Читать книгу The Tatler, Volume 3 - Джозеф Аддисон - Страница 12

[Steele.

From Tuesday, Jan. 24, to Thursday, Jan. 26, 1709-10

Quem mala stultitia, et quæcunque inscitia veri

Cæcum agit, insanum Chrysippi porticus, et grex

Autumat. Hæc populos, hæc magnos formula reges,

Excepto sapiente, tenet.—Hor., 2 Sat. iii. 43.

From my own Apartment, January 25

There is a sect of ancient philosophers, who, I think, have left more volumes behind them, and those better written, than any other of the fraternities in philosophy. It was a maxim of this sect, that all those who do not live up to the principles of reason and virtue, are madmen. Every one, who governs himself by these rules, is allowed the title of wise, and reputed to be in his senses; and every one in proportion, as he deviates from them, is pronounced frantic and distracted. Cicero having chosen this maxim for his theme, takes occasion to argue from it very agreeably with Clodius, his implacable adversary, who had procured his banishment. "A city," says he, "is an assembly distinguished into bodies of men, who are in possession of their respective rights and privileges, cast under proper subordinations, and in all its parts obedient to the rules of law and equity." He then represents the government from whence he was banished, at a time when the consul, senate, and laws, had lost their authority, as a commonwealth of lunatics. For this reason, he regards his expulsion from Rome, as a man would being turned out of Bedlam, if the inhabitants of it should drive him out of their walls as a person unfit for their community.46 We are therefore to look upon every man's brain to be touched, however he may appear in the general conduct of his life, if he has an unjustifiable singularity in any part of his conversation or behaviour: or if he swerves from right reason, however common his kind of madness may be, we shall not excuse him for its being epidemical, it being our present design to clap up all such as have the marks of madness upon them, who are now permitted to go about the streets, for no other reason, but because they do no mischief in their fits. Abundance of imaginary great men are put in straw to bring them to a right sense of themselves: and is it not altogether as reasonable, that an insignificant man, who has an immoderate opinion of his merits, and a quite different notion of his own abilities from what the rest of the world entertain, should have the same care taken of him, as a beggar who fancies himself a duke or a prince? Or, why should a man, who starves in the midst of plenty, be trusted with himself, more than he who fancies he is an emperor in the midst of poverty? I have several women of quality in my thoughts, who set so exorbitant a value upon themselves, that I have often most heartily pitied them, and wished them, for their recovery, under the same discipline with the pewterer's wife. I find by several hints in ancient authors, that when the Romans were in the height of power and luxury, they assigned out of their vast dominions, an island called Anticyra, as an habitation for madmen. This was the Bedlam of the Roman Empire, whither all persons who had left their wits used to resort from all parts of the world in quest of them. Several of the Roman emperors were advised to repair to this island; but most of them, instead of listening to such sober counsels, gave way to their distraction, till the people knocked them in the head as despairing of their cure. In short, it was as usual for men of distempered brains to take a voyage to Anticyra47 in those days, as it is in ours for persons who have a disorder in their lungs to go to Montpellier.

The prodigious crops of hellebore48 with which this whole island abounded, did not only furnish them with incomparable tea, snuff, and Hungary water,49 but impregnated the air of the country with such sober and salutiferous streams, as very much comforted the heads, and refreshed the senses, of all that breathed in it. A discarded statesman, that at his first landing appeared stark staring mad, would become calm in a week's time; and upon his return home, live easy and satisfied in his retirement. A moping lover would grow a pleasant fellow by that time he had ridden thrice about the island; and a hair-brained rake, after a short stay in the country, go home again a composed, grave, worthy gentleman.

I have premised these particulars before I enter on the main design of this paper, because I would not be thought altogether notional50 in what I have to say, and pass only for a projector in morality. I could quote Horace, and Seneca, and some other ancient writers of good repute, upon the same occasion, and make out by their testimony, that our streets are filled with distracted persons; that our shops and taverns, private and public houses, swarm with them; and that it is very hard to make up a tolerable assembly without a majority of them. But what I have already said, is, I hope, sufficient to justify the ensuing project, which I shall therefore give some account of without any further preface.

1. It is humbly proposed, that a proper receptacle or habitation be forthwith erected for all such persons as, upon due trial and examination, shall appear to be out of their wits.

2. That to serve the present exigency, the College in Moorfields51 be very much extended at both ends; and that it be converted into a square, by adding three other sides to it.

3. That nobody be admitted into these three additional sides, but such whose frenzy can lay no claim to an apartment in that row of building which is already erected.

4. That the architect, physician, apothecary, surgeon, keepers, nurses, and porters, be all and each of them cracked, provided that their frenzy does not lie in the profession or employment to which they shall severally and respectively be assigned.

N.B. It is thought fit to give the foregoing notice, that none may present himself here for any post of honour or profit who is not duly qualified.

5. That over all the gates of the additional buildings, there be figures placed in the same manner as over the entrance of the edifice already erected;52 provided, they represent such distractions only as are proper for those additional buildings; as, of an envious man gnawing his own flesh, a gamester pulling himself by the ears, and knocking his head against a marble pillar, a covetous man warming himself over a heap of gold, a coward flying from his own shadow, and the like.

Having laid down this general scheme of my design, I do hereby invite all persons who are willing to encourage so public-spirited a project, to bring in their contributions as soon as possible, and to apprehend forthwith any politician whom they shall catch raving in a coffee-house, or any freethinker whom they shall find publishing his deliriums, or any other person who shall give the like manifest signs of a crazed imagination; and I do at the same time give this public notice to all the madmen about this great city, that they may return to their senses with all imaginable expedition, lest if they should come into my hands, I should put them into a regimen which they would not like; for if I find any one of them persist in his frantic behaviour, I will make him in a month's time as famous as ever Oliver's porter53 was.