COMMON-PLACE OBSERVATIONS
NEVER use, believe, or approve common-place
observations. They are the common topics of witlings and coxcombs: those who
really have wit have the utmost contempt for them, and scorn even to laugh at
the pert things that those would-be wits say upon such subjects.
RELIGION
RELIGION is one
of their favorite topics: it is all priest-craft, and an invention contrived
and carried on by priests of all religions, for their own power and profit. From
this absurd and false principle flow the common-place insipid jokes and insults
upon the clergy. With these people, every priest, of every religion, is either
a public or a concealed unbeliever, drunkard, and whoremaster; whereas, I
conceive, that priests are extremely like other men, and neither the better nor
the worse for wearing a gown or a surplice; but, if they are different from
other people, probably it is rather on the side of religion and morality, or,
at least, decency, from their education and manner of life.
MATRIMONY
ANOTHER common
topic for false wit and cold raillery is matrimony. Every man and his wife hate
each other cordially, whatever they may pretend, in public, to the contrary.
The husband certainly wishes his wife at the devil, and the wife certainly
cuckolds her husband. Whereas I presume that men and their wives neither love
nor hate each other the more, upon account of the form of matrimony which has
been said over them. The cohabitation, indeed, which is the consequence of
matrimony, makes them either love or hate more, accordingly as they
respectively deserve it; but that would be exactly the same between any man and
woman who lived together without being married.
COURTS AND COTTAGES
IT is also a
trite, common-place observation, that courts are the seats of falsehood and
dissimulation. That, like many, I might say most, common-place observations, is
false. Falsehood and dissimulation are certainly to be found at courts; but
where are they not to be found? Cottages have them as well as courts, only with
worse manners. A couple of neighboring farmers in a village will contrive and
practice as many tricks to over-reach each other at the next market, or to supplant
each other in the favor of the ’squire, as any two courtiers can do to supplant
each other in the favor of their prince. Whatever poets may write, or fools
believe, of rural innocence and truth, and of the perfidy of courts, this is
undoubtedly true,—that shepherds and ministers are both men; their nature and
passions the same, the modes of them only different.
These and
many other common-place reflections upon nations or professions, in general,
(which are at least as often false as true,) are the poor refuge of people who
have neither wit nor invention of their own, but endeavor to shine in company
by second-hand finery. I always put these pert jackanapes out of countenance,
by looking extremely grave when they expect that I should laugh at their
pleasantries; and by saying, WELL, AND SO, as if they had not done, and that
the sting were still to come. This disconcerts them; as they have no resources
in themselves, and have but one set of jokes to live upon. Men of parts are not
reduced to these shifts, and have the utmost contempt for them: they find
proper subjects enough for either useful or lively conversations: they can be
witty without satire or common-place, and serious without being dull.
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