Nos duo turba sumus.Ovid,Met.i. 355.We two are a multitude.
Nos duo turba sumus.
Ovid,Met.i. 355.
We two are a multitude.
One would think that the larger the company is, in which we are engaged, the greater variety of thoughts and subjects would be started in discourse; but instead of this, we find that conversation is never so much straitened and confined as in numerous assemblies. When a multitude meet together upon any subject of discourse, their debates are taken up chiefly with forms and general positions; nay, if we come into a more contracted assembly of men and women, the talk generally runs upon the weather, fashions, news, and the like public topics. In proportion as conversation gets into clubs and knots of friends, it descends into particulars, and grows more free and communicative: but the most open, instructive, and unreserved discourse is that which passes between two persons who are familiar and intimate friends. On these occasions, a man gives a loose to every passion and every thought that is uppermost, discovers his most retired opinions of persons and things, tries the beauty and strength of his sentiments, and exposes his whole soul to the examination of his friend.
Tully was the first who observed that friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and dividing of our grief; a thought in which he hath been followed by all the essayists upon friendship that have written since his time. Sir Francis Bacon has finely described other advantages, or, as he calls them, fruits of friendship; and, indeed, there is no subject of morality which has been better handled and more exhausted than this. Among the several fine things which have been spoken of it, I shall beg leave to quote some out of a very ancient author, whose book would be regarded by our modern wits as one of the most shining tracts of morality that is extant, if it appeared under the name of a Confucius, or of any celebrated Grecian philosopher; I mean the little apocryphal treatise entitled The Wisdom of the Son of Sirach. How finely has he described the art of making friends by an obliging and affable behaviour; and laid down that precept, which a late excellent author has delivered as his own, That we should have many well-wishers, but few friends. “Sweet language will multiply friends; and a fair-speaking tongue will increase kind greetings. Be in peace with many, nevertheless have but one counsellor of a thousand.” With what prudence does he caution us in the choice of our friends! And with what strokes of nature, I could almost say of humour, has he described the behaviour of a treacherous and self-interested friend! “If thou wouldest get a friend, prove him first, and be not hasty to credit him: for some man is a friend for his own occasion, and will not abide in the day of thy trouble. And there is a friend who, being turned to enmity and strife, will discover thy reproach.” Again, “Some friend is a companion at the table, and will not continue in the day of thy affliction: but in thy prosperity he will be as thyself, and will be bold over thy servants. If thou be brought low, he will be against thee, and hide himself from thy face.” What can be more strong and pointed than the following verse?—“Separate thyself from thine enemies, and take heed of thy friends.” In the next words he particularises one of those fruits of friendship which is described at length by the two famous authors above-mentioned, and falls into a general eulogium of friendship, which is very just as well as very sublime. “A faithful friend is a strong defence; and he that hath found such an one hath found a treasure. Nothing doth countervail a faithful friend, and his excellency is unvaluable. A faithful friend is the medicine of life; and they that fear the Lord shall find him. Whose feareth the Lord shall direct his friendship aright; for as he is, so shall his neighbour, that is his friend, be also.” I do not remember to have met with any saying that has pleased me more than that of a friend’s being the medicine of life, to express the efficacy of friendship in healing the pains and anguish which naturally cleave to our existence in this world; and am wonderfully pleased with the turn in the last sentence, that a virtuous man shall as a blessing meet with a friend who is as virtuous as himself. There is another saying in the same author, which would have been very much admired in a heathen writer: “Forsake not an old friend, for the new is not comparable to him: a new friend is as new wine; when it is old thou shalt drink it with pleasure.” With what strength of allusion and force of thought has he described the breaches and violations of friendship!—“Whoso casteth a stone at the birds, frayeth them away; and he that upbraideth his friend, breaketh friendship. Though thou drawest a sword at a friend, yet despair not, for there may be a returning to favour. If thou hast opened thy mouth against thy friend, fear not, for there may be a reconciliation: except for upbraiding, or pride, or disclosing of secrets, or a treacherous wound; for, for these things every friend will depart.” We may observe in this, and several other precepts in this author, those little familiar instances and illustrations which are so much admired in the moral writings of Horace and Epictetus. There are very beautiful instances of this nature in the following passages, which are likewise written upon the same subject: “Whose discovereth secrets, loseth his credit, and shall never find a friend to his mind. Love thy friend, and be faithful unto him; but if thou bewrayeth his secrets, follow no more after him: for as a man hath destroyed his enemy, so hast thou lost the love of thy friend; as one that letteth a bird go out of his hand, so hast thou let thy friend go, and shall not get him again: follow after him no more, for he is too far off; he is as a roe escaped out of the snare. As for a wound it may be bound up, and after reviling there may be reconciliation; but he that bewrayeth secrets, is without hope.”
Among the several qualifications of a good friend, this wise man has very justly singled out constancy and faithfulness as the principal: to these, others have added virtue, knowledge, discretion, equality in age and fortune, and, as Cicero calls it,Morum comitas, “a pleasantness of temper.” If I were to give my opinion upon such an exhausted subject, I should join to these other qualifications a certain equability or evenness of behaviour. A man often contracts a friendship with one whom perhaps he does not find out till after a year’s conversation; when on a sudden some latent ill-humour breaks out upon him, which he never discovered or suspected at his first entering into an intimacy with him. There are several persons who in some certain periods of their lives are inexpressibly agreeable, and in others as odious and detestable. Martial has given us a very pretty picture of one of this species, in the following epigram:
Difficilis,facilis,jucundus,acerbus es idem,Nec tecum possum vivere,nec sine te.Ep.xii. 47.In all thy humours, whether grave or mellow,Thou’rt such a touchy, testy, pleasant fellow;Hast so much wit, and mirth, and spleen about thee,There is no living with thee, nor without thee.
Difficilis,facilis,jucundus,acerbus es idem,Nec tecum possum vivere,nec sine te.
Ep.xii. 47.
In all thy humours, whether grave or mellow,Thou’rt such a touchy, testy, pleasant fellow;Hast so much wit, and mirth, and spleen about thee,There is no living with thee, nor without thee.
It is very unlucky for a man to be entangled in a friendship with one who, by these changes and vicissitudes of humour, is sometimes amiable and sometimes odious: and as most men are at some times in admirable frame and disposition of mind, it should be one of the greatest tasks of wisdom to keep ourselves well when we are so, and never to go out of that which is the agreeable part of our character.
Interdum vulgus rectum videt.Hor.,Ep.ii. 1, 63.
Interdum vulgus rectum videt.
Hor.,Ep.ii. 1, 63.
Sometimes the vulgar see and judge aright. When I travelled I took a particular delight in hearing the songs and fables that are come from father to son, and are most in vogue among the common people of the countries through which I passed; for it is impossible that anything should be universally tasted and approved by a multitude, though they are only the rabble of a nation, which hath not in it some peculiar aptness to please and gratify the mind of man. Human nature is the same in all reasonable creatures; and whatever falls in with it will meet with admirers amongst readers of all qualities and conditions. Molière, as we are told by Monsieur Boileau, used to read all his comedies to an old woman who was his housekeeper as she sat with him at her work by the chimney-corner, and could foretell the success of his play in the theatre from the reception it met at his fireside; for he tells us the audience always followed the old woman, and never failed to laugh in the same place.
I know nothing which more shows the essential and inherent perfection of simplicity of thought, above that which I call the Gothic manner in writing, than this, that the first pleases all kinds of palates, and the latter only such as have formed to themselves a wrong artificial taste upon little fanciful authors and writers of epigram. Homer, Virgil, or Milton, so far as the language of their poems is understood, will please a reader of plain common sense, who would neither relish nor comprehend an epigram of Martial, or a poem of Cowley; so, on the contrary, an ordinary song or ballad that is the delight of the common people cannot fail to please all such readers as are not unqualified for the entertainment by their affectation of ignorance; and the reason is plain, because the same paintings of nature which recommend it to the most ordinary reader will appear beautiful to the most refined.
