ESSAYS ENGLISH AND AMEm_GAN ALDEN Class. Book.. Copyright N^ CQEXRIGHT DEPOSIT. Zi}t Hafee Cnglifit) Clasgits REVISED EDITION WITH HELPS TO STUDY ESSAYS ENGLISH AND AMERICAN EDITED BY RAYMOND MACDONALD ALDEN PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH. LKLAND STANFORI) JR. INIVERSITN SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY CHICAGO ' NEW YORK ^(.^ ^Ka K^ ,"i^ Copyright 1918, 1920 by Scott, Foresmax and Company JLC 21 1920 ROBERT O. LAW COMPANY EDITION BOOK MANUFACTURERS C H_l C A G O. U. S. A. -G)CU604819 ^i CONTENTS "* PAGE IIntroduction . . . .5 ^ACON Ji, Of Truth 19 >5 Of Revenge 22 Of Wisdom for a Max's Self 24 Of Dispatch 25 Of Friendship ^6 Of Discourse 37 Of Riches 39 Of Youth and Age 43 Of Studies 4(1 Characters Overbury A Wise Man 49 Joseph Hall He is a Happy Man 50 John Earle A Young Man 54 A Good Old Man 5o A Tedious Man 56 Butler A Romance- Writer . . . . , . 57 Steele Mr. Bickerstaff Visits A Friend 59 The Art of Conferring Benefits ..... 05 A Fine Gentleman 68 Addison Opera Lions 72 Westminster Abbey 76 True and False Humor SO The Vision of Mirzah . . . . . . . 84 Johnson The Revolutions of a Garret 90 The Multiplication of Books 95 Goldsmith A Service at St. Paul's 99 The Character of Beau Tibbs 102 Lamb A Chapter ON Ears 110 Mackery End, in Hertfordshire 118 Dream Children: A Reverie 124 The Praise of Chimney-Sweepers 129 A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig 138 Old China 146 The Superannuated Man 153 Preface by a Friend of the Late Elia .... 162 CONTENTS PAGE Hazlitt On Going a Journey 166 The Fight 180 Sir Walter Scott 190 On the Conversation of Authors . . . o . 198 Leigh Hunt On the Graces and Anxieties of Pig-Driving . . . 209 Spring and Daisies 213 De Quincey ' On the Knocking AT the Gatio IN Macbeth . , .221 Introduction to the World of Strife .... 227 IMacaulay Milton and the Puritans 242 Caiilyle Shakespeare . 257 Labor 273 Ni: W.MAN The Educated Max 27S The Gentleman 279 The Great Writer 281 IIUSKIN St. Mark's Cathedral 283 The White-Thorn Blossom . 290 Thackeray Tunbridge T oys 307 ".Vrnold Sweetness and Licht 316 Stevenson On the Enjoyment of Unpleasant Places . . 331 Walking Tours • . 340 Aes Triplex 349 Washington Irvin(; The Art of Bookmaking 360 Emerson Love 369 Heroism 382 Character 396 Curtis My Chateaux 41 1 Holmes Boating 435 Thoreau Walking 443 Appendix Helps to Study i'j"'' M- INTRODUCTION The term essay is used loosely of iiiaii}^ differeiit kinds of literature, but almost ahva^^s means a relatively short prose composition of an expository, eliaracter. It may exist for some useful jmrpose, and i-esemble a brief treatise; or, at tiie opposite extreme, it may be wholly concerned with pleasurable talk about personal or even trivial thing's. Upon its subject- matter, then, there are practically no limits at all. For the jmrposes of knowledge, we are likely to value most highly the essay which is most impersonal or objective, — that is, Avhich emphasizes the subject under consideration and not the one con- sidering it; for the purposes of pure literature, that essay is usually best which shows most of the Avriter's personality^ Essays may be conveniently classified in three groups: (1) the gnomic or aphoristic, (2) the personal or familiar, and (3) the didactic or critical. Those of the first type are chiefly made up of wise sayings or aphorisms. To see how an essaj' of this character naturally comes into existence, one has only to look at the Book of Proverbs in the Bible. The greater portion of that book is made up of detached aphorisms, or small gTOups of them dealing with a single subject; but at times something like a connected essay is developed, as in the account of the Virtuous Woman in the last chapter. Essaj's of tlie second type are accounts of a subject from the dis- tinctive standpoint of the writer, — representing, it may be, his mere likes and dislikes, or some passing mood to which he wishes to give expression. As has already been suggested, this is the kind likely to be valued most highly from the literary point of view. Essays of the third type undertake to discuss a subject with critical judgment, representing not merely the 5 6 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN writer's taste but also facts wliicli he can substantiate and theories which he can make appear reasonable. Of this type the higher class of book-review is a familiar example. The word essay properly means "an attempt," and originally implied that the writer set out, with more or less modesty or informality, to open up a subject rather than to discuss it with formal completeness. It is from the French language that we get the word, and it was a Frenchman who first applied it in this way. Of course there had been compositions which we might well call essays, in one sense or another, in ancient times ; Plutarch wrote them in Greek, and Cicero and Seneca in Latin. But the form was not a well recognized one, except in con- nection with serious attemi)ts to expound a subject for moral or philosophic puri)oses. It was Montaigne, a Frenchman of the sixteenth centuiy, who first hit upon the idea of devoting himself to the writing of short compositions which, though they might deal with serious subjects, would be chiefly the result of his individual living, reading, and thinking; and he called them Essays. Though he had been a man of affairs, he retired from active life while still under forty, to live "in quiet and reading," and in 1580 published the first edition of the essays in which he had noted down the fruits of these quiet years. In his prefatory address "To the Reader" he gave warning that in making his book "I have proposed unto myself no other than a familiar and a private end: I have no respect or consideration at all either to thy service or to my glory." His principal subject, he went on to say, was himself. "I desire therein to be delineated in mine own genuine, simple, and ordinary fashion." "Myself am the groundwork of my book. It is then no reason thou shouldest employ thy time about so frivolous and vain a subject." This whimsical preface strikes at once the keynote of the familiar essay, which Mon- taigne thus invented and of which he is still regarded as the chief master. Montaig-ne's essavs were soon translated into English, and INTRODUC'lION 7 found perhaps as many readers across the Channel as at home. But before the translation had been published, Francis Bacon took Montaigne's term "essay" for the title of a little book of ten discourses on serious subjects, such as "Study," "Expense," "Honor and Reputation," and the like, which he published in 1597. Thus the modern English essay was born. In 1612 a second edition raised the number of Bacon's essays to thirty-eight, and a third, in 1625, to fifty-eight. Most of these, however, are quite different from the Montaigne ty]>e; they belong to our first class, the aphoristic, and represert Bacon's desire to bring together a collection of sound maxims for those Avho wished to study the art of prudent and success- ful living. In a few cases, as in his essay on Gardens, one finds something of the other type, getting a glimpse of the more intimate personality of the Avriter ; but for the most part, in reading Bacon's essays, we remember the formal Elizabethan statesman, with starched ruff and sei-ious face, teaching worldly wisdom in something like the manner of the ancient sages. The seventeenth century saw a number of other collections of essays, largely of the serious didactic sort. Sir William Cornwallis, a contemporary of Bacon's, published his in 1600 and later; Owen Felltham issued his in 1620, under the title Resolves; Abraham Cowley, one of the leading poets of the middle years of the century, included his in his collected works of 1668; Sir William Temple, a statesman of the court of Charles the Second, published his under the name Miscellanea in 1680. In this reign of Charles the Second an important new type of essay was developed by John Dryden, tlie leading man of letters of the age; namely, the type devoted to literary criticism. Most of Diyden's essays were much longer than those of the earlier period, and he wrote them originally as prefaces to his various poetical works, explaining and defending his literary principles and methods. The best of them, however, the Essay of Dramatic Poesy, was published separately, in the form of a dialogue, in which three gentlemen 8 ESSAYS— EXGLISH AND AM'EFxICAX were represented as discussing the history of the drama in friendly conversation. During the seventeenth century, again, Englishmen were fond of a kind of composition which may be viewed as a spe- cial form of the essay, — that is, the "character." This type was not new; indeed it is usually traced to the invention of the Greek philosopher Theophrastus (of the fourth century B.C.), A\|lio portrayed typical faults and foibles in the form of descriptions of type-personages called "The Grumbler," "The Boastful Man," and the like. In 1608 Joseph Hall adopted this method in his Characters of Vices and Virtues; in 1614 a collection appeared written by Sir Thomas Over- bury and some of his friends; in 1628 John Earle pub- lished his Microcosmographie, or a Piece of the World Discovered in Essays and Characters; and in the latter part of the centuiy Samuel Butler, best known as the author of the poem Hudihras, wrote a series of witty "characters" which were not published till after his death. It is not pos- sible to say with exactness how much this peculiar form influenced the growth of the essay, but it is clear that the art of the "character" is not dissimilar, in its blend of humor and moralizing, to the spirit of the famous essays of Addison and Steele in the next century. It might also be noted that the formal epistle, which was a recognized literary form from the days of classical antiquity to the seventeenth century, had much in common with the essay. Not many English writers attained special distinction in this form, but the letters of James Howell, published in 1645-55 as Epistoloe Ho-Elianoo, show how the purposes of the essay were served by the writing of letters intended for general reading as well as for the person originally addressed. In the eighteenth century the essay was in large degree the product of journalism. That is, the growth of the periodical press gave a new opportunity^ for the writer of brief exposi- tory discourses on almost any subject, and a new reading IXTRODUCTION 9 public wns beiii"' rapidly developed which could be reached in this wa}' for various practical ends. Many of the new })eriodical essays were of a purely political or otherwise non- literary character; perhaps the first man to write them abun- dantly and successfully was Daniel Defoe, author of Robinson Crusoe. But it was Steele and Addison who developed the form in a way suited not merely for temporary ends but for lasting literary significance, and their two chief periodicals, the Tatler and the Spectator (founded in 1709 and 1711 respec- tively), exerted the most important single influence on the essay which could easily be named. Richard Steele, in beginning the Tatler, doubtless thought of the undertaking at first merely as a variety of the ordinary news- journal. These journals, in many cases, had come to be associated with particular London coffee-houses, social centers characteristic of the time, and in the first number of his new journal Steele made playful use of the fact in the announce- ment: "All accounts of gallantry, pleasure, and entertainment shall be under the article of White's Chocolate-house; poetry, under that of Will's Coffee-house; learning, under the title of Grecian; foreign and domestic news you will have from St. James's Coffee-house; and what else I shall on any other subject offer, shall be dated from my own apartment." Veiy soon, however, the elements of current news and of miscel- laneous reading-matter took a smaller and smaller place, and the real function of the Tatler was seen to be the publication of Steele's personal discussions of manners and morals, — such questions as family life, scolding, dueling, party feeling, fashionable hours, and the like, furnishing his most character- istic topics. Presently the editor's old friend Joseph Addison became his collaborator, and under his influence the more serious elements of the journal were still more emphasized. The tone of the Tatler essays was partly determined by the fact that they were represented as the work of a person by the name of Isaac Bickerstaff, a whimsical old gentleman who 10 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN went about London noting matters for comment. This, it will be noticed, brought about an important combination of moods or methods, — that of the serious didactic essay, made for a useful end, and that of the familiar essay, representing individual fancies and experiences. The second journal, the Spectator^ from the first frankly devoted each number to a single essay, of a suitable length to be read at the breakfast- table; the writer was now supposed to be a gentleman called simply "the Spectator," whose character Addison sketched in the first number. Other characters were also devised, as companions in his experiences, representing different types of English life; of these the most famous is Sir Roger de Coverley, who was gradually developed to the position of a character in a work of fiction. The papers of this sort show, therefore, how the essay sometimes tends to pass over into the field of the story. But the typical Spectator essay was even more didactic than in the case of the Tatler, dealing with problems of morals, manners, or literature, though familiar in tone and popular in appeal. "I shall be ambitious," wrote Addison, "to have it said of me that I have brought philosophy out of closets and libraries, schools and colleges, to dwell in clubs and assemblies, at tea-tables and in coffee-houses." The journal ran to 555 numbers, of which Steele appears to have written some 236 and Addison 274, the remainder being con- tributed by their friends. The essays were also bound up for sale in book form, and exerted an extraordinary influence on journalism and the art of the essay for a centuiy following; they were widely imitated not only in England, but also in France, Germany, and even Russia. The most important successors of Addison and Steele in the periodical essay were Samuel Johnson and Oliver Goldsmith, the leading prose writers of the later eighteenth century. Dr. Johnson issued a journal called The Rambler, from 1750 to 1752, made up almost wholly of his essays, and again, from 1758 to 1760, contributed a 'series called "The Idler" to a INTRODUCTION 11 newspaper. But although or the serious side of life he was as sound a critic as Addison, he was not possessed of the lightness of touch, the deftness of familiar style, which had so distinguished the Spectator; hence few modem readers care to penetrate the heaviness of his style — ^which some- times reminds one of the thick folds of an elephant's skin — to the substance of his essays. Goldsmith was much happier in following the Spectator tradition ; indeed in the happy-go- lucky facility of both his life and his style he is more like Steele than Addison. He began his work in the periodical essay in 1759, in a little journal called The Bee, which lasted only eight weeks; but his chief reputation in the form depends on the series of papers called "The Citizen of the World," contributed to the Public Ledger in 1760. These were repre- sented as letters written by a Chinaman, named Lien Chi Altangi, temporarily residing in London, who undertook to describe the course of English life and manners to a friend at home. The idea was not a new one; Addison himself had used it in a well-known paper presenting the views of some "Indian Kings" who had visited England, and in 1757 Horace Waipole had published "A Letter from Xo Ho." But Gold- smith developed the idea fully, and in describing the experi- ences of the imagined writer from day to day in London he gave the familiar essay the most distinctive form it had acquired for many years. Sometimes, as in the two papers on "Beau Tibbs," Goldsmith's essay closely approaches the methods of fiction, as w^e have seen was true of some of Addison's and Steele's. In the early years of the nineteenth century the essay was again strongly affected by certain developments in periodical literature. We must once more distinguish between the familiar type and the critical, for which new opportunities were fur- nished by two different kinds of journal, the magazine and the critical review. Blackwood's Magazine was founded in 1817, the London Magazine in 1820 : and both of them, espe- 12 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN cially the latter, did much to develop the essay of the more informal kind. With the former is especially associated the work of John Wilson, whose pen-name was "Christopher North." Wilson wrote very abundantly, and through a long series of years, but rarely put his compositions into the brief and finished form characteristic of the true essay; one there- lore finds his most interesting- work in the rambling talks of the Nodes Ambrosianos (conversations called "Ambrosial Nights") rather than in pieces which can be selected for separate printing. The London Mcujazine had the honor of printing some of the best work of the essayists Hazlitt and I)e Quincey, and, above all, the Elia Essays of Charles Lamb. There was also a group of periodicals edited by the brothers John and Leigh Hunt; and for these Leigh Hunt, as well as his friend Hazlitt and other essayists, wrote informal papers on both literature and life. The result was a larger body of writing in this form than had been seen before at one time, and its quality remains unexcelled. Charles Lamb, by common consent, is the chief master of the English familiar essay, and the most brilliant practitioner in that form since Montaigne. For this type, as we have seen, individual personality counts most, and Lamb chanced to have just the pei'sonality required for the tinest results: he was whimsical in his tastes, sometimes fantastic in imagina- tion, yet always showed a sound judgment which penetrated his foibles with solid wisdom. He was a great reader, and had the art of pouring into his writing the flavor of the masters of English prose, without seeming to write in any other style than his own. Above all, he was like a child in the simple and curious interest which he showed in people and things. Hence whatever he wrote of became interesting when seen through his eyes, and, whether he makes the reader grow serious or smiling, his personality remains charmingly companionable. William Hazlitt, his contemporary in the same field, is like Lamb in the richness of his interest and INTRODUCTIOX 13 in the skill with which he brings together in the essay form the results of his reading and his personal experiences. His personalitj", however, is less agreeable; he was a somewhat fretful and wayward person, who, falling short of the sweet and sound character of Lamb, falls short correspondingly in his work. Moreover, he did not have the art of doing finely finished work in brief space, but let his pen run on with little sense of