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same country, and been exposed to the same accidents: and their good and their ill success are equally instructive. In this pursuit of knowledge an immense field is opened to us: general histories, sacred and profane; the histories of particular countries, particular events, particular orders, particular men; memorials, anecdotes, travels. But we must not ramble in this field without discernment or choice, nor even with these must we ramble too long.

138. Bishop Berkeley. 1684-1753. (History, p. 174.)

LUXURY THE CAUSE OF NATIONAL RUIN.

Frugality of manners is the nourishment and strength of bodies politic. It is that by which they grow and subsist, until they are corrupted by luxury-the natural cause of their decay and ruin. Of this we have examples in the Persians, Lacedæmonians, and Romans not to mention many later governments, which have sprung up, continued a while, and then perished by the same natural causes. But these are, it seems, of no use to us: and, in spite of them, we are in a fair way of becoming ourselves another useless example to future ages.

Simplicity of manners may be more easily preserved in a republic than a monarchy; but if once lost, may be sooner recovered in a monarchy, the example of a court being of great efficacy, either to reform or to corrupt a people; that alone were sufficient to discountenance the wearing of gold or silver, either in clothes or equipage, and if the same were prohibited by law, the saving so much bullion would be the smallest benefit of such an institution; there being nothing more apt to debase the virtue and good sense of our gentry of both sexes than the trifling vanity of apparel, which we have learned from France, and which hath had such visible ill consequences on the genius of that people. Wiser nations have made it their care to shut out this folly by severe laws and penalties, and its spreading among us can forebode no good, if there be any truth in the observation of one of the ancients, that the direct way to ruin a man is to dress him up in fine clothes.

But we are doomed to be undone. Neither the plain reason of the thing, nor the experience of past ages, nor the examples we

have before our eyes, can restrain us from imitating, not to say surpassing, the most corrupt and ruined people in those very points of luxury that ruined them. Our gaming, our operas, our masquerades are, in spite of our debts and poverty, become the wonder of our neighbours. If there be any man so void of all thought and common-sense, as not to see where this must end, let him but compare what Venice was at the league2 of Cambray,3 with what it is at present, and he will be convinced how truly those fashionable pastimes are calculated to depress and ruin a nation.

1. Gaming: game in its O. E. form gamen meant amusement, sport in general, though it is now limited to amusements of a particular kind. The ancient form would seem to be preserved in the half-vulgarized word gammon.

2. League, It. lega, Fr. ligue, M. L. liga, comes from Lat. ligare, to bind.

3. The League of Cambray, 10th December, 1508, was formed between France, the Empire, Spain, and the Pope, against Venice.

CHAPTER XII.

THE GREAT NOVELISTS.

139. Daniel Defoe. 1661-1731. (History, p. 176.)

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From THE GREAT PLAGUE IN LONDON.'

Much about the same time I walked out into the fields' towards Bow, for I had a great mind to see how things were managed in the river, and among the ships; and as I had some concern in shipping, I had a notion that it had been one of the best ways of securing one's self from the infection, to have retired into a ship; and musing how to satisfy my curiosity on that point, I turned away over the fields, from Bow to Bromley, and down to Blackwall, to the stairs that are there for landing or taking water.

Here I saw a poor man walking on the bank or sea-wall, as they call it, by himself. I walked a while also about, seeing the houses all shut up; at last I fell into some talk, at a distance, with this poor man. First I asked him how people did there-abouts? Alas! sir, says he, almost desolate; all dead or sick here are very few families in this part, or in that village, pointing at Poplar, where half of them are not dead already, and the rest sick. Then pointing to one house, There they are all dead, said he, and the house stands open; nobody dares go into it. A poor thief, says he, ventured in to steal something, but he paid dear for his theft, for he was carried to the churchyard too, last night. Then he pointed to several other houses. There, says he, they are all dead, the man and his wife and five children. There, says he, they are shut up; you see a watchman at the door, and so of other houses. Why, said I, what do you do here all alone? Why, says he, I am a poor desolate man; it hath pleased God I am not yet visited, though my family is, and one of

1. Fields: O. E. feld, is connected with fell, a moor, with O. E. folda, earth;

and is usually supposed to mean "a

place where trees have been felled;" but this seems a somewhat fanciful derivation.

my children dead. How do you mean then, said I, that you are not visited? Why, says he, that is my house, pointing to a very little low boarded house, and there my poor wife and two children live, said he, if they may be said to live; for my wife and one of the children are visited, but I do not come at them. And with that word I saw the tears run very plentifully down his face; and so they did down mine too, I assure you.

