EPISTLES TO SEVERAL PERSONS.
ADVERTISEMENT.
THE ESSAY ON MAN was intended to have been comprised in Four Books:
The First of which, the Author has given us under that title, in four Epistles. The Second was to have consisted of the same number: 1. Of the extent and limits of human Reason. 2. Of those Arts and Sciences, and of the parts of them, which are useful, and therefore attainable, together with those which are unuseful, and therefore unattainable. 3. Of the Nature, Ends, Use, and Application of the different Capacities of Men. 4. Of the Use of Learning, of the Science of the World, and of Wit: concluding with a Satyr against the Misapplication of them, illustrated by Pictures, Characters, and Examples.
The Third Book regarded Civil Regimen, or the Science of Politics, in which the several forms of a Republic were to have been examined and explained; together with the several Modes of Religious Worship, as far forth as they affect Society; between which, the Author always supposed there was the most interesting relation and closest connection; so that this part would have treated of Civil and Religious Society in their full extent.
The Fourth and last Book concerned private Ethics or practical Morality, considered in all the Circumstances, Orders, Professions, and Stations of human Life.
The Scheme of all this had been maturely digested, and communicated to the L. Bolinbroke. Dr Swift, and one or two more, and was intended for the only work of his riper Years: But was, partly thro' ill health, partly thro' discouragements from the depravity of the times, and partly on prudential and other considerations, interrupted, postponed, and, lastly, in a manner laid aside.
But as this was the Author's favourite Work, which more exactly reflected the Image of his strong capacious Mind, and as we can have but a very imperfect idea of it from the disjecta membra Poetae that now remain, it may not be amiss to be a little more particular concerning each of these projected books.
The FIRST, as it treats of Man in the abstract, and considers him in general under every of his relations, becomes the foundation, and furnishes out the subjects, of the three following; so that
The SECOND Book takes up again the First and Second Epistles of the First Book, and treats of man in his intellectual Capacity at large, as has been explained above. Of this, only a small part of the conclusion (which, as we said, was to have contained a Satyr against the misapplication of Wit and Learning) may be found in the Fourth Book of the Dunciad, and up and down, occasionally, in the other three.
[Page] The Third Book, in like manner, reassumes the subject of the Third Epistle of the First, which treats of Man in his Social, Political, and Religious Capacity. But this part the Poet afterwards conceived might be best executed in an EPIC POEM; as the Action would make it more animated, and the Fable less invidious; in which all the great Principles of true and false Governments and Religions should be chiefly delivered in feigned Examples. In pursuance of this design, he plan'd out a Poem on the subject of the fabulous BRUTUS, the great Grandson of Aeneas: whose first and predominant principle he makes to be Benevolence; from this Ruling Passion arises a strong desire to redeem the remains of his countrymen, then captives amongst the Greeks, from slavery and misery, and to establish their freedom and felicity on a just form of Civil Government. He had seen how false Policy, and Superstitions and Vices proceeding from it, had caused the ruin of Troy; and he was enabled to avoid the one by the lights his countrymen, whom he had now gathered from their dispersion, could afford him from their observations on the various policies of the Grecian Cities; and to reform the other by the Wisdom he himself had gained in Italy, where Evander, as we are told by Virgil, had reformed the reigning Superstitions:
Thus qualified for the office of Legislation, he puts to sea with a number of brave followers; enters the Atlantic Ocean; and after various traverses (each of which produces some new lesson of Politics) he arrives in Britain, where having surmounted many successive difficulties, which bring him still nearer and nearer to the point the poet aims at, he at length establishes for his Trojans that perfect form of Civil Government which it was our author's purpose to recommend. The poem opens (of which very few lines of the introduction only were written) with Brutus at the Straits of Calpé, in sight of the ne plus ultra on Hercules's Pillars, debating in councel whether he should enter the great ocean.
The FOURTH and last Book pursues the subject of the Fourth Epistle of the First, and treats of Ethics, or practical Morality; and would have consisted of many members; of of which the four following Epistles were detached Portions: the two first, on the Characters of Men and Women being the introductory part of this concluding Book.
EPISTLE I.
To Sir RICHARD TEMPLE, Lord Viscount COBHAM.
ARGUMENT of the FIRST EPISTLE.
Of the Knowledge and Characters of MEN.
THAT it is not sufficient for this knowledge to consider Man in the Abstract: Books will not serve the purpose, nor yet our own Experience singly, ℣ 1. General maxims, unless they be form'd upon both, will be but notional, ℣ 10. Some Peculiarity in every man, characteristic to himself, yet varying from himself, ℣ 15. Difficulties arising from our own Passions, Fancies, Faculties, &c. ℣ 31. The shortness of Life, to observe in, and the uncertainty of the Principles of action in men, to observe by, ℣ 37, &c. Our own Principle of action often bid from ourselves, ℣ 41. Some few Characters plain, but in general confounded, dissembled, or inconsistent, ℣ 51. The same man utterly different in different place and seasons, ℣ 71. Unimaginable weaknesses in the greatest, ℣ 70, &c. Nothing constant and certain but God and Nature, ℣ 95. No judging of the Motives from the actions; the same actions proceeding from contrary Motives, and the same Motives influencing contrary actions, ℣ 100. II. Yet to form Characters, we can only take the strongest actions of a man's life, and try to make them agree: The utter uncertainty of this, from Nature itself, and from Policy, ℣ 120. Characters given according to the rank of men of the world, ℣ 135. And some reason for it, ℣ 140. Education alters the Nature, or at least Character of many, ℣ 149. Actions, Passions, Opinions, Manners, Humours, or Principles all subject to change. No judging by Nature, from ℣ 158 to 178. III. It only remains to find (if we can) his RULING PASSION: That will certainly influence all the rest, and can reconcile the seeming or real inconsistency of all his actions, ℣ 175. Instanced in the extraordinary character of Clodio, ℣ 179. A caution against mistaking second qualities for first, which will destroy all possibility of the knowledge of mankind, ℣ 210. Examples of the strength of the Ruling Passion, and its continuation to the last breath, ℣ 222, &c.
NOTES.
The poet has here covertly described a famous system of a man of the world, the celebrated Maxims of M. de la Rochefoucault, which are one continued satyr on human Nature, and hold much of the ill language of the Parrat: The reason of the censure our author's system of human Nature will explain.
The Poet refers here only to the effects. In the Essay on Man he gives both the efficient and the final cause: The First in the third Ep. ℣ 231.
For oblique Wit is Opinion. The other, in the second Ep. ℣ 283.
i. e. The Philospher may invent a rational hypothesis that shall account for the appearances he would investigate; and yet that hypothesis be all the while very wide of truth and the nature of things.
This Simile is extremely beautiful. To shew the difficulty of discovering the operations of the heart in a moral sense, he illustrates it by another attempt still more difficult, the discovery of its operations in a natural: For the seat of animal life being in the heart, our endeavours of tracing it thither must necessarily drive it from thence.
These two lines are remarkable for the exactness and propriety of expression. The word tincture, which implies a weak colour given by degrees, well describes the influence of the Manners; and the word discolour, which implies a quicker change and by a deeper dye, denotes as well the operation of the Passions.
Charron was an admirer of Montagne; had contracted a strict friendship with him; and has transferred an infinite number of his thoughts into his famous book De la Sagesse; but his moderating every-where the extravagant Pyrrhonism of his friend, is the reason why the poet calls him more sage Charron.
Louis XI. of France, wore in his Hat a leaden image of the Virgin Mary, which when he swore by, he feared to break his oath.
Philip Duke of Orleans, Regent of France in the minority of Louis XV. superstitious in judicial astrology, tho' an unbeliever in all religion. The same has been observed of many other Politicians. The Italians, in general, are not more noted for their refined Politics than for their attachment to the dotages of Astrology. It may be worth while to enquire into the cause of so singular a phenomenon, as it may probably turn out to the honour of Religion. I take then the case to be this: These men observing (and none have equal opportunities) how perpetually public events fall out besides their expectation, and contrary to the best-laid schemes of worldly policy, cannot but confess that human affairs are ordered by some power extrinsical. To acknowledge a God and his Providence would be next to introducing a morality destructive of that public system which they think necessary for the government of the world. They have recourse therefore to that ridiculous and absurd scheme of Power which rules by no other law than Fate or Destiny. The consideration of this perhaps was the reason that the poet, to keep up decorum and to preserve the distinction between a Patriot and a Politician, makes the sormer rely on Providence for the public safety, in the concluding words of the Epistle,
Philip V. of Spain, who, after renouncing the throne for Religion, resum'd it to gratify his Queen; and Victor Amadeus II. King of Sardmia, who resign'd the crown, and trying to reassume it, was imprison'd till his death.
[Page 10] By Nature is not here meant any imaginary substitute of God, called a Plastic nature; but his moral laws: And this observation was inserted with great propriety and discretion, in the conclusion of a long detail of the various characters of men: For, from this circumstance, Montagne and others have been bold enough to insinuate, that morality is sounded more in custom and fashion than in the nature of things. The speaking therefore of a moral law of God as having all the constancy and durability of his Essence, had an high expediency in this place.
The atrabilaire complexion of Philip II. is well known, but not so well that be derived it from his father Charles V. whose health, the historians of his life tell us, was frequently disorder'd by bilious severs. But what the author meant principally to observe here was, that this humour made both these princes act contrary to their Character; Charles, who was an active man, when he retired into a Convent; Philip, who was a man of the Closet, when he gave the battle of St. Quintin.
By reasoning is not here meant speculating; but deliberating and resolving in public counsels; for this instance is given as one, of a variety of actions.
Caesar wrote his Commentaries, in imitation of the Greek Generals, for the entertainment of the world: But had his friend asked him, in his ear, the reason of his sudden retreat from Britain, after so many signal victories, we have cause to suspect, even from his own public relation of that matter, that he would have whisper'd he was beat.
After the battle of Pharsalia, Caesar pursued his enemy to Alexandria, where being infatuated with the charms of Cleopatra, instead of pushing his advantages, and dispersing the relicks of the Pharsalian quarrel, having narrowly escaped the violence of an enraged people, he brought upon himself an unnecessary war, at a time his arms were most wanted elsewhere.
This whole reflexion, and the similitude brought to support it, have a great delicacy of ridicule.—A man dispos'd to cavil would fancy the similitude not exact; for that the principal reason of our preferring the Gem is for its durability. But does he not see it is equally for its rarity; and that when once a Courtvirtue rises and comes in the way of such a lover of it as our poet, it seldom sets again, but bids fair for being immortal?
Disasters the most unlooked for, as they were what the Freethinker's Speculations and Practice were principally directed to avoid.—The poet here alludes to the ancient classical opinion, that the sudden vision of a God was supposed to strike the irreverend observer speechless. He has only a little extended the conceit, and supposed, that the terrors of a Court-God might have the like effect on a very devoted worshipper.
The poet had hitherto reckoned up the several simple causes that hinder our knowledge of the natural Characters of men. In these two fine lines he describes the complicated causes. Humours bear the the same relation to Manners that Principles do to Tenets; that is, the former are modes of the latter; our Manners are warped from nature by our Fortunes or Stations; our Tenets, by our Books or Professions; and then each drawn still more oblique, into humour and political principles, by the temperature of the climate and the constitution of the government.
This very well expresses the grossness of his appetite for it; where the strength of the Passion had destroyed all the delicacy of the Sensation.
VER. 187. John Willmot, Earl of Rochester, famous for his Wit and Extravagancies in the time of Charles the Second.
Folly, joined with much Wit, produces that behaviour which we call Absurdity; and this Absurdity the poet has here admirably described in the words,
by which we are made to understand, that the person described gave a loose to his Fancy when he should have used his Judgment, and pursued his Speculations when he should have trusted to his Experience.
It was indeed very hard; when, tho' this be the common road to Greatness, and he had taken this road, and persevered in it to the last, yet that he should have the strange fortune still to miss of it.