definite plan or end. Hence one of his essays is like a piece of tapestry of no definite pattern, which can therefore be cut into lengths of varying dimensions without injury; whereas one of Lamb's is more likely to resemble a tapestry complete in itself. Yet despite these things, Hazlitt is an essayist of great importance, and the substance of his writings is so full and varied that one may take them up day after day for many days, always certain of coming upon ideas fresh and worth while. The third of these magazine essayists of the period, Leigh Hunt, is like Lamb in his amia- bility, and like Hazlitt in the rambling and uncertain quality of his art. His essays are almost always agreeable, but rarely the very best of theii' kind. The other type of periodical, the critical, is represented chiefly by the Edinburgh Review and the Quarterly Review, founded respectively in 1802 and 1809. These journals devoted themselves chiefly to book notices, but they made of them much more than brief descriptions; those who wrote Uie reviews were encouraged to develop them, into extended dis- cussions of whatever subject was suggested by the book in hand. The result was a new type of essay. Of the review editors the greatest was Francis Jeffrey, who was connected with the Edinburgh from its beginning until 1829; his own critical essays are among the most readable of the period. In 1825, however, he found a j^oung contributor whose fame soon surpassed his own. This was Thomas Babington Macau- lay, who began his career Avith a review of a recently dis- covered work of Milton's, from which he branched out, 14 ESSAYS— KXdlJSir AND A:MErvTCAX act'ording to the accepted iashion, into a lull essay on Milton and his times. When Jeffrey had read the manuscript, he is reported to have said. ''The more 1 think, the less I can conceive Avhere you i)icked uj) that style I" Henceforth Macau- lay became the KdinJjioijlrs leading- reviewer, and he remains the most widely read English essayist of the critical typo. Almost all his essays, one will see by looking into a col- lective edition, were book reviews in their origin, but were developed into brilliant discussions of the principal subject, overflowing with tiie riches of Macaulay's mind; for he was an enormous reader, and had the most retentive memory of any modern writer. He was particularly interested in the history and the biograj^hy of the late seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries — the period treated in his lli'i^tortf of England; and it is in his essays which concern this same period that his most valuable work is found. Macaulay was a brilliant ])ublic speaker too, and combines something of the dogmatic clear- ness and force ol' an orator with the more usual style of Iho essayist. Thomas De Quinccy was equally a magazinist and a reviewer; he wrote with brilliancy of both his own experiences and literature, and so fluently and abundantly that he came to be called "the great contributor." His most famous jjersona! essay, the ''Confessions of an Oi)ium-Eater," was rather too long to conform to the usual standards of the essay, and he later expanded it into an entire book. What has been said of Hazlitt, indeed, applies to De Quincey even more: ho rarely thought of the essay form as setting definite bounds to his com])osition, but wrote on and on in colloquial fashion, never systematic, always fluent and clever. In consequence, one usually reads him in fragments, as one drops into a room to listen to a brilliant conversationalist, knowing that it matters c-omparatively little when one comes in or goes out. Both Thomas Carlyle and John Ruskin, the leading prose writers of the mid-nineleenth century, are also better known IXTRODUCTIOX 15 as miscellaneous writers than as essayists in the stricter sense. Carlyle wrote a number of essays of the book-review type, of which those on the i)oet Burns and on Boswell's Life of -lohnson are the chief; but his most characteristic work was done in books, like Sartor liesartus or Past and Present, which must be read pretty tliorougiily to be well understood, though many of their chapters may be viewed sepamtely as essays on moral and social themes. Ruskin never contributed to the magazines, nor set out to write essays at all. He wrote lectures, treatises, and letters, always designed to enforce some truth respecting art, ethics, or society, or to awaken his readers to more vivid views of both the physical and spiritual world. There is not, then, a single distinctive essay among his many works; but numerous passages stand out in the reader's memory with almost all the qualities of the essay, — such as the famous account of the two cathedrals, English and Vene- tian, included in this collection, a passage which in its original setting is merely incidental to Ruskin's exposition of the (|ua]ities of various types of architecture. If we may call him an essayist, then of all our essayists he shows the most remarkable combination of the methods of poetry and of prose; for he is like the poets in loving beautiful words and images for their own sake, and in expressing his personal feel- ings with great intensity, while at the same time, like the prose writers, he has in view some practical and didactic end. The chief Victorian novelists also wrote essays by the way. Those of George Eliot ai-e of the serious critical type, written for the great reviews. Those of Dickens and Thackeray are chiefly of the informal familiar type, often close to the border of fiction; Dickens^s were written for his periodicals, House- hold Words and All the Year Round, and Thackeray's for the Cornhill Magazine during the period of his editorship. In the latter part of the nineteenth century two English writers attained distinction in different forms of the essay, — Matthew Arnold in tlie critical type, and Robert Louis Steven- IG ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN son in the familiar. Ai-nold, like Raskin, was always disposed to teach, and in both literaiy and social criticism he exerted n strong influence on thouiihtt'ul men of his time. His Kssa!/=t in Criticism (published in two collections, 1865 and 1888) are perhaps the finest specimens of the review essay in the modern period, while in the several chapters of the book called Culture and Anarchif he applies the essay metliod to the whole question of the art of living. Stevenson, on the other hand, viewed the essay like the romance, as a means of recreation, and revived the familiar form of it more suc- cessfully than anyone had done since the days of Lamb. His success, of course, was due to the same cause as Lamb's — the unmistakable charm of his personality, which made the mere writing down of himself a thing worth while. He began his work as an essayist while still an undergraduate at Edinburgh, and first attained distinction in the Travels with a Donkey, on the feet. There 11. Tlie poet. Luci'etius, who died 55 b.c. His "sect" was that of the Epicureans, whose doctrines he wrote his sfeat poem Pr Rcnnn A'aiiira to exiiound. The quotation is from Book ii, lines 1-13. 12. so. Provided. 13. prospect. Survey. 14. round. Fair. 15. allay. Alloy. 16. cmbaseth it. Debases its value. 22 ESSAYS— EXr; LIS 1 1 AND \:\IKrvICAX is no vice that doth so cover a man with shame as to be found false and perfidious. And therefore Montaii>ne^' sailli prettily, when he inquired the reason, wliy the word of the lie should he such a disgrace and such an odious charize ; saith he, If it he ivell weighed, to sai/ that a man licth is as much to say as that he is brave towards (iod and a coward towards men. For a lie faces God, and shrinks from man. Surely the wickedness of falsehood and breach of faith cannot pos- sibly be so highly expressed, as in that it shall be the last peal to call the judgments of (Iod u])on the generations of men; it being foretold that, when Christ cometh,^* he sliall not find faith upon the earth. OF KEVFA'GE^ RK\i;\r,K is a kind of wild justice; which the more man's natuie luns to, the more ought law to weed it out. For as for tiie first wrong, it doth but olfend the law; but the revenge of that wiong [)utteth the law out of oHice. Certainly, in taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior; for it is a princess part to pardon. And Salomon,- I am sure, saith. It is the glori/ of a man to pass by an offense. That which is past is gone, and irrevocable; and wise men have enough to do with things present and to come; therefore they do but trifle with them- selves, that labor in past matters. There is no man doth a wrong for the wrong's sake; but thereby to purchase himself profit, or pleasure, or honor, or the like. Therefore why 17. Montaigrne. See the Introduction, page 6. The quotation is from the 18th essay of Montaigne's second Book; he derived it from I'lutarch's Lives. 18. when Clirist cometh., etc. See l^uke 18: 8. Bacon interprets the woid "faith" in the sense of "fidelity" rather than in the New Testament ."^rense. 1. First published in 1625 as Essay IV. 2. Salomon. See Proverbs 19:11. BACON 23 should I be ang-rv^ witli a man for loving himself better than me? And if any man should do wrong merely out of ill nature^ why, yet it is but like the thorn or briar, which prick and scratch because they can do no other. The most tolerable sort of revenge is for those wrongs Avhich there is no law to remedy ; but then let a man take heed the revenge be such as there is no law to punish; else a man's enemy is still before- hand, and it is two for one. Some, when they take revenge, are desirous the party should know whence it eometh: this is the more generous. For the delight seemeth to be not so much in doing the hurt as in making' the party repent : but base and crafty cowards are like the arrow that flieth in the dark. Cosmus, duke of Florence, had a desperate saying against perfidious or neglecting friends, as if those wrongs were unpardonable: You shall read (saith he) that we are commanded to forgive our enemies; but you never read that ive are commanded to forgive our friends. But yet the spirit of Job^ was in a better tune: >ShaU we (saith he) take good at God's hands, and /?o^ be content to take evil also? And so of friends in a proportion. This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green, which other- wise would heal and do well. Public revenges are for the most part fortunate; as that for the death of Cajsar; for the death of Pertinax;* for the death of Ilenrj' the Third"' of France; and many more. But in private revenges it is not so. Nay rather, vindicative'' i>ersons live the life of witches; who as they are mischievons, so end thev infortunate. 3. spirit of Job, See Job 2:10. •4. Fertinaz. A Roman emperor who was murdered by the Pretorian Guard in the year 193 a.o. ; the soldiers were disgraced and banished by Septimius Severus. 5. Henry the Third was assassinated in 1589 by a monk, Jacques Clement, who was himself slain on the spot by the king's g lards 6. vindicative. Vindictive. 24 ESSAYS— EXGLISII AND AMERICAN OF WISDOM FOR A MAN'S SELF^ An ant is a wise creature for itself, but it is a shrewd- thinii: in an orchard or garden. And certainly men that are great lovers of themselves waste^ the i>ublic. Divide with reason between self-love and society; and be so true to thyself, as thou be not false to others, specially to thy king and country. It is a poor center of a man's actions, himself. It is right earth;* for that only stands fast u]>on his own centei", whereas all things that have allinity with the heavens move upon the center of another, which tliey benefit. The referring of all to a man's self is more tolerable in a sovereign prince; because themselves are not only themselves, but their good and evil is at the peril of the public fortune. But it is a desperate evil in a servant to a prince, or a citizen in a repub- lic. For whatsoever affairs pass such a man's hands, he crooketh them to his own ends; which must needs be often eccentric to'"' the ends of his master or state. Therefore let princes, or states, choose such servants as have not this mark; except they mean their service sliould be made but the accessary. That which maketh the effect more pernicious is that all proportion is lost. It were disproportion enough for the servant's good to be ])referi-ed before the master's: but yet it is a greater extreme, when a little good of the servant shall carry things against a great good of the master's. And yet that is the case of bad officers, treasurers, ambassadors, generals, and. other false and corrupt servants; which set a bias^ upon their bowl, of their own petty ends and envies, 1. First published in 1612: called Essay XXIIT in 1625. The title may be paraphrased, "Of Self-Seeking." 2. shrewd. Mischievous. 3. waste. Despoil. 4. rigrht earth. Merely earthy. The phrase is explained by the following passage, based on the old Ptolemaic astronomy; the earth, the center of our universe, revolves only about its own axis, whereas the planets and the sun revolve around it. 5. eccentric to. Divergent from. 6. hiaa. In the game of bowls, a piece of lead inserted at one side of the bowl, deflecting it from the straight course. BACON 25 to the overthrow of their master's great and miportant aft'airs. And for the most part, the good such servants receive is after the model of their own fortune; but the iiurt they sell for that good is after the model of their master's fortune. And certainly it is the nature of extreme self-lovers, as^ they will set an house on fire, and'^ it were but to roast their eggs; and yet these men many times hold credit with their masters, because their study is but to please them and profit them- selves; and for either respect-* they will abandon the good of their affairs. Wisdom for a man's self is, in many branches thereof, a depraved thing. It is the wisdom of rats, that will be sure to leave a house somewhat before it fall. It is the wisdom of the fox, that thrusts out the badger, who digged and made room for him. It is the wisdom of crocodiles,^^ that shed tears when they would devour. But that which is specially to be noted is, that those which (as Cicero says of Pompey) are sui amantes sine rivali,^^ are many times unfortunate. And whereas they have all their time sacrificed to themselves, they become in the end themselves sacrifices to the inconstancy of Fortune, whose wings they thought by their self -wisdom to have pinioned.^^ OF DISPATCHi Affected dispatch^ is one of the most dangerous things to business that can be. It is like that which the physicians 7. as. That. 8. and. If. 9. respect. Consideration. 10. crocodiles. This belief was widespread, and gave rise to the still current expression, "crocodile tears." Cf. Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 2, III, i, 226. 11. sui aiuantes, etc. "Lovers of themselves without a rival." 12. pinioned. Clipped. 1. First published in 1612; Essay XXV in the final collection. Bacon uses the term "dispatch" with special reference to public business, and his maxims will still be found admirable for the consideration of debaters, chairmen, and those in similar positions. 2. affected dispatch. Exaggerated haste. 26 ESSAYS— EXGLISII AND AMERICAN call pre-digestion, or hasty digestion, which is sure to fill the body full of crudities and secret seeds of diseases. Therefore measure not dispatch by the times of sitting, but by the advancement of the business. And as in races it is not the large stride or high lift that makes the speed; so in business, the keeping" close to the matter, and not taking of it too much at once, procui'eth dispatch. It is the care of some only to come off speedily for the time, or to contrive some false periods of business, because^ they may seem men of dispatch. But it is one thing to abbreviate by contracting, another by cutting oif: and business so handled at several sittings or meetings goetli commonly backward and forward in an unsteady manner. I knew a wise man* that had it for a by-word, when he saw men hasten to a conclusion : Stay a little, that ice ma;/ make an end the sooner. On the other side, true dispatch is a rich thing. For time is the measure of business, as money is of wares ; and business is bought at a dear hand where there is small dispatch. The Spartans and Spaniards^ have been noted to be of small dispatch: Mi venga la muerte de Spagna; Let my death come from Spain; for then it will be sure to be long in coming. Give good hearing to those that give the first information in business; and rather direct them in the beginning than interrupt them in the continuance of their speeches: for he that is put out of his own order will go forward and back- ward, and be more tedious while he waits upon his memory than he could have been if he had gone on in his own course. But sometimes it is seen that the moderator is more trouble- some than the actor. 3. because. That. 4. a wise man. Sir Amyas Paulet. (See the biographical note on Bacon.) 5. Spaniards. Bacon refers to the same proverb in one of his letters, saying: "All which have made the delays of Spain to come Into a byeword through the world." BACONS 27 Iterations® are commonly loss of time: but there is no sueh gain of time as to iterate often the state of the question; for it chaseth away many a frivolous speech as it is coming forth. Long and curious^ speeches are as fit for dispatch, as a robe or mantle with a long train is for race. Prefaces, and passages,^ and excusations,^ and other speeches of reference to the per- son, are great wastes of time; and though they seem to pro- ceed of modesty, they are braverj\^° Yet beware of being too material,^^ when there is any impediment or obstruction in men's wills; for preoccupation of mind ever requireth preface of speech; like a fomentation^- to make the unguent enter. Above all things, order, and distribution, and singling out of parts, is the life of dispatch ; so as the distribution be not too subtile: for he that doth not divide^^ will never enter well into business; and he that dividetli too much will never come out of it clearly. To choose time is to save time; and an unsea- sonable motion is but beating the air. There be three parts of business: the preparation, the debate or examination, and the perfection. Whereof, if you look for dispatch, let the middle only be the work of many, and the first and last the work of fcAv. The proceeding upon somewhat^* conceived in writing doth for the most i)art facilitate dispatch ; for though it should be wholly rejected, yet that negative is more pregnant of direction than an indefinite; as ashes are more generative than dust. 6. Iterations. Repetitions. 7. curious. Over-detailed. S. passages. Digression.s. 9. excusations. Apologies. 10. bravery. Display. 11. being" too material. Sticking too closely to the main subject. 12. fomentation. A hot application to open the pores. 13. divide. Classify, analyze. 1 4. somewhat. Sometning. 