No More Learning

No. 66. SATURDAY, JULY 21, 1759.

No complaint is more frequently repeated among the learned, than that
of the waste made by time among the labours of antiquity. Of those who
once filled the civilized world with their renown, nothing is now left
but their names, which are left only to raise desires that never can be
satisfied, and sorrow which never can be comforted.

Had all the writings of the ancients been faithfully delivered down from
age to age, had the Alexandrian library been spared, and the Palatine
repositories remained unimpaired, how much might we have known of which
we are now doomed to be ignorant! how many laborious inquiries, and dark
conjectures; how many collations of broken hints and mutilated passages
might have been spared! We should have known the successions of princes,
the revolutions of empires, the actions of the great, and opinions of
the wise, the laws and constitutions of every state, and the arts by
which publick grandeur and happiness are acquired and preserved; we
should have traced the progress of life, seen colonies from distant
regions take possession of European deserts, and troops of savages
settled into communities by the desire of keeping what they had
acquired; we should have traced the gradations of civility, and
travelled upward to the original of things by the light of history, till
in remoter times it had glimmered in fable, and at last sunk into
darkness.

If the works of imagination had been less diminished, it is likely that
all future times might have been supplied with inexhaustible amusement
by the fictions of antiquity. The tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides
would all have shown the stronger passions in all their diversities; and
the comedies of Menander would have furnished all the maxims of
domestick life. Nothing would have been necessary to moral wisdom but to
have studied these great masters, whose knowledge would have guided
doubt, and whose authority would have silenced cavils.

Such are the thoughts that rise in every student, when his curiosity is
eluded, and his searches are frustrated; yet it may, perhaps, be
doubted, whether our complaints are not sometimes inconsiderate, and
whether we do not imagine more evil than we feel. Of the ancients,
enough remains to excite our emulation and direct our endeavours. Many
of the works which time has left us, we know to have been these that
were most esteemed, and which antiquity itself considered as models; so
that, having the originals, we may without much regret lose the
imitations. The obscurity which the want of contemporary writers often
produces, only darkens single passages, and those commonly of slight
importance. The general tendency of every piece may be known; and though
that diligence deserves praise which leaves nothing unexamined, yet its
miscarriages are not much to be lamented; for the most useful truths are
always universal, and unconnected with accidents and customs.

Such is the general conspiracy of human nature against contemporary
merit, that, if we had inherited from antiquity enough to afford
employment for the laborious, and amusement for the idle, I know not
what room would have been left for modern genius or modern industry;
almost every subject would have been pre-occupied, and every style would
have been fixed by a precedent from which few would have ventured to
depart. Every writer would have had a rival, whose superiority was
already acknowledged, and to whose fame his work would, even before it
was seen, be marked out for a sacrifice.

We see how little the united experience of mankind hath been able to add
to the heroick characters displayed by Homer, and how few incidents the
fertile imagination of modern Italy has yet produced, which may not be
found in the Iliad and Odyssey. It is likely, that if all the works of
the Athenian philosophers had been extant, Malbranche and Locke would
have been condemned to be silent readers of the ancient metaphysicians;
and it is apparent, that, if the old writers had all remained, the Idler
could not have written a disquisition on the loss[1].

[1] There was a weighty meaning in that fiction of the Stoics, of a
grand periodic year, in which all events should be re-acted in the same
mode and order as before. There is nothing new under the sun. Whatever
is, or shall be, is only an imitation, or, at best, a re-production of
something that has been. The moralist who speculates on the
contingencies of human conduct can only divine the future from what has
already been acted on the earth. The philosopher, leaning on principles
which Science styles immutable, is confined within the narrow bounds of
created matter. Why then should Reason make us undervalue that
Revelation which carries us upwards to Creation's birth, and bears us
downward to a period when time shall be no longer? ED.




No. 67. SATURDAY, JULY 28, 1759.

TO THE IDLER.

Sir,

In the observations which you have made on the various opinions and
pursuits of mankind, you must often, in literary conversations, have met
with men who consider dissipation as the great enemy of the intellect;
and maintain, that, in proportion as the student keeps himself within
the bounds of a settled plan, he will more certainly advance in science.

This opinion is, perhaps, generally true; yet, when we contemplate the
inquisitive nature of the human mind, and its perpetual impatience of
all restraint, it may be doubted whether the faculties may not be
contracted by confining the attention; and whether it may not sometimes
be proper to risk the certainty of little for the chance of much.
Acquisitions of knowledge, like blazes of genius, are often fortuitous.
Those who had proposed to themselves a methodical course of reading,
light by accident on a new book, which seizes their thoughts and kindles
their curiosity, and opens an unexpected prospect, to which the way
which they had prescribed to themselves would never have conducted them.

To enforce and illustrate my meaning, I have sent you a journal of three
days' employment, found among the papers of a late intimate
acquaintance; who, as will plainly appear, was a man of vast designs,
and of vast performances, though he sometimes designed one thing, and
performed another. I allow that the Spectator's inimitable productions
of this kind may well discourage all subsequent journalists; but, as the
subject of this is different from that of any which the Spectator has
given us, I leave it to you to publish or suppress it.

Mem. The following three days I purpose to give up to reading; and
intend, after all the delays which have obtruded themselves upon me, to
finish my Essay on the Extent of the Mental powers; to revise my
Treatise on Logick; to begin the Epick which I have long projected; to
proceed in my perusal of the Scriptures with Grotius's Comment; and at
my leisure to regale myself with the works of classicks, ancient and
modern, and to finish my Ode to Astronomy.

Monday. ] Designed to rise at six, but, by my servant's laziness, my fire
was not lighted before eight, when I dropped into a slumber that lasted
till nine; at which time I arose, and, after breakfast, at ten, sat down
to study, purposing to begin upon my Essay; but, finding occasion to
consult a passage in Plato, was absorbed in the perusal of the Republick
till twelve. I had neglected to forbid company, and now enters Tom
Careless, who, after half an hour's chat, insisted upon my going with
him to enjoy an absurd character, that he had appointed, by an
advertisement, to meet him at a particular coffee-house. After we had
for some time entertained ourselves with him, we sallied out, designing
each to repair to his home; but, as it fell out, coming up in the street
to a man whose steel by his side declared him a butcher, we overheard
him opening an address to a genteelish sort of young lady, whom he
walked with: "Miss, though your father is master of a coal-lighter, and
you will be a great fortune, 'tis true; yet I wish I may be cut into
quarters if it is not only love, and not lucre of gain, that is my
motive for offering terms of marriage. " As this lover proceeded in his
speech, he misled us the length of three streets, in admiration at the
unlimited power of the tender passion, that could soften even the heart
of a butcher. We then adjourned to a tavern, and from thence to one of
the publick gardens, where I was regaled with a most amusing variety of
men possessing great talents, so discoloured by affectation, that they
only made them eminently ridiculous; shallow things, who, by continual
dissipation, had annihilated the few ideas nature had given them, and
yet were celebrated for wonderful pretty gentlemen; young ladies
extolled for their wit, because they were handsome; illiterate empty
women as well as men, in high life, admired for their knowledge, from
their being resolutely positive; and women of real understanding so far
from pleasing the polite million, that they frightened them away, and
were left solitary. When we quitted this entertaining scene, Tom pressed
me, irresistibly, to sup with him. I reached home at twelve, and then
reflected, that, though indeed I had, by remarking various characters,
improved my insight into human nature, yet still I had neglected the
studies proposed, and accordingly took up my Treatise on Logick, to give
it the intended revisal, but found my spirits too much agitated, and
could not forbear a few satirical lines, under the title of The
Evening's Walk.

