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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Tatler, Volume 3, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Tatler, Volume 3
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: George A. Aitken
+
+Release Date: March 15, 2010 [EBook #31645]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TATLER, VOLUME 3 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Joseph R. Hauser and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+ +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
+ |TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:                                                    |
+ |                                                                       |
+ |There is Greek in this text which has been transliterated into Arabic  |
+ |letters.  The Greek is notated as: [Greek: Pinax]                      |
+ +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+
+
+#The Tatler#
+Edited by
+George A. Aitken
+
+
+
+
+In Four Volumes
+Volume Three
+
+
+
+
+#The Tatler#
+
+
+Edited with Introduction & Notes
+by
+George A. Aitken
+
+
+_Author of_
+"The Life of Richard Steele," &c.
+
+
+
+
+VOL. III
+
+
+New York
+Hadley & Mathews
+156 Fifth Avenue
+London: Duckworth & Co.
+1899
+
+Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
+At the Ballantyne Press
+
+
+
+
+     _To the_ Right Honourable
+     #William Lord Cowper#
+     Baron of Wingham[1]
+
+
+     MY LORD,
+
+     After having long celebrated the superior graces and excellences
+     among men, in an imaginary character, I do myself the honour to
+     show my veneration for transcendent merit, under my own name, in
+     this address to your lordship. The just application of those high
+     accomplishments of which you are master, has been an advantage to
+     all your fellow subjects; and it is from the common obligation you
+     have laid upon all the world, that I, though a private man, can
+     pretend to be affected with, or take the liberty to acknowledge
+     your great talents and public virtues.
+
+     It gives a pleasing prospect to your friends, that is to say, to
+     the friends of your country, that you have passed through the
+     highest offices, at an age when others usually do but form to
+     themselves the hopes of them.[2] They may expect to see you in the
+     House of Lords as many years as you were ascending to it. It is our
+     common good, that your admirable eloquence can now no longer be
+     employed but in the expression of your own sentiments and judgment.
+     The skilful pleader is now for ever changed into the just judge;
+     which latter character your lordship exerts with so prevailing an
+     impartiality, that you win the approbation even of those who
+     dissent from you, and you always obtain favour, because you are
+     never moved by it.
+
+     This gives you a certain dignity peculiar to your present
+     situation, and makes the equity, even of a Lord High Chancellor,
+     appear but a degree towards the magnanimity of a peer of Great
+     Britain.
+
+     Forgive me, my lord, when I cannot conceal from you, that I shall
+     never hereafter behold you, but I shall behold you, as lately,
+     defending the brave, and the unfortunate.[3]
+
+     When we attend to your lordship, engaged in a discourse, we cannot
+     but reflect upon the many requisites which the vainglorious
+     speakers of antiquity have demanded in a man who is to excel in
+     oratory; I say, my lord, when we reflect upon the precepts by
+     viewing the example, though there is no excellence proposed by
+     those rhetoricians wanting, the whole art seems to be resolved into
+     that one motive of speaking, sincerity in the intention. The
+     graceful manner, the apt gesture, and the assumed concern, are
+     impotent helps to persuasion, in comparison of the honest
+     countenance of him who utters what he really means. From hence it
+     is, that all the beauties which others attain with labour, are in
+     your lordship but the natural effects of the heart that dictates.
+
+     It is this noble simplicity which makes you surpass mankind in the
+     faculties wherein mankind are distinguished from other creatures,
+     reason and speech.
+
+     If these gifts were communicated to all men in proportion to the
+     truth and ardour of their hearts, I should speak of you with the
+     same force as you express yourself on any other subject. But I
+     resist my present impulse, as agreeable as it is to me; though
+     indeed, had I any pretensions to a fame of this kind, I should,
+     above all other themes, attempt a panegyric upon my Lord Cowper:
+     for the only sure way to a reputation for eloquence, in an age
+     wherein that perfect orator lives, is to choose an argument, upon
+     which he himself must of necessity be silent. I am,
+
+                              My Lord, your Lordship's
+                                Most devoted, most obedient, and
+                                               Most humble Servant,
+                                                      RICHARD STEELE.
+
+
+[Footnote 1: William Cowper was appointed King's counsel about 1694; he
+succeeded Sir Nathan Wright, as Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, October
+11, 1705; was created Baron Cowper of Wingham, November 9, 1706; and was
+appointed Lord Chancellor, May 4, 1707, which post he held till
+September 14, 1710. On the accession of King George, he was again
+appointed Lord Chancellor, and, on resigning the Great Seal, was created
+Earl Cowper and Viscount Fordwich, March 18, 1717-18. He died in 1723.
+Lord Cowper refused to accept New Year's gifts from the counsellors at
+law, which had been long given to his predecessors, and, when he was
+Chancellor, though in friendship with the Duke of Marlborough, and of
+the same political principles, he refused to put the broad seal of his
+office to a commission for making his Grace generalissimo for life.
+"When Steele's patent, as Governor of the Theatre Royal, passed the
+Great Seal, Lord Chancellor Cowper, in compliment to Sir Richard, would
+receive no fee" (Cibber's "Apology"). He was praised by Hughes, under
+the name of "Manilius," in No. 467 of the _Spectator_.]
+
+[Footnote 2: The date of Lord Cowper's birth is not known, but in 1710
+he was probably about 46. He entered the Middle Temple in 1682.]
+
+[Footnote 3: In a pamphlet entitled "A Letter to Isaac Bickerstaff,"
+1710, Lord Cowper defended the character of the Duchess of Marlborough
+against an attack by Bolingbroke in a "Letter to the _Examiner_."]
+
+
+
+
+#THE TATLER#
+BY ISAAC BICKERSTAFF, ESQ.
+
+
+
+
+No. 115.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Saturday, Dec. 31, 1709_, to _Tuesday, Jan. 3, 1709-10_.
+
+    --Novum intervenit vitium et calamitas,
+    Ut neque spectari, neque cognosci potuerit:
+    Ita populus studio stupidus in funambulo
+    Animum occupârat.--TER., Hecyra, Prologue.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, January 2._
+
+I went on Friday last to the opera, and was surprised to find a thin
+house at so noble an entertainment, till I heard that the tumbler[4] was
+not to make his appearance that night. For my own part, I was fully
+satisfied with the sight of an actor, who, by the grace and propriety of
+his action and gesture, does honour to a human figure, as much as the
+other vilifies and degrades it. Every one will easily imagine I mean
+Signor Nicolini,[5] who sets off the character he bears in an opera by
+his action, as much as he does the words of it by his voice. Every limb,
+and every finger, contributes to the part he acts, insomuch that a deaf
+man might go along with him in the sense of it. There is scarce a
+beautiful posture in an old statue which he does not plant himself in,
+as the different circumstances of the story give occasion for it. He
+performs the most ordinary action in a manner suitable to the greatness
+of his character, and shows the prince even in the giving of a letter,
+or the despatching of a message. Our best actors are somewhat at a loss
+to support themselves with proper gesture, as they move from any
+considerable distance to the front of the stage; but I have seen the
+person of whom I am now speaking, enter alone at the remotest part of
+it, and advance from it with such greatness of air and mien, as seemed
+to fill the stage, and at the same time commanding the attention of the
+audience with the majesty of his appearance. But notwithstanding the
+dignity and elegance of this entertainment, I find for some nights past,
+that Punchinello has robbed the gentleman of the greater part of his
+female spectators. The truth of it is, I find it so very hard a task to
+keep that sex under any manner of government, that I have often resolved
+to give them over entirely, and leave them to their own inventions. I
+was in hopes that I had brought them to some order, and was employing my
+thoughts on the reformation of their petticoats, when on a sudden I
+received information from all parts, that they run gadding after a
+puppet-show. I know very well, that what I here say will be thought by
+some malicious persons to flow from envy to Mr. Powell; for which
+reason, I shall set the late dispute between us in a true light.[6] Mr.
+Powell and I had some difference about four months ago, which we managed
+by way of letter, as learned men ought to do; and I was very well
+contented to bear such sarcasms as he was pleased to throw upon me, and
+answered them with the same freedom. In the midst of this our
+misunderstanding and correspondence, I happened to give the world an
+account of the order of esquires[7]; upon which, Mr. Powell was so
+disingenuous, as to make one of his puppets (I wish I knew which of them
+it was) declare by way of prologue, that one Isaac Bickerstaff, a
+pretended esquire, had wrote a scurrilous piece to the dishonour of that
+rank of men; and then, with more art than honesty, concluded, that all
+the esquires in the pit were abused by his antagonist as much he was.
+This public accusation made all the esquires of that county, and several
+of other parts, my professed enemies. I do not in the least question but
+that he will proceed in his hostilities; and I am informed, that part of
+his design in coming up to town was to carry the war into my own
+quarters. I do therefore solemnly declare (notwithstanding that I am a
+great lover of art and ingenuity) that if I hear he opens any of his
+people's mouths against me, I shall not fail to write a critique upon
+his whole performance; for I must confess, that I have naturally so
+strong a desire of praise, that I cannot bear reproach, though from a
+piece of timber. As for Punch, who takes all opportunities of
+bespattering me, I know very well his original, and have been assured by
+the joiner who put him together, that he was in long dispute with
+himself, whether he should turn him into several pegs and utensils, or
+make him the man he is. The same person confessed to me, that he had
+once actually laid aside his head for a nutcracker. As for his scolding
+wife (however she may value herself at present), it is very well known
+that she is but a piece of crabtree. This artificer further whispered in
+my ear, that all his courtiers and nobles were taken out of a quickset
+hedge not far from Islington; and that Dr. Faustus himself, who is now
+so great a conjurer, is supposed to have learned his whole art from an
+old woman in that neighbourhood, whom he long served in the figure of a
+broomstaff.
+
+But perhaps it may look trivial to insist so much upon men's persons; I
+shall therefore turn my thoughts rather to examine their behaviour, and
+consider, whether the several parts are written up to that character
+which Mr. Powell piques himself upon, of an able and judicious
+dramatist. I have for this purpose provided myself with the works of
+above twenty French critics, and shall examine (by the rules which they
+have laid down upon the art of the stage) whether the unity of time,
+place and action, be rightly observed in any one of this celebrated
+author's productions; as also, whether in the parts of his several
+actors, and that of Punch in particular, there is not sometimes an
+impropriety of sentiments, and an impurity of diction.
+
+
+_White's Chocolate-house, January 2._
+
+I came in here to-day at an hour when only the dead appear in places of
+resort and gallantry, and saw hung up the escutcheon of Sir Hannibal,[8]
+a gentleman who used to frequent this place, and was taken up and
+interred by the Company of Upholders, as having been seen here at an
+unlicensed hour. The coat of the deceased is, three bowls and a jack in
+a green field; the crest, a dice-box, with the king of clubs and Pam for
+supporters. Some days ago the body was carried out of town with great
+pomp and ceremony, in order to be buried with his ancestors at the Peak.
+It is a maxim in morality, that we are to speak nothing but truth of the
+living, nothing but good of the dead. As I have carefully observed the
+first during his lifetime, I shall acquit myself as to the latter now he
+is deceased.
+
+He was knighted very young, not in the ordinary form, but by the common
+consent of mankind.
+
+He was in his person between round and square; in the motion and gesture
+of his body he was unaffected and free, as not having too great a
+respect for superiors. He was in his discourse bold and intrepid; and as
+every one has an excellence as well as a failing which distinguishes him
+from other men, eloquence was his predominant quality, which he had to
+so great a perfection, that it was easier to him to speak than to hold
+his tongue. This sometimes exposed him to the derision of men who had
+much less parts than himself: and indeed his great volubility and
+inimitable manner of speaking, as well as the great courage he showed on
+those occasions, did sometimes betray him into that figure of speech
+which is commonly distinguished by the name of "gasconade." To mention
+no other, he professed in this very place some few days before he died,
+that he would be one of the six that would undertake to assault me; for
+which reason I have had his figure upon my wall till the hour of his
+death: and am resolved for the future to bury every one forthwith who I
+hear has an intention to kill me.
+
+Since I am upon the subject of my adversaries, I shall here publish a
+short letter which I have received from a well-wisher, and is as
+follows:
+
+     "SAGE SIR,
+
+     "You cannot but know, there are many scribblers and others who
+     revile you and your writings. It is wondered that you do not exert
+     yourself, and crush them at once. I am,
+
+                                        "Sir (with great respect),
+                                            "Your most humble Admirer
+                                                "and Disciple."
+
+In answer to this, I shall act like my predecessor Æsop, and give him a
+fable instead of a reply.
+
+It happened one day, as a stout and honest mastiff (that guarded the
+village where he lived against thieves and robbers) was very gravely
+walking, with one of his puppies by his side, all the little dogs in the
+street gathered about him, and barked at him. The little puppy was so
+offended at this affront done to his sire, that he asked him why he
+would not fall upon them, and tear them to pieces?
+
+To which the sire answered, with a great composure of mind, "If there
+were no curs, I should be no mastiff."[9]
+
+
+[Footnote 4: See No. 108.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Cavalier Nicolini Grimaldi was a Neapolitan actor and
+singer, who appeared first in England in McSwiney's "Pyrrhus and
+Demetrius." He is often mentioned in the _Spectator_ (see Nos. 5, 13,
+405), and seems to have been a friend of both Addison and Steele.
+Addison praises him alike as an actor and as a singer. The following
+letter from Hughes to Nicolini, dated February 4, 1709-10, is given in
+Hughes' "Correspondence" (Dublin, 1773, i. 33-4): "Depuis que j'ai eu
+l'honneur d'être chez vous à la répétition de l'opéra, j'ai diné avec
+Mr. Steele, et la conversation roulante sur vous, je lui dis la manière
+obligeante dont je vous avois ou parler de Mr. Bickerstaff, en disant
+que vous aviez beaucoup d'inclination à étudier l'Anglois pour avoir
+seulement le plaisir de lire le _Tatler_. Il trouvre que votre
+compliment à l'auteur du _Tatler_ est fort galant." Nicolini sang in
+Italian to the English of Mrs. Tofts (see No. 20, and _Spectator_, No.
+22), but Cibber observes that "whatever defect the fashionably skilful
+might find in her manner, she had, in the general sense of her
+spectators, charms that few of the most learned singers ever arrive at."
+A letter from Lady Wentworth, dated December 10, 1708, gives us a
+curious glimpse of Nicolini and Mrs. Tofts: "My dearest and best of
+children ... Yesterday I had lyke to have been ketched in a trap, your
+Brother Wentworth had almoste persuaded me to have gon last night to
+hear the fyne muisick the famous Etallion sing att the rehersall of the
+Operer, which he asured me it was soe dark none could see me. Indeed
+musick was the greatest temtation I could have, but I was afraid he
+deceaved me, soe Betty only went with his wife and him; and I rejoysed I
+did not, for thear was a vast deal of company and good light--but the
+Dutchis of Molbery had gott the Etallion to sing and he sent an excuse,
+but the Dutchis of Shrosberry made him com, brought him in her coach,
+but Mrs. Taufs huft and would not sing becaus he had first put it ofe;
+though she was thear yet she would not, but went away. I wish the house
+would al joyne to humble her and not receav her again. This man out dus
+Sefachoe, they say that has hard both" ("Wentworth Papers," 1883, p.
+66). Mr. Cartwright quotes from a letter in Lord Egmont's collection,
+dated March 17, 1709: "This day the opera of 'Camilla' is acted
+expressly for Lord Marlborough. Our famous Nicolini got 800 guineas for
+his day; and 'tis thought Mrs. Tofts, whose turn it is on Tuesday next,
+will get a vast deal. She was on Sunday last at the Duke of Somerset's,
+where there was about thirty gentlemen, and every kiss was one guinea;
+some took three, others four, others five, at that rate, but none less
+than one." (Seventh Report of Hist. MSS. Commission, p. 246).]
+
+[Footnote 6: See Nos. 11, 44, 45.]
+
+[Footnote 7: See No. 19.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Sir James Baker, known as the "Knight of the Peak"; see No.
+118. Steele's comments on gambling in the _Tatler_ brought upon him the
+anger of many of the sharpers. There is a well-known story that Lord
+Forbes, Major-General Davenport, and Brigadier Bisset were in the St.
+James's Coffee-house when some well-dressed men entered, and began to
+abuse Steele as the author of the _Tatler_. One of them swore that he
+would cut Steele's throat or teach him better manners. "In this
+country," said Lord Forbes, "you will find it easier to cut a purse than
+to cut a throat"; and the cut-throats were soon turned out of the house
+with every mark of disgrace. A similar incident is described in a
+recently published letter from Lady Marow to her daughter, Lady Kaye
+("Manuscripts of the Earl of Dartmouth," iii. 148; Hist. MSS. Comm.,
+Fifteenth Report, Part I.). Writing on January 5, 1709-10, Lady Marow
+says: "All the town are full of the _Tatler_, which I hope you have to
+prepare you for discourse, for no visit is made that I hear of but Mr.
+Bickerstaff is mentioned, and I am told he has done so much good that
+the sharpers cannot increase their stocks as they did formerly; for one
+Young came into the chocolate-house, and said he would stop Mr.
+Bickerstaff if he knew him. Mr. Steele, who is thought to write the
+_Tatler_, heard Young say so, and, when he went out of the house, said
+he should walk in St. James's Park an hour, if any would speak with him;
+but the Hector took no notice."]
+
+[Footnote 9: In the original folio number, after indication of certain
+errata in No. 114, comes the following note: "The reader is desired not
+to pronounce anything in any one of these writings _nonsense_, till the
+following paper comes out."]
+
+
+
+
+No. 116.                                                    [ADDISON.
+
+From _Tuesday, Jan. 3_, to _Thursday, Jan. 5, 1709-10._
+
+    --Pars minima est ipsa puella sui.
+                        OVID, Rem. Amor. 344.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, January 4._
+
+The court being prepared for proceeding on the cause of the petticoat, I
+gave orders to bring in a criminal who was taken up as she went out of
+the puppet-show about three nights ago, and was now standing in the
+street with a great concourse of people about her. Word was brought me,
+that she had endeavoured twice or thrice to come in, but could not do it
+by reason of her petticoat, which was too large for the entrance of my
+house, though I had ordered both the folding-doors to be thrown open for
+its reception. Upon this, I desired the jury of matrons, who stood at my
+right hand, to inform themselves of her condition, and know whether
+there were any private reasons why she might not make her appearance
+separate from her petticoat. This was managed with great discretion, and
+had such an effect, that upon the return of the verdict from the bench
+of matrons, I issued out an order forthwith, that the criminal should be
+stripped of her encumbrances, till she became little enough to enter my
+house. I had before given directions for an engine of several legs, that
+could contract or open itself like the top of an umbrello,[10] in order
+to place the petticoat upon it, by which means I might take a leisurely
+survey of it, as it should appear in its proper dimensions. This was all
+done accordingly; and forthwith, upon the closing of the engine, the
+petticoat was brought into court. I then directed the machine to be set
+upon the table, and dilated in such a manner as to show the garment in
+its utmost circumference; but my great hall was too narrow for the
+experiment; for before it was half unfolded, it described so immoderate
+a circle, that the lower part of it brushed upon my face as I sate in my
+chair of judicature. I then inquired for the person that belonged to the
+petticoat; and to my great surprise, was directed to a very beautiful
+young damsel, with so pretty a face and shape, that I bid her come out
+of the crowd, and seated her upon a little crock at my left hand. "My
+pretty maid," said I, "do you own yourself to have been the inhabitant
+of the garment before us?" The girl I found had good sense, and told me
+with a smile, that notwithstanding it was her own petticoat, she should
+be very glad to see an example made of it; and that she wore it for no
+other reason, but that she had a mind to look as big and burly as other
+persons of her quality; that she had kept out of it as long as she
+could, and till she began to appear little in the eyes of all her
+acquaintance; that if she laid it aside, people would think she was not
+made like other women. I always give great allowances to the fair sex
+upon account of the fashion, and therefore was not displeased with the
+defence of my pretty criminal. I then ordered the vest which stood
+before us to be drawn up by a pulley to the top of my great hall, and
+afterwards to be spread open by the engine it was placed upon, in such a
+manner, that it formed a very splendid and ample canopy over our heads,
+and covered the whole court of judicature with a kind of silken rotunda,
+in its form not unlike the cupola of St. Paul's. I entered upon the
+whole cause with great satisfaction as I sat under the shadow of it.
+
+The counsel for the petticoat was now called in, and ordered to produce
+what they had to say against the popular cry which was raised against
+it. They answered the objections with great strength and solidity of
+argument, and expatiated in very florid harangues, which they did not
+fail to set off and furbelow (if I may be allowed the metaphor) with
+many periodical sentences and turns of oratory. The chief arguments for
+their client were taken, first, from the great benefit that might arise
+to our woollen manufactury from this invention, which was calculated as
+follows: the common petticoat has not above four yards in the
+circumference; whereas this over our heads had more in the
+semi-diameter; so that by allowing it twenty-four yards in the
+circumference, the five millions of woollen petticoats, which (according
+to Sir William Petty) supposing what ought to be supposed in a
+well-governed state, that all petticoats are made of that stuff, would
+amount to thirty millions of those of the ancient mode. A prodigious
+improvement of the woollen trade! and what could not fail to sink the
+power of France in a few years.
+
+To introduce the second argument, they begged leave to read a petition
+of the ropemakers, wherein it was represented, that the demand for
+cords, and the price of them, were much risen since this fashion came
+up. At this, all the company who were present lifted up their eyes into
+the vault; and I must confess, we did discover many traces of cordage
+which were interwoven in the stiffening of the drapery.
+
+A third argument was founded upon a petition of the Greenland trade,
+which likewise represented the great consumption of whalebone which
+would be occasioned by the present fashion, and the benefit which would
+thereby accrue to that branch of the British trade.
+
+To conclude, they gently touched upon the weight and unwieldiness of the
+garment, which they insinuated might be of great use to preserve the
+honour of families.
+
+These arguments would have wrought very much upon me (as I then told the
+company in a long and elaborate discourse) had I not considered the
+great and additional expense which such fashions would bring upon
+fathers and husbands; and therefore by no means to be thought of till
+some years after a peace. I further urged, that it would be a prejudice
+to the ladies themselves, who could never expect to have any money in
+the pocket, if they laid out so much on the petticoat. To this I added,
+the great temptation it might give to virgins, of acting in security
+like married women, and by that means give a check to matrimony, an
+institution always encouraged by wise societies.
+
+At the same time, in answer to the several petitions produced on that
+side, I showed one subscribed by the women of several persons of
+quality, humbly setting forth, that since the introduction of this mode,
+their respective ladies had, instead of bestowing on them their cast
+gowns, cut them into shreds, and mixed them with the cordage and
+buckram, to complete the stiffening of their under-petticoats. For
+which, and sundry other reasons, I pronounced the petticoat a
+forfeiture: but to show that I did not make that judgment for the sake
+of filthy lucre, I ordered it to be folded up, and sent it as a present
+to a widow gentlewoman, who has five daughters, desiring she would make
+each of them a petticoat out of it, and send me back the remainder,
+which I design to cut into stomachers, caps, facings of my waistcoat
+sleeves, and other garnitures suitable to my age and quality.
+
+I would not be understood, that, while I discard this monstrous
+invention, I am an enemy to the proper ornaments of the fair sex. On
+the contrary, as the hand of nature has poured on them such a profusion
+of charms and graces, and sent them into the world more amiable and
+finished than the rest of her works; so I would have them bestow upon
+themselves all the additional beauties that art can supply them with,
+provided it does not interfere with, disguise, or pervert, those of
+nature.
+
+I consider woman as a beautiful romantic animal, that may be adorned
+with furs and feathers, pearls and diamonds, ores and silks. The lynx
+shall cast its skin at her feet to make her a tippet; the peacock,
+parrot, and swan, shall pay contributions to her muff; the sea shall be
+searched for shells, and the rocks for gems; and every part of nature
+furnish out its share towards the embellishment of a creature that is
+the most consummate work of it. All this I shall indulge them in; but as
+for the petticoat I have been speaking of, I neither can, nor will allow
+it.
+
+
+[Footnote 10: Swift uses this form of the word: "It served him for a
+nightcap when he went to bed, and for an umbrello in rainy whether."]
+
+
+
+
+No. 117.                                                    [ADDISON.
+
+From _Thursday, Jan. 5_, to _Saturday, Jan. 7, 1709-10_.
+
+Durate, et vosmet rebus servate secundis.
+                           VIRG., Æn. i. 207.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, January 6._
+
+When I look into the frame and constitution of my own mind, there is no
+part of it which I observe with greater satisfaction, than that
+tenderness and concern which it bears for the good and happiness of
+mankind. My own circumstances are indeed so narrow and scanty, that I
+should taste but very little pleasure, could I receive it only from
+those enjoyments which are in my own possession; but by this great
+tincture of humanity, which I find in all my thoughts and reflections,
+I am happier than any single person can be, with all the wealth,
+strength, beauty, and success, that can be conferred upon a mortal, if
+he only relishes such a proportion of these blessings as is vested in
+himself, and is his own private property. By this means, every man that
+does himself any real service, does me a kindness. I come in for my
+share in all the good that happens to a man of merit and virtue, and
+partake of many gifts of fortune and power that I was never born to.
+There is nothing in particular in which I so much rejoice, as the
+deliverance of good and generous spirits out of dangers, difficulties,
+and distresses. And because the world does not supply instances of this
+kind to furnish out sufficient entertainments for such a humanity and
+benevolence of temper, I have ever delighted in reading the history of
+ages past, which draws together into a narrow compass the great
+occurrences and events that are but thinly sown in those tracts of time
+which lie within our own knowledge and observation. When I see the life
+of a great man, who has deserved well of his country, after having
+struggled through all the oppositions of prejudice and envy, breaking
+out with lustre, and shining forth in all the splendour of success, I
+close my book, and am a happy man for a whole evening.
+
+But since in history events are of a mixed nature, and often happen
+alike to the worthless and the deserving, insomuch that we frequently
+see a virtuous man dying in the midst of disappointments and calamities,
+and the vicious ending their days in prosperity and peace, I love to
+amuse myself with the accounts I meet with in fabulous histories and
+fictions: for in this kind of writings we have always the pleasure of
+seeing vice punished, and virtue rewarded. Indeed, were we able to view
+a man in the whole circle of his existence, we should have the
+satisfaction of seeing it close with happiness or misery, according to
+his proper merit: but though our view of him is interrupted by death
+before the finishing of his adventures (if I may so speak), we may be
+sure that the conclusion and catastrophe is altogether suitable to his
+behaviour. On the contrary, the whole being of a man, considered as a
+hero, or a knight-errant, is comprehended within the limits of a poem or
+romance, and therefore always ends to our satisfaction; so that
+inventions of this kind are like food and exercise to a good-natured
+disposition, which they please and gratify at the same time that they
+nourish and strengthen. The greater the affliction is in which we see
+our favourites in these relations engaged, the greater is the pleasure
+we take in seeing them relieved.
+
+Among the many feigned histories which I have met with in my reading,
+there is none in which the hero's perplexity is greater, and the winding
+out of it more difficult, than that in a French author whose name I have
+forgot. It so happens, that the hero's mistress was the sister of his
+most intimate friend, who for certain reasons was given out to be dead,
+while he was preparing to leave his country in quest of adventures. The
+hero having heard of his friend's death, immediately repaired to his
+mistress, to condole with her, and comfort her. Upon his arrival in her
+garden, he discovered at a distance a man clasped in her arms, and
+embraced with the most endearing tenderness. What should he do? It did
+not consist with the gentleness of a knight-errant either to kill his
+mistress, or the man whom she was pleased to favour. At the same time,
+it would have spoiled a romance, should he have laid violent hands on
+himself. In short, he immediately entered upon his adventures; and after
+a long series of exploits, found out by degrees, that the person he saw
+in his mistress's arms was her own brother, taking leave of her before
+he left his country, and the embrace she gave him nothing else but the
+affectionate farewell of a sister: so that he had at once the two
+greatest satisfactions that could enter into the heart of man, in
+finding his friend alive, whom he thought dead; and his mistress
+faithful, whom he had believed inconstant.
+
+There are indeed some disasters so very fatal, that it is impossible for
+any accidents to rectify them. Of this kind was that of poor Lucretia;
+and yet we see Ovid has found an expedient even in this case. He
+describes a beautiful and royal virgin walking on the seashore, where
+she was discovered by Neptune, and violated after a long and
+unsuccessful importunity. To mitigate her sorrow, he offers her whatever
+she would wish for. Never certainly was the wit of woman more puzzled in
+finding out a stratagem to retrieve her honour. Had she desired to be
+changed into a stock or stone, a beast, fish or fowl, she would have
+been a loser by it: or had she desired to have been made a sea-nymph, or
+a goddess, her immortality would but have perpetuated her disgrace.
+"Give me therefore," said she, "such a shape as may make me incapable of
+suffering again the like calamity, or of being reproached for what I
+have already suffered." To be short, she was turned into a man, and by
+that only means avoided the danger and imputation she so much dreaded.
+
+I was once myself in agonies of grief that are unutterable, and in so
+great a distraction of mind, that I thought myself even out of the
+possibility of receiving comfort. The occasion was as follows: When I
+was a youth in a part of the army which was then quartered at Dover, I
+fell in love with an agreeable young woman, of a good family in those
+parts, and had the satisfaction of seeing my addresses kindly received,
+which occasioned the perplexity I am going to relate.
+
+We were in a calm evening diverting ourselves upon the top of the cliff
+with the prospect of the sea, and trifling away the time in such little
+fondnesses as are most ridiculous to people in business, and most
+agreeable to those in love.
+
+In the midst of these our innocent endearments, she snatched a paper of
+verses out of my hand, and ran away with them. I was following her, when
+on a sudden the ground, though at a considerable distance from the verge
+of the precipice, sank under her, and threw her down from so prodigious
+a height upon such a range of rocks, as would have dashed her into ten
+thousand pieces, had her body been made of adamant. It is much easier
+for my reader to imagine my state of mind upon such an occasion, than
+for me to express it. I said to myself, "It is not in the power of
+heaven to relieve me!" when I awoke, equally transported and astonished,
+to see myself drawn out of an affliction which the very moment before
+appeared to me altogether inextricable.
+
+The impressions of grief and horror were so lively on this occasion,
+that while they lasted, they made me more miserable than I was at the
+real death of this beloved person (which happened a few months after, at
+a time when the match between us was concluded), inasmuch as the
+imaginary death was untimely, and I myself in a sort an accessory;
+whereas her real decease had at least these alleviations, of being
+natural and inevitable.
+
+The memory of the dream I have related still dwells so strongly upon me,
+that I can never read the description of Dover Cliff in Shakespeare's
+tragedy of "King Lear,"[11] without a fresh sense of my escape. The
+prospect from that place is drawn with such proper incidents, that
+whoever can read it without growing giddy, must have a good head, or a
+very bad one.
+
+    "_Come on, sir, here's the place; stand still! How fearful
+    And dizzy 'tis to cast one's eyes so low?
+    The crows and choughs that wing the midway air,
+    Show scarce as gross as beetles. Half-way down
+    Hangs one that gathers samphire. Dreadful trade!
+    Methinks he seems no bigger than his head.
+    The fishermen that walk upon the beach,
+    Appear like mice, and yond' tall anchoring bark
+    Diminished to her boat;[12] her boat![12] a buoy
+    Almost too small for sight. The murmuring surge
+    (That on the unnumbered idle pebble beats)
+    Cannot be heard so high. I'll look no more,
+    Lest my brain turn._"[13]
+
+
+[Footnote 11: "King Lear," act iv. sc. 6.]
+
+[Footnote 12: Altered from Shakespeare's "cock."]
+
+[Footnote 13: "The parcel of letters, value 10_s._ 3_d._, with the
+subsequent letter, is received, for which Mr. Bickerstaff gives his
+thanks and humble service" (folio).]
+
+
+
+
+No. 118.                                                 [STEELE.[14]
+
+From _Saturday, Jan. 7_, to _Tuesday, Jan. 10, 1709-10_.
+
+    Lusisti satis, edisti satis atque bibisti;
+    Tempus abire tibi....--HOR., 2 Ep. ii. 214.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, January 8._
+
+I thought to have given over my prosecution of the dead for this season,
+having by me many other projects for the reformation of mankind; but I
+have received so many complaints from such different hands, that I shall
+disoblige multitudes of my correspondents, if I do not take notice of
+them. Some of the deceased, who I thought had been laid quietly in their
+graves, are such hobgoblins in public assemblies, that I must be forced
+to deal with them as Evander did with his triple-lived adversary, who,
+according to Virgil, was forced to kill him thrice over before he could
+despatch him.
+
+    "_Ter leto sternendus erat._"[15]
+
+I am likewise informed, that several wives of my dead men have, since
+the decease of their husbands, been seen in many public places without
+mourning, or regard to common decency.
+
+I am further advised, that several of the defunct, contrary to the
+Woollen Act,[16] presume to dress themselves in lace, embroidery, silks,
+muslins, and other ornaments forbidden to persons in their condition.
+These and other the like informations moving me thereunto, I must
+desire, for distinction-sake, and to conclude this subject for ever,
+that when any of these posthumous persons appear, or are spoken of,
+their wives may be called "widows"; their houses, "sepulchres"; their
+chariots, "hearses"; and their garments, "flannel": on which condition,
+they shall be allowed all the conveniences that dead men can in reason
+desire.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As I was writing this morning on this subject, I received the following
+letter:
+
+     "MR. BICKERSTAFF,                      _From the Banks of Styx_.
+
+     "I must confess I treated you very scurrilously when you first sent
+     me hither; but you have despatched such multitudes after me to keep
+     me in countenance, that I am very well reconciled both to you and
+     my condition. We live very lovingly together; for as death makes
+     us all equal, it makes us very much delight in one another's
+     company. Our time passes away much after the same manner as it did
+     when we were among you: eating, drinking, and sleeping, are our
+     chief diversions. Our quidnuncs between whiles go to a
+     coffee-house, where they have several warm liquors made of the
+     waters of Lethe, with very good poppy tea. We that are the
+     sprightly geniuses of the place, refresh ourselves frequently with
+     a bottle of mum,[17] and tell stories till we fall asleep. You
+     would do well to send among us Mr. Dodwell's[18] book against the
+     immortality of the soul, which would be of great consolation to our
+     whole fraternity, who would be very glad to find that they are dead
+     for good and all, and would in particular make me rest for ever,
+
+                                                "Yours,
+                                                     "JOHN PARTRIDGE.
+
+     "P.S.--Sir James[19] is just arrived here in good health."
+
+The foregoing letter was the more pleasing to me, because I perceive
+some little symptoms in it of a resuscitation; and having lately seen
+the predictions of this author, which are written in a true Protestant
+spirit of prophecy, and a particular zeal against the French king, I
+have some thoughts of sending for him from the Banks of Styx, and
+reinstating him in his own house, at the sign of the Globe in Salisbury
+Street. For the encouragement of him and others, I shall offer to their
+consideration a letter which gives me an account of the revival of one
+of their brethren:
+
+     "SIR,                                             _December 31._
+
+     "I have perused your _Tatler_ of this day,[20] and have wept over
+     it with great pleasure: I wish you would be more frequent in your
+     family pieces. For as I consider you under the notion of a great
+     designer, I think these are not your least valuable performances. I
+     am glad to find you have given over your face painting for some
+     time, because, I think, you have employed yourself more in
+     grotesque figures, than in beauties; for which reason, I would
+     rather see you work upon history pieces, than on single portraits.
+     Your several draughts of dead men appear to me as pictures of still
+     life, and have done great good in the place where I live. The
+     squire of a neighbouring village, who had been a long time in the
+     number of nonentities, is entirely recovered by them. For these
+     several years past, there was not a hare in the county that could
+     be at rest for him; and I think, the greatest exploit he ever
+     boasted of, was, that when he was high sheriff of the county, he
+     hunted a fox so far, that he could not follow him any farther by
+     the laws of the land. All the hours he spent at home, were in
+     swilling[21] himself with October, and rehearsing the wonders he
+     did in the field. Upon reading your papers, he has sold his dogs,
+     shook off his dead companions, looked into his estate, got the
+     multiplication table by heart, paid his tithes, and intends to take
+     upon him the office of churchwarden next year. I wish the same
+     success with your other patients, and am, &c."
+
+     _Ditto, January 9._
+
+When I came home this evening, a very tight middle-aged woman presented
+to me the following petition:
+
+     "_To the Worshipful Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq., Censor of Great
+     Britain._
+
+     "The humble petition of Penelope Prim, widow;
+
+     "Sheweth,
+
+     "That your petitioner was bred a clear-starcher and sempstress, and
+     for many years worked to the Exchange; and to several aldermen's
+     wives, lawyers' clerks, and merchants' apprentices.
+
+     "That through the scarcity caused by regraters of bread-corn (of
+     which starch is made) and the gentry's immoderate frequenting the
+     operas, the ladies, to save charges, have their heads washed at
+     home, and the beaus put out their linen to common laundresses, so
+     that your petitioner hath little or no work at her trade: for want
+     of which she is reduced to such necessity, that she and her seven
+     fatherless children must inevitably perish, unless relieved by your
+     worship.
+
+     "That your petitioner is informed, that in contempt of your
+     judgment pronounced on Tuesday the third instant against the
+     new-fashioned petticoat, or old-fashioned farthingale,[22] the
+     ladies design to go on in that dress. And since it is presumed your
+     worship will not suppress them by force, your petitioner humbly
+     desires you would order, that ruffs may be added to the dress; and
+     that she may be heard by her counsel, who has assured your
+     petitioner, he has such cogent reasons to offer to your court, that
+     ruffs and farthingales are inseparable; and that he questions not
+     but two-thirds of the greatest beauties about town will have
+     cambric collars on their necks before the end of Easter Term next.
+     He further says, that the design of our great-grandmothers in this
+     petticoat, was to appear much bigger than the life; for which
+     reason, they had false shoulder-blades, like wings, and the ruff
+     above mentioned, to make their upper and lower parts of their
+     bodies appear proportionable; whereas the figure of a woman in the
+     present dress, bears (as he calls it) the figure of a cone, which
+     (as he advises) is the same with that of an extinguisher, with a
+     little knob at the upper end, and widening downward, till it ends
+     in a basis of a most enormous circumference.
+
+     "Your petitioner therefore most humbly prays, that you would
+     restore the ruff to the farthingale, which in their nature ought to
+     be as inseparable as the two Hungarian twins.[23]
+
+                               "And your Petitioner shall ever pray."
+
+I have examined into the allegations of this petition, and find, by
+several ancient pictures of my own predecessors, particularly that of
+Dame Deborah Bickerstaff, my great-grandmother, that the ruff and
+farthingale are made use of as absolutely necessary to preserve the
+symmetry of the figure; and Mrs. Pyramid Bickerstaff, her second sister,
+is recorded in our family-book, with some observations to her
+disadvantage, as the first female of our house that discovered, to any
+besides her nurse and her husband, an inch below her chin or above her
+instep. This convinces me of the reasonableness of Mrs. Prim's demand;
+and therefore I shall not allow the reviving of any one part of that
+ancient mode, except the whole is complied with. Mrs. Prim is therefore
+hereby empowered to carry home ruffs to such as she shall see in the
+above-mentioned petticoats, and require payment on demand.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. Bickerstaff has under consideration the offer from the Corporation
+of Colchester of four hundred pounds per annum, to be paid quarterly,
+provided that all his dead persons shall be obliged to wear the baize of
+that place.
+
+
+[Footnote 14: Nichols suggests that Addison was at least partly
+responsible for this paper.]
+
+[Footnote 15: "Æneid," viii. 566.]
+
+[Footnote 16: The Act "for burying in wool" (30 Charles II. cap. 3) was
+intended to protect homespun goods. Sometimes a fine was paid for
+allowing a person of position to be "buried in linen, contrary to the
+Act of Parliament." The widow in Steele's "Funeral" (act v. sc. 2) says:
+"Take care I ain't buried in flannel; 'twould never become me, I'm
+sure." See, too, Pope's "Moral Essays," i. 246:
+
+    "'Odious! in woollen! 'twould a saint provoke,'
+    Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke."
+]
+
+[Footnote 17: Ale brewed with wheat. John Philips ("Cyder," ii. 231)
+speaks of "bowls of fattening mum."]
+
+[Footnote 18: Henry Dodwell, the nonjuror, died in 1711, in his
+seventieth year. He tried to prove that immortality was conferred on the
+soul only at baptism, by the gift of God, through the hands of the
+ordained clergy. The title of the book alluded to is "An Epistolary
+Discourse concerning the Soul's Immortality."]
+
+[Footnote 19: Sir James Baker. See No. 115.]
+
+[Footnote 20: No. 114.]
+
+[Footnote 21: The original editions read "swelling."]
+
+[Footnote 22: See No. 116.]
+
+[Footnote 23: Helen and Judith, two united twin-sisters, were born at
+Tzoni, in Hungary, October 26, 1701; lived to the age of twenty-one, and
+died in a convent at Petersburg, February 23, 1723. The mother, it is
+said, survived their birth, bore another child afterwards, and was alive
+when her singular twins were shown here, at a house in the Strand, near
+Charing Cross, in 1708. The writers of a periodical publication at that
+time seem to have examined them carefully, with a view to enable
+themselves to answer the many questions of their correspondents
+concerning them. See "The British Apollo," vol. i, Nos. 35, 36, 37, &c.
+(1708), and the Royal Society's "Phil. Transact." vol. I. part 1, for
+the year 1757, art. 39. Nothing more can be well said of the Hungarian
+twins here, but that they were well shaped, had beautiful faces, and
+loved each other tenderly; they could read, write, and sing very
+prettily; they spoke the Hungarian, High and Low Dutch, and French
+languages, and learnt English when they were in this country (Nichols).]
+
+
+
+
+No. 119.                                                    [ADDISON.
+
+From _Tuesday, Jan. 10_, to _Thursday, Jan. 12, 1709-10_.
+
+    In tenui labor.--VIRG., Georg. iv. 6.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, January 11._
+
+I have lately applied myself with much satisfaction to the curious
+discoveries that have been made by the help of microscopes, as they are
+related by authors of our own and other nations. There is a great deal
+of pleasure in prying into this world of wonders, which Nature has laid
+out of sight, and seems industrious to conceal from us. Philosophy had
+ranged over all the visible creation, and began to want objects for her
+inquiries, when the present age, by the invention of glasses, opened a
+new and inexhaustible magazine of rarities, more wonderful and amazing
+than any of those which astonished our forefathers. I was yesterday
+amusing myself with speculations of this kind, and reflecting upon
+myriads of animals that swim in those little seas of juices that are
+contained in the several vessels of a human body. While my mind was thus
+filled with that secret wonder and delight, I could not but look upon
+myself as in an act of devotion, and am very well pleased with the
+thought of the great heathen anatomist,[24] who calls his description of
+the parts of a human body, "A Hymn to the Supreme Being." The reading of
+the day produced in my imagination an agreeable morning's dream, if I
+may call it such; for I am still in doubt, whether it passed in my
+sleeping or waking thoughts. However it was, I fancied that my good
+genius stood at my bed's head, and entertained me with the following
+discourse; for upon my rising, it dwelt so strongly upon me, that I
+wrote down the substance of it, if not the very words.
+
+"If," said he, "you can be so transported with those productions of
+nature which are discovered to you by those artificial eyes that are the
+works of human invention, how great will your surprise be, when you
+shall have it in your power to model your own eye as you please, and
+adapt it to the bulk of objects, which, with all these helps, are by
+infinite degrees too minute for your perception. We who are unbodied
+spirits can sharpen our sight to what degree we think fit, and make the
+least work of the creation distinct and visible. This gives us such
+ideas as cannot possibly enter into your present conceptions. There is
+not the least particle of matter which may not furnish one of us
+sufficient employment for a whole eternity. We can still divide it, and
+still open it, and still discover new wonders of Providence, as we look
+into the different texture of its parts, and meet with beds of
+vegetables, mineral and metallic mixtures, and several kinds of animals
+that lie hid, and as it were lost in such an endless fund of matter. I
+find you are surprised at this discourse; but as your reason tells you
+there are infinite parts in the smallest portion of matter, it will
+likewise convince you, that there is as great a variety of secrets, and
+as much room for discoveries, in a particle no bigger than the point of
+a pin, as in the globe of the whole earth. Your microscopes bring to
+sight shoals of living creatures in a spoonful of vinegar; but we who
+can distinguish them in their different magnitudes, see among them
+several huge leviathans, that terrify the little fry of animals about
+them, and take their pastime as in an ocean, or the great deep." I could
+not but smile at this part of his relation, and told him, I doubted not
+but he could give me the history of several invisible giants,
+accompanied with their respective dwarfs, in case that any of these
+little beings are of a human shape. "You may assure yourself," said he,
+"that we see in these little animals different natures, instincts and
+modes of life, which correspond to what you observe in creatures of
+bigger dimensions. We descry millions of species subsisted on a green
+leaf, which your glasses represent only in crowds and swarms. What
+appears to your eye but as hair or down rising on the surface of it, we
+find to be woods and forests, inhabited by beasts of prey, that are as
+dreadful in those their little haunts, as lions and tigers in the
+deserts of Libya." I was much delighted with his discourse, and could
+not forbear telling him, that I should be wonderfully pleased to see a
+natural history of imperceptibles, containing a true account of such
+vegetables and animals as grow and live out of sight. "Such
+disquisitions," answered he, "are very suitable to reasonable creatures;
+and you may be sure, there are many curious spirits amongst us who
+employ themselves in such amusements. For as our hands, and all our
+senses, may be formed to what degree of strength and delicacy we please,
+in the same manner as our sight, we can make what experiments we are
+inclined to, how small soever the matter be in which we make them. I
+have been present at the dissection of a mite, and have seen the
+skeleton of a flea. I have been shown a forest of numberless trees,
+which has been picked out of an acorn. Your microscope can show you in
+it a complete oak in miniature; and could you suit all your organs as we
+do, you might pluck an acorn from this little oak, which contains
+another tree; and so proceed from tree to tree, as long as you would
+think fit to continue your disquisitions. It is almost impossible,"
+added he, "to talk of things so remote from common life, and the
+ordinary notions which mankind receive from blunt and gross organs of
+sense, without appearing extravagant and ridiculous. You have often seen
+a dog opened, to observe the circulation of the blood, or make any other
+useful inquiry; and yet would be tempted to laugh if I should tell you,
+that a circle of much greater philosophers than any of the Royal
+Society, were present at the cutting up of one of those little animals
+which we find in the blue of a plum: that it was tied down alive before
+them; and that they observed the palpitations of the heart, the course
+of the blood, the working of the muscles, and the convulsions in the
+several limbs, with great accuracy and improvement." "I must confess,"
+said I, "for my own part, I go along with you in all your discoveries
+with great pleasure; but it is certain, they are too fine for the gross
+of mankind, who are more struck with the description of everything that
+is great and bulky. Accordingly we find the best judge of human nature
+setting forth his wisdom, not in the formation of these minute animals
+(though indeed no less wonderful than the other) but in that of the
+leviathan and behemoth, the horse and the crocodile."[25] "Your
+observation," said he, "is very just; and I must acknowledge for my own
+part, that although it is with much delight that I see the traces of
+Providence in these instances, I still take greater pleasure in
+considering the works of the creation in their immensity, than in their
+minuteness. For this reason, I rejoice when I strengthen my sight so as
+to make it pierce into the most remote spaces, and take a view of those
+heavenly bodies which lie out of the reach of human eyes, though
+assisted by telescopes. What you look upon as one confused white in the
+Milky Way, appears to me a long tract of heavens, distinguished by stars
+that are ranged in proper figures and constellations. While you are
+admiring the sky in a starry night, I am entertained with a variety of
+worlds and suns placed one above another, and rising up to such an
+immense distance, that no created eye can see an end of them."
+
+The latter part of his discourse flung me into such an astonishment,
+that he had been silent for some time before I took notice of it; when
+on a sudden I started up and drew my curtains, to look if any one was
+near me, but saw nobody, and cannot tell to this moment whether it was
+my good genius or a dream that left me.
+
+
+[Footnote 24: Galen, "De Usu Partium."]
+
+[Footnote 25: See Job, chaps. 39-41.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 120.                                                    [ADDISON.
+
+From _Thursday, Jan. 12_, to _Saturday, Jan. 14, 1709-10_.
+
+    ----Velut silvis, ubi passim
+    Palantes error certo de tramite pellit;
+    Ille sinistrorsum, hic dextrorsum abit.
+                                  HOR., 2 Sat. iii. 48.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, January 13._
+
+Instead of considering any particular passion or character in any one
+set of men, my thoughts were last night employed on the contemplation of
+human life in general; and truly it appears to me, that the whole
+species are hurried on by the same desires, and engaged in the same
+pursuits, according to the different stages and divisions of life. Youth
+is devoted to lust, middle age to ambition, old age to avarice. These
+are the three general motives and principles of action both in good and
+bad men; though it must be acknowledged, that they change their names,
+and resign their natures, according to the temper of the person whom
+they direct and animate. For with the good, lust becomes virtuous love;
+ambition, true honour; and avarice, the care of posterity. This scheme
+of thought amused me very agreeably till I retired to rest, and
+afterwards formed itself into a pleasing and regular vision, which I
+shall describe in all its circumstances, as the objects presented
+themselves, whether in a serious or ridiculous manner.
+
+I dreamed that I was in a wood, of so prodigious an extent, and cut into
+such a variety of walks and alleys, that all mankind were lost and
+bewildered in it. After having wandered up and down some time, I came
+into the centre of it, which opened into a wide plain, that was filled
+with multitudes of both sexes. I here discovered three great roads, very
+wide and long, that led into three different parts of the forest. On a
+sudden, the whole multitude broke into three parts, according to their
+different ages, and marched in their respective bodies into the three
+great roads that lay before them. As I had a mind to know how each of
+these roads terminated, and whither it would lead those who passed
+through them, I joined myself with the assembly that were in the flower
+and vigour of their age, and called themselves, "The Band of Lovers." I
+found to my great surprise, that several old men besides myself had
+intruded into this agreeable company; as I had before observed, there
+were some young men who had united themselves to the Band of Misers, and
+were walking up the path of avarice; though both made a very ridiculous
+figure, and were as much laughed at by those they joined, as by those
+they forsook. The walk which we marched up, for thickness of shades,
+embroidery of flowers, and melody of birds, with the distant purling of
+streams, and falls of water, was so wonderfully delightful, that it
+charmed our senses, and intoxicated our minds with pleasure. We had not
+been long here, before every man singled out some woman to whom he
+offered his addresses and professed himself a lover; when on a sudden we
+perceived this delicious walk to grow more narrow as we advanced in it,
+till it ended in many intricate thickets, mazes and labyrinths, that
+were so mixed with roses and brambles, brakes of thorns, and beds of
+flowers, rocky paths and pleasing grottoes, that it was hard to say,
+whether it gave greater delight or perplexity to those who travelled in
+it.
+
+It was here that the lovers began to be eager in their pursuits. Some of
+their mistresses, who only seemed to retire for the sake of form and
+decency, led them into plantations that were disposed into regular
+walks; where, after they had wheeled about in some turns and windings,
+they suffered themselves to be overtaken, and gave their hands to those
+who pursued them. Others withdrew from their followers into little
+wildernesses, where there were so many paths interwoven with each other
+in so much confusion and irregularity, that several of the lovers
+quitted the pursuit, or broke their hearts in the chase. It was
+sometimes very odd to see a man pursuing a fine woman that was following
+another, whose eye was fixed upon a fourth, that had her own game in
+view in some other quarter of the wilderness. I could not but observe
+two things in this place which I thought very particular, that several
+persons who stood only at the end of the avenues, and cast a careless
+eye upon the nymphs during their whole flight, often caught them, when
+those who pressed them the most warmly through all their turns and
+doubles, were wholly unsuccessful: and that some of my own age, who were
+at first looked upon with aversion and contempt, by being well
+acquainted with the wilderness, and by dodging their women in the
+particular corners and alleys of it, caught them in their arms, and took
+them from those they really loved and admired. There was a particular
+grove, which was called, "The Labyrinth of Coquettes"; where many were
+enticed to the chase, but few returned with purchase. It was pleasant
+enough to see a celebrated beauty, by smiling upon one, casting a glance
+upon another, beckoning to a third, and adapting her charms and graces
+to the several follies of those that admired her, drawing into the
+labyrinth a whole pack of lovers, that lost themselves in the maze, and
+never could find their way out of it. However, it was some satisfaction
+to me, to see many of the fair ones who had thus deluded their
+followers, and left them among the intricacies of the labyrinth, obliged
+when they came out of it, to surrender to the first partner that
+offered himself. I now had crossed over all the difficult and perplexed
+passages that seemed to bound our walk, when on the other side of them,
+I saw the same great road running on a little way, till it was
+terminated by two beautiful temples. I stood here for some time, and saw
+most of the multitude who had been dispersed amongst the thickets,
+coming out two by two, and marching up in pairs towards the temples that
+stood before us. The structure on the right hand was (as I afterwards
+found) consecrated to virtuous love, and could not be entered but by
+such as received a ring, or some other token, from a person who was
+placed as a guard at the gate of it. He wore a garland of roses and
+myrtles on his head, and on his shoulders a robe like an imperial
+mantle, white and unspotted all over, excepting only, that where it was
+clasped at his breast, there were two golden turtle-doves that buttoned
+it by their bills, which were wrought in rubies. He was called by the
+name of Hymen, and was seated near the entrance of the temple, in a
+delicious bower, made up of several trees, that were embraced by
+woodbines, jessamines, and amaranths, which were as so many emblems of
+marriage, and ornaments to the trunks that supported them. As I was
+single and unaccompanied, I was not permitted to enter the temple, and
+for that reason am a stranger to all the mysteries that were performed
+in it. I had however the curiosity to observe how the several couples
+that entered were disposed of; which was after the following manner.
+There were two great gates on the back side of the edifice, at which the
+whole crowd was let out. At one of these gates were two women, extremely
+beautiful, though in a different kind, the one having a very careful and
+composed air, the other a sort of smile and ineffable sweetness in her
+countenance. The name of the first was Discretion, and of the other
+Complacency, All who came out of this gate, and put themselves under the
+direction of these two sisters, were immediately conducted by them into
+gardens, groves, and meadows, which abounded in delights, and were
+furnished with everything that could make them the proper seats of
+happiness. The second gate of this temple let out all the couples that
+were unhappily married, who came out linked together by chains, which
+each of them strove to break, but could not. Several of these were such
+as had never been acquainted with each other before they met in the
+great walk, or had been too well acquainted in the thicket. The entrance
+to this gate was possessed by three sisters, who joined themselves with
+these wretches, and occasioned most of their miseries. The youngest of
+the sisters was known by the name of Levity, who with the innocence of a
+virgin, had the dress and behaviour of a harlot. The name of the second
+was Contention, who bore on her right arm a muff made of the skin of a
+porcupine; and on her left carried a little lap-dog, that barked and
+snapped at every one that passed by her.
+
+The eldest of the sisters, who seemed to have a haughty and imperious
+air, was always accompanied with a tawny Cupid, who generally marched
+before her with a little mace on his shoulder, the end of which was
+fashioned into the horns of a stag. Her garments were yellow, and her
+complexion pale. Her eyes were piercing, but had odd casts in them, and
+that particular distemper, which makes persons who are troubled with it,
+see objects double. Upon inquiry, I was informed that her name was
+Jealousy.
+
+Having finished my observations upon this temple, and its votaries, I
+repaired to that which stood on the left hand, and was called, "The
+Temple of Lust." The front of it was raised on Corinthian pillars, with
+all the meretricious ornaments that accompany that order; whereas that
+of the other was composed of the chaste and matronlike Ionic. The sides
+of it were adorned with several grotesque figures of goats, sparrows,
+heathen gods, satyrs, and monsters made up of half-man half-beast. The
+gates were unguarded, and open to all that had a mind to enter. Upon my
+going in, I found the windows were blinded, and let in only a kind of
+twilight, that served to discover a prodigious number of dark corners
+and apartments, into which the whole temple was divided. I was here
+stunned with a mixed noise of clamour and jollity: on one side of me, I
+heard singing and dancing; on the other, brawls and clashing of swords.
+In short, I was so little pleased with the place, that I was going out
+of it; but found I could not return by the gate where I entered, which
+was barred against all that were come in, with bolts of iron, and locks
+of adamant. There was no going back from this temple through the paths
+of pleasure which led to it: all who passed through the ceremonies of
+the place, went out at an iron wicket, which was kept by a dreadful
+giant called Remorse, that held a scourge of scorpions in his hand, and
+drove them into the only outlet from that temple. This was a passage so
+rugged, so uneven, and choked with so many thorns and briars, that it
+was a melancholy spectacle to behold the pains and difficulties which
+both sexes suffered who walked through it. The men, though in the prime
+of their youth, appeared weak and enfeebled with old age: the women
+wrung their hands, and tore their hair; and several lost their limbs
+before they could extricate themselves out of the perplexities of the
+path in which they were engaged. The remaining part of this vision, and
+the adventures I met with in the two great roads of ambition and
+avarice, must be the subject of another paper.
+
+
+ADVERTISEMENT.
+
+I have this morning received the following letter from the famous Mr.
+Thomas Doggett:[26]
+
+     "SIR,
+
+     "On Monday next will be acted for my benefit, the comedy of 'Love
+     for Love': if you will do me the honour to appear there, I will
+     publish on the bills, that it is to be performed at the request of
+     Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq.; and question not but it will bring me as
+     great an audience, as ever was at the house since the Morocco
+     ambassador was there.[27] I am, (with the greatest respect)
+
+                                       "Your most obedient and
+                                            "Most humble Servant,
+                                                    "THOMAS DOGGETT."
+
+Being naturally an encourager of wit, as well as bound to it in the
+quality of censor, I returned the following answer:
+
+     "MR. DOGGETT,
+
+     "I am very well pleased with the choice you have made of so
+     excellent a play, and have always looked upon you as the best of
+     comedians; I shall therefore come in between the first and second
+     act, and remain in the right-hand box over the pit till the end of
+     the fourth, provided you take care that everything be rightly
+     prepared for my reception."[28]
+
+
+[Footnote 26: See No. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 27: The Morocco ambassador made his public entry into London
+in April 1706. Don Venturo Zary, another Morocco minister, visited the
+Haymarket Theatre on May 4, 1710, with his "attendants in their several
+habits, &c., having never as yet appeared in public." There was no play
+at Drury Lane Theatre that night (_Postboy_, April 29 to May 2, 1710).]
+
+[Footnote 28: See No. 122.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 121.                                                    [ADDISON.
+
+From _Saturday, Jan. 14_, to _Tuesday, Jan. 17, 1709-10_.
+
+    ----Similis tibi, Cynthia, vel tibi, cujus
+    Turbavit nitidos extinctus passer ocellos.
+                                        JUV., Sat. vi. 7.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, January 16._
+
+I was recollecting the remainder of my vision, when my maid came to me,
+and told me, there was a gentlewoman below who seemed to be in great
+trouble, and pressed very much to see me. When it lay in my power to
+remove the distress of an unhappy person, I thought I should very ill
+employ my time in attending matters of speculation, and therefore
+desired the lady would walk in. When she entered, I saw her eyes full of
+tears. However, her grief was not so great as to make her omit rules;
+for she was very long and exact in her civilities, which gave me time to
+view and consider her. Her clothes were very rich, but tarnished; and
+her words very fine, but ill applied. These distinctions made me without
+hesitation (though I had never seen her before) ask her, if her lady had
+any commands for me? She then began to weep afresh, and with many broken
+sighs told me, that their family was in very great affliction. I
+beseeched her to compose herself, for that I might possibly be capable
+of assisting them. She then cast her eye upon my little dog, and was
+again transported with too much passion to proceed; but with much ado,
+she at last gave me to understand, that Cupid, her lady's lap-dog, was
+dangerously ill, and in so bad a condition, that her lady neither saw
+company, nor went abroad, for which reason she did not come herself to
+consult me; that as I had mentioned with great affection my own dog
+(here she curtsied, and looking first at the cur, and then on me, said,
+indeed I had reason, for he was very pretty) her lady sent to me rather
+than to any other doctor, and hoped I would not laugh at her sorrow, but
+send her my advice. I must confess, I had some indignation to find
+myself treated like something below a farrier; yet well knowing, that
+the best, as well as most tender way of dealing with a woman, is to fall
+in with her humours, and by that means to let her see the absurdity of
+them, I proceeded accordingly: "Pray, madam," said I, "can you give me
+any methodical account of this illness, and how Cupid was first taken?"
+"Sir," said she, "we have a little ignorant country girl who is kept to
+tend him: she was recommended to our family by one, that my lady never
+saw but once, at a visit; and you know, persons of quality are always
+inclined to strangers; for I could have helped her to a cousin of my
+own, but----" "Good madam," said I, "you neglect the account of the sick
+body, while you are complaining of this girl." "No, no, sir," said she,
+"begging your pardon: but it is the general fault of physicians, they
+are so in haste, that they never hear out the case. I say, this silly
+girl, after washing Cupid, let him stand half an hour in the window
+without his collar, where he caught cold, and in an hour after began to
+bark very hoarse. He had however a pretty good night, and we hoped the
+danger was over; but for these two nights last past, neither he nor my
+lady have slept a wink." "Has he," said I, "taken anything?" "No," said
+she, "but my lady says, he shall take anything that you prescribe,
+provided you do not make use of Jesuits' powder[29], or the cold bath.
+Poor Cupid," continued she, "has always been phthisical, and as he lies
+under something like a chin-cough, we are afraid it will end in a
+consumption." I then asked her, if she had brought any of his water to
+show me. Upon this, she stared me in the face, and said, "I am afraid,
+Mr. Bickerstaff, you are not serious; but if you have any receipt that
+is proper on this occasion, pray let us have it; for my mistress is not
+to be comforted." Upon this, I paused a little without returning any
+answer, and after some short silence, I proceeded in the following
+manner: "I have considered the nature of the distemper, and the
+constitution of the patient, and by the best observation that I can make
+on both, I think it is safest to put him into a course of kitchen
+physic. In the meantime, to remove his hoarseness, it will be the most
+natural way to make Cupid his own druggist; for which reason, I shall
+prescribe to him, three mornings successively, as much powder as will
+lie on a groat, of that noble remedy which the apothecaries call 'Album
+Græcum.'" Upon hearing this advice, the young woman smiled, as if she
+knew how ridiculous an errand she had been employed in; and indeed I
+found by the sequel of her discourse, that she was an arch baggage, and
+of a character that is frequent enough in persons of her employment, who
+are so used to conform themselves in everything to the humours and
+passions of their mistresses, that they sacrifice superiority of sense
+to superiority of condition, and are insensibly betrayed into the
+passions and prejudices of those whom they serve, without giving
+themselves leave to consider, that they are extravagant and ridiculous.
+However I thought it very natural, when her eyes were thus open, to see
+her give a new turn to her discourse, and from sympathising with her
+mistress in her follies, to fall a-railing at her. "You cannot imagine,"
+said she, "Mr. Bickerstaff, what a life she makes us lead for the sake
+of this little ugly cur: if he dies, we are the most unhappy family in
+town. She chanced to lose a parrot last year, which, to tell you truly,
+brought me into her service; for she turned off her woman upon it, who
+had lived with her ten years, because she neglected to give him water,
+though every one of the family says, she was as innocent of the bird's
+death as the babe that is unborn. Nay, she told me this very morning,
+that if Cupid should die, she would send the poor innocent wench I was
+telling you of, to Bridewell, and have the milkwoman tried for her life
+at the Old Bailey, for putting water into his milk. In short, she talks
+like any distracted creature."
+
+"Since it is so, young woman," said I, "I will by no means let you
+offend her, by staying on this message longer than is absolutely
+necessary," and so forced her out.
+
+While I am studying to cure those evils and distresses that are
+necessary or natural to human life, I find my task growing upon me,
+since by these accidental cares, and acquired calamities, if I may so
+call them, my patients contract distempers to which their constitution
+is of itself a stranger. But this is an evil I have for many years
+remarked in the fair sex; and as they are by nature very much formed for
+affection and dalliance, I have observed, that when by too obstinate a
+cruelty, or any other means, they have disappointed themselves of the
+proper objects of love, as husbands, or children, such virgins have
+exactly at such a year grown fond of lap-dogs, parrots, or other
+animals. I know at this time a celebrated toast, whom I allow to be one
+of the most agreeable of her sex, that in the presence of her admirers,
+will give a torrent of kisses to her cat, any one of which a Christian
+would be glad of. I do not at the same time deny, but there are as great
+enormities of this kind committed by our sex as theirs. A Roman emperor
+had so very great an esteem for a horse of his, that he had thoughts of
+making him a consul; and several moderns of that rank of men whom we
+call country squires, won't scruple to kiss their hounds before all the
+world, and declare in the presence of their wives, that they had rather
+salute a favourite of the pack, than the finest woman in England. These
+voluntary friendships between animals of different species, seem to
+arise from instinct; for which reason, I have always looked upon the
+mutual goodwill between the squire and the hound, to be of the same
+nature with that between the lion and the jackal.
+
+The only extravagance of this kind which appears to me excusable, is one
+that grew out of an excess of gratitude, which I have somewhere met with
+in the life of a Turkish emperor. His horse had brought him safe out of
+a field of battle, and from the pursuit of a victorious enemy. As a
+reward for such his good and faithful service, his master built him a
+stable of marble, shod him with gold, fed him in an ivory manger, and
+made him a rack of silver. He annexed to the stable several fields and
+meadows, lakes, and running streams. At the same time he provided for
+him a seraglio of mares, the most beautiful that could be found in the
+whole Ottoman Empire. To these were added a suitable train of domestics,
+consisting of grooms, farriers, rubbers, &c., accommodated with proper
+liveries and pensions. In short, nothing was omitted that could
+contribute to the ease and happiness of his life who had preserved the
+emperor's.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+By reason of the extreme cold, and the changeableness of the weather, I
+have been prevailed upon to allow the free use of the farthingale, till
+the 20th of February next ensuing.
+
+
+[Footnote 29: Peruvian Bark, then comparatively little used.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 122.                                                    [ADDISON.
+
+From _Tuesday, Jan. 17_, to _Thursday, Jan. 19, 1709-10_.
+
+    Cur in theatrum, Cato severe, venisti?
+                          MART., Epig. i. Prol. 21.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, January 18._
+
+I find it is thought necessary, that I (who have taken upon me to
+censure the irregularities of the age) should give an account of my own
+actions when they appear doubtful, or subject to misconstruction. My
+appearing at the play on Monday last,[30] is looked upon as a step in my
+conduct, which I ought to explain, that others may not be misled by my
+example. It is true in matter of fact, I was present at the ingenious
+entertainment of that day, and placed myself in a box which was prepared
+for me with great civility and distinction. It is said of Virgil, when
+he entered a Roman theatre, where there were many thousands of
+spectators present, that the whole assembly rose up to do him honour; a
+respect which was never before paid to any but the emperor. I must
+confess, that universal clap, and other testimonies of applause, with
+which I was received at my first appearance in the theatre of Great
+Britain, gave me as sensible a delight, as the above-mentioned reception
+could give to that immortal poet. I should be ungrateful at the same
+time, if I did not take this opportunity of acknowledging the great
+civilities that were shown me by Mr. Thomas Doggett, who made his
+compliments to me between the acts, after a most ingenuous and discreet
+manner; and at the same time communicated to me, that the Company of
+Upholders desired to receive me at their door at the end of the
+Haymarket, and to light me home to my lodgings. That part of the
+ceremony I forbad, and took particular care during the whole play to
+observe the conduct of the drama, and give no offence by my own
+behaviour. Here I think it will not be foreign to my character, to lay
+down the proper duties of an audience, and what is incumbent upon each
+individual spectator in public diversions of this nature. Every one
+should on these occasions show his attention, understanding and virtue.
+I would undertake to find out all the persons of sense and breeding by
+the effect of a single sentence, and to distinguish a gentleman as much
+by his laugh, as his bow. When we see the footman and his lord diverted
+by the same jest, it very much turns to the diminution of the one, or
+the honour of the other. But though a man's quality may appear in his
+understanding and taste, the regard to virtue ought to be the same in
+all ranks and conditions of men, however they make a profession of it
+under the name of honour, religion, or morality. When therefore we see
+anything divert an audience, either in tragedy or comedy, that strikes
+at the duties of civil life, or exposes what the best men in all ages
+have looked upon as sacred and inviolable, it is the certain sign of a
+profligate race of men, who are fallen from the virtue of their
+forefathers, and will be contemptible in the eyes of their posterity.
+For this reason I took great delight in seeing the generous and
+disinterested passion of the lovers in this comedy (which stood so many
+trials, and was proved by such a variety of diverting incidents)
+received with an universal approbation. This brings to my mind a passage
+in Cicero,[31] which I could never read without being in love with the
+virtue of a Roman audience. He there describes the shouts and applause
+which the people gave to the persons who acted the parts of Pylades and
+Orestes, in the noblest occasion that a poet could invent to show
+friendship in perfection. One of them had forfeited his life by an
+action which he had committed; and as they stood in judgment before the
+tyrant, each of them strove who should be the criminal, that he might
+save the life of his friend. Amidst the vehemence of each asserting
+himself to be the offender, the Roman audience gave a thunder of
+applause, and by that means, as the author hints, approved in others
+what they would have done themselves on the like occasion. Methinks, a
+people of so much virtue were deservedly placed at the head of mankind:
+But alas! pleasures of this nature are not frequently to be met with on
+the English stage.
+
+The Athenians, at a time when they were the most polite, as well as the
+most powerful, government in the world, made the care of the stage one
+of the chief parts of the administration: and I must confess, I am
+astonished at the spirit of virtue which appeared in that people upon
+some expressions in a scene of a famous tragedy; an account of which we
+have in one of Seneca's epistles.[32] A covetous person is represented
+speaking the common sentiments of all who are possessed with that vice
+in the following soliloquy, which I have translated literally:
+
+     "Let me be called a base man, so I am called a rich one. If a man is
+     rich, who asks if he is good? The question is, How much we have;
+     not from whence, or by what means, we have it. Every one has so
+     much merit as he has wealth. For my own part, let me be rich, O ye
+     gods! or let me die. The man dies happily, who dies increasing his
+     treasure. There is more pleasure in the possession of wealth, than
+     in that of parents, children, wife, or friends."
+
+The audience were very much provoked by the first words of this speech;
+but when the actor came to the close of it, they could bear no longer.
+In short, the whole assembly rose up at once in the greatest fury, with
+a design to pluck him off the stage, and brand the work itself with
+infamy. In the midst of the tumult, the author came out from behind the
+scenes, begging the audience to be composed for a little while, and they
+should see the tragical end which this wretch should come to
+immediately. The promise of punishment appeased the people, who sat with
+great attention and pleasure to see an example made of so odious a
+criminal. It is with shame and concern that I speak it; but I very much
+question, whether it is possible to make a speech so impious, as to
+raise such a laudable horror and indignation in a modern audience. It is
+very natural for an author to make ostentation of his reading, as it is
+for an old man to tell stories; for which reason I must beg the reader
+will excuse me, if I for once indulge myself in both these inclinations.
+We see the attention, judgment, and virtue of a whole audience, in the
+foregoing instances. If we would imitate the behaviour of a single
+spectator, let us reflect upon that of Socrates, in a particular which
+gives me as great an idea of that extraordinary man, as any circumstance
+of his life; or what is more, of his death. This venerable person often
+frequented the theatre, which brought a great many thither, out of a
+desire to see him; on which occasions it is recorded of him, that he
+sometimes stood to make himself the more conspicuous, and to satisfy the
+curiosity of the beholders. He was one day present at the first
+representation of a tragedy of Euripides, who was his intimate friend,
+and whom he is said to have assisted in several of his plays. In the
+midst of the tragedy, which had met with very great success, there
+chanced to be a line that seemed to encourage vice and immorality.
+
+This was no sooner spoken, but Socrates rose from his seat, and without
+any regard to his affection for his friend, or to the success of the
+play, showed himself displeased at what was said, and walked out of the
+assembly. I question not but the reader will be curious to know what the
+line was that gave this divine heathen so much offence. If my memory
+fails me not, it was in the part of Hippolitus, who when he is pressed
+by an oath, which he had taken to keep silence, returned for answer,
+that he had taken the oath with his tongue, but not with his heart. Had
+a person of a vicious character made such a speech, it might have been
+allowed as a proper representation of the baseness of his thoughts: but
+such an expression out of the mouth of the virtuous Hippolitus, was
+giving a sanction to falsehood, and establishing perjury by a maxim.
+
+Having got over all interruptions, I have set apart tomorrow for the
+closing of my vision.[33]
+
+
+[Footnote 30: See No. 120. "A person dressed for Isaac Bickerstaff did
+appear at the playhouse on this occasion" (Addison's "Works,"
+Birmingham, ii. 246).]
+
+[Footnote 31: "De Amicitia," vii.]
+
+[Footnote 32: L. A. Senecæ Opera, Lips., 1741, ii. 520.]
+
+[Footnote 33: See Nos. 120, 123.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 123.                                                    [ADDISON.
+
+From _Thursday, Jan. 19_, to _Saturday, Jan. 21, 1709-10_.
+
+    Audire, atque togam jubeo componere, quisquis
+    Ambitione malâ, aut argenti pallet amore.
+                                    HOR., 2 Sat. iii. 77.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, January 20._
+
+_A Continuation of the Vision._[34]
+
+With much labour and difficulty I passed through the first part of my
+vision, and recovered the centre of the wood, from whence I had the
+prospect of the three great roads. I here joined myself to the
+middle-aged party of mankind, who marched behind the standard of
+Ambition. The great road lay in a direct line, and was terminated by the
+Temple of Virtue. It was planted on each side with laurels, which were
+intermixed with marble trophies, carved pillars, and statues of
+lawgivers, heroes, statesmen, philosophers, and poets. The persons who
+travelled up this great path, were such whose thoughts were bent upon
+doing eminent services to mankind, or promoting the good of their
+country. On each side of this great road were several paths, that were
+also laid out in straight lines, and ran parallel with it. These were
+most of them covered walks, and received into them men of retired
+virtue, who proposed to themselves the same end of their journey, though
+they chose to make it in shade and obscurity. The edifices at the
+extremity of the walk were so contrived, that we could not see the
+Temple of Honour by reason of the Temple of Virtue, which stood before
+it. At the gates of this temple we were met by the goddess of it, who
+conducted us into that of Honour, which was joined to the other edifice
+by a beautiful triumphal arch, and had no other entrance into it. When
+the deity of the inner structure had received us, she presented us in a
+body to a figure that was placed over the high altar, and was the emblem
+of eternity. She sat on a globe in the midst of a golden zodiac, holding
+the figure of a sun in one hand, and a moon in the other. Her head was
+veiled, and her feet covered. Our hearts glowed within us as we stood
+amidst the sphere of light which this image cast on every side of it.
+
+Having seen all that happened to this band of adventurers, I repaired to
+another pile of buildings that stood within view of the Temple of
+Honour, and was raised in imitation of it, upon the very same model; but
+at my approach to it, I found that the stones were laid together without
+mortar, and that the whole fabric stood upon so weak a foundation, that
+it shook with every wind that blew. This was called the Temple of
+Vanity. The goddess of it sat in the midst of a great many tapers, that
+burned day and night, and made her appear much better than she would
+have done in open daylight. Her whole art was to show herself more
+beautiful and majestic than she really was. For which reason, she had
+painted her face, and wore a cluster of false jewels upon her breast:
+but what I more particularly observed, was, the breadth of her
+petticoat, which was made altogether in the fashion of a modern
+farthingale. This place was filled with hypocrites, pedants,
+freethinkers, and prating politicians; with a rabble of those who have
+only titles to make them great men. Female votaries crowded the temple,
+choked up the avenues of it, and were more in number than the sand upon
+the seashore. I made it my business in my return towards that part of
+the wood from whence I first set out, to observe the walks which led to
+this temple; for I met in it several who had begun their journey with
+the band of virtuous persons, and travelled some time in their company:
+but upon examination I found, that there were several paths which led
+out of the great road into the sides of the wood, and ran into so many
+crooked turns and windings, that those who travelled through them often
+turned their backs upon the Temple of Virtue, then crossed the straight
+road, and sometimes marched in it for a little space, till the crooked
+path which they were engaged in again led them into the wood. The
+several alleys of these wanderers had their particular ornaments: one of
+them I could not but take notice of, in the walk of the mischievous
+pretenders to politics, which had at every turn the figure of a person,
+whom by the inscription I found to be Machiavel, pointing out the way
+with an extended finger like a Mercury.
+
+I was now returned in the same manner as before, with a design to
+observe carefully everything that passed in the region of Avarice, and
+the occurrences in that assembly, which was made up of persons of my own
+age. This body of travellers had not gone far in the third great road,
+before it led them insensibly into a deep valley, in which they
+journeyed several days with great toil and uneasiness, and without the
+necessary refreshments of food and sleep. The only relief they met with,
+was in a river that ran through the bottom of the valley on a bed of
+golden sand: they often drank of this stream, which had such a
+particular quality in it, that though it refreshed them for a time, it
+rather inflamed than quenched their thirst. On each side of the river
+was a range of hills full of precious ore; for where the rains had
+washed off the earth, one might see in several parts of them long veins
+of gold, and rocks that looked like pure silver. We were told that the
+deity of the place had forbade any of his votaries to dig into the
+bowels of these hills, or convert the treasures they contained to any
+use, under pain of starving. At the end of the valley stood the Temple
+of Avarice, made after the manner of a fortification, and surrounded
+with a thousand triple-headed dogs, that were placed there to keep off
+beggars. At our approach they all fell a-barking, and would have very
+much terrified us, had not an old woman who had called herself by the
+forged name of Competency offered herself for our guide. She carried
+under her garment a golden bow, which she no sooner held up in her hand,
+but the dogs lay down, and the gates flew open for our reception. We
+were led through a hundred iron doors, before we entered the temple. At
+the upper end of it sat the god of Avarice, with a long filthy beard,
+and a meagre starved countenance, enclosed with heaps of ingots and
+pyramids of money, but half naked and shivering with cold. On his right
+hand was a fiend called Rapine, and on his left a particular favourite
+to whom he had given the title of Parsimony. The first was his
+collector, and the other his cashier.
+
+There were several long tables placed on each side of the temple, with
+respective officers attending behind them. Some of these I inquired
+into. At the first table was kept the office of Corruption. Seeing a
+solicitor extremely busy, and whispering everybody that passed by, I
+kept my eye upon him very attentively, and saw him often going up to a
+person that had a pen in his hand, with a multiplication table and an
+almanac before him, which as I afterwards heard, was all the learning he
+was master of. The solicitor would often apply himself to his ear, and
+at the same time convey money into his hand, for which the other would
+give him out a piece of paper or parchment, signed and sealed in form.
+The name of this dexterous and successful solicitor was Bribery. At the
+next table was the office of Extortion. Behind it sat a person in a
+bob-wig, counting over a great sum of money. He gave out little purses
+to several, who after a short tour brought him, in return, sacks full of
+the same kind of coin. I saw at the same time a person called Fraud, who
+sat behind a counter with false scales, light weights, and scanty
+measures; by the skilful application of which instruments, she had got
+together an immense heap of wealth. It would be endless to name the
+several officers, or describe the votaries that attended in this temple.
+There were many old men panting and breathless, reposing their heads on
+bags of money; nay many of them actually dying, whose very pangs and
+convulsions, which rendered their purses useless to them, only made them
+grasp them the faster. There were some tearing with one hand all things,
+even to the garments and flesh of many miserable persons who stood
+before them, and with the other hand, throwing away what they had
+seized, to harlots, flatterers, and panders, that stood behind them.
+
+On a sudden the whole assembly fell a-trembling, and upon inquiry, I
+found, that the great room we were in was haunted with a spectre, that
+many times a day appeared to them, and terrified them to distraction.
+
+In the midst of their terror and amazement the apparition entered, which
+I immediately knew to be Poverty. Whether it were by my acquaintance
+with this phantom, which had rendered the sight of her more familiar to
+me, or however it was, she did not make so indigent or frightful a
+figure in my eye, as the god of this loathsome temple. The miserable
+votaries of this place, were, I found, of another mind. Every one
+fancied himself threatened by the apparition as she stalked about the
+room, and began to lock their coffers, and tie their bags, with the
+utmost fear and trembling.
+
+I must confess, I look upon the passion which I saw in this unhappy
+people to be of the same nature with those unaccountable antipathies
+which some persons are born with, or rather as a kind of frenzy, not
+unlike that which throws a man into terrors and agonies at the sight of
+so useful and innocent a thing as water. The whole assembly was
+surprised, when, instead of paying my devotions to the deity whom they
+all adored, they saw me address myself to the phantom.
+
+     "O Poverty!" said I, "my first petition to thee is, that thou
+     wouldst never appear to me hereafter; but if thou wilt not grant me
+     this, that thou wouldst not bear a form more terrible than that in
+     which thou appearest to me at present. Let not thy threats and
+     menaces betray me to anything that is ungrateful or unjust. Let me
+     not shut my ears to the cries of the needy. Let me not forget the
+     person that has deserved well of me. Let me not, for any fear of
+     thee, desert my friend, my principles, or my honour. If Wealth is
+     to visit me, and to come with her usual attendants, Vanity and
+     Avarice, do thou, O Poverty! hasten to my rescue; but bring along
+     with thee the two sisters, in whose company thou art always
+     cheerful, Liberty and Innocence."
+
+The conclusion of this vision must be deferred to another opportunity.
+
+
+[Footnote 34: See No. 120.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 124.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Saturday, Jan. 21_, to _Tuesday, Jan. 24, 1709-10_.
+
+    ----Ex humili summa ad fastigia rerum
+    Extollit, quoties voluit Fortuna jocari.
+                                      JUV., Sat. iii. 39.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, January 23._
+
+I went on Saturday last to make a visit in the city; and as I passed
+through Cheapside, I saw crowds of people turning down towards the Bank,
+and struggling who should first get their money into the new-erected
+lottery.[35] It gave me a great notion of the credit of our present
+government and administration, to find people press as eagerly to pay
+money, as they would to receive it; and at the same time a due respect
+for that body of men who have found out so pleasing an expedient for
+carrying on the common cause, that they have turned a tax into a
+diversion. The cheerfulness of spirit, and the hopes of success, which
+this project has occasioned in this great city, lightens the burden of
+the war, and puts me in mind of some games which they say were invented
+by wise men who were lovers of their country, to make their fellow
+citizens undergo the tediousness and fatigues of a long siege. I think
+there is a kind of homage due to fortune (if I may call it so), and that
+I should be wanting to myself if I did not lay in my pretences to her
+favour, and pay my compliments to her by recommending a ticket to her
+disposal. For this reason, upon my return to my lodgings, I sold off a
+couple of globes and a telescope,[36] which, with the cash I had by me,
+raised the sum that was requisite for that purpose. I find by my
+calculations, that it is but a hundred and fifty thousand to one against
+my being worth a thousand pounds per annum for thirty-two years;[37] and
+if any plum[38] in the City will lay me a hundred and fifty thousand
+pounds to twenty shillings (which is an even bet), that I am not this
+fortunate man, I will take the wager, and shall look upon him as a man
+of singular courage and fair-dealing, having given orders to Mr. Morphew
+to subscribe such a policy in my behalf, if any person accepts of the
+offer. I must confess, I have had such private intimations from the
+twinkling of a certain star in some of my astronomical observations,
+that I should be unwilling to take fifty pounds a year for my chance,
+unless it were to oblige a particular friend. My chief business at
+present is, to prepare my mind for this change of fortune: for as
+Seneca, who was a great moralist, and a much richer man than I shall be
+with this addition to my present income, says, "_Munera ista Fortunæ
+putatis? Insidiæ sunt._"[39] "What we look upon as gifts and presents of
+Fortune, are traps and snares which she lays for the unwary." I am
+arming myself against her favours with all my philosophy; and that I may
+not lose myself in such a redundance of unnecessary and superfluous
+wealth, I have determined to settle an annual pension out of it upon a
+family of Palatines, and by that means give these unhappy strangers a
+taste of British property. At the same time, as I have an excellent
+servant-maid, whose diligence in attending me has increased in
+proportion to my infirmities, I shall settle upon her the revenue
+arising out of the ten pounds, and amounting to fourteen shillings per
+annum, with which she may retire into Wales, where she was born a
+gentlewoman, and pass the remaining part of her days in a condition
+suitable to her birth and quality. It was impossible for me to make an
+inspection into my own fortune on this occasion, without seeing at the
+same time the fate of others who are embarked in the same adventure. And
+indeed it was a great pleasure to me to observe, that the war, which
+generally impoverishes those who furnish out the expense of it, will by
+this means give estates to some, without making others the poorer for
+it. I have lately seen several in liveries, who will give as good of
+their own very suddenly; and took a particular satisfaction in the sight
+of a young country wench, whom I this morning passed by as she was
+whirling her mop,[40] with her petticoats tucked up very agreeably, who,
+if there is any truth in my art, is within ten[41] months of being the
+handsomest great fortune in town. I must confess, I was so struck with
+the foresight of what she is to be, that I treated her accordingly, and
+said to her, "Pray, young lady, permit me to pass by." I would for this
+reason advise all masters and mistresses to carry it with great
+moderation and condescension towards their servants till next
+Michaelmas, lest the superiority at that time should be inverted. I must
+likewise admonish all my brethren and fellow adventurers, to fill their
+minds with proper arguments for their support and consolation in case of
+ill-success. It so happens in this particular, that though the gainers
+will have reason to rejoice, the losers will have no reason to complain.
+I remember, the day after the thousand pound prize was drawn in the
+penny lottery,[42] I went to visit a splenetic acquaintance of mine, who
+was under much dejection, and seemed to me to have suffered some great
+disappointment. Upon inquiry, I found he had put twopence for himself
+and his son into the lottery and that neither of them had drawn the
+thousand pound. Hereupon this unlucky person took occasion to enumerate
+the misfortunes of his life, and concluded with telling me, that he
+never was successful in any of his undertakings. I was forced to comfort
+him with the common reflection upon such occasions, that men of the
+greatest merit are not always men of the greatest success, and that
+persons of his character must not expect to be as happy as fools. I
+shall proceed in the like manner with my rivals and competitors for the
+thousand pounds a year which we are now in pursuit of; and that I may
+give general content to the whole body of candidates, I shall allow all
+that draw prizes to be fortunate, and all that miss them to be wise.
+
+I must not here omit to acknowledge, that I have received several
+letters upon this subject, but find one common error running through
+them all, which is, that the writers of them believe their fate in these
+cases depends upon the astrologer, and not upon the stars, as in the
+following letter from one, who, I fear, flatters himself with hopes of
+success, which are altogether groundless, since he does not seem to me
+so great a fool as he takes himself to be:
+
+     "SIR,
+
+     "Coming to town, and finding my friend Mr. Partridge dead and
+     buried, and you the only conjurer in repute, I am under a necessity
+     of applying myself to you for a favour, which nevertheless I
+     confess it would better become a friend to ask, than one who is, as
+     I am altogether, a stranger to you; but poverty, you know, is
+     impudent; and as that gives me the occasion, so that alone could
+     give me the confidence to be thus importunate.
+
+     "I am, sir, very poor, and very desirous to be otherwise: I have
+     got ten pounds, which I design to venture in the lottery now on
+     foot. What I desire of you is, that by your art, you will choose
+     such a ticket for me as shall arise a benefit sufficient to
+     maintain me. I must beg leave to inform you, that I am good for
+     nothing, and must therefore insist upon a larger lot than would
+     satisfy those who are capable by their own abilities of adding
+     something to what you should assign them; whereas I must expect an
+     absolute, independent maintenance, because, as I said, I can do
+     nothing. 'Tis possible, after this free confession of mine, you may
+     think I don't deserve to be rich; but I hope you'll likewise
+     observe, I can ill afford to be poor. My own opinion is, I am well
+     qualified for an estate, and have a good title to luck in a
+     lottery; but I resign myself wholly to your mercy, not without
+     hopes that you will consider, the less I deserve, the greater the
+     generosity in you. If you reject me, I have agreed with an
+     acquaintance of mine to bury me for my ten pounds. I once more
+     recommend myself to your favour, and bid you adieu."
+
+I cannot forbear publishing another letter which I have received,
+because it redounds to my own credit, as well as to that of a very
+honest footman:
+
+     "MR. BICKERSTAFF, _January 23, 1709/10._
+
+     "I am bound in justice to acquaint you, that I put an
+     advertisement[43] into your last paper about a watch which was
+     lost, and was brought to me on the very day your paper came out by
+     a footman, who told me, that he would [not] have brought it, if he
+     had not read your discourse of that day against avarice;[44] but
+     that since he had read it, he scorned to take a reward for doing
+     what in justice he ought to do. I am,
+
+                                  "Sir,
+                                      "Your most humble Servant,
+                                                      "JOHN HAMMOND."
+
+
+[Footnote 35: The first State lottery of 1710; see No. 87. Various
+passages in the "Wentworth Papers" (pages 126, 127, 129, 130, 148, 165)
+throw light upon this subject. Thus, "I hear the Million Lottery is
+drawing and thear is a prise of 400_l._ a year drawn, and Col. St. Pear
+has gott 5 (_sic_) a year; it will be hard fate if you mis a pryse that
+put so much in. I long tel its all drawn; they say it will be six weeks
+drawing" (Aug. 1, 1710). "It will be a long time first if ever, except I
+win ye thoussand p^d a year, for mony now adays is the raening passion"
+(July (?) 1710). "Some very ordenary creeture has gott 400_l._ a year"
+(Aug. 4, 1710). "Thear is a lady gave her footman in the last before
+this, mony for a lot, and he got five hundred a year, and she would have
+half, and they had a law suit, but the lawyers gave it all to him" (Aug.
+7, 1710). "Betty has lost all her hopse of the Lottery, als drawn now"
+(Oct. 6, 1710). "You know your grandfather's Butler (?), they say he put
+ten thousand pd in the lottry and lost it all, and is really worth forty
+thousand pd" (Dec. 15, 1710). Swift refers to the drawing in September:
+"To-day Mr. Addison, Colonel Freind and I went to see the million
+lottery drawn at Guildhall. The jackanapes of blue-coat boys gave
+themselves such airs in pulling out the tickets, and shewed white hands
+open to the company to let us see there was no cheat" ("Journal to
+Stella," Sept. 15, 1710). See also Nos. 170, 203, and the _Spectator_,
+No. 191.]
+
+[Footnote 36: See No. 128.]
+
+[Footnote 37: "There were 150,000 tickets at £10 each, making
+£1,500,000, the principal of which was to be sunk, and 9 per cent. to be
+allowed on it for thirty-two years. Three thousand seven hundred and
+fifty tickets were prizes from £1000 to £5 per annum; the rest were
+blanks--a proportion of thirty-nine to one prize, but, as a consolation,
+each blank was entitled to fourteen shillings per annum during the
+thirty-two years" (Ashton's "Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne," i.
+114).]
+
+[Footnote 38: The possessor of a fortune of £100,000.]
+
+[Footnote 39: L. A. Senecæ Opera, Epist. viii. sect. 3 (Lips., Tauchn.,
+1832, iii. 14).]
+
+[Footnote 40: Cf. Swift's "City Shower," in No. 238: "She, singing,
+still whirls on her mop."]
+
+[Footnote 41: Cf. No. 128.]
