unrelenting indeed to require more in satisfaction
than it costs a fine eye to sympathise in its expres-
sion with a malignant tongue ; and our resentment
should almost turn to pity, when we see the most
beautiful mouth deposit its honey together with its
sting in the wound it inflicts.
Where an addiction to calumny arises from a deep
depravity of mind, from a savage union of ignorance
and pride, it were folly to expect a cure from such
considerations as these ; but I am persuaded that
more than half the scandal of the world is either a
resource of inoccupation, a substitute for sense, a
mere efflorescence of vulgar wit, or an idle super-
ficial habit without malice or meaning. I think I
could do a great deal in these latter cases, could I
once raise in the minds of my fair countrywomen an
adequate sense of the damages their beauty sustains
in such perilous amusements, and show them as in a
mirror the physical deformity of this indecent prac-
tice. I shall bestow no farther remarks in this place
on its moral turpitude ; but shall wait till the level-
ing philosophy of the present day, in its march of
paradoxical confusion, after all the other distinctions
between vice and virtue shall have been overthrown,
shall send forward its pioneers to destroy the barriers
between candour and detraction.
In the mean time, my readers will not be displeased
with this passage from Lucian " There is no more
effectual instrument of calumny than the love of no-
velty, which is natural to all mankind, joined to the
disgust arising from satiety, and a passion for the
marvellous and incredible : add to this, that we are
all fond, I know not why, of listening to private i us-
picions which are whispered to us. I know many
VOL. XLIII. a
170 LOOKER-Otf. N<> 66.
whose ears itch with calumny, as if they were tickled
with a feather. No wonder that with such assis-
tance she pursuades all, especially where she is in
no danger of being confronted. The calumniated,
like a city taken by night, are slain in their sleep."
Not above a week ago, I passed a few hours, which
were among the most agreeable of my life, at the
female society, where the topic of the evening was
the subject of my present paper. After a multitude
of very sage and pleasant observations, Miranda en-
tertained us with the following little story.
A certain widow, though pretty much advanced
in life, had a mind to marry again. As her fortune
was very large, she thought herself entitled to a
young husband : and accordingly fixed her eyes up-
on a handsome youth, who had nothing but his per-
sonal recommendations to depend upon. She plainly
perceived that there would be no difficulty on his
part, but she dreaded the censure and ridicule of her
neighbours. In this perplexity, she communicated
her wishes and alarms to a maiden sister, who lived
in her house, and who possessed an uncommon share
of shrewdness and address for all such occasions.
" Sister," says the amorous widow, " what think you
of Leander? It is surely the picture of my late hus-
band. Alas! I should never have yielded my heart
but to this irresistible resemblance. What shall I
do? for I am in a dreadful consternation about what
my neighbours may say of me, being well acquaint-
ed with their malice and cruelty : the purest love
is not sheltered from their ill-natured ridicule. Were
it not for that, this dear young man should but "
" How absurd is all this, my dear sister!" replied
the other. " Follow your inclinations, and don't
tell me of such foolish fears. You will be sung,
66. LOOKER-ON. 171
hooted, halloo'd after, and chalked up, for eight days ;
on the ninth, they will think no more of you than
one thinks of a friend one has quitted for three
months. That ass which you see yonder, shall, if
you please, impose silence on the whole parish about
you the morning after your nuptials." " That ass!"
" Yes, that ass. Marry, I say, and leave the rest
to me and my ass." The widow was easily per-
suaded, and the marriage was concluded, on the cre-
dit of the ass. Dreadful outcry in the parish rough
music before their doors not a soft thing could be
heard from the mouth of either party for the noise
of kettles and frying-pans. In the mean time, the
sister had painted the ass as green as a parrot ; and
out rushed the phenomenon, with a triumphant bray,
into the midst of the crowd. In an instant every
kettle and pan was mute, and every soul in the parish
crowded round so strange a prodigy. " A green ass !
Good heavens! who could have believed it ! Well,
wonders will never cease. How surprising is Na-
ture in all her operations!" " I dreamed," cries an
old woman, " of this very ass a week ago. I am sure
it betokeneth something bad to our town. A number
of white mice appeared in the same manner just be-
fore the plague that happened in my youth." Such
observations and exclamations as these took place of
the clamour about the new-married couple. The
green ass lasted its eight days, and then there was
no more curiosity about the green ass than there had
been about the new-married couple the moment the
ass appeared.
