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Swift - Battle of the Books, and Others
For
nature bath left every man a capacity of being agreeable, though not of
shining in company; and there are a hundred men sufficiently qualified
for both, who, by a very few faults that they might correct in half an
hour, are not so much as tolerable.
I was prompted to write my thoughts upon this subject by mere
indignation, to reflect that so useful and innocent a pleasure, so fitted
for every period and condition of life, and so much in all men's power,
should be so much neglected and abused.
And in this discourse it will be necessary to note those errors that are
obvious, as well as others which are seldomer observed, since there are
few so obvious or acknowledged into which most men, some time or other,
are not apt to run.
For instance, nothing is more generally exploded than the folly of
talking too much; yet I rarely remember to have seen five people together
where some one among them hath not been predominant in that kind, to the
great constraint and disgust of all the rest. But among such as deal in
multitudes of words, none are comparable to the sober deliberate talker,
who proceedeth with much thought and caution, maketh his preface,
brancheth out into several digressions, findeth a hint that putteth him
in mind of another story, which he promiseth to tell you when this is
done; cometh back regularly to his subject, cannot readily call to mind
some person's name, holdeth his head, complaineth of his memory; the
whole company all this while in suspense; at length, says he, it is no
matter, and so goes on. And, to crown the business, it perhaps proveth
at last a story the company hath heard fifty times before; or, at best,
some insipid adventure of the relater.
Another general fault in conversation is that of those who affect to talk
of themselves. Some, without any ceremony, will run over the history of
their lives; will relate the annals of their diseases, with the several
symptoms and circumstances of them; will enumerate the hardships and
injustice they have suffered in court, in parliament, in love, or in law.
Others are more dexterous, and with great art will lie on the watch to
hook in their own praise. They will call a witness to remember they
always foretold what would happen in such a case, but none would believe
them; they advised such a man from the beginning, and told him the
consequences just as they happened, but he would have his own way. Others
make a vanity of telling their faults. They are the strangest men in the
world; they cannot dissemble; they own it is a folly; they have lost
abundance of advantages by it; but, if you would give them the world,
they cannot help it; there is something in their nature that abhors
insincerity and constraint; with many other unsufferable topics of the
same altitude.
Of such mighty importance every man is to himself, and ready to think he
is so to others, without once making this easy and obvious reflection,
that his affairs can have no more weight with other men than theirs have
with him; and how little that is he is sensible enough.
Where company hath met, I often have observed two persons discover by
some accident that they were bred together at the same school or
university, after which the rest are condemned to silence, and to listen
while these two are refreshing each other's memory with the arch tricks
and passages of themselves and their comrades.
I know a great officer of the army, who will sit for some time with a
supercilious and impatient silence, full of anger and contempt for those
who are talking; at length of a sudden demand audience; decide the matter
in a short dogmatical way; then withdraw within himself again, and
vouchsafe to talk no more, until his spirits circulate again to the same
point.
There are some faults in conversation which none are so subject to as the
men of wit, nor ever so much as when they are with each other. If they
have opened their mouths without endeavouring to say a witty thing, they
think it is so many words lost. It is a torment to the hearers, as much
as to themselves, to see them upon the rack for invention, and in
perpetual constraint, with so little success. They must do something
extraordinary, in order to acquit themselves, and answer their character,
else the standers by may be disappointed and be apt to think them only
like the rest of mortals. I have known two men of wit industriously
brought together, in order to entertain the company, where they have made
a very ridiculous figure, and provided all the mirth at their own
expense.
I know a man of wit, who is never easy but where he can be allowed to
dictate and preside; he neither expecteth to be informed or entertained,
but to display his own talents. His business is to be good company, and
not good conversation, and therefore he chooseth to frequent those who
are content to listen, and profess themselves his admirers. And, indeed,
the worst conversation I ever remember to have heard in my life was that
at Will's coffee-house, where the wits, as they were called, used
formerly to assemble; that is to say, five or six men who had written
plays, or at least prologues, or had share in a miscellany, came thither,
and entertained one another with their trifling composures in so
important an air, as if they had been the noblest efforts of human
nature, or that the fate of kingdoms depended on them; and they were
usually attended with a humble audience of young students from the inns
of courts, or the universities, who, at due distance, listened to these
oracles, and returned home with great contempt for their law and
philosophy, their heads filled with trash under the name of politeness,
criticism, and belles lettres.
By these means the poets, for many years past, were all overrun with
pedantry. For, as I take it, the word is not properly used; because
pedantry is the too front or unseasonable obtruding our own knowledge in
common discourse, and placing too great a value upon it; by which
definition men of the court or the army may be as guilty of pedantry as a
philosopher or a divine; and it is the same vice in women when they are
over copious upon the subject of their petticoats, or their fans, or
their china. For which reason, although it be a piece of prudence, as
well as good manners, to put men upon talking on subjects they are best
versed in, yet that is a liberty a wise man could hardly take; because,
beside the imputation of pedantry, it is what he would never improve by.
This great town is usually provided with some player, mimic, or buffoon,
who hath a general reception at the good tables; familiar and domestic
with persons of the first quality, and usually sent for at every meeting
to divert the company, against which I have no objection. You go there
as to a farce or a puppet-show; your business is only to laugh in season,
either out of inclination or civility, while this merry companion is
acting his part. It is a business he hath undertaken, and we are to
suppose he is paid for his day's work. I only quarrel when in select and
private meetings, where men of wit and learning are invited to pass an
evening, this jester should be admitted to run over his circle of tricks,
and make the whole company unfit for any other conversation, besides the
indignity of confounding men's talents at so shameful a rate.
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 cometh up,
those who are not able to reach it content themselves with some paltry
imitation. It now passeth 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 whom 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
conversation 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 blamable; I mean, an impatience
to interrupt others, and the uneasiness of being interrupted ourselves.
The two chief ends of conversation 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 those two errors; because,
when any man speaketh in company, it is to be supposed he doth 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 seemeth to have
been introduced among us by Cromwell, who, by preferring 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.
There are some men excellent at telling a story, and provided with a
plentiful stock of them, which they can draw out upon occasion in all
companies; and considering how low conversation runs now among us, it is
not altogether a contemptible talent; however, it is subject to two
unavoidable defects: frequent repetition, and being soon exhausted; so
that whoever valueth this gift in himself hath need of a good memory, and
ought frequently to shift his company, that he may not discover the
weakness of his fund; for those who are thus endowed have seldom any
other revenue, but live upon the main stock.
