THE VILLAGE TEACHER.
I cannot exactly tell why it was, that I felt particularly interested in the prospectus for the Rural Magazine; but I instantly resolved to become a subscriber, and fell to ruminating upon the benefits it might confer upon the country. Whether I conceived at once the idea of writing these essays, and took to myself a full share of its imagined usefulness and celebrity; or whether my satisfaction arose from disinterested motives, I felt a glow of kind feeling towards the editors, which expanded itself upon all around me. I dismissed my little school at an earlier hour than usual, and having simply reprimanded some idle culprits, to whom I should otherwise have administered the ferule, I devoted the remainder of the afternoon to writing a letter to a friend in town; in which I concluded a declamation upon the worthlessness of literary fame, by requesting him to place my name in the list of subscribers and contributors.
Since then, the Magazine has frequently been the subject of my reveries; for the design is exactly what I have long desired to see attempted. Every man who has travelled half way up the hill of life, and has gained its fortieth milestone, will have amassed stores of thought and observation, which he is apt to think of inestimable value:—at least I find it so with me. There are many topics on which I differ from my friends, and in regard to which I am anxious to develope my opinions. Some others to which I attach a greater importance than is usually done; and many upon which my particular station in life has thrown lights which may be new and interesting to the public mind. For these reasons, I have long desired to extend my voice and authority beyond the precincts of my little kingdom, and to try the experiment of schooling the public in some of those great truths, which are too little regarded or understood, and bringing back its taste to the pure and simple enjoyments of rural life. Whether I shall succeed in my attempt to gain the public ear, will depend, perhaps, upon accident; for while the greatest merit has often languished in obscurity, folly and incapacity have as often caught the gale of popular favour. If I fail, I shall not be without consolation; for the most unsuccessful author finds it easier to censure the public for want of penetration, than himself for want of talent. I trust that I shall have occasion for no such reflections. It may be an author's vanity, and yet the voice of praise can scarcely reach my secluded abode; but my fancy already paints the bright eyes, and glowing cheeks that will hang over these essays, and the sober approbation with which mature age will perceive that they are devoted to the cause of truth and sound morality. Neighbour Schemer is welcome to pass over my numbers in search of the newest plans of farming, so long as he allows his blooming Emily to pause over them; and what do I care though old Lovegain pronounce them to be stupid stuff? I had rather possess the approbation and esteem of his lovely Sophia, than half his acres!
It is a hopeless task, and may seem full of vanity, to enter the lists where so many have been foiled, and where all the great prizes have been born away by the master spirits of former times. But not to mention that fame is no object of my pursuit; the lofty rewards I speak of, were gained by the finest geniuses in our language, and conferred by the approbation of the world. My humbler attempt is to please villagers and farmers; and my ambition will be attained, if they crown me with the fragrant and perishing wreath that shall resemble their grateful though short-lived recollections.
Custom and authority have assigned to the essayist a peculiar character. He is privileged at all places and in every family. Childhood loves and fondles upon him; and age and fashion, the man of pleasure and the man of business, alike consult and confide in him: above all, he is the particular favourite of the ladies, and is supposed to be knowing in all the labyrinths of the female heart, and all the points of etiquette and gallantry. He has, therefore, from time immemorial, been their faithful adviser, transmitted their billetsdoux, and corrected their letters. He is a notable dreamer, a great traveller, and a universal scholar: he generally passes for a grey headed sage, and yet is a very Proteus in his appearance and behaviour. The family is descended from Isaac Bickerstaff, esq.; a venerable gentleman, who made a considerable figure, and acquired much substance in queen Anne's time. Some of his descendants have been solemn and pedantic, and others giddy and frolicksome; but the features I have portrayed, run more or less through the whole family. Its enemies say that it is no longer what it was; that it has retained its homely peculiarities, without its originality and freshness, its wit and gallantry of character. Gentle reader, believe me, this is an unfounded calumny!
A branch of the family settled in this country about eighty years since, and some of the American descendants have proved worthy of the original stock. One of them, renouncing the social habits of his kinsmen, went abroad among the fields and the solitudes of Nature, and there poured forth his soul in strains, of which a poet might have been emulous. It was he who first made the English Muses familiar with the sublimity of our native forests. Another, whose natural disposition was checked by the force of circumstances, devoted himself to the education of a favourite niece and nephew; and has given a signal example that an old bachelor is not always a useless being. A third, more merry and more melancholy, more sarcastic and more eccentric than all who went before him, divided his time between laughing at the world, and wandering over the scenes of his youthful and perished enjoyments. He still lives, although in a foreign clime and under an assumed name, to enjoy the love and admiration of his countrymen.
Reader, I have already told thee how humble are my own pretensions. If I do not attract thy regard from my own merits, love me for the sake of my family; and have a kind eye to my rude speech and rustic manners, in the recollection of those from whom I boast to have descended.
FOR THE RURAL MAGAZINE.
[ON THE PURSUIT OF PLEASURE.]
——Trahit sua quemque voluptas.... Virgil.
