brothers, who, either from their own re- | had not he been comforted by the daily flecting upon the estates they are born to, and therefore thinking all other accomplishments unnecessary, or from hearing these notions frequently inculcated to them by the flattery of their servants and domestics, or from the same foolish thought prevailing in those who have the care of their education, are of no manner of use but to keep up their families, and transmit their lands and houses in a line to posterity. This makes me often think on a story I have heard of two friends, which I shall give my reader at large, under feigned names. The moral of it may, I hope, be useful, though there are some circumstances which make it rather appear like a novel, than a true story. Eudoxus and Leontine began the world with small estates. They were both of them men of good sense and great virtue. They prosecuted their studies together in their earlier years, and entered into such a friendship as lasted to the end of their lives. Eudoxus, at his first setting out in the world, threw himself into a court, where by his natural endowments and his acquired abilities he made his way from one post to another, until at length he had raised a very considerable fortune. Leontine on the contrary sought all opportunities of improving his mind, by study, conversation, and travel. He was not only acquainted with all the sciences, but with the most eminent professors of them throughout Europe. He knew perfectly well the interest of its princes, with the customs and fashions of their courts, and could scarce meet with the name of an extraordinary person in the Gazette whom he had not either talked to or seen. In short, he had so well mixed and digested his knowledge of men and books, that he made one of the most accomplished persons of his age. During the whole course of his studies and travels he kept up a punctual correspondence with Eudoxus, who often made himself acceptable to the principal men about court by the intelligence which he received from Leontine. When they were both turned of forty, (an age in which, according to Mr. Cowley, there is no dallying with life,') they determined, pursuant to the resolution they had taken in the beginning of their lives, to retire, and pass the remainder of their days in the country. In order to this, they both of them married much about the same time. Leontine, with his own and wife's fortune, bought a farm of three hundred a year, which lay within the neighbourhood of his friend Eudoxus, who had purchased an estate of as many thousands. They were both of them fathers about the same time, Eudoxus having a son born to him, and Leontine, a daughter; but to the unspeakable grief of the latter, his young wife (in whom all his happiness was wrapt up,) died in a few days after the birth of her daughter. His affliction would have been insupportable, visits and conversation of his friend. As they were one day talking together with their usual intimacy, Leontine, considering how incapable he was of giving his daughter a proper education in his own house, and Eudoxus reflecting on the ordinary behaviour of a son who knows himself to be the heir of a great estate, they both agreed upon an exchange of children, namely, that the boy should be bred up with Leontine as his son, and that the girl should live with Eudoxus as his daughter, until they were each of them arrived at years of discretion. The wife of Eudoxus, knowing that her son could not be so advantageously brought up as under the care of Leontine, and considering at the same time that he would be perpetually under her own eye, was by degrees prevailed upon to fall in with the project. She therefore took Leonilla, for that was the name of the girl, and educated her as her own daughter. The two friends on each side had wrought themselves to such an habitual tenderness for the children who were under their direction, that each of them had the real passion of a father, where the title was but imaginary. Florio, the name of the young heir that lived with Leontine, though he had all the duty and affection imaginable for his supposed parent, was taught to rejoice at the sight of Eudoxus, who visited his friend very frequently, and was dictated by his natural affection, as well as by the rules. of prudence, to make himself esteemed and beloved by Florio. The boy was now old enough to know his supposed father's circumstances, and that therefore he was to make his way in the world by his own industry. This consideration grew stronger in him every day, and produced so good an effect, that he applied himself with more than ordinary attention to the pursuit of every thing which Leontine recommended to him. His natural abilities, which were very good, assisted by the directions of so excellent a counsellor, enabled him to make a quicker progress than ordinary through all the parts of his education. Before he was twenty years of age, having finished his studies and exercises with great applause, he was removed from the university to the inns of court, where there are very few that make themselves considerable proficients in the studies of the place, who know they shall arrive at great estates without them. This was not Florio's case; he found that three hundred a year was but a poor estate for Leontine and himself to live upon, so that he studied without intermission till he gained a very good insight into the constitution and