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to any mood or figure in Aristotle. It was called the argumentum Basilinum, (others write it Bacilinum or Baculinum,) which is pretty well expressed in our English word club-law. When they were not able to confute their antagonist, they knocked him down. It was their method in these poemical debates, first to discharge their syllogisms, and afterwards to betake themselves to their clubs, until such time as they had one way or other confounded their gainsayers. There is in Oxford a narrow defile, (to make use of a military term,) where the partisans used to encounter; for which reason it still retains the name of Logic-lane. I have heard an old gentleman, a physician, make his boasts, that when he was a young fellow he marched several times at the head of a troop of Scotists, and cudgelled a body of Smiglesianst half the length of High-street, until they had dispersed themselves for shelter into their respective garrisons.

*

This humour, I find, went very far in Erasmus's time. For that author tells us, that upon the revival of Greek letters, most of the universities in Europe were divided into Greeks and Trojans. The latter were those who bore a mortal enmity to the language of the Grecians, insomuch that if they met with any who understood it, they did not fail to treat him as a foe. Erasmus himself had, it seems, the misfortune to fall into the hands of a party of Trojans, who laid on him with so many blows and buffets that he never forgot their hostilities to his dying day.

There is a way of managing an argument not much unlike the former, which is made use of by states and communities, when they draw up a hundred thousand disputants, on each side, and convince one another by dint of sword. A certain grand monarcht was so sensible of his strength in this way of reasoning, that he writ upon his great guns-Ratio ultima regum, The logic of kings; but, God be thanked, he is now pretty well baffled at his own weapons. When one has to do with a philosopher of this kind, one should remember the old gentleman's saying, who had been engaged in an argument with one of the Roman emperors.s Upon his friend's telling him that he wondered he would give up the question, when he had visibly the better of the dispute; I am never ashamed,' says he, to be confuted by one who is master of fifty legions."

I shall but just mention another kind of

* The followers of Duns Scotus, a celebrated Franciscan divine, born in Northumberland. From Oxford, where he was educated, he went to Paris, where his reputation was so high as a disputant, that he acquired the name of the 'subtile doctor.' His opposition to the doctrine of Thomas Aquinas gave birth to wo parties, the Scotists and Thomists. He died at Cologne, in 1308. †The followers of Martin Smiglecius, a fimous logician in the 16th century.

Lewis XIV. of Franoa, § The Emperor Adria.

reasoning, which may be called arguing by poll; and another which is of equal force, in which wagers are made use of as arguments, according to the celebrated line in Hudibras.

But the most notable way of managing a controversy, is that which we may call arguing by torture. This is a method of reasoning which has been made use of with the poor refugees, and which was so fashionable in our country during the reign of Queen Mary, that in a passage of an author quoted by Monsieur Bayle, it is said the price of wood was raised in England, by reason of the executions that were made in Smithfield. These disputants convince their adversaries with a sorites,** commonly called a pile of faggots. The rack is also a kind of syllogism which has been used with good effect, and has made multitudes of converts. Men were formerly disputed out of their doubts, reconciled to truth by force of reason, and won over to opinions by the candour, sense, and ingenuity of those who had the right on their side; but this method of conviction operated too slowly. Pain was found to be much more enlightening than reason. Every scruple was looked upon as obstinacy, and not to be removed but by several engines invented for that purpose. In a word, the application of whips, racks, gibbets, galleys, dungeons, fire and faggot, in a dispute, may be looked upon as popish refinements upon the old heathen logic.

There is another way of reasoning which seldom fails, though it be of a quite different nature to that I have last mentioned. I mean convincing a man by ready money, or as it is ordinarily called, bribing a man to an opinion. This method has often proved successful, when all the others have been made use of to no purpose. A man who is furnished with arguments from the mint, will convince his antagonist much sooner than one who draws them from reason and philosophy. Gold is a wonderful clearer of the understanding; it dissipates every doubt and scruple in an instant; accommodates itself to the meanest capacities; silences the loud and clamourous, and brings over the most obstinate and inflexible. Philip of Macedon was a man of most invincible reason this way. He refuted by it all the wisdom of Athens, confounded their statesmen, struck their orators dumb, and at length argued them out of all their liberties.

Having here touched upon the several methods of disputing, as they have prevailed in different ages of the world, I shall very sudden.y give my reader an account of the whole art of cavilling; which shall

Part 2, c. 1. v. 297.

