Chapter XV: Part 15

The other day I took a walk a mile or two out of town and strolling wherever chance led me, I was insensibly carried into a by-road, along which was a very agreeable quickset, of an extraordinary height, which surrounded a very delicious seat and garden. From one angle of the hedge, I heard a voice cry, "Sir, sir--" This raised my curiosity, and I heard the same voice say, but in a gentle tone, "Come forward, come forward." I did so, and one through the hedge called me by my name, and bade me go on to the left, and I should be admitted to visit an old acquaintance in distress. The laws of knight-errantry made me obey the summons without hesitation; and I was let in at the back gate of a lovely house by a maid-servant, who carried me from room to room, until I came into a gallery; at the end of which, I saw a fine lady dressed in the most sumptuous habit, as if she were going to a ball, but with the most abject and disconsolate sorrow in her face that I ever beheld. As I came near, she burst into tears, and cried, "Sir, do not you know the unhappy Teraminta?" I soon recollected her whole person: "But," said I, "madam, the simplicity of dress, in which I have ever seen you at your good father's house, and the cheerfulness of countenance with which you always appeared, are so unlike the fashion and temper you are now in, that I did not easily recover the memory of you. Your habit was then decent and modest, your looks serene and beautiful: whence then this unaccountable change? Nothing can speak so deep a sorrow as your present aspect; yet your dress is made for jollity and revelling." "It is," said she, "an unspeakable pleasure to meet with one I know, and to bewail myself to any that is not an utter stranger to humanity. When your friend my father died, he left me to a wide world, with no defence against the insults of fortune, but rather, a thousand snares to entrap me in the dangers to which youth and innocence are exposed, in an age wherein honour and virtue are become mere words, and used only as they serve to betray those who understand them in their native sense, and obey them as the guides and motives of their being. The wickedest of all men living, the abandoned Decius, who has no knowledge of any good art or purpose of human life, but as it tends to the satisfaction of his appetites, had opportunities of frequently seeing and entertaining me at a house where mixed company boarded, and where he placed himself for the base intention which he has since brought to pass. Decius saw enough in me to raise his brutal desires, and my circumstances gave him hopes of accomplishing them. But all the glittering expectations he could lay before me, joined by my private terrors of poverty itself, could not for some months prevail upon me; yet, however I hated his intention, I still had a secret satisfaction in his courtship, and always exposed myself to his solicitations. See here the bane of our sex! Let the flattery be never so apparent, the flatterer never so ill thought of, his praises are still agreeable and we contribute to our own deceit. I was therefore ever fond of all opportunities and pretences of being in his company. In a word, I was at last ruined by him, and brought to this place, where I have been ever since immured; and from the fatal day after my fall from innocence, my worshipper became my master and my tyrant. Thus you see me habited in the most gorgeous manner, not in honour of me as a woman he loves, but as this attire charms his own eye, and urges him to repeat the gratification he takes in me, as the servant of his brutish lusts and appetites. I know not where to fly for redress; but am here pining away life in the solitude and severity of a nun, but the conscience and guilt of a harlot. I live in this lewd practice with a religious awe of my minister of darkness, upbraided with the support I receive from him, for the inestimable possession of youth, of innocence, of honour, and of conscience. I see, sir, my discourse grows painful to you; all I beg of you is, to paint in so strong colours, as to let Decius see I am discovered to be in his possession, that I may be turned out of this detestable scene of regular iniquity, and either think no more, or sin no more. If your writings have the good effect of gaining my enlargement, I promise you I will atone for this unhappy step, by preferring an innocent laborious poverty, to all the guilty affluence the world can offer me."

Will's Coffee-house, July 21.

To show that I do not bear an irreconcilable hatred to my mortal enemy, Mr. Powell at Bath, I do his function the honour to publish to the world, that plays represented by puppets are permitted in our universities,[437] and that sort of drama is not wholly thought unworthy the critic of learned heads: but as I have been conversant rather with the greater Ode, as I think the critics call it, I must be so humble as to make a request to Mr. Powell, and desire him to apply his thoughts to answering the difficulties with which my kinsman, the author of the following letter, seems to be embarrassed.

#"_To my Honoured Kinsman, Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq._#

