Chapter IV: Part 4

"It is such a pleasure as can never cloy or overwork the mind; a delight that grows and improves under thought and reflection; and while it exercises, does also endear itself to the mind. All pleasures that affect the body must needs weary, because they transport; and all transportation is a violence; and no violence can be lasting, but determines upon the falling of the spirits, which are not able to keep up that height of motion that the pleasure of the senses raises them to. And therefore how inevitably does an immoderate laughter end in a sigh, which is only nature's recovering itself after a force done to it; but the religious pleasure of a well-disposed mind moves gently, and therefore constantly. It does not effect by rapture and ecstasy, but is like the pleasure of health, greater and stronger than those that call up the senses with grosser and more affecting impressions. No man's body is as strong as his appetites; but Heaven has corrected the boundlessness of his voluptuous desires by stinting his strengths, and contracting his capacities.... The pleasure of the religious man is an easy and a portable pleasure, such a one as he carries about in his bosom, without alarming either the eye or envy of the world. A man putting all his pleasure into this one, is like a traveller putting all his goods into one jewel; the value is the same, and the convenience greater."

FOOTNOTES:

[44] Possibly John Hughes, author of the "Siege of Damascus," who contributed to both _Tatler_ and _Spectator_. He died in 1720, aged forty-seven. In the _Theatre_ (No. 15) Steele said that Hughes's "head, hand, or heart was always employed in something worthy imitation."

[45] Dr. South (see Nos. 61 and 205).

=No. 212.= [STEELE.

From _Tuesday, Aug. 15_, to _Thursday, Aug. 17, 1710_.

_From my own Apartment, Aug. 16._

I have had much importunity to answer the following letter:

* * * * *

"Mr. BICKERSTAFF,

"Reading over a volume of yours, I find the words _simplex munditiis_ mentioned as a description of a very well-dressed woman.[46] I beg of you, for the sake of the sex, to explain these terms. I cannot comprehend what my brother means, when he tells me they signify my own name, which is,

"Sir,
"Your humble Servant,
"PLAIN ENGLISH."

I think the lady's brother has given us a very good idea of that elegant expression, it being the greatest beauty of speech to be close and intelligible. To this end nothing is to be more carefully consulted than plainness. In a lady's attire this is the single excellence; for to be what some call fine, is the same vice in that case as to be florid is in writing or speaking. I have studied and written on this important subject till I almost despair of making a reformation in the females of this island, where we have more beauty than in any spot in the universe, if we did not disguise it by false garniture, and detract from it by impertinent improvements. I have by me a treatise concerning pinners, which I have some hopes will contribute to the amendment of the present head-dresses, to which I have solid and unanswerable objections. But most of the errors in that and other particulars of adorning the head, are crept into the world from the ignorance of modern tirewomen; for it is come to that pass, that an awkward creature in the first year of her apprenticeship, that can hardly stick a pin, shall take upon her to dress a woman of the first quality. However, it is certain that there requires in a good tirewoman a perfect skill in optics; for all the force of ornament is to contribute to the intention of the eyes. Thus she who has a mind to look killing, must arm her face accordingly, and not leave her eyes and cheeks undressed. There is Araminta so sensible of this, that she never will see even her own husband without a hood[47] on. Can any one living bear to see Miss Gruel, lean as she is, with her hair tied back after the modern way? But such is the folly of our ladies, that because one who is a beauty, out of ostentation of her being such, takes care to wear something that she knows cannot be of any consequence to her complexion; I say, our women run on so heedlessly in the fashion, that though it is the interest of some to hide as much of their faces as possible, yet because a leading toast appeared with a backward head-dress, the rest shall follow the mode, without observing that the author of the fashion assumed it because it could become no one but herself.

Flavia[48] is ever well dressed, and always the genteelest woman you meet: but the make of her mind very much contributes to the ornament of her body. She has the greatest simplicity of manners of any of her sex. This makes everything look native about her, and her clothes are so exactly fitted, that they appear as it were part of her person. Every one that sees her, knows her to be of quality; but her distinction is owing to her manner, and not to her habit. Her beauty is full of attraction, but not of allurement. There is such a composure in her looks, and propriety in her dress, that you would think it impossible she should change the garb you one day see her in for anything so becoming, till you next day see her in another. There is no other mystery in this, but that however she is apparelled, she is herself the same: for there is so immediate a relation between our thoughts and gestures, that a woman must think well to look well.

But this weighty subject I must put off for some other matters in which my correspondents are urgent for answers, which I shall do where I can, and appeal to the judgment of others where I cannot.

* * * * *

_Aug. 15, 1710_.

"Mr. BICKERSTAFF,

"Taking the air the other day on horseback in the Green Lane that leads to Southgate, I discovered coming towards me a person well mounted in a mask; and I accordingly expected, as any one would, to have been robbed. But when we came up with each other, the spark, to my greater surprise, very peaceably gave me the way; which made me take courage enough to ask him, if he masqueraded, or how? He made me no answer, but still continued _incognito_. This was certainly an ass in a lion's skin; a harmless bull-beggar,[49] who delights to fright innocent people, and set them a-galloping. I bethought myself of putting as good a jest upon him, and had turned my horse, with a design to pursue him to London, and get him apprehended, on suspicion of being a highwayman: but when I reflected, that it was the proper office of the magistrate to punish only knaves, and that we had a censor of Great Britain for people of another denomination, I immediately determined to prosecute him in your court only. This unjustifiable frolic I take to be neither wit nor humour: therefore hope you will do me, and as many others as were that day frighted, justice. I am,

"Sir,
"Your Friend and Servant,
"J. L."

