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Dialogues of the Dead

<h3>DIALOGUE XXVIII.</h3> Plutarch—Charon—and a Modern Bookseller. Charon.—Here is a fellow who is very unwilling to land in our territories.  He says he is rich, has a great deal of business in the other world, and must needs return to it; he is so troublesome and obstreperous I know not what to do with him.  Take him under your care, therefore, good Plutarch; you will easily awe him into order and decency by the superiority an author has over a bookseller. Bookseller.—Am I got into a world so absolutely the reverse of that I left, that here authors domineer over booksellers?  Dear Charon, let me go back, and I will pay any price for my passage; but, if I must stay, leave me not with any of those who are styled classical authors.  As to you, Plutarch, I have a particular animosity against you for having almost occasioned my ruin.  When I first set up shop, understanding but little of business, I unadvisedly bought an edition of your “Lives,” a pack of old Greeks and Romans, which cost me a great sum of money.  I could never get off above twenty sets of them.  I sold a few to the Universities, and some to Eton and Westminster, for it is reckoned a pretty book for boys and undergraduates; but, unless a man has the luck to light on a pedant, he shall not sell a set of them in twenty years. Plutarch.—From the merit of the subjects, I had hoped another reception for my works.  I will own, indeed, that I am not always perfectly accurate in every circumstance, nor do I give so exact and circumstantial a detail of the actions of my heroes as may be expected from a biographer who has confined himself to one or two characters.  A zeal to preserve the memory of great men, and to extend the influence of such noble examples, made me undertake more than I could accomplish in the first degree of perfection; but surely the characters of my illustrious men are not so imperfectly sketched that they will not stand forth to all ages as patterns of virtue and incitements to glory.  My reflections are allowed to be deep and sagacious; and what can be more useful to a reader than a wise man’s judgment on a great man’s conduct?  In my writings you will find no rash censures, no undeserved encomiums, no mean compliance with popular opinions, no vain ostentation of critical skill, nor any affected finesse.  In my “Parallels,” which used to be admired as pieces of excellent judgment, I compare with perfect impartiality one great man with another, and each with the rule of justice.  If, indeed, latter ages have produced greater men and better writers, my heroes and my works ought to give place to them.  As the world has now the advantage of much better rules of morality than the unassisted reason of poor Pagans could form, I do not wonder that those vices, which appeared to us as mere blemishes in great characters, should seem most horrid deformities in the purer eyes of the present age—a delicacy I do not blame, but admire and commend.  And I must censure you for endeavouring, if you could publish better examples, to obtrude on your countrymen such as were defective.  I rejoice at the preference which they give to perfect and unalloyed virtue; and as I shall ever retain a high veneration for the illustrious men of every age, I should be glad if you would give me some account of those persons who in wisdom, justice, valour, patriotism, have eclipsed my Solon, Numa, Camillus, and other boasts of Greece or Rome. Bookseller.—Why, Master Plutarch, you are talking Greek indeed.  That work which repaired the loss I sustained by the costly edition of your books was “The Lives of the Highwaymen;” but I should never have grown rich if it had not been by publishing “The Lives of Men that Never Lived.”  You must know that, though in all times it was possible to have a great deal of learning and very little wisdom, yet it is only by a modern improvement in the art of writing that a man may read all his life and have no learning or knowledge at all, which begins to be an advantage of the greatest importance.  There is as natural a war between your men of science and fools as between the cranes and the pigmies of old.  Most of our young men having deserted to the fools, the party of the learned is near being beaten out of the field; and I hope in a little while they will not dare to peep out of their forts and fastnesses at Oxford and Cambridge.  There let them stay and study old musty moralists till one falls in love with the Greek, another with the Roman virtue; but our men of the world should read our new books, which teach them to have no virtue at all.  No book is fit for a gentleman’s reading which is not void of facts and of doctrines, that he may not grow a pedant in his morals or conversation.  I look upon history (I mean real history) to be one of the worst kinds of study.  Whatever has happened may happen again, and a well-bred man may unwarily mention a parallel instance he had met with in history and be betrayed into the awkwardness of introducing into his discourse a Greek, a Roman, or even a Gothic name; but when a gentleman has spent his time in reading adventures that never occurred, exploits that never were achieved, and events that not only never did, but never can happen, it is impossible that in life or in discourse he should ever apply them.  