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to religion, and recommending it from its natural beauty. Looking over the letters of my correspondents, I find one which celebrates this treatise, and recommends it to my readers.

To the Guardian.

tell you with all the earnestness of a faithful siderable figure in the learned and Christian friend, that to enter into a criminal commerce world. It is entitled, A Demonstration of the with a woman of merit, whom you find inno-Existence, Wisdom, and Omnipotence of God, cent, is of all the follies of this life, the most drawn from the knowledge of nature, particufruitful of sorrow. You must make your ap-larly of man, and fitted to the meanest capacity, proaches to her with the benevolence and lan- by the archbishop of Cambray, author of Teleguage of a good angel, in order to bring upon machus, and translated from the French by the her pollution and shame, which is the work of same hand that englished that excellent piece. a demon. The fashion of the world, the warmth This great author, in the writings which he has of youth, and the affluence of fortune, may, per-before produced, has manifested a heart full of haps, make you look upon me in this talk, like virtuous sentiments, great benevolence to mana poor well-meaning old man, who is past those kind, as well as a sincere and fervent piety toardencies in which you at present triumph; but wards his Creator. His talents and parts are a believe me, sir, if you succeed in what I fear very great good to the world, and it is a pleasyou design, you will find the sacrifice of beautying thing to behold the polite arts subservient and innocence so strong an obligation upon you, that your whole life will pass away in the worst condition imaginable, that of doubt and irresolution; you will ever be designing to leave her, and never do it; or else leave her for another, with a constant longing after her. He is a very unhappy man who does not reserve the most pure and kind affections of his heart for his 'SIR,-I think I have somewhere read, in marriage-bed, he will otherwise be reduced to the writings of one whom I take to be a friend this melancholy circumstance, that he gave his of yours, a saying which struck me very much, mistress that kind of affection which was pro- and as I remember, it was to this purpose: per for his wife, and has not for his wife either "The existence of a God is so far from being a that, or the usual inclination which men bestow thing that wants to be proved, that I think it is upon their mistresses. After such an affair as the only thing of which we are certain." This this, you are a very lucky man if you find a is a sprightly and just expression; however, I prudential marriage is only insipid, and not dare say, you will not be displeased that I put actually miserable; a woman of as ancient a you in mind of saying something on the Defamily as your own, may come into the house monstration of the bishop of Cambray. A man of the Lizards, murmur in your bed, growl at of his talents views all things in a light differyour table, rate your servants, and insult your-ent from that in which ordinary men see them, self, while you bear all this with this unhappy and the devout disposition of his soul turns all reflection at the bottom of your heart, "This is those talents to the improvement of the pleaall for the injured The heart is ungo-sures of a good life. His style clothes philosovernable enough, without being biassed by pre-phy in a dress almost poetic; and his readers possessions; how emphatically unhappy there- enjoy in full perfection the advantage, while fore is he, who besides the natural vagrancy of they are reading him, of being what he is. The affection, has a passion to one particular object, pleasing representation of the animal powers in in which he sees nothing but what is lovely, the beginning of his work, and his consideraexcept what proceeds from his own guilt against tion of the nature of man with the addition of it! I speak to you, my dear friend, as one who reason in the subsequent discourse, impresses tenderly regards your welfare, and beg of you upon the mind a strong satisfaction in itself, to avoid this great error, which has rendered so and gratitude towards Him who bestowed that many agreeable men unhappy before you. superiority over the brute-world. These thoughts When a man is engaged among the dissolute, had such an effect upon the author himself, that gay, and artful of the fair sex, a knowledge of he has ended his discourse with a prayer. This their manners and designs, their favours unen- adoration has a sublimity in it befitting his chadeared by truth, their feigned sorrows and gross racter, and the emotions of his heart flow from flatteries, must in time rescue a reasonable man wisdom and knowledge. I thought it would be from the inchantment; but in a case wherein proper for a Saturday's paper, and have_transyou have none but yourself to accuse, you will lated it to make you a present of it. I have find the best part of a generous mind torn away not, as the translator was obliged to do, confined with her, whenever you take your leave of an myself to an exact version from the original, injured, deserving woman. Come to town, fly but have endeavoured to express the spirit of it, from Olinda, to your obedient humble servant, by taking the liberty to render his thoughts in 'NESTOR IRONSIDE.' such a way as I should have uttered them if they had been my own. It has been observed, that the private letters of great men are the best pictures of their souls; but certainly their private devotions would be still more instructive, and I know not why they should not be as curious and entertaining.

