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at Peterhouse; but hope a ride will set all to rights. Weather-glass below fair.

Ditto, ten. Mounted my horse, thought the weather suspicious. Pain in my ankle entirely gone. Catched in a shower coming back. Convinced that my weather-glass is the best in Cambridge.

Ditto, twelve. Dressed. Sauntered up to the Fishmonger's-hill. Met Mr. H. and went with him to Peterhouse. Cook made us wait thirty-six minutes beyond the time. The company; some of my Emanuel friends. For dinner, a pair of soals, a leg of pork and peas among other things. Mem. Peas-pudding not boiled enough. Cook reprimanded and sconced in my presence.

bility and ingenious disposition creates to himself, by reflecting, that he is placed under those venerable walls, where a Hooker and a Hammond, a Bacon and a Newton, once pursued the same course of science, and from whence they soared to the most elevated heights of literary fame. This is that incitement which Tully, according to his own testimony, experienced at Athens, when he contemplated the porticos where Socrates sat, and the laurel groves where Plato disputed. But there are other circumstances, and of the highest importance, which render our college superior to all other places of education. Their institutions, although somewhat fallen from their primæval simplicity, are such as influence,

Ditto, after dinner. Pain in my ankle re-in a particular manner, the moral conduct of turns. Dull all the afternoon. Rallied for be- their youth; and in this general depravity of ing no company. Mr. H.'s account of the ac- manners and laxity of principles, pure religion commodations on the road in his Bath journey. is no where more strongly inculcated. The Ditto, six. Got into spirits. Never was academies, as they are presumptuously styled, more chatty. We sat late at whist. Mr. H. are too low to be mentioned: and foreign and self agreed at parting to take a gentle seminaries are likely to prejudice the unwary ride, and dine at the old house on the London mind with Calvinism. But English universiroad to-morrow. ties render their students virtuous, at least by excluding all opportunities of vice: and, by teaching them the principles of the church of England, confirm them in those of true Christianity.

Thursday, nine. My semptress. She has lost the measure of my wrist. Forced to be measured again. The baggage has got a trick of smiling.

Ditto, ten to eleven. Made some rappeesnuff. Read the magazines. Received a present of pickles from Miss Pilcocks. Mem. To send in return some collared eel, which I know both the old lady and miss are fond of.

No. 34.] SATURDAY, DEC. 9, 1758.

To illustrate one thing by its resemblance to another, has been always the most popular and efficacious art of instruction, there is, indeed, no other method of teaching that of which any one is ignorant, but by means of something already known; and a mind so enlarged by contemplation and inquiry, that it has always many objects within its view, will seldom

Ditto, eleven. Glass very high. Mounted at the gate with Mr. H. Horse skittish and wants exercise. Arrive at the old house. All the provision bespoke by some rakish fellowcommoner in the next room, who had been on a scheme to Newmarket. Could get nothing but mutton chops off the worst end. Port very new. Agree to try some other house to-be long without some near and familiar image

morrow.

HERE the Journal breaks off: for the next

morning, as my friend informs me, our genial academic was waked with a severe fit of the gout; and, at present, enjoys all the dignity of that disease. But I believe we have lost nothing by this interruption; since a continuation of the remainder of the Journal, through the remainder of the week, would most probably have exhibited nothing more than a repeated relation of the same circumstances of idling and luxury.

through which an easy transition may be made to truths more distant and obscure.

Of the parallels which have been drawn by wit and curiosity, some are literal and real, as between poetry and painting, two arts which pursue the same end, by the operation of the same mental faculties, and which differ only as the one represents things by marks permanent and natural, the other by signs accidental and arbitrary. The one therefore is more easily and generally understood, since similitude of form is immediately perceived; the other is capable of conveying more ideas; for men have thought and spoken of many things which they do not see.

I hope it will not be concluded, from this specimen of academic life, that I have attempted to decry our universities. If literature is not Other parallels are fortuitous and fanciful, the essential requisite of the modern academic, yet these have sometimes been extended to I am yet persuaded that Cambridge and Ox-many particulars of resemblance by a lucky ford, however degenerated, surpass the fashion- concurrence of diligence and chance. The able academies of our metropolis, and the animal body is composed of many members, gymnasia of foreign countries. The number united under the direction of one mind; any of learned persons in these celebrated seats is number of individuals, connected for some still considerable, and more conveniences and common purpose, is therefore called a body. opportunities for study still subsist in them, From his participation of the same appelthan in any other place. There is at least one lation arose the comparison of the body navery powerful incentive to learning; I mean tural and body politic, of which, how far sothe Genius of the place. It is a sort of inspir-ever it has been deduced, no end has hitherto ing deity, which every youth of quick sensi- been found.

