Chapter II: The Days He Lived in (1)

The London of Addison and Steele can be very easily reconstructed, from a reading of the _Spectator_. It did not differ from the London of Hogarth, except in very minor details, nor from the London of Johnson of which, in 1768, Benjamin Franklin wrote in his Memoirs, (111, 315).

Even this capital is now a daily scene of lawless riot. Mobs
patrolling the streets at noonday, some knocking down all who will
not roar for Wilkes and liberty; courts of justice afraid to give
judgment against him; coal heavers and porters pulling down the
houses of coal merchants that refuse to give them more wages; sawyers
destroying saw mills; sailors unrigging all the outward bound ships
and suffering none to sail till merchants agreed to raise their pay;
watermen destroying private boats and threatening bridges, soldiers
firing among the mobs and killing men, women and children.... While
I am writing a great mob of coal porters fill the street, carrying a
wretch of their business upon poles to be ducked for working at the
old wages.

That paragraph, of course, paints a special picture and goes to show that in some respects there were incidents afoot very similar to those we know in our day. Always there have been labor troubles and those who would grind the faces of the poor, and interfering efficiency experts in the camps of both parties.

While the streets were narrow with a single kennel in the middle, the narrow ways being impeded by coaches, sedan-chairs, carts and barrows, it is well to bear in mind that it was but a short walk in any direction to the suburban or genuine open country. A breath of fresh air was thus within easy reach of workers and tradesmen. In one direction indeed, it was a little over a mile from the most crowded part of the city to the famous Bagnigge Wells, established on an old residence of Nell Gwynn, where was a pump room, a formal garden, pond and fountains and three rustic bridges crossed the Fleet River. Here was a place open to all

Where the frail nymphs in amorous dalliance rove,
Where prentice youths enjoy the Sunday feast,
And city madams boast their Sunday best,
Where unfledged Templars first as fops parade,
And new made ensigns sport their first cockade.

--Gay.

The wealthy and fortunate, with a view to getting polish, were sent to Paris. What they saw there was not vastly different from conditions in their native country. There would be a furtive visit to the Rue du Haut Pave looking toward the Pantheon--a crooked, evil street, an old and murderous street, a vile and dishonored street where murderers and brigands puffed cigarettes in the Cafe Vachette. Or the old Pont Neuf, heavy and forbidding, which one crossed to the gambling house to see, perhaps on one occasion, the famous Vicomte Nucingens on suicide bent, after having staked his all on a last card. Or the Rue de Fossoyeurs at night, with lights swaying and flickering, as citizens abroad carried their lanterns to awe robbers. The swift _D’Artagnan_ lived there, you may remember, and highwaymen carried off young girls over their shoulders, and assassins cared little whose throats they cut.

But what of the _haut ton_ in those days? For Addison, and those in his circle, climbed high, socially. I quote from the Journal of Madam de Maintenon, January 22, 1713.

As a matter of politeness, the Duc de Bourgogne and his two brothers
had been taught to eat with a fork. But when they were admitted to
sup with the king, he would not hear of it, and forbade them to do
it. He never forbade me to do anything of the kind, for all my life I
have never used anything to eat my food save my knife and my fingers.

A Father Tixier tells of being present as spectator at a royal meal and, “every time Marie-Terese spoke to the English King, he lifted his hat to her, and by the end of the meal his hat was most terribly greasy.”

I quote Jacques Boulanger in conclusion. “... access to the royal residences was not difficult to obtain. At Versailles there were beggars and hucksters selling trifles on the landings and stairways. Thieves plied their trade, and one rogue went so far, one day, as to steal the diamonds on the hat the King had just laid on the table.”

The gambling mania told of by Pepys in an earlier day had by no means decreased. It culminated in the sublime madness of the South Sea Bubble and the equally glorious Mississippi Scheme. On a famous day in February, 1771, Charles James Fox set the pace. In Parliament he delivered a speech on a religious question after having prepared himself, as Gibbon put it, “by passing twenty-two hours in the pious exercise of hazard.” During the game, he lost steadily at the rate of five hundred pounds sterling per hour. On the next day he won six thousand pounds, but, later in the week, he dropped twenty-one thousand pounds in two sittings. The young Lord Stavordale, then eighteen, won eleven thousand pounds in a single day and commented upon what would have been the result had he “played deep.” One day, during the progress of an extended game at Brooks’ gambling club, a new invention was born in this wise. The Earl of Sandwich, one of the players, had sat for several hours without interruption. Unwilling to leave the game, but being hungry, he ordered the servant to bring him some meat without a plate, suggesting that a slice of beef be placed between two slices of bread. By such easy means it is given to some to achieve fame, to pass a name to posterity!

The most remarkable social product of the age was the coffee-house. Coffee was known in England a century before tobacco. A passage in Evelyn’s diary of May 10, 1637, reads: “I saw one, Nathaniel Coniopos, a Greek, the first I ever saw drink coffee, (which custom came not into England until thirty years after).”

The earliest two coffee houses in England were established in 1652 and 1656, the second, being one James Farr’s. Admission to the coffee house cost a penny, and a cup of tea or coffee, two pence. Favored and regular customers had their own tables and as soon as one of these appeared, the waiting man carried to him the latest gazette or news sheet. Hence, the statement that Addison made that his _Spectator_ reached twenty more people than bought it, would not appear to be extravagant.

