Since his death, I have been favoured with the inspection of his poetry, of which I preserved a catalogue for the benefit of my readers. OCCASIONAL POEMS. On his dog, that growing corpulent refused a crust when it was offered him. To the memory of a pair of breeches, that had done him excellent service. Having lost his trusty walking-staff, he complaineth. To his mistress, on her declaring that she loved parsnips better than potatoes. On an ear-wig that crept into a nectarine that it might be swallowed by Cloe. by familiarity in respect, was generally made up to us by the affection it procured; and that an absolute solitude was so very contrary to our natures, that were he excluded from society but for a single fortnight, he would be exhilarated at the sight of the first beggar that he saw. What follows were thoughts thrown out in our further discourse upon the subject; without order or connection, as they occur to my remembrance. Some reserve is a debt to prudence; as freedom and simplicity of conversation is a debt to good-nature. There would not be any absolute necessity for reserve, if the world were honest: yet, even then, On cutting an artichoke in his garden the day it would prove expedient. For, in order to atthat Queen Anne cut her little finger. Epigram on a wooden peg. tain any degree of deference, it seems necessary that people should imagine you have more ac Ode to the memory of the great modern-who complishments than you discover. first invented shoe-buckles. ON RESERVE. Taking an evening's walk with a friend in the country, among many grave remarks, he was making the following observation: "There is not," says he, "any one quality so inconsistent with respect, as what is commonly called familiarity. You do not find one in fifty whose regard is proof against it. At the same time, it is hardly possible to insist upon such a deference as will render you ridiculous, if it be supported by common sense. Thus much at least is evident, that your demands will be so successful, as to procure a greater share than if you had made no such demand. I may frankly own to you, Leander, that I frequently derived uneasiness, from a familiarity with such persons as despised everything they could obtain with ease. Were it not better therefore to be somewhat frugal of our affability, at least to allot it only to few persons of discernment who can make the proper distinction betwixt real dignity and pretended: to neglect those characters, which, being impatient to grow familiar, are at the same time very far from familiarity-proof: to have posthumous fame in view, which affords us the most pleasing landscape to enjoy the amusement of reading, and the consciousness that reading paves the way to general esteem: to preserve a constant regularity of temper, and also of constitution, for the most part but little consistent with a promiscuous intercourse with men: to shun all illiterate, though ever so jovial assemblies, insipid, perhaps, when present, and upon reflection painful: to meditate on those absent or departed friends, who value or valued us for those qualities with which they were best acquainted: to partake with such a friend as you, the delights of a studious and rational retirement-are not these the paths that lead to happiness?" In answer to this (for he seemed to feel some late mortification) I observed, that what we lost It is on this depends one of the excellences of the judicious Virgil. He leaves you something ever to imagine: and such is the constitution of the human mind, that we think so highly of nothing, as of that whereof we do not see the bounds. This, as Mr Burke ingeniously observes, affords the pleasure when we survey a cylinder;* and Sir John Suckling says: "They who know all the wealth they have are poor; He's only rich who cannot tell his store." A person who would secure to himself great deference, will, perhaps, gain his point by silence, as effectually as by anything he can say. To be, however, a niggard of one's observation is so much worse than to hoard up one's money, as the former may be both imparted and retained at the same time. Men oftentimes pretend to proportion their respect to real desert; but a supercilious reserve and distance wearies them into a compliance with more. many persons of the lofty character, that they This appears so very manifest to use no better means to acquire respect than like highwaymen to make a demand of it. They will, like Empedocles, jump into the fire, rather than betray the mortal part of their character. It is from the same principle of distance that nations are brought to believe that their great duke knoweth all things; as is the case in some countries. "Men, while no human form or fault they see, "For some small worth he had, the man was prized; He added frankness-and he grew despised." * Treatise of the sublime and beautiful. "We want comets, not ordinary planets: 'Tædit quotidianarum harum formarum.' "Hunc cœlum, et stellas, et decendentia certis Tempora momentis, sunt qui formidine nulla Imbuti spectent." Virtues, like essences, lose their fragrance when exposed. They are sensitive plants, which will not bear too familiar approaches. Let us be careful to distinguish modesty, which is ever amiable, from reserve, which is only prudent. A man is hated sometimes for pride, when it was an excess of humility gave the occasion. What is often termed shyness, is nothing more than refined sense, and an indifference to common observations. The reserved man's intimate acquaintance are, for the most part fonder of him, than the persons of a more affable character, i.e., he pays them a greater compliment than the other can do his, as he distinguishes them more. It is indolence, and the pain of being upon one's guard, that makes one hate an artful acter. "Seldom he smiles And smiles in such a sort as he disdained "A fool and his words are soon parted;" for so should the proverb run. Common understanding, like cits in gardening, allow no shades to their picture. Modesty often passes for errant haughtiness: as what is deemed spirit in a horse proceeds from fear. The higher character a person supports, the more he should regard his minutest actions. The reserved man should bring a certificate of his honesty, before he be admitted into company. Reserve is no more essentially connected with understanding, than a church organ with devotion, or wine with good-nature.