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ducing a letter which he had written to him about three posts before, You see here,' says he, when he writes for money he knows how to speak intelligibly enough; there is no man in England can express himself clearer, when he wants a new furniture for his horse.' In short the old man was so puzzled upon the point, that it might have fared ill with his son, had he not seen all the prints about three days after filled with the same terms of art, and that Charles only writ like other men.

L.

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ARISTOTLE tells us that the world is a copy or transcript of those ideas which are in the mind of the first Being, and that those ideas which are in the mind of man, are a transcript of the world. To this we may add, that words are the transcript of those ideas which are in the mind of man, and that writing or printing are the transcript of words.

As the Supreme Being has expressed, and as it were printed his ideas in the creation, men express their ideas in books, which by this great invention of these latter ages may last as long as the sun and moon, and perish only in the general wreck of nature. Thus Cowley in his poem on the Resurrection, mentioning the destruction of the universe, has those admirable lines:

Now all the wide extended sky,

an advantage above all the great masters, is this, that they can multiply their originals: or rather can make copies of their works, to what number they please, which shall be as valuable as the originals themselves. This gives a great author something like a prospect of eternity, but at the same time deprives him of those other advantages which artists meet with. The artist finds greater returns in profit, as the author in fame. What an inestimable price would a Virgil or a Homer, a Cicero or an Aristotle bear, were their works like a statue, a building, or a picture, to be confined only in one place, and made the property of a single person!

If writings are thus durable, and may pass from age to age throughout the whole course of time, how careful should an author be of committing any thing to print that may corrupt posterity, and poison the minds of men with vice and error! Writers

of great talents, who employ their parts in propagating immorality, and seasoning vicious sentiments with wit and humour, are to be looked upon as the pests of society, and the enemies of mankind. They leave who die in distempers which breed an illbooks behind them (as it is said of those will towards their own species) to scatter infection and destroy their posterity. They Socrates; and seem to have been sent into act the counterparts of a Confucius or a the world to deprave human nature, and sink it into the condition of brutality.

I have seen some Roman Catholic authors

who tell us, that vicious writers continue in Purgatory so long as the influence of their writings continues upon posterity: for purgatory,' say they, is nothing else but a cleansing us of our sins, which cannot be And all th' harmonious worlds on high, said to be done away, so long as they conAnd Virgil's sacred work shall die. tinue to operate, and corrupt mankind. There is no other method of fixing those The vicious author,' say they, 'sins after thoughts which arise and disappear in the death, and so long as he continues to sin, mind of man, and transmitting them to the so long must he expect to be punished. last periods of time; no other method of Though the Roman Catholic notion of purgiving a permanency to our ideas, and pre-gatory be indeed very ridiculous, one canserving the knowledge of any particular person, when his body is mixed with the common mass of matter, and his soul retired into the world of spirits. Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind, which are delivered down from generation to generation, as presents to the posterity of those who are yet unborn.

not but think that if the soul after death has any knowledge of what passes in this world, that of an immoral writer would receive much more regret from the sense of corrupting, than satisfaction from the thought of pleasing his surviving admirers.

To take off from the severity of this speculation, I shall conclude this paper All other arts of perpetuating our ideas with a story of an atheistical author, who continue but a short time. Statues can last at a time when he lay dangerously sick, and but a few thousands of years, edifices fewer, had desired the assistance of a neighbouring and colours still fewer than edifices. Mi-curate, confessed to him with great conchael Angelo, Fontana, and Raphael, will trition, that nothing sat more heavy at his hereafter be what Phidias, Vitruvius, and heart than the sense of his having seduced Apelles are at present, the names of great the age by his writings, and that their evil statuaries, architects, and painters, whose influence was likely to continue even after works are lost. The several arts are expressed in mouldering materials. Nature sinks under them and is not able to support the ideas which are imprest upon it.

