and are so ready to lapse into barbarity. This, among the Romans, was the raillery of slaves, of which we have many instances in Plautus. It seems to have been introduced among us by Cromwell, who, by preferring the scum of the people, made it a court entertainment, of which I have heard many particulars; and, considering all things were turned upside down, it was reasonable and judicious; although it was a piece of policy found out to ridicule a point of honour in the other extreme, when the smallest word misplaced among gentlemen ended in a duel. There are some men excellent at telling a story, and provided with a plentiful stock of them, which they can draw out upon occasion in all companies; and, considering how low conversation runs now among us, it is not altogether a contemptible talent; however, it is subject to two unavoidable defects, frequent repetition, and being soon exhausted; so that whoever values this gift in himself, has need of a good memory, and ought frequently to shift his company, that he may not discover the weakness of his fund; for those who are thus endued have seldom any other revenue, but live upon the main stock. Great speakers in public are seldom agreeable in private conversation, whether their faculty be natural, or acquired by practice and often venturing. Natural elocution, although it may seem a paradox, usually springs from a barrenness of invention and of words; by which men who have only one stock of notions upon every subject, and one set of phrases to express them in, they swim upon the superficies, and offer themselves on every occasion; therefore men of much learning, and who know the compass of a language, are generally the worst talkers on a sudden, until much practice has inured and emboldened them; because they are confounded with plenty of matter, variety of notions and of words, which they cannot readily choose, but are perplexed and entangled by too great a choice; which is no disadvantage in private conversation; where, on the other side, the talent of haranguing is, of all others, most insupportable. Nothing has spoiled men more for conversation, than the character of being wits; to support which they never fail of encouraging a number of followers and admirers, who list themselves in their service, wherein they find their accounts on both sides by pleasing their mutual vanity. This has given the former such an air of superiority, and made the latter so pragmatical, that neither of them are well to be endured. I say nothing here of the itch of dispute and contradiction, telling of lies, or of those who are troubled with the disease called the wandering of the thoughts, so that they are never present in mind at what passes in discourse; for whoever labours under any of these possessions, is as unfit for conversation as a madman in Bedlam. conversation that have fallen under my notice or memory, except some that are merely personal, and others too gross to need exploding; such as lewd or profane talk; but I pretend only to treat the errors of conversation in general. and not the several subjects of discourse, which would be infinite. Thus we see how human nature is most debased, by the abuse of that faculty which is held the great distinction between men and brutes: and how little advantage we make of that which might be the greatest, the most lasting, and the most innocent as well as useful pleasure of life: in default of which we are forced to take up with those poor amusements of dress and visiting, or the more pernicious ones of play, drink, and vicious amours; whereby the nobility and gentry of both sexes are entirely corrupted, both in body and mind, and have lost all notions of love, honour, friendship, generosity; which, under the name of fopperies, have been for some time laughed out of doors. This degeneracy of conversation, with the pernicious consequences thereof upon our humours and dispositions, has been owing, among other causes, to the custom arisen for some time past of excluding women from any share in our society, further than in parties at play, or dancing, or in the pursuit of an amour. I take the highest period of politeness in England (and it is of the same date in France) to have been the peaceable part of King Charles I.'s reign; and from what we read of those times, as well as from the accounts I have formerly met with from some who lived in that court, the methods then used for raising and cultivating conversation were altogether different from ours: several ladies, whom we find celebrated by the poets of that age, had assemblies at their houses, where persons of the best understanding, and of both sexes, met to pass the evenings in discoursing upon whatever agreeable subjects were occasionally started; and although we are apt to ridicule the sublime Platonic notions they had, or personated, in love and friendship, I conceive their refinements were grounded upon reason, and that a little grain of the romance is no ill ingredient to preserve and exalt the dignity of human nature, without which it is apt to degenerate into everything that is sordid, vicious, and low. If there were no other use in the conversation of ladies, it is sufficient that it would lay a restraint upon those odious topics of immodesty and indecencies into which the rudeness of our northern genius is so apt to fall. And therefore it is observable in those so sprightly gentlemen about the town, who are very dexterous at entertaining a vizard mask in the park or