303 husband; but to my great pleasure, he ufed her at firft with coldness, and afterwards with contempt. I hear he still treats her very ill; and am informed, that the often fays to her woman, this is a juft revenge for my falfhood to my first love: What a wretch am I, that might have been married to the famous Mr. Bickerstaff. My patient looked upon me with a kind of melancholy pleafure, and told me, He did not think it was poffible for a man to live to the age I am now of, who in his thirtieth year had been tortured with that paffion in its violence. For my part, faid he, I can neither eat, drink, nor fleep in it; nor keep company with any body, but two or three friends who are in the fame condition. There, anfwered I, you are to blame; for as you ought to avoid nothing more than keeping company with yourself, fo you ought to be particularly cautious of keeping company with men like yourself. As long as you do this, you do but indulge your diftemper. I must not difmifs you without further inftructions. If poffible, transfer your paffion from the woman you are now in love with, to another; or if you cannot do that, change the paffion itself into fome other paffion, that is, to speak more plainly, find out fome other agreeable woman: Or if you cannot do this, grow covetous, ambitious, litigious; turn your love of woman into that of profit, preferment, reputation; and for a time, give up yourself entirely to the purfuit. This is a method we fometimes take in phyfic, when we turn a desperate disease into one we can more eafily cure. He made me little anfwer to all this, but crying out, Ah, Sir! for his paffion reduced his difcourfe to interjections. There is one thing, added I, which is prefent death to a man in your condition, and therefore to be avoided with the greatest care and caution: that is, in a word, to think of your miftrefs and rival together, whether walking, difcourfing, dallying-The Devil! he cried out, who can bear it? to compofe him, for I pitied him very much; the time will come, faid I, when you fhall not only bear it, but laugh at it. As a preparation to it, ride every morning an hour at leaft with the wind full in your face. Upon your return, recollect the feveral precepts which I have now given you, and drink upon them a bottle of Spaw-water. Repeat this every day for a month fucceffively, and let me fee you at the end of it. He was taking his leave, with many thanks, and fome appearance of confolation in his countenance, when I called him back to acquaint him, that I had private information of a defign of the Coquettes to buy up all the true Spaw-water in town: Upon which he took his leave in hafte, with a refolution to get all things ready for entering upon his regimen the next morning. N° 108. Saturday, December 17, 1709. t Pronaque cum fpectent animalia cætera terram, ÖVID. Met. 1. 1. v. 85. And while beafts looked downward on the ground with groveling eyes, to man he gave a look fublime, to contemplate the ftars. Sheer-lane, December 16. T is not to be imagined, how great an effect well affemblies have upon fome tempers. I am fure I feel it in fo extraordinary a manner, that I cannot in a day or two get out of my imagination any very beautiful or difagreeable impreffion which I receive on fuch occafions. For this reafon I frequently look in at the play-house, in order to enlarge my thoughts, and warm my mind with fome new ideas, that may be serviceable to me in my Lucubrations. In this difpofition I entered the theatre the other day, and placed myself in a corner of it, very convenient for feeing, feeing, without being myself obferved. I found the audience hushed in a very deep attention, and did not queftion but fome noble tragedy was just then in its crifis, or that an incident was to be unravelled which would determine the fate of an hero. While I was in this fufpence, expecting every moment to fee my old friend Mr. Betterton 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 fuch a perpendicular pofture, that the other grew in a direct line above his head. It afterwards twifted itfelf into the motions and wreathings of feveral different animals, and after great variety of shapes and transformations went off the ftage in the figure of an human creature. The admiration, the applaufe, the fatisfaction of the audience, during this ftrange entertainment, is not to be expreffed. I was very much out of countenance for my dear countrymen, and looked about with fome apprehenfion, for fear any foreigner should be prefent. Is it poffible, thought I, that human nature can rejoice in its difgrace, and take pleasure in feeing its own figure turned to ridicule, and diftorted into forms that raise horror and averfion? There is fomething difingenuous and immoral in the being able to bear fuch a fight. Men of elegant and noble minds, are fhocked at the feeing