The
Oceana
is an ideal of an English Commonwealth,
written by James Harrington, after the execution of Charles I. It was
published in 1656, having for a time been stopped at press by Cromwell's
government. After the Restoration, Harrington was sent to the Tower by
Charles II on a false accusation of conspiracy. Removed to Plymouth, he
there lost his health and some part of his reason, which he did not
regain before his death, in 1677, at the age of 66. His book argues that
Empire follows the balance of property, which, since Henry VII's time,
had been daily falling into the scale of the Commons from that of the
King and Lords. In the
Oceana
other theories of government are
discussed before Harrington elaborates his own, and English history
appears under disguise of names, William the Conqueror being called
Turbo; King John, Adoxus; Richard II, Dicotome; Henry VII, Panurgus;
Henry VIII, Coraunus; Queen Elizabeth, Parthenia; James I, Morpheus;
and Oliver Cromwell, Olphaus Megaletor. Scotland is Marpesia, and
Ireland, Panopæa. A careful edition of Harrington's
Oceana
and
other of his works, edited by John Toland, had been produced in 1700.
Contents
Contents p.6
|
Saturday,
September 22, 1711 |
Addison |
... Quis enim bonus, aut face dignus
Arcanâ, qualem Cereris vult esse sacerdos,
Ulla aliena sibi credat mala?
Juv.
In one of my last Week's Papers I treated of Good-Nature, as it is the
Effect of Constitution; I shall now speak of it as it is a Moral Virtue.
The first may make a Man easy in himself and agreeable to others, but
implies no Merit in him that is possessed of it. A Man is no more to be
praised upon this Account, than because he has a regular Pulse or a good
Digestion.
Good-Nature however in the Constitution, which Mr.
Dryden
somewhere calls a
Milkiness of Blood
, is an
admirable Groundwork for the other. In order therefore to try our
Good-Nature, whether it arises from the Body or the Mind, whether it be
founded in the Animal or Rational Part of our Nature; in a word, whether
it be such as is entituled to any other Reward, besides that secret
Satisfaction and Contentment of Mind which is essential to it, and the
kind Reception it procures us in the World, we must examine it by the
following Rules.
First, whether it acts with Steadiness and Uniformity in Sickness and in
Health, in Prosperity and in Adversity; if otherwise, it is to be looked
upon as nothing else but an Irradiation of the Mind from some new Supply
of Spirits, or a more kindly Circulation of the Blood.
Sir Francis
Bacon
a cunning Solicitor,
who
would never ask a
Favour of a great Man before Dinner; but took care to prefer his
Petition at a Time when the Party petitioned had his Mind free from
Care, and his Appetites in good Humour. Such a transient temporary
Good-Nature as this, is not that
Philanthropy
, that Love of
Mankind, which deserves the Title of a Moral Virtue.
The next way of a Man's bringing his Good-Nature to the Test, is, to
consider whether it operates according to the Rules of Reason and Duty:
For if, notwithstanding its general Benevolence to Mankind, it makes no
Distinction between its Objects, if it exerts it self promiscuously
towards the Deserving and Undeserving, if it relieves alike the Idle and
the Indigent, if it gives it self up to the first Petitioner, and lights
upon any one rather by Accident than Choice, it may pass for an amiable
Instinct, but must not assume the Name of a Moral Virtue.
The third Tryal of Good-Nature will be, the examining ourselves, whether
or no we are able to exert it to our own Disadvantage, and employ it on
proper Objects, notwithstanding any little Pain, Want, or Inconvenience
which may arise to our selves from it: In a Word, whether we are willing
to risque any Part of our Fortune, our Reputation, our Health or Ease,
for the Benefit of Mankind. Among all these Expressions of Good-Nature,
I shall single out that which goes under the general Name of Charity, as
it consists in relieving the Indigent; that being a Tryal of this Kind
which offers itself to us almost at all Times and in every Place.
I should propose it as a Rule to every one who is provided with any
Competency of Fortune more than sufficient for the Necessaries of Life,
to lay aside a certain Proportion of his Income for the Use of the Poor.
This I would look upon as an Offering to him who has a Right to the
whole, for the Use of those whom, in the Passage hereafter mentioned, he
has described as his own Representatives upon Earth. At the same time we
should manage our Charity with such Prudence and Caution, that we may
not hurt our own Friends or Relations, whilst we are doing Good to those
who are Strangers to us.
This may possibly be explained better by an Example than by a Rule.
