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diff --git a/623-h/623-h.htm b/623-h/623-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..51bb9b4 --- /dev/null +++ b/623-h/623-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,5136 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>The Battle of the Books</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4 { + text-align: left; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + TD { vertical-align: top; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + color: gray;} + + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">The Battle of the Books, by Jonathan Swift</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Battle of the Books, by Jonathan Swift, +Edited by Henry Morley + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Battle of the Books + and Other Short Pieces + + +Author: Jonathan Swift + +Editor: Henry Morley + +Release Date: January 15, 2007 [eBook #623] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS*** +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>Transcribed from the 1886 Cassell & Company edition by +David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<h1>THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS<br /> +AND OTHER SHORT PIECES.</h1> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">by</span><br /> +JONATHAN SWIFT.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">CASSELL & COMPANY, <span +class="smcap">Limited</span>:<br /> +<span class="smcap"><i>london</i></span>, <span +class="smcap"><i>paris</i></span>, <span class="smcap"><i>new +york & melbourne</i></span>.<br /> +1886.</p> +<h2>INTRODUCTION.</h2> +<p>Jonathan Swift was born in 1667, on the 30th of +November. His father was a Jonathan Swift, sixth of the ten +sons of the Rev. Thomas Swift, vicar of Goodrich, near Ross, in +Herefordshire, who had married Elizabeth Dryden, niece to the +poet Dryden’s grandfather. Jonathan Swift married, at +Leicester, Abigail Erick, or Herrick, who was of the family that +had given to England Robert Herrick, the poet. As their +eldest brother, Godwin, was prospering in Ireland, four other +Swifts, Dryden, William, Jonathan, and Adam, all in turn found +their way to Dublin. Jonathan was admitted an attorney of +the King’s Inns, Dublin, and was appointed by the Benchers +to the office of Steward of the King’s Inns, in January, +1666. He died in April, 1667, leaving his widow with an +infant daughter, Jane, and an unborn child.</p> +<p>Swift was born in Dublin seven months after his father’s +death. His mother after a time returned to her own family, +in Leicester, and the child was added to the household of his +uncle, Godwin Swift, who, by his four wives, became father to ten +sons of his own and four daughters. Godwin Swift sent his +nephew to Kilkenny School, where he had William Congreve among +his schoolfellows. In April, 1782, Swift was entered at +Trinity College as pensioner, together with his cousin Thomas, +son of his uncle Thomas. That cousin Thomas afterwards +became rector of Puttenham, in Surrey. Jonathan Swift +graduated as B.A. at Dublin, in February, 1686, and remained in +Trinity College for another three years. He was ready to +proceed to M.A. when his uncle Godwin became insane. The +troubles of 1689 also caused the closing of the University, and +Jonathan Swift went to Leicester, where mother and son took +counsel together as to future possibilities of life.</p> +<p>The retired statesman, Sir William Temple, at Moor Park, near +Farnham, in Surrey, was in highest esteem with the new King and +the leaders of the Revolution. His father, as Master of the +Irish Rolls, had been a friend of Godwin Swift’s, and with +his wife Swift’s mother could claim cousinship. After +some months, therefore, at Leicester, Jonathan Swift, aged +twenty-two, went to Moor Park, and entered Sir William +Temple’s household, doing service with the expectation of +advancement through his influence. The advancement he +desired was in the Church. When Swift went to Moor Park he +found in its household a child six or seven years old, daughter +to Mrs. Johnson, who was trusted servant and companion to Lady +Gifford, Sir William Temple’s sister. With this +little Esther, aged seven, Swift, aged twenty-two, became a +playfellow and helper in her studies. He broke his English +for her into what he called their “little language,” +that was part of the same playful kindliness, and passed into +their after-life. In July, 1692, with Sir William +Temple’s help, Jonathan Swift commenced M.A. in Oxford, as +of Hart Hall. In 1694, Swift’s ambition having been +thwarted by an offer of a clerkship, of £120 a year, in the +Irish Rolls, he broke from Sir William Temple, took orders, and +obtained, through other influence, in January, 1695, the small +prebendary of Kilroot, in the north of Ireland. He was +there for about a year. Close by, in Belfast, was an old +college friend, named Waring, who had a sister. Swift was +captivated by Miss Waring, called her Varina, and would have +become engaged to marry her if she had not flinched from +engagement with a young clergyman whose income was but a hundred +a year.</p> +<p>But Sir William Temple had missed Jonathan Swift from Moor +Park. Differences were forgotten, and Swift, at his wish, +went back. This was in 1696, when his little pupil, Esther +Johnson, was fifteen. Swift said of her, “I knew her +from six years old, and had some share in her education, by +directing what books she should read, and perpetually instructing +her in the principles of honour and virtue, from which she never +swerved in any one action or moment of her life. She was +sickly from her childhood until about the age of fifteen; but +then grew into perfect health, and was then looked upon as one of +the most beautiful, graceful, and agreeable young women in +London, only a little too fat. Her hair was blacker than a +raven, and every feature of her face in perfection.” +This was the Stella of Swift’s after-life, the one woman to +whom his whole love was given. But side by side with the +slow growth of his knowledge of all she was for him, was the slow +growth of his conviction that attacks of giddiness and deafness, +which first came when he was twenty, and recurred at times +throughout his life, were signs to be associated with that which +he regarded as the curse upon his life. His end would be +like his uncle Godwin’s. It was a curse transmissible +to children, but if he desired to keep the influence his genius +gave him, he could not tell the world why he refused to +marry. Only to Stella, who remained unmarried for his sake, +and gave her life to him, could all be known.</p> +<p>Returned to Moor Park, Swift wrote, in 1697, the “Battle +of the Books,” as well as the “Tale of the +Tub,” with which it was published seven years afterwards, +in 1704. Perrault and others had been battling in France +over the relative merits of Ancient and Modern Writers. The +debate had spread to England. On behalf of the Ancients, +stress was laid by Temple on the letters of Phalaris, tyrant of +Agrigentum. Wotton replied to Sir William for the +Moderns. The Hon. Charles Boyle, of Christ Church, +published a new edition of the Epistles of Phalaris, with +translation of the Greek text into Latin. Dr. Bentley, the +King’s Librarian, published a “Dissertation on the +Epistles of Phalaris,” denying their value, and arguing +that Phalaris did not write them. Christ Church replied +through Charles Boyle, with “Dr. Bentley’s +Dissertation on the Epistles of Phalaris examined.” +Swift entered into the war with a light heart, and matched the +Ancients in defending them for the amusement of his patron. +His incidental argument between the Spider and the Bee has +provided a catch-phrase, “Sweetness and Light,” to a +combatant of later times.</p> +<p>Sir William Temple died on the 27th of January, 1699. +Swift then became chaplain to Lord Berkeley in Dublin Castle, and +it was as a little surprise to Lady Berkeley, who liked him to +read to her Robert Boyle’s “Meditations,” that +Swift wrote the “Meditation on a Broomstick.” +In February, 1700, he obtained from Lord Berkeley the vicarage of +Laracor with the living of Rathbeggan, also in the diocese of +Meath. In the beginning of 1701 Esther Johnson, to whom Sir +William Temple had bequeathed a leasehold farm in Wicklow, came +with an elder friend, Miss Dingley, and settled in Laracor to be +near Swift. During one of the visits to London, made from +Laracor, Swift attacked the false pretensions of astrologers by +that prediction of the death of Mr. Partridge, a prophetic +almanac maker, of which he described the Accomplishment so +clearly that Partridge had much ado to get credit for being +alive.</p> +<p>The lines addressed to Stella speak for themselves. +“Cadenus and Vanessa” was meant as polite and +courteous admonition to Miss Hester Van Homrigh, a young lady in +whom green-sickness seems to have produced devotion to Swift in +forms that embarrassed him, and with which he did not well know +how to deal.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">H. M.</p> +<h2>THE BOOKSELLER TO THE READER.</h2> +<p>This discourse, as it is unquestionably of the same author, so +it seems to have been written about the same time, with +“The Tale of a Tub;” I mean the year 1697, when the +famous dispute was on foot about ancient and modern +learning. The controversy took its rise from an essay of +Sir William Temple’s upon that subject; which was answered +by W. Wotton, B.D., with an appendix by Dr. Bentley, endeavouring +to destroy the credit of Æsop and Phalaris for authors, +whom Sir William Temple had, in the essay before mentioned, +highly commended. In that appendix the doctor falls hard +upon a new edition of Phalaris, put out by the Honourable Charles +Boyle, now Earl of Orrery, to which Mr. Boyle replied at large +with great learning and wit; and the Doctor voluminously +rejoined. In this dispute the town highly resented to see a +person of Sir William Temple’s character and merits roughly +used by the two reverend gentlemen aforesaid, and without any +manner of provocation. At length, there appearing no end of +the quarrel, our author tells us that the BOOKS in St. +James’s Library, looking upon themselves as parties +principally concerned, took up the controversy, and came to a +decisive battle; but the manuscript, by the injury of fortune or +weather, being in several places imperfect, we cannot learn to +which side the victory fell.</p> +<p>I must warn the reader to beware of applying to persons what +is here meant only of books, in the most literal sense. So, +when Virgil is mentioned, we are not to understand the person of +a famous poet called by that name; but only certain sheets of +paper bound up in leather, containing in print the works of the +said poet: and so of the rest.</p> +<h2>THE PREFACE OF THE AUTHOR.</h2> +<p>Satire is a sort of glass wherein beholders do generally +discover everybody’s face but their own; which is the chief +reason for that kind reception it meets with in the world, and +that so very few are offended with it. But, if it should +happen otherwise, the danger is not great; and I have learned +from long experience never to apprehend mischief from those +understandings I have been able to provoke: for anger and fury, +though they add strength to the sinews of the body, yet are found +to relax those of the mind, and to render all its efforts feeble +and impotent.</p> +<p>There is a brain that will endure but one scumming; let the +owner gather it with discretion, and manage his little stock with +husbandry; but, of all things, let him beware of bringing it +under the lash of his betters, because that will make it all +bubble up into impertinence, and he will find no new +supply. Wit without knowledge being a sort of cream, which +gathers in a night to the top, and by a skilful hand may be soon +whipped into froth; but once scummed away, what appears +underneath will be fit for nothing but to be thrown to the +hogs.</p> +<h2>A FULL AND TRUE ACCOUNT OF THE BATTLE FOUGHT LAST FRIDAY +BETWEEN THE ANCIENT AND THE MODERN BOOKS IN SAINT JAMES’S +LIBRARY.</h2> +<p>Whoever examines, with due circumspection, into the annual +records of time, will find it remarked that War is the child of +Pride, and Pride the daughter of Riches:—the former of +which assertions may be soon granted, but one cannot so easily +subscribe to the latter; for Pride is nearly related to Beggary +and Want, either by father or mother, and sometimes by both: and, +to speak naturally, it very seldom happens among men to fall out +when all have enough; invasions usually travelling from north to +south, that is to say, from poverty to plenty. The most +ancient and natural grounds of quarrels are lust and avarice; +which, though we may allow to be brethren, or collateral branches +of pride, are certainly the issues of want. For, to speak +in the phrase of writers upon politics, we may observe in the +republic of dogs, which in its original seems to be an +institution of the many, that the whole state is ever in the +profoundest peace after a full meal; and that civil broils arise +among them when it happens for one great bone to be seized on by +some leading dog, who either divides it among the few, and then +it falls to an oligarchy, or keeps it to himself, and then it +runs up to a tyranny. The same reasoning also holds place +among them in those dissensions we behold upon a turgescency in +any of their females. For the right of possession lying in +common (it being impossible to establish a property in so +delicate a case), jealousies and suspicions do so abound, that +the whole commonwealth of that street is reduced to a manifest +state of war, of every citizen against every citizen, till some +one of more courage, conduct, or fortune than the rest seizes and +enjoys the prize: upon which naturally arises plenty of +heart-burning, and envy, and snarling against the happy +dog. Again, if we look upon any of these republics engaged +in a foreign war, either of invasion or defence, we shall find +the same reasoning will serve as to the grounds and occasions of +each; and that poverty or want, in some degree or other (whether +real or in opinion, which makes no alteration in the case), has a +great share, as well as pride, on the part of the aggressor.</p> +<p>Now whoever will please to take this scheme, and either reduce +or adapt it to an intellectual state or commonwealth of learning, +will soon discover the first ground of disagreement between the +two great parties at this time in arms, and may form just +conclusions upon the merits of either cause. But the issue +or events of this war are not so easy to conjecture at; for the +present quarrel is so inflamed by the warm heads of either +faction, and the pretensions somewhere or other so exorbitant, as +not to admit the least overtures of accommodation. This +quarrel first began, as I have heard it affirmed by an old +dweller in the neighbourhood, about a small spot of ground, lying +and being upon one of the two tops of the hill Parnassus; the +highest and largest of which had, it seems, been time out of mind +in quiet possession of certain tenants, called the Ancients; and +the other was held by the Moderns. But these disliking +their present station, sent certain ambassadors to the Ancients, +complaining of a great nuisance; how the height of that part of +Parnassus quite spoiled the prospect of theirs, especially +towards the east; and therefore, to avoid a war, offered them the +choice of this alternative, either that the Ancients would please +to remove themselves and their effects down to the lower summit, +which the Moderns would graciously surrender to them, and advance +into their place; or else the said Ancients will give leave to +the Moderns to come with shovels and mattocks, and level the said +hill as low as they shall think it convenient. To which the +Ancients made answer, how little they expected such a message as +this from a colony whom they had admitted, out of their own free +grace, to so near a neighbourhood. That, as to their own +seat, they were aborigines of it, and therefore to talk with them +of a removal or surrender was a language they did not +understand. That if the height of the hill on their side +shortened the prospect of the Moderns, it was a disadvantage they +could not help; but desired them to consider whether that injury +(if it be any) were not largely recompensed by the shade and +shelter it afforded them. That as to the levelling or +digging down, it was either folly or ignorance to propose it if +they did or did not know how that side of the hill was an entire +rock, which would break their tools and hearts, without any +damage to itself. That they would therefore advise the +Moderns rather to raise their own side of the hill than dream of +pulling down that of the Ancients; to the former of which they +would not only give licence, but also largely contribute. +All this was rejected by the Moderns with much indignation, who +still insisted upon one of the two expedients; and so this +difference broke out into a long and obstinate war, maintained on +the one part by resolution, and by the courage of certain leaders +and allies; but, on the other, by the greatness of their number, +upon all defeats affording continual recruits. In this +quarrel whole rivulets of ink have been exhausted, and the +virulence of both parties enormously augmented. Now, it +must be here understood, that ink is the great missive weapon in +all battles of the learned, which, conveyed through a sort of +engine called a quill, infinite numbers of these are darted at +the enemy by the valiant on each side, with equal skill and +violence, as if it were an engagement of porcupines. This +malignant liquor was compounded, by the engineer who invented it, +of two ingredients, which are, gall and copperas; by its +bitterness and venom to suit, in some degree, as well as to +foment, the genius of the combatants. And as the Grecians, +after an engagement, when they could not agree about the victory, +were wont to set up trophies on both sides, the beaten party +being content to be at the same expense, to keep itself in +countenance (a laudable and ancient custom, happily revived of +late in the art of war), so the learned, after a sharp and bloody +dispute, do, on both sides, hang out their trophies too, +whichever comes by the worst. These trophies have largely +inscribed on them the merits of the cause; a full impartial +account of such a Battle, and how the victory fell clearly to the +party that set them up. They are known to the world under +several names; as disputes, arguments, rejoinders, brief +considerations, answers, replies, remarks, reflections, +objections, confutations. For a very few days they are +fixed up all in public places, either by themselves or their +representatives, for passengers to gaze at; whence the chiefest +and largest are removed to certain magazines they call libraries, +there to remain in a quarter purposely assigned them, and +thenceforth begin to be called books of controversy.</p> +<p>In these books is wonderfully instilled and preserved the +spirit of each warrior while he is alive; and after his death his +soul transmigrates thither to inform them. This, at least, +is the more common opinion; but I believe it is with libraries as +with other cemeteries, where some philosophers affirm that a +certain spirit, which they call <i>brutum hominis</i>, hovers +over the monument, till the body is corrupted and turns to dust +or to worms, but then vanishes or dissolves; so, we may say, a +restless spirit haunts over every book, till dust or worms have +seized upon it—which to some may happen in a few days, but +to others later—and therefore, books of controversy being, +of all others, haunted by the most disorderly spirits, have +always been confined in a separate lodge from the rest, and for +fear of a mutual violence against each other, it was thought +prudent by our ancestors to bind them to the peace with strong +iron chains. Of which invention the original occasion was +this: When the works of Scotus first came out, they were carried +to a certain library, and had lodgings appointed them; but this +author was no sooner settled than he went to visit his master +Aristotle, and there both concerted together to seize Plato by +main force, and turn him out from his ancient station among the +divines, where he had peaceably dwelt near eight hundred +years. The attempt succeeded, and the two usurpers have +reigned ever since in his stead; but, to maintain quiet for the +future, it was decreed that all polemics of the larger size +should be hold fast with a chain.</p> +<p>By this expedient, the public peace of libraries might +certainly have been preserved if a new species of controversial +books had not arisen of late years, instinct with a more +malignant spirit, from the war above mentioned between the +learned about the higher summit of Parnassus.</p> +<p>When these books were first admitted into the public +libraries, I remember to have said, upon occasion, to several +persons concerned, how I was sure they would create broils +wherever they came, unless a world of care were taken; and +therefore I advised that the champions of each side should be +coupled together, or otherwise mixed, that, like the blending of +contrary poisons, their malignity might be employed among +themselves. And it seems I was neither an ill prophet nor +an ill counsellor; for it was nothing else but the neglect of +this caution which gave occasion to the terrible fight that +happened on Friday last between the Ancient and Modern Books in +the King’s library. Now, because the talk of this +battle is so fresh in everybody’s mouth, and the +expectation of the town so great to be informed in the +particulars, I, being possessed of all qualifications requisite +in an historian, and retained by neither party, have resolved to +comply with the urgent importunity of my friends, by writing down +a full impartial account thereof.</p> +<p>The guardian of the regal library, a person of great valour, +but chiefly renowned for his humanity, had been a fierce champion +for the Moderns, and, in an engagement upon Parnassus, had vowed +with his own hands to knock down two of the ancient chiefs who +guarded a small pass on the superior rock, but, endeavouring to +climb up, was cruelly obstructed by his own unhappy weight and +tendency towards his centre, a quality to which those of the +Modern party are extremely subject; for, being light-headed, they +have, in speculation, a wonderful agility, and conceive nothing +too high for them to mount, but, in reducing to practice, +discover a mighty pressure about their posteriors and their +heels. Having thus failed in his design, the disappointed +champion bore a cruel rancour to the Ancients, which he resolved +to gratify by showing all marks of his favour to the books of +their adversaries, and lodging them in the fairest apartments; +when, at the same time, whatever book had the boldness to own +itself for an advocate of the Ancients was buried alive in some +obscure corner, and threatened, upon the least displeasure, to be +turned out of doors. Besides, it so happened that about +this time there was a strange confusion of place among all the +books in the library, for which several reasons were +assigned. Some imputed it to a great heap of learned dust, +which a perverse wind blew off from a shelf of Moderns into the +keeper’s eyes. Others affirmed he had a humour to +pick the worms out of the schoolmen, and swallow them fresh and +fasting, whereof some fell upon his spleen, and some climbed up +into his head, to the great perturbation of both. And +lastly, others maintained that, by walking much in the dark about +the library, he had quite lost the situation of it out of his +head; and therefore, in replacing his books, he was apt to +mistake and clap Descartes next to Aristotle, poor Plato had got +between Hobbes and the Seven Wise Masters, and Virgil was hemmed +in with Dryden on one side and Wither on the other.</p> +<p>Meanwhile, those books that were advocates for the Moderns, +chose out one from among them to make a progress through the +whole library, examine the number and strength of their party, +and concert their affairs. This messenger performed all +things very industriously, and brought back with him a list of +their forces, in all, fifty thousand, consisting chiefly of +light-horse, heavy-armed foot, and mercenaries; whereof the foot +were in general but sorrily armed and worse clad; their horses +large, but extremely out of case and heart; however, some few, by +trading among the Ancients, had furnished themselves tolerably +enough.</p> +<p>While things were in this ferment, discord grew extremely +high; hot words passed on both sides, and ill blood was +plentifully bred. Here a solitary Ancient, squeezed up +among a whole shelf of Moderns, offered fairly to dispute the +case, and to prove by manifest reason that the priority was due +to them from long possession, and in regard of their prudence, +antiquity, and, above all, their great merits toward the +Moderns. But these denied the premises, and seemed very +much to wonder how the Ancients could pretend to insist upon +their antiquity, when it was so plain (if they went to that) that +the Moderns were much the more ancient of the two. As for +any obligations they owed to the Ancients, they renounced them +all. “It is true,” said they, “we are +informed some few of our party have been so mean as to borrow +their subsistence from you, but the rest, infinitely the greater +number (and especially we French and English), were so far from +stooping to so base an example, that there never passed, till +this very hour, six words between us. For our horses were +of our own breeding, our arms of our own forging, and our clothes +of our own cutting out and sewing.” Plato was by +chance up on the next shelf, and observing those that spoke to be +in the ragged plight mentioned a while ago, their jades lean and +foundered, their weapons of rotten wood, their armour rusty, and +nothing but rags underneath, he laughed loud, and in his pleasant +way swore, by ---, he believed them.</p> +<p>Now, the Moderns had not proceeded in their late negotiation +with secrecy enough to escape the notice of the enemy. For +those advocates who had begun the quarrel, by setting first on +foot the dispute of precedency, talked so loud of coming to a +battle, that Sir William Temple happened to overhear them, and +gave immediate intelligence to the Ancients, who thereupon drew +up their scattered troops together, resolving to act upon the +defensive; upon which, several of the Moderns fled over to their +party, and among the rest Temple himself. This Temple, +having been educated and long conversed among the Ancients, was, +of all the Moderns, their greatest favourite, and became their +greatest champion.</p> +<p>Things were at this crisis when a material accident fell +out. For upon the highest corner of a large window, there +dwelt a certain spider, swollen up to the first magnitude by the +destruction of infinite numbers of flies, whose spoils lay +scattered before the gates of his palace, like human bones before +the cave of some giant. The avenues to his castle were +guarded with turnpikes and palisadoes, all after the modern way +of fortification. After you had passed several courts you +came to the centre, wherein you might behold the constable +himself in his own lodgings, which had windows fronting to each +avenue, and ports to sally out upon all occasions of prey or +defence. In this mansion he had for some time dwelt in +peace and plenty, without danger to his person by swallows from +above, or to his palace by brooms from below; when it was the +pleasure of fortune to conduct thither a wandering bee, to whose +curiosity a broken pane in the glass had discovered itself, and +in he went, where, expatiating a while, he at last happened to +alight upon one of the outward walls of the spider’s +citadel; which, yielding to the unequal weight, sunk down to the +very foundation. Thrice he endeavoured to force his +passage, and thrice the centre shook. The spider within, +feeling the terrible convulsion, supposed at first that nature +was approaching to her final dissolution, or else that Beelzebub, +with all his legions, was come to revenge the death of many +thousands of his subjects whom his enemy had slain and +devoured. However, he at length valiantly resolved to issue +forth and meet his fate. Meanwhile the bee had acquitted +himself of his toils, and, posted securely at some distance, was +employed in cleansing his wings, and disengaging them from the +ragged remnants of the cobweb. By this time the spider was +adventured out, when, beholding the chasms, the ruins, and +dilapidations of his fortress, he was very near at his +wit’s end; he stormed and swore like a madman, and swelled +till he was ready to burst. At length, casting his eye upon +the bee, and wisely gathering causes from events (for they know +each other by sight), “A plague split you,” said he; +“is it you, with a vengeance, that have made this litter +here; could not you look before you, and be d---d? Do you +think I have nothing else to do (in the devil’s name) but +to mend and repair after you?” “Good words, +friend,” said the bee, having now pruned himself, and being +disposed to droll; “I’ll give you my hand and word to +come near your kennel no more; I was never in such a confounded +pickle since I was born.” “Sirrah,” +replied the spider, “if it were not for breaking an old +custom in our family, never to stir abroad against an enemy, I +should come and teach you better manners.” “I +pray have patience,” said the bee, “or you’ll +spend your substance, and, for aught I see, you may stand in need +of it all, towards the repair of your house.” +“Rogue, rogue,” replied the spider, “yet +methinks you should have more respect to a person whom all the +world allows to be so much your betters.” “By +my troth,” said the bee, “the comparison will amount +to a very good jest, and you will do me a favour to let me know +the reasons that all the world is pleased to use in so hopeful a +dispute.” At this the spider, having swelled himself +into the size and posture of a disputant, began his argument in +the true spirit of controversy, with resolution to be heartily +scurrilous and angry, to urge on his own reasons without the +least regard to the answers or objections of his opposite, and +fully predetermined in his mind against all conviction.