Spanish
Proverb,
If there
were neither Fools nor Knaves in the World, all People would be of one
Mind
.
For my own part, I could heartily wish that all honest Men would enter
into an Association, for the Support of one another against the
Endeavours of those whom they ought to look upon as their Common
Enemies, whatsoever Side they may belong to.
there such an honest
Body of Neutral
Forces, we should never see the worst of Men in
great Figures of Life, because they are useful to a Party; nor the best
unregarded, because they are above practising those Methods which would
be grateful to their Faction. We should then single every Criminal out
of the Herd, and hunt him down, however formidable and overgrown he
might appear: On the contrary, we should shelter distressed Innocence,
and defend Virtue, however beset with Contempt or Ridicule, Envy or
Defamation. In short, we should not any longer regard our Fellow
Subjects as Whigs or Tories, but should make the Man of Merit our
Friend, and the Villain our Enemy.
C.
Among his
Moral Essays
is that showing
How one shall be
helped by Enemies.
In his
Lives
, also, Plutarch applauds in Pericles
the noble sentiment which led him to think it his most excellent
attainment never to have given way to envy or anger, notwithstanding the
greatness of his power, nor to have nourished an implacable hatred
against his greatest foe. This, he says, was his only real title to the
name of Olympius.
Luke
vi. 27-32.
Characters altogether different
a very
People
Neutral Body of
Contents
Contents p.5
|
Wednesday, July 25, 1711 |
Addison |
Tros Rutulusve fuat, nullo discrimine habebo.
Virg.
In my Yesterday's Paper I proposed, that the honest Men of all Parties
should enter into a kind of Association for the Defence of one another,
and
the
Confusion of their common Enemies. As it is designed this
neutral Body should act with a Regard to nothing but Truth and Equity,
and divest themselves of the little Heats and Prepossessions that cleave
to Parties of all Kinds, I have prepared for them the following Form of
an Association, which may express their Intentions in the most plain and
simple Manner.
We whose Names are hereunto subscribed do solemnly declare,
That we do in our Consciences believe two and two make four;
and that we shall adjudge any Man whatsoever to be our Enemy
who endeavours to persuade us to the contrary. We are likewise
ready to maintain, with the Hazard of all that is near and dear
to us, That six is less than seven in all Times and all Places,
and that ten will not be more three Years hence than it is at
present. We do also firmly declare, That it is our Resolution as
long as we live to call Black black, and White white. And we
shall upon all Occasions oppose such Persons that upon any Day
of the Year shall call Black white, or White black, with the utmost
Peril of our Lives and Fortunes.
Were there such a Combination of honest Men, who without any Regard to
Places would endeavour to extirpate all such furious Zealots as would
sacrifice one half of their Country to the Passion and Interest of the
other; as also such infamous Hypocrites, that are for promoting their
own Advantage, under Colour of the Publick Good; with all the profligate
immoral Retainers to each Side, that have nothing to recommend them but
an implicit Submission to their Leaders; we should soon see that furious
Party-Spirit extinguished, which may in time expose us to the Derision
and Contempt of all the Nations about us.
A Member of this Society, that would thus carefully employ himself in
making Room for Merit, by throwing down the worthless and depraved Part
of Mankind from those conspicuous Stations of Life to which they have
been sometimes advanced, and all this without any Regard to his private
Interest, would be no small Benefactor to his Country.
remember to have read in
Diodorus Siculus
an Account of a
very active little Animal, which I think he calls the
Ichneumon
,
that makes it the whole Business of his Life to break the Eggs of the
Crocodile, which he is always in search after. This instinct is the more
remarkable, because the
Ichneumon
never feeds upon the Eggs he
has broken, nor in any other Way finds his Account in them. Were it not
for the incessant Labours of this industrious Animal,
Ægypt
, says
the Historian, would be over-run with Crocodiles: for the
Ægyptians
are so far from destroying those pernicious Creatures,
that they worship them as Gods.
If we look into the Behaviour of ordinary Partizans, we shall find them
far from resembling this disinterested Animal; and rather acting after
the Example of the wild
Tartars
, who are ambitious of destroying
a Man of the most extraordinary Parts and Accomplishments, as thinking
that upon his Decease the same Talents, whatever Post they qualified him
for, enter of course into his Destroyer.
