To Henry Mandeville, Esq;
YES, my dear son, you do me justice:
I am never so happy as when I know
you are so. I perfectly agree with you as
to the charms of Lord Belmont's hermitage,
and admire that genuine taste for elegant
nature, which gives such a spirited variety
to the life of the wisest and most amiable
of men.
But does it not, my dear Harry, give
you at the same time a very contemptible
idea of the power of greatness to make its
possessors happy, to see it thus flying as it
were from itself, and seeking pleasure not
in the fruition, but in the temporary suspension,
of those supposed advantages it
has above other conditions of life? Believe
me, it is not in the costly dome, but in the
rural cott, that the impartial Lord of all
has fixed the chearful seat of happiness.
Health, peace, content, and soft domestic
tenderness, the only real sweets of life,
driven from the gilded palace, smile on the
humble roof of virtuous industry.
The poor complain not of the tediousness
of life: their daily toil makes short
the flying hours, and every moment of
rest from labour is to them a moment of
enjoyment. Not so the great: surrounded
from earliest youth by pleasures which
court their acceptance, their taste palled
by habit and the too great facility of satiating
every wish, lassitude and disgust creep
on their languid hours; and, wanting the
doubtful gale of hope to keep the mind
in gentle agitation, it sinks into a dead
calm, more destructive to every enjoyment
than the rudest storm of adversity. The
haughty dutchess, oppressed with tasteless
pomp, and sinking under the weight of her
own importance, is much less to be envyed
than "the milk-maid singing blithe," who
is in her eyes the object only of pity and
contempt.
Your acquaintance with the great world,
my dear Harry, has shewn you the splendid
misery of superior life: you have seen
those most wretched to whom Heaven has
granted the amplest external means of happiness.
Miserable slaves to pride, the most
corroding of human passions; strangers to
social pleasure, incapable of love or friendship,
living to others not to themselves,
ever in pursuit of the shadow of happiness,
whilst the substance glides past them unobserved,
they drag on an insipid joyless
being: unloved and unconnected, scorning
the tender ties which give life all its sweetness,
they sink unwept and unlamented to
the grave. They know not the conversation
of a friend, that conversation which
"brightens the eyes:" their pride, an invasion
on the natural rights of mankind,
meets with perpetual mortification; and
their rage for dissipation, like the burning
thirst of a fever, is at once boundless and
unquenchable.
Yet, though happiness loves the vale, it
would be unjust to confine her to those
humble scenes; nor is her presence, as our
times afford a shining and amiable example,
unattainable to Royalty itself; the wife and
good, whate'er their rank, led by the hand
of simple unerring nature, are seldom known
to miss their way to her delightful abode.
You have seen Lord Belmont (blest with
wisdom to chuse, and fortune to pursue his
choice, convinced that wealth and titles,
the portion of few, are not only foreign
to, but often inconsistent with, true happiness)
seek the lovely goddess, not in the
pride of show, the pomp of courts, or
the madness of dissipation; but in the calm
of retirement, in the bosom of friendship,
in the sweets of dear domestic life, in the
tender pleasing duties of husband and of
father, in the practice of beneficence and
every gentler virtue. Others may be like
him convinced; but few like him have spirit
and resolution to burst the magic fetters
of example and fashion, and nobly dare to
be happy.
What pleasure does it give me to find
you in so just a way of thinking in regard
to fortune! yes, my dear Harry, all that
in reality deserves the name of good, so
far as it centers in ourselves, is within
the reach, not only of our moderate income,
but of one much below it. Great
wealth is only desirable for the power it
gives us of making others happy; and,
when one sees how very few make this
only laudable use of extreme affluence, one
acquiesces chearfully in the will of Heaven,
satisfied with not having the temptation of
misapplying those gifts of the Supreme
Being, for which we shall undoubtedly be
accountable.
Nothing can, as you observe, be more
worthy a reasonable creature than Lord
Belmont's plan of life: he has enlarged
his own circle of happiness, by taking
into it that of all mankind, and particularly
of all around him: his bounty
glides unobserved, like the deep silent
stream; nor is it by relieving so much as
by preventing want, that his generous
spirit acts: it is his glory and his pleasure
that he must go beyond the limits of his
own estate to find objects of real distress.
He encourages industry, and keeps up
the soul of chearfulness amongst his tenants,
by maintaining as much as possible the
natural equality of mankind to his estate:
His farms are not large, but moderately
rented; all are at ease, and can provide
happily for their families; none rise to exorbitant
wealth. The very cottagers are
strangers to all that even approaches want:
when the busier seasons of the year are
past, he gives them employment in his
woods or gardens; and finds double beauties
in every improvement there, when he
reflects that from thence
"Health to himself and to his infants bread,
The labourer bears."–
Plenty, the child of industry, smiles on
their humble abodes; and, if any unforeseen
misfortune nips the blossoms of their prosperity,
his bounty, descending silent and
refreshing as the dews of Heaven, renews
their blooming state, and restores joy to
their happy dwellings.
To say all in one word, the maxims by
which he governs all the actions of his life
are manly, benevolent, enlarged, liberal;
and his generous passion for the good of
others is rewarded by his Creator, whose approbation
is his first point of view, with
as much happiness to himself as this sublunary
state is capable of. Adieu!
Your affectionate J. Mandeville.
