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No. 183

[Steele.

Thursday, June 8, to Saturday, June 10, 1710

——Fuit hæc sapientia quondam,

Publica privatis secernere.

Hor., Ars Poet. 396.

From my own Apartment, June 9

When men look into their own bosoms, and consider the generous seeds which are there planted, that might, if rightly cultivated, ennoble their lives, and make their virtue venerable to futurity; how can they, without tears, reflect on the universal degeneracy from that public spirit, which ought to be the first and principal motive of all their actions? In the Grecian and Roman nations, they were wise enough to keep up this great incentive, and it was impossible to be in the fashion without being a patriot. All gallantry had its first source from hence; and to want a warmth for the public welfare was a defect so scandalous, that he who was guilty of it had no pretence to honour or manhood. What makes the depravity among us in this behalf the more vexatious and irksome to reflect upon, is, that the contempt of life is carried as far amongst us as it could be in those memorable people; and we want only a proper application of the qualities which are frequent among us to be as worthy as they. There is hardly a man to be found who will not fight upon any occasion which he thinks may taint his own honour. Were this motive as strong in everything that regards the public, as it is in this our private case, no man would pass his life away without having distinguished himself by some gallant instance of his zeal towards it in the respective incidents of his life and profession. But it is so far otherwise, that there cannot at present be a more ridiculous animal than one who seems to regard the good of others. He in civil life whose thoughts turn upon schemes which may be of general benefit, without further reflection, is called a "projector"; and the man whose mind seems intent upon glorious achievements, a "knight-errant." The ridicule among us runs strong against laudable actions. Nay, in the ordinary course of things, and the common regards of life, negligence of the public is an epidemic vice. The brewer in his excise, the merchant in his customs, and for aught we know the soldier in his muster-rolls, think never the worse of themselves for being guilty of their respective frauds towards the public. This evil is come to such a fantastical height, that he is a man of a public spirit, and heroically affected to his country, who can go so far as even to turn usurer with all he has in her funds. There is not a citizen in whose imagination such a one does not appear in the same light of glory as Codrus, Scævola, or any other great name in old Rome. Were it not for the heroes of so much per cent. as have regard enough for themselves and their nation to trade with her with their wealth, the very notion of public love would long ere now have vanished from among us. But however general custom may hurry us away in the stream of a common error, there is no evil, no crime, so great as that of being cold in matters which relate to the common good. This is in nothing more conspicuous than in a certain willingness to receive anything that tends to the diminution of such as have been conspicuous instruments in our service. Such inclinations proceed from the most low and vile corruption of which the soul of man is capable. This effaces not only the practice, but the very approbation of honour and virtue; and has had such an effect that, to speak freely, the very sense of public good has no longer a part even in our conversations. Can then the most generous motive of life, the good of others, be so easily banished from the breast of man? Is it possible to draw all our passions inward? Shall the boiling heat of youth be sunk in pleasures, the ambition of manhood in selfish intrigues? Shall all that is glorious, all that is worth the pursuit of great minds, be so easily rooted out? When the universal bent of a people seems diverted from the sense of their common good and common glory, it looks like a fatality, and crisis of impending misfortune.

The generous nations we just now mentioned understood this so very well, that there was hardly an oration ever made which did not turn upon this general sense, that the love of their country was the first and most essential quality in an honest mind. Demosthenes, in a cause wherein his fame, reputation, and fortune were embarked, puts his all upon this issue: "Let the Athenians," says he, "be benevolent to me, as they think I have been zealous for them." This great and discerning orator knew there was nothing else in nature could bear him up against his adversaries, but this one quality of having shown himself willing or able to serve his country. This certainly is the test of merit; and the first foundation for deserving goodwill, is having it yourself. The adversary of this orator at that time was Æschines, a man of wily arts and skill in the world, who could, as occasion served, fall in with a national start of passion, or sullenness of humour (which a whole nation is sometimes taken with as well as a private man), and by that means divert them from their common sense, into an aversion for receiving anything in its true light. But when Demosthenes had awaked his audience with that one hint of judging by the general tenor of his life towards them, his services bore down his opponent before him, who fled to the covert of his mean arts till some more favourable occasion should offer, against the superior merit of Demosthenes.