* * * * *

"SIR,

"The gentleman begs your pardon, and frighted you out of fear of frightening you; for he is just come out of the smallpox."

* * * * *

"Mr. BICKERSTAFF,

"Your distinction concerning the time of commencing virgins[50] is allowed to be just. I write you my thanks for it, in the twenty-eighth year of my life, and twelfth of my virginity. But I am to ask you another question, May a woman be said to live any more years a maid than she continues to be courted?

"I am, &c."

* * * * *

_Aug. 15, 1710_.

"SIR,

"I observe that the _Post-Man_ of Saturday last, giving an account of the action in Spain, has this elegant turn of expression: 'General Stanhope,[51] who in the whole action expressed as much bravery as conduct, received a contusion in his right shoulder.' I should be glad to know, whether this cautious politician means to commend or to rally him, by saying, 'He expressed as much bravery as conduct'? If you can explain this dubious phrase, it will inform the public, and oblige,

"Sir,
"Your humble Servant, &c."

FOOTNOTES:

[46] See No. 151.

[47] The _Spectator_ contains accounts of the new-fashioned hoods, which were made in various tints, especially cherry-colour. In the reign of King William the ladies wore a high head-dress, as appears from the following passage in a letter of Swift to Esther Johnson, dated Nov. 22, 1711: "I dined to-day with Sir Thomas Hanmer, whose lady, the Duchess of Grafton, wears a great high head-dress, such as was in fashion fifteen years ago, and looks like a mad woman in it, yet she has great remains of beauty." In the _Spectator_ (No. 98) Addison refers to these high head-dresses as in fashion ten years earlier, _i.e._ about 1701.

[48] This picture of Flavia has been thought to be a representation of Mrs. Anne Oldfield (see No. 10), of whom Cibber wrote: "Had her birth placed her in a higher rank of life, she had certainly appeared in reality what in the character of Lady Betty Modish she only excellently acted, an agreeable gay woman of quality, a little too conscious of her natural attractions. I have often seen her in private societies, where women of the first rank might have borrowed some part of their behaviour, without the least diminution of their sense of dignity." From this passage it will be seen that the account of a lady "of quality," with "the greatest simplicity of manners," can hardly be a description of Mrs. Oldfield. Moreover, the name "Flavia" occurs in No. 239, by Addison, and it appears that the lady there referred to was Miss Osborne, who became Atterbury's wife.

[49] Something used to frighten children. _Cf._ Sir T. Smith's "Appendix to his Life," p. 34: "As children be afraid of bear-bugs and bull-beggars."

[50] See No. 210

[51] Ibid.

=No. 213.= [STEELE.

From _Thursday, Aug. 17_, to _Saturday, Aug. 19, 1710_.

_Sheer Lane, Aug. 16._

There has of late crept in among the downright English a mighty spirit of dissimulation. But before we discourse of this vice, it will be necessary to observe, that the learned make a difference between simulation and dissimulation.[52] Simulation is a pretence of what is not, and dissimulation a concealment of what is. The latter is our present affair. When you look round you in public places in this island, you see the generality of mankind carry in their countenance an air of challenge or defiance: and there is no such man to be found among us who naturally strives to do greater honours and civilities than he receives. This innate sullenness or stubbornness of complexion is hardly to be conquered by any of our islanders. For which reason, however they may pretend to choose one another, they make but very awkward rogues; and their dislike to each other is seldom so well dissembled, but it is suspected. When once it is so, it had as good be professed. A man who dissembles well must have none of what we call stomach, otherwise he will be cold in his professions of good-will where he hates; an imperfection of the last ill consequence in business. This fierceness in our natures is apparent from the conduct of our young fellows, who are not got into the schemes and arts of life which the children of this world walk by. One would think that, of course, when a man of any consequence for his figure, his mien, or his gravity, passes by a youth, he should certainly have the first advances of salutation; but he is, you may observe, treated in a quite different manner, it being the very characteristic of an English temper to defy. As I am an Englishman, I find it a very hard matter to bring myself to pull off the hat first; but it is the only way to be upon any good terms with those we meet with: therefore the first advance is of high moment. Men judge of others by themselves; and he that will command with us must condescend. It moves one's spleen very agreeably to see fellows pretend to be dissemblers without this lesson. They are so reservedly complaisant till they have learned to resign their natural passions, that all the steps they make towards gaining those whom they would be well with, are but so many marks of what they really are, and not of what they would appear.

The rough Britons, when they pretend to be artful towards one another, are ridiculous enough; but when they set up for vices they have not, and dissemble their good with an affectation of ill, they are insupportable. I know two men in this town who make as good figures as any in it, that manage their credit so well as to be thought atheists, and yet say their prayers morning and evening. Tom Springly the other day pretended to go to an assignation with a married woman at Rosamond's Pond,[53] and was seen soon after reading the responses with great gravity at six-of-clock prayers.

