Chapter IX: Part II: | Indulgence (4)

[107] _I.e_. the fashions, not the people in the country.

[108] The subject is "town."

This rural politeness is very troublesome to a man of
my temper, who generally take the chair that is next me, (141: 5)
and walk first or last, in the front or in the rear, as
chance directs. I have known my friend Sir Roger's
dinner almost cold before the company could adjust the
ceremonial, and be prevailed upon to sit down; and
have heartily pitied my old friend, when I have seen him (10)
forced to pick and cull his guests, as they sat at the
several parts of his table, that he might drink their
healths according to their respective ranks and qualities.
Honest Will Wimble, who I should have thought had
been altogether uninfected with ceremony, gives me (15)
abundance of trouble in this particular. Though he has
been fishing all the morning, he will not help himself at
dinner till I am served. When we are going out of the
hall, he runs behind me; and last night, as we were walking
in the fields, stopped short at a stile till I came up to (20)
it, and upon my making signs to him to get over, told
me, with a serious smile, that, sure, I believed they had
no manners in the country.

There has happened another revolution in the point
of good breeding, which relates to the conversation (25)
among men of mode, and which I cannot but look
upon as very extraordinary. It was certainly one of the
first distinctions of a well-bred man to express everything
that had the most remote appearance of being obscene
in modest terms and distant phrases; whilst the clown,
who had no such delicacy of conception and expression,
clothed his ideas in most plain, homely terms that are
the most obvious and natural. This kind of good manners
was perhaps carried to an excess, so as to make (142: 5)
conversation too stiff, formal, and precise; for which
reason (as hypocrisy in one age is generally succeeded
by atheism in another), conversation is in a great measure
relapsed into the first extreme; so that at present
several of our men of the town, and particularly those (10)
who have been polished in France, make use of the most
coarse, uncivilized words in our language, and utter
themselves often in such a manner as a clown would
blush to hear.

This infamous piece of good breeding which reigns (15)
among the coxcombs of the town has not yet made its
way into the country; and as it is impossible for such an
irrational way of conversation to last long among a people
that make any profession of religion, or show of
modesty, if the country gentlemen get into it they will (20)
certainly be left in the lurch. Their good breeding will
come too late to them, and they will be thought a parcel
of lewd clowns, while they fancy themselves talking
together like men of wit and pleasure.

As the two points of good breeding which I have (25)
hitherto insisted upon regard behaviour and conversation,
there is a third which turns upon dress. In this, too, the
country are[109] very much behindhand. The rural beaus
are not yet got out of the fashion that took place at the
time of the Revolution, but ride about the country in red
coats and laced hats, while the women in many parts are
still trying to outvie one another in the height of their
head-dresses. (143: 5)

[109] Is.

But a friend of mine, who is now upon the western
circuit, having promised to give me an account of the
several modes and fashions that prevail in the different
parts of the nation through which he passes, I shall defer
the enlarging upon this last topic till I have received a (10)
letter from him, which I expect every post. L.

XIX. SIR ROGER AT THE ASSIZES

[No. 122. Friday, July 20, 1711. ADDISON.]

Comes iucundus in via pro vehiculo est.

PUBL. SYR.

A man's first care should be to avoid the reproaches of
his own heart; his next, to escape the censures of the
world. If the last interferes with the former, it ought to
be entirely neglected; but otherwise there cannot be a (15)
greater satisfaction to an honest mind than to see those
approbations which it gives itself seconded by the applauses
of the public. A man is more sure of his conduct
when the verdict which he passes upon his own behaviour
is thus warranted and confirmed by the opinion of all (20)
that know him.

My worthy friend Sir Roger is one of those who is not
only at peace within himself, but beloved and esteemed
by all about him. He receives a suitable tribute for his
universal benevolence to mankind in the returns of affection
and good-will which are paid him by every one that (144: 5)
lives within his neighbourhood. I lately met with two or
three odd instances of that general respect which is shown
to the good old knight. He would needs carry Will
Wimble and myself with him to the county assizes. As
we were upon the road, Will Wimble joined a couple of (10)
plain men who rid before us, and conversed with them for
some time; during which my friend Sir Roger acquainted
me with their characters.

"The first of them," says he, "that has a spaniel by
his side, is a yeoman of about an hundred pounds a year, (15)
an honest man. He is just within the Game Act and
qualified to kill an hare or a pheasant. He knocks down
a dinner with his gun twice or thrice a week; and by that
means lives much cheaper than those who have not so
good an estate as himself. He would be a good neighbour (20)
if he did not destroy so many partridges; in short, he is
a very sensible man, shoots flying,[110] and has been several
times foreman of the petty jury.

[110] Shoots birds on the wing.

"The other that rides along with him is Tom Touchy,
a fellow famous for taking the law of everybody. There (25)
is not one in the town where he lives that he has not sued
at a quarter sessions. The rogue had once the impudence
to go to law with the widow. His head is full of costs,
damages, and ejectments; he plagued a couple of honest
gentlemen so long for a trespass in breaking one of his
hedges, till[111] he was forced to sell the ground it enclosed
to defray the charges of the prosecution. His father left
him fourscore pounds a year, but he has cast and been (145: 5)
cast[112] so often that he is not now worth thirty. I suppose
he is going upon the old business of the willow tree."