* AN OPINION OF GHOSTS. It is remarkable, how much the belief of ghosts and apparitions of persons departed, has lost ground within these fifty years. This may perchar-haps be explained by the general growth of knowledge, and by the consequent decay of superstition, even in those kingdoms where it is most essentially interwoven with religion. The most reserved of men, that will not exchange two syllables together in an English coffee-house, should they meet at Ispahan, would drink sherbet, and eat a mess of rice together. The man of show is vain: the reserved man is proud more properly. The one has greater depth the other a more lively imagination. The one is more frequently respected: the other more generally beloved. The one a Cato; the other a Cæsar. Vide Sallust. What Cæsar said of "Rubicupdos anio; pallidos timeo," may be applied to familiarity and reserve. A reserved man often makes it a rule to leave company with a good speech and I believe sometimes proceeds so far as to leave company, because he has made one. Yet it is fate often, like the mole, to imagine himself deep, when he is near the surface. Were it prudent to decline this reserve, and this horror of disclosing foibles; to give up a part of character to secure the rest? The world will certainly insist upon having some part to pull to pieces. Let us throw out some follies to the envious; as we give up counters to a highwayman, or a barrel to a whale, in order to save one's money and one's ship: to let it make exceptions to one's head of hair, if one can escape being stabbed in the heart. The reserved man should drink double glasses. Prudent men lock up their motives; letting familiars have a key to their heart, as to their garden. A reserved man is in continual conflict with the social part of his nature; and even grudges himself the laugh into which he is sometimes betrayed. The same credulity, which disposed the mind to believe the miracles of a popish saint, set aside at once the interposition of reason; and produced a fondness for the marvellous, which it was the priest's advantage to promote. It may be natural enough to suppose that a belief of this kind might spread in the days of popish infatuation. A belief, as much supported by ignorance, as the ghosts themselves were indebted to the night. But whence comes it, that narratives of this kind have at any time been given by persons of veracity, of judgment, and of learning? men neither liable to be deceived themselves, nor to be suspected of an inclination to deceive others, though it were their interest; nor who could be supposed to have any interest in it, even though it were their inclination? Here seems a further explanation wanting than what can be drawn from superstition. I go upon a supposition, that the relations themselves were false. For as to the arguments sometimes used in this case, that had there been no true shilling there had been no counterfeit, it seems wholly a piece of sophistry. The true shilling here should mean the living person; and the counterfeit resemblance, the posthumous figure of him, that either strikes our senses or our imagination. Supposing no ghost then ever appeared, is it a consequence that no man could ever imagine that they saw the figure of a person deceased? Surely *These were no other than a collection of hints, when I proposed to write a poetical essay on Reserve. those who say this little know the force, the darkness being the season of terror and uncercaprice, or the defects of the imagination. Persons after a debauch of liquor, or under the influence of terror, or in the deliria of a fever, or in a fit of lunacy, or even walking in their sleep, have had their brain as deeply impressed with chimerical representations as they could possibly have been, had their representations struck their senses. I have mentioned but a few instances, wherein the brain is primarily affected. Others may be given, perhaps not quite so common, where the stronger passions, either acute or chronical, have impressed their object upon the brain; and this in so lively a manner, as to leave the visionary no room to doubt of their real presence. How difficult then must it be to undeceive a person as to objects thus imprinted! imprinted absolutely with the same force as their eyes themselves could have portrayed them! and how many persons must there needs be, who could never be undeceived at all. Some of these causes might not improbably have given rise to the notion of apparitions; and when the notion had been once promulgated, it had a natural tendency to produce more instances. The gloom of night, that was productive of terror, would be naturally productive of apparitions. The event confirmed it. The passion of grief for a departed friend, of horror for a murdered enemy, of remorse for a wronged testator, of love for a mistress killed by inconstancy, of gratitude to a wife of long fidelity, of desire to be reconciled to one who died at variance, of impatience to vindicate what was falsely construed, of propensity to consult with an adviser that is lost-the more faint as well as the more powerful passions, when bearing relation to a person deceased, have often, I fancy, with concurrent circumstances, been sufficient to exhibit the dead to the living. But, what is more, there seems no other account that is adequate to the case as I have stated it. Allow this, and you have at once a reason why the most upright may have published a falsehood, and the most judicious confirmed an absurdity. Supposing then that apparitions of this kind may have some real use in God's moral government is not any moral purpose, for which they may be employed, as