It were to be wished, that love of their country were the first principle of action in men of business, even for their own sakes; for when the world begins to examine into their conduct, the generality, who have no share in, or hopes of any part in power or riches, but what is the effect of their own labour or property, will judge of them by no other method, than that of how profitable their administration has been to the whole. They who are out of the influence of men's fortune or favour, will let them stand or fall by this one only rule; and men who can bear being tried by it, are always popular in their fall: those who cannot suffer such a scrutiny, are contemptible in their advancement.

But I am here running into shreds of maxims from reading Tacitus this morning, which has driven me from my recommendation of public spirit, which was the intended purpose of this Lucubration. There is not a more glorious instance of it, than in the character of Regulus. This same Regulus was taken prisoner by the Carthagenians, and was sent by them to Rome, in order to demand some Punic noblemen who were prisoners in exchange for himself, and was bound by an oath that he would return to Carthage if he failed in his commission. He proposes this to the Senate, who were in suspense upon it; which Regulus observing (without having the least notion of putting the care of his own life in competition with the public good), desired them to consider that he was old, and almost useless; that those demanded in exchange were men of daring tempers, and great merit in military affairs, and wondered they would make any doubt of permitting him to go back to the short tortures prepared for him at Carthage, where he should have the advantage of ending a long life both gloriously and usefully. This generous advice was consented to, and he took his leave of his country and his weeping friends to go to certain death, with that cheerful composure, as a man, after the fatigue of business in a Court or a city, retires to the next village for the air.

No. 184

[Steele.

Saturday, June 10, to Tuesday, June 13, 1710

Una de multis face nuptiali

Digna.—Hor., 3 Od. xi. 33.

From my own Apartment, June 12

There are certain occasions of life which give propitious omens of the future good conduct of it, as well as others which explain our present inward state, according to our behaviour in them. Of the latter sort are funerals; of the former, weddings. The manner of our carriage when we lose a friend, shows very much our temper, in the humility of our words and actions, and a general sense of our destitute condition, which runs through all our deportment. This gives a solemn testimony of the generous affection we bore our friends, when we seem to disrelish everything now we can no more enjoy them, or see them partake in our enjoyments. It is very proper and human to put ourselves as it were in their livery after their decease, and wear a habit unsuitable to prosperity, while those we loved and honoured are mouldering in the grave. As this is laudable on the sorrowful side; so on the other, incidents of success may no less justly be represented and acknowledged in our outward figure and carriage. Of all such occasions, that great change of a single life into marriage is the most important, as it is the source of all relations, and from whence all other friendship and commerce do principally arise. The general intent of both sexes is to dispose of themselves happily and honourably in this state; and as all the good qualities we have are exerted to make our way into it, so the best appearance, with regard to their minds, their persons, and their fortunes, at the first entrance into it, is a due to each other in the married pair, as well as a compliment to the rest of the world. It was an instruction of a wise lawgiver, that unmarried women should wear such loose habits which, in the flowing of their garb, should incite their beholders to a desire of their persons; and that the ordinary motion of their bodies might display the figure and shape of their limbs in such a manner, as at once to preserve the strictest decency, and raise the warmest inclinations.

This was the economy of the legislator for the increase of people, and at the same time for the preservation of the genial bed. She who was the admiration of all who beheld her while unmarried, was to bid adieu to the pleasure of shining in the eyes of many, as soon as she took upon her the wedded condition. However, there was a festival of life allowed the new-married, a sort of intermediate state between celibacy and matrimony, which continued certain days. During that time, entertainments, equipages, and other circumstances of rejoicing, were encouraged, and they were permitted to exceed the common mode of living, that the bride and bridegroom might learn from such freedoms of conversation to run into a general conduct to each other, made out of their past and future state, so to temper the cares of the man and the wife with the gaieties of the lover and the mistress.

In those wise ages the dignity of life was kept up, and on the celebration of such solemnities there were no impertinent whispers and senseless interpretations put upon the unaffected cheerfulness or accidental seriousness of the bride; but men turned their thoughts upon the general reflections, upon what issue might probably be expected from such a couple in the succeeding course of their life, and felicitated them accordingly upon such prospects.

