I cannot tell whether I am to account him whom I am next to speak of as one of our company, for he visits us {5} but seldom; but when he does, it adds to every man else a new enjoyment of himself. He is a clergyman, a very philosophic man, of general learning, great sanctity of life, and the most exact good breeding. He has the misfortune to be of a very weak constitution, and consequently {10} cannot accept of such cares and business as preferments in his function would oblige him to; he is therefore among divines what a chamber-counsellor is among lawyers. The probity of his mind and the integrity of his life create him followers, as being eloquent or {15} loud advances others. He seldom introduces the subject he speaks upon; but we are so far gone in years that he observes, when he is among us, an earnestness to have him fall on some divine topic, which he always treats with much authority, as one who has no interests in this {20} world, as one who is hastening to the object of all his wishes, and conceives hope from his decays and infirmities. These are my ordinary companions.
R.
III. SIR ROGER'S CRITICISMS ON POLITE SOCIETY
[No. 6. Wednesday, March 7, 1711. Steele.]
Credebant hoc grande nefas et morte piandum,
Si iuvenis vetulo non assurrexerat.
Juv.
I know no evil under the sun so great as the abuse of the understanding, and yet there is no one vice more common. It has diffused itself through both sexes and all qualities of mankind, and there is hardly that person to be found who is not more concerned for the reputation {5} of wit and sense, than honesty and virtue. But this unhappy affectation of being wise rather than honest, witty than good-natured, is the source of most of the ill habits of life. Such false impressions are owing to the abandoned writings of men of wit, and the awkward imitation {10} of the rest of mankind.
For this reason, Sir Roger was saying last night that he was of opinion none but men of fine parts deserve to be hanged. The reflections of such men are so delicate upon all occurrences which they are concerned in, {15} that they should be exposed to more than ordinary infamy and punishment for offending against such quick admonitions as their own souls give them, and blunting the fine edge of their minds in such a manner that they are no more shocked at vice and folly than men of slower capacities. There is no greater monster in being, than a very ill man of great parts. He lives like a man in a palsy, with one side of him dead. While perhaps he enjoys the {5} satisfaction of luxury, of wealth, of ambition, he has lost the taste of good-will, of friendship, of innocence. Scarecrow, the beggar in Lincoln's Inn Fields, who disabled himself in his right leg, and asks alms all day to get himself a warm supper ... at night, is not half so despicable {10} a wretch as such a man of sense. The beggar has no relish above sensations; he finds rest more agreeable than motion, and while he has a warm fire ..., never reflects that he deserves to be whipped.
"Every man who terminates his satisfactions and enjoyments {15} within the supply of his own necessities and passions, is," says Sir Roger, "in my eye, as poor a rogue as Scarecrow. But," continued he, "for the loss of public and private virtue we are beholden to your men of parts, forsooth; it is with them no matter what is done, so it is {20} done with an air. But to me, who am so whimsical in a corrupt age as to act according to nature and reason, a selfish man in the most shining circumstance and equipage, appears in the same condition with the fellow above-mentioned, but more contemptible in proportion to what {25} more he robs the public of and enjoys above him.[20] I lay it down therefore for a rule, that the whole man is to move together; that every action of any importance is to have a prospect of public good; and that the general tendency of our indifferent actions ought to be agreeable to the dictates of reason, of religion, of good-breeding. Without this, a man, as I have before hinted, is hopping instead of walking; he is not in his entire and proper {5} motion."
While the honest knight was thus bewildering himself in good starts,[21] I looked intentively[22] upon him, which made him, I thought, collect his mind a little. "What I aim at," says he, "is to represent that I am of opinion, {10} to polish our understandings and neglect our manners[23] is of all things the most inexcusable. Reason should govern passion, but instead of that, you see, it is often subservient to it; and, as unaccountable as one would think it, a wise man is not always a good man." {15}
This degeneracy is not only the guilt of particular persons, but also at some times of a whole people; and perhaps it may appear upon examination that the most polite ages are the least virtuous. This may be attributed to the folly of admitting wit and learning as merit in {20} themselves, without considering the application of them. By this means it becomes a rule not so much to regard what we do, as how we do it. But this false beauty will not pass upon men of honest minds and true taste. Sir Richard Blackmore says, with as much good sense as {25} virtue,—"It is a mighty dishonour and shame to employ excellent faculties and abundance of wit, to humour and please men in their vices and follies. The great enemy of mankind, notwithstanding his wit and angelic faculties, is the most odious being in the whole creation." He goes {5} on soon after to say, very generously, that he undertook the writing of his poem "to rescue the Muses, ... to restore them to their sweet and chaste mansions, and to engage them in an employment suitable to their dignity." This certainly ought to be the purpose of every man who {10} appears in public; and whoever does not proceed upon that foundation, injures his country as fast as he succeeds in his studies. When modesty ceases to be the chief ornament of one sex and integrity of the other, society is upon a wrong basis, and we shall be ever after without {15} rules to guide our judgment in what is really becoming and ornamental. Nature and reason direct one thing, passion and humour another. To follow the dictates of the two latter, is going into a road that is both endless and intricate; when we pursue the other, our passage is {20} delightful, and what we aim at easily attainable.
I do not doubt but England is at present as polite a nation as any in the world; but any man who thinks can easily see that the affectation of being gay and in fashion has very near eaten up our good sense and our religion. {25} Is there anything so just, as that mode[24] and gallantry[25] should be built upon exerting ourselves in what is proper and agreeable to the institutions of justice and piety among us? And yet is there anything more common, than that we run in perfect contradiction to them? All which is supported by no other pretension than that it {5} is done with what we call a good grace.
Nothing ought to be held laudable or becoming, but what nature itself should prompt us to think so. Respect to all kind of superiors is founded, methinks, upon instinct; and yet what is so ridiculous as age?[26] I make {10} this abrupt transition to the mention of this vice[27] more than any other, in order to introduce a little story, which I think a pretty instance that the most polite age is in danger of being the most vicious.
It happened at Athens, during a public representation {15} of some play exhibited in honor of the commonwealth, that an old gentleman came too late for a place suitable to his age and quality. Many of the young gentlemen who observed the difficulty and confusion he was in, made signs to him that they would accommodate him if {20} he came where they sat. The good man bustled through the crowd accordingly; but when he came to the seats to which he was invited, the jest was to sit close and expose him, as he stood out of countenance, to the whole audience. The frolic went