The old song of “Chevy-Chase” is the favourite ballad of the common people of England, and Ben Jonson used to say he had rather have been the author of it than of all his works. Sir Philip Sidney, in his discourse of Poetry, speaks of it in the following words: “I never heard the old song of Percy and Douglas that I found not my heart more moved than with a trumpet; and yet it is sung by some blind crowder with no rougher voice than rude style, which being so evil apparelled in the dust and cobweb of that uncivil age, what would it work trimmed in the gorgeous eloquence of Pindar?” For my own part, I am so professed an admirer of this antiquated song, that I shall give my reader a critique upon it without any further apology for so doing.
The greatest modern critics have laid it down as a rule that an heroic poem should be founded upon some important precept of morality adapted to the constitution of the country in which the poet writes. Homer and Virgil have formed their plans in this view. As Greece was a collection of many governments, who suffered very much among themselves, and gave the Persian emperor, who was their common enemy, many advantages over them by their mutual jealousies and animosities, Homer, in order to establish among them an union which was so necessary for their safety, grounds his poem upon the discords of the several Grecian princes who were engaged in a confederacy against an Asiatic prince, and the several advantages which the enemy gained by such discords. At the time the poem we are now treating of was written, the dissensions of the barons, who were then so many petty princes, ran very high, whether they quarrelled among themselves or with their neighbours, and produced unspeakable calamities to the country. The poet, to deter men from such unnatural contentions, describes a bloody battle and dreadful scene of death, occasioned by the mutual feuds which reigned in the families of an English and Scotch nobleman. That he designed this for the instruction of his poem we may learn from his four last lines, in which, after the example of the modern tragedians, he draws from it a precept for the benefit of his readers:
God save the king, and bless the landIn plenty, joy, and peace;And grant henceforth that foul debate’Twixt noblemen may cease.
God save the king, and bless the landIn plenty, joy, and peace;And grant henceforth that foul debate’Twixt noblemen may cease.
The next point observed by the greatest heroic poets hath been to celebrate persons and actions which do honour to their country: thus Virgil’s hero was the founder of Rome; Homer’s a prince of Greece; and for this reason Valerius Flaccus and Statius, who were both Romans, might be justly derided for having chosen the expedition of the Golden Fleece and the Wars of Thebes for the subjects of their epic writings.
The poet before us has not only found out a hero in his own country, but raises the reputation of it by several beautiful incidents. The English are the first who take the field and the last who quit it. The English bring only fifteen hundred to the battle, the Scotch two thousand. The English keep the field with fifty-three, the Scotch retire with fifty-five; all the rest on each side being slain in battle. But the most remarkable circumstance of this kind is the different manner in which the Scotch and English kings receive the news of this fight, and of the great men’s deaths who commanded in it:
This news was brought to Edinburgh,Where Scotland’s king did reign,That brave Earl Douglas suddenlyWas with an arrow slain.“O heavy news!” King James did say,“Scotland can witness be,I have not any captain moreOf such account as he.”Like tidings to King Henry came,Within as short a space,That Percy of NorthumberlandWas slain in Chevy-Chase.“Now God be with him,” said our king,“Sith ’twill no better be,I trust I have within my realmFive hundred as good as he.“Yet shall not Scot nor Scotland sayBut I will vengeance take,And be revenged on them allFor brave Lord Percy’s sake.”This vow full well the king performedAfter on Humble-down,In one day fifty knights were slain,With lords of great renown.And of the rest of small accountDid many thousands die, &c.
This news was brought to Edinburgh,Where Scotland’s king did reign,That brave Earl Douglas suddenlyWas with an arrow slain.
“O heavy news!” King James did say,“Scotland can witness be,I have not any captain moreOf such account as he.”
Like tidings to King Henry came,Within as short a space,That Percy of NorthumberlandWas slain in Chevy-Chase.
“Now God be with him,” said our king,“Sith ’twill no better be,I trust I have within my realmFive hundred as good as he.
“Yet shall not Scot nor Scotland sayBut I will vengeance take,And be revenged on them allFor brave Lord Percy’s sake.”
This vow full well the king performedAfter on Humble-down,In one day fifty knights were slain,With lords of great renown.
And of the rest of small accountDid many thousands die, &c.
At the same time that our poet shows a laudable partiality to his countrymen, he represents the Scots after a manner not unbecoming so bold and brave a people:
Earl Douglas on a milk-white steed,Most like a baron bold,Rode foremost of the company,Whose armour shone like gold.
Earl Douglas on a milk-white steed,Most like a baron bold,Rode foremost of the company,Whose armour shone like gold.
His sentiments and actions are every way suitable to a hero. “One of us two,” says he, “must die: I am an earl as well as yourself, so that you can have no pretence for refusing the combat; however,” says he, “it is pity, and indeed would be a sin, that so many innocent men should perish for our sakes: rather let you and I end our quarrel in single fight:”
“Ere thus I will out-braved be,One of us two shall die;I know thee well, an earl thou art,Lord Percy, so am I.“But trust me, Percy, pity it wereAnd great offence to killAny of these our harmless men,For they have done no ill.“Let thou and I the battle try,And set our men aside.”“Accurst be he,” Lord Percy said,“By whom this is deny’d.”
“Ere thus I will out-braved be,One of us two shall die;I know thee well, an earl thou art,Lord Percy, so am I.
“But trust me, Percy, pity it wereAnd great offence to killAny of these our harmless men,For they have done no ill.
“Let thou and I the battle try,And set our men aside.”“Accurst be he,” Lord Percy said,“By whom this is deny’d.”
When these brave men had distinguished themselves in the battle and in single combat with each other, in the midst of a generous parley, full of heroic sentiments, the Scotch earl falls, and with his dying words encourages his men to revenge his death, representing to them, as the most bitter circumstance of it, that his rival saw him fall:
With that there came an arrow keenOut of an English bow,Which struck Earl Douglas to the heartA deep and deadly blow.Who never spoke more words than these,“Fight on, my merry men all,For why, my life is at an end,Lord Percy sees my fall.”
With that there came an arrow keenOut of an English bow,Which struck Earl Douglas to the heartA deep and deadly blow.
Who never spoke more words than these,“Fight on, my merry men all,For why, my life is at an end,Lord Percy sees my fall.”
Merry men, in the language of those times, is no more than a cheerful word for companions and fellow-soldiers. A passage in the eleventh book of Virgil’s “Æneid” is very much to be admired, where Camilla, in her last agonies, instead of weeping over the wound she had received, as one might have expected from a warrior of her sex, considers only, like the hero of whom we are now speaking, how the battle should be continued after her death:
Tum sic exspirans, &c.
Tum sic exspirans, &c.
Virg.,Æn.xi. 820.
A gath’ring mist o’erclouds her cheerful eyes;And from her cheeks the rosy colour flies,Then turns to her, whom of her female trainShe trusted most, and thus she speaks with pain:“Acca, ’tis past! he swims before my sight,Inexorable Death, and claims his right.Bear my last words to Turnus; fly with speedAnd bid him timely to my charge succeed;Repel the Trojans, and the town relieve:Farewell.”Dryden.
A gath’ring mist o’erclouds her cheerful eyes;And from her cheeks the rosy colour flies,Then turns to her, whom of her female trainShe trusted most, and thus she speaks with pain:“Acca, ’tis past! he swims before my sight,Inexorable Death, and claims his right.Bear my last words to Turnus; fly with speedAnd bid him timely to my charge succeed;Repel the Trojans, and the town relieve:Farewell.”
