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@@ -0,0 +1,5201 @@ +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*** + + + + + +Transcribed from the 1886 Cassell & Company edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + + +THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS +AND OTHER SHORT PIECES. + + +BY +JONATHAN SWIFT. + +CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED: +_LONDON_, _PARIS_, _NEW YORK & MELBOURNE_. +1886. + + + + +INTRODUCTION. + + +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. + +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. + +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 +pounds 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +H. M. + + + + +THE BOOKSELLER TO THE READER. + + +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 AEsop 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. + +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. + + + + +THE PREFACE OF THE AUTHOR. + + +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. + +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. + + + + +A FULL AND TRUE ACCOUNT OF THE BATTLE FOUGHT LAST FRIDAY BETWEEN THE +ANCIENT AND THE MODERN BOOKS IN SAINT JAMES'S LIBRARY. + + +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. + +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. + +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 _brutum +hominis_, 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +It happened upon this emergency that AEsop 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 _pro_ and +_con_. 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." + +It is wonderful to conceive the tumult arisen among the books upon the +close of this long descant of AEsop: 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 Rhaetia. 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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 . . . _Hic pauca_ +_. . . . desunt_ +They bore the wounded aga on their shields to his +chariot . . . +_Desunt_ . . . +_nonnulla_. . . . + +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 _Ingens hiatus_ . . . . +_hic in MS._ . . . . +. . . . 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. + +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. . . +_Alter hiatus_ +. . . . _in MS._ +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 +AEsculapius 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. . . . +_Pauca desunt_. . . . +. . . . +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. + +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. . . . +. . . . _Hiatus valde de-_ +. . . . _flendus in MS_. + + + + +THE EPISODE OF BENTLEY AND WOTTON. + + +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." + +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 AEsop, 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 AEsop 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. + +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. + +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. + +And now. . . . + +_Desunt coetera_. + + + + +A MEDITATION UPON A BROOMSTICK. + + +_According to the Style and Manner of the Hon. Robert Boyle's +Meditations_. + +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! + +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. + + + + +PREDICTIONS FOR THE YEAR 1708. + + +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. + +_Written to prevent the people of England from being farther imposed on +by vulgar Almanack-makers_. + +BY ISAAC BICKERSTAFF, ESQ. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +The month of _April_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +_May_, 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. + +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. + +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. + +On the 15th news will arrive of a very surprising event, than which +nothing could be more unexpected. + +On the 19th three noble ladies of this kingdom will, against all +expectation, prove with child, to the great joy of their husbands. + +On the 23rd a famous buffoon of the playhouse will die a ridiculous +death, suitable to his vocation. + +_June_. 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. + +On the 1st of this month a French general will be killed by a random shot +of a cannon-ball. + +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. + +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. + +On the 14th there will be a false report of the French king's death. + +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. + +_July_. The 6th of this month a certain general will, by a glorious +action, recover the reputation he lost by former misfortunes. + +On the 12th a great commander will die a prisoner in the hands of his +enemies. + +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. + +In short, this will prove a month of great action, if I might have +liberty to relate the particulars. + +At home, the death of an old famous senator will happen on the 15th at +his country house, worn with age and diseases. + +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. + +In this month likewise an ambassador will die in London, but I cannot +assign the day. + +_August_. 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. + +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. + +A young admiral of noble birth does likewise this month gain immortal +honour by a great achievement. + +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. + +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. + +_September_. This month begins with a very surprising fit of frosty +weather, which will last near twelve days. + +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. + +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. + +I shall add but one prediction more, and that in mystical terms, which +shall be included in a verse out of Virgil-- + + _Alter erit jam Tethys_, _et altera quae vehat Argo_ + _Delectos Heroas_. + +Upon the 25th day of this month, the fulfilling of this prediction will +be manifest to everybody. + +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. + +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. + + + + +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. + + +_In a Letter to a Person of Honour_; _Written in the Year_ 1708. + +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." + +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. + + + + +BAUCIS AND PHILEMON. + + +_Imitated from the Eighth Book of Ovid_. + +In ancient times, as story tells, +The saints would often leave their cells, +And stroll about, but hide their quality, +To try good people's hospitality. + +It happened on a winter night, +As authors of the legend write, +Two brother hermits, saints by trade, +Taking their tour in masquerade, +Disguised in tattered habits, went +To a small village down in Kent; +Where, in the strollers' canting strain, +They begged from door to door in vain; +Tried every tone might pity win, +But not a soul would let them in. + +Our wandering saints in woeful state, +Treated at this ungodly rate, +Having through all the village passed, +To a small cottage came at last, +Where dwelt a good honest old yeoman, +Called, in the neighbourhood, Philemon, +Who kindly did these saints invite +In his poor hut to pass the night; +And then the hospitable Sire +Bid goody Baucis mend the fire; +While he from out the chimney took +A flitch of bacon off the hook, +And freely from the fattest side +Cut out large slices to be fried; +Then stepped aside to fetch 'em drink, +Filled a large jug up to the brink, +And saw it fairly twice go round; +Yet (what is wonderful) they found +'Twas still replenished to the top, +As if they ne'er had touched a drop +The good old couple were amazed, +And often on each other gazed; +For both were frightened to the heart, +And just began to cry,--What art! +Then softly turned aside to view, +Whether the lights were burning blue. +The gentle pilgrims soon aware on't, +Told 'em their calling, and their errant; +"Good folks, you need not be afraid, +We are but saints," the hermits said; +"No hurt shall come to you or yours; +But, for that pack of churlish boors, +Not fit to live on Christian ground, +They and their houses shall be drowned; +Whilst you shall see your cottage rise, +And grow a church before your eyes." + +They scarce had spoke; when fair and soft, +The roof began to mount aloft; +Aloft rose every beam and rafter, +The heavy wall climbed slowly after. + +The chimney widened, and grew higher, +Became a steeple with a spire. + +The kettle to the top was hoist, +And there stood fastened to a joist; +But with the upside down, to show +Its inclination for below. +In vain; for a superior force +Applied at bottom, stops its coarse, +Doomed ever in suspense to dwell, +'Tis now no kettle, but a bell. + +A wooden jack, which had almost +Lost, by disuse, the art to roast, +A sudden alteration feels, +Increased by new intestine wheels; +And what exalts the wonder more, +The number made the motion slower. +The flyer, though 't had leaden feet, +Turned round so quick, you scarce could see 't; +But slackened by some secret power, +Now hardly moves an inch an hour. +The jack and chimney near allied, +Had never left each other's side; +The chimney to a steeple grown, +The jack would not be left alone; +But up against the steeple reared, +Became a clock, and still adhered; +And still its love to household cares +By a shrill voice at noon declares, +Warning the cook-maid not to burn +That roast meat which it cannot turn. + +The groaning chair began to crawl, +Like a huge snail along the wall; +There stuck aloft in public view; +And with small change a pulpit grew. + +The porringers, that in a row +Hung high, and made a glittering show, +To a less noble substance changed, +Were now but leathern buckets ranged. + +The ballads pasted on the wall, +Of Joan of France, and English Moll, +Fair Rosamond, and Robin Hood, +The Little Children in the Wood, +Now seemed to look abundance better, +Improved in picture, size, and letter; +And high in order placed, describe +The heraldry of every tribe. + +A bedstead of the antique mode, +Compact of timber, many a load, +Such as our ancestors did use, +Was metamorphosed into pews: +Which still their ancient nature keep, +By lodging folks disposed to sleep. + +The cottage, by such feats as these, +Grown to a church by just degrees, +The hermits then desired their host +To ask for what he fancied most. +Philemon having paused a while, +Returned 'em thanks in homely style; +Then said, "My house is grown so fine, +Methinks I still would call it mine: +I'm old, and fain would live at ease, +Make me the Parson, if you please." + +He spoke, and presently he feels +His grazier's coat fall down his heels; +He sees, yet hardly can believe, +About each arm a pudding sleeve; +His waistcoat to a cassock grew, +And both assumed a sable hue; +But being old, continued just +As thread-bare, and as full of dust. +His talk was now of tithes and dues; +He smoked his pipe and read the news; +Knew how to preach old sermons next, +Vamped in the preface and the text; +At christenings well could act his part, +And had the service all by heart; +Wished women might have children fast, +And thought whose sow had farrowed last +Against Dissenters would repine, +And stood up firm for Right divine. +Found his head filled with many a system, +But classic authors,--he ne'er missed 'em. + +Thus having furbished up a parson, +Dame Baucis next they played their farce on. +Instead of home-spun coifs were seen +Good pinners edg'd with colberteen; +Her petticoat transformed apace, +Became black satin flounced with lace. +Plain Goody would no longer down, +'Twas Madam, in her grogram gown. +Philemon was in great surprise, +And hardly could believe his eyes, +Amazed to see her look so prim; +And she admired as much at him. + +Thus, happy in their change of life, +Were several years this man and wife; +When on a day, which proved their last, +Discoursing o'er old stories past, +They went by chance amidst their talk, +To the church yard to take a walk; +When Baucis hastily cried out, +"My dear, I see your forehead sprout!" +"Sprout," quoth the man, "what's this you tell us? +I hope you don't believe me jealous, +But yet, methinks, I feel it true; +And really, yours is budding too-- +Nay,--now I cannot stir my foot; +It feels as if 'twere taking root." + +Description would but tire my Muse; +In short, they both were turned to Yews. + +Old Goodman Dobson of the green +Remembers he the trees has seen; +He'll talk of them from noon till night, +And goes with folks to show the sight; +On Sundays, after evening prayer, +He gathers all the parish there, +Points out the place of either Yew: +Here Baucis, there Philemon grew, +Till once a parson of our town, +To mend his barn, cut Baucis down; +At which, 'tis hard to be believed +How much the other tree was grieved, +Grow scrubby, died a-top, was stunted: +So the next parson stubbed and burnt it. + + + + +THE LOGICIANS REFUTED. + + +Logicians have but ill defined +As rational, the human kind; +Reason, they say, belongs to man, +But let them prove it, if they can. +Wise Aristotle and Smiglesius, +By ratiocinations specious, +Have strove to prove with great precision, +With definition and division, +_Homo est ratione praeditum_; +But, for my soul, I cannot credit 'em. +And must, in spite of them, maintain +That man and all his ways are vain; +And that this boasted lord of nature +Is both a weak and erring creature. +That instinct is a surer guide +Than reason-boasting mortals pride; +And, that brute beasts are far before 'em, +_Deus est anima brutorum_. +Whoever