To understand this, we must observe, that the Lust of general Praise made the person whose Character is here so admirably drawn, both extravagant and flagitious; his Madness was to please the Fools,
And his Crimes to avoid the censure of the Knaves,
Prudence and Honesty being the two qualities that Fools and Knaves are most interested, and consequently most industrious, to misrepresent.
This illustration has an exquisite beauty, arising from the exactness of the analogy: For as the appearance of irregularity in a Comet's motion is occasioned by the greatness of the force which pushes it round a very eccentric orb; so it is the violence of the Ruling Passion, that, impatient for its object, in the impetuosity of its course towards it, is frequently hurried to an immense distance from it, which occasions all that [Page 20] puzzling inconsistency of conduct we observe in it.
Pride, Vanity, and Ambition are such bordering and neighbourly vices, and hold so much in common, that we generally find them going together, and therefore as generally mistake them for one another. This does not a little contribute to our confounding Characters; for they are, in reality, very different and distinct; so much so, that 'tis remarkable, the three greatest men in Rome and contemporaries possessed each of these separately without the least mixture of the other two: The men I mean were Caesar, Cato, and Cicero; For Caesar had Ambition without either vanity or pride; Cato had Pride without ambition or vanity; and Cicero had Vanity without pride or ambition.
The similitude is extremely apposite; as most of the instances he has afterwards given of the vigorous exertion of the Ruling Passion in the last moments, are from such who had hastened their death by an immoderate indulgence of that Passion.
An ancient Nobleman, who continued this practice long after his legs were disabled by the gout. Upon the death of Prince George of Denmark, he demanded an audience of the Queen, to advise her to preserve her health and dispel her grief by Dancing.
This story, as well as the others, is founded on fact, tho' the author had the goodness not to mention the names. Several attribute this in particular to a very celebrated Actress, who, in detestation of the thought of being buried in woollen, gave these her last orders with her dying breath.
EPISTLE II.
To a LADY.
Of the CHARACTERS of WOMEN.
NOTES.
The reader perhaps may be disappointed to find that this Epistle, which proposes the same subject with the preceding, is conducted on very different rules of method; for instead of being disposed in the same logical connection, and filled with the like philosophical remarks, it is wholly taken up in drawing a great variety of capital Characters: But if he would reflect, that the two Sexes make but one Species, and consequently, that the Characters of both must be studied and explained on the same principles, he would see, that when the poet had done this in the preceding Epistle, his business here was, not to repeat what he had already delivered, but only to verify and illustrate his doctrine, by every view of that perplexity of Nature, which his philosophy only can explain. If the reader therefore will but be at the pains to study these Characters with any degree of attention, as they are here masterly drawn, one important particular (for which the poet has artfully prepared him by the introduction) will very forcibly strike his observation; and that is, that all the great strokes in the several Characters of Women are not only infinitely perplexed and discordant, like those in Men, but absolutely inconsistent, and in a much higher degree contradictory. As strange as this may appear, yet he will see that the poet has all the while strictly follow'd Nature, whose ways, we find by the former Epistle [Page 25] are not a little mysterious; and a mystery this might have remained, had not our author explained it at ℣ 207. where he shuts up his Characters with this philosophical reflexion:
If this account be true, we see the perpetual necessity (which is not the case in Men) that Women lye under of disguising their ruling Passion. Now the variety of arts employed to this purpose must needs draw them into infinite contradictions in those Actions from whence their general and obvious Character is denominated: To verify this observation, let the reader examine all the Characters here drawn, and try whether with this key he cannot discover that all their Contradictions arise from a desire to hide the ruling Passion.
But this is not the worst. The poet afterwards [from ℣ 219 to 248.] takes notice of another mischief arising from this necessity of hiding their ruling Passions; which is, that generally the end of each is defeated even there where they are most violently pursued: For the necessity of hiding them inducing an habitual dissipation of mind, Reason, whose office it is to regulate the ruling Passion, loses all its force and direction; and these unhappy victims to their principles, tho' with their attention still fixed upon them, are ever prosecuting the means destructive of their end, and thus become ridiculous in youth, and miserable in old age.
Let me not omit to observe the great beauty of the conclusion: It is an Encomium on the Lady to whom the Epistle is addressed, and artfully turns upon the fact which makes the subject of the Epistle, the contradiction of a Woman's Character, in which contradiction he shews that all the lustre of the best Character consists.
The poet's purpose here is to shew, that the Characters of Women are generally inconsistent with themselves; and this he illustrates by so happy a Similitude, that we see the folly, described in it, arises from that very principle which gives birth to this inconsistency of Character.
Attitudes in which several ladies affected to be drawn, and sometimes one lady in them all. — The poet's politeness and complaisance to the sex is observable in this instance, amongst others, that, whereas in the Characters of Men he has sometimes made use of real names, in the Characters of Women always fictious.
[Page 26] VER. 21. Instances of this position, given even from such Characters as are most strongly mark'd, and seemingly therefore most consistent: As first, Contrarieties in the Affected, ℣ 21, &c.
VER. 29 and 37. II. Contrarieties in the Soft-natured.
[Page 27] VER. 45. III. Contrarieties in the Cunning and Artful.
VER. 53. IV. In the Whimsical.
[Page 28] VER. 69. V. In the Lewd and Vicious.
[Page 29] VER. 87. VI. Contrarieties. in the Witty and Refin'd.
i. e. Her who affects to laugh out of fashion, and strives to disbelieve out of fear.
Alluding and referring to the great principle of his Philosophy, which he never loses sight of, and which [Page 32] teaches, that Providence is incessantly turning the evils arising from the follies and vices of men to general good.
There is one thing that does a very distinguished honour to the accuracy of our poet's judgment, of which, in the course of these observations, I have given many instances, and shall here explain in what it consists; it is this, that the Similitudes in his didactic poems, of which he is not sparing, and which are highly poetical, are always chosen with such exquisite discernment of Nature, as not only to illustrate the particular point he is upon, but to establish the general principles he would inforce; so, in the instance before us, he compares the inconstancy and contradiction in the Characters of Women, to the change of colours in the Chameleon; yet 'tis nevertheless the great principle of this poem to shew that the general Characteristic of the Sex, as to the Ruling Passion, which they all have, is more uniform than that in Man: Now for this purpose, all Nature could not have supplied such another illustration as this of the Chameleon; for tho' it instantaneously assumes much of the colour of every subject on which it chances to be placed, yet, as the most accurate Virtuosi have observed, it has two native colours of its own, which, amidst all these charges are never totally discharged, but, tho' often discoloured by the neighbourhood of adventitious ones, still make the foundation, and give a tincture to all those which, from thence, it occasionally assumes.
The purpose of the poet in this Character is important: It is to shew that the politic or prudent government of the passions is not enough to make a Character amiable, nor even to secure it from being ridiculous, if the end of that government be not pursued, which is the free exercise of the social appetites after the selfish ones have been subdued; For that if, tho' reason govern, the heart be never consulted, we interest ourselves as little in the fortune of such a Character, as in any of the foregoing, which passions or caprice drive up and down at random.
This is intirely ironical, and conveys under it this general moral truth, that there is, in life, no such thing as a perfect Character; so that the satyr falls not on any particular Character, but on the Character-maker only.
[Page 34] VER. 198. Mah'met, servant to the late King, said to be the son of a Turkish Bassa, whom he took at the Siege of Buda, and constantly kept about his Person.
Ibid. Dr. Stephen Hale, not more estimable for his useful discoveries as a Natural Philosopher, than for his exemplary Life and Pastoral Charity as a Parish Priest.
In the former Editions, between this and the foregoing lines, a want of Connection might be perceived, occasioned by the omission of certain Examples and Illustrations to the Maxims laid down; and tho' some of these have since been found, viz. the Characters of Philomede, Atossa, Cloe, and some verses following, others are still wanting, nor can we answer that these are exactly inserted.
[Page 35] VER. 207. The former part having shewn, that the particular Characters of Women are more various than those of Men, it is nevertheless observ'd, that the general Characteristic of the sex, as to the ruling Passion, is more uniform.
VER. 211. This is occasioned partly by their Nature, partly their Education, and in some degree by Necessity.
I can't help observing the delicacy of the poet's address in his manner of informing us what this Pleasure is which makes one of the two objects of Woman's ruling Passion. He does it in an ironical apology for it, arising from its being a Pleasure of the beneficent and communicative kind, and not merely selfish, like those which the other sex generally pursues.
The ironical apology continued: That the Second is, as it were, forced upon them by the tyranny and oppression of man, in order to secure the first.
[Page 36] VER. 219. What are the Aims and the Fate of this Sex? [...] — as to Power.
VER. 231. — As to Pleasure.
[Page 37] VER. 249. Advice for their true Interest.
One of the great beauties observable in the poet's management of his Similitudes, is the ceremonious preparation he makes for them, in gradually raising the imagery of the similitude in the lines preceding, by the use of metaphors taken from the subject of it:
And the civil dismission he gives them by the continuance of the same metaphor, in the lines following, whereby the traces of the imagery gradually decay, and give place to others, and the reader is never offended with the sudden or abrupt disappearance of it,
[Page 38] VER. 269. The Picture of an estimable Woman, with the best kind of contrarieties.
The poet concludes his Epistle with a fine Moral, that deserves the serious attention of the public: It is this, that all the extravagances of these vicious Characters here described, are much inflamed by a wrong Education; and that even the best are rather secured by a good natural than by the prudence and providence of parents; which observation is conveyed under the sublime classical machinery of Phoebus in the ascendant, watching the natal hour of his favourite, and averting the ill effects of her parents mistaken fondness: For Phoebus, as the god of Wit, confers Genius, and, as one of the astronomical influences, defeats the adventitious bias of education.
EPISTLE III.
To ALLEN Lord BATHURST.
ARGUMENT.
Of the USE of RICHES.
That it is known to few, most falling into one of the extremes, Avarice or Profusion, ℣ 1, &c. The Point discuss'd, whether the invention of Money has been more commodious, or pernicious to Mankind, ℣ 21 to 77. That Riches, either to the Avaricious or the Prodigal, cannot afford Happiness, scarcely Necessaries, ℣ 89 to 160. That Avarice is an absolute Frenzy, without an End or Purpose, ℣ 113 &c. 152. Conjectures about the Motives of Avaricious men, ℣ 121 to 153. That the conduct of men, with respect to Riches, can only be accounted for by the ORDER OF PROVIDENCE, which works the general Good out of Extremes, and brings all to its great End by perpetual Revolutions, ℣ 161 to 178. How a Miser acts upon Principles which appear to him reasonable, ℣ 179. How a Prodigal does the same, ℣ 199. The due Medium, and true use of Riches, ℣ 219. The Man of Ross, ℣ 250. The fate of the Profuse and the Covetous, in two examples; both miserable in Life and in Death, ℣ 300, &c. The Story of Sir Balaam, ℣ 339 to the end.
COMMENTARY.
The address of the Introduction [from ℣ 1 to 21.] is remarkable: The poet represents-himself and the noble Lord his friend, as in a conversation, philosophising on the final cause of Riches: [Page 41] You (says our author)
As much as to say, ‘"You, my Lord, hold the subject we are upon as fit only for Satyr; I, on the contrary, esteem it a case of Philosophy and profound Ethics: But as we both agree in the main Principle, that Riches were not given for the reward of Virtue, but for very different purposes [See Essay on Man, Ep. IV.] let us [Page 42] compromise the matter, and consider the subject jointly, both under your idea and mine, i. e. Satyrically and Philosophically."’ — And this, in fact, we shall find to be the true character of this poem, which is a Species peculiar to itself, and partaking equally of the nature of his Ethic Epistles and his Satyrs, as the best pieces of Lucian arose from a combination of the Dialogues of Plato, and the Scenes of Aristophanes. This it will be necessary to carry with us, if we would see either the Wit or the Reasoning of this Epistle in their true light.