_Sheer Lane, Aug. 17._

Though the following epistle bears a just accusation of myself, yet in regard it is a more advantageous piece of justice to another, I insert it at large:

* * * * *

_Garraway's Coffee-house,
Aug. 10._

"Mr. BICKERSTAFF,

"I have lately read your paper[54] wherein you represent a conversation between a young lady, your three nephews, and yourself; and am not a little offended at the figure you give your young merchant in the presence of a beauty. The topic of love is a subject on which a man is more beholden to nature for his eloquence, than to the instruction of the schools, or my lady's woman. From the two latter, your scholar and page must have reaped all their advantage above him. I know by this time you have pronounced me a trader. I acknowledge it, but cannot bear the exclusion from any pretence of speaking agreeably to a fine woman, or from any degree of generosity that way. You have among us citizens many well-wishers, but it is for the justice of your representations, which we, perhaps, are better judges of than you (by the account you give of your nephew) seem to allow.

"To give you an opportunity of making us some reparation, I desire you would tell your own way the following instance of heroic love in the city. You are to remember, that somewhere in your writings, for enlarging the territories of virtue and honour, you have multiplied the opportunities of attaining to heroic virtue, and have hinted, that in whatever state of life a man is, if he does things above what is ordinarily performed by men of his rank, he is in those instances a hero.[55]

"Tom Trueman, a young gentleman of eighteen years of age, fell passionately in love with the beauteous Almira, daughter to his master. Her regard for him was no less tender. Trueman was better acquainted with his master's affairs than his daughter, and secretly lamented that each day brought him by many miscarriages nearer bankruptcy than the former. This unhappy posture of their affairs the youth suspected was owing to the ill management of a factor, in whom his master had an entire confidence. Trueman took a proper occasion, when his master was ruminating on his decaying fortune, to address him for leave to spend the remainder of his time with his foreign correspondent. During three years' stay in that employment he became acquainted with all that concerned his master; and by his great address in the management of that knowledge, saved him ten thousand pounds. Soon after this accident, Trueman's uncle left him a considerable estate. Upon receiving that advice, he returned to England, and demanded Almira of her father. The father, overjoyed at the match, offered him the £10,000 he had saved him, with the further proposal of resigning to him all his business. Trueman refused both, and retired into the country with his bride, contented with his own fortune, though perfectly skilled in all the methods of improving it.

"It is to be noted, that Trueman refused twenty thousand pounds with another young lady; so that reckoning both his self-denials, he is to have in your court the merit of having given £30,000 for the woman he loved. This gentleman I claim your justice to; and hope you will be convinced, that some of us have larger views than only cash debtor, _per contra_ creditor.

"Yours,
"RICHARD TRAFFIC."

"_N.B._--Mr. Thomas Trueman of Lime Street is entered among the heroes of domestic life.

"CHARLES LILLIE."

FOOTNOTES:

[52] Bacon has an essay "Of Simulation and Dissimulation"; and Sallust, in his character of Catiline ("Bell. Cat." v.), says, "Animus, subdolus, varius, cujus rei libet simulator ac dissimulator."

[53] See No. 60.

[54] See No. 207.

[55] See the story of Sergeant Hall in No. 87.

=No. 214.= [STEELE.[56]

From _Saturday, Aug. 19_, to _Tuesday, Aug. 22, 1710_.

----Soles et aperta serena
Prospicere, et certis poteris cognoscere signis.

VIRG., Georg. i. 393.

_From my own Apartment, Aug. 21._

In every party there are two sorts of men, the rigid and the supple. The rigid are an intractable race of mortals, who act upon principle, and will not, forsooth, fall into any measures that are not consistent with their received notions of honour. These are persons of a stubborn, unpliant morality, that sullenly adhere to their friends when they are disgraced, and to their principles, though they are exploded. I shall therefore give up this stiff-necked generation to their own obstinacy, and turn my thoughts to the advantage of the supple, who pay their homage to places, and not persons; and without enslaving themselves to any particular scheme of opinions, are as ready to change their conduct in point of sentiment as of fashion. The well-disciplined part of a court are generally so perfect at their exercise, that you may see a whole assembly, from front to rear, face about at once to a new man of power, though at the same time they turn their backs upon him that brought them thither. The great hardship these complaisant members of society are under, seems to be the want of warning upon any approaching change or revolution; so that they are obliged in a hurry to tack about with every wind, and stop short in the midst of a full career, to the great surprise and derision of their beholders.

When a man foresees a decaying ministry, he has leisure to grow a malcontent, reflect upon the present conduct, and by gradual murmurs fall off from his friends into a new party, by just steps and measures. For want of such notices, I have formerly known a very well-bred person refuse to return a bow of a man whom he thought in disgrace, that was next day made Secretary of State; and another, who after a long neglect of a minister, came to his levee, and made professions of zeal for his service the very day before he was turned out.

