Selected Essays (Penguin Classics)

by Samuel Johnson

  I am willing to flatter myself with hopes, that, by collecting these papers, I am not preparing for my future life, either shame or repentance. That all are happily imagined, or accurately polished, that the same sentiments have not sometimes recurred, or the same expressions been too frequently repeated, I have not confidence in my abilities sufficient to warrant. He that condemns himself to compose on a stated day, will often bring to his task an attention dissipated, a memory embarrassed, an imagination overwhelmed, a mind distracted with anxieties, a body languishing with disease: He will labour on a barren topick, till it is too late to change it; or in the ardour of invention, diffuse his thoughts into wild exuberance, which the pressing hour of publication cannot suffer judgment to examine or reduce.

  Whatever shall be the final sentence of mankind, I have at least endeavoured to deserve their kindness. I have laboured to refine our language to grammatical purity, and to clear it from colloquial barbarisms, licentious idioms, and irregular combinations.3 Something, perhaps, I have added to the elegance of its construction, and something to the harmony of its cadence. When common words were less pleasing to the ear, or less distinct in their signification, I have familiarized the terms of philosophy by applying them to popular ideas, but have rarely admitted any word not authorized by former writers; for I believe that whoever knows the English tongue in its present extent, will be able to express his thoughts without further help from other nations.

  As it has been my principal design to inculcate wisdom or piety, I have allotted few papers to the idle sports of imagination. Some, perhaps, may be found, of which the highest excellence is harmless merriment, but scarcely any man is so steadily serious, as not to complain, that the severity of dictatorial instruction has been too seldom relieved, and that he is driven by the sternness of the Rambler’s philosophy to more chearful and airy companions.

  Next to the excursions of fancy are the disquisitions of criticism, which, in my opinion, is only to be ranked among the subordinate and instrumental arts. Arbitrary decision and general exclamation I have carefully avoided, by asserting nothing without a reason, and establishing all my principles of judgment on unalterable and evident truth.

  In the pictures of life I have never been so studious of novelty or surprize, as to depart wholly from all resemblance; a fault which writers deservedly celebrated frequently commit, that they may raise, as the occasion requires, either mirth or abhorrence. Some enlargement may be allowed to declamation, and some exaggeration to burlesque; but as they deviate farther from reality, they become less useful, because their lessons will fail of application. The mind of the reader is carried away from the contemplation of his own manners; he finds in himself no likeness to the phantom before him; and though he laughs or rages, is not reformed.

  The essays professedly serious, if I have been able to execute my own intentions, will be found exactly conformable to the precepts of Christianity, without any accommodation to the licentiousness and levity of the present age. I therefore look back on this part of my work with pleasure, which no blame or praise of man shall diminish or augment. I shall never envy the honours which wit and learning obtain in any other cause, if I can be numbered among the writers who have given ardour to virtue, and confidence to truth.

  4

  Celestial pow’rs! that piety regard,

  From you my labours wait their last reward.

  THE ADVENTURER (1753–4)

  No. 39. Tuesday, 20 March 1753.

  HOM.1

  —Pallas pour’d sweet slumbers on his soul;

  And balmy dreams, the gift of soft repose,

  Calm’d all his pains and banish’d all his woes.

  POPE.2

  If every day did not produce fresh instances of the ingratitude of mankind, we might perhaps be at a loss, why so liberal and impartial a benefactor as SLEEP, should meet with so few historians or panegyrists. Writers are so totally absorbed by the business of the day, as never to turn their attention to that power, whose officious hand so seasonably suspends the burthen of life; and without whose interposition, man would not be able to endure the fatigue of labour however rewarded, or the struggle with opposition however successful.

  Night, though she divides to many the longest part of life, and to almost all the most innocent and happy, is yet unthankfully neglected, except by those who pervert her gifts.

  The astronomers, indeed, expect her with impatience, and felicitate themselves upon her arrival: FONTENELLE3 has not failed to celebrate her praises; and to chide the sun for hiding from his view, the worlds which he imagines to appear in every constellation. Nor have the poets been always deficient in her praises: MILTON has observed of the Night, that it is “the pleasant time, the cool, the silent.”4

  These men may, indeed, well be expected to pay particular homage to night; since they are indebted to her, not only for cessation of pain, but increase of pleasure; not only for slumber, but for knowledge. But the greater part of her avowed votaries are the sons of luxury; who appropriate to festivity the hours designed for rest; who consider the reign of pleasure as commencing, when day begins to withdraw her busy multitudes, and ceases to dissipate attention by intrusive and unwelcome variety; who begin to awake to joy, when the rest of the world sinks into insensibility; and revel in the soft effluence of flattering and artificial lights, which “more shadowy set off the face of things.”5

  Without touching upon the fatal consequences of a custom, which, as RAMAZZINI6 observes, will be for ever condemned, and for ever retained; it may be observed, that however Sleep may be put off from time to time, yet the demand is of so importunate a nature, as not to remain long unsatisfied; and if, as some have done, we consider it as the tax of life, we cannot but observe it is a tax that must be paid, unless we could cease to be men; for Alexander declared, that nothing convinced him that he was not a Divinity, but his not being able to live without Sleep.7