+
+[Footnote 42: This penny lottery seems to have been a private
+undertaking, not warranted by Act of Parliament, or intended to raise
+any part of the public revenue. In the year 1698, a "Penny Lottery" was
+drawn at the theatre in Dorset Garden, as appears from the title of the
+following pamphlet, apparently alluded to here: "The Wheel of Fortune:
+or, Nothing for a Penny. Being remarks on the drawing of the Penny
+Lottery at the Theatre Royal in Dorset Garden. With the characters of
+some of the honourable trustees, and all due acknowledgment to his
+Honour the Undertaker. Written by a person who was cursed mad that he
+had not the Thousand Pounds Lot" (Nichols).]
+
+[Footnote 43: The following was the advertisement: "A plain gold watch,
+made by Tompion, with a gold hook and chain, a cornelian seal set in
+gold, and a cupid sifting hearts, was dropt from a lady's side in or
+near Great Marlborough Street on Thursday night last. Whoever took it
+up, if they will bring it to Mr. Plaistow's, at the Hand and Star
+between the two Temple Gates, in Fleet Street, shall receive five
+guineas reward.--Signed JOHN HAMMOND."]
+
+[Footnote 44: See No. 123.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 125.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Tuesday, Jan. 24_, to _Thursday, Jan. 26, 1709-10_.
+
+    Quem mala stultitia, et quæcunque inscitia veri
+    Cæcum agit, insanum Chrysippi porticus, et grex
+    Autumat. Hæc populos, hæc magnos formula reges,
+    Excepto sapiente, tenet.--HOR., 2 Sat. iii. 43.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, January 25._
+
+There is a sect of ancient philosophers, who, I think, have left more
+volumes behind them, and those better written, than any other of the
+fraternities in philosophy. It was a maxim of this sect, that all those
+who do not live up to the principles of reason and virtue, are madmen.
+Every one, who governs himself by these rules, is allowed the title of
+wise, and reputed to be in his senses; and every one in proportion, as
+he deviates from them, is pronounced frantic and distracted. Cicero
+having chosen this maxim for his theme, takes occasion to argue from it
+very agreeably with Clodius, his implacable adversary, who had procured
+his banishment. "A city," says he, "is an assembly distinguished into
+bodies of men, who are in possession of their respective rights and
+privileges, cast under proper subordinations, and in all its parts
+obedient to the rules of law and equity." He then represents the
+government from whence he was banished, at a time when the consul,
+senate, and laws, had lost their authority, as a commonwealth of
+lunatics. For this reason, he regards his expulsion from Rome, as a man
+would being turned out of Bedlam, if the inhabitants of it should drive
+him out of their walls as a person unfit for their community.[45] We are
+therefore to look upon every man's brain to be touched, however he may
+appear in the general conduct of his life, if he has an unjustifiable
+singularity in any part of his conversation or behaviour: or if he
+swerves from right reason, however common his kind of madness may be, we
+shall not excuse him for its being epidemical, it being our present
+design to clap up all such as have the marks of madness upon them, who
+are now permitted to go about the streets, for no other reason, but
+because they do no mischief in their fits. Abundance of imaginary great
+men are put in straw to bring them to a right sense of themselves: and
+is it not altogether as reasonable, that an insignificant man, who has
+an immoderate opinion of his merits, and a quite different notion of his
+own abilities from what the rest of the world entertain, should have the
+same care taken of him, as a beggar who fancies himself a duke or a
+prince? Or, why should a man, who starves in the midst of plenty, be
+trusted with himself, more than he who fancies he is an emperor in the
+midst of poverty? I have several women of quality in my thoughts, who
+set so exorbitant a value upon themselves, that I have often most
+heartily pitied them, and wished them, for their recovery, under the
+same discipline with the pewterer's wife. I find by several hints in
+ancient authors, that when the Romans were in the height of power and
+luxury, they assigned out of their vast dominions, an island called
+Anticyra, as an habitation for madmen. This was the Bedlam of the Roman
+Empire, whither all persons who had left their wits used to resort from
+all parts of the world in quest of them. Several of the Roman emperors
+were advised to repair to this island; but most of them, instead of
+listening to such sober counsels, gave way to their distraction, till
+the people knocked them in the head as despairing of their cure. In
+short, it was as usual for men of distempered brains to take a voyage to
+Anticyra[46] in those days, as it is in ours for persons who have a
+disorder in their lungs to go to Montpellier.
+
+The prodigious crops of hellebore[47] with which this whole island
+abounded, did not only furnish them with incomparable tea, snuff, and
+Hungary water,[48] but impregnated the air of the country with such
+sober and salutiferous streams, as very much comforted the heads, and
+refreshed the senses, of all that breathed in it. A discarded statesman,
+that at his first landing appeared stark staring mad, would become calm
+in a week's time; and upon his return home, live easy and satisfied in
+his retirement. A moping lover would grow a pleasant fellow by that time
+he had ridden thrice about the island; and a hair-brained rake, after a
+short stay in the country, go home again a composed, grave, worthy
+gentleman.
+
+I have premised these particulars before I enter on the main design of
+this paper, because I would not be thought altogether notional[49] in
+what I have to say, and pass only for a projector in morality. I could
+quote Horace, and Seneca, and some other ancient writers of good repute,
+upon the same occasion, and make out by their testimony, that our
+streets are filled with distracted persons; that our shops and taverns,
+private and public houses, swarm with them; and that it is very hard to
+make up a tolerable assembly without a majority of them. But what I have
+already said, is, I hope, sufficient to justify the ensuing project,
+which I shall therefore give some account of without any further
+preface.
+
+     1. It is humbly proposed, that a proper receptacle or habitation be
+     forthwith erected for all such persons as, upon due trial and
+     examination, shall appear to be out of their wits.
+
+     2. That to serve the present exigency, the College in
+     Moorfields[50] be very much extended at both ends; and that it be
+     converted into a square, by adding three other sides to it.
+
+     3. That nobody be admitted into these three additional sides, but
+     such whose frenzy can lay no claim to an apartment in that row of
+     building which is already erected.
+
+     4. That the architect, physician, apothecary, surgeon, keepers,
+     nurses, and porters, be all and each of them cracked, provided that
+     their frenzy does not lie in the profession or employment to which
+     they shall severally and respectively be assigned.
+
+     N.B. It is thought fit to give the foregoing notice, that none may
+     present himself here for any post of honour or profit who is not
+     duly qualified.
+
+     5. That over all the gates of the additional buildings, there be
+     figures placed in the same manner as over the entrance of the
+     edifice already erected;[51] provided, they represent such
+     distractions only as are proper for those additional buildings; as,
+     of an envious man gnawing his own flesh, a gamester pulling himself
+     by the ears, and knocking his head against a marble pillar, a
+     covetous man warming himself over a heap of gold, a coward flying
+     from his own shadow, and the like.
+
+Having laid down this general scheme of my design, I do hereby invite
+all persons who are willing to encourage so public-spirited a project,
+to bring in their contributions as soon as possible, and to apprehend
+forthwith any politician whom they shall catch raving in a coffee-house,
+or any freethinker whom they shall find publishing his deliriums, or any
+other person who shall give the like manifest signs of a crazed
+imagination; and I do at the same time give this public notice to all
+the madmen about this great city, that they may return to their senses
+with all imaginable expedition, lest if they should come into my hands,
+I should put them into a regimen which they would not like; for if I
+find any one of them persist in his frantic behaviour, I will make him
+in a month's time as famous as ever Oliver's porter[52] was.
+
+
+[Footnote 45: Cicero, Tusc. Disp. iii. 4, &c.; Orat. pro Dom. 33, &c.]
+
+[Footnote 46: Mr. Dobson quotes from Burton's "Anatomie of Melancholy"
+(1628), p. 18: "I will evince it, that most men are mad, that they had
+as much need to go a pilgrimage to the Anticyræ (as in Strabo's time
+they did) as in our dayes they run to Compostella, our Lady of Sichim,
+or Lauretta, to seeke for helpe; that it is likely to be as prosperous a
+voyage as that of Guiana, and there is much more need of Hellebor than
+of Tobacco."]
+
+[Footnote 47: Hellebore was much used by the ancients as a cure for
+madness and melancholy.]
+
+[Footnote 48: The best Hungary water (a popular scent) was made of
+spirits of wine, rosemary in bloom, lavender flowers, and oil of
+rosemary.]
+
+[Footnote 49: Dealing in ideas instead of realities.]
+
+[Footnote 50: Bedlam; see No. 30.]
+
+[Footnote 51: The statues by C. G. Cibber.]
+
+[Footnote 52: See No. 51.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 126.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Thursday, Jan. 26_, to _Saturday, Jan. 28, 1709-10_
+
+    Anguillam caudâ tenes.--T. D'URFEY.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, January 27._
+
+There is no sort of company so agreeable as that of women who have good
+sense without affectation, and can converse with men without any private
+design of imposing chains and fetters. Belvidera, whom I visited this
+evening, is one of these. There is an invincible prejudice in favour of
+all she says, from her being a beautiful woman, because she does not
+consider herself as such when she talks to you. This amiable temper
+gives a certain tincture to all her discourse, and made it very
+agreeable to me, till we were interrupted by Lydia, a creature who has
+all the charms that can adorn a woman. Her attractions would indeed be
+irresistible, but that she thinks them so, and is always employing them
+in stratagems and conquests. When I turned my eye upon her as she sat
+down, I saw she was a person of that character, which, for the further
+information of my country correspondents, I had long wanted an
+opportunity of explaining. Lydia is a finished coquette, which is a sect
+among women of all others the most mischievous, and makes the greatest
+havoc and disorder in society. I went on in the discourse I was in with
+Belvidera, without showing that I had observed anything extraordinary in
+Lydia: upon which, I immediately saw her look me over as some very
+ill-bred fellow; and casting a scornful glance on my dress, gave a shrug
+at Belvidera. But as much as she despised me, she wanted my admiration,
+and made twenty offers to bring my eyes her way: but I reduced her to a
+restlessness in her seat, an impertinent playing of her fan, and many
+other motions and gestures, before I took the least notice of her. At
+last I looked at her with a kind of surprise, as if she had before been
+unobserved by reason of an ill light where she sat. It is not to be
+expressed what a sudden joy I saw rise in her countenance, even at the
+approbation of such a very old fellow: but she did not long enjoy her
+triumph without a rival; for there immediately entered Castabella, a
+lady of a quite contrary character, that is to say, as eminent a prude
+as Lydia is a coquette. Belvidera gave me a glance, which methought
+intimated, that they were both curiosities in their kind, and worth
+remarking. As soon as we were again seated, I stole looks at each lady,
+as if I was comparing their perfections. Belvidera observed it, and
+began to lead me into a discourse of them both to their faces, which is
+to be done easily enough; for one woman is generally so intent upon the
+faults of another, that she has not reflection enough to observe when
+her own are represented. "I have taken notice, Mr. Bickerstaff," said
+Belvidera, "that you have in some parts of your writings drawn
+characters of our sex, in which you have not, to my apprehension, been
+clear enough and distinct, particularly in those of a prude and a
+coquette." Upon the mention of this, Lydia was roused with the
+expectation of seeing Castabella's picture, and Castabella with the
+hopes of that of Lydia. "Madam," said I to Belvidera, "when we consider
+nature, we shall often find very contrary effects flow from the same
+cause. The prude and coquette (as different as they appear in their
+behaviour) are in reality the same kind of women: the motive of action
+in both is the affectation of pleasing men. They are sisters of the same
+blood and constitution, only one chooses a grave, the other a light,
+dress. The prude appears more virtuous, the coquette more vicious, than
+she really is. The distant behaviour of the prude tends to the same
+purpose as the advances of the coquette; and you have as little reason
+to fall into despair from the severity of the one, as to conceive hope
+from the familiarity of the latter. What leads you into a clear sense of
+their character is, that you may observe each of them has the
+distinction of sex in all her thoughts, words and actions. You can never
+mention any assembly you were lately in, but one asks you with a rigid,
+the other with a sprightly air, 'Pray, what men were there?' As for
+prudes, it must be confessed, that there are several of them, who, like
+hypocrites, by long practice of a false part, become sincere; or at
+least delude themselves into a belief that they are so."
+
+For the benefit of this society of ladies, I shall propose one rule to
+them as a test of their virtue. I find in a very celebrated modern
+author, that the great foundress of the Pietists, Madame de
+Bourignon,[53] who was no less famous for the sanctity of her life than
+for the singularity of some of her opinions, was used to boast, that she
+had not only the spirit of continency in herself, but that she had also
+the power of communicating it to all who beheld her. This the scoffers
+of those days called the Gift of Infrigidation, and took occasion from
+it to rally her face, rather than admire her virtue. I would therefore
+advise the prude, who has a mind to know the integrity of her own heart,
+to lay her hand seriously upon it, and to examine herself, whether she
+could sincerely rejoice in such a gift of conveying chaste thoughts to
+all her male beholders. If she has any aversion to the power of
+inspiring so great a virtue, whatever notion she may have of her
+perfection, she deceives her own heart, and is still in the state of
+prudery. Some perhaps will look upon the boast of Madame de Bourignon as
+the utmost ostentation of a prude.
+
+If you would see the humour of a coquette pushed to the last excess, you
+may find an instance of it in the following story, which I will set down
+at length, because it pleased me when I read it, though I cannot
+recollect in what author.
+
+A young coquette widow in France having been followed by a Gascon of
+quality, who had boasted among his companions of some favours which he
+had never received, to be revenged of him, sent for him one evening, and
+told him, it was in his power to do her a very particular service. The
+Gascon, with much profession of his readiness to obey her commands,
+begged to hear in what manner she designed to employ him. "You know,"
+said the widow, "my friend Belinda, and must often have heard of the
+jealousy of that impotent wretch her husband. Now it is absolutely
+necessary, for the carrying on a certain affair, that his wife and I
+should be together a whole night. What I have to ask of you, is, to
+dress yourself in her night-clothes, and lie by him a whole night in her
+place, that he may not miss her while she is with me." The Gascon
+(though of a very lively and undertaking complexion) began to startle at
+the proposal. "Nay," says the widow, "if you have not the courage to go
+through what I ask of you, I must employ somebody else that will."
+"Madam," says the Gascon, "I'll kill him for you if you please; but for
+lying with him!--How is it possible to do it without being discovered?"
+"If you do not discover yourself," says the widow, "you will lie safe
+enough, for he is past all curiosity. He comes in at night while she is
+asleep, and goes out in the morning before she awakes, and is in pain
+for nothing, so he knows she is there." "Madam," replied the Gascon,
+"how can you reward me for passing a night with this old fellow?" The
+widow answered with a laugh, "Perhaps by admitting you to pass a night
+with one you think more agreeable." He took the hint, put on his
+night-clothes, and had not been a-bed above an hour before he heard a
+knocking at the door, and the treading of one who approached the other
+side of the bed, and who he did not question was the good man of the
+house. I do not know, whether the story would be better by telling you
+in this place, or at the end of it, that the person who went to bed to
+him was our young coquette widow. The Gascon was in a terrible fright
+every time she moved in the bed, or turned towards him, and did not fail
+to shrink from her till he had conveyed himself to the very ridge of the
+bed. I will not dwell upon the perplexity he was in the whole night,
+which was augmented, when he observed that it was now broad day, and
+that the husband did not yet offer to get up and go about his business.
+All that the Gascon had for it, was to keep his face turned from him,
+and to feign himself asleep, when, to his utter confusion, the widow at
+last puts out her arm, and pulls the bell at her bed's head. In came her
+friend, and two or three companions, to whom the Gascon had boasted of
+her favours. The widow jumped into a wrapping-gown, and joined with the
+rest in laughing at this man of intrigue.[54]
+
+
+[Footnote 53: Bayle, in his life of this devotee, 1697, says that
+Antoinette Bourignon was born at Lisle in 1616, so deformed, that it was
+debated for some days in the family, whether it was not proper to stifle
+her as a monster. Her deformity diminishing, they laid aside the
+thought. Although she was of a morose and peevish temper, and embroiled
+in troubles most part of her life, she seemed to be but forty years of
+age when she was above sixty; never made use of spectacles, and died at
+Franeker, in the province of Frise, in 1680. From her childhood to her
+old age she had an extraordinary turn of mind. She published a multitude
+of books, filled with singular doctrines, such as might be expected from
+a person who roundly asserted, on the express declaration, she said, of
+God Himself, "That the examination of things by reason, was the most
+accursed of all heresies, formal atheism, a rejection of God, and the
+substitution of corrupt reason in his place." She pretended to
+inspiration, and boasted of extraordinary communications with God; but
+appears to have been exceedingly defective in the essential duties of
+humility and charity. She was a woman of such ill conditions and odd
+behaviour, that nobody could live with her; and she seriously
+maintained, that anger was a real virtue. She contrived to accumulate
+money, but continued always uncharitable upon principle, alleging the
+errors of her understanding in defence of the inhumanity of her
+conduct.]
+
+[Footnote 54: "_Advertisement._--Proposals for printing the Lucubrations
+of Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq., by subscriptions, are to be seen, and
+subscriptions taken by Charles Lillie, a perfumer, at the corner of
+Beaufort Buildings, in the Strand, and John Morphew, near Stationers
+Hall." See No. 80, note. The same proposals are advertised at the end of
+the subsequent papers in the original folio, with the following
+variation and addition: Proposals for printing, &c. by subscriptions,
+"in two volumes in octavo, on a large character and fine royal paper,"
+&c. In No. 134, &c., there was this addition: "All persons that desire
+to subscribe to this work are desired to send their subscriptions before
+the 25th instant, it being intended to print no more than what shall be
+subscribed for, and to begin on the 27th in order to have it published
+before Easter." In No. 139 (Feb. 25-28) was the announcement, "this day
+put to press." The idea of publishing by Easter was given up after No.
+153. The books were not ready for the subscribers until July 10 (see No.
+195, Advertisement). The third and fourth volumes of the _Tatler_ were
+advertised as "ready to be delivered" in No. 227 of the _Spectator_
+(Nov. 20, 1711). The copies on royal paper were issued at a guinea a
+volume, and copies on medium paper at half a guinea. "I am one of your
+two-guinea subscribers," says the writer of No. 5 of the _Examiner_
+(Aug. 31, 1710).]
+
+
+
+
+No. 127.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Saturday, Jan. 28_, to _Tuesday, Jan. 31, 1709-10_.
+
+    Nimirum insanus paucis videatur, eo quod
+    Maxima pars hominum morbo jactatur eodem.
+                        HOR., 2 Sat. iii. 120.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, January 30._
+
+There is no affection of the mind so much blended in human nature, and
+wrought into our very constitution, as pride. It appears under a
+multitude of disguises, and breaks out in ten thousand different
+symptoms. Every one feels it in himself, and yet wonders to see it in
+his neighbour. I must confess, I met with an instance of it the other
+day where I should very little have expected it. Who would believe the
+proud person I am going to speak of, is a cobbler upon Ludgate Hill?
+This artist being naturally a lover of respect, and considering that his
+circumstances are such that no man living will give it him, has
+contrived the figure of a beau in wood, who stands before him in a
+bending posture, with his hat under his left arm, and his right hand
+extended in such a manner as to hold a thread, a piece of wax, or an
+awl, according to the particular service in which his master thinks fit
+to employ him. When I saw him, he held a candle in this obsequious
+posture. I was very well pleased with the cobbler's invention, that had
+so ingeniously contrived an inferior, and stood a little while
+contemplating this inverted idolatry, wherein the image did homage to
+the man. When we meet with such a fantastic vanity in one of this order,
+it is no wonder if we may trace it through all degrees above it, and
+particularly through all the steps of greatness. We easily see the
+absurdity of pride when it enters into the heart of a cobbler; though in
+reality it is altogether as ridiculous and unreasonable wherever it
+takes possession of a human creature. There is no temptation to it from
+the reflection upon our being in general, or upon any comparative
+perfection, whereby one man may excel another. The greater a man's
+knowledge is, the greater motive he may seem to have for pride; but in
+the same proportion as the one rises, the other sinks, it being the
+chief office of wisdom to discover to us our weaknesses and
+imperfections.
+
+As folly is the foundation of pride, the natural superstructure of it is
+madness. If there was an occasion for the experiment, I would not
+question to make a proud man a lunatic in three weeks' time, provided I
+had it in my power to ripen his frenzy with proper applications. It is
+an admirable reflection in Terence, where it is said of a parasite,
+"_Hic homines ex stultis facit insanos!_"[55] "This fellow," says he,
+"has an art of converting fools into madmen." When I was in France (the
+region of complaisance and vanity), I have often observed, that a great
+man who has entered a levy of flatterers humble and temperate, has grown
+so insensibly heated by the court which was paid him on all sides, that
+he has been quite distracted before he could get into his coach.
+
+If we consult the collegiates of Moorfields, we shall find most of them
+are beholden to their pride for their introduction into that magnificent
+palace.[56] I had some years ago the curiosity to inquire into the
+particular circumstances of these whimsical freeholders, and learned
+from their own mouths the condition and character of each of them.
+Indeed I found, that all I spoke to were persons of quality. There were
+at that time five duchesses, three earls, two heathen gods, an emperor,
+and a prophet. There were also a great number of such as were locked up
+from their estates, and others who concealed their titles. A
+leather-seller of Taunton whispered me in my ear, that he was the Duke
+of Monmouth; but begged me not to betray him. At a little distance from
+him sat a tailor's wife, who asked me as I went by, if I had seen the
+sword-bearer? Upon which I presumed to ask her, who she was; and was
+answered, "My Lady Mayoress."
+
+I was very sensibly touched with compassion towards these miserable
+people; and indeed, extremely mortified to see human nature capable of
+being thus disfigured. However, I reaped this benefit from it, that I
+was resolved to guard myself against a passion which makes such havoc in
+the brain, and produces so much disorder in the imagination. For this
+reason, I have endeavoured to keep down the secret swellings of
+resentment, and stifle the very first suggestions of self-esteem; to
+establish my mind in tranquillity, and over-value nothing in my own, or
+in another's possession.
+
+For the benefit of such whose heads are a little turned, though not to
+so great a degree as to qualify them for the place of which I have been
+now speaking, I shall assign one of the sides of the college which I am
+erecting, for the cure of this dangerous distemper.
+
+The most remarkable of the persons whose disturbance arises from pride,
+and whom I shall use all possible diligence to cure, are such as are
+bidden in the appearance of quite contrary habits and dispositions.
+Among such, I shall in the first place take care of one who is under the
+most subtle species of pride that I have observed in my whole
+experience.
+
+This patient is a person for whom I have a great respect, as being an
+old courtier, and a friend of mine in my youth. The man has but a bare
+subsistence, just enough to pay his reckoning with us at the
+Trumpet:[57] but by having spent the beginning of his life in the
+hearing of great men and persons of power, he is always promising to do
+good offices, to introduce every man he converses with into the world;
+will desire one of ten times his substance to let him see him sometimes,
+and hints to him, that he does not forget him. He answers to matters of
+no consequence with great circumspection; but however, maintains a
+general civility in his words and actions, and an insolent benevolence
+to all whom he has to do with: this he practises with a grave tone and
+air; and though I am his senior by twelve years, and richer by forty
+pounds per annum, he had yesterday the impudence to commend me to my
+face, and tell me, he should be always ready to encourage me. In a-word,
+he is a very insignificant fellow, but exceeding gracious. The best
+return I can make him for his favours, is, to carry him myself to
+Bedlam, and see him well taken care of.[58]
+
+The next person I shall provide for, is of a quite contrary character;
+that has in him all the stiffness and insolence of quality, without a
+grain of sense or good nature to make it either respected or beloved.
+His pride has infected every muscle of his face; and yet, after all his
+endeavours to show mankind that he contemns them, he is only neglected
+by all that see him, as not of consequence enough to be hated.
+
+For the cure of this particular sort of madness, it will be necessary to
+break through all forms with him, and familiarise[59] his carriage by
+the use of a good cudgel. It may likewise be of great benefit to make
+him jump over a stick half a dozen times every morning.
+
+A third whom I have in my eye is a young fellow, whose lunacy is such,
+that he boasts of nothing but what he ought to be ashamed of. He is vain
+of being rotten, and talks publicly of having committed crimes, which he
+ought to be hanged for by the laws of his country.
+
+There are several others whose brains are hurt with pride, and whom I
+may hereafter attempt to recover; but shall conclude my present list
+with an old woman, who is just dropping into her grave, that talks of
+nothing but her birth. Though she has not a tooth in her head, she
+expects to be valued for the blood in her veins, which she fancies is
+much better than that which glows in the cheeks of Belinda,[60] and sets
+half the town on fire.
+
+
+[Footnote 55: "Eunuchus," II. ii. 23. See No. 208.]
+
+[Footnote 56: Bedlam.]
+
+[Footnote 57: In Shire Lane. See No. 132.]
+
+[Footnote 58: "Perhaps the most consummately drawn of all his characters
+is introduced in the Essay, No. 127.... We have a portrait of that kind
+which, though produced by a few apparently careless touches, never
+ceases to charm, and is a study for all succeeding time and painters"
+(Forster's Essay on Steele). "This character," wrote Leigh Hunt, "is one
+of the finest that ever proceeded from his pen. It shows his contempt of
+that absurdest of all the passions of mortality--pride. The reader will
+take notice of the exquisite expression 'insolent benevolence,' and the
+'very insignificant fellow, but exceeding gracious'" ("A Book for a
+Corner," ii. 78-9).]
+
+[Footnote 59: Bring down from its state of superiority.]
+
+[Footnote 60: Nichols suggests an allusion to Mary Ann, daughter of
+Baron Spanheim, the Bavarian ambassador. She married the Marquis de
+Montandre in April 1710, and was a Kit-Cat toast. The reference--if
+there is any personal reference at all--may equally well be to any one
+of the beauties of the time.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 128.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Tuesday, Jan. 31_, to _Thursday, Feb. 2, 1709-10_.
+
+    ----Veniunt a dote sagittæ.--JUV., Sat. vi. 139.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, February 1._
+
+This morning I received a letter from a fortune-hunter, which being
+better in its kind than men of that character usually write, I have
+thought fit to communicate to the public:
+
+     "_To Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq._
+     "SIR,
+
+     "I take the boldness to recommend to your care the enclosed letter,
+     not knowing how to communicate it but by your means to the
+     agreeable country maid you mention with so much honour in your
+     discourse concerning the lottery.[61]
+
+     "I should be ashamed to give you this trouble without offering at
+     some small requital: I shall therefore direct a new pair of globes
+     and a telescope of the best maker, to be left for you at Mr.
+     Morphew's, as a testimony of the great respect with which I am
+
+                        "Your most humble Servant, &c."
+
+     "_To Mopsa in Sheer Lane._
+     "FAIREST UNKNOWN,
+
+     "It being discovered by the stars, that about ten[62] months hence,
+     you will run the hazard of being persecuted by many worthless
+     pretenders to your person, unless timely prevented, I now offer my
+     service for your security against the persecution that threatens
+     you. This is therefore to let you know, that I have conceived a
+     most extraordinary passion for you; and that for several days I
+     have been perpetually haunted with the vision of a person I have
+     never yet seen. To satisfy you that I am in my senses, and that I
+     do not mistake you for any one of higher rank, I assure you, that
+     in your daily employment, you appear to my imagination more
+     agreeable in a short scanty petticoat, than the finest woman of
+     quality in her spreading farthingale; and that the dexterous twirl
+     of your mop has more native charms than the studied airs of a
+     lady's fan. In a word, I am captivated with your menial
+     qualifications: the domestic virtues adorn you like attendant
+     Cupids; cleanliness and healthful industry wait on all your
+     motions; and dust and cobwebs fly your approach.
+
+     "Now, to give you an honest account of myself, and that you may see
+     my designs are honourable, I am an esquire of an ancient family,
+     born to about fifteen hundred pounds a year, half of which I have
+     spent in discovering myself to be a fool, and with the rest am
+     resolved to retire with some plain honest partner, and study to be
+     wiser. I had my education in a laced coat, and a French dancing
+     school; and by my travel into foreign parts, have just as much
+     breeding to spare, as you may think you want, which I intend to
+     exchange as fast as I can for old English honesty and good sense. I
+     will not impose on you by a false recommendation of my person,
+     which (to show you my sincerity) is none of the handsomest, being
+     of a figure somewhat short; but what I want in length, I make out
+     in breadth. But in amends for that and all other defects, If you
+     can like me when you see me, I shall continue to you, whether I
+     find you fair, black or brown,
+
+                                        "THE MOST CONSTANT OF LOVERS.
+     "_January 27, 1709/10._"
+
+This letter seems to be written by a wag, and for that reason I am not
+much concerned for what reception Mopsa shall think fit to give it; but
+the following certainly proceeds from a poor heart, that languishes
+under the most deplorable misfortune that possibly can befall a woman. A
+man that is treacherously dealt with in love may have recourse to many
+consolations. He may gracefully break through all opposition to his
+mistress, or explain with his rival; urge his own constancy, or
+aggravate the falsehood by which it is repaid. But a woman that is
+ill-treated has no refuge in her griefs but in silence and secrecy. The
+world is so unjust, that a female heart which has been once touched is
+thought for ever blemished. The very grief in this case is looked upon
+as a reproach, and a complaint almost a breach of chastity. For these
+reasons, we see treachery and falsehood are become as it were male
+vices, and are seldom found, never acknowledged, in the other sex. This
+may serve to introduce Statira's letter, which, without any turn or art,
+has something so pathetical and moving in it, that I verily believe it
+to be true, and therefore heartily pity the injured creature that wrote
+it:
+
+                                        "_To Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq._
+     "SIR,
+
+     "You seem in many of your writings to be a man of a very
+     compassionate temper, and well acquainted with the passion of love.
+     This encourages me to apply myself to you in my present distress,
+     which I believe you will look upon to be very great, and treat with
+     tenderness, notwithstanding it wholly arises from love, and that it
+     is a woman that makes this confession. I am now in the twenty-third
+     year of my age, and have for a great while entertained the
+     addresses of a man who I thought loved me more than life. I am sure
+     I did him; and must own to you, not without some confusion, that I
+     have thought on nothing else for these two long years, but the
+     happy life we should lead together, and the means I should use to
+     make myself still dearer to him. My fortune was indeed much beyond
+     his; and as I was always in the company of my relations, he was
+     forced to discover his inclinations, and declare himself to me by
+     stories of other persons, kind looks, and many ways which he knew
+     too well that I understood. Oh! Mr. Bickerstaff, it is impossible
+     to tell you, how industrious I have been to make him appear lovely
+     in my thoughts. I made it a point of conscience to think well of
+     him, and of no man else: but he has since had an estate fallen to
+     him, and makes love to another of a greater fortune than mine. I
+     could not believe the report of this at first; but about a
+     fortnight ago I was convinced of the truth of it by his own
+     behaviour. He came to give our family a formal visit, when, as
+     there were several in company, and many things talked of, the
+     discourse fell upon some unhappy woman who was in my own
+     circumstances. It was said by one in the room, that they could not
+     believe the story could be true, because they did not believe any
+     man could be so false. Upon which, I stole a look upon him with an
+     anguish not to be expressed. He saw my eyes full of tears; yet had
+     the cruelty to say, that he could see no falsehood in alterations
+     of this nature, where there had been no contracts or vows
+     interchanged. Pray, do not make a jest of misery, but tell me
+     seriously your opinion of his behaviour; and if you can have any
+     pity for my condition, publish this in your next paper, that being
+     the only way I have of complaining of his unkindness, and showing
+     him the injustice he has done me. I am
+
+                                       "Your humble Servant,
+                                                 "The unfortunate
+                                                           "STATIRA."
+
+The name my correspondent gives herself, puts me in mind of my old
+reading in romances, and brings into my thoughts a speech of the
+renowned Don Bellianis, who, upon a complaint made him of a discourteous
+knight, that had left his injured paramour in the same manner, dries up
+her tears with a promise of relief. "Disconsolate damsel," quoth he, "a
+foul disgrace it were to all right worthy professors of chivalry, if
+such a blot to knighthood should pass unchastised. Give me to know the
+abode of this recreant lover, and I will give him as a feast to the
+fowls of the air, or drag him bound before you at my horse's tail."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I am not ashamed to own myself a champion of distressed damsels, and
+would venture as far to relieve them as Don Bellianis; for which reason,
+I do invite this lady to let me know the name of the traitor who has
+deceived her; and do promise, not only her, but all the fair ones of
+Great Britain who lie under the same calamity, to employ my right hand
+for their redress, and serve them to my last drop of ink.
+
+
+[Footnote 61: See No. 124.]
+
+[Footnote 62: Altered, in error, to "three," in the 1711 edition. In No.
+124 "ten months" remains. The drawing was at Michaelmas 1710.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 129.                                                [ADDISON.[63]
+
+From _Thursday, Feb. 2_, to _Saturday, Feb. 4, 1709-10_.
+
+    Ingenio manus est et cervix cæsa.--JUV., Sat. x. 120.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, February 3._
+
+When my paper for to-morrow was prepared for the press, there came in
+this morning a mail from Holland, which brought me several advices from
+foreign parts, and took my thoughts off domestic affairs. Among others,
+I have a letter from a burgher of Amsterdam, who makes me his
+compliments, and tells me, he has sent me several draughts of humorous
+and satirical pictures by the best hands of the Dutch nation. They are a
+trading people, and in their very minds mechanics. They express their
+wit in manufacture, as we do in manuscript. He informs me, that a very
+witty hand has lately represented the present posture of public affairs
+in a landscape, or rather sea-piece, wherein the potentates of the
+Alliance are figured as their interests correspond with, or affect each
+other, under the appearance of commanders of ships. These vessels carry
+the colours of the respective nations concerned in the present war. The
+whole design seems to tend to one point, which is, that several
+squadrons of British and Dutch ships are battering a French man-of-war,
+in order to make her deliver up a long-boat with Spanish colours. My
+correspondent informs me, that a man must understand the compass
+perfectly well, to be able to comprehend the beauty and invention of
+this piece, which is so skilfully drawn, that the particular views of
+every prince in Europe are seen according as the ships lie to the main
+figure in the picture, and as that figure may help or retard their
+sailing. It seems this curiosity is now on board a ship bound for
+England, and with other rarities made a present to me. As soon as it
+arrives, I design to expose it to public view at my secretary Mr.
+Lillie's, who shall have an explication of all the terms of art; and I
+doubt not but it will give as good content as the moving picture in
+Fleet Street.[64]
+
+But above all the honours I have received from the learned world abroad,
+I am most delighted with the following epistle from Rome:
+
+     "_Pasquin of Rome, to Isaac Bickerstaff of Great Britain, greeting._
+     "SIR,
+
+     "Your reputation has passed the Alps, and would have come to my
+     ears by this time, if I had any. In short, sir, you are looked upon
+     here as a Northern droll, and the greatest virtuoso among the
+     Tramontanes. Some indeed say, that Mr. Bickerstaff and Pasquin are
+     only names invented, to father compositions which the natural
+     parent does not care for owning. But however that is, all agree,
+     that there are several persons, who, if they durst attack you,
+     would endeavour to leave you no more limbs than I have. I need not
+     tell you that my adversaries have joined in a confederacy with Time
+     to demolish me, and that, if I were not a very great wit, I should
+     make the worst figure in Europe, being abridged of my legs, arms,
+     nose, and ears. If you think fit to accept of the correspondence of
+     so facetious a cripple, I shall from time to time send you an
+     account of what happens at Rome. You have only heard of it from
+     Latin and Greek authors; may, perhaps, have read no accounts from
+     hence, but of a triumph, ovation, or apotheosis, and will,
+     doubtless, be surprised to see the description of a procession,
+     jubilee, or canonisation. I shall however send you what the place
+     affords, in return to what I shall receive from you. If you will
+     acquaint me with your next promotion of general officers, I will
+     send you an account of our next advancement of saints. If you will
+     let me know who is reckoned the bravest warrior in Great Britain,
+     I'll tell you who is the best fiddler in Rome. If you will favour
+     me with an inventory of the riches that were brought into your
+     nation by Admiral Wager,[65] I will not fail giving you an account
+     of a pot of medals that has been lately dug up here, and are now
+     under the examination of our ministers of state.
+
+     "There is one thing in which I desire you would be very particular.
+     What I mean is an exact list of all the religions in Great Britain,
+     as likewise the habits, which are said here to be the great points
+     of conscience in England, whether they are made of serge or
+     broadcloth, of silk or linen. I should be glad to see a model of
+     the most conscientious dress amongst you, and desire you would
+     send me a hat of each religion; as likewise, if it be not too much
+     trouble, a cravat. It would also be very acceptable here to receive
+     an account of those two religious orders which are lately sprung up
+     amongst you, the Whigs and the Tories, with the points of doctrine,
+     severities in discipline, penances, mortifications, and good works,
+     by which they differ one from another. It would be no less kind if
+     you would explain to us a word which they do not understand even at
+     our English monastery toasts, and let us know whether the ladies so
+     called are nuns or lay-sisters.
+
+     "In return, I will send you the secret history of several
+     cardinals, which I have by me in manuscript, with gallantries,
+     amours, politics, and intrigues, by which they made their way to
+     the Holy Purple.
+
+     "But when I propose a correspondence, I must not tell you what I
+     intend to advise you of hereafter, and neglect to give you what I
+     have at present. The Pope has been sick for this fortnight of a
+     violent toothache, which has very much raised the French faction,
+     and put the conclave into a great ferment. Every one of the
+     pretenders to the succession is grown twenty years older than he
+     was a fortnight ago. Each candidate tries who shall cough and stoop
+     most; for these are at present the great gifts that recommend to
+     the apostolical seat, which he stands the fairest for, who is
+     likely to resign it the soonest. I have known the time when it used
+     to rain louis-d'ors on such occasions; but whatever is the matter,
+     there are very few of them to be seen at present at Rome, insomuch
+     that it is thought a man might purchase infallibility at a very
+     reasonable rate. It is nevertheless hoped that his Holiness may
+     recover, and bury these his imaginary successors.
+
+     "There has lately been found a human tooth in a catacomb, which has
+     engaged a couple of convents in a lawsuit; each of them pretending
+     that it belonged to the jawbone of a saint who was of their Order.
+     The colleges have sat upon it thrice, and I find there is a
+     disposition among them to take it out of the possession of both the
+     contending parties, by reason of a speech which was made by one of
+     the cardinals, who, by reason of its being found out of the company
+     of any other bones, asserted, that it might be one of the teeth
+     which was coughed out by Ælia, an old woman whose loss is recorded
+     in Martial.[66]
+
+     "I have nothing remarkable to communicate to you of State affairs,
+     excepting only, that the Pope has lately received a horse from the
+     German ambassador, as an acknowledgment for the kingdom of Naples,
+     which is a fief of the Church. His Holiness refused this horse from
+     the Germans ever since the Duke of Anjou has been possessed of
+     Spain; but as they lately took care to accompany it with a body of
+     ten thousand more, they have at last overcome his Holiness's
+     modesty, and prevailed upon him to accept the present. I am,
+
+                                     "Sir,
+                                         "Your most obedient,
+                                                 "Humble Servant,
+                                                            "PASQUIN.
+     "P.S. Morforio is very much yours."[67]
+
+
+[Footnote 63: There is the following note in No. 130 (orig. folio):
+"Errata in the last. Insert the following motto, which was overlooked by
+the printer," &c. "Col. 2, line 16, for Oration read Ovation." Probably
+this paper, No. 129, was by Addison, not only because of these
+corrections, but because of the allusions to medals, &c., in the letter
+from Pasquin. The paper is, however, not included in Addison's Works.]
+
+[Footnote 64: "To be seen daily, at the Duke of Marlborough's Head in
+Fleet Street, a new moving picture, drawn by the best hand, with great
+variety of curious motions and figures, which form a most agreeable
+prospect. It has the general approbation of all who see it, and far
+exceeds the original formerly shown at the same place.--N.B. This
+picture was never exposed to public view, before the beginning of the
+present year 1710" (No. 127, Advertisement). "The famous and curious
+original moving picture, which came from Germany, that was designed for
+the Elector of Bavaria, is still to be seen at the Duke of Marlborough's
+Head, in Fleet Street;" &c.--_Postman_, March 1-3, 1709 [-10].]
+
+[Footnote 65: Charles Wager was first made a captain at the battle of La
+Hogue by Admiral Russell, who recommended him on the most important
+services. He was sent commodore to the West Indies in 1707, where he
+attacked the Spanish galleons, May 28, 1708, with three ships, though
+they were fourteen in number drawn up in line of battle, and defeated
+them. His services Queen Anne distinguished by sending him a flag as
+Vice-admiral of the Blue, intended for him before this engagement, and
+by honouring him at his return with knighthood. His share of prize-money
+amounted to 100,000_l._ But the riches he acquired, on this and other
+occasions, were regarded by him only as instruments of doing good;
+accordingly he gave fortunes to his relations, that he might see them
+happy in his lifetime; and to persons in distress, his liberality was
+such, that whole families were supported, and their estates and fortunes
+saved, by his generosity. He was promoted to be Rear-admiral of the Red,
+November 9, 1709; and in that year was returned for Portsmouth to
+Parliament, where he continued to sit till his death. In April 1726, he
+was sent up the Baltic as Vice-admiral of the Red, with a large fleet on
+an important expedition; and performed all that could be expected from
+the wisdom and skill of an English admiral. He dined with the King of
+Denmark; had an audience of the King of Sweden; and exchanged many
+civilities with Prince Menzikoff, then Prime Minister of Russia. He was
+appointed Comptroller of the Navy in February 1714; a Lord of the
+Admiralty in March 1717; and, on the death of Lord Torrington in January
+1732-3, he was placed at the head of that Board, and appointed president
+of the corporation for relief of poor sea-officers' widows, and also
+president of the corporation of the Trinity House. He was appointed one
+of the Lords Regent in 1741; Vice-admiral of England and Treasurer of
+the Navy in 1742; and died May 24, 1743, aged 77. A prudent, temperate,
+wise, and honest man, he was easy of access to all, unaffected in his
+manners, steady and resolute in his conduct, affable and cheerful in his
+behaviour, and in time of action or imminent danger was never hurried or
+discomposed (Nichols).]
+
+[Footnote 66: "Epig." i. 20.]
+
+[Footnote 67: See No. 130, Advertisement.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 130.                                              [? ADDISON.[68]
+
+From _Saturday, Feb. 4_, to _Tuesday, Feb. 7, 1709-10_.
+
+                          ----At me
+    Cum magnis vixisse invita fatebitur usque
+    Invidia.--HOR., 2 Sat. i. 75.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, February 6._
+
+I find some of the most polite Latin authors, who wrote at a time when
+Rome was in its glory, speak with a certain noble vanity of the
+brightness and splendour of the age in which they lived. Pliny often
+compliments his Emperor Trajan upon this head; and when he would
+animate him to anything great, or dissuade him from anything that was
+improper, he insinuates, that it is befitting or unbecoming the
+_claritas et nitor sæculi_, that period of time which was made
+illustrious by his reign. When we cast our eyes back on the history of
+mankind, and trace them through their several successions to their first
+original, we sometimes see them breaking out in great and memorable
+actions, and towering up to the utmost heights of virtue and knowledge;
+when, perhaps, if we carry our observation to a little distance, we see
+them sunk into sloth and ignorance, and altogether lost in darkness and
+obscurity. Sometimes the whole species is asleep for two or three
+generations, and then again awakens into action, flourishes in heroes,
+philosophers, and poets, who do honour to human nature, and leave such
+tracts of glory behind them, as distinguish the years in which they
+acted their part from the ordinary course of time.
+
+Methinks a man cannot, without a secret satisfaction, consider the glory
+of the present age, which will shine as bright as any other in the
+history of mankind. It is still big with great events, and has already
+produced changes and revolutions which will be as much admired by
+posterity, as any that have happened in the days of our fathers, or in
+the old times before them. We have seen kingdoms divided and united,
+monarchs erected and deposed, nations transferred from one sovereign to
+another; conquerors raised to such a greatness as has given a terror to
+Europe, and thrown down by such a fall, as has moved their pity.
+
+But it is still a more pleasing view to an Englishman, to see his own
+country give the chief influence to so illustrious an age, and stand in
+the strongest point of light amidst the diffused glory that surrounds
+it.
+
+If we begin with learned men, we may observe, to the honour of our
+country, that those who make the greatest figure in most arts and
+sciences, are universally allowed to be of the British nation; and what
+is more remarkable, that men of the greatest learning are among the men
+of the greatest quality.
+
+A nation may indeed abound with persons of such uncommon parts and
+worth, as may make them rather a misfortune than a blessing to the
+public. Those who singly might have been of infinite advantage to the
+age they live in, may, by rising up together in the same crisis of time,
+and by interfering in their pursuits of honour, rather interrupt than
+promote the service of their country. Of this we have a famous instance
+in the Republic of Rome, when Cæsar, Pompey, Cato, Cicero, and Brutus,
+endeavoured to recommend themselves at the same time to the admiration
+of their contemporaries. Mankind was not able to provide for so many
+extraordinary persons at once, or find out posts suitable to their
+ambition and abilities. For this reason, they were all as miserable in
+their deaths as they were famous in their lives, and occasioned, not
+only the ruin of each other, but also that of the commonwealth.
+
+It is therefore a particular happiness to a people, when the men of
+superior genius and character are so justly disposed in the high places
+of honour, that each of them moves in a sphere which is proper to him,
+and requires those particular qualities in which he excels.
+
+If I see a general commanding the forces of his country, whose victories
+are not to be paralleled in story, and who is as famous for his
+negotiations as his victories;[69] and at the same time see the
+management of a nation's treasury in the hands of one who has always
+distinguished himself by a generous contempt of his own private wealth,
+and an exact frugality of that which belongs to the public;[70] I
+cannot but think a people under such an Administration may promise
+themselves conquest abroad, and plenty at home. If I were to wish for a
+proper person to preside over the public councils, it should certainly
+be one as much admired for his universal knowledge of men and things, as
+for his eloquence, courage and integrity, in the exerting of such
+extraordinary talents.[71]
+
+Who is not pleased to see a person in the highest station in the law,
+who was the most eminent in his profession, and the most accomplished
+orator at the Bar?[72] Or at the head of the fleet a commander, under
+whose conduct the common enemy received such a blow as he has never been
+able to recover?[73]
+
+Were we to form to ourselves the idea of one whom we should think proper
+to govern a distant kingdom, consisting chiefly of those who differ from
+us in religion, and are influenced by foreign politics, would it not be
+such a one as had signalised himself by a uniform and unshaken zeal for
+the Protestant interest, and by his dexterity in defeating the skill and
+artifice of its enemies?[74] In short, if we find a great man popular
+for his honesty and humanity, as well as famed for his learning and
+great skill in all the languages of Europe, or a person eminent for
+those qualifications which make men shine in public assemblies, or for
+that steadiness, constancy, and good sense, which carry a man to the
+desired point through all the opposition of tumult and prejudice, we
+have the happiness to behold them all in posts suitable to their
+characters.
+
+Such a constellation of great persons, if I may so speak, while they
+shine out in their own distinct capacities, reflect a lustre upon each
+other, but in a more particular manner on their Sovereign, who has
+placed them in those proper situations, by which their virtues become so
+beneficial to all her subjects. It is the anniversary of the birthday of
+this glorious Queen which naturally led me into this field of
+contemplation, and instead of joining in the public exultations that are
+made on such occasions, to entertain my thoughts with the more serious
+pleasure of ruminating upon the glories of her reign.
+
+While I behold her surrounded with triumphs, and adorned with all the
+prosperity and success which Heaven ever shed on a mortal, and still
+considering herself as such; though the person appears to me exceeding
+great that has these just honours paid to her, yet I must confess, she
+appears much greater in that she receives them with such a glorious
+humility, and shows she has no further regard for them, than as they
+arise from these great events which have made her subjects happy. For my
+own part, I must confess, when I see private virtues in so high a degree
+of perfection, I am not astonished at any extraordinary success that
+attends them, but look upon public triumphs as the natural consequences
+of religious retirements.
+
+
+ADVERTISEMENT.
+
+Finding some persons have mistaken Pasquin who was mentioned in my last,
+for one who has been pilloried at Rome; I must here advertise them, that
+it is only a maimed statue so called, on which the private scandal of
+that city is generally pasted. Morforio is a person of the same quality,
+who is usually made to answer whatever is published by the other: the
+wits of that place, like too many of our own country, taking pleasure in
+setting innocent people together by the ears. The mentioning of this
+person, who is a great wit, and a great cripple, put me in mind of Mr.
+Estcourt,[75] who is under the same circumstances. He was formerly my
+apothecary, and being at present disabled by the gout and stone, I must
+recommend him to the public on Thursday next, that admirable play of Ben
+Jonson's, called, "The Silent Woman," being appointed to be acted for
+his benefit. It would be indecent for me to appear twice in a season at
+these ludicrous diversions; but as I always give my man and my maid one
+day in the year, I shall allow them this, and am promised by Mr.
+Estcourt, my ingenious apothecary, that they shall have a place kept for
+them in the first row of the middle gallery.
+
+
+[Footnote 68: Nichols suggests that this paper may be by Addison,
+because in No. 131 Addison has the following note: "For the benefit of
+my readers, I think myself obliged here to let them know that I always
+make use of an old-fashioned e, which very little differs from an o.
+This has been the reason that my printer sometimes mistakes the one for
+the other; as in my last paper, I find, _those_ for _these_, _beheld_
+for _behold_, Corvix for Cervix, and the like." The internal evidence
+supports this view; but the paper is not included in Addison's Works.]
+
+[Footnote 69: The Duke of Marlborough.]
+
+[Footnote 70: Sidney, Lord Godolphin.]
+
+[Footnote 71: Lord Somers. See No. 4.]
+
+[Footnote 72: Lord Chancellor Cowper. See the Dedication to this
+volume.]
+
+[Footnote 73: Edward Russell, Earl of Oxford. See No. 4.]
+
+[Footnote 74: Thomas, Earl of Wharton, the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland.]
+[Footnote 75: See Nos. 20, 51. Estcourt was apprenticed to an
+apothecary, and is said to have tried that business before going on the
+stage.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 131.                                                    [ADDISON.
+
+From _Tuesday, Feb. 7_, to _Thursday, Feb. 9, 1709-10_.
+
+    ----Scelus est jugulare Falernum,
+    Et dare Campano toxica sæva mero.
+                              MART., Epig. i. 18.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, February 8._
+
+There is in this city a certain fraternity of chemical operators, who
+work under ground in holes, caverns, and dark retirements, to conceal
+their mysteries from the eyes and observation of mankind. These
+subterraneous philosophers are daily employed in the transmutation of
+liquors, and, by the power of magical drugs and incantations, raising
+under the streets of London the choicest products of the hills and
+valleys of France. They can squeeze bordeaux out of the sloe, and draw
+champagne from an apple. Virgil in that remarkable prophecy,
+
+    _Incultisque rubens pendebit sentibus uva_,[76]
+
+    (_The ripening grape shall hang on every thorn_),
+
+seems to have hinted at this art which can turn a plantation of Northern
+hedges into a vineyard. These adepts are known among one another by the
+name of "wine-brewers," and I am afraid do great injury, not only to her
+Majesty's customs, but to the bodies of many of her good subjects.
+
+Having received sundry complaints against these invisible workmen, I
+ordered the proper officer of my court to ferret them out of their
+respective caves, and bring them before me, which was yesterday executed
+accordingly.
+
+The person who appeared against them was a merchant, who had by him a
+great magazine of wines that he had laid in before the war: but these
+gentlemen (as he said) had so vitiated the nation's palate, that no man
+could believe his to be French, because it did not taste like what they
+sold for such. As a man never pleads better than where his own personal
+interest is concerned, he exhibited to the court with great eloquence,
+that this new corporation of druggists had inflamed the bills of
+mortality, and puzzled the College of Physicians with diseases, for
+which they neither knew a name nor cure. He accused some of giving all
+their customers colics and megrims; and mentioned one who had boasted,
+he had a tun of claret by him, that in a fortnight's time should give
+the gout to a dozen of the healthiest men in the city, provided that
+their constitutions were prepared for it by wealth and idleness. He then
+enlarged, with a great show of reason, upon the prejudice which these
+mixtures and compositions had done to the brains of the English nation;
+as is too visible (said he) from many late pamphlets, speeches and
+sermons, as well as from the ordinary conversations of the youth of this
+age. He then quoted an ingenious person, who would undertake to know by
+a man's writings, the wine he most delighted in; and on that occasion
+named a certain satirist, whom he had discovered to be the author of a
+lampoon, by a manifest taste of the sloe, which showed itself in it by
+much roughness, and little spirit.
+
+In the last place, he ascribed to the unnatural tumults and
+fermentations which these mixtures raise in our blood, the divisions,
+heat and animosities, that reign among us; and in particular, asserted
+most of the modern enthusiasms and agitations to be nothing else but the
+effects of adulterated port.
+
+The counsel for the brewers had a face so extremely inflamed and
+illuminated with carbuncles, that I did not wonder to see him an
+advocate for these sophistications. His rhetoric was likewise such as I
+should have expected from the common draught, which I found he often
+drank to a great excess. Indeed, I was so surprised at his figure and
+parts, that I ordered him to give me a taste of his usual liquor; which
+I had no sooner drunk, but I found a pimple rising in my forehead; and
+felt such a sensible decay in my understanding, that I would not proceed
+in the trial till the fume of it was entirely dissipated.
+
+This notable advocate had little to say in the defence of his clients,
+but that they were under a necessity of making claret if they would keep
+open their doors, it being the nature of mankind to love everything that
+is prohibited. He further pretended to reason, that it might be as
+profitable to the nation to make French wine as French hats; and
+concluded with the great advantage that this had already brought to
+part of the kingdom. Upon which he informed the court, that the lands in
+Hertfordshire were raised two years' purchase since the beginning of the
+war.
+
+When I had sent out my summons to these people, I gave at the same time
+orders to each of them to bring the several ingredients he made use of
+in distinct phials, which they had done accordingly, and ranged them
+into two rows on each side of the court. The workmen were drawn up in
+ranks behind them. The merchant informed me, that in one row of phials
+were the several colours they dealt in, and in the other the tastes. He
+then showed me on the right hand one who went by the name of Tom
+Tintoret, who (as he told me) was the greatest master in his colouring
+of any vintner in London.[77] To give me a proof of his art, he took a
+glass of fair water; and by the infusion of three drops out of one of
+his phials, converted it into a most beautiful pale burgundy. Two more
+of the same kind heightened it into a perfect languedoc: from thence it
+passed into a florid hermitage: and after having gone through two or
+three other changes, by the addition of a single drop, ended in a very
+deep pontack.[78] This ingenious virtuoso seeing me very much surprised
+at his art, told me, that he had not an opportunity of showing it in
+perfection, having only made use of water for the groundwork of his
+colouring: but that if I were to see an operation upon liquors of
+stronger bodies, the art would appear to a much greater advantage. He
+added, that he doubted not that it would please my curiosity to see the
+cider of one apple take only a vermilion, when another, with a less
+quantity of the same infusion, would rise into a dark purple, according
+to the different texture of parts in the liquor. He informed me also,
+that he could hit the different shades and degrees of red, as they
+appear in the pink and the rose, the clove and the carnation, as he had
+Rhenish or Moselle, perry, or white port, to work in.
+
+I was so satisfied with the ingenuity of this virtuoso, that, after
+having advised him to quit so dishonest a profession, I promised him, in
+consideration of his great genius, to recommend him as a partner to a
+friend of mine, who has heaped up great riches, and is a scarlet dyer.
+
+The artists on my other hand were ordered in the second place to make
+some experiments of their skill before me: upon which the famous Harry
+Sippet stepped out, and asked me what I would be pleased to drink. At
+the same time he filled out three or four white liquors in a glass, and
+told me, that it should be what I pleased to call for; adding very
+learnedly, that the liquor before him was as the naked substance or
+first matter of his compound, to which he and his friend, who stood over
+against him, could give what accidents or form they pleased. Finding him
+so great a philosopher, I desired he would convey into it the qualities
+and essence of right bordeaux. "Coming, coming, sir," said he, with the
+air of a drawer; and after having cast his eye on the several tastes and
+flavours that stood before him; he took up a little cruet that was
+filled with a kind of inky juice, and pouring some of it out into the
+glass of white wine, presented it to me, and told me, this was the wine
+over which most of the business of the last term had been despatched. I
+must confess, I looked upon that sooty drug which he held up in his
+cruet as the quintessence of English bordeaux, and therefore desired
+him to give me a glass of it by itself, which he did with great
+unwillingness. My cat at that time sat by me upon the elbow of my chair;
+and as I did not care for making the experiment upon myself, I reached
+it to her to sip of it, which had like to have cost her her life; for
+notwithstanding it flung her at first into freakish tricks, quite
+contrary to her usual gravity, in less than a quarter of an hour she
+fell into convulsions; and had it not been a creature more tenacious of
+life than any other, would certainly have died under the operation.
+
+I was so incensed by the tortures of my innocent domestic, and the
+unworthy dealings of these men, that I told them, if each of them had as
+many lives as the injured creature before them, they deserved to forfeit
+them for the pernicious arts which they used for their profit. I
+therefore bid them look upon themselves as no better than as a kind of
+assassins and murderers within the law. However, since they had dealt so
+clearly with me, and laid before me their whole practice, I dismissed
+them for that time; with a particular request, that they would not
+poison any of my friends and acquaintance, and take to some honest
+livelihood without loss of time.
+
+For my own part, I have resolved hereafter to be very careful in my
+liquors, and have agreed with a friend of mine in the army, upon their
+next march, to secure me two hogsheads of the best stomach-wine in the
+cellars of Versailles, for the good of my Lucubrations, and the comfort
+of my old age.
+
+
+[Footnote 76: Eclog. iv. 29.]
+
+[Footnote 77: See No. 138.]
+
+[Footnote 78: A fashionable eating-house in Abchurch Lane, kept by one
+Pontack, who was son of the President of Bordeaux, then owner, as Evelyn
+tells us, of the excellent vineyards of Pontaq and Haut Brion.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 132.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Thursday, Feb. 9_, to _Saturday, Feb. 11, 1709-10_.
+
+     Habeo senectuti magnam gratiam, quæ mihi sermonis aviditatem auxit,
+     potionis et cibi sustulit.--CICERO, De Sen. 46.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, February 10._
+
+After having applied my mind with more than ordinary attention to my
+studies, it is my usual custom to relax and unbend it in the
+conversation of such as are rather easy than shining companions. This I
+find particularly necessary for me before I retire to rest, in order to
+draw my slumbers upon me by degrees, and fall asleep insensibly. This is
+the particular use I make of a set of heavy honest men, with whom I have
+passed many hours, with much indolence, though not with great pleasure.
+Their conversation is a kind of preparative for sleep: it takes the mind
+down from its abstractions, leads it into the familiar traces[79] of
+thought, and lulls it into that state of tranquillity, which is the
+condition of a thinking man when he is but half awake. After this, my
+reader will not be surprised to hear the account which I am about to
+give of a club of my own contemporaries, among whom I pass two or three
+hours every evening. This I look upon as taking my first nap before I go
+to bed. The truth of it is, I should think myself unjust to posterity,
+as well as to the society at the Trumpet,[80] of which I am a member,
+did not I in some part of my writings give an account of the persons
+among whom I have passed almost a sixth part of my time for these last
+forty years. Our club consisted originally of fifteen; but partly by the
+severity of the law in arbitrary times, and partly by the natural
+effects of old age, we are at present reduced to a third part of that
+number: in which however we have this consolation, that the best company
+is said to consist of five persons. I must confess, besides the
+aforementioned benefit which I meet with in the conversation of this
+select society, I am not the less pleased with the company, in that I
+find myself the greatest wit among them, and am heard as their oracle in
+all points of learning and difficulty.
+
+Sir Jeoffrey Notch, who is the oldest of the club, has been in
+possession of the right-hand chair time out of mind, and is the only man
+among us that has the liberty of stirring the fire. This our foreman is
+a gentleman of an ancient family, that came to a great estate some years
+before he had discretion, and run it out in hounds, horses, and
+cock-fighting; for which reason he looks upon himself as an honest
+worthy gentleman who has had misfortunes in the world, and calls every
+thriving man a pitiful upstart.
+
+Major Matchlock is the next senior, who served in the last civil wars,
+and has all the battles by heart. He does not think any action in Europe
+worth talking of since the fight of Marston Moor;[81] and every night
+tells us of his having been knocked off his horse at the rising of the
+London apprentices;[82] for which he is in great esteem amongst us.
+
+Honest old Dick Reptile is the third of our society: he is a
+good-natured indolent man, who speaks little himself, but laughs at our
+jokes, and brings his young nephew along with him, a youth of eighteen
+years old, to show him good company, and give him a taste of the world.
+This young fellow sits generally silent; but whenever he opens his
+mouth, or laughs at anything that passes, he is constantly told by his
+uncle, after a jocular manner, "Ay, ay, Jack, you young men think us
+fools; but we old men know you are."[83]
+
+The greatest wit of our company, next to myself, is a bencher of the
+neighbouring inn, who in his youth frequented the ordinaries about
+Charing Cross, and pretends to have been intimate with Jack Ogle.[84] He
+has about ten distichs of "Hudibras" without book, and never leaves the
+club till he has applied them all. If any modern wit be mentioned, or
+any town frolic spoken of, he shakes his head at the dulness of the
+present age, and tells us a story of Jack Ogle.
+
+For my own part, I am esteemed among them, because they see I am
+something respected by others, though at the same time I understand by
+their behaviour, that I am considered by them as a man of a great deal
+of learning, but no knowledge of the world; insomuch that the Major
+sometimes, in the height of his military pride, calls me the
+philosopher: and Sir Jeoffrey no longer ago than last night, upon a
+dispute what day of the month it was then in Holland, pulled his pipe
+out of his mouth, and cried, "What does the scholar say to it?"
+
+Our club meets precisely at six o'clock in the evening; but I did not
+come last night till half an hour after seven, by which means I escaped
+the battle of Naseby, which the Major usually begins at about
+three-quarters after six; I found also, that my good friend, the
+bencher, had already spent three of his distichs, and only waiting an
+opportunity to hear a sermon spoken of, that he might introduce the
+couplet where "a stick" rhymes to "ecclesiastic."[85] At my entrance
+into the room, they were naming a red petticoat and a cloak, by which I
+found that the bencher had been diverting them with a story of Jack
+Ogle.
+
+I had no sooner taken my seat, but Sir Jeoffrey, to show his goodwill
+towards me, gave me a pipe of his own tobacco, and stirred up the fire.
+I look upon it as a point of morality, to be obliged by those who
+endeavour to oblige me; and therefore in requital for his kindness, and
+to set the conversation a-going, I took the best occasion I could, to
+put him upon telling us the story of old Gantlett, which he always does
+with very particular concern. He traced up his descent on both sides for
+several generations, describing his diet and manner of life, with his
+several battles, and particularly that in which he fell. This Gantlett
+was a game-cock, upon whose head the knight in his youth had won five
+hundred pounds, and lost two thousand. This naturally set the major upon
+the account of Edge Hill fight, and ended in a duel of Jack Ogle's.
+
+Old Reptile was extremely attentive to all that was said, though it was
+the same he had heard every night for these twenty years, and upon all
+occasions, winked upon his nephew to mind what passed.
+
+This may suffice to give the world a taste of our innocent conversation,
+which we spun out till about ten of the clock, when my maid[86] came
+with a lantern to light me home. I could not but reflect with myself as
+I was going out upon the talkative humour of old men, and the little
+figure which that part of life makes in one who cannot employ this
+natural propensity in discourses which would make him venerable. I must
+own, it makes me very melancholy in company, when I hear a young man
+begin a story; and have often observed, that one of a quarter of an hour
+long in a man of five and twenty, gathers circumstances every time he
+tells it, till it grows into a long Canterbury tale of two hours by that
+time he is three-score.
+
+The only way of avoiding such a trifling and frivolous old age, is, to
+lay up in our way to it such stores of knowledge and observation as may
+make us useful and agreeable in our declining years. The mind of man in
+a long life will become a magazine of wisdom or folly, and will
+consequently discharge itself in something impertinent or improving. For
+which reason, as there is nothing more ridiculous than an old trifling
+story-teller, so there is nothing more venerable than one who has turned
+his experience to the entertainment and advantage of mankind.
+
+In short, we who are in the last stage of life, and are apt to indulge
+ourselves in talk, ought to consider, if what we speak be worth being
+heard, and endeavour to make our discourse like that of Nestor, which
+Homer compares to the flowing of honey for its sweetness.[87]
+
+I am afraid I shall be thought guilty of this excess I am speaking of,
+when I cannot conclude without observing, that Milton certainly thought
+of this passage in Homer, when in his description of an eloquent spirit,
+he says, "His tongue dropped manna."[88]
+
+
+[Footnote 79: Paths.]
+
+[Footnote 80: The Trumpet stood about half-way up Shire Lane, between
+Temple Bar and Carey Street, at the widest and best part of the lane,
+and remained almost entirely in its original state until demolished to
+make way for the new Law Courts. It had the old sign of the Trumpet to
+the last, as it is figured in Limbard's "Mirror," in a picture where it
+is placed side by side with a view of the house in Fulwood's Rents where
+papers for the _Spectator_ were taken in.]
+
+[Footnote 81: July 2, 1644.]
+
+[Footnote 82: In July 1647 the London apprentices presented a petition,
+and forced their way into the House of Commons.]
+
+[Footnote 83: This retort, in almost identical words, occurs in Swift's
+"Genteel Conversation" (1739), and in Defoe's "Life of Duncan Campbell"
+(1720).]
+
+[Footnote 84: Jack Ogle, said to have been descended from a decent
+family in Devonshire, was a man of some genius and great extravagance,
+but rather artful than witty. Ogle had an only sister, more beautiful,
+it is said, than was necessary to arrive, as she did, at the honour of
+being a mistress to the Duke of York. This sister Ogle laid under very
+frequent contributions to supply his wants and support his extravagance.
+It is said that, by the interest of her royal keeper, Ogle was placed,
+as a private gentleman, in the first troop of foot guards, at that time
+under the command of the Duke of Monmouth. To this era of Ogle's life
+the story of the red petticoat refers. He had pawned his trooper's
+cloak, and to save appearances at a review, had borrowed his landlady's
+red petticoat, which he carried rolled up _en croupe_ behind him. The
+Duke of Monmouth "smoked" it, and willing to enjoy the confusion of a
+detection, gave order to "cloak all," with which Ogle, after some
+hesitation, was obliged to comply; although he could not cloak, he said
+he would petticoat with the best of them. Such as are curious to know
+more of the history, the duels, and odd pranks of this mad fellow, may
+consult the account of them in the "Memoirs of Gamesters," 1714, 12mo,
+p. 183 (Nichols).]
+
+[Footnote 85:
+
+    "When pulpit drum ecclesiastic
+    Was beat with fist instead of a stick."
+              --"Hudibras," Part I. c. i. line 10.
+]
+
+[Footnote 86: Cf. No. 130, Advertisements. The dangers of the streets at
+the beginning of the eighteenth century are described in Gay's "Trivia,"
+iii. 335 _seq._]
+
+[Footnote 87: "Iliad," i. 249.]
+
+[Footnote 88: Milton says of Belial ("Paradise Lost," ii. 112):
+
+    "But all was false and hollow, though his tongue
+    Dropped manna, and could make the worse appear
+    The better cause."
+]
+
+
+
+
+No. 133.                                                    [ADDISON.
+
+From _Saturday, Feb. 11_, to _Tuesday, Feb. 14, 1709-10_.
+
+    Dum tacent, clamant.--TULL.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, February 13._
+
+Silence is sometimes more significant and sublime than the most noble
+and most expressive eloquence, and is on many occasions the indication
+of a great mind. Several authors have treated of silence as a part of
+duty and discretion, but none of them have considered it in this light.
+Homer compares the noise and clamour of the Trojans advancing towards
+the enemy, to the cackling of cranes when they invade an army of
+pigmies.[89] On the contrary, he makes his countrymen and favourites,
+the Greeks, move forward in a regular determined march, and in the depth
+of silence. I find in the accounts which are given us of some of the
+more Eastern nations, where the inhabitants are disposed by their
+constitutions and climates to higher strains of thought, and more
+elevated raptures than what we feel in the northern regions of the
+world, that silence is a religious exercise among them. For when their
+public devotions are in the greatest fervour, and their hearts lifted up
+as high as words can raise them, there are certain suspensions of sound
+and motion for a time, in which the mind is left to itself, and supposed
+to swell with such secret conceptions as are too big for utterance. I
+have myself been wonderfully delighted with a masterpiece of music, when
+in the very tumult and ferment of their harmony, all the voices and
+instruments have stopped short on a sudden, and after a little pause
+recovered themselves again as it were, and renewed the concert in all
+its parts. Methought this short interval of silence has had more music
+in it than any the same space of time before or after it. There are two
+instances of silence in the two greatest poets that ever wrote, which
+have something in them as sublime as any of the speeches in their whole
+works. The first is that of Ajax, in the eleventh book of the
+Odyssey.[90] Ulysses, who had been the rival of this great man in his
+life, as well as the occasion of his death, upon meeting his shade in
+the region of departed heroes, makes his submission to him with a
+humility next to adoration, which the other passes over with dumb sullen
+majesty, and such a silence, as (to use the words of Longinus) had more
+greatness in it than anything he could have spoken.
+
+The next instance I shall mention is in Virgil, where the poet,
+doubtless, imitates this silence of Ajax in that of Dido;[91] though I
+do not know that any of his commentators have taken notice of it. Æneas
+finding among the shades of despairing lovers, the ghost of her who had
+lately died for him, with the wound still fresh upon her, addresses
+himself to her with expanded arms, floods of tears, and the most
+passionate professions of his own innocence as to what had happened; all
+which Dido receives with the dignity and disdain of a resenting lover,
+and an injured Queen; and is so far from vouchsafing him an answer, that
+she does not give him a single look. The poet represents her as turning
+away her face from him while he spoke to her; and after having kept her
+eyes for some time upon the ground, as one that heard and contemned his
+protestations, flying from him into the grove of myrtle, and into the
+arms of another, whose fidelity had deserved her love.[92]
+
+I have often thought our writers of tragedy have been very defective in
+this particular, and that they might have given great beauty to their
+works, by certain stops and pauses in the representation of such
+passions, as it is not in the power of language to express. There is
+something like this in the last act of "Venice Preserved," where Pierre
+is brought to an infamous execution, and begs of his friend,[93] as a
+reparation for past injuries, and the only favour he could do him, to
+rescue him from the ignominy of the wheel by stabbing him. As he is
+going to make this dreadful request, he is not able to communicate it,
+but withdraws his face from his friend's ear, and bursts into tears.
+The melancholy silence that follows hereupon, and continues till he has
+recovered himself enough to reveal his mind to his friend, raises in the
+spectators a grief that is inexpressible, and an idea of such a
+complicated distress in the actor as words cannot utter. It would look
+as ridiculous to many readers to give rules and directions for proper
+silences, as for penning a whisper: but it is certain, that in the
+extremity of most passions, particularly surprise, admiration,
+astonishment, nay, rage itself, there is nothing more graceful than to
+see the play stand still for a few moments, and the audience fixed in an
+agreeable suspense during the silence of a skilful actor.
+
+But silence never shows itself to so great an advantage, as when it is
+made the reply to calumny and defamation, provided that we give no just
+occasion for them. One might produce an example of it in the behaviour
+of one in whom it appeared in all its majesty, and one whose silence, as
+well as his person, was altogether divine. When one considers this
+subject only in its sublimity, this great instance could not but occur
+to me; and since I only make use of it to show the highest example of
+it, I hope I do not offend in it. To forbear replying to an unjust
+reproach, and overlook it with a generous, or (if possible) with an
+entire neglect of it, is one of the most heroic acts of a great mind.
+And I must confess, when I reflect upon the behaviour of some of the
+greatest men in antiquity, I do not so much admire them that they
+deserved the praise of the whole age they lived in, as because they
+contemned the envy and detraction of it.
+
+All that is incumbent on a man of worth, who suffers under so ill a
+treatment, is to lie by for some time in silence and obscurity, till the
+prejudice of the times be over, and his reputation cleared. I have often
+read with a great deal of pleasure a legacy of the famous Lord Bacon,
+one of the greatest geniuses that our own or any country has produced:
+after having bequeathed his soul, body, and estate, in the usual form,
+he adds, "My name and memory I leave to foreign nations, and to my
+countrymen, after some time be passed over."
+
+At the same time that I recommend this philosophy to others, I must
+confess I am so poor a proficient in it myself, that if in the course of
+my Lucubrations it happens, as it has done more than once, that my paper
+is duller than in conscience it ought to be, I think the time an age
+till I have an opportunity of putting out another, and growing famous
+again for two days.
+
+I must not close my discourse upon silence, without informing my reader,
+that I have by me an elaborate treatise on the Aposiopesis called an "Et
+cætera," it being a figure much used by some learned authors, and
+particularly by the great Littleton, who, as my Lord Chief Justice Coke
+observes, had a most admirable talent at an et cetera.[94]
+
+
+ADVERTISEMENT.
+
+To oblige the Pretty Fellows, and my fair readers, I have thought fit to
+insert the whole passage above mentioned relating to Dido, as it is
+translated by Mr. Dryden:
+
+    _Not far from thence, the mournful fields appear;
+    So called, from lovers that inhabit there.
+    The souls, whom that unhappy flame invades,
+    In secret solitude, and myrtle shades,
+    Make endless moans, and pining with desire,
+    Lament too late their unextinguished fire.
+    Here Procris, Eryphile here, he found
+    Baring her breast, yet bleeding with the wound
+    Made by her son. He saw Pasiphae there,
+    With Phædra's ghost, a foul incestuous pair;
+    There Laodamia with Evadne moves:
+    Unhappy both, but loyal in their loves.
+    Cæneus, a woman once, and once a man;
+    But ending in the sex she first began.
+    Not far from these, Phoenician Dido stood;
+    Fresh from her wound, her bosom bathed in blood.
+    Whom, when the Trojan hero hardly knew,
+    Obscure in shades, and with a doubtful view
+    (Doubtful as he who runs through dusky night,
+    Or thinks he sees the moon's uncertain light)
+    With tears he first approached the sullen shade;
+    And, as his love inspired him, thus he said:
+    "Unhappy queen! Then is the common breath
+    Of rumour true, in your reported death;
+    And I, alas, the cause! By Heaven, I vow,
+    And all the powers that rule the realms below,
+    Unwilling I forsook your friendly state,
+    Commanded by the gods, and forced by Fate.
+    Those gods, that Fate, whose unresisted might,
+    Have sent me to these regions, void of light,
+    Through the vast empire of eternal night.
+    Nor dared I to presume, that, pressed with grief,
+    My flight should urge you to this dire relief.
+    Stay, stay your steps, and listen to my vows;
+    'Tis the last interview that Fate allows!"
+    In vain he thus attempts her mind to move,
+    With tears and prayers, and late repenting love.
+    Disdainfully she looked, then turning round;
+    But fixed her eyes unmoved upon the ground;
+    And, what he says, and swears, regards no more
+    Than the deaf rocks, when the loud billows roar;
+    But whirled away, to shun his hateful fight,
+    Hid in the forest, and the shades of night.
+    Then sought Sichæus through the shady grove,
+    Who answered all her cares, and equalled all her love._
+
+
+[Footnote 89: "Iliad," iii. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 90: "Odyssey," xi. 563.]
+
+[Footnote 91: "Æneid," vi. 46.]
+
+[Footnote 92: Sichæus.]
+
+[Footnote 93: Jaffier. See Otway's "Venice Preserved," act v. sc. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 94: In the preface to his "Institutes of the Laws of England;
+or, a Commentary upon Littleton," Coke says, "Certain it is, that there
+is never a period, nor (for the most part) a word, nor an &c., but
+affordeth excellent matter of learning."]
+
+
+
+
+No. 134.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Tuesday, Feb. 14_, to _Thursday, Feb. 16, 1709-10_.
+
+                       ----Quis talia fando
+    Myrmidonum, Dolopumve, aut duri miles Ulixi,
+    Temperet a lachrimis!--VIRG., Æn. ii. 6.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, February 15._
+
+I was awakened very early this morning by the distant crowing of a cock,
+which I thought had the finest pipe I ever heard. He seemed to me to
+strain his voice more than ordinary, as if he designed to make himself
+heard to the remotest corner of this lane. Having entertained myself a
+little before I went to bed with a discourse on the transmigration of
+men into other animals, I could not but fancy that this was the soul of
+some drowsy bellman who used to sleep upon his post, for which he was
+condemned to do penance in feathers, and distinguish the several watches
+of the night under the outside of a cock. While I was thinking of the
+condition of this poor bellman in masquerade, I heard a great knocking
+at my door, and was soon after told by my maid, that my worthy friend
+the tall black gentleman, who frequents the coffee-houses hereabouts,
+desired to speak with me. This ancient Pythagorean, who has as much
+honesty as any man living, but good nature to an excess, brought me the
+following petition, which I am apt to believe he penned himself, the
+petitioner not being able to express his mind in paper under his present
+form, however famous he might have been for writing verses when he was
+in his original shape.
+
+     "_To Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq., Censor of Great Britain._
+
+     "The humble petition of Job Chanticleer, in behalf of himself, and
+     many other poor sufferers in the same condition;
+
+     "SHEWETH,
+
+     "That whereas your petitioner is truly descended of the ancient
+     family of the Chanticleers at Cock Hall near Romford in Essex, it
+     has been his misfortune to come into the mercenary hands of a
+     certain ill-disposed person, commonly called a 'higgler,' who,
+     under the close confinement of a pannier, has conveyed him and many
+     others up to London; but hearing by chance of your worship's great
+     humanity towards robin-redbreasts and tom-tits,[95] he is
+     emboldened to beseech you to take his deplorable condition into
+     your tender consideration, who otherwise must suffer (with many
+     thousands more as innocent as himself) that inhumane barbarity of a
+     Shrove Tuesday persecution.[96] We humbly hope that our courage and
+     vigilance may plead for us on this occasion.
+
+     "Your poor petitioner most earnestly implores your immediate
+     protection from the insolence of the rabble, the batteries of
+     catsticks,[97] and a painful lingering death.
+
+                                    "And your petitioner, &c.
+
+     "From my coup in Clare
+     Market, _February 13, 1709_."
+
+Upon delivery of this petition, the worthy gentleman who presented it,
+told me the customs of many wise nations of the East, through which he
+had travelled; that nothing was more frequent than to see a dervish lay
+out a whole year's income in the redemption of larks or linnets that had
+unhappily fallen into the hands of bird-catchers:[98] that it was also
+usual to run between a dog and a bull to keep them from hurting one
+another, or to lose the use of a limb in parting a couple of furious
+mastiffs. He then insisted upon the ingratitude and disingenuity[99] of
+treating in this manner a necessary and domestic animal, that has made
+the whole house keep good hours, and called up the cook maid for five
+years together. "What would a Turk say," continued he, "should he hear,
+that it is a common entertainment in a nation which pretends to be one
+of the most civilised of Europe, to tie an innocent animal to a stake,
+and put him to an ignominious death, who has perhaps been the guardian
+and proveditor of a poor family, as long as he was able to get eggs for
+his mistress?"
+
+I thought what this gentleman said was very reasonable; and have often
+wondered, that we do not lay aside a custom which makes us appear
+barbarous to nations much more rude and unpolished than ourselves. Some
+French writers have represented this diversion of the common people much
+to our disadvantage, and imputed it to natural fierceness and cruelty of
+temper; as they do some other entertainments peculiar to our nation: I
+mean those elegant diversions of bull-baiting and prize-fighting, with
+the like ingenious recreations of the bear-garden.[100] I wish I knew
+how to answer this reproach which is cast upon us, and excuse the death
+of so many innocent cocks, bulls, dogs, and bears, as have been set
+together by the ears, or died untimely deaths only to make us sport.
+
+It will be said, that these are the entertainments of common people. It
+is true; but they are the entertainments of no other common people.[101]
+Besides, I am afraid there is a tincture of the same savage spirit in
+the diversions of those of higher rank, and more refined relish. Rapin
+observes, that the English theatre very much delights in bloodshed,
+which he likewise represents as an indication of our tempers. I must
+own, there is something very horrid in the public executions of an
+English tragedy. Stabbing and poisoning, which are performed behind the
+scenes in other nations, must be done openly among us, to gratify the
+audience.[102]
+
+When poor Sandford[103] was upon the stage, I have seen him groaning
+upon a wheel, stuck with daggers, impaled alive, calling his
+executioners, with a dying voice, cruel dogs and villains! And all this
+to please his judicious spectators, who were wonderfully delighted with
+seeing a man in torment so well acted. The truth of it is, the
+politeness of our English stage, in regard to decorum, is very
+extraordinary. We act murders to show our intrepidity, and adulteries to
+show our gallantry: both of them are frequent in our most taking plays,
+with this difference only, that the first are done in sight of the
+audience, and the other wrought up to such a height upon the stage, that
+they are almost put in execution before the actors can get behind the
+scenes.
+
+I would not have it thought, that there is just ground for those
+consequences which our enemies draw against us from these practices; but
+methinks one would be sorry for any manner of occasion for such
+misrepresentations of us. The virtues of tenderness, compassion and
+humanity, are those by which men are distinguished from brutes, as much
+as by reason itself; and it would be the greatest reproach to a nation
+to distinguish itself from all others by any defect in these particular
+virtues. For which reasons, I hope that my dear countrymen will no
+longer expose themselves by an effusion of blood, whether it be of
+theatrical heroes, cocks, or any other innocent animals, which we are
+not obliged to slaughter for our safety, convenience, or nourishment.
+Where any of these ends are not served in the destruction of a living
+creature, I cannot but pronounce it a great piece of cruelty, if not a
+kind of murder.
+
+
+[Footnote 95: See No. 112.]
+
+[Footnote 96: See the date of this number.]
+
+[Footnote 97: Sticks used in the game of tip-cat and trap-ball.]
+
+[Footnote 98: Cf. the _Spectator_, No. 343, where Addison refers to Sir
+Paul Rycaut's work on the Ottoman Empire.]
+
+[Footnote 99: Disingenuousness.]
+
+[Footnote 100: See Nos. 28, 31.]
+
+[Footnote 101: "Cock-fighting is diverting enough, the anger and
+eagerness of these little creatures, and the triumphant crowing of a
+cock when he strutts haughtily on the body of his enemy, has something
+in't singular and pleasant. What renders these shows less agreeable is
+the great number of wagerers, who appear as angry as the cocks
+themselves, and make such a noise that one would believe every minute
+they were going to fight; but combats among the men are another kind of
+diversion, where the spectators are more peaceable" ("Letters describing
+the Character and Customs of the English and French Nations; by Mr.
+Muralt, a Gentleman of Switzerland. 2nd ed.; translated from the
+French." London, 1726, p. 41). In Hogarth's picture of a cock-fight a
+Frenchman is depicted turning away in disgust (see Lecky's "History of
+England in the Eighteenth Century," 1878, i. 552). "There will be a
+cock-match fought at Leeds in Yorkshire, the 19th of March next; and
+another at Wakefield the 23rd of April next. At each meeting 40 Cocks on
+each side will be shewn. These are fought betwixt the people of the West
+and North Riding of Yorkshire; And every Battel 5_l._ each side, and
+50_l._ the odd Battel, and four Shake Bags for 10_l._ each Cock"
+(_London Gazette_, March 8-12, 1687). A cock-match between Surrey and
+Sussex was to commence on May 4, 1703, "and will continue the whole
+week" (_London Gazette_, April 12-15, 1703) "The Royal Pastime of
+Cock-fighting, or, the Art of Breeding, Feeding, Fighting and Curing
+Cocks of the Game. Published purely for the good and benefit of all such
+as take Delight in that Royal and Warlike Sport. To which is prefixed, a
+Short Treatise, wherein Cocking is proved not only ancient and
+honourable, but also useful and profitable. By R. H., a Lover of the
+Sport, and a friend to such as delight in Military Discipline" (_Post
+Boy_, Jan. 15-18, 1708-9).]
+
+[Footnote 102: Addison, also referring to Rapin, writes to the same
+effect in the _Spectator_, No. 44. Rapin said, in his "Reflections on
+Aristotle's Treatise of Poetry," translated in 1694: "The English, our
+neighbours, love blood in their sports, by the quality of their
+temperament.... The English have more of genius for tragedy than other
+people, as well by the spirit of their nation, which delights in
+cruelty, as also by the character of their language, which is proper for
+great expressions." There is an "Address to the Cock-killers" in
+Lillie's "Letters sent to the _Tatler_ and _Spectator_," i. 25-29.]
+
+[Footnote 103: Samuel Sandford seems to have left the stage about 1700.
+He had a low and crooked person, and Cibber describes him as "an
+excellent actor in disagreeable parts." Charles II. called him the best
+villain in the world. There is a story of a new play being damned
+because Sandford played the part of an honest statesman, and the pit was
+therefore disappointed at not seeing the usual Iago-like or Machiavelian
+character.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 135.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Thursday, Feb. 16_, to _Saturday, Feb. 18, 1709-10_.
+
+     Quod si in hoc erro, quod animos hominum immortales esse credam,
+     libenter erro: nec mihi hunc errorem, quo delector, dum vivo,
+     extorqueri volo: sin mortuus (ut quidam minuti philosophi censent)
+     nihil sentiam; non vereor, ne hunc errorem meum mortui philosophi
+     irrideant.--CICERO, De Sen., cap. ult.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, February 17._
+
+Several letters which I have lately received give me information, that
+some well-disposed persons have taken offence at my using the word
+"freethinker" as a term of reproach. To set therefore this matter in a
+clear light, I must declare, that no one can have a greater veneration
+than myself for the freethinkers of antiquity, who acted the same part
+in those times, as the great men of the Reformation did in several
+nations of Europe, by exerting themselves against the idolatry and
+superstition of the times in which they lived. It was by this noble
+impulse that Socrates and his disciples, as well as all the
+philosophers of note in Greece, and Cicero, Seneca, with all the learned
+men of Rome, endeavoured to enlighten their contemporaries amidst the
+darkness and ignorance in which the world was then sunk and buried. The
+great points which these freethinkers endeavoured to establish and
+inculcate into the minds of men, were, the formation of the universe,
+the superintendency of Providence, the perfection of the divine nature,
+the immortality of the soul, and the future state of rewards and
+punishments. They all complied with the religion of their country, as
+much as possible, in such particulars as did not contradict and pervert
+these great and fundamental doctrines of mankind. On the contrary, the
+persons who now set up for freethinkers, are such as endeavour by a
+little trash of words and sophistry, to weaken and destroy those very
+principles, for the vindication of which, freedom of thought at first
+became laudable and heroic.[104] These apostates, from reason and good
+sense, can look at the glorious frame of Nature, without paying an
+adoration to Him that raised it; can consider the great revolutions in
+the universe, without lifting up their minds to that Superior Power
+which hath the direction of it; can presume to censure the Deity in His
+ways towards men; can level mankind with the beasts that perish; can
+extinguish in their own minds all the pleasing hopes of a future state,
+and lull themselves into a stupid security against the terrors of it. If
+one were to take the word "priestcraft" out of the mouths of these
+shallow monsters, they would be immediately struck dumb. It is by the
+help of this single term that they endeavour to disappoint the good
+works of the most learned and venerable order of men, and harden the
+hearts of the ignorant against the very light of Nature, and the common
+received notions of mankind. We ought not to treat such miscreants as
+these upon the foot of fair disputants, but to pour out contempt upon
+them, and speak of them with scorn and infamy, as the pests of society,
+the revilers of human nature, and the blasphemers of a Being, whom a
+good man would rather die than hear dishonoured. Cicero, after having
+mentioned the great heroes of knowledge that recommended this divine
+doctrine of the immortality of the soul, calls those small pretenders to
+wisdom who declared against it, certain minute philosophers,[105] using
+a diminutive even of the word "little," to express the despicable
+opinion he had of them. The contempt he throws upon them in another
+passage[106] is yet more remarkable, where, to show the mean thoughts he
+entertains of them, he declares, he would rather be in the wrong with
+Plato, than in the right with such company. There is indeed nothing in
+the world so ridiculous as one of these grave philosophical
+freethinkers, that hath neither passions nor appetites to gratify, no
+heats of blood nor vigour of constitution that can turn his systems of
+infidelity to his advantage, or raise pleasures out of them which are
+inconsistent with the belief of a hereafter. One that has neither wit,
+gallantry, mirth, nor youth, to indulge by these notions, but only a
+poor, joyless, uncomfortable vanity of distinguishing himself from the
+rest of mankind, is rather to be regarded as a mischievous lunatic,
+than a mistaken philosopher. A chaste infidel, a speculative libertine,
+is an animal that I should not believe to be in Nature, did I not
+sometimes meet with this species of men, that plead for the indulgence
+of their passions in the midst of a severe studious life, and talk
+against the immortality of the soul over a dish of coffee.
+
+I would fain ask a minute philosopher, what good he proposes to mankind
+by the publishing of his doctrines? Will they make a man a better
+citizen, or father of a family; a more endearing husband, friend, or
+son? Will they enlarge his public or private virtues, or correct any of
+his frailties or vices? What is there either joyful or glorious in such
+opinions? Do they either refresh or enlarge our thoughts? Do they
+contribute to the happiness, or raise the dignity of human nature? The
+only good that I have ever heard pretended to, is, that they banish
+terrors, and set the mind at ease. But whose terrors do they banish? It
+is certain, if there were any strength in their arguments, they would
+give great disturbance to minds that are influenced by virtue, honour,
+and morality, and take from us the only comforts and supports of
+affliction, sickness, and old age. The minds therefore which they set at
+ease, are only those of impenitent criminals and malefactors, and which,
+to the good of mankind, should be in perpetual terror and alarm.
+
+I must confess, nothing is more usual than for a freethinker, in
+proportion as the insolence of scepticism is abated in him by years and
+knowledge, or humbled and beaten down by sorrow or sickness, to
+reconcile himself to the general conceptions of reasonable creatures; so
+that we frequently see the apostates turning from their revolt toward
+the end of their lives, and employing the refuse of their parts in
+promoting those truths which they had before endeavoured to invalidate.
+
+The history of a gentleman in France is very well known, who was so
+zealous a promoter of infidelity, that he had got together a select
+company of disciples, and travelled into all parts of the kingdom to
+make converts. In the midst of his fantastical success he fell sick, and
+was reclaimed to such a sense of his condition, that after he had passed
+some time in great agonies and horrors of mind, he begged those who had
+the care of burying him, to dress his body in the habit of a Capuchin,
+that the devil might not run away with it; and to do further justice
+upon himself, desired them to tie a halter about his neck, as a mark of
+that ignominious punishment, which in his own thoughts he had so justly
+deserved.
+
+I would not have persecution so far disgraced, as to wish these vermin
+might be animadverted on by any legal penalties; though I think it would
+be highly reasonable, that those few of them who die in the professions
+of their infidelity, should have such tokens of infamy fixed upon them,
+as might distinguish those bodies which are given up by the owners to
+oblivion and putrefaction, from those which rest in hope, and shall rise
+in glory. But at the same time that I am against doing them the honour
+of the notice of our laws, which ought not to suppose there are such
+criminals in being, I have often wondered how they can be tolerated in
+any mixed conversations while they are venting these absurd opinions;
+and should think, that if on any such occasion half a dozen of the most
+robust Christians in the company would lead one of these gentlemen to a
+pump, or convey him into a blanket, they would do very good service both
+to Church and State. I do not know how the laws stand in this
+particular; but I hope, whatever knocks, bangs or thumps might be given
+with such an honest intention, would not be construed as a breach of the
+peace. I daresay they would not be returned by the person who receives
+them; for whatever these fools may say in the vanity of their hearts,
+they are too wise to risk their lives upon the uncertainty of their
+opinions.