Tuesday. ] At breakfast, seeing my Ode to Astronomy lying on my desk, I
was struck with a train of ideas, that I thought might contribute to its
improvement. I immediately rang my bell to forbid all visitants, when my
servant opened the door, with, "Sir, Mr. Jeffery Gape. " My cup dropped
out of one hand, and my poem out of the other. I could scarcely ask him
to sit; he told me he was going to walk, but, as there was a likelihood
of rain, he would sit with me; he said, he intended at first to have
called at Mr. Vacant's, but as he had not seen me a great while, he did
not mind coming out of his way to wait on me; I made him a bow, but
thanks for the favour stuck in my throat. I asked him if he had been to
the coffee-house; he replied, Two hours.

Under the oppression of this dull interruption, I sat looking wishfully
at the clock; for which, to increase my satisfaction, I had chosen the
inscription, "Art is long, and life is short;" exchanging questions and
answers at long intervals, and not without some hints that the
weather-glass promised fair weather. At half an hour after three he told
me he would trespass on me for a dinner, and desired me to send to his
house for a bundle of papers, about inclosing a common upon his estate,
which he would read to me in the evening. I declared myself busy, and Mr.
Gape went away.

Having dined, to compose my chagrin I took up Virgil, and several other
classicks, but could not calm my mind, or proceed in my scheme. At about
five I laid my hand on a Bible that lay on my table, at first with
coldness and insensibility; but was imperceptibly engaged in a close
attention to its sublime morality, and felt my heart expanded by warm
philanthropy, and exalted to dignity of sentiment. I then censured my
too great solicitude, and my disgust conceived at my acquaintance, who
had been so far from designing to offend, that he only meant to show
kindness and respect. In this strain of mind I wrote An Essay on
Benevolence, and An Elegy on Sublunary Disappointments. When I had
finished these, at eleven, I supped, and recollected how little I had
adhered to my plan, and almost questioned the possibility of pursuing
any settled and uniform design; however, I was not so far persuaded of
the truth of these suggestions, but that I resolved to try once more at
my scheme. As I observed the moon shining through my window, from a calm
and bright sky spangled with innumerable stars, I indulged a pleasing
meditation on the splendid scene, and finished my Ode to Astronomy.

Wednesday. ] Rose at seven, and employed three hours in perusal of the
Scriptures with Grotius's Comment; and after breakfast fell into
meditation concerning my projected Epick; and being in some doubt as to
the particular lives of some heroes, whom I proposed to celebrate, I
consulted Bayle and Moreri, and was engaged two hours in examining
various lives and characters, but then resolved to go to my employment.
When I was seated at my desk, and began to feel the glowing succession
of poetical ideas, my servant brought me a letter from a lawyer,
requiring my instant attendance at Gray's Inn for half an hour. I went
full of vexation, and was involved in business till eight at night; and
then, being too much fatigued to study, supped, and went to bed.

Here my friend's Journal concludes, which, perhaps, is pretty much a
picture of the manner in which many prosecute their studies. I therefore
resolved to send it you, imagining, that, if you think it worthy of
appearing in your paper, some of your readers may receive entertainment
by recognising a resemblance between my friend's conduct and their own.
It must be left to the Idler accurately to ascertain the proper methods
of advancing in literature; but this one position, deducible from what
has been said above, may, I think, be reasonably asserted, that he who
finds himself strongly attracted to any particular study, though it may
happen to be out of his proposed scheme, if it is not trifling or
vicious, had better continue his application to it, since it is likely
that he will, with much more ease and expedition, attain that which a
warm inclination stimulates him to pursue, than that at which a
prescribed law compels him to toil. [1]

I am, &c.

[1] This paper, which is evidently throughout allusive to the Idler's
own broken resolutions, was the composition of Bennet Langton, for
whom Johnson cherished the fondest regard. In his admiration he
ventured even to exclaim, "Sit anima mea cum Langtono. " Boswell,
iv. --ED.




No. 68. SATURDAY, AUGUST 4, 1759.

Among the studies which have exercised the ingenious and the learned for
more than three centuries, none has been more diligently or more
successfully cultivated than the art of translation; by which the
impediments which bar the way to science are, in some measure, removed,
and the multiplicity of languages become less incommodious.

Of every other kind of writing the ancients have left us models which
all succeeding ages have laboured to imitate; but translation may justly
be claimed by the moderns as their own. In the first ages of the world
instruction was commonly oral, and learning traditional, and what was
not written could not be translated. When alphabetical writing made the
conveyance of opinions and the transmission of events more easy and
certain, literature did not flourish in more than one country at once,
or distant nations had little commerce with each other; and those few
whom curiosity sent abroad in quest of improvement, delivered their
acquisitions in their own manner, desirous, perhaps, to be considered as
the inventors of that which they had learned from others.

The Greeks for a time travelled into Egypt, but they translated no books
from the Egyptian language; and when the Macedonians had overthrown the
empire of Persia, the countries that became subject to Grecian dominion
studied only the Grecian literature. The books of the conquered nations,
if they had any among them, sunk into oblivion; Greece considered
herself as the mistress, if not as the parent of arts, her language
contained all that was supposed to be known, and, except the sacred
writings of the Old Testament, I know not that the library of Alexandria
adopted any thing from a foreign tongue.

The Romans confessed themselves the scholars of the Greeks, and do not
appear to have expected, what has since happened, that the ignorance of
succeeding ages would prefer them to their teachers. Every man, who in
Rome aspired to the praise of literature, thought it necessary to learn
Greek, and had no need of versions when they could study the originals.
Translation, however, was not wholly neglected. Dramatick poems could be
understood by the people in no language but their own, and the Romans
were sometimes entertained with the tragedies of Euripides and the
comedies of Menander. Other works were sometimes attempted; in an old
scholiast there is mention of a Latin Iliad; and we have not wholly lost
Tully's version of the poem of Aratus; but it does not appear that any
man grew eminent by interpreting another, and perhaps it was more
frequent to translate for exercise or amusement, than for fame.

The Arabs were the first nation who felt the ardour of translation: when
they had subdued the eastern provinces of the Greek empire, they found
their captives wiser than themselves, and made haste to relieve their
wants by imparted knowledge. They discovered that many might grow wise
by the labour of a few, and that improvements might be made with speed,
when they had the knowledge of former ages in their own language. They,
therefore, made haste to lay hold on medicine end philosophy, and turned
their chief authors into Arabick[1]. Whether they attempted the poets is
not known; their literary zeal was vehement, but it was short, and
probably expired before they had time to add the arts of elegance to
those of necessity.