knew an honest brute, +At law his neighbour prosecute, +Bring action for assault and battery, +Or friend beguile with lies and flattery? +O'er plains they ramble unconfined, +No politics disturb their mind; +They eat their meals, and take their sport, +Nor know who's in or out at court. +They never to the levee go +To treat as dearest friend a foe; +They never importune his grace, +Nor ever cringe to men in place; +Nor undertake a dirty job, +Nor draw the quill to write for Bob. +Fraught with invective they ne'er go +To folks at Paternoster Row: +No judges, fiddlers, dancing-masters, +No pickpockets, or poetasters +Are known to honest quadrupeds: +No single brute his fellows leads. +Brutes never meet in bloody fray, +Nor cut each others' throats for pay. +Of beasts, it is confessed, the ape +Comes nearest us in human shape; +Like man, he imitates each fashion, +And malice is his ruling passion: +But, both in malice and grimaces, +A courtier any ape surpasses. +Behold him humbly cringing wait +Upon the minister of state; +View him, soon after, to inferiors +Aping the conduct of superiors: +He promises, with equal air, +And to perform takes equal care. +He, in his turn, finds imitators, +At court the porters, lacqueys, waiters +Their masters' manners still contract, +And footmen, lords, and dukes can act. +Thus, at the court, both great and small +Behave alike, for all ape all. + + + + +THE PUPPET SHOW. + + +The life of man to represent, + And turn it all to ridicule, +Wit did a puppet-show invent, + Where the chief actor is a fool. + +The gods of old were logs of wood, + And worship was to puppets paid; +In antic dress the idol stood, + And priests and people bowed the head. + +No wonder then, if art began + The simple votaries to frame, +To shape in timber foolish man, + And consecrate the block to fame. + +From hence poetic fancy learned + That trees might rise from human forms +The body to a trunk be turned, + And branches issue from the arms. + +Thus Daedalus and Ovid too, + That man's a blockhead have confessed, +Powel and Stretch {1} the hint pursue; + Life is the farce, the world a jest. + +The same great truth South Sea hath proved + On that famed theatre, the ally, +Where thousands by directors moved + Are now sad monuments of folly. + +What Momus was of old to Jove + The same harlequin is now; +The former was buffoon above, + The latter is a Punch below. + +This fleeting scene is but a stage, + Where various images appear, +In different parts of youth and age + Alike the prince and peasant share. + +Some draw our eyes by being great, + False pomp conceals mere wood within, +And legislators rang'd in state + Are oft but wisdom in machine. + +A stock may chance to wear a crown, + And timber as a lord take place, +A statue may put on a frown, + And cheat us with a thinking face. + +Others are blindly led away, + And made to act for ends unknown, +By the mere spring of wires they play, + And speak in language not their own. + +Too oft, alas! a scolding wife + Usurps a jolly fellow's throne, +And many drink the cup of life + Mix'd and embittered by a Joan. + +In short, whatever men pursue + Of pleasure, folly, war, or love, +This mimic-race brings all to view, + Alike they dress, they talk, they move. + +Go on, great Stretch, with artful hand, + Mortals to please and to deride, +And when death breaks thy vital band + Thou shalt put on a puppet's pride. + +Thou shalt in puny wood be shown, + Thy image shall preserve thy fame, +Ages to come thy worth shall own, + Point at thy limbs, and tell thy name. + +Tell Tom he draws a farce in vain, + Before he looks in nature's glass; +Puns cannot form a witty scene, + Nor pedantry for humour pass. + +To make men act as senseless wood, + And chatter in a mystic strain, +Is a mere force on flesh and blood, + And shows some error in the brain. + +He that would thus refine on thee, + And turn thy stage into a school, +The jest of Punch will ever be, + And stand confessed the greater fool. + + + + +CADENUS AND VANESSA. + + +_Written Anno 1713_. + +The shepherds and the nymphs were seen +Pleading before the Cyprian Queen. +The counsel for the fair began +Accusing the false creature, man. + +The brief with weighty crimes was charged, +On which the pleader much enlarged: +That Cupid now has lost his art, +Or blunts the point of every dart; +His altar now no longer smokes; +His mother's aid no youth invokes-- +This tempts free-thinkers to refine, +And bring in doubt their powers divine, +Now love is dwindled to intrigue, +And marriage grown a money-league. +Which crimes aforesaid (with her leave) +Were (as he humbly did conceive) +Against our Sovereign Lady's peace, +Against the statutes in that case, +Against her dignity and crown: +Then prayed an answer and sat down. + +The nymphs with scorn beheld their foes: +When the defendant's counsel rose, +And, what no lawyer ever lacked, +With impudence owned all the fact. +But, what the gentlest heart would vex, +Laid all the fault on t'other sex. +That modern love is no such thing +As what those ancient poets sing; +A fire celestial, chaste, refined, +Conceived and kindled in the mind, +Which having found an equal flame, +Unites, and both become the same, +In different breasts together burn, +Together both to ashes turn. +But women now feel no such fire, +And only know the gross desire; +Their passions move in lower spheres, +Where'er caprice or folly steers. +A dog, a parrot, or an ape, +Or some worse brute in human shape +Engross the fancies of the fair, +The few soft moments they can spare +From visits to receive and pay, +From scandal, politics, and play, +From fans, and flounces, and brocades, +From equipage and park-parades, +From all the thousand female toys, +From every trifle that employs +The out or inside of their heads +Between their toilets and their beds. + +In a dull stream, which, moving slow, +You hardly see the current flow, +If a small breeze obstructs the course, +It whirls about for want of force, +And in its narrow circle gathers +Nothing but chaff, and straws, and feathers: +The current of a female mind +Stops thus, and turns with every wind; +Thus whirling round, together draws +Fools, fops, and rakes, for chaff and straws. +Hence we conclude, no women's hearts +Are won by virtue, wit, and parts; +Nor are the men of sense to blame +For breasts incapable of flame: +The fault must on the nymphs be placed, +Grown so corrupted in their taste. + +The pleader having spoke his best, +Had witness ready to attest, +Who fairly could on oath depose, +When questions on the fact arose, +That every article was true; +_Nor further those deponents knew_: +Therefore he humbly would insist, +The bill might be with costs dismissed. + +The cause appeared of so much weight, +That Venus from the judgment-seat +Desired them not to talk so loud, +Else she must interpose a cloud: +For if the heavenly folk should know +These pleadings in the Courts below, +That mortals here disdain to love, +She ne'er could show her face above. +For gods, their betters, are too wise +To value that which men despise. +"And then," said she, "my son and I +Must stroll in air 'twixt earth and sky: +Or else, shut out from heaven and earth, +Fly to the sea, my place of birth; +There live with daggled mermaids pent, +And keep on fish perpetual Lent." + +But since the case appeared so nice, +She thought it best to take advice. +The Muses, by their king's permission, +Though foes to love, attend the session, +And on the right hand took their places +In order; on the left, the Graces: +To whom she might her doubts propose +On all emergencies that rose. +The Muses oft were seen to frown; +The Graces half ashamed look down; +And 'twas observed, there were but few +Of either sex, among the crew, +Whom she or her assessors knew. +The goddess soon began to see +Things were not ripe for a decree, +And said she must consult her books, +The lovers' Fletas, Bractons, Cokes. +First to a dapper clerk she beckoned, +To turn to Ovid, book the second; +She then referred them to a place +In Virgil (_vide_ Dido's case); +As for Tibullus's reports, +They never passed for law in Courts: +For Cowley's brief, and pleas of Waller, +Still their authority is smaller. + +There was on both sides much to say; +She'd hear the cause another day; +And so she did, and then a third, +She heard it--there she kept her word; +But with rejoinders and replies, +Long bills, and answers, stuffed with lies +Demur, imparlance, and essoign, +The parties ne'er could issue join: +For sixteen years the cause was spun, +And then stood where it first begun. + +Now, gentle Clio, sing or say, +What Venus meant by this delay. +The goddess, much perplexed in mind, +To see her empire thus declined, +When first this grand debate arose +Above her wisdom to compose, +Conceived a project in her head, +To work her ends; which, if it sped, +Would show the merits of the cause +Far better than consulting laws. + +In a glad hour Lucina's aid +Produced on earth a wondrous maid, +On whom the queen of love was bent +To try a new experiment. +She threw her law-books on the shelf, +And thus debated with herself:-- + +"Since men allege they ne'er can find +Those beauties in a female mind +Which raise a flame that will endure +For ever, uncorrupt and pure; +If 'tis with reason they complain, +This infant shall restore my reign. +I'll search where every virtue dwells, +From Courts inclusive down to cells. +What preachers talk, or sages write, +These I will gather and unite, +And represent them to mankind +Collected in that infant's mind." + +This said, she plucks in heaven's high bowers +A sprig of Amaranthine flowers, +In nectar thrice infuses bays, +Three times refined in Titan's rays: +Then calls the Graces to her aid, +And sprinkles thrice the now-born maid. +From whence the tender skin assumes +A sweetness above all perfumes; +From whence a cleanliness remains, +Incapable of outward stains; +From whence that decency of mind, +So lovely in a female kind. +Where not one careless thought intrudes +Less modest than the speech of prudes; +Where never blush was called in aid, +The spurious virtue in a maid, +A virtue but at second-hand; +They blush because they understand. + +The Graces next would act their part, +And show but little of their art; +Their work was half already done, +The child with native beauty shone, +The outward form no help required: +Each breathing on her thrice, inspired +That gentle, soft, engaging air +Which in old times adorned the fair, +And said, "Vanessa be the name +By which thou shalt be known to fame; +Vanessa, by the gods enrolled: +Her name on earth--shall not be told." + +But still the work was not complete, +When Venus thought on a deceit: +Drawn by her doves, away she flies, +And finds out Pallas in the skies: +Dear Pallas, I have been this morn +To see a lovely infant born: +A boy in yonder isle below, +So like my own without his bow, +By beauty could your heart be won, +You'd swear it is Apollo's son; +But it shall ne'er be said, a child +So hopeful has by me been spoiled; +I have enough besides to spare, +And give him wholly to your care. + +Wisdom's above suspecting wiles; +The queen of learning gravely smiles, +Down from Olympus comes with joy, +Mistakes Vanessa for a boy; +Then sows within her tender mind +Seeds long unknown to womankind; +For manly bosoms chiefly fit, +The seeds of knowledge, judgment, wit, +Her soul was suddenly endued +With justice, truth, and fortitude; +With honour, which no breath can stain, +Which malice must attack in vain: +With open heart and bounteous hand: +But Pallas here was at a stand; +She know in our degenerate days +Bare virtue could not live on praise, +That meat must be with money bought: +She therefore, upon second thought, +Infused yet as it were by stealth, +Some small regard for state and wealth: +Of which as she grew up there stayed +A tincture in the prudent maid: +She managed her estate with care, +Yet liked three footmen to her chair, +But lest he should neglect his studies +Like a young heir, the thrifty goddess +(For fear young master should be spoiled) +Would use him like a younger child; +And, after long computing, found +'Twould come to just five thousand pound. + +The Queen of Love was pleased and proud +To we Vanessa thus endowed; +She doubted not but such a dame +Through every breast would dart a flame; +That every rich and lordly swain +With pride would drag about her chain; +That scholars would forsake their books +To study bright Vanessa's looks: +As she advanced that womankind +Would by her model form their mind, +And all their conduct would be tried +By her, as an unerring guide. +Offending daughters oft would hear +Vanessa's praise rung in their ear: +Miss Betty, when she does a fault, +Lets fall her knife, or spills the salt, +Will thus be by her mother chid, +"'Tis what Vanessa never did." +Thus by the nymphs and swains adored, +My power shall be again restored, +And happy lovers bless my reign-- +So Venus hoped, but hoped in vain. + +For when in time the martial maid +Found out the trick that Venus played, +She shakes her helm, she knits her brows, +And fired with indignation, vows +To-morrow, ere the setting sun, +She'd all undo that she had done. + +But in the poets we may find +A wholesome law, time out of mind, +Had been confirmed by Fate's decree; +That gods, of whatso'er degree, +Resume not what themselves have given, +Or any brother-god in Heaven; +Which keeps the peace among the gods, +Or they must always be at odds. +And Pallas, if she broke the laws, +Must yield her foe the stronger cause; +A shame to one so much adored +For Wisdom, at Jove's council-board. +Besides, she feared the queen of love +Would meet with better friends above. +And though she must with grief