Page images
PDF
EPUB

he has written to the works of this poet, reasons very ingenioufly, and, I imagine, for the most part very rightly, upon the caufe of this extraordinary phænomenon; but I cannot altogether agree with him, that fome improprieties in language and thought, which occur in these poems, have arifen from the blind poet's imperfect conception of vifual objects, fince fuch improprieties, and much greater, may be found in writers even of an higher clafs than Mr. Blacklock, and who, notwithflanding, poffeffed the faculty of feeing in its full perfection. Here is a poet doubtless as much affected by his own defcriptions as any that reads them can be; and yet he is affected with this ftrong enthusiasm by things of which he neither has, nor can poffibly have any idea, further than that of a bare found; and why may not thofe who read his works be affected in the fame manner that he was, with as little of any real ideas of the things defcribed? The fecond inftance is of Mr. Saunderfon, profeffor of mathematics in the univerfity of Cambridge. This learned man had acquired great knowledge in natural philofophy, in aftronomy, and whatever fciences depend upon mathematical skill. What was the most extraordinary, and the most to my purpose, he gave excellent lectures upon light and colours; and this man taught others the theory of thofe ideas which they had, and which he himself undoubtedly had not. But the truth is, that the words red, blue, green, anfwered to him as well as the ideas of the colours themselves; for the ideas of greater or leffer degrees of refrangibility being applied to thefe words, and the blind man being inftructed in what other refpects they were found to agree or to difagree, it was as easy for him to reafon upon the words, as if he had been fully master of the ideas. Indeed it must be owned, he could make no new discoveries in the way of experiment. He did nothing but what we do every day in common difcourfe. When I wrote this laft fentence, and ufed the words every day, and common difcourfe, I had no images in my mind of any fuccellion of time; nor of men in conference with each other: nor do I imagine that the reader will have any fuch ideas on reading it. Neither when I fpoke of red, blue, and green, as well as of refrangibility, had I thefe feveral colours, or the rays of light paffing into a different medium, and there diverted from their

courfe, painted before me in the way of images. I know very well that the mind poffefies a faculty of raifing fuch images at pleasure; but then an act of the will is neceffary to this; and in ordinary converfation or reading it is very rarely that any image at all is excited in the mind. If I fay, "Ifhall go to Italy next fummer," I am well underfood. Yet I believe nobody has by this painted in his imagination the exact figure of the fpeaker patling by land or by water, or both; fometimes on horfeback, fometimes in a carriage; with all the particulars of the journey. Still lefs has he any idea of Italy, the country to which I propofed to go; or of the greenness of the fields, the ripening of the fruits, and the warmth of the air, with the change to this from a different feafon, which are the ideas for which the word fummer is substituted; but leaft of all has he any image from the word next; for this word ftands for the idea of many fummers, with the exclufion of all but one: and furely the man who fays next fummer, has no images of fuch a fucceflion, and fuch an exclufion. In fhort, it is not only thofe ideas which are commonly called abftract, and of which no image at all can be found, but even of particular real beings, that we converfe without having any idea of them excited in the imagination; as will certainly appear on a diligent examination of our own Burke on the Sublime.

minds.

§ 99. The real Characteristics of the Whig and Tory Parties.

When we compare the parties of Whig and Tory to thole of Roundhead and Cavalier, the most obvious difference which appears betwixt them, confifts in the principles of paffive obedience and indefeasible right, which were but little heard of among the Cavaliers, but became the univerfal doctrine, and were efteemed the true characteristic of a Tory. Were these principles pushed into their most obvious confequences, they imply a formal renuncia. tion of all our liberties, and an avowal of abfolute monarchy; fince nothing can be a greater abfurdity, than a limited power which must be refifted, even when it exceeds its limitations. But as the most rational principles are often but a weak counterpoife to paffion, 'tis no wonder that thefe abfurd principles, fufficient, according to a celebrated author, to shock the

[blocks in formation]

common fenfe of a Hottentot or Samoiede, were found too weak for that effect. These Tories, as men, were enemies to oppreffion; and alfo, as Englishmen, they were enemies to defpotic power. Their zeal for liberty was, perhaps, lefs fervent than that of their antagonists, but was fufficient to make them forget all their general principles, when they faw themfelves openly threatened with a fubverfion of the ancient government. From these fentiments arofe the Revolution; an event of mighty confequence, and the firmeft foundation of British liberty. The conduct of the Tories, during that event and after it, will afford us a true infight into the nature of that party.