[111] Modern idiom demands "that."

[112] Won and lost his case.

As Sir Roger was giving me this account of Tom
Touchy, Will Wimble and his two companions stopped
short till we came up to them. After having paid their (10)
respects to Sir Roger, Will told him that Mr. Touchy and
he must appeal to him upon a dispute that arose between
them. Will, it seems, had been giving his fellow-traveller
an account of his angling one day in such a hole; when
Tom Touchy, instead of hearing out his story, told him (15)
that Mr. Such-an-one, if he pleased, might take the law
of him for fishing in that part of the river. My friend
Sir Roger heard them both, upon a round trot; and, after
having paused some time, told them, with the air of a man
who would not give his judgment rashly, that much might (20)
be said on both sides. They were neither of them dissatisfied
with the knight's determination, because neither of
them found himself in the wrong by it. Upon which we
made the best of our way to the assizes.

The court was sat before Sir Roger came; but notwithstanding (25)
all the justices had taken their places upon the
bench, they made room for the old knight at the head of
them; who, for his reputation in the country, took occasion
to whisper in the judge's ear that he was glad his
lordship had met with so much good weather in his circuit.
I was listening to the proceeding of the court with
much attention, and infinitely pleased with that great (146: 5)
appearance and solemnity which so properly accompanies
such a public administration of our laws, when, after about
an hour's sitting, I observed, to my great surprise, in the
midst of a trial, that my friend Sir Roger was getting up
to speak. I was in some pain for him, till I found he (10)
had acquitted himself of two or three sentences with a
look of much business and great intrepidity.

Upon his first rising, the court was hushed, and a general
whisper ran among the country people that Sir Roger
was up. The speech he made was so little to the purpose (15)
that I shall not trouble my readers with an account of it;
and I believe was not so much designed by the knight
himself to inform the court, as to give him a figure in my
eye, and keep up his credit in the country.

I was highly delighted, when the court rose, to see the (20)
gentlemen of the country gathering about my old friend,
and striving who should compliment him most; at the
same time that the ordinary people gazed upon him at a
distance, not a little admiring his courage, that was not
afraid to speak to the judge. (25)

In our return home we met with a very odd accident
which I cannot forbear relating, because it shows how
desirous all who know Sir Roger are of giving him marks
of their esteem. When we arrived upon the verge of his
estate, we stopped at a little inn to rest ourselves and our
horses. The man of the house had, it seems, been formerly
a servant in the knight's family; and, to do honour
to his old master, had some time since, unknown to Sir
Roger, put him up in a sign-post before the door; so that (147: 5)
the knight's head had hung out upon the road about a
week before he himself knew anything of the matter. As
soon as Sir Roger was acquainted with it, finding that
his servant's indiscretion proceeded wholly from affection
and good-will, he only told him that he had made him (10)
too high a compliment; and when the fellow seemed to
think that could hardly be, added with a more decisive
look, that it was too great an honour for any man under
a duke; but told him at the same time that it might be
altered with a very few touches, and that he himself (15)
would be at the charge of it. Accordingly they got a
painter, by the knight's directions, to add a pair of whiskers
to the face, and by a little aggravation of the features
to change it into the Saracen's Head. I should not have
known this story had not the innkeeper, upon Sir Roger's (20)
alighting, told him in my hearing that his honour's head
was brought back last night with the alterations that he
had ordered to be made in it. Upon this, my friend,
with his usual cheerfulness, related the particulars above
mentioned, and ordered the head to be brought into the (25)
room. I could not forbear discovering greater expressions
of mirth than ordinary upon the appearance of this
monstrous face, under which, notwithstanding it was made
to frown and stare in a most extraordinary manner, I
could still discover[113] a distant resemblance of my old friend.
Sir Roger, upon seeing me laugh, desired me to tell him
truly if I thought it possible for people to know him in
that disguise. I at first kept my usual silence; but upon
the knight's conjuring me to tell him whether it was not (148: 5)
still more like himself than a Saracen, I composed my
countenance in the best manner I could, and replied that
much might be said on both sides.

[113] Note the two different senses in which this word is used.

These several adventures, with the knight's behaviour
in them, gave me as pleasant a day as ever I met with in (10)
any of my travels. L.

XX. THE EDUCATION OF AN HEIR

[No. 123. Saturday, July 21, 1711. ADDISON.]

Doctrina sed vim promovet insitam,
Rectique cultus pectora roborant:
Utcunque defecere mores,
Dedecorant bene nata culpae.

HOR.

