I beg the favour of you (as you set up for a reformer) to send us word how many dogs you will allow us to go with, how many full pots of ale to drink, and how many hares to kill in a day, and you will do a great piece of service to all the sportsmen. Be quick then for the time of coursing is come on. 'Yours in haste, T.° 6 ISAAC HEDGEDITCH.' No. 169. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1711. Sic vita erat, facilè omnes perferre ac pati: TER. Andr. Act. i. Sc. 1. His manner of life was this: to bear with every body's humours; to comply with the inclinations and pursuits of those he conversed with; to contradict nobody; never to assume a superiority over others. This is the ready way to gain applause, without exciting envy. MAN is subject to innumerable pains and sorrows by the very condition of humanity, and yet, as if nature had not sown evils enough in life, we are continually adding grief to grief, and aggravating the common calamity by our cruel treatment of one another. Every man's natural weight of affliction is still made more heavy by the envy, malice, treachery, or injustice of his neighbour. At the same time that the storm beats upon the whole species, we are falling foul upon one another. Half the misery of human life might be extinguished, would men alleviate the general curse they lie under, by mutual offices of compassion, benevolence, and humanity. There is nothing therefore which we ought more to encourage in ourselves and others, than that disposition of mind which in our language goes under the title of good-nature, and which I shall choose for the subject of this day's speculation. Good-nature is more agreeable in conversation than wit, and gives a certain air to the countenance which is more amiable than beauty. It shows virtue in the fairest light, takes off in some measure from the deformity of vice, and makes even folly and impertinence supportable. There is no society or conversation to be kept up in the world without good-nature or something which must bear its appearance, and supply its place. For this reason mankind have been forced to invent a kind of artificial humanity, which is what we express by the word good-breeding. For if we examine thoroughly the idea of what we call so, we shall find it to be nothing else but an imitation and mimickry of good-nature, or, in other terms, affability, complaisance and easiness of temper reduced into an art. These exterior shows and appearances of humanity render a man wonderfully popular and beloved, when they are founded upon a real good-nature; but, without it, are like hypocrisy in religion, or a bare form of holiness, which, when it is discovered, makes a man more detestable than professed impiety. Good-nature is generally born with us: health, prosperity and kind treatment from the world, are great cherishers of it where they find it; but nothing is capable of forcing it up, where it does not grow of itself. It is one of the blessings of a happy constitution, which education may improve, but not produce. Xenophon in the life of his imaginary prince, whom he describes as a pattern for real ones, is always celebrating the philanthropy or good-nature of his hero, which he tells us he brought into the world with him; and gives many remarkable instances of it in his childhood, as well as in all the several parts of his life. Nay, on his death-bed, he describes him as being pleased, that while his soul returned to Him who made it, his body should incorporate with the great mother of all things, and by that means become beneficial to mankind. For which reason, he gives his sons a positive order not to enshrine it in gold or silver, but to lay it in the earth as soon as the life was gone out of it. An instance of such an overflowing of humanity, such an exuberant love to mankind, could not have entered into the imagination of a writer, who had not a soul filled with great ideas, and a general benevolence to mankind. In that celebrated passage of Sallust, where Cæsar and Cato are placed in such beautiful, but opposite lights, Caesar's character is chiefly made up of goodnature, as it showed itself in all its forms towards his friends or his enemies, his servants or dependents, the guilty or the distressed. As for Cato's character, it is rather awful than amiable. Justice seems most agreeable to the nature of God, and mercy to that of man. A being, who has nothing to pardon in himself, may reward every man according to his works; but he whose very best actions must be seen with grains of allowance, cannot be too mild, moderate and forgiving. For this reason, among all the monstrous characters in human nature, there is none so odious, nor indeed so exquisitely ridiculous, as that of a rigid severe temper in a worthless man. P Xenoph. De Cyri Instit. lib. viii. cap. vii. sect. 3. edit. J. A. Ern. 8vo. tom. i. p. 550. 9 Sallust. Bell. Catil. c. liv. This part of good-nature however, which consists in the pardoning and overlooking of faults, is to be exercised only in doing ourselves justice, and that too in the ordinary commerce and occurrences of life; for in the public administrations of justice, mercy to one may be cruelty to others. It is grown almost into a maxim, that goodnatured men are not always men of the most wit. This observation, in my opinion, has no foundation in nature. The greatest wits I have conversed with are men eminent for their humanity. I take therefore this remark to have been occasioned by two reasons. First, because ill-nature among ordinary observers passes for wit. for wit. A spiteful saying gratifies so many little passions in those who hear it, that it generally meets with a good reception. The laugh rises upon it, and the man who utters it is looked upon as a shrewd satirist. This may be one reason, why a great many pleasant companions appear so surprisingly dull, when they have endeavoured to be merry in print; the public being more just than private clubs or assemblies, in distinguishing between what is wit, and what is ill-nature. Another reason why the good-natured man may sometimes bring his wit in question is, perhaps, because he is apt to be moved with compassion for those misfortunes or infirmities which another would turn into ridicule, and by that means gain the reputation of a wit. The ill-natured man, though but of equal parts, gives himself a larger field to expatiate in; he exposes those failings in human nature which the other would cast a veil over, laughs at vices which the other either excuses or conceals, gives utterance to reflections which the other stifles, falls indifferently upon friends or enemies, exposes the person who has obliged him, and, in short, sticks at nothing that may establish his character of a wit. It is no wonder therefore he succeeds in it better than the man of humanity, as a person who makes use of indirect methods is more likely to grow rich than the fair trader. L.s No. 170. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 1711. In amore hæc omnia insunt vitia: injuriæ, Suspiciones, inimicitiæ, induciæ, Bellum, pax rursum— TER. Eun. Act. i. Sc. 1. In love are all these ills; suspicions, quarrels, COLMAN. UPON looking over the letters of my female correspondents, I find several from women complaining of jealous husbands, and at the same time protesting their own innocence; and desiring my advice on this occasion. I shall therefore take this subject into my consideration; and the more willingly because I find that the marquis of Halifax, who, in his Advice to a Daughter, has instructed a wife how to behave herself towards a false, an intemperate, a choleric, a sullen, a covetous, or a silly husband, has not spoken one word of a jealous husband. 'Jealousy is that pain which a man feels from the apprehension that he is not equally beloved by If Doctor Swift's wit was to be subjected to this scrutiny, it would be circumscribed within a very narrow compass. The chief source from which it sprung was the indignation that gnawed his heart. • By Addison, London. See final note to No. 5, &c. Addison has particularly pointed out Nos. 170-251, as containing papers of humour, and also refers to other useful speculations in them. See Nos. 547, and 548. |