Page images
PDF
EPUB

No. 161.]

THE SPECTATOR.

The genius in both these classes of authors correspondents, one of whom sends me the may be equally great, but shows itself after following letter: In the first it is like a 'SIR,-Though you are pleased to rea different manner. rich soil in a happy climate, that produces tire from us so soon into the city, I hope a whole wilderness of noble plants rising in a thousand beautiful landscapes, without you will not think the affairs of the counIn the try altogether unworthy of your inspecany certain order or regularity. seeing your short face at Sir Roger de Coother it is the same rich soil under the tion for the future. I had the honour of same happy climate, that has been laid out verley's, and have ever since thought your in walks and parterres, and cut into shape person and writings both extraordinary. and beauty by the skill of the gardener. The great danger in these latter kind of Had you staid there a few days longer, you geniuses, is lest they cramp their own abili- would have seen a country wake, which eve-feast of the dedication of our churches. ties too much by imitation, and form them- you know in most parts of England is the selves altogether upon models, without giv- I was last week at one of these assemblies, ing the full play to their own natural parts. which was held in a neighbouring parish; An imitation of the best authors is not to where I found their green covered with a compare with a good original; and I believe promiscuous multitude of all ages and both we may observe that very few writers make an extraordinary figure in the world, who sexes, who esteem one another more or ing as they distinguish themselves at this have not something in their way of think-less the following part of the year, according or expressing themselves, that is pecu- time. The whole company were in their holiday clothes, and divided into several liar to them, and entirely their own. parties, all of them endeavouring to show themselves in those exercises wherein they excelled, and to gain the approbation of

tician than Archimedes.'

C.

the look crs-on.

I found a ring of cudgel-players, who were breaking one another's heads in order to make some impression on their mistresses' hearts. I observed a lusty young fellow, who had the misfortune of a broken pate; but what considerably added to the anguish of the wound, was his overhearing

It is odd to consider what great geniuses are sometimes thrown away upon trifles. says a famous 'I once saw a shepherd,' Italian author, who used to divert himself in his solitudes with tossing up eggs and catching them again without breaking them: in which he had arrived to so great a degree of perfection, that he would keep up four at a time for several minutes together playing in the air, and falling into his hands by turns. I think,' says the auan old man, who shook his head and said, thor, I never saw a greater severity than in this man's face; for by his wonderfulThat he questioned now if Black Kate perseverance and application, he had con- would marry him these three years.' I was diverted from a farther observation of tracted the seriousness and gravity of a privy-counsellor; and I could not but re- these combatants by a foot-ball match, flect with myself, that the same assiduity which was on the other side of the green; and attention, had they been rightly applied, where Tom Short behaved himself so might have made him a greater mathema- well, that most people seemed to agree, it was impossible that he should remain a bachelor until the next wake.' Having played many a match myself, I could have fooked longer on this sport, had I not observed a country girl who was posted on an eminence at some distance from me, and was making so many odd grimaces, and writhing and distorting her whole body in so strange a manner, as made me very desirous to know the meaning of it. Upon my coming up to her, I found that she was overlooking a ring of wrestlers, and that her sweetheart, a person of small stature, was contending with a huge brawny fellow, who twirled him about, and shook the little man so violently, that by a secret sympathy of hearts it produced all those agitations in the person of his mistress, who I dare say, like Calia in Shakspeare on the same occasion, could have wished herself 'invisible to catch the strong fellow by the leg.* The 'squire of the parish treats the whole company every year with a hogshead of ale; and proposes a beaver hat as a recompence to him who gives most

No. 161.] Tuesday, September 4, 1711.

Ipse dies agitat festos: Fususque per herbam,
Ignis ubi in medio et socii cratera coronant,
Te libans, Lenæe, vocat: pecorisque magistris
Velocis jaculi certamina ponit in ulmo,
Corporaque agresti nudat prædura palæstra.
Hanc olim veteres vitam coluere Sabini,
Hanc Remus et frater. Sic fortis Etruria crevit,
Scilicet et rerum facta est pulcherrima Roma.
Virg. Georg. ii. 527.

Himself, in rustic pomp, on holy-days,
To rural powers a just oblation pays;
And on the green his careless limbs displays.
The hearth is in the midst: the herdsmen round
The cheerful fire provoke his health in goblets crown'd.
He calls on Bacchus, and propounds the prize;
The groom his fellow-groom at buts defies,
And bends his bow, and levels with his eyes:
Or stript for wrestling, smears his limbs with oil,
And watches with a trip his foe to foil.
Such was the life the frugal Sabines led;
So Remus and his brother king were bred;
From whom th' austere Etrurian virtue rose;
And this rude life our homely fathers chose;
Old Rome from such a race deriv'd her birth,
The seat of empire, and the conquer'd earth.

