No More Learning

TUESDAY, JULY 3, 1750.


_Non ego mendosos ausim defendere mores;_
_Falsaque pro vitiis arma movere meis. _
OVID, Am. ii, iv. 1.

Corrupted manners I shall ne'er defend;
Nor, falsely witty, for my faults contend.
ELPHINSTON.


Though the fallibility of man's reason, and the narrowness of his
knowledge, are very liberally confessed, yet the conduct of those who
so willingly admit the weakness of human nature, seems to discover that
this acknowledgment is not altogether sincere; at least, that most make
it with a tacit reserve in favour of themselves, and that with whatever
ease they give up the claim of their neighbours, they are desirous of
being thought exempt from faults in their own conduct, and from errour
in their opinions.

The certain and obstinate opposition, which we may observe made to
confutation however clear, and to reproof however tender, is an undoubted
argument, that some dormant privilege is thought to be attacked; for
as no man can lose what he neither possesses, nor imagines himself
to possess, or be defrauded of that to which he has no right, it is
reasonable to suppose that those who break out into fury at the softest
contradiction, or the slightest censure, since they apparently conclude
themselves injured, must fancy some ancient immunity violated, or some
natural prerogative invaded. To be mistake, if they thought themselves
liable to mistake, could not be considered either as shameful, or
wonderful, and they would not receive with so much emotion intelligence
which only informed them of what they knew before, nor struggle with such
earnestness against an attack that deprived them of nothing to which they
held themselves entitled.

It is related of one of the philosophers, that when an account was
brought him of his son's death, he received it only with this reflection,
_I knew that my son was mortal_. He that is convinced of an errour, if he
had the same knowledge of his own weakness, would, instead of straining
for artifices, and brooding malignity, only regard such oversights as the
appendages of humanity, and pacify himself with considering that he had
always known man to be a fallible being.

If it be true that most of our passions are excited by the novelty of
objects, there is little reason for doubting, that to be considered as
subject to fallacies of ratiocination, or imperfection of knowledge, is
to a great part of mankind entirely new; for it is impossible to fall
into any company where there is not some regular and established
subordination, without finding rage and vehemence produced only by
difference of sentiments about things in which neither of the disputants
have any other interest, than what proceeds from their mutual
unwillingness to give way to any opinion that may bring upon them the
disgrace of being wrong.

I have heard of one that, having advanced some erroneous doctrines in
philosophy, refused to see the experiments by which they were confuted:
and the observation of every day will give new proofs with how much
industry subterfuges and evations are sought to decline the pressure of
resistless arguments, how often the state of the question is altered,
how often the antagonist is wilfully misrepresented, and in how much
perplexity the clearest positions are involved by those whom they happen
to oppose.

Of all mortals none seem to have been more infected with this species
of vanity, than the race of writers, whose reputation arising solely
from their understanding, gives them a very delicate sensibility of any
violence attempted on their literary honour. It is not unpleasing to
remark with what solicitude men of acknowledged abilities will endeavour
to palliate absurdities and reconcile contradictions, only to obviate
criticisms to which all human performances must ever be exposed, and from
which they can never suffer, but when they teach the world, by a vain and
ridiculous impatience, to think them of importance.

Dryden, whose warmth of fancy, and haste of composition, very frequently
hurried him into inaccuracies, heard himself sometimes exposed to
ridicule for having said in one of his tragedies,

"I follow Fate, which does too fast pursue. "

That no man could at once follow and be followed was, it may be thought,
too plain to be long disputed; and the truth is, that Dryden was
apparently betrayed into the blunder by the double meaning of the word
Fate, to which in the former part of the verse he had annexed the idea
of Fortune, and in the latter that of Death; so that the sense only was,
_though pursued by_ Death, _I will not resign myself to despair, but will
follow_ Fortune, _and do and suffer what is appointed_. This, however,
was not completely expressed, and Dryden being determined not to give
way to his criticks, never confessed that he had been surprised by an
ambiguity; but finding luckily in Virgil an account of a man moving in
a circle, with this expression, _Et se sequiturque fugitque_, "Here,"
says he, "is the passage in imitation of which I wrote the line that my
criticks were pleased to condemn as nonsense; not but I may sometimes
write nonsense, though they have not the fortune to find it. "

Every one sees the folly of such mean doublings to escape the pursuit of
criticism; nor is there a single reader of this poet, who would not have
paid him greater veneration, had he shown consciousness enough of his own
superiority to set such cavils at defiance, and owned that he sometimes
slipped into errours by the tumult of his imagination, and the multitude
of his ideas.

It is happy when this temper discovers itself only in little things,
which may be right or wrong without any influence on the virtue or
happiness of mankind. We may, with very little inquietude, see a man
persist in a project which he has found to be impracticable, live in an
inconvenient house because it was contrived by himself, or wear a coat
of a particular cut, in hopes by perseverance to bring it into fashion.
These are indeed follies, but they are only follies, and, however wild
or ridiculous, can very little affect others.

But such pride, once indulged, too frequently operates upon more
important objects, and inclines men not only to vindicate their errours,
but their vices; to persist in practices which their own hearts condemn,
only lest they should seem to feel reproaches, or be made wiser by the
advice of others; or to search for sophisms tending to the confusion of
all principles, and the evacuation of all duties, that they may not appear
to act what they are not able to defend.

Let every man, who finds vanity so far predominant, as to betray him to
the danger of this last degree of corruption, pause a moment to consider
what will be the consequences of the plea which he is about to offer
for a practice to which he knows himself not led at first by reason,
but impelled by the violence of desire, surprised by the suddenness
of passion, or seduced by the soft approaches of temptation, and by
imperceptible gradations of guilt. Let him consider what he is going to
commit, by forcing his understanding to patronise those appetites, which
it is its chief business to hinder and reform.

The cause of virtue requires so little art to defend it, and good and
evil, when they have been once shewn, are so easily distinguished, that
such apologists seldom gain proselytes to their party, nor have their
fallacies power to deceive any but those whose desires have clouded their
discernment. All that the best faculties thus employed can perform is,
to persuade the hearers that the man is hopeless whom they only thought
vicious, that corruption has passed from his manners to his principles,
that all endeavours for his recovery are without prospect of success, and
that nothing remains but to avoid him as infectious, or hunt him down as
destructive.

But if it be supposed that he may impose on his audience by partial
representations of consequences, intricate deductions of remote causes,
or perplexed combinations of ideas, which having various relations appear
different as viewed on different sides; that he may sometimes puzzle the
weak and well-meaning, and now and then seduce, by the admiration of
his abilities, a young mind still fluctuating in unsettled notions, and
neither fortified by instruction nor enlightened by experience; yet what
must be the event of such a triumph! A man cannot spend all this life in
frolick: age, or disease, or solitude, will bring some hours of serious
consideration, and it will then afford no comfort to think, that he has
extended the dominion of vice, that he has loaded himself with the crimes
of others, and can never know the extent of his own wickedness, or make
reparation for the mischief that he has caused. There is not, perhaps,
in all the stores of ideal anguish, a thought more painful, than the
consciousness of having propagated corruption by vitiating principles, of
having not only drawn others from the paths of virtue, but blocked up the
way by which they should return, of having blinded them to every beauty
but the paint of pleasure, and deafened them to every call but the
alluring voice of the syrens of destruction.

There is yet another danger in this practice: men who cannot deceive
others, are very often successful in deceiving themselves; they weave
their sophistry till their own reason is entangled, and repeat their
positions till they are credited by themselves; by often contending,
they grow sincere in the cause; and by long wishing for demonstrative
arguments, they at last bring themselves to fancy that they have found
them. They are then at the uttermost verge of wickedness, and may die
without having that light rekindled in their minds, which their own pride
and contumacy have extinguished.

The men who can be charged with fewest failings, either with respect to
abilities or virtue, are generally most ready to allow them; for, not
to dwell on things of solemn and awful consideration, the humility of
confessors, the tears of saints, and the dying terrours of persons
eminent for piety and innocence, it is well known that Cæsar wrote an
account of the errours committed by him in his wars of Gaul, and that
Hippocrates, whose name is perhaps in rational estimation greater than
Cæsar's, warned posterity against a mistake into which he had fallen.
_So much_, says Celsus, _does the open and artless confession of an errour
become a man conscious that he has enough remaining to support his
character_.

As all errour is meanness, it is incumbent on every man who consults his
own dignity, to retract it as soon as he discovers it, without fearing
any censure so much as that of his own mind. As justice requires that all
injuries should be repaired, it is the duty of him who has seduced others
by bad practices or false notions, to endeavour that such as have adopted
his errours should know his retraction, and that those who have learned
vice by his example, should by his example be taught amendment.




