To which you add, “In favour of this opinion it may be further observed, that Augustus owed his empire in a great measure to his naval victories[126].”
Now can any thing be civiler than this, or more expressive of that amiable turn of mind, which disposes a man to help forward a lame argument of his friend, and give it the needful support of his authority? For it hath been delivered as a maxim by the nice observers of decorum, that wherever you would compliment another on his opinion, you should always endeavour to add something of your own that may insinuate at least some little defect in it. This management takes of the appearance of flattery, a vice which the Latin writers, alluding to this frequency of unqualified assent, have properly enough expressed by the word Assentatio. But catch you tripping in this way if one can. It is plain you went on this just principle in the instance before us, which otherwise, let me tell you, I should have taken for something like an attempt towards downright adulation. As here qualified, I set it down for another instance of just compliment, more direct indeed than the other five, yet still with that graceful obliquity which they who know the world, expect in this sort of commerce. And I may further observe, that you are not singular in the use of this mode of celebration. Many even of the enemies of this author have obligingly enough employed it when they wanted to confirm their own notions by his, or rather to shew their parts in first catching a hint from him, and then, as they believe, improving upon it—Still I have greater things in view. For,
Seventhly, You not only with the highest address insinuate a compliment in the way of citation, but you once or twice express it in full form, and with all the circumstance of panegyrical approbation. Having mentioned the case of the infants in Virgil’s purgatory, which hath so much perplexed his learned commentators, you rise at once into the following encomium. “It is an ingenious conjecture proposed in the D. L. that the poet might design to discountenance the cursed practice of exposing and murdering infants.”
This was very liberal, and I began to think you had forgotten yourself a little in so explicit a declaration. But the next paragraph relieved me. “It might be added, that Virgil had perhaps also in view to please Augustus, who was desirous of encouraging matrimony and the education of children, and extremely intent upon repeopling Italy which had been exhausted by the civil wars[127].” It is plain you have still in your eye that sage rule which the men of manners lay down, of qualifying your civilities. So that I let this pass without farther observation. Only I take leave to warn you against the too frequent use of this artifice, which but barely satisfies for calling your friend’s notion “an ingenious conjecture.”
Not but are there others who see this contrivance in another light, and treat it as an art of damning with faint praise; a censure which one of the zealot friends presumes to cast, with much injustice and little knowledge of the world, on the very leader and pride of our party. Whereas I deliver it for a most certain truth, that the fainter and feebler our praise of any man is, just so much the better will it be received by all companies, even by the generality of those who call themselves his best friends. And so apprehensive indeed am I of this nice humour in mankind, that I am not sure if the very slight things I am forced to say of yourself, though merely to carry on the purpose of this address, will not by certain persons, inwardly at least, be ill taken. And with this needful apology for myself I proceed to celebrate,
Eighthly, The last and highest instance of your civilities to your admired friend, which yet I hope to vindicate from any reasonable suspicion of flattery; I presumed to say in the foregoing article that you had once or twice hazarded even a direct compliment on the person whose system you oppose. I expressed myself with accuracy. There is one other place in your dissertation, where you make this sacrifice to friendship or to custom. The passage is even wrought up into a resemblance of that unqualified adulation, which I condemn so much, and from which, in general, your writings are perfectly free. I could almost wish for your credit to suppress this one obnoxious paragraph. But it runs thus,
“That the subterraneous adventures of Æneas were intended by Virgil to represent the initiation of his heroe, is an elegant conjecture, which hath been laid before the public, and set forth to the best advantage by a learned friend[128].”
I confess to you I did not know at first sight what to do with the two high-flown epithets, elegant and learned, which stand so near together in one sentence. Such accumulated praises had well-nigh overset my system. And I began with much solicitude to consider how I should be able to reconcile this escape of your pen with your general practice. But taking a little time to look about me, I presently spied a way of extricating both of us from this difficulty. For hang it, thought I, if this notion of the heroe’s adventures in the infernal regions be elegant, it is but a conjecture; and so poor a matter as this were hardly worth pursuing, as the author of the D. L. hath done, through almost a fourth part of a very sizeable volume.
And then as to the term elegant, to be sure it hath a good sound; but more than a third part of this choice volume of yours, I observed, is employed in making appear that the conjecture, whatever it be, hath not the least feature of truth in it. And elegance, altogether devoid of truth, was, I concluded, a very pitiful thing, and indeed no very intelligible encomium. Well, but let there be as little truth as you will, in this conjecture, still it hath been set forth to the best advantage, and to crown all by a learned friend. Here a swarm of fresh difficulties attacked me. Sed nil desperandum te duce. For why talk of advantage, when the conjecture after all would not bear the handling? It was but mighty little (your friendship would not let you do more) which you had brought against it. And the conjecture I saw, was shrunk to nothing, and is never likely to rise again into any shape or substance. So that when you added by a learned friend, I could not for my life, help laughing. Surely, thought I, the reverend person tends on this occasion to be pleasant.——Indeed you often are so with a very good grace, but I happened not to expect it just at this moment.—For what learning worth speaking of could there be in the support of a notion, which was so easily overturned without any?
You may be sure I mean no reflection in these words. Nobody questions your erudition. But it was not your fortune or your choice to make a shew of it in this discourse. The propriety of the epithet learned, then, did not evidently and immediately appear.