Page images
PDF
EPUB

support the weight and glory of an illustrious name; and, instead of aspiring to imitate his ancestors, he degenerated (if we may presume to measure the degrees of incapacity) below the weakness of his father and his uncle.

E. GIBBON

520. EXPECTATION OF PERFECTION IN THIS WORLD, IRRATIONAL. Of all the things which you can teach people, after teaching them to trust in God, the most important is, to put out of their hearts any expectation of perfection, according to their notions, in this world. This expectation is at the bottom of a great deal of the worldliness we hear so much reprehended, and necessarily gives to little things a most irrational importance. Observe the effect of this disproportionate care for little things in the disputes of A man who does so care, has a garment embroidered with hooks, which catches at every thing that passes by. He finds many more causes of offence than other men: and each offence is a more bitter thing to him than to others. He does not expect to be offended. Poor man! He goes through life wondering that he is the subject of general attack, and that the world is so quarrelsome.

men.

521. SOCIETY AN INSTRUMENT OF HAPPINESS. And as society is in its own nature an instrument of happiness, so is it made much more so by the indigencies and infirmities of men. Man, of all creatures in the world, is least qualified to live alone, because there is no creature that has so many necessities to be relieved. And this I take to be one of the great arts of Providence, to secure mutual amity, and the reciprocation of good turns in the world, it being the nature of indigency, like common danger, to endear men to one another, and make them herd together like fellowsailors in a storm. And this indeed is the true case of mankind; we all sail in one bottom, and in a rough sea, and stand in need of one another's help at every turn, both for the necessities and refreshments of life. And therefore I am very far from commending the undertaking of those Ascetics, that out of a pretence of keeping themselves unspotted from the world, take up their quarters in deserts, and utterly abandon all human society. This is, in short, to say no more of it, to put themselves into an incapacity either of doing

any good to the world, or of receiving any from it; and certainly that can be no desirable state. No, this eremetical way of living is utterly inconsistent with the circumstances and inclinations of human nature; he must be a god, selfsufficient and independent, that is fit for this state of absolute and perfect solitude, and in this rigorous sense, it is not good for man (though in Paradise itself) to be alone.

J. NORRIS

522. VOLVED IN DISTRESS BY CASUALTIES. Sir, I have heard of the casualties which have involved you in extreme distress at this time; and knowing you to be a man of great goodnature, industry and probity have resolved to stand by you. Be of good cheer: the bearer brings with him five thousand pounds, and has my order to answer your drawing as much more on my account. I did this in haste, for fear I should come too late for your relief; but you may value yourself with me to the sum of fifty thousand pounds: for I can very cheerfully run the hazard of being so much less rich. than I am now, to save an honest man whom I love.

LETTER FROM SIR W. SCAWEN TO A MERCHANT IN

SIR R. STEELE

523. A VIRTUOUS OLD AGE PREFERABLE TO THE PLEASURES OF YOUTH. As to all the rational and worthy pleasures of our being, the conscience of a good fame, the contemplation of another life, the respect and commerce of honest men, our capacities for such enjoyments are enlarged by years. While health endures, the latter part of life in the eye of reason is certainly the more eligible. The memory of a wellspent youth gives a peaceable, unmixed, and elegant pleasure to the mind; and to such who are so unfortunate as not to be able to look back on youth with satisfaction, they may give themselves no little consolation that they are under no temptation to repeat their follies and they at present despise them.

SIR R. STEELE

524. WHATEVER we do we should keep up the cheerfulness of our spirits, and never let them sink below an inclination at least to be well-pleased: The way to this, is to keep our bodies in exercise, our minds at ease. That insipid state wherein neither are in vigour, is not to be accounted any

part of our portion of Being. When we are in the satisfaction of some innocent pleasure, or pursuit of some laudable design, we are in the possession of Life, of human Life. Fortune will give us disappointments enough, and nature is attended with infirmities enough, without our adding to the unhappy side of our account by our spleen or illhumour.

SPECTATOR

525. CROMWELL. Cromwell, hitherto, carried himself with that rare dissimulation, (in which sure he was a great master,) that he seemed exceedingly incensed against this insolence of the soldiers. He proposed, 'that the general might be sent down to the army; who,' he said, 'would conjure down this mutinous spirit quickly;' and he was so easily believed, that he himself was sent once or twice to compose the army; where after he had stayed two or three days, he would again return to the house, and complain heavily of the great licence that was got into the army; that, for his own part, by the artifice of his enemies, and of those who desired that the nation should be again imbrued in blood, he was rendered so odious unto them, that they had a purpose to kill him, if, upon some discovery made to him, he had not escaped out of their hands.' And in these, and the like discourses, when he spake of the nation's being to be involved in new troubles, he would weep bitterly, and appear the most afflicted man in the world with the sense of the calamities which were like to ensue.

