places which they who live before us do now inhabit, how much still happier is it to go from those who call themselves judges to appear before those that really are such; before Minos, Rhadamanthus, acus, and Triptolemus, and to meet men who have lived with justice and truth! Is this, do you think, no happy journey? Do you think it nothing to speak with Orpheus, Musaeus, Homer, and Hesiod? I would, indeed, suffer many deaths to enjoy these things. With what particular delight should I talk to Palamedes, Ajax, and others, who like me have suffered by the iniquity of their judges. I should examine the wisdom of that great prince who carried such mighty forces against Troy; and argue with Ulysses and Sisyphus upon difficult points, as I have in conversation here, without being in danger of being condemned. But let not those among you who have pronounced me an innocent man be afraid of death. No harm can arrive at a good man, whether dead or living; his affairs are always under the direction of the gods; nor will I believe the fate which is allotted to me myself this day to have arrived by chance; nor have I aught to say either against my judges or accusers, but that they thought they did me an injury. But I detain you too long; it is time that I retire to death, and you to your affairs of life; which of us has the better is known to the gods, but to no mortal man." The divine Socrates is here represented in a figare worthy his great wisdom and philosophy, worthy the greatest mere man that ever breathed. But the modern discourse is written upon a subject no less than the dissolution of nature itself. O how glorious is the old age of that great man, who has spent his time in such contemplations as has made this being, what only it should be, an education for heaven! He has, according to the lights of reason and revelation which seemed to him clearest, traced the steps of Omnipotence. He has, with a celestial ambition, as far as it is consistent with humility and devotion, examined the ways of Providence from the creation to the dissolution of the visible world. How pleasing must have been the speculation, to observe Nature and Providence move together, the physical and moral world march the same pace: to observe paradise and eternal spring the seat of innocence, troubled seasons and angry skies the portion of wickedness and vice! When this admirable author has reviewed all that is past, or is to come, which relates to the habitable world, and run through the whole fate of it, how could a guardian angel, that had attended it through all its courses or changes, speak more emphatically at the end of his charge, than does our author when he makes, as it were, a funeral oration over this globe, looking to the point where it once stood? "Let us only, if you please, to take leave of this subject, reflect upon this occasion on the vanity and transient glory of this habitable world. How, by the force of one element breaking loose upon the rest, all the varieties of nature, all the works of art, all the labors of men are reduced to nothing. All that we admired and adored before, as great and magnificent, is obliterated or vanished; and another form and face of things, plain, simple, and everywhere the same, overspreads the whole earth. Where are now the great empires of the world, and their great imperial cities? their pillars, trophies, and monuments of glory? show me where they stood, read the inscription, tell me the victor's name. What remains, what impressions, what difference, or distinction, do you see in this mass of fire? Rome itself, eternal Rome, the great city, the empress of the world, whose domination and superstition, ancient and modern, make a great part of the history of this earth, what is become of her now? She laid her foundations deep, and her palaces were strong and sumptuous. She glorified herself and lived deliciously, and said in her heart, I sit a queen, and shall see no sorrow.' But her hour is come, she is wiped away from the face of the earth, and buried in everlasting oblivion. But it is not cities only, and works of men's hands; but the everlasting hills, the mountains and rocks of the earth, are melted as wax before the sun, and their place is nowhere found.' Here stood the Alps, the load of the earth that covered many countries, and reached their arms from the ocean to the Black Sea; this huge mass of stone is softened and dissolved as a tender cloud into rain. Here stood the African mountains, and Atlas with his top above the clouds; there was frozen Caucasus, and Taurus, and Imaus, and the mountains of Asia; and yonder, toward the north, stood the Riphæan hills, clothed in ice and snow. All these are vanished, dropt away as the snow upon their heads. Great and marvelous are thy works, just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints! hallelujah.’ Ꭲ . THE well reading of the Common-prayer is of so great importance, and so much neglected, that I take the liberty to offer to your consideration some particulars on that subject. And what more worthy your observation than this? A thing so public, and of so high consequence. It is indeed wonderful, that the frequent exercise of it should not make the performers of that duty more expert in it. This inability, as I conceive, proceeds from the little care that is taken of their reading while boys, and at school, where, when they have got into Latin, they are looked upon as above English, the reading of which is wholly neglected, or at least read to very little purpose, without any due observations made to them of the proper accent and manner of reading; by this means they have acquired such ill habits as will not easily be removed. The only way that I know of to remedy this, is to propose some person of great ability that way as a pattern for them; example being more effectual to convince the learned, as well as instruct the ignorant. You must know, Sir, I have been a constant frequenter of the service of the Church of England for above these four years last past, and until Sunday was sevennight never discovered, to so great a degree, the excellency of the CommonPrayer. When, being at St. James' Garlick Hillt church, I heard the service read so distinctly, so emphatically, and so fervently, that it was next to an impossibility to be inattentive. My eyes and my thoughts could not wander as usual, but were confined to my prayers. I then considered I addressed myself to the Almighty, and not to a beautiful face. And when I reflected on my former performances of that duty, I found I had influence would the service of our churcl taining the best prayers that ever were com and that in terms most affecting, most h and most expressive of our wants, and d ence on the object of our worship, dispo most proper order, and void of all con what influence, I say, would these prayers were they delivered with a due emphasis posite rising and variation of voice, the st concluded with a gentle cadence, and, in a with such an accent and turn of speech a culiar to prayer? " run it over as a matter of form, in comparison to the manner in which I then discharged it. My mind was really affected, and fervent wishes accompanied my words. The Confession was read with such resigned humility, the Absolution with such a comfortable authority, the Thanksgivings with such a religious joy, as made me feel those affections of the mind in a manner I never did before. To remedy therefore the grievance above complained of, I humbly propose, that this excellent reader, upon the next and every annual assembly of the clergy of Sion-college, and all other conventions, should read prayers before As the matter of worship is now mana them. For then those that are afraid of stretching dissenting congregations, you find insig their mouths, and spoiling their soft voices, will words and phrases raised by a lively vehe learn to read with clearness, loudness and strength. in our own churches, the most exalted se Others that affect a rakish, negligent air, by fold-preciated, by a dispassionate indolence. I ing their arms, and lolling on their books, will be ber to have heard Dr. Se* sayin his pu taught a decent behavior, and comely erection of the Common-Prayer, that, at least, it was body. Those that read so fast as if impatient of fect as anything of human institution. their work, may learn to speak deliberately. gentlemen who err in this kind would pl There is another sort of persons, whom I call recollect the many pleasantries they hav Pindaric readers, at being confined to no set mea- upon those who recite good things with sure these pronounce five or six words with great grace, they would go on to think, that w deliberation, and the five or six subsequent ones that case is only ridiculous, in themselves with as great celerity; the first part of a sentence pious. But leaving this to their own reflec with a very exalted voice, and the latter part with shall conclude this trouble with what Cas a submissive one: sometimes again, with one sort upon the irregularity of tone in one who re of a tone, and immediately after with a very dif- fore him, 'Do you read or sing? If yo ferent one. These gentlemen will learn of my you sing very ill.'t admired reader an evenness of voice and delivery; "Your most humble servan and all who are innocent of these affectations, but read with such an indifferency as if they did not understand the language, may then be informed of the art of reading movingly and fervently, how to place the emphasis and give the proper accent to each word, and how to vary the voice according to the nature of the sentence. There is certainly a very great difference between the reading a prayer and a gazette, which I beg of you to inform a set of readers, who affect, forsooth, a certain gentleman-like familiarity of tone, and mend the language as they go on, crying, instead of 'pardoneth and absolveth,' pardons and absolves. These are often pretty classical scholars, and would think it an unpardonable sin to read Virgil or Martial with so little taste as they do divine service. "This indifference seems to me to arise from the endeavor of avoiding the imputation of cant, and the false notion of it. It will be proper, therefore, to trace the origin and signification of this word. Cant' is by some people, derived from one Andrew Cant, who, they say, was a Presbyterian minister in some illiterate part of Scotland, who by exercise and use had obtained the faculty, alias gift, of talking in the pulpit in such a dialect, that it is said he was understood by none but his own congregation, and not by all of them. Since Master Cant's time, it has been understood in a larger sense, and signifies all sudden exclamations, whinings, unusual tones, and in fine all