No. 32. SATURDAY, JULY 7, 1750.


Ὁσσα τε δαιμονιησι τυχαις βροτοι αλγε' εχουσιν,
Ὁν αν μοιραν εχης, πραως φερε, μηδ' αγανακτει·
Ιασθαι δε πρεπει, καθοσον δυνη.
PYTH. Aur. Carm.

Of all the woes that load the mortal state,
Whate'er thy portion, mildly meet thy fate;
But ease it as thou canst. ----
ELPHINSTON.


So large a part of human life passes in a state contrary to our natural
desires, that one of the principal topicks of moral instruction is the
art of bearing calamities. And such is the certainty of evil, that it
is the duty of every man to furnish his mind with those principles that
may enable him to act under it with decency and propriety.

The sect of ancient philosophers, that boasted to have carried this
necessary science to the highest perfection, were the stoicks, or
scholars of Zeno, whose wild enthusiastick virtue pretended to an
exemption from the sensibilities of unenlightened mortals, and who
proclaimed themselves exalted, by the doctrines of their sect, above
the reach of those miseries which embitter life to the rest of the
world. They therefore removed pain, poverty, loss of friends, exile,
and violent death, from the catalogue of evils; and passed, in their
haughty style, a kind of irreversible decree, by which they forbad them
to be counted any longer among the objects of terrour or anxiety, or to
give any disturbance to the tranquillity of a wise man.

This edict was, I think, not universally observed; for though one of the
more resolute, when he was tortured by a violent disease, cried out,
that let pain harass him to its utmost power, it should never force him
to consider it as other than indifferent and neutral; yet all had not
stubbornness to hold out against their senses: for a weaker pupil of Zeno
is recorded to have confessed in the anguish of the gout, that _he now
found pain to be an evil_.

It may however be questioned, whether these philosophers can be very
properly numbered among the teachers of patience; for if pain be not
an evil, there seems no instruction requisite how it may be borne;
and therefore, when they endeavour to arm their followers with
arguments against it, they may be thought to have given up their first
position. But such inconsistencies are to be expected from the greatest
understandings, when they endeavour to grow eminent by singularity, and
employ their strength in establishing opinions opposite to nature.

The controversy about the reality of external evils is now at an end.
That life has many miseries, and that those miseries are, sometimes
at least, equal to all the powers of fortitude, is now universally
confessed; and therefore it is useful to consider not only how we
may escape them, but by what means those which either the accidents
of affairs, or the infirmities of nature, must bring upon us, may be
mitigated and lightened, and how we may make those hours less wretched,
which the condition of our present existence will not allow to be very
happy.

The cure for the greatest part of human miseries is not radical, but
palliative. Infelicity is involved in corporeal nature, and interwoven
with our being; all attempts therefore to decline it wholly are useless
and vain: the armies of pain send their arrows against us on every
side, the choice is only between those which are more or less sharp,
or tinged with poison of greater or less malignity; and the strongest
armour which reason can supply, will only blunt their points, but
cannot repel them.

The great remedy which heaven has put in our hands is patience, by which,
though we cannot lessen the torments of the body, we can in a great
measure preserve the peace of the mind, and shall suffer only the
natural and genuine force of an evil, without heightening its acrimony,
or prolonging its effects.

There is indeed nothing more unsuitable to the nature of man in any
calamity than rage and turbulence, which, without examining whether they
are not sometimes impious, are at least always offensive, and incline
others rather to hate and despise than to pity and assist us. If what
we suffer has been brought upon us by ourselves, it is observed by an
ancient poet, that patience is eminently our duty, since no one should
be angry at feeling that which he has deserved.

_Leniter ex merito quicquid patiare ferendum est. _

Let pain deserv'd without complaint be borne.

And surely, if we are conscious that we have not contributed to our
own sufferings, if punishment falls upon innocence, or disappointment
happens to industry and prudence, patience, whether more necessary or
not, is much easier, since our pain is then without aggravation, and we
have not the bitterness of remorse to add to the asperity of misfortune.

In those evils which are allotted to us by Providence, such as deformity,
privation of any of the senses, or old age, it is always to be
remembered, that impatience can have no present effect, but to deprive
us of the consolations which our condition admits, by driving away from
us those by whose conversation or advice we might be amused or helped;
and that with regard to futurity it is yet less to be justified, since,
without lessening the pain, it cuts off the hope of that reward which
he, by whom it is inflicted, will confer upon them that bear it well.

In all evils which admit a remedy, impatience is to be avoided, because
it wastes that time and attention in complaints, that, if properly
applied, might remove the cause. Turenne, among the acknowledgments which
he used to pay in conversation to the memory of those by whom he had been
instructed in the art of war, mentioned one with honour, who taught him
not to spend his time in regretting any mistake which he had made, but to
set himself immediately and vigorously to repair it.

Patience and submission are very carefully to be distinguished from
cowardice and indolence. We are not to repine, but we may lawfully
struggle; for the calamities of life, like the necessities of nature,
are calls to labour and exercises of diligence. When we feel any
pressure of distress, we are not to conclude that we can only obey the
will of heaven by languishing under it, any more than when we perceive
the pain of thirst, we are to imagine that water is prohibited. Of
misfortune it never can be certainly known whether, as proceeding from
the hand of God, it is an act of favour or of punishment: but since
all the ordinary dispensations of Providence are to be interpreted
according to the general analogy of things, we may conclude that we
have a right to remove one inconvenience as well as another; that we
are only to take care lest we purchase ease with guilt; and that our
Maker's purpose, whether of reward or severity, will be answered by the
labours which he lays us under the necessity of performing.

This duty is not more difficult in any state than in diseases intensely
painful, which may indeed suffer such exacerbations as seem to strain
the powers of life to their utmost stretch, and leave very little of
the attention vacant to precept or reproof. In this state the nature
of man requires some indulgence, and every extravagance but impiety
may be easily forgiven him. Yet, lest we should think ourselves too
soon entitled to the mournful privileges of irresistible misery, it
is proper to reflect, that the utmost anguish which human wit can
contrive, or human malice can inflict, has been borne with constancy;
and that if the pains of disease be, as I believe they are, sometimes
greater than those of artificial torture, they are therefore in their
own nature shorter: the vital frame is quickly broken, the union
between soul and body is for a time suspended by insensibility, and we
soon cease to feel our maladies when they once become too violent to be
borne. I think there is some reason for questioning whether the body
and mind are not so proportioned, that the one can bear all that can
be inflicted on the other, whether virtue cannot stand its ground as
long as life, and whether a soul well principled will not be separated
sooner than subdued.

In calamities which operate chiefly on our passions, such as diminution
of fortune, loss of friends, or declension of character, the chief
danger of impatience is upon the first attack, and many expedients
have been contrived, by which the blow may be broken. Of these the
most general precept is, not to take pleasure in any thing, of which
it is not in our power to secure the possession to ourselves. This
counsel, when we consider the enjoyment of any terrestrial advantage
as opposite to a constant and habitual solicitude for future felicity,
is undoubtedly just, and delivered by that authority which cannot be
disputed, but in any other sense, is it not like advice, not to walk
lest we should stumble, or not to see least our eyes should light
upon deformity? It seems to me reasonable to enjoy blessings with
confidence, as well as to resign them with submission, and to hope
for the continuance of good which we possess without insolence or
voluptuousness, as for the restitution of that which we lose without
despondency or murmurs.

The chief security against the fruitless anguish of impatience, must
arise from frequent reflection on the wisdom and goodness of the God
of nature, in whose hands are riches and poverty, honour and disgrace,
pleasure and pain, and life and death. A settled conviction of the
tendency of every thing to our good, and of the possibility of turning
miseries into happiness, by receiving them rightly, will incline us to
_bless the name of the_ LORD, _whether he gives or takes away_.




No. 33. TUESDAY, JULY 10, 1750.


_Quod caret alterna requie, durabile non est. _
OVID, Epist. iv. 89.

Alternate rest and labour long endure.


In the early ages of the world, as is well known to those who are versed
in ancient traditions, when innocence was yet untainted, and simplicity
unadulterated, mankind was happy in the enjoyment of continual pleasure,
and constant plenty, under the protection of Rest; a gentle divinity,
who required of her worshippers neither altars nor sacrifices, and whose
rites were only performed by prostrations upon turfs of flowers in shades
of jasmine and myrtle, or by dances on the banks of rivers flowing with
milk and nectar.