Having thus settled the terms of the Debate, before he comes to the main Question, the Use of Riches, it was necessary to discuss a [Page 43] previous one, whether indeed they are upon the whole, useful to mankind or not; [which he does from ℣ 20 to 77.] It is commonly observed, says he [from ℣ 21 to 35.] That Gold most commodiously supplies the wants of Nature: ‘"Let us first consider the proposition in general, both in Matter and Expression; 1. As it regards the Supply; and this we shall find to be very unequal: 2. As it regards the Wants; and these, we shall see, are very ambiguous; under that term, all our fantastic and imaginary as well as real wants being comprized. Hitherto the use is not very apparent. Let us in the second place, therefore, consider the proposition in particular, or how Gold supplies the wants of Nature both in private and public life: 1. As to private; [Page 44] it aids us, indeed, to support life; but it, at the same times, hires the assassin: 2. As to Society; it may procure Friendships and extend Trade; but it allures Robbers and corrupts our acquaintance. 3. As to Government; it pays the Guards necessary for the support of public liberty; but it may, with the same ease, bribe a Senate to overturn it."’
The matter therefore being thus problematical, the poet, instead of formally balancing between the Good and Ill, chuses to leave this previous Question undetermined, (as Tacitus had done before him; where, speaking of the ancient Germans, he says, Argentum et aurum propitii aut irati Dii negaverint dubito;) and falls at once upon what he esteems the principal of these abuses, public Corruption.
[Page 45] For having in the last instance, of the Use of Riches in Government, spoken of venal Senates, he goes on to lament the mischief as desperate and remediless; Gold, by its power to corrupt with Secrecy, defeating all the efforts of public Spirit, whether exerted in the Courage of Heroes, or in the Wisdom of Patriots.
'Tis true indeed, continues the poet [from ℣ 34 to 51.] the very weight of the Bribery has sometimes detected the Corruption:
But this inconvenience was soon repaired, by the invention of Paper credit: Whose dreadful effects on public Liberty he describes in all the colouring of his poetry, heightened by the warmest concern for virtue; which now makes him willing to give up, as it were, the previous question, in a passionate wish [from ℣ 49 to 59.] for the return of that incumbrance attendant on public Corruption, before the so common use of money.
And pleased with this flattering Idea, he goes on [from ℣ 58 to 77.] to shew the other advantages that would accrue from Riches only in kind; which are, that neither Avarice could contrive to hoard, nor Prodigality to lavish, in so mad and boundless a manner as they do at present. Here he shews particularly, in a fine ironical description of the embarras on Gaming, how effectually it would eradicate that execrable practice.
But this whole Digression [from ℣ 34 to 79.] has another very uncommon beauty; [Page 46] for, at the same time that it arises naturally from the last consideration in the debate of the previous Question, it artfully denounces, in our entrance on the main Question, the principal topics intended to be employed for the dilucidation of it, namely AVARICE, PROFUSION, and PUBLIC CORRUPTION.
Having thus ironically described the incumbrance which the want of money would occasion to all criminal excesses in the use of Riches, particularly to Gaming, which being now become of public concern, he affects much regard to:
he concludes the previous Question without deciding it, in the same ironical manner,
That is, since for these great purposes we must have Money, let us now seriously inquire into its true Use.
He examines therefore in the first place [from ℣ 80 to 99.] I. Of what Use Riches are to ourselves.
The mere turn of the expression here shews, without further reasoning, that all the infinite ways of spending on ourselves, contrived in the insolence of Wealth, by those who would more than live, are only these three things diversified throughout every wearied mode of Luxury and Wantonness.
Yet as little as this is, adds the poet, [from ℣ 81 to 85.] it is only to be had by the moderate use of Riches; Avarice and Profusion not allowing the possessors of the most exorbitant wealth even this little:
But what is it you would expect them to give? continues the poet [from ℣ 84 to 91.] Would you have them capable of restoring those real blessings, which men have lost by their Vices or their Villanies; or of satisfying those imaginary ones, which they have gotten by their irregular Appetites and Passions; these, sure, the bad or foolish man cannot [Page 49] have the face to demand; and those, by the wise provision of Nature, Riches are incapable of giving if he had.
But now admit, pursues our author [from ℣ 90 to 97.] that wealth might, in some cases alleviate the unmerited miseries of life, by procuring medicines both for the mind and body; yet it is not to be thought it should operate like a charm, while only worn about one: Yet this, these poor men of pelf expect from it, while Avarice, on the one hand, witholds them from giving at all, even to the Doctor in extremity; or Vanity diverts the donation from a Friend in life, to the Endowment of a Cat or College at their death. It is true, Riches might give the greatest of all blessings, a virtuous consciousness of our having employ'd them as became the substitutes of Providence,
in acts of BENEFICENCE and CHARITY; and this Use is next to be considered.
For now the poet comes, in the Second place, to examine, II. Of what use Riches are to others; which he teaches, as is his way throughout this poem, by the abuse that stands opposed to it: Thus he shews [from ℣ 96 to 107.] that with regard to acts of Beneficence, the utmost Heaven will grant to those who so greatly abuse its blessings, is either to enrich some favourite Bastard, and so perpetuate their vice and infamy; or else, contrary to their intent, a legitimate Son they hated, and so expose to public scorn and ridicule, the defeat of their unnatural cruelty. But with regard to acts of Charity, they are given up to so reprobate a sense, as to believe they are then seconding the designs of Heaven, when they pursue the indigent with imprecations, or leave them in the midst of their distresses unrelieved, as the common enemies of God and Man.
Having thus shewn the true use of Riches in a description of the abuse, and how that use is perpetually defeated by Profusion and Avarice, it was natural to enquire into the spring and original of these vices; as the abuse they occasion, must be well understood, before it can be corrected. The disposition, therefore, of his subject now calls upon him to come to the Philosophy of it: And he examines particularly into the Motives of Avarice: But what is very observable, he, all along, satyrically, intermixes with the real motives, several imaginary; and those as wild as imagination could conceive. This, which at first sight might seem to vitiate the purpose of his philosophical inquiry, is found, when duly considered, to have the highest art of design. His business, the reader sees, was to prove that the real motives had the highest extravagancy: Nothing could more conduce to this end, than the setting them by, and comparing them with, the most extravagant that the fancy itself could invent; in which situation it was seen, that the real were full as wild as the fictitious. To give these images all the force they were capable of, he first describes [from ℣ 118 to 123.] the real and a different imaginary motive in [Page 52] the same person: and then [from ℣ 122 to 133.] an imaginary one, and a real, the very same with the imaginary in different persons. This address the poet himself alludes to ℣ 155.
Let me observe, that this has still a further beauty, arising from the nature of the poem, which (as we have shewn) is partly satyrical, and partly philosophical.—With regard to the particular beauties of this disposition, I shall only take notice of one; where the poet introduces the fictitious motive of Blunt's avarice, by a wizard's prophecy:
For it was the poet's purpose, in this poem, to shew, that the main and principal abuse of Riches arises from AVARICE.
But now the Sage, who has confined himself to books, which prescribe the government of the passions; and never looked out upon the world, where he might see them let loose, and, like Milton's devils, riding the air in whirlwind, cries out, all this is madness. True, replies the poet [from ℣ 151 to 177.] but this madness is a common one, and only to be prevented by a severe attention to the rule laid down in the Essay,
for with the generality of men, and without the greatest circumspection,
But then (continues he) as wild as this passion appears by the sway of its overbearing bias, it would be still more senseless had it no bias at all. You have seen us here intermix with the real, the most fantastical and extravagant that imagination could form; yet even these are less extravagant than a ruling Passion without a constant aim. Would you know the reason? then listen to this important truth: ‘"'Tis HEAVEN itself that gives the ruling Passion, and thereby directs different men to different ends: But these being exerted thro' the ministry of NATURE (of whom the great Bacon truly observes, modum tenere nescia est, Aug. Scient. l. ii. c. 13.) they are very apt to run into extremes: To correct which, Heaven, at the same time, added the moderatrix Reason; not to take the ruling Passion out of the hands and ministry of Nature, but to restrain and rectify its irregular impulses [See Essay, Ep. ii. ℣ 151, & seq.] and what extremes, after this, remained uncorrected in the administration of [Page 56] this weak Queen [℣ 140. Ep. ii.] The divine artist himself has, in his heavenly skill and bounty set to rights; by so ordering, that these of the moral, like those of the natural world, should, even by the very means of their contrariety and diversity, concur to defeat the malignity of one another: Extremes in Nature equal good produce, Extremes in Man concur to gen'ral use. "For as the various seasons of the year are supported and sustained by the reconciled extremes of Wet and Dry, Cold and Heat; so all the orders and degrees of civil life are kept up, by Avarice and Profusion, Selfishness and Vanity. The Miser being but the Steward of the Prodigal; and only so much the more backward as the other is violent and precipitate."This year a Reservoir to keep and spare, The next a Fountain spouting thro' his heir.’
The poet now proceeds to support the principles of his Philosophy by examples: But before we come to these, it will be necessary to look back upon the general ceconomy of the poem.
In the first part [to ℣ 109.] the use and abuse of Riches are satyrically delivered in precept. From thence, to ℣ 177. the causes of the abuse are philosophically inquired into: And from thence to the end, the use and abuse are historically illustrated in examples. Where we may observe, that the conclusion of the first part, concerning the Miser's cruelty to others, naturally introduces the second, by a satyrical apology, shewing that he is full as cruel to himself: The explanation of which extraordinary phenomenon brings the author into the Philosophy of his subject; and this ending in an observation of Avarice and Profusion's correcting and reconciling one another, as naturally introduces the third, which proves the truth of the observation from fact. And thus the Philosophy of his subject standing between his Precepts and Examples, gives strength and light to both, and receives it reflected back again from both.
He first gives us two examples [from ℣ 176 to 219.] of these opposite ruling Passions, and (to see them in their full force) taken from subjects, as he tells us, not void of wit or worth; from such as could reason themselves [as we see by ℣ 183, & seqq. and ℣ 205, & seqq.] into the whole length of each extreme: For the poet had observed of the ruling Passion, that
Old Cotta therefore and his Son afforded him the most happy illustration of his own doctrine.
Having now largely exposed the ABUSE of Riches by example, not only the Plan, but the Philosophy of his Poem, required, that he should in the same way, shew the USE likewise: He therefore calls for an example, in which may be found, against the Prodigal, the Sense to value [Page 60] Riches; against the Vain, the Art to enjoy them; and against the Avaricious, the Virtue to impart them, when acquired. This whole Art (he tells us) may be comprized in one great and general precept, which is this, ‘"That the rich man should consider himself as the substitute of Providence in this unequal distribution of things; as the person who is To ease, or emulate, the care of Heav'n; To mend the faults of fortune, or to justify her graces."’ And thus the poet slides naturally into the prosecution of his subject in an Example of the true Use of Riches.
This invidious expression of the poet's unwillingness that the Nobility should ingross all his praises, is strongly ironical; their example having been given hitherto only to shew the abuse of Riches. But there is great justness of Design, as well as agreeableness of Manner in the preference here given to the Man of Ross. The purpose of the poet is to shew, that an immense fortune is not wanted for all the good that Riches are capable of doing; he therefore chuses such an instance, as proves, that a man with five hundred pounds a year could become a blessing to a whole country; and, consequently, that the poet's precepts for the true use of money, are of more general service than a bad heart will give an indifferent head leave to conceive. This was a truth of the greatest importance to inculcate: He therefore [from ℣ 249 to 297.] exalts the character of a very private man, one Mr. J. Kyrle, of Herefordshire: And, in ending his description, struck as it were with admiration at a sublimity of his own creating, and warmed with sentiments of a Gratitude he had raised in himself in behalf of the public, the poet bursts out,
Then, transported with indignation at a contrary object, he exclaims,
I take notice of this description of the portentous vanity of a miserable extortioner, chiefly for the use we shall now see he makes of it, in carrying on his subject.
In the first part of this Epistle the author had shewn, from Reason, that Riches abused afford no comfort either in life or death. In this part, where the same truth is taught by examples, he had, in the case of Cotta and his son, shewn, that they afford no comfort in life: the other member of the division remained to be spoken to,
And this he illustrates [from ℣ 299 to 339.] in describing the unhappy deaths of the last Villers, Duke of Buckingham, and Sir J. Cutler; whose profusion and avarice he has beautifully contrasted. The miserable end of these two extraordinary persons naturally leads the poet into this humane reflexion, however ludicrously expressed,
And now, as if fully determined to resolve this doubtful question, he assumes the air [Page 66] and importance of a Professor ready address'd to plunge himself into the very depths of theology:
when, on a sudden, the whole scene is changed,
And thus, by the most easy transition, we are come to the concluding doctrine of his poem.