28 ESSAYS— EXGLISIT AXD A^IEKICAX OF FRIENDSHIP! It had been liard for him that spake it to have put more truth than untruth together in a few words, than in that speech, Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a godr For it is most true that a natural-"* and secret hatred and aversation* towards society, in. any man, hath somewhat of the savage beast; but it is most untrue that it should have anj' character at all of the divine nature; except it proceed, not out of a pleasure in solitude, but out of a love and desire to sequester a man's self for a higher conversation:^ such as is found to have been falsely and feignedly in some of the heathen; as Epimenides the Candian, Numa tlie Roman, Empedocles the Sicilian, and Apollonius of Tyana ;''' and truly and really in divers of the ancient hermits and holy fathers of the church. But little do men perceive what solitude is, and how far it extendeth. For a crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal,''' where thei-e is no love. The Latin adage moeteth with it a little. Magna civitas, magna solitudo;^ l)ocause in a great town friends are scattered; so that there is not that fellowship, for the most 1. First published in 1612; rewritten as Essay XXVII for the final collection. 2. Whosoever, etc. From the Politics of Aristotle, Book i. 3. natural. I'ntamed. 4. aversation. ^Vversion. 5. conversation. Way of life, intercourse. G. Epimenides, etc. All these were men who loved solitude, and who were rumored to have intercourse with spiritual powers. Epimenides was a Cretan poet of the seventh century b.c, who, after a long period of retirement, reappeared with the claim that he had slept for fifty years, and assumed the role of one inspired. Xuma, the traditional first king of Rome, was reputed to seek in solitude the counsel of the nymph Egeria. Empedocles, a Sicilian philosopher of the fifth century b.c, boasted miraculous powers conferred on him by the gods. Apollonius, a Greek phi- losopher of the first century a.d., spent many years in retliement at a temple dedicated to ^Esculaplus, and was also said to have conversed with the spirit of Achilles at his tomb. 7. tinkling- cymbal. Cf. / Corinthians 13:1. 8. Magna civitas. etc. "A great city, a great solitude." This saying is found in the Adaqia of Erasmus, and in various classical writers. BACOX 29 part, which is in less neighborhoods. Buft we may go further, and affirm most truly that it is a mere and miserable soli- tude to want^ true friends, without which the world is but a wilderness; and even in this sense also of solitude, whoso- ever in the frame of his nature and affections is unfit for friendship, he taketh it of the beast, and not from humanity. A principal fruit of friendship is the ease and discharge of the fullness and swellings of the heart, which passions of all kind do cause and induce. We know diseases of stop- pings and suffocations are the most dangerous in 'the body ; and it is not much otherwise in the mind; you may take sarza^^ to open the liver, steeP^ to open the spleen, flowers of sul- phur for the lungs, castoreum^- for the brain; but no receipt openeth the heart, but a true friend, to whom you may impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes, suspicions, counsels, and whatsoever lieth upon the iieart to oppress it, in a kind of civil shrift^^ or confession. It is a strange thing to observe how high a rate great kings and monarchs do set upon this fruit of friendshii^ whereof we speak: so great, as^^ they purchase it many times at the hazard of their own safety and greatness. For princes, in regard of the distance of their fortune from that of their subjects and servants, cannot gather this fruit, except (to make themselves capable thereof) they raise some persons to be as it were companions and almost equals to themselves, which many times sorteth to^^ inconvenience. The modern 9. want. Lack. 10. sarza. Sarsaparilla. 11. steel. A familiar remedy. Dorothy Osborne, a well-known letter-writer of the 17th century, wrote to Sir William Temple: "They do so fright me with strange stories of what the spleen will bring me to in time. ... To prevent this, who would not take steel or anything. . . . I do not take the powder, as many do. but only lay a piece of steel in white wine over night and drink the infusion next morning." 12. caetoreum. An oil obtained from a gland of the beaver. 1.3. civil shrift. Opposed to a religious shrift, made only in the church. 14. as. That. 15. Eortetli to. Results in. 30 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN languages give unto such persons the name of favorites, or privadoes;^^ as if it were matter of grace, or conversation. But the Roman name attaineth the true use and cause thereof, naming them participes curarum;^' for it is that which tieth the knot. And we see plainly that this hath been done, not by weak and passionate princes only, but by the wisest and most politic that ever reigned; who have oftentimes joined to themselves some X)i their servants, whom both themselves have called friends, and allowed otliers likewise to call them in the same manner, using the woid Avhich is received between private men. L. Sylla,^^ when he commanded Rome, raised Pompey (aftei surnamed the Great) to that height, that Pompey vaunted himself for Sylla's overmatch. For when he had carried the consulship for a friend of his, against the pursuit of Sylla, and that Sylla did a little resent thereat, and began to speak great,^^ Pompey turned upon him again, and in effect bade him be quiet; for that more men adored the sun rising than the sun setting. With Julius Cresar, Decimus Brutus^^' had obtained that interest, as he set him down in his testa- ment for heir in remainder after his nephew; and this was the man that had power with him to draw him forth to his death. For when Csesar would have discharged the senate, in regard of some ill presages, and specially a dream of Calpurnia, this man lifted him gently by the arm out of his chair, telling him he hoped he would not dismiss the senate 16. privadoes. Familiars (Spanish). 17. participes curarum. Sharers of cares. Bacon appears to have found this "Roman namie" in Dion Cassius's History of Rome. 18. Sylla. Sulla (138-78 b.c.) obtained command of Rome by leading its own army ag-ainst the state; his cause was espoused by Pompey. In what follows Bacon is inaccurate. According to Plutarch, "Pompey required the honor of a triumph, but Sylla denied it, alleging that none could enter in triumph into Rome but consuls or prsetors. . . . All this blanked not Pompey, who told him frankly . . . how men did honor the rising not the setting of the sun." (Life of Pompey, North's translation.) 19. great. Violently. 20. Caesar . . . Brutus. See the faithful picture of the rela- tions of these men given by Shakespeare in Julius Ccrsar, based on Plutarch's Lives. BACON 31 till his wife had dreamt a better dream. And it seemeth his favor was so great, as Antonius, in a letter which is recited verbatim in one of Cicero's Philippics, calleth him venefica, "witch"; as if he had enchanted Caesar. Augustus raised Agrippa-^ (though of mean birth) to that height, as, when he consulted with Maecenas about the marriage of his daughter Julia, Maecenas took the liberty to tell him, that he must either marry his daughter to Agrippa, or take away his life; there was no third way, he had made him so great. With Tiberius Caesar, Sejanus^- had ascended to that height, as they two were termed and reckoned as a pair of friends. Tiberius in a letter to him saith, Hcec pro amicitid nostra non occul- tavi;^^ and the whole senate dedicated an altar to Friendship, as to a goddess, in respect of the great dearness of friend- ship between them two. The like or more was between Sep- timius Severus^* and Plautianus. For he forced his eldest son to many the daughter of Plautianus; and would often maintain Plautianus in doing affronts to his son; and did write also in a letter to the senate by these words: I love the 7nan so well, as I ivish he may over-live^'' me. Now if these princes had been as a Trajan,-^ or a Marcus Aurelius, a man might have thought that this had proceeded of an abundant goodness of nature; but being men so wise, of such strength 21. Agrippa. Son-in-lav/ and minister of Augustus, and one of his two chief advisers; the other was Maecenas, a man of great wealth, best known as a patron of literature. The anecdote of Meecenas's advice respecting- the marriage of the princess is from Dion Cassius. 22. Sejanus. A favorite adviser of the emperor Tiberius; put to death, however, on being discovered to have conspired against his master, in 31 a.u. 23. Haec pro, etc. "On account of our friendship I have not con- cealed these things." (Tacitus, Annals, Book iv.) 24. Septimius Severus. An African soldier (146-211 a.d.), who won the Roman throne by overthrowing his rivals with the aid of his troops. Plautianus was a fellow-townsman, to whom he virtually made over the government; like Sejanus, however, the favorite conspired against the master, and was executed in 203. 25. over-live. Survive. 26. Trajan . . . Marcus Aurelius. Emperors distinguished for their moderation and kindliness. 32 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AXL) AMERICAN and severity of mind, and so extreme lovers of themselves, as all these were, it proveth most plainly that they found their own felicity (though as great as ever happened to mortal men) but as an half piece,-" except they might have a friend to make it entire: and yet, which is more, they were princes tliat had wives, sons, nephews; and j^et all these could not supply the comfort of friendship. It is not to be forgotten, what Comineus^^ observeth of his first master, Duke Charles the Hardy; namely, that he would communicate his secrets with none; and least of all, those secrets which troubled him most. Whereupon he goeth on and saith that towards his latter time that closeness did impair and a little perish^^ his understanding. Surelj'' Comineus might have made the same judgment also, if it had pleased him, of his second master, Lewis the Eleventh, whose close- ness was indeed his tormentor. The parable of Pj^thagoras^'* is dark, but true; Cor ne edito^ "Eat not the heart." Certainly, if a man would give it a hard phrase, those that want^^ friends to open themselves unto are cannibals of their own hearts. But one thing is most admirable^^ (wherewith I will conclude this first fruit of friendship), which is, that this communicating of a man's self to his friend works tw^o contrary effects; for it redoubleth joys, and cutteth griefs in halves. For there is no man that imparteth his joys to his friend, but he joyetli the more; and no man that imparteth his griefs to his friend, but he grieveth the less. So that it is, in truth of operation upon a man's mind, of like virtue as the alchemists use to 27. half piece. An allusion to the practice of cutting silver- pennies in two, when smaller coins were scarce. 28. Comineus. Philippe de Comines (1445-1509), confidential adviser of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burg-undy, until, in 1472, he- entered the service of Louis XI of France. (See Scott's Qucntin Durward for brilliant porfraits of all three men.) Later he com- posed an important volume of Memoirs. 29. perish. Cause to decay. 30. Pythag-oras. A Greek philosopher of the sixth century b.c. 31. want. Lack. 32. admirable. To be wondered at. BACON 33 attribute to their stone"^ for man's body; that it worketh ail contrary eifects, but still to the good and benefit of nature. But yet, without i^raying in aid^^ of alchemists, there is a manifest image of this in the ordinary course of nature. For in bodies, union strengtheneth and cherisheth any natural action; and, on the other side, weakeneth and dulleth anj^ vio- lent impression: and even so is it of minds. The second fruit of friendship is healthful and sovereign for the understanding, as the first is for the affections. For friendship maketh indeed a fair day in the affections, from storm and tempests; but it maketh daylight in the under- standing, out of darkness and confusion of thoughts. Neither is this to be uijderstood only of faithful counsel, which a man receivetli from his friend ; but before you come to that, certain it is that whosoever hath his mind fraught with many thoughts, his wits and understanding do clarify and break up, in the communicating and discoursing with another: he tossetli his thoughts more easily; he marshalleth them more orderly; he seetli how they look when they are turned into words; finally, he waxeth wiser than himself; and that more by an hour's discourse than by a day's meditation. It was well said by Themistocles^''^ to the king of Persia, that speech was like cloth of Arras,^^ opened and put abroadf^ whereby the imagery doth appear in figure ;^^ whereas in thoughts they lie hut as in packs. Neither is this second fruit of friendship, in opening the understanding, restrained^^ only to such friends as are able to give a man counsel (they indeed are best) ; 33. alchemists' stone. More often called "the philosopher's stone," a substance believed to have the power of transmuting base metals into gold, and also of prolonging life. 34. praying" in aid. Craving the assistance; a legal term. 35. Tlieinistocles. An Athenian general (514-449 b.c), who, after being accused of treason by his own people, sought refuge with the Persian king Artaxerxes. 36. cloth of Arras. Art-tapestry (named from the town in France where the finest kinds were made). 37. put aliroad. Spread out or hung. 38. imag-ery ... in figure. The design is fully revealed. 39. restrained. Restricted. 3-i ESSAYS— ENGLISH AXD AMERICAX but even without that, a man learneth of hmiself, and bringeth his own thoughts to light, and whetteth his wits as against a stone, which itself cuts not."*^ In a word, a man were better relate himself ^^ to a statua^- or picture, than to suffer his thoughts to pass in smother. ^-^ Add now, to make this second fruit of friendship complete, that other point, which lieth more open, and falleth within vulgar^* observation ; which is faithful counsel from a friend. Heraclitus^^ saith well in one of his enigmas. Dry light is ever the best. And certain it is that the light that a man receiveth by counsel from another is drier and purer than that which coineth from his own understanding and judgment; which is ever infused and drenclied in liis affections and customs. So as there is as much difference between the counsel that a friend giveth, and that a man giveth himself, as there is between the counsel of a friend and of a flatterer. For there is no such flatterer as is a man's self; and there is no such retuedy against flattery of a man's self as the liberty of a friend. Counsel is of two sorts; the one concerning manners, the other concerning business. For the first; the best pre- servative to keep the mind in health is the faithful admonition of a friend. The calling of a man's self to a strict account is a medicine, sometime, too piercing and corrosive. Reading good books of morality is a little flat and dead. Observing our faults in others is sometimes unproper for our case. But the best receipt (best, I say, to Avork, and best to take) is the 40. stone which, itself cuts not. A proverbial expression drawn from Horace. 41. were better relate himself. "Would do better to converse. 42. statua. Statue (the T.,atin form). Cf. Shakespeare's Julius Cccsar, II, ii, 76 and III, ii, 192. 43. in smother. Stifled. 44. vulgrar. Common, general. 45. Heraclitus. A Greek philosopher who flourished about 500 B.C. The words attributed to him are found in Plutarch's Life of Romulus. Whatever they orig-inally meant, Bacon uses the phrase "dry lig-ht" (and it has ever since been used) to mean clear intellectual perception, free from the saturating moisture (see "infused and drenched," four lines further) of personal feeling. BACON 35 admonition of a friend. It is a strange thing to behold what gross errors and extreme absurdities many (especially of the greater sort) do commit, for want of a friend to tell them of them, to the great damage both of their fame and fortune. For, as S. James^<^ saith, they are as men that look sometimes into a glass, and presently^'^ forget their own shape and favor. As for business, a man may think, if he will, that two eyes see no more than one; or that a gamester seeth always more than a looker-on; or that a mun in anger is as wise as he that hath said over the four-and-tAventy letters j^s or that a musket may be shot off as well upon the arm as upon a rest;^^ and such other f ond^o and high imaginations, to think himself all in all. But when all is done, the help of good counsel is that which setteth business straight. And if any man think that he will take counsel, but it shall be by pieces, asking counsel in one business of one man, and in anotlier business of another man; it is well (that is to say, better perliaps than if he asked none at all) ; but he runneth two dangers. One, that he shall not be faithfully counseled; for it is a rare thing, except it be from a perfect and entire friend, to have counsel given, but such as shall be bowed and crooked^i to some ends which he hath that giveth it. The other, that ho shall have counsel given, hurtful and unsafe (thougli with good meaning), and mixed partly of mischief and partly of remedy ; even as if you would call a physician, that is thought j 46. S. James. See the Epistle of /aw^c^- 1:23-24. 47. presently. Immediately, favor. Countenance. la fLrJ^^r^?^'*^®^*^ letters. To run through the alphabet was l-A^r?. °^ ^^^ ^^"^? process as that recommended in the adage, 't^2^V angry count a hundred." The letters were numbered as ^twenty-four because u and v were counted as but one letter: so also 1 and j. ,-v,+'^^-^"^"®i^®* / •,• ""P®^ * '^^st. The mu.sket was a heavy gun ■ introduced mto the Spanish army by the Duke of Alva; it was iorig-mally fired from a rest, which the "musketeer" stuck into ithe ground in front of him. ' 50. fond. Foolish, j 51. Ijowed and crooked. Bent and perverted. I 36 ESSAYS— EXGLISII AND AMERICAN good for the cure of the disease you complain of, but is unac- quainted with your body; and therefore may put you in way for a present cure, but overlhroweth your health in some other kind; and so cure the disease and kill the patient. But a friend that is wholly acquainted with a man's estate^- will beware, by furthering any present business, how he dasheth upon other inconvenience. And therefore rest not upon scattered counsels; they will rather distract and mislead than settle and direct. After these two noble fruits of friendship (peace in the affections, and support of the judgment) followeth the last fruit, which is like tlie pomegranate, full of many kernels; I mean aid and bearing a part in all actions and occasions. Here the best way to represent to life the manifold use of friendsliip is to cast''^ and see how many things there are which a man cannot do himself; and then it will appear that it was a sparing speech of the ancients, ^^ to say that a friend is another himself: for that a friend is far more than himself. Men have their time, and die many times in desire of some things which they principally take to heart; the bestowing^^ of a child, the finishing of a work, or the like. If a man have a true friend, he may rest almost secure that the care of those things will continue after him. So that a man hath as it were two lives in his desires. A man hath a body, and that body is confined to a place; but where friendsliip is, all oflices"**^ of life are as it were granted to him and his deputy; for he may exercise them bj^ his friend. How many things are there which a man cannot, with any face or comeliness, say or do himself ! A man can scarce allege his own merits with modesty, much less extol 52. estate. Condition. 