but more contemptible in proportion to what {25} more he robs the public of and enjoys above him.[20] I lay it down therefore for a rule, that the whole man is to move together; that every action of any importance is to have a prospect of public good; and that the general tendency of our indifferent actions ought to be agreeable to the dictates of reason, of religion, of good-breeding. Without this, a man, as I have before hinted, is hopping instead of walking; he is not in his entire and proper {5} motion."
While the honest knight was thus bewildering himself in good starts,[21] I looked intentively[22] upon him, which made him, I thought, collect his mind a little. "What I aim at," says he, "is to represent that I am of opinion, {10} to polish our understandings and neglect our manners[23] is of all things the most inexcusable. Reason should govern passion, but instead of that, you see, it is often subservient to it; and, as unaccountable as one would think it, a wise man is not always a good man." {15}
This degeneracy is not only the guilt of particular persons, but also at some times of a whole people; and perhaps it may appear upon examination that the most polite ages are the least virtuous. This may be attributed to the folly of admitting wit and learning as merit in {20} themselves, without considering the application of them. By this means it becomes a rule not so much to regard what we do, as how we do it. But this false beauty will not pass upon men of honest minds and true taste. Sir Richard Blackmore says, with as much good sense as {25} virtue,—"It is a mighty dishonour and shame to employ excellent faculties and abundance of wit, to humour and please men in their vices and follies. The great enemy of mankind, notwithstanding his wit and angelic faculties, is the most odious being in the whole creation." He goes {5} on soon after to say, very generously, that he undertook the writing of his poem "to rescue the Muses, ... to restore them to their sweet and chaste mansions, and to engage them in an employment suitable to their dignity." This certainly ought to be the purpose of every man who {10} appears in public; and whoever does not proceed upon that foundation, injures his country as fast as he succeeds in his studies. When modesty ceases to be the chief ornament of one sex and integrity of the other, society is upon a wrong basis, and we shall be ever after without {15} rules to guide our judgment in what is really becoming and ornamental. Nature and reason direct one thing, passion and humour another. To follow the dictates of the two latter, is going into a road that is both endless and intricate; when we pursue the other, our passage is {20} delightful, and what we aim at easily attainable.
I do not doubt but England is at present as polite a nation as any in the world; but any man who thinks can easily see that the affectation of being gay and in fashion has very near eaten up our good sense and our religion. {25} Is there anything so just, as that mode[24] and gallantry[25] should be built upon exerting ourselves in what is proper and agreeable to the institutions of justice and piety among us? And yet is there anything more common, than that we run in perfect contradiction to them? All which is supported by no other pretension than that it {5} is done with what we call a good grace.
Nothing ought to be held laudable or becoming, but what nature itself should prompt us to think so. Respect to all kind of superiors is founded, methinks, upon instinct; and yet what is so ridiculous as age?[26] I make {10} this abrupt transition to the mention of this vice[27] more than any other, in order to introduce a little story, which I think a pretty instance that the most polite age is in danger of being the most vicious.
It happened at Athens, during a public representation {15} of some play exhibited in honor of the commonwealth, that an old gentleman came too late for a place suitable to his age and quality. Many of the young gentlemen who observed the difficulty and confusion he was in, made signs to him that they would accommodate him if {20} he came where they sat. The good man bustled through the crowd accordingly; but when he came to the seats to which he was invited, the jest was to sit close and expose him, as he stood out of countenance, to the whole audience. The frolic went round all the Athenian {25} benches. But on those occasions there were also particular places assigned for foreigners. When the good man skulked towards the boxes appointed for the Lacedemonians, that honest people, more virtuous than polite, rose up all, to a man, and with the greatest respect received him among them. The Athenians, being suddenly touched with a sense of the Spartan virtue and {5} their own degeneracy, gave a thunder of applause; and the old man cried out, "The Athenians understand what is good, but the Lacedemonians practise it!"
R.
IV. THE CLUB AND THE SPECTATOR
[No. 34. Monday, April 9, 1711. Addison.]
Parcit
Cognatis maculis similis fera—
Juv.
The club of which I am a member is very luckily composed of such persons as are engaged in different ways {10} of life, and deputed, as it were, out of the most conspicuous classes of mankind. By this means I am furnished with the greatest variety of hints and materials, and know everything that passes in the different quarters and divisions, not only of this great city, but of the whole kingdom. {15} My readers, too, have the satisfaction to find that there is no rank or degree among them who have not their[28] representative in this club, and that there is always somebody present who will take care of their respective interests, that nothing may be written or published to the prejudice or infringement of their just rights and privileges.
I last night sat very late in company with this select body of friends, who entertained me with several remarks {5} which they and others had made upon these my speculations, as also with the various success which they[29] had met with among their several ranks and degrees of readers. Will Honeycomb told me, in the softest manner he could, that there were some ladies—"but for {10} your comfort," says Will, "they are not those of the most wit"—that were offended at the liberties I had taken with the opera and the puppet-show; that some of them were likewise very much surprised that I should think such serious points as the dress and equipage of {15} persons of quality proper subjects for raillery.
He was going on, when Sir Andrew Freeport took him up short, and told him that the papers he hinted at had done great good in the city, and that all their[30] wives and daughters were the better for them; and further added, {20} that the whole city thought themselves very much obliged to me for declaring my generous intentions to scourge vice and folly as they appear in a multitude, without condescending to be a publisher of particular intrigues. "In short," says Sir Andrew, "if you avoid that foolish beaten {25} road of falling upon aldermen and citizens, and employ your pen upon the vanity and luxury of courts, your paper must needs be of general use."
Upon this my friend the Templar told Sir Andrew that he wondered to hear a man of his sense talk after that manner; that the city had always been the province for satire; and that the wits of King Charles's time jested upon nothing else during his whole reign. He then {5} showed, by the examples of Horace, Juvenal, Boileau, and the best writers of every age, that the follies of the stage and court had never been accounted too sacred for ridicule, how great soever the persons might be that patronized them. "But after all," says he, "I think your {10} raillery has made too great an excursion, in attacking several persons of the Inns of Court; and I do not believe you can show me any precedent for your behaviour in that particular."
My good friend Sir Roger de Coverley, who had said {15} nothing all this while, began his speech with a "Pish!" and told us that he wondered to see so many men of sense so very serious upon fooleries. "Let our good friend," says he, "attack every one that deserves it; I would only advise you, Mr. Spectator,"—applying himself {20} to me,—"to take care how you meddle with country squires. They are the ornaments of the English nation,—men of good heads and sound bodies! and, let me tell you, some of them take it ill of you that you mention fox hunters with so little respect." {25}
Captain Sentry spoke very sparingly
