as a very strange pretence newly started up.
It is wonderful that the eager adversaries of our religion (such as Celsus, Porphyry, Hierocles, Julian himself) should not particularly level their discourse against it, as a most scandalous position and dangerous pretence, threatening the government of the empire.
It is admirable that the emperors themselves, inflamed with emulation and suspicion of such an authority (the which hath been so terrible even to Christian princes), should not in their edicts expressly decry and impugn it; that indeed every one of them should not with extremest violence implacably strive to extirpate it.
(From A Treatise of the Pope's Supremacy.)
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JOHN TILLOTSON
[John Tillotson was born in 1630 at Sowerby in Yorkshire, his father being a clothier and a strong Puritan. The son was sent to Cambridge ; not, however, to Emmanuel, the Puritan headquarters, but to Clare Hall. He took his Master's degree in 1654, and seems to have been a good deal under the influence of the overlapping schools of thought in that University, who earned themselves the titles of "Cambridge Platonists" and " Cambridge Latitudinarians." He took a tutorship on leaving Cambridge, and the place and circumstances of his ordination are very uncertain. At the Savoy Conference he appeared on the Presbyterian side, but accepted the Act of Uniformity. Refusing to take a living of which Calamy had been deprived (a piece of politic chivalry which he would have done well to repeat later), he soon obtained another, and was also appointed preacher at Lincoln's Inn. Here his sermons at once attracted attention, not only for their merits of style, but because the preacher developed in them a kind of " moderate " theological and ecclesiastical position, which kept "Popery," Puritanism, and what was beginning to be called " philosophy " at equal distance. He became, notwithstanding decided Whig leanings, a prebendary and Dean of St. Paul's during Charles the Second's reign ; and his attendance on Lord Russell during his imprisonment marked him out for favour after the Revolution. When Sancroft refused to take the oaths, the primacy was offered to him ; and though he is said to have resisted the invidious honour, his resistance was overcome. That he would be violently attacked by the Nonjurors was, of course, certain ; and he must have laid his account with it. He died not long afterwards, on 18th November 1694. Until his mistake in the Canterbury matter, Tillotson, though a Low Church latitudinarian, whose orthodoxy, even on the most liberal estimate, was open to considerable question, had been treated with much respect by all parties, and appears to have earned it, so far as a gentle temper and a complete freedom from ambition, greed, and intriguing could go ; while even his great popularity as a preacher does not seem to have drawn on him the envy of his brethren. His Works have been more than once collected. The latest collection, I believe, which includes Birch's learned Life (1752) is in 10 vols. 8vo. London : 1820.]
TILLOTSON enjoys, and partly deserves, a very high traditional reputation among English prose writers. That reputation is in part due to two rather accidental circumstances. We have it on the authority of Congreve that Dryden told him that if he,
VOL. III
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Dryden, had any skill of English prose, it was at any rate in some measure due to the study of Tillotson ; and this is naturally and necessarily regarded as a very high testimonial. A little examination will perhaps somewhat reduce its value. In the first place, Dryden, like most, though not all, distinguished men of letters, was very much wont to overestimate, or at least to overstate, the merits of others and his own debt to them. A man who is thoroughly conscious of his own superior, much more of his own supreme merits, seldom (though there are contrary instances in the cases of Milton, Corneille, Racine, Wordsworth, and others) attempts to enhance them by the depreciation of others. Indeed he very often, as Goethe, Scott, and Dryden himself notoriously did, exceeds the limits of strict criticism in his encomiums. In this particular case, too, we have dates and facts to guide us. Before the appearance of Dryden's first remarkable prose work, the Essay on Dramatic Poesy, Tillotson had published so little that he simply cannot have exercised much influence on his contemporary. They were both on the same way-the way of simplifying and refining English prose style; and, no doubt, Dryden was encouraged by Tillotson at the time, and with characteristic generosity exaggerated his indebtedness long afterwards. But something else has to be considered in estimating both the just and the traditional reputation of the archbishop. For something like two centuries, in gradually decreasing, but till almost within living memory, still considerable degree, the reading of sermons was one of the chief literary occupations of all Englishmen and Englishwomen who were disposed to literary occupations of any kind. In the later years of the seventeenth century there were hardly any indigenous novels, essays, or periodicals which rose above mere news-letters. It was some time after Tillotson's death that Defoe, Addison, Steele, and the rest supplied the essays ; and nearly half a century had passed after that event before the novels came in any noteworthy degree. The sermon, therefore, had a prerogative influence, and it lost that influence only step by step during the whole eighteenth century. Now, of sermon writers Tillotson was unquestionably the first who adjusted himself, with commanding ability, to the alterations of English style and English taste during the last quarter or the last two quarters of the seventeenth century--alterations which prevailed and progressed during the whole of the eighteenth. He could not vie in intellectual
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eminence or in literary quality with Taylor or South or Barrow;
but he was far more distinctly "modern" for his day even than South,
who was his junior, and outlived him for a good many years.
His theology was the fashionable accommodation and latitudinarianism,
which was the shoe-horn to draw on the deism of the next century;
but he was not consciously or intentionally otherwise than orthodox.
He was a Whig in politics, but though by no means given to temporising or cowardice,
he never made any attacks on the other side, and might have gone to his grave
with the esteem of both sides if it had not been for his fatal (and yet perhaps in a way generous)
acceptance of Sancroft's bishopric. And he undoubtedly had, if not as a master and originator,
at any rate by early adoption and by sympathy of literary fceling, the new style-the style
of slightly Gallicised English, which discarded flights and conceits on the one hand,
classicisms and long-winded constructions on the other, and was concise, clear, succinct, reasonable, prosaic.
He will rank, in short, with Dryden, Halifax, and Temple among the chief introducers of this
style in English, and as perhaps the most influential (in virtue of the potency of his special form
on the literary habits of the nation) of the four. But he will, I think, rank as the least of
them in original literary quality and in literary accomplishment within his own limits.
Not the least good example of his style, and one of the most touching examples of his curiously amiable
temper that I know, will be found in the first of the following extracts, given by Dr. Birch
from his commonplace book, and dated just after his troublesome elevation to the archbishopric;
and in a larger space it might be supplemented from many of his letters, especially those to Rachel,
Lady Russell. Indeed it is impossible for the most ferocious of Tories not to have a certain
affection for Tillotson after reading him.
GEORGE SAINTSBURY.
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SCATTERED THOUGHTS UPON SEVERAL
SUBJECTS AND OCCASIONS
ONE would be apt to wonder, that Nehemiah (chap. v. verses 16,
17, 18) should reckon a huge bill of fare, and a vast number
of promiscuous guests amongst his virtues and good deeds,
for which he desires God to remember him. But, upon better
consideration, besides the bounty, and sometimes charity, of a
great table (provided there be nothing of vanity or ostentation in
it) there may be exercised two very considerable virtues ; one is
temperance, and the other self-denial, in a man's being contented,
for the sake of the public, to deny himself so much, as to sit
down every day to a feast, and to eat continually in a crowd,
and almost never to be alone, especially when, as it often happens,
a great part of the company that a man must have is the
company that a man would not have. I doubt it will prove but
a melancholy business, when a man comes to die, to have made
a great noise and bustle in the world, and to have been known
far and near, but all this while to have been hid and concealed
from himself. It is a very odd and fantastical sort of life for a
man to be continually from home, and most of all a stranger at
his own house.
It is surely an uneasy thing, to sit always in a frame, and to
be perpetually upon a man's guard ; not to be able to speak a
careless word, or to use a negligent posture, without observation
and censure.
Men are apt to think, that they, who are in highest-places,
and have the most power, have most liberty to say and do what
they please. But it is quite otherwjse ; for they have the least
liberty, because they are most observed. It is not mine own
observation ; a much wiser man (I mean Tully) says, In maxima
quaque fortuna minimum licere. They, that are in the highest
and greatest condition, have of all others the least liberty.
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133
In a moderate station it is sufficient for a man to be indifferently wise. Such a man has the privilege to commit little follies
and mistakes without having any great notice taken of them. But he that lives in the light, i.e. in the view of all men, his
actions are exposed to every body's observation and censure.
We ought to be glad, when those, that are fit for government, and called to it, are willing to take the burden of it upon them :
yea, and to be very thankful to them too, that they will be at the pains, and can have the patience, to govern, and to live
publicly. Therefore it is happy for the world, that there are some, who are born and bred up to it ; and that custom hath
made it easy, or at least tolerable to them. Else who, that is wise, would undertake it, since it is certainly much easier of the
two to obey a just and wise government (I had almost said any government) than to govern justly and wisely. Not that I find
fault with those, who apply themselves to public business and affairs. They do well, and we are beholden to them. Some by
their education, and being bred up to great things, and to be able to bear and manage great business with more ease than
others, are peculiarly fitted to serve God and the public in this way : and they that do are worthy of double honour.
The advantage which men have by a more devout and retired and contemplative life is, that they are not distracted
about many things ; their minds and affections are set upon one thing, and the whole stream and force of their affections run one
way. All their thoughts and endeavours are united in one great end and design, which makes their life all of a piece, and to be
consistent with itself throughout.
Nothing but necessity, or the hope of doing more good than a man is capable of doing in a private station (which a modest
man will not easily presume concerning himself) can recompense the trouble and uneasiness of a more public and busy life.
Besides that many men, if they understand themselves right, are at the best in a lower and more private condition, and make
a much more awkward figure in a higher and more public station ; when, perhaps, if they had not been advanced, every one would
have thought them fit and worthy to have been so.
And thus I have considered and compared impartially both these conditions, and, upon the whole matter, without any thing
either of disparagement or discouragement to the wise and great. And, in my poor judgement, the more retired and private condition
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is the better and safer, the more easy and innocent, and consequently the more desirable of the two.
Those, who are fitted and contented to serve mankind in the management and government of public affairs, are called benefactors, and if they govern well deserve to be called so, and to be so accounted for denying themselves in their own ease, to do good to many.
Not that it is perfection to go out of the world, and to be perfectly useless. Our Lord, by His own example, has taught us, that we can never serve God better than when doing good to men; and that a perpetual retirement from the world, and shunning the conversation of men, is not the most religious life; but living amongst men, and doing good to them.
The life of Our Saviour is a pattern both of the contemplative and active life, and shews us, how to mix devotion and doing good to the greatest advantage. He would neither go out of the world, nor yet immerse himself in the cares and troubles, in the pleasures and plentiful enjoyments, much less in the pomp and splendour of it. He did not place religion (as too many have done since) in a total retirement from the world, and shunning the conversation of men, and taking care to be out of all condition and capacity of doing good to any body.
He did not run away from the conversation of men, nor live in a wilderness, nor shut himself up in a pen. He lived in the world with great freedom, and with great innocency, hereby teaching us, that charity to men is a duty no less necessary than devotion towards God. He [avoided] the world without leaving it. We read indeed, that He was carried into the wilderness to be tempted; but we nowhere read that He chose to live in a wilderness to avoid temptation.
The capacity and opportunity of doing greater good is the specious pretence, under which ambition is wont to cover the eager desire of power and greatness.
If it be said (which is the most spiteful thing that can be said) that some ambition is necessary to vindicate a man from being a fool; to this I think it may be fairly answered, and without offence, that there may perhaps be as much ambition in declining greatness, as in courting it: only it is of a more unusual kind, and the example of it less dangerous, because it is not like to be contagious.
(From Reflections, printed in his life by Thomas Birch.)
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OF SOCIETY AND VANITY
AND if we go abroad into the world, and try the conversation of men, it cannot but grieve us to see a great many things, which yet we must see every day ; the censoriousness, and uncharitableness, and insincerity of men one towards another ; to see with what kindness they will treat one another to the face, and how hardly they will use them behind their backs. If there were nothing else, this one naughty quality, so common and reigning among mankind, were enough to make an honest and true-hearted man, one that loves plainness and sincerity, to be heartily sick of the world, and glad to steal off the stage, where there is nothing native and sincere, but all personated and acted; where the conversation of a great part of men is all designing and insidious, full of flattery and falsehood, of good words and ill offices : “one speaketh peaceably to his neighbour with his mouth, but in his heart he lieth in wait,” as it is in the prophet, Jer. ix. 8. And when a man hath done all the good turns he can, and endeavoured to oblige every man, and not only to live inoffensively, but exemplarily ; he is fairly dealt withal, and comes off upon good terms, if he can but escape the ill words of men for doing well, and obtain a pardon for those things which truly deserve praise.
But setting aside these, and the like melancholy considerations ; when we are in the health and vigour of our age, when our blood is warm, and our spirits quick, and the humours of our body not yet turned and soured by great disappointments, and grievous losses of our estates, or nearest friends and relations, by a long course of afflictions, by many cross events and calamitous accidents ; yet we are continually liable to all these : and the perpetual fear and danger of them is no small trouble and uneasiness to our minds, and does in a great measure rob us of the comfort, and eat out the pleasure and sweetness of all our enjoyments ; and, by degrees, the evils we fear overtake us ; and as one affliction and trouble goes off, another succeeds in the place of it, like Job’s messengers, whose bad tidings and reports of calamitous accidents came so thick upon him, that they overtook one another.
If we have a plentiful fortune, we are apt to abuse it to intemperance and luxury ; and this naturally breeds bodily pains and diseases, which take away all the comfort and enjoyment of a great estate. If we have health, it may be we are afflicted with
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losses, or deprived of friends, or cross'd in our interests and
designs, and one thing or other happens to impede or interrupt
the contentment and happiness of our lives. Sometimes an
unexpected storm, or some other sudden calamity, sweepeth
away, in an instant, all that which with so much industry and
care we have been gathering many years. Or if an estate stand
firm, our children are taken away, to whose comfort and advantage
all the pains and endeavours of our lives were devoted. Or if
none of these happen (as it is very rare to escape most, or some
of them), yet for a demonstration to us that God intended this
world to be uneasy, to convince us that a perfect state of happiness
is not to be had here below, we often see in experience, that
those who seem to be in a condition as happy as this world can
put them into, by the greatest accommodations towards it, are
yet as far or farther from happiness, as those who are destitute of
most of those things wherein the greatest felicity of this world is
thought to consist. Many times it so happens, that they who
have all the furniture and requisites, all the materials and in-
gredients of a worldly felicity at their command, and in their
power, yet have not the skill and ability out of all these to frame
a happy condition of life to themselves. They have health, and
friends, and reputation, and estate in abundance, and all outward
accommodations that heart can wish ; and yet in the midst of all
these circumstances of outward felicity, they are uneasy in their
minds, and as the wise man expresseth it, "in their sufficiency
they are in streights," and are as it were surfeited even with
happiness itself, and do so fantastically and unaccountably nause-
ate the good condition they are in, that though they want nothing
to make them happy, yet they cannot think themselves so ; though
they have nothing in the world to molest and disgust them, yet
they can make a shift to create as much trouble to themselves,
out of nothing, as they who have the real and substantial causes
of discontent.
Which plainly shews, that we are not to look for happiness
here ; 'tis not to be found in this land of the living ; and after
our enquiries after it, we shall see sufficient reason to take up
Solomon's conclusion, that "all is vanity and vexation of spirit" ;
which is much the same with that aphorism of David his father,
which I mentioned before, that "man in his best estate is alto-
gether vanity."
But what happiness soever our condition in this world is
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capable of, 'tis most assuredly full of uncertainty and unsettlement ;
we cannot enjoy it long, and every moment we are in danger of
being deprived of it. Whatever degree of earthly felicity we are
possessed of, we have no security that it shall continue. There
is nothing in this world, but, when we are as sure of it as this
world can make us, may be taken away from us by a thousand
accidents. But suppose it to abide and continue ; we ourselves
shall be taken away from it. We must die, and "in that very
day" all our enjoyments and hopes, as to this world, will perish
with us ; for here is no abiding place, "we have no continuing
city" ; so that it is in vain to design a happiness to ourselves in
this world, when we are not to stay in it, but only travel and
pass through it.
(From the Sermon, Good Men Strangers and Sojourners
upon Earth.)
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JOHN DRYDEN
[John Dryden was born in 1631 and died in 1700. The most elaborate of
his prose compositions was his Essay of Dramatic Poesy, written in 1667.
His first play was acted in 1663, his last in 1694, and during this period he
wrote many criticisms, chiefly controversial, on matters relating to the stage,
prominent among which are his Defence of the Essay of Dramatic Poesy (1668),
Defence of the Epilogue (1673), Remarks on the Empress of Moroco (1674),
Vindications of the Duke of Guise (1683). After the Revolution of 1688
his chief prose works were the Essay on Satire prefixed to his Translations
from Juvenal and Persius (1692), and the Preface to the Fables (1700). Of
his other prose writings the principal are his Life of Plutarch (1683), his con-
troversy with Stillingfleet respecting the conversion of Anne Hyde, Duchess of
York, to the Roman Catholic faith (1686); his translations of the Life of St.
Francis Xavier (1687), and of Fresnoy's Art of Poetry, to which is prefixed
A Parallel of Poetry and Painting (1695).]
Dryden was the first, and in many ways the greatest, of the
writers who employed English prose as an instrument for promoting
social intercourse and refinement. Before him literary prose had
been used in our language chiefly in sermons, travels, histories,
scientific treatises, and controversial pamphlets; in short, for the
various purposes of instruction. All writings of this kind show
themselves plainly, in respect both of matter and manner, to be
the offspring of the Schools. The reader is never allowed to
forget that he is in the presence of his master; he must submit
himself to the learning of the priest, the scholar, or the logician.
The sentences, modelled on the Latin, are protracted, through
labyrinths of clauses, to “periods of a mile”; in which, though the
rhythmical effect is often musical, and sometimes majestic, the
mind craves vainly for the relief of variety and repose. Even in
the Essay, where Bacon and Cowley have followed the footsteps
of Montaigne, the reader seems rather to have surprised an
author in his privacy, and overheard him soliloquising, than to
have conversed with him face to face. Dryden brings the author
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and reader together in company, where each must make the
acquaintance of the other on equal terms; he appeals to common
reason, imagination, taste, and judgment; and while he is very far
from disdaining the arts of learning, he improves them with the
genius of conversation.
The composition of the conversational elements underlying his
prose style is difficult to analyse, but there can be no doubt from
what Dryden himself says, that the main factor in it was the char-
acter of the king. Charles II. exerted an influence over the tastes
and manners of his subjects, which in some respects resembled, and
was only equalled by, the authority of Louis XIV. in France;
"all by the King's example lived and loved." Yet no two
examples ever differed in kind more radically than those fur-
nished by these sovereigns. In France the king was only the
living impersonation of the monarchy, the great centralising
institution which for ages had been absorbing into itself all the
political and intellectual powers of the nation; and the stately
ceremony in which absolutism embodied itself was reflected
equally in the architecture, horticulture, poetry, and criticism of the
period. It was said with justice of the court of Louis XIV., that
in it nobody dared to speak aloud. In England, on the other
hand, where the monarchy had only recently been brought back
on a spring tide of popularity to shores strewn with the wrecks of
old beliefs and habits, everything depended for the moment on
the personal inclinations of the King. Charles II. was well fitted
by nature to leave the imprint of his character on the disorganised
world over which he ruled. After a youth made painful by
danger and privation, he had returned to the exercise of almost
absolute power with a boundless appetite for enjoyment. Endowed
with keen wit and perception, he took delight in every kind of
imaginative entertainment, particularly in the drama. His favourites,
Rochester, Buckingham, and Sedley, reflected their sovereign's
tastes in their own, and imparted them to the crowd of playwrights,
actors, musicians, epigrammatists and satirists who were charged
with providing amusement for the moment. As almost anything
might be imagined in the court of Charles II., so whatever was
imagined might be uttered and even written. The restraints
on society usually exercised by religion and morality vanished in
the reaction against Puritanic despotism. There was in fact
nothing to check the licence of conversation, except—what can
never completely desert a society of gentlemen—the sense of
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good breeding, and the necessity of veiling the crudities of thought
beneath the refinements of language.
Into this courtly chaos Dryden brought the informing spirit of
his learning and imagination. Not indeed that fashionable society
had any special charm for him. He was not what Pope calls "a
genteel man," for, though he was well born and, by his marriage,
highly allied, his want of means prevented him from mixing on a
footing of equality with the court wits. Nor did his disposition,
reserved and somewhat diffident, naturally fit him to shine in the
sparkling exchanges of repartee which were the delight of aristo-
cratic company. But literature was his trade; society needed to
be amused; and, whether it were tragedy, comedy, satire, transla-
tion, or controversy, he was always ready to provide an entertain-
ment in accordance with what he believed to be the requirements
of his patrons.
But how were these requirements to be surely ascertained?
The task of the poet was no longer so simple as in the early
years of the century, when the imagination moved freely in the
midst of a profusion of materials, and words united almost spon-
taneously with thoughts. Half of that original impulse had spent
itself; while, at the same time, the judgment of the audience had
become more various and exacting. Dryden, as a playwright
had to reckon with the taste of a king, who was always in search
of novelty; the taste of a nobility, each of them stiff in his opinions
and accustomed to be treated with deference; the taste of rivals
jealous of his favour with the public; and beyond these, with the
taste of the public itself, which, though anxious to be rightly
pleased and instructed, was perplexed by the conflict of opinions.
On what common element in the midst of so much contradiction
were the foundations of art to repose? The attempt to answer
this question was the beginning of criticism. Every work of
imaginative creation had now to be explained and even defended
by a process of intellectual analysis; every kind of judgment must
be adroitly flattered by an author before he could secure a verdict
in favour of his performance. Hence it is that almost all Dryden's
prose writings are of a critical character. His plays are, as a rule,
preceded by an "Epistle Dedicatory," addressed to some noble
patron; and the dedication is often followed by a Preface, in which
he either replies with spirit to those who seek to lower him in
public esteem, or discourses familiarly with "the reader" on the
principles of dramatic composition.
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The style of his Dedications is marked by the finest gradations of respectfulness or familiarity. At times he seems, like the Panegyrists in the declining days of the Roman Empire, to prostrate himself at the foot of the mountain of compliments which he piles up. "For what could be more glorious to me," he writes to William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle, "than to have acquired some part of your esteem who are admired and honoured by all good men, who have been for so many years together the pattern and standard of honour to the nation ; and whose whole life has been so great an example of heroic virtue that we might wonder how it happened into an age so corrupt as ours, if it had not been likewise a part of the former. As you came into the world with all the advantages of noble birth and education, so you have rendered both more conspicuous by your virtue. Fortune indeed has perpetually crowned your undertakings with success, but she has only waited on your valour, not conducted it. She has administered to your glory like a slave, and has been led in triumph by it ; or at most, while honour led you by the hand to greatness, fortune only followed to keep you from sliding back in your ascent."
At other times he mitigates this oriental style of flattery with a note of playfulness, as in his dedication of "Tyrannic Love" to the Duke of Monmouth. "So dangerous a thing it is to admit a poet into your family, that you can never afterwards be free from the chiming of ill verses, perpetually sounding in your ears, and more troublesome than the neighbourhood of steeples. I have been favourable to myself in this expression ; a zealous fanatic would have gone farther, and have called me the serpent who first presented the fruit of my poetry to the wife, and so gained the opportunity to seduce the husband."
Or again, dropping these formal conceits, he suggests a closer degree of familiarity by first allowing himself the privilege of using criticism in a dedication, and then excusing himself with an anecdote. "This digression, my lord, is not altogether the purpose of an epistle dedicatory ; yet it is expected that somewhat should be said even here in relation to criticism ; at least in vindication of my address, that you may not be deceived to patronise a poem which is wholly unworthy of your protection. Though after all I doubt not but some will liken me to the lover in a modern comedy who was combing his peruke and setting his cravat before his mistress ; and being asked by her when he
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143
intended to begin his court replied, 'He had been doing it all
this while.'"1
On the other hand, when he is dealing with those who have
sought to discredit him with his patrons or the public, he befouls
his antagonists with the coarsest imagery of Smithfield and
Billingsgate. Some of them he describes as "animals of the
most deplored understanding," "upstart illiterate scribblers"
a "sputtering triumvirate," "the illustrious Mr. Hunt and his
brace of beagles." Of another he says, "I have daubed him
with his own puddle." "Og," so he speaks of his rival
Shadwell, "may write against the king if he pleases, so long as
he drinks for him, and his writings will never do the government
so much harm, as his drinking does it good; for true subjects
will not be much perverted by his libels; but the wine duties
rise considerably by his claret." And again of Settle: "He has
all the pangs and throes of a fanciful poet, but is never delivered
of any more perfect issue of his phlegmatic brain than a dull
Dutchwoman's sooterkin is of her body."
Removed equally from the toilsome flattery of his Dedica-
tions, and the not less laboured blackguardism of his controversial
pamphlets, the full charm of his style is to be found in his
Prefaces. Here he is face to face with "the reader." He is
no longer addressing a patron or a rival, but an equal, and, it may
be presumed, a friend, with whom he may be easy, natural, and
unpretending. Though his audience is unseen, and indeed almost
impersonal, he is well acquainted with their tastes and sympathies.
He has met with them in every class of society, in the court, the
coffee house, and all the busy professions of life; and it is their
sense of what is right in morals and art in which he lays the
foundations of his criticism. When he replies to the charge
of offending as an artist against the laws of morality, he under-
stands how to retire with dignity from a position that he knows
his audience would not wish him to defend; and when to turn
upon an antagonist who has, in the public judgment, pushed his
advantage too far. If he discusses a point of abstract taste, he
avoids all show of learning and metaphysics, and submits his
opinion with confidence to his readers, as men who will judge
him by the common law of human nature. He digresses skil-
fully from his subject to dwell upon his own merits and the
motives of those who disparage him. The strength of his formal
1 Epistle Dedicatory to Love Triumphant.
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reasoning is always felt, but his thoughts follow each other in a
natural order, according to the animated motions of his mind, in a
flow of language so splendid and yet so familiar, that they
seem to spring less from an effort of meditated art, than from the
happiness of eloquent conversation.
As to the literary elements which mixed themselves in this
vein of colloquial idiom, it does not appear that Dryden was
greatly influenced by any existing models. He himself modestly
ascribes some of his merit as a prose writer to the sermons of
Tillotson, which indeed furnished him with good examples of the
logical and lucid arrangement of thought. Yet, if Tillotson had
never preached, it may be doubted whether there would have
been any great difference in the style of Dryden. Such resem-
blance as may be observed between them is probably the result,
less of conscious imitation of the one by the other, than of the
necessity under which they each lay of addressing audiences in the
language of daily use. It has also been supposed that Dryden
borrowed much of his style from the French, an opinion, it appears,
chiefly founded on the numerous words in his writings either taken
directly, or ultimately derived, from that language. Many of these
words, however, were merely used by him carelessly, after the
court fashion of conversation ; while others had obtained a footing
in our literature long before he began to write. Doubtless
he had read, and (as his idioms sometimes show) felt the
influence of, Bossu and other French critics, but, while he
acknowledged their supremacy in their own department of taste,
he was far from surrendering his liberties into their hands.
Louis XIV. encouraged critical principles that extended into
literature the absolutism he had established in the system
of his government, and in the manners of his court; his sub-
jects submitted readily to the authority of “the ancients” ; but
the turbulent tides of English taste could not be checked by
Aristotle's dams. Of this Dryden was well aware, and often
opposed himself to the rules laid down by the French critics.
Nor did he make any attempt to imitate their style, who, in their
efforts after precision, aimed at purging their language of metaphor,
and thus while they refined it into a perfect instrument of logic,
deprived it necessarily of much individual life and character.
As far as he can be said to have looked to any literary model,
Dryden followed an English tradition, the tendency of which was
exactly opposite to the French. The style, which Lyly had first
Page 157
made fashionable in the court of Elizabeth, had continued to
affect the conversational idiom of polite society in each succeeding
reign. In this style two characteristics predominate, verbal
antithesis and metaphorical imagery; and though usage had
greatly modified and softened their original harshness, both
features of the parent “Euphues” may be plainly discerned in
English prose long after the Restoration. They make a pro-
minent figure in the writings of Dryden. Johnson indeed pro-
nounces his clauses to be without studied balance,1 but his
opinion is plainly ill-founded, for Dryden's style abounds with verbal
oppositions—though these are introduced naturally and with no
appearance of effort—and even when the parts of his sentence are
not formally weighed against each other, the rhythm is frequently
determined by a subtle antithesis of thought. As to his employ-
ment of metaphor, the examples already cited from his Dedications
show how freely he indulged in what may be called metaphysical
Euphuism, when using the language of compliment. But the
Euphuistic habit influences him in his more sober moods, and
even his controversial passages are enriched with a profusion of
images. It is true that in these he does not follow a conceit for
its own sake, but—as in good architecture the ornament is
intimately connected with the construction—uses metaphors and
similes to illustrate, and even to strengthen, his arguments.
When, for example, he is told that, as a layman, he should
not trespass on the ground of religion, he answers: “I pretend
not to make myself a judge of faith in others, but only to make a
confession of my own. I lay no unhallowed hand upon the ark,
but wait on it, with the reverence that becomes me, at a distance.”
Ben Jonson has been charged with plagiarism. What signifies?
says Dryden. “He has done his robberies so openly, that one
may see he fears not to be taxed by any law. He invades
authors like a monarch; and what would be theft in other poets
is only victory in him.” Shakespeare is accused of having
wanted learning; Nay, replies the critic, “he was naturally
learned; he needed not the spectacles of books to read nature; he
looked inwards, and found her there.” His images are always
happily adapted to their subject: “He is too much given to
horse-play in his raillery,” he says of Collier, “and comes to
battle like a dictator from the plough.” Speaking of the progress
of refinement in comedy; “Gentlemen,” he says, “will now be
1 Johnson's Life of Dryden.
VOL. III
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entertained by the follies of each other; and though they allow Cobb and Tibb to speak properly, yet they are not much pleased with their tankard or with their rags." The fault of irregularity in writing is illustrated by a metaphor of homely force : "Others have no ear for verse, nor choice of words, nor distinction of thoughts; but mingle farthings with their gold to make up the sum."
Dryden's prose writings are almost always of an occasional character, and in this respect they want the dignity derived from moral purpose. Among those who succeeded him, Addison, in the next generation, used the essay as an instrument for improving national taste and manners, and a generation later Johnson made it the vehicle of dictatorial criticism. Both of them wrote in a spirit of independence which was foreign to Dryden, whose work, with the single exception of the Essay of Dramatic Poetry, was produced at the demand of patrons or publishers, and who is so far from seeking to rise above the conversation of his company, that, in the extravagance of his flattery, he too often forgets what is due to himself. For all that, no later prose writer can approach him in strength, freedom, and harmony of expression. In reading him, when at his best, we are reminded of his own description of Absalom :
" What'er he did, was done with so much ease, In him alone 'twas natural to please."
The most skilful critic finds it sometimes hard to discriminate between the style of Addison and Steele; Johnson's style had many imitators; but no man could imitate the style of Dryden. Of no writer can it be more truly said, Ie style c'est l'homme. Like the Socrates of Plato he runs before his argument as a ship under sail, and whatever be his subject of the moment, he suffuses it with all the glow and colour of his rich vocabulary. The coarse immorality of Charles II.'s Court, as he paints it, takes an air of grace and refinement. A few strokes of unequalled vigour place before us, with perfect discrimination, the varied characters of Shakespeare, Fletcher, and Jonson. Even in the midst of his servility he seems to be sustained by a sense of inward greatness, which allows him to speak to his readers with self-respect. Nothing can surpass the dignity of his attitude before Collier; his haughty disdain of Buckingham and the authors of the Rehearsal; his pathetic reference to his old age in the Postscript to the Æneis.
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JOHN DRYDEN
147
It is this twofold character which makes Dryden, whether in verse or prose, so interesting a figure in English literature. He occupies, as it were, an isthmus between two seas. In one direction he looks, not without experience, over the great imaginative ocean of Tudor and Stuart literature ; in the other he seems to survey in thought the yet untravelled waters of the eighteenth century ; the world of reason, judgment, science ; the coming temper of Berkeley and Addison, of Burke and of Reynolds. As a playwright he is still the servant of the king. As a man of letters he is the client of noble patrons. He acknowledges with an excessive deference what is due to these ; he knows how much of art and manners is derived from their authority ; but he feels that their influence is on the wane. On the other hand, looking to the great unorganised forces of the coming time, he sees that the supreme court of appeal lies with the people. To this tribunal he submits his Preface to the Fables, his Versification of Chaucer, his Translation of the Æneid. He pays it the compliment of sincerity, which he withholds from the patrons whom he flatters. All the treasures of his memory and imagination are placed at the disposal of his audience. Yet in one respect he feels himself to be superior to his judges. He is addressing them as a man of genius, on whom they are dependent for their intellectual pleasures. No one, he is well aware, understands like himself how to blend the conversation of refined society with the language of literary tradition ; he is acquainted, as none who listen to him can be, with the resources of their mother tongue. Hence he naturally adopts in his Prefaces a tone of dignified familiarity. His discourse is addressed to men who have shown themselves able to conduct a constitutional Revolution, and who are the masters of their own liberties ; but it proceeds from one who has learned his manners, and formed his style, amid the arts, the splendour, and the experience of the old English Monarchy.
W. J. COURTHOPE.
Page 160
A DEFENCE OF RHYME IN TRAGEDY
It concerns me less than any, said Neander (seeing he had ended), to reply to this discourse ; because when I should have proved, that verse may be natural in plays, yet I should always be ready to confess, that those which I have written in this kind come short of that perfection which is required.
Yet since you are pleased I should undertake this province, I will do it, though with all imaginable respect and deference, both to that person from whom you have borrowed your strongest arguments, and to whose judgment, when I have said all, I finally submit.
But before I proceed to answer your objections, I must first remember you, that I exclude all comedy from my defence; and next, that I deny not but blank verse may be also used ; and content myself only to assert, that in serious plays, where the subject and characters are great, and the plot unmixed with mirth, which might allay or divert those concernments which are produced, rhyme is there as natural, and more effectual, than blank verse.
And now having laid down this as a foundation—to begin with Crites—I must crave leave to tell him, that some of his arguments against rhyme reach no further than, from the faults and defects of ill rhyme, to conclude against the use of it in general.
May not I conclude against blank verse by the same reason? If the words of some poets, who write in it, are either ill-chosen or ill-placed (which makes not only rhyme, but all kinds of verse in any language unnatural), shall I, for their vicious affectation, condemn those excellent lines of Fletcher, which are written in that kind?
Is there anything in rhyme more constrained than this line in blank verse?
" I heaven invoke, and strong resistance make ;"
where you see both the clauses are placed unnaturally ; that is, contrary to the common way of speaking, and that without the excuse of
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a rhyme to cause it : yet you would think me very ridiculous, if I
should accuse the stubbornness of blank verse for this, and not rather
the stiffness of the poet. Therefore, Crites, you must either
prove that words, though well chosen and duly placed, yet render
not rhyme natural in itself ; or that, however natural and easy
the rhyme may be, yet it is not proper for a play. If you insist
on the former part, I would ask you what other conditions are
required to make rhyme natural in itself, besides an election of
right words, and a right disposition of them? For the due choice
of your words expresses your sense naturally, and the due placing
them adapts the rhyme to it. If you object, that one verse may
be made for the sake of another, though both the words and
rhyme be apt, I answer, it cannot possibly so fall out ; for either
there is a dependence of sense betwixt the first line and the second,
or there is none ; if there be that connexion, then in the natural
position of the words the latter line must of necessity flow from
the former ; if there be no dependence, yet still the due ordering
of words makes the last line as natural in itself as the other ; so
that the necessity of a rhyme never forces any but bad or lazy
writers to say what they would not otherwise. 'Tis true, there is
both care and art required to write in verse. A good poet never
establishes the first line till he has sought out such a rhyme as
may fit the sense, already prepared to heighten the second ; many
times the close of the sense falls into the middle of the next verse,
or farther off, and he may often avail himself of the same advantages
in English which Virgil had in Latin, he may break off in the
hemistick, and begin another line. Indeed, the not observing
these two last things, makes plays which are writ in verse so
tedious ; for though, most commonly, the sense is to be confined
to the couplet, yet nothing that does perpetuo tenore fluere, run in
the same channel, can please always. 'Tis like the murmuring
of a stream, which, not varying in the fall, causes at first attention,
at last drowsiness. Variety of cadences is the best rule ; the
greatest help to the actors, and refreshment to the audience.
If then verse may be made natural in itself, how becomes it
unnatural in a play? You say the stage is the representation of
nature, and no man in ordinary conversation speaks in rhyme.
But you foresaw, when you said this, that it might be answered ;
neither does any man speak in blank verse, or in measure without
rhyme. Therefore you concluded, that which is nearest nature is
still to be preferred. But you took no notice, that rhyme might
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be made as natural as blank verse, by the well placing of the
words, etc. All the difference between them, when they are both
correct, is the sound in one, which the other wants; and if so,
the sweetness of it, and all the advantage resulting from it, which
are handled in the preface to the Rival Ladies, will yet stand
good. As for that place in Aristotle, where he says plays should
be writ in that kind of verse which is nearest prose, it makes
little for you; blank verse being properly measured prose. Now
measure alone, in any modern language, does not constitute verse;
those of the ancients in Greek and Latin consisted in quantity of
words, and a determinate number of feet. But when, by the
inundation of the Goths and Vandals into Italy, new languages
were introduced, and barbarously mingled with the Latin, of which
the Italian, Spanish, French, and ours (made out of them and
the Teutonic), are dialects, a new way of poesy was practised;
new, I say, in those countries, for in all probability it was that of
the conquerors in their own nations; at least we are able to prove
that the eastern people have used it from all antiquity. This
new way consisted in measure or number of feet and rhyme. The
sweetness of rhyme and observation of accent, supplying the place
of quantity in words, which could neither exactly be observed by
those barbarians, who knew not the rules of it, neither was it
suitable to their tongues as it had been to the Greek and Latin.
No man is tied in modern poetry to observe any farther rule in
the feet of his verse, but that they be dissyllables; whether
spondee, trochee, or iambic, it matters not; only he is obliged
to rhyme; neither do the Spanish, French, Italians, or Germans
acknowledge at all, or very rarely, any such kind of poesy as blank
verse amongst them. Therefore, at most 'tis but a poetic prose,
a sermo pedestris; and as such, most fit for comedies, where I
acknowledge rhyme to be improper. Further, as to that quotation
of Aristotle, our couplet verses may be rendered as near prose as
blank verse itself, by using those advantages I lately named; as
breaks in an hemistick, or running the sense into another line;
thereby making art and order appear as loose and frec as naturc;
or, not tying ourselves to couplets strictly, we may use the benefit
of the Pindaric way, practised in the Siege of Rhodes, where
the numbers vary, and the rhyme is disposed carelessly, and far
from often chiming. Neither is that other advantage of the
ancients to be despised, of changing the kind of verse when they
please, with the change of the scene, or some new entrance; for
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they confine not themselves always to iambics, but extend their
liberty to all lyric numbers, and sometimes even to hexameter.
But I need not go so far to prove, that rhyme, as it succeeds to
all other offices of Greek and Latin verse, so especially to this of
plays, since the custom of nations at this day confirms it ; the
French, Italian, and Spanish tragedies are generally writ in it ;
and sure the universal consent of the most civilized parts of the
world, ought in this, as it doth in other customs, to include the
rest.
(From Essay of Dramatic Poesy.)
ABANDONMENT OF RHYME IN TRAGEDY :
IMITATION OF SHAKESPEARE
IT remains that I acquaint the reader, that I have endeavoured
in this play to follow the practice of the ancients, who, as Mr.
Rymer has judiciously observed, are and ought to be our masters.
Horace likewise gives it for a rule in his Art of Poetry,
"Vos exemplaria Græca
Nocturnâ versate manu, versate diurnâ."
Yet, though their models are regular, they are too little for
English tragedy ; which requires to be built in a larger compass.
I could give an instance in the Œdipus Tyrannus, which was
the masterpiece of Sophocles ; but I reserve it for a more fit
occasion, which I hope to have hereafter. In my style, I have
professed to imitate the divine Shakespeare ; which that I might
perform more freely, I have disincumbered myself from rhyme.
I hope I need not to explain myself, that I have not copied my
author servilely ; words and phrases must of necessity receive a
change in succeeding ages ; but it is almost a miracle that much
of his language remains so pure ; and that he who began dramatic
poetry amongst us, untaught by any, and, as Ben Jonson tells
us, without learning, should by the force of his own genius per-
form so much, that in a manner he has left no praise for any who
come after him. The occasion is fair, and the subject would be
pleasant to handle the difference of styles betwixt him and Fletcher,
and wherein and how far they are both to be imitated. But
since I must not be over-confident of my own performance after
him, it will be prudence in me to be silent. Yet, I hope I may
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affirm, and without vanity, that, by imitating him, I have excelled
myself throughout the play; and particularly, that I prefer the
scene between Antony and Ventidius in the first act, to anything
which I have written in this kind.
(From Preface to All for Love.)
SHAKESPEARE. BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.
BEN JONSON
To begin then with Shakespeare. He was the man who of all
modern and perhaps ancient poets had the largest and most com-
prehensive soul. All the images of nature were still present to
him, and he drew them not laboriously but luckily: when he de-
scribes anything you more than see it, you feel it too. Those who
accuse him to have wanted learning, give him the greater com-
mendation: he was naturally learned; he needed not the spectacles
of books to read nature; he looked inwards, and found her there.
I cannot say he is everywhere alike; were he so, I should do him
injury to compare him with the greatest of mankind. He is many
times flat, insipid; his comic wit degenerating into clenches, his
serious swelling into bombast. But he is always great, when some
great occasion is presented to him: no man can say he ever had
a fit subject for his wit, and did not then raise himself as high
above the rest of poets
"Quantum lenta solent inter viburna cupressi."
The consideration of this made Mr. Hales of Eton say, that there
was no subject of which any poet ever writ, but he would produce
it much better done in Shakespeare; and however others are now
generally preferred before him yet the age wherein he lived, which
had contemporaries with him, Fletcher and Jonson, never equalled
them to him in their esteem: and in the last king's court, when
Ben's reputation was at the highest, Sir John Suckling, and with
him the greater part of the courtiers, set our Shakespeare far
above him.
Beaumont and Fletcher, of whom I am next to speak, had, with
the advantage of Shakespeare's wit, which was their precedent,
great natural gifts, improved by study; Beaumont especially being
so accurate a judge of plays, that Ben Jonson, while he lived,
Page 165
submitted all his writings to his censure, and 'tis thought, used his judgment in correcting, if not contriving, all his plots. What value he had for him appears by the verses he writ to him ; and therefore I need speak no further of it. The first play that brought Fletcher and him in esteem was their Philaster; for before that they had written two or three very unsuccessfully : as the like is reported of Ben Jonson, before he writ Every Man in his Humour. Their plots were generally more regular than Shakespeare's, especially those which were made before Beaumont's death ; and they understood and imitated the conversation of gentlemen much better ; whose wild debaucheryes, and quickness of wit in repartees, no poet before them could paint as they have done. Humour, which Ben Jonson derived from particular persons, they made it not their business to describe ; they represented all the passions very lively, but above all, love. I am apt to believe the English language in them arrived to its highest perfection ; what words have since been taken in are rather superfluous than ornamental. Their plays are now the most pleasant and frequent entertainments of the stage ; two of theirs being acted through the year for one of Shakespeare's or Jonson's : the reason is because there is a certain gaiety in their comedies, and pathos in their more serious plays, which suits generally with all men's humours. Shakespeare's language is likewise a little obsolete, and Ben Jonson's wit comes short of theirs.
As for Jonson, to whose character I am now arrived, if we look upon him while he was himself (for his last plays were but his dotages), I think him the most learned and judicious writer which any theatre ever had. He was a most severe judge of himself, as well as others. One cannot say he wanted wit, but rather that he was frugal of it. In his works you find little to retrench or alter. Wit and language, and humour also in some measure, we had before him ; but something of art was wanting to the drama till he came. He managed his strength to more advantage than any who preceded him.You seldom find him making love in any of his scenes, or endeavouring to move the passions ; his genius was too sullen and saturnine to do it gracefully, especially when he knew he came after those who had performed both to such a height. Humour was his proper sphere ; and in that he delighted most to represent mechanic people. He was deeply conversant in the ancients, both Greek and Latin, and he borrowed boldly from them : there is scarce a poet or historian among the Roman
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authors of those times, whom he has not translated in Sejanus
and Catiline. But he has done his robberies so openly, that one
may see he fears not to be taxed by any law. He invades authors
like a monarch ; and what would be theft in other poets, is only
victory in him. With the spoils of these writers he so represents
old Rome to us, in its rites, ceremonies, and customs, that if one
of their poets had written either of his tragedies, we had seen less
of it than in him. If there was any fault in his language, it was,
that he weaved it too closely and laboriously, in his comedies
especially : perhaps too, he did a little too much Romanise our
tongue, leaving the words which he translated almost as much
Latin as he found them; wherein though he learnedly followed
their language, he did not enough comply with the idiom of ours.
If I would compare him with Shakespeare, I must acknowledge him
the most correct poet, but Shakespeare the greater wit. Shake-
speare was the Homer, or father of our dramatic poets ; Jonson
was the Virgil, the pattern of elaborate writing : I admire him,
but I love Shakespeare. To conclude of him ; as he has given
us the most correct plays, so in the precepts which he has laid
down in his Discoveries we have as many and profitable rules for
perfecting the stage, as any wherewith the French can furnish us.
(From Essay of Dramatic Poesy.)
THE OLD DRAMATISTS AND THE NEW
And this leads me to the last and greatest advantage of our
writing, which proceeds from conversation. In the age wherein
those poets lived, there was less of gallantry than in ours ; neither
did they keep the best company of theirs. Their fortune has
been much like that of Epicurus, in the retirement of his
gardens ; to live almost unknown, and to be celebrated after their
decease. I cannot find that any of them had been conversant in
courts, except Ben Jonson ; and his genius lay not so much that
way, as to make an improvement by it. Greatness was not then
so easy of access, nor conversation so free, as now it is. I cannot,
therefore, conceive it any insolence to affirm, that, by the knowledge
and pattern of their wit who writ before us, and by the advantage
of our own conversation, the discourse and raillery of our comedies
excel what has been written by them. And this will be denied by
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none, but some few old fellows who value themselves on their
acquaintance with the Black Friars ; who, because they saw their
plays, would pretend a right to judge ours. The memory of these
grave gentlemen is their only plea for being wits. They can tell
a story of Ben Jonson, and, perhaps, have had fancy enough to
give a supper in the Apollo, that they might be called his sons :
and, because they were drawn in to be laughed at in those times,
they think themselves now sufficiently entitled to laugh at ours.
Learning I never saw in any of them ; and wit no more than they
could remember. In short, they were unlucky to have been bred
in an unpolished age, and more unlucky to live in a refined one.
They have lasted beyond their own, and are cast behind ours ;
and, not contented to have known little at the age of twenty, they
boast of their ignorance at threescore.
Now, if they ask me, whence it is that our conversation is so
much refined ? I must freely, and without flattery, ascribe it to the
court : and in it, particularly to the King, whose example gives a
law to it. His own misfortunes, and the nation's, afforded him an
opportunity, which is rarely allowed to sovereign princes, I mean
of travelling, and being conversant in the most polished courts of
Europe ; and, thereby, of cultivating a spirit which was formed by
nature to receive the impressions of a gallant and generous educa-
tion. At his return, he found a nation lost as much in barbarism
as in rebellion : and, as the excellency of his nature forgave the
one, so the excellency of his manners reformed the other. The
desire of imitating so great a pattern first awakened the dull and
heavy spirits of the English from their native reservedness; loosened
them from their stiff forms of conversation, and made them easy
and pliant to each other in discourse. Thus, insensibly, our way
of living became more free ; and the fire of the English wit, which
was before stifled under a constrained, melancholy way of breeding,
began first to display its force by mixing the solidity of our nation
with the air and gaiety of our neighbours. This being granted to
be true, it would be a wonder if the poets, whose work is imitation,
should be the only persons in three kingdoms who should not
receive advantage by it ; or, if they should not more easily imitate
the wit and conversation of the present age than of the past.
Let us therefore admire the beauties and the heights of Shake-
speare, without falling after him into a carelessness, and, as I may
call it, a lethargy of thought, for whole scenes together. Let us
imitate, as we are able, the quickness and easiness of Fletcher
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without proposing him as a pattern to us, either in the redundancy
of his matter, or the incorrectness of his language. Let us admire
his wit and sharpness of conceit; but let us at the same time
acknowledge, that it was seldom so fixed, and made proper to his
character, as that the same things might not be spoken by any
person in the play. Let us applaud his scenes of love; but let us
confess, that he understood not either greatness or perfect honour
in the parts of any of his women. In fine, let us allow, that he had
so much fancy, as when he pleased he could write wit; but that he
wanted so much judgment, as seldom to have written humour, or
described a pleasant folly. Let us ascribe to Jonson, the height and
accuracy of judgment in the ordering of his plots, his choice of
characters, and maintaining what he had chosen to the end. But
let us not think him a perfect pattern of imitation, except it be in
humour; for love, which is the foundation of all comedies in other
languages, is scarcely mentioned in any of his plays: and for
humour itself, the poets of this age will be more wary than to imi-
tate the meanness of his persons. Gentlemen will now be enter-
tained by the follies of each other; and, though they allow Cobb
and Tibb to speak properly, yet they are not much pleased with
their tankard, or with their rags: and surely their conversation
can be no jest to them on the theatre, when they would avoid it in
the street.
To conclude all, let us render to our predecessors what is their
due, without confining ourselves to a servile imitation of all they
writ; and, without assuming to ourselves the title of better poets,
let us ascribe to the gallantry and civility of our age the advantage
which we have above them,and, to our knowledge of the customs
and manners of it, the happiness we have to please beyond them.
(From Defence of the Epilogue.)
THE WITS OF KING CHARLES II.'S DAYS
CERTAINLY the poets of that age enjoyed much happiness in the
conversation and friendship of one another. They imitated the
best way of living, which was, to pursue an innocent and inoffen-
sive pleasure, that which one of the ancients called eruditam
voluptatem. We have, like them, our genial nights, where our
discourse is neither too serious nor too light, but always pleasant,
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and for the most part, instructive; the raillery, neither too sharp upon the present, nor too censorious on the absent; and the cups only such as will raise the conversation of the night, without disturbing the business of the morrow. And thus far not only the philosophers, but the fathers of the Church have gone, without lessening their reputation of good manners or of piety. For this reason, I have often laughed at the ignorant and ridiculous descriptions which some pedants have given of the wits, as they are pleased to call them; which are a generation of men as unknown to them as the people of Tartary or the Terra Australis are to us. And therefore, as we draw giants and anthropophagi in those vacancies of our maps, where we have not travelled to discover better; so those wretches paint lewdness, atheism, folly, ill-reasoning, and all manner of extravagancies amongst us, for want of understanding what we are. Oftentimes it so falls out, that they have a particular pique to some one amongst us, and then they immediately interest heaven in their quarrel; as it is an usual trick in courts, when one designs the ruin of his enemy, to disguise his malice with some concernment of the king's, and to revenge his own cause, with pretence of vindicating the honour of his master. Such wits as they describe, I have never been so unfortunate as to meet in your company; but have often heard much better reasoning at your table, than I have encountered in their books. The wits they describe are the fops we banish. For blasphemy and atheism, if they were neither sin nor ill-manners, are subjects so very common, and worn so threadbare, that people who have sense avoid them, for fear of being suspected to have none. It calls the good name of their wit in question, as it does the credit of a citizen when his shop is filled with trumperies and painted titles, instead of wares; we conclude them bankrupt to all manner of understanding; and that to use blasphemy, is a kind of applying pigeons to the soles of the feet; it proclaims their fancy, as well as judgment, to be in a desperate condition. I am sure, for your own particular, if any of these judges had once the happiness to converse with you, to hear the candour of your opinions; how freely you commend that wit in others of which you have so large a portion yourself; how unapt you are to be censorious; with how much easiness you speak so many things, and those so pointed, that no other man is able to excel, or perhaps to reach by study, they would, instead of your accusers, become your proselytes. They would reverence so much sense
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and so much good nature in the same person; and come, like
the satyr, to warm themselves at that fire, of which they were
ignorantly afraid when they stood at a distance. But you have
too great a reputation to be wholly free from censure; it is a fine
which fortune sets upon all extraordinary persons, and from which
you should not wish to be delivered until you are dead.
(From Epistle Dedicatory to The Assignation.)
AN APOLOGY FOR THE DUKE OF GUISE
To the Right Honourable, LAWRENCE, EARL OF ROCHESTER, etc.
My Lord—The authors of this poem present it humbly to
your lordship's patronage, if you shall think it worthy of that
honour. It has already been a confessor, and was almost made
a martyr for the royal cause; but having stood two trials from
its enemies, one before it was acted, another in the representation,
and having been in both acquitted, it is now to stand the public
censure in the reading; where since of necessity it must have
the same enemies, we hope it may also find the same friends;
and therein we are secure, not only of the greater number, but of
the more honest and loyal party. We only expected bare justice
in the permission to have it acted; and that we had, after a
severe and long examination from an upright and knowing judge,
who, having heard both sides and examined the merits of the
cause, in a strict perusal of the play, gave sentence for us, that it
was neither a libel, nor a parallel of particular persons. In the
representation itself, it was persecuted with so notorious malice
by one side, that it procured us the partiality of the other; so
that the favour more than recompensed the prejudice. And it is
happier to have been saved (if so we were) by the indulgence of
our good and faithful fellow-subjects, than by our own deserts;
because thereby the weakness of the faction is discovered, which,
in us, at that time attacked the government and stood combined,
like the members of the rebellious league, against the lawful
sovereign authority. To what topic will they have recourse,
when they are manifestly beaten from their chief post, which has
always been popularity and majority of voices? They will tell
us, that the voices of a people are not to be gathered in a play-
house; and yet, even there, the enemies as well as friends, have
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a free admission; but while our argument was serviceable to
their interests, they could boast that the theatres were true
Protestant; and came insulting to the plays, when their own
triumphs were represented. But let them now assure themselves
that they can make the major part of no assembly, except it be of
a meeting-house. Their tide of popularity is spent; and the
natural current of obedience is, in spite of them, at last prevalent.
In which, my Lord, after the merciful providence of God, the
unshaken resolution, and prudent carriage of the King, and the
inviolable duty, and manifest innocence of his Royal Highness,
the prudent management of the ministers is also most conspicu-
ous. I am not particular in this commendation, because I am
unwilling to raise envy to your lordship, who are too just, not to
desire that praise should be communicated to others, which was
the common endeavour and co-operation of all. It is enough,
my lord, that your own part was neither obscure in it nor un-
hazardous. And if ever this excellent government, so well
established by the wisdom of our forefathers, and so much shaken
by the folly of this age, shall recover its ancient splendour,
posterity cannot be so ungrateful as to forget those who, in the
worst of times, have stood undaunted by their king and country, and,
for the safeguard of both, have exposed themselves to the malice
of false patriots, and the madness of an headstrong rabble. But
since this glorious work is yet unfinished, and though we have
reason to hope well of the success, yet the event depends on the
unsearchable providence of Almighty God; it is no time to raise
trophies, while the victory is in dispute; but every man, by your
example, to contribute what is in his power to maintain so just a
cause, on which depends the future settlement and prosperity of
three nations. The pilot's prayer to Neptune was not amiss in
the middle of the storm: "Thou mayest do with me, O Neptune,
what thou pleasest, but I will be sure to hold fast the rudder."
We are to trust firmly in the Deity, but so as not to forget, that
he commonly works by second causes, and admits of our en-
deavours with his concurrence. For our own parts we are
sensible, as we ought, how little we can contribute with our weak
assistance. The most we can boast of is, that we are not so in-
considerable as to want enemies, whom we have raised to ourselves
on no other account than that we are not of their number; and
- since that is their quarrel, they shall have daily occasion to hate us
more. It is not, my lord, that any man delights to see himself
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pasquined and affronted by their inveterate scribblers; but, on
the other side, it ought to be our glory, that themselves believe
not of us what they write. Reasonable men are well satisfied for
whose sakes the venom of their party is shed on us; because
they see, that at the same time our adversaries spare not those
to whom they owe allegiance and veneration. Their despair has
pushed them to break those bonds; and it is observable that the
lower they are driven, the more violently they write; as Lucifer
and his companions were only proud when angels, but grew
malicious when devils. Let them rail, since it is the only solace
of their miseries, and the only revenge which, we hope, they now
can take. The greatest and the best of men are above their
reach; and, for our meanness, though they assault us like footpads
in the dark, their blows have done us little harm; we yet live to
justify ourselves in open day, to vindicate our loyalty to the
government, and to assure your lordship, with all submission
and sincerity, that we are your lordship's most obedient, faithful
servants,
JOHN DRYDEN.
NAT. LIE.
(From Dedication of The Duke of Guise.)
DRYDEN AND HIS CRITICS
THIS, I think, my lord, is a sufficient reproach to you; and should
I carry it as far as mankind would authorise me, would be little
less than satire. And indeed, a provocation is almost necessary,
in behalf of the world, that you might be induced sometimes to
write; and in relation to a multitude of scribblers, who daily
pester the world with their insufferable stuff, that they might be
discouraged from writing any more. I complain not of their
lampoons and libels, though I have been the public mark for
many years. I am vindictive enough to have repelled force by
force, if I could imagine that any of them had ever reached me;
but they either shot at rovers, and therefore missed, or their
powder was so weak, that I might safely stand them at the nearest
distance. I answered not the Rehearsal, because I knew the
author sat to himself when he drew the picture, and was the very
Bayes of his own farce; because also I knew that my betters
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were more concerned than I was in that satire; and, lastly,
because Mr. Smith and Mr. Johnson, the main pillars of it, were
two such languishing gentlemen in their conversation, that I could
liken them to nothing but to their own relations, those noble
characters of men of wit and pleasure about the town. The like
considerations have hindered me from dealing with the lamentable
companions of their prose and doggrel. I am so far from defend-
ing my poetry against them, that I will not so much as expose
theirs. And for my morals, if they are not proof against their
attacks, let me be thought by posterity, what those authors would
be thought, if any memory of them, or of their writings, could en-
dure so long as to another age. But these dull makers of lampoons,
as harmless as they have been to me, are yet of dangerous example
to the public. Some witty men may perhaps succeed to their
designs, and mixing sense with malice, blast the reputation of the
most innocent amongst men, and the most virtuous amongst
women.
Heaven be praised, our common libellers are as free from the
imputation of wit as of morality; and therefore whatever mischief
they have designed, they have performed but little of it. Yet
these ill writers, in all justice, ought themselves to be exposed;
as Persius has given us a fair example in his first satire, which is
levelled particularly at them; and none is so fit to correct their
faults, as he who is not only clear from any in his own writings,
but is also so just, that he will never defame the good; and is
armed with the power of verse, to punish and make examples of
the bad.
(From Dedication to Juvenal.)
DRYDEN AND COLLIER
I SHALL say the less of Mr. Collier, because in many things he
has taxed me justly; and I have pleaded guilty to all thoughts
and expressions of mine, which can be truly argued of obscenity,
profaneness, or immorality, and retract them. If he be my enemy,
let him triumph; if he be my friend, as I have given him no
personal occasion to be otherwise, he will be glad of my repentance.
It becomes me not to draw my pen in the defence of a bad cause,
when I have so often drawn it for a good one. Yet it were not
difficult to prove, that, in many places, he has perverted my meaning
VOL. III
M
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by his glosses, and interpreted my words into blasphemy and bawdry, of which they were not guilty; besides, that he is too much given to horseplay in his raillery, and comes to battle like a dictator from the plough. I will not say "the zeal of God's house has eaten him up"; but I am sure it has devoured some part of his good manners and civility. It might also be doubted, whether it was altogether zeal which prompted him to this rough manner of proceeding; perhaps, it became not one of his function to rake into the rubbish of ancient and modern plays: a divine might have employed his pains to better purpose, than in the nastiness of Plautus and Aristophanes, whose examples, as they excuse not me, so it might be possibly supposed, that he read them not without some pleasure. They, who have written commentaries on those poets, or on Horace, Juvenal, and Martial, have explained some vices, which, without their interpretation, had been unknown in modern times. Neither has he judged impartially betwixt the former age and us.
There is more bawdry in one play of Fletcher's, called The Custom of the Country, then in all ours together. Yet this has been often acted on the stage, in my remembrance. Are the times so much more reformed now, than they were five-and-twenty years ago? If they are, I congratulate the amendment of our morals. But I am not to prejudice the cause of my fellow poets, though I abandon my own defence: they have some of them answered for themselves; and neither they nor I can think Mr. Collier so formidable an enemy, that we should shun him. He has lost ground. at the latter end of the day, by pursuing his point too far, like the Prince of Condé, at the battle of Senneph, from immoral plays, to no plays, ab abusu ad usum, non valet consequentia. But, being a party, I am not to erect myself into a judge. As for the rest of those who have written against me, they are such scoundrels, that they deserve not the least notice to be taken of them. Blackmore and Milbourne are only distinguished from the crowd, by being remembered to their infamy:
"Demetri, teque, Tigelli,
Discipulorum inter jubeo plorare cathedras."
(From Preface to the Fables.)
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JOHN DRYDEN
163
CHAUCER
HE must have been a man of a most wonderful comprehensive nature, because, as it has been truly observed of him, He has taken into the compass of his Canterbury Tales the various manners and humours (as we now call them) of the whole English nation, in his age. Not a single character has escaped him. All his pilgrims are severally distinguished from each other; and not only in their inclinations, but in their very physiognomies and persons. Baptista Porta could not have described their natures better, than by the marks which the poet gives them. The matter and manner of their tales, and of their telling, are so suited to their different education, humours, and callings, that each of them would be improper in any other mouth. Even the grave and serious characters are distinguished by their several sorts of gravity; their discourses are such as belong to their age, their calling, and their breeding; such as are becoming of them, and of them only. Some of his persons are vicious, and some virtuous; some are unlearned, or (as Chaucer calls them) lewd, and some are learned. Even the ribaldry of the low characters is different; the Reeve, the Miller, and the Cook, are several men, and distinguished from each other as much as the mincing Lady Prioress, and the broad-speaking, gap-toothed wife of Bath. But enough of this; there is such a variety of game springing up before me, that I am distracted in my choice, and know not what to follow. It is sufficient to say, according to the proverb, that here is God's plenty. We have our forefathers and great grand-dames all before us, as they were in Chaucer's days; their general characters are still remaining in mankind, and even in England, though they are called by other names than those of monks, and friars, and canons, and lady-abbesses, and nuns; for mankind is ever the same, and nothing lost out of nature, though everything is altered. May I have leave to do myself the justice (since my enemies will do me none, and are so far from granting me to be a good poet, that they will not allow me so much as to be a Christian, or a moral man), may I have leave, I say, to inform my reader, that I have confined my choice to such tales of Chaucer as savour nothing of immodesty.
If I had desired more to please than to instruct, the Reeve, the Miller, the Shipman, the Merchant, the Sumner, and, above all, the wife of Bath, in the prologue to her tale, would have procured
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me as many friends and readers, as there are beaux and ladies of
pleasure in the town. But I will no more offend against good
manners. I am sensible, as I ought to be, of the scandal I have
given by my loose writings ; and make what reparation I am able,
by this public acknowledgment. If anything of this nature, or
of profaneness, be crept into these poems, I am so far from
defending it, that I disown it, totum hoc indictum volo. Chaucer
makes another manner of apology for his broad speaking, and
Boccace makes the like : but I will follow neither of them. Our
countryman, in the end of his characters, before the Canterbury
Tales, thus excuses the ribaldry, which is very gross in many of
his novels :
"But firste, I praie you of your curtesie,
That ye ne arette it not my vilanie,
Though that I plainly speke in this matere,
To tellen you hir wordes, and hir chere :
Ne though I speke hir wordes proprely,
For this ye knowen al so well as I,
Who so shall telle a tale after a man,
He moste reherce as neigh as ever he can :
Everich word, if it be in his charge,
All speke he, never so rudely and so large :
Or elles he moste tellen his tale untrewe,
Or feignen thinges, or fiden wordes newe :
He may not spare, although he were his brother,
He moste as wel sayn o word as an other.
Crist spake himself full brode in holy writ,
And wel ye wote no vilanie is it,
Eke Plato sayeth, who so can him rede,
The wordes moste ben cosin to the dede."
Yet if a man should have inquired of Boccace or of Chaucer,
what need they had of introducing such characters, where obscene
words were proper in their mouths, but very indecent to be heard,
I know not what 'answer they could have made ; for that reason,
such tale shall be left untold by me.
(From Preface to the Fables.)
RELIGIO LAICI
A Poem with so bold a title, and a name prefixed from which the
handling of so serious a subject would not be expected, may
reasonably oblige the author to say somewhat in defence, both of
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himself and of his undertaking. In the first place, if it be objected
to me, that, being a layman, I ought not to have concerned myself
with speculations, which belong to the profession of divinity; I
could answer, that perhaps laymen, with equal advantages of parts
and knowledge, are not the most incompetent judges of sacred
things; but, in the due sense of my own weakness, and want of
learning, I plead not this; I pretend not to make myself a judge
of faith in others, but only to make a confession of my own. I
lay no unhallowed hand upon the ark, but wait on it, with the
reverence that becomes me, at a distance. In the next place, I
will ingenuously confess, that the helps I have used in this small
treatise, were, many of them, taken from the works of our own
reverend divines of the Church of England; so that the weapons
with which I combat irreligion, are already consecrated; though
I suppose they may be taken down as lawfully as the sword of
Goliath was by David, when they are to be employed for the
common cause against the enemies of piety. I intend not by this
to entitle them to any of my errors, which yet I hope are only
those of charity to mankind; and such as my own charity has
caused me to commit, that of others may more easily excuse.
Being naturally inclined to scepticism in philosophy, I have no
reason to impose my opinions in a subject which is above it; but
whatever they are, I submit them with all reverence to my mother
church, accounting them no further mine, than as they are
authorised, or at least uncondemned, by her.
(From Preface to Religio Laici.)
HIS OLD AGE
WHAT Virgil wrote in the vigour of his age, in plenty and its
ease, I have undertaken to translate in my declining years;
struggling with wants, oppressed with sickness, curbed in my
genius, liable to be misconstrued in all I write; and my judges,
if they are not very equitable, already prejudiced against me by
the lying character which has been given them of my morals.
Yet, steady to my principles, and not dispirited with my afflictions,
I have, by the blessing of God in my endeavours, overcome all
difficulties, and in some measure acquitted myself of the debt
which I owed the public when I undertook this work. In the
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first place, therefore, I thankfully acknowledge to the Almighty Power the assistance he has given me in the beginning, the prosecution, and conclusion of my present studies, which are more happily performed than I could have promised to myself, when I laboured under such discouragements.
For what I have done, imperfect as it is for want of health and leisure to correct it, will be judged in after ages, and possibly in the present, to be no dishonour to my native country, whose language and poetry would be more esteemed abroad, if they were better understood.
Somewhat (give me leave to say) I have added to both of them in the choice of words and harmony of numbers, which were wanting (especially the last) in all our poets, even in those who, being endued with genius, yet have not cultivated their mother tongue with sufficient care ; or, relying on the beauty of their thoughts, have judged the ornament of words, and sweetness of sound, unnecessary.
One is for raking in Chaucer (our English Ennius) for antiquated words, which are never to be revived but when sound or significancy is wanting in the present language.
But many of his crowds of men who daily die, or are slain for sixpence in a battle, merit to be restored to life if a wish could restore them.
Others have no ear for verse, nor choice of words, nor distinction of thoughts ; but mingle farthings with their gold to make up the sum.
Here is a field of satire open to me ; but since the Revolution I have wholly renounced that talent ; for who would give physic to the great, when he is uncalled—to do his patient no good, and endanger himself for his prescription ?
Neither am I ignorant but I may justly be condemned for many of those faults, of which I have too liberally arraigned others.
"Cynthius aurem Vellit et admonuit" . . .
It is enough for me, if the government will let me pass unquestioned.
In the meantime I am obliged in gratitude to return my thanks to many of them, who have not only distinguished me from others of the same party by a particular exception of grace, but without considering the man, have been bountiful to the poet, have encouraged Virgil to speak such English as I could teach him, and rewarded his interpreter for the pains he has taken in bringing him over into Britain, by defraying the charges of his voyage.
(From Postscript to the Æneis.)
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ANTHONY WOOD
[Anthony Wood was born in December 1632, in a house opposite Merton College, Oxford. He matriculated in 1647, at Merton, and became B.A. in 1652 In 1648 he refused to submit to the Parliamentary " Visitation," and was expelled from the University, but restored. In 1669 he completed his History and Antiquities, and in 1670 translated it, on condition of its publication by the Delegates, into Latin. He next proceeded to expand the lives of Oxonienses which appeared in 1691. He died in 1695, bequeathing his collections and books to the Ashmolean Museum, and was buried in Merton College ante-chapel.]
It has been observed by a French critic that while the men of the nineteenth century have added to literature much sentiment, and while the writers of the eighteenth century are full of facile intelligence, those of the seventeenth century are chiefly remarkable for will, or, as we say for " character." Now Anthony Wood's writings are of lasting value to the practical historian, and to the student of character. They possess this enduring value because they are the product of an incredible patience and consistency of character ; but they are not monuments of literature, or of literary style.
He had the bodily equipment of the true student—robust, and hardy in the extreme, a great pedestrian, sparing no pains to verify his observations in person ; temperate, able to rise at four, and study fasting till he supped ; able to eat, drink, and sleep alone: to buffet down sedentary melancholy, to devour muniment-rooms night and day, and die stubbornly, knee-deep in manuscript. Not that he was inhuman. The antiquarian is but a grim voluptuary : the happiest, and least dreaded of enthusiasts, for his ideals, safe in the past, change not, and threaten no change. Antiquarianism is rare, because it requires the æsthetic temperament, at leisure, united to a tough will ; and great learning together with a lack of education. Wide mental grasp, or the insight of a trained
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mind, would rarely be content with the faculty of hiving the petty
incoordinate masses of detail upon which the ultimate value of an
antiquary's work depends.
The first influences awakening his mind were the architecture
and beauty of the city in which he was both citizen and student,
and where his steadfast ambition kept him all his life. Wood
was born, lived, and died in the same street, and had thus con-
tinuous familiarity with his subject. Heraldic studies gave the
next and kindred impulse. He always concludes any memorial
sketch in his diary with some such note as : "Two barres or, a
cross patè fitch and a cressant in chief with a difference or."
The direction of his activity was finally decided by alighting
on Burton's History of Leicestershire, Dugdale's Antiquities of
Warwickshire, Leland's Collections, and the friendship of Elias
Ashmole, which spurred him to pursue their achievement.
His mind is somewhat slow in movement and apprehension. He
is cumbered by the range of his ambition, which was no less than to
recreate the past both of that University and city, whence his foot
so seldom departed. In the past he found that freedom which is of
the imagination. He planned to write a narrative of her history from
its cloudy source to his own day ; to supply fasti, or lists of her
magistrates, minute accounts of her ancient institutions, colleges,
and public buildings : to build again the levelled walls, girdle her
with the dried moat, retrace the silted trenches of old sieges, set
up again her thousand vanished Halls, and fill the streets with
snood and cowl,—black monks, white Carmelites, and students in
their gay coloured gowns. But more also : to write besides
Athene—particular lives of all her famous men ; and to do all
this not alone for the University, but also in turn for the City, her
bodily and grosser part. Less marvel is it that the mind is
cumbered with much serving than that this purpose was, as
regards the University wholly, as to the City in part, fulfilled.
Nor does he stop here—he carries the methods of research into
those of observation. The world is for him a note-book matter.
He has "an esurient genie for antiquities," but is nearly as diligent
to set forth the fashion of his contemporaries. He drags their
manners into his web, perhaps for the aid of antiquaries to come.
It is the age of the great diarists—of Pepys and Evelyn—and
like them Wood satisfies himself, he knows not why, in noting the
doings of himself and fellows, down to their dresses and petticst
foibles.
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ANTHONY WOOD
169
He collects a world of “surfaces,” impressions that well portray
himself. He is a newsletter also. Monstrous births, escapes,
blazing stars, scandals among the venerable, hangings, suicides,
and all manner of deaths : ballads and all processions royal and
funereal—all pageantries and dignified masquerades—are meat and
drink to him ; nor ever fails he narrowly to scrutinise the hatch-
ments on coffins and tombs, and mete sarcasm to false displays of
arms. Meanwhile he is daily dredging and ravaging college
archives, with fierce tenacity, for fifty years. The mind had
therefore no leisure strongly to react on the vast material amassed,
and this failure is reflected in his style.
He has been charged with partiality to Romanist writers in the
Athene ; but while his leanings would no doubt be rather to the
richer older cult than toward Puritan iconoclasm, he stands, in
truth, secluded as far as circumstances will permit from the great
religious controversies of his age ; and, despite loyalty to Oxford,
is plainly determined by the pursuit of historic truth about her.
Regardless of envy or fame, he applies a sound burgess common-
sense to monkish legend. In examining the tradition which
assigned a certain tower to the banished Roger Bacon, he points
out the unlikelihood of the retirement of the necromancer to
practise secret magic upon the common highway. Wood does
not test his problems with brevity. Not till he has confuted at
length a statement by some annalist is he content to show that no
such annalist ever really existed. Nor does he test authorities
with modern severity. Nevertheless, on the whole, he is very
trustworthy.
His style has no pretensions to form, and presents few notable
features. Throughout it is more or less disjointed by scrappy
treatment, and marred by the jerkiness of the habitual note-
taker, and lengthy passages of continuous prose seldom occur.
He is hampered by a painful accuracy which loads the unpre-
meditated sentence with parentheses. In the Athenæ it is most
continuous, and on the whole the best, becoming less full of cum-
brous gravity as he approaches the writers of his own generation.
In the History of the University it is disfigured by intricacy of
arrangement. There is a passage about Camden’s edition of
Asser Menevensis which may be taken as a pattern of confusedness.
Nevertheless, on subjects where he is, by long thinking, easily
master, as for instance in settling the rival claims to antiquity of
University College and his own Merton, he is clear and brief and
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business-like. The History of the City in its carly parts is full of
youthful grandiloquence ; the treatise on Colleges and Halls
marred by interjected notes of controversy and the desperate local
inconsequence of a guide-book ; the Diaries suffer less from weight
of matter, and are easy and natural in language, but their extreme
interest is rather personal and picturesque than literary. Com-
pared, however, to that of Dryden, Wood's style is clownish and
uncourtly, the antiquated dress of the “meer scholar.” It is thick
with old legal phrases and Latinisms. The omission of pronouns
is such a Latinism :—“If any dislike might be discovered to their
choice [if] should not cross them.” Another perhaps is the fre-
quent use of absolute constructions :—“Some of the stone-work
of the Temple Church blown down and the lead blown up and
shrivelled they mended it.” There are of course many traces of
archaicism, for to him an old word had the sacred relish of a relic ;
and there is also the pleasant old use of verbals, thus :—“Both
of whom struggling for the way, Pelham unhorsed him, so that
his horse trampling on his breast, he died.” Cudworth some-
where describes a school of divines as those that “boggle at the
Trinity.” Such quaint Jacobean incongruities of diction are
plentiful and refreshing in Wood. He rails at the governors
of the University as “lazy, proud, scarlaticall doctors,” the
“scarleteers,” He praises a grove as affording “much recreation
to the defatigated student by continuall chirping of the winged
choire.” It is prose half a century behind its time—behind that
of the delicate and courtly Halifax—but a robust survival, like
that of ancient timbered houses. Dragons and grape-vines ramp
along its face of black beams, and armorial carvings nod over its
cobbled archway. Folios and parchments stifle its long, uncertain
passages, and centuries have bowed the back of its stone-slated
roofs. It leans forward, curious and crabbed, into the street, and
its gable is crowned by the little sooty figure of a crumbling
knight.
F. H. Trench.
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ANCIENT OXFORD
SUCH, it seems, is the envy of time and vicissitude of things who
have long since worn out their memories and committed their
ruins to the grave. To tell you of all the varieties of arts and
sciences that have anciently been presented and delivered to us
by the learnedest of all ages will perhaps now, by reason of the
longinguity of time, seem incredible. To tell you also of the
injunctions of our old statutes, concerning the continual reading
here of the three philosophical, and seven liberal arts and sciences,
from the north part of St. Mary's Church even to the north wall
of the city, will also, to those that converse with the actions
but of yesterday, seem riddles and chimæras; but verily they
are all so full of truth and obvious to every man's capacity,
that if he doth but peep in our old statutes, or in the least give
glance upon our ancient scripts, he cannot but conclude this
place to be like the Areopagus at Athens, and style it by no other
name than Vicus Minervalis. Here, had we lived in those old
days, we might have beheld with what great emulation our old
philosophers would open their packs of literature (as I may say)
to their hungry auditors. Here also, each order in our Univer-
sity at their first coming and plantation, would with great pride
endeavour to blazon their parts, and give the world approbation
of their profound knowledge and philosophy. Every corner
porch, entry, hall, and school, in this street, was so wholly
dedicated and sacred for the use only of the gown, that it was
a great piaculum for an apron to approach its borders. What
shall I say? all things in relation towards the soul and accom-
plishment of man was here (only with the price of patience and
endeavour) to be obtained. And so far was it different from the
street at Paris, where the philosophical professors taught, in the
time of Dante the poet, and which, because of the continual
noise of the disputants there was by Petrarcha termed Vicus
Fragesus, that every cell, cavern, or cubicle of this place had a
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pleasant consort and concenter of parts therein. In the grammar
schools that were here (besides those in other places) you had the
masters and regents in that faculty still inculcating to you the
propriety of words ; in the rhetoric, the several tropes and figures
contained therein ; in the logic, the deduction of consequences
and the unravelling the mysteries therein, that thou mightest here-
after artificially open the several places of the scripture ; in the
mathematic and geometry those abstruse and sublime recondita,
to increase thy reason and fortify thy judgment ; and in the
theological those continual expositions and readings on the sacred
writ to munite thee against heresies and upstart notions that con-
tinually present themselves unto thee ; and the like. Of all
which, with several other exercises performed, as also of the
schools here I have more at large laid down in my discourse of
the schools.
(From History of City and Suburbs.)
THE KING'S COMING TO OXON
About one or two of the clock in the afternoon, upon notice of
the King's (Charles II.) approach, went from the Cross Inn and
other inns adjoining James (Bertie) Lord Norrys, Lord Licutenant,
with the loyal gentry of the county, to meet his majesty coming
from Windsor (across the road) by Tetsworth to meet the queen,
who came straight from London. He (the said Lord Norrys)
had two or three horses of state led before him, richly adorned.
After him went Sir Thomas Spencer, Bt., in the head of one of
the milita troops of the county. And after him Captain Henry
Bertie (the lord lieutenant's brother) in the head of another
troop, with two horses of state in the like livery as those before ;
with trumpets sounding, having the lord's livery on, and flags to
their trumpets containing the lord's arms and quarterings.
Between two and three of the clock proceeded by twos on foot from
the Guildshall down the High Street about eighteen constables of
the city and suburbs of Oxon with their painted and gilt staves.
Next to them were the four sergeants-at-mace, two on foot and
two on horseback, with their silver staves erected. Then the
macebearer, and town-clerk (John Paynton) with a chain of silver
gilt about his neck (a Royalist this day, and when the times serve
a Cromwellian). After these rode the loyal mayor, John
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Bowell, Esq., in his scarlet gown, and a livery on one side walking by his horse, and on the other the recorder on horseback in his black gown. After them the aldermen, thirteen baylives, and such that had been baylives, to the number of about twenty-four, all in scarlet gowns, faced with fur, and each person with a livery servant by his side, to lead their horses in case they should strike out and disturb the formality. After these rode, by twos also, the rest of the house and common council (about sixty in number) in their black gowns, faced with fur. All which being come to the east gate made a stop. Soon after the king approaching within the gate, the mayor, recorder, and some of the scarleteers alighted, while the rest put themselves out to march before the king. The coach being by the king commanded to stand, the mayor and recorder knelt down on a mat by the coach side, the latter of which (being the city mouth), very smoothly spake an English speech. Which, being concluded, the mayor surrendered up the gestamen of his authority. Which being graciously returned (and thereupon a rich pair of gloves was delivered to his majesty and another to the queen) they mounted and marched bare-headed the same way they went, not in like order as they went down, but the black first, then the scarleteers next, and just before the king's coach the mayor with the mace on his shoulder, respectively put thereon by the mace-bearer. Behind their majesties' coach marched the life-guard and after them other coaches of his majesty's retinue. Then went the lord-lieutenant, high sheriff, gentry of the county, and their liveries; among whom was one of the knights of the shire called Sir Philip Harcourt, who though of most ancient and noble extract and of a generous and sweet nature, yet fame tells us that he is tinged with Presbyterian leaven, but whether he will appear so in the parliament house we cannot yet tell. And lastly went the county troops, buff-coated and well horsed. In this order they passed to Quatervois (the market place) and thence down the South Street to Christ Church, where their majesties intend to lodge during their abode in this place. But that which is most to be noted is that all the way the king passed were such shoutings, acclamations, and ringing of bells, made by loyal hearts and smart lads of the laity of Oxon, that the air was so much pierced that the clouds seemed to divide. The general cry was “Long live King Charles,” and many drawing up to the very coach window cried “Let the king live, and the devil hang up all Round-
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heads," at which his majesty smiled and seemed well pleased. The throng and violence of people to express their affections was such that the coach was scarce able to pass. The youths were all on fire, and when love and joy are mixed, cannot but follow rudeness and boisterousness. Their hats did continually fly, and, seriously, had you been there, you would have thought that they would have thrown away their very heads and legs. Here was an arm for joy flung out of joint and there a leg displaced, but by what art they can find their way back let the Royal Society tell you. 'Twas observed by some of our curiosi that as the king passed westward up the High Street, the small rain that then fell, which was driven by the west wind, was returned back all the way in that street at least a man's length by the very strength of voices and hummings. This perhaps might be thought incredible, but I'll assure you, I, being then in a stationer's shop, did partly observe it in myself, and had I not been so much diverted by the zealous rage of young blood, I might have given it in upon mine oath. At the king's coming into the most spacious quadrangle of Christ Church, what by the shouts and the melodious ringing of the ten stately bells there, the college sounded and the buildings did learn from its scholars to echo forth his majesty's welcome. You might have heard it ring again and again: "Welcome ! welcome !! thrice welcome !!! Charles the great!"
After nine at night were bonfires made in several streets, wherein were only wanting rumps and cropped ears to make the flame burn merrily ; and at some were tables of refection erected by our bonny youths, who being e'en mad with joy, forced all that passed by to carouse on their knees a health to their beloved Charles.
(From The Life and Times.)
THE AUTHOR OF OCEANA
Now let's return to our author Harrington, who, when he thought that after the death of his master monarchy would never be restored, he followed his own geny, which lay chiefly towards politics and democratical government. He made several essays on poetry, as in writing of love verses, and translating of Virgil's Eclogues, but his muse was rough, and Harry Nevill, an ingenious and well-bred gentleman, and a good (but conceited)
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poet, being his familiar and confident friend, dissuaded him from tampering with poetry, and to apply himself to the improvement of his proper talent, viz. politics and political reflections. Whereupon he wrote The Commonwealth of Oceana, and caused it to be printed at London. At the appearance of which, it was greedily bought up, and coming into the hands of Hobbes of Malmsbury, he would often say that H. Nevill had a finger in that pie; and those that knew them both were of the same opinion, and by that book and both their smart discourses and inculcatures daily in coffec-houses, they obtained many proselytes. In 1659, in the beginning of Michaelmas term, they had every night a meeting at the then Turk's-head in the new palace yard at Westminster, (the next house to the stairs where people take water) called Miles's coffce-house, to which place their disciples and virtuosi would commonly then repair ; and their discourses about govern ment and of ordering of a commonwealth, were the most ingenious and smart that ever were heard, for the arguments in the parlia ment house were but flat to those. This gang had a balloting box, and balloted how things should be carried, by way of ten tamens ; which being not used or known in England before, upon this account the room every evening was very full. Besides our author and H. Nevill, who were the prime men of this club, were Cyrack Skinner, a merchant's son of London, an ingenious young gentleman, and scholar to John Milton, which Skinner sometimes held the chair ; Major John Wildman, Charles Wolseley of Staffordshire, Roger Coke, Will Poultney (afterwards a knight), who sometimes held the chair ; John Hoskyns, John Aubrey, Maximilian Pettie of Telsworth in Oxfordshire, a very able man in these matters, and who had more than once turned the council board of Oliver Cromwell ; Michael Mallet, Ph. Carteret of the Isle of Guernsey, Francis Cradock, a merchant ; Henry Ford ; Major Venner, nephew to Dr. Tobias Venner the physician ; Thos. Marriett of Warwickshire, Henry Croone, a physician ; Edw. Bagshaw of Christ Church, and sometimes Robert Wood of Lincoln College and James Arlerne, then or soon after a divine, with many others besides, antagonists or . auditors of note, whom I cannot now name. Dr. Will Petty was a Rota-man, and would sometimes trouble John Harrington in his club, and one Stafford, a gent. of Northamptonshire, who used to be an auditor, did with his gang come among them one evening, very mellow from the tavern, and did much affront the junto, and
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tore in pieces their orders and minutes. The soldiers who commonly were there as auditors and spectators would have kicked them downstairs, but Harrington's moderation and persuasion hindered them. The doctrine was very taking, and the more because as to human foresight there was no possibility of the king's return. The greatest of the parliament men hated this design of rotating and balloting, as against their power. Eight or ten were for it, of which number Henry Nevill was one, who proposed it to the House, and made it out to the members thereof, that except they embraced that way of government they would be ruined. The model of it was, that the third part of the senate or House should rote out by ballot every year, so that every ninth year the said senate would be wholly altered. No magistrate was to continue above three years, and all to be chosen by ballot; than which choice nothing could be invented more fair and impartial, as 'twas then thought, though opposed by many for several reasons. This club of commonwealths' men lasted till about the 21st of February 1659; at which time the secluded members being restored by General George Monk, all their models vanished. After the king's restoration, our author Harrington retired and lived in private, but being looked upon as a dangerous person, he, with Major John Wildman, and Praise-god Barbon a notorious schismatic, were committed prisoners to the Tower of London, 26th November 1661, where, continuing for some time, Harrington was transmitted to Portsea Castle, and kept there for several months. Afterwards being set at liberty, he travelled into Italy, where, talking of models, commonwealths, and government, he was reputed no better than a whimsical or crack-brained person. 'Tis true that his close restraint, which did not agree with his high spirit, and hot and rambling head, was the protarttic cause of his deliration or madness ; I do not mean outrageousness, for he would discourse rationally enough, and be facetious in company, but a deep conceit and fancy that his perspiration turned into flies, and sometimes into bees. Which fancy possessed him a whole year before he died, his memory and discourse being then taken away by a disease. So that he, who had been before a brisk and lively chevalier, was then made a sad example of mortality to H. Nevill (who did not leave him to his last) and others of his intimate acquaintance, who much lamented his loss.
(From the Life of Harrington in the Athenæ Oxonienses.)
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JOHN LOCKE
[John Locke, the son of a Somersetshire attorney, was born in 1632. He was educated at Westminster School, under Dr. Busby, and passed to Christ Church in 1652, where after taking his degree he became Greek Lecturer. Being relieved of the condition of taking orders, which was attached to his studentship, he devoted himself chiefly to the study of medicine, and continued this study in later life, in the intervals allowed him by public employment and by philosophical pursuits. It was in his medical capacity that he formed the close friendship with Lord Shaftesbury (the Achitophel of Dryden's Satire) which greatly influenced his life, and which subsequently involved him in a suspicion of complicity with Shaftesbury's revolutionary designs, and led to his expulsion from Christ Church. Weak health enforced, and a sufficient competence made possible, a life of considerable leisure, which he spent largely in travel and in discursive scientific and philosophical researches. In these he reflected the spirit of the Royal Society (of which he was a leading member) and of the Latitudinarian party of the day. An ardent supporter of the Revolution, he returned to England with the Prince of Orange . and published the Essay on Human Understanding (his most important work) in 1690. His Two Treatises of Government, written in opposition to Sir Robert Filmer's Patriarcha, appeared in the same year. His first Letter on Toleration had been published in 1686 ; and three other letters on the same subject followed—the last appearing after his death. In 1693 he published his Thoughts on Education. He filled some important public offices, especially in connection with the scheme for the colonisation of Carolina (in the reign of Charles II ), and the Commission on Trade (under William III.) He died in 1704.]
So far as subject is concerned, Locke's writings deal with matters of perennial interest, and his treatment of these matters is such as to secure for him the undivided support of one large section of mankind. His aim in philosophy is to establish a system which satisfies a certain sort of reasoning, which shuts the door against metaphysical speculation, and which, within certain circumscribed limits, furnishes a logical and consistent explanation of intellectual processes. It was in no sense fruitful of great results, and almost inevitably provoked, first, a materialism which Locke himself would have disowned, and next a critical
VOL. III
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reaction, under the influence of which his system, except as a specious exposition of commonplace thought, inevitably crumbled into decay. In education his chief object was to combat existing methods, which he believed to be connected with creeds and systems to which he was opposed, and to propound a theory which was easier of acceptance, simpler in practice, and less severe in its demands upon natural instinct than these were. In politics he had to demolish theories of divine right and authority, which had been strained and exaggerated in their application, and to find a rational basis for an accident of politics—the Revolution of 1688—with which he, in common with the mass of his fellow-countrymen, happened, upon good and sufficient grounds, to find themselves in agreement. In each sphere Locke was certain to find supporters, and although a larger and more extended view may find in his theories much that is inadequate and unsatisfactory, he was certain of wide authority in his own day, and of much respect amongst a large section at least of posterity. All that we can object to his views —and the objection is a large one—is that they have the essential vice of compromise, that they represent a passing phase as a permanent solution of historical problems, that they attain to no logical completeness, and that they satisfy only those doubts which can be persuaded to forego a large and fruitful domain of speculation. In philosophy he was more popular in his own day than Berkeley, and his works have continued to be accepted as educational manuals, while Berkeley’s remain unread. He never carried his theories to the logical conclusion of Hume’s materialism, and never roused against himself a body of orthodox partisanship, so strong as that roused by Hume. The insufficiency of his system was proved by the reaction typified by Kant ; but Kant is read by the specialist, and Locke is accepted, if not read, by the adherents of popular rationalism. In education he represented a school which has never ceased to have its votaries, and which has that speciousness that comes from basing its dictates on a natural development, which minimised difficulties, and paid a complimentary homage to the tendencies of human nature. But in his theories, and in his practical direction, Locke shows a knowledge of life and of character which has not always been vouchsafed to those who have made a business of pedagogy. In politics Locke sought to find a rational basis for what was the arbitrary result of the circumstances of his own day. He propounded a theory of society, which was admirably reasoned on an a priori method,
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but which was, historically, altogether untrue. It was to his
advantage that its rationalising was at the moment acceptable,
and that its lack of historical basis was undetected in his own
day, and even when detected, did not destroy its sufficiency as a
defence of the Revolution, which was the greatest event of his time.
But it is not our business here to present in detail, or to
criticise, the theories of Locke, whether in philosophy, education,
or politics. We have only to examine his style. And here he is
entitled to the praise of entirely subordinating style to subject.
This is no small sign of literary art : and such literary art we
cannot deny to Locke. He was a man to whom the niceties of
language were of little moment; but he was of calm and equable
temper, impressed with a sense of what was dignified and
becoming, adequately acquainted with the masterpieces of
literary genius, and always scrupulous, in his language, to
observe rules and to obey the dictates of what in literature is
analogous to courtesy in social intercourse. It would be absurd
to say that Locke's style is nervous, or original, or instinct with
any impulse of feeling, or stimulated by any current of imagina-
tion. But it is almost always correct; it flows evenly and smoothly,
and has dignity and even grace, if it lacks variety and force. It
is seen at its worst, perhaps, in his philosophical work, where his
very limitations of thought made him prone to argue in a circle,
and give to his style a character of dull and heavy monotony.
It is much more easy in his Treatise on Education, where he is
made more direct and practical by contact with the facts of life,
and where he often inculcates his precepts in homely and racy
English. In his political writing he endeavours, not always
successfully, to be popular, and to gain the ear of a wider audience.
In the opening chapters of his Two Treatises on Government the
effort to attain this popularity in phraseology is clearly seen, and
the effort is not unsuccessful. But it quickly dies away. The
student and the literary recluse assert themselves over the
pamphleteer : and the style presently falls into the orderly and
correct prose of the literary theorist, and deserts the more lively
outbursts of the partisan politician. But if Locke is never original
in his style, and never shows the force and vigour of one who
speaks straight to the deeper instincts of human nature, we must
still accord to him the praise of regularity, of dignity, of scrupulous
accuracy in diction, up to the measure of logical accuracy to
which his thought attained.
H. CRAIK.
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PERCEPTION
This faculty of perception seems to me to be that which puts the distincƫion betwixt the animal kingdom and the inferior parts of nature. For however vegetables have, many of them, some degrees of motion, and upon the different application of other bodies to them, do very briskly alter their figures and motions, and so have obtained the name of sensitive plants, from a motion which has some resemblance to that which in animals follows upon sensation: yet, I suppose, it is all bare mechanism, and no otherwise produced, than the turning of a wild oat-beard, by the insinuation of the particles of moisture ; or the shortening of a rope, by the affusion of water. All which is done without any sensation in the subject, or the having or receiving any ideas.
Perception, I believe, is in some degree in all sorts of animals ; though in some, possibly, the avenues provided by nature for the reception of sensations are so few, and the peıception they are received with so obscure and dull, that it comes extremely short of the quickness and variety of sensation which are in other animals ; but yet it is sufficient for, and wisely adapted to, the state and condition of that sort of animals who are thus made. So that the wisdom and goodness of the Maker plainly appear in all the parts of this stupendous fabric ; and all the several degrees and ranks of creatures in it.
We may, I think, from the make of an oyster, or cockle, reasonably conclude that it has not so many nor so quick senses, as a man, or several other animals ; nor if it had, would it, in that state and incapacity of transferring itself from one place to another, be bettered by them. What good would sight and hearing do to a creature that cannot move itself to or from the objects wherein at a distance it perceives good or evil ? and would not quickness of sensation be an inconvenience to an
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animal that must lie still where chance has once placed it,
and there receive the afflux of colder or warmer, clean or foul
water, as it happens to come to it ?
But yet I cannot but think there is some small dull perception,
whereby they are distinguished from perfect insensibility. And
that this may be so, we have plain instances even in mankind
itself. Take one, in whom decrepid old age has blotted out
the memory of his past knowledge, and clearly wiped out the
ideas his mind was formerly stored with, and has, by destroying
his sight, hearing, and smell quite, and his taste to a great
degree, stopped up almost all the passages for new ones to enter ;
or, if there be some of the inlets yet half open, the impressions
made are scarce perceived, or not at all retained. How far
such an one (notwithstanding all that is boasted of innate
principles) is in his knowledge, and intellectual faculties, above
the condition of a cockle or an oyster, I leave to be considered.
And if a man has passed sixty years in such a state, as it is
possible he might, as well as three days ; I wonder what
difference there would have been, in any intellectual perfections,
between him and the lowest degree of animals.
Perception then being the first step and degree towards
knowledge, and the inlet of all the materials of it ; the fewer
senses any man, as well as any other creature, hath, and the
fewer and duller the impressions are that are made by them ;
the more remote are they from that knowledge which is to be
found in some men. But this being in great variety of degrees
(as may be perceived amongst men) cannot certainly be dis-
covered in the several species of animals, much less in their
particular individuals. It suffices me only to have remarked
here, that perception is the first operation of all our intellectual
faculties, and the inlet of all knowledge in our minds. But I
am apt too imagine that it is perception, in the lowest degree
of it, which puts the boundaries between animals and the
inferior ranks of creatures. But this I mention only as my
conjecture by the by, it being indifferent to the matter in
hand which way the learned shall determine of it.
(From Essay concerning Human Understanding.)
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THE GREATER GOOD DOES NOT DETERMINE
THE WILL
IT seems so established and settled a maxim by the general consent of all mankind that good, the greater good, determines the will, that I do not at all wonder that when I first published my thoughts on this subject I took it for granted; and I imagine that by a great many I shall be thought more excusable for having then done so, than that now I have ventured to recede from so received an opinion. But yet upon a stricter inquiry, I am forced to conclude that good, the greater good, though apprehended and acknowledged to be so, does not determine the will, until our desire, raised proportionably to it, makes us uneasy in the want of it. Convince a man ever so much that plenty has an advantage over poverty; make him see and own that the handsome conveniences of life are better than nasty penury: yet as long as he is content with the latter, and finds no uneasiness in it, he moves not; his will never is determined to any action that shall bring him out of it. Let a man be ever so well persuaded to the advantages of virtue, that it is as necessary to a man who has any great aims in this world or hopes in the next, as food to life; yet, till he hungers or thirsts after righteousness, till he feels an uneasiness in the want of it, his will will not be determined to any action in pursuit of this confessed greater good; but any other uneasiness he feels in himself shall take place, and carry his will to other actions. On the other side, let a drunkard see that his health decays, his estate wastes; discredit and diseases and the want of all things, even of his beloved drink, attends him in the course he follows; yet the returns of uneasiness to miss his companions, the habitual thirst after his cups at the usual time, drives him to the tavern, though he has in his view the loss of health and plenty, and perhaps of the joys of another life: the least of which is no inconsiderable good, but such as he confesses is far greater than the tickling of his palate with a glass of wine or the idle chat of a soaking club. It is not the want of viewing the greater good; for he sees and acknowledges it, and, in the intervals of his drinking hours, will take resolution to pursue the greater good; but when the uneasiness to miss his accustomed delight returns, the greater acknowledged good loses its hold, and the present uneasiness determines the will to the
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accustomed action, which thereby gets stronger footing to prevail
against the next occasion, though he at the same time makes
secret promises to himself, that he will do so no more ; this is the
last time he will act against the attainment of those greater goods.
And that he is from time to time in the state of that unhappy
complainer, video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor;1 which
sentence, allowed for true, and made good by constant experience,
may this, and possibly no other way, be easily made intelligible.
If we inquire into the reason of what experience makes so
evident in fact, and examine why it is uneasiness alone operates
on the will, and determines it in its choice ; we shall find that we,
being capable but of one determination of the will to one action
at once, the present uneasiness that we are under does naturally
determine the will, in order to that happiness which we all aim at
in all our actions ; forasmuch as whilst we are under any uneasi-
ness, we cannot apprehend ourselves happy, or in the way to it.
Pain and uneasiness being, by every one, concluded and felt to
be inconsistent with happiness, spoiling the relish even of those
good things which we have ; a little pain serving to mar all the
pleasure we rejoiced in. And therefore that which of course
determines the choice of our will to the next action, will always
be the removing of pain, as long as we have any left, as the first
and necessary step towards happiness.
(From the Same.)
ADAM'S MONARCHY
Thus we have examined our author's argument for Adam's
monarchy, founded on the blessing pronounced, Gen. i. 28.
Wherein I think it impossible for any sober reader to find any
other but the setting of mankind above the other kinds of
creatures in this habitable earth of ours. It is nothing but the
giving to man, the whole species of man, as the chief inhabitant,
who is the image of his Maker, the dominion over the other
creatures. This lies so obvious in the plain words, that any one
but our author would have thought it necessary to have shown
how these words, that seemed to say the quite contrary, gave
"Adam monarchical absolute power" over other men, or the sole
property in all the creatures ; and methinks in a business of this
1 I see the better course, and approve it : I follow the worse.
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moment, and that whereon he builds all that follows, he should
have done something more than barely cite words which
apparently make against him; for I confess, I cannot see
anything in them tending to Adam's monarchy, or private
dominion, but quite the contrary. And I the less deplore the
dulness of my apprehension herein, since I find the apostle seems
to have as little notion of any such "private dominion of Adam"
as I, when he says, "God gives us all things richly to enjoy";
which he could not do, if it were all given away already to
monarch Adam, and the monarchs his heirs and successors. To
conclude, this text is so far from proving Adam sole proprietor,
that, on the contrary, it is a confirmation of the original
community of all things amongst the sons of men, which
appearing from this donation of God, as well as other places of
Scripture, the sovereignty of Adam, built upon his "private
dominion," must fall, not having any foundation to support it.
But yet, if after all, any one will needs have it so, that by this
donation of God, Adam was made sole proprietor of the whole
earth, what will this be to his sovereignty? and how will it
appear, that propriety in land gives a man power over the life
of another? or how will the possession even of the whole earth
give any one a sovereign arbitrary authority over the persons of
men? The most specious thing to be said is, that he that is
proprietor of the whole world, may deny all the rest of mankind
food, and so at his pleasure starve them, if they will not acknow-
ledge his sovereignty, and obey his will. If this were true, it
would be a good argument to prove, that there never was any
such property, that God never gave any such private dominion;
since it is more reasonable to think, that God, who bid mankind
increase and multiply, should rather himself give them all a right
to make use of the food and raiment, and other conveniencies of
life, the materials whereof he had so plentifully provided for
them, than to make them depend upon the will of a man for
their subsistence, who should have power to destroy them all
when he pleased, and who, being no better than other men, was
in succession likelier, by want and the dependence of a scanty
fortune, to tie them to hard service, than by liberal allowance of
the conveniencies of life to promote the great design of God,
"increase and multiply": he that doubts this, let him look into
the absolute monarchies of the world, and see what becomes of
the conveniencies of life, and the multitudes of people.
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JOHN LOCKE
185
But we know God hath not left one man so to the mercy of
another, that he may starve him if he please ; God, the Lord and
Father of all, has given no one of his children such a property
in his peculiar portion of the things of this world, but that he has
given his needy brother a right to the surplusage of his goods ;
so that it cannot justly be denied him, when his pressing wants
call for it ; and therefore no man could ever have a just power
over the life of another by right of property in land or posses-
sions ; since it would always be a sin, in any man of estate, to
let his brother perish for want of affording him relief out of his
plenty. As justice gives every man a title to the product of his
honest industry, and the fair acquisitions of his ancestors
descended to him ; so charity gives every man a title to so much
out of another's plenty as will keep him from extreme want,
where he has no means to subsist otherwise : and a man can no
more justly make use of another's necessity to force him to
become his vassal, by withholding that relief God requires him
to afford to the wants of his brother, than he that has more
strength can seize upon the weaker, master him to his obedience,
and with a dagger at his throat offer him death or slavery.
Should anyone make so perverse an use of God's blessings
poured on him with a liberal hand ; should anyone be cruel and
uncharitable to that extremity ; yet all this would not prove that
propriety in land, even in this case, gave any authority over the
persons of men, but only that compact might ; since the authority
of the rich proprietor, and the subjection of the needy beggar,
began not from the possession of the lord, but the consent of
the poor man, who preferred being his subject to starving. And
the man he thus submits to, can pretend to no more power over
him, than he has consented to, upon compact. Upon this ground
a man's having his stores filled in a time of scarcity, having
money in his pocket, being in a vessel at sea, being able to
swim, etc. may as well be the foundation of rule and dominion,
as being possessor of all the land in the world ; any of these
being sufficient to enable me to save a man's life, who would
perish, if such assistance were denied him ; and anything, by this
rule, that may be an occasion of working upon another's necessity
to save his life, or anything dear to him, at the rate of his freedom,
may be made a foundation of sovereignty, as well as property.
From all which it is clear, that though God should have given
Adam private dominion, yet the private dominion could give him
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no sovereignty : but we have already sufficiently proved, that God
gave him no "private dominion."