Eugenius
is a Man of an universal Good-Nature, and generous
beyond the Extent of his Fortune; but withal so prudent in the Œconomy
of his Affairs, that what goes out in Charity is made up by good
Management.
Eugenius
has what the World calls Two hundred Pounds
a Year; but never values himself above Ninescore, as not thinking he has
a Right to the Tenth Part, which he always appropriates to charitable
Uses. To this Sum he frequently makes other voluntary Additions,
insomuch that in a good Year, for such he accounts those in which he has
been able to make greater Bounties than ordinary, he has given above
twice that Sum to the Sickly and Indigent.
Eugenius
prescribes to
himself many particular Days of Fasting and Abstinence, in order to
increase his private Bank of Charity, and sets aside what would be the
current Expences of those Times for the Use of the Poor. He often goes
afoot where his Business calls him, and at the End of his Walk has given
a Shilling, which in his ordinary Methods of Expence would have gone for
Coach-Hire, to the first Necessitous Person that has fallen in his way.
I have known him, when he has been going to a Play or an Opera, divert
the Money which was designed for that Purpose, upon an Object of Charity
whom he has met with in the Street; and afterwards pass his Evening in a
Coffee-House, or at a Friend's Fire-side, with much greater Satisfaction
to himself than he could have received from the most exquisite
Entertainments of the Theatre. By these means he is generous, without
impoverishing himself, and enjoys his Estate by making it the Property
of others.
There are few Men so cramped in their private Affairs, who may not be
charitable after this manner, without any Disadvantage to themselves, or
Prejudice to their Families. It is but sometimes sacrificing a Diversion
or Convenience to the Poor, and turning the usual Course of our Expences
into a better Channel. This is, I think, not only the most prudent and
convenient, but the most meritorious Piece of Charity, which we can put
in practice.
this Method we in some measure share the Necessities of
the Poor at the same time that we relieve them, and make ourselves not
only
their Patrons
, but their Fellow Sufferers.
Thomas Brown
, in the last Part of his
Religio Medici
, in which
he describes his Charity in several Heroick Instances, and with a noble
Heat of Sentiments, mentions that Verse in the Proverbs of
Solomon, He
that giveth to the Poor, lendeth to the Lord
.
'
There is more
Rhetorick in that one Sentence, says he, than in a Library of Sermons;
and indeed if those Sentences were understood by the Reader, with the
same Emphasis as they are delivered by the Author, we needed not those
Volumes of Instructions, but might be honest by an Epitome
5.'
Passage in Scripture is indeed wonderfully persuasive; but I think
the same Thought is carried much further in the New Testament, where our
Saviour tells us in a most pathetick manner, that he shall hereafter
regard the Cloathing of the Naked, the Feeding of the Hungry, and the
Visiting of the Imprisoned, as Offices done to himself, and reward them
accordingly
. Pursuant to those Passages in Holy Scripture, I have
somewhere met with the
of a charitable Man, which has very much
pleased me. I cannot recollect the Words, but the Sense of it is to this
Purpose; What I spent I lost; what I possessed is left to others; what I
gave away remains with me
.
Since I am thus insensibly engaged in Sacred Writ, I cannot forbear
making an Extract of several Passages which I have always read with
great Delight in the Book of
Job
. It is the Account which that Holy
Man gives of his Behaviour in the Days of his Prosperity, and, if
considered only as a human Composition, is a finer Picture of a
charitable and good-natured Man than is to be met with in any other
Author.
Oh that I were as in Months past, as in the Days when God preserved me:
When his Candle shined upon my head, and when by his light I walked
through darkness: When the Almighty was yet with me: when my Children
were about me: When I washed my steps with butter, and the rock poured
out rivers of oyl.
When the Ear heard me, then it blessed me; and when the Eye saw me, it
gave witness to me. Because I delivered the poor that cried, and the
fatherless, and him that had none to help him. The blessing of him that
was ready to perish came upon me, and I caused the Widow's Heart to sing
for joy. I was eyes to the blind, and feet was I to the lame; I was a
father to the poor, and the cause which I knew not I searched out. Did
not I weep for him that was in trouble? was not my Soul grieved for the
poor? Let me be weighed in an even ballance, that God may know mine
Integrity. If I did despise the cause of my man-servant or my
maid-servant when they contended with me: What then shall I do when God
riseth up? and when he visiteth, what shall I answer him? Did not he
that made me in the womb, make him? and did not one fashion us in the
womb? If I have withheld the poor from their desire, or have caused the
eyes of the widow to fail, or have eaten my morsel myself alone, and the
fatherless hath not eaten thereof: If I have seen any perish for want of
cloathing, or any poor without covering: If his loins have not blessed
me, and if he were not warmed with the fleece of my sheep: If I have
lift up my hand against the fatherless, when I saw my help in the gate;
then let mine arm fall from my shoulder-blade, and mine arm be broken
from the bone. If I have rejoiced at the Destruction of him that hated
me, or lift up myself when evil found him: (Neither have I suffered my
mouth to sin, by wishing a curse to his soul). The stranger did not
lodge in the street; but I opened my doors to the traveller. If my land
cry against me, or that the furrows likewise thereof complain: If I have
eaten the Fruits thereof without mony, or have caused the owners thereof
to lose their Life; Let thistles grow instead of wheat, and cockle
instead of barley.
