Part 7

On learning this, I approached Canterbury Cathedral to look for the name of the person who had built it, and I found inscribed over the door the name of a young clergyman whom I knew. He had taken orders without either money or interest, and did not seem likely to benefit Christianity, otherwise than by wearing a black coat. Having, therefore, time for meditation, he had been busy in making the only kind of provision for himself that lay in his power. When I saw his name I could easily interpret his vision: in the beginning of it he had been settled in a country living, which was the church and parsonage house that had first drawn my attention; from this, by some celebrated works on divinity, he had been raised to the bishopric of Worcester, and thence transferred to Canterbury with a remarkably rapid promotion. The robes and the wig were now evidently addressing the House of Lords. In this office the lawn sleeves performed many explanatory and convincing gestures; and the wig supporting itself in the air, at a suitable distance from the robes, duly executed all that significant nodding and trembling by which such a wig usually defends the church. The dress, indeed, had every perfection of oratory except meaning. While this eloquence proceeded, he who had attained all this preferment was probably wandering solitary and neglected.

I now found that I was in the territory allotted to these castles; and proceeding a little farther, I was surrounded by visionary sights, the several objects changing every instant as the dream went on. In the midst of these chimeras I observed a beautiful woman seated, and was surprised by her not taking the least notice of any thing round her; but on going behind her I saw a name inscribed on the back of her neck, and so discovered that she was herself a castle. The name was that of a young lady endued with a very homely person, who being unable to acquiesce in the face and shape imposed upon her, had secretly provided herself with another form more to her taste. What I now saw, therefore, was the figure which she had appointed to personate her in her imaginary actions. This elegant apparition was a dark beauty when I first observed her, but soon after became suddenly fair, the lady in the course of her dream having chosen a new complexion. She was at first in an evening dress; but in an instant a riding habit grew over her, and she was on horseback with a very graceful seat. Soon after she resumed the evening dress and was dancing.

At the same time I saw a lawyer's wig and gown, and by the eloquent gestures of the sleeves and the forcible nods of the wig, I perceived that it was pleading a cause. This was the apparel of a young lawyer, which, finding no employment in court, was frequently exercised in the imagination of the wearer.

While I was examining these visions a sudden wind sprung up and swept them away. Canterbury Cathedral glided along in a very majestic manner, and the wig and gown continued to argue as far as I could see them. Amongst the fictitious actions here, which I had time to observe, were many pairs of young men and women engaged in very agreeable conversation. These were the dreams of those hapless persons, who, unable to obtain a real accomplishment of their tenderness, have recourse to imagination, where no accident or prohibition can interrupt their interviews. But I must here warn those who practise such clandestine meetings, that since the road to the moon has been opened their private meditations are no longer safe. An action only thought of has formerly been judged secure from the most inquisitive; but now, when all have access to the moon, where the tenderest visions are thus exposed, it will be advisable to dream with great caution. I here saw two or three young ladies of my acquaintance engaged in confederacies of which the world has had no suspicion, and the apparitions bore an exact resemblance to the ladies themselves. It is true that in one of these chimerical scenes of tenderness two figures must concur, and, therefore, it cannot be known which of the two has transacted the vision; but a probable conjecture may often be formed by those who know them. I have thought it right to give this warning to the builders of castles, who have hitherto been secure against curiosity, and in all their forbidden meetings have enjoyed an exemption from the common danger of discovery. Their privilege of secrecy is now lost; and henceforth, when they wish to retire for the customary enjoyment, they will do well to remember that all they are to think of must be acted also before the eyes of profane and satirical observers.

The castles being blown away from me, I walked forward reflecting on the happy lot of those who build castles, and are thus enabled to determine what events shall happen to them. There are many persons so dull, that through life they have no incidents except those which really occur; and if an advantage, which they desire, does not actually take place, they are quite unable to obtain the enjoyment of it. These persons cannot conceive the life of a castle builder. He is the only man who can set fortune at defiance, being entirely the master of his own destiny. He does not, therefore, distribute prosperity to himself in that sparing and imperfect manner which fortune always observes: he is subject neither to delay nor disappointment in his undertakings; and instead of needing the labour and perseverance which are necessary to others for success, he can accomplish all that he wishes in walking about, in sitting still, or at full length. The best gifts of fortune are not comparable to his fictions; for in real life there is always something defective to impair the happiest lot, but he who lives in vision takes care to exclude every circumstance that could disturb his serenity. It is to be considered, too, that an actual event can happen only once, but in imagination the same fortunate casualty may be repeated as often as it is wished for. It has always been a complaint that the successes of life are followed by satiety; but an able builder of castles is never satisfied. Those who are subservient to real occurrences are perpetually stopped in their designs by an obstacle called impossibility, but this is no impediment to a true visionary: he can recover a fortune which has been squandered, recall a lost friend to life, and restore ruined health to vigour. It is true that those who devote themselves to the pursuit of these fancies are soon disqualified for the real affairs and successes of life, but so great is the happiness by a proficiency in dreaming that they can willingly relinquish all other advantages.

