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he shall solicit a new one to accept of? I remember, when I first came out of Staffordshire, I had an intimacy with a man of quality, in whose gift there fell a very good employment. All the town cried, "There's a thing for Mr. Bickerstaff!" when, to my great astonishment, I found my Patron had been forced upon twenty artifices to surprise a man with it who never thought of it: but sure, it is a degree of murder to amuse men with vain hopes. If a man takes away another's life, where is the difference, whether he does it by taking away the minutes of his time, or the drops of his blood? But indeed, such as have hearts barren of kindness are served accordingly by those whom they employ; and pass their lives away with an empty show of civility for love, and an insipid intercourse of a commerce in which their affections are no way concerned. But on the other side, how beautiful is the life of a Patron who performs his duty to his inferiors! A worthy merchant who employs a crowd of artificers! a great lord, who is generous and merciful to the several necessities of his tenants! a courtier, who uses his credit and power for the welfare of his friends!

These have in their several stations a quick relish of the exquisite pleasure of doing good. In a word, good Patrons are like the Guardian Angels of Plato, who are ever busy, though unseen, in the care of their wards; but ill Patrons are like the Deities of Epicurus, supine, indolent, and unconcerned, though they see mortals in storms and tempests, even while they are offering incense to their power.

No 197. THURSDAY, JULY 13, 1710.

Semper ego auditor tantum ?

Juv. Sat. i. 1.

DRYDEN.

Still shall I only hear?

Grecian Coffee-house, July 12.

WHEN I came hither this evening, the man of the house delivered me a book, very finely bound. When I received it, I overheard one of the boys whisper another, and say, "it was a fine thing to be a great scholar! what a pretty book that is!" It has indeed a very gay outside, and is dedicated to me by a very ingenious gentleman, who does not put his name to it. The title of it, for the work is in Latin, is "Epistolarum Obscurorum Virorum, ad Dm. M. Ortuinum Gratium, Volumina II. &c." "Epistles of the obscure Writers to Ortuinus*, &c." The purpose of the work is signified in the dedication, in very elegant language, and fine raillery. It seems, this is a collection of letters which some profound blockheads, who lived before our times, have written in honour of each other, and for their mutual information in each other's absurdities. They are mostly of the German nation, whence, from time to time, inundations of writers have flowed, more pernicious to the learned world, than the swarms of Goths and Vandals to the politic. It is, methinks,

*The elegant edition of the celebrated book here mentioned, is in 12mo, and dedicated "Isaaco Bickerstaff, Armigero, Magna Britanniæ Censori."

wonderful, that fellows could be awake, and utter such incoherent conceptions, and converse with great gravity, like learned men, without the least taste of knowledge or good sense. It would have been an

endless labour to have taken any other method of exposing such impertinences, than by an edition of their own works: where you see their follies, according to the ambition of such virtuosi, in a most correct edition.

Looking over these accomplished labours, I could not but reflect upon the immense load of writings which the commonalty of scholars have pushed into the world, and the absurdity of parents, who educate crowds to spend their time in pursuit of such cold and spiritless endeavours to appear in public. It seems therefore a fruitless labour, to attempt the correction of the taste of our contemporaries; except it was in our power to burn all the senseless labours of our ancestors. There is a secret propensity in nature, from generation to generation, in the blockheads of one age to admire those of another; and men of the same imperfections are as great admirers of each other, as those of the same abilities.

This great mischief of voluminous follies proceeds from a misfortune which happens in all ages, that men of barren geniuses, but fertile imaginations, are bred scholars. This may at first appear a paradox ; but when we consider the talking creatures we meet in public places, it will no longer be such. Ralph Shallow is a young fellow, that has not by nature any the least propensity to strike into what has not been observed and said, every day of his life, by others; but with that inability of speaking any thing that is uncommon, he has a great readiness at what he can speak of, and his imagination runs into all the different views of the subject he treats of in a moment.

If Ralph had learning added to the common chit-chat of the town, he would have been a disputant upon all topics that ever were considered by men of his own genius. As for my part, I never am teazed by any empty-town fellow, but I bless my stars that he was not bred a scholar. This addition, we must consider, would have made him capable of maintaining his follies. His being in the wrong would have been protected by suitable arguments; and when he was hedged in by logical terms, and false appearances, you must have owned yourself convinced before you could then have got rid of him, and the shame of his triumph had been added to the pain of his impertinence.

There is a sort of littleness in the minds of men of strong sense, which makes them much more insufferable than mere fools, and has the further inconvenience of being attended by an endless loquacity. For which reason, it would be a very proper work, if some well-wisher to human society would consider the terms upon which people meet in public places, in order to prevent the unseasonable declamations which we meet with there. I remember, in my youth, it was an humour at the university, when a fellow pretended to be more eloquent than ordinary, and had formed to himself a plot to gain all our admiration, or triumph over us with an argument, to either of which he had no manner of call; I say, in either of these cases, it was the humour to shut one eye. This whimsical way of taking notice to him of his absurdity, has prevented many a man from being a coxcomb. If amongst us, on such an occasion, each man offered a voluntary rhetorician some snuff, it would probably produce the same effect. As the matter now stands, whether a man will or not, he is obliged to be informed in whatever ano

ther pleases to entertain him with; though the preceptor makes these advances out of vanity, and not to instruct, but insult him.

There is no man will allow him who wants courage to be called a soldier; but men, who want good sense, are very frequently not only allowed to be scholars, but esteemed for being such. At the same time it must be granted, that as courage is the natural parts of a soldier, so is a good understanding of a scholar. Such little minds as these, whose productions are collected in the volume to which I have the honour to be Patron, are the instruments for artful men to work with; and become popular with the unthinking part of mankind. In courts, they make transparent flatterers; in camps, ostentatious bullies; in colleges, unintelligible pedants; and their faculties are used accordingly by those who lead them.

When a man who wants judgment is admitted into the conversation of reasonable men, he shall remember such improper circumstances, and draw such groundless conclusions from their discourse, and that with such colour of sense, as would divide the best · set of company that can be got together. It is just thus with a fool who has a familiarity with books ; he shall quote and recite one author against another, in such a manner as shall puzzle the best understanding to refute him; though the most ordinary capacity may observe, that it is only ignorance that makes the intricacy. All the true use of what we call learning is to ennoble and improve our natural faculties, and not to disguise our imperfections. It is therefore in vain for folly to attempt to conceal itself, by the refuge of learned languages. Literature does but make a man more eminently the thing which nature made him; and Polyglottes, had he

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