Dryden.

I AM glad that my late going into the country has increased the number of my

* As You Like It. Act i. Sc. 6.

1

falls. This has raised such a spirit of emu-spirit of emulation, which so remarkably
lation in the youth of the place, that some shows itself among our common people in
of them have rendered themselves very these wakes, might be directed, proposes
expert at this exercise; and I was often that for the improvement of all our handi-
surprised to see a fellow's heels fly up, by
a trip which was given him so smartly that
I could scarce discern it. I found that the
old wrestlers seldom entered the ring until
some one was grown formidable by having
thrown two or three of his opponents: but
kept themselves as it were in a reserved
body to defend the hat, which is always
hung up by the person who gets it in one
of the most conspicuous parts of the house,
and looked upon by the whole family as
something redounding much more to their
honour than a coat of arms. There was a
fellow who was so busy in regulating all
the ceremonies, and seemed to carry such
an air of importance in his look, that I
could not help inquiring who he was, and
was immediately answered, "That he did
not value himself upon nothing, for that
he and his ancestors had won so many
hats, that his parlour looked like a haber-
dasher's shop." However, this thirst of
glory in them all was the reason that no
man stood "lord of the ring," for above
three falls while I was among them.

craft trades there should be annual prizes
set up for such persons as were most ex-
cellent in their several arts. But laying
aside all these political considerations,
which might tempt me to pass the limits
of my paper, I confess the greatest benefit
and convenience that I can observe in these
country festivals, is the bringing young
people together, and giving them an op-
portunity of showing themselves in the
most advantageous light. A country fel-
low that throws his rival upon his back,
has generally as good success with their
common mistress; as nothing is more usual
than for a nimble-footed wench to get a
husband at the same time that she wins
a smock. Love and marriages are the
natural effects of these anniversary as-
semblies. I must therefore very much
approve the method by which my corre-
spondent tells me each sex endeavours to
recommend itself to the other, since no-
thing seems more likely to promise a
healthy offspring, or a happy cohabita-
tion. And I believe I may assure my
"The young maids who were not lookers-country friend, that there has been many
on at these exercises, were themselves en- a court lady who would be contented to ex-
gaged in some diversions: and upon my change her crazy young husband for Tom
asking a farmer's son of my own parish Short, and several men of quality who
what he was gazing at with so much at- would have parted with a tender yoke-
tention, he told me, "That he was seeing fellow for Black Kate.
Betty Welch," whom I knew to be his
sweetheart, "pitch a bar."

I am the more pleased with having love made the principal end and design of these In short, I found the men endeavoured meetings, as it seems to be more agreeable to show the women they were no cowards, to the intent for which they were at first inand that the whole company strived to re-stituted, as we are informed by the learned commend themselves to each other by Dr. Kennet,* with whose words I shall conmaking it appear that they were all in a clude my present paper. perfect state of health, and fit to undergo any fatigues of bodily labour.

Your judgment upon this method of love and gallantry, as it is at present practised among us in the country, will very much oblige, sir, yours, &c.'

If I would here put on the scholar and politician, I might inform my readers how these bodily exercises or games were formerly encouraged in all the commonwealths of Greece; from whence the Romans afterwards borrowed their hentathlum, which was composed of running, wrestling, leaping, throwing, and boxing, though the prizes were generally nothing but a crown of cypress or parsley, hats not being in fashion in those days: that there is an old statute, which obliges every man in England, having such an estate, to keep and exercise the long-bow: by which means our ancestors excelled all other nations in the use of that weapon, and we had all the real advantages, without the inconvenience of a standing army: and that I once met with a book of projects, in which the author, considering to what noble ends that

'These wakes (says he,) were in imitation of the ancient ay, or love-feasts; and were first established in England by Pope Gregory the Great, who in an Epistle to Melitus the abbot, gave order that they should be kept in sheds or arbories made up with the branches and boughs of trees round the church.'

He adds, That this laudable custom of wakes prevailed for many ages, until the nice puritans began to exclaim against it as a remnant of popery; and by degrees the precise humour grew so popular, that at an Exeter assizes the Lord Chief Baron Walter made an order for the suppression of all wakes; but on Bishop Laud's complaining of this innovating humour, the king commanded the order to be reversed.' X.

No. 162.] Wednesday, September 5, 1711.

