Contents
|
Monday, November 26, 1711 |
Hughes1 |
Nihil largiundo gloriam adeptus est.
Sallust.
translation
My wise and good Friend, Sir
Andrew Freeport
, divides himself almost
equally between the Town and the Country: His Time in Town is given up
to the Publick, and the Management of his private Fortune; and after
every three or four Days spent in this Manner, he retires for as many to
his Seat within a few Miles of the Town, to the Enjoyment of himself,
his Family, and his Friend. Thus Business and Pleasure, or rather, in
Sir
Andrew
, Labour and Rest, recommend each other. They take their
Turns with so quick a Vicissitude, that neither becomes a Habit, or
takes Possession of the whole Man; nor is it possible he should be
surfeited with either. I often see him at our Club in good Humour, and
yet sometimes too with an Air of Care in his Looks: But in his Country
Retreat he is always unbent, and such a Companion as I could desire; and
therefore I seldom fail to make one with him when he is pleased to
invite me.
The other Day, as soon as we were got into his Chariot, two or three
Beggars on each Side hung upon the Doors, and solicited our Charity with
the usual Rhetorick of a sick Wife or Husband at home, three or four
helpless little Children all starving with Cold and Hunger. We were
forced to part with some Money to get rid of their Importunity; and then
we proceeded on our Journey with the Blessings and Acclamations of these
People.
'Well then', says Sir Andrew, 'we go off with the Prayers and good
Wishes of the Beggars, and perhaps too our Healths will be drunk at
the next Ale-house: So all we shall be able to value ourselves upon,
is, that we have promoted the Trade of the Victualler and the Excises
of the Government. But how few Ounces of Wooll do we see upon the
Backs of those poor Creatures? And when they shall next fall in our
Way, they will hardly be better dressd; they must always live in Rags
to look like Objects of Compassion. If their Families too are such as
they are represented, tis certain they cannot be better clothed, and
must be a great deal worse fed: One would think Potatoes should be all
their Bread, and their Drink the pure Element; and then what goodly
Customers are the Farmers like to have for their Wooll, Corn and
Cattle? Such Customers, and such a Consumption, cannot choose but
advance the landed Interest, and hold up the Rents of the Gentlemen.
'But of all Men living, we Merchants, who live by Buying and Selling,
ought never to encourage Beggars. The Goods which we export are indeed
the Product of the lands, but much the greatest Part of their Value is
the Labour of the People: but how much of these People's Labour shall
we export whilst we hire them to sit still? The very Alms they receive
from us, are the Wages of Idleness. I have often thought that no Man
should be permitted to take Relief from the Parish, or to ask it in
the Street, till he has first purchased as much as possible of his own
Livelihood by the Labour of his own Hands; and then the Publick ought
only to be taxed to make good the Deficiency. If this Rule was
strictly observed, we should see every where such a Multitude of new
Labourers, as would in all probability reduce the Prices of all our
Manufactures. It is the very Life of Merchandise to buy cheap and sell
dear. The Merchant ought to make his Outset as cheap as possible, that
he may find the greater Profit upon his Returns; and nothing will
enable him to do this like the Reduction of the Price of Labour upon
all our Manufactures. This too would be the ready Way to increase the
Number of our Foreign Markets: The Abatement of the Price of the
Manufacture would pay for the Carriage of it to more distant
Countries; and this Consequence would be equally beneficial both to
the Landed and Trading Interests. As so great an Addition of labouring
Hands would produce this happy Consequence both to the Merchant and
the Gentle man; our Liberality to common Beggars, and every other
Obstruction to the Increase of Labourers, must be equally pernicious
to both.
Sir
Andrew
then went on to affirm, That the Reduction of the Prices of
our Manufactures by the Addition of so many new Hands, would be no
Inconvenience to any Man: But observing I was something startled at the
Assertion, he made a short Pause, and then resumed the Discourse.
