will escape the follies and indiscretions of which he himself was guilty, and pursue and improve every thing that was valuable in him. The continuance of his virtue is much more to be regarded than that of his life; but it is the most lamentable of all reflections, to think that the heir of a man's fortune is such a one as will be a stranger to his friends, alienated from the same interests, and a promoter of every thing which he himself disapproved. An estate in possession of such a successor to a good man, is worse than laid waste; and the family, of which he is the head, is in a more deplorable condition than that of being extinct. When I visit the agreeable seat of my honoured friend Ruricola, and walk from room to room revolving many pleasing occurrences, and the expressions of many just sentiments I have heard him utter, and see the booby his heir in pain, while he is doing the honours of his house to the friend of his father, the heaviness it gives one is not to be expressed. Want of genius is not to be imputed to any man, but want of humanity is a man's own fault. The son of Ruricola (whose life was one continued series of worthy actions, and gentleman-like inclinations) is the companion of drunken clowns, and knows no sense of praise but in the flattery he receives from his own servants; his pleasures are mean and inordinate, his language base and filthy, his behaviour rough and absurd. Is this creature to be accounted the successor of a man of virtue, wit, and breeding? At the same time that I have this melancholy prospect at the house where I miss my old friend, I can go to a gentleman's not far off it, where he has a daughter who is the picture both of his body and mind, but both improved with the beauty and modesty peculiar to her sex. It is she who supplies the loss of her father to the world; she, without his name or fortune, is a truer memorial of him, than her brother who succeeds him in both. Such an offspring as the eldest son of my friend perpetuates his father in the same manner as the appearance of his ghost would: it is indeed Ruricola, but it is Ruricola grown frightful. I know not to what to attribute the brutal turn which this young man has taken, except it may be to a certain severity and distance which his father used towards him, and might, perhaps, have occasioned a dislike to those modes of life, which were not made amiable to him by freedom and affability. We may promise ourselves that no such excrescence will appear in the family of the Cornelii, where the father lives with his sons like their eldest brother, and the sons converse with him as if they did it for no other reason but that he is the wisest man of their acquaintance. As the Cornelii* are eminent traders, their good correspondence with each other is useful to all that know them, as well as to themselves: and their friendship, good-will, and kind offices, are disposed of jointly as well as their fortune, so that no one ever obliged one of them, who had not the obligation multiplied in returns from them all. It is the most beautiful object the eyes of man can behold to see a man of worth and his son live * By the Cornelii, the Spectator is supposed to mean the family of the Eyles's, merchants of distinction: of whom Francis Eyles, Esq. the father, who was a director of the East-India company, and alderman of London, was created a baronet 1 Geo. I. His eldest surviving son, Sir John Eyles, bart. was afterwards lord mayor in 1727; and another of his sons, Sir Joseph Eyles, knt, was sheriff of London in 1725. in an entire unreserved correspondence. The mutual kindness and affection between them, give an inexpressible satisfaction to all who know them. It is a sublime pleasure which increases by the participation. It is as sacred as friendship, as pleasureable as love, and as joyful as religion. This state of mind does not only dissipate sorrow, which would be extreme without it, but enlarges pleasures which would otherwise be contemptible. The most indifferent thing has its force and beauty when it is spoke by a kind father, and an insignificant trifle has its weight when offered by a dutiful child. I know not how to express it, but I think I may call it a 'transplanted self-love.' All the enjoyments and sufferings which a man meets with are regarded only as they concern him in the relation he has to another. A man's very honour receives a new value to him, when he thinks that, when he is in his grave, it will be had in remembrance that such an action was done by such an one's father. Such considerations sweeten the old man's evening, and his soliloquy delights him when he can say to himself, No man can tell my child, his father was either unmerciful, or unjust. My son shall meet many a man who shall say to him, 'I was obliged to thy father; and be my child a friend to his child for ever.' It is not in the power of all men to leave illustrious names or great fortunes to their posterity, but they can very much conduce to their having industry, probity, valour, and justice. It is in every man's power to leave his son the honour of descending from a virtuous man, and add the blessings of heaven to whatever he leaves. him. I shall end this rhapsody with a letter to an excellent young man of my acquaintance, who has lately lost a worthy father. DEAR SIR, I KNOW no part of life more impertinent than the office of administering consolation: I will not enter into it, for I cannot but applaud your grief. The virtuous principles you had from that excellent man, whom you have lost, have wrought in you as they ought, to make a youth of three and twenty incapable of comfort upon coming into possession of a great fortune. I doubt not but you will honour his memory by a modest enjoyment of his estate; and scorn to triumph over his grave, by employing in riot, excess, and debauchery, what he purchased with so much industry, prudence, and wisdom. This is the true way to shew the sense you have of your loss, and to take away the distress of others upon the occasion. You cannot recall your father by your grief, but you may revive him to his friends by your conduct. T. No. 193. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1711. -Ingentem foribus domus alta superbis Mane salutantum totis vomit ædibus undam. VIRG. Georg. ii. 461. His Lordship's palace view, whose portals proud WHEN We look round us, and behold the strange variety of faces and persons which fill the streets with business and hurry, it is no unpleasant amusement to make guesses at their different pursuits, and judge by their countenances what it is that so anxiously engages their present attention. Of all this busy crowd, there are none who would give a man inclined to such inquires better diversion for his thoughts, than those whom we call good courtiers, and such as are assiduous at the levées of great men. These worthies are got into a habit of being servile with an air, and enjoy a certain vanity in being known for understanding how the world passes. In the pleasure of this they can rise early, go abroad sleek and well-dressed, with no other hope or purpose, but to make a bow to a man in court favour, and be thought, by some insignificant smile of his, not a little engaged in his interests and fortunes. It is wondrous, that a man can get over the natural existence and possession of his own mind so far as to take delight either in paying or receiving such cold and repeated civilities. But what maintains the humour is, that outward show is what most men pursue, rather than real happiness. Thus both the idol, and idolater, equally impose upon themselves in pleasing their imaginations this way. But as there are very many of her majesty's good subjects who are extremely uneasy at their own seats in the country, where all from the skies to the centre of the earth is their own, and have a mighty longing to shine in courts, or to be partners in the power of the world; I say, for the benefit of these, and others who hanker after being in the whisper with great men, and vexing their neighbours with the changes they would be capable of making in the appearance of a country sessions, it would not methinks be amiss to give an account of that market for preferment, a great man's levée. |