</p> +<p>“Not to disparage myself,” said he, “by the +comparison with such a rascal, what art thou but a vagabond +without house or home, without stock or inheritance? born to no +possession of your own, but a pair of wings and a +drone-pipe. Your livelihood is a universal plunder upon +nature; a freebooter over fields and gardens; and, for the sake +of stealing, will rob a nettle as easily as a violet. +Whereas I am a domestic animal, furnished with a native stock +within myself. This large castle (to show my improvements +in the mathematics) is all built with my own hands, and the +materials extracted altogether out of my own person.”</p> +<p>“I am glad,” answered the bee, “to hear you +grant at least that I am come honestly by my wings and my voice; +for then, it seems, I am obliged to Heaven alone for my flights +and my music; and Providence would never have bestowed on me two +such gifts without designing them for the noblest ends. I +visit, indeed, all the flowers and blossoms of the field and +garden, but whatever I collect thence enriches myself without the +least injury to their beauty, their smell, or their taste. +Now, for you and your skill in architecture and other +mathematics, I have little to say: in that building of yours +there might, for aught I know, have been labour and method +enough; but, by woeful experience for us both, it is too plain +the materials are naught; and I hope you will henceforth take +warning, and consider duration and matter, as well as method and +art. You boast, indeed, of being obliged to no other +creature, but of drawing and spinning out all from yourself; that +is to say, if we may judge of the liquor in the vessel by what +issues out, you possess a good plentiful store of dirt and poison +in your breast; and, though I would by no means lesson or +disparage your genuine stock of either, yet I doubt you are +somewhat obliged, for an increase of both, to a little foreign +assistance. Your inherent portion of dirt does not fall of +acquisitions, by sweepings exhaled from below; and one insect +furnishes you with a share of poison to destroy another. So +that, in short, the question comes all to this: whether is the +nobler being of the two, that which, by a lazy contemplation of +four inches round, by an overweening pride, feeding, and +engendering on itself, turns all into excrement and venom, +producing nothing at all but flybane and a cobweb; or that which, +by a universal range, with long search, much study, true +judgment, and distinction of things, brings home honey and +wax.”</p> +<p>This dispute was managed with such eagerness, clamour, and +warmth, that the two parties of books, in arms below, stood +silent a while, waiting in suspense what would be the issue; +which was not long undetermined: for the bee, grown impatient at +so much loss of time, fled straight away to a bed of roses, +without looking for a reply, and left the spider, like an orator, +collected in himself, and just prepared to burst out.</p> +<p>It happened upon this emergency that Æsop broke silence +first. He had been of late most barbarously treated by a +strange effect of the regent’s humanity, who had torn off +his title-page, sorely defaced one half of his leaves, and +chained him fast among a shelf of Moderns. Where, soon +discovering how high the quarrel was likely to proceed, he tried +all his arts, and turned himself to a thousand forms. At +length, in the borrowed shape of an ass, the regent mistook him +for a Modern; by which means he had time and opportunity to +escape to the Ancients, just when the spider and the bee were +entering into their contest; to which he gave his attention with +a world of pleasure, and, when it was ended, swore in the loudest +key that in all his life he had never known two cases, so +parallel and adapt to each other as that in the window and this +upon the shelves. “The disputants,” said he, +“have admirably managed the dispute between them, have +taken in the full strength of all that is to be said on both +sides, and exhausted the substance of every argument <i>pro</i> +and <i>con</i>. It is but to adjust the reasonings of both +to the present quarrel, then to compare and apply the labours and +fruits of each, as the bee has learnedly deduced them, and we +shall find the conclusion fall plain and close upon the Moderns +and us. For pray, gentlemen, was ever anything so modern as +the spider in his air, his turns, and his paradoxes? he argues in +the behalf of you, his brethren, and himself, with many boastings +of his native stock and great genius; that he spins and spits +wholly from himself, and scorns to own any obligation or +assistance from without. Then he displays to you his great +skill in architecture and improvement in the mathematics. +To all this the bee, as an advocate retained by us, the Ancients, +thinks fit to answer, that, if one may judge of the great genius +or inventions of the Moderns by what they have produced, you will +hardly have countenance to bear you out in boasting of +either. Erect your schemes with as much method and skill as +you please; yet, if the materials be nothing but dirt, spun out +of your own entrails (the guts of modern brains), the edifice +will conclude at last in a cobweb; the duration of which, like +that of other spiders’ webs, may be imputed to their being +forgotten, or neglected, or hid in a corner. For anything +else of genuine that the Moderns may pretend to, I cannot +recollect; unless it be a large vein of wrangling and satire, +much of a nature and substance with the spiders’ poison; +which, however they pretend to spit wholly out of themselves, is +improved by the same arts, by feeding upon the insects and vermin +of the age. As for us, the Ancients, we are content with +the bee, to pretend to nothing of our own beyond our wings and +our voice: that is to say, our flights and our language. +For the rest, whatever we have got has been by infinite labour +and search, and ranging through every corner of nature; the +difference is, that, instead of dirt and poison, we have rather +chosen to till our hives with honey and wax; thus furnishing +mankind with the two noblest of things, which are sweetness and +light.”</p> +<p>It is wonderful to conceive the tumult arisen among the books +upon the close of this long descant of Æsop: both parties +took the hint, and heightened their animosities so on a sudden, +that they resolved it should come to a battle. Immediately +the two main bodies withdrew, under their several ensigns, to the +farther parts of the library, and there entered into cabals and +consults upon the present emergency. The Moderns were in +very warm debates upon the choice of their leaders; and nothing +less than the fear impending from their enemies could have kept +them from mutinies upon this occasion. The difference was +greatest among the horse, where every private trooper pretended +to the chief command, from Tasso and Milton to Dryden and +Wither. The light-horse were commanded by Cowley and +Despreaux. There came the bowmen under their valiant +leaders, Descartes, Gassendi, and Hobbes; whose strength was such +that they could shoot their arrows beyond the atmosphere, never +to fall down again, but turn, like that of Evander, into meteors; +or, like the cannon-ball, into stars. Paracelsus brought a +squadron of stinkpot-flingers from the snowy mountains of +Rhætia. There came a vast body of dragoons, of +different nations, under the leading of Harvey, their great aga: +part armed with scythes, the weapons of death; part with lances +and long knives, all steeped in poison; part shot bullets of a +most malignant nature, and used white powder, which infallibly +killed without report. There came several bodies of +heavy-armed foot, all mercenaries, under the ensigns of +Guicciardini, Davila, Polydore Vergil, Buchanan, Mariana, Camden, +and others. The engineers were commanded by Regiomontanus +and Wilkins. The rest was a confused multitude, led by +Scotus, Aquinas, and Bellarmine; of mighty bulk and stature, but +without either arms, courage, or discipline. In the last +place came infinite swarms of calones, a disorderly rout led by +L’Estrange; rogues and ragamuffins, that follow the camp +for nothing but the plunder, all without coats to cover them.</p> +<p>The army of the Ancients was much fewer in number; Homer led +the horse, and Pindar the light-horse; Euclid was chief engineer; +Plato and Aristotle commanded the bowmen; Herodotus and Livy the +foot; Hippocrates, the dragoons; the allies, led by Vossius and +Temple, brought up the rear.</p> +<p>All things violently tending to a decisive battle, Fame, who +much frequented, and had a large apartment formerly assigned her +in the regal library, fled up straight to Jupiter, to whom she +delivered a faithful account of all that passed between the two +parties below; for among the gods she always tells truth. +Jove, in great concern, convokes a council in the Milky +Way. The senate assembled, he declares the occasion of +convening them; a bloody battle just impendent between two mighty +armies of ancient and modern creatures, called books, wherein the +celestial interest was but too deeply concerned. Momus, the +patron of the Moderns, made an excellent speech in their favour, +which was answered by Pallas, the protectress of the +Ancients. The assembly was divided in their affections; +when Jupiter commanded the Book of Fate to be laid before +him. Immediately were brought by Mercury three large +volumes in folio, containing memoirs of all things past, present, +and to come. The clasps were of silver double gilt, the +covers of celestial turkey leather, and the paper such as here on +earth might pass almost for vellum. Jupiter, having +silently read the decree, would communicate the import to none, +but presently shut up the book.</p> +<p>Without the doors of this assembly there attended a vast +number of light, nimble gods, menial servants to Jupiter: those +are his ministering instruments in all affairs below. They +travel in a caravan, more or less together, and are fastened to +each other like a link of galley-slaves, by a light chain, which +passes from them to Jupiter’s great toe: and yet, in +receiving or delivering a message, they may never approach above +the lowest step of his throne, where he and they whisper to each +other through a large hollow trunk. These deities are +called by mortal men accidents or events; but the gods call them +second causes. Jupiter having delivered his message to a +certain number of these divinities, they flew immediately down to +the pinnacle of the regal library, and consulting a few minutes, +entered unseen, and disposed the parties according to their +orders.</p> +<p>Meanwhile Momus, fearing the worst, and calling to mind an +ancient prophecy which bore no very good face to his children the +Moderns, bent his flight to the region of a malignant deity +called Criticism. She dwelt on the top of a snowy mountain +in Nova Zembla; there Momus found her extended in her den, upon +the spoils of numberless volumes, half devoured. At her +right hand sat Ignorance, her father and husband, blind with age; +at her left, Pride, her mother, dressing her up in the scraps of +paper herself had torn. There was Opinion, her sister, +light of foot, hood-winked, and head-strong, yet giddy and +perpetually turning. About her played her children, Noise +and Impudence, Dulness and Vanity, Positiveness, Pedantry, and +Ill-manners. The goddess herself had claws like a cat; her +head, and ears, and voice resembled those of an ass; her teeth +fallen out before, her eyes turned inward, as if she looked only +upon herself; her diet was the overflowing of her own gall; her +spleen was so large as to stand prominent, like a dug of the +first rate; nor wanted excrescences in form of teats, at which a +crew of ugly monsters were greedily sucking; and, what is +wonderful to conceive, the bulk of spleen increased faster than +the sucking could diminish it. “Goddess,” said +Momus, “can you sit idly here while our devout worshippers, +the Moderns, are this minute entering into a cruel battle, and +perhaps now lying under the swords of their enemies? who then +hereafter will ever sacrifice or build altars to our +divinities? Haste, therefore, to the British Isle, and, if +possible, prevent their destruction; while I make factions among +the gods, and gain them over to our party.”</p> +<p>Momus, having thus delivered himself, stayed not for an +answer, but left the goddess to her own resentment. Up she +rose in a rage, and, as it is the form on such occasions, began a +soliloquy: “It is I” (said she) “who give +wisdom to infants and idiots; by me children grow wiser than +their parents, by me beaux become politicians, and schoolboys +judges of philosophy; by me sophisters debate and conclude upon +the depths of knowledge; and coffee-house wits, instinct by me, +can correct an author’s style, and display his minutest +errors, without understanding a syllable of his matter or his +language; by me striplings spend their judgment, as they do their +estate, before it comes into their hands. It is I who have +deposed wit and knowledge from their empire over poetry, and +advanced myself in their stead. And shall a few upstart +Ancients dare to oppose me? But come, my aged parent, and +you, my children dear, and thou, my beauteous sister; let us +ascend my chariot, and haste to assist our devout Moderns, who +are now sacrificing to us a hecatomb, as I perceive by that +grateful smell which from thence reaches my nostrils.”</p> +<p>The goddess and her train, having mounted the chariot, which +was drawn by tame geese, flew over infinite regions, shedding her +influence in due places, till at length she arrived at her +beloved island of Britain; but in hovering over its metropolis, +what blessings did she not let fall upon her seminaries of +Gresham and Covent-garden! And now she reached the fatal +plain of St. James’s library, at what time the two armies +were upon the point to engage; where, entering with all her +caravan unseen, and landing upon a case of shelves, now desert, +but once inhabited by a colony of virtuosos, she stayed awhile to +observe the posture of both armies.</p> +<p>But here the tender cares of a mother began to fill her +thoughts and move in her breast: for at the head of a troup of +Modern bowmen she cast her eyes upon her son Wotton, to whom the +fates had assigned a very short thread. Wotton, a young +hero, whom an unknown father of mortal race begot by stolen +embraces with this goddess. He was the darling of his +mother above all her children, and she resolved to go and comfort +him. But first, according to the good old custom of +deities, she cast about to change her shape, for fear the +divinity of her countenance might dazzle his mortal sight and +overcharge the rest of his senses. She therefore gathered +up her person into an octavo compass: her body grow white and +arid, and split in pieces with dryness; the thick turned into +pasteboard, and the thin into paper; upon which her parents and +children artfully strewed a black juice, or decoction of gall and +soot, in form of letters: her head, and voice, and spleen, kept +their primitive form; and that which before was a cover of skin +did still continue so. In this guise she marched on towards +the Moderns, indistinguishable in shape and dress from the divine +Bentley, Wotton’s dearest friend. “Brave +Wotton,” said the goddess, “why do our troops stand +idle here, to spend their present vigour and opportunity of the +day? away, let us haste to the generals, and advise to give the +onset immediately.” Having spoke thus, she took the +ugliest of her monsters, full glutted from her spleen, and flung +it invisibly into his mouth, which, flying straight up into his +head, squeezed out his eye-balls, gave him a distorted look, and +half-overturned his brain. Then she privately ordered two +of her beloved children, Dulness and Ill-manners, closely to +attend his person in all encounters. Having thus accoutred +him, she vanished in a mist, and the hero perceived it was the +goddess his mother.</p> +<p>The destined hour of fate being now arrived, the fight began; +whereof, before I dare adventure to make a particular +description, I must, after the example of other authors, petition +for a hundred tongues, and mouths, and hands, and pens, which +would all be too little to perform so immense a work. Say, +goddess, that presidest over history, who it was that first +advanced in the field of battle! Paracelsus, at the head of +his dragoons, observing Galen in the adverse wing, darted his +javelin with a mighty force, which the brave Ancient received +upon his shield, the point breaking in the second fold . . . +<i>Hic pauca</i><br /> +<i>. . . . desunt</i><br /> +They bore the wounded aga on their shields to his<br /> +chariot . . .<br /> +<i>Desunt</i> . . .<br /> +<i>nonnulla</i>. . . .</p> +<p>Then Aristotle, observing Bacon advance with a furious mien, +drew his bow to the head, and let fly his arrow, which missed the +valiant Modern and went whizzing over his head; but Descartes it +hit; the steel point quickly found a defect in his head-piece; it +pierced the leather and the pasteboard, and went in at his right +eye. The torture of the pain whirled the valiant bow-man +round till death, like a star of superior influence, drew him +into his own vortex <i>Ingens hiatus</i> . . . .<br /> +<i>hic in MS.</i> . . . .<br /> +. . . . when Homer appeared at the head of the +cavalry, mounted on a furious horse, with difficulty managed by +the rider himself, but which no other mortal durst approach; he +rode among the enemy’s ranks, and bore down all before +him. Say, goddess, whom he slew first and whom he slew +last! First, Gondibert advanced against him, clad in heavy +armour and mounted on a staid sober gelding, not so famed for his +speed as his docility in kneeling whenever his rider would mount +or alight. He had made a vow to Pallas that he would never +leave the field till he had spoiled Homer of his armour: madman, +who had never once seen the wearer, nor understood his +strength! Him Homer overthrew, horse and man, to the +ground, there to be trampled and choked in the dirt. Then +with a long spear he slew Denham, a stout Modern, who from his +father’s side derived his lineage from Apollo, but his +mother was of mortal race. He fell, and bit the +earth. The celestial part Apollo took, and made it a star; +but the terrestrial lay wallowing upon the ground. Then +Homer slew Sam Wesley with a kick of his horse’s heel; he +took Perrault by mighty force out of his saddle, then hurled him +at Fontenelle, with the same blow dashing out both their +brains.</p> +<p>On the left wing of the horse Virgil appeared, in shining +armour, completely fitted to his body; he was mounted on a +dapple-grey steed, the slowness of whose pace was an effect of +the highest mettle and vigour. He cast his eye on the +adverse wing, with a desire to find an object worthy of his +valour, when behold upon a sorrel gelding of a monstrous size +appeared a foe, issuing from among the thickest of the +enemy’s squadrons; but his speed was less than his noise; +for his horse, old and lean, spent the dregs of his strength in a +high trot, which, though it made slow advances, yet caused a loud +clashing of his armour, terrible to hear. The two cavaliers +had now approached within the throw of a lance, when the stranger +desired a parley, and, lifting up the visor of his helmet, a face +hardly appeared from within which, after a pause, was known for +that of the renowned Dryden. The brave Ancient suddenly +started, as one possessed with surprise and disappointment +together; for the helmet was nine times too large for the head, +which appeared situate far in the hinder part, even like the lady +in a lobster, or like a mouse under a canopy of state, or like a +shrivelled beau from within the penthouse of a modern periwig; +and the voice was suited to the visage, sounding weak and +remote. Dryden, in a long harangue, soothed up the good +Ancient; called him father, and, by a large deduction of +genealogies, made it plainly appear that they were nearly +related. Then he humbly proposed an exchange of armour, as +a lasting mark of hospitality between them. Virgil +consented (for the goddess Diffidence came unseen, and cast a +mist before his eyes), though his was of gold and cost a hundred +beeves, the other’s but of rusty iron. However, this +glittering armour became the Modern yet worsen than his +own. Then they agreed to exchange horses; but, when it came +to the trial, Dryden was afraid and utterly unable to mount. . . +<i>Alter hiatus</i><br /> +. . . . <i>in MS.</i><br /> +Lucan appeared upon a fiery horse of admirable shape, but +headstrong, bearing the rider where he list over the field; he +made a mighty slaughter among the enemy’s horse; which +destruction to stop, Blackmore, a famous Modern (but one of the +mercenaries), strenuously opposed himself, and darted his javelin +with a strong hand, which, falling short of its mark, struck deep +in the earth. Then Lucan threw a lance; but +Æsculapius came unseen and turned off the point. +“Brave Modern,” said Lucan, “I perceive some +god protects you, for never did my arm so deceive me before: but +what mortal can contend with a god? Therefore, let us fight +no longer, but present gifts to each other.” Lucan +then bestowed on the Modern a pair of spurs, and Blackmore gave +Lucan a bridle. . . .<br /> +<i>Pauca desunt</i>. . . .<br /> +. . . .<br /> +Creech: but the goddess Dulness took a cloud, formed into the +shape of Horace, armed and mounted, and placed in a flying +posture before him. Glad was the cavalier to begin a combat +with a flying foe, and pursued the image, threatening aloud; till +at last it led him to the peaceful bower of his father, Ogleby, +by whom he was disarmed and assigned to his repose.</p> +<p>Then Pindar slew ---, and --- and Oldham, and ---, and Afra +the Amazon, light of foot; never advancing in a direct line, but +wheeling with incredible agility and force, he made a terrible +slaughter among the enemy’s light-horse. Him when +Cowley observed, his generous heart burnt within him, and he +advanced against the fierce Ancient, imitating his address, his +pace, and career, as well as the vigour of his horse and his own +skill would allow. When the two cavaliers had approached +within the length of three javelins, first Cowley threw a lance, +which missed Pindar, and, passing into the enemy’s ranks, +fell ineffectual to the ground. Then Pindar darted a +javelin so large and weighty, that scarce a dozen Cavaliers, as +cavaliers are in our degenerate days, could raise it from the +ground; yet he threw it with ease, and it went, by an unerring +hand, singing through the air; nor could the Modern have avoided +present death if he had not luckily opposed the shield that had +been given him by Venus. And now both heroes drew their +swords; but the Modern was so aghast and disordered that he knew +not where he was; his shield dropped from his hands; thrice he +fled, and thrice he could not escape. At last he turned, +and lifting up his hand in the posture of a suppliant, +“Godlike Pindar,” said he, “spare my life, and +possess my horse, with these arms, beside the ransom which my +friends will give when they hear I am alive and your +prisoner.” “Dog!” said Pindar, “let +your ransom stay with your friends; but your carcase shall be +left for the fowls of the air and the beasts of the +field.” With that he raised his sword, and, with a +mighty stroke, cleft the wretched Modern in twain, the sword +pursuing the blow; and one half lay panting on the ground, to be +trod in pieces by the horses’ feet; the other half was +borne by the frighted steed through the field. This Venus +took, washed it seven times in ambrosia, then struck it thrice +with a sprig of amaranth; upon which the leather grow round and +soft, and the leaves turned into feathers, and, being gilded +before, continued gilded still; so it became a dove, and she +harnessed it to her chariot. . . .<br /> +. . . . <i>Hiatus valde de-</i><br /> +. . . . <i>flendus in MS</i>.</p> +<h2>THE EPISODE OF BENTLEY AND WOTTON.</h2> +<p>Day being far spent, and the numerous forces of the Moderns +half inclining to a retreat, there issued forth, from a squadron +of their heavy-armed foot, a captain whose name was Bentley, the +most deformed of all the Moderns; tall, but without shape or +comeliness; large, but without strength or proportion. His +armour was patched up of a thousand incoherent pieces, and the +sound of it, as he marched, was loud and dry, like that made by +the fall of a sheet of lead, which an Etesian wind blows suddenly +down from the roof of some steeple. His helmet was of old +rusty iron, but the vizor was brass, which, tainted by his +breath, corrupted into copperas, nor wanted gall from the same +fountain, so that, whenever provoked by anger or labour, an +atramentous quality, of most malignant nature, was seen to distil +from his lips. In his right hand he grasped a flail, and +(that he might never be unprovided of an offensive weapon) a +vessel full of ordure in his left. Thus completely armed, +he advanced with a slow and heavy pace where the Modern chiefs +were holding a consult upon the sum of things, who, as he came +onwards, laughed to behold his crooked leg and humped shoulder, +which his boot and armour, vainly endeavouring to hide, were +forced to comply with and expose. The generals made use of +him for his talent of railing, which, kept within government, +proved frequently of great service to their cause, but, at other +times, did more mischief than good; for, at the least touch of +offence, and often without any at all, he would, like a wounded +elephant, convert it against his leaders. Such, at this +juncture, was the disposition of Bentley, grieved to see the +enemy prevail, and dissatisfied with everybody’s conduct +but his own. He humbly gave the Modern generals to +understand that he conceived, with great submission, they were +all a pack of rogues, and fools, and confounded logger-heads, and +illiterate whelps, and nonsensical scoundrels; that, if himself +had been constituted general, those presumptuous dogs, the +Ancients, would long before this have been beaten out of the +field. “You,” said he, “sit here idle, +but when I, or any other valiant Modern kill an enemy, you are +sure to seize the spoil. But I will not march one foot +against the foe till you all swear to me that whomever I take or +kill, his arms I shall quietly possess.” Bentley +having spoken thus, Scaliger, bestowing him a sour look, +“Miscreant prater!” said he, “eloquent only in +thine own eyes, thou railest without wit, or truth, or +discretion. The malignity of thy temper perverteth nature; +thy learning makes thee more barbarous; thy study of humanity +more inhuman; thy converse among poets more grovelling, miry, and +dull. All arts of civilising others render thee rude and +untractable; courts have taught thee ill manners, and polite +conversation has finished thee a pedant. Besides, a greater +coward burdeneth not the army. But never despond; I pass my +word, whatever spoil thou takest shall certainly be thy own; +though I hope that vile carcase will first become a prey to kites +and worms.”</p> +<p>Bentley durst not reply, but, half choked with spleen and +rage, withdrew, in full resolution of performing some great +achievement. With him, for his aid and companion, he took +his beloved Wotton, resolving by policy or surprise to attempt +some neglected quarter of the Ancients’ army. They +began their march over carcases of their slaughtered friends; +then to the right of their own forces; then wheeled northward, +till they came to Aldrovandus’s tomb, which they passed on +the side of the declining sun. And now they arrived, with +fear, toward the enemy’s out-guards, looking about, if +haply they might spy the quarters of the wounded, or some +straggling sleepers, unarmed and remote from the rest. As +when two mongrel curs, whom native greediness and domestic want +provoke and join in partnership, though fearful, nightly to +invade the folds of some rich grazier, they, with tails depressed +and lolling tongues, creep soft and slow. Meanwhile the +conscious moon, now in her zenith, on their guilty heads darts +perpendicular rays; nor dare they bark, though much provoked at +her refulgent visage, whether seen in puddle by reflection or in +sphere direct; but one surveys the region round, while the other +scouts the plain, if haply to discover, at distance from the +flock, some carcase half devoured, the refuse of gorged wolves or +ominous ravens. So marched this lovely, loving pair of +friends, nor with less fear and circumspection, when at a +distance they might perceive two shining suits of armour hanging +upon an oak, and the owners not far off in a profound +sleep. The two friends drew lots, and the pursuing of this +adventure fell to Bentley; on he went, and in his van Confusion +and Amaze, while Horror and Affright brought up the rear. +As he came near, behold two heroes of the Ancient army, Phalaris +and Æsop, lay fast asleep. Bentley would fain have +despatched them both, and, stealing close, aimed his flail at +Phalaris’s breast; but then the goddess Affright, +interposing, caught the Modern in her icy arms, and dragged him +from the danger she foresaw; both the dormant heroes happened to +turn at the same instant, though soundly sleeping, and busy in a +dream. For Phalaris was just that minute dreaming how a +most vile poetaster had lampooned him, and how he had got him +roaring in his bull. And Æsop dreamed that as he and +the Ancient were lying on the ground, a wild ass broke loose, ran +about, trampling and kicking in their faces. Bentley, +leaving the two heroes asleep, seized on both their armours, and +withdrew in quest of his darling Wotton.</p> +<p>He, in the meantime, had wandered long in search of some +enterprise, till at length he arrived at a small rivulet that +issued from a fountain hard by, called, in the language of mortal +men, Helicon. Here he stopped, and, parched with thirst, +resolved to allay it in this limpid stream. Thrice with +profane hands he essayed to raise the water to his lips, and +thrice it slipped all through his fingers. Then he stopped +prone on his breast, but, ere his mouth had kissed the liquid +crystal, Apollo came, and in the channel held his shield betwixt +the Modern and the fountain, so that he drew up nothing but +mud. For, although no fountain on earth can compare with +the clearness of Helicon, yet there lies at bottom a thick +sediment of slime and mud; for so Apollo begged of Jupiter, as a +punishment to those who durst attempt to taste it with unhallowed +lips, and for a lesson to all not to draw too deep or far from +the spring.