[blocks in formation]

a man appear so contemptible and little in we fall into crimes and recover out of them, the eyes of the world as inconstancy, espe-are amiable or odious in the eyes of our cially when it regards religion or party.great Judge, and pass our whole life in ofIn either of these cases, though a man per- fending and asking pardon. On the conhaps does but his duty in changing his side, he not only makes himself hated by those he left, but is seldom heartily esteemed by those he comes over to.

trary, the beings underneath us are not capable of sinning, nor those above us of repenting. The one is out of the possibilities of duty, and the other fixed in an eternal course of sin, or an eternal course of virtue.

There is scarce a state of life, or stage in it, which does not produce changes and revolutions in the mind of man. Our schemes of thought in infancy are lost in those of youth; these too take a different turn in manhood, until old age often leads us back into our former infancy. A new title or an unexpected success throws

In these great articles of life, therefore, a man's conviction ought to be very strong, and if possible so well-timed, that worldly advantages may seem to have no share in it, or mankind will be ill-natured enough to think he does not change sides out of principle, but either out of levity of temper, or prospects of interest. Converts and renegadoes of all kinds should take particular care to let the world see they act upon honourable motives; or whatever approba- us out of ourselves, and in a manner detions they may receive from themselves, and applauses from those they converse with, they may be very well assured that they are the scorn of all good men, and the public marks of infamy and derision.

stroys our identity. A cloudy day, or a little sunshine, has as great an influence on many constitutions, as the most real blessing cr misfortune. A dream varies our being, and changes our condition while it lasts; and every passion, not to mention

tions in body and mind, makes us appear almost different creatures. If a man is so distinguished among other beings by this infirmity, what can we think of such as make themselves remarkable for it even among their own species? It is a very trifling character to be one of the most variable beings of the most variable kind, especially if we consider that he who is the great standard of perfection has in him no shadow of change, but is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.'

Irresolution on the schemes of life which offer themselves to our choice, and incon-health and sickness, and the greater alterastancy in pursuing them, are the greatest and most universal causes of all our disquiet and unhappiness. When ambition pulls one way, interest another, inclination a third, and perhaps reason contrary to all, a man is likely to pass his time but ill who has so many different parties to please. When the mind hovers among such a variety of allurements, one had better settle on a way of life that is not the very best we might have chosen, than grow old without determining our choice, and go out of the world, as the greatest part of mankind do, before we had resolved how to live in it. There is but one method of setting ourselves at rest in this particular, and that is by adhering steadfastly to one great end as the chief and ultimate aim of all our pursuits. If we are firmly resolved to live € up to the dictates of reason, without any regard to wealth, reputation, or the like considerations, any more than as they fall in with our principal design, we may go through life with steadiness and pleasure; but if we act by several broken views, and will not only be virtuous, but wealthy, popular, and every thing that has a value set upon it by the world, we shall live and die in misery and repentance.

One would take more than ordinary care to guard one's self against this particular imperfection, because it is that which our nature very strongly inclines us to; for if we examine ourselves thoroughly, we shall find that we are the most changeable beings in the universe. In respect to our understanding, we often embrace and reject the very same opinions; whereas beings above and beneath us have probably no opinions at all, or at least no wavering and uncertainties in those they have. Our superiors are guided by intuition, and our inferiors by instinct. In respect of our wills,

As this mutability of temper and inconsistency with ourselves is the greatest weakness of human nature, so it makes the person who is remarkable for it in a very particular manner more ridiculous than any other infirmity whatsoever, as it sets him in a greater variety of foolish lights, and distinguishes him from himself by an opposition of party-coloured characters. The most humorous character in Horace is founded upon this unevenness of temper and irregularity of conduct:

-Sardus habebat

Ille Tigellius hoc: Casar, qui cogere posset,
Si peteret per amicitiam patris, atque suam, non
Quidquam proficeret; si collibuisset, ab ovo
Usque ad mala citaret, Io Bacche, modo summa
Voce, modo hac, resonat quæ chordis quatuor ima.
Nil æquale homini fuit illi: sæpe velut qui
Currebat fugiens hostem; persæpe velut qui
Junonis sacra ferret; habebat sæpe ducentos,
Sæpe decem servos: Modo reges atque tetrarchas,
Omnia magna loquens; modo, sit mihi mensa
tripes, et

Concha salis puri, et toga, quæ defendere frigus,
Quamvis crassa, queat. Decies centena dedisses
Huic parco paucis contento, quinque diebus
Nil erat in loculis. Noctes vigilabat ad ipsum
Mane: diem totum stertebat. Nil fuit unquam
Sic impar sibi-
Hor. Lib. 1. Sat. iii.

