Spectator's sign of the Gaper, awed, it seems, and terrified by Sempronius's threats. Juba kills Sempronius, and takes his own army prisoners, and carries them in triumph away to Cato. Now I would fain know if any part of Mr. Bayes's tragedy 1 is so full of absurdity as this? Upon hearing the clash of swords, Lucia and Marcia come in. The question is, why no men come in upon hearing the noise of swords in the governor's hall? Where was the governor himself? Where were his guards? Where were his servants? Such an attempt as this, so near the person of a governor of a place of war, was enough to alarm the whole garrison; and yet, for almost half an hour after Sempronius was killed, we find none of those appear who were the likeliest in the world to be alarmed; and the noise of swords is made to draw only two poor women thither, who were most certain to run away from it. Upon Lucia and Marcia's coming in, Lucia appears in all the symptoms of an hysterical gentlewoman: Sure 't was the clash of swords! my troubled heart It throbs with fear, and aches at every sound' And immediately her old whimsy returns upon her: O Marcia, should thy brothers, for my sake - She fancies that there can be no cutting of throats but it must be for her. If this is tragical, I would fain know what is comical. Well! upon this they spy the body of Sempronius; and Marcia, deluded by the habit, it seems, takes him for Juba; for says she, -- The face is muffled up within the garment. Now, how a man could fight and fall with his face muffled up in his garment is, I think, a little hard to conceive. Besides, Juba, before he killed him, knew this to be Sempronius. It was not by his garment that he knew this; it was by his face then: his face therefore was not muffled. Upon seeing this man with his muffled face, Marcia falls a-raving; and, owning her passion for the supposed defunct, begins to make his funeral oration. Upon which Juba enters listening, I suppose on tiptoe; for I cannot imagine how any one can enter listening in any other posture. 1 Described in The Rehearsal (a burlesque of Dryden's Conquest of Granada). I would fain know how it comes to pass that during all this time he had sent nobody, no, not so much as a candle-snuffer, to take away the dead body of Sempronius. Well! but let us regard him listening. Having left his apprehension behind him, he at first applies what Marcia says to Sempronius. But finding at last, with much ado, that he himself is the happy man, he quits his eavesdropping, and discovers himself just time enough to prevent his being cuckolded by a dead man, of whom the moment before he had appeared so jealous, and greedily intercepts the bliss which was fondly designed for one who could not be the better for it. But here I must ask a question: how comes Juba to listen here, who had not listened before throughout the play? Or how comes he to be the only person of this tragedy who listens, when love and treason were so often talked in so public a place as a hall? I am afraid the author was driven upon all these absurdities only to introduce this miserable mistake of Marcia, which, after all, is much below the dignity of tragedy, as anything is which is the effect or result of trick. But let us come to the scenery of the fifth act. Cato appears first upon the scene, sitting in a thoughtful posture, in his hand Plato's treatise on the Immortality of the Soul, a drawn sword on the table by him. Now let us consider the place in which this sight is presented to us. The place, forsooth, is a long hall. Let us suppose that any one should place himself in this posture in the midst of one of our halls in London; that he should appear solus in a sullen posture, a drawn sword on the table by him; in his hand Plato's treatise on the Immortality of the Soul, translated lately by Bernard Lintot: I desire the reader to consider whether such a person as this would pass with them who beheld him for a great patriot, a great philosopher, or a general, or some whimsical person who fancied himself all these? and whether the people who belonged to the family would think that such a person had a design upon their midriffs or his own? In short, that Cato should sit long enough in the aforesaid posture, in the midst of this large hall, to read over Plato's treatise on the Immortality of the Soul, which is a lecture of two long hours; that he should propose to himself to be private there upon that occasion; that he should be angry with his son for intruding there; then, that he should leave this hall upon the pretence of sleep, give himself the mortal wound in his bedchamber, and then be brought back into that hall to expire, purely to show his good breeding and save his friends the trouble of coming up to his bed-chamber, all this appears to me to be improbable, incredible, impossible. ... ANTHONY ASHLEY COOPER, THIRD EARL OF SHAFTESBURY CHARACTERISTICS OF MEN, MANNERS, OPINIONS AND TIMES 1711 [The above is the title of the collected essays of Lord Shaftesbury. Most of them had been earlier published: the "Freedom of Wit and Humor" in 1709 (as Sensus Communis: an Essay on the Freedom, etc.), “Advice to an Author" in 1710 (as Soliloquy: or Advice, etc.). The extracts here given are from Part III, Section IV, of the "Freedom of Wit and Humor," and Part III, Section III, of "Advice to an Author." With Shaftesbury's doctrine of an absolute standard of worth, in both character and art, should be compared the opposing views of Mandeville; see pp. 251-254, below.] AN ESSAY ON THE FREEDOM OF WIT AND HUMOR 'T is well for you, my friend, that in your education you have had little to do with the philosophy or philosophers of our days. A good poet and an honest historian may afford learning enough for a gentleman; and such a one, whilst he reads these authors as his diversion, will have a truer relish of their sense and understand them better than a pedant with all his labors and the assistance of his volumes of commentators. I am sensible that of old 't was the custom to send the youth of highest quality to philosophers to be formed. 'T was in their schools, in their company, and by their precepts and example, that the illustrious pupils were inured to hardship and exercised in the severest courses of temperance and self-denial. By such an early discipline they were fitted for the command of others; to maintain their country's honor in war, rule wisely in the state, and fight against luxury and corruption in times of prosperity and peace. If any of these arts are comprehended in university learning, 'tis well. But as some universities in the world are now modeled, they seem not so very effectual to these purposes, nor so fortunate in preparing for a right practice of the world, or a just knowledge of men and things. Had you been thoroughpaced in the ethics or politics of the schools, I should never have thought of writing a word to you upon your common sense or the love of mankind. I should not have cited the poet's dulce et decorum; nor, if I had made a character for you, as he for his noble friend, should I have crowned it with his Non ille pro caris amicis Aut patria timidus perire.1 Our philosophy nowadays runs after the manner of that able sophister who said, "Skin for skin: all that a man hath will he give for his life." "Tis orthodox divinity, as well as sound philosophy, with some men to rate life by the number and exquisiteness of the pleasing sensations. These they constantly set in opposition to dry virtue and honesty; and upon this foot they think it proper to call all men fools who would hazard a life, or part with any of these pleasing sensations, except on the condition of being repaid in the same coin and with good interest into the bargain. Thus, it seems, we are to learn virtue by usury, and enhance the value of life, and of the pleasures of sense, in order to be wise and to live well. But you, my friend, are stubborn in this point; and instead of being brought to think mournfully of death, or to repine at the loss of what you may sometimes hazard by your honesty, you can laugh at such maxims as these, and divert yourself with the improved selfishness and philosophical cowardice of these fashionable moralists. You will not be taught to value life at their rate, or degrade honesty as they do, who make it only a name. You are persuaded there is something more in the thing than fashion or applause; that worth and merit are substantial, and no way variable by fancy or will; and that honor is as much itself when acting by itself and unseen, as when seen and applauded by all the world. Should one who had the countenance of a gentleman ask me "why I would avoid being nasty, when nobody was present?", in the first place I should be fully satisfied that he himself was a very nasty gentleman who could ask this question, and that it would be a hard matter for me to make him ever conceive what true cleanliness was. However, I might, notwithstanding this, be contented to give him a slight answer, and say "'twas because I had a nose.' ." Should he trouble me further and ask again, "what if I had a cold? or what if naturally I had no such 1 "He is not afraid to die for his dear friends or his country." |