"DEAR COUSIN,

"Had the family of the Beadlestaffs,[438] whereof I, though unworthy, am one, known of your being lately at Oxon, we had in our own name, and in the Universities' (as it is our office), made you a compliment: but your short stay here robbed us of an opportunity of paying our due respects, and you of receiving an ingenious entertainment, with which we at present divert ourselves and strangers. A puppet-show at this time supplies the want of an Act.[439] And since the nymphs of this city are disappointed of a luscious music-speech, and the country ladies of hearing their sons or brothers speak verses; yet the vocal machines, like them, by the help of a prompter, say things as much to the benefit of the audience, and almost as properly their own. The licence of a Terræ-Filius[440] is refined to the well-bred satire of Punchinello. Now, Cousin Bickerstaff, though Punch has neither a French nightcap, nor long pockets, yet you must own him to be a pretty fellow, a 'very' pretty fellow: nay, since he seldom leaves the company, without calling, 'Son of a whore,' demanding satisfaction, and duelling, he must be owned a smart fellow too. Yet, by some indecencies towards the ladies, he seems to be of a third character, distinct from any you have yet touched upon. A young gentleman who sat next me (for I had the curiosity of seeing this entertainment), in a tufted gown, red stockings, and long wig (which I pronounce to be tantamount to red heels and a dangling cane[441]) was enraged when Punchinello disturbed a soft love-scene with his ribaldry. You would oblige us mightily by laying down some rules for adjusting the extravagant behaviour of this Almanzor[442] of the play, and by writing a treatise on this sort of dramatic poetry, so much favoured, and so little understood, by the learned world. From its being conveyed in a cart after the Thespian manner, all the parts being recited by one person, as the custom was before Æschylus, and the behaviour of Punch as if he had won the goal, you may possibly deduce its antiquity, and settle the chronology, as well as some of our modern critics. In its natural transitions, from mournful to merry; as, from the hanging of a lover, to dancing upon the rope; from the stalking of a ghost, to a lady's presenting you with a jig; you may discover such a decorum, as is not to be found elsewhere than in our tragi-comedies. But I forget myself; it is not for me to dictate: I thought fit, dear cousin, to give you these hints, to show you that the Beadlestaffs don't walk before men of letters to no purpose; and that though we do but hold up the train of arts and sciences, yet like other pages, we are now and then let into our ladies' secrets. I am,

"Your most

"Affectionate Kinsman,

"BENJAMIN BEADLESTAFF.

"From Mother Gourdon's, at Hedington,[443] near Oxon, _June 18_."

From my own Apartment, July 22.

I am got hither safe, but never spent time with so little satisfaction as this evening; for you must know, I was five hours with three Merry, and two Honest Fellows. The former sang catches; and the latter even died with laughing at the noise they made. "Well," says Tom Belfrey, "you scholars, Mr. Bickerstaff, are the worst company in the world." "Ay," says his opposite, "you are dull to-night; prithee be merry." With that I huzzaed, and took a jump across the table, then came clever upon my legs, and fell a-laughing. "Let Mr. Bickerstaff alone," says one of the Honest Fellows, "when he's in a good humour, he's as good company as any man in England." He had no sooner spoke, but I snatched his hat off his head, and clapped his upon my own, and burst out a-laughing again; upon which we all fell a-laughing for half an hour. One of the Honest Fellows got behind me in the interim, and hit me a sound slap on the back; upon which he got the laugh out of my hands, and it was such a twang on my shoulders, that I confess he was much merrier than I. I was half angry; but resolved to keep up the good humour of the company; and after holloing as loud as I could possibly, I drank off a bumper of claret, that made me stare again. "Nay," says one of the Honest Fellows, "Mr. Isaac is in the right, there is no conversation in this; what signifies jumping, or hitting one another on the back? Let's drink about." We did so from seven o'clock till eleven; and now I am come hither, and, after the manner of the wise Pythagoras, begin to reflect upon the passages of the day. I remember nothing, but that I am bruised to death; and as it is my way to write down all the good things I have heard in the last conversation to furnish my paper, I can from this only tell you my sufferings and my bangs. I named Pythagoras just now, and I protest to you, as he believed men after death entered into other species, I am now and then tempted to think other animals enter into men, and could name several on two legs, that never discover any sentiment above what is common with the species of a lower kind; as we see in these bodily wits whom I was with to-night, whose parts consist in strength and activity; but their boisterous mirth gives me great impatience for the return of such happiness as I enjoyed in a conversation last week. Among others in that company, we had Florio, who never interrupted any man living when he was speaking, or ever ceased to speak, but others lamented that he had done. His discourse ever arises from a fulness of the matter before him, and not from ostentation or triumph of his understanding; for though he seldom delivers what he need fear being repeated, he speaks without having that end in view; and his forbearance of calumny or bitterness, is owing rather to his good nature than his discretion; for which reason, he is esteemed a gentleman perfectly qualified for conversation, in whom a general goodwill to mankind takes off the necessity of caution and circumspection. We had at the same time that evening the best sort of companion that can be, a good-natured old man. This person meets in the company of young men, veneration for his benevolence, and is not only valued for the good qualities of which he is master, but reaps an acceptance from the pardon he gives to other men's faults: and the ingenuous sort of men with whom he converses, have so just a regard for him, that he rather is an example, than a check to their behaviour. For this reason, as Senecio never pretends to be a man of pleasure before youth, so young men never set up for wisdom before Senecio; so that you never meet, where he is, those monsters of conversation, who are grave or gay above their years. He never converses but with followers of nature and good sense, where all that is uttered is only the effect of a communicable temper, and not of emulation to excel their companions; all desire of superiority being a contradiction to that spirit which makes a just conversation, the very essence of which is mutual goodwill. Hence it is, that I take it for a rule, that the natural, and not the acquired man, is the companion. Learning, wit, gallantry, and good breeding, are all but subordinate qualities in society, and are of no value, but as they are subservient to benevolence, and tend to a certain manner of being or appearing equal to the rest of the company; for conversation is composed of an assembly of men, as they are men, and not as they are distinguished by fortune: therefore he that brings his quality with him into conversation, should always pay the reckoning; for he came to receive homage, and not to meet his friends--But the din about my ears from the clamour of the people I was with this evening, has carried me beyond my intended purpose, which was to explain upon the Order of Merry Fellows; but I think I may pronounce of them, as I heard good Senecio, with a spice of wit of the last age, say, viz. that a Merry Fellow is the Saddest Fellow in the world.