Dryden.
Turnus did not die in so heroic a manner, though our poet seems to have had his eye upon Turnus’s speech in the last verse:
Lord Percy sees my fall.—Vicisti,et victum tendere palmasAusonii vidêre.Virg.,Æn.xii. 936.The Latin chiefs have seen me beg my life.Dryden.
Lord Percy sees my fall.
—Vicisti,et victum tendere palmasAusonii vidêre.
Virg.,Æn.xii. 936.
The Latin chiefs have seen me beg my life.
Dryden.
Earl Percy’s lamentation over his enemy is generous, beautiful, and passionate. I must only caution the reader not to let the simplicity of the style, which one may well pardon in so old a poet, prejudice him against the greatness of the thought:
Then leaving life, Earl Percy tookThe dead man by the hand,And said, “Earl Douglas, for thy lifeWould I had lost my land.“O Christ! my very heart doth bleedWith sorrow for thy sake;For sure a more renowned knightMischance did never take.”
Then leaving life, Earl Percy tookThe dead man by the hand,And said, “Earl Douglas, for thy lifeWould I had lost my land.
“O Christ! my very heart doth bleedWith sorrow for thy sake;For sure a more renowned knightMischance did never take.”
That beautiful line, “Taking the dead man by the hand,” will put the reader in mind of Æneas’s behaviour towards Lausus, whom he himself had slain as he came to the rescue of his aged father:
At verò ut vultum vidit morientis et ora,Ora modis Anchisiades pallentia miris;Ingemuit,miserans graviter,dextramqne tetendit.Virg.,Æn.x. 821.The pious prince beheld young Lausus dead;He grieved, he wept, then grasped his hand and said,“Poor hapless youth! what praises can be paidTo worth so great?”Dryden.
At verò ut vultum vidit morientis et ora,Ora modis Anchisiades pallentia miris;Ingemuit,miserans graviter,dextramqne tetendit.
Virg.,Æn.x. 821.
The pious prince beheld young Lausus dead;He grieved, he wept, then grasped his hand and said,“Poor hapless youth! what praises can be paidTo worth so great?”
Dryden.
I shall take another opportunity to consider the other parts of this old song.
—Pendent opera interrupta.Virg.,Æn.iv. 88.The works unfinished and neglected lie.
—Pendent opera interrupta.
Virg.,Æn.iv. 88.
The works unfinished and neglected lie.
In my last Monday’s paper I gave some general instances of those beautiful strokes which please the reader in the old song of “Chevy-Chase;” I shall here, according to my promise, be more particular, and show that the sentiments in that ballad are extremely natural and poetical, and full of the majestic simplicity which we admire in the greatest of the ancient poets: for which reason I shall quote several passages of it, in which the thought is altogether the same with what we meet in several passages of the “Æneid;” not that I would infer from thence that the poet, whoever he was, proposed to himself any imitation of those passages, but that he was directed to them in general by the same kind of poetical genius, and by the same copyings after nature.
Had this old song been filled with epigrammatical turns and points of wit, it might perhaps have pleased the wrong taste of some readers; but it would never have become the delight of the common people, nor have warmed the heart of Sir Philip Sidney like the sound of a trumpet; it is only nature that can have this effect, and please those tastes which are the most unprejudiced, or the most refined. I must, however, beg leave to dissent from so great an authority as that of Sir Philip Sidney, in the judgment which he has passed as to the rude style and evil apparel of this antiquated song; for there are several parts in it where not only the thought but the language is majestic, and the numbers sonorous; at least the apparel is much more gorgeous than many of the poets made use of in Queen Elizabeth’s time, as the reader will see in several of the following quotations.
What can be greater than either the thought or the expression in that stanza,
To drive the deer with hound and hornEarl Percy took his way;The child may rue that is unbornThe hunting of that day!
To drive the deer with hound and hornEarl Percy took his way;The child may rue that is unbornThe hunting of that day!
This way of considering the misfortunes which this battle would bring upon posterity, not only on those who were born immediately after the battle, and lost their fathers in it, but on those also who perished in future battles which took their rise from this quarrel of the two earls, is wonderfully beautiful and conformable to the way of thinking among the ancient poets.
Audiet pugnas vitio parentum.Rara juventus.Hor.,Od.i. 2, 23.Posterity, thinn’d by their fathers’ crimes,Shall read, with grief, the story of their times.
Audiet pugnas vitio parentum.Rara juventus.
Hor.,Od.i. 2, 23.
Posterity, thinn’d by their fathers’ crimes,Shall read, with grief, the story of their times.
What can be more sounding and poetical, or resemble more the majestic simplicity of the ancients, than the following stanzas?—
The stout Earl of NorthumberlandA vow to God did make,His pleasure in the Scottish woodsThree summer’s days to take.With fifteen hundred bowmen bold,All chosen men of might,Who knew full well, in time of need,To aim their shafts aright.The hounds ran swiftly through the woodsThe nimble deer to take,And with their cries the hills and dalesAn echo shrill did make.—Vocat ingenti clamore Cithæron,Taygetique canes,domitrixque Epidaurus equorum:Et vox assensu memorum ingeminata remugit.Virg.,Georg.iii. 43.Cithæron loudly calls me to my way:Thy hounds, Taygetus, open, and pursue their prey:High Epidaurus urges on my speed,Famed for his hills, and for his horses’ breed:From hills and dales the cheerful cries rebound:For Echo hunts along, and propagates the sound.Dryden.Lo, yonder doth Earl Douglas come,His men in armour bright;Full twenty hundred Scottish spears,All marching in our sight.All men of pleasant Tividale,Fast by the river Tweed, &c.
The stout Earl of NorthumberlandA vow to God did make,His pleasure in the Scottish woodsThree summer’s days to take.
With fifteen hundred bowmen bold,All chosen men of might,Who knew full well, in time of need,To aim their shafts aright.
The hounds ran swiftly through the woodsThe nimble deer to take,And with their cries the hills and dalesAn echo shrill did make.
—Vocat ingenti clamore Cithæron,Taygetique canes,domitrixque Epidaurus equorum:Et vox assensu memorum ingeminata remugit.
Virg.,Georg.iii. 43.
Cithæron loudly calls me to my way:Thy hounds, Taygetus, open, and pursue their prey:High Epidaurus urges on my speed,Famed for his hills, and for his horses’ breed:From hills and dales the cheerful cries rebound:For Echo hunts along, and propagates the sound.
Dryden.
Lo, yonder doth Earl Douglas come,His men in armour bright;Full twenty hundred Scottish spears,All marching in our sight.
All men of pleasant Tividale,Fast by the river Tweed, &c.
The country of the Scotch warrior, described in these two last verses, has a fine romantic situation, and affords a couple of smooth words for verse. If the reader compares the foregoing six lines of the song with the following Latin verses, he will see how much they are written in the spirit of Virgil:
Adversi campo apparent:hastasque reductisProtendunt longè dextris,et spicula vibrant:—Quique altum Præneste viri,quique arva GabinæJunonis,gelidumque Anienem,et roscida rivisHernica saxa colunt:—qui rosea rura Velini;Qui Tetricæ horrentes rupes,montemq ue Severum,Casperiamque colunt,porulosque et flumen Himellæ:Qui Tyberim Fabarimque bibunt.Æn.xi. 605, vii. 682, 712.Advancing in a line they couch their spears——Præneste sends a chosen band,With those who plough Saturnia’s Gabine land:Besides the succours which cold Anien yields:The rocks of Hernicus—besides a bandThat followed from Velinum’s dewy land—And mountaineers that from Severus came:And from the craggy cliffs of Tetrica;And those where yellow Tiber takes his way,And where Himella’s wanton waters play:Casperia sends her arms, with those that lieBy Fabaris, and fruitful Foruli.Dryden.