For, the foregoing examples of prosusion and avarice having been given to shew, that misapplied wealth was not enjoyed, it only remained to prove, that in such circumstances wealth became the heaviest punishment; and this was the very point to be concluded with, as the great MORAL of this instructive poem; which is to teach us, how miserable men make themselves by not endeavouring to restrain the ruling Passion, tho' it be indeed implanted in the constitution of things; while, at the same time it is an answer to the latter part of the question,
For the solution of which only, this example was jocularly pretended to have been given.
All this the poet has admirably supported, in the artful construction of his fable of Sir Balaam, whose character is so drawn, as to let the reader see he had it in his power to regulate the ruling Passion by reason, as having in himself the seeds of Integrity, Religion, and Sobriety. These are gradually worked out by an insatiable thirst of Wealth; and this again (thro' a false sense of his own abilities in acquiring it) succeeded by as immoderate a Vanity. Let me only observe farther, that the author, in this Tale, has artfully summed up and recapitulated those three principal mischiefs in the abuse of money, which the satyrical part of this poem throughout was employed to expose, namely, AVARICE, PROFUSION, and PUBLIC CORRUPTION.
NOTES.
A word sacred to controversy and high debate.
VER. 20. JOHN WARD of Hackney Esq. Member of Parliament, being secuted by the Duchess of Buckingham, and convicted of Forgery, was first expelled [Page 42] the House, and then stood in the Pillory on the 17th of March 1727. He was suspected of joining in a conveyance with Sir John Blunt, to secrete fifty thousand pounds of that Director's Estate, forfeited to the South Sea company by Act of Parliament. The Company recovered the fifty thousand pounds against Ward; but he set up prior conveyances of his real estate to his brother and son, and conceal'd all his personal, which was computed to be one hundred and fifty thousand pounds: These conveyances being also set aside by a bill in Chancery, Ward was imprisoned, and hazarded the forfeiture of his life, by not giving in his effects till the last day, which was that of his examination. During his consinement, his amusement was to give poison to dogs and cats, and see them expire by flower or quicker torments. To sum up the worth of this gentleman, at the several aera's of his life; at his standing in the Pillory he was worth above two hundred thousand pounds; at his commitment to Prison, he was worth one hundred and fifty thousand, but has been since so far diminished in his reputation, as to be thought a worse man by fifty or sixty thousand.
FR. CHARTRES, a man infamous for all manner of vices. When he was an ensign in the army, he was drumm'd out of the regiment for a cheat; he was next banish'd Brussels, and drumm'd out of Ghent on the same account. After a hundred tricks at the gaming-tables, he took to lending of money at exorbitant interest and on great penalties, accumulating premium, interest, and capital into a new capital, and seizing to a minute when the payments became due; in a word, by a constant attention to the vices, wants, and follies of mankind, he acquired an immense fortune. His house was a perpetual bawdy-house. He was twice condemn'd for rapes, and pardoned; but the last time not without imprisonment in Newgate, and large confiscations. He died in Scotland in 1731, aged 62. The [Page 43] populace at his funeral rais'd a great riot, almost tore the body out of the coffin, and cast dead dogs, &c. into the grave along with it. The following Epitaph contains his character very justly drawn by Dr. Arbuthnot:
This Gentleman was worth seven thousand pounds a year estate in Land, and about one hundred thousand in Money.
Mr. WATERS, the third of these worthies, was a man no way resembling the former in his military, but extremely so in his civil capacity; his great fortune having been rais'd by the like diligent attendance on the necessities of others. But this gentleman's history must be deferred till his death, when his worth may be known more certainly.
The epithet commodious gives us the very proper idea of a Bawd or Pander; and this thought produced the two following lines, which were in all the former editions,
This is a true story which happened in the reign of William III. to an unsuspected old Patriot, who coming out at the back-door from having been closeted by the King, where he had received a large bag of Guineas, the bursting of the bag discovered his business there.
In our author's time, many Princes had been sent about the world, and great changes of Kings projected in Europe. The partition-treaty had dispos'd of Spain; France had set up a King for England, who was sent to Scotland, and back again; King Stanislaus was sent to Poland, and back again; the Duke of Anjou was sent to Spain, and Don Carlos to Italy.
Alludes to several Ministers, Counsellors, and Patriots banished in our times to Siberia, and to that MORE GLORIOUS FATE of the PARLIAMENT of PARIS, banished to Pontoise in the year 1720.
[Page 47] VER. 63. Some Misers of great wealth, proprietors of the coal-mines, had enter'd at this time into an association to keep up coals to an extravagant price, whereby the poor were reduced almost to starve, till one of them taking the advantage of underselling the rest, defeated the design. One of these Misers was worth ten thousand, another seven thousand a year.
Sir WILLIAM COLEPEPPER, Bart. a person of an ancient family, and ample fortune, without one other quality of a Gentleman, who, after ruining himself at the Gaming-table, past the rest of his days in sitting there to see the ruin of others; preferring to subsist upon borrowing and begging, rather than to enter into any reputable method of life, and refusing a post in the army which was offer'd him.
One, who being possessed of three hundred thousand pounds, laid down his Coach, because Interest was reduced from five to four per cent. and then put seventy thousand into the Charitable Corporation for better interest; which sum having lost, he took it so much to heart, that he kept his chamber ever after. It is thought he would not have outliv'd it, but that he was heir to another considerable estate, which he daily expected, and that by this couse of life he sav'd both cloaths and all other expences.
A Nobleman of great qualities, but as unfortunate in the application of them, as if they had been vices and follies. See his Character in the first Epistle.
A Citizen, whose rapacity obtain'd him the name of Vultur Hopkins. He lived worthless, but died worth three hundred thousand pounds, which he would give to no person living, but left it so as not to be inherited till after the second generation. His counsel representing to him how many years it must be, before this could take effect, and that his money could only lie at interest all that time, he exprest great joy thereat, and said, ‘"They would then be as long in spending, as he had been in getting it."’ But the Chancery afterwards set aside the will, and gave it to the heir at law.
[Page 50] JAPHET CROOK, alias Sir Peter Stranger, was punished with the loss of those parts, for having forged a conveyance of an Estate to himself, upon which he took up several thousand pounds. He was at the same time sued in Chancery for having fraudulently obtain'd a Will, by which he possess'd another considerable Estate, in wrong of the brother of the deceas'd. By these means he was worth a great sum, which (in reward for the small loss of his ears) he enjoy'd in prison till his death, and quietly left to his executor.
A famous Duchess of R. in her last will left considerable legacies and annuities to her Cats.
This epistle was written in the year 1730, when a corporation was established to lend money to the poor upon pledges, by the name of the Charitable Corporation; but the whole was turned only to an iniquitous method of enriching particular people, to the ruin of such numbers, that it became a parliamentary concern to endeavour the relief of those unhappy sufferers, and three of the managers, who were members of the house, were expelled. That ‘"God hates the poor,"’ and ‘"That every man in want is knave or fool,"’ &c. were the genuine apothegms of some of the persons here mentioned.
In the extravagance and luxury of the South-sea year, the price of a haunch of Venison was from three to five pounds.
Many people about the year 1733, had a conceit [Page 53] that such a thing was intended, of which it is not improbable this lady might have some intimation.
PETER WALTER, a person not only eminent in the wisdom of his profession, as a dextrous attorney, but allow'd to be a good, if not a safe, conveyancer; extremely respected by the Nobility of this land, tho' free from all manner of luxury and oftentation: his Wealth was never seen, and his bounty never heard of, except to his own son, for whom he procur'd an employment of considerable profit, of which he gave him as much as was necessary. Therefore the taxing this gentleman with any Ambition, is certainly a great wrong to him.
A Roman Lawyer, so rich as to purchase the Empire when it was set to sale upon the death of Pertinax.
The two persons here mentioned were of Quality, each of whom in the Missisippi despis'd to realize above three hundred thousand pounds; the Gentleman with a view to the purchase of the Crown of Poland, the Lady on a vision of the like royal nature. They since retired into Spain, where they are still in search of of gold in the mines of the Asturies.
Sir JOHN BLUNT, originally a scrivener, was one of the first projectors of the Southsea company, and afterwards one of the directors and chief managers of the famous scheme in 1720. He was also one [Page 54] of those who suffer'd most severely by the bill of pains and penalties on the said directors. He was a Dissenter of a most religious deportment, and profess'd to be a great believer. Whether he did really credit the prophecy here mentioned is not certain, but it was constantly in this very style he declaimed against the corruption and luxury of the age, the partiality of Parliaments, and the misery of party-spirit. He was particularly eloquent against Avarice in great and noble persons, of which he had indeed liv'd to see many miserable examples. He died in the year 1732.
The similitude is extremely apposite, implying that this vice is of base and mean original; hatched and nursed up amongst Scriveners, Stock-jobbers, and Citts; and unknown, 'till of late, to the Nobles of this land: But now, in the fulness of time, she rears her head, and aspires to cover the most illustrious stations in her dark and pestilential shade. The Sun, and other luminaries of Heaven, signifying, in the high eastern style, the Grandees and Nobles of the earth.
— dapibus mensas onerabat inemptis. VIRG.
The poet is here speaking only of the knowledge gained by experience. Now there are so many miserable examples of ill conduct, that no one, with his eyes open, can be at a loss to know what to shun; but, very inviting examples of a good conduct are extremely rare: Besides, the mischiefs of folly are eminent and obvious; but the fruits of prudence, remote and retired from common observation; and if seen at all, yet their dependence on their cause not being direct and immediate, they are not easily understood.
This, tho' a certain truth, will, as I predict, never make its fortune in the City! yet, for all that, the poet has fully approved his maxim in the following description.
Our author represents this, as it truly was designed, a Sacrifice to the Church, to render it propitious in a time of danger to the State.
The Sense to value Riches, is not, in the City-meaning, the Sense in valuing them: [Page 60] For as Riches may be enjoyed without Art, and imparted without Virtue, so they may be valued without Sense. That man therefore only shews he has the Sense to value Riches, who keeps what he has acquired, in order to enjoy one part of it innocently and elegantly, in such measure and degree as his station may justify, which the poet calls the Art of enjoying; and to impart the remainder amongst objects of worth, or want well weigh'd; which is, indeed, the Virtue of imparting.
i. e. Such of the Rich, whose full measure overflows on human race, repair the wrongs of Fortune done to the indigent, and, at the same time, justify the favours she had bestowed upon themselves.
Edward Harley, Earl of Oxford. The son of Robert, created Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer by Queen Anne. This Nobleman died regretted by all men of letters, great numbers of whom had experienc'd his benefits. He left behind him one of the most noble Libraries in Europe.
This is exceedingly sublime—The sense of it arises from what had been said a little before of such a character's justifying the graces of Fortune; which made it, therefore, but reasonable to expect she should continue them. But the more constant these were, the more need had he of some superior assistance to keep him in the golden mean. Which the ancients seem'd so well apprised of, that they gave to every man two Guardian Angels (here alluded to) as if, without standing on either side of him, he could not possibly be kept long in the mean or middle.
The person here celebrated, who with a small Estate actually performed all these good works, and whose true name was almost lost (partly by the title of the Man of Ross given him by way of eminence, and partly by being buried without so much as an inscription) was called Mr. John Kyrle. He died in the year 1724, aged 90, and lies interr'd in the chancel of the church of Ross in Heresordshire.
The intimation, in the first line, well ridicules the madness of fashionable Magnificence, these columns aspiring to prop the skies, in a very different sense from the heav'n-directed spire, in the verse that follows: As the expression, in the second line, exposes the meanness of it, in falling proudly to no purpose.