[Footnote 437: See No. 44. Blackall was a bishop; and the University of Oxford had declared publicly in his favour.]

[Footnote 438: See No. 11.]

[Footnote 439: A meeting for conferring degrees, when speeches, &c., are delivered.]

[Footnote 440: An undergraduate who made extempore speeches at the Act, often of a very satirical kind. Sometimes there were two _terræ filii_, who carried on a dialogue. In 1721, Amberst published a periodical with the title "Terræ-Filius: or, The Secret History of the University of Oxford," and these papers were reprinted in two volumes in 1726, with a curious engraving of the Theatre at Oxford, by Hogarth, as frontispiece.]

[Footnote 441: See No. 26.]

[Footnote 442: In an Essay "Of Heroic Plays," prefixed to his play, "Almanzor and Almahide; or, The Conquest of Granada," Dryden defended at length the character of Almanzor.]

[Footnote 443: This village is the scene of Dr. William King's play, "Joan of Hedington" ("Works," 1776, vol. iii. p. 16).]

No. 46. [STEELE.

From _Saturday, July 23_, to _Tuesday, July 26_, 1709.

Non bene conveniunt, nec in una sede morantur,
Majestas et amor.
OVID, Met. ii. 846.

* * * * *

White's Chocolate-house, July 25.

We see every day volumes written against that tyrant of human life called Love, and yet there is no help found against his cruelties, or barrier against the inroads he is pleased to make into the mind of man. After this preface, you will expect I am going to give particular instances of what I have asserted. That expectation cannot be raised too high for the novelty of the history, and manner of life, of the Emperor Aurengezebe,[444] who has resided for some years in the cities of London and Westminster, with the air and mien indeed of his imperial quality, but the equipage and appointment only of a private gentleman. This potentate, for a long series of time, appeared from the hour of twelve till that of two at a coffee-house near the 'Change, and had a seat (though without a canopy) sacred to himself, where he gave diurnal audiences concerning commerce, politics, tare and tret, usury and abatement, with all things necessary for helping the distressed, who were willing to give one limb for the better maintenance of the rest; or such joyous youths, whose philosophy is confined to the present hour, and were desirous to call in the revenue of next half-year to double the enjoyment of this. Long did this growing monarch employ himself after this manner: and as alliances are necessary to all great kingdoms, he took particularly the interests of Lewis XIV. into his care and protection. When all mankind were attacking that unhappy monarch, and those who had neither valour nor wit to oppose against him would be still showing their impotent malice by laying wagers in opposition to his interests, Aurengezebe ever took the part of his contemporary, and laid immense treasures on his side in defence of his important magazine of Toulon. Aurengezebe also had all this while a constant intelligence with India, and his letters were answered in jewels, which he soon made brilliant, and caused to be affixed to his imperial castor, which he always wears cocked in front, to show his defiance; with a heap of imperial snuff in the middle of his ample visage, to show his sagacity. The zealots for this little spot called Great Britain fell universally into this emperor's policies, and paid homage to his superior genius, in forfeiting their coffers to his treasury: but wealth and wisdom are possessions too solemn not to give weariness to active minds, without the relief (in vacant hours) of wit and love, which are the proper amusements of the powerful and the wise: this emperor therefore, with great regularity, every day at five in the afternoon, leaves his money-changers, his publicans, and little hoarders of wealth, to their low pursuits, and ascends his chariot to drive to Will's; where the taste is refined, and a relish given to men's possessions, by a polite skill in gratifying their passions and appetites. There it is that the emperor has learned to live and to love, and not, like a miser, to gaze only on his ingots or his treasures; but with a nobler satisfaction, to live the admiration of others, for his splendour and happiness in being master of them. But a prince is no more to be his own caterer in his love, than in his food; therefore Aurengezebe has ever in waiting two purveyors for his dishes, and his wenches for his retired hours, by whom the scene of his diversion is prepared in the following manner:

There is near Covent Garden a street known by the name of Drury, which, before the days of Christianity, was purchased by the Queen of Paphos, and is the only part of Great Britain where the tenure of vassalage is still in being. All that long course of building is under particular districts or ladyships, after the manner of lordships in other parts, over which matrons of known abilities preside, and have, for the support of their age and infirmities, certain taxes paid out of the rewards for the amorous labours of the young. This seraglio of Great Britain is disposed into convenient alleys and apartments, and every house, from the cellar to the garret, inhabited by nymphs of different orders, that persons of every rank may be accommodated with an immediate consort, to allay their flames, and partake of their cares. Here it is, that when Aurengezebe thinks fit to give a loose to dalliance, the purveyors prepare the entertainments; and what makes it more august is, that every person concerned in the interlude has his set part, and the prince sends beforehand word what he designs to say, and directs also the very answer which shall be made to him.