Adversi campo apparent:hastasque reductisProtendunt longè dextris,et spicula vibrant:—Quique altum Præneste viri,quique arva GabinæJunonis,gelidumque Anienem,et roscida rivisHernica saxa colunt:—qui rosea rura Velini;Qui Tetricæ horrentes rupes,montemq ue Severum,Casperiamque colunt,porulosque et flumen Himellæ:Qui Tyberim Fabarimque bibunt.
Æn.xi. 605, vii. 682, 712.
Advancing in a line they couch their spears——Præneste sends a chosen band,With those who plough Saturnia’s Gabine land:Besides the succours which cold Anien yields:The rocks of Hernicus—besides a bandThat followed from Velinum’s dewy land—And mountaineers that from Severus came:And from the craggy cliffs of Tetrica;And those where yellow Tiber takes his way,And where Himella’s wanton waters play:Casperia sends her arms, with those that lieBy Fabaris, and fruitful Foruli.
Dryden.
But to proceed:
Earl Douglas on a milk-white steed,Most like a baron bold,Rode foremost of the company,Whose armour shone like gold.Turnus,ut antevolans tardum præcesserat agmen, &c.Vidisti,quo Turnus equo,quibus ibat in armisAurcus—
Earl Douglas on a milk-white steed,Most like a baron bold,Rode foremost of the company,Whose armour shone like gold.
Turnus,ut antevolans tardum præcesserat agmen, &c.Vidisti,quo Turnus equo,quibus ibat in armisAurcus—
Æn.ix. 47, 269.
Our English archers bent their bows,Their hearts were good and true;At the first flight of arrows sent,Full threescore Scots they slew.They closed full fast on ev’ry side,No slackness there was found;And many a gallant gentlemanLay gasping on the ground.With that there came an arrow keenOut of an English bow,Which struck Earl Douglas to the heart,A deep and deadly blow.
Our English archers bent their bows,Their hearts were good and true;At the first flight of arrows sent,Full threescore Scots they slew.
They closed full fast on ev’ry side,No slackness there was found;And many a gallant gentlemanLay gasping on the ground.
With that there came an arrow keenOut of an English bow,Which struck Earl Douglas to the heart,A deep and deadly blow.
Æneas was wounded after the same manner by an unknown hand in the midst of a parley.
Has inter voces,media inter talia verba,Ecce viro stridens alis allapsa sagitta est,Incertum quâ pulsa manu—Æn.xii. 318.Thus, while he spake, unmindful of defence,A winged arrow struck the pious prince;But whether from a human hand it came,Or hostile god, is left unknown by fame.Dryden.
Has inter voces,media inter talia verba,Ecce viro stridens alis allapsa sagitta est,Incertum quâ pulsa manu—
Æn.xii. 318.
Thus, while he spake, unmindful of defence,A winged arrow struck the pious prince;But whether from a human hand it came,Or hostile god, is left unknown by fame.
Dryden.
But of all the descriptive parts of this song, there are none more beautiful than the four following stanzas, which have a great force and spirit in them, and are filled with very natural circumstances. The thought in the third stanza was never touched by any other poet, and is such a one as would have shone in Homer or in Virgil:
So thus did both these nobles die,Whose courage none could stain;An English archer then perceivedThe noble Earl was slain.He had a bow bent in his hand,Made of a trusty tree,An arrow of a cloth-yard longUnto the head drew he.Against Sir Hugh MontgomerySo right his shaft he set,The gray-goose wing that was thereonIn his heart-blood was wet.This fight did last from break of dayTill setting of the sun;For when they rung the ev’ning bellThe battle scarce was done.
So thus did both these nobles die,Whose courage none could stain;An English archer then perceivedThe noble Earl was slain.
He had a bow bent in his hand,Made of a trusty tree,An arrow of a cloth-yard longUnto the head drew he.
Against Sir Hugh MontgomerySo right his shaft he set,The gray-goose wing that was thereonIn his heart-blood was wet.
This fight did last from break of dayTill setting of the sun;For when they rung the ev’ning bellThe battle scarce was done.
One may observe, likewise, that in the catalogue of the slain, the author has followed the example of the greatest ancient poets, not only in giving a long list of the dead, but by diversifying it with little characters of particular persons.
And with Earl Douglas there was slainSir Hugh Montgomery,Sir Charles Carrel, that from the fieldOne foot would never fly.Sir Charles Murrel of Ratcliff too,His sister’s son was he;Sir David Lamb so well esteem’d,Yet saved could not be.
And with Earl Douglas there was slainSir Hugh Montgomery,Sir Charles Carrel, that from the fieldOne foot would never fly.
Sir Charles Murrel of Ratcliff too,His sister’s son was he;Sir David Lamb so well esteem’d,Yet saved could not be.
The familiar sound in these names destroys the majesty of the description; for this reason I do not mention this part of the poem but to show the natural cast of thought which appears in it, as the two last verses look almost like a translation of Virgil.
—Cadit et Ripheus justissimus unusQui fuit in Teucris et servantissimus æqui.Diis aliter visum.Æn.ii. 426.Then Ripheus fell in the unequal fight,Just of his word, observant of the right:Heav’n thought not so.Dryden.
—Cadit et Ripheus justissimus unusQui fuit in Teucris et servantissimus æqui.Diis aliter visum.
Æn.ii. 426.
Then Ripheus fell in the unequal fight,Just of his word, observant of the right:Heav’n thought not so.
Dryden.
In the catalogue of the English who fell, Witherington’s behaviour is in the same manner particularised very artfully, as the reader is prepared for it by that account which is given of him in the beginning of the battle; though I am satisfied your little buffoon readers, who have seen that passage ridiculed in “Hudibras,” will not be able to take the beauty of it: for which reason I dare not so much as quote it.
Then stept a gallant ’squire forth,Witherington was his name,Who said, “I would not have it toldTo Henry our king for shame,“That e’er my captain fought on foot,And I stood looking on.”
Then stept a gallant ’squire forth,Witherington was his name,Who said, “I would not have it toldTo Henry our king for shame,
“That e’er my captain fought on foot,And I stood looking on.”
We meet with the same heroic sentiment in Virgil:
Non pudet,O Rutuli,cunctis pro talibus unamObjectare animam?numerone an viribus æquiNon sumus?Æn.xii. 229For shame, Rutilians, can you hear the sightOf one exposed for all, in single fight?Can we before the face of heav’n confessOur courage colder, or our numbers less?Dryden.
Non pudet,O Rutuli,cunctis pro talibus unamObjectare animam?numerone an viribus æquiNon sumus?
Æn.xii. 229
For shame, Rutilians, can you hear the sightOf one exposed for all, in single fight?Can we before the face of heav’n confessOur courage colder, or our numbers less?
Dryden.
What can be more natural, or more moving, than the circumstances in which he describes the behaviour of those women who had lost their husbands on this fatal day?
Next day did many widows comeTheir husbands to bewail;They wash’d their wounds in brinish tears,But all would not prevail.Their bodies bathed in purple blood,They bore with them away;They kiss’d them dead a thousand times,When they were clad in clay.
Next day did many widows comeTheir husbands to bewail;They wash’d their wounds in brinish tears,But all would not prevail.
Their bodies bathed in purple blood,They bore with them away;They kiss’d them dead a thousand times,When they were clad in clay.
Thus we see how the thoughts of this poem, which naturally arise from the subject, are always simple, and sometimes exquisitely noble; that the language is often very sounding, and that the whole is written with a true poetical spirit.