I was now attracted by the loudest valley that I had yet heard, and was told by one whom I met, that it contained the disputes of conversation, so that I no longer wondered at the great eagerness and confusion of voices. I soon arrived at the place, and walked into these controversies, which are divided into separate districts according to the subjects of them.

I first found myself in the political disputes to which every place of resort and conversation throughout England had contributed. Clamours on public affairs were assembled in this spot from the clubs of London, the coffee-rooms of all the towns in the kingdom, the dinner tables of country gentlemen, and innumerable other places where men talk for the welfare of their country; and since every Englishman is both a statesman and an orator, it may be imagined there is here a noble exhibition of eloquence. I heard with some amusement these voices talking with all the zeal of men engaged in a public duty; for most of those who are politicians in private believe that their country cannot prosper if they are silent. I listened to several of those who are statesmen out of history, and in their reasonings about present events always argue two hundred years back. I heard the dispute of two voices, which contrived to embroil Hampden in all the transactions of the present time. There were many other reasoners who combated on the events of former ages with as much zeal and anger as they could have done on the laws which concerned their own property. Indeed, few Englishmen are neutral readers of history: almost all enrol themselves as party men in all contests since Elizabeth, and with great fidelity adhere to their friends in every page. A true Englishman is persuaded that his own credit depends on the reputation of certain statesmen of past times, in whose designs he is so deeply engaged that he must share their praise or ignominy, and he is defending his own character when he decries their adversaries, who must be villains before he can be an honest man.

After listening to these historical disputes, I advanced a few steps, and found myself in modern times, where all the late vicissitudes were debated with much indignation. I heard animadversions on certain politicians, in voices which by an earnest sincerity of tone betrayed suffering for the want of office.

I amused myself here with observing the several arts of controversy which are practised by private disputants, and perhaps are in greatest perfection on political subjects, such as a louder voice than the adversary may be willing or able to arrive at; a sudden anger, which may make him silent from fear or decency; the not hearing any thing that he says, a resolution which must baffle the best reasoner; the beginning to talk while he is in the crisis of his argument. I found here an admirable expedient for making an argument unanswerable, which is to repeat it till the adversary is tired of answering it. Another artifice, much practised in this place, was, that when one disputant had urged something inconvenient, the other, with great confidence, would say something wholly foreign to the question, as if in answer, and then the surprise and silence of the first, while he considers how this can be applied to the subject, must be construed into a defeat.

There are other arts, perhaps, not less victorious than these, as a contemptuous silence, and disdaining to argue any longer; a smile of superiority, a look of having much more to say were it worth the trouble, a pretended yielding to the adversary, as if encouraging him to talk, and expose his ignorance.

Being tired of politics, I wandered through the valley, and heard innumerable subjects debated. I here found a proof that nature leaves no creature altogether without defence; for when she does not empower a man to argue, she enables him to be angry.

I had occasion to consider the extravagance of those philosophers, who from time to time have embraced a singular project of bringing all the world to one opinion, for I observed here how naturally our friend, by maintaining one side of a question, provokes us to undertake the other. And yet this wild design of making men unanimous is still entertained by certain persons, who believe that they are appointed to think for all the world, and that mankind have nothing to do but think after them. It is true, they allow, that men are now stubborn; but the age of thinking alike will arrive.

I remarked, in this valley, that there is nothing so efficacious in prolonging and enforcing a controversy as for men not to know what they are disputing about. There were also many instances of another endless way of reasoning, when two disputants agree without suspecting it, and in different words contend vehemently for the same thing.