In the first place, they appear to have had the fentiments of a True Briton in them in their affection to liberty, and in their determined refolution not to facrifice it to any abstract principles whatsoever, or to any imaginary rights of princes. This part of their character might juftly have been doubted of before the Revolution, from the obvious tendency of their avowed principles, and from their almost unbounded compliances with a court, which made little fecret of its arbitrary defigns. The Revolution fhewed them to have been in this refpect nothing but a genuine court party, fuch as might be expected in a British government; that is, lovers of liberty, but greater lovers of monarchy. It muft, however, be confeft, that they carried their monarchical principles farther, even in practice, but more fo in theory, than was in any degree confiftent with a limited go

vernment.

Secondly, Neither their principles nor affections concurred, entirely or heartily, with the fettlement made at the Revolution, or with that which has fince taken place. This part of their character may feem contradictory to the former, fince any other fettlement, in thofe circumstances of the nation, muft probably have been dangerous, if not fatal to liberty. But the heart of man is made to reconcile contradictions; and this contradiction is not greater than that betwixt pallive obedience, and the refiftance employed at the Revolution. A Tory, therefore, fince the Revolution, may be defined in a few words to be a lover of monarchy, though without abandoning liberty, and a partizan of the family of Stuart; as a Whig may be defined to be a lover of liberty, though without re

nouncing monarchy; and a friend to the
fettlement in the proteftant line.
Hume's Eays.

100. Painting difagreeable in Women.
A lady's face, like the coat in the
Tale of a Tub, if left alone, will wear
well; but if you offer to load it with fo-
reign ornaments, you destroy the original
ground.

Among other matter of wonder on my firft coming to town, I was much furprised at the general appearance of youth among the ladies. At prefent there is no dif tinction in their complexions, between a beauty in her teens and a lady in her grand climacteric; yet at the fame time I could not but take notice of the wonderful variety in the face of the fame lady. I have known an olive beauty on Monday grow very ruddy and blooming on Tuesday; turn pale on Wednesday; come round to the olive hue again on Thursday; and, in a word, change her complexion as often as her gown. I was amazed to find no old aunts in this town, except a few unfafhionable people, whom nobody knows; the reft fti!! continuing in the zenith of their youth and health, and falling off, like timely fruit, without any previous decay. All this was a mystery that I could not unriddle, till, on being introduced to fome ladies, I unluckily improved the hue of my lips at the expence of a fair one, who unthinkingly had turned her cheek; and found that my kiffes were given (as is obferved in the epigram) like thofe of Pyramus, through a wall. I then difcovered, that this furprifing youth and beauty was all counterfeit; and that (as Hamlet fays) "God had given them one face, and they had made themfelves another."

I have mentioned the accident of my carrying off half a lady's face by a falute, that your courtly dames may learn to put on their faces a little tighter; but as for my own daughters, while fuch fashions prevail, they fhall ftill remain in Yorkshire. There, I think, they are pretty fafe; for this unnatural fafhion will hardly make its way into the country, as this vamped complexion would not ftand against the rays of the fun, and would inevitably melt away in a country dance. The ladies have, indeed, been always the greateft enemies to their own beauty, and feem to have a defign against their own faces. At one time the whole countenance was eclipfed in a

black

black velvet mask; at another it was blot ted with patches; and at prefent it is crufted over with plaifter of Paris. In thofe battered belles who ftill aim at conqueft, this practice is in fome fort excufable; but it is furely as ridiculous in a young lady to give up beauty for paint, as it would be to draw a good fet of teeth merely to fill their places with a row of ivory.