the playhouse, that in the company of ladies of virtue and honour they are silent and disconcerted and out of their element. There are some people who think they suffiI think I have gone over most of the errors in ciently acquit themselves, and entertain their N company, with relating facts of no consequence, nor at all out of the road of such common incidents as happen every day; and this I have observed more frequently among the Scots than any other nation, who are very careful not to omit the minutest circumstances of time or place; which kind of discourse, if it were not a little relieved by the uncouth terms and phrases, as well as accent and gesture, peculiar to that country, would be hardly tolerable. It is not a fault in company to talk much; but to continue it long is certainly one; for if the majority of those who are got together be naturally silent or cautious, the conversation will flag, unless it be often renewed by one among them, who can start new subjects (provided he does not dwell upon them) that leave room for answers and replies. knew in a flourishing state in a forest: it was full of sap, full of leaves, and full of boughs: but now, in vain does the busy art of man pretend to vie with nature, by tying that withered bundle of twigs to its sapless trunk it is now, at best, but the reverse of what it was, a tree turned upside down, the branches on the earth, and the root in the air; it is now handled by every dirty wench, condemned to do her drudgery, and, by a capricious kind of fate, destined to make other things clean, and be nasty itself: at length, worn to the stumps in the service of the maids, it is either thrown out of doors, or condemned to the last use of kindling a fire. When I beheld this, I sighed, and said within myself, "Surely man is a Broomstick!" Nature sent him into the world strong and lusty, in a thriving condition, wearing his own hair on his head, the proper branches of this reasoning vege A MEDITATION UPON A BROOMSTICK:* table, until the axe of intemperance has lopped ACCORDING TO THE STYLE AND MANNER OF THE HONOURABLE ROBERT BOYLE'S MEDITATIONS. This single stick, which you now behold ingloriously lying in that neglected corner, I once * "In the yearly visits which Swift made to London, during his stay there he passed much of his time at Lord Berkeley's, officiating as chaplain to the family, and attending her ladyship in her private devotions; after which the doctor, by her desire, used to read to her some moral or religious discourse. The countess had at this time taken a great liking to Mr Boyle's 'Meditations,' and was determined to go through them in that manner; but as Swift had by no means the same relish for that kind of writing which her ladyship had, he soon grew weary of the task; and, a whim coming into his head, resolved to get rid of it in a way which might occasion some sport in the family; for which they had as high a relish as himself. The next time he was employed in reading one of these Meditations, he took an opportunity of conveying away the book, and dexterously inserted a leaf, on which he had written his own Meditation on a Broomstick;' after which he took care to have the book restored to its proper place, and in his next attendance on my lady, when he was desired to proceed to the next Meditation, Swift opened upon the place where the leaf had been inserted, and with great composure read the title, 'A Meditation on a Broomstick.' Lady Berkeley, a little surprised at the oddity of the title, stopped him, repeating the words, 'A Meditation on a Broomstick! What a strange subject! But there is no knowing what useful lessons of instruction this wonderful man may draw from things apparently the most trivial. Pray let us hear what he says upon it.' Swift then, with an inflexible gravity of countenance, proceeded to read the Meditation, in the same solemn tone which he had used in delivering the former. Lady Berkeley, not at all suspecting a trick, in the fulness of her prepossession, was every now and then, during the readng of it, expressing her admiration of this extraordinary man, who could draw such fine moral reflections from so contemptible a subject; with which though Swift must have been inwardly not a little tickled, yet he preserved a most perfect composure of features, so that she had not the least room to suspect any deceit. Soon after, some company coming in, Swift pretended off his green boughs, and left him a withered trunk: he then flies to art, and puts on a periwig, valuing himself upon an unnatural bundle of hairs (all covered with powder), that never grew on his head; but now, should this our broomstick pretend to enter the scene, proud of those birchen spoils it never bore, and all covered lady's chamber, we should be apt to ridicule and with dust, though the sweepings of the finest despise its vanity. Partial judges that we are of our own excellences and other men's defaults! But a broomstick, perhaps you will say, is an emblem of a tree standing on its head; and pray what is man but a topsy-turvy creature, his animal faculties perpetually mounted on his rational, his head where his heels should be, grovelling on the earth? And yet, with all his faults, he sets up to be a universal reformer and corrector of abuses, a remover of grievances, rakes into every slut's corner of nature, bringing hidden corruption to the light, and raises a mighty dust where there was none before; sharbusiness, and withdrew, foreseeing what was to follow. Lady Berkeley, full of the subject, soon entered upon the praises of those heavenly 'Meditations' of Mr Boyle. 