The Spectator Volume Iii Part 91

_Good Mr._ Pert,

'I will allow you nothing till you resolve me the following Question.

Pray what's the Reason that while you only talk now upon _Wednesdays_, _Fridays_, and _Mondays_, you pretend to be a greater Tatler, than when you spoke every Day as you formerly used to do? If this be your plunging out of your Taciturnity, pray let the Length of your Speeches compensate for the Scarceness of them.

_I am_, _Good Mr_. Pert, _Your Admirer, if you will be long enough for Me_, Amanda Lovelength.

No. 582. Wednesday, August 18, 1714.

'--Tenet insanabile multos Scribendi Cacoethes--'

Juv.

There is a certain Distemper, which is mentioned neither by _Galen_ nor _Hippocrates_, nor to be met with in the _London Dispensary_. _Juvenal_, in the Motto of my Paper, terms it a _Cacoethes_; which is a hard Word for a Disease called in plain _English_, the _Itch of Writing_. This _Cacoethes_ is as Epidemical as the Small-Pox, there being very few who are not seized with it some time or other in their Lives. There is, however, this Difference in these two Distempers, that the first, after having indisposed you for a time, never returns again; whereas this I am speaking of, when it is once got into the Blood, seldom comes out of it.

The _British_ Nation is very much afflicted with this Malady, and tho'

very many Remedies have been applied to Persons infected with it, few of them have ever proved successful. Some have been cauterized with Satyrs and Lampoons, but have received little or no Benefit from them; others have had their Heads fastned for an Hour together between a Cleft Board, which is made use of as a Cure for the Disease when it appears in its greatest Malignity. [1] There is indeed one kind of this Malady which has been sometimes removed, like the Biting of a _Tarantula_, with the sound of a musical Instrument, which is commonly known by the Name of a Cat-Call. But if you have a Patient of this kind under your Care, you may a.s.sure your self there is no other way of recovering him effectually, but by forbidding him the use of Pen, Ink and Paper.

But to drop the Allegory before I have tired it out, there is no Species of Scriblers more offensive, and more incurable, than your Periodical Writers, whose Works return upon the Publick on certain Days and at stated Times. We have not the Consolation in the Perusal of these Authors, which we find at the reading of all others, (namely) that we are sure if we have but Patience, we may come to the End of their Labours. I have often admired a humorous Saying of _Diogenes_, who reading a dull Author to several of his Friends, when every one began to be tired, finding he was almost come to a blank leaf at the End of it, cried, _Courage, Lads, I see Land_. On the contrary, our Progress through that kind of Writers I am now speaking of is never at an End.

One Day makes Work for another, we do not know when to promise our selves Rest.

It is a melancholy thing to consider, that the Art of Printing, which might be the greatest Blessing to Mankind, should prove detrimental to us, and that it should be made use of to scatter Prejudice and Ignorance through a People, instead of conveying to them Truth and Knowledge.

I was lately reading a very whimsical Treatise, ent.i.tled, _William Ramsey's_ Vindication of Astrology. This profound Author, among many mystical Pa.s.sages, has the following one:

'The Absence of the Sun is not the Cause of Night, forasmuch as his Light is so great that it may illuminate the Earth all over at once as clear as broad Day, but there are tenebrificous and dark Stars, by whose Influence Night is brought on, and which do ray out Darkness and Obscurity upon the Earth, as the Sun does Light.'

I consider Writers in the same View this sage Astrologer does the Heavenly Bodies. Some of them are Stars that scatter Light as others do Darkness. I could mention several Authors who are tenebrificous Stars of the first Magnitude, and point out a Knot of Gentlemen, who have been dull in Consort, and may be looked upon as a dark Constellation. The Nation has been a great while benighted with several of these Antiluminaries. I suffered them to ray out their Darkness as long as I was able to endure it, till at length I came to a Resolution of rising upon them, and hope in a little time to drive them quite out of the _British_ Hemisphere.

[Footnote 1: Put in the Pillory.]

No. 583. Friday, August 20, 1714. Addison.

'Ipse thymum pinosque ferens de montibus altis, Tecta serat late circ.u.m, cui talia Curae: Ipse labore manum duro terat, ipse feraces Figat humo plantas, et amicos irriget Imbres.'

Virg.

Every Station of Life has Duties which are proper to it. Those who are determined by Choice to any particular kind of Business, are indeed more happy than those who are determined by Necessity, but both are under an equal Obligation of fixing on Employments, which may be either useful to themselves or beneficial to others. No one of the Sons of _Adam_ ought to think himself exempt from that Labour and Industry which were denounced to our first Parent, and in him to all his Posterity. Those to whom Birth or Fortune may seem to make such an Application unnecessary, ought to find out some Calling or Profession for themselves, that they may not lie as a Burden on the Species, and be the only useless Parts of the Creation.

Many of our Country Gentlemen in their busie Hours apply themselves wholly to the Chase, or to some other Diversion which they find in the Fields and Woods. This gave occasion to one of our most eminent _English_ Writers to represent every one of them as lying under a kind of Curse p.r.o.nounced to them in the Words of _Goliah, I will give thee to the Fowls of the Air, and to the Beasts of the Field_.