I found in this valley a great number of what may be called domestic disputes, being those contests in which some families pass all their leisure and retirement. I listened to some of these, and greatly admired the invention of the reasoners, and their vigilance in seizing opportunities for a difference of opinion. I heard a lady and six daughters debating whether a certain person had grey eyes or hazel: the mother and two daughters contended for the hazel, while the four others supported grey. Both sides maintained their own hypothesis with great vehemence, dexterity, and strength of argument. Each reasoner insisted on her own superior opportunities of information, for one had seen the eyes most frequently, but another had viewed them in the most advantageous light. Neither party could gain a proselyte from the other. I heard another family disputing with equal earnestness, whether a certain person, lately dead, had been good-natured or not. I listened to several other controversies of the same kind, as acute, angry, and useful, as many famous disputes amongst scholars and divines.

Being at last quite weary of all this wrangling, I continued my journey, and soon reached a building that contains lost experience, being the opportunities which men have neglected of becoming wise at their own expense. Over the door is a statue representing Experience. It is the figure of an old man, expressing very significantly the pretence to wisdom, from a long life, appearing to be in the act of imparting caution, and asserting a title to know more than others, from having lived longer. This figure reminded me of several old men whom I have known to gain great confidence in their own opinion from a long seclusion, supposing themselves practised in the conduct of life by a continuance of infirmity and decay, and concluding that by an absence of twenty years from the world they must understand it better than those who are still conversant with it. Most old men need to be told that the being alive is not experience, and that the longer their old age has been, the more time they have had to forget.

I entered the building, and found one large room of the same appearance as I have before described, being full of bottles, which preserve the wasted experience. Each bottle had a label giving a history of its contents. This room made me consider how erroneous is the common opinion concerning the efficacy of experience. It is usually said, that we are not to be taught by what happens to others, but only by what befalls ourselves, yet I think most who reflect on their lives must confess that the warnings they give themselves are to little purpose. To prove the vanity of experience, I would have any man consider how often he has failed to effect that improvement in his own character or conduct, which he now promises himself shall be very soon concluded. When we have every day endeavoured not to do a thing, and have yet done it every day for some years past, we are still convinced that to-morrow it really will be omitted; such is the authority of experience over our judgment. A stone, says Aristotle, being thrown up a thousand times does not learn to ascend. In many laudable endeavours, men benefit no more by experience than the stone, but still come back to the same place. I think, therefore, it may be said that experience has just force enough to make men lament that they are doing wrong, but not enough to make them do right.

In this room I saw many persons examining their own bottles, where they found the follies which they had diligently repeated after learning the bad consequences of them. They all were struck with melancholy at finding how many occasions of becoming prudent they had neglected. Gamblers found here the frequent losses and turns of fortune which had warned them of ruin, and in defiance of which they had proceeded with admirable resolution. The spendthrift was reproached with having still forgotten the want and difficulty which many times in his life had admonished him of the habits by which he was now a beggar.

I read with some amusement the histories on many of these bottles. One of them containing the wasted experience of a friend of mine, a member of parliament, records his endeavours to be an orator. Though every experiment has been conclusive in favour of silence, he still persists in his design of being the first orator in the House of Commons. Next to this bottle is one, which proves that experience has no greater force against poetry. It belongs to the author of a yearly volume, the reception of which every year has bid him desist from being a poet, but has not retarded the composition for the year following.

I observed a gentleman of my acquaintance studying attentively the label of his own bottle, which was covered with a long narration of neglected warnings, for he is thoroughly conversant with almost every enterprise of imprudence. He told me that he should take possession of his bottle, and carrying it to the earth make use of it to resist temptations; for he had seen another man drink a small quantity out of his bottle, by which he was immediately inspired with experience, and resolute against all follies. My friend, therefore, intended to have recourse to his bottle upon every urgent occasion, and so keep himself prudent as long as its contents lasted. I have since inquired the success of his scheme, and learned that at first, on the approach of any dangerous allurement, he applied himself to his bottle, and by a few drops mixed with water was quite fortified against it, having a painful remembrance and awe of former evils. While the influence of his draught continued, he remembered only the satiety and weariness of pleasure, with every inconvenience and shame of his several transgressions. These visions of prudence soon passed away, and each separate temptation required a new draught. But when the first charm of temperance was over, another difficulty occurred; for when an opportunity of being frail was expected, it required as much firmness to drink from the bottle as to resist without drinking. He still, however, continued this excellent medicine; but took care to be austere only when there was no occasion of enjoyment, and when any pleasure was near, he carefully abstained from the bottle. Timing his draughts thus judiciously, he still benefits by past experience.