T The author quoted is And. Ammonius. See his life in Bayle's Dict. The Spectator's memory deceived him in applying the remark, which was made in the reign of Henry VIII. It was, however, much more applicable to that of Queen Mary.

** A sorites is a heap of propos tions thrown together.

be a full and satisfactory answer to all such | have by this admirable person been shown papers and pamphlets as have yet ap- to, and raised in, sir, your most humble peared against the Spectator.

C.

servant.'

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'MR. SPECTATOR,-I am a country gentleman of a good plentiful estate, and live as

No. 240.] Wednesday, December 5, 1711. | the rest of my neighbours with great hos

--Aliter non fit, Avite, liber.

pitality. I have been ever reckoned among the ladies the best company in the world, and have access as a sort of favourite. I never came in public but I saluted them, though in great assemblies, all around; where it was seen how genteelly I avoided hampering my spurs in their petticoats, whilst I moved amongst them; and on the other side how prettily they curtsied and received me standing in proper rows, and advancing as fast as they saw their elders, or their betters, despatched by me. But so it is, Mr. Spectator, that all our good breeding is of late lost, by the unhappy arrival of a courtier, or town gentleman, who came lately among us. This person whenever he came into a room made a profound bow, and fell back, then recovered with a soft air, and made a bow to the next, and so to one or two more, and then took the gross of the room, by passing them in a continual bow until he arrived at the person he thought proper particularly to entertain. This he did with so good a grace and assurance, that it is taken for the present fashion; and there is no young gentlewoman within several miles of this place has been kissed ever since his first appearance among us. We country gentlemen cannot begin again and learn these fine and reserved airs; and our conversation is at a stand, until we have your judgment for or against kissing by way of civility or salutation; which is impatiently expected by your friends of both sexes, but by none so much as your humble servant, 'RUSTIC SPRIGHTLY.'

Mart. Ep. 17. Lib. 1. Of such materials, sir, are books composed. 'MR. SPECTATOR,-I am one of the most genteel trades in the city, and understand thus much of liberal education, as to have an ardent ambition of being useful to mankind, and to think that the chief end of being, as to this life. I had these good impressions given me from the handsome behaviour of a learned, generous, and wealthy man towards me, when I first began the world. Some dissatisfaction between me and my parents made me enter into it with less relish of business than I ought; and to turn off this uneasiness, I gave myself to criminal pleasures, some excesses, and a general loose conduct. I know not what the excellent man abovementioned saw in me, but he descended from the superiority of his wisdom and merit, to throw himself frequently into my company. This made me soon hope that I had something in me worth cultivating, and his conversation made me sensible of satisfactions in a regular way, which I had never before imagined. When he was grown familiar with me, he opened himself like a good angel, and told me he had long laboured to ripen me into a preparation to receive his friendship and advice, both which I should daily command, and the use of any part of his fortune, to apply the measures he should propose to me, for the improvement of my own. I assure you I cannot recollect the goodness and confusion of the good old man when he spoke to this purpose to me without melting into tears; but in a word, sir, I must hasten to tell you, that my heart burns with grati-at tude towards him, and he is so happy a man that it can never be in my power to return him his favours in kind, but I am sure I have made him the most agreeable satisfaction I could possibly, in being ready to serve others to my utmost ability, as far as is consistent with the prudence he prescribes to me. Dear Mr. Spectator, I do not owe to him only the good-will and esteem of my own relations, (who are people of distinction,) the present ease and plenty of my circumstances, but also the government of my passions, and regulation of my desires. I doubt not, sir, but in your imagination such virtues as these of my worthy friend, bear as great a figure as actions which are more glittering in the common estimation. What I would ask of you, is to give us a whole Spectator upon heroic virtue in common life, which may incite men to the same generous inclinations, as

'December 3, 1711. 'MR. SPECTATOR,-I was the other night Philaster, where I expected to hear your famous trunk-maker, but was unhappily disappointed of his company, and saw another person who had the like ambition to distinguish himself in a noisy manner, partly by vociferation or talking loud, and partly by his bodily agility. This was a very lusty fellow, but withal a sort of beau, who getting into one of the side-boxes on the stage before the curtain drew, was disposed to show the whole audience his activity by leaping over the spikes: he passed from thence to one of the entering doors, where he took snuff with a tolerable good grace, displayed his fine clothes, made two or three feint passes at the curtain with his cane, then faced about and appeared at the other door. Here he affected to survey the whole house, bowed and smiled at random, and then showed his teeth, which were some of them indeed very white. After this he retired behind the curtain, and obliged

us with several views of his person from | am always in good-humour when an east every opening.