reflect +To see a mortal virgin deck'd +With graces hitherto unknown +To female breasts, except her own, +Yet she would act as best became +A goddess of unspotted fame; +She knew, by augury divine, +Venus would fail in her design: +She studied well the point, and found +Her foe's conclusions were not sound, +From premises erroneous brought, +And therefore the deduction's nought, +And must have contrary effects +To what her treacherous foe expects. + +In proper season Pallas meets +The queen of love, whom thus she greets +(For Gods, we are by Homer told, +Can in celestial language scold), +"Perfidious Goddess! but in vain +You formed this project in your brain, +A project for thy talents fit, +With much deceit, and little wit; +Thou hast, as thou shalt quickly see, +Deceived thyself instead of me; +For how can heavenly wisdom prove +An instrument to earthly love? +Know'st thou not yet that men commence +Thy votaries, for want of sense? +Nor shall Vanessa be the theme +To manage thy abortive scheme; +She'll prove the greatest of thy foes, +And yet I scorn to interpose, +But using neither skill nor force, +Leave all things to their natural course." + +The goddess thus pronounced her doom, +When, lo, Vanessa in her bloom, +Advanced like Atalanta's star, +But rarely seen, and seen from far: +In a new world with caution stepped, +Watched all the company she kept, +Well knowing from the books she read +What dangerous paths young virgins tread; +Would seldom at the park appear, +Nor saw the play-house twice a year; +Yet not incurious, was inclined +To know the converse of mankind. + +First issued from perfumers' shops +A crowd of fashionable fops; +They liked her how she liked the play? +Then told the tattle of the day, +A duel fought last night at two +About a lady--you know who; +Mentioned a new Italian, come +Either from Muscovy or Rome; +Gave hints of who and who's together; +Then fell to talking of the weather: +Last night was so extremely fine, +The ladies walked till after nine. +Then in soft voice, and speech absurd, +With nonsense every second word, +With fustian from exploded plays, +They celebrate her beauty's praise, +Run o'er their cant of stupid lies, +And tell the murders of her eyes. + +With silent scorn Vanessa sat, +Scarce list'ning to their idle chat; +Further than sometimes by a frown, +When they grew pert, to pull them down. +At last she spitefully was bent +To try their wisdom's full extent; +And said, she valued nothing less +Than titles, figure, shape, and dress; +That merit should be chiefly placed +In judgment, knowledge, wit, and taste; +And these, she offered to dispute, +Alone distinguished man from brute: +That present times have no pretence +To virtue, in the noble sense +By Greeks and Romans understood, +To perish for our country's good. +She named the ancient heroes round, +Explained for what they were renowned; +Then spoke with censure, or applause, +Of foreign customs, rites, and laws; +Through nature and through art she ranged, +And gracefully her subject changed: +In vain; her hearers had no share +In all she spoke, except to stare. +Their judgment was upon the whole, +--That lady is the dullest soul-- +Then tipped their forehead in a jeer, +As who should say--she wants it here; +She may be handsome, young, and rich, +But none will burn her for a witch. + +A party next of glittering dames, +From round the purlieus of St. James, +Came early, out of pure goodwill, +To see the girl in deshabille. +Their clamour 'lighting from their chairs, +Grew louder, all the way up stairs; +At entrance loudest, where they found +The room with volumes littered round, +Vanessa held Montaigne, and read, +Whilst Mrs. Susan combed her head: +They called for tea and chocolate, +And fell into their usual chat, +Discoursing with important face, +On ribbons, fans, and gloves, and lace: +Showed patterns just from India brought, +And gravely asked her what she thought, +Whether the red or green were best, +And what they cost? Vanessa guessed, +As came into her fancy first, +Named half the rates, and liked the worst. +To scandal next--What awkward thing +Was that, last Sunday, in the ring? +I'm sorry Mopsa breaks so fast; +I said her face would never last, +Corinna with that youthful air, +Is thirty, and a bit to spare. +Her fondness for a certain earl +Began, when I was but a girl. +Phyllis, who but a month ago +Was married to the Tunbridge beau, +I saw coquetting t'other night +In public with that odious knight. + +They rallied next Vanessa's dress; +That gown was made for old Queen Bess. +Dear madam, let me set your head; +Don't you intend to put on red? +A petticoat without a hoop! +Sure, you are not ashamed to stoop; +With handsome garters at your knees, +No matter what a fellow sees. + +Filled with disdain, with rage inflamed, +Both of herself and sex ashamed, +The nymph stood silent out of spite, +Nor would vouchsafe to set them right. +Away the fair detractors went, +And gave, by turns, their censures vent. +She's not so handsome in my eyes: +For wit, I wonder where it lies. +She's fair and clean, and that's the most; +But why proclaim her for a toast? +A baby face, no life, no airs, +But what she learnt at country fairs. +Scarce knows what difference is between +Rich Flanders lace, and Colberteen. +I'll undertake my little Nancy, +In flounces has a better fancy. +With all her wit, I would not ask +Her judgment, how to buy a mask. +We begged her but to patch her face, +She never hit one proper place; +Which every girl at five years old +Can do as soon as she is told. +I own, that out-of-fashion stuff +Becomes the creature well enough. +The girl might pass, if we could get her +To know the world a little better. +(_To know the world_! a modern phrase +For visits, ombre, balls, and plays.) + +Thus, to the world's perpetual shame, +The queen of beauty lost her aim, +Too late with grief she understood +Pallas had done more harm than good; +For great examples are but vain, +Where ignorance begets disdain. +Both sexes, armed with guilt and spite, +Against Vanessa's power unite; +To copy her few nymphs aspired; +Her virtues fewer swains admired; +So stars, beyond a certain height, +Give mortals neither heat nor light. + +Yet some of either sex, endowed +With gifts superior to the crowd, +With virtue, knowledge, taste, and wit, +She condescended to admit; +With pleasing arts she could reduce +Men's talents to their proper use; +And with address each genius hold +To that wherein it most excelled; +Thus making others' wisdom known, +Could please them and improve her own. +A modest youth said something new, +She placed it in the strongest view. +All humble worth she strove to raise; +Would not be praised, yet loved to praise. +The learned met with free approach, +Although they came not in a coach. +Some clergy too she would allow, +Nor quarreled at their awkward bow. +But this was for Cadenus' sake; +A gownman of a different make. +Whom Pallas, once Vanessa's tutor, +Had fixed on for her coadjutor. + +But Cupid, full of mischief, longs +To vindicate his mother's wrongs. +On Pallas all attempts are vain; +One way he knows to give her pain; +Vows on Vanessa's heart to take +Due vengeance, for her patron's sake. +Those early seeds by Venus sown, +In spite of Pallas, now were grown; +And Cupid hoped they would improve +By time, and ripen into love. +The boy made use of all his craft, +In vain discharging many a shaft, +Pointed at colonels, lords, and beaux; +Cadenus warded off the blows, +For placing still some book betwixt, +The darts were in the cover fixed, +Or often blunted and recoiled, +On Plutarch's morals struck, were spoiled. + +The queen of wisdom could foresee, +But not prevent the Fates decree; +And human caution tries in vain +To break that adamantine chain. +Vanessa, though by Pallas taught, +By love invulnerable thought, +Searching in books for wisdom's aid, +Was, in the very search, betrayed. + +Cupid, though all his darts were lost, +Yet still resolved to spare no cost; +He could not answer to his fame +The triumphs of that stubborn dame, +A nymph so hard to be subdued, +Who neither was coquette nor prude. +I find, says he, she wants a doctor, +Both to adore her, and instruct her: +I'll give her what she most admires, +Among those venerable sires. +Cadenus is a subject fit, +Grown old in politics and wit; +Caressed by Ministers of State, +Of half mankind the dread and hate. +Whate'er vexations love attend, +She need no rivals apprehend +Her sex, with universal voice, +Must laugh at her capricious choice. + +Cadenus many things had writ, +Vanessa much esteemed his wit, +And called for his poetic works! +Meantime the boy in secret lurks. +And while the book was in her hand, +The urchin from his private stand +Took aim, and shot with all his strength +A dart of such prodigious length, +It pierced the feeble volume through, +And deep transfixed her bosom too. +Some lines, more moving than the rest, +Struck to the point that pierced her breast; +And, borne directly to the heart, +With pains unknown, increased her smart. + +Vanessa, not in years a score, +Dreams of a gown of forty-four; +Imaginary charms can find, +In eyes with reading almost blind; +Cadenus now no more appears +Declined in health, advanced in years. +She fancies music in his tongue, +Nor farther looks, but thinks him young. +What mariner is not afraid +To venture in a ship decayed? +What planter will attempt to yoke +A sapling with a falling oak? +As years increase, she brighter shines, +Cadenus with each day declines, +And he must fall a prey to Time, +While she continues in her prime. + +Cadenus, common forms apart, +In every scene had kept his heart; +Had sighed and languished, vowed and writ, +For pastime, or to show his wit; +But time, and books, and State affairs, +Had spoiled his fashionable airs, +He now could praise, esteem, approve, +But understood not what was love. +His conduct might have made him styled +A father, and the nymph his child. +That innocent delight he took +To see the virgin mind her book, +Was but the master's secret joy +In school to hear the finest boy. +Her knowledge with her fancy grew, +She hourly pressed for something new; +Ideas came into her mind +So fact, his lessons lagged behind; +She reasoned, without plodding long, +Nor ever gave her judgment wrong. +But now a sudden change was wrought, +She minds no longer what he taught. +Cadenus was amazed to find +Such marks of a distracted mind; +For though she seemed to listen more +To all he spoke, than e'er before. +He found her thoughts would absent range, +Yet guessed not whence could spring the change. +And first he modestly conjectures, +His pupil might be tired with lectures, +Which helped to mortify his pride, +Yet gave him not the heart to chide; +But in a mild dejected strain, +At last he ventured to complain: +Said, she should be no longer teased, +Might have her freedom when she pleased; +Was now convinced he acted wrong, +To hide her from the world so long, +And in dull studies to engage +One of her tender sex and age. +That every nymph with envy owned, +How she might shine in the _Grande-Monde_, +And every shepherd was undone, +To see her cloistered like a nun. +This was a visionary scheme, +He waked, and found it but a dream; +A project far above his skill, +For Nature must be Nature still. +If she was bolder than became +A scholar to a courtly dame, +She might excuse a man of letters; +Thus tutors often treat their betters, +And since his talk offensive grew, +He came to take his last adieu. + +Vanessa, filled with just disdain, +Would still her dignity maintain, +Instructed from her early years +To scorn the art of female tears. + +Had he employed his time so long, +To teach her what was right or wrong, +Yet could such notions entertain, +That all his lectures were in vain? +She owned the wand'ring of her thoughts, +But he must answer for her faults. +She well remembered, to her cost, +That all his lessons were not lost. +Two maxims she could still produce, +And sad experience taught her use; +That virtue, pleased by being shown, +Knows nothing which it dare not own; +Can make us without fear disclose +Our inmost secrets to our foes; +That common forms were not designed +Directors to a noble mind. +Now, said the nymph, I'll let you see +My actions with your rules agree, +That I can vulgar forms despise, +And have no secrets to disguise. +I knew by what you said and writ, +How dangerous things were men of wit; +You cautioned me against their charms, +But never gave me equal arms; +Your lessons found the weakest part, +Aimed at the head, but reached the heart. + +Cadenus felt within him rise +Shame, disappointment, guilt, surprise. +He know not how to reconcile +Such language, with her usual style: +And yet her words were so expressed, +He could not hope she spoke in jest. +His thoughts had wholly been confined +To form and cultivate her mind. +He hardly knew, till he was told, +Whether the nymph were young or old; +Had met her in a public place, +Without distinguishing her face, +Much less could his declining age +Vanessa's earliest thoughts engage. +And if her youth indifference met, +His person must contempt beget, +Or grant her passion be sincere, +How shall his innocence be clear? +Appearances were all so strong, +The world must think him in the wrong; +Would say he made a treach'rous use. +Of wit, to flatter and seduce; +The town would swear he had betrayed, +By magic spells, the harmless maid; +And every beau would have his jokes, +That scholars were like other folks; +That when Platonic flights were over, +The tutor turned a mortal lover. +So tender of the young and fair; +It showed a true paternal care-- +Five thousand guineas in her purse; +The doctor might have fancied worst,-- +Hardly at length