ページの画像
PDF
ePub

THE BEE,

A SELECT

COLLECTION OF ESSAYS

ON THE

MOST INTERESTING AND ENTERTAINING SUBJECTS.

FIRST PRINTED IN THE YEAR 1759.

[graphic]

THE BEE,

NO. I.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1759.

THERE is not, perhaps, a more whimsically dismal

figure in Nature, than a man of real modesty who assumes an air of impudence; who, while his heart beats with anxiety, studies ease, and affects good humor. In this situation, however, a periodical writer often finds himself, upon his first attempt to address the public in form. All his power of pleasing is damped by solicitude, and his cheerfulness dashed with apprehension. Impressed with the terrors of the tribunal before which he is going to appear, his natural humor turns to pertness, and for real wit he is obliged to substitute vivacity. His first publication draws a crowd; they part dissatisfied, and the author, never more to be indulged with a favorable hearing, is left to condemn the indelicacy of his own address, or their want of discernment.

[ocr errors]

For my part, as I was never distinguished for address, and have often even blundered in making my bow, such bodings as these had like to have totally repressed my ambition. I was at a loss whether to give the public specious promises, or give none; whether to be merry or sad on this solemn occasion. If I should decline all merit, it was too probable the hasty reader might have taken me at my word. If, on the other hand, like laborers in the Magazine trade, I had, with modest impudence, humbly presumed to promise an Vol. V.

B

epitome of all the good things that ever were said or written, this might have disgusted those readers I most desire to please. Had I been merry, I might have been censured as vastly low; and had I been sorrowful, I might have been left to mourn in solitude and silence in short, which ever way I turned, nothing presented but prospects of terror, despair, chandlers shops, and waste paper.

In this debate between fear and ambition, my publisher happening to arrive, interrupted for a while my anxiety. Perceiving my embarrassment about making my first appearance, he instantly offered his assistance and advice: " You must know, sir, (says he) that the "republic of letters is at present divided into three "classes. One writer, for instance, excels at a plan, 66 or a title-page; another works away the body of the "book, and a third is a dab at an index. Thus a Ma"gazine is not the result of any single man's industry; "but goes through as many hands as a new pin, be"fore it is fit for the public. I fancy, sir, (continues "he) I can provide an eminent hand, and upon ❝rate terms, to draw up a promising plan to smooth 66 up our readers a little, and pay them, as Colonel "Charteries paid his seraglio, at the rate of three "halfpence in hand, and three shillings more in pro"mises."

mode

He was proceeding in his advice, which however I thought proper to decline, by assuring him, that, as I intended to pursue no fixed method, so it was impossible to form any regular plan; determined never to be tedious, in order to be logical, wherever pleasure presented, I was resolved to follow. Like the Bee, which I had taken for the title of my paper, I would rove from flower to flower with seeming inattention, but concealed choice, expatiate over all the beauties of the season, and make my industry my amusement.

This reply may also serve as an apology to the reader, who expects, before he sits down, a bill of his future entertainment. It would be improper to pall his curiosity by lessening his surprise, or anticipate any pleasure I am able to procure him, by saying what shall come next. Thus much, however, he may be assured of, that neither war nor scandal shall make any part of it. Homer finely imagines his deity turning away with horror from the prospect of a field of battle, and seeking tranquillity among a nation noted for peace and simplicity. Happy could any effort of mine, but for a moment, repress that savage pleasure some men find in the daily accounts of human misery! How gladly would I lead them from scenes of blood and altercation, to prospects of innocence and ease, where every breeze breathes health, and every sound is but the echo of tranquillity!

But whatever the merit of his intentions may be, every writer is now convinced that he must be chiefly indebted to good fortune for finding readers willing to allow him any degree of reputation. It has been remarked that almost every character which has excited either attention or praise, has owed part of its success to merit, and part to an happy concurrence of circumstances in its favor. Had Cæsar or Cromwell exchanged countries, the one might have been a serjeant, and the other an exciseman. So it is with wit, which generally succeeds more from being happily addressed, than from its native poignancy. A bon mot, for instance, that might be relished at White's, may lose all its flavor when delivered at the Cat and Bag-pipes in St. Giles's. A jest calculated to spread at a gaming-table, may be received with a perfect neutrality of face, should it happen to drop in a mackrel-boat. We have all seen dunces triumph in some companies, when men of real humor were disregarded, by a ge

« 前へ次へ »