Chapter II: A Letter to a Noble Lord (3)

People unused to the world have babbling countenances, and are unskilful enough to show what they have sense enough not to tell. In the course of the world, a man must very often put on an easy, frank countenance, upon very disagreeable occasions; he must seem pleased, when he is very much otherwise; he must be able to accost and receive with smiles those whom he would much rather meet with swords. In courts he must not turn himself inside out. All this may, nay, must be done, without falsehood and treachery: for it must go no further than politeness and manners, and must stop short of assurances and professions of simulated friendship. Good manners to those one does not love are no more a breach of truth than "your humble servant," at the bottom of a challenge, is; they are universally agreed upon and understood to be things of course. They are necessary guards of the decency and peace of society: they must only act defensively; and then not with arms poisoned with perfidy. Truth, but not the whole truth, must be the invariable principle of every man who hath either religion, honor, or prudence.

I can not help forming some opinion of a man's sense and character from his dress; and I believe most people do as well as myself. Any affectation whatsoever in dress implies in my mind a flaw in the understanding.... A man of sense carefully avoids any particular character in his dress; he is accurately clean for his own sake; but all the rest is for other people's. He dresses as well, and in the same manner, as the people of sense and fashion of the place where he is. If he dresses better, as he thinks--that is, more than they--he is a fop; if he dresses worse, he is unpardonably negligent: but of the two, I would rather have a young fellow too much than too little drest, the excess on that side will wear off with a little age and reflection; but if he is negligent at twenty, he will be a sloven at forty and stink at fifty years old. Dress yourself fine where others are fine, and plain where others are plain; but take care always that your clothes are well made and fit you, for otherwise they will give you a very awkward air. When you are once well drest for the day, think no more of it afterward; and without any stiffness or fear of discomposing that dress, let all your motions be as easy and natural as if you had no clothes on at all.

A friend of yours and mine has justly defined good breeding to be "the result of much good sense, some good nature, and a little self-denial for the sake of others, and with a view to obtain the same indulgence from them." Taking this for granted (as I think it can not be disputed), it is astonishing to me that anybody who has good sense and good nature (and I believe you have both) can essentially fail in good breeding. As to the modes of it, indeed, they vary according to persons, places, and circumstances, and are only to be acquired by observation and experience; but the substance of it is everywhere and eternally the same. Good manners are to particular societies what good morals are to society in general--their cement and their security. And as laws are enacted to enforce good morals, or at least to prevent the ill effects of bad ones, so there are certain rules of civility, universally implied and received, to enforce good manners and punish bad ones. And indeed there seems to me to be less difference, both between the crimes and punishments, than at first one would imagine.... Mutual complaisances, attentions, and sacrifices of little conveniences are as natural an implied compact between civilized people as protection and obedience are between kings and subjects: whoever in either case violates that compact, justly forfeits all advantages arising from it. For my own part, I really think that next to the consciousness of doing a good action, that of doing a civil one is the most pleasing: and the epithet which I should covet the most, next to that of Aristides, would be that of "well-bred."

Men who converse only with women are frivolous, effeminate puppies, and those who never converse with them are bears.

The desire of being pleased is universal. The desire of pleasing should be so too. Misers are not so much blamed for being misers as envied for being rich.

Dissimulation, to a certain degree, is as necessary in business as clothes are in the common intercourse of life; and a man would be as imprudent who should exhibit his inside naked, as he would be indecent if he produced his outside so.

A woman will be implicitly governed by the man whom she is in love with, but will not be directed by the man whom she esteems the most. The former is the result of passion, which is her character; the latter must be the effect of reasoning, which is by no means of the feminine gender.

The best moral virtues are those of which the vulgar are, perhaps, the best judges.

Let us, then, not only scatter benefits, but even strew flowers, for our fellow travelers in the rugged ways of this wretched world.

Your duty to man is very short and clear; it is only to do to him whatever you would be willing that he should do to you. And remember in all the business of your life to ask your conscience this question, Should I be willing that this should be done to me? If your conscience, which will always tell you truth, answers no, do not do that thing. Observe these rules, and you will be happy in this world and still happier in the next.

Carefully avoid all affectation either of mind or body. It is a very true and a very trite observation that no man is ridiculous for being what he really is, but for affecting to be what he is not. No man is awkward by nature, but by affecting to be genteel, and I have known many a man of common sense pass generally for a fool because he affected a degree of wit that God had denied him. A plowman is by no means awkward in the exercise of his trade, but would be exceedingly ridiculous if he attempted the airs and grace of a man of fashion.

What is commonly called in the world a man or a woman of spirit are the two most detestable and most dangerous animals that inhabit it. They are strong-headed, captious, jealous, offended without reason, and offending with as little. The man of spirit has immediate recourse to his sword, and the woman of spirit to her tongue, and it is hard to say which of the two is the most mischievous weapon.

Speak to the King with full as little concern (tho with more respect) as you would to your equals. This is the distinguishing characteristic of a gentleman and a man of the world.