It has been before hinted, that this emperor has a continual commerce with India; and it is to be noted, that the largest stone that rich earth has produced, is in our Aurengezebe's possession.

But all things are now disposed for his reception. At his entrance into the seraglio, a servant delivers him his bever of state and love, on which is fixed this inestimable jewel as his diadem. When he is seated, the purveyors, Pandarus and Nuncio, marching on each side of the matron of the house, introduce her into his presence. In the midst of the room, they bow altogether to the diadem.

When the matron:

"Whoever thou art (as thy awful aspect speaks thee a man of power), be propitious to this mansion of love, and let not the severity of thy wisdom disdain, that by the representation of naked innocence, or pastoral figures, we revive in thee the memory at least of that power of Venus, to which all the wise and the brave are some part of their lives devoted." Aurengezebe consents by a nod, and they go out backward.

After this, an unhappy nymph, who is to be supposed just escaped from the hands of a ravisher, with her tresses dishevelled, runs into the room with a dagger in her hand, and falls before the emperor.

"Pity, oh! pity! whoever thou art, an unhappy virgin, whom one of thy train has robbed of her innocence; her innocence, which was all her portion--Or rather, let me die like the memorable Lucretia--" Upon which she stabs herself. The body is immediately examined after the manner of our coroners. Lucretia recovers by a cup of right Nantes; and the matron, who is her next relation, stops all process at law.

This unhappy affair is no sooner over, but a naked mad woman breaks into the room, calls for her duke, her lord, her emperor. As soon as she spies Aurengezebe, the object of all her fury and love, she calls for petticoats, is ready to sink with shame, and is dressed in all haste in new attire at his charge. This unexpected accident of the mad woman makes Aurengezebe curious to know, whether others who are in their senses can guess at his quality. For which reason the whole convent is examined one by one. The matron marches in with a tawdry country girl: "Pray, Winifred," says she, "who do you think that fine man with those jewels and pearls is?" "I believe," says Winifred, "it is our landlord. It must be the squire himself." The emperor laughs at her simplicity. "Go, fool," says the matron: then turning to the emperor, "Your greatness will pardon her ignorance!" After her, several others of different characters are instructed to mistake who he is in the same manner: then the whole sisterhood are called together, and the emperor rises, and cocking his hat, declares, he is the Great Mogul, and they his concubines. A general murmur goes through the assembly, and Aurengezebe certifying, that he keeps them for state rather than use, tells them, they are permitted to receive all men into their apartments; then proceeds through the crowd, among whom he throws medals shaped like half-crowns, and returns to his chariot.

This being all that passed the last day in which Aurengezebe visited the women's apartments, I consulted Pacolet concerning the foundation of such strange amusements in old age: to which he answered; "You may remember, when I gave you an account of my good fortune in being drowned on the thirtieth day of my human life, I told you of the disasters I should otherwise have met with before I arrived at the end of my stamen, which was sixty years. I may now add an observation to you, that all who exceed that period, except the latter part of it is spent in the exercise of virtue and contemplation of futurity, must necessarily fall into an indecent old age, because, with regard to all the enjoyments of the years of vigour and manhood, childhood returns upon them: and as infants ride on sticks, build houses in dirt, and make ships in gutters, by a faint idea of things they are to act hereafter; so old men play the lovers, potentates, and emperors, from the decaying image of the more perfect performances of their stronger years: therefore be sure to insert Æsculapius and Aurengezebe in your next bill of mortality of the metaphorically defunct."

Will's Coffee-house, July 24.

As soon as I came hither this evening, no less than ten people produced the following poem, which they all reported was sent to each of them by the penny post from an unknown hand. All the battle-writers in the room were in debate, who could be the author of a piece so martially written; and everybody applauded the address and skill of the author, in calling it a Postscript: it being the nature of a postscript to contain something very material which was forgotten, or not clearly expressed in the letter itself. Thus, the verses being occasioned by a march without beat of drum, and that circumstance being no ways taken notice of in any of the stanzas, the author calls it a postscript; not that it is a postscript, but figuratively, because it wants a postscript. Common writers, when what they mean is not expressed in the book itself, supply it by a preface; but a postscript seems to me the more just way of apology; because otherwise a man makes an excuse before the offence is committed. All the heroic poets were guessed at for its author; but though we could not find out his name, yet one repeated a couplet in "Hudibras" which spoke his qualifications:

_"I' th' midst of all this warlike rabble,
Crowdero marched, expert and able"_[445]

The poem is admirably suited to the occasion: for to write without discovering your meaning, bears a just resemblance to marching without beat of drum.