Miranda's story entertained us all extremely ; and
my mother, forgetting her usual composure, laughed
till the shagreen spectacles tumbled from her nose.
I now thought it an excellent time to relate to them
q2
172 LOOKER-ON. N6G.
an extraordinary dream, which had happened to me
about three weeks before, and of which I had thought
it worth while to make some memorandums, that I
might introduce it when the occasion presented it-
self. As it was thought curious by this judicious so-
ciety, it may perhaps entertain my readers.
About a quarter of an hour before I retired to bed,
I happened to find in the window-seat, a volume of
the Spectator ; and, opening it, fell by chance upon
that paper in which he gives us the dissection of a
coquette's heart. The idea took such possession of
my brain, that, as soon as I laid my head upon my
pillow, it produced the following dream.
Methought I was in a large room, where a gen-
tleman of the faculty was giving lectures on ana-
tomy. Upon inquiring what was his subject, I was
given to understand that it was the ear of an old maid,
whose propensity to scandal had distinguished her,
even among her sisterhood. We could observe no-
thing peculiar in the external form of the ear, unless
a greater number of those tortuous cavities which
are so admirably designed by nature, in its construc-
tion of that organ, to collect the circumambient un-
dulations of sound, and give it a circulation and re-
fraction in its passage. Our operator next proceeded
to open the lobe, in the cellular substance of which
we discovered a greenish liquor, that turned the co-
lour of every thing which it touched ; and a small
sprinkling of it upon the surgeon's hand gave him all
the appearance of being ill of the measles. The au-
ditory passage was extremely narrow, and not fun-
nelled as in other subjects, but singularly twisted,
while its inner surface was covered with little knots ;
so that altogether it looked as if there was only room
for one part of a story to enter, and that in a broken
and mutilated condition. The poiiio dura of the au-
K 66. LOOKER-ON. 173
ditory nerve was perfect, but the portio mollis had
become completely ossified ; and this was, our ana-
tomist assured us, a peculiarity he had always disco-
vered in maids above the age of five and thirty. The
wax of the meatus auditorius was unusually bitter,
and the mucilage of the periosteum fermented prodi-
giously with salt of wormwood. The passage into
the neck bone was formed like that in owls, and pro-
jected further out above than below, so that the least
possible sound might be perceived. I should not
forget that the wax, which is reckoned by Pliny and
others to possess a healing virtue, was in this subject
not only without those balsamic qualities, but actu-
ally brought a blister upon a young person's hand
who tried it in this view. On applying our own ears
as close as we could to the concha of the ear in ques-
tion, we could distinctly hear a whizzing sound in a
smaller degree like the blasts of a coal-mine : and
upon bringing a fresh-blown rose as near to it as we
could, it immediately hung its head, and appeared
as if the sun had been on it a whole day. We con-
ceived this to be that innate air on which some ana-
tomists have insisted. The form of the concha put
me in mind of those places of whose powers of con-
veying sounds we read such prodigious effects in his-
tory ; as the prison of Dionysius, which could raise
a whisper to the roar of a cannon ; or the aqueducts
of Claudius, which could carry a voice sixteen miles.
In every other subject, one of the branches of the audi-
tory nerve inosculates with the muscles of the eye,
the tongue, and the nose, as well as the heart and
praecordia ; but in the instance before us, we could
discern a connection only with the tongue, at the
root of which there was a spring of prodigious elastic
power, and a vast provision of oily globules, which
supplied a perpetual mucilage to prevent friction,
U3
174 LOOKER-ON. X<> 66.
and wear and tear. In the tuba eustachiana or pa-
late tubes, there was a sort of distillation, which turn-
ed the taste of every thing sour, and which when the
lady was alive, inundated the mouth with such a
supply of pungent mucus, as kept that region in a
perpetual irritation, and preserved the tongue, like a
rod, in pickle. All my readers have heard of the
labyrinth of the ear, in which are the semicircular
canals, those very curious passages through which
sounds are admitted. These three canals are of dif-
ferent sizes, according to the degrees of sound which
they are fitted to receive. They have been denomi-
nated the major, minor, and minimus; and upon
these we tried several experiments. A great list of
names, distinguished in the world, were repeated by
the experimenter as loud as was possible ; and it was
plain that the bad were received by the largest tube
to afford room for exaggeration, while the good and
the brave could find entrance only through the
smallest duct, in which there was but scanty room
for the slenderest endowments to pass.
