The Spectator Volume I Part 65

I say, when I behold this vast Variety of Persons and Humours, with the Pains they both take for the Accomplishment of the Ends mentioned in the above Verse of _Denham,_ I cannot much wonder at the Endeavour after Gain, but am extremely astonished that Men can be so insensible of the Danger of running into Debt. One would think it impossible a Man who is given to contract Debts should know, that his Creditor has, from that Moment in which he transgresses Payment, so much as that Demand comes to in his Debtor's Honour, Liberty, and Fortune. One would think he did not know, that his Creditor can say the worst thing imaginable of him, to wit, _That he is unjust_, without Defamation; and can seize his Person, without being guilty of an a.s.sault. Yet such is the loose and abandoned Turn of some Men's Minds, that they can live under these constant Apprehensions, and still go on to encrease the Cause of them. Can there be a more low and servile Condition, than to be ashamed, or afraid, to see any one Man breathing? Yet he that is much in Debt, is in that Condition with relation to twenty different People. There are indeed Circ.u.mstances wherein Men of honest Natures may become liable to Debts, by some unadvised Behaviour in any great Point of their Life, or mortgaging a Man's Honesty as a Security for that of another, and the like; but these Instances are so particular and circ.u.mstantiated, that they cannot come within general Considerations: For one such Case as one of these, there are ten, where a Man, to keep up a Farce of Retinue and Grandeur within his own House, shall shrink at the Expectation of surly Demands at his Doors. The Debtor is the Creditor's Criminal, and all the Officers of Power and State, whom we behold make so great a Figure, are no other than so many Persons in Authority to make good his Charge against him. Human Society depends upon his having the Vengeance Law allots him; and the Debtor owes his Liberty to his Neighbour, as much as the Murderer does his Life to his Prince.

Our Gentry are, generally speaking, in Debt; and many Families have put it into a kind of Method of being so from Generation to Generation. The Father mortgages when his Son is very young: and the Boy is to marry as soon as he is at Age, to redeem it, and find Portions for his Sisters.

This, forsooth, is no great Inconvenience to him; for he may wench, keep a publick Table or feed Dogs, like a worthy _English_ Gentleman, till he has out-run half his Estate, and leave the same Inc.u.mbrance upon his First-born, and so on, till one Man of more Vigour than ordinary goes quite through the Estate, or some Man of Sense comes into it, and scorns to have an Estate in Partners.h.i.+p, that is to say, liable to the Demand or Insult of any Man living. There is my Friend Sir ANDREW, tho' for many Years a great and general Trader, was never the Defendant in a Law-Suit, in all the Perplexity of Business, and the Iniquity of Mankind at present: No one had any Colour for the least Complaint against his Dealings with him. This is certainly as uncommon, and in its Proportion as laudable in a Citizen, as it is in a General never to have suffered a Disadvantage in Fight. How different from this Gentleman is _Jack Truepenny,_ who has been an old Acquaintance of Sir ANDREW and my self from Boys, but could never learn our Caution. _Jack_ has a whorish unresisting Good-nature, which makes him incapable of having a Property in any thing. His Fortune, his Reputation, his Time and his Capacity, are at any Man's Service that comes first. When he was at School, he was whipped thrice a Week for Faults he took upon him to excuse others; since he came into the Business of the World, he has been arrested twice or thrice a Year for Debts he had nothing to do with, but as a Surety for others; and I remember when a Friend of his had suffered in the Vice of the Town, all the Physick his Friend took was conveyed to him by _Jack_, and inscribed, 'A Bolus or an Electuary for Mr. _Truepenny_.'

_Jack_ had a good Estate left him, which came to nothing; because he believed all who pretended to Demands upon it. This Easiness and Credulity destroy all the other Merit he has; and he has all his Life been a Sacrifice to others, without ever receiving Thanks, or doing one good Action.

I will end this Discourse with a Speech which I heard _Jack_ make to one of his Creditors, (of whom he deserved gentler Usage) after lying a whole Night in Custody at his Suit.

SIR,

'Your Ingrat.i.tude for the many Kindnesses I have done you, shall not make me unthankful for the Good you have done me, in letting me see there is such a Man as you in the World. I am obliged to you for the Diffidence I shall have all the rest of my Life: _I shall hereafter trust no Man so far as to be in his Debt_.'

R.

[Footnote 1: Ludgate was originally built in 1215, by the Barons who entered London, destroyed houses of Jews and erected this gate with their ruins. It was first used as a prison in 1373, being then a free prison, but soon losing that privilege. Sir Stephen Forster, who was Lord Mayor in 1454, had been a prisoner at Ludgate and begged at the grate, where he was seen by a rich widow who bought his liberty, took him into her service, and eventually married him. To commemorate this he enlarged the accommodation for the prisoners and added a chapel. The old gate was taken down and rebuilt in 1586. That second gate was destroyed in the Fire of London.

The gate which succeeded and was used, like its predecessors, as a wretched prison for debtors, was pulled down in 1760, and the prisoners removed, first to the London workhouse, afterwards to part of the Giltspur Street Compter.]

[Footnote 2: Sir John Denham's 'Cooper's Hill.']

No. 83. Tuesday, June 5, 1711. Addison.

'... Animum pictura pascit inani.'

Virg.

When the Weather hinders me from taking my Diversions without Doors, I frequently make a little Party with two or three select Friends, to visit any thing curious that may be seen under Covert. My princ.i.p.al Entertainments of this Nature are Pictures, insomuch that when I have found the Weather set in to be very bad, I have taken a whole Day's Journey to see a Gallery that is furnished by the Hands of great Masters. By this means, when the Heavens are filled with Clouds, when the Earth swims in Rain, and all Nature wears a lowering Countenance, I withdraw myself from these uncomfortable Scenes into the visionary Worlds of Art; where I meet with s.h.i.+ning Landskips, gilded Triumphs, beautiful Faces, and all those other Objects that fill the mind with gay Ideas, and disperse that Gloominess which is apt to hang upon it in those dark disconsolate Seasons.

