be pleased with the most awkward efforts of rustic mirtn; thought cross-purposes the highest stretch of human wit, and questions and commands the most rational amusement for spending the even ing. Happy could so charming an illusion still continue! I find that age and knowledge only contribute to sour our dispositions. My present enjoyments may be more refined, but they are infinitely less pleasing. The pleasure Garrick gives can no way compare to that I have received from a country wag, who imi tated a Quaker's sermon. The music of Mattei* is dissonance to what I felt when our old dairy-maid sung me into tears with Johnny Armstrong's Last Good Night, or the Cruelty of Barbara Allen.‡ Writers of every age have endeavored to show that pleasure is in us, and not in the objects offered for our amusement. If the soul be happily disposed, every thing becomes a subject of enter * "[Columba Mattei was both a charming singer and a spirited and intelligent actress, and a great favorite as a prima donna. She retired from the stage in 1762."-Burney.] t["To-night is my departing night, For here nae longer must I stay; "What I have done thro' lack of wit, I hope y're a' my friends as yet, Good night and joy be with you all!"] ["In Scarlet towne, where I was borne, "All in the merry month of Maye, When green buds they were swellin, Young Jemmye Grove on his death-bed lay, The same train of thought as in the text occurs in Goldsmith's letter to his friend Hudson, Dec. 27, 1757:-"If I go to the opera where Signora Columba pours out all the mazes of melody, I sit and sigh for Lissoy's fireside, and Johnny Armstrong's Last Good Night from Peggy Golden.”—See Life, ch. vii.] tainment, and distress will almost want a name. Every occurrence passes in review like the figures of a procession; some may be awkward, others ill-dressed; but none but a fool is for this en raged with a master of the ceremonies. I remember to have once seen a slave in a fortification in Flanders, who appeared no way touched with his situation. He was maimed, deformed, and chained; obliged to toil from the appearance of day till night-fall, and condemned to this for life; yet, with all these circumstances of apparent wretchedness, he sung, would have danced but that he wanted a leg, and appeared the merriest, happiest man of all the garrison. What a practical philosopher was here! A happy constitution supplied philosophy, and though seemingly destitute of wisdom, he was really wise. No reading or study had contributed to disenchant the fairy land around him. Every thing furnished him with an opportunity of mirth; and though some thought him from his insensibility a fool, he was such an idiot as philosophers might wish in vain to imitate.* \They who, like him, can place themselves on that side of the world in which every thing appears in a ridiculous or pleasing light, will find something in every occurrence to excite their goodhumor. The most calamitous events, either to themselves or others, can bring no new affliction; the whole world is to them a theatre, on which comedies alone are acted. All the bustle of heroism, or the rants of ambition, serve only to heighten the absurdity of the scene, and make the humor more poignant. They feel, in short, as little anguish at their own distress, or the complaints of others, as the undertaker, though dressed in black, feels sorrow at a funeral. Of all the men I ever read of, the famous Cardinal De Retz * [In the " Essays" published in 1765, is here added-" For all philosophy is only forcing the trade of happiness, when Nature seems to deny the means."] possessed this happiness of temper in the highest degree. As he was a man of gallantry, and despised all that wore the pedantic appearance of philosophy, wherever pleasure was to be sold, he was generally foremost to raise the auction. Being an universal admirer of the fair sex, when he found one lady cruel, he generally fell in love with another, from whom he expected a more favorable reception; if she too rejected his addresses, he never thought of retiring into deserts, or pining in hopeless distress. He persuaded himself, that instead of loving the lady, he only fancied he had loved her, and so all was well again. When fortune wore her angriest look, when he at last fell into the power of his most deadly enemy, Cardinal Mazarine, and was confined a close prisoner in the castle of Valenciennes," he never attempted to support his distress by wisdom or philosophy, for he pretended to neither. He laughed at himself and his persecutor, and seemed infinitely pleased at his new situation. In this mansion of distress, though secluded from his friends, though denied all the amusements and even the conveniences of life, teazed every hour by the impertinence of wretches who were employed to guard him, he still retained his good-humor, laughed at all their little spite, and carried the jest so far as to be revenged, by writing the life of his jailer. All that the wisdom of the proud can teach, is to be stubborn or sullen under misfortunes. The Cardinal's example will instruct us to be merry in circumstances of the highest affliction. It matters not whether our good-humor be construed by others into insensibility, or even idiotism; it is happiness to ourselves, * [The castle in which De Retz was confined was that of Vincennes; from this he was removed to Nantes, and thence he at length contrived to escape into Spain. See his Memoirs.] No. III-SATURDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1759. ON THE USE OF LANGUAGE. The manner in which most writers begin their treatises on the Use of Language is generally thus: "Language has been granted to man, in order to discover his wants and necessities, so as to have them relieved by society. Whatever we desire, whatever we wish, it is but to clothe those desires or wishes in words, in order to fruition; the principal use of language, therefore, say they, is to express our wants, so as to receive a speedy redress." Such an account as this may serve to satisfy grammarians and rhetoricians well enough, but men who know the world maintain very contrary maxims; they hold, and I think with some show of reason, that he who best knows how to conceal his necessities and desires, is the most likely person to find redress, and that the true use of speech is not so much to express our wants as to conceal them. When we reflect on the manner in which mankind generally confer their favors, we shall find that they who seem to want them the least, are the very persons who most liberally share them. There is something so attractive in riches, that the large heap generally collects from the smaller; and the poor find as much pleasure in increasing the enormous mass, as the miser who owns it, sees happiness in its increase. Nor is there in this any thing repugnant to the laws of true morality. Seneca himself allows, that in conferring benefits, the present should always be suited to the dignity of the receiver. Thus the rich receive large presents, and are thanked for accepting them. Men of middling stations are obliged to be content with presents something less; while the beggar, who may be truly said to want indeed, is well paid if a farthing rewards his warmest solicitations. Every man who has seen the world, and has had his ups and downs in life, as the expression is, must have frequently experienced the truth of this doctrine, and must know that to have much, or to seem to have it, is the only way to have more. Ovid finely compares a man of broken fortune to a falling column; the lower it sinks, the greater weight it is obliged to sustain. Thus, when a man has no occasion to borrow, he finds numbers willing to lend him. Should he ask his friend to lend him a hundred pounds, it is possible, from the largeness of his demand, he may find credit for twenty; but should he humbly only sue for a trifle, it is two to one whether he might be trusted for twopence. A certain young fellow at George's,* whenever he had occasion to ask his friend for a guinea, used to prelude his request as if he wanted two hundred, and talked so familiarly of large sums, that none could ever think he wanted a small one. The same gentleman, whenever he wanted credit for a new suit from his tailor, always made a proposal in laced clothes; for he found by experience, that if he appeared shabby on these occasions, Mr. Lynch had taken an oath against trusting; or what was every bit as bad, his foreman was out of the way, and would not be at home these two days. There can be no inducement to reveal our wants, except to find pity, and by this means relief; but before a poor man opens his mind in such circumstances, he should first consider whether he is contented to lose the esteem of the person he solicits, and whether he is willing to give up friendship only to excite compassion. Pity and friendship are passions incompatible with each other, and it is impossible that both can reside in any breast for * [A coffee house near Temple Bar, in the Strand.] |