'It
may seem, says he, a Paradox, that the Price of Labour should be reduced
without an Abatement of Wages, or that Wages can be abated without any
Inconvenience to the Labourer, and yet nothing is more certain than that
both those Things may happen. The Wages of the Labourers make the
greatest Part of the Price of every Thing that is useful; and if in
Proportion with the Wages the Prices of all other Things should be
abated, every Labourer with less Wages would be still able to purchase
as many Necessaries of Life; where then would be the Inconvenience? But
the Price of Labour may be reduced by the Addition of more Hands to a
Manufacture, and yet the Wages of Persons remain as high as ever.
The
admirable Sir William Petty
2 has given Examples of
this in some of his Writings: One of them, as I remember, is that of a
Watch, which I shall endeavour to explain so as shall suit my present
Purpose. It is certain that a single Watch could not be made so cheap in
Proportion by one only Man, as a hundred Watches by a hundred; for as
there is vast Variety in the Work, no one Person could equally suit
himself to all the Parts of it; the Manufacture would be tedious, and at
last but clumsily performed: But if an hundred Watches were to be made
by a hundred Men, the Cases may be assigned to one, the Dials to
another, the Wheels to another, the Springs to another, and every other
Part to a proper Artist; as there would be no need of perplexing any one
Person with too much Variety, every one would be able to perform his
single Part with greater Skill and Expedition; and the hundred Watches
would be finished in one fourth Part of the Time of the first one, and
every one of them at one fourth Part of the Cost, tho' the Wages of
every Man were equal. The Reduction of the Price of the Manufacture
would increase the Demand of it, all the same Hands would be still
employed and as well paid. The same Rule will hold in the Clothing, the
Shipping, and all the other Trades whatsoever. And thus an Addition of
Hands to our Manufactures will only reduce the Price of them; the
Labourer will still have as much Wages, and will consequently be enabled
to purchase more Conveniencies of Life; so that every Interest in the
Nation would receive a Benefit from the Increase of our Working People.
Besides, I see no Occasion for this Charity to common Beggars, since
every Beggar is an Inhabitant of a Parish, and every Parish is taxed
to the Maintenance of their own Poor
3.
For my own part, I cannot be mightily pleased with the Laws which have
done this, which have provided better to feed than employ the Poor. We
have a Tradition from our Forefathers, that after the first of those
Laws was made, they were insulted with that famous Song;
Hang Sorrow, and cast away Care,
The Parish is bound to find us, &c.
And if we will be so good-natured as to maintain them without Work,
they can do no less in Return than sing us
The Merry Beggars.
What then? Am I against all Acts of Charity? God forbid! I know of no
Virtue in the Gospel that is in more pathetical Expressions
recommended to our Practice.
I was hungry and ye4 gave me no
Meat, thirsty and ye gave me no Drink, naked and ye clothed me not, a
Stranger and ye took me not in, sick and in prison and ye visited me
not.
Our Blessed Saviour treats the Exercise or Neglect of Charity
towards a poor Man, as the Performance or Breach of this Duty towards
himself. I shall endeavour to obey the Will of my Lord and Master: And
therefore if an industrious Man shall submit to the hardest Labour and
coarsest Fare, rather than endure the Shame of taking Relief from the
Parish, or asking it in the Street, this is the Hungry, the Thirsty,
the Naked; and I ought to believe, if any Man is come hither for
Shelter against Persecution or Oppression, this is the Stranger, and I
ought to take him in. If any Countryman of our own is fallen into the
Hands of Infidels, and lives in a State of miserable Captivity, this
is the Man in Prison, and I should contribute to his Ransom. I ought
to give to an Hospital of Invalids, to recover as many useful Subjects
as I can; but I shall bestow none of my Bounties upon an Alms-house of
idle People; and for the same Reason I should not think it a Reproach
to me if I had withheld my Charity from those common Beggars. But we
prescribe better Rules than we are able to practise; we are ashamed
not to give into the mistaken Customs of our Country: But at the same
time, I cannot but think it a Reproach worse than that of common
Swearing, that the Idle and the Abandoned are suffered in the Name of
Heaven and all that is sacred, to extort from Christian and tender
Minds a Supply to a profligate Way of Life, that is always to be
supported, but never
relieved.
Z
.
