Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

main of America, in search of provisions. The youth, who is the hero of my story, among others went on shore on this occasion. From their first landing they were observed by a party of Indians, who hid themselves in the woods for that purpose. The English unadvisedly marched a great distance from the shore into the country, and were intercepted by the natives, who slew the greatest number of them. Our adventurer escaped, among others, by flying into a forest. Upon his coming into a remote and pathless part of the wood, he threw himself, tired and breathless, on a little hillock, when an Indian maid rushed from a thicket behind him. After the first surprise they appeared mutually agreeable to each other. If the European was highly charmed with the limbs, features, and wild graces of the American, the American was no less taken with the dress, complexion, and shape of the European. The Indian grew immediately enamoured of him, and, consequently, solicitous for his preservation. She therefore conveyed him to a cave, where she gave him a delicious repast of fruits, and led him to a stream to slake his thirst. In the midst of these good offices, she would sometimes play with his hair, and delight in the opposition of its colour to that of her fingers. She was, it seems, a person of distinction, for she came every day in a different dress, of the most beautiful shells, bugles, and beads. She likewise brought him a great many spoils, which her other lovers had presented to her, so that his cave was richly adorned with all the spotted skins of beasts, and most party-coloured fowls, which that world afforded. To make his confinement more tolerable, she would carry him in the dusk of the evening, or by the favour of moonlight, to unfrequented groves and solitudes, and show him where to lie down in safety, and sleep amidst the falls of waters and melody of nightingales. Her part was to watch and hold him awake in her arms for fear of her countrymen, and wake him on occasions to consult his safety. In this manner did the lovers pass away their time, till they had learned a language of their own, in which the voyager communicated to his mistress how happy he should be to have her in his country, where she should be clothed in such silks as his waistcoat was made of, and be carried in houses drawn by horses without being exposed to wind or weather.

All this he promised her the enjoyment of, without such fears and alarms as they were there tormented with. In this tender correspondence these lovers lived for several months, when Yarico, instructed by her lover, discovered a vessel on the coast, to which she made signals; and in the night, with the utmost joy and satisfaction, accompanied him to a ship's crew of his countrymen, bound for Barbadoes. When a vessel from the main arrives in that island, it seems the planters come down to the shore, where there is an immediate market of the Indians and other slaves, as with us of horses and oxen.

To be short, Mr Thomas Inkle, now coming into English territories, began seriously to reflect upon his loss of time, and to weigh

FLATTERING COMPANIONS.

253

with himself how many days' interest of his money he had lost during his stay with Yarico. This thought made the young man pensive, and careful what account he should be able to give his friends of his voyage. Upon which consideration, the prudent and frugal young man sold Yarico to a Barbadian merchant.

3. FLATTERING COMPANIONS.

It is generally to be observed, that the person most agreeable to a man for a constancy1 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 or 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 as 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, though 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 flatterer2 implies no more than a person that barely consents; and indeed such a one, if a man were able to purchase or mention him, cannot 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 he is ready to beg your pardon, and gainsay you if you chance to speak ill of yourself. An old lady is very seldom 2 Viz., assentator.

1 i.e., for a constant, permanent friend.

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, though 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 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.

III. LORD SHAFTESBURY.

66

LORD SHAFTESBURY was born in London in 1671. His early education was superintended by Locke, to whom he probably owed his subsequent inclination for speculation. After a Continental tour he entered the House of Commons, and succeeding not long afterwards to the Earldom, he took his seat in the House of Lords, where his appearance as an orator was highly creditable to his education and reputation. In 1699 was published his earliest and most important work, “An inquiry concerning Virtue or Merit;" and he afterwards wrote "A letter on Enthusiasm," "The Moralists, a Rhapsody," "An Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour," and Advice to an Author." Delicate health obliged him to leave Britain, and retire to Naples, where he died prematurely in 1713. After his death was published a volume of "Miscellanies," and his whole works have been frequently reprinted in three volumes as his " Characteristics." As a philosopher, Shaftesbury was very popular, both in this country and on the Continent; and his influence is not yet exhausted, as many of the prevalent opinions of German philosophers are mere reproductions of his speculations. That he rendered important service to moral philosophy is generally admitted, but what was his own religious belief, and what is the religious tendency of his writings, has been very much debated,

THE DEITY UNFOLDED IN HIS WORKS.

255

though it is probable he was a Deist. His style is carefully elaborated, and without being very vigorous, is graceful, eloquent, and sometimes highly poetical; he, however, occasionally indulges in that whimsical kind of writing which reached its highest pitch in Sterne.

1. THE DEITY UNFOLDED IN HIS WORKS. ("MORALISTS.") How oblique and faintly looks the sun on yonder climates, far removed from him! How tedious are the winters there! How deep the horrors of the night, and how uncomfortable even the light of day! The freezing winds employ their fiercest breath, yet are not spent with blowing. The sea, which elsewhere is scarce confined within its limits, lies here immured in walls of crystal. The snow covers the hills, and almost fills the lowest valleys. How wide and deep it lies, incumbent o'er the plains, hiding the sluggish rivers, the shrubs and trees, the dens of beasts, and mansions of distressed and feeble men! See where they lie confined, hardly secure against the raging cold or the attacks of the wild beasts, now masters of the wasted field, and forced by hunger out of the naked wood. Yet not disheartened (such is the force of human breasts), but thus provided for by art and prudence, the kind compensating gifts of Heaven, men and their herds may wait for a release. For, at length, the sun approaching melts the snow, sets longing men at liberty, and affords them means and time to make provision against the next return of cold. It breaks the icy fetters of the main, where vast sea-monsters pierce through floating islands, with arms which can withstand the crystal rock; whilst others, who of themselves seem great as islands, are by their bulk alone armed against all but man, whose superiority over creatures of such stupendous size and force should make him mindful of his privilege of reason, and force him humbly to adore the great composer of these wondrous frames, and author of his own superior wisdom.

But leaving these dull climates, so little favoured by the sun, for those happier regions, on which he looks more kindly, making perpetual summer, how great an alteration do we find? His purer light confounds weak-sighted mortals, pierced by his scorching beams. Scarce can they tread the glowing ground. The air they breathe cannot enough abate the fire which burns within their panting breasts. Their bodies melt. O'ercome and fainting, they seek the shade, and wait the cool refreshments of the night.. Yet oft the bounteous Creator bestows other refreshments. He casts a veil of clouds before them, and raises gentle gales; favoured by which, the men and beasts pursue their labours, and plants refreshed by dews and showers can gladly bear the warmest sun-beams.

And here the varying scene opens to new wonders. We see a country rich with gems, but richer with the fragrant spices it affords. How gravely move the largest of land-creatures on the banks of this fair river! How ponderous are their arms, and vast their strength, with courage, and a sense superior to the other beasts! Yet are they tamed (we see) by mankind, and brought even to fight their

battles, rather as allies and confederates than as slaves. But let us turn our eyes towards these smaller and more curious objects,-the numerous and devouring insects on the trees in these wide plains. How shining, strong, and lasting are the subtle threads spun from their artful mouths! Who beside the All-wise has taught them to compose the beautiful soft shells, in which recluse and buried, yet still alive, they undergo such a surprising change, when not destroyed by men, who clothe and adorn themselves with the labours and lives of these weak creatures, and are proud of wearing such inglorious spoils? How sumptuously apparelled, gay, and splendid are all the various insects which feed on the other plants of this warm region! How beautiful the plants themselves in all their various growths, from the triumphant palm down to the humble moss!

Now may we see that happy country where precious gums and balsams flow from trees, and nature yields her most delicious fruits. How tame and tractable, how patient of labour and of thirst, are those large creatures, who, lifting up their lofty heads, go led and laden through those dry and barren places! Their shape and temper show them framed by nature to submit to man, and fitted for his service, who from hence ought to be more sensible of his wants, and of the divine bounty thus supplying them.

But see! not far from us, that fertilest of lands, watered and fed by a friendly generous stream, which, ere it enters the sea, divides itself into many branches, to dispense more equally the rich and nitrous manure it bestows so kindly and in due time on the adjacent plains. Fair image of that fruitful and exuberant nature, who with a flood of bounty blesses all things, and parent-like, out of her many breasts, sends the nutritious draught in various streams to her rejoicing offspring! Innumerable are the dubious forms and unknown species which drink the slimy current: whether they are such as, leaving the scorched deserts, satiate here their ardent thirst, and, promiscuously engendering, beget a monstrous race; or whether (as 'tis said) by the sun's genial heat active on the fermenting ooze, new forms are generated, and issue from the river's fertile bed. See there the noted tyrant of the flood, and terror of its borders! When suddenly displaying his horrid form, the amphibious ravager invades the land, quitting his watery den, and from the deep emerging, with hideous rush, sweeps o'er the trembling plain. The natives from afar behold with wonder the enormous bulk, sprung from so small an egg. With horror they relate the monster's nature, cruel and deceitful; how he, with dire hypocrisy and false tears, beguiles the simple-hearted; and, inspiring tenderness and kind compassion, kills with pious fraud. Sad emblem of that spiritual plague, dire superstition! Native of this soil, where first religion grew unsociable, and among different worshippers bred mutual hatred and abhorrence of each others' temples. The infection spreads; and nations, now profane one to another, war fiercer, and in religion's cause forget humanity: whilst savage zeal, with meek and pious

« НазадПродовжити »