The Spectator Volume Iii Part 29

'Turpe est difficiles babere nugas, Et stultus est labor ineptiarum.'

Mart.

I have been very often disappointed of late Years, when upon examining the new Edition of a Cla.s.sick Author, I have found above half the Volume taken up with various Readings. When I have expected to meet with a learned Note upon a doubtful Pa.s.sage in a _Latin_ Poet, I have only been informed, that such or such Ancient Ma.n.u.scripts for an _et_ write an _ac_, or of some other notable Discovery of the like Importance. Indeed, when a different Reading gives us a different Sense, or a new Elegance in an Author, the Editor does very well in taking Notice of it; but when he only entertains us with the several ways of spelling the same Word, and gathers together the various Blunders and Mistakes of twenty or thirty different Transcribers, they only take up the Time of the learned Reader, and puzzle the Minds of the Ignorant. I have often fancied with my self how enraged an old _Latin_ Author would be, should he see the several Absurdities in Sense and Grammar, which are imputed to him by some or other of these various Readings. In one he speaks Nonsense; in another, makes use of a Word that was never heard of: And indeed there is scarce a Solecism in Writing which the best Author is not guilty of, if we may be at Liberty to read him in the Words of some Ma.n.u.script, which the laborious Editor has thought fit to examine in the Prosecution of his Work.

I question not but the Ladies and pretty Fellows will be very curious to understand what it is that I have been hitherto talking of. I shall therefore give them a Notion of this Practice, by endeavouring to write after the manner of several Persons who make an eminent Figure in the Republick of Letters. To this end we will suppose that the following [Song [1]] is an old Ode which I present to the Publick in a new Edition, with the several various Readings which I find of it in former Editions, and in Ancient Ma.n.u.scripts. Those who cannot relish the various Readings, will perhaps find their Account in the Song, which never before appeared in Print.

My Love was fickle once and changing, Nor e'er would settle in my Heart; From Beauty still to Beauty ranging, In ev'ry Face I found a Dart.

'Twas first a charming Shape enslav'd me, An Eye then gave the fatal Stroke; 'Till by her Wit_ Corinna _sav'd me, And all my former Fetters broke.

But now a long and lasting Anguish For_ Belvidera _I endure; Hourly I Sigh and hourly Languish, Nor hope to find the wonted Cure.

For here the false unconstant Lover, After a thousand Beauties shown, Does new surprizing Charms discover, And finds Variety in One.

Various Readings.

Stanza the First, Verse the First. And changing.] The _and_ in some Ma.n.u.scripts is written thus, _&_, but that in the Cotton Library writes it in three distinct Letters.

Verse the Second, Nor e'er would.] Aldus reads it _ever_ would; but as this would hurt the Metre, we have restored it to its genuine Reading, by observing that _Synaeresis_ which had been neglected by ignorant Transcribers.

Ibid. In my Heart.] Scaliger, and others, _on_ my Heart.

Verse the Fourth, I found a Dart.] The Vatican Ma.n.u.script for _I_ reads _it_, but this must have been the Hallucination of the Transcriber, who probably mistook the Dash of the I for a T.

Stanza the Second, Verse the Second. The fatal Stroke.] Scioppius, Salmasius and many others, for _the_ read _a_, but I have stuck to the usual Reading.

Verse the Third, Till by her Wit.] Some Ma.n.u.scripts have it _his_ Wit, others _your_, others _their_ Wit. But as I find Corinna to be the Name of a Woman in other Authors, I cannot doubt but it should be _her_.

Stanza the third, Verse the First. A long and lasting Anguish.] The German Ma.n.u.script reads a lasting _Pa.s.sion_, but the Rhyme will not admit it.

Verse the Second. For Belvidera I endure.] Did not all the Ma.n.u.scripts reclaim, I should change Belvidera into Pelvidera; Pelvis being used by several of the Ancient Comick Writers for a Looking-gla.s.s, by which means the Etymology of the Word is very visible, and Pelvidera will signifie a Lady who often looks in her Gla.s.s; as indeed she had very good reason, if she had all those Beauties which our Poet here ascribes to her.

Verse the Third. Hourly I sigh and hourly languish.] Some for the Word _hourly_ read _daily_, and others _nightly_; the last has great Authorities of its side.

Verse the Fourth. The wonted Cure.] The Elder Stevens reads _wanted Cure_.

Stanza the Fourth, Verse the Second. After a thousand Beauties] In several Copies we meet with _a Hundred Beauties_ by the usual Errour of the Transcribers, who probably omitted a Cypher, and had not Taste enough to know that the Word _Thousand_ was ten Times a greater Compliment to the Poet's Mistress than an _Hundred_.

Verse the Fourth. And finds Variety in one] Most of the Ancient Ma.n.u.scripts have it _in two_. Indeed so many of them concur in this last reading, that I am very much in doubt whether it ought not to take place. There are but two Reasons which incline me to the Reading as I have published it; First, because the Rhime, and, Secondly, because the Sense is preserved by it. It might likewise proceed from the Oscitancy of Transcribers, who, to dispatch their Work the sooner, use to write all Numbers in Cypher, and seeing the Figure 1 following by a little Dash of the Pen, as is customary in old Ma.n.u.scripts, they perhaps mistook the Dash for a second Figure, and by casting up both together composed out of them the Figure 2. But this I shall leave to the Learned, without determining any thing in a Matter of so great Uncertainty.

C.

