than this shall be, Laertes goes on to bring well-born beggars into the world, and every twelvemonth charges his estate with at least one year's rent more by the birth of a child. Laertes and Irus are neighbors, whose way of living are an abomination to each other. Irus is moved by the fear of poverty, and Laertes by the shame of it. Though the motive of action is of so near affinity in both, and may be resolved into this, "That to each of them poverty is the greatest of all evils," yet are their manners very widely different. Shame of poverty makes Laertes launch into unnecessary equipage, vain expense, and lavish entertainments; fear of poverty makes Irus allow himself only plain necessaries, appear without a servant, sell his own corn, attend his laborers, and be himself a laborer. Shame of poverty makes Laertes go every day a step nearer to it, and fear of poverty stirs up Irus to make every day some further progress from it. These different motives produce the excesses which men are guilty of in the negligence of and provision for themselves. Usury, stock-jobbing, extortion, and oppression have their seed in the dread of want; and vanity, riot, and prodigality, from the shame of it; but both these excesses are infinitely below the pursuit of a reasonable creature. After we have taken care to command so much as is necessary for maintaining ourselves in the order of men suitable to our character, the care of superfluities is a vice no less extravagant than the neglect of necessaries would have been before. Certain it is that they are both out of 1 Nature when she is followed with Reason and Good Sense. It is from this reflection that I always read Mr. Cowley with the greatest pleasure. His magnanimity is as much above that of other considerable men, as his understanding; and it is a true distinguishing spirit in the elegant author who published 1 Unlike. "2 his works,1 to dwell so much upon the temper of his mind and the moderation of his desires. By this means he has rendered his friend as amiable as famous. That state of life which bears the face of poverty with Mr. Cowley's "great vulgar," 2 is admirably described; and it is no small satisfaction to those of the same turn of desire, that he produces the authority of the wisest men of the best age of the world, to strengthen his opinion of the ordinary pursuits of mankind. It would, methinks, be no ill maxim of life, if, according to that ancestor of Sir Roger whom I lately mentioned, every man would point to himself what sum he would resolve not to exceed. He might by this means cheat himself into a tranquillity on this side of that expectation, or convert what he should get above it to nobler uses than his own pleasures or necessities. This temper of mind would exempt a man from an ignorant envy of restless men above him, and a more inexcusable contempt of happy men below him. This would be sailing by some compass, living with some design; but to be eternally bewildered in prospects of future gain, and putting on unnecessary armor against improbable blows of fortune, is a mechanic being, which has not good sense 1 Dr. Thos. Sprat, Bishop of Rochester. Hence, ye profane! I hate ye all; Both the great vulgar and the small. To virgin minds which yet their native whiteness hold That jaundice of the soul (Which makes it look so gilded and so foul) To you, ye very few, these truths I tell; The Muse inspires my song; hark, and observe it well." These are the opening lines of a paraphrase by Abraham Cowley, found at the conclusion of his essay Of Goodness. The paraphrase is of Horace's famous ode, beginning: "Odi profanum vulgus et arceo : Favete linguis; carmina non prius Virginibus puerisque canto." This seems to mean : one who acts thus is a mechanical being, without good sense, etc. for its direction, but is carried on by a sort of acquired instinct towards things below our consideration and unworthy our esteem. It is possible that the tranquillity I now enjoy at Sir Roger's may have created in me this way of thinking, which is so abstracted from the common relish of the world; but, as I am now in a pleasing arbor, surrounded with a beautiful landscape, I find no inclination so strong as to continue in these mansions, so remote from the ostentatious scenes of life; and am, at this present writing, philosopher enough to conclude, with Mr. Cowley,— "If e'er ambition did my fancy cheat, With any wish so mean as to be great, T. XIV. SIR ROGER'S LABORS AND TROPHIES. [Spectator No. 115. Thursday, July 12, 1711. Addison.] Ut sit mens sana in corpore sano. JUVENAL. BODILY labor is of two kinds: either that which a man submits to for his livelihood, or that which he undergoes for his pleasure. The latter of them generally changes the name of labor for that of exercise, but differs only from ordinary labor as it rises from another motive. A country life abounds in both these kinds of labor, and for that reason gives a man a greater stock of health, and consequently a more perfect enjoyment of himself, than any other way of life. I consider the body as a system of tubes and glands, or, to use a more rustic phrase, a bundle of pipes and strainers, fitted to one another after so wonderful a manner as to make a proper engine 1 for the soul to work with. This description does not only comprehend the bones, tendons, veins, nerves, and arteries, but every muscle and every ligature, which is a composition of fibres that are so many imperceptible tubes or pipes, interwoven on all sides with invisible glands or strainers. This general idea of a human body, without considering it in its niceties of anatomy, lets us see how absolutely necessary labor is for the right preservation of it. There must be frequent motions and agitations, to mix, digest, and separate the juices contained in it, as well as to clear and cleanse that infinitude of pipes and strainers of which it is composed, and to give their solid parts a more firm and lasting tone. Labor or exercise ferments the humors,2 1 1 Machine. 2 Yet a third sort of humor. (See note 1, page 33.) casts them into their proper channels, throws off redundancies, and helps nature in those secret distributions without which the body cannot subsist in its vigor, nor the soul act with cheerfulness. I might here mention the effects which this has upon all the faculties of the mind, by keeping the understanding clear, the imagination untroubled, and refining those spirits that are necessary for the proper exertion of our intellectual faculties, during the present laws of union between soul and body. It is to a neglect in this particular that we must ascribe the spleen 1 which is so frequent in men of studious and sedentary tempers, as well as the vapors2 to which those of the other sex are so often subject. 3 Had not exercise been absolutely necessary for our wellbeing, nature would not have made the body so proper for it, by giving such an activity to the limbs and such a pliancy to every part as necessarily produce those compressions, extensions, contortions, dilatations, and all other kinds of motions that are necessary for the preservation of such a system of tubes and glands as has been before mentioned. And that we might not want inducements to engage us in such an exercise of the body as is proper for its welfare, it is so ordered that nothing valuable can be procured without it. Not to mention riches and honor, even food and raiment are not to be come at without the toil of the hands and sweat of the brows. Providence furnishes materials, but expects that we should work them up ourselves. The earth must be labored before it gives its increase; and when it is forced into its several products, how many hands must they pass through before they are fit for use! Manufactures, trade, and agriculture naturally employ more than nineteen parts of the species in twenty; and as for those who are not obliged to labor, by the condition in which they are born, they are more mis 1 Melancholy. 2 The feminine of spleen-melancholy in a woman. * Well-fitted. 4 Cultivated. |