No. 69.]

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Saturday, May 30, 1713.

Lucan.

Jupiter est quodcunque vides
Where'er you turn your eyes, 'tis God you see.

I HAD this morning a very valuable and kind present sent me of a translated work of a most excellent foreign writer, who makes a very con

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I believe you will think is written with an un- | common spirit. The person whom I mean was an excellent writer, and the publication of this prayer of his may be, perhaps, some kind of antidote against the infection in his other writings. But this supplication of the bishop has in it a more happy and untroubled spirit; it is (if that is not saying something too fond) the worship of an angel concerned for those who had fallen, but himself still in the state of glory and innocence. The book ends with an act of devotion, to this effect.

"O my God, if the greater number of mankind do not discover thee in that glorious show of nature which thou hast placed before our eyes, it is not because thou art far from every one of us. Thou art present to us more than any object which we touch with our hands; but our senses, and the passions which they produce in us, turn our attention from thee. Thy light shines in the midst of darkness, but the darkness comprehends it not. Thou, O Lord, dost every way display thyself. Thou shinest in all thy works, but art not regarded by heedless and unthinking man. The whole creation talks aloud of thee, and echoes with the repetitions of thy holy name. But such is our insensibility, that we are deaf to the great and universal voice of nature. Thou art every where about us, and within us; but we wander from ourselves, become strangers to our own souls, and do not apprehend thy presence. O thou, who art the eternal fountain of light and beauty, who art the ancient of days, without beginning and without end; O thou, who art the life of all that truly live, those can never fail to find thee, who seek for thee within themselves. But alas! the very gifts which thou bestowest upon us do so employ our thoughts, that they hinder us from perceiving the hand which conveys them to us. We live by thee, and yet we live without thinking on thee; but, O Lord, what is life in the ignorance of thee! A dead unactive piece of matter; a flower that withers; a river that glides away; a palace that hastens to its ruin; a picture made up of fading colours; a mass of shining ore: strike our imaginations, and make us sensible of their existence. We regard them as objects capable of giving us pleasure, not considering that thou conveyest, through them, all the pleasure which we imagine they give us. Such vain empty objects that are only the shadows of being, are proportioned to our low and groveling thoughts. That beauty which thou hast poured out on thy creation, is as a veil which hides thee from our eyes. As thou art a being too pure and exalted to pass through our senses, thou art not regarded by men, who have debased their nature, and have made themselves like the beasts that perish. So infatuated are they, that notwithstanding they know what is wisdom and virtue, which have neither sound, nor colour, nor smell, nor taste, nor figure, nor any other sensible quality, they can doubt of thy existence, because thou art not apprehended by the grosser organs of sense. Wretches that we are! we consider shadows as realities, and truth as a phantom. That which is nothing, is all to us; and that which is all, appears to us nothing. What do we see in all nature but

thee, O my God! Thou and only thou, appearest in every thing. When I consider thee, O Lord, I am swallowed up, and lost in contemplation of thee. Every thing besides thee, even my own existence, vanishes and disappears in the contemplation of thee. I am lost to myself, and fall into nothing, when I think on thee. The man who does not see thee, has beheld nothing; he who does not taste thee, has a relish of nothing; his being is vain, and his life but a dream. Set up thyself, O Lord, set up thyself, that we may behold thee. As wax consumes before the fire, and as the smoke is driven away, so let thine enemies vanish out of thy presence. How unhappy is that soul who, without the sense of thee, has no God, no hope, no comfort to support him! But how happy the man who searches, sighs, and thirsts after thee! But he only is fully happy, on whom thou liftest up the light of thy countenance, whose tears thou hast wiped away, and who enjoys in thy loving-kindness the completion of all his desires. How long, how long, O Lord, shall I wait for that day when I shall possess, in thy presence, fullness of joy and pleasures for evermore? O my God, in this pleasing hope, my bones rejoice and cry out, Who is like unto thee! My heart melts away, and my soul faints within me when I look up to Thee, who art the God of my life, and my portion to all eternity."