praying and preaching, like the unlearned of the Presbyterians. But I hope a proper elevation of voice, a due emphasis and accent, are not to come within this description. So that our readers may still be as unlike the Presbyterians as they please. The dissenters (I mean such as I have heard) do indeed elevate their voices, but it is with sudden jumps from the lower to the higher part of them; and that with so little sense or skill, that their elevation and cadence is bawling and muttering. They make use of an emphasis, but so improperly, that it is often placed on some very insignificant particle, as upon 'if'or and.' Now if these improprieties have so great an effect on the people as we see they have, how great an T. No. 148.] MONDAY, AUGUST 20, Better one thorn pluck'd out, than all remain. My correspondents assure me, that the e ties which they lately complained of, and lished an account of, are so far from being ed, that new evils arise every day to in their conversation, in contempt of my re My friend who writes from the coffee-hous the Temple, informs me that the gentlem constantly sings a voluntary in spite of the company, was more musical than ordina reading my paper; and has not been co with that, but has danced up to the glass middle of the room, and practiced minuet his own humming. The incorrigible creat gone still farther, and in the open coffee with one hand extended as leading a lad he has danced both French and countryand admonished his supposed partner by and nods to hold up her head and fall b cording to the respective facings and eve of the dance. Before this gentleman beg his exercise, he was pleased to clear his th coughing and spitting a full half hour; soon as he struck up, he appealed to an at clerk in the room, whether he hit as he "Since you from death have saved me?” a asked the young fellow (pointing to a ch bill under his arm), whether that was score he carried or not?-without staying answer, he fell into the exercise above-me and practiced his airs to the full house w turned upon him, without the least sham pentance for his former transgressions. a I am to the last degree at a loss what to this young fellow, except declare him law, and pronounce it penal for any one t * Probably Dr. Smalridge. Si legis, cantas: si cantas, male cantas. to him in the said house which he frequents, and direct that he be obliged to drink his tea and coffee without sugar, and not receive from any person whatsoever anything above mere necessa ries. But I must not omit the dearer part of mankind, I mean the ladies, to take up a whole paper upon grievances which concern the men only; but shall humbly propose, that we change fools for an experiment only. A certain set of ladies complain they are frequently perplexed with a visitant, who affects to be wiser than they are; which character he hopes to preserve by an obstinate gravity, and great guard against discovering his opinion upon any occasion whatsoever. Ă painful silence has hitherto gained him no farther advantage, than that as he might, if he had behaved himself with freedom, been excepted against As we in England are a sober people, and generally inclined rather to a certain bashfulness of behavior in public, it is amazing whence some fellows come whom one meets with in this town; they do not at all seem to be the growth of our island; the pert, the talkative, all such as have no sense of the observation of others, are certainly of foreign extraction. As for my own part, I am as much surprised when I see a talkative English-but as to this and that particular, he now offends man, as I should be to see the Indian pine grow ing on one of our quickset hedges. Where these creatures get sun enough, to make them such lively animals and dull men, is above my philosophy. in the whole. To relieve these ladies, my good friends and correspondents, I shall exchange my dancing outlaw for their dumb visitant, and assign the silent gentleman all the haunts of the dancer; in order to which, I have sent them by the pennypost the following letters for their conduct in their new conversations: "SIR, There are another kind of impertinents which a man is perplexed with in mixed company, and those are your loud speakers. These treat mankind as if they were all deaf; they do not express but declare themselves. Many of these are guilty "I have, you may be sure, heard of your irreguof this outrage out of vanity, because they think larities without regard to my observations upon all they say is well; or they have their own per-you; but shall not treat you with so much rigor sons in such veneration, that they believe nothing as you deserve. If you will give yourself the which concerns them can be insignificant to any trouble to repair to the place mentioned in the body else. For these people's sake, I have often postscript to this letter at seven this evening, lamented that we cannot close our ears with as you will be conducted into a spacious room, wellmuch ease as we can our eyes. It is very uneasy lighted, where there are ladies and music. You that we must necessarily be under persecution. will see a young lady laughing next the window Next to these bawlers, is a troublesome creature to the street; you may take her out, for she loves who comes with the air of your friend and your you as well as she does any man, though she intimate, and that is your