#On the March to Tournay without Beat of Drum.#

#The Brussels POSTSCRIPT.#[446]

Could I with plainest words express
That great man's wonderful address,
His penetration, and his towering thought;
It would the gazing world surprise,
To see one man at all times wise,
To view the wonders he with ease has wrought.

Refining schemes approach his mind,
Like breezes of a southern wind,
To temperate a sultry glorious day;
Whose fannings, with an useful pride,
Its mighty heat doth softly guide,
And having cleared the air, glide silently away.

Thus his immensity of thought
Is deeply formed, and gently wrought,
His temper always softening life's disease;
That Fortune, when she does intend
To rudely frown, she turns his friend,
Admires his judgment, and applauds his ease.

His great address in this design,
Does now, and will for ever shine,
And wants a Waller but to do him right:
The whole amusement was so strong,
Like fate he doomed them to be wrong,
And Tournay's took by a peculiar sleight.

Thus, madam, all mankind behold
Your vast ascendant, not by gold,
But by your wisdom, and your pious life;
Your aim no more than to destroy
That which does Europe's ease annoy,
And supersede a reign of shame and strife.

St. James's Coffee-house, July 24.

My brethren of the quill, the ingenious society of news-writers, having with great spirit and elegance already informed the world, that the town of Tournay capitulated on the 28th instant, there is nothing left for me to say, but to congratulate the good company here, that we have reason to hope for an opportunity of thanking Mr. Withers[447] next winter in this place, for the service he has done his country. No man deserves better of his friends than that gentleman, whose distinguishing character it is, that he gives his orders with the familiarity, and enjoys his fortune with the generosity, of a fellow-soldier. His Grace the Duke of Argyle had also an eminent part in the reduction of this important place. That illustrious youth[448] discovers the peculiar turn of spirit and greatness of soul which only make men of high birth and quality useful to their country; and considers nobility as an imaginary distinction, unless accompanied with the practice of those generous virtues by which it ought to be obtained. But[449] that our military glory is arrived at its present height, and that men of all ranks so passionately affect their share in it, is certainly owing to the merit and conduct of our glorious general; for as the great secret in chemistry, though not in nature, has occasioned many useful discoveries; and the fantastic notion of being wholly disinterested in friendship, has made men do a thousand generous actions above themselves; so, though the present grandeur and fame of the Duke of Marlborough is a station of glory to which no one hopes to arrive, yet all carry their actions to a higher pitch, by having that great example laid before them.

[Footnote 444: "Aurenzeb is Tom Colson, who never had any friendship with anybody but S'r Edward Seymour, who brought him into Parliament" (Peter Wentworth to Lord Raby, 29 July 1709; "Wentworth Papers," p. 97). Thomas Coulson was elected M.P. for Totnes, with Sir Edward Seymour, Bart., in 1698. He was re-elected in 1701, 1702, and in 1705. At the election of 1708, Sir Edward Seymour, previously member for Exeter, was elected for Totnes; but in 1710, Sir Edward having transferred himself to Great Bedwyn, Coulson again became member for Totnes. In 1715, Coulson's arrest was sought in the neighbourhood of Bristol for joining in the rising on behalf of the Pretender; see a letter of Addison's in Hist. MSS. Comm., Second Report, p. 250.]

[Footnote 445: "Hudibras," part i. canto ii. 105-6. Butler wrote, "I' the head," &c.]

[Footnote 446: "I should have given you a key to the two _Tatlers_ I sent you last, the Brussels Postscript are verses of Crowders. He show'd them me in manuscript" (Peter Wentworth to Lord Raby, 29 July 1709; "Wentworth Papers," p. 97). See No. 17 note on Brigadier Crowther.]

[Footnote 447: General Henry Withers commanded at the capitulation of Tournay. On his death in 1729, he was buried in Westminster Abbey. Pope wrote an epitaph beginning:

"Here, Withers, rest! thou bravest, gentlest mind,
Thy country's friend, but more of human-kind."
]

[Footnote 448: John, second Duke of Argyle (1678-1743), took an active part in the battles of Ramilies, Oudenarde, and Malplaquet, and at the siege of Tournay.]

[Footnote 449: There was a long-standing hostility between the Duke of Marlborough and the Duke of Argyle.]

No. 47. [STEELE.

From _Tuesday, July 26_, to _Thursday, July 28_, 1709.

Quicquid agunt homines ... nostri farrago libelli.
Juv., Sat. i. 85, 86.

* * * * *

White's Chocolate-house, July 27.

