125 of jesting, which would make no great figure were he not a rich man, he calls the sea the British Common. He is acquainted with commerce in all its parts, and will tell you it is 130 a stupid and barbarous way to extend dominion by arms; for true power is to be got by arts and industry. He will often argue that, if this part of our trade were well cultivated, 135 we should gain from one nation, and if another, from another. I have heard him prove that diligence makes more lasting acquisitions than valour, and that sloth has ruined more nations 140 than the sword. He abounds in several frugal maxims, amongst which the greatest favourite is, 'A penny saved is a penny got.' A general trader of good sense is pleasanter 145 company than a general scholar; and Sir Andrew having a natural unaffected eloquence, the perspicuity of his discourse gives the same pleasure that wit would in another man. He 150 has made his fortunes himself, and says that England may be richer than other kingdoms by as plain methods as he himself is richer than other men; though at the same time 155 I can say this of him, that there is not a point in the compass but blows home a ship in which he is

an owner.

Next to Sir Andrew in the club160 room sits Captain Sentry, a gentleman of great courage and understanding, but invincible modesty. He is one of those that deserve very well, but are very awkward at putting 165 their talents within the observation

of such as should take notice of them. He was some years a captain, and behaved himself with great gallantry in several engagements and 170 at several sieges; but having a small estate of his own, and being next heir to Sir Roger, he has quitted a way of life in which no man can

rise suitably to his merit who is not something of a courtier as well as 175 a soldier. I have heard him often lament that, in a profession where merit is placed in so conspicuous a view, impudence should get the better of modesty. When he has talked to 180 this purpose, I never heard him make a sour expression, but frankly confess that he left the world, because he was not fit for it. A strict honesty and an even regular behaviour 185 are in themselves obstacles to him that must press through crowds, who endeavour at the same end with himself - the favour of a commander. He will, however, in his way of talk, 190 excuse generals for not disposing according to men's desert, or inquiring into it; for, says he, that great man who has a mind to help me, has as many to break through 195 to come at me as I have to come at him; therefore, he will conclude that the man who would make a figure, especially in a military way, must get over all false modesty, and 200 assist his patron against the importunity of other pretenders by a proper assurance in his own vindication. He says it is a civil cowardice to be backward in asserting what 205 you ought to expect, as it is a military fear to be slow in attacking when it is your duty. With this candour does the gentleman speak of himself and others. The same 210 frankness runs through all his conversation. The military part of his life has furnished him with many adventures, in the relation of which he is very agreeable to the company; 215 for he is never overbearing, though accustomed to command men in the utmost degree below him, nor ever too obsequious from a habit of obeying men highly above him.

But that our society may not appear a set of humorists, unac

220

quainted with the gallantries and pleasures of the age, we have amongst 225 us the gallant Will Honeycomb, a gentleman who, according to his years, should be in the decline of his life; but having ever been very careful of his person, and always 230 had a very easy fortune, time has made but very little impression, either by wrinkles on his forehead or traces in his brain. His person is well turned, and of a good height. He is 235 very ready at that sort of discourse with which men usually entertain women. He has all his life dressed very well, and remembers habits as others do men. He can smile when 240 one speaks to him, and laugh easily. He knows the history of every mode, and can inform you from which of the French king's wenches our wives and daughters had this manner of 245 curling their hair, that way of placing their hoods, ... and whose vanity to show her foot made that part of the dress so short in such a year. In a word, all his conversation and know250 ledge has been in the female world. As other men of his age will take notice to you what such a minister said upon such and such an occasion, he will tell you when the Duke of 255 Monmouth danced at court, such a

woman was then smitten, another was taken with him at the head of his troop in the Park. In all these important relations, he has ever about the same 260 time received a kind glance, or a blow of a fan, from some celebrated beauty, mother of the present Lord Such-a-one.... This way of talking of

ON

his very much enlivens the conversation among us of a more sedate 265 turn; and I find there is not one of the company, but myself, who rarely speak at all, but speaks of him as of that sort of man who is usually called a well-bred fine gentle- 270 To conclude his character, where women are not concerned, he is an honest worthy man.

man.