whisperer. There is never saw you before. She never thought in her one of them at a coffee-house which I myself fre- life, any more than yourself. She will not be quent, who observing me to be a man pretty well surprised when you accost her, nor concerned made for secrets, gets by me, and with a whisper when you leave her. Hasten from a place where tells me things which all the town knows. It is you are laughed at, to one where you will be no very hard matter to guess at the source of this admired. You are of no consequence, therefore impertinence, which is nothing else but a method go where you will be welcome for being so. or mechanic art of being wise. You never see any frequent in it, whom you can suppose to have anything in the world to do. These persons are worse than bawlers, as much as a secret enemy is more dangerous than a declared one. I wish that my coffee-house friend would take this for an intimation, that I have not heard a word he has told me for these several years; whereas he now thinks me the most trusty repository of his secrets. The whisperers have a pleasant way of ending the close conversation with saying aloud, "Do not you think so?" Then whisper again, and then aloud, "But you know that person:" then whisper again. The thing would be well enough, if they whispered to keep the folly of what they say among friends; but, alas, they do it to preserve the importance of their thoughts. I am sure I could name you more than one person whom no man living ever heard talk upon any subject in nature, or ever saw in his whole life with a book in his hand, that, I know not how, can whisper something like knowledge of what has and does pass in the world; which you would think he learned from some familiar spirit that did not think him worthy to receive the whole story. But in truth whisperers deal only in half accounts of what they entertain you with. A great help to their discourse is, "That the town says, and people begin to talk very freely, and they had it from persons too considerable to be named, what they will tell you when things are riper." My friend has winked upon me any day since I came to town last, and has communicated to me as a secret, that he designed in a very short time to tell me a secret; but I shall know what he means, he now assures me, in less than a fortnight's time. “SIR, "Your humble servant." "The ladies whom you visit, think a wise man the most impertinent creature living, therefore you cannot be offended that they are displeased with you. Why will you take pains to appear wise, where you would not be the more esteemed for being really so? Come to us; forget the gigglers; let your inclination go along with you whether you speak or are silent; and let all such women as are in a clan or sisterhood, go their own way; there is no room for you in that company who are of the common taste of the sex. No. 149.] "For women born to be controll'd TUESDAY, AUGUST 21, 1711. Cui in manu sit quem esse dementem velit, Who has it in her power to make men mad, | fortune, which he agreed to as an equivalent for provements in purchase of an estate; b the difference in our years. In these circumstances goes with her fortune, rather than her f it is not extraordinary to have a crowd of ad- with her. These make up the crowd or vul mirers; which I have abridged in my own thoughts, the rich, and fill up the lumber of the and reduced to a couple of candidates only, both race, without beneficence toward those below young, and neither of them disagreeable in their or respect toward those above them; and persons according to the common way of com- despicable, independent, and useless life, w puting, in one the estate more than deserves my sense of the laws of kindness, good-nature, fortune, in the other my fortune more than de- offices, and the elegant satisfactions whic serves the estate. When I consider the first, I from reason and virtue. own I am so far a woman I cannot avoid being delighted with the thoughts of living great; but then he seems to receive such a degree of courage from the knowledge of what he has, he looks as if he was going to confer an obligation on me; and the readiness he accosts me with, makes me jealous I am only hearing a repetition of the same things he had said to a hundred women before. When I consider the other, I see myself approached with so much modesty and respect, and such a doubt of himself, as betrays, methinks, an affection within, and a belief at the same time that he himself would be the only gainer by my consent. What an unexceptionable husband could I make out of both! but since that is impossible, I beg to be concluded by your opinion. It is absolutely in your power to dispose of "MADAM, one. Your most obedient servant, "SYLVIA." "The vexatious life arises from a conju of two people of quick taste and resentme together for reasons well known to their f in which especial care is taken to avoid they think the chief of evils) poverty, and to them riches, with every evil beside. good people live in a constant constraint company, and too great familiarity alone. they are within observation, they fret a other's carriage and behavior; when alon revile each other's person and conduct. 