</p> +<p>At the fountain-head Wotton discerned two heroes; the one he +could not distinguish, but the other was soon known for Temple, +general of the allies to the Ancients. His back was turned, +and he was employed in drinking large draughts in his helmet from +the fountain, where he had withdrawn himself to rest from the +toils of the war. Wotton, observing him, with quaking knees +and trembling hands, spoke thus to himself: O that I could kill +this destroyer of our army, what renown should I purchase among +the chiefs! but to issue out against him, man against man, shield +against shield, and lance against lance, what Modern of us dare? +for he fights like a god, and Pallas or Apollo are ever at his +elbow. But, O mother! if what Fame reports be true, that I +am the son of so great a goddess, grant me to hit Temple with +this lance, that the stroke may send him to hell, and that I may +return in safety and triumph, laden with his spoils. The +first part of this prayer the gods granted at the intercession of +his mother and of Momus; but the rest, by a perverse wind sent +from Fate, was scattered in the air. Then Wotton grasped +his lance, and, brandishing it thrice over his head, darted it +with all his might; the goddess, his mother, at the same time +adding strength to his arm. Away the lance went hizzing, +and reached even to the belt of the averted Ancient, upon which, +lightly grazing, it fell to the ground. Temple neither felt +the weapon touch him nor heard it fall: and Wotton might have +escaped to his army, with the honour of having remitted his lance +against so great a leader unrevenged; but Apollo, enraged that a +javelin flung by the assistance of so foul a goddess should +pollute his fountain, put on the shape of ---, and softly came to +young Boyle, who then accompanied Temple: he pointed first to the +lance, then to the distant Modern that flung it, and commanded +the young hero to take immediate revenge. Boyle, clad in a +suit of armour which had been given him by all the gods, +immediately advanced against the trembling foe, who now fled +before him. As a young lion in the Libyan plains, or Araby +desert, sent by his aged sire to hunt for prey, or health, or +exercise, he scours along, wishing to meet some tiger from the +mountains, or a furious boar; if chance a wild ass, with brayings +importune, affronts his ear, the generous beast, though loathing +to distain his claws with blood so vile, yet, much provoked at +the offensive noise, which Echo, foolish nymph, like her +ill-judging sex, repeats much louder, and with more delight than +Philomela’s song, he vindicates the honour of the forest, +and hunts the noisy long-eared animal. So Wotton fled, so +Boyle pursued. But Wotton, heavy-armed, and slow of foot, +began to slack his course, when his lover Bentley appeared, +returning laden with the spoils of the two sleeping +Ancients. Boyle observed him well, and soon discovering the +helmet and shield of Phalaris his friend, both which he had +lately with his own hands new polished and gilt, rage sparkled in +his eyes, and, leaving his pursuit after Wotton, he furiously +rushed on against this new approacher. Fain would he be +revenged on both; but both now fled different ways: and, as a +woman in a little house that gets a painful livelihood by +spinning, if chance her geese be scattered o’er the common, +she courses round the plain from side to side, compelling here +and there the stragglers to the flock; they cackle loud, and +flutter o’er the champaign; so Boyle pursued, so fled this +pair of friends: finding at length their flight was vain, they +bravely joined, and drew themselves in phalanx. First +Bentley threw a spear with all his force, hoping to pierce the +enemy’s breast; but Pallas came unseen, and in the air took +off the point, and clapped on one of lead, which, after a dead +bang against the enemy’s shield, fell blunted to the +ground. Then Boyle, observing well his time, took up a +lance of wondrous length and sharpness; and, as this pair of +friends compacted, stood close side by side, he wheeled him to +the right, and, with unusual force, darted the weapon. +Bentley saw his fate approach, and flanking down his arms close +to his ribs, hoping to save his body, in went the point, passing +through arm and side, nor stopped or spent its force till it had +also pierced the valiant Wotton, who, going to sustain his dying +friend, shared his fate. As when a skilful cook has trussed +a brace of woodcocks, he with iron skewer pierces the tender +sides of both, their legs and wings close pinioned to the rib; so +was this pair of friends transfixed, till down they fell, joined +in their lives, joined in their deaths; so closely joined that +Charon would mistake them both for one, and waft them over Styx +for half his fare. Farewell, beloved, loving pair; few +equals have you left behind: and happy and immortal shall you be, +if all my wit and eloquence can make you.</p> +<p>And now. . . .</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Desunt cœtera</i>.</p> +<h2>A MEDITATION UPON A BROOMSTICK.</h2> +<p><i>According to the Style and Manner of the Hon. Robert +Boyle’s Meditations</i>.</p> +<p>This single stick, which you now behold ingloriously lying in +that neglected corner, I once knew in a flourishing state in a +forest. It was full of sap, full of leaves, and full of +boughs; but now in vain does the busy art of man pretend to vie +with nature, by tying that withered bundle of twigs to its +sapless trunk; it is now at best but the reverse of what it was, +a tree turned upside-down, the branches on the earth, and the +root in the air; it is now handled by every dirty wench, +condemned to do her drudgery, and, by a capricious kind of fate, +destined to make other things clean, and be nasty itself; at +length, worn to the stumps in the service of the maids, it is +either thrown out of doors or condemned to the last use—of +kindling a fire. When I behold this I sighed, and said +within myself, “Surely mortal man is a +broomstick!” Nature sent him into the world strong +and lusty, in a thriving condition, wearing his own hair on his +head, the proper branches of this reasoning vegetable, till the +axe of intemperance has lopped off his green boughs, and left him +a withered trunk; he then flies to art, and puts on a periwig, +valuing himself upon an unnatural bundle of hairs, all covered +with powder, that never grew on his head; but now should this our +broomstick pretend to enter the scene, proud of those birchen +spoils it never bore, and all covered with dust, through the +sweepings of the finest lady’s chamber, we should be apt to +ridicule and despise its vanity. Partial judges that we are +of our own excellencies, and other men’s defaults!</p> +<p>But a broomstick, perhaps you will say, is an emblem of a tree +standing on its head; and pray what is a man but a topsy-turvy +creature, his animal faculties perpetually mounted on his +rational, his head where his heels should be, grovelling on the +earth? And yet, with all his faults, he sets up to be a +universal reformer and corrector of abuses, a remover of +grievances, rakes into every slut’s corner of nature, +bringing hidden corruptions to the light, and raises a mighty +dust where there was none before, sharing deeply all the while in +the very same pollutions he pretends to sweep away. His +last days are spent in slavery to women, and generally the least +deserving; till, worn to the stumps, like his brother besom, he +is either kicked out of doors, or made use of to kindle flames +for others to warm themselves by.</p> +<h2>PREDICTIONS FOR THE YEAR 1708.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Wherein the Month, and Day of the Month +are set down, the Persons named, and the great Actions and Events +of next Year particularly related as will come to +pass</span>.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Written to prevent the people of +England from being farther imposed on by vulgar +Almanack-makers</i>.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">By Isaac +Bickerstaff</span>, <span class="smcap">Esq.</span></p> +<p>I have long considered the gross abuse of astrology in this +kingdom, and upon debating the matter with myself, I could not +possibly lay the fault upon the art, but upon those gross +impostors who set up to be the artists. I know several +learned men have contended that the whole is a cheat; that it is +absurd and ridiculous to imagine the stars can have any influence +at all upon human actions, thoughts, or inclinations; and whoever +has not bent his studies that way may be excused for thinking so, +when he sees in how wretched a manner that noble art is treated +by a few mean illiterate traders between us and the stars, who +import a yearly stock of nonsense, lies, folly, and impertinence, +which they offer to the world as genuine from the planets, though +they descend from no greater a height than their own brains.</p> +<p>I intend in a short time to publish a large and rational +defence of this art, and therefore shall say no more in its +justification at present than that it hath been in all ages +defended by many learned men, and among the rest by Socrates +himself, whom I look upon as undoubtedly the wisest of uninspired +mortals: to which if we add that those who have condemned this +art, though otherwise learned, having been such as either did not +apply their studies this way, or at least did not succeed in +their applications, their testimony will not be of much weight to +its disadvantage, since they are liable to the common objection +of condemning what they did not understand.</p> +<p>Nor am I at all offended, or think it an injury to the art, +when I see the common dealers in it, the students in astrology, +the Philomaths, and the rest of that tribe, treated by wise men +with the utmost scorn and contempt; but rather wonder, when I +observe gentlemen in the country, rich enough to serve the nation +in Parliament, poring in Partridge’s Almanack to find out +the events of the year at home and abroad, not daring to propose +a hunting-match till Gadbury or he have fixed the weather.</p> +<p>I will allow either of the two I have mentioned, or any other +of the fraternity, to be not only astrologers, but conjurers too, +if I do not produce a hundred instances in all their almanacks to +convince any reasonable man that they do not so much as +understand common grammar and syntax; that they are not able to +spell any word out of the usual road, nor even in their prefaces +write common sense or intelligible English. Then for their +observations and predictions, they are such as will equally suit +any age or country in the world. “This month a +certain great person will be threatened with death or +sickness.” This the newspapers will tell them; for +there we find at the end of the year that no month passes without +the death of some person of note; and it would be hard if it +should be otherwise, when there are at least two thousand persons +of note in this kingdom, many of them old, and the almanack-maker +has the liberty of choosing the sickliest season of the year +where he may fix his prediction. Again, “This month +an eminent clergyman will be preferred;” of which there may +be some hundreds, half of them with one foot in the grave. +Then “such a planet in such a house shows great +machinations, plots, and conspiracies, that may in time be +brought to light:” after which, if we hear of any +discovery, the astrologer gets the honour; if not, his prediction +still stands good. And at last, “God preserve King +William from all his open and secret enemies, Amen.” +When if the King should happen to have died, the astrologer +plainly foretold it; otherwise it passes but for the pious +ejaculation of a loyal subject; though it unluckily happened in +some of their almanacks that poor King William was prayed for +many months after he was dead, because it fell out that he died +about the beginning of the year.</p> +<p>To mention no more of their impertinent predictions: what have +we to do with their advertisements about pills and drink for +disease? or their mutual quarrels in verse and prose of Whig and +Tory, wherewith the stars have little to do?</p> +<p>Having long observed and lamented these, and a hundred other +abuses of this art, too tedious to repeat, I resolved to proceed +in a new way, which I doubt not will be to the general +satisfaction of the kingdom. I can this year produce but a +specimen of what I design for the future, having employed most +part of my time in adjusting and correcting the calculations I +made some years past, because I would offer nothing to the world +of which I am not as fully satisfied as that I am now +alive. For these two last years I have not failed in above +one or two particulars, and those of no very great moment. +I exactly foretold the miscarriage at Toulon, with all its +particulars, and the loss of Admiral Shovel, though I was +mistaken as to the day, placing that accident about thirty-six +hours sooner than it happened; but upon reviewing my schemes, I +quickly found the cause of that error. I likewise foretold +the Battle of Almanza to the very day and hour, with the lose on +both sides, and the consequences thereof. All which I +showed to some friends many months before they +happened—that is, I gave them papers sealed up, to open at +such a time, after which they were at liberty to read them; and +there they found my predictions true in every article, except one +or two very minute.</p> +<p>As for the few following predictions I now offer the world, I +forbore to publish them till I had perused the several almanacks +for the year we are now entered on. I find them all in the +usual strain, and I beg the reader will compare their manner with +mine. And here I make bold to tell the world that I lay the +whole credit of my art upon the truth of these predictions; and I +will be content that Partridge, and the rest of his clan, may +hoot me for a cheat and impostor if I fail in any single +particular of moment. I believe any man who reads this +paper will look upon me to be at least a person of as much +honesty and understanding as a common maker of almanacks. I +do not lurk in the dark; I am not wholly unknown in the world; I +have set my name at length, to be a mark of infamy to mankind, if +they shall find I deceive them.</p> +<p>In one thing I must desire to be forgiven, that I talk more +sparingly of home affairs. As it will be imprudence to +discover secrets of State, so it would be dangerous to my person; +but in smaller matters, and that are not of public consequence, I +shall be very free; and the truth of my conjectures will as much +appear from those as the others. As for the most signal +events abroad, in France, Flanders, Italy, and Spain, I shall +make no scruple to predict them in plain terms. Some of +them are of importance, and I hope I shall seldom mistake the day +they will happen; therefore I think good to inform the reader +that I all along make use of the Old Style observed in England, +which I desire he will compare with that of the newspapers at the +time they relate the actions I mention.</p> +<p>I must add one word more. I know it hath been the +opinion of several of the learned, who think well enough of the +true art of astrology, that the stars do only incline, and not +force the actions or wills of men, and therefore, however I may +proceed by right rules, yet I cannot in prudence so confidently +assure the events will follow exactly as I predict them.</p> +<p>I hope I have maturely considered this objection, which in +some cases is of no little weight. For example: a man may, +by the influence of an over-ruling planet, be disposed or +inclined to lust, rage, or avarice, and yet by the force of +reason overcome that bad influence; and this was the case of +Socrates. But as the great events of the world usually +depend upon numbers of men, it cannot be expected they should all +unite to cross their inclinations from pursuing a general design +wherein they unanimously agree. Besides, the influence of +the stars reaches to many actions and events which are not any +way in the power of reason, as sickness, death, and what we +commonly call accidents, with many more, needless to repeat.</p> +<p>But now it is time to proceed to my predictions, which I have +begun to calculate from the time that the sun enters into +Aries. And this I take to be properly the beginning of the +natural year. I pursue them to the time that he enters +Libra, or somewhat more, which is the busy period of the +year. The remainder I have not yet adjusted, upon account +of several impediments needless here to mention. Besides, I +must remind the reader again that this is but a specimen of what +I design in succeeding years to treat more at large, if I may +have liberty and encouragement.</p> +<p>My first prediction is but a trifle, yet I will mention it, to +show how ignorant those sottish pretenders to astrology are in +their own concerns. It relates to Partridge, the +almanack-maker. I have consulted the stars of his nativity +by my own rules, and find he will infallibly die upon the 29th of +March next, about eleven at night, of a raging fever; therefore I +advise him to consider of it, and settle his affairs in time.</p> +<p>The month of <i>April</i> will be observable for the death of +many great persons. On the 4th will die the Cardinal de +Noailles, Archbishop of Paris; on the 11th, the young Prince of +Asturias, son to the Duke of Anjou; on the 14th, a great peer of +this realm will die at his country house; on the 19th, an old +layman of great fame for learning, and on the 23rd, an eminent +goldsmith in Lombard Street. I could mention others, both +at home and abroad, if I did not consider it is of very little +use or instruction to the reader, or to the world.</p> +<p>As to public affairs: On the 7th of this month there will be +an insurrection in Dauphiny, occasioned by the oppressions of the +people, which will not be quieted in some months.</p> +<p>On the 15th will be a violent storm on the south-east coast of +France, which will destroy many of their ships, and some in the +very harbour.</p> +<p>The 11th will be famous for the revolt of a whole province or +kingdom, excepting one city, by which the affairs of a certain +prince in the Alliance will take a better face.</p> +<p><i>May</i>, against common conjectures, will be no very busy +month in Europe, but very signal for the death of the Dauphin, +which will happen on the 7th, after a short fit of sickness, and +grievous torments with the strangury. He dies less lamented +by the Court than the kingdom.</p> +<p>On the 9th a Marshal of France will break his leg by a fall +from his horse. I have not been able to discover whether he +will then die or not.</p> +<p>On the 11th will begin a most important siege, which the eyes +of all Europe will be upon: I cannot be more particular, for in +relating affairs that so nearly concern the Confederates, and +consequently this kingdom, I am forced to confine myself for +several reasons very obvious to the reader.</p> +<p>On the 15th news will arrive of a very surprising event, than +which nothing could be more unexpected.</p> +<p>On the 19th three noble ladies of this kingdom will, against +all expectation, prove with child, to the great joy of their +husbands.</p> +<p>On the 23rd a famous buffoon of the playhouse will die a +ridiculous death, suitable to his vocation.</p> +<p><i>June</i>. This month will be distinguished at home by +the utter dispersing of those ridiculous deluded enthusiasts +commonly called the Prophets, occasioned chiefly by seeing the +time come that many of their prophecies should be fulfilled, and +then finding themselves deceived by contrary events. It is +indeed to be admired how any deceiver can be so weak to foretell +things near at hand, when a very few months must of necessity +discover the impostor to all the world; in this point less +prudent than common almanack-makers, who are so wise to wonder in +generals, and talk dubiously, and leave to the reader the +business of interpreting.</p> +<p>On the 1st of this month a French general will be killed by a +random shot of a cannon-ball.</p> +<p>On the 6th a fire will break out in the suburbs of Paris, +which will destroy above a thousand houses, and seems to be the +foreboding of what will happen, to the surprise of all Europe, +about the end of the following month.</p> +<p>On the 10th a great battle will be fought, which will begin at +four of the clock in the afternoon, and last till nine at night +with great obstinacy, but no very decisive event. I shall +not name the place, for the reasons aforesaid, but the commanders +on each left wing will be killed. I see bonfires and hear +the noise of guns for a victory.</p> +<p>On the 14th there will be a false report of the French +king’s death.</p> +<p>On the 20th Cardinal Portocarero will die of a dysentery, with +great suspicion of poison, but the report of his intention to +revolt to King Charles will prove false.</p> +<p><i>July</i>. The 6th of this month a certain general +will, by a glorious action, recover the reputation he lost by +former misfortunes.</p> +<p>On the 12th a great commander will die a prisoner in the hands +of his enemies.</p> +<p>On the 14th a shameful discovery will be made of a French +Jesuit giving poison to a great foreign general; and when he is +put to the torture, will make wonderful discoveries.</p> +<p>In short, this will prove a month of great action, if I might +have liberty to relate the particulars.</p> +<p>At home, the death of an old famous senator will happen on the +15th at his country house, worn with age and diseases.</p> +<p>But that which will make this month memorable to all posterity +is the death of the French king, Louis the Fourteenth, after a +week’s sickness at Marli, which will happen on the 29th, +about six o’clock in the evening. It seems to be an +effect of the gout in his stomach, followed by a flux. And +in three days after Monsieur Chamillard will follow his master, +dying suddenly of an apoplexy.</p> +<p>In this month likewise an ambassador will die in London, but I +cannot assign the day.</p> +<p><i>August</i>. The affairs of France will seem to suffer +no change for a while under the Duke of Burgundy’s +administration; but the genius that animated the whole machine +being gone, will be the cause of mighty turns and revolutions in +the following year. The new king makes yet little change +either in the army or the Ministry, but the libels against his +grandfather, that fly about his very Court, give him +uneasiness.</p> +<p>I see an express in mighty haste, with joy and wonder in his +looks, arriving by break of day on the 26th of this month, having +travelled in three days a prodigious journey by land and +sea. In the evening I hear bells and guns, and see the +blazing of a thousand bonfires.</p> +<p>A young admiral of noble birth does likewise this month gain +immortal honour by a great achievement.</p> +<p>The affairs of Poland are this month entirely settled; +Augustus resigns his pretensions which he had again taken up for +some time: Stanislaus is peaceably possessed of the throne, and +the King of Sweden declares for the emperor.</p> +<p>I cannot omit one particular accident here at home: that near +the end of this month much mischief will be done at Bartholomew +Fair by the fall of a booth.</p> +<p><i>September</i>. This month begins with a very +surprising fit of frosty weather, which will last near twelve +days.</p> +<p>The Pope, having long languished last month, the swellings in +his legs breaking, and the flesh mortifying, will die on the 11th +instant; and in three weeks’ time, after a mighty contest, +be succeeded by a cardinal of the Imperial faction, but native of +Tuscany, who is now about sixty-one years old.</p> +<p>The French army acts now wholly on the defensive, strongly +fortified in their trenches, and the young French king sends +overtures for a treaty of peace by the Duke of Mantua; which, +because it is a matter of State that concerns us here at home, I +shall speak no farther of it.</p> +<p>I shall add but one prediction more, and that in mystical +terms, which shall be included in a verse out of +Virgil—</p> +<blockquote><p><i>Alter erit jam Tethys</i>, <i>et altera +quæ vehat Argo</i><br /> +<i>Delectos Heroas</i>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Upon the 25th day of this month, the fulfilling of this +prediction will be manifest to everybody.</p> +<p>This is the farthest I have proceeded in my calculations for +the present year. I do not pretend that these are all the +great events which will happen in this period, but that those I +have set down will infallibly come to pass. It will perhaps +still be objected why I have not spoken more particularly of +affairs at home, or of the success of our armies abroad, which I +might, and could very largely have done; but those in power have +wisely discouraged men from meddling in public concerns, and I +was resolved by no means to give the least offence. This I +will venture to say, that it will be a glorious campaign for the +Allies, wherein the English forces, both by sea and land, will +have their full share of honour; that Her Majesty Queen Anne will +continue in health and prosperity; and that no ill accident will +arrive to any in the chief Ministry.</p> +<p>As to the particular events I have mentioned, the readers may +judge by the fulfilling of them, whether I am on the level with +common astrologers, who, with an old paltry cant, and a few +pothooks for planets, to amuse the vulgar, have, in my opinion, +too long been suffered to abuse the world. But an honest +physician ought not to be despised because there are such things +as mountebanks. I hope I have some share of reputation, +which I would not willingly forfeit for a frolic or humour; and I +believe no gentleman who reads this paper will look upon it to be +of the same cast or mould with the common scribblers that are +every day hawked about. My fortune has placed me above the +little regard of scribbling for a few pence, which I neither +value nor want; therefore, let no wise man too hastily condemn +this essay, intended for a good design, to cultivate and improve +an ancient art long in disgrace, by having fallen into mean and +unskilful hands. A little time will determine whether I +have deceived others or myself; and I think it is no very +unreasonable request that men would please to suspend their +judgments till then. I was once of the opinion with those +who despise all predictions from the stars, till in the year 1686 +a man of quality showed me, written in his album, that the most +learned astronomer, Captain H---, assured him, he would never +believe anything of the stars’ influence if there were not +a great revolution in England in the year 1688. Since that +time I began to have other thoughts, and after eighteen +years’ diligent study and application, I think I have no +reason to repent of my pains. I shall detain the reader no +longer than to let him know that the account I design to give of +next year’s events shall take in the principal affairs that +happen in Europe; and if I be denied the liberty of offering it +to my own country, I shall appeal to the learned world, by +publishing it in Latin, and giving order to have it printed in +Holland.</p> +<h2>THE ACCOMPLISHMENT OF THE FIRST OF MR. BICKERSTAFF’S +PREDICTIONS; BEING AN ACCOUNT OF THE DEATH OF MR. PARTRIDGE THE +ALMANACK-MAKER, UPON THE 29TH INSTANT.</h2> +<p><i>In a Letter to a Person of Honour</i>; <i>Written in the +Year</i> 1708.</p> +<p>My Lord,—In obedience to your lordship’s commands, +as well as to satisfy my own curiosity, I have for some days past +inquired constantly after Partridge the almanack-maker, of whom +it was foretold in Mr. Bickerstaff’s predictions, published +about a month ago, that he should die the 29th instant, about +eleven at night, of a raging fever. I had some sort of +knowledge of him when I was employed in the Revenue, because he +used every year to present me with his almanack, as he did other +gentlemen, upon the score of some little gratuity we gave +him. I saw him accidentally once or twice about ten days +before he died, and observed he began very much to droop and +languish, though I hear his friends did not seem to apprehend him +in any danger. About two or three days ago he grew ill, was +confined first to his chamber, and in a few hours after to his +bed, where Dr. Case and Mrs. Kirleus were sent for, to visit and +to prescribe to him. Upon this intelligence I sent thrice +every day one servant or other to inquire after his health; and +yesterday, about four in the afternoon, word was brought me that +he was past hopes; upon which, I prevailed with myself to go and +see him, partly out of commiseration, and I confess, partly out +of curiosity. He knew me very well, seemed surprised at my +condescension, and made me compliments upon it as well as he +could in the condition he was. The people about him said he +had been for some time delirious; but when I saw him, he had his +understanding as well as ever I knew, and spoke strong and +hearty, without any seeming uneasiness or constraint. After +I had told him how sorry I was to see him in those melancholy +circumstances, and said some other civilities suitable to the +occasion, I desired him to tell me freely and ingenuously, +whether the predictions Mr. Bickerstaff had published relating to +his death had not too much affected and worked on his +imagination. He confessed he had often had it in his head, +but never with much apprehension, till about a fortnight before; +since which time it had the perpetual possession of his mind and +thoughts, and he did verily believe was the true natural cause of +his present distemper: “For,” said he, “I am +thoroughly persuaded, and I think I have very good reasons, that +Mr. Bickerstaff spoke altogether by guess, and knew no more what +will happen this year than I did myself.” I told him +his discourse surprised me, and I would be glad he were in a +state of health to be able to tell me what reason he had to be +convinced of Mr. Bickerstaff’s ignorance. He replied, +“I am a poor, ignorant follow, bred to a mean trade, yet I +have sense enough to know that all pretences of foretelling by +astrology are deceits, for this manifest reason, because the wise +and the learned, who can only know whether there be any truth in +this science, do all unanimously agree to laugh at and despise +it; and none but the poor ignorant vulgar give it any credit, and +that only upon the word of such silly wretches as I and my +fellows, who can hardly write or read.” I then asked +him why he had not calculated his own nativity, to see whether it +agreed with Bickerstaff’s prediction, at which he shook his +head and said, “Oh, sir, this is no time for jesting, but +for repenting those fooleries, as I do now from the very bottom +of my heart.” “By what I can gather from +you,” said I, “the observations and predictions you +printed with your almanacks were mere impositions on the +people.” He replied, “If it were otherwise I +should have the less to answer for. We have a common form +for all those things; as to foretelling the weather, we never +meddle with that, but leave it to the printer, who takes it out +of any old almanack as he thinks fit; the rest was my own +invention, to make my almanack sell, having a wife to maintain, +and no other way to get my bread; for mending old shoes is a poor +livelihood; and,” added he, sighing, “I wish I may +not have done more mischief by my physic than my astrology; +though I had some good receipts from my grandmother, and my own +compositions were such as I thought could at least do no +hurt.”