LORD CLARENDON

526. THE ART OF GOVERNMENT. It is a work good and prudent to be able to guide one man; of larger extended virtue to order well one house: but to govern a nation piously and justly, which only is to say happily, is for a spirit of the greatest size, and divinest mettle. And certainly of no less a mind, nor of less excellence in another way, were they who by writing laid the solid and true foundations of this science, which being of greatest importance to the life of man, yet there is no art that hath been more canker'd in her principles, more soil'd, and slubber'd with aphorisming pedantry, than the art of policy; and that most, where a man would think should least be, in christian commonwealths. They teach

not, that to govern well, is to train up a nation in true wisdom and virtue, and that which springs from thence, magnanimity, (take heed of that) and that which is our beginning, regeneration, and happiest end, likeness to God, which in one word we call Godliness; and that this is the true flourishing of a land, other things follow as the shadow does the substance; to teach thus were mere pulpitry to them. This is the masterpiece of a modern politician, how to qualify and mould the sufferance and subjection of the people to the length of that foot that is to tread on their necks; how rapine may serve itself with the fair and honourable pretences of publick good; how the puny law may be brought under the wardship and controul of lust and will: in which attempt if they fall short, then must a superficial colour of reputation by all means, direct or indirect, be gotten to wash over the unsightly bruise of honour. J. MILTON

HERACLITUS.

527. Heraclitus was no clear, but a confounded philosopher (he being neither a good naturalist nor metaphysician), and therefore it is very hard, or rather impossible, to reconcile his several opinions with one another. Which is a thing the less to be wondered at, because, amongst the rest of his opinions, this also is said to have been one, that contradictories may be true: and his writings were accordingly, as Plato intimates, stuffed with unintelligible, mysterious nonsense. For, first, he is affirmed to have acknowledged no other substance besides body, and to have maintained, that all things did flow, and nothing stand, or remain the same; and yet in his epistles (according to the common opinion of philosophers at that time) doth he suppose the pre- and post-existence of human souls in these words. My soul seemeth to vaticinate and presage its approaching dismission and freedom from this its prison; and looking out, as it were, through the cracks and crannies of this body, to remember those its native regions or countries, from whence descending it was clothed with this flowing mortal body; which is made up and constipated of phlegm, choler, serum, blood, nerves, bones and flesh.'And, not only so, but he also there acknowledgeth the soul's immortality, which Stoics, allowing its permanency after death, for some time at least, and to the next conflagration, did deny.

528. IGNORANCE OF THEIR GREAT BUSINESS, COMMON TO MOST MEN. Thus it is that while ignorance of a man's special business is instantly detected, ignorance of his great business as a man and a citizen is scarcely noticed, because there are so many that share in it. Thus we see every one ready to give an opinion about politics, or about religion, or about morals, because it is said these are every man's business. And so they are, and if people would learn them, as they do their own particular business, all would do well: but never was the proverb more fulfilled which says that every man's business is no man's. It is worse indeed than if it were no man's; for now it is every man's business to meddle in, but no man's to learn. And this general ignorance does not make itself felt directly,-if it did, it were more likely to be remedied; but the process is long and round about; false notions are entertained and acted upon; prejudices and passions multiply; abuses become manifold; difficulty and distress at last press on the whole community; whilst the same ignorance which produced the mischief now helps to confirm it or to aggravate it, because it hinders them from seeing where the root of the whole evil lay, and sets them upon some vain attempt to correct the consequences, while they never think of curing, because they do not suspect the

cause.

T. ARNOLD

529. GULLIVER. When this inventory was read over to the Emperor, he directed me, although in very gentle terms, to deliver up the several particulars. He first called for my scymitar, which I took out, scabbard and all. In the mean time he ordered three thousand of his choicest troops, who then attended him, to surround me at a distance, with their bows and arrows just ready to discharge: but I did not observe it, for mine eyes were wholly fixed upon his Majesty. He then desired me to draw my scymitar, which, although it had got some rust by the sea-water, was in most parts exceeding bright. I did so and immediately all the troops gave a shout between terror and surprise; for the sun shone clear and the reflection dazzled their eyes as I waved the scymitar to and fro in my hand. His Majesty who is a most magnanimous prince, was less daunted than I could expect ; he ordered me to return it into the scabbard, and cast it on the ground as gently as I could, about six feet from the end of my chain. J. SWIFT

« PreviousContinue »