53. cast. Consider, count up. 54. speech of the ancients. A widely quoted saying. Bacon probably drew it from Cicero's treatise On Friendship. 55. bestowin^r. Giving- in marriage. 56. offices. Functions^ - BACON 37 them; a man cannot sometimes brook'^' to supplicate or beg; and a number of the like. But all* these things are graceful in a friend's mouth, which are blushing in a man's own. So again, a man's person hath many proper^^ relations which he cannot put olf. A man cannot speak to his son but as a father; to his wife but as a husband; to his enemy but upon terms: whereas a friend may speak as the case requires, and not as it sorteth^'^ with the person. But to enumerate these things were endless; I have given the rule, where a man cannot fitly plaj^ his own part: if he have not a friend, he may quit the stage. OF DISCOURSE^ Some in their discourse desire rather commendation of wit, in being able to hold all arguments, than of judgment, in discerning what is true; as if it were a praise to know what might be said, and not what should be thought. Some have certain connnon-places and themes wiierein they are good, and want- variety; which kind of p6verty is for the most part tedious, and, w^hen it is once perceived, ridiculous. The honorablest part of talk is to give the occasion; and again to moderate^ and pass to somewhat else; for then a man leads the dance. It is good, in discourse, and speech of con- versation, to vary and intermingle speech of the present occa- sion with arguments; tales with reasons; asking of questions with telling of opinions; and jest with earnest: for it is a dull thing to tire, and, as we say now, to jade^ anything too far. As for jest, there be certain things which ought to be privileged from it; namely, religion, matteis of state, great 57. brook. Endure. 58. proper. Peculiar to himself. 59. sorteth. Suits. 1. This essay first appeared in 1597; it was enlarged in 1612 and ag-ain in 1625, and was eventually numbered XXXII. 2. want. Lack. ^. moderate. Sum up the question (like a presiding officer). 4. jade. Exhaust. 38 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN persons, any man's present business of importance, and any case that deserveth pity. Yet there be some that think their wits have been asleep, except they dart out somewhat that is piquant and to the quick: that is a vein which would be^ bridled : Parce, puer, sthnulis, et fortius utere lorisfi And generally, men ought to find the difference between saltness and bitterness. Certainly, he that hath a satirical vein, as he maketh others afraid of his wit, so he had need be afraid of others' nieuior}'. He that questioneth mucii, shall learn much, and content much ; but especially if he apply his questions to the skill of the j^ersons whom he asketh : for lie shall give them occasion to please themselves in speaking, and himself shall continually gather knowledge. But let his questions not be troublesome; for that is fit for a poser.'^ And let him be sure to leave other men their turns to speak. Nay, if there be any that would reign and take up all the time, let him find means to take them oft' and to bring others on; as musicians used to do with tliose that dance too long galliards.^ If you dissemble sometimes your knowledge of that you are thought to know, you shall be thought another time to know that you know not. Speech of a man's self ought to be seldom, and well chosen. I knew one was wont to say in scorn, He 7nust needs he a woise man, he speaks so much of himself: and there is but one case wherein a man may commend him- self with good grace, and that is in commending virtue in another, especially if it be such a virtue whereunto himself pretendeth.9 Speech of touch^^ towards others should be sparingly used; for discourse ought to be as a field, without 5. wooild be. Should be. (Cf. Hamlet, III, iii, 75.) C. Parce, puer, etc. "Boy, spare the spur^ and hold the reins more tightly." (Ovid, Metamorphoses, ii, 127.) 7. poser. Examiner; one who sets test questions. 8. gralliards. The galliard was a formal but spirited dance. 9 pretendetli. Lays claim. 10. Speech of touch. Personalities. BACON 39 coming home to any man. I knew two noblemen, of the west part of England, whereof the one was given to scoff, but kept ever royal cheer^^ in his house: the other would ask of those that had been at the other's table, Tell truly , was there never a flout or dry^^ blow given? to which the guest would answer, iSuch and such a thing passed. The lord would say, I thought he would mar a good dinner. Discretion of speech is more than eloquence; and to speak agreeably to him with whom we deal, is more than to speak in good words or in good order. A good continued speech, without a good speech of interlocu- tion, shows slowness; and a good reply or second speech, without a good settled speech, showeth shallowness and weak- ness. As we see in beasts, that those that are weakest in the course are yet nimblest in the turn; as it is betwixt the grey- hound and the hare. To use too many circumstances^^ ere one come to the matter, is wearisome; to use none at all, is blunt. OF RICHES^ I CANNOT call riches better than the baggage of virtue. The Roman Avord is better, impedimenta; for as the baggage is to an army, so is nches to virtue; it cannot be spared nor left behind, but it hindereth the march; yea, and the care of it sometimes ioseth or disturbeth the victory. Of great riches there is no real use, except it be in the distribution; the rest is but conceit, ^ So saith Salomon -.^ Where much is, there are many to consume it; and luhat hath the owner hut the sight of it with his eyesf The jiersonal fruition in any man cannot reach to feel great riches: there is a custody of 11. clieer. Hospitality. 12. dry. Haid. 13. circumstances. Unessential details. 1. First published in 1612; enlarged in 1625 as Essay XXXIV, 2. conceit. Imagination. 3. saith Salomon. See Ecclcsiastcs 5:11. 40 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AXD AMERIC.\X them; or a power of dole and donative* of them; or a fame of them; but no solid use to the owner. Do you not see what feigned prices are set upon little stones and rarities? and what works of ostentation are undertaken, because'^ there might seem to be some use of great riches? But then you will say, they may be of use to buj'' men out of dangers or trouble. As Salomon saith: Riches are as a stronghold in the imagina- tion of the rich man.^ But this is excellently expressed, that it is in imagination, and not always in fact. For certainly great riches have sold more men than they have brought out. Seek not proud riches, but such as thou mayest get justly, use soberly, distribute cheerfully, and leave contentedly. Yet have no abstract nor friarly^ contempt of them. But distin- guish, as Cicero saitli^ well of Rabirius Posthumus : In studio rei amplificandce apparehat non avaritice prcedam sed instrii- onentum honitati queer i.^ Hearken also to Salomon, and beware of hasty gathering of riches: Qui festinat ad divitias non erit insons.'^^ The poets feign that when Plutus (which is Riches) is sent from Jupiter,^^ he limps and goes slowly; but when he is sent from Pluto,^^ he runs and is swift of foot : meaning, that riches gotten by good means and just labor pace slowly; but when they come by the death of others (as by the course of inheritance, testaments, and the like), they come tumbling upon a man. But it might be applied likewise 4. dole and donative. Dealing out (as in charity) and bestow- ing (as in bequests, endowments, etc.). 5. because. So that. 6. Riches are, etc. Proverbs 10:15. 7. abstract nor friarly. As a matter of principle, or like the friars who abjure wealth. S. Cicero saltb. The speech in which the remark occurs was a defence of Posthumus, a famous money-lender accused of extor- tion, though the remark itself had reference to another man, Curius Rabirius. 9. In studio rei, etc. "In his desire for increased wealth he sought not, it was evident, the gratification of avarice but the means of doing good." 10 Qui festinat, etc. "He that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent." Proverbs 28:20. 11. Jupiter . . , Pluto. Rulers, respectively, of the celestial and the infernal regions. BACON 41 to Pluto, taking him for the devil. For when riches come from the devil (as by fraud and oppression and unjust means), they come upon speed.^^ The ways to enrich are many, and most of them foul. Parsimony is one of the best, and yet is not innocent; for it withholdeth men from works of liberality and charity. The improvement of the ground is the most natural obtaining of riches; for it is our great mother's blessing, the earth's; but it is slow. And yet, where men of great wealth do stoop to husbandry, it multiplieth riches exceedingly. I knew a nobleman in England, that had the greatest audils^^ of any man in my time; a great grazier, a great sheep-master, a great timber man, a great collier, a great corn^'^-master, a great lead-man, and so of iron, and a number of the like points of husbandry: so as the earth seemed a sea to him, in respect of the perpetual impor- tation. It was truly observed by one, that himself came very hardly^""' to a little riches, and very easily to gi-eat riches. For when a man's stock is come to that, that he can expect^ '^' the prime of markets, and overcome^ ^ those bargains which for their greatness are few men's money, and be partner in the industries of younger men, he cannot but increase mainly.^ "^ The gains of ordinary trades and vocations are honest, and furthered by two things chiefly : b}^ diligence, and by a good name for good and fair dealing. But the gains of bargains are of a more doubtful nature; when men shall wait upon others' necessity, broke^^ by servants and instruments to draw them on, put off others cunningly that would be better chapmen,2« and the like practices, which are crafty and 12. upon speed. With speed. 13. audits. Receipts from land. 14. corn. Grain. 15. Hardly. With difficulty. 16. expect. Await, 17. overcome. Get at, take advantage of. 18. mainly. Greatly. 19. broke. Do business. 20. chapmen. Traders. 42 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN naught. ^^ As for the chopping of bargains, when a man buys, not to hold, but to sell over again, that commonly grind- eth double, both upon the seller and upon the buyer. Sharings do greatly enrich, if the hands be well chosen that are trusted. Usury^^ is the certainest means of gain, though one of the worst; as that whereby a man doth eat his bread in sudor e viiltus alieni,^^ and besides, doth plow upon Sundays. But yet, certain though it be, it hath flaws; for that the scriveners-* and brokers do value^^ unsound men, to serve their own turn. The fortune in being the first in an invention, or in a privi- lege, doth cause sometimes a wonderful overgrowth in riches; as it was with the first sugar man^*^ in the Canaries: there- for if a man can play the true logician, to have as well judgment as invention, he may do great matters; especially if the times be fit. He that resteth upon gains certain, shall hardly grow to great riches: and he that puts all upon adven- tures, doth oftentimes break and come to poverty: it is good therefore to guard adventures with certainties that may uphold losses. Monopolies, and coemption^^ of wares for re-sale, where they are not restrained, are great means to enrich; especially if the party have intelligence what things are like to come into request, and so store himself before- hand. Riches gotten by service, though it be of the best rise,^* yet when they are gotten by flattery, feeding humors, and other servile conditions, they may be placed amongst the worst. As for fishing for testaments and executorships (as 21. nang-ht. Evil (naugrhty). 22. Usury. The lending of money for (not necessarily exces- sive) interest. 23. in sudore, etc. "In the sweat of another's brow." 24. Bcriveners. Brokers, who invested money on commission. 25. value. Represent as trustworthy. 26. first sugrar man. No particular person is referred to. Su&ar cane was taken from Sicily to Madeira and the Canaries near the end of the 15th century, and for the following two centuries Europe drew her sugar supply chiefly from these Islands. 27. coemption. Buying up the whole supply. 28. of the best rise. In the highest rank. BACOX 43 Tacitus saith^^ of Seneca, testamenta et orbos tanquam indagine capi^^), it is yet worse; by how much men submit themselves to meaner persons than in service. Believe not much them that seem to despise riches: for they despise them that despair of them; and none worse, when they come to them. Be not penny-wise; riches have wings, and sometimes they fly away of themselves, sometimes they must be set flying to bring in more. Men leave their riches either to their kindred, or to the public; and moderate portions prosper best in both. A great state^^ left to an heir, is as a lure to all the birds of prey round about to seize on him, if he be not the better stablished in years and judgment. Likewise glorious gifts and foundations^^ are like sacrifices without salt;^^ and but the painted sepulchers of alms, which soon will putrefy and corrupt inwardly. Therefore measure not thine advance- ments^* by quantity, but frame them by measure i^^ and defer not charities till death; for certainly, if a man weigh it rightly. he that doth so is rather liberal of another man^s than of his own. OF YOUTH AND AGE^ A MAN that is young in years may be old in hours, if he have lost no time. But that happeneth rarely. Generallj", youth is like the first cogitations, not so wise as the second. For there is a j'outh in thoughts as well as in ages. And yet the invention of young men is more lively than that of 29. Tacitus saitli. Tacitus, one of the chief Roman historians, is quoting' Suillius, one of Seneca's enemies, who asks how the philosopher-statesman could have amassed 300,000,000 sesterces In four years by fair means. 30. testamenta, etc. "Wills and childless parents taken as with a net." (Annals of Tacitus, book xiii.) 31. state. Estate; compare "stablish," just below, for modern "establish." 32. foundations. Endowments. 33. sacrifices without salt. See Leviticus 2:13 for the Hebrew custom referred to. Bacon means that the gifts left behind after the death of the giver will spoil for lack of his personal care. 34. advancements. Settlements of property. 35. measure. Just proportion. 1. First published in 1612; revised in 1625. as Essay XLIL 44 ESSAYS— EXGLI>S1I AND AMERICAX old; and imaginations stream into their minds better, and as it were more divinely. Natures that have nnicli heat, and iiieat and violent desires and perturbations, are not ripe for action till they have passed the meridian of their years: as it was with Julius C»sar, and Septimius Severus;^ of the latter of whom it is said, Juventutem egit erroribus, imo furorihus, plenam.^ And yet he was the ablest emperor, almost, of all the list. But reposed* natures may do well in 3^outh; as it is seen in Augustus Caesai', Cosmus duke of Florence,^ Gaston de Foix,® and others. On the other side, heat and vivacity in age is an excellent composition^ for busi- ness. Young men are fitter to invent than to judge; fitter for execution than for counsel ; and fitter for new projects than for settled business. For the experience of age, in things that fall within the compass of it, directeth them; but in new things, abuseth^ them. The errors of young men are the ruin of business; but the errors of aged men amount but to this, that more might have been done, or sooner. Young men, in the conduct and manage of actions, embrace more than they can hold; stir more than they can quiet; fly to the end, with- out consideration of the means and degrees; pursue some few principles which they have chanced upon absurdly; care not to innovate,^ which draws unknown inconveniences; use extreme remedies at first; and, that which doubleth all errors, 2. Septimus Severus. See note above, page 31, under the essay on Friendship. 3. Juventutem, etc. "His youth was full not only of errors but of frantic passiona" ( I'rom Spartlanus's Life of Severus.) 4. reposed. Calm. 5. Cosmus duke of Plorence. Cosmo de Medici (13S9-1464) became ruler of Florence at the age of seventeen. 6. Gaston de Folx. Bacon may refer to a Count de Foix of the 14th century, of whom the chroniclers relate that he won distinction both In civil and military life at the age of fourteen, or to a. nephew of Louis XII who was made commander-in-chief of an expedition in which he was slain at the age of twenty-three, in 1512. 7. composition. Temperament. 8. abusetli. Deceives. 9. care not to Innovate. Are not cautious about making? innovations. BACOX 45 will not acknowledge or retract them; like an unready horse, that will neither stop nor turn. Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period/*^ but content themselves with a mediocrity of success. Certainly, it is good to compound employments of both; for that will be good for the present, because the virtues of either age may correct the defects of both; and good for succession,^^ that young men may be learners, while men in age are actors ; and, lastly, good for extern accidents,^^ because authority followeth old men, and favor and popularity youth. But for the moral part, perhaps youth will have the pre-eminence, as age hath for the politic. A certain rabbin, upon the text. Your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams,^ '^ inferreth that young men are admitted nearer to God than old, because vision is a clearer revelation than a dream. And certainly, the more a man drinketh of the world, the more it intoxicateth ; and age doth profit^* rather in the powers of understanding than in the virtues of the will and affections. There be some have an over-early ripeness in their years, which fadeth betimes. These are. first, such as have brittle wits, the edge whereof is soon turned; such as was Hermo- genes^^ the rhetorician, whose books are exceeding subtile, who afterwards waxed stupid. A second sort is of those that have some natural dispositions which have better grace in youth than in age; such as is a fluent and luxuriant speech, which becomes youth well, but not age: so TuUy^^ saith of 10. period. Consummation. 11. succession. Provision for the future. V" 12. extern accidents. Chances coming from without (as from public opinion). 13. Your young- men, etc. See Joel 2:28. The "rabbin" is Abravanel, a Jewish scholar of the early 16th century. 14. profit. Improve, advance in. 15. Kermogrenes. A writer of the second century, who at fifteen was famous as a rhetorician, but lost his memory at twenty-five, and spent the remainder of a long" life uselessly. 16. Tully. Cicero. 46 ESSAYS— EXCLISH AND AMERICAN Hortensius,^' Idem manehat, neqiie idem deeehat.^^ The third is of such as take too high a strain at the first, and are mag- nanimous^^ more than traet-^ of years can uphold; as was I Seipio Afrieanus,^^ of whom Livy saith in effect. Ultima primis i cedebant.^^ OF STUDIES! Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight is in privateness and retiring; for ■ ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of business. For expert men- can execute and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs, come best from those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies is sloth ; to use them too much for ornament is affecta- tion; to make judgment Avholly by their rules is the humor'^ of a scholar. They perfect nature, and are perfected by experience; for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need proyning* by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men='' contemn studies; simple® men admire them ; and wise men use them : for they teach not their 1 7. Hortenslus. A Roman orator, at first a rival and later a colleague of Cicero. 1 S. Idem manebat, etc. "He remained the same, when the same was no long-er becoming to him." 19. mag-nanlmous. High-spirited. 20. tract. Course. 21. Sclplo Afrlcanus. A great Roman general, who died 183 B.C.; he was elected consul before he had attained the legal age, and won his great victories in Africa in his early thirties, but his later years were shadowed by public ingratitude and sus- picion. Livy the historian treats of him in his Annals. 22. Ultima, etc. "The last fell short of the first." 1. First published in 1597; enlarged in 1612 and again in 1625; eventually called Essay L. 2. expert men- Men trained by experience. 3. lium.or. Whim, eccentricity, 4. proyningf. Pruning, cultivation. 5. crafty men. Bacon probably means men skilled in handi- crafts and other matters not requiring book learning. 6. simple. Ignorant, foolish. BACON 47 own use; but that is a wisdom without them and above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and dis- course; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously;'' and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that w^ould be only in the less important argu- ments,^ and the meaner sort of books: else distilled books are like common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory ; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit;^ and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. Histories make men wise; poets witty ;^° the mathematics subtile; natural philosophy^^ deep ; moraP^ grave ; logic and rhetoric able to contend. Aheiint studia in mores.^'^ ^ay> there is no slond^* or impediment in the wit, but may be wrought out'"' l)y fit studies: like as diseases of the body may have appropriate exercises. Bowling is good for the stone and reins ;^^ shooting for the lungs and breast; gentle w^alking for the stomach; riding for the head; and the like. So if a man's w4t be wandering, let him study the mathe- matics; for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never 7. curiously. Attentively. 8. arguments. Portions of the subject-matter. 9. present wit. A ready mind. 10. witty. Quick of fancy. 11. natural philosopliy. Thysical science, 12. moral. Understand "philosophy." 13. Abeunt, etc. "Studies have an influence upon the manners of those that are conversant in them." (This is Bacon's own paraphrase, in his Advancement of Learning; the original is from Ovid's Heroides, Book xv.) 14. stond. Hindrance, stoppage. 15. wrougrht out. Removed, 16. reins. Kidneys. 48 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AXD AMERICAN so little, he must. begin aiiain: if his wit be not apt to dis- tin.suish or find differences, let him study the schoolmen ;^'^ for they are cymini sectores:'^^ if he be not apt to beat over matters, and to call one thing to prove and illustrate another, let him study the lawyers' cases: so every defect of the mind may have a special receipt. 17. the schoolmen. Medieval philosophers (of the "scholastic" system). 18. cymini sectores. Splitters of cummin-seed, "halr-splltters." CHARACTERS [Sir Thomas Overburv v/as born in 1581, of an aristocratic family; he did distinguished work at Oxford University, and later won a position at the court of James 1, where he fostered literature and the arts. Becoming- involved in a court scandal, he was impris- oned in the Tower and secretly poisoned (in 1613) by agents of Lady Essex. For his Characters, see the Introduction, page 8. Joseph Hall was born in 1574, and educated at Cambridge. He won early success as poet and satirist, but after taking holy orders devoted himself largely to controversial writing on ecclesi- astical matters; he was made Bishop of Exeter in 1627 and of Norwich in 1641. Under the Commonwealth he was removed from office and imprisoned; he died in private life, in 1656. John Earle was born about 1601, and educated at Oxford. While still a young man he attained literary fame through his collection of Characters called Microcosmographie (1628), which ran through many editions. He became tutor to Prince Charles (afterward Charles II), and during the Commonwealth followed the royal house to Ftance; after the Restoration he was made Bishop, first of Worcester, then of Salisbury, dying in 1665. He was called "one of those men who could not have an enemy." Samuel Butler was born in 1612, the son of a Worcestershire farmer, and had to make his own way in the world. Eventually he served as clerk to several justices of the peace and as secre- tary to country gentlemen. He engaged in some pamphleteering on the side of the Royalists, and after the Restoration attained fame through the publication of Hudibras, a mock-heroic poem in ridicule of the Puritans. Admired but not greatly rewarded by the court, he died in poverty in 1680. Butler's Characters, to- gether with many of his other writings, remained in manuscript until the middle of the eighteenth century.] SIR THOMAS OVERBURY A WISE MAN IS THE truth of the true definition of man, that is, a reason- able creature. His disposition^ alters; he alters not. He hides 1. disposition. Condition. 49 50 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN himself with the attire of the vulgar;- and in indifferent things is content to be governed by them. He looks according to nature; so goes his behavior. His mind enjoys a continual smoothness; so cometh it that his consideration is always at home. He endures the faults of all men silently, except his friends, and to them he is the mirror of their actions; by this means, his peace cometh not from fortune, but himself. He is cunning in men, not to surprise, but keep his own,^ and beats off their ill-affected humors no otherwise than if they were flies. He chooseth not friends by the Subsidy-book,* and is not luxurious^ after acquaintance. He maintains tho strength of his body, not by delicates, but temperance; and his mind, by giving it pre-eminence over his body. He under- stands things, not by their form, but qualities; and his com- parisons intend*' not to excuse but to provoke him higher. He is not subject to casualties, for fortune hath nothing to do with the mind, except those drowned in the body; but he hath divided his soul from the case of his soul, whose weak- ness he assists no otherwise than commiseratively — not that it is his, but that it is. He is thus, and will be thus; and lives subject neither to time nor his frailties, the servant of virtue, and by virtue the friend of the highest. JOSEPH HALL HE IS A HAPPY MAN THAT hath learned to read himself more than all books, and hath so taken out this lesson that he can never forget it; 2. vulgrar. Common people. 3. Is cnnnlng- in men, etc. Knows how to deal with men, not deceitfully but for self-protection. 4. Subsldy-ljooi. A book in which were recorded the names of those liable to pay certain taxes; hence a list of people of means. 5. luxurlons. Passionately desirous. 6. Ms comparisons intend, etc. That is, when he compares his own work with that of others he does it not to apologize but to Improve. HALL 51 that knows the world, and cares not for it; that, after many, traverses of thoughts,^ is grown to know what he may trust to, and stands now equally armed for all events; that hath got the mastery at home, so as he can cross his will without a mutiny, and so please it that he makes it not a wanton; that in earthly things wishes no more than nature, in spiritual is ever graciously ambitious;^ that for his condition stands on his own feet, not needing to lean upon the great, and can so frame his thoughts to his estate that when he hath least he cannot want, because he is as free from desire as super- fluity; that hath seasonably broken the headstrong restiness^ of prosperity, and can now manage it at pleasure; upon whom all smaller crosses light as hailstones upon a roof ; and for the greater calamities, he can take them as tributes of life and tokens of love; and if his ship be tossed, j^et he is sure his anchor is fast. If all the world were his, he could be no other than he is, no whit gladder of himself, no whit higher in his carriage,^*^ because he knows contentment lies not in the things he hath, but in the mind that values them. The powers of his resolution can either multiply or subtract at pleasure. He can make his cottage a manor or a palace when he lists, and his home-close^ ^ a large dominion, his stained cloth arras,^^ his earth^"^ plate, land can see state in the attend- ance of one servant, as one that hath learned a man's greatness or baseness is in himself; and in this he may even contest with the proud, that he thinks his own the best. Or if he must be outwardly great, he can but turn the glass, and make his stately manor a low and straight^"* cottau'e, and in all liis 7. traverses of thougrhts. Thoughts on unhappy fortunes. 8. gracioTiGly axatitlous. Ambitious to attain divine grace. 9. restlcesi;. Stubbornness (of a horse). 10. carrlagre. Mode of carrying (deporting) himself. 11. iLome-close. House-yard. 12. arras. Wall-tapestry. 13. earth. Earthenware; that is, he can make his coarse dishes Into gold plate. 14. straigrht. Narrow; now spelled "strait." 52 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AXD AMERICAN costly furniture lie can see not richness but use; he can see dross in the best metal and earth through the best clothes, and in all his troupe^^ he can see himself his own servant. He lives quietly at home out of the noise of the world, and loves to enjoy himself always, and sometimes his friend, and hath as full scope to his thought as to his eyes. He walks ever even in the midway betwixt hopes and fears, resolved to fear nothing but God, to hope for nothing but that which he must have. He hath a wise and virtuous mind in a servicea))le body, which that better part affects as a present servant and a future companion, so cherishing his flesh as one that would scom to be all flesh. He hath no enemies; not for that^" all love him, but because he knows to ^^ make a gain of malice. He is not so engaged to any earthly thing that they two cannot part on even terms; there is neither laughter in their meeting, nor in their shaking of hands tears. He keeps ever the best company, the God of Spirits and tlie spirits of that God, whom he entertains continually in an awful familiarity, not being hindered either with too much light or with none at all. His conscience and his hand are friends, and (what devil soever tempt him) will not fall out. That divine part goes ever uprightly and freely, not stooping under the burden of a willing sin, not fettered with the gyves of unjust scruples. He would not, if he could, run away from himself or from God; not caring from whom he lies hid, so he may look these tAvo in the face. Censures and applauses are passengers to him, not guests ; his ear is their thoroughfare, not their harbor ; he hath learned to fetch both his counsel and his sentence from his own breast. He doth not lay Aveight upon his own shoul- ders, as one that loves to torment himself with the honor of much employment; but as he makes Avork his game, so doth he not list to make himself work. His strife is ever to redeem 15. troupe. Household retinue. 16. for that. Because. 17. knowa to. Knows how to. HALL . 53 and not to spend time. It is his trade to do good, and to think of it his recreation. He hath hands enough for himself and others, which are ever stretched forth for beneficence, not for need. He walks cheerfully in the way that God hath chalked, and never wishes it more wide or more smooth. Those very temptations whereby he is foiled^^ strengthen him; he comes forth crowned and triumphing out of the spiritual battles, and those scars that he hath make him beautiful. His soul is every day dilated to. receive that God, in whom he is ; and hath attained to love himself for God, and God for His own sake. His eyes stick so fast in heaven that no earthly object can remove them; yea, his whole self is there before his time, and sees with Stephen,^^ and hears with Paul,-^ and enjoys with Lazarus,^^ the glory that he shall have, and takes possession beforehand of his room amongst the saints ; and these heavenly contentments have so taken him up that now he looks down displeasedly upon the earth as the region of his sorrow and banishment, yet joying more in hope than troubled with the sense of evils. He holds it no great matter to live, and his greatest business to die; and is so well acquainted with his last guest that he fears no unkindness from him: neither makes he any other of d3^ing than of walking home when he is abroad, or of going to bed when he is weary of the day. He is well provided for both worlds, and is sure of peace here, of glory hereafter; and therefore hath a light heart and a cheerful face. All his fellow-creatures rejoice to serve him ; his betters, the angels, love to observe him; God Himself takes pleasure to converse with him, and hath sainted him before his death, and in his death crowned him. 18. foiled. Partly thrown (in wrestling-). 19. Stephen, See Acts 7:55-56. 20. PauL See Acts 9:3-4. 21. Iiazams. See Luke 16:23. 54 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN JOHN EARLE A YOUNG MAN He is now out of nature's protection, though not yet able to guide himself; but left loose to the world and fortune, from which the weakness of his childhood preserved him; and now his strength exj^oses him. He is, indeed, just of age to be miserable, yet in his owti conceit-- first begins to be happy; and he is happier in this imagination, and his misery not felt is less. He sees yet but the outside of tlie world and men, and conceives them according to their appearing glis- ter,-^ and out of this ignorance believes them. He pursues all vanities for happiness, and enjoys them best in this fancy. His reason serves not to curb but understand his appetite, and prosecute the motions thereof with a moro eager earnestness. Himself is his own temptation, and needs not Satan, and the Avorld will come hereafter. He leaves repentance for gray hairs, and performs it in being covetous. He is mingled with the vices of the age as the fashion and custom, with which he longs to be acquainted, and sins to better his understanding. He conceives his youth as the season of his lust, and the hour wherein he ought to be bad; and because he would not lose his time, spends it. He dis- tastes religion as a sad thing, and is six years elder for a thought of heaven. He scorns and fears, and yet hopes for old age, but dare not imagine it with wrinkles. He loves and hates with the same inflammation, and when the heat is over is cool alike to friends and enemies. His friendship is seldom so steadfast, but that lust, drink, or anger may over- turn it. He offers you his blood today in kindness, and is ready to take yours tomorrow. He does seldom anything which he wishes not to do again, and is only wise after a mis- 22. conceit. Tmasination. 23. conceives . . . g-lister. Judges them according- to theii- apparent brilliance. EARLE 00 fortune. He suffers much for his knowledge, and a great deal of folly it is makes him a wise man. He is free* from many vices, by being not grown to the performance, and is only more virtuous out of weakness. Every action is his danger, and every man his ambush. He is a ship without pilot or tackling, and only good fortune may steer him. If he scape this age, he has scaped a tempest, and may live to be a man. A GOOD OLD MAN IS THE best antiquity, and which we may with least vanity admire. One whom time hath been thus long a working, and like winter fruit ripened when others are shaken down. He hath taken out as many lessons of the world as days, and learnt the best thing in it, the vanity of it. He looks over his former life as a danger well past, and would not hazard himself to begin again. His lust was long broken before his body, yet he is glad this temptation is broke too, and that he is fortified from it by this weakness. The next door of death sads him not, but he expects it calmly as his turn in nature; and fears more his recoiling back to childishness than dust. All men look on him as a common father, and on old age, for his sake, as a reverent thing. His very presence and face puts vice out of countenance, and makes it an indecorum in a vicious man. He practices his experience on youth without the harshness of reproof, and in his counsel is good company. He has some old stories still of his own seeing to confirm what he says, and makes them better in the telling; yet is not troublesome neither with the same tale again, but remembers with them how oft he has told them. His old sayings and morals seem proper to his beard; and the poetry of Cato^* does well out of his mouth, and he speaks it as if he were the author. He is not apt to put the 24. Cato. The Roman statesman of the second century b.c, who was highly reputed for his old-fashioned and uncompromising virtue. He was not a poet, but in later ages various ethical maxims, in verse form, were attributed to him. 56 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN boy on a j-ounger man,^' nor the fool on a boy, but can distinguish gravity from a sour look; and the less testy he is, the more regarded. You must pardon him if lie like his own times better than these, because those things are follies to him now that were wisdom then; yet he makes us of that opinion too when we see him, and conjecture those times by so good a relic. He is a man capable of a dearness with the youngest men, yet he not yoathfuller for them, but they older for him; and no man credits more his acquaint- ance. He goes away at last too soon whensoever, with all men^s sorrow but his own ; and his memory is fresh, when it is twice as old. • A TEDIOUS MAN TALKS to no end, as well as to no purpose; for he would never come at it willingly. His discourse is* like the road- miles in the north,^^ the filthier and dirtier the longer; and he delights to dwell the longer upon them to make good the old proverb that says they are good for the dweller, but ill for the traveler. He sets a tale upon the rack, and stretches it imtil it becomes lame and out of joint. Hippocrates^^ says art is long; but he is so for want of art. He has a vein of dullness that runs through all he says or does; for nothing can be tedious that is not dull and insipid. Digressions and repetitions, like bag and baggage, retard his march and put him to perpetual halts. He makes his approaches to a business by oblique lines, as if he meant to besiege it, and fetches a wide compass about to keep others from discover- ing what his design is. He is like one that travels in a dirty deep road, that moves slowly; and, when he is at a stop, 25. put . . . youDg-er man. Take a young^er maa for a boy. 26. road-miles In tlie nortli. The Scottish mile was formerly about an eigrhth longer than the Bng'lish. Cf. Burns in Tarn O'Shanter: "We think na on the lang Scots miles." 