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last night in the hall these holy-days; when I lay down and was blinded, she pulled off her shoe, and hit me with the heel such a rap, as almost broke my head to pieces. Pray, sir, was this love or spite?' T.

make our present state agreeable, but often determine our happiness to all eternity. Where the choice is left to friends, the chief point under consideration is an estate; where the parties choose for themselves, their thoughts turn most upon the person. They have both their reasons. The first

No. 261.] Saturday, December 29, 1711. would procure many conveniences and plea

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Wedlock's an ill men eagerly embrace: My father, whom I mentioned in my first speculation, and whom I must always name with honour and gratitude, has very frequently talked to me upon the subject of marriage. I was in my younger years engaged partly by his advice, and partly by my own inclinations, in the courtship of a person who had a great deal of beauty, and did not at my first approaches seem to have any aversion to me; but as my natural taciturnity hindered me from showing myself to the best advantage, she by degrees began to look upon me as a very silly fellow, and being resolved to regard merit more than any thing else in the persons who made their applications to her, she married a captain of dragoons, who happened to be beating up for recruits in those parts. This unlucky accident has given me an aversion to pretty fellows ever since, and discouraged me from trying my fortune with the fair sex. The observations which I made at this conjuncture, and the repeated advices which I received at that time from the good old man above-mentioned, have produced the following essay upon love and marriage.

The pleasantest part of a man's life is generally that which passes in courtship, provided his passion be sincere, and the party beloved, kind with discretion. Love, desire, hope, all the pleasing emotions of the soul rise in the pursuit.

sures of life to the party whose interests they espouse; and at the same time may hope that the wealth of their friends will turn to their own credit and advantage. The others are preparing for themselves a perpetual feast. A good person does not only raise but continue love, and breeds a secret pleasure and complacency in the beholder, when the first heats of desire are extinguished. It puts the wife or husband in countenance, both among friends and strangers, and generally fills the family with a healthy and beautiful race of children.

I should prefer a woman that is agreeable in my own eye, and not deformed in that of the world, to a celebrated beauty. If you marry one remarkably beautiful, you must have a violent passion for her, or you have not the proper taste for her charms; and if you have such a passion for her, it is odds but it would be embittered with fears and jealousies.

Good-nature and evenness of temper will give you an easy companion for life; virtue and good sense, an agreeable friend; love and constancy, a good wife or husband. Where we meet one person with all these accomplishments, we find a hundred without any one of them. The world, notwithstanding, is more intent on trains and equipages, and all the showy parts of life: we love rather to dazzle the multitude than consult our proper interests; and as I have elsewhere observed, it is one of the most unaccountable passions of human nature, that we are at greater pains to appear easy and happy to others than really to make ourselves so. Of all disparities, that in humour makes the most unhappy marriages,

It is easier for an artful man who is not in love, to persuade his mistress he has a passion for her, and to succeed in his pur-yet scarce enters into our thoughts at the suits, than for one who loves with the greatest violence. True love has ten thousand griefs, impatiences, and resentments, that render a man unamiable in the eyes of the person whose affection he solicits; besides that, it sinks his figure, gives him fears, apprehensions, and poorness of spirit, and often makes him appear ridiculous where he has a mind to recommend himself.

Those marriages generally abound most with love and constancy, that are preceded by long courtship. The passion should strike root, and gather strength before marriage be grafted on it. A long course of hopes and expectations fixes the idea in our minds, and habituates us to a fondness of the person beloved.

There is nothing of so great importance to us as the good qualities of one to whom we join ourselves for life; they do not only

contracting of them. Several that are in this respect unequally yoked, and uneasy for life with a person of a particular character, might have been pleased and happy with a person of a contrary one, notwithstanding they are both perhaps equally virtuous and laudable in their kind.