</p> +<p>I had some other discourse with him, which now I cannot call +to mind; and I fear I have already tired your lordship. I +shall only add one circumstance, that on his death-bed he +declared himself a Nonconformist, and had a fanatic preacher to +be his spiritual guide. After half an hour’s +conversation I took my leave, being half stifled by the closeness +of the room. I imagined he could not hold out long, and +therefore withdrew to a little coffee-house hard by, leaving a +servant at the house with orders to come immediately and tell me, +as nearly as he could, the minute when Partridge should expire, +which was not above two hours after, when, looking upon my watch, +I found it to be above five minutes after seven; by which it is +clear that Mr. Bickerstaff was mistaken almost four hours in his +calculation. In the other circumstances he was exact +enough. But, whether he has not been the cause of this poor +man’s death, as well as the predictor, may be very +reasonably disputed. However, it must be confessed the +matter is odd enough, whether we should endeavour to account for +it by chance, or the effect of imagination. For my own +part, though I believe no man has less faith in these matters, +yet I shall wait with some impatience, and not without some +expectation, the fulfilling of Mr. Bickerstaff’s second +prediction, that the Cardinal do Noailles is to die upon the 4th +of April, and if that should be verified as exactly as this of +poor Partridge, I must own I should be wholly surprised, and at a +loss, and should infallibly expect the accomplishment of all the +rest.</p> +<h2>BAUCIS AND PHILEMON.</h2> +<p><i>Imitated from the Eighth Book of Ovid</i>.</p> +<p>In ancient times, as story tells,<br /> +The saints would often leave their cells,<br /> +And stroll about, but hide their quality,<br /> +To try good people’s hospitality.</p> +<p>It happened on a winter night,<br /> +As authors of the legend write,<br /> +Two brother hermits, saints by trade,<br /> +Taking their tour in masquerade,<br /> +Disguised in tattered habits, went<br /> +To a small village down in Kent;<br /> +Where, in the strollers’ canting strain,<br /> +They begged from door to door in vain;<br /> +Tried every tone might pity win,<br /> +But not a soul would let them in.</p> +<p>Our wandering saints in woeful state,<br /> +Treated at this ungodly rate,<br /> +Having through all the village passed,<br /> +To a small cottage came at last,<br /> +Where dwelt a good honest old yeoman,<br /> +Called, in the neighbourhood, Philemon,<br /> +Who kindly did these saints invite<br /> +In his poor hut to pass the night;<br /> +And then the hospitable Sire<br /> +Bid goody Baucis mend the fire;<br /> +While he from out the chimney took<br /> +A flitch of bacon off the hook,<br /> +And freely from the fattest side<br /> +Cut out large slices to be fried;<br /> +Then stepped aside to fetch ’em drink,<br /> +Filled a large jug up to the brink,<br /> +And saw it fairly twice go round;<br /> +Yet (what is wonderful) they found<br /> +’Twas still replenished to the top,<br /> +As if they ne’er had touched a drop<br /> +The good old couple were amazed,<br /> +And often on each other gazed;<br /> +For both were frightened to the heart,<br /> +And just began to cry,—What art!<br /> +Then softly turned aside to view,<br /> +Whether the lights were burning blue.<br /> +The gentle pilgrims soon aware on’t,<br /> +Told ’em their calling, and their errant;<br /> +“Good folks, you need not be afraid,<br /> +We are but saints,” the hermits said;<br /> +“No hurt shall come to you or yours;<br /> +But, for that pack of churlish boors,<br /> +Not fit to live on Christian ground,<br /> +They and their houses shall be drowned;<br /> +Whilst you shall see your cottage rise,<br /> +And grow a church before your eyes.”</p> +<p>They scarce had spoke; when fair and soft,<br /> +The roof began to mount aloft;<br /> +Aloft rose every beam and rafter,<br /> +The heavy wall climbed slowly after.</p> +<p>The chimney widened, and grew higher,<br /> +Became a steeple with a spire.</p> +<p>The kettle to the top was hoist,<br /> +And there stood fastened to a joist;<br /> +But with the upside down, to show<br /> +Its inclination for below.<br /> +In vain; for a superior force<br /> +Applied at bottom, stops its coarse,<br /> +Doomed ever in suspense to dwell,<br /> +’Tis now no kettle, but a bell.</p> +<p>A wooden jack, which had almost<br /> +Lost, by disuse, the art to roast,<br /> +A sudden alteration feels,<br /> +Increased by new intestine wheels;<br /> +And what exalts the wonder more,<br /> +The number made the motion slower.<br /> +The flyer, though ’t had leaden feet,<br /> +Turned round so quick, you scarce could see ’t;<br /> +But slackened by some secret power,<br /> +Now hardly moves an inch an hour.<br /> +The jack and chimney near allied,<br /> +Had never left each other’s side;<br /> +The chimney to a steeple grown,<br /> +The jack would not be left alone;<br /> +But up against the steeple reared,<br /> +Became a clock, and still adhered;<br /> +And still its love to household cares<br /> +By a shrill voice at noon declares,<br /> +Warning the cook-maid not to burn<br /> +That roast meat which it cannot turn.</p> +<p>The groaning chair began to crawl,<br /> +Like a huge snail along the wall;<br /> +There stuck aloft in public view;<br /> +And with small change a pulpit grew.</p> +<p>The porringers, that in a row<br /> +Hung high, and made a glittering show,<br /> +To a less noble substance changed,<br /> +Were now but leathern buckets ranged.</p> +<p>The ballads pasted on the wall,<br /> +Of Joan of France, and English Moll,<br /> +Fair Rosamond, and Robin Hood,<br /> +The Little Children in the Wood,<br /> +Now seemed to look abundance better,<br /> +Improved in picture, size, and letter;<br /> +And high in order placed, describe<br /> +The heraldry of every tribe.</p> +<p>A bedstead of the antique mode,<br /> +Compact of timber, many a load,<br /> +Such as our ancestors did use,<br /> +Was metamorphosed into pews:<br /> +Which still their ancient nature keep,<br /> +By lodging folks disposed to sleep.</p> +<p>The cottage, by such feats as these,<br /> +Grown to a church by just degrees,<br /> +The hermits then desired their host<br /> +To ask for what he fancied most.<br /> +Philemon having paused a while,<br /> +Returned ’em thanks in homely style;<br /> +Then said, “My house is grown so fine,<br /> +Methinks I still would call it mine:<br /> +I’m old, and fain would live at ease,<br /> +Make me the Parson, if you please.”</p> +<p>He spoke, and presently he feels<br /> +His grazier’s coat fall down his heels;<br /> +He sees, yet hardly can believe,<br /> +About each arm a pudding sleeve;<br /> +His waistcoat to a cassock grew,<br /> +And both assumed a sable hue;<br /> +But being old, continued just<br /> +As thread-bare, and as full of dust.<br /> +His talk was now of tithes and dues;<br /> +He smoked his pipe and read the news;<br /> +Knew how to preach old sermons next,<br /> +Vamped in the preface and the text;<br /> +At christenings well could act his part,<br /> +And had the service all by heart;<br /> +Wished women might have children fast,<br /> +And thought whose sow had farrowed last<br /> +Against Dissenters would repine,<br /> +And stood up firm for Right divine.<br /> +Found his head filled with many a system,<br /> +But classic authors,—he ne’er missed ’em.</p> +<p>Thus having furbished up a parson,<br /> +Dame Baucis next they played their farce on.<br /> +Instead of home-spun coifs were seen<br /> +Good pinners edg’d with colberteen;<br /> +Her petticoat transformed apace,<br /> +Became black satin flounced with lace.<br /> +Plain Goody would no longer down,<br /> +’Twas Madam, in her grogram gown.<br /> +Philemon was in great surprise,<br /> +And hardly could believe his eyes,<br /> +Amazed to see her look so prim;<br /> +And she admired as much at him.</p> +<p>Thus, happy in their change of life,<br /> +Were several years this man and wife;<br /> +When on a day, which proved their last,<br /> +Discoursing o’er old stories past,<br /> +They went by chance amidst their talk,<br /> +To the church yard to take a walk;<br /> +When Baucis hastily cried out,<br /> +“My dear, I see your forehead sprout!”<br /> +“Sprout,” quoth the man, “what’s this you +tell us?<br /> +I hope you don’t believe me jealous,<br /> +But yet, methinks, I feel it true;<br /> +And really, yours is budding too—<br /> +Nay,—now I cannot stir my foot;<br /> +It feels as if ’twere taking root.”</p> +<p>Description would but tire my Muse;<br /> +In short, they both were turned to Yews.</p> +<p>Old Goodman Dobson of the green<br /> +Remembers he the trees has seen;<br /> +He’ll talk of them from noon till night,<br /> +And goes with folks to show the sight;<br /> +On Sundays, after evening prayer,<br /> +He gathers all the parish there,<br /> +Points out the place of either Yew:<br /> +Here Baucis, there Philemon grew,<br /> +Till once a parson of our town,<br /> +To mend his barn, cut Baucis down;<br /> +At which, ’tis hard to be believed<br /> +How much the other tree was grieved,<br /> +Grow scrubby, died a-top, was stunted:<br /> +So the next parson stubbed and burnt it.</p> +<h2>THE LOGICIANS REFUTED.</h2> +<p>Logicians have but ill defined<br /> +As rational, the human kind;<br /> +Reason, they say, belongs to man,<br /> +But let them prove it, if they can.<br /> +Wise Aristotle and Smiglesius,<br /> +By ratiocinations specious,<br /> +Have strove to prove with great precision,<br /> +With definition and division,<br /> +<i>Homo est ratione præditum</i>;<br /> +But, for my soul, I cannot credit ’em.<br /> +And must, in spite of them, maintain<br /> +That man and all his ways are vain;<br /> +And that this boasted lord of nature<br /> +Is both a weak and erring creature.<br /> +That instinct is a surer guide<br /> +Than reason-boasting mortals pride;<br /> +And, that brute beasts are far before ’em,<br /> +<i>Deus est anima brutorum</i>.<br /> +Whoever knew an honest brute,<br /> +At law his neighbour prosecute,<br /> +Bring action for assault and battery,<br /> +Or friend beguile with lies and flattery?<br /> +O’er plains they ramble unconfined,<br /> +No politics disturb their mind;<br /> +They eat their meals, and take their sport,<br /> +Nor know who’s in or out at court.<br /> +They never to the levée go<br /> +To treat as dearest friend a foe;<br /> +They never importune his grace,<br /> +Nor ever cringe to men in place;<br /> +Nor undertake a dirty job,<br /> +Nor draw the quill to write for Bob.<br /> +Fraught with invective they ne’er go<br /> +To folks at Paternoster Row:<br /> +No judges, fiddlers, dancing-masters,<br /> +No pickpockets, or poetasters<br /> +Are known to honest quadrupeds:<br /> +No single brute his fellows leads.<br /> +Brutes never meet in bloody fray,<br /> +Nor cut each others’ throats for pay.<br /> +Of beasts, it is confessed, the ape<br /> +Comes nearest us in human shape;<br /> +Like man, he imitates each fashion,<br /> +And malice is his ruling passion:<br /> +But, both in malice and grimaces,<br /> +A courtier any ape surpasses.<br /> +Behold him humbly cringing wait<br /> +Upon the minister of state;<br /> +View him, soon after, to inferiors<br /> +Aping the conduct of superiors:<br /> +He promises, with equal air,<br /> +And to perform takes equal care.<br /> +He, in his turn, finds imitators,<br /> +At court the porters, lacqueys, waiters<br /> +Their masters’ manners still contract,<br /> +And footmen, lords, and dukes can act.<br /> +Thus, at the court, both great and small<br /> +Behave alike, for all ape all.</p> +<h2>THE PUPPET SHOW.</h2> +<p>The life of man to represent,<br /> + And turn it all to ridicule,<br /> +Wit did a puppet-show invent,<br /> + Where the chief actor is a fool.</p> +<p>The gods of old were logs of wood,<br /> + And worship was to puppets paid;<br /> +In antic dress the idol stood,<br /> + And priests and people bowed the head.</p> +<p>No wonder then, if art began<br /> + The simple votaries to frame,<br /> +To shape in timber foolish man,<br /> + And consecrate the block to fame.</p> +<p>From hence poetic fancy learned<br /> + That trees might rise from human forms<br /> +The body to a trunk be turned,<br /> + And branches issue from the arms.</p> +<p>Thus Dædalus and Ovid too,<br /> + That man’s a blockhead have confessed,<br /> +Powel and Stretch <a name="citation1"></a><a href="#footnote1" +class="citation">[1]</a> the hint pursue;<br /> + Life is the farce, the world a jest.</p> +<p>The same great truth South Sea hath proved<br /> + On that famed theatre, the ally,<br /> +Where thousands by directors moved<br /> + Are now sad monuments of folly.</p> +<p>What Momus was of old to Jove<br /> + The same harlequin is now;<br /> +The former was buffoon above,<br /> + The latter is a Punch below.</p> +<p>This fleeting scene is but a stage,<br /> + Where various images appear,<br /> +In different parts of youth and age<br /> + Alike the prince and peasant share.</p> +<p>Some draw our eyes by being great,<br /> + False pomp conceals mere wood within,<br /> +And legislators rang’d in state<br /> + Are oft but wisdom in machine.</p> +<p>A stock may chance to wear a crown,<br /> + And timber as a lord take place,<br /> +A statue may put on a frown,<br /> + And cheat us with a thinking face.</p> +<p>Others are blindly led away,<br /> + And made to act for ends unknown,<br /> +By the mere spring of wires they play,<br /> + And speak in language not their own.</p> +<p>Too oft, alas! a scolding wife<br /> + Usurps a jolly fellow’s throne,<br /> +And many drink the cup of life<br /> + Mix’d and embittered by a Joan.</p> +<p>In short, whatever men pursue<br /> + Of pleasure, folly, war, or love,<br /> +This mimic-race brings all to view,<br /> + Alike they dress, they talk, they move.</p> +<p>Go on, great Stretch, with artful hand,<br /> + Mortals to please and to deride,<br /> +And when death breaks thy vital band<br /> + Thou shalt put on a puppet’s pride.</p> +<p>Thou shalt in puny wood be shown,<br /> + Thy image shall preserve thy fame,<br /> +Ages to come thy worth shall own,<br /> + Point at thy limbs, and tell thy name.</p> +<p>Tell Tom he draws a farce in vain,<br /> + Before he looks in nature’s glass;<br /> +Puns cannot form a witty scene,<br /> + Nor pedantry for humour pass.</p> +<p>To make men act as senseless wood,<br /> + And chatter in a mystic strain,<br /> +Is a mere force on flesh and blood,<br /> + And shows some error in the brain.</p> +<p>He that would thus refine on thee,<br /> + And turn thy stage into a school,<br /> +The jest of Punch will ever be,<br /> + And stand confessed the greater fool.</p> +<h2>CADENUS AND VANESSA.</h2> +<p><i>Written Anno 1713</i>.</p> +<p>The shepherds and the nymphs were seen<br /> +Pleading before the Cyprian Queen.<br /> +The counsel for the fair began<br /> +Accusing the false creature, man.</p> +<p>The brief with weighty crimes was charged,<br /> +On which the pleader much enlarged:<br /> +That Cupid now has lost his art,<br /> +Or blunts the point of every dart;<br /> +His altar now no longer smokes;<br /> +His mother’s aid no youth invokes—<br /> +This tempts free-thinkers to refine,<br /> +And bring in doubt their powers divine,<br /> +Now love is dwindled to intrigue,<br /> +And marriage grown a money-league.<br /> +Which crimes aforesaid (with her leave)<br /> +Were (as he humbly did conceive)<br /> +Against our Sovereign Lady’s peace,<br /> +Against the statutes in that case,<br /> +Against her dignity and crown:<br /> +Then prayed an answer and sat down.</p> +<p>The nymphs with scorn beheld their foes:<br /> +When the defendant’s counsel rose,<br /> +And, what no lawyer ever lacked,<br /> +With impudence owned all the fact.<br /> +But, what the gentlest heart would vex,<br /> +Laid all the fault on t’other sex.<br /> +That modern love is no such thing<br /> +As what those ancient poets sing;<br /> +A fire celestial, chaste, refined,<br /> +Conceived and kindled in the mind,<br /> +Which having found an equal flame,<br /> +Unites, and both become the same,<br /> +In different breasts together burn,<br /> +Together both to ashes turn.<br /> +But women now feel no such fire,<br /> +And only know the gross desire;<br /> +Their passions move in lower spheres,<br /> +Where’er caprice or folly steers.<br /> +A dog, a parrot, or an ape,<br /> +Or some worse brute in human shape<br /> +Engross the fancies of the fair,<br /> +The few soft moments they can spare<br /> +From visits to receive and pay,<br /> +From scandal, politics, and play,<br /> +From fans, and flounces, and brocades,<br /> +From equipage and park-parades,<br /> +From all the thousand female toys,<br /> +From every trifle that employs<br /> +The out or inside of their heads<br /> +Between their toilets and their beds.</p> +<p>In a dull stream, which, moving slow,<br /> +You hardly see the current flow,<br /> +If a small breeze obstructs the course,<br /> +It whirls about for want of force,<br /> +And in its narrow circle gathers<br /> +Nothing but chaff, and straws, and feathers:<br /> +The current of a female mind<br /> +Stops thus, and turns with every wind;<br /> +Thus whirling round, together draws<br /> +Fools, fops, and rakes, for chaff and straws.<br /> +Hence we conclude, no women’s hearts<br /> +Are won by virtue, wit, and parts;<br /> +Nor are the men of sense to blame<br /> +For breasts incapable of flame:<br /> +The fault must on the nymphs be placed,<br /> +Grown so corrupted in their taste.</p> +<p>The pleader having spoke his best,<br /> +Had witness ready to attest,<br /> +Who fairly could on oath depose,<br /> +When questions on the fact arose,<br /> +That every article was true;<br /> +<i>Nor further those deponents knew</i>:<br /> +Therefore he humbly would insist,<br /> +The bill might be with costs dismissed.</p> +<p>The cause appeared of so much weight,<br /> +That Venus from the judgment-seat<br /> +Desired them not to talk so loud,<br /> +Else she must interpose a cloud:<br /> +For if the heavenly folk should know<br /> +These pleadings in the Courts below,<br /> +That mortals here disdain to love,<br /> +She ne’er could show her face above.<br /> +For gods, their betters, are too wise<br /> +To value that which men despise.<br /> +“And then,” said she, “my son and I<br /> +Must stroll in air ’twixt earth and sky:<br /> +Or else, shut out from heaven and earth,<br /> +Fly to the sea, my place of birth;<br /> +There live with daggled mermaids pent,<br /> +And keep on fish perpetual Lent.”</p> +<p>But since the case appeared so nice,<br /> +She thought it best to take advice.<br /> +The Muses, by their king’s permission,<br /> +Though foes to love, attend the session,<br /> +And on the right hand took their places<br /> +In order; on the left, the Graces:<br /> +To whom she might her doubts propose<br /> +On all emergencies that rose.<br /> +The Muses oft were seen to frown;<br /> +The Graces half ashamed look down;<br /> +And ’twas observed, there were but few<br /> +Of either sex, among the crew,<br /> +Whom she or her assessors knew.<br /> +The goddess soon began to see<br /> +Things were not ripe for a decree,<br /> +And said she must consult her books,<br /> +The lovers’ Fletas, Bractons, Cokes.<br /> +First to a dapper clerk she beckoned,<br /> +To turn to Ovid, book the second;<br /> +She then referred them to a place<br /> +In Virgil (<i>vide</i> Dido’s case);<br /> +As for Tibullus’s reports,<br /> +They never passed for law in Courts:<br /> +For Cowley’s brief, and pleas of Waller,<br /> +Still their authority is smaller.</p> +<p>There was on both sides much to say;<br /> +She’d hear the cause another day;<br /> +And so she did, and then a third,<br /> +She heard it—there she kept her word;<br /> +But with rejoinders and replies,<br /> +Long bills, and answers, stuffed with lies<br /> +Demur, imparlance, and essoign,<br /> +The parties ne’er could issue join:<br /> +For sixteen years the cause was spun,<br /> +And then stood where it first begun.</p> +<p>Now, gentle Clio, sing or say,<br /> +What Venus meant by this delay.<br /> +The goddess, much perplexed in mind,<br /> +To see her empire thus declined,<br /> +When first this grand debate arose<br /> +Above her wisdom to compose,<br /> +Conceived a project in her head,<br /> +To work her ends; which, if it sped,<br /> +Would show the merits of the cause<br /> +Far better than consulting laws.</p> +<p>In a glad hour Lucina’s aid<br /> +Produced on earth a wondrous maid,<br /> +On whom the queen of love was bent<br /> +To try a new experiment.<br /> +She threw her law-books on the shelf,<br /> +And thus debated with herself:—</p> +<p>“Since men allege they ne’er can find<br /> +Those beauties in a female mind<br /> +Which raise a flame that will endure<br /> +For ever, uncorrupt and pure;<br /> +If ’tis with reason they complain,<br /> +This infant shall restore my reign.<br /> +I’ll search where every virtue dwells,<br /> +From Courts inclusive down to cells.<br /> +What preachers talk, or sages write,<br /> +These I will gather and unite,<br /> +And represent them to mankind<br /> +Collected in that infant’s mind.”</p> +<p>This said, she plucks in heaven’s high bowers<br /> +A sprig of Amaranthine flowers,<br /> +In nectar thrice infuses bays,<br /> +Three times refined in Titan’s rays:<br /> +Then calls the Graces to her aid,<br /> +And sprinkles thrice the now-born maid.<br /> +From whence the tender skin assumes<br /> +A sweetness above all perfumes;<br /> +From whence a cleanliness remains,<br /> +Incapable of outward stains;<br /> +From whence that decency of mind,<br /> +So lovely in a female kind.<br /> +Where not one careless thought intrudes<br /> +Less modest than the speech of prudes;<br /> +Where never blush was called in aid,<br /> +The spurious virtue in a maid,<br /> +A virtue but at second-hand;<br /> +They blush because they understand.</p> +<p>The Graces next would act their part,<br /> +And show but little of their art;<br /> +Their work was half already done,<br /> +The child with native beauty shone,<br /> +The outward form no help required:<br /> +Each breathing on her thrice, inspired<br /> +That gentle, soft, engaging air<br /> +Which in old times adorned the fair,<br /> +And said, “Vanessa be the name<br /> +By which thou shalt be known to fame;<br /> +Vanessa, by the gods enrolled:<br /> +Her name on earth—shall not be told.”</p> +<p>But still the work was not complete,<br /> +When Venus thought on a deceit:<br /> +Drawn by her doves, away she flies,<br /> +And finds out Pallas in the skies:<br /> +Dear Pallas, I have been this morn<br /> +To see a lovely infant born:<br /> +A boy in yonder isle below,<br /> +So like my own without his bow,<br /> +By beauty could your heart be won,<br /> +You’d swear it is Apollo’s son;<br /> +But it shall ne’er be said, a child<br /> +So hopeful has by me been spoiled;<br /> +I have enough besides to spare,<br /> +And give him wholly to your care.</p> +<p>Wisdom’s above suspecting wiles;<br /> +The queen of learning gravely smiles,<br /> +Down from Olympus comes with joy,<br /> +Mistakes Vanessa for a boy;<br /> +Then sows within her tender mind<br /> +Seeds long unknown to womankind;<br /> +For manly bosoms chiefly fit,<br /> +The seeds of knowledge, judgment, wit,<br /> +Her soul was suddenly endued<br /> +With justice, truth, and fortitude;<br /> +With honour, which no breath can stain,<br /> +Which malice must attack in vain:<br /> +With open heart and bounteous hand:<br /> +But Pallas here was at a stand;<br /> +She know in our degenerate days<br /> +Bare virtue could not live on praise,<br /> +That meat must be with money bought:<br /> +She therefore, upon second thought,<br /> +Infused yet as it were by stealth,<br /> +Some small regard for state and wealth:<br /> +Of which as she grew up there stayed<br /> +A tincture in the prudent maid:<br /> +She managed her estate with care,<br /> +Yet liked three footmen to her chair,<br /> +But lest he should neglect his studies<br /> +Like a young heir, the thrifty goddess<br /> +(For fear young master should be spoiled)<br /> +Would use him like a younger child;<br /> +And, after long computing, found<br /> +’Twould come to just five thousand pound.</p> +<p>The Queen of Love was pleased and proud<br /> +To we Vanessa thus endowed;<br /> +She doubted not but such a dame<br /> +Through every breast would dart a flame;<br /> +That every rich and lordly swain<br /> +With pride would drag about her chain;<br /> +That scholars would forsake their books<br /> +To study bright Vanessa’s looks:<br /> +As she advanced that womankind<br /> +Would by her model form their mind,<br /> +And all their conduct would be tried<br /> +By her, as an unerring guide.<br /> +Offending daughters oft would hear<br /> +Vanessa’s praise rung in their ear:<br /> +Miss Betty, when she does a fault,<br /> +Lets fall her knife, or spills the salt,<br /> +Will thus be by her mother chid,<br /> +“’Tis what Vanessa never did.”<br /> +Thus by the nymphs and swains adored,<br /> +My power shall be again restored,<br /> +And happy lovers bless my reign—<br /> +So Venus hoped, but hoped in vain.</p> +<p>For when in time the martial maid<br /> +Found out the trick that Venus played,<br /> +She shakes her helm, she knits her brows,<br /> +And fired with indignation, vows<br /> +To-morrow, ere the setting sun,<br /> +She’d all undo that she had done.</p> +<p>But in the poets we may find<br /> +A wholesome law, time out of mind,<br /> +Had been confirmed by Fate’s decree;<br /> +That gods, of whatso’er degree,<br /> +Resume not what themselves have given,<br /> +Or any brother-god in Heaven;<br /> +Which keeps the peace among the gods,<br /> +Or they must always be at odds.<br /> +And Pallas, if she broke the laws,<br /> +Must yield her foe the stronger cause;<br /> +A shame to one so much adored<br /> +For Wisdom, at Jove’s council-board.<br /> +Besides, she feared the queen of love<br /> +Would meet with better friends above.<br /> +And though she must with grief reflect<br /> +To see a mortal virgin deck’d<br /> +With graces hitherto unknown<br /> +To female breasts, except her own,<br /> +Yet she would act as best became<br /> +A goddess of unspotted fame;<br /> +She knew, by augury divine,<br /> +Venus would fail in her design:<br /> +She studied well the point, and found<br /> +Her foe’s conclusions were not sound,<br /> +From premises erroneous brought,<br /> +And therefore the deduction’s nought,<br /> +And must have contrary effects<br /> +To what her treacherous foe expects.</p> +<p>In proper season Pallas meets<br /> +The queen of love, whom thus she greets<br /> +(For Gods, we are by Homer told,<br /> +Can in celestial language scold),<br /> +“Perfidious Goddess! but in vain<br /> +You formed this project in your brain,<br /> +A project for thy talents fit,<br /> +With much deceit, and little wit;<br /> +Thou hast, as thou shalt quickly see,<br /> +Deceived thyself instead of me;<br /> +For how can heavenly wisdom prove<br /> +An instrument to earthly love?<br /> +Know’st thou not yet that men commence<br /> +Thy votaries, for want of sense?<br /> +Nor shall Vanessa be the theme<br /> +To manage thy abortive scheme;<br /> +She’ll prove the greatest of thy foes,<br /> +And yet I scorn to interpose,<br /> +But using neither skill nor force,<br /> +Leave all things to their natural course.”</p> +<p>The goddess thus pronounced her doom,<br /> +When, lo, Vanessa in her bloom,<br /> +Advanced like Atalanta’s star,<br /> +But rarely seen, and seen from far:<br /> +In a new world with caution stepped,<br /> +Watched all the company she kept,<br /> +Well knowing from the books she read<br /> +What dangerous paths young virgins tread;<br /> +Would seldom at the park appear,<br /> +Nor saw the play-house twice a year;<br /> +Yet not incurious, was inclined<br /> +To know the converse of mankind.</p> +<p>First issued from perfumers’ shops<br /> +A crowd of fashionable fops;<br /> +They liked her how she liked the play?<br /> +Then told the tattle of the day,<br /> +A duel fought last night at two<br /> +About a lady—you know who;<br /> +Mentioned a new Italian, come<br /> +Either from Muscovy or Rome;<br /> +Gave hints of who and who’s together;<br /> +Then fell to talking of the weather:<br /> +Last night was so extremely fine,<br /> +The ladies walked till after nine.<br /> +Then in soft voice, and speech absurd,<br /> +With nonsense every second word,<br /> +With fustian from exploded plays,<br /> +They celebrate her beauty’s praise,<br /> +Run o’er their cant of stupid lies,<br /> +And tell the murders of her eyes.</p> +<p>With silent scorn Vanessa sat,<br /> +Scarce list’ning to their idle chat;<br /> +Further than sometimes by a frown,<br /> +When they grew pert, to pull them down.<br /> +At last she spitefully was bent<br /> +To try their wisdom’s full extent;<br /> +And said, she valued nothing less<br /> +Than titles, figure, shape, and dress;<br /> +That merit should be chiefly placed<br /> +In judgment, knowledge, wit, and taste;<br /> +And these, she offered to dispute,<br /> +Alone distinguished man from brute:<br /> +That present times have no pretence<br /> +To virtue, in the noble sense<br /> +By Greeks and Romans understood,<br /> +To perish for our country’s good.