That silly article of dress is no trifle. Never be the first nor the last in the fashion. Wear as fine clothes as those of your rank commonly do, and rather better than worse, and when you are well drest once a day do not seem to know that you have any clothes on at all, but let your carriage and motion be as easy as they would be in your nightgowns.

Let your address when you first come into any company be modest, but without the least bashfulness or sheepishness, steady without impudence, and as unembarrassed as if you were in your own room. This is a difficult point to hit, and therefore deserves great attention; nothing but a long usage of the world and in the best company can possibly give it.

II

OF ATTENTIONS TO LADIES[17]

Women, in a great degree, establish or destroy every man's reputation of good breeding; you must, therefore, in a manner, overwhelm them with the attentions of which I have spoken; they are used to them, they expect them; and, to do them justice, they commonly requite them. You must be sedulous, and rather over officious than under, in procuring them their coaches, their chairs, their conveniences in public places; not see what you should not see; and rather assist, where you can not help seeing. Opportunities of showing these attentions present themselves perpetually; but if they do not, make them. As Ovid advises his lover, when he sits in the circus near his mistress, to wipe the dust off her neck, even if there be none. _Si nullus tamen excute nullum._ Your conversation with women should always be respectful; but at the same time, _enjoué_, and always addrest to their vanity. Everything you say or do should convince them of the regard you have (whether you have it or not) for their beauty, their wit, or their merit. Men have possibly as much vanity as women, tho of another kind; and both art and good breeding require that, instead of mortifying, you should please and flatter it, by words and looks of approbation.

Suppose (which is by no means improbable) that at your return to England, I should place you near the person of some one of the royal family; in that situation good breeding, engaging address, adorned with all the graces that dwell at courts, would very probably make you a favorite, and, from a favorite, a minister; but all the knowledge and learning in the world, without them, never would. The penetration of princes seldom goes deeper than the surface. It is the exterior that always engages their hearts; and I would never advise you to give yourself much trouble about their understandings. Princes in general (I mean those Porphyrogenets who are born and bred in purple) are about the pitch of women; bred up like them, and are to be addrest and gained in the same manner. They always see, they seldom weigh. Your luster, not your solidity, must take them; your inside will afterward support and secure what your outside has acquired.

With weak people (and they undoubtedly are three parts in four of mankind) good breeding, address, and manners are everything; they can go no deeper: but let me assure you, that they are a great deal, even with people of the best understandings. Where the eyes are not pleased, and the heart is not flattered, the mind will be apt to stand out. Be this right or wrong, I confess, I am so made myself. Awkwardness and ill breeding shock me, to that degree, that where I meet with them, I can not find in my heart to inquire into the intrinsic merit of that person; I hastily decide in myself, that he can have none; and am not sure, I should not even be sorry to know that he had any. I often paint you in my imagination, in your present _lontananza_; and, while I view you in the light of ancient and modern learning, useful and ornamental knowledge, I am charmed with the prospect; but when I view you in another light, and represent you awkward, ungraceful, ill bred, with vulgar air and manners, shambling toward me with inattention and distractions, I shall not pretend to describe to you what I feel, but will do as a skilful painter did formerly, draw a veil before the countenance of the father.

I dare say you know already enough of architecture to know that the Tuscan is the strongest and most solid of all the orders; but, at the same time, it is the coarsest and clumsiest of them. Its solidity does extremely well for the foundation and base floor of a great edifice; but, if the whole building be Tuscan, it will attract no eyes, it will stop no passengers, it will invite no interior examination; people will take it for granted that the finishing and furnishing can not be worth seeing, where the front is so unadorned and clumsy. But, if upon the solid Tuscan foundation, the Doric, the Ionic, and the Corinthian orders rise gradually with all their beauty, proportions, and ornaments, the fabric seizes the most incurious eye, and stops the most careless passenger, who solicits admission as a favor, nay, often purchases it. Just so will it fare with your little fabric, which at present I fear has more of the Tuscan than of the Corinthian order. You must absolutely change the whole front or nobody will knock at the door. The several parts which must compose this new front are elegant, easy, natural, superior good breeding; and an engaging address; genteel motions; an insinuating softness in your looks, words, and actions; a spruce, lively air, and fashionable dress; and all the glitter that a young fellow should have.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 16: From the "Letters to His Son," _passim_. Chesterfield, the man of affairs--and he had real distinction in the public life of his time--is quite forgotten, but his letters, which he wrote for private purposes and never dreamed would be published, have made him one of the English literary immortals.]

[Footnote 17: From the "Letters to His Son."]

HENRY FIELDING

Born in 1707, died in 1754; son of Gen. Edmund Fielding;
admitted to the bar in 1740; made a justice of the peace in
1748; chairman of Quarter Sessions in 1749; published
"Joseph Andrews" in 1742, "Tom Jones" in 1749, and "Amelia"
in 1751; among other works wrote many plays and "A Journal
of a Voyage to Lisbon," which was published in 1755, after
his death which occurred in Lisbon.

