From Chaucer to Tennyson
they commonly acted like mortals till about thirty years old; after
which, by degrees, they grew melancholy and dejected, increasing in both
till they came to fourscore. This he learned from their own confession;
for otherwise, there not being above two or three of that species born
in an age, they were too few to form a general observation by. When they
came to fourscore years, which is reckoned the extremity of living in
this country, they had not only all the follies and infirmities of other
old men, but many more, which arose from the dreadful prospect of never
dying. They were not only opinionative, peevish, covetous, morose, vain,
talkative, but incapable of friendship and dead to all natural
affection, which never descended below their grandchildren. Envy and
impotent desires are their prevailing passions. But those objects
against which their envy seems principally directed are the vices of the
younger sort and the deaths of the old. By reflecting on the former,
they find themselves cut off from all possibility of pleasure; and
whenever they see a funeral they lament and repine that others are gone
to a harbor of rest, to which they themselves never can hope to arrive.
They have no remembrance of any thing but what they learned and
observed in their youth and middle age, and even that is very imperfect,
And for the truth or particulars of any fact, it is safer to depend on
common tradition than upon their best recollections. The least miserable
among them appear to be those who turn to dotage and entirely lose their
memories; these meet with more pity and assistance, because they want
many bad qualities which abound in others....At ninety, they lose their
teeth and hair; they have at that age no distinction of taste, but eat
and drink whatever they can get, without relish or appetite. The
diseases they were subject to still continue, without increasing or
diminishing. In talking, they forget the common appellation of things,
and the names of persons, even of those who are their nearest friends
and relatives. For the same reason they never can amuse themselves with
reading, because their memory will not serve to carry them from the
beginning of a sentence to the end; and by this defect they are deprived
of the only entertainment whereof they might otherwise be capable....
They are despised and hated by all sorts of people; when one of them is
born, it is reckoned ominous, and their birth is recorded very
particularly....They were the most mortifying sight I ever beheld; and
the women were homelier than the men Beside the usual deformities in
extreme old age, they acquired an additional ghastliness, in proportion
to their number of years, which is not to be described; and among half a
dozen I soon distinguished which was the eldest, although there was not
above a century or two between them.
* * * * *
ALEXANDER POPE.
A CHARACTER OF ADDISON.
[From the _Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot_.]
Peace to all such! but were there one whose fires
True genius kindles and fair fame inspires;
Blest with each talent and each art to please,
And born to write, converse, and live with ease:
Should such a man, too fond to rule alone,
Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne;
View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes,
And hate, for arts that caused himself to rise;
Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer;
Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,
Just hint a fault and hesitate dislike;
Alike reserved to blame or to commend,
A timorous foe and a suspicious friend;
Dreading even fools, by flatterers besieged;
And so obliging that he ne'er obliged;
Like _Cato_,[142] give his little Senate laws,
And sit attentive to his own applause;
While wits and templars[143] every sentence raise,
And wonder with a foolish face of praise--
Who but must laugh if such a man there be?
Who would not weep if Atticus were he?
AN ORNAMENT TO HER SEX.
[From the _Epistle of the Characters of Women_.]
See how the world its veterans rewards!
A youth of frolic, an old age of cards;
Fair to no purpose, artful to no end,
Young without lovers, old without a friend;
A fop their passion, but their prize a sot;
Alive, ridiculous, and dead, forgot.
Ah! Friend,[144] to dazzle let the vain design;
To raise the thought and touch the heart be thine!
That charm shall grow, while what fatigues the Ring[145]
Flaunts and goes down, an unregarded thing.
So when the sun's broad beam has tired the sight,
All mild ascends the moon's more sober light,
Serene in virgin majesty she shines,
And unobserved, the glaring orb declines.
Oh! blest with temper, whose unclouded ray
Can make to-morrow cheerful as to-day;
She who can love a sister's charms, or hear
Sighs for a daughter with unwounded ear;
She who ne'er answers till a husband cools,
Or, if she rules him, never shows she rules;
Charms by accepting, by submitting sways,
Yet has her humour most when she obeys;
Let fops or fortune fly which way they will,
Disdains all loss of tickets or Codille;[146]
Spleen, vapours, or small-pox, above them all,
And mistress of herself though china fall....
Be this a woman's fame; with this unblest,
Toasts live a scorn, and queens may die a jest.
This Phoebus promised (I forget the year)
When those blue eyes first opened on the sphere;
Ascendant Phoebus watched that hour with care,
Averted half your parents' simple prayer;
And gave you beauty, but denied the pelf
That buys your sex a tyrant o'er itself.
The generous God who wit and gold refines,
And ripens spirits as he ripens mines,
Kept dross for duchesses, the world shall know it,
To you gave sense, good-humour, and a poet.
[Footnote 142: A reference to Addison's tragedy of _Cato_.]