At this moment a person present, notorious for
his wicked wit and indecent calumnies, desired to be
permitted to whisper in the ear. As I happened to
be next to him, I thought I heard a word or two of
treason fall from him : and immediately a hollow
kind of noise seemed to be returned from the concha,
that gave me the idea of the deafening sound of a
horn in a diving-bell, while every one in the room
confessed a kind of mortal chill about the praecordia.
Our most interesting experiments were made upon
the tympanum, or drum of the ear, which the limits
of my paper will not allow me to relate. There
was nothing very particular indeed in the construc-
tion of this part. There were, as usual, the two
membranes, with their four little bones and at-
N 66. LOOKER-ON. 173
tendant muscles, to produce such tension or relaxa-
tion of this organ as the different sounds required.
We could perceive that the membrane was Giily
stretched when a scandalous speech was uttered, and
the chord with which it is furnished would only vi-
brate to certain words. While our attention was di-
rected to this part, somebody or other happened to
mention lady Languish's pad ; upon which, such a
tremulous motion was given to the chord as asto-
nished every beholder, and a vast quantity of oily
globules seemed to be secreted at the place where it
is joined to the nerve of the tongue. Methought at
this moment our anatomist took up a hom, like
the figure of Alexander's tube preserved in the
Vatican, and pronounced the name of the queen
upon the throne : immediately the ear sent forth a
sound like that of a trumpet, and vanished into air.
The imaginary noise awoke me; and the first thing
I did, after feeling for both my ears, was to make
minutes in my pocket book of all that had passed in
this shadowy scene.
176 LOOKER-OX. N 67-
N 67. SATURDAY, AUGUST 24.
Every sound and good man abhors a lie.
The night before last, as I was sitting in the great
chair at the meeting of our society, the following ex-
traordinary letter was brought to me from the post-
office, which being of an official nature, I read it out
to the gentlemen present, who are pleased to take a
more than common interest in the concerns of this
paper.
" Tothe Rev. Simo)i Olive-Branch.
Sir,
" I am one of those enlighted reasoners of
the present day, that have raised themselves above
the prejudices of their forefathers, and have framed a
philosophy of the most comfortable, accommodating,
and practicable sort, and which requires none of those
unreasonable and painful sacrifices by which Nature
is traversed and outraged in her plainest institutes and
designs. Although the fundamental points of this
amiable philosophy are simple and few, yet I have
only time to present you with the leading principle
on which its excellence is founded. I set out with
concluding, that in studying to make ourselves happy
we fulfil one of the most evident indications which
Providence has given us of his will, and the principal
N 67. LOOKER-ON. 177
end of our creation. In the prosecution of this end,
nothing is unwarrantable but what encroaches upon
the general plan; for as the happiness of all mankind
is equally the concern of our Maker, his great scheme
must not be interrupted for any private advantage to
an individual. Thus where I destroy more happiness
than I procure to myself, I make, or attempt to make,
a subtraction from the sum of happiness conceeded to
mankind; but where I render one person only a vic-
tim to my own felicity, the account with Providence
is exactly balanced, provided indeed the gain and loss
are in equal proportion.
" Nothing can be more simple, intelligible, and
just, than this system of philosophy, in which one
mystery only is contained, involving indeed some-
thing like a contradiction ; though I have no doubt
but that in the plan of reconcilement we are pursu-
ing, we shall find some compromise between reason
and nature in this particular. It seems, I say, some-
thing like a contradiction, that since the promotion of
his private happiness is so entirely the duty of every
individual, there should be so much in the general
system to disappoint this purpose, and that the inte-
rests of all mankind should not coalesce to this one
great object of our being. Abating this little diffi-
culty, nothing can be more satisfactory than the pro-
position on which our reasonings are grounded; and
the simplicity which accompanies its farther deve-
lopement recommends it powerfully to the judge-
ments of those who, with a resolute independence of
thinking, are determined to believe nothing they do
not exactly comprehend, or cannot with ease reduce
to the standard of their feelings.