In a few years coffee houses spread over the whole of London and it was currently thought that they were established on granite foundation, but thirty years ago they had declined so that only two or three survived fairly unchanged. I recall going to one one night and meeting there that strange saturnine figure of the 1880’s, Lothrop Withington, reputed to have a very extensive knowledge of Elizabethan England. It was in Tottenham Court Road and Gissing used to frequent the place. We sat in a long room with neatly sanded floor. The tables were bare topped, each with a straight bench on either side, with high partitions between each table and its neighbor. At the end of the room was the open fire-place with a couple of shining steaming kettles at which presided a neat woman in a print frock. There was no bill of fare and no variety in the course served. You had a mutton chop with coffee and bread, or nothing. Entering, a lad brought you a new, long clay pipe called a church-warden. The surroundings were conducive to conversation and the prices charged were extremely modest.

At such coffee houses the affairs of the nation and universe were settled and unsettled; clubs and social groups were formed, and, on occasions, political plots hatched. An amusing account of the various London resorts of this nature in the days of Addison was given in _A Brief and Merry History of Great Britain_, and, for the information of intellectual strangers, the subjects usually discussed at each was listed and classified thus:

At those Coffee Houses, near the Court, called White’s, St.
James’, William’s, the conversation turns chiefly upon Equipages,
Horse Matches, Mode of Mortgages: The Cocoa Tree upon Bribery and
Corruption, Evil Ministers, Errors and Mistakes in Government: the
Scotch Coffee-Houses towards Charing Cross, on Places and Pensions;
the Tilt Yard and Young Man’s on Affronts, Honor, Satisfaction,
Duels and Recounters.... In these Coffee-Houses about the Temple
the subjects are generally on Causes, Costs, Demurrers, Rejoiners
and Exceptions; David’s the Welch Coffee-House on Fleet Street,
on Births, Pedigrees, and Descents; Child’s and the Chapter, upon
Globes, Tithes, Rectories, and Lectureships; ... Hamlin’s, Infant
Baptism, Lay Ordination, Free Will, Election, Reprobation; ... and
all those about the Exchange, where the merchants meet to transact
their affairs, are in a perpetual hurry about Stock Jobbing, Lying,
Cheating, Tricking Widows and Orphans, and committing Spoil and
Rapine on the Publick.

Says the _Spectator_, having in mind the atmosphere intellectual of this coffee house and that:

I have passed my latter years in this city, where I am frequently
seen in most public places, though there are not above half a dozen
of my select friends that know me; of whom my next paper shall give a
more particular account. There is no place of general resort wherein
I do not make my appearance; sometimes I am seen thrusting my head
into a round of politicians at Will’s, and listening with great
attention to the narratives that are made in those little circular
audiences; sometimes I smoke a pipe at Child’s, and, while I seem
attentive to nothing but the Postman, overhear the conversation of
every table in the room. I appear on Sunday nights at St. James’
Coffee House and sometimes join the little committee in the inner
room, as one who comes there to hear and improve. My face is likewise
very well known at the Grecian, the Cocoa Tree, and in the theaters
both of Drury Lane and the Haymarket. (_Spectator_ No. 1.)

That the coffee house was not at all times a cave of harmony is evidenced in many places. We recall that _Sir Roger de Coverley_ had “kicked Bully Dawson in a coffee house for calling him a youngster.” Then, too, a letter written by Colley Cibber to Mr. Pope would seem to show that the irascible and waspish temper of the Twickenham poet had got him into trouble.

“When you used to pass your hours at Button’s,” writes Cibber in
1742, p. 65, “you were even then remarkable for your satirical itch
of provocation; scarce was there a gentleman of any pretention to
wit, whom your unguarded temper had fallen upon in some biting
epigram, among which you once caught a pastoral tartar, whose
resentment, that your punishment might be proportionate to the smart
of your poetry, had stuck up a birchen rod in the room to be ready
whenever you might come within reach of it; and at this rate, you
writ and rallied and writ on, till you rhymed yourself quite out of
the coffee-house.”

Pope, obviously was made for a coffee house career. Dryden, Addison, Steele and Savage on the other hand were in their glories at such gatherings. Once, at St. James’ Coffee House, Addison and his friends had noticed for several days a singular parson, who put his hat on the table, walked up and down the sanded floor for half an hour without speaking to any one, paid his money and left. They dubbed him the “mad parson.” One day Addison saw this “mad parson” step up to a new arrival who appeared to have come from the country, and heard him say, without any introduction:

“Pray sir, do you know any good weather in the world?”

“Yes, sir,” replied the other, “thank God I remember a great deal of good weather in my time.”

“That is more than I can say,” grumbled the “mad” one. “I never remember any weather that was not too hot or too cold, too dry or too wet; but however God Almighty contrives it, at the end of the year ’tis all very well.”

That was the first time Addison and Swift met.

We gather that occasional dead beats walked the world even as with us. In the _Spectator_ of March 28, 1711, appears the following:

ADVERTISEMENT.