It is a fact which can never be successfully controverted, that man, in every stage of society, is addicted to pleasure; the uncultivated savage, and the sage philosopher are equally devoted to the attainment of felicity; are equally desirous to secure a perpetuity of happiness. The benevolent Creator of the universe seems to have endowed the human race with faculties peculiarly susceptible of pleasurable sensations; accordingly it becomes the business of every one, almost from his first entrance into life, to seek after such pleasures as are peculiar to the bent of his disposition, and to avoid every object or pursuit that has a tendency to pain or disappointment. If, however, all pleasures were in their nature innocent, and left behind no sting of remorse and anxiety, still man would inevitably soon feel the approaches of languor, especially whilst indulging in a round of mere sensual gratifications, and would earnestly sigh for some more permanent species of felicity; a felicity which might gently affect his mind, without overpowering his faculties in such a degree as to produce subsequent pain. But as the world is now constituted, it becomes the indispensable duty of the moralist, not only to guard mankind against excess in their pleasures, but also to warn them against such as are accompanied with vice and criminality. He therefore is not the true friend of mankind, who recommends to his fellow beings a continual abstinence from every gratification, or who would lead them to expect pleasure from sensual gratifications alone; but he who points out to their notice, those delights which are most durable, and at the same time, consistent with the strictest virtue.
It must, without hesitation, be allowed, that religion is the source of the most exalted happiness that any human being can enjoy. Religion alone inspires the soul with a perfect dependance on the goodness and love of the Deity, and diffuses over the mind that calmness and serenity, which inevitably proceed from a reception of his mercy and benevolence, ever manifested towards all his creatures. All the pleasures of life are so many poisonous ingredients in our cup, till religion purifies and destroys the noxious qualities with which they are tainted. Let religion mingle with our pleasures, and every thing of an evil tendency vanishes before it. Religion furnishes genius with its noblest theme, and it affords the fullest employment for all the energies of the human intellect. But another species of pleasure, most grateful, and ennobling to the human mind, arises from the exercise of the understanding in literary pursuits, and in the study and admiration of the various productions of human genius. A life thus devoted will afford more real gratification to an uncorrupted mind, than voluptuousness, with all her allurement, can offer, or than intemperance, with her bacchanalian crew, has power to bestow. We may indeed almost venture to assert, that if pure and rational happiness is any where to be found, except in the temples of religion, she resides in the studies of the learned, and sweetens all their labours. The cultivation of a literary taste is the source of rational and innocent entertainment; it is a powerful preservative from vice, and contributes to exercise in the soul a love of virtue. The pleasures of sense are all transitory in their nature, and have a direct tendency to debase the mind; while on the contrary, intellectual pursuits, delight us the more we are engaged in them, and even when their novelty is worn off, they still retain their charms. From the first period in which man is endowed with the use of his reasoning faculties, there is a constant struggle between the animal and intellectual powers. These endeavour to raise man to a state of immortal felicity, those, to sink and degrade him to a level with the brutes. Whatever pleasures, therefore, tend to increase the predominance of reason over the sensual desires, are favourable to the interests of virtue and religion. The pleasures of literature are of this nature; they strengthen and invigorate the faculties of the mind, and render it capable of manly exertion; they inspire cheerfulness and serenity, and produce an exquisite gratification to the mental powers; in short, they are as much superior to any thing of a sensual nature, as the nature of the human soul is superior to that of the body.
W. M.
Jan. 4th, 1820.
FOR THE RURAL MAGAZINE.
The following is a copy from the original of a letter written by Dr. Franklin, and never before published. As the subject is one, invested at the present moment, with considerable interest to the people of this country, and coming from the pen of a celebrated man, whose patriotism, it is believed, was never doubted, it may perhaps be acceptable to your readers, and worthy of preservation in the pages of the Rural Magazine. Whether the Doctor is right or wrong in his theory, the public will determine.
I.
"London, Feb. 20, 1768.
"Dear Friend.—I wrote to you a few lines by Capt. Falconer, and I sent you Dr. Watson's new piece, of experiments in inoculation, which I hope will be agreeable to you.
"The Boston people pretending to interfere with the manufactures of this country, make a great clamour here against America in general. I have endeavoured, therefore, to palliate matters a little in several public papers. It would, as you justly observe, give less umbrage if we meddled only with such manufactures as England does not attend to. That of linen might be carried on more or less in every family, (perhaps it can only do in a family way) and silk I think in most of the colonies. But there are many manufactures that we cannot carry on to advantage, though we were at entire liberty. And after all, this country is fond of manufactures beyond their real value: for the true source of riches is husbandry. Agriculture is truly productive of new wealth; manufacturers only change forms; and whatever value they give to the materials they work upon, they in the meantime consume an equal value in provisions, &c.; so that riches are not increased by manufacturing; the only advantage is, that provisions in the shape of manufactures, are more easily carried for sale to foreign markets, and where the provisions cannot be easily carried to market, 'tis well so to transform them for our own use as well as foreign sale. In families also, where the children and servants of farmers have some spare time, 'tis well to employ it in making something; and in spinning, or knitting, &c. to gather up the fragments of time, that nothing be lost; for these fragments though small in themselves, amount to something great in the year, and the family must eat whether they work or are idle. But this nation seems to have increased the number of its manufactures beyond reasonable bounds, (for there are bounds to every thing,) whereby provisions are now risen to an exorbitant price by the demand for supplying home mouths; so that there must be an importation from foreign countries: but the expense of bringing provisions from abroad to feed manufacturers here, will so enhance the price of the manufactures, that they may be made cheaper where the provisions grow, and the mouths will go to the meat.
"With many thanks for your good wishes, I am, dear friend, affectionately yours,
B. FRANKLIN.
"Dr. Cadwallader Evans."
FOR THE RURAL MAGAZINE.