<br /> +She named the ancient heroes round,<br /> +Explained for what they were renowned;<br /> +Then spoke with censure, or applause,<br /> +Of foreign customs, rites, and laws;<br /> +Through nature and through art she ranged,<br /> +And gracefully her subject changed:<br /> +In vain; her hearers had no share<br /> +In all she spoke, except to stare.<br /> +Their judgment was upon the whole,<br /> +—That lady is the dullest soul—<br /> +Then tipped their forehead in a jeer,<br /> +As who should say—she wants it here;<br /> +She may be handsome, young, and rich,<br /> +But none will burn her for a witch.</p> +<p>A party next of glittering dames,<br /> +From round the purlieus of St. James,<br /> +Came early, out of pure goodwill,<br /> +To see the girl in deshabille.<br /> +Their clamour ’lighting from their chairs,<br /> +Grew louder, all the way up stairs;<br /> +At entrance loudest, where they found<br /> +The room with volumes littered round,<br /> +Vanessa held Montaigne, and read,<br /> +Whilst Mrs. Susan combed her head:<br /> +They called for tea and chocolate,<br /> +And fell into their usual chat,<br /> +Discoursing with important face,<br /> +On ribbons, fans, and gloves, and lace:<br /> +Showed patterns just from India brought,<br /> +And gravely asked her what she thought,<br /> +Whether the red or green were best,<br /> +And what they cost? Vanessa guessed,<br /> +As came into her fancy first,<br /> +Named half the rates, and liked the worst.<br /> +To scandal next—What awkward thing<br /> +Was that, last Sunday, in the ring?<br /> +I’m sorry Mopsa breaks so fast;<br /> +I said her face would never last,<br /> +Corinna with that youthful air,<br /> +Is thirty, and a bit to spare.<br /> +Her fondness for a certain earl<br /> +Began, when I was but a girl.<br /> +Phyllis, who but a month ago<br /> +Was married to the Tunbridge beau,<br /> +I saw coquetting t’other night<br /> +In public with that odious knight.</p> +<p>They rallied next Vanessa’s dress;<br /> +That gown was made for old Queen Bess.<br /> +Dear madam, let me set your head;<br /> +Don’t you intend to put on red?<br /> +A petticoat without a hoop!<br /> +Sure, you are not ashamed to stoop;<br /> +With handsome garters at your knees,<br /> +No matter what a fellow sees.</p> +<p>Filled with disdain, with rage inflamed,<br /> +Both of herself and sex ashamed,<br /> +The nymph stood silent out of spite,<br /> +Nor would vouchsafe to set them right.<br /> +Away the fair detractors went,<br /> +And gave, by turns, their censures vent.<br /> +She’s not so handsome in my eyes:<br /> +For wit, I wonder where it lies.<br /> +She’s fair and clean, and that’s the most;<br /> +But why proclaim her for a toast?<br /> +A baby face, no life, no airs,<br /> +But what she learnt at country fairs.<br /> +Scarce knows what difference is between<br /> +Rich Flanders lace, and Colberteen.<br /> +I’ll undertake my little Nancy,<br /> +In flounces has a better fancy.<br /> +With all her wit, I would not ask<br /> +Her judgment, how to buy a mask.<br /> +We begged her but to patch her face,<br /> +She never hit one proper place;<br /> +Which every girl at five years old<br /> +Can do as soon as she is told.<br /> +I own, that out-of-fashion stuff<br /> +Becomes the creature well enough.<br /> +The girl might pass, if we could get her<br /> +To know the world a little better.<br /> +(<i>To know the world</i>! a modern phrase<br /> +For visits, ombre, balls, and plays.)</p> +<p>Thus, to the world’s perpetual shame,<br /> +The queen of beauty lost her aim,<br /> +Too late with grief she understood<br /> +Pallas had done more harm than good;<br /> +For great examples are but vain,<br /> +Where ignorance begets disdain.<br /> +Both sexes, armed with guilt and spite,<br /> +Against Vanessa’s power unite;<br /> +To copy her few nymphs aspired;<br /> +Her virtues fewer swains admired;<br /> +So stars, beyond a certain height,<br /> +Give mortals neither heat nor light.</p> +<p>Yet some of either sex, endowed<br /> +With gifts superior to the crowd,<br /> +With virtue, knowledge, taste, and wit,<br /> +She condescended to admit;<br /> +With pleasing arts she could reduce<br /> +Men’s talents to their proper use;<br /> +And with address each genius hold<br /> +To that wherein it most excelled;<br /> +Thus making others’ wisdom known,<br /> +Could please them and improve her own.<br /> +A modest youth said something new,<br /> +She placed it in the strongest view.<br /> +All humble worth she strove to raise;<br /> +Would not be praised, yet loved to praise.<br /> +The learned met with free approach,<br /> +Although they came not in a coach.<br /> +Some clergy too she would allow,<br /> +Nor quarreled at their awkward bow.<br /> +But this was for Cadenus’ sake;<br /> +A gownman of a different make.<br /> +Whom Pallas, once Vanessa’s tutor,<br /> +Had fixed on for her coadjutor.</p> +<p>But Cupid, full of mischief, longs<br /> +To vindicate his mother’s wrongs.<br /> +On Pallas all attempts are vain;<br /> +One way he knows to give her pain;<br /> +Vows on Vanessa’s heart to take<br /> +Due vengeance, for her patron’s sake.<br /> +Those early seeds by Venus sown,<br /> +In spite of Pallas, now were grown;<br /> +And Cupid hoped they would improve<br /> +By time, and ripen into love.<br /> +The boy made use of all his craft,<br /> +In vain discharging many a shaft,<br /> +Pointed at colonels, lords, and beaux;<br /> +Cadenus warded off the blows,<br /> +For placing still some book betwixt,<br /> +The darts were in the cover fixed,<br /> +Or often blunted and recoiled,<br /> +On Plutarch’s morals struck, were spoiled.</p> +<p>The queen of wisdom could foresee,<br /> +But not prevent the Fates decree;<br /> +And human caution tries in vain<br /> +To break that adamantine chain.<br /> +Vanessa, though by Pallas taught,<br /> +By love invulnerable thought,<br /> +Searching in books for wisdom’s aid,<br /> +Was, in the very search, betrayed.</p> +<p>Cupid, though all his darts were lost,<br /> +Yet still resolved to spare no cost;<br /> +He could not answer to his fame<br /> +The triumphs of that stubborn dame,<br /> +A nymph so hard to be subdued,<br /> +Who neither was coquette nor prude.<br /> +I find, says he, she wants a doctor,<br /> +Both to adore her, and instruct her:<br /> +I’ll give her what she most admires,<br /> +Among those venerable sires.<br /> +Cadenus is a subject fit,<br /> +Grown old in politics and wit;<br /> +Caressed by Ministers of State,<br /> +Of half mankind the dread and hate.<br /> +Whate’er vexations love attend,<br /> +She need no rivals apprehend<br /> +Her sex, with universal voice,<br /> +Must laugh at her capricious choice.</p> +<p>Cadenus many things had writ,<br /> +Vanessa much esteemed his wit,<br /> +And called for his poetic works!<br /> +Meantime the boy in secret lurks.<br /> +And while the book was in her hand,<br /> +The urchin from his private stand<br /> +Took aim, and shot with all his strength<br /> +A dart of such prodigious length,<br /> +It pierced the feeble volume through,<br /> +And deep transfixed her bosom too.<br /> +Some lines, more moving than the rest,<br /> +Struck to the point that pierced her breast;<br /> +And, borne directly to the heart,<br /> +With pains unknown, increased her smart.</p> +<p>Vanessa, not in years a score,<br /> +Dreams of a gown of forty-four;<br /> +Imaginary charms can find,<br /> +In eyes with reading almost blind;<br /> +Cadenus now no more appears<br /> +Declined in health, advanced in years.<br /> +She fancies music in his tongue,<br /> +Nor farther looks, but thinks him young.<br /> +What mariner is not afraid<br /> +To venture in a ship decayed?<br /> +What planter will attempt to yoke<br /> +A sapling with a falling oak?<br /> +As years increase, she brighter shines,<br /> +Cadenus with each day declines,<br /> +And he must fall a prey to Time,<br /> +While she continues in her prime.</p> +<p>Cadenus, common forms apart,<br /> +In every scene had kept his heart;<br /> +Had sighed and languished, vowed and writ,<br /> +For pastime, or to show his wit;<br /> +But time, and books, and State affairs,<br /> +Had spoiled his fashionable airs,<br /> +He now could praise, esteem, approve,<br /> +But understood not what was love.<br /> +His conduct might have made him styled<br /> +A father, and the nymph his child.<br /> +That innocent delight he took<br /> +To see the virgin mind her book,<br /> +Was but the master’s secret joy<br /> +In school to hear the finest boy.<br /> +Her knowledge with her fancy grew,<br /> +She hourly pressed for something new;<br /> +Ideas came into her mind<br /> +So fact, his lessons lagged behind;<br /> +She reasoned, without plodding long,<br /> +Nor ever gave her judgment wrong.<br /> +But now a sudden change was wrought,<br /> +She minds no longer what he taught.<br /> +Cadenus was amazed to find<br /> +Such marks of a distracted mind;<br /> +For though she seemed to listen more<br /> +To all he spoke, than e’er before.<br /> +He found her thoughts would absent range,<br /> +Yet guessed not whence could spring the change.<br /> +And first he modestly conjectures,<br /> +His pupil might be tired with lectures,<br /> +Which helped to mortify his pride,<br /> +Yet gave him not the heart to chide;<br /> +But in a mild dejected strain,<br /> +At last he ventured to complain:<br /> +Said, she should be no longer teased,<br /> +Might have her freedom when she pleased;<br /> +Was now convinced he acted wrong,<br /> +To hide her from the world so long,<br /> +And in dull studies to engage<br /> +One of her tender sex and age.<br /> +That every nymph with envy owned,<br /> +How she might shine in the <i>Grande-Monde</i>,<br /> +And every shepherd was undone,<br /> +To see her cloistered like a nun.<br /> +This was a visionary scheme,<br /> +He waked, and found it but a dream;<br /> +A project far above his skill,<br /> +For Nature must be Nature still.<br /> +If she was bolder than became<br /> +A scholar to a courtly dame,<br /> +She might excuse a man of letters;<br /> +Thus tutors often treat their betters,<br /> +And since his talk offensive grew,<br /> +He came to take his last adieu.</p> +<p>Vanessa, filled with just disdain,<br /> +Would still her dignity maintain,<br /> +Instructed from her early years<br /> +To scorn the art of female tears.</p> +<p>Had he employed his time so long,<br /> +To teach her what was right or wrong,<br /> +Yet could such notions entertain,<br /> +That all his lectures were in vain?<br /> +She owned the wand’ring of her thoughts,<br /> +But he must answer for her faults.<br /> +She well remembered, to her cost,<br /> +That all his lessons were not lost.<br /> +Two maxims she could still produce,<br /> +And sad experience taught her use;<br /> +That virtue, pleased by being shown,<br /> +Knows nothing which it dare not own;<br /> +Can make us without fear disclose<br /> +Our inmost secrets to our foes;<br /> +That common forms were not designed<br /> +Directors to a noble mind.<br /> +Now, said the nymph, I’ll let you see<br /> +My actions with your rules agree,<br /> +That I can vulgar forms despise,<br /> +And have no secrets to disguise.<br /> +I knew by what you said and writ,<br /> +How dangerous things were men of wit;<br /> +You cautioned me against their charms,<br /> +But never gave me equal arms;<br /> +Your lessons found the weakest part,<br /> +Aimed at the head, but reached the heart.</p> +<p>Cadenus felt within him rise<br /> +Shame, disappointment, guilt, surprise.<br /> +He know not how to reconcile<br /> +Such language, with her usual style:<br /> +And yet her words were so expressed,<br /> +He could not hope she spoke in jest.<br /> +His thoughts had wholly been confined<br /> +To form and cultivate her mind.<br /> +He hardly knew, till he was told,<br /> +Whether the nymph were young or old;<br /> +Had met her in a public place,<br /> +Without distinguishing her face,<br /> +Much less could his declining age<br /> +Vanessa’s earliest thoughts engage.<br /> +And if her youth indifference met,<br /> +His person must contempt beget,<br /> +Or grant her passion be sincere,<br /> +How shall his innocence be clear?<br /> +Appearances were all so strong,<br /> +The world must think him in the wrong;<br /> +Would say he made a treach’rous use.<br /> +Of wit, to flatter and seduce;<br /> +The town would swear he had betrayed,<br /> +By magic spells, the harmless maid;<br /> +And every beau would have his jokes,<br /> +That scholars were like other folks;<br /> +That when Platonic flights were over,<br /> +The tutor turned a mortal lover.<br /> +So tender of the young and fair;<br /> +It showed a true paternal care—<br /> +Five thousand guineas in her purse;<br /> +The doctor might have fancied worst,—<br /> +Hardly at length he silence broke,<br /> +And faltered every word he spoke;<br /> +Interpreting her complaisance,<br /> +Just as a man sans consequence.<br /> +She rallied well, he always knew;<br /> +Her manner now was something new;<br /> +And what she spoke was in an air,<br /> +As serious as a tragic player.<br /> +But those who aim at ridicule,<br /> +Should fix upon some certain rule,<br /> +Which fairly hints they are in jest,<br /> +Else he must enter his protest;<br /> +For let a man be ne’er so wise,<br /> +He may be caught with sober lies;<br /> +A science which he never taught,<br /> +And, to be free, was dearly bought;<br /> +For, take it in its proper light,<br /> +’Tis just what coxcombs call a bite.</p> +<p>But not to dwell on things minute,<br /> +Vanessa finished the dispute,<br /> +Brought weighty arguments to prove,<br /> +That reason was her guide in love.<br /> +She thought he had himself described,<br /> +His doctrines when she fist imbibed;<br /> +What he had planted now was grown,<br /> +His virtues she might call her own;<br /> +As he approves, as he dislikes,<br /> +Love or contempt her fancy strikes.<br /> +Self-love in nature rooted fast,<br /> +Attends us first, and leaves us last:<br /> +Why she likes him, admire not at her,<br /> +She loves herself, and that’s the matter.<br /> +How was her tutor wont to praise<br /> +The geniuses of ancient days!<br /> +(Those authors he so oft had named<br /> +For learning, wit, and wisdom famed).<br /> +Was struck with love, esteem, and awe,<br /> +For persons whom he never saw.<br /> +Suppose Cadenus flourished then,<br /> +He must adore such God-like men.<br /> +If one short volume could comprise<br /> +All that was witty, learned, and wise,<br /> +How would it be esteemed, and read,<br /> +Although the writer long were dead?<br /> +If such an author were alive,<br /> +How all would for his friendship strive;<br /> +And come in crowds to see his face?<br /> +And this she takes to be her case.<br /> +Cadenus answers every end,<br /> +The book, the author, and the friend,<br /> +The utmost her desires will reach,<br /> +Is but to learn what he can teach;<br /> +His converse is a system fit<br /> +Alone to fill up all her wit;<br /> +While ev’ry passion of her mind<br /> +In him is centred and confined.</p> +<p>Love can with speech inspire a mute,<br /> +And taught Vanessa to dispute.<br /> +This topic, never touched before,<br /> +Displayed her eloquence the more:<br /> +Her knowledge, with such pains acquired,<br /> +By this new passion grew inspired.<br /> +Through this she made all objects pass,<br /> +Which gave a tincture o’er the mass;<br /> +As rivers, though they bend and twine,<br /> +Still to the sea their course incline;<br /> +Or, as philosophers, who find<br /> +Some fav’rite system to their mind,<br /> +In every point to make it fit,<br /> +Will force all nature to submit.</p> +<p>Cadenus, who could ne’er suspect<br /> +His lessons would have such effect,<br /> +Or be so artfully applied,<br /> +Insensibly came on her side;<br /> +It was an unforeseen event,<br /> +Things took a turn he never meant.<br /> +Whoe’er excels in what we prize,<br /> +Appears a hero to our eyes;<br /> +Each girl, when pleased with what is taught,<br /> +Will have the teacher in her thought.<br /> +When miss delights in her spinnet,<br /> +A fiddler may a fortune get;<br /> +A blockhead, with melodious voice<br /> +In boarding-schools can have his choice;<br /> +And oft the dancing-master’s art<br /> +Climbs from the toe to touch the heart.<br /> +In learning let a nymph delight,<br /> +The pedant gets a mistress by’t.<br /> +Cadenus, to his grief and shame,<br /> +Could scarce oppose Vanessa’s flame;<br /> +But though her arguments were strong,<br /> +At least could hardly with them wrong.<br /> +Howe’er it came, he could not tell,<br /> +But, sure, she never talked so well.<br /> +His pride began to interpose,<br /> +Preferred before a crowd of beaux,<br /> +So bright a nymph to come unsought,<br /> +Such wonder by his merit wrought;<br /> +’Tis merit must with her prevail,<br /> +He never know her judgment fail.<br /> +She noted all she ever read,<br /> +And had a most discerning head.</p> +<p>’Tis an old maxim in the schools,<br /> +That vanity’s the food of fools;<br /> +Yet now and then your men of wit<br /> +Will condescend to take a bit.</p> +<p>So when Cadenus could not hide,<br /> +He chose to justify his pride;<br /> +Construing the passion she had shown,<br /> +Much to her praise, more to his own.<br /> +Nature in him had merit placed,<br /> +In her, a most judicious taste.<br /> +Love, hitherto a transient guest,<br /> +Ne’er held possession in his breast;<br /> +So long attending at the gate,<br /> +Disdain’d to enter in so late.<br /> +Love, why do we one passion call?<br /> +When ’tis a compound of them all;<br /> +Where hot and cold, where sharp and sweet,<br /> +In all their equipages meet;<br /> +Where pleasures mixed with pains appear,<br /> +Sorrow with joy, and hope with fear.<br /> +Wherein his dignity and age<br /> +Forbid Cadenus to engage.<br /> +But friendship in its greatest height,<br /> +A constant, rational delight,<br /> +On virtue’s basis fixed to last,<br /> +When love’s allurements long are past;<br /> +Which gently warms, but cannot burn;<br /> +He gladly offers in return;<br /> +His want of passion will redeem,<br /> +With gratitude, respect, esteem;<br /> +With that devotion we bestow,<br /> +When goddesses appear below.</p> +<p>While thus Cadenus entertains<br /> +Vanessa in exalted strains,<br /> +The nymph in sober words intreats<br /> +A truce with all sublime conceits.<br /> +For why such raptures, flights, and fancies,<br /> +To her who durst not read romances;<br /> +In lofty style to make replies,<br /> +Which he had taught her to despise?<br /> +But when her tutor will affect<br /> +Devotion, duty, and respect,<br /> +He fairly abdicates his throne,<br /> +The government is now her own;<br /> +He has a forfeiture incurred,<br /> +She vows to take him at his word,<br /> +And hopes he will not take it strange<br /> +If both should now their stations change<br /> +The nymph will have her turn, to be<br /> +The tutor; and the pupil he:<br /> +Though she already can discern<br /> +Her scholar is not apt to learn;<br /> +Or wants capacity to reach<br /> +The science she designs to teach;<br /> +Wherein his genius was below<br /> +The skill of every common beau;<br /> +Who, though he cannot spell, is wise<br /> +Enough to read a lady’s eyes?<br /> +And will each accidental glance<br /> +Interpret for a kind advance.</p> +<p>But what success Vanessa met<br /> +Is to the world a secret yet;<br /> +Whether the nymph, to please her swain,<br /> +Talks in a high romantic strain;<br /> +Or whether he at last descends<br /> +To like with less seraphic ends;<br /> +Or to compound the bus’ness, whether<br /> +They temper love and books together;<br /> +Must never to mankind be told,<br /> +Nor shall the conscious muse unfold.</p> +<p>Meantime the mournful queen of love<br /> +Led but a weary life above.<br /> +She ventures now to leave the skies,<br /> +Grown by Vanessa’s conduct wise.<br /> +For though by one perverse event<br /> +Pallas had crossed her first intent,<br /> +Though her design was not obtained,<br /> +Yet had she much experience gained;<br /> +And, by the project vainly tried,<br /> +Could better now the cause decide.<br /> +She gave due notice that both parties,<br /> +<i>Coram Regina prox’ die Martis</i>,<br /> +Should at their peril without fail<br /> +Come and appear, and save their bail.<br /> +All met, and silence thrice proclaimed,<br /> +One lawyer to each side was named.<br /> +The judge discovered in her face<br /> +Resentments for her late disgrace;<br /> +And, full of anger, shame, and grief,<br /> +Directed them to mind their brief;<br /> +Nor spend their time to show their reading,<br /> +She’d have a summary proceeding.<br /> +She gathered under every head,<br /> +The sum of what each lawyer said;<br /> +Gave her own reasons last; and then<br /> +Decreed the cause against the men.</p> +<p>But, in a weighty case like this,<br /> +To show she did not judge amiss,<br /> +Which evil tongues might else report,<br /> +She made a speech in open court;<br /> +Wherein she grievously complains,<br /> +“How she was cheated by the swains.”<br /> +On whose petition (humbly showing<br /> +That women were not worth the wooing,<br /> +And that unless the sex would mend,<br /> +The race of lovers soon must end);<br /> +“She was at Lord knows what expense,<br /> +To form a nymph of wit and sense;<br /> +A model for her sex designed,<br /> +Who never could one lover find,<br /> +She saw her favour was misplaced;<br /> +The follows had a wretched taste;<br /> +She needs must tell them to their face,<br /> +They were a senseless, stupid race;<br /> +And were she to begin again,<br /> +She’d study to reform the men;<br /> +Or add some grains of folly more<br /> +To women than they had before.<br /> +To put them on an equal foot;<br /> +And this, or nothing else, would do’t.<br /> +This might their mutual fancy strike,<br /> +Since every being loves its like.</p> +<p>But now, repenting what was done,<br /> +She left all business to her son;<br /> +She puts the world in his possession,<br /> +And let him use it at discretion.”</p> +<p>The crier was ordered to dismiss<br /> +The court, so made his last O yes!<br /> +The goddess would no longer wait,<br /> +But rising from her chair of state,<br /> +Left all below at six and seven,<br /> +Harnessed her doves, and flew to Heaven.</p> +<h2>STELLA’S BIRTHDAY, 1718.</h2> +<p>Stella this day is thirty-four<br /> +(We shan’t dispute a year or more)<br /> +However, Stella, be not troubled,<br /> +Although thy size and years are doubled<br /> +Since first I saw thee at sixteen,<br /> +The brightest virgin on the green.<br /> +So little is thy form declined;<br /> +Made up so largely in thy mind.</p> +<p>Oh, would it please the gods to split<br /> +Thy beauty, size, and years, and wit,<br /> +No age could furnish out a pair<br /> +Of nymphs so graceful, wise, and fair:<br /> +With half the lustre of your eyes,<br /> +With half your wit, your years, and size.<br /> +And then, before it grew too late,<br /> +How should I beg of gentle fate,<br /> +(That either nymph might lack her swain),<br /> +To split my worship too in twain.</p> +<h2>STELLA’S BIRTHDAY, 1720.</h2> +<p>All travellers at first incline<br /> +Where’er they see the fairest sign;<br /> +And if they find the chambers neat,<br /> +And like the liquor and the meat,<br /> +Will call again and recommend<br /> +The Angel Inn to every friend<br /> +What though the painting grows decayed,<br /> +The house will never lose its trade:<br /> +Nay, though the treach’rous tapster Thomas<br /> +Hangs a new angel two doors from us,<br /> +As fine as daubers’ hands can make it,<br /> +In hopes that strangers may mistake it,<br /> +We think it both a shame and sin,<br /> +To quit the true old Angel Inn.</p> +<p>Now, this is Stella’s case in fact,<br /> +An angel’s face, a little cracked<br /> +(Could poets, or could painters fix<br /> +How angels look at, thirty-six):<br /> +This drew us in at first, to find<br /> +In such a form an angel’s mind;<br /> +And every virtue now supplies<br /> +The fainting rays of Stella’s eyes.<br /> +See, at her levee, crowding swains,<br /> +Whom Stella freely entertains,<br /> +With breeding, humour, wit, and sense;<br /> +And puts them but to small expense;<br /> +Their mind so plentifully fills,<br /> +And makes such reasonable bills,<br /> +So little gets for what she gives,<br /> +We really wonder how she lives!<br /> +And had her stock been less, no doubt,<br /> +She must have long ago run out.</p> +<p>Then who can think we’ll quit the place,<br /> +When Doll hangs out a newer face;<br /> +Or stop and light at Cloe’s Head,<br /> +With scraps and leavings to be fed.</p> +<p>Then Cloe, still go on to prate<br /> +Of thirty-six, and thirty-eight;<br /> +Pursue your trade of scandal picking,<br /> +Your hints that Stella is no chicken.<br /> +Your innuendoes when you tell us,<br /> +That Stella loves to talk with fellows;<br /> +And let me warn you to believe<br /> +A truth, for which your soul should grieve:<br /> +That should you live to see the day<br /> +When Stella’s locks, must all be grey,<br /> +When age must print a furrowed trace<br /> +On every feature of her face;<br /> +Though you and all your senseless tribe,<br /> +Could art, or time, or nature bribe<br /> +To make you look like beauty’s queen,<br /> +And hold for ever at fifteen;<br /> +No bloom of youth can ever blind<br /> +The cracks and wrinkles of your mind;<br /> +All men of sense will pass your door,<br /> +And crowd to Stella’s at fourscore.</p> +<h2>STELLA’S BIRTHDAY.</h2> +<p><i>A great bottle of wine, long buried, being that day dug +up</i>. <i>1722</i>.</p> +<p>Resolved my annual verse to pay,<br /> +By duty bound, on Stella’s day;<br /> +Furnished with paper, pens, and ink,<br /> +I gravely sat me down to think:<br /> +I bit my nails, and scratched my head,<br /> +But found my wit and fancy fled;<br /> +Or, if with more than usual pain,<br /> +A thought came slowly from my brain,<br /> +It cost me Lord knows how much time<br /> +To shape it into sense and rhyme;<br /> +And, what was yet a greater curse,<br /> +Long-thinking made my fancy worse</p> +<p>Forsaken by th’ inspiring nine,<br /> +I waited at Apollo’s shrine;<br /> +I told him what the world would sa<br /> +If Stella were unsung to-day;<br /> +How I should hide my head for shame,<br /> +When both the Jacks and Robin came;<br /> +How Ford would frown, how Jim would leer,<br /> +How Sh---r the rogue would sneer,<br /> +And swear it does not always follow,<br /> +That <i>Semel’n anno ridet</i> Apollo.<br /> +I have assured them twenty times,<br /> +That Phœbus helped me in my rhymes,<br /> +Phœbus inspired me from above,<br /> +And he and I were hand and glove.<br /> +But finding me so dull and dry since,<br /> +They’ll call it all poetic licence.<br /> +And when I brag of aid divine,<br /> +Think Eusden’s right as good as mine.</p> +<p>Nor do I ask for Stella’s sake;<br /> +’Tis my own credit lies at stake.<br /> +And Stella will be sung, while I<br /> +Can only be a stander by.</p> +<p>Apollo having thought a little,<br /> +Returned this answer to a tittle.</p> +<p>Tho’ you should live like old Methusalem,<br /> +I furnish hints, and you should use all ’em,<br /> +You yearly sing as she grows old,<br /> +You’d leave her virtues half untold.<br /> +But to say truth, such dulness reigns<br /> +Through the whole set of Irish Deans;<br /> +I’m daily stunned with such a medley,<br /> +Dean W---, Dean D---l, and Dean S---;<br /> +That let what Dean soever come,<br /> +My orders are, I’m not at home;<br /> +And if your voice had not been loud,<br /> +You must have passed among the crowd.</p> +<p>But, now your danger to prevent,<br /> +You must apply to Mrs. Brent, <a name="citation2"></a><a +href="#footnote2" class="citation">[2]</a><br /> +For she, as priestess, knows the rites<br /> +Wherein the God of Earth delights.<br /> +First, nine ways looking, let her stand<br /> +With an old poker in her hand;<br /> +Let her describe a circle round<br /> +In Saunder’s <a name="citation3"></a><a href="#footnote3" +class="citation">[3]</a> cellar on the ground<br /> +A spade let prudent Archy <a name="citation4"></a><a +href="#footnote4" class="citation">[4]</a> hold,<br /> +And with discretion dig the mould;<br /> +Let Stella look with watchful eye,<br /> +Rebecea, Ford, and Grattons by.</p> +<p>Behold the bottle, where it lies<br /> +With neck elated tow’rds the skies!<br /> +The god of winds, and god of fire,<br /> +Did to its wondrous birth conspire;<br /> +And Bacchus for the poet’s use<br /> +Poured in a strong inspiring juice:<br /> +See! as you raise it from its tomb,<br /> +It drags behind a spacious womb,<br /> +And in the spacious womb contains<br /> +A sovereign med’cine for the brains.</p> +<p>You’ll find it soon, if fate consents;<br /> +If not, a thousand Mrs. Brents,<br /> +Ten thousand Archys arm’d with spades,<br /> +May dig in vain to Pluto’s shades.</p> +<p>From thence a plenteous draught infuse,<br /> +And boldly then invoke the muse<br /> +(But first let Robert on his knees<br /> +With caution drain it from the lees);<br /> +The muse will at your call appear,<br /> +With Stella’s praise to crown the year.</p> +<h2>STELLA’S BIRTHDAY, 1724.</h2> +<p>As when a beauteous nymph decays,<br /> +We say she’s past her dancing days;<br /> +So poets lose their feet by time,<br /> +And can no longer dance in rhyme.<br /> +Your annual bard had rather chose<br /> +To celebrate your birth in prose;<br /> +Yet merry folks who want by chance<br /> +A pair to make a country dance,<br /> +Call the old housekeeper, and get her<br /> +To fill a place, for want of better;<br /> +While Sheridan is off the hooks,<br /> +And friend Delany at his books,<br /> +That Stella may avoid disgrace,<br /> +Once more the Dean supplies their place.</p> +<p>Beauty and wit, too sad a truth,<br /> +Have always been confined to youth;<br /> +The god of wit, and beauty’s queen,<br /> +He twenty-one, and she fifteen;<br /> +No poet ever sweetly sung.<br /> +Unless he were like Phœbus, young;<br /> +Nor ever nymph inspired to rhyme,<br /> +Unless like Venus in her prime.<br /> +At fifty-six, if this be true,<br /> +Am I a poet fit for you;<br /> +Or at the age of forty-three,<br /> +Are you a subject fit for me?<br /> +Adieu bright wit, and radiant eyes;<br /> +You must be grave, and I be wise.<br /> +Our fate in vain we would oppose,<br /> +But I’ll be still your friend in prose;<br /> +Esteem and friendship to express,<br /> +Will not require poetic dress;<br /> +And if the muse deny her aid<br /> +To have them sung, they may be said.</p> +<p>But, Stella say, what evil tongue<br /> +Reports you are no longer young?<br /> +That Time sits with his scythe to mow<br /> +Where erst sat Cupid with his bow;<br /> +That half your locks are turned to grey;<br /> +I’ll ne’er believe a word they say.