As I was yesterday taking the air with my friend Sir
Roger, we were met by a fresh-coloured, ruddy young man,
who rid by us full speed, with a couple of servants behind
him. Upon my inquiry who he was, Sir Roger told me (15)
that he was a young gentleman of a considerable estate,
who had been educated by a tender mother, that lives not
many miles from the place where we were. She is a very
good lady, says my friend, but took so much care of her
son's health, that she has made him good for nothing.
She quickly found that reading was bad for his eyes,
and that writing made his head ache. He was let loose (149: 5)
among the woods as soon as he was able to ride on horse-back,
or to carry a gun upon his shoulder. To be brief,
I found by my friend's account of him, that he had got
a great stock of health, but nothing else; and that, if it
were a man's business only to live, there would not be a (10)
more accomplished young fellow in the whole country.

The truth of it is, since my residing in these parts I
have seen and heard innumerable instances of young
heirs and elder brothers who--either from their own
reflecting upon the estates they are born to, and therefore (15)
thinking all other accomplishments unnecessary; or from
hearing these notions frequently inculcated to them by the
flattery of their servants and domestics; or from the same
foolish thought prevailing in those who have the care of
their education--are of no manner of use but to keep (20)
up their families, and transmit their lands and houses in
a line to posterity.

This makes me often think on a story I have heard of
two friends, which I shall give my reader at large under
feigned names. The moral of it may, I hope, be useful, (25)
though there are some circumstances which make it rather
appear like a novel than a true story.

Eudoxus and Leontine began the world with small
estates. They were both of them men of good sense
and great virtue. They prosecuted their studies together
in their earlier years, and entered into such a friendship
as lasted to the end of their lives. Eudoxus, at his first
setting out in the world, threw himself into a court, where
by his natural endowments and his acquired abilities he (150: 5)
made his way from one post to another, till at length he
had raised a very considerable fortune. Leontine, on the
contrary, sought all opportunities of improving his mind
by study, conversation, and travel. He was not only
acquainted with all the sciences, but with the most eminent (10)
professors of them throughout Europe. He knew
perfectly well the interests of its princes, with the customs
and fashions of their courts, and could scarce meet
with the name of an extraordinary person in the _Gazette_
whom he had not either talked to or seen. In short, he (15)
had so well mixed and digested his knowledge of men
and books, that he made one of the most accomplished
persons of his age. During the whole course of his
studies and travels, he kept up a punctual correspondence
with Eudoxus, who often made himself acceptable to the (20)
principal men about court by the intelligence which he
received from Leontine. When they were both turned of
forty,--an age in which, according to Mr. Cowley, "there
is no dallying with life,"--they determined, pursuant to
the resolution they had taken in the beginning of their (25)
lives, to retire, and pass the remainder of their days in
the country. In order to this, they both of them married
much about the same time. Leontine, with his own and
his wife's fortune, bought a farm of three hundred a year,
which lay within the neighbourhood of his friend Eudoxus,
who had purchased an estate of as many thousands.
They were both of them fathers about the same time;
Eudoxus having a son born to him, and Leontine a
daughter: but, to the unspeakable grief of the latter, his (151: 5)
young wife, in whom all his happiness was wrapt up, died
in a few days after the birth of her daughter. His affliction
would have been insupportable had not he been
comforted by the daily visits and conversations of his
friend. As they were one day talking together with their (10)
usual intimacy, Leontine considering how incapable he
was of giving his daughter a proper education in his own
house, and Eudoxus reflecting on the ordinary behaviour
of a son who knows himself to be the heir of a great
estate, they both agreed upon an exchange of children: (15)
namely, that the boy should be bred up with Leontine as
his son, and that the girl should live with Eudoxus as his
daughter, till they were each of them arrived at years of
discretion. The wife of Eudoxus, knowing that her son
could not be so advantageously brought up as under the (20)
care of Leontine, and considering at the same time that
he would be perpetually under her own eye, was by degrees
prevailed upon to fall in with the project. She
therefore took Leonilla, for that was the name of the girl,
and educated her as her own daughter. The two friends (25)
on each side had wrought themselves to such an habitual
tenderness for the children who were under their direction,
that each of them had the real passion of a father,
where the title was but imaginary. Florio, the name of
the young heir that lived with Leontine, though he had
all the duty and affection imaginable for his supposed
parent, was taught to rejoice at the sight of Eudoxus,
who visited his friend very frequently, and was dictated
by his natural affection, as well as by the rules of prudence, (152: 5)
to make himself esteemed and beloved by Florio.
The boy was now old enough to know his supposed
father's circumstances, and that therefore he was to make
his way in the world by his own industry. This consideration
grew stronger in him every day, and produced so (10)
good an effect that he applied himself with more than
ordinary attention to the pursuit of everything which
Leontine recommended to him. His natural abilities,
which were very good, assisted by the directions of so
excellent a counsellor, enabled him to make a quicker (15)
progress than ordinary through all the parts of his education.
Before he was twenty years of age, having finished
his studies and exercises with great applause, he was removed
from the university to the Inns of Court, where
there are very few that make themselves considerable (20)
proficients in the studies of the place[114] who know they
shall arrive at great estates without them. This was not
Florio's case: he found that three hundred a year was but
a poor estate for Leontine and himself to live upon, so
that he studied without intermission till he gained a very (25)
good insight into the constitution and laws of his country.

