HE unhappy force of an imagina

who lets his fancy place him in distant

reason and judgment, was the fubject of a former fpeculation. My reader may remember that he has feen in one of my papers a complaint of an unfortunate gentleman, who was unable to contain himfelf, when any ordinary matter was laid before him, from adding a few circumftances to enliven plain narrative. That correfpondent was a perfon of too warm a complexion to be fatisfied with things merely as they stood in nature, and therefore formed incidents which fhould have happened to have pleafed him in the story. The fame ungoverned fancy which pushed that correfpondent en, in fpite of himfelf, to relate public and notorious falfhoods, makes the author of the following letter do the same in private; one is a prating, the other a filent liar.

There is little pursued in the errors of either of thefe worthies, but mere preint amufement: but the folly of him

very much preferable to that of him who is ever forcing a belief, and defending his untruths with new inventions. But I fhall haften to let this liar in foliloquy, who calls himfelf a CastleBuilder, defcribe himself with the fame unrefervedness as formerly appeared in my correspondent above-mentioned. If a man were to be ferious on this fubject, he might give very grave admonitions to those who are following any thing in this life, on which they think to place their hearts, and tell them that they are really Caffle Builders. Fame, glory, wealth, honour, have in the profpect pleafing illufions; but they who come to poffefs any of them will find they are ingredients towards happiness, to be regarded only in the fecond place; and that when they are valued in the first degree, they are as difappointing as any of the phantoms in the following letter.

2 Sa

MR.

MR. SPECTATOR,

SEPT. 6, 1711. Am a fellow of a very odd frame of, mind, as you will find by the fequel; and think myself fool enough to deferve a place in your paper. I am unhappily far gone in building, and am one of that species of men who are properly denominated Caftle-builders, who fcorn to be beholden to the earth for a foundation, or dig in the bowels of it for materials; but erect their ftructures in the most unstable of elements, the air, fancy alone laying the line, marking the extent, and fhaping the model. It would be difficult to enumerate what august palaces and ftately porticos have grown under my forming imagination, er what verdant meadows and fhady groves have started into being by the powerful feat of a warm fancy. A Caftle-builder is even just what he pleafes, and as fuch I have grafped imaginary fceptres, and delivered uncontroulable edicts, from a throne to which conquered nations yielded obeifance. I have made I know not how many inroads into France, and ravaged the very heart of that kingdom; I have dined in the Louvre, and drank champagne at Versailles; and I would have you take notice, I am not only able to vanquifh a people already cowed and accustomed to flight, but I could, Almonzor-like, drive the British general from the field, were I lefs a proteftant, or had ever been affronted by the confederates. There is no art or profefsion, whose most celebrated masters I have not eclipfed. Wherever I have afforded my falutary presence, fevers have ceased to burn, and agues to fhake the human fabric. When an eloquent fit has been upon me, an apt gefture and proper cadence has animated each fentence, and gazing crowds have found their paffions worked up into rage, or foothed into a calm. I am short, and not very well made; yet upon fight of a fine woman, I have ftretched into a proper ftature, and killed with a good

air and mien. Thefe are the gay phantoms that dance before my waking eyes, and compofe my day-dreams. I fhould be the moft contented, happy man alive, were the chimerical happinets which fprings from the paintings of fancy lefs fleeting and tranfitory. But alas! it is with grief of mind I tell you, the leaft breath of wind has often demolished my.magnificent edifices, swept away my groves, and left no more trace of them than if they had never been. My exchequer has funk, and vanished by a rap on my door, the falutation of a friend has coft me a whole continent, and in the fame moment I have been pulled by the fleeve, my crown has fallen from my head. The ill confequence of thefe reveries is inconceivably great, feeing the lofs of imaginary poffeffions makes impreffions of real woe. Befides, bad oeconomy is vifible and apparent in builders of invifible mansions. My tenants advertisements of ruins and dilapidations often caft a damp on my fpirits, even in the instant when the fun, in all it's fplendor, gilds my eastern palaces. Add to this the penfive drudgery in building, and conftant grasping aerial trowels, diftracts and shatters the mind, and the fond builder of Babels is often curfed with an incoherent diverfity and confusion of thoughts. I do not know-to whom I can more properly apply myself for relief from this fantastical evil, than to yourself; whom I earnestly implore to accommodate me with a method how to settle my head and cool my brain-pan. A differtation on Caftle-building may not only be ferviceable to myfelf, but all architects, who difplay their skill in the thin ele ment. Such a favour would oblige me to make my next foliloquy not contain the praises of my dear felf, but of the Spectator, who fhall, by complying with this, make me his obliged, humble fervant,

T

VITRUVIUS

N° CLXVIII

IT

HOR. EP. I. L. 2. v. 128

'T would be arrogance to neglect the application of my correfpondents fo far, as not fometimes to infert their animadverfions upon my paper; that of this day fhall be therefore wholly compofed of the hints which they have fent

me.