I

TOM THE HERO ENTERS THE STAGE[18]

As we determined when we first sat down to write this history to flatter no man, but to guide our pen throughout by the directions of truth, we are obliged to bring our hero on the stage in a much more disadvantageous manner than we could wish; and to declare honestly, even at his first appearance, that it was the universal opinion of all Mr. Allworthy's family that he was certainly born to be hanged.

Indeed, I am sorry to say there was too much reason for this conjecture, the lad having from his earliest years discovered a propensity to many vices, and especially to one, which hath as a direct tendency as any other to that fate which we have just now observed to have been prophetically denounced against him. He had been already convicted of three robberies; viz., of robbing an orchard, of stealing a duck out of a farmer's yard, and of picking Master Blifil's pocket of a ball.

The vices of this young man were, moreover, heightened by the disadvantageous light in which they appeared, when opposed to the virtues of Master Blifil, his companion--a youth of so different a caste from little Jones, that not only the family but all the neighborhood resounded his praises. He was indeed a lad of a remarkable disposition; sober, discreet, and pious beyond his age,--qualities which gained him the love of every one who knew him; whilst Tom Jones was universally disliked, and many exprest their wonder that Mr. Allworthy would suffer such a lad to be educated with his nephew, lest the morals of the latter should be corrupted by his example.

An incident which happened about this time will set the character of these two lads more fairly before the discerning reader than is in the power of the longest dissertation.

Tom Jones, who bad as he is must serve for the hero of this history, had only one friend among all the servants of the family; for as to Mrs. Wilkins, she had long since given him up, and was perfectly reconciled to her mistress. This friend was the gamekeeper, a fellow of a loose kind of disposition, and who was thought not to entertain much stricter notions concerning the difference of _meum_ and _tuum_ than the young gentleman himself. And hence this friendship gave occasion to many sarcastical remarks among the domestics, most of which were either proverbs before, or at least are become so now; and indeed, the wit of them all may be comprised in that short Latin proverb, "_Noscitur a socio_," which I think is thus exprest in English: "You may know him by the company he keeps."

To say the truth, some of that atrocious wickedness in Jones, of which we have just mentioned three examples, might perhaps be derived from the encouragement he had received from this fellow, who in two or three instances had been what the law calls an accessory after the fact. For the whole duck and a great part of the apples were converted to the use of the gamekeeper and his family. Tho as Jones alone was discovered, the poor lad bore not only the whole smart but the whole blame; both which fell again to his lot on the following occasion.

Contiguous to Mr. Allworthy's estate was the manor of one of those gentlemen who are called preservers of the game. This species of men, from the great severity with which they revenge the death of a hare or a partridge, might be thought to cultivate the same superstition with the Bannians in India, many of whom, we are told, dedicate their whole lives to the preservation and protection of certain animals; was it not that our English Bannians, while they preserve them from other enemies, will most unmercifully slaughter whole horse-loads themselves, so that they stand clearly acquitted of any such heathenish superstition.

I have indeed a much better opinion of this kind of men than is entertained by some, as I take them to answer the order of nature, and the good purposes for which they were ordained, in a more ample manner than many others. Now, as Horace tells us, that there are a set of human beings, _fruges consumere nati_, "born to consume the fruits of the earth," so I make no manner of doubt but that there are others, _feras consumere nati_, "born to consume the beasts of the field," or as it is commonly called, the game; and none, I believe, will deny but that those squires fulfil this end of their creation.

Little Jones went one day a-shooting with the gamekeeper; when happening to spring a covey of partridges, near the border of that manor over which fortune, to fulfil the wise purposes of nature, had planted one of the game-consumers, the birds flew into it and were marked (as it is called) by the two sportsmen in some furze bushes, about two or three hundred paces beyond Mr. Allworthy's dominions.

Mr. Allworthy had given the fellow strict orders, on pain of forfeiting his place, never to trespass on any of his neighbors; no more on those who were less rigid in this matter than on the lord of the manor. With regard to others, indeed, these orders had not been always very scrupulously kept; but as the disposition of the gentleman with whom the partridges had taken sanctuary was well known, the gamekeeper had never yet attempted to invade his territories. Nor had he done it now, had not the younger sportsman, who was excessively eager to pursue the flying game, over-persuaded him; but Jones being very importunate, the other, who was himself keen enough after the sport, yielded to his persuasions, entered the manor, and shot one of the partridges.

The gentleman himself was at that time on horseback, at a little distance from them; and hearing the gun go off, he immediately made toward the place, and discovered poor Tom; for the gamekeeper had leapt into the thickest part of the furze-brake, where he had happily concealed himself.

The gentleman having searched the lad and found the partridge upon him, denounced great vengeance, swearing he would acquaint Mr. Allworthy. He was as good as his word, for he rode immediately to his house and complained of the trespass on his manor, in as high terms and as bitter language as if his house had been broken open and the most valuable furniture stolen out of it. He added that some other person was in his company, tho he could not discover him; for that two guns had been discharged, almost in the same instant. And, says he, "We have found only this partridge, but the Lord knows what mischief they have done."