+
+When I was a young man about this town, I frequented the ordinary of the
+Black Horse, in Holborn, where the person that usually presided at the
+table was a rough old-fashioned gentleman, who, according to the custom
+of those times, had been the major and preacher of a regiment. It
+happened one day that a noisy young officer, bred in France, was venting
+some new-fangled notions, and speaking, in the gaiety of his humour,
+against the dispensations of Providence. The major at first only desired
+him to talk more respectfully of one for whom all the company had an
+honour; but finding him run on in his extravagance, began to reprimand
+him after a more serious manner. "Young man," said he, "do not abuse
+your Benefactor whilst you are eating His bread. Consider whose air you
+breathe, whose presence you are in, and who it is that gave you the
+power of that very speech which you make use of to His dishonour." The
+young fellow, who thought to turn matters into a jest, asked him if he
+was going to preach; but at the same time desired him to take care what
+he said when he spoke to a man of honour. "A man of honour?" says the
+major, "thou art an infidel and a blasphemer, and I shall use thee as
+such." In short, the quarrel ran so high, that the major was desired to
+walk out. Upon their coming into the garden, the old fellow advised his
+antagonist to consider the place into which one pass might drive him;
+but finding him grow upon him to a degree of scurrility, as believing
+the advice proceeded from fear; "Sirrah," says he, "if a thunderbolt
+does not strike thee dead before I come at thee, I shall not fail to
+chastise thee for thy profaneness to thy Maker, and thy sauciness to His
+servant." Upon this he drew his sword, and cried out with a loud voice,
+"The sword of the Lord and of Gideon"; which so terrified his
+antagonist, that he was immediately disarmed, and thrown upon his knees.
+In this posture he begged his life; but the major refused to grant it,
+before he had asked pardon for his offence in a short extemporary prayer
+which the old gentleman dictated to him upon the spot, and which his
+proselyte repeated after him in the presence of the whole ordinary, that
+were now gathered about him in the garden.
+
+
+[Footnote 104: In speaking of Collins' "Discourse of Free-Thinking"
+(1713) in the _Guardian_ (No. 9), Steele says: "I cannot see any
+possible interpretation to give this work, but a design to subvert and
+ridicule the authority of scripture. The peace and tranquillity of the
+nation, and regards even above those, are so much concerned in this
+matter, that it is difficult to express sufficient sorrow for the
+offender, or indignation against him."]
+
+[Footnote 105: See the motto at the head of this paper.]
+
+[Footnote 106: "Tusc. Disp." i. 17. Cicero calls those who differ from
+Plato and Socrates "plebii omnes philosophi" (_ib._ i. 23).]
+
+
+
+
+No. 136.                                                [STEELE.[107]
+
+From _Saturday, Feb. 18_, to _Tuesday, Feb. 21, 1709-10_.
+
+    Deprendi miserum est; Fabio vel judice vincam.
+                                  HOR., 1 Sat. ii. 134.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_White's Chocolate-house, February 18._
+
+_The History of Tom Varnish._
+
+Because I have a professed aversion to long beginnings of stories, I
+will go into this at once, by telling you, that there dwells near the
+Royal Exchange as happy a couple as ever entered into wedlock. These
+live in that mutual confidence of each other, which renders the
+satisfactions of marriage even greater than those of friendship, and
+makes wife and husband the dearest appellations of human life. Mr.
+Ballance is a merchant of good consideration, and understands the world
+not from speculation, but practice. His wife is the daughter of an
+honest house, ever bred in a family-way; and has, from a natural good
+understanding, and great innocence, a freedom which men of sense know to
+be the certain sign of virtue, and fools take to be an encouragement to
+vice.
+
+Tom Varnish, a young gentleman of the Middle Temple, by the bounty of a
+good father who was so obliging as to die, and leave him in his
+twenty-fourth year, besides a good estate, a large sum, which lay in the
+hands of Mr. Ballance, had by this means an intimacy at his house; and
+being one of those hard students who read plays for improvement in the
+law, took his rules of life from thence. Upon mature deliberation, he
+conceived it very proper, that he, as a man of wit and pleasure of the
+town, should have an intrigue with his merchant's wife. He no sooner
+thought of this adventure, but he began it by an amorous epistle to the
+lady, and a faithful promise to wait upon her, at a certain hour the
+next evening, when he knew her husband was to be absent.
+
+The letter was no sooner received, but it was communicated to the
+husband, and produced no other effect in him, than that he joined with
+his wife to raise all the mirth they could out of this fantastical piece
+of gallantry. They were so little concerned at this dangerous man of
+mode, that they plotted ways to perplex him without hurting him. Varnish
+comes exactly at his hour; and the lady's well-acted confusion at his
+entrance, gave him opportunity to repeat some couplets very fit for the
+occasion with very much grace and spirit. His theatrical manner of
+making love was interrupted by an alarm of the husband's coming; and the
+wife, in a personated terror, beseeched him, if he had any value for the
+honour of a woman that loved him, he would jump out of the window. He
+did so, and fell upon feather-beds placed on purpose to receive him.
+
+It is not to be conceived how great the joy of an amorous man is when he
+has suffered for his mistress, and is never the worse for it. Varnish
+the next day writ a most elegant billet, wherein he said all that
+imagination could form upon the occasion. He violently protested, going
+out of the window was no way terrible, but as it was going from her;
+with several other kind expressions, which procured him a second
+assignation. Upon his second visit, he was conveyed by a faithful maid
+into her bedchamber, and left there to expect the arrival of her
+mistress. But the wench, according to her instructions, ran in again to
+him, and locked the door after her to keep out her master. She had just
+time enough to convey the lover into a chest before she admitted the
+husband and his wife into the room.
+
+You may be sure that trunk was absolutely necessary to be opened; but
+upon her husband's ordering it, she assured him, she had taken all the
+care imaginable in packing up the things with her own hand, and he might
+send the trunk aboard as soon as he thought fit. The easy husband
+believed his wife, and the good couple went to bed; Varnish having the
+happiness to pass the night in his mistress's bedchamber without
+molestation. The morning arose, but our lover was not well situated to
+observe her blushes; so that all we know of his sentiments on this
+occasion, is, that he heard Ballance ask for the key, and say, he would
+himself go with this chest, and have it opened before the captain of the
+ship, for the greater safety of so valuable a lading.
+
+The goods were hoisted away, and Mr. Ballance marching by his chest with
+great care and diligence, omitted nothing that might give his passenger
+perplexity. But to consummate all, he delivered the chest, with strict
+charge, in case they were in danger of being taken, to throw it
+overboard, for there were letters in it, the matter of which might be of
+great service to the enemy.
+
+N.B. It is not thought advisable to proceed further in this account, Mr.
+Varnish being just returned from his travels, and willing to conceal the
+occasion of his first applying himself to the languages.
+
+
+_St. James's Coffee-house, February 20._
+
+This day came in a mail from Holland, with a confirmation of our late
+advices, that a treaty of peace would very suddenly be set on foot, and
+that yachts were appointed by the States to convey the Ministers of
+France from Moerdyk to Gertruydenburg, which is appointed for the place
+wherein this important negotiation is to be transacted. It is said, this
+affair has been in agitation ever since the close of the last campaign;
+Monsieur Petticum having been appointed to receive from time to time the
+overtures of the enemy. During the whole winter, the Ministers of France
+have used their utmost skill in forming such answers as might amuse the
+Allies, in hopes of a favourable event; either in the north, or some
+other part of Europe, which might affect some part of the alliance too
+nearly to leave it in a capacity of adhering firmly to the interest of
+the whole. In all this transaction, the French king's own name has been
+as little made use of as possible: but the season of the year advancing
+too fast to admit of much longer delays in the present condition of
+France, Monsieur Torcy, in the name of the king, sent a letter to
+Monsieur Petticum, wherein he says, that "the king is willing all the
+preliminary articles shall rest as they are during the treaty for the
+37th."
+
+Upon the receipt of this advice, passports were sent to the French
+Court, and their Ministers are expected at Moerdyk on the 5th of the
+next month.
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, February 20._
+
+I have been earnestly solicited for a further term, for wearing the
+farthingale by several of the fair sex, but more especially by the
+following petitioners:
+
+     "The humble petition of Deborah Hark, Sarah Threadpaper and Rachael
+     Thimble, spinsters, and single women, commonly called
+     Waiting-maids, in behalf of themselves and their sisterhood;
+
+     "SHEWETH,
+
+     "That your Worship hath been pleased to order and command, that no
+     person or persons shall presume to wear quilted petticoats, on
+     forfeiture of the said petticoats, or penalty of wearing ruffs,
+     after the 17th instant now expired.
+
+     "That your petitioners have time out of mind been entitled to wear
+     their ladies' clothes, or to sell the same.
+
+     "That the sale of the said clothes is spoiled by your Worship's
+     said prohibition.
+
+     "Your petitioners therefore most humbly pray, that your Worship
+     would please to allow, that all gentlewomen's gentlewomen may be
+     allowed to wear the said dress, or to repair the loss of such a
+     perquisite in such manner as your Worship shall think fit.
+
+     "And your petitioners," &c.
+
+I do allow the allegations of this petition to be just, and forbid all
+persons but the petitioners, or those who shall purchase from them, to
+wear the said garment after the date hereof.
+
+
+[Footnote 107: Nichols suggests that this paper may be by Addison, and
+it is certainly not unlikely that he was the author of the "History of
+Tom Varnish."]
+
+
+
+
+No. 137.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Tuesday, Feb. 21_, to _Thursday, Feb. 23, 1709-10_.
+
+    Ter centum tonat ore deos, Erebumque, Chaosque,
+    Tergeminamque Hecaten.--VIRG., Æn. iv. 510.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, February 22._
+
+Dick Reptile and I sat this evening later than the rest of the club; and
+as some men are better company when only with one friend, others when
+there is a large number, I found Dick to be of the former kind. He was
+bewailing to me in very just terms, the offences which he frequently met
+with in the abuse of speech: some use ten times more words than they
+need, some put in words quite foreign to their purpose, and others adorn
+their discourses with oaths and blasphemies by way of tropes and
+figures. What my good friend started, dwelt upon me after I came home
+this evening, and led me into an inquiry with myself, whence should
+arise such strange excrescences in discourse? Whereas it must be obvious
+to all reasonable beings, that the sooner a man speaks his mind, the
+more complaisant he is to the man with whom he talks: but upon mature
+deliberation, I am come to this resolution, that for one man who speaks
+to be understood, there are ten who talk only to be admired.
+
+The ancient Greeks had little independent syllables called "expletives,"
+which they brought into their discourses both in verse and prose, for no
+other purpose but for the better grace and sound of their sentences and
+periods. I know no example but this which can authorise the use of more
+words than are necessary. But whether it be from this freedom taken by
+that wise nation, or however it arises, Dick Reptile hit upon a very
+just and common cause of offence in the generality of the people of all
+orders. We have one here in our lane who speaks nothing without quoting
+an authority; for it is always with him, so and so, "as the man said."
+He asked me this morning, how I did, "as the man said"; and hoped I
+would come now and then to see him, "as the man said." I am acquainted
+with another, who never delivers himself upon any subject, but he cries,
+he only speaks his "poor judgment"; this is his humble opinion; or as
+for his part, if he might presume to offer anything on that subject. But
+of all the persons who add elegances and superfluities to their
+discourses, those who deserve the foremost rank, are the swearers; and
+the lump of these may, I think, be very aptly divided into the common
+distinction of high and low. Dulness and barrenness of thought is the
+original of it in both these sects, and they differ only in
+constitution: the low is generally a phlegmatic, and the high a choleric
+coxcomb. The man of phlegm is sensible of the emptiness of his
+discourse, and will tell you, that "I'fackins," such a thing is true: or
+if you warm him a little, he may run into passion, and cry,
+"Odsbodikins," you do not say right. But the high affects a sublimity in
+dulness, and invokes hell and damnation at the breaking of a glass, or
+the slowness of a drawer.
+
+I was the other day trudging along Fleet Street on foot, and an old army
+friend came up with me. We were both going towards Westminster, and
+finding the streets were so crowded that we could not keep together, we
+resolved to club for a coach. This gentleman I knew to be the first of
+the order of the choleric. I must confess (were there no crime in it),
+nothing could be more diverting than the impertinence of the high juror:
+for whether there is remedy or not against what offends him, still he
+is to show he is offended; and he must sure not omit to be
+magnificently passionate, by falling on all things in his way. We were
+stopped by a train of coaches at Temple Bar. "What the devil!" says my
+companion, "cannot you drive on, coachman? D----n you all, for a set of
+sons of whores, you will stop here to be paid by the hour! There is not
+such a set of confounded dogs as the coachmen unhanged! But these
+rascally Cits---- 'Ounds, why should not there be a tax to make these
+dogs widen their gates? Oh! but the hell-hounds move at last." "Ay,"
+said I, "I knew you would make them whip on if once they heard you."
+"No," says he; "but would it not fret a man to the devil, to pay for
+being carried slower than he can walk? Lookee, there is for ever a stop
+at this hole by St. Clement's Church. Blood, you dog!--Harkee,
+sirrah,--why, and be d----d to you, do not you drive over that fellow?
+Thunder, furies, and damnation! I'll cut your ears off, you fellow
+before there. Come hither, you dog you, and let me wring your neck round
+your shoulders." We had a repetition of the same eloquence at the
+Cockpit,[108] and the turning into Palace Yard.
+
+This gave me a perfect image of the insignificancy of the creatures who
+practise this enormity; and made me conclude, that it is ever want of
+sense makes a man guilty in this kind. It was excellently well said,
+that this folly had no temptation to excuse it, no man being born of a
+swearing constitution. In a word, a few rumbling words and consonants
+clapped together, without any sense, will make an accomplished swearer:
+and it is needless to dwell long upon this blustering impertinence,
+which is already banished out of the society of well-bred men, and can
+be useful only to bullies and ill tragic writers, who would have sound
+and noise pass for courage and sense.
+
+
+_St. James's Coffee-house, February 22._
+
+There arrived a messenger last night from Harwich, who left that place
+just as the Duke of Marlborough was going on board. The character of
+this important general going out by the command of his Queen, and at the
+request of his country, puts me in mind of that noble figure which
+Shakespeare gives Harry the Fifth upon his expedition against France.
+The poet wishes for abilities to represent so great a hero:
+
+    "_Oh for a muse of fire!" says he,
+    "Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,
+    Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels,
+    Leashed in, like hounds, should Famine, Sword and Fire
+    Crouch for employment._"[109]
+
+A conqueror drawn like the god of battle, with such a dreadful leash of
+hell-hounds at his command, makes a picture of as much majesty and
+terror as is to be met with in any poet.
+
+Shakespeare understood the force of this particular allegory so well,
+that he had it in his thoughts in another passage, which is altogether
+as daring and sublime as the former. What I mean, is in the tragedy of
+"Julius Cæsar," where Antony, after having foretold the bloodshed and
+destruction that should be brought upon the earth by the death of that
+great man; to fill up the horror of his description, adds the following
+verses:
+
+    "_And Cæsar's spirit ranging for revenge,
+    With Ate by his side, come hot from Hell,
+    Shall in these confines, with a monarch's voice,
+    Cry 'Havoc'; and let slip the dogs of war._"[110]
+
+I do not question but these quotations will call to mind in my readers
+of learning and taste, that imaginary person described by Virgil with
+the same spirit. He mentions it upon the occasion of a peace which was
+restored to the Roman Empire, and which we may now hope for from the
+departure of that great man who has given occasion to these reflections.
+"The Temple of Janus," says he, "shall be shut, and in the midst of it
+Military Fury shall sit upon a pile of broken arms, loaded with a
+hundred chains, bellowing with madness, and grinding his teeth in blood.
+
+    "_Claudentur belli portæ; Furor impius intus,
+    Sæva sedens super arma, et centum vinctus ahenis
+    Post tergum nodis, fremit horridus ore cruento._"[111]
+
+    "_Janus himself before his fane shall wait,
+    And keep the dreadful issues of his gate,
+    With bolts and iron bars. Within remains
+    Imprisoned Fury bound in brazen chains;
+    High on a trophy raised of useless arms,
+    He sits, and threats the world with vain alarms._"
+                                DRYDEN.
+
+
+ADVERTISEMENT.
+
+
+The tickets which were delivered out for the benefit of Signor Nicolini
+Grimaldi[112] on the 24th instant, will be taken on Thursday the 2nd of
+March, his benefit being deferred till that day.
+
+N.B. In all operas for the future, where it thunders and lightens in
+proper time and in tune, the matter of the said lightning is to be of
+the finest resin; and, for the sake of harmony, the same which is used
+to the best Cremona fiddles.
+
+Note also, that the true perfumed lightning is only prepared and sold by
+Mr. Charles Lillie, at the corner of Beauford Buildings.
+
+The lady who has chosen Mr. Bickerstaff for her valentine, and is at a
+loss what to present him with, is desired to make him, with her own
+hands, a warm nightcap.[113]
+
+
+[Footnote 108: A portion of Henry VIII.'s palace at Whitehall. When
+Whitehall was burned down in 1697, the Cockpit escaped, and was used as
+a Court for the Committee of the Privy Council.]
+
+[Footnote 109: "Henry the Fifth," Prologue.]
+
+[Footnote 110: "Julius Cæsar," act iii. sc. i.]
+
+[Footnote 111: "Æneid," i. 294.]
+
+[Footnote 112: See Nos. 115, 142.]
+
+[Footnote 113: A description of the custom of drawing valentines, and of
+the hope and fear shown on the faces of the drawers, who in their
+earnestness gave to a scrap of paper the same effect as the person
+represented, is to be found in Lillie's "Letters sent to the _Tatler_
+and _Spectator_" (1725), i. 30. See No. 141.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 138.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Thursday, Feb. 23_, to _Saturday, Feb. 25, 1709-10_.
+
+    Secretosque pios, his dantem jura Catonem.
+                                  VIRG., Æn. viii. 670.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, February 24._
+
+It is an argument of a clear and worthy spirit in a man, to be able to
+disengage himself from the opinions of others, so far as not to let the
+deference due to the sense of mankind ensnare him to act against the
+dictates of his own reason. But the generality of the world are so far
+from walking by any such maxim, that it is almost a standing rule to do
+as others do, or be ridiculous. I have heard my old friend Mr. Hart[114]
+speak it as an observation among the players, that it is impossible to
+act with grace, except the actor has forgot that he is before an
+audience. Till he has arrived at that, his motion, his air, his every
+step and gesture, has something in them which discovers he is under a
+restraint for fear of being ill received; or if he considers himself as
+in the presence of those who approve his behaviour, you see an
+affectation of that pleasure run through his whole carriage. It is as
+common in life, as upon the stage, to behold a man in the most
+indifferent action betray a sense he has of doing what he is about
+gracefully. Some have such an immoderate relish for applause, that they
+expect it for things, which in themselves are so frivolous, that it is
+impossible, without this affectation, to make them appear worthy either
+of blame or praise. There is Will Glare, so passionately intent upon
+being admired, that when you see him in public places, every muscle of
+his face discovers his thoughts are fixed upon the consideration of what
+figure he makes. He will often fall into a musing posture to attract
+observation, and is then obtruding himself upon the company when he
+pretends to be withdrawn from it. Such little arts are the certain and
+infallible tokens of a superficial mind, as the avoiding observation is
+the sign of a great and sublime one. It is therefore extremely difficult
+for a man to judge even of his own actions, without forming to himself
+an idea of what he should act, were it in his power to execute all his
+desires without the observation of the rest of the world. There is an
+allegorical fable in Plato,[115] which seems to admonish us, that we are
+very little acquainted with ourselves, while we know our actions are to
+pass the censures of others; but had we the power to accomplish all our
+wishes unobserved, we should then easily inform ourselves how far we are
+possessed of real and intrinsic virtue. The fable I was going to
+mention, is that of Gyges, who is said to have had an enchanted ring,
+which had in it a miraculous quality, making him who wore it visible or
+invisible, as he turned it to or from his body. The use Gyges made of
+his occasional invisibility, was, by the advantage of it, to violate a
+queen, and murder a king. Tully takes notice of this allegory, and says
+very handsomely, that a man of honour who had such a ring, would act
+just in the same manner as he would do without it.[116] It is indeed no
+small pitch of virtue under the temptation of impunity, and the hopes
+of accomplishing all a man desires, not to transgress the rules of
+justice and virtue; but this is rather not being an ill man, than being
+positively a good one; and it seems wonderful, that so great a soul as
+that of Tully, should not form to himself a thousand worthy actions
+which a virtuous man would be prompted to by the possession of such a
+secret. There are certainly some part of mankind who are guardian beings
+to the other. Sallust could say of Cato, "that he had rather be than
+appear good";[117] but indeed, this eulogium rose no higher than (as I
+just now hinted) to an inoffensiveness, rather than an active virtue.
+Had it occurred to the noble orator to represent, in his language, the
+glorious pleasures of a man secretly employed in beneficence and
+generosity, it would certainly have made a more charming page than any
+he has now left behind him. How might a man, furnished with Gyges'
+secret, employ it in bringing together distant friends, laying snares
+for creating goodwill in the room of groundless hatred; in removing the
+pangs of an unjust jealousy, the shyness of an imperfect reconciliation,
+and the tremor of an awful love! Such a one could give confidence to
+bashful merit, and confusion to overbearing impudence.
+
+Certain it is, that secret kindnesses done to mankind, are as beautiful
+as secret injuries are detestable. To be invisibly good, is as godlike,
+as to be invisibly ill, diabolical. As degenerate as we are apt to say
+the age we live in is, there are still amongst us men of illustrious
+minds, who enjoy all the pleasures of good actions, except that of being
+commended for them. There happens among others very worthy instances of
+a public spirit, one of which I am obliged to discover, because I know
+not otherwise how to obey the commands of the Benefactor. A citizen of
+London has given directions to Mr. Rayner, the writing-master of Paul's
+School,[118] to educate at his charge ten boys (who shall be nominated
+by me) in writing and accounts, till they shall be fit for any trade. I
+desire therefore such as know any proper objects for receiving this
+bounty, to give notice thereof to Mr. Morphew, or Mr. Lillie, and they
+shall, if properly qualified, have instructions accordingly.
+
+Actions of this kind have in them something so transcendent, that it is
+an injury to applaud them, and a diminution of that merit which consists
+in shunning our approbation. We shall therefore leave them to enjoy that
+glorious obscurity, and silently admire their virtue, who can contemn
+the most delicious of human pleasures, that of receiving due praise.
+Such celestial dispositions very justly suspend the discovery of their
+benefactions, till they come where their actions cannot be
+misinterpreted, and receive their first congratulations in the company
+of angels.
+
+
+ADVERTISEMENT.
+
+Whereas Mr. Bickerstaff, by a letter bearing date this 24th of February,
+has received information, that there are in and about the Royal Exchange
+a sort of persons commonly known by the name of "whetters,"[119] who
+drink themselves into an intermediate state of being neither drunk nor
+sober before the hours of 'change, or business, and in that condition
+buy and sell stocks, discount notes, and do many other acts of
+well-disposed citizens; this is to give notice, that from this day
+forward, no whetter shall be able to give or endorse any note, or
+execute any other point of commerce, after the third half pint, before
+the hour of one: and whoever shall transact any matter or matters with a
+whetter (not being himself of that order) shall be conducted to
+Moorfields[120] upon the first application of his next of kin.
+
+N.B. No tavern near the 'Change shall deliver wine to such as drink at
+the bar standing, except the same shall be three parts of the best
+cider; and the master of the house shall produce a certificate of the
+same from Mr. Tintoret,[121] or other credible wine-painter.
+
+Whereas the model of the intended Bedlam[122] is now finished, and that
+the edifice itself will be very suddenly begun; it is desired, that all
+such as have relations, whom they would recommend to our care, would
+bring in their proofs with all speed, none being to be admitted of
+course but lovers, who are put into an immediate regimen. Young
+politicians also are received without fees or examination.
+
+
+[Footnote 114: See No. 99.]
+
+[Footnote 115: "Republic," ii. 359.]
+
+[Footnote 116: "De Officiis," iii. 9.]
+
+[Footnote 117: "Bell. Cat." ad fin.]
+
+[Footnote 118: "The Paul's scholar's copy-book, containing the round and
+round-text hands, with alphabets at large of the Greek and Hebrew, and
+joining-pieces of each. Embellished with proper ornaments of command of
+hand. By John Rayner, at the Hand and Pen, in St. Paul's Churchyard,
+London. Published for the use of schools. Sold by the author, and
+Jonathan Robinson, at the Golden Lion, in St. Paul's Churchyard. Price
+1_s._" (No. 135, Advertisement). Rayner's book was dedicated to the
+Master and Wardens of the Mercers' Company, and was reissued in 1716 (W.
+Massey's "Origin and Progress of Letters," 1763, part ii. p. 120).]
+
+[Footnote 119: See No. 141.]
+
+[Footnote 120: Bedlam.]
+
+[Footnote 121: See No. 131.]
+
+[Footnote 122: See No. 125.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 139.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Saturday, Feb. 25_, to _Tuesday, Feb. 28, 1709-10_.
+
+             ----Nihil est, quod credere de se
+    Non possit, cum laudatur Dis æqua potestas.
+                                      JUV., Sat. iv. 70.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, February 27._
+
+When I reflect upon the many nights I have sat up for some months last
+past in the greatest anxiety for the good of my neighbours and
+contemporaries, it is no small discouragement to me, to see how slow a
+progress I make in the reformation of the world. But indeed I must do my
+female readers the justice to own, that their tender hearts are much
+more susceptible of good impressions, than the minds of the other sex.
+Business and ambition take up men's thoughts too much to leave room for
+philosophy: but if you speak to women in a style and manner proper to
+approach them, they never fail to improve by your counsel. I shall
+therefore for the future turn my thoughts more particularly to their
+service, and study the best methods to adorn their persons, and inform
+their minds in the justest methods to make them what Nature designed
+them, the most beauteous objects of our eyes, and the most agreeable
+companions of our lives. But when I say this, I must not omit at the
+same time to look into their errors and mistakes, that being the
+readiest way to the intended end of adorning and instructing them. It
+must be acknowledged, that the very inadvertencies of this sex are owing
+to the other; for if men were not flatterers, women could not fall into
+that general cause of all their follies, and our misfortunes, their love
+of flattery. Were the commendation of these agreeable creatures built
+upon its proper foundation, the higher we raised their opinion of
+themselves, the greater would be the advantage to our sex; but all the
+topic of praise is drawn from very senseless and extravagant ideas we
+pretend we have of their beauty and perfection. Thus when a young man
+falls in love with a young woman, from that moment she is no more Mrs.
+Alice such-a-one, born of such a father, and educated by such a mother;
+but from the first minute that he casts his eye upon her with desire, he
+conceives a doubt in his mind, what heavenly power gave so unexpected a
+blow to a heart that was ever before untouched. But who can resist Fate
+and Destiny, which are lodged in Mrs. Alice's eyes? After which he
+desires orders accordingly, whether he is to live or breathe; the smile
+or frown of his goddess is the only thing that can now either save or
+destroy him. By this means, the well-humoured girl, that would have
+romped with him before she received this declaration, assumes a state
+suitable to the majesty he has given her, and treats him as the vassal
+he calls himself. The girl's head is immediately turned by having the
+power of life and death, and takes care to suit every motion and air to
+her new sovereignty. After he has placed himself at this distance, he
+must never hope to recover his former familiarity, till she has had the
+addresses of another, and found them less sincere.
+
+If the application to women were justly turned, the address of flattery,
+though it implied at the same time an admonition, would be much more
+likely to succeed. Should a captivated lover, in a billet, let his
+mistress know, that her piety to her parents, her gentleness of
+behaviour, her prudent economy with respect to her own little affairs in
+a virgin condition, had improved the passion which her beauty had
+inspired him with, into so settled an esteem for her, that of all women
+breathing he wished her his wife; though his commending her for
+qualities she knew she had as a virgin, would make her believe he
+expected from her an answerable conduct in the character of a matron, I
+will answer for it, his suit would be carried on with less perplexity.
+
+Instead of this, the generality of our young women, taking all their
+notions of life from gay writings, or letters of love, consider
+themselves as goddesses, nymphs, and shepherdesses.
+
+By this romantic sense of things, all the natural relations and duties
+of life are forgotten, and our female part of mankind are bred and
+treated, as if they were designed to inhabit the happy fields of
+Arcadia, rather than be wives and mothers in old England. It is indeed
+long since I had the happiness to converse familiarly with this sex, and
+therefore have been fearful of falling into the error which recluse men
+are very subject to, that of giving false representations of the world
+from which they have retired, by imaginary schemes drawn from their own
+reflections. An old man cannot easily gain admittance into the
+dressing-room of ladies; I therefore thought it time well spent, to turn
+over Agrippa, and use all my occult art, to give my old cornelian ring
+the same force with that of Gyges, which I have lately spoken of.[123]
+By the help of this, I went unobserved to a friend's house of mine, and
+followed the chamber-maid invisibly about twelve of the clock into the
+bed-chamber of the beauteous Flavia, his fine daughter, just before she
+got up.
+
+I drew the curtains, and being wrapped up in the safety of my old age,
+could with much pleasure, without passion, behold her sleeping with
+Waller's poems, and a letter fixed in that part of him, where every
+woman thinks herself described. The light flashing upon her face,
+awakened her: she opened her eyes, and her lips too, repeating that
+piece of false wit in that admired poet:
+
+    _Such Helen was, and who can blame the boy,
+    That in so bright a flame consumed his Troy?_[124]
+
+This she pronounced with a most bewitching sweetness; but after it
+fetched a sigh, that methought had more desire than languishment, then
+took out her letter, and read aloud, for the pleasure, I suppose, of
+hearing soft words in praise of herself, the following epistle:
+
+     "MADAM,
+
+     "I sat near you at the Opera last night; but knew no entertainment
+     from the vain show and noise about me, while I waited wholly intent
+     upon the motion of your bright eyes, in hopes of a glance, that
+     might restore me to the pleasures of sight and hearing in the midst
+     of beauty and harmony. It is said, the hell of the accursed in the
+     next life arises from an incapacity to partake the joys of the
+     blessed, though they were to be admitted to them. Such I am sure
+     was my condition all this evening; and if you, my deity, cannot
+     have so much mercy as to make me by your influence capable of
+     tasting the satisfactions of life, my being is ended, which
+     consisted only in your favour."
+
+The letter was hardly read over, when she rushed out of bed in her
+wrapping-gown, and consulted her glass for the truth of his passion. She
+raised her head, and turned it to a profile, repeating the last lines,
+"my being is ended, which consisted only in your favour." The goddess
+immediately called her maid, and fell to dressing that mischievous face
+of hers, without any manner of consideration for the mortal who had
+offered up his petition. Nay, it was so far otherwise, that the whole
+time of her woman's combing her hair was spent in discourse of the
+impertinence of his passion, and ended, in declaring a resolution, if
+she ever had him, to make him wait. She also frankly told the favourite
+gipsy that was prating to her, that her passionate lover had put it out
+of her power to be civil to him, if she were inclined to it; "for," said
+she, "if I am thus celestial to my lover, he will certainly so far think
+himself disappointed, as I grow into the familiarity and form of a
+mortal woman."
+
+I came away as I went in, without staying for other remarks than what
+confirmed me in the opinion, that it is from the notions the men inspire
+them with, that the women are so fantastical in the value of themselves.
+This imaginary pre-eminence which is given to the fair sex, is not only
+formed from the addresses of people of condition; but it is the fashion
+and humour of all orders to go regularly out of their wits, as soon as
+they begin to make love. I know at this time three goddesses in the New
+Exchange;[125] and there are two shepherdesses who sell gloves in
+Westminster Hall.[126]
+
+
+[Footnote 123: See No. 138.]
+
+[Footnote 124: "Under a Lady's Picture" (Waller's Poems: "Epigrams,
+Epitaphs," &c.).]
+
+[Footnote 125: See No. 26.]
+
+[Footnote 126: See No. 145. Part of Westminster Hall was devoted to
+shopkeepers' stalls, where toys, books, &c., could be brought. Tom Brown
+("Amusements," &c. 1700) says: "On your left hand you hear a
+nimble-tongued painted sempstress with her charming treble invite you to
+buy some of her knick-knacks, and on your right a deep-mouthed crier,
+commanding impossibilities, viz., silence to be kept among women and
+lawyers."]
+
+
+
+
+No. 140.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Tuesday, Feb. 28_, to _Thursday, March 2, 1709-10_.
+
+    ----Aliena negotia centum
+    Per caput, et circa saliunt latus--
+                              HOR., 2 Sat. vi. 33.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, March 1._
+
+Having the honour to be by my great-grandmother a Welshman, I have been
+among some choice spirits of that part of Great Britain, where we
+solaced ourselves in celebration of the day of St. David. I am, I
+confess, elevated above that state of mind which is proper for
+lucubration: but I am the less concerned at this, because I have for
+this day or two last past observed, that we novelists have been
+condemned wholly to the pastry-cooks, the eyes of the nation being
+turned upon greater matters.[127] This therefore being a time when none
+but my immediate correspondents will read me, I shall speak to them
+chiefly at this present writing. It is the fate of us who pretend to
+joke, to be frequently understood to be only upon the droll when we are
+speaking the most seriously, as appears by the following letter to
+Charles Lillie:
+
+     "MR. LILLIE,                    "London, _February 28, 1709/10_.
+
+     "It being professed by 'Squire Bickerstaff, that his intention is
+     to expose the vices and follies of the age, and to promote virtue
+     and goodwill amongst mankind; it must be a comfort, to a person
+     labouring under great straits and difficulties, to read anything
+     that has the appearance of succour. I should be glad to know
+     therefore, whether the intelligence given in his _Tatler_ of
+     Saturday last,[128] of the intended charity of a certain citizen of
+     London, to maintain the education of ten boys in writing and
+     accounts till they be fit for trade, be given only to encourage and
+     recommend persons to the practice of such noble and charitable
+     designs, or whether there be a person who really intends to do so.
+     If the latter, I humbly beg Squire Bickerstaff's pardon for making
+     a doubt, and impute it to my ignorance; and most humbly crave, that
+     he would be pleased to give notice in his _Tatler_, when he thinks
+     fit, whether his nomination of ten boys be disposed of, or whether
+     there be room for two boys to be recommended to him; and that he
+     will permit the writer of this to present him with two boys, who,
+     it is humbly presumed, will be judged to be very remarkable objects
+     of such charity.
+
+                                                  "Sir,
+                                          "Your most humble Servant."
+
+I am to tell this gentleman in sober sadness, and without jest, that
+there really is so good and charitable a man as the benefactor inquired
+for in his letter, and that there are but two boys yet named. The father
+of one of them was killed at Blenheim, the father of the other at
+Almanza. I do not here give the names of the children, because I should
+take it to be an insolence in me to publish them, in a charity which I
+have only the direction of as a servant, to that worthy and generous
+spirit who bestows upon them this bounty, without laying the bondage of
+an obligation. What I have to do is to tell them, they are beholden only
+to their Maker, to kill in them as they grow up the false shame of
+poverty, and let them know, that their present fortune, which is come
+upon them by the loss of their poor fathers on so glorious occasions, is
+much more honourable, than the inheritance of the most ample ill-gotten
+wealth.
+
+The next letter which lies before me is from a man of sense, who
+strengthens his own authority with that of Tully, in persuading me to
+what he very justly believes one cannot be averse:
+
+     "MR. BICKERSTAFF,                      "London, _Feb. 27, 1709_.
+
+     "I am so confident of your inclination to promote anything that is
+     for the advancement of liberal arts, that I lay before you the
+     following translation of a paragraph in Cicero's oration in defence
+     of Archias the poet, as an incentive to the agreeable and
+     instructive reading of the writings of the Augustan age. Most vices
+     and follies proceed from a man's incapacity of entertaining
+     himself, and we are generally fools in company, because we dare not
+     be wise alone. I hope, on some future occasions, you will find this
+     no barren hint. Tully, after having said very handsome things of
+     his client, commends the arts of which he was master as follows:
+
+     "'If so much profit be not reaped in the study of letters, and if
+     pleasure only be found; yet, in my opinion, this relaxation of the
+     mind should be esteemed most humane and ingenuous. Other things are
+     not for all ages, places and seasons. These studies form youth,
+     delight old age, adorn prosperity, and soften, and even remove
+     adversity, entertain at home, are no hindrance abroad; don't leave
+     us at night, and keep us company on the road and in the country.' I
+     am,
+
+                                           "Your humble Servant,
+                                                          "STREPHON."
+
+The following epistle seems to want the quickest despatch, because a
+lady is every moment offended till it is answered; which is best done by
+letting the offender see in her own letter how tender she is of calling
+him so:
+
+     "SIR,
+
+     "This comes from a relation of yours, though unknown to you, who,
+     besides the tie of consanguinity, has some value for you on the
+     account of your lucubrations, those being designed to refine our
+     conversation, as well as cultivate our minds. I humbly beg the
+     favour of you, in one of your _Tatlers_ (after what manner you
+     please), to correct a particular friend of mine, for an indecorum
+     he is guilty of in discourse, of calling his acquaintance, when he
+     speaks of them, 'Madam': as for example, my cousin Jenny Distaff,
+     'Madam Distaff'; which I am sure you are sensible is very unpolite,
+     and 'tis what makes me often uneasy for him, though I cannot tell
+     him of it myself, which makes me guilty of this presumption, that I
+     depend upon your goodness to excuse; and I do assure you, the
+     gentleman will mind your reprehension, for he is, as I am,
+
+                                            "Sir,
+                                              "Your most humble
+                                                "Servant and Cousin,
+                                                  "DOROTHY DRUMSTICK.
+
+     "I write this in a thin under-petticoat,[129] and never did or will
+     wear a farthingale."
+
+I had no sooner read the just complaint of Mrs. Drumstick, but I
+received an urgent one from another of the fair sex, upon faults of more
+pernicious consequence:
+
+     "MR. BICKERSTAFF,
+
+     "Observing that you are entered into a correspondence with
+     Pasquin,[130] who is, I suppose, a Roman Catholic, I beg of you to
+     forbear giving him any account of our religion, or manners, till
+     you have rooted out certain misbehaviours even in our churches;
+     among others, that of bowing, saluting, taking snuff, and other
+     gestures. Lady Autumn made me a very low curtsy the other day from
+     the next pew, and, with the most courtly air imaginable, called
+     herself 'Miserable sinner.' Her niece soon after, in saying,
+     'Forgive us our trespasses,' curtsied with a gloating look at my
+     brother. He returned it, opening his snuff-box and repeating yet a
+     more solemn expression. I beg of you, good Mr. Censor, not to tell
+     Pasquin anything of this kind, and to believe this does not come
+     from one of a morose temper, mean birth, rigid education, narrow
+     fortune, or bigotry in opinion, or from one in whom Time had worn
+     out all taste of pleasure. I assure you, it is far otherwise, for I
+     am possessed of all the contrary advantages; and hope, wealth, good
+     humour, and good breeding, may be best employed in the service of
+     religion and virtue; and desire you would, as soon as possible,
+     remark upon the above-mentioned indecorums, that we may not longer
+     transgress against the latter, to preserve our reputation in the
+     former.
+
+                                             "Your humble Servant,
+                                                             "LYDIA."
+
+The last letter I shall insert is what follows. This is written by a
+very inquisitive lady; and I think, such interrogative gentlewomen are
+to be answered no other way than by interrogation. Her billet is this:
+
+     "DEAR MR. BICKERSTAFF,
+
+     "Are you quite as good as you seem to be?
+
+                                                             "CHLOE."
+
+To which I can only answer:
+
+     "DEAR CHLOE,
+
+     "Are you quite as ignorant as you seem to be?
+
+                                                              "I. B."
+
+
+[Footnote 127: The trial of Dr. Sacheverell, which extended from
+February 27 to March 23, 1710. A Tory pamphlet, "A Letter to the Rev.
+Dr. Henry Sacheverell, by Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq.," 1709, appeared in
+January 1710. Another pamphlet was called "The Character of Don
+Sacheverello, Knight of the Firebrand, in a Letter to Isaac Bickerstaff,
+Esq., Censor of Great Britain."]
+
+[Footnote 128: See No. 138.]
+
+[Footnote 129: See No. 136.]
+
+[Footnote 130: See No. 129.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 141.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Thursday, March 2_, to _Saturday, March 4, 1709-10_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, March 3._
+
+While the attention of the town is drawn aside from the reading us
+writers of news, we all save ourselves against it is at more leisure. As
+for my own part, I shall still let the labouring oar be managed by my
+correspondents, and fill my paper with their sentiments, rather than my
+own, till I find my readers more disengaged than they are at
+present.[131] When I came home this evening, I found several letters and
+petitions, which I shall insert with no other order, than as I
+accidentally opened them, as follows:
+
+     "SIR, _March 1, 1709-10._
+
+     "Having a daughter about nine years of age, I would endeavour she
+     might have education; I mean such as may be useful, as working
+     well, and a good deportment. In order to it, I am persuaded to
+     place her at some boarding-school, situate in a good air. My wife
+     opposes it, and gives for her greatest reason, that she is too much
+     a woman, and understands the formalities of visiting and a
+     tea-table so very nicely, that none, though much older, can exceed
+     her; and with all these perfections, the girl can scarce thread a
+     needle: but however, after several arguments, we have agreed to be
+     decided by your judgment; and knowing your abilities, shall manage
+     our daughter exactly as you shall please to direct. I am serious in
+     my request, and hope you will be so in your answer, which will lay
+     a deep obligation upon,
+
+                                                   "Sir,
+                                             "Your humble Servant,
+                                                               "T. T.
+
+     "Sir, pray answer it in your _Tatler_, that it may be serviceable
+     to the public."
+
+I am as serious on this subject as my correspondent can be, and am of
+opinion, that the great happiness or misfortune of mankind depends upon
+the manner of educating and treating that sex. I have lately said, I
+design to turn my thoughts more particularly to them and their service:
+I beg therefore a little time to give my opinion on so important a
+subject, and desire the young lady may fill tea one week longer, till I
+have considered whether she shall be removed or not.[132]
+
+                                 "Chancery Lane, _February 27, 1709_.
+     "MR. BICKERSTAFF,
+
+     "Your notice in the advertisement in your _Tatler_ of Saturday
+     last[133] about 'whetters' in and about the Royal Exchange, is
+     mightily taken notice of by gentlemen who use the coffee-houses
+     near the Chancery office in Chancery Lane; and there being a
+     particular certain set of both young and old gentlemen that belong
+     to and near adjoining to the Chancery office, both in Chancery Lane
+     and Bell Yard, that are not only 'whetters' all the morning long,
+     but very musically given about twelve at night the same days, and
+     mightily taken with the union of the dulcimer, violin, and song; at
+     which recreation they rejoice together with perfect harmony,
+     however their clients disagree: you are humbly desired by several
+     gentlemen to give some regulation concerning them; in which you
+     will contribute to the repose of us, who are
+
+                                     "Your very humble Servants,
+                                                "L. T., N. F., T. W."
+
+These "whetters" are a people I have considered with much pains, and
+find them to differ from a sect I have heretofore spoken of, called
+"snuff-takers,"[134] only in the expedition they take in destroying
+their brains: the "whetter" is obliged to refresh himself every moment
+with a liquor, as the "snuff-taker" with a powder. As for their harmony
+in the evening, I have nothing to object, provided they remove to
+Wapping or the Bridge-Foot,[135] where it is not to be supposed that
+their vociferations will annoy the studious, the busy, or the
+contemplative. I once had lodgings in Gray's Inn, where we had two hard
+students, who learned to play upon the hautboy; and I had a couple of
+chamber fellows over my head not less diligent in the practice of
+backsword and single-rapier. I remember these gentlemen were assigned by
+the benchers the two houses at the end of the Terrace Walk, as the only
+places fit for their meditations. Such students as will let none improve
+but themselves, ought indeed to have their proper distances from
+societies.
+
+The gentlemen of loud mirth above mentioned I take to be, in the quality
+of their crime, the same as eavesdroppers; for they who will be in your
+company whether you will or no, are to as great a degree offenders, as
+they who hearken to what passes without being of your company at all.
+The ancient punishment for the latter, when I first came to this town,
+was the blanket, which I humbly conceive may be as justly applied to him
+that bawls, as to him that listens. It is therefore provided for the
+future, that (except in the Long Vacation) no retainers to the law, with
+dulcimer, violin, or any other instrument, in any tavern within a
+furlong of an inn of court, shall sing any tune, or pretended tune
+whatsoever, upon pain of the blanket, to be administered according to
+the discretion of all such peaceable people as shall be within the
+annoyance. And it is further directed, that all clerks who shall offend
+in this kind shall forfeit their indentures, and be turned over as
+assistants to the clerks of parishes within the bills of mortality, who
+are hereby empowered to demand them accordingly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I am not to omit the receipt of the following letter, with a nightcap,
+from my valentine;[136] which nightcap I find was finished in the year
+1588, and is too finely wrought to be of any modern stitching. Its
+antiquity will better appear by my valentine's own words:
+
+     "SIR,
+
+     "Since you are pleased to accept of so mean a present as a nightcap
+     from your valentine, I have sent you one, which I do assure you has
+     been very much esteemed of in our family; for my
+     great-grandmother's daughter who worked it, was maid of honour to
+     Queen Elizabeth, and had the misfortune to lose her life by
+     pricking her finger in the making of it, of which she bled to
+     death, as her tomb now at Westminster will show: for which reason,
+     myself, nor none of my family, have loved work ever since;
+     otherwise you should have had one as you desired, made by the hands
+     of,
+
+                                                  "Sir,
+                                              "Your affectionate
+                                                         "VALENTINE."
+
+     "_To the Right Worshipful Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq., Censor of Great
+     Britain, and Governor of the Hospital erected, or to be erected, in
+     Moorfields._
+
+     "The petition of the inhabitants of the parish of Goatham in the
+     county of Middlesex;
+
+     "HUMBLY SHEWETH,
+
+     "That whereas 'tis the undoubted right of your said petitioners to
+     repair on every Lord's Day to a chapel of ease in the said parish,
+     there to be instructed in their duties in the known or vulgar
+     tongue; yet so it is (may it please your Worship) that the preacher
+     of the said chapel has of late given himself wholly up to matters
+     of controversy, in no wise tending to the edification of your said
+     petitioners; and in handling (as he calls it) the same, has used
+     divers hard and crabbed words; such as, among many others, are
+     'orthodox' and 'heterodox,' which are in no sort understood by your
+     said petitioners; and it is with grief of heart that your
+     petitioners beg leave to represent to you, that in mentioning the
+     aforesaid words or names (the latter of which, as we have reason to
+     believe, is his deadly enemy), he will fall into ravings and
+     foamings, ill-becoming the meekness of his office, and tending to
+     give offence and scandal to all good people.
+
+     "Your petitioners further say, that they are ready to prove the
+     aforesaid allegations; and therefore humbly hope, that from a true
+     sense of their condition, you will please to receive the said
+     preacher into the hospital, until he shall recover a right use of
+     his senses.
+
+                                          "And your petitioners," &c.
+
+
+[Footnote 131: The whole attention of the town in March 1710 was devoted
+to the Sacheverell trial. See Nos. 140, 142, 157.]
+
+[Footnote 132: See No. 145.]
+
+[Footnote 133: See No. 138.]
+
+[Footnote 134: See No. 35.]
+
+[Footnote 135: The foot of London Bridge. There was a tavern, famous in
+the seventeenth century, called "The Bear at the Bridge-foot," below
+London Bridge.]
+
+[Footnote 136: See No. 137.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 142.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Saturday, March 4_, to _Tuesday, March 7, 1709-10_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, March 6._
+
+All persons who employ themselves in public, are still interrupted in
+the course of their affairs: and it seems, the admired Cavalier Nicolini
+himself is commanded by the ladies, who at present employ their time
+with great assiduity in the care of the nation, to put off his day till
+he shall receive their commands, and notice that they are at leisure for
+diversions.[137] In the meantime it is not to be expressed, how many
+cold chickens the fair ones have eaten since this day sennight for the
+good of their country. This great occasion has given birth to many
+discoveries of high moment for the conduct of life. There is a toast of
+my acquaintance told me, she had now found out, that it was day before
+nine in the morning;[138] and I am very confident, if the affair holds
+many days longer, the ancient hours of eating will be revived among us,
+many having by it been made acquainted with the luxury of hunger and
+thirst.
+
+There appears, methinks, something very venerable in all assemblies: and
+I must confess, I envied all who had youth and health enough to make
+their appearance there, that they had the happiness of being a whole day
+in the best company in the world. During the adjournment of that awful
+court, a neighbour of mine was telling me, that it gave him a notion of
+the ancient grandeur of the English hospitality, to see Westminster Hall
+a dining-room.[139] There is a cheerfulness at such repasts, which is
+very delightful to tempers which are so happy as to be clear of spleen
+and vapour; for to the jovial to see others pleased, is the greatest of
+all pleasures.
+
+But since age and infirmities forbid my appearance at such public
+places, the next happiness is to make the best use of privacy, and
+acquit myself of the demands of my correspondents. The following letter
+is what has given me no small inquietude, it being an accusation of
+partiality, and disregard to merit, in the person of a virtuoso, who is
+the most eloquent of all men upon small occasions, and is the more to be
+admired for his prodigious fertility of invention, which never appears
+but upon subjects which others would have thought barren. But in
+consideration of his uncommon talents, I am contented to let him be the
+hero of my next two days, by inserting his friends' recommendation of
+him at large:
+
+     "DEAR COUSIN,                    "Nando's,[140] _Feb. 28, 1709_.
+
+     "I am just come out of the country, and upon perusing your late
+     Lucubrations, I find Charles Lillie to be the darling of your
+     affections, that you have given him a place, and taken no small
+     pains to establish him in the world; and at the same time have
+     passed by his namesake[141] at this end of the town, as if he was a
+     citizen defunct, and one of no use in a commonwealth. I must own,
+     his circumstances are so good, and so well known, that he does not
+     stand in need of having his fame published to the world; but being
+     of an ambitious spirit, and an aspiring soul, he would be rather
+     proud of the honour, than desirous of the profit, which might
+     result from your recommendation. He is a person of a particular
+     genius, the first that brought toys in fashion, and baubles to
+     perfection. He is admirably well versed in screws, springs, and
+     hinges, and deeply read in knives, combs or scissors, buttons or
+     buckles. He is a perfect master of words, which, uttered with a
+     smooth voluble tongue, flow into a most persuasive eloquence;
+     insomuch that I have known a gentleman of distinction find several
+     ingenious faults with a toy of his, and show his utmost dislike to
+     it, as being either useless, or ill-contrived; but when the orator
+     behind the counter had harangued upon it for an hour and a half,
+     displayed its hidden beauties, and revealed its secret
+     perfections, he has wondered how he had been able to spend so great
+     a part of his life without so important an utensil. I won't pretend
+     to furnish out an inventory of all the valuable commodities that
+     are to be found at his shop.
+
+     "I shall content myself with giving an account of what I think most
+     curious. Imprimis, his pocket-books are very neat, and well
+     contrived, not for keeping bank bills or goldsmiths' notes,[142] I
+     confess; but they are admirable for registering the lodgings of
+     Madonnas, and for preserving letters from ladies of quality: his
+     whips and spurs are so nice, that they'll make one that buys them
+     ride a fox-hunting, though before he hated noise and early rising,
+     and was afraid of breaking his neck. His seals are curiously
+     fancied, and exquisitely well cut, and of great use to encourage
+     young gentlemen to write a good hand. Ned Puzzlepost had been
+     ill-used by his writing-master, and writ a sort of a Chinese, or
+     downright scrawlian: however, upon his buying a seal of my friend,
+     he is so much improved by continual writing, that it is believed in
+     a short time one may be able to read his letters, and find out his
+     meaning, without guessing. His pistols and fusees are so very good,
+     that they are fit to be laid up among the finest china. Then his
+     tweezer-cases are incomparable: you shall have one not much bigger
+     than your finger, with seventeen several instruments in it, all
+     necessary every hour of the day, during the whole course of a man's
+     life. But if this virtuoso excels in one thing more than another,
+     it is in canes; he has spent his most select hours in the knowledge
+     of them, and is arrived at that perfection, that he is able to hold
+     forth upon canes longer than upon any one subject in the world.
+     Indeed his canes are so finely clouded, and so well made up, either
+     with gold or amber heads, that I am of the opinion it is impossible
+     for a gentleman to walk, talk, sit or stand as he should do,
+     without one of them. He knows the value of a cane, by knowing the
+     value of the buyer's estate. Sir Timothy Shallow has two thousand
+     pounds per annum, and Tom Empty one. They both at several times
+     bought a cane of Charles: Sir Timothy's cost ten guineas, and Tom
+     Empty's five. Upon comparing them, they were perfectly alike. Sir
+     Timothy surprised there should be no difference in the canes, and
+     so much in the price, comes to Charles. 'Damn it, Charles,' says
+     he, 'you have sold me a cane here for ten pieces, and the very same
+     to Tom Empty for five.' 'Lord, Sir Timothy,' says Charles, 'I am
+     concerned that you, whom I took to understand canes better than any
+     baronet in town, should be so overseen;[143] why, Sir Timothy,
+     yours is a true jambee, and Squire Empty's only a plain
+     dragon.'[144]
+
+     "This virtuoso has a parcel of jambees now growing in the East
+     Indies, where he keeps a man on purpose to look after them, which
+     will be the finest that ever landed in Great Britain, and will be
+     fit to cut about two years hence. Any gentleman may subscribe for
+     as many as he pleases. Subscriptions will be taken in at his shop
+     at ten guineas each joint. They that subscribe for six, shall have
+     a dragon gratis. This is all I have to say at present concerning
+     Charles' curiosities; and hope it may be sufficient to prevail
+     with you to take him into your consideration, which if you comply
+     with, you will oblige,
+
+                                                "Your humble Servant.
+
+     "N.B. Whereas there came out last term several gold snuff-boxes and
+     others: this is to give notice, that Charles[145] will put out a
+     new edition on Saturday next, which will be the only one in fashion
+     till after Easter. The gentleman that gave fifty pounds for the box
+     set with diamonds, may show it till Sunday night, provided he goes
+     to church; but not after that time, there being one to be published
+     on Monday which will cost fourscore guineas."
+
+
+[Footnote 137: See No. 137. In No. 140 there was the following
+advertisement: "At the request of all the ladies of quality, who are at
+present engaged in politics, the benefit night for Cavalier Nicolini is
+put off to Tuesday the 7th instant."]
+
+[Footnote 138: Cf. "Wentworth Papers," p. 113. "Sacheverell will make
+all the Ladys good huswis, they goe att seven every mornin'," says Lady
+Wentworth.]
+
+[Footnote 139: The spectators brought their lunch with them.]
+
+[Footnote 140: A coffee-house in Fleet Street, at the east corner of
+Inner Temple Lane.]
+
+[Footnote 141: Charles Mather, the toyman (see Nos. 27, 113).]
+
+[Footnote 142: Goldsmiths' receipts for coin lodged with them as bankers
+were sometimes transferred from hand to hand, but this was always
+limited to a few merchants.]
+
+[Footnote 143: Deceived.]
+
+[Footnote 144: A dragon is a small malacca cane, so called from its
+blood-red colour. It comes from Penang, Singapore, and other islands in
+the Straits of Malacca. A jambee, on the contrary, is a knotty bamboo of
+a pale brown hue. As an article of commerce it is now extinct. The
+"clouded cane" of Sir Plume was a large malacca artificially coloured
+(Dobson).]
+
+[Footnote 145: Charles Mather.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 143.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Tuesday, March 7_, to _Thursday, March 9, 1709-10_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, March 8._
+
+I was this afternoon surprised with a visit from my sister Jenny, after
+an absence of some time. She had, methought, in her manner and air,
+something that was a little below that of the women of first breeding
+and quality, but at the same time above the simplicity and familiarity
+of her usual deportment. As soon as she was seated, she began to talk to
+me of the odd place I lived in, and begged of me to remove out of the
+lane where I have been so long acquainted; "for," said she, "it does so
+spoil one's horses, that I must beg your pardon if you see me much
+seldomer, when I am to make so great a journey with a single pair, and
+make visits and get home the same night." I understood her pretty well,
+but would not; therefore desired her to pay off her coach, for I had a
+great deal to talk to her. She very pertly told me, she came in her own
+chariot. "Why," said I, "is your husband in town? And has he set up an
+equipage?" "No," answered she, "but I have received £500 by his order;
+and his letters, which came at the same time, bade me want for nothing
+that was necessary." I was heartily concerned at her folly, whose
+affairs render her but just able to bear such an expense. However I
+considered, that according to the British custom of treating women,
+there is no other method to be used in removing any of their faults and
+errors, but conducting their minds from one humour to another, with as
+much ceremony as we lead their persons from one place to another. I
+therefore dissembled my concern, and in compliance with her, as a lady
+that was to use her feet no more, I begged of her, after a short visit,
+to let me persuade her not to stay out till it was late, for fear of
+catching cold as she went into her coach in the dampness of the evening.
+The Malapert knew well enough I laughed at her, but was not ill-pleased
+with the certainty of her power over her husband, who, she knew, would
+support her in any humour he was able, rather than pass through the
+torment of an expostulation, to gainsay anything she had a mind to. As
+soon as my fine lady was gone, I writ the following letter to my
+brother:
+
+     "DEAR BROTHER,
+
+     "I am at present under very much concern at the splendid appearance
+     I saw my sister make in an equipage which she has set up in your
+     absence. I beg of you not to indulge her in this vanity; and desire
+     you to consider, the world is so whimsical, that though it will
+     value you for being happy, it will hate you for appearing so. The
+     possession of wisdom and virtue (the only solid distinctions of
+     life) is allowed much more easily than that of wealth and quality.
+     Besides which, I must entreat you to weigh with yourself, what it
+     is that people aim at in setting themselves out to show in gay
+     equipages, and moderate fortunes. You are not by this means a
+     better man than your neighbour is; but your horses are better than
+     his are. And will you suffer care and inquietude, to have it said
+     as you pass by, 'Those are very pretty punch nags!'[146] Nay, when
+     you have arrived at this, there are a hundred worthless fellows who
+     are still four horses happier than you are. Remember, dear brother,
+     there is a certain modesty in the enjoyment of moderate wealth,
+     which to transgress, exposes men to the utmost derision; and as
+     there is nothing but meanness of spirit can move a man to value
+     himself upon what can be purchased with money, so he that shows an
+     ambition that way, and cannot arrive at it, is more emphatically
+     guilty of that meanness. I give you only my first thoughts on this
+     occasion, but shall, as I am a censor, entertain you in my next
+     with my sentiments in general upon the subject of equipage; and
+     show, that though there are no sumptuary laws amongst us, reason
+     and good sense are equally binding, and will ever prevail in
+     appointing approbation or dislike in all matters of an indifferent
+     nature, when they are pursued with earnestness. I am,
+
+                                                           "Sir," &c.
+
+
+ADVERTISEMENTS.
+
+To all Gentlemen, Ladies, and others, that delight in soft lines.
+
+These are to give notice, that the proper time of the year for writing
+pastorals now drawing near, there is a stage-coach settled from the One
+Bell in the Strand to Dorchester, which sets out twice a week, and
+passes through Basingstoke, Sutton, Stockbridge, Salisbury, Blandford,
+and so to Dorchester, over the finest downs in England. At all which
+places, there are accommodations of spreading beeches, beds of flowers,
+turf seats, and purling streams, for happy swains; and thunderstruck
+oaks, and left-handed ravens, to foretell misfortunes to those that
+please to be wretched; with all other necessaries for pensive passion.
+
+And for the convenience of such whose affairs will not permit them to
+leave this town, at the same place they may be furnished, during the
+season, with opening buds, flowering thyme, warbling birds, sporting
+lambkins, and fountain water, right and good, and bottled on the spot,
+by one sent down on purpose.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+N.B. The nymphs and swains are further given to understand, that in
+those happy climes, they are so far from being troubled with wolves,
+that for want of even foxes, a considerable pack of hounds have been
+lately forced to eat sheep.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Whereas on the 6th instant at midnight, several persons of light honour
+and loose mirth, having taken upon them in the shape of men, but with
+the voice of the players belonging to Mr. Powell's[147] company, to call
+up surgeons at midnight, and send physicians to persons in sound sleep,
+and perfect health: this is to certify, that Mr. Powell had locked up
+the legs of all his company for fear of mischief that night; and that
+Mr. Powell will not pay for any damages done by the said persons. It is
+also further advised, that there were no midwives wanted when those
+persons called them up in the several parts of Westminster; but that
+those gentlewomen who were in the company of the said impostors, may
+take care to call such useful persons on the 6th of December next.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Censor having observed, that there are fine wrought ladies' shoes
+and slippers put out to view at a great shoemaker's shop towards St.
+James's end of Pall Mall, which create irregular thoughts and desires in
+the youth of this nation; the said shopkeeper is required to take in
+those eyesores, or show cause the next court-day why he continues to
+expose the same; and he is required to be prepared particularly to
+answer to the slippers with green lace and blue heels.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is impossible for me to return the obliging things Mr. Joshua
+Barnes[148] has said to me upon the account of our mutual friend Homer.
+He and I have read him now forty years with some understanding, and
+great admiration. A work to be produced by one who has enjoyed so great
+an intimacy with an author, is certainly to be valued more than any
+comment made by persons of yesterday: therefore, according to my friend
+Joshua's request, I recommend his[149] work; and having used a little
+magic in the case, I give this recommendation by way of amulet or charm,
+against the malignity of envious backbiters, who speak evil of
+performances whereof themselves were never capable. If I may use my
+friend Joshua's own words, I shall at present say no more, but that we,
+Homer's oldest acquaintance now living, know best his ways; and can
+inform the world, that they are often mistaken when they think he is in
+lethargic fits, which we know he was never subject to; and shall make
+appear to be rank scandal and envy that of the Latin poet:
+
+    "_----Aliquando bonus dormitat Homerus._"[150]
+
+
+[Footnote 146: A punch nag is a horse well set and well knit, having a
+short back and thin shoulders, with a broad neck, and well lined with
+flesh ("Farrier's Dictionary").]
+
+[Footnote 147: The puppet-show man.]
+
+[Footnote 148: "The learned and ingenious Mr. Joshua Barnes has lately
+writ an eulogium (after the manner of learned men to each other) upon
+me; and after having made me his compliments in the behalf of his
+beloved Homer, and thanked me for the justice I have done him, in the
+'Table of Fame,' has desired me to recommend the following
+advertisement: 'Whereas Mr. Joshua Barnes, B.D., her Majesty's Greek
+professor in the University of Cambridge, hath some time since published
+proposals for printing a new and accurate edition of all Homer's
+"Works," enlarged, corrected, and amended, by the help of ancient MSS.
+the best editions, scholiographers, &c.: These are to certify, that the
+"Iliad" and "Odyssey" are now both actually printed off, only a small
+part of the hymns, other poems, and fragments remaining, with the
+indexes, Life of Homer, and Prolegomena, which are carried on with all
+possible expedition. All gentlemen therefore, scholars and masters of
+great schools, that are willing to reap the benefit of subscription,
+being ten shillings down, and on the delivery of the two volumes in
+sheets twenty shillings more, are desired to make their first payment to
+the said Mr. Barnes, now lodging at the printing house at Cambridge,
+before the end of March; after which time no more single subscriptions
+to be admitted'" (_Tatler_, orig. folio, No. 139). Joshua Barnes
+(1654-1712), Greek scholar and antiquary, was educated at Christ's
+Hospital and Emanuel College, Cambridge. He was appointed professor of
+Greek at Cambridge in 1695. The expenses incurred in the production of
+his "Homer" involved him in considerable difficulties. Bentley paid a
+doubtful compliment to Barnes when he said that Barnes knew as much
+Greek as a Greek cobbler. See the _Spectator_, No. 245.]
+
+[Footnote 149: Mr. Joshua Barnes' new and accurate edition of all
+Homer's Works, &c. (Steele).]
+
+[Footnote 150: Horace, "Ars Poet." 359 ("Quandoque bonus," &c.).]
+
+
+
+
+No. 144.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Thursday, March 9_, to _Saturday, March 11, 1709-10_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, March 10._
+
+In a nation of liberty, there is hardly a person in the whole mass of
+the people more absolutely necessary than a censor. It is allowed, that
+I have no authority for assuming this important appellation, and that I
+am censor of these nations, just as one is chosen king at the game of
+questions and commands:[151] but if, in the execution of this
+fantastical dignity, I observe upon things which do not fall within the
+cognisance of real authority, I hope it will be granted, that an idle
+man could not be more usefully employed. Among all the irregularities of
+which I have taken notice, I know none so proper to be presented to the
+world by a censor, as that of the general expense and affectation in
+equipage. I have lately hinted, that this extravagance must necessarily
+get footing where we have no sumptuary laws, and where every man may be
+dressed, attended, and carried, in what manner he pleases. But my
+tenderness to my fellow subjects will not permit me to let this enormity
+go unobserved.
+
+As the matter now stands, every man takes it in his head, that he has a
+liberty to spend his money as he pleases. Thus, in spite of all order,
+justice, and decorum, we the greater number of the Queen's loyal
+subjects, for no reason in the world but because we want money, do not
+share alike in the division of her Majesty's high-road. The horses and
+slaves of the rich take up the whole street, while we peripatetics are
+very glad to watch an opportunity to whisk across a passage, very
+thankful that we are not run over for interrupting the machine, that
+carries in it a person neither more handsome, wise, nor valiant than the
+meanest of us. For this reason, were I to propose a tax, it should
+certainly be upon coaches and chairs: for no man living can assign a
+reason why one man should have half a street to carry him at his ease,
+and perhaps only in pursuit of pleasures, when as good a man as himself
+wants room for his own person to pass upon the most necessary and urgent
+occasion. Till such an acknowledgment is made to the public, I shall
+take upon me to vest certain rights in the scavengers of the cities of
+London and Westminster, to take the horses and servants of all such as
+do not become or deserve such distinctions into their peculiar custody.
+The offenders themselves I shall allow safe conduct to their places of
+abode in the carts of the said scavengers, but their horses shall be
+mounted by their footmen, and sent into the service abroad: and I take
+this opportunity in the first place to recruit the regiment of my good
+old friend the brave and honest Sylvius,[152] that they be as well
+taught as they are fed. It is to me most miraculous, so unreasonable an
+usurpation as this I am speaking of should so long have been tolerated.
+We hang a poor fellow for taking any trifle from us on the road, and
+bear with the rich for robbing us of the road itself. Such a tax as this
+would be of great satisfaction to us who walk on foot; and since the
+distinction of riding in a coach is not to be appointed according to a
+man's merit or service to their country, nor that liberty given as a
+reward for some eminent virtue, we should be highly contented to see
+them pay something for the insult they do us in the state they take upon
+them while they are drawn by us.
+
+Till they have made us some reparation of this kind, we the peripatetics
+of Great Britain cannot think ourselves well treated, while every one
+that is able is allowed to set up an equipage.
+
+As for my part, I cannot but admire how persons, conscious to themselves
+of no manner of superiority above others, can out of mere pride or
+laziness expose themselves at this rate to public view, and put us all
+upon pronouncing those three terrible syllables, Who is that? When it
+comes to that question, our method is to consider the mien and air of
+the passenger, and comfort ourselves for being dirty to the ankles, by
+laughing at his figure and appearance who overlooks us. I must confess,
+were it not for the solid injustice of the thing, there is nothing could
+afford a discerning eye greater occasion for mirth, than this licentious
+huddle of qualities and characters in the equipages about this town. The
+overseers of the highway and constables have so little skill or power to
+rectify this matter, that you may often see the equipage of a fellow
+whom all the town knows to deserve hanging, make a stop that shall
+interrupt the Lord High Chancellor and all the judges on their way to
+Westminster.
+
+For the better understanding of things and persons in this general
+confusion, I have given directions to all the coachmakers and
+coach-painters in town, to bring me in lists of their several customers;
+and doubt not, but with comparing the orders of each man, in the placing
+his arms on the doors of his chariot, as well as the words, devices and
+ciphers to be fixed upon them, to make a collection which shall let us
+into the nature, if not the history, of mankind, more usefully than the
+curiosities of any medallist in Europe.
+
+But this evil of vanity in our figure, with many, many others, proceeds
+from a certain gaiety of heart, which has crept into men's very thoughts
+and complexions. The passions and adventures of heroes, when they enter
+the lists for the tournament in romances, are not more easily
+distinguishable by their palfreys and their armour, than the secret
+springs and affections of the several pretenders to show amongst us are
+known by their equipages in ordinary life. The young bridegroom with his
+gilded cupids, and winged angels, has some excuse in the joy of his
+heart to launch out into something that may be significant of his
+present happiness: but to see men, for no reason upon earth but that
+they are rich, ascend triumphant chariots, and ride through the people,
+has at the bottom nothing else in it but an insolent transport, arising
+only from the distinction of fortune.
+
+It is therefore high time that I call in such coaches as are in their
+embellishments improper for the character of their owners. But if I find
+I am not obeyed herein, and that I cannot pull down these equipages
+already erected, I shall take upon me to prevent the growth of this evil
+for the future, by inquiring into the pretensions of the persons who
+shall hereafter attempt to make public entries with ornaments and
+decorations of his own appointment. If a man, who believed he had the
+handsomest leg in this kingdom, should take a fancy to adorn so
+deserving a limb with a blue garter, he would justly be punished for
+offending against the most noble order: and, I think, the general
+prostitution of equipage and retinue is as destructive to all
+distinction, as the impertinence of one man, if permitted, would
+certainly be to that illustrious fraternity.
+
+
+ADVERTISEMENT.
+
+The Censor having lately received intelligence, that the ancient
+simplicity in the dress and manners of that part of this island, called
+Scotland, begins to decay; and that there are at this time in the good
+town of Edinburgh, beaus, fops, and coxcombs: his late correspondent[153]
+from that place is desired to send up their names and characters with
+all expedition, that they may be proceeded against accordingly, and
+proper officers named to take in their canes, snuff-boxes, and all other
+useless necessaries commonly worn by such offenders.
+
+
+[Footnote 151: Cf. Steele's "Lover," No. 13: "I might have been a king
+at questions and commands." This game is mentioned several times in the
+_Spectator_.]
+
+[Footnote 152: General Cornelius Wood, son of the Rev. Seth Wood, was
+born in 1636. He served for four years as a private soldier, before he
+was advanced to be a sub-brigadier; after which his rise was rapid,
+owing entirely to his signal valour, his strict justice, and extensive
+humanity. The Prince of Orange, on his accession to the throne, gave him
+a troop of horse, in the regiment commanded by George Lord Huet; he was
+made a colonel of horse in 1693; and a brigadier-general in 1702. His
+conduct and conversation in Ireland rendered him very acceptable to
+Marshal Schomberg; his valour was conspicuous at the Battle of Blenheim,
+after which the Duke of Marlborough declared him a major-general; it was
+no less signally manifested at Ramillies in 1706; the year following he
+was made a lieutenant-general of horse, in which post he arrived to be
+the eldest. In 1708, he was Governor of Ghent, and honoured by the
+burghers, in testimony of their singular satisfaction, with a large
+piece of plate, which he left as a legacy to the Duke of Ormond, to
+evince his gratitude for services received, and his esteem for that
+nobleman's illustrious character. In 1709, he gathered fresh laurels in
+the bloody field of Tanieres, and next year was again appointed Governor
+of Ghent; but in his march to that garrison, an unruly horse on which he
+rode, reared on end, and fell backwards upon him; his collar-bone was
+broken, and his stomach so bruised by this accident, that he never was
+well after. He languished about two years, and died at the Gravel-pits
+near Kensington, on the 17th of May 1712, in the 75th year of his age.
+He never married (Nichols). Prior, in his poem on the Battle of
+Blenheim, says:
+
+    "Let generous Sylvius stand for honest Wood."
+]
+
+[Footnote 153: "Osyris"; see No. 143.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 145.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Saturday, March 11_, to _Tuesday, March 14, 1709-10_.
+
+    Nescio quis teneros oculus mihi fascinat agnos.
+                                  VIRG., Eclog. iii. 103.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_White's Chocolate-house, March 13._
+
+This evening was allotted for taking into consideration a late request
+of two indulgent parents, touching the care of a young daughter, whom
+they design to send to a boarding-school, or keep at home, according to
+my determination;[154] but I am diverted from that subject by letters
+which I have received from several ladies, complaining of a certain sect
+of professed enemies to the repose of the fair sex, called Oglers. These
+are, it seems, gentlemen who look with deep attention on one object at
+the playhouses, and are ever staring all round them in churches. It is
+urged by my correspondents, that they do all that is possible to keep
+their eyes off these ensnarers; but that, by what power they know not,
+both their diversions and devotions are interrupted by them in such a
+manner, as that they cannot attend either without stealing looks at the
+persons whose eyes are fixed upon them. By this means, my petitioners
+say, they find themselves grow insensibly less offended, and in time
+enamoured, of these their enemies. What is required of me on this
+occasion, is, that as I love and study to preserve the better part of
+mankind, the females, I would give them some account of this dangerous
+way of assault, against which there is so little defence, that it lays
+ambush for the sight itself, and makes them seeingly, knowingly,
+willingly, and forcibly go on to their own captivity.
+
+This representation of the present state of affairs between the two
+sexes gave me very much alarm; and I had no more to do, but to recollect
+what I had seen at any one assembly for some years last past, to be
+convinced of the truth and justice of this remonstrance. If there be not
+a stop put to this evil art, all the modes of address, and the elegant
+embellishments of life, which arise out of the noble passion of love,
+will of necessity decay. Who would be at the trouble of rhetoric, or
+study the _bon mien_, when his introduction is so much easier obtained
+by a sudden reverence in a downcast look at the meeting the eye of a
+fair lady, and beginning again to ogle her as soon as she glances
+another way? I remember very well, when I was last at an opera, I could
+perceive the eyes of the whole audience cast into particular cross
+angles one upon another, without any manner of regard to the stage,
+though King Latinus was himself present when I made that observation. It
+was then very pleasant to look into the hearts of the whole company; for
+the balls of sight are so formed, that one man's eyes are spectacles to
+another to read his heart with. The most ordinary beholder can take
+notice of any violent agitation in the mind, any pleasing transport, or
+any inward grief, in the person he looks at; but one of these oglers can
+see a studied indifference, a concealed love, or a smothered resentment,
+in the very glances that are made to hide those dispositions of thought.
+The naturalists tell us, that the rattlesnake will fix himself under a
+tree where he sees a squirrel playing; and when he has once got the
+exchange of a glance from the pretty wanton, will give it such a sudden
+stroke on its imagination, that though it may play from bough to bough,
+and strive to avert its eyes from it for some time, yet it comes nearer
+and nearer by little intervals of looking another way, till it drops
+into the jaws of the animal, which it knew gazed at it for no other
+reason but to ruin it. I did not believe this piece of philosophy till
+that night I was just now speaking of; but I then saw the same thing
+pass between an ogler and a coquette. Mirtillo, the most learned of the
+former, had for some time discontinued to visit Flavia, no less eminent
+among the latter. They industriously avoided all places where they might
+probably meet, but chance brought them together to the playhouse, and
+seated them in a direct line over against each other, she in a front
+box, he in the pit next the stage. As soon as Flavia had received the
+looks of the whole crowd below her with that air of insensibility which
+is necessary at the first entrance, she began to look round her and saw
+the vagabond Mirtillo, who had so long absented himself from her circle;
+and when she first discovered him, she looked upon him with that glance,
+which, in the language of oglers, is called the scornful, but
+immediately turned her observation another way, and returned upon him
+with the indifferent. This gave Mirtillo no small resentment; but he
+used her accordingly. He took care to be ready for her next glance. She
+found his eyes full in the indolent, with his lips crumpled up in the
+posture of one whistling. Her anger at this usage immediately appeared
+in every muscle of her face; and after many emotions, which glistened in
+her eyes, she cast them round the whole house, and gave them softnesses
+in the face of every man she had ever seen before. After she thought she
+had reduced all she saw to her obedience, the play began, and ended
+their dialogue. As soon as that was over, she stood up with a visage
+full of dissembled alacrity and pleasure, with which she overlooked the
+audience, and at last came to him: he was then placed in a side-way,
+with his hat slouching over his eyes, and gazing at a wench in the
+side-box,[155] as talking of that gipsy to the gentleman who sat by him.
+But as she was fixed upon him, he turned suddenly with a full face upon
+her, and with all the respect imaginable, made her the most obsequious
+bow in the presence of the whole theatre. This gave her a pleasure not
+to be concealed, and she made him the recovering or second curtsy, with
+a smile that spoke a perfect reconciliation. Between the ensuing acts,
+they talked to each other with gestures and glances so significant, that
+they ridiculed the whole house in this silent speech, and made an
+appointment that Mirtillo should lead her to her coach.
+
+The peculiar language of one eye, as it differs from another, as much as
+the tone of one voice from another, and the fascination or enchantment
+which is lodged in the optic nerves of the persons concerned in these
+dialogues, is, I must confess, too nice a subject for one who is not an
+adept in these speculations; but I shall, for the good and safety of the
+fair sex, call my learned friend Sir William Read[156] to my assistance,
+and, by the help of his observations on this organ, acquaint them when
+the eye is to be believed, and when distrusted. On the contrary, I shall
+conceal the true meaning of the looks of ladies, and indulge in them all
+the art they can acquire in the management of their glances: all which
+is but too little against creatures who triumph in falsehood, and begin
+to forswear with their eyes, when their tongues can be no longer
+believed.
+
+
+ADVERTISEMENT.
+
+A very clean, well-behaved young gentleman, who is in a very good way in
+Cornhill, has writ to me the following lines, and seems in some passages
+of his letter (which I omit) to lay it very much to heart, that I have
+not spoken of a supernatural beauty whom he sighs for, and complains to
+in most elaborate language. Alas! what can a monitor do? All mankind
+live in romance:
+
+                                         "Royal Exchange, _March 11_.
+     "MR. BICKERSTAFF,
+
+     "Some time since you were pleased to mention the beauties in the
+     New Exchange and Westminster Hall,[157] and in my judgment were not
+     very impartial; for if you were pleased to allow there was one
+     goddess in the New Exchange, and two shepherdesses in Westminster
+     Hall, you very well might say, there was and is at present one
+     angel in the Royal Exchange: and I humbly beg the favour of you to
+     let justice be done her, by inserting this in your next _Tatler_;
+     which will make her my good angel, and me your most humble servant,
+
+                                                         "A. B."[158]
+
+
+[Footnote 154: See No. 141.]
+
+[Footnote 155: See No. 50.]
+
+[Footnote 156: See No. 9.]
+
+[Footnote 157: See No. 139.]
+
+[Footnote 158: Perhaps Alexander Bayne; see No. 84.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 146.                                                    [ADDISON.
+
+From _Tuesday, March 14_, to _Thursday, March 16, 1709-10_.
+
+    Permittes ipsis expendere numinibus, quid
+    Conveniat nobis, rebusque sit utile nostris.
+    Nam pro jucundis aptissima quæque dabunt Dî.
+    Carior est illis homo, quam sibi. Nos animorum
+    Impulsu et cæca magnaque cupidine ducti
+    Conjugium petimus, partumque uxoris; at illis
+    Notum, qui pueri qualisque futura sit uxor.
+                                        JUV., Sat. x. 347.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, March 15._
+
+Among the various sets of correspondents who apply to me for advice, and
+send up their cases from all parts of Great Britain, there are none who
+are more importunate with me, and whom I am more inclined to answer,
+than the complainers. One of them dates his letter to me from the banks
+of a purling stream, where he used to ruminate in solitude upon the
+divine Clarissa, and where he is now looking about for a convenient
+leap, which he tells me he is resolved to take, unless I support him
+under the loss of that charming perjured woman. Poor Lavinia presses as
+much for consolation on the other side, and is reduced to such an
+extremity of despair by the inconstancy of Philander, that she tells me
+she writes her letter with her pen in one hand and her garter in the
+other. A gentleman of an ancient family in Norfolk is almost out of his
+wits upon account of a greyhound, that after having been his inseparable
+companion for ten years, is at last run mad. Another (who I believe is
+serious) complains to me, in a very moving manner, of the loss of a
+wife; and another, in terms still more moving, of a purse of money that
+was taken from him on Bagshot Heath, and which, he tells me, would not
+have troubled him if he had given it to the poor. In short, there is
+scarce a calamity in human life that has not produced me a letter.
+
+It is indeed wonderful to consider, how men are able to raise affliction
+to themselves out of everything. Lands and houses, sheep and oxen, can
+convey happiness and misery into the hearts of reasonable creatures.
+Nay, I have known a muff, a scarf, or a tippet, become a solid blessing
+or misfortune. A lap-dog has broke the hearts of thousands. Flavia, who
+had buried five children, and two husbands, was never able to get over
+the loss of her parrot. How often has a divine creature been thrown into
+a fit by a neglect at a ball or an assembly? Mopsa has kept her chamber
+ever since the last masquerade, and is in greater danger of her life
+upon being left out of it, than Clarinda from the violent cold which she
+caught at it. Nor are these dear creatures the only sufferers by such
+imaginary calamities: many an author has been dejected at the censure of
+one whom he ever looked upon as an idiot; and many a hero cast into a
+fit of melancholy, because the rabble have not hooted at him as he
+passed through the streets. Theron places all his happiness in a running
+horse, Suffenus in a gilded chariot, Fulvius in a blue string, and
+Florio in a tulip root. It would be endless to enumerate the many
+fantastical afflictions that disturb mankind; but as a misery is not to
+be measured from the nature of the evil, but from the temper of the
+sufferer, I shall present my readers, who are unhappy either in reality
+or imagination, with an allegory, for which I am indebted to the great
+father and prince of poets.
+
+As I was sitting after dinner in my elbow-chair, I took up Homer, and
+dipped into that famous speech of Achilles to Priam, in which he tells
+him, that Jupiter has by him two great vessels, the one filled with
+blessings, and the other with misfortunes; out of which he mingles a
+composition for every man that comes into the world. This passage so
+exceedingly pleased me, that as I fell insensibly into my afternoon's
+slumber, it wrought my imagination into the following dream:
+
+When Jupiter took into his hands the government of the world, the
+several parts of nature, with their presiding deities, did homage to
+him. One presented him with a mountain of winds, another with a magazine
+of hail, and a third with a pile of thunderbolts. The stars offered up
+their influences; the ocean gave in his trident, the earth her fruits,
+and the sun his seasons. Among the several deities who came to make
+their court on this occasion, the destinies advanced with two great tuns
+carried before them, one of which they fixed at the right hand of
+Jupiter as he sat upon his throne, and the other on his left. The first
+was filled with all the blessings, and the other with all the calamities
+of human life. Jupiter, in the beginning of his reign, finding the world
+much more innocent than it is in this iron age, poured very plentifully
+out of the tun that stood at his right hand; but as mankind degenerated,
+and became unworthy of his blessings, he set abroach the other vessel,
+that filled the world with pain and poverty, battles and distempers,
+jealousy and falsehood, intoxicating pleasures and untimely deaths.
+
+He was at length so very much incensed at the great depravation of human
+nature, and the repeated provocations which he received from all parts
+of the earth, that having resolved to destroy the whole species, except
+Deucalion and Pyrrha, he commanded the Destinies to gather up the
+blessings which he had thrown away upon the sons of men, and lay them up
+till the world should be inhabited by a more virtuous and deserving race
+of mortals.
+
+The three sisters immediately repaired to the earth, in search of the
+several blessings that had been scattered on it; but found the task
+which was enjoined them, to be much more difficult than they had
+imagined. The first places they resorted to, as the most likely to
+succeed in, were cities, palaces, and courts; but instead of meeting
+with what they looked for here, they found nothing but envy, repining,
+uneasiness, and the like bitter ingredients of the left-hand vessel.
+Whereas, to their great surprise, they discovered content, cheerfulness,
+health, innocence, and other the most substantial blessings of life, in
+cottages, shades, and solitudes.
+
+There was another circumstance no less unexpected than the former, and
+which gave them very great perplexity in the discharge of the trust
+which Jupiter had committed to them. They observed, that several
+blessings had degenerated into calamities, and that several calamities
+had improved into blessings, according as they fell into the possession
+of wise or foolish men. They often found power, with so much insolence
+and impatience cleaving to it, that it became a misfortune to the person
+on whom it was conferred. Youth had often distempers growing about it,
+worse than the infirmities of old age: wealth was often united to such a
+sordid avarice, as made it the most uncomfortable and painful kind of
+poverty. On the contrary, they often found pain made glorious by
+fortitude, poverty lost in content, deformity beautified with virtue. In
+a word, the blessings were often like good fruits planted in a bad
+soil, that by degrees fall off from their natural relish, into tastes
+altogether insipid or unwholesome; and the calamities, like harsh
+fruits, cultivated in a good soil, and enriched by proper grafts and
+inoculations, till they swell with generous and delightful juices.
+
+There was still a third circumstance that occasioned as great a surprise
+to the three sisters as either of the foregoing, when they discovered
+several blessings and calamities which had never been in either of the
+tuns that stood by the throne of Jupiter, and were nevertheless as great
+occasions of happiness or misery as any there. These were that spurious
+crop of blessings and calamities which were never sown by the hand of
+the Deity, but grow of themselves out of the fancies and dispositions of
+human creatures. Such are dress, titles, place, equipage, false shame,
+and groundless fear, with the like vain imaginations that shoot up in
+trifling, weak, and irresolute minds.
+
+The Destinies finding themselves in so great a perplexity, concluded,
+that it would be impossible for them to execute the commands that had
+been given them according to their first intention; for which reason
+they agreed to throw all the blessings and calamities together into one
+large vessel, and in that manner offer them up at the feet of Jupiter.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This was performed accordingly, the eldest sister presenting herself
+before the vessel, and introducing it with an apology for what they had
+done.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"O Jupiter!" says she, "we have gathered together all the good and evil,
+the comforts and distresses of human life, which we thus present before
+thee in one promiscuous heap. We beseech thee that thou thyself wilt
+sort them out for the future, as in thy wisdom thou shalt think fit. For
+we acknowledge, that there is none beside thee that can judge what will
+occasion grief or joy in the heart of a human creature, and what will
+prove a blessing or a calamity to the person on whom it is bestowed."
+
+
+
+
+No. 147.                                         [ADDISON AND STEELE.
+
+From _Thurs., March 16_, to _Satur., March 18, 1709-10_.
+
+    ----Ut ameris, amabilis esto.--OVID., Ars Am. ii. 107.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, March 17._
+
+Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. As by the one,
+health is preserved, strengthened and invigorated; by the other, virtue
+(which is the health of the mind) is kept alive, cherished and
+confirmed. But as exercise becomes tedious and painful when we make use
+of it only as the means of health, so reading is apt to grow uneasy and
+burdensome, when we apply ourselves to it only for our improvement in
+virtue. For this reason, the virtue which we gather from a fable, or an
+allegory, is like the health we get by hunting; as we are engaged in an
+agreeable pursuit that draws us on with pleasure, and makes us
+insensible of the fatigues that accompany it.
+
+After this preface, I shall set down a very beautiful allegorical fable
+out of the great poet whom I mentioned in my last paper, and whom it is
+very difficult to lay aside when one is engaged in the reading of him.
+And this I particularly design for the use of several of my fair
+correspondents, who in their letters have complained to me, that they
+have lost the affections of their husbands, and desire my advice how to
+recover them.
+
+Juno, says Homer,[159] seeing her Jupiter seated on the top of Mount
+Ida, and knowing that he had conceived an aversion to her, began to
+study how she should regain his affections, and make herself amiable to
+him. With this thought she immediately retired into her chamber, where
+she bathed herself in ambrosia, which gave her person all its beauty,
+and diffused so divine an odour, as refreshed all nature, and sweetened
+both heaven and earth. She let her immortal tresses flow in the most
+graceful manner, and took a particular care to dress herself in several
+ornaments, which the poet describes at length, and which the goddess
+chose out as the most proper to set off her person to the best
+advantage. In the next place, she made a visit to Venus, the deity who
+presides over love, and begged of her, as a particular favour, that she
+would lend her for a while those charms with which she subdued the
+hearts both of gods and men. "For," says the goddess, "I would make use
+of them to reconcile the two deities who took care of me in my infancy,
+and who, at present, are at so great a variance, that they are estranged
+from each other's bed." Venus was proud of an opportunity of obliging so
+great a goddess, and therefore made her a present of the cestus which
+she used to wear about her own waist, with advice to hide it in her
+bosom till she had accomplished her intention. This cestus was a fine
+parti-coloured girdle, which, as Homer tells us, had all the attractions
+of the sex wrought into it. The four principal figures in the embroidery
+were Love, Desire, Fondness of Speech, and Conversation, filled with
+that sweetness and complacency, which, says the poet, insensibly steal
+away the hearts of the wisest men.
+
+Juno, after having made these necessary preparations, came as by
+accident into the presence of Jupiter, who is said to have been as much
+inflamed with her beauty, as when he first stole to her embraces without
+the consent of their parents. Juno, to cover her real thoughts, told
+him as she had told Venus, that she was going to make a visit to
+Oceanus and Tethys. He prevailed upon her to stay with him, protesting
+to her, that she appeared more amiable in his eye than ever any mortal,
+goddess, or even herself, had appeared to him till that day. The poet
+then represents him in so great an ardour, that (without going up to the
+house which had been built by the hands of Vulcan according to Juno's
+direction) he threw a golden cloud over their heads as they sat upon the
+top of Mount Ida, while the earth beneath them sprung up in
+lotuses,[160] saffrons, hyacinths, and a bed of the softest flowers for
+their repose.
+
+This close translation of one of the finest passages in Homer, may
+suggest abundance of instruction to a woman who has a mind to preserve
+or recall the affection of her husband. The care of the person and the
+dress, with the particular blandishments woven in the cestus, are so
+plainly recommended by this fable, and so indispensably necessary in
+every female who desires to please, that they need no further
+explanation. The discretion likewise in covering all matrimonial
+quarrels from the knowledge of others, is taught in the pretended visit
+to Tethys, in the speech where Juno addresses herself to Venus; as the
+chaste and prudent management of a wife's charms is intimated by the
+same pretence for her appearing before Jupiter, and by the concealment
+of the cestus in her bosom.
+
+I shall leave this tale to the consideration of such good housewives who
+are never well dressed but when they are abroad, and think it necessary
+to appear more agreeable to all men living than their husbands: as also
+to those prudent ladies, who, to avoid the appearance of being
+overfond, entertain their husband with indifference, aversion, sullen
+silence, or exasperating language.[161]
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, March 17._
+
+Upon my coming home last night, I found a very handsome present of wine
+left for me, as a taste of 216 hogsheads which are to be put to sale at
+£20 a hogshead, at Garraway's Coffee-house in Exchange Alley, on the
+22nd instant, at three in the afternoon, and to be tasted in Major
+Long's vaults from the 20th instant till the time of sale.[162] This
+having been sent to me with a desire that I would give my judgment upon
+it, I immediately impanelled a jury of men of nice palates and strong
+heads, who being all of them very scrupulous, and unwilling to proceed
+rashly in a matter of so great importance, refused to bring in their
+verdict till three in the morning; at which time the foreman pronounced,
+as well as he was able, "Extra--a--ordinary French claret." For my own
+part, as I love to consult my pillow in all points of moment, I slept
+upon it before I would give my sentence, and this morning confirmed the
+verdict.
