Chapter 6

You cannot wonder my thoughts are scarce consistent, when I tell you how they are distracted. Every hour of my life my mind is strangely divided; this minute perhaps I am above the stars, with a thousand systems round about me, looking forward into a vast abyss, and losing my whole comprehension in the boundless space of creation, in dialogues with Whiston and the astronomers; the next moment I am below all trifles, grovelling with T---- in the very centre of nonsense: now I am recreated with the brisk sallies and quick turns of wit, which Mr. Steele, in his liveliest and freest humours, darts about him; and now levelling my application to the insignificant observations and quirks of grammar of C---- and D----.

Good God! what an incongruous animal is man! how unsettled in his best part, his soul; and how changing and variable in his frame of body! the constancy of the one shook by every notion, the temperament of the other affected by every blast of wind! What is he, altogether, but a mighty inconsistency; sickness and pain is the lot of one half of him, doubt and fear the portion of the other! What a bustle we make about passing our time when all our space is but a point! what aims and ambitions are crowded into this little instant of our life, which (as Shakespeare finely worded it) is rounded with a sleep! Our whole extent of being is no more, in the eye of Him who gave it, than a scarce perceptible moment of duration. Those animals whose circle of living is limited to three or four hours, as the naturalists tell us, are yet as long-lived, and possess as wide a field of action as man, if we consider him with a view to all space and all eternity. Who knows what plots, what achievements a mite may perform in his kingdom of a grain of dust, within his life of some minutes; and of how much less consideration than even this, is the life of man in the sight of God, who is for ever and ever?

Who that thinks in this train, but must see the world, and its contemptible grandeurs, lessen before him at every thought? It is enough to make one remain stupefied in a poise of inaction, void of all desires, of all designs, of all friendships.

But we must return (through our very condition of being) to our narrow selves, and those things that affect ourselves: our passions, our interests flow in upon us and unphilosophize us into mere mortals. For my part, I never return so much into myself, as when I think of you, whose friendship is one of the best comforts I have for the insignificancy of myself.

TO JONATHAN SWIFT

_Friends to posterity_

23 _March_, 1727-8.

I send you a very odd thing, a paper printed in Boston, in New England, wherein you will find a real person, a member of their parliament, of the name of Jonathan Gulliver. If the fame of that traveller has travelled thither, it has travelled very quick, to have folks christened already by the name of the supposed author. But if you object that no child so lately christened could be arrived at years of maturity to be elected into parliament, I reply (to solve the riddle) that the person is an Anabaptist, and not christened till full age, which sets all right. However it be, the accident is very singular that these two names should be united.

Mr. Gay's opera has been acted near forty days running, and will certainly continue the whole season. So he has more than a fence about his thousand pounds; he will soon be thinking of a fence about his two thousand. Shall no one of us live as we would wish each other to live? Shall he have no annuity, you no settlement on this side, and I no prospect of getting to you on the other? This world is made for Caesar,--as Cato said, for ambitious, false, or flattering people to domineer in; nay, they would not, by their good will, leave us our very books, thoughts, or words in quiet. I despise the world yet, I assure you, more than either Gay or you, and the court more than all the rest of the world. As for those scribblers for whom you apprehend I would suppress my _Dulness_ (which, by the way, for the future you are to call by a more pompous name, the _Dunciad_), how much that nest of hornets are my regard will easily appear to you when you read the _Treatise of the Bathos_.

At all adventures, yours and mine shall stand linked as friends to posterity, both in verse and prose, and (as Tully calls it) _in consuetudine studiorum_. Would to God our persons could but as well and as surely be inseparable! I find my other ties dropping from me; some worn off, some torn off, some relaxing daily: my greatest, both by duty, gratitude, and humanity, time is shaking every moment, and it now hangs but by a thread! I am many years the older for living so much with one so old; much the more helpless for having been so long helped and tendered by her; much the more considerate and tender, for a daily commerce with one who required me justly to be both to her; and consequently the more melancholy and thoughtful; and the less fit for others, who want only in a companion or a friend to be amused or entertained. My constitution too has had its share of decay as well as my spirits, and I am as much in the decline at forty as you at sixty. I believe we should be fit to live together could I get a little more health, which might make me not quite insupportable. Your deafness would agree with my dulness; you would not want me to speak when you could not hear. But God forbid you should be as destitute of the social comforts of life as I must when I lose my mother; or that ever you should lose your more useful acquaintance so utterly, as to turn your thoughts to such a broken reed as I am, who could so ill supply your wants. I am extremely troubled at the return of your deafness; you cannot be too particular in the accounts of your health to me; everything you do or say in this kind obliges me, nay, delights me, to see the justice you do me in thinking me concerned in all your concerns; so that though the pleasantest thing you can tell me be that you are better or easier; next to that it pleases me that you make me the person you would complain to.