The study of ancient literature was interrupted in Europe by the
irruption of the Northern nations, who subverted the Roman empire, and
erected new kingdoms with new languages. It is not strange that such
confusion should suspend literary attention; those who lost, and those
who gained dominion, had immediate difficulties to encounter, and
immediate miseries to redress, and had little leisure, amidst the
violence of war, the trepidation of flight, the distresses of forced
migration, or the tumults of unsettled conquest, to inquire after
speculative truth, to enjoy the amusement of imaginary adventures, to
know the history of former ages, or study the events of any other lives.
But no sooner had this chaos of dominion sunk into order, than learning
began again to flourish in the calm of peace. When life and possessions
were secure, convenience and enjoyment were soon sought, learning was
found the highest gratification of the mind, and translation became one
of the means by which it was imparted.

At last, by a concurrence of many causes, the European world was roused
from its lethargy; those arts which had been long obscurely studied in
the gloom of monasteries became the general favourites of mankind; every
nation vied with its neighbour for the prize of learning; the epidemical
emulation spread from south to north, and curiosity and translation
found their way to Britain.

[1] Some popular information on the interesting subject of Arabian
Literature, is collected in the third part of Harris's Philological
Inquiries. Mr. Hallam's History of the Middle Ages is a rich storehouse
for these points. --ED.




No. 69. SATURDAY, AUGUST 11, 1759.

He that reviews the progress of English literature, will find that
translation was very early cultivated among us, but that some
principles, either wholly erroneous or too far extended, hindered our
success from being always equal to our diligence.

Chaucer, who is generally considered as the father of our poetry, has
left a version of Boethius on the Comforts of Philosophy, the book which
seems to have been the favourite of the middle ages, which had been
translated into Saxon by King Alfred, and illustrated with a copious
comment ascribed to Aquinas. It may be supposed that Chaucer would apply
more than common attention to an author of so much celebrity, yet he has
attempted nothing higher than a version strictly literal, and has
degraded the poetical parts to prose, that the constraint of
versification might not obstruct his zeal for fidelity.

Caxton taught us typography about the year 1474. The first book printed
in English was a translation. Caxton was both the translator and printer
of the Destruction of Troye; a book which, in that infancy of learning,
was considered as the best account of the fabulous ages, and which,
though now driven out of notice by authors of no greater use or value,
still continued to be read in Caxton's English to the beginning of the
present century.

Caxton proceeded as he began, and, except the poems of Gower and
Chaucer, printed nothing but translations from the French, in which the
original is so scrupulously followed, that they afford us little
knowledge of our own language: though the words are English, the phrase
is foreign.

As learning advanced, new works were adopted into our language, but I
think with little improvement of the art of translation, though foreign
nations and other languages offered us models of a better method; till
in the age of Elizabeth we began to find that greater liberty was
necessary to elegance, and that elegance was necessary to general
reception; some essays were then made upon the Italian poets, which
deserve the praise and gratitude of posterity.

But the old practice was not suddenly forsaken: Holland filled the
nation with literal translation; and, what is yet more strange, the same
exactness was obstinately practised in the versions of the poets. This
absurd labour of construing into rhyme was countenanced by Jonson in his
version of Horace; and whether it be that more men have learning than
genius, or that the endeavours of that time were more directed towards
knowledge than delight, the accuracy of Jonson found more imitators than
the elegance of Fairfax; and May, Sandys and Holiday, confined
themselves to the toil of rendering line for line, not indeed with equal
felicity, for May and Sandys were poets, and Holiday only a scholar and
a critick.

Feltham appears to consider it as the established law of poetical
translation, that the lines should be neither more nor fewer than those
of the original; and so long had this prejudice prevailed, that Denham
praises Fanshaw's version of Guarini as the example of a _new and noble
way_, as the first attempt to break the boundaries of custom, and assert
the natural freedom of the Muse.

In the general emulation of wit and genius which the festivity of the
Restoration produced, the poets shook off their constraint, and
considered translation as no longer confined to servile closeness. But
reformation is seldom the work of pure virtue or unassisted reason.
Translation was improved more by accident than conviction. The writers
of the foregoing age had at least learning equal to their genius; and,
being often more able to explain the sentiments or illustrate the
allusions of the ancients, than to exhibit their graces and transfuse
their spirit, were, perhaps, willing sometimes to conceal their want of
poetry by profusion of literature, and, therefore, translated literally,
that their fidelity might shelter their insipidity or harshness. The
wits of Charles's time had seldom more than slight and superficial
views; and their care was to hide their want of learning behind the
colours of a gay imagination; they, therefore, translated always with
freedom, sometimes with licentiousness, and, perhaps, expected that
their readers should accept sprightliness for knowledge, and consider
ignorance and mistake as the impatience and negligence of a mind too
rapid to stop at difficulties, and too elevated to descend to
minuteness.

Thus was translation made more easy to the writer, and more delightful
to the reader; and there is no wonder if ease and pleasure have found
their advocates. The paraphrastick liberties have been almost
universally admitted; and Sherbourn, whose learning was eminent, and who
had no need of any excuse to pass slightly over obscurities, is the only
writer who, in later times, has attempted to justify or revive the
ancient severity.

There is undoubtedly a mean to be observed. Dryden saw very early that
closeness best preserved an author's sense, and that freedom best
exhibited his spirit; he, therefore, will deserve the highest praise,
who can give a representation at once faithful and pleasing, who can
convey the same thoughts with the same graces, and who, when he
translates, changes nothing but the language[1].

[1] Much research on this branch of literature is exhibited in Lord
Woodhouselee's Principles of Translation.




No. 70. SATURDAY, AUGUST 18, 1759.

Few faults of style, whether real or imaginary, excite the malignity of
a more numerous class of readers, than the use of hard words.

If an author be supposed to involve his thoughts in voluntary obscurity,
and to obstruct, by unnecessary difficulties, a mind eager in pursuit of
truth; if he writes not to make others learned, but to boast the
learning which he possesses himself, and wishes to be admired rather
than understood, he counteracts the first end of writing, and justly
suffers the utmost severity of censure, or the more afflictive severity
of neglect.

But words are hard only to those who do not understand them; and the
critick ought always to inquire, whether he is incommoded by the fault
of the writer or by his own.

Every author does not write for every reader; many questions are such as
the illiterate part of mankind can have neither interest nor pleasure in
discussing, and which, therefore, it would be an useless endeavour to
level with common minds, by tiresome circumlocutions or laborious
explanations; and many subjects of general use may be treated in a
different manner, as the book is intended for the learned or the
ignorant. Diffusion and explication are necessary to the instruction of
those who, being neither able nor accustomed to think for themselves,
can learn only what is expressly taught; but they who can form
parallels, discover consequences, and multiply conclusions, are best
pleased with involution of argument and compression of thought; they
desire only to receive the seeds of knowledge which they may branch out
by their own power, to have the way to truth pointed out, which they can
then follow without a guide.

The Guardian directs one of his pupils, "to think with the wise, but
speak with the vulgar. " This is a precept specious enough, but not
always practicable. Difference of thoughts will produce difference of
language. He that thinks with more extent than another will want words
of larger meaning; he that thinks with more subtilty will seek for terms
of more nice discrimination; and where is the wonder, since words are
but the images of things, that he who never knew the original should not
know the copies?

Yet vanity inclines us to find faults any where rather than in
ourselves. He that reads and grows no wiser, seldom suspects his own
deficiency; but complains of hard words and obscure sentences, and asks
why books are written which cannot be understood?