My friend Sir Thomas[450] has communicated to me his letters from Epsom of the 25th instant, which give, in general, a very good account of the posture of affairs at present in that place; but that the tranquillity and correspondence[451] of the company begins to be interrupted by the arrival of Sir Taffety Trippet,[452] a fortune-hunter, whose follies are too gross to give diversion; and whose vanity is too stupid to let him be sensible that he is a public offence. But if people will indulge a splenetic humour, it is impossible to be at ease, when such creatures as are the scandal of our species, set up for gallantry and adventures. It will be much more easy therefore to laugh him into reason, than convert him from his foppery by any serious contempt. I knew a gentleman that made it a maxim to open his doors, and ever run into the way of bullies, to avoid their insolence. The rule will hold as well with coxcombs: they are never mortified, but when they see you receive, and despise them; otherwise they rest assured, that it is your ignorance makes them out of your good graces; or, that it is only want of admittance prevents their being amiable where they are shunned and avoided. But Sir Taffety is a fop of so sanguine complexion, that I fear it will be very hard for the fair one he at present pursues to get rid of the chase, without being so tired, as for her own ease to fall into the mouth of the mongrel she runs from. But the history of Sir Taffety is as pleasant as his character. It happened, that when he first set up for a fortune-hunter, he chose Tunbridge for the scene of action; where were at that time two sisters upon the same design. The knight believed of course the elder must be the better prize; and consequently makes all his sail that way. People that want sense, do always in an egregious manner want modesty, which made our hero triumph in making his amour as public as was possible. The adored lady was no less vain of his public addresses. An attorney with one cause is not half so restless as a woman with one lover. Wherever they met, they talked to each other aloud, chose each other partner at balls, saluted at the most conspicuous parts of the service at church, and practised in honour of each other all the remarkable particularities which are usual for persons who admire one another, and are contemptible to the rest of the world. These two lovers seemed as much made for each other as Adam and Eve, and all pronounced it a match of Nature's own making; but the night before the nuptials (so universally approved), the younger sister, envious of the good fortune even of her sister, who had been present at most of their interviews, and had an equal taste for the charms of a fop (as there are a set of women made for that order of men); the younger, I say, unable to see so rich a prize pass by her, discovered to Sir Taffety, that a coquette air, much tongue, and three suits, was all the portion of his mistress. His love vanished that moment, himself and equipage the next morning. It is uncertain where the lover has been ever since engaged; but certain it is, he has not appeared in his character as a follower of love and fortune till he arrived at Epsom, where there is at present a young lady of youth, beauty, and fortune, who has alarmed[453] all the vain and the impertinent to infest that quarter. At the head of this assembly, Sir Taffety shines in the brightest manner, with all the accomplishments which usually ensnare the heart of woman; with this particular merit (which often is of great service), that he is laughed at for her sake. The friends of the fair one are in much pain for the sufferings she goes through from the perseverance of this hero; but they may be much more so from the danger of his succeeding, toward which they give him a helping hand, if they dissuade her with bitterness; for there is a fantastical generosity in the sex, to approve creatures of the least merit imaginable, when they see the imperfections of their admirers are become the marks of derision for their sakes; and there is nothing so frequent, as that he who was contemptible to a woman in her own judgment, has won her by being too violently opposed by others.

Grecian Coffee-house, July 27.

In the several capacities I bear, of astrologer, civilian, and physician, I have with great application studied the public emolument: to this end serve all my lucubrations, speculations, and whatever other labours I undertake, whether nocturnal or diurnal. On this motive am I induced to publish a never-failing medicine for the spleen: my experience in this distemper came from a very remarkable cure on my ever worthy friend Tom Spindle,[454] who, through excessive gaiety, had exhausted that natural stock of wit and spirits he had long been blessed with: he was sunk and flattened to the lowest degree imaginable, sitting whole hours over the "Book of Martyrs," and "Pilgrim's Progress"; his other contemplations never rising higher than the colour of his urine, or regularity of his pulse. In this condition I found him, accompanied by the learned Dr. Drachm, and a good old nurse. Drachm had prescribed magazines of herbs, and mines of steel. I soon discovered the malady, and descanted on the nature of it, till I convinced both the patient and his nurse, that the spleen is not to be cured by medicine, but by poetry. Apollo, the author of physic, shone with diffusive rays the best of poets as well as of physicians; and it is in this double capacity that I have made my way, and have found, sweet, easy, flowering numbers, are oft superior to our noblest medicines. When the spirits are low, and nature sunk, the muse, with sprightly and harmonious notes, gives an unexpected turn with a grain of poetry, which I prepare without the use of mercury. I have done wonders in this kind; for the spleen is like the tarantula,[455] the effects of whose malignant poison are to be prevented by no other remedy but the charms of music: for you are to understand, that as some noxious animals carry antidotes for their own poisons; so there is something equally unaccountable in poetry: for though it is sometimes a disease, it is to be cured only by itself. Now I knowing Tom Spindle's constitution, and that he is not only a pretty gentleman, but also a pretty poet, found the true cause of his distemper was a violent grief that moved his affections too strongly: for during the late Treaty of Peace, he had written a most excellent poem on that subject; and when he wanted but two lines in the last stanza for finishing the whole piece, there comes news that the French tyrant would not sign. Spindle in few days took his bed, and had lain there still, had not I been sent for. I immediately told him, there was great probability the French would now sue to us for peace. I saw immediately a new life in his eyes; and knew, that nothing could help him forward so well, as hearing verses which he would believe worse than his own; I read him therefore the "Brussels Postscript";[456] after which I recited some heroic lines of my own, which operated so strongly on the tympanum of his ear, that I doubt not but I have kept out all other sounds for a fortnight; and have reason to hope, we shall see him abroad the day before his poem. This you see, is a particular secret I have found out, viz., that you are not to choose your physician for his knowledge in your distemper, but for having it himself. Therefore I am at hand for all maladies arising from poetical vapours, beyond which I never pretend. For being called the other day to one in love, I took indeed their three guineas, and gave them my advice; which was, to send for Æsculapius.[457] Æsculapius, as soon as he saw the patient, cries out, "'Tis love! 'tis love! Oh! the unequal pulse! these are the symptoms a lover feels; such sighs, such pangs, attend the uneasy mind; nor can our art, or all our boasted skill, avail--Yet O fair! for thee--" Thus the sage ran on, and owned the passion which he pitied, as well as that he felt a greater pain than ever he cured. After which he concluded, "All I can advise, is marriage: charms and beauty will give new life and vigour, and turn the course of nature to its better prospect." This is the new way; and thus Æsculapius has left his beloved powders, and writes a recipe for a wife at sixty. In short, my friend followed the prescription, and married youth and beauty in its perfect bloom.