Or Henry Martyn?
Surveyor-general of Ireland to Charles II. See his
Discourse of Taxes
(1689).
Our idle poor till the time of Henry VIII. lived upon alms.
After the dissolution of the monasteries experiments were made for their
care, and by a statute 43 Eliz. overseers were appointed and Parishes
charged to maintain their helpless poor and find work for the sturdy. In
Queen Anne's time the Poor Law had been made more intricate and
troublesome by the legislation on the subject that had been attempted
after the Restoration.
you
throughout, and in first reprint.
X.
Contents
|
Tuesday, November 27, 1711 |
Addison |
—Tanquam hec sint nostri medicina furoris,
Aut Deus ille malis hominum mitescere discat.
Virg.
translation
I shall, in this Paper, discharge myself of the Promise I have made to
the Publick, by obliging them with a Translation of the little
Greek
Manuscript, which is said to have been a Piece of those Records that
were preserved in the Temple of
Apollo
, upon the Promontory of
Leucate
: It is a short History of the Lover's Leap, and is inscribed,
An Account of Persons Male and Female, who offered up their Vows in the
Temple of the
Pythian Apollo,
in the Forty sixth Olympiad, and leaped
from the Promontory of
Leucate
into the
Ionian Sea,
in order to cure
themselves of the Passion of Love
.
This Account is very dry in many Parts, as only mentioning the Name of
the Lover who leaped, the Person he leaped for, and relating, in short,
that he was either cured, or killed, or maimed by the Fall. It indeed
gives the Names of so many who died by it, that it would have looked
like a Bill of Mortality, had I translated it at full length; I have
therefore made an Abridgment of it, and only extracted such particular
Passages as have something extraordinary, either in the Case, or in the
Cure, or in the Fate of the Person who is mentioned in it. After this
short Preface take the Account as follows.
Battus, the Son of
Menalcas the
Sicilian, leaped for
Bombyca
the Musician: Got rid of his Passion with the Loss of his Right Leg
and Arm, which were broken in the Fall.
Melissa, in Love with
Daphnis, very much bruised, but escaped with
Life.
Cynisca, the Wife of
Æschines, being in Love with
Lycus; and
Æschines her Husband being in Love with
Eurilla; (which had made
this married Couple very uneasy to one another for several Years) both
the Husband and the Wife took the Leap by Consent; they both of them
escaped, and have lived very happily together ever since.
Larissa, a Virgin of
Thessaly, deserted by
Plexippus, after a
Courtship of three Years; she stood upon the Brow of the Promontory
for some time, and after having thrown down a Ring, a Bracelet, and a
little Picture, with other Presents which she had received from
Plexippus, she threw her self into the Sea, and was taken up alive.
N. B. Larissa, before she leaped, made an Offering of a Silver
Cupid in the Temple of
Apollo.
Simaetha, in Love with
Daphnis the
Myndian, perished in the
Fall.
Charixus, the Brother of
Sappho, in Love with
Rhodope the
Courtesan, having spent his whole Estate upon her, was advised by his
Sister to leap in the Beginning of his Amour, but would not hearken to
her till he was reduced to his last Talent; being forsaken by
Rhodope, at length resolved to take the Leap. Perished in it.
Aridæus, a beautiful Youth of
Epirus, in Love with
Praxinoe,
the Wife of
Thespis, escaped without Damage, saving only that two of
his Fore-Teeth were struck out and his Nose a little flatted.
Cleora, a Widow of
Ephesus, being inconsolable for the Death of
her Husband, was resolved to take this Leap in order to get rid of her
Passion for his Memory; but being arrived at the Promontory, she there
met with
Dimmachus the
Miletian, and after a short Conversation
with him, laid aside the Thoughts of her Leap, and married him in the
Temple of
Apollo.
N. B. Her Widow's Weeds are still to be seen hanging up in the
Western Corner of the Temple.
Olphis, the Fisherman, having received a Box on the Ear from
Thestylis the Day before, and being determined to have no more to do
with her, leaped, and escaped with Life.