The circumstance which gives authors

his death. The curate upon farther examination finding the penitent in the utmost agonies of despair, and being himself a man of learning, told him that he hoped his case was not so desperate as he apprehended,

since he found that he was so very sensible of his fault and so sincerely repented of it. The penitent still urged the evil tendency of his book to subvert all religion, and the little ground of hope there could be for one whose writings would continue to do mischief when his body was laid in ashes. The curate, finding no other way of comforting him, told him that he did well in being afflicted for the evil design with which he published his book; but that he ought to be very thankful that there was no danger of its doing any hurt: that his cause was so very bad, and his arguments so weak, that he did not apprehend any ill effects of it: in short, that he might rest satisfied his book could do no more mischief after his death, than it had done whilst he was living. To which he added, for his farther satisfaction, that he did not believe any besides his particular friends and acquaintance had ever been at the pains of reading it, or that any body after his death would ever inquire after it. The dying man had still so much the frailty of an author in him, as to be cut to the heart with these consolations; and, without answering the good man, asked his friends about him (with a peevishness that is natural to a sick person) where they had picked up such a blockhead? And whether they thought him a proper person to attend one in his condition? The curate finding that the author did not expect to be dealt with as a real and sincere penitent, but as a penitent of importance, after a short admonition withdrew; not questioning but he should be again sent for if the sickness grew desperate. The author however recovered, and has since written two or three other tracts with the same spirit, and, very luckily for his poor soul, with the same success.

C.

Him the damn'd doctor and his friends immur'd; They bled, they cupp'd, they purg'd, in short, they cur'd;

Whereat the gentleman began to stare

My friends! he cry'd, pox take ye for your care!
That from a patriot of distinguished note,
Have bled and purg'd me to a simple vote.'-Pepe.

THE unhappy force of an imagination unguided by the check of reason and judgment, was the subject of a former speculation. My reader may remember that he has seen in one of my papers a complaint of an unfortunate gentleman, who was unable to contain himself (when any ordinary matter was laid before him,) from adding a few circumstances to enliven plain narrative. That correspondent was a person of too warm a complexion to be satisfied with things merely as they stood in nature, and therefore formed incidents which should have happened to have pleased him in the story. The same ungoverned fancy which pushed that correspondent on, in spite of himself, to relate public and notorious falsehoods, makes the author of the following letter do the same in private; one is a prating, the other a silent, liar.

There is little pursued in the errors of either of these worthies, but mere present amusement: but the folly of him who lets his fancy place him in distant scenes untroubled and uninterrupted, is very much preferable to that of him who is ever forcing a belief, and defending his untruths with new inventions. But I shall hasten to let this liar in soliloquy, who calls himself a castle-builder, describe himself with the same unreservedness as formerly appeared in my correspondent above-mentioned. If a man were to be serious on this subject, he might give very grave admonitions to those who are following any thing in this life, on which they think to place their hearts, and tell them that they are really castle-builders. Fame, glory, wealth, honour, have in the

No. 167.] Tuesday, September 11, 1711. prospect pleasing illusions; but they who

-Fuit haud ignobilis Argis,

Qui se credebat miros audire tragados,

In vacuo lætus sessor plausorque theatro;
Cætera qui vitæ servaret munia recto
More; bonus sane vicinus, amabilis hospes:
Comis in uxorem; posset qui ignoscere servis,
Et signo læso non insanire lagenæ;
Posset qui rupem et puteum vitare patentem,
Hic ubi cognatorum opibus curisque refectus,
Expulit elleboro morbum bilemque meraco,
Et redit ad sese: Pol me occidistis, amici,
Non servastis, ait; cui sic extorta voluptas,
Et demptus per vim mentis gratissimus error.
Her. Lib. 2 Ep. ii. 128.

IMITATED.

There lived in Primo Georgii (they record)
A worthy member, no small fool, a lord:
Who, though the house was up, delighted sate,
Heard, noted, answer'd, as in full debate;
In all but this, a man of sober life,
Fond of his friend, and civil to his wife;
Not quite a madman, though a pasty fell.
And much too wise to walk into a well.

This was probably Mr. John Toland, author of the ife of Milton, whose deistical writings had exposed him to the repeated attacks of the Tatler. There appears to

be another blow aimed at him in No. 234.

come to possess any of them will find they are ingredients towards happiness, to be regarded only in the second place: and that when they are valued in the first degree, they are as disappointing as any of the phantoms in the following letter.

'Sept. 6, 1711.

'MR. SPECTATOR,—I am a fellow of a very odd frame of mind, as you will find by the sequel; and think myself fool enough to deserve a place in your paper. I am unhappily far gone in building, and am one of that species of men who are properly denominated castle-builders, who scorn to be beholden to the earth for a foundation, or dig in the bowels of it for materials, but erect their structures in the most unstable of elements, the air; fancy alone laying the line, marking the extent, and shaping the model. It would be difficult to enumerate what august palaces and stately porticos have grown under my forming imagination, or what verdant meadows and shady

T.

