Dialogues of the Dead | Page 8

cautiousness of your judgment would
have given you leave. But, allowing that in the force and spirit of his
wit he has really the advantage, how much does he yield to you in all
the elegant graces, in the fine touches of delicate sentiment, in
developing the secret springs of the soul, in showing the mild lights and
shades of a character, in distinctly marking each line, and every soft
gradation of tints, which would escape the common eye? Who ever
painted like you the beautiful parts of human nature, and brought them
out from under the shade even of the greatest simplicity, or the most
ridiculous weaknesses; so that we are forced to admire and feel that we
venerate, even while we are laughing? Swift was able to do nothing that

approaches to this. He could draw an ill face, or caricature a good one,
with a masterly hand; but there was all his power, and, if I am to speak
as a god, a worthless power it is. Yours is divine. It tends to exalt
human nature.
Swift.--Pray, good Mercury (if I may have liberty to say a word for
myself) do you think that my talent was not highly beneficial to correct
human nature? Is whipping of no use to mend naughty boys?
Mercury.--Men are generally not so patient of whipping as boys, and a
rough satirist is seldom known to mend them. Satire, like antimony, if
it be used as a medicine, must be rendered less corrosive. Yours is often
rank poison. But I will allow that you have done some good in your
way, though not half so much as Addison did in his.
Addison.--Mercury, I am satisfied. It matters little what rank you assign
me as a wit, if you give me the precedence as a friend and benefactor to
mankind.
Mercury.--I pass sentence on the writers, not the men, and my decree is
this:--When any hero is brought hither who wants to be humbled, let
the talk of lowering his arrogance be assigned to Swift. The same good
office may be done to a philosopher vain of his wisdom and virtue, or
to a bigot puffed up with spiritual pride. The doctor's discipline will
soon convince the first, that with all his boasted morality, he is but a
Yahoo; and the latter, that to be holy he must necessarily be humble. I
would also have him apply his anticosmetic wash to the painted face of
female vanity, and his rod, which draws blood at every stroke, to the
hard back of insolent folly or petulant wit. But Addison should be
employed to comfort those whose delicate minds are dejected with too
painful a sense of some infirmities in their nature. To them he should
hold his fair and charitable mirror, which would bring to their sight
their hidden excellences, and put them in a temper fit for
Elysium.--Adieu. Continue to esteem and love each other, as you did in
the other world, though you were of opposite parties, and, what is still
more wonderful, rival wits. This alone is sufficient to entitle you both
to Elysium.

DIALOGUE V.
ULYSSES--CIRCE.--IN CIRCE'S ISLAND.
Circe.--You will go then, Ulysses, but tell me, without reserve, what
carries you from me?
Ulysses.--Pardon, goddess, the weakness of human nature. My heart
will sigh for my country. It is an attachment which all my admiration of
you cannot entirely overcome.
Circe.--This is not all. I perceive you are afraid to declare your whole
mind. But what, Ulysses, do you fear? My terrors are gone. The
proudest goddess on earth, when she has favoured a mortal as I have
favoured you, has laid her divinity and power at his feet.
Ulysses.--It may be so while there still remains in her heart the
tenderness of love, or in her mind the fear of shame. But you, Circe, are
above those vulgar sensations.
Circe.--I understand your caution; it belongs to your character, and
therefore, to remove all diffidence from you, I swear by Styx I will do
no manner of harm, either to you or your friends, for anything which
you say, however offensive it may be to my love or my pride, but will
send you away from my island with all marks of my friendship. Tell me
now, truly, what pleasures you hope to enjoy in the barren rock of
Ithaca, which can compensate for those you leave in this paradise,
exempt from all cares and overflowing with all delights?
Ulysses.--The pleasures of virtue; the supreme happiness of doing good.
Here I do nothing. My mind is in a palsy; all its faculties are benumbed.
I long to return into action, that I may worthily employ those talents
which I have cultivated from the earliest days of my youth. Toils and
cares fright