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THE BEST _of the_ WORLD'S CLASSICS

RESTRICTED TO PROSE

HENRY CABOT LODGE Editor-in-Chief

FRANCIS W. HALSEY Associate Editor

With an Introduction, Biographical and Explanatory Notes, etc.

In Ten Volumes

Vol. IV

GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND--II

Funk & Wagnalls Company New York and London Copyright, 1909, by Funk & Wagnalls Company

The Best of the World's Classics

VOL. IV

GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND--II

1672-1800

CONTENTS

VOL. IV--GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND--II

SIR RICHARD STEELE--(Born in 1672, died in 1729.)

I Of Companions and Flatterers

II The Story-Teller and His Art. (From _The Guardian_)

III Sir Roger and the Widow. (From _The Spectator_)

IV The Coverley Family Portraits. (From _The Spectator_)

V On Certain Symptoms of Greatness. (From _The Tatler_)

VI How to Be Happy tho Married. (From _The Tatler_)

LORD BOLINGBROKE--(Born in 1678, died in 1751.)

I Of the Shortness of Human Life

II Rules for the Study of History. (One of the "Letters on the Study of History")

ALEXANDER POPE--(Born in 1688, died in 1744.)

I An Ancient English Country Seat. (A Letter to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu)

II His Compliments to Lady Mary. (A Letter to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu)

III How to Make an Epic Poem. (From _The Guardian_)

LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU--(Born in 1689, died in 1762.)

I On Happiness in the Matrimonial State. (A Letter to Edward Wortley Montagu before she married him)

II Inoculation for the Smallpox. (A Letter to Sarah Criswell, written from Adrianople, Turkey)

LORD CHESTERFIELD--(Born in 1694, died in 1773.)

I Of Good Manners, Dress and the World. (From the "Letters to His Son")

II Of Attentions to Ladies. (From the "Letters to His Son")

HENRY FIELDING--(Born in 1707, died in 1754.)

I Tom the Hero Enters the Stage. (From "Tom Jones")

II Partridge Sees Garrick at the Play. (From "Tom Jones")

III Mr. Adams in a Political Light. (From "Joseph Andrews")

SAMUEL JOHNSON--(Born in 1709, died in 1784.)

I On Publishing His "Dictionary." (From the Preface to the "Dictionary")

II Pope and Dryden Compared. (From the "Lives of the Poets")

III Letter to Chesterfield on the Completion of the "Dictionary." (From Boswell's "Life")

IV On the Advantages of Living in a Garret. (From _The Rambler_)

DAVID HUME--(Born in 1711, died in 1776.)

I The Character of Queen Elizabeth. (From the "History of England")

II The Defeat of the Armada. (From the "History of England")

III The First Principles of Government

LAURENCE STERNE--(Born in 1713, died in 1768.)

I The Starling in Captivity. (From "The Sentimental Journey")

II To Moulines with Maria. (From "The Sentimental Journey")

III The Death of LeFevre. (From "Tristram Shandy")

IV Passages from the Romance of My Uncle Toby and the Widow. (From "Tristram Shandy")

THOMAS GRAY--(Born in 1716, died in 1771.)

I Warwick Castle. (A Letter to Thomas Wharton)

II To His Friend Mason on the Death of Mason's Mother

III On His Own Writings. (A Letter to Horace Walpole)

IV His Friendship for Bonstetten. (From a Letter to Bonstetten)

HORACE WALPOLE--(Born in 1717, died in 1797.)

I Hogarth. (From the "Anecdotes of Painting in England")

II The War in America. (From a Letter written at Strawberry Hill)

III The Death of George II. (A Letter to Sir Horace Mann)

GILBERT WHITE--(Born in 1720, died in 1793.)

The Chimney Swallow. (From "The Natural History of Selborne")

ADAM SMITH--(Born in 1723, died in 1790.)

I Of Ambition Misdirected. (From the "Theory of Moral Sentiments")

II The Advantages of a Division of Labor. (From "The Wealth of Nations")

SIR WILLIAM BLACKSTONE--(Born in 1723, died in 1780.)

Professional Soldiers in Free Countries. (From the "Commentaries")

OLIVER GOLDSMITH--(Born in 1728, died in 1774.)

I The Ambitions of the Vicar's Family. (From "The Vicar of Wakefield")

II Sagacity in Insects. (From "The Bee")

III A Chinaman's View of London. (From the "Citizen of the World")

EDMUND BURKE--(Born in 1729, died in 1797.)

I The Principles of Good Taste. (From "The Sublime and Beautiful")

II A Letter to a Noble Lord

III On the Death of His Son

IV Marie Antoinette. (From the "Reflections on the Revolution in France")

WILLIAM COWPER--(Born in 1731, died in 1800.)