characters of perfons who deferve efteem for their virtue, knowledge, or fervices to their country, placed in wrong lights, and by mifrepresentation made the fubject of buffoonery. Such a nice abhorrence is not indeed to be found among the vulgar; but methinks it is wonderful, that thofe, who have nothing but the outward figure to diftinguish them as men, fhould delight in seeing it abused, villified, and disgraced. I must confefs, there is nothing that more pleases me, in all that I read in books, or fee among mankind, than fuch paffages as reprefent human nature in its proper dignity. As man is a creature made up of different extremes, he has fomething in him very great and very mean: A skilful artift may draw an excellent picture of him in either of thefe views. The finest Authors of antiquity have taken him on the more advantageous fide. They N° 108. 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. In fhort, it is impoffible to read a page in Plato, Tully, and a thousand other ancient Moralifts, without being a greater and a better man for it. On the contrary, I could never read any of our modish French Authors, or thofe 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. Their bufinefs is, to de-. preciate human nature, and confider it under its worst appearances. They give mean interpretations and base. motives to the worthieft actions: They resolve virtue and vice into conftitution. In fhort, they endeavour to make no distinction between man and man, or between the fpecies of men and that of brutes. As an instance of this kind of Authors, among many others, let any one examine the celebrated Rochefaucault, who is the great Philofopher for adminiftring of confolation to the idle, the envious, and worthless part of mankind. I remember a young Gentleman of moderate under. franding, but great vivacity, who by dipping into many, Authors of this nature, had got a little fmattering of knowledge, juft enough to make an atheist or a freethinker, but not a philosopher or a man of fenfe. With thefe accomplishments, he went to vifit his father in the country, who was a plain, rough, honeft man, and wife, though not learned. The fon, who took all opportunities to fhew his learning, began to establish a new religion in the family, and to enlarge the narrowness of their country notions; in which he fucceeded fo well, that he had feduced the butler by his table-talk, and ftaggered his eldeft fifter. The old. Gentleman began to be alarmed at the fchifms that arofe among his children, but did not yet believe his fon's doctrine to be fo pernicious as it really was, until one day talking of his fetting-dog, the fon faid, he did not queftion 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, part, he expected to die like a dog. Upon which, the old man starting up in a very great paffion, cried out, then, firrah, you fhall live like one; and taking his cane in his hand, cudgelled him out of his fyftem. This had fo 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 Temple. I do not mention this cudgelling part of the ftory with a defign to engage the fecular arm in matters of this nature; but certainly, if it ever exerts itself in affairs of opinion and fpeculation, it ought to do it on fuch fhallow and defpicable pretenders to knowledge, who endeavour to give man dark and uncomfortable profpects of his Being, and deftroy thofe principles which are the fupport, happinefs, and glory of all public focieties, as well as private perfons. I think it is one of Pythagoras's golden fayings, "That a man fhould take care above all things to have "a due refpect for himfelf:" And it is certain, that this licentious fort of Authors, who are for depreciating man. kind, endeavour to difappoint and undo what the moft refined fpirits have been labouring to advance fince the beginning of the world. The very defign of dress," good-breeding, outward ornaments and ceremony, were to lift up human nature, and fet it off to an advantage. Architecture, painting, and statuary, were invented with the fame defign; as indeed every art and science contributes to the embellishment of life, and to the wearing off and throwing into fhades the mean and low parts of our nature. Poetry carries on this great end more than all the reft, as may be feen in the following paffage, taken out of Sir Francis Bacon's " Advancement of Learning,' which gives a truer and better account of this art than all the Volumes that were ever written upon it. "Poetry, especially heroical, feems to be raised alto"gether from a noble foundation, which makes much "for the dignity of man's nature. For seeing this "fenfible world is in dignity inferior to the Soul of man, poefy feems to endow human nature with that which hiftory denies; and to give fatisfaction to the "mind, with at least the shadow of things, where the " fubftance |