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Of thoughts enlarged and more exalted mind. As I was the other day taking a solitary walk in St. Paul's, I indulged my thoughts in the pursuit of a certain analogy between that fabric and the Christian church in the largest sense. The divine order and economy of the one seemed to be emblematically set forth by the just, plain, and majestic architecture of the other. And as the one consists of a great variety of parts united in the same regular design, according to the truest art, and most exact proportion; so the other contains a decent subordination of members, various sacred institutions, sublime doctrines, and solid precepts of morality digested into the same design, and with an admirable concurrence tending to one view, the happiness and exaltation of human nature.

In the midst of my contemplation, I beheld a fly upon one of the pillars; and it straightway came into my head, that this same fly was a free-thinker. For it required some comprehension in the eye of the spectator, to take in at one view the various parts of the building, in order to observe their symmetry and design. But to the fly, whose prospect was confined to a little part of one of the stones of a single pillar, the joint beauty of the whole, or the distinct use of its parts, were inconspicuous, and nothing could appear but small inequalities in the surface of the hewn stone, which in the view of that insect seemed so many deformed rocks and preci. pices.

The thoughts of a free-thinker are employed certain minute particularities of religion, the difficulty of a single text, or the unaccountableness of some step of Providence or point of doctrine to his narrow faculties, without comprehending the scope and design of Christianity, the perfection to which it raiseth human nature, the light it hath shed abroad in the world, and the close connexion it hath as well with the good of public societies, as with that of particular persons.

This raised in me some reflections on that frame or disposition which is called 'largeness of mind,' its necessity towards forming a true judgment of things, and where the soul is not incurably stinted by nature, what are the likeliest methods to give it enlargement.

It is evident that philosophy doth open and enlarge the mind, by the general views to which men are habituated in that study, and by the contemplation of more numerous and distant objects, than fall within the sphere of mankind in the ordinary pursuits of life. Hence it comes to pass, that philosophers judge of most things very differently from the vulgar. Some instances of this may be seen in the Theaetetus of Plato, where Socrates makes the following remarks, among others of the like nature.

'When a philosopher hears ten thousand acres mentioned as a great estate, he looks upon it as an inconsiderable spot, having been used to contemplate the whole globe of earth. Or when be beholds a man elated with the nobility of his race, because he can reckon a series of seven rich ancestors; the philosopher thinks him a stupid ignorant fellow, whose mind cannot reach to a general view of human nature, which would show him that we have all innumerable ancestors, among whom are crowds of rich and poor, kings and slaves, Greeks and barbarians.' Thus far Socrates, who was accounted wiser than the rest of the heathens, for notions which approach the nearest to Christianity.

As all parts and branches of philosophy, or speculative knowledge, are useful in that respect, astronomy is peculiarly adapted to remedy a little and narrow spirit. In that science there are good reasons assigned to prove the sun a hundred thousand times bigger than our earth, and the distance of the stars so prodigious, that a cannon-bullet continuing in its ordinary rapid motion, would not arrive from hence at the nearest of them in the space of a hundred and fifty thousand years. These ideas wonderfully dilate and expand the mind. There is something in the immensity of this distance that shocks and overwhelms the imagination; it is too big for the grasp of a human intellect: estates, provinces, and kingdoms, vanish at its presence. It were to be wished a certain prince,* who hath encouraged the study of it in his subjects, had been himself a proficient in astronomy.