If this song had been written in the Gothic manner which is the delight of all our little wits, whether writers or readers, it would not have hit the taste of so many ages, and have pleased the readers of all ranks and conditions. I shall only beg pardon for such a profusion of Latin quotations; which I should not have made use of, but that I feared my own judgment would have looked too singular on such a subject, had not I supported it by the practice and authority of Virgil.
—Animum picturâ pascit inani.Virg.,Æn.i. 464.And with the shadowy picture feeds his mind.
—Animum picturâ pascit inani.
Virg.,Æn.i. 464.
And with the shadowy picture feeds his mind.
When the weather hinders me from taking my diversions without-doors, I frequently make a little party, with two or three select friends, to visit anything curious that may be seen under cover. My principal entertainments of this nature are pictures, insomuch that when I have found the weather set in to be very bad, I have taken a whole day’s journey to see a gallery that is furnished by the hands of great masters. By this means, when the heavens are filled with clouds, when the earth swims in rain, and all nature wears a lowering countenance, I withdraw myself from these uncomfortable scenes, into the visionary worlds of art; where I meet with shining landscapes, gilded triumphs, beautiful faces, and all those other objects that fill the mind with gay ideas, and disperse that gloominess which is apt to hang upon it in those dark disconsolate seasons.
I was some weeks ago in a course of these diversions, which had taken such an entire possession of my imagination that they formed in it a short morning’s dream, which I shall communicate to my reader, rather as the first sketch and outlines of a vision, than as a finished piece.
I dreamt that I was admitted into a long, spacious gallery, which had one side covered with pieces of all the famous painters who are now living, and the other with the works of the greatest masters that are dead.
On the side of the living, I saw several persons busy in drawing, colouring, and designing. On the side of the dead painters, I could not discover more than one person at work, who was exceeding slow in his motions, and wonderfully nice in his touches.
I was resolved to examine the several artists that stood before me, and accordingly applied myself to the side of the living. The first I observed at work in this part of the gallery was Vanity, with his hair tied behind him in a riband, and dressed like a Frenchman. All the faces he drew were very remarkable for their smiles, and a certain smirking air which he bestowed indifferently on every age and degree of either sex. Thetoujours gaiappeared even in his judges, bishops, and Privy Councillors. In a word, all his men werepetits maïtres, and all his womencoquettes. The drapery of his figures was extremely well suited to his faces, and was made up of all the glaring colours that could be mixed together; every part of the dress was in a flutter, and endeavoured to distinguish itself above the rest.
On the left hand of Vanity stood a laborious workman, who I found was his humble admirer, and copied after him. He was dressed like a German, and had a very hard name that sounded something like Stupidity.
The third artist that I looked over was Fantasque, dressed like a Venetian scaramouch. He had an excellent hand at chimera, and dealt very much in distortions and grimaces. He would sometimes affright himself with the phantoms that flowed from his pencil. In short, the most elaborate of his pieces was at best but a terrifying dream: and one could say nothing more of his finest figures than that they were agreeable monsters.
The fourth person I examined was very remarkable for his hasty hand, which left his pictures so unfinished that the beauty in the picture, which was designed to continue as a monument of it to posterity, faded sooner than in the person after whom it was drawn. He made so much haste to despatch his business that he neither gave himself time to clean his pencils nor mix his colours. The name of this expeditious workman was Avarice.
Not far from this artist I saw another of a quite different nature, who was dressed in the habit of a Dutchman, and known by the name of Industry. His figures were wonderfully laboured. If he drew the portraiture of a man, he did not omit a single hair in his face; if the figure of a ship, there was not a rope among the tackle that escaped him. He had likewise hung a great part of the wall with night-pieces, that seemed to show themselves by the candles which were lighted up in several parts of them; and were so inflamed by the sunshine which accidentally fell upon them, that at first sight I could scarce forbear crying out “Fire!”
The five foregoing artists were the most considerable on this side the gallery; there were indeed several others whom I had not time to look into. One of them, however, I could not forbear observing, who was very busy in retouching the finest pieces, though he produced no originals of his own. His pencil aggravated every feature that was before overcharged, loaded every defect, and poisoned every colour it touched. Though this workman did so much mischief on the side of the living, he never turned his eye towards that of the dead. His name was Envy.
Having taken a cursory view of one side of the gallery, I turned myself to that which was filled by the works of those great masters that were dead; when immediately I fancied myself standing before a multitude of spectators, and thousands of eyes looking upon me at once: for all before me appeared so like men and women, that I almost forgot they were pictures. Raphael’s pictures stood in one row, Titian’s in another, Guido Rheni’s in a third. One part of the wall was peopled by Hannabal Carrache, another by Correggio, and another by Rubens. To be short, there was not a great master among the dead who had not contributed to the embellishment of this side of the gallery. The persons that owed their being to these several masters appeared all of them to be real and alive, and differed among one another only in the variety of their shapes, complexions, and clothes; so that they looked like different nations of the same species.
Observing an old man, who was the same person I before mentioned, as the only artist that was at work on this side of the gallery, creeping up and down from one picture to another, and retouching all the fine pieces that stood before me, I could not but be very attentive to all his motions. I found his pencil was so very light that it worked imperceptibly, and after a thousand touches scarce produced any visible effect in the picture on which he was employed. However, as he busied himself incessantly, and repeated touch after touch without rest or intermission, he wore off insensibly every little disagreeable gloss that hung upon a figure. He also added such a beautiful brown to the shades, and mellowness to the colours, that he made every picture appear more perfect than when it came fresh from the master’s pencil. I could not forbear looking upon the face of this ancient workman, and immediately by the long lock of hair upon his forehead, discovered him to be Time.
Whether it were because the thread of my dream was at an end I cannot tell, but, upon my taking a survey of this imaginary old man, my sleep left me.
—Spatio breviSpem longam reseces:dum loquimur,fugerit invidaÆtas:carpe diem,quâm minimum credula postero.Hor.,Od.i. 11, 6.Thy lengthen’d hope with prudence bound,Proportion’d to the flying hour:While thus we talk in careless ease,Our envious minutes wing their flight;Then swift the fleeting pleasure seize,Nor trust to-morrow’s doubtful light.Francis.
—Spatio breviSpem longam reseces:dum loquimur,fugerit invidaÆtas:carpe diem,quâm minimum credula postero.
Hor.,Od.i. 11, 6.
Thy lengthen’d hope with prudence bound,Proportion’d to the flying hour:While thus we talk in careless ease,Our envious minutes wing their flight;Then swift the fleeting pleasure seize,Nor trust to-morrow’s doubtful light.
Francis.
We all of us complain of the shortness of time, saith Seneca, and yet have much more than we know what to do with. Our lives, says he, are spent either in doing nothing at all, or in doing nothing to the purpose, or in doing nothing that we ought to do. We are always complaining our days are few, and acting as though there would be no end of them. That noble philosopher described our inconsistency with ourselves in this particular, by all those various turns of expression and thoughts which are peculiar to his writings.
I often consider mankind as wholly inconsistent with itself in a point that bears some affinity to the former. Though we seem grieved at the shortness of life in general, we are wishing every period of it at an end. The minor longs to be of age, then to be a man of business, then to make up an estate, then to arrive at honours, then to retire. Thus, although the whole of life is allowed by every one to be short, the several divisions of it appear long and tedious. We are for lengthening our span in general, but would fain contract the parts of which it is composed. The usurer would be very well satisfied to have all the time annihilated that lies between the present moment and next quarter-day. The politician would be contented to lose three years in his life, could he place things in the posture which he fancies they will stand in after such a revolution of time. The lover would be glad to strike out of his existence all the moments that are to pass away before the happy meeting. Thus, as fast as our time runs, we should be very glad, in most part of our lives, that it ran much faster than it does. Several hours of the day hang upon our hands, nay, we wish away whole years; and travel through time as through a country filled with many wild and empty wastes, which we would fain hurry over, that we may arrive at those several little settlements or imaginary points of rest which are dispersed up and down in it.