To prevent all mistakes that may happen among gentlemen of the other
end of the town, who come but once a week to St. James’ Coffee House,
either by miscalling the servants, or requiring things from them
as are not properly within their provinces; this is to give notice
that Kidney, keeper of the book debts of the outlying customers, and
observer of those who go off without paying, having resigned that
employment, is succeeded by John Sowton; to whose place of enterer
of messages and first coffee grinder, William Bird is promoted; and
Samuel Burdock comes as shoe cleaner in the room of said Bird.

Again, to all men who believe that human nature changes and that only in these latter and effete days are we burdened with bores, dogmatists, pedants and prigs, read what follows. It is Richard Steele writing in No. 145, and under date of August 16, 1711:

You cannot employ yourself more usefully than in adjusting the laws
of disputation in coffee-houses and accidental companies, as well
as in more formal debates. Among many other things which your own
experience must suggest to you, it will be very obliging if you
will take notice of wagerers. I will not here repeat what Hudibras
says of such disputants, which is so true, that it is almost
proverbial but shall only acquaint you with a set of fellows on the
inns-of-court whose fathers have provided them so plentifully, that
they need not be anxious to get law into their heads for the service
of their country at the bar; but are of those who are sent (as the
phrase of parents is) to the temple to know how to keep their own.
One of these gentlemen is very loud and captious at a coffee house
which I frequent, and being in his nature troubled with a humor of
contradiction, though withal excessively ignorant, he has found a
way to indulge this temper, go on in idleness and ignorance, and
yet still give himself the air of a very learned and knowing man
by the strength of his pocket. The misfortune of the thing is, I
have, as it happens sometimes, a greater stock of learning than
of money. The gentleman I am speaking of takes advantage of the
narrowness of my circumstances in such a manner that he has read all
that I can pretend to, and runs me down with a positive air, and
with such powerful arguments that from a very learned person I am
thought a mere pretender. Not long ago, I was relating that I had
read a passage in Tacitus; up starts my gentleman in company, and
pulling out his purse offered to lay me ten guineas, to be staked
immediately to that gentleman’s hands, (pointing to one smoking at
another table), that I was utterly mistaken. I was dumb for want
of ten guineas.... There are several of this sort of fellows in
town, who wager themselves into statesmen, historians, geographers,
mathematicians and every other art....

Like any other man of cultivated taste and cosmopolitan training, Addison had the contempt of enlightened persons for the fanaticisms of his time. For then, as now, there was political mistrust and suspicion and fanatics were abroad. The changes were rung upon all the familiar phrases of political oratory, gold and pinchbeck alike, and the political rhetorician recklessly indulged in sentiments to which the whole tenor of his career gave the lie. The coffee houses swarmed with those who smelt treason where none existed, who scented plots where were none, who saw in innocent remarks dangerous tendencies, and beheld, in the sweet fiction of the _Spectator’s_ club a diabolical contrivance for intrigue. Very magnificently Addison handles the situation in _Spectator_ No. 46, of April 23, 1711, and we get incidentally a pretty side light on coffee house society.

ON SUSPICION.

NO. 46, SPECTATOR--ADDISON.

When I want material for this paper, it is my custom to go abroad in quest of game; and when I meet any proper subject, I take the first opportunity of setting down a hint of it upon paper. At the same time, I look into the letters of my correspondents, and if I find anything suggested in them that may afford matter of speculation, I likewise enter a minute of it in my collection of materials. By this means I frequently carry about with me a whole sheetful of hints, that would look like a rhapsody of nonsense to anyone but myself. There is nothing in them but obscurity and confusion, raving and inconsistency. In short, they are my speculations in the first principles, that (like the world in its chaos) are void of all light, distinction and order.

About a week since, there happened to me a very odd accident, by reason of one of these my papers of minutes which I had accidentally dropped at Lloyd’s coffee house, where the auctions are usually kept. Before I missed it, there was a cluster of people who had found it, and were diverting themselves with it at one end of the coffee house. It had raised so much laughter among them before I had observed what they were about, that I had not the courage to own it. The boy of the coffee house, when they had done with it, carried it about in his hand, asking everybody if they had dropped a written paper; but nobody challenging it, he was ordered by those merry gentlemen who had before perused it, to get up into the auction pulpit, and read it to the whole room, that if anyone would own it, they might. The boy accordingly mounted the pulpit, and with a very audible voice read as follows:

MINUTES.

Sir Roger de Coverly’s country seat--yes, for I hate
long speeches--Query, if a good Christian may be a
conjurer--Childermas day, salt cellar, house-dog, screech-owl,
cricket--Mr. Thomas Inkle of London, in the good ship called
the Achilles--Yarico--=Aehrescitque medendo=--Ghosts--The
Lady’s Library--Lion by trade a tailor--Dromedary called
Bucephalus--Equipage the Lady’s =summum bonum=--Charles Lillie to
be taken notice of--Short face a relief to envy--Redundancies in
three professions--King Latinus a recruit--Jew devouring a ham
of bacon--Westminster Abbey--Grand Cairo--Procrastination--April
fools--Blue boars, red lions, hogs in armor--Enter a king and
two fiddlers =soius=--Admission into the Ugly Club--Beauty how
improvable--Families of true and false humor--The parrot’s
school-mistress--Face half Pict half British--No man can be a hero of
a tragedy under six foot--Club of Sighers--Letters from flower-pots,
elbow chairs, tapestry-figures, lion, thunder--The bell rings to
the puppet-show--Old woman with a beard married to a smock-faced
boy--My next coat to be turned up with blue--Fable of tongs and
gridiron--Flower dyers--The soldier’s prayer--Thank ye for nothing,
says the gallipot--Pactolus in the stockings with golden clocks to
them--Bamboos, cudgels, drum-sticks--Slip of my landlady’s eldest
daughter--The black mare with a star in her forehead--The barber’s
pole--Will Honeycomb’s coat-pocket--Caesar’s behavior and my own
in parallel circumstances--Poems in patchwork--=Nulli gravi est
percussus Achilles=--The female conventicler--The ogle-master.