Under this easy government the first generations breathed the fragrance
of perpetual spring, ate the fruits, which, without culture, fell ripe
into their hands, and slept under bowers arched by nature, with the
birds singing over their heads, and the beasts sporting about them. But
by degrees they began to lose their original integrity; each, though
there was more than enough for all, was desirous of appropriating part
to himself. Then entered Violence and Fraud, and Theft and Rapine. Soon
after Pride and Envy broke into the world, and brought with them a new
standard of wealth; for men, who, till then, thought themselves rich
when they wanted nothing, now rated their demands, not by the calls of
nature, but by the plenty of others; and began to consider themselves as
poor, when they beheld their own possessions exceeded by those of their
neighbours. Now only one could be happy, because only one could have
most, and that one was always in danger, lest the same arts by which he
had supplanted others should be practised upon himself.

Amidst the prevalence of this corruption, the state of the earth was
changed; the year was divided into seasons; part of the ground became
barren, and the rest yielded only berries, acorns, and herbs. The summer
and autumn indeed furnished a coarse and inelegant sufficiency, but
winter was without any relief: Famine, with a thousand diseases which
the inclemency of the air invited into the upper regions, made havock
among men, and there appeared to be danger lest they should be destroyed
before they were reformed.

To oppose the devastations of Famine, who scattered the ground every
where with carcases, Labour came down upon earth. Labour was the son
of Necessity, the nurseling of Hope, and the pupil of Art; he had the
strength of his mother, the spirit of his nurse, and the dexterity of
his governess. His face was wrinkled with the wind, and swarthy with the
sun; he had the implements of husbandry in one hand, with which he turned
up the earth; in the other he had the tools of architecture, and raised
walls and towers at his pleasure. He called out with a rough voice,
"Mortals! see here the power to whom you are consigned, and from whom you
are to hope for all your pleasures, and all your safety. You have long
languished under the dominion of Rest, an impotent and deceitful goddess,
who can neither protect nor relieve you, but resigns you to the first
attacks of either Famine or Disease, and suffers her shades to be invaded
by every enemy, and destroyed by every accident.

"Awake therefore to the call of Labour. I will teach you to remedy the
sterility of the earth, and the severity of the sky; I will compel summer
to find provisions for the winter; I will force the waters to give you
their fish, the air its fowls, and the forest its beasts; I will teach
you to pierce the bowels of the earth, and bring out from the caverns
of the mountains metals which shall give strength to your hands, and
security to your bodies, by which you may be covered from the assaults
of the fiercest beast, and with which you shall fell the oak, and divide
rocks, and subject all nature to your use and pleasure. "

Encouraged by this magnificent invitation, the inhabitants of the globe
considered Labour as their only friend, and hasted to his command. He led
them out to the fields and mountains, and shewed them how to open mines,
to level hills, to drain marshes, and change the course of rivers. The
face of things was immediately transformed; the land was covered with
towns and villages, encompassed with fields of corn, and plantations of
fruit-trees; and nothing was seen but heaps of grain, and baskets of
fruit, full tables, and crowded store-houses.

Thus Labour and his followers added every hour new acquisitions to their
conquests, and saw Famine gradually dispossessed of his dominions; till
at last, amidst their jollity and triumphs, they were depressed and
amazed by the approach of Lassitude, who was known by her sunk eyes and
dejected countenance. She came forward trembling and groaning: at every
groan the hearts of all those that beheld her lost their courage, their
nerves slackened, their hands shook, and the instruments of labour fell
from their grasp.

Shocked with this horrid phantom, they reflected with regret on their easy
compliance with the solicitations of Labour, and began to wish again for
the golden hours which they remembered to have passed under the reign
of Rest, whom they resolved again to visit, and to whom they intended to
dedicate the remaining part of their lives. Rest had not left the world;
they quickly found her, and to atone for their former desertion, invited
her to the enjoyment of those acquisitions which Labour had procured them.

Rest therefore took leave of the groves and valleys, which she had
hitherto inhabited, and entered into palaces, reposed herself in
alcoves, and slumbered away the winter upon beds of down, and the summer
in artificial grottoes with cascades playing before her. There was
indeed always something wanting to complete her felicity, and she could
never lull her returning fugitives to that serenity which they knew
before their engagements with Labour: nor was her dominion entirely
without controul, for she was obliged to share it with Luxury, though
she always looked upon her as a false friend, by whom her influence was
in reality destroyed, while it seemed to be promoted.

The two soft associates, however, reigned for some time without visible
disagreement, till at last Luxury betrayed her charge, and let in Disease
to seize upon her worshippers. Rest then flew away, and left the place to
the usurpers; who employed all their arts to fortify themselves in their
possession, and to strengthen the interest of each other.

Rest had not always the same enemy: in some places she escaped the
incursions of Disease; but had her residence invaded by a more slow and
subtle intruder, for very frequently, when every thing was composed and
quiet, when there was neither pain within, nor danger without, when every
flower was in bloom, and every gale freighted with perfumes, Satiety
would enter with a languishing and repining look, and throw herself upon
the couch placed and adorned for the accommodation of Rest. No sooner was
she seated than a general gloom spread itself on every side, the groves
immediately lost their verdure, and their inhabitants desisted from
their melody, the breeze sunk in sighs, and the flowers contracted their
leaves, and shut up their odours. Nothing was seen on every side but
multitudes wandering about they knew not whether, in quest they knew not
of what; no voice was heard but of complaints that mentioned no pain, and
murmurs that could tell of no misfortune.

Rest had now lost her authority. Her followers again began to treat her
with contempt; some of them united themselves more closely to Luxury, who
promised by her arts to drive Satiety away; and others, that were more
wise, or had more fortitude, went back again to Labour, by whom they were
indeed protected from Satiety, but delivered up in time to Lassitude, and
forced by her to the bowers of Rest.

Thus Rest and Labour equally perceived their reign of short duration and
uncertain tenure, and their empire liable to inroads from those who were
alike enemies to both. They each found their subjects unfaithful, and
ready to desert them upon every opportunity. Labour saw the riches which
he had given always carried away as an offering to Rest, and Rest found
her votaries in every exigence flying from her to beg help of Labour.
They, therefore, at last determined upon an interview, in which they
agreed to divide the world between them, and govern it alternately
allotting the dominion of the day to one, and that of the night to the
other, and promised to guard the frontiers of each other, so that,
whenever hostilities were attempted, Satiety should be intercepted by
Labour, and Lassitude expelled by Rest. Thus the ancient quarrel was
appeased, and as hatred is often succeeded by its contrary, Rest
afterwards became pregnant by Labour, and was delivered of Health, a
benevolent goddess, who consolidated the union of her parents, and
contributed to the regular vicissitudes of their reign, by dispensing
her gifts to those only who shared their lives in just proportions
between Rest and Labour.




No. 34. SATURDAY, JULY 14, 1750.


_----Non sine vano_
_Aurarum et silvæ metu. _
HOR. lib. i. Ode xxiii. 3.

Alarm'd with ev'ry rising gale,
In ev'ry wood, in ev'ry vale.
ELPHINSTON.


I have been censured for having hitherto dedicated so few of my
speculations to the ladies; and indeed the moralist, whose instructions
are accommodated only to one half of the human species, must be
confessed not sufficiently to have extended his views. Yet it is to
be considered, that masculine duties afford more room for counsels
and observations, as they are less uniform, and connected with things
more subject to vicissitude and accident; we therefore find that in
philosophical discourses which teach by precept, or historical narratives
that instruct by example, the peculiar virtues or faults of women
fill but a small part; perhaps generally too small, for so much of our
domestick happiness is in their hands, and their influence is so great
upon our earliest years, that the universal interest of the world
requires them to be well instructed in their province; nor can it be
thought proper that the qualities by which so much pain or pleasure
may be given, should be left to the direction of chance.

I have, therefore, willingly given a place in my paper to a letter,
which perhaps may not be wholly useless to them whose chief ambition
is to please, as it shews how certainly the end is missed by absurd and
injudicious endeavours at distinction.


TO THE RAMBLER.

SIR,

I am a young gentleman at my own disposal, with a considerable estate;
and having passed through the common forms of education, spent some time
in foreign countries, and made myself distinguished since my return in
the politest company, I am now arrived at that part of life in which
every man is expected to settle, and provide for the continuation of his
lineage. I withstood for some time the solicitations and remonstrances
of my aunts and uncles, but at last was persuaded to visit Anthea, an
heiress, whose land lies contiguous to mine, and whose birth and beauty
are without objection. Our friends declared that we were born for each
other; all those on both sides who had no interest in hindering our
union, contributed to promote it, and were conspiring to hurry us into
matrimony, before we had an opportunity of knowing one another. I was,
however, too old to be given away without my own consent; and having
happened to pick up an opinion, which to many of my relations seemed
extremely odd, that a man might be unhappy with a large estate,
determined to obtain a nearer knowledge of the person with whom I was
to pass the remainder of my time. To protract the courtship was by no
means difficult, for Anthea had a wonderful facility of evading questions
which I seldom repeated, and of barring approaches which I had no great
eagerness to press.