I must confess, I cannot from any ancient manuscripts, sculptures, or medals, deduce the rise of our celebrated custom of throwing the stocking; but have a faint memory of an account a friend gave me of an original picture in the palace of Aldobrandini in Rome. This seems to show a sense of this affair very different from what is usual among us. It is a Grecian wedding, and the figures represented are, a person offering sacrifice, a beautiful damsel dancing, and another playing on the harp. The bride is placed in her bed, the bridegroom sits at the foot of it, with an aspect which intimates his thoughts were not only entertained with the joys with which he was surrounded, but also with a noble gratitude, and divine pleasure in the offering, which was then made to the gods to invoke their influence on his new condition. There appears in the face of the woman a mixture of fear, hope, and modesty; in the bridegroom, a well-governed rapture. As you see in great spirits grief which discovers itself the more by forbearing tears and complaints, you may observe also the highest joy is too big for utterance, the tongue being of all the organs the least capable of expressing such a circumstance. The nuptial torch, the bower, the marriage song, are all particulars which we meet with in the allusions of the ancient writers; and in every one of them something is to be observed which denotes their industry to aggrandise and adorn this occasion above all others.

With us all order and decency in this point is perverted by the insipid mirth of certain animals we usually call "wags." These are a species of all men the most insupportable. One cannot without some reflection say, whether their flat mirth provokes us more to pity or to scorn; but if one considers with how great affectation they utter their frigid conceits, commiseration immediately changes itself into contempt.

A wag is the last order even of pretenders to wit and good humour. He has generally his mind prepared to receive some occasion of merriment, but is of himself too empty to draw any out of his own set of thoughts, and therefore laughs at the next thing he meets, not because it is ridiculous, but because he is under a necessity of laughing. A wag is one that never in its life saw a beautiful object, but sees what it does see in the most low and most inconsiderable light it can be placed. There is a certain ability necessary to behold what is amiable and worthy of our approbation, which little minds want, and attempt to hide by a general disregard to everything they behold above what they are able to relish. Hence it is, that a wag in an assembly is ever guessing how well such a lady slept last night, and how much such a young fellow is pleased with himself. The wag's gaiety consists in a certain professed ill-breeding, as if it were an excuse for committing a fault, that a man knows he does so. Though all public places are full of persons of this order, yet, because I will not allow impertinence and affectation to get the better of native innocence and simplicity of manners, I have, in spite of such little disturbers of public entertainments, persuaded my brother Tranquillus and his wife my sister Jenny, in favour of Mr. Wilks, to be at the play to-morrow evening.

They, as they have so much good sense as to act naturally, without regard to the observation of others, will not, I hope, be discomposed if any of the fry of wags should take upon them to make themselves merry upon the occasion of their coming, as they intend, in their wedding clothes. My brother is a plain, worthy, and honest man, and as it is natural for men of that turn to be mightily taken with sprightly and airy women, my sister has a vivacity which may perhaps give hopes to impertinents, but will be esteemed the effect of innocence among wise men. They design to sit with me in the box, which the house have been so complaisant to offer me whenever I think fit to come thither in my public character.³⁰⁹

I do not in the least doubt, but the true figure of conjugal affection will appear in their looks and gestures. My sister does not affect to be gorgeous in her dress, and thinks the happiness of a wife is more visible in a cheerful look than a gay apparel. It is a hard task to speak of persons so nearly related to one with decency, but I may say, all who shall be at the play will allow him to have the mien of a worthy English gentleman; her, that of a notable and deserving wife.

No. 185

[Steele.

Tuesday, June 13, to Thursday, June 15, 1710

Notitiam primosque gradus vicinia fecit;

Tempore crevit amor, tædæ quoque jure coissent;

Sed vetuere patres, quod non potuere vetare,

Ex æquo captis ardebant mentibus ambo.

Ovid, Met. iv. 59.