_Supine in Silvia's snowy arms he lies,
And all the busy care of life defies:
Each happy hour is filled with fresh delight,
While peace the day, and pleasure crowns the night._

From my own Apartment, July 27.

Tragical passion was the subject of the discourse where I last visited this evening; and a gentleman who knows that I am at present writing a very deep tragedy, directed his discourse in a particular manner to me. "It is the common fault," said he, "of you, gentlemen, who write in the buskin style, that you give us rather the sentiments of such who behold tragical events, than of such who bear a part in them themselves. I would advise all who pretend this way, to read Shakespeare with care, and they will soon be deterred from putting forth what is usually called 'tragedy.' The way of common writers in this kind, is rather the description, than the expression of sorrow. There is no medium in these attempts; and you must go to the very bottom of the heart, or it is all mere language; and the writer of such lines is no more a poet, than a man is a physician for knowing the names of distempers, without the causes of them. Men of sense are professed enemies to all such empty labours: for he who pretends to be sorrowful, and is not, is a wretch yet more contemptible than he who pretends to be merry, and is not. Such a tragedian is only maudlin drunk." The gentleman went on with much warmth; but all he could say had little effect upon me: but when I came hither, I so far observed his counsel, that I looked into Shakespeare. The tragedy I dipped into was, "Harry the Fourth." In the scene where Morton is preparing to tell Northumberland of his son's death, the old man does not give him time to speak, but says,

"_The whiteness of thy cheeks
Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand;
Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,
So dull, so dead in look, so woebegone,
Drew Priam's curtain at the dead of night,
And would have told him half his Troy was burnt:
But Priam found the fire, ere he his tongue,
And I my Percy's death ere thou reportest it_"[458]

The image in this place is wonderfully noble and great; yet this man in all this is but rising towards his great affliction, and is still enough himself, as you see, to make a simile: but when he is certain of his son's death, he is lost to all patience, and gives up all the regards of this life; and since the last of evils is fallen upon him, he calls for it upon all the world.

"_Now let not Nature's hand
Keep the wild flood confined; let Order die,
And let the world no longer be a stage,
To feed contention in a lingering act;
But let one spirit of the firstborn Cain
Reign in all bosoms, that each heart being set
On bloody courses, the wide scene may end,
And darkness be the burier of the dead_."

Reading but this one scene has convinced me, that he who describes the concern of great men, must have a soul as noble, and as susceptible of high thoughts, as they whom he represents: I shall therefore lay by my drama for some time, and turn my thoughts to cares and griefs, somewhat below that of heroes, but no less moving. A misfortune proper for me to take notice of, has too lately happened: the disconsolate Maria[459] has three days kept her chamber for the loss of the beauteous Fidelia, her lap-dog. Lesbia herself[460] did not shed more tears for her sparrow. What makes her the more concerned, is, that we know not whether Fidelia was killed or stolen; but she was seen in the parlour window when the train-bands went by, and never since. Whoever gives notice of her, dead or alive, shall be rewarded with a kiss of her lady.

[Footnote 450: See No. 16.]

[Footnote 451: Intercourse.]