Before marriage we cannot be too inquisitive and discerning in the faults of the person beloved, nor after it too dim-sighted and superficial. However perfect and accomplished the person appears to you at a distance, you will find many blemishes and imperfections in her humour, upon a more intimate acquaintance, which you never discovered or perhaps suspected. Here, therefore, discretion and good-nature are to show their strength; the first will hinder your thoughts from dwelling on what is disagreeable, the other will raise in you all the tenderness of compassion and humanity,

and by degrees soften those very imperfec-1ficed their good sense and virtue to their tions into beauties. fame and reputation. No man is so sunk Marriage enlarges the scene of our hap-in vice and ignorance but there are still piness and miseries. A marriage of love some hidden seeds of goodness and knowis pleasant; a marriage of interest easy; and ledge in him; which give him a relish of a marriage where both meet, happy. A such reflections and speculations as have happy marriage has in it all the pleasures an aptness to improve the mind, and make of friendship, all the enjoyments of sense the heart better. and reason; and, indeed, all the sweets of life. Nothing is a greater mark of a degenerate and vicious age, than the common ridicule which passes on this state of life. It is, indeed, only happy in those who can look down with scorn and neglect on the impieties of the times, and tread the paths of life together in a constant uniform course Dec. 14

of virtue.

C.

I have shown in a former paper, with how much care I have avoided all such thoughts as are loose, obscene or immoral; and I believe my reader would still think the better of me if he knew the pains I am at in qualifying what I write after such a manner, that nothing may be interpreted as aimed at private persons. For this reason when I draw any faulty character, I consider all those persons to whom the malice of the world may possibly apply it,

Na 262] Monday, December 31, 1711. and take care to dash it with such particu

Nulla venenato littera mista joco est.

Orid. Trist. Lib. 2. 566.

ADAPTED.

My paper flows from no satiric vein, Contains no poison, and conveys no pain. I THINK myself highly obliged to the public for their kind acceptance of a paper which visits them every morning, and has in it none of those seasonings that recommend so many of the writings which are in Vogue among us.

Ås, on the one side, my paper has not in it a single word of news, a reflection in politics, nor a stroke of party; so, on the other, there are no fashionable touches of infidelity, no obscene ideas, no satires upon priesthood, marriage, and the like popular topics of ridicule; no private scandal, nor any thing that may tend to the defamation of particular persons, families, or societies. There is not one of those above-mentioned subjects that would not sell a very indifferent paper, could I think of gratifying the public by such mean and base methods. But notwithstanding I have rejected every thing that savours of party, every thing that is loose and immoral, and every thing that might create uneasiness in the minds of particular persons, I find that the demand for my papers has increased every month since their first appearance in the world. This does not perhaps reflect so much honour upon myself as on my readers, who give a much greater attention to discourses of virtue and morality than ever I expected, or indeed could hope.

When I broke loose from that great body of writers who have employed their wit and parts in propagating vice and irreligion, I did not question but I should be treated as an odd kind of fellow, that had a mind to appear singular in my way of writing: but the general reception I have found, convinces me that the world is not so corrupt as we are apt to imagine; and that if those men of parts who have been employed in vitiating the age had endeavoured to rectify and amend it, they needed not to have sacri

lar circumstances as may prevent all such ill-natured applications. If I write any thing on a black man, I run over in my mind all the eminent persons in the nation who are of that complexion: when I place an imaginary name at the head of a character, I examine every syllable and letter of it, that it may not bear any resemblance to one that is real. I know very well the value which every man sets upon his reputation, and how painful it is to be exposed to the mirth and derision of the public, and should therefore scorn to divert my reader at the expense of any private man.

As I have been thus tender of every particular person's reputation, so I have taken more than ordinary care not to give offence to those who appear in the higher figures of life. I would not make myself merry even with a piece of pastebeard that is invested with a public character; for which reason I have never glanced upon the late designed procession of his Holiness and his attendants, notwithstanding it might have afforded matter to many ludicrous speculations. Among those advantages which the public may reap from this paper, it is not the least that it draws men's minds off from the bitterness of party, and furnishes them with subjects of discourse that may be treated without warmth or passion. This is said to have been the first design of those gentlemen who set on foot the Royal Society; and had then a very good effect, as it turned many of the greatest geniuses of that age to the disquisitions of natural knowledge, who, if they had engaged in politics with the same parts and application, might have set their country in a flame. The air-pump, the barometer, the quadrant, and the like inventions, were thrown out to those busy spirits, as tubs and barrels are to a whale, that he may let the ship sail on without disturbance, while he diverts himself with those innocent amusements.