(From Two Treatises on Government.)
FORCE WITHOUT RIGHT, A STATE OF WAR
THE state of war is a state of enmity and destruction : and there-
fore declaring by word or action, not a passionate and hasty, but
a sedate settled design upon another man's life, puts him in a
state of war with him against whom he has declared such an
intention, and so has exposed his life to the other's power to be
taken away by him, or any one that joins with him in his defence,
and espouses his quarrel ; it being reasonable and just, I should
have a right to destroy that which threatens me with destruction :
for, by the fundamental law of nature, man being to be preserved
as much as possible, when all cannot be preserved, the safety of
the innocent is to be preferred : and one may destroy a man who
makes war upon him, or has discovered an enmity to his being,
for the same reason that he may kill a wolf or a lion ; because
such men are not under the ties .of the common law of reason,
have no other rule, but that of force and violence, and so may be
treated as beasts of prey, those dangerous and noxious creatures
that will be sure to destroy him whenever he falls into their power.
And hence it is, that he who attempts to get another man into
his absolute power, does thereby put himself into a state of war
with him ; it being to be understood as a declaration of a design
upon his life : for I have reason to conclude, that he who would
get me into his power without my consent, would use me as he
pleased when he got me there, and destroy me too when he had
a fancy to it ; for nobody can desire to have me in his absolute
power, unless it be to compel me by force to that which is against
the right of my freedom, i.e. make me a slave. To be free from
such force is the only security of my preservation ; and reason
bids me look on him, as an enemy to my preservation, who would
take away that freedom which is the fence to it ; so that he who
makes an attempt to enslave me, thereby puts himself into a state
of war with me. He that, in the state of nature, would take away
the freedom that belongs to anyone in that state, must necessarily
be supposed to have a design to take away everything else, that
freedom being the foundation of all the rest ; as he that, in the
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state of society, would take away the freedom belonging to those
in that society or commonwealth, must be supposed to design to
take away from them everything else, and so be looked on as in
a state of war.
This makes it lawfull for a man to kill a thief, who has not in
the least hurt him, nor declared any design upon his life, any
farther than, by the use of force, so to get him in his power, as
to take away his money, or what he pleases, from him ; because,
using force, where he has no right, to get me into his power, let
his pretence be what it will, I have no reason to suppose, that he,
who would take away my liberty, would not, when he had me in
his power, take away everything else. And therefore it is lawfull
for me to treat him as one who has put himself into a state of war
with me, i.e. kill him if I can ; for to that hazard does he justly
expose himself, whoever introduces a state of war, and is an
aggressor in it.
And here we have the plain "difference between the state of
nature and the state of war," which, however some men have
confounded, are as far distant, as a state of peace, good-will,
mutual assistance, and preservation, and a state of enmity, malice,
violence, and mutual destruction, are one from another. Men
living together according to reason, without a common superiōr
on earth, with authority to judge between them, is properly the
state of nature. But force, or a declared design of force, upon
the person of another ; where there is no common superior on
earth to appeal to for relief, is the state of war : and it is the
want of such an appeal gives a man the right of war even against
an aggressor, though he be in socicty and a fellow subject. Thus
a thief, whom I cannot harm, but by appeal to the law, for having
stolen all that I am worth, I may kill, when he sets on me to rob
me but of my horse or coat ; because the law, which was made
for my preservation, where it cannot interpose to secure my life
from present force, which, if lost, is capable of no reparation,
permits me my own defence, and the right of war, a liberty to
kill the aggressor, because the agglessor allows not time to appeal
to our common judge, nor the decision of the law, for remedy in
a case where the mischief may be irreparable. Want of a
common judge with authority, puts all men in a state of nature :
force without right, upon a man's person, makes a state of war,
both where there is, and is not, a cominon judge.
(From the Same.)
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THE PROPER QUALITIES FOR A TUTOR
The character of a sober man, and a scholar, is, as I have above observed, what every one expects in a tutor.
This generally is thought enough, and is all that parents commonly look for.
But when such an one has emptied out, into his pupil, all the Latin and logic he has brought from the university, will that furniture make him a fine gentleman?
Or can it be expected that he should be better bred, better skilled in the world, better principled in the grounds and foundations of true virtue and generosity, than his young tutor is?
To form a young gentleman, as he should be, it is fit his governor himself should be well-bred, understand the ways of carriage, and measures of civility, in all the variety of persons, times, and places;
and keep his pupil, as much as his age requires, constantly to the observation of them.
This is an art not to be learnt nor taught by books:
nothing can give it but good company and observation joined together.
The tailor may make his clothes modish, and the dancing-master give fashion to his motions;
yet neither of these, though they set off well, make a well-bred gentleman;
no, though he have learning to boot;
which, if not well managed, makes him more impertinent and intolerable in conversation.
Breeding is that, which sets a gloss upon all his other good qualities, and renders them useful to him, in procuring him the esteem and good will of all that he comes near.
Without good-breeding, his other accomplishments make him pass but for proud, conceited, vain, or foolish.
Courage, in an ill-bred man, has the air, and escapes not the opinion, of brutality:
learning becomes pedantry;
wit, buffoonery;
plainness, rusticity;
good-nature, fawning;
and there cannot be a good quality in him, which want of breeding will not warp, and disfigure to his disadvantage.
Nay, virtue and parts, though they are allowed their due commendation, yet are not enough to procure a man a good reception, and make him welcome wherever he comes.
Nobody contents himself with rough diamonds, and wears them so, who would appear with advantage.
When they are polished and set, then they give a lustre.
Good qualities are the substantial riches of the mind;
but it is good-breeding sets them off:
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ceptable, must give beauty as well as strength to his actions.
olidity, or even uscfulness, is not enough: a graceful way and
ishion in everything is that which gives the ornament and
king. And, in most cases, the manner of doing is of more conse-
quence than the thing done; and upon that depends the satisfac-
on or disgust, wherewith it is received. This, therefore, which
es not in the putting off the hat, nor making of compliments,
ut in a due and free composure of language, looks, motion,
osture, place, etc., suited to persons and occasions, and can
e learned only by habit and use, though it be above the
apacity of children, and little ones should not be perplexed
bout it; yet it ought to be begain, and in a good measure
earned, by a young gentleman, whilst he is under a tutor,
efore he comes into the world upon his own legs; for then
isually it is too late to hope to reform several habitual indecencies,
vhich lie in little things. For the carriage is not as it should
e, till it is become natural in every part; falling, as skilful
nusicians' fingers do, into harmonious order, without care, and
vithout thought. If in conversation a man's mind be taken up
vith a solicitous watchfulness about any part of his behaviour,
nstead of being mended by it, it will be constrained, uneasy,
ind ungraceful.
Besides, this part is most necessary to be formed by the
ands and care of a governor; because, though the errors com-
nitted in breeding are the first that are taken notice of by
others, yet they are the last that anyone is told of. Not but
hat the malice of the world is forward enough to tattle of
hem; but it is always out of his hearing, who should make
rofit of their judgment, and reform himself by their censure.
And indeed this is so nice a point to be meddled with, that
even those who are friends, and wish it were mended, scarce
ever dare mention it, and tell those they love that they are
guilty in such or such cases of ill-breeding. Errors in other
things may often with civility be shown another; and it is no
breach of good manners or friendship to set him right in other
mistakes: but good-breeding itself allows not a man to touch
upon this; or to insinuate to another, that he is guilty of want of
breeding. Such information can come only from those who
have authority over them: and from them too it comes very
hardly and harshly to a grown man; and, however softened,
goes but ill down with any one, who has lived ever so little in
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the world. Wherefore it is necessary, that this part should be
the governor's principal care; that an habitual gracefulness,
and politeness in all his carriage, may be settled in his charge,
as much as may be, before he goes out of his hands; and that he
may not need advice in this point, when he has neither time
nor disposition to receive it, nor has anybody left to give it
to him. The tutor therefore ought, in the first place, to be
well-bred; and a young gentleman, who gets this one qualification from his governor, sets out with great advantage; and will
find that this one accomplishment will more open his way
to him, get him more friends, and carry him farther in the
world, than all the hard words, or real knowledge, he has got
from the liberal arts, or his tutor's learned encyclopædia; not
that those should be neglected, but by no means preferred; or
suffered to thrust out the other.
Besides being well-bred, the tutor should know the world
well; the ways, the humours, the follies, the cheats, the faults
of the age he has fallen into, and particularly of the country
he lives in. These he should be able to show to his pupil, as
he finds him capable; teach him skill in men, and their manners;
pull off the mask, which their several callings and pretences
cover them with; and make his pupil discern what lies at the
bottom, under such appearances; that he may not, as unexperienced young men are apt to do, if they are unwarned,
take one thing for another, judge by the outside, and give
himself up to show, and the insinuation of a fair carriage, or
an obliging application. A governor should teach his scholar
to guess at, and beware of, the designs of men he hath to do
with, neither with too much suspicion, nor too much confidence;
but, as the young man is by nature most inclined to either side,
rectify him, and bend him the other way. He should accustom
him to make, as much as is possible, a true judgment of men
by those marks, which serve best to show what they are, and
give a prospect into their inside; which often shows itself in
little things, especially when they are not in parade, and upon
their guard. He should acquaint him with the true state of the
world, and dispose him to think no man better or worse, wiser
or foolisher, than he really is. Thus, by safe and insensible
degrees, he will pass from a boy to a man; which is the most
hazardous in all the whole course of life. This therefore should
be carefully watched, and a young man with great diligence
Page 203
randed over it ; and not, as now usually is done, be taken from
a governor's conduct, and all at once thrown into the world
under his own, not without manifest danger of immediate
spoiling ; there being nothing more frequent, than instances
of the great looseness, extravagancy, and debauchery, which
young men have run into, as soon as they have been let loose
from a severe and strict education ; which, I think, may be
chiefly imputed to their wrong way of breeding, especially in
this part ; for, having been bred up in a great ignorance of
what the world truly is, and finding it quite another thing, when
they come into it, than what they were taught it should be,
and so imagined it was ; are easily persuaded, by other kind
of tutors, which they are sure to meet with, that the discipline
they were kept under, and the lectures that were read to them,
were but the formalities of education, and the restraints of
childhood ; that the freedom belonging to men is to take
their swing in a full enjoyment of what was before forbidden
them. They show the young novice the world, full of fashion-
able and glittering examples of this everywhere, and he is
presently dazzled with them. My young master, failing not to
be willing to show himself a man, as much as any of the
sparks of his years, lets himself loose to all the irregularities
he finds in the most debauched ; and thus courts credit and
manliness, in the casting off the modesty and sobriety he has
till then been kept in ; and thinks it brave, at his first setting
out, to signalise himself in running counter to all the rules of
virtue, which have been preached to him by his tutor.
The showing him the world as really it is, before he comes
wholly into it, is one of the best means, I think, to prevent this
mischief. He should, by degrees, be informed of the vices in
fashion, and warned of the applications and designs of those
who will make it their business to corrupt him. He should be
told the arts they use, and the trains they lay ; and now and
then have set before him the tragical or ridiculous examples of
those who are ruining, or ruined, this way. The age is not
like to want instances of this kind, which should be land-marks
to him ; that by the disgraces, diseases, beggary, and shame
of hopeful young men, thus brought to ruin, he may be pre-
cautioned, and be made to see, how those join in the contempt
and neglect of them that are undone, who, by pretences of
friendship and respect, led them into it, and helped to prey
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upon them whilst they were undoing; that he may see, before
he buys it by a too dear experience, that those who persuade
him not to follow the sober advices he has received from his
governors, and the counsel of his own reason, which they call
being governed by others, do it only, that they may have the
government of him themselves; and make him believe, he goes
like a man of himself, by his own conduct and for his own
pleasure, when, in truth, he is wholly as a child, led by them
into those vices which best serve their purposes. This is a
knowledge, which, upon all occasions, a tutor should endeavour
to instil, and by all methods try to make him comprehend and
thoroughly relish.
(From Thoughts on Education.)
SCHOOL VERSES
IF these may be any reasons against children's making Latin
themes at school, I have much more to say, and of more weight,
against their making verses of any sort: for, if he has no genius
to poetry, it is the most unreasonable thing in the world to torment a child, and waste his time about that which can never
succeed; and if he have a poetic vein, it is to me the strangest
thing in the world, that the father should desire or suffer it to be
cherished or improved. Methinks the parents should labour to
have it stifled and suppressed as much as may be; and I know
not what reason a father can have to wish his son a poet, who
does not desire to have him bid defiance to all other callings and
business; which is not yet the worst of the case; for if he proves
a successful rhymer, and gets once the reputation of a wit, I
desire it may be considered, what company and places he is
like to spend his time in, nay, and estate too; for it is very
seldom seen, that any one discovers mines of gold or silver in
Parnassus. It is a pleasant air, but a barren soil; and there are
very few instances of those who have added to their patrimony
by anything they have reaped from thence. Poetry and gaming,
which usually go together, are alike in this too, that they seldom
bring any advantage but to those who have nothing else to live
on. Men of estates almost constantly go away losers; and it is
well if they escape at a cheaper rate than their whole estates, or
the greatest part of them. If therefore you would not have your
Page 205
son the fiddle to every jovial company, without whom the sparks
could not relish their wine, nor know how to pass an afternoon
idly; if you would not have him waste his time and estate to
divert others, and contemn the dirty acres left him by his
ancestors, I do not think you will much care he should be a
poet, or that his schoolmaster should enter him in versifying.
But yet, if any one will think poetry a desirable quality in his
son, and that the study of it would raise his fancy and parts,
he must need yet confess, that, to that end, reading the excellent
Greek and Roman poets is of more use than making bad verses
of his own, in a language that is not his own. And he whose
design it is to excel in English poetry, would not, I guess, think
the way to it were to make his first essays in Latin verses.
(From the Same.)
PROSE STYLE
When they understand how to write English with due connec-
tion, propriety, and order, and are pretty well masters of a
tolerable narrative style, they may be advanced to writing of
letters; wherein they should not be put upon any strains of wit
or compliment, but taught to express their own plain, easy sense,
without any incoherence, confusion, or roughness. And when
they are perfect in this, they may, to raise their thoughts, have
set before them the example of Voiture's, for the entertainment of
their friends at a distance with letters of compliment, mirth,
raillery, or diversion; and Tully's epistles, as the best pattern,
whether for business or conversation. The writing of letters has
so much to do in all the occurrences of human life, that no gentle-
man can avoid showing himself in this kind of writing; occasions
will daily force him to make this use of his pen, which, besides
the consequences, that, in his affairs, his well or ill managing of
it often draws after it, always lays him open to a severer examina-
tion of his breeding, sense, and abilities, than oral discourses;
whose transient faults, dying for the most part with the sound
that gives them life, and so not subject to a strict review, more
easily escape observation and censure.
Had the methods of education been directed to their right end,
one would have thought this, so necessary a part, could not have
VOL. III
O
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been neglected, whilst themes and verses in Latin, of no use at all, were so constantly everywhere pressed to the racking of children's inventions beyond their strength, and hindering their cheerful progress in learning the tongues, by unnatural difficulties. But custom has so ordained it, and who dares disobey? And would it not be very unreasonable to require of a learned country schoolmaster (who has all the tropes and figures in Farnaby's rhetoric at his fingers' ends) to teach his scholar to express himself handsomely in English, when it appears to be so little his business or thought, that the boy's mother (despised, it is like, as illiterate, for not having read a system of logic and rhetoric) outdoes him in it.
To write and speak correctly gives a grace, and gains a favourable attention to what one has to say; and, since it is English that an English gentleman will have constant use of, that is the language he should chiefly cultivate, and wherein most care should be taken to polish and perfect his style. To speak or write better Latin than English may make a man be talked of; but he would find it more to his purpose to express himself well in his own tongue, that he uses every moment, than to have the vain commendation of others for a very insignificant quality.
This I find universally neglected, and no care taken anywhere to improve young men in their own language, that they may thoroughly understand and be masters of it. If any one among us have a facility or purity more than ordinary in his mother tongue, it is owing to chance, or his genius, or anything, rather than to his education, or any care of his teacher. To mind what English his pupil speaks or writes is below the dignity of one bred up amongst Greek and Latin, though he have but little of them himself. These are the learned languages, fit only for learned men to meddle with and teach; English is the language of the illiterate vulgar, though yet we see the policy of some of our neighbours hath not thought it beneath the public care to promote and reward the improvement of their own language. Polishing and enriching their tongue is no small business amongst them: it hath colleges and stipends appointed it, and there is raised amongst them a great ambition and emulation of writing correctly; and we see what they are come to by it, and how far they have spread one of the worst languages, possibly, in this part of the world; if we look upon it as it was in some few reigns backwards, whatever it be now. The great men amongst the
Page 207
JOHN LOCKE
195
Romans were daily exercising themselves in their own language ;
and we find yet upon record the names of orators who taught
some of their emperors Latin, though it were their mother tongue.
It is plain the Greeks were yet more nice in theirs ; all other
speech was barbarous to them but their own, and no foreign
language appears to have been studied or valued amongst that
learned and acute people ; though it be past doubt, that they
borrowed their learning and philosophy from abroad.
I am not here speaking against Greek and Latin ; I think
they ought to be studied, and the Latin, at least, understood well,
by every gentleman. But whatever foreign languages a young
man meddles with (and the more he knows the better), that which
he should critically study and labour to get a facility, clearness,
and elegancy to express himself in, should be his own, and to
this purpose he should daily be exercised in it.
(From the Same.)
TO MR. MOLYNEUX
Oates, 23rd August 1693.
Sir—Yours of 12th August, which I received last night, eased
me of a great deal of pain, your silence had for some time put me in ;
for you must allow me to be concerned for your health,
as for a friend that I could not think in danger, or a disease,
without a concern and trouble suitable to that great esteem and
love I have for you. But you have made me amends plentifully,
by the length and kindness, and let me add too, the freedom of
your letter. For the approbation you so largely give to my
book, is the more welcome to me, and gives me the better
opinion of my method, because it has joined with it your ex-
ception to one rule of it ; which I am apt to think you yourself,
upon second thoughts, will have removed before I say anything
to your objections. It confirms to me that you are the good-
natured man I took you for ; and I do not at all wonder that
the affection of a kind father should startle at it at first reading,
and think it very severe that children should not be suffered to
express their desires ; for so you seem to understand me. And
such a restraint, you fear, “would be apt to mope them, and
hinder their diversion.” But if you please to look upon the
place, and observe my drift, you will find that they should not
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be indulged, or complied with, in anything, their conceits have made a want to them, as necessary to be supplied. What you say, "that children would be moped for want of diversion and recreation, or else we must have those about them study nothing all day but how to find employment for them; and how this would rack the invention of any man living, you leave me to judge," seems to intimate, as if you understood that children should do nothing but by the prescription of their parents or tutors, chalking out each action of the whole day in train to them. I hope my words express no such thing; for it is quite contrary to my sense, and I think would be useless tyranny in their governors, and certain ruin to the children. I am so much for recreation, that I would, as much as possible, have all they do be made so. I think recreation as necessary to them as their food, and that nothing can be recreation which does not delight. This, I think, I have so expressed; and when you have put that together, judge whether I would not have them have the greatest part of their time left to them, without restraint, to divert themselves any way they think best, so it be free from vicious actions, or such as may introduce vicious habits. And therefore, if they should ask to play, it could be no more interpreted a want of fancy, than if they asked for victuals when hungry; though, where the matter is well ordered, they will never need to do that. For when they have either done what their governor thinks enough, in any application to what is usually made their business, or are perceived to be tired with it, they should of course be dismissed to their innocent diversions, without ever being put to ask for it. So that I am for the full liberty of diversion as much as you can be; and, upon a second perusal of my book, I do not doubt but that you will find me so. But, being allowed that as one of their natural wants, they should not yet be permitted to let loose their desires in impportunities for what they fancy. Children are very apt to covet what they see; those above them in age have or do, to have or do the like; especially if it be their elder brothers and sisters. Does one go abroad? They, if you once allow it them, will be impatient for the like, and think themselves ill dealt with, if they have it not. This, being indulged when they are little, grows up with their age, and with that enlarges itself to things of greater consequence, and has ruined more families than one in the world. This should be
Page 209
suppressed in its very first rise, and the desires you would not
have encouraged, you should not permit to be spoken, which is
the best way for them to silence them to themselves. Children
should, by constant use, learn to be very modest in owning
their desires; and careful not to ask anything of their parents
but what they have reason to think their parents will approve
of. And a reprimand upon their ill-bearing a refusal comes too
late, the fault is committed and allowed, and if you allow them
to ask, you can scarce think it strange they should be troubled
to be denied; so that you suffer them to engage themselves in
the disorder, and then think the fittest time for a cure, and I
think the surest and easiest way is prevention. For we must
take the same nature to be in children that is in grown men;
and how often do we find men take ill to be denied what they
would not have been concerned for, if they had not asked? But
I shall not enlarge any further in this, believing you and I
shall agree in the matter; and indeed it is very hard, and almost
impossible, to give general rules of education, when there is
scarce any one child which, in some cases, should not be
treated differently from another. All that we can do in general
is only to show what parents and tutors should aim at, and
leave to them the ordering of particular circumstances as the
case shall require.
One thing give me leave to be importunate with you about :
you say, your son is not very strong; to make him strong you
must use him hardly as I have directed, but you must be sure
to do it by very insensible degrees, and begin an hardship you
would bring him to only in the spring. This is all the caution
needs be used. I have an example of it in the house I live in,
where the only son of a very tender mother was almost destroyed
by a too tender keeping. He is now, by a contrary usage, come
to bear wind and weather, and wet in his feet; and the cough
which threatened him, under that warm and cautious manage-
ment, has left him, and is now no longer his parents' constant
apprehension, as it was.
I am of your mind as to shorthand. I myself learned it
since I was a man, but had forgot to put it in when I wrote,
I have, I doubt not, overseen a thousand other things which
ought have been said on this subject. But it was only, at
a short scheme for a friend, and is published to excite
us to treat it more fully.
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I know not whether it would be useful to make a catalo
of authors to be read by a young man, or whether it could
done, unless one knew the child's temper, and what he
designed to.
My essay is now very near ready for another edition ;
upon review of my alterations, concerning what determines
will, in my cool thoughts, I am apt to think them to be ri£
as far as my thoughts can reach in so nice a point, and in s!
is this. Liberty is a power to act, or not to act, accordingly
the mind directs. A power to direct the operative faculties
motion or rest in particular instances, is that which we call
will. That which in the train of our voluntary actions determi
the will to any change of operation, is some present uneasinc
which is, or at least is always accompanied with that of desi
Desire is always moved by evil to fly it; because a total freed
from pain always makes a necessary part of our happiness. I
every good, nay every greater good, does not constantly mc
desire, because it may not make, or may not be taken to mal
any necessary part of our happiness, for all that we desire
only to be happy. But though this general desire of happinc
operates constantly and invariably in us; yet the satisfacti
of any particular desire, can be suspended from determining t
will to any subservient action, till we have maturely examine
whether the particular apparent good we then desire, make
part of our real happiness, or be consistent, or inconsistent wi
it. The result of our judgment, upon examination, is wh
ultimately determines the man, who could not be free, if I
will were determined by anything but his own desire, guided I
his own judgment. This, in short, is what I think of this matte
I desire you to examine it in your own thoughts. I think
have so well made out the several particulars, where I tre
them at large, that they have convinced some I have show
them to here who were of another mind; and therefore ho
much soever contrary to the received opinion, I think I me
publish them, but I would first have your judicious and frc
thoughts, which I much rely on; for you love truth for itsel
and me so well, as to tell it me without disguise.
You will herewith receive a new chapter "Of identity ar
diversity," which, having written only at your instance, it is.
you should see and judge of, before it goes to the press. P'
send me your opinion of every part of it. You need not
Page 211
back the papers, but your remarks on the paragraphs you shall
think fit; for I have a copy here.
You desired me to enlarge more particularly about eternal
verities, which, to obey you, I set about; but, upon examination,
find all general truths are eternal verities, and so there is no
entering into particulars; though, by mistake, some men have
selected some, as if they alone were eternal verities. I never,
but with regret, reflect on the distance you are from me—and am,
sir, your most humble servant,
JOHN LOCKE.
(From Familiar Letters.)
TO THE SAME
OATES, 3rd September, 1694.
Sir—I have so much advantage in the bargain, if friendship
may be called one, that whatsoever satisfaction you find in
yourself, on that account, you must allow in me with a large
overplus. The only riches I have valued, or laboured to acquire
has been the friendship of ingenious and worthy men, and therefore you cannot blame me, if I so forwardly laid hold of the
first occasion that opened me a way to yours. That I have so
well succeeded in it I count one of my greatest happinesses
and a sufficient reward for writing my book, had I no other
benefit by it. The opinion that you have of it gives me further
hopes, for it is no small reward to one who loves truth, to be
persuaded that he has made some discoveries of it, and in any
ways helped to propagate it to others. I depend so much upon
your judgment and candour, that I think myself secure in you
from peevish criticism or flattery; only give me leave to suspect
that kindness and friendship do sometimes carry your expression
a little too far on the favourable side. This, however, makes me
not apprehend you will silently pass by anything you are not
thoroughly satisfied of in it. The use I have made of the
advertisements I have received from you of this kind, will satisfy
that I desire this office of friendship from you, not out of
compliments, but for the use of truth, and that your animadversions will not be lost upon me. Any faults you shall meet
in reasoning, in perspicuity, in expression, or of the press
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ENGLISH PROSE
I desire you to take notice of, and send me word of. Especi:
if you have anywhere any doubt ; for I am persuaded that, u
debate, you and I cannot be of two opinions ; nor, I think, :
two men used to think with freedom, who really prefer truth
opiniatrety, and a little foolish vain-glory of not having m
a mistake.
I shall not need to justify what I have said of you in
book, the learned world will be vouchers for me, and that
an age not very free from envy and censure. But you are v
kind to me, since for my sake you allow yourself to own t
part which I am more particularly concerned in, and per
me to call you my friend, whilst your modesty checks at
other part of your character. But, assure yourself, I am
well persuaded of the truth of it, as of anything else in
book ; it had not else been put down in it. It only want
great deal more I had to say, had that been a place to d
your picture at large. Herein I pretend not to any pecul
obligation above others that know you. For though perhap
may love you better than many others ; yet, I conclude,
cannot think better of you than others do.—I am, dear sir, y
most affectionate, and most humble servant,
JOHN LOCKE.
(From the Same.)
Page 213
BISHOP CUMBERLAND
[Richard Cumberland, Bishop of Peterborough, was born in London in 1632. He was educated at St. Paul's School and Magdalene College, Cambridge. He distinguished himself considerably at College. He left the University to become Rector of Brampton, Northamptonshire, whence he was transferred to Stamford. William and Mary rewarded his fidelity to the Protestant cause at the Revolution by appointing him, much to his own surprise, to the Bishopric of Peterborough. He died in 1718 in his eighty-seventh year.]
Bishop Cumberland is best known by his Essay towards the recovery of the Jewish Measures and Weights, comprehending their Monies, by help of Ancient Standards, compared with ours of England. This little treatise is not without some historic interest even at this day, and shows considerable ingenuity and reasoning ability.
He published also a translation of Sanchoniatho's Phœnician history, from Eusebius, together with Eratosthenes' continuation, " with many historical and chronological remarks," so runs the title-page, "proving them to contain a series of Phœnician and Egyptian chronology, from the first Man to the first Olympiad, agreeable to the Scripture accounts."
After his death, as a sort of sequel to the above, was published a collection of tracts by his lordship entitled Origines Gentium Antiquissime ; or, Attempts for Discovering the Times of the First Planting of Nations.
Bishop Cumberland also wrote a work in Latin, on The Laws of Nature; Divine, Moral, and Political, which has been translated and edited.
The bishop wrote an excessively bad style, alike in Latin and English. He is often quite unintelligible and always dull. ing, involved sentences, and tedious, almost irrelevant, digres mar his pages. That he was a man of deep learning
Page 214
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careful judgment, and acute reasoning power is evident enc
but that he either could not or would not put his doubtless
able matter into an attractive form, is also only too pain
evident.
There is neither humour, poetry, nor any embellishmer
his writings. Clumsy, long-winded disquisitions on themes
have years ago lost any interest they may ever have had,
stantly recur as we turn over page after page of his treatises.
To serve as a warning that, however valuable the matter,
ness of manner will inevitably damn a book in the eye:
posterity is the only lasting good poor old Bishop Cumber
can claim to have accomplished.
A. I. FITZROY
Page 215
PROVIDENCE IN THE CONQUEST OF CANAAN
I SHALL conclude these notes with this single observation, viz.
That God did by his providence weaken the family of Canaan
many years before the children of Israel were to make war against
them, in order to the expelling the seven nations out of that land,
which he had promised to the issue of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
For,
- The Avim, whom I have shewn to be Canaanites, were
most of them destroyed by the Philistines coming from Egypt.
- The Horites, who also were Hivites, were conquered by the
Edomites.
- The great body of the Canaanites, that invaded Egypt,
was much weakened by about 250 years' war there, and with loss
of many battles, were forced to capitulate for liberty to depart
thence.
- After this departure the Canaanites were weakened by being
divided into two kingdoms, left in the southern parts of Canaan;
and a third kingdom, which yet was subdivided, was settled in
the northern parts of Canaan, between Jordan and the Mediter-
ranean sea, on which they had all the northern ports.
- From their ports, as Tyre, Sidon, etc. they dispersed them-
selves into many colonies, both in the islands and continents
adjoining to the midland sea: of which see Bochart's Canaan.
But the times of those plantations I find not sufficiently proved:
only the times of two of those plantations from Phœnice or
Canaan, are recorded by Eusebius, viz. (1) The colony into
Greece by Cadmus. And (2) That into Bithynia by Phœnix:
and it's affirmed by him that both these plantations were con-
temporary with each other, and therefore both of them considerably
ore the time when Joshua subdued those who remained in
nan.
ence it evidently follows, that because all these things did
Page 216
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lessen the force of the Canaanites remaining in the Promised Land
the conquest of them must be made the more easy, and all mus
conduce to the settlement of Israel, God's peculiar pcople ; anc
to the fulfilling of the divine promises made to their forefathers
although the men who managed the forementioned wars and dis
persions meant no such thing as any ease to the settlement o
Israel.
(From the Planting of Nations.)
THE PRIMITIVE ARCADlANS CALLED PELASGI
Pausanias expressly testifies that the people of Arcadia were al
Pelasgi, and their country called Pelasgia before the time o
Arcas, from whom the name of Arcadia was derived. (See th
beginning of Pausanias's Arcadics, where you will find thi
acknowledged.) And although he do there mention a fabulou
tradition that the earth brought forth Pelasgus upon the hig
mountains of Arcadia, out of Asius an old poet, yet he belicved i
not ; because he adds, out of his own rcason, that there wer
other men there at that time ; otherwise Pelasgus would hav
had no subjects over whom he should reign : and then h
proceeds to tell us that they were Pelasgi before Arcas was born.
But if we compare with him Dionysius Halicarnassensis in th
latter part of his first book, we shall find that one Atlas, whos
former habitation was on Caucasus, was the first king in Arcadia
And Apollodorus informs us that he was the son of Japetus, an
brother to Prometheus (with whom Hesiod agrees). And sinc
Diodorus Siculus assures us that the eldest Prometheus lived i
the time of Osirus, whom we have elsewhere showed to b
Mizraim, the son of Ham, Japhet's brother, we shall perceive tha
Arcadia is intimated by these Greek writers to be planted abor
the third generation after the Flood, not long after the planting (
Egypt by Mizraim : but the planters of it were then called Pelasg
not Arcades.
(From the Same.)
Page 217
BISHOP CUMBERLAND
205
THE EGYPTIAN STANDARD IN THE TIME OF
JOSEPH
IT appears by the same chronology, that from the death of
Noah, to Joseph's promotion and authority in Egypt, there were
but 283 ycars, in which interval no change of measures, from
what Noah's family used, is read of. And several Arabian
writers affirm, that Joseph, during his regency there, set up the
nilometron, or column, for measuring the increases of Nile ;
which column is now divided by this Egyptian cubit, and must
reasonably be judged from the first to have been divided by the
same ; because, in all ages the same number of cubits, in the
overflow, have been esteemed necessary for the judging of plenty
or scarcity like to follow in that country. And there is reason
to believe, that the column when divided by him into cubits, was
divided according to a cubit that had been used and known
before his time, above 283 years, constancy in these things being
usual in all settled dominions, is to be presumed rather than
change, of which there can no proof be offered. And there are
many instances of measures being preserved unaltered for a longer
time than that, as we shall hereafter show.
Now I only suggest, that the numeration by decads hath been
kept among all nations, that I know of, from the eldest times of
history : and yet it's as alterable by human authority, or agree-
ment, as the measure by cubits and epha's, etc. or as the size of
such measures. Now, that these measures and weights were of
elder use than Jacob's descent into Egypt, may be argued :-
- From the measure whereby Noah's ark was designed, viz.
round even numbers of cubits, and such cubits as were used and
known in Moses his time, else it would have been in vain to have
described its measures by a word whose sense was unknown.
And if Noah's cubit had been a different measure from the
mosaical cubit, Moses must have reduced that into the then
known measure, before he wrote the history, which we have
reason to believe he did not ; because it cannot be expected that
such different measure would, upon reduction, have fallen into
such even round numbers as Moses sets down ; its length just
cubits, breadth 50, height 20. The same rcason holds in
its height of the Flood above the hills. So also we read
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of Sarah's preparing three seahs of meal, which are an ephah
(the chief measure of capacity, and the sixth part of the cube of
cubit, as hereafter I shall show) long before the Egyptian
bondage.
We have also shekels, the original weight mentioned
Abraham's time, both in Abimelech's gift to Sarah, as the
Septuagint and Targum Onkelos express it, Gen. xx. 16 : and
his purchase from Ephron the Hittite, in the Hebrew Bible
Gen. xxiii. 15, 16. And just before Jacob's going into Egypt
his money out of Canaan passing by its weight (which thereto
must be agreed on) in Egypt, Gen. xliii. 21. And there being
no mark to distinguish these weights and measures before the
descent into Egypt, from those of the same name mentioned later
by the same writer after it ; it is to be presumed they signify the
same quantities exactly, else the word must be equivocal, which
ought not to be presumed without full proof.
(From Essay on Jewish Measures and Weights.)
Page 219
HALIFAX
[George Savile, first Marquis and Earl of Halifax, was born 11th November 1633. He was descended from an ancient Yorkshire family, and succeeded to the paternal baronetcy in 1641. In the year of the Restoration he entered Parliament as member for Pontefract. In 1668 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Savile of Eland and Viscount Halifax, and in the following year he began, as a Commissioner of the Board of Trade, an official career of unusual diversity, including a joint ambassadorship at the Hague. In 1675 his name was struck off the Privy Council, during the ascendancy of Danby, but it was restored in 1679, when he became a member of Shaftesbury's administration and was created Earl of Halifax. He remained in office after Shaftesbury's dismissal, and in 1680 was mainly instrumental in bringing about the rejection of the Exclusion Bill by the House of Lords. In 1682 he was created Marquis of Halifax and appointed Lord Privy Seal. He was, however, out of sympathy with the Court and in favour of the recall of Monmouth ; and on the accession of James II., after being removed to the Presidency of the Council, he was in December 1685 dismissed from office. He took an active part in the operations which led to the overthrow of James II., and in the Convention Parliament of 1689 acted as Speaker of the House of Lords. He held office under the new régime as Lord Privy Seal from March 1689 to February 1690 ; but after this he withdrew from public life, and spent the remainder of his days chiefly in his country-seat of Rufford in Nottinghamshire, to which he was deeply attached. He died 5th April 1695, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Halifax's first wife, Lady Dorothy Spencer, was a daughter of the first Earl of Sunderland and his Countess ("Sacharisia").]
Among the most celebrated productions of Halifax's pen, it is usual to assign the first place to the Character of a Trimmer (1688), the mere title of which would have sufficed to make its fortune as a tract. But although his sole or joint authorship has long been generally assumed, and is confidently taken for granted by Macaulay, the fact remains that the first three editions attribute the treatise to Sir William Coventry, Halifax's kinsman, -the third, however, stating it to have been revised by Halifax self. Coventry appears to have denied his authorship, and the inclusion of the Character in Halifax's Miscellanies, first
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published nine years after his death, it has been usually regarded as his. All that can be said with certainty is that he had a great deal to do with it, and that it suits his principles as well as it matches what we know of his style.
To Macaulay modern readers of English history may be said to owe their appreciation of Halifax's rare qualities as a politician and a patriot; nor has any character in his long and brilliant gallery been drawn more generously by the great party historian than that of the Trimmer—who had a soul above party. A writer of the reigns of Charles II. and James II. may indeed, without arrogance, claim some inner affinity with the spirit of Liberty who thought so nobly of Liberty as did Halifax; and if the passage extracted below was not actually written by him, it reads as one which he must have entirely approved. On the other hand the tract breathes a patriotism of the most conservative type, and it is, like everything that was written by Halifax that commended itself to him, the work of one who loved England above everything. Nor need we blame him because in thinking of England he was apt to remember Rufford, his inherited home, and parcel of his country.
A Trimmer, then, is one who trims or balances in order to preserve—whether a boat in the river, or the good ship Commonwealth in a sea of troubles. Whether the designation implies honour or dishonour, depends altogether on the bona fides of the individual; just as was the case with the analogous designation of the politiques in France in the days of the internecine struggle between the League and the monarchy. The famous Character, with which the exception of its section on foreign policy has deviates from the broad path of apparent, though often highly significant, commonplace—thoroughly vindicates its fundamental conception. "Our Trimmer" stands for a "mixt monarchy"—in other words, he is a constitutionalist of a type which during a century remained the standard of political liberalism for all practical men, but which in Halifax's day was by no means trite. In his "classes" of his generation, it must be remembered, knew so much by experience of republican government; while of the evils of monarchical despotism, the Trimmer could give without passing an exposition worthy of the admiration of Montesquieu. In matters ecclesiastical his "opinion" is equally enlightened; he represents that religious liberalism—equally far removed from fanaticism and from indifference—which in later periods
Page 221
HALIFAX
209
English life has again become as rare as it was in the reigns of
our last two Stuart kings. What, however, it would be futile to
seek in the Character of a Trimmer, is political philosophy
which looks far beyond a given situation. The author is only
concerned to apply a few broad principles to matters as they
stand; and this he does in language which, though here and there
it glows with an unfeigned warmth, disdains neither trivial illus-
trations nor familiar figures, and rarely rises to so ambitious a
height as that of the well-known passage at the close of the tract,
which it seemed right not to omit below.
Another well-known tract attributed to Halifax, though the
signature T. W. reversed was held by some to point to Sir
William Temple, is the Letter to a Dissenter, published on the
occasion of James II.'s first Declaration of Indulgence (1687).
It was an admirably devised and most opportune attempt to
convince the Protestant Nonconformists of the correctness of the
timeo Danaos attitude which, with a combination of long-sightedness
and fortitude almost unparalleled, a large proportion of their
body assumed, and in spite of discouragement upon discouragement
maintained. The argument of the solidarity of the Protestant
interest was in itself excellent; the weakness of the position taken
up by the writer of the Letter, which he did his best to cover with
the help of a style full of liveliness and wit, lay in the paucity of
the examples at his disposal of the readiness of the Church of
England to acknowledge the solidarity in question. The Letter
called forth a full score of replies; but while I perceive no reason
for doubting Halifax's authorship of it, I cannot suppose him to
have written the dogmatic Second Letter to a Dissenter, etc.
(1687), which appeared in the course of the controversy. Among
other political pieces that have been attributed to Halifax are the
happily-named and shrewd, but rather drily written, Anatomy of
an Equivalent (i.e. for oaths and tests); the very interesting
Cautions offered to the consideration of those who are to choose
Members to serve in the ensuing Parliament, which apparently
belongs to the year 1689, and contains a most curious picture,
drawn without narrow-mindedness, of the social composition of a
House of Commons of the times; and A Rough Draft of a New
Model at Sea (1694). In this pamphlet, which, if written by
Halifax, was probably his last political piece, he seeks, not very
effectively, to "trim" between the two different systems of
appointment to commissions, which in the Navy and elsewhere it
VOL. III
P
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long proved so difficult to blend. The brief Maxims of State printed among Halifax's Miscellanies have considerable vigour, and conclude with the following :-"That a people may let a king fall, yet still remain a people ; but if a king let his people step from him, he is no longer king."
Of much the same type are the Political and Moral Reflexions, which were published in 1750 from Halifax's MSS. By his granddaughter, the Countess of Burlington. But aphoristic literature has no claim to survive unless when distinguished by real excellence ; and these sentences, while rarely devoid of the kind of wisdom that is the fruit of experience, as rarely show what deserves to be called wit. At the same time was given to the world Halifax's Character of Charles II., to which posterity has turned with more interest than to his censures on Edward II. and Richard II. ; yet the latter are of some significance. They appeared in the very crisis of the Revolution settlement (January 1689), under the full (something too full) title of Historical Observations upon the Reigns of Edward I., II., III., and Richard II. ; with Remarks upon their Faithful Counsellors and False Favourites ; written by a Person of Honour. Yet in truth Edward I. and II. only come in towards the close in a series of antitheta of no particular interest ; the point of the essay lies in the parallel between Edward II. and Richard II., and possibly James II. subauditus. The Introduction, which exhibits Lord Halifax himself in the character of a highly self-complacent latter-day Doctor Faustus, rejecting theology, giving philosophy the go-by, and in default of being able to make way with uncontentious mathematics venturing upon a bit of solid history in their stead, is quite worth perusal, but contains no passage of notable force. It should not remain unmentioned, in this connexion, that Halifax was a keen-sighted collector of original historical documents, a selection from which, published in 1703, must not be confounded with the other Miscellanies of his own inditing.
As a quick-sighted observer, who had every opportunity of supplementing his own observations by those of the clever men, and more especially of the gifted women, whose intimacy he enjoyed, and as a judge raised above all prejudice, whether partisan or personal, Halifax was uniquely qualified to sum up the character of a prince, usually, but not altogether correctly, supposed to have had no character at all. And in my opinion the result is the best extant summary of the subject from the
Page 223
personal, or in other words the one biographically satisfactory, point of view. I have extracted parts of the concluding chapter, which has something of the gracefulness inseparable from the true generosity of disposition which distinguished Halifax.
Nor is this quality altogether missing in the last of Halifax's literary productions on which I propose to touch, The Lady's New-Year's Gift, or, Advice to a Daughter. This once famous little treatise might almost be described as its author's offering to the beloved young wife of whom (in 1670) he was suddenly bereft, as well as to his daughter Anne (afterwards Lady Vaughan) to whom he devoted a not less genuine affection. This Manual of Conduct ran rapidly through sixteen editions, and was translated into French and Italian ; and I have met with it in curiously mixed company in a guinea gift-book, entitled Angelica's Ladies' Library, or, Parents' and Guardians' Present, illustrated by Angelica Kauffman and H. Bunbury, and dedicated to good Queen Charlotte (1794). It has many undeniable merits ; for it is not only, as a matter of course, full of shrewdness and common-sense, but it likewise, as observed, displays on such questions as those of domestic economy the broad and liberal spirit of a true grand seigneur. And again, more especially in discussing the management of children, it reveals a genial and lovable side of Halifax's character, not elsewhere apparent except in his familiar letters. Yet when one reads that in the vade mecum composed by him for his child, our author tempered "maxims of exalted piety with a curious mixture of worldly wisdom," one can only wonder at the willingness of able writers to foregone conclusions. Halifax's standpoint in this work is dangerously near to that of another celebrated nobleman—a grandson by the way of Halifax and his second wife—in his Letters to his Son. In both instances the father's admonitions are inadequate, not so much because of what they contain as because of what they omit. Halifax's conception of religion, for instance, as here developed is consistent and calm ; it is cheerful ; it is charitable ; it is what you will ; but I cannot discern in it anything "exalted." He moves, not more at his ease (for he is always quite at his ease), but more to the tune of his times, in the succeeding sections under the headings, "Husband," "House, Family, and Children," "Behaviour," "Friendship," "Diversions," and so forth. We here see him to be sincerely intent upon his daughter's prosperity in the world which he knew
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both intus et in cute, and offering her the very best of advice,
quintessential indeed in the strength in which it is distilled from
his unrivalled experience. If her husband has faults or vices, if
he is too fond, for instance, of sitting over his bottle or of counting
his money-bags, let her not so much give way to as utilise these
defects, and she will find her reckoning. If her friends of her
own sex are discussed in her presence, let her not be too eager
to defend them with generous warmth. Nobody can predict
what may or may not prove true; and it is never advisable to be
found to have taken the wrong side. On the other hand, if you
must blame, if you must strike, "do it like a Lady, gently : and
assure yourself that where you care to do it you will wound others
more, and hurt yourself less by soft strokes, than by being harsh
or violent." Accustomed though Halifax was to the society of
some of the most honourable, cultivated, and within their lights,
both high-minded and high-spirited women of his times, he could
not think, so far as in him lay, of training up his daughter
except in one way, the way that would pay. Thus his social,
not less than his political philosophy, had its limits.
A. W. WARD.
Page 225
LIBERTY, AND THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTION
Our Trimmer owns a passion for liberty, yet so restrained that it does not in the least impair or taint his allegiance ; he thinks it hard for a soul that does not love liberty, ever to raise itself to another world ; he takes it to be the foundation of all virtue, and the only seasoning that gives a relish to life ; and tho' the laziness of a slavish subjection has its charms for the more gross and earthy part of mankind, yet to men made of a better sort of clay all that the world can give without liberty has no taste.
It is true, nothing is sold so cheap by unthinking men ; but that does no more lessen the real value of it, than a country fellow's ignorance does that of a diamond in selling it for a pot of ale. Liberty is the mistress of mankind, she has powerful charms which so dazzle us that we find beauties in her which perhaps are not there, as we do in other mistresses ; yet, if she was not a beauty, the world would not run mad for her ; therefore, since the unreasonable desire of it cannot be entirely suppressed, those who would take it away from a people possessed of it are likely to fail in the attempting, or be very unquiet in the keeping of it.
Our Trimmer admires our blessed constitution, in which dominion and liberty are so well reconciled. It gives to the prince the glorious power of commanding freemen, and to the subject the satisfaction of seeing the power so lodged, as that their liberties are secure ; it does not allow the Crown such a ruining power, as that no grass can grow where'er it treads, but a cherishing and protecting power ; such a one as hath a grim aspect only to the offending subjects, but is the joy and the pride of all the good ones ; their own interest being so bound up in it, as to engage them to defend and support it ; and though in some instances the king is restrained, yet nothing in the government can move without him ; our laws make a distinction between vassalage and obedience, between devouring prerogatives and a licentious ungovernable freedom ; and as of all the orders
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of building the composite is the best, so ours, by a happy mixture
and a wise choice of what is best in others, is brought into a
form that is our felicity who live under it, and the envy of our
neighbour that cannot imitate it.
The Crown has power sufficient to protect our liberties, The
people have so much liberty, it is necessary to make them useful
to the Crown.
Our government is in a just proportion ; no tympany, no
unnatural swelling either of power or liberty ; and whereas in all
overgrown monarchies, reason, learning, and equity are hang'd
in effigy for mutineers, here they are encouraged and cherished,
as the surest friends to a government established upon the
foundation of law and justice. When all is done, those who look
for perfection in this world, may look as the Jews have for their
Messias ; and therefore our Trimmer is not so unreasonably
partial, as to free our government from all objections. No doubt,
there have been fatal instances of its sickness and, more than
that, of its mortality, for some time, though by a miracle it hath
been revived again. But till we have another race of mankind,
in all constitutions that are bounded, there will ever be some
matter of strife and contention ; and, rather than want pretensions,
men's passions and interests will raise them from the most
inconsiderable causes.
Our government is like our climate ; there are winds which are
sometimes loud and unquiet, and yet with all the trouble they
give us, we owe great part of our health unto them in that they
clear the air, which else would be like a standing pool, and instead
of refreshment would be a disease unto us.
(From The Character of a Trimmer.)
TRUTH AND TRIMMERS
Our Trimmer adores the Goddess Truth, tho' in all ages she
has been scurvily used, as well as those that worshipped her. 'Tis
of late become such a ruining virtue, that mankind seems to be
agreed to commend and avoid it ; yet the want of practice, which
repeals the other laws, has no influence upon the law of Truth,
because it has root in heaven, and an intrinsic value in itself that
can never be impaired : she shows her greatness in this, that her
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HALIFAX
215
enemies, even when they are successful, are ashamed to own it.
Nothing but power full of truth has the prerogative of triumphing,
not only after victories, but in spite of them, and to put conquest
herself out of countenance. She may be kept under and sup-
pressed, but her dignity still remains with her, even when she is
in chains. Falsehood, with all her impudence, has not enough to
speak ill of her before her face; such majesty she carries about
her, that her most prosperous enemies are fain to whisper their
treason; all the power upon the earth can never extinguish her;
she has lived in all ages; and let the mistaken zeal of prevailing
authority christen any opposition to it with what name they please,
she makes it not only an ugly and an unmannerly, but a dangerous
thing to persist. She has lived very retired indeed, nay, some-
times so buried, that only some few of the discerning parts of man-
kind could have a glimpse of her; with all that, she has eternity
in her, she knows not how to die, and from the darkest clouds
that shade and cover her, she breaks from time to time with
triumph for her friends, and terror to her enemies.
Our Trimmer, therefore, inspired by this divine virtue, thinks
fit to conclude with these assertions: that our climate is a Trimmer,
between that part of the world where men are roasted, and the
other where they are frozen; that our church is a Trimmer,
between the phrenzy of Platonic visions, and the lethargic ignor-
ance of popish dreams; that our laws are Trimmers, between the
excess of unbounded power, and the extravagance of liberty not
enough restrained; that true virtue has ever been thought a
Trimmer, and to have its dwelling in the middle between the two
extremes; that even God Almighty Himself is divided between
His two great attributes, His mercy and His justice.
(From the Same.)
CONCLUDING CONSIDERATIONS ON THE
CHARACTER OF CHARLES II.
After all this, when some rough strokes of the pencil have made
several parts of his picture look a little hard, it is a justice that
would be due to every man, much more to a prince, to make
some amends, and to reconcile men as much as may be to it by
the last finishing.
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He had as good a claim to a kind interpretation as most men.
First, as a prince : living and dead, generous and well-bred men
will be gentle to them ; next, as an unfortunate prince in the
beginning of his time, and a gentle one in the rest.
A prince neither sharpened by his misfortunes while abroad,
nor of his power when restored, is such a shining character, that
it is a reproach not to be so dazzled with it, as not to be able to
see a fault in its full light. It would be a scandal in this case to
have an exact memory. And if all who are akin to his vices,
should mourn for him, never prince would be better attended to
his grave. He is under the protection of common frailty, that
must engage men for their own sakes not to be too severe, where
they themselves have so much to answer.
If he had sometimes less firmness than might have been
wished, let the kindest reason be given, and if that should be
wanting, the best excuse. I would assign the cause of it to be
his loving at any rate to be easy, and his deserving the more
to be indulged in it, by his desiring that everybody else should
be so.
If he sometimes let a servant fall, let it be examined whether
he did not weigh so much upon his master, as to give him a fair
excuse. That yieldingness, whatever foundations it might lay to
the disadvantage of posterity, was a specific to preserve us in
peace for his time. If he loved too much to lie upon his own
down-bed of ease, his subjects had the pleasure, during his reign,
of lolling and stretching upon theirs. As a sword is sooner broken
upon a feather-bed than upon a table, so his pliantness broke the
blow of a present mischief much better than a more immediate
resistance would perhaps have done.
Ruin saw this, and therefore removed him first to make way
for further over-turnings.
If he dissembled, let us remember, first, that he was a king,
and that dissimulation is a jewel of the crown ; next, that it is
very hard for a man not to do sometimes too much of that, which
he concludeth necessary for him to practise. Men should con-
sider, that as there would be no false dice, if there were no true
ones, so if dissembling is grown universal, it ceaseth to be foul
play, having an implied allowance by the general practice. He
that was so often forced to dissemble in his own defence, might
the better have the privilege sometimes to be the aggressor, and
to deal with men at their own weapon.
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HALIFAX
217
Subjects are apt to be as arbitrary in their censure, as the most assuming kings can be in their power. If there might be matter for objections, there is not less reason for excuses ; the defects laid to his charge, are such as may claim indulgence from mankind.
Should nobody throw a stone at his faults but those who are free from them, there would be but a slender shower.
(From A Character of King Charles II.)
ON THE TREATMENT OF CHILDREN
You may love your children without living in the nursery ; and you may have a competent and discreet care of them, without letting it break out upon the company, or exposing yourself by turning your discourse that way, which is a kind of laying children to the parish ; and it can hardly be done anywhere, that those who bear it will be so forgiving as not to think they are over-charged with them.
A woman's tenderness to her children, is one of the least deceitful evidences of her virtue ; but yet the way of expressing it, must be subject to the rules of good breeding.
And though a woman of quality ought not to be less kind to them than mothers of the meanest rank are to theirs, yet she may distinguish herself in the manner, and avoid the coarse methods which in women of a lower size might be more excusable.
You must begin early to make them love you, that they may obey you.
This mixture is nowhere more necessary than in children.
And I must tell you, that you are not to expect returns of kindness from yours, if you have any, without grains of allowance ; and yet it is not so much a defect in their good-nature, as a shortness of thought in them.
Their first insufficiency maketh them lean so entirely upon their parents for what is necessary, that the habit of it maketh them continue the same expectations for what is unreasonable ; and as often as they are denied, so often they think they are injured.
And whilst their desires are strong, and their reasons yet in the cradle, their anger looketh no further than the thing they long for and cannot have ; and to be displeased for their own good, is a maxim they are very slow to understand.
So that you may conclude, the first thoughts of your children will have no small mixture of mutiny ; which being so natural, you
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must not be angry, except you would increase it. You must deny
them as seldom as you can; and when there is no avoiding it,
you must do it gently; you must flatter away their ill-humour,
and take the next opportunity of pleasing them in some other
thing, before they either ask or look for it. This will strengthen
your authority by making it soft to them; and confirm their
obedience by making it their interest. You are to have as strict
a guard upon yourself amongst your children, as if you were
amongst your enemies. They are apt to make wrong inferences,
to take encouragement from half words, and misapply what you
may say or do, so as either to lessen their duty, or to extend their
liberty further than is convenient. Let them be more in awe of
your kindness, than of your power. And above all, take heed of
supporting a favourite child in its impertinence, which will give
right to the rest of claiming the same privilege. If you have a
divided number, leave the boys to the father's more peculiar care,
that you may with greater justice pretend to a more immediate
jurisdiction over those of your own sex. You are to live so with
them, that they may never choose to avoid you, except when
they have offended; and then let them tremble, that they may
distinguish. But their penance must not continue so long, as to
grow too severe upon their stomachs, that it may not harden
instead of correcting them. The kind and severe part must have
their several turns seasonably applied; but your indulgence is to
have the broader mixture, that love rather than fear may be the
root of their obedience.
(From The Lady's New-Year's-Gift, or, Advice to a
Daughter.)
Page 231
SAMUEL PEPYS
[Samuel Pepys, 1633-1703, clerk of the Acts of the Navy Board (1660), and afterwards Secretary of the Admiralty till 1689, Fellow, and some time President, of the Royal Society, published in 1660 a short statement of the condition of the Navy for ten years past—Memoirs relating to the State of the Royal Navy of England. His shorthand Diary (1660-1669), preserved in the Pepysian Library at Magdalene College, Cambridge, was edited by Lord Braybrooke in 1825, about half of the original being suppressed. A fuller edition was published by the Rev. Mynors Bright (1875-1879) ; the first volumes of another by Mr. H. B. Wheatley appeared in 1893, representing the whole of the original MS., with some small exceptions.]
It is as impossible as it is fortunately unnecessary to attempt to sum up the series of entries in Pepys's Diary. Where everything is particular, and all things are treated by the chronicler as if there were no differences of value among them, there can be no description of the chronicle ; it may be copied or repeated, it cannot be described ; the atoms of Pepys's impressions must be taken as he gives them or not at all. No one wishes to be told about Pepys ; talk about Pepys is quotation from the Diary, and he talks best who remembers most, and has least to say about it in the way of commentary.
There is a possible misapprehension of Pepys's character, which may be removed by argument, if it is anywhere entertained. Pepys is so little reticent about his follies, blunders, and misfortunes that he may create in some minds the impression that he was a booby and a ridiculous person. The Diary in truth, with all its particularity and sincerity, is unjust to its author. The reader has to remind himself that it is microscopic, and that to get a just view of Pepys one ought not to know all about him. It may be difficult to understand where there was room for all his work, in the perpetual trade of morning draughts and suppers,
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plays in the afternoon, and the lute and the theorbo in the
evening. But the secret of the Diary, if there be a secret in
it, is that it was written by an industrious man of business, who
did well for himself, and worked honestly for his office. The
quickness with which the diarist takes hold of and notes down
the waifs and the drifting vanities of hour after hour of his life, is
not the cultivated or sophisticated interest of a man of letters
engaged in collecting details of experience, documents to be
worked up into a novel. It is something much simpler and more
natural. When Pepys's spirits are brought down by his anxiety
about his sight, the Diary stops; it went well as an accom-
paniment to successful activity and growing fortune; the shadow
puts an end to it. Pepys does not begin as a collector of trifles
or a perverse hoarder of things too small for ordinary minds to
catch. That is not his work; his work is elsewhere. But his
work goes so well, his life is so exhilarating a medley of serious
business in the thick of great events, and of pleasure and good
cheer, that he needs must make of it all he can by putting it
into his note-books; it is too good to be lost. "So to sleep,
every day bringing in a fresh sense of the pleasure of my present
life" (Apr. 17, 1660). Without the Navy Office, however, and
the acquaintance with great personages, and the growing balance
in his favour at the end of each year, he would have had no spirit
to keep account of the playhouses, or of his neighbours in church.
Pepys's steadiness in the plague year, his speech in defence of
the Board in 1668, and his Memoires of 1690 on the Navy, are
to be remembered, if the Secretary of the Admiralty is to be
judged aright.
The melancholy conclusion of the Diary in 1669 was followed
within a few months by the death of Mrs. Pepys, and the Diary
was never resumed. The monument of Pepys's later years is
to be sought in his library, and in his letters. The letters have
very little of the character of the Diary, except that they are an
additional proof of Pepys's freedom from affectation, and of his
appreciation of life. They seem to have had the power of
drawing good answers. Sir Isaac Newton replies at length, to
solve a problem in chances of the dice; and Lord Reay and Dr.
Hickes send long letters on the second sight, Lord Reay collecting
evidence of portents from the Highlands, and Dr. Hickes con-
tributing notes from the mythology of the Elves.
It is difficult to make a selection from the Diary. The
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221
opening months are as good as any--partly because of the political suspense, greater in 1659-60 than in any other period of the Diary, partly because the fortunes of Pepys are then just beginning to be assured. In the beginning of 1660 he was in close relations with his cousin, "My Lord," who made his fortune for him, at the same time that he helped to make the king's. He took some part in the serious political discussions of Harrington's Rota. Among all the passages in memoirs that keep for later generations something of the outward form of great occurrences, few are pleasanter than the account in this Diary of the rejoicings at the coming Restoration--how Pepys went to the coffee-house at Westminster, and sat "in a room next the water," listening to Mr. Lock and Mr. Purcell at their music, "brave Italian and Spanish songs, and a canon for eight voices which Mr. Lock had lately made on these words: Domine salvum fac Regem, an admirable thing." "Here out of the window it was a most pleasant sight to see the City from one end to the other with a glory about it, so high was the light of the bonfires, and so thick round the City, and the bells rang everywhere" (Feb. 21, 1659-60).
Here Pepys looked out of the window, down and across the river at the "glory," while "Captain Taylor began a discourse of something that he had lately writ about Gavelkind"--harsh, after the songs of Apollo.
The account of the beginning of the Fire, and the pastoral of Epsom Downs, are unlike most of the entries in the Diary, as coming nearer to the common forms of literature, with definite themes of their own. To the same extent they fail to continue the ordinary manner of the Diary, its confusion and inconsequence. The Fire takes up the attention too exclusively for much digression, and the Sunday on the Downs appears to have influenced the writer so happily that even the sprained ankle is not permitted to spoil his enjoyment of his story. But while the more harmonious composition of those narratives is different from Pepys's ordinary random style, it is not less natural or more premeditated than the most incongruous passages : there is hardly to be found in the Diary any trace of literary ambition.
W. P. KER.
Page 234
SIR C. MINGS
13th June 1666.—Invited to Sir Christopher Mings's funeral,
but find them gone to church. However, I into the Church,
which is a fair, large church, and a great chapel, and there heard
the service, and stayed till they buried him, and then out ; and
there met with Sir W. Coventry, who was there out of great
generosity, and no person of quality there but he, and went with
him into his coach ; and, being in it with him, there happened
this extraordinary case—one of the most romantic that ever I
heard of in my life, and could not have believed, but that I did
see it ; which was this :—About a dozen able, lusty, proper men
came to the coach-side with tears in their eyes, and one of them
that spoke for the rest begun, and said to Sir W. Coventry, “We
are here a dozen of us, that have long known and loved, and
served our dead commander, Sir Christopher Mings, and have
now done the last office of laying him in the ground. We would
be glad we had any other to offer after him, and in revenge of
him. All we have is our lives ; if you will please to get His
Royal Highness to give us a fireship among us all, here are a
dozen of us, out of all which, choose you one to be commander ;
and the rest of us, whoever he is, will serve him ; and, if possible
do that which shall show our memory of our dead commander,
and our revenge.” Sir W. Coventry was herewith much moved
as well as I, who could hardly abstain from weeping, and took
their names and so parted ; telling me that he would move His
Royal Highness as in a thing very extraordinary, which was done.
The truth is, Sir Christopher Mings was a very stout man, and
a man of great parts, and most excellent tongue amongst ordinary
men, and, as Sir W. Coventry says, could have been the most
useful man at such a pinch of time as this. He was come into
great renown here at home, and more abroad, in the West Indies.
He had brought his family into a way of being great; but dying
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at this time, his memory and name, his father being always, and
at this day, a shoemaker, and his mother a hoyman's daughter;
of which he was used frequently to boast, will be quite forgot in a
few months as if he had never been, nor any of his name be the
better by it: he having not had time to will any estate, but is
dead poor, rather than rich. So we left the church and crowd.
Walked to Mrs. Bagwell's, and went into her house; but I was
not a little fearful of what she told me but now, which is, that her
servant was dead of the plague, and that she had new-whitened
the house all below stairs, but that above stairs they are not so
fit for me to go up to, they being not so. So I parted thence,
with a very good will, but very civilly, and away to the water-
side, and sent for a pint of sack, and drank what I would and
gave the waterman the rest.
THE FIRE
2nd September 1666, Lord's Day.—Some of our maids sitting
up late last night to get things ready against our feast to-day,
Jane called us up about three in the morning, to tell us of a great
fire they saw in the city. So I rose, and slipped on my night-
gown, and went to her window; and thought it to be on the
'back side of Mark Lane at the farthest; but being unused to
such fires as followed, I thought it far enough off; and so went
to bed again, and to sleep. About seven rose again to dress
myself, and then looked out at the window, and saw the fire not
so much as it was, and farther off. So to my closet to set things
to rights, after yesterday's cleaning. By and by Jane comes and
tells me that she hears that above 300 houses have been burned
down to-night by the fire we saw, and that it is now burning
down all Fish Street by London Bridge. So I made myself
ready presently, and walked to the Tower; and there got up upon
one of the high places, Sir J. Robinson's little son going up with
me; and there I did see the houses at that end of the bridge all
on fire, and an infinite great fire on this and the other side the
end of the bridge; which, among other people, did trouble me
for poor little Michell and our Sarah on the bridge. So down,
with my heart full of trouble, to the Lieutenant of the Tower, who
tells me that it began this morning in the King's baker's house in
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Pudding Lane, and that it hath burned down St. Magnus' Church and most part of Fish Street already. So I down to the water-side, and there got a boat, and through bridge, and there saw a lamentable fire. Poor Michell's house, as far as the Old Swan already burned that way, and the fire running further, that in a very little time, it got as far as the Steel-yard, while I was there. Everybody endeavouring to remove their goods, and flinging them into the river, or bringing them into lighters that lay off ; poor people staying in their houses as long as till the very fire touched them, and then running into boats, or clambering from one pair of stairs, by the water-side, to another. And, among other things, the poor pigeons, I perceive, were loth to leave their houses, but hovered about the windows and balconies, till they burned their wings, and fell down. Having stayed, and in an hour's time seen the fire rage every way ; and nobody, to my sight, endeavouring to quench it, but to remove their goods, and leave all to the fire ; and having seen it get as far as the Steel-yard, and the wind mighty high, and driving it into the city ; and everything after so long a drought, proving combustible, even the very stones of churches ; and, among other things, the poor steeple by which pretty Mrs. — lives, and whereof my old schoolfellow Elborough is parson, taken fire at the very top, and there burned till it fell down : I to White Hall, with a gentleman with me, who desired to go off from the Tower, to see the fire, in my boat : and there up to the King's closet in the chapel, where people come about me, and I did give them an account dismayed them all, and word was carried in to the king. So I was called for, and did tell the king and Duke of York what I saw : and that, unless His Majesty did command houses to be pulled down, nothing could stop the fire. They seemed much troubled, and the King commanded me to go to my Lord Mayor from him, and command him to spare no houses, but to pull down before the fire every way. The Duke of York bid me tell him, that if he would have any more soldiers, he shall ; and so did my Lord Arlington afterwards, as a great secret. Here meeting with Captain Cocke, I in his coach, which he lent me, and Creed with me to Paul's : and there walked along Watling Street, as well as I could, every creature coming away loaden with goods to save, and here and there, sick people carried away in beds. Extraordinary good goods carried in carts and on backs. At last met my Lord Mayor in Fanning Street, like a man spent, with a handkercher about his neck. To the
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King's message, he cried, like a fainting woman, "Lord, what
can I do ? I am spent : people will not obey me.
I have been pulling down houses ; but the fire overtakes us faster than we can
do it." That he needed no more soldiers : and that, for himself,
he must go and refresh himself, having been up all night. So he
left me, and I him, and walked home ; seeing people all almost
distracted, and no manner of means used to quench the fire.
The houses, too, so very thick thereabouts, and full of matter for
burning, as pitch and tar, in Thames Street ; and warehouses of
oil, and wines, and brandy, and other things. Here I saw Mr.
Isaac Houblon, the handsome man, prettily dressed and dirty, at
his house at Dowgate, receiving some of his brother's things,
whose houses were on fire ; and, as he says, have been removed
twice already, and he doubts, as it soon proved, that they must be,
in a little time, removed from his house also, which was a sad
consideration. And to see the churches all filling with goods by
people who themselves should have been quietly there at this
time. By this time, it was about twelve o'clock ; and so home,
and there find my guests, who were Mr. Wood and his wife
Barbary Shelden, and also Mr. Moone : she mighty fine, and her
husband, for aught I see, a likely man. But Mr. Moone's design
and mine, which was to look over my closet, and please him with
the sight thereof, which he hath long desired, was wholly dis-
appointed ; for we were in great trouble and disturbance at this
fire, not knowing what to think of it. However, we had an
extraordinary good dinner, and as merry as at this time we could
be. While at dinner, Mr. Batelier come to inquire after Mr.
Woolfe and Stanes, who, it seems, are related to them, whose
houses in Fish Street are all burned, and they in a sad condition.
They now removing goods out of Canning Street, which received
goods in the morning, into Lombard Street, and farther : and
among others, I now saw my little goldsmith Stokes receiving
some friends' goods, whose house itself was burned the day after.
We parted at Paul's : he home, and I to Paul's Wharf, where I
had appointed a boat to attend me, and took in Mr. Carcasse and
his brother, whom I met in the street, and carried them below and
above bridge too. And again to see the fire, which was now
got farther, both below and above, and no likelihood of stopping
it. Met with the king and Duke of York in their barge, and
with them to Queenhithe, and there called Sir Richard Browne
to them. Their order was only to pull down houses apace, and
VOL. III
Q
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so below bridge at the water side : but little was or could be done,
the fire coming upon them so fast. Good hopes there was of
stopping it at the Three Cranes above, and at Botolph's Wharf
below bridge, if care be used: but the wind carries it into the
city, so as we know not, by the waterside, what it do there. River
full of lighters and boats taking in goods, and good goods
swimming in the water : and only I observed that hardly one
lighter or boat in three that had the goods of a house in, but there
was a pair of virginals in it. Having seen as much as I could
now, I away to Whitehall by appointment, and there walked to
St. James's Park : and there met my wife, and Creed, and Wood,
and his wife, and walked to my boat ; and there upon the water
again, and to the fire up and down, it still increasing, and the
wind great. So near the fire as we could for smoke ; and all over
the Thames, with one's faces in the wind, you were almost burned
with a shower of fire drops. This is very true : so as houses were
burned by these drops and flakes of fire, three or four, nay, five
or six houses, one from another. When we could endure no more
upon the water, we to a little ale-house on the Bankside, over
against The Three Cranes, and there stayed till it was dark almost,
and saw the fire grow ; and, as it grew darker, appeared more
and more ; and in corners and upon steepples, and between
churches and houses, as far as we could see up the hill of the
city, in a most horrid, malicious, bloody flame, not like the fine
flame of an ordinary fire. Barbary and her husband away before
us. We stayed till, it being darkish, we saw the fire as only one
entire arch of fire from this to the other side of the bridge, and in a
bow up the hill for an arch of above a mile long : it made me
weep to see it. The churches, houses, and all on fire, and flam-
ing at once ; and a horrid noise the flames made, and the
cracking of houses at their ruin. So home with a sad heart, and
find everybody discoursing and lamenting the fire ; and poor
Tom Hater come with some few of his goods saved out of his
house, which was burned upon Fish Street Hill. I invited him
to lie at my house, and did receive his goods ; but was deceived
in his lying there, the news coming every moment of the growth
of the fires ; so we were forced to begin to pack up our own goods,
and prepare for their removal ; and did by moonshine, it being
brave, dry, and moonshine and warm weather, carry much of my
goods into the garden ; and Mr. Hater and I did remove my
money and iron chests into my cellar, as thinking that the safest
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place. And got my bags of gold into my office, ready to carry
away, and my chief papers of accounts also there, and my tallies
into a box by themselves. So great was our fear, as Sir W.
Batten hath carts come out of the country to fetch away his goods
this night. We did put Mr. Hater, poor man ! to bed a little ;
but he got but very little rest, so much noise being in my house,
taking down of goods.
EPSOM DOWNS
14th July 1667 (Lord's Day).—Up, and my wife, a little before
four, and to make us ready ; and by and by Mrs. Turner came
to us, by agreement, and she and I stayed talking below, while
my wife dressed herself, which vexed me that she was so long
about it, keeping us till past five o'clock before she was ready.
She ready ; and, taking some bottles of wine, and beer, and
some cold fowl with us into the coach, we took coach and four
horses, which I had provided last night, and so away. A very
fine day, and so towards Epsom, talking all the way pleasantly,
and particularly of the pride and ignorance of Mrs. Lowther, in
having of her train carried up. The country very fine, only the
way very dusty. To Epsom, by eight o'clock, to the well ;
where much company, and I drank the water : they did not, but
I did drink four pints. And to the town, to the King's Head ;
and we hear that my Lord Buckhurst and Nelly are lodged at
the next house, and Sir Charles Sedley with them : and keep a
merry house. Poor girl ! I pity her ; but more the loss of her
at the King's house. W. Hewer rode with us, and I left him
and the women, and myself walked to church, where few people
to what I expected, and none I knew but all the Houblons
brothers, and them I did salute, and walk with towards my inn.
James did tell me that I was the only happy man of the navy,
of whom, he says, during all this freedom the people have taken
to speaking treason, he hath not heard one bad word of me,
which is a great joy to me ; for I hear the same of others, but
do know that I have deserved as well as most. We parted to
meet anon, and I to my women into a better room, which the
people of the house borrowed for us, and there to a good dinner,
and were merry, and Pembleton came to us, who happened to be
in the house, and there talked and were merry. After dinner,
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he gone, we all lay down, the day being wonderful hot, to sleep,
and each of us took a good nap, and then rose; and here Tom
Wilson come to see me, and sat and talked an hour; and I
perceive he hath been much acquainted with Dr. Fuller (Tom),
and Dr. Pierson, and several of the great cavalier parsons during
the late troubles; and I was glad to hear him talk of them, which
he did very ingenuously, and very much of Dr. Fuller's art of
memory, which he did tell me several instances of. By and by
he parted, and we took coach and to take the air, there being a
fine breeze abroad; and I carried them to the well, and there
filled some bottles of water to carry home with me; and there I
talked with the two women that farm the well at £12 per annum
of the lord of the manor. Mr. Evelyn with his lady, and also
my Lord George Berkeley's lady, and their fine daughter, that
the King of France liked so well, and did dance so rich in jewels
before the king at the ball I was at at our Court, last winter,
and also their son, a Knight of the Bath, were at church this
morning. Here W. Hewer's horse broke loose, and we had the
sport to see him taken again. Then I carried them to see my
cousin Pepys's house, and 'light, and walked round about it, and
they like it, as indeed it deserves very well, and is a pretty
place; and then I walked them to the wood hard by, and there
got them in the thickets till they had lost themselves, and I
could not find the way into any of the walks in the wood, which
indeed are very pleasant, if I could have found them. At last
got out of the wood again; and I, by leaping down the little
bank, coming out of the wood, did sprain my right foot, which
brought me great present pain, but presently, with walking, it
went away for the present, and so the women and W. Hewer and
I walked upon the Downs, where a flock of sheep was; and the
most pleasant and innocent sight that ever I saw in my life. We
found a shepherd and his little boy reading, far from any houses
or sight of people, the Bible to him; so I made the boy read to
me, which he did, with the forced tone that children usually do
read, that was mighty pretty, and then I did give him something,
and went to the father, and talked with him; and I find he had
been a servant in my cousin Pepys's house, and told me what
was become of their old servants. He did content himself
mightily in my liking his boy's reading, and did bless God for
him, the most like one of the old patriarchs that ever I saw in
my life, and it brought those thoughts of the old age of the
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world in my mind for two or three days after. We took notice
of his woollen-knit stockings of two colours mixed, and of his
shoes shod with iron, both at the toe and heels, and with great
nails in the soles of his feet, which was mighty pretty : and
taking notice of them, why, says the poor man, the downs, you
see, are full of stones, and we are fain to shoe ourselves thus ;
and these, says he, will make the stones fly till they ring before
me. I did give the poor man something, for which he was
mighty thankful, and I tried to cast stones with his horn crook.
He values his dog mightily, that would turn a sheep any way
which he would have him, when he goes to fold them : told me
there was about eighteen score sheep in his flock, and that he
hath four shillings a week the year round for keeping of them :
and Mrs. Turner, in the common fields here, did gather one of
the prettiest nosegays that ever I saw in my life. So to our
coach, and through Mr. Minnes's wood, and looked upon Mr.
Evelyn's house ; and so over the common, and through Epsom
town to our inn, in the way stopping a poor woman with her
milk-pail, and in one of my gilt tumblers, did drink our bellyfuls
of milk, better than any cream ; and so to our inn, and there had
a dish of cream, but it was sour, and so had no pleasure in it ;
and so paid our reckoning, and took coach, it being about seven
at night, and passed and saw the people walking with their wives
and children to take the air, and we set off for home, the sun
by and by going down, and we in the cool of the evening all the
way with much pleasure home, talking and pleasing ourselves
with the pleasure of this day's work. Mrs. Turner mightily
pleased with my resolution, which, I tell her, is never to keep
a country house, but to keep a coach, and with my wife on the
Saturday to go sometimes for a day to this place, and then quit
to another place ; and there is more variety and as little charge,
and no trouble, as there is in a country house. Anon it grew
dark, and we had the pleasure to see several glow-worms, which
was mighty pretty, but my foot begins more and more to pain
me, which Mrs. Turner, by keeping her warm hand upon it, did
much ease ; but so that when we come home, which was just at
eleven at night, I was not able to walk from the lane's end to my
house without being helped. So to bed, and there had a cerce-
cloth laid to my foot, but in great pain all night long.
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ROBERT SOUTH
[Robert South (whom Robert Southey loved to call " my almost namesake") was born at Hackney in 1633, and was educated at Westminster (where he received special attention from Busby) and Christ Church, of which house he became student in 1651. His enemies were fond of reminding him (as was the custom at that time) that as a young bachelor he had congratulated Cromwell on his victories over the Dutch in a copy of Latin verses. But when he took orders some time before the Restoration it was from a deprived bishop, and being appointed public orator in the year of the Restoration itself, he remained for fifty-six years a pillar of the Tory party in the English Church, though he did not think it necessary to become a non-juror. He was made chaplain to Clarendon, and received successively, though not at very brief intervals, a prebend at Westminster, a canonry of Christ Church, and the rectory of Islip. But he was never made either dean or bishop, though there are stories to the effect that this was merely because he did not choose to be either. There is a sufficient agreement as to his disinterestedness to show that if he took the oaths to William and Mary it was due to no baser reason than dislike of " Popery," and perhaps indignation at James's conduct to Christ Church. Once he went on a foreign embassy with Lawrence Hyde. His chief fame was obtained as a preacher ; and it was not till after the Revolution that he became prominent as a controversialist. His chief controversy was with Sherlock, who, from having put his hand to the plough and looked back in the matter of non-juring, was extremely obnoxious even to those who had not thought it necessary to refuse the oaths themselves, and who had given a handle by some very incautious, if not intentionally heretical, remarks on the doctrine of the Trinity. In his latest years South espoused the cause of Sacheverell, and, it seems, refused a bishopric even from the Tory ministry of Anne. He did not die till 8th July 1716, having thus seen a third ruin of the Tory cause in England. He had been public orator for many years at Oxford immediately after the Restoration, but had latterly resided for the most part at Westminster, where he lies buried. His sermons, originally printed or reprinted at divers times before and after his death, have been collected in 4 vols. 8vo. London : 1843.]
There is one epithet which, as it seems to me, occurs to the reader of South more naturally, forcibly, and frequently than any other. He is especially and eminently masculine ; and possesses,
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in very striking measure, the merits and defects of the quality.
It may be that he is a little, or more than a little, lacking in the
milder virtues and graces both of temper and style. He shows
no tenderness, and barely even the requisite decency in handling
opponents. I am afraid he went out of his way to attack Fuller,
while Fuller was still alive. It is certain that he made a direct
onslaught (also going out of his way to do it) on Jeremy Taylor
just after Taylor's death—both, it must be remembered, being
members of his own party, though obnoxious to him in special
ways. There has been pretty general agreement as to the
excessive acrimony, not to say scurrility, with which he attacked
Sherlock, and which is not excused even by the double provoca-
tion Sherlock had given. What is sometimes selected as South's
distinguishing quality, his wit, is of a savage and sardonic kind
for the most part, reminding one, as indeed do many of his
characteristics, of a Swift of less royal mould. Manly as he is,
he has the gifts rather than the graces of manliness ; and, in so
far as a man both good and great can resemble a brute, he throws
some light on the selection of the term by his contemporary
Wycherley for his degradation of Molière's Alceste.
This is, I think, an ample allowance for the less amiable
features of South's moral and literary nature. The more admir-
able parts of it were many, and of rare temper. South is nearly
the last great English divine to exhibit the full merits, with hardly
any of the defects, of the old training in school divinity, which,
even in his time, was growing obsolete. He has little or nothing
of its pedantry and cumbrousness, but he has all the athletic and
combative proficiency which, at its best, it was calculated to
confer. South was a very learned man ; but his learning seldom
weighs heavily on him. For a fallacy, be it sophistry or merely
paralogism, he has the eyes of a lynx to discover it, and the
claws thereof to tear it to pieces. He has no superior, and I
doubt whether even Barrow be his equal, in the art of urging
home theological or ethical doctrine, with the solid, clear-cut
argument which was still welcome to generations wherein most
educated men had had some training in logic. We may, indeed,
observe in South, in his schoolfellow Dryden, and in other con-
temporaries, a singular and interesting transition or compromise
between the mental temper of the times before, and that of the
times after them. The gorgeous conceits, and the fervid mysti-
cism of the sixteenth and earlier seventeenth centuries are gone ;
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the shadow of eighteenth-century commonsense is cast before on
them. But they have a stricter and a more antique fashion of
reasoning than their successors, and a touch of magnificence
and of metaphysical profundity which these latter have in their
turn lost.
The style proper of South corresponds, as usual, to his sub-
stance and temper. It is a little, but not much more antique
than that of those among his immediate contemporaries—Tillot-
son, Temple, Halifax, Dryden, who were the chief heralds of the
eighteenth-century manner. Although in the passages above
alluded to he probably girds at Fuller for being too witty, and
certainly attacks Taylor as being too florid, he himself by no
means disdained jocularity of the rather rough and grim kind
previously indicated, and is perfectly competent, and sometimes
rather prone, to adorn his sermons with the purple patch. He
has been accused of being too political; but this is scarcely a
fair criticism, for his whole scheme and system of thought was
summed up in the phrase “Church and State,”—the unity, if not
the identity, of the two was the major premiss of at least one
syllogism in almost all his trains of argument. This impressed,
no doubt, a certain hardness and sometimes almost a legal
character on his style. At the same time it cannot be said that
South is in the least degree Erastian or worldly. He is at least
as much convinced of the religious aspect of the State as of the
political aspect of the Church; and he rises to many of his best
flights of eloquence in dealing with the purely individual aspect
of religion, and the demands it makes on the personal exertions
of each man, whether cleric or lay. If any one would, at little
trouble, estimate South as an authority on practical religion, let
him read the sermons on Shamelessness and Concealment of
Sin; if any his powers as an abstract theologian and logician,
those which immediately follow on the Resurrection and the
Trinity. This combination in him gives his work a singular
attraction for at least some readers, as it provides unusual
contrasts of manner and style. South, indeed, has eminently
the characteristics of “University wits.” He is a little over-
bearing, not to say arrogant, and somewhat neglectful of the
possible needs of minds less acute, less well read, and less
versatile than his own, abrupt in his transitions from rhetoric
to sarcasm, almost unduly allusive, erudite, and oracular. But
the author of the famous hyperbole which figures in our first
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extract, "An Aristotle was but the rubbish of an Adam, and Athens but the rudiments of Paradise," cannot be denied something like the first prize, both for audacity and felicity ; nor the author of hundreds of other things scattered about his work the crowns due to masterly erudition, vigorous argument, and biting wit.
GEORGE SAINTSBURY
Page 247
THE HAPPINESS OF ADAM
HE came into the world a philosopher, which sufficiently
appeared by his writing the nature of things upon their names;
he could view essences in themselves, and read forms without
the comment of their respective properties: he could see con-
sequents yet dormant in their principles, and effects yet unborn,
and in the womb of their causes: his understanding could almost
pierce into future contingents, his conjectures improving even to
prophecy, or the certainties of prediction; till his fall, it was
ignorant of nothing but of sin; or at least it rested in the notion,
without the smart of the experiment. Could any difficulty have
been proposed, the resolution would have been as early as the
proposal; it could not have had time to settle into doubt. Like
a better Archimedes, the issue of all his inquiries was an εὐρηκα,
an εὐρηκα, the offspring of his brain without the sweat of his
brow. Study was not then a duty, night-watchings were needless;
the light of reason wanted not the assistance of a candle. This
is the doom of fallen man, to labour in the fire, to seek truth in
profundo, to exhaust his time and impair his health, and perhaps
to spin out his days, and himself, into one pitiful, controverted
conclusion. There was then no poring, no struggling with
memory, no straining for invention: his faculties were quick and
expedite; they answered without knocking, they were ready upon
the first summons, there was freedom and firmness in all their
operations. I confess, it is difficult for us, who date our ignorance
from our first being, and were still bred up with the same in-
firmitics about us with which we were born, to raise our thoughts
and imagination to those intellectual perfections that attended
our nature in the time of innocence; as it is for a peasant bred
up in the obscurities of a cottage, to fancy in his mind the unseen
splendours of a court. But by rating positives by their privatives,
and other arts of reason, by which discourse supplies the want of
the reports of sense, we may collect the excellency of the under-
Page 248
standing then, by the glorious remainders of it now, and guess at
the stateliness of the building, by the magnificence of its ruins.
All those arts, rarities, and inventions, which vulgar minds gaze
at, the ingenious pursue, and all admire, are but the reliques of an
intellect defaced with sin and time. We admire it now, only as
antiquaries do a piece of old coin, for the stamp it once bore, and
not for those vanishing lineaments and disappearing draughts
that remain upon it at present. And certainly that must needs
have been very glorious, the decays of which are so admirable.
He that is comely, when old and decrepid, surely was very
beautiful when he was young. An Aristotle was but the rubbish
of an Adam, and Athens but the rudiments of Paradise.
The image of God was no less resplendent in that which we
call man's practical understanding ; namely, that storehouse of
the soul, in which are treasured up the rules of action and the
seeds of morality. Where, we must observe, that many who
deny all connate notions in the speculative intellect, do yet
admit them in this. Now of this sort are these maxims ; that
God is to be worshipped ; that parents are to be honoured ; that
a man's word is to be kept, and the like ; which, being of
universal influence, as to the regulation of the behaviour and con-
verse of mankind are the ground of all virtue and civility, and
the foundation of religion.
It was the privilege of Adam innocent, to have these notions
also firm and untainted, to carry his monitor in his bosom, his
law in his heart, and to have such a conscience as might be its
own casuist : and certainly those actions must needs be regular,
where there is an identity between the rule and the faculty. His
own mind taught him a due dependence upon God, and chalked
out to him the just proportions and measures of behaviour to his
fellow creatures. He had no catechism but the creation, needed
no study but reflection, read no book, but the volume of the
world, and that too, not for rules to work by, but for objects to
work upon. Reason was his tutor, and first principles his
magna moralia. The decalogue of Moses was but a transcript,
not an original. All the laws of nations, and wise decrees of
states, the statutes of Solon, and the Twelve Tables, were but a
paraphrase upon this standing rectitude of nature, this fruitful
principle of justice, that was ready to run out, and enlarge itself
into suitable determinations, upon all emergent objects and
occasions. Justice then was neither blind to discern, nor lame to
Page 249
execute. It was not subject to be imposed upon by a deluded fancy, nor yet to be bribed by a glozing appetite, for an utile or jucundum to turn the balance to a false and dishonest sentence. In all its directions of the inferior faculties, it conveyed its suggestions with clearness, and enjoined them with power ; it had the passions in perfect subjection ; and though its command over them was but suasive and political, yet it had the force of coaction, and despotical. It was not then, as it is now, where the conscience has only power to disapprove, and to protest against the exorbitances of the passions ; and rather to wish, than make them otherwise. The voice of conscience now is low and weak, chastising the passions, as old Eli did his lustful, domineering sons ; “ Not so, my sons not so ;” but the voice of conscience then was not, This should or This ought to be done ; but, This must, This shall be done. It spoke like a legislator ; the thing spoke was a law ; and the manner of speaking it a new obligation. In short, there was as great a disparity between the practical dictates of the understanding then and now, as there is between empire and advice, counsel and command, between a companion and a governor.
And thus much for the image of God, as it shone in man's understanding.
(From Sermons preached upon Several Occasions.)
OF THE LIGHT WITHIN US
I know there are many more irregular and corrupt affections belonging to the mind of man, and all of them in their degree apt to darken and obscure the light of conscience. Such as are wrath and revenge, envy and malice, fear and despair, with many such others, even too many a great deal to be crowded into one hour's discourse. But the three fore-mentioned (which we have been treating of) are, doubtless, the most predominant, the most potent in their influence, and most pernicious in their effect ; as answering to those three principal objects which, of all others, do the most absolutely command and domineer over the desires of men : to wit, the pleasures of the world working upon their sensuality ; the profits of the world upon their covetousness ; and lastly, the honours of it upon their ambition. Which three powerful incentives, meeting with these three violent affections,
Page 250
are, as it were, the great trident in the tempter's hand, by which
he strikes through the very hearts and souls of men ; or as a
mighty threefold cord, by which he first hampers, and then draws
the whole world after him, and that with such a rapid swing,
such an irresistible fascination upon the understandings, as well as
appetites of men, that, as God said heretofore, Let there be light,
and there was light, so this proud rival of his Creator, and over-
turner of the creation, is still saying, in defiance of him, Let there
be darkness, and accordingly there is darkness ; darkness upon
the mind and reason ; darkness upon the judgment and conscience
of all mankind. So that hell itself seems to be nothing else, but
the devil's finishing this his great work, and the consummation of
that darkness in another world, which he had so fatally begun in
this.
And now, to sum up briefly the foregoing particulars ; you
have heard of what vast and infinite moment it is, to have a clear,
impartial, and right judging conscience ; such an one as a man
may reckon himself safe in the directions of, as of a guide that
will always tell him truth, and truth with authority : and that the
eye of conscience may be always thus quick and lively, let con-
stant use be sure to keep it constantly open ; and thereby ready
and prepared to admit and let in those heavenly beams, which
are always streaming forth from God upon minds fitted to receive
them.
And to this purpose, let a man fly from every thing which
may leave either a foulness or a bias upon it ; for the first will
blacken, and the other will distort it, and both be sure to darken
it. Particularly let him dread every gross act of sin ; for one
great stab may as certainly and speedily destroy life as forty lesser
wounds. Let him also carry a jealous eye over every growing
habit of sin ; for custom is an overmatch to nature, and seldom
conquered by grace ; and, above all, let him keep aloof from all
commerce or fellowship with any vicious and base affection ;
especially from all sensuality, which is not only the dirt, but the
black dirt, which the devil throws upon the souls of men ;
accordingly let him keep himself untouched with the hellish, un-
hallowed heats of lust, and the noisome steams and exhalations of
intemperance, which never fail to leave a brutish dulness and
infatuation behind them. Likewise, let him bear himself above
that sordid and low thing, that utter contradiction to all greatness
of mind, covetousness ; let him disenslave himself from the pelf
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239
of the world, from that amor sceleratus habendi; for all love has
something of blindness attending it; but the love of money
especially. And lastly, let him learn so to look upon the honours,
the pomp, and greatness of the world, as to look through them
too. Fools indeed are apt to be blown up by them, and to
sacrifice all for them; sometimes venturing their very heads, only
to get a feather in their caps. But wise men, instead of looking
above them, choose rather to look about them and within them,
and by so doing keep their eyes always in their heads; and
maintain a noble clearness in one, and steadiness in the other.
These, I say, are some of those ways and methods by which this
great and internal light, the judging faculty of conscience, may be
preserved in its native vigour and quickness. And to complete
the foregoing directions by the addition of one word more; that
we may the more surely prevent our affections from working too
much upon our judgment, let us wisely beware of all such things
as may work too strongly upon our affections.
If the light that is in thee be darkness, says our Saviour, how
great must that darkness needs be! That is, how fatal, how
destructive! And therefore I shall close up all with those other
words of our Saviour, John xii. While you have the light, walk in
the light: so that the way to have it, we see, is to walk in it; that
is, by the actions of a pious, innocent, well-governed life, to cherish,
heighten, and improve it; for still, so much innocence, so much
light; and on the other side, to abhor and loathe whatsoever
may any ways discourage and eclipse it; as every degree of vice
assuredly will. And thus by continually feeding and trimming
our lamps, we shall find that this blessed light within us will grow
every day stronger and stronger, and flame out brighter and
brighter, till at length, having led us through this vale of darkness
and mortality, it shall bring us to those happy mansions where
there is light and life for evermore.
(From the Same.)
THE LOSS OF SHAME
Custom in sinning never fails in the issue to take away the
sense and shame of sin, were a person never so virtuous before.
For albeit the object of shame still carries with it something
strange, new and unusual, yet the strangeness of any thing wears
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off with the frequency of its practice. This makes it familiar to
the mind, and being so, the mind is never startled or moved at
it. By great sins (as we have shewn) the soul casts off shame
all on a sudden ; but by customary sinning it lays it down
leisurely, and by degrees. And no man proceeding in such a
course or method, arrives presently at the top of any vice ; but
holding on a continual steady progress in the paths of sin, passes
at length into a forlorn, shameless condition by such steps as
these. First, he begins to shake off the natural horror and dread
which he had of breaking any of God's commands, and so not to
fear sin : in the next place, finding his sinful appetites gratified
by such breaches of the divine law, he comes thereupon to like
his sin, and to be pleased with what he has done; and then,
from ordinary complacencies, heightened and improved by custom,
he comes passionately to delight in such ways. And thus, being
captivated with delight, he resolves to continue and persist in
them ; which, since he can hardly do without incurring the
censure and ill opinion of the world, he frames himself to a
resolute contempt of whatsoever is either thought or said of him ;
and so having hereby done violence to those apprehensions of
modesty, which nature had placed as guardians and overseers to
his virtue, he flings off all shame, wears his sin upon his forehead,
looks boldly with it, and so at length commences a fixed, thorough-
paced and complete sinner.
The examples of great persons take away the shame of any-
thing which they are observed to practise, though never so foul
and shameful in itself. Every such person stamps a kind of
authority upon what he does ; and the examples of superiors
(and much more of sovereigns) are both a rule and an encourage-
ment to their inferiors. The action is seldom abhorred, where
the agent is admired ; and the filth of one is hardly taken notice
of, where the lustre of the other dazzles the beholder. Nothing
is or can be more contagious, than an ill action set off with a
great example ; for it is natural for men to imitate those above
them, and to endeavour to resemble, at least, that which they
cannot be. And therefore, whatsoever they see such grandees
do, quickly becomes current and creditable, it passes cum
privilegio; and no man blushes at the imitation of a scarlet or a
purple sinner, though the sin be so too.
It is, in good earnest, a sad consideration to reflect upon that
intolerable weight of guilt which attends the vices of great and
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eminent offenders. Every one, God knows, has guilt enough from his own personal sins to consign him over to eternal misery;
but when God shall charge the death of so many souls upon one man's account, and tell him at the great day, This man had his drunkenness from thee, that man owes his uncleanness to thy example; another was at first modest, bashful, and tender, till thy practice, enforced by the greatness of thy place and person, conquered all those reluctancies, and brought him in the end to be shameless and insensible, of a prostitute conscience and a reprobate mind.
When God, I say, shall reckon all this to the score of a great, illustrious, and exemplary sinner, over and above his own personal guilt, how unpeakably greater a doom must needs pass upon him for other men's sins, than could have done only for his own !
The sins of all about him are really his sins, as being committed in the strength of that which they had seen him do.
Wherein, though his action was personal and particular, yet his influence was universal.
The observation of the general and common practice of anything, takes away the shame of that practice.
Better be out of the world, than not be like the world, is the language of most hearts.
The commonness of a practice turns it into a fashion, and few, we know, are ashamed to follow that.
A vice à la mode will look virtue itself out of countenance, and it is well if it does not look it out of heart too.
Men love not to be found singular, especially where the singularity lies in the rugged and severe paths of virtue.
Company causes confidence, and multitude gives both credit and defence ; credit to the crime, and defence to the criminal.
The fearfullest and the basest creatures, got into herds and flocks, become bold and daring : and the modestest natures, hardened by the fellowship and concurrence of others in the same vicious course, grow into another frame of spirit ; and in a short time lose all apprehension of the indecency and foulness of that which they have so familiarly and so long conversed with.
Impudence fights with and by number, and by multitude becomes victorious.
For no man is ashamed to look his fellow-thief or drunkard in the face, or to own a rebellious design in the head of a rebel army.
And we see every day what a degree of shamelessness the common practice of some sins amongst us has brought the generality of the nation to ; so that persons of that sex, whose proper ornament should be bashfulness and modesty, are grown
VOL. III
R
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bold and forward, offer themselves into company, and even invite those addresses, which the severity of former times would have scorned to admit : from the retirements of the closet they are come to brave it in theatres and taverns ; where virtue and modesty are drunk down, and honour left behind to pay the reckoning. And now ask such persons with what face they can assume such unbecoming liberties ; and they shall answer you, that it is the mode, the gallantry, and theenteel freedom of the present age, which has redeemed itself from the pitiful pedantry and absurd scrupulosity of former times, in which those bugbears of credit and conscience spoiled all the pleasure, the air, and fineness of conversation. This is all the account you shall have from them ; and thus, when common practice has vouched for an ill thing, and called it by a plausible name, the credit of the word shall take away the shame of the thing : vice grows triumphant ; and, knowing itself to be in its full glory, scorns to fly to corners or concealments, but loves to be seen and gazed upon, and has thrown off the mask or vizard as an useless, unfashionable thing. This, I say, is the guise of our age, our free thinking and freer practising age, in which people generally are ashamed of nothing, but to be virtuous, and to be thought old.
(From the Same.)
THE ULTIMA RATIO OF BELIEF
UPON the whole matter therefore, if by true and sound reasoning I stand assured that God has affirmed or declared a thing, all objections against the same, though never so strong (even reason itself, upon the strictest principles of it, being judge), must of necessity fall to the ground. Forasmuch as reason itself cannot but acknowledge, that men of the best wit, learning, and judgment, may sometimes take that for a contradiction, which really is not so ; but still, on the other side, must own it utterly impossible for a being infinitely perfect, holy, and true, either to deceive or be deceived in any thing affirmed or attested by it. And moreover, to carry this point yet something further ; if a proposition be once settled upon a solid bottom, and sufficiently proved, it will and must continue to be so, notwithstanding any after-arguments or objections brought against it, whether we can
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243
answer and clear off the said objections, or no ; I say, it lessens
not our obligation to believe such a proposition one jot. And if
the whole body of Christians, throughout all places and ages,
should with one voice declare, that they could not solve the fore-
going objection urged against the resurrection, and taken from
the continual transmutation of bodies into one another, or any
other such like arguments, it would not abate one degree of duty
lying upon them, to acknowledge and embrace the said article, as
an indispensable part of their Christian faith ; nor would they be
at all the worse Christians, for not being able to give a philo-
sophical account or solution thereof ; so long as, with a non
obstante to all such difficulties, they stedfastly adhered to and
acquiesced in the article itself. For, so far as I can see, this
whole controversy depends upon, and ought to be determined by
the Scriptures, as wholly turning upon these two points, viz. Ist,
Whether a future general resurrection be affirmed and revealed in
the Scriptures, or no? And 2ndly, Whether the said Scriptures
be the Word of God? And if the matter stands thus, I am sure
that none can justly pretend to the name of a Christian, who in
the least doubts of the affirmative in either of these two points.
And consequently, if this article stands thus proved, all arguments
formed against it, upon the stock of reason or philosophy, come
too late to shake it ; for they find the thing already fixed and
proved ; and being so, it cannot, by after-allegations, be disproved.
Since it being also a proposition wholly founded upon revelation,
and the authority of the revelation upon the authority of the
revealer, all arguments from any thing else are wholly foreign to
the subject in dispute ; and accordingly ought by no means to
be admitted, either as necessary proofs of it, or so much as
competent objections against it. For whatsoever is contrary to
the word of affirmation of a being infinitely knowing and
essentially infallible, let it carry with it never so much shew of
truth, yet it certainly is and can be nothing else but fallacy and
imposture. And upon this one ground I firmly do and ought to
believe a general resurrection, though ten thousand arguments
from the principles of natural philosophy could be opposed to it.
(From the Same.)
Page 257
THOMAS BURNET
[Thomas Burnet, was born at Croft, in Yorkshire, about 1635. He was educated at the free school of Northallerton, and proceeded to Clare Hall, Cambridge, in June 1651. His tutor at College was the famous Tillotson, to whom Burnet owed "that free, generous, noble way of thinking" for which he was afterwards distinguished. When Dr. Cudworth was elected Master of Christ's, in 1654, Burnet accompanied him, and became Fellow of that College in 1657. Burnet became senior Proctor of the University, which he afterwards quitted to become governor to successive youthful noblemen, with whom he travelled much abroad. In 1680 he published his Telluris Theoria Sacra, which attracted great attention, and in 1685 he was elected Master of the Charterhouse. His De Conflagratione Mundi appeared in 1689, with an English version of the same, forming the second part to his Sacred Theory of the Earth, which had been published in English in 1684. Burnet lived on until the 27th of September 1715, and was buried in the chapel of the Charterhouse. His De Statu Mortuorum did not appear until 1720, and other Latin pieces of his were printed in the course of the eighteenth century. Burnet's heroic defence of the liberties of his great school against James II. and Judge Jeffreys gave him, for a moment, no small political prominence.]
IT can scarcely be denied that if we look for the quality of magnificence applied to the imagination in prose writing, the only instance of it which can be found in English literature between the Restoration and the beginning of the eighteenth century is discovered in Thomas Burnet's Sacred Theory of the Earth. We will not exaggerate the value of that book, which, to a modern taste, must in many respects seem dull and yet wild, a sort of pompous fairy tale. But there is, undeniably, to be detected throughout it, however marred and deadened by the prosaic temper of the age, a great splendour of conception, an uplifted vision. The pages of Burnet introduce to us dream-compositions, which remind us of the once-famous apocalyptic paintings of John Martin. They are over-charged, they are without a credible basis, but every one must acknowledge the
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sweep of imagination, the grandiose and yet easy grasp of vague
and vast superhuman landscape. The young Addison, yet at
Magdalen in 1699, was set on fire by the congregated images
which the pages of The Sacred Theory led before his inner eye,
and he broke into verse of far more than customary Addisonian
enthusiasm :-
Quæ pompa vocum non imitabilis !
Qualis calescit spiritus ingent !
Ut tollis undas ! ut frementem
Diluvii reprimis tumultum !
Quis tam valenti pectore ferreus
Ut non tremiscens et timido pede
Incedat, orbis dum dolosi
Detegis instabiles ruinas !
This is the key-note of Burnet's force. It is that of a magician,
raising before us, in panoramic series, sensational pictures of
a universe and its catastrophe.
The history of Burnet's one book is interesting. When it
first appeared in Latin—under the patronage, it appears, of more
eminent Cambridge friends, but especially of Tillotson—the obscure
author found himself famous among the learned. The Archbishop
recommended the book to the king, who, in 1683, desired Burnet
to translate it. Next year, accordingly, appeared in folio The
Sacred Theory of the Earth, a paraphrase of the Latin and much
enlarged. This greatly widened the author's audience, even in
those days, and at first the theory, to which I shall return, seems
to have been accepted. Men of science must, from the very
first, have been aware that "there went more to the making of
the world than a finely-turned period," but they held their peace.
The charm of style, moreover, at which Flamsteed might sneer,
potently recommended the volume, and it was not until the
popularity of The Sacred Theory became alarming that theology
rather than science attacked it. Erasmus Warren, from the one
side, and Dr. Keill, the Savilian professor, from the other, then
rushed forward to arraign it, and were followed by a number of
pamphleteers. Quite a little literature sprang up around the
book, which continued to hold its place, as a popular contribution
to scientific letters, for more than half a century. A seventh
edition of a work costly to produce was issued so late as 1759.