I cannot tell whether I am to account him whom I am next to 275 speak of, as one of our company; for he visits us but seldom, but when he does, it adds to every man else a new enjoyment of himself. He is a clergyman, a very philosophic man, 280 of general learning, great sanctity of life, and the most exact good breeding. He has the misfortune to be of a very weak constitution, and, consequently, cannot accept of such cares 285 and business as preferments in his function would oblige him to; he is, therefore, among divines what a chamber-counsellor is among lawyers. The probity of his mind and the 290 integrity of his life create him followers, as being eloquent or loud advances others. He seldom introduces the subject he speaks upon; but we are so far gone in years, that 295 he observes, when he is among us, an earnestness to have him fall on some divine topic, which he always treats with much authority, as one who has no interest in this world, 300 as one who is hastening to the object of all his wishes, and conceives hope from his decays and infirmities. These are my ordinary companions.

ENVY.

methought expressed an emotion of heart very different from what could 5 be raised by an object so agreeable

as the gentleman he looked at, I began to consider, not without some secret sorrow, the condition of an 10 envious man. Some have fancied that envy has a certain magical force in it, and that the eyes of the envious have, by their fascination, blasted the enjoyments of the happy. Sir 16 Francis Bacon says, some have been so curious as to remark the times and seasons when the stroke of an envious eye is most effectually pernicious, and have observed that it has 20 been when the person envied has been in any circumstance of glory and triumph. At such a time the mind of the prosperous man goes, as it were, abroad, among things 25 without him, and is more exposed to the malignity. But I shall not dwell upon speculations so abstracted as this, or repeat the many excellent things which one might collect out 30 of authors upon this miserable affection; but, keeping in the road of common life, consider the envious man with relation to these three heads: his pains, his reliefs, and his 35 happiness.

The envious man is in pain upon all occasions which ought to give him pleasure. The relish of his life is inverted; and the objects which 40 administer the highest satisfaction to those who are exempt from this passion, give the quickest pangs to persons who are subject to it. All the perfections of their fellow-creatures 45 are odious. Youth, beauty, valour, and wisdom are provocations of their displeasure. What a wretched and apostate state is this: to be offended with excellence, and to hate a man 50 because we approve him! The condition of the envious man is the most emphatically miserable; he is not only incapable of rejoicing in another's merit or success, but lives 55 in a world wherein all mankind are

in a plot against his quiet, by studying their own happiness and advantage. Will Prosper is an honest tale-bearer; he makes it his business to join in conversation with envious 60 men. He points to such a handsome young fellow, and whispers that he is secretly married to a great fortune. When they doubt, he adds circumstances to prove it; and never 65 fails to aggravate their distress by assuring them that, to his knowledge, he has an uncle will leave him some thousands. Will has many arts of this kind to this kind to torture this sort of 70 temper, and delights in it. When he finds them change colour and say faintly they wish such a piece of news is true, he has the malice to speak some good or other of 75 every man of their acquaintance.

The reliefs of the envious man are those little blemishes and imperfections that discover themselves in an illustrious character. It is matter so of great consolation to an envious person, when a man of known honour does a thing unworthy himself; or when any action which was well executed, upon better information 85 appears so altered in its circumstances, that the fame of it is divided among many, instead of being attributed to one. This is a secret satisfaction to these malignants; for 90 the person whom they before could not but admire, they fancy, is nearer their own condition as soon as his merit is shared among others. I remember some years ago, there came 95 out an excellent poem without the name of the author. The little wits, who were incapable of writing it, began to pull in pieces the supposed writer. When that would not do, 100 they took great pains to suppress the opinion that it was his. That again failed. The next refuge was say it was overlooked by one

to

105 man, and many pages wholly written by another. An honest fellow, who sat among a cluster of them in debate on this subject, cried out, 'Gentlemen, if you are sure none of you 110 yourselves had a hand in it, you are but where you were, whoever writ it.' But the most usual succour to the envious, in cases of nameless merit in this kind, is to keep the 115 property, if possible, unfixed, and by that means to hinder the reputation of it from falling upon any particular person. You see an envious man clear up his countenance, if, in 120 the relation of any man's great happiness in one point, you mention his uneasiness in another. When he hears such a one is very rich, he turns pale, but recovers when you 126 add that he has many children. In a word, the only sure way to an envious man's favour is not to deserve it.

But if we consider the envious 130 man in delight, it is like reading of the seat of a giant in a romance; the magnificence of his house consists in the many limbs of men whom he has slain. If any who 135 promised themselves success in any uncommon undertaking, miscarry in the attempt, or he that aimed at what would have been useful and laudable, meets with contempt and 140 derision, the envious man, under the

colour of hating vain-glory, can smile with an inward wantonness of heart at the ill effect it may have upon an honest ambition for the future.