[114] Improve the arrangement.

I should have told my reader, that whilst Florio lived
at the house of his foster-father, he was always an acceptable
guest in the family of Eudoxus, where he became
acquainted with Leonilla from her infancy. His acquaintance
with her by degrees grew into love, which in a mind
trained up in all the sentiments of honour and virtue became
a very uneasy passion. He despaired of gaining (153: 5)
an heiress of so great a fortune, and would rather have
died than attempted it by any indirect methods. Leonilla,
who was a woman of the greatest beauty joined with the
greatest modesty, entertained at the same time a secret
passion for Florio, but conducted herself with so much (10)
prudence that she never gave him the least intimation
of it. Florio was now engaged in all those arts and
improvements that are proper to raise a man's private
fortune, and give him a figure in his country, but secretly
tormented with that passion which burns with the greatest (15)
fury in a virtuous and noble heart, when he received a
sudden summons from Leontine to repair to him into
the country the next day. For it seems Eudoxus was so
filled with the report of his son's reputation that he could
no longer withhold making himself known to him. The (20)
morning after his arrival at the house of his supposed
father, Leontine told him that Eudoxus had something of
great importance to communicate to him; upon which the
good man embraced him and wept. Florio was no sooner
arrived at the great house that stood in his neighbourhood (25)
but Eudoxus took him by the hand, after the first salutes[115]
were over, and conducted him into his closet. He there
opened[116] to him the whole secret of his parentage and education,
concluding after this manner: "I have no other
way left of acknowledging my gratitude to Leontine than
by marrying you to his daughter. He shall not lose the
pleasure of being your father by the discovery I have
made to you. Leonilla, too, shall be still my daughter; (154: 5)
her filial piety, though misplaced, has been so exemplary
that it deserves the greatest reward I can confer upon it.
You shall have the pleasure of seeing a great estate fall
to you, which you would have lost the relish of had you
known yourself born to it. Continue only to deserve it (10)
in the same manner you did before you were possessed of
it. I have left your mother in the next room. Her heart
yearns towards you. She is making the same discoveries
to Leonilla which I have made to yourself." Florio was
so overwhelmed with this profusion of happiness that he (15)
was not able to make a reply, but threw himself down at
his father's feet, and amidst a flood of tears kissed and
embraced his knees, asking his blessing, and expressing in
dumb show those sentiments of love, duty, and gratitude
that were too big for utterance. To conclude, the happy (20)
pair were married, and half Eudoxus's estate settled upon
them. Leontine and Eudoxus passed the remainder of
their lives together; and received in the dutiful and affectionate
behaviour of Florio and Leonilla the just recompense,
as well as the natural effects, of that care which (25)
they had bestowed upon them in their education. L.

[115] Salutations.

[116] Disclosed.

XXI. WHIGS AND TORIES

[No. 125. Tuesday, July 24, 1711. ADDISON.]

Ne pueri, ne tanta animis assuescite bella:
Neu patriae validas in viscera vertite vires.

VIRG.

My worthy friend, Sir Roger, when we are talking of the
malice of parties, very frequently tells us an accident that
happened to him when he was a schoolboy, which was at a
time when the feuds ran high between the Roundheads
and Cavaliers. This worthy knight, being then but a stripling, (155: 5)
had occasion to inquire which was the way to St. Anne's
Lane; upon which the person whom he spoke to, instead
of answering his question, called him a young popish cur,
and asked him who had made Anne a saint! The boy,
being in some confusion, inquired of the next he met, (10)
which was the way to Anne's Lane; but was called a
prick-eared cur for his pains, and instead of being shown
the way, was told that she had been a saint before he was
born, and would be one after he was hanged. "Upon
this," says sir Roger, "I did not think fit to repeat the (15)
former question, but going into every lane of the neighbourhood,
asked what they called the name of that lane."
By which ingenious artifice, he found out the place he
inquired after without giving offence to any party. Sir
Roger generally closes this narrative with reflections on
the mischief that parties do in the country; how they spoil
good neighbourhood, and make honest gentlemen hate one
another; besides that they manifestly tend to the prejudice
of the land-tax, and the destruction of the game. (156: 5)

There cannot a greater judgment befall a country than
such a dreadful spirit of division as rends a government
into two distinct people, and makes them greater strangers
and more averse to one another than if they were
actually two different nations. The effects of such a division (10)
are pernicious to the last degree, not only with regard
to those advantages which they give the common enemy,
but to those private evils which they produce in the heart
of almost every particular person. This influence is very
fatal both to men's morals and their understandings; it (15)
sinks the virtue of a nation, and not only so, but destroys
even common sense.

A furious party spirit, when it rages in its full violence,
exerts itself in civil war and bloodshed; and when it is
under its greatest restraints naturally breaks out in false-hood, (20)
detraction, calumny, and a partial administration of
justice. In a word, it fills a nation with spleen and rancour,
and extinguishes all the seeds of good-nature, compassion,
and humanity.