As the obtaining the love of valuable men is the happiest end I know of this life, so the next felicity is to get rid of fools and scoundrels; which I cannot but own to you was one part of my design in falling upon these authors, whose incapacity is not greater than their insincerity, and of whom I have always found (if I may quote myself),

That each bad author is as bad a friend.

This poem will rid me of these insects.

Cedite, Romani scriptores, cedite, Graii; _Nescio quid_ maius nascitur Iliade.

I mean than _my Iliad_; and I call it _Nescio quid_, which is a degree of modesty; but however, if it silence these fellows, it must be something greater than any _Iliad_ in Christendom. Adieu.

TO THE SAME

_A farming friend, and the Dunciad_

Dawley, 28 _June_, 1728.

I now hold the pen for my Lord Bolingbroke, who is reading your letter between two haycocks, but his attention is somewhat diverted by casting his eyes on the clouds, not in admiration of what you say, but for fear of a shower. He is pleased with your placing him in the triumvirate between yourself and me: though he says, that he doubts he shall fare like Lepidus, while one of us runs away with all the power, like Augustus, and another with all the pleasures, like Anthony. It is upon a foresight of this that he has fitted up his farm, and you will agree that his scheme of retreat at least is not founded upon weak appearances. Upon his return from the Bath, all peccant humours, he finds, are purged out of him; and his great temperance and economy are so signal, that the first is fit for my constitution, and the latter would enable you to lay up so much money as to buy a bishopric in England. As to the return of his health and vigour, were you here, you might inquire of his haymakers; but as to his temperance, I can answer that (for one whole day) we have had nothing for dinner but mutton broth, beans, and bacon, and a barn-door fowl.

Now his lordship is run after his cart, I have a moment left to myself to tell you, that I overheard him yesterday agree with a painter for £200, to paint his country hall with trophies of rakes, spades, prongs, &c., and other ornaments, merely to countenance his calling this place a farm--now turn over a new leaf.

He bids me assure you, he should be sorry not to have more schemes of kindness for his friends than of ambition for himself; there, though his schemes may be weak, the motives at least are strong; and he says farther, if you could bear as great a fall and decrease of your revenues, as he knows by experience he can, you would not live in Ireland an hour.

The _Dunciad_ is going to be printed in all pomp, with the inscription, which makes me proudest. It will be attended with _proeme, prolegomena, testimonia scriptorum, index authorum_, and notes _variorum_. As to the latter, I desire you to read over the text, and make a few in any way you like best; whether dry raillery, upon the style and way of commenting of trivial critics; or humourous, upon the authors in the poem; or historical, of persons, places, times; or explanatory, or collecting the parallel passages of the ancients. Adieu. I am pretty well, my mother not ill, Dr. Arbuthnot vexed with his fever by intervals; I am afraid he declines, and we shall lose a worthy man: I am troubled about him very much.

TO THE SAME

_An invitation to England_

23 _March_, 1736-7.

Though you were never to write to me, yet what you desired in your last, that I would write often to you, would be a very easy task: for every day I talk with you, and of you, in my heart; and I need only set down what that is thinking of. The nearer I find myself verging to that period of life which is to be labour and sorrow, the more I prop myself upon those few supports that are left me. People in this state are like props indeed; they cannot stand alone, but two or more of them can stand, leaning and bearing upon one another. I wish you and I might pass this part of life together. My only necessary care is at an end. I am now my own master too much; my house is too large; my gardens furnish too much wood and provision for my use. My servants are sensible and tender of me; they have intermarried, and are become rather low friends than servants; and to all those that I see here with pleasure, they take a pleasure in being useful. I conclude this is your case too in your domestic life, and I sometimes think of your old housekeeper as my nurse, though I tremble at the sea, which only divides us. As your fears are not so great as mine, and I firmly hope your strength still much greater, is it utterly impossible it might once more be some pleasure to you to see England? My sole motive in proposing France to meet in, was the narrowness of the passage by sea from hence, the physicians having told me the weakness of my breast, &c., is such, as a sea-sickness might endanger my life. Though one or two of our friends are gone since you saw your native country, there remain a few more who will last so till death; and who I cannot but hope have an attractive power to draw you back to a country which cannot quite be sunk or enslaved, while such spirits remain. And let me tell you, there are a few more of the same spirit, who would awaken all your old ideas, and revive your hopes of her future recovery and virtue. These look up to you with reverence, and would be animated by the sight of him at whose soul they have taken fire in his writings, and derived from thence as much love of their species as is consistent with a contempt for the knaves in it.