1 pany they are in a purgatory, when only to in a hell. best undressed; which will bear with you when out of humor; and your way to thi ask of yourself, which of them you valu for his own sake? and by that judge which the greatest instances of his valuing you for self only. "The happy marriage is, when two meet and voluntarily make choice of each without principally regarding or neglecti circumstances of fortune or beauty. Thes still love in spite of adversity or sicknes former we may in some measure defend ou from, the other is the portion of our very "You do me great honor in your application When you have a true notion of this sort to me on this important occasion; I shall there- sion, your humor of living great will vani fore talk to you with the tenderness of a father, of your imagination, and you will find lo in gratitude for your giving me the authority of nothing to do with state. Solitude, with You do not seem to make any great distinc- son beloved, has a pleasure, even in a w tion between these gentlemen as to their persons; mind, beyond show or pomp. You are th the whole question lies upon their circumstances to consider which of your lovers will li and behavior. If the one is less respectful because he is rich, and the other more obsequious because he is not so, they are in that point moved by the same principle, the consideration of fortune, and you must place them in each other's circumstances before you can judge of their inclination. To avoid confusion in discussing this point, I will call the richer man Strephon, and the other Florio. If you believe Florio with Strephon's estate would behave himself as he does now, Florio is certainly your man; but if you think Strephon, were he in Florio's condition, would be as obsequious as Florio is now, you ought for your own sake to choose Strephon; for where the men are equal, there is no doubt riches ought to be a reason for preference. After this manner, my dear child, I would have you abstract them from their circumstances; for you are to take it for granted, that he who is very humble only because he is poor, is the very same man in nature, with him who is haughty because he is rich. "When you have gone thus far, as to consider the figure they make toward you; you will please, my dear, next to consider the appearance you make toward them. If they are men of discerning, they can observe the motives of your heart: and Florio can see when he is disregarded only upon account of fortune, which makes you to him a mercenary creature; and you are still the same thing to Strephon, in taking him for his wealth only; you are therefore to consider whether you had rather oblige, than receive an obligation. "After you have expressed some sense humble approach of Florio, and a little dis Strephon's assurance in his address, you c What an unexceptionable husband could out of both!' It would therefore, methink good way to determine yourself. Take whom what you like is not transferable to a for if you choose otherwise, there is no your husband will ever have what you li his rival; but intrinsic qualities in one ma very probably purchase everything that is titious to another. In plainer terms; he you take for his personal perfections will arrive at the gifts of fortune, than he who take for the sake of his fortune attain to p perfections. If Strephon is not as accomp and agreeable as Florio, marriage to you wil make him so; but marriage to you may Florio as rich as Strephon. Therefore to a sure purchase, employ fortune upon certa but do not sacrifice certainties to fortune. "I am, your most obedient, No. T. "Humble servant 150.] WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 22 Juv., Sat. ii "The marriage life is always an insipid, a vexatious, or a happy condition. The first is, when two people of no genius or taste for themselves meet together, upon such a settlement as has been Want is the scorn of every wealthy fool, thought reasonable by parents and conveyancers And wit in rags is turn'd to rilicule.-DRYDEN. from an exact valuation of the land and cash of As I was walking in my chamber the m both parties. In this case the young lady's per- before I went last into the country, I hea son is no more regarded than the house and im-hawkers with great vehemence crying ab paper, entitled, The Ninety-nine Plagues of an having mentioned the entire friendship between Empty Purse. I had indeed some time before them, concludes that, "they had but one mind, observed that the orators of Grub-street had dealt one purse, one chamber, and one hat." The men very much in plagues. They have already pub- of business were also infected with a sort of sinlished in the same month, The Plagues of Matri-gularity little better than this. I have heard my mony, The Plagues of a Single Life, The Nine- father say, that a broad brimmed hat, short hair, teen Plagues of a Chambermaid, The Plagues of and unfolded handkerchief, were in his time absoa Coachman, The Plagues of a Footman, and The lutely necessary to denote a "notable man ;" and Plague of Plagues. The success these several that he had known two or three, who aspired to plagues met with, probably gave occasion to the the character of "very notable," wear shoe-strings above-mentioned poem on an empty purse. How- with great success. ever that be, the same noise so frequently repeated under my window, drew me insensibly to think on some of those inconveniences and mortifications which usually attend on poverty, and, in short, gave birth to the present speculation; for after my fancy had run over the most obvious and common calamities which men of mean fortunes are liable to, it descends to those little insults and contempts which, though they may seem to dwindle into nothing when a man offers to describe them, are perhaps in themselves more cutting and insuperable than the former. Juvenal, with a great deal of humor and reason, tells us, that nothing bore harder upon a poor man in his time, than the continual ridicule which his habit and dress afforded to the beaux of Rome: To the honor of our present age, it must be allowed, that some of our greatest geniuses for wit and business have almost entirely broken the neck of these absurdities. Quid, quod materiam præbet causasque jocorum Add that the rich have still a gibe in store, He's wounded, see the plaster on his foot.