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I would fain know how it comes to pass that during all this time he had sent nobody, no, not so much as a candle-snuffer, to take away the dead body of Sempronius. Well! but let us regard him listening. Having left his apprehension behind him, he at first applies what Marcia says to Sempronius. But finding at last, with much ado, that he himself is the happy man, he quits his eavesdropping, and discovers himself just time enough to prevent his being cuckolded by a dead man, of whom the moment before he had appeared so jealous, and greedily intercepts the bliss which was fondly designed for one who could not be the better for it. But here I must ask a question: how comes Juba to listen here, who had not listened before throughout the play? Or how comes he to be the only person of this tragedy who listens, when love and treason were so often talked in so public a place as a hall? I am afraid the author was driven upon all these absurdities only to introduce this miserable mistake of Marcia, which, after all, is much below the dignity of tragedy, as anything is which is the effect or result of trick.

But let us come to the scenery of the fifth act. Cato appears first upon the scene, sitting in a thoughtful posture, in his hand Plato's treatise on the Immortality of the Soul, a drawn sword on the table by him. Now let us consider the place in which this sight is presented to us. The place, forsooth, is a long hall. Let us suppose that any one should place himself in this posture in the midst of one of our halls in London; that he should appear solus in a sullen posture, a drawn sword on the table by him; in his hand Plato's treatise on the Immortality of the Soul, translated lately by Bernard Lintot: I desire the reader to consider whether such a person as this would pass with them who beheld him for a great patriot, a great philosopher, or a general, or some whimsical person who fancied himself all these? and whether the people who belonged to the family would think that such a person had a design upon their midriffs or his own?

In short, that Cato should sit long enough in the aforesaid posture, in the midst of this large hall, to read over Plato's treatise on the Immortality of the Soul, which is a lecture of two long hours; that he should propose to himself to be private there upon that occasion; that he should be angry with his son for intruding there; then, that he should leave this hall upon

the pretence of sleep, give himself the mortal wound in his bedchamber, and then be brought back into that hall to expire, purely to show his good breeding and save his friends the trouble of coming up to his bed-chamber, all this appears to me to be improbable, incredible, impossible.

...

ANTHONY ASHLEY COOPER, THIRD EARL

OF SHAFTESBURY

CHARACTERISTICS OF MEN, MANNERS, OPINIONS AND TIMES

1711

[The above is the title of the collected essays of Lord Shaftesbury. Most of them had been earlier published: the "Freedom of Wit and Humor" in 1709 (as Sensus Communis: an Essay on the Freedom, etc.), “Advice to an Author" in 1710 (as Soliloquy: or Advice, etc.). The extracts here given are from Part III, Section IV, of the "Freedom of Wit and Humor," and Part III, Section III, of "Advice to an Author." With Shaftesbury's doctrine of an absolute standard of worth, in both character and art, should be compared the opposing views of Mandeville; see pp. 251-254, below.]

AN ESSAY ON THE FREEDOM OF WIT AND HUMOR

'T is well for you, my friend, that in your education you have had little to do with the philosophy or philosophers of our days. A good poet and an honest historian may afford learning enough for a gentleman; and such a one, whilst he reads these authors as his diversion, will have a truer relish of their sense and understand them better than a pedant with all his labors and the assistance of his volumes of commentators. I am sensible that of old 't was the custom to send the youth of highest quality to philosophers to be formed. 'T was in their schools, in their company, and by their precepts and example, that the illustrious pupils were inured to hardship and exercised in the severest courses of temperance and self-denial. By such an early discipline they were fitted for the command of others; to maintain their country's honor in war, rule wisely in the state, and fight against luxury and corruption in times of prosperity and peace. If any of these arts are comprehended in university learning, 't is well. But as some universities in the world are now modeled, they seem not so very effectual to these purposes, nor so fortunate in preparing for a right practice of the world, or a just knowledge of men and things. Had you been thoroughpaced in the ethics or politics of the schools, I should never have

thought of writing a word to you upon your common sense or the love of mankind. I should not have cited the poet's dulce et decorum; nor, if I had made a character for you, as he for his noble friend, should I have crowned it with his

Non ille pro caris amicis

Aut patria timidus perire.1

Our philosophy nowadays runs after the manner of that able sophister who said, "Skin for skin: all that a man hath will he give for his life." "Tis orthodox divinity, as well as sound philosophy, with some men to rate life by the number and exquisiteness of the pleasing sensations. These they constantly set in opposition to dry virtue and honesty; and upon this foot they think it proper to call all men fools who would hazard a life, or part with any of these pleasing sensations, except on the condition of being repaid in the same coin and with good interest into the bargain. Thus, it seems, we are to learn virtue by usury, and enhance the value of life, and of the pleasures of sense, in order to be wise and to live well.

But you, my friend, are stubborn in this point; and instead of being brought to think mournfully of death, or to repine at the loss of what you may sometimes hazard by your honesty, you can laugh at such maxims as these, and divert yourself with the improved selfishness and philosophical cowardice of these fashionable moralists. You will not be taught to value life at their rate, or degrade honesty as they do, who make it only a name. You are persuaded there is something more in the thing than fashion or applause; that worth and merit are substantial, and no way variable by fancy or will; and that honor is as much itself when acting by itself and unseen, as when seen. and applauded by all the world.

Should one who had the countenance of a gentleman ask me "why I would avoid being nasty, when nobody was present?", in the first place I should be fully satisfied that he himself was a very nasty gentleman who could ask this question, and that it would be a hard matter for me to make him ever conceive what true cleanliness was. However, I might, notwithstanding this, be contented to give him a slight answer, and say "'t was because I had a nose." Should he trouble me further and ask again, "what if I had a cold? or what if naturally I had no such 1 "He is not afraid to die for his dear friends or his country."

nice smell?" I might answer perhaps "that I cared as little to see myself nasty as that others should see me in that condition." But what if it were in the dark? Why even then, though I had neither nose nor eyes, my sense of the matter would still be the same: my nature would rise at the thought of what was sordid; or if it did not, I should have a wretched nature indeed, and hate myself for a beast. Honor myself I never could, whilst I had no better a sense of what in reality I owed myself, and what became me as a human creature.

Much in the same manner have I heard it asked, Why should a man be honest in the dark? What a man must be to ask this question I will not say. But for those who have no better a reason for being honest than the fear of a gibbet or a jail, I should not, I confess, much covet their company or acquaintance. And if any guardian of mine who had kept his trust, and given me back my estate when I came of age, had been discovered to have acted thus through fear only of what might happen to him, I should for my own part undoubtedly continue civil and respectful to him; but for my opinion of his worth, it would be such as the Pythian god had of his votary, who devoutly feared him, and therefore restored to a friend what had been deposited in his hands:

Reddidit ergo metu, non moribus; et tamen omnem

Vocem adyti dignam templo, veramque probavit,
Extinctus tota pariter cum prole domoque.1

I know very well that many services to the public are done merely for the sake of a gratuity; and that informers in particular are to be taken care of, and sometimes made pensioners of state. But I must beg pardon for the particular thoughts I may have of these gentlemen's merit, and shall never bestow my esteem on any other than the voluntary discoverers of villainy and hearty prosecutors of their country's interest. And in this respect, I know nothing greater or nobler than the undertaking and managing some important accusation, by which some high criminal of state, or some formed body of conspirators against the public, may be arraigned and brought to punishment, through the honest zeal and public affection of a private

man.

1 "He made restitution, therefore, through fear, not morality; and yet proved the whole oracle as worthy of the temple and true, being destroyed completely, together with his children and house."

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