Having thoroughly considered the 145 nature of this passion, I have made it my study to avoid the envy that may accrue to me from these my speculations; and if I am not mistaken in myself, I think I have a 150 genius to escape it. Upon hearing in a coffee-house one of my papers commended, I immediately apprehended the envy that would spring from that applause, and therefore gave a 155 description of my face the next day, being resolved, as I grow in reputation for wit, to resign my pretensions to beauty. This, I hope, may give some ease to those unhappy 160 gentlemen who do me the honour to torment themselves upon the account of this my paper. As their case is very deplorable, and deserves compassion, I shall sometimes be 165 dull in pity to them, and will, from time to time, administer consolations to them by further discoveries of my In the meanwhile, if any person. one says the Spectator has wit, it 170 may be some relief to them to think that he does not show it in company. And if any one praises his morality, they may comfort themselves by considering that his face 175 is none of the longest.

JOSEPH ADDISON (1672-1719) was

the son of the rector of Milston, a small country-town in Wiltshire. At Charterhouse School he formed an intimacy with Steele, which lasted during life. He studied at the University of Oxford, where he obtained a fellowship in Magdalen College, and early acquired a reputation for classical scholarship and elegant Latin verse. To qualify him for the diplomatic service, Lord Halifax, one of his noble

patrons, procured him a royal pension for travelling on the continent, which he enjoyed for four years (1699-1703). A successful poem on the battle of Blenheim, entitled The Campaign (1704), secured for him a Commissionership of Appeals. In 1706 he was made Under-Secretary of State, and, passing through several other high offices, at last became Secretary of State (1717). In 1716 he married the Countess Dowager of Warwick, and conse

quently spent his last years in his wife's splendid Tudor mansion of Holland House, Kensington, where he died in 1719.

To his contemporaries Addison was chiefly the author of Cato (1713), a play which had an immense success, probably because it fell in with the party spirit of the day, though to us it is only a cold classical tragedy after the French model, wanting in dramatic power and full of empty rhetoric. But his place in the front ranks of English men of letters Addison claims as the establisher and perfecter of the short periodical essay, a form of literature created by Steele. As we have seen on p. 165, Addison's essays were contributed to Steele's periodicals, the Tatler, Spectator, and Guardian, which

were to form a new epoch in English literature. Addison's share in the Tatler was not large, but in the Spectator it exceeded that of Steele. In criticism he was not emancipated from the ideals of the French school, which, however, did not prevent him from commenting on the beauties of Milton's Paradise Lost (in 18 Saturday numbers of the Spectator) and from having a taste for old English ballads. Compared to Steele, who surpasses his collaborator in naturalness and emotional charm, Addison is the greater artist. Indeed, he is a consummate master of composition, and, since the days of Johnson, his graceful and polished style has always been held up as a model of pure English prose.

There lived some years since, within my neighbourhood, a very grave person, an upholsterer, who seemed a man of more than ordinary appli5 cation to business. He was a very early riser, and was often abroad two or three hours before any of his neighbours. He had a particular carefulness in the knitting of his brows, 10 and a kind of impatience in all his motions, that plainly discovered he was always intent on matters of importance. Upon my inquiry into his life and conversation, I found him 15 to be the greatest newsmonger in our quarter, that he rose before day to read the Postman, and that he would take two or three turns to the other end of the town, before his 20 neighbours were up, to see if there were any Dutch mails come in. He had a wife and several children, but was much more inquisitive to know what passed in Poland than in his 25 own family, and was in greater pain and anxiety of mind for King Augustus's welfare than that of his nearest relations. He looked extremely thin in a dearth of news, and

never enjoyed himself in a westerly 30 wind. This indefatigable kind of life was the ruin of his shop; for, about the time that his favourite prince left the crown of Poland, he broke and disappeared.

35

This man and his affairs had been long out of my mind, until about three days ago, as I was walking in St. James's Park, I heard somebody at a distance hemming after me: and 40 who should it be but my old neighbour the upholsterer? I saw he was reduced to extreme poverty, by certain shabby superfluities in his dress; for notwithstanding that it was a 45 very sultry day for the time of the year, he wore a loose great-coat and a muff, with a long campaign - wig out of curl; to which he had added the ornament of a pair of black 50 garters buckled under the knee. Upon his coming up to me, I was going to inquire into his present circumstances, but was prevented by his asking me, with a whisper, whether 55 the last letters brought any accounts that one might rely upon from Bender? I told him, none that I heard of,