This produces also unavoidable confusions and mistakes in the descriptions of great men's parts and merits. That ancient lyric, Mr. D'Urfey,[57] some years ago wrote a dedication to a certain lord, in which he celebrated him for the greatest poet and critic of that age, upon a misinformation in Dyer's Letter[58], that his noble patron was made Lord Chamberlain. In short, innumerable votes, speeches, and sermons have been thrown away, and turned to no account, merely for want of due and timely intelligence. Nay, it has been known, that a panegyric has been half printed off, when the poet, upon the removal of the minister, has been forced to alter it into a satire.

For the conduct therefore of such useful persons as are ready to do their country service upon all occasions, I have an engine in my study, which is a sort of a Political Barometer, or, to speak more intelligibly, a State Weather-Glass, that, by the rising and falling of a certain magical liquor, presages all changes and revolutions in government, as the common glass does those of the weather. This weather-glass is said to have been invented by Cardan,[59] and given by him as a present to his great countryman and contemporary Machiavel, which (by the way) may serve to rectify a received error in chronology, that places one of these some years after the other. How or when it came into my hands, I shall desire to be excused if I keep to myself; but so it is, that I have walked by it for the better part of a century, to my safety at least, if not to my advantage; and have among my papers, a register of all the changes that happened in it from the middle of Queen Elizabeth's reign.

In the time of that princess, it stood long at Settled Fair. At the latter end of King James the First, it fell to Cloudy. It held several years after at Stormy; insomuch that at last despairing of seeing any clear weather at home, I followed the royal exile, and some time after finding my glass rise, returned to my native country with the rest of the loyalists. I was then in hopes to pass the remainder of my days in Settled Fair: but alas! during the greatest part of that reign, the English nation lay in a Dead Calm, which, as it is usual, was followed by high winds and tempests till of late years: in which, with unspeakable joy and satisfaction, I have seen our political weather returned to Settled Fair. I must only observe, that for all this last summer my glass has pointed at Changeable. Upon the whole, I often apply to Fortune Æneas's speech to the sybil:

_----Non ulla laborum,
O virgo, nova mi fades inopinave surgit:
Omnia præcepi, atque animo me cum ante peregi._[60]

The advantages which have accrued to those whom I have advised in their affairs, by virtue of this sort of prescience, have been very considerable. A nephew of mine, who has never put his money into the stocks, or taken it out, without my advice, has in a few years raised five hundred pounds to almost so many thousands. As for myself, who look upon riches to consist rather in content than possessions, and measure the greatness of the mind rather by its tranquillity than its ambition, I have seldom used my glass to make my way in the world, but often to retire from it. This is a by-path to happiness, which was first discovered to me by a most pleasing apothegm of Pythagoras: "When the winds," says he, "rise, worship the echo." That great philosopher (whether to make his doctrines the more venerable, or to gild his precepts with the beauty of imagination, or to awaken the curiosity of his disciples; for I will not suppose what is usually said, that he did it to conceal his wisdom from the vulgar) has couched several admirable precepts in remote allusions and mysterious sentences. By the winds in this apothegm, are meant State hurricanes and popular tumults. "When these arise," says he, "worship the echo;" that is, withdraw yourself from the multitude into deserts, woods, solitudes, or the like retirements, which are the usual habitations of the echo.

FOOTNOTES:

[56] It is not unlikely that the account of a State weather-glass in this paper is by Addison, who was the author of the description of an ecclesiastical thermometer in No. 220.

[57] See Nos. 1, 11, and 43. The dedication was to the Second Part of "Don Quixote," which D'Urfey addressed to Charles, Earl of Dorset, in these lines:

"You have, my Lord, a patent from above,
And can monopolise both wit and love,
Inspired and blest by Heaven's peculiar care,
Adored by all the wise and all the fair;
To whom the world united give this due,
Best judge of men, and best of poets too."

[58] See No. 18.

[59] Jerome Cardan (1501-1576), physician and astrologer (see Professor Henry Morley's "Life of Girolamo Cardano," 1854).

[60] Virgil, "Æneid," vi. 103.

=No. 215.= [STEELE.

From _Tuesday, Aug. 22_, to _Thursday, Aug. 24, 1710_.

_From my own Apartment, Aug. 23._

Lysander has written to me out of the country, and tells me, after many other circumstances, that he had passed a great deal of time with much pleasure and tranquillity, till his happiness was interrupted by an indiscreet flatterer, who came down into those parts to visit a relation. With the circumstances in which he represents the matter, he had no small provocation to be offended, for he attacked him in so wrong a season, that he could not have any relish of pleasure in it; though, perhaps, at another time, it might have passed upon him without giving him much uneasiness. Lysander had, after a long satiety of the town, been so happy as to get to a solitude he extremely liked, and recovered a pleasure he had long discontinued, that of reading. He was got to the bank of a rivulet, covered by a pleasing shade, and fanned by a soft breeze, which threw his mind into that sort of composure and attention in which a man, though with indolence, enjoys the utmost liveliness of his spirits, and the greatest strength of his mind at the same time. In this state, Lysander represents that he was reading Virgil's "Georgics"; when on a sudden the gentleman above-mentioned surprised him, and, without any manner of preparation, falls upon him at once. "What! I have found you out at last, after searching all over the wood. We wanted you at cards after dinner, but you are much better employed. I have heard indeed that you are an excellent scholar: but at the same time, is it not a little unkind to rob the ladies, who like you so well, of the pleasure of your company? But that is indeed the misfortune of you great scholars, you are seldom so fit for the world as those who never trouble themselves with books. Well, I see you are taken up with your learning there, and I'll leave you." Lysander says, he made him no answer, but took a resolution to complain to me.