I could never be weary, except at the eyes, of writing to you; but my real reason (and a strong one it is) for doing it so seldom, is fear; fear of a very great and experienced evil, that of my letters being kept by the partiality of friends, and passing into the hands and malice of enemies, who publish them with all their imperfections on their head, so that I write not on the common terms of honest men.

Would to God you would come over with Lord Orrery, whose care of you in the voyage I could so certainly depend on; and bring with you your old housekeeper and two or three servants. I have room for all, a heart for all, and (think what you will) a fortune for all. We could, were we together, contrive to make our last days easy, and leave some sort of monument, what friends two wits could be in spite of all the fools in the world. Adieu.

SAMUEL RICHARDSON

1689-1761

TO MISS MULSO

_A discussion on love_

3 _Sept_. 1751.

In another place, you are offended with the word gratitude; as if your idea of love excluded gratitude.

And further on, you are offended that I call this same passion 'a little selfish passion'.

And you say that you have known few girls, and still fewer men, whom you have thought 'capable of being in love'.

'By this', proceed you, 'you will see that my ideas of the word love are different from yours, when you call it a little selfish passion.'

Now, madam, if that passion is not little and selfish that makes two vehement souls prefer the gratification of each other, often to a sense of duty, and always to the whole world without them, be pleased to tell me what is? And pray be so good as to define to me what the noble passion is, of which so few people of either sex are capable. Give me your ideas of it.

I put not this question as a puzzler, a bamboozler, but purely for information; and that I may make my Sir Charles susceptible of the generous (may I say generous?) flame, and yet know what he is about, yet be a reasonable man.

Harriet's passion is founded in gratitude for relief given her in a great exigence. But the man who rescued her is not, it seems, to have such a word as gratitude in his head, in return for her love.

I repeat, that I will please you if I can; please you, Miss Mulso, I here mean (before I meant not you particularly, my dear, but your sex), in Sir Charles's character; and I sincerely declare, that I would rather form his character to your liking, than to the liking of three parts out of four of the persons I am acquainted with.

You are one of my best girls, and best judges. Of whom have I the opinion that I have of Miss Mulso on these nice subjects?--I ask therefore repeatedly for your definition of the passion which you dignify by the word noble; and from which you exclude everything mean, little, or selfish.

And you really think it marvellous that a young woman should find a man of exalted merit to be in love with? Why, truly, I am half of your mind; for how should people find what, in general, they do not seek? Yet what good creatures are many girls! They will be in love for all that.

Why, yes, to be sure, they would be glad of a Sir Charles Grandison, and prefer him even to a Lovelace, were he capable of being terribly in love. And yet, I know one excellent girl who is afraid 'that ladies in general will think him too wise'.--Dear, dear girls, help me to a few monkey-tricks to throw into his character, in order to shield him from contempt for his wisdom.

'It is one of my maxims,' you say, 'that people even of bad hearts will admire and love people of good ones.' Very true!--and yet admiration and love, in the sense before us, do not always shake hands, except at parting, and with an intention never to meet again. I have known women who professed to admire good men, but have chosen to marry men--not so good, when lovers of both sorts have tendered themselves to their acceptance. There is something very pretty in the sound of the word wild, added to the word fellow; and good sense is a very grateful victim to be sacrificed on the altar of love. Fervour and extravagance in expressions will please. How shall a woman, who, moreover, loves to be admired, know a man's heart, but from his lips?--Let him find flattery, and she will find credulity. Sweet souls! can they be always contradicting?

You believe it is not in human nature, however depraved, to prefer evil to good in another, whatever people may do in themselves. Why, no one would really think so, did not experience convince us that many, very many young women, in the article of marriage, though not before thought to be very depraved, are taken by this green sickness of the soul, and prefer dirt and rubbish to wholesome diet. The result of the matter is this, with very many young women: they will admire a good man, but they will marry a bad one. Are not rakes pretty fellows?

But one thing let me add, to comfort you in relation to Harriet's difficulties: I intend to make her shine by her cordial approbation, as she goes along, of every good action of her beloved. She is humbled by her love (suspense in love is a mortifier) to think herself inferior to his sisters; but I intend to raise her above them, even in her own just opinion; and when she shines out the girl worthy of a man, not exalt, but reward her, and at the same time make him think himself highly rewarded by the love of so frank and so right an heart.