This might have showed him how mean an ambition that was, which terminated in a small part of what is itself but a point, in respect to that part of the universe which lies within our view.

But the Christian religion ennobleth and en

* Lewis XIV.

largeth the mind beyond any other profession or science whatsoever. Upon that scheme, while the earth, and the transient enjoyments of this life, shrink into the narrowest dimensions, and are accounted as 'the dust of a balance, the drop of a bucket, yea, less than nothing,' the intellectual world opens wider to our view. The perfections of the Deity, the nature and excellence of virtue, the dignity of the human soul, are displayed in the largest characters. The mind of man seems to adapt itself to the different nature of its objects; it is contracted and debased by being conversant in little and low things, and feels a proportionable enlargement arising from the contemplation of these great and sublime ideas.

The greatness of things is comparative; and this does not only hold in respect of extension but likewise in respect of dignity, duration, and all kinds of perfection. Astronomy opens the mind, and alters our judgment, with regard to the magnitude of extended beings; but Christianity produceth a universal greatness of soul. Philosophy increaseth our views in every respect, but Christianity extends them to a degree beyond the light of nature.

How mean must the most exalted potentate upon earth appear to that eye which takes in innumerable orders of blessed spirits, differing in glory and perfection! How little must the amusements of sense, and the ordinary occupations of mortal men, seem to one who is engaged in so noble a pursuit, as the assimilation of himself to the Deity, which is the proper employment of every Christian!

And the improvement which grows from habituating the mind to the comprehensive views of religion must not be thought wholly to regard the understanding. Nothing is of greater force to subdue the inordinate motions of the heart, and to regulate the will. Whether a man be actuated by his passions or his reason, these are first wrought upon by some object, which stirs the soul in proportion to its apparent dimensions. Hence irreligious men, whose short prospects are filled with earth and sense, and mortal life, are invited by these mean ideas to actions proportionably little and low. But a mind, whose views are enlightened and extended by religion, is animated to nobler pursuits by more sublime and remote objects.

There is not any instance of weakness in the free-thinkers that raises my indignation more, than their pretending to ridicule Chris tians, as men of narrow understandings, and to pass themselves upon the world for persons of superior sense, and more enlarged views. But I leave it to any impartial man to judge which hath the nobler sentiments, which the greater views; he whose notions are stinted to a few miserable inlets of sense, or he whose sentiments are raised above the common taste, by the anticipation of those delights which will satiate the soul, when the whole capacity of her nature is branched out into new faculties? He who looks for nothing beyond this short span of duration, or he whose aims are co-extended with the endless length of eternity? He who derives his spirit from the elements, or he who thinks it was inspired by the Almighty?

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Quale portentum neque militaris
Daunia in latis alit esculetis:
Nec Juba tellus generat, leonum
Arida nutrix.

Hor. Lib. 1. Od. xxii. 13.

No beast, of more potentous size,
In the Hercinian forest lies;
Nor fiercer in Numidia bred,

With Carthage were in triumph led.

Roscommon.

I QUESTION not but my country customers will be surprised to hear me complain that this town is, of late years, very much infested with lions: and will perhaps, look upon it as a strange piece of news when I assure them that there are many of these beasts of prey, who walk our streets in broad day-light, beating about from coffee-house to coffee-house, and seeking whom they may devour.

To unriddle this paradox, I must acquaint my rural reader that we polite men of the town give the name of a lion to any one that is a great man's spy. And whereas I cannot discharge my office of Guardian without setting a mark on such a noxious animal, and cautioning my wards against him, I design this whole paper as an essay upon the political lion.

self in the capacity of a spy, that from his time a master-spy goes under the name of a lion.