It is a substantial affliction, when men govern themselves by the rules of good-breeding, that by the very force of them they are subjected to the insolence of those who either never will, or never can, understand them. The superficial part of mankind form to themselves little measures of behaviour from the outside of things. By the force of these narrow conceptions, they act amongst themselves with applause, and do not apprehend they are contemptible to those of higher understanding, who are restrained by decencies above their knowledge from showing a dislike. Hence it is, that because complaisance is a good quality in conversation, one impertinent takes upon him on all occasions to commend; and because mirth is agreeable, another thinks fit eternally to jest. I have of late received many packets of letters complaining of these spreading evils. A lady who is lately arrived at the Bath acquaints me, there was in the stage-coach wherein she went down, a common flatterer, and a common jester. These gentlemen were (she tells me) rivals in her favour; and adds, if there ever happened a case wherein of two persons one was not liked more than another, it was in that journey. They differed only in proportion to the degree of dislike between the nauseous and the insipid. Both these characters of men are born out of a barrenness of imagination. They are never fools by nature, but become such out of an impotent ambition of being what she never intended them, men of wit and conversation. I therefore think fit to declare, that according to the known laws of this land, a man may be a very honest gentleman, and enjoy himself and his friend, without being a wit; and I absolve all men from taking pains to be such for the future. As the present case stands, is it not very unhappy that Lysander must be attacked and applauded in a wood, and Corinna jolted and commended in a stage-coach; and this for no manner of reason, but because other people have a mind to show their parts? I grant indeed, if these people (as they have understanding enough for it) would confine their accomplishments to those of their own degree of talents, it were to be tolerated; but when they are so insolent as to interrupt the meditations of the wife, the conversations of the agreeable, and the whole behaviour of the modest, it becomes a grievance naturally in my jurisdiction. Among themselves, I cannot only overlook, but approve it. I was present the other day at a conversation, where a man of this height of breeding and sense told a young woman of the same form, "To be sure, madam, everything must please that comes from a lady." She answered, "I know, sir, you are so much a gentleman that you think so." Why, this is very well on both sides; and it is impossible that such a gentleman and lady should do other than think well of one another. These are but loose hints of the disturbances in human society, of which there is yet no remedy; but I shall in a little time publish tables of respect and civility, by which persons may be instructed in the proper times and seasons, as well as at what degree of intimacy a man may be allowed to commend or rally his companions; the promiscuous licence of which is at present far from being among the small errors in conversation.

_P.S._--The following letter was left, with a request to be immediately answered, lest the artifices used against a lady in distress may come into common practice:

* * * * *

"SIR,

"My elder sister buried her husband about six months ago; and at his funeral, a gentleman of more art than honesty, on the night of his interment, while she was not herself, but in the utmost agony of her grief, spoke to her of the subject of love. In that weakness and distraction which my sister was in (as one ready to fall is apt to lean on anybody), he obtained her promise of marriage, which was accordingly consummated eleven weeks after. There is no affliction comes alone, but one brings another. My sister is now ready to lie-in. She humbly asks of you, as you are a friend to the sex, to let her know who is the lawful father of this child, or whether she may not be relieved from this second marriage, considering it was promised under such circumstances as one may very well suppose she did not what she did voluntarily, but because she was helpless otherwise. She is advised something about engagements made in gaol, which she thinks the same as to the reason of the thing. But, dear sir, she relies upon your advice, and gives you her service; as does

"Your humble Servant,
"REBECCA MIDRIFFE."

The case is very hard; and I fear, the plea she is advised to make, from the similitude of a man who is in duress, will not prevail. But though I despair of remedy as to the mother, the law gives the child his choice of his father where the birth is thus legally ambiguous.

"To ISAAC BICKERSTAFF, Esq.

"_The humble Petition of the Company of Linendrapers residing
within the Liberty of Westminster;_

"Showeth--That there has of late prevailed among the ladies so great an affectation of nakedness, that they have not only left the bosom wholly bare, but lowered their stays some inches below the former mode.[61]

"That in particular, Mrs. Arabella Overdo has not the least appearance of linen, and our best customers show but little above the small of their backs.

"That by this means, your petitioners are in danger of losing the advantage of covering a ninth part of every woman of quality in Great Britain.

"Your petitioners humbly offer the premises to your indulgence's consideration, and shall ever, &c."

Before I answer this petition, I am inclined to examine the offenders myself.

FOOTNOTES:

[61] This mode, which originated in the reign of King Charles II., is shown in Sir Peter Lely's ladies; but Walpole says that Vandyck's habits are those of the times, but Lely's are fantastic dresses. The prevalence and dislike of this fashion occasioned in 1678 the publication of a book translated from the French by Edward Cooke, under the following title, "A Just and Reasonable Reprehension of Naked Breasts and Shoulders, written by a grave and learned Papist."