+
+Having mentioned this tribute of wine, I must give notice to my
+correspondents for the future, who shall apply to me on this occasion,
+that as I shall decide nothing unadvisedly in matters of this nature, I
+cannot pretend to give judgment of a right good liquor, without
+examining at least three dozen bottles of it. I must at the same time do
+myself the justice to let the world know, that I have resisted great
+temptations in this kind; as it is well known to a butcher in Clare
+Market, who endeavoured to corrupt me with a dozen and a half of
+marrow-bones. I had likewise a bribe sent me by a fishmonger, consisting
+of a collar of brawn, and a joll of salmon; but not finding them
+excellent in their kinds, I had the integrity to eat them both up,
+without speaking one word of them. However, for the future, I shall have
+an eye to the diet of this great city, and will recommend the best and
+most wholesome food to them, if I receive these proper and respectful
+notices from the sellers, that it may not be said hereafter, my readers
+were better taught than fed.
+
+
+[Footnote 159: "Iliad," xiv. 157.]
+
+[Footnote 160: Lotus is the name of a native genus akin to the trefoil
+and clovers. It is best known as the supposed opium-like food of a
+people on the shores of the Mediterranean, visited by
+Ulysses,--Tennyson's "mild-eyed melancholy lotos-eaters," living in a
+land where all things always seemed the same.]
+
+[Footnote 161: The preceding portion of this paper was by Addison
+(Tickell)]
+
+[Footnote 162: This sale was advertised in No. 145.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 148.                                                    [ADDISON.
+
+From _Saturday, March 18_, to _Tuesday, March 21, 1709-10_.
+
+    ----Gustus elementa per omnia quærunt,
+    Nunquam animo pretiis obstantibus.
+                                      JUV., Sat. xi. 14.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, March 20._
+
+Having intimated in my last paper, that I design to take under my
+inspection the diet of this great city, I shall begin with a very
+earnest and serious exhortation to all my well-disposed readers, that
+they would return to the food of their forefathers, and reconcile
+themselves to beef and mutton. This was the diet which bred that hardy
+race of mortals who won the fields of Cressy and Agincourt. I need not
+go up so high as the history of Guy Earl of Warwick, who is well known
+to have eaten up a dun cow of his own killing.[163] The renowned King
+Arthur is generally looked upon as the first who ever sat down to a
+whole roasted ox (which was certainly the best way to preserve the
+gravy), and it is further added, that he and his knights sat about it at
+his Round Table, and usually consumed it to the very bones before they
+would enter upon any debate of moment. The Black Prince was a professed
+lover of the brisket; not to mention the history of the sirloin, or the
+institution of the Order of Beef-eaters, which are all so many evident
+and undeniable marks of the great respect which our warlike predecessors
+have paid to this excellent food. The tables of the ancient gentry of
+this nation were covered thrice a day with hot roast beef; and I am
+credibly informed, by an antiquary who has searched the registers in
+which the bills of fare of the Court are recorded, that instead of tea
+and bread and butter, which have prevailed of late years, the maids of
+honour in Queen Elizabeth's time were allowed three rumps of beef for
+their breakfast. Mutton has likewise been in great repute among our
+valiant countrymen, but was formerly observed to be the food rather of
+men of nice and delicate appetites, than those of strong and robust
+constitutions. For which reason, even to this day, we use the word
+"sheep-biter" as a term of reproach, as we do "beef-eater" in a
+respectful and honourable sense. As for the flesh of lamb, veal,
+chicken, and other animals under age, they were the invention of sickly
+and degenerate palates, according to that wholesome remark of Daniel the
+historian,[164] who takes notice, that in all taxes upon provisions,
+during the reigns of several of our kings, there is nothing mentioned
+besides the flesh of such fowl and cattle as were arrived at their full
+growth, and were mature for slaughter. The common people of this kingdom
+do still keep up the taste of their ancestors; and it is to this that we
+in a great measure owe the unparalleled victories that have been gained
+in this reign: for, I would desire my reader to consider, what work our
+countrymen would have made at Blenheim and Ramillies, if they had been
+fed with fricassees and ragouts.
+
+For this reason, we at present see the florid complexion, the strong
+limb, and the hale constitution, are to be found chiefly among the
+meaner sort of people, or in the wild gentry, who have been educated
+among the woods or mountains. Whereas many great families are insensibly
+fallen off from the athletic constitution of their progenitors, and are
+dwindled away into a pale, sickly, spindle-legged, generation of
+valetudinarians.
+
+I may perhaps be thought extravagant in my notion; but I must confess, I
+am apt to impute the dishonours that sometimes happen in great families
+to the inflaming kind of diet which is so much in fashion. Many dishes
+can excite desire without giving strength, and heat the body without
+nourishing it; as physicians observe, that the poorest and most
+dispirited blood is most subject to fevers. I look upon a French ragout
+to be as pernicious to the stomach as a glass of spirits; and when I
+have seen a young lady swallow all the instigations of high soups,
+seasoned sauces, and forced meats, I have wondered at the despair or
+tedious sighing of her lovers.
+
+The rules among these false delicates are to be as contradictory as they
+can be to nature.
+
+Without expecting the return of hunger, they eat for an appetite, and
+prepare dishes not to allay, but to excite it.
+
+They admit of nothing at their tables, in its natural form, or without
+some disguise.
+
+They are to eat everything before it comes in season, and to leave it
+off as soon as it is good to be eaten.
+
+They are not to approve anything that is agreeable to ordinary palates;
+and nothing is to gratify their senses, but what would offend those of
+their inferiors.
+
+I remember I was last summer invited to a friend's house, who is a great
+admirer of the French cookery, and (as the phrase is) eats well. At our
+sitting down, I found the table covered with a great variety of unknown
+dishes. I was mightily at a loss to learn what they were, and therefore
+did not know where to help myself. That which stood before me, I took to
+be a roasted porcupine, however did not care for asking questions; and
+have since been informed, that it was only a larded turkey. I afterwards
+passed my eye over several hashes, which I do not know the names of to
+this day; and hearing that they were delicacies, did not think fit to
+meddle with them.
+
+Among other dainties, I saw something like a pheasant, and therefore
+desired to be helped to a wing of it; but to my great surprise, my
+friend told me it was a rabbit, which is a sort of meat I never cared
+for. At last I discovered, with some joy, a pig at the lower end of the
+table, and begged a gentleman that was near it to cut me a piece of it.
+Upon which the gentleman of the house said, with great civility, "I am
+sure you will like the pig, for it was whipped to death." I must
+confess, I heard him with horror, and could not eat of an animal that
+had died so tragical a death. I was now in great hunger and confusion,
+when, methought, I smelt the agreeable savour of roast beef, but could
+not tell from which dish it arose, though I did not question but it lay
+disguised in one of them. Upon turning my head, I saw a noble sirloin on
+the side-table smoking in the most delicious manner. I had recourse to
+it more than once, and could not see, without some indignation, that
+substantial English dish banished in so ignominious a manner, to make
+way for French kickshaws.
+
+The dessert was brought up at last, which in truth was as extraordinary
+as anything that had come before it. The whole, when ranged in its
+proper order, looked like a very beautiful winter-piece. There were
+several pyramids of candied sweetmeats, that hung like icicles, with
+fruit scattered up and down, and hid in an artificial kind of frost. At
+the same time there were great quantities of cream beaten up into a
+snow, and near them little plates of sugar-plums, disposed like so many
+heaps of hailstones, with a multitude of congelations in jellies of
+various colours. I was indeed so pleased with the several objects which
+lay before me, that I did not care for displacing any of them, and was
+half angry with the rest of the company, that for the sake of a piece of
+lemon-peel, or a sugar-plum, would spoil so pleasing a picture. Indeed,
+I could not but smile to see several of them cooling their mouths with
+lumps of ice which they had just before been burning with salts and
+peppers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As soon as this show was over I took my leave, that I might finish my
+dinner at my own house: for as I in every thing love what is simple and
+natural, so particularly in my food; two plain dishes, with two or three
+good-natured, cheerful, ingenious friends, would make me more pleased
+and vain, than all that pomp and luxury can bestow. For it is my maxim,
+that he keeps the greatest table, who has the most valuable company at
+it.
+
+
+[Footnote 163: Butler, speaking of Talgol ("Hudibras," Part I. canto ii.
+305), says:
+
+    "He many a boar and huge dun-cow
+    Did, like another Guy, o'erthrow,
+    But Guy, with him in fight compared,
+    Had like the boar or dun-cow fared."
+]
+
+[Footnote 164: Samuel Daniel's "History" was published in 1613.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 149.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Tuesday, March 21_, to _Thursday, March 23, 1709-10_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, March 22._
+
+It has often been a solid grief to me, when I have reflected on this
+glorious nation, which is the scene of public happiness and liberty,
+that there are still crowds of private tyrants, against whom there
+neither is any law now in being, nor can there be invented any by the
+wit of man. These cruel men are ill-natured husbands. The commerce in
+the conjugal state is so delicate, that it is impossible to prescribe
+rules for the conduct of it, so as to fit ten thousand nameless
+pleasures and disquietudes which arise to people in that condition. But
+it is in this as in some other nice cases, where touching upon the
+malady tenderly, is half way to the cure; and there are some faults
+which need only to be observed to be amended. I am put into this way of
+thinking by a late conversation which I am going to give an account of.
+
+I made a visit the other day to a family for which I have a great
+honour, and found the father, the mother, and two or three of the
+younger children, drop off designedly to leave me alone with the eldest
+daughter, who was but a visitant there as well as myself, and is the
+wife of a gentleman of a very fair character in the world. As soon as we
+were alone, I saw her eyes full of tears, and methought she had much to
+say to me, for which she wanted encouragement. "Madam," said I, "you
+know I wish you all as well as any friend you have: speak freely what I
+see you are oppressed with, and you may be sure, if I cannot relieve
+your distress, you may at least reap so much present advantage, as
+safely to give yourself the ease of uttering it." She immediately
+assumed the most becoming composure of countenance, and spoke as
+follows: "It is an aggravation of affliction in a married life, that
+there is a sort of guilt in communicating it: for which reason it is,
+that a lady of your and my acquaintance, instead of speaking to you
+herself, desired me the next time I saw you, as you are a professed
+friend to our sex, to turn your thoughts upon the reciprocal
+complaisance which is the duty of a married state.
+
+"My friend was neither in fortune, birth nor education, below the
+gentleman whom she has married. Her person, her age, and her character,
+are also such as he can make no exception to. But so it is, that from
+the moment the marriage ceremony was over, the obsequiousness of a lover
+was turned into the haughtiness of a master. All the kind endeavours
+which she uses to please him, are at best but so many instances of her
+duty. This insolence takes away that secret satisfaction, which does not
+only excite to virtue, but also rewards it. It abates the fire of a free
+and generous love, and embitters all the pleasures of a social life."
+The young lady spoke all this with such an air of resentment, as
+discovered how nearly she was concerned in the distress.
+
+When I observed she had done speaking, "Madam," said I, "the affliction
+you mention is the greatest that can happen in human life, and I know
+but one consolation in it, if that be a consolation, that the calamity
+is a pretty general one. There is nothing so common as for men to enter
+into marriage, without so much as expecting to be happy in it. They seem
+to propose to themselves a few holidays in the beginning of it; after
+which they are to return at best to the usual course of their life; and
+for aught they know, to constant misery and uneasiness. From this false
+sense of the state they are going into, proceeds the immediate coldness
+and indifference, or hatred and aversion, which attend ordinary
+marriages, or rather bargains to cohabit." Our conversation was here
+interrupted by company which came in upon us.
+
+The humour of affecting a superior carriage, generally rises from a
+false notion of the weakness of a female understanding in general, or an
+overweening opinion that we have of our own: for when it proceeds from a
+natural ruggedness and brutality of temper, it is altogether
+incorrigible, and not to be amended by admonition. Sir Francis Bacon, as
+I remember, lays it down as a maxim, that no marriage can be happy in
+which the wife has no opinion of her husband's wisdom;[165] but without
+offence to so great an authority, I may venture to say, that a
+sullen-wise man is as bad as a good-natured fool. Knowledge, softened
+with complacency and good breeding, will make a man equally beloved and
+respected; but when joined with a severe, distant and unsociable temper,
+it creates rather fear than love. I who am a bachelor, have no other
+notion of conjugal tenderness, but what I learn from books, and shall
+therefore produce three letters of Pliny,[166] who was not only one of
+the greatest, but the most learned men in the whole Roman Empire. At the
+same time I am very much ashamed, that on such occasions I am obliged to
+have recourse to heathen authors, and shall appeal to my readers, if
+they would not think it a mark of a narrow education in a man of quality
+to write such passionate letters to any woman but a mistress. They were
+all three written at a time when she was at a distance from him: the
+first of them puts me in mind of a married friend of mine, who said,
+sickness itself is pleasant to a man that is attended in it by one whom
+he dearly loves.
+
+
+_Pliny to Calphurnia._
+
+"I never was so much offended at business, as when it hindered me from
+going with you into the country, or following you thither: for I more
+particularly wish to be with you at present, that I might be sensible of
+the progress you make in the recovery of your strength and health; as
+also of the entertainment and diversions you can meet with in your
+retirement. Believe me, it is an anxious state of mind to live in
+ignorance of what happens to those whom we passionately love. I am not
+only in pain for your absence, but also for your indisposition. I am
+afraid of everything, fancy everything, and, as it is the nature of men
+in fear, I fancy those things most which I am most afraid of. Let me
+therefore earnestly desire you to favour me under these my apprehensions
+with one letter every day, or, if possible, with two; for I shall be a
+little at ease while I am reading your letters, and grow anxious again
+as soon as I have read them."
+
+
+_Second Letter._
+
+"You tell me that you are very much afflicted at my absence, and that
+you have no satisfaction in anything but my writings, which you often
+lay by you upon my pillow. You oblige me very much in wishing to see me,
+and making me your comforter in my absence. In return, I must let you
+know, I am no less pleased with the letters which you writ to me, and
+read them over a thousand times with new pleasure. If your letters are
+capable of giving me so much pleasure, what would your conversation do?
+Let me beg of you to write to me often; though at the same time I must
+confess, your letters give me anguish whilst they give me pleasure."
+
+
+_Third Letter._
+
+"It is impossible to conceive how much I languish for you in your
+absence; the tender love I bear you is the chief cause of this my
+uneasiness, which is still the more insupportable, because absence is
+wholly a new thing to us. I lie awake most part of the night in thinking
+of you, and several times of the day go as naturally to your apartment,
+as if you were there to receive me; but when I miss you, I come away
+dejected, out of humour, and like a man that had suffered a repulse.
+There is but one part of the day in which I am relieved from this
+anxiety, and that is when I am engaged in public affairs.
+
+"You may guess at the uneasy condition of one who has no rest but in
+business, no consolation but in trouble."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I shall conclude this paper with a beautiful passage out of Milton,[167]
+and leave it as a lecture to those of my own sex, who have a mind to
+make their conversation agreeable as well as instructive, to the fair
+partners who are fallen into their care. Eve, having observed that Adam
+was entering into some deep disquisitions with the angel, who was sent
+to visit him, is described as retiring from their company, with a design
+of learning what should pass there from her husband.
+
+    _So spake our sire, and by his countenance seemed
+    Entering on studious thoughts abstruse, which Eve
+    Perceiving where she sat retired in sight,
+    With lowliness majestic from her seat
+    Rose, and went forth among her fruits and flowers.
+    Yet went she not, as not with such discourse
+    Delighted, or not capable her ear
+    Of what was high: such pleasure she reserved,
+    Adam relating, she sole auditress;
+    Her husband the relater she preferred
+    Before the angel, and of him to ask
+    Chose rather: he, she knew, would intermix
+    Grateful digressions, and solve high dispute
+    With conjugal caresses; from his lip
+    Not words alone pleased her. O! when meet now
+    Such pairs, in love and mutual honour joined?_
+
+
+[Footnote 165: Bacon, Essay viii., "Of marriage and single life": "It is
+one of the best bonds, both of chastity and obedience, in the wife, if
+she thinks her husband wise, which she will never do if she finds him
+jealous."]
+
+[Footnote 166: "Epist.," vi. 4, 7, 5.]
+
+[Footnote 167: "Paradise Lost," viii. 39.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 150.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Thursday, March 23_, to _Saturday, March 25, 1710_.
+
+    Hæc sunt jucundi causa, cibusque mali.
+                          OVID, Rem. Amor. 138.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, March 24._
+
+I have received the following letter upon the subject of my last paper.
+The writer of it tells me, I there spoke of marriage as one that knows
+it only by speculation, and for that reason he sends me his sense of it,
+as drawn from experience:
+
+     "MR. BICKERSTAFF,
+
+     "I have read your paper of this day, and think you have done the
+     nuptial state a great deal of justice in the authority you give us
+     of Pliny, whose letters to his wife you have there translated: but
+     give me leave to tell you, that it is impossible for you, that are
+     a bachelor, to have so just a notion of this way of life, as to
+     touch the affections of your readers in a particular wherein every
+     man's own heart suggests more than the nicest observer can form to
+     himself without experience. I therefore, who am an old married man,
+     have sat down to give you an account of the matter from my own
+     knowledge, and the observations which I have made upon the conduct
+     of others in that most agreeable or wretched condition.
+
+     "It is very commonly observed, that the most smart pangs which we
+     meet with are in the beginning of wedlock, which proceed from
+     ignorance of each other's humour, and want of prudence to make
+     allowances for a change from the most careful respect to the most
+     unbounded familiarity. Hence it arises, that trifles are commonly
+     occasions of the greatest anxiety; for contradiction being a thing
+     wholly unusual between a new married couple, the smallest instance
+     of it is taken for the highest injury; and it very seldom happens,
+     that the man is slow enough in assuming the character of a husband,
+     or the woman quick enough in condescending to that of a wife. It
+     immediately follows, that they think they have all the time of
+     their courtship been talking in masks to each other, and therefore
+     begin to act like disappointed people. Philander finds Delia
+     ill-natured and impertinent; and Delia, Philander surly and
+     inconstant.
+
+     "I have known a fond couple quarrel in the very honeymoon about
+     cutting up a tart: nay, I could name two, who after having had
+     seven children, fell out and parted beds upon the boiling of a leg
+     of mutton. My very next neighbours have not spoken to one another
+     these three days, because they differed in their opinions, whether
+     the clock should stand by the window, or over the chimney. It may
+     seem strange to you, who are not a married man, when I tell you how
+     the least trifle can strike a woman dumb for a week together. But
+     if you ever enter into this state, you will find, that the soft sex
+     as often express their anger by an obstinate silence, as by an
+     ungovernable clamour.
+
+     "Those indeed who begin this course of life without jars at their
+     setting out, arrive within few months at a pitch of benevolence
+     and affection, of which the most perfect friendship is but a faint
+     resemblance. As in the unfortunate marriage, the most minute and
+     indifferent things are objects of the sharpest resentment; so in a
+     happy one, they are occasions of the most exquisite satisfaction.
+     For what does not oblige in one we love? What does not offend in
+     one we dislike? For these reasons I take it for a rule, that in
+     marriage, the chief business is to acquire a prepossession in
+     favour of each other. They should consider one another's words and
+     actions with a secret indulgence: there should be always an inward
+     fondness pleading for each other, such as may add new beauties to
+     everything that is excellent, give charms to what is indifferent,
+     and cover everything that is defective. For want of this kind
+     propensity and bias of mind, the married pair often take things ill
+     of each other, which no one else would take notice of in either of
+     them.
+
+     "But the most unhappy circumstance of all is, where each party is
+     always laying up fuel for dissension, and gathering together a
+     magazine of provocations to exasperate each other with when they
+     are out of humour. These people in common discourse make no scruple
+     to let those who are by know they are quarrelling with one another,
+     and think they are discreet enough, if they conceal from the
+     company the matters which they are hinting at. About a week ago, I
+     was entertained for a whole dinner with a mysterious conversation
+     of this nature; out of which I could learn no more, than that the
+     husband and wife were angry at one another. We had no sooner sat
+     down, but says the gentleman of the house, in order to raise
+     discourse, 'I thought Margarita[168] sung extremely well last
+     night.' Upon this, says the lady, looking as pale as ashes, 'I
+     suppose she had cherry-coloured ribands[169] on.' 'No,' answered
+     the husband, with a flush in his face, 'but she had laced
+     shoes.'[170] I look upon it, that a bystander on such occasions has
+     as much reason to be out of countenance as either of the
+     combatants. To turn off my confusion, and seem regardless of what
+     had passed, I desired the servant who attended to give me the
+     vinegar, which unluckily created a new dialogue of hints; for as
+     far as I could gather by the subsequent discourse, they had
+     dissented the day before about the preference of elder to wine
+     vinegar. In the midst of their discourse, there appeared a dish of
+     chickens and asparagus, when the husband seemed disposed to lay
+     aside all disputes; and looking upon her with a great deal of good
+     nature, said, 'Pray, my dear, will you help my friend to a wing of
+     the fowl that lies next you, for I think it looks extremely well.'
+     The lady, instead of answering him, addressing herself to me,
+     'Pray, sir,' said she, 'do you in Surrey reckon the white- or the
+     black-legged fowls the best?' I found the husband changed colour at
+     the question; and before I could answer, asked me, whether we did
+     not call hops 'broom' in our country? I quickly found, they did not
+     ask questions so much out of curiosity as anger: for which reason I
+     thought fit to keep my opinion to myself, and, as an honest man
+     ought (when he sees two friends in warmth with each other), I took
+     the first opportunity I could to leave them by themselves.
+
+     "You see, sir, I have laid before you only small incidents, which
+     are seemingly trivial; but take it from a man who am very well
+     experienced in this state, they are principally evils of this
+     nature which make marriages unhappy. At the same time, that I may
+     do justice to this excellent institution, I must own to you, there
+     are unspeakable pleasures which are as little regarded in the
+     computation of the advantages of marriage, as the others are in the
+     usual survey that is made of its misfortunes.
+
+     "Lovemore and his wife live together in the happy possession of
+     each other's hearts, and by that means have no indifferent moments,
+     but their whole life is one continued scene of delight. Their
+     passion for each other communicates a certain satisfaction, like
+     that which they themselves are in, to all that approach them. When
+     she enters the place where he is, you see a pleasure which he
+     cannot conceal, nor he or any one else describe. In so consummate
+     an affection, the very presence of the person beloved has the
+     effect of the most agreeable conversation. Whether they have matter
+     to talk of or not, they enjoy the pleasures of society, and at the
+     same time the freedom of solitude. Their ordinary life is to be
+     preferred to the happiest moments of other lovers. In a word, they
+     have each of them great merit, live in the esteem of all who know
+     them, and seem but to comply with the opinions of their friends, in
+     the just value they have for each other."
+
+
+[Footnote 168: Francesca Margarita de l'Epine, a native of Tuscany. This
+celebrated singer performed in many of the earlier Italian operas
+represented in England. She and Mrs. Tofts were rivals for the public
+favour, and it seems they divided pretty equally the applause of the
+town. She sung on the stage, at public entertainments, in concerts at
+York Buildings and Stationers' Hall, and once in the hall of the Middle
+Temple, in a musical performance at the Christmas revels of that
+society. One Greber, a German musician, who studied some few years in
+Italy, brought this Italian with him to England, whence she was known by
+the name of Greber's Peg. It is said that she had afterwards a criminal
+connection with Daniel Earl of Nottingham. In a shrewd epigram written
+by Lord Halifax, she is styled "The Tawny Tuscan," and he is called
+"Tall Nottingham." Margarita continued a singer till about the year
+1718, when, having, as Downes relates, scraped together above ten
+thousand guineas, she retired, and was afterwards married to Dr.
+Pepusch. The epithet "tawny" was very characteristic of her, for she was
+remarkably swarthy, and in general so destitute of personal charms, that
+her husband seldom called her by any other name than Hecate, to which
+she answered very readily. She died about 1740. See Sir J. Hawkin's
+"History of Music," vol. v. p. 153 (Nichols).--The statement that she
+had an improper connection with the Earl of Nottingham appears to rest
+solely on statements in party poems of the time.]
+
+[Footnote 169: Ladies wore "commodes" as head-dresses, sometimes backed
+by dark-coloured ribbons. The prevailing fashion about 1712 was cherry
+colour; see _Spectator_, No. 271.]
+
+[Footnote 170: In a song in D'Urfey's "Wit and Mirth"--"The Young Maid's
+Portion"--the lady speaks of her laced shoes of Spanish leather. Malcolm
+says that Spanish leather shoes laced with gold were common about this
+time (Planché's "Cyclopædia of Costume").]
+
+
+
+
+No. 151.                                                [STEELE.[171]
+
+From _Saturday, March 25_, to _Tuesday, March 28, 1710_.
+
+                         ----Ni vis boni
+    In ipsa inesset forma, hæc formam extinguerent.
+                                    TER., Phorm. I. ii. 58.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, March 27._
+
+When artists would expose their diamonds to an advantage, they usually
+set them to show in little cases of black velvet. By this means the
+jewels appear in their true and genuine lustre, while there is no colour
+that can infect their brightness, or give a false cast to the water.
+When I was at the opera the other night, the assembly of ladies in
+mourning[172] made me consider them in the same kind of view. A dress
+wherein there is so little variety, shows the face in all its natural
+charms, and makes one differ from another only as it is more or less
+beautiful. Painters are ever careful of offending against a rule which
+is so essential in all just representation. The chief figure must have
+the strongest point of light, and not be injured by any gay colourings
+that may draw away the attention to any less considerable part of the
+picture. The present fashion obliges everybody to be dressed with
+propriety, and makes the ladies' faces the principal objects of sight.
+Every beautiful person shines out in all the excellence with which
+Nature has adorned her: gaudy ribands and glaring colours being now out
+of use, the sex has no opportunity given them to disfigure themselves,
+which they seldom fail to do whenever it lies in their power. When a
+woman comes to her glass, she does not employ her time in making herself
+look more advantageously what she really is, but endeavours to be as
+much another creature as she possibly can. Whether this happens, because
+they stay so long, and attend their work so diligently, that they forget
+the faces and persons which they first sat down with, or whatever it is,
+they seldom rise from the toilet the same women they appeared when they
+began to dress. What jewel can the charming Cleora place in her ears,
+that can please her beholders so much as her eyes? The cluster of
+diamonds upon the breast can add no beauty to the fair chest of ivory
+which supports it. It may indeed tempt a man to steal a woman, but never
+to love her. Let Thalestris change herself into a motley parti-coloured
+animal: the pearl necklace, the flowered stomacher, the artificial
+nosegay, and shaded furbelow,[173] may be of use to attract the eye of
+the beholder, and turn it from the imperfections of her features and
+shape. But if ladies will take my word for it (and as they dress to
+please men, they ought to consult our fancy rather than their own in
+this particular), I can assure them, there is nothing touches our
+imagination so much as a beautiful woman in a plain dress. There might
+be more agreeable ornaments found in our own manufacture, than any that
+rise out of the looms of Persia.
+
+This, I know, is a very harsh doctrine to womankind, who are carried
+away with everything that is showy, and with what delights the eye, more
+than any other species of living creatures whatsoever. Were the minds of
+the sex laid open, we should find the chief idea in one to be a tippet,
+in another a muff, in a third a fan, and in a fourth a farthingale. The
+memory of an old visiting lady is so filled with gloves, silks, and
+ribands, that I can look upon it as nothing else but a toy-shop. A
+matron of my acquaintance complaining of her daughter's vanity, was
+observing, that she had all of a sudden held up her head higher than
+ordinary, and taken an air that showed a secret satisfaction in herself,
+mixed with a scorn of others. "I did not know," says my friend, "what to
+make of the carriage of this fantastical girl, until I was informed by
+her elder sister, that she had a pair of striped garters on." This odd
+turn of mind often makes the sex unhappy, and disposes them to be struck
+with everything that makes a show, however trifling and superficial.
+
+Many a lady has fetched a sigh at the toss of a wig, and been ruined by
+the tapping of a snuff-box. It is impossible to describe all the
+execution that was done by the shoulder-knot[174] while that fashion
+prevailed, or to reckon up all the virgins that have fallen a sacrifice
+to a pair of fringed gloves.[175] A sincere heart has not made half so
+many conquests as an open waistcoat,[176] and I should be glad to see an
+able head make so good a figure in a woman's company as a pair of red
+heels.[177] A Grecian hero,[178] when he was asked whether he could play
+upon the lute, thought he had made a very good reply when he answered,
+"No, but I can make a great city of a little one." Notwithstanding his
+boasted wisdom, I appeal to the heart of any toast in town, whether she
+would not think the lutenist preferable to the statesman. I do not speak
+this out of any aversion that I have to the sex: on the contrary, I have
+always had a tenderness for them; but I must confess, it troubles me
+very much to see the generality of them place their affections on
+improper objects, and give up all the pleasures of life for gewgaws and
+trifles.
+
+Mrs. Margery Bickerstaff, my great aunt, had a thousand pounds to her
+portion, which our family was desirous of keeping among themselves, and
+therefore used all possible means to turn off her thoughts from
+marriage. The method they took was, in any time of danger to throw a new
+gown or petticoat in her way. When she was about twenty-five years of
+age, she fell in love with a man of an agreeable temper, and equal
+fortune, and would certainly have married him, had not my grandfather,
+Sir Jacob, dressed her up in a suit of flowered satin; upon which, she
+set so immoderate a value upon herself, that the lover was contemned and
+discarded. In the fortieth year of her age, she was again smitten, but
+very luckily transferred her passion to a tippet, which was presented to
+her by another relation who was in the plot. This, with a white sarcenet
+hood, kept her safe in the family till fifty. About sixty, which
+generally produces a kind of latter spring[179] in amorous
+constitutions, my Aunt Margery had again a colt's-tooth[180] in her
+head, and would certainly have eloped from the mansion-house, had not
+her brother Simon, who was a wise man, and a scholar, advised to dress
+her in cherry-coloured ribands,[181] which was the only expedient that
+could have been found out by the wit of man to preserve the thousand
+pounds in our family, part of which I enjoy at this time.
+
+This discourse puts me in mind of a humorist mentioned by Horace,[182]
+called Eutrapelus, who, when he designed to do a man a mischief, made
+him a present of a gay suit; and brings to my memory another passage of
+the same author, when he describes the most ornamental dress that a
+woman can appear in with two words, _simplex munditiis_,[183] which I
+have quoted for the benefit of my female readers.
+
+
+[Footnote 171: This paper, though not included in Addison's Works, may,
+as Nichols suggested, be his. Two slight corrections were made in the
+following number in the folio issue.]
+
+[Footnote 172: See No. 8, with reference to the long-continued mourning,
+on the decease of the Queen's husband, George Prince of Denmark, who
+died in October 1708. Lewis Duke of Bourbon, eldest son to the Dauphin
+of France, died on March 3, about three weeks before the date of this
+paper. A month before, on February 2, 1709-10, in consequence of a
+petition presented by the mercers, &c., complaining of their sufferings
+from the length and frequency of public mournings, leave was given to
+bring in a Bill for ascertaining and limiting the time of them.]
+
+[Footnote 173: The furbelow was a puckered flounce ornamenting the
+dress. D'Urfey wrote a play, "The Old Mode and the New, or Country Miss
+with her Furbelow."]
+
+[Footnote 174: Introduced from France at the Restoration.]
+
+[Footnote 175: Gloves with silver fringe round the wrists. A
+Fringe-Glove Club is mentioned in No. 30 of the _Spectator_.]
+
+[Footnote 176: See No. 95.]
+
+[Footnote 177: See No. 45.]
+
+[Footnote 178: Themistocles.]
+
+[Footnote 179: Cf. "1 Henry IV." act i. sc. 2, where Prince Hal says to
+Falstaff, "Farewell, thou latter spring!"]
+
+[Footnote 180: A love of youthful pleasure. Cf. "Henry VIII." act i. sc.
+3,
+
+            "Well said, Lord Sands,
+ Your colt's tooth is not cast yet."
+]
+
+[Footnote 181: See No. 150]
+
+[Footnote 182: 1 Epist. xviii. 31.]
+
+[Footnote 183: 1 Od. v. 5.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 152.                                                    [ADDISON.
+
+From _Tuesday, March 28_, to _Thursday, March 30, 1710_.
+
+    Di, quibus imperium est animarum, Umbræque silentes,
+    Et Chaos, et Phlegethon, loca nocte silentia late,
+    Sit mihi fas audita loqui; sit numine vestro
+    Pandere resalta terra et caligine mersas.
+                                          VIRG., Æn. vi. 264.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, March 29._
+
+A man who confines his speculations to the time present, has but a very
+narrow province to employ his thoughts in. For this reason, persons of
+studious and contemplative natures often entertain themselves with the
+history of past ages, or raise schemes and conjectures upon futurity.
+For my own part, I love to range through that half of eternity which is
+still to come, rather than look on that which is already run out;
+because I know I have a real share and interest in the one, whereas all
+that was transacted in the other can be only matter of curiosity to me.
+
+Upon this account, I have been always very much delighted with
+meditating on the soul's immortality, and in reading the several notions
+which the wisest of men, both ancient and modern, have entertained on
+that subject. What the opinions of the greatest philosophers have been,
+I have several times hinted at, and shall give an account of them from
+time to time as occasion requires. It may likewise be worth while to
+consider, what men of the most exalted genius, and elevated imagination,
+have thought of this matter. Among these, Homer stands up as a prodigy
+of mankind, that looks down upon the rest of human creatures as a
+species beneath him. Since he is the most ancient heathen author, we
+may guess from his relation, what were the common opinions in his time
+concerning the state of the soul after death.
+
+Ulysses, he tells us, made a voyage to the regions of the dead, in order
+to consult Tiresias how he should return to his own country, and
+recommend himself to the favour of the gods. The poet scarce introduces
+a single person, who does not suggest some useful precept to his reader,
+and designs his description of the dead for the amendment of the living.
+
+Ulysses, after having made a very plenteous sacrifice, sat him down by
+the pool of holy blood, which attracted a prodigious assembly of ghosts
+of all ages and conditions, that hovered about the hero, and feasted
+upon the steams of his oblation. The first he knew, was the shade of
+Elpenor, who, to show the activity of a spirit above that of body, is
+represented as arrived there long before Ulysses, notwithstanding the
+winds and seas had contributed all their force to hasten his voyage
+thither. This Elpenor, to inspire the reader with a detestation of
+drunkenness, and at the same time with a religious care of doing proper
+honours to the dead, describes himself as having broken his neck in a
+debauch of wine; and begs Ulysses, that for the repose of his soul, he
+would build a monument over him, and perform funeral rites to his
+memory. Ulysses with great sorrow of heart promises to fulfil his
+request, and is immediately diverted to an object much more moving than
+the former. The ghost of his own mother Anticlea, whom he still thought
+living, appears to him among the multitude of shades that surrounded
+him, and sits down at a small distance from him by the lake of blood,
+without speaking to him, or knowing who he was. Ulysses was exceedingly
+troubled at the sight, and could not forbear weeping as he looked upon
+her; but being all along set forth as a pattern of consummate wisdom,
+he makes his affection give way to prudence; and therefore, upon his
+seeing Tiresias, does not reveal himself to his mother, till he had
+consulted that great prophet, who was the occasion of this his descent
+into the empire of the dead. Tiresias having cautioned him to keep
+himself and his companions free from the guilt of sacrilege, and to pay
+his devotions to all the gods, promises him a safe return to his kingdom
+and family, and a happy old age in the enjoyment of them.
+
+The poet having thus with great art kept the curiosity of his reader in
+suspense, represents his wise man, after the despatch of his business
+with Tiresias, as yielding himself up to the calls of natural affection,
+and making himself known to his mother. Her eyes are no sooner opened,
+but she cries out in tears, "Oh my son!" and inquires into the occasions
+that brought him thither, and the fortune that attended him.
+
+Ulysses on the other hand desires to know, what the sickness was that
+had sent her into those regions, and the condition in which she had left
+his father, his son, and more particularly his wife. She tells him, they
+were all three inconsolable for his absence; "and as for myself," says
+she, "that was the sickness of which I died. My impatience for your
+return, my anxiety for your welfare, and my fondness for my dear
+Ulysses, were the only distempers that preyed upon my life, and
+separated my soul from my body." Ulysses was melted with these
+expressions of tenderness, and thrice endeavoured to catch the
+apparition in his arms, that he might hold his mother to his bosom and
+weep over her.
+
+This gives the poet occasion to describe the notion the heathens at that
+time had of an unbodied soul, in the excuse which the mother makes for
+seeming to withdraw herself from her son's embraces. "The soul," says
+she, "is composed neither of bones, flesh, nor sinews, but leaves behind
+her all those encumbrances of mortality to be consumed on the funeral
+pile. As soon as she has thus cast her burden she makes her escape, and
+flies away from it like a dream."
+
+When this melancholy conversation is at an end, the poet draws up to
+view as charming a vision as could enter into man's imagination. He
+describes the next who appeared to Ulysses, to have been the shades of
+the finest women that had ever lived upon the earth, and who had either
+been the daughters of kings, the mistresses of gods, or mothers of
+heroes, such as Antiope, Alcmena, Leda, Ariadne, Iphimedia, Eriphyle,
+and several others of whom he gives a catalogue, with a short history of
+their adventures. The beautiful assembly of apparitions were all
+gathered together about the blood: "each of them," says Ulysses (as a
+gentle satire upon female vanity), "giving me an account of her birth
+and family." This scene of extraordinary women seems to have been
+designed by the poet as a lecture of mortality to the whole sex, and to
+put them in mind of what they must expect, notwithstanding the greatest
+perfections, and highest honours, they can arrive at.
+
+The circle of beauties at length disappeared, and was succeeded by the
+shades of several Grecian heroes who had been engaged with Ulysses in
+the siege of Troy. The first that approached was Agamemnon, the
+generalissimo of that great expedition, who at the appearance of his old
+friend wept very bitterly, and without saying anything to him,
+endeavoured to grasp him by the hand. Ulysses, who was much moved at the
+sight, poured out a flood of tears, and asked him the occasion of his
+death, which Agamemnon related to him in all its tragical
+circumstances; how he was murdered at a banquet by the contrivance of
+his own wife, in confederacy with her adulterer: from whence he takes
+occasion to reproach the whole sex, after a manner which would be
+inexcusable in a man who had not been so great a sufferer by them. "My
+wife," says he, "has disgraced all the women that shall ever be born
+into the world, even those who hereafter shall be innocent. Take care
+how you grow too fond of your wife. Never tell her all you know. If you
+reveal some things to her, be sure you keep others concealed from her.
+You indeed have nothing to fear from your Penelope, she will not use you
+as my wife has treated me; however, take care how you trust a woman."
+The poet, in this and other instances, according to the system of many
+heathen as well as Christian philosophers, shows how anger, revenge, and
+other habits which the soul had contracted in the body, subsist and grow
+in it under its stage of separation.
+
+I am extremely pleased with the companions which the poet in the next
+description assigns to Achilles. "Achilles," says the hero, "came up to
+me with Patroclus and Antilochus." By which we may see that it was
+Homer's opinion, and probably that of the age he lived in, that the
+friendships which are made among the living will likewise continue among
+the dead. Achilles inquires after the welfare of his son, and of his
+father, with a fierceness of the same character that Homer has
+everywhere expressed in the actions of his life. The passage relating to
+his son is so extremely beautiful, that I must not omit it. Ulysses,
+after having described him as wise in council and active in war, and
+mentioned the foes whom he had slain in battle, adds an observation that
+he himself had made of his behaviour whilst he lay in the wooden horse.
+"Most of the generals," says he, "that were with us either wept or
+trembled: as for your son, I neither saw him wipe a tear from his
+cheeks, nor change his countenance. On the contrary, he would often lay
+his hand upon his sword, or grasp his spear, as impatient to employ them
+against the Trojans." He then informs his father of the great honour and
+rewards which he had purchased before Troy, and of his return from it
+without a wound. The shade of Achilles, says the poet, was so pleased
+with the account he received of his son, that he inquired no further,
+but stalked away with more than ordinary majesty over the green meadow
+that lay before them.
+
+This last circumstance of a deceased father's rejoicing in the behaviour
+of his son is very finely contrived by Homer, as an incentive to virtue,
+and made use of by none that I know besides himself.
+
+The description of Ajax, which follows, and his refusing to speak to
+Ulysses, who had won the armour of Achilles from him, and by that means
+occasioned his death, is admired by every one that reads it. When
+Ulysses relates the sullenness of his deportment, and considers the
+greatness of the hero, he expresses himself with generous and noble
+sentiments. "Oh! that I had never gained a prize which cost the life of
+so brave a man as Ajax! Who, for the beauty of his person, and greatness
+of his actions, was inferior to none but the divine Achilles." The same
+noble condescension, which never dwells but in truly great minds, and
+such as Homer would represent that of Ulysses to have been, discovers
+itself likewise in the speech which he made to the ghost of Ajax on that
+occasion. "O Ajax!" says he, "will you keep your resentments even after
+death? What destructions hath this fatal armour brought upon the Greeks,
+by robbing them of you, who were their bulwark and defence? Achilles is
+not more bitterly lamented among us than you. Impute not then your death
+to any one but Jupiter, who out of his anger to the Greeks, took you
+away from among them: let me entreat you to approach me; restrain the
+fierceness of your wrath, and the greatness of your soul, and hear what
+I have to say to you." Ajax, without making a reply, turned his back
+upon him, and retired into a crowd of ghosts.
+
+Ulysses, after all these visions, took a view of those impious wretches
+who lay in tortures for the crimes they had committed upon the earth,
+whom he describes under the varieties of pain, as so many marks of
+divine vengeance, to deter others from following their example. He then
+tells us that notwithstanding he had a great curiosity to see the heroes
+that lived in the ages before him, the ghosts began to gather about him
+in such prodigious multitudes, and with such a confusion of voices, that
+his heart trembled as he saw himself amidst so great a scene of horrors.
+He adds, that he was afraid lest some hideous spectre should appear to
+him, that might terrify him to distraction; and therefore withdrew in
+time.
+
+I question not but my reader will be pleased with this description of a
+future state, represented by such a noble and fruitful imagination, that
+had nothing to direct it besides the light of nature, and the opinions
+of a dark and ignorant age.
+
+
+
+
+No. 153.                                                    [ADDISON.
+
+From _Thursday, March 30_, to _Saturday, April 1, 1710_.
+
+    Bambalio, clangor, stridor, taratantara, murmur.--FARN., Rhet.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, March 31._
+
+I have heard of a very valuable picture, wherein all the painters of the
+age in which it was drawn are represented sitting together in a circle,
+and joining in a concert of music. Each of them plays upon such a
+particular instrument as is the most suitable to his character, and
+expresses that style and manner of painting which is peculiar to him.
+The famous cupola-painter of those times, to show the grandeur and
+boldness of his figures, has a horn in his mouth, which he seems to wind
+with great strength and force. On the contrary, an eminent artist, who
+wrought up his pictures with the greatest accuracy, and gave them all
+those delicate touches which are apt to please the nicest eye, is
+represented as tuning a theorbo. The same kind of humour runs through
+the whole piece.
+
+I have often from this hint imagined to myself, that different talents
+in discourse might be shadowed out after the same manner by different
+kinds of music; and that the several conversable parts of mankind in
+this great city might be cast into proper characters and divisions, as
+they resemble several instruments that are in use among the masters of
+harmony. Of these therefore in their order, and first of the drum.
+
+Your drums are the blusterers in conversation, that with a loud laugh,
+unnatural mirth, and a torrent of noise, domineer in public assemblies,
+overbear men of sense, stun their companions, and fill the place they
+are in with a rattling sound, that has seldom any wit, humour, or good
+breeding in it. The drum notwithstanding, by this boisterous vivacity,
+is very proper to impose upon the ignorant; and in conversation with
+ladies who are not of the finest taste, often passes for a man of mirth
+and wit, and for wonderful pleasant company. I need not observe, that
+the emptiness of the drum very much contributes to its noise.
+
+The lute is a character directly opposite to the drum, that sounds very
+finely by itself, or in a very small concert. Its notes are exquisitely
+sweet, and very low, easily drowned in a multitude of instruments, and
+even lost among a few, unless you give a particular attention to it. A
+lute is seldom heard in a company of more than five, whereas a drum will
+show itself to advantage in an assembly of five hundred. The lutenists
+therefore are men of a fine genius, uncommon reflection, great
+affability, and esteemed chiefly by persons of a good taste, who are the
+only proper judges of so delightful and soft a melody.
+
+The trumpet is an instrument that has in it no compass of music or
+variety of sound, but is notwithstanding very agreeable, so long as it
+keeps within its pitch. It has not above four or five notes, which are
+however very pleasing, and capable of exquisite turns and modulations.
+The gentlemen who fall under this denomination, are your men of the most
+fashionable education and refined breeding, who have learned a certain
+smoothness of discourse, and sprightliness of air, from the polite
+company they have kept; but at the same time they have shallow parts,
+weak judgments, and a short reach of understanding: a playhouse, a
+drawing-room, a ball, a visiting-day, or a Ring at Hyde Park, are the
+few notes they are masters of, which they touch upon in all
+conversations. The trumpet however is a necessary instrument about a
+Court, and a proper enlivener of a concert, though of no great harmony
+by itself.
+
+Violins are the lively, forward, importunate wits that distinguish
+themselves by the flourishes of imagination, sharpness of repartee,
+glances of satire, and bear away the upper part in every concert. I
+cannot however but observe that, when a man is not disposed to hear
+music, there is not a more disagreeable sound in harmony than that of a
+violin.
+
+There is another musical instrument, which is more frequent in this
+nation than any other; I mean your bass-viol, which grumbles in the
+bottom of the concert, and with a surly masculine sound strengthens the
+harmony, and tempers the sweetness of the several instruments that play
+along with it. The bass-viol is an instrument of a quite different
+nature to the trumpet, and may signify men of rough sense, and
+unpolished parts, who do not love to hear themselves talk, but sometimes
+break out with an agreeable bluntness, unexpected wit, and surly
+pleasantries, to the no small diversion of their friends and companions.
+In short, I look upon every sensible true-born Briton to be naturally a
+bass-viol.
+
+As for your rural wits, who talk with great eloquence and alacrity of
+foxes, hounds, horses, quickset hedges, and six-bar gates, double
+ditches, and broken necks, I am in doubt, whether I should give them a
+place in the conversable world. However, if they will content themselves
+with being raised to the dignity of hunting-horns, I shall desire for
+the future that they may be known by that name.
+
+I must not here omit the bagpipe species, that will entertain you from
+morning to night with the repetition of the few notes, which are played
+over and over, with the perpetual humming of a drone running underneath
+them. These are your dull, heavy, tedious storytellers, the load and
+burden of conversations, that set up for men of importance, by knowing
+secret history, and giving an account of transactions, that whether they
+ever passed in the world or not, does not signify a halfpenny to its
+instruction, or its welfare. Some have observed, that the northern parts
+of this island are more particularly fruitful in bagpipes.
+
+There are so very few persons who are masters in every kind of
+conversation, and can talk on all subjects, that I don't know whether
+we should make a distinct species of them: nevertheless, that my scheme
+may not be defective, for the sake of those few who are endowed with
+such extraordinary talents, I shall allow them to be harpsichords, a
+kind of music which every one knows is a concert by itself.
+
+As for your passing-bells, who look upon mirth as criminal, and talk of
+nothing but what is melancholy in itself, and mortifying to human
+nature, I shall not mention them.
+
+I shall likewise pass over in silence all the rabble of mankind that
+crowd our streets, coffee-houses, feasts, and public tables. I cannot
+call their discourse conversation, but rather something that is
+practised in imitation of it. For which reason, if I would describe them
+by any musical instrument, it should be by those modern inventions of
+the bladder and string, tongs and key, marrow-bone and cleaver.
+
+My reader will doubtless observe, that I have only touched here upon
+male instruments, having reserved my female concert to another occasion.
+If he has a mind to know where these several characters are to be met
+with, I could direct him to a whole club of drums; not to mention
+another of bagpipes, which I have before given some account of in my
+description of our nightly meetings in Sheer Lane. The lutes may often
+be met with in couples upon the banks of a crystal stream, or in the
+retreats of shady woods and flowery meadows; which for different reasons
+are likewise the great resort of your hunting-horns. Bass-viols are
+frequently to be found over a glass of stale beer and a pipe of tobacco;
+whereas those who set up for violins, seldom fail to make their
+appearance at Will's once every evening. You may meet with a trumpet
+anywhere on the other side of Charing Cross.
+
+That we may draw something for our advantage in life out of the
+foregoing discourse, I must entreat my reader to make a narrow search
+into his life and conversation, and upon his leaving any company, to
+examine himself seriously, whether he has behaved himself in it like a
+drum or a trumpet, a violin or a bass-viol; and accordingly endeavour to
+mend his music for the future. For my own part, I must confess, I was a
+drum for many years; nay, and a very noisy one, till having polished
+myself a little in good company, I threw as much of the trumpet into my
+conversation as was possible for a man of an impetuous temper, by which
+mixture of different musics, I look upon myself, during the course of
+many years, to have resembled a tabor and pipe. I have since very much
+endeavoured at the sweetness of the lute; but in spite of all my
+resolutions, I must confess with great confusion, that I find myself
+daily degenerating into a bagpipe; whether it be the effect of my old
+age, or of the company I keep, I know not. All that I can do, is to keep
+a watch over my conversation, and to silence the drone as soon as I find
+it begin to hum in my discourse, being determined rather to hear the
+notes of others, than to play out of time, and encroach upon their parts
+in the concert by the noise of so tiresome an instrument.
+
+I shall conclude this paper with a letter which I received last night
+from a friend of mine, who knows very well my notions upon this subject,
+and invites me to pass the evening at his house with a select company of
+friends, in the following words:
+
+     "DEAR ISAAC,
+
+     "I intend to have a concert at my house this evening, having by
+     great chance got a harpsichord, which I am sure will entertain you
+     very agreeably. There will be likewise two lutes and a trumpet:
+     let me beg you to put yourself in tune, and believe me
+
+                                "Your very faithful Servant,
+                                             "NICHOLAS HUMDRUM."[184]
+
+
+
+
+No. 154.                                                    [ADDISON.
+
+From _Saturday, April 1_, to _Tuesday, April 4, 1710_.
+
+    Obscuris vera involvens.--VIRG., Æn. vi. 100.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, April 3._
+
+We have already examined Homer's description of a future state, and the
+condition in which he has placed the souls of the deceased. I shall in
+this paper make some observations on the account which Virgil has given
+us of the same subject, who, besides a greatness of genius, had all the
+lights of philosophy and human learning to assist and guide him in his
+discoveries.
+
+Æneas is represented as descending into the empire of death, with a
+prophetess by his side, who instructs him in the secrets of those lower
+regions.
+
+Upon the confines of the dead, and before the very gates of this
+infernal world, Virgil describes[185] several inhabitants, whose natures
+are wonderfully suited to the situation of the place, as being either
+the occasions or resemblances of death. Of the first kind are the
+shadows[186] of Sickness, Old Age, Fear, Famine, and Poverty
+(apparitions very terrible to behold); with several others, as Toil,
+War, Contention, and Discord, which contribute all of them to people
+this common receptacle of human souls. As this was likewise a very
+proper residence for everything that resembles death, the poet tells us,
+that Sleep, whom he represents as a near relation to Death, has likewise
+his habitation in these quarters, and describes in them a huge gloomy
+elm-tree, which seems a very proper ornament for the place, and is
+possessed by an innumerable swarm of Dreams, that hang in clusters under
+every leaf of it. He then gives us a list of imaginary persons, who very
+naturally lie within the shadow of the dream-tree, as being of the same
+kind of make in themselves, and the materials or (to use Shakespeare's
+phrase) the stuff of which dreams are made. Such are the shades of the
+giant with a hundred hands, and of his brother with three bodies; of the
+double-shaped Centaur and Scylla; the Gorgon with snaky hair; the Harpy
+with a woman's face and lion's talons; the seven-headed Hydra; and the
+Chimæra, which breathes forth a flame, and is a compound of three
+animals. These several mixed natures, the creatures of imagination, are
+not only introduced with great art after the dreams; but as they are
+planted at the very entrance, and within the very gates of those
+regions, do probably denote the wild deliriums and extravagances of
+fancy, which the Soul usually falls into when she is just upon the verge
+of death.
+
+Thus far Æneas travels in an allegory. The rest of the description is
+drawn with great exactness, according to the religion of the heathens,
+and the opinions of the platonic philosophy. I shall not trouble my
+reader with a common dull story, that gives an account why the heathens
+first of all supposed a ferryman in hell, and his name to be Charon; but
+must not pass over in silence the point of doctrine which Virgil has
+very much insisted upon in this book, that the souls of those who are
+unburied, are not permitted to go over into their respective places of
+rest till they have wandered a hundred years upon the banks of Styx.
+This was probably an invention of the heathen priesthood, to make the
+people extremely careful of performing proper rites and ceremonies to
+the memory of the dead. I shall not, however, with the infamous
+scribblers of the age, take an occasion from such a circumstance, to run
+into declamations against priestcraft, but rather look upon it even in
+this light as a religious artifice, to raise in the minds of men an
+esteem for the memory of their forefathers, and a desire to recommend
+themselves to that of posterity; as also to excite in them an ambition
+of imitating the virtues of the deceased, and to keep alive in their
+thoughts the sense of the soul's immortality. In a word, we may say in
+defence of the severe opinions relating to the shades of unburied
+persons, what has been said by some of our divines in regard to the
+rigid doctrines concerning the souls of such who die without being
+initiated into our religion, that supposing they should be erroneous,
+they can do no hurt to the dead, and will have a good effect upon the
+living, in making them cautious of neglecting such necessary
+solemnities.
+
+Charon is no sooner appeased, and the triple-headed dog laid asleep, but
+Æneas makes his entrance into the dominions of Pluto. There are three
+kinds of persons described as being situated on the borders; and I can
+give no reason for their being stationed there in so particular a
+manner, but because none of them seem to have had a proper right to a
+place among the dead, as not having run out the whole thread of their
+days, and finished the term of life that had been allotted them upon
+earth. The first of these are the souls of infants, who are snatched
+away by untimely ends: the second, are of those who are put to death
+wrongfully, and by an unjust sentence; and the third, of those who grew
+weary of their lives, and laid violent hands upon themselves. As for
+the second of these, Virgil adds with great beauty, that Minos, the
+judge of the dead, is employed in giving them a rehearing, and assigning
+them their several quarters suitable to the parts they acted in life.
+The poet, after having mentioned the souls of those unhappy men who
+destroyed themselves, breaks out into a fine exclamation: "Oh, how
+gladly," says he, "would they now endure life with all its miseries! But
+the Destinies forbid their return to earth, and the waters of Styx
+surround them with nine streams that are unpassable." It is very
+remarkable, that Virgil, notwithstanding self-murder was so frequent
+among the heathens, and had been practised by some of the greatest men
+in the very age before him, has here represented it as so heinous a
+crime. But in this particular he was guided by the doctrines of his
+great master Plato, who says on this subject, that a man is placed in
+his station of life like a soldier in his proper post, which he is not
+to quit whatever may happen, until he is called off by his commander who
+planted him in it.
+
+There is another point in the platonic philosophy, which Virgil has made
+the groundwork of the greatest part in the piece we are now examining,
+having with wonderful art and beauty materialised, if I may so call it,
+a scheme of abstracted notions, and clothed the most nice refined
+conceptions of philosophy in sensible images and poetical
+representations. The Platonists tell us, that the Soul, during her
+residence in the body, contracts many virtuous and vicious habits, so as
+to become a beneficent, mild, charitable, or an angry, malicious,
+revengeful being: a substance inflamed with lust, avarice, and pride;
+or, on the contrary, brightened with pure, generous, and humble
+dispositions: that these and the like habits of virtue and vice growing
+into the very essence of the Soul, survive and gather strength in her
+after her dissolution: that the torments of a vicious soul in a future
+state arise principally from those importunate passions which are not
+capable of being gratified without a body; and that on the contrary, the
+happiness of virtuous minds very much consists in their being employed
+in sublime speculations, innocent diversions, sociable affections, and
+all the ecstasies of passion and rapture which are agreeable to
+reasonable natures, and of which they gained a relish in this life.
+
+Upon this foundation, the poet raises that beautiful description of the
+secret haunts and walks which he tells us are inhabited by deceased
+lovers.
+
+"Not far from hence," says he, "lies a great waste of plains, that are
+called, the 'fields of melancholy.' In these grows a forest of myrtle,
+divided into many shady retirements and covered walks, and inhabited by
+the souls of those who pined away with love. The passion," says he,
+"continues with them after death." He then gives a list of this
+languishing tribe, in which his own Dido makes the principal figure, and
+is described as living in this soft romantic scene with the shade of her
+first husband Sichæus.[187]
+
+The poet in the next place mentions another plain that was peopled with
+the ghosts of warriors, as still delighting in each other's company, and
+pleased with the exercise of arms. He there represents the Grecian
+generals and common soldiers who perished in the siege of Troy as drawn
+up in squadrons, and terrified at the approach of Æneas, which renewed
+in them those impressions of fear they had before received in battle
+with the Trojans. He afterwards likewise, upon the same notion, gives a
+view of the Trojan heroes who lived in former ages, amidst a visionary
+scene of chariots and arms, flowery meadows, shining spears, and
+generous steeds, which he tells us were their pleasures upon earth, and
+now make up their happiness in Elysium. For the same reason also, he
+mentions others as singing pæans, and songs of triumph, amidst a
+beautiful grove of laurel. The chief of the concert was the poet Musæus,
+who stood enclosed with a circle of admirers, and rose by the head and
+shoulders above the throng of shades that surrounded him. The
+habitations of unhappy spirits, to show the duration of their torments,
+and the desperate condition they are in, are represented as guarded by a
+fury, moated round with a lake of fire, strengthened with towers of
+iron, encompassed with a triple wall, and fortified with pillars of
+adamant, which all the gods together are not able to heave from their
+foundations. The noise of stripes, the clank of chains, and the groans
+of the tortured, strike the pious Æneas with a kind of horror. The poet
+afterwards divides the criminals into two classes: the first and
+blackest catalogue consists of such as were guilty of outrages against
+the gods; and the next, of such who were convicted of injustice between
+man and man: the greatest number of whom, says the poet, are those who
+followed the dictates of avarice.
+
+It was an opinion of the Platonists, that the souls of men having
+contracted in the body great stains and pollutions of vice and
+ignorance, there were several purgations and cleansings necessary to be
+passed through both here and hereafter, in order to refine and purify
+them.[188]
+
+Virgil, to give this thought likewise a clothing of poetry, describes
+some spirits as bleaching in the winds, others as cleansing under great
+falls of waters, and others as purging in fire to recover the primitive
+beauty and purity of their natures.
+
+It was likewise an opinion of the same sect of philosophers, that the
+souls of all men exist in a separate state, long before their union with
+their bodies; and that upon their immersion into flesh, they forget
+everything which passed in the state of pre-existence; so that what we
+here call knowledge, is nothing else but memory, or the recovery of
+those things which we knew before.
+
+In pursuance of this scheme, Virgil gives us a view of several souls,
+who, to prepare themselves for living upon earth, flock about the banks
+of the river Lethe, and swill themselves with the waters of oblivion.
+
+The same scheme gives him an opportunity of making a noble compliment to
+his countrymen, where Anchises is represented taking a survey of the
+long train of heroes that are to descend from him, and giving his son,
+Æneas an account of all the glories of his race.
+
+I need not mention the revolution of the platonic year,[189] which is
+but just touched upon in this book; and as I have consulted no author's
+thoughts in this explication, shall be very well pleased, if it can make
+the noblest piece of the most accomplished poet more agreeable to my
+female readers, when they think fit to look into Dryden's translation of
+it.
+
+
+[Footnote 184: See No. 157.]
+
+[Footnote 185: "Hath placed" (folio).]
+
+[Footnote 186: "Pale shadows" (folio).]
+
+[Footnote 187: See No. 133.]
+
+[Footnote 188: "Purify the soul from ignorance and vice" (folio).]
+
+[Footnote 189: The Great or Platonic Year is the time in which the fixed
+stars make their revolution. See Cicero, "De Natura Deorum," ii. 20.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 155.                                                    [ADDISON.
+
+From _Tuesday, April 4_, to _Thursday, April 6, 1710_.
+
+    ----Aliena negotia curat,
+    Excussus propriis.--HOR., 2 Sat. iii. 19.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, April_ 5.
+
+There lived some years since within my neighbourhood a very grave
+person, an upholsterer,[190] who seemed a man of more than ordinary
+application to business. He was a very early riser, and was often abroad
+two or three hours before any of his neighbours. He had a particular
+carefulness in the knitting of his brows, and a kind of impatience in
+all his motions, that plainly discovered he was always intent on matters
+of importance. Upon my inquiry into his life and conversation, I found
+him to be the greatest newsmonger in our quarter; that he rose before
+day to read the _Postman_; and that he would take two or three turns to
+the other end of the town before his neighbours were up, to see if there
+were any Dutch mails come in. He had a wife and several children; but
+was much more inquisitive to know what passed in Poland than in his own
+family, and was in greater pain and anxiety of mind for King Augustus'
+welfare than that of his nearest relations. He looked extremely thin in
+a dearth of news, and never enjoyed himself in a westerly wind. This
+indefatigable kind of life was the ruin of his shop; for about the time
+that his favourite prince left the crown of Poland, he broke and
+disappeared.
+
+This man and his affairs had been long out of my mind, till about three
+days ago, as I was walking in St. James's Park, I heard somebody at a
+distance hemming after me: and who should it be but my old neighbour the
+upholsterer! I saw he was reduced to extreme poverty, by certain shabby
+superfluities in his dress: for notwithstanding that it was a very
+sultry day for the time of the year, he wore a loose great-coat and a
+muff, with a long campaign-wig out of curl; to which he had added the
+ornament of a pair of black garters buckled under the knee. Upon his
+coming up to me, I was going to inquire into his present circumstances;
+but was prevented by his asking me, with a whisper, whether the last
+letters brought any accounts that one might rely upon from Bender? I
+told him, none that I heard of; and asked him, whether he had yet
+married his eldest daughter? He told me, No. "But pray," says he, "tell
+me sincerely, what are your thoughts of the King of Sweden?" For though
+his wife and children were starving, I found his chief concern at
+present was for this great monarch. I told him, that I looked upon him
+as one of the first heroes of the age. "But pray," says he, "do you
+think there is anything in the story of his wound?" And finding me
+surprised at the question, "Nay," says he, "I only propose it to you." I
+answered, that I thought there was no reason to doubt of it. "But why in
+the heel," says he, "more than in any other part of the body?"
+"Because," says I, "the bullet chanced to light there."
+
+This extraordinary dialogue was no sooner ended, but he began to launch
+out into a long dissertation upon the affairs of the North; and after
+having spent some time on them, he told me, he was in a great perplexity
+how to reconcile the _Supplement_ with the _English Post_, and had been
+just now examining what the other papers say upon the same subject. "The
+_Daily Courant_," says he, "has these words, 'We have advices from very
+good hands, that a certain prince has some matters of great importance
+under consideration.' This is very mysterious; but the _Postboy_ leaves
+us more in the dark, for he tells us, that there are private intimations
+of measures taken by a certain prince, which time will bring to light.
+Now the _Postman_," says he, "who used to be very clear, refers to the
+same news in these words: 'The late conduct of a certain prince affords
+great matter of speculation.' This certain prince," says the
+upholsterer, "whom they are all so cautious of naming, I take to
+be"----. Upon which, though there was nobody near us, he whispered
+something in my ear, which I did not hear, or think worth my while to
+make him repeat.
+
+We were now got to the upper end of the Mall, where were three or four
+very odd fellows sitting together upon the bench. These I found were all
+of them politicians, who used to sun themselves in that place every day
+about dinner-time. Observing them to be curiosities in their kind, and
+my friend's acquaintance, I sat down among them.
+
+The chief politician of the bench was a great asserter of paradoxes. He
+told us, with a seeming concern, that by some news he had lately read
+from Muscovy, it appeared to him that there was a storm gathering in the
+Black Sea, which might in time do hurt to the naval forces of this
+nation. To this he added, that for his part, he could not wish to see
+the Turk driven out of Europe, which he believed could not but be
+prejudicial to our woollen manufacture. He then told us, that he looked
+upon those extraordinary revolutions which had lately happened in these
+parts of the world, to have risen chiefly from two persons who were not
+much talked of; "and those," says he, "are Prince Menzikoff and the
+Duchess of Mirandola." He backed his assertions with so many broken
+hints, and such a show of depth and wisdom, that we gave ourselves up to
+his opinions.
+
+The discourse at length fell upon a point which seldom escapes a knot of
+true-born Englishmen, whether in case of a religious war, the
+Protestants would not be too strong for the Papists? This we unanimously
+determined on the Protestant side. One who sat on my right hand, and, as
+I found by his discourse, had been in the West Indies, assured us, that
+it would be a very easy matter for the Protestants to beat the Pope at
+sea; and added, that whenever such a war does break out, it must turn to
+the good of the Leeward Islands. Upon this, one who sat at the end of
+the bench, and, as I afterwards found, was the geographer of the
+company, said, that in case the Papists should drive the Protestants
+from these parts of Europe, when the worst came to the worst, it would
+be impossible to beat them out of Norway and Greenland, provided the
+Northern crowns hold together, and the Czar of Muscovy stand neuter.
+
+He further told us for our comfort, that there were vast tracts of land
+about the Pole, inhabited neither by Protestants nor Papists, and of
+greater extent than all the Roman Catholic dominions in Europe.
+
+When we had fully discussed this point, my friend the upholsterer began
+to exert himself upon the present negotiations of peace, in which he
+deposed princes, settled the bounds of kingdoms, and balanced the power
+of Europe, with great justice and impartiality.
+
+I at length took my leave of the company, and was going away; but had
+not been gone thirty yards, before the upholsterer hemmed again after
+me. Upon his advancing towards me, with a whisper, I expected to hear
+some secret piece of news which he had not thought fit to communicate to
+the bench; but instead of that, he desired me in my ear to lend him half
+a crown. In compassion to so needy a statesman, and to dissipate the
+confusion I found he was in, I told him, if he pleased, I would give him
+five shillings, to receive five pounds of him when the Great Turk was
+driven out of Constantinople; which he very readily accepted, but not
+before he had laid down to me the impossibility of such an event, as the
+affairs of Europe now stand.
+
+This paper I design for the particular benefit of those worthy citizens
+who live more in a coffee-house than in their shops, and whose thoughts
+are so taken up with the affairs of the Allies, that they forget their
+customers.
+
+
+[Footnote 190: The original of the Political Upholsterer of Nos. 155,
+160 and 178 is said to have been an Edward Arne, of Covent Garden. It is
+clear that he cannot--as some have said--be the same person as the Arne
+at whose house the Indian kings lodged (see No. 171). Steele was
+attacked in the _Examiner_ (vol. i. No. 11, vol. iv. No. 40) for the
+liberties here taken by Addison.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 156.                                                    [ADDISON.
+
+From _Thursday, April 6_, to _Saturday, April 8, 1710_.
+
+    --Sequiturque patrem non passibus æquis.
+                                VIRG., Æn. ii. 724.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, April 7._
+
+We have already described out of Homer the voyage of Ulysses to the
+Infernal Shades, with the several adventures that attended it.[191] If
+we look into the beautiful romance published not many years since by the
+Archbishop of Cambray,[192] we may see the son of Ulysses bound on the
+same expedition, and after the same manner making his discoveries among
+the regions of the dead. The story of Telemachus is formed altogether in
+the spirit of Homer, and will give an unlearned reader a notion of that
+great poet's manner of writing, more than any translation of him can
+possibly do. As it was written for the instruction of a young prince,
+who may one day sit upon the throne of France, the author took care to
+suit the several parts of his story, and particularly the description we
+are now entering upon, to the character and quality of his pupil. For
+which reason, he insists very much on the misery of bad, and the
+happiness of good kings, in the account he has given of punishments and
+rewards in the other world.
+
+We may however observe, notwithstanding the endeavours of this great and
+learned author to copy after the style and sentiments of Homer, that
+there is a certain tincture of Christianity running through the whole
+relation. The prelate in several places mixes himself with the poet; so
+that his future state puts me in mind of Michael Angelo's "Last
+Judgment," where Charon and his boat are represented as bearing a part
+in the dreadful solemnities of that great day.
+
+Telemachus, after having passed through the dark avenues of death in the
+retinue of Mercury, who every day delivers up a certain tale of ghosts
+to the ferryman of Styx, is admitted into the infernal bark. Among the
+companions of his voyage, is the shade of Nabopharzon, a king of
+Babylon, and tyrant of all the East. Among the ceremonies and pomps of
+his funeral, there were four slaves sacrificed, according to the custom
+of the country, in order to attend him among the shades. The author
+having described this tyrant in the most odious colours of pride,
+insolence, and cruelty, tells us, that his four slaves, instead of
+serving him after death, were perpetually insulting him with reproaches
+and affronts for his past usage; that they spurned him as he lay upon
+the ground, and forced him to show his face, which he would fain have
+covered, as lying under all the confusions of guilt and infamy; and in
+short, that they kept him bound in a chain, in order to drag him before
+the tribunal of the dead.
+
+Telemachus, upon looking out of the bark, sees all the strand covered
+with an innumerable multitude of shades, who, upon his jumping ashore,
+immediately vanished. He then pursues his course to the palace of Pluto,
+who is described as seated on his throne in terrible majesty, with
+Proserpine by his side. At the foot of his throne was the pale hideous
+spectre, who, by the ghastliness of his visage, and the nature of the
+apparitions that surrounded him, discovers himself to be Death. His
+attendants are, Melancholy, Distrust, Revenge, Hatred, Avarice, Despair,
+Ambition, Envy, Impiety, with frightful Dreams, and waking Cares, which
+are all drawn very naturally in proper actions and postures. The author,
+with great beauty, places near his Frightful Dreams an assembly of
+phantoms, which are often employed to terrify the living, by appearing
+in the shape and likeness of the dead.
+
+The young hero in the next place takes a survey of the different kinds
+of criminals that lay in torture among clouds of sulphur and torrents of
+fire. The first of these were such as had been guilty of impieties,
+which every one has a horror for: to which is added, a catalogue of such
+offenders that scarce appear to be faulty in the eyes of the vulgar.
+Among these, says the author, are malicious critics, that have
+endeavoured to cast a blemish upon the perfections of others; with whom
+he likewise places such as have often hurt the reputation of the
+innocent, by passing a rash judgment on their actions, without knowing
+the occasion of them. These crimes, says he, are more severely punished
+after death, because they generally meet with impunity upon earth.
+
+Telemachus, after having taken a survey of several other wretches in the
+same circumstances, arrives at that region of torments in which wicked
+kings are punished. There are very fine strokes of imagination in the
+description which he gives of this unhappy multitude. He tells us, that
+on one side of them there stood a revengeful fury, thundering in their
+ears incessant repetitions of all the crimes they had committed upon
+earth, with the aggravations of ambition, vanity, hardness of heart, and
+all those secret affections of mind that enter into the composition of a
+tyrant. At the same time, she holds up to them a large mirror, in which
+every one sees himself represented in the natural horror and deformity
+of his character. On the other side of them stands another fury, that
+with an insulting derision repeats to them all the praises that their
+flatterers had bestowed upon them while they sat upon their respective
+thrones. She too, says the author, presents a mirror before their eyes,
+in which every one sees himself adorned with all those beauties and
+perfections in which they had been drawn by the vanity of their own
+hearts, and the flattery of others. To punish them for the wantonness of
+the cruelty which they formerly exercised, they are now delivered up to
+be treated according to the fancy and caprice of several slaves, who
+have here an opportunity of tyrannising in their turns.
+
+The author having given us a description of these ghastly spectres, who,
+says he, are always calling upon Death, and are placed under the
+distillation of that burning vengeance which falls upon them drop by
+drop, and is never to be exhausted, leads us into a pleasing scene of
+groves, filled with the melody of birds, and the odours of a thousand
+different plants. These groves are represented as rising among a great
+many flowery meadows, and watered with streams that diffuse a perpetual
+freshness, in the midst of an eternal day, and a never-fading spring.
+This, says the author, was the habitation of those good princes who were
+friends of the gods, and parents of the people. Among these, Telemachus
+converses with the shade of one of his ancestors, who makes a most
+agreeable relation of the joys of Elysium, and the nature of its
+inhabitants. The residence of Sesostris among these happy shades, with
+his character and present employment, is drawn in a very lively manner,
+and with a great elevation of thought.
+
+The description of that pure and gentle light which overflows these
+happy regions, and clothes the spirits of these virtuous persons, has
+something in it of that enthusiasm which this author was accused of by
+his enemies in the Church of Rome; but however it may look in religion,
+it makes a very beautiful figure in poetry.
+
+The rays of the sun, says he, are darkness in comparison with this
+light, which rather deserves the name of glory, than that of light. It
+pierces the thickest bodies, in the same manner as the sunbeams pass
+through crystal: it strengthens the sight instead of dazzling it; and
+nourishes in the most inward recesses of the mind, a perpetual serenity
+that is not to be expressed. It enters and incorporates itself with the
+very substance of the soul: the spirits of the blessed feel it in all
+their senses, and in all their perceptions. It produces a certain source
+of peace and joy that arises in them for ever, running through all the
+faculties, and refreshing all the desires of the soul. External
+pleasures and delights, with all their charms and allurements, are
+regarded with the utmost indifference and neglect by these happy spirits
+who have this great principle of pleasure within them, drawing the
+whole mind to itself, calling off their attention from the most
+delightful objects, and giving them all the transports of inebriation,
+without the confusion and the folly of it.
+
+I have here only mentioned some master-touches of this admirable piece,
+because the original itself is understood by the greater part of my
+readers. I must confess, I take a particular delight in these prospects
+of futurity, whether grounded upon the probable suggestions of a fine
+imagination, or the more severe conclusions of philosophy; as a man
+loves to hear all the discoveries or conjectures relating to a foreign
+country which he is, at some time, to inhabit. Prospects of this nature
+lighten the burden of any present evil, and refresh us under the worst
+and lowest circumstances of mortality. They extinguish in us both the
+fear and envy of human grandeur. Insolence shrinks its head, Power
+disappears; Pain, Poverty and Death fly before them. In short, the mind
+that is habituated to the lively sense of a hereafter, can hope for what
+is the most terrifying to the generality of mankind, and rejoice in what
+is the most afflicting.
+
+
+[Footnote 191: See No. 152.]
+
+[Footnote 192: Fénelon's "Télémaque."]
+
+
+
+
+No. 157.                                               [ADDISON.[193]
+
+From _Saturday, April 8_, to _Tuesday, April 11, 1710_.
+
+    ----Facile est inventis addere.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, April 10._
+
+I was last night in an assembly of very fine women. How I came among
+them is of no great importance to the reader. I shall only let him know,
+that I was betrayed into so good company by the device of an old
+friend, who had promised to give some of his female acquaintance a sight
+of Mr. Bickerstaff. Upon hearing my name mentioned, a lady who sat by me
+told me, they had brought together a female concert for my
+entertainment. "You must know," says she, "that we all of us look upon
+ourselves to be musical instruments,[194] though we do not yet know of
+what kind, which we hope to learn from you, if you will give us leave to
+play before you." This was followed by a general laugh, which I always
+look upon as a necessary flourish in the opening of a female concert.
+They then struck up together, and played a whole hour upon two grounds,
+viz., the Trial,[195] and the Opera. I could not but observe, that
+several of their notes were more soft, and several more sharp, than any
+that ever I heard in a male concert; though I must confess, there was
+not any regard to time, nor any of those rests and pauses which are
+frequent in the harmony of the other sex: besides, that the music was
+generally full, and no particular instrument permitted to play long by
+itself.
+
+I seemed so very well pleased with what every one said, and smiled with
+so much compliance at all their pretty fancies, that though I did not
+put one word into their discourse, I have the vanity to think they
+looked upon me as very agreeable company. I then told them, that if I
+were to draw the picture of so many charming musicians, it should be
+like one I had seen of the Muses, with their several instruments in
+their hands. Upon which the lady kettledrum tossed back her head, and
+cried, "A very pretty simile!" The concert again revived; in which, with
+nods, smiles, and approbations, I bore the part rather of one who beats
+the time, than of a performer.
+
+I was no sooner retired to my lodgings, but I ran over in my thoughts
+the several characters of this fair assembly, which I shall give some
+account of, because they are various in their kind, and may each of them
+stand as a sample of a whole species.
+
+The person who pleased me most was a flute, an instrument that, without
+any great compass, has something exquisitely sweet and soft in its
+sound: it lulls and soothes the ear, and fills it with such a gentle
+kind of melody, as keeps the mind awake without startling it, and raises
+a most agreeable passion between transport and indolence. In short, the
+music of the flute is the conversation of a mild and amiable woman, that
+has nothing in it very elevated, or at the same time anything mean or
+trivial.
+
+I must here observe, that the hautboy is the most perfect of the flute
+species, which, with all the sweetness of the sound, has a great
+strength and variety of notes; though at the same time I must observe,
+that the hautboy in one sex is as scarce as the harpsichord in the
+other.
+
+By the side of the flute there sat a flageolet, for so I must call a
+certain young lady, who fancied herself a wit, despised the music of the
+flute as low and insipid, and would be entertaining the company with
+tart ill-natured observations, pert fancies, and little turns, which she
+imagined to be full of life and spirit. The flageolet therefore does not
+differ from the flute so much in the compass of its notes, as in the
+shrillness and sharpness of the sound. We must however take notice, that
+the flageolets among their own sex are more valued and esteemed than the
+flutes.
+
+There chanced to be a coquette in the concert, that with a great many
+skittish notes, affected squeaks, and studied inconsistencies,
+distinguished herself from the rest of the company. She did not speak a
+word during the whole trial; but I thought she would never have done
+upon the opera. One while she would break out upon, "That hideous king!"
+then upon the "charming blackmoor!" Then, "Oh that dear lion!" Then
+would hum over two or three notes; then run to the window to see what
+coach was coming. The coquette therefore I must distinguish by that
+musical instrument which is commonly known by the name of a kit, that is
+more jiggish than the fiddle itself, and never sounds but to a dance.
+
+The fourth person who bore a part in the conversation was a prude, who
+stuck to the trial, and was silent upon the whole opera. The gravity of
+her censures, and composure of her voice, which were often attended with
+supercilious casts of the eye, and a seeming contempt for the lightness
+of the conversation, put me in mind of that ancient serious matronlike
+instrument the virginal.
+
+I must not pass over in silence a Lancashire hornpipe, by which I would
+signify a young country lady, who with a great deal of mirth and
+innocence diverted the company very agreeably; and, if I am not
+mistaken, by that time the wildness of her notes is a little softened,
+and the redundancy of her music restrained by conversation and good
+company, will be improved into one of the most amiable flutes about the
+town. Your romps and boarding-school girls fall likewise under this
+denomination.
+
+On the right hand of the hornpipe sat a Welsh harp, an instrument which
+very much delights in the tunes of old historical ballads, and in
+celebrating the renowned actions and exploits of ancient British heroes.
+By this instrument I therefore would describe a certain lady, who is one
+of those female historians that upon all occasions enters into pedigrees
+and descents, and finds herself related, by some offshoot or other, to
+almost every great family in England: for which reason she jars and is
+out of tune very often in conversation, for the company's want of due
+attention and respect to her.
+
+But the most sonorous part of our concert was a shedrum, or (as the
+vulgar call it) a kettledrum, who accompanied her discourse with motions
+of the body, tosses of the head, and brandishes of the fan. Her music
+was loud, bold, and masculine. Every thump she gave, alarmed the
+company, and very often set somebody or other in it a-blushing.
+
+The last I shall mention was a certain romantic instrument called a
+dulcimer, who talked of nothing but shady woods, flowery meadows,
+purling streams, larks and nightingales, with all the beauties of the
+spring, and the pleasures of a country life. This instrument has a fine
+melancholy sweetness in it, and goes very well with the flute.
+
+I think most of the conversable part of womankind may be found under one
+of the foregoing divisions; but it must be confessed, that the
+generality of that sex, notwithstanding they have naturally a great
+genius for being talkative, are not mistresses of more than one note;
+with which however, by frequent repetition, they make a greater sound
+than those who are possessed of the whole gamut, as may be observed in
+your larums or household scolds, and in your castanets or impertinent
+tittle-tattles, who have no other variety in their discourse but that of
+talking slower or faster.
+
+Upon communicating this scheme of music to an old friend of mine, who
+was formerly a man of gallantry and a rover, he told me, that he
+believed he had been in love with every instrument in my concert. The
+first that smit him was a hornpipe, who lived near his father's house in
+the country; but upon his failing to meet her at an assize, according to
+appointment, she cast him off. His next passion was for a kettledrum,
+whom he fell in love with at a play; but when he became acquainted with
+her, not finding the softness of her sex in her conversation, he grew
+cool to her; though at the same time he could not deny, but that she
+behaved herself very much like a gentlewoman. His third mistress was a
+dulcimer, who he found took great delight in sighing and languishing,
+but would go no farther than the preface of matrimony; so that she would
+never let a lover have any more of her than her heart, which, after
+having won, he was forced to leave her, as despairing of any further
+success. "I must confess," says my friend, "I have often considered her
+with a great deal of admiration; and I find her pleasure is so much in
+this first step of an amour, that her life will pass away in dream,
+solitude, and soliloquy, till her decay of charms makes her snatch at
+the worst man that ever pretended to her. In the next place," says my
+friend, "I fell in love with a kit,[196] who led me such a dance through
+all the varieties of a familiar, cold, fond, and indifferent behaviour,
+that the world began to grow censorious, though without any cause: for
+which reason, to recover our reputations, we parted by consent. To mend
+my hand," says he, "I made my next application to a virginal, who gave
+me great encouragement, after her cautious manner, till some malicious
+companion told her of my long passion for the kit, which made her turn
+me off as a scandalous fellow. At length, in despair," says he, "I
+betook myself to a Welsh harp, who rejected me with contempt, after
+having found that my great-grandmother was a brewer's daughter." I found
+by the sequel of my friend's discourse, that he had never aspired to a
+hautboy; that he had been exasperated by a flageolet; and that to this
+very day, he pines away for a flute.
+
+Upon the whole, having thoroughly considered how absolutely necessary it
+is, that two instruments, which are to play together for life, should be
+exactly tuned, and go in perfect concert with each other, I would
+propose matches between the music of both sexes, according to the
+following table of marriage:
+
+     1. Drum and kettledrum.
+     2. Lute and flute.
+     3. Harpsichord and hautboy.
+     4. Violin and flageolet.
+     5. Bass-viol and kit.
+     6. Trumpet and Welsh harp.
+     7. Hunting-horn and hornpipe.
+     8. Bagpipe and castanets.
+     9. Passing-bell and virginal.
+
+Mr. Bickerstaff, in consideration of his ancient friendship and
+acquaintance with Mr. Betterton,[197] and great esteem for his merit,
+summons all his disciples, whether dead or living, mad or tame, Toasts,
+Smarts, Dappers, Pretty Fellows, Musicians or Scrapers, to make their
+appearance at the playhouse in the Haymarket on Thursday next; when
+there will be a play acted for the benefit of the said Mr. Betterton.
+
+
+[Footnote 193: This paper is not included in Tickell's edition of
+Addison's Works; but Steele ascribes it to Addison in his Dedication of
+"The Drummer" to Congreve.]
+
+[Footnote 194: See No. 153.]
+
+[Footnote 195: The trial of Dr. Sacheverell.]
+
+[Footnote 196: See Nos. 34 and 160.]
+
+[Footnote 197: See Nos. 1, 71, 167.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 158.                                                    [ADDISON.
+
+From _Tuesday, April 11_, to _Thursday, April 13, 1710_.
+
+    Faciunt næ intelligendo, ut nihil intelligant.
+                          TER., Andria, Prologue, 17.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, April 12._
+
+Tom Folio[198] is a broker in learning, employed to get together good
+editions, and stock the libraries of great men. There is not a sale of
+books begins till Tom Folio is seen at the door. There is not an auction
+where his name is not heard, and that too in the very nick of time, in
+the critical moment, before the last decisive stroke of the hammer.
+There is not a subscription goes forward, in which Tom is not privy to
+the first rough draught of the proposals; nor a catalogue printed, that
+does not come to him wet from the press. He is an universal scholar, so
+far as the title-page of all authors, knows the manuscripts in which
+they were discovered, the editions through which they have passed, with
+the praises or censures which they have received from the several
+members of the learned world. He has a greater esteem for Aldus and
+Elzevir, than for Virgil and Horace. If you talk of Herodotus, he breaks
+out into a panegyric upon Harry Stephans. He thinks he gives you an
+account of an author, when he tells you the subject he treats of, the
+name of the editor, and the year in which it was printed. Or if you draw
+him into further particulars, he cries up the goodness of the paper,
+extols the diligence of the corrector, and is transported with the
+beauty of the letter. This he looks upon to be sound learning and
+substantial criticism. As for those who talk of the fineness of style,
+and the justness of thought, or describe the brightness of any
+particular passages; nay, though they write themselves in the genius and
+spirit of the author they admire, Tom looks upon them as men of
+superficial learning, and flashy parts.
+
+I had yesterday morning a visit from this learned idiot (for that is the
+light in which I consider every pedant), when I discovered in him some
+little touches of the coxcomb which I had not before observed. Being
+very full of the figure which he makes in the republic of letters, and
+wonderfully satisfied with his great stock of knowledge, he gave me
+broad intimations, that he did not "believe" in all points as his
+forefathers had done. He then communicated to me a thought of a certain
+author upon a passage of Virgil's account of the dead, which I made the
+subject of a late paper.[199] This thought has taken very much among men
+of Tom's pitch and understanding, though universally exploded by all
+that know how to construe Virgil, or have any relish of antiquity. Not
+to trouble my reader with it, I found upon the whole, that Tom did not
+believe a future state of rewards and punishments, because Æneas, at his
+leaving the empire of the dead, passed through the gate of ivory, and
+not through that of horn. Knowing that Tom had not sense enough to give
+up an opinion which he had once received, that he might avoid wrangling,
+I told him, that Virgil possibly had his oversights as well as another
+author. "Ah! Mr. Bickerstaff," says he, "you would have another opinion
+of him, if you would read him in Daniel Heinsius' edition. I have
+perused him myself several times in that edition," continued he; "and
+after the strictest and most malicious examination, could find but two
+faults in him: one of them is in the 'Æneids,' where there are two
+commas instead of a parenthesis; and another in the third 'Georgic,'
+where you may find a semicolon turned upside down." "Perhaps," said I,
+"these were not Virgil's thoughts, but those of the transcriber." "I do
+not design it," says Tom, "as a reflection on Virgil: on the contrary, I
+know that all the manuscripts 'reclaim' against such a punctuation. Oh!
+Mr. Bickerstaff," says he, "what would a man give to see one simile of
+Virgil writ in his own hand?" I asked him which was the simile he meant;
+but was answered, "Any simile in Virgil." He then told me all the secret
+history in the commonwealth of learning; of modern pieces that had the
+names of ancient authors annexed to them; of all the books that were now
+writing or printing in the several parts of Europe; of many amendments
+which are made, and not yet published; and a thousand other particulars,
+which I would not have my memory burdened with for a Vatican.
+
+At length, being fully persuaded that I thoroughly admired him, and
+looked upon him as a prodigy of learning, he took his leave. I know
+several of Tom's class who are professed admirers of Tasso without
+understanding a word of Italian; and one in particular, that carries a
+"Pastor Fido" in his pocket, in which I am sure he is acquainted with no
+other beauty but the clearness of the character.
+
+There is another kind of pedant, who, with all Tom Folio's
+impertinences, has greater superstructures and embellishments of Greek
+and Latin, and is still more unsupportable than the other, in the same
+degree as he is more learned. Of this kind very often are editors,
+commentators, interpreters, scholiasts, and critics; and in short, all
+men of deep learning without common sense. These persons set a greater
+value on themselves for having found out the meaning of a passage in
+Greek, than upon the author for having written it; nay, will allow the
+passage itself not to have any beauty in it, at the same time that they
+would be considered as the greatest men of the age for having
+interpreted it. They will look with contempt upon the most beautiful
+poems that have been composed by any of their contemporaries; but will
+lock themselves up in their studies for a twelvemonth together, to
+correct, publish, and expound, such trifles of antiquity as a modern
+author would be contemned for. Men of the strictest morals, severest
+lives, and the gravest professions, will write volumes upon an idle
+sonnet that is originally in Greek or Latin; give editions of the most
+immoral authors, and spin out whole pages upon the various readings of a
+lewd expression. All that can be said in excuse for them, is, that their
+works sufficiently show they have no taste of their authors; and that
+what they do in this kind, is out of their great learning, and not out
+of any levity or lasciviousness of temper.
+
+A pedant of this nature is wonderfully well described in six lines of
+Boileau,[200] with which I shall conclude his character:
+
+      "_Un Pédant enivré de sa vaine science,
+    Tout hérissé de grec, tout bouffi d'arrogance,
+    Et qui, de mille auteurs retenus mot pour mot,
+    Dans sa tête entassés, n'a souvent fait qu'un sot,
+    Croit qu'un livre fait tout, et que, sans Aristote,
+    La raison ne voit goutte, et le bon sens radote._"
+
+
+[Footnote 198: The original of Tom Folio is supposed to be Thomas
+Rawlinson, a great book-collector, who lived in Gray's Inn, and
+afterwards in London House, Aldersgate Street, where he died, August 6,
+1725, aged 44. His library and MSS. were sold between 1722 and 1734.]
+
+[Footnote 199: No. 154.]
+
+[Footnote 200: Satire iv.: "Les folies humaines."]
+
+
+
+
+No. 159.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Thursday, April 13_, to _Saturday, April 15, 1710_.
+
+    Nitor in adversum, nec me qui cætera, vincit
+    Impetus.--OVID., Met. ii. 72.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, April 14._
+
+The wits of this island, for above fifty years past, instead of
+correcting the vices of the age, have done all they could to inflame
+them. Marriage has been one of the common topics of ridicule that every
+stage-scribbler has found his account in; for whenever there is an
+occasion for a clap, an impertinent jest upon matrimony is sure to raise
+it. This has been attended with very pernicious consequences. Many a
+country squire, upon his setting up for a man of the town, has gone home
+in the gaiety of his heart and beat his wife. A kind husband has been
+looked upon as a clown, and a good wife as a domestic animal, unfit for
+the company or conversation of the _beau monde_. In short, separate
+beds, silent tables, and solitary homes have been introduced by your men
+of wit and pleasure of the age.
+
+As I shall always make it my business to stem the torrents of prejudice
+and vice, I shall take particular care to put an honest father of a
+family in countenance, and endeavour to remove all the evils out of that
+state of life, which is either the most happy, or most miserable, that a
+man can be placed in. In order to this, let us, if you please, consider
+the wits and well-bred persons of former times. I have shown in another
+paper,[201] that Pliny, who was a man of the greatest genius, as well as
+of the first quality of his age, did not think it below him to be a
+kind husband, and to treat his wife as a friend, companion and
+counsellor. I shall give the like instance of another, who in all
+respects was a much greater man than Pliny, and has written a whole book
+of letters to his wife. They are not so full of turns as those
+translated out of the former author, who writes very much like a modern,
+but are full of that beautiful simplicity which is altogether natural,
+and is the distinguishing character of the best ancient writers. The
+author I am speaking of, is Cicero; who, in the following passages which
+I have taken out of his letters,[202] shows, that he did not think it
+inconsistent with the politeness of his manners, or the greatness of his
+wisdom, to stand upon record in his domestic character.
+
+These letters were written at a time when he was banished from his
+country, by a faction that then prevailed at Rome.
+
+
+     _Cicero to Terentia._
+
+     I.