At his return home, Tom was presently convened before Mr. Allworthy. He owned the fact, and alleged no other excuse but what was really true; viz., that the covey was originally sprung in Mr. Allworthy's own manor.

Tom was then interrogated who was with him, which Mr. Allworthy declared he was resolved to know, acquainting the culprit with the circumstance of the two guns, which had been deposed by the squire and both his servants; but Tom stoutly persisted in asserting that he was alone; yet, to say the truth, he hesitated a little at first, which would have confirmed Mr. Allworthy's belief, had what the squire and his servants said wanted any further confirmation.

The gamekeeper, being a suspected person, was now sent for and the question put to him; but he, relying on the promise which Tom had made him to take all upon himself, very resolutely denied being in company with the young gentleman, or indeed having seen him the whole afternoon.

Mr. Allworthy then turned toward Tom with more than usual anger in his countenance, and advised him to confess who was with him; repeating that he was resolved to know. The lad, however, still maintained his resolution, and was dismissed with much wrath by Mr. Allworthy, who told him he should have the next morning to consider of it, when he should be questioned by another person and in another manner.

Poor Jones spent a very melancholy night, and the more so as he was without his usual companion, for Master Blifil was gone abroad on a visit with his mother. Fear of the punishment he was to suffer was on this occasion his least evil; his chief anxiety being lest his constancy should fail him and he should be brought to betray the gamekeeper, whose ruin he knew must now be the consequence.

Nor did the gamekeeper pass his time much better. He had the same apprehensions with the youth; for whose honor he had likewise a much tenderer regard than for his skin.

In the morning, when Tom attended the Reverend Mr. Thwackum, the person to whom Mr. Allworthy had committed the instruction of the two boys, he had the same questions put to him by that gentleman which he had been asked the evening before, to which he returned the same answers. The consequence of this was so severe a whipping, that it possibly fell little short of the torture with which confessions are in some countries extorted from criminals.

Tom bore his punishment with great resolution; and tho his master asked him between every stroke whether he would not confess, he was contented to be flayed rather than betray his friend, or break the promise he had made.

The gamekeeper was now relieved from his anxiety, and Mr. Allworthy himself began to be concerned at Tom's sufferings: for besides that Mr. Thwackum, being highly enraged that he was not able to make the boy say what he himself pleased, had carried his severity much beyond the good man's intention, this latter began now to suspect that the squire had been mistaken, which his extreme eagerness and anger seemed to make probable; and as for what the servants had said in confirmation of their master's account, he laid no great stress upon that. Now, as cruelty and injustice were two ideas of which Mr. Allworthy could by no means support the consciousness a single moment, he sent for Tom, and after many kind and friendly exhortations, said, "I am convinced, my dear child, that my suspicions have wronged you; I am sorry that you have been so severely punished on this account"; and at last gave him a little horse to make him amends, again repeating his sorrow for what had passed.

Tom's guilt now flew in his face more than any severity could make it. He could more easily bear the lashes of Thwackum than the generosity of Allworthy. The tears burst from his eyes, and he fell upon his knees, crying, "Oh, sir, you are too good to me. Indeed you are. Indeed I don't deserve it." And at that very instant, from the fulness of his heart, had almost betrayed the secret; but the good genius of the gamekeeper suggested to him what might be the consequence to the poor fellow, and this consideration sealed his lips.

Thwackum did all he could to dissuade Allworthy from showing any compassion or kindness to the boy, saying "he had persisted in untruth"; and gave some hints that a second whipping might probably bring the matter to light.

But Mr. Allworthy absolutely refused to consent to the experiment. He said the boy had suffered enough already for concealing the truth, even if he was guilty, seeing that he could have no motive but a mistaken point of honor for so doing.

"Honor!" cried Thwackum with some warmth: "mere stubbornness and obstinacy! Can honor teach any one to tell a lie, or can any honor exist independent of religion?"

This discourse happened at table when dinner was just ended; and there were present Mr. Allworthy, Mr. Thwackum, and a third gentleman.

II

PARTRIDGE SEES GARRICK AT THE PLAY[19]

Mr. Jones having spent three hours in reading and kissing the aforesaid letter,[20] and being, at last, in a state of good spirits, from the last-mentioned considerations, he agreed to carry an appointment, which he had before made, into execution. This was, to attend Mrs. Miller, and her younger daughter, into the gallery at the playhouse, and to admit Mr. Partridge as one of the company. For as Jones had really that taste for humor which many affect, he expected to enjoy much entertainment in the criticisms of Partridge, from whom he expected the simple dictates of nature, unimproved, indeed, but likewise unadulterated by art.

