the sons of learning have the power of bestow- | Every other kind of adulteration, however shameing. While, therefore, it continues one of the ful, however mischievous, is less detestable than characteristics of rational nature to decline obli- the crime of counterfeiting characters, and fixing vion, authors never can be wholly overlooked in the stamp of literary sanction upon the dross and the search after happiness, nor become con- refuse of the world. temptible but by their own fault. The man who considers himself as constituted the ultimate judge of disputable characters, and entrusted with the distribution of the last terrestrial rewards of merit, ought to summon all his fortitude to the support of his dignity with the most vigilant caution and scrupulous justice. To deliver examples to posterity, and to regulate the opinion of future times, is no slight or trivial undertaking; nor is it easy to commit more atrocious treason against the great republic of humanity, than by falsifying its records and misguiding its decrees. Yet I would not overwhelm the authors with the whole load of infamy, of which part, perhaps the greater part, ought to fall upon their patrons. If he that hires a bravo, partakes the guilt of murder, why should he who bribes a flatterer, hope to be exempted from the shame of falsehood?— The unhappy dedicator is seldom without somo motives which obstruct, though not destroy, the liberty of choice; he is oppressed by miseries which he hopes to relieve, or inflamed by ambition which he expects to gratify. But the patron has no incitements equally violent; he can receive only a short gratification, with which noTo scatter praise or blame without regard to thing but stupidity could dispose him to be justice, is to destroy the distinction of good and pleased. The real satisfaction which praise can evil. Many have no other test of actions than afford is by repeating aloud the whispers of congeneral opinion; and all are so far influenced by science, and by showing us that we have not a sense of reputation, that they are often re- endeavoured to deserve well in vain. Every strained by fear of reproach, and excited by hope other encomium is, to an intelligent mind, satire of honour, when other principles have lost their and reproach; the celebration of those virtues power; nor can any species of prostitution pro- which we feel ourselves to want, can only impress mote general depravity more than that which de-a quicker sense of our own defects, and show stroys the force of praise, by showing that it may be acquired without deserving it, and which by setting free the active and ambitious from the dread of infamy, lets loose the rapacity of power, and weakens the only authority by which greatness is controlled. Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity. It becomes cheap as it becomes vulgar, and will no longer raise expectation, or animate enterprise. It is therefore not only necessary, that wickedness, even when it is not safe to censure it, be denied applause, but that goodness be commended only in proportion to its degree; and that the garlands due to the great benefactors of mankind, be not suffered to fade upon the brow of him who can boast only petty services and easy virtues. Had these maxims been universally received, how much would have been added to the task of dedication, the work on which all the power of modern wit has been exhausted. How few of these initial panegyrics had appeared, if the author had been obliged first to find a man of virtue, then to distinguish the distinct species and degree of his desert, and at last to pay him only the honours which he might justly claim. It is much easier to learn the name of the last man whom chance has exalted to wealth and power, to obtain by the intervention of some of his domestics the privilege of addressing him, or in confidence of the general acceptance of flattery, to venture on an address without any previous solicitation; and, after having heaped upon him all the virtues to which philosophy has assigned a name, inform him how much more might be truly said, did not the fear of giving pain to his modesty repress the raptures of wonder and the zeal of veneration. Nothing has so much degraded literature from its natural rank, as the practice of indecent and promiscuous dedication: for what credit can he expect who professes himself the hireling of vanity, however profligate, and, without shame or scruple, celebrates the worthless, dignifies the mean, and gives to the corrupt, licentious, and oppressive, the ornaments which ought only to add grace to truth, and loveliness to innocence? that we have not yet satisfied the expectations of the world, by forcing us to observe how much fiction must contribute to the completion of our character.. Yet sometimes the patron, may claim indulgence; for it does not always happen, that the encomiast has been much encouraged to his attempt. Many a hapless author, when his book, and perhaps his dedication, was ready for the press, has waited long before any one would pay the price of prostitution, or consent to hear the praises destined to insure his name against the casualties of time; and many a complaint has been vented against the decline of learning, and neglect of genius, when either parsimonious prudence has declined expense, or honest indignation rejected falsehood. But if at last, after long inquiry and innumerable disappointments, he find a lord willing to hear of his own eloquence and taste, a statesman desirous of knowing how a friendly historian will represent his conduct, or a lady delighted to leave to the world some memorial of her wit and beauty, such weakness cannot be censured as an instance of enormous depravity. The wisest man may, by a diligent solicitor, be surprised in the hour of weakness,, and persuaded to solace vexation, or invigorate hope, with the music of flattery. To censure all dedications as adulatory and servile would discover rather envy than justice. Praise is the tribute of merit, and he that has incontestably distinguished himself by any public performance has a right to all the honours which the public can bestow. To men thus raised above the rest of the community, there is no need that the book or its author should have any particular relation: that the patron is known to deserve respect, is sufficient to vindicate him that pays it. To the same regard from particular persons, private virtue and less conspicuous excellénce may be sometimes entitled. An author may with great propriety inscribe his work to him by whose encouragement it was undertaken, or by whose liberality he has been enabled to prosecute it, and he may justly rejoice in his own for titude that dares to rescue merit from obscurity. Thus much I will indulge thee for thy ease, I know not whether greater relaxation may not be indulged, and whether hope as well as gratitude may not unblameably produce a dedication; but let the writer who pours out his praises only to propitiate power, or attract the attention of greatness, be cautious lest his desire betray him to exuberant eulogies. We are naturally more apt to please ourselves with the future than the past, and, while we luxuriate in expectation, may be easily persuaded to purchase what we yet rate, only by imagination, at a higher price than experience will warrant. But no private views of personal regard can discharge any man from his general obligations to virtue and to truth. It may happen in the various combinations of life, that a good man may receive favours from one, who, notwithstanding his accidental beneficence, cannot be justly proposed to the imitation of others, and whom therefore he must find some other way of rewarding than by public celebrations. Self-love has indeed many powers of seducement, but it surely ought not to exalt any individual to equality with the collective body of mankind, or persuade him that a benefit conferred on him is equivalent to every other virtue. Yet many, upon false principles of gratitude, have ventured to extol wretches, whom all but their dependents numbered among the reproaches of the species, and whom they would likewise have beheld with the same scorn, had they not been hired to dishonest appro bation. THAT wonder is the effect of ignorance, has been often observed. The awful stillness of attention, with which the mind is overspread at the first view of an unexpected effect, ceases when we have leisure to disentangle complications and investigate causes. Wonder is a pause of reason, a sudden cessation of the mental progress, which lasts only while the understanding is fixed upon some single idea, and is at an end when it recovers force enough to divide the object into its parts, or mark the intermediate gradations from the first agent to the last consequence. tonishment, without any effort to animate inquiry, or dispel obscurity. What they cannot immediately conceive, they consider as too high to be reached, or too extensive to be comprehended; they therefore content themselves with the no hopes of performing, and resign the pleasure gaze of folly, forbear to attempt what they have of rational contemplation to more pertinacious study or more active faculties. Among the productions of mechanic art, many are of a form so different from that of their first materials, and many consist of parts so numerous and so nicely adapted to each other, that it is not possible to view them without amazement. But when we enter the shops of artificers, observe the various tools by which every operation is facilitated, and trace the progress of a manufacture through the different hands, that, in succession to each other, contribute to its perfection, we soon discover that every single man has an easy task, and that the extremes, however remote, of natural rudeness and artificial elegance, are joined by a regular concatenation of effects, of which every one is introduced by that which precedes it, and equally introduces that which is to follow. The same is the state of intellectual and manu al performances. Long calculations or complex diagrams affright the timorous and unexperienced from a second view; but if we have skill sufficient to analyze them into simple principles, it will be discovered that our fear was groundless. Divide and conquer, is a principle equally just in science as in policy. Complication is a species of confederacy which, while it continues united, bids defiance to the most active and vigo rous intellect; but of which every member is separately weak, and which may therefore be quickly subdued, if it can once be broken. served, is to attempt but little at a time. The The chief art of learning, as Locke has obwidest excursions of the mind are made by short flights frequently repeated: the most lofty fabrics of science are formed by the continued accumulation of single propositions. It often happens, whatever be the cause, that impatience of labour, or dread of miscarriage, seizes those who are most distinguished for quickness of apprehension; and that they who might with greatest reason promise themselves victory are least willing to hazard the encounter. This diffidence, where the attention is not laid asleep by laziness, or dissipated by pleasures, can arise only from confused and general views, such as negligence snatches in haste, or from the disappointment of the first hopes formed by arrogance without reflection. To expect that the intricacies of science will be pierced by a careless glance, or the eminences of fame ascended without labour, is to expect a peculiar privilege, a power denied to the rest of mankind; but to suppose that the maze is inscrutable to diligence or the heights inaccessible to perseverance, is to submit tamely to the tyranny of fancy, and enchain the mind in voluntary shackles. It is the proper ambition of the heroes of literature to enlarge the boundaries of knowledge by discovering and conquering new regions of the It may be remarked with equal truth, that ig- intellectual world. To the success of such unnorance is often the effect of wonder. It is com- dertakings, perhaps, some degree of fortuitous mon for those who have never accustomed happiness is necessary, which no man can prothemselves to the labour of inquiry, nor invig-mise or procure to himself; and therefore doubt orated their confidence by conquests over diffi- and irresolution may be forgiven in him that venculty, to sleep in the gloomy quiescence of as-tures into the unexplored abysses of truth, and attempts to find his way through the fluctuations | ments and tender officiousness; and therefore of uncertainty, and the conflicts of contradiction. no one should think it unnecessary to learn those But when nothing more is required, than to pur-arts by which friendship may be gained. Kindsue a path already beaten, and to trample obsta-ness is preserved by a constant reciprocation of cles which others have demolished, why should benefits or interchange of pleasures; but such any man so much distrust his own intellect as to benefits only can be bestowed, as others are caimagine himself unequal to the attempt? pable to receive, and such pleasures only imparted, as others are qualified to enjoy. It were to be wished that they who devote their lives to study would at once believe nothing too great for their attainment, and consider no-honour will be lost; for the condescensions of thing as too little for their regard; that they would extend their notice alike to science and to life, and unite some knowledge of the present world to their acquaintance with past ages and remote events. per Nothing has so much exposed men of learning to contempt and ridicule, as their ignorance of things which are known to all but themselves.— Those who have been taught to consider the institutions of the schools, as giving the last fection to human abilities, are surprised to see men wrinkled with study, yet wanting to be instructed in the minute circumstances of propriety, or the necessary forms of daily transaction; and quickly shake off their reverence for modes of education, which they find to produce no ability above the rest of mankind. Books, says Bacon, can never teach the use of books. The student must learn by commerce with mankind to reduce his speculations to practice, and accommodate his knowledge to the purposes of life. It is too common for those who have been bred to scholastic professions, and passed much of their time in academies where nothing but learning confers honours, to disregard every other qualification, and to imagine that they shall find mankind ready to pay homage to their knowledge, and to crowd about them for instruction.— They therefore step out from their cells into the open world with all the confidence of authority and dignity of importance; they look round about them at once with ignorance and scorn on a race of beings to whom they are equally unknown and equally contemptible, but whose manners they must imitate, and with whose opinions they must comply, if they desire to pass their time happily among them. To lessen that disdain with which scholars are inclined to look on the common business of the world, and the unwillingness with which they condescend to learn what is not to be found in any system of philosophy, it may be necessary to consider that, though admiration is excited by abstruse researches and remote discoveries, yet pleasure is not given, nor affection conciliated, but by softer accomplishments, and qualities more easily communicable to those about us. He that can only converse upon questions, about which only a small part of mankind has knowledge sufficient to make them curious, must lose his days in unsocial silence, and live in the crowd of life without a companion. He that can only be useful on great occasions, may die without exerting his abilities, and stand a helpless spectator of a thousand vexations which fret away happiness, and which nothing is required to remove but a little dexterity of conduct and readiness of expedients. No degree of knowledge attainable by man is able to set him above the want of hourly assistance, or to extinguish the desire of fond endear By this descent from the pinnacles of art no learning are always overpaid by gratitude. An elevated genius employed in little things, appears, to use the simile of Longinus, like the sun in his evening declination; he remits his splendour but retains his magnitude, and pleases more though he dazzles less. SIR, THOUGH the contempt with which you have treated the annual migrations of the gay and busy part of mankind, is justified by daily observation, since most of those who leave the town,, neither vary their entertainments nor enlarge their notions; yet I suppose you do not intend to represent the practice itself as ridiculous, or to declare that he whose condition puts the distribution of his time into his own power, may not properly divide it between the town and country. That the country, and only the country, displays the inexhaustible varieties of nature, and supplies the philosophical mind with matter for admiration and inquiry, never was denied; but my curiosity is very little attracted by the colour of a flower, the anatomy of an insect, or the structure of a nest; I am generally employed upon human manners, and therefore fill up the months of rural leisure with remarks on those who live within the circle of my notice. If writers would more frequently visit those regions of negligence and liberty, they might diversify their representations, and multiply their images, for in the country are original characters chiefly to be found. In cities, and yet more in courts, the minute discriminations which distinguish one from another are for the most part effaced, the pecu liarities of temper and opinion are gradually worn away by promiscuous converse, as angular bo dies, and uneven surfaces, lose their points and asperities by frequent attrition against one an other, and approach by degrees to uniform rotun dity. The prevalence of fashion, the influence of example, the desire of applause, and the dread of censure, obstruct the natural tendencies of the mind, and check the fancy in its first efforts to break forth into experiments of caprice. Few inclinations are so strong as to grow up into habits, when they must struggle with the constant opposition of settled forms and established customs. But in the country every man is a separate and independent being: solitude flatters irregularity with hopes of secrecy, and wealth, removed from the mortification of comparison, and the awe of equality, swells into contemptu- Mr. Busy, finding the economical qualities of ous confidence, and sets blame and laughter at his lady, resigned his affairs wholly into her defiance; the impulses of nature act unrestrain-hands, and devoted his life to his pointers and ed, and the disposition dares to show itself in its true form, without any disguise of hypocrisy, or decorations of elegance. Every one indulges the full enjoyment of his own choice, and talks and lives with no other view than to please himself, without inquiring how far he deviates from the general practice, or considering others as entitled to any account of his sentiments or actions. If he builds or demolishes, opens or encloses, deluges or drains, it is not his care what may be the opinion of those who are skilled in perspective or architecture, it is sufficient that he has no landlord to control him, and that none has any right to examine in what projects the lord of the manor spends his own money on his own grounds. For this reason it is not very common to want subjects for rural conversation. Almost every man is daily doing something which produces merriment wonder or resentment, among his neighbours. This utter exemption from restraint leaves every anomalous quality to operate in its full extent, and suffers the natural character to diffuse itself to every part of life. The pride which, under the check of public observation, would have been only vented among servants and domestics, becomes in a country baronet the torment of a province, and, instead of terminating in the destruction of China ware and glasses, ruins tenants, dispossesses cottagers, and harasses villagers with actions of trespass and bills of indictment. his hounds. He never visited his estates, but to destroy the partridges or foxes; and often committed such devastations in the range of pleasure, that some of his tenants refused to hold their lands at the usual rent. Their landlady per suaded them to be satisfied, and entreated her husband to dismiss his dogs, with many exact calculations of the ale drank by his companions, and corn consumed by his horses, and remonstrances against the insolence of the huntsman, and the frauds of the groom. The huntsman was too necessary to his happiness to be discarded; and he had still continued to ravage his own estate, had he not caught a cold and a fever by shooting mallards in the fens. His fever was followed by a consumption, which in a few months brought him to the grave. Mrs. Busy was too much an economist to feel either joy or sorrow at his death. She received the compliments and consolations of her neighbours in a dark room, out of which she stole privately every night and morning to see the cows milked; and, after a few days, declared that she thought a widow might employ herself better than in nursing grief: and that, for her part, she was resolved that the fortunes of her children should not be impaired by her neglect. She therefore immediately applied herself to the reformation of abuses. She gave away the dogs, discharged the servants of the kennel and stable, and sent the horses to the next fair, but rated at so high a price that they returned unIt frequently happens that, even without vio-sold. She was resolved to have nothing idle lent passions, or enormous corruption, the free-about her, and ordered them to be employed in dom and laxity of a rustic life produce remarkable common drudgery. They lost their sleekness particularities of conduct or manner. In the and grace, and were soon purchased at half the province where I now reside, we have one lady value.. eminent for wearing a gown always of the same cut and colour; another for shaking hands with those that visit her; and a third for her unshaken resolution never to let tea or coffee enter her house. But of all the female characters which this place affords, I have found none so worthy of attention as that of Mrs. Busy, a widow, who lost her husband in her thirtieth year, and has since passed her time at the manor-house in the government of her children, and the management of the estate. Mrs. Busy was married at eighteen from a boarding-school, where she had passed her time, like other young ladies, in needle work, with a few intervals of dancing and reading. When she became a bride she spent one winter with her husband in town, where having no idea of any conversation beyond the formalities of a visit, she found nothing to engage her passions; and when she had been one night at court, and two at an opera, and seen the Monument, the Tombs and the Tower, she concluded that Lonon had nothing more to show, and wondered that when women had once seen the world they could not be content to stay at home. She therefore went willingly to the ancient seat, and for some years studied housewifery under Mr. Busy's mother, with so much assiduity, that the old lady, when she died, bequeathed her a caudle-cup, a soup-dish, two beakers, and a chest of table linen spun by herself. She soon disencumbered herself from her weeds, and put on a riding-hood, a coarse apron, and short petticoats, and has turned a large manor into a farm, of which she takes the management wholly upon herself. She rises before the sun to order the horses to their geers, and sees them well rubbed down at their return from work; she attends the dairy morning and evening, and watches when a calf falls that it may be carefully nursed; she walks out among the sheep at noon, counts the lambs, and observes the fences, and where she finds a gap, stops it with a bush till it can be better mended. In harvest she rides a-field in the wagon, and is very liberal of her ale from a wooden bottle. At her leisure hours she looks goose eggs, airs the wool room, and turns the cheese. When respect or curiosity brings visitants to her house, she entertains them with prognostics of a scarcity of wheat, or a rot among the sheep, and always thinks herself privileged to dismiss them when she is to see the hogs fed, or to count her poultry on the roost. The only things neglected about her are her children, whom she has taught nothing but the lowest household duties. In my last visit I met Miss Busy carrying grains to a sick cow, and was entertained with the accomplishments of her eldest son, a youth of such early maturity, that, though he is only sixteen, she can trust him. to sell corn in the market. Her younger daughter, who is eminent for her beauty, though some what tanned in making hay, was busy in pouring out ale to the ploughmen, that every one might have an equal share. I could not but look with pity on this young family, doomed, by the absurd prudence of their mother, to ignorance and meanness; but, when I recommended a more elegant education, was answered, that she never saw bookish or finical people grow rich, and that she was good for nothing herself till she had forgotten the nicety of the boarding-school. No. 139.] I am yours, &c. BUCOLUS. TUESDAY, JULY 16, 1751. -Sit quod vis simplex duntaxat et unum. HOR. Let every piece be simple and be one. Ir is required by Aristotle to the perfection of a tragedy, and is equally necessary to every other species of regular composition, that should have a beginning, a middle, and an end. "The beginning," says he, "is that which has nothing necessarily previous, but to which that which follows is naturally consequent; the end, on the contrary, is that which by necessity, or at least according to the common course of things, succeeds something else, but which implies nothing consequent to itself; the middle is connected on one side to something that naturally goes before, and on the other to something that naturally follows it." Such is the rule laid down by this great critic, for the disposition of the different parts of a wellconstituted fable. It must begin, where it may be made intelligible without introduction; and end, where the mind is left in repose, without expectation of any farther event. The intermediate passages must join the last effect to the first cause, by a regular and unbroken concatenation; nothing must be therefore inserted which does not apparently arise from something foregoing, and properly make way for something that succeeds it. authority can make error venerable, his works are the proper objects of critical inquisition. To expunge faults where there are no excellences, is a task equally useless with that of the chemist, who employs the arts of separation and refinement upon ore in which no precious metal is contained to reward his preparations. The tragedy of Samson Agonistes has been celebrated as the second work of the great author of "Paradise Lost," and opposed, with all the confidence of triumph, to the dramatic performances of other nations. It contains indeed just sentiments, maxims of wisdom, and oracles of piety, and many passages written with the ancient spirit of choral poetry, in which there is a just and pleasing mixture of Seneca's moral declamation, with the wild enthusiasm of the Greek writers. It is therefore worthy of examination, whether a performance thus illuminated with genius, and enriched with learning, is composed according to the indispensable laws of Aristotelian criticism: and, omitting at present all other considerations, whether it exhibits a beginning, a middle, and an end. The beginning is undoubtedly beautiful and proper, opening with a graceful abruptness, and proceeding naturally to a mournful recital of facts necessary to be known. Samson. A little onward lend thy guiding hand -Why was my breeding order'd and prescribed, Design'd for great exploits; if I must die His soliloquy is interrupted by a chorus or com- This precept is to be understood in its rigour only with respect to great and essential events, and cannot be extended in the same force to minuter circumstances and arbitrary decorations, which yet are more happy, as they contribute In the second act, Manoah, the father of Sammore to the main design; for it is always a proof son, comes to seek his son, and, being shown of extensive thought and accurate circumspec-him by the chorus, breaks out into lamentations tion, to promote various purposes by the same of his misery, and comparisons of his present act; and the idea of an ornament admits use, with his former state, representing to him the though it seems to exclude necessity. ignominy which his religion suffers, by the festiWhoever purposes, as it is expressed by Mil-val this day celebrated in honour of Dagon, to ton, to build the lofty rhyme, must acquaint him- whom the idolaters ascribed his overthrow. self with this law of poetical architecture, and take care that his edifice be solid as well as beautiful; that nothing stand single or independent, so as that it may be taken away without injuring the rest; but that, from the foundation to the pinnacles, one part rest firm upon another. This regular and consequential distribution is, among common authors, frequently neglected; but the failures of those, whose example can have no influence, may be safely overlooked, nor is it of much use to recall obscure and unregarded names to memory for the sake of sporting with their infamy. But if there is any writer whose genius can embellish impropriety, and whose Thou bear'st Enough, and more, the burden of that fault; Samson, touched with this reproach, makes a reply equally penitential and pious, which his father considers as the effusion of prophetic confidence. |