The reading of this paper made the whole coffee house very merry; some of them concluded it was written by a mad man, and others by somebody that had been taking notes out of the _Spectator_. One, who had the appearance of a very substantial citizen, told us, with several political winks and nods, that he wished there was no more in the paper than what was expressed in it: that for his part, he looked upon the dromedary, the gridiron, and the barber’s pole, to signify more than was usually meant by those words: and that he thought that the coffee man could not do better than to carry the paper to one of the secretaries of state. He farther added, that he did not like the name of the outlandish man with the golden clock in his stockings. A young Oxford scholar who chanced to be with his uncle at the coffee house, discovered to us who this Pactolus was: and by that means turned the whole scheme of this worthy citizen into ridicule. While they were making their several conjectures upon this innocent paper, I reached out my arm to the boy as he was coming out of the pulpit, to give it to me; which he did accordingly. This drew the eyes of the whole company upon me; but after having cast a cursory glance over it, and shook my head twice or thrice at the reading of it, I twisted it into a kind of match, and lighted my pipe with it. My profound silence, together with the steadiness of my countenance, and the gravity of my behavior during this whole transaction, raised a very loud laugh on all sides of me; but as I had escaped all suspicion of being the author, I was very well satisfied, and applying myself to my pipe and the Postman, took no further notice of anything that passed about me.

* * * * *

In No. 9, March 19, 1710, we find an account of a Social Club formed by a few in a certain ale house. It is of a lower social strata.

_Rules to be observed in the Two-Penny Club erected in this place
for the preservation of friendship and good neighborhoods._

1. Every member at his first coming shall lay down his two-pence.

2. Every member shall fill his pipe out of his own box.

3. If any member absent himself, he shall forfeit a penny for the use
of the club, unless in case of sickness or imprisonment.

4. If any member curses or swears, his neighbor may give him a kick
upon the shins.

5. If any member tells stories in the club that are not true, he
shall forfeit for every third lie a half penny.

6. If any member strikes another wrongfully, he shall pay his club
for him.

7. If any member brings his wife into the club, he shall pay for
whatever she drinks or smokes.

8. If any member’s wife comes to fetch him home from the club, she
shall speak to him without the door.

9. If any member calls another a cuckold, he shall be turned out of
the club.

10. None shall be permitted into the club that is of the same trade
with any member of it.

11. None of the club shall have his clothes or shoes made or mended
but by a brother member.

12. No non-juror shall be capable of being a member.

* * * * *

In those days there were lively happenings. Dick Turpin on his bonny Black Bess frightened travelers on Hounslow Heath, made his famous ride from London to York, in twenty-four hours, and, one gray day in November of 1714, died at Tyburn, dressed in his gayest attire with a rose at his button hole. Nor would the crowd allow his body to be given to the surgeons, for, seeing it taken from the gallows, they rescued it, carried it through the town in triumph, then buried it in a deep grave that night.

Claude Duval, too, was a popular hero, the pink of politeness, the gentleman thief it was an honor to be robbed by. He would stop a coach to dance a Sarabandi with the lady, and then rob her escort. He

Taught the wild Arabs of the road
To rob in a more gentle mode;
Take prizes more obligingly than those
Who never had been bred =filous=;
And how to hang in a more graceful fashion
Than e’er was known before to the dull English nation.

* * * * *

There was a period of insane speculation commencing with the South Sea Company originated by Harley, Earl of Oxford, with a view to restore public credit. Visions of ingots danced before everyone’s eyes, and stock in any scheme rose rapidly. One bright genius, forerunner of a Ponzi, announced the formation of a company “for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is.” The prospectus announced that it required a capital of a half million pounds, of 5,000 shares of a hundred pounds each with a deposit of two pounds on application. Each subscriber paying his initial deposit would be entitled to a hundred pounds per annum per share. The following morning after the prospectus had gone forth, he opened his office in Cornhill, and when he closed that day at three, he was the winner of two thousand pounds clear, so did not re-open his office, nor stay in the country.

In the papers of the period are to be found advertisements and notices, all kinds of mad money-making propositions, as filed at the Council Chamber Whitehall. To name a few:

Petition for a wheel for perpetual motion.

For the philosopher’s stone. (Steele was interested in this question.)

Petition for incorporation to carry on a whale fishery.

On paving London Streets. Capital two million pounds.

For trading in human hair.

For the transmutation of quicksilver into malleable fine metal.

For changing lead into gold.