'But,' said she, 'the doctor has just been reading one to me, which has surprised me more than all the rest. One of the company asked which of the Meditations she meant? She answered directly, in the simplicity of her heart, 'I mean, that excellent Meditation upon the Broomstick.' The company looked at each other with some surprise, and could scarce refrain from laughing. But they all agreed that they had never heard of such a Meditation before. Upon my word,' said my lady, there it is, look into that book, and convince yourselves.' One of them opened the book, and found it there indeed, but in Swift's handwriting: upon which a general burst of laughter ensued; and my lady, when the first surprise was over, enjoyed the joke as much as any of them; saying, 'What a vile trick has that rogue played me! But it is his way, he never baulks his humour in anything.' The affair ended in a great deal of harmless mirth, and Swift, you may be sure, was not asked to proceed any further into the Meditations.'"--Dr Sheridan. ing deeply all the while in the very same pollutions he pretends to sweep away: his last days are spent in slavery to women, and generally the least deserving; till, worn out to the stumps, like his brother besom, he is either kicked out of doors, or made use of to kindle flames for others to warm themselves by. THOUGHTS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS, We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love, one another. Reflect on things past, as wars, negotiations, factions, etc., we enter so little into those interests that we wonder how men could possibly be so busy and concerned for things so transitory; look on the present times, we find the same humour, yet wonder not at all. A wise man endeavours, by considering all circumstances, to make conjectures, and form conclusions; but the smallest accident intervening (and in the course of affairs it is impossible to foresee all), does often produce such turns and changes, that at last he is just as much in doubt of events as the most ignorant and inexperienced person. Positiveness is a good quality for preachers and orators, because he that would obtrude his thoughts and reasons upon a multitude, will convince others the more as he appears convinced himself. How is it possible to expect that mankind will take advice, when they will not so much as take warning? I forget whether advice be among the lost things which Ariosto says may be found in the moon; that and time ought to have been there. No preacher is listened to but Time, which gives us the same train and turn of thought that elder people have in vain tried to put into our heads before. When we desire or solicit anything, our minds run wholly on the good side or circumstances of it; when it is obtained, our minds run wholly on the bad ones. In a glasshouse, the workmen often fling in a small quantity of fresh coals, which seems to disturb the fire, but very much enlivens it. This seems to allude to a gentle stirring of the passions, that the mind may not languish. Religion seems to have grown an infant with age, and requires miracles to nurse it, as it had in its infancy. All fits of pleasure are balanced by an equal degree of pain or langour; it is like spending this year part of the next year's revenue. The latter part of a wise man's life is taken up in curing the follies, prejudices, and false opinions he had contracted in the former. Would a writer know how to behave himself with relation to posterity, let him consider in old books what he finds that he is glad to know, and what omissions he most laments. Whatever the poets pretend, it is plain they give immortality to none but themselves; it is Homer and Virgil we reverence and admire, not Achilles or Æneas. With historians it is quite the contrary; our thoughts are taken up with the actions, persons, and events we read, and we little regard the authors. When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him. Men who possess all the advantages of life are in a state where there are many accidents to disorder and discompose, but few to please them. It is unwise to punish cowards with ignominy; for if they had regarded that, they would not have been cowards: death is their proper punishment, because they fear it most. The greatest inventions were produced in the times of ignorance; as the use of the compass, gunpowder, and printing; and by the dullest nation, as the Germans. One argument to prove that the common relations of ghosts and spectres are generally false, may be drawn from the opinion held, that spirits are never seen by more than one person at a time; that is to say, it seldom happens to above one person in a company to be possessed with any high degree of spleen or melancholy. I am apt to think that, in the day of judgment, there will be small allowance given to the wise for their want of morals, and to the ignorant for their want of faith, because both are without excuse. This renders the advantages equal of ignorance and knowledge. But some scruples in the wise, and some vices in the ignorant, will perhaps be forgiven upon the strength of temptation to each. The value of several circumstances in story lessons very much by distance of time, though some minute circumstances are very valuable; and it requires great judgment in a writer to distinguish. It is grown a word of course