But, said I, why do you not come at them? How can you abandon 2 your own flesh and blood? Oh, sir, says he, the Lord forbid ; I do not abandon them; I work for them as much as I am able; and, blessed be the Lord, I keep them from want. And with that I observed he lifted up his eyes to heaven with a countenance that presently told me I had happened on a man who was no hypocrite, but a serious, religious, good man; and his ejaculation was an expression of thankfulness, that, in such a condition as he was in, he should be able to say his family did not want. Well, said I, honest man, that is a great mercy, as things go now with the poor. But how do you live then, and how are you kept from the dreadful calamity that is now upon us all? Why, sir, says he, I am a waterman, and there is my boat, says he, and the boat serves me for a house; I work in it in the day, and I sleep in it in the night, and what I get I lay it down upon that stone, says he, showing me a broad stone on the other side of the street, a good way from his house; and then, says he, I halloo and call to them till I make them hear, and they come and fetch it. * Well, said I, and have you given it them yet? No, said he, but I have called, and my wife has answered that she cannot come out yet; but in half an hour she hopes to come, and I. Poor woman! says he, she is brought sadly down; she has had a swelling, and it is broke, and I hope she will recover, but I fear the child will die; but it is the Lord! Here he stopt, and wept very much.

am waiting for her.

*

*

Well, honest friend, said I, thou hast a sure comforter, if thou

2. Abandon this word is derived by Diez from the O. Fr. adv. à bandon, at will, discretion; which itself comes from ban, a proclamation-still found in our banns of marriage-and which is also the root of bandit, a proclaimed outlaw,

and of banish. It occasionally meant to reject, for which see Trench's Glossary sub voce.

3. Hypocrite, fr. Gk. VπокρɩTýs, is, derivatively speaking, a play-actor.

hast brought thyself to be resigned to the will of God; he is dealing with us all in judgment.

Oh, sir, says he, it is infinite mercy if any of us are spared; who am I to repine!

and

140. Henry Fielding. 1707-1754. (History, p. 180.)

FromToм JONES.'

Being now provided with all the necessaries of life, I betook myself once again to study, and that with a more ordinate application than I had ever done formerly. The books which now employed my time solely were those, as well ancient as modern, which treat of true philosophy, a word which is by many thought to be the subject only of farce and ridicule. I now read over the works of Aristotle and Plato, with the rest of those inestimable treasures which ancient Greece hath bequeathed to the world.

To this I added another study, compared to which all the philosophy taught by the wisest heathens 2 is little better than a dream, and is indeed as full of vanity as the silliest jester ever pleased to represent it. This is that divine wisdom which is alone to be found in the Holy Scriptures: for those impart to us the knowledge and assurance of things much more worthy our attention, than all which this world can offer to our acceptance; of things which heaven itself hath condescended to reveal to us, and to the smallest knowledge of which the highest human wit unassisted could never ascend. I began now to think all the time I had spent with the best heathen writers was little more than labour lost: for however pleasant and delightful their lessons may be, or however adequate to the right regulation of our conduct with respect to this world only, yet, when compared with the glory revealed in Scripture, their highest docu

1. Farce: Fr. farce meant originally a stuffing, fr. Lat. farcire, to cram; then a medley, a heterogeneous mixture of all manner of absurdities. In like manner satire, Lat, satira, was once a lanx satura, a dish made up of every kind of ingredient.

2. Heathens: men of the heath. The

author of Piers Ploughman says

"Hethene is to seek after hethe

And untilled erthe."

So pagans, Lat. pagani, are men of the pagi, or country districts, the old faith having still lingered among them long after it had disappeared from the more enlightened city populations.

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