* * * * *

Duelling was very prevalent. Addison and Steele in the _Spectator_ were untiring in the reprobation of it. Steele constantly exposed the absurdity of the practice and endeavored to bring his readers to his way of thinking. His comedy, _The Conscious Lover_, contains an admirable exposure of the abuse of the word honor, which led men to so fanatic an absurdity. Swift, in his own savage way, remarked that he could “see no harm in rogues and fools shooting one another.” Addison summed up nearly all that could be said on the subject in the following powerful paragraph:

“A Christian and a gentleman are made inconsistent appellations of the same person. You are not to expect eternal life if you are not to forgive injuries, and your mortal life is rendered uncomfortable if you are not ready to commit a murder in resentment of an affront; for good sense, as well as religion, is so utterly banished in the world that men glory in their very passions, and pursue trifles with the utmost vengeance, so little do they know that to forgive is the most arduous pitch human nature can arrive at. A coward has often fought--a coward has often conquered, but a coward never forgave.”

Again in No. 99, June 23, 1711, Addison writes:

“The placing the point of honor in this false kind of courage, has given occasion to the very refuse of mankind, who have neither virtue nor common sense, to set up for men of honor. An English peer who has not long been dead, (this was William Cavendish, the first duke of Devonshire, who died August 18, 1707) used to tell a pleasant story of a French gentleman that visited him early one morning at Paris, and after great professions of respect, let him know that he had it in his power to oblige him; which in short, amounted to this--that he believed that he could tell his lordship the person’s name who jostled him as he came out from the opera: but before he would proceed, he begged his lordship that he would not deny him the honor of making him his second. The English Lord to avoid being drawn into a very foolish affair, told him that he was under engagements for his two next duels to a couple of particular friends; upon which the gentleman immediately withdrew, hoping his lordship would not take it ill if he meddled no further in an affair from whence he was to receive no advantage.

“The beating down of this false notion of honor in so vain and lively a people as those of France, is deservedly looked upon as one of the most glorious parts of their present king’s reign. It is a pity but the punishment of these mischievous notions should have in it some particular circumstance of shame or infamy: that those who are slaves to them may see, that instead of advancing their reputations, they lead them to ignominy and dishonor.

“Death is not sufficient to deter men who make it their glory to despise it; but if every one that fought a duel were to stand in the pillory, it would quickly lessen the number of these imaginary men of honor, and put an end to so absurd a practice.

“When honor is to support virtue’s principles, and runs parallel to the laws of God and our country, it cannot be too much cherished and encouraged: but when the dictates of honor are contrary to those of religion and equity, they are the greatest depravations of human nature, by giving wrong ambitions and ideas of what is good and laudable; and should therefore be exploded by all governments, and driven out of the bane and plague of human society.”

* * * * *

The article was penned in consequence of an affair on the 8th of May, 1711, when Sir Cholmely Deering, M.P., for the county of Kent, was slain in a duel by Mr. Richard Thornhill, also member of the House of Commons. Three days after, by the efforts of Addison, Sir Peter King brought the subject under the notice of the Legislature, and after dwelling at considerable length on the alarming increase of the practice, obtained leave to bring in a bill for the prevention and punishment of duelling.

As an Irishman, fighting against duelling, Steele was going contrary to all the traditions of his countrymen. In Ireland, not only military men, but men of every profession had to work a way to eminence with pistol or sword. Each political party had its regular corps of fire eaters who qualified themselves for the position by spending their whole time at target practice. They boasted that they could hit upon an opponent in any part of his body they pleased, and made up their minds before the encounter began whether they should kill him, disable him, or disfigure him for life.

We have it on the authority of Sir Jonah Barrington in his “Personal Sketches of His Own Time” that “no young fellow could finish his education till he had exchanged shots with some of his acquaintances. The first questions always asked as to a young man’s respectability and qualifications, particularly when he proposed for a lady-wife were--‘What family is he of?’ ‘Did he ever blaze?’”

Everywhere, as you see, there are coarse things, great and gross sensuality, wild animality, unrestrained joy and not a little bestial pleasure. Virtue had the semblance of puritanism and the memory of the days under the rule of the kill-joys was a nightmare. So, men who wrote the news sheets of the day saw nothing for it but to foster that brutal bloody impulse that seemed to sway the masses of their readers. If it was necessary to feed them, then the fare given was raw flesh, violence, blood. This must be borne in mind in order to fully appreciate the wonderful change brought about in five short years by two men of fine tastes and delicate sensibilities. Steele in No. cxxxiv of the _Tatler_, condemning the cruelty of the age, says he has “often wondered that we do not lay outside a custom which makes us appear barbarous to nations much more rude and unpolished than ourselves. Some French writers have represented this diversion of the common people much to our disadvantage, and imputed it to natural fierceness and cruelty of temper, as they do some other entertainments peculiar to our nation. I mean these elegant diversions and bull baiting and prize fighting, with the like ingenious recreation of the Bear-garden. I wish I knew how to answer this reproach that is cast upon us, and excuse the death of many innocent cocks, bulls, dogs, and bears, as have been set together by the ears, or died untimely deaths, only to make us sport.”

Bearing that in mind, I call your attention to an advertisement of the time which I copy from the Harlean MSS. 5931,46. Here it is, word for word:

At the Bear Garden in Hockley in the Hole, 1710. This is to give
notice to all Gentlemen, Gamesters, and Others, that on this present
Monday is a match to be fought by two dogs, one from Newgate Market
against one from Honey Lane Market, at a Bull, for a Guinea to be
spent. Five Let goes out off Hand, which goes fairest and farthest
in, wins all; likewise a Green Bull to be baited, which was never
baited before, and a Bull to be turned loose with fireworks all over
him; also a Mad Ass to be baited; with variety of Bull Baiting, and
Bear Baiting, and a dog to be drawn up with Fireworks.