In these imaginary similitudes, the same word is used at once in its primitive and metaphorical sense. Thus health, ascribed to the body natural, is opposed to sickness; but attributed to the body politic stands as contrary to adversity. These parallels, therefore, bave more of genius, but less of truth; they often please, but they never convince.

ignorance informed we are most delighted with the plainest diction; and it is only in the moments of idleness or pride, that we call for the gratifications of wit or flattery.

He only will please long, who by tempering the acidity of satire with the sugar of civility, and allaying the heat of wit with the frigidity of humble chat, can make the true punch of Of this kind is a curious speculation frequent-conversation; and as that punch can be drank ly indulged by a philosopher of my acquaintance, who had discovered, the qualities requisite to conversation are very exactly represented by a bowl of punch.

in the greatest quantity which has the largest proportion of water, so that companion will be oftenest welcome, whose talk flows out with inoffensive copiousness, and unenvied insipidity.

MR. IDLER,

TO THE IDLER.

Punch, says this profound investigator, is a liquor compounded of spirit and acid juices, sugar and water. The spirit, volatile and fiery, is the proper emblem of vivacity and wit; the No. 35.] SATURDAY, Dec. 16, 1758. acidity of the lemon will very aptly figure pungency of raillery, and acrimony of censure; sugar is the natural representative of luscious adulation and gentle complaisance; and water is the proper hieroglyphic of easy prattle, inno-Ir it be difficult to persuade the idle to be busy, cent and tasteless. it is likewise, as experience has taught me, not easy to convince the busy that it is better to be idle. When you shall despair of stimulating sluggishness to motion, I hope you will turn your thoughts towards the means of stilling the bustle of pernicious activity.

Spirit alone is too powerful for use. It will produce madness rather than merriment; and instead of quenching thirst will inflame the blood. Thus wit, too copiously poured out, agitates the hearer with emotions rather violent than pleasing; every one shrinks from the force of its oppression, the company sits entranced and overpowered; all are astonished but nobody is pleased.

The acid juices give this genial liquor all its power of stimulating the palate. Conversation would become dull and vapid, if negligence were not sometimes roused, and sluggishness quickened by due severity of reprehension. But acids unmixed will distort the face and torture the palate; and he that has no other qualities than penetration and aspersity, he whose constant employment is detection and censure, who looks only to find faults, and speaks only to publish them, will soon be dreaded, hated, and avoided.

I am the unfortunate husband of a buyer of bargains. My wife has somewhere heard that a good housewife never has any thing to purchase when it is wanted. This maxim is often in her mouth, and always in her head. She is not one of those philosophical talkers that speculate without practice, and learn sentences of wisdom only to repeat them; she is always making additions to her stores; she never looks into a broker's shop but she spies something that may be wanted some time and it is impossible to make her pass the door of a house where she hears goods selling by auction.

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Whatever she thinks cheap she holds it the duty of an economist to buy; in consequence of The taste of sugar is generally pleasing, but this maxim, we are encumbered on every side it cannot long be eaten by itself. Thus meek- with useless lumber. The servants can scarcely ness and courtesy will always recommend the creep to their beds through the chests and first address, but soon pall and nauseate, unless boxes that surround them. The carpenter is they are associated with more sprightly quali-employed once a week in building closets, fixties. The chief use of sugar is to temper the taste of other substances; and softness of behaviour in the same manner mitigates the roughness of contradiction, and allays the bitterness of unwelcome truth.

ing cupboards, and fastening shelves; and my house has the appearance of a ship stored for a voyage to the colonies.

I had often observed that advertisements set her on fire; and therefore pretending to emuWater is the universal vehicle by which are late her laudable frugality, I forbade the newsconveyed the particles necessary to sustenance paper to be taken any longer; but my precauand growth, by which thirst is quenched, and tion is vain; I know not by what fatality, or all the wants of life and nature are supplied. by what confederacy, every catalogue of Thus all the business of the world is transacted genuine furniture comes to her hand, every by artless and easy talk, neither sublimed by advertisement of a newspaper newly opened fancy, nor discoloured by affectation, without is in her pocket-book, and she knows before either the harshness of satire, or the luscious- any of her neighbours when the stock of any ness of flattery. By this limpid vein of lan- man leaving off trade is to be sold cheap for guage, curiosity is gratified, and all the know-ready money. ledge is conveyed which one man is required Such intelligence is to my dear one the to impart for the safety or convenience of another. Water is the only ingredient in punch which can be used alone, and with which man is content till fancy has framed an artificial want. Thus while we only desire to have our