Indeed fo common is the fafhion among the young as well as the old, that when I am in a group of beauties, I confider them as fo many pretty pictures; looking about me with as little emotion as I do at Hudfon's and if any thing fills me with admiration, it is the judicious arrangement of the tints, and delicate touches of the painter. Art very often feems almost to vie with nature but my attention is too frequently diverted by confidering the texture and hue of the fkin beneath; and the picture fails to charm, while my thoughts are engroffed by the wood and canvas.

Connoiffeur.

§ 101. Advantages of well-directed Satire pointed out.

to others, of affuming the fame character of diftinguished infamy. Few are so totally vitiated, as to have abandoned all fentiments of fhame; and when every other principle of integrity is furrendered, we generally find the conflict is ftill maintained in this laft poft of retreating virtue. In this view, therefore, .it fhould feem, the function of a fatirift way be juftified, notwith landing it fhould be true (what an excellent moralift has afferted) that his chatlifements rather exafperate than reclaim thofe on whom they fail. Perhaps no human penalties are of any moral advantage to the criminal himself; and the principal benefit that feems to be derived from civil punishments of any kind, is their reftraining influence upon the conduct of others.

It is not every man, however, that is qualified to manage this formidable bow. The arrows of fatire, unless they are pointed by virtue, as well as wit, recoil upon the hand that directs them, and wound none but him from whom they proceed. Accordingly Horace refts the whole fuccefs of writings of this fort upon the poet's being integer ipfe; free himself from thofe immoral ftains which he points out in others. There cannot, indeed, be a more odious, nor at the fame time a more contemptible character, than that of a vicious fatirift:

Juv.

A fatirist of true genius, who is warmed by a generous indignation of vice, and whole cenfures are conducted by candour and truth, merits the applaufe of every friend to virtue. He may be confidered as a fort of fupplement to the legislative authority of his country; as allilling the unavoidable defects of all legal inftitutions Quis cælum terris non mifceat & mare cœlo, for regulating of manners, and ftriking. Si fur difpliceat Verri, homicida Milona? terror even where the divine prohibitions themselves are held in contempt. The ftrongcft defence, perhaps, against the inroads of vice, among the more cultivated part of our fpecies, is well-directed ridicule: they who fear nothing elfe, dread to be marked out to the contempt and indignation of the world. There is no fucceding in the fecret purposes of difhonesty, without preferving fome fort of credit among mankind; as there cannot exist a more impotent creature than a knave convict. To expofe, therefore, the falle pre-§ tenfions of counterfeit virtue, is to dilarm it at once of all power of mifchief, and to perform a public fervice of the most advantageous kind, in which any man can employ his time and his talents. The voice, indeed, of an honeft fatirift is not only beneficial to the world, as giving an alarm against the defigns of an enemy fo dangerous to all focial intercourfe; but as proving likewise the most efficacious preventive

The most favourable light in which a cenfor of this fpecies could poffibly beviewed, would be that of a public executioner, who inflicts the punishment on others, which he has already merited himself. But the truth of it is, he is not qualified even for fo wretched an office; and there is nothing to be dreaded from the fatirift of known difhonefty, but his applause.

Fitzefborne's Letters.

102. Juvenal and Horace compared as Satirifts.

I would willingly divide the palm betwixt thefe poets upon the two heads of profit and delight, which are the two ends of poetry in general. It must be granted by the favourers of Juvenal, that Horace is the more copious and profitable in his instructions of human life: but in my particular opinion, which I fet not up for a ftandard to better judgments, Juvenal is

3 N

the

the more delightful author. I am profited by both, I am pleafed with both; but I owe more to Horace for my intruction, and more to Juvenal for my pleafure. This, as I faid, is my particular taile of these two authors: they who will have either of them to excel the other in both qualities, can fcarce give better reafons for their opinion, than I for mine; but all unbiaffed readers

will conclude, that my moderation is not to be condemned. To fuch impartial men I must appeal; for they who have already formed their judgment, may july ftand fufpected of prejudice; and though all who are my readers will fet up to be my judges, I enter my caveat against them, that they ought not fo much as to be of my jury; or if they be admitted, 'tis but reafon that they fhould fit hear what I have to urge in the defence of my opinion..