In the first row then of the first gallery did Mr. Jones, Mrs. Miller, her youngest daughter, and Partridge take their places. Partridge immediately declared it was the finest place he had ever been in. When the first music was played, he said, "it was a wonder how so many fiddlers could play at one time, without putting one another out." While the fellow was lighting the upper candles, he cried out to Mrs. Miller, "Look, look, madam, the very picture of the man in the end of the common prayer book before the gunpowder-treason service." Nor could he help observing with a sigh, when all the candles were lighted, "That here were candles enough burned in one night to keep an honest poor family for a whole twelvemonth."

As soon as the play, which was "Hamlet, Prince of Denmark," began, Partridge was all attention, nor did he break silence till the entrance of the ghost; upon which he asked Jones, "What man that was in the strange dress; something," said he, "like what I have seen in the picture. Sure it is not armor, is it?" Jones answered, "That is the ghost." To which Partridge replied with a smile, "Persuade me to that, sir, if you can. Tho I can't say I ever actually saw a ghost in my life, yet I am certain I should know one, if I saw him, better than that comes to. No, no, sir; ghosts don't appear in such dresses as that, neither." In this mistake, which caused much laughter in the neighborhood of Partridge, he was suffered to continue, till the scene between the ghost and Hamlet, when Partridge gave that credit to Mr. Garrick, which he had denied to Jones, and fell into so violent a trembling that his knees knocked against each other. Jones asked him what was the matter, and whether he was afraid of the warrior upon the stage? "O la! sir," said he, "I perceive now it is what you told me. I am not afraid of anything; for I know it is but a play. And if it was really a ghost, it could do one no harm at such a distance, and in so much company; and yet if I was frightened, I am not the only person." "Why, who," cries Jones, "dost thou take to be such a coward here besides thyself?" "Nay, you may call me a coward if you will; but if that little man there upon the stage is not frightened, I never saw any man frightened in my life. Ay, ay: go along with you! Ay, to be sure! Who's fool then? Will you? lud have mercy upon such foolhardiness? Whatever happens, it is good enough for you. Follow you? I'd follow the devil as soon. Nay, perhaps it is the devil--for they say he can put on what likeness he pleases. Oh! here he is again. No farther! No, you have gone far enough already; farther than I'd have gone for all the king's dominions." Jones offered to speak, but Partridge cried, "Hush! hush! dear sir, don't you hear him?" And during the whole speech of the ghost, he sat with his eyes fixt partly on the ghost and partly on Hamlet, and with his mouth open; the same passions which succeeded each other in Hamlet, succeeding likewise in him.

When the scene was over Jones said, "Why, Mr. Partridge, you exceed my expectations. You enjoy the play more than I conceived possible." "Nay, sir," answered Partridge, "if you are not afraid of the devil, I can't help it; but to be sure, it is natural to be surprized at such things, tho I know there is nothing in them: not that it was the ghost that surprized me, neither; for I should have known that to have been only a man in a strange dress; but when I saw the little man so frightened himself, it was that which took hold of me." "And dost thou imagine, then, Partridge," cries Jones, "that he was really frightened?" "Nay, sir," said Partridge, "did not you yourself observe afterward, when he found it was his own father's spirit and how he was murdered in the garden, how his fear forsook him by degrees, and he was struck dumb with sorrow, as it were, just as I should have been, had it been my own case? But hush! O la! what noise is that! There he is again. Well, to be certain, tho I know there is nothing at all in it, I am glad I am not down yonder, where those men are." Then turning his eyes again upon Hamlet, "Ay, you may draw your sword; what signifies a sword against the power of the devil?"

During the second act Partridge made very few remarks. He greatly admired the fineness of the dresses; nor could he help observing upon the king's countenance. "Well," said he, "how people may be deceived by faces? _Nulla fides fronti_ is, I find, a true saying. Who would think, by looking in the king's face, that he had ever committed a murder?" He then inquired after the ghost; but Jones, who intended he should be surprized, gave him no other satisfaction than, "that he might possibly see him again soon, and in a flash of fire."

Partridge sat in fearful expectation of this; and now, when the ghost made his next appearance, Partridge cried out, "There sir, now; what say you now? is he frightened now or no? As much frightened as you think me, and, to be sure, nobody can help some fears. I would not be in so bad a condition as what's his name, Squire Hamlet, is there, for all the world. Bless me! what's become of the spirit? As I am a living soul, I thought I saw him sink into the earth." "Indeed, you saw right," answered Jones. "Well, well," cries Partridge, "I know it is only a play; and besides, if there was anything in all this, Madam Miller would not laugh so; for as to you, sir, you would not be afraid, I believe, if the devil was here in person. There, there--ay, no wonder you are in such a passion; shake the vile wicked wretch to pieces. If she was my own mother, I would serve her so. To be sure all duty to a mother is forfeited by such wicked doings.--Ay, go about your business; I hate the sight of you."

Our critic was now pretty silent till the play which Hamlet introduces before the king. This he did not at first understand, till Jones explained it to him; but he no sooner entered into the spirit of it, than he began to bless himself that he had never committed murder. Then turning to Mrs. Miller, he asked her, "If she did not imagine the king looked as if he was touched; tho he is," said he, "a good actor, and doth all he can to hide it. Well, I would not have so much to answer for, as that wicked man there hath, to sit upon a much higher chair than he sits upon. No wonder he run away; for your sake I'll never trust an innocent face again."