Siren's song. No engagement, no duty, no interest, can withhold her from a sale, from which she always returns congatulating herself upon her dexterity at a bargain; the porter lays down his burden in the hall; she dis

THE great differences that disturb the peace of mankind are not about ends, but means. We have all the same general desires, but how those desires shall be accomplished will for

plays her new acquisitions, and spends the | No. 36.] SATURDAY, DEC. 23, 1758. rest of the day in contriving where they shall be put. As she cannot bear to have any thing incomplete, one purchase necessitates another; she has twenty feather-beds more than she can use, and a late sale has supplied her with a propor-ever be disputed. The ultimate purpose of tionable number of Witney blankets, a large roll of linen for sheets, and five quilts for every bed, which she bought because the seller told her, that if she would clear his hands he would let her have a bargain.

Thus by hourly encroachments my habitation is made narrower and narrower; the dining-room is so crowded with tables, that dinner scarcely can be served; the parlour is decorated with so many piles of china, that I dare not step within the door; at every turn of the stairs I have a clock, and half the windows of the upper floors are darkened that shelves may be set before them.

government is temporal, and that of religion is eternal happiness. Hitherto we agree; but here we must part to try according to the endless varieties of passion and understanding combined with one another, every possible form of government, and every imaginable tenet of religion.

We are told by Cumberland that rectitude, applied to action or contemplation, is merely metaphorical; and that as a right line describes the shortest passage from point to point, so a right action effects a good design by the fewest means; and so likewise a right opinion is that which connects distant truths by the shortest train of intermediate propositions.

This, however, might be borne, if she would gratify her own inclinations without opposing mine. But I, who am idle, am luxurious, and To find the nearest way from truth to truth, she condemns me to live upon salt provision. or from purpose to effect, not to use more inShe knows the loss of buying in small quanti-struments where fewer will be sufficient, not ties, we have therefore whole hogs and quarters of oxen. Part of our meat is tainted before it is eaten, and part is thrown away because it is spoiled, but she persists in her system, and will never buy any thing by single pennyworths.

to move by wheels and levers what will give way to the naked hand, is the great proof of a healthful and vigorous mind, neither feeble with healthful ignorance, nor overburdened with unwieldy knowledge.

But there are men who seem to think nothing so much the characteristic of a genius, as to do common things in an uncommon manner; like Hudibras, to tell the clock by algebra; or like the lady in Dr. Young's satires, to drink tea by stratagem; to quit the beaten track only because it is known, and take a new path how ever crooked or rough because the straight was found out before.

The common vice of those who are still grasping at more, is to neglect that which they already possess; but from this failing my charmer is free. It is the great care of her life that the pieces of beef should be boiled in the order in which they are bought; that the second bag of peas should not be opened till the first were eaten; that every feather-bed shall be lain on in its turn; that the carpets Every man speaks and writes with intent to should be taken out of the chests once a be understood; and it can seldom happen but month and brushed; and the rolls of linen he that understands himself might convey his opened now and then before the fire. She is notions to another, if, content to be understood, daily inquiring after the best traps for mice, he did not seek to be admired; but when once and keeps the rooms always scented by fumi- he begins to contrive how his sentiments may gations to destroy the moths. She employs a be received, not with most ease to his reader, workman from time to time to adjust six but with most advantage to himself, he then clocks that never go, and clean five jacks that transfers his consideration from words to rust in the garret; and a woman in the next sounds, from sentences to periods, and as he alley that lives by scouring the brass and grows more elegant becomes less intelligible. pewter which are only laid up to tarnish again. It is difficult to enumerate every species of She is always imagining some distant time in authors whose labours counteract themselves; which she shall use whatever she accumulates; the man of exuberance and copiousness, who she has four looking-glasses which she cannot diffuses every thought through so many diversihang up in her house, but which will be hand-ties of expression, that it is lost like water in a some in more lofty rooms; and pays rent for the place of a vast copper in some warehouse, because when we live in the country we shall

brew our own beer.

Of this life I have long been weary, but I
know not how to change it; all the married
men whom I consult advise me to have pa-
tience; but some old bachelors are of opinion,
that since she loves sales so well, she should
have a sale of her own; and I have, I think,
resolved to open her hoards, and advertise an
auction.
I am, Sir,

Your very humble Servant.
PETER PLENTY.

mist; the ponderous dictator of sentences, whose notions are delivered in the lump, and are like uncoined bullion, of more weight than use; the liberal illustrator, who shows by examples and comparisons what was clearly seen when it was first proposed; and the stately son of demonstration, who proves with mathematical formality what no man has yet pretended to doubt.