If we divide the life of most men into twenty parts, we shall find that at least nineteen of them are mere gaps and chasms, which are neither filled with pleasure nor business. I do not, however, include in this calculation the life of those men who are in a perpetual hurry of affairs, but of those only who are not always engaged in scenes of action; and I hope I shall not do an unacceptable piece of service to these persons, if I point out to them certain methods for the filling up their empty spaces of life. The methods I shall propose to them are as follow.
The first is the exercise of virtue, in the most general acceptation of the word. That particular scheme which comprehends the social virtues may give employment to the most industrious temper, and find a man in business more than the most active station of life. To advise the ignorant, relieve the needy, comfort the afflicted, are duties that fall in our way almost every day of our lives. A man has frequent opportunities of mitigating the fierceness of a party; of doing justice to the character of a deserving man; of softening the envious, quieting the angry, and rectifying the prejudiced; which are all of them employments suited to a reasonable nature, and bring great satisfaction to the person who can busy himself in them with discretion.
There is another kind of virtue that may find employment for those retired hours in which we are altogether left to ourselves, and destitute of company and conversation; I mean that intercourse and communication which every reasonable creature ought to maintain with the great Author of his being. The man who lives under an habitual sense of the Divine presence, keeps up a perpetual cheerfulness of temper, and enjoys every moment the satisfaction of thinking himself in company with his dearest and best of friends. The time never lies heavy upon him: it is impossible for him to be alone. His thoughts and passions are the most busied at such hours when those of other men are the most inactive. He no sooner steps out of the world but his heart burns with devotion, swells with hope, and triumphs in the consciousness of that Presence which everywhere surrounds him; or, on the contrary, pours out its fears, its sorrows, its apprehensions, to the great Supporter of its existence.
I have here only considered the necessity of a man’s being virtuous, that he may have something to do; but if we consider further that the exercise of virtue is not only an amusement for the time it lasts, but that its influence extends to those parts of our existence which lie beyond the grave, and that our whole eternity is to take its colour from those hours which we here employ in virtue or in vice, the argument redoubles upon us for putting in practice this method of passing away our time.
When a man has but a little stock to improve, and has opportunities of turning it all to good account, what shall we think of him if he suffers nineteen parts of it to lie dead, and perhaps employs even the twentieth to his ruin or disadvantage? But, because the mind cannot be always in its fervours, nor strained up to a pitch of virtue, it is necessary to find out proper employments for it in its relaxations.
The next method, therefore, that I would propose to fill up our time, should be useful and innocent diversions. I must confess I think it is below reasonable creatures to be altogether conversant in such diversions as are merely innocent, and have nothing else to recommend them but that there is no hurt in them. Whether any kind of gaming has even thus much to say for itself, I shall not determine; but I think it is very wonderful to see persons of the best sense passing away a dozen hours together in shuffling and dividing a pack of cards, with no other conversation but what is made up of a few game phrases, and no other ideas but those of black or red spots ranged together in different figures. Would not a man laugh to hear any one of this species complaining that life is short?
The stage might be made a perpetual source of the most noble and useful entertainments, were it under proper regulations.
But the mind never unbends itself so agreeably as in the conversation of a well-chosen friend. There is indeed no blessing of life that is any way comparable to the enjoyment of a discreet and virtuous friend. It eases and unloads the mind, clears and improves the understanding, engenders thoughts and knowledge, animates virtue and good resolutions, soothes and allays the passions, and finds employment for most of the vacant hours of life.
Next to such an intimacy with a particular person, one would endeavour after a more general conversation with such as are able to entertain and improve those with whom they converse, which are qualifications that seldom go asunder.
There are many other useful amusements of life which one would endeavour to multiply, that one might on all occasions have recourse to something rather than suffer the mind to lie idle, or run adrift with any passion that chances to rise in it.
A man that has a taste of music, painting, or architecture, is like one that has another sense, when compared with such as have no relish of those arts. The florist, the planter, the gardener, the husbandman, when they are only as accomplishments to the man of fortune, are great reliefs to a country life, and many ways useful to those who are possessed of them.
But of all the diversions of life, there is none so proper to fill up its empty spaces as the reading of useful and entertaining authors. But this I shall only touch upon, because it in some measure interferes with the third method, which I shall propose in another paper, for the employment of our dead, inactive hours, and which I shall only mention in general to be the pursuit of knowledge.
—Hoc estVivere bis,vitâ posse priore frui.Mart.,Ep.x. 23.The present joys of life we doubly taste,By looking back with pleasure to the past.
—Hoc estVivere bis,vitâ posse priore frui.
Mart.,Ep.x. 23.
The present joys of life we doubly taste,By looking back with pleasure to the past.
The last method which I proposed in my Saturday’s paper, for filing up those empty spaces of life which are so tedious and burthensome to idle people, is the employing ourselves in the pursuit of knowledge. I remember Mr. Boyle, speaking of a certain mineral, tells us that a man may consume his whole life in the study of it without arriving at the knowledge of all its qualities. The truth of it is, there is not a single science, or any branch of it, that might not furnish a man with business for life, though it were much longer than it is.
I shall not here engage on those beaten subjects of the usefulness of knowledge, nor of the pleasure and perfection it gives the mind, nor on the methods of attaining it, nor recommend any particular branch of it; all which have been the topics of many other writers; but shall indulge myself in a speculation that is more uncommon, and may therefore, perhaps, be more entertaining.
I have before shown how the unemployed parts of life appear long and tedious, and shall here endeavour to show how those parts of life which are exercised in study, reading, and the pursuits of knowledge, are long, but not tedious, and by that means discover a method of lengthening our lives, and at the same time of turning all the parts of them to our advantage.
Mr. Locke observes, “That we get the idea of time or duration, by reflecting on that train of ideas which succeed one another in our minds: that, for this reason, when we sleep soundly without dreaming, we have no perception of time, or the length of it whilst we sleep; and that the moment wherein we leave off to think, till the moment we begin to think again, seems to have no distance.” To which the author adds, “and so I doubt not but it would be to a waking man, if it were possible for him to keep only one idea in his mind, without variation and the succession of others; and we see that one who fixes his thoughts very intently on one thing, so as to take but little notice of the succession of ideas that pass in his mind whilst he is taken up with that earnest contemplation, lets slip out of his account a good part of that duration, and thinks that time shorter than it is.”
We might carry this thought further, and consider a man as on one side, shortening his time by thinking on nothing, or but a few things; so, on the other, as lengthening it, by employing his thoughts on many subjects, or by entertaining a quick and constant succession of ideas. Accordingly, Monsieur Malebranche, in his “Inquiry after Truth,” which was published several years before Mr. Locke’s Essay on “Human Understanding,” tells us, “that it is possible some creatures may think half an hour as long as we do a thousand years; or look upon that space of duration which we call a minute, as an hour, a week, a month, or a whole age.”
This notion of Monsieur Malebranche is capable of some little explanation from what I have quoted out of Mr. Locke; for if our notion of time is produced by our reflecting on the succession of ideas in our mind, and this succession may be infinitely accelerated or retarded, it will follow that different beings may have different notions of the same parts of duration, according as their ideas, which we suppose are equally distinct in each of them, follow one another in a greater or less degree of rapidity.
There is a famous passage in the Alcoran, which looks as if Mahomet had been possessed of the notion we are now speaking of. It is there said that the Angel Gabriel took Mahomet out of his bed one morning to give him a sight of all things in the seven heavens, in paradise, and in hell, which the prophet took a distinct view of; and, after having held ninety thousand conferences with God, was brought back again to his bed. All this, says the Alcoran, was transacted in so small a space of time, that Mahomet at his return found his bed still warm, and took up an earthen pitcher, which was thrown down at the very instant that the Angel Gabriel carried him away, before the water was all spilt.