Great speakers in public are seldom agreeable in private conversation,
whether their faculty be natural, or acquired by practice and often
venturing. Natural elocution, although it may seem a paradox, usually
springeth from a barrenness of invention and of words, by which men who
have only one stock of notions upon every subject, and one set of phrases
to express them in, they swim upon the superficies, and offer themselves
on every occasion; therefore, men of much learning, and who know the
compass of a language, are generally the worst talkers on a sudden, until
much practice hath inured and emboldened them; because they are
confounded with plenty of matter, variety of notions, and of words, which
they cannot readily choose, but are perplexed and entangled by too great
a choice, which is no disadvantage in private conversation; where, on the
other side, the talent of haranguing is, of all others, most
insupportable.
Nothing hath spoiled men more for conversation than the character of
being wits; to support which, they never fail of encouraging a number of
followers and admirers, who list themselves in their service, wherein
they find their accounts on both sides by pleasing their mutual vanity.
This hath given the former such an air of superiority, and made the
latter so pragmatical, that neither of them are well to be endured. I
say nothing here of the itch of dispute and contradiction, telling of
lies, or of those who are troubled with the disease called the wandering
of the thoughts, that they are never present in mind at what passeth in
discourse; for whoever labours under any of these possessions is as unfit
for conversation as madmen in Bedlam.
I think I have gone over most of the errors in conversation that have
fallen under my notice or memory, except some that are merely personal,
and others too gross to need exploding; such as lewd or profane talk; but
I pretend only to treat the errors of conversation in general, and not
the several subjects of discourse, which would be infinite. Thus we see
how human nature is most debased, by the abuse of that faculty, which is
held the great distinction between men and brutes; and how little
advantage we make of that which might be the greatest, the most lasting,
and the most innocent, as well as useful pleasure of life: in default of
which, we are forced to take up with those poor amusements of dress and
visiting, or the more pernicious ones of play, drink, and vicious amours,
whereby the nobility and gentry of both sexes are entirely corrupted both
in body and mind, and have lost all notions of love, honour, friendship,
and generosity; which, under the name of fopperies, have been for some
time laughed out of doors.
This degeneracy of conversation, with the pernicious consequences thereof
upon our humours and dispositions, hath been owing, among other causes,
to the custom arisen, for some time past, of excluding women from any
share in our society, further than in parties at play, or dancing, or in
the pursuit of an amour. I take the highest period of politeness in
England (and it is of the same date in France) to have been the peaceable
part of King Charles I. 's reign; and from what we read of those times, as
well as from the accounts I have formerly met with from some who lived in
that court, the methods then used for raising and cultivating
conversation were altogether different from ours; several ladies, whom we
find celebrated by the poets of that age, had assemblies at their houses,
where persons of the best understanding, and of both sexes, met to pass
the evenings in discoursing upon whatever agreeable subjects were
occasionally started; and although we are apt to ridicule the sublime
Platonic notions they had, or personated in love and friendship, I
conceive their refinements were grounded upon reason, and that a little
grain of the romance is no ill ingredient to preserve and exalt the
dignity of human nature, without which it is apt to degenerate into
everything that is sordid, vicious, and low. If there were no other use
in the conversation of ladies, it is sufficient that it would lay a
restraint upon those odious topics of immodesty and indecencies, into
which the rudeness of our northern genius is so apt to fall. And,
therefore, it is observable in those sprightly gentlemen about the town,
who are so very dexterous at entertaining a vizard mask in the park or
the playhouse, that, in the company of ladies of virtue and honour, they
are silent and disconcerted, and out of their element.
There are some people who think they sufficiently acquit themselves and
entertain their company with relating of facts of no consequence, nor at
all out of the road of such common incidents as happen every day; and
this I have observed more frequently among the Scots than any other
nation, who are very careful not to omit the minutest circumstances of
time or place; which kind of discourse, if it were not a little relieved
by the uncouth terms and phrases, as well as accent and gesture peculiar
to that country, would be hardly tolerable. It is not a fault in company
to talk much; but to continue it long is certainly one; for, if the
majority of those who are got together be naturally silent or cautious,
the conversation will flag, unless it be often renewed by one among them
who can start new subjects, provided he doth not dwell upon them, but
leaveth room for answers and replies.
THOUGHTS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS.
We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us
love one another.
Reflect on things past as wars, negotiations, factions, etc. We enter so
little into those interests, that we wonder how men could possibly be so
busy and concerned for things so transitory; look on the present times,
we find the same humour, yet wonder not at all.
A wise man endeavours, by considering all circumstances, to make
conjectures and form conclusions; but the smallest accident intervening
(and in the course of affairs it is impossible to foresee all) does often
produce such turns and changes, that at last he is just as much in doubt
of events as the most ignorant and inexperienced person.
Positiveness is a good quality for preachers and orators, because he that
would obtrude his thoughts and reasons upon a multitude, will convince
others the more, as he appears convinced himself.
How is it possible to expect that mankind will take advice, when they
will not so much as take warning?
I forget whether Advice be among the lost things which Aristo says are to
be found in the moon; that and Time ought to have been there.
No preacher is listened to but Time, which gives us the same train and
turn of thought that older people have tried in vain to put into our
heads before.
When we desire or solicit anything, our minds run wholly on the good side
or circumstances of it; when it is obtained, our minds run wholly on the
bad ones.
In a glass-house the workmen often fling in a small quantity of fresh
coals, which seems to disturb the fire, but very much enlivens it. This
seems to allude to a gentle stirring of the passions, that the mind may
not languish.
Religion seems to have grown an infant with age, and requires miracles to
nurse it, as it had in its infancy.
All fits of pleasure are balanced by an equal degree of pain or languor;
it is like spending this year part of the next year's revenue.
The latter part of a wise man's life is taken up in curing the follies,
prejudices, and false opinions he had contracted in the former.
Would a writer know how to behave himself with relation to posterity, let
him consider in old books what he finds that he is glad to know, and what
omissions he most laments.