Instead of translating this passage in Horace, I shall entertain my English reader with the description of a parallel character, that is wonderfully well finished by Mr.

Dryden, and raised upon the same founda- | estate left him, which he said was welcome tion:

In the first rank of these did Zimri stand:
A man so various, that he seem'd to be
Not one, but all mankind's epitome.
Stiff in opinion, always in the wrong;
Was every thing by starts, and nothing long;
But, in the course of one revolving moon,
Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon!
Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking,
Besides ten thousand freaks that dy'd in thinking.
Blest madman, who could every hour employ,
With something new to wish, or to enjoy !*

C.

to him upon no other account, but as he hoped it would remove all difficulties that lay in the way to our mutual happiness. You may well suppose, sir, with how much joy I received this letter, which was followed by several others filled with those expressions of love and joy, which I verily believe nobody felt more sincerely, nor knew better how to describe, than the gentleman I am speaking of. But, sir, how shall I be able to tell it you! By the last week's post I received a letter from an in

No. 163.] Thursday, September 6, 1711.timate friend of this unhappy gentleman,

-Si quid ego adjuero, curamve levasso
Quæ nunc te coquit, et versat sub pectore fixa,
Ecquid erit pretii?
Enn. apud Tullium.
Say, will you thank me if I bring you rest,
And ease the torture of your troubled breast?

INQUIRIES after happiness, and rules for attaining it, are not so necessary and useful to mankind as the arts of consolation, and supporting one's self under affliction. The utmost we can hope for in this world is contentment; if we aim at any thing higher, we shall meet with nothing but grief and disappointment. A man should direct all ⚫his studies and endeavours at making himself easy now and happy hereafter.

The truth of it is, if all the happiness that is dispersed through the whole race of mankind in this world were drawn together, and put into the possession of any single man, it would not make a very happy being. Though on the contrary, if the miseries of the whole species were fixed in a single person, they would make a very miserable one.

I am engaged in this subject by the following letter, which, though subscribed by a fictitious name, I have reason to believe is not imaginary.

acquainting me, that as he had just settled his affairs, and was preparing for his journey, he fell sick of a fever and died. It is impossible to express to you the distress I am in upon this occasion. I can only have recourse to my devotions: and to the reading of good books for my consolation; and as I always take a particular delight in those frequent advices and admonitions which you give the public, it would be a very great piece of charity in you to lend me your assistance in this conjuncture. If after the reading of this letter you find yourself in a humour, rather to rally and ridicule, than to comfort me, I desire you would throw it into the fire, and think no more of it; but if you are touched with my misfortune, which is greater than I know how to bear, your counsels may very much support, and will infinitely oblige, the afflicted LEONORA.'

A disappointment in love is more hard to get over than any other: the passion itself so softens and subdues the heart, that it disables it from struggling or bearing up against the woes and distresses which befall it. The mind meets with other misfortunes in her whole strength; she stands collected within herself, and sustains the shock with all the force which is natural to her; but a heart in love has its foundation sapped, and immediately sinks under the weight of accidents that are disagreeable to its favourite passion.

'MR. SPECTATOR,-I am one of your disciples, and endeavour to live up to your rules, which I hope will incline you to pity my condition. I shall open it to you in a very few words. About three years since, a gentleman, whom, I am sure, you yourself would have approved, made his ad- In afflictions men generally draw their dresses to me. He had every thing to re-consolations out of books of morality, which commend him but an estate, so that my indeed are of great use to fortify and friends, who all of them applauded his strengthen the mind against the impresperson, would not for the sake of both of us sions of sorrow. Monsieur St. Evremont, favour his passion. For my own part, I who does not approve of this method, reresigned myself up entirely to the direction commends authors who are apt to stir up of those who knew the world much better mirth in the mind of readers, and fancies than myself, but still lived in hopes that Don Quixote can give more relief to a some juncture or other would make me heavy heart than Plutarch or Seneca, as it happy in the man, whom, in my heart, I is much easier to divert grief than to conprefered to all the world; being determined quer it. This doubtless may have its effects if I could not have him, to have nobody on some tempers. I should rather have else. About three months ago I received a recourse to authors of a quite contrary kind, letter from him, acquainting me, that by that give us instances of calamities and the death of an uncle he had a considerable misfortunes, and show human nature in its greatest distresses.

*"Absalom and Ahithophel." It is perhaps unnecessary to observe, that the character of Zimri is that of

George Villiers, duke of Buckingham, author of the

"Rehearsal."