The secret of this effect upon his readers was that Burnet was
enamoured of his own pre-geological dream. He thought him-
self inspired with superhuman insight. He believed that it was his
Page 259
divine mission to retrieve the scene of the Golden Age and to chronicle its ruin. He introduces his singular book with no mock-modesty ; he confesses that what we are about to read has "more masculine beauty than any poem or romance." This mystical conviction carried away the learned alike and the unlearned, and even Burnet's fiercest opponents admitted, as Keill does, that "never was any book of philosophy written in a more lofty and plausible style." When a vision is presented to us with such gestures of rapture, in accents of such melodious solemnity, it seems almost rude to hint that it is mathematically and geologically absurd. Burnet was like the sorcerer in "Kubla Khan" ; the reader had to flee from his enchantment, for "he on honey dew had fed, and drunk the milk of Paradise." He was so positive that he fell into an opposite extreme of danger, and was accused of scepticism because he would insist that things must have been as he dreamed they might have been.
The Sacred Theory was written to justify the doctrines of a paradisiacal state, a universal deluge and a final conflagration, but the author began with the Deluge, in which his imagination took a greater interest than in Paradise. This, Burnet says, was the greatest thing which ever befell the world, and we ought not to be satisfied with a vague idea of it, but try to realise what physical conditions preceded and accompanied it. He then attempts to show that there was no new creation of waters, but that the condition of the earth was transient and temporary, "designed for change and for destruction," its surface flat and uniform, without mountains and without a sea, and its basis a mere waste of liquid, into which in due time it easily dissolved. The cause of the Deluge, therefore, was the sinking of the old world through a crust to an abyss below. Out of the disruption and chaos, there then arose the terraqueous sphere which we now inhabit.
Having very elaborately and ardently worked out this theory of the Deluge, Burnet goes back a step, and contemplates Paradise and the circumambient primeval earth. He argues that no portion of our existing globe can be thought of as potentially paradisiacal, and that the scene of the Golden Age must of necessity have been established on a primitive earth of which no atom now remains. He holds it to have been a province of the world which sank into the abyss, when the carth, proceeding in what he calls "the airy fleet" of the planets, "'scaped so nar-
Page 260
rowly from being shipwrecked in the great Deluge." So much
admitted, he begins to speculate boldly on the topography and
hydrography of this provisional earth, which had no hills nor seas,
and which stretched like a bubble over infinite subterranean
waters. That favourite Rabbinical theme, the position of
Paradise, then enthralls him, but, here with unusual timidity, he
refuses to express any dogmatic opinion. He now digresses,
somewhat tediously, to the existence and motion of matter, and
to the economy of nature.
Here the original Sacred Theory closed. But another earth
had to be made and to be destroyed. In 1689 Burnet went on
to deal with the conflagration of the world, and to explain what
will happen when the cup of man's sin is full, and this earth has
to be consumed by fire. He states and explains the true notion
of a great Platonic year which is to make all things ripe for the
burning ; he shows how the world, as at present constituted, can
be set on fire. Here his imagination gets the bit within its
teeth, and we rush through lurid scenes of extraordinary pomp and
extravagance. Volcanoes break out along the mountain heights,
oily and sulphurous wells jet their liquid flame down the valleys,
meteors and exhalations brood over doomed provinces, and dis-
charge their magazines in blazing storms. All this is highly
sensational, but full of literary skill and fervour, and it is pursued
to surprising lengths of description.
Here Burnet should have ended, with a conclusion which is
almost majestic. But he was tempted to continue, and he has
a fourth part on the new heavens and the new earth, a kind of
prophecy of what will happen after the conflagration is over ; this
is uncommonly tedious, and seems composed without conviction.
What Burnet enjoys contemplating is destruction, not the process
of rebuilding. He has a genuine appetite for cataclysm, and
to write his best, he must be wielding his pen and the crash of
elements.
The three passages which have been selected to illustrate
Thomas Burnet are taken from the three main divisions of his
Sacred Theory, and exemplify his dreams of Deluge and of
Paradise and of the final Conflagration.
EDMUND GOSSE.
Page 261
THE DELUGE
THUS the flood came to its height; and 'tis not easy to represent
to ourselves this strange scene of things, when the Deluge was in
its fury and extremity; when the earth was broken and swallowed
up in the abyss, whose raging waters rose higher than the moun-
tains, and filled the air with broken waves, with an universal mist
and with thick darkness, so as nature seemed to be in a second
chaos; and upon this chaos rid the distressed ark, that bore the
small remains of mankind. No sea was ever so tumultuous as
this, nor is there anything in present nature to be compared with
the disorder of these waters: all the poetry, and all the hyperboles
that are used in the description of storms and raging seas were
literally true in this if not beneath it.
The ark was really carried to the tops of the highest moun-
tains, and into the places of the clouds, and thrown down again
into the deepest gulfs; and to this very state of the Deluge
and of the ark, which was a type of the Church of this world,
David seems to have alluded in the name of the Church (Ps. xlii. 7).
Abyss calls upon abyss at the noise of thy cataracts or water-spouts;
all thy waves and billows have gone over me. It was no doubt an
extraordinary and miraculous providence that could make a vessel
so ill manned live upon such a sea; that kept it from being dashed
against the hills, or over-whelmed in the deeps. That abyss which
had devoured and swallowed up whole forests of woods, cities, and
provinces, nay the whole earth, when it had conquered all could
not destroy this ship.
I remember, in the story of the Argonautics (Dion. Ar-
gonaut., l. I. v. 47), when Jason set out to fetch the golden
fleece, the poet saith, all the gods looked down from heaven
that day to view the ship; and the nymphs stood upon the
mountain tops to see the noble youth of Thessaly pulling at the
oars; we may with more reason suppose the good angels to have
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looked down upon this ship of Noah's ; and that not out of
curiosity, as idle spectators, but with a passionate concern for its
safety and deliverance. A ship, whose cargo was no less than a
whole world ; that carried the fortune and hopes of all posterity,
and if this had perished, the earth for anything we know had been
nothing but a desert, a great ruin, a dead heap of rubbish, from
the deluge to the conflagration. But death and hell, the grave
and destruction have their bounds. We may entertain ourselves
with the consideration of the face of the deluge, and of the broken
and drowned earth, in this scheme, with the floating ark, and the
guardian angels. (From The Sacred Theory of the Earth.)
PARADISE
THE substance of the theory is this ; that there was a primitive
earth of another form from the present, and inhabited by mankind
till the deluge : that it had those properties and conditions that
we have ascribed to it, namely a perpetual equinox or spring, by
reason of its right situation to the sun ; was of an oval figure,
and the exterior face of it smooth and uniform, without mountains
or a sea. That in this earth stood Paradise ; the doctrine whereof
cannot be understood but upon supposition of this primitive
earth, and its properties. Then that the disruption and fall of
this earth unto the abyss which lay under it, was that which made
the universal deluge, and the destruction of the old world ; and
that neither Noah's flood, nor the present form of the earth can
be explained in any other method that is rational, nor by any
other causes that are intelligible, at least, that have been hitherto
proposed to the world.
These are the vitals of the theory, and the primary asser-
tions, whereof I do freely profess my full belief; and who-
soever by solid reasons will show me an error and undeceive
me, I shall be very much obliged to him. There are other
lesser conclusions which flow from these, and may be called
secondary, as that the longevity of the Antediluvians depended
upon their perpetual equinox and the perpetual equality and
serenity of the air ; that the torrid zone in the primitive earth was
uninhabitable, and that all their rivers flowed from the extreme
parts of the earth towards the equinoctial, there being neither
Page 263
rain nor rainbow in the temperate and habitable regions of it ; and lastly, that the place of Paradise, according to the opinion of antiquity (for I determine no place by the theory) was in the southern hemisphere. These, I think, are all truly deduced and proved in their several ways, though they be not such essential parts of the theory as the former.
There are also besides many particular explications that are to be considered with more liberty and latitude, and may perhaps upon better thoughts, or better observations, be corrected without any prejudice to the general theory. Those places of Scripture which we have cited, are, I think, all truly applied ; and I have not mentioned Moses' cosmopœia, because I thought it delivered by him as a lawgiver, not as a philosopher ; which I intend to show at large in another treatise, not thinking that discussion proper for the vulgar tongue. Upon the whole, we are to remember that some allowances are to be made for every hypothesis that is new proposed and untried ; and that we ought not, out of levity of wit, or any private design, discountenance free and fair essays, nor from any other motive but only the love and concern of truth.
(From the Same.)
THE CONFLAGRATION
BUT it is not possible, from my station, to have a full prospect of this last scene of the earth ; for it is a mixture of fire and darkness. This new temple is filled with smoke, while it is consecrating, and none can enter into it. But I am apt to think, if we could look down upon this burning world from above the clouds, and have a full view of it, in all its parts, we should think it a lively representation of hell itself. For fire and darkness are the two chief things by which that state or place, uses to be described ; and they are both here mingled together, with all other ingredients that make that Tophet that is prepared of old (Isaiah xxx.). Here are lakes of fire and brimstone ; rivers of melted glowing matter ; ten thousand volcanoes vomiting flames all at once : thick darkness, and pillars of smoke twisted about with wreaths of flame, like fiery snakes : mountains of earth thrown up into the air, and the heavens dropping down in lumps of fire.
These things will all be literally true, concerning that day,
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and that state of the earth. And, if we suppose Beelzebub, and
his apostate crew, in the midst of this fiery furnace (and I know
not where they can be else) it will be hard to find any part of the
universe, or any state of things, that answers to so many of the
properties and characters of hell, as this which is now before us.
But if we suppose the storm over, and that the fire hath got an
entire victory over all other bodies, and subdued everything to
itself; the conflagration will end in a deluge of fire, or in a sea of
fire, covering the whole globe of the earth; for when the exterior
region of the earth is melted into a fluor, like molten glass, or
running metal, it will, according to the nature of other fluids, fill
all vacuities and depressions, and fall into a regular surface, at
an equal distance everywhere from its centre. This sea of fire,
like the first abyss, will cover the face of the whole earth, make a
kind of second chaos, and leave a capacity for another world to
rise from it.
But that is not our present business. Let us only, if you
please, to take leave of this subject, reflect upon this occasion,
on the vanity and transient glory of all this habitable world;
how, by the force of one element breaking loose upon the rest,
all the varieties of nature, all the works of art, all the labours
of men, are reduced to nothing: all that we admired and adored
before, as great and magnificent, is obliterated or vanished: and
another form and face of things, plain, simple, and everywhere the
same, overspreads the whole earth. Where are now the great
empires of the world, and their great imperial cities! Their
pillars, trophies, and monuments of glory? Show me where they
stood, read the inscription, tell me the victor's name. What
remains, what impressions, what difference or distinction do you
see in this mass of fire?
Rome itself, eternal Rome, the great city, the empress of
the world, whose domination and superstition, ancient and
modern, make a great part of the history of this earth, what
is become of her now? She laid her foundations deep, and her
palaces were strong and sumptuous: She glorified herself, and
lived deliciously; and said in her heart, I sit a queen, and shall
see no sorrow. But her hour is come, she is wiped away from
the face of the earth, and buried in perpetual oblivion. But it is
not cities only, and works of men's hands, but the everlasting hills,
the mountains and rocks of the earth are melted as wax before
the sun; and their place is nowhere found.
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THOMAS BURNET
Here stood the Alps, a prodigious range of stone, the load of the earth, that covered many countries, and reached their arms from the ocean to the Black Sea; this huge mass of stone is softened and dissolved, as a tender cloud, into rain. Here stood the African mountains, and Atlas with his top above the clouds. There was frozen Caucasus, and Taurus, and Imaus, and the mountains of Asia. And yonder towards the north, stood the Riphæan Hills, clothed in ice and snow. All these are vanished, dropped away as the snow upon their heads, and swallowed up in a red sea of fire (Rev. xv. 3). Great and marvelous are thy works, Lord God Almighty, just and true are thy ways, thou King of Saints. Hallelujah.
(From the Same.)
Page 267
EDWARD STILLINGFLEET
[Edward Stillingfleet (1635-1699) was born at Cranbourne, in Dorsetshire, 17th April 1635. He was educated at the Grammar-Schools of Cranbourne and Ringwood, and in 1648 was entered at St John's College, Cambridge, where he obtained a Fellowship in 1653. He then acted as tutor in the families, first, of Sir R. Burgoin, in Warwickshire, and then of the Hon. F. Pierrepoint, in Notts ; and, having been privately ordained by Dr Brownrigg, the deprived Bishop of Exeter, he was presented by Sir R. Burgoin to the rectory of Sutton. A few years later he became preacher at the Rolls Chapel, and in 1665 was presented by the Earl of Southampton to the rectory of St. Andrew's, Holborn. In 1668 he was nominated by King Charles II. Canon Residentiary of St. Paul's, and in 1670 became Dean of St. Paul's. He was also Prolocutor of the Lower House of the Convocation of Canterbury. In 1689 he was consecrated Bishop of Worcester, and on the death of Archbishop Tillotson, in 1694, was generally expected to succeed to the primacy, when Tenison was appointed. He died at Westminster 27th March 1699 ]
As a writer of English prose Stillingfleet does not hold so high a place as might have been expected from the great reputation he enjoyed among his contemporaries. " The ablest young man to preach the Gospel since the Apostles," " the famous young Stillingfleet" (Pepys), " the learnedest man of the age in all respects " (Burnet), " not advanced to the primacy, his great abilities having raised some enmity against him " (White Kennet)—such are the terms in which he was, not undeservedly, spoken of in his own days. The reasons of the decline of his popularity are not far to seek. In the first place, he was too precocious ; some of his best-known works (The Irenicum, or a Weapon-Salve for Church Wounds, and Origines Sacræ) were written when he was a very young man, and ought to have been reading, not writing. Then, again, his subjects were not always happily chosen. The " Irenicum" was composed with the laudable object of producing peace between the conflicting religious parties which were then engaged in fierce dispute. But a wider reading and maturer
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judgment led him in later years to retract some of the positions
he had there advanced. His famous controversy with Locke
arose fiom a discussion of a second-rate Deistical book, Toland's
Christianity not Mysterious, which was not worth the trouble
taken about it by two such able men. And once more, in his
Origines Britannicæ he contends for the theory that St. Paul
introduced Christianity into Great Britain, with a confidence which
the most competent modern critics will scarcely endorse. In
fact he entered with a keen zest into all the theological and
ecclesiastical controversies of his period. The Protestant Non-
conformists, the Roman Catholics, the Socinians, the Deists, the
Non-jurors, all employed his pen; the titles of his works, The
Unreasonableness of Separation, A Rational Account of the
Grounds of the Protestant Religion, A Discourse concerning the
Unreasonableness of the New Separation (Non-jurors), A Vindica-
tion of the Doctrine of the Trinity, tell their own tales. As he
confined himself closely to the particular aspect of each question
as it presented itself in his own day, his controversial writings
have now little more than an historical interest. They differ
in this respect from those of such writers as Waterland and
Butler. Waterland's writings against the Arians and Socinians,
and Butler's against the Deists, have a real value at the present
day ; but Stillingfleet's against his various adversaries, though
nearly as able, have, from the cause above-mentioned, lost much
of their value. He is seen at his best in his sermons, his charges,
and his Origines Sacræ. His style is clear and nervous, and he
had a lawyer-like mind, which enabled him to marshall his
arguments with great force and precision. As a writer of good
English he is still well worth reading ; and therefore his name
cannot be omitted in any notice of English Prose writers.
His collected works fill six folio volumes, including a Life by
his son, the Rev. James Stillingfleet, Canon of Worcester (1710).
A volume of his "Miscellaneous Works" was published in 1735.
J. H. OVERTON.
Page 269
THE JUDGMENT OF FIRE
Look now upon me, you who so lately admired the greatness of my trade, the riches of my merchants, the number of my people,
the conveniency of my churches, the multitude of my streets, and see what revolutions sin hath made in the earth. Look upon me,
and then tell me whether it be nothing to dally with heaven, to make a mock at sin, to slight the judgments of God, and abuse
His mercies, and after all the attempts of heaven to reclaim a people from their sins, to remain still the same that ever they
were? Was there no way to expiate your guilt but by my misery! Had the leprosy of your sins so fretted in my walls,
that there was no cleansing them, but by the flames which consume them? Must I mourn in my dust and ashes for your
iniquities, while you are so ready to return to the practice of them? Have I suffered so much by reason of them, and do you
think to escape yourselves? Can you then look upon my ruins with hearts as hard and unconcerned as the stones which lie in
them? If you have any kindness for me, or for yourselves; if you ever hope to see my breaches repaired, my beauty restored
my glory advanced, look on London ruins and repent. Thus would she bid her inhabitants not to weep for her miseries, but
for their own sins; for if never any sorrow was like to her sorrow,
it is because never any sins were like to their sins. Not as though they were only the sins of the city, which have brought
this evil upon her, no, but as far as the judgment reaches, so great hath the compass of the sins been, which have provoked God
to make her an example of his justice. And I fear the effects of London’s calamity will be felt all the nation over. For, consider-
ing the present languishing condition of this nation, it will be no easy matter to recover the blood and spirits which have been lost
by this fire. So that whether we consider the sadness of those circumstances which accompanied the rage of the fire, or those
VOL. III
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which respect the present miseries of the city, or the general
influence those will have upon the nation, we cannot easily con-
ceive what judgment could in so critical a time have befallen us,
which had been more severe for the kind and nature of it, than
this hath been.
(From Sermon after the Great Fire of London.)
FOOLS MAKE A MOCK AT SIN
Is the chair of scorners at last proved the only chair of infal-
libility? Must those be the standard of mankind, who seem to
have little left of human nature but laughter and the shape of
men? Do they think that we are all become such fools to take
scoffs for arguments, and raillery for demonstrations? He knows
nothing at all of goodness, that knows not that it is much more
easy to laugh at it than to practise it; and it were worth the
while to make a mock at sin, if the doing so would make nothing
of it. But the nature of things does not vary with the humours
of men; sin becomes not at all the less dangerous because men
have so little wit to think it so; nor religion the less excellent and
advantageous to the world, because the greatest enemies of that
are so much to themselves too, that they have learnt to despise
it. But although that scorns to be defended by such weapons
whereby her enemies assault her (nothing more unbecoming the
majesty of religion than to make itself cheap, by making others
laugh), yet if they can but obtain so much of themselves to attend
with patience to what is serious, there may be yet a possibility of
persuading them, that no fools are so great as those who laugh
themselves into misery, and none so certainly do so, as those who
make a mock at sin.
(From Sermon preached before the King, 1667.)
KNOWLEDGE AND NAMES
If we take a view of man's knowledge as it respects his fellow
creatures, we shall find these were so fully known to him on his
first creation, that he needed not to go to school to the wide
world to gather up his conceptions of them. For the right exer-
cise of that dominion which he was instated in over the inferior
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EDWARD STILLINGFLEET
259
world doth imply a particular knowledge of the nature, being, and
properties of those things which he was to make use of, without
which he could not have improved them for their peculiar ends.
And from this knowledge did proceed the giving the creatures
those proper and peculiar names which were expressive of their
several natures. For as Plato tells us, the imposition of names
on things belongs not to every one, but only to him that hath a
full prospect into their several natures. For it is most agreeable to
reason, that names should carry in them a suitableness to the things
they express ; for words being for no other end but to express our
conceptions of things, and our conceptions being but, as the same
philosopher speaks, “the resemblances and representations of the
things,” it must needs follow, that where there was a true knowledge,
the conceptions must agree with the things ; and words being to
express our conceptions, none are so fit to do it, as those which
are expressive of the several natures of the things they are used
to represent. For otherwise all the use of words is a mere
vocabulary to the understanding, and an index to memory, and
of no further use in the pursuit of knowledge, than to let us know
what words men are agreed to call things by. But something
further seems to be intended in their first imposition, whence the
Jews call it, as Mercer tells us, a separation and distinction of the
several kinds of things ; and Kircher thus paraphrase the words
of Moses : “And whatsoever Adam called every living creature,
that was the name thereof, i.e.” saith he, Fuerunt illis vera et
germana nomina et rerum naturis propria accommodata. But
however this be, we have this further evidence of that height of
knowledge which must be supposed in the first man, that as he
was the first in his kind, so he was to be the standard and
measure of all that followed, and therefore could not want any-
thing of the due perfections of human nature. And as the shekel
of the sanctuary was, if not double to others (as men ordinarily
mistake), yet of a full and exact weight, because it was to be the
standard of all other weight (which was the cause of its being
kept in the temple), so if the first man had not double the pro-
portion and measure of knowledge which his posterity hath, if it
was not running over in regard of abundance, yet it must be
pressed down and shaken together in regard of weight ; else he
would be a very unfit standard for us to judge by, concerning the
due and suitable perfections of human nature.
(From Origines Sacra.)
Page 273
SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE
[George Mackenzie, nephew to the Earl of Seaforth, and grandson to Dr. Bruce, principal of St. Leonard's College, St. Andrews, was born at Dundee in 1636. He studied at Scotush and French Universities, and was called to the bar in 1656. He published Aretina, an original " heroic " romance, in 1660, and in the following year was engaged in his first famous pleading, the defence of the Marquis of Argyll. Knighted and made King's advocate in 1674, he became notorious with the Covenanters as "the bloodthirsty advocate and persecutor of the saints of God," a reputation which still clings to his name in Scotland although his conduct in his hated office was upright and even humane. He spent the leisure snatched from his legal duties in writing sundry moral essays on religion, solitude, moral gallantry, and the like ; wherein, it may be said, the lawyer pleads for his clients the scholar, the gentleman, and the pedant. On the accession of James II. and the abrogation of the penal laws against the Catholics, he resigned his office, and was induced to re-accept it only to resign it for good when the Revolution, which he opposed, became an accomplished fact. He retired to the scholarly solitude that he loved at Oxford, and died on a visit to London in 1691. He was buried in the churchyard of the Greyfriars, Edinburgh, where his tomb is still noted by the populace, although De Quincey's is forgotten. Almost all his works, except Aretina, are included in the two vol. folio edition, Edinburgh, 1722.]
Among the many contemporary allusions that witness the high esteem enjoyed by Sir George Mackenzie in his own time, is one more notable than the rest. In the preface to his translation of Juvenal and Persius, Dryden describes how he was originally indebted to "that noble wit " Sir George Mackenzie for the suggestion that Denham and Waller were worthy of study as models of poetic writing. It is a kind of paradox that a man who thus indirectly fathered the poetry of the Augustan age should have shown himself so extravagant a reactionary in his own prose writings. For Mackenzie does not merely imitate the various conceits and excesses of Sir Thomas Browne, Cowley, and the French heroic romances ; he zealously betters the instruction. His early romance, Aretina, shows this extravagance
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at its height. The complex plot and tales within tales, the
prevalence of gallantry and battles, the inevitable political allegory,
the essays which are “laced upon” the romance, and deal with
such points of dialectic as whether vanity be the parent of the
virtues, or whether gaudiness of dress argue modesty, the fearless
gallicism in diction, all serve to show that Parthenissa and her
French progenitors had readers and admirers on both sides of the
Tweed. Mackenzie was aware of the debt the Scottish dialect
owed to France; in Aretina he endeavoured to increase it, by
borrowing some hundreds of words more. It were vain to attempt
to catalogue this museum of affectations; here are echoes of Lyly
and Sidney, reminiscences of Scudery, bold Latinisms in the
manner of Sir Thomas Browne; here a fair face is “the hiero-
glyphick of comeliness,” a foul one is “the rendezvous of all those
deformities that a petulant fancy could have excogitated”; ladies
find it easy to dress, for “their clothes seemed most willing to
hang upon them, as if they knew how much they were honoured;”
knights faint with admiration of a lady, and a pond wears her
picture in its bosom, “presenting it when ye approach to indicate
the high value it sets upon your beauty, and concealing it when
ye are gone, fearing lest any should rob it.”
Mackenzie’s manner strengthened and cleared, but it never
radically altered. To the end he delighted most in the style
which he had stamped with his approval in the preface to
Aretina, the style “which is flourished with similes, and where
are used long-winded periods.” But the romance affords no fair
measure of his success in that style. When he is writing on the
moral topics that most engaged him, propounding his personal
religion after Sir Thomas Browne, or, in the temper of Cowley,
preferring solitude to public employment, when he is dealing in
fact with those subjects “wherein,” as himself observes, “no man
can write happily, but he who writes his own thoughts,” he is
wonderfully felicitous, and his conceits often reach the stature of
memorable and imposing figures. In a fine metaphor he advises
every private Christian “rather to stay still in the barge of the
Church with the other disciples, than by an ill-bridled zeal to
hazard drowning alone with Peter, by offering to walk upon the
unstable surface of his own fleeting and water-weak fancies,
though with a pious resolution to meet our Saviour.” In a witty
simile he compares the various confessions of faith to sun-dials,
orthodox only in one meridian; or again, he likens the conventicles
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263
of the sects to "the removed huts of those who live apart because they are sick of the plague." In a vivid picture he presents Alexander, "running like a madman up and down the world," all "to gain as much as might make him a person worthy of being poisoned." His conceits are the offspring of a powerful poetic fancy ; some of them would have pleased Donne, others, no doubt, delighted Dryden. Mackenzie stands between the two ages, belonging to the earlier by sympathy, and yet coming sometimes very close to the later when he indulges his satirical foible. The last of the old wits, belated in the North, he holds out his hand to the first of the new.
W. A. RALEIGH.
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A DEFENCE OF ROMANCES
It hath been rather the fate than merit of romances in all ages
to be aspersed with these vices, whereof they were not only innocent, but to whose antidoting virtues they might justly pretend ;
for, whereas they are judged to be both the fire and faggots whereby love's flames are both kindled and alimented, I believe,
verily, that there is nothing can so easily extinguish them ; for as those who have at court seen numbers of peerless and well decked beauties can hardly become enamoured of an ordinary country maid ;
so those who have seen a Philoclea or Cleopatra depcncilled by the curious wits of Sidney and Scuderie, will hardly be invassalled by the (to them scarce approaching) traits of these whom this age garlands for admired beauties.
Others, forsooth, accuse them for robbing us of our precious time ; but this reproach is ill founded, for if the romance be abject none will trifle away their time in reading it, except those who would mis-spend it however, and if they be excellent, then time is rather spent than misspent in leafing them over.
There is also a third race of detractors who condemn them as lies ; but since their authors propose them not with an intention to deceive, they cannot properly be reputed such :
and albeit they seem but fables, yet who would unkernel them, would find huddled up in them real truths ;
and, as naturalists observe, those kernels are best where the shells are hardest, and those metals are noblest, which are mudded over with most earth.
But to leave such fanatics in the bedlam of their own fancies, who should blush to trace in those paths which the famous Sydney, Scuderie, Barkley, and Broghill have beaten for them, besides thousands of ancients and moderns, ecclesiastics and laicks, Spaniards, French, and Italians,
to remunerate whose endeavours fame hath wreathed garlands (to betemple their ingenious and ingenuous heads) which shall never fade while learning flourishes ?
I shall speak nothing of that
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265
noble romance, written by a bishop, which the entirety of all the
Eastern churches could never prevail with him to disown ; and I
am confident, that where romances are written by excellent wits,
and perused by intelligent readers, that the judgment may pick
more sound information from them, than from history, for the one
teacheth us only what was done, and the other what should be
done ; and whereas romances present to us virtue in its holiday
robes, history presents her only to us in those ordinary, and
spotted suits which she wears while she is busied in her servile
and lucrative employments ; and as many would be incited to
virtue and generosity, by reading in romances, how much it hath
been honoured, so contrarywise, many are deterred by historical
experience from being virtuous, knowing that it hath been oftener
punished than acknowledged. Romances are those vessels which
strain the crystal streams of virtue from the puddle of interest ;
whereas history suffers the memory to quaff them off in their
mixed impurity ; by these likewise lazy ladies and luxurious
gallants are allured to spend in their chambers some hours, which
else the one would consecrate to the bed, and the other to the
brothel : and albeit essays be the choicest pearls in the jewel
house of moral philosophy, yet I ever thought that they were set
off to the best advantage, and appeared with the greatest lustre,
when they were laced upon a romance; so that the curiosity
might be satisfied, as well as the judgment informed, especially in
this age wherein the appetite of men's judgments is become so
queasy, that it can relish nothing that is not either vinegared with
satires, or sugared with eloquence.
(From Preface to Aretina.)
WHY MAN FELL
THAT brain hath too little pia mater, that is too curious to know
why God, who evidences so great a desire to save poor man, and
is so powerful as that his salvation needed never have run the
hazard, if his infinite wisdom had so decreed, did yet suffer him
to fall : for if we enter once the list of that debate, our reason is
too weak to bear the burden of so great a difficulty. And albeit
it may be answered, that God might have restrained man, but that
restraint did not stand with the freedom of man's will which God
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hath bestowed upon him ; yet, this answer stops not the mouth of
the difficulty. For certainly, if one should detain a madman from
running over a precipice, he could not be thereby said to have
wronged his liberty : and seeing man is, by many divines, allowed
a freedom of will, albeit he must of necessity do what is evil, and
that his freedom is salved by a liberty to choose only one of more
evils, it would appear strange why his liberty might not have con-
sisted well enough with a moral impossibility of sinning, and
might not have been abundantly conserved in his freedom to
choose one of more goods : yet, these reasonings are the calling
God to an account ; and so impious. For, if God had first
created man surrounded with our present infirmities, could we
have complained? Why then should we now complain, seeing
we are but fallen to a better estate than we deserved ; seeing we
stumbled not for want of light, but because we extinguished our
own light ; and seeing our Saviour's dying for us may yet re-
instate us in a happier estate than that from which we are now
fallen ?
Albeit the glass of my years hath not yet turned five and
twenty, yet the curiosity I have to know the different limbos of
departed souls, and to view the card of the region of death,
would give me abundance of courage to encounter this king of
terrors, though I were a pagan ; but when I consider what joys are
prepared for them who fear the Almighty ; and what craziness
attends such as sleep in Methusalem's cradle, I pity them who
make long life one of the oftſt repeated petitions of their
Paternoster; and yet those sure are the more advanced in folly,
who desire to have their names enshrined, after death, in the airy
monument of fame : whereas it is one of the promises made to the
elect, that they shall rest from their labours, and their works shall
follow them. Most men's mouths are so foul, that it is a punishment
to be much in them: for my own part, I desire the same good
offices from my good name that I do from my clothes ; which is
to screen me from the violence of exterior accidents.
As those criminals might be judged distracted, who, being con-
demned to die, would spend their short reprival in disputing
about the situation and fabric of their gibbets : so may I justly
think those literati mad, who spend the short time allotted them
for repentance, in debating about the seat of hell, and the
torments of tortured spirits. To satisfy my curiosity, I was once
resolved, with the Platonic, to take the promise of some dying
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SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE
friend, that he should return and satisfy me in all my private
doubts, concerning hell and heaven; yet I was justly afraid that
he might have returned me the same answer which Abraham
returned to Dives, Have they not Moses and the Prophets? If
they hear not them; wherefore will they be persuaded though one
rose from the dead?
(From The Religious Stoic.)
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THOMAS SPRAT
[Thomas Sprat was born at Tallaton, Devon, in 1636; he became a commoner of Wadham College, Oxford, under the famous Dr John Wilkins, in 1651, and a Fellow in 1657. On the death of Cromwell he wrote an Ode in the manner of Cowley, and, as he supposed, of Pindar, which was published along with two poems on the same theme by Waller and Dryden. After the Restoration he took orders, and became successively chaplain to the Duke of Buckingham, whom he is said to have assisted in the Rehearsal, and to the king. He published in 1667 the History of the Royal Society, of which he was one of the early Fellows, and in 1668 the Latin Life of Cowley, afterwards translated into English and enlarged, besides the Observations on M. de Sorbière's Voyage into England. He became Canon of Windsor in 1680, and Bishop of Rochester in 1684. His later works, besides Sermons, are a History of the Rye House Plot (1685), and a Relation of his own Examination on a charge of treason trumped up against him by two professional impostors. He died in his Bishopric, May 1713 ]
An early biographer of Sprat remarks that his name deserves the first rank in history for "his raising the English tongue to that purity and beauty which former writers were wholly strangers to, and those who come after him can but imitate." Dr Johnson, who caught the echoes of Sprat's short-lived fame, adds that each of his books has its own distinct and characteristical excellence. Sprat is undoubtedly a versatile writer, his "relations" of matters of fact are written in a succinct and lucid style, his wit, exercised in defence of his countrymen against the strictures of the French traveller Sorbière, is easy and telling, his Life of Cowley is a model of dignified panegyric. Yet his chief claim to remembrance lies in his efforts both by precept and example to purge English prose of its rhetorical and decorative encumbrances, and to show that there is as much art "to have only plain conceptions on some arguments as there is in others to have extraordinary flights." It may well be urged that Sprat deserves a share in the credit, so commonly yielded to Dryden alone, of having inaugurated modern
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English prose. Not only does he show himself, in the History
of the Royal Society (published before Dryden's Essay of
Dramatic Poesy), in full possession of a "close, naked, natural
way of speaking," but he clearly indicates the necessity of a reform
in prose writing, and his consciousness of his own mission as a
reformer. And yet the change which came over the spirit and
methods of English prose in the seventeenth century must not
be assigned by any easy and fallacious formula to the influence
of one or two men, it was due rather to a number of complex
causes of the most general nature. And among these, the cause
set down by Sprat in the first extract was no doubt quite as
powerful as the influence of the French. The rise of positive
knowledge made the conceits of the wits, wherein "falsehoods
are continued by tradition because they supply commodious
allusions," distasteful, and the enthusiasm of the little group of
scientific inquirers that gathered together at Oxford and London
for purposes of experiment and research during the civil troubles,
gave to England in the Royal Society, of which Dryden himself
was an early Fellow, her only Academy of repute. The prefer-
ence of the members of the Royal Society for "the language of
artisans, countrymen, and merchants before that of wits and
scholars" was not, like Wordsworth's later innovation, a preference
exercised in the interests of the effective expression of emotion ; it
was determined rather by the instinct of science, and in the
interests of the clear statement of fact. "Prose and sense," the
ideals of the authors of the Rehearsal, gained the day, but the
victory was not without its price. It was a victory of logic over
rhetoric, in some sort even of Science and Criticism over
Literature and Art, for the cadences of Sir Thomas Browne and
the accumulated epithets of Robert Burton were never revived.
In his clearness of manner and coolness of judgment, whether he
is defending the Royal Society from the hostile armies of the wits
and Aristotelians, or criticising the preaching of the Puritan
divines, Sprat is an admirable representative alike of the new
positive spirit which founded the Royal Society, and of the spirit
of moderation, reason, and compromise which has given its chief
strength to the Church of which he was a bishop.
W. A. RALEIGH.
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A SIMPLE AND AN ORNATE STYLE
THERE is one thing more about which the Society has been most solicitous; and that is, the manner of their discourse: which unless they had been very watchful to keep in due temper, the whole spirit and vigour of their design had been soon eaten out by the luxury and redundance of speech. The ill effects of this superfluity of talking have already overwhelmed most other arts and professions; inasmuch, that when I consider the means of happy living, and the causes of their corruption, I can hardly forbear recanting what I said before, and concluding that eloquence ought to be banished out of all civil societies, as a thing fatal to peace and good manners. To this opinion I should wholly incline; if I did not find that it is a weapon which may be as easily procured by bad men as good: and that, if these should only cast it away, and those retain it; the naked innocence of virtue would be upon all occasions exposed to the armed malice of the wicked. This is the chief reason that should now keep up the ornaments of speaking in any request; since they are so much degenerated from their original usefulness. They were at first, no doubt, an admirable instrument in the hands of wise men; when they were only employed to describe goodness, honesty, obedience, in larger, fairer, and more moving images: to represent truth, clothed with bodies; and to bring knowledge back again to our very senses, from whence it was at first derived to our understandings. But now they are generally changed to worse uses: they make the fancy disgust the best things, if they come sound and unadorned; they are in open defiance against reason, professing not to hold much correspondence with that; but with its slaves, the passions: they give the mind a motion too changeable and bewitching to consist with right practice. Who can behold without indignation how many mists and uncertainties these specious tropes and
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figures have brought on our knowledge? How many rewards,
which are due to more profitable and difficult arts, have been
still snatched away by the easy vanity of fine speaking? For,
now I am warmed with this just anger, I cannot withhold myself
from betraying the shallowness of all these seeming mysteries,
upon which we writers, and speakers, look so big. And, in few
words, I dare say that of all the studies of men, nothing may be
sooner obtained than this vicious abundance of phrase, this trick
of metaphors, this volubility of tongue, which makes so great a
noise in the world. But I spend words in vain; for the evil is
now so inveterate, that it is hard to know whom to blame, or
where to begin to reform. We all value one another so much
upon this beautiful deceit, and labour so long after it in the
years of our education, that we cannot but ever after think
kinder of it than it deserves. And indeed, in most other parts
of learning, I look upon it as a thing almost utterly desperate
in its cure: and I think it may be placed among those general
mischiefs, such as the dissension of Christian princes, the want
of practice in religion, and the like, which have been so long
spoken against that men are become insensible about them;
every one shifting off the fault from himself to others; and so
they are only made bare common-places of complaint. It will
suffice my present purpose to point out what has been done by
the Royal Society towards the correcting of its excesses in
natural philosophy; to which it is, of all others, a most professed
enemy.
They have therefore been most rigorous in putting in execution
the only remedy that can be found for this extravagance, and
that has been, a constant resolution to reject all the amplifications,
digressions, and swellings of style; to return back to the primitive
purity, and shortness, when men delivered so many things,
almost in an equal number of words. They have exacted from
all their members a close, naked, natural way of speaking;
positive expressions; clear senses; a native easiness: bringing
all things as near the mathematical plainness as they can; and
preferring the language of artizans, countrymen, and merchants,
before that of wits or scholars.
(From the History of the Royal Society.)
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273
THE ERROR OF EXTEMPORE PRAYER
AND PREACHING
We have lived in an age, when the two gifts, as they were wont to be called, of extempore praying and extempore preaching, have been more pretended to and magnified than, I believe, they ever were before, or, I hope, ever will be again, in the Church and nation. Yet, for all I could ever learn or observe, the most sudden readiness and most profuse exuberancy in either of these ways has been only extempore in show and appearance, and very frequently but a cunningly dissembled change of the very same matter and words often repeated, though not in the same order.
As to that of extempore praying, which therefore too many mistake for praying by the spirit, it is manifest that the most exercised and most redundant faculty in that kind, is, in reality, only praying by the fancy or the memory, not the spirit. They do but vary and remove the Scripture style and language, or their own, into as many places and shapes and figures as they can. And though they have acquired never so plentiful a stock of them, yet still the same phrases and expressions do so often come about again, that the disguise may quickly be seen through by any attentive and intelligent hearer. So that, in plain terms, they who think themselves most skilful in that art do really, all the while, only pray in set forms disorderly set and never ranged into a certain method. For which cause, though they may not seem to be forms to their deluded auditors, yet they are so in themselves; and the very persons who use them most variously, and most artificially, cannot but know them to be so.
This, my brethren, seems to be all the great mystery of the so much boasted power of extempore praying. And why may not the like be affirmed, in great measure, of extempore preaching, which has so near an affinity with the other? Is not this also, at the bottom, only a more crafty management of the same phrases and observations, the same doctrines and applications, which they had ever before provided and composed, and reserved in their memories?
Do but hear the most voluble masters in this way once or twice, or perhaps oftener, as far as their changes shall reach,
VOL. III
T
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and at first, no doubt, you will be inclined to wonder at the
strange agility of their imaginations and compass of their
inventions and nimbleness of their utterance. But if you shall
attend them calmly and constantly the vizor will be quickly pulled
off, though they manage it never so dexterously; you will at
last find that they only walk forward and backward and round
about: one, it may be, in a larger labyrinth than another, but
in a labyrinth still; through the same turnings and windings
again and again, and, for the most part, guided by the same clue.
The explanations, perhaps, of their texts, the connections and
transitions of the parts, and some sudden glosses and descants
and flights of fancy may seem new to you But the material
points of doctrine and the commonplaces to which upon any
loss or necessity they have recourse, these they frequently repeat,
and apply to several subjects with very little alteration in the
substance, oftentimes not in the words. These are the constant
paths which they scruple not to walk over and over again, 'till,
if you follow them very close, you may perceive, amidst all their
extempore pretensions, they often tread in the same rounds, till
they have trodden them bare enough.
But, God be thanked, the Church of England neither requires,
nor stands in need of any such raptural (if I may so call it) or
enthusiastic spirit of preaching. Here the more advised and
modest, the more deliberate and prepared the preacher is, the
better he is furnished, by God's grace, to deliver effectually our
Church's solid sense, its fixed precepts, its unalterable doctrines.
Our Church pretends not to enter into men's judgments merely
by the affections; much less by the passions to overthrow their
judgments. The door, which that strives first to open, is of the
understanding and conscience: it is content, if by them a passage
shall be made into the affections.
(From a Visitation Discourse.)
THE DEFENCE OF ENGLISH ELOQUENCE AND
LETTERS
Concerning the English eloquence, he bravely declares, that all
their sermons in the pulpit, and pleadings at the bar, consist of
nothing but mean pedantry. The censure is bold, especially
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from a man that was so far from understanding our language,
that he scarce knew whether we move our lips when we speak.
But to show him, that we can better judge of Monsieur de
Sorbière's eloquence, I must tell him that the Muses and
Parnassus are almost whipped out of our very schools ; that there
are many hundreds of lawyers and preachers in England, who
have long known how to contemn such delicacies of his style. I
will give only one instance for all. I believe he could scarce
have bribed any scrivener's clerk, to describe Hatfield as he has
done, and so to conclude "that the fishes in the ponds did often
leap out of the water into the air, to behold, and to delight
themselves with, the beauties of the place."
I will not attempt to defend the ornaments, or the copiousness
of our language, against one that is utterly ignorant of it. But
to show how plentiful it is, I will only repeat an observation
which the Earl of Clarendon has made: "that there is scarce
any language in the world, which can properly signify one
English expression, and that is good nature." Though Monsieur
de Sorbière will not allow the noble author of this note to have
any skill in grammar learning, yet he must pardon me if I
still believe the observation to be true ; at least, I assure you,
sir, that after all my search, I cannot find any word in his book,
which might incline me to think otherwise.
But I will be content to lay the whole authority of his
judgment in matters of wit and elegance upon what he says
concerning the English books. He affirms "that they are only
impudent thefts out of others, without citing their authors, and
that they contain nothing but ill rhapsodies of matter, worse put
together." And here, Sir, I will for once do him a courtesy.
I will suppose him not to have taken this one character of us,
from the soldier, the Zealander, the Puritans, or the rabble of the
streets : I will grant he might have an ill conceit of our writings,
before he came over, from the usual judgment, which the
southern wits of the world, are wont to pass on the wit of all
northern countries. 'Tis true indeed, I think the French and
the Italians would scarce be so unneighbourly as to assert that
all our authors are thievish pedants. That is Monsieur de
Sorbière's own addition, but yet they generally agree, that there
is scarce anything of late written, that is worth looking upon, but
in their own language. The Italians did at first endeavour to
have it thought that all matters of elegance had never yet
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passed over the Alps; but being soon overwhelmed by number,
they were content to admit the French, and the Spaniards, into
some share of the honour. But they all three still maintain this
united opinion, that all wit is to be sought for nowhere but
amonst themselves; it is their established rule that good sense
has always kept near the warm sun, and scarce ever yet dared
to come farther than the forty-ninth degree northward. This,
sir, is a pretty imagination of theirs, to think they have confined
all art to a geographical circle, and to fancy that it is there so
charmed as not to be able to go out of the bounds which they
have set it. It were certainly an easy and a pleasant work to
confute this arrogant conception by particular examples; it
might quickly be shown that England, Germany, Holland, nay,
even Denmark and Scotland, have produced very many men
who may justly come into competition with the best of these
Southern wits, in the advancement of the true arts of life, in all
the works of solid reason, nay, even in the lighter studies of
ornament and humanity. And, to speak particularly of England,
there might be a whole volume composed in comparing the
chastity, the newness, the vigour of many of our English fancies,
with the corrupt and the swelling metaphors wherewith some of
our neighbours, who most admire themselves, do still adorn their
books. But, this, sir, will require a larger discourse than I
intend to bestow on Monsieur de Sorbière. I am able to
dispatch him in fewer words. For I wonder how, of all men
living, it could enter into his thoughts to condemn in gross the
English writings, when the best course that he has taken to make
himself considered as a writer, was the translation of an English
author.
(From Observations on Monsieur de Sorbière's Voyage into
England.)
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BISHOP KEN
[Thomas Ken (1637-1711), Bishop of Bath and Wells, was born at
Great or Little Berkhamstead in July 1637. His father was a lawyer of
Furnival's Inn, who married twice, Thomas being the son of the second
wife. He lost both his parents while he was yet a boy, but found a home
with his sister Anna, many years his senior, who had married the famous
Izaak Walton. On 26th September 1651 he was elected scholar of Win-
chester, where he remained more than four years; in 1656 he was elected to
New College, Oxford, but as there was no immediate vacancy he spent a
few terms at Hart Hall before proceeding to New. In 1661 he took his
B.A. degree, and became Tutor of New College. About the same time he
received Holy Orders, and in 1663 was presented by Lord Maynard to the
rectory of Little Easton in Essex. He resigned this living in 1665 in order to
become domestic chaplain to Bishop Muley at Winchester, where he also
undertook gratuitously the charge of the poor parish of St. John in the Soke.
In 1666 he was elected Fellow of Winchester, and in 1667 accepted the living
of Brightstone in the Isle of Wight, which he held until 1669, when he was
made a Prebendary of Winchester and Rector of East Woodhay. In 1672 he
resigned East Woodhay in favour of George Hooper, who was afterwards
successor at Bath and Wells, and returned to Winchester, resuming the
charge of St. John in the Soke. In 1675 he went to reside at The Hague as
chaplain to the Princess Mary of Orange. In 1680 he returned to Winchester,
and soon became one of the King's chaplains. It was probably in the
summer of 1683 that he refused to receive Eleanor Gwynne into his prebendal
house; and in the same year he went to Tangier as chaplain to Lord Dart-
mouth, commander of the fleet. In 1684 he was appointed Bishop of Bath
and Wells by the express wish of King Charles II., who is said to have
declared that no one should have the see, but "the little black fellow that
refused his lodging to poor Nelly." He was consecrated 25th January
1685, and in the same year he was summoned to the death-bed of King
Charles, when he spoke "like one inspired." He ministered to the Duke of
Monmouth on the night before his execution and on the scaffold, and he
interceded, not without effect, with King James, who always respected him,
in behalf of the prisoners after the Battle of Sedgmoor. In 1687 he was one
of the seven bishops who were committed to the Tower for refusing to oblige
their clergy to read in church the King's declaration of indulgence. After
the Revolution he refused to take the oaths of allegiance and abjuration, and
was deprived of his see in 1691. Henceforth he lived in poverty and retire-
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ment, chiefly at Longleat, the seat of Lord Weymouth, who was his staunch
and kind friend. In 1702, Queen Anne offered to restore him to his bishopric,
but his conscience would not allow him to accept it. He did not, however,
sympathise with the extreme party among the Non-jurors, among whom he
incurred much obloquy by making a cession of the canonical right to his see
in favour of George Hooper, whom he had long known, and in whose Church
principles he had the fullest confidence. He died at Longleat, 19th March
1711, and was buried beneath the east window of the parish church of
Frome.]
If this were a hagiology there would be much to be said about the
saintly character of Bishop Ken ; or if it were a critique on poetry
the writer of the most popular hymns in the English language might
claim a high place ; but as a prose writer Ken holds a very sub-
ordinate position. In the first place, he would fall under the
condemnation which Dr. Johnson pronounced upon Gray : he was
"a barren rascal." A Manual of Prayers for the use of the
Winchester Scholars, an Exposition of the Church Catechism
entitled The Practice of Divine Love, and three single sermons,
Prayers for the use of all Persons who come to the Baths (that
is Bath) for cure, with a short but interesting introduction, one
or two pastoral addresses to his clergy, and a number of private
letters, exhaust the list of writings in prose which are universally
acknowledged to be his, though there are a few which almost
certainly and a few more which possibly came from his pen.
His undoubted prose works, all told, are not sufficient to fill one
decently sized volume ; and, such as they are, they would scarcely
have attracted much attention if they had been written by any one
else. It is the man who gives an interest to the writings, rather
than the writings that enhance the reputation of the man. At
the same time, what he has written makes us wish that he had
written more. The sermons especially are the compositions of
a good and effective preacher, who might with advantage
have left many more to posterity. He had a wonderfully
high reputation as a preacher among his contemporaries ;
this may no doubt be partly accounted for by the halo of
sanctity which surrounded the man, and partly by the action and
energy with which his sermons are said to have been delivered; but,
even when read in cold blood, the three specimens still extant
are not disappointing ; they are lively, earnest, and written in an
easy and pure style. One of his chief merits is that he never loses
sight of his text, which, like Bishop Andrews, he pricks to the bone ;
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279
hence a mere extract can hardly convey a fair estimate of the excellence of the whole sermon ; but the one given below has an adventitious interest when read in the light of the preacher's own life, which shows that he practised to the letter what he preached. His other works do not, from the nature of the case, afford scope for the writing of consecutive prose ; but the short extract given will show what he might have done, and will make the reader regret that he did not do more.
J. H. OVERTON.
Page 292
DANIEL, A MAN GREATLY BELOVED
You have seen how Daniel served his God; and you are next to see how he served his prince, I may add, the people too;
for the prince and the people have but one common interest, which is the public prosperity; and none can serve the prince
well, but he does serve the people too: and Daniel served his prince and not himself; the love of God had given him an utter con-
tempt of the world. And this made him despise Belshazzar's presents, "Thy gifts be to thyself, and thy rewards give to
another"; to show, that it was a cordial zeal for the king and not self-interest, that inclined him to his service. This was
evident in all his ministry; insomuch, that when the Medean presidents and princes combined in his destruction, he had so
industriously done the king's business, was so remarkably righteous a person, so faithful in the discharge of his duty both to king
and people, so beneficent to all, so sincerely sought the good of Babylon, was so forward to rescue an injured innocence, as he
did Susanna; so tender of men's lives, that he was never at rest till he saved all the wise men of Babylon, when the decree
was gone out for their massacre; so careful of their peace and prosperity that he sat in the gate of the king to hear every man's
cause, and with great patience and assiduity to do justice to all :
he had behaved himself so irreproachably, that they could find no occasion nor fault in him concerning the kingdom; forasmuch
as he was faithful, neither was there any error or fault found in him.
For this reason, when no accusation, no slander could stick on him from the law of the land, the conspirators resolve to
take advantage against him from the law of his God, and put Darius upon making that impious decree, That whosoever should
ask any petition of God or man for thirty days together, save of the king, should be cast into the den of lions. It was a decree
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all, had gratified the king, secured Daniel, and defeated all his enemies. But Daniel knew none of these salvos, none of these reserves and evasions ; he durst not deny God and scandalise all good people, by giving that divine worship to the king which was due only to God. Religion was his tenderest care, and he had hitherto kept it inviolable; and would never communicate with, either the Babylonian or the Medean or the Persian idolatries. A great love made him greatly zealous for God his beloved; and the more publicly God was dishonoured, the more publicly Daniel resolved to own him; and prayed three times a day in his chamber, on his knees, more conspicuously than ever, with his windows open towards Jerusalem ; not for ostentation, but example. When his duty to God, and obedience to his king stood in competition, though it was an inexpressible grief to the good man, that ever there should be such a competition, he obeyed God, and patiently suffered the king's displeasure, in being cast into the lion's den, from whence God did miraculously deliver him ; and even the king himself, by congratulating his deliverance and destroying his enemies,
showed afterwards that he loved Daniel the better for loving his God better than his king ; for sagacious princes best measure the fidelity of their subjects, from their sincerity to God.
(From a Sermon preached at Whitehall 1685.)
GOD'S BLESSING ON THE BATHS
Do not think the baths can do you any good, without God's immediate blessing on them, for it is God that must first heal the waters, before they can have any virtue to heal you.
The river Jordan could never have cleansed Naaman of his leprosy, had he washed himself in it seventy times seven times, had not God blessed it to his cleansing. The pool of Siloam could never have restored sight to one born blind, had not our Lord sent him to it. And the pool of Bethesda could never have made sick persons whole, but that an angel was sent by God to trouble the waters.
I cannot then do better, than to send you to that angel, who, according to St. John, flies in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting Gospel to preach to them that dwell on the earth,
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saying with a loud voice, "Fear God, and give glory to him, and worship him, that made heaven and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters."
This was the angel's sermon, and I beseech you to become his auditors, and to observe how after the heaven and the earth and the sea, he particularly mentions the springs and fountains of waters, as a very wonderful part of the creation:
for out of the dark places of the earth, through passages, and from causes unknown to the search of the wisest of men, God makes sweet and fresh springs to rise, to water the earth, to give drink to every beast of the field, and to supply all the necessities of human life, and springs of different kinds, some to allay our thirst, some to cure our diseases.
Look therefore on the bath, as a very admirable and providential work of Divine Providence, designed for the good of a great number of infirm persons, as well as for yourself. Praise and adore God who has signally manifested His power, and His mercy, in creating so universal a good; and the first thing you do when you come to this place, "worship God Who made the fountain."
(From Prayers for the use of all Persons who come to the Baths for Cure.)
Page 296
THOMAS ELLWOOD
[The autobiography of Thomas Ellwood (1639-1713) goes down to the
year 1683 : it was published in 1714, the year after his death, with a supple-
ment by Joseph Wyeth. A number of his works were published in his life-
time, most of them controversial, in defence of the Quakĕrs. A Sacred
History, in folio (two volumes), appeared in 1705. Davideis, a sacred poem,
in five books, in 1712.]
The History of Thomas Ellwood, written by himself, is the only
one of his many works that is still worth reading. His con-
troversial tracts have nothing much to distinguish them : the
preface to his sacred poem may be read as an appendix to his
biography.
The History of Thomas Ellwood is the history of a character
such as most commonly has to wait for some imaginative and
humorous artist to do it justice. The exceptional value of this
book is that it anticipates the imagination of the novelist, and, in
a natural and uncalculated way, reaches the same effects as are
obtained by the novelist intentionally or ironically. The beauty
of Ellwood's narrative consists in the perpetual discrepancy be-
tween the author's own simple-minded view of the circumstances,
and the other views that are at once suggested by his story.
Thomas Ellwood expects to be taken at his own valuation, but he
is always giving grounds for a quite different estimate from his
own, which often (and this makes the great charm of his book) is
much higher than his own with regard to virtues of which he is
unconscious. He demands credit for his verses, or for his dis-
covery of the truth in the year 1659; for his use of Thou, and his
refusal of " Hat-honour." The reader admires him for his stub-
born downright wilfulness, for the spirit (though he repented of it)
which made him so quick with his rapier when he was young, and
did not leave him meek or submissive to insults even after his
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conversion. "I suppose they took me for a confident young
man," he says, in describing his appearance at the Old Bailey:
and the reader is inclined to sympathise with "them"; while,
at the same time, it is impossible to be seriously irritated by
his "confidence," even in his insubordination to his father, after
he had satisfied himself that "honour due to parents did not con-
sist in uncovering the head and bowing the body to them," and
therefore kept on his hat before his father, and called him "thee."
It is true that "this exercise," as Thomas Ellwood called it,
brought him under a good deal of discipline from his father ("a
whirret on the ear" coming in as part of it), all of which seems to
be required in strict justice, to counterpoise one's sentiment of
lenity towards the "confident young man" who had discovered
this new intefpretation of the commandment. The extraordinary
truthfulness and vividness of Ellwood's memory, and the simplicity
of his character, make it all but impossible for him to misrepre-
sent his antagonists. He does not understand them, but he does
not try to paint them in black and red: he describes them as he
saw them, and so impartially that it is generally easy to under-
stand them even after all this interval of time. The sketches of
Ellwood's father, or of the Warden of Maidenhead ("a budge old
man") are not in the least distorted by reason of Ellwood's con-
viction that he was right and they were wrong. He gives the
enemy the benefit of every point he can fairly claim to have
won. A proof of this is his note of the very sufficient repartee
made to him by one of the persecutors :-
"In this work none seemed so eager and active as their leader
Major Rosewell; which I observing stepped boldly to him as he
was passing by me, and asked him if he intended a massacre, for
of that in those days there was a great apprehension and talk.
The suddenness of the question, from such a young man especially,
somewhat startled him; but, recollecting himself, he answered,
'No, but I intend to have you all hanged by the wholesome laws
of the land.'"
Ellwood's manner is often very like Defoe's. He always gets
he right points in his description; never better than in the first
story in the book, of the dispute with the two churles at night.
'Thereupon my father, turning his head to me, said, 'Tom, dis-
urm them,'" this, with "the bright blade glittering in the dark
light," and the panic of the two clowns, and, above all, the readi-
less of "Tom," make up a story in which nothing is blundered
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THOMAS ELLWOOD
287
by the author. The later encounter with the servants of the
Duke of York is almost as well told. Ellwood says very little
about his "quondam master, Milton." Possibly for once he was
made unjust, but by his own poetical ambitions, not by his
religious principles. These seem never to have embittered his
view, though there are traces of a worldly humour in his account
of the punishment and consequent dejection of "two braving
Baptists," "topping blades, that looked high and spoke big,"
contrasted with the resistance made by a Friend, "a poor little
man of a low condition and mean appearance," who would not
give in.
As regards diction and rhetoric, there is nothing antique or
affected in the History of Thomas Ellwood. He does not seem
to have been influenced much by the older generation of English
authors ; like Bunyan he seems to have adopted naturally a prac-
tical style of composition, not overweighted in any way, good at
reporting conversations. In Ellwood's case, and from the char-
acter of his mind, there was one subject only, the history of his
own life, to which this style could be applied with full success.
The same conditions that went to make his History so good were
those that kept him from writing any other work that can be
compared with it.
W. P. KER.
Page 299
AN ADVENTURE
My father being then in the Commission of the Peace, and going to a Petty Sessions at Watlington, I waited on him thither. And when we came near the town, the coachman, seeing a nearer and easier way (than the common road) through a corn-field, and that it was wide enough for the wheels to run without damaging the corn, turned down there; which being observed by a husbandman who was at plough not far off, he ran to us, and stopping the coach, poured forth a mouthful of complaints, in none of the best language, for driving over the corn. My father mildly answered him, "That if there was an offence committed, he must rather impute it to his servant than himself, since he neither directed him to drive that way, nor knew which way he drove." Yet added, "That he was going to such an inn at the town, whither, if he came, he would make him full satisfaction for whatsoever damage he had sustained thereby." And so on we went, the man venting his discontent, as he went back, in angry accents. At the town, upon inquiry, we understood that it was a way often used, and without damage, being broad enough; but that it was not the common road, which yet lay not far from it, and was also good enough; wherefore my father bid his man drive home that way.
It was late in the evening when we returned, and very dark; and this quarrelsome man, who had troubled himself and us in the morning, having gotten another lusty fellow like himself to assist him, waylaid us in the night, expecting we would return the same way we came. But when they found we did not, but took the common way, they, angry that they were disappointed, and loth to lose their purpose (which was to put an abuse upon us), coasted over to us in the dark, and laying hold on the horses' bridles, stopped them from going on. My father, asking his man what the reason was that he went not on, was answered, "That there were two men at the horses' heads, who held them back,
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and would not suffer them to go forward." Whereupon my
father, opening the boot, stepped out, and I followed close at his
heels. Going up to the place where the men stood, he demanded
of them the meaning of this assault. They said, "We were upon
the corn." We knew by the route we were not on the corn, but
in the common way, and told them so ; but they told us, "They
were resolved they would not let us go on any farther, but would
make us go back again." My father endeavoured by gentle
reasoning to persuade them to forbear, and not run themselves
farther into the danger of the law, which they were run too far
into already ; but they rather derided him for it. Seeing there-
fore fair means would not work upon them, he spake more
roughly to them, charging them to deliver their clubs (for each
of them had a great club in his hand, somewhat like those which
are called quarterstaves) : they thereupon, laughing, told him,
"They did not bring them thither for that end." Thereupon my
father, turning his head to me, said, "Tom, disarm them."
I stood ready at his elbow, waiting only for the word of
command. For being naturally of a bold spirit, full then of
youthful heat, and that, too, heightened by the sense I had, not
only of the abuse, but insolent behaviour of those rude fellows,
my blood began to boil, and my fingers itched, as the saying is,
to be dealing with them. Wherefore, stepping boldly forward to
lay hold on the staff of him that was nearest to me, I said,
"Sirrah, deliver your weapon." He thereupon raised his club,
which was big enough to have knocked down an ox, intending no
doubt to have knocked me down with it, as probably he would
have done, had I not, in the twinkling of an eye, whipped out my
rapier, and made a pass upon him. I could not have failed
running of him through up to the hilt had he stood his ground,
but the sudden and unexpected sight of my bright blade glittering
in the dark night, did so amaze and terrify the man, that, slipping
aside, he avoided my thrust, and letting his staff sink, betook
himself to his heels for safety ; which his companion seeing, fled
also. I followed the former as fast as I could, but timor addidit
alas (fear gave him wings), and made him swiftly fly ; so that,
although I was accounted very nimble, yet the farther we ran the
more ground he gained on me ; so that I could not overtake him,
which made me think he took shelter under some bush, which he
knew where to find, though I did not. Meanwhile, the coachman,
who had sufficiently the outside of a man, excused himself from
VOL. III
U
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intermeddling under pretence that he durst not leave his horses,
and so left me to shift for myself; and I was gone so far beyond
my knowledge, that I understood not which way I was to go, till
by halloing, and being halloed to again, I was directed where to
find my company.
We had easy means to have found out who these men were
(the principal of them having been in the daytime at the inn, and
both quarrelled with the coachman, and threatened to be even with
him when he went back); but since they came off no better in
their attempt, my father thought it better not to know them, than
to oblige himself to a prosecution of them.
At that time, and for a good while after, I had no regret upon
my mind for what I had done, and designed to have done, in this
case, but went on in a sort of bravery, resolving to kill, if I could,
any man that should make the like attempt or put any affront on
us; and for that reason seldom went afterwards upon those public
services without a loaded pistol in my pocket. But when it
pleased the Lord, in His infinite goodness, to call me out of the
spirit and ways of the world, and give me the knowledge of His
saving truth, whereby the actions of my fore-past life were set in
order before me, a sort of horror seized on me, when I considered
how near I had been to the staining of my hands with human
blood. And whensoever afterwards I went that way, and indeed
as often since as the matter has come into my remembrance, my
soul has blessed the Lord for my deliverance, and thanksgivings
and praises have arisen in my heart (as now at the relating of it,
they do) to Him who preserved and withheld me from shedding
man's blood. Which is the reason for which I have given this
account of that action, that others may be warned by it.
(From The History of Thomas Ellwood, written by himself.)
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THOMAS RYMER
[Thomas Rymer (1641-1713), "of Gray's Inn, Esquire," was appointed Historiographer in 1692, and began almost immediately afterwards to work at his great collection of State papers, the Fœdera, of which the first volume was published in 1704. His interest in history had been shown in his short essay (1681), A General Draught and Prospect of Government in Europe and Civil Polity, showing the Antiquity, Power, and Decay of Parliaments. His original writings are, however, chiefly poetical and critical; a heroic play, in couplets, Edgar (1677), some miscellaneous poems, and two short critical essays: The Tragedies of the Last Age Considered and Examined by the Practice of the Ancients (1678); and A Short View of Tragedy: its Original Excellency and Corruption, with some Reflections on Shakespeare and other Practitioners for the Stage (1693).]
Rymer's essays on tragedy are uncompromising assaults on Fletcher and Shakespeare in the interests of commonsense and the rules of good poetry. The constancy and perseverance of the critic are plainly manifest in the relation of the Short View to the essay on the Tragedies of the Last Age published fifteen years earlier. The Short View takes up and analyses the two plays of Shakespeare—Othello and Julius Cæsar—which the earlier tract had promised to deal with, and there is no change or relenting in the mode of treatment. In the Short View there is a little more of modern and medieval history, drawn from the antiquarian studies in which Rymer was to make his name. But though he shows some appreciation of medieval poetry, and touches on the "Provencial poets," and gives a version from Jeffry Rudel, and praises Chaucer, he is not led away by any medieval or romantic taste to relax his hatred of extravagance or his adhesion to commonsense. A phrase in the Contents of his Short View explains his poetical standard with great conciseness:—"Chaucer refined our English. Which in perfection by Waller." A sentence or two in the same work, later, may exemplify the force of "which in perfection by Waller":—
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" Shakespeare's genius lay for comedy and humour. In tragedy
he appears quite out of his element, his brains are turned, he
raves and rambles without any coherence, any spark of reason,
or any rule to controul him or set bounds to his phrenzy. His
imagination was still running after his masters, the coblers, and
parish clerks, and Old Testament stroulers."
Yet it would be unfair to Rymer to make of him nothing but
a shocking example. A little grain of imagination leavens all his
criticism. His admiration for the Greeks is not pretence ; he
knows the difference between Euripides and Seneca, and his
description of the character of Phædra, as represented by the
Greek and by the Latin tragic poet, is sensible. None of his
critical writing is hard to read. His plan of a tragedy of The
Invincible Armado, on the classical model, to compete with the
Persians of Æschylus, will hold its own, though nothing but an
outline, against the more romantic tragedy of Tilburina. The
plan of the fourth act—the old dames of the Court " alarming our
gentlemen with new apprehensions "—is not less pleasant to
meditate upon than the inventions of Sheridan's Tragedy Re-
hearsed. Dennis, in his remarks on Rymer, took this scriously,
but Rymer is not quite free from malice in his commendation of
his classical play.
W. P. Ker.
Page 304
A TRAGEDY CALLED THE “INVINCIBLE ARMADO”
If we cannot rise to the perfection of intrigue in Sophocles, let
us sit down with the honesty and simplicity of the first beginners
in tragedy ; as, for example, one of the most simple now extant is
The Persians by Æschylus.
Some ten years after that Darius had been beaten by the
Greeks, Xerxes (his father Darius being dead) brought against
them such forces by sea and land the like never known in history.
Xerxes went also in person, with all the maison du roy, satrapic,
and gendarmery ; all were routed. Some forty years afterwards
the poet takes hence his subject for a tragedy.
The place is by Darius's tomb in the metropolis of Persia.
The time is the night, an hour or two before daybreak.
First on the stage are seen fifteen persons in robes proper for
the satrapa or chief princes in Persia. Suppose they met so early
at the tomb, then sacred and ordinarily resorted to by people
troubled in mind, on the accounts of dreams, or any thing not
boding good. They talk of the state of affairs, of Greece, and of
the expedition. After some time take upon them to be the chorus.
The next on the stage comes Atossa, the queen mother of
Persia. She could not lie in bed for a dream that troubled her,
so in a fit of devotion comes to her husband's tomb ; there luckily
meets with so many wise men and counsellors to ease her mind
by interpreting her dream. This, with the chorus, makes the
second act.
After this, their disorder, lamentation, and wailing is such that
Darius is disturbed in his tomb, so his ghost appears and belike
stays with them till daybreak. Then the chorus concludes the act.
In the fourth act come the messengers with sad tidings, which,
with the reflections and troubles thereupon and the chorus, fill out
this act.
In the last Xerxes himself arrives, which gives occasion of
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condoling, howling, and distraction enough to the end of the tragedy.
One may imagine how a Grecian audience, that loved their country, and gloried in the virtue of their ancestors, would be affected with this representation.
Never appeared on the stage a ghost of greater consequence. The grand monarch Darius, who had been so shamefully beaten by those petty provinces of the united Grecians, could not now lie quiet in his grave for them, but must be raised from the dead again to be witness of his son's disgrace, and of their triumph.
Were a tragedy after this model to be drawn for our stage Greece and Persia are too far from us. The scene must be laid nearer home, as at the Louvre; and instead of Xerxes we might take John, king of France, and the battle of Poictiers. So if the Germans or Spaniards were to compose a play on the battle of Pavia, and King Francis there taken prisoner, the scene should not be laid at Vienna, or at Madrid, but at the Louvre. For there the tragedy would principally operate, and there all the lines
But perhaps the memorable adventure of the Spaniards in '88 against England, may better resemble that of Xerxes. Suppose then a tragedy called "The Invincible Armada."
The place, then, for the action may be at Madrid, by some tomb or solemn place of resort; or if we prefer a turn in it from good to bad fortune, then some drawing-room in the palace near the king's bed-chamber.
The time to begin, twelve at night.
The scene opening presents fifteen grandees of Spain, with their most solemn beards and accoutrements, met there (suppose) after some ball or other public occasion. They talk of the state of affairs, the greatness of their power, the vastness of their dominions, and prospect to be infallibly, ere long, lords of all. With this prosperity and goodly thoughts transported, they at last form themselves into the chorus, and walk such measures, with music as may become the gravity of such a chorus.
Then enter two or three of the cabinet council, who now have leave to tell the secret, that the preparations and the Invincible Armada was to conquer England. These, with part of the chorus, may communicate all the particulars, the provisions, and the strength by sea and land, the certainty of success, the advantages by that accession, and the many tun of tar-barrels for the heretics.
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295
These topics may afford matter enough, with the chorus, for the
second act.
In the third act these gentlemen of the cabinet cannot agree
about sharing the preferments of England, and a mighty brawl there
is amongst them. One will not be content unless he is king of
Man; another will be duke of Lancaster. One, that had seen a
coronation in England, will by all means be duke of Aquitayn, or
else duke of Normandy. And on this occasion two competitors
have a juster occasion to work up, and show the muscles of their
passion, than Shakespeare’s Cassius and Brutus. After, the
chorus.
The fourth act may, instead of Atossa, present some old dames
of the court, used to dream dreams, and to see sprites, in their
night-rails and forchead-clothes, to alarm our gentlemen with new
apprehensions, which make distraction and disorders sufficient to
furnish out this act.
In the last act the king enters, and wisely discourſes against
dreams and hobgoblins to quiet their minds; and the more to
satisfy them, and take off their fright, he lets them to know that
St. Loyola had appeared to him, and assured him that all is well.
This said, comes a messenger of the ill news; his account is lame
—suspected, he is sent to prison. A second messenger, that
came away long after, but had a speedier passage; his account is
distinct, and all their loss credited. So, in fine, one of the chorus
concludes with that of Euripides, “Thus you see the gods bring
things to pass often, otherwise than was by man proposed.”
In this draught we see the fable, and the characters or manners
of Spaniards, and room for fine thoughts and noble expressions,
as much as the poet can afford.
The first act gives a review or ostentation of their strength in
battle array.
In the second, they are in motion for the attack, and we see
where the action falls.
In the third, they quarrel about dividing the spoil.
In the fourth, they meet with a repulse; are beaten off by a
vanguard of dreams, goblins, and terrors of the night.
In the fifth, they rally under their king in person, and make
good their ground, till overpowered by fresh troops of conviction,
and mighty truth prevails.
For the first act, a painter would draw Spain hovering, and
ready to strike at the universe.
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In the second, just taking England in her pounces.
But it must not be forgotten in the second act that there be some Spanish fryar or Jesuit, as St. Xaviere (for he may drop in by miracle anywhere) to ring in their ears "The northern heresie"; like Iago in Shakespeare, "Put money in thy purse, I say, put money in thy purse." So often may he repeat, "The northern heresie. Away with your secular advantages; I say, the northern heresie; there is roast meat for the church, voto a Christo, the northern heresie."
If Mr. Dryden might try his pen on this subject, doubtless, to an audience that heartily love their country and glory in the virtue of their ancestors, his imitation of Æschylus would have better success, and would "pit, box, and gallery," 1 far beyond any thing now in possession of the stage, however wrought up by the unimitable Shakespeare.
(From A Short View of Tragedy, 1693.)
1 "In fine, it shall read, and write, and act, and plot, and shew, ay, and pit, box, and gallery, I gad, with any play in Europe."—Bayes in the Rehearsal.—[ED.]
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WILLIAM AND THOMAS SHERLOCK
[The almost obligatory rule of treating but one author in one article may
be broken with some reason in the case of the Sherlocks, who occupy a position
almost unmatched in English literary history. The lives of the father and
the son covered nearly a century and a quarter, during by far the greater part
of which time both occupied very high places in exactly the same branch of
literature,—that of oratorical and controversial divinity,—their careers over-
lapping considerably. They were both Eton and Cambridge men, both held
the important office of Master of the Temple, which gave them probably the
most intellectual congregation out of the two universities; both were repre-
sentatives of an extreme and yet by no means uncompromising political and
theological orthodoxy; both were for the time the central figures of furious
and celebrated polemical struggles; and both had very high reputations in
their day as writers and preachers. The continuity of their careers is curious;
perhaps not less curious is the contrast of their style, which marks progress
more strikingly than any unrelated and casual examples taken at the same
distance of time could possibly do.
William Sherlock, the father, was born at Southwark in 1641, went from
Eton to Peterhouse, and became a beneficed London clergyman in 1660.
He soon took a prominent part among the High Church section of the
London clergy, and became even more famous as a controversialist and
pamphleteer than as a preacher. He opposed Puritans and Romanists, but
especially the enemies of the Duke of York's succession, for which latter
service he received the Mastership of the Temple and other preferments from
Charles II. But he would not lend himself to James's toleration of Papists,
and fell under the royal displeasure even before the Revolution. His singular
and, to say the least, unfortunate conduct at that crisis has been told by
Macaulay in one of his liveliest and (for the importance of the matter) most
detailed passages. Here it must be sufficient to say that Sherlock at first
refused the oaths, and was suspended from his Mastership; but after some
months announced his conversion, by dint of a treatise of Bishop Overall's,
enjoining submission to the government de facto, and took the oaths—together
with the Deanery of St. Paul's. He at once became the mark for the most
violent abuse, not merely from Non-jurors, but from those who, by this means
or that, had reconciled themselves to the oaths at once. By extraordinary
ill-luck or maladroitness, the almost simultaneous publication of a well-inten-
tioned but clumsy "Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity," in which he
was said to have fallen into Tritheism in attacking the Socians, gave his
enemies (among whom was the redoubtable South) a handle. Sherlock, how-
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ever, kept his places, lived the storm down, and after loyal dedications and
the like to Queen Anne, died in 1707. His most famous work, A Practical
Discourse concerning Death (1689), was written during retirement between his
refusing and his taking the oaths, and became extraordinarily popular, twenty-
seven editions having been called for by the middle of the eighteenth century.
He also published other Discourses of the same kind on Judgment, Providence,
and Future Punishment, together with sermons and a great number of con-
troversial works. But these do not appear to have ever been collected.
Thomas Sherlock, his second son (by a wealthy and masterful lady, who
was said by scandal to have had not a little to do with her husband's tergiver-
sation), was born in London in 1678. He too went to Eton, where he made
many useful friends, including Walpole, and acquired much reputation as a
scholar and a swimmer. He then went to Catherine Hall, Cambridge, of which
he became successively Fellow and (in 1714) Master, and where he came into
early contact with his future antagonist, Hoadly. In 1704, when he was
only twenty-six, his father found means to resign the Mastership of the
Temple in his favour. Sherlock was a strong Tory and High Churchman ;
but with a luckier application of the family tendency to face both ways, he
contrived to be a strong Hanoverian also, and after the accession of the
Georges he was successively Dean of Chichester (1715), and Bishop of Bangor
(1728), Salisbury (1734), and London (1748). He had also inherited another
family talent, that for controversy, and after taking no small share, as Vice-
Chancellor, in the Bentleian broils at Cambridge, he became a protagonist in
the great Bangorian controversy with Hoadly, his early rival and imme-
diate predecessor at Bangor itself. He was a frequent and effective speaker
in Parliament, is said to have declined Canterbury before he accepted London,
and (a rather unusual thing in that age of pluralities), resigned his Mastership
of the Temple, after a tenure of all but half a century, in 1753. He died on
11th July 1761, leaving no children, but a considerable fortune to his wife,
who had been a Miss Judith Fountaine. Sherlock's long life, prominent
position, active temper, and not small abilities, brought him under the
favourable or unfavourable notice of many men of letters among both the wits
and the divines of his time. Besides his controversial works and his sermons,
he is best remembered by his very clever Trial of the Witnesses against the
Deists, and by an excellent little Letter to the Clergy and Laity of his diocese
on the earthquakes of 1750. A collected edition of his works appeared
in 1830, in 5 vols. 8vo, edited by the Rev. T. C Hughes ]
William Sherlock's Discourse on Death must certainly be
pronounced a book of no ordinary good fortune. As has been
said above, the public bought it without stint; and the critics
praised as freely as the public bought. Addison, in prose, set it
in the first rank as a persuasive to a religious life : Prior, in verse,
devoted to it a long string of very bad and very un-Prior-like
lines, in which Sherlock is apostrophised as "wondrous good
man," is compared to St. John the Baptist, is told that "his
words are easy and his sense sublime," receives the doubtfully
orthodox assurance that at the Last Judgment he will "glad all
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WILLIAM AND THOMAS SHERLOCK
299
Heaven with millions he has saved," and, in short, serves as a
text to show that the keen satirist of Boileau, the charming
humourist whrose sense delights us as much as his wit elsewhere,
could at need write fulsome rubbish to which Boileau would have
been ashamed to set his hand. Now to the student of literature
it is, though a by no means uncommon, always an interesting
thing to turn to books which have been the subject of hyper-
bolical praise in their own day, and have been nearly forgotten
since. Turning thus to the Practical Discourse concerning Death,
we shall find it to be very much what might be expected. In
another case, the Discourse on Future Judgement, which is also
drawn upon here, Sherlock informs us that part of it had been
actually preached, and the tone of all these discourses suggests,
as well as their form, the pulpit rather than the study as a scene,
the hearer rather than the reader as a public. Not that they are
extremely rhetorical ; but they are eminently exoteric. They are
addressed to presumably educated readers, but in their manner
there is something of an anticipation of that tone of the modern
newspaper article which is reflected in the well-known advice to
"You must not be too clever." Sherlock, in fact, was not too clever
or too learned; he had escaped some inconveniences, though he
might have reaped fewer solid benefices, if his share of both these
gifts had been greater. But he is competent in learning and in ability,
well-bred, persuasive, not too enthusiastic, as the age was already
beginning to say, and deeply imbued with that not unkindly but
somewhat unheroic and intensely commonsense morality which
dominated the religion and the literature of the next century.
He has not the polish of the younger generation of those who
admired him; but, on the other hand, he has still a touch of the
older directness and simplicity. Above all, he is completely free
from the somewhat arrogant and insulting preponderance of
intellect which made his elder contemporary and enemy, South,
not exactly loved, and which made his younger contemporary,
Bentley, feared and hated. He was too hardened a controversialist
to show traces of the almost too abundant milk of human
kindness which flowed in Tillotson; but there is nothing savage
or overweening about him. Indeed, it is fair to say that it is
greatly to Addison's credit, when rightly considered, that, though
the form of that great writer's famous reflections on tombs is
his own, the substance is practically Sherlock's. In short, the
Master of the
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Temple had seized, and to some extent anticipated, the temper
and thoughts of the average best men of his age, and had ex-
pressed them in competent, if not consummate, manner. This is
almost a definition of the secret of popularity.
Thomas Sherlock was superior to his father, both in general
intellectual ability and in special literary. faculty; and he
had the advantages of an almost finished style put ready into his
hands. But he paid for this by being the contemporary of more
distinguished writers in his own fields, and by the fact that the
pulpit, though still powerful, was less powerful than it had been,
and that the gradual "taming" process, of which Tillotson had
set the example, had brought its exercises close to the uninterest-
ing. As a mere writer he could not vie with Addison or Swift ;
as a writer in controversial divinity he could not vie with Law on
one side or Berkeley on another. Nevertheless, he exhibited
the earlier form of eighteenth-century prose in a very good
measure, and showed its capacities in the various uses to which
he applied it. As has been said above, he marks progress
particularly well when he is contrasted with his father. The
half century of difference (though indeed there was not that be-
tween their births) is perceivable at once. The style of Sherlock
the younger is not extraordinarily remarkable; but it is good of
its kind. It has not seemed necessary to draw on his Sermons,
but the Trial of the Witnesses and the Letter on the Earthquakes
have each furnished a characteristic specimen. Those persons
who retain the old English delight in a theological argument,
conducted on sound logical principles, may be invited to turn
from the extract here given from the Trial to the severer and
more daring championship of orthodoxy on the same subject by
the great antagonist of Sherlock's father, South.
GEORGE SAINTSBURY.
Page 312
WILLIAM SHERLOCK
PREPARATION FOR DEATH A CURE FOR FEAR
OF DEATH
It betimes delivers us from the fears of death : and indeed it is then only a man begins to live, when he is got above the fears of death. Were men thoughtful and considerate, death would hang over them in all their mirth and jollity, like a fatal sword by a single hair ; it would sour all their enjoyments, and strike terror into their hearts and looks. But the security of most men is, that they put off the thoughts of death, as they do their preparation for it : they live secure and free from danger, only because they will not open their eyes to see it. But these are such examples as no wise man will propose to himself, because they are not safe. And there are so many occasions to put these men in mind of death, that it is a very hard thing not to think of it ; and whencver they do, it chills their blood and spirits, and draws a black melancholy veil over all the glories in the world. How are such men surprised when any danger approaches ?
When death comes within view, and shows his scythe, and only some few sands at the bottom of the glass ? This is a very frightful sight to men who are not prepared to die : and yet should they give themselves liberty to think in what danger they live every minute, how many thousand accidents may cut them off, which they can neither foresee nor prevent ; fear, and horror, and consternation, would be their constant entertainment, 'till they could think of death without fear ; 'till they were reconciled to the thoughts of dying, by great and certain hopes of a better life after death.
So that no man can live happily, if he lives like a man with his thoughts and reason and consideration about him, but he who
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takes care betimes to prepare for death and another world. 'Till
this be done, a wise man will see himself always in danger, and
then he must always fear. But he is a happy man, who knows
and considers himself to be mortal, and is not afraid to die.
His pleasures and enjoyments are sincere and unmix'd, never
disturb'd with a handwriting upon the wall, nor with some secret
qualms and misgivings of mind, he is not terrified with present
dangers, at least not amazed and distracted with them. A man
who is deliver'd from the fears of death, fears nothing else in
excess but God. And fear is so troublesome a passion, that
nothing is more for the happiness of our lives, than to be deliver'd
from it.
(From A practical Discourse concerning Death.)
CONSCIENCE POWERFUL AND IMPOTENT
A MAN'S own conscience cannot deceive him in this. Every man
must know, whether he carefully avoid all known and wilful sins ;
whether he discharge all essential parts of his duty to God and
men ; especially, when he does any eminent services for God,
and becomes an example of piety and virtue. A man, whose
conscience gives this testimony to him, may securely hope and
rejoice in God ; for whatever other defects the pure eyes of God
may see in him, they are all within the Grace and Mercy of the
Gospel, and therefore cannot hinder his pardon, or his reward.
Thus we see, that when conscience absolutely condemns,
or when without any doubt and hesitancy it commends, acquits,
and absolves, its sentence is a Divine oracle, and assures us what
our judgment shall be at the last day, if we be then found in such
a state. But there is a middle state between these two, which
deserves to be consider'd ; when men are neither so wicked, as
to be absolutely condemn'd by their own consciences, nor so
good, as to be acquitted and absolved ; which is an uncertain
state between hope and fear. This is the case of those men who
have been guilty of very great sins, which they had lived in
many years ; and tho' they are very sensible of their past
wickedness, and heartily sorry for their sins, and seriously resolved
by the grace of God to forsake them ; yet they are not satisfied
of the sincerity of their repentance, because they have not (with
all their sorrow and resolutions) conquered their inclinations to
Page 314
in, nor broken the habits of it ; but are guilty of frequent relapses,
nd fall into the commission of the same sins again ; and then
epent and resolve again ; and as time wears off their sorrow
or their last offence, their old inclinations revive, and a new
emptation conquers again. Now such men's consciences neither
bsolutely condemn, nor absolutely acquit them, for the event is
oubtful : they are not conquerors yet, and it is uncertain whether
ver they will conquer ; and therefore their consciences cannot
et speak peace to them : And yet they are not perfect slaves
nd captives to sin, but contend for their liberty, and therefore
heir consciences do not absolutely condemn them ; but as they
revail or yield, so their hopes or fears increase.
And this also is the case of those men, who if they commit
to notorious wickedness, yet do very little good, nothing that
heir consciences can commend them for: who worship God
ather in compliance with the custom of the place they live in,
han from a vital sense and reverence of God, and therefore are
not for any works of supererogation. And little will content
hem ; and they are glad of any excuse to lessen that little :
and all men, who pretend to greater devotion, they suspect of
hypocrisy, and some secular interests.
(From A practical Discourse concerning a Future
Judgment.)
Page 315
THOMAS SHERLOCK
THE RESPONSIBILITY OF PARENTS
N
EXT to those in public offices of power and trust, the happiness of the public depends on those who have the government in private families. Here it is that the youth of the nation must be formed, and if they are suffered to be corrupted in their religion or morals before they come into the world, there is little hope that the world will reform them. All wise men, legislators, and princes have acknowledged not only the use, but the necessity of an early education to form the mind, whilst tender, to the principles of honour and virtue ; and what is more, the wisest of all, the writers inspired by the Holy Spirit, have required it as a duty from parents, and as part of the obedience they owe to God. Even our unbelievers have seen how far religion depended on this care ; and under a pretence of maintaining the liberty of the human mind, and guarding it against early prejudices, they have endeavoured to persuade the world that children should be taught nothing of religion, but be left to form notions for themselves. They have had but too great success, and we begin to see the fruits of it. The children of this age grow soon to be men and women, and are admitted to be partners and witnesses to the follies and vices of their parents. Thus trained and educated, when they come to be masters and mistresses of families, they answer fully what was to be expected from them ; they are often a torment to each other and to themselves, and have reason to bemoan themselves for the indulgence shown them in their carly days.
Would you see the effects of this education in all orders among us, look into the many public assemblies ; sometimes you may see old age affecting the follies of youth, and counterfeiting the airs of gaiety ; sometimes men lying in wait to seduce women,
Page 316
nd women to seduce men, and even children seriously employed
t the gaming table, as if their parents were concerned to form
hem early to the taste of the age, and were afraid that they
hould not soon enough of themselves find the way to their ruin.
Look near home: see the temptations of this sort which
urround these cities, and are indeed so many snares to catch
our sons and daughters and apprentices. Can you look on and
ve unconcerned? For God's sake, and for the sake of your
hildren and your country, take the courage to act like parents
nd masters of families; reformation must begin in private
amilies; the law and the magistrate can punish your children
vhen they become wicked; but it is you who must make them
rood by proper instruction and proper government. If you
uffer them to meet temptation where temptation is sure to meet
hem, never complain of him who corrupts your child; you are
he corrupter yourself; to you he owes it that he is undone. And
erhaps there is not a more provoking circumstance, nor a greater
all for divine vengcance on a wicked nation than this; that the
routh are prepared and brought up to inherit all the vices of their
athers, which cuts off all prospect of reformation, and stands as
. bar between us and mercy.
On you therefore, fathers and mothers, your country and the
hurch of God call for assistance; your endeavours may go a
reat way towards saving us, and this wicked generation may be
pared, for the hope of seeing the next better.
In a word, let every man, whatever his station is, do his
vart towards averting the judgments of God: let every man
eform himself, and others as far as his influence goes; this is
ur only proper remedy; for the dissolute wickedness of the age
s a more dreadful sign and prognostication of divine anger than
ven the trembling of the earth under us.
(From Miscellaneous Tracts.)
THE RESURRECTION AND EVIDENCE
THE gentleman allows it to be reasonable in many cases to act
in the testimony and credit of others; but he thinks this should
be confined to such cases, where the thing testified is probable,
ossible, and according to the usual course of nature. The
VOL. III
X
Page 317
gentleman does not, I suppose, pretend to know the extent of all
natural possibilities, much less will he suppose them to be gener-
ally known; and therefore his meaning must be, that the testi-
mony of witnesses is to be received only in cases which appear
to us to be possible. In any other sense we can have no dispute;
for mere impossibilities which can never exist, can never be
proved. Taking the observation therefore in this sense, the pro-
position is this: that the testimony of others ought not to be
admitted, but in such matters as appear probable, or at least
possible to our conceptions. For instance: a man who lives in
a warm climate, and never saw ice, ought on no evidence to
believe that rivers freeze and grow hard in cold countries; for
this is improbable, contrary to the usual course of nature, and
impossible according to his notion of things. And yet we all
know that this is a plain manifest case, discernible by the senses
of men, of which therefore they are qualified to be good witnesses.
A hundred such instances might be named, but it is needless;
for surely nothing is more apparently absurd than to make one man's
ability in discerning, and his veracity in reporting plain facts,
depend on the skill or ignorance of the hearer. And what has
the gentleman said, on this occasion, against the resurrection,
more than any man who never saw ice might say against a
hundred honest witnesses, who assert that water turns to ice in
cold climates?
It is very true that men do not so easily believe on testimony
of others things which to them seem improbable or impossible;
but the reason is not because the thing itself admits no evidence,
but because the hearer's preconceived opinion outweighs the
credit of the reporter, and makes his veracity to be called in
question. For instance, it is natural for a stone to roll down
hill; it is unnatural for it to roll up hill; but a stone moving up
hill is as much the object of sense as a stone moving down hill;
and all men in their senses are as capable of seeing and judging,
and reporting the fact in one case as in the other. Should a
man then tell you that he saw a stone go up hill of its own accord,
you might question his veracity, but you could not say the thing
admitted no evidence, because it was contrary to the law and
usual course of nature; for the law of nature formed to yourself
from your own experience and reasoning, is quite independent of
the matter of fact which the man testifies; and whenever you see
facts yourself, which contradict your notions of the law of nature,
Page 318
you admit the facts, because you believe yourself; when you do
not admit like facts on the evidence of others, it is because you
do not believe them, and not because the facts in their own nature
exclude all evidence.
Suppose a man should tell you that he was come from the
dead; you would be apt to suspect his evidence. But what
would you suspect? That he was not alive, when you heard him,
saw him, felt him, and conversed with him? You could not
suspect this without giving up all your senses, and acting in this
case as you act in no other. Here then you would question
whether the man had ever been dead. But would you say that it
is incapable of being made plain by human testimony that this
or that man died a year ago? It cannot be said. Evidence in
this case is admitted in all courts perpetually.
Consider it the other way. Suppose you saw a man publicly
executed, his body afterwards wounded by the executioner, and
carried and laid in the grave; that after this you should be told
that the man was come to life again; what would you suspect
in this case? Not that the man had never been dead, for that
you saw yourself; but you would suspect whether he was now
alive. But would you say, this case excluded all human testi-
mony, and that men could not possibly discern whether one with
whom they conversed familiarly was alive or no? On what
ground could you say this? A man rising from the grave is an
object of sense, and can give the same evidence of his being
alive as any other man in the world can give. So that a resur-
rection considered only as a fact to be proved by evidence, is a
plain case; it requires no greater ability in the witnesses than
that they be able to distinguish between a man dead and a man
alive; a point in which I believe every man living thinks himself
a judge.
I do allow that this case and others of like nature require more
evidence to give them credit than ordinary cases do. You may
therefore require more evidence in these than in other cases;
but it is absurd to say that such cases admit no evidence, when
the things in question are manifestly objects of sense.
I allow farther that the gentleman has rightly stated the diffi-
culty on the foot of common prejudice; and that it arises from
hence, that such cases appear to be contrary to the course of
nature. But I desire him to consider what this course of nature
is. Every man, from the lowest countryman to the highest
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ENGLISH PROSE
philosopher, frames to himself from his experience and observation a notion of a course of nature, and is ready to say of everything reported to him that contradicts his experience, that it is contrary to nature. But will the gentleman say that everything is impossible, or even improbable, that contradicts the notion which men frame to themselves of the course of nature? I think he will not say it; and if he will, he must say that water can never freeze, for it is absolutely inconsistent with the notion which men have of the course of nature who live in the warm climates. And hence it appears that when men talk of the course of nature, they really talk of their own prejudices and imaginations, and that sense and reason are not so much concerned in the case as the gentleman imagines.
For I ask, is it from the evidence of sense or the evidence of reason that people in warm climates think it contrary to nature that water should grow solid and become ice? As for sense, they see indeed that water with them is always liquid, but none of their senses tell them that it can never grow solid; as for reason, it can never so inform them, for right reason can never contradict the truth of things.
Our senses then inform us rightly what the usual course of things is; but when we conclude that things cannot be otherwise, we outrun the information of our senses, and the conclusion stands on prejudice, and not on reason. And yet such conclusions form what is generally called the course of nature. And when men on proper evidence and information admit things contrary to this presupposed course of nature, they do not, as the gentleman expresses it, quit their own sense and reason, but in truth they quit their own mistakes and prejudices.
In the case before us, the case of the resurrection, the great difficulty arises from the like prejudice. We all know by experience that all men die and rise no more; therefore we conclude that for a dead man to rise to life again is contrary to the course of nature; and certainly it is contrary to the uniform and settled course of things. But if we argue from hence that it is contrary and repugnant to the real laws of nature, and absolutely impossible on that account, we argue without any foundation to support us either from our senses or our reason.
We cannot learn from our eyes, or feeling, or any other sense, that it is impossible for a dead body to live again; if we learn it at all, it must be from our reason; and yet what one maxim of reason is contradicted by the supposition of a resurrection? For my own part, when I
Page 320
THOMAS SHERLOCK
consider how I live ; that all the animal motions necessary to my
life are independent of my will ; that my heart beats without my
consent and without my direction ; that digestion and nutrition
are performed by methods to which I am not conscious ; that my
blood moves in a perpetual round, which is contrary to all known
laws of motion ; I cannot but think that the preservation of my
life, in every moment of it, is as great an act of power as is
necessary to raise a dead man to life. And whoever so far
reflects on his own being as to acknowledge that he owes it to a
superior power, must needs think that the same power which gave
life to senseless matter at first, and set all the springs and move-
ments a-going at the beginning, can restore life to a dead body.
For surely it is not a greater thing to give life to a body once
dead, than to a body that never was alive.
(From the Same.)
Page 322
SIR ISAAC NEWTON
[Isaac Newton was born at Woolsthorpe, in Lincolnshire, on 25th December
- He was educated at Grantham and at Trinity College, Cambridge,
where he took his degree in 1665. He had already begun to make
discoveries in mathematics, and it was in 1666 that the fall of the famous
apple suggested to him a rudimentary theory of gravitation. This was not
however finally worked out until the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia
Mathematica of 1687, and in the meantime he occupied himself largely with
the phenomena of Light and Optics. He became a Fellow of Trinity in 1667,
Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669, a Fellow of the Royal Society
in 1691, and its President in 1703. He always held his public duties higher
than his scientific, championed his University against James II., sat in
Parliament in 1689, and again for the University in 1701, and served as
Master of the Mint from 1699. In 1703 he was knighted ; died in 1727,
and was buried in Westminster Abbey. The best edition of the Principia
is that by Sir W. Thomson and Professor Blackburn (1871). His Optus
were published in a Latin translation in 1706, his Optical Lectures in 1728,
and his Treatise on Fluxions in 1736. He also wrote several pamphlets
on theological subjects. His collected Works were edited by Horsley in
1779-1785. The student may consult Sir David Brewster's Life of Newton
(1855), and Prof. Augustus de Morgan's Newton, his Friend, and his
Niece (1885).]
IN the history of science, especially in its mathematical branches,
the activity of Isaac Newton is one of the greatest epochs.
A profundity of physical research, combined with a positive
genius for the invention of new and fertile mathematical methods,
enabled him to accomplish once for all the determination of
that vast system of cosmic laws at which generations of
explorers - Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler - had been vaguely
labouring. Subsequent investigation in the same field has
been but the elaboration of principles which he laid down. With
Aristotle and Darwin he stands in the front rank of the torch-
bearers of luminous theory.
Newton has indeed but little direct claim to rank among
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ENGLISH PROSE
the masters of English prose. With the exception of a few
letters and theological pamphlets, his writings are all in Latin,
academic instincts teaching him the inestimable value of that
language as an instrument of definite and precise statement.
Nor are the subjects such as to leave much room for beauty of
form in their exposition. Order, lucidity, and a reverence for
the syllogism—you can expect no more from a mathematician.
And those same virtues of clear and cogent reasoning, are
the chief qualities which Newton carries with him when he
ventures into his mother tongue, and beyond the sphere of
physics. Indirectly, however, he must have had a considerable
influence upon the subsequent course of literature. The impulse
of the scientific spirit is among the principal factors to be
taken account of in examining the problem of the eightcenth-
century mind ; and no one had a greater share in the propagation
of this impulse than Newton. Science came, as it were, to be a
tonic to the exhausted energies of English literature : it
strengthened the nerve, purged the brain of fantastic cobwebs,
forced the eye to look at things in the broad commonplace
light of day, refreshed and revitalised the whole organism, as
the giant of old was refreshed and revitalised, by a healthy
touch of earth. There followed a period of infertility, it is true ;
the manuring season is rarely rich in crops ; but the harvest
came in time, more swelling and more golden for the long
delay. And but for the eighteenth century, with its want of
poetic imagination, with its dominant scientific spirit, this re-
juvenescence, this regeneration would have been impossible.
E. K. Chambers.
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ON THE BELIEF IN A GOD
SIR,—When I wrote my treatise about our system, I had an eye upon such principles as might work with considering men, for the belief of a Deity, and nothing can rejoice me more than to find it useful for that purpose. But if I have done the public any service this way, it is due to nothing but industry and patient thought.
As to your first query, it seems to me that if the matter of our sun and planets, and all the matter of the universe, were evenly scattered throughout all the heavens, and every particle had an innate gravity towards all the rest, and the whole space, throughout which this matter was scattered, was but finite; the matter on the outside of this space would by its gravity tend towards all the matter on the inside, and by consequence fall down into the middle of the whole space, and there compose one great spherical mass. But if the matter was evenly disposed throughout an infinite space, it could never convene into one mass, but some of it would convene into one mass, and some into another, so as to make an infinite number of great masses, scattered at great distances from one another throughout all that infinite space. And thus might the sun and fixed stars be formed, supposing the matter were of a lucid nature. But how the matter should divide itself into two sorts, and that part of it, which is fit to compose a shining body, should fall down into one mass and make a sun, and the rest, which is fit to compose an opaque body, should coalesce, not into one great body, like the shining matter, but into many little ones; or if the sun at first were an opaque body like the planets, or the planets lucid bodies like the sun, how he alone should be changed into a shining body, whilst all they continue opaque, or all they be changed into opaque ones, whilst he remains unchanged, I do not think explicable by mere natural causes,
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but am forced to ascribe it to the counsel and contrivance of a voluntary Agent.
The same power, whether natural or supernatural, which placed the sun in the centre of the six primary planets, placed Saturn in the centic of the orbits of his five secondary planets, and Jupiter in the centre of his secondary planets, and the earth in the centre of the moon's orb; and therefore had this cause been a blind one, without contrivance or design, the sun would have been a body of the same kind with Saturn, Jupiter, and the earth, that is, without light and heat. Why there is one body in our system qualified to give light and heat to all the rest, I know no reason, but because the Author of the system thought it convenient; and why there is but one body of this kind I know no reason, but because one was sufficient to warm and enlighten all the rest.
For the Cartesian hypothesis of suns losing their light, and then turning into comets, and comets into planets, can have no place in my system, and is plainly erroneous; because it is certain that as often as they appear to us, they descend into the system of our planets, lower than the orb of Jupiter, and sometimes lower than the orbs of Venus and Mercury, and yet never stay here, but always return from the sun with the same degrees of motion by which they approached him.
To your second query, I answer, that the motions which the planets now have could not spring from any natural cause alone, but were impressed by an intelligent Agent.
For since comets descend into the region of our planets, and here move all manner of ways, going sometimes the same way with the planets, sometimes the contrary way, and sometimes in cross ways, in planes inclined to the plane of the ecliptic, and at all kinds of angles, it is plain that there is no natural cause which could determine all the planets, both primary and secondary, to move the same way and in the same plane, without any considerable variation : this must have been the effect of counsel.
Nor is there any natural cause which could give the planets those just degrees of velocity, in proportion to their distances from the sun, and other central bodies, which were requisite to make them move in such concentric orbs about those bodies.
Had the planets been swift as comets, in proportion to their distances from the sun (as they would have been, had their motion been caused by their gravity, whereby the matter, at
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the first formation of the planets, might fall from the remotest regions towards the sun) they would not move in concentric
orbs, but in such eccentric ones as the comets move in. Were all the planets as swift as Mercury, or as slow as Saturn or
his satellites; or were their several velocitics otherwise much greater or less than they are, as they might have been had
they arose from any other cause than their gravities, or had the distances from the centres about which they move been
greater or less than they are with the same velocities ; or had the quantity of matter in the sun, or in Saturn, Jupiter, and
the earth, and by consequence their gravitating power been greater or less than it is, the primary planets could not have
revolved about the sun, nor the secondary ones about Saturn, Jupiter, and the earth, in concentric circles as they do, but
would have moved in hyperbolas, or parabolas, or in eclipses very eccentric. To make this system therefore, with all its
motions, required a Cause which understood and compared together the quantites of matter in the several bodies of the
sun and planets, and the gravitating powers resulting from thence; the several distances of the primary planets from the
sun, and of the secondary ones from Saturn, Jupiter, and the earth; and the velocitics with which these planets could
revolve about those quantities of matter in the central bodies ; and to compare and adjust all these things together in so
great a variety of bodies, argues that Cause to be not blind and fortuitous but very well skilled in mechanics and geometry.
To your third query, I answer, that it may be represented that the sun may, by heating those planets most which are
nearest to him, cause them to be better concocted, and more condensed by that concoction. But when I consider that our
earth is much more heated in its bowels below the upper crust by subterraneous fermentations of mineral bodies than
by the sun, I see not why the interior parts of Jupiter and Saturn might not be as much heated, concocted, and coagulated
by those fermentations as our earth is ; and therefore this various density should have some other cause than the various
distances of the planets from the sun. And I am confirmed in this opinion by considering, that the planets of Jupiter and
Saturn, as they are rarer than the rest, so they are vastly greater, and contain a far greater quantity of matter, and have many
satellites about them ; which qualifications surely arose not
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from their being placed at so great a distance from the sun,
but were rather the cause why the Creator placed them at great
distance. For by their gravitating powers they disturb one
another’s motions very sensibly, as I find by some late observa-
tions of Mr. Flamsteed, and had they been placed much nearer
to the sun and to one another, they would by the same powers
have caused a considerable disturbance in the whole system.
To your fourth query, I answer that in the hypothesis of
vortices, the inclination of the axis of the earth might, in my
opinion, be ascribed to the situation of the earth’s vortex before
it was absorbed by the neighbouring vortices, and the earth
turned from a sun to a comet; but this inclination ought to
decrease constantly in compliance with the motion of the earth’s
vortex, whose axis is much less inclined to the ecliptic, as
appears by the motion of the moon carried about therein. If
the sun by his rays could carry about the planets, yet I do
not see how he could thereby effect their diurnal motions.
Lastly, I see nothing extraordinary in the inclination of
the earth’s axis for proving a Deity, unless you will urge it as
a contrivance for winter and summer, and for making the
earth habitable towards the poles; and that the diurnal rotations
of the sun and planets, as they could hardly arise from any
cause purely mechanical, so by being determined all the same
way with the annual and menstrual motions, they seem to make
up that harmony in the system, which, as I explained above, was
the effect of choice rather than chance.
There is yet another argument for a Deity, which I take to
be a very strong one, but, till the principles on which it is
grounded are better received, I think it more advisable to let
it sleep.—I am, your most humble servant to command,
ISAAC NEWTON.
CAMBRIDGE, 10th December 1692.
(From the Letters to Dr. Bentley.)
