Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

that he could scarce discern that speck of dirt, the Roman empire.

Such a view as this will increase our knowledge, by shewing us our ignorance; will distinguish every degree of probability, from the lowest to the highest, and mark the distance between that and certainty; will dispel the intoxi. cating fumes of philosophical presumption, and teach us to establish our peace of mind, where alone it can rest securely, in resignation. short, such a view will render life more agreeable, and death less terrible. Is not this business? Is not this pleasure too? the highest pleasure! The world can afford us none such; we must retire from the world to taste it with a full gust; but we shall taste it the better for having been in the world.

In

But to lead such a life with satisfaction and profit, merely to renounce the pleasures of this world, and break the habits of both, is not sufficient. The supine creature, whose understanding is superficially employed through life, about a few general notions, and is never bent to a close and steady pursuit of truth, may renounce the pleasures and business of the world, and may break the habits; nay, he may retire and drone away life in solitude like a monk, or like him over the door of whose house, as if his house

[blocks in formation]
[ocr errors]

had been his tomb, somebody wrote, "There lies such an one."

But no such man will be able to make the true use of retirement. The employment of his mind that would have been agreeable and easy, if he had accustomed himself to it early, will be unpleasant and impracticable late. Such men lose their intellectual powers, for want of exercising them, and having trifled away youth, are reduced to the necessity of trifling away age.

It fares with the mind just as it does with the body. He who was born with a texture of brain as strong as that of Newton, may become unable to perform the common rules of arithmetic; just as he who has the same elasticity in his muscles, the same suppleness in his joints, and all his nerves and sinews as well braced as Jacob Hall*, may become a fat unwieldy sluggard.

To set about acquiring the habits of meditation and study, late in life, is like getting into a go-cart with a grey beard, and learning to walk when we have lost the use of our legs. In general, the foundations of an happy old age must be laid in youth, and in particular, he who has not cultivated his reason young will be utterly unable to improve it old.

* A famous posture-master.

Not only a love of study, and a desire of knowledge must have grown up with us, but such an industrious application likewise as requires the whole vigour of the mind to be exerted in the pursuit of truth through long trains of ideas, and all those dark recesses, wherein mau, not God, has hid it.

ESSAY 41.

WIT

(Sir Richard Blackmore.)

THE inclinations of men carry them with great force to those objects that please their appetites, and gratify their senses; and which, not only from early acquaintance and familiarity, but as being adapted to the prevailing instincts of nature, are more esteemed and pursued, than all other satisfactions. As those inferior enjoy ments, that only affect the organs of the body, are chiefly coveted; so next to these, that light and facetious qualification of the mind, that di

verts the hearers, and is proper to produce mirth and alacrity, has in all ages, been admired and applauded. No productions of human understanding, are received with such a general pleasure and approbation, as those that abound with wit and humour, which are more valued than the wisest and most instructive discourses. Hence a pleasant man is always caressed above a wise one; and ridicule and satire, that entertain the laughers, often put solid reason and useful science out of countenance.

Since the power of wit is so prevalent, and has obtained such an esteem and popularity, that a man, endowed with this agreeable quality, is by many looked on as a heavenly being, if compared with others, who have nothing but learning and a clear arguing head, it will be worth while to search into its nature, examine its usefulness, and take a view of those fatal effects it produces when it happens to be misapplied.

Wit imparts spirit to our conceptions and dictions, by giving them a lively and novel, and therefore an agreeable form; and thus its nature is limited and diversified from all other intellectual endowments. The addition of wit to proper subjects, is like the artful improvement of the cook, who, by his exquisite sauce, gives to a plain dish a pleasant and unusual relish. A

man of this character works on simple propositions, a rich embroidery of flowers and figures, and imitates the curious artist, who studs and inlays his prepared steel with devices of gold and silver. But wit is not only the improvement of a plain piece by intellectual enamelling: besides this, it animates and warms a cold sentiment, and makes it glow with life and vigour, by giving it an elegant and surprising turn. It always conveys the thought of the speaker or writer cloathed in a pleasing but foreign dress, in which it never appeared to the hearer before; and this appearance in the habit of a stranger must be admirable, since surprise naturally arises from novelty, as delight and wonder result from surprise.

As to its efficient cause: wit owes its production to an extraordinary and peculiar temperament in the constitution, or an affluence of animal spirits highly refined and rectified. Hence, they become proper instruments for the sprightly operations of the mind, by which means the imagination can with great facility range the wide field of nature, contemplate an infinite variety of objects, and by observing the similitude and disagreement of their several qualities, single out and abstract, and then suit and unite those ideas which best serve its purpose, Hence beautiful allu

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »