the battle of the bulls, the labour of the Dixeris egregiè notum si callida verbum or extremely discomposed by one. His Totamque infusa per artus We behold him embellishing his images, her son Æneas: lumenque inventæ Purpureum, & lætos oculis affårat honores: Quale manus addunt ebori decus, aut ubi flavo Argentum Pariusve lapis circumdatur auro, See his tempest, his funeral sports, his combats of Turnus and Æneas; and in his Georgies, which I esteem the divinest part of all his writings, the plague, the country, Dryden. Examples that Words may affect without raising Images. I find it very hard to persuade several, that their passions are affected by words from whence they have no ideas; and yet harder to convince them, that in the ordinary course of conversation, we are suffici ently understood without raising any images of the things concerning which we speak. It seems to be an odd subject of dispute with any man, whether he has ideas in his mind or not. Of this at first view, every man in his own forum ought to judge without appeal. But strange as it may ap pear, we are often at a loss to know what ideas we have of things, or whether we have any ideas at all upon some subjects. Iteven requires some attention to be thoroughly satisfied on this head. Since I wrote these papers, I found two very striking instances of the possibility there is, that a man may bear words without having any idea of the things which they represent, and yet afterothers, combined in a new way, and with wards be capable of returning them t great propriety, energy, and instruction. The first instance is that of Mr. Blacklock, a poet blind from his birth. Few men blessed with the most perfect sight can de scribe visual objects with more spirit and justness than this blind man; which can not possibly be owing to his having clearer conception of the things he de scribes than is common to other persons. Mr. Spence, in an elegant preface which ! he has written to the works of this poet, reasons very ingeniously, and, I imagine, for the most part very rightly, upon the cause of this extraordinary phenomenon; but I cannot altogether agree with him, that some improprieties in language and thought which occur in these poems, have arisen from the blind poet's imperfect conception of visual objects, since such improprieties, and much greater, may be found in writers even of an higher class than Mr. Blacklock, and who, notwithstanding, possessed the faculty of secing in its full perfection. Here is a poet doubtless as much affected by his own descriptions as any that reads them can be; and yet he is affected with this strong enthusiasm by things of which he neither has, nor can possibly have any idea, further than that of a barehund; and why may not those who read his works be affected in the same manner that he was, with as little of any real ideas of the things described? The second instance is of Mr. Saunderson, professor of mathematics in the university of Cambridge. This learned man had ac quired great knowledge in natural philosophy, in astronomy, and whatever sciences depend upon mathematical skill. What was the most extraordinary, and the most to my purpose, he gave excellent lectures upon light and colours; and this man taught others the theory of those ideas which they had, and which he himself undoubtedly had not. But the truth is, that the words red, blue, green, answered to him as well as the ideas of the colours themselves; for the ideas of greater or lesser degrees of refrangibility being applied to these words, and the blind man being instructed in what other respects they were found to agree or to disagree, it was as easy for him to reason upon the words, as if he had been fully master of the ideas. Indeed it must be owned, he could make no new discoveries in the way of experiment. He did nothing but what we do every day in common discourse. When I wrote this last sentence, and used the words every day, and common discourse, I had no images in my mind of any succession of time: nor of men in conference with each other: nor do I imagine that the reader will have any such ideas on reading it. Neither when I spoke of red, blue, and green, as well as of refrangibility, had I these several colours, or the rays of light passing into a different medium, and there diverted from their course, painted before me in the way of images. I know very well that the mind possesses a faculty of raising such images at pleasure; but then an act of the will is necessary to this; and in ordinary conversation, or reading, it is very rarely that any image at all is excited in the mind. If I say, "I shall go to Italy next summer," I am well understood. Yet I believe nobody has by this painted in his imagination the exact figure of the speaker passing by land or by water, or both; sometimes on horseback, sometimes in a carriage; with all the particulars of the journey. Still less has he any idea of Italy, the country to which I proposed to go; or of the greenness of the fields, the ripening of the fruits, and the warmth of the air, with the change to this from a different season, which are the ideas for which the word summer is substituted; but least of all has he any image from the word next; for this word stands for the idea of many summers, with the exclusion of all but one: and surely the man who says next summer, has no images of such a succession, and such an exclusion. In short, it is not only those ideas which are commonly called abstract, and of which no image at all can be found, but even of particular real beings, that we converse without having any idea of them excited in the imagination; as will certainly appear on a diligent examination of our own minds, Burke on the Sublime, 99. The real Characteristics of the Whig and Tory Parties. When we compare the parties of Whig and Tory to those of Roundhead and Cavalier, the most obvious difference which appears betwixt them, consists in the principles of passive obedience and indefeasible right, which were but little heard of among the Cavaliers, but became the universal doctrine, and were esteemed the true characteristic of a Tory. Were these principles pushed into their most obvious consequences, they imply a formal renunciation of all our liberties, and an avowal of absolute monarchy; since nothing can be a greater absurdity, than a limited power which must not be resisted, even when it exceeds its limitations. But as the most rational principles are often but a weak counterpoise to passion, 'tis no wonder that these absurd principles, sufficient, according to a celebrated author, to shock the common common sense of a Hottentot or Samoide, were found too weak for that effect. These Tories, as men, were enemies to oppression; and also, as Englishmen, they were enemies to despotic power. Their zeal for liberty was, perhaps, less fervent than that of their antagonists, but was sufficient to make them forget all their general principles, when they saw themselves openly threatened with a subversion of the ancient government. From these senti-ments arose the Revolution; an event of mighty consequence, and the firmest foundation of British liberty. The conduct of the Tories, during that event and after it, will afford us a true insight into the nature of that party. In the first place they appear to have had the sentiments of a True Briton in them in their affection to liberty, and in their determined resolution not to sacrifice it to any abstract principles whatsoever, or to any imaginary rights of princes. This part of their character might justly have been doubted of before the Revolution, from the obvious tendency of their avowed principles, and from their almost unbounded compliances with a court, which made little secret of its arbitrary designs. The Revolution shewed them to have been in this respect nothing but a genuine court party, such as might be expected in a British government? that is, lovers of liberty, but greater lovers of monarchy. It must, however, be confessed, that they carried their monarchical principles farther, even in practice, but more so in theory, than was in any degree consistent with a limited government. Secondly, Neither their principles nor affections concurred, entirely or heartily, with the settlement made at the Revolution, or with that which has since taken place. This part of their character may secm contradictory to the former, since any other settlement, in those circumstances of the nation, must probably have been dan gerous, if not fatal to liberty. But the heart of man is made to reconcile contradictions; and this contradiction is not greater than that betwixt passive obedience, and the resistance employed at the Revolution. A Tory, therefore, since the Revolution, may be defined in a few words to be a lover of monarchy, though without abandoning liberty, and a partisan of the family of Stuart; as a Whig may be defined to be a lover of liberty, though without re nouncing monarchy; and a friend to the settlement in the protestant line. Hume's Essays. 100. Painting disagreeable in Women. A lady's face, like the coat in the Tale of a Tub, if left alone, will wear well; but if you offer to load it with fo reign ornaments, you destroy the original ground. Among other matter of wonder on my first coming to town, I was much surprised at the general appearance of youth among the ladies. At present there is no distinction in their complexions, between a beauty in her teens and a lady in her grand climacteric ; yet at the same time I could not but take notice of the wonderful variety in the face of the same lady. I have known an olive beauty on Mend grow very ruddy and blooming on Tuesday; turn pale on Wednesday; come round to the olive hue again on Thursday; and, in a word, change her complexion as often as her gown. I was amazed to find no old aunts in this town, except a few unfashionable people, whom nobody knows; the rest still continuing in the zenith of their youth and health, and falling off, like timely fruit, without any previous decay. All this was a mystery that I could not unriddle, till, on being introduced to some ladies, I unluckily improved the hue of my lips at the expence of a fair one, who unthinkingly had turned her cheek; and found that my kisses were given (as is observed in the epigram) like those of Pyramus, through a wall. I then discovered, that this sur prizing youth and beauty was all counterfeit; and that (as Hamlet says) "God had given them one face, and they had made themselves another." I have mentioned the accident of my carrying off half a lady's face by a salute, that your courtly dames may learn to put on their faces a little tighter; but as for my own daughters, while such fashions pre vail, they shall still remain in Yorkshire. There, I think, they are pretty safe; for this unnatural fashion will hardly make its way into the country, as this vamped com plexion would not stand against the rays of the sun, and would inevitably melt away in a country dance. The ladies have indeed, been always the greatest enemies to their own beauty, and seem to have a de sign against their own faces. At one time the whole countenance was eclipsed in a black black velvet mask; at another it was blotted with patches: and at present it is crusted over with plaister of Paris. In those battered belles who still aim at conquest, this practice is in some sort excusable; but it is surely as ridiculous in a young lady to give up beauty for paint, as it would be to draw a good set of teeth merely to fill their places with a row of ivory. the Indeed so common is the fashion among young as well as the old, that when I am in a group of beauties, I consider them as so many pretty pictures; looking about me with as little emotion as I do at Hudson's and if any thing fills me with admiration, it is the judicious arrangement of the tints, and delicate touches of the painter. Art very often seems almost to vie with nature: but my attention is too frequently diverted by considering the texture and hue of the skin beneath; and the picture fails to charm, while my thoughts are engrossed by the wood and canvass. Connoisseur. § 101. Advantages of well-directed Satire pointed out. A satyrist of true genius, who is warmed by a generous indignation of vice, and whose censures are conducted by candour and truth, merits the applause of every friend to virtue. He may be considered as a sort of supplement to the legislative authority of his country; as assisting the dunavoidable defects of all legal institutions for regulating the manners, and striking terror even where the divine prohibitions themselves are held in contempt. The strongest defence, perhaps against the inroads of vice, among the more cultivated part of our species, is well-directed ridicule: they who fear nothing else, dread to be marked out to the contempt and indignation of the world. There is no succeeding in the secret purposes of dishonesty, without preserving some sort of credit among mankind; as there cannot exist a more impotent creature than a knave convict. To expose, therefore, the false pretensions of counterfeit virtue, is to disarm it at once of all power of mischief, and to perform a public service of the most advantageous kind, in which any man can employ his time and his talents. The voice, indeed, of an honest satirist is not only beneficial to the world, as giving an alarm against the designs of an enemy so dan gerous to all social intercourse; but as proving likewise the most efficacious preventive to others, of assuming the same character of distinguished infamy. Few are so totally vitiated, as to have abandoned all sentiments of shame ; and when every other principle of integrity is surrendered, we generally find the conflict is still maintained in this last post of retreating virtue. In this view, therefore, it should seem, the function of a satirist may be justified, notwithstanding it should be true (what an excellent moralist has asserted) that his chastisements rather exasperate than reclaim those on whom they fall. Perhaps no human penalties are of any moral advantage to the criminal himself; and the principal benefit that seems to be derived from civil punishments of any kind, is their restraining influence upon the conduct of others. It is not every man, however, that is qualified to manage this formidable bow. The arrows of satire unless they are pointed by virtue, as well as wit, recoil upon the hand that directs them, and wound none but him from whom they proceed. Accordingly Horace rests the whole success of writings of this sort upon the poet's being integer ipse; free himself from those immoral strains which he points out in others. There cannot, indeed, be a more odious, nor at the same time a more contemptible character, than that of a vicious satirist : the more delightful author. I am profited by both, I am pleased with both; but I owe more to Horace for my instruction, and more to Juvenal for my pleasure. This, as I said, is my particular taste of these two authors: they who will have either of them to excel the other in both qualities, can scarce give better reasons for their opinion than I for mine but all unbiassed readers will conclude, that my moderation is not to be condemned. To such impartial men I must appeal; for they who have already formed their judgement, may justly stand suspected of prejudice; and though all who are my readers will set up to be my judges, I enter my caveat against them that they ought not so much as to be of my jury; or if they be admitted, 'tis but reason that they should first hear what I have to urge in the defence of my opinion. That Horace is somewhat the better instructor of the two, is proved hence, that his instructions are more general, Juvenal's more limited so that, granting that the counsels which they give are equally good for moral use, Horace, who gives the most various advice, and most applicable to all occasions which can occur to us in the course of our lives as including in his discourses not only all the rules of morality, but also of civil conversation; is undoubt edly to be preferred to him who is more circumscribed in his instructions, makes them to fewer people, and on fewer occa sions, than the other. I may be pardoned for using an old saying, since it is true and to the purpose, Bonum quo communius eo melius. Juvenal, excepting only his first satire, is in all the rest confined to the exposing some particular vice: that he lashes, and there he sticks. His sentences are truly shining and instructive; but they are sprinkled here and there, Horace is teaching us in every line, and is perpetually moral; he had found out the skill of Virgil, to hide his sentences; to give you the virtue of them without shewing them in their full extent: which is the ostentation of a poet, and not his art. And this Petronius charges on the authors of his time, as a vice of writing, which was then grow ing on the age: Ne sententiæ extra corpus orationis emineant. He would have them weaved into the body of the work, and not appear embossed upon it, and striking directly on the reader's view. Folly was the proper quarry of Horace, and not vice: and as there are but few notoriously wicked men, in comparison with a shoal of fools and fops, so 'tis a harder thing to make a man wise, than to make him honest: for the will is only to be reclaimed in the one, but the understanding is to be informed in the other. There are blind sides and follies, even in the professors of moral philo. sophy; and there is not any one set of them that Horace has not exposed. Which, as it was not the design of Juvenal, who was wholly employed in lashing vices, some of them the most enormous that can be ima gined, so, perhaps, it was not so much his talent, Omne vafer vitium, videnti Flaccus amico, tangit,&admissus circum præcordia ludit. This was the commendation that Persius gave him; where, by vitium, he means those little vices which we call fol lies, the defects of human understanding, or at most the peccadillos of life, rather than the tragical vices, to which men are hurried by their unruly passions and ex orbitant desires. But on the word omne which is universal, he concludes with me that the divine wit of Horace let nothing untouched ; that he entered into the utmost recesses of nature; found out the imperfections even of the most wise and grave, as well as of the common people; discovering even in the great Trebatius, to whom he addresses the first Satire, his hunung after business, and following the court: as well as in the persecutor Crispinus, his impertinence and importunity. "Tis true he exposes Crispinus openly as a common nuisance; but he rallies the other as a friend, more finely. The exhortations of Persius are confined to noblemen; and the stoick philosophy is that alone which he recommends to them: Juvenal exhorts to particular virtues, as they are opposed to those vices against which he declaims; but Horace laughs to shame all follies, and insinuates virtue rather by familiar examples than by the severity of precepts. This last consideration seems to incline the balance on the side of Horace, and to give him the preference to Juvenal, not only in profit, but in pleasure. But after all, I must confess that the delight which Horace gives me is but languishing. Be pleased still to understand, that I speak of my own taste only: he may ravish other men; but I am too stupid and insensible to be tickled. Where he barely grins himself, and as Scaliger says, only shews his white teeth, he cannot provoke me to any laughter. His urbanity, that is, his good manners, are to be commended, but his wit is faint; and his salt, if I may dare to say so, almost insipid. |