27. Hippocrates An ancient Greek physician. His famous aphorism was handed down later in Seneca's Lratin version: "Vita brevis, ars longa," which Chaucer paraphrased in the line, "The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne " BUTLER 57 goes back again, and loses more time in picking of his way than in going it. How troublesome and uneasy soever he is to others, he pleases himself so well that he does not at all perceive it; for though home be homely, it is more delightful than finer things abroad; and he that is used to a thing and knows no better believes that other men, to whom it appears otherwise, have the same sense of it that he has; as melanehoiy^^ persons that fancy themselves to be glass believe that all others think them so too; and there- fore that which is tedious to others is not so to him, other- wise he would avoid it; for it does not so often proceed from a natural defect as affectation and desire to give others that pleasure' which they find themselves, though it always falls out quite contrary. He that converses with him is like one that travels with a companion that rides a lame jade; he must either endure to go his pace or stay for him; for though he understands long before what he would be at better than he does himself, he must have patience and stay for him, until, with much ado to little purpose, he at length comes to him; for he believes himself injured if he should abate a jot of his own diversion. SAMUEL BUTLER A ROMANCE WRITER PULLS down old histories to build them up finer again, after a new model of his own designing. He takes away all the lights of truth in histoiy to make it the fitter tutoress of life; for Truth herself has little or nothing to do in the affairs of the world, although all matters of the greatest weight and moment are pretended and done in her name, like a weak princess that has only the title, and falsehood all the power. He observes one very fit decorum in dating his histories in the days of old and putting all his own inventions upon ancient times; for when the world was younger, it might 2S. melanclioly. Mad. 58 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN perhaps love and fight and do generous things at the rate he describes them; but since it is grown old, all these heroic feats are laid by and utterly given over, nor ever like to come in fashion again; and therefore all his images of those virtues signify no more than the statues upon dead men's tombs, that will never make them live again. He is like one of Homer's gods, that sets men together by the ears and fetches them off again how he pleases; brings armies into the field like Janello's leaden soldiers; leads up both sides himself, and gives the victory to which he pleases, according as he finds it fit the design of his story; makes love and lovers too, brings them acquainted, and appoints meetings when and where he pleases, and at the same time betrays them in the height of all their felicity to miserable captivity, or some other horrid calamity; for which he makes them rail at the gods and curse their own innocent stars when he only has done them all the injury; makes men villains, compels them to act all barbarous inhumanities by his own directions, and after inflicts the cruelest punishments upon them for it. He makes all his knights fight in fortifica- tions, and storm one another's armor before they can come to encounter body for body, and always matches them so equally one with another that it is a whole page before they can guess which is likely to have the better; and he that has it is so mangled that it had been better for them both to have parted fair at first; but when they encounter with those that are no knights, though ever so well armed and mounted, ten to one goes for nothing. As for the ladies, they are every one the most beautiful in the whole world, and that's the reason why no one of them, nor all together with all their charms, have power to tempt away any knight from another. He differs from a just historian as a joiner does from a carpenter; the one does things plainly and substantially for use, and the other carves and polishes merely for show and ornament. RICHARD STEELE [Richard Steele was born in 1672. He entered Oxford University, but joined the army before he had taken a degree. In 1701 he began to write for the stage ; later he was appointed state gazetteer, and engaged in political pamphleteering. He founded The Tatler in 1709 (see Introduction, page 9), and later joined Addison in The Spectator and va.rious subsequent journals. After a stormy career as Member of Parliament, he was knighted by the King. In 1724 he retired to an estate in Wales, and died there in 1729. Though he fell short of the distinction which marked the literary work and reputation of Addison, Steele's character is as amiable and rather more vivacious than that of his friend.] MR. BICKERSTAFF VISITS A FRIEND^ [Tatler No. 95. Tlmrsday, November 17, 1709.] There are several persons who have many pleasures and entertainments in their possession which they do not enjoy. It is, therefore, a kind and good office to acquaint them with their own happiness, and turn their attention to such instances of their good fortune as they are apt to overlook. Persons in the married state often want such a monitor; and pine away their days, by looking upon the same condition in anguish and murmur, which carries with it in the opinion of others a complication of all the pleasures of life, and a retreat from its inquietudes. I am led into this thought by a visit I made an old friend, who was formerly my school-fellow. He came to town last week with his family for the winter, and yesterday morning sent me word his wife expected me to dinner. I am, as it 1. This essay is one of the most characteristic of those which represent the effort of Steele and Addison to attract their readers to the values of simple domestic morality and happiness. On "Mr. Bickerstaff," see the Introduction, page 9. 59 60 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN were, at home at that house, and every member of it knows me for their well-wisher. I cannot indeed express the pleasure it is, to be met by the children with so much joy as I am when I go thither. The boys and girls strive who shall come first, when they think it is I that am knocking at the door; and that child which loses the race to me runs back again to tell the father it is Mr. Bickerstaff. This day I was led in by a pretty girl, that we all thought must have forgot me; for the family has been out of town these tv7o years. Her knowing me again was a mighty subject with us, and took up our discourse at the first entrance. After which, they began to rally me upon a thousand little stories they heard in the country, about my marriage to one of my neighbor's daughters. Upon which the gentleman, my friend, said, "Nay, if Mr. Bickerstaff marries a child of any of his old compan- ions, I hope mine shall have the preference; there is Mrs. Mary^ is now sixteen, and would make him as fine a widow as the best of them. But I know him too well; he is so enamoured with the very memory of those who flourished in our youth, that he will not so much as look upon the modern beauties. I remember, old gentleman, how often you went home in a day to refresh your countenance and dress, when Teraminta^ reigned in your heart. As we came up in the coach, I repeated to my wife some of your verses on her." With such reflections on little passages* which happened long ago, we passed our time during a cheerful and elegant meal. After dinner, his lady left the room, as did also the children. As soon as we were alone, he took me by the hand : "Well, my good friend," says he, "I ani heartily glad to see thee; I was afraid you would never have seen all the company that dined with you today again. Do not you think the good 2. Mrs. Mary. Pronounced "Mistress." The term "Miss" was at this period reserved for little girls. 3. Teraminta. The fanciful name supposed to be applied to the young lady in question according to the practice of conven- tional love poetry. 4. passag-es. Incidents. STEELE 61 woman of the house a little altered, since you followed her from the play-house, to tind out who she was, for me?" I perceived a tear fall down his cheek as he spoke, which moved me not a little. But, to tui-n the discourse, said I, "She is not indeed quite that creature she was when she retui'ned me the letter I carried from you; and told me 'she hoped, as I was a gentleman, I would be employed no more to trouble her, who had never offended me, but would be so much the gentleman's friend as to dissuade him from a pursuit which he could never succeed in.' You may remember, 1 thought her in earnest; and you were forced to employ your cousin Will, who made his sister get acquainted with her for you. You cannot expect her to be forever fifteen." "Fifteen!" replied my good friend. "Ah ! you little understand, you that have lived a bachelor, how great, how exquisite a pleasure there is, in being really beloved ! It is impossible that the most beauteous face in nature sliould raise in me such pleasing- ideas as when I look upon that excellent woman. That fading in her countenance is chiefly caused by her watching with me in my fever. This was followed by a fit of sickness, which had like to have carried her off last winter. I tell you sin- cerely, I have so many obligations to her, that I cannot with an}' sort of moderation think of her present state of health. But as to what you say of fifteen, she gives me every day pleasures beyond what 1 ever knew in the possession of her beauty when I was in the vigor of youth. Every moment of her life brings me fresh instances of her complacency to my inclinations, and her prudence in regai'd to my for- tune. Her face is to me much m.ore beautiful than when I first saw it; there is no decay in any feature, which I can- not trace from the veiy instant it was occasioned by some anxious concern for my welfare and interests. Thus at the same time, methinks, the love I conceived towards her for what she was, is heightened by my gratitude for what she is. The love of a wife is as much above the idle passion com- 62 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AXD AMERICAN monly called by that name, as the loud laughter of buffoons is inferior to the elegant mirth of gentlemen. Oh! she is an inestimable jewel. In her examination of her household affairs, she shows a certain fearfulness to find a fault, which makes her servants obey her like children; and the meanest we have has an ingenuous shame for an offence, not always to be seen in children in other families. I speak freely to you, my old friend; ever since her sickness, things that gave me the quickest joy before, turn now to a certain anxiety. As the children play in the next room, I know the poor things by their steps, and am considering what they must do, should they lose their mother in their tender years. The pleasure I used to take in telling our boy stories of the battles, and asking my girl questions about the disposal of her baby,'' and the gossiping of it, is turned into inward reflection and melan- choly." He would have gone on in this tender way, when the good lady entered, and with an inexpressible sweetness in her coun- tenance told us she had been searching the closet for some- thing very good, to treat such an old friend as I was. Her husband's eyes sparkled with pleasure at the cheerfulness of her countenance; and I saw all his fears vanish in an instant. The lady, observing something in our looks which showed we had been more serious than ordinary, and seeing her husband receive her with great concern under a forced cheer- fulness, immediately guessed at what we had been talking of; and applying herself to me, said, with a smile, "Mr. Bickerstaff, do not believe a word of what he tells you; I shall still live to have you for my second, as I have often promised you, unless he takes more care of himself than he has done since his coming to town. You must know, he tells me that he finds London is a much more healthy place than the country; for he sees several of his old acquaintance and school-fellows are here, young fellows 5. lier baby. That is, her doll; the gossiping is the christening. STEELE 63 with fair full-bottomed periwigs.^ I could scarce keep him this morning from going out open-breasted."^ My friend, who is always extremely delighted with her agreeable humor, made her sit down with us. She did it with that easiness which is peculiar to women of sense; and to keep up the good humor she had brought in with her, turned her raillery upon me. "Mr. Bickerstaff, you remember you followed me one night from the play-house; suppose you should carry me thither tomorrow night, and lead me into the front box."^ This put us into a long field of discourse about the beauties who were mothers to the present, and shone in the boxes tw^enty years ago. I told her I was glad she had trans- ferred so many of her charms, and I did not question but her eldest daughter was within half-a-year of being a toast.^ We were pleasing ourselves with this fantastical preferment of the young lady, when on a sudden we were alarmed with the noise of a drum, and immediately entered my little god- ison to give me a point of war,^*^ His mother, between laugh- ing and childing, would have put him out of the room; but I would not part with him so. I found, upon conversation with him, though he was a little noisy in his mirth, that the child had excellent parts,^^ and was a great master of all I the learning on the other side eight years old. I perceived 'him a very great liistorian in ^^sop's Fables; but he frankly I declared to me his mind, that he did not delight in that learning, because he did not believe they were true; for I which reason I found he had veiy much turned his studies, 6. full-bottomed periwigs. Larg-e curled wi&s, reaching to the shoulders, such as are familiar in the pictures of Addison tand Steele. , 7. open-breaBted. That is, with the then fashionable long waistcoat unfastened over the chest, "out of an affectation of lyouth," as Steele put it in another essay (Tatler No. 246). i 8. front box. At this period the gentlemen occupied the side j boxes at the theater, the ladies those in front of the stage. i 9. toast. A belle, in whose honor toasts would be drunk at ^parties. 10. point of war. A short roll on the drum, used as a sigrnal. j 11. parts. Abilities. I 64 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AXD AMEEICAX for about a twelvemonth past, into the lives and adventures of Don Belianis^^ Qf Greece, Guy of Warwick,^^ the Seven Champions, ^^ and other historians of that age. I could not but observe the satisfaction the father took in the forward- ness of his son; and that these diversions might turn to some profit, I found the boy had made remarks^^ which might be of service to him during the course of his whole life. He would tell you the mismanagements of John Hickerthrift,^^ find fault with the passionate temper in Bevis of South amp- ton,!^ and loved Saint George for being the champion of England; and by this means had his thoughts insensibly molded into the notions of discretion, virtue, and honor. I was extolling his accomplishments, when the mother told me that the little girl who led me in this morning was in her way a better scholar than he. "Betty," said she, "deals chiefly in fairies and sprites, and sometimes in a winter night will ten'ify the maids with her accounts, until they are afraid to go up to bed." I sat with them until it was very late, sometimes in merry, sometimes in serious discourse, with this particular pleasure, which gives the only true relish to all conversation, a sense that every one of us liked each other. I went home, con- sidering the different conditions of a married life and that of a bachelor; and I must confess it struck me with a secret concern, to reflect that whenever I go off I shall leave no 12. Don Bellanis. The hero of an extravagant Spanish romance by Fernandez. 13. Guy of Warwick. A legendary English hero, whose adven- tures were narrated in many popular romances. 14. tie Seven Champions. National heroes (St. George, St. Patrick, St. Andrew, St. David, St. Denis, St. Anthony, and St. James) whose stories were related in a long romance called The Famous History of the Seven Champions of Christendom, by Richard Johnson, 1596-1616. 15. made remarks. Observed matters. 