laws of his country. I should have told my reader, that whilst Florio lived at the house of his foster-father, he was always an acceptable guest in the family of Eudoxus, where he became ac quaint d with Leonilla from her infancy. of that care which they had bestowed upon them in their education. Μεγα βιβλιον, μέγα κακον A great book is a great evil. L. A MAN who publishes his works in a volume, has an infinite advantage over one who communicates his writings to the world in loose tracts and single pieces. We do not expect to meet with any thing in a bulky volume, till after some heavy pre amble, and several words of course, to prepare the reader for what follows. Nay, authors have established it as a kind of rule, that a man ought to be dull sometimes; as the most severe reader makes allowances for many rests and nodding-places in a vo luminous writer. This gave occasion to the famous Greek proverb, which I have cho sen for my motto, that A great book is a great evil.' His acquaintance with her by degrees grew into love, which in a mind trained up in all the sentiments of honour and virtue became a very uneasy passion. He despaired of gaining an heiress of so great a fortune, and No. 124.] Monday, July 23, 1711. would rather have dieď than attempted it by any indirect methods. Leonilla, who was a woman of the greatest beauty joined with the greatest modesty, entertained at the same time a secret passion for Florio, but conducted herself with so much prudence, that she never gave him the least intimation of it. Florio was now engaged in all those arts and improvements that are proper to raise a man's private fortune, and give him a figure in his country, but secretly tormented with that passion which burns with the greatest fury in a virtuous and noble heart, when he received a sudden summons from Leontine, to repair to him in the country the next day: for it seems Eudoxus was so filled with the report of his son's reputation, that he could no longer withhold making himself known to him. The morning after his arrival at the house of his supposed father, Leontine told him On the contrary, those who publish their that Eudoxus had something of great im- thoughts in distinct sheets, and as it were portance to communicate to him; upon by piece-meal, have none of these advan which the good man embraced him and tages. We must immediately fall into our wept. Florio was no sooner arrived at the subject, and treat every part of it in a lively great house that stood in his neighbourhood, manner, or our papers are thrown by as but Eudoxus took him by the hand, after dull and insipid. Our matter must lie close the first salutes were over, and conducted together, and either be wholly new in itself, him into his closet. He there opened to or in the turn it receives from our expres him the whole secret of his parentage and sions. Were the books of our best authors education, concluding after this manner: I thus to be retailed to the public, and every have no other way of acknowledging my page submitted to the taste of forty or fifty gratitude to Leontine, than by marrying thousand readers, I am afraid we should you to his daughter. He shall not lose the complain of many flat expressions, trivial pleasure of being your father by the disco- observations, beaten topics, and common very I have made to you. Leonilla too shall thoughts, which go off very well in the be still my daughter; her filial piety, though lump. At the same time, notwithstanding misplaced, has been so exemplary, that it some papers may be made up of _broken deserves the greatest reward I can confer hints and irregular sketches, it is often exupon it. You shall have the pleasure of pected that every sheet should be a kind seeing a great estate fall to you, which you of treatise, and make out in thought what would have lost the relish of, had you it wants in bulk: that a point of humour known yourself born to it. Continue only should be worked up in all its parts; and a to deserve it in the same manner you did subject touched upon in its most essential before you were possessed of it. I have left articles, without the repetitions, tautoloyour mother in the next room. Her heart gies, and enlargements, that are indulged yearns towards you. She is making the to longer labours. The ordinary writers same discoveries to Leonilla which I have of morality prescribe to their readers after made to yourself.' Florio was so over- the Galenic way; their medicines are made whelmed with this profusion of happiness, that he was not able to make a reply, but threw himself down at his father's feet, and amidst a flood of tears, kissed and embraced his knees, asking his blessing, and expressing in dumb show those sentiments of love, duty, and gratitude that were too big for utterance. To conclude, the happy pair were married, and half Eudoxus's estate settled upon them. Leontine and Eudoxus passed the remainder of their lives together; and received in the dutiful and affectionate behaviour of Florio and Leonilla the just recompence, as well as the natural effects up in large quantities. An essay-writer must practise in the chymical method, and give the virtue of a full draught in a few drops. Were all books reduced thus to their quintessence, many a bulky author would make his appearance in a penny paper. There would be scarce such a thing in nature as a folio; the works of an age would be contained on a few shelves; not to mention