These four lines, (which the poet, with the highest propriety, puts into the mouth of his noble friend,) very artfully introduce the two following, as by the equivocal expression they raise our expectations to hear of millions, which come out, at last, to be only five hundred pounds a year. A circumstance, as we see in the Comment, of great importance to be inculcated.
In this sublime apostrophe, they are not bid to blush because outstript in virtue, for no such contention is supposed: but for being outshined in their own proper pretensions to Splendour and Magnificence.
The Parish-register.
The description is inimitable. We see him should'ring the altar like one who impiously affected to draw off the reverence of God's worshippers, from the sacred table, upon himself; whose Features too the sculptor had belied by giving them the traces of humanity: And, what was still a more impudent flattery, had insinuated, by extending his hands, as if that humanity had been sometime or other brought into act.
The poet ridicules the wretched taste of carving large perriwigs on busto's, of which there are several vile examples in the tombs at Westminster and elsewhere.
It is remarkable, that, in the description [Page 66] of the scene of action, in several parts of this poem, the poet's imagination has painted with such truth and spirit, that one would believe he had been upon the spot, whereas he only hit upon what was, from a clear exception of what was natural to be.
This Lord, yet more famous for his vices than. his misfortunes, after having been possess'd of about 50,000 l. pound a year, and past thro' many of the highest posts in the kingdom, died in the year 1687, in a remote inn in Yorkshire, reduc'd to the utmost misery.
A delightful palace, on the banks of the Thames, built by the Duke of Buckingham.
The Countess of Shrewsbury, a woman abandon'd to gallantries. The Earl her husband was kill'd by the Duke of Buckingham in a duel; and it has been said, that during the combat she held the Duke's horses in the habit of a page.
That is, he had a greater gout for oblique and disguised flattery than for the more direct and bare-faced. And no wonder in a man of wit. For the taking pleasure in fools, for the sake of laughing at them, is nothing else but the complisance of flattering ourselves, by an advantageous comparison which the mind, in that emotion, makes between itself and the object laughed at. Hence too we may see the Reason of mens preferring this kind of flattery to others. For we are always inclined to think that work best done which we do ourselves.
The term implies the difficulty he had to get the better of all these incumbrances. And it is true, as his history informs us, he had the impediment of good parts, which, from time to time, hindered a little, and retarded his conquests
The poet did well in appealing to Reason, from the parties concerned; who, it is likely, had made but a very sorry decision. The abhorrence of an empty purse would have certainly perverted the judgment of Want, with a full one: And the longings for a full one would probably have as much misled Want, with an empty one. Whereas reason resolves this matter in a trice. There being a possibility that Want with an empty purse may be relieved; but none, that Want with a full purse ever can.
This is to be understood as a solemn evocation of the shade of this illustrious knight, in the manner of the ancients; who used to call up their departed heroes by two things they principally loved and detested, as the most potent of all charms. Hence this Sage is conjured by the powerful mention of a full, and of an empty purse.
There is a greater beauty in this comparison than the common reader is aware of. Brutus was, in morals at least, a Stoic, like his uncle. And how much addicted to that sect in general, appears from his professing himself of the old academy, and being a most passonate admirer of Antiochus Ascalonites, an essential Stoic, if ever there was any. Now Stoical virtue was, as our author truly tells us, not exercise, but apathy.—Contracted all, retiring to the breast. In a word, like Sir J. Culter's purse; nothing for use, but kept close shut, and centred all within himself.—Now virtue and wealth thus circumstanced, are indeed no other than mere names.
The Monument, built in memory of the fire of London, with an inscription, importing that city to have been burnt by the Papists.
Tho' Scriblerus is not insensible to the humour of this line; yet his gravity makes him wish that the City-monument had been honour'd with a comparison of more dignity. He thinks, particularly, it should rather have been compared to the Court-champion; as, like him, it only spoke the sense of the Government; which, at that time, no man could have denied without the danger of a challenge — of Jury, at least: When, as a great writer observes, a jealousy of Popery heated the minds of men to such a degree, that it seems almost wonderful the Plague was not imputed to the Papists as peremptorily as the Fire. Diss upon Parties.
The author has placed the scene of these shipwrecks in Cornwall, not only from their frequency on that coast, but from the inhumanity of the inhabitants to those to whom that misfortune arrives: When a ship happens to be stranded there, they have been known to bore holes in it, to prevent its getting off; to plunder, and sometimes even to massacre the people: Nor has the the Parliament of England been yet able wholly to suppress these barbarities.
The poet had observed above, that when the luxuriously selfish had got more than they knew how to use, they would try to do more than live; instead of imparting the least pittance of it to those whom fortune had reduced to do less than live: The Vanity of which chimerical project he well exposed in these lines:
But here, in one who had not yet learnt the art of disguising the Poverty of Wealth by the Refinements of Luxury, he shews, with admirable humour, the ridicule of it,
This is an admirable picture of human nature: In the entrance on life, all, but coxcombs born, are usually modest, and esteem the favours of their superiors as marks of their benevolence: But, if these favours happen to increase, instead of advancing in gratitude to our benefactors, we only improve in the good opinion of ourselves; and the constant returns of them make us consider them no longer as accommodations to our wants, or obligations for our service, but debts due to our merit: Yet, at the same time, to do justice to our nature, let us observe, that this does not proceed so often from downright vice as is imagined (when it does, the vice is bad indeed) but frequently from mere infirmity; and then too the reason is evident, for, having small knowledge of, and yet excessive fondness for ourselves, we estimate our merit by the opinion of others: and this perhaps would not be much amiss, were we not apt to take their favours for a declaration of their opinion. How many, for instance, do we see in every faculty of the learned professions, who, had they continued in their primeval meanness, had lived and died [Page 72] as wise even as Socrates himself, that is, with the confession of their knowing nothing; yet, being push'd up, as the proper phrase is, have, in the rapidity of their course, imagined they saw, at every new station, a new door of science opening to them, without staying so much as for a flatterer to let them in?
—atque unum civem donare Sibyllae.
This is to be understood in a very sober and decent sense, as a satyr only on the severity of the laws of forfeiture of lands for High-treason, which has been known abroad sometimes to make Ministers of State aid the Devil in his temptations, to foment (if not make) plots for the sake of Confiscations; a punishment never in use while Rome was free; but which came in with their Tyrants, and was picked up from them as the most precious jewel of the Crown, by the little arbitrary Monarchs that arose out of, and scrambled for the spoils of that Empire; and which, the wisdom and equity of the British legislature have condemned by an act of repeal, to commence after a convenient season.—So sure always, and just is our author's satyr, even in those places where he seems most to have indulged himself only in an elegant badinage.
EPISTLE IV.
To RICHARD BOYLE, Earl of Burlington.
ARGUMENT.
Of the USE of RICHES.
The Vanity of Expence in People of Wealth and Quality. The abuse of the word Taste, ℣ 13. That the first principle and foundation, in this as in every thing else, is Good Sense, ℣ 40. The chief proof of it is to follow Nature, even in works of mere Luxury and Elegance. Instanced in Architecture and Gardening, where all must be adapted to the Genius and Use of the Place, and the Beauties not forced into it, but resulting from it, ℣ 50. How men are disappointed in their most expensive undertakings, for want of this true Foundation, without which nothing can please long, if at all; and the best Examples and Rules will but be perverted into something burdensome or ridiculous, ℣ 65, &c. to 92. A description of the false Taste of Magnificence; the first grand Error of which is to imagine that Greatness consists in the Size and Dimension, instead of the Proportion and Harmony of the whole, ℣ 97. and the second, either in joining together Parts incoherent, or too minutely resembling, or in the Repetition of the same too frequently, ℣ 105, &c. A word or two of false Taste in Books, in Music, in Painting, even in Preaching and Prayer, and lastly in Entertainments, ℣ 133, &c. Yet PROVIDENCE is justified in giving Wealth to be squandered in this manner, since it is dispersed to the Poor and Laborious part of mankind, ℣ 169. [Recurring to what is laid down in the first book, Ep. ii. and in the Epistle preceding this, ℣ 159, &c.] What are the proper Objects of Magnificence, and a proper field for the Expence of Great Men, ℣ 177, &c. and finally, the Great and Public Works which become a Prince, ℣ 191, to the end.
COMMENTARY.
EPISTLE IV.] The extremes of Avarice and Profusion being treated of in the foregoing Epistle; this takes up one particular branch of the latter, the Vanity of Expence in people of Wealth and Quality; and is therefore a corollary to the preceding. It is equally remarkable for exactness of method with the rest. But the nature of the subject, which is less philosophical, makes it capable of being analysed in a much narrower compass.
The poet's introduction [from ℣ 1 to 39.] consists of a very curious remark, arising from his intimate knowledge of nature, together with an illustration of it, taken from his observations on life. It is this, that the Prodigal no more enjoys his Profusion, than the Miser his Rapacity. It was generally thought, that Avarice only kept without enjoyment; but the poet here first acquaints us with a circumstance in human life much more to be lamented, viz. that Profusion too can communicate without it; whereas Enjoyment was thought to be as peculiarly the reward of the beneficent passions (of which this seems to have the appearance) as want of enjoyment was the punishment of the selfish.—The phaenomenon observed is odd enough. But if we look more narrowly into this matter, we shall find, that Prodigality, when in pursuit of Taste, is only a Mode of Vanity, and consequently as selfish a passion as even Avarice itself, and it is of the ordonance and constitution of all selfish passions, when growing to excess, to defeat their own end, which is Self-enjoyment. But besides the accurate philosophy of this observation, there is a fine Morality contained in it; namely that ill-got Wealth is not only as unreasonably, but as uncomfortably squandered as it was raked together; which the poet himself further insinuates in ℣ 15.
He then illustrates this observation by divers examples in every branch of wrong Taste; and to set their absurdities in the strongest light, he, in conclusion, contrasts them [Page 76] with several instances of the true, in the noble Lord to whom the Epistle is addressed. This disposition is productive of various beauties: for, by this means, the Introduction becomes an epitome of the body of the Epistle; which, as we shall see, consists of general reflections on Taste, and particular examples of bad and good. And his friend's Example concluding the Introduction, leads the poet gracefully into the subject itself; for this Lord, here celebrated for his good Taste, was now at hand to deliver the first and fundamental percept of it himself, which gives authority and dignity to all that follow.
and in this artful manner begins the body of the Epistle.
I.
The first part of it, [from ℣ 38 to 95.] delivers rules for attaining to the MAGNIFICENT in just expence; which is the same in Building and Planting, that the SUBLIME is in Painting and Poetry; and, consequently, the qualities necessary for the attainment of both must have the same relation.
1. The first and fundamental, he shews [from ℣ 38 to 47.] to be SENSE.
And for that reason; not only as it is the foundation and parent of them all, and the constant regulator and director of their operations, or, as the poet better expresses it, — of every Art the Soul; but likewise as it alone can, in case of need, very often supply the offices of every one of them.
2. The next quality, for dignity and use, is TASTE, and but the next: For, as the poet truly observes, there is — something previous ev'n to Taste — 'tis Sense; and this, in the order of things: For Sense is a taste and true conception of Nature; and Taste is a sense or true conception of beautiful Nature; but we must first know the Essences of things, before we can judge truly of their Qualities. The business of Taste, therefore, in the pursuit of Magnificence, is, as the poet shews us [from ℣ 46 to 65.] 1. [to ℣ 51.] to catch or lay hold on Nature, where she appears most in her charms. 2. [to ℣ 57.] To adorn her, when taken, as best suits her dignity and quality; that is, to dress her in the light and modest habit of a virgin, not load her with the gaudy ornaments of a prostitute. This rule observed, will prevent a transgression in the following, which is, not to let all its beauties be seen at once, but in succession; for that advantage is inseparable from a graceful and well-dressed person. 3. [to ℣ 65.] To take care that the ornaments be well suited to that part, which it is your purpose to adorn; and, as in dressing out a modest Fair, (which is the poet's own comparision) the colours are proportioned to her complexion; the stuff, to the embonpoint of her person; and the fashion, to her air and shape; so in ornamenting a villa, the rise or fall of waters should correspond to its acclivities or declivities; the artificial hills or vales to its cover or exposure; and the manner of calling in the country to the disposition of its aspect. But again, as in the illustration, whatever be the variety in colour, stuff, or fashion, they must still be so suited with respect to one another, as to produce an agreement and harmony in their assemblage; so woods, waters, mountains, vales, and vistas must, amidst all their diversity, be so disposed with a relation to each other, as to create a perfect symmetry resulting [Page 81] from the whole; and this, the Genius of the place, when religiously consulted, will never fail to inform us of; who, as the poet says,
And this is a full and complete description of the office of Taste.