As in the whole Train of my Speculations, I have endeavoured as much as
I am able to extinguish that pernicious Spirit of Passion and Prejudice,
which rages with the same Violence in all Parties, I am still the more
desirous of doing some Good in this Particular, because I observe that
the Spirit of Party reigns more in the Country than in the Town. It here
contracts a kind of Brutality and rustick Fierceness, to which Men of a
politer Conversation are wholly Strangers. It extends it self even to
the Return of the Bow and the Hat; and at the same time that the Heads
of Parties preserve toward one another an outward Shew of Good-breeding,
and keep up a perpetual Intercourse of Civilities, their Tools that are
dispersed in these outlying Parts will not so much as mingle together at
a Cockmatch. This Humour fills the Country with several periodical
Meetings of Whig Jockies and Tory Fox-hunters; not to mention the
innumerable Curses, Frowns, and Whispers it produces at a
Quarter-Sessions.
I do not know whether I have observed in any of my former Papers, that
my Friends Sir
Roger De Coverley
and Sir
Andrew Freeport
are of
different Principles, the first of them inclined to the
landed
and the other to the
monyed
Interest. This Humour is so moderate
in each of them, that it proceeds no farther than to an agreeable
Raillery, which very often diverts the rest of the Club. I find however
that the Knight is a much stronger Tory in the Country than in Town,
which, as he has told me in my Ear, is absolutely necessary for the
keeping up his Interest. In all our Journey from
London
to his House
we did not so much as bait at a Whig Inn; or if by chance the Coachman
stopped at a wrong Place, one of Sir
Roger's
Servants would ride up to
his Master full speed, and whisper to him that the Master of the House
was against such an one in the last Election. This often betray'd us
into hard Beds and bad Chear; for we were not so inquisitive about the
Inn as the Inn-keeper; and, provided our Landlord's Principles were
sound, did not take any Notice of the Staleness of his Provisions. This
I found still the more inconvenient, because the better the Host was,
the worse generally were his Accommodations; the Fellow knowing very
well, that those who were his Friends would take up with coarse Diet and
an hard Lodging. For these Reasons, all the while I was upon the Road I
dreaded entering into an House of any one that Sir Roger had applauded
for an honest Man.
Since my Stay at Sir
Roger's
in the Country, I daily find more Instances
of this narrow Party-Humour. Being upon a Bowling-green at a
Neighbouring Market-Town the other Day, (for that is the Place where the
Gentlemen of one Side meet once a Week) I observed a Stranger among them
of a better Presence and genteeler Behaviour than ordinary; but was much
surprised, that notwithstanding he was a very fair
Bettor
, no
Body would take him up. But upon Enquiry I found, that he was one who
had given a disagreeable Vote in a former Parliament, for which Reason
there was not a Man upon that Bowling-green who would have so much
Correspondence with him as to Win his Money of him.
other Instances of this Nature, I must not omit one which
concerns
my self.
Will. Wimble
the other Day relating
several strange Stories that he had picked up no Body knows where of a
certain great Man; and upon my staring at him, as one that was surprised
to hear such things in the Country
which
had never been so much as
whispered in the Town,
Will
. stopped short in the Thread of his
Discourse, and after Dinner asked my Friend Sir
Roger
in his Ear
if he was sure that I was not a Fanatick.
It gives me a serious Concern to see such a Spirit of Dissention in the
Country; not only as it destroys Virtue and Common Sense, and renders us
in a Manner Barbarians towards one another, but as it perpetuates our
Animosities, widens our Breaches, and transmits our present Passions and
Prejudices to our Posterity. For my own Part, I am sometimes afraid that
I discover the Seeds of a Civil War in these our Divisions; and
therefore cannot but bewail, as in their first Principles, the Miseries
and Calamities of our Children.
C.
Bibliothecæ Historicæ
, Lib. i. § 87.
concerns to
that
Contents
Contents p.5
|
Thursday, July 26, 1711 |
Addison |
Quantum est in rebus Inane?