  To live without Sleep in our present fluctuating state, however desirable it might seem to the lady in CLELIA,8 can surely be the wish only of the young or the ignorant; to every one else, a perpetual vigil will appear to be a state of wretchedness, second only to that of the miserable beings, whom SWIFT has in his travels so elegantly described, as “supremely cursed with immortality.”9

  Sleep is necessary to the happy, to prevent satiety and to endear life by a short absence; and to the miserable, to relieve them by intervals of quiet. Life is to most, such as could not be endured without frequent intermissions of existence: HOMER, therefore, has thought it an office worthy of the goddess of wisdom, to lay Ulysses asleep when landed on Phæacia.10

  It is related of BARRETIER,11 whose early advances in literature scarce any human mind has equalled, that he spent twelve hours of the four and twenty in sleep: yet this appears, from the bad state of his health, and the shortness of his life, to have been too small a respite for a mind so vigorously and intensely employed: it is to be regretted, therefore, that he did not exercise his mind less, and his body more; since by this means it is highly probable, that though he would not then have astonished with the blaze of a comet, he would yet have shone with the permanent radiance of a fixed star.

  Nor should it be objected, that there have been many men who daily spent fifteen or sixteen hours in study; for by some of whom this is reported, it has never been done; others have done it for a short time only; and of the rest it appears, that they employed their minds in such operations, as required neither celerity nor strength; in the low drudgery of collating copies, comparing authorities, digesting dictionaries, or accumulating compilations.

  Men of study and imagination are frequently upbraided by the industrious and plodding sons of care, with passing too great a part of their life in a state of inaction. But these defiers of Sleep seem not to remember, that though it must be granted them that they are crawling about before the break of day, it can seldom be said that they are perfectly awake; they exhaust no spirits, and require no repairs; but lie torpid as a toa
d in marble, or at least are known to live only by an inert and sluggish loco-motive faculty, and may be said, like a wounded snake, to “dragg their slow length along.”12

  Man has been long known among philosophers, by the appellation of the microcosm, or epitome of the world: the resemblance between the great and little world, might by a rational observer be detailed to many particulars; and to many more by a fanciful speculatist. I know not in which of these two classes I shall be ranged for observing, that as the total quantity of light and darkness, allotted in the course of the year to every region of the earth, is the same, though distributed at various times and in different portions; so, perhaps, to each individual of the human species, nature has ordained the same quantity of wakefulness and sleep; though divided by some into a total quiescence and vigorous exertion of their faculties, and blended by others in a kind of twilight of existence, in a state between dreaming and reasoning, in which they either think without action, or act without thought.

  The poets are generally well affected to sleep: as men who think with vigour, they require respite from thought; and gladly resign themselves to that gentle power, who not only bestows rest, but frequently leads them to happier regions, where patrons are always kind, and audiences are always candid, where they are feasted in the bowers of imagination, and crowned with flowers divested of their prickles, and laurels of unfading verdure.

  The more refined and penetrating part of mankind, who take wide surveys of the wilds of life, who see the innumerable terrors and distresses that are perpetually preying on the heart of man, and discern with unhappy perspicuity calamities yet latent in their causes, are glad to close their eyes upon the gloomy prospect, and lose in a short insensibility the remembrance of others miseries and their own. The hero has no higher hope, than that after having routed legions after legions, and added kingdom to kingdom, he shall retire to milder happiness, and close his days in social festivity. The wit or the sage can expect no greater happiness, than that after having harrassed his reason in deep researches, and fatigued his fancy in boundless excursions, he shall sink at night in the tranquillity of Sleep.

  The poets among all those that enjoy the blessings of Sleep, have been least ashamed to acknowledge their benefactor. How much STATIUS considered the evils of life as asswaged and softened by the balm of slumber, we may discover by that pathetic invocation, which he poured out in his waking nights:13 and that COWLEY,14 among the other felicities of his darling solitude, did not forget to number the privilege of sleeping without disturbance, we may learn from the rank that he assigns among the gifts of nature to the poppy; “which is scattered,” says he, “over the fields of corn, that all the needs of man may be easily satisfied, and that bread and sleep may be found together.”

  Si quis invisum Cereri benignæ

  Me putat germen, vehementer errat;

  Illa me in partem recipit libenter

  Fertilis agri.

  Meque frumentumque simul per omnes

  Consulens mundo Dea spargit oras;

  Crescite, O! dixit, duo magna susten-

  tacula vitæ.

  Carpe, mortalis, mea dona lætus,

  Carpe, nec plantas alias require,

  Sed satur panis, satur et soporis,

  Cætera sperne.

  He widely errs who thinks I yield

  Precedence in the well cloth’d field,

  Tho’ mix’d with wheat I grow:

  Indulgent Ceres knew my worth,

  And to adorn the teeming earth,

  She bade the POPPY blow.