There is a mode of style for which I know not that the masters of oratory have yet found a name; a style by which the most evident truths are so obscured, that they can no longer be perceived, and the most familiar proposi

tions so disguised that they cannot be known. | Every other kind of eloquence is the dress of sense; but this is the mask by which a true master of his art will so effectually conceal it, that a man will as easily mistake his own positions, if he meets them thus transformed, as he may pass in a masquerade his nearest acquaintance.

This style may be called the terrific, for its chief intention is to terrify and amaze; it may be termed the repulsive, for its natural effect is to drive away the reader; or it may be distinguished, in plain English, by the denomination of the bugbear style, for it has more terror than danger, and will appear less formidable as it is more nearly approached.

A mother tells her infant that two and two make four; the child remembers the proposition, and is able to count four to all the purposes of life, till the course of his education brings him among philosophers who fright him from his former knowledge, by telling him, that four is a certain aggregate of units; that all numbers being only the repetition of an unit, which, though not a number itself, is the parent, root, or original of all number, four is the denomination assigned toa certain number of such repetitions. The only danger is, lest, when he first hears these dreadful sounds, the pupil should run away; if he has but the courage to stay till the conclusion, he will find that when speculation has done its worst, two and two still make four.

where to be found; and that not only its proper ore is copiously treasured in the caverns of the earth, but that its particles are dispersed throughout all other bodies.

If the extent of the human view could comprehend the whole frame of the universe, I believe it would be found invariably true, that Providence has given that in greatest plenty, which the condition of life makes of greatest use; and that nothing is penuriously imparted or placed far from the reach of man, of which a more liberal distribution, or more easy acquisition, would increase real and rational felicity.

Iron is common, and gold is rare. Iron contributes so much to supply the wants of nature, that its use constitutes much of the difference between savage and polished life, between the state of him that slumbers in European palaces, and him that shelters himself in the cavities of a rock from the chillness of the night, or the violence of the storm. Gold can never be hardened into saws or axes; it can neither furnish instruments of manufacture, utensils of agriculture, nor weapons of defence; its only quality is to shine, and the value of its lustre arises from its scarcity.

Throughout the whole circle, both of natural and moral life, necessaries are as iron, and superfluities as gold. What we really need we may readily obtain; so readily that far the greater part of mankind has, in the wantonness of abundance, confounded natural with artificial desires, and invented necessities for the sake of employment, because the mind is impatient of inaction, and life is sustained with so little labour, that the tediousness of idle time cannot otherwise be supported.

Thus plenty is the original cause of many of our needs; and even the poverty, which is so frequent and distressful in civilized nations, proceeds often from that change of manners which opulence has produced. Nature makes

poor only when we want necessaries; but custom gives the name of poverty to the want of superfluities.

An illustrious example of this species of eloquence may be found in Letters concerning Mind. The author begins by declaring, that "the sorts of things are things that now are, have been, and shall be, and the things that strictly are." In this position, except the last clause, in which he uses something of the scholastic language, there is nothing but what every man has heard and imagines himself to know. But who would not believe that some wonderful novelty is presented to his intellectus when he is afterwards told, in the true bugbear style, that "the ares, in the former sense, are things that lie between the have-beens and the shall-bes. The have-beens are things that are past; the shall-bes are things that are to come; and the things that are, in the latter sense, are things that have not been, nor shall be, nor stand in the midst of such as are before them, or shall be after them. The things that have been, and shall be, have respect to present, past, and future. Those likewise that now are have moreover place; that, for instance, which is here, that which is to the east, that which is to the west."

All this, my dear reader, is very strange; but | though it be strange, it is not new; survey these wonderful sentences again, and they will be found to contain nothing more, than very plain truths, which till this author arose had always been delivered in plain language.

No. 37.] SATURDAY, Dec. 30, 1758.

THOSE who are skilled in the extraction and preparation of metals, declare, that iron is every

When Socrates passed through shops of toys and ornaments, he cried out, How many things are here which I do not need! And the same exclamation may every man make who surveys the common accommodations of life.

Superfluity and difficulty begin together. To dress food for the stomach is easy, the art is to irritate the palate when the stomach is sufficed. A rude hand may build walls, form roofs, and lay floors, and provide all that warmth and security require; we only call the nicer artificers to carve the cornice, or to paint the ceilings. Such dress as may enable the body to endure the different seasons, the most unenlightened nations have been able to procure: but the work of science begins in the ambition of distinction, in variations of fashion, and emulation of elegance. Corn grows with easy culture; the gardener's experiments are only employed to exalt the flavours of fruits, and brighten the colours of flowers.

