But every body pays him great respect; every body commends his meat, that is, his money; every body admires the exquisite dressing and ordering of it, that is, his clerk of the kitchen, or his cook; every body loves his hospitality, that is, his vanity. But I desire to know why the honest inn-keeper, who provides a public table for his profit, should be but of a mean profession; and he, who does it for his honour, a munificent prince. You will say, because one sells, and the other gives: nay, both sell, though for different things; the one for plain money, the other for I know not what jewels, whose value is in custom and in fancy. If then his table be made “a snare" (as the Scripture 9 speaks) "to his liberty," where can he hope for freedom? There is always, and every where, some restraint upon him. He is guarded with crowds, and shackled with formalities. The half hat, the whole hat, the half smile, the whole smile, the nod, the embrace, the positive parting with a little bow, the comparative at the middle of the room, the superlative at the door; and, if the person be pan huper sebastus, there is a hypersuperlative ceremony then of conducting him to the bottom of the stairs, or to the very gate: as if there were such rules set to these Leviathans, as are to the sea, "Hitherto shalt thou go, and no further." Perditur hæc inter misero lux 2, Thus wretchedly the precious day is lost. How many impertinent letters and visits must he receive, and sometimes answer both too as impertinently! He never sets his foot beyond his threshold, unless, like a funeral, he have a train to follow him; as if, like the dead corpse, he could not stir, till the bearers were all ready. "My life (says Horace, speaking to one of these magnificos) is a great deal more easy and commodious than thine, in that I can go into the market, and cheapen what I please, without being wondered at; and take my horse and ride as far as Tarentum, without being missed." It is an unpleasant constraint to be always under the sight and observation, and censure, of others; as there may be vanity in it, so methinks there should be vexation, too, of spirit: and I wonder how princes can endure to have two or three hundred men stand gazing upon them whilst they are at dinner, and taking notice of every bit they eat. Nothing seems greater and more lordly than the multitude of domestic servants; but even this too, if weighed seriously, is a piece of servitude; unless you will be a servant to them (as many men are) the trouble and care of yours in the government of them all, is much more than that of every one of them in their observance of you. I take the profession of a school-master to be one of the most useful, and which ought to be of the most honourable in a commonwealth;. yet certainly all his fasces and tyrannical authority over so many boys takes away his own liberty more than theirs. I do but slightly touch upon all these particulars of the slavery of greatness: I shake but a few of their outward chains; their anger, hatred, Job xxxviii. 11. • Ps. Ixix. 22. 2 Hor. 2 Sat. vi. 59, jealousy, fear, envy, grief, and all the et cætera of their passions, which are the secret, but constant, tyrants and torturers of their life, I omit here, because, though they be symptoms most frequent and violent in this disease, yet they are common too in some degree to the epidemical disease of life itself. But the ambitious man, though he be so many ways a slave (o toties servus!) yet he bears it bravely and heroically; he struts and looks big upon the stage; he thinks himself a real prince in his masking-habit, and deceives too all the foolish part of his spectators: he is a slave in saturnalibus. The covetous man is a downright servant, a draught-horse without bells or feathers: ad metalla damnatus, a man condemned rk in mines, which is the lowest and hardest condition of servitude; and, to increase his misery, a worker there for he knows not whom : "He heapeth up riches, and knows not who shall enjoy them 3;" it is only sure, that he himself neither shall nor can enjoy them. He is an indigent, needy slave; he will hardly allow himself clothes and board-wages: to Unciatim vix de demenso suo, Suum defraudans genium, comparsit miser; He defrauds not only other men, but his own genius; he cheats himself for money. But the servile and miserable condition of this wretch is so apparent, that I leave it, as evident to every man's sight, as well as judgment. It seems a more difficult work to prove that the voluptuous man too is but a servant: what can be more the life of a freeman, or, as we say ordinarily, of a gentleman, than to follow nothing but his own pleasures? Why, I will tell you who is that true freeman, and that true gentleman, not he who blindly follows all his pleasures (the very name of follower is servile); but he who rationally guides them, and is not hindered by outward impediments in the conduct and enjoyment of them. If I want skill or force to restrain the beast that I ride upon, though I bought it, and call it my own, yet in the truth of the matter, I am at that time rather his man, than he my horse. The voluptuous men (whom we have fallen upon) may be divided, I think, into the lustful and luxurious, who are both servants of the belly; the other, whom we spoke of before, the ambitious and the covetous, were manà Inglay, evil wild beasts: these are yarigns ágyai, slow bellies, as our translation renders it, but the word agyaì (which is a fantastical word, with two directly opposite significations) will bear as well the translation of quick or diligent bellies; and both interpretations may be applied to these men. Metrodorus said, "that he had learnt ans yasçi xxgileobai, to give his belly just thanks for all his pleasures." This, by the calumniators of Epicurus's philosophy, was objected as one of the most scandalous of all their sayings; which, according to my charitable understanding, may admit a very virtuous sense, which is, that he thanked his own belly for that moderation, in the 3 Ps. xxxxix. 