THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. HE following letter has given me a new fense of the nature of my writings. I have the deepest regard to conviction, and shall never act against it. However, I do not yet understand what good man he thinks I have injured; but his epiftle has fuch weight in it, that I fhall always have refpect for his admonition, and defire the continuance of it. I am not confcious that I have spoke any faults a man may not mend if he pleases. "September 25. "MR. BICKERSTAFF, "When I read your paper of Thursday, I was surprised to find mine of the 13th inferted at large; I never intended myself or you a fecond trouble of this kind, believing I had fufficiently pointed out the man you had injured, and that by this time you were convinced that filence would be the best anfwer; but finding your reflections are fuch as naturally call for a reply, I take this way of doing it; and in the first place, return you thanks for the compliment made me of my feeming fenfe and worth. I do affure you, I fhall always endeavour to convince mankind of the latter, though I have no pretence to the former. But to come a little nearer, I obferve you put yourself under a very fevere restriction, even the laying down the Tatler' for ever, if I can give you an inftance, wherein you have injured any good man, or pointed at anything which is not the true object of raillery. "I must confefs, Mr. Bickerstaff, if the making a man guilty of vices that would fhame the gallows, be the best method to point at the true object of raillery, I have till this time been very ignorant; but if it be fo, I will venture to affert one thing, and lay it down as a maxim, even to the Staffian race, viz. that that method of pointing ought no more to be pursued than those people ought to cut your throat who suffer by it, because I take both to be murder, and the law is not in every private man's hands to execute: but indeed, fir, were you the only perfon would fuffer by the Tatler's' difcontinuance, I have malice enough to punish you in the manner you prescribe; but I am not so great an enemy to the town or my own pleasures as to wish it, nor that you would lay aside lafhing the reigning vices fo long as you keep to the true fpirit of fatire, without descending to rake into characters below its dignity; for as you well obferve, there is fomething very terrible in unjustly attacking men in a way that may prejudice their honour or fortune; and, indeed, where crimes are enormous, the delinquent deferves little pity, yet the reporter may deserve lefs. And here I am naturally led to that celebrated author of The Whole Duty of Man,' who hath fet this matter in a true light in his Treatise of the Government of the Tongue,' where, speaking of uncharitable truths, he says, 'A discovery of this kind ferves not to reclaim, but enrage the offender, and precipitate him into farther degrees of ill. Modefty and fear of fhame is one of those natural restraints which the wisdom of heaven has put upon mankind, and he that once stumbles, may yet, by a check of that bridle, recover again; but when by a publick detection he is fallen under that infamy he feared, he will then be apt to discard all caution, and to think he owes himself the utmost pleasures of vice, as the price of his reputation. Nay, perhaps he advances farther, and fets up for a reverfed fort of fame, by being eminently wicked, and he who before was but a clandeftine difciple becomes a doctor of impiety, &c.' This fort of reasoning, fir, moft certainly induced our wife legislators very lately to repeal that law which put the stamp of infamy in the face of felons; therefore, you had better give an act of oblivion to your delinquents, at least for transportation, than continue to mark them in fo notorious a manner. I can't but applaud your defigned attempt of raising merit from obfcurity, celebrating virtue in diftrefs, and attacking vice in another method, by fetting innocence in a proper light. Your pursuing these noble themes will make a greater advance to the reformation you seem to aim at, than the method you have hitherto taken, by putting mankind beyond the power of retrieving themselves, or indeed to think it poffible. But if, after all your endeavours in this new way, there should then remain any hardened impenitents, you must e'en give 'em up to the rigour of the law, as delinquents not within the benefit of their clergy. Pardon me, good Mr. Bickerftaff, for the tediousness of this epistle, and believe 'tis not from any selfconviction I have taken up fo much of your time or my own; but fuppofing you mean all your lucubrations fhould tend to the good of mankind, I may the easier hope your pardon, being, fir, yours, &c." Coming into this place (Will's coffee-house) to-night, I met an old friend of mine, who, a little after