[Footnote 452: Henry Cromwell (died 1728) was a correspondent of Pope's, and a friend of Wycherley's. "I cannot choose," wrote Mrs. Elizabeth Thomas, "but be pleased with the conquest of a person whose fame our incomparable Tatler has rendered immortal, by the three distinguishing titles of 'Squire Easy the amorous bard'; 'Sir Timothy the critic'; and 'Sir Taffety Trippet the fortune-hunter'" ("Pylades and Corinna," i. 96, 194). See also Nos. 49, 165. Cromwell was a man about town, of private means, with property in Lincolnshire, who had contributed verses to Tonson's "Miscellany." Gay ("Mr. Pope's Welcome from Greece," st. xvii.) speaks of "Honest, hatless Cromwell, with red breeches."]

[Footnote 453: Called forth, drawn as with an alarum.]

[Footnote 454: Henry Cromwell; see note on p. 380. According to another suggestion, Spindle is intended for Thomas Tickell, who published a poem, "The Prospect of Peace," in 1713; but it is not probable that in 1709 either Addison or Steele would have satirised him; and Cromwell may very likely have written verses on the same subject.]

[Footnote 455: A spider named from Tarentum, in Apulia. Strange stories were told of the effects of its bite, and of their cure by music and dancing.]

[Footnote 456: See No. 46.]

[Footnote 457: Dr. Radcliffe. See No. 44.]

[Footnote 458: 2 Henry IV., act i. sc. I.]

[Footnote 459: "This _Tatler_ I know nothing of, only they say the Dutchess of Montague has lately lost a bitch she call'd fidel, and has had it cry'd."--(Peter Wentworth to Lord Raby; "Wentworth Papers," p. 97.)]

[Footnote 460: See Catullus, passim.]

No. 48. [STEELE.

From _Thursday, July 28_, to _Saturday, July 30_, 1709.

--Virtutem verba putant, et
Lucum ligna.
HOR., 1 Ep. vi. 31.

* * * * *

From my own Apartment, July 29.

This day I obliged Pacolet to entertain me with matters which regarded persons of his own character and occupation. We chose to take our walk on Tower Hill; and as we were coming from thence in order to stroll as far as Garraway's,[461] I observed two men, who had but just landed, coming from the waterside. I thought there was something uncommon in their mien and aspect; but though they seemed by their visage to be related, yet was there a warmth in their manner, as if they differed very much in their sentiments of the subject on which they were talking. One of them seemed to have a natural confidence, mixed with an ingenious freedom in his gesture, his dress very plain, but very graceful and becoming: the other, in the midst of an overbearing carriage, betrayed (by frequently looking round him) a suspicion that he was not enough regarded by those he met, or that he feared they would make some attack upon him. This person was much taller than his companion, and added to that height the advantage of a feather in his hat, and heels to his shoes so monstrously high, that he had three or four times fallen down, had he not been supported by his friend. They made a full stop as they came within a few yards of the place where we stood. The plain gentleman bowed to Pacolet; the other looked on him with some displeasure: upon which I asked him, who they both were, when he thus informed me of their persons and circumstances.

"You may remember, Mr. Isaac, that I have often told you, there are beings of a superior rank to mankind, who frequently visit the habitations of men, in order to call them from some wrong pursuits in which they are actually engaged, or divert them from methods which will lead them into errors for the future. He that will carefully reflect upon the occurrences of his life, will find he has been sometimes extricated out of difficulties, and received favours where he could never have expected such benefits; as well as met with cross events from some unseen hand, which have disappointed his best laid designs. Such accidents arrive from the interventions of aërial beings, as they are benevolent or hurtful to the nature of man, and attend his steps in the tracts of ambition, of business, and of pleasure. Before I ever appeared to you in the manner I do now, I have frequently followed you in your evening walks, and have often, by throwing some accident in your way, as the passing by of a funeral, or the appearance of some other solemn object, given your imagination a new turn, and changed a night you had destined to mirth and jollity, into an exercise of study and contemplation. I was the old soldier who met you last summer in Chelsea Fields, and pretended that I had broken my wooden leg, and could not get home; but I snapped it short off on purpose, that you might fall into the reflections you did on that subject, and take me into your hack. If you remember, you made yourself very merry on that fracture, and asked me, whether I thought I should next winter feel cold in the toes of that leg? As is usually observed, that those who lose limbs, are sensible of pains in the extreme parts, even after those limbs are cut off. However, my keeping you then in the story of the battle of the Boyne, prevented an assignation, which would have led you into more disasters than I then related.

"To be short; those two persons you see yonder, are such as I am; they are not real men, but are mere shades and figures: one is named Alethes; the other, Verisimilis. Their office is to be the guardians and representatives of Conscience and Honour. They are now going to visit the several parts of the town, to see how their interests in the world decay or flourish, and to purge themselves from the many false imputations they daily meet with in the commerce and conversation of men. You observed Verisimilis frowned when he first saw me. What he is provoked at, is, that I told him one day, though he strutted and dressed with so much ostentation, if he kept himself within his own bounds, he was but a lackey, and wore only that gentleman's livery whom he is now with. This frets him to the heart; for you must know, he has pretended a long time to set up for himself, and gets among a crowd of the more unthinking part of mankind, who take him for a person of the first quality; though his introduction into the world was wholly owing to his present companion."