Pers.
It is our Custom at Sir
Roger's
, upon the coming in of the Post, to sit
about a Pot of Coffee, and hear the old Knight read
Dyer's
Letter; which he does with his Spectacles upon his Nose, and in an
audible Voice, smiling very often at those little Strokes of Satyr which
are so frequent in the Writings of that Author. I afterwards communicate
to the Knight such Packets as I receive under the Quality of
Spectator
.
The following Letter chancing to please him more than ordinary, I shall
publish it at his Request.
Mr.
Spectator,
'You have diverted the Town almost a whole Month at the Expence of the
Country, it is now high time that you should give the Country their
Revenge. Since your withdrawing from this Place, the Fair Sex are run
into great Extravagancies. Their Petticoats, which began to heave and
swell before you left us, are now blown up into a most enormous
Concave, and rise every Day more and more: In short, Sir, since our
Women know themselves to be out of the Eye of the
Spectator, they will
be kept within no Compass. You praised them a little too soon, for the
Modesty of their Head-Dresses; for as the Humour of a sick Person is
often driven out of one Limb into another, their Superfluity of
Ornaments, instead of being entirely Banished, seems only fallen from
their Heads upon their lower Parts. What they have lost in Height they
make up in Breadth, and contrary to all Rules of Architecture widen
the Foundations at the same time that they shorten the Superstructure.
Were they, like
Spanish Jennets, to impregnate by the Wind, they
could not have thought on a more proper Invention. But as we do not
yet hear any particular Use in this Petticoat, or that it contains any
thing more than what was supposed to be in those of Scantier Make, we
are wonderfully at a loss about it.
The Women give out, in Defence of these wide Bottoms, that they are
Airy, and very proper for the Season; but this I look upon to be only
a Pretence, and a piece of Art, for it is well known we have not had a
more moderate Summer these many Years, so that it is certain the Heat
they complain of cannot be in the Weather: Besides, I would fain ask
these tender constitutioned Ladies, why they should require more
Cooling than their Mothers before them.
I find several Speculative Persons are of Opinion that our Sex has of
late Years been very sawcy, and that the Hoop Petticoat is made use of
to keep us at a Distance. It is most certain that a Woman's Honour
cannot be better entrenched than after this manner, in Circle within
Circle, amidst such a Variety of Out-works and Lines of
Circumvallation.
A Female who is thus invested in Whale-Bone is
sufficiently secured against the Approaches of an ill-bred Fellow, who
might as well think of Sir
George Etherege's way of making Love
in a Tub
1, as in the midst of so many Hoops.
Among these various Conjectures, there are Men of Superstitious
tempers, who look upon the Hoop Petticoat as a kind of Prodigy. Some
will have it that it portends the Downfal of the
French King,
and observe that the Farthingale appeared in
England a little
before the Ruin of the
Spanish Monarchy. Others are of Opinion
that it foretels Battle and Bloodshed, and believe it of the same
Prognostication as the Tail of a Blazing Star. For my part, I am apt
to think it is a Sign that Multitudes are coming into the World rather
than going out of it.
The first time I saw a Lady dressed in one of these Petticoats, I
could not forbear blaming her in my own Thoughts for walking abroad
when she was
so near her Time, but soon recovered myself out of
my Error, when I found all the Modish Part of the Sex as
far
gone as her self. It is generally thought some crafty Women have
thus betrayed their Companions into Hoops, that they might make them
accessory to their own Concealments, and by that means escape the
Censure of the World; as wary Generals have sometimes dressed two or
three Dozen of their Friends in their own Habit, that they might not
draw upon themselves any particular Attacks of the Enemy. The
strutting Petticoat smooths all Distinctions, levels the Mother with
the Daughter, and sets Maids and Matrons, Wives and Widows, upon the
same Bottom. In the mean while I cannot but be troubled to see so many
well-shaped innocent Virgins bloated up, and waddling up and down like
big-bellied Women.