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BISHOP BURNET
[Gilbert Burnet was boin in Edinburgh on the 18th of September 1643.
He was educated, first at home, and subsequently at the Marschal College,
Aberdeen. In 1661 he became a clergyman of the Scotch Church. He was
always interested in general literature, and still more in politics, which at-
tracted him to London. He became intimate with King Charles II., who
made him a royal chaplain, and with James, Duke of York. But Burnet was
a zealous Protestant, and a personal friend of Lord William Russell and the
Earl of Essex, so that he lost favour with Charles, and on the accession of
James thought fit to go abroad. He became intimate with the Prince and
Princess of Orange, accompanied the expedition of 1688, and after the
Revolution was rewarded with the Bishopric of Salisbury. He proved an
excellent bishop, without ceasing to be an active politician. In 1698 he
became Preceptor to the Duke of Gloucester, son of the Princess Anne. He
suggested to Anne, when Queen, the provision for augmenting poor livings,
known as Queen Anne's bounty. He died in London on the 7th of March 1715.
For more than fifty years he had been a most prolific writer. He composed
histories, biographies, theological treatises, sermons, and political pamphlets.
A complete list of his writings will be found (vol. vi. pp. 331-352) in the Claren-
don Press edition of his principal work The History of my Own Times.]
BURNET took so keen a part in the political and religious con-
troversies of a troubled time that the worth of his writings has
been very differently judged by Whigs and by Tories, by Low
Churchmen and by High Churchmen. But after the lapse of nearly
two centuries it is no longer difficult to determine his real position
in literature. He was a man of quick feelings, extraordinary
energy, varied experience, and very wide reading. He was not
an original thinker or a master of literary expression. Most of
his works were written for an immediate purpose. The many
sermons and pamphlets which came from his pen are creditable
productions of their kind, but possess none of those transcendent
qualities which alone can raise a fugitive piece to the dignity of a
classic. His works of divinity would hardly by themselves suffice
to preserve his memory. That he still holds a place in English
literature is due to his biographical and historical writings.
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Some Passages of the Life and Death of John, Earl of Rochester,
should not perhaps be termed a biography, since it passes very
rapidly over Rochester's career to dwell upon the close of his life
and his conversion by the author. One of the cleverest and most
dissolute among the many men of wit and pleasure who gathered
round Charles II., Rochester had exhausted a vigorous constitu-
tion and fine talents whilst yet little more than thirty years of age.
His conversations with Burnet give a lively idea of the religious
and moral scepticism which was then fashionable, and of the
arguments with which it was assailed. The Life of Sir Matthew
Hale, Lord Chief Justice of England, portrays a very different
character, a great judge, and a man of antique virtue. In this
work, also, the sermon encroaches on the biography. Yet, it is
agreeable reading. The deficiencies of Burnet's thought and
style are less remarkable in brief occasional performances of this
class, than in longer and more elaborate compositions. Burnet's
reputation as a historian rests chiefly on the History of the Refor-
mation and the History of My Own Time. The first volume of
the History of the Reformation appeared in 1679, the second in
1681, and the third in 1714. Published at a time when the
pretended discovery of the Popish plot had given a new edge to
Protestant enthusiasm, the first volume received the formal thanks
of the House of Commons. The whole work attracted consider-
able attention on the Continent as well as in England. Nor was
this attention undeserved. For Burnet had shown considerable
industry in research, and had as much regard for truth as is ever
found in a zealous party man. But in writing the History of the
Reformation he laboured under two grave disadvantages. He
had no access to many sources of information which have been
laid open since his time. He wrote at a time when the conflict
between Protestant and Catholic was still raging, and could not
be expected to discuss the first phase of that conflict in the
philosophical spirit, possible to those who write after the conflict
has been decided. For these reasons the History of the
Reformation has already become more or less obsolete. A more
enduring importance belongs to the History of My Own Time,
which was not published in the life of the author. Beginning
with a sketch of the period of the Civil Wars and the Common-
wealth, it traces the course of events in England and Scotland
from the Restoration of Charles II. down to the close of the reign
of Anne. For writing such a history Burnet possessed unusual
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advantages. Engaged in politics for nearly fifty years, personally
intimate with five English sovercigns, and the centre of a wide
circle of acquaintance which comprised most of the men prominent,
whether in Church or in State, both in England and in Scotland,
he had every opportunity of collecting those piccious facts which
are not recorded in state papers but which illustrate the very
soul of the time. As a contemporary narrative the History of
My Own Time has the same indestructible value which belongs
to the History of the Great Rebellion. As a work of literary art,
however, Burnet's history cannot be compared with Clarendon's
history. Clarendon's lofty rhythm, restrained pathos, and fine
discrimination of language are all wanting to Burnet. Whatever
the subject in hand, a battle or a revolution, the character of a
great statesman or the untimely death of a dear friend, Burnet's
narrative jogs along at the same slow apathetic pace. The lack
of eloquence is not compensated by clearness or method, for the
arrangement is careless and the impression left on the reader is
one of confusion. Still less is the uncouthness of the form com-
pensated by the profundity of the thought. That Burnet was a
champion of the party which saved civil and religious freedom
does not make him less a partisan. How much his perception of
facts was impaired by his Whig zeal, may be gathered from the
remonstrance against peace with France which he addressed to
Anne after the Tories had come into power. "I said," he writes,
"any treaty by which Spain and the West Indies were left to
King Philip must in a little while deliver all Europe into the hands
of France; and, if any such peace should be made, she was
betrayed and we were all ruined; in less than three years time
she would be murdered, and the fires would be again raised in
Smithfield" (vol. vi. p. 71).
Defects of method, of historical insight, and of impartiality
are, however, equally conspicuous in Clarendon's history, and are
perhaps inevitable in a contemporary record of political events.
Burnet has been further charged with grave inaccuracy in his
statement of facts, but this accusation is not well founded. The
conclusion has evidently been claborated with much care, and in
point of style rises as far above Burnet's usual level as the rest of
the history sinks below.
Burnet was not a great author, but his writings must be
studied by all who would acquaint themselves with a memorable
period in the history of England. F. C. MONTAGUE.
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THE NATIONAL BLESSING OF RELIGION
THUS religion, if truly received and sincerely adhered to, would prove the greatest of all blessings to a nation ; but by religion I understand somewhat more than the receiving some doctrines, though ever so true, or the professing them, and engaging to support them, not without zeal and eagerness.
What signify the best doctrines, if men do not live suitably to them ; if they have not a due influence upon their thoughts, their principles, and their lives? Men of bad lives, with sound opinions, are self-condemned, and lie under a highly aggravated guilt ; nor will the heat of a party, arising out of interest, and managed with fury and violence, compensate for the ill lives of such false pretenders to zeal ; while they are a disgrace to that which they profess, and seem hot for.
By religion, I do not mean an outward compliance with form and customs, in going to church, to prayers, to sermons, and to sacraments, with an external show of devotion, or, which is more, with some inward forced good thoughts, in which many may satisfy themselves, while this has no visible effect upon their lives, nor any inward force to subdue and rectify their appetites, passions, and secret designs.
Those customary performances, how good and useful soever, when well understood and rightly directed, are of little value when men rest on them, and think that, because they do them, they have therefore acquitted themselves of their duty, though they continue still proud, covetous, full of deceit, envy, and malice ; even secret prayer, the most effectual of all other means, is designed for a higher end, which is, to possess our minds with such a constant and present sense of divine truths, as may make these live in us, and govern us, and may draw down such assistances as may exalt and sanctify our natures.
So that by religion, I mean such a sense of divine truth as enters into a man, and becomes a spring of a new nature within him ; reforming his thoughts and designs, purifying his heart,
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and sanctifying him, and governing his whole deportment, his
words as well as his actions: convincing him, that it is not
enough not to be scandalously vicious, or to be innocent in his
conversation, but that he must be entirely, uniformly, and con-
stantly pure and virtuous, animating him with a zeal to be still
better and better, more eminently good and exemplary, using
prayers and all outward devotions, as solemn acts testifying what
he is inwardly and at heart, and as methods instituted by God, to
be still advancing in the use of them further and further into a
more refined and spiritual sense of divine matters. This is true
religion, which is the perfection of human nature, and the joy and
delight of every one that feels it active and strong within him: it
is true, this is not arrived at all at once; and it will have an
unhappy allay, hanging long even, about a good man; but, as
those ill mixtures are the perpetual grief of his soul, so it is his
chief care to watch over and to mortify them; he will be in a
continual progress, still gaining ground upon himself; and, as he
attains to a good degree of purity, he will find a noble flame of
life and joy growing upon him. Of this I write with the more
concern and emotion, because I have felt this the true, and,
indeed, the only joy which runs through a man's heart and life;
it is that which has been for many years my greatest support;
I rejoice daily in it; I feel from it the earnest of that supreme
joy which I pant and long for; I am sure there is nothing else
that can afford any true or complete happiness. I have, con-
sidering my sphere, seen a great deal of all that is most shining
and tempting in this world: the pleasures of sense I did soon
nauseate; intrigues of state, and the conduct of affairs, have
something in them that is more specious; and I was for some
years deeply immersed in these, but still with hopes of reforming
the world, and of making mankind wiser and better; but I have
found that which is crooked cannot be made straight. I
acquainted myself with knowledge and learning, and that in a
great variety and with more compass than depth; but though
wisdom excelleth folly as much as light does darkness, yet as it
is a sore travail, so it is very defective, that what is wanting
to complete it cannot be numbered. I have seen that two were
better than one, and that a three-fold cord is not easily loosed;
and have therefore cultivated friendship with much zeal, and a
disinterested tenderness; but I have found this was also vanity
and vexation of spirit, though it be of the best and noblest sort.
VOL. III
Y
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So that, upon great and long experience, I could enlarge on the preacher's text, Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity; but I must also conclude with him—Fear God, and keep His commandments, for this is the all of man, the whole both of his duty and his happiness. I do therefore end all in the words of David, of the truth of which, upon great experience and a long observation, I am so fully assured, that I leave these as my last words to posterity :—Come, ye children, hearken unto me ; I will teach you the fear of the Lord. What man is he that desireth life, and loveth many days, that he may see good ? Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips from speaking guile. Depart from evil, and do good ; seek peace, and pursue it. The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and his ears are open unto their cry. The face of the Lord is against them that do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth. The righteous cry, and the Lord heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles. The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart ; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.
(From History of my own Time.)
THE CHARACTER OF WILLIAM III.
Thus lived and died William the Third, King of Great Britain, and Prince of Orange. He had a thin and weak body, was brown haired, and of a clear and delicate constitution : he had a Roman eagle nose, bright and sparkling eyes, a large front, and a countenance composed to gravity and authority ; all his senses were critical and exquisite. He was always asthmatical, and the dregs of the smallpox falling on his lungs, he had a constant deep cough. His behaviour was solemn and serious, seldom cheerful, and but with a few ; he spoke little and very slowly, and most commonly with a disgusting dryness, which was his character at all times, except in a day of battle ; for then he was all fire, though without passion ; he was then everywhere and looked to everything. He had no great advantage from his education ; De Wit's discourses were of great use to him, and he, being apprehensive of the observation of those who were looking narrowly into everything he said or did, had brought himself under a habitual caution that he could never shake off, though in another scene it proved as hurtful, as it was then necessary to his
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affairs: he spoke Dutch, French, English, and German equally
well; and he understood the Latin, Spanish, and Italian, so that
he was well fitted to command armies composed of several
nations. He had a memory that amazed all about him, for it
never failed him: he was an exact observer of men and things:
his strength lay rather in a true discerning and a sound judgment,
than in imagination or invention: his designs were always great
and good; but it was thought he trusted too much to that, and
that he did not descend enough to the humours of his people, to
make himself and his notions more acceptable to them: this, in
a government that has so much of freedom in it as ours, was
more necessary than he was inclined to believe; his reservedness
grew on him, so that it disgusted most of those who served him;
but he had observed the errors of too much talking, rather than
those of too cold a silence. He did not like contradiction, nor to
have his actions censured; but he loved to employ and favour
those who had the arts of compliance, yet he did not love
flatterers; his genius lay chiefly to war, in which his courage was
more admired than his conduct; great errors were often com-
mitted by him, but his heroical courage set things right, as it
inflamed those who were about him; he was too lavish of money
on some occasions, both in his buildings and to his favourites,
but too sparing in rewarding services, or in encouraging those
who brought intelligence; he was apt to take ill impressions of
people, and these stuck long with him; but he never carried
them to indecent revenges: he gave too much way to his own
humour, almost in everything, not excepting that which related to
his own health: he knew all foreign affairs well, and understood
the state of every court in Europe very particularly: he instructed
his own ministers himself, but he did not apply enough to affairs
at home: he tried how he could govern us by balancing the two
parties one against another, but he came at last to be persuaded,
that the Tories were irreconcilable to him, and he resolved to
try and trust them no more. He believed the truth of the
Christian religion very firmly; and he expressed a horror at
atheism and blasphemy: and though there was much of both at
his court, yet it was always denied to him, and kept out of sight.
He was most exemplarily decent and devout in the public
exercises of the worship of God, only on week days he came too
seldom to them; he was an attentive hearer of sermons, and was
constant in his private prayers, and in reading the Scriptures;
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and when he spoke of religious matters, which he did not often,
it was with a becoming gravity : he was much possessed with the
belief of absolute decrees : he said to me, he adhered to these,
because he did not see how the belief of providence could be
maintained upon any other supposition : his indifference as to the
forms of church government, and his being zealous for toleration,
together with his cold behaviour towards the clergy, gave them
generally very ill impressions of him ; in his deportment towards
all about him he seemed to make little distinction between the
good and the bad, and those who served him well, or those who
served him ill : he loved the Dutch, and was much beloved
among them ; but the ill returns he met from the English nation,
their jealousies of him, and their perverseness towards him, had
too much soured his mind, and had in a great measure alienated
him from them, which he did not take care enough to conceal,
though he saw the ill effects this had upon his business. He
grew, in his last years, too remiss and careless as to all affairs ;
till the treacheries of France awakened him, and the dreadful
conjunction of the monarchies gave so loud an alarm to all
Europe. For a watching over that court, and a bestirring
himself against their practices, was the prevailing passion of
his whole life : few men had the art of concealing and governing
passion more than he had ; yet few men had stronger passions,
which were seldom felt but by inferior servants, to whom he
usually made such recompenses for any sudden or indecent
vents he might give his anger, that they were glad at every time
that it broke upon them ; he was too easy to the faults of those
about him, when they did not lie in his own way, or cross any of
his designs : and he was so apt to think that his ministers might
grow insolent, if they should find that they had too much credit
with him, that he seemed to have made it a maxim to let them
feel how little power they had, even in small matters : his
favourites had a more entire power, but he accustomed them only
to inform him of things, but to be sparing in offering advice,
except when it was asked : it was not easy to account for the
reasons of the favour that he showed, in the highest instances, to
two persons beyond all others, the Earls of Portland and
Albemarle, they being in all respects men, not only of different,
but of opposite characters ; secrecy and fidelity were the only
qualities in which it could be said that they did in any sort agree.
(From the Same.)
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BISHOP BURNET
325
THE CHARACTER OF SIR MATTHEW HALE
He had a soul enlarged and raised above that mean appetite of loving money, which is generally the root of all evil. He did not take the profits that he might have had by his practice; for in common cases, when those who came to ask his counsel gave him a piece, he used to give back the half, and so made ten shillings his fee in ordinary matters that did not require much time or study. If he saw a cause was unjust, he, for a great while, would not meddle further in it, but to give his advice that it was so. If the parties after that would go on, they were to seek another counsellor, for he would assist none in acts of injustice. If he found the cause doubtful or weak in point of law, he always advised his clients to agree their business. Yet afterwards he abated much of the scrupulosity he had about causes, that appeared at first view unjust, upon this occasion. There were two causes brought to him, which, by the ignorance of the party or their attorney, were so ill represented to him, that they seemed to be very bad; but he inquiring more narrowly into them, found they were really very good and just; so that after this, he slackened much of his former strictness of refusing to meddle in causes upon the ill circumstances that appeared in them at first.
In his pleading he abhorred those two common faults of misreciting evidences, quoting precedents or books falsely, or asserting things confidently, by which ignorant juries or weak judges are too often wrought on. He pleaded with the same sincerity that he used in the other parts of his life, and used to say :-It was as great a dishonour as a man was capable of, that for a little money he was to be hired to say or do otherwise than as he thought. All this he ascribed to the immeasurable desire of heaping up wealth, which corrupted the souls of some, that seemed to be otherwise born and made for great things.
When he was a practitioner, differences were often referred to him, which he settled; but would accept of no reward for his pains, though offered by both parties together, after the agreement was made; for he said "in those cases he was made a judge, and a judge ought to take no money. If they told him he lost much of his time in considering their business, and so ought to be acknowledged for it, his answer was (as one that heard it told me), "Can
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I spend my time better than to make people friends? Must I
have no time allowed me to do good in?
He was naturally a quick man; yet, by much practice on him-
self, he subdued that to such a degree, that he would never run
suddenly into any conclusion concerning any matter of importance.
Festina lente was his beloved motto, which he ordered to be
engraved on the head of his staff; and he was often heard say,
That he had observed many witty men run into great errors,
because they did not give themselves time to think; but the heat
of imagination making some notions appear in good colours to
them, they, without staying till that cooled, were violently led by
the impulses it made on them; whereas calm and slow men, who
pass for dull in the common estimation, could search after truth,
and find it out, as with more deliberation, so with greater certainty.
He laid aside the tenth penny of all he got for the poor; and
took great care to be well informed of proper objects for his
charities. And after he was a judge, many of the perquisites of
his place, as his dividend of the Rule and Box money, were sent
by him to the jails, to discharge poor prisoners, who never knew
from whose hands their relief came. It is also a custom for the
Marshal of the King's Bench to present the judges of that Court
with a piece of plate for a new year's gift, that for the chief justice
being larger than the rest. This he intended to have refused;
but the other judges told him it belonged to his office, and the
refusing of it would be a prejudice to his successors, so he was
persuaded to take it; but he sent word to the Marshal, That,
instead of plate, he should bring him the value of it in money;
and when he received it, he immediately sent it to the prisons,
for the relief and discharge of the poor there. He usually invited
his poor neighbours to dine with him, and made them sit at table
with himself; and if any of them were sick, so that they could
not come, he would send meat warm to them from his table.
And he did not only relieve the poor in his own parish, but sent
supplies to the neighbouring parishes, as there was occasion for
it; and he treated them all with the same tenderness and famili-
arity that became one who considered they were of the same
nature as himself, and were reduced to no other necessities, but
such as he himself might be brought to. But for common
beggars, if any of these came to him as he was in his walks
when he lived in the country, he would ask such as were capable
of working why they went about so idly? If they answered, It
Page 338
was because they could find no work, he often sent them to some
field, to gather all the stones in it and lay them on a heap ; and
then would pay them liberally for their pains. This being done,
he used to send his carts, and caused them to be carried to such
places of the highway as needed mending.
But when he was in town, he dealt his charities very liberally,
even among the street beggars ; and when some told him, That
he thereby encouraged idleness, and that most of these were
notorious cheats ; he used to answer, That he believed most of
them were such ; but among them there were some that were
great objects of charity, and pressed with grievous necessities ;
and that he had rather give his alms to twenty who might be
perhaps rogues, than that one of the other sort should perish for
want of that small relief which he gave them.
He loved building much, which he affected chiefly because it
employed many poor people ; but one thing was observed in all
his buildings, that the changes he made in his houses were always
from magnificence to usefulness ; for he avoided everything that
looked like pomp or vanity, even in the walls of his houses. He
had good judgment in architecture, and an excellent faculty in
contriving well.
He was a gentle landlord to all his tenants, and was ever
ready, upon any reasonable complaints, to make abatements ; for
he was merciful as well as rightecus. One instance of this was
of a widow that lived in London, and had a small estate near
his house in the country ; from which her rents were ill returned
to her, and at a cost, which she could not well bear ; so she
bemoaned herself to him ; and he, according to his readiness to
assist all poor people, told her, He would order his steward to
take up her rents, and the returning them should cost her nothing.
But after that, when there was a great falling of rents in that
country so that it was necessary to make abatements to the
tenant, yet he would have it lie on himself, and made the widow
be paid her rent as formerly.
Another remarkable instance of his justice and goodness was,
that when he found ill money had been paid into his hands, he
would never suffer it to be vented again ; for he thought it
was no excuse for him to put false money into other people's
hands, because some had put it into his. A great heap of this
he had gathered together ; for many had so far abused his good-
ness, as to mix base money among the fees that were given him.
Page 339
It is like he had intended to have destroyed it ; but some thieves who had observed it, broke into his chamber and stole it, thinking they had got a prize ; which he used to tell with some pleasure, imagining how they found themselves deceived, when they perceived what sort of booty they had fallen on.
After he was made a judge, he would needs pay more for every purchase he made than it was worth. If it had been but a horse he had to buy, he would have out-bid the price ; and when some represented to him that he made ill bargains, he said ; It became judges to pay more for what they bought, than the true value, that so those with whom they dealt might not think they had any right to their favour, by having sold such things to them at an easy rate, and said it was suitable to the reputation which a judge ought to preserve, to make such bargains that the world might see they were not too well used upon some secret account.
In sum, his estate did show how little he had minded the raising a great fortune ; for from a hundred pound a year he raised it not quite to nine hundred ; and of this a very considerable part came in by his share of Mr. Selden's estate : yet this, considering his great practice while a counsellor, and his constant, frugal, and modest way of living, was but a small fortune. His library was valued at some thousands of pounds, and was believed to be one of the curiousest collections in Europe ; so they resolved to keep this entire, for the honour of Selden's memory, and gave it to the University of Oxford ; where a noble room was added to the former library for its reception, and all due respects have since been shown by that great and learned body, to those their worthy benefactors, who not only parted so generously with this great treasure, but were a little put to it how to oblige them, without crossing the will of their dead friend.
Mr. Selden had once intended to give his library to that University, and had left it so by his will ; but having occasion for a manuscript which belonged to their library, they asked of him a bond of a thousand pounds for its restitution : this he took so ill at their hands, that he struck out that part of his will, by which he had given them his library, and with some passion declared, they should never have it. The executors stuck at this a little ; but having considered better of it, came to this conclusion ; that they were to be the executors of Mr. Selden's will, and not of his passion ; so they made good what he had intended in cold
Page 340
blood, and passed over what his passion had suggested to
him.
The parting with so many excellent books would have been
as uneasy to our judge as anything of that nature could be, if
a pious regard to his friend's memory had not prevailed over
him; for he valued books and manuscripts above all things in
the world. He himself had made a great and rare collection of
manuscripts belonging to the law of England; he was forty
years in gathering it; he himself said, it cost him about fifteen
hundred pounds, and calls it in his will, a treasure worth having
and keeping, and not fit for every man's view. These all he
left to Lincoln's Inn; and for the information of those who are
curious to search into such things, there shall be a catalogue of
them added at the end of this book.
By all these instances it does appear how much he was raised
above the world, or the love of it. But having thus mastered
things without him, his next study was to overcome his own
inclinations. He was, as he said himself, naturally passionate;
I add, as he said himself, for that appeared by no other evidence,
save that sometimes his colour would rise a little; but he so
governed himself, that those who lived long about him have
told me, they never saw him disordered with anger, though he
met with some trials that the nature of man is as little able to
bear, as any whatsoever. There was one who did him a great
injury, which it is not necessary to mention, who coming after-
wards to him for his advice in the settlement of his estate, he
gave it very frankly to him, but would accept of no fee for it,
and thereby showed both that he could forgive as a Christian,
and that he had the soul of a gentleman in him, not to take money
of one that had wronged him so heinously. And when he was
asked by one, How he could use a man so kindly that had
wronged him so much? his answer was, He thanked God he
had learned to forgive injuries. And besides the great temper
he expressed in all his public employments, in his family he was
a very gentle master; he was tender of all his servants, he never
turned any away, except they were so faulty, that there was no
hope of reclaiming them. When any of them had been long out
of the way, or had neglected any part of their duty, he would
not see them at their first coming home, and sometimes not till
the next day; lest, when his displeasure was quick upon him,
he might have chid them indecently, and when he did reprove
Page 341
them, he did it with that sweetness and gravity, that it appeared
he was more concerned for their having done a fault, than for
the offence given it to himself. But if they became immoral
or unruly, then he turned them away: for he said, He, that by
his place ought to punish disorders in other people, must by no
means suffer them in his own house. He advanced his servants
according to the time they had been about him, and would never
give occasion to envy amongst them, by raising the younger
clerks above those who had been longer with him. He treated
them all with great affection, rather as a friend than a master,
giving them often good advice and instruction. He made those
who had good places under him give some of their profits to
the other servants who had nothing but their wages. When he
made his will, he left legacies to every one of them; but he
expressed a more particular kindness for one of them, Robert
Gibbon, of the Middle Temple, Esq., in whom he had that
confidence, that he left him one of his executors. I the rather
mention him because of his noble gratitude to his worthy bene-
factor and master, for he has been so careful to preserve his
memory that, as he set those on me at whose desire I undertook
to write his life, so he has procured for me a great part of those
memorials and informations, out of which I have composed it.
The judge was of a most tender and compassionate nature;
this did eminently appear in his trying and giving sentence upon
criminals, in which he was strictly careful, that not a circumstance
should be neglected, which might any way clear the fact. He
behaved himself with that regard to the prisoners, which became
both the gravity of a judge, and the pity that was due to men,
whose lives lay at stake, so that nothing of jeering or unreason-
able severity ever fell from him. He also examined the witnesses
in the softest manner, taking care that they should be put under
no confusion, which might disorder their memory; and he
summed all the evidence so equally, when he charged the jury,
that the criminals themselves never complained of him. When
it came to him to give sentence, he did it with that composedness
and decency, and his speeches to the prisoners, directing them
to prepare for death, were so weighty, so free of all affectation,
and so serious and devout, that many loved to go to the trials,
when he sat judge, to be edified by his speeches and behaviour
in them; and used to say, they heard very few such sermons.
But though the pronouncing the sentence of death was the
Page 342
piece of his employment that went most against the grain with
him; yet in that he could never be mollified to any tenderness
which hindered justice. When he was once pressed to re-
commend some, whom he had condemned, to his Majesty's mercy
and pardon; he answered, he could not think they deserved a
pardon, whom he himself had adjudged to die; so that all he
would do in that kind was to give the king a true account of the
circumstances of the fact; after which his Majesty was to con-
sider whether he would interpose his mercy, or let justice take
place.
His mercifulness extended even to his beasts, for when the
horses that he had kept long grew old, he would not suffer them
to be sold, or much wrought; but ordered his men to turn them
loose on his grounds, and put them only to easy work, such as-
going to market, and the like: he used old dogs also with the
same care; his shepherd having one that was become blind with
age, he intended to have killed or lost him; but the judge coming
to hear of it, made one of his servants bring him home, and fed
him till he died. And he was scarce ever seen more angry than
with one of his servants, for neglecting a bird that he kept, so
that it died for want of food.
(From The Life of Sir Matthew Hale.)
Page 344
WILLIAM PENN
[William Penn was born in London 14th October 1644. His father was in
the Royal Navy, rising to the rank of Admiral under the Commonwealth and
receiving Knighthood from Charles II. He was wealthy and influential.
William went to Christ Church, Oxford, at the early age of fourteen. Here
he is said to have first met with Quakers. After he left college he travelled in
France and Ireland. His first imprisonment for conscience' sake took place
at Cork in the year 1667. He was again imprisoned in the Tower during the
following year, and incurred the displeasure of his father on account of his
religious views. Father and son became reconciled, however, before the
former's death. In 1681, in recognition of Sir William's distinguished
services and of moneys due to him on the part of the Crown, the tract of land
in America, since known as Pennslyvania, was granted to William Penn the
younger. Thither, in 1682, he went, accompanied by friends. His first
official act was to grant to all liberty of conscience in things spiritual and free-
dom in things temporal.
Court jealousy got him into trouble. He was accused of certain mal-
practices and deprived of the government of Pennsylvania by William III.
But this was restored to him in 1699. His last years were full of trouble.
He was burdened with debt and harassed by his enemies. He suffered from
melancholia, and died in 1718.
He was twice married, firstly to Gulielma Springett, secondly to
Hannah Callowhill of Bristol.]
William Penn is better known as the founder of Pennsylvania
and the chief of the Quakers of his day than as a writer. His most
important work is No Cross, No Crown; A discourse showing
the nature and discipline of the Holy Cross of Christ. It is an
earnest, sometimes eloquent, exposition of the duty of self-denial
as the chief requisite for salvation, denouncing all lip service and
ceremonialism.
The style is grave and uniform. It is perhaps somewhat
ponderously earnest, and lacks the refreshing humour and imagery
of some of his contemporary theologians. It is always clear,
though the effect is sometimes spoilt by too much amplification.
A fair amount of learning and culture is shown without pedantry.
Page 345
334
ENGLISH PROSE
In attack Penn is self-controlled but courageous. In defence temperate, though pride seems now and then to peep from out of
the rags of his humility. His Plea for Liberty of Conscience, and The Proposed Comprehension soberly and not unseasonably con-
sidered, are calm, logical, and earnest.
In addition to the theological works above mentioned he wrote an account of his Travels in Holland and Germany, and a
General Description of Pennsyluania, in which he shows considerable observation, shrewd common sense and appreciation of
the good points of the people and governments which he describes. His judgments on men and manners are sharp and
unsparing, but never exaggerated nor unnaturally prejudiced.
He was engaged in various controversies on behalf of the Quakers, into which we need not enter here. He eloquently
denounced all intolerance, holding it to be both foolish and inconsistent with Christianity in general and with the Protestant
religion in particular. "If this," he said speaking of religious persecutions, "be goodly, what is devilish! If this be Christian,
what is Paganish!"
A man of action more than of letters, he did not aim at being a stylist nor write for posterity or literary fame. Such charm as
his writings have consists in the earnestness, moderation, and piety of the individual, rather than in beauty of diction or
elegance of composition.
A. I. FITZROY.
Page 346
AN EXHORTATION
O Christendom ! my soul most fervently prays that, after all
thy lofty professions of Christ and His meek and holy religion,
thy unsuitable and un-Christlike life may not cast thee at that
great assize of the world, and lose thee so great salvation at last.
Hear me once, I beseech thee. Can Christ be thy Lord, and
thou not obey Him ? Or, can thou be His servant and never serve
Him ? Be not deceived, such as thou sowest thou shalt reap : He
is none of thy Saviour, whilst thou rejectest His grace in thy
heart, by which He should save thee. Come, what has He saved
thee from ! Has He saved thee from thy sinful lusts, thy worldly
affections and vain conversations ? If not, then He is none of
thy Saviour. For though He be offered a Saviour to all, yet He
is actually a Saviour to those only that are saved by Him ; and
none are saved by Him that live in those evils by which they are
lost from God, and which He came to save them from.
It is sin that Christ is come to save man from, and death and
wrath, as the wages of it : but those that are not saved, that is,
delivered, by the power of Christ in their souls, fiom the power
that sin has over them, can never be saved from the death and
wrath that are the assured wages of the sin they live in.
So that look, how far people obtain victory over those evil
dispositions and fleshly lusts they have been addicted to, so far
they are truly saved, and are witnesses of the redemption that
comes by Jesus Christ. His name shows this work. And lo !
(said John of Christ) the Lamb of God that takes away the sins
of the world ! that is, behold Him whom God hath given to
enlighten people, and for salvation to as many as receive Him, and
His light and grace in their hearts, and take up their daily cross
and follow him ; such as rather deny themselves the pleasure of
fulfilling their lusts, than sin against the knowledge He has given
them of His will, or do that they know they ought not to do.
(From No Cross, No Crown.)
Page 347
336
ENGLISH PROSE
A PLEA FOR TOLERATION
Although the benefits wherewith Almighty God has universally blessed the whole creation are a sufficient check to the narrowness of their spirits, who would unreasonably confine all comforts of life within the strait compass of their own party (as if to recede from their apprehensions, whereof themselves deny any infallible assurance, were reason good enough to deprive other dissenters of nature's inheritance, and, which is more peculiar, England's freedoms); yet since it fares so meanly with those excellent examples, that many vainly think themselves then best to answer the end of their being born into the world when, by a severity which least of all resembles the God of Love, they rigorously prosecute the extirpation of their brethren; let it not seem unreasonable, or ill-timed, that we offer to your more serious thoughts the great partiality and injustice that seem to be the companions of a comprehension, since you only can be concerned at this time to prevent it by a more large and generous freedom.
First, then, liberty of conscience (by which we commonly understand the free exercise of any dissenting persuasion) is but what has been generally pleaded for, even by the warmest sticklers for a comprehension, and without which it would be utterly impossible they should be comprehended. The question then will be this, What ground can there be why some, and not all, should be tolerated? It must either respect conscience or government: if it be upon matter of mere religion, what reason is there that one party should be tolerated and another restrained; since all those reasons that may be urged by that party which is comprehended are every whit as proper to the party excluded? For if the former say they are orthodox, so say the latter too. If the one urge, it is impossible they should believe without a conviction; that the understanding cannot be forced; that mildness gains most; that the true religion never persecuted; that severity is most unworthy of her; that sound reason is the only weapon which can disarm the understanding; that coercion doth rather obdurate than soften; and that they therefore choose to be sincere dissenters, rather than hypocritical conformists; the other party says the same. In fine, there can be nothing said for
Page 348
WILLIAM PENN
337
liberty of conscience upon pure conscientious grounds by any one party in England, that every one may not be interested in; unless any will undertake to judge that of five sorts of dissenters two are really such on conviction, and three upon mere design. But if such sentence would be looked upon as most arrogant and unjust, how can it be reasonable that those whom some endeavour to exclude should be thus prejudged; and such as are comprehended be therefore so only from a strong opinion of their reality? We may conclude then, that since liberty of conscience is what in itself comprehenders plead, and that it is evident to affirm this, or that, or the other party orthodox is but a mere begging of the question, what may be urged for one is forceable for any other; conscience (not moveable but upon conviction) being what all pretend themselves alike concerned in.
But they say, That such as are like to be comprehended are persons not essentially differing; that it were pity to exclude them whose difference is rather in minute matters than anything substantial; whereas you err in fundamentals. But how paradoxical soever such may please to think it, that we should therefore plead the justice of taking those in, some unkindly would have left out we know not; however, we believe it most reasonable to do so, for certainly the reason for liberty or toleration should hold proportion with the weighty cause of dissent, and the stress conscience puts upon it. When matters are trivial they are more blameable that make them a ground for dissent, than those who perhaps (were that all the difference) would never esteem them worth contending for; much less that they should rend from that church they otherwise confess to be a true one. So that whoever are condemnable, certainly those who have been authors and promoters of separation upon mere toys and niceties, are not most of all others to be justified. Had they conscientiously offered some fundamental discontent, and pleaded the impossibility of reconciling some doctrines with their reason or conscience, yet promising quiet living, and all due subjection to government, they might have been thus far more excusable, that people would have had reason to have said, Certainly small matters could not have induced these men to this disgraceful separation, nor anything of this life have tempted them to this so great and troublesome alteration. But to take pet at a ceremony, then run from the church, set up a new name and model, gather people, raise animosity, and only make fit for blows, by a furious
VOL. III
Z
Page 349
338
ENGLISH PROSE
zeal kindled in their heads against a few ineptiæ, mere trifles;
and, being utterly vanquished from these proceedıngs, to become
most earnest solicitous for a comprehension, though at the same
time of hot pursuit after this privilege, to seek nothing more than
to prevent others of enjoying the same favour, under the pretence
of more fundamental difference; certainly this shows, that had
such persons power, they would as well disallow of a comprehen-
sion to those who are the assertors of those ceremoniæs they
recede from, as that for mere ceremonies they did at first zealously
dissent, and ever since remain more unjustifiably fierce for such
separation. And truly, if there were no more in it than this, it
would be enough for us to say, that some in England never rent
themselves from the Church at all, much less for little matters;
that they never endeavoured her exile, but she found them upon
her return, which they opposed not; nor yet since have any ways
sought to install themselves in her dignities, or enrich themselves
by her preferments.
We appeal then to all sober men, if what is
generally called the Episcopal party in England can, with good
conscience and true honour, disinherit those of their native rights,
peace and protection, and leave them as orphans to the wide
world, indeed a naked prey to the devourer, who from first to
last have never been concerned, either to endeavour their ruin or
any ways withstand their return; whilst it may be some of those
who have been the most vigorous in both, and that for circum-
stantial and not essential differences, may be reputed more
deserving of a comprehension than we are of a toleration.
But it will yet be said, you are inconsistent with government;
they are not: therefore you are excluded, not of partiality, but
necessity. What government besides their own they are con-
sistent with we leave on the side of story to tell, which can better
speak their mind than we are either able or willing to do. But
this give us leave to say in general, if any apprehend us to be
such as merit not the care of our superiors, because supposed to
be destructive of the government, let us be called forth by name
and hear our charge; and if we are not able to answer the
unbiassed reason of mankind, in reference to our consistency with
the peace, quiet, trade, and tribute of these kingdoms, then, and
not before, deny us all protection. But that men should be con-
cluded before heard, and so sentenced for what they really are
not, is like beheading them before they are born. We do aver
and can make it appear, that there is no one party more quiet,
Page 350
WILLIAM PENN
339
subject, industrious, and in the bottom of their very souls greater
lovers of the good old English government and prosperity of these
kingdoms among the comprehended than, for aught we yet see,
may be found among those who are like to be unkindly excluded.
However, if such we were in any one point, cure rather than kill
us, and seek the public good some cheaper way than by our
destruction. Is there no expedient to prevent ruin ? Let reason
qualify zeal, and conscience opinion.
(From Tract on The Proposed Comprehension.)
Page 352
DR.
EDWARD
BROWNE
[Dr
Edward
Browne,
eldest
son
of
Sir
Thomas
Browne,
was
born
in
Norwich
in
1644
He
was
educated
at
the
Norwich
Grammar
School
and
at
Trinity
College,
Cambridge,
where
he
graduated
M.B.
in
He
after-
wards
travelled
on
the
Continent,
staying
for
some
time
at
Vienna,
and
making
an
expedition
to
Larissa
in
Thessaly,
the
scene
of
the
medical
practice
of
Hippocrates
He
lived
in
Salisbury
Court,
Fleet
Street,
on
his
return
from
his
travels,
became
physician
to
Charles
II.
and
to
St
Bartholomew's
Hospital
(1682),
as
well
as
President
of
the
College
of
Physicians
(1704-8).
He
died
in
1708.]
Dr.
EDWARD
BROWNE
translated
(1672)
a
History
of
the
Cossacks,
and
the
lives
of
Themistocles
and
of
Sertorius
in
Dryden's
Plutarch
(1700),
but
his
most
interesting
work
is
the
account
of
his
own
travels,
A
Brief
Account
of
Some
Travels
in
Hungary,
Syria,
Bulgaria,
Thessaly,
Austria,
Servia,
Carynthia,
Carniola,
and
Friuli.
It
was
published
in
1673,
a
further
part
in
1677,
and
both
in
one
volume
in
He
admired
his
father,
and
had
learnt
much
both
of
literature
and
of
science
from
him.
He
had
read
the
Greek
and
Latin
fathers
as
well
as
the
classics,
and
admired
his
father's
writings
;
but
his
strain
of
thought
is
never
as
deep
as
that
of
Sir
Thomas
Browne,
and
he
seldom
rises
above
a
simple
narrative
style,
but
tells
many
interesting
things
without
enlarging
upon
them
too
much.
NORMAN
MOORE.
Page 353
UNICORNS’ HORNS
THERE is an old library belonging to this church, which contains divers old books and manuscripts. A large bible in six volumes, painted and gilded after a very ancient manner; two idols, taken (in time of war) long since in Germany, and given to this place by the Emperor Henry the Fourth, are worth the seeing, not so much for their neatness, as their antiquity and odd shape : as also a horn made out of a tooth, said to be given at the same time. There are also three unicorns’ horns, little differing in length; the longest being five foot and an half: I drank out of one of them, the end being tipped with silver, and made hollow to serve for a cup. These were of the sea-unicorn, or the horn or long wreathed tooth of some sea-animal much like it, taken in the Northern Sea: of which I have seen many, both in public repositories, and in private hands. Two such as these, the one ten foot long, were presented not many years since to the King of Denmark, being taken near to Nova Zembla; and I have seen some full fifteen foot long ; some wreathed very thick, some not so much, and others almost plain : some largest and thickest at the end near the head; others are largest at some distance from the head: some very sharp at the end or point, and others blunt. My honoured father, Sir Thomas Browne, had a very fair piece of one which was formerly among the Duke of Curland’s rarities, but after that he was taken prisoner by Douglas in the wars between Sweden and Poland, it came into the hands of my uncle Colonel Hatcher, of whom my father had it ; he had also a piece of this sort of unicorn’s horn burnt black, out of the Emperor of Russia’s repository, given him by Dr. Arthur Dee, who was son to Dr. John Dee, and also physician to the Emperor of Russia, when his chambers were burned in which he preserved his curiosities. I have seen a walking-staff, a sceptre, a scabbard for a sword, boxes, and other curiosities made out of this horn, but was never so fortunate as
Page 354
DR. EDWARD BROWNE
343
from experience to confirm its medical efficacy against poisons,
contagious diseases, or any other evident effect of it, although I
have known it given several times, and in great quantity. Mr.
Charlton hath a good unicorn's horn. Sir Joseph Williamson
gave one of them to the Royal Society. The Duke of Florence
hath a fair one. The Duke of Saxony a strange one, and besides
many others, I saw eight of them together upon one table in the
Emperor's treasure, and I have one at present that for the neat
wreathing and elegant shape gives place to none. But of these
unicorns' horns no man sure hath so great a collection as the
King of Denmark ; and his father had so many, that he was able
to spare a great number of them, to build a magnificent throne
out of unicorns' horns.
(From A Brief Account of Some Travels in Divers Parts
of Europe.)
THE EMPEROR LEOPOLDUS
His person is grave and graceful ; he hath the Austrian lip
remarkably, his chin long, which is taken for a good physiog-
nomical mark, and a sign of a constant, placid, and little
troubled mind. He is conceived to carry in his face the linea-
ments of four of his predecessors, that is, of Rudolphus the First,
of Maximilian the First, of Charles the Fifth, and Ferdinand the
First. He was very affectionate unto his empress, who, though
but young, was a modest, grave princess, had a good aspect, was
zealous in her religion, and an enemy unto the Jews. He showed
also great respect and observance unto the Empress-Dowager
Eleonora, who was a sober and prudent princess, well skilled in
all kind of curious works, and delighted sometimes to shoot at
deer from a stand, or at other game, out of her coach. He was
also very loving unto his sisters, beautiful and good princesses ;
whereof one, the eldest, was since married unto that noble prince,
Michael Wisnowitzki, King of Poland, and afterwards to
Charles, Duke of Lorraine.
He speaks four languages, German, Italian, Spanish, and
Latin. He is a great countenancer of learned men, and delights
to read, and, when occasion permits, will pass some hours at it.
The worthy Petrus Lambecius, his library keeper, and who is in
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ENGLISH PROSE
great esteem with him, will usually find out some books for him
which he conceives may be acceptable. While I was there, he
recommended a translation of Religio Medici unto him, where-
with the Emperor was exceedingly pleased, and spake very much
of it unto Lambecius, insomuch that Lambecius asked me whether
I knew the author, he being of my own name, and whether
he were living. And when he understood my near relation to him,
he became more kind and courteous than ever, and desired me
to send him that book in the original English, which he would
put into the Emperor's library : and presented me with a neat
little Latin book, called Princeps in Compendio, written by the
emperor's father, Ferdinandus the Third.
(From the Same.)
Page 356
FLETCHER OF SALTOUN
[Andrew Fletcher, commonly styled "Scottish patriot," was born at Saltoun, in East Lothian, in 1653. Partially educated by Gilbert (afterwards Bishop) Burnet, he had made the tour of the Continent before, at the age of twenty-three, he took his seat in the Scottish Convention of Estates in 1678. He at once became noted for his opposition to the Government of Lauderdale, resolutely maintained the same attitude towards Lauderdale's successor, the Duke of York, and left the county on the condemnation of Argyll Fletcher spent the six years between 1682 and the Revolution in exile, being heard of in Brussels, Paris, and Holland. Although he disapproved of Monmouth's mad expedition against James, he thought it his duty to attach him-self to it But having killed a man at Lynne, soon after landing in England, he had to flee at once, and betook himself to Spain. In 1686 he was, in absence, sentenced to death for treason, nor did he take advantage of the amnesty which was proclaimed in the same year He did not return to Scotland till 1688, when he accompanied William of Orange from the Hague. Two years later he again entered the Scottish Parliament, and spent the remainder of his public life in the vehement assertion of his country's rights against English ascendancy. He struggled hard to prevent the legislative Union with England, and when it was accomplished he retired to his estate, and devoted himself to the improvement of agriculture. He died in London in 1716.]
FLETCHER is memorable rather as a man of affairs, than as a writer. He published nothing till he had lived an exceptionally full and active life of forty-seven years, and then only a few practical disquisitions on politics. He was indeed a politician from first to last, and wrote only for the express purpose of furthering his own numerous schemes. Among his contemporaries, Fletcher stands out as the pre-eminently honest man. Tinged as their estimates are by their several prejudices, all the historians of his period unite in assigning to him what Hume terms "signal probity." Wodrow eulogises the "sobriety, temper-ance, and good management" of his private life. His whole career was, beyond question, a testimony to his singleness of purpose. His chief end was what he believed to be for the
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ENGLISH PROSE
good of Scotland,—free government by her own parliament un-
fettered by a royal prerogative, which meant the veto of English
ministers,—and his reward was exile, forfeiture, and conspiracy
against his life. Burnet, his old tutor, gives the popular English
estimate of Fletcher when he describes him as “a Scotch gentle-
man of great parts and many virtues, but a most violent
Republican and extremely passionate.” A hot temper he must
be allowed, but his “violent Republicanism,” would probably be
termed moderate constitutionalism at the present time. He was
in truth a Scottish patriot of the old school, almost the last of the
race, fighting vainly and, it must be confessed, blindly against
the fusion of his country with its larger and richer neighbour.
“A gentleman of good estate in Scotland, attended with the im-
provements of a good education” (Rawlinson MS.), he entered
public life at a time when Scotland was beyond all question
suffering severely from the union of the Crowns. Of the alter-
native cures for these evils, he at once gave his voice for that
which, by restoring the power of the Scottish Parliament, would,
at the same time, induce the nobles to spend their wealth at
home and place Scotch trade once more on the footing from
which it had been driven by English restrictions. And in the
advocacy of a free, as opposed to an incorporating union, Fletcher
spent his life. Altogether an interesting personality this “low
thin man of a brown complexion, full of fire, with a stern, sour
look,” with his quick irascibility, his “large thoughts as to
religion,” his repute for learning, his noted distrust of princes, and
his great faith in the wisdom of parliaments. Fletcher wrote as
he must have spoken, clearly and simply. Always full of his
subjects, he strung his arguments in a plain sequence, using
little or no rhetoric, and seeking no illustration except in history,
from which he had extracted a marvellously sound philosophy.
Comparison with his pedantic Scottish contemporaries lifts him
high above them all in style, his distinguishing qualities being a
just choice of words, neatness of construction, and a certain
elegance, which is in itself evidence of the breadth of his culture.
He has recourse to no passion as an aid to persuasion, except
that of patriotism, and though he continually works upon the self-
interest of his audience, the largeness and dignity of that interest
at once save his theme from debasement and elevate the tone of
his eloquence. He may be classed as a strenuous debater, rather
than as an orator. His first published writing was A Discourse
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FLETCHER OF SALTOUN
347
of Government with relation to Militias, which appeared in Edinburgh in 1698. It was a contribution to a controversy of
the day, and a brief for a militia as against a standing army. It
appeals to the Roman practice, and its contents may be gathered
from one sentence "The subjects formerly had a real security for
their liberty by having the sword in their own hands." Two Dis-
courses concerning the Affairs of Scotland were written in the
same year (1698). The first protests against the over-taxation of
Scotland, which was called upon to pay a land tax of £84,000
instead of its just assessment of £12,000. Fletcher opposes
more particularly the grant of the land tax to the king for life
and the expenditure of it in a standing army, both securities for
liberty and property, the sword and the power of the purse, being
thus at one stroke taken from the people. In the second Dis-
course, Fletcher broaches a project of enslaving the multitude of
beggars and vagabonds who then infested Scotland—an idea,
by the way, borrowed from him by Thomas Carlyle. Every man
of a certain estate would take a certain number for domestic
slaves, feed, clothe, and educate them, and be responsible for
their lives ; threc or four hundred of the most notorious he coolly
proposes to hand over to the State of Venice for service in the
galleys "against the common enemy of Christendom." The
same Discourse ventilates an ingenious scheme, based on the
prohibition of interest, for distributing the land among a greater
number of possessors. To the year 1698 we owe also Discorso
delle Cose de Spagna, scritto nel mese di Juglio 1698, first trans-
lated into English in the Glasgow edition of Fletcher, 1749. A
Speech on the State of the Nation exhorts to resistance of the
grasping power of France. Speeches by a Member of Parliament
are a collection of the orations delivered by Fletcher in the
parliament which began on the 6th of May 1703. Their general
theme is the necessity for an Act of Security, and for farther
limitation of the royal prerogative. He comes at last to the
pitch of preferring separation to the continuance of the unlimted
prerogative. Fletcher's last authenticated composition is An
account of a Conversation concerning a Right Regulation of Govern-
ments for the Common Good of Mankind. It is the record of a
talk between the author and the Earl of Cromarty and two English-
men, Sir Edward Seymour and Sir Christopher Musgrave, for the
most about Fletcher's favourite topic, Scotland's grievances and
England's tyranny. It contains the stock quotation from Fletcher,
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"I said I knew a very wise man so much of Sir Christopher's sentiments (the knight having denounced the infamous ballads sung in London streets), that he believed if a man were permitted to make all the ballads, he should not care who should make the laws of a nation."
W. WALLACE.
Page 360
LOVE OF COUNTRY
No inclination is so honourable, nor has anything been so much
esteemed in all nations and ages, as the love of that country and
society in which every man is born. And those who have placed
their greatest satisfaction in doing good, have accounted them-
selves happy, or unfortunate, according to the success of their
endeavours to serve the interest of their country. For nothing
can be more powerful in the minds of men, than a natural
inclination and duty concurring in the same disposition.
Nature in most men prevails over reason; reason in some
prevails over nature: but when these two are joined, and a
violent natural inclination finds itself owned by reason, required
by duty, encouraged by the highest praises, and excited by the
most illustrious examples, sure that force must be irresistible.
Constrained by so great a force, and the circumstances of my
affairs not allowing me to be otherwise serviceable to my country,
I have in the following discourse given my opinion concerning
divers matters of importance, which probably may be debated in
the approaching session of parliament. I shall be very well
satisfied if anything I say do afford a hint that may be improved
by men of better judgment to the public good. I hope I shall
not be blamed for giving my opinion in matters of public con-
cernment, since 'tis the right and duty of every man to write or
speak his mind freely in all things that may come before the
parliament, to the end that they who represent the nation in that
assembly may be truly informed of the sentiments of those they
represent. Besides, we are now no more under those tyrannical
reigns in which it was a crime to speak of public affairs, or to say
that the king had received bad counsel in any thing.
(From First Discourse on the Affairs of Scotland.)
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ENGLISH PROSE
ENSLAVEMENT OF VAGABONDS
THERE are at this day in Scotland (besides a great many poor families very meanly provided for by the churchboxes, with others who, by living upon bad food, fall into various diseases) two hundred thousand people begging from door to door. These are not only no way advantageous, but a very grievous burden to so poor a country. And though the number of them be perhaps double to what it was formerly, by reason of this present great distress, yet in all times there have been about one hundred thousand of these vagabonds, who have lived without any regard or subjection either to the laws of the land, or even those of God and nature ; fathers incestuously accompanying their own daughters, the son with the mother, and the brother with the sister. No magistrate could ever discover, or be informed which way one in a hundred of these wretches died, or that ever they were baptized. Many murders have been discovered among them; and they are not only a most unspeakable oppression to poor tenants (who if they give not bread, or some kind of provision to perhaps forty such villains in one day, are sure to be insulted by them), but they rob many poor people who live in houses distant from any neighbourhood. In years of plenty many thousands of them meet together in the mountains, where they feast and riot for many days ; and at country weddings, markets, burials, and other the like public occasions, they are to be seen both men and women perpetually drunk, cursing, blaspheming, and fighting together. * * * *
Now what I would propose upon the whole matter is, that for some present remedy of so great a mischief, every man of a certain estate in this nation should be obliged to take a proportionable number of those vagabonds, and either employ them in hedging and ditching his grounds, or any other sort of work in town and country ; or if they happen to be children and young, that he should educate them in the knowledge of some mechanical art, so that every man of estate might have a little manufacture at home which might maintain those servants, and bring great profit to the master, as they did to the ancients, whose revenue by the manufactures of such servants was much more considerable than that of their lands. Hospitals and almshouses ought to be provided for the sick, lame, and decrepit, either by rectifying old
Page 362
foundations or instituting new. And for example and terror three or four hundred of those villains which we call jockeys, might be presented by the government to the state of Venice, to serve in their galleys against the common enemy of Christendom.
(From Second Discourse on the Affairs of Scotland.)
THE ORIGIN OF BEGGARY
At length I found the original of that multitude of beggars which now oppress the world to have proceeded from churchmen who (never failing to confound things spiritual with temporal, and consequently all good order and good government, either through mistake or design) upon the first public establishment of the Christian religion, recommended nothing more to masters, in order to the salvation of their souls, than the setting such of their slaves at liberty as would embrace the Christian faith, though our Saviour and his apostles had been so far from making use of any temporal advantages to persuade eternal truths, and so far from invading any man's property, by promising him heaven for it, that the Apostle Paul says expressely :—“In whatever condition of life every one is called to the Christian faith, in that let him remain. Art thou called, being a slave, be not concerned for thy condition ; but even though thou mightest be free, choose to continue in it. For he who is called whilst a slave, becomes the freeman of the Lord ; and likewise he that is called whilst a freeman, becomes the slave of Christ, who has paid a price for you, that ye might not be the slaves of men. Let everyone therefore, brethren, in whatever condition he is called, in that remain, in the fear of God.” That the interpretation I put upon this passage, different from our translation, is the true meaning of the Apostle, not only the authority of the Greek fathers, and genuine signification of the Greek particles, but the whole context, chiefly the first and last words (which seem to be repeated to enforce and determine such a meaning) clearly demonstrate. And the reason why he recommends them rather to continue slaves (if they have embraced the Christian faith in that condition) seems to be that it might appear they did not embrace it for any worldly advantage, as well as to destroy a doctrine which even in his days began to be preached, that slavery was inconsistent with the
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Christian religion ; since such a doctrine would have been a great stop to the progress of it. What the Apostle means by saying, we ought not to be the slaves of men, I shall show hereafter.
This disorder of giving liberty to great numbers of slaves upon their profession of Christianity grew to such a height, even in the time of Constantine the Great, that the cities of the Empire found themselves burdened with an infinite number of men, who had no other estate but their liberty, of whom the greatest part would not work, and the rest had been bred to no profession. This obliged Constantine to make edicts in favour of beggars ; and from that time, at the request of the bishops, hospitals and alms-houses, not formerly known in the world, began to be established. But upon the rise of the Mahometan religion, which was chiefly advanced by giving liberty to all their slaves, the Christians were so molested by the continual rebellion of theirs, that they were at length forced to give liberty to them all ; which it seems the churchmen then looked upon as a thing necessary to preserve the Christian religion, since in many of the writings by which masters gave freedom to their slaves, 'tis expressly said, they did so to save their own souls.
This is the rise of that great mischief, under which, to the undoing of the poor, all the nations of Europe have ever since groaned. Because in ancient times, so long as a man was the riches and part of the possession of another, every man was provided for in meat, clothes, and lodging ; and not only he, but (in order to increase that riches) his wife and children also : whereas provisions by hospitals, almshouses, and the contributions of churches and parishes have by experience been found to increase the numbers of those that live by them. And the liberty every idle and lazy person has of burdening the society in which he lives, with his maintenance, has increased their numbers to the weakening and impoverishing of it : for he needs only to say that he cannot get work, and then he must be maintained by charity. And as I have shown before, no nation except one only (which is in extraordinary circumstances) does provide by public workhouses for their poor : the reason of which seems to be, that public workhouses for such vast numbers of people are impracticable, except in those places where (besides a vast trade to vend the manufactured goods) there is an extraordinary police : and that though the Hollanders by reason of the steadiness of their temper, as well as of their government (being a commonwealth),
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FLETCHER OF SALTOUN
353
may be constant to their methods of providing for the poor ; yet
in a nation, and under a government like that of France, though
vast public workhouses may be for a while kept in order, 'twill
not be long before they fall into confusion and ruin. And indeed
(next to Plato's republic, which chiefly consists in making the
whole society live in common) there is nothing more impractic-
able than to provide for so great a part of every nation by public
workhouses. Whereas when such an economy comes under the
inspection of every master of a family, and that he himself is to
reap the profit of the right management ; the thing not only turns
to a far better account, but by reason of his power to sell those
workmen to others who may have use for them, when he himself
has a mind to alter his course of life, the profit is permanent to
the society ; nor can such an economy, or any such management,
ever fall into confusion.
(From the Same.)
VOL. III
2 A
Page 366
DEFOE
[Daniel Foe--so his father wrote his name, and so Daniel himself in his
rher life, whatever the reason for which he subsequently prefixed the "De"
-was born in 1661, the son of a butcher living in St. Ciles's Parish, Cipple-
ite, London, a rigid dissenter. He was educated for the Piesbyterian
ministry, though he never became a minister. "It was my disister," he
rites, "first to be set apart for, and then to be set apart fiom, that sacied
nploy." From the beginning he was an eager politician. In 1685 he
ined the rising of the Duke of Monmouth, but managed to escap the bitter
onsequences by a sojourn on the Continent. Returning he was for some
ears in business in Freeman's Court, Cornlııll, as a hose-factor; but was not
iccessful in that line, failing in 1692, though he eventually paid all his
reditors in full. Then he established tile-kiln and brick-kiln works at
ilbury on the Thames; but his piosperity there, whatever its degiee,--he
imself states it to have been considerable,--was destroyed by his imprıson-
ient in 1703 for "libelling" the Tory party in his famous pamphlet The
hortest Way with the Dissenters. In fact politics, and what we should
all journalism, irresistibly attracted and exactly suited him; and to them he
esently devoted all his time and energy. Even in Newgate his literary
nterprise was active, and he started his serial The Review. With his
please in 1704, through Harley's intervention, the history of Defoe's lite
ecomes obscure, and his conduct, to say the least, highly dubious, and,
fter the accession of George I., worse than dubious, for then, though
cally as always a Whig, he connected himself with certain Tory journals,
aving a clandestine arrangement with the Whig Goverment, that while
eeming to be under its frown, and nominally serving the Tories, he should
ctually be a sort of spy in the Tory camp, and should so use his position as
o make their counsels of none effect. Defoe appears to have thought that
is end was so good that he was justified in employing any means for its
attainment. His was an age of low morality in many respects; and, if not
vorse, he was certainly no better than his age. No wonder if Mist, one of
he editors whom for some eight years he had thus deluded and disabled,
iercely assaulted him on discovering the trick of which he had been the
ictim. What is curious is Defoe's surprise at Mist's very natural fury. It
vas in the midst of those intrigues -- and the fact that it was so is an admir-
ible instance of Defoe's marvellous facility -- that he wrote Robinson Crusoe
(1719) and his other pieces of fiction, as The Life and Pirıces of Captain
Singleton (1720), The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders (1721),
Page 367
The Life of Colonel Jacque, who was born a Gentleman but bred a Pickpocket
(also 1721), A Journal of the Plague (1723), etc Mist's assault on Defoe
took place in 1726, and probably from that time, Defoe's Jesuitical practices
having been discovered, he was severely discredited as a political writer. But
he continued as industrious as ever in other literary ways, and, for whatever
reason, he got into fresh trouble. What is probably the last writing of his
extant is a letter to his son-in-law (Henry Baker, the naturalist), in which he
represents himself as in hiding "under a very heavy weight of illness," his
family ruined and his heart broken, through "the injustice, unkindness, and
I must say inhuman dealing of my own son." On the 24th April 1731
his strange wonderful activity came to an end; he died of apoplexy in
Ropemaker's Alley, Moorfields, in the parish of his birth, and was buried
in "Tindall's," now known as Bunhill Fields ]
DEFOE is one of the most voluminous of English writers. During
a long life his pen was scarcely ever out of his hand. A com-
plete edition of his works has never yet been, and, the ephemeral
interest of many of them considered, is scarcely ever likely to be
published; nor probably, for all the industry of Mr. William Lee
and others, has a complete list of them yet been made out, so much
that he wrote being anonymous. Some years ago some 210
books and pamphlets could be plausibly assigned to his author-
ship. Such immense practice gave him a wonderful facility of
style. Probably from the beginning he wrote with little effort.
Certainly—later in life he wrote as readily as he thought. He
expressed whatever ideas came into his mind—and his mind was
never idle—with the utmost ease and fluency. He formed the
habit of thinking aloud, so to speak, of thinking in a printable
way; that is, it became as natural to him to write as to think.
His thoughts took at once a literary, ât least a journalistic shape.
Of matter there was never any lack. . He was a man of end-
less curiosities and interests. He might truly say that for him
nihil humanum, or even nihil mundanum, was alienum. He
lived in a time of innumerable and pauseless controversies. And
there were few of these in which he did not take part. His brain
was singularly active and fecund. He had his own views upon
all the current questions, and he was eager and resolute to say his
say about them. And many questions he himself started, and
urged upon his age with characteristic pertinacity and vigour.
He was an indefatigable journalist, and struck out new lines
in journalism, so that he has left a permanent impression upon
our periodical press. The leading article may be said to be one
of his creations, or a development of one of them. He was a
Page 368
trenchant pamphleteer, and twice received from the government
the painful compliment of imprisonment for his brilliant success in
that department. In the fierce clamours of his time one may
incessantly—one might almost say always—detect his voice, clear,
irrepressible, effective.
Such incessant occupation with burning questions, and such
amazing productiveness might well have prepared us to expect
little or nothing of permanent literary value from Defoe. The
shrewd remark that easy writing makes hard reading at
once recurs to us. The man whose tongue is never quiet seldom
utters anything worth hearing. The thoughts of him who
perpetually thinks aloud are apt to be wanting in finish and in
weight. The calamus that is always currens must surely run
away with him who holds it, or tries to hold it. But all such
criticisms must be applied with caution to the case of Defoe.
He had in an eminent degree the gift of ready writing, and this
gift he assiduously cultivated, so that to write, and what is more
to write with success, was as easy to him as to speak. He never
let his gift of ready writing prove his ruin. For usually men are
betrayed and ruined by such facility. They cease to be the
masters but become the mere slaves of it. They are confounded
and confused by their own abundance. Defoe kept his gift well
in hand. He never permitted himself to be merely self-confident
and careless. Nor, after all, incessantly as he wrote, did he ever
yield idly to the impulse to say something when in fact he had
nothing to say.
But he never aimed at being a stylist in the ordinary sense of
the term—at writing elaborately and with the idea of producing
what was exquisite in form and expression for its own sake or
partly for its own sake. He had no æsthetic purpose;
but was always eminently earnest and practical and didactic,
a man of affairs and of business. His great object was to
speak clearly and forcibly, not to turn out sentences of fine
rhythm and choice phrasing. What he specially studied was
directness and cogency. For the most part, till the last dozen
years of his life, he dealt merely with the questions of the day;
he addressed an audience that was excited and inflamed, on
which any elegancies of style would have been wholly wasted.
Thus for any ornamenting of his weapon, to speak metaphorically,
he cared little or nothing; his one supreme care was that it should
be trenchant—that it should do its work and go home.
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358 ENGLISH PROSE
And few men have more completely succeeded in their aim than Defoe. He became a potent master of language, and made it do exactly his bidding, such as it was. To play with words—to group them in new and surprising and charming combinations (Horace's callidæ juncturæ), to place them in novel situations and bring out unrecognised graces—this was not at all his way, not at all his end. Language was with him a more instrument of expression, not in itself a thing of beauty with claims of its own for consideration. It was his slave rather than his mistress.
But it would be a great misuse of terms to say that Defoe was no artist. Rather within his limits he was an admirable and a most successful artist. He produced precisely the effects he wished to produce; and used always his material with singular judgment and skill. We may feel his world of thought somewhat narrow, and, as we enter it, may be keenly aware that there are more things in heaven and earth—so many more!—than are dreamt of in his philosophy; but in that world he is supreme. Thus no one has ever equalled Defoe in the art of literary deception, that is, in the art of making his own inventions pass for realities, in the art of “lying like truth”: no one has ever so frequently and completely taken in his readers. Again and again his fictions have been cited as genuine and original records: from time to time even now is heard a doubt whether The Memoirs of a Cavalier, for instance, is not really a transcript of some seventeenth-century MS. It was once said that Defoe had in fact Alexander Selkirk's papers before him when he wrote Robinson Crusoe; but there is not the least shadow of support for that statement. It is undoubtedly baseless. This art of deception he evidently studied with infinite zest and care. Populus vult decipi, he might have said to himself, and perhaps did say, et decipiatur. In his actual life there was much dissembling and much simulation, however he reconciled his conduct with his conscience. In his novels he carried this art, such as it is, to the highest possible perfection. On internal evidence only it is often not possible to distinguish his fiction from fact. The imposition is absolute. Defoe is the arch deceiver of literature.
In his Robinson Crusoe this sovereign lord of illusion has given us one of the most popular books of the world. And here happily we have not only to admire the incomparable realism of the rendering, but to be grateful for a quite inestimable embodiment of a resolute and indomitable spirit, not to be crushed by
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DEFOE
359
any adversities, but making good out of bad--making the best out of the worst. Rousseau might well except it from the ban he pronounced on the literature commonly put into the hands of children. This is certainly Defoe's most important claim on our remembrance ; it is in it that he still lives and moves and has his being amongst us. The author of such a book must for ever be held in high esteem as a friend of the human race.
John W. Hales.
Page 371
AN ACADEMY FOR WOMEN
I HAVE often thought of it as one of the most barbarous customs in
the world, considering us as a civilised and a Christian country,
that we deny the advantages of learning to women. We reproach
the sex every day with folly and impertinence, while I am con-
fident, had they the advantages of education equal to us, they
would be guilty of less than ourselves.
One would wonder, indeed, how it should happen that women
are conversible at all, since they are only beholden to natural
parts for all their knowledge. Their youth is spent to teach
them to stitch and sew and make baubles. They are taught to
read indeed, and perhaps to write their names or so, and that is
the height of a woman's education. And I would but ask any
who slight the sex for their understanding, what is a man (a
gentleman, I mean) good for that is taught no more ?
I need not give instances, or examine the character of a gentle-
man with a good estate and of a good family and with tolerable
parts, and examine what figure he makes for want of education.
The soul is placed in the body like a rough diamond, and must
be polished, or the lustre of it will never appear : and it is
manifest that as the rational soul distinguishes us from brutes, so
education carries on the distinction and makes some less brutish
than others. This is too evident to need any demonstration.
But why then should women be denied the benefit of instruction ?
If knowledge and understanding had been useless additions to
the sex, God Almighty would never have given them capacities,
for He made nothing needless. Besides, I would ask such what
they can see in ignorance that they should think it a necessary
ornament to a woman ? or how much worse is a wise woman
than a fool ? or what has the woman done to forfeit the privilege
of being taught? Does she plague us with her pride and
impertinence ? Why did we not let her learn that she might
Page 372
have had more wit? Shall we upbraid women with folly, when
it is only the error of this inhuman custom that hindered them
being made wiser?
The capacities of women are supposed to be greater and their
senses quicker than those of the men; and what they might be
capable of being bred to is plain from some instances of female
wit, which this age is not without; which upbraids us with injus-
tice, and looks as if we denied women the advantages of education
for fear they should vie with the men in their improvements.
To remove this objection, and that women might have at least
a needful opportunity of education in all sorts of useful learning,
I propose the draught of an academy for that purpose.
I know it is dangerous to make public appearances of the sex.
They are not either to be confined or exposed; the first will dis-
agree with their inclinations and the last with their reputations,
and therefore it is somewhat difficult; and I doubt a method
proposed by an ingenous lady in a little book called "Advice to
the Ladies" would be found impracticable, for, saving my respect
to the sex, the levity, which perhaps is a little peculiar to them, at
least in their youth, will not bear the restraint; and I am satisfied
nothing but the height of bigotry can keep up a nunnery. Women
are extravagantly desirous of going to heaven, and will punish
their pretty bodies to get thither; but nothing else will do it, and
even in that case sometimes it falls out that nature will prevail.
When I talk, therefore, of an academy for women, I mean both
the model, the teaching, and the government different from what
is proposed by that ingenious lady, for whose proposal I have a
very great esteem, and also great opinion of her wit; different,
too, from all sorts of religious confinement, and, above all, from
vows of celibacy.
Wherefore the academy I propose should differ but little from
public schools, wherein such ladies as were willing to study should
have all the advantages of learning suitable to their genius.
But since some severities of discipline more than ordinary
would be absolutely necessary to preserve the reputation of the
house, that persons of quality and fortune might not be afraid to
venture their children thither, I shall venture to make a small
scheme by way of essay.
The house I would have built in a form by itself, as well as in
a place by itself. The building should be of three plain fronts,
without any jettings or bearing-work, that the eye might at a
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glance see from one coin to the other ; the gardens walled in the
same triangular figure, with a large moat, and but one entrance.
When thus every part of the situation was contrived as well as
might be for discovery, and to render intriguing dangerous, I
would have no guards, no eyes, no spies set over the ladies, but
shall expect them to be tried by the principles of honour and
strict virtue.
And if I am asked why, I must ask pardon of my own sex
for giving this reason for it :-
I am so much in charity with women, and so well acquainted
with men, that it is my opinion there needs no other care to
prevent intriguing than to keep the men effectually away ; for
though inclination, which we prettily call love, does sometimes
move a little too visibly in the sex, and frailty often follows, yet
I think, verily, custom, which we miscall modesty, has so far the
ascendant over the sex, that solicitation always goes before it.
Custom with women 'stead of virtue rules ;
It leads the wisest and commands the fools ;
For this alone, when inclinations reign,
Though virtue's fled, will acts of vice restrain.
Only by custom 'tis that virtue lives,
And love requires to be asked before it gives ;
For that which we call modesty is pride ;
They scorn to ask, and hate to be denied.
'Tis custom thus prevails upon their want ;
They'll never beg what asked they easily grant ;
And when the needless ceremony is o'er,
Themselves the weakness of the sex discover.
If then desires are strong and nature free,
Keep from her men and opportunity ;
Else 'twill be vain to curb her by restraint,
But keep the question off, you keep the saint.
In short, let a woman have never such a coming principle, she
will let you ask before she complies, at least if she be a woman of
any honour.
Upon this ground I am persuaded such measures might be
taken that the ladies might have all the freedom in the world
within their own walls, and yet no intriguing, no indecencies, nor
scandalous affairs happen ; and in order to this the following
customs and laws should be observed in the colleges, of which I
would propose one at least in every county in England, and about
ten for the City of London.
After the regulation of the form of the building as before :-
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DEFOE
363
-
All the ladies who enter into the house should set their hands to the orcleis of the house, to signify their consent to submit to them.
-
As no woman should be received but who declared herself willing, and that it was the act of her choice to enter herself, so no person should be confined to continue there a moment longer than the same voluntary choice incluned her.
-
The charges of the house being to be paid by the ladies, every one that entered should have only this encumbrance, that she should pay for the whole year, though her mind should change as to her continuance.
-
An Act of Parliament should make it felony without clergy for any man to enter by force or fraud into the house, or to solicit any woman, though it were to marry, while she was in the house. And this law would by no means be severe, because any woman who was willing to receive the addresses of a man might discharge herself of the house when she pleased ; and, on the contrary, any woman who had occasion, might discharge herself of the impertinent addresses of any person she had an aversion to by entering into the house.
In this house, the persons who enter should be taught all sorts of breeding suitable to both their genius and their quality, and in particular music and dancing, which it would be cruelty to bar the sex of, because they are their darlings ; but besides this, they should be taught languages, as particularly French and Italian ; and I would venture the injury of giving a woman more tongues than one.
They should, as a particular study, be taught all the graces of speech and all the necessary air of conversation, which our common education is so defective in that I need not expose it. They should be brought to read books, and especially history, and so to read as to make them understand the world, and be able to know and judge of things when they hear of them.
To such whose genius would lead them to it I would deny no sort of learning ; but the chief thing in general is to cultivate the understandings of the sex, that they may be capable of all sorts of conversation ; that their parts and judgments being improved, they may be as profitable in their conversation as they are pleasant.
Women, in my observation, have little or no difference in them, but as they are or are not distinguished by education. Tempers
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indeed may in some degree influence them, but the main distinguishing part is their breeding.
The whole sex are generally quick and sharp. I believe I may be allowed to say generally so, for you rarely see them lumpish and heavy when they are children, as boys will often be.
If a woman be well bred, and taught the proper management of her natural wit, she proves generally very sensible and retentive; and without partiality, a woman of sense and manners is the finest and most delicate part of God's creation; the glory of her Maker, and the great instance of His singular regard to man,
His darling creature, to whom He gave the best gift either God could bestow or man receive. And it is the sordidest piece of folly and ingratitude in the world to withhold from the sex the due lustre which the advantages of education give to the natural beauty of their minds.
A woman well bred and well taught, furnished with the additional accomplishments of knowledge and behaviour, is a creature without comparison; her society is the emblem of sublimer enjoyments; her person is angelic and her conversation heavenly;
she is all softness and sweetness, peace, love, wit, and delight. She is every way suitable to the sublimest wish, and the man that has such a one to his portion has nothing to do but to rejoice in her and be thankful.
On the other hand, suppose her to be the very same woman, and rob her of the benefit of education, and it follows thus:-
If her temper be good, want of education makes her soft and easy. Her wit, for want of teaching, makes her impertinent and talkative. Her knowledge, for want of judgment and experience, makes her fanciful and whimsical. If her temper be bad, want of breeding makes her worse, and she grows haughty, insolent, and loud.
If she be passionate, want of manners makes her termagant and a scold, which is much at one with lunatic. If she be proud, want of discretion (which still is breeding) makes her conceited, fantastic and ridiculous. And from these she degenerates to be turbulent, clamorous, noisy, nasty, and the devil.
Methinks mankind for their own sakes, since, say what we will with them, should take some care to breed them up to be suitable and serviceable, if they expected no such thing as delight from them. Bless us! what care do we take to breed up a good horse and to break him well, and what a value do we put upon him
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when it is done, and all because he should be fit for our use ; and
why not a woman ? Since all her ornaments and beauty without
suitable behaviour is a cheat in nature, like the false tradesman,
who puts the best of his goods uppermost, that the buyer may
think the rest are of the same goodness.
Beauty of the body, which is the woman's glory, seems to be
now unequally bestowed, and nature, or rather Providence, to lie
under some scandal about it, as if it was given a woman for a
snare to men, and so make a kind of a she-devil of her ; because,
they say, exquisite beauty is rarely given with wit, more rarely with
goodness of temper, and never at all with modesty. And some,
pretending to justify the equity of such a distribution, will tell us
it is the effect of the justice of Providence in dividing particular
excellences among all His creatures, share and share alike, as it
were, that all might for something or other be acceptable to one
another, else some would be despised.
I think both these notions false, and yet the last, which has the
show of respect to Providence, is the worst, for it supposes Pro-
vidence to be indigent and empty, as if it had not wherewith
to furnish all the creatures it had made, but was fair to be parsi-
monious in its gifts, and distribute them by piecemeal for fear of
being exhausted.
If I might venture my opinion against an almost universal
notion, I would say most men mistake the proceedings of Provi-
dence in this case, and all the world at this day are mistaken in
their practice about it. And because the assertion is very bold,
I desire to explain myself.
That Almighty First Cause which made us all is certainly the
fountain of excellence, as it is of being, and by an invisible
influence could have diffused equal qualities and perfections to all
the creatures it has made, as the sun does its light, without the
least ebb or diminution to Himself, and has given indeed to every
individual sufficient to the figure His Providence had designed
him in the world.
I believe it might be defended if I should say that I do sup-
pose God has given to all mankind equal gifts and capacities in
that He has given them all souls equally capable, and that the
whole difference in mankind proceeds either from accidental
difference in the make of their bodies or from the foolish differ-
ence of education.
I. From accidental difference in bodies. I would avoid dis-
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coursing here of the philosophical position of the soul in the body. But if it be true, as philosophers do affirm, that the understanding and memory is dilated or contracted according to the accidental dimensions of the organ through which it is conveyed, then, though God has given a soul as capable to me as another, yet if I have any natural defect in those parts of the body by which the soul should act, I may have the same soul infused as another man, and yet he be a wise man and I a very fool. For example, if a child naturally have a defect in the organ of hearing, so that he could never distinguish any sound, that child shall never be able to speak or read, though it have a soul capable of all the accomplishments in the world. The brain is the centre of the soul's actings, where all the distinguishing faculties of it reside; and it is observable a man who has a narrow contracted head, in which there is not room for the due and necessary operations of nature by the brain, is never a man of very great judgment; and that proverb, "A great head and little wit," is not meant by nature, but is a reproof upon sloth, as if one should, by way of wonder, say, "Fie, fie! you that have a great head have but little wit; that's strange! that must certainly be your own fault." From this notion I do believe there is a great matter in the breed of men and women--not that wise men shall always get wise children, but I believe strong and healthy bodies have the wisest children, and sickly, weakly bodies affect the wits as well as the bodies of their children. We are easily persuaded to believe this in the breeds of horses, cocks, dogs, and other creatures, and I believe it is as visible in men.
But to come closer to the business, the great distinguishing difference which is seen in the world between men and women is in their education, and this is manifested by comparing it with the difference between one man or woman and another.
And herein it is that I take upon me to make such a bold assertion that all the world are mistaken in their practice about women; for I cannot think that God Almighty ever made them so delicate, so glorious creatures, and furnished them with such charms, so agreeable and so delightful to mankind, with souls capable of the same accomplishments with men, and all to be only stewards of our houses, cooks, and slaves.
Not that I am for exalting the female government in the least; but, in short, I would have men take women for companions, and educate them to be fit for it. A woman of sense and breeding
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will scorn as much to encroach upon the prerogative of the man
as a man of sense will scorn to oppress the weakness of the
woman. But if the women's souls were refined and improved by
teaching, that word would be lost; to say, the weakness of the
sex as to judgment, would be nonsense, for ignorance and folly
would be no more to be found among women than men. I
remember a passage which I heard from a very fine woman; she
had wit and capacity enough, an extraordinary shape and face,
and a great fortune, but had been cloistered up all her time, and
for fear of being stolen, had not had the liberty of being taught
the common necessary knowledge of women's affairs; and when
she came to converse in the world, her natural wit made her so
sensible of the want of education, that she gave this short reflec-
tion on herself:-"I am ashamed to talk with my very maids,"
says she, "for I don't know when they do right or wrong. I had
more need go to school than be married."
I need not enlarge on the loss the defect of education is to the
sex, nor argue the benefit of the contrary practice; it is a thing
will be more easily granted than remedied. This chapter is but
an essay at the thing, and I refer the practice to those happy days,
if ever they shall be, when men shall be wise enough to mend it.
(From An Essay on Projects.)
SELFISH PREACHERS OF TOLERATION
Sir ROGER L'ESTRANGE tells us a story in this collection of fables,
of the cock and the horses. The cock was gotten to roost in
the stable among the horses, and there being no racks or other con-
veniences for him, it seems he was forced to roost upon the ground.
The horses jostling about for room, and putting the cock in danger
of his life, he gives them this grave advice, "Pray, gentlefolds,
let us stand still, for fear we should tread upon one another."
There are some people in the world, who now they are un-
perched, and reduced to an equality with other people, and under
strong and very just apprehensions of being further treated as
they deserve, begin, with Æsop's cock, to preach up peace and
union, and the Christian duties of moderation, forgetting that,
when they had the power in their hands, these graces were
strangers in their gates.
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It is now near fourteen years that the glory and peace of the purest and most flourishing Church in the world has been eclipsed, buffeted, and disturbed by a sort of men whom God in His providence has suffered to insult over her and bring her down. These have been the days of her humiliation and tribulation. She has borne with invincible patience the reproach of the wicked, and God has at last heard her prayers, and delivered her from the oppression of the stranger.
And now they find their day is over, their power gone, and the throne of this nation possessed by a royal, English, true, and ever-constant member of, and friend to, the Church of England. Now they find that they are in danger of the Church of England's just resentments ; now they cry out peace, union, forbearance, and charity, as if the Church had not too long harboured her enemies under her wing, and nourished the viperous brood till they hiss and fly in the face of the mother that cherished them.
No, gentlemen, the time of mercy is past, your day of grace is over ; you should have practised peace, and moderation, and charity, if you expected any yourselves.
We have heard none of this lesson for fourteen years past. We have been huffed and bullied with your Act of Toleration ; you have told us that you are the Church established by law, as well as others ; have set up your canting synagogues at our church doors, and the Church and members have been loaded with reproaches, with oaths, associations, adjurations, and what not. Where has been the mercy, the forbearance, the charity, you have shown to tender consciences of the Church of England, that could not take oaths as fast as you made them ; that having sworn allegiance to their lawful and rightful king, could not dispense with that oath, their king being still alive, and swear to your new hodge-podge of a Dutch Government ? These have been turned out of their livings, and they and their families left to starve ? their estates double taxed to carry on a war they had no hand in, and you got nothing by. What account can you give of the multitudes you have forced to comply, against their consciences, with your new sophistical politics, who, like new converts in France, sin because they cannot starve ? And now the tables are turned upon you; you must not be persecuted : it is not a Christian spirit.
You have butchered one king, deposed another king, and made a mock king of a third, and yet you could have the face to expect
Page 380
to be employed and trusted by the fourth. Anybody that did
not know the temper of your party would stand amazed at the
impudence, as well as folly, to think of it.
Your management of your Dutch monarch, whom you reduced
to a mere king of clouts, is enough to give any future princes
such an idea of your principles as to warn them sufficiently from
coming into your clutches ; and God be thanked the queen is
out of your hands, knows you, and will have a care of you.
There is no doubt but the supreme authority of a nation has in
itself a power, and a right to that power, to execute the laws upon
any part of that nation it governs. The execution of the known
laws of the land, and that with a weak and gentle hand neither,
was all this fanatical party of this land have ever called persecution ; this they have magnified to a height that the sufferings
of the Huguenots in France were not to be compared with.
Now, to execute the known laws of a nation upon those who
transgress them, after voluntarily consenting to the making those
laws, can never be called persecution, but justice. But justice is
always violence to the party offending, for every man is innocent
in his own eyes. The first execution of the laws against Dis-
senters in England was in the days of King James the First ; and
what did it amount to truly? The worst they suffered was at
their own request : to let them go to New England and erect a
new colony, and give them great privileges, grants, and suitable
powers, keep them under protection, and defend them against all
invaders, and receive no taxes or revenue from them. This was
the cruelty of the Church of England. Fatal leniency ! It was
the ruin of that excellent prince, King Charles the First. Had
King James sent all the Puritans in England away to the West
Indies, we had been a national, unmixed Church ; the Church of
England had been kept undivided and entire.
To requite the lenity of the father they take up arms against
the son ; conquer, pursue, take, imprison, and at last put to death
the anointed of God, and destroy the very being and nature of
government, setting up a sordid impostor, who had neither title
to govern nor understanding to manage, but supplied that want
with power, bloody and desperate counsels, and craft without
conscience.
Had not King James the First withheld the full execution of
the laws, had he given them strict justice, he had cleared the
nation of them, and the consequences had been plain ; his son
VOL. III
2 B
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had never been murdered by them nor the monarchy over-
whelmed. It was too much mercy shown them was the ruin of
his posterity and the ruin of the nation's peace. One would think
the Dissenters should not have the face to believe that we are
to be wheedled and canted into peace and toleration when they
know that they have once requited us with a civil war, and once
with an intolerable and unrighteous persecution for our former
civility.
Nay, to encourage us to be easy with them, it is apparent that
they never had the upper hand of the Church, but they treated
her with all the severity, with all the reproach and contempt that
was possible. What peace and what mercy did they show the
loyal gentry of the Church of England in the time of their trium-
phant Commonwealth ! How did they put all the gentry of Eng-
land to ransom, whether they were actually in arms for the King
or not, making people compound for their estates and starve
their families ! How did they treat the clergy of the Church of
England, sequestered the ministers, devoured the patrimony of
the Church, and divided the spoil by sharing the Church lands
among their soldiers, and turning her clergy out to starve ! Just
such measure as they have meted should be measured them again.
Charity and love is the known doctrine of the Church of Eng-
land, and it is plain she has put it in practice towards the Dis-
senters, even beyond what they ought, till she has been wanting
to herself, and in effect unkind to her sons, particularly in the too
much lenity of King James the First, mentioned before. Had he
so rooted the Puritans from the face of the land, which he had an
opportunity early to have done, they had not had the power to
vex the Church as since they have done.
In the days of King Charles the Second, how did the Church
reward their bloody doings with lenity and mercy, except the
barbarous regicides of the pretended court of justice ? Not a soul
suffered for all the blood in an unnatural war. King Charles came
in all mercy and love, cherished them, preferred them, employed
them, withheld the rigour of the law, and oftentimes, even against
the advice of his parliament, gave them liberty of conscience ;
and how did they requite him with the villainous contrivance to
depose and murder him and his successor at the Rye Plot ?
King James, as if mercy was the inherent quality of the family,
began his reign with unusual favour to them. Nor could their
joining with the Duke of Monmouth against him move him to do
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himself justice upon them; but that mistaken prince thought to
win them by gentleness and love, proclaimed an universal liberty
to them, and rather discountenanced the Church of England than
them. How they requited him all the world knows.
The late reign is too fresh in the memory of all the world to
need a comment; how, under pretence of joining with the Church
in redressing some grievances, they pushed things to that ex-
tremity, in conjunction with some mistaken gentlemen, as to de-
pose the late king, as if the grievance of the nation could not
have been redressed but by the absolute ruin of the prince. Here
is an instance of their temper, their peace, and charity. To what
height they carried themselves during the reign of a king of their
own; how they crept into all places of trust and profit; how they
insinuated into the favour of the king, and were at first preferred
to the highest places in the nation; how they engrossed the
ministry, and above all, how pitifully they managed, is too plain
to need any remarks.
But particularly their mercy and charity, the spirit of union
they tell us so much of, has been remarkable in Scotland. If any
man would see the spirit of a Dissenter, let him look into Scot-
land. There they made entire conquest of the Church, trampled
down the sacred orders, and suppressed the Episcopal govern-
ment with an absolute, and, as they suppose, irretrievable vic-
tory, though it is possible they may find themselves mistaken.
Now it would be a very proper question to ask their impudent
advocate, the Observer, Pray how much mercy and favour did
the members of the Episcopal Church find in Scotland from the
Scotch Presbyterian Government? and I shall undertake for the
Church of England that the Dissenters shall still receive as much
here, though they deserve but little.
In a small treatise of the sufferings of the Episcopal clergy in
Scotland, it will appear what usage they met with; how they not
only lost their livings, but in several places were plundered and
abused in their persons; the ministers that could not conform
turned out with numerous families and no maintenance, and
hardly charity enough left to relieve them with a bit of bread.
And the cruelties of the parties are innumerable, and not to be
attempted in this short piece.
And now to prevent the distant cloud which they perceived to
hang over their heads from England, with a true Presbyterian
policy, they put in for a union of nations, that England might
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unite their Church with a Kirk of Scotland, and their Presby-
terian members sit in our House of Commons, and their Assembly
of Scotch canting long-cloaks in our Convocation. What might
have been if our fanatic Whiggish statesman continued, God only
knows ; but we hope we are out of fear of that now.
It is alleged by some of the faction—and they began to bully
us with it—that if we won't unite with them, they will not settle
the crown with us again, but when Her Majesty dies, will choose
a king for themselves.
If they won't, we must make them, and it is not the first time
we have let them know that we are able. The crowns of these
kingdoms have not so far disowned the right of succession, but
they may retrieve it again ; and if Scotland thinks to come off
from a successive to an elective state of government, England has
not promised not to assist the right heir and put him into pos-
session without any regard to their ridiculous settlements.
These are the gentlemen, these their ways of treating the
Church, both at home and abroad.
(From The Shortest Way with the Dissenters.)
A FOOTPRINT
It happened one day about noon, going towards my boat, I
was exceedingly surprised with the print of a man's naked foot on
the shore, which was very plain to be seen in the sand : I stood
like one thunderstruck, or as if I had seen an apparition ; I
listened, I looked round me, I could hear nothing, nor see any
thing ; I went up to a rising ground to look farther ; I went up
the shore and down the shore, but it was all one, I could see no
other impression but that one, I went to it again to see if there
were any more, and to observe if it might not be my fancy ; but
there was no room for that, for there was exactly the very print of
a foot, toes, heel, and every part of a foot ; how it came thither,
I knew not, nor could in the least imagine. But after innumerable
fluttering thoughts, like a man perfectly confused and out of my
self, I came home to my fortification, not feeling, as we say, the
ground I went on, but terrified to the last degree, looking behind
me at every two or three steps, mistaking every bush and tree,
and fancying every stump at a distance to be a man ; nor is it
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possible to describe how many various shapes affrighted imagination represented things to me in; how many wild ideas were
found every moment in my fancy, and what strange unaccountable whimsies came into my thoughts by the way.
When I came to my castle, for so I think I called it ever after this, I fled into it like one pursued; whether I went over by the
ladder as first contrived, or went in at the hole in the rock, which I called a door, I cannot remember; no, nor could I remember
the next morning; for never frighted hare fled to cover, or fox to earth, with more terror of mind than I to this retreat.
I slept none that night; the farther I was from the occasion of my fright, the greater my apprehensions were; which is something
contrary to the nature of such things, and especially to the usual practice of all creatures in fear. But I was so embarrassed
with my own frightful ideas of the thing, that I formed nothing but dismal imaginations to my self, even though I was now a
great way off it. Sometimes I fancied it must be the devil; and reason joined in with me upon this supposition, for how should
any other thing in human shape come into the place? Where was the vessel that brought them? What marks were there of
any other footsteps? And how was it possible a man should come there? But then to think that Satan should take human
shape upon him in such a place where there could be no manner of occasion for it, but to leave the print of his foot behind him,
and that even for no purpose too, for he could not be sure I should see it; this was an amusement the other way; I considered
that the devil might have found out abundance of other ways to have terrified me than this of the single print of a foot. That as
I lived quite on the other side of the island, he would never have been so simple to leave a mark in a place where it was ten
thousand to one whether I should ever see it or not, and in the sand too, which the first surge of the sea upon a high wind would
have defaced entirely. All this seemed inconsistent with the thing itself, and with all the notions we usually entertain of the subtilty
of the devil.
Abundance of such things as these assisted to argue me out of all apprehensions of its being the devil. And I presently
concluded then, that it must be some more dangerous creature, viz. That it must be some of the savages of the mainland over against
me, who had wandered out to sea in their canoes, and either driven by the currents, or by contrary winds, had made the
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island ; and had been on shore, but were gone away again to sea,
being as loth, perhaps, to have stayed in this desolate island, as I
would have been to have had them.
While these reflections were rolling upon my mind, I was
very thankful in my thoughts, that I was so happy as not to be
thereabouts at that time, or that they did not see my boat, by which
they would have concluded that some inhabitants had been in the
place, and perhaps have searched farther for me. Then terrible
thoughts racked my imagination about their having found my boat,
and that there were people here ; and that if so, I should certainly
have them come again in greater numbers and devour me ; that
if it should happen so that they should not find me, yet they
would find my enclosure, destroy all my corn, carry away all my
flock of tame goats, and I should perish at last for mere want.
Thus my fear banished all my religious hope ; all that former
confidence in God, which was founded upon such wonderful
experience as I had had of His goodness, now vanished, as if He
that had fed me by miracle hitherto, could not preserve by His
power the provision which He had made for me by His good-
ness : I reproached myself with my easiness, that would not sow
any more corn one year than would just serve me till the next season,
as if no accident could intervene to prevent my enjoying the crop
that was upon the ground ; and this I thought so just a reproof,
that I resolved for the future to have two or three years' corn
beforehand, so that whatever might come, I might not perish for
want of bread.
How strange a chequer-work of Providence is the life of man !
and by what secret differing springs are the affections hurried
about, as differing circumstances present ! To-day we love what
to-morrow we hate ; to-day we seek what to-morrow we shun ;
to-day we desire what to-morrow we fear ; nay, even tremble at
the apprehensions of. This was exemplified in me at this time in
the most lively manner imaginable ; for I whose only affliction
was, that I seemed banished from human society, that I was
alone, circumscribed by the boundless ocean, cut off from man-
kind, and condemned to what I called silent life ; that I was as
one whom heaven thought not worthy to be numbered among the
living, or to appear among the rest of his creatures ; that to have
seen one of my own species would have seemed to me a raising
me from death to life, and the greatest blessing that heaven itself,
next to the supreme blessing of salvation, could bestow ; I say,
Page 386
that I should now tremble at the very apprehensions of seeing a
man, and was ready to sink into the ground at but the shadow or
silent appearance of a man's having set his foot in the island.
Such is the uneven state of human life : and it afforded me a
great many curious speculations afterwards when I had a little
recovered my first surprise ; I considered that this was the station
of life the infinitely wise and good Providence of God had
determined for me ; that as I could not foresee what the ends of
Divine Wisdom might be in all this, so I was not to dispute His
Sovereignty, who, as I was His creature, had an undoubted right
by creation to govern and dispose of me absolutely as He thought
fit ; and who, as I was a creature who had offended Him, had
likewise a judicial right to condemn me to what punishment He
thought fit ; and that it was my part to submit to bear His in-
dignation, because I had sinned against him.
I then reflected that God, who was not only righteous but
omnipotent, as He had thought fit thus to punish and afflict me,
so He was able to deliver me ; that if He did not think fit to do
it, 'twas my unquestioned duty to resign myself absolutely and
entirely to His will ; and on the other hand, it was my duty also
to hope in Him, pray to Him, and quietly to attend the dictates
and directions of His daily Providence.
These thoughts took me up many hours, days, may, I may say,
weeks and months ; and one particular effect of my cogitations on
this occasion, I cannot omit, viz. One morning early, lying in
my bed, and filled with thought about my danger from the
appearance of savages, I found it discomposed me very much ;
" Call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver, and thou
shalt glorify me."
Upon this, rising cheerfully out of my bed, my heart was not
only comforted, but I was guided and encouraged to pray
earnestly to God for deliverance. When I had done praying, I
took up my Bible, and opening it to read, the first words that
presented to me, were, " Wait on the Lord, and be of good cheer,
and he shall strengthen thy heart ; wait, I say on the Lord." It
is impossible to express the comfort this gave me. In answer, I
thankfully laid down the book, and was no more sad, at least,
not on that occasion.
(From Robinson Crusoe.)
Page 388
BENTLEY
[Richard Bentley was born in 1662 : educated at Wakefield Grammar School, whence he proceeded to St. John's College, Cambridge, at the age of fourteen : and after taking his degree became tutor in the family of Stillingfleet, then Dean of St Paul's. He took orders in 1690, and in 1691 wrote his Latin letter to Dr. Mill, on the Chronicle of Malelas, which marked him out as the first scholar of his day. In this and the following year he delivered the first course of the Boyle lectures in defence of Christianity, and in its preparation, mastered, with singular power, the leading points in Newton's system. He was appointed keeper of the Royal Libraries in 1694, and after being concerned in the controversy between Temple and Boyle on the one side and Wotton on the other, in regard to the so-called Letters of Phalaris, he was appointed Master of Trinity, Cambridge, in 1699. His career there was one long struggle between himself and the Fellows. In 1711 he published his Horace: in 1726 his Terence: and in 1732 a critical edition of Paradise Lost. He died in 1742.]
Bentley's title to fame is based on his work as a grammarian, a commentator, and a critic : but notwithstanding singular aberrations of taste (which are seen chiefly in his emendations on Horace and Milton), his work in that field is so consummate, and it so completely out-distanced that of all his contemporaries, that it has gained for him an indisputable place in our literary annals. As a scholar, his chief work was a critical emendation of the classical texts. His aim was not so much to catch the beauties of form as to attain to rigid and logical accuracy. To this end he furnished himself, by enormous industry, with an apparatus of knowledge to which none of his contemporaries could pretend ; and he was able to apply this with all the vigour of a mind singularly alert and elastic, and a most incisive logical faculty. For the slovenly scholarship which thought it was enough to catch something of the spirit and motive underlying the masterpieces of classical antiquity, he had no tolerance and no patience : and his controversial methods are often rough and merciless, but always
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ENGLISH PROSE
lively, vigorous, and masterful. They are seen at their best in
the Dissertation upon Phalaris, which was his contribution to the
controversy on the merits of ancients and moderns: and in his
Remarks on the Discourse of Free-thinking (by Collins—the luck-
less sceptic who found himself the butt at once of Swift's sarcasm
and of Bentley's argument).
Bentley, like some of the scholars of an earlier age, prompted
perhaps by the desire to avoid any classical pedantry, affected a
style which was homely and colloquial even to the verge of
vulgarity. He was accused by his opponents of “descending to low
and mean ways of speech,” and the accusation is not entirely
unjust. But as Professor Jebb says, “his style is thoroughly
individual : it is, in fact, the man . . . (His English) has
the tone of a strong mind which goes straight to the truth : it is
pointed with the sarcasm of one whose own knowledge is thorough
and exact, but who is accustomed to find imposture wrapped up
in fine or vague words, and takes an ironical delight in using the
very homeliest images and phrases, which accurately fit the matter
in hand.”
H. CRAIK.
Page 390
AN APOLOGY FOR RESENTMENT
I will here crave the reader's leave to make one general apology for anything, either in my Dissertation or my Defence of it, that may seem too severe. I desire but this favour, or justice rather, that he would suppose my case to be his own : and then, if he will say sincerely, that he should have answered so many calumnies with fewer marks of resentment, I am content to lie under his censure. But it is a very difficult thing for a person unconcerned and out of the reach of harm, to be a fair arbitrator here. He will be apt to think the injured party too angry ; because he cannot have as great a passion in seeing the ill-usage, as the other has in feeling it. Even Job himself, with all his patience, was accused of losing his temper by his companions that had no share in his sufferings. Besides, there is a common fault in human nature, which I crave leave to express in Greek, ἐπιχαίρεκακία.
There is a secret pleasure, they say, in seeing another man under the risk of a shipwreck, while one's self is safe on the shore ; and so we find the world is delighted to see one worried and run down, while themselves are made the spectators, and entertained with the diversion. 'Twas an excellent saying of Solon's, and worthy of the wisest of the famous seven ; who, when he was asked, Πῶς ἥκουστα ἀδικοῖεν οἱ ἄθωποι ; What would rid the world of injuries ? If the bystanders, says he, would have the same resentment with those that suffer the wrong; Εἰ ὁμοίως ἄθοιτο τοῖς ἀδικοumένοις οἱ μὴ ἀδικούμενοι. If the reader will but follow that great man's advice, and have an equal sense of ill-usage as if it had fallen upon himself ; I dare then challenge him to think, if he can, that I have used too much severity.
I do not love the unmanly work of making long complaints of injuries ; which, I think, is the next fault to deserving them. Much less will I imitate Mr. B.,1 who has raked together those few words of my Dissertation that had the least air of resentment,
1 Mr. Boyle.
Page 391
and repeated them six times over. For, if I was to enter into the
particulars of his abuses, I must transcribe his whole book, which
from beginning to end, is nothing else but a rhapsody of errors
and calumnies.
But there is one rudeness that I ought not to omit ; because
it falls upon others as much as myself. I am satisfied, says he,
how unnatural a step it is for an amanuensis to start up professor
of divinity. I am persuaded every ingenuous reader must be
offended at his insolence who could suffer such stuff as this to
come out of his mouth ; which is a double affront, both to the
whole order of bishops, and to a whole University. As if a
person, who in his youth had been an amanuensis to a bishop,
was upon that account made unfit to be Doctor of Divinity ; as if
a whole University, which was pleased to confer that degree upon
him, were neither fit judges of his merit, nor knew their own duty.
I should never account it any disgrace to have served the Right
Reverend the Bishop of Worcester in any capacity of a scholar.
But I was never amanuensis to his lordship nor to anybody else ;
neither did his lordship ever make use of any amanuensis : so
little regard has this examiner either to decency or truth. I was
tutor to his lordship's son, and afterwards chaplain to himself ;
and I shall always esteem it both my honour and my happiness to
have spent fourteen years of my life in his family and acquaintance,
whom even envy itself will allow to be the glory of our church
and nation ; who, by his vast and comprehensive genius, is as
great in all parts of learning as the greatest next himself are in
any. And I have the satisfaction to believe, that this excellent
person has not the worse opinion of my probity or my learning,
for all the calumnies that the examiner has cast upon me.
As for the general character that Mr. B. endeavours to fix upon
me, that I have no learning, no judgment, no reasoning, no
knowledge in books, except indexes and vocabularies, with many
other expressions of the utmost contempt, that make up the
greatest part of his book; I do not think myself concerned to
answer them. These things shall never make a dispute between
us ; he shall be as great as he thinks himself, and I as little as
he thinks me. But then it will lie upon him to dispute with some
other persons, who have been pleased to declare publicly such an
esteem of me and my writings, as does not altogether agree with
Mr. B.'s.
(From the Preface to the Dissertation on Phalaris.)
Page 392
RICHARD BENTLEY
381
THE COMMONPLACES OF SCEPTICISM
AND now we come to a new argument, from the conduct of
the priests; which by a tedious induction is branched out into
ten instances, and takes up half a hundred pages. And what
will be the grand result?
Nae iste hercle magno jam conatu magnas nugas dixit.
The sum of it is no more than this: the priests cannot agree
among themselves about several points of doctrine, the attributes
of God, the canon of Scripture, etc.; and therefore I will be of
no religion at all. This threadbare obsolete stuff, the most
obvious surmise that any wavering fool catches at when he
first warps towards atheism, is dressed up here as if it was
some new and formidable business.
What great feats can our author now promise himself from
this; which, after it has been tried age after age, never had
influence on mankind either in religious concerns, or common
life? Till all agree, I'll stand neuter. Very well; and till all
the world speaks one language, pray be you mute and say
nothing. It were much the wiser way, than to talk as you
have done. By this rule, the Roman gentry were to learn no
philosophy at all, till the Greeks could unite into one sect;
nor make use of any physician, till the empirics and methodists
concurred in their way of practice. How came Christianity to
begin, since the objection now brought to pull it down was as
visible and potent then as now? or how has it subsisted so
long, since all the present discord in opinions does not near
amount to the sum of what Epiphanius alone collected above
a thousand years ago? Nay, how came our author's new sect
to be rising and growing, since the atheists are as much at
variance among themselves, and can settle and centre in nothing?
Or, if they should resolve to conspire in one certain system,
they would be atheists indeed still, but they would lose the
title of free-thinkers.
This is the total of his long induction; but let us see his
conduct in the parts of it. Some fathers thought God to be
material; this he has said, and I have answered before in
remark the Ioth. Several ancient Christian priests of Egypt
were so gross as to conceive God to be in the shape of a man.