Atalanta, an old Maid, whose Cruelty had several Years before driven
two or three despairing Lovers to this Leap; being now in the fifty
fifth Year of her Age, and in Love with an Officer of
Sparta, broke
her Neck in the Fall.
Hipparchus being passionately fond of his own Wife who was enamoured
of
Bathyllus, leaped, and died of his Fall; upon which his Wife
married her Gallant.
Tettyx, the Dancing-Master, in Love with
Olympia an Athenian
Matron, threw himself from the Rock with great Agility, but was
crippled in the Fall.
Diagoras, the Usurer, in Love with his Cook-Maid; he peeped several
times over the Precipice, but his Heart misgiving him, he went back,
and married her that Evening.
Cinædus, after having entered his own Name in the Pythian Records,
being asked the Name of the Person whom he leaped for, and being
ashamed to discover it, he was set aside, and not suffered to leap.
Eunica, a Maid of
Paphos, aged Nineteen, in Love with
Eurybates.
Hurt in the Fall, but recovered.
N. B. This was her second Time of Leaping.
Hesperus, a young Man of
Tarentum, in Love with his Master's
Daughter. Drowned, the Boats not coming in soon enough to his Relief.
Sappho, the
Lesbian, in Love with
Phaon, arrived at the Temple
of
Apollo, habited like a Bride in Garments as white as Snow. She
wore a Garland of Myrtle on her Head, and carried in her Hand the
little Musical Instrument of her own Invention. After having sung an
Hymn to
Apollo, she hung up her Garland on one Side of his Altar,
and her Harp on the other.
She then tuck'd up her Vestments, like a
Spartan Virgin, and amidst thousands of Spectators, who were anxious
for her Safety, and offered up Vows for her Deliverance,
marched1
directly forwards to the utmost Summit of the Promontory, where after
having repeated a Stanza of her own Verses, which we could not hear,
she threw herself off the Rock with such an Intrepidity as was never
before observed in any who had attempted that dangerous Leap. Many who
were present related, that they saw her fall into the Sea, from whence
she never rose again; tho' there were others who affirmed, that she
never came to the Bottom of her Leap, but that she was changed into a
Swan as she fell, and that they saw her hovering in the Air under that
Shape. But whether or no the Whiteness and Fluttering of her Garments
might not deceive those who looked upon her, or whether she might not
really be metamorphosed into that musical and melancholy Bird, is
still a Doubt among the
Lesbians.
Alcæus, the famous
Lyrick Poet, who had for some time been
passionately in Love with
Sappho, arrived at the Promontory of
Leucate that very Evening, in order to take the Leap upon her
Account; but hearing that
Sappho had been there before him, and that
her Body could be no where found, he very generously lamented her
Fall, and is said to have written his hundred and twenty fifth Ode
upon that Occasion.
| Leaped in this Olympiad |
|
|
2502 |
|
Males |
124 |
|
|
Females |
126 |
|
| Cured |
|
|
1203 |
|
Males |
51 |
|
|
Females |
69 |
|
C.
she marched
350
, and in first reprint.
150
, corrected by an Erratum.
Contents
|
Wednesday, November 28, 1711 |
Steele |
You very often hear People, after a Story has been told with some
entertaining Circumstances, tell it over again with Particulars that
destroy the Jest, but give Light into the Truth of the Narration. This
sort of Veracity, though it is impertinent, has something amiable in it,
because it proceeds from the Love of Truth, even in frivolous Occasions.
If such honest Amendments do not promise an agreeable Companion, they do
a sincere Friend; for which Reason one should allow them so much of our
Time, if we fall into their Company, as to set us right in Matters that
can do us no manner of Harm, whether the Facts be one Way or the other.