During the time of acting, he appeared frequently in the prince's apartment, made one at the hunting-match, and was very forward in the rebellion.* If there were no injunctions to the contrary, yet this practice must be confessed to diminish the pleasure of the audience, and for that reason presumptuous and unwarrantable; but since her majesty's late command has made it criminal,† you have authority to take tice of it. Sir, your humble servant, T. 'CHARLES EASY.'

No. 241.] Thursday, December 6, 1711.

-Semperque relinqui

wind blows, because it seldom fails of bring-
ing me a letter from him. Let me entreat
you, sir, to give me your advice upon this
occasion, and to let me know how I may
relieve myself in this my widowhood. I
am, sir, your most humble servant,
• ASTERIA.'

Absence is what the poets call death in love, and has given occasion to abundance no-have treated of this passion in verse. Ovid's of beautiful complaints in those authors who

Sola sibi, semper longam incomitata videtur
Ire viam
Virg. Æn. iv. 466.
All sad she seems, forsaken, and alone;
And left to wander wide through paths unknown.-P.

Epistles are full of them. Otway's Monimia talks very tenderly upon this subject:

It was not kind

To leave me like a turtle, here alone,
To droop and mourn the absence of my mate.
When thou art from me, every place is desert ·
And I, methinks, am savage and forlorn.
Thy presence only 'tis can make me blest,
Heal my unquiet mind, and tune my soul.
Orphan, Act ii

The consolations of lovers on these occasions are very extraordinary. Besides those mentioned by Asteria, there are many other motives of comfort which are made use of by absent lovers.

I remember in one of Scudery's Romances a couple of honourable lovers agreed at their parting to set aside one half hour in the day to think of each other during a tedious absence. The romance tells us, that they both of them punctually observed the time thus agreed upon; and that whatever company or business they were engaged in, they left it abruptly as soon as the clock warned them to retire. The romance further adds, that the lovers expected the return of this stated hour with as much impatience as if it had been a real assignation, and enjoyed an imaginary happiness, that was almost as pleasing to them as what they would have found from a real meeting. It was an inexpressible satisfaction to these divided lovers to be assured that each was at the same time employed in the same kind of contemplation, and making equal returns of tenderness and affection.

'MR. SPECTATOR,-Though you have considered virtuous love in most of its distresses, I do not remember that you have given us any dissertation upon the absence of lovers, or laid down any methods how they should support themselves under those long separations which they are sometimes forced to undergo. I am at present in this unhappy circumstance, having parted with the best of husbands, who is abroad in the service of his country, and may not possibly return for some years. His warm and generous affection while we were together, with the tenderness which he expressed to me at parting, make his absence almost insupportable. I think of him every moment of the "day, and meet him every night in my dreams. Every thing I see puts me in mind of him. I apply myself with more than ordinary diligence to the care of his family and his estate; but this instead of relieving me, gives me but so many occasions of wishing for his return. I frequent the rooms where I used to converse with him, and not meeting him there, sit down in his chair and fall a weeping. I love to read the books If I may be allowed to mention a more he delighted in, and to converse with the serious_expedient for the alleviating of abpersons whom he esteemed. I visit his pic-sence, I shall take notice of one which I ture a hundred times a day, and place myself over against it whole hours together. I pass a great part of my time in the walks where I used to lean upon his arm, and recollect in my mind the discourses which have there passed between us: I look over the several prospects and points of view which we used to survey together, fix my eye upon the objects which he has made me take notice of; and call to mind a thousand agreeable remarks which he has made on those occasions. I write to him by every conveyance, and contrary to other people,

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have known two persons practise, who joined religion to that elegance of sentiments with which the passion of love generally inspires its votaries. This was, at the return of such an hour, to offer up a certain prayer for each other, which they had agreed upon before their parting. The husband, who is a man that makes a figure in the polite world, as well as in his own family, has often told me, that he could not have supported an absence of three years without this expedient.