Plutarch says, very finely, that a man should not allow (25)
himself to hate even his enemies;--"Because," says he,
"if you indulge this passion in some occasions, it will rise
of itself in others; if you hate your enemies, you will contract
such a vicious habit of mind as by degrees will break
out upon those who are your friends, or those who are
indifferent to you." I might here observe how admirably
this precept of morality--which derives the malignity of
hatred from the passion itself, and not from its object--answers
to that great rule which was dictated to the world (157: 5)
about an hundred years before this philosopher wrote;
but instead of that, I shall only take notice, with a real
grief of heart, that the minds of many good men among
us appear soured with party principles, and alienated from
one another in such a manner as seems to me altogether (10)
inconsistent with the dictates either of reason or religion.
Zeal for a public cause is apt to breed passions in the
hearts of virtuous persons to which the regard of their
own private interest would never have betrayed them.

If this party spirit has so ill an effect on our morals, it (15)
has likewise a very great one upon our judgements. We
often hear a poor, insipid paper or pamphlet cried up,
and sometimes a noble piece depreciated, by those who
are of a different principle from the author. One who is
actuated by this spirit is almost under an incapacity of (20)
discerning either real blemishes or beauties. A man
of merit in a different principle,[117] is like an object seen in
two different mediums,[118] that appears crooked or broken,
however straight or entire it may be in itself. For this
reason, there is scarce a person of any figure in England (25)
who does not go by two contrary characters, as opposite
to one another as light and darkness. Knowledge and
learning suffer in a particular manner from this strange
prejudice, which at present prevails amongst all ranks and
degrees in the British nation. As men formerly became
eminent in learned societies by their parts and acquisitions,
they now distinguish themselves by the warmth and (158: 5)
violence with which they espouse their respective parties.
Books are valued upon the like consideration: an abusive,
scurrilous style passes for satire, and a dull scheme of
party notions is called fine writing.

[117] Of a different opinion.

[118] As a stick partly in the water and partly out.

There is one piece of sophistry practiced by both sides; (10)
and that is the taking any scandalous story that has been
ever whispered or invented of a private man, for a known,
undoubted truth, and raising suitable speculations upon it.
Calumnies that have been never proved, or have been often
refuted, are the ordinary _postulatums_[119] of these infamous (15)
scribblers, upon which they proceed as upon first principles
granted by all men, though in their hearts they know
they are false, or at best very doubtful. When they have
laid these foundations of scurrility, it is no wonder that
their superstructure is every way answerable to them. If (20)
this shameless practice of the present age endures much
longer, praise and reproach will cease to be motives of
action in good men.

[119] Assumptions, propositions taken for granted in argument. If the
Latin form is used, the plural should be _postulata_.

There are certain periods of time in all governments when
this inhuman spirit prevails. Italy was long torn in pieces (25)
by the Guelphs and Ghibellines, and France by those who
were for and against the League; but it is very unhappy
for a man to be born in such a stormy and tempestuous
season. It is the restless ambition of artful men that
thus breaks a people into factions, and draws several well-meaning
persons to their interest by a specious concern
for their country. How many honest minds are filled with (159: 5)
uncharitable and barbarous notions, out of their zeal for
the public good! What cruelties and outrages would they
not commit against men of an adverse party, whom they
would honour and esteem, if, instead of considering them
as they are represented, they knew them as they are! (10)
Thus are persons of the greatest probity seduced into
shameful errors and prejudices, and made bad men even
by that noblest of principles, the "love of their country."
I cannot here forbear mentioning the famous Spanish
proverb, "If there were neither fools nor knaves in the (15)
world, all people would be of one mind."

For my own part, I could heartily wish that all honest
men would enter into an association for the support of one
another against the endeavours of those whom they ought
to look upon as their common enemies, whatsoever side (20)
they may belong to. Were there such an honest body of
neutral forces, we should never see the worst of men in
great figures of life, because they are useful to a party;
nor the best unregarded, because they are above practising
those methods which would be grateful to their (25)
faction. We should then single every criminal out of
the herd, and hunt him down, however formidable and
overgrown he might appear: on the contrary, we should
shelter distressed innocence, and defend virtue, however
beset with contempt or ridicule, envy, or defamation. In
short, we should not any longer regard our fellow subjects
as Whigs or Tories, but should make the man of merit our
friend, and the villain our enemy. C.

XXII. WHIGS AND TORIES.--_Continued_

[No. 126. Wednesday, July 25, 1711. ADDISON.]

Tros Rutulusve fuat, nullo discrimine habebo.

VIRG.

