The greatest wits that ever were produced | tiful, or more uncommon lights. If a reader in one age, lived together in so good an under-examines Horace's Art of Poetry, he will find standing, and celebrated one another with so but very few precepts in it, which he may not much generosity, that each of them receives meet with in Aristotle, and which were not an additional lustre from his contemporaries, commonly known by all the poets of the Auand is more famous for having lived with men gustan age. His way of expressing and apof so extraordinary a genius, than if he had plying them, not his invention of them, is what himself been the sole wonder of the age. I we are chiefly to admire. need not tell my reader, that I here point at the reign of Augustus, and I believe he will be of my opinion, that neither Virgil nor Horace would have gained so great a reputation in the world, had they not been the friends and admirers of each other. Indeed all the great writers of that age, for whom singly we have so great an esteem, stand up together as vouchers for one another's reputation. But at the same time that Virgil was celebrated by Gallus, Propertius, Horace, Varius, Tucca, and Ovid, we know that Bavius and Mævius were his declared foes and calumniators. In our own country a man seldom sets up for a poet, without attacking the reputation of all his brothers in the art. The ignorance of the moderns, the scribblers of the age, the decay of poetry, are the topics of detraction with which he makes his entrance into the world: but how much more noble is the fame that is built on candour and ingenuity, according to those beautiful lines of Sir John Denham, in his poem on Fletcher's works! But whither am I stray'd? I need not raise For this reason I think there is nothing in the world so tiresome as the works of those critics who write in a positive dogmatic way, without either language, genius, or imagination. If the reader would see how the best of the Latin critics wrote, he may find their manner very beautifully described in the characters of Horace, Petronius, Quintilian, and Longinus, as they are drawn in the essay of which I am now speaking. Since I have mentioned Longinus, who in his reflections has given us the same kind of sublime, which he observes in the several passages that occasioned them; I caunot but take notice that our English author has, after the same manner, exemplified several of his precepts in the very precepts themselves. I shall produce two or three instances of this kind. Speaking of the insipid smoothness which some readers are so much in love with, he has the following verses : These equal syllables alone require, The gaping of the vowels in the second line, the expletive' do,' in the third, and the ten monosyllables in the fourth, give such a beauty to this passage, as would have been very much admired in an ancient poet. The reader may observe the following lines in the same view: A needless Alexandrine ends the song, And afterwards, "Tis not enough no harshness gives offence, I am sorry to find that an author, who is very justly esteemed among the best judges, has admitted some strokes of this nature into a very fine poem; I mean the Art of Criticism, which was published some months since, and is a master-piece in its kind. The observations foliow one another like those in Horace's Art of Poetry, without that methodical regularity which would have been requisite in a prose author. They are some of them uncommon, but such as the reader must assent to, when he sees them explained with that elegance and perspicuity in which they are delivered. As for those which are the most known, and the most received, they are placed in so beautiful a light, and illustrated with such apt allusions, that they have in them all the graces of novelty, and make the reader, who was before acquainted with them, still The beautiful distich upon Ajax in the foremore convinced of their truth and solid ty. And here give me leave to mention what Men-going lines, puts me in mind of a description sieur Boileau has so very well enlarged upon in Homer's Odyssey, which none of the critics in the preface to his works, that wit and fine have taken notice of. It is where Sisypus is rewriting do not consist so much in advancing presented lifting his stone up the hill, which things that are new, as in giving things that is no sooner carried to the top of it, but it imare known an agreeable turn. It is impossi-mediately tumbles to the bottom. This double ble for us, who live in the later ages of the motion of the stone is admirably described in the numbers of these verses; as in the four world, to make observations in criticism, morality, or in any art or science, which have first it is heaved up by several spondees, internot been touched upon by others. Wo have mixed with proper breathing places, and at little else left us, but to represent the common sense of mankind in more strong, more beau. VOL. I. last trundles down in a continued line of dactyls: 42 I turn'd my eye, and as I turn'd survey'd are a little disordered with romances and novels. After six months marriage to hear thee talk of love, and paint the country scenes so softly, is a little extravagant; one would think you lived the lives