priestcraft and superstition, or set himself gravely to prove the lawfulness of pleasure, to lure the hermit from his cell, and deliver the penitent from suicide. But as vicious manners have not differed more than vicious taste, there was a time when every literary character was disgraced by an impertinent ostentation of skill in abstruse science, and an habitual familiarity with books written in the dead languages: every man, therefore, was a pedant, in proportion as he desired to be thought a scholar. The preacher and the pleader strung together classical quotations with the same labour, affectation, and insignificance; truths however obvious, and opinions however indisputable, were illustrated and confirmed by the testimonies of Tully or Horace; and Seneca and Epictetus were solemnly cited, to evince the certainty of death or the fickleness of fortune. The discourses of Taylor are crowded with extracts from the writers of the porch and the academy; and it is scarcely possible to forbear smiling at a marginal note of Lord Coke, in which he gravely acquaints his reader with an excellence that he might otherwise have overlooked: This,' says he, is the thirty-third time that Virgil hath been quoted in this work.' The mixture, however, is so preposterous, that to those who can read Coke with pleasure, these passages will appear dancer who should intrude on the solemnity of a senate; and to those who have a taste only for polite literature, like a fountain or a palm-tree in the deserts of Arabia. like a It appears by the essays of Montaigne and La Motte le Vayer, that this affectation extended to France; but the absurdity was too gross to remain long after the revival of literature. It was ridiculed here so early as the Silent Woman' of Ben Jonson ; and afterwards more strongly and professedly in the character of Hudibras, who decorates his flimsy oras D d VOL. XXV. tions with gawdy patches of Latin, and scraps of tissue from the schoolmen. The same task was also undertaken in France by Balzac, in a satire called Barbon.' Wit is more rarely disappointed of its purpose than wisdom; and it is no wonder that this species of pedantry, in itself so ridiculous and despicable, was soon brought into contempt by those powers, against which truth and rectitude have not always maintained their dignity. The features of learning began insensibly to lose their austerity, and her air became engaging and easy: philosophy was now decorated by the graces. The abstruse truths of astronomy were explained by Fontenelle to a lady by moonlight; justness and propriety of thought and sentiment were discussed by Bouhours amid the delicacies of a garden; and Algarotti introduced the Newtonian theory of light and colours to the toilet. Addison remarks that Socrates was said to have brought philosophy down from heaven to inhabit among men : And I,' says he, shall be ambitious to have it said of me, that I have brought philosophy out of closets and libraries, achools and colleges, to dwell in clubs and assemblies, at tea-tables, and in coffee-houses.' But this purpose has in some measure been defeated by its success; and we have been driven from one extreme with such precipitation, that we have not stopped in the medium, but gone on to the other. Learning has been divested of the peculiarities of a college dress, that she might mix in polite assemblies, and be admitted to domestic familiarity; but by this means she has been confounded with ignorance and devity. Those who before could distinguish her only by the singularity of her garb, cannot now distinguish her at all; and whenever she asserts the dignity of her character, she has reason to fear that ridicule, which is inseparably connected with the remembrance of her dress; she is therefore in danger of being driven back to the college, where, such is her transformation, she may at last be refused admittance; for, instead of learning's having elevated conversation, conversation has degraded learning; and the barbarous and inaccurate manner in which an extemporary speaker expresses a hasty conception, is now contended to be the rule by which an author should write. It seems, therefore, that to correct the taste of the present generation, literary subjects should be again introduced among the polite and gay, without labouring too much to disguise them like common prattle; and that conversation should be weeded of folly and impertinence, of common-place rhetoric, gingling phrases, and trite repartee, which are echoed from one visitor to another without the labour of thought, and have been suffered by better understandings in the dread of an imputation of pedantry. I am of opinion, that with this view Swift wrote his Polite Conversation; and where he has plucked up a weed, the writers who succeed him should endeavour to plant a flower. With this view, Criticism has in this paper been intermixed with subjects of greater importance; and it is hoped that our fashionable conversation will no longer be the disgrace of rational beings; and that men of genius and literature will not give the sanction of their example to popular folly, and suffer their evenings to pass in hearing or in telling the exploits of a pointer, discussing a method to prevent wines from being pricked, or solving a difficult case in backgammon. I would not, however, be thought solicitous to confine the conversation even of scholars to literary subjects, but only to prevent such subjects from being totally excluded. And it may be remarked that the present insignificance of conversation has a very extensive effect: excellence that is not understood will never be rewarded, and without hope of reward few will labour to excel; every writer will be tempted to negligence, in proportion as he despises the judgment of those who are to determine his merit; and as it is no man's interest to write that which the public is not disposed to read, the productions of the press will always be accommodated to popular taste, and in proportion as the world is inclined to be ignorant, little will be taught them. Thus the Greek and Roman architecture are discarded for the novelties of China; the Ruins of Palmyra, and the copies of the capital pictures of Correggio, are neglected for gothic designs, and burlesque political prints; and the tinsel of a Burletta has more admirers than the gold of Shakspeare, though it now receives new splendour from the mint, and, like a medal, is illustrious, not only for intrinsic worth, but for beauty of expression. Perhaps it may be thought, that if this be, indeed, the state of learning and taste, an attempt to improve it by a private hand is romantic, and the hope of success chimerical: but to this I am not solicitous to give other answer, than that such an attempt is consistent with the character in which this paper is written; and that the Adventurer can assert, upon classical authority, that in brave attempts it is glorious even to fail. Ꮓ N° 140. SATURDAY, MARCH 9, 1754. VIRG Desine Manalios, mea tibia, desine cantus. WHEN this work was first planned, it was determined, that whatever might be the success, it should not be continued as a paper, till it became unwieldy as a book: for no immediate advantage would have induced the Adventurer to write what, like a newspaper, was designed but for a day; and he knew, that the pieces of which it would consist, might be multiplied till they were thought too numerous to collect, and too costly to purchase, even by those who should allow them to be excellent in their kind. It was soon agreed, that four volumes, when they should be printed in a pocket size, would circulate better than more, and that scarce any of the purposes of publication could be effected by less; the work, therefore, was limited to four volumes, and four volumes are now completed. A moral writer, of whatever abilities, who labours to reclaim those to whom vice is become habitual, and who are become veterans in infidelity, must surely labour to little purpose. Vice is a gradual and easy descent, where it first deviates from the level of innocence: but the declivity at every pace becomes more steep, and those who descend, descend every moment with greater rapidity. As a moralist, therefore, I determined to mark the first insensible gradation to ill; to caution against those acts which are not generally believed to incur guilt, but of which indubitable vice and hopeless misery are the natural and almost necessary consequences. As I was upon these principles to write for the Young and the Gay; for those who are entering the path of life, I knew that it would be necessary to amuse the imagination while I was approaching the heart; and that I could not hope to fix the attention, but by engaging the passions. I have, therefore, sometimes led them into the regions of fancy, and sometimes held up before them the mirror of life; I have concatenated events, rather than deduced consequences by logical reasoning; and have exhibited scenes of prosperity and distress, as more forcibly per suasive than the rhetoric of declamation. |