Lies which are told out of Arrogance and Ostentation a Man should detect
in his own Defence, because he should not be triumphed over; Lies which
are told out of Malice he should expose, both for his own sake and that
of the rest of Mankind, because every Man should rise against a common
Enemy: But the officious Liar many have argued is to be excused, because
it does some Man good, and no Man hurt. The Man who made more than
ordinary speed from a Fight in which the
Athenians
were beaten, and
told them they had obtained a complete Victory, and put the whole City
into the utmost Joy and Exultation, was check'd by the Magistrates for
his Falshood; but excused himself by saying,
O Athenians!
am I your
Enemy because I gave you two happy Days? This Fellow did to a whole
People what an Acquaintance of mine does every Day he lives in some
eminent Degree to particular Persons. He is ever lying People into good
Humour, and, as
Plato
said, it was allowable in Physicians to lie to
their Patients to keep up their Spirits, I am half doubtful whether my
Friend's Behaviour is not as excusable. His Manner is to express himself
surprised at the Chearful Countenance of a Man whom he observes
diffident of himself; and generally by that means makes his Lie a Truth.
will, as if he did not know any
thing
of the Circumstance, ask
one whom he knows at Variance with another, what is the meaning that Mr.
such a one, naming his Adversary, does not applaud him with that
Heartiness which formerly he has heard him? He said indeed, (continues
he) I would rather have that Man for my Friend than any Man in
England
; but for an Enemy—This melts the Person he talks to, who
expected nothing but downright Raillery from that Side. According as he
sees his Practices succeeded, he goes to the opposite Party, and tells
him, he cannot imagine how it happens that some People know one another
so little; you spoke with so much Coldness of a Gentleman who said more
Good of you, than, let me tell you, any Man living deserves. The Success
of one of these Incidents was, that the next time that one of the
Adversaries spied the other, he hems after him in the publick Street,
and they must crack a Bottle at the next Tavern, that used to turn out
of the other's Way to avoid one another's Eyeshot. He will tell one
Beauty she was commended by another, nay, he will say she gave the Woman
he speaks to, the Preference in a Particular for which she her self is
admired. The pleasantest Confusion imaginable is made through the whole
Town by my Friend's indirect Offices; you shall have a Visit returned
after half a Year's Absence, and mutual Railing at each other every Day
of that Time. They meet with a thousand Lamentations for so long a
Separation, each Party naming herself for the greater Delinquent, if the
other can possibly be so good as to forgive her, which she has no Reason
in the World, but from the Knowledge of her Goodness, to hope for. Very
often a whole Train of Railers of each Side tire their Horses in setting
Matters right which they have said during the War between the Parties;
and a whole Circle of Acquaintance are put into a thousand pleasing
Passions and Sentiments, instead of the Pangs of Anger, Envy,
Detraction, and Malice.
To the
Spectator.
Devonshire, Nov. 14, 1711.
Sir,
There arrived in this Neighbourhood two Days ago one of your gay
Gentlemen of the Town, who being attended at his Entry with a Servant
of his own, besides a Countryman he had taken up for a Guide, excited
the Curiosity of the Village to learn whence and what he might be. The
Countryman (to whom they applied as most easy of Access) knew little
more than that the Gentleman came from
London to travel and see
Fashions, and was, as he heard say, a Free-thinker: What Religion that
might be, he could not tell; and for his own Part, if they had not
told him the Man was a Free-thinker, he should have guessed, by his
way of talking, he was little better than a Heathen; excepting only
that he had been a good Gentleman to him, and made him drunk twice in
one Day, over and above what they had bargained for.
I do not look upon the Simplicity of this, and several odd Inquiries
with which I shall not trouble you to be wondered at, much less can I
think that our Youths of fine Wit, and enlarged Understandings, have
any Reason to laugh. There is no Necessity that every Squire in
Great
Britain should know what the Word Free-thinker stands for; but it
were much to be wished, that they who value themselves upon that
conceited Title were a little better instructed in what it ought to
stand for; and that they would not perswade themselves a Man is really
and truly a Free-thinker in any tolerable Sense, meerly by virtue of
his being an Atheist, or an Infidel of any other Distinction. It may
be doubted, with good Reason, whether there ever was in Nature a more
abject, slavish, and bigotted Generation than the Tribe of
Beaux
Esprits, at present so prevailing in this Island. Their Pretension to
be Free-thinkers, is no other than Rakes have to be Free-livers, and
Savages to be Free-men, that is, they can think whatever they have a
Mind to, and give themselves up to whatever Conceit the Extravagancy
of their Inclination, or their Fancy, shall suggest; they can think as
wildly as they talk and act, and will not endure that their Wit should
be controuled by such formal Things as Decency and common Sense:
Deduction, Coherence, Consistency, and all the Rules of Reason they
accordingly disdain, as too precise and mechanical for Men of a
liberal Education.