Among the hard words which are no longer to be used, it has been long
the custom to number terms of art. "Every man," says Swift, "is more
able to explain the subject of an art than its professors; a farmer will
tell you, in two words, that he has broken his leg; but a surgeon, after
a long discourse, shall leave you as ignorant as you were before. " This
could only have been said, by such an exact observer of life, in
gratification of malignity, or in ostentation of acuteness. Every hour
produces instances of the necessity of terms of art. Mankind could never
conspire in uniform affectation; it is not but by necessity that every
science and every trade has its peculiar language. They that content
themselves with general ideas may rest in general terms; but those,
whose studies or employments force them upon closer inspection, must
have names for particular parts, and words by which they may express
various modes of combination, such as none but themselves have occasion
to consider.

Artists are indeed sometimes ready to suppose that none can be strangers
to words to which themselves are familiar, talk to an incidental
inquirer as they talk to one another, and make their knowledge
ridiculous by injudicious obtrusion. An art cannot be taught but by its
proper terms, but it is not always necessary to teach the art.

That the vulgar express their thoughts clearly, is far from true; and
what perspicuity can be found among them proceeds not from the easiness
of their language, but the shallowness of their thoughts. He that sees a
building as a common spectator, contents himself with relating that it
is great or little, mean or splendid, lofty or low; all these words are
intelligible and common, but they convey no distinct or limited ideas;
if he attempts, without the terms of architecture, to delineate the
parts, or enumerate the ornaments, his narration at once becomes
unintelligible. The terms, indeed, generally displease, because they are
understood by few; but they are little understood, only because few that
look upon an edifice examine its parts, or analyze its columns into
their members.

The state of every other art is the same; as it is cursorily surveyed or
accurately examined, different forms of expression become proper. In
morality it is one thing to discuss the niceties of the casuist, and
another to direct the practice of common life. In agriculture, he that
instructs the farmer to plough and sow, may convey his notions without
the words which he would find necessary in explaining to philosophers
the process of vegetation; and if he, who has nothing to do but to be
honest by the shortest way, will perplex his mind with subtile
speculations; or if he, whose task is to reap and thrash, will not be
contented without examining the evolution of the seed and circulation of
the sap; the writers whom either shall consult are very little to be
blamed, though it should sometimes happen that they are read in vain.




No. 71. SATURDAY, AUGUST 25, 1759.

Celan le selve angui, leoni, ed orsi
Dentro il lor verde. TASSO, L'AMINTA.

Dick Shifter was born in Cheapside, and, having passed reputably through
all the classes of St. Paul's school, has been for some years a student
in the Temple. He is of opinion, that intense application dulls the
faculties, and thinks it necessary to temper the severity of the law by
books that engage the mind, but do not fatigue it. He has, therefore,
made a copious collection of plays, poems, and romances, to which he has
recourse when he fancies himself tired with statutes and reports; and he
seldom inquires very nicely whether he is weary or idle.

Dick has received from his favourite authors very strong impressions of
a country life; and though his furthest excursions have been to
Greenwich on one side, and Chelsea on the other, he has talked for
several years, with great pomp of language and elevation of sentiments,
about a state too high for contempt and too low for envy, about homely
quiet and blameless simplicity, pastoral delights and rural innocence.

His friends, who, had estates in the country, often invited him to pass
the summer among them, but something or other had always hindered him;
and he considered, that to reside in the house of another man was to
incur a kind of dependence inconsistent with that laxity of life which
he had imaged as the chief good.

This summer he resolved to be happy, and procured a lodging to be taken
for him at a solitary house, situated about thirty miles from London, on
the banks of a small river, with corn-fields before it and a hill on
each side covered with wood. He concealed the place of his retirement,
that none might violate his obscurity, and promised himself many a happy
day when he should hide himself among the trees, and contemplate the
tumults and vexations of the town.

He stepped into the post-chaise with his heart beating and his eyes
sparkling, was conveyed through many varieties of delightful prospects,
saw hills and meadows, cornfields and pasture, succeed each other, and
for four hours charged none of his poets with fiction or exaggeration.
He was now within six miles of happiness, when, having never felt so
much agitation before, he began to wish his journey at an end, and the
last hour was passed in changing his posture and quarrelling with his
driver.

An hour may be tedious, but cannot be long. He at length alighted at his
new dwelling, and was received as he expected; he looked round upon the
hills and rivulets, but his joints were stiff and his muscles sore, and
his first request was to see his bed-chamber.

He rested well, and ascribed the soundness of his sleep to the stillness
of the country. He expected from that time nothing but nights of quiet
and days of rapture, and, as soon as he had risen, wrote an account of
his new state to one of his friends in the Temple.

"Dear Frank,

"I never pitied thee before. I am now, as I could wish every man of
wisdom and virtue to be, in the regions of calm content and placid
meditation; with all the beauties of nature soliciting my notice, and
all the diversities of pleasure courting my acceptance; the birds are
chirping in the hedges, and the flowers blooming in the mead; the breeze
is whistling in the wood, and the sun dancing on the water. I can now
say, with truth, that a man, capable of enjoying the purity of
happiness, is never more busy than in his hours of leisure, nor ever
less solitary than in a place of solitude.

I am, dear Frank, &c. "

When he had sent away his letter, he walked into the wood, with some
inconvenience, from the furze that pricked his legs, and the briars that
scratched his face. He at last sat down under a tree, and heard with
great delight a shower, by which he was not wet, rattling among the
branches: This, said he, is the true image of obscurity; we hear of
troubles and commotions, but never feel them.

His amusement did not overpower the calls of nature, and he, therefore,
went back to order his dinner. He knew that the country produces
whatever is eaten or drunk, and, imagining that he was now at the source
of luxury, resolved to indulge himself with dainties which he supposed
might be procured at a price next to nothing, if any price at all was
expected; and intended to amaze the rusticks with his generosity, by
paying more than they would ask. Of twenty dishes which he named, he was
amazed to find that scarcely one was to be had; and heard, with
astonishment and indignation, that all the fruits of the earth were sold
at a higher price than in the streets of London.

His meal was short and sullen; and he retired again to his tree, to
inquire how dearness could be consistent with abundance, or how fraud
should be practised by simplicity. He was not satisfied with his own
speculations, and, returning home early in the evening, went a while
from window to window, and found that he wanted something to do.

He inquired for a newspaper, and was told that farmers never minded
news, but that they could send for it from the alehouse. A messenger was
despatched, who ran away at full speed, but loitered an hour behind the
hedges, and at last coming back with his feet purposely bemired, instead
of expressing the gratitude which Mr. Shifter expected for the bounty of
a shilling, said, that the night was wet, and the way dirty, and he
hoped that his worship would not think it much to give him half-a-crown.

Dick now went to bed with some abatement of his expectations; but sleep,
I know not how, revives our hopes, and rekindles our desires. He rose
early in the morning, surveyed the landscape, and was pleased. He walked
out, and passed from field to field, without observing any beaten path,
and wondered that he had not seen the shepherdesses dancing, nor heard
the swains piping to their flocks.

