Cato: A Tragedy, and Selected Essays

Spectator 125 ( July 24, 1711)

1. “O my sons, make not a home within your hearts for such warfare, nor upon your country’s very vitals turn her vigour and valour!” Virgil, Aeneid, 6.832–33. 2. Roger de Coverley, a character created by Addison and Steele to give voice to the views of the typical landed gentleman. Spectator, No. 125 Tuesday, July 24, 1711 Ne pueri, ne tanta animis assuescite bella: Neu patriae validas in viscera vertite vires. Vir.1 My worthy Friend Sir Roger,2 when we are talking of the Malice of Parties, very frequently tells us an Accident that happened to him when he was a School-boy, which was at a time when the Feuds ran high between the Round-heads and Cavaliers. This worthy Knight being then but a Stripling, had Occasion to enquire which was the Way to St. Ann’s Lane, upon which the Person whom he spoke to, instead of answering his Question, called him a young Popish Cur, and asked him who had made Ann a Saint? The Boy being in some Confusion, enquired of the next he met, which was the way to Ann’s Lane, but was called a Prick-eared Curr for his Pains, and instead of being shown the Way was told, that she had been a Saint before he was born, and would be one after he was hang’d. Upon this, says Sir Roger, I did not think fit to repeat the former Question, but going into every Lane of the Neighbourhood, asked what they called the Name of that Lane. By which ingenious Artifice he found out the Place he enquired after, without giving Offence to any Party. Sir Roger generally closes this Narrative with Reflections on the Mis- 124 selected essays 3. Plutarch Moralia 91c: “Moreover, knavery, deceit, and intrigue, which seem not bad or unjust when employed against an enemy, if once they find lodgement, acquire a permanent tenure, and are hard to eject. The next thing is that men of themselves employ these against their friends through force of habit.” chief that Parties do in the Country; how they spoil good Neighbourhood , and make honest Gentlemen hate one another; besides that they manifestly tend to the Prejudice of the Land-Tax, and the Destruction of the Game. There cannot a greater Judgment befall a Country than such a dreadful Spirit of Division as rends a Government into two distinct People, and makes them greater Strangers and more averse to one another, than if they were actually two different Nations. The Effects of such a Division are pernicious to the last degree, not only with regard to those Advantages which they give the Common Enemy, but to those private Evils which they produce in the Heart of almost every particular Person. This Influence is very fatal both to Mens Morals and their Understandings; It sinks the Virtue of a Nation, and not only so, but destroys even Common Sense. A furious Party Spirit, when it rages in its full Violence, exerts it self in Civil War and Blood-shed; and when it is under its greatest Restraints naturally breaks out in Falshood, Detraction, Calumny, and a partial Administration of Justice. In a word, It fills a Nation with Spleen and Rancour, and extinguishes all the Seeds of Goodnature , Compassion and Humanity. Plutarch says very finely, that a Man should not allow himself to hate even his Enemies, because, says he, if you indulge this Passion in some Occasions, it will rise of it self in others; if you hate your Enemies , you will contract such a vicious Habit of Mind, as by Degrees will break out upon those who are your Friends, or those who are indifferent to you.3 I might here observe how admirably this Precept of Morality (which derives the Malignity of Hatred from the Passion it self, and not from its Object) answers to that great Rule which was dictated to the World about an hundred years before this Philosopher wrote; but instead of that, I shall only take notice, with a real Grief of Heart, that the Minds of many good Men among us appear sowered with Party-Principles, and alienated from one another spectator 125 125 in such a manner, as seems to me altogether inconsistent with the Dictates either of Reason or Religion. Zeal for a Publick Cause is apt to breed Passions in...