6. 4 Phorm. Act I. Sc. i. ver. 43. This, I confess, is a freeman: but it may be said, that many persons are so shackled by their fortune, that they are hindered from enjoyment of that manumission which they have obtained from virtue. I do both understand, and in part fee!, the weight of this objection; all I can answer to it is, that we must get as much liberty as we can, we must use our utmost endeavours, and, when all that is done, be contented with the length of that line which is allowed us. If you ask me, in what condition of life I think the most allowed; I should pitch upon that sort of people, whom King James was wont to call the happiest of our nation, the men placed in the country by their fortune above an high constable, and yet beneath the trouble of a justice of peace; in a moderate plenty, without any just argument for the desire of increasing it by the care of many relations; and with so much knowledge and love of piety and philosophy (that is, of the study of God's laws, and of his creatures) as may afford him matter enough never to be idle, though without business; and never to be melancholy, though without sin or vanity. I shall conclude this tedious discourse with a prayer of mine in a copy of Latin verses, of which I remember no other part; and (pour faire bonne bouche) with some other verses upon the same subject: Magne Deus, quod ad has vitæ brevis attinet horas, Da mihi, da panem libertatemque, nec ultrà For the few hours of life allotted me, 5 Hor. 2 Sat. vii. 83. Virg. Georg. iii. 7. I'll beg no more: if more thou'rt please to give, MARTIAL, Lib. I. Ep. lvi. Vota tui breviter, &c. WELL then, sir, you shall know how far extend The prayers and hopes of your poetic friend. He does not palaces nor manors crave, Would be no lord, but less a lord would have; The ground he holds, if he his own can call, He quarrels not with Heaven because 'tis small : Let gay and toilsome greatness others please, He loves of homely littleness the ease. Can any man in gilded rooms attend, And his dear hours in humble visits spend, When in the fresh and beauteous fields he may With various healthful pleasures fill the day? If there be man (ye gods !) I ought to hate, Dependance and attendance be his fate: Still let him busy be, and in a crowd, And very much a slave, and very proud: Thus he perhaps powerful and rich may grow; No matter, O ye gods! that I'll allow: But let him peace and freedom never see; Let him not love this life, who loves not me! MARTIAL, Lib. II. Ep. liii. Vis fieri liber? &c. WOULD you be free? 'Tis your chief wish you say; Come on; I'll show thee, friend, the certain way; MARTIAL, Lib. II. Ep. lxviii. Quod te nomine ? &c. THAT I do you with humble bows no more, And danger of my naked head, adore; That I, who "Lord and master," cry'd erewhile, Salute you, in a new and different style, By your own name, a scandal to you now; Think not that I forget myself or you : By loss of all things, by all others sought, This freedom, and the freeman's hat, is bought. A lord and master no man wants, but he Who o'er himself has no authority; Who does for honours and for riches strive, And follies, without which lords cannot live. If thou from fortune dost no servant crave, Believe it, thou no master need'st to have. ODE UPON LIBERTY. FREEDOM with Virtue takes her seat; Her proper place, her only scene, Is in the golden mean, She lives not with the poor nor with the great. And they're in Fortune's bridewell whipt These are by various tyrants captive led. And servile Avarice yokes them now, From these insulting passions free, Yet we ev'n those, too, fetter'd see By custom, business, crowds, and formal decency; And, wheresoe'er they stay, and wheresoe'er they 'Tis morning; well; I fain would yet sleep on; Why, mighty madman, what should hinder thee In all the free born nations of the air, Never did bird a spirit so mean and sordid bear, When, and wherever he thought good, And all his innocent pleasures of the wood, Who keep your primitive powers and rights so Though men and angels fell. Of all material lives the highest place To you is justly given; [well, And ways and walks the nearest Heaven. Whilst wretched we, yet vain and proud, think fit To boast, that we look up to it. Ev'n to the universal tyrant, Love, As his perpetual yoke to bear; Now will I sleep, now eat, now sit, now walk, Or, if my fancy call me away, To Dover, Berwick, or the Cornish mount, A hundred horse and men to wait on thee, A journey, too, might go. Where honour,or where conscience, does not bind, Who by resolves and vows engag'd does stand The bondman of the cloister so, (In which he only hits the white Who joins true profit with the best delight) The more heroic strain let others take, Mine the Pindaric way I'll make; [free, Nor shall it never from one subject start, As if it fear'd some trespass to commit. Till the whole carcase he devour, II. OF SOLITUDE. NUNQUAM minus solus, quam cum solus, is now ture, that now, says he, the basest of the peo- Sic ego secretis possum bene vivere sylvis, Seneca Epist. lxxxvi. Tu mihi curarum requies, tu nocte vel atră With thee for ever I in woods could rest, And yet our dear self is so wearisome to us, that we can scarcely support its conversation for an hour together. This is such an odd temper of mind, as Catullus expresses towards one of his