Of these Heroines, some might serve on foot, under the denomination of the Female Buffs, and some on horseback, with the title of Lady Hussars.
What objections can be made to this scheme I have endeavoured maturely to consider; and cannot find that a modern soldier has any duties, except that of obedience, which a Lady cannot perform. If the hair has lost its powder, a Lady has a puff. If a coat be spotted, a Lady has a brush. Strength is of less importance since fire-arms have been used; blows of the hand are now seldom exchanged; and what is there to be done in the charge or the retreat beyond the powers of a sprightly maiden?
Our masculine squadrons will not suppose themselves disgraced by their auxiliaries, till they have done something which women could not have done. The troops of Braddock never saw their enemies, and perhaps were defeated by women.4 If our American General had headed an army of girls, he might still have built a fort, and taken it. Had Minorca5 been defended by a female garrison, it might have been surrendered, as it was, without a breach; and I cannot but think, that seven thousand women might have ventured to look at Rochfort, sack a village, rob a vineyard, and return in safety.6
No. 10. Saturday, 17 June 1758.
Credulity, or Confidence of opinion too great for the evidence from which opinion is derived, we find to be a general weakness imputed by every sect and party to all others, and indeed by every man to every other man.
Of all kinds of Credulity, the most obstinate and wonderful is that of political zealots; of men, who, being numbered, they know not how nor why, in any of the parties that divide a state, resign the use of their own eyes and ears, and resolve to believe nothing that does not favour those whom they profess to follow.1
The Bigot of Philosophy is seduced by authorities which he has not always opportunities to examine, is intangled in systems by which truth and falshood are inextricably complicated, or undertakes to talk on subjects, which Nature did not form him able to comprehend.
The Cartesian,2 who denies that his horse feels the spur, or that the hare is afraid when the hounds approach her; the Disciple of Malbranche,3 who maintains that the man was not hurt by the bullet, which, according to vulgar apprehensions, swept away his legs; the Follower of Berkley,4 who, while he sits writing at his table, declares that he has neither table, paper, nor fingers; have all the honour at least of being deceived by fallacies not easily detected, and may plead that they did not forsake truth, but for appearances which they were not able to distinguish from it.
But the man who engages in a party has seldom to do with any thing remote or abstruse. The present state of things is before his eyes; and, if he cannot be satisfied without retrospection, yet he seldom extends his views beyond the historical events of the last century. All the knowledge that he can want is within his attainment, and most of the arguments which he can hear are within his capacity.
Yet so it is that an Idler meets every hour of his life with men who have different opinions upon every thing past, present, and future; who deny the most notorious facts, contradict the most cogent truths, and persist in asserting to-day what they asserted yesterday, in defiance of evidence, and contempt of confutation.
Two of my companions, who are grown old in Idleness, are Tom Tempest and Jack Sneaker. Both of them consider themselves as neglected by their parties, and therefore intitled to credit, for why should they favour ingratitude? They are both men of integrity where no factious interest is to be promoted, and both lovers of truth, when they are not heated with political debate.
Tom Tempest is a steady friend to the House of Stuart. He can recount the prodigies that have appeared in the sky, and the calamities that have afflicted the nation every year from the Revolution, and is of opinion, that if the exiled family had continued to reign, there would have neither been worms in our ships nor caterpillars on our trees. He wonders that the nation was not awakened by the hard frost to a revocation of the true King, and is hourly afraid that the whole island will be lost in the sea. He believes that King William burned Whitehall that he might steal the furniture, and that Tillotson5 died an Atheist. Of Queen Anne he speaks with more tenderness, owns that she meant well, and can tell by whom and why she was poisoned. In the succeeding reigns all has been corruption, malice, and design. He believes that nothing ill has ever happened for these forty years by chance or error; he holds that the battle of Dettingen6 was won by mistake, and that of Fontenoy7 lost by contract; that the Victory was sunk by a private order; that Cornhill8 was fired by emissaries from the Council; and the arch of Westminster-Bridge was so contrived as to sink on purpose that the nation might be put to charge. He considers the new road to Islington as an encroachment on liberty, and often asserts that broad wheels will be the ruin of England.9
Tom is generally vehement and noisy, but nevertheless has some secrets which he always communicates in a whisper. Many and many a time has Tom told me, in a corner, that our miseries were almost at an end, and that we should see, in a month, another Monarch on the Throne; the time elapses without a Revolution; Tom meets me again with new intelligence, the whole scheme is now settled, and we shall see great events in another month.