I have been so very scrupulous in this particular of not hurting any man's reputation, that I have forborne mentioning even

I am glad, that he whom I must have loved from duty, whatever he had been, is such a one as I can love from inclination.

'MR. SPECTATOR,-I am the happy fa

such authors as I could not name with honour. This I must confess to have been a piece of very great self-denial: for as the public relishes nothing better than the ridicule which turns upon a writer of any emi-ther of a very towardly son, in whom I do nence, so there is nothing which a man that has but a very ordinary talent in ridicule may execute with greater ease. One might raise laughter for a quarter of a year together upon the works of a person who has published but a very few volumes. For which reason I am astonished, that those who have appeared against this paper have made so very little of it. The criticisms which I have hitherto published, have been made with an intention rather to discover beauties and excellences in the writers of my own time, than to publish any of their faults and imperfections. In the mean while I should take it for a very great favour from some of my underhand de*ractors, if they would break all measures with me, so far as to give me a pretence for examining their performances with an impartial eye: nor shall I look upon it as any breach of charity to criticise the author, so long as I keep clear of the person. In the mean while, until I am provoked to such hostilities, I shall from time to time endeavour to do justice to those who have distinguished themselves in the politer parts of learning, and to point out such beauties in their works as may have escaped the ob

servation of others.

As the first place among our English poets is due to Milton; and as I have drawn more quotations out of him than from any other, I shall enter into a regular criticism upon his Paradise Lost, which I shall publish every Saturday, until I have given my thoughts upon that poem. I shall not, however, presume to impose upon others my own particular judgment on this author, but only deliver it as my private opinion. Criticism is of a very large extent, and every particular master in this art has his favourite passages in an author which do not equally strike the best judges. It will be sufficient for me, if I discover many beauties or imperfections which others have not attended to, and I should be very glad to see any of our eminent writers publish their discoveries on the same subject. In short, I would always be understood to write my papers of criticism in the spirit which Horace has expressed in these two famous lines:

-Si quid novisti rectius istis,
Candidus imperti; si non, hís utere mecum.
Lib. I. Ep. vi. v. ult.
If you have made any better remarks of your own

communicate them with candour; if not, make use of

these I present you with.

C.

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not only see my life, but also my manner of life renewed. It would be extremely beneficial to society, if you would frequently resume subjects which serve to bind these sort of relations faster, and endear the ties of blood with those of good-will, protection, observance, indulgence, and veneration. Í would, methinks, have this done after an uncommon method, and do not think any one, who is not capable of writing a good play, fit to undertake a work wherein there will necessarily occur so many secret instincts, and biases of human nature which would pass unobserved by common eyes. I thank Heaven I have no outrageous offence against my own excellent parents to answer for; but when I am now and then alone, and look back upon my past life, from my earliest infancy to this time, there are many faults which I committed that did not appear to me even until I myself became a father. I had not until then a notion of the yearnings of heart, which a man has when he sees his child do a laudable thing, or the sudden damp which seizes him when he fears he will act something unworthy. It is not to be imagined, what a remorse touched me for a long train of childish negligences of my mother, when I saw my wife the other day look out of the window, and turn as pale as ashes upon seeing my younger boy sliding upon the ice. These slight intimations will give you to understand, that there are numberlesss little crimes which children take no notice of while they are doing, which, upon reflection, when they shall themselves become fathers, they will look upon with the utmost sorrow and contrition, that they did not regard before those whom they offended were to be no more seen. How many thousand things do I remember which would have highly pleased my father, and I omitted for no other reason, but that I thought what he proposed the effect of humour and old age, which I am now convinced had reason and good sense in it. I cannot now go into the parlour to him, and make his heart glad with an account of a matter which was of no consequence, but that I told it, and acted in it. The good man and woman are long since in their graves, who used to sit and plot the welfare of us their children, while, perhaps, we were sometimes laughing at the old folks at another end of the house. The truth of it is, were we merely to follow nature in these great duties of life, though we have a strong instinct towards the performing of them, we should be on both sides very deficient. Age is so unwelcome to the generality of mankind, and growth towards manhood so desirable to all, that resignation to decay is too difficult a task in the father; and deference, amidst the impulse

tion, and that grounded upon the principles of reason, not the impulses of instinct.

