Page images
PDF
EPUB

tures to change it into the Saracen's Head. I should not have known this story, had not the innkeeper, upon Sir Roger's alighting, told him in my hearing, that his honour's head was brought back last night with the alterations that he had ordered to be made

because neither of them found himself in | face, and by a little aggravation of the feathe wrong by it. Upon which we made the best of our way to the assizes. The court was sat before Sir Roger came; but notwithstanding all the justices had taken their places upon the bench, they made room for the old knight at the head of them; who for his reputation in the coun-in it. Upon this, my friend, with his usual try took occasion to whisper in the judge's cheerfulness, related the particulars aboveear, that he was glad his lordship had mentioned, and ordered the head to be met with so much good weather in his cir- brought into the room. I could not forbear cuit.' I was listening to the proceeding of discovering greater expressions of mirth the court with much attention, and infinitely than ordinary upon the appearance of this pleased with that great appearance of so- monstrous face, under which, notwithstandfemnity which so properly accompanies ing it was made to frown and stare in a such a public administration of our laws; most extraordinary manner, I could still when after about an hour's sitting, I ob- discover a distant resemblance of my old served, to my great surprise, in the midst friend. Sir Roger, upon seeing me laugh, of a trial, that my friend Sir Roger was desired me to tell him truly if I thought it getting up to speak. I was in some pain possible for people to know him in that disfor him, until I found he had acquitted guise. I at first kept my usual silence; but himself of two or three sentences, with a upon the knight's conjuring me to tell him look of much business and great intrepidity. whether it was not still more like himself Upon his first rising the court was hushed, than a Saracen, I composed my counteand a general whisper ran among the coun-nance in the best manner I could, and retry people, that Sir Roger was up.' The plied, that much might be said on both speech he made was so little to the purpose, that I shall not trouble my readers with an account of it; and I believe was not so much designed by the knight himself to inform the court, as to give him a figure in my eye, and keep up his credit in the country.

sides.'

These several adventures, with the knight's behaviour in them, gave me as pleasant a day as ever I met with in any of my travels.

Doctrina sed vim promovet insitam,
Rectique cultus pectora roborant;
Utcunque defecere mores,
Dedecorant bene nata culpæ.

I was highly delighted when the court No. 123.] Saturday, July 21, 1711. rose to see the gentlemen of the country gathering about my old friend, and striving who should compliment him most; at the same time that the ordinary people gazed upon him at a distance, not a little admiring his courage that was not afraid to speak to the judge.

In our return home we met with a very odd accident; which I cannot forbear relating, because it shows how desirous all who know Sir Roger, are of giving him marks of their esteem. When we arrived upon the verge of his estate, we stopped at a little inn to rest ourselves and our horses. The man of the house had, it seems, been formerly a servant in the knight's family; and to do honour to his old master, had, some time since, unknown to Sir Roger, put him up in a sign-post before the door; so that the knight's head had hung out upon the road about a week before he himself knew any thing of the matter. As soon as Sir Roger was acquainted with it, finding that his servant's indiscretion proceeded wholly from affection and good-will, he only told him that he had made him too high a compliment; and when the fellow seemed to think that could hardly be, added with a more decisive look, that it was too great an honour for any man under a duke; but told him at the same time, that it might be altered by a very few touches, and that he himself would be at the charge of it. Accordingly they got a painter by the knight's directions to add a pair of whiskers to the

L.

Hor. Lib. 4. Od. iv. 33.

Yet the best blood by learning is refin'd, And virtue arms the solid mind; Whilst vice will stain the noblest race, And the paternal stamp efface.-Oldisworth. As I was yesterday taking the air with my friend, Sir Roger, we were met by a fresh-coloured ruddy young man who rid by us full speed, with a couple of servants behind him. Upon my inquiry who he was, Sir Roger told me that he was a young gentleman of considerable estate, who had been educated by a tender mother that lived not many miles from the place where we were. She is a very good lady, says my friend, but took so much care of her son's health that she has made him good for nothing. She quickly found that reading was bad for his eyes, and that writing made his head ache. He was let loose among the woods as soon as he was able to ride on horseback, or to carry a gun upon his shoulder. To be brief, I found, upon my friend's account of him, that he had got a great stock of health, but nothing else; but that if it were a man's business only to live, there would not be a more accomplished young fellow in the whole country.