+
+     "I learn from the letters of my friends, as well as from common
+     report, that you give incredible proofs of virtue and fortitude,
+     and that you are indefatigable in all kinds of good offices. How
+     unhappy a man am I, that a woman of your virtue, constancy, honour,
+     and good nature, should fall into so great distresses upon my
+     account; and that my dear Tulliola should be so much afflicted for
+     the sake of a father, with whom she had once so much reason to be
+     pleased! How can I mention little Cicero, whose first knowledge of
+     things began with the sense of his own misery? If all this had
+     happened by the decrees of fate, as you would kindly persuade me, I
+     could have borne it. But, alas! it is all befallen me by my own
+     indiscretion, who thought I was beloved by those who envied me, and
+     did not join with them who sought my friendship.----At present,
+     since my friends bid me hope, I shall take care of my health, that
+     I may enjoy the benefit of your affectionate services.----Plancius
+     hopes we may some time or other come together into Italy. If I ever
+     live to see that day; if I ever return to your dear embraces; in
+     short, if I ever again recover you and myself, I shall think our
+     conjugal piety very well rewarded.----As for what you write to me
+     about selling your estate, consider (my dear Terentia), consider,
+     alas! what would be the event of it. If our present fortune
+     continues to oppress us, what will become of our poor boy? My tears
+     flow so fast, that I am not able to write any further; and I would
+     not willingly make you weep with me.----Let us take care not to
+     undo the child that is already undone: if we can leave him
+     anything, a little virtue will keep him from want, and a little
+     fortune raise him in the world. Mind your health, and let me know
+     frequently what you are doing.----Remember me to Tulliola and
+     Cicero."
+
+
+     II.
+
+     "Don't fancy that I write longer letters to any one than to
+     yourself, unless when I chance to receive a longer letter from
+     another, which I am indispensably obliged to answer in every
+     particular. The truth of it is, I have no subject for a letter at
+     present: and as my affairs now stand, there is nothing more painful
+     to me than writing. As for you and our dear Tulliola, I cannot
+     write to you without abundance of tears, for I see both of you
+     miserable, whom I always wished to be happy, and whom I ought to
+     have made so.----I must acknowledge, you have done everything for
+     me with the utmost fortitude, and the utmost affection; nor indeed
+     is it more than I expected from you; though at the same time it is
+     a great aggravation of my ill fortune, that the afflictions I
+     suffer can be relieved only by those which you undergo for my sake.
+     For honest Valerius has written me a letter, which I could not read
+     without weeping very bitterly; wherein he gives me an account of
+     the public procession which you have made for me at Rome. Alas! my
+     dearest life, must then Terentia, the darling of my soul, whose
+     favour and recommendations have been so often sought by others;
+     must my Terentia droop under the weight of sorrow, appear in the
+     habit of a mourner, pour out floods of tears, and all this for my
+     sake; for my sake, who have undone my family, by consulting the
+     safety of others!----As for what you write about selling your
+     house, I am very much afflicted, that what is laid out upon my
+     account may any way reduce you to misery and want. If we can bring
+     about our design, we may indeed recover everything; but if Fortune
+     persists in persecuting us, how can I think of your sacrificing for
+     me the poor remainder of your possessions? No, my dearest life, let
+     me beg you to let those bear my expenses who are able, and perhaps
+     willing to do it; and if you would show your love to me, do not
+     injure your health, which is already too much impaired. You present
+     yourself before my eyes day and night; I see you labouring amidst
+     innumerable difficulties; I am afraid lest you should sink under
+     them; but I find in you all the qualifications that are necessary
+     to support you: be sure therefore to cherish your health, that you
+     may compass the end of your hopes and your endeavours.----Farewell,
+     my Terentia, my heart's desire, farewell."
+
+
+     III.
+
+     "Aristocritus has delivered to me three of your letters, which I
+     have almost defaced with my tears. Oh! my Terentia, I am consumed
+     with grief, and feel the weight of your sufferings more than of my
+     own. I am more miserable than you are, notwithstanding you are very
+     much so; and that for this reason, because though our calamity is
+     common, it is my fault that brought it upon us. I ought to have
+     died rather than have been driven out of the city: I am therefore
+     overwhelmed not only with grief, but with shame. I am ashamed that
+     I did not do my utmost for the best of wives, and the dearest of
+     children. You are ever present before my eyes in your mourning,
+     your affliction, and your sickness. Amidst all which, there scarce
+     appears to me the least glimmering of hope.----However, so long as
+     you hope, I will not despair.----I will do what you advise me. I
+     have returned my thanks to those friends whom you mentioned, and
+     have let them know, that you have acquainted me with their good
+     offices. I am sensible of Piso's extraordinary zeal and endeavours
+     to serve me. Oh! would the gods grant that you and I might live
+     together in the enjoyment of such a son-in-law, and of our dear
+     children.----As for what you write of your coming to me if I desire
+     it, I would rather you should be where you are, because I know you
+     are my principal agent at Rome. If you succeed, I shall come to
+     you: if not----. But I need say no more. Be careful of your health,
+     and be assured, that nothing is, or ever was, so dear to me as
+     yourself. Farewell, my Terentia; I fancy that I see you, and
+     therefore cannot command my weakness so far as to refrain from
+     tears."
+
+
+     IV.
+
+     "I don't write to you as often as I might, because notwithstanding
+     I am afflicted at all times, I am quite overcome with sorrow whilst
+     I am writing to you, or reading any letters that I receive from
+     you.----If these evils are not to be removed, I must desire to see
+     you, my dearest life, as soon as possible, and to die in your
+     embraces; since neither the gods, whom you always religiously
+     worshipped; nor the men, whose good I always promoted, have
+     rewarded us according to our deserts.----What a distressed wretch
+     am I! should I ask a weak woman, oppressed with cares and sickness,
+     to come and live with me, or shall I not ask her? Can I live
+     without you? But I find I must. If there be any hopes of my return,
+     help it forward, and promote it as much as you are able. But if all
+     that is over, as I fear it is, find out some way or other of coming
+     to me. This you may be sure of, that I shall not look upon myself
+     as quite undone whilst you are with me. But what will become of
+     Tulliola? You must look to that; I must confess, I am entirely at a
+     loss about her. Whatever happens, we must take care of the
+     reputation and marriage of that dear unfortunate girl. As for
+     Cicero, he shall live in my bosom and in my arms. I cannot write
+     any further, my sorrows will not let me.----Support yourself, my
+     dear Terentia, as well as you are able. We have lived and
+     flourished together amidst the greatest honours: it is not our
+     crimes, but our virtues that have distressed us.----Take more than
+     ordinary care of your health; I am more afflicted with your sorrows
+     than my own. Farewell, my Terentia, thou dearest, faithfullest, and
+     best of wives."
+
+Methinks it is a pleasure to see this great man in his family, who makes
+so different a figure in the Forum or Senate of Rome. Every one admires
+the orator and the consul; but for my part, I esteem the husband and the
+father. His private character, with all the little weaknesses of
+humanity, is as amiable as the figure he makes in public is awful and
+majestic. But at the same time that I love to surprise so great an
+author in his private walks, and to survey him in his most familiar
+lights, I think it would be barbarous to form to ourselves any idea of
+mean-spiritedness from these natural openings of his heart, and
+disburdening of his thoughts to a wife. He has written several other
+letters to the same person, but none with so great passion as these of
+which I have given the foregoing extracts.
+
+It would be ill-nature not to acquaint the English reader, that his wife
+was successful in her solicitations for this great man, and saw her
+husband return to the honours of which he had been deprived, with all
+the pomp and acclamation that usually attended the greatest triumph.
+
+
+[Footnote 201: No. 149.]
+
+[Footnote 202: "Epist." xiv, 1-4.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 160.                                         [ADDISON AND STEELE.
+
+From _Saturday, April 15_, to _Tuesday, April 18, 1710_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, April 17._
+
+A common civility to an impertinent fellow often draws upon one a great
+many unforeseen troubles; and if one does not take particular care, will
+be interpreted by him as an overture of friendship and intimacy. This I
+was very sensible of this morning. About two hours before day, I heard a
+great rapping at my door, which continued some time, till my maid could
+get herself ready to go down and see what was the occasion of it. She
+then brought me up word, that there was a gentleman who seemed very much
+in haste, and said he must needs speak with me. By the description she
+gave me of him, and by his voice, which I could hear as I lay in my bed,
+I fancied him to be my old acquaintance the upholsterer,[203] whom I met
+the other day in St. James's Park. For which reason, I bid her tell the
+gentleman, whoever he was, that I was indisposed, that I could see
+nobody, and that, if he had anything to say to me, I desired he would
+leave it in writing. My maid, after having delivered her message, told
+me that the gentleman said he would stay at the next coffee-house till I
+was stirring, and bid her be sure to tell me, that the French were
+driven from the Scarp, and that Douay was invested. He gave her the name
+of another town, which I found she had dropped by the way.
+
+As much as I love to be informed of the success of my brave countrymen,
+I do not care for hearing of a victory before day, and was therefore
+very much out of humour at this unseasonable visit. I had no sooner
+recovered my temper, and was falling asleep, but I was immediately
+startled by a second rap; and upon my maid's opening the door, heard the
+same voice ask her if her master was yet up; and at the same time bid
+her tell me, that he was come on purpose to talk with me about a piece
+of home news that everybody in town will be full of two hours hence. I
+ordered my maid as soon as she came into the room, without hearing her
+message, to tell the gentleman, that whatever his news was, I would
+rather hear it two hours hence than now; and that I persisted in my
+resolution not to speak with anybody that morning. The wench delivered
+my answer presently, and shut the door. It was impossible for me to
+compose myself to sleep after two such unexpected alarms; for which
+reason I put on my clothes in a very peevish humour. I took several
+turns about my chamber, reflecting with a great deal of anger and
+contempt on these volunteers in politics, that undergo all the pain,
+watchfulness, and disquiet of a First Minister, without turning it to
+the advantage either of themselves or their country; and yet it is
+surprising to consider how numerous this species of men is. There is
+nothing more frequent than to find a tailor breaking his rest on the
+affairs of Europe, and to see a cluster of porters sitting upon the
+Ministry. Our streets swarm with politicians, and there is scarce a shop
+which is not held by a statesman. As I was musing after this manner, I
+heard the upholsterer at the door delivering a letter to my maid, and
+begging her, in a very great hurry, to give it to her master as soon as
+ever he was awake, which I opened, and found as follows:
+
+     "MR. BICKERSTAFF,
+
+     "I was to wait upon you about a week ago, to let you know, that the
+     honest gentlemen whom you conversed with upon the bench at the end
+     of the Mall, having heard that I had received five shillings of
+     you, to give you a hundred pounds upon the Great Turk's being
+     driven out of Europe, desired me to acquaint you, that every one of
+     that company would be willing to receive five shillings, to pay a
+     hundred pounds on the same conditions. Our last advices from
+     Muscovy making this a fairer bet than it was a week ago, I do not
+     question but you will accept the wager.
+
+     "But this is not my present business. If you remember, I whispered
+     a word in your ear as we were walking up the Mall, and you see what
+     has happened since. If I had seen you this morning, I would have
+     told you in your ear another secret. I hope you will be recovered
+     of your indisposition by to-morrow morning, when I will wait on you
+     at the same hour as I did this; my private circumstances being
+     such, that I cannot well appear in this quarter of the town after
+     it is day.
+
+     "I have been so taken up with the late good news from Holland, and
+     expectation of further particulars, as well as with other
+     transactions, of which I will tell you more to-morrow morning, that
+     I have not slept a wink these three nights.
+
+     "I have reason to believe that Picardy will soon follow the example
+     of Artois, in case the enemy continue in their present resolution
+     of flying away from us. I think I told you last time we were
+     together my opinion about the Deulle.
+
+     "The honest gentlemen upon the bench bid me tell you, they would be
+     glad to see you often among them. We shall be there all the warm
+     hours of the day, during the present posture of affairs.
+
+     "This happy opening of the campaign will, I hope, give us a very
+     joyful summer; and I propose to take many a pleasant walk with you,
+     if you will sometimes come into the Park; for that is the only
+     place in which I can be free from the malice of my enemies.
+     Farewell till three o'clock to-morrow morning. I am,
+
+                                       "Your most humble Servant, &c.
+
+     "P.S. The King of Sweden is still at Bender."
+
+I should have fretted myself to death at this promise of a second visit,
+if I had not found in his letter an intimation of the good news which I
+have since heard at large. I have however ordered my maid to tie up the
+knocker of my door in such a manner as she would do if I was really
+indisposed. By which means I hope to escape breaking my morning's
+rest.[204]
+
+Since I have given this letter to the public, I shall communicate one or
+two more, which I have lately received from others of my
+correspondents. The following is from a Coquette, who is very angry at
+my having disposed of her in marriage to a Bass-viol:[205]
+
+     "MR. BICKERSTAFF,
+
+     "I thought you would never have descended from the Censor of Great
+     Britain, to become a match-maker. But pray, why so severe upon the
+     Kit? Had I been a Jews-harp, that is nothing but tongue, you could
+     not have used me worse. Of all things, a Bass-viol is my aversion.
+     Had you married me to a Bagpipe, or a Passing-bell, I should have
+     been better pleased. Dear Father Isaac, either choose me a better
+     husband, or I will live and die a Dulcimer. In hopes of receiving
+     satisfaction from you, I am yours, whilst
+
+                                                      "ISABELLA KIT."
+
+The pertness which this fair lady has shown in this letter, was one
+occasion of my joining her to the Bass-viol, which is an instrument that
+wants to be quickened by these little vivacities; as the sprightliness
+of the Kit ought to be checked and curbed by the gravity of the
+Bass-viol.
+
+My next letter is from Tom Folio,[206] who it seems takes it amiss that
+I have published a character of him so much to his disadvantage:
+
+     "SIR,
+
+     "I suppose you meant Tom Fool, when you called me Tom Folio in a
+     late trifling paper of yours; for I find, it is your design to run
+     down all useful and solid learning. The tobacco-paper on which your
+     own writings are usually printed,[207] as well as the incorrectness
+     of the press, and the scurvy letter, sufficiently show the extent
+     of your knowledge. I question not but you look upon John Morphew to
+     be as great a man as Elzevir; and Aldus, to have been such another
+     as Bernard Lintot.[208] If you would give me my revenge, I would
+     only desire of you to let me publish an account of your library,
+     which I daresay would furnish out an extraordinary catalogue.
+
+                                                         "TOM FOLIO."
+
+It has always been my way to baffle reproach with silence, though I
+cannot but observe the disingenuous proceedings of this gentleman, who
+is not content to asperse my writings, but has wounded, through my
+sides, those eminent and worthy citizens, Mr. John Morphew, and Mr.
+Bernard Lintot.[209]
+
+
+[Footnote 203: See No. 155.]
+
+[Footnote 204: The preceding portion of this paper is printed in
+Tickell's edition of Addison's Works.]
+
+[Footnote 205: See No. 157.]
+
+[Footnote 206: See No. 158.]
+
+[Footnote 207: See No. 101.]
+
+[Footnote 208: Bernard Lintot (1675-1736) was Jacob Tonson's principal
+rival in the publishing trade in the time of Queen Anne and George I.]
+
+[Footnote 209: The author of a curious pamphlet, "The Critical
+Specimen," 1711, said he was much divided in his opinion, whether to
+prefer the every way excellent Mr. Jacob Tonson, junior, or Mr. Bernard
+Lintot to be his bookseller, for the latter of whom he had had a
+particular consideration since he received this eulogium from his
+honoured friend Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq.--This pamphlet purports to be a
+specimen of a proposed Life of Rinaldo Furioso, Critic of the Woful
+Countenance,--_i.e._, John Dennis. It contains remarks upon the two good
+lines he wrote (_Spectator_, No. 47) upon the difficulty of
+distinguishing his comedies from his tragedies, &c. &c. There is, too,
+an allusion to the _Tatlers_ and _Spectators_ in the notice that the
+virtues of the critic are to be printed in a very small neat Elzevir
+character, and his extravagances in a noble large letter on royal
+paper.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 161.                                                    [ADDISON.
+
+From _Tuesday, April 18_, to _Thursday, April 20, 1710_.
+
+    ----Nunquam Libertas gratior exstat
+    Quam sub rege pio----
+          CLAUDIAN, De Laudibus Stilichonis, iii. 113.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, April 19._
+
+I was walking two or three days ago in a very pleasing retirement, and
+amusing myself with the reading of that ancient and beautiful allegory,
+called "The Table of Cebes."[210] I was at last so tired with my walk,
+that I sat down to rest myself upon a bench that stood in the midst of
+an agreeable shade. The music of the birds, that filled all the trees
+about me, lulled me asleep before I was aware of it; which was followed
+by a dream, that I impute in some measure to the foregoing author, who
+had made an impression upon my imagination, and put me into his own way
+of thinking.
+
+I fancied myself among the Alps, and, as it is natural in a dream,
+seemed every moment to bound from one summit to another, till at last,
+after having made this airy progress over the tops of several mountains,
+I arrived at the very centre of those broken rocks and precipices. I
+here, methought, saw a prodigious circuit of hills, that reached above
+the clouds, and encompassed a large space of ground, which I had a great
+curiosity to look into. I thereupon continued my former way of
+travelling through a great variety of winter scenes, till I had gained
+the top of these white mountains, which seemed another Alps of snow. I
+looked down from hence into a spacious plain, which was surrounded on
+all sides by this mound of hills, and which presented me with the most
+agreeable prospect I had ever seen. There was a greater variety of
+colours in the embroidery of the meadows, a more lively green in the
+leaves and grass, a brighter crystal in the streams, than what I ever
+met with in any other region. The light itself had something more
+shining and glorious in it than that of which the day is made in other
+places. I was wonderfully astonished at the discovery of such a paradise
+amidst the wildness of those cold, hoary landscapes which lay about it;
+but found at length, that this happy region was inhabited by the Goddess
+of Liberty; whose presence softened the rigours of the climate, enriched
+the barrenness of the soil, and more than supplied the absence of the
+sun. The place was covered with a wonderful profusion of flowers, that
+without being disposed into regular borders and parterres, grew
+promiscuously, and had a greater beauty in their natural luxuriancy and
+disorder, than they could have received from the checks and restraints
+of art. There was a river that arose out of the south side of the
+mountain, that by an infinite number of turns and windings, seemed to
+visit every plant, and cherish the several beauties of the spring, with
+which the fields abounded. After having run to and fro in a wonderful
+variety of meanders, as unwilling to leave so charming a place, it at
+last throws itself into the hollow of a mountain, from whence it passes
+under a long range of rocks, and at length rises in that part of the
+Alps where the inhabitants think it the first source of the Rhone. This
+river, after having made its progress through those free nations,
+stagnates in a huge lake,[211] at the leaving of them, and no sooner
+enters into the regions of slavery, but runs through them with an
+incredible rapidity, and takes its shortest way to the sea.
+
+I descended into the happy fields that lay beneath me, and in the midst
+of them, beheld the goddess sitting upon a throne. She had nothing to
+enclose her but the bounds of her own dominions, and nothing over her
+head but the heavens. Every glance of her eye cast a track of light
+where it fell, that revived the spring, and made all things smile about
+her. My heart grew cheerful at the sight of her, and as she looked upon
+me, I found a certain confidence growing in me, and such an inward
+resolution as I never felt before that time.
+
+On the left hand of the goddess sat the Genius of a Commonwealth, with
+the cap of liberty on her head, and in her hand a wand, like that with
+which a Roman citizen used to give his slaves their freedom. There was
+something mean and vulgar, but at the same time exceeding bold and
+daring, in her air; her eyes were full of fire, but had in them such
+casts of fierceness and cruelty, as made her appear to me rather
+dreadful than amiable. On her shoulder she wore a mantle, on which there
+was wrought a great confusion of figures. As it flew in the wind, I
+could not discern the particular design of them, but saw wounds in the
+bodies of some, and agonies in the faces of others; and over one part of
+it could read in letters of blood, "The Ides of March."
+
+On the right hand of the goddess was the Genius of Monarchy. She was
+clothed in the whitest ermine, and wore a crown of the purest gold upon
+her head. In her hand she held a sceptre like that which is borne by the
+British monarchs. A couple of tame lions lay crouching at her feet: her
+countenance had in it a very great majesty without any mixture of
+terror: her voice was like the voice of an angel, filled with so much
+sweetness, and accompanied with such an air of condescension, as
+tempered the awfulness of her appearance, and equally inspired love and
+veneration into the hearts of all that beheld her.
+
+In the train of the Goddess of Liberty were the several Arts and
+Sciences, who all of them flourished underneath her eye. One of them in
+particular made a greater figure than any of the rest, who held a
+thunderbolt in her hand, which had the power of melting, piercing, or
+breaking everything that stood in its way. The name of this goddess was
+Eloquence.
+
+There were two other dependent goddesses, who made a very conspicuous
+figure in this blissful region. The first of them was seated upon a
+hill, that had every plant growing out of it, which the soil was in its
+own nature capable of producing. The other was seated in a little
+island, that was covered with groves of spices, olives, and
+orange-trees; and in a word, with the products of every foreign clime.
+The name of the first was Plenty, of the second, Commerce. The first
+leaned her right arm upon a plough, and under her left held a huge horn,
+out of which she poured a whole autumn of fruits. The other wore a
+rostral crown upon her head, and kept her eyes fixed upon a compass.
+
+I was wonderfully pleased in ranging through this delightful place, and
+the more so, because it was not encumbered with fences and enclosures;
+till at length, methought, I sprung from the ground, and pitched upon
+the top of a hill, that presented several objects to my sight which I
+had not before taken notice of. The winds that passed over this flowery
+plain, and through the tops of the trees which were full of blossoms,
+blew upon me in such a continued breeze of sweets, that I was
+wonderfully charmed with my situation. I here saw all the inner
+declivities of that great circuit of mountains, whose outside was
+covered with snow, overgrown with huge forests of fir-trees, which
+indeed are very frequently found in other parts of the Alps. These trees
+were inhabited by storks, that came thither in great flights from very
+distant quarters of the world. Methought, I was pleased in my dream to
+see what became of these birds, when, upon leaving the places to which
+they make an annual visit, they rise in great flocks so high till they
+are out of sight; and for that reason have been thought by some modern
+philosophers to take a flight to the moon. But my eyes were soon
+diverted from this prospect, when I observed two great gaps that led
+through this circuit of mountains, where guards and watches were posted
+day and night. Upon examination I found, that there were two formidable
+enemies encamped before each of these avenues, who kept the place in a
+perpetual alarm, and watched all opportunities of invading it.
+
+Tyranny was at the head of one of these armies, dressed in an Eastern
+habit, and grasping in her hand an iron sceptre. Behind her was
+Barbarity, with the garb and complexion of an Ethiopian; Ignorance with
+a turban upon her head; and Persecution holding up a bloody flag,
+embroidered with fleurs-de-luce. These were followed by Oppression,
+Poverty, Famine, Torture, and a dreadful train of appearances, that made
+me tremble to behold them. Among the baggage of this army, I could
+discover racks, wheels, chains, and gibbets, with all the instruments
+art could invent to make human nature miserable.
+
+Before the other avenue I saw Licentiousness, dressed in a garment not
+unlike the Polish cassock, and leading up a whole army of monsters, such
+as Clamour, with a hoarse voice and a hundred tongues; Confusion, with a
+misshapen body and a thousand heads; Impudence, with a forehead of
+brass; and Rapine, with hands of iron. The tumult, noise, and uproar in
+this quarter were so very great, that they disturbed my imagination
+more than is consistent with sleep, and by that means awaked me.
+
+
+[Footnote 210: Cebes, of Thebes, was a disciple of Philolaus and
+Socrates. His [Greek: Pinax] is an account of a table on which human
+life, with all its temptations and dangers, is represented
+symbolically.]
+
+[Footnote 211: The Lake of Geneva.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 162.                                                    [ADDISON.
+
+From _Thursday, April 20_, to _Saturday, April 22, 1710_.
+
+    Tertius e coelo cecidit Cato.--JUV., Sat. ii. 40.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, April 21._
+
+In my younger years I used many endeavours to get a place at Court, and
+indeed continued my pursuits till I arrived at my grand climacteric: but
+at length altogether despairing of success, whether it were for want of
+capacity, friends, or due application, I at last resolved to erect a new
+office, and for my encouragement, to place myself in it. For this
+reason, I took upon me the title and dignity of Censor of Great Britain,
+reserving to myself all such perquisites, profits, and emoluments as
+should arise out of the discharge of the said office. These in truth
+have not been inconsiderable; for, besides those weekly contributions
+which I receive from John Morphew, and those annual subscriptions which
+I propose to myself from the most elegant part of this great island, I
+daily live in a very comfortable affluence of wine, stale beer, Hungary
+water, beef, books, and marrow-bones, which I receive from many
+well-disposed citizens; not to mention the forfeitures which accrue to
+me from the several offenders that appear before me on court-days.
+
+Having now enjoyed this office for the space of a twelve-month, I shall
+do what all good officers ought to do, take a survey of my behaviour,
+and consider carefully whether I have discharged my duty, and acted up
+to the character with which I am invested. For my direction in this
+particular, I have made a narrow search into the nature of the old
+Roman censors, whom I must always regard, not only as my predecessors,
+but as my patterns in this great employment; and have several times
+asked my own heart with great impartiality, whether Cato will not bear a
+more venerable figure among posterity than Bickerstaff.
+
+I find the duty of the Roman censor was twofold. The first part of it
+consisted in making frequent reviews of the people, in casting up their
+numbers, ranging them under their several tribes, disposing them into
+proper classes, and subdividing them into their respective centuries.
+
+In compliance with this part of the office, I have taken many curious
+surveys of this great city. I have collected into particular bodies the
+Dappers[212] and the Smarts,[213] the Natural and Affected Rakes,[214]
+the Pretty Fellows and the Very Pretty Fellows.[215] I have likewise
+drawn out in several distinct parties your Pedants[216] and Men of
+Fire,[217] your Gamesters[218] and Politicians.[219] I have separated
+Cits from Citizens,[220] Freethinkers from Philosophers,[221] Wits from
+Snuff-takers,[222] and Duellists from Men of Honour.[223] I have
+likewise made a calculation of Esquires,[224] not only considering the
+several distinct swarms of them that are settled in the different parts
+of this town, but also that more rugged species that inhabit the fields
+and woods, and are often found in pothouses, and upon haycocks.
+
+I shall pass the soft sex over in silence, having not yet reduced them
+into any tolerable order; as likewise the softer tribe of lovers, which
+will cost me a great deal of time, before I shall be able to cast them
+into their several centuries and subdivisions.
+
+The second part of the Roman censor's office was to look into the
+manners of the people, and to check any growing luxury, whether in diet,
+dress, or building. This duty likewise I have endeavoured to discharge,
+by those wholesome precepts which I have given my countrymen in regard
+to beef and mutton, and the severe censures which I have passed upon
+ragouts and fricassees.[225] There is not, as I am informed, a pair of
+red heels[226] to be seen within ten miles of London, which I may
+likewise ascribe, without vanity, to the becoming zeal which I expressed
+in that particular. I must own, my success with the petticoat[227] is
+not so great: but as I have not yet done with it, I hope I shall in a
+little time put an effectual stop to that growing evil. As for the
+article of building, I intend hereafter to enlarge upon it, having
+lately observed several warehouses, nay private shops, that stand upon
+Corinthian pillars, and whole rows of tin pots showing themselves, in
+order to their sale, through a sash-window.
+
+I have likewise followed the example of the Roman censors, in punishing
+offences according to the quality of the offender. It was usual for them
+to expel a senator who had been guilty of great immoralities out of the
+senate-house, by omitting his name when they called over the list of his
+brethren. In the same manner, to remove effectually several worthless
+men who stand possessed of great honours, I have made frequent draughts
+of dead men[228] out of the vicious part of the nobility, and given them
+up to the new society of upholders, with the necessary orders for their
+interment. As the Roman censors used to punish the knights or gentlemen
+of Rome, by taking away their horses from them, I have seized the
+canes[229] of many criminals of figure, whom I had just reason to
+animadvert upon. As for the offenders among the common people of Rome,
+they were generally chastised, by being thrown out of a higher tribe,
+and placed in one which was not so honourable. My reader cannot but
+think I have had an eye to this punishment, when I have degraded one
+species of men into bombs, squibs, and crackers,[230] and another into
+drums, bass-viols, and bagpipes;[231] not to mention whole packs of
+delinquents whom I have shut up in kennels, and the new hospital which I
+am at present erecting, for the reception of those my countrymen who
+give me but little hopes of their amendment, on the borders of
+Moorfields.[232] I shall only observe upon this last particular, that
+since some late surveys I have taken of this island, I shall think it
+necessary to enlarge the plan of the buildings which I design in this
+quarter.
+
+When my great predecessor Cato the elder stood for the Censorship of
+Rome, there were several other competitors who offered themselves; and
+to get an interest among the people, gave them great promises of the
+mild and gentle treatment which they would use towards them in that
+office. Cato on the contrary told them, he presented himself as a
+candidate, because he knew the age was sunk in immorality and
+corruption; and that if they would give him their votes, he would
+promise them to make use of such a strictness and severity of discipline
+as should recover them out of it. The Roman historians, upon this
+occasion, very much celebrate the public-spiritedness of that people,
+who chose Cato for their censor, notwithstanding his method of
+recommending himself. I may in some measure extol my own countrymen
+upon the same account, who, without any respect to party, or any
+application from myself, have made such generous subscriptions for the
+Censor of Great Britain, as will give a magnificence to my old age, and
+which I esteem more than I would any post in Europe of a hundred times
+the value. I shall only add, that upon looking into my catalogue of
+subscribers, which I intend to print alphabetically in the front of my
+Lucubrations, I find the names of the greatest beauties and wits in the
+whole island of Great Britain, which I only mention for the benefit of
+any of them who have not subscribed, it being my design to close the
+subscription in a very short time.
+
+
+[Footnote 212: See No. 85.]
+
+[Footnote 213: See Nos. 26, 28.]
+
+[Footnote 214: See Nos. 27, 143.]
+
+[Footnote 215: See Nos. 21, 22, 24.]
+
+[Footnote 216: See No. 158.]
+
+[Footnote 217: See No. 61.]
+
+[Footnote 218: See Nos. 13, 14, 15, 56, &c.]
+
+[Footnote 219: See Nos. 40, 155.]
+
+[Footnote 220: See No. 25.]
+
+[Footnote 221: See Nos. 108, 111, 135.]
+
+[Footnote 222: See Nos. 35, 141.]
+
+[Footnote 223: See Nos. 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 39.]
+
+[Footnote 224: See Nos. 19, 115.]
+
+[Footnote 225: See No. 148.]
+
+[Footnote 226: See No. 26.]
+
+[Footnote 227: See No. 116.]
+
+[Footnote 228: See Nos. 96, 110.]
+
+[Footnote 229: See No. 26.]
+
+[Footnote 230: See No. 88.]
+
+[Footnote 231: See No. 153.]
+
+[Footnote 232: See Nos. 62, 127.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 163.                                                    [ADDISON.
+
+From _Saturday, April 22_, to _Tuesday, April 25, 1710_.
+
+    Idem inficeto est inficetior rure,
+    Simul poemata attigit; neque idem unquam
+    Æque est beatus, ac poema cum scribit:
+    Tam gaudet in se, tamque se ipse miratur.
+    Nimirum idem omnes fallimur; neque est quisquam,
+    Quem non in aliqua re videre Suffenum
+    Possis.--CATULLUS, xxii. 14.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Will's Coffee-house, April 24._
+
+I yesterday came hither about two hours before the company generally
+make their appearance, with a design to read over all the newspapers;
+but upon my sitting down, I was accosted by Ned Softly, who saw me from
+a corner in the other end of the room, where I found he had been writing
+something. "Mr. Bickerstaff," says he, "I observe by a late paper of
+yours, that you and I are just of a humour; for you must know, of all
+impertinences, there is nothing which I so much hate as news. I never
+read a Gazette in my life; and never trouble my head about our armies,
+whether they win or lose, or in what part of the world they lie
+encamped." Without giving me time to reply, he drew a paper of verses
+out of his pocket, telling me, that he had something which would
+entertain me more agreeably, and that he would desire my judgment upon
+every line, for that we had time enough before us till the company came
+in.
+
+Ned Softly is a very pretty poet, and a great admirer of easy lines.
+Waller is his favourite: and as that admirable writer has the best and
+worst verses of any among our great English poets, Ned Softly has got
+all the bad ones without book, which he repeats upon occasion, to show
+his reading, and garnish his conversation. Ned is indeed a true English
+reader, incapable of relishing the great and masterly strokes of this
+art; but wonderfully pleased with the little Gothic ornaments of
+epigrammatical conceits, turns, points, and quibbles, which are so
+frequent in the most admired of our English poets, and practised by
+those who want genius and strength to represent, after the manner of the
+ancients, simplicity in its natural beauty and perfection.
+
+Finding myself unavoidably engaged in such a conversation, I was
+resolved to turn my pain into a pleasure, and to divert myself as well
+as I could with so very odd a fellow. "You must understand," says Ned,
+"that the sonnet I am going to read to you was written upon a lady, who
+showed me some verses of her own making, and is perhaps the best poet of
+our age. But you shall hear it." Upon which he began to read as
+follows:
+
+    "_To Mira on her Incomparable Poems._
+
+    I.
+
+    "_When dressed in laurel wreaths you shine,
+      And tune your soft melodious notes,
+    You seem a sister of the Nine,
+      Or Phoebus' self in petticoats._
+
+    II.
+
+    "_I fancy, when your song you sing
+      (Your song you sing with so much art),
+    Your pen was plucked from Cupid's wing;
+      For ah! it wounds me like his dart._"
+
+"Why," says I, "this is a little nosegay of conceits, a very lump of
+salt: every verse has something in it that piques; and then the dart in
+the last line is certainly as pretty a sting in the tail of an epigram
+(for so I think your critics call it) as ever entered into the thought
+of a poet." "Dear Mr. Bickerstaff," says he, shaking me by the hand,
+"everybody knows you to be a judge of these things; and to tell you
+truly, I read over Roscommon's translation of Horace's 'Art of Poetry'
+three several times, before I sat down to write the sonnet which I have
+shown you. But you shall hear it again, and pray observe every line of
+it, for not one of them shall pass without your approbation.
+
+    "_When dressed in laurel wreaths you shine._
+
+"That is," says he, "when you have your garland on; when you are writing
+verses." To which I replied, "I know your meaning: a metaphor!" "The
+same," said he, and went on:
+
+    "_And tune your soft melodious notes._
+
+"Pray observe the gliding of that verse; there is scarce a consonant in
+it: I took care to make it run upon liquids. Give me your opinion of
+it." "Truly," said I, "I think it as good as the former." "I am very
+glad to hear you say so," says he; "but mind the next:
+
+    "_You seem a sister of the Nine._
+
+"That is," says he, "you seem a sister of the Muses; for if you look
+into ancient authors, you will find it was their opinion, that there
+were nine of them." "I remember it very well," said I; "but pray
+proceed."
+
+    "_Or Phoebus' self in petticoats._
+
+"Phoebus," says he, "was the God of Poetry. These little instances,
+Mr. Bickerstaff, show a gentleman's reading. Then to take off from the
+air of learning, which Phoebus and the Muses have given to this first
+stanza, you may observe how it falls all of a sudden into the familiar;
+'in petticoats!'
+
+    "_Or Phoebus' self in petticoats._"
+
+"Let us now," says I, "enter upon the second stanza. I find the first
+line is still a continuation of the metaphor:
+
+    "_I fancy, when your song you sing._"
+
+"It is very right," says he; "but pray observe the turn of words in
+those two lines. I was a whole hour in adjusting of them, and have still
+a doubt upon me, whether in the second line it should be, 'Your song you
+sing'; or, 'You sing your song'? You shall hear them both:
+
+    "_I fancy, when your song you sing
+      (Your song you sing with so much art)._"
+
+Or,
+
+    "_I fancy, when your song you sing
+      (You sing your song with so much art)._"
+
+"Truly," said I, "the turn is so natural either way, that you have made
+me almost giddy with it." "Dear sir," said he, grasping me by the hand,
+"you have a great deal of patience; but pray what do you think of the
+next verse:
+
+    "_Your pen was plucked from Cupid's wing?_"
+
+"Think!" says I; "I think you have made Cupid look like a little goose."
+"That was my meaning," says he; "I think the ridicule is well enough hit
+off. But we now come to the last, which sums up the whole matter:
+
+    "_For ah! it wounds me like his dart._
+
+"Pray, how do you like that 'Ah!' Does it not make a pretty figure in
+that place? 'Ah!' It looks as if I felt the dart, and cried out at being
+pricked with it:
+
+    "_For ah! it wounds me like his dart._
+
+"My friend Dick Easy,"[233] continued he, "assured me he would rather
+have written that 'Ah!' than to have been the author of the 'Æneid.' He
+indeed objected that I made Mira's pen like a quill in one of the lines,
+and like a dart in the other. But as to that--" "Oh! as to that," says
+I, "it is but supposing Cupid to be like a porcupine, and his quills and
+darts will be the same thing." He was going to embrace me for the hint;
+but half a dozen critics coming into the room, whose faces he did not
+like, he conveyed the sonnet into his pocket, and whispered me in the
+ear, he would show it me again as soon as his man had written it over
+fair.
+
+
+[Footnote 233: Perhaps Henry Cromwell. See Nos. 47, 49, 165, and Mrs.
+Elizabeth Thomas' "Pylades and Corinna," i. 194.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 164.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Tuesday, April 25_, to _Thursday, April 27, 1710_.
+
+    Qui sibi promittit cives, urbem sibi curæ,
+    Imperium fore et Italiam, delubra Deorum,
+    Quo patre sit natus, num ignotâ matre inhonestus,
+    Omnes mortales curare et quærere cogit.
+                                    HOR., I Sat. vi. 34.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, April 26._
+
+
+I have lately been looking over the many packets of letters which I have
+received from all quarters of Great Britain, as well as from foreign
+countries, since my entering upon the office of Censor, and indeed am
+very much surprised to see so great a number of them, and pleased to
+think that I have so far increased the revenue of the Post Office. As
+this collection will grow daily, I have digested it into several
+bundles, and made proper endorsements on each particular letter, it
+being my design, when I lay down the work that I am now engaged in, to
+erect a Paper Office, and give it to the public.[234]
+
+I could not but make several observations upon reading over the letters
+of my correspondents: as first of all, on the different tastes that
+reign in the different parts of this city. I find, by the approbations
+which are given me, that I am seldom famous on the same days on both
+sides of Temple Bar; and that when I am in the greatest repute within
+the Liberties, I dwindle at the court end of the town. Sometimes I sink
+in both these places at the same time; but for my comfort, my name has
+then been up in the districts of Wapping and Rotherhithe. Some of my
+correspondents desire me to be always serious, and others to be always
+merry. Some of them entreat me to go to bed and fall into a dream, and
+like me better when I am asleep than when I am awake: others advise me
+to sit all night upon the stars, and be more frequent in my astrological
+observations; for that a vision is not properly a lucubration. Some of
+my readers thank me for filling my paper with the flowers of antiquity,
+others desire news from Flanders. Some approve my criticisms on the
+dead, and others my censures on the living. For this reason, I once
+resolved in the new edition of my works, to range my several papers
+under distinct heads, according as their principal design was to benefit
+and instruct the different capacities of my readers, and to follow the
+example of some very great authors, by writing at the head of each
+discourse, "Ad Aulam," "Ad Academiam," "Ad Populum," "Ad Clerum."
+
+There is no particular in which my correspondents of all ages,
+conditions, sexes, and complexions, universally agree, except only in
+their thirst after scandal. It is impossible to conceive how many have
+recommended their neighbours to me upon this account, or how
+unmercifully I have been abused by several unknown hands, for not
+publishing the secret histories of cuckoldom that I have received from
+almost every street in town.
+
+It would indeed be very dangerous for me to read over the many praises
+and eulogiums which come post to me from all the corners of the nation,
+were they not mixed with many checks, reprimands, scurrilities, and
+reproaches, which several of my good-natured countrymen cannot forbear
+sending me, though it often costs them twopence or a groat before they
+can convey them to my hands:[235] so that sometimes when I am put into
+the best humour in the world, after having read a panegyric upon my
+performance, and looked upon myself as a benefactor to the British
+nation, the next letter perhaps I open, begins with, "You old doting
+scoundrel;" "Are not you a sad dog?" "Sirrah, you deserve to have your
+nose slit;" and the like ingenious conceits. These little mortifications
+are necessary to surpass that pride and vanity which naturally arise in
+the mind of a received author, and enable me to bear the reputation
+which my courteous readers bestow upon me, without becoming a coxcomb by
+it. It was for the same reason, that when a Roman general entered the
+city in the pomp of a triumph, the commonwealth allowed of several
+little drawbacks to his reputation, by conniving at such of the rabble
+as repeated libels and lampoons upon him within his hearing, and by that
+means engaged his thoughts upon his weakness and imperfections, as well
+as on the merits that advanced him to so great honours. The conqueror
+however was not the less esteemed for being a man in some particulars,
+because he appeared as a god in others.
+
+There is another circumstance in which my countrymen have dealt very
+perversely with me; and that is, in searching not only into my own life,
+but also into the lives of my ancestors. If there has been a blot in my
+family for these ten generations, it has been discovered by some or
+other of my correspondents. In short, I find the ancient family of the
+Bickerstaffs has suffered very much through the malice and prejudice of
+my enemies. Some of them twit me in the teeth with the conduct of my
+Aunt Margery:[236] nay, there are some who have been so disingenuous, as
+to throw Maud the Milkmaid[237] into my dish, notwithstanding I myself
+was the first who discovered that alliance. I reap however many
+benefits from the malice of these my enemies, as they let me see my own
+faults, and give me a view of myself in the worst light; as they hinder
+me from being blown up by flattery and self-conceit; as they make me
+keep a watchful eye over my own actions, and at the same time make me
+cautious how I talk of others, and particularly of my friends and
+relations, or value myself upon the antiquity of my family.
+
+But the most formidable part of my correspondents are those whose
+letters are filled with threats and menaces. I have been treated so
+often after this manner, that not thinking it sufficient to fence well,
+in which I am now arrived at the utmost perfection,[238] and carry
+pistols about me, which I have always tucked within my girdle; I several
+months since made my will, settled my estate, and took leave of my
+friends, looking upon myself as no better than a dead man. Nay, I went
+so far as to write a long letter to the most intimate acquaintance I
+have in the world, under the character of a departed person, giving him
+an account of what brought me to that untimely end, and of the fortitude
+with which I met it. This letter being too long for the present paper, I
+intend to print it by itself very suddenly; and at the same time I must
+confess, I took my hint of it from the behaviour of an old soldier in
+the Civil Wars, who was corporal of a company in a regiment of foot,
+about the same time that I myself was a cadet in the King's army.
+
+This gentleman was taken by the enemy; and the two parties were upon
+such terms at that time, that we did not treat each other as prisoners
+of war, but as traitors and rebels. The poor corporal being condemned to
+die, wrote a letter to his wife when under sentence of execution. He
+writ on the Thursday, and was to be executed on the Friday: but
+considering that the letter would not come to his wife's hands till
+Saturday, the day after execution, and being at that time more
+scrupulous than ordinary in speaking exact truth, he formed his letter
+rather according to the posture of his affairs when she should read it,
+than as they stood when he sent it; though it must be confessed, there
+is a certain perplexity in the style of it, which the reader will easily
+pardon, considering his circumstances:
+
+     "DEAR WIFE,
+
+     "Hoping you are in good health, as I am at this present writing,
+     this is to let you know, that yesterday, between the hours of
+     eleven and twelve, I was hanged, drawn and quartered. I died very
+     penitently, and everybody thought my case very hard. Remember me
+     kindly to my poor fatherless children.
+
+                                              "Yours till death,
+                                                              "W. B."
+
+It so happened, that this honest fellow was relieved by a party of his
+friends, and had the satisfaction to see all the rebels hanged who had
+been his enemies. I must not omit a circumstance which exposed him to
+raillery his whole life after. Before the arrival of the next post, that
+would have set all things clear, his wife was married to a second
+husband, who lived in the peaceful possession of her; and the corporal,
+who was a man of plain understanding, did not care to stir in the
+matter, as knowing that she had the news of his death under his own
+hand, which she might have produced upon occasion.
+
+
+[Footnote 234: This idea was carried out in 1725, when Charles Lillie
+published, by Steele's permission, two volumes of "Original and genuine
+Letters sent to the _Tatler_ and _Spectator_, during the time those
+works were publishing. None of which have been before printed." See No.
+110.]
+
+[Footnote 235: See Nos. 117, 186, Advertisements.]
+
+[Footnote 236: See No. 151.]
+
+[Footnote 237: See No. 75.]
+
+[Footnote 238: It would hardly be possible for a man of Bickerstaff's
+age to acquire perfection in fencing after only a few months' practice.
+See No. 173: "I first began to learn to push this last winter."]
+
+
+
+
+No. 165.                                                    [ADDISON.
+
+From _Thursday, April 27_, to _Saturday, April 29, 1710_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, April 28._
+
+It has always been my endeavour to distinguish between realities and
+appearances, and to separate true merit from the pretence to it. As it
+shall ever be my study to make discoveries of this nature in human life,
+and to settle the proper distinctions between the virtues and
+perfections of mankind, and those false colours and resemblances of them
+that shine alike in the eyes of the vulgar; so I shall be more
+particularly careful to search into the various merits and pretences of
+the learned world. This is the more necessary, because there seems to be
+a general combination among the pedants to extol one another's labours,
+and cry up one another's parts; while men of sense, either through that
+modesty which is natural to them, or the scorn they have for such
+trifling commendations, enjoy their stock of knowledge like a hidden
+treasure, with satisfaction and silence. Pedantry indeed in learning is
+like hypocrisy in religion, a form of knowledge without the power of it,
+that attracts the eyes of the common people, breaks out in noise and
+show, and finds its reward not from any inward pleasure that attends it,
+but from the praises and approbations which it receives from men.
+
+Of this shallow species there is not a more importunate, empty, and
+conceited animal, than that which is generally known by the name of a
+critic. This, in the common acceptation of the word, is one that,
+without entering into the sense and soul of an author, has a few general
+rules, which, like mechanical instruments, he applies to the works of
+every writer, and as they quadrate with them, pronounces the author
+perfect or defective. He is master of a certain set of words, as "unity,
+style, fire, phlegm, easy, natural, turn, sentiment," and the like;
+which he varies, compounds, divides, and throws together, in every part
+of his discourse, without any thought or meaning. The marks you may know
+him by are, an elevated eye, and dogmatical brow, a positive voice, and
+a contempt for everything that comes out, whether he has read it or not.
+He dwells altogether in generals. He praises or dispraises in the lump.
+He shakes his head very frequently at the pedantry of Universities, and
+bursts into laughter when you mention an author that is not known at
+Will's. He has formed his judgment upon Homer, Horace, and Virgil, not
+from their own works, but from those of Rapin and Bossu. He knows his
+own strength so well, that he never dares praise anything in which he
+has not a French author for his voucher.
+
+With these extraordinary talents and accomplishments, Sir Timothy
+Tittle[239] puts men in vogue, or condemns them to obscurity, and sits
+as judge of life and death upon every author that appears in public. It
+is impossible to represent the pangs, agonies, and convulsions which Sir
+Timothy expresses in every feature of his face, and muscle of his body,
+upon the reading of a bad poet.
+
+About a week ago I was engaged at a friend's of mine in an agreeable
+conversation with his wife and daughters, when in the height of our
+mirth, Sir Timothy, who makes love to my friend's eldest daughter, came
+in amongst us puffing and blowing as if he had been very much out of
+breath. He immediately called for a chair, and desired leave to sit
+down, without any further ceremony. I asked him where he had been?
+whether he was out of order? He only replied, that he was quite spent,
+and fell a-cursing in soliloquy. I could hear him cry, "A wicked rogue;"
+"An execrable wretch;" "Was there ever such a monster?" The young ladies
+upon this began to be affrighted, and asked whether any one had hurt
+him? He answered nothing, but still talked to himself. "To lay the first
+scene," says he, "in St. James's Park, and the last in Northamptonshire."
+"Is that all?" says I. "Then I suppose you have been at the rehearsal of
+a play this morning?" "Been!" says he; "I have been at Northampton, in
+the Park, in a lady's bed-chamber, in a dining-room, everywhere; the
+rogue has led me such a dance." Though I could scarce forbear laughing
+at his discourse, I told him I was glad it was no worse, and that he was
+only metaphorically weary. "In short, sir," says he, "the author has not
+observed a single unity in his whole play; the scene shifts in every
+dialogue; the villain has hurried me up and down at such a rate, that I
+am tired off my legs." I could not but observe with some pleasure, that
+the young lady whom he made love to conceived a very just aversion to
+him, upon seeing him so very passionate in trifles. And as she had that
+natural sense which makes her a better judge than a thousand critics,
+she began to rally him upon this foolish humour. "For my part," says
+she, "I never knew a play take that was written up to your rules, as you
+call them." "How, madam!" says he; "is that your opinion? I am sure you
+have a better taste." "It is a pretty kind of magic," says she, "the
+poets have, to transport an audience from place to place without the
+help of a coach and horses. I could travel round the world at such a
+rate. 'Tis such an entertainment as an enchantress finds when she
+fancies herself in a wood, or upon a mountain, at a feast, or a
+solemnity; though at the same time she has never stirred out of her
+cottage." "Your simile, madam," says Sir Timothy, "is by no means
+just." "Pray," says she, "let my similes pass without a criticism. I
+must confess," continued she (for I found she was resolved to exasperate
+him), "I laughed very heartily at the last new comedy which you found so
+much fault with." "But, madam," says he, "you ought not to have laughed;
+and I defy any one to show me a single rule that you could laugh by."
+"Ought not to laugh!" says she: "pray, who should hinder me?" "Madam,"
+says he, "there are such people in the world as Rapin, Dacier, and
+several others, that ought to have spoiled your mirth." "I have heard,"
+says the young lady, "that your great critics are always very bad poets:
+I fancy there is as much difference between the works of one and the
+other, as there is between the carriage of a dancing-master and a
+gentleman. I must confess," continued she, "I would not be troubled with
+so fine a judgment as yours is; for I find you feel more vexation in a
+bad comedy than I do in a deep tragedy." "Madam," says Sir Timothy,
+"that is not my fault; they should learn the art of writing." "For my
+part," says the young lady, "I should think the greatest art in your
+writers of comedies is to please." "To please!" says Sir Timothy; and
+immediately fell a-laughing. "Truly," says she, "that is my opinion."
+Upon this, he composed his countenance, looked upon his watch, and took
+his leave.
+
+I hear that Sir Timothy has not been at my friend's house since this
+notable conference, to the great satisfaction of the young lady, who by
+this means has got rid of a very impertinent fop.
+
+I must confess, I could not but observe, with a great deal of surprise,
+how this gentleman, by his ill-nature, folly, and affectation, has made
+himself capable of suffering so many imaginary pains, and looking with
+such a senseless severity upon the common diversions of life.
+
+
+[Footnote 239: Perhaps Henry Cromwell; see Nos. 47, 49, 163.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 166.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Saturday, April 29_, to _Tuesday, May 2, 1710_.
+
+    ----Dicenda tacenda loquutus.--HOR., I Ep. vii. 72.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_White's Chocolate-house, May 1._
+
+The world is so overgrown with singularities in behaviour, and method of
+living, that I have no sooner laid before mankind the absurdity of one
+species of men, but there starts up to my view some new sect of
+impertinents that had before escaped notice. This afternoon, as I was
+talking with fine Mrs. Sprightly's porter, and desiring admittance upon
+an extraordinary occasion, it was my fate to be spied by Tom Modely
+riding by in his chariot. He did me the honour to stop, and asked what I
+did there of a Monday? I answered that I had business of importance,
+which I wanted to communicate to the lady of the house. Tom is one of
+those fools who look upon knowledge of the fashion to be the only
+liberal science; and was so rough as to tell me, that a well-bred man
+would as soon call upon a lady (who keeps a day) at midnight, as on any
+day but that on which she professes being at home. There are rules and
+decorums which are never to be transgressed by those who understand the
+world; and he who offends in this kind, ought not to take it ill if he
+is turned away, even when he sees the person look out at her window whom
+he inquires for. "Nay," said he, "my Lady Dimple is so positive in this
+rule, that she takes it for a piece of good breeding and distinction to
+deny herself with her own mouth. Mrs. Comma,[240] the great scholar,
+insists upon it; and I myself have heard her assert, that a lord's
+porter, or a lady's woman, cannot be said to lie in that case, because
+they act by instruction; and their words are no more their own, than
+those of a puppet."
+
+He was going on with this ribaldry, when on a sudden he looked on his
+watch, and said, he had twenty visits to make, and drove away without
+further ceremony. I was then at leisure to reflect upon the tasteless
+manner of life, which a set of idle fellows lead in this town, and spend
+youth itself with less spirit, than other men do their old age. These
+expletives in human society, though they are in themselves wholly
+insignificant, become of some consideration when they are mixed with
+others. I am very much at a loss how to define, or under what character,
+distinction, or denomination, to place them, except you give me leave to
+call them the Order of the Insipids. This order is in its extent like
+that of the Jesuits, and you see of them in every way of life, and in
+every profession. Tom Modely has long appeared to me at the head of this
+species. By being habitually in the best company, he knows perfectly
+well when a coat is well cut, or a periwig well mounted.[241] As soon as
+you enter the place where he is, he tells the next man to him who is
+your tailor, and judges of you more from the choice of your
+periwig-maker than of your friend. His business in this world is to be
+well dressed; and the greatest circumstance that is to be recorded in
+his annals is, that he wears twenty shirts a week. Thus, without ever
+speaking reason among the men, or passion among the women, he is
+everywhere well received; and without any one man's esteem, he has every
+man's indulgence.
+
+This order has produced great numbers of tolerable copiers in painting,
+good rhymers in poetry, and harmless projectors in politics. You may see
+them at first sight grow acquainted by sympathy, insomuch that one who
+had not studied nature, and did not know the true cause of their sudden
+familiarities, would think that they had some secret intimation of each
+other, like the freemasons. The other day at Will's I heard Modely, and
+a critic of the same order, show their equal talents with great delight.
+The learned insipid was commending Racine's turns; the genteel insipid,
+Devillier's curls.[242]
+
+These creatures, when they are not forced into any particular
+employment, for want of ideas in their own imaginations, are the
+constant plague of all they meet with by inquiries for news and scandal,
+which makes them the heroes of visiting-days, where they help the design
+of the meeting, which is to pass away that odious thing called Time, in
+discourses too trivial to raise any reflections which may put well-bred
+persons to the trouble of thinking.
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, May 1._
+
+I was looking out of my parlour window this morning,[243] and receiving
+the honours which Margery, the milkmaid to our lane, was doing me, by
+dancing before my door with the plate of half her customers on her
+head, when Mr. Clayton,[244] the author of "Arsinoe," made me a visit,
+and desired me to insert the following advertisement in my ensuing
+paper:
+
+     The Pastoral Masque composed by Mr. Clayton, author of "Arsinoe,"
+     will be performed on Wednesday the 3rd instant, in the great room
+     at York Buildings.[245] Tickets are to be had at White's
+     Chocolate-house, St. James's Coffee-house in St. James's Street,
+     and Young Man's Coffee-house.[246]
+
+     Note. The tickets delivered out for the 27th of April will be
+     taken then.
+
+When I granted his request, I made one to him, which was, that the
+performers should put their instruments in tune before the audience came
+in; for that I thought the resentment of the Eastern Prince, who,
+according to the old story, took "tuning" for "playing," to be very just
+and natural. He was so civil, as not only to promise that favour, but
+also to assure me, that he would order the heels of the performers to be
+muffled in cotton, that the artists in so polite an age as ours, may not
+intermix with their harmony a custom which so nearly resembles the
+stamping dances of the West Indians or Hottentots.
+
+
+ADVERTISEMENTS.
+
+A Bass-viol of Mr. Bickerstaff's acquaintance, whose mind and fortune do
+not very exactly agree, proposes to set himself to sale by way of
+lottery.[247] Ten thousand pounds is the sum to be raised, at threepence
+a ticket, in consideration that there are more women who are willing to
+be married than that can spare a greater sum. He has already made over
+his person to trustees for the said money to be forthcoming, and ready
+to take to wife the fortunate woman that wins him.
+
+N.B. Tickets are given out by Mr. Charles Lillie, and Mr. John Morphew.
+Each adventurer must be a virgin, and subscribe her name to her
+ticket.[248]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Whereas the several churchwardens of most of the parishes within the
+bills of mortality, have in an earnest manner applied themselves by way
+of petition, and have also made a presentment of the vain and loose
+deportment during divine service, of persons of too great figure in all
+their said parishes for their reproof: And whereas it is therein set
+forth, that by salutations given each other, hints, shrugs, ogles,
+playing of fans, and fooling with canes at their mouths, and other
+wanton gesticulations, their whole congregation appears rather a
+theatrical audience, than a house of devotion: It is hereby ordered,
+that all canes, cravats, bosom-laces, muffs, fans, snuff-boxes, and all
+other instruments made use of to give persons unbecoming airs, shall be
+immediately forfeited and sold; and of the sum arising from the sale
+thereof, a ninth part shall be paid to the poor, and the rest to the
+overseers.[249]
+
+
+[Footnote 240: "I have been informed by a relation of hers, that when
+Mrs. Mary Astell has accidentally seen needless visitors coming, whom
+she knew to be incapable of discoursing upon any useful subject, she
+would look out of the window, and jestingly tell them (as Cato did
+Nasica), 'Mrs. Astell is not at home'; and in good earnest keep them
+out, not suffering such triflers to make inroads upon her more serious
+hours" (Ballard's "Memoirs of British Learned Ladies," 1775, p. 309).
+For Swift's attacks on Mary Astell, see Nos. 32, 63.]
+
+[Footnote 241: "Monter une perruque" is a French barber's phrase.]
+
+[Footnote 242: See Nos. 26, 29. Duvillier or Devillier was a
+hairdresser.]
+
+[Footnote 243: May Day. In the _Spectator_ (No. 365) Budgell says: "It
+is likewise on the first day of this month that we see the ruddy
+milkmaid exerting herself in a most sprightly manner under a pyramid of
+silver tankards, and like the virgin Tarpeia, oppressed by the costly
+ornaments which her benefactors lay upon her." Similarly, Misson
+("Travels in England," p. 307) says: "On the first of May, and the five
+or six days following, all the pretty young country girls that serve the
+town with milk, dress themselves up very neatly, and borrow abundance of
+silver plate, whereof they make a pyramid, which they adorn with ribands
+and flowers, and carry upon their heads, instead of their common
+milkpails. In this equipage, accompanied by some of their fellow
+milkmaids, and a bagpipe and fiddle, they go from door to door,
+dancing before the houses of their customers."]
+
+[Footnote 244: "There is a Pastoral Masque to be performed on the 27th
+inst., in York Buildings, for the benefit of Mr. Clayton, and composed
+by him. This gentleman is the person who introduced the Italian opera
+into Great Britain, and hopes he has pretensions to the favour of all
+lovers of music, who can get over the prejudice of his being their
+countryman" (_Tatler_, original folio, No. 163).
+
+Thomas Clayton, in association with Haym and Dieuport, began a series of
+operatic performances at Drury Lane Theatre in 1705, commencing with
+"Arsinoe," which was a success. In 1707 he produced a setting of
+Addison's "Rosamond," but it was played only three times. The opera
+performances were continued until 1711, after which Clayton gave
+concerts in York Buildings (see _Spectator_, No. 258). He died about
+1730.]
+
+[Footnote 245: In the Strand. In 1713 Steele started a scheme for "a
+noble entertainment for persons of refined taste," in York Buildings.]
+
+[Footnote 246: At Charing Cross, with a back door into Spring Gardens.]
+
+[Footnote 247: See Nos. 153, 157, 168.]
+
+[Footnote 248: In the _Daily Courant_ for Aug. 18, 1710, there was
+advertised as just published a pamphlet called "A Good Husband for Five
+Shillings; or, Esquire Bickerstaff's Lottery for the London Ladies.
+Wherein those that want bedfellows, in an honest way, will have a fair
+chance to be well fitted." It was complained that husbands were scarce
+through the war. The title exhausts all that is of interest in the
+pamphlet, with the exception of the frontispiece, which represents a
+room in which a lottery is being drawn, with two wheels of fortune, &c.]
+
+[Footnote 249: Nichols notes that a correction in this number, intimated
+in the following paper, was actually made in a copy before him, and
+concluded that there was sometimes more than one impression of the
+original folio issue. This was certainly the case. There is a set of the
+_Tatlers_ in folio in the British Museum (press-mark 628 m 13) in which
+many of the numbers are set up somewhat differently from the ordinary
+issue (Nos. 4, 28, 29, 30, &c.). Sometimes there is a line more or less
+in a column; sometimes slightly different type is used in one or two
+advertisements.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 167.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Tuesday, May 2_, to _Thursday, May 4, 1710_.
+
+    Segnius irritant animos demissa per aurem,
+    Quam quæ sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus----
+                                HOR., Ars Poet. 180.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, May 2._
+
+Having received notice, that the famous actor Mr. Betterton[250] was to
+be interred this evening in the cloisters near Westminster Abbey, I was
+resolved to walk thither, and see the last office done to a man whom I
+had always very much admired, and from whose action I had received more
+strong impressions of what is great and noble in human nature, than from
+the arguments of the most solid philosophers, or the descriptions of the
+most charming poets I had ever read. As the rude and untaught multitude
+are no way wrought upon more effectually than by seeing public
+punishments and executions, so men of letters and education feel their
+humanity most forcibly exercised, when they attend the obsequies of men
+who had arrived at any perfection in liberal accomplishments. Theatrical
+action is to be esteemed as such, except it be objected, that we cannot
+call that an art which cannot be attained by art. Voice, stature,
+motion, and other gifts, must be very bountifully bestowed by Nature, or
+labour and industry will but push the unhappy endeavourer, in that way,
+the further off his wishes.
+
+Such an actor as Mr. Betterton ought to be recorded with the same
+respect as Roscius among the Romans. The greatest orator[251] has
+thought fit to quote his judgment, and celebrate his life. Roscius was
+the example to all that would form themselves into proper and winning
+behaviour. His action was so well adapted to the sentiments he
+expressed, that the youth of Rome thought they wanted only to be
+virtuous to be as graceful in their appearance as Roscius. The
+imagination took a lively impression of what was great and good; and
+they who never thought of setting up for the arts of imitation, became
+themselves imitable characters.
+
+There is no human invention so aptly calculated for the forming a
+free-born people as that of a theatre. Tully reports that the celebrated
+player of whom I am speaking used frequently to say, "The perfection of
+an actor is only to become what he is doing." Young men, who are too
+unattentive to receive lectures, are irresistibly taken with
+performances. Hence it is, that I extremely lament the little relish the
+gentry of this nation have at present for the just and noble
+representations in some of our tragedies. The operas which are of late
+introduced can leave no trace behind them that can be of service beyond
+the present moment. To sing and to dance are accomplishments very few
+have any thoughts of practising; but to speak justly, and move
+gracefully, is what every man thinks he does perform, or wishes he did.
+
+I have hardly a notion, that any performer of antiquity could surpass
+the action of Mr. Betterton in any of the occasions in which he has
+appeared on our stage. The wonderful agony which he appeared in, when he
+examined the circumstance of the handkerchief in "Othello"; the mixture
+of love that intruded upon his mind upon the innocent answers Desdemona
+makes, betrayed in his gesture such a variety and vicissitude of
+passions, as would admonish a man to be afraid of his own heart, and
+perfectly convince him, that it is to stab it to admit that worst of
+daggers, jealousy. Whoever reads in his closet this admirable scene,
+will find that he cannot, except he has as warm an imagination as
+Shakespeare himself, find any but dry, incoherent, and broken sentences:
+but a reader that has seen Betterton act it, observes there could not be
+a word added; that longer speeches had been unnatural, nay impossible,
+in Othello's circumstances. The charming passage in the same tragedy,
+where he tells the manner of winning the affection of his mistress, was
+urged with so moving and graceful an energy, that while I walked in the
+cloisters, I thought of him with the same concern as if I waited for the
+remains of a person who had in real life done all that I had seen him
+represent. The gloom of the place, and faint lights before the ceremony
+appeared, contributed to the melancholy disposition I was in; and I
+began to be extremely afflicted, that Brutus and Cassius had any
+difference; that Hotspur's gallantry was so unfortunate; and that the
+mirth and good humour of Falstaff could not exempt him from the grave.
+Nay, this occasion in me, who look upon the distinctions amongst men to
+be merely scenical, raised reflections upon the emptiness of all human
+perfection and greatness in general; and I could not but regret, that
+the sacred heads which lie buried in the neighbourhood of this little
+portion of earth in which my poor old friend is deposited, are returned
+to dust as well as he, and that there is no difference in the grave
+between the imaginary and the real monarch. This made me say of human
+life itself with Macbeth:
+
+    "_To-morrow, to-morrow, and to-morrow,
+    Creeps in a stealing pace from day to day,
+    To the last moment of recorded time!
+    And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
+    To their eternal night! Out, out short candle!
+    Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
+    That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
+    And then is heard no more._"[252]
+
+The mention I have here made of Mr. Betterton, for whom I had, as long
+as I have known anything, a very great esteem and gratitude for the
+pleasure he gave me, can do him no good; but it may possibly be of
+service to the unhappy woman he has left behind him,[253] to have it
+known, that this great tragedian was never in a scene half so moving as
+the circumstances of his affairs created at his departure. His wife,
+after the cohabitation of forty years in the strictest amity, has long
+pined away with a sense of his decay, as well in his person as his
+little fortune; and in proportion to that, she has herself decayed both
+in her health and her reason. Her husband's death, added to her age and
+infirmities, would certainly have determined her life, but that the
+greatness of her distress has been her relief, by a present deprivation
+of her senses. This absence of reason is her best defence against age,
+sorrow, poverty, and sickness. I dwell upon this account so distinctly,
+in obedience to a certain great spirit[254] who hides her name, and has
+by letter applied to me to recommend to her some object of compassion,
+from whom she may be concealed.
+
+This, I think, is a proper occasion for exerting such heroic generosity;
+and as there is an ingenuous shame in those who have known better
+fortune to be reduced to receive obligations, as well as a becoming pain
+in the truly generous to receive thanks in this case, both those
+delicacies are preserved; for the person obliged is as incapable of
+knowing her benefactress, as her benefactress is unwilling to be known
+by her.
+
+
+ADVERTISEMENT.
+
+Whereas it has been signified to the Censor, that under the pretence
+that he has encouraged the Moving Picture,[255] and particularly admired
+the Walking Statue, some persons within the Liberties of Westminster
+have vended Walking Pictures, insomuch that the said pictures have
+within few days after sales by auction returned to the habitation of
+their first proprietors; that matter has been narrowly looked into, and
+orders are given to Pacolet to take notice of all who are concerned in
+such frauds, with directions to draw their pictures, that they may be
+hanged in effigy, _in terrorem_ of all auctions for the future.
+
+
+[Footnote 250: See Nos. 1, 71, 157. On the 25th of April 1710, there was
+given for Betterton's benefit, "The Maid's Tragedy" of Beaumont and
+Fletcher, in which he himself performed his celebrated part of
+Melantius. This, however, was the last time he was to appear on the
+stage, for, having been suddenly seized with the gout, and being
+impatient at the thought of disappointing his friends, he made use of
+outward applications to reduce the swellings of his feet, which enabled
+him to walk on the stage, though obliged to have his foot in a slipper.
+But the fomentations he had used occasioning a revulsion of the gouty
+humour to the nobler parts, threw the distemper up into his head, and
+terminated his life on the 28th of April. On the 2nd of May his body was
+interred with much ceremony in the cloister of Westminster.--"This day
+is published, 'The Life of Mr. Thomas Betterton'" (_Postboy_, Sept. 16
+to 19, 1710). This book, attributed to Gildon, is dedicated to Richard
+Steele, Esq. "I have chosen," says the author, "to address this
+discourse to you, because the Art of which it treats is of your familiar
+acquaintance, and the graces of action and utterance come naturally
+under the consideration of a dramatic writer."]
+
+[Footnote 251: Cicero.]
+
+[Footnote 252: "Macbeth," act v. sc. 5, quoted inaccurately by Steele.]
+
+[Footnote 253: Betterton married, in 1662, Maria Saunderson, an actress
+who seems to have been as good as she was clever. She lost her reason
+after the death of her husband, but recovered it before her death at the
+end of 1711. By her will she bequeathed to Mrs. Bracegirdle, Mrs. Barry,
+Mr. Doggett, Mr. Wilks, and Mr. Dent, twenty shillings a piece for
+rings; and her husband's picture to Mrs. Anne Stevenson, whom she
+appointed her residuary legatee.]
+
+[Footnote 254: Possibly Lady Elizabeth Hastings (see Nos. 42, 49), or
+perhaps Queen Anne, though it is not likely that she consulted Steele by
+letter on the subject. The Queen gave Mrs. Betterton a pension on the
+death of her husband, "but," says Cibber, "she lived not to receive more
+than the first half year of it."]
+
+[Footnote 255: See No. 129.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 168.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Thursday, May 4_, to _Saturday, May 6, 1710_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, May 5._
+
+Never was man so much teased, or suffered half the uneasiness, as I have
+done this evening, between a couple of fellows with whom I was
+unfortunately engaged to sup, where there were also several others in
+company. One of them is the most invincibly impudent, and the other as
+incorrigibly absurd. Upon hearing my name, the man of audacity, as he
+calls himself, began to assume an awkward way of reserve, by way of
+ridicule upon me as a Censor, and said, he must have a care of his
+behaviour, for there would notes be writ upon all that should pass. The
+man of freedom and ease (for such the other thinks himself) asked me,
+whether my sister Jenny was breeding or not? After they had done with
+me, they were impertinent to a very smart, but well-bred man, who stood
+his ground very well, and let the company see they ought, but could not
+be out of countenance. I look upon such a defence as a real good action;
+for while he received their fire, there was a modest and worthy young
+gentleman sat secure by him, and a lady of the family at the same time,
+guarded against the nauseous familiarity of the one, and the more
+painful mirth of the other. This conversation, where there were a
+thousand things said not worth repeating, made me consider with myself,
+how it is that men of these disagreeable characters often go great
+lengths in the world, and seldom fail of outstripping men of merit; nay,
+succeed so well, that with a load of imperfections on their heads, they
+go on in opposition to general disesteem, while they who are every way
+their superiors, languish away their days, though possessed of the
+approbation and goodwill of all who know them.
+
+If we would examine into the secret spring of action in the impudent and
+the absurd, we shall find, though they bear a great resemblance in their
+behaviour, that they move upon very different principles. The impudent
+are pressing, though they know they are disagreeable; the absurd are
+importunate, because they think they are acceptable. Impudence is a
+vice, and absurdity a folly. Sir Francis Bacon talks very agreeably upon
+the subject of impudence.[256] He takes notice, that the orator being
+asked, what was the first, second, and third requisite, to make a fine
+speaker, still answered, "Action." This, said he, is the very outward
+form of speaking, and yet it is what with the generality has more force
+than the most consummate abilities. Impudence is to the rest of mankind
+of the same use which action is to orators.
+
+The truth is, the gross of men are governed more by appearances than
+realities, and the impudent man in his air and behaviour undertakes for
+himself that he has ability and merit, while the modest or diffident
+gives himself up as one who is possessed of neither. For this reason,
+men of front carry things before them with little opposition, and make
+so skilful a use of their talent, that they can grow out of humour like
+men of consequence, and be sour, and make their satisfaction do them the
+same service as desert. This way of thinking has often furnished me with
+an apology for great men who confer favours on the impudent. In
+carrying on the government of mankind, they are not to consider what men
+they themselves approve in their closets and private conversations, but
+what men will extend themselves furthest, and more generally pass upon
+the world for such as their patrons want in such and such stations, and
+consequently take so much work off the hands of those who employ them.
+
+Far be it that I should attempt to lessen the acceptance which men of
+this character meet with in the world; but I humbly propose only, that
+they who have merit of a different kind, would accomplish themselves in
+some degree with this quality of which I am now treating. Nay, I allow
+these gentlemen to press as forward as they please in the advancement of
+their interests and fortunes, but not to intrude upon others in
+conversation also: let them do what they can with the rich and the
+great, as far as they are suffered, but let them not interrupt the easy
+and agreeable. They may be useful as servants in ambition, but never as
+associates in pleasure. However, as I would still drive at something
+instructive in every Lucubration, I must recommend it to all men who
+feel in themselves an impulse towards attempting laudable actions, to
+acquire such a degree of assurance, as never to lose the possession of
+themselves in public or private, so far as to be incapable of acting
+with a due decorum on any occasion they are called to. It is a mean want
+of fortitude in a good man, not to be able to do a virtuous action with
+as much confidence as an impudent fellow does an ill one. There is no
+way of mending such false modesty, but by laying it down for a rule,
+that there is nothing shameful but what is criminal.
+
+The Jesuits, an order whose institution is perfectly calculated for
+making a progress in the world, take care to accomplish their disciples
+for it, by breaking them of all impertinent bashfulness, and accustoming
+then to a ready performance of all indifferent things. I remember in my
+travels, when I was once at a public exercise in one of their schools, a
+young man made a most admirable speech, with all the beauty of action,
+cadence of voice, and force of argument imaginable, in defence of the
+love of glory. We were all enamoured with the grace of the youth, as he
+came down from the desk where he spoke to present a copy of his speech
+to the head of the society. The principal received it in a very obliging
+manner, and bid him go to the market-place and fetch a joint of meat,
+for he should dine with him. He bowed, and in a trice the orator
+returned, full of the sense of glory in this obedience, and with the
+best shoulder of mutton in the market.
+
+This treatment capacitates them for every scene of life. I therefore
+recommend it to the consideration of all who have the instruction of
+youth, which of the two is the most inexcusable, he who does everything
+by the mere force of his impudence, or who performs nothing through the
+oppression of his modesty? In a word, it is a weakness not to be able to
+attempt what a man thinks he ought, and there is no modesty but in
+self-denial.
+
+P.S. Upon my coming home I received the following petition and letter:
+
+                                "The humble petition of Sarah Lately:
+     "SHEWETH,
+
+     "That your petitioner has been one of those ladies who has had fine
+     things constantly spoken to her in general terms, and lived, during
+     her most blooming years, in daily expectation of declarations of
+     marriage, but never had one made to her.
+
+     "That she is now in her grand climacteric; which being above the
+     space of four virginities, accounting at 15 years each,
+
+     "Your petitioner most humbly prays, that in the lottery for the
+     Bass-viol[257] she may have four tickets, in consideration that her
+     single life has been occasioned by the inconstancy of her lovers,
+     and not through the cruelty or forwardness of your petitioner.
+
+                                     "And your Petitioner shall," &c.
+
+     "MR. BICKERSTAFF,                                "_May 3, 1710_.
+
+     "According to my fancy, you took a much better way to dispose of a
+     Bass-viol in yesterday's paper than you did in your table of
+     marriage.[258] I desire the benefit of a lottery for myself too----
+     The manner of it I leave to your own discretion: only if you
+     can----allow the tickets at above five farthings a piece. Pray
+     accept of one ticket for your trouble, and I wish you may be the
+     fortunate man that wins.
+
+                         "Your very humble Servant till then,
+                                                      "ISABELLA KIT."
+
+I must own the request of the aged petitioner to be founded upon a very
+undeserved distress; and since she might, had she had justice done her,
+been mother of many pretenders to this prize, instead of being one
+herself, I do readily grant her demand; but as for the proposal of Mrs.
+Isabella Kit, I cannot project a lottery for her, until I have security
+she will surrender herself to the winner.
+
+
+[Footnote 256: Essay xii., "Of Boldness."]
+
+[Footnote 257: See No. 166.]
+
+[Footnote 258: See Nos. 157, 160.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 169.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Saturday, May 6_, to _Tuesday, May 9, 1710_.
+
+    O rus! Quando ego te aspiciam? quandoque licebit
+    Nunc veterum libris, nunc somno, et inertibus horis,
+    Ducere sollicitæ jucunda oblivia vitæ?
+                                        HOR., 2 Sat. vi. 60.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, May 8._
+
+The summer season now approaching, several of our family have invited me
+to pass away a month or two in the country, and indeed nothing could be
+more agreeable to me than such a recess, did I not consider that I am by
+two quarts a worse companion than when I was last among my relations:
+and I am admonished by some of our club, who have lately visited
+Staffordshire, that they drink at a greater rate than they did at that
+time. As every soil does not produce every fruit or tree, so every vice
+is not the growth of every kind of life; and I have, ever since I could
+think, been astonished that drinking should be the vice of the country.
+If it were possible to add to all our senses, as we do to that of sight,
+by perspectives, we should methinks more particularly labour to improve
+them in the midst of the variety of beauteous objects which Nature has
+produced to entertain us in the country; and do we in that place destroy
+the use of what organs we have? As for my part, I cannot but lament the
+destruction that has been made of the wild beasts of the field, when I
+see large tracts of earth possessed by men who take no advantage of
+their being rational, but lead mere animal lives, making it their whole
+endeavour to kill in themselves all they have above beasts; to wit, the
+use of reason, and taste of society. It is frequently boasted in the
+writings of orators and poets, that it is to eloquence and poesy we owe
+that we are drawn out of woods and solitudes into towns and cities, and
+from a wild and savage being become acquainted with the laws of humanity
+and civility. If we are obliged to these arts for so great service, I
+could wish they were employed to give us a second turn; that as they
+have brought us to dwell in society (a blessing which no other creatures
+know), so they would persuade us, now they have settled us, to lay out
+all our thoughts in surpassing each other in those faculties in which
+only we excel other creatures. But it is at present so far otherwise,
+that the contention seems to be, who shall be most eminent in
+performances wherein beasts enjoy greater abilities than we have. I'll
+undertake, were the butler and swineherd, at any true esquire's in Great
+Britain, to keep and compare accounts of what wash is drunk up in so
+many hours in the parlour and the pigsty, it would appear, the gentleman
+of the house gives much more to his friends than his hogs.
+
+This, with many other evils, arises from the error in men's judgments,
+and not making true distinctions between persons and things. It is
+usually thought, that a few sheets of parchment, made before a male and
+female of wealthy houses come together, give the heirs and descendants
+of that marriage possession of lands and tenements; but the truth is,
+there is no man who can be said to be proprietor of an estate, but he
+who knows how to enjoy it. Nay, it shall never be allowed, that the land
+is not a waste, when the master is uncultivated. Therefore, to avoid
+confusion, it is to be noted, that a peasant with a great estate is but
+an incumbent, and that he must be a gentleman to be a landlord. A
+landlord enjoys what he has with his heart, an incumbent with his
+stomach. Gluttony, drunkenness, and riot, are the entertainments of an
+incumbent; benevolence, civility, social and human virtues, the
+accomplishments of a landlord. Who, that has any passion for his native
+country, does not think it worse than conquered, when so large
+diversions of it are in the hands of savages, that know no use of
+property but to be tyrants; or liberty, but to be unmannerly? A
+gentleman in a country life enjoys Paradise with a temper fit for it; a
+clown is cursed in it with all the cutting and unruly passions man could
+be tormented with when he was expelled from it.
+
+There is no character more deservedly esteemed than that of a country
+gentleman, who understands the station in which heaven and nature have
+placed him. He is father to his tenants, and patron to his neighbours,
+and is more superior to those of lower fortune by his benevolence than
+his possessions. He justly divides his time between solitude and
+company, so as to use the one for the other. His life is spent in the
+good offices of an advocate, a referee, a companion, a mediator, and a
+friend. His counsel and knowledge are a guard to the simplicity and
+innocence of those of lower talents, and the entertainment and happiness
+of those of equal. When a man in a country life has this turn, as it is
+to be hoped thousands have, he lives in a more happy condition than any
+is described in the pastoral descriptions of poets, or the
+vainglorious solitudes recorded by philosophers.
+
+To a thinking man it would seem prodigious, that the very situation in a
+country life does not incline men to a scorn of the mean gratifications
+some take in it. To stand by a stream, naturally lulls the mind into
+composure and reverence; to walk in shades, diversifies that pleasure;
+and a bright sunshine makes a man consider all nature in gladness, and
+himself the happiest being in it, as he is the most conscious of her
+gifts and enjoyments. It would be the most impertinent piece of
+pedantry imaginable to form our pleasures by imitation of others. I will
+not therefore mention Scipio and Lælius, who are generally produced on
+this subject as authorities for the charms of a rural life. He that does
+not feel the force of agreeable views and situations in his own mind,
+will hardly arrive at the satisfactions they bring from the reflections
+of others. However, they who have a taste that way, are more
+particularly inflamed with desire when they see others in the enjoyment
+of it, especially when men carry into the country a knowledge of the
+world as well as of nature. The leisure of such persons is endeared and
+refined by reflection upon cares and inquietudes. The absence of past
+labours doubles present pleasures, which is still augmented, if the
+person in solitude has the happiness of being addicted to letters. My
+cousin Frank Bickerstaff gives me a very good notion of this sort of
+felicity in the following letter:
+
+     "SIR,
+
+     "I write this to communicate to you the happiness I have in the
+     neighbourhood and conversation of the noble lord whose health you
+     inquired after in your last. I have bought that little hovel which
+     borders upon his royalty; but am so far from being oppressed by his
+     greatness, that I who know no envy, and he who is above pride,
+     mutually recommend ourselves to each other by the difference of our
+     fortunes. He esteems me for being so well pleased with a little,
+     and I admire him for enjoying so handsomely a great deal. He has
+     not the little taste of observing the colour of a tulip, or the
+     edging of a leaf of box, but rejoices in open views, the regularity
+     of this plantation, and the wildness of another, as well as the
+     fall of a river, the rising of a promontory, and all other objects
+     fit to entertain a mind like his, that has been long versed in
+     great and public amusements. The make of the soul is as much seen
+     in leisure as in business. He has long lived in Courts, and been
+     admired in assemblies, so that he has added to experience a most
+     charming eloquence; by which he communicates to me the ideas of my
+     own mind upon the objects we meet with, so agreeably, that with his
+     company in the fields, I at once enjoy the country, and a landscape
+     of it. He is now altering the course of canals and rivulets, in
+     which he has an eye to his neighbour's satisfaction, as well as his
+     own. He often makes me presents by turning the water into my
+     grounds, and sends me fish by their own streams. To avoid my
+     thanks, he makes Nature the instrument of his bounty, and does all
+     good offices so much with the air of a companion, that his
+     frankness hides his own condescension, as well as my gratitude.
+     Leave the world to itself, and come see us.
+
+                                   "Your affectionate Cousin,
+                                               "FRANCIS BICKERSTAFF."
+
+
+
+
+No. 170.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Tuesday, May 9_, to _Thursday, May 11, 1710_.
+
+    Fortuna sævo læta negotio et
+    Ludum insolentem ludere pertinax
+      Transmutat incertos honores,
+        Nunc mihi, nunc alii, benigna.
+                          HOR., 3 Od. xxix. 49.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, May 10._
+
+Having this morning spent some time in reading on the subject of the
+vicissitude of human life, I laid aside my book, and began to ruminate
+on the discourse which raised in me those reflections. I believed it a
+very good office to the world, to sit down and show others the road in
+which I am experienced by my wanderings and errors. This is Seneca's way
+of thinking, and he had half convinced me, how dangerous it is to our
+true happiness and tranquillity to fix our minds upon anything which is
+in the power of Fortune. It is excusable only in animals who have not
+the use of reason, to be catched by hooks and baits. Wealth, glory, and
+power, which the ordinary people look up at with admiration, the learned
+and wise know to be only so many snares laid to enslave them. There is
+nothing further to be sought for with earnestness, than what will clothe
+and feed us. If we pamper ourselves in our diet, or give our
+imaginations a loose in our desires, the body will no longer obey the
+mind. Let us think no further than to defend ourselves against hunger,
+thirst, and cold. We are to remember, that everything else is
+despicable, and not worth our care. To want little is true grandeur, and
+very few things are great to a great mind. Those who form their thoughts
+in this manner, and abstract themselves from the world, are out of the
+way of Fortune, and can look with contempt both on her favours and her
+frowns. At the same time, they who separate themselves from the
+immediate commerce with the busy part of mankind, are still beneficial
+to them, while by their studies and writings they recommend to them the
+small value which ought to be put upon what they pursue with so much
+labour and disquiet. Whilst such men are thought the most idle, they are
+the most usefully employed. They have all things, both human and divine,
+under consideration. To be perfectly free from the insults of fortune,
+we should arm ourselves with their reflections. We should learn, that
+none but intellectual possessions are what we can properly call our own.
+All things from without are but borrowed. What Fortune gives us, is not
+ours; and whatever she gives, she can take away.
+
+It is a common imputation to Seneca, that though he declaimed with so
+much strength of reason, and a stoical contempt of riches and power, he
+was at the same time one of the richest and most powerful men in Rome. I
+know no instance of his being insolent in that fortune, and can
+therefore read his thoughts on those subjects with the more deference. I
+will not give philosophy so poor a look, as to say it cannot live in
+courts; but I am of opinion, that it is there in the greatest eminence,
+when amidst the affluence of all the world can bestow, and the addresses
+of a crowd who follow him for that reason, a man can think both of
+himself and those about him abstracted from these circumstances. Such a
+philosopher is as much above an anchorite, as a wise matron, who passes
+through the world with innocence, is preferable to the nun who locks
+herself up from it.
+
+Full of these thoughts I left my lodgings, and took a walk to the Court
+end of the town; and the hurry, and busy faces I met with about
+Whitehall, made me form to myself ideas of the different prospects of
+all I saw, from the turn and cast of their countenances. All, methought,
+had the same thing in view, but prosecuted their hopes with a different
+air: some showed an unbecoming eagerness, some a surly impatience, some
+a winning deference, but the generality a servile complaisance.
+
+I could not but observe, as I roved about the offices, that all who were
+still but in expectation, murmured at Fortune; and all who had obtained
+their wishes, immediately began to say, there was no such being. Each
+believed it an act of blind chance that any other man was preferred, but
+owed only to service and merit what he had obtained himself. It is the
+fault of studious men to appear in public with too contemplative a
+carriage; and I began to observe, that my figure, age, and dress, made
+me particular: for which reason I thought it better to remove a studious
+countenance from among busy ones, and take a turn with a friend in the
+Privy Garden.[259]
+
+When my friend was alone with me there, "Isaac," said he, "I know you
+came abroad only to moralise and make observations, and I will carry you
+hard by, where you shall see all that you have yourself considered or
+read in authors, or collected from experience, concerning blind Fortune
+and irresistible Destiny, illustrated in real persons and proper
+mechanisms. The Graces, the Muses, the Fates, all the beings which have
+a good or evil influence upon human life, are, you'll say, very justly
+figured in the persons of women; and where I am carrying you, you'll see
+enough of that sex together, in an employment which will have so
+important an effect upon those who are to receive their manufacture, as
+will make them be respectively called Deities or Furies, as their labour
+shall prove disadvantageous or successful to their votaries." Without
+waiting for my answer, he carried me to an apartment contiguous to the
+Banqueting House, where there were placed at two long tables a large
+company of young women, in decent and agreeable habits, making up
+tickets for the lottery appointed by the Government. There walked
+between the tables a person who presided over the work. This gentlewoman
+seemed an emblem of Fortune, she commanded as if unconcerned in their
+business; and though everything was performed by her direction, she did
+not visibly interpose in particulars. She seemed in pain at our near
+approach to her, and most to approve us, when we made her no advances.
+Her height, her mien, her gesture, her shape, and her countenance, had
+something that spoke both familiarity and dignity. She therefore
+appeared to me not only a picture of Fortune, but of Fortune as I liked
+her; which made me break out in the following words:
+
+     "MADAM,
+
+     "I am very glad to see the fate of the many who now languish in
+     expectation of what will be the event of your labours in the hands
+     of one who can act with so impartial an indifference. Pardon me,
+     that have often seen you before, and have lost you for want of the
+     respect due to you. Let me beg of you, who have both the furnishing
+     and turning of that wheel of lots, to be unlike the rest of your
+     sex, repulse the forward and the bold, and favour the modest and
+     the humble. I know you fly the importunate, but smile no more on
+     the careless. Add not to the coffers of the usurer, but give the
+     power of bestowing to the generous. Continue his wants who cannot
+     enjoy or communicate plenty; but turn away his poverty, who can
+     bear it with more ease than he can see it in another."
+
+
+ADVERTISEMENT.
+
+Whereas Philander signified to Clarinda by letter bearing date Thursday
+12 o'clock, that he had lost his heart by a shot from her eyes, and
+desired she would condescend to meet him the same day at eight in the
+evening at Rosamond's Pond,[260] faithfully protesting, that in case she
+would not do him that honour, she might see the body of the said
+Philander the next day floating on the said lake of Love, and that he
+desired only three sighs upon view of his said body: it is desired, if
+he has not made away with himself accordingly, that he would forthwith
+show himself to the coroner of the city of Westminster; or Clarinda,
+being an old offender, will be found guilty of wilful murder.
+
+
+[Footnote 259: Now Whitehall Gardens, between Parliament Street and the
+Thames. There Pepys had the pleasure of seeing Lady Castlemaine in 1662:
+"In the Privy Garden saw the finest smocks and linen petticoats of my
+Lady Castlemaine's, laced with rich lace at the bottom; and did me good
+to look at them."]
+
+[Footnote 260: See No. 60.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 171.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Thursday, May 11_, to _Saturday, May 13, 1710_.
+
+    Alter rixatur de lana sæpe caprina,
+    Propugnat nugis armatus.--
+                            HOR., I Ep. xviii. 15.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Grecian Coffee-house, May 12._
+
+It has happened to be for some days the deliberation at the learnedest
+board in this house, whence honour and title had its first original.
+Timoleon, who is very particular in his opinions, but is thought
+particular for no other cause but that he acts against depraved custom,
+by the rules of nature and reason, in a very handsome discourse gave the
+company to understand, that in those ages which first degenerated from
+simplicity of life, and natural justice, the wise among them thought it
+necessary to inspire men with the love of virtue, by giving them who
+adhered to the interests of innocence and truth, some distinguishing
+name to raise them above the common level of mankind. This way of fixing
+appellations of credit upon eminent merit, was what gave being to titles
+and terms of honour. "Such a name," continued he, "without the qualities
+which should give a man pretence to be exalted above others, does but
+turn him to jest and ridicule. Should one see another cudgelled, or
+scurvily treated, do you think a man so used would take it kindly to be
+called Hector, or Alexander? Everything must bear a proportion with the
+outward value that is set upon it; or instead of being long had in
+veneration, that very term of esteem will become a word of reproach."
+When Timoleon had done speaking, Urbanus pursued the same purpose, by
+giving an account of the manner in which the Indian kings,[261] who were
+lately in Great Britain, did honour to the person where they lodged.
+"They were placed," said he, "in a handsome apartment, at an
+upholsterer's in King Street, Covent Garden. The man of the house, it
+seems, had been very observant of them, and ready in their service.