Half a century after the _Tatler_, the "moulting of their clothes" by ladies was again the subject of comment by the moral essayist. There are several papers on the subject in the _World_ (Nos. 6, 21, 169, &c.), in which it is remarked that it was the fashion to undress to go abroad, and to dress when at home and not seeing company.

=No. 216.= [ADDISON.

From _Thursday, Aug. 24_, to _Saturday, Aug. 26, 1710_.

--Nugis addere pondus.--HOR., 1 Ep. xix. 42.

_From my own Apartment, Aug. 25._

Nature is full of wonders; every atom is a standing miracle, and endowed with such qualities as could not be impressed on it by a power and wisdom less than infinite. For this reason, I would not discourage any searches that are made into the most minute and trivial parts of the creation. However, since the world abounds in the noblest fields of speculation, it is, methinks, the mark of a little genius to be wholly conversant among insects, reptiles, animalcules, and those trifling rarities that furnish out the apartment of a virtuoso.

There are some men whose heads are so oddly turned this way, that though they are utter strangers to the common occurrences of life, they are able to discover the sex of a cockle, or describe the generation of a mite, in all its circumstances. They are so little versed in the world, that they scarce know a horse from an ox; but at the same time will tell you, with a great deal of gravity, that a flea is a rhinoceros, and a snail an hermaphrodite. I have known one of these whimsical philosophers who has set a greater value upon a collection of spiders than he would upon a flock of sheep, and has sold his coat off his back to purchase a tarantula.

I would not have a scholar wholly unacquainted with these secrets and curiosities of nature; but certainly the mind of man, that is capable of so much higher contemplations, should not be altogether fixed upon such mean and disproportioned objects. Observations of this kind are apt to alienate us too much from the knowledge of the world, and to make us serious upon trifles, by which means they expose philosophy to the ridicule of the witty, and contempt of the ignorant. In short, studies of this nature should be the diversions, relaxations, and amusements; not the care, business, and concern of life.

It is indeed wonderful to consider, that there should be a sort of learned men who are wholly employed in gathering together the refuse of nature, if I may call it so, and hoarding up in their chests and cabinets such creatures as others industriously avoid the sight of. One does not know how to mention some of the most precious parts of their treasure without a kind of an apology for it. I have been shown a beetle valued at twenty crowns, and a toad at a hundred: but we must take this for a general rule, that whatever appears trivial or obscene in the common notions of the world, looks grave and philosophical in the eye of a virtuoso.

To show this humour in its perfection, I shall present my reader with the legacy of a certain virtuoso, who laid out a considerable estate in natural rarities and curiosities, which upon his death-bed he bequeathed to his relations and friends, in the following words:

_The Will of a Virtuoso._

I Nicholas Gimcrack being in sound health of mind, but in great weakness of body, do by this my last will and testament bestow my worldly goods and chattels in manner following:

_Imprimis_, to my dear wife,

One box of butterflies,
One drawer of shells,
A female skeleton,
A dried cockatrice.

_Item_, to my daughter Elizabeth,

My receipt for preserving dead caterpillars.
As also my preparations of winter May-dew, and embryo pickle.

_Item_, to my little daughter Fanny,

Three crocodile's eggs.

And upon the birth of her first child, if she marries with her mother's consent,

The nest of a humming-bird.

_Item_, to my eldest brother, as an acknowledgment for the lands he has vested in my son Charles, I bequeath

My last year's collection of grasshoppers.

_Item_, to his daughter Susanna, being his only child, I bequeath my

English weeds pasted on royal paper.
With my large folio of Indian cabbage.

_Item_, to my learned and worthy friend Dr. Johannes Elscrikius, Professor in Anatomy, and my associate in the studies of nature, as an eternal monument of my affection and friendship for him, I bequeath

My rat's testicles, and
Whale's pizzle,

to him and his issue male; and in default of such issue in the said Dr. Elscrikius, then to return to my executor and his heirs for ever.

Having fully provided for my nephew Isaac, by making over to him some years since

A horned scarabæus,
The skin of a rattlesnake, and
The mummy of an Egyptian king,

I make no further provision for him in this my will.

My eldest son John having spoken disrespectfully of his little sister, whom I keep by me in spirits of wine, and in many other instances behaved himself undutifully towards me, I do disinherit, and wholly cut off from any part of this my personal estate, by giving him a single cockle-shell.

To my second son Charles, I give and bequeath all my flowers, plants, minerals, mosses, shells, pebbles, fossils, beetles, butterflies, caterpillars, grasshoppers, and vermin, not above specified: as also all my monsters, both wet and dry, making the said Charles whole and sole executor of this my last will and testament; he paying, or causing to be paid, the aforesaid legacies within the space of six months after my decease. And I do hereby revoke all other wills whatsoever by me formerly made.[62]

ADVERTISEMENT.

Whereas an ignorant upstart in astrology has publicly endeavoured to persuade the world, that he is the late John Partridge, who died the 28th of March 1708; these are to certify all whom it may concern, that the true John Partridge was not only dead at that time, but continues so to this present day.

Beware of counterfeits, for such are abroad.

FOOTNOTES:

[62] See No. 221.