The truth of it is, since my residing in these parts I have seen and heard innume rable instances of young heirs and elder

brothers, who, either from their own reflecting upon the estates they are born to, and therefore thinking all other accomplishments unnecessary, or from hearing these notions frequently inculcated to them by the flattery of their servants and domestics, or from the same foolish thought prevailing in those who have the care of their education, are of no manner of use but to keep up their families, and transmit their lands and houses in a line to posterity.

This makes me often think on a story I have heard of two friends, which I shall give my reader at large, under feigned names. The moral of it may, I hope, be useful, though there are some circumstances which make it rather appear like a novel, than a true story.

had not he been comforted by the daily visits and conversation of his friend. As they were one day talking together with their usual intimacy, Leontine, considering how incapable he was of giving his daughter a proper education in his own house, and Eudoxus reflecting on the ordinary behaviour of a son who knows himself to be the heir of a great estate, they both agreed upon an exchange of children, namely, that the boy should be bred up with Leontine as his son, and that the girl should live with Eudoxus as his daughter, until they were each of them arrived at years of discretion. The wife of Eudoxus, knowing that her son could not be so advantageously brought up as under the care of Leontine, and considering at the same Eudoxus and Leontine began the world time that he would be perpetually under with small estates. They were both of them her own eve, was by degrees prevailed men of good sense and great virtue. They upon to fall in with the project. She thereprosecuted their studies together in their fore took Leonilla, for that was the name earlier years, and entered into such a friend- of the girl, and educated her as her own ship as lasted to the end of their lives. daughter. The two friends on each side Eudoxus, at his first setting out in the had wrought themselves to such an habitual world, threw himself into a court, where tenderness for the children who were un by his natural endowments and his acquired der their direction, that each of them had abilities he made his way from one post to the real passion of a father, where the title another, until at length he had raised a very was but imaginary. Florio, the name of considerable fortune. Leontine on the con- the young heir that lived with Leontine, trary sought all opportunities of improving though he had all the duty and affection his mind, by study, conversation, and travel. imaginable for his supposed parent, was He was not only acquainted with all the taught to rejoice at the sight of Eudoxus, sciences, but with the most eminent pro- who visited his friend very frequently, and fessors of them throughout Europe. He was dictated by his natural affection, as knew perfectly well the interest of its well as by the rules of prudence, to make princes, with the customs and fashions of himself esteemed and beloved by Florio their courts, and could scarce meet with The boy was now old enough to know his the name of an extraordinary person in the supposed father's circumstances, and that Gazette whom he had not either talked to therefore he was to make his way in the or seen. In short, he had so well mixed and world by his own industry. This consideradigested his knowledge of men and books, tion grew stronger in him every day, and that he made one of the most accomplished produced so good an effect, that he applied persons of his age. During the whole course himself with more than ordinary attention of his studies and travels he kept up a punc- to the pursuit of every thing which Leontual correspondence with Eudoxus, who tine recommended to him. His natural often made himself acceptable to the prin- abilities, which were very good, assisted cipal men about court by the intelligence by the directions of so excellent a counwhich he received from Leontine. When sellor, enabled him to make a quicker prothey were both turned of forty, (an age in gress than ordinary through all the parts which, according to Mr. Cowley, there is of his education. Before he was twenty no dallying with life,') they determined, years of age, having finished his studies pursuant to the resolution they had taken and exercises with great applause, he was in the beginning of their lives, to retire, removed from the university to the inns of and pass the remainder of their days in the court, where there are very few that make country. In order to this, they both of them themselves considerable proficients in the married much about the same time. Leon- studies of the place, who know they shall tine, with his own and wife's fortune, bought arrive at great estates without them. This a farm of three hundred a year, which lay was not Florio's case; he found that three within the neighbourhood of his friend Eu- hundred a year was but a poor estate for doxus, who had purchased an estate of as Leontine and himself to live upon, so that many thousands. They were both of them he studied without intermission till he gainfathers about the same time, Eudoxus hav-ed a very good insight into the constitution ing a son born to him, and Leontine, a daughter; but to the unspeakable grief of the latter, his young wife (in whom all his happiness was wrapt up,) died in a few days after the birth of her daughter. His affliction would have been insupportable,

and laws of his country.

I should have told my reader, that whilst Florio lived at the house of his foster-father, he was always an acceptable guest in the family of Eudoxus, where he became ac quainted with Leonilla from her infancy.