he silence broke, +And faltered every word he spoke; +Interpreting her complaisance, +Just as a man sans consequence. +She rallied well, he always knew; +Her manner now was something new; +And what she spoke was in an air, +As serious as a tragic player. +But those who aim at ridicule, +Should fix upon some certain rule, +Which fairly hints they are in jest, +Else he must enter his protest; +For let a man be ne'er so wise, +He may be caught with sober lies; +A science which he never taught, +And, to be free, was dearly bought; +For, take it in its proper light, +'Tis just what coxcombs call a bite. + +But not to dwell on things minute, +Vanessa finished the dispute, +Brought weighty arguments to prove, +That reason was her guide in love. +She thought he had himself described, +His doctrines when she fist imbibed; +What he had planted now was grown, +His virtues she might call her own; +As he approves, as he dislikes, +Love or contempt her fancy strikes. +Self-love in nature rooted fast, +Attends us first, and leaves us last: +Why she likes him, admire not at her, +She loves herself, and that's the matter. +How was her tutor wont to praise +The geniuses of ancient days! +(Those authors he so oft had named +For learning, wit, and wisdom famed). +Was struck with love, esteem, and awe, +For persons whom he never saw. +Suppose Cadenus flourished then, +He must adore such God-like men. +If one short volume could comprise +All that was witty, learned, and wise, +How would it be esteemed, and read, +Although the writer long were dead? +If such an author were alive, +How all would for his friendship strive; +And come in crowds to see his face? +And this she takes to be her case. +Cadenus answers every end, +The book, the author, and the friend, +The utmost her desires will reach, +Is but to learn what he can teach; +His converse is a system fit +Alone to fill up all her wit; +While ev'ry passion of her mind +In him is centred and confined. + +Love can with speech inspire a mute, +And taught Vanessa to dispute. +This topic, never touched before, +Displayed her eloquence the more: +Her knowledge, with such pains acquired, +By this new passion grew inspired. +Through this she made all objects pass, +Which gave a tincture o'er the mass; +As rivers, though they bend and twine, +Still to the sea their course incline; +Or, as philosophers, who find +Some fav'rite system to their mind, +In every point to make it fit, +Will force all nature to submit. + +Cadenus, who could ne'er suspect +His lessons would have such effect, +Or be so artfully applied, +Insensibly came on her side; +It was an unforeseen event, +Things took a turn he never meant. +Whoe'er excels in what we prize, +Appears a hero to our eyes; +Each girl, when pleased with what is taught, +Will have the teacher in her thought. +When miss delights in her spinnet, +A fiddler may a fortune get; +A blockhead, with melodious voice +In boarding-schools can have his choice; +And oft the dancing-master's art +Climbs from the toe to touch the heart. +In learning let a nymph delight, +The pedant gets a mistress by't. +Cadenus, to his grief and shame, +Could scarce oppose Vanessa's flame; +But though her arguments were strong, +At least could hardly with them wrong. +Howe'er it came, he could not tell, +But, sure, she never talked so well. +His pride began to interpose, +Preferred before a crowd of beaux, +So bright a nymph to come unsought, +Such wonder by his merit wrought; +'Tis merit must with her prevail, +He never know her judgment fail. +She noted all she ever read, +And had a most discerning head. + +'Tis an old maxim in the schools, +That vanity's the food of fools; +Yet now and then your men of wit +Will condescend to take a bit. + +So when Cadenus could not hide, +He chose to justify his pride; +Construing the passion she had shown, +Much to her praise, more to his own. +Nature in him had merit placed, +In her, a most judicious taste. +Love, hitherto a transient guest, +Ne'er held possession in his breast; +So long attending at the gate, +Disdain'd to enter in so late. +Love, why do we one passion call? +When 'tis a compound of them all; +Where hot and cold, where sharp and sweet, +In all their equipages meet; +Where pleasures mixed with pains appear, +Sorrow with joy, and hope with fear. +Wherein his dignity and age +Forbid Cadenus to engage. +But friendship in its greatest height, +A constant, rational delight, +On virtue's basis fixed to last, +When love's allurements long are past; +Which gently warms, but cannot burn; +He gladly offers in return; +His want of passion will redeem, +With gratitude, respect, esteem; +With that devotion we bestow, +When goddesses appear below. + +While thus Cadenus entertains +Vanessa in exalted strains, +The nymph in sober words intreats +A truce with all sublime conceits. +For why such raptures, flights, and fancies, +To her who durst not read romances; +In lofty style to make replies, +Which he had taught her to despise? +But when her tutor will affect +Devotion, duty, and respect, +He fairly abdicates his throne, +The government is now her own; +He has a forfeiture incurred, +She vows to take him at his word, +And hopes he will not take it strange +If both should now their stations change +The nymph will have her turn, to be +The tutor; and the pupil he: +Though she already can discern +Her scholar is not apt to learn; +Or wants capacity to reach +The science she designs to teach; +Wherein his genius was below +The skill of every common beau; +Who, though he cannot spell, is wise +Enough to read a lady's eyes? +And will each accidental glance +Interpret for a kind advance. + +But what success Vanessa met +Is to the world a secret yet; +Whether the nymph, to please her swain, +Talks in a high romantic strain; +Or whether he at last descends +To like with less seraphic ends; +Or to compound the bus'ness, whether +They temper love and books together; +Must never to mankind be told, +Nor shall the conscious muse unfold. + +Meantime the mournful queen of love +Led but a weary life above. +She ventures now to leave the skies, +Grown by Vanessa's conduct wise. +For though by one perverse event +Pallas had crossed her first intent, +Though her design was not obtained, +Yet had she much experience gained; +And, by the project vainly tried, +Could better now the cause decide. +She gave due notice that both parties, +_Coram Regina prox' die Martis_, +Should at their peril without fail +Come and appear, and save their bail. +All met, and silence thrice proclaimed, +One lawyer to each side was named. +The judge discovered in her face +Resentments for her late disgrace; +And, full of anger, shame, and grief, +Directed them to mind their brief; +Nor spend their time to show their reading, +She'd have a summary proceeding. +She gathered under every head, +The sum of what each lawyer said; +Gave her own reasons last; and then +Decreed the cause against the men. + +But, in a weighty case like this, +To show she did not judge amiss, +Which evil tongues might else report, +She made a speech in open court; +Wherein she grievously complains, +"How she was cheated by the swains." +On whose petition (humbly showing +That women were not worth the wooing, +And that unless the sex would mend, +The race of lovers soon must end); +"She was at Lord knows what expense, +To form a nymph of wit and sense; +A model for her sex designed, +Who never could one lover find, +She saw her favour was misplaced; +The follows had a wretched taste; +She needs must tell them to their face, +They were a senseless, stupid race; +And were she to begin again, +She'd study to reform the men; +Or add some grains of folly more +To women than they had before. +To put them on an equal foot; +And this, or nothing else, would do't. +This might their mutual fancy strike, +Since every being loves its like. + +But now, repenting what was done, +She left all business to her son; +She puts the world in his possession, +And let him use it at discretion." + +The crier was ordered to dismiss +The court, so made his last O yes! +The goddess would no longer wait, +But rising from her chair of state, +Left all below at six and seven, +Harnessed her doves, and flew to Heaven. + + + + +STELLA'S BIRTHDAY, 1718. + + +Stella this day is thirty-four +(We shan't dispute a year or more) +However, Stella, be not troubled, +Although thy size and years are doubled +Since first I saw thee at sixteen, +The brightest virgin on the green. +So little is thy form declined; +Made up so largely in thy mind. + +Oh, would it please the gods to split +Thy beauty, size, and years, and wit, +No age could furnish out a pair +Of nymphs so graceful, wise, and fair: +With half the lustre of your eyes, +With half your wit, your years, and size. +And then, before it grew too late, +How should I beg of gentle fate, +(That either nymph might lack her swain), +To split my worship too in twain. + + + + +STELLA'S BIRTHDAY, 1720. + + +All travellers at first incline +Where'er they see the fairest sign; +And if they find the chambers neat, +And like the liquor and the meat, +Will call again and recommend +The Angel Inn to every friend +What though the painting grows decayed, +The house will never lose its trade: +Nay, though the treach'rous tapster Thomas +Hangs a new angel two doors from us, +As fine as daubers' hands can make it, +In hopes that strangers may mistake it, +We think it both a shame and sin, +To quit the true old Angel Inn. + +Now, this is Stella's case in fact, +An angel's face, a little cracked +(Could poets, or could painters fix +How angels look at, thirty-six): +This drew us in at first, to find +In such a form an angel's mind; +And every virtue now supplies +The fainting rays of Stella's eyes. +See, at her levee, crowding swains, +Whom Stella freely entertains, +With breeding, humour, wit, and sense; +And puts them but to small expense; +Their mind so plentifully fills, +And makes such reasonable bills, +So little gets for what she gives, +We really wonder how she lives! +And had her stock been less, no doubt, +She must have long ago run out. + +Then who can think we'll quit the place, +When Doll hangs out a newer face; +Or stop and light at Cloe's Head, +With scraps and leavings to be fed. + +Then Cloe, still go on to prate +Of thirty-six, and thirty-eight; +Pursue your trade of scandal picking, +Your hints that Stella is no chicken. +Your innuendoes when you tell us, +That Stella loves to talk with fellows; +And let me warn you to believe +A truth, for which your soul should grieve: +That should you live to see the day +When Stella's locks, must all be grey, +When age must print a furrowed trace +On every feature of her face; +Though you and all your senseless tribe, +Could art, or time, or nature bribe +To make you look like beauty's queen, +And hold for ever at fifteen; +No bloom of youth can ever blind +The cracks and wrinkles of your mind; +All men of sense will pass your door, +And crowd to Stella's at fourscore. + + + + +STELLA'S BIRTHDAY. + + +_A great bottle of wine, long buried, being that day dug up_. _1722_. + +Resolved my annual verse to pay, +By duty bound, on Stella's day; +Furnished with paper, pens, and ink, +I gravely sat me down to think: +I bit my nails, and scratched my head, +But found my wit and fancy fled; +Or, if with more than usual pain, +A thought came slowly from my brain, +It cost me Lord knows how much time +To shape it into sense and rhyme; +And, what was yet a greater curse, +Long-thinking made my fancy worse + +Forsaken by th' inspiring nine, +I waited at Apollo's shrine; +I told him what the world would sa +If Stella were unsung to-day; +How I should hide my head for shame, +When both the Jacks and Robin came; +How Ford would frown, how Jim would leer, +How Sh---r the rogue would sneer, +And swear it does not always follow, +That _Semel'n anno ridet_ Apollo. +I have assured them twenty times, +That Phoebus helped me in my rhymes, +Phoebus inspired me from above, +And he and I were hand and glove. +But finding me so dull and dry since, +They'll call it all poetic licence. +And when I brag of aid divine, +Think Eusden's right as good as mine. + +Nor do I ask for Stella's sake; +'Tis my own credit lies at stake. +And Stella will be sung, while I +Can only be a stander by. + +Apollo having thought a little, +Returned this answer to a tittle. + +Tho' you should live like old Methusalem, +I furnish hints, and you should use all 'em, +You yearly sing as she grows old, +You'd leave her virtues half untold. +But to say truth, such dulness reigns +Through the whole set of Irish Deans; +I'm daily stunned with such a medley, +Dean W---, Dean D---l, and Dean S---; +That let what Dean soever come, +My orders are, I'm not at home; +And if your voice had not been loud, +You must have passed among the crowd. + +But, now your danger to prevent, +You must apply to Mrs. Brent, {2} +For she, as priestess, knows the rites +Wherein the God of Earth delights. +First, nine ways looking, let her stand +With an old poker in her hand; +Let her describe a circle round +In Saunder's {3} cellar on the ground +A spade let prudent Archy {4} hold, +And with discretion dig the mould; +Let Stella look with watchful eye, +Rebecea, Ford, and Grattons by. + +Behold the bottle, where it lies +With neck elated tow'rds the skies! +The god of winds, and god of fire, +Did to its wondrous birth conspire; +And Bacchus for the poet's use +Poured in a strong inspiring juice: +See! as you raise it from its tomb, +It drags behind a spacious womb, +And in the spacious womb contains +A sovereign med'cine for the brains. + +You'll find it soon, if fate consents; +If not, a thousand Mrs. Brents, +Ten thousand Archys arm'd with spades, +May dig in vain to Pluto's shades. + +From thence