16. John Hlckerthrift. A mythical boy (called also Tom Hickathrift), reputed to have had extraordinary strength, where- with he slew giants, played merry pranks, etc. 17. Bevis of Soutliampton. The hero of another widely popu- lar romance of the sixteenth century. STEELE 65 traces behind me. In this pensive mood I returned to my family; that is to say, to my maid, my dog", and my cat, who ly can be the better or worse for what happens to me. on THE ART OF CONFERRING BENEFITS [Spectator^ No. 248. Friday, December 14, 1711.] There are none who deserve superiority over others in the esteem of mankind, who do not make it their endeavor to be beneficial to society, and who, upon all occasions which their circunlstances of life can administer, do not take a certain unfeigned pleasure in conferring benefits of one kind or other. Those whose great talents and high birth have placed them in conspicuous stations of life are indispensably obliged to exert some noble inclinations for the service of the world, or else such advantages become misfortunes, and shade and privacy are a more eligible portion. Where opportunities and inclina- tions are given to the same person, we sometimes see sublime instances of virtue, which so dazzle our imaginations that we look with scorn on all which in lower scenes of life we may ourselves be able to practice. But this is a vicious way of thinking; and it bears some spice of romantic madness for a man to imagine that he must grow ambitious, or seek adven- tures, to be able to do great actions. It is in every man's power in the world who is above mere poverty, not only to do things worthy, but heroic. The great foundation of civil virtue is self-denial ; and there is no one above the necessities of life but has oriportunities of exercising that noble quality, and doing as ni'' h as his circumstances will bear for the ease and conveniens of other men; and he w!io does more than ordinarily men ; ractice upon such occasio^is as occur in his life, deserves thp /alue of his friends, as if iic had done enter- prises which arc usually attended with : e highest glory. Men of public sririt differ rather in their .cumstances than 66 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN their virtue; and the man who does all he can, in a low station, is more a hero than he who omits any worthy action he is able to accomplish in a great one. It is not many years ago since Lapirius,^ in wrong of his elder brother, came to a great estate by gift of his father, by reason of the dissolute behavioK^ of the first-born. Shame and contrition reformed the life of the disinherited youth, and he became as remarkable for his g'ood qualities as formerly for his errors. Lapirius, who observed his brother's amendment, sent him on a New Year's Day in the morning the following letter : Honored Brother: I enclose to you the deeds whereby my father gave me this house and land. Had he lived till now, he would not have bestowed it in that mariner; he took it from the man you Avere, and I restore it to the man you are. I am, Sir, your affectionate brother, and humble servant, P. T. As great and exalted spirits undertake the pursuit of haz- ardous actions for the good of others, at the same time gratify- ing their passion for glory, so do worthy minds in the domestic way of life deny themselves many advantages, to satisfy a generous benevolence, which they bear to their friends oppressed with distresses and calamities. Such natures one may call stores of Providence, which are actuated by a secret celestial influence to undervalue the ordinary gratifications of wealth, to give comfort to an heart loaded with affliction, to save a falling family, to preserve a branch of trade in their neighborhood, and give work to the industrious, preserve the portion of the helpless infant, and raise the head of the mourning father. People whose hearts are wholly bent towards pleasure or intent upon gain, never hear of the noble occur- rences among men of industry and humanity. It would look 1. Ijapirlus. A mere type-name, in Latin form according to literary usage. ^jai STEELE 67 like a city romance to tell tlieiii of the generous merchant who the other day sent this billet to an eminent trader, under diffi- culties to support himself, in whose fall many hundreds besides himself had perished;- but because I think there is more spirit and true gallantry in it than in any letter I have ever read from Strephon to Phillis,^ I shall insert it even in the mercantile honest style in which it 'was sent. Sir: I have heard of the casualties which have involved you in extreme distress at this time, and, knowing j'^ou to be a man of great good nature, industry, and probity, ha\e resolved to stand by you. Be of good cheer; the bearer brings with him five thousand pounds, and has my order to answer your drawing as much more on my account, I did this in haste, for fear I should come too late for your relief; but you may value yourself with me to the sum of fifty thousand pounds; for I can very cheerfully run the hazard of being so much less rich than I am now, to save an honest man whom I love. Your friend and servant, W. S. I think there is somewhere in Montaigne mention made of a family-book, wherein all the occurrences that happened from generation of that house to another were recorded. Were there such a method in the families which are concerned in this generosity, it would be an hard task for the greatest in Europe to give in their own an instance of a benefit better placed, or conferred with a more graceful air. It has been lieretofore urged how barbarous and inhuman is any unjust step made to the disadvantage of a trader; and by how much such an act towards him is detestable, by so much an act of kindness towards him is laudable. I remember to have heard 2. had perished. Would have perished. 3. Strephon to Phillis. Type-names of lovers in the pastoral school of poetr5^ 68 ESSAYS— EXGLISH AND AMERICAX a bencher of the Temple* tell a story of a tradition in their house, where they had formerly a custom of choosing kings for such a season, and allowing him his expenses at the charge of the society. One of our kings, said my friend, carried his royal inclination a little too far, and there was a committee ordered to look into the management of his treasury. Among other things it appeared that his majesty, walking incog, in the cloister, had overheard a poor man say to another, "Such a small sum would make me the happiest man in the world." The king, out of his royal compassion, privately inquired into his character, and, finding him a proper object of charity, sent him the money. When the committee read the report, the house passed his accounts with a plaudite^ without further examination, upon the lecital of this article in them: £ s. .1. For making a man luij^py 10 A FINE GENTLEMAN [duardian, No. 34. Mondaij, April 20, 1713.\ It is a most vexatious thing lo an old man who endeavors to square his notions by reason, and to talk from reflection and experience, to fall in with a circle of young ladies at their afternoon tea-table. This happened very lately to be my fate. The conversation, for the first half-hour, was so very rambling that it is hard to say what was talked of, or who spoke least to the purpose. The various motions of the fan, the tossings of the head, intermixed with all the pretty kinds of laughter, made up the greatest part of the dis- course. At last this modish way of shining, and being witty, settled into something like conversation, and the talk ran 4. "bencher of the Temple. A senior member of one of the societies of lawj-ers called the Inns of Court, whose headquarters were In the Inner and the Middle Temple. "Their house" means that of this society. 5. a plaudite. Approval. STEELE 69 upon line g-enllemen. From the several eliaraeters that were given, and the exceptions that were made, as this or that gentleman happened to be named, I found that a lady is not difficult to be pleased, and that the town swarms with fine gentlemen. A nimble pair of heels, a smooth complexion, a full-bottom wig, a laced shirt, an embroidered suit, a pair of fringed gloves, a hat and feather; any one or more of these and the like accomplishments ennobles a man, and raises him above the vulgar, in a female imagination. On the contrary, a modest, serious behavior, a plain dress, a thick pair of shoes, a leathern belt, a waistcoat not lined with silk, and such like imperfections, degrade a man, and are so many blots in his escutcheon. I could not forbear smiling at one of the prettiest and liveliest of this gay assem- bly, who excepted^ to the gentility of Sir William Hearty, because he wore a frieze^ coat, and breakfasted upon toast and ale. I pretended to admire the fineness of her taste, and to strike in with her in ridiculing those awkward healthy gentlemen that seem to make nourishment the chief end of eating. I gave her an account of an honest Yorkshire gen- tleman, who (when I was a traveler) used to invite his acquaintance at Paris to break their fast with him upon cold roast beef and mum.^ There was, I remember, a little French marquis, who was often pleased to rally him unmerci- fully upon beef and pudding,* of which our countryman would despatch a pound or two with great alacrity, while this antagonist was piddling at^ a mushroom, or the haunch of a frog. I could perceive the lady was pleased with what I said, and we parted upon very good friends, by virtue of a maxim I always observe. Never to contradict or reason with 1. excepted. Objected. 2. frieze. A rough thick material. 3. mtuu. A strong ale. 4. paddlngr. The batter dressing cooked and served with roast, as "Yorkshire pudding." 5. piddling- at. Toying fastidiously with. 70 ESSAYS— EXGLISir AND AMERICAX a sprightly female. I went home, however, full of a great many serious reflections upon what had passed, and though, in complaisance, I disguised my sentiments, to keep up the good humor of my fair companions, and to avoid being looked upon as a testy old fellow, yet out of the good-will I bear to the sex, and to prevent for the future their being imposed upon by counterfeits, I shall give them the distinguishing marks of a true line gentleman. When a good artist would express any remarkable char- acter in sculpture, he endeavors to work up his figure into all the perfections his imagination can form, and to imitate not so much what is, as what may or ought to be. I shall follow their example, in the idea I am going to trace out of a fine gentleman, by assembling together such qualifications as seem requisite to make the character complete. In order to this I shall premise in general, that by a fine gentleman I mean a man completelj^ qualified as well for the service and good as for the ornament and delight of society. When I consider the frame of mind peculiar to a gentleman, I suppose it gi'aced with all the dignity and eJevation of spirit that human nature is capable of. To this I would have joined a clear understanding, a reason free from preju- dice, a steady judgment, and an extensive knowledge. When I think of the heart of a gentleman, I imagine it firm and intrepid, void of all inordinate passions, and full of tender- ness, compassion, and benevolence. When I view the fine gentleman with regard to his manners, methinks I see him modest without bash fulness, frank and affable without imper- tinence, obliging and complaisant without servility, cheerful and in good humor without noise. These amiable qualities are not easily obtained; neither are there many men that have a genius to excel this way. A finished gentleman is perhaps the most uncommon of all the great characters in life. Besides the natural endowments with which this distinguished man is to be born, he mnst run through a long series of education. STEELE 71 Before he makes his appearance and shines in the world, ' he must be principled in religion, instructed in all the moral ■ virtues, and led through the whole course of the polite arts ' and sciences. He should be no stranger to courts and to camps ; he must travel to open his mind, to enlarge his views, to learn the policies and interests of foreign states, as well as ' to fashion and polish himself, and to get clear of national prejudices, of which every country has its share. To all these more essential improvements he must not forget to add ' the fashionable ornaments of life, such as are the languages and the bodily exercises most in vogue; neither would I have. him think even dress itself beneath his notice. ] It is no veiy uncommon thing in the world to meet witli men • of probity; there are likewise a great many men of honor to be found. Men of courage, men of sense, and men of I letters are frequent; but a true fine gentleman is what one I seldom sees. He is properly a compound of the various good I qualities that embellish mankind. As the great poet animates all the different parts of learning by the force of his genius, , and irradiates all the compass of his knowledge by the luster and brightness of his imagination, so all the great and solid I perfections of life appear in the finished gentleman, with a I beautiful gloss and varnish; every thing he says or does is I accompanied with a manner, or rather a charm, that draws ' the admiration and good-will of every beholder. ADVERTI8EMEXT I For the benefit of my female readers I N. B. — The gilt chariot, the diamond ring, the gold snuff - I box, and brocade sword-knot,® are no essential parts of a fine I gentleman; but may be used by him, provided he casts his eye upon them but once a day. 6. sword-knot. A strap or sling on the sword-hilt, attached — In action — to the wrist. JOSEPH ADDISON [Joseph Addison was born in 1672, and was educated at Oxford, where for some time he held a fellowship. Later he became a g-overnment official, a member of Parliament, and an important fig'ure in the political and social life of London. In 1716 he married the Countess of Warwick, in 1718 retired from govern- ment service, and died in 1719. In 1711 he joined Steele in the founding of the journal called The Spectator, and was soon regarded as the first essayist of the age. For his work in journalism and the essay, see the Introduction, page 10.] OPERA LIONSi [The Spectator, No. 13. Thursday, March 15, 1710-11.] There is nothing: that of kite years has afforded matter of greater amusement to the town than Signior Nicolini's^ com- bat with a lion in the Haymarket,^ which has been very often exhibited to the creneral satisfaction of most of the nobility and g"entry in the kingdom of Great Britain. Upon the first rumor of this intended combat, it was confidently affirmed, and is still believed by many in both galleries, that there would be a tame lion sent from the Tower* every opera night, in order to be killed by Hydaspes;^ this report, though altogether groundless, so universally prevailed in the upper 1. This essay is a typical example of Addison's method of criticizing corutemporary life by subjecting it to gentle ridicule. His mood is humorous, but not wholly without serious intent. 2. Nlcolinl. Nicolini Grimaldi, a Neapolitan, who sang in England with great success between 1708 and 1712. 3. Hayznarket. A theater devoted at this time to opera. 4. Tower. This ancient fortress contained for many years a small menagerie of lions, leopards, etc., greatly enjoyed by the public. 5. Hydaspes. In an Italian opera called L'Idaspe Fidele, by Manclni. The hero Is thrown to a lion, whom he conquers bare- handed. 72 ADDISON 73 regions of the playhouse that some of the most refined poli- ticians in those parts of the audience gave it out in whisper that the iion was a cousin-german*^ of the tiger who made his appearance in King William's days, and that the stage would be supplied with lions at the public expense during the whole session. Many likewise were the conjectures of the treatment which this lion was to meet w^ith from the hands of Signior Nicolini; some supposed that he was to subdue him in recitativo, as Orpheus^ used to serve the wild beasts in his time, and afterwards to knock him on the head; some fancied that the lion would not pretend to lay his paws upon the hero, by reason of the received opinion that a lion will not hurt a virgin.^ Several, who pretended to have seen the opera in Italy, had informed their friends that the lion was to act a part in High-Dutch, and roar twice or thrice to a thorough bass before he fell at the feet of Hydaspes. To clear up a matter that was so variously reported, I have made it my business to examine whether this pretended lion is really the savage he appears to be, or only a counterfeit. But before I communicate my discoveri-es, I must acquaint the reader that upon my walking behind the scenes last winter, as I was thinking on something else, I accidentally jostled against a monstrous animal that extremely startled me and, upon my nearer survey of it, appeared to be a lion rampant. The lion, seeing me very much surprised, told me, in a gentle voice, that I might come by him if I pleased: "For (says he) I do not intend to hurt anybody." I thanked him very kindlj^, and passed by him; and in a little time after saw him leap upon the stage, and act his part with very great applause. It has been observed by several that the lion has changed his manner of acting twice or thrice since 6. cousin-g-eriiLazu First cousin. 7. Oxplieiis. The first musician, in Greek tradition ; he was said to tame wild beasts by his music. 8. not liurt a virgin. A belief widespread in the medieval period, and surviving into modern times. 74 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN his first appearance; which will not seem strange when I acquaint my reader that the lion has been changed upon the audience three several times. The first lion was a candle- snuffer,^ who, being a fellow of a testy choleric temper, over- did his part, and would not suffer himself to be killed so easily as he ought to have done; besides, it was observed of him that he grew more surly every time he came out of the lion; and having dropped some words in ordinary conver- sation, as if he had not fought his best, and that he suffered himself to be thrown upon his back in the scuffle, and that he would wrestle with Mr. Nicolini for what he pleased, out of his lion's skin, it was thought proper to discard him; and it is verily believed to this day that had he been brought upon the stage another time, he would certainly have done mis- chief. Besides, it was objected against the first lion that he reared himself so high upon his hinder paws, and walked in so erect a posture, that lie looked more like an old man than a lion. The second lion was a tailor by trade, who belonged to the playhouse, and had the character of a mild and peaceable man in his profession. If the former was too furious, this was too sheepish, for his part; insomuch that, after a short modest walk upon the stage, he would fall at the first touch of Hydaspes, without grappling with him, and giving him an opportunity of showing his variety of Italian trips: it is said indeed, that he once gave him a rip in his flesh-color doublet, but this was only to make work for himself, in his private character of a tailor. I must not omit that it was this second lion who treated me with so much humanity behind the scenes. The acting lion at present is, as I am informed, a country gentleman, who does it for his diversion, but desires his name may be concealed. He says very handsomely in his own excuse, 9. candle-snuffer. One who trimmed and snuffed the candles for the lighting of the theater. ADDISON 75 that he does not act for gain, that he indulges an innocent pleas- ure in it, and that it is better to pass away an evening in this manner than in gaming and drinking; but at the same time says, with a very agreeable raillery upon himself, that if his name should be known, the ill-natured world might call him ''the ass in the lion's skin."^^ This gentleman's temper is made out of such a happy mixture of the mild and the choleric that he outdoes both his predecessors, and has drawn together greater audiences than have been known in the memory of man. I must not conclude my narrative without taking notice of a groundless report tliat has been raised, to a gentleman's disadvantage of whom I must declare myself an admirer; namely, that Signior Nicolini and the lion have been seen sitting peaceably by. one another, and smoking a pipe together, behind the scenes; by which their common enemies would insinuate that it is but a sham combat which they represent upon the stage. But upon inquiiy I find that if any such correspondence had passed between them, it was not till the combat was over, when the lion was to be looked upon as dead, according to the received rules of the drama. Besides, this is what is practiced ev^ery day in Westminster Hail,^^ where nothing is more usual than to see a couple of lawyers, who have been tearing each other to pieces in the court, embracing one another as soon as they are out of it. I would not be thought, in any part of this relation, to reflect upon Signior Nicolini, who in acting this part only complies with the wretched taste of his audience; he know^s very well that the lion has many more admirers than him- self; as they say of the famous equestrian statue^^ on the Pont-Neuf at Paris, that more people go to see the horse 10. ass in the lion's skin. As in -^Esop's fable. 11. Westminster Hall. The ancient building- adjoining the houses of Parliament, used by the courts in Addison's time. 12. equestrian staiue. The mounted figure of Henry IV, on the N«w Bridge {Pont Neuf). 