L.

His acquaintance with her by degrees grew of that care which they had bestowed upon into love, which in a mind trained up in all them in their education. the sentiments of honour and virtue became

a very uneasy passion. He despaired of

Μεγα βιβλιον, μέγα κακόν.

A great book is a great evil.

A MAN who publishes his works in a volume, has an infinite advantage over one who communicates his writings to the world in loose tracts and single pieces. We do not expect to meet with any thing in a bulky volume, till after some heavy preamble, and several words of course, to prepare the reader for what follows. Nay, authors have established it as a kind of rule,

the most severe reader makes allowances for many rests and nodding-places in a voluminous writer. This gave occasion to the famous Greek proverb, which I have chosen for my motto, that 'A great book is a great evil.'

gaining an heiress of so great a fortune, and No. 124.] Monday, July 23, 1711. would rather have died than attempted it by any indirect methods. Leonilla, who was a woman of the greatest beauty joined with the greatest modesty, entertained at the same time a secret passion for Florio, but conducted herself with so much prudence, that she never gave him the least intimation of it. Florio was now engaged in all those arts and improvements that are proper to raise a man's private fortune, and give him a figure in his country, but secretly tormented with that passion which burns with the greatest fury in a virtuous and noble heart, when he received a sudden that a man ought to be dull sometimes; as summons from Leontine, to repair to him in the country the next day: for it seems Eudoxus was so filled with the report of his son's reputation, that he could no longer withhold making himself known to him. The morning after his arrival at the house of his supposed father, Leontine told him that Eudoxus had something of great importance to communicate to him; upon which the good man embraced him and wept. Florio was no sooner arrived at the great house that stood in his neighbourhood, but Eudoxus took him by the hand, after the first salutes were over, and conducted him into his closet. He there opened to him the whole secret of his parentage and education, concluding after this manner: I have no other way of acknowledging my gratitude to Leontine, than by marrying you to his daughter. He shall not lose the pleasure of being your father by the discovery I have made to you. Leonilla too shall be still my daughter; her filial piety, though misplaced, has been so exemplary, that it deserves the greatest reward I can confer upon it. You shall have the pleasure of seeing a great estate fall to you, which you would have lost the relish of, had you known yourself born to it. Continue only to deserve it in the same manner you did before you were possessed of it. I have left your mother in the next room. Her heart yearns towards you. She is making the same discoveries to Leonilla which I have made to yourself.' Florio was so overwhelmed with this profusion of happiness, that he was not able to make a reply, but threw himself down at his father's feet, and amidst a flood of tears, kissed and embraced his knees, asking his blessing, and expressing in dumb show those sentiments of love, duty, and gratitude that were too big for utterance. To conclude, the happy pair were married, and half Eudoxus's estate settled upon them. Leontine and Eudoxus passed the remainder of their lives together; and received in the dutiful and affectionate behaviour of Florio and Leonilla the just recompence, as well as the natural effects

On the contrary, those who publish their thoughts in distinct sheets, and as it were by piece-meal, have none of these advantages. We must immediately fall into our subject, and treat every part of it in a lively manner, or our papers are thrown by as dull and insipid. Our matter must lie close together, and either be wholly new in itself, or in the turn it receives from our expressions. Were the books of our best authors thus to be retailed to the public, and every page submitted to the taste of forty or fifty thousand readers, I am afraid we should complain of many flat expressions, trivial observations, beaten topics, and common thoughts, which go off very well in the lump. At the same time, notwithstanding some papers may be made up of broken hints and irregular sketches, it is often expected that every sheet should be a kind of treatise, and make out in thought what it wants in bulk: that a point of humour should be worked up in all its parts; and a subject touched upon in its most essential articles, without the repetitions, tautologies, and enlargements, that are indulged to longer labours. The ordinary writers of morality prescribe to their readers after the Galenic way; their medicines are made up in large quantities. An essay-writer must practise in the chymical method, and give the virtue of a full draught in a few drops. Were all books reduced thus to their quintessence, many a bulky author would make his appearance in a penny paper. There would be scarce such a thing in nature as a folio; the works of an age would be contained on a few shelves; not to mention millions of volumes that would be utterly annihilated.