Whatever the poets pretend, it is plain they give immortality to none but
themselves; it is Homer and Virgil we reverence and admire, not Achilles
or AEneas. With historians it is quite the contrary; our thoughts are
taken up with the actions, persons, and events we read, and we little
regard the authors.
When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign;
that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.
Men who possess all the advantages of life, are in a state where there
are many accidents to disorder and discompose, but few to please them.
It is unwise to punish cowards with ignominy, for if they had regarded
that they would not have been cowards; death is their proper punishment,
because they fear it most.
The greatest inventions were produced in the times of ignorance, as the
use of the compass, gunpowder, and printing, and by the dullest nation,
as the Germans.
One argument to prove that the common relations of ghosts and spectres
are generally false, may be drawn from the opinion held that spirits are
never seen by more than one person at a time; that is to say, it seldom
happens to above one person in a company to be possessed with any high
degree of spleen or melancholy.
I am apt to think that, in the day of Judgment, there will be small
allowance given to the wise for their want of morals, nor to the ignorant
for their want of faith, because both are without excuse. This renders
the advantages equal of ignorance and knowledge. But, some scruples in
the wise, and some vices in the ignorant, will perhaps be forgiven upon
the strength of temptation to each.
The value of several circumstances in story lessens very much by distance
of time, though some minute circumstances are very valuable; and it
requires great judgment in a writer to distinguish.
It is grown a word of course for writers to say, "This critical age," as
divines say, "This sinful age. "
It is pleasant to observe how free the present age is in laying taxes on
the next. _Future ages shall talk of this_; _this shall be famous to all
posterity_. Whereas their time and thoughts will be taken up about
present things, as ours are now.
The chameleon, who is said to feed upon nothing but air, hath, of all
animals, the nimblest tongue.
When a man is made a spiritual peer he loses his surname; when a
temporal, his Christian name.
It is in disputes as in armies, where the weaker side sets up false
lights, and makes a great noise, to make the enemy believe them more
numerous and strong than they really are.
Some men, under the notions of weeding out prejudices, eradicate virtue,
honesty, and religion.
In all well-instituted commonwealths, care has been taken to limit men's
possessions; which is done for many reasons, and among the rest, for one
which perhaps is not often considered: that when bounds are set to men's
desires, after they have acquired as much as the laws will permit them,
their private interest is at an end, and they have nothing to do but to
take care of the public.
There are but three ways for a man to revenge himself of the censure of
the world: to despise it, to return the like, or to endeavour to live so
as to avoid it. The first of these is usually pretended, the last is
almost impossible; the universal practice is for the second.
I never heard a finer piece of satire against lawyers than that of
astrologers, when they pretend by rules of art to tell when a suit will
end, and whether to the advantage of the plaintiff or defendant; thus
making the matter depend entirely upon the influence of the stars,
without the least regard to the merits of the cause.
The expression in Apocrypha about Tobit and his dog following him I have
often heard ridiculed, yet Homer has the same words of Telemachus more
than once; and Virgil says something like it of Evander. And I take the
book of Tobit to be partly poetical.
I have known some men possessed of good qualities, which were very
serviceable to others, but useless to themselves; like a sun-dial on the
front of a house, to inform the neighbours and passengers, but not the
owner within.
If a man would register all his opinions upon love, politics, religion,
learning, etc. , beginning from his youth and so go on to old age, what a
bundle of inconsistencies and contradictions would appear at last!
What they do in heaven we are ignorant of; what they do not we are told
expressly: that they neither marry, nor are given in marriage.
It is a miserable thing to live in suspense; it is the life of a spider.
The Stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires, is
like cutting off our feet when we want shoes.
Physicians ought not to give their judgment of religion, for the same
reason that butchers are not admitted to be jurors upon life and death.
The reason why so few marriages are happy, is, because young ladies spend
their time in making nets, not in making cages.
If a man will observe as he walks the streets, I believe he will find the
merriest countenances in mourning coaches.
Nothing more unqualifies a man to act with prudence than a misfortune
that is attended with shame and guilt.
The power of fortune is confessed only by the miserable; for the happy
impute all their success to prudence or merit.
Ambition often puts men upon doing the meanest offices; so climbing is
performed in the same posture with creeping.
Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent.
Although men are accused for not knowing their own weakness, yet perhaps
as few know their own strength. It is, in men as in soils, where
sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not of.
Satire is reckoned the easiest of all wit, but I take it to be otherwise
in very bad times: for it is as hard to satirise well a man of
distinguished vices, as to praise well a man of distinguished virtues. It
is easy enough to do either to people of moderate characters.
Invention is the talent of youth, and judgment of age; so that our
judgment grows harder to please, when we have fewer things to offer it:
this goes through the whole commerce of life. When we are old, our
friends find it difficult to please us, and are less concerned whether we
be pleased or no.
No wise man ever wished to be younger.
An idle reason lessens the weight of the good ones you gave before.
The motives of the best actions will not bear too strict an inquiry. It
is allowed that the cause of most actions, good or bad, may he resolved
into the love of ourselves; but the self-love of some men inclines them
to please others, and the self-love of others is wholly employed in
pleasing themselves. This makes the great distinction between virtue and
vice. Religion is the best motive of all actions, yet religion is
allowed to be the highest instance of self-love.
Old men view best at a distance with the eyes of their understanding as
well as with those of nature.
Some people take more care to hide their wisdom than their folly.
Anthony Henley's farmer, dying of an asthma, said, "Well, if I can get
this breath once _out_, I'll take care it never got _in_ again. "
The humour of exploding many things under the name of trifles, fopperies,
and only imaginary goods, is a very false proof either of wisdom or
magnanimity, and a great check to virtuous actions. For instance, with
regard to fame, there is in most people a reluctance and unwillingness to
be forgotten. We observe, even among the vulgar, how fond they are to
have an inscription over their grave. It requires but little philosophy
to discover and observe that there is no intrinsic value in all this;
however, if it be founded in our nature as an incitement to virtue, it
ought not to be ridiculed.
Complaint is the largest tribute heaven receives, and the sincerest part
of our devotion.
The common fluency of speech in many men, and most women, is owing to a
scarcity of matter, and a scarcity of words; for whoever is a master of
language, and hath a mind full of ideas, will be apt, in speaking, to
hesitate upon the choice of both; whereas common speakers have only one
set of ideas, and one set of words to clothe them in, and these are
always ready at the mouth. So people come faster out of a church when it
is almost empty, than when a crowd is at the door.