Walsingham had a most excellent penetra tion, and never attempted to turn any man into. a lion whom he did not see highly qualified for it when he was in his human condition. Indeed the speculative men of those times say of him, that he would now and then play them off, and expose them a little unmercifully; but that, in my opinion, seems only good policy, for otherwise they might set up for men again, when they thought fit, and desert his service. But however, though in that very corrupt age he made use of these animals, he had a great esteem for true men, and always exerted the highest generosity in offering them more, with out asking terms of them, and doing more for them out of mere respect for their talents, though against him, than they could expect from any other minister whom they had served never so conspicuously. This made Raleigh (who profest himself his opponent) say one day to a friend, Pox take this Walsingham, he baffles every body; he won't so much as let a man hate him in private.' True it is, that by the wanderings, roarings, and lurkings of his lions, he knew the way to every man breathing, It has cost me a great deal of time to dis- who had not a contempt for the world itself. He cover the reason of this appellation, but after had lions rampant whom he used for the service many disquisitions and conjectures on so obscure of the church, and couchant who were to lie a subject, I find there are two accounts of it down for the queen. They were so much at more satisfactory than the rest. In the republic command, that the couchant would act as the of Venice, which has been always the mother rampant, and the rampant as couchant, without of politics, there are near the doge's palace being the least out of countenance, and all this several large figures of lions curiously wrought within four-and-twenty hours. Walsingham in marble, with mouths gaping in a most enor- had the pleasantest life in the world; for, by mous manner. Those who have a mind to give the force of his power and intelligence, he the state any private intelligence of what passes saw men as they really were, and not as the in the city, put their hands into the mouth of world thought of them: all this was principally one of these lions, and convey into it a paper of brought about by feeding his lions well, or keep such private informations as any way regarding them hungry, according to their different the interest or safety of the commonwealth. constitutions. By this means all the secrets of state come out of the lion's mouth. The informer is concealed; it is the lion that tells every thing. In short, there is not a mismanagement in office, or a murmur in conversation, which the lion does not acquaint the government with. For this reason, say the learned, a spy is very properly distinguished by the name of lion.

I must confess this etymology is plausible enough, and I did for some time acquiesce in it, till about a year or two ago I met with a little manuscript which sets this whole matter in a clear light. In the reign of queen Elizabeth, says my author, the renowned Walsingham had many spies in his service, from whom the government received great advantage. The most eminent among them was the statesman's barber, whose surname was Lion. This fellow had an admirable knack of fishing out the secrets of his customers, as they were under his hands. He would rub and lather a man's head, till he had got out every thing that was in it. He had a certain snap in his fingers and a volubility in his tongue, that would engage a man to talk with him whether he would or no. By this means he became an inexhaustible fund of private intelligence, and so signalized him

Having given this short, but necessary ac count of this statesman and his barber, who, like the taylor in Shakspeare's Pyramus and Thysby, was a man made as other men are, notwithstanding he was a nominal lion, I shall proceed to the description of this strange species of creatures. Ever since the wise Walsingham was secretary in this nation, our statesmen are said to have encouraged the breed among us, as very well knowing that a lion in our British arms is one of the supporters of the crown, and that it is impossible for a government, in which there are such a variety of factions and in trigues, to subsist without this necessary animal

A lion, or master-spy, hath several jackalls under him, who are his retailers in intelligence, and bring him in materials for his report; his chief haunt is a coffee-house, and as his voice is exceeding strong, it aggravates the sound of every thing it repeats.

As the lion generally thirsts after blood, and is of a fierce and cruel nature, there are no se crets which he hunts after with more delight than those that cut off heads, hang, draw, and quarter, or end in the ruin of the person who becomes his prey. If he gets the wind of an word or action, that may do a man good, it is

not for his purpose, he quits the chace and falls into a more agreeable scent.

| talk there is about a public act, and that the gay part of the university have great expectaHe discovers a wonderful sagacity in seeking tion of a Terre-filius, who is to lash and sting after his prey. He couches and frisks about in all the world in a satyrical speech. Against the a thousand sportful motions to draw it within great licence which hath heretofore been taken his reach, and has a particular way of imitating in these libels, he expresses himself with such the sound of the creature whom he would en-humanity, as is very unusual in a young persnare; an artifice to be met with in no beast son, and ought to be cherished and admired. of prey, except the hyæna and the political lion. You seldom see a cluster of newsmongers without a lion in the midst of them. He never misses taking his stand within ear-shot of one of those little ambitious men, who set up for orators in places of public resort. If there is a whispering-hole, or any public-spirited corner in a coffee-house, you never fail of seeing a lion couched upon his elbow in some part of the neighbourhood.