The grave-digging scene next engaged the attention of Partridge, who exprest much surprize at the number of skulls thrown upon the stage. To which Jones answered, "That it was one of the most famous burial-places about town." "No wonder then," cries Partridge, "that the place is haunted. But I never saw in my life a worse grave-digger. I had a sexton, when I was clerk, that should have dug three graves while he is digging one. The fellow handles a spade as if it was the first time he had ever had one in his hand. Ay, ay, you may sing. You had rather sing than work, I believe." Upon Hamlet's taking up the skull, he cried out, "Well! it is strange to see how fearless some men are: I never could bring myself to touch anything belonging to a dead man, on any account. He seemed frightened enough too at the ghost, I thought. _Nemo omnibus horis sapit._"

Little more worth remembering occurred during the play, at the end of which Jones asked him, "Which of the players he had liked best?" To this he answered, with some appearance of indignation at the question, "The king, without doubt." "Indeed, Mr. Partridge," says Mrs. Miller, "you are not of the same opinion with the town; for they are all agreed that Hamlet is acted by the best player who ever was on the stage." "He the best player!" cries Partridge, with a contemptuous sneer, "why, I could act as well as he himself. I am sure, if I had seen a ghost, I should have looked in the very same manner, and done just as he did. And then, to be sure, in that scene, as you called it, between him and his mother, where you told me he acted so fine, why, Lord help me, any man, that is, any good man, that had such a mother, would have done exactly the same. I know you are only joking with me; but indeed, madam, tho I was never to a play in London, yet I have seen acting before in the country; and the king for my money; he speaks all his words distinctly, half as loud again as the other. Anybody may see he is an actor."

III

MR. ADAMS IN A POLITICAL LIGHT[21]

"I do assure you, sir," says he, taking the gentleman by the hand, "I am heartily glad to meet with a man of your kidney; for, tho I am a poor parson, I will be bold to say I am an honest man, and would not do an ill thing to be made a bishop; nay, tho it hath not fallen in my way to offer so noble a sacrifice, I have not been without opportunities of suffering for the sake of my conscience, I thank heaven for them; for I have had relations, tho I say it, who made some figure in the world, particularly a nephew, who was a shopkeeper and an alderman of a corporation. He was a good lad, and was under my care when a boy, and I believe would do what I bade him to his dying day.

"Indeed, it looks like extreme vanity in me to affect being a man of such consequence as to have so great an interest in an alderman; but others have thought so too, as manifestly appeared by the rector whose curate I formerly was sending for me on the approach of an election, and telling me if I expected to continue in his cure that I must bring my nephew to vote for one Colonel Courtly, a gentleman whom I had never heard tidings of till that instant. I told the rector I had no power over my nephew's vote (God forgive me for such prevarication!); that I supposed he would give it according to his conscience; that I would by no means endeavor to influence him to give it otherwise. He told me it was in vain to equivocate; that he knew I had already spoke to him in favor of Squire Fickle, my neighbor; and indeed it was true I had; for it was at a season when the church was in danger, and when all good men expected they knew not what would happen to us all. I then answered boldly, if he thought I had given my promise he affronted me in proposing any breach of it.

"Not to be too prolix, I persevered, and so did my nephew, in the esquire's interest, who was chose chiefly through his means; and so I lost my curacy. Well, sir, but do you think the esquire ever mentioned a word of the church? _ne verbum quidem, ut ita dicam_; within two years he got a place, and hath ever since lived in London, where I have been informed (but God forbid I should believe that) that he never so much as goeth to church. I remained, sir, a considerable time without any cure, and lived a full month on one funeral sermon, which I preached on the indisposition of a clergyman; but this by the bye.

"At last, when Mr. Fickle got his place, Colonel Courtly stood again; and who should make interest for him but Mr. Fickle himself! that very identical Mr. Fickle, who had formerly told me the colonel was an enemy to both the church and state, had the confidence to solicit my nephew for him; and the colonel himself offered me to make me chaplain to his regiment, which I refused in favor of Sir Oliver Hearty, who told us he would sacrifice everything to his country; and I believe he would, except his hunting, which he stuck so close to that in five years together he went but twice up to Parliament; and one of those times, I have been told, never was within sight of the House. However, he was a worthy man, and the best friend I ever had; for, by his interest with a bishop, he got me replaced into my curacy, and gave me eight pounds out of his own pocket to buy me a gown and cassock and furnish my house. He had our interest while he lived, which was not many years.

"On his death I had fresh applications made to me; for all the world knew the interest I had in my good nephew, who now was a leading man in the corporation; and Sir Thomas Booby, buying the estate which had been Sir Oliver's, proposed himself a candidate. He was then a young gentleman just come from his travels; and it did me good to hear him discourse on affairs, which, for my part, I knew nothing of. If I had been master of a thousand votes he should have had them all.