Few are qualified to shine in company; but it is in most men's power to
be agreeable. The reason, therefore, why conversation runs so low at
present, is not the defect of understanding, but pride, vanity,
ill-nature, affectation, singularity, positiveness, or some other vice,
the effect of a wrong education.
To be vain is rather a mark of humility than pride. Vain men delight in
telling what honours have been done them, what great company they have
kept, and the like, by which they plainly confess that these honours were
more than their due, and such as their friends would not believe if they
had not been told: whereas a man truly proud thinks the greatest honours
below his merit, and consequently scorns to boast. I therefore deliver
it as a maxim, that whoever desires the character of a proud man, ought
to conceal his vanity.
Law, in a free country, is, or ought to be, the determination of the
majority of those who have property in land.
One argument used to the disadvantage of Providence I take to be a very
strong one in its defence. It is objected that storms and tempests,
unfruitful seasons, serpents, spiders, flies, and other noxious or
troublesome animals, with many more instances of the like kind, discover
an imperfection in nature, because human life would be much easier
without them; but the design of Providence may clearly be perceived in
this proceeding. The motions of the sun and moon--in short, the whole
system of the universe, as far as philosophers have been able to discover
and observe, are in the utmost degree of regularity and perfection; but
wherever God hath left to man the power of interposing a remedy by
thought or labour, there he hath placed things in a state of
imperfection, on purpose to stir up human industry, without which life
would stagnate, or, indeed, rather, could not subsist at all: _Curis
accuunt mortalia corda_.
Praise is the daughter of present power.
How inconsistent is man with himself!
I have known several persons of great fame for wisdom in public affairs
and counsels governed by foolish servants.
I have known great Ministers, distinguished for wit and learning, who
preferred none but dunces.
I have known men of great valour cowards to their wives.
I have known men of the greatest cunning perpetually cheated.
I knew three great Ministers, who could exactly compute and settle the
accounts of a kingdom, but were wholly ignorant of their own economy.
The preaching of divines helps to preserve well-inclined men in the
course of virtue, but seldom or never reclaims the vicious.
Princes usually make wiser choices than the servants whom they trust for
the disposal of places: I have known a prince, more than once, choose an
able Minister, but I never observed that Minister to use his credit in
the disposal of an employment to a person whom he thought the fittest for
it. One of the greatest in this age owned and excused the matter from
the violence of parties and the unreasonableness of friends.
Small causes are sufficient to make a man uneasy when great ones are not
in the way. For want of a block he will stumble at a straw.
Dignity, high station, or great riches, are in some sort necessary to old
men, in order to keep the younger at a distance, who are otherwise too
apt to insult them upon the score of their age.
Every man desires to live long; but no man would be old.
Love of flattery in most men proceeds from the mean opinion they have of
themselves; in women from the contrary.
If books and laws continue to increase as they have done for fifty years
past, I am in some concern for future ages how any man will be learned,
or any man a lawyer.
Kings are commonly said to have _long hands_; I wish they had as _long
ears_.
Princes in their infancy, childhood, and youth are said to discover
prodigious parts and wit, to speak things that surprise and astonish.
Strange, so many hopeful princes, and so many shameful kings! If they
happen to die young, they would have been prodigies of wisdom and virtue.
If they live, they are often prodigies indeed, but of another sort.
Politics, as the word is commonly understood, are nothing but
corruptions, and consequently of no use to a good king or a good
ministry; for which reason Courts are so overrun with politics.
A nice man is a man of nasty ideas.
Apollo was held the god of physic and sender of diseases. Both were
originally the same trade, and still continue.
Old men and comets have been reverenced for the same reason: their long
beards, and pretences to foretell events.
A person was asked at court, what he thought of an ambassador and his
train, who were all embroidery and lace, full of bows, cringes, and
gestures; he said, it was Solomon's importation, gold and apes.
Most sorts of diversion in men, children, and other animals, is an
imitation of fighting.
Augustus meeting an ass with a lucky name foretold himself good fortune.
I meet many asses, but none of them have lucky names.
If a man makes me keep my distance, the comfort is he keeps his at the
same time.
Who can deny that all men are violent lovers of truth when we see them so
positive in their errors, which they will maintain out of their zeal to
truth, although they contradict themselves every day of their lives?
That was excellently observed, say I, when I read a passage in an author,
where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, there I pronounce
him to be mistaken.
Very few men, properly speaking, live at present, but are providing to
live another time.
Laws penned with the utmost care and exactness, and in the vulgar
language, are often perverted to wrong meanings; then why should we
wonder that the Bible is so?
Although men are accused for not knowing their weakness, yet perhaps as
few know their own strength.
A man seeing a wasp creeping into a vial filled with honey, that was hung
on a fruit tree, said thus: "Why, thou sottish animal, art thou mad to go
into that vial, where you see many hundred of your kind there dying in it
before you? " "The reproach is just," answered the wasp, "but not from
you men, who are so far from taking example by other people's follies,
that you will not take warning by your own. If after falling several
times into this vial, and escaping by chance, I should fall in again, I
should then but resemble you. "
An old miser kept a tame jackdaw, that used to steal pieces of money, and
hide them in a hole, which the cat observing, asked why he would hoard up
those round shining things that he could make no use of? "Why," said the
jackdaw, "my master has a whole chest full, and makes no more use of them
than I. "
Men are content to be laughed at for their wit, but not for their folly.
If the men of wit and genius would resolve never to complain in their
works of critics and detractors, the next age would not know that they
ever had any.
After all the maxims and systems of trade and commerce, a stander-by
would think the affairs of the world were most ridiculously contrived.
There are few countries which, if well cultivated, would not support
double the number of their inhabitants, and yet fewer where one-third of
the people are not extremely stinted even in the necessaries of life. I
send out twenty barrels of corn, which would maintain a family in bread
for a year, and I bring back in return a vessel of wine, which half a
dozen good follows would drink in less than a month, at the expense of
their health and reason.
A man would have but few spectators, if he offered to show for threepence
how he could thrust a red-hot iron into a barrel of gunpowder, and it
should not take fire.
FOOTNOTES:
{1} Two puppet-show men.
{2} The house-keeper.
{3} The butler.
{4} The footman.