=No. 217.= [STEELE.

From _Saturday, Aug. 26_, to _Tuesday, Aug. 29, 1710_.

Atque deos atque astra vocat crudelia mater.

VIRG., Eclog. v. 23.

_From my own Apartment, Aug. 28._

As I was passing by a neighbour's house this morning, I overheard the wife of the family speak things to her husband which gave me much disturbance, and put me in mind of a character which I wonder I have so long omitted, and that is, an outrageous species of the fair sex which is distinguished by the term Scolds. The generality of women are by nature loquacious: therefore mere volubility of speech is not to be imputed to them, but should be considered with pleasure when it is used to express such passions as tend to sweeten or adorn conversation: but when, through rage, females are vehement in their eloquence, nothing in the world has so ill an effect upon the features; for by the force of it, I have seen the most amiable become the most deformed, and she that appeared one of the Graces, immediately turned into one of the Furies. I humbly conceive, the great cause of this evil may proceed from a false notion the ladies have of what we call a modest woman. They have too narrow a conception of this lovely character, and believe they have not at all forfeited their pretensions to it, provided they have no imputations on their chastity. But alas! the young fellows know they pick out better women in the side-boxes[63] than many of those who pass upon the world and themselves for modest.

Modesty never rages, never murmurs, never pouts: when it is ill-treated, it pines, it beseeches, it languishes. The neighbour I mention is one of your common modest women, that is to say, those as are ordinarily reckoned such. Her husband knows every pain in life with her but jealousy. Now because she is clear in this particular, the man can't say his soul is his own, but she cries, "No modest woman is respected nowadays." What adds to the comedy in this case is, that it is very ordinary with this sort of women to talk in the language of distress: they will complain of the forlorn wretchedness of their condition, and then the poor helpless creatures shall throw the next thing they can lay their hands on at the person who offends them. Our neighbour was only saying to his wife, she went a little too fine, when she immediately pulled his periwig off, and stamping it under her feet, wrung her hands, and said, "Never modest woman was so used." These ladies of irresistible modesty are those who make virtue unamiable; not that they can be said to be virtuous, but as they live without scandal; and being under the common denomination of being such, men fear to meet their faults in those who are as agreeable as they are innocent.

I take the bully among men, and the scold among women, to draw the foundation of their actions from the same defect in the mind. A bully thinks honour consists wholly in being brave, and therefore has regard to no one rule of life, if he preserves himself from the accusation of cowardice. The froward woman knows chastity to be the first merit in a woman; and therefore, since no one can call her one ugly name, she calls all mankind all the rest.

These ladies, where their companions are so imprudent as to take their speeches for any other than exercises of their own lungs, and their husband's patience, gain by the force of being resisted, and flame with open fury, which is no way to be opposed but by being neglected: though at the same time human frailty makes it very hard to relish the philosophy of contemning even frivolous reproach. There is a very pretty instance of this infirmity in the man of the best sense that ever was, no less a person than Adam himself. According to Milton's description of the first couple, as soon as they had fallen, and the turbulent passions of anger, hatred, and jealousy first entered their breasts, Adam grew moody, and talked to his wife, as you may find it in the 359th page, and ninth book, of "Paradise Lost," in the octavo edition, which out of heroics, and put into domestic style, would run thus:

"Madam, if my advice had been of any authority with you when that strange desire of gadding possessed you this morning, we had still been happy: but your cursed vanity and opinion of your own conduct, which is certainly very wavering when it seeks occasions of being proved, has ruined both yourself, and me who trusted you."

Eve had no fan in her hand to ruffle, or tucker to pull down,[64] but with a reproachful air she answered:

"Sir, do you impute that to my desire of gadding, which might have happened to yourself with all your wisdom and gravity? The serpent spoke so excellently, and with so good a grace, that--Besides, what harm had I ever done him, that he should design me any? Was I to have been always at your side, I might as well have continued there, and been but your rib still: but if I was so weak a creature as you thought me, why did you not interpose your sage authority more absolutely? You denied me going as faintly, as you say I resisted the serpent. Had not you been too easy, neither you or I had now transgressed."

Adam replied, "Why, Eve, hast thou the impudence to upbraid me as the cause of thy transgression for my indulgence to thee? Thus it will ever be with him who trusts too much to woman: at the same time that she refuses to be governed, if she suffers by her obstinacy, she will accuse the man that shall leave her to herself."

_Thus they in mutual accusation spent
The fruitless hours, but neither self-condemning:
And of their vain contest appeared no end._[65]

This to the modern will appear but a very faint piece of conjugal enmity; but you are to consider, that they were but just begun to be angry, and they wanted new words for expressing their new passions. But her accusing him of letting her go, and telling him how good a speaker and how fine a gentleman the devil was, we must reckon, allowing for the improvements of time, that she gave him the same provocation as if she had called him cuckold. The passionate and familiar terms with which the same case, repeated daily for so many thousand years, has furnished the present generation, were not then in use; but the foundation of debate has ever been the same, a contention about their merit and wisdom. Our general mother was a beauty, and hearing there was another now in the world, could not forbear (as Adam tells her) showing herself, though to the devil, by whom the same vanity made her liable to be betrayed.