One named Mission, a writer of the day, describes a bull fight as follows:

They tie a rope to the foot of the ox or bull, and fasten the other
end of the cord to an iron ring fix’d to a stake driven into the
ground, so that this cord being 15 feet long, the bull is confined
to a sphere of about 30 foot diameter. Several butchers or other
gentlemen, that are desirous to exercise their dogs, stand round
about, each holding his own by the ears; and, when the sport begins,
they let loose one of the dogs; the dog runs at the bull. The bull
immovable, looks down upon the dog with an eye of scorn, and only
turns a horn to him to hinder him from coming under; the dog is not
daunted at this, he turns round him, and tries to get beneath his
belly, in order to seize him by the muzzle, or the dew lap or the
pendant glands; the bull then puts himself in a Posture of Defense;
he beats the ground with his feet, which he joins together as close
as possible, and his chief aim is not to gore the dog with the
point of his horn, but to slide one of them into the dog’s belly
(who creeps close to the ground to hinder it) and to throw him so
high in the air that he may break his neck in the fall. This often
happens; when the dog thinks he is sure of fixing his teeth, a turn
of the horn which seems to be done with all the negligence in the
world, gives him a sprawl thirty foot high, and puts him in danger
of a damnable squelch when he comes down. This danger would be
unavoidable, if the dog’s friends were not ready beneath him, some
with their backs to give him a soft reception, and others with long
poles which may offer him slant ways, to the intent that, sliding
down them, he may break the force of his fall. Notwithstanding all
this care a toss generally makes him sing to a very scurvy tune and
draw his phiz into a pitiful grimace; but, unless he is totally
stunned with the fall, he is sure to crawl again towards the bull,
with his old antipathy, come on’t what will. Some times a second
frisk into the air disables him forever from playing his old tricks;
but, some times, too, he fastens on his enemy, and when he has seized
him with his eye teeth, he sticks to him like a leech, and would
sooner die than leave his hold. The bull bellows and bounds, and
kicks about to shake off the dog; by his leaping, the dog seems to
be no matter of weight to him though in all appearances he puts him
to great pain. In the end, either the dog tears out the piece he
has laid hold of, and falls, or else remains fixed to him, with an
obstinacy that would never end, if they did not put him off. To call
him away would be in vain; to give him a hundred blows would be as
much so; you might cut him to pieces joint by joint before he would
let him loose. What is to be done then? While some hold the bull,
others thrust staves into the dog’s mouth and open it by main force.
That is the only way to part them.

* * * * *

I copy the advertisement that follows from the Harl. MSS. 5931,50:

At the Bear Garden in the Hockley-in-the-Hole.

A Trial of Skill to be performed between two Profound Masters of the
Noble Science of Defense on Wednesday next, being the 13th inst.
July, 1709 at two of the clock precisely.

I, George Gray, born in the City of Norwich, who has fought in most
parts of the West Indies, viz., Jamaica, Baradoes, and several other
parts of the world, in all twenty-five times upon a stage and never
yet was worsted, and now come to London, do invite James Harris, to
meet and exercise at these following weapons, viz.:

Back Sword
Sword and Dagger
Sword and Buckler
Single Falchion and
Case of Falchions.

I, James Harris, Master of the Noble Science of Defense, who formerly
was in the Horse Guards, and hath fought a 110 prizes, and never left
a stage to any man, will not fail God willing, to meet this brave and
bold inviter, at the time and place appointed desiring sharp swords,
and from him no favor.

=Note.=--No persons to be upon the stage but the seconds. =Vivat
Regina.=

There is report of a similar entertainment by the hand of Steele in No. 436 of the _Spectator_, July 21, 1712. Steele does not plunge into the blood and the filth; he passes through on tiptoe and so daintily that the mire does not stick.

“Being a person of insatiable curiosity, I could not forbear going on Wednesday last to a place of no small renown for the gallantry of the lower order of Britons, namely, the Bear-garden, at Hockley-in-the-Hole; where, (as a whitish-brown paper, put into my hands in the street, informed me) there was to be a trial of skill exhibited between two masters of the noble science of defense, at two of the clock precisely. I was not a little charmed at the solemnity of the challenge, which ran thus:

I, James Miller, sergeant (lately come from the frontiers of
Portugal), master of the noble science of defense, hearing in most
places where I have been of the fame of Timothy Buck, of London,
master of the said science, do invite him to meet me and exercise at
the several weapons following, viz.:

Back Sword
Sword and Dagger
Sword and Buckler
Single Falchion
Case of Falchions
Quarter Staff.