Jack Sneaker is a hearty adherent to the present establishment; he has known those who saw the bed into which the Pretender was conveyed in a warming-pan. He often rejoices that the nation was not enslaved by the Irish. He believes that King William never lost a battle, and that if he had lived one year longer he would have conquered France. He holds that Charles the First was a Papist. He allows there were some good men in the reign of Queen Anne, but the Peace of Utrecht10 brought a blast upon the nation, and has been the cause of all the evil that we have suffered to the present hour. He believes that the scheme of the South Sea11 was well intended, but that it miscarried by the influence of France. He considers a standing army as the bulwark of liberty, thinks us secured from corruption by septennial Parliaments, relates how we are enriched and strengthened by the Electoral Dominions,12 and declares that the public debt is a blessing to the nation.
Yet amidst all this prosperity, poor Jack is hourly disturbed by the dread of Popery. He wonders that some stricter laws are not made against Papists, and is sometimes afraid that they are busy with French gold among the Bishops and Judges.
He cannot believe that the Nonjurors are so quiet for nothing, they must certainly be forming some plot for the establishment of Popery; he does not think the present Oaths sufficiently binding, and wishes that some better security could be found for the succession of Hanover. He is zealous for the naturalization of foreign Protestants, and rejoiced at the admission of the Jews to the English privileges, because he thought a Jew would never be a Papist.13
No. 17. Saturday, 5 August 1758.
The rainy weather which has continued the last month, is said to have given great disturbance to the inspectors of barometers. The oraculous glasses have deceived their votaries; shower has succeeded shower, though they predicted sunshine and dry skies; and by fatal confidence in these fallacious promises, many coats have lost their gloss, and many curls been moistened to flaccidity.
This is one of the distresses to which mortals subject themselves by the pride of speculation. I had no part in this learned disappointment, who am content to credit my senses, and to believe that rain will fall when the air blackens, and that the weather will be dry when the sun is bright. My caution indeed does not always preserve me from a shower. To be wet may happen to the genuine Idler, but to be wet in opposition to Theory, can befall only the Idler that pretends to be busy. Of those that spin out life in trifles, and die without a memorial, many flatter themselves with high opinions of their own importance, and imagine that they are every day adding some improvement to human life. To be idle and to be poor have always been reproaches, and therefore every man endeavours with his utmost care, to hide his poverty from others, and his Idleness from himself.
Among those whom I never could persuade to rank themselves with Idlers, and who speak with indignation of my morning s
leeps and nocturnal rambles; one passes the day in catching spiders that he may count their eyes with a microscope; another erects his head, and exhibits the dust of a marigold separated from the flower with dexterity worthy of Leeuwenhoeck1 himself. Some turn the wheel of Electricity, some suspend rings to a loadstone, and find that what they did yesterday they can do again to-day. Some register the changes of the wind, and die fully convinced that the wind is changeable.
There are men yet more profound, who have heard that two colourless liquors may produce a colour by union, and that two cold bodies will grow hot if they are mingled: they mingle them, and produce the effect expected, say it is strange, and mingle them again.