effectually answered on my supposition, as the other? for surely it cannot be of any importance, by what means the brain receives these images. The effect, the conviction, and the resolution consequent, may be just the same in either of the cases. tainty, and the imagination less restrained, they are never visible to more than one person: which had more probably been the case, were not the vision internal. They have not been reported to have appeared these twenty years. What cause can be assigned, were their existence real, for so great a change as their discontinuance. The cause of superstition has lost ground for this last century: the notion of ghosts has been altogether exploded: a reason why the imagination should be less prone to conceive them; but not a reason why they themselves should ceasc. Most of those who relate that these spectres have appeared to them, have been persons either deeply superstitious in other respects; of enthusiastic imaginations, or strong passions, which are the consequence; or else have allowedly felt some perturbation at the time. Some few instances may be supposed, where the caprice of imagination, so very remarkable in dreams, may have presented phantasms to those that waked. I believe there are few but can recollect some, wherein it has wrought mistakes, at least equal to that of a white horse for a winding-sheet. To conclude. As my hypothesis supposes the chimera to give terror equal to the reality, our best means of avoiding it, is to keep a strict guard over our passions-to avoid intemperance, as we would a charnel-house; and by making frequent appeals to cool reason and common sense, secure to ourselves the property of a well-regulated imagination. ON WRITING AND BOOKS. Fine writing is generally the effect of sponta neous thoughts and a laboured style. Long sentences in a short composition are like large rooms in a little house. The world may be divided into people that read, people that write, people that think, and fox-hunters. Superficial writers, like the mole, often fancy themselves deep, when they are exceeding near the surface. There is no word in the Latin language that signifies a female friend. "Amica" means a mistress; and perhaps there is no friendship betwixt the sexes wholly disunited from a degree of love. The chief advantage that ancient writers can boast over modern ones, seems owing to sim plicity. Every noble truth and sentiment was expressed by the former in the natural manner; Such appears, to me at least, to be the true in word and phrase, simple, perspicuous, and existence of apparitions. incapable of improvement. What then remained for later writers but affectation, witticism, and conceit. The reasons against any external apparition, among others that may be brought, are these that follow : Perhaps an acquaintance with men of genius They are, I think, never seen by day; and is rather reputable than satisfactory. It is as unaccountable, as it is certain, that fancy heightens sensibility; sensibility strengthens passion; and passion makes people humorists. Yet a person of genius is often expected to show more discretion than another man; and this on account of that very vivacity, which is his greatest impediment. This happens for want of distinguishing betwixt the fanciful talents and the dry mathematical operations of the judgment, each of which indiscriminately give the denomination of a man of genius. People in high or in distinguished life ought to have a greater circumspection in regard to their most trivial actions. For instance, I saw Mr Pope-and what was he doing when you saw him?-why, to the best of my memory, he was picking his nose. It is obvious to discover that imperfections of one kind have a visible tendency to produce perfections of another. Mr Pope's bodily disadvantages must incline him to a more laborious cultivation of his talent, without which he foresaw that he must have languished in obscurity. The advantages of person are a good deal essential to popularity in the grave world as well as the gay. Mr Pope, by an unwearied application to poetry, became not only the favourite of the learned, but also of the ladies. Pope's talent lay remarkably in what one may naturally enough term the condensation of thoughts. I think no other English poet ever brought so much sense into the same number of lines with equal smoothness, ease, and poetical beauty. Let him who doubts of this peruse his Essay on Man with attention. Perhaps this was a talent from which he could not easily have swerved: perhaps he could not have sufficiently rarefied his thoughts to produce that flimsiness which is required in a ballad or love-song. His monster of Ragusa and his translations from Chaucer have some little tendency to invalidate this observation. The plan of Spenser's "Fairy Queen" appears to me very imperfect. His imagination, though very extensive, yet somewhat less so, perhaps, than is generally allowed; if one considers the facility of realising and equipping forth the virtues and vices. His metre has some advantages, though, in many respects, exceptionable. His good-nature is visible through every part of his poem. His conjunction of the pagan and Christian scheme (as he introduced the deities of both acting simultaneously) wholly inexcusable. Much art and judgment are discovered in parts, and but little in the whole. One may entertain some doubt whether the perusal of his monstrous descriptions be not as prejudicial to true taste, as it is advantageous to the extent of imagination. Spenser, to be sure, expands the last; but then he expands it beyond its due limits. After all, there are many favourite passages in his "Fairy Queen," which will be instances of a great and cultivated genius misapplied. Boileau has endeavoured to prove, in one of his admirable satires, that man has no manner of pretence to prefer his faculties before those of the brute creation. Oldham has translated him: my Lord Rochester has imitated him: and even Mr Pope declares, "That, reason raise o'er instinct how you