of sylvan deities, or roved among the walks of Paradise, like the first happy pair. But pray thee leave these whimsies, and come to town in order to live, and talk like other mortals. However, as I am extremely interested in your reputation, I would willingly give you a little good advice at your first appearance under the character of a married woman. It is a little insolent in me, perhaps, to advise a matron; but I am so afraid It would be endless to quote verses out of you will make so silly a figure as a fond wife, Virgil which have this particular kind of beau- that I cannot help warning you not to appear ty in the numbers; but I may take an occa- in any public places with your husband, and sion in a future paper to show several of never to saunter about St. Jame's Park toge them which have escaped the observations of ther: if you presume to enter the ring at Hyde Park together, you are ruined for ever; nor others. I cannot conclude this paper without tak-must you take the least notice of one another ing notice that we have three poems in our at the play-house, or opera, unless you would tongue, which are of the same nature, and be laughed at for a very loving couple, most each of them a master-piece in its kind; happily paired in the yoke of wedlock. I the Essay on Translated Verse, the Essay would recommend the example of an acquainton the Art of Poetry, and the Essay upon Cri-ance of ours to your imitation; she is the most ticism. No. 254.] Friday, December 21, 1711. C. Σεμνὸς ἔρως αρέτης, ὁ δὲ κυπρίδος ἄχος ὁφέλλες. Virtuous love is honourable, but lust increaseth sorrow. WHEN I Consider the false impressions which are received by the generality of the world, I am troubled at none more than a certain levity of thought, which many young women of quality have entertained, to the hazard of their characters, and the certain misfortune of their lives. The first of the following letters may best represent the faults I would now point at, and the answer to it, the temper of mind in a contrary charac ter. 6 MY DEAR HARRIOT, 'If thou art she, but oh how fallen, how changed, what an apostate! how lost to all that is gay and agreeable! To be married I find is to be buried alive; I cannot conceive it more dismal to be shut up in a vault to converse with the shades of my ancestors, than to be carried down to an old manor-house in the negligent and fashionable wife in the world; country, and confined to the conversation of a 'Be not in pain, good madam, for my apsober husband, and an awkward chambermaid. pearance in town; I shall frequent no public For variety I suppose you may entertain your-places, or make any visits where the character self with madam in her grogram gown, the of a modest wife is ridiculous. As for your spouse of your parish vicar, who has by this wild raillery on matrimony, it is all hypocrisy; time, I am sure, well furnished you with you, and all the handsome young women of receipts for making salves and possets, dis- your acquaintance, show yourselves to no tilling cordial waters, making syrups, and ap- other purpose, than to gain a conquest over plying poultices. some man of worth, in order to bestow your 'Blest solitude! I wish thee joy, my dear, charms and fortune on him. There is no inof thy loved retirement, which indeed you decency in the confession, the design is mowould persuade me is very agreeable, and dest and honourable, and all your affectation different enough from what I have here de- cannot disguise it. scribed but, child, I am afraid thy braing * By the Earl of Roscommon. 'I am married, and have no other concern but to please the man I love; he is the end of every care I have; if I dress it is for him; if apt to procure honour and reputation to the actor. But if we carry our reflections higher, we may discover farther ends of Providence in implanting this passion in mankind. I read a poem, or a play, it is to qualify my- ture, slow in its resolves, and languishing in self for a conversation agreeable to his taste: its executions. The use therefore of the pashe is almost the end of my devotions; half my sions is to stir it up, and to put it upon action, prayers are for his happiness-I love to talk to awaken the understanding, to enforce the of him, and never hear him named but with will, and to make the whole man more vigorpleasure and emotion. I am your friend, and ous and attentive in the prosecution of his dewish your happiness, but am sorry to see, by signs. As this is the end of the passions in the air of your letter, that there are a set of general, so it is particularly of ambition, women who are got into the common-place which pushes the soul to such actions as are raillery of every thing that is sober, decent, and proper: matrimony and the clergy are the topics of people of little wit, and no understanding. I own to you, I have learned of the vicar's wife all you tax me with. She is a It was necessary for the world, that arts discreet, ingenious, pleasant, pious woman; I should be invented and improved, books writwish she had the handling of you and Mrs. ten and transmitted to posterity, nations conModish; you would find, if you were too free quered and civilized. Now since the proper with her, she would soon make you as charming and