{5} The priest his confessor.
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Section 5.
nature bath left every man a capacity of being agreeable, though not of
shining in company; and there are a hundred men sufficiently qualified
for both, who, by a very few faults that they might correct in half an
hour, are not so much as tolerable.
I was prompted to write my thoughts upon this subject by mere
indignation, to reflect that so useful and innocent a pleasure, so fitted
for every period and condition of life, and so much in all men's power,
should be so much neglected and abused.
And in this discourse it will be necessary to note those errors that are
obvious, as well as others which are seldomer observed, since there are
few so obvious or acknowledged into which most men, some time or other,
are not apt to run.
For instance, nothing is more generally exploded than the folly of
talking too much; yet I rarely remember to have seen five people together
where some one among them hath not been predominant in that kind, to the
great constraint and disgust of all the rest. But among such as deal in
multitudes of words, none are comparable to the sober deliberate talker,
who proceedeth with much thought and caution, maketh his preface,
brancheth out into several digressions, findeth a hint that putteth him
in mind of another story, which he promiseth to tell you when this is
done; cometh back regularly to his subject, cannot readily call to mind
some person's name, holdeth his head, complaineth of his memory; the
whole company all this while in suspense; at length, says he, it is no
matter, and so goes on. And, to crown the business, it perhaps proveth
at last a story the company hath heard fifty times before; or, at best,
some insipid adventure of the relater.
Another general fault in conversation is that of those who affect to talk
of themselves. Some, without any ceremony, will run over the history of
their lives; will relate the annals of their diseases, with the several
symptoms and circumstances of them; will enumerate the hardships and
injustice they have suffered in court, in parliament, in love, or in law.
Others are more dexterous, and with great art will lie on the watch to
hook in their own praise. They will call a witness to remember they
always foretold what would happen in such a case, but none would believe
them; they advised such a man from the beginning, and told him the
consequences just as they happened, but he would have his own way. Others
make a vanity of telling their faults. They are the strangest men in the
world; they cannot dissemble; they own it is a folly; they have lost
abundance of advantages by it; but, if you would give them the world,
they cannot help it; there is something in their nature that abhors
insincerity and constraint; with many other unsufferable topics of the
same altitude.
Of such mighty importance every man is to himself, and ready to think he
is so to others, without once making this easy and obvious reflection,
that his affairs can have no more weight with other men than theirs have
with him; and how little that is he is sensible enough.
Where company hath met, I often have observed two persons discover by
some accident that they were bred together at the same school or
university, after which the rest are condemned to silence, and to listen
while these two are refreshing each other's memory with the arch tricks
and passages of themselves and their comrades.
I know a great officer of the army, who will sit for some time with a
supercilious and impatient silence, full of anger and contempt for those
who are talking; at length of a sudden demand audience; decide the matter
in a short dogmatical way; then withdraw within himself again, and
vouchsafe to talk no more, until his spirits circulate again to the same
point.
There are some faults in conversation which none are so subject to as the
men of wit, nor ever so much as when they are with each other. If they
have opened their mouths without endeavouring to say a witty thing, they
think it is so many words lost. It is a torment to the hearers, as much
as to themselves, to see them upon the rack for invention, and in
perpetual constraint, with so little success. They must do something
extraordinary, in order to acquit themselves, and answer their character,
else the standers by may be disappointed and be apt to think them only
like the rest of mortals. I have known two men of wit industriously
brought together, in order to entertain the company, where they have made
a very ridiculous figure, and provided all the mirth at their own
expense.
I know a man of wit, who is never easy but where he can be allowed to
dictate and preside; he neither expecteth to be informed or entertained,
but to display his own talents. His business is to be good company, and
not good conversation, and therefore he chooseth to frequent those who
are content to listen, and profess themselves his admirers. And, indeed,
the worst conversation I ever remember to have heard in my life was that
at Will's coffee-house, where the wits, as they were called, used
formerly to assemble; that is to say, five or six men who had written
plays, or at least prologues, or had share in a miscellany, came thither,
and entertained one another with their trifling composures in so
important an air, as if they had been the noblest efforts of human
nature, or that the fate of kingdoms depended on them; and they were
usually attended with a humble audience of young students from the inns
of courts, or the universities, who, at due distance, listened to these
oracles, and returned home with great contempt for their law and
philosophy, their heads filled with trash under the name of politeness,
criticism, and belles lettres.
By these means the poets, for many years past, were all overrun with
pedantry. For, as I take it, the word is not properly used; because
pedantry is the too front or unseasonable obtruding our own knowledge in
common discourse, and placing too great a value upon it; by which
definition men of the court or the army may be as guilty of pedantry as a
philosopher or a divine; and it is the same vice in women when they are
over copious upon the subject of their petticoats, or their fans, or
their china. For which reason, although it be a piece of prudence, as
well as good manners, to put men upon talking on subjects they are best
versed in, yet that is a liberty a wise man could hardly take; because,
beside the imputation of pedantry, it is what he would never improve by.
This great town is usually provided with some player, mimic, or buffoon,
who hath a general reception at the good tables; familiar and domestic
with persons of the first quality, and usually sent for at every meeting
to divert the company, against which I have no objection. You go there
as to a farce or a puppet-show; your business is only to laugh in season,
either out of inclination or civility, while this merry companion is
acting his part. It is a business he hath undertaken, and we are to
suppose he is paid for his day's work. I only quarrel when in select and
private meetings, where men of wit and learning are invited to pass an
evening, this jester should be admitted to run over his circle of tricks,
and make the whole company unfit for any other conversation, besides the
indignity of confounding men's talents at so shameful a rate.
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 cometh up,
those who are not able to reach it content themselves with some paltry
imitation. It now passeth 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 whom 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
conversation 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 blamable; I mean, an impatience
to interrupt others, and the uneasiness of being interrupted ourselves.
The two chief ends of conversation 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 those two errors; because,
when any man speaketh in company, it is to be supposed he doth 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 seemeth to have
been introduced among us by Cromwell, who, by preferring 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.
There are some men excellent at telling a story, and provided with a
plentiful stock of them, which they can draw out upon occasion in all
companies; and considering how low conversation runs now among us, it is
not altogether a contemptible talent; however, it is subject to two
unavoidable defects: frequent repetition, and being soon exhausted; so
that whoever valueth this gift in himself hath need of a good memory, and
ought frequently to shift his company, that he may not discover the
weakness of his fund; for those who are thus endowed have seldom any
other revenue, but live upon the main stock.