millions of volumes that would be utterly annihilated. I cannot think that the difficulty of furnishing out separate papers of this nature, has hindered authors from communicating might help the eye of a man, could be of no use to a mole.' It is not therefore for the benefit of moles that I publish these my daily essays. But besides such as are moles through ignorance, there are others who are moles through envy. As As it is said in the Latin proverb, That one man is a wolf to an their thoughts to the world after such a manner: though I must confess I am amazed that the press should be only made use of in this way by news-writers, and the zealots of parties; as if it were not more advantageous to mankind, to be instructed in wisdom and virtue, than in politics; and to be made good fathers, husbands, and sons, than counsellors and statesmen. Had the philo-other,' so generally speaking, one author is sophers and great men of antiquity, who a mole to another. It is impossible for them took so much pains in order to instruct man- to discover beauties in one another's works; kind, and leave the world wiser and better they have eyes only for spots and blemishes: than they found it; had they, I say, been they can indeed see the light, as it is said possessed of the art of printing, there is no of the animals which are their namesakes, question but they would have made such but the idea of it is painful to them; they an advantage of it, in dealing out their lec- immediately shut their eyes upon it, and tures to the public. Our common prints withdraw themselves into a wilful obscuwould be of great use were they thus cal-rity. I have already caught two or three culated to diffuse good sense through the bulk of a people, to clear up their understandings, animate their minds with virtue, dissipate the sorrows of a heavy heart, or unbend the mind from its more severe employments with innocent amusements. When knowledge, instead of being bound up in books and kept in libraries and retirements, is thus obtruded upon the public; when it is canvassed in every assembly and exposed upon every table, I cannot forbear reflecting upon that passage in the Proverbs: Wisdom crieth without, she uttereth her voice in the streets: she crieth in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates. In the city she uttereth her words, saying, How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning? and fools hate knowledge?' The many letters which come to me from persons of the best sense in both sexes, (for I may pronounce their characters from their way of writing) do not a little encourage me in the prosecution of this my undertaking; besides that my bookseller tells me, the demand for these my papers increases daily. It is at his instance that I shall continue my rural speculations to the end of.this month; several having made up separate sets of them, as they have done before of those relating to wit, to operas, to points of morality, or subjects of humour. of these dark undermining vermin, and intend to make a string of them, in order to hang them up in one of my papers, as an example to all such voluntary moles. C. No. 125.] Tuesday, July 24, 1711. Virg. Æn. vi. 832. My worthy friend Sir Roger, when we are talking of the malice of parties, very frequently tells us an accident that happened to him when he was a school-boy, which was at the time when the feuds ran high between the Round-heads and Cavaliers. This worthy knight, being then but a stripling, had occasion to inquire which was the way to St. Anne's Lane; upon which the person whom he spoke to, instead of answering his question, called him a young popish cur, and asked him who had made Anne a saint? The boy, being in some confusion, inquired of the next he met, which was the way to Anne's Lane; but was called a prick-eared cur for his pains, and instead of being shown the way, was told that she had been a saint before he was born, and would be I am not at all mortified, when sometimes one after he was hanged. 'Upon this,' I see my works thrown aside by men of no says Sir Roger, 'I did not think fit to retaste nor learning. There is a kind of hea-peat the former questions, but going into viness and ignorance that hangs upon the minds of ordinary men, which is too thick for knowledge to break through. Their souls are to be enlightened. -Nox atra cava circumvolat umbra. Virg. Æn. ii. 360. Black night enwraps them in her gloomy shade. To these I must apply the fable of the mole, that after having consulted many oculists for the bettering of his sight, was at last provided with a good pair of spectacles; but upon his endeavouring to make use of them, his mother told him very prudently, 'That spectacles, though they every lane of the neighbourhood, asked what they called the name of that lane? By which ingenious artifice he found out the place he inquired after without giving offence to any party. Sir Roger generally closes this narrative with reflections on the mischief that parties do in the country, how they spoil a good neighbourhood, and make honest gentlemen hate one another; besides that they manifestly tend to the prejudice of the land-tax, and the destruction of the game. There cannot a greater judgment befal a country than such a dreadful spirit of division as rends a government into two distinct people, and makes them greater] which at present prevails amongst al strangers and more averse to one another, ranks and