I Of Keeping One's Self Employed. (A Letter to John Newton)

II Of Johnson's Treatment of Milton. (Letter to the Rev. William Unwin)

III On the Publication of His Books. (Letter to the Rev. William Unwin)

EDWARD GIBBON--(Born in 1737, died in 1794.)

I The Romance of His Youth. (From the "Memoirs")

II The Inception and Completion of the "Decline and Fall." (From the "Memoirs")

III The Fall of Zenobia. (From "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire")

IV Alaric's Entry into Rome. (From "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire")

V The Death of Hosein. (From "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire")

VI The Causes of the Destruction of the City of Rome. (From "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire")

GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND--II

1672-1800

SIR RICHARD STEELE

Born in Ireland in 1672; died in Wales in 1729; companion of Addison at Oxford; served in the army in 1694, becoming a captain; elected to Parliament, but expelled for using seditious language; knighted under George I; quarreled with Addison in 1719; founded the Tatler, and next to Addison, was the chief writer for the Spectator.

I

OF COMPANIONS AND FLATTERERS

An old acquaintance who met me this morning seemed overjoyed to see me, and told me I looked as well as he had known me do these forty years; but, continued he, not quite the man you were when we visited together at Lady Brightly's. Oh! Isaac, those days are over. Do you think there are any such fine creatures now living as we then conversed with? He went on with a thousand incoherent circumstances, which, in his imagination, must needs please me; but they had the quite contrary effect. The flattery with which he began, in telling me how well I wore, was not disagreeable; but his indiscreet mention of a set of acquaintance we had outlived, recalled ten thousand things to my memory, which made me reflect upon my present condition with regret. Had he indeed been so kind as, after a long absence, to felicitate me upon an indolent and easy old age, and mentioned how much he and I had to thank for, who at our time of day could walk firmly, eat heartily and converse cheerfully, he had kept up my pleasure in myself. But of all mankind, there are none so shocking as these injudicious civil people. They ordinarily begin upon something that they know must be a satisfaction; but then, for fear of the imputation of flattery, they follow it with the last thing in the world of which you would be reminded. It is this that perplexes civil persons. The reason that there is such a general outcry among us against flatterers is that there are so very few good ones. It is the nicest art in this life, and is a part of eloquence which does not want the preparation that is necessary to all other parts of it, that your audience should be your well-wishers; for praise from an enemy is the most pleasing of all commendations.

It is generally to be observed, that the person most agreeable to a man for a constancy, is he that has no shining qualities, but is a certain degree above great imperfections, whom he can live with as his inferior, and who will either overlook or not observe his little defects. Such an easy companion as this, either now and then throws out a little flattery, or lets a man silently flatter himself in his superiority to him. If you take notice, there is hardly a rich man in the world who has not such a led friend of small consideration, who is a darling for his insignificancy. It is a great ease to have one in our own shape a species below us, and who, without being listed in our service, is by nature of our retinue. These dependents are of excellent use on a rainy day, or when a man has not a mind to dress; or to exclude solitude, when one has neither a mind to that nor to company. There are of this good-natured order who are so kind to divide themselves, and do these good offices to many. Five or six of them visit a whole quarter of the town, and exclude the spleen, without fees, from the families they frequent. If they do not prescribe physic, they can be company when you take it.

Very great benefactors to the rich, or those whom they call people at their ease, are your persons of no consequence. I have known some of them, by the help of a little cunning, make delicious flatterers. They know the course of the town, and the general characters of persons; by this means they will sometimes tell the most agreeable falsehoods imaginable. They will acquaint you that such one of a quite contrary party said, that tho you were engaged in different interests, yet he had the greatest respect for your good sense and address. When one of these has a little cunning, he passes his time in the utmost satisfaction to himself and his friends; for his position is never to report or speak a displeasing thing to his friend. As for letting him go on in an error, he knows advice against them is the office of persons of greater talents and less discretion.

The Latin word for a flatterer (_assentator_) implies no more than a person that barely consents; and indeed such a one, if a man were able to purchase or maintain him, can not be bought too dear. Such a one never contradicts you, but gains upon you, not by a fulsome way of commending you in broad terms, but liking whatever you propose or utter; at the same time is ready to beg your pardon, and gainsay you if you chance to speak ill of yourself. An old lady is very seldom without such a companion as this, who can recite the names of all her lovers, and the matches refused by her in the days when she minded such vanities--as she is pleased to call them, tho she so much approves the mention of them. It is to be noted, that a woman's flatterer is generally elder than herself, her years serving to recommend her patroness's age, and to add weight to her complaisance in all other particulars.