"I engaged my nephew in his interest, and he was elected; and a very fine Parliament-man he was. They tell me he made speeches of an hour long, and, I have been told, very fine ones; but he could never persuade the Parliament to be of his opinion. _Non omnia possumus omnes._ He promised me a living, poor man! and I believe I should have had it, but an accident happened, which was that my lady had promised it before, unknown to him. This indeed I never heard till afterward; for my nephew, who died about a month before the incumbent, always told me I might be assured of it.

"Since that time, Sir Thomas, poor man! had always so much business that he never could find leisure to see me. I believe it was partly my lady's fault, too, who did not think my dress good enough for the gentry at her table. However, I must do him the justice to say he never was ungrateful; and I have always found his kitchen, and his cellar too, open to me: many a time, after service on a Sunday--for I preached at four churches--have I recruited my spirits with a glass of his ale. Since my nephew's death, the corporation is in other hands; and I am not a man of that consequence I was formerly. I have now no longer any talents to lay out in service of my country; and to whom nothing is given, of him can nothing be required.

"However, on all proper seasons, such as the approach of an election, I throw a suitable dash or two into my sermons, which I have the pleasure to hear is not disagreeable to Sir Thomas and the other honest gentlemen my neighbors, who have all promised me these five years to procure an ordination for a son of mine, who is now near thirty, hath an infinite stock of learning, and is, I thank Heaven, of an unexceptionable life; tho, as he was never at a university, the bishop refuses to ordain him. Too much care can not indeed be taken in admitting any to the sacred office; tho I hope he will never act so as to be a disgrace to any order, but will serve his God and his country to the utmost of his power, as I have endeavored to do before him; nay, and will lay down his life whenever called to that purpose. I am sure I have educated him in those principles; so that I have acquitted my duty, and shall have nothing to answer for on that account. But I do not distrust him, for he is a good boy; and if Providence should throw it in his way to be of as much consequence in a public light as his father once was, I can answer for him he will use his talents as honestly as I have done."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 18: From "Tom Jones, a Foundling," Book 3, Chapter 2.]

[Footnote 19: From Book 16, Chapter 5, of "The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling."]

[Footnote 20: This was a letter from Sophia Weston, hoping "that Fortune may be sometime kinder to us than at present."]

[Footnote 21: From Book 2, Chapter 8, of "The Adventures of Joseph Andrews."]

SAMUEL JOHNSON

Born in 1709, died in 1784; son of a bookseller; educated at
Oxford, where he made a translation into Latin of Pope's
"Messiah"; established a school near Lichfield in 1736,
which soon failed; among its pupils David Garrick, with whom
he went to London in 1737; issued the plan of his
"Dictionary" in 1747, and published it in two volumes in
1755; published "The Vanity of Human Wishes" in 1749;
started _The Rambler_, a periodical, in 1750; writing nearly
the whole of it; wrote "Rasselas" in 1759; went to Scotland
with Boswell in 1773; published an edition of Shakespeare in
1765.

I

ON PUBLISHING HIS "DICTIONARY"[22]

It is the fate of those who toil at the lower employments of life to be rather driven by the fear of evil than attracted by the prospect of good; to be exposed to censure without hope of praise; to be disgraced by miscarriage, or punished for neglect, where success would have been without applause, and diligence without reward.

Among these unhappy mortals is the writer of dictionaries; whom mankind have considered, not as the pupil, but the slave of science, the pioneer of literature, doomed only to remove rubbish and clear obstructions from the paths through which learning and genius press forward to conquest and glory, without bestowing a smile on the humble drudge that facilitates their progress. Every other author may aspire to praise; the lexicographer can only hope to escape reproach, and even this negative recompense has been yet granted to very few....

In hope of giving longevity to that which its own nature forbids to be immortal, I have devoted this book, the labor of years, to the honor of my country, that we may no longer yield the palm of philology without a contest to the nations of the continent. The chief glory of every people arises from its authors: whether I shall add anything by my own writings to the reputation of English literature, must be left to time; much of my life has been lost under the pressures of disease; much has been trifled away; and much has always been spent in provision for the day that was passing over me; but I shall not think my employment useless or ignoble if, by my assistance, foreign nations and distant ages gain access to the propagators of knowledge, and understand the teachers of truth; if my labors afford light to the repositories of science, and add celebrity to Bacon, to Hooker, to Milton, and to Boyle.