There is a very pretty story in the Turkish Tales, which relates to this passage of that famous impostor, and bears some affinity to the subject we are now upon. A sultan of Egypt, who was an infidel, used to laugh at this circumstance in Mahomet’s life, as what was altogether impossible and absurd: but conversing one day with a great doctor in the law, who had the gift of working miracles, the doctor told him he would quickly convince him of the truth of this passage in the history of Mahomet, if he would consent to do what he should desire of him. Upon this the sultan was directed to place himself by a huge tub of water, which he did accordingly; and as he stood by the tub amidst a circle of his great men, the holy man bade him plunge his head into the water and draw it up again. The king accordingly thrust his head into the water, and at the same time found himself at the foot of a mountain on the sea-shore. The king immediately began to rage against his doctor for this piece of treachery and witchcraft; but at length, knowing it was in vain to be angry, he set himself to think on proper methods for getting a livelihood in this strange country. Accordingly he applied himself to some people whom he saw at work in a neighbouring wood: these people conducted him to a town that stood at a little distance from the wood, where, after some adventures, he married a woman of great beauty and fortune. He lived with this woman so long that he had by her seven sons and seven daughters. He was afterwards reduced to great want, and forced to think of plying in the streets as a porter for his livelihood. One day as he was walking alone by the sea-side, being seized with many melancholy reflections upon his former and his present state of life, which had raised a fit of devotion in him, he threw off his clothes with a design to wash himself, according to the custom of the Mahometans, before he said his prayers.
After his first plunge into the sea, he no sooner raised his head above the water but he found himself standing by the side of the tub, with the great men of his court about him, and the holy man at his side. He immediately upbraided his teacher for having sent him on such a course of adventures, and betrayed him into so long a state of misery and servitude; but was wonderfully surprised when he heard that the state he talked of was only a dream and delusion; that he had not stirred from the place where he then stood; and that he had only dipped his head into the water, and immediately taken it out again.
The Mahometan doctor took this occasion of instructing the sultan that nothing was impossible with God; and that He, with whom a thousand years are but as one day, can, if He pleases, make a single day—nay, a single moment—appear to any of His creatures as a thousand years.
I shall leave my reader to compare these Eastern fables with the notions of those two great philosophers whom I have quoted in this paper; and shall only, by way of application, desire him to consider how we may extend life beyond its natural dimensions, by applying ourselves diligently to the pursuit of knowledge.
The hours of a wise man are lengthened by his ideas, as those of a fool are by his passions. The time of the one is long, because he does not know what to do with it; so is that of the other, because he distinguishes every moment of it with useful or amusing thoughts; or, in other words, because the one is always wishing it away, and the other always enjoying it.
How different is the view of past life, in the man who is grown old in knowledge and wisdom, from that of him who is grown old in ignorance and folly! The latter is like the owner of a barren country, that fills his eye with the prospect of naked hills and plains, which produce nothing either profitable or ornamental; the other beholds a beautiful and spacious landscape divided into delightful gardens, green meadows, fruitful fields, and can scarce cast his eye on a single spot of his possessions that is not covered with some beautiful plant or flower.
Romulus,et Liber pater,et cum Castore Pollux,Post ingentia facta,deorum in templa recepti;Dum terras hominumque colunt genus,aspera bellaComponunt,agros assignant,oppida condunt;Ploravere suis non respondere favoremSperatum meritis.
Romulus,et Liber pater,et cum Castore Pollux,Post ingentia facta,deorum in templa recepti;Dum terras hominumque colunt genus,aspera bellaComponunt,agros assignant,oppida condunt;Ploravere suis non respondere favoremSperatum meritis.
Hor.,Epist.ii. 1, 5.
MITATED.Edward and Henry, now the boast of fame,And virtuous Alfred, a more sacred name,After a life of generous toils endured,The Gaul subdued, or property secured,Ambition humbled, mighty cities storm’d,Or laws establish’d, and the world reform’d;Closed their long glories with a sigh to findTh’ unwilling gratitude of base mankind.Pope.
MITATED.
Edward and Henry, now the boast of fame,And virtuous Alfred, a more sacred name,After a life of generous toils endured,The Gaul subdued, or property secured,Ambition humbled, mighty cities storm’d,Or laws establish’d, and the world reform’d;Closed their long glories with a sigh to findTh’ unwilling gratitude of base mankind.
Pope.
“Censure,” says a late ingenious author, “is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent.” It is a folly for an eminent man to think of escaping it, and a weakness to be affected with it. All the illustrious persons of antiquity, and indeed of every age in the world, have passed through this fiery persecution. There is no defence against reproach but obscurity; it is a kind of concomitant to greatness, as satires and invectives were an essential part of a Roman triumph.
If men of eminence are exposed to censure on one hand, they are as much liable to flattery on the other. If they receive reproaches which are not due to them, they likewise receive praises which they do not deserve. In a word, the man in a high post is never regarded with an indifferent eye, but always considered as a friend or an enemy. For this reason persons in great stations have seldom their true characters drawn till several years after their deaths. Their personal friendships and enmities must cease, and the parties they were engaged in be at an end, before their faults or their virtues can have justice done them. When writers have the least opportunity of knowing the truth, they are in the best disposition to tell it.
It is therefore the privilege of posterity to adjust the characters of illustrious persons, and to set matters right between those antagonists who by their rivalry for greatness divided a whole age into factions. We can now allow Cæsar to be a great man, without derogating from Pompey; and celebrate the virtues of Cato, without detracting from those of Cæsar. Every one that has been long dead has a due proportion of praise allotted him, in which, whilst he lived, his friends were too profuse, and his enemies too sparing.
According to Sir Isaac Newton’s calculations, the last comet that made its appearance, in 1680, imbibed so much heat by its approaches to the sun, that it would have been two thousand times hotter than red-hot iron, had it been a globe of that metal; and that supposing it as big as the earth, and at the same distance from the sun, it would be fifty thousand years in cooling, before it recovered its natural temper. In the like manner, if an Englishman considers the great ferment into which our political world is thrown at present, and how intensely it is heated in all its parts, he cannot suppose that it will cool again in less than three hundred years. In such a tract of time it is possible that the heats of the present age may be extinguished, and our several classes of great men represented under their proper characters. Some eminent historian may then probably arise that will not writerecentibus odiis, as Tacitus expresses it, with the passions and prejudices of a contemporary author, but make an impartial distribution of fame among the great men of the present age.
I cannot forbear entertaining myself very often with the idea of such an imaginary historian describing the reign of Anne the First, and introducing it with a preface to his reader, that he is now entering upon the most shining part of the English story. The great rivals in fame will be then distinguished according to their respective merits, and shine in their proper points of light. Such an one, says the historian, though variously represented by the writers of his own age, appears to have been a man of more than ordinary abilities, great application, and uncommon integrity: nor was such an one, though of an opposite party and interest, inferior to him in any of these respects. The several antagonists who now endeavour to depreciate one another, and are celebrated or traduced by different parties, will then have the same body of admirers, and appear illustrious in the opinion of the whole British nation. The deserving man, who can now recommend himself to the esteem of but half his countrymen, will then receive the approbations and applauses of a whole age.
Among the several persons that flourish in this glorious reign, there is no question but such a future historian, as the person of whom I am speaking, will make mention of the men of genius and learning who have now any figure in the British nation. For my own part, I often flatter myself with the honourable mention which will then be made of me; and have drawn up a paragraph in my own imagination, that I fancy will not be altogether unlike what will be found in some page or other of this imaginary historian.