Strada, in one of his Prolusions,‡ gives an account of a chimerical correspondence between two friends by the help of a certain loadstone, which had such virtue in it, that

Lib. ii. prol. 6.

it it touched two several needles, when one | yours concerning the misbehaviour of peo of the needles so touched began to move, the ple, who are necessarily in each other's other, though at never so great a distance, company in travelling, ought to have been moved at the same time, and in the same a lasting admonition against transgressions manner. He tells us, that the two friends of that kind. But I had the fate of your being each of them possessed of one of these quaker, in meeting with a rude fellow in a needles, made a kind of dial-plate, inscrib-stage-coach, who entertained two or three ing it with the four-and-twenty letters, in women of us (for there was no man besides the same manner as the hours of the day himself) with language as indecent as ever are marked upon the ordinary dial-plate. was heard upon the water. The impertiThey then fixed one of the needles on each nent observations which the coxcomb made of these plates in such a manner that it upon our shame and confusion were such, could move round without impediment, so that it is an unspeakable grief to reflect as to touch any of the four-and-twenty let- upon them. As much as you have declaim ters. Upon their separating from one an- ed against duelling, I hope you will do us other into distant countries, they agreed to the justice to declare, that if the brute has withdraw themselves punctually into their courage enough to send to the place where closets at a certain hour of the day, and to he saw us all alight together to get rid of converse with one another by means of this him, there is not one of us but has a lover their invention. Accordingly when they who shall avenge the insult. It would cerwere some hundred miles asunder, each of tainly be worth your consideration, to look them shut himself up in his closet at the into the frequent misfortunes of this kind, time appointed, and immediately cast his to which the modest and innocent are exeye upon his dial-plate. If he had a mind posed, by the licentious behaviour of such to write any thing to his friend, he directed as are as much strangers to good-breeding his needle to every letter that formed the as to virtue. Could we avoid hearing what words which he had occasion for, making a we do not approve, as easily as we can seelittle pause at the end of every word or ing what is disagreeable, there were some sentence, to avoid confusion. The friend in consolation; but since in a box at a play, the meanwhile saw his own sympathetic in an assembly of ladies, or even in a pew needle moving of itself to every letter which at church, it is in the power of a gross coxthat of his correspondent pointed at. By this comb to utter what a woman cannot avoid means they talked together across a whole hearing, how miserable is her condition continent, and conveyed their thoughts to who comes within the power of such imone another in an instant over cities or pertinents? and how necessary is it to remountains, seas or deserts. peat invectives against such a behaviour? If the licentious had not utterly forgot what it is to be modest, they would know that offended modesty labours under one of the greatest sufferings to which human life can be exposed. If these brutes could reflect thus much, though they want shame, they would be moved by their pity, to abhor an impudent behaviour in the presence of the chaste and innocent. If you will oblige us with a Spectator on this subject, and pro cure it to be pasted against every stagecoach in Great Britain as the law of the journey, you will highly oblige the whole sex, for which you have professed so great an esteem; and in particular the two ladies my late fellow-sufferers, and, sir, your most humble servant,

If Monsieur Scudery, or any other writer on romance, had introduced a necromancer, who is generally in the train of a knighterrant, making a present to two lovers of a couple of these above-mentioned needles, the reader would not have been a little pleased to have seen them corresponding with one another when they were guarded by spies and watches, or separated by castles and adventures.

In the meanwhile, if ever this invention should be revived or put in practice, I would propose that upon the lover's dial-plate there should be written not only the fourand-twenty letters, but several entire words which have always a place in passionate epistles; as flames, darts, die, languish, absence, Cupid, heart, eyes, hang, drown, and the like. This would very much abridge the lover's pains in this way of writing a letter, as it would enable him to express the most useful and significant words with a single touch of the needle.

No. 242.] Friday, December 7, 1711.

C.

Creditur, ex medio quia res arcessit, habere
Sudoris minimum-
Hor. Lib. 2, Ep. i. 168.
To write on vulgar themes, is thought an easy task.

'MR. SPECTATOR,-Your speculations do not so generally prevail over men's manners as I could wish. A former paper of

REBECCA RIDINGHOOD.'