" Naturehas given us passions and these passions
were given us, no doubt, to be indulged. It is our
duty therefore to indulge them as far as we can, with-
178 LOOKER-ON. K 67-
out opposing the like duty enjoined to the rest of our
species. Between man and man there is a tacit con-
vention, within the limits of which our passions and
appetites may sport at large ; and the only barrier to
pleasure is pleasure. Thus, in this elegant and libe-
ral philosophy, virtue and vice have none but merely
relative distinctions, and indeed are not cognisable
as virtue and vice till they begin to promote or in-
terrupt the happiness of society. It seems as if there
were a certain measure of felicity distributed among
mankind ; and if we have robbed an individual of his
due proportion, we have only to make it out to Pro-
vidence by taking upon ourselves what remains on
the balance. What a delicious atonement is this!
and out of what a plain principle of equity it arises !
What encouragement and certainty it lends to re-
pentance ! while it renders our duty our delight, and
our religion a regale. Adieu, under such a system,
to the secret torments of conscience, and that inward
sense of depravation which in ordinary and unphilo-
sophical minds are attached to the free indulgence of
those appetites which nature has given us. Adieu to
those shallow prejudices which, by supposing absurd
distinctions where none exist, overwhelm the mind
with unreasonable terrors, and make our very thoughts
susceptible of stain and criminality.
" I have observed, sir, with great regret, that you
have adopted, in their full extent, these unhappy pre-
judices, and have applied them to almost all the pur-
suits and actions of our lives. There is one very im-
portant subject, however, which has as yet escaped
your pen, and which I would fain rescue from that il-
liberal partiality with which the rest have been treat-
ed. You are to know, sir, that from earliest youth I
have ever detested partiality and persecution of every
kind; and I see no reason why what you are pleased
No 67. LOOKEIt-ONT. 179
to call vice should not have as fair play as what you
choose to denominate virtue.
" To avoid the charge of egotism, I will say no
more of myself, though I must own I was on the
point of presenting you with a very astonishing his-
tory, but will proceed to the consideration of the
subject alluded to above, which is that of the prac-
tice of acting and speaking with an intention to de-
ceive, or what is vulgarly called a habit of lying. I
maintain that the idea of sin will only then properly
attach to this universal practice, when it destroys
more pleasure than it procures, or tends actually to
diminish the quantity of solid happiness permitted
to mankind. To talk of any intrinsic turpitude in a
lie, or any inward sense of corruption or reproach of
conscience in the fabrication of an imposture, is an
absurdity which every true philosopher must heartily
despise, and which tends to rob life of all its spirit
and pleasantry.
" Were the influence of truth, by the exertions of
its advocates, to be very much increased upon earth,
I should fear it would become a very sombre world,
and lose all its merriment, almost all its amusement,
and much of its good-humour. We should no longer
see ignorance and deformity with smiling faces; and
folly would want that confidence in itself which makes
life so rich in ridicule and burlesque. Moreover,
what a topsy-turvy disposition of things would result
from such an arrangement in favour of truth ! We
should have physicians refusing fees for conscience-
sake, and apothecaries throwing away their gallipots
and phials; officers declining promotion; bishops
begging absolution; 'squires pulling oft* their hats
to their coachmen; lords over-awed by chimney-
sweepers, and countesses confused in the presence of
their dairy-maids. What is there like fiction that
180 LOOKER-OX. N 67.
sweetens and adorns life? It gives, as it were, a var-
nish to nature's w r ork, a sort of polish to our exist-
ence, and blends into one shining mass of gay confu-
sion those mortifying differences and inequalities
which are planted in the real constitution of things.
No shape so crooked, no face so forbidding, no facul-
ties so obtuse, no manners so coarse, but what may
be kept in countenance by this lying system, which
happily prevails more and more in the world.