If the afflictions we groan under be very heavy, we shall find some consolation in the society of as great sufferers as ourselves,

especially when we find our companions | nary wit and beauty, but very unhappy in men of virtue and merit. If our afflictions a father, who having arrived at great riches are light, we shall be comforted by the by his own industry, took delight in nocomparison we make between ourselves thing but his money. Theodosius* was the and our fellow-sufferers. A loss at sea, a younger son of a decayed family, of great fit of sickness, or the death of a friend, are parts and learning, improved by a genteel such trifles, when we consider whole king- and virtuous education. When he was in doms laid in ashes, families put to the the twentieth year of his age he became sword, wretches shut up in dungeons, and acquainted with Constantia, who had not the like calamities of mankind, that we are then passed her fifteenth. As he lived but out of countenance for our own weakness, if a few miles distant from her father's house, we sink under such little strokes of fortune. he had frequent opportunities of seeing her, Let the disconsolate Leonora consider, and by the advantages of a good person and that at the very time in which she lan- a pleasing conversation, made such an imguishes for the loss of her deceased lover, pression on her heart as it was impossible there are persons in several parts of the for time to efface. He was himself no less world just perishing in a shipwreck; others smitten with Constantia. A long acquaintcrying out for mercy in the terrors of a ance made them still discover new beauties death-bed repentance; others lying under in each other, and by degrees raised in the tortures of an infamous execution, or them that mutual passion which had an the like dreadful calamities; and she will influence on their following lives. It unfind her sorrows vanish at the appearance fortunately happened, that in the midst of of those which are so much greater and this intercourse of love and friendship bemore astonishing. tween Theodosius and Constantia, there broke out an irreparable quarrel between their parents, the one valuing himself too much upon his birth, and the other upon his possessions. The father of Constantia was so incensed at the father of Theodosius, that he contracted an unreasonable aversion towards his son, insomuch that he forbade him his house, and charged his daughter, upon her duty, never to see him more. In the mean time, to break off all communication between the two lovers, who he knew entertained secret hopes of some favourable opportunity that should bring them together, he found out a young gentleman of a good fortune and an agree able person, whom he pitched upon as a husband for his daughter. He soon concerted this affair so well, that he told Constantia it was his design to marry her to such a gentleman, and that her wedding should be celebrated on such a day, Constantia, who was overawed with the authority of her father, and unable to object any thing against so advantageous a match, received the proposal with a profound silence, which her father commended in her, as the most decent manner of a virgin's giving her consent to an overture of that kind. The noise of this intended marriage soon reached Theodosius, who, after a long tumult of passions, which naturally rise in a lover's heart on such an occasion, writ the follow. ing letter to Constantia,

I would further propose to the consideration of my afflicted disciple, that possibly what she now looks upon as the greatest misfortune, is not really such in itself. For my own part, I question not but our souls in a separate state will look back on their lives in quite another view than what they had of them in the body; and that what they now consider as misfortunes and disappointments, will very often appear to have been escapes and blessings.

The mind that hath any cast towards devotion, naturally flies to it in its afflictions.

When I was in France I heard a very remarkable story of two lovers, which I shall relate at length in my to-morrow's paper, not only because the circumstances of it are extraordinary, but because it may serve as an illustration to all that can be said on this last head, and show the power of religion in abating that particular anguish which seems to lie so heavy on Leonora, The story was told me by a priest, as I travelled with him in a stage-coach. I shall give it my reader, as well as I can remember, in his own words, after having premised, that if consolations may be drawn from a wrong religion and a misguided devotion, they cannot but flow much more naturally from those which are founded upon reason and established in good sense. L.

No. 164.] Friday, September 7, 1711.
Illa, Quis et me, inquit, miseram, et te perdidit, Orpheu?
Jamque vale: feror ingenti circumdata nocte,
Invalidasque tibi tendens, heu! non tua, palmas,
Virg. Georg, iv. 494.

Then thus the bride: What fury seiz'd on thee,
Unhappy man! to lose thyself and me?
And now farewell! involv'd in shades of night,
For ever I am ravish'd from thy sight:
In vain I reach my feeble hands to join
In sweet embraces, ah! no longer thine.

Dryden.

'The thought of my Constantia, which for some years has been my only happiness, is now become a greater torment to me than I am able to bear. Must I then live to see you another's? The streams, the fields and meadows, where we have so often talked together, grow painful to me; life itself is become a burden. May you long be happy

Dr. Langhorne's Theodosius and Constantia is

CONSTANTIA was a woman of extraordi- I founded upon this paper.

« PreviousContinue »