a plenteous draught infuse, +And boldly then invoke the muse +(But first let Robert on his knees +With caution drain it from the lees); +The muse will at your call appear, +With Stella's praise to crown the year. + + + + +STELLA'S BIRTHDAY, 1724. + + +As when a beauteous nymph decays, +We say she's past her dancing days; +So poets lose their feet by time, +And can no longer dance in rhyme. +Your annual bard had rather chose +To celebrate your birth in prose; +Yet merry folks who want by chance +A pair to make a country dance, +Call the old housekeeper, and get her +To fill a place, for want of better; +While Sheridan is off the hooks, +And friend Delany at his books, +That Stella may avoid disgrace, +Once more the Dean supplies their place. + +Beauty and wit, too sad a truth, +Have always been confined to youth; +The god of wit, and beauty's queen, +He twenty-one, and she fifteen; +No poet ever sweetly sung. +Unless he were like Phoebus, young; +Nor ever nymph inspired to rhyme, +Unless like Venus in her prime. +At fifty-six, if this be true, +Am I a poet fit for you; +Or at the age of forty-three, +Are you a subject fit for me? +Adieu bright wit, and radiant eyes; +You must be grave, and I be wise. +Our fate in vain we would oppose, +But I'll be still your friend in prose; +Esteem and friendship to express, +Will not require poetic dress; +And if the muse deny her aid +To have them sung, they may be said. + +But, Stella say, what evil tongue +Reports you are no longer young? +That Time sits with his scythe to mow +Where erst sat Cupid with his bow; +That half your locks are turned to grey; +I'll ne'er believe a word they say. +'Tis true, but let it not be known, +My eyes are somewhat dimish grown; +For nature, always in the right, +To your decays adapts my sight, +And wrinkles undistinguished pass, +For I'm ashamed to use a glass; +And till I see them with these eyes, +Whoever says you have them, lies. + +No length of time can make you quit +Honour and virtue, sense and wit, +Thus you may still be young to me, +While I can better hear than see: +Oh, ne'er may fortune show her spite, +To make me deaf, and mend my sight. + + + + +STELLA'S BIRTHDAY, MARCH 13, 1726. + + +This day, whate'er the Fates decree, +Shall still be kept with joy by me; +This day, then, let us not be told +That you are sick, and I grown old, +Nor think on our approaching ills, +And talk of spectacles and pills; +To-morrow will be time enough +To hear such mortifying stuff. +Yet, since from reason may be brought +A better and more pleasing thought, +Which can, in spite of all decays, +Support a few remaining days: +From not the gravest of divines +Accept for once some serious lines. + +Although we now can form no more +Long schemes of life, as heretofore; +Yet you, while time is running fast, +Can look with joy on what is past. + +Were future happiness and pain +A mere contrivance of the brain, +As Atheists argue, to entice, +And fit their proselytes for vice +(The only comfort they propose, +To have companions in their woes). +Grant this the case, yet sure 'tis hard +That virtue, styled its own reward, +And by all sages understood +To be the chief of human good, +Should acting, die, or leave behind +Some lasting pleasure in the mind. +Which by remembrance will assuage +Grief, sickness, poverty, and age; +And strongly shoot a radiant dart, +To shine through life's declining part. + +Say, Stella, feel you no content, +Reflecting on a life well spent; +Your skilful hand employed to save +Despairing wretches from the grave; +And then supporting with your store, +Those whom you dragged from death before? +So Providence on mortals waits, +Preserving what it first creates, +You generous boldness to defend +An innocent and absent friend; +That courage which can make you just, +To merit humbled in the dust; +The detestation you express +For vice in all its glittering dress: +That patience under to torturing pain, +Where stubborn stoics would complain. + +Must these like empty shadows pass, +Or forms reflected from a glass? +Or mere chimaeras in the mind, +That fly, and leave no marks behind? +Does not the body thrive and grow +By food of twenty years ago? +And, had it not been still supplied, +It must a thousand times have died. +Then, who with reason can maintain +That no effects of food remain? +And, is not virtue in mankind +The nutriment that feeds the mind? +Upheld by each good action past, +And still continued by the last: +Then, who with reason can pretend +That all effects of virtue end? + +Believe me, Stella, when you show +That true contempt for things below, +Nor prize your life for other ends +Than merely to oblige your friends, +Your former actions claim their part, +And join to fortify your heart. + For virtue in her daily race, +Like Janus, bears a double face. +Look back with joy where she has gone, +And therefore goes with courage on. +She at your sickly couch will wait, +And guide you to a better state. + +O then, whatever heav'n intends, +Take pity on your pitying friends; +Nor let your ills affect your mind, +To fancy they can be unkind; +Me, surely me, you ought to spare, +Who gladly would your sufferings share; +Or give my scrap of life to you, +And think it far beneath your due; +You to whose care so oft I owe +That I'm alive to tell you so. + + + + +TO STELLA, + + +_Visiting me in my sickness_, _October_, 1727. + +Pallas, observing Stella's wit +Was more than for her sex was fit; +And that her beauty, soon or late, +Might breed confusion in the state; +In high concern for human kind, +Fixed honour in her infant mind. + +But (not in wranglings to engage +With such a stupid vicious age), +If honour I would here define, +It answers faith in things divine. +As natural life the body warms, +And, scholars teach, the soul informs; +So honour animates the whole, +And is the spirit of the soul. + +Those numerous virtues which the tribe +Of tedious moralists describe, +And by such various titles call, +True honour comprehends them all. +Let melancholy rule supreme, +Choler preside, or blood, or phlegm. +It makes no difference in the case. +Nor is complexion honour's place. + +But, lest we should for honour take +The drunken quarrels of a rake, +Or think it seated in a scar, +Or on a proud triumphal car, +Or in the payment of a debt, +We lose with sharpers at piquet; +Or, when a whore in her vocation, +Keeps punctual to an assignation; +Or that on which his lordship swears, +When vulgar knaves would lose their ears: +Let Stella's fair example preach +A lesson she alone can teach. + +In points of honour to be tried, +All passions must be laid aside; +Ask no advice, but think alone, +Suppose the question not your own; +How shall I act? is not the case, +But how would Brutus in my place; +In such a cause would Cato bleed; +And how would Socrates proceed? + +Drive all objections from your mind, +Else you relapse to human kind; +Ambition, avarice, and lust, +And factious rage, and breach of trust, +And flattery tipped with nauseous fleer, +And guilt and shame, and servile fear, +Envy, and cruelty, and pride, +Will in your tainted heart preside. + +Heroes and heroines of old, +By honour only were enrolled +Among their brethren in the skies, +To which (though late) shall Stella rise. +Ten thousand oaths upon record +Are not so sacred as her word; +The world shall in its atoms end +Ere Stella can deceive a friend. +By honour seated in her breast, +She still determines what is best; +What indignation in her mind, +Against enslavers of mankind! +Base kings and ministers of state, +Eternal objects of her hate. + +She thinks that Nature ne'er designed, +Courage to man alone confined; +Can cowardice her sex adorn, +Which most exposes ours to scorn; +She wonders where the charm appears +In Florimel's affected fears; +For Stella never learned the art +At proper times to scream and start; +Nor calls up all the house at night, +And swears she saw a thing in white. +Doll never flies to cut her lace, +Or throw cold water in her face, +Because she heard a sudden drum, +Or found an earwig in a plum. + +Her hearers are amazed from whence +Proceeds that fund of wit and sense; +Which, though her modesty would shroud, +Breaks like the sun behind a cloud, +While gracefulness its art conceals, +And yet through every motion steals. + +Say, Stella, was Prometheus blind, +And forming you, mistook your kind? +No; 'twas for you alone he stole +The fire that forms a manly soul; +Then, to complete it every way, +He moulded it with female clay, +To that you owe the nobler flame, +To this, the beauty of your frame. + +How would ingratitude delight? +And how would censure glut her spite? +If I should Stella's kindness hide +In silence, or forget with pride, +When on my sickly couch I lay, +Impatient both of night and day, +Lamenting in unmanly strains, +Called every power to ease my pains, +Then Stella ran to my relief +With cheerful face and inward grief; +And though by Heaven's severe decree +She suffers hourly more than me, +No cruel master could require, +From slaves employed for daily hire, +What Stella by her friendship warmed, +With vigour and delight performed. +My sinking spirits now supplies +With cordials in her hands and eyes, +Now with a soft and silent tread, +Unheard she moves about my bed. +I see her taste each nauseous draught, +And so obligingly am caught: +I bless the hand from whence they came, +Nor dare distort my face for shame. + +Best pattern of true friends beware, +You pay too dearly for your care; +If while your tenderness secures +My life, it must endanger yours. +For such a fool was never found, +Who pulled a palace to the ground, +Only to have the ruins made +Materials for a house decayed. + +_While Dr. Swift was at Sir William Temple's_, _after he left the +University of Dublin_, _he contracted a friendship with two of Sir +William's relations_, _Mrs. Johnson and Mrs. Dingley_, _which continued +to their deaths_. _The former of these was the amiable Stella_, _so much +celebrated in his works_. _In the year 1727_, _being in England_, _he +received the melancholy news of her last sickness_, _Mrs. Dingley having +been dead before_. _He hastened into Ireland_, _where he visited her_, +_not only as a friend_, _but a clergyman_. _No set form of prayer could +express the sense of his heart on that occasion_. _He drew up the +following_, _here printed from his own handwriting_. _She died Jan. 28_, +_1727_. + + + + +THE FIRST HE WROTE OCT. 17, 1727. + + +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. _Amen_. + + + + +THE SECOND PRAYER WAS WRITTEN NOV. 6, 1727. + + +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. +_Amen_. + + + + +THE BEASTS' CONFESSION (1732). + + +When beasts could speak (the learned say +They still can do so every day), +It seems, they had religion then, +As much as now we find in men. +It happened when a plague broke out +(Which therefore made them more devout) +The king of brutes (to make it plain, +Of quadrupeds I only mean), +By proclamation gave command, +That every subject in the land +Should to the priest confess their sins; +And thus the pious wolf begins: + +Good father, I must own with shame, +That, often I have been to blame: +I must confess, on Friday last, +Wretch that I was, I broke my fast: +But I defy the basest tongue +To prove I did my neighbour wrong; +Or ever went to seek my food +By rapine, theft, or thirst of blood. + +The ass approaching next, confessed, +That in his heart he loved a jest: +A wag he was, he needs must own, +And could not let a dunce alone: +Sometimes his friend he would not spare, +And might perhaps be too severe: +But yet, the worst that could be said, +He was a wit both born and bred; +And, if it be a sin or shame, +Nature alone must bear the blame: +One fault he hath, is sorry for't, +His ears are half a foot too short; +Which could he to the standard bring, +He'd show his face before the king: +Then, for his voice, there's none disputes +That he's the nightingale of brutes. + +The swine with contrite heart allowed, +His shape and beauty made him proud: +In diet was perhaps too nice, +But gluttony was ne'er his vice: +In every turn of life content, +And meekly took what fortune sent: +Enquire through all the parish round, +A better neighbour ne'er was found: +His vigilance might seine displease; +'Tis true, he hated sloth like pease. + +The mimic ape began his chatter, +How evil tongues his life bespatter: +Much of the cens'ring world complained, +Who said his gravity was feigned: +Indeed, the strictness of his morals +Engaged him in a hundred quarrels: +He saw, and he was grieved to see't, +His zeal was sometimes indiscreet: +He found his virtues too severe +For our corrupted times to bear: +Yet, such a lewd licentious age +Might well excuse a stoic's rage. + +The goat advanced with decent pace: +And first excused his youthful face; +Forgiveness begged, that he appeared +('Twas nature's fault) without a beard. +'Tis true, he was not much inclined +To fondness for the female kind; +Not, as his enemies object, +From chance or natural defect; +Not by his frigid constitution, +But through a pious resolution; +For he had made a holy vow +Of chastity, as monks do now; +Which he resolved to keep for ever hence, +As strictly, too, as doth his reverence. {5} + +Apply the tale, and you shall find +How just it suits with human kind. +Some faults we own: but, can you guess? +Why?