I was some Weeks ago in a Course of these Diversions; which had taken such an entire Possession of my Imagination, that they formed in it a short Morning's Dream, which I shall communicate to my Reader, rather as the first Sketch and Outlines of a Vision, than as a finished Piece.

I dreamt that I was admitted into a long s.p.a.cious Gallery, which had one Side covered with Pieces of all the Famous Painters who are now living, and the other with the Works of the greatest Masters that are dead.

On the side of the _Living_, I saw several Persons busy in Drawing, Colouring, and Designing; on the side of the _Dead_ Painters, I could not discover more than one Person at Work, who was exceeding slow in his Motions, and wonderfully nice in his Touches.

I was resolved to examine the several Artists that stood before me, and accordingly applied my self to the side of the _Living_. The first I observed at Work in this Part of the Gallery was VANITY, with his Hair tied behind him in a Ribbon, and dressed like a _Frenchman_. All the Faces he drew were very remarkable for their Smiles, and a certain smirking Air which he bestowed indifferently on every Age and Degree of either s.e.x. The _Toujours Gai_ appeared even in his Judges, Bishops, and Privy-Counsellors: In a word all his Men were _Pet.i.ts Maitres_, and all his Women _Coquets_. The Drapery of his Figures was extreamly well-suited to his Faces, and was made up of all the glaring Colours that could be mixt together; every Part of the Dress was in a Flutter, and endeavoured to distinguish itself above the rest.

On the left Hand of VANITY stood a laborious Workman, who I found was his humble Admirer, and copied after him. He was dressed like a _German_, and had a very hard Name, that sounded something like STUPIDITY.

The third Artist that I looked over was FANTASQUE, dressed like a Venetian Scaramouch. He had an excellent Hand at a _Chimera_, and dealt very much in Distortions and Grimaces: He would sometimes affright himself with the Phantoms that flowed from his Pencil. In short, the most elaborate of his Pieces was at best but a terrifying Dream; and one could say nothing more of his finest Figures, than that they were agreeable Monsters.

The fourth Person I examined was very remarkable for his hasty Hand, which left his Pictures so unfinished, that the Beauty in the Picture (which was designed to continue as a monument of it to Posterity) faded sooner than in the Person after whom it was drawn. He made so much haste to dispatch his Business, that he neither gave himself time to clean his Pencils, [nor [1]] mix his Colours. The Name of this expeditious Workman was AVARICE.

Not far from this Artist I saw another of a quite different Nature, who was dressed in the Habit of a _Dutchman_, and known by the Name of INDUSTRY. His Figures were wonderfully laboured; If he drew the Portraiture of a man, he did not omit a single Hair in his Face; if the Figure of a s.h.i.+p, there was not a Rope among the Tackle that escaped him. He had likewise hung a great Part of the Wall with Night-pieces, that seemed to shew themselves by the Candles which were lighted up in several Parts of them; and were so inflamed by the Sun-s.h.i.+ne which accidentally fell upon them, that at first sight I could scarce forbear crying out, _Fire_.

The five foregoing Artists were the most considerable on this Side the Gallery; there were indeed several others whom I had not time to look into. One of them, however, I could not forbear observing, who was very busie in retouching the finest Pieces, tho' he produced no Originals of his own. His Pencil aggravated every Feature that was before over-charged, loaded every Defect, and poisoned every Colour it touched.

Though this workman did so much Mischief on the Side of the Living, he never turned his Eye towards that of the Dead. His Name was ENVY.

Having taken a cursory View of one Side of the Gallery, I turned my self to that which was filled by the Works of those great Masters that were dead; when immediately I fancied my self standing before a Mult.i.tude of Spectators, and thousands of Eyes looking upon me at once; for all before me appeared so like Men and Women, that I almost forgot they were Pictures. _Raphael's_ Figures stood in one Row, _t.i.tian's_ in another, _Guido Rheni's_ in a third. One Part of the Wall was peopled by _Hannibal Carrache_, another by _Correggio_, and another by _Rubens_. To be short, there was not a great Master among the Dead who had not contributed to the Embellishment of this Side of the Gallery. The Persons that owed their Being to these several Masters, appeared all of them to be real and alive, and differed among one another only in the Variety of their Shapes, Complexions, and Cloaths; so that they looked like different Nations of the same Species.

Observing an old Man (who was the same Person I before mentioned, as the only Artist that was at work on this Side of the Gallery) creeping up and down from one Picture to another, and retouching all the fine Pieces that stood before me, I could not but be very attentive to all his Motions. I found his Pencil was so very light, that it worked imperceptibly, and after a thousand Touches, scarce produced any visible Effect in the Picture on which he was employed. However, as he busied himself incessantly, and repeated Touch after Touch without Rest or Intermission, he wore off insensibly every little disagreeable Gloss that hung upon a Figure. He also added such a beautiful Brown to the Shades, and Mellowness to the Colours, that he made every Picture appear more perfect than when it came fresh from [the [2]] Master's Pencil. I could not forbear looking upon the Face of this ancient Workman, and immediately, by the long Lock of Hair upon his Forehead, discovered him to be TIME.

Whether it were because the Thread of my Dream was at an End I cannot tell, but upon my taking a Survey of this imaginary old Man, my Sleep left me.

C.

[Footnote 1: or]

[Footnote 2: its]

No. 84. Wednesday, June 6, 1711. Steele.

'... Quis talia fando Myrmidonum Dolopumve aut duri miles Ulyssei Temperet a Lachrymis?'

Virg.