At last he saw some reapers and harvest-women at dinner. Here, said he,
are the true Arcadians; and advanced courteously towards them, as afraid
of confusing them by the dignity of his presence. They acknowledged his
superiority by no other token than that of asking him for something to
drink. He imagined that he had now purchased the privilege of discourse,
and began to descend to familiar questions, endeavouring to accommodate
his discourse to the grossness of rustick understandings. The clowns
soon found, that he did not know wheat from rye, and began to despise
him; one of the boys, by pretending to show him a bird's nest, decoyed
him into a ditch; and one of the wenches sold him a bargain.

This walk had given him no great pleasure; but he hoped to find other
rusticks less coarse of manners, and less mischievous of disposition.
Next morning he was accosted by an attorney, who told him that, unless
he made farmer Dobson satisfaction for trampling his grass, he had
orders to indict him. Shifter was offended, but not terrified; and,
telling the attorney that he was himself a lawyer, talked so volubly of
pettyfoggers and barrators, that he drove him away.
Finding his walks thus interrupted, he was inclined to ride, and, being
pleased with the appearance of a horse that was grazing in a
neighbouring meadow, inquired the owner, who warranted him sound, and
would not sell him, but that he was too fine for a plain man. Dick paid
down the price, and, riding out to enjoy the evening, fell with his new
horse into a ditch; they got out with difficulty, and, as he was going
to mount again, a countryman looked at the horse, and perceived him to
be blind. Dick went to the seller, and demanded back his money; but was
told, that a man who rented his ground must do the best for himself;
that his landlord had his rent though the year was barren; and that,
whether horses had eyes or no, he should sell them to the highest
bidder.

Shifter now began to be tired with rustick simplicity, and on the fifth
day took possession again of his chambers, and bade farewell to the
regions of calm content and placid meditation.




No. 72. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1759.

Men complain of nothing more frequently than of deficient memory; and,
indeed, every one finds that many of the ideas which he desired to
retain have slipped irretrievably away; that the acquisitions of the
mind are sometimes equally fugitive with the gifts of fortune; and that
a short intermission of attention more certainly lessens knowledge than
impairs an estate.

To assist this weakness of our nature, many methods have been proposed,
all of which may be justly suspected of being ineffectual; for no art of
memory, however its effects have been boasted or admired, has been ever
adopted into general use, nor have those who possessed it appeared to
excel others in readiness of recollection or multiplicity of
attainments.

There is another art of which all have felt the want, though
Themistocles only confessed it. We suffer equal pain from the
pertinacious adhesion of unwelcome images, as from the evanescence of
those which are pleasing and useful; and it may be doubted whether we
should be more benefited by the art of memory or the art of
forgetfulness.

Forgetfulness is necessary to remembrance. Ideas are retained by
renovation of that impression which time is always wearing away, and
which new images are striving to obliterate. If useless thoughts could
be expelled from the mind, all the valuable parts of our knowledge would
more frequently recur, and every recurrence would reinstate them in
their former place.

It is impossible to consider, without some regret, how much might have
been learned, or how much might have been invented, by a rational and
vigorous application of time, uselessly or painfully passed in the
revocation of events, which have left neither good nor evil behind them,
in grief for misfortunes either repaired or irreparable, in resentment
of injuries known only to ourselves, of which death has put the authors
beyond our power.

Philosophy has accumulated precept upon precept, to warn us against the
anticipation of future calamities. All useless misery is certainly
folly, and he that feels evils before they come may be deservedly
censured; yet surely to dread the future is more reasonable than to
lament the past. The business of life is to go forwards: he who sees
evil in prospect meets it in his way; but he who catches it by
retrospection turns back to find it. That which is feared may sometimes
be avoided, but that which is regretted to-day may be regretted again
to-morrow.

Regret is indeed useful and virtuous, and not only allowable but
necessary, when it tends to the amendment of life, or to admonition of
errour which we may be again in danger of committing. But a very small
part of the moments spent in meditation on the past, produce any
reasonable caution or salutary sorrow. Most of the mortifications that
we have suffered, arose from the concurrence of local and temporary
circumstances, which can never meet again; and most of our
disappointments have succeeded those expectations, which life allows not
to be formed a second time.

It would add much to human happiness, if an art could be taught of
forgetting all of which the remembrance is at once useless and
afflictive; if that pain which never can end in pleasure could be driven
totally away, that the mind might perform its functions without
incumbrance, and the past might no longer encroach upon the present.

Little can be done well to which the whole mind is not applied; the
business of every day calls for the day to which it is assigned; and he
will have no leisure to regret yesterday's vexations who resolves not to
have a new subject of regret to-morrow.

But to forget or to remember at pleasure, are equally beyond the power
of man. Yet as memory may be assisted by method, and the decays of
knowledge repaired by stated times of recollection, so the power of
forgetting is capable of improvement. Reason will, by a resolute
contest, prevail over imagination, and the power may be obtained of
transferring the attention as judgment shall direct.

The incursions of troublesome thoughts are often violent and
importunate; and it is not easy to a mind accustomed to their inroads to
expel them immediately by putting better images into motion; but this
enemy of quiet is above all others weakened by every defeat; the
reflection which has been once overpowered and ejected, seldom returns
with any formidable vehemence.

Employment is the great instrument of intellectual dominion. The mind
cannot retire from its enemy into total vacancy, or turn aside from one
object but by passing to another. The gloomy and the resentful are
always found among those who have nothing to do, or who do nothing. We
must be busy about good or evil, and he to whom the present offers
nothing will often be looking backward on the past.




No. 73. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1759.

That every man would be rich if a wish could obtain riches, is a
position which I believe few will contest, at least in a nation like
ours, in which commerce has kindled an universal emulation of wealth,
and in which money receives all the honours which are the proper right
of knowledge and of virtue.

Yet, though we are all labouring for gold as for the chief good, and, by
the natural effort of unwearied diligence, have found many expeditious
methods of obtaining it, we have not been able to improve the art of
using it, or to make it produce more happiness than it afforded in
former times, when every declaimer expatiated on its mischiefs, and
every philosopher taught his followers to despise it.

Many of the dangers imputed of old to exorbitant wealth, are now at an
end. The rich are neither waylaid by robbers, nor watched by informers;
there is nothing to be dreaded from proscriptions, or seizures. The
necessity of concealing treasure has long ceased; no man now needs
counterfeit mediocrity, and condemn his plate and jewels to caverns and
darkness, or feast his mind with the consciousness of clouded splendour,
of finery which is useless till it is shown, and which he dares not
show.

In our time, the poor are strongly tempted to assume the appearance of
wealth, but the wealthy very rarely desire to be thought poor; for we
are all at full liberty to display riches by every mode of ostentation.
We fill our houses with useless ornaments, only to show that we can buy
them; we cover our coaches with gold, and employ artists in the
discovery of new fashions of expense; and yet it cannot be found that
riches produce happiness.

Of riches, as of every thing else, the hope is more than the enjoyment:
while we consider them as the means to be used, at some future time, for
the attainment of felicity, we press on our pursuit ardently and
vigorously, and that ardour secures us from weariness of ourselves; but
no sooner do we sit down to enjoy our acquisitions, than we find them
insufficient to fill up the vacuities of life.