A secret history, in which there is no secret and no history, cannot tempt indiscretion to blab or vanity to quote; and by this means modern conversation flows gentle and easy, unencumbered with matter and unburdened of instruction.  As the present studies throw no weight or gravity into discourse and manners, the women are not afraid to read our books, which not only dispose to gallantry and coquetry, but give rules for them.  Cæsar’s “Commentaries,” and the “Account of Xenophon’s Expedition,” are not more studied by military commanders than our novels are by the fair—to a different purpose, indeed; for their military maxims teach to conquer, ours to yield.  Those inflame the vain and idle love of glory: these inculcate a noble contempt of reputation.  The women have greater obligations to our writers than the men.  By the commerce of the world men might learn much of what they get from books; but the poor women, who in their early youth are confined and restrained, if it were not for the friendly assistance of books, would remain long in an insipid purity of mind, with a discouraging reserve of behaviour. Plutarch.—As to your men who have quitted the study of virtue for the study of vice, useful truth for absurd fancy, and real history for monstrous fiction, I have neither regard nor compassion for them; but I am concerned for the women who are betrayed into these dangerous studies; and I wish for their sakes I had expatiated more on the character of Lucretia and some other heroines. Bookseller.—I tell you, our women do not read in order to live or to die like Lucretia.  If you would inform us that a billet-doux was found in her cabinet after her death, or give a hint as if Tarquin really saw her in the arms of a slave, and that she killed herself not to suffer the shame of a discovery, such anecdotes would sell very well.  Or if, even by tradition, but better still, if by papers in the Portian family, you could show some probability that Portia died of dram drinking, you would oblige the world very much; for you must know, that next to new-invented characters, we are fond of new lights upon ancient characters; I mean such lights as show a reputed honest man to have been a concealed knave, an illustrious hero a pitiful coward, &c.  Nay, we are so fond of these kinds of information as to be pleased sometimes to see a character cleared from a vice or crime it has been charged with, provided the person concerned be actually dead.  But in this case the evidence must be authentic, and amount to a demonstration; in the other, a detection is not necessary; a slight suspicion will do, if it concerns a really good and great character. Plutarch.—I am the more surprised at what you say of the taste of your contemporaries, as I met with a Frenchman who assured me that less than a century ago he had written a much admired “Life of Cyrus,” under the name of Artamenes, in which he ascribed to him far greater actions than those recorded of him by Xenophon and Herodotus; and that many of the great heroes of history had been treated in the same manner; that empires were gained and battles decided by the valour of a single man, imagination bestowing what nature has denied, and the system of human affairs rendered impossible. Bookseller.—I assure you those books were very useful to the authors and their booksellers; and for whose benefit besides should a man write?  These romances were very fashionable and had a great sale: they fell in luckily with the humour of the age. Plutarch.—Monsieur Scuderi tells me they were written in the times of vigour and spirit, in the evening of the gallant days of chivalry, which, though then declining, had left in the hearts of men a warm glow of courage and heroism; and they were to be called to books as to battle, by the sound of the trumpet.  He says, too, that if writers had not accommodated themselves to the prejudices of the age, and written of bloody battles and desperate encounters, their works would have been esteemed too effeminate an amusement for gentlemen.  Histories of chivalry, instead of enervating, tend to invigorate the mind, and endeavour to raise human nature above the condition which is naturally prescribed to it; but as strict justice, patriotic motives, prudent counsels, and a dispassionate choice of what upon the whole is fittest and best, do not direct these heroes of romance, they cannot serve for instruction and example, like the great characters of true history.  It has ever been my opinion, that only the clear and steady light of truth can guide men to virtue, and that the lesson which is impracticable must be unuseful.  Whoever shall design to regulate his conduct by these visionary characters will be in the condition of superstitious people, who choose rather to act by intimations they receive in the dreams of the night, than by the sober counsels of morning meditation.  Yet I confess it has been the practice of many nations to incite men to virtue by relating the deeds of fabulous heroes: but surely it is the custom only of yours to incite them to vice by the history of fabulous scoundrels.  