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ENGLISH PROSE
If they did so, they were no more gross than his master Epicurus,
who was of the very same opinion. But it is fatal to our
author ever to blunder when he talks of Egypt. These priests
of Egypt were all illiterate laymen ; the monks or hermits of
those days, that retired into the desert, the fittest place for
their stupidity. But several of your English divines tax each
other with atheism, either positvely or consequently. Wonderful !
and so because three or four divines in your island are too
fierce in their disputes, all we on the great continent must
abandon religion. Yes ; but the Brahmins, the Mahometans,
etc., pretend to Scriptures as well as we. This, too, has
come once already, and is considered in remark the 22nd ; but,
being so great a piece of news, deserved to be told twice. And
who, without his telling, would have known that the Romish
church received the Apocrypha as canonical ? Be that as it
will, I am sure it is unheard-of news, that your church receives
them as half-canonical. I find no such word in your articles,
nor ever saw a such-like prodigy before. Half-canonical ? what
idea, what sense has it ? 'tis exactly the same as half-divine,
half-infinite, half-omnipotent. But away with his Apocrypha ;
he'll like it the worst while he lives, for the sake of Bel and
the Dragon.
(From Remarks on Collins's Discourse of Freethinking.)
CAPTIOUS ARGUMENTS ANSWERED
To show his good taste and his virtuous turn of mind, he praises
two abuses upon James I. ; that he was a doctor more than a
king, and was priest-ridden by his archbishop; as the most
valuable passages in Father Paul's Letters ; and yet, as I have
been told, those passages are spurious and forged. Well, but
were they genuine and true, are those the things he most
values ? Oh, the vast love and honour he bears to the crown
and the mitre ! But his palate is truly constant and uniform to
itself : he drudges in all his other authors, ancient and modern,
not to find their beauties, but their spots ; not to gather the
roses, but the thorns ; not to suck good nutriment, but poison.
A thousand bright pages in Plutarch and Tully pass heavy
with him, and without relish ; but if he chances to meet with
Page 394
a suspicious or sore place, then he is feasted and regaled, like
a fly upon an ulcer, or a beetle in dung, and with those delicious
scraps put together, he has dressed out this book of free-thinking.
But have a care of provoking him too much, for he has
still in reserve more instances of your conduct ; your declamations
against reason ; such false reason, I suppose, as he and his
tribe would put off for good sterling : your arts and method
of discouraging examination into the truths of religion ; such
truths, forsooth, of religion as this, that religion itself is all
false : and again, your encouraging examination when either
authority is against you (the authority, he means, of your late
King James, when one of his free-thinking doctors thought him-
self into popery), or when you think that truth is certainly on
your side : he will not say that truth is certainly on your side,
but only that you think so : however, he allows here you are
sometimes sincere ; a favour he would not grant you in some
of his former instances.
But the last and most cutting instance is, your instilling
principles into youth : no doubt he means those pernicious
principles of fearing God, honouring the king, loving your
neighbour as yourselves ; living soberly, righteously, and godly
in this present world. Oh, the glorious nation you would be,
if your stiff parsons were once displaced, and free-thinkers
appointed tutors to your young nobility and gentry ! How
would arts, learning, manners, and all humanity flourish in an
academy under such preceptors ! who, instead of your Bible,
should read Hobbes's Leviathan ; should instil early the sound
doctrines of the mortality of the soul, and the sole good of a
voluptuous life. No doubt such an establishment would make
you a happy people, and even a rich ; for our youth would
all desert us in Germany, and presently pass the sea for such
noble education.
The beginning of his third section, where (as I remarked
before) free-thinking stands for no more than thinking, may
pass in general for truth, though wholly an impertinence. For
who in England forbids thinking ? or who ever made such
objections as he first raises, and then refutes ? He dare not,
sure, insinuate as if none of your clergy thought, nor examined
any points of doctrine, but took a system of opinions by force
and constraint, under the terror of an inquisition, or the dread
of fire and faggot. So that we have twenty pages of mere
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ENGLISH PROSE
amusement, under the ambiguity of a word. Let your clergy once profess that they are the true free-thinkers, and you will soon see the unbelieving tribe renounce their new name.
However, in these sapless pages he has scattered a mark of his great learning. He says, the infinite variety of opinions, religions, and worships among the ancient heathens, never produced any disorder or confusion. What ! was it no disorder when Socrates suffered death for his opinions ; when Aristotle was impeached, and fled ; when Stilpo was banished ; and when Diagoras was proscribed ? Were not the Epicureans driven out from several cities, for the debaucheries and tumults they caused there? Did not Antiochus banish all philosophers out of his whole kingdom ; and for any one to learn of them, made it death to the youth himself, and loss of goods to his parents? Did not Domitian expel all the philosophers out of Rome and whole Italy? Did the Galli, the vagabond priests of Cybele, make no disturbances in town and country? Did not the Romans frequently forbid strange religions and external rites that had crept into the city, and banish the authors of them? Did the Bacchanals create no disorders in Rome, when they endangered the whole state, and thousands were put to death for having been initiated in them? In a word, was that no disturbance in Egypt, which Juvenal tells of his own knowledge (and which frequently used to happen), when in two neighbouring cities their religious feuds ran so high, that, at the annual festival of one, the other, out of zeal, went to disturb the solemnity ; and after thousands were fighting on both sides, and many eyes and noses lost, the scene ended in slaughter, and the body slain was cut into bits, and eaten up raw by the enemies? And all this barbarity committed, because the one side worshipped crocodiles, and the other killed and ate them.
(From the Same.)
FLATTERY OF EPICURUS
But he's now come to Epicurus, a man distinguished in all ages as a great free-thinker, and I do not design to rob our growing sect of the honour of so great a founder. He's allowed to stand firm in the list, in the right modern acceptation of the word.
Page 396
RICHARD BENTLEY
385
But when our writer commends his virtues towards his parents,
brethren, servants, humanity to all, love to his country, chastity,
temperance, and frugality ; he ought to reflect that he takes the
character from Laertius, a domestic witness, and one of the sect ;
and consequently of little credit where he speaks for his master.
I could draw a picture of Epicurus in features and colours quite
contrary ; and bring many old witnesses, who knew and saw him,
to vouch for its likeness. But these things are tritc and common
among men of true letters ; and our author and his pamphlet are
too contemptible to require commonplaces in answer.
But the noble quality of all, the most divine of his and all
virtues was his friendship ; so cultivated in perfection by him and
his followers, that the succession of his school lasted many
hundred years after all the others had failed. This last part is
true in the author from whom it is taken ; but our gleaner here
misunderstands it. The succession indeed continued at Athens,
in the garden dedicated to it, longer than the other sects
possessed their first stations. But it's utterly false that professors
of it lasted longer in general than those of the others. Quite
contrary : 'tis well known that the Platonists, Peripatetics, and
Stoics, or rather a jumble and compound of them all, subsisted
-long after the empire was Christian ; when there was no school,
no footstep of the Epicureans left in the world.
But how does our writer prove that this noble quality, friend-
ship, was so eminently cultivated by Epicurus? Why, Cicero,
says he, though otherwise a great adversary to his philosophical
opinions, gives him this noble testimony. I confess it raises my
scorn and indignation at this mushroom scribbler, to see him by
and by, with an air of superiority, prescribing to the whole body
of your clergy the true method of quoting Cicero. "They consider
not," says he, "he writes in dialogue, but quote anything that fits
their purpose, as Cicero's opinion, without attending to the
person that speaks it ; any false argument, which he makes the
Stoic or Epicurean use, and which they have thought fit to
sanctify, they urge it as Cicero's own." Out of his own mouth
this pert teacher of his betters : "Ἀλλων ἰατρὸς, αὐτὸς ἔλκει
βρίωv.1
For this very noble testimony, which he urges here as Cicero's
own, comes from the mouth of Torquatus, an Epicurean ; and is
afterwards refuted by Cicero in his own name and person. Nay
1 Physician of others, himself teeming with sores.
VOL. III
2 C
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ENGLISH PROSE
so purblind and stupid was our writer, as not to attend to the beginning of his own passage, which he ushers in thus docked and curtailed : Epicurus ita dicit, etc.
"Epicurus declares it to be his opinion, that friendship is the noblest, most extensive, and most delicious pleasure." Whereas in Torquatus it lies thus : "The remaining head to be spoken to is friendship ; which, if pleasure be declared to be the chief good, you affirm will be all gone and extinct:" de qua Epicurus quidem ita dicit, "'concerning which Epicurus declares his opinion," etc.
Where it's manifest that affirmatis, "you affirm," is spoken of and to Cicero. So that here's an Epicurean testimony, of small credit in their own case (though our writer has thought fit to sanctify it), slurred upon us for Cicero's ; and where the very Epicurean declares that Cicero was of a contrary opinion.
(From the Same.)
Page 398
JONATHAN SWIFT
[Jonathan Swift was born in Ireland, of English parents, on the 30th of November 1667. He received his education chiefly in Ireland ; and after more than one period of prolonged residence in the house of Sir William Temple, he took orders in the Church of Ireland, and became Vicar of Laracor. His first literary attempts were poems in the involved style which had become usual from the current imitation of the Pindaric Ode , and after an essay in political pamphleteering, he published (anonymously) the Tale of a Tub and the Battle of the Books in 1704. Soon after he became immersed in politics ; for a short time an ally of the Whigs, but eventually as the close ally of the Tory ministry, and the defender of the Church. Before the fall of Queen Anne's last ministry he was appointed Dean of St Patrick's, Dublin, and his influence was before long felt as Irish patriot, and as defender of the rights of Ireland against the ministry of Walpole (in the Drapier Letters and other pamphlets). In 1726 he published (also anonymously) Gulliver's Travels ; and the remainder of his many works consists of occasional pieces of sarcastic humour and of political invective. After his first poetical attempts in the Pindaric kind, his verses also were inspired only by sarcasm, humour, and invective. He died, after a long period of apathy and mental decay, in 1745.]
"PROPER words, in proper places, make the true definition of a style." This is Swift's own maxim in his Letter to a Young Clergyman, dated 1719. It has the common defect of such apophthegms, that we are left to interpret it each in his own way. But Swift has developed his views upon style with some fulness in several passages ; and from these we can gather what his ideal was, although it is only natural that a genius such as his refused in practice to be bound very strictly by his own theories. In the Tatler for 28th September 1710 he commented severely upon the defects of contemporary prose--the mutilation of words and syllables, the introduction of what we should now call slang, and the sacrifice of dignity, taste, and orderly arrangement to caprice, affectation, and ever-changing fashion. He elaborated this more fully in his Letter to the Lord Treasurer (Lord Oxford) of the following year,
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ENGLISH PROSE
in which he urged the minister to use his influence to check the
vulgarising of our language, by founding an academy which should
be empowered to regulate and fix the language, and preserve it
against the changing whims of fashion. The project was a strange
irony in Swift's advocacy of it; but his hatred of the absurd
straining after originality, which succeeded only in attaining to an
affected oddity and eccentricity, was not only serious and earnest,
but was of a piece with the whole body of Swift's thought and
taste. In both these pieces he points to the prose of the Eliza-
bethan age as the most perfect type. Its distinctive mark he
asserts to have been its simplicity—“The best and truest ornament
of most things in human life,” or, as he repeats in the Letter to
the Young Clergyman, “That simplicity without which no human
performance can arrive to any great perfection.” As instances of
this perfection he adduces Parsons the Jesuit and Hooker, and he
contrasts them with the over-elaboration which was distinctive of
the following age. Repeatedly he urges this as the first and most
essential quality in good prose, and he found the excellence of the
prose writers of the reign of Charles I. to be due to their having
recovered for a few years some of the simplicity which marked
the Elizabethan age. Clarendon was warmly admired by Swift,
and was in great measure his model in his chief historical work,
the Memoirs of the Last Four Years of the Queen, and he tells with
approval of Lord Falkland's practice of testing the intelligibility
of a word by consulting a servant, and being guided “by her
judgment whether to receive or reject it.” There is another
passage—this time from Mrs. Pilkington's Memoirs—which helps
us to understand Swift's conception of good prose. “I would
have every man write his own English,” said the Dean to Mrs.
Pilkington ; and when she assented, he followed up his dictum by
asking her to explain it. “Not to confine one's self to a set of
phrases, as some of our ancient English historians, Camden in
particular, seems to have done, but to make use of such words as
naturally occur on the subject.” It was thus that Mrs. Pilkington
represents herself to have replied. Swift seems to have approved
the interpretation, and we may reasonably guess that he had given
Mrs. Pilkington some help towards it.
These indications of the Dean's opinions are not without
interest ; but he was the last man to be bound by rules, even of
his own making. He inveighs against grammatical errors and
Page 400
looseness of construction, but there is scarcely a page of his own
writings in which some trifling infringement of grammatical
accuracy is not to be found. Of all prose styles his is perhaps the
least subject to parody or to imitation, because it is so admirably
adapted to each variety in subject, in tone, in treatment. He
wields it with the elastic power of the consummate master, so that,
once expressed, each thought seems to be fitted with its natural
dress, and no variation in the expression is conceivable without
the obscuring and even the destruction of the thought. To the
genuine lover of Swift the Tale of a Tub will probably always be
the chief treasure in his works; and it is there that his style is
seen at its perfection. The mere story in the book is of the
flimsiest description, and the fact that the story is an allegory
rather weakens than increases its interest. Its genius lies in the
range of thought, in the light play of fancy, in the absolute
ease with which he passes, in one undeviating mood of contemptu-
ous sarcasm, through every varying phase of human interest—
metaphysical and social, literary and historical, ecclesiastical and
political, with no sign of effort, and yet without relaxing for one
moment the restrained irony which dominates the reader with a
sense of reserved power.
This is the quality of Swift’s prose in which his genius shows
its mastery. That genius had, of course, other elements; but
merely as a writer of prose, Swift’s highest excellence is his con-
summate ease, his absolute concealment of the art and the artist,
and the perfect subordination of his instruments to his subject. It
is a necessary consequence of this that his style should have variety;
but although it is easy to trace the deliberate effort to assume a
certain dialect with a view to dramatic effect, yet Swift never
allows his reader to be impressed with the fact that the dialect is
purposely assumed. Thus in the Drapier Letters there is a dis-
tinct homeliness of tone, but he is always careful to avoid any
exaggeration; and he never openly imitates a jargon or reproduces
peculiarities throughout a prose piece as he frequently does in his
verse. Master of prose as he was, he yet denied himself any but
what he deemed legitimate methods, and even in Gulliver’s
Travels, his imitations of nautical jargon are never carried on for
more than a few lines, and even then they are introduced not so
much for the purpose of caricature as to heighten the effect of
reality in the narrative.
Of all English prose Swift’s has the most of flexibility, the most
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ENGLISH PROSE
of nervous and of sinewy force; it is the most perfect as an
instrument, and the most deadly in its unerring accuracy of aim.
It often disdains grammatical correctness, and violates not infre-
quently the rules of construction and arrangement. But it is
significant that Swift attained the perfection of his art, not by
deliberately setting aside the proprieties of diction, but by setting
before himself consistently the first and highest ideal of simplicity,
by disdaining eccentricity and paradox and the caprice of fashion,
and that although he wrote “his own English,” as no other did
before or since, he was inspired from first to last by a deep rever-
ence for the language, and an ardent desire to maintain its dignity
and its purity unchanged and unimpaired.
H. CRAIK.
Page 402
DEDICATION
To the Right Honourable John Lord Somers
My Lord—Although the author has written a large dedication, yet that being addressed to a prince, whom I am never likely to have the honour of being known to; a person besides, as far as I can observe, not at all regarded, or thought on by any of our present writers ; and being wholly free from that slavery which booksellers usually lie under to the caprice of authors ; I think it a wise piece of presumption to inscribe these papers to your lordship, and to implore your lordship's protection of them. God and your lordship know their faults and their merits ; for, as to my own particular, I am altogether a stranger to the matter; and though everybody else should be equally ignorant, I do not fear the sale of the book, at all the worse, upon that score. Your lordship's name on the front in capital letters will at any time get off one edition ; neither would I desire any other help to grow an alderman, than a patent for the sole privilege of dedicating to your lordship.
I should now, in right of a dedicator, give your lordship a list of your own virtues, and, at the same time, be very unwilling to offend your modesty ; but chiefly, I should celebrate your liberality towards men of great parts and small fortunes, and give you broad hints that I mean myself. And I was just going on, in the usual method, to peruse a hundred or two of dedications, and transcribe an abstract to be applied to your lordship ; but I was diverted by a certain accident, for, upon the covers of these papers, I casually observed written in large letters the two following words, DETUR DIGNISSIMO ; which, for aught I knew, might contain some important meaning. But it unluckily fell out, that none of the authors I employed understood Latin (though I have them often in pay to translate out of that language), I was therefore compelled to have a recourse to the curate of our
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parish, who Englished it thus, Let it be given to the worthiest :
and his comment was, that the author meant his work should be
dedicated to the sublimest genius of the age for wit, learning,
judgment, eloquence, and wisdom. I called at a poet's chamber
(who works for my shop) in an alley hard by, showed him the
translation, and desired his opinion, who it was that the author
could mean : he told me, after some consideration, that vanity
was a thing he abhorred ; but, by the description, he thought
himself to be the person aimed at ; and, at the same time, he
very kindly offered his own assistance gratis towards penning a
dedication to himself. I desired him, however, to give a second
guess : Why, then, said he, it must be I, or my Lord Somers.
From thence I went to several other wits of my acquaintance,
with no small hazard and weariness to my person from a pro-
digious number of dark, winding stairs ; but found them all in the
same story, both of your lordship and themselves. Now, your
lordship is to understand, that this proceeding was not of my
own invention ; for I have somewhere heard it is a maxim, that
those to whom everybody allows the second place, have an
undoubted title to the first.
This infallibly convinced me, that your lordship was the
person intended by the author. But, being very unacquainted
in the style and form of dedications, I employed those wits
aforesaid to furnish me with hints and materials, towards a
panegyric upon your lordship's virtues.
In two days they brought me ten sheets of paper, filled up on
every side. They swore to me, that they had ransacked whatever
could be found in the characters of Socrates, Aristides, Epamin-
ondas, Cato, Tully, Atticus, and other hard names, which I
cannot now recollect. However, I have reason to believe, they
imposed upon my ignorance ; because, when I came to read over
their collections, there was not a syllable there, but what I and
everybody else knew as well as themselves ; therefore I grievously
suspect a cheat, and that these authors of mine stole and
subscribed every word from the universal report of mankind.
So that I look upon myself as fifty shillings out of pocket, to no
manner of purpose.
If, by altering the title, I could make the same materials serve
for another dedication (as my betters have done), it would help
to make up my loss ; but I have made several persons dip here
and there in those papers, and before they read three lines, they
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have all assured me plainly, that they cannot possibly be applied to
any person besides your lordship.
I expected, indeed, to have heard of your lordship's bravery
at the head of an army; of your undaunted courage in mounting
a breach, or scaling a wall; or, to have had your pedigree traced
in a lineal descent from the house of Austria; or, of your wonder-
ful talent at dress and dancing; or, your profound knowledge in
algebra, metaphysics, and the oriental tongues. But to ply the
world with an old beaten story of your wit, and eloquence, and
learning, and wisdom, and justice, and politeness, and candour,
and evenness of temper in all scenes of life; of that great dis-
cernment in discovering, and readiness in favouring deserving
men; with forty other common topics; I confess, I have neither
conscience nor countenance to do it. Because there is no virtue,
either of a public or private life, which some circumstances of
your own have not often produced upon the stage of the world;
and those few, which, for want of occasions to exert them, might
otherwise have passed unseen, or unobserved, by your friends,
your enemies have at length brought to light.
It is true, I should be very loth, the bright example of your
lordship's virtues should be lost to after ages, both for their sake
and your own; but chiefly because they will be so very necessary
to adorn the history of a late reign; and that is another reason
why I would forbear to make a recital of them here; because I
have been told by wise men, that, as dedications have run for
some years past, a good historian will not be apt to have recourse
thither in search of characters.
There is one point, wherein I think we dedicators would do
well to change our measures; I mean, instead of running on so
far upon the praise of our patrons' liberality, to spend a word or
two in admiring their patience. I can put no greater compliment
on your lordship's, than by giving you so ample an occasion to
exercise it at present.—Though perhaps I shall not be apt to
reckon much merit to your lordship upon that score, who having
been formerly used to tedious harangues, and sometimes to as
little purpose, will be the readier to pardon this; especially,
when it is offered by one, who is, with all respect and venera-
tion,—my lord, your lordship's most obedient, and most faithful
servant,
THE BOOKSELLER.
(From The Tale of a Tub.)
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THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY, TO HIS ROYAL
HIGHNESS PRINCE POSTERITY
SIR,—I here present your highness with the fruits of a very few
leisure hours, stolen from the short intervals of a world of business
and of an employment quite alien from such amusements as this
the poor production of that refuse of time, which has lain heavy
upon my hands, during a long prorogation of parliament, a great
dearth of foreign news, and a tedious fit of rainy weather : for
which, and other reasons, it cannot choose extremely to deserve
such a patronage as that of your highness, whose numberless
virtues, in so few years, make the world look upon you as the
future example to all princes ; for although your highness is
hardly got clear of infancy, yet has the universal learned world
already resolved upon appealing to your future dictates, with the
lowest and most resigned submission ; fate having decreed you
sole arbiter of the productions of human wit, in this polite and
most accomplished age. Methinks, the number of appellants
were enough to shock and startle any judge, of a genius less
unlimited than yours : but, in order to prevent such glorious
trials, the person, it seems, to whose care the education of your
highness is committed, has resolved (as I am told) to keep you
in almost a universal ignorance of our studies, which it is your
inherent birthright to inspect.
It is amazing to me, that this person should have the assurance
in the face of the sun, to go about persuading your highness, that
our age is almost wholly illiterate, and has hardly produced one
writer upon any subject. I know very well, that when your
highness shall come to riper years, and have gone through the
learning of antiquity, you will be too curious, to neglect inquiring
into the authors of the very age before you : and to think that
this insolent, in the account he is preparing for your view, designs
to reduce them to a number so insignificant as I am ashamed to
mention ; it moves my zeal and my spleen for the honour and
interest of our vast flourishing body, as well as of myself, for
whom I know by long experience he has professed, and still
continues, a peculiar malice.
It is not unlikely, that, when your highness will one day peruse
what I am now writing, you may be ready to expostulate with
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your governor, upon the credit of what I here affirm, and command
him to show you some of our productions. To which he will
answer (for I am well informed of his designs), by asking your
highness, where they are? and what is become of them? and
pretend it a demonstration that there never were any, because
they are not then to be found. Not to be found! who has
mislaid them? are they sunk in the abyss of things? it is certain,
that in their own nature, they were light enough to swim upon
the surface for all eternity. Therefore the fault is in him, who
tied weights so heavy to their heels, as to depress them to the
centre. Is their very essence destroyed? who has annihilated
them? were they drowned by purges, or martyred by pipes?
But, that it may no longer be a doubt with your highness, who
is to be the author of this universal ruin, I beseech you to observe
that large and terrible scythe which your governor affects to bear
continually about him. Be pleased to remark the length and
strength, the sharpness and hardness, of his nails and teeth :
consider his baneful, abominable breath, enemy to life and matter
infectious and corrupting : and then reflect, whether it be possible,
for any mortal ink and paper of this generation to make a suitable
resistance. Oh ! that your highness would one day resolve to
disarm this usurping maître du palais of his furious engines, and
bring your empire hors de page.
It were needless to recount the several methods of tyranny
and destruction, which your governor is pleased to practise upon
this occasion. Ilis inveterate malice is such to the writings of
our age, that of several thousands produced yearly from this
renowned city, before the next revolution of the sun, there is not
one to be heard of : Unhappy infants ! many of them barbarously
destroyed, before they have so much as learnt their mother
tongue to beg for pity. Some he stifles in their cradles ; others
he frights into convulsions, whereof they suddenly die ; some he
flays alive, others he tears limb from limb. Great numbers are
offered to Moloch ; and the rest, tainted by his breath, die of a
languishing consumption.
But the concern I have most at heart is for our corporation
of poets ; from whom I am preparing a petition to your highness,
to be subscribed with the names of one hundred and thirty-six of
the first rate ; but whose immortal productions are never likely
to reach your eyes, though each of them is now an humble and
earnest appellant for the laurel, and has large comely volumes
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ready to show, for a support to his pretensions. The never-dying
works of these illustrious persons, your governor, sir, has devoted
to unavoidable death; and your highness is to be made believe,
that our age has never arrived at the honour to produce one
single poet.
We confess Immortality to be a great and powerful goddess;
but in vain we offer up to her our devotions and our sacrifices,
if your highness's governor, who has usurped the priesthood,
must, by an unparalleled ambition and avarice, wholly intercept
and devour them.
To affirm that our age is altogether unlearned, and devoid
of writers in any kind, seems to be an assertion so bold and so
false, that I have been some time thinking, the contrary may
almost be proved by uncontrollable demonstration. It is true,
indeed, that although their numbers be vast, and their productions
numerous in proportion, yet are they hurried so hastily off the
scene, that they escape our memory, and elude our sight. When
I first thought of this address, I had prepared a copious list of
titles to present your highness, as an undisputed argument for
what I affirm. The originals were posted fresh upon all gates
and corners of streets; but, returning in a very few hours to take
a review, they were all torn down, and fresh ones in their places.
I inquired after them among readers and booksellers; but I
inquired in vain; the memorial of them was lost among men;
their place was no more to be found; and I was laughed to scorn
for a clown and a pedant, without all taste and refinement, little
versed in the course of present affairs, and that knew nothing of
what had passed in the best companies of court and town. So
that I can only avow in general to your highness, that we do
abound in learning and wit; but to fix upon particulars is a task
too slippery for my slender abilities. If I should venture in a
windy day to affirm to your highness that there is a large cloud
near the horizon, in the form of a bear; another in the zenith,
with the head of an ass; a third to the westward, with claws like
a dragon; and your highness should in a few minutes think fit to
examine the truth, it is certain they would all be changed in
figure and position: new ones would arise, and all we could
agree upon would be, that clouds there were, but that I was
grossly mistaken in the zoography and topography of them.
But your governor perhaps may still insist, and put the
question,—What is then become of those immense bales of paper,
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which must needs have been employed in such numbers of books?
Can these also be wholly annihilate, and so of a sudden, as I
pretend? What shall I say in return of so invidious an objection?
Books, like men their authors, have no more than one way of
coming into the world, but there are ten thousand to go out of it,
and return no more.
I profess to your highness, in the integrity of my heart, that
what I am going to say is literally true this minute I am writing :
what revolutions may happen before it shall be ready for your
perusal, I can by no means warrant : however, I beg you to accept
it as a specimen of our learning, our politeness, and our wit. I
do therefore affirm, upon the word of a sincere man, that there is
now actually in being a certain poet, called John Dryden, whose
translation of Virgil was lately printed in a large folio, well bound
and, if diligent search were made, for aught I know, is yet to be
seen. There is another, called Nahum Tate, who is ready to
make oath, that he has caused many reams of verse to be
published, whereof both himself and his bookseller (if lawfully
required), can still produce authentic copies, and therefore wonders
why the world is pleased to make such a secret of it. There is a
third, known by the name of Tom Durfey, a poet of a vast
comprehension, a universal genius, and most profound learning.
There are also one Mr. Rymer, and one Mr. Dennis, most profound
critics. There is a person styled Dr. Bentley, who has written
near a thousand pages of immense erudition, giving a full and
true account of a certain squabble, of wonderful importance,
between himself and a bookseller : he is a writer of infinite wit
and humour ; no man rallies with a better grace, and in more
sprightly turns. Further, I avow to your highness, that with these
eyes I have beheld the person of William Wotton, B.D., who has
written a good sizeable volume against a friend of your governor
(from whom, alas ! he must therefore look for little favour), in a
most gentlemanly style, adorned with the utmost politeness and
civility ; replete with discoverics equally valuable for their novelty
and use ; and embellished with traits of wit, so poignant and so
apposite, that he is a worthy yokemate to his forementioned
friend.
Why should I go upon further particulars, which might fill a
volume with the just eulogies of my contemporary brethren ? I
shall bequeath this picce of justice to a larger work, wherein I
intend to write a character of the present set of wits in our nation :
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their persons I shall describe particularly and at length, their
genius and understandings in miniature.
In the meantime, I do here make bold to present your
highness with a faithful abstract, drawn from the universal body
of all arts and sciences, intended wholly for your service and
instruction : nor do I doubt in the least, but your highness will
peruse it as carefully, and make as considerable improvements as
other young princes have already done, by the many volumes of
late years written for a help to their studies.
That your highness may advance in wisdom and virtue, as
well as years, and at last outshine all your royal ancestors, shall
be the daily prayer of, sir, your highness's most devoted, &c.
(From the Same.)
THE PHILOSOPHY OF CLOTHES
ABOUT this time it happened a sect arose, whose tenets obtained
and spread very far, especially in the grand monde, and among
everybody of good fashion. They worshipped a sort of idol, who,
as their doctrine delivered, did daily create men by a kind of
manufactory operation. This idol they placed in the highest part
of the house,'on an altar erected about three foot : he was shown
in the posture of a Persian emperor, sitting on a superficies,
with his legs interwoven under him. This god had a goose for his
ensign : whence it is that some learned men pretend to deduce
his original from Jupiter Capitolinus. At his left hand, beneath
the altar, hell seemed to open, and catch at the animals the idol
was creating ; to prevent which, certain of his priests hourly flung
in pieces of the unformed mass, or substance, and sometimes
whole limbs already enlivened, which that horrid gulf insatiably
swallowed, terrible to behold. The goose was held a subaltern
divinity or deus minorum gentium. The chief idol was also
worshipped as the inventor of the yard and needle ; whether as
the god of seamen, or on account of certain other mystical
attributes, has not been sufficiently cleared.
The worshippers of this deity had also a system of their
belief, which seemed to turn upon the following fundamentals.
They held the universe to be a large suit of clothes, which invests
everything : that the earth is invested by the air; the air is
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invested by the stars; and the stars are invested by the primum mobile. Look on this globe of earth, you will find it to be a
very complete and fashionable dress. What is that which some call land, but a fine coat faced with green? or the sea, but a
waistcoat of water-tabby? Proceed to the particular works of the creation, you will find how curious journeyman Nature has
been, to trim up the vegetable beaux; observe how sparkish a periwig adorns the head of a beech, and what a fine doublet of
white satin is worn by the birch. To conclude from all, what is man himself but a micro-coat, or rather a complete suit of
clothes with all its trimmings? as to his body, there can be no dispute: but examine even the acquirements of his mind, you
will find them all contribute in their order towards furnishing out an exact dress: to instance no more; is not religion a cloak;
honesty a pair of shoes worn out in the dirt; self-love a surtout; vanity a shirt; and conscience a pair of breeches.
These postulata being admitted, it will follow in due course of reasoning, that those beings, which the world calls improperly
suits of clothes, are in reality the most refined species of animals; or, to proceed higher, that they are rational creatures, or men.
For, is it not manifest, that they live, and move, and talk, and perform all other offices of human life? are not beauty, and wit,
and mien, and breeding, their inseparable properties? in short, we see nothing but them, hear nothing but them. Is it not
they who walk the streets, fill up parliament-, coffee-, play-houses? It is true, indeed, that these animals, which are vulgarly called
suits of clothes, or dresses, do, according to certain compositions, receive different appellations. If one of them be trimmed up
with a gold chain, and a red gown, and a white rod, and a great horse, it is called a lord-mayor: if certain ermines and furs be
placed in a certain position, we style them a judge; and so an apt conjunction of lawn and black satin we entitle a bishop.
Others of these professors, though agreeing in the main system, were yct more refined upon certain branches of it; and
held, that man was an animal compounded of two dresses, the natural and celestial suit, which were the body and the soul:
that the soul was the outward, and the body the inward clothing; that the latter was ex traduce; but the former of daily creation
and circumfusion; this last they proved by Scripture, because in them we live, and move, and have our being; as likewise by
philosophy, because they are all in all, and all in every part.
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Besides, said they, separate these two, and you will find the
body to be only a senseless unsavoury carcase. By all which
it is manifest, that the outward dress must needs be the soul.
To this system of religion, were tagged several subaltern
doctrines, which were entertained with great vogue; as par-
ticularly, the faculties of the mind were deduced by the learned
among them in this manner; embroidery was sheer wit; gold
fringe was agreeable conversation; gold lace was repartee; a
huge long periwig was humour; and a coat full of powder was
very good raillery: all which required abundance of finesse and
delicatesse to manage with advantage, as well as a strict observ-
ance after times and fashions.
(From the Same.)
A DIGRESSION CONCERNING CRITICS
ALTHOUGH I have been hitherto as cautious as I could, upon all
occasions, most nicely to follow the rules and methods of writing
laid down by the example of our illustrious moderns; yet has
the unhappy shortness of my memory led me into an error, from
which I must extricate myself, before I can decently pursue my
principal subject. I confess with shame, it was an unpardonable
omission to proceed so far as I have already done, before I had
performed the due discourses, expostulatory, supplicatory, or
deprecatory, with my good lords the critics. Towards some
atonement for this grievous neglect, I do here make humbly bold,
to present them with a short account of themselves, and their
art, by looking into the original and pedigree of the word, as it
is generally understood among us; and very briefly considering
the ancient and present state thereof.
By the word critic, at this day so frequent in all conversations,
there have sometimes been distinguished three very different
species of mortal men, according as I have read in ancient books
and pamphlets. For first, by this term was understood such
persons as invented or drew up rules for themselves and the
world, by observing which, a careful reader might be able to
pronounce upon the productions of the learned, form his taste
to a true relish of the sublime and the admirable, and divide
every beauty of matter, or of style, from the corruption that apes
it: in their common perusal of books, singling out the errors and
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defects, the nauseous, the fulsome, the dull, and the impertinent,
with the caution of a man that walks through Edinburgh streets
in a morning, who is indeed as careful as he can to watch
diligently, and spy out the filth in his way ; not that he is curious
to observe the ordure ; but only with a design to come out as
cleanly as he may. These men seem, though very erroneously,
to have understood the appellation of critic in a literal sense ;
that one principal part of his office was to praise and acquit ;
and that a critic, who sets up to read only for an occasion of
censure and reproof, is a creature as barbarous as a judge who
should take up a resolution to hang all men that came before
him upon a trial.
Again, by the word critic have been meant, the restorers of
ancient learning from the worms, and graves, and dust of manu-
scripts.
Now the races of these two have been for some ages utterly
extinct ; and besides, to discourse any further of them, would
not be at all to my purpose.
The third and noblest sort, is that of the TRUE CRITIC,
whose original is the most ancient of all. Every true critic is
a hero born, descending in a direct line, from a celestial stem,
by Momus and Hybris, who begat Zoilus, who begat Tigellius,
who begat Etcætera the elder ; who begat Bentley, and Rymer,
and Wotton, and Perrault, and Dennis ; who begat Etcætera
the younger.
And these are the critics, from whom the commonwealth of
learning has in all ages received such immense benefits, that the
gratitude of their admirers placed their origin in heaven, among
those of Hercules, Theseus, Perseus, and other great deservers of
mankind. But heroic virtue itself has not been exempt from the
obloquy of evil tongues. For it has been objected, that those
ancient heroes, famous for their combating so many giants, and
dragons, and robbers, were in their own .persons a greater
nuisance to mankind than any of those monsters they subdued ;
and therefore to render their obligations more complete, when all
other vermin were destroyed, should, in conscience, have con-
cluded with the same justice upon themselves. As Hercules
most generously did, and has upon that score procured to him-
self more temples and votaries, than the best of his fellows.
For these reasons, I suppose it is, why some have conceived, it
would be very expedient for the public good of learning, that
VOL. III
2 D
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every true critic, as soon as he had finished his task assigned,
should immediately deliver himself up to ratsbane, or hemp, or
leap from some convenient altitude; and that no man's preten-
sions to so illustrious a character should by any means be
received, before that operation were performed.
Now, from this heavenly descent of criticism, and the close
analogy it bears to heroic virtue, it is easy to assign the proper
employment of a true ancient genuine critic; which is, to travel
through this vast world of writings; to pursue and hunt those
monstrous faults bred within them; to drag out the lurking errors,
like Cacus from his den; to multiply them like Hydra's heads;
and rake them together like Augeas's dung: or else drive away
a sort of dangerous fowl, who have a perverse inclination to
plunder the best branches of the tree of knowledge, like those
Stymphalian birds that eat up the fruit.
These reasonings will furnish us with an adequate definition
of a true critic: that he is discoverer and collector of writers'
faults; which may be further put beyond dispute by the following
demonstration; that whoever will examine the writings in all
kinds, wherewith this ancient sect has honoured the world, shall
immediately find, from the whole thread and tenor of them, that
the ideas of the authors have been altogether conversant and
taken up, with the faults, and blemishes, and oversights, and
mistakes of other writers: and, let the subject treated on be
whatever it will, their imaginations are so entirely possessed and
replete with the defects of other pens, that the very quintessence
of what is bad, does of necessity distil into their own; by which
means the whole appears to be nothing else but an abstract of
the criticisms themselves have made.
(From the Same.)
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT
THINGS were at this crisis, when a material accident fell out.
For, upon the highest corner of a large window, there dwelt a
certain spider, swollen up to the first magnitude by the destruc-
tion of infinite numbers of flies, whose spoils lay scattered before
the gates of his palace, like human bones before the cave of some
giant. The avenues to his castle were guarded with turnpikes
and palisadoes, all after the modern way of fortification. After
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you had passed several courts, you came to the centre, wherein
you might behold the constable himself in his own lodgings,
which had windows fronting to each avenue, and ports to sally
out, upon all occasions of prey or defence. In this mansion he
had for some time dwelt in peace and plenty, without danger to
his person, by swallows from above, or to his palace, by brooms
from below: when it was the pleasure of fortune to conduct
thither a wandering bee, to whose curiosity a broken pane in the
glass had discovered itself, and in he went; where, expatiating a
while, he at last happened to alight upon one of the outward walls
of the spider's citadel; which, yielding to the unequal weight,
sunk down to the very foundation. Thrice he endeavoured to
force his passage, and thrice the centre shook. The spider
within, feeling the terrible convulsion, supposed at first that
nature was approaching to her final dissolution; or else, that
Beelzebub, with all his legions, was come to revenge the death of
many thousands of his subjects, whom this enemy had slain and
devoured. However, he at length valiantly resolved to issue
forth, and meet his fate. Meanwhile the bee had acquitted him-
self of his toils, and, posted securely at some distance, was
employed in cleansing his wings, and disengaging them from the
ragged remnants of the cobweb. By this time the spider was
adventured out, when, beholding the chasms and ruins, and
dilapidations of his fortress, he was very near at his wit's end; he
stormed and swore like a madman, and swelled till he was ready
to burst. At length, casting his eye upon the bee, and wisely
gathering causes from events (for they knew each other by sight),
A plague split you, said he; is it you, with a vengeance, that
have made this litter here? could not you look before you, and
be d—d? do you think I have nothing else to do (in the devil's
name) but to mend and repair after you?—Good words, friend,
said the bee (having now pruned himself, and being disposed to
be droll, I'll give you my hand and word to come near your kennel
no more; I was never in such a confounded pickle since I was
born.—Sirrah, replied the spider, if it were not for breaking an
old custom in our family, never to stir abroad against an enemy,
I should come and teach you better manners.—I pray have
paticnce, said the bee, or you will spend your substance, and,
for aught I see, you may stand in need of it all towards the re-
pair of your house.—Rogue, rogue, replied the spider, yet me-
thinks you should have more respect to a person, whom all the
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world allows to be so much your betters.——By my troth, said the
bee, the comparison will amount to a very good jest ; and you
will do me a favour to let me know the reasons that all the world
is pleased to use in so hopeful a dispute. At this the spider,
having swelled himself into the size and posture of a disputant,
began his argument in the true spirit of controversy, with a
resolution to be heartily scurrilous and angry, to urge on his own
reasons, without the least regard to the answers or objections of
his opposite ; and fully predetermined in his mind against all
conviction.
Not to disparage myself, said he, by the comparison with
such a rascally what art thou but a vagabond without house or
home, without stock or inheritance, born to no possession of
your own, but a pair of wings and a drone-pipe? Your liveli-
hood is an universal plunder upon nature ; a freebooter over
fields and gardens ; and, for the sake of stealing, will rob a
nettle as readily as a violet. Whereas I am a domestic animal,
furnished with a native stock within myself. This large castle
(to show my improvements in the mathematics) is all built with
my own hands, and the materials extracted altogether out of
mine own person.
I am glad, answered the bee, to hear you grant at least that
I am come honestly by my wings and my voice ; for then, it
seems, I am obliged to Heaven alone for my flights and my
music ; and Providence would never have bestowed on me
two such gifts, without designing them for the noblest ends.
I visit indeed all the flowers and blossoms of the field and the
garden ; but whatever I collect from thence, enriches myself,
without the least injury to their beauty, their smell, or their
taste. Now, for you and your skill in architecture, and other
mathematics, I have little to say: in that building of yours
there might, for aught I know, have been labour and method
enough ; but, by woful experience for us both, 'tis too plain,
the materials are naught ; and I hope you will henceforth take
warning, and consider duration and matter, as well as method
and art. You boast, indeed, of being obliged to no other
creature, but of drawing and spinning out all from yourself ;
that is to say, if we may judge of the liquor in the vessel, by
what issues out, you possess a good plentiful store of dirt and
poison in your breast ; and, though I would by no means lessen
or disparage your genuine stock of either, yet, I doubt you are
Page 416
somewhat obliged, for an increase of both, to a little foreign assistance.
Your inherent portion of dirt does not fail of acquisitions, by sweepings exhaled from below; and one insect furnishes you with a share of poison to destroy another.
So that, in short, the question comes all to this; whether is the nobler being of the two, that which, by a lazy contemplation of four inches round, by an overweening pride, feeding and engendering on itself, turns all into venom, producing nothing at all, but flybane and a cobweb; or that which, by an universal range, with long search, much study, true judgment, and distinction of things, brings home honey and wax?
This dispute was managed with such eagerness, clamour, and warmth, that the two parties of books, in arms below, stood silent a while, waiting in suspense what would be the issue; which was not long undetermined: for the bee, grown impatient at so much loss of time, fled straight away to a bed of roses, without looking for a reply; and left the spider, like an orator, collected in himself, and just prepared to burst out.
(From The Battle of the Books.)
POLITICAL LYING
I AM prevailed on, through the importunity of friends, to interrupt the scheme I had begun in my last paper, by an Essay upon the Art of Political Lying.
We are told the devil is the father of lies, and was a liar from the beginning; so that, beyond contradiction, the invention is old: and, which is more, his first Essay of it was purely political, employed in undermining the authority of his prince, and seducing a third part of the subjects from their obedience: for which he was driven down from Heaven, where (as Milton expresses it) he had been viceroy of a great western province; and forced to exercise his talent in inferior regions among other fallen spirits, poor or deluded men, whom he still daily tempts to his own sin, and will ever do so, till he be chained in the bottomless pit.
But although the devil be the father of lies, he seems, like other great inventors, to have lost much of his reputation, by the continual improvements that have been made upon him.
Who first reduced lying into an art, and adapted it to politics,
Page 417
is not so clear from history, although I have made some diligent
inquiries. I shall therefore consider it only according to the
modern system, as it has been cultivated these twenty years past
in the southern part of our own island.
The poets tell us, that after the giants were overthrown by
the gods, the earth in revenge produced her last offspring which
was Fame. And the fable is thus interpreted : that when
tumults and seditions are quieted, rumours and false reports
are plentifully spread through a nation. So that, by this account,
lying is the last relief of a routed, earth-born, rebellious party in
a state. But here the moderns have made great additions,
applying this art to the gaining of power and preserving it, as
well as revenging themselves after they have lost it ; as the
same instruments are made use of by animals to feed themselves
when they are hungry, and to bite those that tread upon them.
But the same genealogy cannot always be admitted for political
lying ; I shall therefore desire to refine upon it, by adding some
circumstances of its birth and parents. A political lie is some-
times born out of a discarded statesman's head, and thence
delivered to be nursed and dandled by the rabble. Sometimes
it is produced a monster, and licked into shape : at other times
it comes into the world completely formed, and is spoiled in
the licking. It is often born an infant in the regular way, and
requires time to mature it ; and often it sees the light in its
full growth, but dwindles away by degrees. Sometimes it is of
noble birth ; and sometimes the spawn of a stock-jobber. Here
it screams aloud at the opening of the womb ; and there it is
delivered with a whisper. I know a lie that now disturbs half
the kingdom with its noise, which, although too proud and
great at present to own its parents, I can remember its whisper-
hood. To conclude the nativity of this monster ; when it comes
into the world without a sting, it is still-born ; and whenever
it loses its sting, it dies.
No wonder if an infant so miraculous in its birth should be
destined for great adventures : and accordingly we see it hath
been the guardian spirit of a prevailing party for almost twenty
years. It can conquer kingdoms without fighting, and sometimes
with the loss of a battle. It gives and resumes employments ;
can sink a mountain to a mole-hill, and raise a mole-hill to a
mountain : hath presided for many years at committees of
elections ; can wash a blackmoor white ; make a saint of an
Page 418
atheist, and a patriot of a profligate ; can furnish foreign ministers
with intelligence, and raise or let fall the credit of the nation.
This goddess flies with a huge looking-glass in her hands, to
dazzle the crowd, and make them see, according as she turns it,
their ruin in their interest, and their interest in their ruin. In
this glass you will behold your best friends, clad in coats powdered
with fleurs de lis, and triple crowns ; their girdles hung round
with chains, and beads, and wooden shoes ; and your worst
enemies adorned with the ensigns of liberty, property, indulgence,
moderation, and a cornucopia in their hands. Her large wings,
like those of a flying-fish, are of no use but while they are
moist ; she therefore dips them in mud, and soaring aloft scatters
it in the eyes of the multitude, flying with great swiftness ; but
at every turn is forced to stoop in dirty ways for new supplies.
I have been sometimes thinking, if a man had the art of
the second sight for seeing lies, as they have in Scotland for
seeing spirits, how admirably he might entertain himself in this
town, by observing the different shapes, sizes, and colours of
those swarms of lies which buzz about the heads of some people,
like flies about a horse's ears in summer; or those legions
hovering every afternoon in Exchange-alley, enough to darken
the air ; or over a club of discontented grandees, and thence
sent down in cargoes to be scattered at elections.
There is one essential point wherein a political liar differs
from others of the faculty, that he ought to have but a short
memory, which is necessary, according to the various occasions
he meets with every hour of differing from himself, and swearing
to both sides of a contradiction, as he finds the persons disposed
with whom he hath to deal. In describing the virtues and vices
of mankind, it is convenient, upon every article, to have some
eminent person in our eye, from whom we copy our description.
I have strictly observed this rule, and my imagination this minute
represents before me a certain great man famous for this talent, to
the constant practice of which he owes his twenty years' reputa-
tion of the most skilful head in England, for the management of
nice affairs. The superiority of his genius consists in nothing
else but an inexhaustible fund of political lies, which he plentifully
distributes every minute he speaks, and by an unparalleled
generosity forgets, and consequently contradicts, the next half
hour. He never yet considered whether any proposition were
true or false, but whether it were convenient for the present
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ENGLISH PROSE
minute or company to affirm or deny it; so that if you think fit to refine upon him, by interpreting everything he says, as we do dreams, by the contrary, you are still to seek, and will find yourself equally deceived whether you believe or not: the only remedy is to suppose, that you have heard some inarticulate sounds, without any meaning at all; and besides, that will take off the horror you might be apt to conceive at the oaths, wherewith he perpetually tags both ends of every proposition; although, at the same time, I think he cannot with any justice be taxed with perjury, when he invokes God and Christ, because he hath often fairly given public notice to the world that he believes in neither.
Some people may think, that such an accomplishment as this can be of no great use to the owner, or his party, after it has been often practised, and is become notorious; but they are widely mistaken. Few lies carry the inventor's mark, and the most prostitute enemy to truth may spread a thousand, without being known for the author: besides, as the vilest writer hath his readers, so the greatest liar hath his believers: and it often happens, that if a lie be believed only for an hour, it hath done its work, and there is no further occasion for it. Falsehood flics, and truth comes limping after it, so that when men come to be undeceived, it is too late; the jest is over, and the tale hath had its effect: like a man, who hath thought of a good repartee when the discourse is changed, or the company parted; or like a physician, who hath found out an infallible medicine, after the patient is dead.
(From The Examiner.)
ARGUMENTS OF WEIGHT
First, one great advantage proposed by the abolishing of Christianity is, that it would very much enlarge and establish liberty of conscience, that great bulwark of our nation, and of the Protestant religion; which is still too much limited by priestcraft, notwithstanding all the good intentions of the legislature, as we have lately found by a severe instance. For it is confidently reported, that two young gentlemen of real hopes, bright wit, and profound judgment, who, upon a thorough examination of causes and effects, and by the mere force of natural abilities, without
Page 420
the least tincture of learning, having made a discovery that there
was no God, and generously communicating their thoughts for
the good of the public, were some time ago, by an unparalleled
severity, and upon I know not what obsolete law, broke for
blasphemy. And as it has been wisely observed, if persecution
once begins, no man alive knows how far it may reach, or where
it will end.
In answer to all which, with deference to wiser judgments, I
think this rather shows the necessity of a nominal religion among
us. Great wits love to be free with the highest objects ; and if
they cannot be allowed a God to revile or renounce, they will
speak evil of dignities, abuse the government, and reflect upon
the ministry ; which I am sure few will deny to be of much more
pernicious consequence, according to the saying of Tiberius,
deorum offensa diis curæ. As to the particular fact related, I
think it is not fair to argue from one instance, perhaps another
cannot be produced : yet (to the comfort of all those who may be
apprehensive of persecution) blasphemy, we know, is freely spoken
a million of times in every coffechouse and tavern, or wherever
else good company meet. It must be allowed, indeed, that to
break an English free-born officer, only for blasphemy, was, to
speak the gentlest of such an action, a very high strain of
absolute power. Little can be said in excuse for the general ;
perhaps he was afraid it might give offence to the allies, among
whom, for aught we know, it may be the custom of the country
to believe a God. But if he argued, as some have done, upon a
mistaken principle, that an officer who is guilty of speaking
blasphemy, may some time or other proceed so far as to raise a
mutiny, the consequence is by no means to be admitted ; for surely
the commander of an English army is likely to be but ill obeyed,
whose soldiers fear and reverence him as little as they do a Deity.
It is further objected against the Gospel system, that it obliges
men to the belief of things too difficult for free-thinkers, and such
who have shaken off the prejudices that usually cling to a confined
education. To which I answer, that men should be cautious
how they raise objections, which reflect upon the wisdom of the
nation. Is not everybody freely allowed to believe whatever he
pleases, and to publish his belief to the world whenever he thinks
fit, especially if it serves to strengthen the party which is in the
right? Would any indifferent foreigner, who should read the
trumpery lately written by Asgil, Tindal, Toland, Coward, and
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ENGLISH PROSE
forty more, imagine the Gospel to be our rule of faith, and confirmed by parliaments ? Does any man either believe, or say he believes, or desire to have it thought that he says he believes, one syllable of the matter? And is any man worse received upon that score, or does he find his want of nominal faith a disadvantage to him, in the pursuit of any civil or military employment ? What if there be an old dormant statute or two against him, are they not now obsolete to a degree that Empson and Dudley themselves, if they were now alive, would find it impossible to put them in execution?
It is likewise urged, that there are, by computation, in this kingdom, above ten thousand parsons, whose revenues, added to those of my lords the bishops, would suffice to maintain at least two hundred young gentlemen of wit and pleasure, and freethinking, enemies to priestcraft, narrow principles, pedantry, and prejudices ; who might be an ornament to the court and town : and then again, so great a number of able (-bodied) divines, might be a recruit to our fleet and armies. This indeed appears to be a consideration of some weight : but then, on the other side, several things deserve to be considered likewise: as first, whether it may not be thought necessary, that in certain tracts of country, like what we call parishes, there shall be one man at least of abilities to read and write. Then it seems a wrong computation, that the revenues of the Church throughout this island, would be large enough to maintain two hundred young gentlemen, or even half that number, after the present refined way of living ; that is, to allow each of them such a rent, as, in the modern form of speech, would make them easy. But still there is in this project a greater mischief behind; and we ought to beware of the woman's folly, who killed the hen, that every morning laid her a golden egg. For, pray what would become of the race of men in the next age, if we had nothing to trust to beside the scrofulous, consumptive productions, furnished by our men of wit and pleasure, when, having squandered away their vigour, health, and estates, they are forced, by some disagreeable marriage, to piece up their broken fortunes, and entail rottenness and politeness on their posterity? Now, here are ten thousand persons reduced, by the wise regulations of Henry the Eighth, to the necessity of . a low diet, and moderate exercise, who are the only great restorers of our breed, without which the nation would, in an age or two, become one great hospital.
Page 422
Another advantage proposed by the abolishing of Christianity
is, the clear gain of one day in seven, which is now entirely
lost, and consequently the kingdom one seventh less considerable
in trade, business, and pleasure ; beside the loss to the public
of so many stately structures, now in the hands of the clergy,
which might be converted into play-houses, market-houses,
exchanges, common dormitories, and other public edifices.
I hope I shall be forgiven a hard word, if I call this a perfect
cavil. I readily own there has been an old custom, time out of
mind, for people to assemble in the churches every Sunday, and
that shops are still frequently shut, in order, as it is conceived,
to preserve the memory of that ancient practice ; but how this
can prove a hindrance to business or pleasure, is hard to imagine.
What if the men of pleasure are forced, one day in the week,
to game at home instead of the chocolatchouses ? are not the
taverns and coffeehouses open ? can there be a more convenient
season for taking a dose of physic ? is not that the chief day
for traders to sum up the accounts of the week, and for lawyers
to prepare their briefs ? But I would fain know how it can
be pretended that the churches are misapplied? where are
more appointments and rendezvouses of gallantry ? where more
care to appear in the foremost box, with greater advantage of
dress ? where more meetings for business ? where more bargains
driven of all sorts ? and where so many conveniences or entice-
ments to sleep ?
There is one advantage, greater than any of the foregoing,
proposed by the abolishing of Christianity ; that it will utterly
extinguish partics among us, by removing those factious dis-
tinctions of high and low church, of Whig and Tory, Presbyterian
and Church of England, which are now so many grievous clogs
upon public proceedings, and are apt to dispose men to prefer
the gratifying of themselves, or depressing of their adversaries,
before the most important interest of the state.
I confess, if it were certain, that so great an advantage would
redound to the nation by this expedient, I would submit and be
silent ; but will any man say that, if the words whoring, drink-
ing, cheating, lying, stealing were, by act of parliament, ejected
out of the English tongue and dictionaries, we should all awake
next morning chaste and temperate, honest and just, and lovers
of truth ? Is this a fair consequence? Or, if the physicians
would forbid us to pronounce the words gout, rheumatism, and
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ENGLISH PROSE
stone, would that expedient serve, like so many talismans, to destroy the diseases themselves? Are party and faction rooted in men's hearts no deeper than phrases borrowed from religion, or founded upon no firmer principles? And is our language so poor, that we cannot find other terms to express them? Are envy, pride, avarice, and ambition such ill nomenclators, that they cannot furnish appellations for their owners? Will not heydnkes and mamalukes, mandarins, and patshaws, or any other words formed at pleasure, serve to distinguish those who are in the ministry, from others, who would be in it if they could? What, for instance, is easier than to vary the form of speech, and instead of the word church, make it a question in politics, whether the Monument be in danger? Because religion was nearest at hand to furnish a few convenient phrases, is our invention so barren, we can find no other? Suppose, for argument sake, that the Tories favoured Margarita, the Whigs Mrs. Tofts, and the trimmers Valentini ; would not Margaritlans, Toftians, and Valentinians be very tolerable marks of distinction? The Prasini and Veneti, two most virulent factions in Italy, began (if I remember right) by a distinction of colours in ribbons ; and we might contend with as good a grace about the dignity of the blue and the green, which would serve as properly to divide the court, the parliament, and the kingdom, between them, as any terms of art whatsoever, borrowed from religion. And therefore, I think, there is little force in this objection against Christianity, or prospect of so great an advantage, as is proposed in the abolishing of it.
It is again objected, as a very absurd, ridiculous custom, that a set of men should be suffered, much less employed and hired, to bawl one day in seven against the lawfulness of those methods most in use, toward the pursuit of greatness riches, and pleasure, which are the constant practice of all men alive on the other six. But this objection is, I think, a little unworthy of so refined an age as ours. Let us argue this matter calmly : I appeal to the breast of any polite freethinker, whether, in the pursuit of gratifying a predominant passion, he has not always felt a wonderful incitement, by reflecting it was a thing forbidden : and, therefore, we see, in order to cultivate this taste, the wisdom of the nation has taken special care, that the ladies should be furnished with prohibited silks, and the men with prohibited wine. And, indeed, it were to be wished, that some other prohibitions
Page 424
were promoted, in order to improve the pleasures of the town;
which, for want of such expedients, begin already, as I am
told, to flag and grow languid, giving way daily to cruel inroads
fiom the spleen.
It is likewise proposed as a great advantage to the public,
that if we once discard the system of the Gospel, all religion
will of course be banished for ever; and consequently, along
with it, those grievous prejudices of education, which, under
the names of virtue, conscience, honour, justice, and the like,
are so apt to disturb the peace of human minds, and the
notions whercof are so hard to be eradicated, by right reason,
or free-thinking, sometimes during the whole course of our
lives.
Here first I observe, how difficult it is to get rid of a
phrase, which the world is once grown fond of, though the
occasion that first produced it, be entirely taken away. For
several years past, if a man had but an ill-favoured nose, the
deep-thinkers of the age would, some way or other, contrive to
impute the cause to the prejudice of his education. From this
fountain were said to be derived all our foolish notions of justice,
picty, love of our country; all our opinions of God, or a future
state, heaven, hell, and the like: and there might formerly
perhaps have been some pretence for this charge. But so
effectual care has been taken to remove those prejudices, by an
entire change in the methods of education, that (with honour I
mention it to our polite innovators) the young gentlemen, who
are now on the scene, seem to have not the least tincture left
of those infusions, or string of those weeds: and, by consequence,
the reason for abolishing nominal Christianity upon that pretext,
is wholly ceased.
For the rest, it may perhaps admit a controversy, whether
the banishing of all notions of religion whatsoever, would be
convenient for the vulgar. Not that I am in the least of opinion
with those, who hold religion to have been the invention of
politicians, to keep the lower part of the world in awe, by the
fear of invisible powers; unless mankind were then very different
to what it is now: for I look upon the mass or body of our
people here in England, to be as freethinkers, that is to say,
as staunch unbelievers, as any of the highest rank. But I
conceive some scattered notions about a superior power, to be
of singular use for the common people, as furnishing excellent
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ENGLISH PROSE
materials to keep children quiet when they grow peevish, and
providing topics of amusement, in a tedious winter-night.
(From the Argument against abolishing Christianity.)
IRELAND AN INDEPENDENT KINGDOM
ANOTHER slander spread by Wood and his emissaries is, "that
by opposing him, we discover an inclination to throw off our
dependence upon the crown of England." Pray observe how
important a person is this same William Wood, and how the
public weal of two kingdoms is involved in his private interest.
First, all those who refuse to take his coin are Papists ; for he
tells us, "that none but Papists are associated against him."
Secondly, "they dispute the King's prerogative." Thirdly, "they
are ripe for rebellion." And, fourthly, "they are going to shake
off their dependence upon the crown of England ;" that is to
say, they are going to choose another king ; for there can be
no other meaning in this expression, however some may pretend
to strain it.
And this gives me an opportunity of explaining to those who
are ignorant, another point, which has often swelled in my breast.
Those who come over hither to us from England, and some weak
people among ourselves, whenever in discourse we make mention
of liberty and property, shake their heads, and tell us, that
"Ireland is a depending kingdom" ; as if they would seem by
this phrase to intend, that the people of Ireland are in some state
of slavery or dependence different from those of England :
whereas a depending kingdom is a modern term of art, unknown
as I have heard to all ancient civilians, and writers upon govern-
ment ; and Ireland is, on the contrary, called in some statutes
"an imperial crown," as held only from God : which is as high a
style as any kingdom is capable of receiving. Therefore, by this
expression, "a depending kingdom," there is no more to be
understood, than that, by a statute made here in the thirty-third
year of Henry VIII., the king, and his successors, are to be
kings imperial of this realm, as united and knit to the imperial
crown of England. I have looked over all the English and Irish
statutes, without finding any law that makes Ireland depend
upon England, any more than England does upon Ireland. We
Page 426
have indeed obliged ourselves to have the same king with them ;
and consequently they are obliged to have the same king with us.
For the law was made by our own Parliament; and our ancestors
then were not such fools (whatever they were in the preceding
reign) to bring themselves under I know not what dependence,
which is now talked of, without any ground of law, reason, or
common sense.
Let whoever thinks otherwise I, M. B., drapier, desire to be
excepted; for I declare, next under God, I depend only on the
king my sovereign, and on the laws of my own country. And I
am so far from depending upon the people of England, that if
they should ever rebel against my sovereign (which God forbid !)
I would be ready, at the first command from his majesty, to take
arms against them, as some of my countrymen did against theirs
at Preston. And if such a rebellion should prove so successful
as to fix the Pretender on the throne of England, I would venture
to transgress that statute so far, as to lose every drop of my
blood to hinder him from being King of Ireland.
It is true, indeed, that within the memory of man, the Parlia-
ments of England have sometimes assumed the power of binding
this kingdom by laws enacted there; wherein they were at first
openly opposed (as far as truth, reason, and justice, are capable
of opposing) by the famous Mr. Molineux, an English gentleman
born here, as well as by several of the greatest patriots and best
Whigs in England; but the love and torrent of power prevailed.
Indeed the arguments on both sides were invincible. For, in
reason, all government without the consent of the governed, is
the very definition of slavery; but, in fact, eleven men well armed
will certainly subdue one single man in his shirt. But I have
done; for those who have used to cramp liberty, have gone so
far as to resent even the liberty of complaining; although a man
upon the rack was never known to be refused the liberty of roar-
ing as loud as he thought fit.
(From The Drapier's Letters.)
IRISH MISERY
Now, if all this be true (upon which I could easily enlarge), I
should be glad to know, by what secret method it is that we grow
a rich and flourishing people, without liberty, trade, manufactures,
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ENGLISH PROSE
inhabitants, money, or the privilege of coining; without industry,
labour, or improvement of land; and with more than half the
rent and profits of the whole kingdom annually exported, for
which we receive not a single farthing: and to make up all this,
nothing worth mentioning, except the linen of the North, a trade,
casual, corrupted, and at mercy; and some butter from Cork.
If we do flourish, it must be against every law of nature and
reason; like the thorn at Glastonbury, that blossoms in the
midst of winter.
Let the worthy commissioners who come from England ride
round the kingdom, and observe the face of nature, or the fare
of the natives; the improvement of the land; the thriving
numerous plantations; the noble woods; the abundance and
vicinity of country seats; the commodious farms, houses, and
barns; the towns and villages, where everybody is busy, and
thriving with all kind of manufactures; the shops full of goods
wrought to perfection, and filled with customers; the comfortable
diet, and dress, and dwellings of the people; the vast number
of ships in our harbours and docks, and shipwrights in our sea-
port towns; the roads crowded with carriers laden with rich
manufactures; the perpetual concourse to and fro of pompous
equipages.
With what envy and admiration would those gentlemen return
from so delightful a progress! what glorious reports would they
make, when they went back to England!
But my heart is too heavy to continue this irony longer; for
it is manifest, that whatever stranger took such a journey, would
be apt to think himself travelling in Lapland or Ysland, rather
than in a country so favoured by nature as ours, both in fruitful-
ness of soil and temperature of climate. The miserable dress,
and diet, and dwelling of the people; the general desolation in
most parts of the kingdom; the old seats of the nobility and
gentry all in ruins, and no new ones in their stead; the families
of farmers, who pay great rents, living in filth and nastiness upon
butter-milk and potatoes, without a shoe or stocking to their feet,
or a house so convenient as an English hog-sty to receive them.
These indeed may be comfortable sights to an English spectator,
who comes for a short time, only to learn the language, and
returns back to his own country, whither he finds all his wealth
transmitted.
Nostra miseria magna est.
Page 428
JONATHAN SWIFT
417
There is not one argument used to prove the riches of Ireland,
which is not a logical demonstration of its poverty. The rise of
our rents is squeezed out of the very blood, and vitals, and
clothes, and dwellings of the tenants, who live worse than English
beggars. The lowness of interest, in all other countries a sign
of wealth, is in us a proof of misery; there being no trade to
employ any borrower. Hence alone comes the dearness of land;
since the savers have no other way to lay out their money:
hence the dearness of necessaries of life; because the tenants
cannot afford to pay such extravagant rates for land (which they
must take, or go a-begging), without raising the price of cattle
and of corn, although themselves should live upon chaff. Hence
our increase of building in this city; because workmen have
nothing to do but to employ one another, and one half of them
are infallibly undone. Hence the daily increase of bankers, who
may be a necessary evil in a trading country, but so ruinous in
ours; who, for their private advantage, have sent away all our
silver, and one third of our gold; so that within three years past
the running cash of the nation, which was about five hundred
thousand pounds, is now less than two, and must daily diminish,
unless we have liberty to coin, as well as that important kingdom
the Isle of Man, and the meanest principality in the German
empire, as I before observed.
(From A Short View of the State of Ireland.)
THE EMPEROR OF LILLIPUT
The emperor was already descended from the tower, and advanc-
ing on horseback towards me, which had like to have cost him
dear; for the beast, though very well trained, yet wholly unused
to such a sight, which appeared as if a mountain moved before
him, reared up on his hinder feet: but that prince, who is an
excellent horseman, kept his seat, till his attendants ran in, and
held the bridle, while his majesty had time to dismount. When
he alighted, he surveyed me round with great admiration; but
kept without the length of my chain. He ordered his cooks
and butlers, who were already prepared, to give me victuals
and drink, which they pushed forward in a sort of vehicles upon
wheels, till I could reach them. I took those vehicles, and soon
vol. III
2 E
Page 429
emptied them all ; twenty of them were filled with meat, and
ten with liquor ; each of the former afforded me two or three
good mouthfuls ; and I emptied the liquor of ten vessels, which
was contained in earthen vials, into one vehicle, drinking it off
at a draught; and so I did with the rest. The empress and
young princes of the blood of both sexes, attended by many
ladies, sate at some distance in their chairs; but upon the
accident that happened to the emperor's horse, they alighted,
and came near his person, which I am now going to describe.
He is taller, by almost the breadth of my nail, than any of
his court ; which alone is enough to strike an awe into the
beholders. His features are strong and masculine, with an
Austrian lip and arched nose, his complexion olive, his counten-
ance erect, his body and limbs well proportioned, all his motions
graceful, and his deportment majestic. He was then past his
prime, being twenty-eight years and three quarters old, of which
he had reigned about seven in great felicity, and generally
victorious. For the better convenience of beholding him, I lay
on my side, so that my face was parallel to his, and he stood
but three yards off: however, I have had him since many
times in my hand, and therefore cannot be deceived in the
description. His dress was very plain and simple, and the
fashion of it between the Asiatic and the European ; but he
had on his head a light helmet of gold, adorned with jewels,
and a plume on the crest. He held his sword drawn in his
hand to defend himself, if I should happen to break loose ; it
was almost three inches long ; the hilt and scabbard were gold
enriched with diamonds. His voice was shrill, but very clear
and articulate ; and I could distinctly hear it when I stood up.
The ladies and courtiers were all most magnificently clad ; so
that the spot they stood upon seemed to resemble a petticoat
spread on the ground, embroidered with figures of gold and
silver. His imperial majesty spoke often to me, and I returned
answers ; but neither of us could understand a syllable. There
were several of his priests and lawyers present (as I conjectured
by their habits), who were commanded to address themselves
to me ; and I spoke to them in as many languages as I had
the least smattering of, which were High and Low Dutch, Latin,
French, Spanish, Italian, and Lingua Franca, but all to no
purpose. After about two hours the court retired, and I was
left with a strong guard, to prevent the impertinence, and
Page 430
JONATHAN SWIFT
419
probably the malice, of the rabble, who were very impatient to crowd about me as ncar as they durst ; and some of them had the impudence to shoot their arrows at me, as I sate on the ground by the door of my house, whereof one very narrowly missed my left eye. But the colonel ordered six of the ring-leaders to be seized, and thought no punishment so proper, as to deliver them bound into my hands ; which some of his soldiers accordingly did, pushing them forward with the butt-ends of their pikes into my reach. I took them all in my right hand, put five of them into my coat-pocket, and as to the sixth, I made a countenance as if I would eat him alive. The poor man squalled terribly, and the colonel and his officers were in much pain, especially when they saw me take out my pen-knife : but I soon put them out of fear ; for, looking mildly, and immediately cutting the strings he was bound with, I set him gently on the ground, and away he ran. I treated the rest in the same manner, taking them one by one out of my pocket ; and I observed both the soldiers and people were highly obliged at this mark of my clemency, which was represented very much to my advantage at court.
(From Gulliver's Travels.)
THE KING OF BROBDINGNAG INQUIRES INTO THE STATE OF EUROPE
THE king, who, as I before observed, was a prince of excellent understanding, would frequently order that I should be brought in my box, and set upon the table in his closet. He would then command me to bring one of my chairs out of the box, and sit down within three yards' distance upon the top of the cabinet, which brought me almost to a level with his face. In this manner I had several conversations with him. I one day took the freedom to tell his majesty, that the contempt he discovered towards Europe, and the rest of the world, did not seem answerable to those excellent qualities of the mind he was master of. That reason did not extend itself with the bulk of the body ; on the contrary, we observed in our country, that the tallest persons were usually least provided with it. That among other animals, bees and ants had the reputation of more industry,
Page 431
art, and sagacity, than many of the larger kinds. And that, as inconsiderable as he took me to be, I hoped I might live to do
his majesty some signal service. The king heard me with atten-tion, and began to conceive a much bettèr opinion of me than he
had ever before. He desired I would give him as exact an account of the government of England as I possibly could ;
because, as fond as princes commonly are of their own customs (for so he conjectured of other monarchs by my former discourses),
he should be glad to hear of anything that might deserve imitation.
Imagine with thyself, courteous reader, how often I then wished for the tongue of Demosthenes or Cicero, that might have
enabled me to celebrate the praises of my own dear native country, in a style equal to its merits and felicity.
I began my discourse by informing his majesty, that our dominions consisted of two islands, which comprised three mighty
kingdoms, under one sovereign, besides our plantations in America. I dwelt long upon the fertility of our soil, and the
temperature of our climate. I then spoke at large upon the con-stitution of an English parliament ; partly made up of an illustrious
body, called the House of Peers ; persons of the noblest blood, and of the most ancient and ample patrimonies. I described
that extraordinary care always taken of their education in arts and arms, to qualify them for being counsellors born to the king
and kingdom ; to have a share in the legislature ; to be members of the highest court of judicature, from whence there could be no
appeal ; and to be champions always ready for the defence of their prince and country, by their valour, conduct, and fidelity.
That these were the ornament and bulwark of the kingdom, worthy followers of their most renowned ancestors, whose honour
had been the reward of their virtue, from which their posterity were never once known to degenerate. To these were joined
several holy persons, as part of that assembly, under the title of bishops ; whose peculiar business it is to take care of religion,
and of those who instruct the people therein. These were searched and sought out through the whole nation, by the prince
and his wisest counsellors, among such of the priesthood as were most deservedly distinguished by the sanctity of their lives, and
the depth of their erudition ; who were indeed the spiritual fathers of the clergy and the people.
That the other part of the parliament consisted of an assembly,
Page 432
called the House of Commons, who were all principal gentlemen
freely picked and culled out by the people themselves, for their
great abilities and love of their country, to represent the wisdom
of the whole nation. And these two bodies make up the most
august assembly in Europe ; to whom, in conjunction with the
prince, the whole legislature is committed.
I then descended to the courts of justice ; over which, the
judges, those venerable sages and interpreters of the law, pre-
sided, for determining the disputed rights and properties of men,
as well as for the punishment of vice and protection of innocence.
I mentioned the prudent management of our treasury ; the valour
and achievements of our forces, by sea and land. I computed
the number of our people, by reckoning how many millions there
might be of each religious sect, or political party, among us. I
did not omit even our sports and pastimes, or any other particular
which I thought might redound to the honour of any country.
And I finished all with a brief historical account of affairs and
events in England for about an hundred years past.
This conversation was not ended under five audiences, each
of several hours ; and the king heard the whole with great atten-
tion, frequently taking notes of what I spoke, as well as memor-
andums of several questions he intended to ask me.
When I had put an end to these long discourses, his majesty,
in a sixth audience, consulting his notes, proposed many doubts,
queries, and objections, upon every article. He asked, What
methods were used to cultivate the minds and bodies of our
young nobility, and in what kind of business they commonly
spent the first and teachable part of their lives. What course
was taken to supply that assembly, when any noble family became
extinct. What qualifications were necessary in those who are to
be created new lords: whether the humour of the prince, a sum
of money to a court lady, or a prime minister, or a design of
strengthening a party opposite to the public interest, ever
happened to be motives in those advancements. What share of
knowledge these lords had in the laws of their country, and how
they came by it, so as to enable them to decide the properties of
their fellow-subjects in the last resort. Whether they were always
so free from avarice, partialities, or want, that a bribe, or some
other sinister view, could have no place among them. Whether
those holy lords I spoke of were always promoted to that rank
upon account of their knowledge in religious matters, and the
Page 433
422
ENGLISH PROSE
sanctity of their lives ; had never been compliers with the times,
while they were common priests ; or slavish prostitute chaplains
to some nobleman, whose opinions they continued servilely to
follow, after they were admitted into that assembly.
He then desired to know, What arts were practised in electing
those whom I called Commoners : whether a stranger, with a
strong purse, might not influence the vulgar voters, to choose
him before their own landlord, or the most considerable gentle-
man in the neighbourhood. How it came to pass, that people
were so violently bent upon getting into this assembly, which I
allowed to be a great trouble and expense, often to the ruin of
their families, without any salary or pension. Because this
appeared such an exalted strain of virtue and public spirit, that
his majesty seemed to doubt it might possibly not be always
sincere. And he desired to know, Whether such zealous gentle-
men could have any views of refunding themselves for the charges
and trouble they were at, by sacrificing the public good to the
designs of a weak and vicious prince, in conjunction with a
corrupted ministry. He multiplied his questions, and sifted me
thoroughly upon every part of this head, proposing numberless
inquiries and objections, which I think it not prudent or con-
venient to repeat.
His majesty, in another audience, was at the pains to re-
capitulate the sum of all I had spoken ; compared the questions
he made with the answers I had given ; then, taking me into his
hands, and stroking me gently, delivered himself in these words,
which I shall never forget, nor the manner he spoke them in :
My little friend Grildrig, you have made a most admirable
panegyric upon your country; you have clearly proved, that
ignorance, idleness, and vice, are the proper ingredients for
qualifying a legislator ; that laws are best explained, interpreted,
and applied, by those whose interest and abilities lie in perverting,
confounding, and eluding them. I observe among you some
lines of an institution, which, in its original might have been
tolerable, but these half erased, and the rest wholly blurred and
blotted by corruptions. It doth not appear, from all you have
said, how any one virtue is required, towards the procurement of
any one station among you ; much less, that men are ennobled
on account of their virtue ; that priests are advanced for their
piety or learning ; soldiers for their conduct or valour ; judges
for their integrity ; senators for the love of their country ; or
Page 434
counsellors for their wisdom. As for yourself, continued the king,
who have spent the greatest part of your life in travelling, I am
well disposed to hope you may hitherto have escaped many vices
of your country. But, by what I have gathered from your own
relation, and the answers I have with much pains wringed and
extorted from you, I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives
to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature
ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth.
(From the Same.)
TRUE AND FALSE RAILLERY
RAILLERY is the finest part of conversation ; but, as it is our
usual custom to counterfeit and adulterate whatever is too dear
for us, so we have done with this, and turned it all into what is
generally called repartee, or being smart ; just as when an
expensive fashion comes up, those who are not able to reach it,
content themselves with some paltry imitation. It now passes
for raillery to run a man down in discourse, to put him out of
countenance, and make him ridiculous ; sometimes to expose the
defects of his person or understanding ; on all which occasions,
he is obliged not to be angry, to avoid the imputation of not
being able to take a jest. It is admirable to observe one who is
dexterous at this art, singling out a weak adversary, getting the
laugh on his side, and then carrying all before him. The French,
from whence we borrow the word, have a quite different idea of
the thing, and so had we in the politer age of our fathers.
Raillery was to say something that at first appeared a reproach
or reflection, but, by some turn of wit, unexpected and surprising,
ended always in a compliment, and to the advantage of the person
it was addressed to. And surely one of the best rules in conversa-
tion is, never to say a thing which any of the company can
reasonably wish we had rather left unsaid ; nor can there anything
be well more contrary to the ends for which people meet together,
than to part unsatisfied with each other or themselves.
There are two faults in conversation, which appear very
different, yet arise from the same root, and are equally blameable ;
I mean an impatience to interrupt others ; and the uneasiness of
being interrupted ourselves. The two chief ends of conversation
Page 435
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ENGLISH PROSE
are to entertain and improve those we are among, or to receive
those benefits ourselves; which whoever will consider, cannot
easily run into either of these two errors; because, when any man
speaks in company, it is to be supposed he does it for his hearers’
sake, and not his own; so that common discretion will teach us
not to force their attention if they are not willing to lend it; nor,
on the other side, to interrupt him who is in possession, because
that is in the grossest manner to give the preference to our own
good sense.
There are some people, whose good manners will not suffer
them to interrupt you, but, what is almost as bad, will discover
abundance of impatience, and lie upon the watch until you have
done, because they have started something in their own thoughts,
which they long to be delivered of. Meantime, they are so far
from regarding what passes, that their imaginations are wholly
turned upon what they have in reserve, for fear it should slip out
of their memory; and thus they confine their invention, which
might otherwise range over a hundred things full as good, and
that might be much more naturally introduced.
There is a sort of rude familiarity, which some people, by
practising among their intimates, have introduced into their
general conversation, and would have it pass for innocent freedom
or humour; which is a dangerous experiment in our northern
climate, where all the little decorum and politeness we have, are
purely forced by art, and are so ready to lapse into barbarity.
This, among the Romans, was the raillery of slaves, of which we
have many instances in Plautus. It seems to have been intro-
duced among us by Cromwell, who, by picking the scum of the
people, made it a court entertainment, of which I have heard
many particulars; and, considering all things were turned upside
down, it was reasonable and judicious: although it was a piece
of policy found out to ridicule a point of honour in the other
extreme, when the smallest word misplaced among gentlemen
ended in a duel.
(From An Essay on Conversation.)
Page 436
ARBUTHNOT
[John Arbuthnot, born in 1667, was connected with the family of Lord Arbuthnot, and was the son of the minister of Arbuthnot in Kincardineshire, who was deprived in 1689 on account of adhering to the Episcopalian order. He was educated at the University of Aberdeen, and at University College, Oxford, and took the degree of M.D) at St. Andrews University. He published early in life some scientific treatises, and, settling in London, he first employed himself in teaching mathematics, and afterwards in his profession. In 1705, he was appointed Physician to the Queen, and soon after became one of the brilliant galaxy of wits who were connected with the Court and the Tory Party --Swift, Pope, Gay, and Prior being amongst the number. On the death of the Queen and the fall of the Tories he lost his appointment at Court, and became suspected of Jacobite leanings--his family having always adhered to that cause, and one of his brothers having fought at Killiecrankie The later part of his life was spent in the quiet pursuit of his profession, and in the indulgence of a literary taste, with little thought of literary profit or fame. He died in 1735.]
In the little circle of wits who made the age of Anne so memorable, Arbuthnot occupied a position absolutely unique. He possessed a scientific knowledge to which none of the others could make any pretence. Whatever disagreements and jealousies might affect the rest, Arbuthnot stood at all times aloof from quarrels, with no thought of himself, able to share their designs and rival their wit, but yet advancing no claim to fame, and content rather to be the helper in the plans of others, to soothe their jealousies, appease their discontent, and compose their anger by the placid influence of his own unfailing humour. It is no small niche that he has attained in the temple of Fame as the friend and adviser of Swift and Pope--addressed by Pope as "Friend to my life," and named by Swift as the one man, of whom, had the world contained a dozen, Gulliver's Travels would have been burnt. But this is not Arbuthnot's only title to a high place in English literature. Swift recognised him as his rival:--
Page 437
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ENGLISH PROSE
" Arbuthnot is no more my friend
Who dares to irony pretend,
Which I was born to introduce,
Refined it first, and showed its use."
It was indeed for his personal qualities—the strength, as well
as the weakness, that endeared him to them—that his friends
prized him most. "There is a passage in Bede," says Swift,
" highly commending the piety and learning of the Irish in that
age, where, after abundance of praises, he overthrows them all
by lamenting that, alas, they kept Easter at a wrong time of
the year. So our doctor hath every quality and virtue that
can make a man amiable or useful: but alas, he hath a sort of
slouch in his walk." But strong as was the affection he inspired,
Arbuthnot commanded respect by his own genius. Utterly
careless as to the fate of his work—allowing much of it to be
lost, and suffering many vagrant pages that were unworthy of
him to be attributed to his hand, Arbuthnot has yet left enough
that is indubitably his, to give him a high place in the literature
of humour. His scientific work was sound so far as it went.
As a mathematician, Berkeley places him in the first rank.
He valued too highly the scientific achievements of his age
to overwhelm it all in the indiscriminate satire which Swift
poured out upon the Royal Society. The short extract given
below from his early work On the Usefulness of Mathematical
Learning (1700) shows that he could rightly estimate the
place of Sir Isaac Newton. But to this he adds a power of
irony and homely wit, and also—what is a less entertaining, but
perhaps also a rarer gift—that of travestying the arguments of
superficial and pedantic philosophy.
The most important humorous works of Arbuthnot are two.
The first is Law in a Bottomless Pit: or the History of John Bull,
in which he portrays the outbreak and the fortunes of the
war with France in the story of John Bull, and his embroilments
with his family and his neighbours. It was first published in
four separate parts, each with its own title, and afterwards issued
as a whole under its better known name. The form of the
story often reminds us of the manner in which Swift, in the Tale
of a Tub, recounts the adventures of Peter, Martin, and Jack;
but while the real value of Swift's satire lies in the digressions,
Arbuthnot's never goes beyond the beaten track of the story.
There is therefore no comparison between the vast range of
Page 438
swift's satire and the definite and narrow aim which Arbuthnot pursues : but it may be doubted whether, within this smaller range, the episodes are not more dramatic and the individuality of the characters better sustained by Arbuthnot.
The next of his achievements in humour is the fragment (for it is little more) entitled The Memoirs of Scriblerus.
This was part of a scheme in which Swift, Pope, Gay, and Arbuthnot were to have shared, "to have ridiculed all the false tastes in learning, under the character of a man of capacity enough, that had dipped into every art and science, but injudiciously in each " (Pope).
The others, however, failed to do their part.
Swift says that Arbuthnot alone was capable of carrying out the plan : and the others felt, perhaps, that they were without the necessary equipment of scientific knowledge.
What Arbuthnot has left us is not only by far the best of his work, but shows how high was the range of his humour, which could unite the grave irony of Swift, in the travesty of an elaborate argument, with the dramatic characterisation of Sterne, who in Tristram Shandy has drawn not a little inspiration from the early chapters of Arbuthnot's fragment.
The book was not published until 1741, six years after Arbuthnot's death.
We have also many specimens of Arbuthnot's letters.
Unlike those of his friend Pope, these were written with no thought of being published, but they remain as admirable models of an epistolary style--familiar, playful, and easy, but always with the added interest of a background of warm affection and half humorous melancholy.
H. Craik.
Page 439
NEWTON'S DISCOVERY
BUT though the industry of former ages had discovered the periods of the great bodies of the universe, and the true system and order of them, and their orbits pretty near; yet was there one thing still reserved for the glory of this age and the honour of the English nation, the grand secret of the whole machine; which, now it is discovered, proves to be (like the other contrivances of infinite wisdom) simple and natural, depending upon the most known and most common property of matter, viz.: gravity. From this the incomparable Mr. Newton, has demonstrated the theories of all the bodies of the solar system, of all the primary planets and their secondaries, and among others, the moon, which seemed most averse to numbers; and not only of the planets, the slowest of which completes its period in less than half the age of a man, but likewise of the comets, some of which it is probable spend more than 2000 years in one revolution about the sun; for whose theory he has laid such a foundation, that after ages, assisted with more observations, may be able to calculate their returns. In a word, the precession of the equinoctial points, the tides, the unequal vibration of pendulous bodies in different latitudes, etc., are no more a question to those that have geometry enough to understand what he has delivered on those subjects: a perfection in philosophy that the boldest thinker durst hardly have hoped for; and, unless mankind turn barbarous, will continue the reputation of this nation as long as the fabric of nature shall endure. After this, what is it we may not expect from geometry joined to observations and experiments?
(From An Essay on the Usefulness of Mathematical Learning.)
Page 440
ARBUTHNOT
429
MOTHER CHURCH
HN had a mother whom he loved and honoured extremely,
discreet, grave, sober, good-conditioned, cleanly old gentle-
man as ever lived; she was none of your cross-grained,
magant, scolding jades, that one had as good be hanged as
e in the house with, such as are always censuring the conduct,
d telling scandalous stories of their neighbours, extolling their
n good qualities, and undervaluing those of others. On the
ntrary, she was of a meek spirit, and, as she was strictly
rtuous herself, so she always put the best construction upon
e words and actions of her neighbours, except where they
re irreconcileable to the rules of honesty and decency. She
as neither one of your precise prudes, nor one of your
ntastical old belles that dress themselves like girls of fifteen;
she neither wore a ruff forehead-cloth, nor high-crowned hat,
she had laid aside feathers, flowers, and crimped ribbons
her head-dress, furbelow-scarfs, and hooped petticoats. She
orned to patch and paint, yet she loved to keep her hands
d her face clean. Though she wore no flaunting faced ruffles,
e would not keep herself in a constant sweat with greasy
unnel; though her hair was not stuck with jewels, she was
ot ashamed of a diamond cross; she was not, like some ladies,
ung about with toys and trinkets, tweezer-cases, pocket glasses,
nd essence bottles; she used only a gold watch and an
lmanac, to mark the hours and the holy-days.
Her furniture was neat and genteel, well fancied with a
on-goût. As she affected not the grandeur of a state with a
anopy, she thought there was no offence in an elbow-chair;
he has laid aside your carving, gilding, and Japan work, as
eing too apt to gather dirt; but she never could be prevailed
pon to part with plain wainscot and clean hangings. There
re some ladies that affect to smell a stink in every thing;
hey are always highly perfumed, and continually burning
rankincense in their rooms; she was above such affectation,
et she would never lay aside the use of brooms and scrubbing-
rushes, and scrupled not to lay her linen in fresh lavender.
She was no less genteel in her behaviour, well-bred, without
ffectation, in the due mean between one of your affected
urtseying pieces of formality, and your romps that have no
Page 441
regard to the common rules of civility. There are some ladies
that affect a mighty regard for their relations: "we must not
eat to-day, for my uncle Tom, or my cousin Betty, died this
time ten years: let's have a ball to-night, it is my neighbour
such-a-one's birthday"; she looked upon all this as grimace;
yet she constantly observed her husband's birthday, her wedding-
day, and some few more.
Though she was a truly good woman, and had a sincere
motherly-love-for-her-son-John; yet there wanted not those
who endeavoured to create a misunderstanding between them,
and they had so far prevailed with him once, that he turned
her out of doors, to his great sorrow, as he found afterwards,
for his affairs went on at sixes and sevens.
She was no less judicious in the turn of her conversation
and choice of her studies, in which she far exceeded all her
sex: our rakes that hate the company of all sober, grave
gentlewomen, would bear her's; and she would, by her hand-
some manner of proceeding, sooner reclaim them than some
that were more sour and reserved. She was a zealous preacher
up of chastity, and conjugal fidelity in wives, and by no
means a friend to the new-fangled doctrine of the indispensable
duty of cuckoldom. Though she advanced her opinions with
a becoming assurance, yet she never ushered them in, as
some positive creatures will do, with dogmatical assertions,
"this is infallible; I cannot be mistaken; none but a rogue
can deny it." It has been observed, that such people are
oftener in the wrong than anybody.
Though she had a thousand good qualities, she was not
without her faults, amongst which one might perhaps reckon
too great lenity towards her servants, to whom she always
gave good counsel, but often too gentle correction. I thought
I could not say less of John Bull's mother, because she bears
a part in the following transactions.
(From The History of John Bull.)
SISTER PEG
John had a sister, a poor girl that had been starved at nurse;
anybody would have guessed Miss to have been bred up under
Page 442
the influence of a cruel step-dame, and John to be the fondling
of a tender mother. John looked ruddy and plump, with a
pair of cheeks like a trumpeter ; Miss looked pale and wan, as
if she had the green-sickness ; and no wonder, for John was
the darling, he had all the good bits, was crammed with good
pullet, chicken, pig, goose, and capon, while Miss had only
a little oatmeal and water, or a dry crust without butter. John
had his golden pippins, peaches, and nectarines ; poor Miss a
crab-apple, sloe, or a blackberry. Master lay in the best
apartment, with his bedchamber towards the south sun. Miss
lodged in a garret, exposed to the north wind, which shrivelled
her countenance ; however, this usage, though it stunted the
girl in her growth, gave her a hardy constitution ; she had
life and spirit in abundance, and knew when she was ill-used :
now and then she would seize upon John's commons, snatch
a leg of a pullet, or a bit of good beef, for which they were
sure to go to fisticuffs. Master was indeed too strong for her ;
but Miss would not yield in the least point, but, even when
Master had got her down, would scratch and bite like a tiger ;
when he gave her a cuff on the ear she would prick him with
her knitting-needle. John brought a great chain one day to
tie her to the bed-post, for which affront Miss aimed a pen-
knife at his heart ! In short, these quarrels grew to rooted
aversions ; they gave one another nick-names : she called him
gundy-guts, and he called her lousy Peg, though the girl was
a tight clever wench as any was, and through her pale looks
you might discern spirit and vivacity, which made her not,
indeed, a perfect beauty, but something that was agreeable. It
was barbarous in parents not to take notice of these early
quarrels, and make them live better together, such domestic
feuds proving afterwards the occasion of misfortunes to them
both. Peg had, indeed, some odd humours and comical
antipathies, for which John would jeer her. " What think you
of my sister Peg," says he, "that faints at the sound of an
organ, and yet will dance and frisk at the noise of a bagpipe ?"
" What's that to you, gundy-guts," quoth Peg, " everybody's to
choose their own music." Then Peg had taken a fancy not
to say her Paternoster, which made people imagine strange
things of her. Of the three brothers that have made such a
clutter in the world, Lord Peter, Martin, and Jack, Jack had
of late been her inclinations ; Lord Peter she detested ; nor did
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Martin stand much better in her graces, but Jack had found the way to her heart. I have often admired what charms she discovered in that awkward booby, till I talked with a person that was acquainted with the intrigue.
(From the Same.)
PHYSICAL PHILOSOPHY
In this design of Martin to investigate the diseases of the mind, he thought nothing so necessary as an inquiry after the seat of the soul ; in which, at first, he laboured under great uncertainties. Sometimes he was of opinion that it lodged in the brain, sometimes in the stomach, and sometimes in the heart. Afterwards he thought it absurd to confine that sovereign lady to one apartment, which made him infer that she shifted it according to the several functions of life : the brain was her study, the heart her state-room, and the stomach her kitchen. But as he saw several offices of life went on at the same time, he was forced to give up this hypothesis also. He now conjectured it was more for the dignity of the soul to perform several operations by her little ministers, the animal spirits, from whence it was natural to conclude, that she resides in different parts, according to different inclinations, sexes, ages, and professions. Thus, in epicures, he seated her in the mouth of the stomach, philosophers have her in the brain, soldiers in the heart, women in their tongues, fiddlers in their fingers, and rope-dancers in their toes. At length he grew fond of the Glandula pinealis, dissecting many subjects to find out the different figure of this gland, from whence he might discover the cause of the different tempers in mankind. He supposed that in factious and restless-spirited people, he should find it sharp and pointed, allowing no room for the soul to repose herself ; that in quiet tempers it was flat, smooth, and soft, affording to the soul, as it were, an easy cushion. He was confirmed in this by observing that calves and philosophers, tigers, and statesmen, foxes and sharpers, peacocks and fops, cock-sparrows and coquettes, monkeys and players, courtiers and spaniels, moles and misers, exactly resemble one another in the conformation of the pineal gland. He did not doubt likewise to find the same resemblance in highwaymen and conquerors : in order to satisfy himself in which it was that he purchased the
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body of one of the first species (as hath been before related) at
Tyburn, hoping in time to have the happiness of one of the
latter too under his anatomical knife.
We must not omit taking notice here, that these inquiries into
the seat of the soul gave occasion to his first correspondence with
the Society of Free-thinkers, who were then in their infancy in
England, and so much taken with the promising endowments of
Martin, that they ordered their secretary to write him the
following letter :--
To THE LEARNED INQUISITOR INTO NATURE, MARTINUS SCRIBLERUS ;
THE SOCIETY OF FREETHINKERS, GREETING:
GRECIAN COFFEE HOUSE, 7th May.
It is with unspeakable joy we have heard of your inquisitive genius, and
we think it great pity that it should not be better employed than in
looking after that theological nonentity commonly called the soul ; since
after all your inquiries, it will appear you have lost your labour in seeking
the residence of such a chimera, that never had being but in the brains of
some dreaming philosophers. Is it not demonstration to a person of your
sense, that since you cannot find it, there is no such thing ? In order to
set so hopeful a genius right in this matter, we have sent you an answer
to the ill-grounded sophisms of those crack-brained fellows, and likewise
an easy mechanical explanation of perception or thinking.
One of their chief arguments is, that self-consciousness cannot inhere
in any system of matter, because all matter is made up of several distinct
beings, which never can make up one individual thinking being.
This is easily answered by a familiar instance. In every jack there is
a meat-roasting quality, which neither resides in the fly, nor in the weight,
nor in any particular wheel of the jack, but is the result of the whole
composition ; so in an animal the self-consciousness is not a real quality
inherent in one being (any more than meat-roasting in a jack), but the
result of several modes or qualities in the same sulject. As the fly, the
wheels, the chain, the weight, the cords, etc., make one jack, so the
several parts of the body make one animal. As the perception or con-
sciousness is said to be inherent in this animal, so is the meat-roasting
said to be inherent in the jack. As the sensation, reasoning, volition,
memory, etc., are the several modes of thinking ; so roasting of beef,
roasting of mutton, roasting of pullets, geese, turkeys, etc., are the several
modes of meat-roasting. And as the general quality of meat-roasting,
with its several modifications as to beef, mutton, pullets, etc., does not
inhere in any one part of the jack ; so neither does consciousness with its
several modes of sensation, intellection, volition, etc., inhere in any one,
but is the result from the mechanical composition of the whole animal.
Just so, the quality or disposition in a fiddle to play tunes, with the
VOL. III
2 F
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several modifications of this tune-playing quality in playing preludes, sarabands, jigs, and gavots, are as much real qualities in the instrument, as the thought or the imagination is in the mind of the person that composes them.
The parts (they say) of an animal body are perpetually changed, and the fluids which seem to be the subject of consciousness are in a perpetual circulation ; so that the same individual particles do not remain in the brain ; from whence it will follow, that the idea of individual consciousness must be constantly translated from one particle of matter to another, whereby the particle A, for example, must not only be conscious, but conscious that it is the same being with the particle B that went before.
We answer, this is only a fallacy of the imagination, and is to be understood in no other sense than that maxim of the English law, that the king never dies. This power of thinking, self-moving, and governing the whole machine, is communicated from every particle to its immediate successor ; who, as soon as he is gone, immediately takes upon him the government, which still preserves the unity of the whole system.
They make a great noise about this individuality ; how a man is conscious to himself that he is the same individual he was twenty years ago ; notwithstanding the flux state of the particles of matter that compose his body. We think this is capable of a very plain answer, and may be easily illustrated by a familiar example.
Sir John Cutler had a pair of black worsted stockings, which his maid darned so often with silk, that they became at last a pair of silk stockings. Now supposing those stockings of Sir John's endued with some degree of consciousness at every particular darning, they would have been sensible that they were the same individual pair of stockings both before and after the darning; and this sensation would have continued in them through all the succession of darnings ; and yet, after the last of all, there was not perhaps one thread left of the first pair of stockings, but they were grown to be silk stockings, as was said before.
And whereas it is affirmed, that every animal is conscious of some individual self-moving, self-determining principle ; it is answered, that, as in a House of Commons all things are determined by a majority, so it is in every animal system. As that which determines the House is said to be the reason of the whole Assembly ; it is no otherwise with thinking beings, who are determined by the greater force of several particles ; which, like so many unthinking members, compose one thinking system.
And whereas it is likewise objected, that punishments cannot be just that are not inflicted upon the same individual, which cannot subsist without the notion of a spiritual substance ; we reply, that this is no greater difficulty to conceive, than that a corporation, which is likewise a flux body, may be punished for the faults, and liable to the debts, of their predecessors.
We proceed now to explain, by the structure of the brain, the several modes of thinking. It is well known to anatomists that the brain is a congeries of glands, that separate the finer parts of the blood, called animal spirits; that a gland is nothing, a canal of a great length, variously intorted and wound up together. From the aricitation and motion of the
Page 446
spirits in those canals, proceed all the different sorts of thoughts. Simple
ideas are produced by the motion of the spirits in one simple canal ; when
two of these canals disembogue themselves into one they make what we
call a proposition ; and when two of these propositional channels empty
themselves into a third, they form a syllogism, or a ratiocination.
Memory is performed in a distinct apartment of the brain, made up of
vessels similar and like situated to the ideal, propositional, and syllo-
gistical vessels, in the primary parts of the brain. After the same manner
it is easy to explain the other modes of thinking ; as also why some people
think so wrong and perversely, which proceeds from the bad configuration
of those glands. Some, for example, are born without the proportional
or syllogistical canals ; in others, that reason ill, they are of unequal
capacities ; in dull fellows, of too great a length, whereby the motion of
the spirits is retarded ; in trifling geniuses, weak and small ; in the over-
refining spirits, too much intorted and winding ; and so of the rest.
We are so much persuaded of the truth of this our hypothesis, that we
have employed one of our members, a great virtuoso at Nuremburg, to
make a sort of an hydraulic engine, in which a chemical liquor resembling
blood is driven through elastic channels resembling arteries and veins, by
the force of an embolus like the heart, and wrought by a pneumatic
machine of the nature of the lungs, with ropes and pullies, like the nerves,
tendons, and muscles ; and we are persuaded that this our artificial man
will not only walk, and speak, and perform most of the outward actions
of the animal life, but (being wound up once a week), will perhaps reason
as well as most of your country parsons.
We wait with the utmost impatience for the honour of having you a
member of our society, and beg leave to assure you that we are, etc.
(From Memoirs of Scriblerus.)
A FAREWELL LETTER
HAMPSTEAD, 4th October 1734.
My DEAR AND WORTHY Friend,—You have no reason to
put me among the rest of your forgetful friends ; for I wrote
two long letters to you, to which I never received one word of
answer. The first was about your health ; the last I sent a
great while ago by Mr. De la Mar. I can assure you with
great truth that none of your friends or acquaintance has a
more warm heart toward you than myself. I am going out
of this troublesome world and you among the rest of my
friends shall have my last prayers and good wishes.
The young man whom you recommended came to this
place, and I promised to do him what service my ill state of
health would permit. I came out to this place so reduced by
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a dropsy and an asthma that I could neither sleep, breathe, eat
nor move. I most earnestly desired and begged of God that
he would take me. Contrary to my expectation, upon venturing
to ride (which I had forborne for some years), I recovered my
strength to a pretty considerable degree, slept, and had my
stomach again; but I expect the return of my symptoms upon
my return to London and the return of the winter. I am not
in circumstances to live an idle country life; and no man at
my age ever recovered of such a disease further than by an
abatement of the symptoms. What I did, I can assure you,
was not for life but ease. For I am at present in the case
of a man that was almost in harbour, and then blown back to
sea; who has a reasonable hope of going to a good place,
and an absolute certainty of leaving a very bad one. Not that
I have any particular disgust at the world; for I have as
great comfort, in my own family, and from the kindness of my
friends, as any man; but the world, in the main, displeases me;
and I have too true a presentiment of calamities that are
likely to befall my country. However, if I should have the
happiness to see you before I die, you will find that I enjoy
the comforts of life with my usual cheerfulness. I cannot
imagine why you are frighted from a journey to England. The
reasons you assign are not sufficient; the journey I am sure
would do you good. In general I recommend riding, of which
I have always had a good opinion, and can now confirm it
from my own experience.
My family give you their love and service. The great loss
I sustained in one of them gave me my first shock: and the
trouble I have with the rest to bring them to a right temper,
to bear the loss of a father, who loves them, and whom they
love, is really a most sensible affliction for me. I am afraid,
my dear friend, we shall never see one another more in this
world. I shall, to the last moment, preserve my love and
esteem for you, being well assured you will never leave the
paths of virtue and honour; for all that is in this world is
not worth the least deviation from that way. It will be great
pleasure to me to hear from you sometimes; for none can be
with more sincerity than I am, my dear friend, your most
faithful friend and humble servant.
Jo. ARBUTHNOT.
(A Letter to Swift.)
Page 448
BERNARD DE MANDEVILLE
[Very little is known in detail of the life of Bernard Mandeville or de Man-
deville, one of the most notorious and best abused writers of the earlier 18th
century. He appears to have been born at Dort, in Holland, about 1670, and
to have died in London in January 1733 His father was a physician, and
Mandeville was well educated at Rotterdam and Leyden It does not seem
to be known when or why he came to London; but he must have done so
pretty early. He practised physic, it would seem, to the end of his life;
but never appears to have attained a sufficient position to have a house of
his own. One of the very rare personal traditions about him says that he was
pensioned by the distillers to write in favour of their wares—a statement not
quite reconcilable with dvers passages in his works, unless we are to take
these as an attempt at blackmailing. Another is his picturesque and pregnant
descriptian of Addison as 'a parson in a tie-wig.' By his own account he wrote,
before the end of the seventeenth century, a short poem in very rough but
rather vigorous octosyllables, entitled The Grumbling Hive This is a fable
wherein the corrupt practices which made a hive of bees populous and
prosperous, and the reformation which improved their morals and put an end
to their prosperity, are successively recounted. Bibliography however does not
seem to know any edition before 1705. The piece, according to Mandeville,
was both bought and pirated , but it was not till he reprinted it in 1714 with
divers prose additions that it attracted much attention This increased till,
after yet another enlarged reprint in 1723 as The Fable of the Bees, or Private
Vices Public Benefits, it was presented by the Grand Jury and drew many re-
plies, the fiercest and most severe of which was Law's Remarks, whilc later
Berkeley also attacked it very bitterly in Alciphron. Mandeville, who was not
afflicted with bashfulness, continued to enlarge his work till in the so-called
ninth edition (Edinburgh, 1755) it fills two small but closely printed volumes
of nearly four hundred pages each, the first containing the Fable and its ori-
ginal prose appendices ('Remarks,' a 'Vindication,' a 'Tract of Charity
Schools,' which excited Law's special wrath, and other things), whilc the second
is filled with Dialogues on what the author probably regarded as a tolerably
complete system of ethics, including what we now barbarously call sociology.