But now when good Sense has led us up to Taste, our fondness for the elegances of our new mistress, oftentimes occasions us to neglect the plainness and simplicity of the old; we are but too apt to forsake our Guide, and to give ourselves up solely to Taste. Our author's next rule therefore 3. is, still to follow Sense, and let it perpetually accompany us thro' all the works of Taste.
That is, Good Sense should never be a moment absent from the works of Taste, any more than the Soul from the Body; for just as the Soul animates and informs every air and feature of a beauteous body, so Sense gives life and vigour to all the products of Taste.
The particular advantages of the union of [Page 83] Sense with Taste he then explains [from this verse to 71.] 1. That the beautiful parts which Taste has laid out and contrived, Sense makes to answer one another, and to slide naturally, without violence, into a whole. 2. That many beauties will spontaneously offer themselves, suggested from the very necessity which Sense lays upon us, of conforming the parts to the whole, that no original invention of Taste would have supplied. 3. A third advantage is, that you are then always sure to have Nature on your side,
The expression is important — Sense being a right conception of Nature; and Taste a right conception of beautiful Nature; when these are in conjunction, Nature can stand out no longer, but presents herself to you without further pains or search.
To illustrate this doctrine, the poet next shews us [from ℣ 70 to 99.] that without this continued support of Good Sense, things even of the highest Taste and utmost Magnificence, such as the Buildings of Versailles, the Gardens of Villario, and the Groves of Sabinus (which are the instances he gives) all, in a very little time, come to nothing. — And no wonder. For the exercise of Taste WITHOUT SENSE is, where something that is not beautiful Nature is [Page 84] mistaken for it, and ornamented as beautiful Nature should be: These ornaments, there fore, being destitute of all real support, must be continually subject to change. Sometimes the owner himself will grow weary of them (as in the case of Villario) and find at last, that Nature is to be preferred before them,
Sometimes, again, the Heir (like Sabinus's) will be changing a bad Taste for a worse,
So that mere Taste standing exposed between the true and false, like the decent man, between the rigidly virtuous, and thoroughly profligate, hated and despised by both, can never long support itself; and with this the first part of the Epistle concludes.
II.
As the first part ended with exposing the works of Taste without Sense, the second begins with a description [from ℣ 98 to 173.] of false Magnificence WITHOUT EITHER SENSE OR TASTE, in the gardens, buildings, [Page 87] table-furniture, library, and way of living of Lord Timon; who, in none of these, could distinguish between greatness and vastness, between regularity and form, between dignity and fastus, or between learning and pedantry. But what then? says the poet, here resuming the great principle of his Philosophy (which these moral Epistles were wrote to illustrate, and consequently on which they are all regulated) tho'
Yet the punishment is confined as it ought, and the evil is turned to the benefit of others: For
But now a difficulty sticks with me, answers an objector, this load of evil still remains a monument of folly to future ages; an incumbrance to the plain on which it stands, and a nuisance to the neigbourhood around, as filling it
For men are apt to take the example next at hand; and aptest of all to take a bad one. No fear of that, replies the poet [from ℣ 172 to 177.] Nothing absurd or wrong is exempt from the jurisdiction of Time, which is always sure to do full justice on it,
For the prerogative of
is only due to the designs of true Taste joined to Use: And
and nothing but the sanctity of that can arrest the justice of Time. And thus the second part concludes; which consisting of an example of false Taste in every attempt to Magnificence, is full of concealed precepts for the true: As the first part, which contains precepts for true Taste, is full of examples of the false.
III.
We come now to the third and last part; [from ℣ 176 to the end] and, as in the first, the poet had given examples of wrong-judged Magnificence, in things of Taste without Sense; and in the second, an example of others without either Sense or Taste; so the third is employed in two illustrious examples of Magnificence in Planting and Building, where both Sense and Taste highly prevail: The one in him, to whom this Epistle is addressed; and the other, in the Noble person whose excellent Character bore so conspicuous a part in the foregoing.
Where, in the fine description he gives of these two species of Magnificence, he artfully [Page 94] insinuates, that tho' when executed in a true Taste, the great end and aim of both be the same, viz. the general good, in use or ornament; yet that their progress to this end is carried on in direct contrary courses; that in Planting the private advantage of the neighbourhood is first promoted, till, by time, it rises up to a public benefit:
On the contrary, the wonders of Architecture ought first to be bestowed on the public:
And when the public has been properly strengthened and adorned, then, and not till [Page 95] then, the works of private Magnificence may take place. This was the order observ'd by those two great Empires, from whom we received all we have of this polite art: We read not of any the least Magnificence in the private buildings of Greece or Rome, till the grandeur of their public spirit had adorned the State with Temples, Emporiums, Council-houses, Common-Porticos, Baths, and Theatres.
NOTES.
A Gentleman famous for a judicious collection of Drawings.
The author speaks here not as as a Philosopher or Divine, but as a Connoisseur and Antiquary; consequently the natural attribute here assigned to these Gods of old renown, is not in disparagement of their worth, but in high commendations of their genuine pretensions.
This is not to be understood in the strictness of the letter, as if Mr. Tho. Hearne enjoyed these rarities without a partaker; for he has been often known to exemplify these precious zelicks under the authority of the Clarendon Printing-house, where the good seed has sometimes produced forty or fifty folds Hence, and from their still continuing as much rarities as ever, it may be reasonably concluded they were not the delight of Mr. T. Hearne alone.
Two eminent Physicians; the one had an excellent Library, the other the finest collection in Europe of natural curiosities; both men of great learning and humanity.
By the author's manner of putting together these two different utensils of false Magnificence, it appears that, properly speaking, neither the Wise nor the Whore is the real object of modern taste, but the Finery only: And whoever. [Page 77] wears it, whether the Wife or Whore, it matters not; any further than that the latter best deserves it, as appears from her having most of it; and so indeed becomes, by accident, the more fashionable thing of the two.
The present rage of Taste, amidst the excess and overflow of general Luxury, may be very properly represented by a desolating pestilence, alluded to in the word Visit, where Taste becomes, as the poet says,
This man was a carpenter, employ'd by a first Minister, who rais'd him to an Architect, without any genius in the art; and after some wretched proofs of his insufficiency in public Buildings, made him Comptroller of the Board of works.
Pride is one of the greatest mischiefs, as well as absurdities of our nature; and therefore, as appears both from profane and sacred History, has ever been the more peculiar object of divine vengeance. But awkward Pride intimates such abilities in its owner, as eases us of the apprehension of much mischief from it; so that the poet supposes such a one secure from the serious resentment of Heaven, though it may permit fate or fortune to bring him into the public contempt and ridicule, which his native badness of heart so well deserves.
VER. 23. The Earl of Burlington was then publishing the Designs of Inigo Jones, and the Antiquities of Rome by Palladio.
Because the road to Taste, like that to Truth, is but one; and those to Error and Absurdity a thousand.
In which there is a complication of absurdities, arising both from their different natures and forms: For the one being for holy service, and the other only for civil amusement, it is impossible that the profuse and lascivious ornaments of the latter, should become the reverence, retinue, and sanctity of the other? Nor will any examples of this vanity of ornament in the sacred buildings of antiquity justify this imitation; for those ornaments might be very suitable to a Temple of Bacchus, or Venus, which would ill become the sobriety and purity of the present Religion.
Again we should consider, that the usual form of a Theatre would only permit the architectonic ornaments to be placed on the outward face; whereas those of a Church may be as commodiously, and are more properly put within, particularly in great and close pent-up Cities, where the incessant driving of the smoak, in a little time corrodes and destroys all outward ornaments of this kind, especially if the members, as is the common taste, be small and little.
This absurdity seems to have arisen from an injudicious imitation of what these Builders might have heard of, at the entrance of the antient Gardens of Rome: But they don't consider, that those were public Gardens, given to the people by some great man after a triumph; to which, therefore, Arcs of this kind were very suitable ornaments.
This is a very good and easy Receipt to make a Front, and may be worth recommending to the Builders aforesaid, who can do nothing of their own invention, better; nor by many degrees so cheap: which too may deserve the consideration of those who set them on work.
In the foregoing instances, the poet exposes the absurd imitation of foreign and discordant Manners in public buildings; here he turns to the still greater absurdities of taking their models from a discordant Climate in their private; which folly, he supposes, they will sooner be made sensible of, as they must feel for themselves, tho' they will not see for the public.
To convince a great man of so strange a Paradox, that Taste cannot be bought, even after it is paid for, will need a very broad hint indeed; especially when followed by another as strange, that there is
Yet as severe a subject of humiliation as [Page 80] all this is to the Rich, it was but necessary to inculcate it, in order to work in them, if possible, that teachableness of mind necessary for their profiting by the following instructions.
VER. 46. Inigo Jones the celebrated Architect, and M. Le Nôtre, the designer of the best Gardens of France.
For when the same beauty obtrudes itself upon you over and over; when it meets you full at whatever place you stop, or to whatever point you turn, then Nature loses her proper charms of a modest fair, and you begin to hate and nauseate her as a prostitute.
If the poet was right in comparing the true dress of Nature to that of a modest fair, it is a plain consequence, that one half of the designer's art must be, decently to hide, as the other half is, gracefully to discover.
The personalizing or rather deifying the Genius of the place, in order to be consulted as an Oracle, has produced one of the noblest and most sublime descriptions of Design, that poetry could express. Where this Genius, while presiding over the work, is represented by little and little, as advancing from a simple adviser, to a creator of all the beauties of improved Nature, in a variety of bold metaphors and allusions, all rising one above another, till they complete the unity of the general idea.
First the Genius of the place tells the waters, or only simply gives directions: Then he helps th' ambitious hill, or is a fellow-labourer: Then again he scoops the [Page 82] circling Theatre, or works alone, or in chief. Afterwards, rising fast in our idea of dignity, he calls in the country, alluding to the orders of princes in their progress, when accustomed to display all their state and magnificence: His character then grows sacred, he joins willing woods, a metaphor taken from the office of the priesthood, in the administration of one of its holy rites; till at length, he becomes a Divinity, and creates and presides over the whole:
Much in the same manner as the plastic Nature is supposed to do, in the work of human generation.
The not observing this rule, bewilder'd a late noble writer (distinguished for his philosophy of Taste) in the pursuit of the grand and magnificent in moral life; who when Good Sense had led him up to the [...] of ancient renown, discharged his Guide, and, captivated with the delights of Taste, resolved all into the [Page 83] elegancies of that idea: And now, Reason, Morality, Religion, and the truth of things, were nothing else but TASTE; which, (that he might not be thought altogether to have deserted his sage conductress) he sometimes dignified with the name of moral sense: And he succeeded, in the pursuit of Truth, accordingly.
i. e. shall not be forced, but go of themselves, as if both the parts and whole were not of yours, but of Nature's making. The metaphor is taken from a piece of mechanism finish'd by some great master, where all the parts are so previously fitted, as to be easily put together by any ordinary workman, and each part slides into its place, as it were thro' a groove ready made for that purpose.
VER. 70. The seat and gardens of the Lord Viscount Cobham in Buckinghamshire.
The expression is very significant. Had the Walls been said to desert the Terraces, this would have given us the image of a destruction, affected by time only; which had been foreign to the poet's intention, who is here speaking of the punishment of unsupported Taste, in the designed subversion of it, either by good or bad, as it happens, one of which is sure to do its business, and that soon; therefore it is with great propriety he says, that the Terraces desert their walls, which implies purpose and violence in their subversion.