We gentlemen of small fortunes are extremely necessitous in this particular. I have indeed one who smokes with me often; but his parts are so low, that all the incense he does me is to fill his pipe with me, and to be out at just as many whiffs as I take. This is all the praise or assent that he is capable of, yet there are more hours when I would rather be in his company than that of the brightest man I know. It would be a hard matter to give an account of this inclination to be flattered; but if we go to the bottom of it, we shall find that the pleasure in it is something like that of receiving money which lay out. Every man thinks he has an estate of reputation, and is glad to see one that will bring any of it home to him; it is no matter how dirty a bag it is conveyed to him in, or by how clownish a messenger, so the money is good. All that we want to be pleased with flattery, is to believe that the man is sincere who gives it us. It is by this one accident that absurd creatures often outrun the most skilful in this art. Their want of ability is here an advantage, and their bluntness, as it is the seeming effect of sincerity, is the best cover to artifice.

It is indeed, the greatest of injuries to flatter any but the unhappy, or such as are displeased with themselves for some infirmity. In this latter case we have a member of our club, that, when Sir Jeffrey falls asleep, wakens him with snoring. This makes Sir Jeffrey hold up for some moments the longer, to see there are men younger than himself among us, who are more lethargic than he is.

II

THE STORY-TELLER AND HIS ART[1]

I have often thought that a story-teller is born, as well as a poet. It is, I think, certain, that some men have such a peculiar cast of mind, that they see things in another light than men of grave dispositions. Men of a lively imagination and a mirthful temper will represent things to their hearers in the same manner as they themselves were affected with them; and whereas serious spirits might perhaps have been disgusted at the sight of some odd occurences in life, yet the very same occurrences shall please them in a well-told story, where the disagreeable parts of the images are concealed, and those only which are pleasing exhibited to the fancy. Story-telling is therefore not an art, but what we call a "knack"; it doth not so much subsist upon wit as upon humor; and I will add, that it is not perfect without proper gesticulations of the body, which naturally attend such merry emotions of the mind. I know very well that a certain gravity of countenance sets some stories off to advantage, where the hearer is to be surprized in the end. But this is by no means a general rule; for it is frequently convenient to aid and assist by cheerful looks and whimsical agitations.

I will go yet further, and affirm that the success of a story very often depends upon the make of the body, and the formation of the features, of him who relates it. I have been of this opinion ever since I criticized upon the chin of Dick Dewlap. I very often had the weakness to repine at the prosperity of his conceits, which made him pass for a wit with the widow at the coffee-house and the ordinary mechanics that frequent it; nor could I myself forbear laughing at them most heartily, tho upon examination I thought most of them very flat and insipid. I found, after some time, that the merit of his wit was founded upon the shaking of a fat paunch, and the tossing up of a pair of rosy jowls. Poor Dick had a fit of sickness, which robbed him of his fat and his fame at once; and it was full three months before he regained his reputation, which rose in proportion to his floridity. He is now very jolly and ingenious, and hath a good constitution for wit.

Those who are thus adorned with the gifts of nature, are apt to show their parts with too much ostentation. I would therefore advise all the professors of this art never to tell stories but as they seem to grow out of the subject-matter of the conversation, or as they serve to illustrate or enliven it. Stories that are very common are generally irksome; but may be aptly introduced, provided they be only hinted at, and mentioned by way of allusion. Those that are altogether new, should never be ushered in without a short and pertinent character of the chief persons concerned, because, by that means, you may make the company acquainted with them; and it is a certain rule, that slight and trivial accounts of those who are familiar to us, administer more mirth than the brightest points of wit in unknown characters.

A little circumstance in the complexion of dress of the man you are talking of, sets his image before the hearer, if it be chosen aptly for the story. Thus, I remember Tom Lizard, after having made his sisters merry with an account of a formal old man's way of complimenting, owned very frankly that his story would not have been worth one farthing, if he had made the hat of him whom he represented one inch narrower. Besides the marking distinct characters, and selecting pertinent circumstances, it is likewise necessary to leave off in time, and end smartly; so that there is a kind of drama in the forming of a story; and the manner of conducting and pointing it is the same as in an epigram. It is a miserable thing, after one hath raised the expectation of the company by humorous characters and a pretty conceit, to pursue the matter too far. There is no retreating; and how poor is it for a story-teller to end his relation by saying, "that's all!"