The Idlers that sport only with inanimate nature may claim some indulgence; if they are useless they are still innocent: but there are others, whom I know not how to mention without more emotion than my love of quiet willingly admits. Among the inferiour Professors of medical knowledge, is a race of wretches, whose lives are only varied by varieties of cruelty; whose favourite amusement is to nail dogs to tables and open them alive; to try how long life may be continued in various degrees of mutilation, or with the excision or laceration of the vital parts; to examine whether burning irons are felt more acutely by the bone or tendon; and whether the more lasting agonies are produced by poison forced into the mouth or injected into the veins.
It is not without reluctance that I offend the sensibility of the tender mind with images like these. If such cruelties were not practised it were to be desired that they should not be conceived, but since they are published every day with ostentation, let me be allowed once to mention them, since I mention them with abhorrence.
Mead has invidiously remarked of Woodward that he gathered shells and stones, and would pass for a Philosopher.2 With pretensions much less reasonable, the anatomical novice tears out the living bowels of an animal, and stiles himself Physician, prepares himself by familiar cruelty for that profession which he is to exercise upon the tender and the helpless, upon feeble bodies and broken minds, and by which he has opportunities to extend his arts of torture, and continue those experiments upon infancy and age, which he has hitherto tried upon cats and dogs.
What is alleged in defence of these hateful practices, every one knows; but the truth is, that by knives, fire, and poison, knowledge is not always sought, and is very seldom attained. The experiments that have been tried, are tried again; he that burned an animal with irons yesterday, will be willing to amuse himself with burning another to-morrow. I know not, that by living dissections any discovery has been made by which a single malady is more easily cured. And if the knowledge of Physiology has been somewhat encreased, he surely buys knowledge dear, who learns the use of the lacteals at the expence of his humanity. It is time that universal resentment should arise against these horrid operations, which tend to harden the heart, extinguish those sensations which give man confidence in man, and make the Physician more dreadful than the gout or stone.
No. [22]. Saturday, 9 September 1758.1
Many Naturalists are of opinion, that the Animals which we commonly consider as mute, have the power of imparting their thoughts to one another. That they can express general sensations is very certain; every Being that can utter sounds, has a different voice for pleasure and for pain. The Hound informs his fellows when he scents his game; the Hen calls her chickens to their food by her cluck, and drives them from danger by her scream.
Birds have the greatest variety of notes; they have indeed a variety, which seems almost sufficient to make a speech adequate to the purposes of a life, which is regulated by instinct, and can admit little change or improvement. To the cries of Birds, curiosity or superstition has been always attentive, many have studied the language of the feathered tribes, and some have boasted that they understood it.
The most skilful or most confident interpreters of the Silvan Dialogues have been commonly found among the Philosophers of the East, in a country where the calmness of the air, and the mildness of the seasons, allow the Student to pass a great part of the year in groves and bowers. But what may be done in one place by peculiar opportunities, may be performed in another by peculiar diligence. A Shepherd of Bohemia has, by long abode in the forests, enabled himself to understand the voice of Birds, at least he relates with great confidence a story of which the credibility may be considered by the learned.
As I was sitting, (said he) within a hollow rock, and watching my Sheep that fed in the valley, I heard two Vultures interchangeably crying on the summit of the cliff. Both voices were earnest and deliberate. My curiosity prevailed over my care of the flock; I climbed slowly and silently from crag to crag, concealed among the shrubs, till I found a cavity where I might sit and listen without suffering, or giving disturbance.
I soon perceived, that my labour would be well repaid; for an old Vulture was sitting on a naked prominence, with her young about her, whom she was instructing in the arts of a Vulture’s life, and preparing, by the last Lecture, for their final dismission to the mountains and the skies.
