tion millions of volumes, that would be utterly annihilated. I cannot think that the difficulty of furnishing out feparate papers of this nature, has hindered authors from communicating their thoughts to the world after such a manner: Though I must confefs I am amazed that the prefs fhould be only made ufe of in this way by news-writers, and the zealots of parties; as if it were not more advantage. ous to mankind, to be inftructed in wifdom and virtue, than in politicks; and to be made good fathers, husbands and fons, than counfellors and statesmen. Had the philofophers and great men of antiquity, who took fo much pains in order to inftruct mankind, and leave the world wifer and better than they found it; had they, I fay, been poffeffed of the art of printing, there is no queftion but they would have made fuch an advantage of it, in dealing out their lectures to the publick. Our common prints would be of great ufe, were they thus calculated to diffufe good fenfe through the bulk of a people, to clear up their understandings, animate their minds with virtue, diffipate the forrows of a heavy heart, or unbend the mind from its more fevere employments with innocent amuse ments. When knowledge, inftead of being bound up in books and kept in libraries and retirements, is thus obtruded upon the publick; when it is canvaffed in every affembly, and exposed upon every table, I cannot forbear reflecting upon that paffage in the Proverbs: Wisdom crieth without, fhe uttereth her voice in the streets; fhe crieth in the chief place of concourfe, in the openings of the gates. In the city he uttereth her words, faying, How long, ye Simple ones, will ye love fimplicity? and the fcorners delight in their fcorning? and fools hate knowledge? The many letters which come to me from perfons of the best sense in both fexes, (for I may pronounce their characters from their way of writing) do do not a little encourage me in the profecution of this my undertaking: Befides that my bookfeller tells me, the demand for these my papers encreases daily. It is at his inftance that I fhall continue my rural fpeculations to the end of this month; feveral having made up feparate fets of them, as they have done before of those relating to wit, to operas, to points of morality, or fubjects of humour. I am not at all mortified, when fometimes I fee my works thrown afide by men of no taite nor learning. There is a kind of heaviness and ignorance that hangs upon the minds of ordinary men, which is too thick for knowledge to break through. Their fouls are not to be enlightened. -Nox atra cava circumvolat umbra. VIRG. Æn. ii, ver. 360. Dark night furrounds them with her hollow fhade.. To thefe I must apply the fable of the mole, that after having confulted many oculifts for the bettering of his fight, was at last provided with a good pair of fpectacles; but upon his endeavouring tơ make use of them, his mother told him very pru dently, That fpectacles, though they might help "the eye of a man, could be of no ufe to a mole." It is not therefore for the benefit of moles that I publish these my daily effays. But befides fuch as are moles for their ignoránce, there are others who are moles through envy. As it is faid in the Latin proverb, "That one man is "a wolf to another;" fo generally speaking, one author is a mole to another author. It is impoffible for them to discover beauties in one another's works; they have eyes only for fpots and blemishes: They can indeed fee the light, as it is faid of the animals which are their name-fakes, but the idea of it is painful to them; they immediately fhut their eyes upon it, and withdraw themselves into a wilful obfcurity. I have already caught two or three of Q3 thefe thefe dark undermining vermin, and intend to make a string of them, in order to hang them up in one of my papers, as an example to all fuch vo luntary moles. C Ne pueri, ne tanta animis affuefcite bella, DRYDEN. 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 school-boy, which was at a time when the feuds ran high between the round heads and cavaliers. This worthy Knight, being then but a stripling, had occafion to enquire which was the way to St Anne's Lane, upon which the perfon whom he spoke to, instead of answering his questi on, called him a young Popifh Cur, and asked him who had made Anne a faint. The boy, being in fome confufion, inquired of the next he met, which was the way to Anne's Lane; but was called a Prickeared Cur for his pains, and instead of being shown the way, was told that she had been a faint before he was born, and would be one after he was hanged. Upon this, fays Sir ROGER, I did not think fit to repeat the former queftion, 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 enquired after, without giving offence to any party. Sir ROGER generally clofes this narrative with reflections on the mischief that that parties do in the country; how they spoil good neighbourhood, and make honeft gentlemen hate one another; befides that they manifeftly tend to the prejudice of the land-tax, and the deftruction of the game. There cannot a greater judgment befal a country than fuch a dreadful fpirit of divifion as rends a government into two distinct people, and makes them greater strangers and more averfe to one ano. ther, than if they were actually two different nations. The effects of fuch a divifion are pernicious to the last degree, not only with regard to thofe advantages which they give the common enemy, but to those private evils which they produce in the heart of almost every particular perfon. This influence is very fatal both to mens morals and their understandings; it finks the virtue of a nation, and not only fo, but deftroys even common fenfe. A furious party-fpirit, when it rages in its full violence, exerts itfelf in civil war and bloodshed; and when it is under its greatest restraints naturally breaks out in falfehood, detraction, calumny, and a partial adminiftration of juftice. In a word, it fills a nation with fpleen and rancour, and extinguishes all the feeds of good-nature, compassion, and humanity. Plutarch fays very finely, that a man fhould not allow himself to hate even his enemies, because, fays he, if you indulge this paffion in fome occaGions, it will rife of itself in others; if you hate your enemies, you will contract fuch a vicious habit of mind, as by degrees will break out upon those who are your friends, or thofe who are indifferent to you. I might here observe how admirably this precept of morality (which derives the malignity of hatred from the paffion itself, and not from its object) answers to that great rule which was dictated to the world about an hundred years before this philofopher wrote; but instead of that, I fhall only. take take notice, with a real grief of heart, that the minds of many ghod men among us appear foured with party-principles, and alienated from one ano. ther in fuch a manner, as feems to me altogether inconfiftent with the dictates either of reason or re ligion. Zeal for a public caufe is apt to breed paffions in the hearts of virtuous perfons, to which the regard of their own private intereft would ne ver have betrayed them.4. If this party-fpirit has fo ill an effect on our mo rals, it has likewife a very great one upon our judgments. We often hear a poor infipid paper or pamphlet cried up, and fometimes a noble piece depreciated, by those who are of a different principle from the author. One who is actuated by this fpirit is almost under an incapacity of difcerning either real blemishes or beauties. A man; of merit in a different principle is like an object feen in two dif ferent mediums, that appears crooked or broken, however ftraight and intire it may be in itfelf. For this reafon there is fcarce a perfon of any figure in England, who does not go by two contrary characters, as oppofite, to one another as light and darkness. Knowledge and learning fuffer in a particular manner from this strange prejudice, which at prefent prevails amongst all ranks and degrees. in the British nation. As men formerly became eminent in learned focieties by their parts and acquifitions, they now diftinguish themselves by the warmth and violence with which they efpoufe their refpective parties. Books are valued upon the like confiderations: An abufive fcurrilous ftyle paffes for fatire, and a dull feheme of party-notions is called fine writing. There is one piece of fophiftry practifed by both fides, and that is the taking any fcandalous story that has been ever whispered or invented of a private man, for a known undoubted truth, and raifing fuitable fpeculations upon it. Calumnies that have been never proved, or have been often refu ted, |