Wednesday, Sept. 12, 1711.

-Pectus præceptis format amicis.

Hor. Lib. 2. Ep. i. 128. Forms the soft bosom with the gentlest art.-Pope. IT would be arrogance to neglect the application of my correspondents so far, as not sometimes to insert their animadversions upon my paper; that of this day shall be therefore wholly composed of the hints which they have sent me.

groves have started into being by the pow-but all architects who display their skill in erful feat of a warm fancy. A castle- the thin element. Such a favour would builder is even just what he pleases, and as oblige me to make my next soliloquy not such I have grasped imaginary sceptres, contain the praises of my dear self, but of and delivered uncontrollable edicts, from a the Spectator, who shall, by complying throne to which conquered nations yielded with this, make me his obliged humble obeisance. I have made I know not how servant, VITRUVIUS.' many inroads into France, and ravaged the very heart of that kingdom; I have dined in the Louvre, and drank champaign at Versailles; and I would have you take notice, I No. 168.] am not only able to vanquish a people already cowed' and accustomed to flight, but I could, Almanzor-like,* drive the British general from the field, were I less a protestant, or had ever been affronted by the confederates. There is no art or profession, whose most celebrated masters I have not eclipsed. Wherever I have afforded my salutary presence, fevers have ceased to burn, and agues to shake the human fabric. When an eloquent fit has been 'MR. SPECTATOR,-I send you this to upon me, an apt gesture and proper ca- congratulate your late choice of a subject, dence has animated each sentence, and gaz for treating on which you deserve public ing crowds have found their passions worked thanks, I mean that on those licensed tyup into rage, or soothed into a calm. I am short, and not very well made; yet upon arm them of their rods, you will certainly rants the school-masters. If you can dissight of a fine woman, I have stretched into have your old age reverenced by all the a proper stature, and killed with a good air that dance before my waking eves, and You may boast that the incomparably wise and mien. These are the gay phantoms young gentlemen of Great Britain who are now between seven and seventeen years. compose my day-dreams. I should be the most contented happy man alive, were the Quintilian and you are of one mind in this chimerical happiness which springs from particular. "Si cui est (says he,) mens tam the paintings of fancy less fleeting and tran-is etiam ad plagas, ut pessima quæque manilliberalis ut objurgatione non corrigatur, sitory. But, alas! it is with grief of mind I tell you, the least breath of wind has often demolished my magnificent edifices, swept away my groves, and left no more trace of them than if they had never been. My exchequer has sunk and vanished by a rap on my door, the salutation of a friend has cost me a whole continent, and in the same moment I have been pulled by the sleeve, my crown has fallen from my head. The ill 'I was bred myself, sir, in a very great consequence of these reveries is inconceivschool, of which the master was a Welchably great, seeing the loss of imaginary pos- man, but certainly descended from a Spansessions makes impressions of real woe. ish family, as plainly appeared from his Besides, bad economy is visible and apparent in builders of invisible mansions. My temper as well as his name. I leave you tenants' advertisements of ruins and dilapí- Welchman ingrafted on a Spaniard would to judge what sort of a school-master a dations often cast a damp on my spirits, make. So very dreadful had he made himeven in the instant when the sun, in all its self to me, that although it is above twenty splendour, gilds my eastern palaces. Add to this the pensive drudgery in building, years since I felt his heavy hand, yet still and constant grasping aerial trowels, dis once a month at least I dream of him, so tracts and shatters the mind, and the fond builder of Babels is often cursed with an incoherent diversity and confusion of thoughts. I do not know to whom I can more properly apply myself for relief from this fan- the business of the school was what I did And yet I may say without vanity, that tastical evil, than to yourself; whom I earn-without great difficulty; and I was not re-. estly implore to accommodate me with a method how to settle my head and cool my master's severity, that once a month, or markably unlucky; and yet such was the brain-pan. A dissertation on castle-building may not only be serviceable to myself, oftener, I suffered as much as would have

* Almanzor is a furious character in Dryden's Conquest of Granada.

cipia, durabitur," i. e. "If any child be of so disingenuous a nature, as not to stand corrected by reproof, he, like the very worst of themselves." And afterwards, "Pudet dislaves, will be hardened even against blows cædendi jure abutantur;" i. e. "I blush to cere in quæ probra nefandi homines isto say how shamefully those wicked men abuse the power

of correction."

strong an impression did he make on my mind. It is a sign he has fully terrified me waking, who still continues to haunt me

sleeping.