That Horace is fomewhat the better infructor of the two, is proved hence, that his inftructions are more general, Juvenal's more limited: fo that, granting that the counfels which they give are equally good for moral ufe, Horace, who gives the moft various advice, and moft applicable to all occafions which can occur to us in the courfe of our lives; as including in his difcourfes not only all the rules of morality, but alfo of civil converfation; is undoubtedly to be preferred to him, who is more circumfcribed in his inftructions, makes them to fewer people, and on fewer occafions, than the other. I may be pardoned for ufing an old faying, fince it is true, and to the purpofe, Bonum quo communius eo melius. Juvenal, excepting only his firft fatire, is in all the reft confined to the expofing fome particular vice; that he lafhcs, and there he flicks. His fentences are truly fhining and inftructive; but they are fprinkled here and there. Horace is teaching us in every line, and is perpetually moral; he had found out the skill of Virgil, to hide his fentences; to give you the virtue of them without fhewing them in their full extent: which is the oflentation of a poet, and not his art. And this Petronius charges on the authors of his time, as a vice of writing, which was then growing on the age: Ne fententiæ extra corpus orationis emineant. He would have them weaved into the body of the work, and not appear emboffed upon it, and ftriking directly on the reader's view. Folly was the proper quarry of Horace, and not vice: and as there are but few notoriously wicked men, in comparison with a fheal of fools and

fops; fo 'tis a harder thing to make a man wife, than to make him honeft: for the will is only to be reclaimed in the one; but the understanding is to be informed in the other. There are blind fides and follies, even in the profeffors of moral philofophy; and there is not any one fet of them that Horace has not expofed. Which, as it was not the defign of Juvenal, who was wholly employed in lashing vices, fome of

them the moft enormous that can be ima

gined; fo, perhaps, it was not fo much his talent, Omne vafer vitium ridenti Flaccus amico, tangit, & admifus circum præcordia

ludit. This was the commendation that

Perfius gave him; where, by vitium, he means thofe little vices which we call follies, the defects of human understanding, or at most the peccadillos of life, rather than the tragical vices, to which men are hurried by their unruly paffions and exorbi tant defires. But on the word omne, which is univerfal, he concludes with me, that the divine wit of Horace let nothing untouched; that he entered into the utmoft receffès of nature; found out the imperfections even of the moft wife and grave, as well as of the common people; difcovering even in the great Trebatius, to whom he addreffes the firft fatire, his hunting after bufinefs, and following the court; as well as in the perfecutor Crifpinus, his impertinence and importunity. Tis true, he expofes Crifpinus openly as a common nuifance; but he rallies the other as a friend. more finely. The exhortations of Perfius are confined to noblemen; and the ftoick phi lofophy is that alone which he recommends to them: Juvenal exhorts to particular vir tues, as they are oppofed to thofe vices against which he declaims; but Horace laughs to fhame all follies, and infinuates virtue rather by familiar examples than by the feverity of precepts.

This laft confideration feems to incline the balance on the fide of Horace, and to give him the preference to Juvenal, not only in profit, but in pleasure. But, after all. I must confefs that the delight which Horace gives me is but languishing. Be pleafed fill to understand, that I fpeak of my own tafte only: he may ravish other men; but I am too ftupid and infenfible to be tickled. Where he barely grins himself, and, as Scaliger fays, only fhews his white teeth, he cannot provoke me to any laughter. His urbanity, that is, his good-manners, are to be commended, but his wit is faint; and his falt, if I may dare to fay fo, almoft infipid.

