Whenever my evil stars bring us together, he never fails to represent to me the folly of my pursuits, and informs me that we are much older than when we began our acquaintance,1 that the infirmities of decrepitude are coming fast upon me, that whatever I now get, I shall enjoy but a little time, that fame is to a man tottering on the edge of the grave of very little importance, and that the time is at hand when I ought to look for no other pleasures than a good dinner and an easy chair. Thus he goes on in his unharmonious strain, displaying present miseries, and foreboding more, νυκτικόραξ ἄδει θανατηφόρον, every syllable is loaded with misfortune, and death is always brought nearer to the view.3 Yet, what always raises my resentment and indignation, I do not perceive that his mournful meditations have much effect upon himself. He talks and has long talked 1 When Johnson met his old College friend Edwards, after an interval of forty-nine years, "Edwards said to him, 'Ah Sir, we are old men now.' JOHNSON (who never liked to think of being old): 'Don't let us discourage one another.'"Boswell's Johnson, iii. 302. 2 printed Νυκτικόραξ ᾄδει θανατηφόρον. ἀλλ' ὅταν ᾄσῃ. -Jacobs' Anthologia Græca, ed. 1814, ii. 375. In the later edition of The Rambler this quotation is νυκτίκοραξ ἄει θανατήφορος.” Johnson, in one of his sleepless nights, thus turned this epigram into Latin verse :"Nycticorax cantat lethale; sed ipsa canenti Demophilo auscultans Nycticorax moritur." -Johnson's Works, i. 183. 3 "One whose voice is a passing bell-a raven that bodes nothing but mischief; a coffin and cross bones."-The GoodNatur'd Man, Act 1. of calamities, without discovering otherwise than by the tone of his voice, that he feels any of the evils which he bewails or threatens, but has the same habit of uttering lamentations, as others of telling stories, and falls into expressions of condolence for past, or apprehension of future mischiefs, as all men studious of their ease have recourse to those subjects upon which they can most fluently or copiously discourse.1 It is reported of the Sybarites, that they destroyed all their cocks, that they might dream out their morning dreams without disturbance. Though I would not so far promote effeminacy as to propose the Sybarites for an example, yet since there is no man so corrupt or foolish, but something useful may be learned from him, I could wish that, in imitation of a people not often to be copied, some regulations might be made to exclude screech-owls from all company, as the enemies of mankind, and confine them to some proper receptacle, where they may mingle sighs at leisure, and thicken the gloom of one another. "Thou prophet of evil," says Homer's Agamemnon, "thou never foretellest me good, but 1" CROAKER. I hope this weather does not affect your spirits. To be sure, if this weather continues-I say nothing-but God send we all be better this day three months. HONEYWOOD. I heartily concur in the wish, though I own not in your apprehensions. CROAKER. May be not! indeed, what signifies what weather we have in a country going to ruin like ours? Taxes rising and trade falling. Money flying out of the kingdom, and Jesuits swarming into it. I know at this time no less than a hundred and twenty-seven Jesuits between CharingCross and Temple-Bar."-The Good-Natur'd Man, Act i. the joy of thy heart is to predict misfortunes." Whoever is of the same temper, might there find the means of indulging his thoughts, and improving his vein of denunciation, and the flock of screech-owls might hoot together without injury to the rest of the world. Yet, though I have so little kindness for this dark generation, I am very far from intending to debar the soft and tender mind from the privilege of complaining, when the sigh arises from the desire not of giving pain, but of gaining ease. To hear complaints with patience, even when complaints are vain, is one of the duties of friendship; and though it must be allowed that he suffers most like a hero that hides his grief in silence, Spem vultu simulat, premit altum corde dolorem.2 His outward smiles conceal'd his inward smart.-DRYDEN. yet it cannot be denied, that he who complains acts like a man, like a social being, who looks for help from his fellow-creatures. Pity is to many of the unhappy a source of comfort in hopeless distresses, as it contributes to recommend them to themselves, by proving that they have not lost the regard of others; and heaven seems to indicate the duty even of barren compassion, by inclining us to weep for evils which we cannot remedy. 1 Iliad, i. 106. 2 Eneid, i. 209. 3 Croaker, too, found relief in complaints. "There's the advantage (he says) of fretting away our misfortunes beforehand; we never feel them when they come."-The GoodNatur'd Man, Act v. No. 60. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1750. -Quid sit pulchrum, quid turpe, quid utile, quid non, A LL joy or sorrow for the happiness or calamities of others is produced by an act of the imagination, that realises the event, however fictitious or arproximates it however remote, by placing us, for a time, in the condition of him whose fortune we contemplate; so that we feel, while the deception lasts, whatever motions would be excited by the same good or evil happening to ourselves. Our passions are therefore more strongly moved, in proportion as we can more readily adopt the pains or pleasure proposed to our minds, by recognising them as once our own, or considering them as naturally incident to our state of life. It is not easy for the most artful writer to give us an interest in happiness or misery, which we think ourselves never likely to feel, and with which we have never yet been made acquainted. Histories of the downfall of kingdoms, and revolutions of empires, are read with great tranquillity; the imperial tragedy pleases common auditors 1 Horace, 1 Epistles, ii. 3. only by its pomp of ornament, and grandeur of ideas; and the man whose faculties have been engrossed by business, and whose heart never fluttered but at the rise or fall of the stocks, wonders how the attention can be seized or the affection agitated, by a tale of love. Those parallel circumstances and kindred images, to which we readily conform our minds, are, above all other writings, to be found in narratives of the lives of particular persons; and therefore no species of writing seems more worthy of cultivation than biography, since none can be more delightful or more useful, none can more certainly enchain the heart by irresistible interest, or more widely diffuse instruction to every diversity of condition.1 The general and rapid narratives of history, which involve a thousand fortunes in the business of a day, and complicate innumerable incidents in one great transaction, afford few lessons applicable to private life, which derives its comforts and its wretchedness from the right or wrong management of things, which nothing but their frequency makes considerable, Parva si non fiunt quotidie, says Pliny, and which can have no place in those relations which never descend below the consultation of senates, the motions of armies, and the schemes of conspirators. 1 "The biographical part of literature (said Johnson) is what I love most."-Boswell's Johnson, i. 425. "I esteem biography," he said on another occasion, "as giving us what comes near to ourselves, what we can turn to use."-Ib. v. 79. See post. The Idler, No. 84. |