of gay desires, appears unreasonable to the son. There are so few who can grow old with a good grace, and yet fewer who can come 'It is from the common prejudices which slow enough into the world, that a father, men receive from their parents, that hatreds were he to be actuated by his desires, and are kept alive from one generation to ana son, were he to consult himself only, other; and when men act by instinct, hatreds could neither of them behave himself as he will descend when good offices are forgotought to the other. But when reason inter- ten. For the degeneracy of human life is poses against instinct, where it would carry such, that our anger is more easily transeither out of the interests of the other, there ferred to our children than our love. Love arises that happiest intercourse of good always gives something to the object it deoffices between those dearest relations of lights in, and anger spoils the person against human life. The father, according to the whom it is moved of something laudable in opportunities which are offered to him, is him; from this degeneracy, therefore, and throwing down blessings on the son, and the a sort of self-love, we are more prone to son endeavouring to appear the worthy off- take up the ill-will of our parents, than to spring of such a father. It is after this follow them in their friendships. manner that Camillus and his first-born One would think there should need no dwell together. Camillus enjoys a pleasing more to make men keep up this sort of reand indolent old age, in which passion is lation with the utmost sanctity, than to exsubdued, and reason exalted. He waits the amine their own hearts. If every father day of his dissolution with a resignation remembered his own thoughts and inclinamixed with delight; and the son fears the tions when he was a son, and every son reaccession of his father's fortune with dif-membered what he expected from his fidence, lest he should not enjoy or become it as well as his predecessor. Add to this, that the father knows he leaves a friend to the children of his friends, an easy landlord to his tenants, and an agreeable companion to his acquaintance. He believes his son's behaviour will make him frequently remembered, but never wanted. This commerce is so well cemented, that without the pomp of saying, "Son, be a friend to such a one when I am gone;" Camillus knows, being in his favour is direction enough to the grateful youth who is to succeed him, without the admonition of his mentioning it. DEAR FRANK,-If the pleasures, which These gentlemen are honoured in all their I have the grief to hear you pursue in town, neighbourhood; and the same effect which do not take up all your time, do not deny the court has on the manners of a kingdom, your mother so much of it as to read setheir characters have on all who live with-riously this letter. You said before Mr. in the influence of them.

father, when he himself was in a state of dependence, this one reflection would preserve men from being dissolute or rigid in these several capacities. The power and subjection between them, when broken, make them more emphatically tyrants and rebels against each other, with greater cruelty of heart, than the disruption of states and empires can possibly produce. I shall end this application to you with twọ letters which passed between a mother and son very lately, and are as follows:

Letacre, that an old woman might live very My son and I are not of fortune to com- well in the country upon half my jointure, municate our good actions or intentions to and that your father was a fond fool to give so many as these gentlemen do; but I will me a rent charge of eight hundred a year be bold to say, my son has, by the applause to the prejudice of his son. What Letacre and approbation which his behaviour to- said to you upon that occasion, you ought to wards me has gained him, occasioned that have borne with more decency, as he was many an old man besides myself has re- your father's well-beloved servant, than to joiced. Other men's children follow the ex- have called him a country-put. In the first ample of mine, and I have the inexpressible place, Frank, I must tell you, I will have happiness of overhearing our neighbours, as my rent duly paid, for I will make up to we ride by, point to their children, and say, your sisters for the partiality I was guilty with a voice of joy, "There they go." of, in making your father do so much as You cannot, Mr. Spectator, pass your time better than in insinuating the delights which these relations well regarded bestow upon each other. Ordinary passages are no longer such, but mutual love gives an importance to the most indifferent things, and a merit to actions the most insignificant. When we look round the world and observe the many misunderstandings which are created by the malice and insinuation of the meanest servants between people thus related, how necessary will it appear that it were inculcated that men would be upon their guard to support a constancy of affec

he has done for you. I may, it seems, live upon half my jointure! I lived upon much less, Frank, when I carried you from place to place in these arms, and could neither eat, dress, or mind any thing for feeding and tending you, a weakly child, and shedding tears when the convulsions you were then troubled with returned upon you. By my care you outgrew them, to throw away the vigour of your youth in the arms of harlots, and deny your mother what is not yours to detain. Both your sisters are crying to see the passion which I smother; but if you please to go on thus like a gentle

man of the town, and forget all regards to old fellow shall wear this or that sort of cut yourself and family, I shall immediately in his clothes with great integrity, while all enter upon your estate for the arrear due to me, and without one tear more, contemn you for forgetting the fondness of your mother, as much as you have the example of your father. O Frank, do I live to omit writing myself, your affectionate mother,

'A. T.'