+These just and generous princes, who act according to the dictates of
+natural justice, thought it proper to confer some dignity upon their
+landlord before they left his house. One of them had been sick during
+his residence there, and having never before been in a bed, had a very
+great veneration for him who made that engine of repose, so useful and
+so necessary in his distress. It was consulted among the four princes,
+by what name to dignify his great merit and services. The Emperor of the
+Mohocks, and the other three kings, stood up, and in that posture
+recounted the civilities they had received, and particularly repeated
+the care which was taken of their sick brother. This, in their
+imagination, who are used to know the injuries of weather, and the
+vicissitudes of cold and heat, gave them very great impressions of a
+skilful upholsterer, whose furniture was so well contrived for their
+protection on such occasions. It is with these less instructed (I will
+not say less knowing) people, the manner of doing honour, to impose some
+name significant of the qualities of the person they distinguish, and
+the good offices received from him. It was therefore resolved, to call
+their landlord Cadaroque, which is the name of the strongest fort in
+their part of the world. When they had agreed upon the name, they sent
+for their landlord, and as he entered into their presence, the Emperor
+of the Mohocks taking him by the hand, called him Cadaroque. After which
+the other three princes repeated the same word and ceremony."
+
+Timoleon appeared much satisfied with this account, and having a
+philosophic turn, began to argue against the modes and manners of those
+nations which we esteem polite, and express himself with disdain at our
+usual method of calling such as are strangers to our innovations,
+barbarous. "I have," says he, "so great a deference for the distinction
+given by these princes, that Cadaroque shall be my upholsterer----" He
+was going on, but the intended discourse was interrupted by Minucio, who
+sat near him, a small philosopher, who is also somewhat of a politician;
+one of those who sets up for knowledge by doubting, and has no other way
+of making himself considerable, but by contradicting all he hears said.
+He has, besides much doubt and spirit of contradiction, a constant
+suspicion as to State affairs. This accomplished gentleman, with a very
+awful brow, and a countenance full of weight, told Timoleon, that it was
+a great misfortune men of letters seldom looked into the bottom of
+things. "Will any man," continued he, "persuade me, that this was not
+from the beginning to the end a concerted affair? Who can convince the
+world, that four kings shall come over here, and lie at the Two Crowns
+and Cushion,[262] and one of them fall sick, and the place be called
+King Street, and all this by mere accident? No, no: to a man of very
+small penetration, it appears, that Tee Yee Neen Ho Ga Row, Emperor of
+the Mohocks, was prepared for this adventure beforehand. I do not care
+to contradict any gentleman in his discourse; but I must say, however,
+Sa Ga Yeath Rua Geth Ton, and E Tow Oh Koam, might be surprised in this
+matter; nevertheless, Ho Nee Yeth Taw No Row knew it before he set foot
+on the English shore."
+
+Timoleon looked steadfastly at him for some time, then shaked his head,
+paid for his tea, and marched off. Several others who sat around him,
+were in their turns attacked by this ready disputant. A gentleman who
+was at some distance, happened in discourse to say it was four miles to
+Hammersmith. "I must beg your pardon," says Minucio, "when we say a
+place is so far off, we do not mean exactly from the very spot of earth
+we are in, but from the town where we are; so that you must begin your
+account from the end of Piccadilly; and if you do so, I'll lay any man
+ten to one, it is not above three good miles off." Another, about
+Minucio's level of understanding, began to take him up in this important
+argument, and maintained, that considering the way from Pimlico at the
+end of St. James's Park, and the crossing from Chelsea by Earl's Court,
+he would stand to it, that it was full four miles. But Minucio replied
+with great vehemence, and seemed so much to have the better of the
+dispute, that this adversary quitted the field, as well as the other. I
+sat till I saw the table almost all vanished, where, for want of
+discourse, Minucio asked me, how I did? To which I answered, "Very
+well." "That's very much," said he; "I assure you, you look paler than
+ordinary." "Nay," thought I, "if he won't allow me to know whether I am
+well or not, there is no staying for me neither." Upon which I took my
+leave, pondering as I went home at this strange poverty of imagination,
+which makes men run into the fault of giving contradiction. They want in
+their minds entertainment for themselves or their company, and therefore
+build all they speak upon what is started by others; and since they
+cannot improve that foundation, they strive to destroy it. The only way
+of dealing with these people is to answer in monosyllables, or by way of
+question. When one of them tells you a thing that he thinks
+extraordinary, I go no further than, "Say you so, sir? Indeed! Heyday!"
+or "Is it come to that!" These little rules, which appear but silly in
+the repetition, have brought me with great tranquillity to this age. And
+I have made it an observation, that as assent is more agreeable than
+flattery, so contradiction is more odious than culumny.
+
+
+ADVERTISEMENT.
+
+Mr. Bickerstaff's aërial messenger has brought him a report of what
+passed at the auction of pictures which was in Somerset House Yard on
+Monday last, and finds there were no "screens" present, but all
+transacted with great justice.
+
+N.B. All false buyers at auctions being employed only to hide others,
+are from this day forward to be known in Mr. Bickerstaff's writings by
+the word "screens."
+
+
+[Footnote 261: The four kings were Iroquois chiefs who had been
+persuaded by adjacent British colonists to come and pay their respects
+to Queen Anne, and satisfy themselves of the untruth of the assertion
+made by the Jesuits, that the English and all other nations were vassals
+to the French king. They were said also to have been told that the
+Saviour was born in France and crucified in England. The names of the
+kings, according to Boyer's "Annals," were: Tee Yee Neen Ho Ga Prow, and
+Sa Ga Yean Qua Prah Ton, of the Maquas; Elow Oh Kaom, and Oh Nee Yeath
+Ton No Prow, of the River Sachem, and the Ganajoh-hore Sachem. They had
+an audience of the Queen on April 19, 1710, and were afterwards
+entertained by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, the Duke of
+Ormonde, &c., until their departure for Boston on the 8th of May. See
+Addison's paper in the _Spectator_, No. 50, and Swift's remark upon it
+in the "Journal to Stella," April 28, 1711. A concert at York Buildings
+on May 1, 1710, "for the entertainment of the Emperor of the Mohocks and
+the three Indian kings," was advertised in No. 165 of the _Tatler_. The
+kings were lodged at the Two Crowns and Cushion, the house of an
+upholsterer in Covent Garden, probably Thomas Arne, the father of Dr.
+Thomas Arne the musician, and Mrs. Cibber, the actress. The following
+advertisement appeared at the end of No. 250, dated Nov. 14, 1710, and
+with some variation was reprinted in Nos. 253, 256, and 267 of the
+original edition: "This is to give notice, that the metzotinto-prints,
+by John Simmonds, in whole lengths, of the four Indian kings, that are
+done from the original pictures drawn by John Verelst, which her Majesty
+has at her palace at Kensington, are now to be delivered to subscribers,
+and sold at the Rainbow and Dove, the corner of Ivy Bridge in the
+Strand."]
+
+[Footnote 262: Arne's shop.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 172.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Saturday, May 13_, to _Tuesday, May 16, 1710_.
+
+    Quid quisque vitet, nunquam homini satis
+    Cautum est in horas.--HOR., 2 Od. xiii. 13.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, May 15._
+
+When a man is in a serious mood, and ponders upon his own make, with a
+retrospect to the actions of his life, and the many fatal miscarriages
+in it, which he owes to ungoverned passions, he is then apt to say to
+himself, that experience has guarded him against such errors for the
+future: but nature often recurs in spite of his best resolutions, and it
+is to the very end of our days a struggle between our reason and our
+temper, which shall have the empire over us. However, this is very much
+to be helped by circumspection, and a constant alarm against the first
+onsets of passion. As this is in general a necessary care to make a
+man's life easy and agreeable to himself, so it is more particularly the
+duty of such as are engaged in friendship and more near commerce with
+others. Those who have their joys, have also their griefs in proportion,
+and none can extremely exalt or depress friends, but friends. The harsh
+things which come from the rest of the world, are received and repulsed
+with that spirit which every honest man bears for his own vindication;
+but unkindness in words or actions among friends, affects us at the
+first instant in the inmost recesses of our souls. Indifferent people,
+if I may so say, can wound us only in heterogeneous parts, maim us in
+our legs or arms; but the friend can make no pass but at the heart
+itself. On the other side, the most impotent assistance, the mere
+well-wishes of a friend, gives a man constancy and courage against the
+most prevailing force of his enemies. It is here only a man enjoys and
+suffers to the quick. For this reason, the most gentle behaviour is
+absolutely necessary to maintain friendship in any degree above the
+common level of acquaintance. But there is a relation of life much more
+near than the most strict and sacred friendship, that is to say,
+marriage. This union is of too close and delicate a nature to be easily
+conceived by those who do not know that condition by experience. Here a
+man should, if possible, soften his passions; if not for his own ease,
+in compliance to a creature formed with a mind of a quite different make
+from his own. I am sure, I do not mean it an injury to women, when I say
+there is a sort of sex in souls. I am tender of offending them, and know
+it is hard not to do it on this subject; but I must go on to say, that
+the soul of a man and that of a woman are made very unlike, according to
+the employments for which they are designed. The ladies will please to
+observe, I say, our minds have different, not superior qualities to
+theirs. The virtues have respectively a masculine and a feminine cast.
+What we call in men wisdom, is in women prudence. It is a partiality to
+call one greater than the other. A prudent woman is in the same class of
+honour as a wise man, and the scandals in the way of both are equally
+dangerous. But to make this state anything but a burden, and not hang a
+weight upon our very beings, it is very proper each of the couple should
+frequently remember, that there are many things which grow out of their
+very natures that are pardonable, nay becoming, when considered as such,
+but without that reflection must give the quickest pain and vexation. To
+manage well a great family is as worthy an instance of capacity, as to
+execute a great employment; and for the generality, as women perform the
+considerable part of their duties as well as men do theirs, so in their
+common behaviour, those of ordinary genius are not more trivial than the
+common rate of men; and in my opinion, the playing of a fan is every
+whit as good an entertainment as the beating a snuff-box.
+
+But however I have rambled in this libertine manner of writing by way of
+essay, I now sat down with an intention to represent to my readers, how
+pernicious, how sudden, and how fatal surprises of passion are to the
+mind of man; and that in the more intimate commerces of life they are
+most liable to arise, even in our most sedate and indolent hours.
+Occurrences of this kind have had very terrible effects; and when one
+reflects upon them, we cannot but tremble to consider what we are
+capable of being wrought up to against all the ties of nature, love,
+honour, reason, and religion, though the man who breaks through them
+all, had, an hour before he did so, a lively and virtuous sense of their
+dictates. When unhappy catastrophes make up part of the history of
+princes, and persons who act in high spheres, or are represented in the
+moving language and well-wrought scenes of tragedians, they do not fail
+of striking us with terror; but then they affect us only in a transient
+manner, and pass through our imaginations, as incidents in which our
+fortunes are too humble to be concerned, or which writers form for the
+ostentation of their own force; or, at most, as things fit rather to
+exercise the powers of our minds, than to create new habits in them.
+Instead of such high passages, I was thinking it would be of great use
+(if anybody could hit it) to lay before the world such adventures as
+befall persons not exalted above the common level. This, methought,
+would better prevail upon the ordinary race of men, who are so
+prepossessed with outward appearances, that they mistake fortune for
+nature, and believe nothing can relate to them that does not happen to
+such as live and look like themselves.
+
+The unhappy end of a gentleman whose story an acquaintance of mine was
+just now telling me, would be very proper for this end if it could be
+related with all the circumstances as I heard it this evening; for it
+touched me so much, that I cannot forbear entering upon it.
+
+Mr. Eustace,[263] a young gentleman of a good estate near Dublin in
+Ireland, married a lady of youth, beauty, and modesty, and lived with
+her in general with much ease and tranquillity; but was in his secret
+temper impatient of rebuke: she is apt to fall into little sallies of
+passion, yet as suddenly recalled by her own reflection on her fault,
+and the consideration of her husband's temper. It happened, as he, his
+wife, and her sister, were at supper together about two months ago, that
+in the midst of a careless and familiar conversation, the sisters fell
+into a little warmth and contradiction. He, who was one of that sort of
+men who are never unconcerned at what passes before them, fell into an
+outrageous passion on the side of the sister. The person about whom they
+disputed was so near, that they were under no restraint from running
+into vain repetitions of past heats: on which occasion all the
+aggravations of anger and distaste boiled up, and were repeated with the
+bitterness of exasperated lovers. The wife observing her husband
+extremely moved, began to turn it off, and rally him for interposing
+between two people who from their infancy had been angry and pleased
+with each other every half-hour. But it descended deeper into his
+thoughts, and they broke up with a sullen silence. The wife immediately
+retired to her chamber, whither her husband soon after followed. When
+they were in bed, he soon dissembled a sleep, and she, pleased that his
+thoughts were composed, fell into a real one. Their apartment was very
+distant from the rest of their family, in a lonely country house. He now
+saw his opportunity, and with a dagger he had brought to bed with him,
+stabbed his wife in the side. She awaked in the highest terror; but
+immediately imagined it was a blow designed for her husband by ruffians,
+began to grasp him, and strive to awake and rouse him to defend himself.
+He still pretended himself sleeping, and gave her a second wound.
+
+She now drew open the curtains, and by the help of moonlight saw his
+hand lifted up to stab her. The horror disarmed her from further
+struggling; and he, enraged anew at being discovered, fixed his poniard
+in her bosom. As soon as he believed he had despatched her, he attempted
+to escape out of the window: but she, still alive, called to him not to
+hurt himself; for she might live. He was so stung with the insupportable
+reflection upon her goodness and his own villainy, that he jumped to the
+bed, and wounded her all over with as much rage as if every blow was
+provoked by new aggravations. In this fury of mind he fled away. His
+wife had still strength to go to her sister's apartment, and give her an
+account of this wonderful tragedy; but died the next day. Some weeks
+after, an officer of justice, in attempting to seize the criminal, fired
+upon him, as did the criminal upon the officer. Both their balls took
+place, and both immediately expired.
+
+
+[Footnote 263: "Last Sunday Mr. Francis Eustace committed a most
+barbarous murder on the body of his wife, by giving her seven or eight
+stabs with his sword, of which she died instantly. He jumped out of the
+window, and falling on a palisado pale, tore his legs and thighs in such
+a manner that he was forced to have them dressed by the surgeon, who is
+since sent to Newgate for letting him escape, and a proclamation is
+issued out for apprehending him" (_British Mercury_, 1710).]
+
+
+
+
+No. 173.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Tuesday, May 16_, to _Thursday, May 18, 1710_.
+
+              ----Sapientia prima est
+    Stultitia caruisse.--HOR., I Ep. i. 41.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, May 17._
+
+When I first began to learn to push[264] this last winter, my master had
+a great deal of work upon his hands to make me unlearn the postures and
+motions which I had got by having in my younger years practised
+backsword, with a little eye to the single falchion. "Knock-down"[265]
+was the word in the Civil Wars, and we generally added to this skill the
+knowledge of the Cornish hug, as well as the grapple, to play with hand
+and foot. By this means I was for defending my head when the French
+gentleman was making a full pass at my bosom, insomuch that he told me I
+was fairly killed seven times in one morning, without having done my
+master any other mischief than one knock on the pate. This was a great
+misfortune to me; and I believe I may say, without vanity, I am the
+first who ever pushed so erroneously, and yet conquered the prejudice of
+education so well, as to make my passes so clear, and recover hand and
+foot with that agility, as I do at this day. The truth of it is, the
+first rudiments of education are given very indiscreetly by most
+parents, as much with relation to the more important concerns of the
+mind, as in the gestures of the body. Whatever children are designed
+for, and whatever prospects the fortune or interest of their parents may
+give them in their future lives, they are all promiscuously instructed
+the same way; and Horace and Virgil must be thrummed by a boy as well
+before he goes to an apprenticeship as to the University. This
+ridiculous way of treating the under-aged of this island has very often
+raised both my spleen and mirth, but I think never both at once so much
+as to-day. A good mother of our neighbourhood made me a visit with her
+son and heir, a lad somewhat above five foot, and wants but little of
+the height and strength of a good musketeer in any regiment in the
+service. Her business was to desire I would examine him, for he was far
+gone in a book, the first letters of which she often saw in my papers.
+The youth produced it, and I found it was my friend Horace. It was very
+easy to turn to the place the boy was learning in, which was the fifth
+Ode of the first Book, to Pyrrha. I read it over aloud, as well because
+I am always delighted when I turn to the beautiful parts of that author,
+as also to gain time for considering a little how to keep up the
+mother's pleasure in her child, which I thought barbarity to interrupt.
+In the first place I asked him, who this same Pyrrha was? He answered
+very readily, she was the wife of Pyrrhus, one of Alexander's captains.
+I lifted up my hands. The mother curtsies. "Nay," says she, "I knew you
+would stand in admiration."----"I assure you," continued she, "for all
+he looks so tall, he is but very young. Pray ask him some more, never
+spare him." With that I took the liberty to ask him, what was the
+character of this gentlewoman? He read the three first verses:
+
+    _Quis multa gracilis te puer in rosa
+    Perfusus liquidis urget odoribus,
+        Grato, Pyrrha, sub antro?_[266]
+
+and very gravely told me, she lived at the sign of the Rose in a cellar.
+I took care to be very much astonished at the lad's improvements; but
+withal advised her, as soon as possible, to take him from school, for he
+could learn no more there. This very silly dialogue was a lively image
+of the impertinent method used in breeding boys without genius or
+spirit, to the reading things for which their heads were never framed.
+But this is the natural effect of a certain vanity in the minds of
+parents, who are wonderfully delighted with the thought of breeding
+their children to accomplishments, which they believe nothing but want
+of the same care in their own fathers prevented them from being masters
+of. Thus it is, that the part of life most fit for improvement is
+generally employed in a method against the bent of Nature; and a lad of
+such parts as are fit for an occupation, where there can be no calls out
+of the beaten path, is two or three years of his time wholly taken up in
+knowing how well Ovid's mistress became such a dress; how such a nymph
+for her cruelty was changed into such an animal; and how it is made
+generous in Æneas to put Turnus to death, gallantries that can no more
+come within the occurrences of the lives of ordinary men, than they can
+be relished by their imaginations. However, still the humour goes on
+from one generation to another; and the pastrycook here in the lane the
+other night told me, he would not yet take away his son from his
+learning, but has resolved, as soon as he had a little smattering in the
+Greek, to put him apprentice to a soap-boiler. These wrong beginnings
+determine our success in the world; and when our thoughts are originally
+falsely biased, their agility and force do but carry us the further out
+of our way in proportion to our speed. But we are half-way our journey
+when we have got into the right road. If all our days were usefully
+employed, and we did not set out impertinently, we should not have so
+many grotesque professors in all the arts of life, but every man would
+be in a proper and becoming method of distinguishing or entertaining
+himself suitably to what Nature designed him. As they go on now, our
+parents do not only force us upon what is against our talents, but our
+teachers are also as injudicious in what they put us to learn. I have
+hardly ever since suffered so much by the charms of any beauty, as I did
+before I had a sense of passion, for not apprehending that the smile of
+Lalage was what pleased Horace;[267] and I verily believe, the stripes I
+suffered about _digito male pertinaci_[268] has given that
+irreconcilable aversion, which I shall carry to my grave, against
+coquettes.
+
+As for the elegant writer of whom I am talking, his excellences are to
+be observed as they relate to the different concerns of his life; and he
+is always to be looked upon as a lover, a courtier, or a man of wit. His
+admirable odes have numberless instances of his merit in each of these
+characters. His epistles and satires are full of proper notices for the
+conduct of life in a Court; and what we call good breeding, most
+agreeably intermixed with his morality. His addresses to the persons who
+favour him are so inimitably engaging, that Augustus complained of him
+for so seldom writing to him, and asked him, whether he was afraid
+posterity should read their names together? Now for the generality of
+men to spend much time in such writings, is as pleasant a folly as any
+he ridicules. Whatever the crowd of scholars may pretend, if their way
+of life, or their own imaginations, do not lead them to a taste of him,
+they may read, nay write, fifty volumes upon him, and be just as they
+were when they began. I remember to have heard a great painter say,
+there are certain faces for certain painters, as well as certain
+subjects for certain poets. This is as true in the choice of studies,
+and no one will ever relish an author thoroughly well, who would not
+have been fit company for that author had they lived at the same time.
+All others are mechanics in learning, and take the sentiments of writers
+like waiting-servants, who report what passed at their master's table;
+but debase every thought and expression, for want of the air with which
+they were uttered.
+
+
+[Footnote 264: Fence.]
+
+[Footnote 265: Hence the phrase, "a knock-down argument."]
+
+[Footnote 266: Horace, 1 Od. v. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 267: See 1 Od. xxii. 23:
+
+    "Dulce ridentem Lalagen amabo,
+        Dulce loquentem."
+]
+
+[Footnote 268: Horace, 1 Od. ix. 24.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 174.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Thursday, May 18_, to _Saturday, May 20, 1710_.
+
+    Quem mala stultitia, et quæcunque inscitia veri,
+    Cæcum agit, insanum Chrysippi porticus et grex
+    Autumat.--HOR., 2 Sat. iii. 43.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, May 19._
+
+The learned Scotus, to distinguish the race of mankind, gives every
+individual of that species what he calls a "seity," something peculiar
+to himself, which makes him different from all other persons in the
+world. This particularity renders him either venerable or ridiculous,
+according as he uses his talents, which always grow out into faults, or
+improve into virtues. In the office I have undertaken, you are to
+observe, that I have hitherto presented only the more insignificant and
+lazy part of mankind under the denomination of "dead men," together with
+the degrees towards non-existence, in which others can neither be said
+to live nor be defunct, but are only animals merely dressed up like men,
+and differ from each other but as flies do by a little colouring or
+fluttering of their wings. Now as our discourses heretofore have chiefly
+regarded the indolent part of the species, it remains that we do justice
+also upon the impertinently active and enterprising. Such as these I
+shall take particular care to place in safe custody, and have used all
+possible diligence to run up my edifice in Moorfields for that
+service.[269]
+
+We who are adept in astrology, can impute it to several causes in the
+planets, that this quarter of our great city is the region of such
+persons as either never had, or have lost, the use of reason. It has
+indeed been time out of mind the receptacle of fools as well as madmen.
+The care and information of the former I assign to other learned men,
+who have for that end taken up their habitation in those parts; as,
+among others, to the famous Dr. Trotter, and my ingenious friend Dr.
+Langham.[270] These oraculous proficients are day and night employed in
+deep searches, for the direction of such as run astray after their lost
+goods: but at present they are more particularly serviceable to their
+country, in foretelling the fate of such as have chances in the public
+lottery. Dr. Langham shows a peculiar generosity on this occasion,
+taking only one half-crown for a prediction, eighteenpence of which to
+be paid out of the prizes; which method the doctor is willing to comply
+with in favour of every adventurer in the whole lottery. Leaving
+therefore the whole generation of such inquirers to such _literati_ as I
+have now mentioned, we are to proceed towards peopling our house, which
+we have erected with the greatest cost and care imaginable.
+
+It is necessary in this place to premise, that the superiority and force
+of mind which is born with men of great genius, and which, when it falls
+in with a noble imagination, is called "poetical fury," does not come
+under my consideration; but the pretence to such an impulse without
+natural warmth, shall be allowed a fit object of this charity; and all
+the volumes written by such hands shall be from time to time placed in
+proper order upon the rails of the unhoused booksellers within the
+district of the college[271] (who have long inhabited this quarter), in
+the same manner as they are already disposed soon after their
+publication. I promise myself from these writings my best opiates for
+those patients whose high imaginations, and hot spirits, have waked them
+into distraction. Their boiling tempers are not to be wrought upon by my
+gruels and juleps, but must ever be employed, or appear to be so, or
+their recovery will be impracticable. I shall therefore make use of such
+poets as preserve so constant a mediocrity as never to elevate the mind
+into joy, or depress it into sadness, yet at the same time keep the
+faculties of the readers in suspense, though they introduce no ideas of
+their own. By this means, a disordered mind, like a broken limb, will
+recover its strength by the sole benefit of being out of use, and lying
+without motion. But as reading is not an entertainment that can take up
+the full time of my patients, I have now in pension a proportionable
+number of storytellers, who are by turns to walk about the galleries of
+the house, and by their narrations second the labours of my pretty good
+poets. There are among these storytellers some that have so earnest
+countenances, and weighty brows, that they will draw a madman, even when
+his fit is just coming on, into a whisper, and by the force of shrugs,
+nods, and busy gestures, make him stand amazed so long as that we may
+have time to give him his broth without danger.
+
+But as Fortune has the possession of men's minds, a physician may cure
+all the sick people of ordinary degree in the whole town, and never come
+into reputation. I shall therefore begin with persons of condition; and
+the first I shall undertake, shall be the Lady Fidget, the general
+visitant, and Will Voluble, the fine talker. These persons shall be
+first locked up, for the peace of all whom the one visits, and all whom
+the other talks to.
+
+The passion which first touched the brain of both these persons was
+envy; and has had such wondrous effects, that to this, Lady Fidget owes
+that she is so courteous; to this, Will Voluble that he is eloquent.
+Fidget has a restless torment in hearing of any one's prosperity, and
+cannot know any quiet till she visits her, and is eyewitness of
+something that lessens it. Thus her life is a continual search after
+what does not concern her, and her companions speak kindly even of the
+absent and the unfortunate, to tease her. She was the first that visited
+Flavia after the small-pox, and has never seen her since because she is
+not altered. Call a young woman handsome in her company, and she tells
+you, it is a pity she has no fortune: say she is rich, and she is as
+sorry that she is silly. With all this ill nature, Fidget is herself
+young, rich, and handsome; but loses the pleasure of all those
+qualities, because she has them in common with others.
+
+To make up her misery, she is well-bred, she hears commendations till
+she is ready to faint for want of venting herself in contradictions.
+This madness is not expressed by the voice; but is uttered in the eyes
+and features: its first symptom is upon beholding an agreeable object, a
+sudden approbation immediately checked with dislike.
+
+This lady I shall take the liberty to conduct into a bed of straw and
+darkness, and have some hopes, that after long absence from the light,
+the pleasure of seeing at all may reconcile her to what she shall see,
+though it proves to be never so agreeable.
+
+My physical remarks on the distraction of envy in other persons, and
+particularly in Will Voluble, is interrupted by a visit from Mr.
+Kidney,[272] with advices which will bring matter of new disturbance to
+many possessed with this sort of disorder, which I shall publish to
+bring out the symptoms more kindly, and lay the distemper more open to
+my view.
+
+
+_St. James's Coffee-house, May 19._
+
+This evening a mail from Holland brought the following advices:
+
+     From the Camp before Douay,[273] May 26, N.S. On the 23rd the
+     French assembled their army, and encamped with their right near
+     Bouchain, and their left near Crevecoeur. Upon this motion of the
+     enemy, the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene made a movement
+     with their army on the 24th, and encamped from Arlieux to Vitry
+     and Isez-Esquerchien, where they are so advantageously posted, that
+     they not only cover the siege, secure our convoys of provisions,
+     forage, and ammunition, from Lille and Tournay, and the canals and
+     dykes we have made to turn the water of the Scarp and La Cense to
+     Bouchain; but are in a readiness, by marching from the right, to
+     possess themselves of the field of battle marked out betwixt Vitry
+     and Montigny, or from the left to gain the lines of circumvallation
+     betwixt Fierin and Dechy: so that whatever way the enemy shall
+     approach to attack us, whether by the plains of Lens, or by
+     Bouchain and Valenciennes, we have but a very small movement to
+     make, to possess ourselves of the ground on which it will be most
+     advantageous to receive them. The enemy marched this morning from
+     their left, and are encamped with their right at Oisy, and their
+     left towards Arras, and, according to our advices, will pass the
+     Scarp to-morrow, and enter on the plains of Lens, though several
+     regiments of horse, the German and Liège troops, which are destined
+     to compose part of their army, have not yet joined them. If they
+     pass the Scarp, we shall do the like at the same time, to possess
+     ourselves with all possible advantage of the field of battle: but
+     if they continue where they are, we shall not remove, because in
+     our present station we sufficiently cover from all insults both our
+     siege and convoys.
+
+     Monsieur Villars cannot yet go without crutches, and it is believed
+     will have much difficulty to ride. He and the Duke of Berwick are
+     to command the French army, the rest of the marshals being only to
+     assist in council.
+
+     Last night we entirely perfected four bridges over the _avant
+     fossé_ at both attacks; and our saps are so far advanced, that in
+     three or four days batteries will be raised on the _glacis_, to
+     batter in breach both the outworks and ramparts of the town.
+
+     Letters from the Hague of the 27th, N.S., say, that the Deputies of
+     the States of Holland, who set out for Gertruydenburg on the 23rd,
+     to renew the conferences with the French Ministers, returned on the
+     26th, and had communicated to the States-General the new overtures
+     that were made on the part of France, which it is believed, if they
+     are in earnest, may produce a general treaty.
+
+
+[Footnote 269: See Nos. 125, 127, 175.]
+
+[Footnote 270: Two of the numerous astrologers who lived in Moorfields.]
+
+[Footnote 271: During the first half of the eighteenth century the walls
+of Bedlam were made use of by dealers in second-hand books.]
+
+[Footnote 272: The waiter; see No. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 273: Douay capitulated on the 25th of June, after a fifty-four
+days siege, which cost the Allies eight thousand men. Two English
+regiments were cut to pieces at a sortie made by the besieged French
+troops. Two years later Douay was recaptured by Villars.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 175.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Saturday, May 20_, to _Tuesday, May 23, 1710_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, May 22._
+
+In the distribution of the apartments in the new Bedlam, proper regard
+is had to the different sexes, and the lodgings accommodated
+accordingly. Among other necessaries, as I have thought fit to appoint
+storytellers to soothe the men, so I have allowed tale-bearers to
+indulge the intervals of my female patients. But before I enter upon
+disposing of the main of the great body that wants my assistance, it is
+necessary to consider the human race abstracted from all other
+distinctions and considerations except that of sex. This will lead us to
+a nearer view of their excellences and imperfections, which are to be
+accounted the one or the other, as they are suitable to the design for
+which the persons so defective or accomplished came into the world.
+
+To make this inquiry aright, we must speak of the life of people of
+condition, and the proportionable applications to those below them will
+be easily made, so as to value the whole species by the same rule. We
+will begin with the woman, and behold her as a virgin in her father's
+house. This state of her life is infinitely more delightful than that
+of her brother at the same age. While she is entertained with learning
+melodious airs at her spinet, is led round a room in the most
+complaisant manner to a fiddle, who is entertained with applauses of her
+beauty and perfection in the ordinary conversation she meets with: the
+young man is under the dictates of a rigid schoolmaster or instructor,
+contradicted in every word he speaks, and curbed in all the inclinations
+he discovers. Mrs. Elizabeth is the object of desire and admiration,
+looked upon with delight, courted with all the powers of eloquence and
+address, approached with a certain worship, and defended with a certain
+loyalty. This is her case as to the world: in her domestic character,
+she is the companion, the friend, and confidante of her mother, and the
+object of a pleasure something like the love between angels, to her
+father. Her youth, her beauty, her air, are by him looked upon with an
+ineffable transport beyond any other joy in this life, with as much
+purity as can be met with in the next.
+
+Her brother William, at the same years, is but in the rudiments of those
+acquisitions which must gain him esteem in the world. His heart beats
+for applause among men, yet is he fearful of every step towards it. If
+he proposes to himself to make a figure in the world, his youth is
+damped with a prospect of difficulties, dangers, and dishonours; and an
+opposition in all generous attempts, whether they regard his love or his
+ambition.
+
+In the next stage of life she has little else to do, but (what she is
+accomplished for by the mere gifts of nature) to appear lovely and
+agreeable to her husband, tender to her children, and affable to her
+servants: but a man, when he enters into this way, is but in the first
+scene, far from the accomplishment of his designs. He is now in all
+things to act for others as well as himself. He is to have industry and
+frugality in his private affairs, and integrity and addresses in public.
+To these qualities, he must add a courage and resolution to support his
+other abilities, lest he be interrupted in the prosecution of his just
+endeavours, in which the honour and interest of posterity are as much
+concerned as his own personal welfare.
+
+This little sketch may in some measure give an idea of the different
+parts which the sexes have to act, and the advantageous as well as
+inconvenient terms on which they are to enter upon their several parts
+of life. This may also be some rule to us in the examination of their
+conduct. In short, I shall take it for a maxim, that a woman who resigns
+the purpose of being pleasing, and the man who gives up the thoughts of
+being wise, do equally quit their claim to the true causes of living;
+and are to be allowed the diet and discipline of my charitable structure
+to reduce them to reason.
+
+On the other side, the woman who hopes to please by methods which should
+make her odious, and the man who would be thought wise by a behaviour
+that renders him ridiculous, are to be taken into custody for their
+false industry, as justly as they ought for their negligence.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+N.B. Mr. Bickerstaff is taken extremely ill with the toothache, and
+cannot proceed in this discourse.
+
+
+_St. James's Coffee-house, May 22._
+
+Advices from Flanders of the 30th instant, N.S., say, that the Duke of
+Marlborough having intelligence of the enemy's passing the Scarp on the
+29th in the evening, and their march towards the plains of Lens, had put
+the Confederate army in motion, which was advancing towards the camp on
+the north side of that river between Vitry and Henin-Lietard. The
+Confederates, since the approach of the enemy, have added several new
+redoubts to their camp, and drawn the cannon out of the lines of
+circumvallation in a readiness for the batteries.
+
+It is not believed, notwithstanding these appearances, that the enemy
+will hazard a battle for the relief of Douay; the siege of which place
+is carried on with all the success that can be expected, considering the
+difficulties they meet with occasioned by the inundations. On the 28th
+at night we made a lodgment on the salient angle of the glacis of the
+second counterscarp, and our approaches are so far advanced, that it is
+believed the town will be obliged to surrender before the 8th of the
+next month.
+
+
+
+
+No. 176.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Tuesday, May 23_, to _Thursday, May 25, 1710_.
+
+    Nul lum numen abest, si sit Prudentia.
+                                  JUV., Sat. x. 365.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, May 23._
+
+This evening, after a little ease from the raging pain caused by so
+small an organ as an aching tooth, under which I had behaved myself so
+ill as to have broke two pipes and my spectacles, I began to reflect
+with admiration on those heroic spirits, which in the conduct of their
+lives seem to live so much above the condition of our make, as not only
+under the agonies of pain to forbear any intemperate word or gesture,
+but also in their general and ordinary behaviour to resist the impulses
+of their very blood and constitution. This watch over a man's self, and
+the command of his temper, I take to be the greatest of human
+perfections, and is the effect of a strong and resolute mind. It is not
+only the most expedient practice for carrying on our own designs, but
+is also very deservedly the most amiable quality in the sight of others.
+It is a winning deference to mankind, which creates an immediate
+imitation of itself whenever it appears, and prevails upon all (who have
+to do with a person endued with it) either through shame or emulation. I
+do not know how to express this habit of mind, except you will let me
+call it equanimity. It is a virtue, which is necessary at every hour, in
+every place, and in all conversations, and is the effect of a regular
+and exact prudence. He that will look back upon all the acquaintances he
+has had in his whole life, will find he has seen more men capable of the
+greatest employments and performances, than such as could in the general
+bent of their carriage act otherwise than according to their own
+complexion and humour. But the indulgence of ourselves in wholly giving
+way to our natural propensity, is so unjust and improper a licence, that
+when people take it up, there is very little difference, with relation
+to their friends and families, whether they are good- or ill-natured
+men: for he that errs by being wrought upon by what we call the
+sweetness of his temper, is as guilty as he that offends through the
+perverseness of it.
+
+It is not therefore to be regarded what men are in themselves, but what
+they are in their actions. Eucrates[274] is the best-natured of all men;
+but that natural softness has effects quite contrary to itself, and for
+want of due bounds to his benevolence, while he has a will to be a
+friend to all, he has the power of being such to none. His constant
+inclination to please makes him never fail of doing so; though (without
+being capable of falsehood) he is a friend only to those who are
+present; for the same humour which makes him the best companion,
+renders him the worst correspondent. It is a melancholy thing to
+consider, that the most engaging sort of men in conversation are
+frequently the most tyrannical in power, and least to be depended upon
+in friendship. It is certain this is not to be imputed to their own
+disposition; but he that is to be led by others, has only good luck if
+he is not the worst, though in himself the best man living. For this
+reason, we are no more wholly to indulge our good than our ill
+dispositions. I remember a crafty old cit, one day speaking of a
+well-natured young fellow who set up with a good stock in Lombard
+Street, "I will," says he, "lay no more money in his hands, for he never
+denied me anything." This was a very base, but with him a prudential
+reason for breaking off commerce: and this acquaintance of mine carried
+this way of judging so far, that he has often told me, he never cared to
+deal with a man he liked, for that our affections must never enter into
+our business.
+
+When we look round us in this populous city, and consider how credit and
+esteem are lodged, you find men have a great share of the former,
+without the least portion of the latter. He who knows himself for a
+beast of prey, looks upon others in the same light, and we are so apt to
+judge of others by ourselves, that the man who has no mercy, is as
+careful as possible never to want it. Hence it is, that in many
+instances men gain credit by the very contrary methods by which they do
+esteem; for wary traders think every affection of the mind a key to
+their cash.
+
+But what led me into this discourse was my impatience of pain; and I
+have, to my great disgrace, seen an instance of the contrary carriage in
+so high a degree, that I am out of countenance that I ever read Seneca.
+When I look upon the conduct of others in such occurrences, as well as
+behold their equanimity in the general tenor of their life, it very much
+abates the self-love, which is seldom well-governed by any sort of men,
+and least of all by us authors.
+
+The fortitude of a man who brings his will to the obedience of his
+reason is conspicuous, and carries with it a dignity in the lowest state
+imaginable. Poor Martius,[275] who now lies languishing in the most
+violent fever, discovers in the faintest moments of his distemper such a
+greatness of mind, that a perfect stranger who should now behold him,
+would indeed see an object of pity, but at the same time that it was
+lately an object of veneration. His gallant spirit resigns, but resigns
+with an air that speaks a resolution which could yield to nothing but
+fate itself. This is conquest in the philosophic sense; but the empire
+over ourselves is, methinks, no less laudable in common life, where the
+whole tenor of a man's carriage is in subservience to his own reason,
+and conformity both to the good sense and inclination of other men.
+
+Aristæus[276] is, in my opinion, a perfect master of himself in all
+circumstances. He has all the spirit that man can have, and yet is as
+regular in his behaviour as a mere machine. He is sensible of every
+passion, but ruffled by none. In conversation, he frequently seems to be
+less knowing to be more obliging, and chooses to be on a level with
+others rather than oppress with the superiority of his genius. In
+friendship he is kind without profession; in business, expeditious
+without ostentation. With the greatest softness and benevolence
+imaginable, he is impartial in spite of all importunity, even that of
+his own good nature. He is ever clear in his judgment; but in
+complaisance to his company, speaks with doubt, and never shows
+confidence in argument, but to support the sense of another. Were such
+an equality of mind the general endeavour of all men, how sweet would be
+the pleasures of conversation? He that is loud would then understand,
+that we ought to call a constable, and know, that spoiling good company
+is the most heinous way of breaking the peace. We should then be
+relieved from these zealots in society, who take upon them to be angry
+for all the company, and quarrel with the waiters to show they have no
+respect for anybody else in the room. To be in a rage before you, is in
+a kind being angry with you. You may as well stand naked before company,
+as to use such familiarities; and to be careless of what you say, is the
+most clownish way of being undressed.
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, May 24._
+
+When I came home this evening, I found the following letters; and
+because I think one a very good answer to the other, as well as that it
+is the affair of a young lady, it must be immediately dismissed:
+
+     "SIR,
+
+     "I have a good fortune, partly paternal and partly acquired. My
+     younger years I spent in business; but age coming on, and having no
+     more children than one daughter, I resolved to be a slave no
+     longer: and accordingly I have disposed of my effects, placed my
+     money in the funds, bought a pretty seat in a pleasant country; am
+     making a garden, and have set up a pack of little beagles. I live
+     in the midst of a good many well-bred neighbours, and several
+     well-tempered clergymen. Against a rainy day I have a little
+     library; and against the gout in my stomach a little good claret.
+     With all this I am the miserablest man in the world; not that I've
+     lost the relish of any of these pleasures, but am distracted with
+     such a multiplicity of entertaining objects, that I am lost in the
+     variety. I am in such a hurry of idleness, that I do not know with
+     what diversion to begin. Therefore, sir, I must beg the favour of
+     you, when your more weighty affairs will permit, to put me in some
+     method of doing nothing; for I find Pliny makes a great difference
+     betwixt _Nihil agere_ and _Agere nihil_; and I fancy, if you would
+     explain him, you would do a very great kindness to many in Great
+     Britain, as well as to
+
+                                             "Your humble Servant,
+                                                              "J. B."
+
+     "SIR,
+
+     "The enclosed is written by my father in one of his pleasant
+     humours. He bids me seal it up, and send you a word or two from
+     myself, which he won't desire to see till he hears of it from you.
+     Desire him before he begins his method of doing nothing, to have
+     nothing to do; that is to say, let him marry off his daughter. I
+     am,
+
+                                              "Your gentle Reader,
+                                                              "S. B."
+
+
+[Footnote 274: Eucrates reminds us in some respects of Steele himself.]
+
+[Footnote 275: Perhaps Cornelius Wood. See No. 144.]
+
+[Footnote 276: In writing of Aristæus, Steele seems to have had Addison
+in his mind. His friend had recently left London for Ireland.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 177.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Thursday, May 25_, to _Saturday, May 27, 1710_.
+
+    --Male si palpere, recalcitrat undique tutus.
+                                    HOR., 2 Sat. i. 20.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, May 26._
+
+The ingenious Mr. Penkethman,[277] the comedian, has lately left here a
+paper or ticket, to which is affixed a small silver medal, which is to
+entitle the bearer to see one-and-twenty plays at his theatre for a
+guinea. Greenwich is the place where, it seems, he has erected his
+house; and his time of action is to be so contrived, that it is to fall
+in with going and returning with the tide: besides, that the bearer of
+this ticket may carry down with him a particular set of company to the
+play, striking off for each person so introduced one of his twenty-one
+times of admittance. In this warrant of his, he has made me a high
+compliment in a facetious distich, by way of dedication of his
+endeavours, and desires I would recommend them to the world. I must
+needs say, I have not for some time seen a properer choice than he has
+made of a patron: who more fit to publish his work than a novelist[278]?
+who to recommend it than a censor? This honour done me, has made me turn
+my thoughts upon the nature of dedications in general, and the abuse of
+that custom, as well by a long practice of my predecessors, as the
+continued folly of my contemporary authors.
+
+In ancient times, it was the custom to address their works to some
+eminent for their merit to mankind, or particular patronage of the
+writers themselves, or knowledge in the matter of which they treated.
+Under these regards, it was a memorable honour to both parties, and a
+very agreeable record of their commerce with each other. These
+applications were never stuffed with impertinent praises, but were the
+native product of their esteem, which was implicitly received, or
+generally known to be due to the patron of the work: but vain flourishes
+came into the world, with other barbarous embellishments; and the
+enumeration of titles, and great actions, in the patrons themselves, or
+their sires, are as foreign to the matter in hand as the ornaments are
+in a Gothic building. This is clapping together persons which have no
+manner of alliance, and can for that reason have no other effect than
+making both parties justly ridiculous. What pretence is there in Nature
+for me to write to a great man, and tell him, "My lord, because your
+Grace is a duke, your Grace's father before you was an earl, his
+lordship's father was a baron, and his lordship's father both a wise and
+a rich man, I, Isaac Bickerstaff, am obliged, and could not possibly
+forbear addressing to you the following treatise." Though this is the
+plain exposition of all I could possibly say to him with a good
+conscience, yet the silly custom has so universally prevailed, that my
+lord duke and I must necessarily be particular friends from this time
+forward, or else I have just room for being disobliged, and may turn my
+panegyric into a libel. But to carry this affair still more home, were
+it granted that praises in dedications were proper topics, what is it
+that gives a man authority to commend, or what makes it a favour to me
+that he does commend me? It is certain, that there is no praise valuable
+but from the praiseworthy. Were it otherwise, blame might be as much in
+the same hands. Were the good and evil of fame laid upon a level among
+mankind, the judge on the bench, and the criminal at the bar, would
+differ only in their stations; and if one's word is to pass as much as
+the other's, their reputation would be much alike to the jury.
+Pliny,[279] speaking of the death of Martial, expresses himself with
+great gratitude to him for the honours done him in the writings of that
+author; but he begins it with an account of his character, which only
+made the applause valuable. He indeed in the same Epistle says, it is a
+sign we have left off doing things which deserve praise, when we think
+commendation impertinent. This is asserted with a just regard to the
+persons whose good opinion we wish for; otherwise reputation would be
+valued according to the number of voices a man has for it, which are not
+always to be insured on the more virtuous side. But however we pretend
+to model these nice affairs, true glory will never attend anything but
+truth; and there is something so peculiar in it, that the very self-same
+action done by different men cannot merit the same degree of applause.
+The Roman, who was surprised in the enemy's camp before he had
+accomplished his design, and thrust his bare arm into a flaming pile,
+telling the general, there were many as determined as himself who
+(against sense of danger) had conspired his death, wrought in the very
+enemy an admiration of his fortitude, and a dismission with
+applause.[280] But the condemned slave who represented him in the
+theatre, and consumed his arm in the same manner, with the same
+resolution, did not raise in the spectators a great idea of his virtue,
+but of him whom he imitated in an action no way differing from that of
+the real Scævola, but in the motive to it.
+
+Thus true glory is inseparable from true merit, and whatever you call
+men, they are no more than what they are in themselves; but a romantic
+sense has crept into the minds of the generality, who will ever mistake
+words and appearances for persons and things.
+
+The simplicity of the ancients was as conspicuous in the address of
+their writings, as in any other monuments they have left behind them.
+Cæsar and Augustus were much more high words of respect, when added to
+occasions fit for their characters to appear in, than any appellations
+which have ever been since thought of. The latter of these great men had
+a very pleasant way of dealing with applications of this kind. When he
+received pieces of poetry which he thought had worth in them, he
+rewarded the writer; but where he thought them empty, he generally
+returned the compliment made him with some verses of his own.
+
+This latter method I have at present occasion to imitate. A female
+author has dedicated a piece to me,[281] wherein she would make my name
+(as she has others) the introduction of whatever is to follow in her
+book; and has spoke some panegyrical things which I know not how to
+return, for want of better acquaintance with the lady, and consequently
+being out of a capacity of giving her praise or blame. All therefore
+that is left for me, according to the foregoing rules, is to lay the
+picture of a good and evil woman before her eyes, which are but mere
+words if they do not concern her. Now you are to observe, the way in a
+dedication is to make all the rest of the world as little like the
+person we address to as possible, according to the following epistle:
+
+
+     "MADAM,
+       "But, M----
+                  "----_Memorabile nullum
+                  Foeminea in poena est._----"[282]
+
+
+[Footnote 277: See No. 4.]
+
+[Footnote 278: Writer of news.]
+
+[Footnote 279: "Epist." iii. 21.]
+
+[Footnote 280: Livy, ii. 12.]
+
+[Footnote 281: Mrs. Manley's "Memoirs of Europe ... by the translator of
+the 'New Atalantis.'" See Nos. 35, 63.]
+
+[Footnote 282:
+
+    "----Nullum memorabile nomen
+    Foeminea in poena est."--"Æneid," ii. 583-4.
+]
+
+
+
+
+No. 178.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Saturday, May 27_, to _Tuesday, May 30, 1710_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, May 29._
+
+When we look into the delightful history of the most ingenious Don
+Quixote of the Mancha, and consider the exercises and manner of life of
+that renowned gentleman, we cannot but admire the exquisite genius and
+discerning spirit of Michael Cervantes, who has not only painted his
+adventurer with great mastery in the conspicuous parts of his story,
+which relate to love and honour, but also intimated in his ordinary
+life, economy, and furniture, the infallible symptoms he gave of his
+growing frenzy, before he declared himself a knight-errant. His hall was
+furnished with old lances, halberds, and morions; his food, lentils; his
+dress, amorous. He slept moderately, rose early, and spent his time in
+hunting. When by watchfulness and exercise he was thus qualified for the
+hardships of his intended peregrinations, he had nothing more to do but
+to fall hard to study; and before he should apply himself to the
+practical part, get into the methods of making love and war by reading
+books of knighthood. As for raising tender passion in him, Cervantes
+reports[283] that he was wonderfully delighted with a smooth intricate
+sentence; and when they listened at his study-door, they could
+frequently hear him read aloud, "The reason of the unreasonableness,
+which against my reason is wrought, doth so weaken my reason, as with
+all reason I do justly complain on your beauty." Again, he would pause
+till he came to another charming sentence, and with the most pleasing
+accent imaginable be loud at a new paragraph: "The high heavens, which,
+with your divinity, do fortify you divinely with the stars, make you
+deserveress of the deserts that your greatness deserves." With these,
+and other such passages (says my author) the poor gentleman grew
+distracted, and was breaking his brains day and night to understand and
+unravel their sense.
+
+As much as the case of this distempered knight is received by all the
+readers of his history as the most incurable and ridiculous of all
+phrensies, it is very certain we have crowds among us far gone in as
+visible a madness as his, though they are not observed to be in that
+condition. As great and useful discoveries are sometimes made by
+accidental and small beginnings, I came to the knowledge of the most
+epidemic ill of this sort, by falling into a coffee-house where I saw my
+friend the upholsterer,[284] whose crack[285] towards politics I have
+heretofore mentioned. This touch in the brain of the British subject is
+as certainly owing to the reading newspapers, as that of the Spanish
+worthy above mentioned to the reading works of chivalry. My
+contemporaries the novelists[286] have, for the better spinning out
+paragraphs, and working down to the end of their columns, a most happy
+art in saying and unsaying, giving hints of intelligence, and
+interpretations of indifferent actions, to the great disturbance of the
+brains of ordinary readers. This way of going on in the words, and
+making no progress in the sense, is more particularly the excellence of
+my most ingenious and renowned fellow-labourer, the _Postman_[287]; and
+it is to this talent in him that I impute the loss of my upholsterer's
+intellects. That unfortunate tradesman has for years past been the chief
+orator in ragged assemblies, and the reader in alley coffee-houses. He
+was yesterday surrounded by an audience of that sort, among whom I sat
+unobserved through the favour of a cloud of tobacco, and saw him with
+the _Postman_ in his hand, and all the other papers safe under his left
+elbow. He was intermixing remarks, and reading the Paris article of May
+30, which says that "it is given out that an express arrived this day,
+with advice, that the armies were so near in the plain of Lens, that
+they cannonaded each other." ("Ay, ay, here we shall have sport.") "And
+that it was highly probable the next express would bring us an account
+of an engagement." ("They are welcome as soon as they please.") "Though
+some others say, that the same will be put off till the 2nd or 3rd of
+June, because the Marshal Villars expects some further reinforcements
+from Germany, and other parts, before that time." ("What-a-pox does he
+put it off for? Does he think our horse is not marching up at the same
+time? But let us see what he says further.") "They hope that Monsieur
+Albergotti,[288] being encouraged by the presence of so great an army,
+will make an extraordinary defence." ("Why then I find, Albergotti is
+one of those that love to have a great many on their side. Nay, I'll say
+that for this paper, he makes the most natural inferences of any of them
+all.") "The Elector of Bavaria being uneasy to be without any command,
+has desired leave to come to Court to communicate a certain project to
+his Majesty. Whatever it be, it is said that prince is suddenly
+expected, and then we shall have a more certain account of his project,
+if this report has any foundation." ("Nay, this paper never imposes upon
+us, he goes upon sure grounds; for he won't be positive the Elector has
+a project, or that he will come, or if he does come at all; for he
+doubts, you see, whether the report has any foundation.")
+
+What makes this the more lamentable is, that this way of writing falls
+in with the imagination of the cooler and duller part of her Majesty's
+subjects. The being kept up with one line contradicting another, and the
+whole, after many sentences of conjecture, vanishing in a doubt whether
+there is anything at all in what the person has been reading, puts an
+ordinary head into a vertigo, which his natural dulness would have
+secured him from. Next to the labours of the _Postman_, the upholsterer
+took from under his elbow honest Ichabod Dawks' _Letter_,[289] and
+there, among other speculations, the historian takes upon him to say
+that "it is discoursed that there will be a battle in Flanders before
+the armies separate, and many will have it to be to-morrow, the great
+battle of Ramillies being fought on a Whit Sunday." A gentleman who was
+a wag in this company laughed at the expression, and said, "By Mr.
+Dawks' favour, I warrant ye, if we meet them on Whit Sunday, or Monday,
+we shall not stand upon the day[290] with them, whether it be before or
+after the holidays." An admirer of this gentleman stood up, and told a
+neighbour at a distant table the conceit, at which indeed we were all
+very merry. These reflections in the writers of the transactions of the
+times, seize the noddles of such as were not born to have thoughts of
+their own, and consequently lay a weight upon everything which they read
+in print. But Mr. Dawks concluded his paper with a courteous sentence,
+which was very well taken and applauded by the whole company. "We wish,"
+says he, "all our customers a merry Whitsuntide, and many of them."
+Honest Ichabod is as extraordinary a man as any of our fraternity, and
+as particular. His style is a dialect between the familiarity of talking
+and writing, and his letter such as you cannot distinguish whether print
+or manuscript, which gives us a refreshment[291] of the idea from what
+has been told us from the press by others. This wishing a good tide had
+its effect upon us, and he was commended for his salutation, as showing
+as well the capacity of a bellman as an historian. My distempered old
+acquaintance read in the next place the account of the affairs abroad in
+the _Courant_;[292] but the matter was told so distinctly, that these
+wanderers thought there was no news in it; this paper differing from the
+rest as a history from a romance. The tautology, the contradictions, the
+doubts, and wants of confirmations, are what keep up imaginary
+entertainments in empty heads, and produce neglect of their own affairs,
+poverty, and bankruptcy, in many of the shop-statesmen; but turn the
+imaginations of those of a little higher orb into deliriums of
+dissatisfaction, which is seen in a continual fret upon all that touches
+their brains, but more particularly upon any advantage obtained by their
+country, where they are considered as lunatics, and therefore tolerated
+in their ravings.
+
+What I am now warning the people of is, that the newspapers of this
+island are as pernicious to weak heads in England as ever books of
+chivalry to Spain; and therefore shall do all that in me lies, with the
+utmost care and vigilance imaginable, to prevent these growing evils. A
+flaming instance of this malady appeared in my old acquaintance at this
+time, who, after he had done reading all his papers, ended with a
+thoughtful air, "If we should have a peace, we should then know for
+certain whether it was the King of Sweden that lately came to Dunkirk."
+I whispered him, and desired him to step aside a little with me. When I
+had opportunity, I decoyed him into a coach, in order for his more easy
+conveyance to Moorfields. The man went very quietly with me; and by that
+time he had brought the Swede from the defeat by the Czar to the
+Boristhenes, we were passing by Will's Coffeehouse, where the man of the
+house beckoned to us. We made a full stop, and could hear from above a
+very loud voice swearing, with some expressions towards treason, that
+the subject in France was as free as in England. His distemper would not
+let him reflect, that his own discourse was an argument of the contrary.
+They told him, one would speak with him below. He came immediately to
+our coach-side. I whispered him, that I had an order to carry him to the
+Bastile. He immediately obeyed with great resignation: for to this sort
+of lunatic, whose brain is touched for the French, the name of a gaol in
+that kingdom has a more agreeable sound than that of a paternal seat in
+this their own country. It happened a little unluckily bringing these
+lunatics together, for they immediately fell into a debate concerning
+the greatness of their respective monarchs; one for the King of Sweden,
+the other for the Grand Monarch of France. This gentleman from Will's is
+now next door to the upholsterer, safe in his apartment in my Bedlam,
+with proper medicaments, and the _Mercure Galant_[293] to soothe his
+imagination that he is actually in France. If therefore he should escape
+to Covent Garden again, all persons are desired to lay hold of him, and
+deliver him to Mr. Morphew, my overseer. At the same time, I desire all
+true subjects to forbear discourse with him, any otherwise than when he
+begins to fight a battle for France, to say, "Sir, I hope to see you in
+England."
+
+
+[Footnote 283: "Don Quixote," Part I. chap. i.]
+
+[Footnote 284: See Nos. 155, 160.]
+
+[Footnote 285: In the _Spectator_, No. 251, Addison applies the word to
+a crazy person: "A crack and a projector."]
+
+[Footnote 286: Writers of newspapers.]
+
+[Footnote 287: The _Postman_ was edited by a French Protestant named
+Fontive, whom Dunton describes as "the glory and mirror of news-writers;
+a very grave, learned, orthodox man."]
+
+[Footnote 288: Albergotti was then holding Douay for Lewis XIV.]
+
+[Footnote 289: See No. 18. The news-letter was printed to imitate
+handwriting.]
+
+[Footnote 290: Cf. "Macbeth," act iii. sc. 4:
+
+    "Stand not upon the order of your going,
+    But go at once!"
+]
+
+[Footnote 291: A _réchauffé_.]
+
+[Footnote 292: See No. 18.]
+
+[Footnote 293: See No. 67.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 179.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Tuesday, May 30_, to _Thursday, June 1, 1710_.
+
+    ----O! quis me gelidis sub montibus Hæmi
+    Sistat, et ingenti ramorum protegat umbra?
+                                  VIRG., Georg. ii. 488.[294]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, May 31._
+
+In this parched season, next to the pleasure of going into the country,
+is that of hearing from it, and partaking the joys of it in description,
+as in the following letter:
+
+     "SIR,
+
+     "I believe you will forgive me, though I write to you a very long
+     epistle, since it relates to the satisfaction of a country life,
+     which I know you would lead, if you could. In the first place I
+     must confess to you, that I am one of the most luxurious men
+     living; and as I am such, I take care to make my pleasures lasting,
+     by following none but such as are innocent and refined, as well as,
+     in some measure, improving. You have in your labours been so much
+     concerned to represent the actions and passions of mankind, that
+     the whole vegetable world has almost escaped your observation: but
+     sure there are gratifications to be drawn from thence, which
+     deserve to be recommended. For your better information, I wish you
+     could visit your old friend in Cornwall: you would be leased to
+     see the many alterations I have made about my house, and how much I
+     have improved my estate without raising the rents of it.
+
+     "As the winter engrosses with us near a double portion of the year
+     (the three delightful vicissitudes being crowded almost within the
+     space of six months), there is nothing upon which I have bestowed
+     so much study and expense, as in contriving means to soften the
+     severity of it, and, if possible, to establish twelve cheerful
+     months about my habitation. In order to this, the charges I have
+     been at in building and furnishing a greenhouse will, perhaps, be
+     thought somewhat extravagant by a great many gentlemen whose
+     revenues exceed mine. But when I consider, that all men of any life
+     and spirit have their inclinations to gratify, and when I compute
+     the sums laid out by the generality of the men of pleasure (in the
+     number of which I always rank myself) in riotous eating and
+     drinking, in equipage and apparel, upon wenching, gaming, racing
+     and hunting; I find, upon the balance, that the indulging of my
+     humour comes at a reasonable rate.
+
+     "Since I communicate to you all incidents serious and trifling,
+     even to the death of a butterfly, that fall out within the compass
+     of my little empire, you will not, I hope, be ill pleased with the
+     draught I now send you of my little winter paradise, and with an
+     account of my way of amusing myself and others in it.
+
+     "The younger Pliny, you know, writes a long letter to his friend
+     Gallus,[295] in which he gives him a very particular plan of the
+     situation, the conveniences, and the agreeableness of his villa. In
+     my last, you may remember, I promised you something of this kind.
+     Had Pliny lived in a northern climate, I doubt not but we should
+     have found a very complete orangery amongst his Epistles; and I,
+     probably, should have copied his model, instead of building after
+     my own fancy, and you had been referred to him for the history of
+     my late exploits in architecture: by which means my performances
+     would have made a better figure, at least in writing, than they are
+     like to make at present.
+
+     "The area of my greenhouse is a hundred paces long, fifty broad,
+     and the roof thirty feet high. The wall toward the north is of
+     solid stone. On the south side, and at both the ends, the stonework
+     rises but three feet from the ground, excepting the pilasters,
+     placed at convenient distances to strengthen and beautify the
+     building. The intermediate spaces are filled up with large sashes
+     of the strongest and most transparent glass. The middle sash (which
+     is wider than any of the others) serves for the entrance, to which
+     you mount by six easy steps, and descend on the inside by as many.
+     This opens and shuts with greater ease, keeps the wind out better,
+     and is at the same time more uniform than folding-doors.
+
+     "In the middle of the roof there runs a ceiling thirty feet broad
+     from one end to the other. This is enlivened by a masterly pencil,
+     with all the variety of rural scenes and prospects, which he has
+     peopled with the whole tribe of sylvan deities. Their characters
+     and their stories are so well expressed, that the whole seems a
+     collection of all the most beautiful fables of the ancient poets
+     translated into colours. The remaining spaces of the roof, ten feet
+     on each side of the ceiling, are of the clearest glass, to let in
+     the sky and clouds from above. The building points full east and
+     west, so that I enjoy the sun while he is above the horizon. His
+     rays are improved through the glass, and I receive through it what
+     is desirable in a winter-sky, without the coarse alloy of the
+     season, which is a kind of sifting or straining the weather. My
+     greens and lowers are as sensible as I am of this benefit: they
+     flourish and look cheerful as in the spring, while their fellow
+     creatures abroad are starved to death. I must add, that a moderate
+     expense of fire, over and above the contributions I receive from
+     the sun, serves to keep this large room in a due temperature; it
+     being sheltered from the cold winds by a hill on the north, and a
+     wood on the east.
+
+     "The shell, you see, is both agreeable and convenient; and now you
+     shall judge, whether I have laid out the floor to advantage. There
+     goes through the whole length of it a spacious walk of the finest
+     gravel, made to bind and unite so firmly, that it seems one
+     continued stone; with this advantage, that it is easier to the
+     foot, and better for walking, than if it were what it seems to be.
+     At each end of the walk, on the one and on the other side of it,
+     lies a square plot of grass of the finest turf and brightest
+     verdure. What ground remains on both sides, between these little
+     smooth fields of green, is flagged with large quarries of white
+     marble, where the blue veins trace out such a variety of irregular
+     windings through the clear surface, that these bright plains seem
+     full of rivulets and streaming meanders. This to my eye, that
+     delights in simplicity, is inexpressibly more beautiful than the
+     chequered floors which are so generally admired by others. Upon the
+     right and upon the left, along the gravel walk, I have ranged
+     interchangeably the bay, the myrtle, the orange and the lemon
+     trees, intermixed with painted hollies, silver firs, and pyramids
+     of yew; all so disposed, that every tree receives an additional
+     beauty from its situation; besides the harmony that rises from the
+     disposition of the whole, no shade cuts too strongly, or breaks in
+     harshly upon the other; but the eye is cheered with a mild rather
+     than gorgeous diversity of greens.
+
+     "The borders of the four grass plots are garnished with pots of
+     flowers: those delicacies of Nature create two senses at once, and
+     leave such delightful and gentle impressions upon the brain, that I
+     cannot help thinking them of equal force with the softest airs of
+     music, toward the smoothing of our tempers. In the centre of every
+     plot is a statue. The figures I have made choice of are a Venus, an
+     Adonis, a Diana, and an Apollo; such excellent copies, as to raise
+     the same delight as we should draw from the sight of the ancient
+     originals.
+
+     "The north wall would have been but a tiresome waste to the eye, if
+     I had not diversified it with the most lively ornaments, suitable
+     to the place. To this intent, I have been at the expense to lead
+     over arches from a neighbouring hill a plentiful store of spring
+     water, which a beautiful Naiad, placed as high as is possible in
+     the centre of the wall, pours out from an urn. This, by a fall of
+     above twenty foot, makes a most delightful cascade into a basin,
+     that opens wide within the marble floor on that side. At a
+     reasonable distance, on either hand of the cascade, the wall is
+     hollowed into two spreading scallops, each of which receives a
+     couch of green velvet, and forms at the same time a canopy over
+     them. Next to them come two large aviaries, which are likewise let
+     into the stone. These are succeeded by two grottoes, set off with
+     all the pleasing rudeness of shells and moss, and cragged stones,
+     imitating in miniature rocks and precipices, the most dreadful and
+     gigantic works of Nature. After the grottoes, you have two niches,
+     the one inhabited by Ceres, with her sickle and sheaf of wheat; and
+     the other by Pomona, who, with a countenance full of good cheer,
+     pours a bounteous autumn of fruits out of her horn. Last of all
+     come two colonies of bees, whose stations lying east and west, the
+     one is saluted by the rising, the other by the setting sun. These,
+     all of them being placed at proportioned intervals, furnish out the
+     whole length of the wall; and the spaces that lie between are
+     painted in fresco, by the same hand that has enriched my ceiling.
+
+     "Now, sir, you see my whole contrivance to elude the rigour of the
+     year, to bring a northern climate nearer the sun, and to exempt
+     myself from the common fate of my countrymen. I must detain you a
+     little longer, to tell you, that I never enter this delicious
+     retirement, but my spirits are revived, and a sweet complacency
+     diffuses itself over my whole mind. And how can it be otherwise,
+     with a conscience void of offence, where the music of falling
+     waters, the symphony of birds, the gentle humming of bees, the
+     breath of flowers, the fine imagery of painting and sculpture: in a
+     word, the beauties and the charms of nature and of art court all my
+     faculties, refresh the fibres of the brain and smooth every avenue
+     of thought. What pleasing meditations, what agreeable wanderings of
+     the mind, and what delicious slumbers, have I enjoyed here! And
+     when I turn up some masterly writer to my imagination, methinks
+     here his beauties appear in the most advantageous light, and the
+     rays of his genius shoot upon me with greater force and brightness
+     than ordinary. This place likewise keeps the whole family in good
+     humour, in a season wherein gloominess of temper prevails
+     universally in this island. My wife does often touch her lute in
+     one of the grottoes, and my daughter sings to it, while the ladies
+     with you, amidst all the diversions of the town, and in the most
+     affluent fortunes, are fretting and repining beneath a lowering sky
+     for they know not what. In this greenhouse we often dine, we drink
+     tea, we dance country dances; and what is the chief pleasure of
+     all, we entertain our neighbours in it, and by this means
+     contribute very much to mend the climate five or six miles about
+     us. I am,
+
+                                   "Your most humble Servant,
+                                                         "T. S."[296]
+
+
+[Footnote 294: The correct reading is, "O, qui me gellidis in vallibus,"
+&c.]
+
+[Footnote 295: "Epist." ii. 17.]
+
+[Footnote 296: Thomas Smith, who voted against Steele's expulsion, was
+member for the borough of Eye, and may have been the person who wrote
+this letter, to which the initials of his name are subscribed. In the
+preface to the _Examiner_, the first number of which was published Aug.
+3, 1710, there is the following passage: "All descriptions of
+stage-players and statesmen, the erecting of greenhouses, the forming of
+constellations, the beaus' red heels, and the furbelows of the ladies,
+shall remain entire to the use and benefit of their first proprietor."
+
+The description of stage-players and statesmen, here mentioned, is an
+allusion to Downes' letter. See No. 193.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 180.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Thursday, June 1_, to _Saturday, June 3, 1710_.
+
+    Stultitiam patiuntur opes.--HOR., 1 Ep. xviii. 29.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, June 2._
+
+I have received a letter which accuses me of partiality in the
+administration of the Censorship, and says, that I have been very free
+with the lower part of mankind, but extremely cautious in
+representations of matters which concern men of condition. This
+correspondent takes upon him also to say, the upholsterer was not undone
+by turning politician, but became bankrupt by trusting his goods to
+persons of quality; and demands of me, that I should do justice upon
+such as brought poverty and distress upon the world below them, while
+they themselves were sunk in pleasures and luxury, supported at the
+expense of those very persons whom they treated with a negligence, as
+if they did not know whether they dealt with them or not. This is a
+very heavy accusation, both of me and such as the man aggrieved accuses
+me of tolerating. For this reason, I resolved to take this matter into
+consideration, and upon very little meditation could call to my memory
+many instances which made this complaint far from being groundless. The
+root of this evil does not always proceed from injustice in the men of
+figure, but often from a false grandeur which they take upon them in
+being unacquainted with their own business, not considering how mean a
+part they act when their names and characters are subjected to the
+little arts of their servants and dependants. The overseers of the poor
+are a people who have no great reputation for the discharge of their
+trust, but are much less scandalous than the overseers of the rich. Ask
+a young fellow of a great estate, who was that odd fellow spoke to him
+in a public place? He answers, "One that does my business." It is, with
+many, a natural consequence of being a man of fortune, that they are not
+to understand the disposal of it; and they long to come to their
+estates, only to put themselves under new guardianship. Nay, I have
+known a young fellow who was regularly bred an attorney, and was a very
+expert one till he had an estate fallen to him. The moment that
+happened, he who could before prove the next land he cast his eye upon
+his own, and was so sharp, that a man at first sight would give him a
+small sum for a general receipt, whether he owed him anything or not:
+such a one, I say, have I seen, upon coming to an estate, forget all his
+diffidence of mankind, and become the most manageable thing breathing.
+He immediately wanted a stirring man to take upon him his affairs, to
+receive and pay, and do everything which he himself was now too fine a
+gentleman to understand. It is pleasant to consider, that he who would
+have got an estate had he not come to one, will certainly starve
+because one fell to him: but such contradictions are we to ourselves,
+and any change of life is insupportable to some natures.
+
+It is a mistaken sense of superiority, to believe a figure or equipage
+gives men precedence to their neighbours. Nothing can create respect
+from mankind, but laying obligations upon them; and it may very
+reasonably be concluded, that if it were put into a due balance,
+according to the true state of the account, many who believe themselves
+in possession of a large share of dignity in the world, must give place
+to their inferiors. The greatest of all distinctions in civil life is
+that of debtor and creditor, and there needs no great progress in logic
+to know which, in that case, is the advantageous side. He who can say to
+another, "Pray, master," or "Pray, my lord, give me my own," can as
+justly tell him, "It is a fantastical distinction you take upon you, to
+pretend to pass upon the world for my master or lord, when at the same
+time that I wear your livery, you owe me wages; or, while I wait at your
+door, you are ashamed to see me till you have paid my bill."
+
+The good old way among the gentry of England to maintain their
+pre-eminence over the lower rank, was by their bounty, munificence, and
+hospitality; and it is a very unhappy change, if at present, by
+themselves or their agents, the luxury of the gentry is supported by the
+credit of the trader. This is what my correspondent pretends to prove
+out of his own books, and those of his whole neighbourhood. He has the
+confidence to say, that there is a mug-house near Long Acre, where you
+may every evening hear an exact account of distresses of this kind. One
+complains, that such a lady's finery is the occasion that his own wife
+and daughter appear so long in the same gown: another, that all the
+furniture of her visiting apartment are no more hers, than the scenery
+of a play are the proper goods of the actress. Nay, at the lower end of
+the same table, you may hear a butcher and poulterer say, that at their
+proper charge all that family has been maintained since they last came
+to town.
+
+The free manner in which people of fashion are discoursed on at such
+meetings, is but a just reproach for their failures in this kind; but
+the melancholy relations of the great necessities tradesmen are driven
+to, who support their credit in spite of the faithless promises which
+are made them, and the abatement which they suffer when paid, by the
+extortion of upper servants, is what would stop the most thoughtless man
+in the career of his pleasures, if rightly represented to him.
+
+If this matter be not very speedily amended, I shall think fit to print
+exact lists of all persons who are not at their own disposal, though
+above the age of twenty-one; and as the trader is made bankrupt for
+absence from his abode, so shall the gentleman for being at home, if,
+when Mr. Morphew calls, he cannot give him an exact account of what
+passes in his own family. After this fair warning, no one ought to think
+himself hardly dealt with, if I take upon me to pronounce him no longer
+master of his estate, wife, or family, than he continues to improve,
+cherish, and maintain them upon the basis of his own property, without
+incursions upon his neighbour in any of these particulars.
+
+According to that excellent philosopher Epictetus, we are all but acting
+parts in a play; and it is not a distinction in itself to be high or
+low, but to become the parts we are to perform. I am by my office
+prompter on this occasion, and shall give those who are a little out in
+their parts such soft hints as may help them to proceed, without letting
+it be known to the audience they were out: but if they run quite out of
+character, they must be called off the stage, and receive parts more
+suitable to their genius. Servile complaisance shall degrade a man from
+his honour and quality, and haughtiness be yet more debased. Fortune
+shall no longer appropriate distinctions, but Nature direct us in the
+disposition both of respect and discountenance. As there are tempers
+made for command, and others for obedience; so there are men born for
+acquiring possessions, and others incapable of being other than mere
+lodgers in the houses of their ancestors, and have it not in their very
+composition to be proprietors of anything. These men are moved only by
+the mere effects of impulse: their goodwill and disesteem are to be
+regarded equally, for neither is the effect of their judgment. This
+loose temper is that which makes a man, what Sallust so well remarks to
+happen frequently in the same person, to be covetous of what is
+another's, and profuse of what is his own.[297] This sort of men is
+usually amiable to ordinary eyes; but in the sight of reason, nothing is
+laudable but what is guided by reason. The covetous prodigal is of all
+others the worst man in society: if he would but take time to look into
+himself, he would find his soul all over gashed with broken vows and
+promises, and his retrospect on his actions would not consist of
+reflections upon those good resolutions after mature thought, which are
+the true life of a reasonable creature, but the nauseous memory of
+imperfect pleasures, idle dreams, and occasional amusements. To follow
+such dissatisfying pursuits, is it possible to suffer the ignominy of
+being unjust? I remember in Tully's Epistle, in the recommendation of a
+man to an affair which had no manner of relation to money, it is said,
+"You may trust him, for he is a frugal man." It is certain, he who has
+not a regard to strict justice in the commerce of life, can be capable
+of no good action in any other kind; but he who lives below his income,
+lays up every moment of life armour against a base world, that will
+cover all his frailties while he is so fortified, and exaggerate them
+when he is naked and defenceless.
+
+
+ADVERTISEMENT.
+
+A stage-coach sets out exactly at six from Nando's Coffee-house[298] to
+Mr. Tiptoe's dancing school, and returns at eleven every evening, for
+16_d._
+
+N.B. Dancing-shoes not exceeding four inches height in the heel, and
+periwigs not exceeding three feet in length, are carried in the
+coach-box gratis.
+
+
+[Footnote 297: "Alieni appetens, sui profusus" ("Bell. Cat." cap. i.).]
+
+[Footnote 298: See No. 142.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 181.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Saturday, June 3_, to _Tuesday, June 6, 1710_.
+
+    ----Dies, ni fallor, adest, quem semper acerbum,
+    Semper honoratum (sic di voluistis), habebo.
+                                        VIRG., Æn. v. 49.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, June 5._
+
+There are those among mankind, who can enjoy no relish of their being,
+except the world is made acquainted with all that relates to them, and
+think everything lost that passes unobserved; but others find a solid
+delight in stealing by the crowd, and modelling their life after such a
+manner, as is as much above the approbation as the practice of the
+vulgar. Life being too short to give instances great enough of true
+friendship or goodwill, some sages have thought it pious to preserve a
+certain reverence for the manes of their deceased friends, and have
+withdrawn themselves from the rest of the world at certain seasons, to
+commemorate in their own thoughts such of their acquaintance who have
+gone before them out of this life: and indeed, when we are advanced in
+years, there is not a more pleasing entertainment, than to recollect in
+a gloomy moment the many we have parted with that have been dear and
+agreeable to us, and to cast a melancholy thought or two after those
+with whom, perhaps, we have indulged ourselves in whole nights of mirth
+and jollity. With such inclinations in my heart I went to my closet
+yesterday in the evening, and resolved to be sorrowful; upon which
+occasion, I could not but look with disdain upon myself, that though all
+the reasons which I had to lament the loss of many of my friends are now
+as forcible as at the moment of their departure, yet did not my heart
+swell with the same sorrow which I felt at that time; but I could,
+without tears, reflect upon many pleasing adventures I have had with
+some who have long been blended with common earth. Though it is by the
+benefit of nature that length of time thus blots out the violence of
+afflictions; yet with tempers too much given to pleasure, it is almost
+necessary to revive the old places of grief in our memory, and ponder
+step by step on past life, to lead the mind into that sobriety of
+thought which poises the heart, and makes it beat with due time, without
+being quickened with desire, or retarded with despair, from its proper
+and equal motion. When we wind up a clock that is out of order, to make
+it go well for the future, we do not immediately set the hand to the
+present instant, but we make it strike the round of all its hours,
+before it can recover the regularity of its time. "Such," thought I,
+"shall be my method this evening; and since it is that day of the year
+which I dedicate to the memory of such in another life as I much
+delighted in when living, an hour or two shall be sacred to sorrow and
+their memory, while I run over all the melancholy circumstances of this
+kind which have occurred to me in my whole life."
+
+The first sense of sorrow I ever knew was upon the death of my
+father,[299] at which time I was not quite five years of age; but was
+rather amazed at what all the house meant, than possessed with a real
+understanding why nobody was willing to play with me. I remember I went
+into the room where his body lay, and my mother sat weeping alone by it.
+I had my battledore in my hand, and fell a beating the coffin, and
+calling "Papa"; for I know not how I had some slight idea that he was
+locked up there. My mother catched me in her arms, and transported
+beyond all patience of the silent grief she was before in, she almost
+smothered me in her embrace, and told me in a flood of tears, papa could
+not hear me, and would play with me no more, for they were going to put
+him under ground, whence he could never come to us again. She was a very
+beautiful woman, of a noble spirit, and there was a dignity in her grief
+amidst all the wildness of her transport, which, methought, struck me
+with an instinct of sorrow, which, before I was sensible of what it was
+to grieve, seized my very soul, and has made pity the weakness of my
+heart ever since. The mind in infancy is, methinks, like the body in
+embryo, and receives impressions so forcible, that they are as hard to
+be removed by reason, as any mark with which a child is born is to be
+taken away by any future application. Hence it is, that good nature in
+me is no merit; but having been so frequently overwhelmed with her tears
+before I knew the cause of any affliction, or could draw defences from
+my own judgment, I imbibed commiseration, remorse, and an unmanly
+gentleness of mind, which has since ensnared me into ten thousand
+calamities, and from whence I can reap no advantage, except it be, that
+in such a humour as I am now in, I can the better indulge myself in the
+softnesses of humanity, and enjoy that sweet anxiety which arises from
+the memory of past afflictions.[300]
+
+We that are very old, are better able to remember things which befell us
+in our distant youth, than the passages of later days. For this reason
+it is, that the companions of my strong and vigorous years present
+themselves more immediately to me in this office of sorrow. Untimely or
+unhappy deaths are what we are most apt to lament, so little are we able
+to make it indifferent when a thing happens, though we know it must
+happen. Thus we groan under life, and bewail those who are relieved from
+it. Every object that returns to our imagination raises different
+passions according to the circumstance of their departure. Who can have
+lived in an army, and in a serious hour reflect upon the many gay and
+agreeable men that might long have flourished in the arts of peace, and
+not join with the imprecations of the fatherless and widow on the tyrant
+to whose ambition they fell sacrifices? But gallant men, who are cut off
+by the sword, move rather our veneration than our pity, and we gather
+relief enough from their own contempt of death, to make it no evil,
+which was approached with so much cheerfulness, and attended with so
+much honour. But when we turn our thoughts from the great parts of life
+on such occasions, and instead of lamenting those who stood ready to
+give death to those from whom they had the fortune to receive it; I say,
+when we let our thoughts wander from such noble objects, and consider
+the havoc which is made among the tender and the innocent, pity enters
+with an unmixed softness, and possesses all our souls at once.
+
+Here (were there words to express such sentiments with proper
+tenderness) I should record the beauty, innocence, and untimely death,
+of the first object my eyes ever beheld with love. The beauteous virgin!
+How ignorantly did she charm, how carelessly excel! O Death! thou hast
+right to the bold, to the ambitious, to the high, and to the haughty,
+but why this cruelty to the humble, to the meek, to the undiscerning, to
+the thoughtless?[301] Nor age, nor business, nor distress, can erase the
+dear image from my imagination. In the same week, I saw her dressed for
+a ball, and in a shroud. How ill did the habit of Death become the
+pretty trifler? I still behold the smiling earth--A large train of
+disasters were coming on to my memory, when my servant knocked at my
+closet door, and interrupted me with a letter, attended with a hamper of
+wine, of the same sort with that which is to be put to sale on Thursday
+next at Garraway's Coffee-house.[302] Upon the receipt of it, I sent for
+three of my friends. We are so intimate, that we can be company in
+whatever state of mind we meet, and can entertain each other without
+expecting always to rejoice. The wine we found to be generous and
+warming, but with such a heat as moved us rather to be cheerful than
+frolicsome. It revived the spirits without firing the blood. We
+commended it till two of the clock this morning, and having to-day met a
+little before dinner, we found, that though we drank two bottles a man,
+we had much more reason to recollect than forget what had passed the
+night before.
+
+
+[Footnote 299: Steele's father, Richard Steele, was a Dublin solicitor.
+His mother, whose maiden name was Elinor Sheyles, had married Thomas
+Symes, of Dublin, as her first husband.]
+
+[Footnote 300: Thackeray has compared the treatment of Death by Swift,
+Addison, and Steele. After speaking of Addison's "lovely serenity" and
+Swift's "savage indignation," he turns to Steele: "The third, whose
+theme is Death, too, and who will speak his word of mortal as Heaven
+teaches him, leads you up to his father's coffin, and shows you his
+beautiful mother weeping, and himself an unconscious little boy
+wondering at her side. His own natural tears flow as he takes your hand,
+and confidingly asks for your sympathy; 'See how good and innocent and
+beautiful women are,' he says, 'how tender little children! Let us love
+these and one another, brother--God knows we have need of love and
+pardon!'" ("English Humourists," 1864, 158-9).]
+
+[Footnote 301: The unsuspecting.]
+
+[Footnote 302: "Notice is hereby given, that 46 hogsheads and one half
+of extraordinary French claret will be put up to sale, at £20 per
+hogshead, at Garraway's Coffee-house in Exchange Alley, on Thursday the
+8th instant, at three in the afternoon, and to be tasted in a vault
+under Messrs. Lane and Harrison's, in Sweething's Lane, Lombard Street,
+from this day till the time of sale," &c. (No. 181, Advertisement).]
+
+
+
+
+No. 182.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Tuesday, June 6_, to _Thursday, June 8, 1710_.
+
+    Spectaret populum ludis attentius ipsis.--HOR., 2 Ep. i. 197.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, June 7._
+
+The town grows so very empty, that the greater number of my gay
+characters are fled out of my sight into the country. My beaus are now
+shepherds, and my belles wood-nymphs. They are lolling over rivulets,
+and covered with shades, while we who remain in town hurry through the
+dust about impertinences, without knowing the happiness of leisure and
+retirement. To add to this calamity, even the actors are going to desert
+us for a season, and we shall not shortly have so much as a landscape or
+frost-scene to refresh ourselves within the midst of our fatigues. This
+may not perhaps be so sensible a loss to any other as to me; for I
+confess it is one of my greatest delights to sit unobserved and unknown
+in the gallery, and entertain myself either with what is personated on
+the stage, or observe what appearances present themselves in the
+audience. If there were no other good consequences in a playhouse, than
+that so many persons of different ranks and conditions are placed there
+in their most pleasing aspects, that prospect only would be very far
+from being below the pleasures of a wise man. There is not one person
+you can see, in whom, if you look with an inclination to be pleased, you
+may not behold something worthy or agreeable. Our thoughts are in our
+features; and the visage of those in whom love, rage, anger, jealousy or
+envy, have their frequent mansions, carries the traces of those passions
+wherever the amorous, the choleric, the jealous, or the envious, are
+pleased to make their appearance. However, the assembly at a play is
+usually made up of such as have a sense of some elegance in pleasure, by
+which means the audience is generally composed of those who have gentle
+affections, or at least of such as at that time are in the best humour
+you can ever find them. This has insensibly a good effect upon our
+spirits; and the musical airs which are played to us, put the whole
+company into a participation of the same pleasure, and by consequence
+for that time equal in humour, in fortune, and in quality. Thus far we
+gain only by coming into an audience; but if we find added to this, the
+beauties of proper action, the force of eloquence, and the gaiety of
+well-placed lights and scenes, it is being happy, and seeing others
+happy for two hours; a duration of bliss not at all to be slighted by so
+short-lived a creature as man. Why then should not the duty of the
+player be had in much more esteem than it is at present? If the merit of
+a performance be to be valued according to the talents which are
+necessary to it, the qualifications of a player should raise him much
+above the arts and ways of life which we call mercenary or mechanic.
+When we look round a full house, and behold so few that can (though they
+set themselves out to show as much as the persons on the stage do) come
+up to what they would appear even in dumb show, how much does the actor
+deserve our approbation, who adds to the advantage of looks and motions
+the tone of voice, the dignity, the humility, the sorrow, the triumph
+suitable to the character he personates?
+
+It may possibly be imagined by severe men, that I am too frequent in the
+mention of the theatrical representations; but who is not excessive in
+the discourse of what he extremely likes? Eugenio can lead you to a
+gallery of fine pictures, which collection he is always increasing:
+Crassus through woods and forests, to which he designs to add the
+neighbouring counties. These are great and noble instances of their
+magnificence. The players are my pictures, and their scenes my
+territories. By communicating the pleasure I take in them, it may in
+some measure add to men's gratifications this way, as viewing the choice
+and wealth of Eugenio and Crassus augments the enjoyments of those whom
+they entertain, with a prospect of such possessions as would not
+otherwise fall within the reach of their fortunes.
+
+It is a very good office one man does another, when he tells him the
+manner of his being pleased; and I have often thought, that a comment
+upon the capacities of the players would very much improve the delight
+that way, and impart it to those who otherwise have no sense of it.
+
+The first of the present stage are Wilks,[303] and Cibber,[304] perfect
+actors in their different kinds. Wilks has a singular talent in
+representing the graces of Nature, Cibber the deformity in the
+affectation of them. Were I a writer of plays, I should never employ
+either of them in parts which had not their bent this way. This is seen
+in the inimitable strain and run of good humour which is kept up in the
+character of Wildair,[305] and in the nice and delicate abuse of
+understanding in that of Sir Novelty.[306] Cibber, in another light,
+hits exquisitely the flat civility of an affected gentleman-usher, and
+Wilks the easy frankness of a gentleman.
+
+If you would observe the force of the same capacities in higher life,
+can anything be more ingenuous than the behaviour of Prince Harry when
+his father checks him? Anything more exasperating, than that of Richard,
+when he insults his superiors? To beseech gracefully, to approach
+respectfully, to pity, to mourn, to love, are the places wherein Wilks
+may be made to shine with the utmost beauty: to rally pleasantly, to
+scorn artfully, to flatter, to ridicule, and to neglect, are what Cibber
+would perform with no less excellence.
+
+When actors are considered with a view to their talents, it is not only
+the pleasure of that hour of action which the spectators gain from their
+performance, but the opposition of right and wrong on the stage would
+have its force in the assistance of our judgments on other occasions. I
+have at present under my tutelage a young poet, who, I design, shall
+entertain the town the ensuing winter. And as he does me the honour to
+let me see his comedy as he writes it, I shall endeavour to make the
+parts fit the genius of the several actors, as exactly as their habits
+can their bodies: and because the two I have mentioned are to perform
+the principal parts, I have prevailed with the house to let "The
+Careless Husband"[307] be acted on Tuesday next, that my young author
+may have a view of a play which is acted to perfection, both by them and
+all concerned in it, as being born within the walls of the theatre, and
+written with an exact knowledge of the abilities of the performers. Mr.
+Wilks will do his best in this play, because it is for his own benefit;
+and Mr. Cibber, because he writ it. Besides which, all the great
+beauties we have left in town, or within call of it, will be present,
+because it is the last play this season. This opportunity will, I hope,
+inflame my pupil with such generous notions from seeing this fair
+assembly as will be then present, that his play may be composed of
+sentiments and characters proper to be presented to such an audience.
+His drama at present has only the outlines drawn. There are, I find, to
+be in it all the reverent offices of life, such as regard to parents,
+husbands, and honourable lovers, preserved with the utmost care; and at
+the same time that agreeableness of behaviour, with the intermixture of
+pleasing passions as arise from innocence and virtue, interspersed in
+such a manner, as that to be charming and agreeable shall appear the
+natural consequence of being virtuous. This great end is one of those I
+propose to do in my Censorship; but if I find a thin house, on an
+occasion when such a work is to be promoted, my pupil shall return to
+his commons at Oxford, and Sheer Lane and the theatres be no longer
+correspondents.
+
+
+[Footnote 303: See No. 14.]
+
+[Footnote 304: Colley Cibber, actor and dramatist, was born in 1671. He
+was admirable alike as an actor of comic parts and a critic of acting,
+and some of his comedies are excellent. In 1714 Cibber became associated
+with Steele in the management of Drury Lane Theatre. After his
+retirement from the stage in 1733 he published his famous "Apology"
+(1740). He died in 1757. Steele wrote several times in his praise in the
+_Spectator_ (Nos. 370, 546).]
+
+[Footnote 305: Sir Harry Wildair, in Farquhar's "Constant Couple."]
+
+[Footnote 306: Sir Novelty Fashion, in Cibber's "Love's Last Shift."]
+
+[Footnote 307: In this play, produced in 1705, Wilks was Sir Charles
+Easy; Cibber, Lord Foppington; and Mrs. Oldfield, Lady Betty Modish. In
+his "Apology" Cibber said that it was only just to place to the account
+of Mrs. Oldfield a large share of the favourable reception accorded to
+"The Careless Husband."]
+
+
+
+
+No. 183.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Thursday, June 8_, to _Saturday, June 10, 1710_.
+
+    ----Fuit hæc sapientia quondam,
+    Publica privatis secernere.
+                              HOR., Ars Poet. 396.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, June 9._
+
+When men look into their own bosoms, and consider the generous seeds
+which are there planted, that might, if rightly cultivated, ennoble
+their lives, and make their virtue venerable to futurity; how can they,
+without tears, reflect on the universal degeneracy from that public
+spirit, which ought to be the first and principal motive of all their
+actions? In the Grecian and Roman nations, they were wise enough to keep
+up this great incentive, and it was impossible to be in the fashion
+without being a patriot. All gallantry had its first source from hence;
+and to want a warmth for the public welfare was a defect so scandalous,
+that he who was guilty of it had no pretence to honour or manhood. What
+makes the depravity among us in this behalf the more vexatious and
+irksome to reflect upon, is, that the contempt of life is carried as far
+amongst us as it could be in those memorable people; and we want only a
+proper application of the qualities which are frequent among us to be as
+worthy as they. There is hardly a man to be found who will not fight
+upon any occasion which he thinks may taint his own honour. Were this
+motive as strong in everything that regards the public, as it is in this
+our private case, no man would pass his life away without having
+distinguished himself by some gallant instance of his zeal towards it in
+the respective incidents of his life and profession. But it is so far
+otherwise, that there cannot at present be a more ridiculous animal than
+one who seems to regard the good of others. He in civil life whose
+thoughts turn upon schemes which may be of general benefit, without
+further reflection, is called a "projector"; and the man whose mind
+seems intent upon glorious achievements, a "knight-errant." The ridicule
+among us runs strong against laudable actions. Nay, in the ordinary
+course of things, and the common regards of life, negligence of the
+public is an epidemic vice. The brewer in his excise, the merchant in
+his customs, and for aught we know the soldier in his muster-rolls,
+think never the worse of themselves for being guilty of their respective
+frauds towards the public. This evil is come to such a fantastical
+height, that he is a man of a public spirit, and heroically affected to
+his country, who can go so far as even to turn usurer with all he has in
+her funds. There is not a citizen in whose imagination such a one does
+not appear in the same light of glory as Codrus, Scævola, or any other
+great name in old Rome. Were it not for the heroes of so much per cent.
+as have regard enough for themselves and their nation to trade with her
+with their wealth, the very notion of public love would long ere now
+have vanished from among us. But however general custom may hurry us
+away in the stream of a common error, there is no evil, no crime, so
+great as that of being cold in matters which relate to the common good.