for writers to say, "This critical age," as divines say, "This sinful age." It is pleasant to observe how free the present age is in laying taxes on the next: future ages will talk of this; this shall be famous to all posterity: whereas their time and thoughts will be taken up about present things, as ours are now. The chameleon, who is said to feed upon nothing but air, has of all animals the nimblest tongue. When a man is made a spiritual peer, he loses his surname; when a temporal, his Christian name. It is in disputes, as in armies: where the weaker side sets up false lights, and makes a great noise, to make the enemy believe them more numerous and strong than they really are. Some men, under the notion of weeding out prejudices, eradicate virtue, honesty, and religion. In all well-instituted commonwealths, care has been taken to limit men's possessions, which is done for many reasons, and, among the rest, for one which, perhaps, is not often considered, that when bounds are set to men's desires, after they have acquired as much as the laws will permit them, their private interest is at an end, and they have nothing to do but to take care of the public. There are but three ways for a man to revenge himself of the censure of the world; to despise it, to return the like, or to endeavour to live so as to avoid it: the first of these is usually pretended, the last is almost impossible, the universal practice is for the second. Herodotus tells us, that in cold countries beasts very seldom have horns, but in hot they have very large ones. This might bear a pleasant application. I never heard a finer piece of satire against lawyers, than that of astrologers, when they pretend, by rules of art, to tell when a suit will end, and whether to the advantage of the plaintiff or defendant, thus making the matter depend entirely upon the influence of the stars, without the least regard to the merits of the cause. The expression in the Apocrypha about Tobit and his dog following him, I have often heard ridiculed; yet Homer has the same words of Telemachus more than once; and Virgil says something like it of Evander. And I take the book of Tobit to be partly poetical. I have known some men possessed of good qualities which were very serviceable to others, but useless to themselves; like a sun-dial on the front of a house, to inform the neighbours and passengers, but not the owner within. If a man would register all his opinions upon love, politics, religion, learning, etc., beginning from his youth, and so go on to old age, what a bundle of inconsistencies and contradictions would appear at last! What they do in heaven we are ignorant of; what they do not we are told expressly, that they neither marry, nor are given in marriage. There is no vice or folly that requires so much nicety and skill to manage as vanity; nor any which, by ill management, makes so contemptible a figure. When I am reading a book, whether wise or silly, it seems to me to be alive and talking to me. It is a miserable thing to live in suspense; it is the life of a spider. Vive quidem, pende tamen, improba, dixit. The stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires, is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes. Physicians ought not to give their judgment of religion, for the same reason that butchers are not admitted to be jurors upon life and death. The reason why so few marriages are happy, is because young ladies spend their time in mak ing nets, not in making cages. If a man will observe as he walks the streets, I believe he will find the merriest countenances in mourning coaches. Nothing more unqualifies a man to act with prudence than a misfortune that is attended with shame and guilt. The power of fortune is confessed only by the miserable; for the happy impute all their success to prudence and merit. Ambition often puts men upon doing the meanest offices: so climbing is performed in the same posture with creeping. Ill company is like a dog, who dirts those most whom he loves best. Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent. Although men are accused for not knowing their own weakness, yet, perhaps, as few know their own strength. It is in men as in soils, where sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not of. Satire is reckoned the easiest of all wit; but I take it to be otherwise in very bad times: for it is as hard to satirise well a man of distinguished vices, as to praise well a man of distinguished virtues. It is easy enough to do either to people of moderate characters. Invention is the talent of youth, and judgment of age: so that our judgment grows harder to please when we have fewer things to offer it: this goes through the whole commerce of life. When we are old, our friends find it difficult to please us, and are less concerned whether we be pleased or not. No wise man ever wished to be younger. An idle reason lessens the weight of the good ones you gave before. The motives of the best actions will not bear too strict an inquiry. It is allowed that the cause of most actions, good or bad, may be resolved into the love of ourselves; but the selflove of some men inclines them to please others; and the self-love of others is wholly employed in pleasing themselves. This makes the great distinction between virtue and vice. Religion is the best motive of all actions, yet religion is allowed to be the highest instance of self-love. Anthony Henley's farmer dying of an asthma said, "Well, if