[Footnote 143: Young lawyers resident in the
temple. See Spenser's _Prothalamion_.]
[Footnote 144: Martha Blount, a dear friend of the poet's.]
[Footnote 145: The fashionable promenade in Hyde Park.]
[Footnote 146: The "pool" in the game of ombre.]
* * * * *
JOSEPH ADDISON.
SIGNOR NICOLINI AND THE LION.
[From the _Spectator_.]
There is nothing that of late years has afforded matter of greater
amusement to the town than Signor Nicolini's combat with a lion in the
Haymarket, which has been very often exhibited to the general
satisfaction of most of the nobility and gentry in the kingdom of Great
Britain....But before I communicate my discoveries I must acquaint the
reader that upon my walking behind the scenes last winter, as I was
thinking on something else, I accidentally jostled against a monstrous
animal that extremely startled me, and, upon my nearer survey of it,
appeared to be a lion rampant. The lion, seeing me very much surprised,
told me in a gentle voice that I might come by him if I pleased; "for,"
says he, "I do not intend to hurt any body." I thanked him very kindly
and passed by him, and in a little time after saw him leap upon the
stage and act his part with very great applause. It has been observed by
several that the lion has changed his manner of acting twice or thrice
since his first appearance, which will not seem strange when I acquaint
the reader that the lion has been changed upon the audience three
several times.
The first lion was a candle-snuffer, who, being a fellow of a testy,
choleric temper, overdid his part, and would not suffer himself to be
killed so easily as he ought to have done; besides, it was observed of
him that he grew more surly every time he came out of the lion; and
having dropt some words in ordinary conversation, as if he had not
fought his best, and that he suffered himself to be thrown upon his back
in the scuffle, and that he would wrestle with Mr. Nicolini for what he
pleased, out of his lion's skin, it was thought proper to discard him;
and it is verily believed to this day that had he been brought upon the
stage another time he would certainly have done mischief. Besides, it
was objected against the first lion that he reared himself so high upon
his hinder paws, and walked in so erect a position, that he looked more
like an old man than a lion.
The second lion was a tailor by trade, who belonged to the playhouse,
and had the character of a mild and peaceful man in his profession. If
the former was too furious, this was too sheepish, for his part;
inasmuch that, after a short, modest walk upon the stage, he would fall
at the first touch of 'Hydaspes'[147] without grappling with him and
giving him an opportunity of showing his variety of Italian trips; it is
said, indeed, that he once gave him a rip in his flesh-colored doublet;
but this was only to make work for himself in his private character of a
tailor. I must not omit that it was this second lion who treated me with
so much humanity behind the scenes.
The acting lion at present is, as I am informed, a country gentleman who
does it for his diversion, but desires his name may be concealed. He
says very handsomely, in his own excuse, that he does not act for gain,
that he indulges an innocent pleasure in it, and that it is better to
pass away an evening in this manner than in gaming and drinking; but at
the same time says, with a very agreeable raillery upon himself, that if
his name should be known the ill-natured world might call him _the ass
in the lion's skin_. This gentleman's temper is made out of such a happy
mixture of the mild and the choleric that he outdoes both his
predecessors, and has drawn together greater audiences than have been
known in the memory of man.
I must not conclude my narrative without taking notice of a groundless
report that has been raised to a gentleman's disadvantage, of whom I
must declare myself an admirer; namely, that Signor Nicolini and the
lion have been seen sitting peaceably by one another and smoking a pipe
together behind the scenes, by which their common enemies would
insinuate that it is but a sham combat which they represent upon the
stage; but upon inquiry I find that if any such correspondence has
passed between them it was not till the combat was over, when the lion
was to be looked upon as dead, according to the received rules of the
drama. Besides, this is what is practiced every day in Westminster Hall,
where nothing is more usual than to see a couple of lawyers, who have
been tearing each other to pieces in the court, embracing one another as
soon as they are out of it.
[Footnote 147: In the opera of _Hydaspes_, presented at the Haymarket
in 1710, the hero, whose part was taken by Signor Nicolini, kills a lion in
the amphitheater.]
SAMUEL JOHNSON.
DETACHED PASSAGES FROM BOSWELL'S LIFE.
We talked of the education of children, and I asked him what he thought
was best to teach them first. _Johnson_: Sir, it is no matter what you
teach them first, any more than what leg you shall put into your
breeches first. Sir, while you are considering which of two things you
should teach your child first, another boy has learnt them both.
Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is
not done well, but you are surprised to see it done at all.
A gentleman who had been very unhappy in marriage married immediately
after his wife died. Johnson said it was a triumph of hope over
experience.
He would not allow Scotland to derive any credit from Lord Mansfield,
for he was educated in England. "Much," said he, "may be made of a
Scotchman if he be _caught_ young." _Johnson_: An old tutor of a college
said to one of his pupils, "Read over your compositions, and wherever
you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine strike it