Tho' Exercises of this kind, when indulged with Moderation, may have a good Influence both on the Mind and Body, the Country affords many other Amus.e.m.e.nts of a more n.o.ble kind.

Among these I know none more delightful in itself, and beneficial to the Publick, than that of _PLANTING_. I could mention a n.o.bleman whose Fortune has placed him in several Parts of _England_, and who has always left these visible Marks behind him, which show he has been there: He never hired a House in his Life, without leaving all about it the Seeds of Wealth, and bestowing Legacies on the Posterity of the Owner. Had all the Gentlemen of _England_ made the same Improvements upon their Estates, our whole Country would have been at this time as one great Garden. Nor ought such an Employment to be looked upon as too inglorious for Men of the highest Rank. There have been Heroes in this Art, as well as in others. We are told in particular of _Cyrus_ the Great, that he planted all the Lesser _Asia_. There is indeed something truly magnificent in this kind of Amus.e.m.e.nt: It gives a n.o.bler Air to several Parts of Nature; it fills the Earth with a Variety of beautiful Scenes, and has something in it like Creation. For this Reason the Pleasure of one who Plants is something like that of a Poet, who, as _Aristotle_ observes, is more delighted with his Productions than any other Writer or Artist whatsoever.

Plantations have one Advantage in them which is not to be found in most other Works, as they give a Pleasure of a more lasting Date, and continually improve in the Eye of the Planter, When you have finished a Building or any other Undertaking of the like Nature, it immediately decays upon your Hands; you see it brought to its utmost Point of Perfection, and from that time hastening to its Ruin. On the contrary, when you have finished your Plantations, they are still arriving at greater Degrees of Perfection as long as you live, and appear more delightful in every succeeding Year than they did in the foregoing.

But I do not only recommend this Art to Men of Estates as a pleasing Amus.e.m.e.nt, but as it is a kind of Virtuous Employment, and may therefore be inculcated by moral Motives; particularly from the Love which we ought to have for our Country, and the Regard which we ought to bear to our Posterity. As for the first, I need only mention what is frequently observed by others, that the Increase of Forest-Trees does by no Means bear a Proportion to the Destruction of them, insomuch that in a few Ages the Nation may be at a Loss to supply it self with Timber sufficient for the Fleets of _England_. I know when a Man talks of Posterity in Matters of this Nature, he is looked upon with an Eye of Ridicule by the cunning and selfish part of Mankind. Most People are of the Humour of an old Fellow of a College, who, when he was pressed by the Society to come into something that might redound to the good of their Successors, grew very peevish, _We are always doing_, says he, _something for Posterity, but I would fain see Posterity do something for us_.

But I think Men are inexcusable, who fail in a Duty of this Nature, since it is so easily discharged. When a Man considers that the putting a few Twigs into the Ground, is doing good to one who will make his appearance in the World about Fifty Years hence, or that he is perhaps making one of his own Descendants easy or rich, by so inconsiderable an Expence, if he finds himself averse to it, he must conclude that he has a poor and base Heart, void of all generous Principles and Love to Mankind.

There is one Consideration, which may very much enforce what I have here said. Many honest Minds that are naturally disposed to do good in the World, and become Beneficial to Mankind, complain within themselves that they have not Talents for it. This therefore is a good Office, which is suited to the meanest Capacities, and which may be performed by Mult.i.tudes, who have not Abilities sufficient to deserve well of their Country and to recommend themselves to their Posterity, by any other Method. It is the Phrase of a Friend of mine, when any useful Country Neighbour dies, that _you may trace him:_ which I look upon as a good Funeral Oration, at the Death of an honest Husbandman, who hath left the Impressions of his Industry behind him, in the Place where he has lived.

Upon the foregoing Considerations, I can scarce forbear representing the Subject of this Paper as a kind of Moral Virtue: Which, as I have already shown, recommends it self likewise by the Pleasure that attends it. It must be confessed, that this is none of those turbulent Pleasures which is apt to gratifie a Man in the Heats of Youth; but if it be not so Tumultuous, it is more lasting. Nothing can be more delightful than to entertain ourselves with Prospects of our own making, and to walk under those Shades which our own Industry has raised. Amus.e.m.e.nts of this Nature compose the Mind, and lay at Rest all those Pa.s.sions which are uneasie to the Soul of Man, besides that they naturally engender good Thoughts, and dispose us to laudable Contemplations. Many of the old Philosophers pa.s.sed away the greatest Parts of their Lives among their Gardens. _Epicurus_ himself could not think sensual Pleasure attainable in any other Scene. Every Reader who is acquainted with _Homer_, _Virgil_ and _Horace_, the greatest Genius's of all Antiquity, knows very well with how much Rapture they have spoken on this Subject; and that _Virgil_ in particular has written a whole Book on the Art of Planting.

This Art seems to have been more especially adapted to the Nature of Man in his Primaeval State, when he had Life enough to see his Productions flourish in their utmost Beauty, and gradually decay with him. One who lived before the Flood might have seen a Wood of the tallest Oakes in the Accorn. But I only mention this Particular, in order to introduce in my next Paper, a History which I have found among the Accounts of _China_, and which may be looked upon as an Antediluvian Novel.

No. 584. Monday, August 23, 1714. Addison.