* Eton.

+ Dr. Charles Roderick, master of Eton-school, and afterwards provost of King's-college, Cambridge.

satisfied the law of the land for a petty larceny.

are so full of themselves, as to give disturbance to all that are about them. Sometimes you have a set of whisperers who lay their heads together in order to sacrifice every body within their observation; sometimes a set of laughers that keep up an insipid mirth in their own corner, and by their noise and gestures show they have no respect for the rest of the company. You frequently meet with these sets at the opera, the play, the water works, and other public meetings, where the whole business is to draw off the attention of the spectators from the entertainment, and to fix it upon

Many a white and tender hand, which the fond mother had passionately kissed a thousand and a thousand times, have I seen whipped until it was covered with blood; perhaps for smiling, or for going a yard and a half out of a gate, or for writing an o for an A, or an A for an o. These were our great faults! Many a brave and noble spirit has been there broken; others have run from thence and were never heard of afterwards. It is a worthy attempt to undertake the cause of distressed youth; and it is a noble piece of knight-errantry to enter the themselves; and it is to be observed, that list against so many armed pedagogues. It the impertinence is ever loudest when the is pity but we had a set of men, polite in set happens to be made up of three or four their behaviour and method of teaching, females who have got what you call a who should be put into a condition of being, woman's man among them. above flattering or fearing the parents of those they instruct. We might then pos-ple of fortune should learn this behaviour, sibly see learning become a pleasure, and children delighting themselves in that which they now abhor for coming upon such hard terms to them. What would be still a greater happiness arising from the care of such instructors, would be, that we should have no more pedants, nor any bred to learning For preserving therefore the decency who had not genius for it. I am, with the utmost sincerity, sir, your most affectionate humble servant.'

'I am at a loss to know from whom peo

unless it be from the footmen who keep their places at a new play, and are often seen passing away their time in sets at allfours in the face of a full house, and with a perfect disregard to the people of quality sitting on each side of them.

of public assemblies, methinks it would be but reasonable that those who disturb others should pay at least a double price for their places; or rather women of birth and distinction should be informed, that a levity of behaviour in the eyes of people of understanding degrades them below their meanest attendants; and gentlemen should know that a fine coat is a livery, when the person who wears it discovers no higher sense than that of a footman. I am, sir, your most humble servant.'

'Richmond, Sept. 5, 1711. MR. SPECTATOR,-I am a boy of fourteen years of age, and have for this last year been under the tuition of a doctor of divinity, who has taken the school of this place under his care. From the gentleman's great tenderness to me and friendship to my father, I am very happy in learning my book with pleasure. We never leave off our diversions any farther than to 'Bedfordshire, Sept. 1, 1711. salute him at hours of play when he pleases MR. SPECTATOR,-I am one of those to look on. It is impossible for any of us to love our own parents better than we do him. He never gives any of us a harsh word, and we think it the greatest punishment in the world when he will not speak to any of us. My brother and I are both together inditing this letter. He is a year older than I am, but is now ready to break his heart that the doctor has not taken any notice of him these three days. If you please to print this he will see it, and we hope, taking it for my brother's earnest desire to be restored to his favour, he will again smile upon him. Your most obedient servant, T. S.'

whom every body calls a poacher, and sometimes go out to course with a brace of greyhounds, a mastiff, and a spaniel or two; and when I am weary with coursing, and have killed hares enough, go to an alehouse to refresh myself. I beg the favour of you (as you set up for a reformer) to send us word how many dogs you will allow us to go with, how many full pots of ale to drink, and how many hares to kill in a day, and you will do a great piece of service to all the sportsmen. Be quick, then, for the time of coursing is come on. Yours, in haste, ISAAC HEDGEDITCH.'

Sic vita erat: facile omnes perferre ac pati:
Cum quibus erat cunque una, his sese dedere,
Eorum obsequi studiis ; adversus nemini;

'MR. SPECTATOR,-You have represented several sorts of impertinents singly, I No. 169.] Thursday, September 13, 1711. wish you would now proceed and describe some of them in sets. It often happens in public assemblies, that a party who came thither together, or whose impertinences are of an equal pitch, act in concert, and

This was Dr. Nicholas Brady, who assisted Tate in the new version of the Psalms he died rector of Richmond and Clapham, in Surrey, in 1726.

times, was invented by one Mr. Winstanley, and ex

The Water-theatre, a favourite amusement of those

hibited at the lower end of Piccadilly; it consisted of sea gods, goddesses, &c playing and spouting out water, and fire mingled with water; performed every evening between five and six.