In my yesterday's paper, I proposed that the honest (160: 5)
men of all parties should enter into a kind of association
for the defence of one another, and the confusion of their
common enemies. As it is designed this neutral body
should act with a regard to nothing but truth and equity,
and divest themselves of the little heats and prepossessions (10)
that cleave to parties of all kinds, I have prepared
for them the following form of an association, which may
express their intentions in the most plain and simple
manner:

We whose names are hereunto subscribed, do solemnly declare (15)
that we do in our consciences believe two and two make four; and
that we shall adjudge any man whatsoever to be our enemy who
endeavors to persuade us to the contrary. We are likewise ready
to maintain, with the hazard of all that is near and dear to us, that
six is less than seven in all times and all places, and that ten (20)
will not be more three years hence than it is at present. We do also
firmly declare that it is our resolution as long as we live to call
black black, and white white; and we shall upon all occasions oppose
such persons that upon any day of the year shall call black
white, or white black, with the utmost peril of our lives and
fortunes. (161: 5)

Were there such a combination of honest men, who
without any regard to places would endeavour to extirpate
all such furious zealots as would sacrifice one half of their
country to the passion and interest of the other; as also
such infamous hypocrites that are for promoting their (10)
own advantage under colour of the public good; with all
the profligate, immoral retainers to each side, that have
nothing to recommend them but an implicit submission
to their leaders;--we should soon see that furious party
spirit extinguished, which may in time expose us to the (15)
derision and contempt of all the nations about us.

A member of this society that would thus carefully
employ himself in making room for merit, by throwing
down the worthless and depraved part of mankind from
those conspicuous stations of life to which they have been (20)
sometimes advanced, and all this without any regard to
his private interest, would be no small benefactor to his
country.

I remember to have read in Diodorus Siculus an account
of a very active little animal, which I think he calls the (25)
ichneumon, that makes it the whole business of his life to
break the eggs of the crocodile, which he is always in
search after. This instinct is the more remarkable because
the ichneumon never feeds upon the eggs he has
broken, nor in any other way finds his account in them.
Were it not for the incessant labours of this industrious
animal, Egypt, says the historian, would be overrun with
crocodiles; for the Egyptians are so far from destroying
those pernicious creatures that they worship them as (162: 5)
gods.

If we look into the behaviour of ordinary partisans, we
shall find them far from resembling this disinterested
animal, and rather acting after the example of the wild
Tartars, who are ambitious of destroying a man of the (10)
most extraordinary parts and accomplishments, as thinking
that upon his decease the same talents, whatever post
they qualified him for, enter of course into his destroyer.

As in the whole train of my speculations I have endeavoured,
as much as I am able, to extinguish that pernicious (15)
spirit of passion and prejudice which rages with the same
violence in all parties, I am still the more desirous of
doing some good in this particular because I observe that
the spirit of party reigns more in the country than in the
town. It here contracts a kind of brutality and rustic (20)
fierceness to which men of a politer conversation are
wholly strangers. It extends itself even to the return of
the bow and the hat; and at the same time that the
heads of parties preserve toward one another an outward
show of good breeding, and keep up a perpetual intercourse (25)
of civilities, their tools that are dispersed in these
outlying parts will not so much as mingle together at a
cock-match. This humour fills the country with several
periodical meetings of Whig jockeys and Tory fox hunters,
not to mention the innumerable curses, frowns, and whispers
it produces at a quarter sessions.

I do not know whether I have observed, in any of my
former papers, that my friends Sir Roger de Coverley and
Sir Andrew Freeport are of different principles; the first (163: 5)
of them inclined to the landed, and the other to the moneyed
interest. This humour is so moderate in each of
them that it proceeds no farther than to an agreeable
raillery, which very often diverts the rest of the club. I
find, however, that the knight is a much stronger Tory (10)
in the country than in town, which, as he has told me in
my ear, is absolutely necessary for the keeping up his
interest. In all our journey from London to his house,
we did not so much as bait at a Whig inn; or if by
chance the coachman stopped at a wrong place, one of (15)
Sir Roger's servants would ride up to his master full
speed, and whisper to him that the master of the house
was against such an one in the last election. This often
betrayed us into hard beds and bad cheer; for we were
not so inquisitive about the inn as the innkeeper; and (20)
provided our landlord's principles were sound, did not
take any notice of the staleness of his provisions. This
I found still the more inconvenient because the better the
host was, the worse generally were his accommodations;
the fellow knowing very well that those who were his (25)
friends would take up with coarse diet and an hard
lodging. For these reasons, all the while I was upon the
road I dreaded entering into an house of any one that
Sir Roger had applauded for an honest man.

Since my stay at Sir Roger's in the country, I daily find
more instance of this narrow party humour. Being upon a
bowling green at a neighbouring market town the other day
(for that is the place where the gentlemen of one side
meet once a week), I observed a stranger among them of (164: 5)
a better presence and genteeler behaviour than ordinary;
but was much surprised that, notwithstanding he was a
very fair better, nobody would take him up. But upon
inquiry, I found that he was one who had given a disagreeable
vote in a former parliament, for which reason (10)
there was not a man upon that bowling green who would
have so much correspondence with him as to win his
money of him.

Among other instances of this nature, I must not omit
one which concerns myself. Will Wimble was the other (15)
day relating several strange stories, that he had picked up,
nobody knows where, of a certain great man; and upon
my staring at him, as one that was surprised to hear such
things in the country, which had never been so much as
whispered in the town, Will stopped short in the thread (20)
of his discourse, and after dinner asked my friend Sir
Roger in his ear if he was sure that I was not a
fanatic.

