XV

AN ESSAY TO PROVE THAT AN AUTHOR WILL WRITE BETTER, FOR HAVING SOME KNOWLEDGE OF THE SUBJECT ON WHICH HE WRITES

As several gentlemen in these times, by the wonderful force of genius only, without the least assistance of learning, perhaps, without being well able to read, have made a considerable figure in the republic of letters; the modern critics, I am told, have lately begun to assert, that all kind of learning is entirely 5 useless to a writer; and, indeed, no other than a kind of fetters on the natural spriteliness and activity of the imagination, which is thus weighed down, and prevented from soaring to those high flights which otherwise it would be able to reach.

This doctrine, I am afraid, is, at present, carried much too 10 far for why should writing differ so much from all other arts? The nimbleness of a dancing-master is not at all prejudiced by being taught to move; nor doth any mechanic, I believe, exercise his tools the worse for knowing how to use them. For my own part, I cannot conceive that Homer or Virgil would 15 have writ with more fire, if, instead of being masters of all the learning of their times, they had been as ignorant as most of the authors of the present age. Nor do I believe that all the imagination, fire, and judgment of Pitt could have produced those orations that have made the senate of England in these 20 our times a rival in eloquence to Greece and Rome, if he had not been so well read in the writings of Demosthenes and Cicero, as to have transfused their whole spirit into his speeches, and with their spirit, their knowledge too.

I would not here be understood to insist on the same fund 25 of learning in any of my brethren, as Cicero perswades us is necessary to the composition of an orator. On the contrary,

very little reading is, I conceive, necessary to the poet, less to the critic, and the least of all to the politician. For the first, perhaps, Bysse's Art of Poetry, and a few of our modern poets, may suffice; for the second, a moderate heap of plays; and 5 for the last, an indifferent collection of political journals.

To say the truth, I require no more than that a man should have some little knowledge of the subject on which he treats, according to the old maxim of law, Quam quisque norit artem in eâ se exerceat. With this alone a writer may sometimes do 10 tolerably well; and indeed without this, all the other learning in the world will stand him in little stead.

For instance, let us suppose that Homer and Virgil, Aristotle and Cicero, Thucydides and Livy, could have met all together, and have clubbed their several talents to have com15 posed a treatise on the art of dancing; I believe it will be

readily agreed they could not have equalled the excellent treatise which Mr. Essex hath given us on that subject, entitled, The Rudiments of genteel Education. And, indeed, should the excellent Mr. Broughton be prevailed on to set fist 20 to paper, and to complete the abovesaid rudiments, by deliver

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ing down the true principles of athletics, I question whether the world will have any cause to lament, that none of the great writers, either ancient or modern, have ever treated about that noble and useful art.

To avoid a multiplicity of examples in so plain a case, and to come at once to my point, I am apt to conceive, that one reason why many English writers have totally failed in describing the manners of upper life, may possibly be, that, in reality they know nothing of it.

This is a knowledge unhappily not in the power of many authors to arrive at. Books will give us a very imperfect idea of it; nor will the stage a much better: the fine gentleman formed upon reading the former will almost always turn

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out a pedant, and he who forms himself upon the latter, a coxcomb.

Nor are the characters drawn from these models better supported. Vanbrugh and Congreve copied nature; but they who copy them draw as unlike the present age, as Hogarth would 5 do if he was to paint a rout or a drum in the dresses of Titian and of Vandyke. In short, imitation here will not do the business. The picture must be after nature herself. A true knowledge of the world is gained only by conversation, and the manners of every rank must be seen in order to be known. 10 Now it happens that this higher order of mortals is not to be seen, like all the rest of the human species, for nothing, in the streets, shops, and coffee-houses: nor are they shewn, like the upper rank of animals, for so much a piece. In short, this is a sight to which no persons are admitted, without one or other 15 of these qualifications, viz. either birth or fortune; or what is equivalent to both, the honourable profession of a gamester. And very unluckily for the world, persons so qualified, very seldom care to take upon themselves the bad trade of writing; which is generally entered upon by the lower and poorer sort, 20 as it is a trade which many think requires no kind of stock to set up with.

Hence those strange monsters in lace and embroidery, in silks and brocades, with vast wigs and hoops; which, under the name of lords and ladies, strut the stage, to the great 25 delight of attornies and their clerks in the pit, and of citizens and their apprentices in the galleries; and which are no more to be found in real life, than the centaur, the chimera, or any other creature of mere fiction. But to let my reader into a secret, this knowledge of upper life, though very necessary 30 for preventing mistakes, is no very great resource to a writer whose province is comedy, or that kind of novels, which, like this I am writing, is of the comic class.

What Mr. Pope says of women is very applicable to most in this station, who are indeed so entirely made up of form and affectation, that they have no character at all, at least, none which appears. I will venture to say the highest life is much 5 the dullest, and affords very little humour or entertainment. The various callings in lower spheres produce the great variety of humorous character; whereas here, except among the few who are engaged in the pursuit of ambition, and the fewer still who have a relish for pleasure, all is vanity and servile 10 imitation. Dressing and cards, eating and drinking, bowing and curtesying, make up the business of their lives.

Some there are however of this rank, upon whom passion exercises its tyranny, and hurries them far beyond the bounds which decorum prescribes; of these, the ladies are as much 15 distinguished by their noble intrepidity, and a certain superior contempt of reputation, from the frail ones of meaner degree, as a virtuous woman of quality is by the elegance and delicacy of her sentiments from the honest wife of a yeoman or shopkeeper. Lady Bellaston was of this intrepid character; but 20 let not my country readers conclude from her, that this is the general conduct of women of fashion, or that we mean to represent them as such. They might as well suppose, that every `clergyman was represented by Thwackum, or every soldier by Ensign Northerton.

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There is not indeed a greater error than that which universally prevails among the vulgar, who borrowing their opinion. from some ignorant satyrists, have affixed the character of lewdness to these times. On the contrary, I am convinced there never was less of love intrigue carried on among persons 30 of condition, than now. Our present women have been taught

by their mothers to fix their thoughts only on ambition and vanity, and to despise the pleasures of love as unworthy their regard; and being afterwards, by the care of such mothers,

married without having husbands, they seem pretty well confirmed in the justness of those sentiments; whence they content themselves, for the dull remainder of life, with the pursuit of more innocent, but I am afraid more childish amusements, the bare mention of which would ill suit with the dignity of 5 this history. In my humble opinion, the true characteristick of the present beau monde, is rather folly than vice, and the only epithet which it deserves is that of frivolous.

XVI

[A LITERARY CONVERSATION IN ELYSIUM]

We pursued our way through a delicious grove of orangetrees, where I saw 'infinite numbers of spirits, every one of 10 whom I knew, and was known by them: (for spirits here know one another by intuition). I presently met a little daughter whom I had lost several years before. Good Gods! what words can describe the raptures, the melting passionate tenderness, with which we kiss'd each other, continuing in 15 our embrace, with the most extatic joy, a space which if time had been measured here as on earth, could not be less than half a year.

The first spirit, with whom I entered into discourse was the famous Leonidas of Sparta. I acquainted him with the 20 honours which had been done him by a celebrated poet of our nation; to which he answered, he was very much obliged to him.

We were presently afterwards entertained with the most delicious voice I had ever heard, accompanied by a violin, 25 equal to Signior Piantanida. I presently discovered the musician and songster to be Orpheus and Sappho.