“If the generous ardor of James Miller to dispute the reputation of Timothy Buck had something resembling the old heroes of romance, Timothy Buck returned answer in the same paper with the light spirit, adding a little indignation at being challenged, and seeming to condescend to fight James Miller, not in regard of Miller himself, but in that, as the fame went out, he had fought Parkes of Coventry. The acceptance of the combat ran in these words:

I, Timothy Buck, of Clare-market, master of the noble science of
defense, hearing he did fight Mr. Parkes of Coventry, will not
fail, God willing, to meet this fair inviter at the time and place
appointed, desiring a clear stage and no favor. =Vivat Regina.=

“I shall not here look back on the spectacles of the Greeks and Romans of this kind, but must believe that this custom took its rise from the ages of knight-errantry; from those who loved one woman so well that they hated all men and women else; from those who would fight you, whether you were or were not of their mind; from those who demanded the combat of their contemporaries both for admiring their mistress or discommending her. I cannot therefore but lament that the terrible part of the ancient fight is preserved, when the amorous side of it is forgotten. We have retained the barbarity but not the gallantry of the old combatants. I could wish, me thinks, these gentlemen had consulted me in the promulgation of the conflict. I was obliged by a fair young maid, whom I understood to be called Elizabeth Preston, daughter of the keeper of the garden, with a glass of water; who I imagined might have been, for form’s sake, the general representative for the lady fought for, and from her beauty the proper Amaryllis on these occasions. It would have run better in the challenge, ‘I, James Miller, sergeant, who have traveled parts abroad, and came last from the frontiers of Portugal, for the love of Elizabeth Preston, do assert that the said Elizabeth is the fairest of women.’ Then the answer, ‘I, Timothy Buck, who have stayed in Great Britain during all the war in foreign parts for the sake of Susannah Page, do deny that Elizabeth Preston is so fair as the said Susannah Page. Let Susannah Page look on, and I desire no favor of James Miller.’

“This would give the battle quite another turn; and a proper station for the ladies whose complexion was disputed by the sword, would animate the disputants with a more gallant incentive than the expectation of money from the spectators; though I would not have that neglected, but thrown to that fair one whose lover was approved by the donor.

“Yet considering the thing wants such amendments, it was carried with great order. James Miller came on first, preceded by two disabled drummers, to show, I suppose, that the prospect of maimed bodies did not in the least deter him. There ascended with the daring Miller a gentleman, whose name I could not learn, with a dogged air, as unsatisfied that he was not principal. This son of anger lowered at the whole assembly, and, weighing himself as he marched around from side to side, with a stiff knee and shoulder, he gave intimations of the purpose he smothered till he saw the issue of this encounter. Miller had a blue ribbon tied around the sword arm; which ornament I conceive to be the remain of that custom of wearing a mistress’s favor on such occasions of old.

“Miller is a man of six foot eight inches in height, of a kind but bold aspect, well fashioned, and ready of his limbs, and such a readiness as spoke his ease in them was obtained from a habit of motion in military exercise.

“The expectation of the spectators was now almost at its height; and the crowd pressing in, several active persons thought they were placed rather according to their fortune than their merit, and took it in their heads to prefer themselves from the open area or pit to the galleries. This dispute between desert and property brought many to the ground, and raised others in proportion to seats by turns, for the space of ten minutes till Timothy Buck came on, and the whole assembly giving up their disputes, turned their eyes upon the champions. Then it was that every man’s affections turned from one or the other irresistibly. A judicious gentleman near me said, ‘I could methinks be Miller’s second, but I had rather have Buck for mine.’ Miller had an audacious look that took the eye; Buck had a perfect composure that engaged the judgment. Buck came on in a plain coat, and kept all his air till the instant of engaging, at which time he undressed to his shirt, his arm adorned with a bandage of red ribbon. No one can describe the sudden concern in the whole assembly; the most tumultuous crowd in nature was as still and as much engaged as if all their lives depended upon the first blow. The combatants met in the middle of the stage, and shaking hands, as removing all malice, with much grace to the extremities of it; from whence they immediately faced about, and approached each other, Miller with a heart full of resolution, Buck with a watchful, untroubled countenance: Buck regarding principally his own defense, Miller chiefly thoughtful of annoying his opponent. It is not easy to describe the many escapes and imperceptible defenses between two men of quick eyes and ready limbs. But Miller’s heat laid him open to the rebuke of the calm Buck, by a large cut on the forehead. Much effusion of blood covered his eyes in a moment, and the huzzas of the crowd undoubtedly quickened the anguish. The assembly was divided into parties upon their different ways of fighting; while a poor nymph in one of the galleries apparently suffered for Miller, and burst into a flood of tears. As soon as his wound was wrapped up, he came on again with a little rage, which disabled him further. But what brave man can be wounded into more caution and patience? The next was a warm, eager onset, which ended in a decisive stroke on the left leg of Miller. The Lady in the gallery during this second strife, covered her face, and for my part, I could not keep my thoughts from being mostly employed on the consideration of her most unhappy circumstance that moment, hearing the clash of swords, and apprehending life or victory concerned her lover in every blow, but not daring to satisfy herself on whom they fell. The wound was exposed to the view of all who could delight in it, and sewed up on the stage. The surly second of Miller declared at this time that he would that day fortnight fight Mr. Buck at the same weapons, declaring himself the master of the renowned Gorman; but Buck denied him the honor of that courageous disciple, and, asserting that he himself had taught that champion, accepted the challenge.