degrees in the British nation. than if they were actually two different As men formerly became eminent in learnnations. The effects of such a division are ed societies by their parts, and acquisipernicious to the last degree, not only with tions, they now distinguish themselves by regard to those advantages which they the warmth and violence with which they give the common enemy, but to those pri- espouse their respective parties. Books vate evils which they produce in the heart are valued upon the like considerations. of almost every particular person. This An abusive, scurrilous style, passes for sainfluence is very fatal both to menʼs morals | tire, and a dull scheme of party notions is and their understanding; it sinks the vir- called fine writing. tue of a nation, and not only so, but destroys even common sense. There is one piece of sophistry practised by both sides, and that is the taking any scandalous story that has been ever whispered or invented of a private man, for a known undoubted truth, and raising suitable speculations upon it. Calumnies that have been never proved, or have been often refuted, are the ordinary postulatums of these infamous scribblers, upon which A furious party spirit, when it rages in its full violence, exerts itself in civil war and bloodshed; and when it is under its greatest restraints naturally breaks out in falsehood, detraction, calumny, and a partial administration of justice. In a word, it fills a nation with spleen and rancour, and extinguishes all the seeds of good-they proceed as upon first principles grantnature, compassion, and humanity. ed by all men, though in their hearts they know they are false, or at best very doubtful. When they have laid these foundations of scurrility, it is no wonder that their superstructure is every way answerable to them. If this shameless practice of the present age endures much longer, praise and reproach will cease to be motives of action in good men. Plutarch says, very finely, that a man should not allow himself to hate even his enemies, because,' says he, if you indulge this passion in some occasions, it will rise of itself in others; if you hate your enemies, you will contract such a vicious habit of mind, as by degrees will break out upon those who are your friends, or those who are indifferent to you.' I might here There are certain periods of time in all observe how admirably this precept of governments when this inhuman spirit premorality (which derives the malignity of vails. Italy was long torn to pieces by the hatred from the passion itself, and not from Guelfes and Gibellines, and France by those its object) answers to that great rule which who were for and against the league: but it was dictated, to the world about an hun- is very unhappy for a man to be born in such dred years before this philosopher wrote;* a stormy and tempestuous season. It is the but instead of that, I shall only take notice, restless ambition of artful men that thus with a real grief of heart, that the minds breaks a people into factions, and draws of many good men among us appear several well-meaning persons to their insoured with party-principles, and alienated terest by a specious concern for their counfrom one another in such a manner, as try. How many honest minds are filled seems to me altogether inconsistent with with uncharitable and barbarous notions, the dictates either of reason or religion. out of their zeal for the public good? Zeal for a public cause is apt to breed pas- What cruelties and outrages would they sions in the hearts of virtuous persons, to not commit against men of an adverse parwhich the regard of their own private in-ty, whom they would honour and esteem, terest would never have betrayed them. If this party spirit has so ill an effect on our morals, it has likewise a very great one upon our judgments. We often hear a poor insipid paper or pamphlet cried up, and sometimes a noble piece depreciated, by those who are of a different principle from the author. One who is actuated by this spirit is almost under an incapacity of discerning either real blemishes or beauties. A man of merit in a different principle, is like an object seen in two different mediums, that appears crooked or broken, however straight and entire it may be in itself. For this reason there is scarce a person of any figure in England, who does not go by two contrary characters, as opposite to one another as light and darkness. Knowledge and learning suffer in a particular manner from this strange prejudice, Viz by Jesus Christ. See Luke vi. 27--32 &c. if, instead of considering them as they are represented, they knew them as they are? Thus are persons of the greatest probity seduced into shameful errors and prejudices, are made bad men even by that noblest of principles, the love of their country. I cannot here forbear mentioning the famous Spanish proverb, If there were neither fools nor knaves in the world, all people would be of one mind.' For my own part I could heartily wish that all honest men would enter into an association, for the support of one another against the endeavours of those whom they ought to look upon as their common enemies, whatsoever side they may belong to. Were there such an honest body of neutral forces, we should never see the worst of men in great figures of life, because they are useful to a party; nor the best unregarded, because they are above practising those methods which