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15. We must therefore be very cautious, lest while 'we think to regulate the passions, we shall quite extinguish them; which is putting out the light of the soul; for to be without passion, or to be hurried away with it, makes a man equally blind. The extraordinary severity ' used in most of our schools has this fatal effect; it breaks the spring of the mind, and most certainly destroys more good geniuses than it can possibly improve.

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16. And surely 'tis a mighty mistake that the passions 'should be so entirely subdued; for little irregularities T are sometimes not only to be borne with, but to be cul'tivated too, since they are frequently attended with the greatest perfections. All great geniuses have faults 'mixed with their virtues, and resemble the flaming bush which has thorns amongst lights.

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17. Since therefore the passions are the principles of 'human actions, we must endeavour to manage them so as to retain their vigour, yet keep them under strict 'command; we must govern them rather like free sub'jects than slaves, lest while we intend to make them obedient, they become abject, and unfit for those great purposes to which they were designed.

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18. For my part I must confess, I could never have 'any regard to that sect of philosophers, who so much in, 'sisted upon an absolute indifference and vacancy from all passions; for it seems to me a thing very inconsistent for a man to divest himself of humanity, in order to acquire tranquillity of mind and to eradicate the very principles of action, because it is possible they may produce ill effects.

I am, Sir,

Your affectionate admirer,

T. B.'

SPECTATOR, Vol. IV. No. 408.

The advantages of representing Human Nature in its proper dignity.

TATLER, No. 198. IT is not to be imagined how great an effect well-disposed lights, with proper forms, and orders in assemblies, have upon some tempers. I am sure I feel it in so extra

ordinary a manner, that I cannot in a day or two get out of my imagination any very beautiful or disagreeable impression which I receive on such occasions. For this reason I frequently look in at the play-house, in order to enlarge my thoughts, and warm my mind with some new ideas, that may be serviceable to me in my lucubrations.

1. In this disposition I entered the theatre the other day, and placed myself in a corner of it, very convenient for seeing, without being myself observed. I found the audience hushed in a very deep attention, and did not question but some noble tragedy was just then in its crisis, or that an incident was to be unravelled which would determine the fate of an hero. While I was in this suspense, expecting every moment to see my old friend Mr. Bitterton appear in all the majesty of distress, to my unspeakable amazement, there came up a monster with a face between his feet; and, as I was looking on, he raised himself on one leg in such a perpendicular posture, that the other grew in a direct line above his head.

2. It afterwards twisted itself into the motions and wreathings of several different animals, and, after great variety of shapes and transformations, went off the stage in the figure of a human creature. The admiration, the

applause, the satisfaction of the audience, during this strange entertainment, is not to be expressed. I was very much out of countenance for my dear countrymen, and looked about with some apprehension, for fear any foreigner should be present.

3. Is it possible, thought I, that human nature can rejoice in its disgrace, and take pleasure in seeing its own figure turned into ridicule, and distorted into forms tha: raise horror and aversion? There is something disingen uous and immoral in the being able to bear such a sight. Men of elegant and noble minds are shocked at the seeing characters of persons who deserve esteem for their virtue, knowledge, or services to their country, placed in wrong lights, and by misrepresentations made the subject of buffoonery.

4. Such a nice abhorrence is not, indeed, to be found among the vulgar; but methinks it is wonderful, that those, who have nothing but the outward figure to distinguish them as men, should delight in seeing it abused, vilified and disgraced.

I must confess there is nothing that more pleases me, in all that I read in books, or see among mankind, than such passages as represent human nature in its proper dignity.

5. As man is a creature made up of different extremes, he has something in him very great and very mean: a skilful artist may draw an excellent picture of him in either of these views. The finest authors of antiquity have taken him on the more advantageous side. They cultivate the natural grandeur of the soul, raise in her a generous ambition, feed her with hopes of immortality and perfection, and do all they can to widen the partition between the virtuous and the vicious, by making the difference betwixt them as great as between gods and brutes.

6. In short, it is impossible to read a page in Plato,Tully, and a thousand other ancient moralists, without being a greater and a better man for it. On the contrary, I could' never read any of our modish French authors, or those of our own country, who are the imitators and admirers of that trifling nation, without being for some time out of humour with myself, and at every thing about me.