Should this Fashion get among the ordinary People our publick Ways
would be so crowded that we should want Street-room. Several
Congregations of the best Fashion find themselves already very much
streightened, and if the Mode encrease I wish it may not drive many
ordinary Women into Meetings and Conventicles. Should our Sex at the
same time take it into their Heads to wear Trunk Breeches (as who
knows what their Indignation at this Female Treatment may drive them
to) a Man and his Wife would fill a whole Pew.
You know, Sir, it is recorded of Alexander the Great
2, that in his
Indian Expedition he buried several Suits of Armour, which by his
Direction were made much too big for any of his Soldiers, in order to
give Posterity an extraordinary Idea of him, and make them believe he
had commanded an Army of Giants. I am persuaded that if one of the
present Petticoats happen to be hung up in any Repository of
Curiosities, it will lead into the same Error the Generations that lie
some Removes from us: unless we can believe our Posterity will think
so disrespectfully of their Great Grand-Mothers, that they made
themselves Monstrous to appear Amiable.
When I survey this new-fashioned
Rotonda in all its Parts, I cannot
but think of the old Philosopher, who after having entered into an
Egyptian Temple, and looked about for the Idol of the Place, at
length discovered a little Black Monkey Enshrined in the midst of it,
upon which he could not forbear crying out, (to the great Scandal of
the Worshippers) What a magnificent Palace is here for such a
Ridiculous Inhabitant!
Though you have taken a Resolution, in one of your Papers, to avoid
descending to Particularities of Dress, I believe you will not think
it below you, on so extraordinary an Occasion, to Unhoop the Fair Sex,
and cure this fashionable Tympany that is got among them. I am apt to
think the Petticoat will shrink of its own accord at your first coming
to Town; at least a Touch of your Pen will make it contract it self,
like the sensitive Plant, and by that means oblige several who are
either terrified or astonished at this portentous Novelty, and among
the rest,
Your humble Servant, &c.
C.
Love in a Tub
, Act iv, sc, 6.
In Plutarch's
Life
of him.
Contents
Contents p.5
|
Friday, July 27, 1711 |
Addison |
... Concordia discors.
Lucan.
Women in their Nature are much more gay and joyous than Men; whether it
be that their Blood is more refined, their Fibres more delicate, and
their animal Spirits more light and volatile; or whether, as some have
imagined, there may not be a kind of Sex in the very Soul, I shall not
pretend to determine. As Vivacity is the Gift of Women, Gravity is that
of Men. They should each of them therefore keep a Watch upon the
particular Biass which Nature has fixed in their Mind, that it may not
draw
too much, and lead them out of the Paths of Reason. This will
certainly happen, if the one in every Word and Action affects the
Character of being rigid and severe, and the other of being brisk and
airy. Men should beware of being captivated by a kind of savage
Philosophy, Women by a thoughtless Gallantry. Where these Precautions
are not observed, the Man often degenerates into a Cynick, the Woman
into a Coquet; the Man grows sullen and morose, the Woman impertinent
and fantastical.
By what I have said, we may conclude, Men and Women were made as
Counterparts to one another, that the Pains and Anxieties of the Husband
might be relieved by the Sprightliness and good Humour of the Wife. When
these are rightly tempered, Care and Chearfulness go Hand in Hand; and
the Family, like a Ship that is duly trimmed, wants neither Sail nor
Ballast.
Natural Historians observe, (for whilst I am in the Country I must fetch
my Allusions from thence) That only the Male Birds have Voices; That
their Songs begin a little before Breeding-time, and end a little after;
That whilst the Hen is covering her Eggs, the Male generally takes his
Stand upon a Neighbouring Bough within her Hearing; and by that means
amuses and diverts her with his Songs during the whole Time of her
Sitting.
This Contract among Birds lasts no longer than till a Brood of young
ones arises from it; so that in the feather'd Kind, the Cares and
Fatigues of the married State, if I may so call it, lie principally upon
the Female. On the contrary, as in our Species the Man and
the
Woman
are joined together for Life, and the main Burden rests upon the former,
Nature has given all the little Arts of Soothing and Blandishment to the
Female, that she may chear and animate her Companion in a constant and
assiduous Application to the making a Provision for his Family, and the
educating of their common Children. This however is not to be taken so
strictly, as if the same Duties were not often reciprocal, and incumbent
on both Parties; but only to set forth what seems to have been the
general Intention of Nature, in the different Inclinations and
Endowments which are bestowed on the different Sexes.