<br /> +’Tis true, but let it not be known,<br /> +My eyes are somewhat dimish grown;<br /> +For nature, always in the right,<br /> +To your decays adapts my sight,<br /> +And wrinkles undistinguished pass,<br /> +For I’m ashamed to use a glass;<br /> +And till I see them with these eyes,<br /> +Whoever says you have them, lies.</p> +<p>No length of time can make you quit<br /> +Honour and virtue, sense and wit,<br /> +Thus you may still be young to me,<br /> +While I can better hear than see:<br /> +Oh, ne’er may fortune show her spite,<br /> +To make me deaf, and mend my sight.</p> +<h2>STELLA’S BIRTHDAY, MARCH 13, 1726.</h2> +<p>This day, whate’er the Fates decree,<br /> +Shall still be kept with joy by me;<br /> +This day, then, let us not be told<br /> +That you are sick, and I grown old,<br /> +Nor think on our approaching ills,<br /> +And talk of spectacles and pills;<br /> +To-morrow will be time enough<br /> +To hear such mortifying stuff.<br /> +Yet, since from reason may be brought<br /> +A better and more pleasing thought,<br /> +Which can, in spite of all decays,<br /> +Support a few remaining days:<br /> +From not the gravest of divines<br /> +Accept for once some serious lines.</p> +<p>Although we now can form no more<br /> +Long schemes of life, as heretofore;<br /> +Yet you, while time is running fast,<br /> +Can look with joy on what is past.</p> +<p>Were future happiness and pain<br /> +A mere contrivance of the brain,<br /> +As Atheists argue, to entice,<br /> +And fit their proselytes for vice<br /> +(The only comfort they propose,<br /> +To have companions in their woes).<br /> +Grant this the case, yet sure ’tis hard<br /> +That virtue, styled its own reward,<br /> +And by all sages understood<br /> +To be the chief of human good,<br /> +Should acting, die, or leave behind<br /> +Some lasting pleasure in the mind.<br /> +Which by remembrance will assuage<br /> +Grief, sickness, poverty, and age;<br /> +And strongly shoot a radiant dart,<br /> +To shine through life’s declining part.</p> +<p>Say, Stella, feel you no content,<br /> +Reflecting on a life well spent;<br /> +Your skilful hand employed to save<br /> +Despairing wretches from the grave;<br /> +And then supporting with your store,<br /> +Those whom you dragged from death before?<br /> +So Providence on mortals waits,<br /> +Preserving what it first creates,<br /> +You generous boldness to defend<br /> +An innocent and absent friend;<br /> +That courage which can make you just,<br /> +To merit humbled in the dust;<br /> +The detestation you express<br /> +For vice in all its glittering dress:<br /> +That patience under to torturing pain,<br /> +Where stubborn stoics would complain.</p> +<p>Must these like empty shadows pass,<br /> +Or forms reflected from a glass?<br /> +Or mere chimæras in the mind,<br /> +That fly, and leave no marks behind?<br /> +Does not the body thrive and grow<br /> +By food of twenty years ago?<br /> +And, had it not been still supplied,<br /> +It must a thousand times have died.<br /> +Then, who with reason can maintain<br /> +That no effects of food remain?<br /> +And, is not virtue in mankind<br /> +The nutriment that feeds the mind?<br /> +Upheld by each good action past,<br /> +And still continued by the last:<br /> +Then, who with reason can pretend<br /> +That all effects of virtue end?</p> +<p>Believe me, Stella, when you show<br /> +That true contempt for things below,<br /> +Nor prize your life for other ends<br /> +Than merely to oblige your friends,<br /> +Your former actions claim their part,<br /> +And join to fortify your heart.<br /> + For virtue in her daily race,<br /> +Like Janus, bears a double face.<br /> +Look back with joy where she has gone,<br /> +And therefore goes with courage on.<br /> +She at your sickly couch will wait,<br /> +And guide you to a better state.</p> +<p>O then, whatever heav’n intends,<br /> +Take pity on your pitying friends;<br /> +Nor let your ills affect your mind,<br /> +To fancy they can be unkind;<br /> +Me, surely me, you ought to spare,<br /> +Who gladly would your sufferings share;<br /> +Or give my scrap of life to you,<br /> +And think it far beneath your due;<br /> +You to whose care so oft I owe<br /> +That I’m alive to tell you so.</p> +<h2>TO STELLA,</h2> +<p><i>Visiting me in my sickness</i>, <i>October</i>, 1727.</p> +<p>Pallas, observing Stella’s wit<br /> +Was more than for her sex was fit;<br /> +And that her beauty, soon or late,<br /> +Might breed confusion in the state;<br /> +In high concern for human kind,<br /> +Fixed honour in her infant mind.</p> +<p>But (not in wranglings to engage<br /> +With such a stupid vicious age),<br /> +If honour I would here define,<br /> +It answers faith in things divine.<br /> +As natural life the body warms,<br /> +And, scholars teach, the soul informs;<br /> +So honour animates the whole,<br /> +And is the spirit of the soul.</p> +<p>Those numerous virtues which the tribe<br /> +Of tedious moralists describe,<br /> +And by such various titles call,<br /> +True honour comprehends them all.<br /> +Let melancholy rule supreme,<br /> +Choler preside, or blood, or phlegm.<br /> +It makes no difference in the case.<br /> +Nor is complexion honour’s place.</p> +<p>But, lest we should for honour take<br /> +The drunken quarrels of a rake,<br /> +Or think it seated in a scar,<br /> +Or on a proud triumphal car,<br /> +Or in the payment of a debt,<br /> +We lose with sharpers at piquet;<br /> +Or, when a whore in her vocation,<br /> +Keeps punctual to an assignation;<br /> +Or that on which his lordship swears,<br /> +When vulgar knaves would lose their ears:<br /> +Let Stella’s fair example preach<br /> +A lesson she alone can teach.</p> +<p>In points of honour to be tried,<br /> +All passions must be laid aside;<br /> +Ask no advice, but think alone,<br /> +Suppose the question not your own;<br /> +How shall I act? is not the case,<br /> +But how would Brutus in my place;<br /> +In such a cause would Cato bleed;<br /> +And how would Socrates proceed?</p> +<p>Drive all objections from your mind,<br /> +Else you relapse to human kind;<br /> +Ambition, avarice, and lust,<br /> +And factious rage, and breach of trust,<br /> +And flattery tipped with nauseous fleer,<br /> +And guilt and shame, and servile fear,<br /> +Envy, and cruelty, and pride,<br /> +Will in your tainted heart preside.</p> +<p>Heroes and heroines of old,<br /> +By honour only were enrolled<br /> +Among their brethren in the skies,<br /> +To which (though late) shall Stella rise.<br /> +Ten thousand oaths upon record<br /> +Are not so sacred as her word;<br /> +The world shall in its atoms end<br /> +Ere Stella can deceive a friend.<br /> +By honour seated in her breast,<br /> +She still determines what is best;<br /> +What indignation in her mind,<br /> +Against enslavers of mankind!<br /> +Base kings and ministers of state,<br /> +Eternal objects of her hate.</p> +<p>She thinks that Nature ne’er designed,<br /> +Courage to man alone confined;<br /> +Can cowardice her sex adorn,<br /> +Which most exposes ours to scorn;<br /> +She wonders where the charm appears<br /> +In Florimel’s affected fears;<br /> +For Stella never learned the art<br /> +At proper times to scream and start;<br /> +Nor calls up all the house at night,<br /> +And swears she saw a thing in white.<br /> +Doll never flies to cut her lace,<br /> +Or throw cold water in her face,<br /> +Because she heard a sudden drum,<br /> +Or found an earwig in a plum.</p> +<p>Her hearers are amazed from whence<br /> +Proceeds that fund of wit and sense;<br /> +Which, though her modesty would shroud,<br /> +Breaks like the sun behind a cloud,<br /> +While gracefulness its art conceals,<br /> +And yet through every motion steals.</p> +<p>Say, Stella, was Prometheus blind,<br /> +And forming you, mistook your kind?<br /> +No; ’twas for you alone he stole<br /> +The fire that forms a manly soul;<br /> +Then, to complete it every way,<br /> +He moulded it with female clay,<br /> +To that you owe the nobler flame,<br /> +To this, the beauty of your frame.</p> +<p>How would ingratitude delight?<br /> +And how would censure glut her spite?<br /> +If I should Stella’s kindness hide<br /> +In silence, or forget with pride,<br /> +When on my sickly couch I lay,<br /> +Impatient both of night and day,<br /> +Lamenting in unmanly strains,<br /> +Called every power to ease my pains,<br /> +Then Stella ran to my relief<br /> +With cheerful face and inward grief;<br /> +And though by Heaven’s severe decree<br /> +She suffers hourly more than me,<br /> +No cruel master could require,<br /> +From slaves employed for daily hire,<br /> +What Stella by her friendship warmed,<br /> +With vigour and delight performed.<br /> +My sinking spirits now supplies<br /> +With cordials in her hands and eyes,<br /> +Now with a soft and silent tread,<br /> +Unheard she moves about my bed.<br /> +I see her taste each nauseous draught,<br /> +And so obligingly am caught:<br /> +I bless the hand from whence they came,<br /> +Nor dare distort my face for shame.</p> +<p>Best pattern of true friends beware,<br /> +You pay too dearly for your care;<br /> +If while your tenderness secures<br /> +My life, it must endanger yours.<br /> +For such a fool was never found,<br /> +Who pulled a palace to the ground,<br /> +Only to have the ruins made<br /> +Materials for a house decayed.</p> +<p><i>While Dr. Swift was at Sir William Temple’s</i>, +<i>after he left the University of Dublin</i>, <i>he contracted a +friendship with two of Sir William’s relations</i>, <i>Mrs. +Johnson and Mrs. Dingley</i>, <i>which continued to their +deaths</i>. <i>The former of these was the amiable +Stella</i>, <i>so much celebrated in his works</i>. <i>In +the year 1727</i>, <i>being in England</i>, <i>he received the +melancholy news of her last sickness</i>, <i>Mrs. Dingley having +been dead before</i>. <i>He hastened into Ireland</i>, +<i>where he visited her</i>, <i>not only as a friend</i>, <i>but +a clergyman</i>. <i>No set form of prayer could express the +sense of his heart on that occasion</i>. <i>He drew up the +following</i>, <i>here printed from his own +handwriting</i>. <i>She died Jan. 28</i>, <i>1727</i>.</p> +<h2>THE FIRST HE WROTE OCT. 17, 1727.</h2> +<p>Most merciful Father, accept our humblest prayers in behalf of +this Thy languishing servant; forgive the sins, the frailties, +and infirmities of her life past. Accept the good deeds she +hath done in such a manner that, at whatever time Thou shalt +please to call her, she may be received into everlasting +habitations. Give her grace to continue sincerely thankful +to Thee for the many favours Thou hast bestowed upon her, the +ability and inclination and practice to do good, and those +virtues which have procured the esteem and love of her friends, +and a most unspotted name in the world. O God, Thou +dispensest Thy blessings and Thy punishments, as it becometh +infinite justice and mercy; and since it was Thy pleasure to +afflict her with a long, constant, weakly state of health, make +her truly sensible that it was for very wise ends, and was +largely made up to her in other blessings, more valuable and less +common. Continue to her, O Lord, that firmness and +constancy of mind wherewith Thou hast most graciously endowed +her, together with that contempt of worldly things and vanities +that she hath shown in the whole conduct of her life. O +All-powerful Being, the least motion of whose Will can create or +destroy a world, pity us, the mournful friends of Thy distressed +servant, who sink under the weight of her present condition, and +the fear of losing the most valuable of our friends; restore her +to us, O Lord, if it be Thy gracious Will, or inspire us with +constancy and resignation to support ourselves under so heavy an +affliction. Restore her, O Lord, for the sake of those +poor, who by losing her will be desolate, and those sick, who +will not only want her bounty, but her care and tending; or else, +in Thy mercy, raise up some other in her place with equal +disposition and better abilities. Lessen, O Lord, we +beseech thee, her bodily pains, or give her a double strength of +mind to support them. And if Thou wilt soon take her to +Thyself, turn our thoughts rather upon that felicity which we +hope she shall enjoy, than upon that unspeakable loss we shall +endure. Let her memory be ever dear unto us, and the +example of her many virtues, as far as human infirmity will +admit, our constant imitation. Accept, O Lord, these +prayers poured from the very bottom of our hearts, in Thy mercy, +and for the merits of our blessed Saviour. <i>Amen</i>.</p> +<h2>THE SECOND PRAYER WAS WRITTEN NOV. 6, 1727.</h2> +<p>O Merciful Father, who never afflictest Thy children but for +their own good, and with justice, over which Thy mercy always +prevaileth, either to turn them to repentance, or to punish them +in the present life, in order to reward them in a better; take +pity, we beseech Thee, upon this Thy poor afflicted servant, +languishing so long and so grievously under the weight of Thy +Hand. Give her strength, O Lord, to support her weakness, +and patience to endure her pains, without repining at Thy +correction. Forgive every rash and inconsiderate expression +which her anguish may at any time force from her tongue, while +her heart continueth in an entire submission to Thy Will. +Suppress in her, O Lord, all eager desires of life, and lesson +her fears of death, by inspiring into her an humble yet assured +hope of Thy mercy. Give her a sincere repentance for all +her transgressions and omissions, and a firm resolution to pass +the remainder of her life in endeavouring to her utmost to +observe all thy precepts. We beseech Thee likewise to +compose her thoughts, and preserve to her the use of her memory +and reason during the course of her sickness. Give her a +true conception of the vanity, folly, and insignificancy of all +human things; and strengthen her so as to beget in her a sincere +love of Thee in the midst of her sufferings. Accept and +impute all her good deeds, and forgive her all those offences +against Thee, which she hath sincerely repented of, or through +the frailty of memory hath forgot. And now, O Lord, we turn +to Thee in behalf of ourselves, and the rest of her sorrowful +friends. Let not our grief afflict her mind, and thereby +have an ill effect on her present distemper. Forgive the +sorrow and weakness of those among us who sink under the grief +and terror of losing so dear and useful a friend. Accept +and pardon our most earnest prayers and wishes for her longer +continuance in this evil world, to do what Thou art pleased to +call Thy service, and is only her bounden duty; that she may be +still a comfort to us, and to all others, who will want the +benefit of her conversation, her advice, her good offices, or her +charity. And since Thou hast promised that where two or +three are gathered together in Thy Name, Thou wilt be in the +midst of them to grant their request, O Gracious Lord, grant to +us who are here met in Thy Name, that those requests, which in +the utmost sincerity and earnestness of our hearts we have now +made in behalf of this Thy distressed servant, and of ourselves, +may effectually be answered; through the merits of Jesus Christ +our Lord. <i>Amen</i>.</p> +<h2>THE BEASTS’ CONFESSION (1732).</h2> +<p>When beasts could speak (the learned say<br /> +They still can do so every day),<br /> +It seems, they had religion then,<br /> +As much as now we find in men.<br /> +It happened when a plague broke out<br /> +(Which therefore made them more devout)<br /> +The king of brutes (to make it plain,<br /> +Of quadrupeds I only mean),<br /> +By proclamation gave command,<br /> +That every subject in the land<br /> +Should to the priest confess their sins;<br /> +And thus the pious wolf begins:</p> +<p>Good father, I must own with shame,<br /> +That, often I have been to blame:<br /> +I must confess, on Friday last,<br /> +Wretch that I was, I broke my fast:<br /> +But I defy the basest tongue<br /> +To prove I did my neighbour wrong;<br /> +Or ever went to seek my food<br /> +By rapine, theft, or thirst of blood.</p> +<p>The ass approaching next, confessed,<br /> +That in his heart he loved a jest:<br /> +A wag he was, he needs must own,<br /> +And could not let a dunce alone:<br /> +Sometimes his friend he would not spare,<br /> +And might perhaps be too severe:<br /> +But yet, the worst that could be said,<br /> +He was a wit both born and bred;<br /> +And, if it be a sin or shame,<br /> +Nature alone must bear the blame:<br /> +One fault he hath, is sorry for’t,<br /> +His ears are half a foot too short;<br /> +Which could he to the standard bring,<br /> +He’d show his face before the king:<br /> +Then, for his voice, there’s none disputes<br /> +That he’s the nightingale of brutes.</p> +<p>The swine with contrite heart allowed,<br /> +His shape and beauty made him proud:<br /> +In diet was perhaps too nice,<br /> +But gluttony was ne’er his vice:<br /> +In every turn of life content,<br /> +And meekly took what fortune sent:<br /> +Enquire through all the parish round,<br /> +A better neighbour ne’er was found:<br /> +His vigilance might seine displease;<br /> +’Tis true, he hated sloth like pease.</p> +<p>The mimic ape began his chatter,<br /> +How evil tongues his life bespatter:<br /> +Much of the cens’ring world complained,<br /> +Who said his gravity was feigned:<br /> +Indeed, the strictness of his morals<br /> +Engaged him in a hundred quarrels:<br /> +He saw, and he was grieved to see’t,<br /> +His zeal was sometimes indiscreet:<br /> +He found his virtues too severe<br /> +For our corrupted times to bear:<br /> +Yet, such a lewd licentious age<br /> +Might well excuse a stoic’s rage.</p> +<p>The goat advanced with decent pace:<br /> +And first excused his youthful face;<br /> +Forgiveness begged, that he appeared<br /> +(’Twas nature’s fault) without a beard.<br /> +’Tis true, he was not much inclined<br /> +To fondness for the female kind;<br /> +Not, as his enemies object,<br /> +From chance or natural defect;<br /> +Not by his frigid constitution,<br /> +But through a pious resolution;<br /> +For he had made a holy vow<br /> +Of chastity, as monks do now;<br /> +Which he resolved to keep for ever hence,<br /> +As strictly, too, as doth his reverence. <a +name="citation5"></a><a href="#footnote5" +class="citation">[5]</a></p> +<p>Apply the tale, and you shall find<br /> +How just it suits with human kind.<br /> +Some faults we own: but, can you guess?<br /> +Why?—virtue’s carried to excess;<br /> +Wherewith our vanity endows us,<br /> +Though neither foe nor friend allows us.</p> +<p>The lawyer swears, you may rely on’t,<br /> +He never squeezed a needy client:<br /> +And this he makes his constant rule,<br /> +For which his brethren call him fool;<br /> +His conscience always was so nice,<br /> +He freely gave the poor advice;<br /> +By which he lost, he may affirm,<br /> +A hundred fees last Easter term.<br /> +While others of the learned robe<br /> +Would break the patience of a Job;<br /> +No pleader at the bar could match<br /> +His diligence and quick despatch;<br /> +Ne’er kept a cause, he well may boast,<br /> +Above a term or two at most.</p> +<p>The cringing knave, who seeks a place<br /> +Without success, thus tells his case:<br /> +Why should he longer mince the matter?<br /> +He failed because he could not flatter:<br /> +He had not learned to turn his coat,<br /> +Nor for a party give his vote.<br /> +His crime he quickly understood;<br /> +Too zealous for the nation’s good:<br /> +He found the ministers resent it,<br /> +Yet could not for his heart repent it.</p> +<p>The chaplain vows he cannot fawn,<br /> +Though it would raise him to the lawn:<br /> +He passed his hours among his books;<br /> +You find it in his meagre looks:<br /> +He might, if he were worldly-wise,<br /> +Preferment get, and spare his eyes:<br /> +But owned he had a stubborn spirit,<br /> +That made him trust alone in merit:<br /> +Would rise by merit to promotion;<br /> +Alas! a mere chimeric notion.</p> +<p>The doctor, if you will believe him,<br /> +Confessed a sin, and God forgive him:<br /> +Called up at midnight, ran to save<br /> +A blind old beggar from the grave:<br /> +But, see how Satan spreads his snares;<br /> +He quite forgot to say his prayers.<br /> +He cannot help it, for his heart,<br /> +Sometimes to act the parson’s part,<br /> +Quotes from the Bible many a sentence<br /> +That moves his patients to repentance:<br /> +And, when his medicines do no good,<br /> +Supports their minds with heavenly food.<br /> +At which, however well intended,<br /> +He hears the clergy are offended;<br /> +And grown so bold behind his back,<br /> +To call him hypocrite and quack.<br /> +In his own church he keeps a seat;<br /> +Says grace before and after meat;<br /> +And calls, without affecting airs,<br /> +His household twice a day to prayers.<br /> +He shuns apothecaries’ shops;<br /> +And hates to cram the sick with slops:<br /> +He scorns to make his art a trade,<br /> +Nor bribes my lady’s favourite maid.<br /> +Old nurse-keepers would never hire<br /> +To recommend him to the Squire;<br /> +Which others, whom he will not name,<br /> +Have often practised to their shame.</p> +<p>The statesman tells you with a sneer,<br /> +His fault is to be too sincere;<br /> +And, having no sinister ends,<br /> +Is apt to disoblige his friends.<br /> +The nation’s good, his Master’s glory,<br /> +Without regard to Whig or Tory,<br /> +Were all the schemes he had in view;<br /> +Yet he was seconded by few:<br /> +Though some had spread a thousand lies,<br /> +’Twas he defeated the Excise.<br /> +’Twas known, though he had borne aspersion,<br /> +That standing troops were his aversion:<br /> +His practice was, in every station,<br /> +To serve the king, and please the nation.<br /> +Though hard to find in every case<br /> +The fittest man to fill a place:<br /> +His promises he ne’er forgot,<br /> +But took memorials on the spot:<br /> +His enemies, for want of charity,<br /> +Said he affected popularity:<br /> +’Tis true, the people understood,<br /> +That all he did was for their good;<br /> +Their kind affections he has tried;<br /> +No love is lost on either side.<br /> +He came to court with fortune clear,<br /> +Which now he runs out every year;<br /> +Must, at the rate that he goes on,<br /> +Inevitably be undone.<br /> +Oh! if his Majesty would please<br /> +To give him but a writ of ease,<br /> +Would grant him license to retire,<br /> +As it hath long been his desire,<br /> +By fair accounts it would be found,<br /> +He’s poorer by ten thousand pound.<br /> +He owns, and hopes it is no sin,<br /> +He ne’er was partial to his kin;<br /> +He thought it base for men in stations<br /> +To crowd the court with their relations:<br /> +His country was his dearest mother,<br /> +And every virtuous man his brother:<br /> +Through modesty or awkward shame<br /> +(For which he owns himself to blame),<br /> +He found the wisest men he could,<br /> +Without respect to friends or blood;<br /> +Nor never acts on private views,<br /> +When he hath liberty to choose.</p> +<p>The sharper swore he hated play,<br /> +Except to pass an hour away:<br /> +And well he might; for to his cost,<br /> +By want of skill, he always lost.<br /> +He heard there was a club of cheats,<br /> +Who had contrived a thousand feats;<br /> +Could change the stock, or cog a dye,<br /> +And thus deceive the sharpest eye:<br /> +No wonder how his fortune sunk,<br /> +His brothers fleece him when he’s drunk.</p> +<p>I own the moral not exact;<br /> +Besides, the tale is false in fact;<br /> +And so absurd, that, could I raise up<br /> +From fields Elysian, fabling Æsop;<br /> +I would accuse him to his face,<br /> +For libelling the four-foot race.<br /> +Creatures of every kind but ours<br /> +Well comprehend their natural powers;<br /> +While we, whom reason ought to sway,<br /> +Mistake our talents every day:<br /> +The ass was never known so stupid<br /> +To act the part of Tray or Cupid;<br /> +Nor leaps upon his master’s lap,<br /> +There to be stroked, and fed with pap:<br /> +As Æsop would the world persuade;<br /> +He better understands his trade:<br /> +Nor comes whene’er his lady whistles,<br /> +But carries loads, and feeds on thistles;<br /> +Our author’s meaning, I presume, is<br /> +A creature <i>bipes et implumis</i>;<br /> +Wherein the moralist designed<br /> +A compliment on human-kind:<br /> +For, here he owns, that now and then<br /> +Beasts may degenerate into men.</p> +<h2>AN ARGUMENT TO PROVE THAT THE ABOLISHING OF CHRISTIANITY IN +ENGLAND MAY, AS THINGS NOW STAND, BE ATTENDED WITH SOME +INCONVENIENCES, AND PERHAPS NOT PRODUCE THOSE MANY GOOD EFFECTS +PROPOSED THEREBY.</h2> +<p><i>Written in the year 1708</i>.</p> +<p>I am very sensible what a weakness and presumption it is to +reason against the general humour and disposition of the +world. I remember it was with great justice, and a due +regard to the freedom, both of the public and the press, +forbidden upon several penalties to write, or discourse, or lay +wagers against the --- even before it was confirmed by +Parliament; because that was looked upon as a design to oppose +the current of the people, which, besides the folly of it, is a +manifest breach of the fundamental law, that makes this majority +of opinions the voice of God. In like manner, and for the +very same reasons, it may perhaps be neither safe nor prudent to +argue against the abolishing of Christianity, at a juncture when +all parties seem so unanimously determined upon the point, as we +cannot but allow from their actions, their discourses, and their +writings. However, I know not how, whether from the +affectation of singularity, or the perverseness of human nature, +but so it unhappily falls out, that I cannot be entirely of this +opinion. Nay, though I were sure an order were issued for +my immediate prosecution by the Attorney-General, I should still +confess, that in the present posture of our affairs at home or +abroad, I do not yet see the absolute necessity of extirpating +the Christian religion from among us.</p> +<p>This perhaps may appear too great a paradox even for our wise +and paxodoxical age to endure; therefore I shall handle it with +all tenderness, and with the utmost deference to that great and +profound majority which is of another sentiment.</p> +<p>And yet the curious may please to observe, how much the genius +of a nation is liable to alter in half an age. I have heard +it affirmed for certain by some very odd people, that the +contrary opinion was even in their memories as much in vogue as +the other is now; and that a project for the abolishing of +Christianity would then have appeared as singular, and been +thought as absurd, as it would be at this time to write or +discourse in its defence.</p> +<p>Therefore I freely own, that all appearances are against +me. The system of the Gospel, after the fate of other +systems, is generally antiquated and exploded, and the mass or +body of the common people, among whom it seems to have had its +latest credit, are now grown as much ashamed of it as their +betters; opinions, like fashions, always descending from those of +quality to the middle sort, and thence to the vulgar, where at +length they are dropped and vanish.</p> +<p>But here I would not be mistaken, and must therefore be so +bold as to borrow a distinction from the writers on the other +side, when they make a difference betwixt nominal and real +Trinitarians. I hope no reader imagines me so weak to stand +up in the defence of real Christianity, such as used in primitive +times (if we may believe the authors of those ages) to have an +influence upon men’s belief and actions. To offer at +the restoring of that, would indeed be a wild project: it would +be to dig up foundations; to destroy at one blow all the wit, and +half the learning of the kingdom; to break the entire frame and +constitution of things; to ruin trade, extinguish arts and +sciences, with the professors of them; in short, to turn our +courts, exchanges, and shops into deserts; and would be full as +absurd as the proposal of Horace, where he advises the Romans, +all in a body, to leave their city, and seek a new seat in some +remote part of the world, by way of a cure for the corruption of +their manners.</p> +<p>Therefore I think this caution was in itself altogether +unnecessary (which I have inserted only to prevent all +possibility of cavilling), since every candid reader will easily +understand my discourse to be intended only in defence of nominal +Christianity, the other having been for some time wholly laid +aside by general consent, as utterly inconsistent with all our +present schemes of wealth and power.</p> +<p>But why we should therefore cut off the name and title of +Christians, although the general opinion and resolution be so +violent for it, I confess I cannot (with submission) apprehend +the consequence necessary. However, since the undertakers +propose such wonderful advantages to the nation by this project, +and advance many plausible objections against the system of +Christianity, I shall briefly consider the strength of both, +fairly allow them their greatest weight, and offer such answers +as I think most reasonable. After which I will beg leave to +show what inconveniences may possibly happen by such an +innovation, in the present posture of our affairs.</p> +<p>First, one great advantage proposed by the abolishing of +Christianity is, that it would very much enlarge and establish +liberty of conscience, that great bulwark of our nation, and of +the Protestant religion, which is still too much limited by +priestcraft, notwithstanding all the good intentions of the +legislature, as we have lately found by a severe instance. +For it is confidently reported, that two young gentlemen of real +hopes, bright wit, and profound judgment, who, upon a thorough +examination of causes and effects, and by the mere force of +natural abilities, without the least tincture of learning, having +made a discovery that there was no God, and generously +communicating their thoughts for the good of the public, were +some time ago, by an unparalleled severity, and upon I know not +what obsolete law, broke for blasphemy. And as it has been +wisely observed, if persecution once begins, no man alive knows +how far it may reach, or where it will end.