" A sober inquiry into the nature of civilization
and refinement will prove to us that these are only
modifications of this great and ruling plan of impo-
sition; and that in proportion as men advance in the
art of lying, they advance in all the delicacies and
elegancies of behaviour. Life itself is but one length-
ened lie, with those who aspire to the praise of po-
lished manners, or, in other words, who undertake to
keep mankind in good-humour with themselves. But
not only in the lighter concerns of life does the
happy operation of this system of imposture appear,
but in its graver duties and employments it is of equal
use and importance. So necessary an accomplish-
ment is it thought to the most sanctified situations,
that the whole bench of bishops receive their digni-
ties with a manifest lie in their mouths, and declare
themselves adverse to their exaltation, at the same
time that all the world knows to what they have
submitted to obtain it. The solemnity of aspect,
and formality of deportment, assumed in certain pro-
fessions, are nothing but grave lies and a more
studied kind of imposture. This is the garnish of
life, and without which, existence would hardly be
swallowed.
" It is the same principle that governs us all. The
bishop refuses his dignity, the physician his fee, and
the lady her lover's kiss, in conformity with this
K* 67. LOOKER-ON. 181
same universal rule of lying, to which all things must
bend in a civilized Country. Let us only reflect for a
moment on the situation of the lover without this happy
resource : what would become of all his gay compa-
risons and devout protestations ? Alas ! he could no
longer assume that irresistible eloquence with which
I seem to hear him repeat this tender falsehood' In-*
deed, my Laura, it is not your fortune, immense as it
is, nor your person, though that was made for princes
to bow before it, which has robbed me of my rest.
No, by those eyes I swear, I am a martyr to your
mind alone, in which I behold, as in a mirror, the
very form of virtue reflected ; and which taste and
elegance, and wit and wisdom, have made their fa-
vourite abode.' But if the lover would have reason
to repine at the overthrow of this lying system, how
would the poet exist in such an inverted order of
things ? Tell him to be splendide mendax no longer
no longer to devote his talents to the propagation
and embellishment of lies, you impose silence upon
him for ever, and wantonly throw up the greatest
privilege of man, the right to be imposed upon.
" For my part, I am determined never to abandon
this great ornament of our nature, and to be true to
this lying system as long as I have the faculty of in-
vention and the power of utterance. But as I consi-
der it as my duty to lie, I consider it also as my pro-,
vince to believe, that I may be passively as well as
actively a promoter of this enchanting commerce.
There is therefore nothing so marvellous but what I
easily admit, and nothing so incredible but what I
receive as gospel ; by which means I overflow with
ideas, and have in a manner doubled my existence.
I enjoy the spirit as well as the letter of life ; can
ramble, and be at home ; know more than I know ;
nee more than I see ; have two stories for every
VOL. xliii. R
182 LOOKER-OV. K67.
event, and two faces for every occasion. I am never
put to the blush by any detection; and if a person
gives me the lie, I take it as a compliment, and ge-
nerally ask him to dinner. By your frequent quo-
tations from Lucian, I presume he is a favourite au-
thor ; on which account it rather surprises me that
you have never entertained your readers with any
of those pleasant stories related in his dialogue,
called The Liars. Give me leave to conclude this
long letter with a specimen from that ingenious an-
cient.
" * You mean,' interrupted Arignotus, ' the famous
Pancrates, my preceptor, a most divine man, and
endued with a most expressive countenance ; bald,
with a flat nose, thick lips, and long legs ; he used
to wear a linen robe, and spoke the best Greek.'
* The same indeed,' cried Eucrates ; ' though when I
met him first, I did not know whom I had with me.
But in the course of the voyage I observed him per-
form a great many wonderful actions, such as, riding
upon crocodiles, and swimming among sea-monsters,
who, appearing perfectly subjected to him, would
wag their tails, and fawn upon him. I soon began
to consider him as something above humanity ; and
having by degrees acquired his friendship, he trusted
me with all his secrets, and prevailed upon me to
leave my servants at Memphis, and follow him ; as-
suring me we should have no occasion for attendants.
When he came to an inn, he would take the bar of
the door, or a broom, or a wooden pestle, dress it
properly, and repeating certain magical words, com-
mand it to walk about as a man. It would imme-
diately proceed to draw water, prepare the dinner,
and act in every respect as a dexterous waiter ; but
this secret I never could prevail upon him to com-
municate, though his conduct in every other instance
N67. LOOKER-ON. 188
was extremely obliging. One day, however, I hap-
pened to overhear the charm, as we stood together