Great speakers in public are seldom agreeable in private conversation,
whether their faculty be natural, or acquired by practice and often
venturing. Natural elocution, although it may seem a paradox, usually
springeth from a barrenness of invention and of words, by which men who
have only one stock of notions upon every subject, and one set of phrases
to express them in, they swim upon the superficies, and offer themselves
on every occasion; therefore, men of much learning, and who know the
compass of a language, are generally the worst talkers on a sudden, until
much practice hath inured and emboldened them; because they are
confounded with plenty of matter, variety of notions, and of words, which
they cannot readily choose, but are perplexed and entangled by too great
a choice, which is no disadvantage in private conversation; where, on the
other side, the talent of haranguing is, of all others, most
insupportable.
Nothing hath spoiled men more for conversation than the character of
being wits; to support which, they never fail of encouraging a number of
followers and admirers, who list themselves in their service, wherein
they find their accounts on both sides by pleasing their mutual vanity.
This hath given the former such an air of superiority, and made the
latter so pragmatical, that neither of them are well to be endured. I
say nothing here of the itch of dispute and contradiction, telling of
lies, or of those who are troubled with the disease called the wandering
of the thoughts, that they are never present in mind at what passeth in
discourse; for whoever labours under any of these possessions is as unfit
for conversation as madmen in Bedlam.
I think I have gone over most of the errors in conversation that have
fallen under my notice or memory, except some that are merely personal,
and others too gross to need exploding; such as lewd or profane talk; but
I pretend only to treat the errors of conversation in general, and not
the several subjects of discourse, which would be infinite. Thus we see
how human nature is most debased, by the abuse of that faculty, which is
held the great distinction between men and brutes; and how little
advantage we make of that which might be the greatest, the most lasting,
and the most innocent, as well as useful pleasure of life: in default of
which, we are forced to take up with those poor amusements of dress and
visiting, or the more pernicious ones of play, drink, and vicious amours,
whereby the nobility and gentry of both sexes are entirely corrupted both
in body and mind, and have lost all notions of love, honour, friendship,
and generosity; which, under the name of fopperies, have been for some
time laughed out of doors.
This degeneracy of conversation, with the pernicious consequences thereof
upon our humours and dispositions, hath been owing, among other causes,
to the custom arisen, for some time past, of excluding women from any
share in our society, further than in parties at play, or dancing, or in
the pursuit of an amour. I take the highest period of politeness in
England (and it is of the same date in France) to have been the peaceable
part of King Charles I. 's reign; and from what we read of those times, as
well as from the accounts I have formerly met with from some who lived in
that court, the methods then used for raising and cultivating
conversation were altogether different from ours; several ladies, whom we
find celebrated by the poets of that age, had assemblies at their houses,
where persons of the best understanding, and of both sexes, met to pass
the evenings in discoursing upon whatever agreeable subjects were
occasionally started; and although we are apt to ridicule the sublime
Platonic notions they had, or personated in love and friendship, I
conceive their refinements were grounded upon reason, and that a little
grain of the romance is no ill ingredient to preserve and exalt the
dignity of human nature, without which it is apt to degenerate into
everything that is sordid, vicious, and low. If there were no other use
in the conversation of ladies, it is sufficient that it would lay a
restraint upon those odious topics of immodesty and indecencies, into
which the rudeness of our northern genius is so apt to fall. And,
therefore, it is observable in those sprightly gentlemen about the town,
who are so very dexterous at entertaining a vizard mask in the park or
the playhouse, that, in the company of ladies of virtue and honour, they
are silent and disconcerted, and out of their element.
There are some people who think they sufficiently acquit themselves and
entertain their company with relating of facts of no consequence, nor at
all out of the road of such common incidents as happen every day; and
this I have observed more frequently among the Scots than any other
nation, who are very careful not to omit the minutest circumstances of
time or place; which kind of discourse, if it were not a little relieved
by the uncouth terms and phrases, as well as accent and gesture peculiar
to that country, would be hardly tolerable. It is not a fault in company
to talk much; but to continue it long is certainly one; for, if the
majority of those who are got together be naturally silent or cautious,
the conversation will flag, unless it be often renewed by one among them
who can start new subjects, provided he doth not dwell upon them, but
leaveth room for answers and replies.
THOUGHTS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS.
We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us
love one another.
Reflect on things past as wars, negotiations, factions, etc. We enter so
little into those interests, that we wonder how men could possibly be so
busy and concerned for things so transitory; look on the present times,
we find the same humour, yet wonder not at all.
A wise man endeavours, by considering all circumstances, to make
conjectures and form conclusions; but the smallest accident intervening
(and in the course of affairs it is impossible to foresee all) does often
produce such turns and changes, that at last he is just as much in doubt
of events as the most ignorant and inexperienced person.
Positiveness is a good quality for preachers and orators, because he that
would obtrude his thoughts and reasons upon a multitude, will convince
others the more, as he appears convinced himself.
How is it possible to expect that mankind will take advice, when they
will not so much as take warning?
I forget whether Advice be among the lost things which Aristo says are to
be found in the moon; that and Time ought to have been there.
No preacher is listened to but Time, which gives us the same train and
turn of thought that older people have tried in vain to put into our
heads before.
When we desire or solicit anything, our minds run wholly on the good side
or circumstances of it; when it is obtained, our minds run wholly on the
bad ones.
In a glass-house the workmen often fling in a small quantity of fresh
coals, which seems to disturb the fire, but very much enlivens it. This
seems to allude to a gentle stirring of the passions, that the mind may
not languish.
Religion seems to have grown an infant with age, and requires miracles to
nurse it, as it had in its infancy.
All fits of pleasure are balanced by an equal degree of pain or languor;
it is like spending this year part of the next year's revenue.
The latter part of a wise man's life is taken up in curing the follies,
prejudices, and false opinions he had contracted in the former.
Would a writer know how to behave himself with relation to posterity, let
him consider in old books what he finds that he is glad to know, and what
omissions he most laments.
Whatever the poets pretend, it is plain they give immortality to none but
themselves; it is Homer and Virgil we reverence and admire, not Achilles
or AEneas. With historians it is quite the contrary; our thoughts are
taken up with the actions, persons, and events we read, and we little
regard the authors.
