particular kind of food, or medicine, that it will agree with this or that individual, until we are acquainted with his peculiar temperament; and, consequently, it is absurd to prescribe a method of diet or physic for any man without such previous knowledge. It is not an unusual thing to hear people when any thing (or rather when nothing) is the matter with them, and where they think medical advice or attendance is necessary, say, "Send for Doctor So-and-so, (some wily apothecary who gets his daily bread by vending drugs, not an M.D.) he has attended me before (when nothing of any consequence was the matter with me), he knows my constitution, and knows better than any other person, &c." Yes, he knows so much of your constitution, that when he attends you for the gin-disease, Mrs. A, B, or C, you must drink no more till you get better. A quantum suff. of draughts must supersede Hodges's cordial, till he makes a little bill of two or three pounds for the good Mr. A, B, or C, to pay. SECTION III. PASSIONS AND TEMPERS. Curb thy soul, And check thy rage, which must be rul'd or rule. CREECH. On the whims and oddities of tempers and persons, we could, we believe, not any where find a more appropriate description. "It is a very common expression (says the elegant Addison*) that such a one is very good-natured, but very passionate. The expression, indeed, is very good-natured, to allow passionate people so much quarter: but I think a passionate man deserves the least indulgence of any. It is said it is soon over; that is, all the mischief he does is quickly dispatched, which, I think, is no great recommendation to favour. I have known one of these good-natured passionate men say in a mixed company, even to his own wife or child, such things as the most inveterate enemies of his family would not have spoken, even in imagination. It is certain that quick sensibility is inseparable from a ready understanding; but why should not that good understanding call to itself all its * Vide Spectator, No. CDXXXVIII. force on such occasions, to master that sudden inclination to anger? To contain the spirit of anger is the worthiest discipline we can put ourselves to. When a man has made any progress this way, a frivolous fellow in a passion is to him as contemptible as a froward child. It ought to be the study of every man for his own quiet and peace. When he stands combustible and ready to flame upon every thing that he touches, life is as uneasy to himself as all about him. Syncropius leads, of all men living, the most ridiculous life; he is ever offending and begging pardon. If his man enters the room without what he was sent for, That blockhead,' begins he, ' gentlemen, I ask your pardon, but servants now-a-days'-The wrong plates are laid, they are thrown into the middle of the room; his wife stands by in pain for him, which he sees in her face, and answers, as if he had heard all she was thinking: Why what the devil! why don't you take care to give order in these things?' His friends sit down to a tasteless plenty of every thing, every minute expecting new insults from his impertinent passions. In a word, to eat with, or visit such a bear, is no other than going to see him drill his family, exercise their patience, and display his own anger. 6 "It is monstrous that the shame and confusion in which this good-natured angry man must needs behold his friends, while he thus lays about him, does not give him so much reflexion as to create an amendment. This is the most scandalous disuse of reason imaginable; all the harmless part of him is no more than that of a bull-dog, they are tame no longer than they are not offended. One of these good-natured angry men shall, in an instant, assemble together so many allusions to secret circumstances, as are enough to dissolve the peace of all the families and friends he is acquainted with, in a quarter of an hour, and yet the next moment be the best-natured man in the world. If you would see passion in its purity, without mixture of reason, behold it represented in a mad hero, drawn by a mad poet. Nat. Lee makes his Alexander say thus:— Away, begone, and give a whirlwind room, Or I will blow you up like dust! avaunt; Fury! revenge! disdain and indignation! Tear my swollen breast! make way for fire and tempest, My brain is burst, debate and reason quench'd; The storm is up, and my hot bleeding heart Splits with the rack, while passions, like the wind, "Every passionate fellow in town talks half the day with as little consistency, and threatens things as much out of his power." 15 DESCRIPTION OF A PEEVISH FELLOW. "The next disagreeable person to the Sir Anthony Absolute above described, is one of a much inferior order of passion, viz. what is commonly called a peevish fellow. "A character of this description is one who has some reason in himself for being out of humour, or has a natural incapacity for delight, and therefore disturbs all who are happier than himself with pishes and pshaws, or other well-bred interjections, at every thing that is said or done in his presence. There should be physic mixed in the food of all which these fellows eat in good company; it would only be trying the effect of medicine upon morals, and, in all probability, with a favourable result. This degree of anger passes, forsooth, for a delicacy of judgment, that will not admit of being easily pleased; but none above the character of wearing a peevish man's livery, ought to bear with his illmanners. All things among men of sense and condition should pass the censure, and have the protection, of the eye of reason. No man ought to be tolerated in an habitual humour, whim, or particularity of behaviour, by any who do not wait upon him for bread. The peevish are usually of the phlegmatic cast. |