This, as far as I could ever learn from their Writings, or my own
Observation, is a true Account of the
British Free-thinker.
Our
Visitant here, who gave occasion to this Paper, has brought with him a
new System of common Sense, the Particulars of which I am not yet
acquainted with, but will lose no Opportunity of informing my self
whether it contain any
thing3 worth Mr.
Spectator'S Notice. In
the mean time, Sir, I cannot but think it would be for the good of
Mankind, if you would take this Subject into your own Consideration,
and convince the hopeful Youth of our Nation, that Licentiousness is
not Freedom; or, if such a Paradox will not be understood, that a
Prejudice towards Atheism is not Impartiality.
I am, Sir, Your most humble Servant,
Philonous.
Splendide mendax.
Hor.
think
think
Contents
|
Thursday, November 29, 1711 |
Addison |
There is nothing which lies more within the Province of a Spectator than
publick Shows and Diversions; and as among these there are none which
can pretend to vie with those elegant Entertainments that are exhibited
in our Theatres, I think it particularly incumbent on me to take Notice
of every thing that is remarkable in such numerous and refined
Assemblies.
It is observed, that of late Years there has been a certain Person in
the upper Gallery of the Playhouse, who when he is pleased with any
Thing that is acted upon the Stage, expresses his Approbation by a loud
Knock upon the Benches or the Wainscot, which may be heard over the
whole Theatre. This Person is commonly known by the Name of the
Trunk-maker in the upper Gallery
. Whether it be, that the Blow he
gives on these Occasions resembles that which is often heard in the
Shops of such Artizans, or that he was supposed to have been a real
Trunk-maker, who after the finishing of his Day's Work used to unbend
his Mind at these publick Diversions with his Hammer in his Hand, I
cannot certainly tell. There are some, I know, who have been foolish
enough to imagine it is a Spirit which haunts the upper Gallery, and
from Time to Time makes those strange Noises; and the rather, because he
is observed to be louder than ordinary every Time the Ghost of
Hamlet
appears. Others have reported, that it is a dumb Man, who has chosen
this Way of uttering himself when he is transported with any Thing he
sees or hears. Others will have it to be the Playhouse Thunderer, that
exerts himself after this Manner in the upper Gallery, when he has
nothing to do upon the Roof.
But having made it my Business to get the best Information I could in a
Matter of this Moment, I find that the Trunk-maker, as he is commonly
called, is a large black Man, whom no body knows. He generally leans
forward on a huge Oaken Plant with great Attention to every thing that
passes upon the Stage. He is never seen to smile; but upon hearing any
thing that pleases him, he takes up his Staff with both Hands, and lays
it upon the next Piece of Timber that stands in his Way with exceeding
Vehemence: After which, he composes himself in his former Posture, till
such Time as something new sets him again at Work.
It has been observed, his Blow is so well timed, that the most judicious
Critick could never except against it. As soon as any shining Thought is
expressed in the Poet, or any uncommon Grace appears in the Actor, he
smites the Bench or Wainscot. If the Audience does not concur with him,
he smites a second Time, and if the Audience is not yet awaked, looks
round him with great Wrath, and repeats the Blow a third Time, which
never fails to produce the Clap. He sometimes lets the Audience begin
the Clap of themselves, and at the Conclusion of their Applause ratifies
it with a single Thwack.
He is of so great Use to the Play-house, that it is said a former
Director of it, upon his not being able to pay his Attendance by reason
of Sickness, kept one in Pay to officiate for him till such time as he
recovered; but the Person so employed, tho' he laid about him with
incredible Violence, did it in such wrong Places, that the Audience soon
found out that it was not their old Friend the Trunk-maker.