I can get this breath once out, I'll take care it shall never get in again." The humour of exploding many things under the name of trifles, fopperies, and only imaginary goods, is a very false proof either of wisdom or maguanimity, and a great check to virtuous actions. For instance, with regard to fame; there is in most people a reluctance and unwillingness to be forgotten. We observe, even among the vulgar, how fond they are to have an inscription over their grave. It requires but little philosophy to discover and observe that there is no intrinsic value in all this; however, if it be founded in our nature, as an incitement to virtue, it ought not to be ridiculed. Complaint is the largest tribute heaven receives, and the sincerest part of our devotion. The common fluency of speech in many men, and most women, is owing to a scarcity of matter, and a scarcity of words; for whoever is a master of language, and has a mind full of ideas, will be apt, in speaking, to hesitate upon the choice of both; whereas common speakers have only one set of ideas and one set of words to clothe them in; and these are always ready at the mouth: so people come faster out of a church when it is almost empty, than when a crowd is at the door. Few are qualified to shine in company; but it is in most men's power to be agreeable. The reason, therefore, why conversation runs so low at present, is not the defect of understanding, but pride, vanity, ill-nature, affectation, singularity, positiveness, or some other vice, the effect of a wrong education. To be vain is rather a mark of humility than pride. Vain men delight in telling what honours have been done them, what great company they have kept, and the like, by which they plainly confess that these honours were more than their due, and such as their friends would not believe, if they had not been told; whereas a man truly proud, thinks the greatest honours below his merit, and consequently scorns to boast. I therefore deliver it as a maxim, that whoever desires the character of a proud man, ought to conceal his vanity. Law, in a free country, is, or ought to be, the determination of the majority of those who have property in land. One argument used to the disadvantage of Providence, I take to be a very strong one in its defence. It is objected, that storms and tempests, unfruitful seasons, serpents, spiders, flies, and other noxious or troublesome animals, with many other instances of the same kind, discover an imperfection in nature, because human life would be much easier without them: but the design of Providence may clearly be perceived in this proceeding. The motions of the sun and moon, in short, the whole system of the universe, as far as philosophers have been able to discover and observe, are in the utmost degree of regularity and perfection; but wherever God has left to man the power of interposing a remedy by thought or labour, there He has placed things in a state of imperfection, on purpose to stir up human industry, without which life would stagnate, or indeed rather could not subsist at all: "Curis acuuntur mortalia corda." Praise is the daughter of present power. How inconsistent is man with himself! I have known several persons of great fame for wisdom in public affairs and councils gov erned by foolish servants: I have known great ministers, distinguished for wit and learning, who preferred none but dunces : I have known men of great valour cowards to their wives: I have known men of the greatest cunning perpetually cheated: I knew three great ministers, who could exactly compute and settle the accompts of a kingdom, but were wholly ignorant of their own economy. The preaching of divines helps to preserve well-inclined men in the course of virtue, but seldom or never reclaims the vicious. Princes usually make wiser choices than the servants whom they trust for the disposal of places: I have known a prince more than once choose an able minister; but I never observed that minister to use his credit in the disposal of an employment to a person whom he thought the fittest for it. One of the greatest in this age owned and excused the matter, from the violence of parties and the unreasonableness of friends. Small causes are sufficient to make a man uneasy, when great ones are not in the way: for want of a block he will stumble at a straw. Dignity, high station, or great riches, are in some sort necessary to old men, in order to keep the younger at a distance, who are otherwise too apt to insult them upon the score of their age. Every man desires to live long; but no man would be old. Love of flattery in most men proceeds from the mean opinion they have of themselves; in women, from the contrary. If books and laws continue to increase as they have done for fifty years past, I am in concern for future ages, how any man will be learned, or any man a lawyer. Kings are commonly said to have long hands; I wish they had as long ears. Princes in their infancy, childhood, and youth are said to discover prodigious parts and wit, to speak things that surprise and astonish: strange, so many hopeful princes, and so many shameful kings! If they happen to die young, they would have been prodigies of wisdom and virtue: if they live, they are often prodigies indeed, but of another sort. Politics, as the word is commonly understood, are nothing but corruptions, and consequently of no use to a good king, or a good ministry: for which reason all courts are so full of politics. * Harley. |