I cannot think that the difficulty of furnishing out separate papers of this nature, has hindered authors from communicating

might help the eve of a man, could be of no use to a mole.' It is not therefore for the benefit of moles that I publish these my daily essays.

their thoughts to the world after such a manner: though I must confess I am amazed that the press should be only made use of in this way by news-writers, and the zealots of parties; as if it were not more advan- But besides such as are moles through tageous to mankind, to be instructed in wis- ignorance, there are others who are moles dom and virtue, than in politics; and to be through envy. As it is said in the Latin made good fathers, husbands, and sons, than proverb, 'That one man is a wolf to ancounsellors and statesmen. Had the philo- other,' so generally speaking, one author is sophers and great men of antiquity, who a mole to another. It is impossible for them took so much pains in order to instruct man- to discover beauties in one another's works; kind, and leave the world wiser and better they have eyes only for spots and blemishes: than they found it; had they, I say, been they can indeed see the light, as it is said possessed of the art of printing, there is no of the animals which are their namesakes, question but they would have made such but the idea of it is painful to them; they an advantage of it, in dealing out their lec- immediately shut their eyes upon it, and tures to the public. Our common prints withdraw themselves into a wilful obscuwould be of great use were they thus cal-rity. I have already caught two or three culated to diffuse good sense through the of these dark undermining vermin, and inbulk of a people, to clear up their under- tend to make a string of them, in order to standings, animate their minds with virtue, hang them up in one of my papers, as an dissipate the sorrows of a heavy heart, or example to all such voluntary moles. C. unbend the mind from its more severe employments with innocent amusements. When knowledge, instead of being bound

Ne, pueri, ne tanta animis assueseite bella,
Neu patriæ validas in viscera vertite vires.
Firg. En. vi. 832.
This thirst of kindred blood, my sons, detest,
Nor turn your face against your country's breast.
Dryden.

up in books and kept in libraries and re- No. 125.] Tuesday, July 24, 1711.
tirements, is thus obtruded upon the public;
when it is canvassed in every assembly and
exposed upon every table, I cannot forbear
reflecting upon that passage in the Pro-
verbs: Wisdom crieth without, she ut-
tereth her voice in the streets: she crieth
in the chief place of concourse, in the open-
ings of the gates. In the city she uttereth
her words, saying, How long, ye simple
ones, will ye love simplicity? and the
scorners delight in their scorning? and fools
hate knowledge?

The many letters which come to me from persons of the best sense in both sexes, (for I may pronounce their characters from their way of writing) do not a little encourage me in the prosecution of this my undertaking; besides that my bookseller tells me, the demand for these my papers increases daily. It is at his instance that I shall continue my rural speculations to the end of this month; several having made up separate sets of them, as they have done before of those relating to wit, to operas, to points of morality, or subjects of humour.

My worthy friend Sir Roger, when we are talking of the malice of parties, very frequently tells us an accident that hap pened to him when he was a school-boy, which was at the time when the feuds ran high between the Round-heads and Cavaliers. This worthy knight, being then but a stripling, had occasion to inquire which was the way to St. Anne's Lane; upon which the person whom he spoke to, instead of answering his question, called him a young popish cur, and asked him who had made Anne a saint? The boy, being in some confusion, inquired of the next he met, which was the way to Anne's Lane; but was called a prick-eared cur for his pains, and instead of being shown the way, was told that she had been a saint before he was born, and would be I am not at all mortified, when sometimes one after he was hanged. Upon this,' I see my works thrown aside by men of no says Sir Roger, I did not think fit to retaste nor learning. There is a kind of hea-peat the former questions, but going into viness and ignorance that hangs upon the minds of ordinary men, which is too thick for knowledge to break through. Their souls are to be enlightened.

-Nox atra cava circumvolat umbra.

Virg. En. ii. 360. Black night enwraps them in her gloomy shade. To these I must apply the fable of the mole, that after having consulted many oculists for the bettering of his sight, was at last provided with a good pair of spectacles; but upon his endeavouring to make use of them, his mother told him very prudently, "That spectacles, though they

every lane of the neighbourhood, asked what they called the name of that lane? By which ingenious artifice he found out the place he inquired after without giving offence to any party. Sir Roger generally closes this narrative with reflections on the mischief that parties do in the country; how they spoil a good neighbourhood, and make honest gentlemen hate one another; besides that they manifestly tend to the prejudice of the land-tax, and the destruction of the game.