[Footnote 1: [Song, which by the way is a beautiful Descant upon a single Thought, like the Compositions of the best Ancient Lyrick Poets, I say we will suppose this Song]]

No. 471. Sat.u.r.day, August 30, 1712. Addison.

[Greek: 'En elpisin chrae tous sophous echein bion.]--Euripid.

The _Time present_ seldom affords sufficient Employment to the Mind of Man. Objects of Pain or Pleasure, Love or Admiration, do not lie thick enough together in Life to keep the Soul in constant Action, and supply an immediate Exercise to its Faculties. In order, therefore, to remedy this Defect, that the Mind may not want Business, but always have Materials for thinking, she is endowed with certain Powers, that can recall what is pa.s.sed, and antic.i.p.ate what is to come.

That wonderful Faculty, which we call the Memory, is perpetually looking back, when we have nothing present to entertain us. It is like those Repositories in several Animals, that are filled with Stores of their former Food, on which they may ruminate when their present Pasture fails.

As the Memory relieves the Mind in her vacant Moments, and prevents any Chasms of Thought by Ideas of what is _past_, we have other Faculties that agitate and employ her upon what _is to come_. These are the Pa.s.sions of Hope and Fear.

By these two Pa.s.sions we reach forward into Futurity, and bring up to our present Thoughts Objects that lie hid in the remotest Depths of Time. We suffer Misery, and enjoy Happiness, before they are in Being; we can set the Sun and Stars forward, or lose sight of them by wandring into those retired Parts of Eternity, when the Heavens and Earth shall be no more.

By the way, who can imagine that the Existence of a Creature is to be circ.u.mscribed by Time, whose Thoughts are not? But I shall, in this Paper, confine my self to that particular Pa.s.sion which goes by the Name of Hope.

Our Actual Enjoyments are so few and transient, that Man would be a very miserable Being, were he not endowed with this Pa.s.sion, which gives him a Taste of those good Things that may possibly come into his Possession.

_We should hope for every thing that is good_, says the old Poet _Linus_, _because there is nothing which may not be hoped for, and nothing but what the G.o.ds are able to give us_. [1] Hope quickens all the still Parts of Life, and keeps the Mind awake in her most Remiss and Indolent Hours. It gives habitual Serenity and good Humour. It is a kind of Vital Heat in the Soul, that cheers and gladdens her, when she does not attend to it. It makes Pain easie, and Labour pleasant.

Beside these several Advantages which rise from _Hope_, there is another which is none of the least, and that is, its great Efficacy in preserving us from setting too high a value on present Enjoyments. The saying of _Caesar_ is very well known. When he had given away all his Estate in Gratuities among his Friends, one of them asked what he had left for himself; to which that great Man replied, _Hope_. His Natural Magnanimity hindered him from prizing what he was certainly possessed of, and turned all his Thoughts upon something more valuable that be had in View. I question not but every Reader will draw a Moral from this Story, and apply it to himself without my Direction.

The old Story of _Pandora's_ Box (which many of the Learned believe was formed among the Heathens upon the Tradition of the Fall of Man) shews us how deplorable a State they thought the present Life, without Hope: To set forth the utmost Condition of Misery they tell us, that our Forefather, according to the Pagan Theology, had a great Vessel presented him by _Pandora:_ Upon his lifting up the Lid of it, says the Fable, there flew out all the Calamities and Distempers incident to Men, from which, till that time, they had been altogether exempt. _Hope_, who had been enclosed in the Cup with so much bad Company, instead of flying off with the rest, stuck so close to the Lid of it, that it was shut down upon her.

I shall make but two Reflections upon what I have hitherto said. First, that no kind of Life is so happy as that which is full of Hope, especially when the Hope is well grounded, and when the Object of it is of an exalted kind, and in its Nature proper to make the Person happy who enjoys it. This Proposition must be very evident to those who consider how few are the present Enjoyments of the most happy Man, and how insufficient to give him an entire Satisfaction and Acquiescence in them.

My next Observation is this, that a Religious Life is that which most abounds in a well-grounded Hope, and such an one as is fixed on Objects that are capable of making us entirely happy. This Hope in a Religious Man, is much more sure and certain than the Hope of any Temporal Blessing, as it is strengthened not only by Reason, but by Faith. It has at the same time its Eye perpetually fixed on that State, which implies in the very Notion of it the most full and the most compleat Happiness.

I have before shewn how the Influence of Hope in general sweetens Life, and makes our present Condition supportable, if not pleasing; but a Religious Hope has still greater Advantages. It does not only bear up the Mind under her Sufferings, but makes her rejoice in them, as they may be the Instruments of procuring her the great and ultimate End of all her Hope.

Religious Hope has likewise this Advantage above any other kind of Hope, that it is able to revive the _dying_ Man, and to fill his Mind not only with secret Comfort and Refreshment, but sometimes with Rapture and Transport. He triumphs in his Agonies, whilst the Soul springs forward with Delight to the great Object which she has always had in view, and leaves the Body with an Expectation of being re-united to her in a glorious and joyful Resurrection.

I shall conclude this Essay with those emphatical Expressions of a lively Hope, which the Psalmist made use of in the midst of those Dangers and Adversities which surrounded him; for the following Pa.s.sage had its present and personal, as well as its future and prophetick Sense.

'I have set the Lord always before me: Because he is at my right Hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore my Heart is glad, and my Glory rejoiceth: my Flesh also shall rest in hope. For thou wilt not leave my Soul in h.e.l.l, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see Corruption. Thou wilt shew me the Path of Life: in thy Presence is Fullness of Joy, at thy right Hand there are Pleasures for evermore'.

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