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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 fittle 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 has 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 other instances of the same 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 has left to man the power of interposing a remedy by thought or labour, there He has 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 acuuntur 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 councils gov erned 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 accompts 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 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 all courts are so full of politics.

CENTRAL COLLECTION

* Harley.

Venus, a beautiful, good-natured lady, was the goddess of love; Juno, a terrible shrew, the goddess of marriage: and they were always mortal enemies.

Those who are against religion must needs be fools; and therefore we read that of all animals, God refused the first-born of an ass.

A very little wit is valued in a woman, as we are pleased with a few words spoken plain by a parrot.

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.

There is a story in Pausanias of a plot for betraying a city discovered by the braying of an ass; the cackling of geese saved the Capitol; and Catiline's conspiracy was discovered by a whore. These are the only three animals, as far as I remember, famous in history as evidences and informers.

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 contented 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 part of the people are not extremely stinted even in the necessaries of life. I send out twenty barrels of corn, which would mainMost sorts of diversion in men, children, and tain a family in bread for a year, and I bring other animals, are in 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 them selves 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 prezent, but are providing to live another time.

As universal a practice as lying is, and as easy a one as it seems, I do not remember to have heard three good lies in all my conversation, even from those who were most celebrated in that faculty.

(1726.)

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?

back in return a vessel of wine, which half a dozen good fellows would drink in less than a month, at the expense of their health and

reason.

A motto for the Jesuits:

"Quæ regio in terris nostri non plena laboris ? "

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.

Query, Whether churches are not dormitories of the living as well as of the dead?

Harry Killegrew said to Lord Wharton, "You would not swear at that rate if you thought you were doing God honour."

Since the union of divinity and humanity is the great article of our religion, it is odd to see some clergymen, in their writings of divinity, wholly devoid of humanity.

The Epicureans began to spread at Rome in the empire of Augustus, as the Socinians, and even the Epicureans too, did in England toward the end of King Charles II.'s reign; which is reckoned, though very absurdly, our Augustan age. They both seem to be corruptions occasioned by luxury and peace, and by politeness beginning to decline.

Sometimes I read a book with pleasure, and detest the author.

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 the vial, where you see many hundred At a bookseller's shop some time ago, I saw a of your kind dying before you?" "The re- book with this title: "Poems by the Author of proach is just," answered the wasp, "but not | The Choice." Not enduring to read a dozen

lines, I asked the company with me, whether they had ever seen the book, or heard of the poem whence the author denominated himself. They were all as ignorant as I. But I find it common with these small dealers in wit and learning, to give themselves a title from their first adventure, as Don Quixote usually did from his last. This arises from that great importance which every man supposes himself to be of.

One Dennis, commonly called "The Critic," who had written a threepenny pamphlet against the power of France, being in the country, and hearing of a French privateer hovering about the coast, although he were twenty miles from the sea, fled to town, and told his friends that they need not wonder at his haste; for the King of France, having got intelligence where he was, had sent a privateer on purpose to catch him.

Dr Gee, prebendary of Westminster, who had written a small paper against Popery, being obliged to travel for his health, affected to disguise his person and change his name, as he passed through Portugal, Spain, and Italy; telling all the English he met, that he was afraid of being murdered, or put into the Inquisition. He was acting the same farce at Paris, till Mr Prior (who was then secretary to the embassy) quite disconcerted the doctor by maliciously discovering the secret; and offering to engage, body for body, that not a creature would hurt him, or had ever heard of him or his pamphlet.

The death of a private man is generally of so little importance to the world, that it cannot be a thing of great importance in itself; and yet I do not observe, from the practice of mankind, that either philosophy or nature have sufficiently armed us against the fears which attend it. Neither do I find anything able to reconcile us to it, but extreme pain, shame, or despair; for poverty, imprisonment, ill fortune, grief, sickness, and old age, do generally fail.

a sheet of paper, which never failed to cut it even, only requiring a steady hand; whereas if they should make use of a sharp penknife, the sharpness would make it go often out of the crease and disfigure the paper.

"He who does not provide for his own house," St Paul says, "is worse than an infidel." And, I think, he who provides only for his own house, is just equal with an infidel.

Jealousy, like fire, may shrivel up horns, but it makes them stink.

A footman's hat should fly off to everybody; and therefore Mercury, who was Jupiter's footman, had wings fastened to his cap.

When a man pretends love, but courts for money, he is like a juggler, who conjures away your shilling, and conveys something very indecent under the hat.

All panegyrics are mingled with an infusion of poppy.

I have known men happy enough at ridicule, who upon grave subjects were perfectly stupid; of which Dr Echard of Cambridge, who wrote "The Contempt of the Clergy," was a great instance.

One top of Parnassus was sacred to Bacchus, the other to Apollo.

Matrimony has many children: Repentance, Discord, Poverty, Jealousy, Sickness, Spleen, Loathing, etc.

Vision is the art of seeing things invisible. The two maxims of any great man at court are, always to keep his countenance, and never to keep his word.

Love is a flame, and therefore we say beauty is attractive; because physicians observe that fire is a great drawer.

Civis, the most honourable name among the Romans-a citizen, a word of contempt among

us.

We read that an ass's head was sold for eighty I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often pieces of silver; they have lately been sold ten wonder to see them not ashamed. thousand times dearer, and yet they were never more plentiful.