Thus the time passed away in visits and civilities without any ardent
professions of love, or formal offers of settlements. I often attended
her to publick places, in which, as is well known, all behaviour is so
much regulated by custom, that very little insight can be gained into a
private character, and therefore I was not yet able to inform myself of
her humour and inclinations.

At last I ventured to propose to her to make one of a small party,
and spend a day in viewing a seat and gardens a few miles distant;
and having, upon her compliance, collected the rest of the company, I
brought, at the hour, a coach which I had borrowed from an acquaintance,
having delayed to buy one myself, till I should have an opportunity of
taking the lady's opinion for whose use it was intended. Anthea came
down, but as she was going to step into the coach, started back with
great appearance of terrour, and told us that she durst not enter, for
the shocking colour of the lining had so much the air of the mourning
coach in which she followed her aunt's funeral three years before, that
she should never have her poor dear aunt out of her head.

I knew that it was not for lovers to argue with their mistresses; I
therefore sent back the coach and got another more gay. Into this we all
entered; the coachman began to drive, and we were amusing ourselves with
the expectation of what we should see, when, upon a small inclination of
the carriage, Anthea screamed out, that we were overthrown. We were
obliged to fix all our attention upon her, which she took care to keep
up by renewing her outcries, at every corner where we had occasion to
turn; at intervals she entertained us with fretful complaints of the
uneasiness of the coach, and obliged me to call several times on the
coachman to take care and drive without jolting. The poor fellow
endeavoured to please us, and therefore moved very slowly, till Anthea
found out that this pace would only keep us longer on the stones, and
desired that I would order him to make more speed. He whipped his
horses, the coach jolted again, and Anthea very complaisantly told us
how much she repented that she made one of our company.

At last we got into the smooth road, and began to think our difficulties
at an end, when, on a sudden, Anthea saw a brook before us, which she
could not venture to pass. We were, therefore, obliged to alight, that
we might walk over the bridge; but when we came to it we found it so
narrow, that Anthea durst not set her foot upon it, and was content,
after long consultation, to call the coach back, and with innumerable
precautions, terrours, and lamentations, crossed the brook.

It was necessary after this delay to amend our pace, and directions were
accordingly given to the coachman, when Anthea informed us, that it was
common for the axle to catch fire with a quick motion, and begged of me
to look out every minute, lest we should all be consumed. I was forced
to obey, and give her from time to time the most solemn declarations
that all was safe, and that I hoped we should reach the place without
losing our lives either by fire or water.

Thus we passed on, over ways soft and hard, with more or less speed,
but always with new vicissitudes of anxiety. If the ground was hard,
we were jolted; if soft, we were sinking. If we went fast, we should be
overturned; if slowly, we should never reach the place. At length she saw
something which she called a cloud, and began to consider that at that
time of the year it frequently thundered. This seemed to be the capital
terrour, for after that the coach was suffered to move on; and no danger
was thought too dreadful to be encountered, provided she could get into
a house before the thunder.

Thus our whole conversation passed in dangers, and cares, and fears, and
consolations, and stories of ladies dragged in the mire, forced to spend
all the night on the heath, drowned in rivers, or burnt with lightning;
and no sooner had a hair-breadth escape set us free from one calamity,
but we were threatened with another.

At length we reached the house where we intended to regale ourselves,
and I proposed to Anthea the choice of a great number of dishes, which
the place, being well provided for entertainment, happened to afford.
She made some objection to every thing that was offered; one thing she
hated at that time of the year, another she could not bear since she had
seen it spoiled at lady Feedwell's table, another she was sure they
could not dress at this house, and another she could not touch without
French sauce. At last she fixed her mind upon salmon, but there was no
salmon in the house. It was however procured with great expedition, and
when it came to the table she found that her fright had taken away her
stomach, which indeed she thought no great loss, for she could never
believe that any thing at an inn could be cleanly got.

Dinner was now over, and the company proposed, for I was now past the
condition of making overtures, that we should pursue our original design
of visiting the gardens. Anthea declared that she could not imagine what
pleasure we expected from the sight of a few green trees and a little
gravel, and two or three pits of clear water: that for her part she
hated walking till the cool of the evening, and thought it very likely
to rain; and again wished that she had stayed at home. We then reconciled
ourselves to our disappointment, and began to talk on common subjects,
when Anthea told us, that since we came to see gardens, she would not
hinder our satisfaction. We all rose, and walked through the enclosures
for some time, with no other trouble than the necessity of watching lest
a frog should hop across the way, which Anthea told us would certainly
kill her if she should happen to see him.

Frogs, as it fell out, there where none; but when we were within a
furlong of the gardens, Anthea saw some sheep, and heard the wether
clink his bell, which she was certain was not hung upon him for nothing,
and therefore no assurances nor intreaties should prevail upon her to
go a step further; she was sorry to disappoint the company, but her life
was dearer to her than ceremony.

We came back to the inn, and Anthea now discovered that there was no
time to be lost in returning, for the night would come upon us, and
a thousand misfortunes might happen in the dark. The horses were
immediately harnessed, and Anthea having wondered what could seduce her
to stay so long, was eager to set out. But we had now a new scene of
terrour, every man we saw was a robber, and we were ordered sometimes to
drive hard, lest a traveller whom we saw behind should overtake us; and
sometimes to stop, lest we should come up to him who was passing before
us. She alarmed many an honest man, by begging him to spare her life as
he passed by the coach, and drew me into fifteen quarrels with persons
who increased her fright, by kindly stopping to inquire whether they
could assist us. At last we came home, and she told her company next
day what a pleasant ride she had been taking.

I suppose, Sir, I need not inquire of you what deductions may be made from
this narrative, nor what happiness can arise from the society of that
woman who mistakes cowardice for elegance, and imagines all delicacy to
consist in refusing to be pleased.

I am, &c.




No. 35. TUESDAY, JULY 17, 1750.


_----Non pronuba Juno,_
_Non Hymenæus adest, non illi Gratia lecto. _
OVID, Met. vi. 428.

Without connubial Juno's aid they wed;
Nor Hymen nor the Graces bless the bed.
ELPHINSTON.


TO THE RAMBLER.

SIR,

As you have hitherto delayed the performance of the promise, by which
you gave us reason to hope for another paper upon matrimony, I imagine
you desirous of collecting more materials than your own experience, or
observation, can supply; and I shall therefore lay candidly before you
an account of my own entrance into the conjugal state.

I was about eight-and-twenty years old, when, having tried the diversions
of the town till I began to be weary, and being awakened into attention
to more serious business, by the failure of an attorney to whom I had
implicitly trusted the conduct of my fortune, I resolved to take my
estate into my own care, and methodise my whole life according to the
strictest rules of economical prudence.

In pursuance of this scheme, I took leave of my acquaintance, who
dismissed me with numberless jests upon my new system; having first
endeavoured to divert me from a design so little worthy of a man of wit,
by ridiculous accounts of the ignorance and rusticity into which many
had sunk in their retirement, after having distinguished themselves in
taverns and playhouses, and given hopes of rising to uncommon eminence
among the gay part of mankind.

When I came first into the country, which, by a neglect not uncommon
among young heirs, I had never seen since the death of my father, I
found every thing in such confusion, that being utterly without practice
in business, I had great difficulties to encounter in disentangling the
perplexity of my circumstances; they however gave way to diligent
application; and I perceived that the advantage of keeping my own
accounts would very much overbalance the time which they could require.

I had now visited my tenants, surveyed my land, and repaired the old
house, which, for some years, had been running to decay. These proofs of
pecuniary wisdom began to recommend me as a sober, judicious, thriving
gentleman, to all my graver neighbours of the country, who never failed
to celebrate my management in opposition to Triftless and Latterwit,
two smart fellows, who had estates in the same part of the kingdom,
which they visited now and then in a frolick, to take up their rents
beforehand, debauch a milk-maid, make a feast for the village, and tell
stories of their own intrigues, and then rode post back to town to spend
their money.

It was doubtful, however, for some time, whether I should be able to
hold my resolution; but a short perseverance removed all suspicions.
I rose every day in reputation, by the decency of my conversation, and
the regularity of my conduct, and was mentioned with great regard at the
assizes, as a man very fit to be put in commission for the peace.

