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good almshouses, and charitable foundations erected for right worshippers; and a good zeal shown for the right belief, may sufficiently atone for one wrong practice; especially when it is such as raises a man to a considerable power (as they say) of doing good, and serving the true cause.

Many a good estate, many a high station has been gained upon such a bottom as this. Some crowns too may have been purchased on these terms: and some great emperors (if I mistake not) there have been of old, who were much assisted by these or the like principles; and in return were not ungrateful to the cause and party which had assisted them. The forgers of such morals have been amply endowed and the world has paid roundly for its philosophy; since the original plain principles of humanity, and the simple honest precepts of peace and mutual love, have, by a sort of spiritual chymists, been so sublimated, as to become the highest corrosives; and passing through their limbecs, have yielded the strongest spirit of mutual hatred and malignant persecution:-'Sensus Communis,' or an Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour.

4. Egotism in Writing.

It is observable, that the writers of Memoirs and Essays are chiefly subject to this frothy distemper. Nor can it be doubted that this is the true reason why these gentlemen entertain the world so lavishly with what relates to themselves. For having had no opportunity of privately conversing with themselves, or exercising their own genius, so as to make acquaintance with it, or prove its strength; they immediately fall to work in a wrong place, and exhibit on the stage of the world that practice which they should have kept to themselves; if they designed that either they, or the world, should be the

better for their moralities. an empiric talk of his own constitution, how he governs and manages it, what diet agrees best with it, and what his practice is with himself? The proverb, no doubt, is very just, 'Physician cure thyself.' Yet methinks one should have but an ill time, to be present at these bodily operations. Nor is the reader in truth any better entertained, when he is obliged to assist at the experimental discussions of his practising author, who all the while is in reality doing no better, than taking his physic in public.

Who indeed can endure to hear

For this reason, I hold it very indecent for any one to publish his meditations, occasional reflections, solitary thoughts, or other such exercises as come under the notion of this self-discoursing practice. And the modestest title I can conceive for such works, would be that of a certain author who called them his crudities. For so publicspirited they are, that they can never afford themselves the least time to think in private, for their own particular benefit and use. For this reason, though they are often retired, they are never by themselves. The world is ever of the party. They have their author-character in view, and are always considering how this or that thought would serve to complete some set of contemplations, or furnish out the common-place book, from whence these treasured riches are to flow in plenty on the necessitous world.

But if our candidates for authorship happen to be of the sanctified kind, it is not to be imagined how much farther still their charity is apt to extend. So exceeding great is their indulgence and tenderness for mankind, that they are unwilling the least sample of their devout exercise should be lost. Though there are already so many formularies and rituals appointed for this species of soliloquy; they can allow nothing to lie concealed, which passes in this

religious commerce and way of dialogue between them and their soul.

These may be termed a sort of pseudo-ascetics, who can have no real converse either with themselves, or with heaven; whilst they look thus asquint upon the world, and carry titles and editions along with them in their meditations. And although the books of this sort, by a common idiom, are called good books; the authors, for certain, are a sorry race for religious crudities are undoubtedly the worst of any. A saint-author of all men least values politeness. He scorns to confine that spirit in which he writes, to rules of criticism and profane learning. Nor is he inclined in any respect to play the critic on himself, or regulate his style or language by the standard of good company, and people of the better sort. He is above the consideration of that which in a narrow sense we call manners. Nor is he apt to examine any other faults than those which he calls sins; though a sinner against good breeding, and the laws of decency, will no more be esteemed a good author, than will a sinner against grammar, good argument, or good sense. And if moderation and temper are not of the party with a writer, let his cause be ever so good, I doubt whether he will be able to recommend it with great advantage to the world. .

A remarkable instance of the want of this sovereign remedy may be drawn from our common great talkers, who engross the greatest part of the conversations of the world, and are the forwardest to speak in public assemblies. Many of these have a sprightly genius, attended with a mighty heat and ebullition of fancy. But it is a certain observation in our science, that they who are great talkers in company, have never been any talkers by themselves, nor used to these private discussions of our home-regimen. For which

reason their froth abounds. Nor can they discharge any thing without some mixture of it. But when they carry their attempts beyond ordinary discourse, and would rise to the capacity of authors, the case grows worse with them. Their page can carry none of the advantages of their person. They can no way bring into paper those airs they give themselves in discourse. The turns of voice and action, with which they help out many a lame thought and incoherent sentence, must here be laid aside; and the speech taken to pieces, compared together, and examined from head to foot. So that unless the party has been used to play the critic thoroughly upon himself, he will hardly be found proof against the criticisms of others. His thoughts can never appear very correct, unless they have been used to sound correction by themselves, and been well formed and disciplined before they are brought into the field. It is the hardest thing in the world to be a good thinker, without being a strong self-examiner, and thorough-paced dialogist, in this solitary way.-Soliloquy, or Advice to an Author.

XXVI.

SIR RICHARD STEELE.

1671-1729.

RICHARD STEELE was born in 1671, of English parents, in Dublin, where his father was secretary to the Duke of Ormond. He lost his father when he was very young, and was sent by the Duke of Ormond to the Charterhouse, where he was the schoolfellow of Addison. He was admitted a Postmaster of Merton College, Oxford, in 1691, but left the University without taking a degree, and entered the army, enlisting as a private in the horseguards. For this he was disinherited by a rich relation, but his convivial and popular qualities attracted the good-will of his officers, and he obtained a commission and rose to the rank of captain ere he quitted the service in 1703. At the beginning of the reign of Queen Anne he obtained the appointment of Gazetteer. In 1713 Steele entered Parliament as member for Stockbridge, but two years later was expelled from the House for alleged seditious libels, contained in the Englishman and the Crisis, for which he was certainly only in part responsible. On the accession of George the First he obtained some minor offices, received a gratuity, and was knighted. In 1715 he again entered Parliament as member for Boroughbridge in Yorkshire.

Some years before his death he was struck with paralysis, and retired to his country-seat in Wales, where he died in 1729.

Steele commenced his career as an author with a Poem on the Funeral of Queen Mary. It was quickly followed by a treatise in prose, The Christian Hero-written in the first instance for his own use while in the army, and then published in order that

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