would be grateful to their faction. We should then single every | have been sometimes advanced, and all this criminal out of the herd, and hunt him without any regard to his private interest, down however form dable and overgrown he might appear; on the contrary, we should shelter distressed innocence, and defend virtue, however beset with contempt or ridicule, envy or defamation. In short, we should not any longer regard our fellow-subjects as Whigs or Tories, but should make the man of merit our friend, and the villain our enemy. C. No. 126.] Wednesday, July 25, 1711. would be no small benefactor to his country. I remember to have read in Diodorus Siculus an account of a very active little animal, which I think he calls the ichneumon, that makes it the whole business of his life to break the eggs of the crocodile, which he is always in search after. This instinct is the more remarkable, because the ichneumon never feeds upon the eggs he has broken, nor any other way finds his account in them. Were it not for the incessant labours of this industrious animal, Ægypt, says the historian, would be overrun with crocodiles; for the Ægyptians are Rutulians, Trojans, are the same to me. Dryden. creatures, that they worship them as gods. so far from destroying those pernicious In my yesterday's paper I proposed, If we look into the behaviour of ordinary hat the honest men of all parties should partizans, we shall find them far from reenter into a kind of association for the de-sembling this disinterested animal; and fence of one another, and the confusion of rather acting after the example of the their common enemies. As it is designed wild Tartars, who are ambitious of dethis neutral body should act with regard to nothing but truth and equity, and divest themselves of the little heats and prepossessions that cleave to parties of all kinds, I have prepared for them the following form of an association, which may express their intentions in the most plain and simple manner. stroying a man of the most extraordinary parts and accomplishments, as thinking that upon his decease the same talents, whatever post they qualified him for, enter of course into his destroyer. As in the whole train of my speculations, I have endeavoured as much as I am able to extinguish that pernicious spirit of pas'We whose names are hereunto sub- sion and prejudice which rages with the scribed, do solemnly declare, that we do in same violence with all parties, I am still our consciences believe two and two make the more desirous of doing some good in four; and that we shall adjudge any man this particular, because I observe that the whatsoever to be our enemy who endea-spirit of party reigns more in the country vours to persuade us to the contrary. We than in the town. It here contracts a kind are likewise ready to maintain, with the of brutality and rustic fierceness, to which hazard of all that is near and dear to us, men of a politer conversation are wholly that six is less than seven in all times and strangers. It extends itself even to the all places: and that ten will not be more return of the bow and the hat; and at the three years hence than it is at present. same time that the heads of parties preWe do also firmly declare, that it is our serve towards one another an outward show resolution as long as we live to call black of good-breeding, and keep up a perpeblack, and white white. And we shall tual intercourse of civilities, their tools that upon all occasions oppose such persons are dispersed in these outlying parts will that upon any day of the year shall call not so much as mingle together at a cockblack white, or white black, with the ut-match. This humour fills the country most peril of our lives and fortunes.' Were there such a combination of honest men, who without any regard to place would endeavour to extirpate all such furious zealots as would sacrifice one half of their country to the passion and interest of the other; as also such infamous hypocrites, that are for promoting their own advantage under colour of the public good; with all the profligate immoral retainers to each side, that have nothing to recommend them but an implicit submission to their leaders, we should soon see that furious party-spirit extinguished, which may in time expose us to the derision and contempt of all the nations about us. A member of this soci ty that would thus carefully employ himself in making room for merit, by throwing down the worthless and depraved part of mankind from those conspicuous stations of life to which they with several periodical meetings of Whig jockies and Tory fox-hunters; not to mention the innumerable curses, frowns, and whispers it produces at a quarter-sessions. I do not know whether I have observed in any of my former papers, that my friends Sir Roger de Coverley and Sir Andrew Freeport are of different principles, the first of them inclined to the landed and the other to the monied interest. This humour is so moderate in each of them, that it proceeds no farther than to an agreeable raillery, which very often diverts the rest of the club. I find however that the knight is a much stronger Tory in the country than in town, which as he has told me in my ear, is absolutely necessary for the keeping up his interest. In all our journey from London to this house we did not so much as bait at a Whig inn; or if by chance the coachman stopped at a wrong place, one of Sir Roger's |