Not long after I had quitted this house, I arrived at a valley which yielded a sound quite different from all the rest, not resembling either the human voice or any instrument that I had ever heard. Being told that it was the valley of Cant I did not wonder that it should give an unintelligible noise. I entered the valley, and found myself in the midst of these sounds, which I had been unable to interpret, and I then discovered that they were the religious tones which have prevailed in England since the first introduction of cant. There were no articulate words, but only tones in every variety of zeal and devotion.

I found here a gentleman very learned in antiquities, who was delighted with this multitude of noises; for he said that the most eloquent and faithful historian being unable to describe a sound, we have had no real knowledge of the tones of different sects, though we read much about them, but here he had found the authentic whining of every persuasion in past times. He listened attentively, endeavouring to assign the tones to their respective ages, which he imagined himself able to do with great exactness, though I knew not by what rules he was guided. He declared he should catch specimens of all these sounds, and shut them up in a box, so as to have by him all the tones in which our ancestors have served God, and thus supply a great defect in history.

I did not stay long amongst these strange noises, which at different times have served as piety, but passing further into the valley, I found cant under another representation. I was surrounded by a vast multitude of faces, or appearances of faces, which hovered in the air without being allied to bodies, or any other visible support. These faces were employed in the different contortions and grimaces which have been thought acceptable to God by adherents of the several sects. I was not a little amused by the violent endeavours of these faces; I saw features let out to an immoderate length; eye-brows with wonderful skill conveyed to a place far remote from that where nature had settled them: and eyes most ingeniously put out of sight without the lids being shut. Some of these artists had great advantages from nature in uncommon gifts of ugliness, and others had by industry supplied their natural defects in that endowment.

Being soon satisfied with this morality I left the faces frowning for their faith, and walking on saw a crowd of hands in the air performing their office also in the rites of cant. Some pairs of hands appeared to be preaching, and others praying; some were held upwards for a time, then stretched out, probably to the conviction of all who listened; some were clasped together with a violent effort of the muscles.

As soon as I had walked out of the district of hands, I found the air darkened by a flight of religious tracts, a crowd of which hovered round me in the air. When I appeared amongst them they rushed to me and opened themselves before my eyes that I might read them, struggling and contending with each other for the preference. Many of these tracts had been great travellers, and bore on the outside the names of the places they had visited. Some of them had preached in the East Indies, others in the West; and I felt a pride in considering how great a part of the world we supply with cant; nor is there the least fear of our stock being exhausted.

In another part of the valley I found a book recording the designs of cant, which are not yet completed. The first I cast my eye upon was a project to suppress eating, drinking, and breathing on a Sunday, particularly amongst tradesmen. Rabelais mentions some people whose practice was to breakfast on yawning; but this proposed law would make it serve for breakfast and dinner too on one day in every week. It appeared that the authors of this design have great hopes of persuading parliament very soon to enforce yawning on Sunday, and also of inducing people voluntarily to devote fifty-two days of the year to that laudable exercise, most advantageous to the public and most pleasing to heaven.

After this valley I came to another, whence issued a great uproar, which I found was the debates of parliament. I was soon in the midst of them, and heard a formidable din on various subjects, together with the many sounds of acquiescence and dissent. English orators will be pleased to find their speeches preserved in this manner; for it may spare them the expense and solicitation by which they must obtain a place in certain volumes for what they have said. I observed here several renowned senators who listened with exemplary attention to their own harangues. The speeches are preserved by this valley more faithfully than they can be by printing; for they are uttered without the loss of a single hesitation, repetition, or any other beauty with which they were first delivered. A speech, by losing these delays loses much of its length, which is now acknowledged the chief merit of oratory, as appears by the practice in both our houses of parliament. Cicero being asked which oration of Demosthenes he thought the best, answered, "The longest." All speeches are now estimated by the same rule, but our English orators far excel the ancients in duration; and we have many who, on any important subject, are at least two hours more eloquent than Demosthenes. In judging of speeches by their length there is this great convenience, that there can be no dispute about the superiority of one to another; for when speeches were praised according to the force of reasoning, choice of words, and other particulars once in esteem, it was impossible from the difference of taste in men that they should agree which of two speeches had those merits in the greatest perfection; but now the preference between two orations can make no question, provided the clock be carefully consulted.