can, Indeed, the Essay on Man abounds with illustrations of this maxim; and it is amazing to find how many plausible reasons may be urged to support it. It seems evident that our itch of reasoning, and spirit of curiosity, precludes more happiness than it can possibly advance. What numbers of diseases are entirely artificial things, far from the ability of a brute to contrive! We disrelish and deny ourselves cheap and natural gratifications, through speculative presciences and doubts about the future. We cannot discover the designs of our Creator. We should learn then of brutes to be easy under our ignorance, and happy in those objects that seem intended, obviously, for our happiness: not overlook the flowers of the garden, and foolishly perplex ourselves with the intricacies of the labyrinth. OF MEN AND MANNERS. The word folly is, perhaps, the prettiest word in the language. Amusement and diversion are good well-meaning words: but pastime is what never should be used but in a bad sense: it is vile to say such a thing is agreeable, because it helps to pass the time away. A plain, downright, open-hearted fellow's conversation is as insipid, says Sir Plume, as a play without a plot; it does not afford one the amusement of thinking. I cannot see why people are ashamed to acknowledge their passion for popularity. The love of popularity is the love of being beloved. I consider your very testy and quarrelsome people in the same light as I do a loaded gun: which may by accident go off and kill one. In a heavy, oppressive atmosphere, when the spirits sink too low, the best cordial is to read over all the letters of one's friends. Third thoughts often coincide with the first, and are generally the best grounded. We first relish nature and the country; then artificial amusements and the city; then become impatient to retire to the country again. The world would be more happy, if persons gave up more time to an intercourse of friendship. But money engrosses all our deference; and we scarce enjoy a social hour, because we think it unjustly stolen from the main business of our lives. OLIVER GOLDSMITH. BORN 1728: DIED 1774. (From the "Citizen of the World," and Miscellaneous Essays.) DESCRIPTION OF A CLUB OF AUTHORS. WERE we to estimate the learning of the English And yet I know not how it happens, but the English are not, in reality, so learned as would seem from this calculation. We meet but few who know all arts and sciences to perfection; whether it is that the generality are incapable of such extensive knowledge, or that the authors of those books are not adequate instructors. In China, the emperor himself takes cognisance of all the doctors in the kingdom who profess authorship. In England, every man may be an author that can write; for they have by law a liberty not only of saying what they please, but of being also as dull as they please. Yesterday, I testified my surprise to the man in black, where writers could be found in sufficient number to throw off the books I daily saw crowding from the press. I at first imagined that their learned seminaries might take this method of instructing the world. But to obviate this objection, my companion assured me that the doctors of colleges never wrote, and that some of them had actually forgot their reading; but if you desire, continued he, to see a collection of authors, I fancy I can introduce you this evening to a club, which assemble every Saturday at seven, at the sign of the Broom, near Islington, to talk over the business of the last, and the entertainment of the week ensuing. I accepted this invitation; we walked together, and entered the house some time before the usual hour for the company assembling. me My friend took this opportunity of letting m into the characters of the principal members of the club, not even the host excepted: who, it seems, was once an author himself, but preferred by a bookseller to this situation as a reward for his former services. "The first person," said he, "of our society, is Doctor Nonentity, a metaphysician. Most people think him a profound scholar; but as he seldom speaks, I cannot be positive in that particular; he generally spreads himself before the fire, sucks his pipe, talks little, drinks much, and is reckoned very good company. I am told he writes indexes to perfection, he makes essays on the origin of evil, philosophical inquiries upon any subject, and draws up an answer to any book upon twenty-four hours' warning. You may distinguish him from the rest of the company by his long grey wig, and the blue handkerchief round his neck. "The next to him in merit and esteem is Tim Syllabub, a droll creature; he sometimes shines as a star of the first magnitude among the choice spirits of the age; he is reckoned equally excellent at a rebus, a riddle, a lewd song, and a hymn for the tabernacle. You will know him by a shabby finery, his powdered wig, dirty shirt, and broken silk stockings. "After him succeeds Mr Tibs, a very useful hand; he writes receipts for the bite of a mad dog, and throws off an Eastern tale to perfection: he understands the business of an author as well as any man, for no bookseller alive can cheat him. You may distinguish him by the peculiar clumsiness of his figure, and the coarseness of his coat; however, though it be coarse (as he frequently tells the company), he has paid for it. "Lawyer Squint is the politician of the society; he makes speeches for Parliament, writes addresses to fellow-subjects, and letters to noble commanders; he gives the history of every new play, and finds seasonable thoughts upon every occasion." My companion was proceeding in his description, when the host came running in with terror on his countenance to tell us that the door was beset with bailiffs. "If that be the case, then," says my companion, “we had as good be going; for I am positive we shall not see one of the company this night." Wherefore, disappointed, we were both obliged to return home, he to enjoy the oddities which compose his character alone, and |