It gives me a serious concern to see such a spirit of
dissension in the country; not only as it destroys virtue (25)
and common sense, and renders us in a manner barbarians
towards one another, but as it perpetuates our animosities,
widens our breaches, and transmits our present passions
and prejudices to our posterity. For my own part, I am
sometimes afraid that I discover the seeds of a civil war
in these our divisions, and therefore cannot but bewail, as
in their first principles, the miseries and calamities of our
children. C.

XXIII. SIR ROGER AND THE GIPSIES

[No. 130. Monday, July 30, 1711. ADDISON.]

Semperque recentes
Convectare juvat praedas, et vivere rapto.

VIRG.

As I was yesterday riding out in the fields with my (165: 5)
friend Sir Roger, we saw at a little distance from us a
troop of gipsies. Upon the first discovery of them, my
friend was in some doubt whether he should not exert the
justice of the peace[120] upon such a band of lawless vagrants;
but not having his clerk with him, who is a necessary (10)
counsellor on these occasions, and fearing that his poultry
might fare the worse for it, he let the thought drop; but
at the same time gave me a particular account of the mischiefs
they do in the country, in stealing people's goods
and spoiling their servants. "If a stray piece of linen (15)
hangs upon an hedge," says Sir Roger, "they are sure to
have it; if a hog loses his way in the fields, it is ten to
one but he becomes their prey; our geese cannot live in
peace for them; if a man prosecutes them with severity,
his hen-roost is sure to pay for it. They generally straggle
into these parts about this time of the year, and set the
heads of our servant-maids so agog for husbands that we
do not expect to have any business done as it should be
whilst they are in the country. I have an honest dairy-maid (166: 5)
who crosses their hands with a piece of silver every
summer, and never fails being promised the handsomest
young fellow in the parish for her pains. Your friend,
the butler, has been fool enough to be seduced by them;
and, though he is sure to lose a knife, a fork, or a spoon, (10)
every time his fortune is told him, generally shuts himself
up in the pantry with an old gipsy for above half an hour
once in a twelvemonth. Sweethearts are the things they
live upon, which they bestow very plentifully upon all
those that apply themselves to them. You see, now (15)
and then, some handsome young jades among them;
the [wenches] have very often white teeth and black
eyes."

[120] Exert his authority as justice of the peace.

Sir Roger, observing that I listened with great attention
to his account of a people who were so entirely new to me, (20)
told me that if I would they should tell us our fortunes.
As I was very well pleased with the knight's proposal,
we rid up and communicated our hands to them. A
Cassandra of the crew, after having examined my lines[121]
very diligently, told me that I loved a pretty maid in a (25)
corner; that I was a good woman's man; with some
other particulars which I do not think proper to relate.
My friend Sir Roger alighted from his horse, and exposing
his palm to two or three that stood by him, they crumpled
it into all shapes, and diligently scanned every wrinkle
that could be made in it; when one of them, who was
older and more sunburnt than the rest, told him that he (167: 5)
had a widow in his line of life[122]; upon which the knight
cried, "Go, go, you are an idle baggage!" and at the
same time smiled upon me. The gipsy, finding he was
not displeased in his heart, told him, after a farther inquiry
into his hand, that his true love was constant, and (10)
that she should dream of him to-night. My old friend
cried "Pish!" and bid her go on. The gipsy told him
that he was a bachelor, but would not be so long; and
that he was dearer to somebody than he thought. The
knight still repeated she was an idle baggage, and bid her (15)
go on. "Ah, master," says the gipsy, "that roguish leer
of yours makes a pretty woman's heart ache; you ha'n't
that simper about the mouth for nothing--." The uncouth
gibberish with which all this was uttered, like the
darkness of an oracle, made us the more attentive to it. (20)
To be short, the knight left the money with her that he
had crossed her hand with, and got up again on his
horse.

[121] The lines or wrinkles in the palm of the hand supposed to
indicate the fortune.

[122] The line beginning at the middle of the wrist and sweeping
round the base of the thumb. As this is the line upon which are based
predictions as to length of life and not as to marriage relations, Mr.
Spectator probably did not report the gipsy correctly.

As we were riding away, Sir Roger told me that he
knew several sensible people who believed these gipsies (25)
now and then foretold very strange things; and for half
an hour together appeared more jocund than ordinary.
In the height of his good humour, meeting a common beggar
upon the road who was no conjurer, as he went to
relieve him, he found his pocket was picked; that being (168: 5)
a kind of palmistry at which this race of vermin are very
dextrous.

I might here entertain my reader with historical remarks
on this idle, profligate people, who infest all the
countries of Europe, and live in the midst of governments (10)
in a kind of commonwealth by themselves. But instead
of entering into observations of this nature, I shall fill
the remaining part of my paper with a story which is
still fresh in Holland, and was printed in one of our
monthly accounts about twenty years ago: (15)

"As the _trekschuyt_, or hackney boat, which carries passengers
from Leyden to Amsterdam, was putting off, a boy running along
the side of the canal desired to be taken in; which the master of
the boat refused, because the lad had not quite money enough to
pay the usual fare. An eminent merchant, being pleased with the (20)
looks of the boy and secretly touched with compassion towards
him, paid the money for him, and ordered him to be taken on
board.