Do not we see how easily we pardon our own actions and passions, and the very infirmities of our bodies; and why should it be wonderful to find us pardon our own dulness?

Observation is an old man's memory. Eloquence, smooth and cutting, is like a razor whetted with oil.

Imaginary evils soon become real ones by indulging our reflections on them; as he who in a melancholy fancy sees something like a face on the wall or the wainscot, can, by two or three touches with a lead pencil, make it look visible, and agreeing with what he fancied.

Men of great parts are often unfortunate in the management of public business, because they are apt to go out of the common road by the quickness of their imagination. This I once said to my Lord Bolingbroke, and desired he would observe, that the clerks in his office used a sort of ivory knife with a blunt edge to divide

I must complain the cards are ill shuffled till I have a good hand.

Whoever live at a different end of the town from me,'I look upon as persons out of the world, and only myself and the scene about me to be in it.

My Lord Cromarty, after fourscore, went to his country house in Scotland, with a resolution to stay six years there and live thriftily, in order to save up money that he might spend in London. Elephants are always drawn smaller than life, but a flea always larger.

When old folks tell us of many passages in their youth between them and their company, we are apt to think how much happier those times were than the present.

No man will take counsel, but every man will take money; therefore money is better than counsel.

WILLIAM SHENSTONE.*

BORN 1714: DIED 1763.

(From "Essays on Men and Manners.")

A HUMORIST.

To form an estimate of the proportion which
one man's happiness bears to another's, we are |
to consider the mind that is allotted him with
as much attention as the circumstances. It were
superfluous to evince that the same objects which
one despises, are frequently to another the sub-
stantial source of admiration. The man of busi-
ness and the man of pleasure are to each other
mutually contemptible; and a blue garter has
less charms for some, than they can discover in
a butterfly. The more candid and sage observer
condemns neither for his pursuits; but for the
derision he so profusely lavishes upon the dis-
position of his neighbour. He concludes that
schemes infinitely various were at first intended
for our pursuit and pleasures, and that some
find their account in heading a cry of hounds,
as much as others in the dignity of lord chief-
justice.

Having premised thus much, I proceed to give some account of a character which came within the sphere of my own observation.

Not the entrance of a cathedral, not the sound of a passing bell, not the furs of a magistrate, nor the sables of a funeral, were fraught with half the solemnity of face!

Nay, so wonderfully serious was he observed to be on all occasions, that it was found hardly possible to be otherwise in his company. He quashed the loudest tempest of laughter, whenever he entered the room; and men's features, though ever so much roughened, were sure to grow smooth at his approach.

The man had nothing vicious, or even illnatured in his character; yet he was the dread of all jovial conversation; the young, the gay, found their spirits fly before him. Even the kitten and the puppy, as it were by instinct, would forego their frolics, and be still. The depression he occasioned was like that of a damp or vitiated air. Unconscious of any apparent cause, you found your spirits sink insensibly and were any one to sit for the picture of ill-luck, it is not possible the painter could select a more proper person.

Yet he did not fail to boast of a superior share of reason, even for the want of that very faculty,

* "The essays are good, displaying an ease and grace of style united to judgment and discrimination. They

have not the mellow ripeness of thought and learning

of Cowley's Essays, but they resemble them more closely than any others we possess."-Chambers's Cyclopædia of English Literature, vol. i., p. 717.

risibility, with which it is supposed to be always joined.

Indeed he acquired the character of the most ingenious person of his county, from this meditative temper. Not that he had ever made any great discovery of his talents; but a few oracular declarations, joined with a common opinion that he was writing somewhat for posterity, completed his reputation.

Numbers would have willingly depreciated his character, had not his known sobriety and reputed sense deterred them.

He was one day overheard at his devotions, returning his most fervent thanks for some particularities in his situation, which the generality of mankind would have but little regarded.

"Accept," said he, "the gratitude of Thy most humble, yet most happy creature, not for silver or gold, the tinsel of mankind, but for those amiable peculiarities which Thou hast so graciously interwoven both with my fortune and my complexion: for those treasures so well adapted to that frame of mind Thou hast assigned me.

"That the surname which has descended to me is liable to no pun.

"That it runs chiefly upon vowels and liquids. "That I have a picturesque countenance rather than one that is esteemed of regular features.

"That there is an intermediate hill, intercepting my view of a nobleman's seat, whose illobtained superiority I cannot bear to recollect.

"That my estate is overrun with brambles, resounds with cataracts, and is beautifully varied with rocks and precipices, rather than an even cultivated spot, fertile of corn, or wine, or oil; or those kinds of productions in which the sons of men delight themselves.

"That as Thou dividest Thy bounties impartially; giving riches to one, and the contempt of riches to another, so Thou hast given me, in the midst of poverty, to despise the insolence of riches, and by declining all emulation that is founded upon wealth, to maintain the dignity and superiority of the muses.

"That I have a disposition either so elevated or so ingenuous, that I can derive to myself amusement from the very expedients and contrivances with which rigorous necessity furnishes my invention.

"That I can laugh at my own follies, foibles, and infirmities; and that I do not want infirmities to employ this disposition."

night, as he was contemplating, by the side of a This poor gentleman caught cold one winter's crystal stream, by moonshine. This afterwards terminated in a fever that was fatal to him.

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LAM SERISTINE.

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Essayists

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