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the rest of the world are degenerated into buttons, pockets, and loops unknown to their ancestors. As insignificant as even this is, if it were searched to the bottom, you perhaps would find it not sincere, but that he is in the fashion in his heart, and holds out from mere obstinacy. But I am running from my intended purpose, which was to celebrate a certain particular manner of passing away life, in contradiction to no man, but with a resolution to contract none of the exorbitant desires by which others are enslaved. The best way of separating a man's self from the world, is to give up the desire of being known to it. After a man has preserved his innocence, and performed all duties incumbent upon

No. 264.] Wednesday, January 2, 1711-12. him, his time spent in his own way is what

-Secretum iter et fallentis semita vitæ.
Hor. Lib. 1. Ep. xviii. 103.
ADAPTED.

makes his life differ from that of a slave. If they who affect show and pomp knew how many of their spectators derided their In public walks let who will shine or stray, trivial taste, they would be very much less I'll silent steal through life in my own way. elated, and have an inclination to examine IT has been from age to age an affectation the merit of all they have to do with: they to love the pleasure of solitude, among those would soon find out that there are many who cannot possibly be supposed qualified who make a figure below what their fortune for passing life in that manner. This people or merit entitles them to, out of mere choice, have taken up from reading the many agree- and an elegant desire of ease and disinable things which have been written on that cumbrance. It would look like romance to subject, for which we are beholden to ex- tell you in this age, of an old man who is cellent persons who delighted in being re- contented to pass for a humourist, and one tired, and abstracted from the pleasures who does not understand the figure he ought that enchant the generality of the world. to make in the world, while he lives in a This way of life, is recommended indeed lodging of ten shillings a week, with only with great beauty, and in such a manner as one servant; while he dresses himself acdisposes the reader for the time to a pleas-cording to the season in cloth or in stuff, ing forgetfulness, or negligence of the particular hurry of life in which he is engaged, together with a longing for that state which he is charmed with in description. But when we consider the world itself, and how few there are capable of a religious, learned, or philosophical solitude, we shall be apt to change a regard to that sort of solitude, for being a little singular in enjoying time after the way a man himself likes best in the world, without going so far as wholly to withdraw from it. I have often observed, there is not a man breathing who does not differ from all other men, as much in the sentiments of his mind as the features of his face. The felicity is, when any one is so happy as to find out and follow what is the proper bent of his genius, and turn all his endeavours to exert himself according as that prompts him. Instead of this, which is an innocent method of enjoying a man's self, and turning out of the general tracks Of all men who affect living in a particuwherein you have crowds of rivals, there lar way, next to this admirable character, are those who pursue their own way out of a sourness and spirit of contradiction. These men do every thing which they are able to support, as if guilt and impunity could not go together. They choose a thing only because another dislikes it; and affect forsooth an inviolable constancy in matters of no manner of moment. Thus sometimes an

and has no one necessary attention to any thing but the bell which calls to prayers twice a-day: I say it would look like a fable to report that this gentleman gives away all which is the overplus of a great fortune by secret methods to other men. If he has not the pomp of a numerous train, and of professors of service to him, he has every day he lives the conscience that the widow, the fatherless, the mourner, and the stranger bless his unseen hand in their prayers. This humourist gives up all the compliments which people of his own condition could make him, for the pleasure of helping the afflicted, supplying the needy, and befriending the neglected. This humourist keeps to himself much more than he wants, and gives a vast refuse of his superfluities to purchase heaven, and by freeing others from the temptations of worldly want, to carry a retinue with him thither.

I am the most enamoured of Irus, whose condition will not admit of such largesses, and who perhaps would not be capable of making them if it were. Irus, though he is now turned of fifty, has not appeared in the world in his real character since five-andtwenty, at which age he ran out a small patrimony, and spent some time after with

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