in ambition, but never as associates in pleasure. However, as I would still drive at something instructive in every Lucubration, I must recommend it to all men who feel in themselves an impulse towards attempting laudable actions, to acquire such a degree of assurance, as never to lose the possession of themselves in public or private, so far as to be incapable of acting with a due decorum on any occasion they are called to. It is a mean want of fortitude in a good man, not to be able to do a virtuous action with as much confidence as an impudent fellow does an ill one. There is no way of mending such false modesty, but by laying it down for a rule, that there is nothing shameful but what is criminal. The Jesuits, an order whose institution is perfectly calculated for making a progress in the world, take care to accomplish their disciples for it, by breaking them of all impertinent bashfulness, and accustoming them to a ready performance of all indifferent things. I remember in my travels, when I was once at a public exercise in one of their schools, a young man made a most admirable speech, with all the beauty of action, cadence of voice, and force of argument imaginable, in defence of the love of glory. We were all enamoured with the grace of the youth, as he came down from the desk where he spoke, to present a copy of his speech to the head of the society. The principal received it in a very obliging manner, and bid him go to the market-place and fetch a joint of meat, for he should dine with him. He bowed, and in a trice the orator returned, full of the sense of glory in this obedience, and with the best shoulder of mutton in the market. This treatment capacitates them for every scene of life. I therefore recommend it to the consideration of all who have the instruction of youth, which of the two is the more inexcusable, he who does every thing by the mere force of his impudence, or he who performs nothing through the oppression of his modesty? In a word, it is a weakness not to be able to attempt what a man thinks he ought, and there is no modesty but in self-denial. P. S. Upon my coming home, I received the following petition and letter: "The humble petition of SARAH LATELY, "That your petitioner has been one of those ladies who has had fine things constantly spoken to her in general terms, and lived, during her most blooming years, in daily expectation of declarations of marriage, but never had one made to her. "That she is now in her grand climacteric; which being above the space of four virginities, accounting at fifteen years each; "Your petitioner most humbly prays, that in the lottery for the Bass-viol she may have four tickets, in consideration that her single life has been occasioned by the inconstancy of her lovers, and not through the cruelty or frowardness of your petitioner. "And your Petitioner shall, &c." 66 MR. BICKERSTAFF. May 3, 1710. According to my fancy, you took a much better way to dispose of a Bass-viol in yesterday's paper, than you did in your Table of Marriage. I desire the benefit of a lottery for myself too-The manner of it I leave to your own discretion: only if you can- -allow the tickets at above five farthings a piece. Pray accept of one ticket for your trou ble, and I wish you may be the fortunate man that wins. Your very humble servant until then, I must own the request of the aged petitioner to be founded upon a very undeserved distress; and since she might, had she had justice done her, been mother of many pretenders to this prize, instead of being one herself, I do readily grant her demand; but as for the proposal of Mrs. Isabella Kit, I cannot project a lottery for her, until I have security she will surrender herself to the winner. N° 169. TUESDAY, MAY 9, 1710. Orus! quando ego te aspiciam? quandoque licebit -Oh when again Shall I behold the rural plain? HOR. 2 Sat. vi, 60. And when with books of Sages deep, FRANCIS. From my own Apartment, May 8. THE summer season now approaching, several of our family have invited me to pass away a month or two in the country; and indeed nothing could be more agreeable to me than such a recess, did I not consider that I am by two quarts a worse companion than when I was last among my relations: and I am admonished by some of our club, who lately visited Staffordshire, that they drink at a greater rate than they did at that time. As every soil does not produce every fruit or tree, so every vice is not the growth of every kind of life; and I have ever since I could think been astonished, that drinking should be the vice of the country. If it were possible to add to all our senses, as we do to that of sight by perspectives, we should methinks more particularly labour to improve them in the midst of the variety of beauteous objects, which nature has produced to entertain us in the country; and do we in that place destroy the use of what organs we have? As for my part, I cannot but lament the destruction that has been made of the wild beasts of the field, when I see large tracts of earth possessed by men who take no advantage of their being rational, but lead mere animal lives; making it their whole endeavour to kill in themselves all they have above beasts, to wit, the use of reason, and taste of society. It is frequently boasted in the writings of orators and poets, that it is to eloquence and poesy we owe that we are drawn out of woods and solitudes into towns and cities, and from a wild and savage being become acquainted with the laws of humanity and civility. If we are obliged to these arts for so great service, I could wish they were employed to give us a second turn; that as they have brought us to dwell in society, a blessing which no other creatures know, so they would persuade us, now they have settled us, to lay out all our thoughts in surpassing each other in those faculties in which only we excel other creatures. But it is at present so far otherwise, that the contention seems to be, who shall be most eminent in performances wherein beasts enjoy greater abilities than we have. I will undertake, were the butler and swinebred at any true Esquire's in Great Britain, to keep and compare accounts of what wash is drunk up in so many hours in the parlour and pig-stye, it would appear the gentleman of the house gives much more to his friends than his hogs. This, with many other evils, arises from an error in men's judgments, and not making true distinctions between persons and things. It is usually thought, that a few sheets of parchmeut, made before a male and a female of wealthy houses come together, give the heirs and descendants of that marriage possession of lands and tenements: but the truth is, there is no man who can be said to be proprietor of an estate, but he who knows how to enjoy it. Nay, it shall never be allowed, that the land is not a waste, when the master is uncultivated. Therefore, to avoid confusion, it is to be noted, that a peasant with a great estate is but an incumbent, and that he must be a gentleman to be a landlord. A landlord enjoys what he has with his heart, an incumbent with his stomach. Gluttony, drunkenness, and riot, are the entertainments of an incumbent; benevolence, civility, social and human virtues, the accomplishments of a landlord. Who, that has any passion for his native country, does not think it worse than conquered, when so large dimensions of it are in the hands of savages, that know no use of property, but to be tyrants; or liberty, but to be unmannerly? A gentleman in a country life enjoys paradise with a temper fit for it; a clown is cursed in it with all the cutting and unruly passions man could be tormented with when he was expelled from it. |