When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign;
that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.
Men who possess all the advantages of life, are in a state where there
are many accidents to disorder and discompose, but few to please them.
It is unwise to punish cowards with ignominy, for if they had regarded
that they would not have been cowards; death is their proper punishment,
because they fear it most.
The greatest inventions were produced in the times of ignorance, as the
use of the compass, gunpowder, and printing, and by the dullest nation,
as the Germans.
One argument to prove that the common relations of ghosts and spectres
are generally false, may be drawn from the opinion held that spirits are
never seen by more than one person at a time; that is to say, it seldom
happens to above one person in a company to be possessed with any high
degree of spleen or melancholy.
I am apt to think that, in the day of Judgment, there will be small
allowance given to the wise for their want of morals, nor to the ignorant
for their want of faith, because both are without excuse. This renders
the advantages equal of ignorance and knowledge. But, some scruples in
the wise, and some vices in the ignorant, will perhaps be forgiven upon
the strength of temptation to each.
The value of several circumstances in story lessens very much by distance
of time, though some minute circumstances are very valuable; and it
requires great judgment in a writer to distinguish.
It is grown a word of course for writers to say, "This critical age," as
divines say, "This sinful age. "
It is pleasant to observe how free the present age is in laying taxes on
the next. _Future ages shall talk of this_; _this shall be famous to all
posterity_. Whereas their time and thoughts will be taken up about
present things, as ours are now.
The chameleon, who is said to feed upon nothing but air, hath, of all
animals, the nimblest tongue.
When a man is made a spiritual peer he loses his surname; when a
temporal, his Christian name.
It is in disputes as in armies, where the weaker side sets up false
lights, and makes a great noise, to make the enemy believe them more
numerous and strong than they really are.
Some men, under the notions of weeding out prejudices, eradicate virtue,
honesty, and religion.
In all well-instituted commonwealths, care has been taken to limit men's
possessions; which is done for many reasons, and among the rest, for one
which perhaps is not often considered: that when bounds are set to men's
desires, after they have acquired as much as the laws will permit them,
their private interest is at an end, and they have nothing to do but to
take care of the public.
There are but three ways for a man to revenge himself of the censure of
the world: to despise it, to return the like, or to endeavour to live so
as to avoid it. The first of these is usually pretended, the last is
almost impossible; the universal practice is for the second.
I never heard a finer piece of satire against lawyers than that of
astrologers, when they pretend by rules of art to tell when a suit will
end, and whether to the advantage of the plaintiff or defendant; thus
making the matter depend entirely upon the influence of the stars,
without the least regard to the merits of the cause.
The expression in Apocrypha about Tobit and his dog following him I have
often heard ridiculed, yet Homer has the same words of Telemachus more
than once; and Virgil says something like it of Evander. And I take the
book of Tobit to be partly poetical.
I have known some men possessed of good qualities, which were very
serviceable to others, but useless to themselves; like a sun-dial on the
front of a house, to inform the neighbours and passengers, but not the
owner within.
If a man would register all his opinions upon love, politics, religion,
learning, etc. , beginning from his youth and so go on to old age, what a
bundle of inconsistencies and contradictions would appear at last!
What they do in heaven we are ignorant of; what they do not we are told
expressly: that they neither marry, nor are given in marriage.
It is a miserable thing to live in suspense; it is the life of a spider.
The Stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires, is
like cutting off our feet when we want shoes.
Physicians ought not to give their judgment of religion, for the same
reason that butchers are not admitted to be jurors upon life and death.
The reason why so few marriages are happy, is, because young ladies spend
their time in making nets, not in making cages.
If a man will observe as he walks the streets, I believe he will find the
merriest countenances in mourning coaches.
Nothing more unqualifies a man to act with prudence than a misfortune
that is attended with shame and guilt.
The power of fortune is confessed only by the miserable; for the happy
impute all their success to prudence or merit.
Ambition often puts men upon doing the meanest offices; so climbing is
performed in the same posture with creeping.
Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent.
Although men are accused for not knowing their own weakness, yet perhaps
as few know their own strength. It is, in men as in soils, where
sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not of.
Satire is reckoned the easiest of all wit, but I take it to be otherwise
in very bad times: for it is as hard to satirise well a man of
distinguished vices, as to praise well a man of distinguished virtues. It
is easy enough to do either to people of moderate characters.
Invention is the talent of youth, and judgment of age; so that our
judgment grows harder to please, when we have fewer things to offer it:
this goes through the whole commerce of life. When we are old, our
friends find it difficult to please us, and are less concerned whether we
be pleased or no.
No wise man ever wished to be younger.
An idle reason lessens the weight of the good ones you gave before.
The motives of the best actions will not bear too strict an inquiry. It
is allowed that the cause of most actions, good or bad, may he resolved
into the love of ourselves; but the self-love of some men inclines them
to please others, and the self-love of others is wholly employed in
pleasing themselves. This makes the great distinction between virtue and
vice. Religion is the best motive of all actions, yet religion is
allowed to be the highest instance of self-love.
Old men view best at a distance with the eyes of their understanding as
well as with those of nature.
Some people take more care to hide their wisdom than their folly.
Anthony Henley's farmer, dying of an asthma, said, "Well, if I can get
this breath once _out_, I'll take care it never got _in_ again. "
The humour of exploding many things under the name of trifles, fopperies,
and only imaginary goods, is a very false proof either of wisdom or
magnanimity, and a great check to virtuous actions. For instance, with
regard to fame, there is in most people a reluctance and unwillingness to
be forgotten. We observe, even among the vulgar, how fond they are to
have an inscription over their grave. It requires but little philosophy
to discover and observe that there is no intrinsic value in all this;
however, if it be founded in our nature as an incitement to virtue, it
ought not to be ridiculed.
Complaint is the largest tribute heaven receives, and the sincerest part
of our devotion.
The common fluency of speech in many men, and most women, is owing to a
scarcity of matter, and a scarcity of words; for whoever is a master of
language, and hath a mind full of ideas, will be apt, in speaking, to
hesitate upon the choice of both; whereas common speakers have only one
set of ideas, and one set of words to clothe them in, and these are
always ready at the mouth. So people come faster out of a church when it
is almost empty, than when a crowd is at the door.