8
Cleomenes to Pantheus,
'Would I could share thy Balmy, even Temper,
And Milkiness of Blood.'
Cleomenes
, Act i. sc. I.
that
the Patrons of the Indigent
Proverbs
xix. 17.
Rel. Med.
Part II. sect. 13.
Matt
. xxi. 31, &c.
The Epitaph was in St. George's Church at Doncaster, and
ran thus:
'How now, who is heare?
I Robin of Doncastere
And Margaret my feare.
That I spent, that I had;
That I gave, that I have;
That I left, that I lost.'
Job
xxix. 2, &c.; xxx. 25, &c.; xxxi. 6, &c.
Contents
Contents p.6
|
Monday,
September 24, 1711 |
Steele |
Comis in uxorem ...
Hor.
I cannot defer taking Notice of this Letter.
Mr. Spectator,
I am but too good a Judge of your Paper of the 15th Instant, which is
a Master-piece; I mean that of Jealousy: But I think it unworthy of
you to speak of that Torture in the Breast of a Man, and not to
mention also the Pangs of it in the Heart of a Woman. You have very
Judiciously, and with the greatest Penetration imaginable, considered
it as Woman is the Creature of whom the Diffidence is raised; but not
a Word of a Man who is so unmerciful as to move Jealousy in his Wife,
and not care whether she is so or not. It is possible you may not
believe there are such Tyrants in the World; but alas, I can tell you
of a Man who is ever out of Humour in his Wife's Company, and the
pleasantest Man in the World every where else; the greatest Sloven at
home when he appears to none but his Family, and most exactly
well-dressed in all other Places. Alas, Sir, is it of Course, that to
deliver one's self wholly into a Man's Power without Possibility of
Appeal to any other Jurisdiction but to his own Reflections, is so
little an Obligation to a Gentleman, that he can be offended and fall
into a Rage, because my Heart swells Tears into my Eyes when I see him
in a cloudy Mood? I pretend to no Succour, and hope for no Relief but
from himself; and yet he that has Sense and Justice in every thing
else, never reflects, that to come home only to sleep off an
Intemperance, and spend all the Time he is there as if it were a
Punishment, cannot but give the Anguish of a jealous Mind. He always
leaves his Home as if he were going to Court, and returns as if he
were entring a Gaol. I could add to this, that from his Company and
his usual Discourse, he does not scruple being thought an abandoned
Man, as to his Morals. Your own Imagination will say enough to you
concerning the Condition of me his Wife; and I wish you would be so
good as to represent to him, for he is not ill-natured, and reads you
much, that the Moment I hear the Door shut after him, I throw myself
upon my Bed, and drown the Child he is so fond of with my Tears, and
often frighten it with my Cries; that I curse my Being; that I run to
my Glass all over bathed in Sorrows, and help the Utterance of my
inward Anguish by beholding the Gush of my own Calamities as my Tears
fall from my Eyes. This looks like an imagined Picture to tell you,
but indeed this is one of my Pastimes. Hitherto I have only told you
the general Temper of my Mind, but how shall I give you an Account of
the Distraction of it? Could you but conceive how cruel I am one
Moment in my Resentment, and at the ensuing Minute, when I place him
in the Condition my Anger would bring him to, how compassionate; it
would give you some Notion how miserable I am, and how little I
deserve it. When I remonstrate with the greatest Gentleness that is
possible against unhandsome Appearances, and that married Persons are
under particular Rules; when he is in the best Humour to receive this,
I am answered only, That I expose my own Reputation and Sense if I
appear jealous. I wish, good Sir, you would take this into serious
Consideration, and admonish Husbands and Wives what Terms they ought
to keep towards each other. Your Thoughts on this important Subject
will have the greatest Reward, that which descends on such as feel the
Sorrows of the Afflicted. Give me leave to subscribe my self,
Your
unfortunate humble Servant,
Celinda.