+This is in nothing more conspicuous than in a certain willingness to
+receive anything that tends to the diminution of such as have been
+conspicuous instruments in our service. Such inclinations proceed from
+the most low and vile corruption of which the soul of man is capable.
+This effaces not only the practice, but the very approbation of honour
+and virtue; and has had such an effect that, to speak freely, the very
+sense of public good has no longer a part even in our conversations.
+Can then the most generous motive of life, the good of others, be so
+easily banished from the breast of man? Is it possible to draw all our
+passions inward? Shall the boiling heat of youth be sunk in pleasures,
+the ambition of manhood in selfish intrigues? Shall all that is
+glorious, all that is worth the pursuit of great minds, be so easily
+rooted out? When the universal bent of a people seems diverted from the
+sense of their common good and common glory, it looks like a fatality,
+and crisis of impending misfortune.
+
+The generous nations we just now mentioned understood this so very well,
+that there was hardly an oration ever made which did not turn upon this
+general sense, that the love of their country was the first and most
+essential quality in an honest mind. Demosthenes, in a cause wherein his
+fame, reputation, and fortune were embarked, puts his all upon this
+issue: "Let the Athenians," says he, "be benevolent to me, as they think
+I have been zealous for them." This great and discerning orator knew
+there was nothing else in nature could bear him up against his
+adversaries, but this one quality of having shown himself willing or
+able to serve his country. This certainly is the test of merit; and the
+first foundation for deserving goodwill, is having it yourself. The
+adversary of this orator at that time was Æschines, a man of wily arts
+and skill in the world, who could, as occasion served, fall in with a
+national start of passion, or sullenness of humour (which a whole nation
+is sometimes taken with as well as a private man), and by that means
+divert them from their common sense, into an aversion for receiving
+anything in its true light. But when Demosthenes had awaked his audience
+with that one hint of judging by the general tenor of his life towards
+them, his services bore down his opponent before him, who fled to the
+covert of his mean arts till some more favourable occasion should offer,
+against the superior merit of Demosthenes.
+
+It were to be wished, that love of their country were the first
+principle of action in men of business, even for their own sakes; for
+when the world begins to examine into their conduct, the generality, who
+have no share in, or hopes of any part in power or riches, but what is
+the effect of their own labour or property, will judge of them by no
+other method, than that of how profitable their administration has been
+to the whole. They who are out of the influence of men's fortune or
+favour, will let them stand or fall by this one only rule; and men who
+can bear being tried by it, are always popular in their fall: those who
+cannot suffer such a scrutiny, are contemptible in their advancement.
+
+But I am here running into shreds of maxims from reading Tacitus this
+morning, which has driven me from my recommendation of public spirit,
+which was the intended purpose of this Lucubration. There is not a more
+glorious instance of it, than in the character of Regulus. This same
+Regulus was taken prisoner by the Carthagenians, and was sent by them to
+Rome, in order to demand some Punic noblemen who were prisoners in
+exchange for himself, and was bound by an oath that he would return to
+Carthage if he failed in his commission. He proposes this to the Senate,
+who were in suspense upon it; which Regulus observing (without having
+the least notion of putting the care of his own life in competition with
+the public good), desired them to consider that he was old, and almost
+useless; that those demanded in exchange were men of daring tempers, and
+great merit in military affairs, and wondered they would make any doubt
+of permitting him to go back to the short tortures prepared for him at
+Carthage, where he should have the advantage of ending a long life both
+gloriously and usefully. This generous advice was consented to, and he
+took his leave of his country and his weeping friends to go to certain
+death, with that cheerful composure, as a man, after the fatigue of
+business in a Court or a city, retires to the next village for the air.
+
+
+
+
+No. 184.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Saturday, June 10_, to _Tuesday, June 13, 1710_.
+
+    Una de multis face nuptiali
+    Digna.--HOR., 3 Od. xi. 33.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, June 12._
+
+There are certain occasions of life which give propitious omens of the
+future good conduct of it, as well as others which explain our present
+inward state, according to our behaviour in them. Of the latter sort are
+funerals; of the former, weddings. The manner of our carriage when we
+lose a friend, shows very much our temper, in the humility of our words
+and actions, and a general sense of our destitute condition, which runs
+through all our deportment. This gives a solemn testimony of the
+generous affection we bore our friends, when we seem to disrelish
+everything now we can no more enjoy them, or see them partake in our
+enjoyments. It is very proper and human to put ourselves as it were in
+their livery after their decease, and wear a habit unsuitable to
+prosperity, while those we loved and honoured are mouldering in the
+grave. As this is laudable on the sorrowful side; so on the other,
+incidents of success may no less justly be represented and acknowledged
+in our outward figure and carriage. Of all such occasions, that great
+change of a single life into marriage is the most important, as it is
+the source of all relations, and from whence all other friendship and
+commerce do principally arise. The general intent of both sexes is to
+dispose of themselves happily and honourably in this state; and as all
+the good qualities we have are exerted to make our way into it, so the
+best appearance, with regard to their minds, their persons, and their
+fortunes, at the first entrance into it, is a due to each other in the
+married pair, as well as a compliment to the rest of the world. It was
+an instruction of a wise lawgiver, that unmarried women should wear such
+loose habits which, in the flowing of their garb, should incite their
+beholders to a desire of their persons; and that the ordinary motion of
+their bodies might display the figure and shape of their limbs in such a
+manner, as at once to preserve the strictest decency, and raise the
+warmest inclinations.
+
+This was the economy of the legislator for the increase of people, and
+at the same time for the preservation of the genial bed. She who was the
+admiration of all who beheld her while unmarried, was to bid adieu to
+the pleasure of shining in the eyes of many, as soon as she took upon
+her the wedded condition. However, there was a festival of life allowed
+the new-married, a sort of intermediate state between celibacy and
+matrimony, which continued certain days. During that time,
+entertainments, equipages, and other circumstances of rejoicing, were
+encouraged, and they were permitted to exceed the common mode of living,
+that the bride and bridegroom might learn from such freedoms of
+conversation to run into a general conduct to each other, made out of
+their past and future state, so to temper the cares of the man and the
+wife with the gaieties of the lover and the mistress.
+
+In those wise ages the dignity of life was kept up, and on the
+celebration of such solemnities there were no impertinent whispers and
+senseless interpretations put upon the unaffected cheerfulness or
+accidental seriousness of the bride; but men turned their thoughts upon
+the general reflections, upon what issue might probably be expected from
+such a couple in the succeeding course of their life, and felicitated
+them accordingly upon such prospects.
+
+I must confess, I cannot from any ancient manuscripts, sculptures, or
+medals, deduce the rise of our celebrated custom of throwing the
+stocking; but have a faint memory of an account a friend gave me of an
+original picture in the palace of Aldobrandini in Rome. This seems to
+show a sense of this affair very different from what is usual among us.
+It is a Grecian wedding, and the figures represented are, a person
+offering sacrifice, a beautiful damsel dancing, and another playing on
+the harp. The bride is placed in her bed, the bridegroom sits at the
+foot of it, with an aspect which intimates his thoughts were not only
+entertained with the joys with which he was surrounded, but also with a
+noble gratitude, and divine pleasure in the offering, which was then
+made to the gods to invoke their influence on his new condition. There
+appears in the face of the woman a mixture of fear, hope, and modesty;
+in the bridegroom, a well-governed rapture. As you see in great spirits
+grief which discovers itself the more by forbearing tears and
+complaints, you may observe also the highest joy is too big for
+utterance, the tongue being of all the organs the least capable of
+expressing such a circumstance. The nuptial torch, the bower, the
+marriage song, are all particulars which we meet with in the allusions
+of the ancient writers; and in every one of them something is to be
+observed which denotes their industry to aggrandise and adorn this
+occasion above all others.
+
+With us all order and decency in this point is perverted by the insipid
+mirth of certain animals we usually call "wags." These are a species of
+all men the most insupportable. One cannot without some reflection say,
+whether their flat mirth provokes us more to pity or to scorn; but if
+one considers with how great affectation they utter their frigid
+conceits, commiseration immediately changes itself into contempt.
+
+A wag is the last order even of pretenders to wit and good humour. He
+has generally his mind prepared to receive some occasion of merriment,
+but is of himself too empty to draw any out of his own set of thoughts,
+and therefore laughs at the next thing he meets, not because it is
+ridiculous, but because he is under a necessity of laughing. A wag is
+one that never in its life saw a beautiful object, but sees what it does
+see in the most low and most inconsiderable light it can be placed.
+There is a certain ability necessary to behold what is amiable and
+worthy of our approbation, which little minds want, and attempt to hide
+by a general disregard to everything they behold above what they are
+able to relish. Hence it is, that a wag in an assembly is ever guessing
+how well such a lady slept last night, and how much such a young fellow
+is pleased with himself. The wag's gaiety consists in a certain
+professed ill-breeding, as if it were an excuse for committing a fault,
+that a man knows he does so. Though all public places are full of
+persons of this order, yet, because I will not allow impertinence and
+affectation to get the better of native innocence and simplicity of
+manners, I have, in spite of such little disturbers of public
+entertainments, persuaded my brother Tranquillus and his wife my sister
+Jenny, in favour of Mr. Wilks, to be at the play to-morrow evening.
+
+They, as they have so much good sense as to act naturally, without
+regard to the observation of others, will not, I hope, be discomposed if
+any of the fry of wags should take upon them to make themselves merry
+upon the occasion of their coming, as they intend, in their wedding
+clothes. My brother is a plain, worthy, and honest man, and as it is
+natural for men of that turn to be mightily taken with sprightly and
+airy women, my sister has a vivacity which may perhaps give hopes to
+impertinents, but will be esteemed the effect of innocence among wise
+men. They design to sit with me in the box, which the house have been so
+complaisant to offer me whenever I think fit to come thither in my
+public character.[308]
+
+I do not in the least doubt, but the true figure of conjugal affection
+will appear in their looks and gestures. My sister does not affect to be
+gorgeous in her dress, and thinks the happiness of a wife is more
+visible in a cheerful look than a gay apparel. It is a hard task to
+speak of persons so nearly related to one with decency, but I may say,
+all who shall be at the play will allow him to have the mien of a worthy
+English gentleman; her, that of a notable and deserving wife.
+
+
+[Footnote 308: See Nos. 120, 122. "I remember Mr. Bickerstaff at the
+playhouse, and with what a modest, decent gravity he behaved himself"
+(_Examiner_, vol. iii. No. 46). This passage occurs in a notice of
+Addison's "Cato," where it is said that on the first night a crowd of
+silly people "were drawn up under the leading of the renowned Ironside,
+and appointed to clap at his signals.... The _Spectator_ never appeared
+in public with a worse grace."]
+
+
+
+
+No. 185.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Tuesday, June 13_, to _Thursday, June 15, 1710_.
+
+    Notitiam primosque gradus vicinia fecit;
+    Tempore crevit amor, tædæ quoque jure coissent;
+    Sed vetuere patres, quod non potuere vetare,
+    Ex æquo captis ardebant mentibus ambo.
+                                      OVID, Met. iv. 59.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, June 14._
+
+As soon as I was up this morning, my man gave me the following letter,
+which, since it leads to a subject that may prove of common use to the
+world, I shall take notice of with as much expedition as my fair
+petitioner could desire:
+
+     "MR. BICKERSTAFF,
+
+     "Since you have so often declared yourself a patron of the
+     distressed, I must acquaint you, that I am daughter to a country
+     gentleman of good sense, and may expect £3000 or £4000 for my
+     fortune. I love and am beloved by Philander, a young gentleman who
+     has an estate of £500 per annum, and is our near neighbour in the
+     country every summer. My father, though he has been a long time
+     acquainted with it, constantly refuses to comply with our mutual
+     inclinations: but what most of all torments me, is, that if ever I
+     speak in commendation of my lover, he is much louder in his praises
+     than myself; and professes that it is out of pure love and esteem
+     for Philander, as well as his daughter, that he can never consent
+     we should marry each other; when (as he terms it) we may both do so
+     much better. It must indeed be confessed, that two gentlemen of
+     considerable fortunes, made their addresses to me last winter, and
+     Philander (as I have since learned) was offered a young heiress
+     with £15,000, but it seems we could neither of us think, that
+     accepting those matches would be doing better than remaining
+     constant to our first passion. Your thoughts upon the whole may
+     perhaps have some weight with my father, who is one of your
+     admirers, as is
+
+                                            "Your humble Servant,
+                                                             "SYLVIA.
+
+     "P.S. You are desired to be speedy, since my father daily presses
+     me to accept of what he calls an 'advantageous offer.'"
+
+There is no calamity in life that falls heavier upon human nature than a
+disappointment in love, especially when it happens between two persons
+whose hearts are mutually engaged to each other. It is this distress
+which has given occasion to some of the finest tragedies that were ever
+written, and daily fills the world with melancholy, discontent, frenzy,
+sickness, despair, and death. I have often admired at the barbarity of
+parents, who so frequently interpose their authority in this grand
+article of life. I would fain ask Sylvia's father, whether he thinks he
+can bestow a greater favour on his daughter, than to put her in a way to
+live happily? Whether a man of Philander's character, with £500 per
+annum, is not more likely to contribute to that end, than many a young
+fellow whom he may have in his thoughts with so many thousands? Whether
+he can make amends to his daughter by any increase of riches, for the
+loss of that happiness she proposes to herself in her Philander? Or
+whether a father should compound with his daughter to be miserable,
+though she were to get £20,000 by the bargain? I suppose he would have
+her reflect with esteem on his memory after his death: and does he think
+this a proper method to make her do so, when, as often as she thinks on
+the loss of her Philander, she must at the same time remember him as the
+cruel cause of it? Any transient ill-humour is soon forgotten; but the
+reflection of such a cruelty must continue to raise resentments as long
+as life itself; and by this one piece of barbarity, an indulgent father
+loses the merit of all his past kindnesses. It is not impossible but she
+may deceive herself in the happiness which she proposes from Philander;
+but as in such a case she can have no one to blame but herself, she will
+bear the disappointment with greater patience; but if she never makes
+the experiment, however happy she may be with another, she will still
+think she might have been happier with Philander. There is a kind of
+sympathy in souls that fits them for each other; and we may be assured,
+when we see two persons engaged in the warmths of a mutual affection,
+that there are certain qualities in both their minds which bear a
+resemblance to one another. A generous and constant passion in an
+agreeable lover, where there is not too great a disparity in other
+circumstances, is the greatest blessing that can befall the person
+beloved; and if overlooked in one, may perhaps never be found in
+another. I shall conclude this with a celebrated instance of a father's
+indulgence in this particular, which, though carried to an extravagance,
+has something in it so tender and amiable, as may justly reproach the
+hardness of temper that is to be met with in many a British father.
+
+Antiochus, a prince of great hopes, fell passionately in love with the
+young Queen Stratonice, who was his mother-in-law, and had bore a son to
+the old King Seleucus his father. The prince finding it impossible to
+extinguish his passion, fell sick, and refused all manner of
+nourishment, being determined to put an end to that life which was
+become insupportable.
+
+Erasistratus the physician soon found that love was his distemper; and
+observing the alteration in his pulse and countenance whenever
+Stratonice made him a visit, was soon satisfied that he was dying for
+his young mother-in-law. Knowing the old king's tenderness for his son,
+when he one morning inquired of his health, he told him, that the
+prince's distemper was love; but that it was incurable, because it was
+impossible for him to possess the person whom he loved. The king,
+surprised at this account, desired to know how his son's passion could
+be incurable? "Why, sir," replied Erasistratus, "because he is in love
+with the person I am married to."
+
+The old king immediately conjured him by all his past favours to save
+the life of his son and successor. "Sir," said Erasistratus, "would your
+majesty but fancy yourself in my place, you would see the
+unreasonableness of what you desire!" "Heaven is my witness," said
+Seleucus, "I could resign even my Stratonice to save my Antiochus." At
+this the tears ran down his cheeks, which when the physician saw, taking
+him by the hand, "Sir," says he, "if these are your real sentiments, the
+prince's life is out of danger; it is Stratonice for whom he dies."
+Seleucus immediately gave orders for solemnising the marriage; and the
+young queen, to show her obedience, very generously exchanged the father
+for the son.
+
+
+
+
+No. 186.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Thursday, June 15_, to _Saturday, June 17, 1710_.
+
+    Emitur sola virtute potestas.
+                  CLAUDIAN, De Tertio Consulatu Honorii, 188.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, June 16._
+
+As it has been the endeavour of these our labours to extirpate from
+among the polite or busy part of mankind, all such as are either
+prejudicial or insignificant to society; so it ought to be no less our
+study to supply the havoc we have made by an exact care of the growing
+generation. But when we begin to inculcate proper precepts to the
+children of this island, except we could take them out of their nurses'
+arms, we see an amendment is almost impracticable; for we find the whole
+species of our youth and grown men is incorrigibly prepossessed with
+vanity, pride, or ambition, according to the respective pursuits to
+which they turn themselves: by which means the world is infatuated with
+the love of appearances instead of things. Thus the vain man takes
+praise for honour, the proud man ceremony for respect, the ambitious man
+power for glory. These three characters are, indeed, of very near
+resemblance, but differently received by mankind. Vanity makes men
+ridiculous; pride, odious; and ambition, terrible. The foundation of all
+which is, that they are grounded upon falsehood: for if men, instead of
+studying to appear considerable, were in their own hearts possessors of
+the requisites for esteem, the acceptance they otherwise unfortunately
+aim at would be as inseparable from them, as approbation is from truth
+itself. By this means they would have some rule to walk by; and they
+may ever be assured, that a good cause of action will certainly receive
+a suitable effect. It may be a useful hint in such cases for a man to
+ask of himself, whether he really is what he has a mind to be
+thought?[309] If he is, he need not give himself much further anxiety.
+"What will the world say?" is the common question in matters of
+difficulty; as if the terror lay wholly in the sense which others, and
+not we ourselves, shall have of our actions. From this one source arise
+all the impostors in every art and profession, in all places, among all
+persons in conversation, as well as in business. Hence it is, that a
+vain fellow takes twice as much pains to be ridiculous, as would make
+him sincerely agreeable.
+
+Can any one be better fashioned, better bred, or has any one more good
+nature, than Damasippus? But the whole scope of his looks and actions
+tends so immediately to gain the good opinion of all he converses with,
+that he loses it for that only reason. As it is the nature of vanity to
+impose false shows for truths, so does it also turn real possessions
+into imaginary ones. Damasippus, by assuming to himself what he has not,
+robs himself of what he has.
+
+There is nothing more necessary to establish reputation, than to suspend
+the enjoyment of it. He that cannot bear the sense of merit with
+silence, must of necessity destroy it: for fame being the general
+mistress of mankind, whoever gives it to himself, insults all to whom he
+relates any circumstances to his own advantage. He is considered as an
+open ravisher of that beauty, for whom all others pine in silence. But
+some minds are so incapable of any temperance in this particular, that
+on every second in their discourse you may observe an earnestness in
+their eyes, which shows they wait for your approbation, and perhaps the
+next instant cast an eye on a glass to see how they like themselves.
+Walking the other day in a neighbouring Inn of Court, I saw a more happy
+and more graceful orator than I ever before had heard or read of. A
+youth, of about nineteen years of age, was in an Indian nightgown and
+laced cap pleading a cause before a glass: the young fellow had a very
+good air, and seemed to hold his brief in his hand rather to help his
+action, than that he wanted notes for his further information. When I
+first began to observe him, I feared he would soon be alarmed; but he
+was so zealous for his client, and so favourably received by the court,
+that he went on with great fluency to inform the bench, that he humbly
+hoped they would not let the merit of the cause suffer by the youth and
+inexperience of the pleader; that in all things he submitted to their
+candour; and modestly desired they would not conclude, but that strength
+of argument and force of reason may be consistent with grace of action
+and comeliness of person.
+
+To me, who see people every day in the midst of crowds (whomsoever they
+seem to address to) talk only to themselves and of themselves, this
+orator was not so extravagant a man as perhaps another would have
+thought him; but I took part in his success, and was very glad to find
+he had in his favour judgment and costs without any manner of
+opposition.
+
+The effects of pride and vanity are of consequence only to the proud and
+the vain, and tend to no further ill than what is personal to
+themselves, in preventing their progress in anything that is worthy and
+laudable, and creating envy instead of emulation of superior virtue.
+These ill qualities are to be found only in such as have so little
+minds, as to circumscribe their thoughts and designs within what
+properly relates to the value which they think due to their dear and
+amiable selves: but ambition, which is the third great impediment to
+honour and virtue, is a fault of such as think themselves born for
+moving in a higher orb, and prefer being powerful and mischievous to
+being virtuous and obscure. The parent of this mischief in life, so far
+as to regulate it into schemes, and make it possess a man's whole heart,
+without his believing himself a demon, was Machiavelli. He first taught,
+that a man must necessarily appear weak to be honest. Hence it gains
+upon the imagination, that a great is not so despicable as a little
+villain; and men are insensibly led to a belief, that the aggravation of
+crimes is the diminution of them. Hence the impiety of thinking one
+thing and speaking another. In pursuance of this empty and unsatisfying
+dream, to betray, to undermine, to kill in themselves all natural
+sentiments of love to friends or country, is the willing practice of
+such as are thirsty of power, for any other reason than that of being
+useful and acceptable to mankind.
+
+
+ADVERTISEMENT.
+
+Whereas Mr. Bickerstaff has lately received a letter out of Ireland,
+dated June 9, importing that he is grown very dull, for the postage of
+which Mr. Morphew charges one shilling; and another without date of
+place or time, for which he the said Morphew charges twopence: it is
+desired, that for the future his courteous and uncourteous readers will
+go a little further in expressing their good and ill-will, and pay for
+the carriage of their letters, otherwise the intended pleasure or pain
+which is designed for Mr. Bickerstaff will be wholly disappointed.
+
+
+[Footnote 309: See Nos. 30, 39, 138.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 187.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Saturday, June 17_, to _Tuesday, June 20, 1710_.
+
+    ----Pudet hæc opprobria nobis
+    Et dici potuisse et non potuisse refelli.
+                                    OVID, Met. i. 758.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, June 19._
+
+     _Pasquin of Rome to Isaac Bickerstaff of London._[310]
+
+     "His Holiness is gone to Castel Gandolpho, much discomposed at some
+     late accounts from the missionaries in your island: for a committee
+     of cardinals, which lately sat for the reviving the force of some
+     obsolete doctrines, and drawing up amendments to certain points of
+     faith, have represented the Church of Rome to be in great danger,
+     from a treatise written by a learned Englishman, which carries
+     spiritual power much higher than we could have dared to have
+     attempted even here. His book is called, 'An Epistolary Discourse,
+     proving from the Scriptures and the First Fathers, that the Soul is
+     a Principle naturally Mortal: wherein is proved, that none have the
+     Power of giving this Divine immortalising Spirit since the
+     Apostles, but the Bishops.' By Henry Dodwell, A.M.[311] The
+     assertion appeared to our _literati_ so short and effectual method
+     of subjecting the laity, that it is feared auricular confession and
+     absolution will not be capable of keeping the clergy of Rome in any
+     degree of greatness, in competition with such teachers whose flocks
+     shall receive this opinion. What gives the greater jealousy here
+     is, that in the catalogue of treatises which have been lately burnt
+     within the British territories, there is no mention made of this
+     learned work; which circumstance is a sort of implication, that the
+     tenet is not held erroneous, but that the doctrine is received
+     amongst you as orthodox. The youth of this place are very much
+     divided in opinion, whether a very memorable quotation which the
+     author repeats out of Tertullian, be not rather of the style and
+     manner of Meursius? _In illo ipso voluptatis æstu quo genitale
+     virus expellitur, nonne aliquid de anima quoque, sentimus exire,
+     atque, adeo marcessimus et devigescimus cum lucis detrimento?_ This
+     piece of Latin goes no further than to tell us how our fathers got
+     us, so that we are still at a loss how we afterwards commence
+     eternal; for _creando infunditur, et infundendo creatur_, which is
+     mentioned soon after, may allude only to flesh and blood as well as
+     the former. Your readers in this city, some of whom have very much
+     approved the warmth with which you have attacked free-thinkers,
+     atheists, and other enemies to religion and virtue, are very much
+     disturbed that you have given them no account of this remarkable
+     dissertation: and I am employed by them to desire you would with
+     all possible expedition send me over the ceremony of the creation
+     of souls, as well as a list of all the mortal and immortal men
+     within the dominions of Great Britain. When you have done me this
+     favour, I must trouble you for other tokens of your kindness, and
+     particularly I desire you would let me have the religious
+     handkerchief,[312] which is of late so much worn in England, for I
+     have promised to make a present of it to a courtesan of a French
+     Minister.
+
+     "Letters from the frontiers of France inform us, that a young
+     gentleman[313] who was to have been created a cardinal on the next
+     promotion, has put off his design of coming to Rome so soon as was
+     intended, having, as it is said, received letters from Great
+     Britain, wherein several virtuosi of that island have desired him
+     to suspend his resolutions towards a monastic life, till the
+     British grammarians shall publish their explication of the words
+     'indefeasible' and 'revolution.' According as these two hard terms
+     are made to fit the mouths of the people, this gentleman takes his
+     measures for his journey hither.
+
+     "Your 'New Bedlam' has been read and considered by some of your
+     countrymen among us; and one gentleman, who is now here as a
+     traveller, says your design is impracticable, for that there can be
+     no place large enough to contain the number of your lunatics. He
+     advises you therefore to name the ambient sea for the boundary of
+     your hospital. If what he says be true, I do not see how you can
+     think of any other enclosure; for according to his discourse, the
+     whole people are taken with a vertigo; great and popular actions
+     are received with coldness and discontent; ill news hoped for with
+     impatience; heroes in your service are treated with calumny, while
+     criminals pass through your towns with acclamations.[314]
+
+     "This Englishman went on to say, you seemed at present to flag
+     under a satiety of success, as if you wanted misfortune as a
+     necessary vicissitude. Yet, alas! though men have but a cold relish
+     of prosperity, quick is the anguish of the contrary fortune. He
+     proceeded to make comparisons of times, seasons, and great
+     incidents. After which he grew too learned for my understanding,
+     and talked of Hanno the Carthaginian, and his irreconcilable hatred
+     to the glorious commander Hannibal. Hannibal, said he, was able to
+     march to Rome itself, and brought that ambitious people, which
+     designed no less than the empire of the world, to sue for peace in
+     the most abject and servile manner; when faction at home detracted
+     from the glory of his actions, and after many artifices, at last
+     prevailed with the Senate to recall him from the midst of his
+     victories, and in the very instant when he was to reap the benefit
+     of all his toils, by reducing the then common enemy of all nations
+     which had liberty to reason. When Hannibal heard the message of the
+     Carthaginian senators who were sent to recall him, he was moved
+     with a generous and disdainful sorrow, and is reported to have
+     said, 'Hannibal then must be conquered not by the arms of the
+     Romans, whom he has often put to flight, but by the envy and
+     detraction of his countrymen. Nor shall Scipio triumph so much in
+     his fall as Hanno, who will smile to have purchased the ruin of
+     Hannibal, though attended with the fall of Carthage.'[315]
+
+                                                "I am, Sir, &c.
+                                                           "PASQUIN."
+
+
+_Will's Coffee-house, June 19._
+
+There is a sensible satisfaction in observing the countenance and action
+of the people on some occasions. To gratify myself in this pleasure, I
+came hither with all speed this evening with an account of the surrender
+of Douay. As soon as the battle-critics[316] heard it, they immediately
+drew some comfort, in that it must have cost us a great deal of men.
+Others were so negligent of the glory of their country, that they went
+on in their discourse on the full house which is to be at "Othello" on
+Thursday, and the curiosity they should go with to see Wilks play a part
+so very different from what he had ever before appeared in, together
+with the expectation that was raised in the gay part of the town on that
+occasion.
+
+This universal indolence and inattention among us to things that concern
+the public, made me look back with the highest reverence on the glorious
+instances in antiquity, of a contrary behaviour in the like
+circumstances. Harry English, upon observing the room so little roused
+on the news, fell into the same way of thinking. "How unlike," said he,
+"Mr. Bickerstaff, are we to the old Romans! There was not a subject of
+their State but thought himself as much concerned in the honour of his
+country, as the first officer of the commonwealth. How do I admire the
+messenger, who ran with a thorn in his foot to tell the news of a
+victory to the Senate! He had not leisure for his private pain, till he
+had expressed his public joy; nor could he suffer as a man, till he had
+triumphed as a Roman."
+
+
+[Footnote 310: See No. 129. In Lillie's "Letters sent to the _Tatler_
+and _Spectator_" (i. 56) there is a letter from "Orontes" to Mr.
+Bickerstaff, dated July 6, 1710, referring to this and to No. 190, in
+which the writer says: "You would do yourself a grand favour, if you
+would break off acquaintance with the Italian Pasquin, and not disturb
+yourself with principles which are as far above your thoughts as the
+probability of your discovering the philosopher's stone." A censor
+should not be among the factions.]
+
+[Footnote 311: See No. 118.]
+
+[Footnote 312: Handkerchiefs printed with pictures of Dr. Sacheverell.]
+
+[Footnote 313: The Pretender.]
+
+[Footnote 314: Dr. Sacheverell received many popular ovations while he
+was suspended from preaching: "Lest these brethren in iniquity [the
+_Observator_ and the _Review_] should not prove sufficient to poison the
+nation, sow sedition plentifully, and ripen rebellion to a fruitful
+harvest of blood and rapine, a third person [the _Tatler_] who for a
+considerable time hath diverted the Town with the most useful and
+pleasing amusements our age ever produced, hath joined in the cry with
+them, in hopes, no doubt, that by his additional strength they shall
+become such a formidable Triumvirate that all opposition must fall
+before them, and the Church irresistibly submit to that fate which the
+other two have so long endeavoured to procure by their seditious popular
+harangues.... Our third gentleman is pleased to tell us, '_That great
+and popular actions_,' &c. This is a subtle way to create jealousies and
+divisions amongst us, noways becoming the character of a gentleman, or
+an ingenuous education. Pray, sir, speak plain, and don't instil your
+poison secretly, and stab in the dark. What heroes in our service are
+treated with calumny? Who do you mean by your Hanno and Hannibal? All
+the nation owns and glories in the noble actions of our great Duke of
+Marlborough" (_Moderator_, No. 13, June 30 to July 3, 1710). The next
+number of the _Moderator_, No. 14, is upon the same subject, and is
+largely occupied with a discussion of the legal question mentioned in
+the _Tatler_, No. 190. The writer speaks of the brains of the common
+people, who are too apt to censure the actions of their superiors, as
+"set on work by a person who has gained their esteem by his learned
+Lucubrations." "They are assured that a gentleman of his bright parts
+and learning must be intimately acquainted with persons of the first
+rank and quality, from whom he learns these high and important secrets
+which he thus generously communicates to the world." If any one,
+therefore, pretends that the author's meaning is that the "Duke of
+Marlborough is likely to be ruined by the Lord Treasurer's converting to
+other uses that money which our Senate voted for our General's service,
+who is to be blamed for the vile aspersion?" Ministers should take care
+that the spreaders of such false reports shall know to their cost that
+the Act respecting false and slanderous news is still in force.]
+
+[Footnote 315: The conclusion of Pasquin's letter alludes to the
+following allegorical piece, the publication of which was just then
+recent: "The History of Hannibal and Hanno, &c., collected from the best
+authors, by A. M., Esq." It is reprinted in "The Life and Posthumous
+Writings" of Arthur Maynwaring, 1715. See No. 190.]
+
+[Footnote 316: See No. 65.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 188.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Tuesday, June 20_, to _Thursday, June 22, 1710_.
+
+    Quæ regio in terris nostri non plena laboris?
+                                      VIRG., Æn. i. 460.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment. June 21._
+
+I was this morning looking over my letters that I have lately received
+from my several correspondents; some of which referring to my late
+papers, I have laid aside, with an intent to give my reader a sight of
+them. The first criticises upon my greenhouse, and is as follows:
+
+     "MR. BICKERSTAFF,                     "South Wales, _June 7_.
+
+     "This letter comes to you from my orangery, which I intend to
+     reform as much as I can, according to your ingenious model, and
+     shall only beg of you to communicate to me your secret of
+     preserving grass-plots in a covered room;[317] for in the climate
+     where my country-seat lies, they require rain and dews as well as
+     sun and fresh air, and cannot live upon such fine food as your
+     'sifted weather.' I must likewise desire you to write over your
+     greenhouse the following motto:
+
+         "_Hic ver perpetuum, atque alienis mensibus æstas._
+
+     instead of your
+
+         "_O! qui me gelidis sub montibus Hæmi
+         Sistat, et ingenti ramorum protegat umbrâ!_[318]
+
+     which, under favour, is the panting of one in summer after cool
+     shades, and not of one in winter after a summer-house. The rest of
+     your plan is very beautiful; and that your friend who has so well
+     described it may enjoy it many winters, is the hearty wish of
+
+                                          "His and your Unknown," &c.
+
+This oversight of a grass-plot in my friend's greenhouse, puts me in
+mind of a like inconsistency in a celebrated picture, where Moses is
+represented as striking a rock, and the Children of Israel quenching
+their thirst at the waters that flow from it, and run through a
+beautiful landscape of groves and meadows, which could not flourish in a
+place where water was to have been found only by a miracle.
+
+The next letter comes to me from a Kentish yeoman, who is very angry
+with me for my advice to parents, occasioned by the amours of Sylvia and
+Philander, as related in my paper, No. 185:
+
+     "SQUIRE BICKERSTAFF,
+
+     "I don't know by what chance one of your _Tatlers_ is got into my
+     family, and has almost turned the brains of my eldest daughter
+     Winifred, who has been so undutiful as to fall in love of her own
+     head, and tells me a foolish heathen story that she has read in
+     your paper to persuade me to give my consent. I am too wise to let
+     children have their own wills in a business like marriage. It is a
+     matter in which neither I myself, nor any of my kindred, were ever
+     humoured. My wife and I never pretended to love one another like
+     your Sylvias and Philanders; and yet if you saw our fireside, you
+     would be satisfied we are not always a-squabbling. For my part, I
+     think that where man and woman come together by their own good
+     liking, there is so much fondling and fooling, that it hinders
+     young people from minding their business. I must therefore desire
+     you to change your note, and instead of advising us old folks, who
+     perhaps have more wit than yourself, to let Sylvia know, that she
+     ought to act like a dutiful daughter, and marry the man that she
+     does not care for. Our great-grandmothers were all bid to marry
+     first, and love would come afterwards; and I don't see why their
+     daughters should follow their own inventions. I am resolved
+     Winifred shan't.
+
+                                                         "Yours," &c.
+
+This letter is a natural picture of ordinary contracts, and of the
+sentiments of those minds that lie under a kind of intellectual
+rusticity. This trifling occasion made me run over in my imagination
+the many scenes I have observed of the married condition, wherein the
+quintessence of pleasure and pain are represented as they accompany that
+state, and no other. It is certain, there are a thousand thousand like
+the above-mentioned yeoman and his wife, who are never highly pleased or
+distasted in their whole lives: but when we consider the more informed
+part of mankind, and look upon their behaviour, it then appears that
+very little of their time is indifferent, but generally spent in the
+most anxious vexation, or the highest satisfaction. Shakespeare has
+admirably represented both the aspects of this state in the most
+excellent tragedy of "Othello." In the character of Desdemona, he runs
+through all the sentiments of a virtuous maid and a tender wife. She is
+captivated by his virtue, and faithful to him, as well from that motive,
+as regard to her own honour. Othello is a great and noble spirit, misled
+by the villany of a false friend to suspect her innocence, and resents
+it accordingly. When after the many instances of passion the wife is
+told her husband is jealous, her simplicity makes her incapable of
+believing it, and say, after such circumstances as would drive another
+woman into distraction,
+
+    "_I think the sun where he was born
+    Drew all such humours from him._"[319]
+
+This opinion of him is so just, that his noble and tender heart beats
+itself to pieces before he can affront her with the mention of his
+jealousy; and owns, this suspicion has blotted out all the sense of
+glory and happiness which before it was possessed with, when he laments
+himself in the warm allusions of a mind accustomed to entertainments so
+very different from the pangs of jealousy and revenge. How moving is his
+sorrow, when he cries out as follows:
+
+    "_I had been happy, if the general camp,
+    Pioneers and all, had tasted her sweet body,
+    So I had nothing known. Oh now! for ever
+    Farewell the tranquil mind! Farewell content,
+    Farewell the plumèd troops, and the big wars,
+    That make ambition virtue! Oh farewell!
+    Farewell the neighing steed and the shrill trump,
+    The spirit-stirring drum, th' ear-piercing fife,
+    The royal banner, and all quality,
+    Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war!
+    And oh ye mortal engines! whose rude throats
+    The immortal Jove's dread clamours counterfeit,
+    Farewell! Othello's occupation's gone._[320]"
+
+I believe I may venture to say, there is not in any other part of
+Shakespeare's works more strong and lively pictures of nature than in
+this. I shall therefore steal incog. to see it, out of curiosity to
+observe how Wilks and Cibber touch those places where Betterton[321] and
+Sandford[322] so very highly excelled. But now I am got into a discourse
+of acting, with which I am so professedly pleased, I shall conclude this
+paper with a note I have just received from the two ingenious friends,
+Mr. Penkethman[323] and Mr. Bullock:[324]
+
+     "SIR,
+
+     "Finding by your paper, No. 182, that you are drawing parallels
+     between the greatest actors of the age; as you have already begun
+     with Mr. Wilks and Mr. Cibber, we desire you would do the same
+     justice to your humble Servants,
+
+                                       "WILLIAM BULLOCK, and
+                                                "WILLIAM PENKETHMAN."
+
+For the information of posterity, I shall comply with this letter, and
+set these two great men in such a light as Sallust has placed his Cato
+and Cæsar.
+
+Mr. William Bullock and Mr. William Penkethman are of the same age,
+profession, and sex. They both distinguish themselves in a very
+particular manner under the discipline of the crabtree, with this only
+difference, that Mr. Bullock has the most agreeable squawl, and Mr.
+Penkethman the more graceful shrug. Penkethman devours a cold chicken
+with great applause; Bullock's talent lies chiefly in asparagus.
+Penkethman is very dexterous at conveying himself under a table; Bullock
+is no less active at jumping over a stick. Mr. Penkethman has a great
+deal of money, but Mr. Bullock is the taller man.
+
+
+[Footnote 317: See No. 179.]
+
+[Footnote 318: Virgil, "Georg." ii. 488 ("In vallibus Hæmi").]
+
+[Footnote 319: "Othello," act iii. sc. 4.]
+
+[Footnote 320: "Othello," act iii. sc. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 321: See Nos. 1, 71, 157, 167.]
+
+[Footnote 322: See No. 134.]
+
+[Footnote 323: See No. 4.]
+
+[Footnote 324: See No. 7.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 189.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Thursday, June 22_, to _Saturday, June 24, 1710_.
+
+    Est in juvencis, est in equis patrum
+      Virtus; neque imbellem feroces
+        Progenerant aquilæ columbam.
+                              HOR., 4 Od. iv. 30.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, June 23._
+
+Having lately turned my thoughts upon the consideration of the behaviour
+of parents to children in the great affair of marriage,[325] I took much
+delight in turning over a bundle of letters which a gentleman's steward
+in the country had sent me some time ago. This parcel is a collection of
+letters written by the children of the family to which he belongs to
+their father, and contain all the little passages of their lives, and
+the new ideas they received as their years advanced. There is in them
+an account of their diversions as well as their exercises; and what I
+thought very remarkable, is, that two sons of the family, who now make
+considerable figures in the world, gave omens of that sort of character
+which they now bear, in the first rudiments of thought which they show
+in their letters. Were one to point out a method of education, one could
+not, methinks, frame one more pleasing or improving than this; where the
+children get a habit of communicating their thoughts and inclinations to
+their best friend with so much freedom, that he can form schemes for
+their future life and conduct from an observation of their tempers, and
+by that means be early enough in choosing their way of life, to make
+them forward in some art or science at an age when others have not
+determined what profession to follow. As to the persons concerned in
+this packet I am speaking of, they have given great proofs of the force
+of this conduct of their father in the effect it has had upon their
+lives and manners. The elder, who is a scholar, showed from his infancy
+a propensity to polite studies, and has made a suitable progress in
+literature; but his learning is so well woven into his mind, that from
+the impressions of it, he seems rather to have contracted a habit of
+life, than manner of discourse. To his books he seems to owe a good
+economy in his affairs, and a complacency in his manners, though in
+others that way of education has commonly a quite different effect. The
+epistles of the other son are full of accounts of what he thought most
+remarkable in his reading. He sends his father for news the last noble
+story he had read. I observe, he is particularly touched with the
+conduct of Codrus, who plotted his own death, because the oracle had
+said, if he were not killed, the enemy should prevail over his country.
+Many other incidents in his little letters give omens of a soul capable
+of generous undertakings; and what makes it the more particular is, that
+this gentleman had, in the present war, the honour and happiness of
+doing an action for which only it was worth coming into the world. Their
+father is the most intimate friend they have, and they always consult
+him rather than any other, when any error has happened in their conduct
+through youth and inadvertency. The behaviour of this gentleman to his
+sons has made his life pass away with the pleasures of a second youth;
+for as the vexations which men receive from their children hasten the
+approach of age and double the force of years; so the comforts which
+they reap from them are balm to all other sorrows, and disappoint the
+injuries of time. Parents of children repeat their lives in their
+offspring, and their concern for them is so near, that they feel all
+their sufferings and enjoyments as much as if they regarded their own
+proper persons. But it is generally so far otherwise, that the common
+race of squires in this kingdom use their sons as persons that are
+waiting only for their funerals, and spies upon their health and
+happiness; as indeed they are by their own making them such. In cases
+where a man takes the liberty after this manner to reprehend others, it
+is commonly said, "Let him look at home." I am sorry to own it; but
+there is one branch of the house of the Bickerstaffs, who have been as
+erroneous in their conduct this way as any other family whatsoever. The
+head of this branch is now in town, and has brought up with him his son
+and daughter (who are all the children he has) in order to be put some
+way into the world, and see fashions. They are both very ill-bred cubs,
+and having lived together from their infancy without knowledge of the
+distinctions and decencies that are proper to be paid to each other's
+sex, they squabble like two brothers. The father is one of those who
+knows no better than that all pleasure is debauchery, and imagines,
+when he sees a man become his estate, that he will certainly spend it.
+This branch are a people who never had among them one man eminent either
+for good or ill; however, have all along kept their heads just above
+water, not by a prudent and regular economy, but by expedients in the
+matches they have made into their house. When one of the family has, in
+the pursuit of foxes, and in the entertainment of clowns, run out the
+third part of the value of his estate, such a spendthrift has dressed up
+his eldest son, and married what they call a good fortune, who has
+supported the father as a tyrant over them, during his life, in the same
+house or neighbourhood. The son in succession has just taken the same
+method to keep up his dignity, till the mortgages he has ate and drank
+himself into, have reduced him to the necessity of sacrificing his son
+also, in imitation of his progenitor. This had been for many generations
+the whole that had happened in the family of Sam. Bickerstaff, till the
+time of my present cousin Samuel, the father of the young people we have
+just now spoken of.
+
+Samuel Bickerstaff, Esq., is so happy, as that by several legacies from
+distant relations, deaths of maiden sisters, and other instances of good
+fortune, he has, besides his real estate, a great sum of ready money.
+His son at the same time knows he has a good fortune, which the father
+cannot alienate, though he strives to make him believe he depends only
+on his will for maintenance. Tom is now in his nineteenth year, Mrs.
+Mary in her fifteenth. Cousin Samuel, who understands no one point of
+good behaviour as it regards all the rest of the world, is an exact
+critic in the dress, the motion, the looks and gestures of his children.
+What adds to their misery is, that he is excessively fond of them, and
+the greatest part of their time is spent in the presence of this nice
+observer. Their life is one continued constraint. The girl never turns
+her head, but she is warned not to follow the proud minxes of the town.
+The boy is not to turn fop, or be quarrelsome; at the same time not to
+take an affront. I had the good fortune to dine with him to-day, and
+heard his fatherly table-talk as we sat at dinner, which, if my memory
+does not fail me, for the benefit of the world, I shall set down as he
+spoke it, which was much as follows, and may be of great use to those
+parents who seem to make it a rule, that their children's turn to enjoy
+the world is not to commence till they themselves have left it.
+
+     "Now, Tom, I have bought you chambers in the Inns of Court. I allow
+     you to take a walk once or twice a day round the garden. If you
+     mind your business, you need not study to be as great a lawyer as
+     Coke upon Littleton. I have that that will keep you; but be sure
+     you keep an exact account of your linen. Write down what you give
+     out to your laundress, and what she brings home again. Go as little
+     as possible to the other end of the town; but if you do, come home
+     early. I believe I was as sharp as you for your years, and I had my
+     hat snatched off my head coming home late at a shop by St.
+     Clement's Church, and I don't know from that day to this who took
+     it. I do not care if you learn to fence a little, for I would not
+     have you be made a fool of. Let me have an account of everything
+     every post; I am willing to be at that charge, and I think you need
+     not spare your pains. As for you, daughter Molly, don't mind one
+     word that is said to you in London, for it is only for your
+     money."[326]
+
+
+[Footnote 325: See No. 185.]
+
+[Footnote 326: It has been suggested that the latter part of this paper
+may refer to Dr. Gilbert Budgell and his son Eustace, Addison's cousin.
+(See "Grand Magazine," i. 391, _seq._; and Cibber's "Lives of the
+Poets," vol. v.) On the death of his father in 1711, Eustace Budgell
+came into possession of an estate of £950 a year.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 190.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Saturday, June 24_, to _Tuesday, June 27, 1710_.
+
+    ----Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.--VIRG., Æn. ii. 49.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, June 26._
+
+There are some occasions in life, wherein regards to a man's self is the
+most pitiful and contemptible of all passions; and such a time certainly
+is when the true public spirit of a nation is run into a faction against
+their friends and benefactors. I have hinted heretofore some things
+which discover the real sorrow I am in at the observation, that it is
+now very much so in Great Britain, and have had the honour to be pelted
+with several epistles to expostulate with me on that subject;[327] among
+others, one from a person of the number of those they call Quakers, who
+seems to admonish me out of pure zeal and goodwill. But as there is no
+character so unjust as that of talking in party upon all occasions,
+without respect to merit or worth on the contrary side, so there is no
+part we can act so justifiable as to speak our mind when we see things
+urged to extremity, against all that is praiseworthy or valuable in
+life, upon general and groundless suggestions. But if I have talked too
+frankly upon such reflections, my correspondent has laid before me,
+after his way, the error of it in a manner that makes me indeed
+thankful for his kindness, but the more inclinable to repeat the
+imprudence from the necessity of the circumstance:
+
+                                          "The 23rd of the 6th month,
+                                           which is the month _June_.
+     "FRIEND ISAAC,
+
+     "Forasmuch as I love thee, I cannot any longer refrain declaring my
+     mind unto thee concerning some things. Thou didst thyself indite
+     the epistle inserted in one of thy late Lucubrations, as thou
+     wouldst have us call them: for verily thy friend of stone,[328] and
+     I speak according to knowledge, hath no fingers; and though he hath
+     a mouth, yet speaketh he not therewith; nor yet did that epistle at
+     all come unto thee from the mansion-house of the Scarlet Whore. It
+     is plain therefore, that the truth is not in thee: but since thou
+     wouldst lie, couldst thou not lie with more discretion? Wherefore
+     shouldst thou insult over the afflicted, or add sorrow unto the
+     heavy of heart? Truly this gall proceedeth not from the spirit of
+     meekness. I tell thee moreover, the people of this land be
+     marvellously given to change; insomuch that it may likely come to
+     pass, that before thou art many years nearer to thy dissolution,
+     thou mayest behold him sitting on a high place whom thou now
+     laughest to scorn: and then how wilt thou be glad to humble thyself
+     to the ground, and lick the dust of his feet, that thou mayest find
+     favour in his sight? If thou didst meditate as much upon the Word
+     as thou dost upon the profane scribblings of the wise ones of this
+     generation, thou wouldst have remembered what happened unto Shimei,
+     the son of Gera the Benjamite, who cursed the good man David in his
+     distress.[329] David pardoned his transgression, yet was he
+     afterwards taken as in a snare by the words of his own mouth, and
+     fell by the sword of Solomon the chief ruler.[330]Furthermore, I do
+     not remember to have heard in the days of my youth and vanity, when,
+     like thine, my conversation was with the Gentiles, that the men of
+     Rome, which is Babylon, ever sued unto the men of Carthage for
+     tranquillity, as thou dost aver: neither was Hannibal, the son of
+     Hamilcar, called home by his countrymen, till these saw the sword
+     of their enemies at their gates; and then was it not time for him,
+     thinkest thou, to return? It appeareth therefore that thou dost
+     prophecy backwards; thou dost row one way, and look another; and
+     indeed in all things art thou too much a time-server; yet seemest
+     thou not to consider what a day may bring forth. Think of this, and
+     take tobacco.
+
+                                                "Thy Friend,
+                                                          "AMINADAB."
+
+If the zealous writer of the above letter has any meaning, it is of too
+high a nature to be the subject of my Lucubrations. I shall therefore
+waive such high points, and be as useful as I can to persons of less
+moment than any he hints at. When a man runs into a little fame in the
+world, as he meets with a great deal of reproach which he does not
+deserve, so does he also a great deal of esteem to which he has in
+himself no pretensions. Were it otherwise, I am sure no one would offer
+to put a law case to me: but because I am an adept in physic and
+astrology, they will needs persuade me that I am no less a proficient in
+all other sciences. However, the point mentioned in the following letter
+is so plain a one, that I think I need not trouble myself to cast a
+figure to be able to discuss it.
+
+     "MR. BICKERSTAFF,
+
+     "It is some years ago since the entail of the estate of our family
+     was altered, by passing a fine in favour of me (who now am in
+     possession of it) after some others deceased. The heirs-general,
+     who live beyond sea, were excluded by this settlement, and the
+     whole estate is to pass in a new channel after me and my heirs. But
+     several tenants of the lordship persuade me to let them hereafter
+     hold their lands of me according to the old customs of the barony,
+     and not oblige them to act by the limitations of the last
+     settlement. This, they say, will make me more popular among my
+     dependants, and the ancient vassals of the estate, to whom any
+     deviation from the line of succession is always invidious.
+
+                                                         "Yours," &c.
+
+     "SIR,                                    "Sheer Lane, _June 24._
+
+     "You have by the fine a plain right, in which none else of your
+     family can be your competitor; for which reason, by all means
+     demand vassalage upon that title. The contrary advice can be given
+     for no other purpose in nature but to betray you, and favour other
+     pretenders, by making you place a right which is in you only, upon
+     a level with a right which you have in common with others. I am,
+
+                                   "Sir,
+                                        "Your most faithful
+                                            "Servant till death,
+                                                              "I. B."
+
+There is nothing so dangerous or so pleasing, as compliments made to us
+by our enemies: and my correspondent tells me, that though he knows
+several of those who give him this counsel were at first against passing
+the fine in favour of him; yet is he so touched with their homage to
+him, that he can hardly believe they have a mind to set it aside, in
+order to introduce the heirs-general into his estate.
+
+These are great evils; but since there is no proceeding with success in
+this world, without complying with the arts of it, I shall use the same
+method as my correspondent's tenants did with him, in relation to one
+whom I never had a kindness for; but shall, notwithstanding, presume to
+give him my advice.
+
+     "_Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq., of Great Britain, to Lewis XIV. of
+     France._
+
+     "SIR,
+
+     "Your Majesty will pardon me while I take the liberty to acquaint
+     you, that some passages written from your side of the water do very
+     much obstruct your interests. We take it very unkindly that the
+     prints of Paris are so very partial in favour of one set of men
+     among us, and treat the others as irreconcilable to your interests.
+     Your writers are very large in recounting anything which relates to
+     the figure and power of one party, but are dumb when they should
+     represent the actions of the other. This is a trifling circumstance
+     many here are apt to lay some stress upon; therefore I thought fit
+     to offer it to your consideration before you despatch the next
+     courier.
+
+                                                         "I. B."[331]
+
+
+[Footnote 327: Swift may have been among those who protested at the
+introduction of politics into the _Tatler_ (see No. 187), and Nichols
+thought that he was the writer of the letter signed "Aminadab" in this
+number. In June 1710, the fall of the Whigs was rapidly approaching.]
+
+[Footnote 328: Pasquin. See Nos. 129, 130, 187.]
+
+[Footnote 329: 2 Sam. xvi. 13.]
+
+[Footnote 330: 1 Kings ii. 36.]
+
+[Footnote 331: "The Tories happen now to have other work upon their
+hands, and are not at leisure to return the civilities that are paid
+them; however, having had the honour of a letter from the King of France
+... they have sent in their answer to me, and desire me to forward it;
+but I am at a loss how to do this, unless my brother the _Tatler_ will
+convey it under his cover, for I protest I know no man in England but
+him that holds a correspondence with his Christian Majesty" (_Examiner_,
+No. 2, August 10, 1710).]
+
+
+
+
+No. 191.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Tuesday, June 27_, to _Thursday, June 29, 1710_.
+
+    ----Propter vitam vivendi perdere causas.--JUV., Sat. viii. 84.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, June 28._
+
+Of all the evils under the sun, that of making vice commendable is the
+greatest: for it seems to be the basis of society, that applause and
+contempt should be always given to proper objects. But in this age we
+behold things for which we ought to have an abhorrence, not only
+received without disdain, but even valued as motives of emulation. This
+is naturally the destruction of simplicity of manners, openness of
+heart, and generosity of temper. When one gives oneself the liberty to
+range, and run over in one's thoughts the different geniuses of men
+which one meets in the world, one cannot but observe, that most of the
+indirection and artifice which is used among men, does not proceed so
+much from a degeneracy in Nature, as an affectation of appearing men of
+consequence by such practices. By this means it is, that a cunning man
+is so far from being ashamed of being esteemed such, that he secretly
+rejoices in it. It has been a sort of maxim, that the greatest art is to
+conceal art; but I know not how, among some people we meet with, their
+greatest cunning is to appear cunning. There is Polypragmon[332] makes
+it the whole business of his life to be thought a cunning fellow, and
+thinks it a much greater character to be terrible than agreeable. When
+it has once entered into a man's head to have an ambition to be thought
+crafty, all other evils are necessary consequences. To deceive is the
+immediate endeavour of him who is proud of the capacity of doing it. It
+is certain, Polypragmon does all the ill he possibly can, but pretends
+to much more than he performs. He is contented in his own thoughts, and
+hugs himself in his closet, that though he is locked up there and doing
+nothing, the world does not know but that he is doing mischief. To
+favour this suspicion, he gives half-looks and shrugs in his general
+behaviour, to give you to understand that you don't know what he means.
+He is also wonderfully adverbial in his expressions, and breaks off with
+a "perhaps" and a nod of the head, upon matters of the most indifferent
+nature. It is a mighty practice with men of this genius to avoid
+frequent appearance in public, and to be as mysterious as possible when
+they do come into company. There is nothing to be done, according to
+them, the common way; and let the matter in hand be what it will, it
+must be carried with an air of importance, and transacted, if we may so
+speak, with an ostentatious secrecy. These are your persons of long
+heads, who would fain make the world believe their thoughts and ideas
+are very much superior to their neighbours', and do not value what these
+their neighbours think of them, provided they do not reckon them fools.
+These have such a romantic touch in business, that they hate to perform
+anything like other men. Were it in their choice, they had rather bring
+their purposes to bear by overreaching the persons they deal with, than
+by a plain and simple manner. They make difficulties for the honour of
+surmounting them. Polypragmon is eternally busied after this manner,
+with no other prospect, than that he is in hopes to be thought the most
+cunning of all men, and fears the imputation of want of understanding
+much more than that of the abuse of it. But alas! how contemptible is
+such an ambition, which is the very reverse of all that is truly
+laudable, and the very contradiction to the only means to a just
+reputation, simplicity of manners? Cunning can in no circumstance
+imaginable be a quality worthy a man except in his own defence, and
+merely to conceal himself from such as are so; and in such cases it is
+no longer craft, but wisdom. The monstrous affectation of being thought
+artful immediately kills all thoughts of humanity and goodness, and
+gives men a sense of the soft affections and impulses of the mind (which
+are imprinted in us for our mutual advantage and succour) as of mere
+weaknesses and follies. According to the men of cunning, you are to put
+off the nature of a man as fast as you can, and acquire that of a
+demon, as if it were a more eligible character to be a powerful enemy
+than an able friend. But it ought to be a mortification to men affected
+this way, that there wants but little more than instinct to be
+considerable in it; for when a man has arrived at being very bad in his
+inclination, he has not much more to do, but to conceal himself, and he
+may revenge, cheat, and deceive, without much employment for
+understanding, and go on with great cheerfulness with the high applause
+of being a prodigious cunning fellow. But indeed, when we arrive at that
+pitch of false taste, as not to think cunning a contemptible quality, it
+is, methinks, a very great injustice that pick-pockets are had in so
+little veneration, who must be admirably well turned, not only for the
+theoretic, but also the practical behaviour of cunning fellows. After
+all the endeavour of this family of men whom we call cunning, their
+whole work falls to pieces, if others will lay down all esteem for such
+artifices, and treat it as an unmanly quality, which they forbear to
+practise only because they abhor it. When the spider is ranging in the
+different apartments of his web, it is true that he only can weave so
+fine a thread; but it is in the power of the merest drone that has wings
+to fly through and destroy it.
+
+
+_Will's Coffee-house, June 28._
+
+Though the taste of wit and pleasure is at present but very low in this
+town, yet there are some that preserve their relish undebauched with
+common impressions, and can distinguish between reality and imposture. A
+gentleman was saying here this evening, that he would go to the play
+to-morrow night to see heroism, as it has been represented by some of
+our tragedians, represented in burlesque. It seems, the play of
+"Alexander" is to be then turned into ridicule for its bombast, and
+other false ornaments in the thought as well as the language.[333] The
+bluster Alexander makes, is as much inconsistent with the character of a
+hero, as the roughness of Clytus is an instance of the sincerity of a
+bold artless soldier. To be plain is not to be rude, but rather inclines
+a man to civility and deference; not indeed to show it in the gestures
+of the body, but in the sentiments of the mind. It is, among other
+things, from the impertinent figures unskilful dramatists draw of the
+characters of men, that youth are bewildered and prejudiced in their
+sense of the world, of which they have no notions but what they draw
+from books and such representations. Thus talk to a very young man, let
+him be of never so good sense, and he shall smile when you speak of
+sincerity in a courtier, good sense in a soldier, or honesty in a
+politician. The reason of this is, that you hardly see one play wherein
+each of these ways of life is not drawn by hands that know nothing of
+any one of them: and the truth is so far of the opposite side to what
+they paint, that it is more impracticable to live in esteem in Courts
+than anywhere else without sincerity. Good sense is the great requisite
+in a soldier, and honesty the only thing that can support a politician.
+This way of thinking made the gentleman of whom I was just now speaking
+say, he was glad any one had taken upon him to depreciate such unnatural
+fustian as the tragedy of "Alexander." The character of that prince
+indeed was, that he was unequal, and given to intemperance; but in his
+sober moments, when he had warm in his imagination the precepts of his
+great instructor, he was a pattern of generous thoughts and
+dispositions, in opposition to the strongest desires which are incident
+to a youth and conqueror. But instead of representing that hero in the
+glorious character of generosity and chastity, in his treatment of the
+beauteous family of Darius, he is drawn all along as a monster of lust,
+or of cruelty; as if the way to raise him to the degree of a hero were
+to make his character as little like that of a worthy man as possible.
+Such rude and indigested draughts of things are the proper objects of
+ridicule and contempt, and depreciating Alexander, as we have him drawn,
+is the only way of restoring him to what he was in himself. It is well
+contrived of the players to let this part be followed by a true picture
+of life, in the comedy called, "The Chances,"[334] wherein Don John and
+Constantia are acted to the utmost perfection. There need not be a
+greater instance of the force of action than in many incidents of this
+play, where indifferent passages, and such that conduce only to the
+tacking of the scenes together, are enlivened with such an agreeable
+gesture and behaviour, as apparently shows what a play might be, though
+it is not wholly what a play should be.
+
+
+[Footnote 332: In reply to this suggestion that the character of
+Polypragmon was meant for Harley, Steele said, in the _Guardian_, No.
+53: "I drew it as the most odious image I could paint of ambition....
+Whoever seeks employment for his own private interest, vanity, or pride,
+and not for the good of his prince and country, has his share in the
+picture of Polypragmon; and let this be the rule in examining that
+description, and I believe the Examiner will find others to whom he
+would rather give a part of it, than to the person on whom I believe he
+bestows it, because he thinks he is the most capable of having his
+vengeance on me.... I have not, like him, fixed odious images on
+persons, but on vices." To this the _Examiner_ (vol. iv. No. 2) replied:
+"He would insinuate, that Timon and Polypragmon are general characters,
+and stand for a whole species, or, as he quaintly words it, for Knights
+of the Shire. If this be true, why did he not before now silence the
+industrious clamours of his party, who both in print and public
+conversation applied those characters to persons of the first rank,
+though without any regard to the rules of resemblance?" The writer of
+"Annotations on the _Tatler_," 1710, in the preface to the second part,
+regretted that Steele had become a politician, and said, in allusion to
+Steele's experiments in alchemy: "Turning statesman and drudging for the
+Philosopher's Stone, are toils not altogether unlike each other;
+buffeting with fire, labouring in smoke, wearing out of lungs, and
+tiring oneself with expectation, are misfortunes common to both these
+projects; 'tis converting real gold to dross, out of a prospect of
+converting dross into real gold."]
+
+[Footnote 333: A burlesque of Lee's "Rival Queens; or, the Death of
+Alexander the Great," by Gibber, called "The Rival Queans; or, the
+Humours of Alexander the Great," was acted at Drury Lane in 1710, but
+not printed until 1729.]
+
+[Footnote 334: An adaptation of Beaumont and Fletcher's comedy, by the
+Duke of Buckingham, 1682.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 192.                                                    [ADDISON.
+
+From _Thursday, June 29_, to _Saturday, July 1, 1710_.
+
+    Tecum vivere amem, tecum obeam libens.--HOR., 3 Od. ix. 24.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, June 30._
+
+Some years since I was engaged with a coachful of friends to take a
+journey as far as the Land's End. We were very well pleased with one
+another the first day, every one endeavouring to recommend himself by
+his good humour and complaisance to the rest of the company. This good
+correspondence did not last long; one of our party was soured the very
+first evening by a plate of butter which had not been melted to his
+mind, and which spoiled his temper to such a degree, that he continued
+upon the fret to the end of our journey. A second fell off from his good
+humour the next morning, for no other reason that I could imagine, but
+because I chanced to step into the coach before him, and place myself on
+the shady side. This however was but my own private guess, for he did
+not mention a word of it, nor indeed of anything else, for three days
+following. The rest of our company held out very near half the way, when
+of a sudden Mr. Sprightly fell asleep; and instead of endeavouring to
+divert and oblige us, as he had hitherto done, carried himself with an
+unconcerned, careless, drowsy behaviour, till we came to our last stage.
+There were three of us who still held up our heads, and did all we could
+to make our journey agreeable; but, to my shame be it spoken, about
+three miles on this side Exeter, I was taken with an unaccountable fit
+of sullenness, that hung upon me for above three-score miles; whether
+it were for want of respect, or from an accidental tread upon my foot,
+or from a foolish maid's calling me "The old gentleman," I cannot tell.
+In short, there was but one who kept his good humour to the Land's End.
+
+There was another coach that went along with us, in which I likewise
+observed, that there were many secret jealousies, heartburnings, and
+animosities: for when we joined companies at night, I could not but take
+notice, that the passengers neglected their own company, and studied how
+to make themselves esteemed by us, who were altogether strangers to
+them; till at length they grew so well acquainted with us, that they
+liked us as little as they did one another. When I reflect upon this
+journey, I often fancy it to be a picture of human life, in respect to
+the several friendships, contracts, and alliances that are made and
+dissolved in the several periods of it. The most delightful and most
+lasting engagements are generally those which pass between man and
+woman; and yet upon what trifles are they weakened, or entirely broken?
+Sometimes the parties fly asunder, even in the midst of courtship, and
+sometimes grow cool in the very honey month. Some separate before the
+first child, and some after the fifth; others continue good till thirty,
+others till forty; while some few, whose souls are of a happier make,
+and better fitted to one another, travel on together to the end of their
+journey in a continual intercourse of kind offices and mutual
+endearments.
+
+When we therefore choose our companions for life, if we hope to keep
+both them and ourselves in good humour to the last stage of it, we must
+be extremely careful in the choice we make, as well as in the conduct on
+our own part. When the persons to whom we join ourselves can stand an
+examination, and bear the scrutiny, when they mend upon our acquaintance
+with them, and discover new beauties the more we search into their
+characters, our love will naturally rise in proportion to their
+perfections.
+
+But because there are very few possessed of such accomplishments of body
+and mind, we ought to look after those qualifications both in ourselves
+and others, which are indispensably necessary towards this happy union,
+and which are in the power of every one to acquire, or at least to
+cultivate and improve. These, in my opinion, are cheerfulness and
+constancy. A cheerful temper joined with innocence will make beauty
+attractive, knowledge delightful, and wit good-natured. It will lighten
+sickness, poverty, and affliction; convert ignorance into an amiable
+simplicity, and render deformity itself agreeable.
+
+Constancy is natural to persons of even tempers and uniform
+dispositions, and may be acquired by those of the greatest fickleness,
+violence, and passion, who consider seriously the terms of union upon
+which they come together, the mutual interest in which they are engaged,
+with all the motives that ought to incite their tenderness and
+compassion towards those who have their dependence upon them, and are
+embarked with them for life in the same state of happiness or misery.
+Constancy, when it grows in the mind upon considerations of this nature,
+becomes a moral virtue, and a kind of good nature, that is not subject
+to any change of health, age, fortune, or any of those accidents which
+are apt to unsettle the best dispositions that are founded rather in
+constitution than in reason. Where such a constancy as this is wanting,
+the most inflamed passion may fall away into coldness and indifference,
+and the most melting tenderness degenerate into hatred and aversion. I
+shall conclude this paper with a story that is very well known in the
+North of England.
+
+About thirty years ago, a packet-boat that had several passengers on
+board was cast away upon a rock, and in so great danger of sinking, that
+all who were in it endeavoured to save themselves as well as they could,
+though only those who could swim well had a bare possibility of doing
+it. Among the passengers there were two women of fashion, who seeing
+themselves in such a disconsolate condition, begged of their husbands
+not to leave them. One of them chose rather to die with his wife than to
+forsake her; the other, though he was moved with the utmost compassion
+for his wife, told her, that for the good of their children it was
+better one of them should live, than both perish. By a great piece of
+good luck, next to a miracle, when one of our good men had taken the
+last and long farewell in order to save himself, and the other held in
+his arms the person that was dearer to him than life, the ship was
+preserved. It is with a secret sorrow and vexation of mind that I must
+tell the sequel of the story, and let my reader know, that this faithful
+pair who were ready to have died in each other's arms, about three years
+after their escape, upon some trifling disgust, grew to a coldness at
+first, and at length fell out to such a degree, that they left one
+another and parted for ever. The other couple lived together in an
+uninterrupted friendship and felicity; and what was remarkable, the
+husband whom the shipwreck had like to have separated from his wife,
+died a few months after her, not being able to survive the loss of her.
+
+I must confess, there is something in the changeableness and inconstancy
+of human nature, that very often both dejects and terrifies me. Whatever
+I am at present, I tremble to think what I may be. While I find this
+principle in me, how can I assure myself that I shall be always true to
+my God, my friend, or myself? In short, without constancy there is
+neither love, friendship, nor virtue in the world.
+
+
+
+
+No. 193.                                                [STEELE.[335]
+
+From _Saturday, July 1_, to _Tuesday, July 4, 1710_.
+
+    Qui didicit, patriæ quid debeat et quid amicis,
+    Quo sit amore parens, quo frater amandus, et hospes ...
+    Scribere[336] personæ scit convenientia cuique.
+                                              HOR., Ars Poet. 312.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Will's Coffee-house, July 3._
+
+I have of late received many epistles, wherein the writers treat me as a
+mercenary person, for some late hints concerning matters which they
+think I should not have touched upon but for sordid considerations. It
+is apparent, that my motive could not be of that kind; for when a man
+declares himself openly on one side, that party will take no more notice
+of him, because he is sure; and the set of men whom he declares against,
+for the same reason are violent against him. Thus it is folly in a
+plain-dealer to expect, that either his friends will reward him, or his
+enemies forgive him. For which reason, I thought it was the shortest way
+to impartiality, to put myself beyond further hopes or fears, by
+declaring myself, at a time when the dispute is not about persons and
+parties, but things and causes. To relieve myself from the vexation
+which naturally attends such reflections, I came hither this evening to
+give my thoughts quite a new turn, and converse with men of pleasure and
+wit, rather than those of business and intrigue. I had hardly entered
+the room, when I was accosted by Mr. Thomas Doggett, who desired my
+favour in relation to the play which was to be acted for his benefit on
+Thursday. He pleased me in saying it was "The Old Bachelor,"[337] in
+which comedy there is a necessary circumstance observed by the author,
+which most other poets either overlook or do not understand, that is to
+say, the distinction of characters. It is very ordinary with writers to
+indulge a certain modesty of believing all men as witty as themselves,
+and making all the persons of the play speak the sentiments of the
+author, without any manner of respect to the age, fortune, or quality of
+him that is on the stage. Ladies talk like rakes, and footmen make
+similes: but this writer knows men, which makes his plays reasonable
+entertainments, while the scenes of most others are like the tunes
+between the acts. They are perhaps agreeable sounds, but they have no
+ideas affixed to them. Doggett thanked me for my visit to him in the
+winter,[338] and, after his comical manner, spoke his request with so
+arch a leer, that I promised the droll I would speak to all my
+acquaintance to be at his play.
+
+Whatever the world may think of the actors, whether it be that their
+parts have an effect on their lives, or whatever it is, you see a
+wonderful benevolence among them towards the interests and necessities
+of each other. Doggett therefore would not let me go, without delivering
+me a letter from poor old Downes the prompter,[339] wherein that
+retainer to the theatre desires my advice and assistance in a matter of
+concern to him. I have sent him my private opinion for his conduct; but
+the stage and the State affairs being so much canvassed by parties and
+factions, I shall for some time hereafter take leave of subjects which
+relate to either of them, and employ my care in consideration of matters
+which regard that part of mankind who live without interesting
+themselves with the troubles or pleasures of either. However, for a mere
+notion of the present posture of the stage, I shall give you the letter
+at large as follows:
+
+
+     "HONOURED SIR,                                   _July 1, 1710._
+
+     "Finding by divers of your late papers, that you are a friend to
+     the profession of which I was many years an unworthy member, I the
+     rather make bold to crave your advice, touching a proposal that has
+     been lately made me of coming into business, and the
+     sub-administration of stage affairs. I have, from my youth, been
+     bred up behind the curtain, and been a prompter from the time of
+     the Restoration.[340] I have seen many changes, as well of scenes
+     as of actors, and have known men within my remembrance arrive to
+     the highest dignities of the theatre, who made their entrance in
+     the quality of mutes, joint-stools, flowerpots, and tapestry
+     hangings. It cannot be unknown to the nobility and gentry, that a
+     gentleman of the Inns of Court, and a deep intriguer, had some time
+     since worked himself into the sole management and direction of the
+     theatre.[341] Nor is it less notorious, that his restless ambition,
+     and subtle machinations, did manifestly tend to the extirpation of
+     the good old British actors, and the introduction of foreign
+     pretenders; such as harlequins, French dancers, and Roman singers;
+     which, though they impoverished the proprietors, and imposed on the
+     audience, were for some time tolerated, by reason of his dexterous
+     insinuations, which prevailed upon a few deluded women, especially
+     the vizard masks, to believe that the stage was in danger. But his
+     schemes were soon exposed, and the great ones that supported him
+     withdrawing their favour, he made his exit, and remained for a
+     season in obscurity. During this retreat the Machiavelian was not
+     idle, but secretly fomented divisions, and wrought over to his
+     side some of the inferior actors, reserving a trap-door to himself,
+     to which only he had a key. This entrance secured, this cunning
+     person, to complete his company, bethought himself of calling in
+     the most eminent of strollers from all parts of the kingdom. I have
+     seen them all ranged together behind the scenes; but they are many
+     of them persons that never trod the stage before, and so very
+     awkward and ungainly, that it is impossible to believe the audience
+     will bear them. He was looking over his catalogue of plays, and
+     indeed picked up a good tolerable set of grave faces for
+     counsellors, to appear in the famous scene of 'Venice Preserved,'
+     when the danger is over; but they being but mere outsides, and the
+     actors having a great mind to play 'The Tempest,' there is not a
+     man of them, when he is to perform anything above dumb show, is
+     capable of acting with a good grace so much as the part of
+     Trinculo. However, the master persists in his design, and is
+     fitting up the old 'storm'; but I am afraid he will not be able to
+     procure able sailors or experienced officers for love or money.
+
+     "Besides all this, when he comes to cast the parts, there is so
+     great a confusion amongst them for want of proper actors, that for
+     my part I am wholly discouraged. The play with which they design to
+     open is, 'The Duke and No Duke';[342] and they are so put to it,
+     that the master himself is to act the conjurer, and they have no
+     one for the general but honest George Powell.[343]
+
+     "Now, sir, they being so much at a loss for the _dramatis personæ_,
+     viz., the persons to enact, and the whole frame of the house being
+     designed to be altered, I desire your opinion, whether you think it
+     advisable for me to undertake to prompt them? For though I can
+     clash swords when they represent a battle, and have yet lungs
+     enough to huzza their victories, I question, if I should prompt
+     them right, whether they would act accordingly. I am
+
+                              "Your Honour's most humble Servant,
+                                                          "J. Downes.
+
+     "P.S. Sir, since I writ this, I am credibly informed, that they
+     design a new house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, near the Popish
+     chapel,[344] to be ready by Michaelmas next; which indeed is but
+     repairing an old one that has already failed. You know the honest
+     man who kept the office is gone already."
+
+
+[Footnote 335: The authorship of the greater part of this paper is
+uncertain; see note on next page.]
+
+[Footnote 336: "Reddere" (Horace).]
+
+[Footnote 337: See No. 9.]
+
+[Footnote 338: See Nos. 120, 122. In the continuation of the Tatler
+which Swift and Harrison conducted (No. 28, March 24, 1710-11) there is
+this passage: "The person produced as mine in the playhouse, last
+winter, did in no wise appertain to me. It was such a one, however, as
+agreed well with the impression my writings had made, and served the
+purpose I intended it for: which was to continue the awe and reverence
+due to the character I was vested with, and at the same time to let my
+enemies see how much I was the delight and favourite of this town," &c.]
+
+[Footnote 339: This letter, in ridicule of Harley's newly formed
+Ministry, has been attributed to the joint authorship of Anthony Henley
+(see No. 11) and Temple Stanyan. Harley is supposed to be the gentleman
+referred to in the letter, and Downes, it has been suggested, is Thomas
+Osborne, first Duke of Leeds. Steele expressly disavowed responsibility
+for the letter from Downes the prompter. In No. 53 of the _Guardian_ he
+wrote: "Old Downes is a fine piece of raillery, of which I wish I had
+been author. All I had to do in it, was to strike out what related to a
+gentlewoman about the Queen, whom I thought a woman free from ambition,
+and I did it out of regard to innocence." And in the Preface to the
+_Tatler_, he said that this letter was by an unknown correspondent. A
+writer in the _Examiner_ (vol. iv. No. 2) mentions Old Downes among the
+sufferers of figure under our author's satire. The same writer, or
+another in the same paper, expresses himself in the following words:
+"Steele broke his own maxim for trifles in which his country had no
+manner of concern; and by entering into party disputes, violated the
+most solemn repeated promises and that perfect neutrality he had engaged
+to maintain. As a proof that I did not wrong him, he now openly takes
+upon himself Downes' letter, by wishing the raillery (as he calls it)
+were his own." In the "Essays Divine, Moral, and Political" (1714), p.
+42, Swift is made to say, "I advised him [Steele] to the publishing that
+letter from Downes the prompter, which was the beginning of his ruin,
+though I here declare I did not write it." Forster ("Biographical
+Essays," 3rd ed.) concludes that this fictitious letter was certainly by
+Mainwaring himself. In the "Journal to Stella" (Oct. 22, 1710), Swift
+wrote: "He [Steele] has lost his place of Gazetteer, three hundred
+pounds a year, for writing a _Tatler_, some months ago, against Mr.
+Harley, who gave it him at first, and raised the salary from sixty to
+three hundred pounds." See also Swift's "The Importance of the
+_Guardian_ considered."]
+
+[Footnote 340: John Downes was prompter to "The Duke's Servants" until
+1706. In 1708 he published his valuable "Roscius Anglicanus, or an
+Historical Review of the Stage."]
+
+[Footnote 341: Christopher Rich, who began life as an attorney. See Nos.
+12, 99.]
+
+[Footnote 342: A farce by Nahum Tate, 1685.]
+
+[Footnote 343: See No. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 344: The theatre built by Betterton and his friends in 1695,
+in Portugal Row, Lincoln's Inn Fields, was pulled down and rebuilt by
+Christopher Rich in 1714. The Roman Catholic Church here referred to was
+in Duke (now Sardinia) Street, on the west side of the square.]
+
+
+
+
+END OF VOL. III.
+
+Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
+London & Edinburgh
+
+ +-------------------------------------------+
+ |Transcriber's Notes:                       |
+ |Standardized Punctuation.                  |
+ |Page 163: Changed I must confess, where to |
+ |           I must confess, were            |
+ |Page 301: Changed Ho Nec to Ho Nee         |
+ |Footnote 18: Changed I. 137. to i. 137.    |
+ +-------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Tatler, Volume 3, by Various
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+
+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Tatler, Volume 3, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Tatler, Volume 3
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: George A. Aitken
+
+Release Date: March 15, 2010 [EBook #31645]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TATLER, VOLUME 3 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Joseph R. Hauser and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<p class = "notes">
+Transcriber's Note: This text contains Greek text.  If the Greek symbols
+do not display properly your browser may not have a compatible font.  All Greek
+words will display a transliteration on mouse-over.  Table of Contents not present
+in original and added for ease of navigation.</p>
+
+
+<h2>The Tatler</h2>
+
+<h4>Edited by<br />
+George A. Aitken</h4>
+
+<h6>In Four Volumes<br />
+Volume Three</h6>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+
+<h1>The Tatler</h1>
+
+
+<h4>Edited with Introduction &amp; Notes
+by</h4>
+
+<h2>George A. Aitken</h2>
+
+<h6><i>Author of</i><br />
+"The Life of Richard Steele," &amp;c.<br />
+VOL. III</h6>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+
+<h4>New York<br />
+Hadley &amp; Mathews<br />
+156 Fifth Avenue<br />
+London: Duckworth &amp; Co.<br />
+1899</h4>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h6>Printed by <span class="smcap">Ballantyne, Hanson &amp; Co.</span><br />
+At the Ballantyne Press</h6>
+
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+<h2>Contents</h2>
+
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#Page_1">William Lord Cowper</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_115">No. 115. [Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_116">No. 116. [Addison.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_117">No. 117. [Addison.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_118">No. 118. [Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_119">No. 119. [Addison.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_120">No. 120. [Addison.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_121">No. 121. [Addison.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_122">No. 122. [Addison.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_123">No. 123. [Addison.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_124">No. 124. [Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_125">No. 125. [Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_126">No. 126. [Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_127">No. 127. [Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_128">No. 128. [Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_129">No. 129. [Addison.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_130">No. 130. [? Addison.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_131">No. 131. [Addison.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_132">No. 132. [Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_133">No. 133. [Addison.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_134">No. 134. [Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_135">No. 135. [Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_136">No. 136. [Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_137">No. 137. [Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_138">No. 138. [Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_139">No. 139. [Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_140">No. 140. [Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_141">No. 141. [Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_142">No. 142. [Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_143">No. 143. [Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_144">No. 144. [Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_145">No. 145. [Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_146">No. 146. [Addison.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_147">No. 147. [Addison and Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_148">No. 148. [Addison.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_149">No. 149. [Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_150">No. 150. [Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_151">No. 151. [Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_152">No. 152. [Addison.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_153">No. 153. [Addison.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_154">No. 154. [Addison.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_155">No. 155. [Addison.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_156">No. 156. [Addison.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_157">No. 157. [Addison.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_158">No. 158. [Addison.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_159">No. 159. [Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_160">No. 160. [Addison and Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_161">No. 161. [Addison.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_162">No. 162. [Addison.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_163">No. 163. [Addison.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_164">No. 164. [Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_165">No. 165. [Addison.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_166">No. 166. [Steele/</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_167">No. 167. [Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_168">No. 168. [Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_169">No. 169. [Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_170">No. 170. [Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_171">No. 171. [Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_172">No. 172. [Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_173">No. 173. [Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_174">No. 174. [Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_175">No. 175. [Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_176">No. 176. [Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_177">No. 177. [Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_178">No. 178. [Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_179">No. 179. [Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_180">No. 180. [Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_181">No. 181. [Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_182">No. 182. [Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_183">No. 183. [Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_184">No. 184. [Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_185">No. 185. [Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_186">No. 186. [Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_187">No. 187. [Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_188">No. 188. [Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_189">No. 189. [Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_190">No. 190. [Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_191">No. 191. [Steele.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_192">No. 192. [Addison.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#No_193">No. 193. [Steele.</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+
+<div>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span>
+</div>
+
+<h4>
+<i>To the</i> Right Honourable<br />
+<span style="font-size:150%">William Lord Cowper</span><br />
+Baron of Wingham<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a>
+</h4>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My Lord,</span></p>
+
+<p>After having long celebrated the superior graces and excellences among
+men, in an imaginary character, I do myself the honour to show my
+veneration for transcendent merit, under my own name, in this address to
+your lordship. The just application of those high accom<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span>plishments of
+which you are master, has been an advantage to all your fellow subjects;
+and it is from the common obligation you have laid upon all the world,
+that I, though a private man, can pretend to be affected with, or take
+the liberty to acknowledge your great talents and public virtues.</p>
+
+<p>It gives a pleasing prospect to your friends, that is to say, to the
+friends of your country, that you have passed through the highest
+offices, at an age when others usually do but form to themselves the
+hopes of them.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> They may expect to see you in the House of Lords as
+many years as you were ascending to it. It is our common good, that your
+admirable eloquence can now no longer be employed but in the expression
+of your own sentiments and judgment. The skilful pleader is now for ever
+changed into the just judge; which latter character your lordship exerts
+with so prevailing an impartiality, that you win the approbation even of
+those who dissent from you, and you always obtain favour, because you
+are never moved by it.</p>
+
+<p>This gives you a certain dignity peculiar to your present situation, and
+makes the equity, even of a Lord High Chancellor, appear but a degree
+towards the magnanimity of a peer of Great Britain.</p>
+
+<p>Forgive me, my lord, when I cannot conceal from you, that I shall never
+hereafter behold you, but I shall behold you, as lately, defending the
+brave, and the unfortunate.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p>
+
+<p>When we attend to your lordship, engaged in a discourse, we cannot but
+reflect upon the many requisites<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> which the vainglorious speakers of
+antiquity have demanded in a man who is to excel in oratory; I say, my
+lord, when we reflect upon the precepts by viewing the example, though
+there is no excellence proposed by those rhetoricians wanting, the whole
+art seems to be resolved into that one motive of speaking, sincerity in
+the intention. The graceful manner, the apt gesture, and the assumed
+concern, are impotent helps to persuasion, in comparison of the honest
+countenance of him who utters what he really means. From hence it is,
+that all the beauties which others attain with labour, are in your
+lordship but the natural effects of the heart that dictates.</p>
+
+<p>It is this noble simplicity which makes you surpass mankind in the
+faculties wherein mankind are distinguished from other creatures, reason
+and speech.</p>
+
+<p>If these gifts were communicated to all men in proportion to the truth
+and ardour of their hearts, I should speak of you with the same force as
+you express yourself on any other subject. But I resist my present
+impulse, as agreeable as it is to me; though indeed, had I any
+pretensions to a fame of this kind, I should, above all other themes,
+attempt a panegyric upon my Lord Cowper: for the only sure way to a
+reputation for eloquence, in an age wherein that perfect orator lives,
+is to choose an argument, upon which he himself must of necessity be
+silent. I am,</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+<span class="sig8">My Lord, your Lordship's</span><br />
+<span class="sig4">Most devoted, most obedient, and</span><br />
+<span class="sig2">Most humble Servant,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">Richard Steele.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> William Cowper was appointed King's counsel about 1694; he
+succeeded Sir Nathan Wright, as Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, October
+11, 1705; was created Baron Cowper of Wingham, November 9, 1706; and was
+appointed Lord Chancellor, May 4, 1707, which post he held till
+September 14, 1710. On the accession of King George, he was again
+appointed Lord Chancellor, and, on resigning the Great Seal, was created
+Earl Cowper and Viscount Fordwich, March 18, 1717-18. He died in 1723.
+Lord Cowper refused to accept New Year's gifts from the counsellors at
+law, which had been long given to his predecessors, and, when he was
+Chancellor, though in friendship with the Duke of Marlborough, and of
+the same political principles, he refused to put the broad seal of his
+office to a commission for making his Grace generalissimo for life.
+"When Steele's patent, as Governor of the Theatre Royal, passed the
+Great Seal, Lord Chancellor Cowper, in compliment to Sir Richard, would
+receive no fee" (Cibber's "Apology"). He was praised by Hughes, under
+the name of "Manilius," in No. 467 of the <i>Spectator</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> The date of Lord Cowper's birth is not known, but in 1710
+he was probably about 46. He entered the Middle Temple in 1682.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> In a pamphlet entitled "A Letter to Isaac Bickerstaff,"
+1710, Lord Cowper defended the character of the Duchess of Marlborough
+against an attack by Bolingbroke in a "Letter to the <i>Examiner</i>."</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<div>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span>
+</div>
+<h1><span class="smcap">The Tatler</span></h1>
+<h4><span class="smcap">By ISAAC BICKERSTAFF, Esq.</span></h4>
+
+
+
+<div class="numberheader">
+<a name="No_115" id="No_115"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 115.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Steele.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br />
+From <i>Saturday, Dec. 31, 1709</i>, to <i>Tuesday, Jan. 3, 1709-10</i>.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&mdash;Novum intervenit vitium et calamitas,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ut neque spectari, neque cognosci potuerit:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ita populus studio stupidus in funambulo<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Animum occup&acirc;rat.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Ter.</span>, Hecyra, Prologue.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>Sheer Lane, January 2.</i></p>
+
+<p>I went on Friday last to the opera, and was surprised to find a thin
+house at so noble an entertainment, till I heard that the tumbler<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> was
+not to make his appearance that night. For my own part, I was fully
+satisfied with the sight of an actor, who, by the grace and propriety of
+his action and gesture, does honour to a human figure, as much as the
+other vilifies and degrades it. Every one will easily imagine I mean
+Signor Nicolini,<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> who sets off<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> the character he bears in an opera by
+his action, as much as he does the words of it by his voice. Every limb,
+and every finger, contributes to the part he acts, insomuch that a deaf
+man might go along with him in the sense of it. There is scarce a
+beautiful posture in an old statue which he does not plant himself in,
+as the different circumstances<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> of the story give occasion for it. He
+performs the most ordinary action in a manner suitable to the greatness
+of his character, and shows the prince even in the giving of a letter,
+or the despatching of a message. Our best actors are somewhat at a loss
+to support themselves with proper gesture, as they move from any
+considerable distance to the front of the stage; but I have seen the
+person of whom I am now speaking, enter alone at the remotest part of
+it, and advance from it with such greatness of air and mien, as seemed
+to fill the stage, and at the same time commanding the attention of the
+audience with the majesty of his appearance. But notwithstanding the
+dignity and elegance of this entertainment, I find for some nights past,
+that Punchinello has robbed the gentleman of the greater part of his
+female spectators. The truth of it is, I find it so very hard a task to
+keep that sex under any manner of government, that I have often resolved
+to give them over entirely, and leave them to their own inventions. I
+was in hopes that I had brought them to some order, and was employing my
+thoughts on the reformation of their petticoats, when on a sudden I
+received information from all parts, that they run gadding after a
+puppet-show. I know very well, that what I here say will be thought by
+some malicious persons to flow from envy to Mr. Powell; for which
+reason, I shall set the late dispute between us in a true light.<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> Mr.
+Powell and I had some difference about four months ago, which we managed
+by way of letter, as learned men ought to do; and I was very well
+contented to bear such sarcasms as he was pleased to throw upon me, and
+answered them with the same freedom. In the midst of this our
+misunderstanding and correspondence, I happened to give the world an
+account of the order of esquires<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a>; upon which, Mr. Powell was so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span>
+disingenuous, as to make one of his puppets (I wish I knew which of them
+it was) declare by way of prologue, that one Isaac Bickerstaff, a
+pretended esquire, had wrote a scurrilous piece to the dishonour of that
+rank of men; and then, with more art than honesty, concluded, that all
+the esquires in the pit were abused by his antagonist as much he was.
+This public accusation made all the esquires of that county, and several
+of other parts, my professed enemies. I do not in the least question but
+that he will proceed in his hostilities; and I am informed, that part of
+his design in coming up to town was to carry the war into my own
+quarters. I do therefore solemnly declare (notwithstanding that I am a
+great lover of art and ingenuity) that if I hear he opens any of his
+people's mouths against me, I shall not fail to write a critique upon
+his whole performance; for I must confess, that I have naturally so
+strong a desire of praise, that I cannot bear reproach, though from a
+piece of timber. As for Punch, who takes all opportunities of
+bespattering me, I know very well his original, and have been assured by
+the joiner who put him together, that he was in long dispute with
+himself, whether he should turn him into several pegs and utensils, or
+make him the man he is. The same person confessed to me, that he had
+once actually laid aside his head for a nutcracker. As for his scolding
+wife (however she may value herself at present), it is very well known
+that she is but a piece of crabtree. This artificer further whispered in
+my ear, that all his courtiers and nobles were taken out of a quickset
+hedge not far from Islington; and that Dr. Faustus himself, who is now
+so great a conjurer, is supposed to have learned his whole art from an
+old woman in that neighbourhood, whom he long served in the figure of a
+broomstaff.</p>
+
+<p>But perhaps it may look trivial to insist so much upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> men's persons; I
+shall therefore turn my thoughts rather to examine their behaviour, and
+consider, whether the several parts are written up to that character
+which Mr. Powell piques himself upon, of an able and judicious
+dramatist. I have for this purpose provided myself with the works of
+above twenty French critics, and shall examine (by the rules which they
+have laid down upon the art of the stage) whether the unity of time,
+place and action, be rightly observed in any one of this celebrated
+author's productions; as also, whether in the parts of his several
+actors, and that of Punch in particular, there is not sometimes an
+impropriety of sentiments, and an impurity of diction.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>White's Chocolate-house, January 2.</i></p>
+
+<p>I came in here to-day at an hour when only the dead appear in places of
+resort and gallantry, and saw hung up the escutcheon of Sir Hannibal,<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a>
+a gentleman who used to frequent this place, and was taken up and
+interred by the Company of Upholders, as having been seen here at an
+unlicensed hour. The coat of the deceased is, three<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> bowls and a jack in
+a green field; the crest, a dice-box, with the king of clubs and Pam for
+supporters. Some days ago the body was carried out of town with great
+pomp and ceremony, in order to be buried with his ancestors at the Peak.