Mandeville's entire works have never been collected ; and the very titles of some
of them sufficiently indicate a moral purpose of very dubious sincerity. Even
the others, except the Fable itself, are not easy to obtain, and in some cases
are almost certainly spurious Of these last is The World Unmasked, a con-
siderable book giving itself out as translated from the French and published in
- Of the remainder An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and The Use-
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fulness of Christianity in War, continue the dialogues of the second part of
the Fable with the same personages and in the same spirit Five Thoughts on
Religion, the Church, and National Happiness, 1720, is also evidently genuine ·
the others need not be mentioned ]
THE FABLE OF THE BEES which, with its more immediate
appendices, contains almost everything of Mandeville's that is of
importance to any but the curious, is one of those unlucky books
which have become known to posterity chiefly by the polemical
efforts of others to suppress them. And as Law and Berkeley, to
name these only, were infinitely greater as well as infinitely better
men than Mandeville, the state of the latter under this dispensa-
tion is not gracious. Curiously enough the justest as well as the
acutest estimate of him in his own century comes from Johnson,
who was not wont to be very kind either to writers of doubtful
morality or to those of scarcely doubtful unorthodoxy. In a con-
versation not many years before his death, he hit the real blot in
Mandeville's ingenious sophism by pointing out that "he defines
neither vices nor benefits." He also declared that Mandeville,
whom he must have read not long after the hubbub of 1723 itself,
"did not puzzle him, but opened his views into real life very
much." And indeed the natural indignation which men like
Law and Berkeley must have felt at the extreme coarseness of tone
which characterises Mandeville, at the excessively low views of
human nature which he habitually takes, at his utter lack of rever-
ence, of sense of beauty, of feeling for whatsoever dignifies and
ennobles life, must be admitted to have made them somewhat un-
fair to him. His protestations of orthodox intention, or at least of
freedom from all intentional unorthodoxy, are indeed, like most such
protests in the 18th century, to be taken with something more than
grave suspicion. His doctrine that private vices are public bene-
fits—in other words that avarice, luxury, unjust wars, and so forth
conduce to the welfare of the body politic—may have been partly
due, as Johnson points out, to a neglect to define his terms, and
was partly also no doubt wilful paradox. His ethical and political
philosophy, so far as he has any, is Hobbism degraded. And the
coarseness before referred to—a coarseness which does not consist
so much in the use of offensive language as in an almost incredi-
ble vulgarity and foulness of tone, in the dragging in of offensive
illustrations at every opportunity, in studious belittling and defil-
ing of motive and sentiment and feeling—is disgusting enough.
But there seems little doubt that his original object was to ridicule
Page 450
and decry the sentimental and genteel finicalness of Shaftesbury's
notion of virtue; and there is no doubt at all that with all his
drawbacks he possesses a certain hard rough common sense and
acuteness which are very uncommon. He has among other
Mephistophelean characteristics that of being detestable, but not
despicable; and, though utterly blind to high things, he sees low
things with a clearness that is frequently astonishing and almost
admirable.
It is his form, however, that concerns us here, and in this also
he is not despicable. His verse is very uncouth, and his prose is
frequently incorrect and never in any way polished; but he
makes up for this by many of the merits of Defoe, to whom in
character as in period he is very close. Many of his characters
-the special knack of the time-possess great felicity and truth of
touch; his argument, sophistical as it commonly is, is put with a good
deal of surface clearness and cogency; and his illustrations and
digressive passages have singular liveliness and force. They are
indeed frequently unpleasant (there is a passage describing a
swine devouring a child which any French naturalist of the
younger school might be proud of); but the sketches of the crowd
before the gallows at Newgate, that on gin-selling and gin-drinking
given below, and others in no small numbers scattered about his
works show a vividness of narrative and almost dramatic presenta-
tion worthy of writers of far higher traditional repute. Nor is
he less considerable as a satirist, and the "Parable of
Small Beer" in his Remarks is worthy of Arbuthnot, if not even
of Swift. The proverb about the commoner words of our lan-
guage being "good Yorkshire and good Fricse," is certainly con-
firmed by the vigour and ease with which this Dutchman uses the
English vernacular. And though his sudden and not very savoury
notoriety tempted him to indulge in long and dull dissertations
where the merit of his style is spun too thin to cover the naked-
ness of his sophistry, he must still at his best remain a striking
exemplar of one of the most nervous if not the most elegant
periods of English writing, and deserve a place in the division of
English prose history which includes Latimer and Bunyan, Defoe
and Cobbett.
GEORGE SAINTSBURY.
Page 451
THE GENESIS OF VANITY
WHEN the incomparable Sir Richard Steele, in the usual elegance of his easy style, dwells on the praises of his sublime species, and with all the embellishments of rhetoric sets forth the excellency of human nature, it is impossible not to be charmed with his happy turns of thought, and the politeness of his expressions.
But though I have been often moved by the force of his eloquence, and ready to swallow the ingenious sophistry with pleasure, yet I could never be so serious but, reflecting on his artful encomiums, I thought on the tricks made use of by the women that would teach children to be mannerly.
When an awkward girl, before she can either speak or go, begins, after many entreaties, to make the first rude essays of curtseying, the nurse falls into an ecstasy of praise ; "There's a delicate curtsey ! O fine Miss ! There's a pretty lady ! Mamma ! Miss can make a better curtsey than her sister Molly !" The same is echoed over by the maids, whilst mamma almost hugs the child to pieces : only Miss Molly, who being four years older, knows how to make a very handsome curtsey, wonders at the perverseness of their judgment, and, swelling with indignation, is ready to cry at the injustice that is done her, till, being whispered, in the ear that it is only to please the baby, and that she is a woman, she grows proud at being let into the secret ; and rejoicing at the superiority of her understanding, repeats what has been said with large additions, and insults over the weakness of her sister, whom all this while she fancies to be the only bubble among them.
These extravagant praises would, by any one above the capacity of an infant, be called fulsome flatteries, and, if you will, abominable lies ; yet experience teaches us, that by the help of such gross encomiums, young misses will be brought to make pretty curtsies, and behave themselves womanly much sooner, and with less trouble, than they would without them.
'Tis the same with boys, whom they'll
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strive to persuade, that all fine gentlemen do as they are bid, and
that none but beggar boys are rude, or dirty their clothes ; nay as
soon as the wild brat with his untaught fist begins to fumble for
his hat, the mother, to make him pull it off, tells him, before he is
two years old, that he is a man, and if he repeats that action
when she desires him, he's presently a captain, a lord mayor, a
king, or something higher, if she can think of it ; till, egged on
by the force of praise, the little urchin endeavours to imitate man
as well as he can, and strains all his faculties to appear what his
shallow noddle imagines he is believed to be.
DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND
Decio, a man of great figure, that had large commissions for
sugar from several parts beyond sea, treats about a considerable
parcel of that commodity with Alcander, an eminent West India
merchant ; both understood the market very well, but could not
agree : Decio was a man of substance, and thought nobody
ought to buy cheaper than himself ; Alcander was the same, and
not wanting money, stood for his price. Whilst they were driv-
ing their bargain at a tavern near the exchange, Alcander's man
brought his master a letter from the West Indies, that informed
him of a much greater quantity of sugars coming for England
than was expected. Alcander now wished for nothing more than
to sell at Decio's price, before the news was public ; but being a
cunning fox, that he might not seem too precipitant, nor yet lose
his customer, he drops the discourse they were upon, and, putting
on a jovial humour, commends the agreeableness of the weather,
from whence falling upon the delight he took in his gardens,
invites Decio to go along with him to his country house, that was
not above twelve miles from London. It was in the month of
May, and as it happened upon a Saturday in the afternoon, Decio
who was a single man, and would have no business in town
before Tuesday, accepts of the other's civility, and away they go
in Alcander's coach. Decio was splendidly entertained that
night, and the day following ; the Monday morning, to get him-
self an appetite, he goes to take the air upon a pad of Alcander's,
and coming back meets with a gentleman of his acquaintance,
Page 453
who tells him news was come the night before, that the Barbados
fleet was destroyed by a storm, and adds that before he came out,
it had been confirmed at Lloyd's coffee-house, where it was
thought sugars would rise twenty-five per cent by 'change time.
Decio returns to his friend, and immediately resumes the dis-
course they had broke off at the tavern : Alcander, who thinking
himself sure of his chap, did not design to have moved it till after
dinner, was very glad to see himself so happily prevented ; but
how desirous so ever he was to sell, the other was yet more eager
to buy ; yet both of them, afraid of one another for a considerable
time, counterfeited all the indifference imaginable ; till at last
Decio, fired with what he had heard, thought delays might prove
dangerous, and, throwing a guinea upon the table, struck the
bargain at Alcander's price. The next day they went to London ;
the news proved true, and Decio got five hundred pounds by his
sugars. Alcander, whilst he had strove to over-reach the other,
was paid in his own coin ; yet all this is called fair dealing ; but
I am sure neither of them would have desired to be done by, as
they did to each other.
GIN
Nothing is more destructive, either in regard to the health, or the
vigilance and industry of the poor, than the infamous liquor, the
name of which, derived from Juniper in Dutch, is now by frequent
use and the laconic spirit of the nation, from a word of middling
length shrunk into a monosyllable, intoxicating gin, that charms
the inactive, the desperate and crazy of either sex, and makes the
starving sot behold his rags and nakedness with stupid indolence,
or banter both in senseless laughter, and more insipid jests ; it is
a fiery lake that sets the brain in flame, burns up the entrails, and
scorches every part within ; and at the same time a Lethe of
oblivion, in which the wretch immersed drowns his most pinching
cares, and, with his reason, all anxious reflection on brats that cry
for food, hard winter's frosts, and horrid empty home.
In hot and adust tempers it makes men quarrelsome, renders
them brutes and savages, sets them on to fight for nothing, and
has often been the cause of murder. It has broke and destroyed
the strongest constitutions, thrown them into consumptions, and
Page 454
been the fatal and immediate occasion of apoplexies, phrensies,
and sudden death But as these latter mischiefs happen but
seldom, they might be overlooked and connived at, but this
cannot be said of the many diseases that are familiar to the liquor,
and which are daily and hourly produced by it ; such as loss of
appetite, fevers, black and yellow jaundice, convulsions, stone and
gravel, dropsies and leucophlegmacies.
Among the doting admirers of this liquid poison, many of the
meanest rank, from a sincere affection to the commodity itself,
become dealers in it, and take delight to help others to what they
love themselves, as whores commence bawds to make the profits
of one trade subservient to the pleasures of the other. But as these
starvelings commonly drink more than their gains, they seldom
by selling mend the wretchedness of condition they laboured
under whilst they were only buyers. In the fag-end and out-
skirts of the town, and all places of the vilest resort, it is sold in
some part or other of almost every house, frequently in cellars,
and sometimes in the garret. The petty traders in this Stygian
comfort are supplied by others in somewhat higher station, that
keep professed brandy shops, and are as little to be envied as the
former ; and among the middling people, I know not a more
miserable shift for a livelihood than their calling ; whoever would
thrive in it, must in the first place be of a watchful and suspicious,
as well as a bold and resolute temper, that he may not be imposed
upon by cheats and sharpers, nor out-bullicd by the oaths and
imprecations of hackney coachmen and foot soldiers ; in the
second, he ought to be a dabster at gross jokes and loud laughter,
and have all the winning ways to allure customers and draw out
their money, and be well versed in the low jest and railleries the
mob make use of to banter prudence and frugality. He must be
affable and obsequious to the most despicable ; always ready and
officious to help a porter down with his load, shake hands with a
basket-woman, pull off his hat to an oyster wench, and be familiar
with a beggar ; with patience and good humour he must be able
to endure the filthy actions and viler language of nasty dabs,
and the loudest rake-hells, and without a frown or the least
aversion bear with all the stench and squalor, noise and impertin-
ence that the utmost indigence, laziness, and ebriety can produce
in the most shameless and abandoned vulgar.
The vast number of the shops I speak of throughout the city
and suburbs are an astonishing evidence of the many seducers
Page 455
that, in a lawful occupation, are accessory to the introduction and
increase of all the sloth, sottishness, want, and misery which the
abuse of strong waters is the immediate cause of, to lift above
mediocrity perhaps half a dozen men that deal in the same
commodity by wholesale; whilst among the retailers, though
qualified as I required, a much greater number are broke and
ruined, for not abstaining from the Circean cup they hold out to
others; and the more fortunate are their whole lifetime obliged
to take the uncommon pains, endure the hardships, and swallow
all the ungrateful and shocking things I named, for little or
nothing beyond a bare sustenance, and their daily bread.
A PARABLE OF SMALL BEER
In old heathen times there was, they say, a whimsical country,
where the people talked much of religion, and the greatest part as
to outward appearance seemed really devout: the chief moral evil
among them was thirst, and to quench it a damnable sin; yet
they unanimously agreed that every one was born thirsty more or
less: small beer in moderation was allowed to all, and he was
counted an hypocrite, a cynic, or a madman, who pretended that
one could live altogether without it; yet, those who owned they
loved it, and drank it to excess, were counted wicked. All this
while the beer itself was reckoned a blessing from heaven, and
there was no harm in the use of it: all the enormity lay in the
abuse, the motive of the heart, that made them drink it. He that
took the least drop of it to quench his thirst, committed a heinous
crime, whilst others drank large quantities without any guilt, so
they did it indifferently, and for no other reason than to mend
their complexion.
They brewed for other countries as well as their own, and for
the small beer they sent abroad, received large returns of West-
phalia hams, neats' tongues, hung beef, and Bolonia sausages, red
herrings, pickled sturgeon, caviare, anchovies, and everything that
was proper to make their liquor go down with pleasure. Those
who kept great stores of small beer by them without making use
of it were generally envied, and at the same time very odious to
the public, and nobody was easy that had not enough of it come
to his own share. The greatest calamity they thought could
Page 456
befall them, was to keep their hops and barley upon their hands,
and the more they yearly consumed of them, the more they
reckoned the country to flourish.
The government had made very wise regulations concerning
the returns that were made for their exports, encouraged very
much the importation of salt and pepper, and laid heavy duties on
everything that was not well seasoned, and might any wise
obstruct the sale of their own hops and barley. Those at the helm,
when they acted in public, showed themselves on all accounts
exempt and wholly divested from thirst, made several laws to
prevent the growth of it, and punish the wicked who openly dared
to quench it. If you examined them in their private persons, and
pry'd narrowly into their lives and conversations, they seemed to
be more fond, or at least drank larger draughts of small beer than
others, but always under pretence that the mending of complex-
ions required greater quantities of liquor in them, than it did in
those they ruled over; and that what they had chiefly at heart,
without any regard to themselves, was to procure great plenty of
small beer among the subjects in general, and a great demand for
their hops and barley.
As nobody was debarred from small beer, the clergy made use
of it as well as the laity, and some of them very plentifully; yet
all of them desired to be thought less thirsty by their functions
than others, and never would own that they drank any but to
mend their complexions. In their religious assemblies they were
more sincere; for as soon as they came there, they all openly
confessed, the clergy as well as the laity, from the highest to the
lowest, that they were thirsty, that mending their complexions
was what they minded the least, and that all their hearts were
set upon small beer and quenching their thirst, whatever they
might pretend to the contrary. What was remarkable is, that to
have laid hold of those truths to anyone's prejudice, and made
use of those confessions out of their temples, would have been
counted very impertinent, and everybody thought it a heinous
affront to be called thirsty, though you had seen him drink small
beer by whole gallons. The chief topic of their preachers was the
great evil of thirst, and the folly there was in quenching it. They
exhorted their hearers to resist the temptations of it, inveighed
against small beer, and often told them it was poison, if they
drank it with pleasure, or with any other design than to mend
their complexions.
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In their acknowledgments to the gods, they thanked them for
the plenty of comfortable small beer they had received from them,
notwithstanding they had so little deserved it, and continually
quenched their thirst with it ; whereas they were so thoroughly
satisfied that it was given them for a better use. Having begged
pardon for these offences, they desired the gods to lessen their
thirst, and give them strength to resist the importunities of it;
yet in the midst of their sorest repentance, and most humble
supplications, they never forgot small beer, and prayed that
they might continue to have it in great plenty, with a solemn
promise, that however neglectful soever they might hitherto have
been in this point, they would for the future not drink a drop of it
with any other design than to mend their complexions.
These were standing petitions put together to last ; and having
continued to be made use of without any alterations for several
hundred years together, it was thought by some, that the gods,
who understood futurity, and knew that the same promise they
heard in June would be made to them the January following, did
not rely much more on these vows, than we do on those waggish
inscriptions by which men offer us their goods, " To-day for
money, and to-morrow for nothing." They often began their
prayers very mystically, and spoke many things in a spiritual
sense ; yet, they never were so abstract from the world in them,
as to end one without beseeching the gods to bless and prosper
the brewing trade in all its branches, and for the good of the
whole, more and more to increase the consumption of hops and
barley.
Page 458
LORD SHAFTESBURY
[Anthony Ashley Cooper, third Earl of Shaftesbury, was born in 1671.
His education was superintended by Locke, which probably accounts for his
reaction from the Lockian philosophy. He was at Winchester from 1683 to
1686 He sat for a time in Parliament, but for the most part he lived the
life of a student in ill-health. He was a traveller ; he visited Holland, and
made the acquaintance of Bayle, and in 1708 he began to publish pamphlets,
mainly on ethical subjects. The most important of these is the Enquiry
concerning Virtue or Merit. They are reprinted in a collection entitled
Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, and Times (1711). - In 1709 he
married, and in 1712 he died. A fine edition of the Characteristics was
printed by Baskerville in 1773, and the first volume has been more recently
edited by Mr Hatch Two or three specimens of his correspondence have
also been printed ; the most interesting is the Letters written by a Noble Lord
to a Young Man at the University (1716). The student may consult Professor
Fowler's Shaftesbury and Hutcheson, Professor Sidgwick's History of Ethics,
and Mr. Leslie Stephen's English Thought in the Eighteenth Century ]
In the essentials of their philosophical position, Shaftesbury and
Henry More are at one. Both represent the refusal, the character-
istically English refusal, to accept the formulas of Hobbes and
Locke as the last word on things human and divine. Both point
to the unexplored fields, the unexplained residuum of the spiritual
life, which those formulas fail to touch. Yet in all else they are
each other's antipodes. More is eminently of the seventeenth
century--poet, dreamer, Platonist, abhorrent of system, and ever
hunting the shy, elusive fringes of truth, he presents a world full
of mystery and colour, rich with gracious half-lights and reverent
shadows. Not so Shaftesbury : sceptical where More is credulous,
clear where More is vague, he wields for imagination the dry
light of analysis, and champions the spiritual in a tone that robs
it of its spirituality. He is one of the first embodiments of the
eighteenth century spirit in speculation, and has all the merits and
most of the defects which we habitually associate with that
spirit.
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He writes in a style which is consummately easy and lucid.
There are none of those obscurities and experimental reaches of
thought which in other thinkers one sometimes finds so puzzling
and so suggestive; his meaning may not be very profound, but
it is at least expressed for the better understanding of the plain
man. He brings into English prose an order and a clearness of
which it was beginning to stand in some need. The worst that
can be said of him is that he is terribly affected—“genteel” was
Charles Lamb’s epithet. He is not always in buckram; he will unbend to you; but all the same his treatises invariably smack of
the superior person, the man of birth, debarred by circumstances
from his natural pursuit of politics, and condescending to while
away a part of his too abundant leisure in unravelling some niceties
of the intellect. Unwilling to appear a pedant, he falls into the
opposite vices of desultoriness and superficiality.
As a thinker Shaftesbury made definite and prominent an
important principle of morals—that man is not a solitary unit, to
be treated in vacuo as a self-contained whole; but rather a centre
of forces in a complex society, dependent on others at every turn,
with desires and modes of conduct inextricably entangled with
theirs. Or, to use a phraseology nearer his own, Shaftesbury
taught that man’s benevolent impulses are as fundamental and
natural, as much a part of man himself, as those which are self-
regarding—and that an ethical scheme which takes into account
the one and neglects the other must needs be one-sided and
incomplete. He struck a real blot in the reasoning of his pre-
decessors, and laid down the lines on which English psychological
ethics were to proceed for some time to come.
Shaftesbury’s moral doctrine is positive enough, but he had
his negative side also. The element of analysis, of criticism, in
him led him into the camp of the unorthodox, and he ranks
among the able, if transient, school of English Deists. Hence
his influence over French thought, as French thought culminated
in the worship of the Supreme Reason; while he is at once with
Voltaire, as well as with certain brilliant writers, both French
and English, of our own day, in finding the true solvent of
superstition and fanaticism, not in persecution, but in humour.
E. K. CHAMBERS.
Page 460
ON ENTHUSIASM
THUS, my Lord, there are many panics in mankind, besides merely that of fear. And thus is religion also panic, when enthusiasm of any kind gets up, as oft, on melancholy occasions it will; for vapours naturally rise, and in bad times especially, when the spirits of men are low, as either in public calamities, or during the unwholesomeness of air or diet, or when convulsions happen in nature, storms, earthquakes, or other amazing prodigies : at this season the panic must needs run high, and the magistrate of necessity give way to it. For, to apply a serious remedy, and bring the sword, or fasces, as a cure, must make the case more melancholy, and increase the very cause of the distemper. To forbid men's natural fears, and to endeavour the overpowering them by other fears, must needs be a most unnatural method. The magistrate, if he be any artist, should have a gentler hand, and instead of caustics, incisions, and amputations, should be using the softest balms, and, with a kind sympathy, entering into the concern of the people, and taking, as it were, their passion upon him, should, when he has soothed and satisfied it, endeavour, by cheerful ways, to divert and heal it.
This was ancient policy; and hence, as a notable author of our nation expresses it, it is necessary a people should have a public leading in Religion. For to deny the magistrate a worship, or take away a National Church, is as mere enthusiasm as the notion which sets up persecution. For why should there not be public walks as well as private gardens? Why not public libraries as well as private education and home-tutors? But to prescribe bounds to fancy and speculation, to regulate men's apprehensions, and religious beliefs or fears, to suppress by violence the natural passion of enthusiasm, or to endeavour to ascertain it, or reduce it to one species, or bring it under
VOL. III
2 G
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any one modification, is in truth no better sense, nor derives a
better character, than what the comedian declares of the like
project in the affair of love.
"Nihilo plus agas
Quam si des operam, ut cum ratione insaniâs."
Not only the visionaries and enthusiasts of all kinds were
tolerated, your lordship knows, by the ancients, but, on the
other side, philosophy had as free a course, and was permitted
as a balance against superstition; and whilst some sects, such
as the Pythagoreân and latter Platonic, joined in with the
superstition and enthusiasm of the times, the Epicurean, the
Academic, and others, were allowed to use all the force of
wit and raillery against it. And thus matters were happily
balanced. Reason had fair play; learning and science flourished.
Wonderful was the harmony and temper which arose from all
these contrarieties. Thus superstition and enthusiasm were
mildly treated, and being left alone, they never rose to that
degree as to occasion bloodshed, wars, persecutions, and devasta-
tions in the world. But a new sort of policy, which extends
itself to another world, and considers the future lives and
happiness of men rather than the present, has made us leap
the bounds of natural humanity, and out of a supernatural
charity, has taught us the way of plaguing one another most
devoutly. It has raised an antipathy which no temporal
interest could ever do, and entailed upon us a mutual hatred
to all eternity; and now uniformity in opinion (a hopeful
project!) is looked upon as the only expedient against this evil.
The saving of souls is now the heroic passion of exalted spirits,
and is become in a manner the chief care of the magistrate,
and the very end of government itself.
If magistracy should vouchsafe to interpose thus much in
other sciences I am afraid we should have as bad logic, as bad
mathematics, and in every kind as bad philosophy, as we often
have divinity in countries where a precise orthodoxy is settled
by law. It is a hard matter for a government to settle wit. If
it does but keep us sober and honest, it is likely we shall have
as much ability in our spiritual as in our temporal affairs; and
if we can but be trusted, we shall have wit enough to save
ourselves, when no prejudice lies in the way. But if honesty
and wit be insufficient for this saving work, it is in vain for
Page 462
the magistrate to meddle with it, since, if he be ever so virtuous
or wise, he may be as soon mistaken as another man. I am
sure the only way to save men's sense or preserve wit at all in
the world, is to give liberty to wit. Now wit can never have
its liberty, where the freedom of raillery is taken away; for
against serious extravagancies and splenetic humours, there is
no other remedy than this.
We have indeed full power over all other modifications of
spleen. We may treat other enthusiasms as we please. We
may ridicule love or gallantry, or knight-errantry, to the utmost :
and we find that, in the latter days of wit, the humour of this
kind, which was once so prevalent, is pretty well declined. The
Crusades, the rescuing of Holy Lands, and such devout gallantries,
are in less request than formerly. But if something of this
militant religion, something of this soul-rescuing spirit and saint-
errantry prevails still, we need not wonder, when we consider
in how solemn a manner we treat this distemper, and how
preposterously we go about to cure enthusiasm.
I can hardly forbear fancying, that if we had a sort of
inquisition, or formal court of judicature, with grave officers and
judges, erected to restrain poetical license, and in general to
suppress that fancy and humour of versification, but in particular
that most extravagant passion of love, as it is set out by poets,
in its heathenish dress of Venuses and Cupids; if the poets,
as ringleaders and teachers of this heresy, were, under grievous
penalties, forbid to enchant the people by the vein of rhyming ;
and if the people, on the other side, were, under proportionable
penalties, forbid to hearken to any such charm, or lend their
attention to any love tale, so much as in a play, a novel, or a
ballad, we might perhaps see a new Arcadia rising out of this
heavy persecution : old people and young would be seized with
a versifying spirit: we should have field-conventicles of lovers
and poets: forests would be filled with romantic shepherds and
shepherdesses, and rocks resound with echoes of hymns and
praises offered to the powers of love. We might indeed have
a fair chance, by this managment, to bring back the whole
train of heathen gods, and set our cold northern island burning
with as many altars to Venus and Apollo as were formerly in
Cyprus, Delos, or any of those warmer Grecian climates.
(From A Letter concerning Enthusiasm.)
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THE PLEASURE OF THE NATURAL AFFECTIONS
THERE is no one of ever so little understanding in what belongs
to a human constitution, who knows not that without action,
motion, and employment, the body languishes and is oppressed ;
its nourishment turns to disease ; the spirits, unemploy'd abroad,
help to consume the parts within ; and nature, as it were, preys
upon herself. In the same manner, the sensible and living
part, the soul or mind, wanting its proper and natural exercise,
is burdened and diseased. Its thoughts and passions being
unnaturally withheld from their due objects, turn against itself,
and create the highest impatience and ill-humour.
In brutes and other creatures, who have not the use of
reason and reflection (at least not after the manner of mankind)
it is so ordered in nature, that by their daily search after food,
and their application either towards the business of their liveli-
hood, or the affairs of their species or kind, almost their whole
time is taken up, and they fail not to find full employment for
their passion, according to that degree of agitation to which
they are fitted, and which their constitution requires. If any
one of these creatures be taken out of his natural laborious state,
and placed amidst such a plenty as can profusely administer
to all his appetites and wants ; it may be observ'd that as his
circumstances grow thus luxuriant, his temper and passions
have the same growth. When he comes, at any time, to have
the accommodations of life at a cheaper and casier rate than
was at first intended him by nature, he is made to pay dear
for them in another way, by losing his natural good disposition,
and the orderliness of his kind or species.
This needs not to be demonstrated by particular instances.
Whoever has the least knowledge of natural history, or has
been an observer of the several breeds of creatures, and their
ways of life, and propagation, will easily understand this
difference of orderliness between the wild and tame of the
same species. The latter acquire new habits, and deviate from
their original nature. They lose even the common instinct and
ordinary ingenuity of their kind ; nor can they ever regain it,
whilst they continue in this pampered state ; but being turned
to shift abroad, they resume the natural affection and sagacity
of their species. They learn to unite in stricter fellowship ; and
Page 464
grow more concerned for their offspring. They provide against
the seasons, and make the most of every advantage given by
nature for the support and maintenance of their particular species,
against such as are foreign and hostile. And thus as they
grow busy and employed, they grow regular and good. Their
petulancy and vice forsakes them with their idleness and ease.
It happens with mankind that whilst some are by necessity
confined to labour, others are provided with abundance of all
things by the pains and labour of inferiors. Now, if amongst
the superior and easy sort, there be not something of fit and
proper employment raised in the room of what is wanting in
common labour and toil ; if instead of an application to any
sort of work, such as has a good and honest end in society (as
like) there be a thorough neglect of all duty or employment, a
settled idleness, supineness, and inactivity ; this of necessity must
occasion a most relaxed and dissolute state: it must produce a
total disorder of the passions, and break out in the strangest
irregularities imaginable.
We see the enormous growth of luxury in capital cities, such
as have been long the seat of empire. We see what improve-
ments are made in vice of every kind, where numbers of men
are maintained in lazy opulence, and wanton plenty. It is
otherwise with those who are taken up in honest and due
employment and have been well inured to it from their youth.
This we may observe in the hardy remote provincials, the
inhabitants of smaller towns, and the industrious sort of common
people; where it is rare to meet with any instances of those
irregularities, which are known in courts and palaces, and in
the rich foundations of easy and pampered priests.
Now if what we have advanced concerning an inward con-
stitution be real and just ; if it be true that Nature works by a
just order and regulation as well in the passions and affections
as in the limbs and organs which she forms ; if it appears withal,
that she has so constituted this inward part, that nothing is so
essential to it as exercise ; and no exercise is so essential
that of social or natural affection : it follows that where this
is removed or weakened, the inward part must necessarily suffer
and be impaired. Let indolence, indifference, and insensibility
be studied as an art, or cultivated with the utmost care ; the
passions thus restrained will force their prison, and in one way
Page 465
or other procure their liberty, and find full employment. They
will be sure to create to themselves unusual and unnatural
exercise, where they are cut off from such as is natural and
good. And thus in the room of orderly and natural affection,
new and unnatural must be raised, and all inward order and
economy destroyed.
One must have a very imperfect idea of the order of Nature
in the formation and structure of animals, to imagine that so
great a principle, so fundamental a part as that of natural
affection should possibly be lost or impaired, without any
inward ruin or subversion of the temper and frame of mind.
Whoever is the least versed in this moral kind of architecture,
will find the inward fabric so adjusted and the whole so nicely
built, that the barely extending of a single passion a little too
far, or the continuance of it too long, is able to bring irrecover-
able ruin and misery. He will find this experienced in the
ordinary case of frenzy, and distraction; when the mind, dwelling
too long upon one subject (whether prosperous or calamitous),
sinks under the weight of it, and proves what the necessity is,
of a due balance and counterpoise in the affections. He will
find, that in every different creature, and distinct sex, there is
a different and distinct order, set, or suit of passions; proportion-
able to the different order of life, the different functions and
capacities assigned to each. As the operations and effects are
different, so are the springs and causes in each system. The
inside work is fitted to the outward action and performance. So
that where habits or affections are dislodged, misplaced, or
changed; where those belonging to one species are intermixed
with those belonging to another, there must of necessity be
confusion and disturbance within.
All this we may observe easily, by comparing the more
perfect with the imperfect natures, such as are imperfect from
their birth, by having suffered violence within, in their earliest
form and inmost matrix. We know how it is with monsters,
such as are compounded of different kinds, or different sexes.
Nor are they less monsters, who are misshapen or distorted in
an inward part. The ordinary animals appear unnatural and
monstrous, when they lose their proper instincts, forsake their
kind, neglect their offspring, and pervert those functions or
capacities bestowed by nature. How wretched must it be,
therefore, for MAN, of all other creatures, to lose that sense
Page 466
LORD SHAFTESBURY
455
and feeling, which is proper to him as a man, and suitable to
his character and genius? How unfortunate must it be for a
creature, whose dependence on society is greater than any other's,
to lose that natural affection by which he is prompted to the
good and interest of his species, and community? Such indeed
is man's natural share of this affection, that he, of all other
creatures, is plainly the least able to bear solitude. Nor is
anything more apparent, than that there is naturally in every
man such a degree of social affection as inclines him to seek
the familiarity and friendship of his fellows. It is here that
he lets loose a passion, and gives reins to a desire, which can
hardly by any struggle or inward violence be withheld; or if it
be, is sure to create a sadness, dejection, and melancholy in the
mind. For whoever is unsociable, and voluntarily shuns society,
or commerce with the world, must of necessity be morose and
ill-natured. He, on the other side, who is withheld by force
or accident, finds in his temper the ill effects of his restraint.
The inclination, when suppressed, breeds discontent; and on the
contrary affords a healing and enlivening joy, when acting at
its liberty, and with full scope: as we may see particularly, when,
after a time of solitude and long absence, the heart is opened,
the mind disburdened, and the secrets of the breast unfolded to
a bosom-friend.
This we see yet more remarkably instanced in persons of
the most elevated stations; even in princes, monarchs, and
those who seem by their condition to be above ordinary human
commerce, and who affect a sort of distant strangeness from the
rest of mankind. But their carriage is not the same towards all
men. The wiser and better sort, it is true, are often held at
a distance; as unfit for their intimacy or secret trust. But, to
compensate this, there are others substituted in their room
who, though they have the least merit, and are perhaps the
most vile and contemptible of men, are sufficient, however, to
serve the purpose of an imaginary friendship, and can become
favourites in form. These are the subjects of humanity in the
Great. For these, we see them often in concern and pain; in
these, they easily confide; to these, they can with pleasure
communicate their power and greatness, be open, free, generous,
confiding, bountiful; as rejoicing in the action itself: having no
intention or aim beyond it; and their interest, in respect of
policy, often standing a quite contrary way. But where neither
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the love of mankind, nor the passion for favourites prevails,
the tyrannical temper fails not to shew itself in its proper
colours, and to the life, with all the bitterness, cruelty, and
mistrust, which belong to that solitary and gloomy state of
uncommunicative and unfriendly greatness. Nor needs there
any particular proof from history, or present time, to second
this remark.
Thus it may appear, how much natural affection is pre-
dominant; how it is inwardly joined to us, and implanted in
our natures; how interwoven with our other passions; and how
essential to that regular motion and course of our affections, on
which our happiness and self-enjoyment so immediately depend.
And thus we have demonstrated, that as, on one side, to
have the natural and good affections is to have the chief means
and power of self-enjoyment: so, on the other side, to want
them is certain misery and ill.
(From An Enquiry concerning Virtue.)
Page 468
LATTERBURY
[Francis Atterbury was born at Milton, in Bucks (where his father was rector), in 1672, and was educated at Westminster and Christ Church, Oxford. He made his first appearance in controversy as the defender of Luther against Obadiah Walker, the Roman Catholic whom James II. had made Master of the University ; and a few years later intervened in the Phalaris controversy, as the supporter of Boyle against Bentley. Although the controversy was fierce, and although the whole weight of scholarship was on Bentley's side, it did not prevent a subsequent friendship between Atterbury and Bentley. After taking orders Atterbury became preacher at Bridewell, and attained to great reputation as a pulpit orator During the next few years he was a vigorous exponent of High Church doctrine, and fought for the rights of Convocation. He was appointed successively Archdeacon of Totnes, Dean of Carlisle, Dean of Christ Church, and eventually, in 1713, Bishop of Rochester and Dean of Westminster. Becoming involved in a charge of Jacobite conspiracy, he was committed to the Tower, and by a bill of attainder was deprived of all his appointments, and banished from the kingdom in 1723. He died in France in 1732.]
THE character of Atterbury is one which presents seeming inconsistencies, but is nevertheless transparent enough. A warm and affectionate nature, keen sensibility, much gentleness and tenderness, were united to a passionate and often turbulent temper, to a readiness for disputation, to ambition, and, it must be added, to some vanity. It was a nature neither very rare nor very complicated ; which might make enemies, but which was also eminently fitted to attract friends. Mrs. Pilkington, whose gossipy reminiscences of Swift contain a few passages of real value, tells us of " the character I have heard Bishop Berkeley give to Bishop Atterbury, namely, a most learned fine gentleman, who, under the softest and politest appearance, concealed the most turbulent ambition." The picture is in outline the same as that drawn by all his contemporaries, who vary only in the amount of light and shade which they impart to it ; even Pope's well-known line—
" How pleasing Atterbury's softer hour,"
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implies that there were hours which were less soft ; hours when
disappointed ambition, love of intrigue, and the thirst of combat
turned the gentle homilist, the loving father, the acute literary
critic, into the fiery ecclesiastical controversialist, the bitter
combatant, and the political conspirator, who was not a stranger
even to prevarication.
Atterbury's personality is attractive and interesting far beyond
his literary importance : and even in the domain of literature the
impression upon contemporaries was greater than that which he
has left upon posterity, from the fact that his literary gifts were
greatly enhanced by a fine voice, a dignified personal appearance,
and consummate oratorical art. As a preacher he was reckoned
the most eloquent of his day, and The Tatler has described the
effect of his pulpit delivery when his popularity was at its height.
But as contributions to theological literature, his sermons cannot
be placed on the same level with those of Tillotson, Barrow, South,
or others of the day even inferior to these. Their chief at-
traction for us is in the delicate and graceful simplicity of their
diction ; not in the strength, but rather in the quaint turn of the
argument—so quaint indeed as sometimes to lead their author
into positions which he did not himself anticipate : and in the
total absence of all the cumbrous apparatus of learned allusion to
which his contemporaries were prone. Atterbury was not indeed
without copiousness of theological reading, and was supplied with
abundant store of weapons for ecclesiastical controversy. But he
seems of set purpose to have refrained from resorting to such an
armoury in his pulpit oratory.
In many respects, indeed, his tastes and studies led him rather
into the field of polite literature than into that of divinity. “ One
of the truest friends I ever had,” Pope writes of him, “and one
of the greatest men in all polite learning, as well as the most
agreeable companion, this nation ever had.” Nursed in the tradi-
tions of Westminster and Christ Church, his earliest training was
in the more graceful part of scholarship, and the readiness and
ease of his Latin composition, of which many specimens remain,
greatly influenced, not only his own phraseology, but the critical
maxims which he applied with more care than almost any of his
contemporaries to the niceties of style. In an age when Milton
was neglected, Atterbury found in Milton the highest type of poetic
utterance, ranking him higher even than Homer and Virgil.
Almost alone amongst his friends, he adhered to Milton's preference
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of blank verse to rhyme: and this was all the more remarkable
as his love for Pope as a man was not greater than his intense
admiration for him as a poet.
Atterbury's life was one too much engaged in ecclesiastical
controversy, in political intrigue, and in schemes of personal
ambition, to allow him much time for literature; and what he has
left (beyond his correspondence) is small in bulk. But it may
always be read with pleasure-as the composition of one who studied
minutely, and with an eye careful of effect, all the details of style,
and the fundamental sincerity of whose nature, with its vivid con-
trasts of light and shadow, serves to give a certain picturesqueness
and variety to his diction. But above all his letters are models
of epistolary style. In the advice which he gives to his son at
Oxford we have a picture of his own literary methods. "Let
nothing, though of a trifling nature, pass through your pen
negligently: get but the way of writing correctly and justly, time
and use will teach you to write readily." Speaking of the writing
of letters, he remarks, "The turn of them should always be natural
and easy, for they are an image of private and familiar conversation;"
and the specimen which is given below, serves to show how fully
he carried out his own precept.
H. CRAIK.
Page 471
WALLER'S INFLUENCE ON STYLE
THE [English] tongue came into Waller's hands like a rough diamond : he polished it first ; and to that degree, that all artists since him have admired the workmanship without pretending to mend it. Suckling and Carew, I must confess, wrote some few things smoothly enough ; but as all they did in this kind was not very considerable, so it was a little later than the earliest pieces of Mr. Waller. He undoubtedly stands first in the list of refiners ; and, for aught I know, last too : for I question whether in Charles the Second's reign English did not come to its full perfection ; and whether it has not had its Augustean age, as well as the Latin. It seems to be already mixed with foreign languages as far as its purity will bear, and, as chemists say of their menstruums, to be quite sated with the infusion. But posterity will best judge of this. In the meantime, it is a surprising reflection that between what Spencer wrote last, and Waller first, there should not be much above twenty years' distance : and yet the one's language, like the money of that time, is as current now as ever ; whilst the other's words are like old coins, one must go to an antiquary to understand their true meaning and value. Such advances may a great genius make, when it undertakes anything in earnest !
Some painters will hit the chief lines and master-strokes of a face so truly that through all the differences of age the picture shall still bear a resemblance. This art was Mr. Waller's : he sought out, in this flowing tongue of ours, what parts would last, and be of standing use and ornament ; and this he did so successfully, that his language is now as fresh as it was at first setting out. Were we to judge barely by the wording we could not know what was wrote at twenty, and what at fourscore. He complains, indeed, of a tide of words that comes in upon the English poet, and overflows whatever he builds ; but this was
Page 472
less his case than any man's that ever wrote, and the mischief
of it is, this very complaint will last long enough to confute itself;
for, though English be mouldering stone, as he tells us there, yet
he has certainly picked the best out of a bad quarry.
We are no less beholden to him for the new turn of verse
which he brought in, and the improvement he made in our
numbers. Before his time, men rhymed indeed, and that was
all : as for the harmony of measure, and that dance of words
which good ears are so much pleased with, they knew nothing of
it. Their poetry then was made up almost entirely of mono-
syllables ; which, when they come together in any cluster, are
certainly the most harsh untunable things in the world. If any
man doubts of this, let him read ten lines in Donne, and he will
be quickly convinced. Besides, their verses ran all into one
another ; and hung together, throughout a whole copy, like the
hooked atoms that compose a body in Descartes. There was no
distinction of parts, no regular stops, nothing for the ear to rest
upon ; but, as soon as the copy began, down it went, like a
larum, incessantly, and the reader was sure to be out of breath
before he got to the end of it. So that really verse in those days
was but downright prose tagged with rhymes. Mr. Waller
removed all these faults, brought in more polysyllables and
smoother measures, bound up his thoughts better, and in a
cadence more agreeable to the nature of the verse he wrote in ;
so that wherever the natural stops of that were, he contrived the
little breakings of his sense so as to fall in with them. And for
that reason, since the stress of our verse lies commonly upon the
last syllable, you will hardly ever find him using a word of no
force there. I would say, if I were not afraid the reader would
think me too nice, that he commonly closes with verbs, in which
we know the life of language consists.
Among other improvements, we may reckon that of his
rhymes, which are always good, and very often the better for
being new. He had a fine ear and knew how quickly that sense
was cloyed by the same round of chiming words still returning
upon it. It is a decided case by the great master of writing,
Quæ sunt ampla et pulchra, diu placere possunt; quæ lepida,
et concinna (amongst which rhyme must, whether it will or no,
take its place), cito satietate officiunt aurium sensum fastidiosissi-
mum. This he understood very well ; and therefore, to take
off the danger of a surfeit that way, strove to please by variety
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and new sounds. Had he carried this observation, among others, as far as it would go, it must, methinks, have shown him the incurable fault of this jingling kind of poetry; and have led his later judgment to blank verse. But he continued an obstinate lover of rhyme to the very last; it was a mistress that never appeared unhandsome in his eyes, and was courted by him long after Sacharissa was forsaken. He had raised it, and brought it to that perfection we now enjoy it in; and the poet's temper (which has always a little vanity in it) would not suffer him ever to slight a thing he had taken so much pains to adorn. My Lord Roscommon was more impartial; no man ever rhymed truer and evener than he, yet he is so just as to confess that it is but a trifle, and to wish the tyrant dethroned and blank verse set up in its room. There is a third person,1 the living glory of our English poetry, who has disclaimed the use of it upon the stage, though no man ever employed it there so happily as he. It was the strength of his genius that first brought it into credit in plays, and it is the force of his example that has thrown it out again. In other kinds of writing it continues still, and will do so till some excellent spirit arises that has leisure enough and resolution to break the charm and free us from the troublesome bondage of rhyming, as Mr. Milton very well calls it, and has proved it as well by what he has written in another way. But this is a thought for times at some distance, the present age is a little too warlike; it may perhaps furnish out matter for a good poem in the next, but it will hardly encourage one now: without prophesying, a man may easily know what sort of laurels are like to be in request.
(From Preface to Waller's Poems.)
TO THE HOUSE OF LORDS
My Lords, as the matter of my charge was highly criminal, so the form and manner of it ran in such general and uncertain terms, that it was impossible to know the grounds of my accusation; or how to defend myself, when I knew not where I should be attacked. So that, after I had provided as particular an answer as such a general accusation would admit of, the Commons were pleased in their replication to say, that "there were several things
1 Mr. Dryden.
Page 474
in it foreign to the charge." To the great misfortune of falling
under the displeasure of that honourable house, I might add that
of a long and close confinement, and of an expense no way pro-
portioned to my circumstances. These, my lords, are afflictions
which can be conceived by nobody so well as by him who has been
so unhappy as to feel the weight of them. And among these I
reckon it not the least of my sufferings, that I have been for so
long a time debarred "from taking heed to that flock, over which
the Holy Ghost hath made me an overseer." For even since I
have had my liberty, by the favour of your lordships admitting
me to bail, I have purposely avoided doing any part of the duty
of my function, or even appearing in public, lest it should occasion
any tumult or disturbance ; as my necessary attendance on your
lordships from time to time has since been thought unhappily to
have done, without any fault of mine, or the least degree of
encouragement given by me, which I profess, in the presence of
God, to abhor.
All these circumstances, my lords, being considered, together
with the public manner, the length and solemnity of my trial,
before so august a court 'of judicature, by which means " I am
made a gazing-stock, both by reproaches and afflictions, and a
spectacle to the whole world" ; I have stood in this place day
after day, to hear myself accused of the blackest crimes, and
openly reviled ; I have been represented as a Papist in disguise,
as a rebel, as an enemy to her Majesty's person and government,
and a favourer of the Pretender, though I have abjured him (but
not forgot him, as a learned person was pleased to say) ; that is,
as the worst of perjured villains : I have been called "an insig-
nificant tool of a party" on the one hand, and "a most dangerous
incendiary" on the other hand, nay "an angel," that is, a devil,
"detached from the infernal regions" ; all these things, I say,
being considered (and your lordships, I am sure, in tender com-
passion to me, will consider them), it is most certain, that, what-
ever be your lordships' determination concerning me, I cannot
escape without being a very great sufferer ; and I shall have been
abundantly punished, though I should have the happiness to be
by your lordships at last acquitted.
Yet I cannot reflect without comfort (the greatest of comforts
next to that of a good cause and a good conscience) that I answer
for myself this day before the most illustrious assembly in the
world, the whole body of the nobility of Great Britain ; whose
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princely extraction and high quality, whose magnificent titles and
splendid fortunes, whose hereditary candour and generosity, in-
herent in noble blood, inseparable from the birth and education of
peers ; in a word, whose solid judgment, and exact skill in the
laws of this realm, so eminently qualify them for the final deter-
mination of justice ; who are neither to be swayed by hopes, over-
ruled by fears, nor misled by any false prejudice or passion. If
it must be a man's misfortune to labour under such hard circum-
stances as mine, it is no small mitigation of them, that he pleads
his cause before such judges, who, he knows, will decide it with
the strictest impartiality, equity, and honour.
(From Sacheverell's Defence, composed by Atterbury.)
THE USES OF HARMONY
SUCH is our nature, that even the best things, and most worthy
of our esteem, do not always employ and detain our thoughts,
in proportion to their real value, unless they be set off and
greatened by some outward circumstances, which are fitted to
raise admiration and surprise in the breasts of those who
hear, or behold them. And this good effect is wrought in us
by the power of sacred music. To it we, in good measure,
owe the dignity and solemnity of our public worship; which else,
I fear, in its natural simplicity and plainness, would not so
strongly strike, or so deeply affect, the minds, as it ought to
do, of the sluggish and inattentive, that is, of the far greater
part of mankind. But when voices and instruments are skilfully
adapted to it, it appears to us in a majestic air and shape, and
gives us very awful and reverent impressions ; which, while they
are upon us, it is impossible for us not to be fixed and composed
to the utmost. We are then in the same state of mind that
the devout patriarch was, when he awoke from his holy dream,
and ready with him to say to ourselves : Surely the Lord is in
this place, and I knew it not. How dreadful is this place ! This
is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of
Heaven.
Further, the availableness of harmony to promote a pious
disposition of mind will appear, from the great influence it
naturally has on the passions, which, when well directed and
Page 476
FRANCIS ATTERBURY
465
rightly applied, are the wings and sails of the mind, that speed
its passage to perfection, and are of particular and remarkable
use in the offices of devotion. For devotion consists in an ascent
of the mind towards God, attended with holy breathings of soul,
and a divine exercise of all the passions and powers of the
mind. These passions the melody of sounds serves only to
guide and elevate towards their proper object; these it first
calls forth and encourages, and then gradually raises and inflames.
This it does to all of them, as the matter of the hymns sung
gives an occasion for the employing them; but the power of it
is chiefly seen in advancing that most heavenly passion of love,
which reigns always in pious breasts, and is the surest and most
inseparable mark of true devotion; which recommends what we
do in virtue of it to God, and makes it relishing to ourselves;
and without which, all our spiritual offerings, our prayers and
our praises, are both insipid and unacceptable.
At this our
religion begins, and at this it ends; it is the sweetest companion
and improvement of it here upon earth, and the very earnest
and foretaste of heaven; of the pleasure of which nothing further
is revealed to us, than that they consist in the practice of holy
music, and holy love; the joint enjoyment of which (we are
told) is to be the happy lot of all pious souls to endless ages.
And observable therefore it is, that that apostle, in whose breast
this divine quality seems most to have abounded, has also
spoken the most advantageously of vocal and instrumental
harmony, and afforded us the best argument for the lawful use
of it: for such I account the description, which he has given
us of the devotions of angels and blessed spirits performed by
harps and hymns in the Apocalypse. A description which,
whether real or metaphorical, yet, belonging to the evangelical
state, certainly implies thus much, that whatever is there said
to be made use of, may now, under the Gospel, be warrantably
and laudably employed.
And in his steps trod the holy martyr Ignatius, who probably
saw Saint John in the flesh, and learnt that lesson of Divine
love from him, which, after his example, he inculcated every-
where in his epistles; and together with it instils into the
churches he writes to a love of holy harmony, by frequent
allusions and comparisons drawn from that science; which recur
oftener in his writings than in those of any other ancient
whatever, and seem to intimate to us that the devotions of
VOL. III
2 H
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the church were set off with some kind of melody, even in those early times, notwithstanding we usually place the rise of the institution much lower.
Would we then have love at these assemblies? Would we have our spirit softened and enlarged, and made fit for the illapses of the Divine Spirit? Let us, as often as we can, call into our aid the assistances of music, to work us up into this heavenly temper. All selfishness and narrowness of mind, all rancour and peevishness, vanish from the heart, where the love of divine harmony dwells; as the evil spirit of Saul retired before the harp of David.
The devotional, as well as the active part of religion is (we know) founded in good nature; and one of the best signs and causes of good nature is, I am sure, to delight in such pious entertainments.
(From Sermon on the Usefulness of Church Music.)
TO HIS DAUGHTER, THEN IN A DYING STATE, AND ABOUT TO JOURNEY TO SEE HIM
Montpelier, 3rd September 1729.
My dear Heart,—I have so much to say to you, that I can hardly say anything to you till I see you. My heart is full; but it is in vain to begin upon paper what I can never end.
I have a thousand desires to see you, which are checked by a thousand fears lest any ill accident should happen to you in the journey. God preserve you in every step of it, and send you safe hither! And I will endeavour, by his blessing and assistance, to send you well back again, and to accompany you in the journey, as far as the law of England will suffer me.
I stay here only to receive and take care of you (for no other view should have hindered my coming into the North of France this autumn); and I live only to help towards lengthening your life, and rendering it, if I can, more agreeable unto you: for I see not of what use I am, or can be, in other respects.
I shall be impatient till I hear you are safely landed, and as impatient after that till you are safely arrived in your winter quarters. God, I hope, will favour you with good weather, and all manner of good accidents on the way; and I will take care, my dear love, to make you as easy and happy as I can at the end of your journey.
Page 478
FRANCIS ATTERBURY
467
I have written to Mr. Morice about everything I can think of relating to your accommodation on the road, and shall not therefore repeat any part of it in this letter, which is intended only to acknowledge a mistake under which I find myself. I thought I loved you before as much as I could possibly. But I feel such new degrees of tenderness arising in me upon this terrible long journey, as I was never before acquainted with. God will reward you, I hope, for your piety to me, which had, I doubt not, its share in producing this resolution, and will in rewarding you, reward me also ; that being the chief thing I have to beg of Him.
Adicu, my dear heart, till I see you ! and till then satisfy yourself, that, whatever uneasiness your journey may give you, my expectation of you, and concern for you, will give me more. I am got to another page, and must do violence to myself to stop here—But I will—and abruptly bid you, my dear heart, adieu, till I bid you welcome to Montpelier.
A line, under your own hand, pray, by the post that first sets out after you land at Bourdeaux.
FR. ROFFEN.
Page 480
RICHARD STEELE
[Richard Steele, the son of an Irish attorney of the same name, was born
in Dublin in March 1672, N.S. He was educated at the Charterhouse,
and at Christ Church, Oxford. In 1691 he was made a postmaster of
Merton. In 1694 he suddenly quitted the university to enter the army
as a cadet in the second troop of Life Guards. The dedication of a poem
on the death of Queen Mary to John, Lord Cutts, Colonel of the Coldstream
Guards, procured him a standard in that regiment, and he subsequently
became a captain in Lucas's regiment of Foot While still a soldier, he
wrote a devotional manual called The Christian Hero, 1701. This he
followed up, rather inconsequently, by a series of three comedies, beginning
with The Funeral; or, Grief a-la-Mode, which was produced at Drury
Lane at the close of 1701. In 1707 he was appointed Gazetteer, a post
which he held for some years ; and in 1709 he began the tri-weekly paper
entitled The Tatler. Thus was succeeded by several similar efforts, of which
The Spectator and The Guardian are the chief. In all of those named he
had the assistance of his friend and schoolfellow Addison. While engaged
on The Guardian he became involved in politics. He began to publish
pamphlets in the Whig interest ; entered Parliament ; was expelled from
it under Anne for alleged sedition ; re-entered it at the accession of George
I. ; was knighted ; became patentee of Drury Lane Theatre ; wrote another
comedy (The Conscious Lovers, 1722) ; busied himself in various ways, and
finally died at Carmarthen, 1st September 1729, and was buried in St.
Peter's Church.]
FOR purposes of classification, the prose writings of Steele
may be roughly divided into two groups, his pamphlets and his
essays. Under the former head come the series of political
tracts, beginning with The Englishman's Thanks to the Duke
of Marlborough (written when, in December 1711, the Duke
was deprived of all his offices), and ending with The Crisis
of Property which with its sequel, A Nation a Family, was
issued about ten years before his death. To the latter divi-
sion belong the essays or occasional papers which he con-
tributed to the Tatler, Spectator, Guardian, and their more or
less abortive successors, the last of which, the Theatre, was
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published in the same year as the Crisis of Property. Outside
these two classes he did nothing, save prefaces and introductions,
which can fairly be regarded as serious prose, since, despite
their titles, the Account of the state of the Roman-Catholick
Religion, 1715, and the Romish Ecclesiastical History of late
Years 1714, are little more than pamphlets overgrown. From
a passage in the Reader, it seems that he did at one time
contemplate the task which, rejected by Glover and Mallet,
ultimately fell to Archdeacon Coxe,—the history of the War
in Flanders ; but the project, like many others which emanated
from his restless Irish brain, never got beyond the proposal
stage. This is perhaps to be regretted. Although he at no
time showed any special aptitude for labours de longue haleine,
and although he never served abroad, he was not without
qualifications as a military historian. He had a genuine
enthusiasm for military exploits ; and—as is proved by the
well-known story of “Valentine and Unnion,” and by the
episode of Sergeant Hall of the Foot Guards in Tatler, No. 87,
—a practical sympathy with the rank and file which augured
well for his success as a military annalist. Had he done no
more for the campaigns of Marlborough, than Carleton's Memoirs
did for those of Peterborough, the result had still been welcome.
In the meantime, the strongest believer in Steele's personal
loyalty and political integrity can scarcely, at this date, speak
with approval of his excursions into faction. Even if one
allows to them the fullest measure of sincerity, of common sense,
and of that stubborn form of gallantry which never knows
when it is worsted, it is equally clear that they were lamentably
deficient in logical power, in sustained argument, and in
controversial tenacity. Moreover, he had the ill-fortune to
enter the lists against an adversary who was conspicuously strong
in these very respects—the terrible author of the Battle of the
Books. Upon Steele's Importance of Dunkirk consider'd,
followed Swift's remorselessly contemptuous Importance of the
“Guardian” consider'd; and after the hasty patchwork of
his Crisis, came Swift's second best political pamphlet, the
famous Publick Spirit of the Whigs. Before Swift's withering
irony, Steele's straggling patriotism fared no better than an old-
fashioned bell-mouthed blunderbuss might be supposed to fare when
opposed to a close-throwing modern mitrailleuse. If any one
of his efforts in this direction be worth the serious consideration
Page 482
of the student, it is his Apology for Himself and his Writings,
in which--when the death of Anne had once more restored
the reins to the hands of the Whigs--he reviewed and defended
his past course of action. But even this is more interesting for
its disclosure of his personality than for its political import,
and it includes besides several autobiographical particulars which
have been of no small service to his biographers. In sum,
however, Swift's sneer in the Examiner that he (Steele) had
"oblig'd his party with a very awkward pamphleteer in the
room of an excellent droll," must be held to express with
practical truth, though with needless directness, his position as
a political writer.
But if the phrase "awkward pamphleteer" be a not
inexact definition of the writer of the Crisis, the expression
"excellent droll" is certainly a wholly inadequate description
of the founder of the Tatler, and the father of the English
essay. The fashion which so long prevailed of making him
the mere umbra or shadow of the distinguished colleague whose
inestimable aid he so loyally and generously acknowledged has,
it is true, now passed away. But if the collaboration of
Addison was useful to him in one respect, it was, and still
is, disastrous to him in another. He suffered the fate -- not
uncommon with forerunning and inventive minds--of seeing
his crude and half-considered ideas become, in other hands,
the stepping stones to higher things. When out of his labours
as Gazetteer in Lord Sunderland's office, suddenly upsprang
that larger idea of a "Letter of Intelligence," or "Journal of
News," which so rapidly developed into the Tatler, he probably
had no more serious purpose than to criticise life in such a
way "as (he tells us) might gratify the curiosity of persons of
all conditions, and of each sex." Literature he scarcely intended;
he claimed, and he took the right to be "incorrect" if he liked,
and to use "common speech," if he preferred to do so. "The
elegance, purity, and correctness," which Addison imported into
the enterprise, were not part of his design; nor, though they
undoubtedly stimulated and elevated his own efforts, were they
quite within his range. Hence, though he profited immensely
by Addison's inimitable art, he lost, by comparison, something
of the credit he might have enjoyed, had he worked alone. It
would be idle to contend that, at any moment, he really rivalled
Addison in any of his more individual qualities,--his delicate irony,
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his keen observation, his finished and leisurely expression.
Moreover Steele had certain disadvantages of circumstance
which intensified his other shortcomings. He had started, and
--if we except the hints and occasional contributions of Swift--
had maintained for some time without assistance, the periodical to
which his old friend eventually became a regular contributor.
These relations were continued to the end of the chapter. Upon
Steele fell the labour of keeping the paper going, while Addison
remained an assistant only, indispensable, as it turned out,
to the success of the enterprise, but still an assistant and no
more.
Yet when everything is allowed to Addison that can reasonably
be conceded to him, and when everything has been said, that
can be said, of Steele's slap-dash method, impulsive judgment,
and careless style, it must be admitted that Steele brought some
gifts to his work for which one may seek in vain in the work of
his coadjutor. If he was less literary, he was more earnest;
if he was more hasty, he was sometimes more happy. The
very energy of his indignation, pity, or enthusiasm frequently
taught him those short cuts to his reader's sympathy, which
neither art nor artifice can teach; and he often becomes eloquent
by the sheer force and sincerity of his emotion. Like Addison,
he is occasionally hortatory and didactic; but his sermons,
though at times excellent, are not his best work. His true
school is human nature. As a genial and kindly commentator
upon the men and women about him; as a humane and an
indulgent interpreter of their frailties; as a generous and an
ungrudging sympathiser with their feeblest better impulse--he
belongs to the great race of English humourists.
AUSTIN DOBSON.
Page 484
MR. BICKERSTAFF VISITS A FRIEND
THERE are several persons who have many pleasures and enter-
tainments in their possession which they do not enjoy. It is
therefore a kind and good office to acquaint them with their own
happiness, and turn their attention to such instances of their good
fortune as they are apt to overlook. Persons in the married state
often want such a monitor; and pine away their days by looking
upon the same condition in anguish and murmur, which carries
with it in the opinion of others a complication of all the pleasures
of life, and a retreat from its inquietudes.
I am led into this thought by a visit I made an old friend,
who was formerly my schoolfellow. He came to town last week
with his family for the winter, and yesterday morning sent me
word his wife expected me to dinner. I am, as it were, at home
at that house, and every member of it knows me for their well-
wisher. I cannot indeed express the pleasure it is to be met by
the children with so much joy as I am when I go thither. The
boys and girls strive who shall come first when they think it is I
that am knocking at the door; and that child which loses
the race to me runs back again to tell the father it is Mr. Bicker-
staff. This day I was led in by a pretty girl, that we all thought
must have forgot me; for the family has been out of town these
two years. Her knowing me again was a mighty subject with us,
and took up our discourse at the first entrance. After which
they began to rally me upon a thousand little stories they heard
in the country about my marriage to one of my neighbour's
daughters. Upon which the gentleman, my friend, said, “ Nay,
if Mr. Bickerstaff marries a child of any of his old companions,
I hope mine shall have the preference; there is Mrs. Mary is
now sixteen, and would make him as fine a widow as the best of
them. But I know him too well; he is so enamoured with the
very memory of those who flourished in our youth, that he will
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not so much as look upon the modern beauties. I remember,
old gentlcman, how often you went home in a day to refresh your
countenance and dress when Teraminta reigned in your heart.
As we came up in the coach, I repeated to my wife some of your
verses on her." With such reflections on little passages which
happened long ago, we passed our time, during a cheerful and
elegant meal. After dinner his lady left the room, as did also
the children. As soon as we were alone, he took me by the
hand. "We'll, my good friend," says he, "I am heartily glad to
see thee ; I was afraid you would never have seen all the com-
pany that dined with you to-day again. Do not you think the
good woman of the house a little altered since you followed her
from the playhouse, to find out who she was, for me?" I per-
ceived a tear fall down his cheek as he spoke, which moved me
not a little. But, to turn the discourse, said I, "She is not
indeed quite that creature she was, when she returned me
the letter I carried from you ; and told me, she hoped as I was
a gentleman I would be employed no more to trouble her, who had
never offended me ; but would be so much the gentleman's friend
as to dissuade him from a pursuit which he could never succeed
in. You may remember I thought her in earnest ; and you were
compelled to employ your cousin Will, who made his sister get
acquainted with her, for you. You cannot expect her to be for
ever fifteen." "Fifteen !" replied my good friend : "Ah ! you
little understand, you that have lived a bachelor, how great,
exquisite a pleasure there is in being really beloved ! It is im-
possible that the most beauteous face in nature should raise in
me such pleasing ideas as when I look upon that excellent
woman. That fading in her countenance is chiefly caused by her
watching with me in my fever. This was followed by a fit of
sickness, which had like to have carried her off last winter. I
tell you sincerely, I have so many obligations to her that I
cannot, with any sort of moderation, think of her present state of
health. But as to what you say of fifteen, she gives me every
day pleasures beyond what I ever knew in the possession of her
beauty, when I was in the vigour of youth. Every moment of
her life brings me fresh instances of her complacency to my
inclinations, and her prudence in regard to my fortune. Her
face is to me much more beautiful than when I first saw it ; there
is no decay in any feature which I cannot trace from the very
instant it was occasioned by some anxious concern for my welfare
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and interests. Thus, at the same time, methinks, the love I conceived towards her for what she was, is heightened by my gratitude for what she is. The love of a wife is as much above the idle passion commonly called by that name, as the loud laughter of buffoons is inferior to the elegant mirth of gentlemen. Oh ! she is an inestimable jewel. In her examination of her household affairs she shows a certain fearfulness to find a fault, which makes her servants obey her like children ; and the meanest we have has an ingenuous shame for an offence, not always to be seen in children in other families. I speak freely to you, my old friend ; ever since her sickness, things that gave me the quickest joy before, turn now to a certain anxiety. As the children play in the next room, I know the poor things by their steps, and am considering what they must do, should they lose their mother in their tender years. The pleasure I used to take in telling my boy stories of battles, and asking my girl questions about the disposal of her baby, and the gossiping of it, is turned into inward reflection and melancholy."
He would have gone on in this tender way, when the good lady entered, and with an inexpressible sweetness in her countenance told us she had been searching her closet for something very good to treat such an old friend as I was. Her husband's eyes sparkled with pleasure at the cheerfulness of her countenance ; and I saw all his fears vanish in an instant. The lady, observing something in our looks which showed we had been more serious than ordinary, and seeing her husband receive her with great concern under a forced cheerfulness, immediately guessed at what we had been talking of ; and applying herself to me, said with a smile, " Mr. Bickerstaff, don't believe a word of what he tells you ; I shall still live to have you for my second, as I have often promised you, unless he takes more care of himself than he has done since his coming to town. You must know, he tells me that he finds London is a much more healthy place than the country ; for he sees several of his old acquaintance and school-fellows are here young fellows with fair full-bottomed periwigs. I could scarce keep him this morning from going out open-breasted." My friend, who is always extremely delighted with her agreeable humour, made her sit down with us. She did it with that easiness which is peculiar to women of sense ; and to keep up the good humour she had brought in with her, turned her raillery upon me. " Mr. Bickerstaff, you remember you
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followed me one night from the playhouse ; supposing you should
carry me thither to-morrow night, and lead me into the front
box." This put us into a long field of discourse about the
beauties, who were mothers to the present, and shined in the
boxes twenty years ago. I told her, " I was glad she had trans-
ferred so many of her charms, and I did not question but her
eldest daughter was within half a year of being a toast."
We were pleasing ourselves with this fantastical preferment
of the young lady, when on a sudden we were alarmed with the
noise of a drum, and immediately entered my little godson to
give me a point of war. His mother, between laughing and
chiding, would have put him out of the room ; but I would not
part with him so. I found upon conversation with him, though
he was a little noisy in his mirth, that the child had excellent
parts, and was a great master of all the learning on the other
side eight years old.
Æsop's fables ; but he frankly declared to me his mind, that he
did not delight in that learning, because he did not believe they
were true ; for which reason I found he had very much turned
his studies, for about a twelvemonth past, into the lives and
adventures of Don Belianis of Greece, Guy of Warwick, the
Seven Champions, and other historians of that age. I could not
but observe the satisfaction the father took in the forwardness of
his son ; and that these diversions might turn to some profit, I
found the boy had made remarks which might be of service to
him during the course of his whole life. He would tell you
the mismanagements of John Hickathrift, find fault with the
passionate temper in Bevis of Southampton, and loved Saint
George for being the champion of England ; and by this means had
his thoughts insensibly moulded into the notions of discretion,
virtue, and honour. I was extolling his accomplishments, when
the mother told me that the little girl who led me in this morning
was in her way a better scholar than he. "Betty," said she,
"deals chiefly in fairies and sprights ; and sometimes in a winter
night will terrify the maids with her accounts, until they are
afraid to go up to bed."
I sat with them until it was very late, sometimes in merry,
sometimes in serious discourse, with this particular pleasure
which gives the only true relish to all conversation, a sense that
every one of us liked each other. I went home, considering the
different conditions of a married life and that of a bachelor ; and
Page 488
RICHARD STEELE
477
I must confess it struck me with a secret concern to reflect that whenever I go off I shall leave no traces behind me. In this pensive mood I returned to my family; that is to say, to my maid, my dog, and my cat, who only can be the better or worse for what happens to me.
(From The Tatler.)
RECOLLECTIONS OF CHILDHOOD
THERE are those among mankind, who can enjoy no relish of their being, except the world is made acquainted with all that relates to them, and think everything lost that passes unobserved: but others find a solid delight in stealing by the crowd, and modelling their life after such a manner, as is as much above the approbation, as the practice of the vulgar. Life being too short to give instances great enough of true friendship or goodwill, some sages have thought it pious to preserve a certain reverence for the names of their deceased friends; and have withdrawn themselves from the rest of the world at certain seasons to commemorate in their own thoughts such of their acquaintance who have gone before them out of this life. And indeed, when we are advanced in years, there is not a more pleasing entertainment, than to recollect in a gloomy moment the many we have parted with, that have been dear and agreeable to us, and to cast a melancholy thought or two after those with whom, perhaps, we have indulged ourselves in whole nights of mirth and jollity. With such inclinations in my heart, I went to my closet yesterday in the evening, and resolved to be sorrowful; upon which occasion I could not but look with disdain upon myself, that though all the reasons which I had to lament the loss of many of my friends, are now as forcible as at the moment of their departure, yet did not my heart swell with the same sorrow, which I felt at that time; but I could, without tears, reflect upon many pleasing adventures I had had with some, who have long been blended with common earth. Though it is by the benefit of nature, that length of time thus blots out the violence of afflictions; yet, with tempers too much given to pleasure, it is almost necessary to revive the old places of grief in our memory; and ponder 'step by step' on past life, to lead the mind into
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that sobriety of thought which poises the heart, and makes it
beat with due time, without being quickened with desire, or
retarded with despair, from its proper and equal motion. When
we wind up a clock, that is out of order, to make it go well
for the future, we do not immediately set the hand to the
present instant, but we make it strike the round of all its hours,
before it can recover the regularity of its time. Such, thought I,
shall be my method this evening; and since it is that day of
the year which I dedicate to the memory of such in another
life as I much delighted in when living, an hour or two shall
be sacred to sorrow and their memory, while I run over all
the melancholy circumstances of this kind which have occurred
to me in my whole life.
The first sense of sorrow I ever knew was upon the death
of my father, at which time I was not quite five years of age;
but was rather amazed at what all the house meant, than
possessed with a real understanding why nobody was willing
to play with me. I remember I went into the room where his
body lay, and my mother sat weeping alone by it. I had my
battledore in my hand, and fell a beating the coffin, and calling
“Papa”; for, I knew not how, I had some slight idea that he
was locked up there. My mother catched me in her arms,
and transported beyond all patience of the silent grief she
was before in, she almost smothered me in her embraces; and
told me in a flood of tears, Papa could not hear me, and would
play with me no more, for they were going to put him under
ground, whence he could never come to us again. She was a
very beautiful woman, of a noble spirit, and there was a dignity
in her grief amidst all the wildness of her transport; which,
methought, struck me with an instinct of sorrow, that, before I
was sensible of what it was to grieve, seized my very soul, and
has made pity the weakness of my heart ever since. The
mind in infancy is, methinks, like the body in embryo; and
receives impressions so forcible, that they are as hard to be
removed by reason, as any mark with which a child is born is
to be taken away by any future application. Hence it is, that
good-nature in me is no merit; but having been so frequently
overwhelmed with her tears before I knew the cause of any
affliction, or could draw defences from my own judgment, I
imbibed commiseration, remorse, and an unmanly gentleness of
mind, which has since insnared me into ten thousand calamities;
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and from whence I can reap no advantage, except it be, that,
in such a humour as I am now in, I can the better indulge
myself in the softnesses of humanity, and enjoy that sweet anxiety
which arises from the memory of past afflictions.
We, that are very old, are better able to remember things
which befell us in our distant youth, than the passages of later
days. For this reason it is, that the companions of my strong
and vigorous years present themselves more immediately to me
in this office of sorrow. Untimely or unhappy deaths are
what we are most apt to lament; so little are we able to
make it indifferent when a thing happens, though we know it
must happen. Thus we groan under life, and bewailed those who
are relieved from it Every object that returns to our imagina-
tion raises different passions, according to the circumstance of
their departure. Who can have lived in an army, and in a
serious hour reflect upon the many gay and agreeable men
that might long have flourished in the arts of peace, and not
join with the imprecations of the fatherless and widow on the
tyrant to whose ambition they fell sacrifices? But gallant men,
who are cut off by the sword, move rather our veneration than
our pity; and we gather relief enough from their own contempt
of death, to make it no evil, which was approached with so
much cheerfulness, and attended with so much honour. But
when we turn our thoughts from the great parts of life on such
occasions, and instead of lamenting those who stood ready to
give death to those from whom they had the fortune to receive
it; I say, when we let our thoughts wander from such noble
objects, and consider the havoc which is made among the
tender and the innocent, pity enters with an unmixed softness,
and possesses all our souls at once.
Here (were there words to express such sentiments with
proper tenderness) I should record the beauty, innocence, and
untimely death, of the first object my eyes ever beheld with
love. The beauteous virgin! how ignorantly did she charm,
how carelessly excel. O death! thou hast right to the bold,
to the ambitious, to the high, and to the haughty; but why this
cruelty to the humble, to the meek, to the undiscerning, to the
thoughtless? Nor age, nor business, nor distress, can erase
the dear image from my imagination. In the same week, I
saw her dressed for a ball, and in a shroud. How ill did the
habit of death became the pretty trifler! I still behold the
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smiling earth—A large train of disasters were coming on to
my memory, when my servant knocked at the closet door, and
interrupted me with a letter, attended with a hamper of wine,
of the same sort with that which is to be put to sale on Thursday
next, at Garraway's coffee-house. Upon the receipt of it, I
sent for three of my friends. We are so intimate, that we can
be company in whatever state of mind we meet, and can entertain
each other without expecting always to rejoice. The wine
we found to be generous and warming, but with such a heat
as moved us rather to be cheerful than frolicksome. It revived
the spirits, without firing the blood. We commended it until
two of the clock this morning ; and having to-day met a little
before dinner, we found, that though we drank two bottles a
man, we had much more reason to recollect than forget what
had passed the night before.
(From the Same.)
THE STORY OF BRUNETTA AND PHILLIS
IN the year 1688, and on the same day of that year, were born
in Cheapside, London, two females of exquisite feature and shape ;
the one we shall call Brunetta, the other Phillis. A close intimacy
between their parents made each of them the first acquaintance
the other knew in the world. They played, dressed babies, acted
visitings, learned to dance and make curtsies, together. They
were inseparable companions in all the little entertainments their
tender years were capable of ; which innocent happiness continued
until the beginning of their fifteenth year, when it happened that
Mrs. Phillis had a headache on, which became her so very well,
that instead of being beheld any more with pleasure for their
amity to each other, the eyes of the neighbourhood were turned
to remark them with comparison of their beauty. They now no
longer enjoyed the ease of mind and pleasing indolence in which
they were formerly happy, but all their words and actions were
misinterpreted by each other, and every excellence in their speech
and behaviour was looked upon as an act of emulation to surpass
the other. These beginnings of disinclination soon improved
into a formality of behaviour, a general coldness, and by natural
steps into an irreconcilable hatred. These two rivals for the
reputation of beauty were in their stature, countenance, and mien
Page 492
so very much alike, that if you were speaking of them in their
absence, the words in which you described the one must give you
an idea of the other. They were hardly distinguishable, you
would think, when they were apart, though extremely different
when together. What made their enmity the more entertaining
to all the rest of their sex was, that in detraction from each
other, neither could fall upon terms which did not hit herself as
much as her adversary. Their nights grew restless with medita-
tion of new dresses to outvie each other, and inventing new
devices to recall admirers who observed the charms of the one
rather than those of the other on the last meeting. Their colours
failed at each other's appearance, flushed with pleasure at the
report of a disadvantage, and their countenances withered upon
instances of applause. The decencies to which women are
obliged made these virgins stifle their resentment so far as not to
break into open violences, while they equally suffered the torments
of a regulated anger. Their mothers, as it is usual, engaged
in the quarrel, and supported the several pretensions of the
daughters with all that ill-chosen sort of expense which is common
with people of plentiful fortunes and mean taste. The girls
preceded their parents like queens of May, in all the gaudy colours
imaginable, on every Sunday to church, and were exposed to the
examination of the audience for superiority of beauty.
During this constant struggle it happened that Phillis one day
at public prayers smote the heart of a gay West Indian, who
appeared in all the colours which can affect an eye that could not
distinguish between being fine and tawdry. This American, in a
Summer-island suit, was too shining and too gay to be resisted by
Phillis, and too intent upon her charms to be diverted by any of
the laboured attractions of Brunetta. Soon after Brunetta had
the mortification to see her rival disposed of in a wealthy
marriage, while she was only addressed to in a manner that
showed she was the admiration of all men, but the choice of
none. Phillis was carried to the habitation of her spouse in
Barbadoes. Brunetta had the ill-nature to inquire for her by
every opportunity, and had the misfortune to hear of her being
attended by numerous slaves, fanned into slumbers by successive
bands of them, and carried from place to place in all the pomp
of barbarous magnificence. Brunetta could not endure these
repeated advices, but employed all her arts and charms in laying
baits for any condition of the same island, out of a mere
VOL. III
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ambition to confront her once more before she died. She at last succeeded in her design, and was taken to wife by a gentleman whose estate was contiguous to that of her enemy's husband.
It would be endless to enumerate the many occasions on which these irreconcileable beauties laboured to excel each other ; but in process of time it happened that a ship put into the island, consigned to a friend of Phillis, who had directions to give her the refusal of all goods for apparel, before Brunetta could be alarmed of their arrival.
He did so, and Phillis was dressed in a few days in a brocade more gorgeous and costly than had ever before appeared in that latitude.
Brunetta languished at the sight, and could by no means come up to the bravery of her antagonist.
She communicated her anguish of mind to a faithful friend, who, by an interest in the wife of Phillis's merchant, procured a remnant of the same silk for Brunetta.
Phillis took pains to appear in all public places where she was sure to meet Brunetta ; Brunetta was now prepared for the insult, and came to a public ball in a plain black silk mantua, attended by a beautiful negro girl in a petticoat of the same brocade with which Phillis was attired.
This drew the attention of the whole company, upon which the unhappy Phillis swooned away, and was immediately conveyed to her house.
As soon as she came to herself, she fled from her husband's house, went on board a ship in the road, and is now landed in inconsolable despair at Plymouth.
. . .
(From The Spectator.)
THE COVERLEY PORTRAIT GALLERY
I was this morning walking in the gallery, when Sir Roger entered at the end opposite to me, and advancing towards me, said he was glad to meet me among his relations, the De Coverleys, and hoped I liked the conversation of so much good company, who were as silent as myself.
I knew he alluded to the pictures, and as he is a gentleman who does not a little value himself upon his ancient descent, I expected he would give me some account of them.
We were now arrived at the upper end of the gallery, when the knight faced towards one of the pictures, and as we stood before it, he entered into the matter after his blunt way of saying things as they occur to his imagination,
Page 494
without regular introduction, or care to preserve the appearance
of chain of thought.
"It is," said he, "worth while to consider the force of dress ;
and how the persons of one age differ from those of another
merely by that only. One may observe, also, that the general
fashion of one age has been followed by one particular set of
people in another, and by them preserved from one generation to
another. Thus the vast jetting coat and small bonnet, which was
the habit in Harry the Seventh's time, is kept on in the yeomen
of the guard ; not without a good and politic view, because they
look a foot taller, and a foot and a half broader--besides that the
cap leaves the face expanded, and consequently more terrible, and
fitter to stand at the entrance of palaces.
"This predecessor of ours, you see, is dressed after this
manner, and his cheeks would be no larger than mine were he
in a hat as I am. He was the last man that won a prize in the
tilt-yard (which is now a common street before Whitehall). You
see the broken lance that lies there by his right foot. He
shivered that lance of his adversary all to pieces ; and bearing
himself, look you, sir, in this manner, at the same time he came
within the target of the gentleman who rode against him, and
taking him with incredible force before him on the pommel of his
saddle, he in that manner rid the tournament over, with an air
that showed he did it rather to perform the rule of the lists, than
expose his enemy ; however, it appeared he knew how to make
use of a victory, and with a gentle trot he marched up to a
gallery where their mistress sat (for they were rivals), and let him
down with laudable courtesy and pardonable insolence. I don't
know but it might be exactly where the coffee-house is now.
"You are to know this my ancestor was not only of a military
genius, but fit also for the arts of peace, for he played on the
bass-viol as well as any gentleman at court ; you see where his
viol hangs by his basket-hilt sword. The action at the tilt-yard,
and the greatest beauty of her time ; here she stands, the next
picture. You see, sir, my great-great-great-grandmother has on
the new-fashioned petticoat, except that the modern is gathered
at the waist ; my grandmother appears as if she stood in a large
drum, whereas the ladies now walk as if they were in a go-cart.
For all this lady was bred at court, she became an excellent
country-wife ; she brought ten children ; and when I show you
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the library, you shall see in her own hand (allowing for the
difference of the language) the best receipt now in England both
for a hasty-pudding and a white-pot.
" If you please to fall back a little, because it is necessary to
look at the three next pictures at one view; these are three
sisters. She, on the right hand, who is so very beautiful, died a
maid; the next to her, still handsomer, had the same fate
against her will; this homely thing, in the middle had both their
portions added to her own, and was stolen by a neighbouring
gentleman, a man of stratagem and resolution; for he poisoned
three mastiffs to come at her, and knocked down two deer-stealers
in carrying her off. Misfortunes happen in all families. The
theft of this romp, and so much money, was no great matter to
our estate. But the next heir that possessed it was this soft
gentleman whom you see there. Observe the small buttons, the
little boots, the laces, the slashes about his clothes, and above all
the posture he is drawn in (which to be sure was his own choos-
ing) ; you see he sits with one hand on a desk, writing and looking
as it were another way, like an easy writer, or a sonneteer. He
was one of those that had too much wit to know how to live in
the world; he was a man of no justice, but great good manners;
he ruined everybody that had anything to do with him, but never
said a rude thing in his life; the most indolent person in the
world, he would sign a deed that passed away half his estate with
his gloves on, but would not put on his hat before a lady if it
were to save his country. He is said to be the first that made
love by squeezing the hand. He left the estate with ten thousand
pounds debt upon it; but, however, by all hands I have been
informed, that he was every way the finest gentleman in the
world. That debt lay heavy on our house for one generation,
but it was retrieved by a gift from that honest man you see there,
a citizen of our name, but nothing at all akin to us. I know, Sir
Andrew Freeport has said behind my back that this man was
descended from one of the ten children of the maid of honour I
showed you above; but it was never made out. We winked at
the thing, indeed, because money was wanting at that time."
Here I saw my friend a little embarrassed, and turned my
face to the next portraiture.
Sir Roger went on with his account of the gallery in the
following manner: "This man (pointing to him I looked at) I
take to be the honour of our house, Sir Humphrey de Coverley;
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he was in his dealings as punctual as a tradesman, and as generous as a gentleman. He would have thought himself as much undone by breaking his word as if it were to be followed by bankruptcy. He served his country as knight of the shire to his dying day. He found it no easy matter to maintain an integrity in his words and actions, even in things that regarded the offices which were incumbent upon him, in the care of his own affairs and relations of life, and therefore dreaded (though he had great talents) to go into employments of state, where he must be exposed to the snares of ambition. Innocence of life, and great ability, were the distinguishing parts of his character ; the latter, he had often observed, had led to the destruction of the former, and he used frequently to lament that great and good had not the same signification. He was an excellent husbandman, but had resolved not to exceed such a degree of wealth ; all above it he bestowed in secret bounties many years after the sum he aimed at for his own use was attained. Yet he did not slacken his industry, but to a decent old age spent the life and fortune which were superfluous to himself in the service of his friends and neighbours.
Here we were called to dinner, and Sir Roger ended the discourse of this gentleman by telling me, as we followed the servant, that this his ancestor was a brave man, and narrowly escaped being killed in the civil wars ; "for," said he, "he was sent out of the field upon a private message, the day before the battle of Worcester." The whim of narrowly escaping by having been within a day of danger, with other matters above mentioned, mixed with good sense, left me at a loss whether I was more delighted with my friend's wisdom or simplicity.
(From the Same.)
THE STORY OF ALEXANDER SELKIRK
UNDER the title of this paper I do not think it foreign to my design, to speak of a man born in Her Majesty's dominions, and relate an adventure in his life so uncommon, that it is doubtful whether the like has happened to any of human race. The person I speak of is Alexander Selkirk, whose name is familiar to men of curiosity, from the fame of his having lived
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four years and four months alone in the island of Juan Fernandez.
I had the pleasure frequently to converse with the man soon
after his arrival in England, in the year 1711. It was matter
of great curiosity to hear him, as he is a man of good sense,
give an account of the different revolutions in his own mind in
that long solitude. When we consider how painful absence
from company for the space of but one evening is to the
generality of mankind, we may have a sense how painful this
necessary and constant solitude was to a man bred a sailor,
and ever accustomed to enjoy and suffer, eat, drink, and sleep,
and perform all offices of life, in fellowship and company. He
was put ashore from a leaky vessel, with the captain of
which he had had an irreconcileable difference ; and he chose
rather to take his fate in this place, than in a crazy vessel,
under a disagreeable commander. His portion were a sea-chest,
his wearing clothes and bedding, a firelock, a pound of
gunpowder, a large quantity of bullets, a flint and steel, a few
pounds of tobacco, an hatchet, a knife, a kettle, a Bible and other
books of devotion, together with pieces that concerned navigation,
and his mathematical instruments. Resentment against his
officer, who had ill-used him, made him look forward on this
change of life, as the more eligible one, till the instant in which
he saw the vessel put off ; at which moment, his heart yearned
within him, and melted at the parting with his comrades and
all human society at once. He had in provisions for the
sustenance of life but the quantity of two meals, the island
abounding only with wild goats, cats, and rats. He judged it
most probable that he should find more immediate and easy
relief, by finding shell-fish on the shore, than seeking game
with his gun. He accordingly found great quantities of turtles,
whose flesh is extremely delicious, and of which he frequently
ate very plentifully on his first arrival, till it grew disagreeable
to his stomach, except in jellies. The necessities of hunger
and thirst were his greatest diversions from the reflection on
his lonely condition. When those appetites were satisfied,
the desire of society was as strong a call upon him, and he appeared
to himself least necessitous when he wanted everything ; for
the supports of his body were easily attained, but the eager
longings for seeing again the face of man during the interval
of craving bodily appetites, were hardly supportable. He grew
dejected, languid, and melancholy, scarce able to refrain from
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doing himself violence, till by degrees, by the force of reason,
and frequent reading of the Scriptures, and turning his thoughts
upon the study of navigation, after the space of eighteen months,
he grew thoroughly reconciled to his condition. When he had
made this conquest, the vigour of his health, disengagement
from the world, a constant, cheerful, serene sky, and a temperate
air, made his life one continual feast and his being much more
joyful than it had before been irksome. He now, taking delight
in everything, made the hut in which he lay, by ornaments
which he cut down from a spacious wood, on the side of which it
was situated, the most delicious bower, fanned with continual
breezes, and gentle aspirations of wind, that made his repose
after the chase equal to the most sensual pleasures. I forgot
to observe, that during the time of his dissatisfaction, monsters
of the deep, which frequently lay on the shore, added to
the terrors of his solitude; the dreadful howlings and voices
seemed too terrible to be made for human ears ; but upon the
recovery of his temper, he could with pleasure not only hear
their voices, but approach the monsters themselves with great
intrepidity. He speaks of sea-lions, whose jaws and tails were
capable of seizing and breaking the limbs of a man, if he
approached them : but at that time his spirits and life were
so high, and he could act so regularly and unconcerned, that
merely from being unruffled in himself, he killed them with the
greatest ease imaginable: for observing, that though their
jaws and tails were so terrible, yet the animals being mighty
slow in working themselves round, he had nothing to do but
place himself exactly opposite to their middle, and as close to
them as possible, he dispatched them with his hatchet at will.
The precautions which he took against want, in case of
sickness, was to lame kids when very young, so as that they
might recover their health, but never be capable of speed. These
he had in great numbers about his hut; and when he was
himself in full vigour, he could take at full speed the swiftest
goat running up a promontory, and never failed of catching
them but on a descent.
His habitation was extremely pestered with rats, which
gnawed his clothes and feet when sleeping. To defend him
against them he fed and tamed numbers of young killings, who
lay about his bed, and preserved him from the enemy. When
his clothes were quite worn out, he dried and tacked together
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the skins of goats, with which he clothed himself, and was inured to pass through woods, bushes, and brambles with as
much carelessness and precipitance as any other animal. It happened once to him, that running on the summit of a hill,
he made a stretch to seize a goat, with which under him, he fell down a precipice, and lay helpless for the space of three
days, the length of which time he measured by the moon's growth since his last observation. This manner of life grew
so exquisitely pleasant, that he never had a moment heavy upon his hands; his nights were untroubled, and his days joyous,
from the practice of temperance and exercise. It was his manner to use stated hours and places for exercises of devotion,
which he performed aloud, in order to keep up the faculties of speech, and to utter himself with greater energy.
When I first saw him, I thought, if I had not been let into his character and story, I could have discerned that he
had been much separated from company, from his aspect and gesture; there was a strong but cheerful seriousness in his
look, and a certain disregard to the ordinary things about him, as if he had been sunk in thought. When the ships which
brought him off the island came in, he received them with the greatest indifference with relation to the prospect of going. off
with them, but with great satisfaction in an opportunity to refresh and help them. The man frequently bewailed his
return to the world, which could not, he said, with all its enjoyments, restore him to the tranquillity of his solitude.
Though I had frequently conversed with him, after a few month's absence, he met me in the street, and though he spoke to me,
I could not recollect that I had seen him; familiar converse in this town had taken off the loneliness of his aspect, and quite
altered the air of his face.
This plain man's story is a memorable example that he is happiest who confines his wants to natural necessities; and he
that goes further in his desires, increases his wants in proportion to his acquisitions; or to use his own expression,
"I am now worth £800, but shall never be so happy, as when I was not worth a farthing.
(From The Englishman.)
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JOSEPH ADDISON
[Joseph Addison was born 1672, died 1719. His first published composition in prose was his Remarks on Italy, which appeared after his return from his travels in 1701. In the same year he wrote, but did not publish, his Dialogue on Medals. From 1709-1711 he co-operated with Steele in the Tatler; and in the latter year, with the aid of his friend, founded the Spectator, the last papers in which appeared in 1714. He wrote in the Guardian, which was started in 1713, in which year he also published The late Trial of Count Tariff—a feu d’esprit directed against the financial clauses of the Treaty of Utrecht—and began a work, never completed, on the Evidences of Christianity, which was not published till after his death. The Freeholder, a series of papers written entirely by himself, appeared in 1715-16. His last work was the Old Whig, a controversial pamphlet, published in 1719, in opposition to Steele's Plebeian.]
IT is easy to perceive that the prose style of Addison is an extension of that of Dryden, in so far as it embodies the thought of an author directly addressing an audience. But we see also, from the mode and method of Addison's writing, how vast a change in the composition of the audience has taken place since the closing years of the seventeenth century. Those turns of traditional courtliness, which so constantly, in Dryden's writings, indicate the personal influence of the sovereign, have disappeared from the style of his successor. A very large proportion of Dryden's prose consists of epistles dedicatory, addressed to great noblemen and courtiers, and full of adulation, but in the few dedications written by Addison the old exuberance of flattery is much subdued. On the other hand, the appeal to that great middle class, to which Dryden discoursed in his Prefaces, is in Addison, so conscious and direct, that even if all records of the Revolution had perished, we should be able to infer, from the Spectator alone, that the English nation, in the early years of the eighteenth century, was beginning to exercise a public opinion in matters relating to religion, politics, manners, and taste.
The spirit of this Revolution, as far as relates to taste and
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manners, may best be divined by contrasting the English
society of the period with the contemporary society of France.
In France, authority had prevaled over liberty, and a well-
defined standard of order had been for some time cstablished
in all the forms and ceremonies of life. French manners and
conversation had been formed by the joint operation of two
social forces, the court and the drawing-room. I have spoken
in another preface of the uniformity of taste produced by
monarchical centralisation, in the various departments of public
culture over which the king's authority naturally extended.
An influence more subtle, but still intimately connected with
the progress of absolutism, moulded the art of conversation.
The French nobility, though they had been deprived by the
Crown of so many of the powers and privileges of feudalism,
had strictly preserved the social customs of their order. Nor
had they forgotten the literary tradition, embracing the whole
casuistry of love and the deification of women, in which the
troubadours had embodied the poetical elements of the feudal
system. Condemned to idleness during their attendance at court,
the nobility now converted this tradition into a code of manners,
and, in numerous societies modelled on that of the Hotel
Rambouillet, under the presidency of the most accomplished
women in the capital, a constant war of raillery was carried
on between the two sexes, almost as scientific in its extra-
vagance as the old lore poetry of Provence. The art of conversa-
tion, developed by feminine genius, was thus carried in France to
the height of perfection, and French prose became a matchless
instrument for the purposes of criticism, analysis of character, and
letter-writing. On the other hand, as the masculine spirit
nourished by political liberty decayed, the refinement of the French
language and manners served as a veil to disguise the pro-
gress of social corruption. That exquisite irony of style, which
could convey at one time thoughts full of feminine sentiment and
delicacy, was used at another to recommend the morals of Petronius
and Areino. External order, however, was preserved in both
spheres of art. The course of French conversational prose,
flowing on in a broadening stream from Voiture to La Bruyère
and Madame de Sévigné, descended to the amazing performances
of M. de Crébillon fils, and never was its surface more smooth,and
limpid than on the brink of the cataract of Revolution.
In England this condition of things was exactly reversed.
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Nearly two centuries of religious and political dissension, while they had taught Englishmen how to live in obedience to law, had proved a rough school for manners, and every centre of social authority, qualified to exercise a refining influence, had been weakened in the long struggle.
The court, which had hitherto given a direction to all movements of taste, after being first demoralised by its rapid changes of fortune, was at the close of the seventeenth century in almost complete eclipse.
The energies of the nobility, now the real rulers of the country, were absorbed in politics and warped by party : they had no longer a common rallying-place at court ; so that, though many of them had a genuine love of art and literature, they could not make their corporate influence on them felt, as in the brilliant days that followed the Restoration.
Whatever religious and moral control over the manners of society would naturally have been exercised by the Established Church was weakened by sectarian feeling.
As regards the influence of women, the tragic history of England since the Reformation had developed what was heroic in female character : but such spirits as Lady Fairfax, Lady Russell, and Lady Clancarty were not formed in the drawing-room ; and a comparison of the average English lady of the period, as her portrait is painted in the tenth number of the Spectator, with her French contemporary, as seen in the letters of Madame de Sévigné, gives us an accurate measure of the respective degrees of refinement in the two nations after the Revolution of 1688.
If Englishmen were a hundred years in advance of their neighbours in the art of self-government, they were nearly as far behind them in the art of conversation.
It is the supreme distinction of Addison, as the chief founder of English essay-writing, to have created in England a school of literary taste which, without sacrificing any of the advantages derived from liberty, has raised our language almost to a level with the French in elegance and precision.
The rule of order in the department of manners, imposed on French society at court by kingly authority, grew up, thanks to Addison and his fellow-workers, in the coffee-houses of England, by means of reason and free discussion.
All that delicacy of thought and expression, which, in France, was inspired by women, and was so much the freemasonry of a few select drawing-rooms that it became a literary dialect, was circulated by Addison, wherever the English language was spoken in edu-
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cated society, though the channel of the press. He had lived for
more than a year in France, and must have felt the full charm of
the French style of conversation. A weaker man would have
endeavoured to imitate it. But Addison knew that such a frail
exotic must perish in the open air, and that it would be an almost
hopeless task to graft any branch of culture springing out of
absolutism on the wild stock of English freedom. Whatever
influence the example of French elegance may insensibly have
exercised on his mind, the standard of expression he adopted was
as entirely the reflection of his own nature, as the Tatlers and
Spectators were the product of the peculiar conditions of English
life. And it was just because the essay in his hands held up so
clear a mirror to the different opposing clements in the life of
the nation; because, without identifying itself with any party, it
reflected whatever was vital in the spirit of chivalry and the spirit
of Puritanism, in the interests of town and country, of art and
literature, in a word, of men and women; that it became in
England so powerful an instrument for the improvement of taste
and manners. The Spectator did not attempt to lecture his
audience, but rather to bring them over to his ideas by reason,
raillery, and gentle insinuation; and his hearers, on their side,
insensibly won by the charm of his familiar discourse, began to
detach themselves from the particular sects in which they had
been educated, and gradually to form round him a solid body of
public opinion.
In estimating the merits of Addison as a writer of English
prose, it is necessary to make allowance for the moral purpose of
his essays, and the social conditions under which they were pro-
duced. We cannot analyse our tastes; but if any reader is inclined
to undervalue the speculative portions of Addison's writings, as
superficial and commonplace, he should remember that many
imaginative truths, which we now accept instinctively, were not
established without painful efforts of thought in earlier generations.
Those short sermons, for example, like the essays on cheerfulness,
in the Spectator, which in this day seem little more than collections
of elegant platitudes, had a different meaning for readers who
had been nourished from youth on the prison fare of Puritanism.
Homilies on the various duties of life are not now very enliven-
ing literature, but they exercised a powerful influence on an age
which, educated in the school of manners formed by the Restora-
tion, was in some doubt whether either religious principle or
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conjugal fidelity was quite in keeping with the character of a
gentleman. As to the critical papers in the Spectator there were
some, even in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, who held
them cheap; but Johnson thought otherwise of them; and we
who recollect that they were written when the minds of men were
as yet scarcely weaned from admiration of rhymed tragedies and
metaphysical "wit," and who observe in our own time a certain
revival of similar tastes, may even now be of Johnson's opinion.
It is, however, no doubt, as a humourist, and a painter of
manners, rather than as a critic; as a master of that familiar
conversational style, midway between the personal discourse of
Dryden's prefaces and the anonymous expression of opinion in a
modern newspaper, that Addison has secured imperishable fame.
This side of his genius is marked, in respect of thought, by three
prevailing characteristics. One is irony; in other words, an
inimitable air of gravity which sets before the reader some
folly or absurdity, as if it were entirely consistent with nature and
reason. Good examples of this kind of writing may be found in
Spectators, Nos. 13, 28, 34, 44, 72. A not less remarkable
feature in Addison's style is the richness and delicacy of his
fancy. This sometimes clothes itself in allegory, one of the few
literary traditions of the Middle Ages which he appears to have
been anxious to preserve. But a far finer and more subtle expres-
sion of his fancy is found in those essays, where he surrounds
with the rainbow hues of language and the brilliancy of literary
allusion the manners of the men, and, more particularly the
women of his time. The follies of the fan, the patch, the hoop,
the headdress, and all those mysteries of the toilet, which Pope
at the same period immortalised in the Rape of the Lock, are
embalmed in Addison's essays with unrivalled sweetness and
delicacy. Finally, the fullest scope was given to the exercise of
these qualities by the dramatic fiction of the Club, which furnished
a framework for the Spectator, and enabled Addison, in an assumed
character, to describe, without any appearance of egotism, the
various scenes of life as they came under his observation.
These characteristics of Addison's thought are reproduced in
his style, which reflects in the most refined and beautiful form the
conversational idiom of his period. He is, indeed, far from
attaining that faultless accuracy which has been sometimes ascribed
to him. It was his aim to make philosophy popular, and always
to discourse with his readers in familiar language; but it is
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observable that, when writing on abstract subjects, he frequently becomes involved and obscure. "Since the circulation of the blood," he says in one essay, "has been found out, and many other great discoveries have been made by our modern anatomists, we see new wonders in the human frame, and discern several important uses for those parts, which uses the ancients knew nothing of."1 Here, in the first place, he must intend the words "those parts" to refer to "the human frame," which he has just spoken of in the singular number, and as a whole; in the next place he leads us to expect that the relative pronoun, "which," refers to "those parts"; and lastly, as this is not his meaning, he is reduced to the awkward shift of repeating after this relative the antecedent word which actually belongs to it. The difficulty he found in expressing abstract thought is illustrated by his frequent but faulty use of the conjunction "as"; for example: "We should sufficiently weigh the objects of our hope, whether they be such as we may reasonably expect from them what we propose in their fruition;"2 where it is plain that he ought either to have written "such, that," or "such as may give us reason to expect from them, etc." The following sentence is even more awkward and incorrect: "But there will be such a mixture of delight in the very disgust it gives us, as any of these qualifications are most conspicuous and prevailing:"3 where he means to say: "There will be a mixture of delight in the very disgust it gives us, in proportion as any of these qualifications are conspicuous and prevailing."
Many similar inaccuracies of expression may be detected by the careful reader even in those compositions of Addison in which he has been most happily inspired. They may be classed under various heads:
(1) Elliptical sentences, especially in the use of relative pronouns as: "This was a reflection upon the pope's sister, who before the promotion of her brother was in those mean circumstances that Pasquin represented her" [to be in].4
"But in the temper of mind he was then" [in which he then was] "he termed them mercies."5
(2) Occasionally we meet with one of those false concords, caused by attraction, into which the most careful of writers is always liable to fall; e.g. "And it is plain that each of those poems have lost this great advantage."6
1 Spectator, No. 534. 2 Spectator, No. 535. 3 Spectator, No. 412.
4 Spectator, No 23. 5 Spectator, No. 549. 6 Spectator, No. 272.
Page 506
(3) The following is of course a mere vulgarism : “The last are indeed more preferable.”1
(4) One word or phrase is sometimes wrongly substituted for another, as : “ He was dictated [prompted] by his natural affection as well as by the rules of prudence, to make himself esteemed and beloved by Florio.”2
“ The survey of the whole creation, and of everything that is transacted in it, is a prospect [state] worthy of omniscence, and as much above that in which Virgil has drawn his Jupıter, etc.” 3
“ The best room in it had the reputation of being haunted, and by that means [on that account] was locked up.” 4
(5) He sometimes falls into “pleonasm” by mixing his constructions; e.g. “ I have heard one of the greatest geniuses this age has produced . . . assure me.”