7. Their business is, to depreciate human nature, and consider it under its worst appearances. They give mean interpretations and base motives to the worthiest actions; they resolve virtue and vice into constitution. In short, they endeavour to make no distinction between man anıl man, or between the species of men and that of brutes. As an instance of this kind of authors, among many others, let any one examine the celebrated Rochefoucault,who is the great philosopher for administering of consolation to the idle, the envious, and worthless parts of mankind.

8. I remember a young gentleman of moderate understanding, but great vivacity, who, by dipping into many. authors of this nature, had got a little smattering of knowledge, just enough to make an atheist or a free-thinker but not a philosopher of a man of sense. With these accom

plishments, be went to visit his father in the country, who was a plain, rough, honest man, and wise though not learned. The son, who took all opportunities to shew his learning, began to establish a new religion in the family, and to enlarge the narrowness of their country notions; in which he succeeded so well, that he had seduced the butler by his table talk, and staggered his eldest sister.

9.The old gentleman began to be alarmed at the schisms that arose among his children, but did not yet believe his son's doctrine to be so pernicious as it really was, till one day talking of his setting-dog, the son said he did not question but Trey was as immortal as any one of the family; and in the heat of the argument told his father, that for his own part he expected to die like a dog. Upon which the old gentleman, starting up in a very great passion, cried out, Then, sirrah, you shall live like one; and, taking his cane in his hand, cudgeled him out of his system. This had so good an effect upon him, that he took up from that day, fell to reading good books, and is now a bencher in the Middle Templc.

10. I do not mention this cudgeling part of the story with a design to engage the secular arm in matters of this nature; but certainly, if it ever exerts itself in affairs of opinion and speculation, it ought to do it on such shallow and despicable pretenders to knowledge, who endeavour to give man dark and uncomfortable prospects of his being, and destroy those principles which are the support, happiness, and glory of all public societies as well as privale persons.

11. I think it is one of Pythagoras's golden sayings, that a man should take care above all things to have a due re*pect for himself; and it is certain, that this licentious sort of authors, who are for depreciating mankind, endeavour to disappoint and undo what the most refined spirits have been labouring to advance since the beginning of the world. The very design of dress, good-breeding, outward ornaments and ceremonies, were to lift up human nature, and set it off to advantage. Architecture, painting, and statuary, were invented with the same design ; as indeed every art and science that contributes to the embellishment of life, and to the wearing off and throwing into shades the mean and low parts of our nature.

12. Poetry carries on this great end more than all the rest, as may be seen in the following passages taken out of Sir Francis Bacon's Advancement of Learning, which gives a true and better account of this art than all the volumes that were ever written upon it.

Poetry, especially heroical, seems to be raised altoge"ther from a noble foundation, which makes much for the

"dignity of man's nature. For seeing this sensible world "is in dignity inferior to the soul of man, poesy seems to "endow human nature with that which history denies; "and to give satisfaction to the mind, with at least the "shadow of things, where the substance cannot be had. 13. "For if the matter be thoroughly considered, a strong argument may be drawn from poesy, that a more "stately greatness of things, a more perfect order, and a more beautiful variety, delights the soul of man than " any way can be found in nature since the fall. Where"fore, seeing the acts and events, which are the subjects "of true history, are not of that amplitude as to content "the mind of man, poesy is ready at hand to feign acts 66 more heroical.

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14. "Because true history reports the success of busi- ́ ness not proportionable to the merit of virtues and vices, poesy corrects it, and presents events and fortunes according to desert, and according to the law of Provi"dence: because true history, through the frequent satiety and similitude of things, works a distaste and mis"prision in the mind of man; poesy cheereth and re"fresheth the soul, chanting things rare and various, and "full of vicissitudes.

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15. "So as poesy serveth and conferreth to delecta❝tion, magnanimity and morality; and therefore it may seem deservedly to have some participation of divine"ness, because it doth raise the mind, and exalt the spi"rit with high raptures, proportioning the shew of things "to the desires of the mind, and not subinitting the mind"to things as reason and history do. And by these al "lurements and congruities, whereby it cherisheth the "soul of man, joined also with concert of music, where"by it may more sweetly insinuate itself; it hath won "such access, that it hath been in estimation, even in "rude times, among barbarous nations, when our learn"ing stood excluded."

16. But there is nothing which favours and falls in with this natural greatness and dignity of human nature sɔ much as religion, which does not only promise the entire refinement of the mind, but the glorifying of the body, and the immortality of both.

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