An high compliment to the noble person on whom it is bestowed, as making him the substitute of Good Sense. — This office, in the original plan of the poem, was given to another; who not having the SENSE to see a compliment was intended him, convinced the poet it did not belong to him.
This was done in Hertfordshire, by a wealthy citizen, at the expence of above 5000 l. by which means (merely to overlook a dead plain) he let in the northwind upon his house and parterre, which [Page 85] were before adorned and defended by beautiful woods.
Dr. S. Clarke's busto placed by the Queen in the Hermitage, while the Dr. duely frequented the Court.
The imagery is here taken from Painting, in the judicious execution of the Pencil, and in the happy improvement of it by time. To understand what is meant by supporting (which is a term of art common both to Planting and Painting) we must consider what things make the natural defect or weakness of a rude uncultivated Plain; and these are, the having a disagreable flatness, and the not having a proper termination. But a Wood, rightly disposed, takes away the one, and gives what is wanting of the other.
The utmost which art can do, when it does its full office, is to give the work a consent of parts; but it is time only that can make the union here spoken of, there being the same difference between these, as between a simple Contract, and a Consummation. So in painting, the skill of the master can go no further, in the chromatic part, than to set those colours together, which have a natural friendship and sympathy for each other: But nothing but time can unite and incorporate their tints.
And now the work becomes a very picture; which the poet informs us of, in the sublime way of poetical instruction, by setting that picture before our eyes; and not merely a picture, but a perfect one, in which the lights and shades, not only bear a proportion to one another in their force (which is implied in the word contends) but are both at their height (which the word strength signifies.) As the use of the singular number in the terms Shade and Light, alludes to another precept of the art, that not only the shades and lights should be great and broad, but that the masses of the clair-obscure, in a groupe of objects, should be so managed, by a subordination of the groups to the unity of design, as that the whole together may afford one great shade and light.
i. e. The several colours of the grove in bloom, give several different tints to the lights and shades.
Finely intimating, by this sublime classical image, that the Father's taste was enthusiastical; in which passion there is always something great and noble; tho' it be too apt, in its flights, to leave sense behind it: and this was the good man's case. But his Son's was a poor despicable superstition, a low sombrous passion, whose perversity of Taste could only gratify itself,
VER. 95. The two extremes in parterres, which are equally faulty; a boundless Green, large and naked as a field, or a flourish'd Carpet, where the greatness and nobleness of the piece is lessened by being divided into too many parts, with [Page 87] scroll'd works and beds, of which the examples are frequent.
Touches upon the ill taste of those who are so fond of Evergreens (particularly Yews, which are the most tonsile) as to destroy the nobler Forest-trees, to make way for such little ornaments as Pyramids of dark-green continually repeated, not unlike a Funeral procession.
This description is intended to comprize the principles of a false Taste of Magnificence, and to exemplify what was said before, that nothing but Good Sense can attain it.
Grandeur in building, as in the human frame, takes not its denomination from the body, but the soul of the work: when the soul therefore is lost or incumber'd in its invelope, the unanimated parts, how huge soever, are not members of grandeur, but mere heaps of littleness.
This is exactly the two puddings of the citizen in the foregoing fable, only served up a little more magnificently: But both on the same absurd principle of wrong taste, viz. that one can never have too much of a good thing.
The exquisite humour of this expression arises solely from its significancy. These groves, that have no meaning, but very near relation, can express themselves only like twin ideots, by nods, which just serve to let us understand, that they know one another, as being nursed up by one common parent.
VER. 124. The two Statues of the Gladiator pugnans and Gladiator moriens.
[Page 89] VER. 130. The Approaches and Communications of house with garden, or of one part with another, ill judged and inconvenient.
The false Taste in Books; a satyr on the vanity in collecting them, more frequent in men of Fortune than the study to understand them. Many delight chiefly in the elegance of the print, or of the binding; some have carried it so far, as to cause the upper shelves to be filled with painted books of wood; others pique themselves so much upon books in a language they do not understand, as to exclude the most useful in one they do.
VER 142. The false Taste in Music, improper to the subjects, as of light airs in Churches, often practised by the organists, &c.
This absurdity is very happily expressed; Pride, of all human sollies, being the first we should leave behind us when we approach to the sacred altar. But he who could take Meanness for Magnificence, might easily mistake Humility for Meanness.
[Page 90] VER. 145. — And in Painting (from which even Italy is not free) of naked figures in Churches, &c. which has obliged some Popes to put draperies on some of those of the best masters.
The fine image here given in a single word, admirably exposes the unnatural position of the picture, and the too natural postures of its female figures.
Verrio (Antonio) painted many cielings, &c. at Windsor, Hampton-court, &c. and Laguerre at Blenheim-castle, and other places.
This is a fact; a reverend Dean preaching at Court, threatened the sinner with punishment in ‘"a place which he thought it not decent to name in so polite an assembly."’
VER. 153. Taxes the incongruity of Ornaments (tho' sometimes practised by the ancients) where an open mouth ejects the water into a fountain, or where the shocking images of serpents, &c. are introduced in Grottos or Buffets.
The circumstance of being well-colour'd shews this ornament not only to be very absurd, but very odious too; and has a peculiar beauty, as, in one instance of false Taste, viz. an injudicious choice in imitation, he gives (in the epithet employ'd) the suggestion of another, which is an injudicious manner of it. For those disagreeable objects which, when painted, give pleasure; if coloured after nature, in relief, become shocking, as a toad, or dead carcase in waxwork: yet these things are the delight of all people of bad Taste. However, the Ornament itself pretends to science, and would justify its use by antiquity, tho' it betrays the most miserable ignorance of it. The Serpent, amongst the ancients, was sacred, and full of venerable mysteries. Now things do not excite ideas so much according to their own natural impressions, as by fictitious ones, arising from foreign and accidental [Page 91] combinations; consequently the view of this animal raised in them nothing of that abhorrence which it is wont to do in us; but, on the contrary, very agreeable sensations, correspondent to those foreign associations. Hence, and more especially because the Serpent was the peculiar Symbol of health, it became an extreme proper ornament to the genial rooms of the ancients: While we, who are strangers to all this superstition, yet make ourselves liable to one much more absurd, which is, idolizing the very fashions that arose from it. But if these pretenders to Taste can so widely mistake, it is no wonder that those who pretend to none, I mean the verbal Critics, should a little hallucinate in this matter. I remember, when the short Latin inscription on Shakespear's monument was first set up, and in the very style of elegant and simple antiquity, the News-papers were full of these small Critics; in which, the only observation that looked like learning, was founded in this ignorance of Taste and Antiquity. One of these Critics objected to the word Mors (in the inscription) because the Roman writers of the purest times scrupled to employ it; but, in its stead, used an improper, that is, a figurative word, or otherwise a circumlocution. But had he consider'd that it was their Superstition of lucky and unlucky words which occasion'd this delicacy, he must have seen that a Christian writer, in a Christian inscription, acted with great judgment in avoiding so senseless an affectation of, what he miscalls, classical expression.
The proud Festivals of some men are here set forth to ridicule, where pride destroys the ease, and formal regularity all the pleasurable enjoyment of the entertainment.
See Don Quixote, chap. xlvii.
The Moral of the whole, where PROVIDENCE is justified in giving Wealth to those who squander it in this manner. A bad Taste employs more hands, and diffuses Expence more than a good one. This recurs to what is laid down in Book I. Epist. 2. ℣ 230—7, and in the Epistle preceeding this, ℣ 161, &c.
The great beauty of this line is merely owing to the Art of the poet; by which he has so disposed a trite classical figure, as not only to make it do it's common office, of representing a very plentiful Harvest, but also to assume the Image of Nature, re-establishing herself in her rights, and mocking the vain efforts of false magnificence, which would keep her out of them.
Here the poet, to make the examples of good Taste the better understood, introduces them with a summary of his Precepts [Page 94] in these two sublime lines: for, the consulting Use is beginning with Sense; and the making Splendor or Taste borrow all its rays from thence, is going on with Sense, after she has led us up to Taste. The art of this can never be sufficiently admired. But the Expression is equal to the Thought. This sanctifying of expence gives us the idea of something consecrated and set apart for sacred uses; and indeed, it is the idea under which it may be properly considered: For wealth employed [Page 95] according to the intention of the great donor, is its true consecration; and the real uses of humanity were certainly first in his intention.
The poet, after having touched upon the proper objects of Magnificence and Expence, in the private works of great men, comes to those great and public works which become a Prince. This Poem was published in the year 1732, when some of the new-built Churches, by the Act of Queen Anne, were ready to fall, being sounded in boggy land (which is satyrically alluded to in our author's imitation of Horace lib. ii. Sat. 2.
others were vilely executed, thro' fraudulent cabals between undertakers, officers, &c. Dagenham-breach had done very great mischiefs; many of the Highways throughout England were hardly passable, and most of those which were repaired by Turnpikes were made jobs for private lucre, and infamously executed, even to the entrances of London itself: The proposal of building a Bridge at Westminster had been petition'd against and rejected; but in two years after the publication of this poem, an Act for building a Bridge past thro' both houses. After many debates in the committee, the execution was left to the carpenter abovementioned, who would have made it a wooden one; to which our author alludes in these lines,
See the notes on that place.
COMMENTARY.
EPISTLE I.] This Epistle is divided into three principal parts or members: The First [from ℣ 1 to 99.] treats of the difficulties in coming at the Knowledge and true Characters of Men.—The Second [from ℣ 98 to 173.] of the wrong means which both Philosophers and Men of the World have employed in surmounting those difficulties. And the Third [from ℣ 174 to the end] treats of the right means with directions for the application of them.
I.
The Epistle is introduced [from ℣ 1 to 15] in observing, that the Knowledge of Men is neither to be gained by Books nor Experience alone, but by the joint use of both; for that the Maxims of the Philosopher, and the Conclusions of the Man of the World can, separately, but supply a vague and superficial knowledge: And often not so much, as those Maxims are founded in the abstract notions of the writer; and these conclusions are drawn from the uncertain conjectures of the observer: But when the writer joins his speculation to the experience of the observer, his notions are rectified into principles; and when the observer regulates his experience on the general principles of the writer, his conjectures advance into science. Such is the reasoning of this introduction; which besides its propriety to the general subject of the Epistle, has a peculiar relation to each of its parts or members: For the causes of the difficulty in coming at the knowledge and characters of men, explained in the First, will shew the importance of what is here delivered, of the joint assistance [Page 2] of speculation and practice to surmount it; and the wrong means which both philosophers and men of the world have employed in overcoming those difficulties discoursed of in the Second, have their source here deduced, which is seen to be a separate adherence of each to his own method of studying men, and a mutual contempt of the others. Lastly, the right means delivered in the Third, will be of little use in the application, without the direction here delivered: For tho' observation discovered a ruling passion, yet, without a philosophic knowledge of the human mind, we may easily mistake a secondary and subsidiary passion for the principal, and so be never the nearer in the Knowledge of Men. But the elegant and easy Form of the introduction equals the Propriety of its matter; for the Epistle being addressed to a noble person, distinguished for his knowledge of the World, it opens, as it were, in the midst of a familiar converse, which lets us at once into his character; where the poet, by affecting only to ridicule the useless Knowledge of Men confined to Books, and under the appearance of extolling only that acquired by the World, artfully insinuates how equally defective this may be, when conducted on the same narrow principle: Which is too often the case, as men of the world are more than ordinarily prejudiced in favour of their own observations for the sake of the observer, and, for the same reason, less indulgent to the discoveries of others.
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The poet enters on the First division of his subject, the difficulties of coming at the Knowledge and true Characters of Men. The I. cause of this difficulty, which he prosecutes from ℣ 14 to 19. is the great diversity of Characters, of which, to abate our wonder, and not discourage our inquiry, he only desires we would grant him
Hereby artfully insinuating, that if Nature has varied the most worthless vegetable into above three hundred species, we need not wonder at the like diversity in the human mind: And if a variety in that vegetable has been thought of importance enough to employ the leisure of a serious enquirer, much more will the same quality in this master-piece of Nature deserve our study and attention.