III

SIR ROGER AND THE WIDOW[2]

In my first description of the company in which I pass most of my time, it may be remembered that I mentioned a great affliction which my friend Sir Roger had met with in his youth; which was no less than a disappointment in love. It happened this evening that we fell into a very pleasing walk at a distance from his house. As soon as we came into it. "It is," quoth the good old man, looking round him with a smile, "very hard that any part of my land should be settled upon one who has used me so ill as the perverse widow did; and yet I am sure I could not see a sprig of any bough of this whole walk of trees, but I should reflect upon her and her severity. She has certainly the finest hand of any woman in the world. You are to know, this was the place wherein I used to muse upon her; and by that custom I can never come into it, but the same tender sentiments revive in my mind, as if I had actually walked with that beautiful creature under these shades. I have been fool enough to carve her name on the bark of several of these trees; so unhappy is the condition of men in love, to attempt the removing of their passion by the methods which serve only to imprint it deeper. She has certainly the finest hand of any woman in the world."

Here followed a profound silence; and I was not displeased to observe my friend falling so naturally into a discourse, which I had ever before taken notice he industriously avoided. After a very long pause, he entered upon an account of this great circumstance in his life, with an air which I thought raised my idea of him above what I had ever had before; and gave me the picture of that cheerful mind of his before it received that stroke which has ever since affected his words and actions. But he went on as follows:

"I came to my estate in my twenty-second year, and resolved to follow the steps of the most worthy of my ancestors who have inhabited this spot of earth before me, in all the methods of hospitality and good neighborhood, for the sake of my fame; and in country sports and recreations, for the sake of my health. In my twenty-third year I was obliged to serve as sheriff of the county; and in my servants, officers, and whole equipage, indulged the pleasure of a young man (who did not think ill of his own person) in taking that public occasion of showing my figure and behavior to advantage. You may easily imagine to yourself what appearance I made, who am pretty tall, rode well, and was very well drest, at the head of a whole county, with music before me, a feather in my hat, and my horse well bitted. I can assure you, I was not a little pleased with the kind looks and glances I had from all the balconies and windows as I rode to the hall where the assizes were held.

"But when I came there, a beautiful creature, in a widow's habit, sat in court to hear the event of a cause concerning her dower. This commanding creature (who was born for the destruction of all who behold her) put on such a resignation in her countenance, and bore the whispers of all around the court with such a pretty uneasiness, I warrant you, and then recovered herself from one eye to another, until she was perfectly confused by meeting something so wistful in all she encountered, that at last, with a murrain to her, she cast her bewitching eye upon me. I no sooner met it but I bowed like a great surprized booby; and knowing her cause was to be the first which came on, I cried, like a great captivated calf as I was, 'Make way for the defendant's witnesses.' This sudden partiality made all the county immediately see the sheriff also was become a slave to the fine widow. During the time her cause was upon trial, she behaved herself, I warrant you, with such a deep attention to her business, took opportunities to have little billets handed to her counsel, then would be in such a pretty confusion, occasioned, you must know, by acting before so much company, that not only I, but the whole court, was prejudiced in her favor; and all that the next heir to her husband had to urge was thought so groundless and frivolous, that when it came to her counsel to reply, there was not half so much said as every one besides in the court thought he could have urged to her advantage.

"You must understand, sir, this perverse woman is one of those unaccountable creatures that secretly rejoice in the admiration of men, but indulge themselves in no further consequences. Hence it is that she has ever had a train of admirers, and she removes from her slaves in town to those in the country, according to the seasons of the year. She is a reading lady, and far gone in the pleasures of friendship. She is always accompanied by a confidant, who is witness to her daily protestations against our sex, and consequently a bar to her first steps toward love upon the strength of her own maxims and declarations.

"However, I must needs say this accomplished mistress of mine has distinguished me above the rest, and has been known to declare Sir Roger de Coverley was the tamest and most humane of all the brutes in the country. I was told she said so by one who thought he rallied me; but upon the strength of this slender encouragement of being thought least detestable, I made new liveries, new paired my coach horses, sent them all to town to be bitted, and taught to throw their legs well, and move all together before I pretended to cross the country, and wait upon her. As soon as I thought my retinue suitable to the character of my fortune and youth, I set out from hence to make my addresses. The particular skill of this lady has ever been to inflame your wishes, and yet command respect. To make her mistress of this art, she has a greater share of knowledge, wit, and good sense, than is usual even among men of merit. Then she is beautiful beyond the race of women. If you will not let her go on with a certain artifice with her eyes, and the skill of beauty, she will arm herself with her real charms, and strike you with admiration instead of desire. It is certain that if you were to behold the whole woman, there is that dignity in her aspect, that composure in her motion, that complacency in her manner, that if her form makes you hope, her merit makes you fear. But then again, she is such a desperate scholar, that no country gentleman can approach her without being a jest.