From my own Apartment, June 14

As soon as I was up this morning, my man gave me the following letter, which, since it leads to a subject that may prove of common use to the world, I shall take notice of with as much expedition as my fair petitioner could desire:

"Mr. Bickerstaff,

"Since you have so often declared yourself a patron of the distressed, I must acquaint you, that I am daughter to a country gentleman of good sense, and may expect £3000 or £4000 for my fortune. I love and am beloved by Philander, a young gentleman who has an estate of £500 per annum, and is our near neighbour in the country every summer. My father, though he has been a long time acquainted with it, constantly refuses to comply with our mutual inclinations: but what most of all torments me, is, that if ever I speak in commendation of my lover, he is much louder in his praises than myself; and professes that it is out of pure love and esteem for Philander, as well as his daughter, that he can never consent we should marry each other; when (as he terms it) we may both do so much better. It must indeed be confessed, that two gentlemen of considerable fortunes, made their addresses to me last winter, and Philander (as I have since learned) was offered a young heiress with £15,000, but it seems we could neither of us think, that accepting those matches would be doing better than remaining constant to our first passion. Your thoughts upon the whole may perhaps have some weight with my father, who is one of your admirers, as is

"Your humble Servant,

"Sylvia.

"P.S. You are desired to be speedy, since my father daily presses me to accept of what he calls an 'advantageous offer.'"

There is no calamity in life that falls heavier upon human nature than a disappointment in love, especially when it happens between two persons whose hearts are mutually engaged to each other. It is this distress which has given occasion to some of the finest tragedies that were ever written, and daily fills the world with melancholy, discontent, frenzy, sickness, despair, and death. I have often admired at the barbarity of parents, who so frequently interpose their authority in this grand article of life. I would fain ask Sylvia's father, whether he thinks he can bestow a greater favour on his daughter, than to put her in a way to live happily? Whether a man of Philander's character, with £500 per annum, is not more likely to contribute to that end, than many a young fellow whom he may have in his thoughts with so many thousands? Whether he can make amends to his daughter by any increase of riches, for the loss of that happiness she proposes to herself in her Philander? Or whether a father should compound with his daughter to be miserable, though she were to get £20,000 by the bargain? I suppose he would have her reflect with esteem on his memory after his death: and does he think this a proper method to make her do so, when, as often as she thinks on the loss of her Philander, she must at the same time remember him as the cruel cause of it? Any transient ill-humour is soon forgotten; but the reflection of such a cruelty must continue to raise resentments as long as life itself; and by this one piece of barbarity, an indulgent father loses the merit of all his past kindnesses. It is not impossible but she may deceive herself in the happiness which she proposes from Philander; but as in such a case she can have no one to blame but herself, she will bear the disappointment with greater patience; but if she never makes the experiment, however happy she may be with another, she will still think she might have been happier with Philander. There is a kind of sympathy in souls that fits them for each other; and we may be assured, when we see two persons engaged in the warmths of a mutual affection, that there are certain qualities in both their minds which bear a resemblance to one another. A generous and constant passion in an agreeable lover, where there is not too great a disparity in other circumstances, is the greatest blessing that can befall the person beloved; and if overlooked in one, may perhaps never be found in another. I shall conclude this with a celebrated instance of a father's indulgence in this particular, which, though carried to an extravagance, has something in it so tender and amiable, as may justly reproach the hardness of temper that is to be met with in many a British father.

Antiochus, a prince of great hopes, fell passionately in love with the young Queen Stratonice, who was his mother-in-law, and had bore a son to the old King Seleucus his father. The prince finding it impossible to extinguish his passion, fell sick, and refused all manner of nourishment, being determined to put an end to that life which was become insupportable.

Erasistratus the physician soon found that love was his distemper; and observing the alteration in his pulse and countenance whenever Stratonice made him a visit, was soon satisfied that he was dying for his young mother-in-law. Knowing the old king's tenderness for his son, when he one morning inquired of his health, he told him, that the prince's distemper was love; but that it was incurable, because it was impossible for him to possess the person whom he loved. The king, surprised at this account, desired to know how his son's passion could be incurable? "Why, sir," replied Erasistratus, "because he is in love with the person I am married to."

The old king immediately conjured him by all his past favours to save the life of his son and successor. "Sir," said Erasistratus, "would your majesty but fancy yourself in my place, you would see the unreasonableness of what you desire!" "Heaven is my witness," said Seleucus, "I could resign even my Stratonice to save my Antiochus." At this the tears ran down his cheeks, which when the physician saw, taking him by the hand, "Sir," says he, "if these are your real sentiments, the prince's life is out of danger; it is Stratonice for whom he dies." Seleucus immediately gave orders for solemnising the marriage; and the young queen, to show her obedience, very generously exchanged the father for the son.