It was under this reign, says he, that theSpectatorpublished those little diurnal essays which are still extant. We know very little of the name or person of this author, except only that he was a man of a very short face, extremely addicted to silence, and so great a lover of knowledge, that he made a voyage to Grand Cairo for no other reason but to take the measure of a pyramid. His chief friend was one Sir Roger De Coverley, a whimsical country knight, and a Templar, whose name he has not transmitted to us. He lived as a lodger at the house of a widow-woman, and was a great humorist in all parts of his life. This is all we can affirm with any certainty of his person and character. As for his speculations, notwithstanding the several obsolete words and obscure phrases of the age in which he lived, we still understand enough of them to see the diversions and characters of the English nation in his time: not but that we are to make allowance for the mirth and humour of the author, who has doubtless strained many representations of things beyond the truth. For if we interpret his words in their literal meaning, we must suppose that women of the first quality used to pass away whole mornings at a puppet-show; that they attested their principles by their patches; that an audience would sit out an evening to hear a dramatical performance written in a language which they did not understand; that chairs and flower-pots were introduced as actors upon the British stage; that a promiscuous assembly of men and women were allowed to meet at midnight in masks within the verge of the Court; with many improbabilities of the like nature. We must therefore, in these and the like cases, suppose that these remote hints and allusions aimed at some certain follies which were then in vogue, and which at present we have not any notion of. We may guess by several passages in the speculations, that there were writers who endeavoured to detract from the works of this author; but as nothing of this nature is come down to us, we cannot guess at any objections that could be made to his paper. If we consider his style with that indulgence which we must show to old English writers, or if we look into the variety of his subjects, with those several critical dissertations, moral reflections,
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The following part of the paragraph is so much to my advantage, and beyond anything I can pretend to, that I hope my reader will excuse me for not inserting it.
Est brevitate opus,ut currat sententia,Hor.,Sat.i. 10, 9.Let brevity despatch the rapid thought.
Est brevitate opus,ut currat sententia,
Hor.,Sat.i. 10, 9.
Let brevity despatch the rapid thought.
I have somewhere read of an eminent person who used in his private offices of devotion to give thanks to Heaven that he was born a Frenchman: for my own part I look upon it as a peculiar blessing that I was born an Englishman. Among many other reasons, I think myself very happy in my country, as the language of it is wonderfully adapted to a man who is sparing of his words, and an enemy to loquacity.
As I have frequently reflected on my good fortune in this particular, I shall communicate to the public my speculations upon the English tongue, not doubting but they will be acceptable to all my curious readers.
The English delight in silence more than any other European nation, if the remarks which are made on us by foreigners are true. Our discourse is not kept up in conversation, but falls into more pauses and intervals than in our neighbouring countries; as it is observed that the matter of our writings is thrown much closer together, and lies in a narrower compass, than is usual in the works of foreign authors; for, to favour our natural taciturnity, when we are obliged to utter our thoughts we do it in the shortest way we are able, and give as quick a birth to our conceptions as possible.
This humour shows itself in several remarks that we may make upon the English language. As, first of all, by its abounding in monosyllables, which gives us an opportunity of delivering our thoughts in few sounds. This indeed takes off from the elegance of our tongue, but at the same time expresses our ideas in the readiest manner, and consequently answers the first design of speech better than the multitude of syllables which make the words of other languages more tuneable and sonorous. The sounds of our English words are commonly like those of string music, short and transient, which rise and perish upon a single touch; those of other languages are like the notes of wind instruments, sweet and swelling, and lengthened out into variety of modulation.
In the next place we may observe that, where the words are not monosyllables, we often make them so, as much as lies in our power, by our rapidity of pronunciation; as it generally happens in most of our long words which are derived from the Latin, where we contract the length of the syllables, that gives them a grave and solemn air in their own language, to make them more proper for despatch, and more conformable to the genius of our tongue. This we may find in a multitude of words, as “liberty,” “conspiracy,” “theatre,” “orator,” &c.
The same natural aversion to loquacity has of late years made a very considerable alteration in our language, by closing in one syllable the termination of our preterperfect tense, as in the words “drown’d,” “walk’d,” “arriv’d,” for “drowned,” “walked,” “arrived,” which has very much disfigured the tongue, and turned a tenth part of our smoothest words into so many clusters of consonants. This is the more remarkable because the want of vowels in our language has been the general complaint of our politest authors, who nevertheless are the men that have made these retrenchments, and consequently very much increased our former scarcity.
This reflection on the words that end in “ed” I have heard in conversation from one of the greatest geniuses this age has produced. I think we may add to the foregoing observation, the change which has happened in our language by the abbreviation of several words that are terminated in “eth,” by substituting an “s” in the room of the last syllable, as in “drowns,” “walks,” “arrives,” and innumerable other words, which in the pronunciation of our forefathers were “drowneth,” “walketh,” “arriveth.” This has wonderfully multiplied a letter which was before too frequent in the English tongue, and added to that hissing in our language which is taken so much notice of by foreigners, but at the same time humours our taciturnity, and eases us of many superfluous syllables.
I might here observe that the same single letter on many occasions does the office of a whole word, and represents the “his” and “her” of our forefathers. There is no doubt but the ear of a foreigner, which is the best judge in this case, would very much disapprove of such innovations, which indeed we do ourselves in some measure, by retaining the old termination in writing, and in all the solemn offices of our religion.
As, in the instances I have given, we have epitomised many of our particular words to the detriment of our tongue, so on other occasions we have drawn two words into one, which has likewise very much untuned our language, and clogged it with consonants, as “mayn’t,” “can’t,” “shan’t,” “won’t,” and the like, for “may not,” “can not,” “shall not,” “will not,” &c.
It is perhaps this humour of speaking no more than we needs must which has so miserably curtailed some of our words, that in familiar writings and conversations they often lose all but their first syllables, as in “mob.,” “rep.,” “pos.,” “incog.,” and the like; and as all ridiculous words make their first entry into a language by familiar phrases, I dare not answer for these that they will not in time be looked upon as a part of our tongue. We see some of our poets have been so indiscreet as to imitate Hudibras’s doggrel expressions in their serious compositions, by throwing out the signs of our substantives which are essential to the English language. Nay, this humour of shortening our language had once run so far, that some of our celebrated authors, among whom we may reckon Sir Roger L’Estrange in particular, began to prune their words of all superfluous letters, as they termed them, in order to adjust the spelling to the pronunciation; which would have confounded all our etymologies, and have quite destroyed our tongue.
We may here likewise observe that our proper names, when familiarised in English, generally dwindle to monosyllables, whereas in other modern languages they receive a softer turn on this occasion, by the addition of a new syllable.—Nick, in Italian, is Nicolini; Jack, in French, Janot; and so of the rest.
There is another particular in our language which is a great instance of our frugality in words, and that is the suppressing of several particles which must be produced in other tongues to make a sentence intelligible. This often perplexes the best writers, when they find the relatives “whom,” “which,” or “they,” at their mercy, whether they may have admission or not; and will never be decided till we have something like an academy, that by the best authorities, and rules drawn from the analogy of languages, shall settle all controversies between grammar and idiom.
I have only considered our language as it shows the genius and natural temper of the English, which is modest, thoughtful, and sincere, and which, perhaps, may recommend the people, though it has spoiled the tongue. We might, perhaps, carry the same thought into other languages, and deduce a great part of what is peculiar to them from the genius of the people who speak them. It is certain the light talkative humour of the French has not a little infected their tongue, which might be shown by many instances; as the genius of the Italians, which is so much addicted to music and ceremony, has moulded all their words and phrases to those particular uses. The stateliness and gravity of the Spaniards shows itself to perfection in the solemnity of their language; and the blunt, honest humour of the Germans sounds better in the roughness of the High-Dutch than it would in a politer tongue.