the restoration, writ an epigram with some applause, which he has lived upon ever fince, and by virtue of it, has been a conftant frequenter of this coffee-house for forty years. He took me afide, and with a great deal of friendship told me he was glad to fee me alive; "for," faid he, "Mr. Bickerftaff, I am forry to find you have raised many enemies by your lucubrations. There are, indeed, fome," fays he, "whofe enmity is the greatest honour they can fhew a man; but have you lived to these years, and do not know that the ready way to disoblige is to give advice? You may endeavour to guard your children, as you call them, but "He was going on, but I found the disagreeablenefs of giving advice without being afked, by my own impatience of what he was about to fay; in a word, I begged him to give me the hearing of a short fable. "A gentleman," fays I, "who was one day flumbering in an arbour, was on a fudden awakened by the gentle biting of a lizard, a little animal remarkable for its love to mankind. He threw it from his hand with fome indignation, and was rifing up to kill it, when he faw a huge venomous ferpent fliding towards him on the other fide, which he foon destroyed, reflecting afterwards with gratitude upon his friend that faved him, and with anger against himself that had fhewn fo little fenfe of a good office." MR. BICKERSTAFF GIVES HIS OPINION OF THE PRACTICE OF PRAISE, WITH EXCEPTIONS, OF LIBELLERS AND ILLNATURED JESTERS. Falfus honor juvat, et mendax infamia terret HOR. I EP. xvi. 39. Falfe praife can pleafe, and calumny affright, R. WYNNE. KNOW no manner of fpeaking fo offenfive as that of giving praise, and closing it with an exception, which proceeds (where men do not do it to introduce malice, and make calumny more effectual) from the common error of confidering man as a perfect creature. But if we rightly examine things, we fhall find that there is a fort of economy in. Providence, that one fhall excel where another is defective, in order to make men more useful to each other, and mix them in fociety. This man having this talent and that man another, is as neceffary in converfation as one profeffing one trade and another, is beneficial in commerce. The happiest climate does not produce all things; and it was fo ordained, that one part of the earth fhould want the product of another, for uniting mankind in a general correfpondence and good understanding. It is, therefore, want of good fenfe as well as good nature, to fay Simplicius has a better judgment, but not fo much wit as Latius; for that these have not each other's capacities is no more a diminution to either, than if you should say Simplicius is not Latius, or Latius not Simplicius. The heathen world had fo little notion that perfection was to be expected amongst men, that among them any one quality or endowment in an heroic degree made a god. god. Hercules had strength, but it was never objected to him that he wanted wit. Apollo prefided over wit, and it was never asked if he had strength. We hear no exceptions against the beauty of Minerva or thẹ wisdom of Venus. These wife heathens were glad to immortalize any one serviceable gift, and overlook all imperfections in the person who had it; but with us it is far otherwise, for we reject many eminent virtues if they are accompanied with one apparent weakness. The reflecting after this manner made me account for the strange delight men take in reading lampoons and fcandal, with which the age abounds, and of which I receive frequent complaints. Upon mature confideration, I find it is principally for this reafon that the worst of mankind-the libellers, receive fo much encouragement in the world. The low race of men take a fecret pleasure in finding an eminent character levelled to their condition by a report of its defects, and keep themselves in countenance, though they are excelled in a thousand virtues, if they believe they have in common with a great perfon any one fault. The libeller falls in with this humour, and gratifies this bafenefs of temper, which is naturally an enemy to extraordinary merit. It is from this, that libel and fatire are promifcuously joined together in the notions of the vulgar, though the fatirift and libeller differ as much as the magistrate and murderer. In the confideration of human life, the fatirift never falls upon perfons who are not glaringly faulty, and the libeller on none but who are confpicuously commendable. Were I to expose any vice in a good or great man, it should certainly be by correcting it in fome one where that crime was the distinguishing part of the character, as pages are chastised for the admonition of princes. When it is performed otherwise, the vicious are kept in credit by placing men of merit in the fame accufation. But all the pafquils, lampoons, and libels we meet with now-a-days, are a |