I cannot, with all the help of science and astrology, find any other remedy for this evil, but what was the medicine in this first quarrel; which was, as appeared in the next book, that they were convinced of their being both weak, but one weaker than the other.

If it were possible that the beauteous could but rage a little before a glass, and see their pretty countenances grow wild, it is not to be doubted but it would have a very good effect; but that would require temper: for Lady Firebrand, upon observing her features swell when her maid vexed her the other day, stamped her dressing-glass under her feet. In this case, when one of this temper is moved, she is like a witch in an operation, and makes all things turn round with her. The very fabric is in a vertigo when she begins to charm. In an instant, whatever was the occasion that moved her blood, she has such intolerable servants, Betty is so awkward, Tom can't carry a message, and her husband has so little respect for her, that she, poor woman, is weary of this life, and was born to be unhappy.

_Desunt multa._

ADVERTISEMENT.

The season now coming on in which the town will begin to fill, Mr. Bickerstaff gives notice, that from the 1st of October next, he will be much wittier than he has hitherto been.[66]

FOOTNOTES:

[63] See No. 50.

[64] The tucker "ran in a small kind of ruffle round the uppermost verge of the woman's stays, and by that means covered a great part of the shoulders and bosom" (_Guardian_, No. 100). A tendency to abandon the use of the tucker was the subject of Addison's satire (ibid., No. 109).

[65] "Paradise Lost," ix. 1187.

[66] "The Tatler, in his last, promises us that as the town fills he will be wittier. I am sorry, for his sake, it has been empty so long. I believe he will be shortly as good as his word, for his friends, I hear, are coming from Ireland. I expect, too, some of my friends from the same country; and as he is to be new-rigged out for a wit, so I don't question but that there will from thence, too, come fresh materials for an _Examiner_." (_Examiner_, No. 5.)

=No. 218.= [ADDISON.

From _Tuesday, Aug. 29_, to _Thursday, Aug. 31, 1710_.

Scriptorum chorus omnis amat nemus et fugit urbes.

HOR., 2 Ep. ii. 77.

_From my own Apartment, Aug. 30._

I chanced to rise very early one particular morning this summer, and took a walk into the country to divert myself among the fields and meadows, while the green was new, and the flowers in their bloom. As at this season of the year every lane is a beautiful walk, and every hedge full of nosegays, I lost myself with a great deal of pleasure among several thickets and bushes that were filled with a great variety of birds, and an agreeable confusion of notes, which formed the pleasantest scene in the world to one who had passed a whole winter in noise and smoke. The freshness of the dews that lay upon everything about me, with the cool breath of the morning, which inspired the birds with so many delightful instincts, created in me the same kind of animal pleasure, and made my heart overflow with such secret emotions of joy and satisfaction as are not to be described or accounted for. On this occasion I could not but reflect upon a beautiful simile in Milton:

_As one who long in populous city pent,
Where houses thick and sewers annoy the air,
Forth issuing on a summer's morn to breathe
Among the pleasant villages and farms
Adjoined, from each thing met conceives delight:
The smell of grain, or tedded[67] grass, or kine,
Or dairy, each rural sight, each rural sound._[68]

Those who are conversant in the writings of polite authors, receive an additional entertainment from the country, as it revives in their memories those charming descriptions with which such authors do frequently abound.

I was thinking of the foregoing beautiful simile in Milton, and applying it to myself, when I observed to the windward of me a black cloud falling to the earth in long trails of rain, which made me betake myself for shelter to a house which I saw at a little distance from the place where I was walking. As I sat in the porch, I heard the voices of two or three persons, who seemed very earnest in discourse. My curiosity was raised when I heard the names of Alexander the Great and Artaxerxes; and as their talk seemed to run on ancient heroes, I concluded there could not be any secret in it; for which reason I thought I might very fairly listen to what they said.

After several parallels between great men, which appeared to me altogether groundless and chimerical, I was surprised to hear one say, that he valued the Black Prince more than the Duke of Vendôme. How the Duke of Vendôme should become a rival of the Black Prince's, I could not conceive; and was more startled when I heard a second affirm with great vehemence, that if the Emperor of Germany was not going off, he should like him better than either of them. He added, that though the season was so changeable, the Duke of Marlborough was in blooming beauty. I was wondering to myself from whence they had received this odd intelligence, especially when I heard them mention the names of several other great generals, as the Prince of Hesse, and the King of Sweden, who, they said, were both running away: to which they added, what I entirely agreed with them in, that the Crown of France was very weak, but that the Mareschal Villars still kept his colours. At last one of them told the company, if they would go along with him, he would show them a chimney-sweeper and a painted lady in the same bed, which he was sure would very much please them. The shower which had driven them, as well as myself, into the house, was now over: and as they were passing by me into the garden, I asked them to let me be one of their company.

The gentleman of the house told me, if I delighted in flowers, it would be worth my while, for that he believed he could show me such a blow of tulips as was not to be matched in the whole country.

I accepted the offer, and immediately found that they had been talking in terms of gardening, and that the kings and generals they had mentioned were only so many tulips, to which the gardeners, according to their usual custom, had given such high titles and appellations of honour.