When I am animated by this wish, I look with pleasure on my book, however defective, and deliver it to the world with the spirit of a man that has endeavored well. That it will immediately become popular, I have not promised to myself; a few wild blunders and risible absurdities, from which no work of such multiplicity was ever free, may for a time furnish folly with laughter, and harden ignorance into contempt; but useful diligence will at last prevail, and there never can be wanting some who distinguish desert, who will consider that no dictionary of a living tongue ever can be perfect, since, while it is hastening to publication, some words are budding and some falling away; that a whole life can not be spent upon syntax and etymology, and that even a whole life would not be sufficient; that he whose design includes whatever language can express, must often speak of what he does not understand; that a writer will sometimes be hurried by eagerness to the end, and sometimes faint with weariness under a task which Scaliger compares to the labors of the anvil and the mine; that what is obvious is not always known, and what is known is not always present; that sudden fits of inadvertency will surprize vigilance, slight avocations will seduce attention, and casual eclipses of the mind will darken learning; and that the writer shall often in vain trace his memory at the moment of need for that which yesterday he knew with intuitive readiness, and which will come uncalled into his thoughts tomorrow.

In this work, when it shall be found that much is omitted, let it not be forgotten that much likewise is performed; and tho no book was ever spared out of tenderness to the author, and the world is little solicitous to know whence proceeded the faults of that which it condemns, yet it may gratify curiosity to inform it, that the English Dictionary was written with little assistance of the learned, and without any patronage of the great; not in the soft obscurities of retirement, or under the shelter of academic bowers, but amid inconvenience and distraction, in sickness and in sorrow. It may repress the triumph of malignant criticism to observe, that if our language is not here fully displayed, I have only failed in an attempt which no human powers have hitherto completed. If the lexicons of ancient tongues, now immutably fixt, and comprized in a few volumes, be yet, after the toil of successive ages, inadequate and delusive; if the aggregated knowledge and cooperating diligence of the Italian academicians did not secure them from the censure of Beni;[23] if the embodied critics of France, when fifty years had been spent upon their work, were obliged to change its economy, and give their second edition another form, I may surely be contented without the praise of perfection, which if I could obtain in this gloom of solitude, what would it avail me? I have protracted my work till most of those whom I wished to please have sunk into the grave, and success and miscarriage are empty sounds. I therefore dismiss it with frigid tranquillity, having little to fear or hope from censure or from praise.

II

POPE AND DRYDEN COMPARED[24]

Pope profest to have learned his poetry from Dryden, whom, whenever an opportunity was presented, he praised through his whole life with unvaried liberality; and perhaps his character may receive some illustration, if he be compared with his master.

Integrity of understanding and nicety of discernment were not allotted in a less proportion to Dryden than to Pope. The rectitude of Dryden's mind was sufficiently shown by the dismission of his poetical prejudices, and the rejection of unnatural thoughts and rugged numbers. But Dryden never desired to apply all the judgment that he had. He wrote, and profest to write, merely for the people; and when he pleased others he contented himself. He spent no time in struggles to rouse latent powers; he never attempted to make that better which was already good, not often to mend what he must have known to be faulty. He wrote, as he tells us, with very little consideration; when occasion or necessity called upon him, he poured out what the present moment happened to supply, and, when once it had passed the press, ejected it from his mind; for when he had no pecuniary interest, he had no further solicitude.

Pope was not content to satisfy: he desired to excel, and therefore always endeavored to do his best: he did not court the candor, but dared the judgment of his reader, and expecting no indulgence from others, he showed none to himself. He examined lines and words with minute and punctilious observation, and retouched every part with indefatigable diligence, till he had left nothing to be forgiven.

For this reason he kept his pieces very long in his hands, while he considered and reconsidered them. The only poems which can be supposed to have been written with such regard to the times as might hasten their publication, were the two satires of "Thirty-eight," of which Dodsley[25] told me that they were brought to him by the author that they might be fairly copied. "Almost every line," he said, "was then written twice over. I gave him a clean transcript, which he sent some time afterward to me for the press with almost every line written twice over a second time."

His declaration, that his care for his works ceased at their publication, was not strictly true. His parental attention never abandoned them; what he found amiss in the first edition, he silently corrected in those that followed. He appears to have revised the "Iliad," and freed it from some of its imperfections; and the "Essay on Criticism" received many improvements after its first appearance. It will seldom be found that he altered without adding clearness, elegance, or vigor.

Pope had perhaps the judgment of Dryden, but Dryden certainly wanted the diligence of Pope.

In acquired knowledge the superiority must be allowed to Dryden, whose education was more scholastic, and who, before he became an author, had been allowed more time for study, with better means of information. His mind has a larger range, and he collects his images and illustrations from a more extensive circumference of science. Dryden knew more of man in his general nature, and Pope in his local manners. The notions of Dryden were formed by comprehensive speculation, and those of Pope by minute attention. There is more dignity in the knowledge of Dryden, and more certainty in that of Pope.

Poetry was not the sole praise of either; for both excelled likewise in prose; but Pope did not borrow his prose from his predecessor. The style of Dryden is capricious and varied, that of Pope is cautious and uniform. Dryden obeys the motions of his own mind, Pope constrains his mind to his own rules of composition. Dryden is sometimes vehement and rapid, Pope is always smooth, uniform, and gentle. Dryden's page is a natural field, rising into inequalities, and diversified by the varied exuberance of abundant vegetation; Pope's is a velvet lawn, shaven by the scythe, and leveled by the roller.