But whatever was the Reason that Man and Woman were made with this
Variety of Temper, if we observe the Conduct of the Fair Sex, we find
that they choose rather to associate themselves with a Person who
resembles them in that light and volatile Humour which is natural to
them, than to such as are qualified to moderate and counter-ballance it.
It has been an old Complaint, That the Coxcomb carries it with them
before the Man of Sense. When we see a Fellow loud and talkative, full
of insipid Life and Laughter, we may venture to pronounce him a female
Favourite: Noise and Flutter are such Accomplishments as they cannot
withstand. To be short, the Passion of an ordinary Woman for a Man is
nothing else but Self-love diverted upon another Object: She would have
the Lover a Woman in every thing but the Sex. I do not know a finer
Piece of Satyr on this Part of Womankind, than those lines of
Mr.
Dryden
,
Our thoughtless Sex is caught by outward Form,
And empty Noise, and loves it self in Man.
This is a Source of infinite Calamities to the Sex, as it frequently
joins them to Men, who in their own Thoughts are as fine Creatures as
themselves; or if they chance to be good-humoured, serve only to
dissipate their Fortunes, inflame their Follies, and aggravate their
Indiscretions.
The same female Levity is no less fatal to them after Mariage than
before: It represents to their Imaginations the faithful prudent Husband
as an honest tractable
and
domestick Animal; and turns their Thoughts
upon the fine gay Gentleman that laughs, sings, and dresses so much more
agreeably.
As this irregular Vivacity of Temper leads astray the Hearts of ordinary
Women in the Choice of their Lovers and the Treatment of their Husbands,
it operates with the same pernicious Influence towards their Children,
who are taught to accomplish themselves in all those sublime Perfections
that appear captivating in the Eye of their Mother. She admires in her
Son what she loved in her Gallant; and by that means contributes all she
can to perpetuate herself in a worthless Progeny.
The younger
Faustina
was a lively Instance of this sort of Women.
Notwithstanding she was married to
Marcus Aurelius
, one of the
greatest, wisest, and best of the
Roman
Emperors, she thought a
common Gladiator much the prettier Gentleman; and had taken such Care to
accomplish her Son
Commodus
according to her own Notions of a
fine Man, that when he ascended the Throne of his Father, he became the
most foolish and abandoned Tyrant that was ever placed at the Head of
the
Roman
Empire, signalizing himself in nothing but the fighting
of Prizes, and knocking out Men's Brains.
he had no Taste of true
Glory, we see him in several Medals and Statues
which
are still
extant of him, equipped like an
Hercules
with a Club and a Lion's
Skin.
I have been led into this Speculation by the Characters I have heard of
a Country Gentleman and his Lady, who do not live many Miles from Sir
Roger
. The Wife is an old Coquet, that is always hankering after the
Diversions of the Town; the Husband a morose Rustick, that frowns and
frets at the Name of it. The Wife is overrun with Affectation, the
Husband sunk into Brutality: The Lady cannot bear the Noise of the Larks
and Nightingales, hates your tedious Summer Days, and is sick at the
Sight of shady Woods and purling Streams; the Husband wonders how any
one can be pleased with the Fooleries of Plays and Operas, and rails
from Morning to Night at essenced Fops and tawdry Courtiers. The
Children are educated in these different Notions of their Parents. The
Sons follow the Father about his Grounds, while the Daughters read
Volumes of Love-Letters and Romances to their Mother. By this means it
comes to pass, that the Girls look upon their Father as a Clown, and the
Boys think their Mother no better than she should be.
How different are the Lives of
Aristus
and
Aspasia
? the
innocent Vivacity of the one is tempered and composed by the chearful
Gravity of the other. The Wife grows wise by the Discourses of the
Husband, and the Husband good-humour'd by the Conversations of the Wife.
Aristus
would
be so amiable were it not for his
Aspasia
, nor
Aspasia
so much
esteemed