</p> +<p>In answer to all which, with deference to wiser judgments, I +think this rather shows the necessity of a nominal religion among +us. Great wits love to be free with the highest objects; +and if they cannot be allowed a god to revile or renounce, they +will speak evil of dignities, abuse the government, and reflect +upon the ministry, which I am sure few will deny to be of much +more pernicious consequence, according to the saying of Tiberius, +<i>deorum offensa diis curœ</i>. As to the particular +fact related, I think it is not fair to argue from one instance, +perhaps another cannot be produced: yet (to the comfort of all +those who may be apprehensive of persecution) blasphemy we know +is freely spoke a million of times in every coffee-house and +tavern, or wherever else good company meet. It must be +allowed, indeed, that to break an English free-born officer only +for blasphemy was, to speak the gentlest of such an action, a +very high strain of absolute power. Little can be said in +excuse for the general; perhaps he was afraid it might give +offence to the allies, among whom, for aught we know, it may be +the custom of the country to believe a God. But if he +argued, as some have done, upon a mistaken principle, that an +officer who is guilty of speaking blasphemy may, some time or +other, proceed so far as to raise a mutiny, the consequence is by +no means to be admitted: for surely the commander of an English +army is like to be but ill obeyed whose soldiers fear and +reverence him as little as they do a Deity.</p> +<p>It is further objected against the Gospel system that it +obliges men to the belief of things too difficult for +Freethinkers, and such who have shook off the prejudices that +usually cling to a confined education. To which I answer, +that men should be cautious how they raise objections which +reflect upon the wisdom of the nation. Is not everybody +freely allowed to believe whatever he pleases, and to publish his +belief to the world whenever he thinks fit, especially if it +serves to strengthen the party which is in the right? Would +any indifferent foreigner, who should read the trumpery lately +written by Asgil, Tindal, Toland, Coward, and forty more, imagine +the Gospel to be our rule of faith, and to be confirmed by +Parliaments? Does any man either believe, or say he +believes, or desire to have it thought that he says he believes, +one syllable of the matter? And is any man worse received +upon that score, or does he find his want of nominal faith a +disadvantage to him in the pursuit of any civil or military +employment? What if there be an old dormant statute or two +against him, are they not now obsolete, to a degree, that Empson +and Dudley themselves, if they were now alive, would find it +impossible to put them in execution?</p> +<p>It is likewise urged, that there are, by computation, in this +kingdom, above ten thousand parsons, whose revenues, added to +those of my lords the bishops, would suffice to maintain at least +two hundred young gentlemen of wit and pleasure, and +free-thinking, enemies to priestcraft, narrow principles, +pedantry, and prejudices, who might be an ornament to the court +and town: and then again, so a great number of able [bodied] +divines might be a recruit to our fleet and armies. This +indeed appears to be a consideration of some weight; but then, on +the other side, several things deserve to be considered likewise: +as, first, whether it may not be thought necessary that in +certain tracts of country, like what we call parishes, there +should be one man at least of abilities to read and write. +Then it seems a wrong computation that the revenues of the Church +throughout this island would be large enough to maintain two +hundred young gentlemen, or even half that number, after the +present refined way of living, that is, to allow each of them +such a rent as, in the modern form of speech, would make them +easy. But still there is in this project a greater mischief +behind; and we ought to beware of the woman’s folly, who +killed the hen that every morning laid her a golden egg. +For, pray what would become of the race of men in the next age, +if we had nothing to trust to beside the scrofulous consumptive +production furnished by our men of wit and pleasure, when, having +squandered away their vigour, health, and estates, they are +forced, by some disagreeable marriage, to piece up their broken +fortunes, and entail rottenness and politeness on their +posterity? Now, here are ten thousand persons reduced, by +the wise regulations of Henry VIII., to the necessity of a low +diet, and moderate exercise, who are the only great restorers of +our breed, without which the nation would in an age or two become +one great hospital.</p> +<p>Another advantage proposed by the abolishing of Christianity +is the clear gain of one day in seven, which is now entirely +lost, and consequently the kingdom one seventh less considerable +in trade, business, and pleasure; besides the loss to the public +of so many stately structures now in the hands of the clergy, +which might be converted into play-houses, exchanges, +market-houses, common dormitories, and other public edifices.</p> +<p>I hope I shall be forgiven a hard word if I call this a +perfect cavil. I readily own there hath been an old custom, +time out of mind, for people to assemble in the churches every +Sunday, and that shops are still frequently shut, in order, as it +is conceived, to preserve the memory of that ancient practice; +but how this can prove a hindrance to business or pleasure is +hard to imagine. What if the men of pleasure are forced, +one day in the week, to game at home instead of the +chocolate-house? Are not the taverns and coffee-houses +open? Can there be a more convenient season for taking a +dose of physic? Is not that the chief day for traders to +sum up the accounts of the week, and for lawyers to prepare their +briefs? But I would fain know how it can be pretended that +the churches are misapplied? Where are more appointments +and rendezvouses of gallantry? Where more care to appear in +the foremost box, with greater advantage of dress? Where +more meetings for business? Where more bargains driven of +all sorts? And where so many conveniences or incitements to +sleep?</p> +<p>There is one advantage greater than any of the foregoing, +proposed by the abolishing of Christianity, that it will utterly +extinguish parties among us, by removing those factious +distinctions of high and low church, of Whig and Tory, +Presbyterian and Church of England, which are now so many mutual +clogs upon public proceedings, and are apt to prefer the +gratifying themselves or depressing their adversaries before the +most important interest of the State.</p> +<p>I confess, if it were certain that so great an advantage would +redound to the nation by this expedient, I would submit, and be +silent; but will any man say, that if the words, whoring, +drinking, cheating, lying, stealing, were, by Act of Parliament, +ejected out of the English tongue and dictionaries, we should all +awake next morning chaste and temperate, honest and just, and +lovers of truth? Is this a fair consequence? Or if +the physicians would forbid us to pronounce the words pox, gout, +rheumatism, and stone, would that expedient serve like so many +talismen to destroy the diseases themselves? Are party and +faction rooted in men’s hearts no deeper than phrases +borrowed from religion, or founded upon no firmer +principles? And is our language so poor that we cannot find +other terms to express them? Are envy, pride, avarice, and +ambition such ill nomenclators, that they cannot furnish +appellations for their owners? Will not heydukes and +mamalukes, mandarins and patshaws, or any other words formed at +pleasure, serve to distinguish those who are in the ministry from +others who would be in it if they could? What, for +instance, is easier than to vary the form of speech, and instead +of the word church, make it a question in politics, whether the +monument be in danger? Because religion was nearest at hand +to furnish a few convenient phrases, is our invention so barren +we can find no other? Suppose, for argument sake, that the +Tories favoured Margarita, the Whigs, Mrs. Tofts, and the +Trimmers, Valentini, would not Margaritians, Toftians, and +Valentinians be very tolerable marks of distinction? The +Prasini and Veniti, two most virulent factions in Italy, began, +if I remember right, by a distinction of colours in ribbons, +which we might do with as good a grace about the dignity of the +blue and the green, and serve as properly to divide the Court, +the Parliament, and the kingdom between them, as any terms of art +whatsoever, borrowed from religion. And therefore I think +there is little force in this objection against Christianity, or +prospect of so great an advantage as is proposed in the +abolishing of it.</p> +<p>It is again objected, as a very absurd, ridiculous custom, +that a set of men should be suffered, much less employed and +hired, to bawl one day in seven against the lawfulness of those +methods most in use towards the pursuit of greatness, riches, and +pleasure, which are the constant practice of all men alive on the +other six. But this objection is, I think, a little +unworthy so refined an age as ours. Let us argue this +matter calmly. I appeal to the breast of any polite +Free-thinker, whether, in the pursuit of gratifying a +pre-dominant passion, he hath not always felt a wonderful +incitement, by reflecting it was a thing forbidden; and therefore +we see, in order to cultivate this test, the wisdom of the nation +hath taken special care that the ladies should be furnished with +prohibited silks, and the men with prohibited wine. And +indeed it were to be wished that some other prohibitions were +promoted, in order to improve the pleasures of the town, which, +for want of such expedients, begin already, as I am told, to flag +and grow languid, giving way daily to cruel inroads from the +spleen.</p> +<p>’Tis likewise proposed, as a great advantage to the +public, that if we once discard the system of the Gospel, all +religion will of course be banished for ever, and consequently +along with it those grievous prejudices of education which, under +the names of conscience, honour, justice, and the like, are so +apt to disturb the peace of human minds, and the notions whereof +are so hard to be eradicated by right reason or free-thinking, +sometimes during the whole course of our lives.</p> +<p>Here first I observe how difficult it is to get rid of a +phrase which the world has once grown fond of, though the +occasion that first produced it be entirely taken away. For +some years past, if a man had but an ill-favoured nose, the deep +thinkers of the age would, some way or other contrive to impute +the cause to the prejudice of his education. From this +fountain were said to be derived all our foolish notions of +justice, piety, love of our country; all our opinions of God or a +future state, heaven, hell, and the like; and there might +formerly perhaps have been some pretence for this charge. +But so effectual care hath been since taken to remove those +prejudices, by an entire change in the methods of education, that +(with honour I mention it to our polite innovators) the young +gentlemen, who are now on the scene, seem to have not the least +tincture left of those infusions, or string of those weeds, and +by consequence the reason for abolishing nominal Christianity +upon that pretext is wholly ceased.</p> +<p>For the rest, it may perhaps admit a controversy, whether the +banishing all notions of religion whatsoever would be +inconvenient for the vulgar. Not that I am in the least of +opinion with those who hold religion to have been the invention +of politicians, to keep the lower part of the world in awe by the +fear of invisible powers; unless mankind were then very different +from what it is now; for I look upon the mass or body of our +people here in England to be as Freethinkers, that is to say, as +staunch unbelievers, as any of the highest rank. But I +conceive some scattered notions about a superior power to be of +singular use for the common people, as furnishing excellent +materials to keep children quiet when they grow peevish, and +providing topics of amusement in a tedious winter night.</p> +<p>Lastly, it is proposed, as a singular advantage, that the +abolishing of Christianity will very much contribute to the +uniting of Protestants, by enlarging the terms of communion, so +as to take in all sorts of Dissenters, who are now shut out of +the pale upon account of a few ceremonies, which all sides +confess to be things indifferent. That this alone will +effectually answer the great ends of a scheme for comprehension, +by opening a large noble gate, at which all bodies may enter; +whereas the chaffering with Dissenters, and dodging about this or +t’other ceremony, is but like opening a few wickets, and +leaving them at jar, by which no more than one can get in at a +time, and that not without stooping, and sideling, and squeezing +his body.</p> +<p>To all this I answer, that there is one darling inclination of +mankind which usually affects to be a retainer to religion, +though she be neither its parent, its godmother, nor its +friend. I mean the spirit of opposition, that lived long +before Christianity, and can easily subsist without it. Let +us, for instance, examine wherein the opposition of sectaries +among us consists. We shall find Christianity to have no +share in it at all. Does the Gospel anywhere prescribe a +starched, squeezed countenance, a stiff formal gait, a +singularity of manners and habit, or any affected forms and modes +of speech different from the reasonable part of mankind? +Yet, if Christianity did not lend its name to stand in the gap, +and to employ or divert these humours, they must of necessity be +spent in contraventions to the laws of the land, and disturbance +of the public peace. There is a portion of enthusiasm +assigned to every nation, which, if it hath not proper objects to +work on, will burst out, and set all into a flame. If the +quiet of a State can be bought by only flinging men a few +ceremonies to devour, it is a purchase no wise man would +refuse. Let the mastiffs amuse themselves about a +sheep’s skin stuffed with hay, provided it will keep them +from worrying the flock. The institution of convents abroad +seems in one point a strain of great wisdom, there being few +irregularities in human passions which may not have recourse to +vent themselves in some of those orders, which are so many +retreats for the speculative, the melancholy, the proud, the +silent, the politic, and the morose, to spend themselves, and +evaporate the noxious particles; for each of whom we in this +island are forced to provide a several sect of religion to keep +them quiet; and whenever Christianity shall be abolished, the +Legislature must find some other expedient to employ and +entertain them. For what imports it how large a gate you +open, if there will be always left a number who place a pride and +a merit in not coming in?</p> +<p>Having thus considered the most important objections against +Christianity, and the chief advantages proposed by the abolishing +thereof, I shall now, with equal deference and submission to +wiser judgments, as before, proceed to mention a few +inconveniences that may happen if the Gospel should be repealed, +which, perhaps, the projectors may not have sufficiently +considered.</p> +<p>And first, I am very sensible how much the gentlemen of wit +and pleasure are apt to murmur, and be choked at the sight of so +many daggle-tailed parsons that happen to fall in their way, and +offend their eyes; but at the same time, these wise reformers do +not consider what an advantage and felicity it is for great wits +to be always provided with objects of scorn and contempt, in +order to exercise and improve their talents, and divert their +spleen from falling on each other, or on themselves, especially +when all this may be done without the least imaginable danger to +their persons.</p> +<p>And to urge another argument of a parallel nature: if +Christianity were once abolished, how could the Freethinkers, the +strong reasoners, and the men of profound learning be able to +find another subject so calculated in all points whereon to +display their abilities? What wonderful productions of wit +should we be deprived of from those whose genius, by continual +practice, hath been wholly turned upon raillery and invectives +against religion, and would therefore never be able to shine or +distinguish themselves upon any other subject? We are daily +complaining of the great decline of wit among as, and would we +take away the greatest, perhaps the only topic we have +left? Who would ever have suspected Asgil for a wit, or +Toland for a philosopher, if the inexhaustible stock of +Christianity had not been at hand to provide them with +materials? What other subject through all art or nature +could have produced Tindal for a profound author, or furnished +him with readers? It is the wise choice of the subject that +alone adorns and distinguishes the writer. For had a +hundred such pens as these been employed on the side of religion, +they would have immediately sunk into silence and oblivion.</p> +<p>Nor do I think it wholly groundless, or my fears altogether +imaginary, that the abolishing of Christianity may perhaps bring +the Church in danger, or at least put the Senate to the trouble +of another securing vote. I desire I may not be mistaken; I +am far from presuming to affirm or think that the Church is in +danger at present, or as things now stand; but we know not how +soon it may be so when the Christian religion is repealed. +As plausible as this project seems, there may be a dangerous +design lurk under it. Nothing can be more notorious than +that the Atheists, Deists, Socinians, Anti-Trinitarians, and +other subdivisions of Freethinkers, are persons of little zeal +for the present ecclesiastical establishment: their declared +opinion is for repealing the sacramental test; they are very +indifferent with regard to ceremonies; nor do they hold the +<i>Jus Divinum</i> of episcopacy: therefore they may be intended +as one politic step towards altering the constitution of the +Church established, and setting up Presbytery in the stead, which +I leave to be further considered by those at the helm.</p> +<p>In the last place, I think nothing can be more plain, than +that by this expedient we shall run into the evil we chiefly +pretend to avoid; and that the abolishment of the Christian +religion will be the readiest course we can take to introduce +Popery. And I am the more inclined to this opinion because +we know it has been the constant practice of the Jesuits to send +over emissaries, with instructions to personate themselves +members of the several prevailing sects amongst us. So it +is recorded that they have at sundry times appeared in the guise +of Presbyterians, Anabaptists, Independents, and Quakers, +according as any of these were most in credit; so, since the +fashion hath been taken up of exploding religion, the Popish +missionaries have not been wanting to mix with the Freethinkers; +among whom Toland, the great oracle of the Anti-Christians, is an +Irish priest, the son of an Irish priest; and the most learned +and ingenious author of a book called the “Rights of the +Christian Church,” was in a proper juncture reconciled to +the Romish faith, whose true son, as appears by a hundred +passages in his treatise, he still continues. Perhaps I +could add some others to the number; but the fact is beyond +dispute, and the reasoning they proceed by is right: for +supposing Christianity to be extinguished the people will never +he at ease till they find out some other method of worship, which +will as infallibly produce superstition as this will end in +Popery.</p> +<p>And therefore, if, notwithstanding all I have said, it still +be thought necessary to have a Bill brought in for repealing +Christianity, I would humbly offer an amendment, that instead of +the word Christianity may be put religion in general, which I +conceive will much better answer all the good ends proposed by +the projectors of it. For as long as we leave in being a +God and His Providence, with all the necessary consequences which +curious and inquisitive men will be apt to draw from such +promises, we do not strike at the root of the evil, though we +should ever so effectually annihilate the present scheme of the +Gospel; for of what use is freedom of thought if it will not +produce freedom of action, which is the sole end, how remote +soever in appearance, of all objections against Christianity? and +therefore, the Freethinkers consider it as a sort of edifice, +wherein all the parts have such a mutual dependence on each +other, that if you happen to pull out one single nail, the whole +fabric must fall to the ground. This was happily expressed +by him who had heard of a text brought for proof of the Trinity, +which in an ancient manuscript was differently read; he thereupon +immediately took the hint, and by a sudden deduction of a long +Sorites, most logically concluded: why, if it be as you say, I +may safely drink on, and defy the parson. From which, and +many the like instances easy to be produced, I think nothing can +be more manifest than that the quarrel is not against any +particular points of hard digestion in the Christian system, but +against religion in general, which, by laying restraints on human +nature, is supposed the great enemy to the freedom of thought and +action.</p> +<p>Upon the whole, if it shall still be thought for the benefit +of Church and State that Christianity be abolished, I conceive, +however, it may be more convenient to defer the execution to a +time of peace, and not venture in this conjuncture to disoblige +our allies, who, as it falls out, are all Christians, and many of +them, by the prejudices of their education, so bigoted as to +place a sort of pride in the appellation. If, upon being +rejected by them, we are to trust to an alliance with the Turk, +we shall find ourselves much deceived; for, as he is too remote, +and generally engaged in war with the Persian emperor, so his +people would be more scandalised at our infidelity than our +Christian neighbours. For they are not only strict +observers of religions worship, but what is worse, believe a God; +which is more than is required of us, even while we preserve the +name of Christians.</p> +<p>To conclude, whatever some may think of the great advantages +to trade by this favourite scheme, I do very much apprehend that +in six months’ time after the Act is passed for the +extirpation of the Gospel, the Bank and East India stock may fall +at least one per cent. And since that is fifty times more +than ever the wisdom of our age thought fit to venture for the +preservation of Christianity, there is no reason we should be at +so great a loss merely for the sake of destroying it.</p> +<h2>HINTS TOWARDS AN ESSAY ON CONVERSATION.</h2> +<p>I have observed few obvious subjects to have been so seldom, +or at least so slightly, handled as this; and, indeed, I know few +so difficult to be treated as it ought, nor yet upon which there +seemeth so much to be said.</p> +<p>Most things pursued by men for the happiness of public or +private life our wit or folly have so refined, that they seldom +subsist but in idea; a true friend, a good marriage, a perfect +form of government, with some others, require so many +ingredients, so good in their several kinds, and so much niceness +in mixing them, that for some thousands of years men have +despaired of reducing their schemes to perfection. But in +conversation it is or might be otherwise; for here we are only to +avoid a multitude of errors, which, although a matter of some +difficulty, may be in every man’s power, for want of which +it remaineth as mere an idea as the other. Therefore it +seemeth to me that the truest way to understand conversation is +to know the faults and errors to which it is subject, and from +thence every man to form maxims to himself whereby it may be +regulated, because it requireth few talents to which most men are +not born, or at least may not acquire without any great genius or +study. For nature bath left every man a capacity of being +agreeable, though not of shining in company; and there are a +hundred men sufficiently qualified for both, who, by a very few +faults that they might correct in half an hour, are not so much +as tolerable.</p> +<p>I was prompted to write my thoughts upon this subject by mere +indignation, to reflect that so useful and innocent a pleasure, +so fitted for every period and condition of life, and so much in +all men’s power, should be so much neglected and +abused.</p> +<p>And in this discourse it will be necessary to note those +errors that are obvious, as well as others which are seldomer +observed, since there are few so obvious or acknowledged into +which most men, some time or other, are not apt to run.</p> +<p>For instance, nothing is more generally exploded than the +folly of talking too much; yet I rarely remember to have seen +five people together where some one among them hath not been +predominant in that kind, to the great constraint and disgust of +all the rest. But among such as deal in multitudes of +words, none are comparable to the sober deliberate talker, who +proceedeth with much thought and caution, maketh his preface, +brancheth out into several digressions, findeth a hint that +putteth him in mind of another story, which he promiseth to tell +you when this is done; cometh back regularly to his subject, +cannot readily call to mind some person’s name, holdeth his +head, complaineth of his memory; the whole company all this while +in suspense; at length, says he, it is no matter, and so goes +on. And, to crown the business, it perhaps proveth at last +a story the company hath heard fifty times before; or, at best, +some insipid adventure of the relater.</p> +<p>Another general fault in conversation is that of those who +affect to talk of themselves. Some, without any ceremony, +will run over the history of their lives; will relate the annals +of their diseases, with the several symptoms and circumstances of +them; will enumerate the hardships and injustice they have +suffered in court, in parliament, in love, or in law. +Others are more dexterous, and with great art will lie on the +watch to hook in their own praise. They will call a witness +to remember they always foretold what would happen in such a +case, but none would believe them; they advised such a man from +the beginning, and told him the consequences just as they +happened, but he would have his own way. Others make a +vanity of telling their faults. They are the strangest men +in the world; they cannot dissemble; they own it is a folly; they +have lost abundance of advantages by it; but, if you would give +them the world, they cannot help it; there is something in their +nature that abhors insincerity and constraint; with many other +unsufferable topics of the same altitude.</p> +<p>Of such mighty importance every man is to himself, and ready +to think he is so to others, without once making this easy and +obvious reflection, that his affairs can have no more weight with +other men than theirs have with him; and how little that is he is +sensible enough.</p> +<p>Where company hath met, I often have observed two persons +discover by some accident that they were bred together at the +same school or university, after which the rest are condemned to +silence, and to listen while these two are refreshing each +other’s memory with the arch tricks and passages of +themselves and their comrades.</p> +<p>I know a great officer of the army, who will sit for some time +with a supercilious and impatient silence, full of anger and +contempt for those who are talking; at length of a sudden demand +audience; decide the matter in a short dogmatical way; then +withdraw within himself again, and vouchsafe to talk no more, +until his spirits circulate again to the same point.</p> +<p>There are some faults in conversation which none are so +subject to as the men of wit, nor ever so much as when they are +with each other. If they have opened their mouths without +endeavouring to say a witty thing, they think it is so many words +lost. It is a torment to the hearers, as much as to +themselves, to see them upon the rack for invention, and in +perpetual constraint, with so little success. They must do +something extraordinary, in order to acquit themselves, and +answer their character, else the standers by may be disappointed +and be apt to think them only like the rest of mortals. I +have known two men of wit industriously brought together, in +order to entertain the company, where they have made a very +ridiculous figure, and provided all the mirth at their own +expense.</p> +<p>I know a man of wit, who is never easy but where he can be +allowed to dictate and preside; he neither expecteth to be +informed or entertained, but to display his own talents. +His business is to be good company, and not good conversation, +and therefore he chooseth to frequent those who are content to +listen, and profess themselves his admirers. And, indeed, +the worst conversation I ever remember to have heard in my life +was that at Will’s coffee-house, where the wits, as they +were called, used formerly to assemble; that is to say, five or +six men who had written plays, or at least prologues, or had +share in a miscellany, came thither, and entertained one another +with their trifling composures in so important an air, as if they +had been the noblest efforts of human nature, or that the fate of +kingdoms depended on them; and they were usually attended with a +humble audience of young students from the inns of courts, or the +universities, who, at due distance, listened to these oracles, +and returned home with great contempt for their law and +philosophy, their heads filled with trash under the name of +politeness, criticism, and belles lettres.</p> +<p>By these means the poets, for many years past, were all +overrun with pedantry. For, as I take it, the word is not +properly used; because pedantry is the too front or unseasonable +obtruding our own knowledge in common discourse, and placing too +great a value upon it; by which definition men of the court or +the army may be as guilty of pedantry as a philosopher or a +divine; and it is the same vice in women when they are over +copious upon the subject of their petticoats, or their fans, or +their china. For which reason, although it be a piece of +prudence, as well as good manners, to put men upon talking on +subjects they are best versed in, yet that is a liberty a wise +man could hardly take; because, beside the imputation of +pedantry, it is what he would never improve by.