תמונות בעמוד
PDF
ePub

sion of young beginners, instead of that protection which was the pride of theirs? In the profession spoken of it is obvious, to every one whose attendance is required at Westminster-hall, with what difficulty a youth of any modesty has been permitted to make an observation, that could in no wise detract from the merit of his elders, and is absolutely necessary for the advancing his own. I have often seen one of these not only molested in his utterance of something very pertinent, but even plundered of his question, and by a strong sergeant shouldered out of his rank, which he has recovered with much difficulty and confusion. Now, as great part of the business of this profession might be dispatched by one that perhaps

"Abest virtute diserti

Messala, nec scit quantum Causellius Aulus,”

HOR. Ars Poet. 370.

wants Messala's powerful eloquence,

And is less read than deep Causellius;"

ROSCOMMON.

so I cannot conceive the injustice done to the public, if the men of reputation in this calling would introduce such of the young ones into business, whose application to this study will let them into the secrets of it, as much as their modesty will hinder them from the practice: I say, it would be laying an everlasting obligation upon a young man, to be introduced at first only as a mute, till by this countenance, and a resolution to support the good opinion conceived of him in his betters, his complexion shall be so well settled, that the litigious of this island may be secure of his obstreperous aid. If I might be indulged to speak in the style of a lawyer, I would say, that any one about thirty years of age might make a common motion to the court with as much elegance

No 484. and propriety as the most aged advocates in the hall.

'I cannot advance the merit of modesty by an argument of my own so powerfully as by inquiring into the sentiments the greatest among the ancients of different ages entertained upon this virtue. If we go back to the days of Solomon, we shall find favour a necessary consequence to a shame-faced man. Pliny, the greatest lawyer and most elegant writer of the age he lived in, in several of his epistles is very solicitous in recommending to the public some young men of his own profession, and very often undertakes to become an advocate, upon condition that some one of these his favourites might be joined with him, in order to produce the merit of such, whose modesty otherwise would have suppressed it. It may seem very marvellous to a saucy modern, that multum sanguinis, multum verecundiæ, multum sollicitudinis in ore; to have the "face first full of blood, then the countenance dashed with modesty, and then the whole aspect as of one dying with fear, when a man begins to speak;" should be esteemed by Pliny the necessary qualifications of a fine speaker. Shakspeare also has expressed himself in the same favourable strain of modesty, when he says,

-In the modesty of fearful duty

I read as much as from the rattling tongue
Of saucy and audacious eloquence-

Now, since these authors have professed themselves for the modest man, even in the utmost confusions of speech and countenance, why should an intrepid utterance and a resolute vociferation thunder so successfully in our courts of justice? And why should that confidence of speech and behaviour, which seems to acknowledge no superior, and to

defy all contradiction, prevail over that deference and resignation with which the modest man implores that favourable opinion which the other seems to command?

As the case at present stands, the best consolation that I can administer, to those who cannot get into that stroke of business (as the phrase is) which they deserve, is to reckon every particular acquisition of knowledge in this study as a real increase of their fortune; and fully to believe, that one day this imaginary gain will certainly be made out, by one more substantial. I wish you would talk to us a little on this head; you will oblige,

Sir,

Your humble servant."

The author of this letter is certainly a man of good sense; but I am perhaps particular in my opinion on this occasion; for I have observed that, under the notion of modesty, men have indulged themselves in a spiritless sheepishness, and been for ever lost to themselves, their families, their friends, and their country. When a man has taken care to pretend to nothing but what he may justly aim at, and can execute as well as any other, without injustice to any other; it is ever want of breeding, or courage, to be browbeaten, or elbowed out of his honest ambition. I have said often, modesty must be an act of the will, and yet it always implies self-denial: for, if a man has an ardent desire to do what is laudable for him to perform, and from an unmanly bashfulness shrinks away, and lets his merit languish in silence, he ought not to be angry at the world that a more unskilful actor succeeds in his part, because he has not confidence to come upon the stage himself. The gene-rosity my correspondent mentions of Pliny cannot be enough applauded. To cherish the dawn, of

merit, and hasten its maturity, was a work worthy a noble Roman, and a liberal scholar. That concern which is described in the letter, is to all the world the greatest charm imaginable: but then the modest man must proceed, and show a latent resolution in himself; for the admiration of modesty arises from the manifestation of his merit. I must confess we live in an age wherein a few empty blusterers carry away the praise of speaking, while a crowd of fellows overstocked with knowledge are run down by them: I say overstocked, because they certainly are so, as to their service of mankind, if from their very store they raise to themselves ideas of respect, and greatness of the occasion, and I know not what, to disable themselves from explaining their thoughts. I must confess, when I have seen Charles Frankair rise up with a commanding mien, and torrent of handsome words, talk a mile off the purpose, and drive down twenty bashful boobies of ten times his sense, who at the same time were envying his impudence, and despising his understanding, it has been matter of great mirth to me; but it soon ended in a secret lamentation, that the fountains of every thing praise-worthy in these realms, the universities, should be so muddled with a false sense of this virtue, as to produce men capable of being so abused. I will be bold to say, that it is a ridiculous education which does not qualify a man to make his best appearance before the greatest man, and the finest woman, to whom he can address himself. Were this judiciously corrected in the nurseries of learning, pert coxcombs would know their distance: but we must bear with this false modesty in our young nobility and gentry, till they cease at Oxford and Cambridge to grow dumb in the study of eloquence.

T.

N° 485. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1712.

Nihil tam firmum est, cui periculum non sit etiam ab invalido.
QUINT. CURT. 1. vii. c. 8.

The strongest things are not so well established as to be out of danger from the weakest.

• Mr. SPECTATOR,

6

My lord Clarendon has observed that few men have done more harm than those who have been thought to be able to do least; and there cannot be a greater error, than to believe a man, whom we see qualified with too mean parts to do good, to be therefore incapable of doing hurt. There is a supply of malice, of pride, of industry, and even of folly, in the weakest, when he sets his heart upon it, that makes a strange progress in mischief. What may seem to the reader the greatest paradox in the reflexion of the historian is, I suppose, that folly, which is generally thought incapable of contriving or executing any design, should be so formidable to those whom it exerts itself to molest. But this will appear very plain, if we remember that Solomon says, "It is a sport to a fool to do mischief;" and that he might the more emphatically express the calamitous circumstances of him who falls under the displeasure of this wanton person, the same author adds further, that "A stone is heavy, and the sand weighty, but a fool's wrath is heavier than them both." It is impossible to suppress my own illustration upon this matter, which is, that as the man of sagacity bestirs himself to distress his enemy by methods probable and reducible to reason, so the same reason will fortify

« הקודםהמשך »