There cannot a greater judgment befal a country than such a dreadful spirit of division as rends a government into two

ranks and degrees in the British nation. As men formerly became eminent in learned societies by their parts and acquisitions, they now distinguish themselves by the warmth and violence with which they espouse their respective parties. Books are valued upon the like considerations. An abusive, scurrilous style, passes for satire, and a dull scheme of party notions is called fine writing.

distinct people, and makes them greater | which at present prevails amongst all strangers and more averse to one another, than if they were actually two different nations. The effects of such a division are pernicious to the last degree, not only with regard to those advantages which they give the common enemy, but to those private evils which they produce in the heart of almost every particular person. This influence is very fatal both to men's morals and their understanding; it sinks the virtue of a nation, and not only so, but destroys even common sense.

A furious party spirit, when it rages in its full violence, exerts itself in civil war and bloodshed; and when it is under its greatest restraints naturally breaks out in falsehood, detraction, calumny, and a partial administration of justice. In a word, it fills a nation with spleen and rancour, and extinguishes all the seeds of goodnature, compassion, and humanity.

There is one piece of sophistry practised by both sides, and that is the taking any scandalous story that has been ever whispered or invented of a private man, for a known undoubted truth, and raising suitable speculations upon it. Calumnies that have been never proved, or have been often refuted, are the ordinary postulatums of these infamous scribblers, upon which they proceed as upon first principles granted by all men, though in their hearts they know they are false, or at best very doubtful. When they have laid these foundations of scurrility, it is no wonder that their superstructure is every way answerable to them. If this shameless practice of the present age endures much longer, praise and reproach will cease to be motives of action in good men.

Plutarch says, very finely, that a man should not allow himself to hate even his enemies, because,' says he, if you indulge this passion in some occasions, it will rise of itself in others; if you hate your enemies, you will contract such a vicious habit of mind, as by degrees will break out upon those who are your friends, or those who are indifferent to you.' I might here There are certain periods of time in all observe how admirably this precept of governments when this inhuman spirit premorality (which derives the malignity of vails. Italy was long torn to pieces by the hatred from the passion itself, and not from Guelfes and Gibellines, and France by those its object) answers to that great rule which who were for and against the league: but it was dictated. to the world about an hun-is very unhappy for a man to be born in such dred years before this philosopher wrote;* a stormy and tempestuous season. It is the but instead of that, I shall only take notice, restless ambition of artful men that thus with a real grief of heart, that the minds of many good men among us appear soured with party-principles, and alienated from one another in such a manner, as seems to me altogether inconsistent with the dictates either of reason or religion. Zeal for a public cause is apt to breed passions in the hearts of virtuous persons, to which the regard of their own private interest would never have betrayed them.

If this party spirit has so ill an effect on our morals, it has likewise a very great one upon our judgments. We often hear a poor insipid paper or pamphlet cried up, and sometimes a noble piece depreciated, by those who are of a different principle from the author. One who is actuated by this spirit is almost under an incapacity of discerning either real blemishes or beauties. A man of merit in a different principle, is like an object seen in two different mediums, that appears crooked or broken, however straight and entire it may be in itself. For this reason there is scarce a person of any figure in England, who does not go by two contrary characters, as opposite to one another as light and darkness. Knowledge and learning suffer in a particular manner from this strange prejudice,

* Viz. by Jesus Christ. See Luke vi. 27-32 &c.

breaks a people into factions, and draws several well-meaning persons to their interest by a specious concern for their country. How many honest minds are filled with uncharitable and barbarous notions, out of their zeal for the public good? What cruelties and outrages would they not commit against men of an adverse party, whom they would honour and esteem, if, instead of considering them as they are represented, they knew them as they are? Thus are persons of the greatest probity seduced into shameful errors and prejudices, are made bad men even by that noblest of principles, the love of their country. I cannot here forbear mentioning the famous Spanish proverb, If there were neither fools nor knaves in the world, all people would be of one mind.'

For my own part I could heartily wish that all honest men would enter into an association, for the support of one another against the endeavours of those whom they ought to look upon as their common enemies, whatsoever side they may belong to. Were there such an honest body of neutral forces, we should never see the worst of men in great figures of life, because they are useful to a party; nor the best unregarded, because they are above practising those methods which would be grateful to

« PreviousContinue »