Читать книгу The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 19, No. 535, February 25, 1832 - Various - Страница 3

(For the Mirror.)

There is no subject on which such a variety of opinions exist, as on the question "Whether man is happy;" and that it is not easy to be settled, is certain. Many persons have been so far contented with their lot as to wish to have their life over again, and yet as many have expressed themselves to the contrary.

Dr. Johnson, who always spoke of human life in the most desponding terms, and considered earth a vale of tears,

declared that he would not live over again a single week of his life, had it been allowed him.2 Such was his opinion on the past; but so great is the cheering influence with which Hope irradiates the mind, that in looking forward to the future, he always talked with pleasure on the prospect of a long life.

When he was in Scotland, Boswell told him that after his death, he intended to erect a memorial to him. Johnson, to whom the very mention of death was unpleasant, replied, "Sir, I hope to see your grand-children." On his death-bed he observed to the surgeon who was attending him, "I want life, you are afraid of giving me pain."

It has been supposed that this question had been settled by the authority of Scripture. "Man is born to trouble," says Job, "as the sparks fly upward." In turning over a few pages more, we find ourselves in doubt again. "The latter end of Job was more blessed than his beginning; for he had 14,000 sheep, and 6,000 camels, and 1,000 yoke of oxen, and 1,000 she-asses. He had also seven sons and three daughters. So Job died being old and full of days."

It may not be unpleasant to place before the reader the opinions of several celebrated men, on Life, that he may choose his side, and either like the bee or the spider, extract the poison or gather the honey. We will begin with Sterne, one who well knew the human heart.

"What is the life of man? is it not to shift from side to side! from sorrow to sorrow!"

"When I consider how oft we eat the bread of affliction, when one runs over the catalogue of all the cross reckonings and sorrowful items with which the heart of man is overcharged, 'tis wonderful by what hidden resources the mind is enabled to stand it out, and bear itself up, as it does, against the impositions laid upon our nature."—T. Shandy.

"A man has but a bad bargain of it at the best."—Chesterfield.

"No scene of human life but teems with mortal woe."—Sir Walter Scott.

In opposition to these sentiments, Franklin, in writing on the death of a friend, gives us his opinion, "It is a party of pleasure, some take their seats first."

And Lord Byron, describing Sunrise, in the second canto of Lara, says

In the same spirit Cowper begins his poem on Hope:

"The Thracians," says Cicero, "wept when a child was born, and feasted and made merry when a man went out of the world, and with reason. Show me the man who knows what life is, and dreads death, and I'll show thee a prisoner who dreads his liberty."

Of the misery of human life, Gray speaks in similar terms:

Audi alteram partem:

"It's a happy world after all."—Paley.

And Gray himself:

And another popular author:

"A world of pleasure is continually streaming in on every side. It only depends on man to be a demi-god, and to convert this world into Elysium."—Gaieties and Gravities.

It is doubtless wise to incline to the latter sentiment.

Of the instability of human happiness and glory, a fine picture is drawn by Appian, who represents Scipio weeping over the destruction of Carthage. "When he saw this famous city, which had flourished seven hundred years, and might have been compared to the greatest empires, on account of the extent of its dominions, both by sea and land, its mighty armies, its fleets, elephants and riches; and that the Carthaginians were even superior to other nations, by their courage and greatness of soul, as, notwithstanding their being deprived of arms and ships, they had sustained for three whole years, all the hardships and calamities of a long siege; seeing, I say, this city entirely ruined, historians relate that he could not refuse his tears to the unhappy fate of Carthage. He reflected that cities, nations, and empires are liable to revolutions, no less than particular men; that the like sad fate had befallen Troy, once so powerful; and in later times, the Assyrians, Medes, and Persians, whose dominions were once of so great an extent; and lastly, the Macedonians, whose empire had been so glorious throughout the world." Full of these mournful ideas, he repeated the following verse of Homer:

thereby denouncing the future destiny of Rome, as he himself confessed to Polybius, who desired Scipio to explain himself on that occasion.