It is instructive to take note of these small blemishes, not only because they show how far the most finished writers come short of complete accuracy, but also because many of them seem to spring naturally out of Addison’s conversational manner of writing. They are but specks in the midst of the ease, beauty, and simplicity of his familiar style. The prose of Addison marks the disappearance of that long tradition of Euphuism, which had left distinct traces of its influence even on so idiomatic a writer as Dryden, in whose style, as I have already shown, two prominent features are metaphor,—used for the expression of ideas not associated with each other by nature,—and verbal antithesis. Addison’s style on the other hand is mainly distinguished by a crystal clearness of expression, a beautiful propriety in the choice of words, and such a balance in the distribution of them as, without the aid of antithesis, leaves the ear at the close of each period with a sense of satisfaction. Instead of those unnatural or far-fetched resemblances, in the discovery of which the Euphuist showed his “wit,” Addison sought to bring out by fancy paradoxes really hidden in nature. Here for example is a series of thoughts on the manufacture of paper : “ It is pleasant enough to consider the change that a linen fragment undergoes by passing through the several hands above mentioned. The finest pieces of Holland, when torn to pieces, assume a new whiteness more beautiful than
1 Spectator, No. 411. 2 Spectator, No. 123. This fault seems to spring out of a confusion of two images.
3 Spectator, No. 315 4 Spectator, No. 110. 5 Spectator, No. 447.
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their first, and often return in the shape of letters to their native country. A lady's shift may be metamorphosed into billet-doux, and come into her possession a second time. A beau may peruse his cravat after it is worn out, with greater pleasure and advantage than ever he did in a glass. In a-word, a piece of cloth, after having officiated for some years as a towel or a napkin, may by this means be raised from a dunghill, and become the most valuable piece of furniture in a prince's cabinet."1
Again, in place of the tricks of verbal antithesis practised by the Euphuists, Addison sought rather to charm mind and ear simultaneously by displaying the varied aspects of a single thought in a rising climax of rhythmical sentences. A good example of this style is furnished in the conclusion of his essay on the tombs in Westminster Abbey: "When I look upon the tombs of the great, every emotion of envy dies in me: when I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, every inordinate desire goes out: when I meet with the grief of parents upon a tombstone, my heart melts with compassion: when I see the tombs of the parents themselves, I consider the vanity of grieving for those whom we must quickly follow: when I see kings lying by those who deposed them, when I consider rival wits placed side by side, or the holy men that divided the world with their contests and disputes, I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little competitions, factions, and debates of mankind."2
In a word, it may be said that the essay in the hands of Addison acquired that perfection of well-bred ease which arises from a complete understanding between an author and his audience. Writing in an age when opinion on all questions of art and manners was greatly divided, while at the same time there was a general desire for intellectual agreement, he treated of a variety of matters, which he was able, through the happiness of his genius, to present in a form pleasing to the imagination of the people. In later essayists we observe that, as their materials are less abundant, and their own personality becomes in consequence more prominent, their style begins to show less of the genius of conversation. When Johnson, for instance, moralises in the Rambler he discourses with the reader, as he himself allows, in the spirit of a dictator. On the other hand, in the Essays of Charles Lamb, everything depends on the writer's own point of view; his fancy has to be
1 Spectator, No. 367.
2 Spectator, No. 27.
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JOSEPH ADDISON
497
followed, like the rays of the sun from the face of a mirror,
into whatever odd nooks and crannies its whimsical caprice may
happen to flash at the moment. In Addison the moral has not
yet been pushed into the lecture, nor has humour yet departed
from the work-a-day world : thought in him instinctively clothes
itself in the common language of refined society, and fancy, grace,
and beauty seem to spring out of the nature of things.
W. J. COURTHOPE.
VOL. III
2 K
Page 509
THE SPECTATOR AND ITS PURPOSE
(Spectator No. 10.)
It is with much satisfaction that I hear this great city inquiring day by day after these my papers, and receiving my morning lectures with a becoming seriousness and attention. My publisher tells me, that there are already three thousand of them distributed every day, so that, if I allow twenty readers to every paper, which I look upon as a modest computation, I may reckon about three score thousand disciples in London and Westminster, who I hope will take care to distinguish themselves from the thoughtless herd of their ignorant and un attentive brethren. Since I have raised to myself so great an audience, I shall spare no pains to make their instruction agreeable, and their diversion useful. For which reasons I shall endeavour to enliven morality with wit, and both ways find their account in the speculation of the day. And to the end that their virtue and discretion may not be short transient intermitting starts of thought, I have resolved to refresh their memories from day to day, till I have recovered them out of that desperate state of vice and folly, into which the age is fallen.
The mind that lies fallow but a single day, sprouts up in follies that are only to be killed by a constant and assiduous culture. It was said of Socrates, that he brought philosophy down from heaven, to inhabit among men; and I shall be ambitious to have it said of me, that I have brought philosophy out of closets and libraries, schools and colleges, to dwell in clubs and assemblies, at tea-tables and in coffee-houses.
I would therefore in a very particular manner recommend these my speculations to all well-regulated families, that set apart an hour in every morning for tea and bread and butter; and would earnestly advise them for their good to order this paper to
Page 510
be punctually served up, and to be looked upon as a part of the
tea equipage.
Sir Francis Bacon observes, that a well-written book, com-
pared with its rivals and antagonists, is like Moses's serpent, that
immediately swallowed up and devoured those of the Egyptians.
I shall not be so vain as to think, that where the Spectator
appears, the other publick prints will vanish ; but shall leave it to
my readers' consideration, whether, is it not much better to be let
into the knowledge of one's-self, than to hear what passes in
Muscovy or Poland ; and to amuse ourselves with such writings
as tend to the wearing out of ignorance, passion, and prejudice,
than such as naturally conduce to inflame hatreds, and make
enmities irreconcileable.
In the next place, I would recommend this paper to the daily
perusal of those gentlemen whom I cannot but consider as my
good brothers and allies, I mean the fraternity of spectators who
live in the world without having anything to do in it ; and either
by the affluence of their fortunes or laziness of their dispositions,
have no other business with the rest of mankind but to look upon
them. Under this class of men are comprehended all contem-
plative tradesmen, titular physicians, fellows of the royal society,
templars that are not given to be contentious, and statesmen
that are out of business. In short, every one that considers the
world as a theatre, and desires to form a right judgment of those
who are the actors on it.
There is another set of men that I must likewise lay a claim
to, whom I have lately called the blanks of society, as being
altogether unfurnish'd with ideas, till the business and conversa-
tion of the day has supplied them. I have often considered these
poor souls with an eye of great commiseration, when I have heard
them asking the first man they have met with, whether there was
any news stirring ? and by that means gathering together materials
for thinking. These needy persons do not know what to talk of,
till about twelve a-clock in the morning ; for by that time they
are pretty good judges of the weather, know which way the wind
sits, and whether the Dutch mail be come in. As they lie at the
mercy of the first man they meet, and are grave or impertinent
all the day long, according to the notions which they have im-
bibed in the morning, I would earnestly entreat them not to stir
out of their chambers till they have read this paper, and do
promise them that I will daily instil into them. such sound and
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wholesome sentiments, as shall have a good effect on their conversation for the ensuing twelve hours.
But there are none to whom this paper will be more useful than to the female world. I have often thought there has not
been sufficient pains taken in finding out proper employments and diversions for the fair ones. Their amusements seem contrived
for them rather as they are women, than as they are reasonable creatures ; and are more adapted to the sex, than to the species.
The toilet is their great scene of business, and the right adjusting of their hair the principal employment of their lives.
The sorting of a suit of ribbons is reckoned a very good morning's work ; and if they make an excursion to a mercer's or a toy-shop, so great a
fatigue makes them unfit for anything else all the day after. Their more serious occupations are sewing and embroidery, and
their greatest drudgery the preparation of jellies and sweetmeats. This, I say, is the state of ordinary women ; though I know there
are multitudes of those of a more elevated life and conversation, that move in an exalted sphere of knowledge and virtue, that join
all the beauties of the mind to the ornaments of dress, and inspire a kind of awe and respect, as well as love, into their male
beholders. I hope to increase the number of these by publishing this daily paper, which I shall always endeavour to make an
innocent if not an improving entertainment, and by that means at least divert the minds of my female readers from greater trifles.
At the same time, as I would fain give some finishing touches to those which are already the most beautiful pieces in human
nature, I shall endeavour to point out all those imperfections that are the blemishes, as well as those virtues which are the embellishments of the sex.
In the meanwhile I hope these my gentle readers, who have so much time on their hands, will not grudge throwing away a quarter of an hour in a day on this paper, since
they may do it without any hindrance to business.
I know several of my friends and well-wishers are in great pain for me, lest I should not be able to keep up the spirit of a
paper which I oblige myself to furnish every day ; but to make them easy in this particular, I will promise them faithfully to give
it over as soon as I grow dull. This I know will be matter of great raillery to the small wits ; who will frequently put me in
mind of my promise, desire me to keep my word, assure me that it is high time to give over, with many other little pleasant-
rics of the like nature, which men of a little smart genius cannot
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forbear throwing out against their best friends, when they have
such a handle given them of being witty. But let them remember,
that I do hereby enter my caveat against this piece of raillery.
TO SEE OURSELVES AS OTHERS SEE US
(Spectator, No. 34.)
THE club of which I am a member, is very luckily composed
of such persons as are engaged in different ways of life, and
deputed as it were out of the most conspicuous classes of mankind ;
by this means I am furnished with the greatest variety of hints
and materials, and know everything that passes in the different
quarters and divisions, not only of this great city, but of the
whole kingdom. My readers too have the satisfaction to find,
that there is no rank or degree among them who have not their
representative in this club, and that there is always some body
present who will take care of their respective interests, that
nothing may be written or published to the prejudice or infringe-
ment of their just rights and privileges.
I last night sat very late in company with this select body of
friends, who entertained me with several remarks which they and
others had made upon these my speculations, as also with the
various success which they had met with among their several
ranks and degrees of readers. Will. Honeycomb told me,
in the softest manner he could, that there were some ladies
(but for your comfort, says Will., they are not those of the most
wit) that were offended at the liberties I had taken with the opera
and the puppet-show : that some of them were likewise very much
surprized, that I should think such serious points as the dress and
equipage of persons of quality, proper subjects for raillery.
He was going on, when Sir Andrew Freeport took him up
short, and told him, that the papers he hinted at had done great
good in the city, and that all their wives and daughters were the
better for them : and further added, that the whole city thought
themselves very much obliged to me for declaring my generous
intentions to scourge vice and folly as they appear in a multitude,
without condescending to be a publisher of particular intrigues
and cuckoldoms. In short, says Sir Andrew, if you avoid that
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foolish beaten road of falling upon aldermen and citizens, and employ your pen upon the vanity and luxury of courts, your paper must needs be of general use.
Upon this my friend the templar told Sir Andrew, that he wondered to hear a man of his sense talk after that manner ; that the city had always been the province for satire ; and that the wits of King Charles's time jested upon nothing else during his whole reign. He then shewed, by the examples of Horace, Juvenal, Boileau, and the best writers of every age, that the follies of the stage and court had never been accounted too sacred for ridicule, how great soever the persons might be that patronized them. But after all, says he, I think your raillery has made too great an excursion, in attacking several persons of the Inns of Court ; and I do not believe you can shew me any precedent for your behaviour in that particular.
My good friend Sir Roger de Coverley, who had said nothing all this whilc, began his speech with a pish ! and told us, that he wondered to see so many men of sense, so very serious upon fooleries. Let our good friend, says he, attack every one that deserves it : I would only advise you, Mr. Spectator, applying himself to me, to take care how you meddle with country squires : they are the ornaments of the English nation ; men of good heads and sound bodies ! and let me tell you, some of them take it ill of you that you mention fox-hunters with so little respect.
Captain Sentry spoke very sparingly on this occasion. What he said was only to commend my prudence in not touching upon the army, and advised me to continue to act discreetly in that point.
By this time I found every subject of my speculations was taken away from me by one or other of the club ; and began to think myself in the condition of the good man that had one wife who took a dislike to his grey hairs, and another to his black, till by their picking out what each of them had an aversion to, they left his head altogether bald and naked.
While I was thus amusing with my self, my worthy friend the clergy-man, who, very luckily for me, was at the club that night, undertook my cause. He told us, that he wondered any order of persons should think themselves too considerable to be advised : that it was not quality, but innocence which exempted men from reproof - that vice and folly ought to be attacked wherever they could be met with, and especially when they were placed in high
Page 514
and conspicuous stations of life. He further added, that my paper,
would only serve to aggravate the pains of poverty, if it chiefly
exposed those who are already depressed, and in some measure
turned into ridicule, by the meanness of their conditions and
circumstances. He afterwards proceeded to take notice of the
great use this paper might be of to the publick, by reprehending
those vices which are too trivial for the chastisement of the law,
and too fantastical for the cognizance of the pulpit. He then
advised me to prosecute my undertaking with cheerfulness; and
assured me, that whoever might be displeased with me, I should
be approved by all those whose praises do honour to the persons
on whom they are bestowed.
The whole club pays a particular deference to the discourse of
this gentleman, and are drawn into what he says as much by the
candid and ingenuous manner with which he delivers himself, as
by the strength of argument and force of reason which he makes
use of. Will. Honeycomb immediately agreed, that what he had
said was right; and that for his part, he would not insist upon the
quarter which he had demanded for the ladies. Sir Andrew gave
up the city with the same frankness. The templar would not
stand out: and was followed by Sir Roger and the Captain:
who all agreed that I should be at liberty to carry the war into what
quarter I pleased; provided I continued to combat with criminals
in a body, and to assault the vice without hurting the person.
This debate, which was held for the good of mankind, put me
in mind of that which the Roman triumvirate were formerly
engaged in, for their destruction. Every man at first stood hard
for his friend, till they found that by this means they should spoil
their proscription. And at length, making a sacrifice of all their
acquaintance and relations, furnished out a very decent execution.
Having thus taken my resolutions to march on boldly in the
cause of virtue and good sense, and to annoy their adversaries in
whatever degree or rank of men they may be found, I shall be
deaf for the future to all the remonstrances that shall be made to
me on this account. If Punch grow extravagant, I shall repre-
mand him very freely: if the stage becomes a nursery of folly and
impertinence, I shall not be afraid to animadvert upon it. In
short, if I meet with any thing in city, court, or country, that
shocks modesty or good manners, I shall use my utmost endeav-
ours to make an example of it. I must however intreat every
particular person, who does me the honour to be a reader of this
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paper, never to think himself, or any one of his friends or enemies,
aimed at in what is said · for I promise him, never to draw a
faulty character which does not fit at least a thousand people ; or
to publish a single paper, that is not written in the spirit of
benevolence and with a love to mankind.
THE SPECTATOR'S ANTICIPATION OF THE
VERDICT OF POSTERITY
(Spectator, No. 101.)
Censure, says a late ingenious author, is the tax a man pays to
the publick 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 con-
comitant 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 re-
proaches 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
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 opportunities 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 Cæsar to be a great man,
without derogating from Pompey ; and celebrate the virtues of
Cato, without detracting from those of Cæsar. Every one that
has been long dead has a due proportion of praise allotted him,
Page 516
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 then be 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
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mention which will then be made of me ; and have drawn up a
paragraph in my own imagination, that I fancy will not be alto-
gether 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 humourist 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 prin-
ciples 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
masques 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 de-
tract 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 indulg-
ence which we must show to old English writers, or if we look
into the variety of his subjects, with those severe critical dis-
sertations, moral reflections,
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JOSEPH ADDISON
507
The following part of the paragraph is so much to my advantage, and beyond any thing I can pretend to, that I hope my reader will excuse me for not inserting it.
THE ROYAL EXCHANGE
(Spectator, No. 69.)
THERE is no place in the town which I so much love to frequent as the Royal Exchange. It gives me a secret satisfaction, and in some measure, gratifies my vanity, as I am an Englishman, to see so rich an assembly of countrymen and foreigners consulting together upon the private business of mankind, and making this metropolis a kind of emporium for the whole earth.
I must confess I look upon high-change to be a great council, in which all considerable nations have their representatives. Factors in the trading world are what ambassadors are in the politick world; they negotiate affairs, conclude treaties, and maintain a good correspondence between those wealthy socicties of men that are divided from one another by seas and oceans, or live on the different extremities of a continent.
I have often been pleased to hear disputes adjusted between an inhabitant of Japan and an alderman of London, or to see a subject of the Great Mogul entering into a league with one of the Czar of Muscovy.
I am infinitely delighted in mixing with these several ministers of commerce, as they are distinguished by their different walks and different languages : sometimes I am justled among a body of Armenians . sometimes I am lost in a crowd of Jews ; and sometimes make one in a group of Dutchmen.
I am a Dane, Swede, or Frenchman at different times ; or rather fancy myself like the old philospher, who upon being asked what countryman he was, replied, that he was a citizen of the world.
Though I very frequently visit this busy multitude of people, I am known to nobody there but my friend, Sir Andrew, who often smiles upon me as he sees me bustling in the crowd, but at the same time connives at my presence without taking any further notice of me.
There is indeed a merchant of Egypt, who just knows me by sight, having formerly remitted me some money to
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Grand Cairo ; but as I am not versed in the modern Coptick, our conferences go no further than a bow and a grimace.
This grand scene of business gives me an infinite variety of solid and substantial entertainments. As I am a great lover of mankind, my heart naturally overflows with pleasure, at the sight of a prosperous and happy multitude, insomuch that at many publick solemnities I cannot forbear expressing my joy with tears that have stolen down my cheeks. For this reason I am wonderfully delighted to see such a body of men thriving in their own private fortunes, and at the same time promoting the publick stock ; or in other words, raising estates for their own families, by bringing into their country whatever is wanting, and carrying out of it whatever is superfluous.
Nature seems to have taken a particular care to disseminate her blessings among the different regions of the world, with an eye to this mutual intercourse and traffick among mankind, that the natives of the several parts of the globe might have a kind of dependence upon one another, and be united together by their common interest. Almost every degree produces something peculiar to it. The food often grows in one country, and the sauce in another. The fruits of Portugal are corrected by the products of Barbadoes : the infusion of a China plant sweetened with the pith of an Indian cane. The Philippick Islands give a flavour to our European bowls. The single dress of a woman of quality is often the product of a hundred climates. The muff and fan come together from the different ends of the earth. The scarf is sent from the torrid zone, and the tippet from beneath the pole. The brocade Petticoat rises out of the mines of Peru, and the diamond necklace out of the bowels of Indostan.
If we consider our own country in its natural prospect, without any of the benefits and advantages of commerce, what a barren uncomfortable spot of earth falls to our share! Natural historians tell us, that no fruit grows originally among us, besides hips, and haws, acorns and pig-nuts, with other delicates of the like nature ; that our climate of itself, and without the assistances of art, can make no further advances towards a plum than to a sloc, and carries an apple to no greater a perfection than a crab : that our melons, our peaches, our figs, our apricots, and cherries, are strangers among us, imported in different ages, and naturalised in our English gardens ; and that they would all degenerate and fall away into the trash of our own country, if they were wholly
Page 520
neglected by the planter, and left to the mercy of our sun and soil.
Nor has traffick more enriched our vegetable world, than it has
improved the whole face of nature among us. Our ships are laden
with the harvest of every climate ; our tables are stored with spices,
and oils, and wines : our rooms are filled with pyramids of china,
and adorned with the workmanship of Japan: our morning's
draught comes to us from the remotest corners of the earth : we
repair our bodies by the drugs of America, and repose ourselves
under Indian canopies. My friend Sir Andrew calls the vineyards
of France our gardens: the spice-islands our hot-beds ; the
Persians our silk-weavers, and the Chinese our potters. Nature
indeed furnishes us with the bare necessaries of life, but traffick
gives us greater variety of what is useful, and at the same time
supplies us with everything that is convenient and ornamental.
Nor is it the least part of this our happiness, that whilst we enjoy
the remotest products of the north and south, we are free from
those extremities of weather which give them birth ; that our eyes
are refreshed with the green fields of Britain, at the same time that
our palates are feasted with fruits that rise between the tropicks.
For these reasons there are no more useful members in a
commonwealth than merchants. They knit mankind together in
a mutual intercourse of good offices, distribute the gifts of nature,
find work for the poor, add wealth to the rich, and magnificence
to the great. Our English merchant converts the tin of his own
country into gold, and exchanges his wool for rubies. The
Mahometans are clothed in our British manufacture, and the in-
habitants of the frozen zone warmed with the fleece of our sheep.
When I have been upon the 'change, I have often fancied one
of our old kings standing in person, where he is represented in
effigy, and looking down upon the wealthy concourse of people
with which that place is every day filled. In this case, how
would he be surprised to hear all the languages of Europe spoken
in this little spot of his former dominions, and to see so many
private men, who in his time would have been the vassals of some
powerful Baron, negotiating like princes for greater sums of mony
than were formerly to be met with in the royal treasury ! Trade
without enlarging the British territories, has given us a kind of
additional empire : it has multiplied the number of the rich, made
our landed estates infinitely more valuable than they were formerly,
and added to them an accession of other estates as valuable as
the lands themselves.
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HEAD-DRESSES
(Spectator, No. 98.)
I HERE is not so variable a thing in nature as a lady's head-dress: within my own memory I have known it rise and fall above thirty degrees.
About ten years ago it shot up to a very great height, insomuch that the female part of our species were much taller than the men.
The women were of such an enormous stature, that we appeared as grasshoppers before them: at present the whole sex is in a manner dwarfed and shrunk into a race of beauties that seems almost another species.
I remember several ladies, who were once very near seven foot high, that at present want some inches of five: how they came to be thus curtailed I cannot learn ; whether the whole sex be at present under any penance which we know nothing of, or whether they have cast their head-dresses in order to surprise us with something in that kind which shall be entirely new ; or whether some of the tallest of the sex, being too cunning for the rest, have contrived this method to make themselves appear sizeable, is still a secret;
though I find most are of opinion, they are at present like trees new lopped and pruned, that will certainly sprout up and flourish with greater heads than before.
For my own part, as I do not love to be insulted by women who are taller than myself; I admire the sex much more in their present humiliation, which has reduced them to their natural dimensions, than when they had extended their persons and lengthened themselves out into formid- able and gigantick figures.
I am not for adding to the beautiful edifices of nature, nor for raising any whimsical superstructure upon her plans: I must therefore repeat it, that I am highly pleased with the coiffure now in fashion, and think it shews the good sense which at present very much reigns among the valuable part of the sex.
One may observe that women in all ages have taken more pains than men to adorn the outside of their heads ; and indeed I very much admire, that those female architects, who have not been recorded for their respective inventions.
It is certain there has been as many orders in these kinds of building, as in those which have been made of marble; sometimes they rise in the shape of a pyramid, sometimes like a tower, and some-
Page 522
times like a steeple. In Juvenal's time the building grew by
several orders and stories, as he has very humourously described it.
Tot premit ordinibus, tot adhuc compagibus altum
Ædificat caput Andromachen à fronte videbis;
Post minor est. Altam credas.—Juv.
But I do not remember in any part of my reading, that the head-
dress aspired to so great an extravagance as in the fourteenth
century; when it was built up in a couple of cones or spires,
which stood so excessively high on each side of the head, that a
woman, who was but a pigmy without her head-dress, appeared
like a colossus upon putting it on. Monsieur Paradin says :
" That these old-fashioned Fontanges rose an ell above the head ;
that they were pointed like steeples, and had long loose pieces of
crape fastened to the tops of them, which were curiously fringed
and hung down their backs like streamers."
The women might possibly have carried this Gothick building
much higher, had not a famous monk, Thomas Conckte by name,
attacked it with great zeal and resolution. This holy man
travelled from place to place to preach down this monstrous
commodes; and succeeded so well in it, that as the magicians
sacrificed their books to the flames upon the preaching of an
apostle, many of the women threw down their head-dresses in the
middle of his sermon, and made a bonfire of them within sight of
the pulpit. He was so renowned as well for the sanctity of his
life as his manner of preaching that he had often a congregation
of twenty thousand people; the men placing themselves on the
one side of his pulpit, and the women on the other, that appeared
(to use the similitude of an ingenious writer) like a forest of cedars
with their heads reaching to the clouds. He so warmed and
animated the people against this monstrous ornament, that it lay
under a kind of persecution; and whencver it appeared in publik
was pelted down by the rabble, who flung stones at the persons
that wore it. But notwithstanding this prodigy vanished, whilc
the preacher was among them, it began to appear again some
months after his departure, or, to tell it in Monsicur Paradin's own
words, "The women that, like snails, in a fright, had drawn in their
horns, shot them out again as soon as the danger was over."
This extravagance of the women's head-dresses in that age is taken
notice of by Monsieur d'Argentré in the history of Bretagne, and
by other historians as well as the person I have here quoted.
It is usually observed, that a good reign is the only proper
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time for making of laws against the exorbitance of power; in the
same manner an excessive head-dress may be attacked the most
effectually when the fashion is against it. I do therefore recom-
mend this paper to my female readers by way of prevention.
I would desire the fair sex to consider how impossible it is for
them to add anything that can be ornamental to what is already
the master-piece of nature. The head has the most beautiful
appearance, as well as the highest station, in a human figure.
Nature has laid out all her art in beautifying the face; she has
touched it with vermilion, planted in it a double row of ivory,
made it the seat of smiles and blushes, lighted it up and en-
livened it with the brightness of the eyes, hung it on each side
with curious organs of sense, given it airs and graces that cannot
be described, and surrounded it with such a flowing shade of hair
as sets all its beauties in the most agreeable light : in short, she
seems to have designed the head as the cupola to the most
glorious of her works; and when we load it with such a pile of
supernumerary ornaments, we destroy the symmetry of the
human figure, and foolishly contrive to call off the eye from great
and real beauties, to childish gewgaws, ribbands, and bone-lace.
HOODS
(Spectator, No. 265.)
ONE of the fathers, if I am rightly informed, has defined a woman
to be ζῶον φιλoκόσμoν, an animal that delights in finery. I have
already treated of the sex in two or three papers, conformably to
this definition, and have in particular observed, that in all ages
they have been more careful than the men to adorn that part
of the head, which we generally call the outside.
This observation is so very notorious, that when in ordinary dis-
course we say a man has a fine head, a long head, or a good head,
we express ourselves metaphorically, and speak in relation to his
understanding; whereas when we say of a woman, she has a fine,
a long or a good head, we speak only in relation to her commode.
It is observed among birds, that nature has lavished all her
ornaments upon the male, who very often appears in a most
beautiful head-dress : Whether it be a crest, a comb, a tuft of
Page 524
feathers, or a natural little plume, erected like a kind of pinnacle
on the very top of the head. As nature on the contrary has
poured out her charms in the greatest abundance upon the female
part of our species, so they are very assiduous in bestowing upon
themselves the finest garnitures of art. The peacock in all his
pride, does not display half the colours that appear in the garments
of a British lady, when she is dressed either for a ball or a
birth-day.
But to return to our female heads. The ladies have been for
some time in a kind of moulting season, with regard to that part
of their dress, having cast great quantities of ribbon, lace, and
cambrick, and in some measure reduced that part of the human
figure to the beautiful globular form, which is natural to it. We
have for a great while expected what kind of ornament would be
substituted in the place of those antiquated commodes. But our
female projectors were all the last summer so taken up with the
improvement of their petticoats, that they had not time to attend
to anything else ; but having at length sufficiently adorned their
lower parts, they now begin to turn their thoughts upon the other
extremity, as well remembering the old kitchen proverb, that if
you light your fire at both ends, the middle will shift for itself.
I am engaged in this speculation by a sight which I lately met
with at the opera. As I was standing in the hinder part of the
box, I took notice of a little cluster of women sitting together in the
prettiest coloured hoods that I ever saw. One of them was blue,
another yellow, and another philomot ; the fourth was of a pink
colour, and the fifth of a pale green. I looked with as much
pleasure upon this little party-coloured assembly, as upon a bed
of tulips, and did not know at first whether it might not be an
embassy of Indian queens ; but upon my going about into the pit,
and taking them in front, I was immediately undeceived, and saw
so much beauty in every face, that I found them all to be English.
Such eyes and lips, cheeks and foreheads, could be the growth of
no other country. The complexion of their faces hindered me
from observing any farther the colour of their hoods, though I
could easily perceive by that unspeakable satisfaction which
appeared in their looks, that their own thoughts were wholly taken
up on those pretty ornaments they wore upon their heads.
I am informed that this fashion spreads daily, insomuch that
the Whig and Tory ladies begin already to hang out different
colours, and to shew their principles in their head-dress. Nay if
VOL. III
2 L
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I may believe my friend Will. Honeycomb, there is a certain old coquet of his acquaintance who intends to appear very suddenly in a rainbow hood, like the Iris in Dryden's Virgil, not questioning but that among such a variety of colours she shall have a charm for every heart.
My friend Will., who very much values himself upon his great insights into gallantry, tells me, that he can already guess at the humour a lady is in by her hood, as the courtiers of Morocco know the disposition of their present emperor by the colour of the dress which he puts on. When Melesinda wraps her head in flame colour, her heart is set upon execution. When she covers it with purple, I would not, says he, advise her lover to approach her ; but if she appears in white, it is peace, and he may hand her out of her box with safety.
Will, informs me likewise, that these hoods may be used as signals. Why else, says he, does Cornelia always put on a black hood when her husband is gone into the country?
Such are my friend Honeycomb's dreams of gallantry. For my own part, I impute this diversity of colours in the hoods to the diversity of complexion in the faces of my pretty country-women. Ovid in his Art of Love has given some precepts as to this particular, though I find they are different from those which prevail among the moderns. He recommends a red striped silk to the pale complexion ; white to the brown, and dark to the fair.
On the contrary my friend Will., who pretends to be a greater master in this art than Ovid, tells me, that the palest features look the most agreeable in white sarsenet ; that a face which is overflushed appears to advantage in the deepest scarlet, and that the darkest complexion is not a little alleviated by a black hood.
In short, he is for losing the colour of the face in that of the hood, as a fire burns dimly, and a candle goes half out, in the light of the sun. This, says he, your Ovid himself has hinted, where he treats of these matters, when he tells us that the blue water-nymphs are dressed in sky-coloured garments ; and that Aurora, who always appears in the light of the rising sun, is robed in saffron.
Whether these his observations are justly grounded I cannot tell : but I have often known him, as we have stood together behind the ladies, praise or dispraise the complexion of a face which he never saw, from observing the colour of her hood, and has been very seldom out in these his guesses.
Page 526
JOSEPH ADDISON
515
As I have nothing more at heart than the honour and improve-
ment of the fair sex, I cannot conclude this paper without an
exhortation to the British ladies, that they would excel the women
of all other nations as much in virtue and good sense, as they do
in beauty; which they may certainly do, if they will be as in-
dustrious to cultivate their minds, as they are to adorn their
bodies: in the mean while I shall recommend to their most
serious consideration the saying of an old Greek poet,
Γυναικὶ κόσμος ὁ τρόπος, κ’ οὐ χρυσία.
WILL. WIMBLE
(Spectator, No. 108.)
As I was yesterday morning walking with Sir Roger before his
house, a country-fellow brought him a huge fish, which he told
him, Mr. William Wimble had caught that very morning; and that
he presented it, with his service to him, and intended to come and
dine with him. At the same time he delivered a letter, which my
friend read to me as soon as the messenger left him.
Sir Roger—I desire you to accept of a jack, which is the
best I have caught this season. I intend to come and stay with
you a week, and see how the perch bite in the Black River. I
observed with some concern, the last time I saw you upon the
bowling green, that your whip wanted a lash to it; I will bring
half-a-dozen with me that I twisted last week, which I hope will
serve you all the time you are in the country. I have not been
out of the saddle for six days last past, having been at Eaton
with Sir John's eldest son. He takes to his learning hugely.—
I am, sir, your humble servant,
Will. Wimble.
This extraordinary letter, and message that accompanied it,
made me very curious to know the character and quality of the
gentleman who sent them; which I found to be as follows. Will.
Wimble is younger brother to a baronet, and descended of the
ancient family of the Wimbles. He is now between forty and
fifty; but being bred to no business and born to no estate, he
generally lives with his elder brother as superintendent of his
game. He hunts a pack of dogs better than any man in the
country, and is very famous for finding out a hare. He is extremely
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well versed in all the little handicrafts of an idle man : he makes
a May-fly to a miracle ; and furnishes the whole country with
angle-rods. As he is a good-natur'd officious fellow, and very
much esteem'd upon account of his family, he is a welcome
guest at every house, and keeps up a good correspondence among
all the gentlemen about him. He carries a tulip-root in his
pocket from one to another, or exchanges a puppy between a
couple of friends that live perhaps in the opposite sides of the
county. Will. is a particular favourite of all the young heirs,
whom he frequently obliges with a net that' he has woven, or a
setting-dog that he has made himself : he now and then presents
a pair of garters of his own knitting to their mothers or sisters ;
and raises a great deal of mirth among them, by enquiring as
often as he meets them how they wear ? These gentleman-like
manufactures and obliging little humours, make Will. the darling
of the country.
Sir Roger was proceeding in the character of him, when we
saw him make up to us with two or three hazel-twigs in his hand
that he had cut in Sir Roger’s woods, as he came through them,
in his way to the house. I was very much pleased to observe on
one side the hearty and sincere welcome with which Sir Roger
received him, and on the other, the secret joy which his guest
discover'd at sight of the good old knight. After the first salutes
were over, Will. desired Sir Roger to lend him one of his servants
to carry a set of shuttlecocks he had with him in a little box to a
lady that lived about a mile off, to whom it seems he had
promis'd such a present for above this half year. Sir Roger’s
back was no sooner turned but honest Will. began to tell me of a
large cock-pheasant that he had sprung in one of the neighbour-
ing woods, with two or three other adventures of the same nature.
Odd and uncommon characters are the game that I look for, and
most delight in ; for which reason I was as much pleased with
the novelty of the person that talked to me, as he could be for
his life with the springing of a pheasant, and therefore listened to
him with more than ordinary attention.
In the midst of his discourse the bell rung to dinner, where the
gentleman I have been speaking of had the pleasure of seeing the
huge jack, he had caught, served up for the first dish in a most
sunptuous manner. Upon our sitting down to it he gave us a
long account how he had hooked it, played with it, foiled it, and
at length drew it out upon the bank, with several other particulars
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JOSEPH ADDISON
517
that lasted all the first course. A dish of wild-fowl that came afterwards furnished conversation for the rest of the dinner, which concluded with a late invention of Will's for improving the quail-pipe.
Upon withdrawing into my room after dinner, I was secretly touched with compassion towards the honest gentleman that had dined with us; and could not but consider with a great deal of concern, how so good an heart and such busy hands were wholly employed in trifles; that so much humanity should be so little beneficial to others, and so much industry so little advantageous to himself. The same temper of mind and application to affairs might have recommended him to the publick esteem, and have raised his fortune in another station of life. What good to his country or himself might not a tráder or merchant have done with such useful tho' ordinary qualifications?
Will. Wımble's is the case of many a younger brother of a great family, who had rather see their children starve like gentlemen, than thrive in a trade or profession that is beneath their quality. This humour fills several parts of Europe with pride and beggary. It is the happiness of a trading nation, like ours, that the younger sons, tho' incapable of any liberal art or profession, may be placed in such a way of life, as may perhaps enable them to vie with the best of their family : accordingly we find several citizens that were launched into the world with narrow fortunes, rising by an honest industry to greater estates than those of their elder brothers. It is not improbable but Will. was formerly tried at divinity, law, or physick; and that finding his genius did not lie that way, his parents gave him up at length to his own inventions. But certainly, however improper he might have been for studies of a higher nature, he was perfectly well turned for the occupations of trade and commerce. As I think this is a point which cannot be too much inculcated, I shall desire my reader to compare what I have here written with what I have said in my twenty-first speculation.
SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY AT THE PLAY
(Spectator, No. 335.)
My friend Sir Roger de Coverley, when we last met together at the club, told me, that he had a great mind to see the new tragedy
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with me, assuring me at the same time, that he had not been at
a play these twenty years. The last I saw, said Sir Roger, was
the Committee which I should not have gone to neither, had
not I been told beforehand that it was a good Church-of-England
comedy. He then proceeded to enquire of me who this distress
mother was ; and upon hearing that she was Hector's widow, he
told me that her husband was a brave man, and that when he
was a school-boy he had read his life at the end of the dictionary.
My friend asked me, in the next place, if there would not be some
danger in coming home late, in case the Mohocks should be
abroad. I assure you, says he, I thought I had fallen into their
hands last night ; for I observed two or three lusty black men
that followed me half way up Fleet Street, and mended their pace
behind me, in proportion as I put on to get away from them.
You must know, continued the knight with a smile, I fancied
they had a mind to hunt me; for I remember an honest gentleman
in my neighbourhood, who was served such a trick in King Charles
the Second's time ; for which reason he has not ventured himself
in town ever since. I might have shown them very good sport,
had this been their design ; for as I am an old fox-hunter, I
should have turned and dodged, and have played them a thousand
tricks they had never seen in their lives before. Sir Roger added,
that if these gentlemen had any such intention, they did not
succeed very well in it : for I threw them out, says he, at the end
of Norfolk Street, where I doubled the corner, and got shelter in
my lodgings before they could imagine what was become of me.
However, says the knight, if Captain Sentry will make one with
us to-morrow night, and if you will both of you call upon me
about four a-clock, that we may be at the house before it is full,
I will have my own coach in readiness to attend you, for John
tells me he has got the fore-wheels mended.
The Captain, who did not fail to meet me there at the ap-
pointed hour, bid Sir Roger fear nothing, for that he had put on
the same sword which he made use of at the battle of Steen-
kirk. Sir Roger's servants, and among the rest my old friend
the butler, had, I found, provided themselves with good oaken
plants, to attend their master upon this occasion. When we had
placed him in his coach, with myself at his left-hand, the captain
before him, and his butler at the head of his footmen in the rear,
we convoy'd him in safety to the play-house, where, after having
marched up the entry in good order, the captain and I went in
Page 530
with him, and seated him betwixt us in the pit. As soon as the
house was full, and the candles lighted, my old friend stood up
and looked about him with that pleasure, which a mind seasoned
with humanity naturally feels in its self, at the sight of a multitude
of people who seem pleased with one another, and partake of the
same common entertainment. I could not but fancy to myself,
as the old man stood up in the middle of the pit, that he made a
very proper center to a tragick audicnce. Upon the entering of
Pyrrhus, the knight told me, that he did not believe the King of
France himself had a better strut. I was indeed very attentive
to my old friend's remarks, because I looked upon them as a
piece of natural criticism, and was well pleased to hear him at the
conclusion of almost every scene, telling me that he could not
imagine how the play would end. One while he appeared much
concerned for Andromache ; and a little while after as much for
Hermione : and he was extremely puzzled to think what would
become of Pyrihus.
When Sir Roger saw Adromache's obstinate refusal to her
lover's importunities, he whispered me in the ear, that he was
sure she would never have him ; to which he added with a more
than ordinary vehemence, you can't imagine, sir, what 'tis to have
to do with a widow. Upon Pyrrhus his threatening afterwards
to leave her, the knight shook his head, and muttered to himself,
ay, do if you can. This part dwelt so much upon my friend's
imagination, that at the close of the third act, as I was thinking
of something else, he whispered in my ear, these widows, sir, are
the most perverse creatures in the world. But pray, says he, you
that are a critick, is this play according to your dramatick rules,
as you call them? Should your people in tragedy always talk to
be understood? Why, there is not a single sentence in this play
that I do not know the meaning of.
The fourth act very luckly began before I had time to give
the old gentleman an answer: Well, says the knight, sitting
down with great satisfaction, I suppose we are now to see Hector's
ghost. He then renewed his attention, and, from time to time,
fell a praising the widow. He made, indeed, a little mistake as
to one of her pages, whom at his first cntering, he took for
Astyanax ; but he quickly set himself right in that particular,
though, at the same time, he owned he should have been very
glad to have seen the little boy, who, says he, must needs be a
very fine child by the account that is given of him. Upon
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ENGLISH PROSE
Hermione's going off with a menace to Pyrrhus, the audience gave a loud clap ; to which Sir Roger added, On my word, a notable young baggage !
As there was a very remarkable silence and stillness in the audience during the whole action, it was natural for them to take the opportunıty of these intervals between the acts, to express their opinion of the players, and of their respective parts. Sir Roger hearing a cluster of them praise Orestes, struck in with them, and told them, that he thought his friend Pylades was a very sensible man ; as they were afterwards applauding Pyrrhus, Sir Roger put in a second time ; and let me tell you, says he, though he speaks but little, I like the old fellow in whiskers as well as any of them.
Captain Sentry seeing* two or three wags who sat near us, lean with an attentive ear towards Sir Roger, and fearing lest they should smoke the knight, plucked him by the elbow, and whispered something in his ear, that lasted till the opening of the fifth act. The knight was wonderfully attentive to the account which Orestes gives of Pyrrhus his death, and at the conclusion of it, told me it was such a bloody piece of work, that he was glad it was not done upon the stage. Seeing afterwards Orestes in his raving fit, he grew more than ordinary serious, and took occasion to moralize (in his way) upon an evil conscience, adding, that Orestes, in his madness, looked as if he saw something.
As we were the first that came*into the house, so we were the last that went out of it ; being resolved to have a clear passage for our old friend, whom we did not care to venture among the justling of the crowd. Sir Roger went out fully satisfied with his entertainment, and we guarded him to his lodgings in the same manner that we brought him to the play-house ; being highly pleased, for my own part, not only with the performance of the excellent piece which had been presented, but with the satisfaction which it had given to the good old man.
THE NEWS AT THE CLUB OF SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY'S DEATH
(Spectator, No. 517.)
WE last night received a piece of ill news at our club, which very sensibly afflicted every one of us. I question not but my readers
Page 532
themselves will be troubled at the hearing of it. To keep them
no longer in suspense, Sir Roger de Coverley is dead. He
departed this life at his house in the country, after a few weeks
sickness. Sir Andrew Freeport has a letter from one of his
correspondents in those parts, that informs him the old man
caught a cold at the county-sessions, as he was very warmly pro-
moting an address of his own penning, in which he succeeded
according to his wishes. But this particular comes from a Whig
justice of peace, who was always Sir Roger's enemy and antag-
onist. I have letters both from the Chaplain and Captain Sentry
which mention nothing of it, but are filled with many particulars
to the honour of the good old man. I have likewise a letter from
the butler, who took so much care of me last summer when I was
at the knight's house. As my friend the butler mentions, in the
simplicity of his heart, several circumstances the others have
passed over in silence, I shall give my reader a copy of his letter,
without any alteration or diminution.
"Honoured Sir—Knowing that you was my old master's
good friend, I could not forbear sending you the melancholy news
of his death, which has afflicted the whole country, as well as his
poor servants, who loved him, I may say, better than we did our
lives. I am afraid he caught his death the last county sessions,
where he would go to see justice done to a poor widow woman,
and her fatherless children, that had been wronged by a neigh-
bouring gentleman; for you know, sir, my good master was
always the poor man's friend. Upon his coming home, the first
complaint he made was, that he had lost his roast-beef stomach,
not being able to touch a sirloin, which was served up according
to custom; and you know he used to take great delight in it.
From that time forward he grew worse and worse, but still kept a
good heart to the last. Indeed we were once in great hope of
his recovery, upon a kind message that was sent him from the
widow lady whom he had made love to the forty last years of his
life; but this only proved a lightening before death. He has
bequeathed to this lady, as a token of his love, a great pearl
necklace, and a couple of silver bracelets set with jewels, which
belonged to my good old lady his mother: he has bequeathed
the fine white gelding, that he used to ride a hunting upon, to his
chaplain, because he thought he would be kind to him, and has
left you all his books. He has, moreover, bequeathed to the
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chaplain a very pretty tenement with good lands about it. It
being a very cold day when he made his will, he left for mourning,
to every man in the parish, a great frize-coat, and to every woman
a black riding-hood. It was a most moving sight to see him
take leave of his poor servants, commending us all for our
fidelity, whilst we were not able to speak a word for weeping.
As we most of us are grown gray-headed in our dear master's
service, he has left us pensions and legacies, which we may live
very comfortably upon, the remaining part of our days. He has
bequeathed a great deal more in charity, which is not yet come
to my knowledge, and it is peremptorily said in the parish, that
he has left money to build a steeple to the church; for he was
heard to say some time ago, that if he lived two years longer,
Coverley church should have a steeple to it. The chaplain tells
everybody that he made a very good end, and never speaks of
him without tears. He was buried according to his own direc-
tions, among the family of the Coverleys, on the left hand of his
father Sir Arthur. The coffin was carried by six of his tenants,
and the pall held up by six of the quorum: the whole parish
followed the corpse with heavy hearts, and in their mourning
suits, the men in frize, and the women in riding-hoods. Captain
Sentry, my master's nephew, has taken possession of the hall-
house, and the whole estate. When my old master saw him a
little before his death, he shook him by the hand, and wished
him joy of the estate which was falling to him, desiring him only
to make good use of it, and to pay the several legacies, and the
gifts of charity which he told him he had left as quit-rents upon
the estate. The captain truly seems a courteous man, though he
says but little. He makes much of those whom my master loved,
and shews great kindness to the old house-dog, that you know
my poor master was so fond of. It would have gone to your
heart to have heard the moans the dumb creature made on the
day of my master's death. He has never joyed himself since; no
more has any of us. 'Twas the melancholiest day for the poor
people that ever happened in Worcestershire. This being all
from,—Honoured Sir, your most sorrowful servant,
"EDWARD BISCUIT.
"P.S.—My master desired, some weeks before he died, that
a book which comes up to you by the carrier should be given to
Sir Andrew Freeport, in his name."
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JOSEPH ADDISON
523
This letter, notwithstanding the poor butler's manner of writing it, gave us such an idea of our good old friend, that upon the reading of it there was not a dry eye in the club. Sir Andrew opening the book, found it to be a collection of Acts of Parliament. There was in particular the Act of Uniformity, with some passages in it marked by Sir Roger's own hand. Sir Andrew found that they related to two or three points, which he had disputed with Sir Roger the last time he appeared at the club. Sir Andrew, who would have been merry at such an incident on another occasion, at the sight of the old man's hand-writing burst into tears, and put the book into his pocket. Captain Sentry informs me that the knight has left rings and mourning for every one in the club.
THE VISIONS OF MIRZAH
(Spectator, No. 159.)
When I was at Grand Cairo, I picked up several oriental manuscripts, which I have still by me. Among others I met with one entitled, The Visions of Mirzah, which I have read over with great pleasure. I intend to give it to the publick when I have no other entertainment for them; and shall begin with the first vision, which I have translated word for word as follows.
'On the fifth day of the moon, which according to the custom of my forefathers I always keep holy, after having washed my self and offered up my morning devotions, I ascended the high hills of Bagdad, in order to pass the rest of the day in meditation and prayer. As I was here airing my self on the tops of the mountains, I fell into a profound contemplation on the vanity of human life; and passing from one thought to another, surely, said I, man is but a shadow and life a dream. Whilst I was thus musing, I cast my eyes towards the summit of a rock that was not far from me, where I discovered one in the habit of a shepherd, with a little musical instrument in his hand. As I looked upon him he applied it to his lips, and began to play upon it. The sound of it was exceeding sweet, and wrought into a variety of tunes that were inexpressibly melodious, and altogether different from any thing I had ever heard: they put me in mind of those heavenly airs that are played to the departed souls of good
Page 535
men upon their first arrival in paradise, to wear out the impressions of the last agonies, and qualify them for the pleasures of
that happy place. My heart melted away in secret raptures.
I had been often told that the rock before me was the haunt
of a genius; and that several had been entertained with musick
who had passed by it, but never heard that the musician had
before made himself visible. When he had raised my thoughts
by those transporting airs which he played, to taste the pleasures
of his conversation, as I looked upon him like one astonished, he
beckoned to me, and by the waving of his hand directed me to
approach the place where he sat. I drew near with that reverence which is due to a superior nature; and as my heart was
entirely subdued by the captivating strains I had heard, I fell
down at his feet and wept. The genius smiled upon me with a
look of compassion and affability that familiarized him to my
imagination, and at once dispelled all the fears and apprehensions
with which I approached him. He lifted me from the ground,
and taking me by the hand, Mirzah, said he, I have heard thee in
thy soliloquies ; follow me.
He then led me to the highest pinnacle of the rock, and
placing me on the top of it, cast thy eyes eastward, said he, and
tell me what thou seest. I see, said I, a huge valley, and a prodigious tide of water rolling through it. The valley that thou
seest, said he, is the vale of misery, and the tide of water that
thou seest is part of the great tide of eternity. What is the
reason, said I, that the tide I see rises out of a thick mist at one
end, and again loses itself in a thick mist at the other ? What
thou seest, said he, is that portion of eternity which is called time,
measured out by the sun, and reaching from the beginning of the
world to its consummation. Examine now, said he, this sea that
is bounded with darkness at both ends, and tell me what thou
discoverest in it. I see a bridge, said I, standing in the midst of
the tide. The bridge thou seest, said he, is human life, consider
it attentively. Upon a more leisurely survey of it, I found that it
consisted of threescore and ten entire arches, with several broken
arches, which, added to those that were entire, made up the number
about an hundred. As I was counting the arches, the genius told me
that this bridge consisted at first of a thousand arches ; but that a
great flood swept away the rest, and left the bridge in the ruinous condition I now beheld it: but tell me further, said he, what thou discov-
erest on it. I see multitudes of people passing over it, said I, and a
Page 536
black cloud hanging on each end of it. As I looked more attentively,
I saw several of the passengers dropping thro' the bridge, into
the great tide that flowed underneath it ; and upon further
examination, perceived there were innumerable trap-doors that
lay concealed in the bridge, which the passengers no sooner trod
upon, but they fell thro' them into the tide and immediately
disappeared. These hidden pit-falls were set very thick at the
entrance of the bridge, so that the throngs of people no sooner
broke through the cloud, but many of them fell into them. They
drew thinner towards the middle, but multiplied and lay closer
together towards the end of the arches that were entire.
There were indeed some persons, but their number was very
small, that continued a kind of hobbling march on the broken
arches, but fell through one after another, being quite tired and
spent with so long a walk.
I passed some time in the contemplation of this wonderful
structure, and the great variety of objects which it presented.
My heart was filled with a deep melancholy to see several drop-
ping unexpectedly in the midst of mirth and jollity, and catching
at every thing that stood by them, to save themselves. Some
were looking up towards the heavens in a thoughtful posture, and
in the midst of a speculation stumbled and fell out of sight.
Multitudes were very busy in the pursuit of bubbles that glittered
in their eyes and danced before them : but often when they
thought themselves within the reach of them their footing failed
and down they sunk. In this confusion of objects, I observed
some with scymetars in their hands, and others with urinals, who
ran to and fro upon the bridge, thrusting several persons on trap-
doors which did not seem to lie in their way, and which they
might have escaped had they not been forced upon them.
The genius seeing me indulge my self in this melancholy
prospect, told me I had dwelt long enough upon it; take thine
eyes off the bridge, said he, and tell me if thou yet seest anything
thou dost not comprehend. Upon looking up, what mean, said I,
those great flights of birds that are perpetually hovering about the
bridge, and settling upon it from time to time ? I see vultures,
harpyes, ravens, cormorants, and among many other feather'd
creatures several little winged boys, that perched in great numbers
upon the middle arches. These, said the genius, are envy,
avarice, superstition, despair, love, with the like cares and
passions that infest human life.
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I here fetched a deep sigh, alas, said I, man was made in vain !
How is he given away to misery and mortality ! tortured in life,
and swallowed up in death ! The genius being moved with com-
passion towards me, bid me quit so uncomfortable a prospect :
look no more, said he, on man in the first stage of his existence
in his setting out for eternity ; but cast thine eye on that thick
mist into which the tide bears the several generations of mortals
that fall into it. I directed my sight as I was ordered, and
(whether or no the good genius strengthened it with any super-
natural force, or dissipated part of the mist that was before too
thick for the eye to penetrate) I saw the valley opening at the
farther end, and spreading forth into an immense ocean, that had
a huge rock of adamant running through the midst of it, and
dividing it into two equal parts. The clouds still rested on one
half of it, insomuch that I could discover nothing in it ; but the
other appeared to me a vast ocean planted with innumerable
islands, that were covered with fruits and flowers, and interwoven
with a thousand little shining seas that ran among them. I
could see persons dressed in glorious habits with garlands upon
their heads, passing among the trees, lying down by the side of
fountains, or resting on beds of flowers ; and could hear a con-
fused harmony of singing birds, falling waters, human voices, and
musical instruments. Gladness grew in me upon the discovery
of so beautiful a scene. I wished for the wings of an eagle, that
I might fly away to those happy seats ; but the genius told me
there was no passage to them, except through the gates of death
that I saw opening every moment upon the bridge. The islands,
said he, that lie so fresh and green before thee, and with which
the whole face of the ocean appears spotted as far as thou canst
see, are more in number than the sands on the sea-shore ; there
are myraids of islands behind those which thou here discoverest,
reaching further than thine eye, or even thine imagination can
extend it self. These are the mansions of good men after death
who according to the degree and kinds of virtue in which they
excelled, are distributed among these several islands, which
abound with pleasures of different kinds and degrees, suitable to
the relishes and perfections of those who are settled in them ;
every island is a paradise accommodated to its respective inhab-
itants. Are not these, O Mirzah, habitations worth contending for ?
Does life appear miserable, that gives thee opportunities of earn-
ing such a reward ? Is death to be feared, that will convey thee
Page 538
to so happy an existence? Think not man was made in vain,
who has such an eternity reserved for him. I gazed with inex-
pressible pleasure on these happy islands. At length, said I,
shew me now, I beseech thee, the secrets that lie hid under those
dark clouds which cover the ocean on the other side of the rock
of adamant. The genius making me no answer, I turned about
to address myself to him a second time, but I found that he had
left me ; I then turned again to the vision which I had been so
long contemplating ; but instead of the rolling tide, the arched
bridge, and the happy islands, I saw nothing but the long hollow
valley of Bagdad, with oxen, sheep, and camels grazing upon the
sides of it.
The end of the first Vision of Mirzah.
THE VARIOUS KINDS OF WIT
(Spectator, No. 62.)
MR. LOCK has an admirable reflexion upon the difference of wit
and judgment, whereby he endeavours to show the reason why
they are not always the talents of the same person. His words
are as follows : “And hence, perhaps, may be given some reason
of that common observation, that men who have a great deal of
wit and prompt memories, have not always the clearest judgment,
or deepest reason. For wit lying most in the assemblage of
ideas, and putting those together with quickness and variety,
wherein can be found any resemblance or congruity, thereby to
make up pleasant pictures and agreeable visions in the fancy ;
judgment, on the contrary, lies quite on the other side, in
separating carefully one from another, ideas wherein can be found
, the least difference, thereby to avoid being misled by similitude,
and by affinity to take one thing for another. This is a way of
proceeding quite contrary to metaphor and allusion ; wherein, for
the most part lies that entertainment and pleasantry of wit which
strikes so lively on the fancy, and is therefore so acceptable to
all people.”
This is, I think, the best and most philosophical account that I
have ever met with of wit, which generally, though not always,
consists in such a resemblance and congruity of ideas as this
author mentions. I shall only add to it, by way of explanation,
Page 539
that every resemblance of ideas is not that which we call wit,
unless it be such an one that gives delight and surprise to the
reader : these two properties seem essential to wit, more particu-
larly the last of them. In order therefore that the resemblance
in the ideas be wit, it is necessary that the ideas should not lie
too near one another in the nature of things ; for where the like-
ness is obvious, it gives no surprise. To compare one man's
object by that of milk and snow, or the variety of its colours by
those of the rainbow, cannot be called wit, unless besides this
obvious resemblance, there be some further congruity discovered
in the two ideas that is capable of giving the reader some sur-
prise. Thus when a poet tells us, the bosom of his mistress is as
white as snow, there is no wit in the comparison ; but when he
adds, with a sigh, that it is as cold too, it then grows into wit.
Every reader's memory may supply him with innumerable in-
stances of the same nature. For this reason, the similitudes in
heroick poets, who endeavour rather to fill the mind with great
conceptions, than to divert it with such as are new and surprising,
have seldom anything in them that can be called wit. Mr.
Lock's account of wit, with this short explanation, comprehends
most of the species of wit, as metaphors, similitudes, allegories,
ænigmas, mottos, parables, fables, dreams, visions, dramatick
writings, burlesque, and all the methods of allusion : as there are
many other pieces of wit (how remote soever they may appear at
first sight, from the foregoing description) which upon examina-
tion will be found to agree with it.
As true wit generally consists in this resemblance and con-
gruity of ideas, false wit chiefly consists in the resemblance and
congruity sometimes of single letters, as in anagrams, chrono-
grams, lipograms, and acrosticks : sometimes of syllables, as in
echoes and doggerel rhymes ; sometimes of words, as in puns
and quibbles ; and sometimes of whole sentences or poems, cast
into the figures of eggs, axes, or altars ; nay, some carry the
notion of wit so far, as to ascribe it even to external mimickry ;
and to look upon a man as an ingenious person, that can re-
semble the tone, posture, or face of another.
As true wit consists in the resemblance of ideas, and false wit
in the resemblance of words, according to the foregoing instances ;
there is another kind of wit which consists partly in the resem-
blance of ideas, and partly in the resemblance of words ; which
Page 540
for distinction sake I shall called mixt wit. This kind of wit is
that which abounds in Cowley, more than in any author that ever
wrote. Mr. Waller has likewise a great deal of it. Mr. Dryden
is very sparing in it. Milton had a genius much above it.
Spencer is in the same class with Milton. The Italians, even in
their epic poetry, are full of it. Monsieur Boileau, who formed
himself upon the ancient poets, has everywhere rejected it with
scorn. If we look after mixt wit among the Greek writers, we
shall find it no where but in the epigrammatists. There are
indeed some strokes of it in the little poem ascribed to Musæus,
which by that, as well as many other marks, betrays itself to be a
modern composition. If we look into the Latin writers, we find
none of this mixt wit in Virgil, Lucretius, or Catullus ; very little
in Horace, but a great deal of it in Ovid, and scarce anything
else in Martial.
Out of the innumerable branches of mixt wit, I shall choose
one instance which may be met with in all the writers of this
class. The passion of love in its nature has been thought to
resemble fire; for which reason the words fire and flame are
made use of to signify love. The witty poets therefore have
taken an advantage from the doubtful meaning of the word fire,
to make an infinite number of witticisms. Cowley observing the
cold regard of his mistress's eyes, and at the same time their
power of producing love in him, considers them as burning-glasses
made of ice ; and finding himself able to live in the greatest
extremities of love, concludes the torrid zone to be habitable.
When his mistress has read his letter written in juice of lemon
by holding it to the fire, he desires her to read it over a second
time by love's flames. When she weeps, he wishes it were
inward heat that distilled those drops from the limbeck. When
she is absent he is beyond eighty, that is, thirty degrees nearer
the Pole than when she is with him. His ambitious love, is a
fire that naturally mounts upwards ; his happy love is the beams
of heaven, and his unhappy love flames of hell. When it does
not let him sleep, it is a flame that sends up no smoak ; when it
is opposed by counsel and advice, it is a fire that rages the more
by the wind's blowing upon it. Upon the dying of a tree in
which he had cut his loves, he observes that his written flames
had burned up and withered the trec. When he resolves to give
over his passion, he tells us that one burnt like him for ever
dreads the fire. His heart is an Ætna, that instead of Vulcan's
VOL. III
2^M
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shop incloses Cupid's forge in it. His endeavouring to drown
his love in wine, is throwing oil upon the fire. He would in-
sinuate to his mistress, that the fire of love, like that of the sun
(which produces so many living creatures) should not only warm
but beget. Love in another place cooks pleasure at his fire.
Sometimes the poet's heart is frozen in every breast, and some-
times scorched in every eye. Sometimes he is drowned in tears,
and burnt in love, like a ship set on fire in the middle of the sea.
The reader may observe in every one of these instances, that
the poet mixes the qualities of fire with those of love; and in the
same sentence speaking of it both as a passion and as real fire,
surprises the reader with those seeming resemblances or contradic-
tions that make up all the wit in this kind of writing. Mixt wit
therefore is a composition of pun and true wit, and is more or
less perfect as the resemblance lies in the ideas or in the words :
its foundations are laid partly in falsehood and partly in truth :
reason puts in her claim for one half of it, and extravagance for
the other. The only province therefore for this kind of wit, is
epigram, or those little occasional poems that in their own
nature are nothing else but a tissue of epigrams. I cannot con-
clude this head of mixt wit, without owning that the admirable
poet out of whom I have taken the examples of it, had as much
true wit as any author that ever writ; and indeed all other talents
of an extraordinary genius.
It may be expected, since I am upon the subject, that I should
take notice of Mr. Dryden's definition of wit; which, with all the
deference that is due to the judgment of so great a man, is not so
properly a definition of wit, as of good writing in general. Wit,
as he defines it, is "a propriety of words and thoughts adapted
to the subject." If this be a true definition of wit, I am apt to
think that Euclid was the greatest wit that ever set pen to paper:
it is certain that never was a greater propriety of words and
thoughts adapted to the subject, than what that author has made
use of in his elements. I shall only appeal to my reader, if this
definition agrees with any notion he has of wit. if it be a true
one I am sure Mr. Dryden was not only a better poet, but a
greater wit than Mr. Cowley; and Virgil a much more facetious
man than either Ovid or Martial.
Bouhours, whom I look upon to be the most penetrating of
all the French criticks, has taken pains to show, that it is im-
possible for any thought to be beautiful which is not just, and has
Page 542
JOSEPH ADDISON
531
ot its foundation in the nature of things; that the basis of all
it is truth; and that no thought can be valuable, of which good
nse is not the ground-work. Boileau has endeavoured to
culcate the same notions in several parts of his writings, both
prose and verse. This is that natural way of writing, that
eautiful simplicity, which we so much admire in the com-
positions of the ancients; and which no body deviates from, but
lose who want strength of genius to make a thought shine in its
wn natural beauties. Poets who want this strength of genius
give that majestic simplicity to nature, which we so much
lmire in the works of the ancients, are forced to hunt after
reign ornaments, and not to let any piece of wit of what kind
sover escape them. I look upon these writers as Goths in
setry, who, like those in architecture, not being able to come up
the beautiful simplicity of the old Greeks and Romans, have
ndeavoured to supply its place with all the extravagances of an
regular fancy. Mr. Dryden makes a very handsome observa-
on, on Ovid's writing a letter from Dido to Æneas, in the fol-
wing words: "Ovid," says he (speaking of Virgil's fiction of
ido and Æneas), "takes it up after him, even in the same age,
nd makes an ancient heroine of Virgil's new-created Dido;
ictates a letter for her just before her death to the ungrateful
gitive; and, very unluckily for himself, is for measuring a sword
ith a man so much superior in force to him on the same subject.
think I may be judge of this, because I have translated both.
he famous author of the Art of Love has nothing of his own; he
srows all from a greater master in his own profession, and,
hich is worse, improves nothing which he finds; nature fails
m, and being forced to his old shift, he has recourse to
tticism. This passes indeed with his soft admirers, and gives
m the preference to Virgil in their esteem.
Were not I supported by so great an authority as that of Mr.
ryden, I should not venture to observe, that the taste of most of
ir English poets, as well as readers, is extremely Gothic. He
rotes Monsieur Segrais for a threefold distinction of the readers
poetry: in the first of which he comprehends the rabble of
aders, whom he does not treat as such with regard to their
rality, but to their numbers and coarseness of taste. His
ords are as follow: "Segrais has distinguished the readers of
setry, according to their capacity of judging, into three classes.
Ie might have said the same of writers too, if he had pleased.]
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In the lowest form he places those whom he calls les petits esprits, such things as are our upper-gallery audience in a playhouse; who like nothing but the husk and rind of wit, prefer a quibble, a conceit, an epigram, before solid sense and elegant expression: these are mob readers. If Virgil and Martial stood for Parliament men, we know already who would carry it. But though they make the greatest appearance in the field, and cry the loudest, the best on't is they are but a sort of French Huguenots, or Dutch boors, brought over in herds, but not naturalized; who have not lands of two pounds per annum in Parnassus, and therefore are not privileged to poll. Their authors are of the same level, fit to represent them on a mountebank's stage, or to be masters of the ceremonies in a bear-garden : yet these are they who have the most admirers. But it often happens, to their mortification, that as their readers improve their stock of sense, (as they may by reading better books, and by conversation with men of judgment) they soon forsake them."
I must not dismiss this subject without observing that as Mr. Lock in the passage above mentioned has discovered the most fruitful source of wit, so there is another of a quite contrary nature to it, which does likewise branch it self out into several kinds. For not only the resemblance, but the opposition of ideas, does very often produce wit : as I could shew in several little points, turns, and antitheses, that I may possibly enlarge upon in some future speculation.
IMAGINATION AND SCIENCE
(Spectator, No. 420.)
As the writers in poetry and fiction borrow their several materials from outward objects, and join them together at their own pleasure, there are others who are obliged to follow nature more closely, and to take entire scenes out of her. Such are historians, natural philosophers, travellers, geographers, and, in a word, all who describe visible objects of a real existence.
It is the most agreeable talent of an historian, to be able to draw up his armies and fight his battles in proper expressions, to set before our eyes the divisions, cabals, and jealousies of great men, and to lead us step by step into the several actions and events
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JOSEPH ADDISON
533
his history. We love to see the subject unfolding it self by
st degrees, and breaking upon us insensibly, that so we may be
pt in a pleasing suspense, and have time given us to raise our
pectations, and to side with one of the parties concerned in the
lation. I confess this shews more the art than the veracity of
e historian, but I am only to speak of him as he is qualified to
case the imagination. And in this respect Livy has, perhaps,
celled all who went before him, or have written since his time.
e describes every thing in so lively a manner, that his whole
story is an admirable picture, and touches on such proper
cumstances in every story, that his reader becomes a kind of
spectator, and feels in himself all the variety of passions which
e correspondent to the several parts of the relation.
But among this set of writers there are none who more
atify and enlarge the imagination, than the authors of the new
ilosophy, whether we consider their theories of the earth or
avens, the discoveries they have made by glasses, or any other
their contemplations on nature. We are not a little pleased
find every green leaf swarm with millions of animals, that at
cir largest growth are not visible to the naked eye. There is
mething very engaging to the fancy, as well as to our reason,
the treatises of metals, minerals, plants, and meteors. But
hen we survey the whole earth at once, and the several planets
at lie within its neighbourhood, we are filled with a pleasing
tonishment, to see so many worlds hanging one above another
id sliding round their axles in such an amazing pomp and
lemnity. If, after this, we contemplate those wild fields of
her, that reach in height as far as from Saturn to the fixt stars,
id run abroad almost to an infinitude, our imagination finds its
upacity filled with so immense a prospect, and puts it self upon
e stretch to comprehend it. But if we yet rise higher, and
onsider the fixt stars as so many vast oceans of flame, that are
ich of them attended with a different set of planets, and still
scover new firmaments and new lights that are sunk farther in
ose unfathomable depths of ether, so as not to be seen by the
rongest of our telescopes, we are lost in such a labyrinth of suns
id worlds, and confounded with the immensity and magnificence
nature.
Nothing is more pleasant to the fancy, than to enlarge it self
y degrees in its contemplation of the various proportions which
s several objects bear to each other, when it compares the body
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of man to the bulk of the whole earth, the earth to the circle it
describes round the sun, that circle to the sphere of the fixt stars,
the sphere of the fixt stars to the circuit of the whole creation,
the whole creation it self to the infinite space that is every where
diffused about it ; or when the imagination works downward, and
considers the bulk of a human body in respect of an animal, a
hundred times less than a mite, the particular limbs of such an animal,
the different springs which actuate the limbs, the spirits which set
these springs a going, and the proportionable minuteness of these
several parts, before they have arrived at their full growth and
perfection. But if, after all this, we take the least particle of these
animal spirits, and consider its capacity of being wrought into a
world, that shall contain within those narrow dimensions a heaven
and earth, stars and planets, and every different species of living
creatures, in the same analogy and proportion they bear to each
other in our own universe ; such a speculation, by reason of its
nicety, appears ridiculous to those who have not turned their
thoughts that way, though at the same time it is founded on no
less than the evidence of a demonstration. Nay, we may yet
carry it farther, and discover in the smallest particle of this little
world a new and inexhausted fund of matter, capable of being
spun out into another universe.
I have dwelt the longer on this subject, because I think it may
shew us the proper limits, as well as the defectiveness of our
imagination ; how it is confined to a very small quantity of space,
and immediately stop it in its operations, when it endeavours to take
in any thing that is very great, or very little. Let a man try to
conceive the different bulk of an animal, which is twenty, from
another which is a hundred times less than a mite, or to compare,
in his thoughts, a length of a thousand diameters of the earth,
with that of a million, and he will quickly find that he has no
different measures in his mind, adjusted to such extraordinary
degrees of grandeur or minuteness. The understanding, indeed,
opens an infinite space on every side of us, but the imagination,
after a few faint efforts, is immediately at a stand, and finds her
self swallowed up in the immensity of the void that surrounds it ;
our reason can pursue a particle of matter through an infinite
variety of divisions, but the fancy soon loses sight of it, and feels
in it self a kind of chasm, that wants to be filled with matter of a
more sensible bulk. We can neither widen, nor contract the
faculty to the dimensions of either extreme. The object is too
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JOSEPH ADDISON
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; for our capacity, when we would comprehend the circumference
a world, and dwindles into nothing, when we endeavour after
: idea of an atome.
It is possible this defect of imagination may not be in the soul
itself, but as it acts in conjunction with the body. Perhaps there
iy not be room in the brain for such a variety of impressions, or
: animal spirits may be incapable of figuring them in such a
inner, as is necessary to excite so very large or very minute
ras. However it be, we may well suppose that beings of a
gher nature very much excel us in this respect, as it is probable
: soul of man will be infinitely more perfect hereafter in this
sulty, as well as in all the rest ; insomuch that, perhaps, the
agination will be able to keep pace with the understanding, and
form in itself distinct ideas of all the different modes and
antities of space.
Page 548
SAMUEL CLARKE
[Samuel Clarke was born at Norwich in 1675. His father was an Alderman that city and represented it in Parliament. Samuel was educated at the free School of his native town. In 1691 he went to Caius College, Cambridge Here he became an ardent student of the Newtonian philosophy, and at the early age of twenty, immediately after taking his degree, brought out an improved translation of Rohault's Physica, a work based on the
inciples of Descautes, intending thereby to guide the feet of University udents into safer philosophic paths. This he further amplified in 1697, in 1 edition with copious notes, in which the doctrines of Descartes were orrected by those of Newton. Soon after 1701 he was presented to the ving of Drayton, Norfolk. Thence he was transferred to London, being oyle lecturer in the years 1704 and 1705. He was appointed chaplain to ucen Anne, and Rector of St. James', Westminster, in 1706 or 1707. He was ied in 1729.]
AMUEL CLARKE turned out a large amount of work in his omparatively short life. Besides his two more important con-ributions to philosophy, The Discourse concerning the Being and ttributes of God, and The Obligations of Natural Religion, and he Truth and Certainty of the Christian Revelation he carried n a lengthy and learned correspondence with Leibnitz upon the rinciples of Natural Philosophy; another correspondence upon iberty and Necessity; wrote a letter to a Mr. Dodwell on the mmortality of the Soul; another to Bishop Hoadly upon the roportion of Velocity and Force in Bodies in Motion; corre-ponded with young Joseph Butler, afterwards the famous author f the Analogy of Religion; produced essays on Baptism, Con-irmation, etc.; treatises on The Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity, nd on The Primitive Fathers and the Canon of the New Testa-nent; also Paraphrases of the Gospels, and some sermons.
Clarke's style is not particularly attractive. It is usually ntelligible and fairly clear, but it inclines to be ponderous, and marred by too plentiful sprinklings of Scripture texts. He
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has no humour, no imagination, and no great depth or originality
of thought. In his philosophical writings he sought to introduce
the truths of other men in plain and simple language, and
succeeded fairly well.
His sermons are clear, forcible and well sustained. They
exhibit great common-sense and moderation, and though far
from beautiful, are dignified and in good taste.
His Paraphrases of the Gospels are very able. The language
is vigorous and fairly natural. They are colloquial, without
irreverence or undue familiarity. We doubtless lose in them
some of the simplicity of the authorised version, their diction
being a trifle pedantic at times. They are, however, distinctly
effective. The free rendering of passages so familiar as to be
in danger of being slighted, often brings out their meaning, or
possible meaning, with distinct and quickening effect. These
homely paraphrases are perhaps the most lasting and valuable
legacy to English literature that has been made by Samuel
Clarke.
A. I. FITZROY.
Page 550
ARGUMENTS TO THE BEING OF GOD
First.—That 'tis evident, both we ourselves, and all the other beings we know in the world, are weak and dependent creatures ;
which neither gave ourselves being, nor can preserve it by any power of our own : and that therefore we entirely owe our being to some superior and more powerful cause ; which superior cause either must be itself the first cause, which is the notion of God ;
or else, by the same argument as before, must derive from him, and so lead us to the knowledge of him. If it be said that we received our being from our forefathers by a continual natural succession (which, however, would not in any step have been possible without a perpetual providence) ; yet still the argument holds no less strong concerning the first of the whole race ; that he could not but be made by a superior intelligent cause. If an atheist, contrary to the truth of all history, shall contend that there may have been, without any beginning at all, an eternal succession of men ; yet still it will be no less evident that such a perpetual succession could not have been without an eternal superior cause ; because in the nature of things themselves there is manifestly no necessity, that any such succession of transient beings, either temporary or perpetual, should have existed at all.
Secondly.—The other argument, to which the greatest part of the proofs of the being of God may briefly be reduced, is the order and beauty of the world ; that exquisite harmony of nature, by which (as St. Paul expresses it, Rom. i. 20) the invisible things of God from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made. And this argument, as it is infinitely strong to the most accurate philosophers, so it is also sufficiently obvious even to the meanest capacities. Whose power was it that framed this beautiful and stately fabric, this immense and spacious world ? that stretched out the North over the empty place, and hanged the earth upon nothing ? (Job. xxvi. 7.)
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That formed those vast and numberless orbs of heaven, and disposed them into such regular and uniform motions? that appointed the sun to rule the day, and the moon and the stars to govern the night? that so adjusted their several distances, as that they should neither be scorched by heat, nor destroyed by cold? that encompasseth the earth with air so wonderfully contrived, as at one and the same time to support clouds for rain, to afford winds for health and traffic, to be proper for the breath of animals by its spring, for causing sound by its motion, for transmitting light by its transparency? that fitted the water to afford vapours for rain, speed for traffic, and fish for nourishment and delicacy? that weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance, and adjusted them in their most proper places for fruitfulness and health? that diversified the climates of the earth into such an agreeable variety, that in that great difference, each one has its proper seasons, day and night, winter and summer? that clothed the face of the earth with plants and flowers, so exquisitely adorned with various and inimitable beauties, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of them? that replenished the world with animals, so different from each other in particular, and yet all in the whole so much alike? that framed with exquisite workmanship the eye for seeing, and other parts of the body, necessarily in proportion; without which, no creature could long have subsisted? that beyond all these things, endued the soul of man with far superior faculties, with understanding, judgment, reason, and will; with faculties whereby in a most exalted manner God teaches us more than the beasts of the field, and maketh us wiser than the fowls of heaven? (Job. xxxv. 11.)
(From Sermon on Faith in God.)
ON HUMAN FALLIBILITY
THE cause of erroneous opinions, in this and most other questions about which there have at any time been raised any controversies, is generally this; that men attending to one point only, and being solicitous to oppose strongly some particular error, have been apt to do it in such a manner, as has carried them out beyond the truth of the argument, and prevented them from
Page 552
arding against being exposed to error in some contrary
treme. Thus in disputing against the errors of the Church of
ome, incautious persons have frequently been betrayed by an
wise zeal to make use of such arguments, as they were not
rare might at the same time be alleged by others of an opposite
rsuasion with the same force against themselves. And nothing
more common, than for others on the contrary, in the heat of
ntroversy with some of their brethren who differ from them, to
aw such arguments from church-authority, and general councils,
id the like; as they are not enough sensible may on any other
casion be used against themselves by those of the Church of
ome, with at least as great and perhaps greater force.
(From Sermon on the Grace of God.)
N THE NECESSITY OF MORALITY IN RELIGION
o man can become a true disciple of Christ, who is not affected
ith a sincere love of God and virtue; nor can any one who
ready professes the name of Christ behave himself as becomes
at holy profession by any other methods or forms of religion
hatever, than by the practice of righteousness and true virtue,
obedience to the moral commands of God. When our Saviour
id worked the miracle of the loaves, recorded in the beginning
- this chapter (John vi.); many of the Jews believed on him;
lat is, they professed themselves his disciples, not out of any
gard to the excellency and holiness of his doctrine, but in
opes of being supported by him in the world. To these persons
e says (verse 26): "Ye seek me, not because ye saw the
iracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled.
abour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which
idureth unto everlasting life." This doctrine, when they relished
ot, but began to murmur, he reproves them with somewhat more
arnestness in the words of the text ; "No man can come to me,
xcept the Father which has sent me draw him :" It is vain
) profess to be my disciples upon any other foot, than that of
zgard to God, and to the world to come. Upon which they
urmured still more (verse 61); he replied again (verse 64),
There are some of you that believe not . . . therefore said I unto
ou, that no man can come to me, except it were given unto him of
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my father:" given unto him of my Father, that is, in the same
sense, as he elsewhere tells the apostles that it was given to them
to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, because they
were unprejudiced, willing to hear and to understand; and came
to him, not upon any temporal design, but being persuaded, as
St. Peter expresses himself (verse 68 of this chapter), that he had
the words of eternal life.
Upon account of the necessary and inseparable connexion of
these two things; of a steady regard to the eternal obligations of
the moral law of God in every one who professes to embrace the
Revelation of Christ; upon this account (I say) it is, that our
Lord declares (John vii. 16, 17), "My doctrine is not mine, but
his that sent me. If any man will do his will, he shall know of
the doctrine whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself."
And again (viii. 42), "If God," says he, "were your father, ye
would love me : for I proceeded forth and came from God ; neither
came I of myself, but he sent me." Like to which, is that of the
apostle St. John (I John ii. 13), "I write unto you, little children,
because ye have known the father;" (verse 24), "If that which ye
have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall
continue in the son, and in the father;" (2 John 9), "He that
abideth in the doctrine" (that is, he that obeys the laws) "of
Christ, he hath both the father and the son." On the contrary,
to the immoral and hypocritical Pharisees, who hated the doctrine
of virtue and righteousness, "Ye neither know me," says our
Lord, "nor my father" (John viii. 19). And, speaking of the
persecutions which the vicious and debauched world would bring
upon his disciples; "These things," says he, "will they do unto
you, because they know not him that sent me" (John xv. 21).
"They have both seen and hated both me and my father"
(verse 24). "And these things will they do unto you, because
they have not known the father, nor me" (xvi. 3) ; that is, they
have no true sense, either of natural religion, nor revealed.
The sum therefore and application of the whole is this : the
great end and design of the gospel of Christ is to restore sinners
to the favour of God, by bringing them back to the practice of
true virtue. Vicious and corrupt minds therefore, who are
enemies to the moral laws of God, must always naturally be
averse to the doctrine of the gospel. Consequently such persons
are very apt, either to oppose and persecute the true disciples of
Christ ; or else, if in times of prosperity they themselves embrace
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DR. SAMUEL CLARKE
543
: profession of Christianity, they always place their religion in
ward forms and ceremonics, or in certain systems of opinion,
asistent with unrighteous practice. For to a true sense of
rist's religion no man can come, except the Father draw him,
at is, except the love of God and virtue be his motive.
(From Sermon on the Practice of Morality leading to the
Practice of the Gospel.)
ON HYPOCRITES
IT the Scripture frequently uses the same word (hypocrites) in
veral lower senses, which deserve carefully to be taken notice
; when it describes men, not indeed profligate as the foregoing,
it yet, in their several degrees, justly charged with being guilty
hypocrisy.
Secondly, therefore those who do not absolutely mean to cast
f all religion, nor dare in their own hearts totally to despise it,
it yet willingly content themselves with the formal part of it,
id, by zealously observing certain outward rites and ceremonics,
ink to atone for great defects of sobriety, righteousness, and
uth ; these also the Scripture always includes under the
aracter and denomination of hypocrites.
Of the same species of hypocrisy are they guilty in all ages,
ho make the advancement of religion, and the increase of the
ingdom of Christ to consist chiefly in the external, temporal, or
orldly prosperity of those who are called by his name ; in pomp
nd splendour, in riches and dignities, in authority, power, and
opinion. Not perhaps that they go upon the principles of
theism and infidelity (which is the case of the first and highest
egree of hypocrites, mentioned under the foregoing head) ; but,
y a secret deceitfulness of sin, and a love of this present world,
heir judgment is perverted to be more concerned for the
uthority of men than for the commands of God ; and they judge
f the state of religion by the measure of such worldly advantages
is have perhaps no relation to true piety ; whereas indeed the
rue prosperity of the church of God, or the increase of the
ingdom of Christ on carth, can consist in nothing else but in
he things which will increase the number of His subjects in
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ENGLISH PROSE
heaven; and that can only be done, by the prevalency of truth,
by simplicity of doctrine, and by righteousness of practice.
(From Sermon on Hypocrites.)
PARAPHRASE OF MATTHEW XXVI. 18 TO 30
- JESUS, to convince them at this time by an evident proof,
that all the things he was to do and suffer were according to
divine foreknowledge and appointment, bids them go into the
city, and tells them where and with what tokens they should find
a man, who at first asking should conduct them to a house fit for
Jesus and his disciples to keep the passover in.
- Accordingly the disciples went into the city, and finding
all tokens answer exactly as Jesus had foretold, they made all
things ready for keeping the passover.
- Things being thus prepared, Jesus came at evening, and
sat down to supper with his twelve apostles.
- And as they were eating, Jesus knowing what things were
ready to befal him, said to them, verily one of you twelve shall
betray me into the hands of them that seek my life.
- At this they were greatly amazed and troubled, knowing
all, except Judas, their own innocence; and desiring to clear
themselves from suspicion, they every one said, Lord, I hope it
is not I, that shall be guilty of so horrid a crime.
- Jesus answered: One that sits very near me, and now
eats out of the same dish with me, is the person that will
betray me.
- And I, indeed, must suffer according to the will of God,
and according to the prophecies that went before concerning me.
But though the divine wisdom thinks fit to make use of the
wickedness of my betrayer, as an instrument to effect great and
excellent designs; yet the wickedness of him that wilfully and
maliciously betrays me is not the less for being thus over-ruled
by the wisdom of God to serve just, and good, and wise purposes:
and, therefore, the punishment of that man shall be very great;
so that happy had it been for him, if he had never been born
- Hereupon Judas, not at all terrified at these severe words of
Christ, but hardened now in his wickedness, and as if he thought
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DR. SAMUEL CLARKE
545
he could conceal his design, said, Lord, is it I ? Jesus answered,
yea, you know it is so.
- At the end of this supper, Jesus took bread in his hands,
and when he had given thanks, he brake it, and distributed it to
his disciples, saying, Take and eat this. For as the eating of the
passover was a perpetual commemoration of the deliverance of
the children of Israel out of Egypt; so from henceforth your
eating this sacramental bread shall be a commemoration or
remembrance of my death, and of my body being broken for
you.
27 and 28. In like manner, taking a cup of wine in his hand,
he gave thanks, and gave it to his disciples, saying, Drink ye all
of this. For from henceforth your drinking this sacramental
wine shall be a commemoration of my blood being shed for the
remission of their sins who believe and obey the gospel, and a
perpetual confirmation of this new covenant.
- And I will have the Jewish passover commemoration no
longer continued: but the things of which these were figures,
shall now be fulfilled and accomplished in the kingdom of the
Messiah.
- Then, having sung an hymn, they departed, and went
into the Mount of Olives.
VOL. III
N
Page 558
BENJAMIN HOADLY
[Benjamin Hoadly, D.D., was born at Westerham, Kent, in the year 1676. His father, a schoolmaster, prepared him for College. In 1691 he went to Catherine Hall, Cambridge. In 1697 he was elected a Fellow of his College, and in 1698 took orders. His first step in the Church was the lectureship of St. Mildred in the Poultry, which he held for ten years. He does not appear to have been a popular preacher, for he speaks of preaching it down to £30 a year. From 1704 to 1710 he was Rector of St. Peter's Poor in Broad Street The sermons he here delivered " tending to the advancement of Natural and Revealed Religion, and to the justification of the noblest principles of civil liberty," his son and biographer tells us, "produced a vote of the House of Commons in his favour, too honourable to be omitted." To this was added in 1710 the Rectory of Streatham in Surrey. In 1715 he was appointed king's chaplain, and in the same year was designated to the bishopric of Bangor, retaining his rectories. In 1717 he preached before the king his celebrated sermon on the " Nature of Christ's kingdom," which caused great offence, and ultimately gave rise to the celebrated Bangorian controversy. The Lower House of Convocation drew up a representation about it. In this he was accused of impugning the authority of the Church, or in other words, denying Apostolic succession But before it could be brought into the Upper House " the whole assembly was prorogued by special order from the king, nor were they permitted to sit till the resentment entirely subsided." In 1720 Hoadly resigned his London living, and was translated to the See of Hereford. He is said never to have gone near his Welsh Bishopric during the six years he held it. Three years later he became Bishop of Salisbury, resigning Streatham, "his most beloved retirement." Finally, in 1734, he was given the See of Winchester, which he held until his death in 1761, at the age of 85.
He was a singularly modest man, writing his own epitaph to prevent over-praise from too zealous friends. His liberal views and conciliatory policy brought " the non-conformists to a very low ebb, for want of the opposition and persecution they were too used to experience, many of their dissenting ministers desiring to receive their reordination from his own hands."]
BISHOP HOADLY'S writings may be divided under the two headings political and theological. There was, however, no hard and fast line in his mind between things temporal and things spiritual. The general principles of religion were ever before him, whether in his pulpit utterances or in his letters to the papers.
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ENGLISH PROSE
In politics he was a strong anti-Jacobite, believing that freedom
in religion was alone secure under a Protestant sovereign. His
sermon, preached before the Lord Mayor in 1705, against the
doctrine of non-resistance, gave rise to some excitement and
controversy.
Besides his sermons, charges, and letters to the papers, he
carried on a lengthy but, on his part, temperate controversy with
Dr. Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester, and others. He wrote also
a defence of Hooker's Judgment concerning the institution and
nature of civil government, in which he argued the rights of
subjects to defend themselves against evil princes and governors.
His writings, however solid and lengthy, come more under the
description of occasional papers than of permanent works. And
yet they deserve to be remembered not only for the tone and
matter of their contents, but also for the purity of their style.
His works are indeed models of discretion, moderation and
good taste. He has none of the broad humour of his contem-
poraries and predecessors, but often a tinge of delicate irony and
satire, notably in his dedication to Pope Clement XI., relieves the
solidity of the discourses.
His sermons are well-constructed and lucid. There is in
them no tedious splitting of texts nor minute casuistry. He
expounds the general principles of religion forcibly and earnestly,
without dwelling on doctrinal minutiae. They are clear, vigorous,
and brief. Without being rhetorical or brilliant they are pleasant
reading ; calm, well-sustained and logical. He attacks the
Church of Rome with severity, but without asperity, recognising
her as the acme of the ecclesiasticism against which he was
constantly at war.
In controversy he is temperate, controlled, and dignified. He
never stoops to petty personalities, but holds to the point at issue
without flinching. Bishop Hoadly is not a star of the first
magnitude. His writings are not among the classics of English
literature. He does not rank with Hooker, Jeremy Taylor, and
Baxter. Nevertheless he deserves an honourable place among
English men of letters. Possibly had he been a high churchman
like Warburton he would have enjoyed his literary deserts and
more. As it is, he suffers, like others of his school of theological
thought, and finds himself passed over for inferior writers who
better adapted themselves to the dominant views.
A. I. FITZROY.
Page 560
THE SIMPLICITY OF CHRISTIANITY SPOILT BY ADDITIONS
Much of this unhappiness hath proceeded from men's not being contented with the simplicity of Christianity, as it is to be found in the Gospels: from their making new creeds; their adding new Articles of Faith to those laid down in the New Testament; and laying new impositions upon the rest of Christians, unknown to Christ and his Apostles. This I may safely affirm, that had Christians been always content with a mutual agreement in the fundamental doctrines of their religion, as they lie in the gospel itself; and the indispensable obligation of the practice of all the duties commanded in it; much of this fatal consequence of it might have been hindered; and very much of the scandal redounding from it, have been prevented. But there hath ever been an itch, in some or other of power and authority, to alter the terms of love and concord settled by Christ; by framing some new character, and some fresh note of distinction, among Christians: and this hath ever begot opposition; and controversies managed (on all sides) with aggravations and provocations; and this hath brought forth variances, and passion, and hatred, in the breasts of those who are sure to be condemned by their own law, for want of love and charity. And it ever so happens, (as it hath been manifested by constant experience,) that more violence, which hath now for many ages passed for zeal; that more violence, I say, is shewn for these additions, and for these lesser, and undetermined matters in which the difference lies, than for the most fundamental points of faith, or the most necessary points of practice. In the practical duties, especially, men seem easy enough: and would fain have it thought, that the vilest and most enormous crimes are more tolerable in themselves; and more inoffensive and harmless to public society; than a difference in the least of their additions.
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Another consideration near akin to this, is, that this unhappiness amongst Christians hath chiefly proceeded from men's mistaking the nature, and main design, of Christianity. Did men but understand and consider that it was not the great design of the Christian religion to make all the world of one opinion, in things of little moment; but that it was revealed from heaven, chiefly to restore the worship of the one supreme God, in spirit and in truth; and to teach men to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this world; they could not act the part they so often do. Did men but consider, that the great branch of Christian duty is love, and good-nature, and humanity; and the distinguishing mark of a Christian, an universal charity; they could not but own that Jesus Christ came to plant and propagate these in the world. And then, they would abhor the thoughts of making any thing in His institution an engine of strife, and malice, and inhumanity. Then, they would not think all things lawful against those that differ from them; nor themselves obliged to crush, and ruin them. Then, the contentions between men of various minds would not be, who should have the power of oppressing their brethren: but the contest would be, who should love most; and who should give the most expressive demonstrations of an unconfined good-nature, and an unbounded charity. But these are but dreams, and wishes!
It would sound something strange to say that the chief design of Christianity is too plain to be understood, and too evident to be seen: and yet it is true, that the very plainness of this makes it the less attended to. Such a love there is in men to something not so easy to be understood; nor of such importance: and such a readiness to find out other designs of Christianity more agreeable to their own worldly projects!
Can any of all the fiery zealots in the world shew us any design more worthy of the Son of God's descending from heaven, than the planting of love in the world? more beneficial to the whole race of mankind; more for the ease and internal quiet of our own breasts; or a better preparative for the calm and serene joys of heaven: for the fruition of that God Who is love, and of the company of those blessed spirits, who are the witnesses, and ministers, of His love? Can they shew us any design more plainly revealed in the gospel; or any one duty there laid upon us, to which this must at any time give place? If they cannot, then nothing can ever release us from our obligation to love, and
Page 562
charity ; or ever excuse the least degree of hatred, and malice,
and violence ; much less, of barbarity and cruelty. Nay, how can
it possibly be thought by any Christians, that a religion which lays
such stress upon peace, and love ; which dwells so eternally upon
them ; which was founded in love, and so manifestly designed for
the propagating and establishing good-nature in the world : how
then can it be imagined, that there is anything in this religion,
that can give them occasion to hate, or disturb, or persecute, any
of their brethren ? unless they can think, that itself is so framed
as to destroy its own design; to oppose its own main end and
purpose ; and to dissolve the obligation of its own precepts.
These things are inconsistent, and too absurd to be fastened upon
Jesus Christ, by any who believe Him sent of God. And would
men seriously attend to the design of the gospel, they could not
fix such absurdities upon it : religion would be free from the
scandal of being the occasion of hatred, and disturbance and
persecution, amongst men ; and the world would be free from the
trouble and plague of them ; society would be happy ; and God
would be glorified in the universal practice of love and peace.
Since the guilt of those who have an hand in making anything
in religion subservient to the purposes of dissension, hatred, and
persecution, is so great : Let us take care not to be of the number
of those who do this, in the least degree imaginable. There hath
been enough already done to verify this prediction of our Lord's,
that He came not to send peace, but a sword. He will thank
us, if we will at length leave off to prove the truth of it by our
example. Enough of persecution, and violence, and hatred, hath
been founded on religion. Designing men have cheated the world
long enough : and long enough hath the gospel lain under the
scandal of the vices of others ; and of encouraging those passions
which it came to tame. It is time now for Christians to consider
that their business is peace ; and their religion love : and that
Christianity is sufficiently qualified to make them taste of happiness
even here below, if they do not themselves hinder it. Let us
remember this : and think, if we can be too careful to do our
parts towards the retrieving the good name of religion ; and the
restoring it to its primitive and original design.
(From A Sermon on the Divisions and Cruelties of which the
Christian Religion has been made the Occasion.)
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ENGLISH PROSE
ON THE ECCLESIASTICISM OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
Your Holiness (Pope Clement) is not perhaps aware, how near the churches of us Protestants have at length come to those privileges and perfections, which you boast of, as peculiar to your own. So near, that many of the most quicksighted and sagacious persons, have not been able to discover any other difference between us, as to the main principle of all doctrine, government, worship, and discipline, but this one; viz., that you cannot err in any thing you determine, and we never do: that is, in other words, that you are infallible, and we always in the right. We cannot but esteem the advantage to be exceedingly on our side in this case, because we have all the benefits of infallibility, without the absurdity of pretending to it; and without the uneasy task of maintaining a point so shocking to the understanding of mankind. And you must pardon us, if we cannot help thinking it to be as great and as glorious a privilege in us, to be always in the right, without the pretence to infallibility, as it can be in you, to be always in the wrong, with it.
The reason therefore, why we do not openly set up an infallibility, is because we can do without it. Authority results as well from power as from right; and a majority of votes is as strong a foundation for it, as infallibility itself. Councils that may err, never do. and besides, being composed of men, whose peculiar business it is to be in the right, it is very immodest for any private person to think them not so; because this is to set up a private corrupted understanding, above a public uncorrupted judgment.
We have all sufficiently felt the load of the two topics of heresy and schism. We have been persecuted, hanged, burnt, massacred (as your Holiness well knows), for heretics and schismatics. But all this has not made us sick of those two words. We can still throw them about us, and play them off upon others, as plentifully and as fiercely, as they are dispensed to us from your quarter. It often puts me in mind (your Holiness must allow me to be a little ludicrous, if you admit me to your
Page 564
conversation;) it often, I say, puts me in mind of a play which I
have seen amongst some merry people: A man strikes his next
neighbour with all his force, and he instead of returning it to the
man who gave it, communicates it, with equal zeal and strength,
to another; and this to another; and so it circulates, till it returns
perhaps to him who set the sport agoing. Thus your Holiness
begins the attack. You call us heretics and schismatics; and
burn and destroy us, as such: though God knows, there is no
more right any where to use heretics or schismatics barbarously,
than those who think and speak as their superiors bid them. But
so it is. You thunder out the sentence against us. We think it
ill manners to give it you back; but we throw it out upon
the next brethren that come in our way; and they upon others
and so it goes round, till some perhaps have sense and courage
enough, to throw it back upon those who first began the disturb-
ance, by pretending to authority where there can be none.
We have not indeed now the power of burning herctics, as
our forefathers of the Reformation had. The civil power hath
taken away the Act, which continued that glorious privilege to
them, upon the remonstrance of several persons, that they could
not sleep, whilst that Act was awake. But then everything on
this side death, still remains untouched, to us: We can molest,
harass, imprison, and ruin, any man who pretends to be wiser
than his betters. And the more unspotted the man's character
is, the more necessary we think it to take such crushing methods.
One thing more I must here mention; that the church (I mean
that part of the churchmen, I am speaking of,) is now in full
possession of the privilege of applying God's judgments to their
neighbours: which our forefathers so justly condemned, and took
such pains to ridicule, in the worst of our separatists.
Thus, the death of our late Queen is a judgment upon a
nation, unworthy of so much goodness; though some weak
fanatics, on the other side, have showed them, how easy it is for
any to interpret judgments in their own favour, by observing
that she died the very day, upon which the late Schism-act, (de-
signed as they think) to rob them of a natural right, took place.
After King Charles II.'s restoration, the fire, which destroyed
the whole city, immediately following the plague which consumed
vast numbers of its inhabitants, furnished matter for this humour.
How easy was it found, to make these to be great judgments,
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upon account of that very restoration ? Now, the same impious
humour, (which is the very essence of fanaticism, let it be in what
church it will,) can do with a thousand times smaller matters. A
fire, not to be named with that ; a mortality amongst our cattle,
which all Europe hath felt much more grievously : these are not
only declared to be God's judgments ; (as without doubt they
are ;) but it is sufficiently and plainly insinuated, that they are
judgments, (not for their own sins, their own private enormities,
or public ingratitude to heaven for their security ; for they never
think of themselves in this view ; but) for something at court,
which should not be there : which all the world knows how to
interpret.
Thus hath fanaticism its vicissitudes, like the other things of
this world : sometimes reigning in the Church, and sometimes out
of it ; sometimes against it, and sometimes for it. And thus is it
come to pass amongst us, that preaching their own passions, and
indignation, and resentment, under their disappointed expectations,
is called, by too many, preaching the Gospel, and delivering
messages fiom heaven.
(From Dedication to Pope Clement XI.)
UPON POLITICAL JEALOUSIES
THE misery of it is, that men, in their reproaches upon others,
are very apt to forget the condition they themselves are in. It is
not only he that is a tool, who blindly does what he is directed to
do, either by a courtier or an anti-courtier : but every man is a
tool likewise, who is a slave to his own passion, ill-nature, discon-
tent, personal resentment, ambition, pride, or to any distemper of
mind, which is his master, and leads and governs him in all he does.
There may be tools to these dispositions within men, as well as to
courts, or leaders of parties, without them : and these are as
dangerous tools to the public, as well as infamous in themselves,
as any of the other sort can possibly be. For these, and the like
distempers of mind, are of that force, that they can absolutely
hinder men from at all regarding, or even seeing, what is the
interest of the public ; nay, can make them take those good
words in their mouths, to carry on those purposes of their hearts,
in which the love of their country, the very essence of patriotism,
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BENJAMIN HOADLY
555
as but little part. Yet, how common as well as pleasant is it,
o see the tool of passion insulting over the tool (as he calls him)
of a court; and the man whose public spirit bears date from
some known points of disappointment and anger, exalting himself
above the other; appropriating to himself the name of patriot,
and setting himself out as the very pattern of all patriotism :
whilst he either does not feel the bias which his own resentment
struck upon his soul; or hopes that it may be hid from all other
eyes, and the view or remembrance of it lost in that cloud of
smoke and dust which he raises all around him. But if many of
the strongest oppositions have been manifestly begun upon these
principles, and are always, in part, carried on upon them; there
is but little reason for those to be casting the infamous name of
tools in the teeth of others, who may find so much place for it
amongst themselves. All this is no argument (nor is it so de-
signed) to any one, against being always upon his guard, or for a
blind compliance with any ministry: but it may, and ought to
show us effectually, that virtue and public-spiritedness are not
necessarily there, where the noise of them is most heard; and
that true patriotism does not depend upon names and sounds;
but often is not where it is most pretended to be; and as often is,
where the prejudices of men, and their mistaken notions of things,
will not allow us to suppose it so much as possible to be.
(From Letters signed "Britannicus.")
Page 568
BOLINGBROKE
[Henry St. John was born in 1678, and belonged to a family which had on the most part adhered to the Parliamentary side in the Civil War After 1 childhood passed under the stern supervision of a Puntan grandmother, he went to Eton and then to Chnst Church and after some foreign travel, and joined the Ton'es, and was in office as Secretary of Wai from 1704 to 1708, when he was dismissed with Halley. In 1710 he became Secretary of State, with Halley as Lord Treasurer He was created Viscount Bolingbroke in 1711, and for four years he and Halley maintained their power Ultimately they quarrelled, and the death of Queen Anne brought about Bolingbroke's fall. Under suspicion of Jacobite intrigues he fled to France, and for a short time took office with the Pretender. In 1723 he was enabled to return to England, and in 1725 was restored to his estates, but never recovered his nghts as a peer He became the heart and soul of the opposition to Walpole, whose fall he survived. He died in 1751.
Few of Bolingbroke's works were published until after his death, when his dependent, David Malet, in accordance with his instructions issued them. In 1716 he wrote the Letter to Sir W. Windham, which is an Apologia for his political conduct. In 1735 he wrote Letters on the Study of History (addressed to Lord Cornbury) which were published in 1753. The letters On the Spirit of Patriotism, The Idea of a Patriot King, and The State of Parties, were printed in 1749 In the later years of his life he contributed largely to the Craftsman, the journal started to oppose Walpole ; and these contributions were afterwards brought together and published. His views on religion, which amounted to a very superficial scepticism, which attacked at once meta-physical speculation and revealed religion, were given forth chiefly in certain letters to Pouilly, written in 1720, and in others written to Pope, late in his life.]
BOLINGBROKE is one of the few men whose literary reputation has probably been enhanced by the fact that he is rarely read. The saying is not so absurd as, at first sight, it looks. Few figures in history have come down to us with more of a halo-- detractors might say of a glamour--of romance than his. His pre-eminence in many gifts is familiar to us. He was one of a small and brilliant galaxy, whose combined gifts threw lustre on
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ENGLISH PROSE
each member of the group. The tradition of his social fascina-
tion, of the charm of his conversation, of his eminently handsome
person, of his prowess as a Lothario, of his stately eloquence, of
his rare versatility, of the marvellous rapidity of his genius ;
his attainment of great office while as yet little more than
a boy; his masterly conduct of difficult negotiations ; his grasp
of a commercial policy which later ages brought to full ripe-
ness only after slow stages and tedious struggles ; the striking
vicissitudes of his fortunes; the great place he occupies at
once on the stage of politics and on that of literature—all
these have given him an entrancing interest for us even in
an age of distinguished personalities. Swift's description is, by
itself, enough to immortalise him, "His mind, . . . adorned
with the choicest gifts that God has yet thought fit to bestow upon
the children of men : a strong memory, a clear judgment, a vast
range of wit and fancy, a thorough comprehension, an invincible
eloquence, with a most agreeable elocution" (Inquiry into the
Behaviour of the Queen's Last Ministry). But Swift was not
blind to the weaker points in his character. "He was fond of
mixing business and pleasure, and of being esteemed excellent at
both. . . . His detractors charged him with some degree of
affectation, and perhaps not altogether without grounds." The
defects are here hinted at rather than clearly stated, as was
proper in a treatise written in defence of the ministry of
which Bolingbroke was a leading member ; and it is rather in
scattered expressions that we have to look for Swift's distrust
of Bolingbroke's moral and intellectual sincerity. To most
of his contemporaries St. John's genius was the subject of
even more unqualified adulation ; but the exaggeration is often
so absurd as to force us to be sceptical. When Orrery—the
type of fribblers — writes that "his conversation united the
wisdom of Socrates, the dignity and ease of Pliny, and the wit
of Horace," we see the exaggeration to which glamour could
prompt flattery. The more degrading traits in St. John's char-
acter were partly the result of his training and experience.
Brought up under the chilling influence of a home in which a
rigid Puritanism was the prevailing atmosphere, St. John threw
himself in early manhood with the abandonment of a thoroughly
vain and selfish nature into a profligacy bred of arrogance and
affectation as much as of passion. When he first touched politics
he found himself in a hotbed of selfish struggle, and possessed
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BOLINGBROKE
559
§ faculties that gave him the opportunity of an easy and
stentatious triumph. He rose with surprising rapidity to posts
§ great importance. His fall was even more sudden ; from
cing the leader of a powerful party in England he became
re titular minister of the exiled claimant of the throne. Thrust
ven from that employment, his skilful apology made an ignomi-
ious dismissal from a fictitious court appear to be the effect
f jealousy bred by his own wider and more patriotic aims.
fter humiliating efforts to procure his own restoration, when
is baffled ambition found every gate closed against its intrigues,
e gratified his resentment by siding with a faction which as-
umed to itself the merit of withstanding corruption, and setting
p an ideal standard of civil duty. When it became clear that
ll his skill in the arts of fomenting faction could result in no
rsonal gain, he made a merit of renouncing politics in order
o be free for the pursuit of what he called philosophy. His
ersatility, his memory, his fertility of device, and his persever-
nce were sufficient to preserve him from conspicuous failure
n any of the varied parts he chose to play. But in no sphere
loes his genius conquer a place in the first rank : and the impres-
ion he has left is due rather to the dramatic contrasts and
ariety of his career, than to its permanent influence ; to the
pecious gaudiness of his talents, rather than to commanding genius.