“There is something in human nature very unaccountable on such occasions, when we see the people take a painful gratification in beholding these encounters. Is it cruelty that administers this sort of delight? Or is it a pleasure that is taken in the exercise of pity? It was, methought, pretty remarkable that the business of the day being a trial of skill, the popularity did not run so high as one would have expected on the side of Buck. Is it that the people’s passions have their rise in self love, and thought themselves (in spite of all the courage they had) liable to the fate of Miller, but could not so easily think themselves qualified like Buck?

“Tully speaks of this custom with less horror than one would expect, though he confesses it was much abused in his time, and seems directly to approve of it under its first regulations, when criminals only fought before the people. _Crudele gladiatorum spectaculum et inhumanum nonnullis videri solet; et haud scio annon ita sit ut nunc fit; cum vero sontes ferro depugnabant, auribus fortasse multa, oculis quidem nulla, poterat esse fortior contra dolorem et mortem disciplina._ The shows of gladiators may be thought barbarous and inhuman, and I know not but it is so as it is now practiced; but in those times when only criminals were combatants, the ear might perhaps receive many better instructions, but it is impossible that anything which affects our eyes should fortify us so well against pain and death.”

* * * * *

But brave, bellicose, blood-thirsty as was the Briton in the days of Addison, he was very fearful of unseen things. He feared a witch as we fear a microbe. He was full of morbid possibilities, his nerves were strangely susceptible. As a man in our day will fight the daily fight fearlessly, will declare his intellectual independence, will be bold in the expression of his opinions, yet quail and cringe at the name of the unseen Mrs. Grundy, so those who yelled at bull fights, glorified in the bloodshed of the ring side or went forth in the street to do battle for a political cause, feared with a most lively fear dark demoniac powers who worked by occult means and subtle fascinations of evil.

In the paper that next follows, there is an exquisite touch when Sir Roger catches sight of a cat and the broomstick behind the old woman’s door. That to him seems to be proof positive of dark and nefarious doings--proof as positive as, not so long ago, it was considered proof positive by an excited crowd in a small town, when an old woman with a German name was found to have in her house a blue print of a railroad bridge. That it might have a perfectly legitimate origin was, to illogical minds, unthinkable. No. There was a blue print, and blue prints were sometimes used by spies. Germany had spies, and the old woman had a German name. So she went to jail. What further proof was needed? And who dare object to summary proceedings, lest he also be judged tainted?

ON WITCHCRAFT.

NO. 117, SPECTATOR--ADDISON.

“There are some opinions in which man should stand neuter, without engaging his assent to one side or the other. Such a hovering faith as this, which refuses to settle upon his determination, is absolutely necessary in a mind that is careful to avoid errors and prepossessions. When the arguments press equally on both sides in matters that are indifferent to us, the safest method is to give up ourselves to neither.

“It is with this temper of mind that I consider the subject of witchcraft. Whenever I hear the relations that are made from all parts of the world, not only from Norway and Lapland, from the East and West Indies, but from every particular nation in Europe, I cannot forbear thinking that there is such an intercourse and commerce with evil spirits, as that which we express by the name of witchcraft. But when I consider that the ignorant and credulous parts of the world abound most in these relations, and the persons among us who are supposed to engage in such an infernal commerce, are people of weak understanding and crazed imagination--and at the same time reflect upon the many impostures and delusions of this nature that I have detected in all ages, I endeavor to suspend my belief till I hear more certain accounts than any which have yet come to my knowledge. In short, when I consider the question, whether there are such persons in the world as those we call witches, my mind is divided between two opposite opinions, or rather (to speak my thoughts freely) I believe there is, and has been, such a thing as witchcraft; at the same time can give no credit to any particular instance of it.

“I am engaged in this speculation, by some occurrences that I met with yesterday, which I shall give my reader an account of at large. As I was walking with my friend Sir Roger by the side of one of his woods, an old woman applied herself to me for charity. Her dress and figure put me in the mind of the following description in Otway:

In a close lane as I pursu’d my journey
I spied a wrinkled hag, with age grown double,
Picking dry sticks, and mumbling to herself.
Her eyes with scalding rheum were gall’d and red;
Cold palsy shook her head; her hands seemed wither’d;
And on her crooked shoulders had she wrapt
The tatter’d remnant of an old striped hanging,
Which served to keep her carcass from the cold:
So there was nothing of a piece about her.
Her lower weeds were all o’er coarsely patch’d
With different colored rags, black, red, white, yellow,
And seemed to speak variety of wretchedness.

“As I was musing on this description, and comparing it with the object before me, the knight told me, that this very old woman had the reputation of a witch all over the country; that her lips were observed to be always in motion; and that there was not a switch about her house which her neighbors did not believe had carried her several hundred miles. If she chanced to stumble, they always found sticks or straws that lay in the figure of a cross before her. If she made any mistake at church, and cried amen in the wrong place, they never failed to conclude that she was saying her prayers backward. There was not a maid in the parish that would take a pin of her, though she should offer a bag of money with it. She goes by the name of Moll White, and has made the country ring with several imaginary exploits which are palmed upon her. If the dairy-maid does not make her butter come so soon as she would have it, Moll White is at the bottom of the churn. If a horse sweats in the stable, Moll White has been upon his back. If a hare makes an unexpected escape from the hounds, the huntsman curses Moll White. ‘Nay,’ says Sir Roger, ‘I have known the master of the pack, upon such an occasion, send one of his servants to see if Moll White had been out that morning.’