One cause which is not always observed of the insufficiency of riches
is, that they very seldom make their owner rich. To be rich, is to have
more than is desired, and more than is wanted, to have something which
may be spent without reluctance, and scattered without care, with which
the sudden demands of desire may be gratified, the casual freaks of
fancy indulged, or the unexpected opportunities of benevolence improved.

Avarice is always poor, but poor by her own fault. There is another
poverty to which the rich are exposed with less guilt by the
officiousness of others. Every man, eminent for exuberance of fortune,
is surrounded from morning to evening, and from evening to midnight, by
flatterers, whose art of adulation consists in exciting artificial
wants, and in forming new schemes of profusion.

Tom Tranquil, when he came to age, found himself in possession of a
fortune, of which the twentieth part might perhaps have made him rich.
His temper is easy, and his affections soft; he receives every man with
kindness, and hears him with credulity. His friends took care to settle
him by giving him a wife, whom, having no particular inclination, he
rather accepted than chose, because he was told that she was proper for
him.

He was now to live with dignity proportionate to his fortune. What his
fortune requires or admits Tom does not know, for he has little skill in
computation, and none of his friends think it their interest to improve
it. If he was suffered to live by his own choice, he would leave every
thing as he finds it, and pass through the world distinguished only by
inoffensive gentleness. But the ministers of luxury have marked him out
as one at whose expense they may exercise their arts. A companion, who
had just learned the names of the Italian masters, runs from sale to
sale, and buys pictures, for which Mr. Tranquil pays, without inquiring
where they shall be hung. Another fills his garden with statues, which
Tranquil wishes away, but dares not remove. One of his friends is
learning architecture by building him a house, which he passed by, and
inquired to whom it belonged; another has been for three years digging
canals and raising mounts, cutting trees down in one place, and planting
them in another, on which Tranquil looks with a serene indifference,
without asking what will be the cost. Another projector tells him that a
waterwork, like that of Versailles, will complete the beauties of his
seat, and lays his draughts before him: Tranquil turns his eyes upon
them, and the artist begins his explanations; Tranquil raises no
objections, but orders him to begin the work, that he may escape from
talk which he does not understand.

Thus a thousand hands are busy at his expense, without adding to his
pleasures. He pays and receives visits, and has loitered in publick or
in solitude, talking in summer of the town, and in winter of the
country, without knowing that his fortune is impaired, till his steward
told him this morning, that he could pay the workmen no longer but by
mortgaging a manor.




No. 74. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1759.

In the mythological pedigree of learning, memory is made the mother of
the muses, by which the masters of ancient wisdom, perhaps, meant to
show the necessity of storing the mind copiously with true notions,
before the imagination should be suffered to form fictions or collect
embellishments; for the works of an ignorant poet can afford nothing
higher than pleasing sound, and fiction is of no other use than to
display the treasures of memory.

The necessity of memory to the acquisition of knowledge is inevitably
felt and universally allowed, so that scarcely any other of the mental
faculties are commonly considered as necessary to a student: he that
admires the proficiency of another, always attributes it to the
happiness of his memory; and he that laments his own defects, concludes
with a wish that his memory was better.

It is evident, that when the power of retention is weak, all the
attempts at eminence of knowledge must be vain; and as few are willing
to be doomed to perpetual ignorance, I may, perhaps, afford consolation
to some that have fallen too easily into despondence, by observing that
such weakness is, in my opinion, very rare, and that few have reason to
complain of nature as unkindly sparing of the gifts of memory.

In the common business of life, we find the memory of one like that of
another, and honestly impute omissions not to involuntary forgetfulness,
but culpable inattention; but in literary inquiries, failure is imputed
rather to want of memory than of diligence.

We consider ourselves as defective in memory, either because we remember
less than we desire, or less than we suppose others to remember.

Memory is like all other human powers, with which no man can be
satisfied who measures them by what he can conceive, or by what he can
desire. He whose mind is most capacious, finds it much too narrow for
his wishes; he that remembers most, remembers little compared with what
he forgets. He, therefore, that, after the perusal of a book, finds few
ideas remaining in his mind, is not to consider the disappointment as
peculiar to himself, or to resign all hopes of improvement, because he
does not retain what even the author has, perhaps, forgotten.

He who compares his memory with that of others, is often too hasty to
lament the inequality. Nature has sometimes, indeed, afforded examples
of enormous, wonderful and gigantick memory. Scaliger reports of
himself, that, in his youth, he could repeat above a hundred verses,
having once read them; and Barthicus declares, that he wrote his comment
upon Claudian without consulting the text. But not to have such degrees
of memory is no more to be lamented, than not to have the strength of
Hercules, or the swiftness of Achilles. He that, in the distribution of
good, has an equal share with common men, may justly be contented. Where
there is no striking disparity, it is difficult to know of two which
remembers most, and still more difficult to discover which reads with
greater attention, which has renewed the first impression by more
frequent repetitions, or by what accidental combination of ideas either
mind might have united any particular narrative or argument to its
former stock.

But memory, however impartially distributed, so often deceives our
trust, that almost every man attempts, by some artifice or other, to
secure its fidelity.

It is the practice of many readers to note, in the margin of their
books, the most important passages, the strongest arguments, or the
brightest sentiments. Thus they load their minds with superfluous
attention, repress the vehemence of curiosity by useless deliberation,
and by frequent interruption break the current of narration or the chain
of reason, and at last close the volume, and forget the passages and
marks together.

Others I have found unalterably persuaded, that nothing is certainly
remembered but what is transcribed; and they have, therefore, passed
weeks and months in transferring large quotations to a commonplace-book.
Yet, why any part of a book, which can be consulted at pleasure, should
be copied, I was never able to discover. The hand has no closer
correspondence with the memory than the eye. The act of writing itself
distracts the thoughts, and what is read twice is commonly better
remembered than what is transcribed. This method, therefore, consumes
time without assisting memory.

The true art of memory is the art of attention. No man will read with
much advantage, who is not able, at pleasure, to evacuate his mind, or
who brings not to his author an intellect defecated and pure, neither
turbid with care, nor agitated by pleasure. If the repositories of
thought are already full, what can they receive? If the mind is employed
on the past or future, the book will be held before the eyes in vain.
What is read with delight is commonly retained, because pleasure always
secures attention; but the books which are consulted by occasional
necessity, and perused with impatience, seldom leave any traces on the
mind.




No. 75. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1759.

In the time when Bassora was considered as the school of Asia, and
flourished by the reputation of its professors and the confluence of its
students, among the pupils that listened round the chair of Albumazar
was Gelaleddin, a native of Tauris, in Persia, a young man amiable in
his manners and beautiful in his form, of boundless curiosity, incessant
diligence, and irresistible genius, of quick apprehension and tenacious
memory, accurate without narrowness, and eager for novelty without
inconstancy.

No sooner did Gelaleddin appear at Bassora, than his virtues and
abilities raised him to distinction. He passed from class to class
rather admired than envied by those whom the rapidity of his progress
left behind; he was consulted by his fellow-students as an oraculous
guide, and admitted as a competent auditor to the conferences of the
sages.

After a few years, having passed through all the exercises of probation,
Gelaleddin was invited to a professor's seat, and entreated to increase
the splendour of Bassora. Gelaleddin affected to deliberate on the
proposal, with which, before he considered it, he resolved to comply;
and next morning retired to a garden planted for the recreation of the
students, and, entering a solitary walk, began to meditate upon his
future life.

"If I am thus eminent," said he, "in the regions of literature, I shall
be yet more conspicuous in any other place; if I should now devote
myself to study and retirement, I must pass my life in silence,
unacquainted with the delights of wealth, the influence of power, the
pomp of greatness, and the charms of elegance, with all that man envies
and desires, with all that keeps the world in motion, by the hope of
gaining or the fear of losing it. I will, therefore, depart to Tauris,
where the Persian monarch resides in all the splendour of absolute
dominion: my reputation will fly before me, my arrival will be
congratulated by my kinsmen and my friends; I shall see the eyes of
those who predict my greatness sparkling with exultation, and the faces
of those that once despised me clouded with envy, or counterfeiting
kindness by artificial smiles. I will show my wisdom by my discourse,
and my moderation by my silence; I will instruct the modest with easy
gentleness, and repress the ostentatious by seasonable superciliousness.
My apartments will be crowded by the inquisitive and the vain, by those
that honour and those that rival me; my name will soon reach the court;
I shall stand before the throne of the emperour: the judges of the law
will confess my wisdom, and the nobles will contend to heap gifts upon
me. If I shall find that my merit, like that of others, excites
malignity, or feel myself tottering on the seat of elevation, I may at
last retire to academical obscurity, and become, in my lowest state, a
professor of Bassora. "

Having thus settled his determination, he declared to his friends his
design of visiting Tauris, and saw with more pleasure than he ventured
to express, the regret with which he was dismissed. He could not bear to
delay the honours to which he was destined, and, therefore, hastened
away, and in a short time entered the capital of Persia. He was
immediately immersed in the crowd, and passed unobserved to his father's
house. He entered, and was received, though not unkindly, yet without
any excess of fondness or exclamations of rapture. His father had, in
his absence, suffered many losses, and Gelaleddin was considered as an
additional burden to a falling family.

When he recovered from his surprise, he began to display his
acquisitions, and practised all the arts of narration and disquisition:
but the poor have no leisure to be pleased with eloquence; they heard
his arguments without reflection, and his pleasantries without a smile.
He then applied himself singly to his brothers and sisters, but found
them all chained down by invariable attention to their own fortunes, and
insensible of any other excellence than that which could bring some
remedy for indigence.

It was now known in the neighbourhood that Gelaleddin was returned, and
he sat for some days in expectation that the learned would visit him for
consultation, or the great for entertainment. But who will be pleased or
instructed in the mansions of poverty? He then frequented places of
publick resort, and endeavoured to attract notice by the copiousness of
his talk. The sprightly were silenced, and went away to censure, in some
other place, his arrogance and his pedantry; and the dull listened
quietly for a while, and then wondered why any man should take pains to
obtain so much knowledge which would never do him good.

He next solicited the visiers for employment, not doubting but his
service would be eagerly accepted. He was told by one that there was no
vacancy in his office; by another, that his merit was above any
patronage but that of the emperour; by a third, that he would not forget
him; and by the chief visier, that he did not think literature of any
great use in publick business. He was sometimes admitted to their
tables, where he exerted his wit and diffused his knowledge; but he
observed, that where, by endeavour or accident, he had remarkably
excelled, he was seldom invited a second time.

He now returned to Bassora, wearied and disgusted, but confident of
resuming his former rank, and revelling again in satiety of praise. But
he who had been neglected at Tauris, was not much regarded at Bassora;
he was considered as a fugitive, who returned only because he could live
in no other place; his companions found that they had formerly overrated
his abilities, and he lived long without notice or esteem.




No. 76. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1759.

TO THE IDLER,

Sir,

I was much pleased with your ridicule of those shallow criticks, whose
judgment, though often right as far as it goes, yet reaches only to
inferior beauties, and who, unable to comprehend the whole, judge only
by parts, and from thence determine the merit of extensive works. But
there is another kind of critick still worse, who judges by narrow
rules, and those too often false, and which, though they should be true,
and founded on nature, will lead him but a very little way toward the
just estimation of the sublime beauties in works of genius; for whatever
part of an art can be executed or criticised by rules, that part is no
longer the work of genius, which implies excellence out of the reach of
rules. For my own part, I profess myself an Idler, and love to give my
judgment, such as it is, from my immediate perceptions, without much
fatigue of thinking; and I am of opinion that, if a man has not those
perceptions right, it will be vain for him to endeavour to supply their
place by rules, which may enable him to talk more learnedly, but not to
distinguish more acutely. Another reason which has lessened my affection
for the study of criticism is, that criticks, so far as I have observed,
debar themselves from receiving any pleasure from the polite arts, at
the same time, that they profess to love and admire them: for these
rules, being always uppermost, give them such a propensity to criticise,
that, instead of giving up the reins of their imagination into their
author's hands, their frigid minds are employed in examining whether the
performance be according to the rules of art.

To those who are resolved to be criticks in spite of nature, and, at the
same time, have no great disposition to much reading and study, I would
recommend to them to assume the character of connoisseur, which may be
purchased at a much cheaper rate than that of a critick in poetry. The
remembrance of a few names of painters, with their general characters,
with a few rules of the academy, which they may pick up among the
painters, will go a great way towards making a very notable connoisseur.

With a gentleman of this cast, I visited last week the Cartoons at
Hampton-court; he was just returned from Italy, a connoisseur of course,
and of course his mouth full of nothing but the grace of Raffaelle, the
purity of Domenichino, the learning of Poussin, the air of Guido, the
greatness of taste of the Carraccis, and the sublimity and grand
contorno of Michael Angelo; with all the rest of the cant of criticism,
which he emitted with that volubility which generally those orators have
who annex no ideas to their words.

As we were passing through the rooms, in our way to the gallery, I made
him observe a whole length of Charles the First by Vandyke, as a perfect
representation of the character as well as the figure of the man. He
agreed it was very fine, but it wanted spirit and contrast, and had not
the flowing line, without which a figure could not possibly be graceful.
When we entered the gallery, I thought I could perceive him recollecting
his rules by which he was to criticise Raffaelle. I shall pass over his
observation of the boats being too little, and other criticisms of that
kind, till we arrive at St. Paul preaching.

"This," says he, "is esteemed the most excellent of all the cartoons;
what nobleness, what dignity, there is in that figure of St. Paul! and
yet what an addition to that nobleness could Raffaelle have given, had
the art of contrast been known in his time! but, above all, the flowing
line which constitutes grace and beauty! You would not have then seen an
upright figure standing equally on both legs, and both hands stretched
forward in the same direction, and his drapery, to all appearance,
without the least art of disposition. " The following picture is the
Charge to Peter. "Here," says he, "are twelve upright figures; what a
pity it is that Raffaelle was not acquainted with the pyramidal
principle! He would then have contrived the figures in the middle to
have been on higher ground, or the figures at the extremities stooping
or lying, which would not only have formed the group into the shape of a
pyramid, but likewise contrasted the standing figures. Indeed," added
he, "I have often lamented that so great a genius as Raffaelle had not
lived in this enlightened age, since the art has been reduced to
principles, and had had his education in one of the modern academies;
what glorious works might we have then expected from his divine pencil! "

I shall trouble you no longer with my friend's observations, which, I
suppose, you are now able to continue by yourself. It is curious to
observe, that, at the same time that great admiration is pretended for a
name of fixed reputation, objections are raised against those very
qualities by which that great name was acquired.