  Nor vainly gay the sight to please,

  But blest with power mankind to ease,

  The Goddess saw me rise:

  “Thrive with the life-supporting grain,”

  She cry’d, “the solace of the swain,

  The cordial of his eyes.”

  “Seize, happy mortal, seize the good;

  My hand supplies thy sleep and food,

  And makes thee truly blest:

  With plenteous meals enjoy the day,

  In slumbers pass the night away,

  And leave to fate the rest.”

  C. B.15

  Sleep, therefore, as the chief of all earthly blessings, is justly appropriated to industry and temperance; the refreshing rest, and the peaceful night, are the portion only of him, who lies down weary with honest labour, and free from the fumes of indigested luxury: it is the just doom of laziness and gluttony, to be inactive without ease, and drowsy without tranquillity.

  Sleep has been often mentioned as the image of death; “so like it,” says Sir THOMAS BROWN, “that I dare not trust it without my prayers:”16 their resemblance is, indeed, apparent and striking; they both, when they seize the body, leave the soul at liberty; and wise is he that remembers of both, that they can be made safe and happy only by VIRTUE.

  T

  No. 45. Tuesday, 10 April 1753.

  Nulla fides regni sociis, omnisque potestas

  Impatiens consortis erit.

  LUCAN.1

  No faith of partnership dominion owns;

  Still discord hovers o’er divided thrones.

  It is well known, that many things appear plausible in speculation, which can never be reduced to practice; and that of the numberless projects that have flattered mankind with theoretical speciousness, few have served any other purpose than to shew the ingenuity of their contrivers. A voyage to the moon, however romantic and absurd the scheme may now appear, since the properties of air have been better understood, seemed highly probable to many of the aspiring wits in the last century, who began to doat upon their glossy plumes, and fluttered with impatience for the hour of their departure:

  —Pereant vestigia mille

  Ante fugam, absentemque ferit gravis ungula campum.2

  Hills, vales, and floods appear already crost;

  And, e’er he starts, a thousand steps are lost.

  POPE.3

  Among the fallacies which only experience can detect, there are some of which scarcely experience itself can destroy the influence; some which, by a captivating shew of indubitable certainty, are perpetually gaining upon the human mind; and which, though every trial ends in disappointment, obtain new credit as the sense of miscarriage wears gradually away, persuade us to try again what we have tried already, and expose us by the same failure to double vexation.

  Of this tempting, this delusive kind, is the expectation of great performances by confederated strength. The speculatist, when he has carefully observed how much may be performed by a single hand, calculates by a very easy operation the force of thousands, and goes on accumulating power till resistance vanishes before it; then rejoices in the success of his new scheme, and wonders at the folly or idleness of former ages, who have lived in want of what might so readily be procured, and suffered themselves to be debarred from happiness by obstacles which one united effort would have so easily surmounted.

  But this gigantic phantom of collective power vanishes at once into air and emptiness, at the first attempt to put it into action. The different apprehensions, the discordant passions, the jarring interests of men, will scarcely permit that many should unite in one undertaking.

  Of a great and complicated design, some will never be brought to discern the end; and of the several means by which it may be accomplished, the choice will be a perpetual subject of debate, as every man is swayed in his determination by his own knowledge or convenience. In a long series of action, some will languish with fatigue, and some be drawn off by present gratifications; some will loiter because others labour, and some will cease to labour because others loiter; and if once they come within prospect of success and profit, some will be greedy and others envious; some will undertake more than they can perform, to enlarge their claims of advantage; some will perform less than they undertake, lest their labours should turn chiefly to the benefit of others.

  The history of mankind informs us, that a single power is very seldom broken by a confederacy. States of different
interests, and aspects malevolent to each other, may be united for a time by common distress; and in the ardour of self-preservation fall unanimously upon an enemy by whom they are all equally endangered. But if their first attack can be withstood, time will never fail to dissolve their union: success and miscarriage will be equally destructive: after the conquest of a province, they will quarrel in the division; after the loss of a battle, all will be endeavouring to secure themselves by abandoning the rest.

  From the impossibility of confining numbers to the constant and uniform prosecution of a common interest, arises the difficulty of securing subjects against the incroachment of governors. Power is always gradually stealing away from the many to the few, because the few are more vigilant and consistent; it still contracts to a smaller number, till in time it centers in a single person.

  Thus all the forms of government instituted among mankind, perpetually tend towards monarchy; and power, however diffused through the whole community, is by negligence or corruption, commotion or distress, reposed at last in the chief magistrate.

  “There never appear,” says SWIFT, “more than five or six men of genius in an age; but if they were united, the world could not stand before them.”4 It is happy, therefore, for mankind, that of this union there is no probability. As men take in a wider compass of intellectual survey, they are more likely to chuse different objects of persuit; as they see more ways to the same end, they will be less easily persuaded to travel together; as each is better qualified to form an independent scheme of private greatness, he will reject with greater obstinacy the project of another; as each is more able to distinguish himself as the head of a party, he will less readily be made a follower or an associate.