genuine motives to these, and the like as ever you were; she would make you blush great actions, would only influence virtuous as much as if you never had been fine ladies. minds; there would be but small improveThe vicar, madam, is so kind as to visit my ments in the world, were there not some husband, and his agreeable conversation has common principle of action working equally brought him to enjoy many sober happy with all men. And such a principle is ambihours when even I am shut out, and my dear tion, or a desire of fame, by which great enmaster is entertained only with his own dowments are not suffered to lie idle and usethoughts. These things, dear madam, will be less to the public, any many vicious men are lasting satisfactions, when the fine ladies, and over-reached as it were, and engaged contrary the cox-combs, by whom they form themselves, are irreparably ridiculous, ridiculous in old age. 'I am, Madam, DEAR MR. SPECTATOR, You have no goodness in the world, and are not in earnest in any thing you say that is serious, if you do not send me a plain answer to this. I happened some days past to be at the play, where during the time of performance, I could not keep my eyes off from a beautiful young creature who sat just before me, and who, I have been since informed, has no fortune. It would utterly ruin my reputation for discretion to marry such a one, and by what I can learn she has a character of great modesty, so that there is nothing to be thought on any other way. My mind has ever since been so wholly bent on her, that I am much in danger of doing something very extravagant without your speedy advice to, Sir. "Your most humble servant.' I am sorry I cannot answer this impatient gentleman, but by another question. to their natural inclinations, in a glorious and laudable course of action. For we may farther observe, that men of the greatest abilities are most fired with ambition; and that on the contrary, mean and narrow minds are the least actuated by it: whether it be that a man's sense of his own incapacities make him despair of coming at fame, or that he has not enough range of thought to look out for any good which does not more immediately relate to his interest or convenience; or that Providence, in the very frame of his soul, would not subject him such a passion as would be useless to the world, and a torment to himself. Were not this desire of fame very strong, the difficulty of obtaining it, and the danger of losing it when obtained, would be sufficient to deter a man from so vain a pursuit. How few are there who are furnished with abilities sufficient to recommend their actions to the admiration of the world, and to distinguish themselves from the rest of mankind? Providence for the most part sets us upon a level, and observes a kind of proportion in its dispensations towards us. If it renders us perfect in one accomplishment, it generally leaves us defective in another, and seems careful rather of preserving every person from being mean and deficient in his qualifications, Would you marry to please other people, than of making any single one eminent or exor yourself?' • DEAR CORRESPONDENT, No. 255.] Saturday, December 22, 1711. Laudis amore tumes? sunt certa piacula, quæ te T. Hor. Ep, 1. Lib. 1. ver. 36. traordinary. Among those who are the most richly endowed by nature, and accomplished by their own industry, how few are there whose virtues are not obscured by the ignorance, prejudice, or envy of their beholders! Some men cannot discern between a noble and a mean action. Others are apt to attribute them to some false end or intention; and others purposely misrepresent, or put a wrong interpreTHE Soul, is considered abstractedly from tation on them. But the more to enforce this its passions. is of a remiss and sedentary na-consideration, we may observe that those are Know there are rhymes, which (fresh and fresh apply'd) 1 generally most unsuccessful in their pursuit of a desire of fame, which we could not be after fame, who are most desirous of obtain- prompted to by a disinterested love to maning it. It is Sallust's remark upon Cato, kind, or by a generous passion for the glory that the less he coveted glory, the more he of him who made us. acquired it.* Thus is fame a thing difficult to be obtained Men take an ill-natured pleasure in crossing by all, but particularly by those who thirst our inclinations, and disappointing us in what after it, since most men have so much either our hearts are most set upon. When, there- of ill-nature, or of wariness, as not to gratify fore, they have discovered the passionate de- or sooth the vanity of the ambitious man; sire of fame in the ambitious man, (as no tem- and since this very thirst after fame natuper of mind is more apt to show itself) they rally betrays him into such indecencies as are become sparing and reserved in their com- a lessening to his reputation, and is itself mendations, they envy him the satisfaction of looked upon as a weakness in the greatest chaan applause, and look on their praises rather racters. as a kindness doue to his person, than as a tribute paid to his merit. Others who are free from this natural perverseness of temper, grow wary in their praises of one who sets too great a value