Those criticks are continually lamenting that Raffaelle had not the
colouring and harmony of Rubens, or the light and shadow of Rembrant,
without considering how much the gay harmony of the former, and
affectation of the latter, would take from the dignity of Raffaelle; and
yet Rubens had great harmony, and Rembrant understood light and shadow:
but what may be an excellence in a lower class of painting, becomes a
blemish in a higher; as the quick, sprightly turn, which is the life and
beauty of epigrammatick compositions, would but ill suit with the
majesty of heroick poetry.

To conclude; I would not be thought to infer, from any thing that has
been said, that rules are absolutely unnecessary; but to censure
scrupulosity, a servile attention to minute exactness, which is
sometimes inconsistent with higher excellency, and is lost in the blaze
of expanded genius.

I do not know whether you will think painting a general subject. By
inserting this letter, perhaps, you will incur the censure a man would
deserve, whose business being to entertain a whole room, should turn his
back to the company, and talk to a particular person[1].

I am, Sir, &c.

[1] By Sir Joshua Reynolds.




No. 77. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1759.

Easy poetry is universally admired; but I know not whether any rule has
yet been fixed, by which it may be decided when poetry can be properly
called easy. Horace has told us, that it is such as "every reader hopes
to equal, but after long labour finds unattainable. " This is a very
loose description, in which only the effect is noted; the qualities
which produce this effect remain to be investigated.

Easy poetry is that in which natural thoughts are expressed without
violence to the language. The discriminating character of ease consists
principally in the diction; for all true poetry requires that the
sentiments be natural. Language suffers violence by harsh or by daring
figures, by transposition, by unusual acceptations of words, and by any
licence, which would be avoided by a writer of prose. Where any artifice
appears in the construction of the verse, that verse is no longer easy.
Any epithet which can be ejected without diminution of the sense, any
curious iteration of the same word, and all unusual, though not
ungrammatical structure of speech, destroy the grace of easy poetry.

The first lines of Pope's Iliad afford examples of many licences which
an easy writer must decline:

Achilles' _wrath_, to Greece the _direful spring_
Of woes unnumber'd, _heav'nly_ Goddess sing;
The wrath which _hurl'd_ to Pluto's _gloomy reign_
The souls of _mighty_ chiefs untimely slain.

In the first couplet the language is distorted by inversions, clogged
with superfluities, and clouded by a harsh metaphor; and in the second
there are two words used in an uncommon sense, and two epithets inserted
only to lengthen the line; all these practices may in a long work easily
be pardoned, but they always produce some degree of obscurity and
ruggedness.

Easy poetry has been so long excluded by ambition of ornament, and
luxuriance of imagery, that its nature seems now to be forgotten.
Affectation, however opposite to ease, is sometimes mistaken for it; and
those who aspire to gentle elegance, collect female phrases and
fashionable barbarisms, and imagine that style to be easy which custom
has made familiar. Such was the idea of the poet who wrote the following
verses to a _countess cutting paper_:

Pallas grew _vap'rish once and odd_,
She would not _do the least right thing_
Either for Goddess or for God,
Nor work, nor play, nor paint, nor sing.

Jove frown'd, and "Use (he cried) those eyes
So skilful, and those hands so taper;
Do something exquisite and wise"--
She bow'd, obey'd him, and cut paper.

This vexing him who gave her birth,
Thought by all Heaven a _burning shame_,
_What does she next_, but bids on earth
Her Burlington do just the same?

Pallas, you give yourself _strange airs_;
But sure you'll find it hard to spoil
The sense and taste of one that bears
The name of Savile and of Boyle.

Alas! one bad example shown,
How quickly all the sex pursue!
See, madam! see the arts o'erthrown
Between John Overton and _you_.

It is the prerogative of easy poetry to be understood as long as the
language lasts; but modes of speech, which owe their prevalence only to
modish folly, or to the eminence of those that use them, die away with
their inventors, and their meaning, in a few years, is no longer known.

Easy poetry is commonly sought in petty compositions upon minute
subjects; but ease, though it excludes pomp, will admit greatness. Many
lines in Cato's soliloquy are at once easy and sublime:

'Tis the Divinity that stirs within us;
'Tis Heaven itself that points out an hereafter,
And intimates eternity to man.
--If there's a Power above us,
And that there is all Nature cries aloud
Through all her works, he must delight in virtue,
And that which he delights in must be happy.

Nor is ease more contrary to wit than to sublimity; the celebrated
stanza of Cowley, on a lady elaborately dressed, loses nothing of its
freedom by the spirit of the sentiment:

Th' adorning thee with so much art
Is but a barb'rous skill;
'Tis like the pois'ning of a dart,
Too apt before to kill.

Cowley seems to have possessed the power of writing easily beyond any
other of our poets; yet his pursuit of remote thought led him often into
harshness of expression.

Waller often attempted, but seldom attained it; for he is too frequently
driven into transpositions. The poets, from the time of Dryden, have
gradually advanced in embellishment, and consequently departed from
simplicity and ease.

To require from any author many pieces of easy poetry, would be indeed
to oppress him with too hard a task. It is less difficult to write a
volume of lines swelled with epithets, brightened by figures, and
stiffened by transpositions, than to produce a few couplets graced only
by naked elegance and simple purity, which require so much care and
skill, that I doubt whether any of our authors have yet been able, for
twenty lines together, nicely to observe the true definition of easy
poetry.




No. 78. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1759.

I have passed the summer in one of those places to which a mineral
spring gives the idle and luxurious an annual reason for resorting,
whenever they fancy themselves offended by the heat of London. What is
the true motive of this periodical assembly, I have never yet been able
to discover. The greater part of the visitants neither feel diseases nor
fear them. What pleasure can be expected more than the variety of the
journey, I know not, for the numbers are too great for privacy, and too
small for diversion. As each is known to be a spy upon the rest, they
all live in continual restraint; and having but a narrow range for
censure, they gratify its cravings by preying on one another.

But every condition has some advantages. In this confinement, a smaller
circle affords opportunities for more exact observation. The glass that
magnifies its object contracts the sight to a point; and the mind must
be fixed upon a single character to remark its minute peculiarities. The
quality or habit which passes unobserved in the tumult of successive
multitudes, becomes conspicuous when it is offered to the notice day
after day; and, perhaps, I have, without any distinct notice, seen
thousands like my late companions; for when the scene can be varied at
pleasure, a slight disgust turns us aside before a deep impression can
be made upon the mind.

There was a select set, supposed to be distinguished by superiority of
intellects, who always passed the evening together. To be admitted to
their conversation was the highest honour of the place; many youths
aspired to distinction, by pretending to occasional invitations; and the
ladies were often wishing to be men, that they might partake the
pleasures of learned society.

I know not whether by merit or destiny, I was, soon after my arrival,
admitted to this envied party, which I frequented till I had learned the
art by which each endeavoured to support his character.