During the confusion of my affairs, and the daily necessity of visiting
farms, adjusting contracts, letting leases, and superintending repairs,
I found very little vacuity in my life, and therefore had not many
thoughts of marriage; but, in a little while, the tumult of business
subsided, and the exact method which I had established enabled me to
dispatch my accounts with great facility. I had, therefore, now upon my
hands, the task of finding means to spend my time, without falling back
into the poor amusements which I had hitherto indulged, or changing them
for the sports of the field, which I saw pursued with so much eagerness
by the gentlemen of the country, that they were indeed the only
pleasures in which I could promise myself any partaker.
The inconvenience of this situation naturally disposed me to wish for
a companion, and the known value of my estate, with my reputation for
frugality and prudence, easily gained me admission into every family;
for I soon found that no inquiry was made after any other virtue, nor
any testimonial necessary, but of my freedom from incumbrances, and
my care of what they termed the _main chance_. I saw, not without
indignation, the eagerness with which the daughters, wherever I came,
were set out to show; nor could I consider them in a state much
different from prostitution, when I found them ordered to play their
airs before me, and to exhibit, by some seeming chance, specimens of
their musick, their work, or their housewifery. No sooner was I placed
at table, than the young lady was called upon to pay me some civility or
other; nor could I find means of escaping, from either father or mother,
some account of their daughter's excellencies, with a declaration that
they were now leaving the world, and had no business on this side the
grave, but to see their children happily disposed of; that she whom I
had been pleased to compliment at table was indeed the chief pleasure of
their age; so good, so dutiful, so great a relief to her mamma in the
care of the house, and so much her papa's favourite for her cheerfulness
and wit, that it would be with the last reluctance that they should
part; but to a worthy gentleman in the neighbourhood, whom they might
often visit, they would not so far consult their own gratification, as
to refuse her; and their tenderness should be shown in her fortune,
whenever a suitable settlement was proposed.

As I knew these overtures not to proceed from any preference of me
before another equally rich, I could not but look with pity on young
persons condemned to be set to auction, and made cheap by injudicious
commendations; for how could they know themselves offered and rejected
a hundred times, without some loss of that soft elevation, and maiden
dignity, so necessary to the completion of female excellence?

I shall not trouble you with a history of the stratagems practised upon
my judgment, or the allurements tried upon my heart, which, if you have,
in any part of your life, been acquainted with rural politicks, you will
easily conceive. Their arts have no great variety, they think nothing
worth their care but money, and supposing its influence the same upon
all the world, seldom endeavour to deceive by any other means than false
computations.

I will not deny that, by hearing myself loudly commended for my
discretion, I began to set some value upon my character, and was
unwilling to lose my credit by marrying for love. I therefore resolved
to know the fortune of the lady whom I should address, before I inquired
after her wit, delicacy, or beauty.

This determination led to Mitissa, the daughter of Chrysophilus, whose
person was at least without deformity, and whose manners were free
from reproach, as she had been bred up at a distance from all common
temptations. To Mitissa therefore I obtained leave from her parents
to pay my court, and was referred by her again to her father, whose
direction she was resolved to follow. The question then was, only, what
should be settled? The old gentleman made an enormous demand, with which
I refused to comply. Mitissa was ordered to exert her power; she told me,
that if I could refuse her papa, I had no love for her; that she was an
unhappy creature, and that I was a perfidious man; then she burst into
tears, and fell into fits. All this, as I was no passionate lover, had
little effect. She next refused to see me, and because I thought myself
obliged to write in terms of distress, they had once hopes of starving
me into measures; but finding me inflexible, the father complied with my
proposal, and told me he liked me the more for being so good at a bargain.

I was now married to Mitissa, and was to experience the happiness of a
match made without passion. Mitissa soon discovered that she was equally
prudent with myself, and had taken a husband only to be at her own
command, and to have a chariot at her own call. She brought with her
an old maid recommended by her mother, who taught her all the arts of
domestick management, and was, on every occasion, her chief agent and
directress. They soon invented one reason or other to quarrel with all
my servants, and either prevailed on me to turn them away, or treated
them so ill that they left me of themselves, and always supplied their
places with some brought from my wife's relations. Thus they established
a family, over which I had no authority, and which was in a perpetual
conspiracy against me; for Mitissa considered herself as having a
separate interest, and thought nothing her own, but what she laid up
without my knowledge. For this reason she brought me false accounts of
the expenses of the house, joined with my tenants in complaints of hard
times, and by means of a steward of her own, took rewards for soliciting
abatements of the rent. Her great hope is to outlive me, that she may
enjoy what she has thus accumulated, and therefore she is always
contriving some improvements of her jointure land, and once tried to
procure an injunction to hinder me from felling timber upon it for
repairs. Her father and mother assist her in her projects, and are
frequently hinting that she is ill used, and reproaching me with the
presents that other ladies receive from their husbands.

Such, Sir, was my situation for seven years, till at last my patience
was exhausted, and having one day invited her father to my house, I laid
the state of my affairs before him, detected my wife in several of her
frauds, turned out her steward, charged a constable with her maid, took
my business in my own hands, reduced her to a settled allowance, and now
write this account to warn others against marrying those whom they have
no reason to esteem.

I am, &c.




No. 36. SATURDAY, JULY 21, 1750.


----Ἁμ' εποντο νομηες,
Τερπομενοι συριγξι· δολον δ' ουτι προνοησαν.
HOMER, II. xviii. 525.

----Piping on their reeds the shepherds go,
Nor fear an ambush, nor suspect a foe.
POPE.


There is scarcely any species of poetry that has allured more readers,
or excited more writers, than the pastoral. It is generally pleasing,
because it entertains the mind with representations of scenes familiar
to almost every imagination, and of which all can equally judge whether
they are well described. It exhibits a life, to which we have been
always accustomed to associate peace, and leisure, and innocence: and
therefore we readily set open the heart for the admission of its images,
which contribute to drive away cares and perturbations, and suffer
ourselves, without resistance, to be transported to Elysian regions,
where we are to meet with nothing but joy, and plenty, and contentment;
where every gale whispers pleasure, and every shade promises repose.

It has been maintained by some, who love to talk of what they do not
know, that pastoral is the most ancient poetry; and, indeed, since it
is probable that poetry is nearly of the same antiquity with rational
nature, and since the life of the first men was certainly rural, we
may reasonably conjecture, that, as their ideas would necessarily be
borrowed from those objects with which they are acquainted, their
composures, being filled chiefly with such thoughts on the visible
creation as must occur to the first observers, were pastoral hymns, like
those which Milton introduces the original pair singing, in the day of
innocence, to the praise of their Maker.


For the same reason that pastoral poetry was the first employment of the
human imagination, it is generally the first literary amusement of our
minds. We have seen fields, and meadows, and groves, from the time that
our eyes opened upon life; and are pleased with birds, and brooks, and
breezes, much earlier than we engage among the actions and passions of
mankind. We are therefore delighted with rural pictures, because we know
the original at an age when our curiosity can be very little awakened
by descriptions of courts which we never beheld, or representations of
passions which we never felt.

The satisfaction received from this kind of writing not only begins early,
but lasts long; we do not, as we advance into the intellectual world,
throw it away among other childish amusements and pastimes, but willingly
return to it in any hour of indolence and relaxation. The images of true
pastoral have always the power of exciting delight; because the works of
nature, from which they are drawn, have always the same order and beauty,
and continue to force themselves upon our thoughts, being at once obvious
to the most careless regard, and more than adequate to the strongest
reason, and severest contemplation. Our inclination to stillness and
tranquillity is seldom much lessened by long knowledge of the busy and
tumultuary part of the world. In childhood we turn our thoughts to the
country, as to the region of pleasure; we recur to it in old age as a
port of rest, and perhaps with that secondary and adventitious gladness,
which every man feels on reviewing those places, or recollecting those
occurrences, that contributed to his youthful enjoyments, and bring
him back to the prime of life, when the world was gay with the bloom of
novelty, when mirth wantoned at his side, and hope sparkled before him.

The sense of this universal pleasure has invited _numbers without number_
to try their skill in pastoral performances, in which they have generally
succeeded after the manner of other imitators, transmitting the same
images in the same combination from one to another, till he that reads
the title of a poem, may guess at the whole series of the composition;
nor will a man, after the perusal of thousands of these performances,
find his knowledge enlarged with a single view of nature not produced
before, or his imagination amused with any new application of those
views to moral purposes.

The range of pastoral is indeed narrow, for though nature itself,
philosophically considered, be inexhaustible, yet its general effects
on the eye and on the ear are uniform, and incapable of much variety of
description. Poetry cannot dwell upon the minuter distinctions, by which
one species differs from another, without departing from that simplicity
of grandeur which fills the imagination; nor dissect the latent qualities
of things, without losing its general power of gratifying every mind, by
recalling its conceptions. However, as each age makes some discoveries,
and those discoveries are by degrees generally known, as new plants or
modes of culture are introduced, and by little and little become common,
pastoral might receive, from time to time, small augmentations, and
exhibit once in a century a scene somewhat varied.