mistresses, whom we may suppose to have been of a very unsociable humour 3: Odi, & amo: quare id faciam fortasse requiris, I hate, and yet I love thee too; And feel with torment that 'tis so. It is a deplorable condition, this, and drives a man sometimes to pitiful shifts, in seeking how to avoid himself. The truth of the matter is, that neither he who is a fop in the world, is a fit man to be alone; nor he who has set his heart much upon the world, though he have never so much understanding; so that solitude can be well fitted, and sit right, but upon a very few persons. They must have enough knowledge of the world to see the vanity of it, and enough virtue to despise all vanity; if the mind be possessed with any lust or passions, a man had better be. in a fair, than in a wood alone. They may, like petty thieves, cheat us perhaps, and pick our pockets, in the midst of company; but, like robbers, they use to strip and biud, or murder us, when they catch us alone. This is but to retreat from men, and fall into the hands of devils. It is like the punishment of parricides among the Romans, to be sowed into a bag, with an ape, a dog, and a serpent. The first work therefore that a man must do, to make himself capable of the good of solitude, is, the very eradication of all lusts; for how is it possible for a man to enjoy himself, while his affections are tied to things without himself? In the second place, he must learn the heart and get the habit of thinking; for this too, no less than wellspeaking, depends upon much practice; and cogitation is the thing which distinguishes the solitude of a god from a wild beast. Now because the soul of man is not by its own nature or observation furnished with sufficient materials to work upon, it it is necessary for it to have continual recourse to learning and books for fresh supplies, so that the solitary life will grow indigent, and be ready to starve, without them; but if once we be thoroughly engaged in the love of letters, inlubens,stead of being wearied with the length of any day, we shall only complain of the shortness of our whole life. 24 Tibull. xiii. 9. De amore suo, lxxxiij. O vita, stulto longa, sapienti brevis 4 ! O life, long to the fool, short to the wise! The first minister of state has not so much business in public, as a wise man has in private if the one have little leisure to be alone, the other has less leisure to be in company; the one has but part of the affairs of one nation, the other all the works of God and nature, under his consideration. There is no saying shocks me so much as that which I hear very often, "That a man does not know how to pass his time." It would have been but ill-spoken by Methusalem in the nine hundred sixty-ninth year of his life; so far it is from us, who have not time enough to attain to the utmost perfection of any part of any science, to have cause to complain that we are forced to be idle for want of work. But this, you will say, is work only for the learned; others are not capable either of the employments or divertisements that arrive from letters. I know they are not; and therefore cannot much recommend solitude to a man totally illiterate. But, if any inan be so unlearned, as to want entertainment of the little intervals of accidental solitude, which frequently occur in almost all conditions (except the very meanest of the people, who have business enough in the necessary provisions for life), it is truly a great shame both to his parents and himself; for a very small portion of any ingenious art will stop up all those gaps of our time: either music, or painting, or designing, or chymistry, or history, or gardening, or twenty other things, will do it usefully and pleasantly; and if he happen to set his affections upon poetry (which I do not advise him too immoderately), that will over-do it; no wood will be thick enough to hide him from the importunities of company or business, which would abstract him from his beloved. - O qui me gelidis in vallibus Hæmi Sistat, & ingenti ramorum protegat umbrâ? Hail, old patrician trees, so great and good! Hail, the poor Muses' richest manor-seat ! Here Nature does a house for me erect, Nature the wisest architect, Who those fond artists does despise That can the fair and living trees neglect ; Yet the dead timber prize. Here let me, careless and unthoughtful lying, Hear the soft winds, above me flying, 4 "O vita, misero longa, felici brevis!" 5 Virg. Georg. ii. 489. VOL. VIL With all their wanton boughs dispute, And the more tuneful birds to both replying, Nor be myself, too, mute. A silver stream shall roll his waters near, Gilt with the Sun-beams here and there; On whose enamell'd bank I'll walk, And see how prettily they smile, and hear How prettily they talk. Ah wretched and too solitary he, Who loves not his own company; He'll feel the weight of 't many a day, Unless he call in sin or vanity To help to bear't away. Oh Solitude, first state of human-kind! As soon as two alas! together join'd, Tho' God himself, through countless ages, thee Thou (tho' men think thine an unactive part) Dost, break and time th' unruly heart, Which else would know no settled pace, Making it move, well-manag'd by thy art, With swiftness and with grace. Thou the faint beams of reason's scatter'd light Whilst this hard truth I teach, methinks, I see Let but thy wicked men from out thee go, III. OF OBSCURITY. NAM neque divitibus contingunt gaudia solis; Nec vixit malè, qui natus moriensque fefellit. God made not pleasures only for the rich; This seems a strange sentence, thus literally translated, and looks as if it were in vindication of the men of business (for who else can deceive the Hor, 1 Ep. xvii. 9. |