'MR. SPECTATOR,-The matter which I am now going to send you, is an unhappy story in low life, and will recommend itself, so that you must excuse the manner of expressing it. A poor idle drunken weaver in Spitalfields has a faithful laborious wife, who by her frugality and industry had laid by her as much money as purchased her a ticket in the present lottery. She had hid this very privately in the bottom of a trunk and had given her number to a friend and confidant, who had promised to keep the secret, and bring her news of the success. The poor adventurer was one day gone

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abroad, when her careless husband, sus- that distemper, when my niece Kitty begpecting she had saved some money, searches ged leave to assure me, that whatever I every corner, till at length he finds this might think, several great philosophers, same ticket; which he immediately carries both ancient and modern, were of opinion, abroad, sells, and squanders away the mo- that both pleasure and pain were imaginary ney without the wife's suspecting any thing distinctions, and that there was no such of the matter. A day or two after this, this thing as either in rerum natura. I have friend, who was a woman, comes and brings often heard them affirm that the fire was the wife word, that she had a benefit of not hot; and one day when I, with the aufive hundred pounds. The poor creature thority of an old fellow, desired one of them overjoyed, flies up stairs to her husband, to put my blue cloak on my knees, she anwho was then at work, and desires him to swered, "Sir, I will reach the cloak; but leave his loom for that evening, and come take notice, I do not do it as allowing your and drink with a friend of his and her's be- description; for it might as well be called low. The man received this cheerful in- yellow as blue; for colour is nothing but the vitation as bad husbands sometimes do, and various infractions of the rays of the sun. after a cross word or two, told her he would | Miss Molly told me one day, that to say not come. His wife with tenderness renew-snow was white, is allowing a vulgar error; ed her importunity, and at length said to for as it contains a great quantity of nitrous him, "My love! I have within these few particles, it might be more reasonably supmonths, unknown to you, scraped together posed to be black. In short, the young as much money as has bought us a ticket husseys would persuade me, that to believe in the lottery, and now here is Mrs. Quick one's eyes is a sure way to be deceived; and come to tell me, that it is come up this have often advised me, by no means to trust morning a five hundred pound prize." The any thing so fallible as my senses. What husband replies immediately, "You lie, I have to beg of you now is, to turn one you slut, you have no ticket, for I have sold speculation to the due regulation of female it." The poor woman upon this faints away literature, so far at least as to make it conin a fit, recovers, and is now run distracted. sistent with the quiet of such whose fate it As she had no design to defraud her hus- is to be liable to its insults; and to tell us band, but was willing only to participate in the difference between a gentleman that his good fortune, every one pities her, but should make cheese-cakes and raise paste, thinks her husband's punishment but just. and a lady that reads Locke, and underThis, sir, is a matter of fact, and would, stands the mathematics. In which you will if the persons and circumstances were extremely oblige your hearty friend and greater, in a well-wrought play be called humble servant, Beautiful Distress. I have only sketched it out with chalk, and know a good hand can make a moving picture with worse materials. Sir, &c.

'MR. SPECTATOR,-I am what the world calls a warm fellow, and by good success in trade I have raised myself to a capacity of making some figure in the world; but no matter for that. I have now under my guardianship a couple of nieces, who will certainly make me run mad; which you will not wonder at, when I tell you they are female virtuosos, and during the three years and a half that I have had them under my care, they never in the least inclined their thoughts towards any one single part of the character of a notable woman. Whilst they should have been considering the proper ingredients for a sack-posset, you should hear a dispute concerning the magnetic virtue of the loadstone, or perhaps the pressure of the atmosphere. Their language is peculiar to themselves, and they scorn to express themselves, on the meanest trifles, with words that are not of a Latin derivation. But this were supportable still, would they suffer me to enjoy an uninterrupted ignorance; but unless I fall in with their abstracted ideas of things, (as they call them) I must not expect to smoke one pipe in quiet. In a late fit of the gout I complained of the pain of

T.

"ABRAHAM THRIFTY.'

No. 243.] Saturday, December 8, 1711.

Formam quidem ipsam, Marce fili, et tanquam faciem honesti vides; quæ si oculis cerneretur, mirabiles amores (ut ait Plato) excitaret sapientiæ. Tull. Offic.

You see, my son Marcus, virtue as it were embodied, which, if it could be made the object of sight, would (as Plato says) excite in us a wonderful love of wisdom.

I Do not remember to have read any discourse written expressly upon the beauty and loveliness of virtue, without consider ing it as a duty, and as the means of making us happy both now and hereafter. I design therefore this speculation as an essay upon that subject in which I shall consider virtue no farther than as it is in itself of an amiable nature, after having premised, that I understand by the word virtue such a general notion as is affixed to it by the writers of morality, and which by devout men generally goes under the name of religion, and by men of the world under the name of honour.

Hypocrisy itself does great honour, or rather justice, to religion, and tacitly acknowledges it to be an ornament to human nature. The hypocrite would not be at so much pains to put on the appearance of virtue, if he did not know it was the most proper and effectual means to gain the love and esteem of mankind.

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