But pastoral subjects have been often, like others, taken into the hands
of those that were not qualified to adorn them, men to whom the face of
nature was so little known, that they have drawn it only after their own
imagination, and changed or distorted her features, that their portraits
might appear something more than servile copies from their predecessors.

Not only the images of rural life, but the occasions on which they can be
properly produced, are few and general. The state of a man confined to
the employments and pleasures of the country, is so little diversified,
and exposed to so few of those accidents which produce perplexities,
terrours, and surprises, in more complicated transactions, that he can be
shewn but seldom in such circumstances as attract curiosity. His ambition
is without policy, and his love without intrigue. He has no complaints to
make of his rival, but that he is richer than himself; nor any disasters
to lament, but a cruel mistress, or a bad harvest.

The conviction of the necessity of some new source of pleasure induced
Sannazarius to remove the scene from the fields to the sea, to substitute
fishermen for shepherds, and derive his sentiments from the piscatory
life; for which he has been censured by succeeding criticks, because
the sea is an object of terrour, and by no means proper to amuse the
mind, and lay the passions asleep. Against this objection he might be
defended by the established maxim, that the poet has a right to select
his images, and is no more obliged to shew the sea in a storm, than the
land under an inundation; but may display all the pleasures, and conceal
the dangers of the water, as he may lay his shepherd under a shady beech,
without giving him an ague, or letting a wild beast loose upon him.

There are, however, two defects in the piscatory eclogue, which perhaps
cannot be supplied. The sea, though in hot countries it is considered by
those who live, like Sannazarius, upon the coast, as a place of pleasure
and diversion, has notwithstanding much less variety than the land, and
therefore will be sooner exhausted by a descriptive writer. When he has
once shewn the sun rising or setting upon it, curled its waters with the
vernal breeze, rolled the waves in gentle succession to the shore, and
enumerated the fish sporting on the shallows, he has nothing remaining
but what is common to all other poetry, the complaint of a nymph for a
drowned lover, or the indignation of a fisher that his oysters are
refused, and Mycon's accepted.

Another obstacle to the general reception of this kind of poetry, is the
ignorance of maritime pleasures, in which the greater part of mankind
must always live. To all the inland inhabitants of every region, the
sea is only known as an immense diffusion of waters, over which men pass
from one country to another, and in which life is frequently lost. They
have, therefore, no opportunity of tracing, in their own thoughts, the
descriptions of winding shores and calm bays, nor can look on the poem
in which they are mentioned, with other sensations than on a sea chart,
or the metrical geography of Dionysius.

This defect Sannazarius was hindered from perceiving, by writing in
a learned language to readers generally acquainted with the works of
nature; but if he had made his attempt in any vulgar tongue, he would
soon have discovered how vainly he had endeavoured to make that loved,
which was not understood.

I am afraid it will not be found easy to improve the pastorals of
antiquity, by any great additions or diversifications. Our descriptions
may indeed differ from those of Virgil, as an English from an Italian
summer, and, in some respects, as modern from ancient life; but as
nature is in both countries nearly the same, and as poetry has to do
rather with the passions of men, which are uniform, than their customs,
which are changeable, the varieties, which time or place can furnish,
will be inconsiderable; and I shall endeavour to shew, in the next
paper, how little the latter ages have contributed to the improvement
of the rustick muse.





No. 37. TUESDAY, JULY 24, 1750.


_Canto quæ solitus, si quando armenta vocabat,_
_Amphion Dircæus. _
VIRG. Ec. ii. 23.

Such strains I sing as once Amphion play'd,
When list'ning flocks the powerful call obey'd.
ELPHINSTON.


In writing or judging of pastoral poetry, neither the authors nor criticks
of latter times seem to have paid sufficient regard to the originals
left us by antiquity, but have entangled themselves with unnecessary
difficulties, by advancing principles, which, having no foundation
in the nature of things, are wholly to be rejected from a species of
composition, in which, above all others, mere nature is to be regarded.

It is therefore necessary to inquire after some more distinct and exact
idea of this kind of writing. This may, I think, be easily found in the
pastorals of Virgil, from whose opinion it will not appear very safe to
depart, if we consider that every advantage of nature, and of fortune,
concurred to complete his productions; that he was born with great
accuracy and severity of judgment, enlightened with all the learning of
one of the brightest ages, and embellished with the elegance of the Roman
court; that he employed his powers rather in improving, than inventing,
and therefore must have endeavoured to recompense the want of novelty by
exactness; that taking Theocritus for his original, he found pastoral
far advanced towards perfection, and that having so great a rival,
he must have proceeded with uncommon caution.

If we search the writings of Virgil for the true definition of a pastoral,
it will be found _a poem in which any action or passion is represented by
its effects upon a country life_. Whatsoever therefore may, according to
the common course of things, happen in the country, may afford a subject
for a pastoral poet.

In this definition, it will immediately occur to those who are versed
in the writings of the modern criticks, that there is no mention of the
golden age. I cannot indeed easily discover why it is thought necessary
to refer descriptions of a rural state to remote times, nor can I
perceive that any writer has consistently preserved the Arcadian manners
and sentiments. The only reason, that I have read, on which this rule
has been founded, is, that, according to the customs of modern life, it
is improbable that shepherds should be capable of harmonious numbers,
or delicate sentiments; and therefore the reader must exalt his ideas
of the pastoral character, by carrying his thoughts back to the age in
which the care of herds and flocks was the employment of the wisest and
greatest men.

These reasoners seem to have been led into their hypothesis, by
considering pastoral, not in general, as a representation of rural
nature, and consequently as exhibiting the ideas and sentiments of those,
whoever they are, to whom the country affords pleasure or employment, but
simply as a dialogue, or narrative of men actually tending sheep, and
busied in the lowest and most laborious office; from whence they very
readily concluded, since characters must necessarily be preserved, that
either the sentiments must sink to the level of the speakers, or the
speakers must be raised to the height of the sentiments.

In consequence of these original errours, a thousand precepts have been
given, which have only contributed to perplex and confound. Some have
thought it necessary that the imaginary manners of the golden age should
be universally preserved, and have therefore believed, that nothing more
could be admitted in pastoral, than lilies and roses, and rocks and
streams, among which are heard the gentle whispers of chaste fondness,
or the soft complaints of amorous impatience. In pastoral, as in other
writings, chastity of sentiment ought doubtless to be observed, and
purity of manners to be represented; not because the poet is confined to
the images of the golden age, but because, having the subject in his own
choice, he ought always to consult the interest of virtue.

These advocates for the golden age lay down other principles, not very
consistent with their general plan; for they tell us, that, to support
the character of the shepherd, it is proper that all refinement should
be avoided, and that some slight instances of ignorance should be
interspersed. Thus the shepherd in Virgil is supposed to have forgot
the name of Anaximander, and in Pope the term Zodiack is too hard for a
rustick apprehension. But if we place our shepherds in their primitive
condition, we may give them learning among their other qualifications;
and if we suffer them to allude at all to things of later existence,
which, perhaps, cannot with any great propriety be allowed, there can
be no danger of making them speak with too much accuracy, since they
conversed with divinities, and transmitted to succeeding ages the arts
of life.

Other writers, having the mean and despicable condition of a shepherd
always before them, conceive it necessary to degrade the language of
pastoral by obsolete terms and rustick words, which they very learnedly
call Dorick, without reflecting that they thus became authors of a
mangled dialect, which no human being ever could have spoken, that they
may as well refine the speech as the sentiments of their personages,
and that none of the inconsistencies which they endeavour to avoid,
is greater than that of joining elegance of thought with coarseness
of diction. Spenser begins one of his pastorals with studied barbarity:

Diggon Davie, I bid her good-day:
Or, Diggon her is, or I missay.
_Dig. _ Her was her while it was day-light,
But now her is a most wretched wight.

What will the reader imagine to be the subject on which speakers like
these exercise their eloquence? Will he not be somewhat disappointed,
when he finds them met together to condemn the corruptions of the church
of Rome? Surely, at the same time that a shepherd learns theology, he
may gain some acquaintance with his native language.

Pastoral admits of all ranks of persons, because persons of all ranks
inhabit the country. It excludes not, therefore, on account of the
characters necessary to be introduced, any elevation or delicacy of
sentiment; those ideas only are improper, which, not owing their original
to rural objects, are not pastoral. Such is the exclamation in Virgil,

_Nunc scio quid sit Amor, duris in cotibus illum_
_Ismarus, aut Rhodope, aut extremi Garamantes,_
_Nec generis nostri puerum, nee sanguinis edunt. _
VIRG. Ecl. viii. 44.