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MAN is subject to innumerable pains and sorrows by the very condition of humanity, and yet, as if nature had not sown evils enough in life, we are continually adding grief to grief, and aggravating the common calamity by our cruel treatment of one another. Every man's natural weight of afflictions is still made more heavy by the envy, malice, treachery, or injustice of his neighbour. At the same time that the storm beats upon the whole species, we are falling foul upon one another.

lanthropy or good-nature of his hero, which he tells us he brought into the world with him, and gives many remarkable instances of it in his childhood, as well as in all the several parts of his life. Nay, on his death-bed, he describes him as being pleased, that while his soul returned to him that made it, his body should incorporate with the great mother of all things, and by that means become beneficial to mankind. For which reason, he gives his sons a positive order not to enshrine it in gold or silver, but to lay it in the earth as soon as the life was gone out of it.

An instance of such an overflowing of humanity, such an exuberant love to mankind, could not have entered into the imagination of a writer, who had not a soul filled with great ideas, and a general benevolence

to mankind.

Half the misery of human life might In that celebrated passage of Sallust, be extinguished, would men alleviate the where Cæsar and Cato are placed in such general curse they lie under, by mutual beautiful but opposite lights,† Cæsar's chaoffices of compassion, benevolence and hu-racter is chiefly made up of good-nature, manity. There is nothing therefore which as it showed itself in all its forms towards we ought more to encourage in ourselves his friends or his enemies, his servants or and others, than that disposition of mind dependants, the guilty or the distressed. which in our language goes under the title As for Cato's character, it is rather awful of good-nature, and which I shall choose than amiable. Justice seems most agreefor the subject of this day's speculation. able to the nature of God, and mercy to that of man. A being who has nothing to pardon in himself, may reward every man according to his works; but he whose very best actions must be seen with grains of allowance, cannot be too mild, moderate, and forgiving. For this reason, among all the monstrous characters in human nature, there is none so odious, nor indeed so exquisitely ridiculous, as that of a rigid severe temper in a worthless man.

Good-nature is more agreeable in conversation than wit, and gives a certain air to the countenance which is more amiable than beauty. It shows virtue in the fairest light, takes off in some measure from the deformity of vice, and makes even folly and impertinence supportable.

There is no society or conversation to be kept up in the world without good-nature, or something which must bear its appearance, and supply its place. For this reason mankind have been forced to invent a kind of artificial humanity, which is what we express by the word good-breeding. For if we examine thoroughly the idea of what we call so, we shall find it to be nothing else but an imitation and mimickry of goodnature, or in other terms, affability, complaisance, and easiness of temper reduced

into an art.

This part of good-nature, however, which consists in the pardoning and overlooking of faults, is to be exercised only in doing ourselves justice, and that too in the ordinary commerce and occurrences of life; for in the public administration of justice, mercy to one may be cruelty to others.

It is grown almost into a maxim, that good-natured men are not always men of the most wit. This observation in my These exterior shows and appearances opinion, has no foundation in nature. The of humanity render a man wonderfully po- greatest wits I have conversed with are pular and beloved, when they are founded men eminent for their humanity. I take upon a real good-nature: but without it therefore this remark to have been occaare like hypocrisy in religion, or a bare sioned by two reasons. First, because illform of holiness, which when it is discover-nature among ordinary observers passes for ed, makes a man more detestable than professed impiety.

wit. A spiteful saying gratifies so many little passions in those who hear it, that it Good-nature is generally born with us; generally meets with a good reception. health, prosperity, and kind treatment from The laugh rises upon it, and the man who the world are great cherishers of it where utters it is looked upon as a shrewd sathey find it; but nothing is capable of forcing tirist. This may be one reason, why a it up, where it does not grow of itself. It is great many pleasant companions appear so one of the blessings of a happy constitution, surprisingly dull, when they have endea which education may improve but not pro-voured to be merry in print; the public duce.

Xenophon in the life of his imaginary

prince, whom he describes as a pattern for edit. J. A. Ern. 8vo. tom. i. p. 550. real ones, is always celebrating the phi

Xenoph. De Cyri Instit. lib. viii. cap. vii. sect. 3

† Sallust. Bell. Catil. c. liv.

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