Juvenal

The most striking inftance I know of this low paffion for drollery, is Toby Bumper, a young fellow of family and fortune, and not without talents, who has taken a more than ordinary pains to degrade himfelf; and is now become almoft as low a character, as any of thofe whom he has chofen for his companions. Toby will drink purl in a morning, fmoke his pipe in a night-cellar, dive for a dinner, or eat black puddings at Bartholomew-fair, for the humour of the thing. He has alfo ftudied, and pra&tifes, all the plebeian arts and exercifes, under the best matters; and has difgraced himself with every impolite accomplishment. He has had many a fet-to with Buckhorfe; and has now and then the honour of receiving a fall from the great Broughton himfelf. Nobody is better known among the hackney-coachman, as a brother-whip: at the noble game of prifon-bars, he is a match even for the natives of Effex and Chefhire; and he is frequently engaged at the Artil. lery-ground with Faulkner and Dingate at cricket; and is himfelf esteemed as good a bat as either of the Bennets. Another of Toby's favourite amufements is, to attend the executions at Tyburn; and it once happened, that one of his familiar intimates was unfortunately brought thither; when Toby carried his regard to his deceafed friend fo far, as to get himfelf knocked down in endeavouring to refcue the body from the furgeons.

As Toby affects to mimic, in every particular, the art and manner of the vulgar, he never fails to enrich his converfation with their emphatic oaths and expreffive dialect, which recommends him as a man of excellent humour and high fun, among the Choice Spirits at Comus's Court, or at the meeting of the Sons of found Senfe and Satisfaction. He is alfo particularly famous for finging thofe cant fongs, drawn up in the barbarous dialect of fharpers and pickpockets; the humour of which he often heightens, by fcrewing up his mouth, and rolling about a large quid of tobacco between his jaws. Thefe and other like accomplishments frequently promote him to the chair in thefe facetious focieties.

Toby has indulged the fame notions of humour even in his amours; and is wellknown to every ftreet-walker from Cheapfide to Charing-crofs. This has given feveral fhocks to his conflitution, and often involved him in unlucky fcrapes. He has been frequently bruited, beaten and kicked, by the bullies of Wapping and Fleet-ditch;

and was once foundly drubbed by a foldier for engaging with his trull. The last time I faw him he was laid up with two black eyes, and a broken pate, which he got in a midnight fkirmish, about a miftrefs, in a night-cellar. Connoifeur.

$109. Causes of national Characters. The vulgar are very apt to carry all national characters to extremes; and having once established it as a principle, that any people are knavifh, or cowardly, or ignorant, they will admit of no exception, but comprehend every individual under the fame character. Men of fenfe condemn thefe undiftinguishing judgments; though at the fame time they allow, that each nation has a peculiar fet of manners, and that fome particular qualities are more frequently to be met with among one people than among their neighbours. The common people in Switzerland have furely more probity than thole of the fame rank in Ireland; and every prudent man will, from that circumftance alone, make a difference in the truft which he repoíes in each. We have reason to expect greater wit and gaiety in a Frenchman than in a Spaniard, though Cervantes was born in Spain. An Englifhman will naturally be thought to have more wit than a Dane, though Tycho Brahe was a native of Denmark.

Different reafons are affigned for thefe national characters, while fome account for them from moral, and others from phyfical caufes. By moral caufes I mean all circumftances which are fitted to work on the mind, as motives or reafons, and which render a peculiar fet of manners habitual to us. Of this kind are the nature of the government, the revolutions of public affairs, the plenty or penury in which the people live, the fituation of the nation with regard to its neighbours, and fuch like circumftances. By phyfical caufes, I mean thofe qualities of the air and climate, which are fuppofed to work infenfibly on the temper, by altering the tone and habit of the body, and giving a particular complexion; which, though reflection and reafon may fometimes overcome, yet will it prevail among the generality of mankind, and have an influence on their manners.

That the character of a nation will very much depend on moral caufes, must be evident to the most fuperficial obierver; fince a nation is nothing but a collection of individuals, and the manners of individuals are frequently determined by thefe caules.

« PreviousContinue »