"Upon talking with him afterwards, he found that he could speak
readily in three or four languages, and learned upon farther (25)
examination that he had been stolen away when he was a child, by a
gypsy, and had rambled ever since with a gang of those strollers
up and down several parts of Europe. It happened that the merchant,
whose heart seems to have inclined towards the boy by a secret
kind of instinct, had himself lost a child some years before. (30)
The parents, after a long search for him, gave him for drowned[123]
in one of the canals with which that country abounds; and the
mother was so afflicted at the loss of a fine boy, who was her only
son, that she died for grief of it.

[123] Gave him up for drowned.

"Upon laying together all particulars, and examining the (169: 5)
several moles and marks by which the mother used to describe the
child when he was first missing, the boy proved to be the son of the
merchant whose heart had so unaccountably melted at the sight of
him. The lad was very well pleased to find a father who was so
rich, and likely to leave him a good estate: the father, on the (10)
other hand, was not a little delighted to see a son return to him,
whom he had given for lost, with such a strength of constitution,
sharpness of understanding, and skill in languages."

Here the printed story leaves off; but if I may give
credit to reports, our linguist having received such extraordinary (15)
rudiments towards a good education, was
afterwards trained up in everything that becomes a gentleman;
wearing off by little and little all the vicious habits
and practices that he had been used to in the course of his
peregrinations. Nay, it is said that he has since been (20)
employed in foreign courts upon national business, with
great reputation to himself and honour to those who sent
him, and that he has visited several countries as a public
minister, in which he formerly wandered as a gipsy.
C. (25)

XXIV. THE SPECTATOR DECIDES TO RETURN
TO LONDON

[No. 131. Tuesday, July 31, 1711. ADDISON.]

Ipsae rursum concedite silvae.

VIRG.

It is usual for a man who loves country sports to preserve
the game in his own grounds, and divert himself
upon those that belong to his neighbour. My friend Sir
Roger generally goes two or three miles from his house,
and gets into the frontiers of his estate, before he beats (170: 5)
about in search of an hare or partridge, on purpose to
spare his own fields, where he is always sure of finding
diversion when the worst comes to the worst. By this
means the breed about his house has time to increase
and multiply; besides that the sport is the more agreeable (10)
where the game is the harder to come at, and
does not lie so thick as to produce any perplexity or
confusion in the pursuit. For these reasons the country
gentleman, like the fox, seldom preys near his own home.
In the same manner I have made a month's excursion (15)
out of the town, which is the great field of game for
sportsmen of my species, to try my fortune in the country,
where I have started several subjects and hunted
them down, with some pleasure to myself, and I hope to
others. I am here forced to use a great deal of diligence
before I can spring anything to my mind; whereas in
town, whilst I am following one character, it is ten to
one but I am crossed in my way by another, and put up
such a variety of odd creatures in both sexes that they (171: 5)
foil the scent of one another, and puzzle the chase. My
greatest difficulty in the country is to find sport, and, in
town, to choose it. In the meantime, as I have given a
whole month's rest to the cities of London and Westminster,
I promise myself abundance of new game upon (10)
my return thither.

It is indeed high time for me to leave the country,
since I find the whole neighbourhood begin to grow very
inquisitive after my name and character; my love of solitude,
taciturnity, and particular way of life, having raised (15)
a great curiosity in all these parts.

The notions which have been framed of me are various:
some look upon me as very proud, and some as
very melancholy. Will Wimble, as my friend the butler
tells me, observing me very much alone, and extremely (20)
silent when I am in company, is afraid I have killed a
man. The country people seem to suspect me for a conjurer;
and, some of them hearing of the visit which I
made to Moll White, will needs have it that Sir Roger has
brought down a cunning man with him, to cure the old (25)
woman, and free the country from her charms. So that
the character which I go under in part of the neighbourhood,
is what they here call a "White Witch."

A justice of peace, who lives about five miles off, and
is not of Sir Roger's party, has, it seems, said twice or
thrice at his table that he wishes Sir Roger does not
harbor a Jesuit in his house, and that he thinks the gentlemen
of the country would do very well to make me
give some account of myself. (172: 5)

On the other side, some of Sir Roger's friends are
afraid the old knight is imposed upon by a designing
fellow, and as they have heard that he converses very
promiscuously when he is in town, do not know but he
has brought down with him some discarded Whig, that is (10)
sullen and says nothing because he is out of place.

Such is the variety of opinions which are here entertained
of me, so that I pass among some for a disaffected
person, and among others for a popish priest; among
some for a wizard, and among others for a murderer: and (15)
all this for no other reason, that I can imagine, but because
I do not hoot and hollow and make a noise. It is
true my friend Sir Roger tells them, that it is my way,
and that I am only a philosopher; but that will not satisfy
them. They think there is more in me than he discovers, (20)
and that I do not hold my tongue for nothing.