There now!--Will that do, my Miss Mulso?

I laid indeed a heavy hand on the good Clarissa. But I had begun with her, with a view to the future saint in her character; and could she, but by sufferings, shine as she does?

Do you, my dear child, look upon me as your paternal friend.

LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU

1689-1762

TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR

_The Viennese court_

Vienna, 14 _Sept_. o.s. [1716].

Though I have so lately troubled you, my dear sister, with a long letter, yet I will keep my promise in giving you an account of my first going to court.

In order to that ceremony, I was squeezed up in a gown, and adorned with a gorget and the other implements thereunto belonging: a dress very inconvenient, but which certainly shews the neck and shape to great advantage. I cannot forbear in this place giving you some description of the fashions here, which are more monstrous and contrary to all common sense and reason, than 'tis possible for you to imagine. They build certain fabrics of gauze on their heads about a yard high, consisting of three or four stories, fortified with numberless yards of heavy ribbon. The foundation of this structure is a thing they call a _Bourle_, which is exactly of the same shape and kind, but about four times as big, as those rolls our prudent milk-maids make use of to fix their pails upon. This machine they cover with their own hair, which they mix with a great deal of false, it being a particular beauty to have their heads too large to go into a moderate tub. Their hair is prodigiously powdered, to conceal the mixture, and set out with three or four rows of bodkins (wonderfully large, that stick two or three inches from their hair), made of diamonds, pearls, red, green, and yellow stones, that it certainly requires as much art and experience to carry the load upright, as to dance upon May-day with the garland. Their whalebone petticoats outdo ours by several yards circumference, and cover some acres of ground.

You may easily suppose how much this extraordinary dress sets off and improves the natural ugliness with which God Almighty has been pleased to endow them all generally. Even the lovely empress herself is obliged to comply, in some degree, with these absurd fashions, which they would not quit for all the world. I had a private audience (according to ceremony) of half an hour, and then all the other ladies were permitted to come make their court. I was perfectly charmed with the empress: I cannot, however, tell you that her features are regular; her eyes are not large, but have a lively look, full of sweetness; her complexion the finest I ever saw; her nose and forehead well-made, but her mouth has ten thousand charms that touch the soul. When she smiles, 'tis with a beauty and sweetness that force adoration. She has a vast quantity of fine fair hair; but then her person!--one must speak of it poetically to do it rigid justice; all that the poets have said of the mien of Juno, the air of Venus, comes not up to the truth. The Graces move with her; the famous statue of Medicis was not formed with more delicate proportion; nothing can be added to the beauty of her neck and hands. Till I saw them, I did not believe there were any in nature so perfect, and I was almost sorry that my rank here did not permit me to kiss them; but they are kissed sufficiently; for every body that waits on her pays that homage at their entrance, and when they take leave.

When the ladies were come in, she sat down to Quinze. I could not play at a game I had never seen before, and she ordered me a seat at her right hand, and had the goodness to talk to me very much, with that grace so natural to her. I expected every moment when the men were to come in to pay their court; but this drawing-room is very different from that of England; no man enters it but the old grand-master, who comes in to advertize the empress of the approach of the emperor. His imperial majesty did me the honour of speaking to me in a very obliging manner; but he never speaks to any of the other ladies; and the whole passes with a gravity and air of ceremony that has something very formal in it.

The empress Amelia, dowager of the late emperor Joseph, came this evening to wait on the reigning empress, followed by the two archduchesses her daughters, who are very agreeable young princesses. Their imperial majesties rise and go to meet her at the door of the room, after which she is seated in an armed chair, next the empress, and in the same manner at supper, and there the men had the permission of paying their Court. The archduchesses sit on chairs with backs without arms. The table is entirely served, and all the dishes set on by the empress's maids of honour, which are twelve young ladies of the first quality. They have no salary, but their chambers at court, where they live in a sort of confinement, not being suffered to go to the assemblies or public places in town, except in compliment to the wedding of a sister maid, whom the empress always presents with her picture set in diamonds. The three first of them are called _Ladies of the Key_, and wear gold keys by their sides; but what I find most pleasant, is the custom which obliges them, as long as they live, after they have left the empress's service, to make her some present every year on the day of her feast. Her majesty is served by no married women but the _grande maîtresse_, who is generally a widow of the first quality, always very old, and is at the same time groom of the stole, and mother of the maids. The dresses are not at all in the figure they pretend to in England, being looked upon no otherwise than as downright chambermaids.