I know thee, Love, in deserts thou wert bred,
And at the dugs of savage tygers fed;
Alien of birth, usurper of the plains.
DRYDEN.

which, Pope endeavouring to copy, was carried to still greater impropriety:

I know thee, Love, wild as the raging main,
More fierce than tygers on the Libyan plain;
Thou wert from Ætna's burning entrails torn;
Begot in tempests, and in thunders born!

Sentiments like these, as they have no ground in nature, are indeed of
little value in any poem; but in pastoral they are particularly liable
to censure, because it wants that exaltation above common life, which
in tragick or heroick writings often reconciles us to bold flights and
daring figures.

Pastoral being the _representation of an action or passion, by its
effects upon a country life_, has nothing peculiar but its confinement to
rural imagery, without which it ceases to be pastoral. This is its true
characteristick, and this it cannot lose by any dignity of sentiment,
or beauty of diction. The Pollio of Virgil, with all its elevation, is
a composition truly bucolick, though rejected by the criticks; for all
the images are either taken from the country, or from the religion of
the age common to all parts of the empire.

The Silenus is indeed of a more disputable kind, because, though the
scene lies in the country, the song being religious and historical, had
been no less adapted to any other audience or place. Neither can it well
be defended as a fiction; for the introduction of a god seems to imply
the golden age, and yet he alludes to many subsequent transactions,
and mentions Gallus, the poet's contemporary.

It seems necessary to the perfection of this poem, that the occasion which
is supposed to produce it, be at least not inconsistent with a country
life, or less likely to interest those who have retired into places of
solitude and quiet, than the more busy part of mankind. It is therefore
improper to give the title of a pastoral to verses, in which the
speakers, after the slight mention of their flocks, fall to complaints
of errours in the church, and corruptions in the government, or to
lamentations of the death of some illustrious person, whom, when once the
poet has called a shepherd, he has no longer any labour upon his hands,
but can make the clouds weep, and lilies wither, and the sheep hang their
heads, without art or learning, genius or study.

It is part of Claudian's character of his rustick, that he computes his
time not by the succession of consuls, but of harvests. Those who pass
their days in retreats distant from the theatres of business, are always
least likely to hurry their imagination with publick affairs.

The facility of treating actions or events in the pastoral style, has
incited many writers, from whom more judgment might have been expected,
to put the sorrow or the joy which the occasion required into the mouth
of Daphne or of Thyrsis; and as one absurdity must naturally be expected
to make way for another, they have written with an utter disregard
both of life and nature, and filled their productions with mythological
allusions, with incredible fictions, and with sentiments which neither
passion nor reason could have dictated, since the change which religion
has made in the whole system of the world.




No. 38. SATURDAY, JULY 28, 1750.


_Auream quisquis mediocritatem_
_Diligit, tutus caret obsoleti_
_Sordibus tecti, caret invidendâ_
_Sobrius aulâ. _
HOR. lib. i. Ode iv. 10.

The man within the golden mean
Who can his boldest wish contain,
Securely views the ruin'd cell,
Where sordid want and sorrow dwell;
And in himself serenely great,
Declines an envied room of state.
FRANCIS.


Among many parallels which men of imagination have drawn between the
natural and moral state of the world, it has been observed that happiness,
as well as virtue, consists in mediocrity; that to avoid every extreme
is necessary, even to him who has no other care than to pass through the
present state with ease and safety; and that the middle path is the road
of security, on either side of which are not only the pitfalls of vice,
but the precipices of ruin.


Thus the maxim of Cleobulus the Lindian, μετρον αριστον, _Mediocrity is
best_, has been long considered as an universal principle, extended
through the whole compass of life and nature. The experience of every
age seems to have given it new confirmation, and to shew that nothing,
however specious or alluring, is pursued with propriety, or enjoyed with
safety, beyond certain limits.

Even the gifts of nature, which may truly be considered as the most solid
and durable of all terrestrial advantages, are found, when they exceed
the middle point, to draw the possessor into many calamities, easily
avoided by others that have been less bountifully enriched or adorned. We
see every day women perish with infamy, by having been too willing to set
their beauty to shew; and others, though not with equal guilt or misery,
yet with very sharp remorse, languishing in decay, neglect, and obscurity,
for having rated their youthful charms at too high a price. And, indeed,
if the opinion of Bacon be thought to deserve much regard, very few
sighs would be vented for eminent and superlative elegance of form; "for
beautiful women," says he, "are seldom of any great accomplishments,
because they, for the most part, study behaviour rather than virtue. "

Health and vigour, and a happy constitution of the corporeal frame,
are of absolute necessity to the enjoyment of the comforts, and to the
performance of the duties of life, and requisite in yet a greater measure
to the accomplishment of any thing illustrious or distinguished; yet even
these, if we can judge by their apparent consequences, are sometimes not
very beneficial to those on whom they are most liberally bestowed. They
that frequent the chambers of the sick will generally find the sharpest
pains, and most stubborn maladies, among them whom confidence of the
force of nature formerly betrayed to negligence and irregularity; and
that superfluity of strength, which was at once their boast and their
snare, has often, in the latter part of life, no other effect than that
it continues them long in impotence and anguish.

These gifts of nature are, however, always blessings in themselves, and
to be acknowledged with gratitude to him that gives them; since they
are, in their regular and legitimate effects, productive of happiness, and
prove pernicious only by voluntary corruption or idle negligence. And as
there is little danger of pursuing them with too much ardour or anxiety,
because no skill or diligence can hope to procure them, the uncertainty
of their influence upon our lives is mentioned, not to depreciate their
real value, but to repress the discontent and envy to which the want of
them often gives occasion in those who do not enough suspect their own
frailty, nor consider how much less is the calamity of not possessing
great powers, than of not using them aright.

Of all those things that make us superior to others, there is none so much
within the reach of our endeavours as riches, nor any thing more eagerly
or constantly desired. Poverty is an evil always in our view, an evil
complicated with so many circumstances of uneasiness and vexation, that
every man is studious to avoid it. Some degree of riches is therefore
required, that we may be exempt from the gripe of necessity; when this
purpose is once attained, we naturally wish for more, that the evil which
is regarded with so much horrour, may be yet at a greater distance from
us; as he that has once felt or dreaded the paw of a savage, will not
be at rest till they are parted by some barrier, which may take away all
possibility of a second attack.

To this point, if fear be not unreasonably indulged, Cleobulus would,
perhaps, not refuse to extend his mediocrity. But it almost always
happens, that the man who grows rich, changes his notions of poverty,
states his wants by some new measure, and from flying the enemy that
pursued him, bends his endeavours to overtake those whom he sees before
him. The power of gratifying his appetites increases their demands;
a thousand wishes crowd in upon him, importunate to be satisfied, and
vanity and ambition open prospects to desire, which still grow wider,
as they are more contemplated.

Thus in time want is enlarged without bounds; an eagerness for increase
of possessions deluges the soul, and we sink into the gulphs of
insatiability, only because we do not sufficiently consider, that all
real need is very soon supplied, and all real danger of its invasion
easily precluded; that the claims of vanity, being without limits, must
be denied at last; and that the pain of repressing them is less pungent
before they have been long accustomed to compliance.

Whosoever shall look heedfully upon those who are eminent for their
riches, will not think their condition such as that he should hazard his
quiet, and much less his virtue, to obtain it. For all that great wealth
generally gives above a moderate fortune, is more room for the freaks of
caprice, and more privilege for ignorance and vice, a quicker succession
of flatteries, and a large circle of voluptuousness.

There is one reason, seldom remarked, which makes riches less desirable.
Too much wealth is very frequently the occasion of poverty. He whom the
wantonness of abundance has once softened, easily sinks into neglect of
his affairs; and he that thinks he can afford to be negligent, is not
far from being poor. He will soon be involved in perplexities, which his
inexperience will render unsurmountable; he will fly for help to those
whose interest it is that he should be more distressed, and will be at
last torn to pieces by the vultures that always hover over fortunes in
decay.

