An Essay to prove that an Author will write the better, for having fome knowledge of the fubject on which he

writes.

As

S feveral gentlemen in thefe times, by the wonderful force of genius only, without the leaft affiftance of learning, perhaps without being well able to read, have made a confiderable figure in the republic of letters; the modern critics, I am told, have lately begun to affert, that all kind of learning is intirely useless to a writer; and, indeed, no other than a kind of fetters on the natural fprightlinefs and activity of the imagination, which is thus weighed down, and prevented from foaring to thofe high flights which otherwise it would be able to reach.

This doctrine, I am afraid, is, at present, carried much too far: for why fhould writing differ fo much from all other arts? The nimbleness of a dancing. master is not at all prejudiced by being taught to move; nor doth any mechanic, I believe, exercife

his

his tools the worfe by having learnt to use them. For my own part, I cannot conceive that Homer or Virgil would have writ with more fire, if, instead of being mafters of all the learning of their times, they had been as ignorant as most of the Authors of the prefent age. Nor do I believe that all the imagination, fire, and judgment of Pitt, could have produced those orations that have made the fenate of Eng. land in these our times a rival in eloquence of Greece and Rome, if he had not been fo well read in the writings of Demofthenes and Cicero, as to have tranfferred their whole fpirit into his fpeeches, and with their fpirit, their knowledge too.

I would not here be understood to insist on the fame fund of learning in any of my brethren, as Cicero perfuades us is neceffary to the compofition of an orator. On the contrary, very little reading is, I conceive, neceffary to the poet, lefs to the critic, and the leaft of all to the politician, For the first, perhaps, Byfhe's Art of Poetry, and a few of our modern poets, may fuffice; for the fecond, a moderate heap of plays; and for the laft, an indifferent collection of political journals.

To fay the truth, I require no more than that a man fhould have fome little knowledge of the fub. ject on which he treats, according to the old maxim of law, Quam quifque norit artem ined fe exerceat. With this alone a writer may fometimes do tolerably well; and indeed without this, all the other learning in the world will stand him in little stead.

For inftance, let us fuppofe that Homer and Virgil, Ariftotle and Cicero, Thucydides and Livy, could have met all together, and have clubbed their feveral talents to have compofed a treatise on the art of dancing; I believe it will be readily agreed they could not have equailed the excellent treatise which Mr. Effex hath given us on that fubject, entitled, The Rudiments of genteel Education. And, indeed, fhould the excellent Mr. Broughton be prevailed on to fet fift to paper, and to compleat the abovesaid rudiments, by delivering down the true principles of Athletics, I queftion whether the world will have any

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caufe

ceafe to lament, that none of the great writers, ei ther ancient or modern, have ever treated about that noble aad useful art.

To avoid a multiplicity of examples in fo plain a cafe, and to come at once to my point, I am apt to conceive, that one reason why many English writers have totally failed in defcribing the manners of upper life, may poffibly be, that in reality they know no. thing of it.

This is a knowledge unhappily not in the power of many Authors to arrive at. Books will give us a very imperfect idea of it; nor will the stage a much better: the fine gentleman formed upon reading the former, will almost always turn out a pedant, and he who forms himself upon the latter, a coxcomb.

Nor are the characters drawn from these models better fupported. Vanbrugh and Congreve copied nature; but they who copy them draw as unlike the prefent age, as Hogarth would do if he was to paint a rout or a drum in the dreffes of Titian and of Vandyke. In short, imitation here will not do the bufinefs. The picture must be after nature herself. A true knowledge of the world is gained only by con verfation, and the manners of every rank must be feen in order to be known.

Now it happens that this higher order of mortals is not to be feen, like all the reft of the human fpecies, -for nothing, in the streets, fhops, and coffee-houses: nor are they fhewn like the upper rank of animals, for fo much a-piece. In fhort, this is a fight to which no perfons are admitted, without one or other of these qualifications, viz. either birth or fortune; or what is equivalent to both, the honourable profeffion of a gamefter. And, very unluckily for the world, perfons fo qualified very feldom care to take upon themselves the bad trade of writing; which is generally entered upon by the lower and poorer fort, as it is a trade which many think requires no kind of ftock to fet up with.

Hence thofe ftrange monsters in lace and embroi dery, in filks and brocades, with vaft wigs and hoops; which, under the name of lords and ladies, ftrut the

Rage,

ftage, to the great delight of attorneys and their clerks in the pit, and of the citizens and their apprentices in the galleries; and which are no more to be found in real life, than the centaur, the chimera, or any other creature of mere fiction. But, to let my reader into a fecret, this knowledge of upper life, though very neceffary for preventing mistakes, is no very great refource to a writer, whofe province is comedy, or that kind of novels, which, like this I am writing, is of the comic clafs.

What Mr. Pope fays of women is very applicable to moft in this ftation, who are indeed fo entirely made up of form and affectation, that they have no character at all, at least none which appears. I will venture to fay, the higheft life is much the dulleft, and affords very little humour or entertainment. The various callings in lower fpheres produce the great variety of humourous characters; whereas here, except among the few who are engaged in the pursuit of ambition, and the fewer still who have a relish for pleasure, all is vanity and fervile imitation. Dreffing and cards, eating and drinking, bowing and curtfying, make up the business of their lives.

Some there are, however, of this rank, upon whom paffion exercises its tyranny, and hurries them far be yond the bounds which decorum prefcribes; of these, the ladies are as much diftinguished by their noble intrepidity, and a certain fuperior contempt of reputation, from the frail ones of meaner degree, as a virtuous woman of quality is, by the elegance and delicacy of her fentiments from the honeft wife of a yeoman or fhopkeeper. Lady Bellafton was of this intrepid character; but let not my country readers conclude from her, that this is the general conduct of women of fashion, or that we mean to represent them as fuch. They might as well fuppofe, that every clergyman was reprefented by Thwackum, or every foldier by enfign Northerton.

There is not indeed a greater error than that which univerfally prevails among the vulgar, who, borrowing their opinion from fome ignorant fatyrifts, have affixed the character of lewdnefs to these times. On the

contrary, I am convinced, there never was lefs of love intrigue carried on among perfons of condition, than now. Our prefent women have been taught by their mothers to fix their thoughts only on ambition and vanity, and to despise the pleasures of love as unworthy their regard; and, being afterwards by the care of fuch mothers married without having husbands, they feem pretty well confirmed in the juftnefs of thofe fentiments; whence they content themselves, for the dull remainder of life, with the pursuit of more innocent, but, I am afraid, more childish amufements, the bare mention of which would ill fuit with the dignity of this hiftory. In my humble opinion, the true characteristic of the prefent beau monde is rather folly than vice, and the only epithet which it deferves is that of frivolous.

CHAP.

Containing letters and other matters which attend a

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ONES had not long been at home before he received the following letter.

'I was never more surprised than when I found you was gone. When you left the room, I little imagin⚫ed you intended to have left the house without seeing me again, Your behaviour is all of a piece, and ' convinces me how much I ought to despise a heart which can doat upon an idiot; though I know not whether I should not admire her cunning more than ⚫ her fimplicity: wonderful both! for though fhe understood not a word of what paffed between us, fhe yet had the skill, the affurance, the- -what shall I < call it? to deny to my face, that she knows you, or ever faw you before.-Was this a fcheme laid be6 tween you, and have you been base enough to betray • me? O how I defpife her, you, and all the world, but chiefly myfelf! for- I dare not write what I fhould afterwards run mad to read; but remember,

• I can detest as violently as I have loved.

Jones