My children, said the old Vulture, you will the less want my instructions because you have had my practice before your eyes; you have seen me snatch from the Farm the Houshold Fowl, you have seen me seize the Leveret in the Bush, and the Kid in the Pasture, you know how to fix your talons, and how to balance your flight when you are laden with your prey. But you remember the taste of more delicious food; I have often regaled you with the flesh of man. Tell us, said the young Vultures, where man may be found, and how he may be known; his flesh is surely the natural food of a Vulture. Why have you never brought a Man in your talons to the Nest? He is too bulky, said the Mother; when we find a Man, we can only tear away his flesh and leave his bones upon the ground. Since man is so big, said the young ones, how do you kill him. You are afraid of the Wolf and of the Bear, by what power are Vultures superior to Man, is Man more defenseless than a Sheep? We have not the strength of Man, returned the Mother, and I am sometimes in doubt whether we have the subtilty; and the Vultures would seldom feast upon his flesh, had not nature, that devoted him to our uses, infused into him a strange ferocity, which I have never observed in any other Being that feeds upon the Earth. Two herds of Men will often meet and shake the Earth with noise, and fill the Air with fire. When you hear noise and see fire which flashes along the ground, hasten to the place with your swiftest wing, for men are surely destroying one another; you will then find the ground smoaking with blood and covered with carcasses, of which many are dismembered and mangled for the convenience of the Vulture. But when Men have killed their prey, said the Pupil, Why do they not eat it? When the Wolf has
killed a Sheep he suffers not the Vulture to touch it till he has satisfied himself. Is not Man another kind of Wolf? Man, said the Mother, is the only Beast who kills that which he does not devour, and this quality makes him so much a benefactor to our species. If Men kill our prey and lay it in our way, said the young one, what need shall we have of labouring for ourselves? Because Man will, sometimes, replied the Mother, remain for a long time quiet in his den. The old Vultures will tell you when you are to watch his motions. When you see men in great numbers moving close together, like a flight of Storks, you may conclude that they are hunting, and that you will soon revel in human blood. But still, said the young one, I would gladly know the reason of this mutual slaughter. I could never kill what I could not eat. My Child, said the Mother, this is a question which I cannot answer, tho’ I am reckoned the most subtile Bird of the mountain. When I was young I used frequently to visit the ayry of an old Vulture who dwelt upon the Carpathian rocks; he had made many observations; he knew the places that afforded prey round his habitation, as far in every direction as the strongest wing can fly between the rising and setting of the Summer Sun; he had fed year after year on the entrails of Men. His opinion was, That Men had only the appearance of Animal Life, being really Vegetables with a power of motion; and that as the boughs of an Oak are dashed together by the storm, that Sw
ine may fatten upon the falling Acorns, so Men are by some unaccountable power driven one against another, till they lose their motion, that Vultures may be fed. Others think they have observed something of contrivance and policy among these mischievous Beings, and those that hover more closely round them, pretend, that there is, in every herd, one that gives directions to the rest, and seems to be more eminently delighted with a wide carnage. What it is that intitles him to such pre-eminence we know not; he is seldom the biggest or the swiftest, but he shews by his eagerness and diligence that he is, more than any of the others, a friend to Vultures.
No. 22. Saturday, 16 September 1758.
To the IDLER,
SIR,
As I was passing lately under one of the gates of this city, I was struck with horror by a rueful cry, which summoned me to remember the poor Debtors.
The wisdom and justice of the English laws are, by Englishmen at least, loudly celebrated; but scarcely the most zealous admirers of our Institutions can think that law wise, which when men are capable of work, obliges them to beg; or just, which exposes the liberty of one to the passions of another.
The prosperity of a people is proportionate to the number of hands and minds usefully employed. To the community sedition is a fever, corruption is a gangrene, and idleness an atrophy. Whatever body, and whatever society, wastes more than it acquires, must gradually decay; and every being that continues to be fed, and ceases to labour, takes away something from the public stock.
The confinement, therefore, of any man in the sloth and darkness of a prison, is a loss to the nation, and no gain to the Creditor. For of the multitudes who are pining in those cells of misery, a very small part is suspected of any fraudulent act by which they retain what belongs to others. The rest are imprisoned by the wantonness of pride, the malignity of revenge, or the acrimony of disappointed expectation.
Selected Essays (Penguin Classics) Page 50