Few are qualified to shine in company; but it is in most men's power to
be agreeable. The reason, therefore, why conversation runs so low at
present, is not the defect of understanding, but pride, vanity,
ill-nature, affectation, singularity, positiveness, or some other vice,
the effect of a wrong education.
To be vain is rather a mark of humility than pride. Vain men delight in
telling what honours have been done them, what great company they have
kept, and the like, by which they plainly confess that these honours were
more than their due, and such as their friends would not believe if they
had not been told: whereas a man truly proud thinks the greatest honours
below his merit, and consequently scorns to boast. I therefore deliver
it as a maxim, that whoever desires the character of a proud man, ought
to conceal his vanity.
Law, in a free country, is, or ought to be, the determination of the
majority of those who have property in land.
One argument used to the disadvantage of Providence I take to be a very
strong one in its defence. It is objected that storms and tempests,
unfruitful seasons, serpents, spiders, flies, and other noxious or
troublesome animals, with many more instances of the like kind, discover
an imperfection in nature, because human life would be much easier
without them; but the design of Providence may clearly be perceived in
this proceeding. The motions of the sun and moon--in short, the whole
system of the universe, as far as philosophers have been able to discover
and observe, are in the utmost degree of regularity and perfection; but
wherever God hath left to man the power of interposing a remedy by
thought or labour, there he hath placed things in a state of
imperfection, on purpose to stir up human industry, without which life
would stagnate, or, indeed, rather, could not subsist at all: _Curis
accuunt mortalia corda_.
Praise is the daughter of present power.
How inconsistent is man with himself!
I have known several persons of great fame for wisdom in public affairs
and counsels governed by foolish servants.
I have known great Ministers, distinguished for wit and learning, who
preferred none but dunces.
I have known men of great valour cowards to their wives.
I have known men of the greatest cunning perpetually cheated.
I knew three great Ministers, who could exactly compute and settle the
accounts of a kingdom, but were wholly ignorant of their own economy.
The preaching of divines helps to preserve well-inclined men in the
course of virtue, but seldom or never reclaims the vicious.
Princes usually make wiser choices than the servants whom they trust for
the disposal of places: I have known a prince, more than once, choose an
able Minister, but I never observed that Minister to use his credit in
the disposal of an employment to a person whom he thought the fittest for
it. One of the greatest in this age owned and excused the matter from
the violence of parties and the unreasonableness of friends.
Small causes are sufficient to make a man uneasy when great ones are not
in the way. For want of a block he will stumble at a straw.
Dignity, high station, or great riches, are in some sort necessary to old
men, in order to keep the younger at a distance, who are otherwise too
apt to insult them upon the score of their age.
Every man desires to live long; but no man would be old.
Love of flattery in most men proceeds from the mean opinion they have of
themselves; in women from the contrary.
If books and laws continue to increase as they have done for fifty years
past, I am in some concern for future ages how any man will be learned,
or any man a lawyer.
Kings are commonly said to have _long hands_; I wish they had as _long
ears_.
Princes in their infancy, childhood, and youth are said to discover
prodigious parts and wit, to speak things that surprise and astonish.
Strange, so many hopeful princes, and so many shameful kings! If they
happen to die young, they would have been prodigies of wisdom and virtue.
If they live, they are often prodigies indeed, but of another sort.
Politics, as the word is commonly understood, are nothing but
corruptions, and consequently of no use to a good king or a good
ministry; for which reason Courts are so overrun with politics.
A nice man is a man of nasty ideas.
Apollo was held the god of physic and sender of diseases. Both were
originally the same trade, and still continue.
Old men and comets have been reverenced for the same reason: their long
beards, and pretences to foretell events.
A person was asked at court, what he thought of an ambassador and his
train, who were all embroidery and lace, full of bows, cringes, and
gestures; he said, it was Solomon's importation, gold and apes.
Most sorts of diversion in men, children, and other animals, is an
imitation of fighting.
Augustus meeting an ass with a lucky name foretold himself good fortune.
I meet many asses, but none of them have lucky names.
If a man makes me keep my distance, the comfort is he keeps his at the
same time.
Who can deny that all men are violent lovers of truth when we see them so
positive in their errors, which they will maintain out of their zeal to
truth, although they contradict themselves every day of their lives?
That was excellently observed, say I, when I read a passage in an author,
where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, there I pronounce
him to be mistaken.
Very few men, properly speaking, live at present, but are providing to
live another time.
Laws penned with the utmost care and exactness, and in the vulgar
language, are often perverted to wrong meanings; then why should we
wonder that the Bible is so?
Although men are accused for not knowing their weakness, yet perhaps as
few know their own strength.
A man seeing a wasp creeping into a vial filled with honey, that was hung
on a fruit tree, said thus: "Why, thou sottish animal, art thou mad to go
into that vial, where you see many hundred of your kind there dying in it
before you? " "The reproach is just," answered the wasp, "but not from
you men, who are so far from taking example by other people's follies,
that you will not take warning by your own. If after falling several
times into this vial, and escaping by chance, I should fall in again, I
should then but resemble you. "
An old miser kept a tame jackdaw, that used to steal pieces of money, and
hide them in a hole, which the cat observing, asked why he would hoard up
those round shining things that he could make no use of? "Why," said the
jackdaw, "my master has a whole chest full, and makes no more use of them
than I. "
Men are content to be laughed at for their wit, but not for their folly.
If the men of wit and genius would resolve never to complain in their
works of critics and detractors, the next age would not know that they
ever had any.
After all the maxims and systems of trade and commerce, a stander-by
would think the affairs of the world were most ridiculously contrived.
There are few countries which, if well cultivated, would not support
double the number of their inhabitants, and yet fewer where one-third of
the people are not extremely stinted even in the necessaries of life. I
send out twenty barrels of corn, which would maintain a family in bread
for a year, and I bring back in return a vessel of wine, which half a
dozen good follows would drink in less than a month, at the expense of
their health and reason.
A man would have but few spectators, if he offered to show for threepence
how he could thrust a red-hot iron into a barrel of gunpowder, and it
should not take fire.
FOOTNOTES:
{1} Two puppet-show men.
{2} The house-keeper.
{3} The butler.
{4} The footman.
{5} The priest his confessor.
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