A second cause of this difficulty [from ℣ 18 to 21.] is Man's inconstancy, whereby not only one man differs from another, but each man from himself.
A third cause [from ℣ 20 to 23.] is that obscurity thrown over the Characters of men, thro' the strife and contest between nature and custom, between reason and appetite, between truth and opinion. And as most men, [Page 4] either thro' education, temperature, or profession, have their Characters warp'd by custom, appetite, and opinion, the obscurity arising from thence almost universal.
A fourth cause from ℣ 20 to 25. is deep dissimulation, and restless caprice, whereby the shallows of the mind are as difficult to be found, as the depths of it to be fathom'd.
A fifth cause [from ℣ 24 to 31.] is the sudden change of his Principle of action, either on the point of its being laid open and detected, or thro' mere inconstancy.
Hitherto the poet hath spoken of the causes of difficulty arising from the obseurity of the Object; he now comes to those which proceed from defects in the Observer. The First of which, and a sixth cause of difficulty, he shews [from ℣ 30 to 57.] is the perverse manners, affections, and imagination of the observer, whereby the Characters of others are rarely seen either in their true light, complexion, or proportion.
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The Second of these, and seventh cause of difficulty [from ℣ 36 to 41.] is the shortness of human life, which will not suffer the observer to select and weigh out his knowledge, but just to snatch it as it rolls rapidly by him down the current of Time.
We come now to the eighth and last cause, which very properly concludes the account, as, in a sort, it sums up all the difficulties in one [from ℣ 40 to 51.] namely, that very often the man himself is ignorant of his own motive of action; the cause of which ignorance our author has admirably explain'd: When the mind (says he) is now quite tired out by the long conflict of opposite motives, it withdraws its attention, and suffers the will to be seized upon by the first that afterwards obtrudes itself, without taking notice what that motive is. This is finely illustrated by what he supposes the general cause of dreams; where the fancy just let loose possesses itself of the last image which it meets with on the confines between sleep and waking, and on that eracts all its visionary operation; yet this image is, with great difficulty, recollected; and never, but when some accident happens to interrupt our first slumbers: Then (which proves the truth of the hypothesis) we are sometimes able to trace the workings of the Fancy backwards, from image to image, in a chain, till we come to that from whence they all arose.
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But now in answer to all this, an objector, as the author shews [from ℣ 50 to 61.] may say, ‘"That these difficulties seem to be aggravated: For many Characters are so plainly marked, that no man can mistake them: And not so only in the more open and frank, but in the very closest and most recluse likewise."’ Of each of which the objector gives an instance, whereby it appears, that the forbidding closeness and concealed hypocrisy in the one, are as conspicuous to all mankind, as the gracious openness and frank plain-dealing of the other. — The Reader sees this objection is more particularly level'd at the doctrine of ℣ 23.
for it here endeavours to prove, that both are equally explorable.
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To this objection, therefore, our author replies [from ℣ 60 to 67.] that indeed the fact may be true in the instances given, but that such plain characters are extremely rare: And for the truth of this, he not only appeals to experience, but explains the causes of it: 1. The First of which is, the vivacity of the Imagination; for that when the bias of the Passions is enough determined to mark out the Character, yet then, as the vigour of the Fancy generally rises in proportion to the strength of the Appetites, the one no sooner directs the bias, than the other reverses it,
2. A Second cause is the contrariety of Appetites, which drawing several ways, as Avarice and Luxury, Ambition and Indolence, &c. they must needs make the same Character inconsistent to itself, and consequently inexplicable to the observer,
3. A Third cause is Affectation, that aspires to qualities, which neither nature nor education has given us, and which, consequently, neither art nor use will ever render graceful or becoming. On this account it is, he well observes, that Affectation reverses the soul; other natural passions may indeed turn it from that bias which the ruling one has given it; but the affected passions distort all its faculties, and cramp all its operations; so that it acts with the same constraint that a tumbler walks upon his hands.
4. A Fourth cause lies in the Inequalities [...] the human mind, which expose the wise to unexpected frailties, and conduct the [...] to as unlooked for wisdom.
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Of all these Four causes he here gives examples: 1. Of the vivacity of the Imagination, from ℣ 71 to 77. — 2. Of the contrariety of Appetites, from ℣ 77 to 80. — 3. Of Affectation, from ℣ 86 to 90. — and 4. Of the Inequalities of the human mind, from ℣ 86 to 95.
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Having thus proved what he had proposed, the premisses naturally lead him into a moral reflexion, with which he concludes his first part, namely, that constancy is to be expected in no human Character whatsoever, [Page 10] but to be found only in God and his Laws: That as to Man, he is not only perpetually shifting and varying, even while within the verge of his own nature; but is frequently flying out into each extreme both above and below it: Now associating in good earnest with Brutes, and now again affecting the imaginary coversation of Angels. [See Essay on Man, Ep. ii. ℣ 8.
II.
The author having shewn the difficulties in coming to the Knowledge and true Characters of men, enters now upon the second division of his Poem, which is of the wrong means that both Philosophers and Men of the world have employed in surmounting those difficulties. He had, in the Introduction, spoken of the absurd conduct of both, in despising the assistance of each other: He now justifies his censure by an examination of their peculiar doctrines; and, to take them in their own way, considers them, as they would be considered, separately. And first, of the Philosopher, whose principal mistake is in supposing that Actions best decipher the Motive of the actor. This he confutes [from ℣ 99 to 109.] by shewing that different Actions proceed often from the same motive; whether of accident, as disappointed views; or of temperature, as an adust complexion; which he thus illustrates,
In judging therefore of Motives by Actions, the Philosopher must needs be frequently misled; because the passion or appetite which, when impelling to Action, we call the Motive, may be equally gratified in the pursuit of quite different measures.
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The Philosopher's second mistake is, that Actions decipher the character of the actor. This too, the author confutes [from ℣ 118 to 135.] and, as in correcting the foregoing mistake, he proved, that different Actions often proceed from the same Motive; so here he proves, that the same Actions often proceeds from different Motives; thus a kind Action, he observes, as commonly arises from the accidents of prosperity or fine weather, as from a natural disposition to humanity; a modest Action, as well from pride as humility; a brave Action, as easily from habit or fashion, as magnanimity; and a prudent Action as often from vanity as wisdom. Now the Character being really determined by the Motives, and various, nay contrary Motives producing the same Action, the Action can never decipher the Character of the actor. But further (continues the poet) if we attend to what has been said, we shall discover another circumstance in the case, that will not only make it extremely difficult, but absolutely impracticable to decipher the Character by the Action; and that is, [Page 12] the discordancy of Action in the same Character; a necessary consequence of the two principles proved above, that different Actions proceed from the same Motive, and that the same Action proceeds from different Motives.
If you will judge of man by his Actions, you are not to selected such only as you like, or can manage, you must fairly take all you find: But, when you have got these together, they will prove so very discordant that no consistent Character can possibly be made out of them. What is then to be done? Will you suppress all those you cannot reconcile to the few capital Actions which you chuse for the foundation of your Character? But this the laws of truth will not allow of. Will you then miscall them? and say they were not the natural workings of the man, but the disguises of the politician? But what will you get by that, but the very reversing the best known Character, and making the owner of it the direct opposite of himself? And this (says our author) the reasoning and philosophic historian has always been ready to do with the Actions of great men; of which he gives two famous instances in the life of Caefar. The conclusion from the whole is, that Actions do not shew the Man.
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The poet having done with the Philosopher, now turns to the Man of the world; whose first mistake is in supposing men's true Characters may be known by their station. This, tho' a mere mob-opinion, is the opinion in fashion, and cherished by the Mob of all ranks; therefore, tho' beneath the poet's reasoning, he thought it deserving of his ridicule; and the strongest was what [Page 14] he gives [from ℣ 134 to 141.] a naked exposition of the fact; to which he has subjoined [from ℣ 140 to 149.] an ironical apology, that, as Virtue is cultivated with infinitely more labour in Courts than in Cottages, it is but just to set an infinitely higher value on it; which, says he, with much pleasantry, is most agreeable to all the fashionable ways of estimation. For why do the connoisseurs prefer the lively colour in a Gem before that in a Flower, but for its extreme rarity and difficulty of production?
This second mistake of the Man of the [Page 15] world is more serious; it is, that Characters are best judged of by the general Manners. This the poet confutes in a lively enumeration of examples [from ℣ 148 to 158.] which shew, that how similar or different soever the Manners be by Nature, yet they are all new model'd by Education and Profession; where each man invariably receives that exotic form which the mould he falls into is fitted to imprint. The natural Character therefore can never be judged of by these fictitious Manners.
The third mistake is in judging of mens Characters by their Opinions and turn of thinking. But these the poet shews, by two examples [from ℣ 157 to 166.] are generally swayed by Interest, both in the affairs of Life and Speculation.
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The poet having gone thro' the mistakes both of the Philosopher and Man of the world, turns now to both; and [from ℣ 165 to 174.] jointly addresses them in a recapitulation of his reasoning against both: He shews, that if we pretend to disenvelope the Character by the natural disposition in general, we shall find it extremely difficult, because this is often effaced by Habit, overswayed by Interest, and suspended by Policy. — If by Actions, their contrariety will leave us in utter doubt and uncertainty. — If by Passions, we shall be perpetually misled by the mask of Dissimulation. — If by Opinions, all these things concur together to perplex the enquiry. Shew us, therefore, says he, in the whole range of your Philosophy and Experience the thing we can be certain of: For (to sum up all in a word)
We must seek therefore some other rout to the point we aim at.
III.
And now we enter on the third and last part; which treats of the right means of surmounting the difficulties in coming to the Knowledge and Characters of men: This, the poet shews, is by investigating the RULING PASSION; of whose origin and nature we may find an exact account in the second Ep. of the Essay on Man. This Principle he rightly observes [from ℣ 173 to 180.] is the clue that must guide us thro' all the intricacies in the ways of men: To [Page 18] convince us of which, he applies it [from ℣ 179 to 210.] to the most wild and inconsistent Character that ever was; which (when drawn out at length in a spirit of poetry as rare as the character itself) we see, this Principle unravels, and renders throughout of one plain consistent thread.
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But here [from ℣ 209 to 222.] he gives one very necessary caution, that, in developing the Ruling Passion, we must be careful not to mistake a subsidiary passion for the principal; which, without great attention, we may be very liable to do; as the subsidiary, acting in support of the principal, has frequently all its vigour and much of its perseverance: This error has misled several both of the ancient and modern historians; as when they supposed Lust and Luxury to be [Page 20] Characteristics of Caesar and Lucullus; whereas, in truth, the Ruling Passion of both was Ambition; which is so certain, that, at whatsoever different time of the Republic these men had lived, their Ambition, as the Ruling Passion, had been the same; but a different time had changed their subsidiary ones of Lust and Luxury, into their very opposites of Chastity and Frugality. 'Tis in vain, therefore, says our author, for the observer of human nature to six his attention on the Workman, if he all the while mistakes the Scaffold for the Building.
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But now it may be objected to our philosophic poet, that he has indeed shewn the true means of coming to the Knowledge and Characters of men by a Principle certain and infallible, when found, yet, by his own account, of so difficult investigation, that its Counterfeit, and it is always attended with one, may be easily mistaken for it. To remove this difficulty, therefore, and consequently the objection that arises from it, the poet has given [from ℣ 221 to 228.] one certain and infallible criterion of the Ruling Passion, which is this, that all the other passions, in the course of time, change and wear away; while this is ever constant and vigorous; and still going on from strength to strength, to the very moment of its demolishing the miserable machine that it has now at length overworked. Of this great truth, the poet [from ℣ 227 to the end] gives various instances in all the [Page 22] principal Ruling Passions of our nature, as they are to be found in the Man of Business, the Man of Pleasure, the Epicure, the Parcimonious, the Toast, the Courtier, the Miser, and the Patriot; which last instance the poet has had the art, under the appearance of Satyr, to turn into the noblest Compliment on the person to whom the Epistle is addressed.