Obrazy na stronie
PDF
ePub

i

with the least show and the least expence possible; you may at your pleasure increase both, but you cannot eafily diminish them. Do not think your estate your own while any man can call upon you for money which you cannot pay; therefore, begin with timorous parfimony. Let it be your first care not to be in any man's debt.

"When the thoughts are extended to a future state, the present life feems hardly worthy of all those principles of conduct and maxims of prudence which one generation of men has tranfmitted to another; but upon a closer view, when it is perceived how much evil is produced, and how much good is impeded by embarraffinent and distress, and how little room the expedients of poverty leave for the exercise of virtue, it grows manifeft that the boundless importance of the next life enforces fome attention to the interests of this.

"Be kind to old fervants, and fecure the kindness of the agents and factors: do not difguft them by afperity, or unwelcome gaiety, orг apparent fufpicion. From them you must learn the real state of your affairs, the characters of your tenants, and the value of your lands.

"You have now a new character and new duties; think on them, and practise them.

"Make

i

:

!

" Make an impartial estimate of your re venue; and whatever it is, live upon less. Resolve never to be poor. Frugality is not only the basis of quiet, but of beneficence. No man can help others that wants help himself; we must have enough before we have to spare.

"Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes fome virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult."

Upon its being mentioned, that an opulent and very indolent Scotch nobleman, who totally refigned the management of his affairs to a man of knowledge and abilities, had claimed some merit by saying, "The next best thing to managing a man's own affairs well, is being sensible of incapacity, and not attempting it, but having full confidence in one who can do it," Johnson said, "Nay, Sir, this is paltry. There is a middle course. Let a man give application; and depend upon it he will foon get above a despicable state of helplessness, and attain the power of acting for himfelf."

d

MANNERS.

[97]

MANNERS.

JOHNSON had an utter abhorrence of affectation. Talking of old Mr. Langton, he said, "Sir, you will feldom see such a gentleman; fuch are his stores of literature; fuch his knowledge in divinity; and such his exemplary life: and, Sir (added he), he has no grimace, no gefticulation, no bursts of admiration on trivial occafions; he never embraces you with an overacted cordiality."

Being in company with a gentleman who affected to maintain Dr. Berkeley's strange position, "That nothing exists but as perceived by some mind;" when the gentleman was going away, Johnson said to him, " Pray, Sir, don't leave us; for we may, perhaps, forget to think of you, and then you will cease to

exift."

An impudent fellow from Scotland was described to him, as affecting to be a savage, and railing at all established systems: - Johnfon observed, "There is nothing furprizing in this. He wants to make himself confpicuous. He would tumble in a hogstye, as long as you Jooked at him and called to him to come out.

[blocks in formation]

But let him alone, never mind him, and he'll foon give it over."

66

It was added, that the fame perfon maintained that there was no diftinction between virtue and vice.-7. Why, Sir, if the fellow does not think as he speaks he is lying; and I fee not what honour he can propose to himself from having the character of a liar. But if he does really think that there is no diftinction between virtue and vice, why, Sir, when he leaves our houses, let us count our spoons. There is (faid he) in human nature a general inclination to make people stare; and every wife man has himself to cure of it, and does cure himself. If you wish to make people stare by doing better than others, why, make them ftare till they stare their eyes out. But confider how easy it is to make people stare by being abfurd. I may do it by going into a drawing-room without my fhoes. You remember the gentleman in the Spectator, who had a commiffion of lunacy taken against him for his extreme fingularity, fuch as never wearing a wig, but a night-cap. Now, Sir, abstractedly the night-cap was best; but, 'relatively, the advantage was overbalanced by his making the boys run after him."

Talking of our feeling for the distresses of others, Johnson said, "Why, Sir, there is much

much noise made about it, but it is greatly exaggerated. No, Sir, we have a certain degree of feeling to prompt us to do good; more than that Providence does not intend. It would be misery to no purpose."-B. "But fup. pose now, Sir, that one of your intimate friends were apprehended for an offence for which he might be hanged."-7. "I should do what I could to bail him, and give him any other afsistance; but if he were once fairly hanged, I should not fuffer." -B. "Would you eat your dinner that day, Sir?"-7. "Yes, Sir; and eat it as if he were eating it with me. Why, there's Baretti, who is to be tried for his life to-morrow, friends have risen up for him on every fide; yet if he should be hanged, none of them will eat a flice of plumb pudding the less. Sir, that sympathetic feeling goes a very little way in depreffing the mind."

"I told him (says Mr. B.) that I had dined lately at Foote's, who shewed me a letter to him from Tom Davies, telling him that he had not been able to fleep from the concern which he felt on account of "this fad affair of Baretti," begging of him to try if he could suggest any thing that might be of service; and, at the fame time, recommending to him an industrious young man who kept a pickle-shop.-7. Aye, Sir, here you have a specimen of human sympathy;

:

H2

66

« PoprzedniaDalej »