76 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN than the king who sits upon it. On the contrary, it gives me a just indignation to see a person whose action gives new majesty* to kings, resolution to heroes, and softness to lovers, thus sinking from the greatness of his behavior, and degraded into the character of the London Prentice.^^ I have often wished that our tragedians would copy after this great master in action. Could they make the same use of their arms and legs, and inform their faces with as significant looks and passions, how glorious would an English tragedy appear with that action which is capable of giving a dignity to the forced thoughts, cold conceits, and unnatural expressions of an Italian opera. In tiie meantime, I have related this com- bat of the lion to show what are at present the reigning entertainments of the politer part of Great Britain. Audiences have often been reproached by' wn-iters for the coarseness of their taste, but our present grievance does not seem to be the want of a good taste, but of common sense. WESTMINSTER ABBEY^ [The Spectator^ No. 26. Fridmj, March 30, 1711.] When I am in a serious humor, I very often walk by myself in Westminster Abbey; where the gloominess of the place, and the use to which it is applied, with the solemnity of the building, and the condition of the people w4io lie in it, are apt to fill the mind with a kind of melancholy, or rather tlioughtfulness, that is not disagreeable. I yesterday passed a whole afternoon in the churchyard, the cloisters, and the ciuirch, amusing myself with the tombstones and inscriptions that I met with in those several regions of the dead. Most of them recorded nothing else of the buried person but that 13. Ikondon Preoxtlce. The hero of a story long popular among the lower classes, of an apprentice who traveled far and en- gaged in heroic adventures equal to those of high-born knights. 1. With this essay it is interesting to compare one of Irving's In the Sketch Book, on the same theme. ADDISON 77 he was bom upon one day and died upon another: the whoio history of his life being comprehended in those two circum- stances that are common to all mankind. I could not but look upon these registers of existence, whether of brass or marble, as a kind of satire upon the departed persons, who had left no other memorial of them but that they were bom and that they died. They put me in mind of several persons mentioned in the battles of heroic poems, who have sounding names given them, for no other reason but that they may be killed, and are celebrated for nothing but being knocked on the head. rXauxov T£ MeSovtd te 089oi?.ox6v te. — Homer. Glaucumque, Medontaque, Thersilochumque.2 — Virgil. The life of these men is finely described in Holy Writ"^ by ''the path of an arrow," which is immediately closed up and lost. Upon my going into the church, I entertained myself with the digging of a grave; and saw in eveiy shovelful of it that was thrown up the fragment of a bone or skull inter- mixed with a kind of fresh mouldering earth that some time or other had a place in the composition of a human body. Upon this, I began to consider with myself what innumer- able multitudes of people lay confused together under the pavement of that ancient cathedral; how men and women, friends and enemies, priests and soldiers, monks and preben- daries, were crumbled amongst one another, and blended together in the same common mass; how beauty, strength, and 2. Grlauciimque, etc. Virgil's rendering- (^ncid, vi, 483) of a line in the Iliad (xvii, 216). 3. Holy Writ. Probably the apocryphal book called The Wisdom of Solomon: As when an arrow is shot at a mark. The air disparted closeth up again immediately, So that men know not where it passed through: So we also, as soon as we were born, ceased to be. (chap. V, 12-13.) 78 ESSAYS— KXaUSFI AND AMERICAX youth, with old age, weakness, and deformity, lay undis- tinguished in the same promiscuous heap of matter. After having thus surveyed this great magazine of mortal ity, as it were, in the lump, I examined it more particularly by the accounts which I found on several of tlie monuments which are raised in eveiy quarter of that ancient fabric. Some of them were covered with such extravagant epitaphs that, if it were possible for the dead person to be acquainted with them, he would blush at the praises which his friends have bestowed upon him. There are otiiers so excessively modest that they deliver the character of the ]icrson departed in Greek or Hebrew, and by that means are not understood once in a twelvemontii. In the ]>octical ([uarter, 1 found there were poets who had no monuments, and monuments which had no poets. I observed indeed that the present war had filled the church with many of these uninhabited monu- ments, which had been erected to the memory of }>ersons whose bodies were perhaps buried in the plains of Blenheim,* or in the bosom of the ocean. I could not but be very much delighted with several modern epitaphs, which are written with great elegance of expression and justness of thought, and therefore do honor to the living as well as to the dead. As a foreigner is very apt to con- ceive an idea of the ignorance or politeness^ of a nation from the turn of their public monuments and inscriptions, they should be submitted to the perusal of men of learning and genius before they are put in execution. Sir Cloudesley Shovel's^ monument has very often given rae great offense: instead of the brave rough English admiral, which was the distinguishing character of that plain, gallant man, he is 4. Blenlieim. An English victory in the war of the Spanish Succession (1701-13), won by the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene of Austria, August 13, 1704. Addison celebrated it in his early poem called "The Campaign." 5. politeness. Polish, civilization. 6. Sir Cloudesley Shovel. A British admiral who was drowned in the wreck of his ship off the Scilly Isles, in 1707. ADDISOX 79 represented on his tomb by the figure of a beau, dressed in a long- periwig, and reposing himself upon velvet cushions under a canopy of state. * The inscription is answerable" to the monument; for instead of celebrating the many remark- able actions he had performed in the service of his country, it acquaints us only with the manner of his death, in which it was impossible for him to reap any honor. The Dutch, w4iom we are apt to despise for want of genius, show an infinitely greater taste of antiquity and politeness in their buildings and works of this nature than what we meet with in those of our own country. The monuments of their admirals, which have been erected at the public expense, represent them like themselves, and are adorned with rostral* crowns and naval ornaments, with beautiful festoons of sea- weed, shells, and coral. But to return to our subject. I have left the repository of our English kings for the contemplation of another day,' when I shall find my mind disposed for so serious an amuse- ment. I know that entertainments of this nature are apt to raise dark and dismal thoughts in timorous minds, and gloomy imaginations; but for my own part, though I am always serious, I do not know what it is to be melancholy; and can therefore take a view of nature in her deep and solemn scenes, with the same pleasure as in her most gay and delightful ones. By this means I can improve myself wit I) those objects which others consider with terror. When I look upon the tombs of the great, every emotion of envy dies in me; when I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, ever>' inordinate desire goes out; when I meet \vith the grief of parents upon a tombstone, my heart melts with compassion ; when I see the tomb of the parents themselves, I consider the vanity of grieving for those whom we must quickly fol- 7. is answerable. Corresponds. 8. rostxal. Adorned with figures of ships' prows {rostra}. 9. another day. This promise was carried out in the 329th number of The Spectator. 80 ESSAVS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN low. When I see kings lying by those who deposed them, when I consider rival wits placed side by side, or the holy men that divided the world with their contests and disputes, I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little com- petitions, factions, and debates of mankind. When I read the several dates of the tombs, of some that died yesterday, and some six hundred years ago, I consider that great day when we shall all of us be contemporaries, and make our appearance together.^" TRUE AND FALSE HUMOR [Spectator, No. 35. Tuesday, April 10, 1711.] Among all kinds of writing, there is none in which authors are more apt to miscarry than in works of humor, as there is none in which they are more ambitious to exc^l. It is not an imagination that teems with monsters, an head that is filled with extravagant conceptions, which is capable of furnishing the world with diversions of this nature; and yet if we look into the productions of several writers, who set up for men of humor, what wild irregular fancies, what unnatural distor- tions of thought, do we meet with? If they speak nonsense, they believe they are talking humor; and when they have drawn together a sclieme of absurd inconsistent ideas, they are not able to read it over to themselves without laughing. These poor gentlemen endeavor to gain themselves the repu- tation of wits and humorists, by such monstrous conceits^ ns almost quaUfy them for Bedlam ;2 not considering that humor should always, lie under the check of reason, and that it requires the direction of the nicest judgment, by so much the more as it indulges itself in the most boundless freedoms. There is a kind of nature that is to be observed in this sort of 10. The closing sentences of this essay represent the highest reach of Addison's more serious style. 1. conceits. Ideas (especially, novel or ingenious ones). 2. Bedlam. Bethlehem hospital for the insane. AD J n SOX 81 compositions, as well as in all other; and a certain regularity of thought which must discover^ the wTiter to be a man of sense, at the same time that lie appears altogether given up to caprice. For my part, when I read the delirious mirth of an unskilful author; I cannot be so barbarous as to divert mj'self with it, but am rather apt to pity the man than to laugh at anything he writes. The deceased Mr. Shadwell,* who had himself a great deal of the talent which I am treating of, represents an empty rake, in one of his plays, as very much surprised to hear one say that breaking of windows was not humor; and I question not but several English readers will be as much startled to hear me affirm that many of those raving incoherent pieces which are often spread among us, under odd chimerical titles, are rather the offsprings of a distempered brain than works of ( humor. It is indeed much easier to describe what is not humor, than 'what is; and very difficult to define it otherwise than as ' Cowley^ has done wit, by negatives. Were I to give my own I notions of it, I would deliver them after Plato's manner,** \ in a kind of allegory, and by supposing Humor to be a person, ' deduce to him all his qualifications, according to the follow- ing genealogy. Truth was the founder of the family, and the father of Good Sense. Good Sense was tlie father of Wit, who married a lady of a collateral line called Mirth, by whom I 3. discover. Show. I 4. ShadwelL Dramatist and Poet Laureate; died 1692. { 5. Cowley. One of the most popular of the seventeenth cen- ] tury poets. Addison here refers to his poem "Of Wit," one stanza of which runs as follows: 'Tis not such lines as almost crack the stage, When Bajazet begins to rage; Nor a tall metaphor in the bombast way, Nor the dry chips of short-lung'd Seneca; Nor upon all things to obtrude. And force some odd similitude. What is it, then, which, like the Power Divine, We onlj-- can by negatives define? 6. Plato's manner. The great Greek philosopher was dis- tinguished by a fondness for presenting ideas in mythical or symbolic form. 82 ESSAYS— EXGLISir AND AMERICAN he had issue Humor. Humor therefore being the youngest of this illustrious family, and descended from parents of such different dispositions, is very various and unequal in his temper; sometimes you see him i3utting on grave looks and a solenm habit, sometimes airy in his behavior, and fantastic in his dress: insomuch that at different times he appears as serious as a judge, and as jocular as a Merry- Andrew.' But as he has a great deal of the mother in his constitution, what- ever mood he is in, he never fails to make his company laugh. But since there is an impostor abroad, who takes upon him the name of this young gentleman, and would willingly pass for him in the world; to the end that well-meaning persons may not be imposed upon by cheats, i would desire my readers, when they meet with this pretender, to look into his parentage, and to examine him strictly, whether or no he be remotely allied to Truth, and lineally descended from Good Sense; if not, they may conclude him a counterfeit. They may likewise distinguish him by a loud and excessive laughter, in which he seldom gets his company to join with him. For as True Humor generally looks serious, while every^body laughs about him. False Humor is always laughing, whilst everybody about him looks serious. I shall only add, if he has not in him a mixture of both ]iarents, that is, if he would pass for the offspring of Wit without Mirth, or Mirth without Wit, you may conclude him to be altogether spurious and a cheat. The impostor of whom I am speaking descends originally from Falsehood, who was the mother of Nonsense, who was brought to bed of a son called Frenzy, who married one of the daught-ers of Folly, commonly known by the name of Laughter, on whom he begot that monstrous infant of which I have been here speaking. I shall set down at length the genealogical table of False Humor, and, at the same time, place under it the genealogy of True Humor, that the reader may at one view behold their different pedigrees and relations. 7. Merry-Andrew. IMountebank, clov/n. •ADDISON 83 Falsehood Nonsense Frenzy Laughter False Humor Truth Good Sense Wit Mirth Humor I might extend the allegory, by mentioning several of the C'hiklven of False Hiiiiior, who are more in number than the sands of the sea, and might in particular enumerate the many sons and daughters which he has begot in this island. But as this would be a very invidious task, I shall only observe in general, that False Humor differs from the True, as a monkey does from a man. First of all, he is exceedingly given to little apish tricks and buffooneries. Secondly, he so much delights in mimicry, that it is all one to him whether he exposes by it vice and folly, luxury and avarice, or, on the contrary, virtue and wisdom, pain and poverty. Thirdly, he is wonderfully unlucky, insomuch that he will bite the hand that feeds him, and endeavor to ridicule both friends and foes indifferently. For having but small talents, he must be merry where he can, not where he should. Fourthly, being entirely void of reason, he pursues no point either of morality or instruction, but is ludicrous only for the sake of being so. Fifthly, being incapable of any thing but mock representa- tions, his ridicule is always personal, and aimed at the vicious man, or the writer ; not at the vice, or at the writing. I have here only pointed at the whole species of false humor- ists ; but as one of my principal designs in this paper is to beat down that malignant spirit which discovers itself in the writ- 84 ESSAYS— ENGLISH AND AMERICAN ing-s of the present age, 1 shall not scruple, for the future, to single out any of the small wits that infest the world with such compositions as are ill-natured, immoral, and absurd. This is the only exception which I shall make to the general rule I have prescribed myself, of attacking multitudes; since every honest man ought to look upon himself as in a natural state of war with the libeller and lampooner, and to annoy th'^m wherever they fall in hi^ way. This is. but retaliating upon them, and treating them as they treat others.® THE VISION OF MIRZAHi [The Spectator, No. 159. Saturday, September 1, 1711.] When I was at Grand Cairo,^ I picked up several oriental manuscripts, which I have still by me. Among others I met with one, entitled The Visions of Mirzah, which I have read over with great pleasure. I intend to give it to the public when I have no other entertainment for them; and shall begin with the first vision, which I have translated, word for word, as follows : "On the fifth day of the moon, which, according to the cus- tom of my forefathers, I always keep holy, after having washed myself and offered up my morning devotions, I ascended the high hills of Bagdat, in order to pass the rest of the day in meditation and prayer. As I was here airing myself on the tops of the mountains, I fell into a profound contemplation on the vanity of human life ; and passing from ^ one thought to another, Surely, said I, man is but a shadow 8. Addison further developed the subject of this paper in a whole series of Spectator essays, Numbers 58-63, on True and False Wit. 1. This paper is perhaps the most famous example, In Eng- lish, of the essay in the form of an apologue, or symbolic moral tale. 2. G-rand Cairo. In the first number of the Spectator the imag"- inary writer, in giving some account of his life, had said: "Upon the death of my father, I resolved to travel. ... I made a voyage to Grand Cairo on purpose to take the measure of a pyramid." ADDLSOX 85 and life a dream. Whilst I was thus musing, I cast my eyes toward the summit of a rock that was not far from me, where 1 discovered one in the habit of a shepherd, with a little musical instrument in his hand. As I looked upon him, he applied it to his lips, and began to play upon it. The sound of it was exceeding sweet, and wrought into a variety of tunes that were inexpressibly melodious, and altogetlier different from any thing I had ever heard. They put me in mind of those heavenly airs that are played to the departed souls of good men upon their first arrival in Paradise, to wear out the impressions of the last agonies, and qualify them for the pleasures of that happy place. My heart melted away in secret raptures. "I had been often told that the rock before me was the ' haunt of a genius,^ and that several had been entertained with I music who had passed by it, but never heard that the musician 'had before made himself visible. When he had raised my thoughts, by those transporting airs which he played, to taste I the pleasures of his conversation, as I looked upon him like I one astonished, he beckoned to me, and by the waving of his ! hand directed me to approach the place where he sat. I drew I near with that reverence which is due to a superior nature ; I and as my heart was entirely subdued by the captivating strains I had heard, I fell down at his feet and wept. The I genius smiled upon me with a look of compassion and affabil- ' ity that familiarized him to my imagination, and at once dis- I pelled all the fears and apprehensions with which I approached , him. He lifted me from the ground, and taking me by the j hand, 'Mirzah,' said he, ^I have heard thee in thy soliloquies ; I follow me.' ; "He then led me to the highest pinnacle of the rock, an