I had it in my Thoughts, before I received the Letter of this Lady, to
consider this dreadful Passion in the Mind of a Woman; and the Smart she
seems to feel does not abate the Inclination I had to recommend to
Husbands a more regular Behaviour, than to give the most exquisite of
Torments to those who love them, nay whose Torment would be abated if
they did not love them.
It is wonderful to observe how little is made of this inexpressible
Injury, and how easily Men get into a Habit of being least agreeable
where they are most obliged to be so. But this Subject deserves a
distinct Speculation, and I shall observe for a Day or two the Behaviour
of two or three happy Pair I am acquainted with, before I pretend to
make a System of Conjugal Morality. I design in the first Place to go a
few Miles out of Town, and there I know where to meet one who practises
all the Parts of a fine Gentleman in the Duty of an Husband. When he was
a Batchelor much Business made him particularly negligent in his Habit;
but now there is no young Lover living so exact in the Care of his
Person. One who asked why he was so long washing his Mouth, and so
delicate in the Choice and Wearing of his Linen, was answered, Because
there is a Woman of Merit obliged to receive me kindly, and I think it
incumbent upon me to make her Inclination go along with her Duty.
If a Man would give himself leave to think, he would not be so
unreasonable as to expect Debauchery and Innocence could live in
Commerce together; or hope that Flesh and Blood is capable of so strict
an Allegiance, as that a fine Woman must go on to improve her self 'till
she is as good and impassive as an Angel, only to preserve a Fidelity to
a Brute and a Satyr. The Lady who desires me for her Sake to end one of
my Papers with the following Letter, I am persuaded, thinks such a
Perseverance very impracticable.
Husband,
Stay more at home. I know where you visited at Seven of the Clock on
Thursday Evening. The Colonel whom you charged me to see no more, is
in Town.
Martha Housewife.
T.
Contents
Contents p.6
|
Tuesday,
September 25, 1711 |
Addison |
Centuriæ seniorum agitant expertia frugis:
Celsi prætereunt austera Poemata Rhamnes.
Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci,
Lectorem delectando, pariterque monendo ...
Hor.
I may cast my Readers under two general Divisions, the
Mercurial
and the
Saturnine
. The first are the gay Part of my Disciples,
who require Speculations of Wit and Humour; the others are those of a
more solemn and sober Turn, who find no Pleasure but in Papers of
Morality and sound Sense. The former call every thing that is Serious,
Stupid; the latter look upon every thing as Impertinent that is
Ludicrous. Were I always Grave, one half of my Readers would fall off
from me: Were I always Merry, I should lose the other. I make it
therefore my Endeavour to find out Entertainments of both Kinds, and by
that means perhaps consult the Good of both, more than I should do, did
I always write to the particular Taste of either. As they neither of
them know what I proceed upon, the sprightly Reader, who takes up my
Paper in order to be diverted, very often finds himself engaged unawares
in a serious and profitable Course of Thinking; as on the contrary, the
thoughtful Man, who perhaps may hope to find something Solid, and full
of deep Reflection, is very often insensibly betrayed into a Fit of
Mirth. In a word, the Reader sits down to my Entertainment without
knowing his Bill of Fare, and has therefore at least the Pleasure of
hoping there may be a Dish to his Palate.
I must confess, were I left to my self, I should rather aim at
Instructing than Diverting; but if we will be useful to the World, we
must take it as we find it. Authors of professed Severity discourage the
looser Part of Mankind from having any thing to do with their Writings.
A man must have Virtue in him, before he will enter upon the reading of
a
Seneca
or an
Epictetus
. The very Title of a Moral
Treatise has something in it austere and shocking to the Careless and
Inconsiderate.
For this Reason several unthinking Persons fall in my way, who would
give no Attention to Lectures delivered with a Religious Seriousness or
a Philosophick Gravity. They are insnared into Sentiments of Wisdom and
Virtue when they do not think of it; and if by that means they arrive
only at such a Degree of Consideration as may dispose them to listen to
more studied and elaborate Discourses, I shall not think my Speculations
useless. I might likewise observe, that the Gloominess in which
sometimes the Minds of the best Men are involved, very often stands in
need of such little Incitements to Mirth and Laughter, as are apt to
disperse Melancholy, and put our Faculties in good Humour. To which some
will add, that the
British
Climate, more than any other, makes
Entertainments of this Nature in a manner necessary.