Men of fine imagination have soared into the regions of fancy to bring back Astrea; you go thither in search of Pandora.  Oh disgrace to letters!  Oh shame to the muses! Bookseller.—You express great indignation at our present race of writers; but believe me the fault lies chiefly on the side of the readers.  As Monsieur Scuderi observed to you, authors must comply with the manners and disposition of those who are to read them.  There must be a certain sympathy between the book and the reader to create a good liking.  Would you present a modern fine gentleman, who is negligently lolling in an easy chair, with the labours of Hercules for his recreation? or make him climb the Alps with Hannibal when he is expiring with the fatigue of last night’s ball?  Our readers must be amused, flattered, soothed; such adventures must be offered to them as they would like to have a share in. Plutarch.—It should be the first object of writers to correct the vices and follies of the age.  I will allow as much compliance with the mode of the times as will make truth and good morals agreeable.  Your love of fictitious characters might be turned to good purpose if those presented to the public were to be formed on the rules of religion and morality.  It must be confessed that history, being employed only about illustrious persons, public events, and celebrated actions, does not supply us with such instances of domestic merit as one could wish.  Our heroes are great in the field and the senate, and act well in great scenes on the theatre of the world; but the idea of a man, who in the silent retired path of life never deviates into vice, who considers no spectator but the Omniscient Being, and solicits no applause but His approbation, is the noblest model that can be exhibited to mankind, and would be of the most general use.  Examples of domestic virtue would be more particularly useful to women than those of great heroines.  The virtues of women are blasted by the breath of public fame, as flowers that grow on an eminence are faded by the sun and wind which expand them.  But true female praise, like the music of the spheres, arises from a gentle, a constant, and an equal progress in the path marked out for them by their great Creator; and, like the heavenly harmony, it is not adapted to the gross ear of mortals, but is reserved for the delight of higher beings, by whose wise laws they were ordained to give a silent light and shed a mild, benignant influence on the world. Bookseller.—We have had some English and French writers who aimed at what you suggest.  In the supposed character of Clarissa (said a clergyman to me a few days before I left the world) one finds the dignity of heroism tempered by the meekness and humility of religion, a perfect purity of mind, and sanctity of manners.  In that of Sir Charles Grandison, a noble pattern of every private virtue, with sentiments so exalted as to render him equal to every public duty. Plutarch.—Are both these characters by the same author? Bookseller.—Ay, Master Plutarch, and what will surprise you more, this author has printed for me. Plutarch.—By what you say, it is pity he should print any work but his own.  Are there no other authors who write in this manner? Bookseller.—Yes, we have another writer of these imaginary histories; one who has not long since descended to these regions.  His name is Fielding, and his works, as I have heard the best judges say, have a true spirit of comedy and an exact representation of nature, with fine moral touches.  He has not, indeed, given lessons of pure and consummate virtue, but he has exposed vice and meanness with all the powers of ridicule; and we have some other good wits who have exerted their talents to the purposes you approve.  Monsieur de Marivaux, and some other French writers, have also proceeded much upon the same plan with a spirit and elegance which give their works no mean rank among the belles lettres.  I will own that, when there is wit and entertainment enough in a book to make it sell, it is not the worse for good morals. Charon.—I think, Plutarch, you have made this gentleman a little more humble, and now I will carry him the rest of his journey.  But he is too frivolous an animal to present to wise Minos.  I wish Mercury were here; he would damn him for his dulness.  I have a good mind to carry him to the Danaïdes, and leave him to pour water into their vessels which, like his late readers, are destined to eternal emptiness.  Or shall I chain him to the rock, side to side by Prometheus, not for having attempted to steal celestial fire, in order to animate human forms, but for having endeavoured to extinguish that which Jupiter had imparted?  Or shall we constitute him friseur to Tisiphone, and make him curl up her locks with his satires and libels? Plutarch.—Minos does not esteem anything frivolous that affects the morals of mankind.  He punishes authors as guilty of every fault they have countenanced and every crime they have encouraged, and denounces heavy vengeance for the injuries which virtue or the virtuous have suffered in consequence of their writings. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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