I

MR. SPECTATOR,

Send you this to congratulate your late choice of a fubject, for treating on which you deserve public thanks; I mean that on thofe licensed tyrants the fchool-masters. If you can difarm them of their rods, you will certainly have your old age reverenced by all the young gentlemen of Great Britain who are now between seven and feventeen years. You may boaft that the incomparably wife Quintilian and you are of one mind in this particular. Si cui eft, fays he, mens tam illiberalis ut objurgatione non corrigatur, is etiam ad plagas, ut peffima quæque mancipia durabitur. i. e. If any child be of fo difingenuous ⚫ a nature, as not to ftand corrected by reproof, he, like the very worst of flaves, will be hardened even against blows themselves.' And afterwards, Pudet dicere in qua probra nefandi bomines ifto cædendi jure abutantur.' i. e. I blush to say how fhamefully ⚫ those wicked men abuse the power ' correction.'

of

I was bred myself, Sir, in a very great fchool, of which the mafter was a Welshman, but certainly defcended from a Spanish family, as plainly appeared from his temper as well as his name. I leave you to judge what a fort of a schoolmafter a Welshman ingrafted on a Spaniard would make. So very dreadful had he made himself to me, that although it is above twenty years fince I felt his heavy hand, yet ftill once a month at leaft I dream of him, fo ftrong an impreffion did he make on my mind. It is a fign he has fully terrified me waking, whoftill continues to haunt me Aleeping.

POPE.

And yet I may fay without vanity, that the business of the school was what I did without great difficulty; and I was not remarkably unlucky; and yet fuch was the master's feverity, that once a month, or oftener, I fuffered as much as would have fatisfied the law of the land for a petty larceny.

Many a white and tender hand, which the fond mother had paffionately kiffed a thousand and a thousand times, have I feen whipped until it was covered with blood: perhaps for fmiling, or for going a yard and half out of a gate, or for writing an O for an A, or an A for an O; these were our great faults! Many a brave and noble spirit has been there broken; others have run from thence, and were never heard of afterwards. It is a worthy attempt to undertake the caufe of diftreffed youth; and it is a noble piece of knight-errantry to enter the lifts against fo many armed peda gogues. It is pity but we had a set of men, polite in their behaviour and method of teaching, who fhould be put into a condition of being above flattering or fearing the parents of thofe they inftruct. We might then poffibly fee learning become a pleasure, and children, delighting themselves in that which now they abhor for coming upon fuch hard terms to them: what would be ftill a greater happiness arifing from the care of fuch inftructors, would be, that we fhould have no more pedants, nor any bred to learning who had not genius for it. I am, with the utmoft fincerity, Sir, your most affectionate humble fer

Half the mifery of human life might be extinguished, would men alleviate the general curfe they lie under, by mutual offices of compaffion, benevolence, and humanity. There is nothing therefore which we ought more to encourage in ourfelves and others, than that difpofition of mind which in our language goes under the title of Good-nature, and which I fhall chufe for the fubject of this day's fpeculation.

Good-nature is more agreeable in converfation than wit, and gives a certain air to the countenance which is more amiable than beauty. It fhews virtue in the fairest light, takes off in fome measure from the deformity of vice, and makes even folly and impertinence fupportable.

There is no fociety or converfation to be kept up in the world without goodnature, or fomething which must bear it's appearance, and fupply it's place. For this reafon mankind have been forced to invent a kind of artificial humanity, which is what we exprefs by the word Good-breeding. For if we examine thoroughly the idea of what we call fo, we fhall find it to be nothing elfe but an imitation and mimicry of

good-nature, or in other terms, affability, complaifance, and eafinefs of temper, reduced into an art.

Thefe exterior fhows and appearances of humanity render a man wonderfully popular and beloved when they are founded upon a real good-nature; but without it are like hypocrify in religion, or a bare form of holiness, which, when it is difcovered, makes a man more deteftable than profeffed impiety.

Good-nature is generally born with us; health, profperity, and kind treatment from the world, are great cherishers of it where they find it; but nothing is capable of forcing it up, where it does not grow of itfelf. It is one of the bleflings of a happy conftitution, which education may improve but not produce.

Xenophon, in the life of his imaginary prince, whom he defcribes as a pattern for real ones, is always celebrating the philanthropy or good-nature of his hero, which he tells us he brought into the world with him, and gives many remarkable inftances of it in his childhood, as well as in all the feveral parts of his life. Nay, on his death-bed, he defcribes him as being pleased, that while his foul returned to him who had made it, his body 'fhould incorporate with the great mother of all things, and by that means become beneficial to mankind. For which reafon, he gives his fons a pofitive order not to enshrine it in gold or filver, but to lay it in the earth as foon as the life was gone out of it.

An inftance of fuch an overflowing of humanity, fuch an exuberant love to mankind, could not have entered into the imagination of a writer, who had not a foul filled with great ideas, and a general benevolence to mankind.