If what I have here said does not recommend, it will at least excuse the
Variety of my Speculations. I would not willingly Laugh but in order to
Instruct, or if I sometimes fail in this Point, when my Mirth ceases to
be Instructive, it shall never cease to be Innocent. A scrupulous
Conduct in this Particular has, perhaps, more Merit in it than the
Generality of Readers imagine; did they know how many Thoughts occur in
a Point of Humour, which a discreet Author in Modesty suppresses; how
many Stroaks in Raillery present themselves, which could not fail to
please the ordinary Taste of Mankind, but are stifled in their Birth by
reason of some remote Tendency which they carry in them to corrupt the
Minds of those who read them; did they know how many Glances of
Ill-nature are industriously avoided for fear of doing Injury to the
Reputation of another, they would be apt to think kindly of those
Writers who endeavour to make themselves Diverting, without being
Immoral.
may apply to these Authors that Passage in
Waller
,
Poets lose half the Praise they would have got,
Were it but known what they discreetly blot.
As nothing is more easy than to be a Wit, with all the above-mentioned
Liberties, it requires some Genius and Invention to appear such without
them.
What I have here said is not only in regard to the Publick, but with an
Eye to my particular Correspondent who has sent me the following Letter,
which I have castrated in some Places upon these Considerations.
Sir,
'Having lately seen your Discourse upon a Match of Grinning, I cannot
forbear giving you an Account of a Whistling Match, which, with many
others, I was entertained with about three Years since at the
Bath. The Prize was a Guinea, to be conferred upon the ablest
Whistler, that is, on him who could whistle clearest, and go through
his Tune without Laughing,
to which
at the same time he was
provoked2 by the antick Postures of a
Merry-Andrew, who
was to stand upon the Stage and play his Tricks in the Eye of the
Performer. There were three Competitors for the Ring. The first was a
Plow-man of a very promising Aspect; his Features were steady, and his
Muscles composed in so inflexible a Stupidity, that upon his first
Appearance every one gave the Guinea for lost. The Pickled Herring
however found the way to shake him; for upon his Whistling a Country
Jigg, this unlucky Wag danced to it with such a Variety of Distortions
and Grimaces, that the Country-man could not forbear smiling upon him,
and by that means spoiled his Whistle, and lost the Prize.
The next that mounted the Stage was an Under-Citizen of the
Bath, a Person remarkable among the inferior People of that
Place for his great Wisdom and his Broad Band. He contracted his Mouth
with much Gravity, and, that he might dispose his Mind to be more
serious than ordinary, began the Tune of
The Children in the
Wood, and went through part of it with good Success; when on a
sudden the Wit at his Elbow, who had appeared wonderfully grave and
attentive for some time, gave him a Touch upon the left Shoulder, and
stared him in the Face with so bewitching a Grin, that the Whistler
relaxed his Fibres into a kind of Simper, and at length burst out into
an open Laugh. The third who entered the Lists was a Foot-man, who in
Defiance of the
Merry-Andrew, and all his Arts, whistled a
Scotch Tune and an
Italian Sonata, with so settled a
Countenance, that he bore away the Prize, to the great Admiration of
some Hundreds of Persons, who, as well as my self, were present at
this Trial of Skill. Now, Sir, I humbly conceive, whatever you have
determined of the Grinners, the Whistlers ought to be encouraged, not
only as their Art is practised without Distortion, but as it improves
Country Musick, promotes Gravity, and teaches ordinary People to keep
their Countenances, if they see any thing ridiculous in their Betters;
besides that it seems an Entertainment very particularly adapted to
the
Bath, as it is usual for a Rider to whistle to his Horse
when he would make his Waters pass.
I am, Sir, &c.
Postscript.
After having despatched these two important Points of Grinning and
Whistling, I hope you will oblige the World with some Reflections upon
Yawning, as I have seen it practised on a Twelfth-Night among other
Christmas Gambols at the House of a very worthy Gentleman, who
always entertains his Tenants at that time of the Year. They Yawn for
a
Cheshire Cheese, and begin about Midnight, when the whole
Company is disposed to be drowsie. He that Yawns widest, and at the
same time so naturally as to produce the most Yawns among his
Spectators, carries home the Cheese. If you handle this Subject as you
ought, I question not but your Paper will set half the Kingdom a
Yawning, tho' I dare promise you it will never make any Body fall
asleep.
L.
Upon Roscommon's Tr. of Horace's
Art of Poetry
.
provoked to
Contents
Contents p.6
|
Wednesday,
September 26, 1711 |
Steele |
... Delirant Reges, plectuntur Achivi.
Hor.
following Letter