When the plains of India were burnt up by a long continuance of drought,
Hamet and Raschid, two neighbouring shepherds, faint with thirst, stood
at the common boundary of their grounds, with their flocks and herds
panting round them, and in extremity of distress prayed for water. On a
sudden the air was becalmed, the birds ceased to chirp, and the flocks
to bleat. They turned their eyes every way, and saw a being of mighty
stature advancing through the valley, whom they knew upon his nearer
approach to be the Genius of Distribution. In one hand he held the sheaves
of plenty, and in the other the sabre of destruction. The shepherds stood
trembling, and would have retired before him; but he called to them with
a voice gentle as the breeze that plays in the evening among the spices
of Sabæa; "Fly not from your benefactor, children of the dust! I am come
to offer you gifts, which only your own folly can make vain. You here
pray for water, and water I will bestow; let me know with how much you
will be satisfied: speak not rashly; consider, that of whatever can be
enjoyed by the body, excess is no less dangerous than scarcity. When you
remember the pain of thirst, do not forget the danger of suffocation. Now,
Hamet, tell me your request. "

"O Being, kind and beneficent," says Hamet, "let thine eye pardon my
confusion, I entreat a little brook, which in summer shall never be dry,
and in winter never overflow. " "It is granted," replies the Genius; and
immediately he opened the ground with his sabre, and a fountain bubbling
up under their feet, scattered its rills over the meadows; the flowers
renewed their fragrance, the trees spread a greener foliage, and the
flocks and herds quenched their thirst.

Then turning to Raschid, the Genius invited him likewise to offer his
petition. "I request," says Raschid, "that thou wilt turn the Ganges
through my grounds, with all his waters, and all their inhabitants. " Hamet
was struck with the greatness of his neighbour's sentiments, and secretly
repined in his heart, that he had not made the same petition before him;
when the Genius spoke, "Rash man, be not insatiable! remember, to thee
that is nothing which thou canst not use; and how are thy wants greater
than the wants of Hamet? " Raschid repeated his desire, and pleased himself
with the mean appearance that Hamet would make in the presence of the
proprietor of the Ganges. The Genius then retired towards the river, and
the two shepherds stood waiting the event. As Raschid was looking with
contempt upon his neighbour, on a sudden was heard the roar of torrents,
and they found by the mighty stream that the mounds of the Ganges were
broken. The flood rolled forward into the lands of Raschid, his plantations
were torn up, his flocks overwhelmed, he was swept away before it, and
a crocodile devoured him.




No. 39. TUESDAY, JULY 31, 1750.


_Infelix----nulli bene nupta marito. _
AUSONIUS, Ep. Her. 30.

Unblest, still doom'd to wed with misery.


The condition of the female sex has been frequently the subject of
compassion to medical writers, because their constitution of body is
such, that every state of life brings its peculiar diseases: they are
placed, according to the proverb, between Scylla and Charybdis, with no
other choice than of dangers equally formidable; and whether they embrace
marriage, or determine upon a single life, are exposed, in consequence of
their choice, to sickness, misery, and death.

It were to be wished that so great a degree of natural infelicity might
not be increased by adventitious and artificial miseries; and that
beings, whose beauty we cannot behold without admiration, and whose
delicacy we cannot contemplate without tenderness, might be suffered to
enjoy every alleviation of their sorrows. But, however it has happened,
the custom of the world seems to have been formed in a kind of conspiracy
against them, though it does not appear but they had themselves an equal
share in its establishment; and prescriptions which, by whomsoever they
were begun, are now of long continuance, and by consequence of great
authority, seem to have almost excluded them from content, in whatsoever
condition they shall pass their lives.

If they refuse the society of men, and continue in that state which is
reasonably supposed to place happiness most in their own power, they
seldom give those that frequent their conversation any exalted notions
of the blessing of liberty; for whether it be that they are angry to
see with what inconsiderate eagerness other heedless females rush into
slavery, or with what absurd vanity the married ladies boast the change
of their condition, and condemn the heroines who endeavour to assert
the natural dignity of their sex; whether they are conscious that like
barren countries they are free, only because they were never thought to
deserve the trouble of a conquest, or imagine that their sincerity is
not always unsuspected, when they declare their contempt of men; it is
certain, that they generally appear to have some great and incessant
cause of uneasiness, and that many of them have at last been persuaded,
by powerful rhetoricians, to try the life which they had so long
contemned, and put on the bridal ornaments at a time when they least
became them.

What are the real causes of the impatience which the ladies discover in a
virgin state, I shall perhaps take some other occasion to examine. That
it is not to be envied for its happiness, appears from the solicitude
with which it is avoided; from the opinion universally prevalent among
the sex, that no woman continues long in it but because she is not
invited to forsake it; from the disposition always shewn to treat old
maids as the refuse of the world; and from the willingness with which it
is often quitted at last, by those whose experience has enabled them to
judge at leisure, and decide with authority.

Yet such is life, that whatever is proposed, it is much easier to find
reasons for rejecting than embracing. Marriage, though a certain security
from the reproach and solicitude of antiquated virginity, has yet, as it
is usually conducted, many disadvantages, that take away much from the
pleasure which society promises, and might afford, if pleasures and pains
were honestly shared, and mutual confidence inviolably preserved.

The miseries, indeed, which many ladies suffer under conjugal vexations,
are to be considered with great pity, because their husbands are often
not taken by them as objects of affection, but forced upon them by
authority and violence, or by persuasion and importunity, equally
resistless when urged by those whom they have been always accustomed to
reverence and obey; and it very seldom appears that those who are thus
despotick in the disposal of their children, pay any regard to their
domestick and personal felicity, or think it so much to be inquired
whether they will be happy, as whether they will be rich.

It may be urged, in extenuation of this crime, which parents, not in
any other respect to be numbered with robbers and assassins, frequently
commit, that, in their estimation, riches and happiness are equivalent
terms. They have passed their lives with no other wish than of adding
acre to acre, and filling one bag after another, and imagine the
advantage of a daughter sufficiently considered, when they have secured
her a large jointure, and given her reasonable expectations of living
in the midst of those pleasures with which she had seen her father and
mother solacing their age.

There is an œconomical oracle received among the prudential part of the
world, which advises fathers _to marry their daughters, lest they should
marry themselves_; by which I suppose it is implied, that women left to
their own conduct generally unite themselves with such partners as can
contribute very little to their felicity. Who was the author of this
maxim, or with what intention it was originally uttered, I have not yet
discovered; but imagine that however solemnly it may be transmitted,
or however implicitly received, it can confer no authority which nature
has denied; it cannot license Titius to be unjust, lest Caia should be
imprudent; nor give right to imprison for life, lest liberty should be
ill employed.

That the ladies have sometimes incurred imputations which might naturally
produce edicts not much in their favour, must be confessed by their warmest
advocates; and I have indeed seldom observed that when the tenderness or
virtue of their parents has preserved them from forced marriage, and left
them at large to chuse their own path in the labyrinth of life, they
have made any great advantage of their liberty: they commonly take the
opportunity of independance to trifle away youth and lose their bloom in
a hurry of diversions, recurring in a succession too quick to leave room
for any settled reflection; they see the world without gaining experience,
and at last regulate their choice by motives trifling as those of a girl,
or mercenary as those of a miser.

Melanthea came to town upon the death of her father, with a very large
fortune, and with the reputation of a much larger; she was therefore
followed and caressed by many men of rank, and by some of understanding;
but having an insatiable desire of pleasure, she was not at leisure,
from the park, the gardens, the theatres, visits, assemblies, and
masquerades, to attend seriously to any proposal, but was still impatient
for a new flatterer, and neglected marriage as always in her power; till
in time her admirers fell away, wearied with expense, disgusted at her
folly, or offended by her inconstancy; she heard of concerts to which
she was not invited, and was more than once forced to sit still at an
assembly for want of a partner. In this distress, chance threw in her
way Philotryphus, a man vain, glittering, and thoughtless as herself, who
had spent a small fortune in equipage and dress, and was shining in the
last suit for which his tailor would give him credit. He had been long
endeavouring to retrieve his extravagance by marriage, and therefore soon
paid his court to Melanthea, who after some weeks of insensibility saw
him at a ball, and was wholly overcome by his performance in a minuet.
They married; but a man cannot always dance, and Philotryphus had no
other method of pleasing; however, as neither was in any great degree
vicious, they live together with no other unhappiness, than vacuity of
mind, and that tastelessness of life, which proceeds from a satiety of
juvenile pleasures, and an utter inability to fill their place by nobler
employments. As they have known the fashionable world at the same time,
they agree in their notions of all those subjects on which they ever
speak, and being able to add nothing to the ideas of each other, are
not much inclined to conversation, but very often join in one wish,
"That they could sleep more, and think less. "

Argyris, after having refused a thousand offers, at last consented to
marry Cotylus, the younger brother of a duke, a man without elegance of
mien, beauty of person, or force of understanding; who, while he courted
her, could not always forbear allusions to her birth, and hints how
cheaply she would purchase an alliance to so illustrious a family. His
conduct from the hour of his marriage has been insufferably tyrannical,
nor has he any other regard to her than what arises from his desire that
her appearance may not disgrace him. Upon this principle, however, he
always orders that she should be gaily dressed, and splendidly attended;
and she has, among all her mortifications, the happiness to take place of
her eldest sister.