on them, lest they should raise him too high in his own imagination, and by consequence remove him to a greater distance from No. 256.] Monday, December 24, 1711. themselves. In the next place, fame is easily lost, and as difficult to be preserved as it was at first to be acquired. But this I shall make the subject of a following paper. C. Φήμη γάρ τε κακὴ πέλεται κούφη μὲν αεῖραι Hesiod. But further, this desire of fame naturally betrays the ambitious man into such indecencies as are a lessening to his reputation. He Fame is an ill you may with ease obtain, is still afraid lest any of his actions should be A sad oppression, to be born with pain. thrown away in private, lest his deserts should be concealed from the notice of the world, THERE are many passions and tempers of or receive any disadvantage from the reports mind which naturally dispose us to depress and which others make of them. This often sets vilify the merit of one rising in the esteem of him on empty boasts and ostentations of him- mankind. All those who made their enself, and betrays him into vain fantastical re- trance into the world with the same advantacitals of his own performances. His discourse ges, and were once looked on as his equals, generally leans one way, and whatever is the are apt to think the fame of his merits a resubject of it, tends obliquely either to the de-flection on their own deserts; and will theretracting from others, or to the extolling of fore take care to reproach him with the scanhimself. Vanity is the natural weakness of dal of some past action, or derogate from the an ambitious man, which exposes him to the worth of the present, that they may still keep secret scorn and derision of those he converses with, and ruins the character he is so industrious to advance by it. For though his actions are never so glorious, they lose their lustre when they are drawn at large, and set to show by his own hand; and as the world is more apt to find fault than to commend, the boast will probably be censured, when the great action that occasioned it is forgotten. him on the same level with themselves. The like kind of consideration often stirs up the envy of such as were once his superiors, who think it a detraction from their merit to see another get ground upon them, and overtake them in the pursuits of glory; and will therefore endeavour to sink his reputation, that they may the better preserve their own. Those who were once his equals envy and defame him, because they now see him their superior; and those who were once his superiors, because they look upon him as their equal. Besides, this very desire of fame is looked on as a meanness and imperfection in the A solid and substantial greatest character. greatness of soul looks down, with a generous But farther, a man whose extraordinary reneglect, on the censures and applauses of the putation thus lifts him up to the notice and multitude, and places a man beyond the little observation of mankind, draws a multitude of noise and strife of tongues. Accordingly we eyes upon him, that will narrowly inspect every find in ourselves a secret awe and veneration part of him, consider him nicely in all views, for the character of one who moves above us, and not be a little pleased, when they have in a regular and illustrious course of virtue, taken him in the worst and most disadvantawithout any regard to our good or ill opinions geous light. There are many who find a pleaof him, to our reproaches or mmendations. sure in contradicting the common reports of As on the contrary it is usual for us, when we fame, and in spreading abroad the weaknesses would take off from the fame and reputation of an exalted character. They publish their illof an action, to ascribe it to vain glory, and natured discoveries with a secret pride, and a desire of fame in the actor. Nor is this applaud themselves for the singularity of their common judgment and opinion of mankind ill-judgment, which has searched deeper than founded for certainly it denotes no great bra-others, detected what the rest of the world very of mind, to be worked up to any noble ac- has overlooked, and found a flaw in what tion by so selfish a motive, and to do that out the generality of mankind admires. Others Sal. Bel. Catil. c.. 49. there are who proclaim the errors and infirmities of a great man with an inward satisfaction and complacency, if they discover none of the and disappear, amidst the brightness that surlike errors and infirmities in themselves; for rounds them; but a blot of a deeper nature while they are exposing another's weaknesses, casts a shade on all the other beauties, and they are tacitly aiming at their own com- darkens the whole character. How difficult mendations, who are not subject to the like therefore is it to preserve a great name, when infirmities, and are apt to be transported with he that has acquired it is so obnoxious to such a secret kind of vanity, to see themselves su- little weaknesses and infirmities as are no perior in some respects, to one of a sublime small diminution to it when discovered; esand celebrated reputation. Nay, it very often pecially when they are so industriously prohappens, that none are more industrious in claimed, and aggravated by such as were