--virtue's carried to excess; +Wherewith our vanity endows us, +Though neither foe nor friend allows us. + +The lawyer swears, you may rely on't, +He never squeezed a needy client: +And this he makes his constant rule, +For which his brethren call him fool; +His conscience always was so nice, +He freely gave the poor advice; +By which he lost, he may affirm, +A hundred fees last Easter term. +While others of the learned robe +Would break the patience of a Job; +No pleader at the bar could match +His diligence and quick despatch; +Ne'er kept a cause, he well may boast, +Above a term or two at most. + +The cringing knave, who seeks a place +Without success, thus tells his case: +Why should he longer mince the matter? +He failed because he could not flatter: +He had not learned to turn his coat, +Nor for a party give his vote. +His crime he quickly understood; +Too zealous for the nation's good: +He found the ministers resent it, +Yet could not for his heart repent it. + +The chaplain vows he cannot fawn, +Though it would raise him to the lawn: +He passed his hours among his books; +You find it in his meagre looks: +He might, if he were worldly-wise, +Preferment get, and spare his eyes: +But owned he had a stubborn spirit, +That made him trust alone in merit: +Would rise by merit to promotion; +Alas! a mere chimeric notion. + +The doctor, if you will believe him, +Confessed a sin, and God forgive him: +Called up at midnight, ran to save +A blind old beggar from the grave: +But, see how Satan spreads his snares; +He quite forgot to say his prayers. +He cannot help it, for his heart, +Sometimes to act the parson's part, +Quotes from the Bible many a sentence +That moves his patients to repentance: +And, when his medicines do no good, +Supports their minds with heavenly food. +At which, however well intended, +He hears the clergy are offended; +And grown so bold behind his back, +To call him hypocrite and quack. +In his own church he keeps a seat; +Says grace before and after meat; +And calls, without affecting airs, +His household twice a day to prayers. +He shuns apothecaries' shops; +And hates to cram the sick with slops: +He scorns to make his art a trade, +Nor bribes my lady's favourite maid. +Old nurse-keepers would never hire +To recommend him to the Squire; +Which others, whom he will not name, +Have often practised to their shame. + +The statesman tells you with a sneer, +His fault is to be too sincere; +And, having no sinister ends, +Is apt to disoblige his friends. +The nation's good, his Master's glory, +Without regard to Whig or Tory, +Were all the schemes he had in view; +Yet he was seconded by few: +Though some had spread a thousand lies, +'Twas he defeated the Excise. +'Twas known, though he had borne aspersion, +That standing troops were his aversion: +His practice was, in every station, +To serve the king, and please the nation. +Though hard to find in every case +The fittest man to fill a place: +His promises he ne'er forgot, +But took memorials on the spot: +His enemies, for want of charity, +Said he affected popularity: +'Tis true, the people understood, +That all he did was for their good; +Their kind affections he has tried; +No love is lost on either side. +He came to court with fortune clear, +Which now he runs out every year; +Must, at the rate that he goes on, +Inevitably be undone. +Oh! if his Majesty would please +To give him but a writ of ease, +Would grant him license to retire, +As it hath long been his desire, +By fair accounts it would be found, +He's poorer by ten thousand pound. +He owns, and hopes it is no sin, +He ne'er was partial to his kin; +He thought it base for men in stations +To crowd the court with their relations: +His country was his dearest mother, +And every virtuous man his brother: +Through modesty or awkward shame +(For which he owns himself to blame), +He found the wisest men he could, +Without respect to friends or blood; +Nor never acts on private views, +When he hath liberty to choose. + +The sharper swore he hated play, +Except to pass an hour away: +And well he might; for to his cost, +By want of skill, he always lost. +He heard there was a club of cheats, +Who had contrived a thousand feats; +Could change the stock, or cog a dye, +And thus deceive the sharpest eye: +No wonder how his fortune sunk, +His brothers fleece him when he's drunk. + +I own the moral not exact; +Besides, the tale is false in fact; +And so absurd, that, could I raise up +From fields Elysian, fabling AEsop; +I would accuse him to his face, +For libelling the four-foot race. +Creatures of every kind but ours +Well comprehend their natural powers; +While we, whom reason ought to sway, +Mistake our talents every day: +The ass was never known so stupid +To act the part of Tray or Cupid; +Nor leaps upon his master's lap, +There to be stroked, and fed with pap: +As AEsop would the world persuade; +He better understands his trade: +Nor comes whene'er his lady whistles, +But carries loads, and feeds on thistles; +Our author's meaning, I presume, is +A creature _bipes et implumis_; +Wherein the moralist designed +A compliment on human-kind: +For, here he owns, that now and then +Beasts may degenerate into men. + + + + +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. + + +_Written in the year 1708_. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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, _deorum offensa diis curoe_. 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. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _Jus Divinum_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +HINTS TOWARDS AN ESSAY ON CONVERSATION. + + +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. + +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. + +I was prompted to write my thoughts upon this subject by mere +indignation, to reflect that so useful and innocent a pleasure, so fitted +for every period and condition of life, and so much in all men's power, +should be so much neglected and abused. + +And in this discourse it will be necessary to note those errors that are +obvious, as well as others which are seldomer observed, since there are +few so obvious or acknowledged into which most men, some time or other, +are not apt to run. + +For instance, nothing is more generally exploded than the folly of +talking too much; yet I rarely remember to have seen five people together +where some one among them hath not been predominant in that kind, to the +great constraint and disgust of all the rest. But among such as deal in +multitudes of words, none are comparable to the sober deliberate talker, +who proceedeth with much thought and caution, maketh his preface, +brancheth out into several digressions, findeth a hint that putteth him +in mind of another story, which he promiseth to tell you when this is +done; cometh back regularly to his subject, cannot readily call to mind +some person's name, holdeth his head, complaineth of his memory; the +whole company all this while in suspense; at length, says he, it is no +matter, and so goes on. And, to crown the business, it perhaps proveth +at last a story the company hath heard fifty times before; or, at best, +some insipid adventure of the relater. + +Another general fault in conversation is that of those who affect to talk +of themselves. Some, without any ceremony, will run over the history of +their lives; will relate the annals of their diseases, with the several +symptoms and circumstances of them; will enumerate the hardships and +injustice they have suffered in court, in parliament, in love, or in law. +Others are more dexterous, and with great art will lie on the watch to +hook in their own praise. They will call a witness to remember they +always foretold what would happen in such a case, but none would believe +them; they advised such a man from the beginning, and told him the +consequences just as they happened, but he would have his own way. Others +make a vanity of telling their faults. They are the strangest men in the +world; they cannot dissemble; they own it is a folly; they have lost +abundance of advantages by it; but, if you would give them the world, +they cannot help it; there is something in their nature that abhors +insincerity and constraint; with many other unsufferable topics of the +same altitude. + +Of such mighty importance every man is to himself, and ready to think he +is so to others, without once making this easy and obvious reflection, +that his affairs can have no more weight with other men than theirs have +with him; and how little that is he is sensible enough. + +Where company hath met, I often have observed two persons discover by +some accident that they were bred together at the same school or +university, after which the rest are condemned to silence, and to listen +while these two are refreshing each other's memory with the arch tricks +and passages of themselves and their comrades. + +I know a great officer of the army, who will sit for some time with a +supercilious and impatient silence, full of anger and contempt for those +who are talking; at length of a sudden demand audience; decide the matter +in a short dogmatical way; then withdraw within himself again, and +vouchsafe to talk no more, until his spirits circulate again to the same +point. + +There are some faults in conversation which none are so subject to as the +men of wit, nor ever so much as when they are with each other. If they +have opened their mouths without endeavouring to say a witty thing, they +think it is so many words lost. It is a torment to the hearers, as much +as to themselves, to see them upon the rack for invention, and in +perpetual constraint, with so little success. They must do something +extraordinary, in order to acquit themselves, and answer their character, +else the standers by may be disappointed and be apt to think them only +like the rest of mortals. I have known two men of wit industriously +brought together, in order to entertain the company, where they have made +a very ridiculous figure, and provided all the mirth at their own +expense. + +I know a man of wit, who is never easy but where he can be allowed to +dictate and preside; he neither expecteth to be informed or entertained, +but to display his own talents. His business is to be good company, and +not good conversation, and therefore he chooseth to frequent those who +are content to listen, and profess themselves his admirers. And, indeed, +the worst conversation I ever remember to have heard in my life was that +at Will's coffee-house, where the wits, as they were called, used +formerly to assemble; that is to say, five or six men who had written +plays, or at least prologues, or had share in a miscellany, came thither, +and entertained one another with their trifling composures in so +important an air, as if they had been the noblest efforts of human +nature, or that the fate of kingdoms depended on them; and they were +usually attended with a humble audience of young students from the inns +of courts, or the universities, who, at due distance, listened to these +oracles, and returned home with great contempt for their law and +philosophy, their heads filled with trash under the name of politeness, +criticism, and belles lettres. + +By these means the poets, for many years past, were all overrun with +pedantry. For, as I take it, the word is not properly used; because +pedantry is the too front or unseasonable obtruding our own knowledge in +common discourse, and placing too great a value upon it; by which +definition men of the court or the army may be as guilty of pedantry as a +philosopher or a divine; and it is the same vice in women when they are +over copious upon the subject of their petticoats, or their fans, or +their china. For which reason, although it be a piece of prudence, as +well as good manners, to put men upon talking on subjects they are best +versed in, yet that is a liberty a wise man could hardly take; because, +beside the imputation of pedantry, it is what he would never improve by. + +This great town is usually provided with some player, mimic, or buffoon, +who hath a general reception at the good tables; familiar and domestic +with persons of the first quality, and usually sent for at every meeting +to divert the company, against which I have no objection. You go there +as to a farce or a puppet-show; your business is only to laugh in season, +either out of inclination or civility, while this merry companion is +acting his part. It is a business he hath undertaken, and we are to +suppose he is paid for his day's work. I only quarrel when in select and +private meetings, where men of wit and learning are invited to pass an +evening, this jester should be admitted to run over his circle of tricks, +and make the whole company unfit for any other conversation, besides the +indignity of confounding men's talents at so shameful a rate. + +Raillery is the finest part of conversation; but, as it is our usual +custom to counterfeit and adulterate whatever is too dear for us, so we +have done with this, and turned it all into what is generally called +repartee, or being smart; just as when an expensive fashion cometh up, +those who are not able to reach it content themselves with some paltry +imitation. It now passeth for raillery to run a man down in discourse, +to put him out of countenance, and make him ridiculous, sometimes to +expose the defects of his person or understanding; on all which occasions +he is obliged not to be angry, to avoid the imputation of not being able +to take a jest. It is admirable to observe one who is dexterous at this +art, singling out a weak adversary, getting the laugh on his side, and +then carrying all before him. The French, from whom we borrow the word, +have a quite different idea of the thing, and so had we in the politer +age of our fathers. Raillery was, to say something that at first +appeared a reproach or reflection, but, by some turn of wit unexpected +and surprising, ended always in a compliment, and to the advantage of the +person it was addressed to. And surely one of the best rules in +conversation