When from this career we turn to the literary achievement,
he glamour is stript off. We cannot deny to him many high
iterary gifts. His prose style has the easy flow, the rotund and
grandiloquent sound, which the habit of the orator gives. His argu-
ments are always specious and often at first presentation persuasive.
He sets forth his case with a wonderful harmony of illusion, even
when that case is most palpably a perversion of the truth. He
maintains without faltering or hesitation an attitude of proud
and dignified patriotism, founded upon the fundamental principles
of a consistent political creed : and we have only to think of
nis actual career to estimate the consummate skill of the
ictor in so doing. His display of reading—much of it neces-
sarily superficial—has all the manner of one careless how he
draws upon an inexhaustible store : and yet without a doubt,
Bolingbroke relied upon his tact alone in skimming over the
hinnest of ice in his copious allusions, and in affecting profound
carning. But if his style is casy and flowing it is also tiresome
n its tautology. His flowing sentences weary us by their lack
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of variety, and by the entire absence of the illustration which
fancy or imagination might have brought to them. Above all
he wants entirely that saving gift of humour which brightens
literary controversies and keeps their savour fresh when the
subjects have passed into oblivion. Against the approach of
such humour Bolingbroke's egotism and affectation set an im-
penetrable bar. He has not even that literary instinct which
enabled such a man as Temple to refresh his reader by digress-
ing into devious ways, and lingering on his road to give his
imagination play.
His literary work is at its best when it comes nearest to
the active part of his own life, and reflects most strongly the
habit of the orator. The Letter to Sir William Windham was
one of his earliest writings, and was composed soon after his
breach with the Pretender in 1716, although not published
until nearly forty years later. In this Bolingbroke had to face
the hard task of defending himself against an overwhelming
suspicion of political treachery and tergiversation. He ac-
complishes his task with consummate skill. He is by turns
dignified, jocose, sarcastic, indignant, and yet apologetic. He
contrives to convey the impression of a man mistaken perhaps,
baffled sometimes by circumstances, but always with high aims,
and never acting except at the prompting of high-minded, even
if erroneous, principle. In some respects this Letter rises to
a higher level than any of his writings; and if he fails to
procure his own acquittal, it is because the evidence against
him is invincibly strong. The Spirit of Patriotism, and the
Idea of a Patriot King rise at times to a very high eloquence.
But their style is monotonous and heavy. Undoubtedly the
notions which Bolingbroke set forth, and the ideal which he
preached--of a strong and effective monarchical force, resting
upon popular support, and by this means able to frustrate the
factiousness of parliamentary parties--had great influence, and
have not ceased to operate in our own day. But the ideal was
not created by Bolingbroke, and was not materially extended
by his writings. It was the inevitable result of a reaction
against Walpole's rule; it was admirably fitted for eloquent
declamation, became the watchword of a vigorous party, was
the theme of countless speeches, and Bolingbroke's dissertations
were rather eloquent essays on a current topic than the first
manifestoes of a new propaganda. The letters to the Crafts-
Page 572
man, which were brought together afterwards, with a dedication
to Sir R. Walpole, in the form of A Dissertation upon Partics,
were really a variation upon the same scheme; and the same
may be said as to the Remarks upon the History of England.
Bolingbroke's political writings, indeed, have something of the
effect which might be produced by the republication of scraps
of the work of a political journalist of our own day. Each
tract was an episode in the party fight. Bolingbroke kept the
tools of the controversy sharp enough, and knew how to lead
the dispute into specious generalities; but permanent literature
cannot be gathered out of the pages of the political journal,
however skilfully these may be framed for their immediate aim.
The *journalist necessarily repeats himself. It would be easy
to find many instances of this in Bolingbroke; as one, it may
be enough to refer to a long passage in the Letter to Sir
W. Windham, comparing the recantation of Henry IV. of
France, with the obstinate refusal of the later Stuarts to conform
to the Anglican Church, and the conduct of the French and
English in each case. The passage is almost verbally repeated,
at full length, in the Dissertation upon Partics (Letter IV.)
The Letters on History stand half-way between Bolingbroke's
political and his so-called philosophical writings. The question
of the origin and authority of history is made the basis of an
attack upon Christianity, and upon the clergy, which in its
dishonesty of tactics goes beyond even those bounds which
Bolingbroke usually observes. Here is a specimen :—
The notion of inspirations that come occasionally, that illuminated the
minds and guided the hands of the sacred penmen while they were writing
one page, and restrained their influence while the same authors were
writing another, may be cavilled against; and what is there that may not ?
But surely it deserves to be treated with respect since it tends to establish
a distinction between the legal, doctrinal, and prophetical parts of the
Bible, and the historical; without which it is impossible to establish the
first, as evidently and as solidly as the interests of religion require.
It is typical of Bolingbroke to set forth a proposition which he
so states as to make it manifestly absurd: with a mock air to
defend it; and to give as an excuse for the defence, the interests
of revealed religion, for which he cared nothing. It is dis-
creditable argument, and it is very poor wit.
But the literary work which Bolingbroke evidently thought
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was to be his chief monument to posterity, and which posterity
has most neglected, consists of his essays on philosophy. He
dealt with this subject partly in letters to Pouilly, written
when he was in France in 1720; partly in letters to Pope, left
for publication after his death. According to a story circum-
stantially told, Bolingbroke drew up for Pope the scheme of
the Essay on Man. Johnson's common sense perceived that
this was an exaggeration; that all the fancy, the illustration, the
poetic form, were necessarily due to Pope alone; and when we
subtract these, the frame of philosophy on which the Essay is
based is so attenuated, that the honour of its conception is
scarcely worth dispute.
The world has indeed condemned and feared the attacks
of Bolingbroke, and has occasionally admired his speculative
boldness, entirely upon trust. 'Be truth what it may, no more
pretentious and superficial travesty of speculation was ever
palmed off upon the world as serious philosophy. At times he
reminds us almost of Pangloss, for whom everything was for the
best in the best of all possible worlds; but he is a very sour and
dull Pangloss compared with Voltaire's. Of the humour and
perception to be found in these letters, we may form an estimate
when we find that the most suitable epithet he can invent for
Swift in a letter to Pope is "the jocose Dean of St. Patrick's."
He who wrote that word had something of the dullard beneath
all his brilliancy. His sense of proportion may be gathered from
the fact that he thinks the philosophy of Locke to be the most
valuable product of his time, that Leibnitz and Descartes are
only named for ridicule, and that, though Berkeley is treated
with courtesy, his speculative greatness is ignored. Plato and
Aristotle he discusses and condemns with all the arrogance of an
acquaintance which is entirely second-hand. Metaphysical philo-
sophy he mentions only with a sneer. Swift abandoned meta-
physics in despair; Bolingbroke despises it with the easy conceit
of a man of fashion, the cynicism of a rout, and the scepticism
of one who mistook the transparence of superficiality for the
clearness of reason. He wrote against it with about as much
power of expression, range of intellect, and display of crudition,
as we might expect in an expert journalist.
H. CRAIK.
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THE USES OF HISTORY
Besides the advantage of beginning our acquaintance with mankind sooner, and of bringing with us into the world, and the business of it, such a cast of thought and such a temper of mind, as will enable us to make a better use of our experience, there is this further advantage in the study of history that the improvement we make by it extends to more objects, and is made at the expense of other men; whereas that improvement which is the effect of our own experience, is confined to fewer objects, and is made at our own expense. To state the account fairly, therefore, between these two improvements; though the latter be the more valuable, yet allowance being made on one side for the much greater number of examples that history presents to us, and deduction being made on the other of the price we often pay for our experience, the value of the former will rise in proportion. I have recorded these things, says Polybius after giving an account of the defeat of Regulus, "that they who read these commentaries may be rendered better by them; for all men have two ways of improvement, one arising from their own experience, and one from the experience of others.
Evidentior quidem illa est quæ per propria ducît infortunia; at tutior illa, quæ per aliena." I use Casaubon's translation. Polybius goes on and concludes, "that since the first of these ways exposes us to great labour and peril, whilst the second works the same good effect, and is attended by no evil circumstance, every one ought to take for granted that the study of history is the best school where he can learn how to conduct himself in all the situations of life." Regulus had seen at Rome many examples of magnanimity, of frugality, of the contempt of riches, and of other virtues, and these virtues he practised. But he had not learned, nor had opportunity of learning another lesson, which the examples recorded in history inculcate frequently, the lesson of moderation. An insatiable thirst of
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military fame, an unconfined ambition of extending their empire,
an extravagant confidence in their own courage and force, an
insolent contempt of their enemies, and an impetuous overbearing
spirit with which they pursued all their enterprises, composed in
his days the distinguishing character of a Roman. Whatever the
senate and people resolved, to the members of that commonwealth
appeared both practicable and just. Neither difficulties nor
dangers could check them, and their sages had not yet discovered
that virtues in excess degenerate into vices. Notwithstanding the
beautiful rant which Horace puts into his mouth, I make no doubt
that Regulus learned at Carthage those lessons of moderation
which he had not learned at Rome; but he learned them by
experience, and the fruits of this experience came too late; and
cost too dear; for they cost the total defeat of the Roman army,
the prolongation of a calamitous war which might have been
finished by a glorious peace, the loss of liberty to thousands of
Roman citizens, and to Regulus himself the loss of life in the
midst of torments, if we are entirely to credit what is perhaps
exaggeration in the Roman authors.
There is another advantage, worthy our observation, that
belongs to the study of history, and that I shall mention here, not
only because of the importance of it, but because it leads me
immediately to speak of the nature of the improvement we ought
to have in our view, and of the method in which it seems to me
that this improvement ought to be pursued; two particulars from
which your lordship may think perhaps that I digress too long.
The advantage I mean consists in this, that the examples which
history presents to us, both of men and of events, are generally
complete: the whole example is before us, and consequently the
whole lesson, or sometimes the various lessons, which philosophy
proposes to teach us by this example. For first, as to men: we
see them at their whole length in history, and we see them
generally there through a medium less partial at least than that
of experience: for I imagine, that a Whig or a Tory, whilst those
parties subsisted, would have condemned in Saturninus the spirit
of faction which he applauded in his own tribunes, and would
have applauded in Drusus the spirit of moderation which he
despised in those of the contrary party, and which he suspected
and hated in those of his own party. The villain who has imposed
on mankind by his power or cunning, and whom experience could
not unmask for a time, is unmasked at length; and the honest
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man, who has been misunderstood or defamed, is justified before
his story ends. Or if this does not happen, if the villain dies with
his mask on, in the midst of applause, and honour, and wealth,
and power, and if the honest man dies under the same load of
calumny and disgrace under which he lived, driven perhaps into
exile, and exposed to want ; yet we see historical justice executed,
the name of one branded with infamy, and that of the other cele-
brated with panegyric to succeeding ages.
(From Letters on History.)
ELOQUENCE
Eloquence, that leads mankind by the ears, gives a nobler
superiority than power that every dunce may use, or fraud
that every knave may employ to lead them by the nose. But
eloquence must flow like a stream that is fed by an abundant
spring, and not sprout forth a little frothy water on some gaudy
day, and remain dry the rest of the year. The famous orators
of Greece and Rome were the statesmen and ministers of those
commonwealths. The nature of their governments and the
humour of those ages made elaborate orations necessary. They
harangued oftener than they debated ; and the ars dicendi
required more study and more exercise of mind, and of body
too, among them, than are necessary among us. But as much
pains as they took in learning how to conduct the stream of
eloquence, they took more to enlarge the fountain from which
it flowed. Hear Demosthenes, hear Cicero thunder against
Philip, Catiline, and Anthony. I choose the example of the
first rather than that of Pericles whom he imitated, or of
Phocion whom he opposed, or of any other considerable person-
age in Greece ; and the example of Cicero rather than that of
Crassus, or of Hortensius, or of any other of the great men of
Rome ; because the eloquence of these two has been so celebrated
that we are accustomed to look upon them almost as mere
orators. They were orators indeed, and no man who has a
soul can read their orations, after the revolution of so many
ages, after the extinction of the governments, and of the people
for whom they were composed, without feeling at this hour the
passions they were designed to move, and the spirit they were
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designed to raise. But if we look into the history of these two
men, and consider the parts they acted, we shall see them in
another light, and admire them in a higher sphere of action.
Demosthenes had been neglected, in his education, by the
same tutors who cheated him of his inheritance. Cicero was
bred with greater advantage : and Plutarch, I think, says that
when he first appeared the people used to call him, by way
of derision, the Greck, and the scholar. But whatever advantage
of this kind the latter might have over the former, and to which
of them soever you ascribe the superior genius, the progress
which both of them made in every part of political knowledge,
by their industry and application, was marvellous.• Cicero might
be a better philosopher, but Demosthenes was no less a states-
man : and both of them performed actions and acquired fame,
above the reach of eloquence alone. Demosthenes used to
compare eloquence to a weapon, aptly enough ; for eloquence,
like every other weapon, is of little use to the owner, unless he
have the force and the skill to use it. This force and this skill
Demosthenes had in an eminent degree. Observe them in one
instance among many. It was of mighty importance to Philip
to prevent the accession of Thebes to the grand alliance that
Demosthenes, at the head of the Athenian commonwealth, formed
against the growing power of the Macedonians. Philip had
emissaries and his ambassadors on the spot to oppose to those
of Athens, and we may be assured that he neglected none of
those arts upon this occasion that he employed so successfully
on others. The struggle was great, but Demosthenes prevailed,
and the Thebans engaged in the war against Philip. Was it by
his eloquence alone that he prevailed in a divided state, over
the subtlety of intrigue, all the dexterity of negotiation, all
the corruption, and all the terror that the ablest
and most powerful prince could employ? Was Demosthenes
wholly taken up with composing orations, and haranguing the
people, in this remarkable crisis? He harangued them no
doubt at Thebes, as well as at Athens, and in the rest of Greece,
where all the great resolutions of making alliances, waging war,
or concluding peace, were determined in democratical assemblies.
But yet haranguing was no doubt the least part of his business,
and eloquence was neither the sole, nor the principal talent,
as the style of writers would induce us to believe, on which his
success depended. He must have been master of other arts,
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subserviently to which his eloquence was employed, and must have had a thorough knowledge of his own state, and of the
other states of Grecce, of their dispositions, and of their interests relatively to one another, and relatively to their neighbours, to
the Persians particularly, with whom he held a correspondence, not much to his honour: I say, he must have been master of
many other arts, and have possessed an immense fund of knowledge, to make his eloquence in every case successful, and even
pertinent or seasonable in some, as well as to direct it and to furnish it with matter whenever he thought proper to employ
this weapon.
Let us consider Tully on the greatest theatre of the known world; and in the most difficult circumstances. We are better
acquainted with him than we are with Demosthenes; for we see him nearer, as it were, and in more different lights. How
perfect a knowledge had he acquired of the Roman constitution of government, ecclesiastical and civil; of the original and
progress, of the general reasons and particular occasions of the laws and customs of his country; of the great rules of equity,
and the low practice of courts; of the duty of every magistracy and office in the state, from the dictator down to the lictor;
and of all the steps by which Rome had risen from her infancy to liberty, to power and grandeur and dominion, as well as of
all those by which she began to decline, a little before his age, to that servitude which he died for opposing, but lived to
see established, and in which not her liberty alone, but her power and grandeur and dominion were lost? How well was
he acquainted with the Roman colonies and provinces, with the allies and enemies of the empire, with the rights and privileges
of the former, the dispositions and conditions of the latter, with the interests of them all relatively to Rome, and with the interests
of Rome relatively to them? How present to his mind were the anecdotes of former times concerning the Roman and other
states, and how curious was he to observe the minutest circumstances that passed in his own? His works will answer sufficiently
the questions I ask, and establish in the mind of every man who reads them the idea I would give of his capacity and know-
ledge, as well as that which is so universally taken of his eloquence. To a man fraught with all this stock of knowledge,
and industrious to improve it daily, nothing could happen that was entirely new, nothing for which he was quite unprepared,
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scarce any effect whereof he had not considered the cause,
scarce any cause wherein his sagacity could not discern the
latent effect. His eloquence in private causes gave him first
credit at Rome, but it was this knowledge, this experience, and
the continued habits of business, that supported his reputation,
enabled him to do so much service to his country, and gave
force and authority to his eloquence. To little purpose would
he have attacked Catiline with all the vehemence that indignation
and even fear added to eloquence, if he had trusted to this
weapon alone. This weapon alone would have secured neither
him nor the senate from the poniard of that assassin. He would
have had no occasion to boast, that he had driven this infamous
citizen out of the walls of Rome, abiit, excessit, evasit, erupit, if
he had not made it before-hand impossible for him to continue
any longer in them. As little occasion would he have had to
assume the honour of defeating without any tumult, or any
disorder, the designs of those who conspired to murder the
Roman people, to destroy the Roman empire, and to extinguish
the Roman name; if he had not united by skill and management,
in the common cause of their country, orders of men the most
averse to each other; if he had not watched all the machinations
of the conspirators in silence, and prepared a strength sufficient
to resist them at Rome, and in the provinces, before he opened
this scene of villany to the senate and the people; in a word,
if he had not made much more use of political prudence, that
is, of the knowledge of mankind, and of the arts of government,
which study and experience give, than of all the powers of his
eloquence.
(From the Spirit of Patriotism.)
DISCARDED SERVICE
THE Thursday following the Duke of Ormond came to see
me, and after the compliment of telling me, that he believed that
I should be surprised at the message he brought, he put into my
hands a note to himself, and a little scrip of paper directed to
me, and drawn in the style of justice of peace's warrant. They
were both in the Chevalier's handwriting, and they were dated
on the Tuesday, in order to make me believe that they had been
writ on the road, and sent back to the Duke: his grace dropped
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in our conversation, with great dexterity, all the insinuations proper to confirm me in this opinion. I knew at this time his master was not gone; so that he gave me two very risible scenes, which are frequently to be met with when some people meddle in business; I mean that of seeing a man labor with a great deal of awkward artifice to make a secret of a nothing, and that of seeing yourself taken for a bubble when you know as much of the matter, as he who thinks that he imposes on you.
I cannot recollect precisely the terms of the two papers. I remember that the kingly laconic style of one of them, and the expression of having no further occasion for my service, made me smile. The other was an order to give up the papers in my office; all which might have been contained in a letter-case of a moderate size. I gave the Duke the seals, and some papers which I could readily come at. Some others, and indeed all such as I had not destroyed, I sent afterwards to the Chevalier: and I took care to convey to him, by a safe hand, several of his letters, which it would have been very improper the Duke should have seen. I am surprised that he did not reflect on the consequence of my obeying his order literally. It depended on me to have shown his general what an opinion the Chevalier had of his capacity. I scorned the trick; and would not appear piqued, when I was far from being angry. As I gave up, without scruple, all the papers which remained in my hands, because I was determined never to make use of them; so I confess to you, that I took a sort of pride in never asking for those of mine which were in the Pretender's hands: I contented myself with making the Duke understand how little need there was to get rid of a man in this manner, who had made the bargain which I had done at my engagement; and with taking this first opportunity to declare, that I would never more have to do with the Pretender, or his cause.
That I might avoid being questioned and quoted in the most curious and the most babbling town in the world, I related what had passed to three or four of my friends, and hardly stirred abroad, during a fortnight, out of a little lodging which very few people knew of. At the end of this term the Marshal of Berwick came to see me, and asked me what I meant, to confine myself to my chamber, when my name was trumpeted about in all the companies of Paris, and the most infamous stories were spread concerning me. This was the first notice I had, and it was soon
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followed by others. I appeared immediately in the world, and
found there was hardly a scurrilous tongue which had not been
let loose on my subject, and that those persons, whom the Duke
of Ormond and the Earl of Mar must influence, or might influence,
were the loudest in defaming me.
Particular instances wherein I had failed were cited; and, as
it was the fashion for every Jacobite to affect being in the secret,
you might have found a multitude of vouchers to facts, which, if
they had been true, could in the nature of them be known to very
few persons.
This method, of beating down the reputation of a man by
noise and impudence, imposed on the world at first, convinced
people who were not acquainted with me, and staggered even
my friends. But it ceased in a few days to have any effect
against me. The malice was too gross to pass upon reflection.
These stories died away almost as fast as they were published,
for this very reason, because they were particular.
(From Letter to Sir W. Windham.)
A RELIGION OF HYPOCRISY
EVERY one has an undoubted right to think freely : nay, it is the
duty of every one to do so, as far as he has the necessary means
and opportunities. This duty too is in no case so incumbent on him
as in those that regard what I call the first philosophy. They
who have neither means nor opportunities of this sort, must sub-
mit their opinions to authority; and to what authority can they
resign themselves so properly, and so safely, as to that of the
laws, and constitution of their country? In general, nothing
can be more absurd than to take opinions of the greatest moment,
and such as concern us the most intimately, on trust. But there
is no help against it in many particular cases. Things the most
absurd in speculation become necessary in practice. Such is the
human constitution; and reason excuses them on the account of
this necessity. Reason does even a little more; and it is all she
can do. She gives the best direction possible to the absurdity.
Thus she directs those, who must believe because they cannot
know, to believe in the laws of their country, and conform their
opinions and practice to those of their ancestors, to those of
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Coruncanius, of Scipio, of Scaevola, not to those of Zeno, of Cleanthes, of Chrysippus.
But now the same reason that gives this discretion to such men as these, will give a very contrary direction to those who have the means and opportunities the others want. Far from advising them to submit to this mental bondage, she will advise them to employ their whole industry, to exert the utmost freedom of thought, and to rest on no authority but her's, that is, their own. She will speak to them in the language of the Soufys, a sect of philosophers in Persia, that travellers have mentioned. "Doubt," say these wise and honest freethinkers, "is the key of knowledge. He who never doubts, never examines. He who never examines, discovers nothing. He who discovers nothing, is blind, and will remain so. If you find no reason to doubt concerning the opinions of your fathers, keep to them, they will be sufficient for you. If you find any reason to doubt concerning them, seek the truth quietly, but take care not to disturb the minds of other men."
Let us proceed agreeably to these maxims. Let us seek truth, but seek it quietly as well as freely. Let us not imagine, like some who are called freethinkers, that every man, who can think and judge for himself, as he has a right to do, has therefore a right of speaking, any more than of acting according to the full freedom of his thoughts. The freedom belongs to him as a rational creature. He lies under the restraint as a member of society.
If the religion we profess contained nothing more than articles of faith, and points of doctrine clearly revealed to us in the Gospel, we might be obliged to renounce our natural freedom of thought in favour of this supernatural authority. But since it is notorious that a certain order of men, who call themselves the Church, have been employed to make and propagate a theological system of theirs, which they call Christianity, from the days of the Apostles, and even from these days inclusively; it is our duty to examine, and analyse the whole, that we may distinguish what is Divine from what is human; adhere to the first implicitly, and ascribe to the last no more authority than the word of man deserves.
Such an examination is the more necessary to be undertaken by every one who is concerned for the truth of his religion, and for the honour of Christianity, because the first preachers of it were
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not, and they who preach it still are not agreed about many of
the most important points of their system ; because the contro-
versies raised by these men have banished union, peace, and
charity out of the Christian world ; and because some parts of the
system savour so much of superstition and enthusiasm, that all
the prejudices of education, and the whole weight of civil and
ecclesiastical power can hardly keep them in credit. These con-
siderations deserve the more attention, because nothing can be
more true, than what Plutarch said of old, and my Lord Bacon
has said since; one, that superstition, and the other, that vain
controversies are principal causes of atheism.
I neither expect nor desire to see any public revision made of
the present system of Christianity. I should fear an attempt
to alter the established religion as much as they who have the most
bigot attachment to it, and for reasons as good as theirs, though
not entirely the same. I speak only of the duty of every private
man to examine for himself, which would have an immediate good
effect relatively to himself, and might have in time a good effect
relatively to the public, since it would dispose the minds of men
to a greater indifference about theological disputes, which are the
disgrace of Christianity, and have been the plagues of the world.
(From Letter to Mr. Pope.)
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ALEXANDER POPE
[Alexander Pope was born in 1688 and died in 1744. He published essays in the Guardian in 1713, a Discourse on Pastoral Poetry in 1717 ; a Preface to the edition of Shakespeare which appeared in 1725, besides various satirical papers which were collected in the Miscellanies of himself and Swift, published in 1728. The so-called spurious Correspondence was published in 1735 ; the author's version appeared in 1737, to which a sequel was added in 1741. In 1742 he printed the Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus, the greater part of which, however, was the work of Arbuthnot, though the Introduction was written by Pope.]
POPE's prose writings may be classified as essays, satirical miscellanies, and letters. In this arrangement his letters make much the largest part. He was the first Englishman who treated letter-writing as an art, and so far did he carry his practice, that those of his compositions, which might be expected to be most like conversation, are the very ones which show the clearest marks of study and reflection. The series of frauds which accompanied the publication of his correspondence in 1735 is now perfectly understood ; but it is plain, both from the judgment of his friends and from his own confession, that, long before he thought of taking the public into his confidence, his letters were written for literary effect.
"This letter," he writes to Swift, 28th November 1729, "like all mine, will be a rhapsody. It is many years ago since I wrote as a wit. How many occurrences or informations must one omit, if one determined to say nothing that one could not say prettily." "I find," says Swift, in answer to him, 26th February 1729-30, "you have been a writer of letters almost from your infancy ; and by your own confession had schemes even then of epistolary fame." In fact to call anything that he ever wrote "a rhapsody," was a mere figure of speech. Whatever he produced, whether prose or verse, from the time when he began to "lisp in numbers" to the very last day of his life, was weighed, meditated, and corrected before it was submitted to the public,
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or indeed even to his friends. A vein of fiction ran through his
thoughts on all subjects. He was always on the watch for
materials of composition within his daily experience. On one
occasion he made the trivial domestic troubles of one of his female
friends the basis of a romantic "elegy." On other occasions
he treated actual scenes, persons, and incidents which came under
his notice as subjects for epistolary romances. Of this kind
are his letters to the Duke of Buckingham and Lady M. W.
Montagu describing Stanton Harcourt; the letter about the hay-
makers struck by lightning, copies of which were sent to Martha
Blount, Fortescue, and Lord Bathurst; and the letter to the Earl
of Burlington, describing a ride with Lintot to Oxford. Viewed
as ideal compositions, the style of these letters, descriptive,
humorous, or pathetic, is often admirable. But the charm of a
letter is strongest when it may be supposed to afford a real image
of the writer's mind, a real record of external things. "When
I sit down to write a letter," says Swift, "I never lean upon my
elbow until I finish it." Pope, on the contrary, never seems in
his letters to be off his guard for a moment: we feel sure that he
is always adding to the objects he professes to be painting from
nature, the touches required to complete a literary effect.
It is noticeable also that he varies his style according to the
ideal which he imagines to be present in the mind of his corre-
spondent. To Cromwell he writes in a vein welcome, as he sup-
poses, to one who had lived with the "wits" of the Restoration;
corresponding with Lady M. W. Montagu, a woman of the highest
fashion, he uses the style of gallantry invented by Voiture; but when
he is discoursing with a simple country squire like Caryll, who, he
knows, will not judge him severely, he reflects and moralises just as
the humour takes him His best letters are those in which the
habit of composition is softened by natural affection, or checked
by intellectual respect for his correspondent. What he wrote to
Martha Blount, for example, as it was often dictated by his heart,
is much better than the string of frigid conceits which he thought
would be an acceptable offering to Lady M. W. Montagu;
while his letters to Swift who, he was aware, could measure his
genius as well as admire it, have much of the friendly confidence
shown in his correspondence with Caryll, with less of cheap
philosophy. Where circumstances favoured him he could
write with admirable effect, as we see in his answer to Atterbury,
who, after his father's death, had used persuasion with him to
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join the Church of England. Occasionally too a letter wrung from him by personal suffering—like the one written, though not published, as a reply to the attack made on him by Lord Hervey
—rises to such a height of grief or anger, as to open a view of his real nature. But, as a rule, the revelation of himself in his correspondence is rather a portrait of what he wished himself to be, and others to think him, than of what he actually was.
His essays and critical writings, in which he deals with matters external to himself, are perhaps more simple and natural in manner than his letters, but, as they for the most part follow in other men's footsteps, are less characteristic of his genius.
His Discourse on Pastoral Poetry is in the style of the French critics : the Preface to Shakespeare shows traces of the study of Dryden's Essay of Dramatic Poesy; the papers in the Guardian are written in the manner of Addison.
He is perhaps most successful in jeu d'esprit such as the ironical paper in the Guardian in ridicule of Ambrose Phillips ; the Key to the Lock; and the Treatise on the Bathos; but from this praise must be excepted the satires on Curll and Dennis, in which the poverty of the wit is no less conspicuous than the grossness of the personality.
On the whole it appears that the qualities which made Pope, in his own department, a great master of English verse, prevented him from reaching the first rank as a writer of English prose.
He endeavoured to make the sentence, like the heroic couplet, the vehicle for a succession of points and epigrams. But this method is scarcely suitable to a form of literary expression, which, as it approaches the ordinary modes of unwritten speech, necessarily suffers if the artifice of its construction is allowed to appear.
The best styles, like the best manners, are those which have most beauty in themselves, but attract least attention to themselves.
Pope, when writing in prose, seldom succeeds in suppressing his self-consciousness so completely as to reach this standard.
In his poems like the Epistle to Arbuthnot, where he is, so to speak, dancing in chains, he moves with the perfection of artful ease ; but in his essays, and still more in his letters, where he ought above all things to appear natural, familiar, and unaffected, he is unable to disguise the labour of the composer.
W. J. COURTHOPE.
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TO LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU
18th August 1716.
Madam—I can say little to recommend the letters I am beginning to write to you, but that they will be the most impartial representations of a free heart, and the truest copies you ever saw, though of a very mean original. Not a feature will be softened, or any advantageous light employed to make the ugly thing a little less hideous, but you shall find it in all respects most horribly like. You will do me an injustice if you look upon anything I shall say from this instant, as a compliment either to you or to myself: whatever I write will be the real thought of that hour, and I know you will no more expect it of me to persevere till death, in every sentiment or notion I now set down, than you would imagine a man's face should never change after his picture was once drawn.
The freedom I shall use in this manner of thinking aloud (as somebody calls it), or talking upon paper, may indeed prove me a fool, but it will prove me one of the best sort of fools, the honest ones. And since what folly we have will infallibly buoy up at one time or other in spite of all our art to keep it down, it is almost foolish to take any pains to conceal it at all, and almost knavish to do it from those that are our friends. If Monius's project had taken, of having windows in our breasts, I should be for carrying it further, and making those windows casements: that while a man showed his heart to all the world, he might do something more for his friends, e'en take it out, and trust to their handling. I think I love you as well as King Herod could Herodias (though I never had so much as one dance with you), and would as freely give you my heart in a dish as he did another's head.
But a particular reason to engage you to write your thoughts the more freely to me is, that I am confident no one knows you
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better. For I find, when others express their opinion of you, it
falls very short of mine, and I am sure, at the same time, theirs
is such as you would think sufficiently in your favour.
You may easily imagine how desirous I must be of correspond-
ence with a person who had taught me so long ago, that it was as
possible to esteem at first sight, as to love: and who has since
wined me for all the conversation of one sex, and almost all the
friendship of the other. I am but too sensible, through your
means, that the company of men wants a certain softness to
recommend it, and that of women wants everything else. How
often have I been quite going to take possession of that tran-
quillity and indolence I had so long found in the country, when
one evening of your conversation has spoiled me for a solitaire
too ! Books have lost their effect upon me; and I was convinced
since I saw you, that there is something more powerful than
philosophy, and, since I heard you, that there is one alive wiser
than all the sages. A plague of female wisdom ! It makes a
man ten times more uneasy than his own. What is very strange,
Virtue herself, when you have the dressing her, is too amiable for
one's repose. What a world of good might you have done in
your time, if you had allowed half the fine gentlemen who have
seen you to have but conversed with you ! They would have
been strangely caught, while they thought only to fall in love
with a fair face, and you had bewitched them with reason and
virtue; two beauties that the very fops pretend to have an ac-
quaintance with.
The unhappy distance at which we correspond, removes a
great many of those punctilious restrictions and decorums that
oftentimes in nearer conversation prejudice truth to save good
breeding. I may now hear of my faults, and you of your good
qualities, without a blush on either side. We converse upon such
unfortunate generous terms as exclude the regards of fear, shame,
or design in either of us. And methinks it would be as un-
generous a part to impose even in a single thought upon each
other, in this state of separation, as for spirits of a different
sphere, who have so little intercourse with us, to employ that
little (as some would make us think they do), in putting tricks
and delusions upon poor mortals.
Let me begin, then, madam, by asking you a question, which
may enable me to judge better of my own conduct than most
instances of my life. In what manner did I behave the last hour
VOL. III
2 P
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I saw you? What degree of concern did I discover when I felt
a misfortune, which I hope you never will feel, that of parting
from what one most esteems? For if my parting looked but
like that of your common acquaintance, I am the greatest of all
the hypocrites that ever decency made.
I never since pass by the house but with the same sort of
melancholy that we feel upon seeing the tomb of a friend, which
only serves to put us in mind of what we have lost. I reflect
upon the circumstances of your departure, your behaviour in what
I may call your last moments, and I indulge a gloomy kind of
satisfaction in thinking you gave some of those last moments to
me. I would fain imagine this was not accidental, but proceeded
from a penetration which I know you have in finding out the
truth of people's sentiments, and that you were not unwilling the
last man that would have parted with you should be the last that
did. I really looked upon you then as the friends of Curtius
might have done upon that hero in the instant he was devoting
himself to glory, and running to be lost out of generosity, I was
obliged to admire your resolution in as great a degree as I
deplored it; and could only wish that heaven would reward so
much merit as was to be taken from us, with all the felicity it
could enjoy elsewhere. May that person for whom you have left
all the world, be so just as to prefer you to all the world! I
believe his good understanding has engaged him to do so hitherto,
and I think his gratitude must for the future. May you continue
to think him worthy of whatever you have done; may you ever
look upon him with the eyes of a just lover, nay, if possible, with
all the unreasonable happy fondness of an unexperienced one,
surrounded with all the enchantments and ideas of romance and
poetry! In a word, may you receive from him as many pleasures
and gratifications, as even I think you can give! I wish this from
my heart, and while I examine what passes there in regard to
you, I cannot but glory in my own heart, that it is capable of so
much generosity. I am, with unalterable esteem and sincerity,
madam, your most faithful obedient, humble servant.
Page 590
ALEXANDER POPE
579
TO MRS. MARTHA BLOUNT
7th September 1733.
YOU cannot think how melancholy this place makes me. Every
part of this wood puts into my mind poor Mr. Gay, with whom I
passed once a great deal of pleasant time in it, and another friend,
who is near dead, and quite lost to us, Dr. Swift. I really can
find no enjoyment in the place; the same sort of uneasiness as I
find at Twickenham, whenever I pass near my mother's room.
I have not yet writ to Mrs. _____. I think I should, but have
nothing to say that will answer the character they consider me
in, as a wit; besides, my eyes grow very bad (whatever is the
cause of it), I will put them out for nobody but a friend; and, I
protest, it brings tears into them almost to write to you, when I
think of your state and mine. I long to write to Swift, but
cannot. The greatest pain I know, is to say things so very short
of one's meaning, when the heart is full.
I feel the going out of life just enough to have little appetite
left to make compliments, at best useless, and for the most part
unfelt speeches. It is but in a very narrow circle that friendship
walks in this world, and I care not to tread out of it more than
needs must; knowing well, it is but to two or three (if quite so
many), that any man's welfare, or memory, can be of conse-
quence: the rest, I believe, I may forget, and be pretty certain
they are already even, if not beforehand with me.
Life, after the first warm heats are over, is all down hill; and
one almost wishes the journey's end, provided we were sure but to
lie down easy whenever the night should overtake us.
I dreamed all last night of _____. She has dwelt (a little more
than perhaps is right) upon my spirits. I saw a very deserving
gentleman in my travels, who has formerly, I have heard, had
much the same misfortune: and (with all his good breeding and
sense) still bears a cloud and melancholy cast, that never can
quite clear up, in all his behaviour and conversation. I know
another who, I believe, could promise, and easily keep his word,
never to laugh in his life. But one must do one's best, not to be
used by the world as that poor lady was by her sister; and not
seem too good, for fear of being thought affected or whimsical.
It is a real truth, that to the last of my moments the thought
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ENGLISH PROSE
of you, and the best of my wishes for you, will attend you, told or untold.
I could wish you had once the constancy and resolution to act for yourself; whether before or after I leave you (the only way I ever shall leave you), you must determine; but reflect, that the first would make me, as well as yourself, happier; the latter could make you only so. Adieu.
TO THE BISHOP OF ROCHESTER
20th November 1717.
My Lord—I am truly obliged by your kind condolence on my father's death, and the desire you express that I should improve this incident to my advantage. I know your lordship's friendship to me is so extensive, that you include in that wish both my spiritual and my temporal advantage; and it is what I owe to that friendship, to open my mind unreservedly to you on this head. It is true, I have lost a parent for whom no gains I could make would be any equivalent. But that was not my only tie; I thank God another still remains (and long may it remain) of the same tender nature. Genetrix est mihi, and excuse me if I say with Euryalus,
nequeam lacrymas perferre parentis,
A rigid divine may call it a carnal tic, but sure it is a virtuous one. At least I am more certain that it is a duty of nature to preserve a good parent's life and happiness than I am of any speculative point whatever.
Ignaram hujus quodcunque pericli
Hanc ego, nunc, linquam?
For she, my lord, would think this separation more grievous than any other, and I, for my part, know as little as poor Euryalus did, of the success of such an adventure; for an adventure it is, and no small one, in spite of the most positive divinity. Whether the change would be to my spiritual advantage, God only knows; I mean as well in the religion I now profess, as I can possibly ever do in another. Can a man who thinks so justify a change, even if he thought both equally good? To such
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an one the part of joining with any one body of Christians might perhaps be easy, but I think it would not be so, to renounce the other.
Your lordship has formerly advised me to read the best controversies between the churches. Shall I tell you a secret? I did so at fourteen years old, for I loved reading, and my father had no other books; there was a collection of all that had been written on both sides in the reign of King James the Second. I wormed my head with them, and the consequence was, that I found myself a Papist and a Protestant by turns, according to the last book I read. I am afraid most seekers are in the same case, and when they stop, they are not so properly converted as outwitted. You see how little glory you would gain by my conversion.
And, after all, I verily believe your lordship and I are both of the same religion, if we were thoroughly understood by one another; and that all honest and reasonable Christians would be so, if they did but talk enough together every day, and had nothing to do together, but to serve God, and live in peace with their neighbour.
As to the temporal side of the question, I can have no dispute with you; it is certain, all the beneficial circumstances of life, and all the shining ones, be on the part you would invite me to. But if I could bring myself to fancy, what I think you do but fancy, that I have any talents for active life, I want health for it; and besides it is a real truth, I have less inclination (if possible) than ability. Contemplative life is not only my scene, but it is my habit too. I began my life where most people end theirs, with a disrelish of all that the world calls ambition. I do not know why it is called so, for to me it always seemed to be rather stooping than climbing. I will tell you my politic and religious sentiments in a few words. In my politics I think no further than how to preserve the peace of my life, in any government under which I live; nor in my religion, than to preserve the peace of my conscience in any church with which I communicate.
I hope all churches and all governments are so far of God, as they are rightly understood, and rightly administered; and where they are, or may be wrong, I leave to God alone to mend or reform them; which, whenever He does, it must be by greater instruments than I am. I am not a Papist, for I renounce the temporal invasions of the papal power, and detest their arrogated authority over princes and states. I am a Catholic in the strictest
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ENGLISH PROSE
sense of the word. If I was born under an absolute prince,
I would be a quiet subject; but I thank God I was not. I have a
due sense of the excellence of the British constitution. In a word,
the things I have always wished to see are not a Roman Catholic,
or a French Catholic, or a Spanish Catholic, but a true Catholic;
not a king of Whigs, or a king of Tories, but a king of England;
which God of his mercy grant his present majesty may be, and
all future majesties. You see, my lord,.I end like a preacher;
that is, Sermo ad Clerum, not ad Populum. Believe me, with
infinite obligation and sincere thanks, ever your, etc.
TO SWIFT
25th March, 1736.
IF ever I write more epistles in verse, one of them shall be
addressed to you. I have long concerted it, and begun it, but I
would make what bears your name as finished as my last work
ought to be, that is to say, more finished than any of the rest.
The subject is large, and will divide into four epistles, which
naturally follow the Essay on Man, viz.—1. Of the extent and
limit of human reason and science. 2. A view of the useful and
therefore attainable, and of the un-useful and therefore unattain-
able arts. 3. Of the nature, ends, application, and use of different
capacities. 4. Of the use of learning, of the science of the world
and of wit. It will conclude with a satire against the misapplica-
tion of all these, exemplified by pictures, characters, and examples.
But alas! the task is great, and non sum qualis eram! My
understanding indeed, such as it is, is extended rather than
diminished; I see things more in the whole, more consistent, and
more clearly deduced from, and related to each other. But what
I gain on the side of philosophy, I lose on the side of poetry;
the flowers are gone when the fruits begin to ripen, and the fruits
perhaps will never ripen perfectly. The climate, under our heaven
of a court, is but cold and uncertain; the winds rise, and the
winter comes on. I find myself but little disposed to build a new
house; I have nothing left but to gather up the reliques of a
wreck, and look about me to see how few friends I have left.
Pray, whose esteem or admiration should I desire now to procure
by my writings? whose friendship or conversation to obtain by
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them? I am a man of desperate fortunes, that is, a man whose
friends are dead; for I never aimed at any other fortune than in
friends. As soon as I had sent my last letter, I received a most
kind one from you, expressing great pain for my late illness at
Mr. Cheselden's. I conclude you were eased of that friendly
apprehension in a few days after you had despatched yours, for
mine must have reached you there. I wondered a little at your
quære who Cheselden was? It shows that the truest merit
does not travel any way as on the wings of poetry. He is the
most noted and most deserving man in the whole profession of
chirurgery, and has saved the lives of thousands by his manner
of cutting for the stone. I am now well, or what I must call so.
I have lately seen some writings of Lord Bolingbroke's, since
he went to France. Nothing can depress his genius. Whatever
befals him, he will still be the greatest man in the world, either
in his own time, or with posterity.
Every man you know or care for here enquires of you, and
pays you the only devour he can, that of drinking your health.
Here are a race sprung up of young patriots who would animate
you. I wish you had any motive to see this kingdom. I could
keep you, for I am rich, that is, I have more than I want. I can
afford room for yourself and two servants; I have indeed room
enough, nothing but myself at home. The kind and hearty
housewife is dead! the agreeable and instructive neighbour is
gone! Yet my house is enlarged and the gardens extend and
flourish, as knowing nothing of the guests they have lost.
I have more fruit trees and kitchen-garden than you have any
thought of; nay, I have good melons and pinc apples of my own
growth. I am as much a better gardener as I am a worse poet,
than when you saw me; but gardening is near akin to philosophy,
for Tully says, Agricultura proxima sapientiæ. For God's sake,
why should not you (that are a step higher than a philosopher, a
divine, yet have too much grace and wit to be a bishop) e'en give
all you have to the poor of Ireland (for whom you have already
done everything else), so quit the place, and live and die with
me! And let Tules animæ concordes be our motto and our
epitaph.
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TO THE EARL OF BURLINGTON
1716
MY LORD—If your mare could speak, she would give an
account of what extraordinary company she had on the road ;
which since she cannot do, I will.
It was the enterprising Mr. Lintot, the redoubtable rival of
Mr. Tonson, who, mounted on a stone-horse (no disagreeable
companion to your lordship's mare, overtook me in Windsor
forest. He said he heard I designed for Oxford, the seat of the
muses, and would, as my bookseller, by all means accompany
me thither.
I asked him where he got his horse? He answered that he
got it of his publisher: “For that rogue my printer (said he) dis-
appointed me : I hoped to put him in a good humour by a treat
at the tavern, of a brown fricassee of rabbits, which cost two
shillings, with two quarts of wine, besides my conversation. I
thought myself cocksure of his horse, which he readily promised
me, but said that Mr. Tonson had just such another design of
going to Cambridge, expecting there the copy of a new kind of
Horace from Dr. Bentley, and if Mr. Tonson went, he was pre-en-
gaged to attend him, being to have the printing of the said copy.
“So in short, I borrowed this stone-horse of my publisher,
which he had of Mr. Oldmixon for a debt ; he lent me, too, the
pretty boy you see after me : he was a smutty dog yesterday, and
cost me near two hours to wash the ink off his face ; but the
devil is a fair-conditioned devil, and very fair in his catechise :
if you have any more bags, he shall carry them.”
I thought Mr. Lintot's civility not to be neglected, so gave
the boy a small bag containing three shirts and an Elzevir
Virgil ; and mounting in an instant, proceeded on the road, with
my man before, my courteous stationer beside, and the aforesaid
devil behind.
Mr. Lintot began in this manner : “Now damn them ! what
if they should put into the newspapers, how you and I went
together to Oxford ? What would I care ? If I should go down
into Sussex, they would say I was gone to the Speaker. But what
of that? If my son were but big enough to go on with the
business, by G—d I would keep as good company as old Jacob.”
Thereupon I inquired of his son. “The lad (says he) has fine
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parts, but is somewhat sickly, much as you are. I spare for
nothing in his education at Westminster. Pray don't you think
Westminster to be the best school in England? most of the late
ministry came out of it, so did many of this ministry. I hope
the boy will make his fortune."
Don't you design to let him pass a year at Oxford? "To
what purpose?" (said he) the universities do but make pedants,
and I intend to breed him a man of business."
As Mr. Lintot was talking, I observed he sat uneasy on his
saddle, for which I expressed some solicitude; "Nothing (says
he), I can bear it well enough; but since we have the day before
us, methinks it would be very pleasant for you to rest awhile under
the woods." When we were alighted: "See here, what a mighty
pretty Horace I have in my pocket! what if you amused yourself
in turning an ode, till we mount again? Lord! if you pleased,
what a clever miscellany might you make at leisure hours?"
Perhaps I may, said I, if we ride on; the motion is an aid to my
fancy, a sound trot very much awakens my spirits; then jog on
apace, and I'll think as hard as I can.
Silence ensued for a full hour; after which Mr. Lintot lugged
the reins, stopped short, and broke out, "Well, sir, how far have
you gone?" I answered, Seven miles. "Z—ds, sir," said
Lintot, "I thought you had done seven stanzas. Oldsworth, in
a ramble round Wimbledon-hill, would translate a whole ode in
half this time. I'll say that for Oldsworth (though I lost by his
Timothy's), he translates an ode of Horace the quickest of any
man in England. I remember Dr. King would write verses in a
tavern three hours after he could not speak: and there is Sir
Richard, in that rumbling old chariot of his, between Fleet-ditch
and St. Giles's pound, shall make you half a job."
Pray, Mr. Lintot (said I), now you talk of translators, what is
your method of managing them? "Sir (replied he), they are
the saddest pack of rogues in the world: in a hungry fit, they'll
swear they understand all the languages in the universe. I have
known one of them take down a Greek book upon my counter,
Oh, this is Hebrew, I must read it from the latter end. By G—d,
I can never be sure of these fellows, for I neither understand
Greek, Latin, French, nor Italian myself. But this is my way;
I agree with them for ten shillings a sheet, with a proviso, that I
will have their writings corrected by whom I please; so by one
or other they are led at last to the true sense of an author; my
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judgment giving the negative to all my translators." But how are you secure those correctors may not all impose upon you?
" Why, I get any civil gentleman (especially any Scotchman) that comes into my shop, to read the original to me in English ; by this I know whether my first translator be deficient, and whether my corrector merits his money or not.
" I'll tell you what happened to me last month. I bargained with S. for a new version of Lucretius to publish against Tonson's, agreeing to pay the author so many shillings on his producing so many lines. He made a great progress in a very short time, and I gave it to the corrector to compare with the Latin ; but he went directly to Creech's translation and found it the same word for word, all but the first page. Now, what do you think I did? I arrested the translator for a cheat ; nay, and I stopped the corrector's pay too, upon this proof that he had made use of Creech instead of the original."
Pray tell me next how you dealt with the critics ? " Sir," said he, " nothing more easy. I can silence the most formidable of them : the rich ones for a sheet apiece of the blotted manuscript, which costs me nothing ; they'll go about with it to their acquaintance, and pretend they had it from the author, who submitted to their correction : this has given some of them such an air, that in time they come to be consulted with, and dedicated to, as the top critics of the town. As for the poorer critics, I'll give you one instance of my management, by which you may guess the rest :
a lean man, that looked like a very good scholar, came to me t'other day ; he turned over your Homer, shook his head, shrugged his shoulders, and pished at every line of it : One would wonder (says he) at the strange presumption of some men : Homer is no such easy task, that every stripling, every versifier—— He was going on, when my wife called to dinner. Sir, said I, will you please to eat a piece of beef with me ? Mr. Lintot, said he, I am sorry you should be at the expense of this great book, I am really concerned on your account—— Sir, I am much obliged to you : if you can dine upon a piece of beef, together with a slice of pudding—— Mr. Lintot, I do not say but Mr. Pope, if he would condescend to advise with men of learning—— Sir, the pudding is upon the table, if you please to go in. My critic complies ; he comes to a taste of your poetry, and tells me in the same breath that the book is commendable and the pudding excellent."
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"Now, sir (continued Mr. Lintot), in return to the frankness I have shown, pray tell me, is it the opinion of your friends at Court that my Lord Lansdown will be brought to the bar or not?" I told him I heard he would not, and I hoped it, my lord being one I had particular obligations to. "That may be," replied Mr. Lintot, "but by G—d, if he is not, I shall lose the printing of a very good trial."
These, my lord, are a few traits by which you discern the genius of Mr. Lintot, which I have chosen for the subject of a letter. I dropped him as soon as I got to Oxford, and paid a visit to my Lord Carlton, at Middleton.
The conversations I enjoy here are not to be prejudiced by my pen, and the pleasures from them only to be equalled when I meet your lordship. I hope in a few days to cast myself from my horse at your feet.—I am, etc.
SHAKESPEARE
It is not my design to enter into a criticism upon this author, though to do it effectually and not superficially would be the best occasion that any just writer could take, to form the judgment and taste of our nation. For of all English poets Shakespeare must be confessed to be the fairest and fullest subject for criticism, and to afford the most numerous, as well as most conspicuous instances, both of beauties and faults of all sorts. But this far exceeds the bounds of a preface, the business of which is only to give an account of the fate of his works, and the disadvantages under which they have been transmitted to us. We shall hereby extenuate many faults which are his, and clear him from the imputation of many which are not; a design which, though it can be no guide to future critics to do him justice in one way, will at least be sufficient to prevent their doing him an injustice in the other.
I cannot, however, but mention some of his principal and characteristic excellencies, for which (notwithstanding his defects) he is justly and universally elevated above all other dramatic writers. Not that this is the proper place of praising him, but because I would not omit any occasion of doing it.
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If ever any author deserved the name of an original, it was Shakespeare. Homer himself drew not his art so immediately
from the fountains of Nature; it proceeded through Egyptian strainers and channels, and came to him not without some
tincture of the learning, or some cast of the models, of those before him. The poetry of Shakespeare was inspiration indeed;
he is not so much an imitator as an instrument of Nature; and it is not so just to say that he speaks from her as that she speaks
through him.
His characters are so much Nature herself, that 'tis a sort of injury to call them by so distant a name as copies of her.
Those of other poets have a constant resemblance, which shows that they received them from one another, and were but multipliers
of the same image; each picture, like a mock rainbow, is but the reflection of a reflection. But every single character in Shake-
speare is as much an individual as those in life itself; it is impossible to find any two alike; and such as from their relation or
affinity in any respect appear most to be twins, will upon comparison be found remarkably distinct. To this life and variety of
character we must add the wonderful preservation of it, which is such throughout his plays, that, had all the speeches been printed
without the very names of the persons, I believe one might have applied them with certainty to every speaker.
The power over our passions was never possessed in a more eminent degree, or displayed in so many different instances. Yet
all along there is seen no labour, no pains to raise them; no preparation to guide our guess to the effect, or be perceived to lead
toward it; but the heart swells, and the tears burst out, just at the proper places. We are surprised the moment we weep; and
yet upon reflection find the passion so just, that we should be surprised if we had not wept, and wept at that very moment.
How astonishing it is, again, that the passions directly opposite to these, laughter and spleen, are no less at his command! that
he is not more a master of the great, than of the ridiculous in human nature; of our noblest tendernesses, than of our vainest
foibles; of our strongest emotions, than of our idlest sensations!
Nor does he only excel in the passions; in the coolness of reflection and reasoning he is full as admirable. His sentiments
are not only in general the most pertinent and judicious upon every subject; but by a talent very peculiar, something between
penetration and felicity, he hits upon that particular point on
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which the bent of every argument turns, or the force of each
motive depends. This is perfectly amazing, from a man of no
education or experience in those great and public scenes of life
which are usually the subject of his thoughts: so that he seems
to have known the world by intuition, to have looked through
human nature at one glance, and to be the only author that gives
ground for a very new opinion, that the philosopher, and even the
man of the world, may be born, as well as the poet.
It must be owned that with all these great excellencies, he has
almost as great defects; and that as he has certainly written
better, so he has perhaps written worse, than any other. But I
think I can on some measure account for these defects, from
several causes and accidents; without which it is hard to imagine
that so large and so enlightened a mind should ever have been
susceptible of them. That all these contingencies should unite to
his disadvantage seems to me almost as singularly unlucky, as
that so many various (nay contrary) should meet in one man, was
happy and extraordinary.
It must be allowed that stage poetry, of all other, is more
particularly levelled to please the populace, and its success more
immediately depending on the common suffrage. One cannot
therefore wonder if Shakespeare, having at his first appearance
no other aim in his writings than to procure a subsistence,
directed his endeavours solely to hit the taste and humour that
then prevailed. The audience was generally composed of the
meaner sort of people; and therefore the images of life were to
be drawn from those of their own rank: accordingly we find, that
not our author's only, but almost all the old comedies, have their
scene amongst tradesmen and mechanics; and even their
historical plays strictly follow the common old stories or vulgar
traditions of that kind of people. In tragedy, nothing was so
sure to surprise and cause admiration as the most strange, un-
expected, and consequently most unnatural events and incidents:
the most pompous rhymes, and thundering versification. In
comedy, nothing was so sure to please as mean buffoonery, vile
ribaldry, and unmanly jests of fools and clowns. Yet even in
these our author's wit buoys up, and is borne above his subject;
his genius in these low parts is like some prince of a romance in
the disguise of a shepherd or peasant; a certain greatness and
spirit now and then break out, which manifest his higher extrac-
tion and qualities.
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It may be added, that not only the common audience had no
notion of the rules of writing, but few even of the better sort
piqued themselves upon any great degree of knowledge or nicety
that way; 'till Ben Jonson, getting possession of the stage,
brought critical learning into vogue. And that this was not done
without difficulty, may appear from those frequent lessons (and,
indeed, almost declamations) which he was forced to prefix to his
first plays, and put into the mouth of his actors, the Grex, Chorus,
etc., to remove the prejudices, and inform the judgment of his
hearers. 'Till then, our authors had no thoughts of writing on
the model of the ancients : their tragedies were only histories in
dialogue ; and their comedies followed the thread of any novel as
they found it, no less implicitly than if it had been true history.
To judge therefore of Shakespeare by Aristotle's rules, is like
trying a man by the laws of one country, who acted under those
of another. He writ to the people, and writ at first without
patronage from the better sort, and therefore without aims of
pleasing them : without assistance or advice from the learned, as
without the advantage of education or acquaintance among them :
without that knowledge of the best models, the ancients, to inspire
him with an emulation of them : in a word, without any views of
reputation, and of what poets are pleased to call immortality :
some or all of which have encouraged the vanity, or animated the
ambition, of other writers.
Yet it must be observed, that when his performances had
merited the protection of his prince, and when the encourage-
ment of the court had succeeded to that of the town, the works of
his riper years are manifestly raised above those of his former.
The dates of his plays sufficiently evidence that his productions
improved, in proportion to the respect that he had for his auditors.
And I make no doubt this observation would be found true in
every instance, were but editions extant from which we might
learn the exact time when every piece was composed, and whether
writ for the town or the court.
Another cause (and no less strong than the former) may be
deduced from our author being a player, and forming himself first
upon the judgments of that body of men whereof he was a
member. They have ever had a standard to themselves, upon
other principles than those of Aristotle. As they live by the
majority, they know no rule but that of pleasing the present
humour, and complying with the wit in fashion ; a consideration
Page 602
which brings all their judgment to a short point. Players are
just such judges of what is right, as tailors are of what is graceful.
And in this view it will be but fair to allow, that most of our
author's faults are less to be ascribed to his wrong judgment as a
poct, than to his right judgment as a player.
By these men it was thought a praise to Shakespeare that he
scarce ever blotted a line. This they industriously propagated,
as appears from what we are told by Ben Jonson in his Discoveries,
and from the preface of Heminges and Condell to the first folio
edition. But in reality (however it has prevailed) there never
was a more groundless report, or to the contrary of which there
are more undeniable evidences—as to the comedy of the Merry
Wives of Windsor, which he entirely new writ, the History of
Henry VI., which was first published under the title of the
Contention of York and Lancaster; and that of Henry V., ex-
tremely improved; that of Hamlet, enlarged to almost as much
again as at first, and many others. I believe the common opinion
of his want of learning proceeded from no better ground. This,
too, might be thought a praise by some, and to this his errors
have as injudiciously been ascribed by others. For, 'tis certain,
were it true, it could concern but a small part of them; the most
are such as are not properly defects, but superfetations; and
arise not from want of learning or reading, but from want of
thinking or judging: or rather (to be more just to our author)
from a compliance to those wants in others. As to a wrong
choice of the subject, a wrong conduct of the incidents, false
thoughts, forced expressions, etc., if these are not to be ascribed
to the aforesaid accidental reasons, they must be charged upon
the poet himself, and there is no help for it. But I think the two
disadvantages which I have mentioned (to be obliged to please
the lowest of people, and to keep the worst of company), if the
consideration be extended as far as it reasonably may, will appear
sufficient to mislead and depress the greatest genius upon earth.
Nay the more modesty with which such a one is endued, the
more he is in danger of submitting and conforming to others,
against his own better judgment.
(From Preface to Shakespeare.)
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DEDICATIONS
It matters not how false or forc'd,
So the best things be said o' th' worst
It goes for nothing when 't is said,
Only the arrow's drawn to the head,
Whether 't be a swan or goose
They level at , so shepherds use
To set the same mark on the hip
Both of their sound and rotten sheep — H UDIBRAS.
THOUGH most things which are wrong in their own nature are at
once confessed and absolved in that single word 'Custom ;o yet
there are some which, as they have a dangerous tendency, a
thinking man will the less excuse on that very account. Among
these I cannot but reckon the common practice of dedications,
which is of so much the worse consequence, as it is generally
used by people of politeness, and whom a learned education ought
to have inspired with nobler and juster sentiments. This prosti-
tution of praise is not only a deceit upon the gross of mankind,
who take their notion of characters from the learned ; but also the
better sort must by this means lose some part at least of that
desire of fame which is the incentive to generous actions, when
they find it promiscuously bestowed on the meritorious and unde-
serving. Nay, the author himself, let him be supposed to have
ever so true a value for the patron, can find no terms to express
it but what have been already used, and rendered suspected by
flatterers. Even truth itself in a dedication is like an honest man
in a disguise, or vizor-mask, and will appear a cheat by being
dressed so like one.
Though the merit of the person is beyond
dispute, I see no reason that because one man is eminent, there-
fore another has a right to be impertinent, and throw praises in
his face. 'Tis just the reverse of the practice of the ancient
Romans, when a person was advanced to triumph for his services :
as they hired people to rail at him in that circumstance to make
him as humble as they could, we have fellows to flatter him, and
make him as proud as they can. Supposing the writer not to be
mercenary, yet the great man is no more in reason obliged to
thank him for his picture in a dedication, than to thank a painter
for that on a sign-post ; except it be a less injury to touch the
most sacred part of him, his character, than to make free with his
countenance only. I should think nothing justified me in this
Page 604
point, but the patron's permission beforchand, that I should draw
him as like as I could ; whereas most authors proceed in this
affair just as a dauber I have heard of, who, not being able to draw
portraits after the life, was used to paint faces at random, and
look out afterwards for people whom he might persuade to be like
them. To ešpress my notion of the thing in a word : to say more
to a man than one thinks, with a prospect of interest, is dishonest ;
and without it, foolish. And whocver has had success in such an
undertaking must of necessity, at once, think himself in his heart a
knave for having done it, and his patron a fool for having believed it.
I have sometimes been entertained with considering dedica-
tions in no very common light. By observing what qualities our
writers think it will be most pleasing to others to compliment
them with, one may form some judgment which are most so to
themselves ; and in consequence, what sort of people they are.
Without this view one can read very few dedications but will give
us cause to wonder, either how such things came to be said at
all, or how they were said to such persons? I have known a
hero complimented upon the decent majesty and state he assumed
after victory, and a nobleman of a different character applauded
for his condescension to inferiors. This would have scemed very
strange to me, but that I happened to know the authors. He
who made the first compliment was a lofty gentleman, whose air
and gait discovered when he had published a new book ; and the
other tippled every night with the fellows who laboured at the
press while his own writings were being worked off. It is observ-
able of the female poets and ladies dedicatory, that here (as else-
where) they far exceed us in any strain or rant. As beauty is the
thing that sex are piqued upon, they speak of it generally in a
more elevated style than is used by the men. They adore in the
same manner as they would be adored. So when the authoress
of a famous modern romance begs a young nobleman's permission
to pay him her knecling adorations, I am far from censuring the
expression, as some critics would do, as deficient in grammar or
sense ; but I reflect that adorations paid in that posture are what
a lady might expect herself, and my wonder immediately ceases.
These, when they flatter most, do but as they would be done
unto ; for as none are so much concerned at being injured by
calumnies as they who are readiest to cast them upon their neigh-
bours ; so it is certain none are so guilty of flattery to others, as
those who most ardently desire it themselves.
VOL. III
2 Q
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What led me into these thoughts was a dedication I happened upon this morning. The reader must understand that I treat the least instances or remains of ingenuity with respect, in what places soever found, or under whatever circumstances of disadvantage. From this love to letters I have been so happy in my searches after knowledge, that I have found unvalued repositories of learning in the lining of bandboxes. I look upon these pasteboard edifices, adorned with the fragments of the ingenious, with the same veneration as antiquaries upon ruined buildings, whose walls preserve divers inscriptions and names, which are nowhere else to be found in the world. This morning, when one* of Lady Lizard's daughters was looking over some hoods and ribands, brought by her tirewoman, with great care and diligence, I* employed no less in examining the box which contained them; it was lined with certain scenes of a tragedy, written (as appeared by part of the title there extant) by one of the fair sex. What was most legible was the dedication ; which, by reason of the largeness of the characters, was least defaced by those Gothic ornaments of flourishes and foliage, wherewith the compilers of these sort of structures do often industriously obscure the works of the learned. As much of it as I could read with any ease, I shall communicate to the reader, as follows :-
"... Though it is a kind of profanation to approach your grace with so poor an offering, yet when I reflect how acceptable a sacrifice of first fruits was to heaven, in the earliest and purest ages of religion, that they were honoured with solemn feasts, and consecrated to altars by a divine command, . . . upon that consideration, as an argument of particular zeal, I dedicate . . . . It is impossible to behold you without adoring ; yet dazzled and awed by the glory that surrounds you, men feel a sacred power, that refines their flames, and renders them pure as those we ought to offer to the Deity. . . . The shrine is worthy the divinity that inhabits it. In your grace we see what woman was before she fell, how nearly allied to the purity and perfection of angels. And we adore and bless the glorious work!"
Undoubtedly these, and other periods of this most pious dedication, could not but convince the duchess of what the eloquent authoress assures her at the end, that she was her servant with most ardent devotion. I think this a pattern of a new sort of style, not yet taken notice of by the critics, which is above the sublime, and may be called the celestial ; that is, when the most
Page 606
sacred phrases appropriated to the honour of the Deity are applied
to a mortal of good quality. As I am naturally emulous, I cannot
but endeavour, in imitation of this lady, to be the inventor, or, at
least, the first producer of a new kind of dedication, very different
from hers and most others, since it has not a word but what the
author religiously thinks in it. It may serve for almost any book,
either prose or verse, that has been, is, or shall be published, and
might run in this manner :--
The Author to Himself
Most honoured Sir
These labours, upon many considerations,
so properly belong to none as to you : first, as it was your most
earnest desire alone that could prevail upon me to make them
public : 'Then, as I am secure (from that constant indulgence you
have ever shown to all that is mine) that no man will so readily
take them into protection, or so zealously defend them. More-
over, there is none can so soon discover the beauties ; and there
are some parts which it is possible few beside yourself are capable
of understanding. Sir, the honour, affection, and value I have
for you are beyond expression ; as great, I am sure, or greater,
than any man else can bear you. As for any defects which others
may pretend to discover in you, I do faithfully declare I was never
able to perceive them ; and doubt not but those persons are
actuated purely by a spirit of malice or envy, the inseparable
attendants on shining merit and parts, such as I have always
esteemed yours to be. It may perhaps be looked upon as a kind
of violence to modesty, to say this to you in public ; but you may
believe me, it is no more than I have a thousand times thought
of you in private. Might I follow the impulse of my soul, there
is no subject I could launch into with more pleasure than your
panegyric. But since something is due to modesty, let me con-
clude by telling you, that there is nothing so much I desire as to
know you more thoroughly than I have yet the happiness of
doing. I may then hope to be capable to do you some real
service ; but till then can only assure you that I shall continue to
be, as I am more than any man alive, dearest Sir, your affec-
tionate Friend, and the greatest of your Admirers.
(From The Guardian, 16th March 1713.)
Page 608
LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU
[Mary Pierrepont was born in Covent Garden, London, in the spring of
the year 1689. Her parents were the Hon. Evelyn Pierrepont, who in 1690
succeeded as Earl of Kingston, and afterwards became Marquis of Dorchester
and Duke of Kingston, and his first wife, Lady Mary, a daughter of William,
third Earl of Denbigh. Though practically self-educated, she was at an early
age celebrated for her acquirements and love of learning. When fourteen
years old she attracted the attention of Mr. Edward Wortley, the eldest son
of a gentleman of fortune, Mr. Sidney Wortley Montagu. A correspondence
long carried on between them led to an offer of marriage and, differences as
to settlements having arisen, to a clandestine marriage (in the latter part of
August 1712), followed shortly afterwards by an elopement. Early in 1716
Mr. Wortley was appointed ambassador to the Porte, and started for Con-
stantinople from Vienna in January 1717 accompanied by his wife and
infant son. They returned to England in August of the following year.
In 1739 Lady Mary left England for the Continent, and never returned to
England during her husband's lifetime; nor did he visit her on either of the
two occasions of his going abroad. As they continued to correspond
in terms of mutual confidence and regard, her reasons for going and remaining
abroad are matter of conjecture only. She resided chiefly at Lovere, but
also stayed much at Venice, where, in 1761, she received the news of her
husband's death. She at once left for England, where she arrived in January
1762, and where she died on the 21st August following, at her house in George
Street, Hanover Square.]
"I NEVER studied anything in my life, and have always (at
least from fifteen) thought the reputation of learning a misfortune
to a woman." Thus wrote, when seventy years of age and beyond
a temptation against which even the cleverest women are not
always proof,—the temptation of saying a thing for the sake of
saying it,—the "Lady Mary" whom now as then it is impossible
to designate by any longer assortment of names. The remark
was true in the main, but at the same time (if it is permissible to
use one of those French phrases, to which she so much objected in
the style of Lord Bolingbroke) tant soit peu rash. As for the depth
of her studies, that is of course a relative affair; in her young days
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ENGLISH PROSE
blue stockings proper had not yet been invented; and, with all her effervescence, she was far too much of a lady (indeed, of a grand lady) to give herself airs.
But she certainly was at the pains of corroborating the report that as a child she had laboriously taught herself Latin during a long succession of solitary days spent in her father's library, where she was supposed to have merely gratified an early love for novels and romances which grew into a lifelong passion.
To be sure, she never attained to a real command over any language but her own; although that is something not always achieved by a strictly vernacular discipline.
But she at all events entered into the spirit of more than one foreign tongue; she understood Italian, and wrote it as well as Horace Walpole; she composed very passably in French, although she may have been perhaps a trifle bold in essaying a commentary in his own idiom on one of the maxims of La Rochefoucauld; she showed something more than the mere traveller's enthusiasm when gazing upon the Troad and the ruins of Carthage; and who, except Sir William Jones, ever attempted to control her translations from Turkish erotic poetry?
These literary excursions in point of fact gave a sort of catholicity to her taste in verse, which was facile in itself and flexible to the liberal notions of an age less rigorous in its canons than we are sometimes given to understand in literary handbooks.
If she could imitate, as well as parody Pope, she was even more successful in the vein of Gay, and had, I fear, some inclination towards the style of Sir Charles Hanbury Williams.
In prose, which she mostly wrote with the object of pleasing others and always with that of amusing herself, she is hardly ever anything but original and delightful.
It is, I fear, matter of fact that Lady Mary suffered through life from her reputation for learning and letters; however much she might protest against the impeachment.
It was not her fault that as a young girl she attracted by her talents as well as by her charms the admiration of Mr. Edward Wortley, whose methods of conduct whether as a lover or as a husband need not here be discussed.
After her marriage she might possibly have acquiesced in the inevitable, and have contented herself with the rather trying lot of remaining the sympathetic wife of a very superior man.
Her excellent sketch entitled an Account of the Court of George the First at his Accession is thought to have been put together at a later date than her husband's companion
Page 610
LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU
599
notes On the State of affairs when the King entered; if so,
there was obviously a time when she could refrain from the use
of her standish even when her powers of observation were as keen
as ever. But to persons born for prose composition self-restraint
is one thing, and a heaven-sent opportunity is another. Such an
opportunity was to Lady Mary her husband's mission to Constan-
tinople, which enabled him to render himself useful, and her to
make herself famous.
It is true that the Travels of an English Lady in Europe,
Asia, and Africa, were not published till after Lady Mary's death
(in 1763), under circumstances in some measure mysterious, and
that an additional volume published four years later was in all
probability spurious. It has, moreover, been demonstrated with
tolerable certainty that the letters comprised in the Travels were
not those originally written by Lady Mary from the East, but
portions of her Diary afterwards distributed by her among
her former actual or probable correspondents. Yet there cannot
be any doubt but that during the embassy she wrote many letters
in a vein entirely her own to divers private friends, and that these
were, like Shakespeare's Sonnets, handed about among them
with a curiosity of which it is difficult to conceive in days
when social as well as political celebrities convey their first im-
pressions of distant countries through the medium of the daily
press. Lady Mary's Turkish letters (for we may fairly designate
the whole series by the most novel and most characteristic portion
of it) unmistakably possess the irresistible charm of first impres-
sions ; nor are their merits exhausted by this particular kind of
directness. She compared manners, and that which lies at the
root of manners, with a pointed simplicity such as philosophers
and historians frequently neglect to their cost, and after which
mere masters of style, including Prosper Mérimée himself, some-
times toil in vain. She furthermore possessed the power of telling
a short story, introduced in the way of illustration with a terse
distinctness worthy of the highest praise ; while, within the limits
of the range of her imagination, her descriptions were invariably
both lively and lucid. I have attempted, in the extracts given
below from this famous series of Letters, to furnish an example of
the use which she made of her gifts in both directions.
What has more recently been published of her correspondence
during her later years, comprises a large variety of letters written
by her at home or abroad, chiefly addressed to her daughter Lady
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ENGLISH PROSE
Bute, and referring partly to the fashionable gossip of her day (which she liked high in more senses than one); partly to the foreign scenes in town and country amidst which she spent the last twenty years of her life, and partly to literature—in the main no doubt, to the literature of contemporary prose fiction, for which she could not be expected to have a more than half-deprecatory sympathy. But with whatever subjects her letters deal, they must be allowed to be equal to the reputation which the most famous sçenes of them had achieved for her as a traveller, a woman of the world and a woman of letters, and a writer of most pungent and exhilarating prose. It is not difficult to understand why she should have been so successful as a diarist and letter-writer, for her few set essays are of small account. She was, to begin with, a woman of genuine wit, in any of the two-score or so senses in which that term has been defined or understood. How this wit was capable of taking a personal turn, hardly requires exemplification, even if it be a mere tradition that has credited her with dividing mankind, in a moment of candour towards the most faithful of her friends, into “men, women, and Herveys.” The suggestion which she threw out to Spence of a sceptennial bill for married couples was a signally felicitous application of a topic of the times. Her casual apophthegm, in one of her juvenile letters to her philosophical suitor, that “general notions are generally wrong,” is to my mind not less apposite and equally irresistible. But her wit (when she was not writing fashionable ballads) was under the restraint of good breeding, and even, though this may not seem proved by an admirable passage in which she stigmatises the smartness of irreverence, under the influence of good feeling. Her critical powers were excellent, although in her youth they may have been affected by her (Whig) political bias, and in her later days by her personal resentment of the “horrible malice,” with which she had been stung by the “wicked wasp of Twickenham,” and of the persistence with which she-had been assaulted by other assailants only less cruel than her ci-devant pretended adorer. She saw through literary shams, such as Bolingbroke; she was wide awake to the weaknesses of Richardson, though as ready as any of his own female friends to cry over his Clarissa; and she appreciated the genius of such unfashionable candidates for literary fame as her kinsman Fielding and his rival Smollett. No doubt, she would have been more perfect as a critic, had her natural sympathies been less restricted; had she understood
Page 612
the force of emotion, as represented by poor Madame de Guyon, and
the strength of absolute naturalness, as exhibited by her own
counterpart, Madame de Sévigné. Yet the last, and crowning
element in her own genius, and therefore in her own style, was
her truthfulness to herself, to her foibles and to her convictions.
She was one of those born to talk, with tongue or with pen; and
never did her self-knowledge boil over so uncontrollably as when
accident led her to study, and of course to comment on, the system
of La Trappe. She had seen too much, and knew too much, to
be naïve; but though she could philosophise very reasonably and
very effectively on the training and disciplining of the mind, she
was not afraid of betraying the contradictions in her own nature.
This frankness of feeling, to which her gay but not dishevelled
spontaneity of utterance corresponded, makes her always good
company; it is only in her earliest letters that there linger traces
of the affectation rarely absent altogether from the writings of the
young. The humour of her Turkish and later letters has a true
ring. And, although few women (whether literary or other) have
suffered more than she suffered, in part, may be, through the
vivacity of her own temper and the freedom of her own pen,—she
had a brave heart; and her high spirit, like all qualities which
are of rarer growth, faithfully reflects itself in the current of her
style.
Unlucky as she was in many things, Lady Mary Wortley
Montagu is at least to be deemed fortunate in the editor of her
literary remains, her great-grandson Lord Wharncliffe, whose
original edition of her letters and works appeared in 1837. The
introductory anecdotes contributed by her granddaughter Lady
Louisa Stuart are excellent reading; and nothing could be more
discriminating or fair than the memoir by W. May Thomas, added
to the third edition in 1861, together with many fresh notes.
A. W. WARD.
Page 613
IDEALS
'Tis no affectation to say I despise the pleasure of pleasing people that I despise.
all the fine equipages that shine in the ring never gave me another thought, than either pity or contempt for the owners, that could place happiness in attracting the eyes of strangers.
Nothing touches me with satisfaction but what touches my heart ; and I should find more pleasure in the secret joy I should feel at a kind expression from a friend I esteemed, than at the admiration of a whole playhouse, or the envy of those of my own sex, who could not attain to the same number of jewels, fine clothes, etc., supposing I was at the very top of this sort of happiness.
You may be this friend if you please : did you really esteem me, had you any tender regard for me, I could, I think, pass my life in any station happier with you than in all the grandeur of life with any other.
You have some humours that would be disagreeable to any woman that married with an intention of finding her happiness abroad.
That is not my resolution.
If I marry, I propose to myself a retirement ; there is few of my acquaintance I should ever wish to see again ; and the pleasing one, and only one, is the way I design to please myself.
Happiness is the natural design of all the world ; and everything we see done, is meant in order to attain it.
My imagination places it in friendship, by friendship I mean an entire communrication of thoughts, wishes, interests, and pleasures, being undivided ; a mutual esteem, which naturally carries with it a pleasing sweetness of conversation, and terminates in the desire of making one or another happy, without being forced to run into visits, noise and hurry, which serve rather to trouble than compose the thoughts of any reasonable creature.
There are few capable of a friendship such as I have described, and 'tis necessary for the generality of the world to be taken up with trifles.
Carry a fine
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LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU
603
lady and a fine gentleman out of town, and they know no more
what to say. To take from them plays, operas, and fashions, is
taking away all their topics of discourse ; and they know not
how to form their thoughts on any other subjects. They know
very well what it is to be admired, but are perfectly ignorant of what
it is to be loved. I take you to have sense enough not to think
this scheme romantic ; I rather choose to use the word friendship
than love ; because in the general sense that word is spoke, it
signifies a passion rather founded on fancy than reason ; and
when I say- friendship, I mean a mixture of tenderness and
esteem, and which a long acquaintance increases, not decays :
how far I deserve such a friendship, I can be no judge of myself.
I may want the good sense that is necessary to be agreeable to a
man of merit, but I know I want the vanity to believe I have ;
and can promise you shall never like me less upon knowing me
better ; and that I shall never forget you have a better under-
standing than myself.
And now let me entreat you to think (if possible) tolerably of
my modesty, after so bold a declaration. I am resolved to throw
off reserve, and use me ill if you please. I am sensible, to own
an inclination for a man is putting one's self wholly in his
power : but sure you have generosity enough not to abuse it.
After all I have said, I pretend no tie but on your heart. If you
do not love me, I shall not be happy with you ; if you do, I need
add no further. I am not mercenary, and would not receive an
obligation that comes not from one that loves me.
I do not desire my letter back again : you have honour, and I
dare trust you.
(Letter to Mr. Wortley Montagu.)
THE FAIR FATIMA
All things here were with quite another air than at the Grand
Vizier's ; and the very house confessed the difference between an
old devote and a young beauty. It was nicely, clean and
magnificent. I was met at the door by two black eunuchs, who
led me through a long gallery between two ranks of beautiful
young girls, with their hair finely plaited, almost hanging to their
tect, all dressed in fine light damasks, brocaded with silver. I
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ENGLISH PROSE
next entered a large room, or rather pavilion, built round with
gilded sashes, which were most of them thrown up, and the trees
planted near them gave an agreeable shade, which hindered the
sun from being troublesome. Jessamines and honeysuckles
twisted round their trunks, shedding a soft perfume, increased by
a white marble fountain playing sweet water on the lower part of
the room, which fell into three or four basins with a pleasing
sound. The roof was painted with all sort of flowers, falling out
of gilded baskets, that seemed tumbling down. On a sofa, raised
three steps, and covered with fine Persian carpets, sat the
Kiyàya's lady, leaning on cushions of white satin, embroidered;
and at her feet sat two young girls, the eldest about twelve years
old, lovely as angels, dressed perfectly rich, and almost covered
with jewels. But they were hardly seen near the fair Fàtima
(for that is her name), so much her beauty effaced everything.
I have seen all that has been called lovely either in England or
Germany, and I must own that I never saw anything so gloriously
beautiful, nor can I recollect a face that would have been taken
notice of near hers. She stood up to receive me, saluting me
after their fashion, putting her hand upon her heart with a
sweetness full of majesty, that no court breeding could ever give.
She ordered cushions to be given to me, and took care to place
me in the corner, which is the place of honour. I confess,
though the Greek lady had before given me a great opinion of
her beauty, I was so struck with admiration, that I could not for
some time speak to her, being wholly taken up in gazing. That
surprising harmony of features ! that charming result of the
whole ! that exact proportion of body ! that lovely bloom of
complexion unsullied by art ! the unutterable enchantment of her
smile ! But her eyes !—large and black, with all the soft
languishment of the blue ! every turn of her face discovering
some new charm.
After my first surprise was over, I endeavoured, by nicely
examining her face, to find out some imperfection, without any
fruit of my search, but being clearly convinced of the error of
that vulgar notion, that a face perfectly regular would not be
agreeable; nature having done for her with more success, what
Apelles is said to have essayed, by a collection of the most exact
features, to form a perfect face, and to that, a behaviour so full
of grace and sweetness, such easy motions, with an air so
majestic, yet free from stiffness or affectation, that I am per-
Page 616
LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU
605
suaded, could she be suddenly transported upon the most polite
throne of Europe, nobody would think her other than born
bred to be a queen, though educated in a country we call
barbarous. To say all in a word, our most celebrated English
beauties would vanish near her.
She was dressed in a caftán of gold brocade, flowered with
silver, very well fitted to her shape, and showing to advantage
the beauty of her bosom, only shaded by the thin gauze of her
shift. Her drawers were pale pink, green and silver, her slippers
white, finely embroidered; her lovely arms adorned with bracelets
of diamonds; upon her head a rich Turkish handkerchief of pink
and silver, her own fine black hair hanging a great length in
various tresses, and on one side of her head some bodkins of
jewels. I am afraid you will accuse me of extravagance in this
description. I think I have read somewhere that women always
speak in rapture when they speak of beauty, but I cannot imagine
why they should not be allowed to do so. I rather think it a
virtue to be able to admire without any mixture of desire or envy.
The gravest writers have spoken with great warmth of some
celebrated pictures and statues. The workmanship of Heaven
certainly excels all our weak imitations, and, I think, has a much
better claim to our praise. For me, I am not ashamed to own
I took more pleasure in looking on the beauteous Fatima than
the finest piece of sculpture could have given me.
She told me the two girls at her feet were her daughters,
though she appeared too young to be their mother. Her fair
maids were ranged below the sofa to the number of twenty, and
put me in mind of those pictures of the ancient nymphs. I did not
think all nature could have furnished such a scene of beauty.
She made them a sign to play and dance. Four of them im-
mediately began to play some soft airs on instruments between a
lute and a guitar, which they accompanied with their voices,
whilst the others danced by turns. I suppose you may have
read that the Turks have no music but what is shocking to the
cars; but this account is from those who never heard any but
what is played in the streets, and is just as reasonable as if a
foreigner should take his ideas of the English music from the
bladder and string, and marrow-bones and cleavers. I can assure
you that the music is extremely pathetic; 'tis true I am inclined
to prefer the Italian, but perhaps I am partial. I am acquainted
with a Greek lady who sings better than Mrs. Robinson, and is
Page 617
very well skilled in both, who gives the preference to the Turkish.
'Tis certain they have very fine natural voices ; these were very
agreeable. When the dance was over, four fair slaves came into
the room with silver censers in their hands, and perfumed the air
with amber, aloes-wood, and other rich scents. After this they
served me coffee upon their knees in the finest Japan china, with
soucoupes of silver gilt. The lovely Fatima entertained me all
this time in the most polite agreeable manner, calling me often
Guzil Sultanum, or the beautiful sultana, and desiring my friendship with the best grace in the world, lamenting that she could
not entertain me in my own language.
When I took my leave, two maids brought in a fine silver
basket of embroidered handkerchiefs ; she begged I would wear
the richest for her sake, and give the others to my woman and
interpreters. I retired through the same ceremonies as before,
and could not help fancying I had been some time in Mahomet's
paradise, so much I was charmed with what I had seen. I know
not how the relation of it appears to you.
(Letter to the Countess of Mar.)
THE ARNAÖUT RELIGION
BUT of all the religions I have seen, the Arnaöut seem to me
the most particular. They are natives of Arnaoutlich, the
ancient Macedonia, and still retain something of the courage and
hardiness, though they have lost the name, of Macedonians, being
the best militia in the Turkish empire, and the only check upon
the janissaries. They are foot soldiers ; we had a guard of them,
relieved in every considerable town we passed ; they are all
clothed and armed at their own expense, generally lusty young
fellows dressed in clean white coarse cloth, carrying guns of a
prodigious length, which they run with on their shoulders as if
they did not feel the weight of them, the leader singing a sort of
rude tune, not unpleasant, and the rest making up the chorus.
These people living between Christians and Mahometans, and
not being skilled in controversy, declare that they are utterly
unable to judge which religion is best ; but to be certain of not
entirely rejecting the truth, they very prudently follow both, and
go to the mosques on Fridays and the church on Sundays, saying
Page 618
LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU
607
for their excuse, that, at the day of judgment they are sure of protection from the true prophet, but which that is, they are not able to determine in this world. I believe there is no other race of mankind have so modest an opinion of their own capacity.
(Letter to the Abbé Conti.)
SELF-RESTRAINT
PEOPLE commonly educate their children as they build their houses, according to some plan they think beautiful, without considering whether it is suited to the purposes for which they are designed. Almost all girls of quality are educated as if they were to be great ladies, which is often as little to be expected, as an immoderate heat of the sun in the north of Scotland. You should teach yours to confine their desires to probabilities, to be as useful as is possible to themselves, and to think privacy (as it is) the happiest state of life. I do not doubt your giving them all the instructions necessary to form them to a virtuous life; but 'tis a fatal mistake to do this without proper restrictions. Vices are often hid under the name of virtues, and the practice of them followed by the worst of consequences. Sincerity, friendship, piety, disinterestedness, and generosity are all great virtues; but, pursued without discretion become criminal. I have seen ladies indulge their own ill humour by being very rude and impertinent, and think they deserved approbation by saying I love to speak truth. One of your acquaintance made a ball the day after her mother died, to show she was sincere. I believe your own reflection will furnish you with but too many examples of the ill effects of the rest of the sentiments I have mentioned, when too warmly embraced. They are generally recommended to young people without limits or distinction, and this prejudice hurries them into great misfortunes, while they are applauding themselves in the noble practice (as they fancy) of very eminent virtues.
(Letter to the Countess of Bute.)
Page 619
608
ENGLISH PROSE
AMONG THE ITALIAN LAKES
I have been persuaded to go to a palace near Salo, situate on
the vast lake of Gardia, and do not repent my pains since my
arrival, though I have passed a very bad road to it. It is indeed,
take it altogether, the finest place I ever saw ; the king of France
has nothing so fine, nor can have in his situation. It is large
enough to entertain all his court, and much larger than the royal
palace of Naples, or any of those of Germany or England. It
was built by the great Cosmo, Duke of Florence, where he passed
many months, for several years, on the account of his health, the
air being esteemed one of the best in Italy. All the offices and
conveniences are suitably magnificent ; but that is nothing to the
beauties without doors. It is seated in that part of the lake
which forms an amphitheatre, at the foot of a mountain three miles
high, covered with a wood of orange, lemon, citron, and pome-
granate trees, which is all cut into walks, and divided into terraces,
that you may go into a several garden from every floor in the house,
diversified with fountains, cascades, and statues, and joined by easy
marble staircases, which lead from one to another. There are
many covered walks, where you are secure from the sun in the
hottest part of the day; by the shade of the orange trees, which are
so loaded with fruit you can hardly have any notion of their beauty
without seeing them ; they are as large as lime trees in England.
You will think I say a great deal ; turn to the fairy tales to give
you any idea of the real charms of this enchanting palace, for so
it may justly be called. The variety of the prospects, the natural
beauties, and the improvements by art, where no cost has been
spared to perfect it, render it the most complete habitation I
know in Europe. While the poor present master of it (to whose
ancestor the Grand Duke presented it, having built it on his land),
having spent a noble estate by gaming and other extravagance,
would be glad to let it for a trifle, and is not rich enough to live
in it. Most of the fine furniture is sold ; there remains only a
few of the many good pictures that adorned it, and such goods as
were not easily to be transported, or for which he found no chap-
man. I have said nothing to you of the magnificent bath,
embellished with statues, or the fish ponds, the chief of which is
in the midst of the garden to which I go from my apartment on
the first floor. It is circled by a marble baluster, and supplied by
Page 620
LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU
609
water from a cascade that proceeds from the mouth of a whale
on which Neptune is mounted, surrounded with reeds ; on each
side of him Tritons, which, from their shells, pour out streams
that augment the pond. Higher on the hill are three colossal
statues of Venus, Hercules, and Apollo. The water is so clear,
you see the numerous fish that inhabit it, and it is a great pleasure
to me to throw them bread, which they come to the surface to
eat with great greediness. I pass by many other fountains, not
to make my description too tedious. You will wonder, perhaps,
never to have heard any mention of this paradise either from our
English travellers, or in any of the printed accounts of Italy ; it
is as much ynknown to them as if it was guarded by a flaming
cherubin.
(From Letter to the Countess of Bute.)
AS PROUD AS THE MARCHIONESS LYSCINNIA
A LATE adventure here makes a great noise from the rank of the
people concerned ; the Marchioness Lyscinnia Bentivoglio, who
was heiress of one branch of the Mortinenghi, and brought forty
thousand gold sequins to her husband, and the expectation of her
father's estate, three thousand pounds per annum, the most
magnificent palace in Brescia (finer than any in London), another
in the country, and many other advantages of woods, plate,
jewels, etc. The Cardinal Bentivoglio, his uncle, thought he
could not choose better, though his nephew might certainly have
chosen from among all the Italian ladies, being descended from
the sovereigns of Bologna, actually a grandee of Spain, a noble
Venetian, and in possession of twenty-five thousand pounds
sterling per annum, with immense wealth in palaces, furniture,
and absolute dominion in some of his lands. The girl was pretty,
and the match was with the satisfaction of both familics : but she
brought with her such a diabolical temper, and such Luciferan
pride, that neither husband, relations, or servants, had ever a
moment's peace with her. After about eight years' warfare she
eloped one fair morning and took refuge in Venice, leaving her
two daughters, the eldest scarce six years old, to the care of the
exasperated marquis. Her father was so angry at her extra-
vagant conduct, he would not, for some time, receive her into
his house, but after some months, and much solicitation, parental
VOL. III - 2 R
Page 621
610
ENGLISH PROSE
fondness prevailed, and she remained with him ever since, not-
withstanding all the efforts of her husband, who tried kindness,
submission, and threats, to no purpose. The cardinal came twice
to Brescia, her own father joined his entreaties, nay, His Holiness
wrote a letter with his own hand, and made use of the Church
authority, but he found it harder to reduce one woman than ten
heretics. She was inflexible, and lived ten years in this state
of reprobation. Her father died last winter, and left her his
whole estate for her life, and afterwards to her children. Her
eldest was now marriageable, and disposed of to the nephew of
Cardinal Valentino Gonzagua, first minister at Rome. She would
neither appear at the wedding, nor take the least notice of a
dutiful letter sent by the bride. The old cardinal (who was
passionately fond of his illustrious name) was so much touched
with the apparent extinction of it, that it was thought to have
hastened his death. She continued in the enjoyment of her ill-
humour, living in great splendour, though almost solitary, having,
by some impertinence or other, disgusted all her acquaintance,
till about a month ago, when her woman brought her a basin of
broth, which she usually drank in her bed. She took a few
spoonfuls of it, and then cried out it was so bad it was impossible
to endure it. Her chambermaids were so used to hear her
exclamations they had not the worse opinion of it, and eat it up
very comfortably; they were both seized with the same pangs,
and died the next day. She sent for physicians, who judged her
poisoned ; but as she had taken a small quantity, by the help of
antidotes she recovered, yet is still in a languishing condition.
Her cook was examined, and racked, always protesting entire
innocence, and swearing he had made the soup in the same
manner he was accustomed. You may imagine the noise of this
affair. She loudly accused her husband, it being the interest of
no other person to wish her out of the world. He resides at
Ferrara (about which the greater part of his lands lie), and was
soon informed of this accident. He sent doctors to her, whom
she would not see, sent vast alms to all the convents to pray for
her health, and ordered a number of masses to be said in every
church of Brescia and Ferrara. He sent letters to the senate at
Venice, and published manifestoes in all the capital cities in
which he professes his affection to her, and abhorrence of any
attempt against her, and has a cloud of witnesses that he never
gave her the least reason of complaint, and even since her leaving
Page 622
LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU
611
him has always spoke of her with kindness, and courted her return. He is said to be remarkably sweet tempered, and has the best character of any man of quality in this country. If the death of her women did not seem to confirm it, her accusation would gain credit with nobody. She is certainly very sincere in it herself, being so persuaded he has resolved her death, that she dare not take the air, apprehending to be assassinated, and has imprisoned herself in her chamber, where she will neither eat nor drink anything that she does not see tasted by all her servants. The physicians now say that perhaps the poison might fall into the broth accidentally ; I confess I do not perceive the possibility of it. As to the cook suffering the rack, that is a mere jest, where people have money enough to bribe the executioner. I decide nothing ; but such is the present destiny of a lady, who would have been one of Richardson’s heroines, having never been suspected of the least gallantry ; of a most noble spirit, it being proverbial, “As proud as the Marchioness Lyscinnia.”
(From Letter to the Countess of Bute.)
Page 624
JOHN, LORD HERVEY
[John Hervey was the eldest son of the first Earl of Bristol (of this family)
and his second wife, Elizabeth Felton, and was born on the 15th of October,
- By the death of his half-brother Carr, he succeeded to the courtesy title
of Baron Hervey of Ickworth in 1723. He was educated at Westminster and
Clare Hall, Cambridge, taking his M.A. degree in 1715. He was returned to
the House of Commons in 1725, and in 1733 was called to the House of Lords
by the Barony of Ickworth. He was a partizan and a prominent member of the
Court of George II., which the latter was Prince of Wales, and was of course in
opposition to Walpole, on the death of George I., and the reconciliation of that
minister to George II. he became the adherent of Walpole, and was given the
office of Vice-Chamberlain. From this time to the death of Queen Caroline
he occupied the position of continual adviser and friend of the Queen, and of
intermediary between her and the minister, and attained to an indirect
influence in the government of the country of very considerable extent, en-
forcing his views in Parliament with cogency and effect. She died in 1737,
and his influence, combated by his old enemy the Duke of Newcastle, rapidly
waned, shone for a while in opposition, when Walpole had resigned, and was
extinguished on the 5th of August 1743, when his thoroughly undermined
constitution gave way, and he died in the forty-seventh year of his age. He was
the author of a number of political pamphlets, and of verses chiefly political
and satirical, and his Memoirs are amongst the principal authorities for the
early years of George II. Three incidents of his career may be added to a
summary, his marriage with "the beautiful Molly Lepell," famous in ballad,
his duel with Pulteney, and his quarrel with Pope. His Memoirs have no
pretence to impartiality, they are minutely scandalous and the only edition
of them (that of John Wilson Croker, published in 1848 and republished in
1884), is an expurgated one.]
Lord Hervey's prose is the prose of an intellectual man of
affairs, whose first concern was to make his points effectively,
whose second was to express himself as an educated man and a
scholar. He had good living models of recent date to his hand.
But though an extremely careful, and a tolerably pure writer (in
a linguistic sense), he is mostly ineffective, for he lacked a sense
of rhythm and he lacked restraint. Lady Mary Wortley, his
constant and intimate friend, divided the human race into "men,
Page 625
614
ENGLISH PROSE
women, and Herveys," and no worthy critic could deny him individuality, wit, a mordant sort of humour, and a delicate intuition into character. His matter is therefore attractive and interesting, and to elaborate a foregoing remark to perfect accuracy, one must say he is intellectually effective, æsthetically not so. His sentences are nearly always long, and not seldom cumbrous; he is diffuse and tautologous. In Pope's Epistle to Arbuthnot, which contains a venomous attack on Hervey, under the infamous name of Sporus, amid much abominable exaggeration, there is a sentence—"His wit all see-saw between that and this"—which, if we modify the "all," is excellent criticism. Antitheses in Hervey are innumerable and tedious. He likes to contrast two characters and to say "while A. was this B. was that," ad infinitum, or to say of such an one that he "was this without that, so-and-so without such and such a quality," and so forth. One may fancy he took the trick from Tacitus, whom he evidently knew well and frequently quotes. He is at his best as a writer when he has to describe some dramatic scene; he can then be terse and vivid, but only to lapse after a few good sentences into his customary mode. His place in a descriptive history of English prose is due to the fact that his writing represents what the English of his time was in the hands of a cultivated man, undistinguished as a master of writing.
G. S. STREET.
Page 626
THE CHARACTER OF BOLINGBROKE
As to Lord Bolingbroke's general character, it was so mixed that
he had certainly some qualifications that the greatest men might
be proud of, and many which the worst would be ashamed of:
he had fine talents, a natural eloquence, great quickness, a happy
memory, and very extensive knowledge; but he was vain, much
beyond the general run of mankind, timid, false, injudicious, and
ungrateful; elate and insolent in power, dejected and servile in
disgrace: few people ever believed him without being deceived,
or trusted him without being betrayed: he was one to whom
prosperity was no advantage, and adversity no instruction: he
had brought his affairs to that pass that he was almost as much
distressed in his private fortune as desperate in his political views,
and was upon such a foot in the world that no king would employ
him, no party support him, and few particulars defend him; his
enmity was the contempt of those he attacked, and his friendship
a weight and reproach to those he adhered to. Those who were
most partial to him could not but allow that he was ambitious
without fortitude, and enterprising without resolution; that he
was fawning without insinuation, and insincere without art; that
he had admirers without friendship, and followers without attach-
ment; parts without probity, knowledge without conduct, and
experience without judgment. This was certainly his character
and situation; but since it is the opinion of the wise, the
speculative, and the learned, that most men are born with the
same propensities, actuated by the same passions, and conducted
by the same original principles, and differing only in the manner
of pursuing the same ends, I shall not so far chime in with the
bulk of Lord Bolingbroke's contemporaries as to pronounce he
had more failings than any man ever had; but it is impossible to
see all that is written, and hear all that is said of him, and not
Page 627
616
ENGLISH PROSE
allow that if he had not a worse heart than the rest of mankind,
at least he must have had much worse luck.
(From Memoirs of Reign of George II.)
THE DEATH OF QUEEN CAROLINE
About ten o'clock on Sunday night—the king being in bed and
asleep on the floor at the foot of the Queen's bed, and the Princess
Emily in a couch-bed in a corner of the room—the Queen began
to rattle in the throat; and, Mrs. Purcel giving the alarm that she
was expiring, all in the room started up. Princess Caroline was
sent for, and Lord Harvey, but before the last arrived the Queen
was just dead. All she said before she died was "I have now
got an asthma. Open the window." Then she said "Pray."
Upon which the Princess Emily began to read some prayers, of
which she scarce repeated ten words before the Queen expired.
The Princess Caroline held a looking-glass to her lips, and
finding there was not the least damp upon it, cried, "Tis over!"
and said not one word more, nor shed as yet one tear, on the
arrival of a misfortune the dread of which had cost her so many.
(From the Same.)
Page 628
N
O
T
E
S
PAGE
ut
suscipiatur
propter,
etc
That
it
be
undertaken
on
account
of
some
one
end.
Cœ
dor.
The
name
used
by
Evelyn
for
his
opponent,
Sir
George
Mackenzie.
Aspectabile
=
open
to
the
view.
22
hydro-and
hygr0-statics.
The
sciences
that
deal
with
the
comparative
weights
of
water
and
of
moisture.
Erisichthon,
who,
having
cut
down
the
grove
of
Ceres,
was
done
to
death
by
frenzied
hunger
in
the
midst
of
plenty
(Ovid,
Metam.
Bk.
viii.)
Dodonean
oracle.
The
sacred
oracle
of
Zeus,
where
the
responses
were
uttered
from
groves
of
oak.
Illa
procul
radicibus,
etc.
Far
spreading,
it
falls
prone,
torn
up
by
the
roots,
breaking
on
all
sides
all
it
nicks
with
in
its
fall.
Nepotibus
umbram.
A
shade
to
generations
yet
to
be.
the
graff
=
the
moat.
25
χαos
=
yawning
chasms.
surbated
=
bruised
and
blistered.
omne
et
omnimodum
suum
ingenium,
etc.
The
virtue
that
appertains
to
himself,
in
all
its
completeness
and
variety,
temporal
as
well
as
spiritual.
Servare
modum,
finemque
tueri,
etc
To
preserve
due
measure,
and
keep
in
view
the
end,
and
follow
nature.
151
Vos
exemplaria
Græca,
etc.
Do
you
turn
ever
in
your
hands
by
day,
and
in
your
hands
by
night,
the
models
of
the
Greeks.
152
Clenches
=
catches,
plays
on
words.
quantum
lenta
solent,
etc
As
the
cypresses
are
wont
to
do
amongst
the
pliant
brushwood.
pasquined
=
turned
to
ridicule.
ab
abusu
ad
usum,
etc.
From
the
abuse
to
the
use—that
is
no
fair
argument.
Demetri,
teque,
Tegelli,
etc.
Demetrius,
and
you,
Tigellius,
I
bid
go
how1
amongst
your
pupil's
benches
(Horace).
Cynthius
aurem,
etc.
Apollo
has
plucked
me
by
the
ear,
and
given
me
a
word
of
warning.
munite
=
guard
(from
munire).
his
own
geny.
Geny
is
ingenium,
nature
or
bent.
opiniatretly
=
obstinacy.
tympany
=
a
drum
or
bladder
filled
with
air.
hoyman
=
a
sailor
on
a
hoy,
or
trading
sloop.
εὕρηκα
=
“I
have
found
it”—a
casual
lighting
on
the
truth.
Page 629
618
ENGLISH PROSE
PAGE
-
cosmopœia = creation of the world
-
Fuerunt illis vera et germana, etc. They had names true and fitting, justly suited to the natures of the things
-
leufing = turning over their leaves.
-
quiedy = dainty, fastidious
-
disgust = lose the taste for
-
a king of clouts = a king of rags and patchwork.
-
hell was the space below him, into which the tailor flung the discarded fragments of cloth.
-
Cacus—dragged from his den by Hercules, whose cattle he had stolen.
Stymphalian birds. Destructive birds of Arcadia, destroyed by Hercules.
-
Margareta, Mrs. Tofts, Valentini, operatic singers of the day
-
string of those weeds = a fibre or sucker of these weeds
-
Wood was the ironware man, who had obtained a patent for copper coinage in Ireland
-
Nihilo plus agas, etc. You would do no more than if you were to spend your labour, with the object of being mad on rational principles.
PAGE
-
Quæ sunt ampla et pulchra, etc. Things that are majestic and beautiful can long please, but things that are spruce and neat quickly pall upon the dainty sense of hearing
-
illapses = downward glidings.
-
Tot prœmit oratibus, tot adhibet compages, etc. Aliam credas With so many rows she weighs down her head, with so many twists she builds it up on high. You will see her in front a very Andromache; but behind she is but a dwarf, you would believe her another woman.
-
Γυναικὶ κóσμος, etc. The ornament of a woman is manner, not golden jewels.
-
Evidentior quidem illa est, etc. That experience is the most convincing which guides us by our own misfortunes ; but that is safer which guides us by the misfortunes of others.
-
nequeam lacrymas, etc. I might not endure a parent's tears Ignaram hujus quodcunque per-uli, etc. Am I now to leave her in her ignorance of this danger, be it what it may?
-
old Jacob, i.e. Mr. Tonson.
Printed in Great Britain by R. & R. CLARK, Limited, Edinburgh.