publishing the blemishes of an extraordinary once his superiors, or equals; by such as reputation, than such as lie open to the same would set to show their judgment, or their censures in their own characters, as either wit, and by such as are guilty, or innocent, of hoping to excuse their own defects by the au- the same slips or misconducts in their own thority of so high an example, or to raise an behaviour! imaginary applause to themselves, for resem- But were there none of these dispositions in bling a person of an exalted reputation, though others to censure a famous man, nor any such in the blameable parts of his character. If all miscarriages in himself, yet would he meet these secret springs of detraction fail, yet very with no small trouble in keeping up his repuoften a vain ostentation of wit sets a man on tation, in all its height and splendour. There attacking an established name, and sacrificing must be always a noble train of actions to preit to the mirth and laughter of those about serve his fame in life and motion. For when him. A satire or a libel on one of the common it is once at a stand, it naturally flags and stamp, never meets with that reception and ap- languishes. Admiration is a very short-lived probation among its readers, as what is aim- passion, that immediately decays upon growed at a person whose merit places him upon an eminence, and gives him a more conspicuous figure among men. Whether it be, that we think it shows greater art to expose and turn to ridicule a man whose character seems so improper a subject for it, or that we are pleased by some implicit kind of revenge, to see him taken down and humbled in his reputation, and in some measure reduced to our own rank, who had so far raised himself above us, in the reports and opinions of mankind. ing familiar with its object, unless it be still fed with fresh discoveries, and kept alive by a new perpetual succession of miracles rising up to its view. And even the greatest actions of a celebrated person labour under this disadvantage, that, however surprising and extraordinary they may be, they are no more than what are expected from him; but on the contrary, if they fall any thing below the opinion that is conceived of him, though they might raise the reputation of another, they are a diminution to his. Thus we see how many dark and intricate One would think there should be something motives there are to detraction and defama- wonderfully pleasing in the possession of fame, tion, and how many malicious spies are search- that, notwithstanding all these mortifying coning into the actions of a great man, who is siderations, can engage a man in so desperate not, always, the best prepared for so narrow a pursuit; and yet, if we consider the little hapan inspection. For we may generally observe piness that attends a great character, and the that our admiration of a famous man lessens multitude of disquietudes to which the desire upon our nearer acquaintance with him and of it subjects an ambitious mind, one would be that we seldom hear the description of a cele- still the more surprised to see so many restless brated person, without a catalogue of some candidates for glory. notorious weaknesses and infirmities. The Ambition raises a secret tumult in the soul, reason may be, because any little slip is more it inflames the mind, and puts it into a violent conspicuous and observable in his conduct hurry of thought. It is still reaching after than in another's, as it is not of a piece with an empty imaginary good, that has not in it the rest of his character: or because it is im- the power to abate or satisfy it. Most other possible for a man at the same time to be atten- things we long for can allay the cravings of tive to the more important part of his life, and their proper sense, and for a while set the to keep a watchful eye over all the inconsidera-appetite at last; but fame is a good so wholble circumstances of his behaviour and conver-ly foreign to our natures, that we have no sation; or because, as we have before ohserv-faculty in the soul adapted to it, nor any ored, the same temper of mind which inclines us to a desire of fame, naturally betrays us into such slips and unwarinesses, as are not incident to men of a contrary disposition. gan in the body to relish it an object of desire, placed out of the possibility of fruition. It may indeed fill the mind for a while with a giddy kind of pleasure, but it is such a pleaAfter all it must be confessed, that a noble sure as makes a man restless and uneasy under and triumphant merit often breaks through it; and which does not so much satisfy the and dissipates these little spots and sullies in present thirst, as it excites fresh desires, and its reputation; but if by a mistaken pursuit sets the soul on new enterprises. For how few after fame, or through human infirmity, any ambitious men are there, who have got as false step be made in the more momentous much fame as they desired, and whose thirst concerns of life, the whole scheme of ambitious after it has not been as eager in the very designs is broken and disappointed. The height of their reputation, as it was before smaller stains and blemishes may die away they became known and eminent among men! |