Even of knowledge, those parts are most easy which are generally necessary. The intercourse of society is maintained without the elegances

of language. Figures, criticisms, and refine-mence: we live in an age of commerce and comments, are the work of those whom idleness putation; let us therefore coolly inquire what is makes weary of themselves. The commerce of the sum of evil which the imprisonment of the world is carried on by easy methods of com- debtors brings upon our country. putation. Subtility and study are required only when questions are invented merely to puzzle, and calculations are extended to show the skill of the calculator. The light of the sun is equally beneficial to him whose eyes tell him that it moves, and to him whose reason persuades him that it stands still; and plants grow with the same luxuriance, whether we suppose earth or water the parent of vegetation.

It seems to be the opinion of the later computists, that the inhabitants of England do not exceed six millions, of which twenty thousand is the three hundredth part. What shall we say of the humanity or the wisdom of a nation, that voluntarily sacrifices one in every three hundred to lingering destruction!

The misfortunes of an individual do not extend their influence to many; yet if we consider the effects of consanguinity and friendship, If we raise our thoughts to nobler inquiries, and the general reciprocation of wants and we shall still find facility concurring with use- benefits, which make one man dear or necessary fulness. No man needs stay to be virtuous till to another, it may reasonably be supposed, that the moralists have determined the essence of every man languishing in prison gives trouvirtue; our duty is made apparent by its proxi- ble of some kind to two others who love or need mate consequences, though the general and ul him. By this multiplication of misery we see timate reason should never be discovered. Re-distress extended to the hundredth part of the ligion may regulate the life of him to whom the whole society. Scotists and Thomists are alike unknown; and the assertors of fate and free-will, however different in their talk, agree to act in the same

manner.

If we estimate at a shilling a day what is lost by the inaction and consumed in the support of each man thus chained down to involuntary idleness, the public loss will rise in one It is not my intention to depreciate the po-year to three hundred thousand pounds; in liter arts or abstruser studies. That curiosity ten years to more than a sixth part of our cirwhich always succeeds ease and plenty, was culating coin. undoubtedly given us as a proof of capacity which our present state is not able to fill, as a preparative for some better mode of existence, which shall furnish employment for the whole soul, and where pleasure shall be adequate to our powers of fruition. In the mean time let us gratefully acknowledge that Goodness which grants us ease at a cheap rate, which changes the seasons where the nature of heat and cold has not been yet examined, and gives the vicissitudes of day and night to those who never marked the tropics, or numbered the constellations.

No. 38.] SATURDAY, JAN. 6, 1759.

SINCE the publication of the letter concerning the condition of those who are confined in goals by their creditors, an inquiry is said to have been made, by which it appears that more than twenty thousand* are at this time prisoners for debt.

I am afraid that those who are best acquainted with the state of our prisons will confess that my conjecture is too near the truth, when I suppose that the corrosion of resentment, the heaviness of sorrow, the corruption of contined air, the want of exercise, and sometimes of food, the contagion of diseases, from which there is no retreat, and the severity of tyrants, against whom there can be no resistance, and all the complicated horrors of a prison, put an end every year to the life of one in four of those that are shut up from the cezmon com

forts of human life.

Thus perish yearly five thousand men, overborne with sorrow, consumed by famine, or putrified by filth: many of them in the most vigorous and useful part of life; for the thoughtless and imprudent are commonly young, and the active and busy are seldom old.

According to the rule generally received, which supposes that one in thirty dies yearly, the race of man may be said to be renewed at the end of thirty years. Who would have beWe often look with indifference on the suc-lieved till now, that of every English generacessive parts of that, which, if the whole were seen together, would shake us with emotion. A debtor is dragged to prison, pitied for a moment, and then forgotten; another follows him, and is lost alike in the caverns of oblivion; but when the whole mass of calamity rises up at once, when twenty thousand reasonable beings, are heard all groaning in unnecessary misery, not by the infirmity of nature, but the mistake or negligence of policy, who can forbear to pity and lament, to wonder and abhor!

There is here no need of declamatory vehe

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tion, a hundred and fifty thousand perish in our gaols! that in every century, a nation emi nent for science, studious of commerce, ambitious of empire, should willingly lose, in noisome dungeons, five hundred thousand of its inhabitants; a number greater than has ever been destroyed in the same time by the pestilence and sword!

A very late occurrence may show us the value of the number which we thus condemn to be useless; in the re-establishment of the trained bands, thirty thousand are considered as a force sufficient against all exigencies. While, therefore, we detain twenty thousand in prison, we shut up in darkness and uselessness two-thirds of an army which ourselves judge equal to the defence of our country.

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