A lion is particularly addicted to the perusal of every loose paper that lies in his way. He appears more than ordinary attentive to what he reads, while he listens to those who are about him. He takes up the Post-man, and snuffs the candle, that he may hear the better by it. I have seen a lion pore upon a single paragraph in an old gazette for two hours together, if his neighbours have been talking all that while. Having given a full description of this monster, for the benefit of such innocent persons as may fall into his walks, I shall apply a word or two to the lion himself, whom I would desire to consider that he is a creature hated both by God and man, and regarded with the utmost contempt even by such as make use of him. Hangmen and executioners are necessary in a state, and so may the animal I have been here mentioning; but how despicable is the wretch that takes on him so vile an employment? There is scarce a being that would not suffer by a comparison with him, except that being only who acts the same kind of part, and is both the temper and accuser of mankind.

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-Its liberty was turned to rage;
Such rage as civil pow'r was forced to tame.
Creech.

OXFORD is a place which I am more inquisitive about than even that of my nativity; and when I have an account of any sprightly saying, or rising genius from thence, it brings my own youthful days into my mind, and throws me forty years back into life. It is for this reason, that I have thought myself a little neglected of late by Jack Lizard, from whom I used to hear at least once a week. The last post brought me his excuse, which is, that he hath been wholly taken up in preparing some exercises for the theatre. He tells me likewise, that the

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For my own part, I so far agree with him, that if the university permits a thing, which I think much better let alone; I hope those, whose duty it is to appoint a proper person for that office, will take care that he utter nothing unbecoming a gentleman, a scholar, and a christian. Moreover, I would have them consider that their learned body hath already enemies enough, who are prepared to aggravate all irreverent insinuations, and to interpret all oblique indecencies, who will triumph in such a victory, and bid the university thank herself for the consequences.

In my time I remember the Terræ-filius contented himself with being bitter upon the pope, or chastising the Turk; and raised a serious and manly mirth, and adapted to the dignity of his auditory, by exposing the false reasoning of the heretic, or ridiculing the clumsy pretenders to genius and politeness. In the jovial reign of king Charles the Second, wherein never did more wit or more ribaldry abound, the fashion of being arch upon all that was grave, and waggish upon the ladies, crept into our seats of learning upon these occasions. This was managed grossly and awkwardly enough, in a place where the general plainness and simplicity of manners could ill bear the mention of such crimes, as in courts and great cities are called by the specious names of air and gallantry. It is to me amazing, that ever any man, bred up in the knowledge of virtue and huma nity, should so far cast off all shame and tenderness, as to stand up in the face of thousands, and utter such contumelies as I have read and heard of. Let such a one know that he is

making fools merry, and wise men sick; and less compunction than the common hangman, that, in the eye of considering persons, he hath and less shame than a prostitute.

Infamy is so cutting an evil, that most persons who have any elevation of soul, think it worse than death. Those who have it not in their power to revenge it, often pine away in anguish, and loath their being; and those who have, enjoy no rest till they have vengeance. I shall therefore make it the business of this paper to show how base and ungenerous it is to traduce the women, and how dangerous to expose men of learning and character, who have generally been the subjects of these invectives.

It hath been often said, that women seem formed to soften the boisterous passions, and sooth the cares and anxieties to which men are exposed in the many perplexities of life. That having weaker bodies, and less strength of mind than man, nature hath poured out her charms upon them, and given them such tenderness of heart, that the most delicate delight we receive from them is, in thinking them entirely ours, and under our protection. Accord. ingly we find, that all nations have paid a decent homage to this weaker and lovelier part of the

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