-DRYDEN. It is on this occasion that he afterward adds the reflection which I have chosen for my motto. Want is the scorn of every wealthy fool, And wit in rags is turn'd to ridicule.-DRYDEN. Victor, after having dispatched the most important affairs of the commonwealth, has appeared at an assembly, where all the ladies have declared him the genteelest man in the company; and in Atticus,* though every way one of the greatest geniuses the age has produced, one sees nothing particular in his dress or carriage to denote his pretensions to wit and learning: so that at present a man may venture to cock up his hat, and wear a fashionable wig, without being taken for a rake or a fool. The medium between a fop and a sloven is what a man of sense would endeavor to keep; yet I remember Mr. Osborn advises his son to appear in his habit rather above than below his fortune; and tells him that he will find a handsome suit of clothes always procures some additional respect.† I have indeed myself observed that my banker ever bows lowest to me when I wear my full-bottomed wig; and writes me "Mr." or "Esq." according as he sees me dressed. I shall conclude this paper with an adventure which I was myself an eye-witness of very lately. I happened the other day to call in at a celebeen there long when there came in an elderly brated coffee-house near the Temple. I had not man very meanly dressed, and sat down by me; he had a threadbare loose coat on, which it was plain he wore to keep himself warm, and not to favor It must be confessed that few things make a his under suit, which seemed to have been at least man appear more despicable, or more prejudice its cotemporary; his short wig and hat were both his hearers against what he is going to offer, than answerable to the rest of his apparel. He was no an awkward or pitiful dress; insomuch that I fan-sooner seated than he called for a dish of tea; but ey, had Tully himself pronounced one of his ora- as several gentlemen in the room wanted other tions with a blanket about his shoulders, more things, the boys of the house did not think thempeople would have laughed at his dress than have selves at leisure to mind him. I could observe admired his eloquence. This last reflection made the old fellow was very uneasy at the affront, and me wonder at a set of men, who, without being at his being obliged to repeat his commands sevsubjected to it by the unkindness of their fortunes, eral times to no purpose; until at last one of the are contented to draw upon themselves the ridicule lads presented him with some stale tea in a broken of the world in this particular. I mean such as dish, accompanied with a plate of brown sugar; take it into their heads that the first regular step which so raised his indignation, that after several to be a wit is to commence a sloven. It is certain obliging appellations of dog and rascal, he asked nothing has so much debased that which must him aloud before the whole company, "why he have been otherwise so great a character; and should be used with less respect than that fop I know not how to account for it, unless it may there?" pointing to a well-dressed young gentlepossibly be in complaisance to those narrow minds man who was drinking tea at the opposite table. who can have no notion of the same persons pos- The boy of the house replied with a good deal of sessing different accomplishments; or that it is a pertness, "that his master had two sorts of cussort of sacrifice which some men are contented to tomers, and that the gentleman at the other table make to calumny, by allowing it to fasten on one had given him many a sixpence for wiping his part of their character, while they are endeavoring shoes." By this time the young Templar, who found his honor concerned in the dispute, and that the eyes of the whole coffee-house were upon him, had thrown aside a paper he held in his hand, and was coming toward us, while we at the table made what haste we could to get away from the impending quarrel, but we were all of us surprised to see him, as he approached nearer, put to establish another. Yet however unaccountable this foolish custom is, I am afraid it could plead a long prescription; and probably give too much occasion for the vulgar definition still remaining among us of a heathen philosopher. I have seen the speech of a Terræ filius, spoken in King Charles the Second's reign in which he describes two very eminent men, who were perhaps the greatest scholars of their age; and after Advice to a Son by Francis Osborn, Esq., part 1, sect, 23. Probably Mr. Addison. |