Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

a husband, if she steps, looks, or moves awry. This gives the young lady wonderful workings of imagina. tion, what is to pass between her and this husband, that she is every moment told of, and for whom she seems to be educated. Thus her fancy is engaged to turn all her endeavours to the ornament of her person, as what must determine her good and ill in this life; and she naturally thinks, if she is tall enough, she is wise enough for any thing for which her education makes her think she is designed. To make her an agreeable person is the main purpose of her parents; to that are all their costs, to that all their care directed; and from this general folly of parents we owe our present numerous race of coquettes. Sure there is a middle way to be followed; the management of a young lady's person is not to be overlooked, but the erudition of her mind is much more to be regarded. According as this is managed, you will see the mind follow the appetites of the body, or the body express the virtues of the mind.

Cleomira dances with all the elegance of motion imaginable; but her eyes are so chastised with the simplicity and innocence of her thoughts, that she raises in her beholders admiration and good-will, but no loose hope or wild imagination. The true art in this case is, to make the mind and body improve together; and, if possible, to make gesture follow thought, and not let thought be employed upon gesture.

R.

THE ENVIOUS MAN.

Di bene fecerunt, inopis me quodque pusilli
Finxerunt animi, raro et perpauca loquentis.

HOR.
Thank Heaven that made me of an humble mind;
To action little, less to words inclin'd!

OBSERVING one person behold another, who was

an utter stranger to him, with a cast of his eye, which, methought, expressed an emotion of heart very different from what could be raised by an object so agreeable as the gentleman he looked at, I began to consider, not without some secret sorrow, the condition of an envious man. Some have fancied that envy has a certain magical force in it, and that the eyes of the envious have by their fascination blasted the enjoyments of the happy. Sir Francis Bacon says, Some have been so curious as to remark the times and seasons when the stroke of an envious eye is most effectually pernicious, and have observed that it has been when the person envied has been in any circumstance of glory and triumph. At such a time the mind of the prosperous man goes, as it were, abroad, among things without him, and is more exposed to the malignity. But I shall not dwell upon speculations so abstracted as this, or repeat the many excellent things which one might collect out of authors upon this miserable affection; but keeping in the road of common life, consider the envious man with relation to these three heads: his pains, his reliefs, and his happiness.

The envious man is in pain upon all occasions which ought to give him pleasure. The relish of his life is inverted; and the objects which administer the highest satisfaction to those who are exempt from this passion, give the quickest pangs to persons who are subject to it. All the perfections of their fellow-crea tures are odious: youth, beauty, valour, and wisdom

[ocr errors]

are provocations of their displeasure. What a wretched and apostate state is this! To be offended with excellence, and to hate a man because we approve him! The condition of the envious man is the most emphatically miserable; he is not only incapable of rejoicing in another's merit or success, but lives in a world wherein all mankind are in a plot against his quiet, by studying their own happiness and advantage. Will Prosper is an honest tale bearer, he makes it his business to join in conversation with envious men. He points to such an handsome young fellow, and whispers that he is secretly married to a great fortune: when they doubt, he adds circumstances to prove it; and never fails to aggravate their distress, by assuring them that to his knowledge he has an uncle will leave him some thousands. Will has many arts of this kind to torture this sort of temper, and delights in it. When he finds them change colour, and say faintly they wish such a piece of news is true, he has the malice to speak some good or other of every man of their acquaintance.

The reliefs of the envious man are those little blemishes and imperfections that discover themselves in an illustrious character. It is matter of great consolation to an envious person, when a man of known honour does a thing unworthy himself: or when any action which was well executed, upon better information appears so altered in its circumstances, that the fame of it is divided among many, instead of being attributed to one. This is a secret satisfaction to these malignants; for the person whom they before could not but admire, they fancy is nearer their own condition as soon as his merit is shared among others. I remember some years ago there came out an excellent poem without the name of the author. The little wits, who were incapable of writing it, began to pull in pieces the supposed writer. When that would not do, they took great pains to suppress the opinion that it

was his. That again failed. The next refuge was to say it was overlooked by one man, and many pages wholly written by another. An honest fellow who sate among a cluster of them in debate on this subject, cried out, "Gentlemen, if you are sure none of you yourselves had a hand in it, you are but where you were, whoever writ it." But the most usual succour to the envious, in cases of nameless merit in this kind, is to keep the property, if possible, unfixed, aud by that means to hinder the reputation of it from falling upon any particular person. You see an envious man clear up his countenance, if in the relation of any man's great happiness in one point, you mention his uneasiness in another. When he hears such a one is very rich he turns pale, but recovers when you add that he has many children. In a word, the only sure way to an envious man's favour, is not to deserve it.

But if we consider the envious man in delight, it is like reading the seat of a giant iu a romance; the magnificence of his house consists in the many limbs of men whom he has slain. If any who promised themselves success in any uncommon undertaking miscarry in the attempt, or he that aimed at what would have been useful and laudable, meets with contempt and derision, the envious man, under the colour of hating vainglory, can smile with an inward wantonness of heart at the ill effect it may have upon an honest ambition for the future.

R.

THE

TRUE ART OF BEING AGREEABLE.

"

Cum tristibus severe, cum remissis jucunde, cum senibus graviter, cum juventute comiter vivere.

TULL.

THE piece of Latin on the head of this paper is

part of a character extreinely vicious, but I have set down no more than may fall in with the rules of justice and honour. Cicero spoke it of Catiline, who," he said, "lived with the sad severely, with the cheerful agreeably, with the old gravely, with the young pleasantly;" he added, "with the wicked boldly, with the wanton lasciviously." The two last instances of his complaisance I forbear to consider, having it in my thoughts at present only to speak of obsequious behaviour as it sits upon a companion in pleasure, not a man of design and intrigue. To vary with every humour in this manner, cannot be agree. able, except it comes from a man's own temper and natural complexion; to do it out of an ambition to excel that way, is the most fruitless and unbecoming prostitution imaginable. To put on an artful part, to obtain no other end but an unjust praise from the undiscerning, is of all endeavours the most despicable. A man must be sincerely pleased to become pleasure, or not to interrupt that of others: for this reason, it is a most calamitous circumstance, that many people who want to be alone, or should be so, will come into conversation. It is certain, that all men who are the least given to reflection, are seized with an inclination that way; when, perhaps, they had rather be inclined to company: but indeed they had better go home, and be tired with themselves, than force themselves upon others to recover their good humour. In all this the cases of communicating to a friend a sad thought or

« AnteriorContinuar »