</p> +<p>This great town is usually provided with some player, mimic, +or buffoon, who hath a general reception at the good tables; +familiar and domestic with persons of the first quality, and +usually sent for at every meeting to divert the company, against +which I have no objection. You go there as to a farce or a +puppet-show; your business is only to laugh in season, either out +of inclination or civility, while this merry companion is acting +his part. It is a business he hath undertaken, and we are +to suppose he is paid for his day’s work. I only +quarrel when in select and private meetings, where men of wit and +learning are invited to pass an evening, this jester should be +admitted to run over his circle of tricks, and make the whole +company unfit for any other conversation, besides the indignity +of confounding men’s talents at so shameful a rate.</p> +<p>Raillery is the finest part of conversation; but, as it is our +usual custom to counterfeit and adulterate whatever is too dear +for us, so we have done with this, and turned it all into what is +generally called repartee, or being smart; just as when an +expensive fashion cometh up, those who are not able to reach it +content themselves with some paltry imitation. It now +passeth for raillery to run a man down in discourse, to put him +out of countenance, and make him ridiculous, sometimes to expose +the defects of his person or understanding; on all which +occasions he is obliged not to be angry, to avoid the imputation +of not being able to take a jest. It is admirable to +observe one who is dexterous at this art, singling out a weak +adversary, getting the laugh on his side, and then carrying all +before him. The French, from whom we borrow the word, have +a quite different idea of the thing, and so had we in the politer +age of our fathers. Raillery was, to say something that at +first appeared a reproach or reflection, but, by some turn of wit +unexpected and surprising, ended always in a compliment, and to +the advantage of the person it was addressed to. And surely +one of the best rules in conversation is, never to say a thing +which any of the company can reasonably wish we had rather left +unsaid; nor can there anything be well more contrary to the ends +for which people meet together, than to part unsatisfied with +each other or themselves.</p> +<p>There are two faults in conversation which appear very +different, yet arise from the same root, and are equally +blamable; I mean, an impatience to interrupt others, and the +uneasiness of being interrupted ourselves. The two chief +ends of conversation are, to entertain and improve those we are +among, or to receive those benefits ourselves; which whoever will +consider, cannot easily run into either of those two errors; +because, when any man speaketh in company, it is to be supposed +he doth it for his hearers’ sake, and not his own; so that +common discretion will teach us not to force their attention, if +they are not willing to lend it; nor, on the other side, to +interrupt him who is in possession, because that is in the +grossest manner to give the preference to our own good sense.</p> +<p>There are some people whose good manners will not suffer them +to interrupt you; but, what is almost as bad, will discover +abundance of impatience, and lie upon the watch until you have +done, because they have started something in their own thoughts +which they long to be delivered of. Meantime, they are so +far from regarding what passes, that their imaginations are +wholly turned upon what they have in reserve, for fear it should +slip out of their memory; and thus they confine their invention, +which might otherwise range over a hundred things full as good, +and that might be much more naturally introduced.</p> +<p>There is a sort of rude familiarity, which some people, by +practising among their intimates, have introduced into their +general conversation, and would have it pass for innocent freedom +or humour, which is a dangerous experiment in our northern +climate, where all the little decorum and politeness we have are +purely forced by art, and are so ready to lapse into +barbarity. This, among the Romans, was the raillery of +slaves, of which we have many instances in Plautus. It +seemeth to have been introduced among us by Cromwell, who, by +preferring the scum of the people, made it a court-entertainment, +of which I have heard many particulars; and, considering all +things were turned upside down, it was reasonable and judicious; +although it was a piece of policy found out to ridicule a point +of honour in the other extreme, when the smallest word misplaced +among gentlemen ended in a duel.</p> +<p>There are some men excellent at telling a story, and provided +with a plentiful stock of them, which they can draw out upon +occasion in all companies; and considering how low conversation +runs now among us, it is not altogether a contemptible talent; +however, it is subject to two unavoidable defects: frequent +repetition, and being soon exhausted; so that whoever valueth +this gift in himself hath need of a good memory, and ought +frequently to shift his company, that he may not discover the +weakness of his fund; for those who are thus endowed have seldom +any other revenue, but live upon the main stock.</p> +<p>Great speakers in public are seldom agreeable in private +conversation, whether their faculty be natural, or acquired by +practice and often venturing. Natural elocution, although +it may seem a paradox, usually springeth from a barrenness of +invention and of words, by which men who have only one stock of +notions upon every subject, and one set of phrases to express +them in, they swim upon the superficies, and offer themselves on +every occasion; therefore, men of much learning, and who know the +compass of a language, are generally the worst talkers on a +sudden, until much practice hath inured and emboldened them; +because they are confounded with plenty of matter, variety of +notions, and of words, which they cannot readily choose, but are +perplexed and entangled by too great a choice, which is no +disadvantage in private conversation; where, on the other side, +the talent of haranguing is, of all others, most +insupportable.</p> +<p>Nothing hath spoiled men more for conversation than the +character of being wits; to support which, they never fail of +encouraging a number of followers and admirers, who list +themselves in their service, wherein they find their accounts on +both sides by pleasing their mutual vanity. This hath given +the former such an air of superiority, and made the latter so +pragmatical, that neither of them are well to be endured. I +say nothing here of the itch of dispute and contradiction, +telling of lies, or of those who are troubled with the disease +called the wandering of the thoughts, that they are never present +in mind at what passeth in discourse; for whoever labours under +any of these possessions is as unfit for conversation as madmen +in Bedlam.</p> +<p>I think I have gone over most of the errors in conversation +that have fallen under my notice or memory, except some that are +merely personal, and others too gross to need exploding; such as +lewd or profane talk; but I pretend only to treat the errors of +conversation in general, and not the several subjects of +discourse, which would be infinite. Thus we see how human +nature is most debased, by the abuse of that faculty, which is +held the great distinction between men and brutes; and how little +advantage we make of that which might be the greatest, the most +lasting, and the most innocent, as well as useful pleasure of +life: in default of which, we are forced to take up with those +poor amusements of dress and visiting, or the more pernicious +ones of play, drink, and vicious amours, whereby the nobility and +gentry of both sexes are entirely corrupted both in body and +mind, and have lost all notions of love, honour, friendship, and +generosity; which, under the name of fopperies, have been for +some time laughed out of doors.</p> +<p>This degeneracy of conversation, with the pernicious +consequences thereof upon our humours and dispositions, hath been +owing, among other causes, to the custom arisen, for some time +past, of excluding women from any share in our society, further +than in parties at play, or dancing, or in the pursuit of an +amour. I take the highest period of politeness in England +(and it is of the same date in France) to have been the peaceable +part of King Charles I.’s reign; and from what we read of +those times, as well as from the accounts I have formerly met +with from some who lived in that court, the methods then used for +raising and cultivating conversation were altogether different +from ours; several ladies, whom we find celebrated by the poets +of that age, had assemblies at their houses, where persons of the +best understanding, and of both sexes, met to pass the evenings +in discoursing upon whatever agreeable subjects were occasionally +started; and although we are apt to ridicule the sublime Platonic +notions they had, or personated in love and friendship, I +conceive their refinements were grounded upon reason, and that a +little grain of the romance is no ill ingredient to preserve and +exalt the dignity of human nature, without which it is apt to +degenerate into everything that is sordid, vicious, and +low. If there were no other use in the conversation of +ladies, it is sufficient that it would lay a restraint upon those +odious topics of immodesty and indecencies, into which the +rudeness of our northern genius is so apt to fall. And, +therefore, it is observable in those sprightly gentlemen about +the town, who are so very dexterous at entertaining a vizard mask +in the park or the playhouse, that, in the company of ladies of +virtue and honour, they are silent and disconcerted, and out of +their element.</p> +<p>There are some people who think they sufficiently acquit +themselves and entertain their company with relating of facts of +no consequence, nor at all out of the road of such common +incidents as happen every day; and this I have observed more +frequently among the Scots than any other nation, who are very +careful not to omit the minutest circumstances of time or place; +which kind of discourse, if it were not a little relieved by the +uncouth terms and phrases, as well as accent and gesture peculiar +to that country, would be hardly tolerable. It is not a +fault in company to talk much; but to continue it long is +certainly one; for, if the majority of those who are got together +be naturally silent or cautious, the conversation will flag, +unless it be often renewed by one among them who can start new +subjects, provided he doth not dwell upon them, but leaveth room +for answers and replies.</p> +<h2>THOUGHTS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS.</h2> +<p>We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough +to make us love one another.</p> +<p>Reflect on things past as wars, negotiations, factions, +etc. We enter so little into those interests, that we +wonder how men could possibly be so busy and concerned for things +so transitory; look on the present times, we find the same +humour, yet wonder not at all.</p> +<p>A wise man endeavours, by considering all circumstances, to +make conjectures and form conclusions; but the smallest accident +intervening (and in the course of affairs it is impossible to +foresee all) does often produce such turns and changes, that at +last he is just as much in doubt of events as the most ignorant +and inexperienced person.</p> +<p>Positiveness is a good quality for preachers and orators, +because he that would obtrude his thoughts and reasons upon a +multitude, will convince others the more, as he appears convinced +himself.</p> +<p>How is it possible to expect that mankind will take advice, +when they will not so much as take warning?</p> +<p>I forget whether Advice be among the lost things which Aristo +says are to be found in the moon; that and Time ought to have +been there.</p> +<p>No preacher is listened to but Time, which gives us the same +train and turn of thought that older people have tried in vain to +put into our heads before.</p> +<p>When we desire or solicit anything, our minds run wholly on +the good side or circumstances of it; when it is obtained, our +minds run wholly on the bad ones.</p> +<p>In a glass-house the workmen often fling in a small quantity +of fresh coals, which seems to disturb the fire, but very much +enlivens it. This seems to allude to a gentle stirring of +the passions, that the mind may not languish.</p> +<p>Religion seems to have grown an infant with age, and requires +miracles to nurse it, as it had in its infancy.</p> +<p>All fits of pleasure are balanced by an equal degree of pain +or languor; it is like spending this year part of the next +year’s revenue.</p> +<p>The latter part of a wise man’s life is taken up in +curing the follies, prejudices, and false opinions he had +contracted in the former.</p> +<p>Would a writer know how to behave himself with relation to +posterity, let him consider in old books what he finds that he is +glad to know, and what omissions he most laments.</p> +<p>Whatever the poets pretend, it is plain they give immortality +to none but themselves; it is Homer and Virgil we reverence and +admire, not Achilles or Æneas. With historians it is +quite the contrary; our thoughts are taken up with the actions, +persons, and events we read, and we little regard the +authors.</p> +<p>When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by +this sign; that the dunces are all in confederacy against +him.</p> +<p>Men who possess all the advantages of life, are in a state +where there are many accidents to disorder and discompose, but +few to please them.</p> +<p>It is unwise to punish cowards with ignominy, for if they had +regarded that they would not have been cowards; death is their +proper punishment, because they fear it most.</p> +<p>The greatest inventions were produced in the times of +ignorance, as the use of the compass, gunpowder, and printing, +and by the dullest nation, as the Germans.</p> +<p>One argument to prove that the common relations of ghosts and +spectres are generally false, may be drawn from the opinion held +that spirits are never seen by more than one person at a time; +that is to say, it seldom happens to above one person in a +company to be possessed with any high degree of spleen or +melancholy.</p> +<p>I am apt to think that, in the day of Judgment, there will be +small allowance given to the wise for their want of morals, nor +to the ignorant for their want of faith, because both are without +excuse. This renders the advantages equal of ignorance and +knowledge. But, some scruples in the wise, and some vices +in the ignorant, will perhaps be forgiven upon the strength of +temptation to each.</p> +<p>The value of several circumstances in story lessens very much +by distance of time, though some minute circumstances are very +valuable; and it requires great judgment in a writer to +distinguish.</p> +<p>It is grown a word of course for writers to say, “This +critical age,” as divines say, “This sinful +age.”</p> +<p>It is pleasant to observe how free the present age is in +laying taxes on the next. <i>Future ages shall talk of +this</i>; <i>this shall be famous to all posterity</i>. +Whereas their time and thoughts will be taken up about present +things, as ours are now.</p> +<p>The chameleon, who is said to feed upon nothing but air, hath, +of all animals, the nimblest tongue.</p> +<p>When a man is made a spiritual peer he loses his surname; when +a temporal, his Christian name.</p> +<p>It is in disputes as in armies, where the weaker side sets up +false lights, and makes a great noise, to make the enemy believe +them more numerous and strong than they really are.</p> +<p>Some men, under the notions of weeding out prejudices, +eradicate virtue, honesty, and religion.</p> +<p>In all well-instituted commonwealths, care has been taken to +limit men’s possessions; which is done for many reasons, +and among the rest, for one which perhaps is not often +considered: that when bounds are set to men’s desires, +after they have acquired as much as the laws will permit them, +their private interest is at an end, and they have nothing to do +but to take care of the public.</p> +<p>There are but three ways for a man to revenge himself of the +censure of the world: to despise it, to return the like, or to +endeavour to live so as to avoid it. The first of these is +usually pretended, the last is almost impossible; the universal +practice is for the second.</p> +<p>I never heard a finer piece of satire against lawyers than +that of astrologers, when they pretend by rules of art to tell +when a suit will end, and whether to the advantage of the +plaintiff or defendant; thus making the matter depend entirely +upon the influence of the stars, without the least regard to the +merits of the cause.</p> +<p>The expression in Apocrypha about Tobit and his dog following +him I have often heard ridiculed, yet Homer has the same words of +Telemachus more than once; and Virgil says something like it of +Evander. And I take the book of Tobit to be partly +poetical.</p> +<p>I have known some men possessed of good qualities, which were +very serviceable to others, but useless to themselves; like a +sun-dial on the front of a house, to inform the neighbours and +passengers, but not the owner within.</p> +<p>If a man would register all his opinions upon love, politics, +religion, learning, etc., beginning from his youth and so go on +to old age, what a bundle of inconsistencies and contradictions +would appear at last!</p> +<p>What they do in heaven we are ignorant of; what they do not we +are told expressly: that they neither marry, nor are given in +marriage.</p> +<p>It is a miserable thing to live in suspense; it is the life of +a spider.</p> +<p>The Stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our +desires, is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes.</p> +<p>Physicians ought not to give their judgment of religion, for +the same reason that butchers are not admitted to be jurors upon +life and death.</p> +<p>The reason why so few marriages are happy, is, because young +ladies spend their time in making nets, not in making cages.</p> +<p>If a man will observe as he walks the streets, I believe he +will find the merriest countenances in mourning coaches.</p> +<p>Nothing more unqualifies a man to act with prudence than a +misfortune that is attended with shame and guilt.</p> +<p>The power of fortune is confessed only by the miserable; for +the happy impute all their success to prudence or merit.</p> +<p>Ambition often puts men upon doing the meanest offices; so +climbing is performed in the same posture with creeping.</p> +<p>Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being +eminent.</p> +<p>Although men are accused for not knowing their own weakness, +yet perhaps as few know their own strength. It is, in men +as in soils, where sometimes there is a vein of gold which the +owner knows not of.</p> +<p>Satire is reckoned the easiest of all wit, but I take it to be +otherwise in very bad times: for it is as hard to satirise well a +man of distinguished vices, as to praise well a man of +distinguished virtues. It is easy enough to do either to +people of moderate characters.</p> +<p>Invention is the talent of youth, and judgment of age; so that +our judgment grows harder to please, when we have fewer things to +offer it: this goes through the whole commerce of life. +When we are old, our friends find it difficult to please us, and +are less concerned whether we be pleased or no.</p> +<p>No wise man ever wished to be younger.</p> +<p>An idle reason lessens the weight of the good ones you gave +before.</p> +<p>The motives of the best actions will not bear too strict an +inquiry. It is allowed that the cause of most actions, good +or bad, may he resolved into the love of ourselves; but the +self-love of some men inclines them to please others, and the +self-love of others is wholly employed in pleasing +themselves. This makes the great distinction between virtue +and vice. Religion is the best motive of all actions, yet +religion is allowed to be the highest instance of self-love.</p> +<p>Old men view best at a distance with the eyes of their +understanding as well as with those of nature.</p> +<p>Some people take more care to hide their wisdom than their +folly.</p> +<p>Anthony Henley’s farmer, dying of an asthma, said, +“Well, if I can get this breath once <i>out</i>, I’ll +take care it never got <i>in</i> again.”</p> +<p>The humour of exploding many things under the name of trifles, +fopperies, and only imaginary goods, is a very false proof either +of wisdom or magnanimity, and a great check to virtuous +actions. For instance, with regard to fame, there is in +most people a reluctance and unwillingness to be forgotten. +We observe, even among the vulgar, how fond they are to have an +inscription over their grave. It requires but little +philosophy to discover and observe that there is no intrinsic +value in all this; however, if it be founded in our nature as an +incitement to virtue, it ought not to be ridiculed.</p> +<p>Complaint is the largest tribute heaven receives, and the +sincerest part of our devotion.</p> +<p>The common fluency of speech in many men, and most women, is +owing to a scarcity of matter, and a scarcity of words; for +whoever is a master of language, and hath a mind full of ideas, +will be apt, in speaking, to hesitate upon the choice of both; +whereas common speakers have only one set of ideas, and one set +of words to clothe them in, and these are always ready at the +mouth. So people come faster out of a church when it is +almost empty, than when a crowd is at the door.</p> +<p>Few are qualified to shine in company; but it is in most +men’s power to be agreeable. The reason, therefore, +why conversation runs so low at present, is not the defect of +understanding, but pride, vanity, ill-nature, affectation, +singularity, positiveness, or some other vice, the effect of a +wrong education.</p> +<p>To be vain is rather a mark of humility than pride. Vain +men delight in telling what honours have been done them, what +great company they have kept, and the like, by which they plainly +confess that these honours were more than their due, and such as +their friends would not believe if they had not been told: +whereas a man truly proud thinks the greatest honours below his +merit, and consequently scorns to boast. I therefore +deliver it as a maxim, that whoever desires the character of a +proud man, ought to conceal his vanity.</p> +<p>Law, in a free country, is, or ought to be, the determination +of the majority of those who have property in land.</p> +<p>One argument used to the disadvantage of Providence I take to +be a very strong one in its defence. It is objected that +storms and tempests, unfruitful seasons, serpents, spiders, +flies, and other noxious or troublesome animals, with many more +instances of the like kind, discover an imperfection in nature, +because human life would be much easier without them; but the +design of Providence may clearly be perceived in this +proceeding. The motions of the sun and moon—in short, +the whole system of the universe, as far as philosophers have +been able to discover and observe, are in the utmost degree of +regularity and perfection; but wherever God hath left to man the +power of interposing a remedy by thought or labour, there he hath +placed things in a state of imperfection, on purpose to stir up +human industry, without which life would stagnate, or, indeed, +rather, could not subsist at all: <i>Curis accuunt mortalia +corda</i>.</p> +<p>Praise is the daughter of present power.</p> +<p>How inconsistent is man with himself!</p> +<p>I have known several persons of great fame for wisdom in +public affairs and counsels governed by foolish servants.</p> +<p>I have known great Ministers, distinguished for wit and +learning, who preferred none but dunces.</p> +<p>I have known men of great valour cowards to their wives.</p> +<p>I have known men of the greatest cunning perpetually +cheated.</p> +<p>I knew three great Ministers, who could exactly compute and +settle the accounts of a kingdom, but were wholly ignorant of +their own economy.</p> +<p>The preaching of divines helps to preserve well-inclined men +in the course of virtue, but seldom or never reclaims the +vicious.</p> +<p>Princes usually make wiser choices than the servants whom they +trust for the disposal of places: I have known a prince, more +than once, choose an able Minister, but I never observed that +Minister to use his credit in the disposal of an employment to a +person whom he thought the fittest for it. One of the +greatest in this age owned and excused the matter from the +violence of parties and the unreasonableness of friends.</p> +<p>Small causes are sufficient to make a man uneasy when great +ones are not in the way. For want of a block he will +stumble at a straw.</p> +<p>Dignity, high station, or great riches, are in some sort +necessary to old men, in order to keep the younger at a distance, +who are otherwise too apt to insult them upon the score of their +age.</p> +<p>Every man desires to live long; but no man would be old.</p> +<p>Love of flattery in most men proceeds from the mean opinion +they have of themselves; in women from the contrary.</p> +<p>If books and laws continue to increase as they have done for +fifty years past, I am in some concern for future ages how any +man will be learned, or any man a lawyer.</p> +<p>Kings are commonly said to have <i>long hands</i>; I wish they +had as <i>long ears</i>.</p> +<p>Princes in their infancy, childhood, and youth are said to +discover prodigious parts and wit, to speak things that surprise +and astonish. Strange, so many hopeful princes, and so many +shameful kings! If they happen to die young, they would +have been prodigies of wisdom and virtue. If they live, +they are often prodigies indeed, but of another sort.</p> +<p>Politics, as the word is commonly understood, are nothing but +corruptions, and consequently of no use to a good king or a good +ministry; for which reason Courts are so overrun with +politics.</p> +<p>A nice man is a man of nasty ideas.</p> +<p>Apollo was held the god of physic and sender of +diseases. Both were originally the same trade, and still +continue.</p> +<p>Old men and comets have been reverenced for the same reason: +their long beards, and pretences to foretell events.</p> +<p>A person was asked at court, what he thought of an ambassador +and his train, who were all embroidery and lace, full of bows, +cringes, and gestures; he said, it was Solomon’s +importation, gold and apes.</p> +<p>Most sorts of diversion in men, children, and other animals, +is an imitation of fighting.</p> +<p>Augustus meeting an ass with a lucky name foretold himself +good fortune. I meet many asses, but none of them have +lucky names.</p> +<p>If a man makes me keep my distance, the comfort is he keeps +his at the same time.</p> +<p>Who can deny that all men are violent lovers of truth when we +see them so positive in their errors, which they will maintain +out of their zeal to truth, although they contradict themselves +every day of their lives?</p> +<p>That was excellently observed, say I, when I read a passage in +an author, where his opinion agrees with mine. When we +differ, there I pronounce him to be mistaken.</p> +<p>Very few men, properly speaking, live at present, but are +providing to live another time.</p> +<p>Laws penned with the utmost care and exactness, and in the +vulgar language, are often perverted to wrong meanings; then why +should we wonder that the Bible is so?</p> +<p>Although men are accused for not knowing their weakness, yet +perhaps as few know their own strength.</p> +<p>A man seeing a wasp creeping into a vial filled with honey, +that was hung on a fruit tree, said thus: “Why, thou +sottish animal, art thou mad to go into that vial, where you see +many hundred of your kind there dying in it before +you?” “The reproach is just,” answered +the wasp, “but not from you men, who are so far from taking +example by other people’s follies, that you will not take +warning by your own. If after falling several times into +this vial, and escaping by chance, I should fall in again, I +should then but resemble you.”</p> +<p>An old miser kept a tame jackdaw, that used to steal pieces of +money, and hide them in a hole, which the cat observing, asked +why he would hoard up those round shining things that he could +make no use of? “Why,” said the jackdaw, +“my master has a whole chest full, and makes no more use of +them than I.”</p> +<p>Men are content to be laughed at for their wit, but not for +their folly.</p> +<p>If the men of wit and genius would resolve never to complain +in their works of critics and detractors, the next age would not +know that they ever had any.</p> +<p>After all the maxims and systems of trade and commerce, a +stander-by would think the affairs of the world were most +ridiculously contrived.</p> +<p>There are few countries which, if well cultivated, would not +support double the number of their inhabitants, and yet fewer +where one-third of the people are not extremely stinted even in +the necessaries of life. I send out twenty barrels of corn, +which would maintain a family in bread for a year, and I bring +back in return a vessel of wine, which half a dozen good follows +would drink in less than a month, at the expense of their health +and reason.</p> +<p>A man would have but few spectators, if he offered to show for +threepence how he could thrust a red-hot iron into a barrel of +gunpowder, and it should not take fire.</p> +<h2>FOOTNOTES:</h2> +<p><a name="footnote1"></a><a href="#citation1" +class="footnote">[1]</a> Two puppet-show men.</p> +<p><a name="footnote2"></a><a href="#citation2" +class="footnote">[2]</a> The house-keeper.</p> +<p><a name="footnote3"></a><a href="#citation3" +class="footnote">[3]</a> The butler.</p> +<p><a name="footnote4"></a><a href="#citation4" +class="footnote">[4]</a> The footman.</p> +<p><a name="footnote5"></a><a href="#citation5" +class="footnote">[5]</a> The priest his confessor.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 623-h.htm or 623-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/6/2/623 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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