is, never to say a thing which any of the company can +reasonably wish we had rather left unsaid; nor can there anything be well +more contrary to the ends for which people meet together, than to part +unsatisfied with each other or themselves. + +There are two faults in conversation which appear very different, yet +arise from the same root, and are equally blamable; I mean, an impatience +to interrupt others, and the uneasiness of being interrupted ourselves. +The two chief ends of conversation are, to entertain and improve those we +are among, or to receive those benefits ourselves; which whoever will +consider, cannot easily run into either of those two errors; because, +when any man speaketh in company, it is to be supposed he doth it for his +hearers' sake, and not his own; so that common discretion will teach us +not to force their attention, if they are not willing to lend it; nor, on +the other side, to interrupt him who is in possession, because that is in +the grossest manner to give the preference to our own good sense. + +There are some people whose good manners will not suffer them to +interrupt you; but, what is almost as bad, will discover abundance of +impatience, and lie upon the watch until you have done, because they have +started something in their own thoughts which they long to be delivered +of. Meantime, they are so far from regarding what passes, that their +imaginations are wholly turned upon what they have in reserve, for fear +it should slip out of their memory; and thus they confine their +invention, which might otherwise range over a hundred things full as +good, and that might be much more naturally introduced. + +There is a sort of rude familiarity, which some people, by practising +among their intimates, have introduced into their general conversation, +and would have it pass for innocent freedom or humour, which is a +dangerous experiment in our northern climate, where all the little +decorum and politeness we have are purely forced by art, and are so ready +to lapse into barbarity. This, among the Romans, was the raillery of +slaves, of which we have many instances in Plautus. It seemeth to have +been introduced among us by Cromwell, who, by preferring the scum of the +people, made it a court-entertainment, of which I have heard many +particulars; and, considering all things were turned upside down, it was +reasonable and judicious; although it was a piece of policy found out to +ridicule a point of honour in the other extreme, when the smallest word +misplaced among gentlemen ended in a duel. + +There are some men excellent at telling a story, and provided with a +plentiful stock of them, which they can draw out upon occasion in all +companies; and considering how low conversation runs now among us, it is +not altogether a contemptible talent; however, it is subject to two +unavoidable defects: frequent repetition, and being soon exhausted; so +that whoever valueth this gift in himself hath need of a good memory, and +ought frequently to shift his company, that he may not discover the +weakness of his fund; for those who are thus endowed have seldom any +other revenue, but live upon the main stock. + +Great speakers in public are seldom agreeable in private conversation, +whether their faculty be natural, or acquired by practice and often +venturing. Natural elocution, although it may seem a paradox, usually +springeth from a barrenness of invention and of words, by which men who +have only one stock of notions upon every subject, and one set of phrases +to express them in, they swim upon the superficies, and offer themselves +on every occasion; therefore, men of much learning, and who know the +compass of a language, are generally the worst talkers on a sudden, until +much practice hath inured and emboldened them; because they are +confounded with plenty of matter, variety of notions, and of words, which +they cannot readily choose, but are perplexed and entangled by too great +a choice, which is no disadvantage in private conversation; where, on the +other side, the talent of haranguing is, of all others, most +insupportable. + +Nothing hath spoiled men more for conversation than the character of +being wits; to support which, they never fail of encouraging a number of +followers and admirers, who list themselves in their service, wherein +they find their accounts on both sides by pleasing their mutual vanity. +This hath given the former such an air of superiority, and made the +latter so pragmatical, that neither of them are well to be endured. I +say nothing here of the itch of dispute and contradiction, telling of +lies, or of those who are troubled with the disease called the wandering +of the thoughts, that they are never present in mind at what passeth in +discourse; for whoever labours under any of these possessions is as unfit +for conversation as madmen in Bedlam. + +I think I have gone over most of the errors in conversation that have +fallen under my notice or memory, except some that are merely personal, +and others too gross to need exploding; such as lewd or profane talk; but +I pretend only to treat the errors of conversation in general, and not +the several subjects of discourse, which would be infinite. Thus we see +how human nature is most debased, by the abuse of that faculty, which is +held the great distinction between men and brutes; and how little +advantage we make of that which might be the greatest, the most lasting, +and the most innocent, as well as useful pleasure of life: in default of +which, we are forced to take up with those poor amusements of dress and +visiting, or the more pernicious ones of play, drink, and vicious amours, +whereby the nobility and gentry of both sexes are entirely corrupted both +in body and mind, and have lost all notions of love, honour, friendship, +and generosity; which, under the name of fopperies, have been for some +time laughed out of doors. + +This degeneracy of conversation, with the pernicious consequences thereof +upon our humours and dispositions, hath been owing, among other causes, +to the custom arisen, for some time past, of excluding women from any +share in our society, further than in parties at play, or dancing, or in +the pursuit of an amour. I take the highest period of politeness in +England (and it is of the same date in France) to have been the peaceable +part of King Charles I.'s reign; and from what we read of those times, as +well as from the accounts I have formerly met with from some who lived in +that court, the methods then used for raising and cultivating +conversation were altogether different from ours; several ladies, whom we +find celebrated by the poets of that age, had assemblies at their houses, +where persons of the best understanding, and of both sexes, met to pass +the evenings in discoursing upon whatever agreeable subjects were +occasionally started; and although we are apt to ridicule the sublime +Platonic notions they had, or personated in love and friendship, I +conceive their refinements were grounded upon reason, and that a little +grain of the romance is no ill ingredient to preserve and exalt the +dignity of human nature, without which it is apt to degenerate into +everything that is sordid, vicious, and low. If there were no other use +in the conversation of ladies, it is sufficient that it would lay a +restraint upon those odious topics of immodesty and indecencies, into +which the rudeness of our northern genius is so apt to fall. And, +therefore, it is observable in those sprightly gentlemen about the town, +who are so very dexterous at entertaining a vizard mask in the park or +the playhouse, that, in the company of ladies of virtue and honour, they +are silent and disconcerted, and out of their element. + +There are some people who think they sufficiently acquit themselves and +entertain their company with relating of facts of no consequence, nor at +all out of the road of such common incidents as happen every day; and +this I have observed more frequently among the Scots than any other +nation, who are very careful not to omit the minutest circumstances of +time or place; which kind of discourse, if it were not a little relieved +by the uncouth terms and phrases, as well as accent and gesture peculiar +to that country, would be hardly tolerable. It is not a fault in company +to talk much; but to continue it long is certainly one; for, if the +majority of those who are got together be naturally silent or cautious, +the conversation will flag, unless it be often renewed by one among them +who can start new subjects, provided he doth not dwell upon them, but +leaveth room for answers and replies. + + + + +THOUGHTS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS. + + +We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us +love one another. + +Reflect on things past as wars, negotiations, factions, etc. We enter so +little into those interests, that we wonder how men could possibly be so +busy and concerned for things so transitory; look on the present times, +we find the same humour, yet wonder not at all. + +A wise man endeavours, by considering all circumstances, to make +conjectures and form conclusions; but the smallest accident intervening +(and in the course of affairs it is impossible to foresee all) does often +produce such turns and changes, that at last he is just as much in doubt +of events as the most ignorant and inexperienced person. + +Positiveness is a good quality for preachers and orators, because he that +would obtrude his thoughts and reasons upon a multitude, will convince +others the more, as he appears convinced himself. + +How is it possible to expect that mankind will take advice, when they +will not so much as take warning? + +I forget whether Advice be among the lost things which Aristo says are to +be found in the moon; that and Time ought to have been there. + +No preacher is listened to but Time, which gives us the same train and +turn of thought that older people have tried in vain to put into our +heads before. + +When we desire or solicit anything, our minds run wholly on the good side +or circumstances of it; when it is obtained, our minds run wholly on the +bad ones. + +In a glass-house the workmen often fling in a small quantity of fresh +coals, which seems to disturb the fire, but very much enlivens it. This +seems to allude to a gentle stirring of the passions, that the mind may +not languish. + +Religion seems to have grown an infant with age, and requires miracles to +nurse it, as it had in its infancy. + +All fits of pleasure are balanced by an equal degree of pain or languor; +it is like spending this year part of the next year's revenue. + +The latter part of a wise man's life is taken up in curing the follies, +prejudices, and false opinions he had contracted in the former. + +Would a writer know how to behave himself with relation to posterity, let +him consider in old books what he finds that he is glad to know, and what +omissions he most laments. + +Whatever the poets pretend, it is plain they give immortality to none but +themselves; it is Homer and Virgil we reverence and admire, not Achilles +or AEneas. With historians it is quite the contrary; our thoughts are +taken up with the actions, persons, and events we read, and we little +regard the authors. + +When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign; +that the dunces are all in confederacy against him. + +Men who possess all the advantages of life, are in a state where there +are many accidents to disorder and discompose, but few to please them. + +It is unwise to punish cowards with ignominy, for if they had regarded +that they would not have been cowards; death is their proper punishment, +because they fear it most. + +The greatest inventions were produced in the times of ignorance, as the +use of the compass, gunpowder, and printing, and by the dullest nation, +as the Germans. + +One argument to prove that the common relations of ghosts and spectres +are generally false, may be drawn from the opinion held that spirits are +never seen by more than one person at a time; that is to say, it seldom +happens to above one person in a company to be possessed with any high +degree of spleen or melancholy. + +I am apt to think that, in the day of Judgment, there will be small +allowance given to the wise for their want of morals, nor to the ignorant +for their want of faith, because both are without excuse. This renders +the advantages equal of ignorance and knowledge. But, some scruples in +the wise, and some vices in the ignorant, will perhaps be forgiven upon +the strength of temptation to each. + +The value of several circumstances in story lessens very much by distance +of time, though some minute circumstances are very valuable; and it +requires great judgment in a writer to distinguish. + +It is grown a word of course for writers to say, "This critical age," as +divines say, "This sinful age." + +It is pleasant to observe how free the present age is in laying taxes on +the next. _Future ages shall talk of this_; _this shall be famous to all +posterity_. Whereas their time and thoughts will be taken up about +present things, as ours are now. + +The chameleon, who is said to feed upon nothing but air, hath, of all +animals, the nimblest tongue. + +When a man is made a spiritual peer he loses his surname; when a +temporal, his Christian name. + +It is in disputes as in armies, where the weaker side sets up false +lights, and makes a great noise, to make the enemy believe them more +numerous and strong than they really are. + +Some men, under the notions of weeding out prejudices, eradicate virtue, +honesty, and religion. + +In all well-instituted commonwealths, care has been taken to limit men's +possessions; which is done for many reasons, and among the rest, for one +which perhaps is not often considered: that when bounds are set to men's +desires, after they have acquired as much as the laws will permit them, +their private interest is at an end, and they have nothing to do but to +take care of the public. + +There are but three ways for a man to revenge himself of the censure of +the world: to despise it, to return the like, or to endeavour to live so +as to avoid it. The first of these is usually pretended, the last is +almost impossible; the universal practice is for the second. + +I never heard a finer piece of satire against lawyers than that of +astrologers, when they pretend by rules of art to tell when a suit will +end, and whether to the advantage of the plaintiff or defendant; thus +making the matter depend entirely upon the influence of the stars, +without the least regard to the merits of the cause. + +The expression in Apocrypha about Tobit and his dog following him I have +often heard ridiculed, yet Homer has the same words of Telemachus more +than once; and Virgil says something like it of Evander. And I take the +book of Tobit to be partly poetical. + +I have known some men possessed of good qualities, which were very +serviceable to others, but useless to themselves; like a sun-dial on the +front of a house, to inform the neighbours and passengers, but not the +owner within. + +If a man would register all his opinions upon love, politics, religion, +learning, etc., beginning from his youth and so go on to old age, what a +bundle of inconsistencies and contradictions would appear at last! + +What they do in heaven we are ignorant of; what they do not we are told +expressly: that they neither marry, nor are given in marriage. + +It is a miserable thing to live in suspense; it is the life of a spider. + +The Stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires, is +like cutting off our feet when we want shoes. + +Physicians ought not to give their judgment of religion, for the same +reason that butchers are not admitted to be jurors upon life and death. + +The reason why so few marriages are happy, is, because young ladies spend +their time in making nets, not in making cages. + +If a man will observe as he walks the streets, I believe he will find the +merriest countenances in mourning coaches. + +Nothing more unqualifies a man to act with prudence than a misfortune +that is attended with shame and guilt. + +The power of fortune is confessed only by the miserable; for the happy +impute all their success to prudence or merit. + +Ambition often puts men upon doing the meanest offices; so climbing is +performed in the same posture with creeping. + +Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent. + +Although men are accused for not knowing their own weakness, yet perhaps +as few know their own strength. It is, in men as in soils, where +sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not of. + +Satire is reckoned the easiest of all wit, but I take it to be otherwise +in very bad times: for it is as hard to satirise well a man of +distinguished vices, as to praise well a man of distinguished virtues. It +is easy enough to do either to people of moderate characters. + +Invention is the talent of youth, and judgment of age; so that our +judgment grows harder to please, when we have fewer things to offer it: +this goes through the whole commerce of life. When we are old, our +friends find it difficult to please us, and are less concerned whether we +be pleased or no. + +No wise man ever wished to be younger. + +An idle reason lessens the weight of the good ones you gave before. + +The motives of the best actions will not bear too strict an inquiry. It +is allowed that the cause of most actions, good or bad, may he resolved +into the love of ourselves; but the self-love of some men inclines them +to please others, and the self-love of others is wholly employed in +pleasing themselves. This makes the great distinction between virtue and +vice. Religion is the best motive of all actions, yet religion is +allowed to be the highest instance of self-love. + +Old men view best at a distance with the eyes of their understanding as +well as with those of nature. + +Some people take more care to hide their wisdom than their folly. + +Anthony Henley's farmer, dying of an asthma, said, "Well, if I can get +this breath once _out_, I'll take care it never got _in_ again." + +The humour of exploding many things under the name of trifles, fopperies, +and only imaginary goods, is a very false proof either of wisdom or +magnanimity, and a great check to virtuous actions. For instance, with +regard to fame, there is in most people a reluctance and unwillingness to +be forgotten. We observe, even among the vulgar, how fond they are to +have an inscription over their grave. It requires but little philosophy +to discover and observe that there is no intrinsic value in all this; +however, if it be founded in our nature as an incitement to virtue, it +ought not to be ridiculed. + +Complaint is the largest tribute heaven receives, and the sincerest part +of our devotion. + +The common fluency of speech in many men, and most women, is owing to a +scarcity of matter, and a scarcity of words; for whoever is a master of +language, and hath a mind full of ideas, will be apt, in speaking, to +hesitate upon the choice of both; whereas common speakers have only one +set of ideas, and one set of words to clothe them in, and these are +always ready at the mouth. So people come faster out of a church when it +is almost empty, than when a crowd is at the door. + +Few are qualified to shine in company; but it is in most men's power to +be agreeable. The reason, therefore, why conversation runs so low at +present, is not the defect of understanding, but pride, vanity, +ill-nature, affectation, singularity, positiveness, or some other vice, +the effect of a wrong education. + +To be vain is rather a mark of humility than pride. Vain men delight in +telling what honours have been done them, what great company they have +kept, and the like, by which they plainly confess that these honours were +more than their due, and such as their friends would not believe if they +had not been told: whereas a man truly proud thinks the greatest honours +below his merit, and consequently scorns to boast. I therefore deliver +it as a maxim, that whoever desires the character of a proud man, ought +to conceal his vanity. + +Law, in a free country, is, or ought to be, the determination of the +majority of those who have property in land. + +One argument used to the disadvantage of Providence I take to be a very +strong one in its defence. It is objected that storms and tempests, +unfruitful seasons, serpents, spiders, flies, and other noxious or +troublesome animals, with many more instances of the like kind, discover +an imperfection in nature, because human life would be much easier +without them; but the design of Providence may clearly be perceived in +this proceeding. The motions of the sun and moon--in short, the whole +system of the universe, as far as philosophers have been able to discover +and observe, are in the utmost degree of regularity and perfection; but +wherever God hath left to man the power of interposing a remedy by +thought or labour, there he hath placed things in a state of +imperfection, on purpose to stir up human industry, without which life +would stagnate, or, indeed, rather, could not subsist at all: _Curis +accuunt mortalia corda_. + +Praise is the daughter of present power. + +How inconsistent is man with himself! + +I have known several persons of great fame for wisdom in public affairs +and counsels governed by foolish servants. + +I have known great Ministers, distinguished for wit and learning, who +preferred none but dunces. + +I have known men of great valour cowards to their wives. + +I have known men of the greatest cunning perpetually cheated. + +I knew three great Ministers, who could exactly compute and settle the +accounts of a kingdom, but were wholly ignorant of their own economy. + +The preaching of divines helps to preserve well-inclined men in the +course of virtue, but seldom or never reclaims the vicious. + +Princes usually make wiser choices than the servants whom they trust for +the disposal of places: I have known a prince, more than once, choose an +able Minister, but I never observed that Minister to use his credit in +the disposal of an employment to a person whom he thought the fittest for +it. One of the greatest in this age owned and excused the matter from +the violence of parties and the unreasonableness of friends. + +Small causes are sufficient to make a man uneasy when great ones are not +in the way. For want of a block he will stumble at a straw. + +Dignity, high station, or great riches, are in some sort necessary to old +men, in order to keep the younger at a distance, who are otherwise too +apt to insult them upon the score of their age. + +Every man desires to live long; but no man would be old. + +Love of flattery in most men proceeds from the mean opinion they have of +themselves; in women from the contrary. + +If books and laws continue to increase as they have done for fifty years +past, I am in some concern for future ages how any man will be learned, +or any man a lawyer. + +Kings are commonly said to have _long hands_; I wish they had as _long +ears_. + +Princes in their infancy, childhood, and youth are said to discover +prodigious parts and wit, to speak things that surprise and astonish. +Strange, so many hopeful princes, and so many shameful kings! If they +happen to die young, they would have been prodigies of wisdom and virtue. +If they live, they are often prodigies indeed, but of another sort. + +Politics, as the word is commonly understood, are nothing but +corruptions, and consequently of no use to a good king or a good +ministry; for which reason Courts are so overrun with politics. + +A nice man is a man of nasty ideas. + +Apollo was held the god of physic and sender of diseases. Both were +originally the same trade, and still continue. + +Old men and comets have been reverenced for the same reason: their long +beards, and pretences to foretell events. + +A person was asked at court, what he thought of an ambassador and his +train, who were all embroidery and lace, full of bows, cringes, and +gestures; he said, it was Solomon's importation, gold and apes. + +Most sorts of diversion in men, children, and other animals, is an +imitation of fighting. + +Augustus meeting an ass with a lucky name foretold himself good fortune. +I meet many asses, but none of them have lucky names. + +If a man makes me keep my distance, the comfort is he keeps his at the +same time. + +Who can deny that all men are violent lovers of truth when we see them so +positive in their errors, which they will maintain out of their zeal to +truth, although they contradict themselves every day of their lives? + +That was excellently observed, say I, when I read a passage in an author, +where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, there I pronounce +him to be mistaken. + +Very few men, properly speaking, live at present, but are providing to +live another time. + +Laws penned with the utmost care and exactness, and in the vulgar +language, are often perverted to wrong meanings; then why should we +wonder that the Bible is so? + +Although men are accused for not knowing their weakness, yet perhaps as +few know their own strength. + +A man seeing a wasp creeping into a vial filled with honey, that was hung +on a fruit tree, said thus: "Why, thou sottish animal, art thou mad to go +into that vial, where you see many hundred of your kind there dying in it +before you?" "The reproach is just," answered the wasp, "but not from +you men, who are so far from taking example by other people's follies, +that you will not take warning by your own. If after falling several +times into this vial, and escaping by chance, I should fall in again, I +should then but resemble you." + +An old miser kept a tame jackdaw, that used to steal pieces of money, and +hide them in a hole, which the cat observing, asked why he would hoard up +those round shining things that he could make no use of? "Why," said the +jackdaw, "my master has a whole chest full, and makes no more use of them +than I." + +Men are content to be laughed at for their wit, but not for their folly. + +If the men of wit and genius would resolve never to complain in their +works of critics and detractors, the next age would not know that they +ever had any. + +After all the maxims and systems of trade and commerce, a stander-by +would think the affairs of the world were most ridiculously contrived. + +There are few countries which, if well cultivated, would not support +double the number of their inhabitants, and yet fewer where one-third of +the people are not extremely stinted even in the necessaries of life. I +send out twenty barrels of corn, which would maintain a family in bread +for a year, and I bring back in return a vessel of wine, which half a +dozen good follows would drink in less than a month, at the expense of +their health and reason. + +A man would have but few spectators, if he offered to show for threepence +how he could thrust a red-hot iron into a barrel of gunpowder, and it +should not take fire. + + + + +FOOTNOTES: + + +{1} Two puppet-show men. + +{2} The house-keeper. + +{3} The butler. + +{4} The footman. + +{5} The priest his confessor. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS*** + + +******* This file should be named 623.txt or 623.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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