+It is a maxim in morality, that we are to speak nothing but truth of the
+living, nothing but good of the dead. As I have carefully observed the
+first during his lifetime, I shall acquit myself as to the latter now he
+is deceased.</p>
+
+<p>He was knighted very young, not in the ordinary form, but by the common
+consent of mankind.</p>
+
+<p>He was in his person between round and square; in the motion and gesture
+of his body he was unaffected and free, as not having too great a
+respect for superiors. He was in his discourse bold and intrepid; and as
+every one has an excellence as well as a failing which distinguishes him
+from other men, eloquence was his predominant quality, which he had to
+so great a perfection, that it was easier to him to speak than to hold
+his tongue. This sometimes exposed him to the derision of men who had
+much less parts than himself: and indeed his great volubility and
+inimitable manner of speaking, as well as the great courage he showed on
+those occasions, did sometimes betray him into that figure of speech
+which is commonly distinguished by the name of "gasconade." To mention
+no other, he professed in this very place some few days before he died,
+that he would be one of the six that would under<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>take to assault me; for
+which reason I have had his figure upon my wall till the hour of his
+death: and am resolved for the future to bury every one forthwith who I
+hear has an intention to kill me.</p>
+
+<p>Since I am upon the subject of my adversaries, I shall here publish a
+short letter which I have received from a well-wisher, and is as
+follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Sage Sir</span>,</p>
+
+<p>"You cannot but know, there are many scribblers and others who
+revile you and your writings. It is wondered that you do not exert
+yourself, and crush them at once. I am,</p>
+
+<div class="sig">
+<span class="sig8">"Sir (with great respect),</span><br />
+<span class="sig4">"Your most humble Admirer</span><br />
+"and Disciple."<br /></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>In answer to this, I shall act like my predecessor &AElig;sop, and give him a
+fable instead of a reply.</p>
+
+<p>It happened one day, as a stout and honest mastiff (that guarded the
+village where he lived against thieves and robbers) was very gravely
+walking, with one of his puppies by his side, all the little dogs in the
+street gathered about him, and barked at him. The little puppy was so
+offended at this affront done to his sire, that he asked him why he
+would not fall upon them, and tear them to pieces?</p>
+
+<p>To which the sire answered, with a great composure of mind, "If there
+were no curs, I should be no mastiff."<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a>
+See No. 108.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> Cavalier Nicolini Grimaldi was a Neapolitan actor and
+singer, who appeared first in England in McSwiney's "Pyrrhus and
+Demetrius." He is often mentioned in the <i>Spectator</i> (see Nos. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/12030/12030-h/12030-h/SV1/Spectator1.html#section5">5</a>,
+<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/12030/12030-h/12030-h/SV1/Spectator1.html#section13">13</a>,
+<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/12030/12030-h/12030-h/SV2/Spectator2.html#section405">405</a>), and seems to have been a friend of both Addison and Steele.
+Addison praises him alike as an actor and as a singer. The following
+letter from Hughes to Nicolini, dated February 4, 1709-10, is given in
+Hughes' "Correspondence" (Dublin, 1773, i. 33-4): "Depuis que j'ai eu
+l'honneur d'&ecirc;tre chez vous &agrave; la r&eacute;p&eacute;tition de l'op&eacute;ra, j'ai din&eacute; avec
+Mr. Steele, et la conversation roulante sur vous, je lui dis la mani&egrave;re
+obligeante dont je vous avois ou parler de Mr. Bickerstaff, en disant
+que vous aviez beaucoup d'inclination &agrave; &eacute;tudier l'Anglois pour avoir
+seulement le plaisir de lire le <i>Tatler</i>. Il trouvre que votre
+compliment &agrave; l'auteur du <i>Tatler</i> est fort galant." Nicolini sang in
+Italian to the English of Mrs. Tofts (see No. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number20">20</a>, and
+<i>Spectator</i>, No. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/12030/12030-h/12030-h/SV1/Spectator1.html#section22">22</a>), but Cibber observes that "whatever defect the fashionably skilful
+might find in her manner, she had, in the general sense of her
+spectators, charms that few of the most learned singers ever arrive at."
+A letter from Lady Wentworth, dated December 10, 1708, gives us a
+curious glimpse of Nicolini and Mrs. Tofts: "My dearest and best of
+children ... Yesterday I had lyke to have been ketched in a trap, your
+Brother Wentworth had almoste persuaded me to have gon last night to
+hear the fyne muisick the famous Etallion sing att the rehersall of the
+Operer, which he asured me it was soe dark none could see me. Indeed
+musick was the greatest temtation I could have, but I was afraid he
+deceaved me, soe Betty only went with his wife and him; and I rejoysed I
+did not, for thear was a vast deal of company and good light&mdash;but the
+Dutchis of Molbery had gott the Etallion to sing and he sent an excuse,
+but the Dutchis of Shrosberry made him com, brought him in her coach,
+but Mrs. Taufs huft and would not sing becaus he had first put it ofe;
+though she was thear yet she would not, but went away. I wish the house
+would al joyne to humble her and not receav her again. This man out dus
+Sefachoe, they say that has hard both" ("Wentworth Papers," 1883, p.
+66). Mr. Cartwright quotes from a letter in Lord Egmont's collection,
+dated March 17, 1709: "This day the opera of 'Camilla' is acted
+expressly for Lord Marlborough. Our famous Nicolini got 800 guineas for
+his day; and 'tis thought Mrs. Tofts, whose turn it is on Tuesday next,
+will get a vast deal. She was on Sunday last at the Duke of Somerset's,
+where there was about thirty gentlemen, and every kiss was one guinea;
+some took three, others four, others five, at that rate, but none less
+than one." (Seventh Report of Hist. MSS. Commission, p. 246).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> See Nos.
+<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number11">11</a>,
+<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number44">44</a>,
+<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number45">45</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number19">19</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> Sir James Baker, known as the "Knight of the Peak";
+see No. <a href="#No_118">118</a>. Steele's comments on gambling in the <i>Tatler</i> brought upon him the
+anger of many of the sharpers. There is a well-known story that Lord
+Forbes, Major-General Davenport, and Brigadier Bisset were in the St.
+James's Coffee-house when some well-dressed men entered, and began to
+abuse Steele as the author of the <i>Tatler</i>. One of them swore that he
+would cut Steele's throat or teach him better manners. "In this
+country," said Lord Forbes, "you will find it easier to cut a purse than
+to cut a throat"; and the cut-throats were soon turned out of the house
+with every mark of disgrace. A similar incident is described in a
+recently published letter from Lady Marow to her daughter, Lady Kaye
+("Manuscripts of the Earl of Dartmouth," iii. 148; Hist. MSS. Comm.,
+Fifteenth Report, Part I.). Writing on January 5, 1709-10, Lady Marow
+says: "All the town are full of the <i>Tatler</i>, which I hope you have to
+prepare you for discourse, for no visit is made that I hear of but Mr.
+Bickerstaff is mentioned, and I am told he has done so much good that
+the sharpers cannot increase their stocks as they did formerly; for one
+Young came into the chocolate-house, and said he would stop Mr.
+Bickerstaff if he knew him. Mr. Steele, who is thought to write the
+<i>Tatler</i>, heard Young say so, and, when he went out of the house, said
+he should walk in St. James's Park an hour, if any would speak with him;
+but the Hector took no notice."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> In the original folio number, after indication of certain
+errata in No. 114, comes the following note: "The reader is desired not
+to pronounce anything in any one of these writings <i>nonsense</i>, till the
+following paper comes out."</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<a name="No_116" id="No_116"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 116.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Addison.</span></h2>
+<div>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>
+</div>
+<p class="center"><br /><br />
+From <i>Tuesday, Jan. 3</i>, to <i>Thursday, Jan. 5, 1709-10.</i>
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&mdash;Pars minima est ipsa puella sui.<br /></span>
+<span class="i20"><span class="smcap">Ovid</span>, Rem. Amor. 344.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>Sheer Lane, January 4.</i></p>
+
+<p>The court being prepared for proceeding on the cause of the petticoat, I
+gave orders to bring in a criminal who was taken up as she went out of
+the puppet-show about three nights ago, and was now standing in the
+street with a great concourse of people about her. Word was brought me,
+that she had endeavoured twice or thrice to come in, but could not do it
+by reason of her petticoat, which was too large for the entrance of my
+house, though I had ordered both the folding-doors to be thrown open for
+its reception. Upon this, I desired the jury of matrons, who stood at my
+right hand, to inform themselves of her condition, and know whether
+there were any private reasons why she might not make her appearance
+separate from her petticoat. This was managed with great discretion, and
+had such an effect, that upon the return of the verdict from the bench
+of matrons, I issued out an order forthwith, that the criminal should be
+stripped of her encumbrances, till she became little enough to enter my
+house. I had before given directions for an engine of several legs, that
+could contract or open itself like the top of an umbrello,<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> in order
+to place the petticoat upon it, by which means I might take a leisurely
+survey of it, as it should appear in its proper dimensions. This was all
+done accordingly; and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> forthwith, upon the closing of the engine, the
+petticoat was brought into court. I then directed the machine to be set
+upon the table, and dilated in such a manner as to show the garment in
+its utmost circumference; but my great hall was too narrow for the
+experiment; for before it was half unfolded, it described so immoderate
+a circle, that the lower part of it brushed upon my face as I sate in my
+chair of judicature. I then inquired for the person that belonged to the
+petticoat; and to my great surprise, was directed to a very beautiful
+young damsel, with so pretty a face and shape, that I bid her come out
+of the crowd, and seated her upon a little crock at my left hand. "My
+pretty maid," said I, "do you own yourself to have been the inhabitant
+of the garment before us?" The girl I found had good sense, and told me
+with a smile, that notwithstanding it was her own petticoat, she should
+be very glad to see an example made of it; and that she wore it for no
+other reason, but that she had a mind to look as big and burly as other
+persons of her quality; that she had kept out of it as long as she
+could, and till she began to appear little in the eyes of all her
+acquaintance; that if she laid it aside, people would think she was not
+made like other women. I always give great allowances to the fair sex
+upon account of the fashion, and therefore was not displeased with the
+defence of my pretty criminal. I then ordered the vest which stood
+before us to be drawn up by a pulley to the top of my great hall, and
+afterwards to be spread open by the engine it was placed upon, in such a
+manner, that it formed a very splendid and ample canopy over our heads,
+and covered the whole court of judicature with a kind of silken rotunda,
+in its form not unlike the cupola of St. Paul's. I entered upon the
+whole cause with great satisfaction as I sat under the shadow of it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The counsel for the petticoat was now called in, and ordered to produce
+what they had to say against the popular cry which was raised against
+it. They answered the objections with great strength and solidity of
+argument, and expatiated in very florid harangues, which they did not
+fail to set off and furbelow (if I may be allowed the metaphor) with
+many periodical sentences and turns of oratory. The chief arguments for
+their client were taken, first, from the great benefit that might arise
+to our woollen manufactury from this invention, which was calculated as
+follows: the common petticoat has not above four yards in the
+circumference; whereas this over our heads had more in the
+semi-diameter; so that by allowing it twenty-four yards in the
+circumference, the five millions of woollen petticoats, which (according
+to Sir William Petty) supposing what ought to be supposed in a
+well-governed state, that all petticoats are made of that stuff, would
+amount to thirty millions of those of the ancient mode. A prodigious
+improvement of the woollen trade! and what could not fail to sink the
+power of France in a few years.</p>
+
+<p>To introduce the second argument, they begged leave to read a petition
+of the ropemakers, wherein it was represented, that the demand for
+cords, and the price of them, were much risen since this fashion came
+up. At this, all the company who were present lifted up their eyes into
+the vault; and I must confess, we did discover many traces of cordage
+which were interwoven in the stiffening of the drapery.</p>
+
+<p>A third argument was founded upon a petition of the Greenland trade,
+which likewise represented the great consumption of whalebone which
+would be occasioned by the present fashion, and the benefit which would
+thereby accrue to that branch of the British trade.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>To conclude, they gently touched upon the weight and unwieldiness of the
+garment, which they insinuated might be of great use to preserve the
+honour of families.</p>
+
+<p>These arguments would have wrought very much upon me (as I then told the
+company in a long and elaborate discourse) had I not considered the
+great and additional expense which such fashions would bring upon
+fathers and husbands; and therefore by no means to be thought of till
+some years after a peace. I further urged, that it would be a prejudice
+to the ladies themselves, who could never expect to have any money in
+the pocket, if they laid out so much on the petticoat. To this I added,
+the great temptation it might give to virgins, of acting in security
+like married women, and by that means give a check to matrimony, an
+institution always encouraged by wise societies.</p>
+
+<p>At the same time, in answer to the several petitions produced on that
+side, I showed one subscribed by the women of several persons of
+quality, humbly setting forth, that since the introduction of this mode,
+their respective ladies had, instead of bestowing on them their cast
+gowns, cut them into shreds, and mixed them with the cordage and
+buckram, to complete the stiffening of their under-petticoats. For
+which, and sundry other reasons, I pronounced the petticoat a
+forfeiture: but to show that I did not make that judgment for the sake
+of filthy lucre, I ordered it to be folded up, and sent it as a present
+to a widow gentlewoman, who has five daughters, desiring she would make
+each of them a petticoat out of it, and send me back the remainder,
+which I design to cut into stomachers, caps, facings of my waistcoat
+sleeves, and other garnitures suitable to my age and quality.</p>
+
+<p>I would not be understood, that, while I discard this monstrous
+invention, I am an enemy to the proper orna<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>ments of the fair sex. On
+the contrary, as the hand of nature has poured on them such a profusion
+of charms and graces, and sent them into the world more amiable and
+finished than the rest of her works; so I would have them bestow upon
+themselves all the additional beauties that art can supply them with,
+provided it does not interfere with, disguise, or pervert, those of
+nature.</p>
+
+<p>I consider woman as a beautiful romantic animal, that may be adorned
+with furs and feathers, pearls and diamonds, ores and silks. The lynx
+shall cast its skin at her feet to make her a tippet; the peacock,
+parrot, and swan, shall pay contributions to her muff; the sea shall be
+searched for shells, and the rocks for gems; and every part of nature
+furnish out its share towards the embellishment of a creature that is
+the most consummate work of it. All this I shall indulge them in; but as
+for the petticoat I have been speaking of, I neither can, nor will allow
+it.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Swift uses this form of the word: "It served him for a
+nightcap when he went to bed, and for an umbrello in rainy whether."</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<a name="No_117" id="No_117"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 117.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Addison.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br />From <i>Thursday, Jan. 5</i>, to <i>Saturday, Jan. 7, 1709-10</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Durate, et vosmet rebus servate secundis.<br /></span>
+<span class="i20"><span class="smcap">Virg.</span>, &AElig;n. i. 207.</span><br />
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>Sheer Lane, January 6.</i></p>
+
+<p>When I look into the frame and constitution of my own mind, there is no
+part of it which I observe with greater satisfaction, than that
+tenderness and concern which it bears for the good and happiness of
+mankind. My own circumstances are indeed so narrow and scanty, that I
+should taste but very little pleasure, could I receive it only from
+those enjoyments which are in my own possession; but by this great
+tincture of humanity,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> which I find in all my thoughts and reflections,
+I am happier than any single person can be, with all the wealth,
+strength, beauty, and success, that can be conferred upon a mortal, if
+he only relishes such a proportion of these blessings as is vested in
+himself, and is his own private property. By this means, every man that
+does himself any real service, does me a kindness. I come in for my
+share in all the good that happens to a man of merit and virtue, and
+partake of many gifts of fortune and power that I was never born to.
+There is nothing in particular in which I so much rejoice, as the
+deliverance of good and generous spirits out of dangers, difficulties,
+and distresses. And because the world does not supply instances of this
+kind to furnish out sufficient entertainments for such a humanity and
+benevolence of temper, I have ever delighted in reading the history of
+ages past, which draws together into a narrow compass the great
+occurrences and events that are but thinly sown in those tracts of time
+which lie within our own knowledge and observation. When I see the life
+of a great man, who has deserved well of his country, after having
+struggled through all the oppositions of prejudice and envy, breaking
+out with lustre, and shining forth in all the splendour of success, I
+close my book, and am a happy man for a whole evening.</p>
+
+<p>But since in history events are of a mixed nature, and often happen
+alike to the worthless and the deserving, insomuch that we frequently
+see a virtuous man dying in the midst of disappointments and calamities,
+and the vicious ending their days in prosperity and peace, I love to
+amuse myself with the accounts I meet with in fabulous histories and
+fictions: for in this kind of writings we have always the pleasure of
+seeing vice punished, and virtue rewarded. Indeed, were we able to view
+a man in the whole circle of his existence, we should have the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>
+satisfaction of seeing it close with happiness or misery, according to
+his proper merit: but though our view of him is interrupted by death
+before the finishing of his adventures (if I may so speak), we may be
+sure that the conclusion and catastrophe is altogether suitable to his
+behaviour. On the contrary, the whole being of a man, considered as a
+hero, or a knight-errant, is comprehended within the limits of a poem or
+romance, and therefore always ends to our satisfaction; so that
+inventions of this kind are like food and exercise to a good-natured
+disposition, which they please and gratify at the same time that they
+nourish and strengthen. The greater the affliction is in which we see
+our favourites in these relations engaged, the greater is the pleasure
+we take in seeing them relieved.</p>
+
+<p>Among the many feigned histories which I have met with in my reading,
+there is none in which the hero's perplexity is greater, and the winding
+out of it more difficult, than that in a French author whose name I have
+forgot. It so happens, that the hero's mistress was the sister of his
+most intimate friend, who for certain reasons was given out to be dead,
+while he was preparing to leave his country in quest of adventures. The
+hero having heard of his friend's death, immediately repaired to his
+mistress, to condole with her, and comfort her. Upon his arrival in her
+garden, he discovered at a distance a man clasped in her arms, and
+embraced with the most endearing tenderness. What should he do? It did
+not consist with the gentleness of a knight-errant either to kill his
+mistress, or the man whom she was pleased to favour. At the same time,
+it would have spoiled a romance, should he have laid violent hands on
+himself. In short, he immediately entered upon his adventures; and after
+a long series of exploits, found out by degrees, that the person he saw
+in his mistress's arms was her own brother, taking leave of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> her before
+he left his country, and the embrace she gave him nothing else but the
+affectionate farewell of a sister: so that he had at once the two
+greatest satisfactions that could enter into the heart of man, in
+finding his friend alive, whom he thought dead; and his mistress
+faithful, whom he had believed inconstant.</p>
+
+<p>There are indeed some disasters so very fatal, that it is impossible for
+any accidents to rectify them. Of this kind was that of poor Lucretia;
+and yet we see Ovid has found an expedient even in this case. He
+describes a beautiful and royal virgin walking on the seashore, where
+she was discovered by Neptune, and violated after a long and
+unsuccessful importunity. To mitigate her sorrow, he offers her whatever
+she would wish for. Never certainly was the wit of woman more puzzled in
+finding out a stratagem to retrieve her honour. Had she desired to be
+changed into a stock or stone, a beast, fish or fowl, she would have
+been a loser by it: or had she desired to have been made a sea-nymph, or
+a goddess, her immortality would but have perpetuated her disgrace.
+"Give me therefore," said she, "such a shape as may make me incapable of
+suffering again the like calamity, or of being reproached for what I
+have already suffered." To be short, she was turned into a man, and by
+that only means avoided the danger and imputation she so much dreaded.</p>
+
+<p>I was once myself in agonies of grief that are unutterable, and in so
+great a distraction of mind, that I thought myself even out of the
+possibility of receiving comfort. The occasion was as follows: When I
+was a youth in a part of the army which was then quartered at Dover, I
+fell in love with an agreeable young woman, of a good family in those
+parts, and had the satisfaction of seeing my addresses kindly received,
+which occasioned the perplexity I am going to relate.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>We were in a calm evening diverting ourselves upon the top of the cliff
+with the prospect of the sea, and trifling away the time in such little
+fondnesses as are most ridiculous to people in business, and most
+agreeable to those in love.</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of these our innocent endearments, she snatched a paper of
+verses out of my hand, and ran away with them. I was following her, when
+on a sudden the ground, though at a considerable distance from the verge
+of the precipice, sank under her, and threw her down from so prodigious
+a height upon such a range of rocks, as would have dashed her into ten
+thousand pieces, had her body been made of adamant. It is much easier
+for my reader to imagine my state of mind upon such an occasion, than
+for me to express it. I said to myself, "It is not in the power of
+heaven to relieve me!" when I awoke, equally transported and astonished,
+to see myself drawn out of an affliction which the very moment before
+appeared to me altogether inextricable.</p>
+
+<p>The impressions of grief and horror were so lively on this occasion,
+that while they lasted, they made me more miserable than I was at the
+real death of this beloved person (which happened a few months after, at
+a time when the match between us was concluded), inasmuch as the
+imaginary death was untimely, and I myself in a sort an accessory;
+whereas her real decease had at least these alleviations, of being
+natural and inevitable.</p>
+
+<p>The memory of the dream I have related still dwells so strongly upon me,
+that I can never read the description of Dover Cliff in Shakespeare's
+tragedy of "King Lear,"<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> without a fresh sense of my escape. The
+prospect from that place is drawn with such proper incidents, that
+whoever can read it without growing giddy, must have a good head, or a
+very bad one.</p>
+
+<div>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>
+</div>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><div class="itals">
+<span class="i0">"Come on, sir, here's the place; stand still! How fearful<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And dizzy 'tis to cast one's eyes so low?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The crows and choughs that wing the midway air,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Show scarce as gross as beetles. Half-way down<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hangs one that gathers samphire. Dreadful trade!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Methinks he seems no bigger than his head.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fishermen that walk upon the beach,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Appear like mice, and yond' tall anchoring bark<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Diminished to her boat;<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> her boat!<a name="FNanchor_12_12a" id="FNanchor_12_12a"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> a buoy<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Almost too small for sight. The murmuring surge<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(That on the unnumbered idle pebble beats)<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cannot be heard so high. I'll look no more,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lest my brain turn."<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> "King Lear," act iv. sc. 6.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> Altered from Shakespeare's "cock."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> "The parcel of letters, value 10<i>s.</i> 3<i>d.</i>, with the
+subsequent letter, is received, for which Mr. Bickerstaff gives his
+thanks and humble service" (folio).</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<a name="No_118" id="No_118"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 118.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Steele.</span><a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br />From <i>Saturday, Jan. 7</i>, to <i>Tuesday, Jan. 10, 1709-10</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Lusisti satis, edisti satis atque bibisti;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tempus abire tibi....&mdash;<span class="smcap">Hor.</span>, 2 Ep. ii. 214.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>From my own Apartment, January 8.</i></p>
+
+<p>I thought to have given over my prosecution of the dead for this season,
+having by me many other projects for the reformation of mankind; but I
+have received so many complaints from such different hands, that I shall
+disoblige multitudes of my correspondents, if I do not take notice of
+them. Some of the deceased, who I thought had been laid quietly in their
+graves, are such hobgoblins in public assemblies, that I must be forced
+to deal with them as Evander did with his triple-lived adversary, who,
+according<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> to Virgil, was forced to kill him thrice over before he could
+despatch him.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"<i>Ter leto sternendus erat.</i>"<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>I am likewise informed, that several wives of my dead men have, since
+the decease of their husbands, been seen in many public places without
+mourning, or regard to common decency.</p>
+
+<p>I am further advised, that several of the defunct, contrary to the
+Woollen Act,<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> presume to dress themselves in lace, embroidery, silks,
+muslins, and other ornaments forbidden to persons in their condition.
+These and other the like informations moving me thereunto, I must
+desire, for distinction-sake, and to conclude this subject for ever,
+that when any of these posthumous persons appear, or are spoken of,
+their wives may be called "widows"; their houses, "sepulchres"; their
+chariots, "hearses"; and their garments, "flannel": on which condition,
+they shall be allowed all the conveniences that dead men can in reason
+desire.</p>
+
+
+<p>As I was writing this morning on this subject, I received the following
+letter:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+"<span class="smcap">Mr. Bickerstaff</span>,
+<span class="salright"><i>From the Banks of Styx.</i></span>
+
+<p>"I must confess I treated you very scurrilously when you first sent
+me hither; but you have despatched such multitudes after me to keep
+me in countenance, that I am very well reconciled both to you and
+my condition. We<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> live very lovingly together; for as death makes
+us all equal, it makes us very much delight in one another's
+company. Our time passes away much after the same manner as it did
+when we were among you: eating, drinking, and sleeping, are our
+chief diversions. Our quidnuncs between whiles go to a
+coffee-house, where they have several warm liquors made of the
+waters of Lethe, with very good poppy tea. We that are the
+sprightly geniuses of the place, refresh ourselves frequently with
+a bottle of mum,<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> and tell stories till we fall asleep. You
+would do well to send among us Mr. Dodwell's<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> book against the
+immortality of the soul, which would be of great consolation to our
+whole fraternity, who would be very glad to find that they are dead
+for good and all, and would in particular make me rest for ever,</p>
+
+<div class="sig">
+<span class="sig6">"Yours,</span><br />
+"<span class="smcap">John Partridge.</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>"P.S.&mdash;Sir James<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> is just arrived here in good health."</p></div>
+
+<p>The foregoing letter was the more pleasing to me, because I perceive
+some little symptoms in it of a resuscitation; and having lately seen
+the predictions of this author, which are written in a true Protestant
+spirit of prophecy, and a particular zeal against the French king, I
+have some thoughts of sending for him from the Banks<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> of Styx, and
+reinstating him in his own house, at the sign of the Globe in Salisbury
+Street. For the encouragement of him and others, I shall offer to their
+consideration a letter which gives me an account of the revival of one
+of their brethren:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+"<span class="smcap">"Sir</span>,
+<span class="salright"><i>December 31.</i></span>
+
+<p>"I have perused your <i>Tatler</i> of this day,<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> and have wept over
+it with great pleasure: I wish you would be more frequent in your
+family pieces. For as I consider you under the notion of a great
+designer, I think these are not your least valuable performances. I
+am glad to find you have given over your face painting for some
+time, because, I think, you have employed yourself more in
+grotesque figures, than in beauties; for which reason, I would
+rather see you work upon history pieces, than on single portraits.
+Your several draughts of dead men appear to me as pictures of still
+life, and have done great good in the place where I live. The
+squire of a neighbouring village, who had been a long time in the
+number of nonentities, is entirely recovered by them. For these
+several years past, there was not a hare in the county that could
+be at rest for him; and I think, the greatest exploit he ever
+boasted of, was, that when he was high sheriff of the county, he
+hunted a fox so far, that he could not follow him any farther by
+the laws of the land. All the hours he spent at home, were in
+swilling<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> himself with October, and rehearsing the wonders he
+did in the field. Upon reading your papers, he has sold his dogs,
+shook off his dead companions, looked into his estate, got the
+multiplication table by heart, paid his tithes, and intends to take
+upon him the office of churchwarden next year. I wish the same
+success with your other patients, and am, &amp;c."</p></div>
+
+<div>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>
+</div>
+<p class="center"><br /><i>Ditto, January 9.</i></p>
+
+<p>When I came home this evening, a very tight middle-aged woman presented
+to me the following petition:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p class="center"><br />"<i>To the Worshipful Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq., Censor of Great
+Britain.</i></p>
+
+<p>"The humble petition of Penelope Prim, widow;</p>
+
+<p>"Sheweth,</p>
+
+<p>"That your petitioner was bred a clear-starcher and sempstress, and
+for many years worked to the Exchange; and to several aldermen's
+wives, lawyers' clerks, and merchants' apprentices.</p>
+
+<p>"That through the scarcity caused by regraters of bread-corn (of
+which starch is made) and the gentry's immoderate frequenting the
+operas, the ladies, to save charges, have their heads washed at
+home, and the beaus put out their linen to common laundresses, so
+that your petitioner hath little or no work at her trade: for want
+of which she is reduced to such necessity, that she and her seven
+fatherless children must inevitably perish, unless relieved by your
+worship.</p>
+
+<p>"That your petitioner is informed, that in contempt of your
+judgment pronounced on Tuesday the third instant against the
+new-fashioned petticoat, or old-fashioned farthingale,<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> the
+ladies design to go on in that dress. And since it is presumed your
+worship will not suppress them by force, your petitioner humbly
+desires you would order, that ruffs may be added to the dress; and
+that she may be heard by her counsel, who has assured your
+petitioner, he has such cogent reasons to offer to your court, that
+ruffs and farthingales are inseparable; and that he questions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> not
+but two-thirds of the greatest beauties about town will have
+cambric collars on their necks before the end of Easter Term next.
+He further says, that the design of our great-grandmothers in this
+petticoat, was to appear much bigger than the life; for which
+reason, they had false shoulder-blades, like wings, and the ruff
+above mentioned, to make their upper and lower parts of their
+bodies appear proportionable; whereas the figure of a woman in the
+present dress, bears (as he calls it) the figure of a cone, which
+(as he advises) is the same with that of an extinguisher, with a
+little knob at the upper end, and widening downward, till it ends
+in a basis of a most enormous circumference.</p>
+
+<p>"Your petitioner therefore most humbly prays, that you would
+restore the ruff to the farthingale, which in their nature ought to
+be as inseparable as the two Hungarian twins.<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a></p>
+
+<div class="sig">
+"And your Petitioner shall ever pray."</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>I have examined into the allegations of this petition,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> and find, by
+several ancient pictures of my own predecessors, particularly that of
+Dame Deborah Bickerstaff, my great-grandmother, that the ruff and
+farthingale are made use of as absolutely necessary to preserve the
+symmetry of the figure; and Mrs. Pyramid Bickerstaff, her second sister,
+is recorded in our family-book, with some observations to her
+disadvantage, as the first female of our house that discovered, to any
+besides her nurse and her husband, an inch below her chin or above her
+instep. This convinces me of the reasonableness of Mrs. Prim's demand;
+and therefore I shall not allow the reviving of any one part of that
+ancient mode, except the whole is complied with. Mrs. Prim is therefore
+hereby empowered to carry home ruffs to such as she shall see in the
+above-mentioned petticoats, and require payment on demand.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Mr. Bickerstaff has under consideration the offer from the Corporation
+of Colchester of four hundred pounds per annum, to be paid quarterly,
+provided that all his dead persons shall be obliged to wear the baize of
+that place.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> Nichols suggests that Addison was at least partly
+responsible for this paper.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> "&AElig;neid," viii. 566.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> The Act "for burying in wool" (30 Charles II. cap. 3) was
+intended to protect homespun goods. Sometimes a fine was paid for
+allowing a person of position to be "buried in linen, contrary to the
+Act of Parliament." The widow in Steele's "Funeral" (act v. sc. 2) says:
+"Take care I ain't buried in flannel; 'twould never become me, I'm
+sure." See, too, Pope's "Moral Essays," i. 246:
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"'Odious! in woollen! 'twould a saint provoke,'<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> Ale brewed with wheat. John Philips ("Cyder," ii. 231)
+speaks of "bowls of fattening mum."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> Henry Dodwell, the nonjuror, died in 1711, in his
+seventieth year. He tried to prove that immortality was conferred on the
+soul only at baptism, by the gift of God, through the hands of the
+ordained clergy. The title of the book alluded to is "An Epistolary
+Discourse concerning the Soul's Immortality."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> Sir James Baker. See No.
+<a href="#No_115">115</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a>
+114.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> The original editions read "swelling."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="#No_116">116</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> Helen and Judith, two united twin-sisters, were born at
+Tzoni, in Hungary, October 26, 1701; lived to the age of twenty-one, and
+died in a convent at Petersburg, February 23, 1723. The mother, it is
+said, survived their birth, bore another child afterwards, and was alive
+when her singular twins were shown here, at a house in the Strand, near
+Charing Cross, in 1708. The writers of a periodical publication at that
+time seem to have examined them carefully, with a view to enable
+themselves to answer the many questions of their correspondents
+concerning them. See "The British Apollo," vol. i, Nos. 35, 36, 37, &amp;c.
+(1708), and the Royal Society's "Phil. Transact." vol. I. part 1, for
+the year 1757, art. 39. Nothing more can be well said of the Hungarian
+twins here, but that they were well shaped, had beautiful faces, and
+loved each other tenderly; they could read, write, and sing very
+prettily; they spoke the Hungarian, High and Low Dutch, and French
+languages, and learnt English when they were in this country (Nichols).</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<a name="No_119" id="No_119"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 119.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Addison.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br />From <i>Tuesday, Jan. 10</i>, to <i>Thursday, Jan. 12, 1709-10</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">In tenui labor.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Virg.</span>, Georg. iv. 6.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>Sheer Lane, January 11.</i></p>
+
+<p>I have lately applied myself with much satisfaction to the curious
+discoveries that have been made by the help of microscopes, as they are
+related by authors of our own and other nations. There is a great deal
+of pleasure in prying into this world of wonders, which Nature has laid
+out of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> sight, and seems industrious to conceal from us. Philosophy had
+ranged over all the visible creation, and began to want objects for her
+inquiries, when the present age, by the invention of glasses, opened a
+new and inexhaustible magazine of rarities, more wonderful and amazing
+than any of those which astonished our forefathers. I was yesterday
+amusing myself with speculations of this kind, and reflecting upon
+myriads of animals that swim in those little seas of juices that are
+contained in the several vessels of a human body. While my mind was thus
+filled with that secret wonder and delight, I could not but look upon
+myself as in an act of devotion, and am very well pleased with the
+thought of the great heathen anatomist,<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> who calls his description of
+the parts of a human body, "A Hymn to the Supreme Being." The reading of
+the day produced in my imagination an agreeable morning's dream, if I
+may call it such; for I am still in doubt, whether it passed in my
+sleeping or waking thoughts. However it was, I fancied that my good
+genius stood at my bed's head, and entertained me with the following
+discourse; for upon my rising, it dwelt so strongly upon me, that I
+wrote down the substance of it, if not the very words.</p>
+
+<p>"If," said he, "you can be so transported with those productions of
+nature which are discovered to you by those artificial eyes that are the
+works of human invention, how great will your surprise be, when you
+shall have it in your power to model your own eye as you please, and
+adapt it to the bulk of objects, which, with all these helps, are by
+infinite degrees too minute for your perception. We who are unbodied
+spirits can sharpen our sight to what degree we think fit, and make the
+least work of the creation distinct and visible. This gives us such
+ideas as cannot possibly enter into your present conceptions.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> There is
+not the least particle of matter which may not furnish one of us
+sufficient employment for a whole eternity. We can still divide it, and
+still open it, and still discover new wonders of Providence, as we look
+into the different texture of its parts, and meet with beds of
+vegetables, mineral and metallic mixtures, and several kinds of animals
+that lie hid, and as it were lost in such an endless fund of matter. I
+find you are surprised at this discourse; but as your reason tells you
+there are infinite parts in the smallest portion of matter, it will
+likewise convince you, that there is as great a variety of secrets, and
+as much room for discoveries, in a particle no bigger than the point of
+a pin, as in the globe of the whole earth. Your microscopes bring to
+sight shoals of living creatures in a spoonful of vinegar; but we who
+can distinguish them in their different magnitudes, see among them
+several huge leviathans, that terrify the little fry of animals about
+them, and take their pastime as in an ocean, or the great deep." I could
+not but smile at this part of his relation, and told him, I doubted not
+but he could give me the history of several invisible giants,
+accompanied with their respective dwarfs, in case that any of these
+little beings are of a human shape. "You may assure yourself," said he,
+"that we see in these little animals different natures, instincts and
+modes of life, which correspond to what you observe in creatures of
+bigger dimensions. We descry millions of species subsisted on a green
+leaf, which your glasses represent only in crowds and swarms. What
+appears to your eye but as hair or down rising on the surface of it, we
+find to be woods and forests, inhabited by beasts of prey, that are as
+dreadful in those their little haunts, as lions and tigers in the
+deserts of Libya." I was much delighted with his discourse, and could
+not forbear telling him, that I should be wonderfully pleased to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> see a
+natural history of imperceptibles, containing a true account of such
+vegetables and animals as grow and live out of sight. "Such
+disquisitions," answered he, "are very suitable to reasonable creatures;
+and you may be sure, there are many curious spirits amongst us who
+employ themselves in such amusements. For as our hands, and all our
+senses, may be formed to what degree of strength and delicacy we please,
+in the same manner as our sight, we can make what experiments we are
+inclined to, how small soever the matter be in which we make them. I
+have been present at the dissection of a mite, and have seen the
+skeleton of a flea. I have been shown a forest of numberless trees,
+which has been picked out of an acorn. Your microscope can show you in
+it a complete oak in miniature; and could you suit all your organs as we
+do, you might pluck an acorn from this little oak, which contains
+another tree; and so proceed from tree to tree, as long as you would
+think fit to continue your disquisitions. It is almost impossible,"
+added he, "to talk of things so remote from common life, and the
+ordinary notions which mankind receive from blunt and gross organs of
+sense, without appearing extravagant and ridiculous. You have often seen
+a dog opened, to observe the circulation of the blood, or make any other
+useful inquiry; and yet would be tempted to laugh if I should tell you,
+that a circle of much greater philosophers than any of the Royal
+Society, were present at the cutting up of one of those little animals
+which we find in the blue of a plum: that it was tied down alive before
+them; and that they observed the palpitations of the heart, the course
+of the blood, the working of the muscles, and the convulsions in the
+several limbs, with great accuracy and improvement." "I must confess,"
+said I, "for my own part, I go along with you in all your discoveries
+with great pleasure; but it is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> certain, they are too fine for the gross
+of mankind, who are more struck with the description of everything that
+is great and bulky. Accordingly we find the best judge of human nature
+setting forth his wisdom, not in the formation of these minute animals
+(though indeed no less wonderful than the other) but in that of the
+leviathan and behemoth, the horse and the crocodile."<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> "Your
+observation," said he, "is very just; and I must acknowledge for my own
+part, that although it is with much delight that I see the traces of
+Providence in these instances, I still take greater pleasure in
+considering the works of the creation in their immensity, than in their
+minuteness. For this reason, I rejoice when I strengthen my sight so as
+to make it pierce into the most remote spaces, and take a view of those
+heavenly bodies which lie out of the reach of human eyes, though
+assisted by telescopes. What you look upon as one confused white in the
+Milky Way, appears to me a long tract of heavens, distinguished by stars
+that are ranged in proper figures and constellations. While you are
+admiring the sky in a starry night, I am entertained with a variety of
+worlds and suns placed one above another, and rising up to such an
+immense distance, that no created eye can see an end of them."</p>
+
+<p>The latter part of his discourse flung me into such an astonishment,
+that he had been silent for some time before I took notice of it; when
+on a sudden I started up and drew my curtains, to look if any one was
+near me, but saw nobody, and cannot tell to this moment whether it was
+my good genius or a dream that left me.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> Galen, "De Usu Partium."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> See Job, chaps. 39-41.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>
+<a name="No_120" id="No_120"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 120.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Addison.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br />From <i>Thursday, Jan. 12</i>, to <i>Saturday, Jan. 14, 1709-10</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&mdash;&mdash;Velut silvis, ubi passim<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Palantes error certo de tramite pellit;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ille sinistrorsum, hic dextrorsum abit.<br /></span>
+<span class="i20"><span class="smcap">Hor.</span>, 2 Sat. iii. 48.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>Sheer Lane, January 13.</i></p>
+
+<p>Instead of considering any particular passion or character in any one
+set of men, my thoughts were last night employed on the contemplation of
+human life in general; and truly it appears to me, that the whole
+species are hurried on by the same desires, and engaged in the same
+pursuits, according to the different stages and divisions of life. Youth
+is devoted to lust, middle age to ambition, old age to avarice. These
+are the three general motives and principles of action both in good and
+bad men; though it must be acknowledged, that they change their names,
+and resign their natures, according to the temper of the person whom
+they direct and animate. For with the good, lust becomes virtuous love;
+ambition, true honour; and avarice, the care of posterity. This scheme
+of thought amused me very agreeably till I retired to rest, and
+afterwards formed itself into a pleasing and regular vision, which I
+shall describe in all its circumstances, as the objects presented
+themselves, whether in a serious or ridiculous manner.</p>
+
+<p>I dreamed that I was in a wood, of so prodigious an extent, and cut into
+such a variety of walks and alleys, that all mankind were lost and
+bewildered in it. After having wandered up and down some time, I came
+into the centre of it, which opened into a wide plain, that was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> filled
+with multitudes of both sexes. I here discovered three great roads, very
+wide and long, that led into three different parts of the forest. On a
+sudden, the whole multitude broke into three parts, according to their
+different ages, and marched in their respective bodies into the three
+great roads that lay before them. As I had a mind to know how each of
+these roads terminated, and whither it would lead those who passed
+through them, I joined myself with the assembly that were in the flower
+and vigour of their age, and called themselves, "The Band of Lovers." I
+found to my great surprise, that several old men besides myself had
+intruded into this agreeable company; as I had before observed, there
+were some young men who had united themselves to the Band of Misers, and
+were walking up the path of avarice; though both made a very ridiculous
+figure, and were as much laughed at by those they joined, as by those
+they forsook. The walk which we marched up, for thickness of shades,
+embroidery of flowers, and melody of birds, with the distant purling of
+streams, and falls of water, was so wonderfully delightful, that it
+charmed our senses, and intoxicated our minds with pleasure. We had not
+been long here, before every man singled out some woman to whom he
+offered his addresses and professed himself a lover; when on a sudden we
+perceived this delicious walk to grow more narrow as we advanced in it,
+till it ended in many intricate thickets, mazes and labyrinths, that
+were so mixed with roses and brambles, brakes of thorns, and beds of
+flowers, rocky paths and pleasing grottoes, that it was hard to say,
+whether it gave greater delight or perplexity to those who travelled in
+it.</p>
+
+<p>It was here that the lovers began to be eager in their pursuits. Some of
+their mistresses, who only seemed to retire for the sake of form and
+decency, led them into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> plantations that were disposed into regular
+walks; where, after they had wheeled about in some turns and windings,
+they suffered themselves to be overtaken, and gave their hands to those
+who pursued them. Others withdrew from their followers into little
+wildernesses, where there were so many paths interwoven with each other
+in so much confusion and irregularity, that several of the lovers
+quitted the pursuit, or broke their hearts in the chase. It was
+sometimes very odd to see a man pursuing a fine woman that was following
+another, whose eye was fixed upon a fourth, that had her own game in
+view in some other quarter of the wilderness. I could not but observe
+two things in this place which I thought very particular, that several
+persons who stood only at the end of the avenues, and cast a careless
+eye upon the nymphs during their whole flight, often caught them, when
+those who pressed them the most warmly through all their turns and
+doubles, were wholly unsuccessful: and that some of my own age, who were
+at first looked upon with aversion and contempt, by being well
+acquainted with the wilderness, and by dodging their women in the
+particular corners and alleys of it, caught them in their arms, and took
+them from those they really loved and admired. There was a particular
+grove, which was called, "The Labyrinth of Coquettes"; where many were
+enticed to the chase, but few returned with purchase. It was pleasant
+enough to see a celebrated beauty, by smiling upon one, casting a glance
+upon another, beckoning to a third, and adapting her charms and graces
+to the several follies of those that admired her, drawing into the
+labyrinth a whole pack of lovers, that lost themselves in the maze, and
+never could find their way out of it. However, it was some satisfaction
+to me, to see many of the fair ones who had thus deluded their
+followers, and left them among the intricacies of the labyrinth, obliged
+when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> they came out of it, to surrender to the first partner that
+offered himself. I now had crossed over all the difficult and perplexed
+passages that seemed to bound our walk, when on the other side of them,
+I saw the same great road running on a little way, till it was
+terminated by two beautiful temples. I stood here for some time, and saw
+most of the multitude who had been dispersed amongst the thickets,
+coming out two by two, and marching up in pairs towards the temples that
+stood before us. The structure on the right hand was (as I afterwards
+found) consecrated to virtuous love, and could not be entered but by
+such as received a ring, or some other token, from a person who was
+placed as a guard at the gate of it. He wore a garland of roses and
+myrtles on his head, and on his shoulders a robe like an imperial
+mantle, white and unspotted all over, excepting only, that where it was
+clasped at his breast, there were two golden turtle-doves that buttoned
+it by their bills, which were wrought in rubies. He was called by the
+name of Hymen, and was seated near the entrance of the temple, in a
+delicious bower, made up of several trees, that were embraced by
+woodbines, jessamines, and amaranths, which were as so many emblems of
+marriage, and ornaments to the trunks that supported them. As I was
+single and unaccompanied, I was not permitted to enter the temple, and
+for that reason am a stranger to all the mysteries that were performed
+in it. I had however the curiosity to observe how the several couples
+that entered were disposed of; which was after the following manner.
+There were two great gates on the back side of the edifice, at which the
+whole crowd was let out. At one of these gates were two women, extremely
+beautiful, though in a different kind, the one having a very careful and
+composed air, the other a sort of smile and ineffable sweetness in her
+countenance. The name of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> the first was Discretion, and of the other
+Complacency, All who came out of this gate, and put themselves under the
+direction of these two sisters, were immediately conducted by them into
+gardens, groves, and meadows, which abounded in delights, and were
+furnished with everything that could make them the proper seats of
+happiness. The second gate of this temple let out all the couples that
+were unhappily married, who came out linked together by chains, which
+each of them strove to break, but could not. Several of these were such
+as had never been acquainted with each other before they met in the
+great walk, or had been too well acquainted in the thicket. The entrance
+to this gate was possessed by three sisters, who joined themselves with
+these wretches, and occasioned most of their miseries. The youngest of
+the sisters was known by the name of Levity, who with the innocence of a
+virgin, had the dress and behaviour of a harlot. The name of the second
+was Contention, who bore on her right arm a muff made of the skin of a
+porcupine; and on her left carried a little lap-dog, that barked and
+snapped at every one that passed by her.</p>
+
+<p>The eldest of the sisters, who seemed to have a haughty and imperious
+air, was always accompanied with a tawny Cupid, who generally marched
+before her with a little mace on his shoulder, the end of which was
+fashioned into the horns of a stag. Her garments were yellow, and her
+complexion pale. Her eyes were piercing, but had odd casts in them, and
+that particular distemper, which makes persons who are troubled with it,
+see objects double. Upon inquiry, I was informed that her name was
+Jealousy.</p>
+
+<p>Having finished my observations upon this temple, and its votaries, I
+repaired to that which stood on the left hand, and was called, "The
+Temple of Lust." The front of it was raised on Corinthian pillars, with
+all the meretricious<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> ornaments that accompany that order; whereas that
+of the other was composed of the chaste and matronlike Ionic. The sides
+of it were adorned with several grotesque figures of goats, sparrows,
+heathen gods, satyrs, and monsters made up of half-man half-beast. The
+gates were unguarded, and open to all that had a mind to enter. Upon my
+going in, I found the windows were blinded, and let in only a kind of
+twilight, that served to discover a prodigious number of dark corners
+and apartments, into which the whole temple was divided. I was here
+stunned with a mixed noise of clamour and jollity: on one side of me, I
+heard singing and dancing; on the other, brawls and clashing of swords.
+In short, I was so little pleased with the place, that I was going out
+of it; but found I could not return by the gate where I entered, which
+was barred against all that were come in, with bolts of iron, and locks
+of adamant. There was no going back from this temple through the paths
+of pleasure which led to it: all who passed through the ceremonies of
+the place, went out at an iron wicket, which was kept by a dreadful
+giant called Remorse, that held a scourge of scorpions in his hand, and
+drove them into the only outlet from that temple. This was a passage so
+rugged, so uneven, and choked with so many thorns and briars, that it
+was a melancholy spectacle to behold the pains and difficulties which
+both sexes suffered who walked through it. The men, though in the prime
+of their youth, appeared weak and enfeebled with old age: the women
+wrung their hands, and tore their hair; and several lost their limbs
+before they could extricate themselves out of the perplexities of the
+path in which they were engaged. The remaining part of this vision, and
+the adventures I met with in the two great roads of ambition and
+avarice, must be the subject of another paper.</p>
+
+<div>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>
+</div>
+<p class="center">ADVERTISEMENT.</p>
+
+<p>I have this morning received the following letter from the famous Mr.
+Thomas Doggett:<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Sir</span>,</p>
+
+<p>"On Monday next will be acted for my benefit, the comedy of 'Love
+for Love': if you will do me the honour to appear there, I will
+publish on the bills, that it is to be performed at the request of
+Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq.; and question not but it will bring me as
+great an audience, as ever was at the house since the Morocco
+ambassador was there.<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> I am, (with the greatest respect)</p>
+
+<div class="sig">
+<span class="sig4">"Your most obedient and</span><br />
+<span class="sig2">"Most humble Servant,</span><br />
+"<span class="smcap">Thomas Doggett.</span>"<br />
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Being naturally an encourager of wit, as well as bound to it in the
+quality of censor, I returned the following answer:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Mr. Doggett</span>,</p>
+
+<p>"I am very well pleased with the choice you have made of so
+excellent a play, and have always looked upon you as the best of
+comedians; I shall therefore come in between the first and second
+act, and remain in the right-hand box over the pit till the end of
+the fourth, provided you take care that everything be rightly
+prepared for my reception."<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a></p></div>
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number1">1</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> The Morocco ambassador made his public entry into London
+in April 1706. Don Venturo Zary, another Morocco minister, visited the
+Haymarket Theatre on May 4, 1710, with his "attendants in their several
+habits, &amp;c., having never as yet appeared in public." There was no play
+at Drury Lane Theatre that night (<i>Postboy</i>, April 29 to May 2, 1710).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="#No_122">122</a>.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>
+<a name="No_121" id="No_121"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 121.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Addison.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br />From <i>Saturday, Jan. 14</i>, to <i>Tuesday, Jan. 17, 1709-10</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&mdash;&mdash;Similis tibi, Cynthia, vel tibi, cujus<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Turbavit nitidos extinctus passer ocellos.<br /></span>
+<span class="i28"><span class="smcap">Juv.</span>, Sat. vi. 7.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>From my own Apartment, January 16.</i></p>
+
+<p>I was recollecting the remainder of my vision, when my maid came to me,
+and told me, there was a gentlewoman below who seemed to be in great
+trouble, and pressed very much to see me. When it lay in my power to
+remove the distress of an unhappy person, I thought I should very ill
+employ my time in attending matters of speculation, and therefore
+desired the lady would walk in. When she entered, I saw her eyes full of
+tears. However, her grief was not so great as to make her omit rules;
+for she was very long and exact in her civilities, which gave me time to
+view and consider her. Her clothes were very rich, but tarnished; and
+her words very fine, but ill applied. These distinctions made me without
+hesitation (though I had never seen her before) ask her, if her lady had
+any commands for me? She then began to weep afresh, and with many broken
+sighs told me, that their family was in very great affliction. I
+beseeched her to compose herself, for that I might possibly be capable
+of assisting them. She then cast her eye upon my little dog, and was
+again transported with too much passion to proceed; but with much ado,
+she at last gave me to understand, that Cupid, her lady's lap-dog, was
+dangerously ill, and in so bad a condition, that her lady neither saw
+company, nor went abroad, for which reason she did not come<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> herself to
+consult me; that as I had mentioned with great affection my own dog
+(here she curtsied, and looking first at the cur, and then on me, said,
+indeed I had reason, for he was very pretty) her lady sent to me rather
+than to any other doctor, and hoped I would not laugh at her sorrow, but
+send her my advice. I must confess, I had some indignation to find
+myself treated like something below a farrier; yet well knowing, that
+the best, as well as most tender way of dealing with a woman, is to fall
+in with her humours, and by that means to let her see the absurdity of
+them, I proceeded accordingly: "Pray, madam," said I, "can you give me
+any methodical account of this illness, and how Cupid was first taken?"
+"Sir," said she, "we have a little ignorant country girl who is kept to
+tend him: she was recommended to our family by one, that my lady never
+saw but once, at a visit; and you know, persons of quality are always
+inclined to strangers; for I could have helped her to a cousin of my
+own, but&mdash;&mdash;" "Good madam," said I, "you neglect the account of the sick
+body, while you are complaining of this girl." "No, no, sir," said she,
+"begging your pardon: but it is the general fault of physicians, they
+are so in haste, that they never hear out the case. I say, this silly
+girl, after washing Cupid, let him stand half an hour in the window
+without his collar, where he caught cold, and in an hour after began to
+bark very hoarse. He had however a pretty good night, and we hoped the
+danger was over; but for these two nights last past, neither he nor my
+lady have slept a wink." "Has he," said I, "taken anything?" "No," said
+she, "but my lady says, he shall take anything that you prescribe,
+provided you do not make use of Jesuits' powder<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a>, or the cold bath.
+Poor Cupid," continued she, "has always been phthisical,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> and as he lies
+under something like a chin-cough, we are afraid it will end in a
+consumption." I then asked her, if she had brought any of his water to
+show me. Upon this, she stared me in the face, and said, "I am afraid,
+Mr. Bickerstaff, you are not serious; but if you have any receipt that
+is proper on this occasion, pray let us have it; for my mistress is not
+to be comforted." Upon this, I paused a little without returning any
+answer, and after some short silence, I proceeded in the following
+manner: "I have considered the nature of the distemper, and the
+constitution of the patient, and by the best observation that I can make
+on both, I think it is safest to put him into a course of kitchen
+physic. In the meantime, to remove his hoarseness, it will be the most
+natural way to make Cupid his own druggist; for which reason, I shall
+prescribe to him, three mornings successively, as much powder as will
+lie on a groat, of that noble remedy which the apothecaries call 'Album
+Gr&aelig;cum.'" Upon hearing this advice, the young woman smiled, as if she
+knew how ridiculous an errand she had been employed in; and indeed I
+found by the sequel of her discourse, that she was an arch baggage, and
+of a character that is frequent enough in persons of her employment, who
+are so used to conform themselves in everything to the humours and
+passions of their mistresses, that they sacrifice superiority of sense
+to superiority of condition, and are insensibly betrayed into the
+passions and prejudices of those whom they serve, without giving
+themselves leave to consider, that they are extravagant and ridiculous.
+However I thought it very natural, when her eyes were thus open, to see
+her give a new turn to her discourse, and from sympathising with her
+mistress in her follies, to fall a-railing at her. "You cannot imagine,"
+said she, "Mr. Bickerstaff, what a life she makes us lead for the sake
+of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> this little ugly cur: if he dies, we are the most unhappy family in
+town. She chanced to lose a parrot last year, which, to tell you truly,
+brought me into her service; for she turned off her woman upon it, who
+had lived with her ten years, because she neglected to give him water,
+though every one of the family says, she was as innocent of the bird's
+death as the babe that is unborn. Nay, she told me this very morning,
+that if Cupid should die, she would send the poor innocent wench I was
+telling you of, to Bridewell, and have the milkwoman tried for her life
+at the Old Bailey, for putting water into his milk. In short, she talks
+like any distracted creature."</p>
+
+<p>"Since it is so, young woman," said I, "I will by no means let you
+offend her, by staying on this message longer than is absolutely
+necessary," and so forced her out.</p>
+
+<p>While I am studying to cure those evils and distresses that are
+necessary or natural to human life, I find my task growing upon me,
+since by these accidental cares, and acquired calamities, if I may so
+call them, my patients contract distempers to which their constitution
+is of itself a stranger. But this is an evil I have for many years
+remarked in the fair sex; and as they are by nature very much formed for
+affection and dalliance, I have observed, that when by too obstinate a
+cruelty, or any other means, they have disappointed themselves of the
+proper objects of love, as husbands, or children, such virgins have
+exactly at such a year grown fond of lap-dogs, parrots, or other
+animals. I know at this time a celebrated toast, whom I allow to be one
+of the most agreeable of her sex, that in the presence of her admirers,
+will give a torrent of kisses to her cat, any one of which a Christian
+would be glad of. I do not at the same time deny, but there are as great
+enormities of this kind committed by our sex as theirs.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> A Roman emperor
+had so very great an esteem for a horse of his, that he had thoughts of
+making him a consul; and several moderns of that rank of men whom we
+call country squires, won't scruple to kiss their hounds before all the
+world, and declare in the presence of their wives, that they had rather
+salute a favourite of the pack, than the finest woman in England. These
+voluntary friendships between animals of different species, seem to
+arise from instinct; for which reason, I have always looked upon the
+mutual goodwill between the squire and the hound, to be of the same
+nature with that between the lion and the jackal.</p>
+
+<p>The only extravagance of this kind which appears to me excusable, is one
+that grew out of an excess of gratitude, which I have somewhere met with
+in the life of a Turkish emperor. His horse had brought him safe out of
+a field of battle, and from the pursuit of a victorious enemy. As a
+reward for such his good and faithful service, his master built him a
+stable of marble, shod him with gold, fed him in an ivory manger, and
+made him a rack of silver. He annexed to the stable several fields and
+meadows, lakes, and running streams. At the same time he provided for
+him a seraglio of mares, the most beautiful that could be found in the
+whole Ottoman Empire. To these were added a suitable train of domestics,
+consisting of grooms, farriers, rubbers, &amp;c., accommodated with proper
+liveries and pensions. In short, nothing was omitted that could
+contribute to the ease and happiness of his life who had preserved the
+emperor's.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>By reason of the extreme cold, and the changeableness of the weather, I
+have been prevailed upon to allow the free use of the farthingale, till
+the 20th of February next ensuing.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> Peruvian Bark, then comparatively little used.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>
+<a name="No_122" id="No_122"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 122.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Addison.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br />From <i>Tuesday, Jan. 17</i>, to <i>Thursday, Jan. 19, 1709-10</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Cur in theatrum, Cato severe, venisti?<br /></span>
+<span class="i20"><span class="smcap">Mart.</span>, Epig. i. Prol. 21.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>From my own Apartment, January 18.</i></p>
+
+<p>I find it is thought necessary, that I (who have taken upon me to
+censure the irregularities of the age) should give an account of my own
+actions when they appear doubtful, or subject to misconstruction. My
+appearing at the play on Monday last,<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> is looked upon as a step in my
+conduct, which I ought to explain, that others may not be misled by my
+example. It is true in matter of fact, I was present at the ingenious
+entertainment of that day, and placed myself in a box which was prepared
+for me with great civility and distinction. It is said of Virgil, when
+he entered a Roman theatre, where there were many thousands of
+spectators present, that the whole assembly rose up to do him honour; a
+respect which was never before paid to any but the emperor. I must
+confess, that universal clap, and other testimonies of applause, with
+which I was received at my first appearance in the theatre of Great
+Britain, gave me as sensible a delight, as the above-mentioned reception
+could give to that immortal poet. I should be ungrateful at the same
+time, if I did not take this opportunity of acknowledging the great
+civilities that were shown me by Mr. Thomas Doggett, who made his
+compliments to me between the acts, after a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> most ingenuous and discreet
+manner; and at the same time communicated to me, that the Company of
+Upholders desired to receive me at their door at the end of the
+Haymarket, and to light me home to my lodgings. That part of the
+ceremony I forbad, and took particular care during the whole play to
+observe the conduct of the drama, and give no offence by my own
+behaviour. Here I think it will not be foreign to my character, to lay
+down the proper duties of an audience, and what is incumbent upon each
+individual spectator in public diversions of this nature. Every one
+should on these occasions show his attention, understanding and virtue.
+I would undertake to find out all the persons of sense and breeding by
+the effect of a single sentence, and to distinguish a gentleman as much
+by his laugh, as his bow. When we see the footman and his lord diverted
+by the same jest, it very much turns to the diminution of the one, or
+the honour of the other. But though a man's quality may appear in his
+understanding and taste, the regard to virtue ought to be the same in
+all ranks and conditions of men, however they make a profession of it
+under the name of honour, religion, or morality. When therefore we see
+anything divert an audience, either in tragedy or comedy, that strikes
+at the duties of civil life, or exposes what the best men in all ages
+have looked upon as sacred and inviolable, it is the certain sign of a
+profligate race of men, who are fallen from the virtue of their
+forefathers, and will be contemptible in the eyes of their posterity.
+For this reason I took great delight in seeing the generous and
+disinterested passion of the lovers in this comedy (which stood so many
+trials, and was proved by such a variety of diverting incidents)
+received with an universal approbation. This brings to my mind a passage
+in Cicero,<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> which I could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> never read without being in love with the
+virtue of a Roman audience. He there describes the shouts and applause
+which the people gave to the persons who acted the parts of Pylades and
+Orestes, in the noblest occasion that a poet could invent to show
+friendship in perfection. One of them had forfeited his life by an
+action which he had committed; and as they stood in judgment before the
+tyrant, each of them strove who should be the criminal, that he might
+save the life of his friend. Amidst the vehemence of each asserting
+himself to be the offender, the Roman audience gave a thunder of
+applause, and by that means, as the author hints, approved in others
+what they would have done themselves on the like occasion. Methinks, a
+people of so much virtue were deservedly placed at the head of mankind:
+But alas! pleasures of this nature are not frequently to be met with on
+the English stage.</p>
+
+<p>The Athenians, at a time when they were the most polite, as well as the
+most powerful, government in the world, made the care of the stage one
+of the chief parts of the administration: and I must confess, I am
+astonished at the spirit of virtue which appeared in that people upon
+some expressions in a scene of a famous tragedy; an account of which we
+have in one of Seneca's epistles.<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> A covetous person is represented
+speaking the common sentiments of all who are possessed with that vice
+in the following soliloquy, which I have translated literally:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Let me be called a base man, so I am called a rich one. If a man is
+rich, who asks if he is good? The question is, How much we have;
+not from whence, or by what means, we have it. Every one has so
+much merit as he has wealth. For my own part, let me be rich, O ye
+gods!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> or let me die. The man dies happily, who dies increasing his
+treasure. There is more pleasure in the possession of wealth, than
+in that of parents, children, wife, or friends."</p></div>
+
+<p>The audience were very much provoked by the first words of this speech;
+but when the actor came to the close of it, they could bear no longer.
+In short, the whole assembly rose up at once in the greatest fury, with
+a design to pluck him off the stage, and brand the work itself with
+infamy. In the midst of the tumult, the author came out from behind the
+scenes, begging the audience to be composed for a little while, and they
+should see the tragical end which this wretch should come to
+immediately. The promise of punishment appeased the people, who sat with
+great attention and pleasure to see an example made of so odious a
+criminal. It is with shame and concern that I speak it; but I very much
+question, whether it is possible to make a speech so impious, as to
+raise such a laudable horror and indignation in a modern audience. It is
+very natural for an author to make ostentation of his reading, as it is
+for an old man to tell stories; for which reason I must beg the reader
+will excuse me, if I for once indulge myself in both these inclinations.
+We see the attention, judgment, and virtue of a whole audience, in the
+foregoing instances. If we would imitate the behaviour of a single
+spectator, let us reflect upon that of Socrates, in a particular which
+gives me as great an idea of that extraordinary man, as any circumstance
+of his life; or what is more, of his death. This venerable person often
+frequented the theatre, which brought a great many thither, out of a
+desire to see him; on which occasions it is recorded of him, that he
+sometimes stood to make himself the more conspicuous, and to satisfy the
+curiosity of the beholders. He was one day present at the first
+representation of a tragedy of Euripides, who was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> his intimate friend,
+and whom he is said to have assisted in several of his plays. In the
+midst of the tragedy, which had met with very great success, there
+chanced to be a line that seemed to encourage vice and immorality.</p>
+
+<p>This was no sooner spoken, but Socrates rose from his seat, and without
+any regard to his affection for his friend, or to the success of the
+play, showed himself displeased at what was said, and walked out of the
+assembly. I question not but the reader will be curious to know what the
+line was that gave this divine heathen so much offence. If my memory
+fails me not, it was in the part of Hippolitus, who when he is pressed
+by an oath, which he had taken to keep silence, returned for answer,
+that he had taken the oath with his tongue, but not with his heart. Had
+a person of a vicious character made such a speech, it might have been
+allowed as a proper representation of the baseness of his thoughts: but
+such an expression out of the mouth of the virtuous Hippolitus, was
+giving a sanction to falsehood, and establishing perjury by a maxim.</p>
+
+<p>Having got over all interruptions, I have set apart tomorrow for the
+closing of my vision.<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a></p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="#No_120">120</a>. "A person dressed for Isaac Bickerstaff did
+appear at the playhouse on this occasion" (Addison's "Works,"
+Birmingham, ii. 246).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> "De Amicitia," vii.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> L. A. Senec&aelig; Opera, Lips., 1741, ii. 520.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a>
+See Nos. <a href="#No_120">120</a>, <a href="#No_123">123</a>.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>
+<a name="No_123" id="No_123"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 123.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Addison.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br />From <i>Thursday, Jan. 19</i>, to <i>Saturday, Jan. 21, 1709-10</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Audire, atque togam jubeo componere, quisquis<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ambitione mal&acirc;, aut argenti pallet amore.<br /></span>
+<span class="i22"><span class="smcap">Hor.</span>, 2 Sat. iii. 77.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>From my own Apartment, January 20.</i></p>
+<p class="center"><i>A Continuation of the Vision.</i><a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a></p>
+
+<p>With much labour and difficulty I passed through the first part of my
+vision, and recovered the centre of the wood, from whence I had the
+prospect of the three great roads. I here joined myself to the
+middle-aged party of mankind, who marched behind the standard of
+Ambition. The great road lay in a direct line, and was terminated by the
+Temple of Virtue. It was planted on each side with laurels, which were
+intermixed with marble trophies, carved pillars, and statues of
+lawgivers, heroes, statesmen, philosophers, and poets. The persons who
+travelled up this great path, were such whose thoughts were bent upon
+doing eminent services to mankind, or promoting the good of their
+country. On each side of this great road were several paths, that were
+also laid out in straight lines, and ran parallel with it. These were
+most of them covered walks, and received into them men of retired
+virtue, who proposed to themselves the same end of their journey, though
+they chose to make it in shade and obscurity. The edifices at the
+extremity of the walk were so contrived, that we could not see the
+Temple of Honour by reason of the Temple of Virtue, which stood before
+it. At the gates of this temple we were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> met by the goddess of it, who
+conducted us into that of Honour, which was joined to the other edifice
+by a beautiful triumphal arch, and had no other entrance into it. When
+the deity of the inner structure had received us, she presented us in a
+body to a figure that was placed over the high altar, and was the emblem
+of eternity. She sat on a globe in the midst of a golden zodiac, holding
+the figure of a sun in one hand, and a moon in the other. Her head was
+veiled, and her feet covered. Our hearts glowed within us as we stood
+amidst the sphere of light which this image cast on every side of it.</p>
+
+<p>Having seen all that happened to this band of adventurers, I repaired to
+another pile of buildings that stood within view of the Temple of
+Honour, and was raised in imitation of it, upon the very same model; but
+at my approach to it, I found that the stones were laid together without
+mortar, and that the whole fabric stood upon so weak a foundation, that
+it shook with every wind that blew. This was called the Temple of
+Vanity. The goddess of it sat in the midst of a great many tapers, that
+burned day and night, and made her appear much better than she would
+have done in open daylight. Her whole art was to show herself more
+beautiful and majestic than she really was. For which reason, she had
+painted her face, and wore a cluster of false jewels upon her breast:
+but what I more particularly observed, was, the breadth of her
+petticoat, which was made altogether in the fashion of a modern
+farthingale. This place was filled with hypocrites, pedants,
+freethinkers, and prating politicians; with a rabble of those who have
+only titles to make them great men. Female votaries crowded the temple,
+choked up the avenues of it, and were more in number than the sand upon
+the seashore. I made it my business in my return towards that part of
+the wood from whence I first set out,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> to observe the walks which led to
+this temple; for I met in it several who had begun their journey with
+the band of virtuous persons, and travelled some time in their company:
+but upon examination I found, that there were several paths which led
+out of the great road into the sides of the wood, and ran into so many
+crooked turns and windings, that those who travelled through them often
+turned their backs upon the Temple of Virtue, then crossed the straight
+road, and sometimes marched in it for a little space, till the crooked
+path which they were engaged in again led them into the wood. The
+several alleys of these wanderers had their particular ornaments: one of
+them I could not but take notice of, in the walk of the mischievous
+pretenders to politics, which had at every turn the figure of a person,
+whom by the inscription I found to be Machiavel, pointing out the way
+with an extended finger like a Mercury.</p>
+
+<p>I was now returned in the same manner as before, with a design to
+observe carefully everything that passed in the region of Avarice, and
+the occurrences in that assembly, which was made up of persons of my own
+age. This body of travellers had not gone far in the third great road,
+before it led them insensibly into a deep valley, in which they
+journeyed several days with great toil and uneasiness, and without the
+necessary refreshments of food and sleep. The only relief they met with,
+was in a river that ran through the bottom of the valley on a bed of
+golden sand: they often drank of this stream, which had such a
+particular quality in it, that though it refreshed them for a time, it
+rather inflamed than quenched their thirst. On each side of the river
+was a range of hills full of precious ore; for where the rains had
+washed off the earth, one might see in several parts of them long veins
+of gold, and rocks that looked like pure silver. We were told that the
+deity of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> the place had forbade any of his votaries to dig into the
+bowels of these hills, or convert the treasures they contained to any
+use, under pain of starving. At the end of the valley stood the Temple
+of Avarice, made after the manner of a fortification, and surrounded
+with a thousand triple-headed dogs, that were placed there to keep off
+beggars. At our approach they all fell a-barking, and would have very
+much terrified us, had not an old woman who had called herself by the
+forged name of Competency offered herself for our guide. She carried
+under her garment a golden bow, which she no sooner held up in her hand,
+but the dogs lay down, and the gates flew open for our reception. We
+were led through a hundred iron doors, before we entered the temple. At
+the upper end of it sat the god of Avarice, with a long filthy beard,
+and a meagre starved countenance, enclosed with heaps of ingots and
+pyramids of money, but half naked and shivering with cold. On his right
+hand was a fiend called Rapine, and on his left a particular favourite
+to whom he had given the title of Parsimony. The first was his
+collector, and the other his cashier.</p>
+
+<p>There were several long tables placed on each side of the temple, with
+respective officers attending behind them. Some of these I inquired
+into. At the first table was kept the office of Corruption. Seeing a
+solicitor extremely busy, and whispering everybody that passed by, I
+kept my eye upon him very attentively, and saw him often going up to a
+person that had a pen in his hand, with a multiplication table and an
+almanac before him, which as I afterwards heard, was all the learning he
+was master of. The solicitor would often apply himself to his ear, and
+at the same time convey money into his hand, for which the other would
+give him out a piece of paper or parchment, signed and sealed in form.
+The name of this dexterous<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> and successful solicitor was Bribery. At the
+next table was the office of Extortion. Behind it sat a person in a
+bob-wig, counting over a great sum of money. He gave out little purses
+to several, who after a short tour brought him, in return, sacks full of
+the same kind of coin. I saw at the same time a person called Fraud, who
+sat behind a counter with false scales, light weights, and scanty
+measures; by the skilful application of which instruments, she had got
+together an immense heap of wealth. It would be endless to name the
+several officers, or describe the votaries that attended in this temple.
+There were many old men panting and breathless, reposing their heads on
+bags of money; nay many of them actually dying, whose very pangs and
+convulsions, which rendered their purses useless to them, only made them
+grasp them the faster. There were some tearing with one hand all things,
+even to the garments and flesh of many miserable persons who stood
+before them, and with the other hand, throwing away what they had
+seized, to harlots, flatterers, and panders, that stood behind them.</p>
+
+<p>On a sudden the whole assembly fell a-trembling, and upon inquiry, I
+found, that the great room we were in was haunted with a spectre, that
+many times a day appeared to them, and terrified them to distraction.</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of their terror and amazement the apparition entered, which
+I immediately knew to be Poverty. Whether it were by my acquaintance
+with this phantom, which had rendered the sight of her more familiar to
+me, or however it was, she did not make so indigent or frightful a
+figure in my eye, as the god of this loathsome temple. The miserable
+votaries of this place, were, I found, of another mind. Every one
+fancied himself threatened by the apparition as she stalked about the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>
+room, and began to lock their coffers, and tie their bags, with the
+utmost fear and trembling.</p>
+
+<p>I must confess, I look upon the passion which I saw in this unhappy
+people to be of the same nature with those unaccountable antipathies
+which some persons are born with, or rather as a kind of frenzy, not
+unlike that which throws a man into terrors and agonies at the sight of
+so useful and innocent a thing as water. The whole assembly was
+surprised, when, instead of paying my devotions to the deity whom they
+all adored, they saw me address myself to the phantom.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"O Poverty!" said I, "my first petition to thee is, that thou
+wouldst never appear to me hereafter; but if thou wilt not grant me
+this, that thou wouldst not bear a form more terrible than that in
+which thou appearest to me at present. Let not thy threats and
+menaces betray me to anything that is ungrateful or unjust. Let me
+not shut my ears to the cries of the needy. Let me not forget the
+person that has deserved well of me. Let me not, for any fear of
+thee, desert my friend, my principles, or my honour. If Wealth is
+to visit me, and to come with her usual attendants, Vanity and
+Avarice, do thou, O Poverty! hasten to my rescue; but bring along
+with thee the two sisters, in whose company thou art always
+cheerful, Liberty and Innocence."</p></div>
+
+<p>The conclusion of this vision must be deferred to another opportunity.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="#No_120">120</a>.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>
+<a name="No_124" id="No_124"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 124.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Steele.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br />From <i>Saturday, Jan. 21</i>, to <i>Tuesday, Jan. 24, 1709-10</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&mdash;&mdash;Ex humili summa ad fastigia rerum<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Extollit, quoties voluit Fortuna jocari.<br /></span>
+<span class="i26"><span class="smcap">Juv.</span>, Sat. iii. 39.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>From my own Apartment, January 23.</i></p>
+
+<p>I went on Saturday last to make a visit in the city; and as I passed
+through Cheapside, I saw crowds of people turning down towards the Bank,
+and struggling who should first get their money into the new-erected
+lottery.<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> It gave me a great notion of the credit of our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> present
+government and administration, to find people press as eagerly to pay
+money, as they would to receive it; and at the same time a due respect
+for that body of men who have found out so pleasing an expedient for
+carrying on the common cause, that they have turned a tax into a
+diversion. The cheerfulness of spirit, and the hopes of success, which
+this project has occasioned in this great city, lightens the burden of
+the war, and puts me in mind of some games which they say were invented
+by wise men who were lovers of their country, to make their fellow
+citizens undergo the tediousness and fatigues of a long siege. I think
+there is a kind of homage due to fortune (if I may call it so), and that
+I should be wanting to myself if I did not lay in my pretences to her
+favour, and pay my compliments to her by recommending a ticket to her
+disposal. For this reason, upon my return to my lodgings, I sold off a
+couple of globes and a telescope,<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> which, with the cash I had by me,
+raised the sum that was requisite for that purpose. I find by my
+calculations, that it is but a hundred and fifty thousand to one against
+my being worth a thousand pounds per annum for thirty-two years;<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> and
+if any plum<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> in the City will lay me a hundred and fifty thousand
+pounds to twenty shillings (which is an even bet), that I am not this
+fortunate man, I will take the wager, and shall look upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> him as a man
+of singular courage and fair-dealing, having given orders to Mr. Morphew
+to subscribe such a policy in my behalf, if any person accepts of the
+offer. I must confess, I have had such private intimations from the
+twinkling of a certain star in some of my astronomical observations,
+that I should be unwilling to take fifty pounds a year for my chance,
+unless it were to oblige a particular friend. My chief business at
+present is, to prepare my mind for this change of fortune: for as
+Seneca, who was a great moralist, and a much richer man than I shall be
+with this addition to my present income, says, "<i>Munera ista Fortun&aelig;
+putatis? Insidi&aelig; sunt.</i>"<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> "What we look upon as gifts and presents of
+Fortune, are traps and snares which she lays for the unwary." I am
+arming myself against her favours with all my philosophy; and that I may
+not lose myself in such a redundance of unnecessary and superfluous
+wealth, I have determined to settle an annual pension out of it upon a
+family of Palatines, and by that means give these unhappy strangers a
+taste of British property. At the same time, as I have an excellent
+servant-maid, whose diligence in attending me has increased in
+proportion to my infirmities, I shall settle upon her the revenue
+arising out of the ten pounds, and amounting to fourteen shillings per
+annum, with which she may retire into Wales, where she was born a
+gentlewoman, and pass the remaining part of her days in a condition
+suitable to her birth and quality. It was impossible for me to make an
+inspection into my own fortune on this occasion, without seeing at the
+same time the fate of others who are embarked in the same adventure. And
+indeed it was a great pleasure to me to observe, that the war, which
+generally impoverishes those<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> who furnish out the expense of it, will by
+this means give estates to some, without making others the poorer for
+it. I have lately seen several in liveries, who will give as good of
+their own very suddenly; and took a particular satisfaction in the sight
+of a young country wench, whom I this morning passed by as she was
+whirling her mop,<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> with her petticoats tucked up very agreeably, who,
+if there is any truth in my art, is within ten<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> months of being the
+handsomest great fortune in town. I must confess, I was so struck with
+the foresight of what she is to be, that I treated her accordingly, and
+said to her, "Pray, young lady, permit me to pass by." I would for this
+reason advise all masters and mistresses to carry it with great
+moderation and condescension towards their servants till next
+Michaelmas, lest the superiority at that time should be inverted. I must
+likewise admonish all my brethren and fellow adventurers, to fill their
+minds with proper arguments for their support and consolation in case of
+ill-success. It so happens in this particular, that though the gainers
+will have reason to rejoice, the losers will have no reason to complain.
+I remember, the day after the thousand pound prize was drawn in the
+penny lottery,<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> I went to visit a splenetic acquaintance of mine, who
+was under much dejection, and seemed to me to have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> suffered some great
+disappointment. Upon inquiry, I found he had put twopence for himself
+and his son into the lottery and that neither of them had drawn the
+thousand pound. Hereupon this unlucky person took occasion to enumerate
+the misfortunes of his life, and concluded with telling me, that he
+never was successful in any of his undertakings. I was forced to comfort
+him with the common reflection upon such occasions, that men of the
+greatest merit are not always men of the greatest success, and that
+persons of his character must not expect to be as happy as fools. I
+shall proceed in the like manner with my rivals and competitors for the
+thousand pounds a year which we are now in pursuit of; and that I may
+give general content to the whole body of candidates, I shall allow all
+that draw prizes to be fortunate, and all that miss them to be wise.</p>
+
+<p>I must not here omit to acknowledge, that I have received several
+letters upon this subject, but find one common error running through
+them all, which is, that the writers of them believe their fate in these
+cases depends upon the astrologer, and not upon the stars, as in the
+following letter from one, who, I fear, flatters himself with hopes of
+success, which are altogether groundless, since he does not seem to me
+so great a fool as he takes himself to be:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Sir</span>,</p>
+
+<p>"Coming to town, and finding my friend Mr. Partridge dead and
+buried, and you the only conjurer in repute, I am under a necessity
+of applying myself to you for a favour, which nevertheless I
+confess it would better become a friend to ask, than one who is, as
+I am altogether, a stranger to you; but poverty, you know, is
+impudent; and as that gives me the occasion, so that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> alone could
+give me the confidence to be thus importunate.</p>
+
+<p>"I am, sir, very poor, and very desirous to be otherwise: I have
+got ten pounds, which I design to venture in the lottery now on
+foot. What I desire of you is, that by your art, you will choose
+such a ticket for me as shall arise a benefit sufficient to
+maintain me. I must beg leave to inform you, that I am good for
+nothing, and must therefore insist upon a larger lot than would
+satisfy those who are capable by their own abilities of adding
+something to what you should assign them; whereas I must expect an
+absolute, independent maintenance, because, as I said, I can do
+nothing. 'Tis possible, after this free confession of mine, you may
+think I don't deserve to be rich; but I hope you'll likewise
+observe, I can ill afford to be poor. My own opinion is, I am well
+qualified for an estate, and have a good title to luck in a
+lottery; but I resign myself wholly to your mercy, not without
+hopes that you will consider, the less I deserve, the greater the
+generosity in you. If you reject me, I have agreed with an
+acquaintance of mine to bury me for my ten pounds. I once more
+recommend myself to your favour, and bid you adieu."</p></div>
+
+<p>I cannot forbear publishing another letter which I have received,
+because it redounds to my own credit, as well as to that of a very
+honest footman:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+"<span class="smcap">Mr. Bickerstaff</span>,
+<span class="salright"><i>January 23, 1709/10.</i></span>
+
+<p>"I am bound in justice to acquaint you, that I put an
+advertisement<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a> into your last paper about a watch which was
+lost, and was brought to me on the very day<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> your paper came out by
+a footman, who told me, that he would [not] have brought it, if he
+had not read your discourse of that day against avarice;<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> but
+that since he had read it, he scorned to take a reward for doing
+what in justice he ought to do. I am,</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+<span class="sig14">"Sir,</span><br />
+<span class="sig4">"Your most humble Servant,</span><br />
+"<span class="smcap">John Hammond</span>."<br />
+</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> The first State lottery of 1710; see No. 87. Various
+passages in the "Wentworth Papers" (pages 126, 127, 129, 130, 148, 165)
+throw light upon this subject. Thus, "I hear the Million Lottery is
+drawing and thear is a prise of 400<i>l.</i> a year drawn, and Col. St. Pear
+has gott 5 (<i>sic</i>) a year; it will be hard fate if you mis a pryse that
+put so much in. I long tel its all drawn; they say it will be six weeks
+drawing" (Aug. 1, 1710). "It will be a long time first if ever, except I
+win ye thoussand p^d a year, for mony now adays is the raening passion"
+(July (?) 1710). "Some very ordenary creeture has gott 400<i>l.</i> a year"
+(Aug. 4, 1710). "Thear is a lady gave her footman in the last before
+this, mony for a lot, and he got five hundred a year, and she would have
+half, and they had a law suit, but the lawyers gave it all to him" (Aug.
+7, 1710). "Betty has lost all her hopse of the Lottery, als drawn now"
+(Oct. 6, 1710). "You know your grandfather's Butler (?), they say he put
+ten thousand pd in the lottry and lost it all, and is really worth forty
+thousand pd" (Dec. 15, 1710). Swift refers to the drawing in September:
+"To-day Mr. Addison, Colonel Freind and I went to see the million
+lottery drawn at Guildhall. The jackanapes of blue-coat boys gave
+themselves such airs in pulling out the tickets, and shewed white hands
+open to the company to let us see there was no cheat" ("Journal to
+Stella," Sept. 15, 1710). See also Nos. <a href="#No_170">170</a>, 203, and the <i>Spectator</i>,
+No.<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/12030/12030-h/12030-h/SV1/Spectator1.html#section191">191</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="#No_128">128</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> "There were 150,000 tickets at &pound;10 each, making
+&pound;1,500,000, the principal of which was to be sunk, and 9 per cent. to be
+allowed on it for thirty-two years. Three thousand seven hundred and
+fifty tickets were prizes from &pound;1000 to &pound;5 per annum; the rest were
+blanks&mdash;a proportion of thirty-nine to one prize, but, as a consolation,
+each blank was entitled to fourteen shillings per annum during the
+thirty-two years" (Ashton's "Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne," i.
+114).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> The possessor of a fortune of &pound;100,000.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> L. A. Senec&aelig; Opera, Epist. viii. sect. 3 (Lips., Tauchn.,
+1832, iii. 14).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> Cf. Swift's "City Shower," in No. 238: "She, singing,
+still whirls on her mop."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a>
+Cf. No. <a href="#No_128">128</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> This penny lottery seems to have been a private
+undertaking, not warranted by Act of Parliament, or intended to raise
+any part of the public revenue. In the year 1698, a "Penny Lottery" was
+drawn at the theatre in Dorset Garden, as appears from the title of the
+following pamphlet, apparently alluded to here: "The Wheel of Fortune:
+or, Nothing for a Penny. Being remarks on the drawing of the Penny
+Lottery at the Theatre Royal in Dorset Garden. With the characters of
+some of the honourable trustees, and all due acknowledgment to his
+Honour the Undertaker. Written by a person who was cursed mad that he
+had not the Thousand Pounds Lot" (Nichols).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> The following was the advertisement: "A plain gold watch,
+made by Tompion, with a gold hook and chain, a cornelian seal set in
+gold, and a cupid sifting hearts, was dropt from a lady's side in or
+near Great Marlborough Street on Thursday night last. Whoever took it
+up, if they will bring it to Mr. Plaistow's, at the Hand and Star
+between the two Temple Gates, in Fleet Street, shall receive five
+guineas reward.&mdash;Signed <span class="smcap">John Hammond</span>."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="#No_123">123</a>.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<a name="No_125" id="No_125"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 125.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Steele.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br />From <i>Tuesday, Jan. 24</i>, to <i>Thursday, Jan. 26, 1709-10</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Quem mala stultitia, et qu&aelig;cunque inscitia veri<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">C&aelig;cum agit, insanum Chrysippi porticus, et grex<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Autumat. H&aelig;c populos, h&aelig;c magnos formula reges,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Excepto sapiente, tenet.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Hor.</span>, 2 Sat. iii. 43.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>From my own Apartment, January 25.</i></p>
+
+<p>There is a sect of ancient philosophers, who, I think, have left more
+volumes behind them, and those better written, than any other of the
+fraternities in philosophy. It was a maxim of this sect, that all those
+who do not live up to the principles of reason and virtue, are madmen.
+Every one, who governs himself by these rules, is allowed the title of
+wise, and reputed to be in his senses; and every one in proportion, as
+he deviates from them, is pronounced frantic and distracted. Cicero
+having chosen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> this maxim for his theme, takes occasion to argue from it
+very agreeably with Clodius, his implacable adversary, who had procured
+his banishment. "A city," says he, "is an assembly distinguished into
+bodies of men, who are in possession of their respective rights and
+privileges, cast under proper subordinations, and in all its parts
+obedient to the rules of law and equity." He then represents the
+government from whence he was banished, at a time when the consul,
+senate, and laws, had lost their authority, as a commonwealth of
+lunatics. For this reason, he regards his expulsion from Rome, as a man
+would being turned out of Bedlam, if the inhabitants of it should drive
+him out of their walls as a person unfit for their community.<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> We are
+therefore to look upon every man's brain to be touched, however he may
+appear in the general conduct of his life, if he has an unjustifiable
+singularity in any part of his conversation or behaviour: or if he
+swerves from right reason, however common his kind of madness may be, we
+shall not excuse him for its being epidemical, it being our present
+design to clap up all such as have the marks of madness upon them, who
+are now permitted to go about the streets, for no other reason, but
+because they do no mischief in their fits. Abundance of imaginary great
+men are put in straw to bring them to a right sense of themselves: and
+is it not altogether as reasonable, that an insignificant man, who has
+an immoderate opinion of his merits, and a quite different notion of his
+own abilities from what the rest of the world entertain, should have the
+same care taken of him, as a beggar who fancies himself a duke or a
+prince? Or, why should a man, who starves in the midst of plenty, be
+trusted with himself, more than he who fancies he is an emperor in the
+midst of poverty? I have several women of quality in my thoughts, who
+set so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> exorbitant a value upon themselves, that I have often most
+heartily pitied them, and wished them, for their recovery, under the
+same discipline with the pewterer's wife. I find by several hints in
+ancient authors, that when the Romans were in the height of power and
+luxury, they assigned out of their vast dominions, an island called
+Anticyra, as an habitation for madmen. This was the Bedlam of the Roman
+Empire, whither all persons who had left their wits used to resort from
+all parts of the world in quest of them. Several of the Roman emperors
+were advised to repair to this island; but most of them, instead of
+listening to such sober counsels, gave way to their distraction, till
+the people knocked them in the head as despairing of their cure. In
+short, it was as usual for men of distempered brains to take a voyage to
+Anticyra<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> in those days, as it is in ours for persons who have a
+disorder in their lungs to go to Montpellier.</p>
+
+<p>The prodigious crops of hellebore<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> with which this whole island
+abounded, did not only furnish them with incomparable tea, snuff, and
+Hungary water,<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> but impregnated the air of the country with such
+sober and salutiferous streams, as very much comforted the heads, and
+refreshed the senses, of all that breathed in it. A discarded statesman,
+that at his first landing appeared stark staring mad,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> would become calm
+in a week's time; and upon his return home, live easy and satisfied in
+his retirement. A moping lover would grow a pleasant fellow by that time
+he had ridden thrice about the island; and a hair-brained rake, after a
+short stay in the country, go home again a composed, grave, worthy
+gentleman.</p>
+
+<p>I have premised these particulars before I enter on the main design of
+this paper, because I would not be thought altogether notional<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> in
+what I have to say, and pass only for a projector in morality. I could
+quote Horace, and Seneca, and some other ancient writers of good repute,
+upon the same occasion, and make out by their testimony, that our
+streets are filled with distracted persons; that our shops and taverns,
+private and public houses, swarm with them; and that it is very hard to
+make up a tolerable assembly without a majority of them. But what I have
+already said, is, I hope, sufficient to justify the ensuing project,
+which I shall therefore give some account of without any further
+preface.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>1. It is humbly proposed, that a proper receptacle or habitation be
+forthwith erected for all such persons as, upon due trial and
+examination, shall appear to be out of their wits.</p>
+
+<p>2. That to serve the present exigency, the College in
+Moorfields<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> be very much extended at both ends; and that it be
+converted into a square, by adding three other sides to it.</p>
+
+<p>3. That nobody be admitted into these three additional sides, but
+such whose frenzy can lay no claim to an apartment in that row of
+building which is already erected.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>4. That the architect, physician, apothecary, surgeon, keepers,
+nurses, and porters, be all and each of them cracked, provided that
+their frenzy does not lie in the profession or employment to which
+they shall severally and respectively be assigned.</p>
+
+<p>N.B. It is thought fit to give the foregoing notice, that none may
+present himself here for any post of honour or profit who is not
+duly qualified.</p>
+
+<p>5. That over all the gates of the additional buildings, there be
+figures placed in the same manner as over the entrance of the
+edifice already erected;<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> provided, they represent such
+distractions only as are proper for those additional buildings; as,
+of an envious man gnawing his own flesh, a gamester pulling himself
+by the ears, and knocking his head against a marble pillar, a
+covetous man warming himself over a heap of gold, a coward flying
+from his own shadow, and the like.</p></div>
+
+<p>Having laid down this general scheme of my design, I do hereby invite
+all persons who are willing to encourage so public-spirited a project,
+to bring in their contributions as soon as possible, and to apprehend
+forthwith any politician whom they shall catch raving in a coffee-house,
+or any freethinker whom they shall find publishing his deliriums, or any
+other person who shall give the like manifest signs of a crazed
+imagination; and I do at the same time give this public notice to all
+the madmen about this great city, that they may return to their senses
+with all imaginable expedition, lest if they should come into my hands,
+I should put them into a regimen which they would not like; for if I
+find any one of them persist in his frantic behaviour, I will make him
+in a month's time as famous as ever Oliver's porter<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> was.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> Cicero, Tusc. Disp. iii. 4, &amp;c.; Orat. pro Dom. 33, &amp;c.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> Mr. Dobson quotes from Burton's "Anatomie of Melancholy"
+(1628), p. 18: "I will evince it, that most men are mad, that they had
+as much need to go a pilgrimage to the Anticyr&aelig; (as in Strabo's time
+they did) as in our dayes they run to Compostella, our Lady of Sichim,
+or Lauretta, to seeke for helpe; that it is likely to be as prosperous a
+voyage as that of Guiana, and there is much more need of Hellebor than
+of Tobacco."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> Hellebore was much used by the ancients as a cure for
+madness and melancholy.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> The best Hungary water (a popular scent) was made of
+spirits of wine, rosemary in bloom, lavender flowers, and oil of
+rosemary.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> Dealing in ideas instead of realities.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> Bedlam;
+see No. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number30">30</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> The statues by C. G. Cibber.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> See No. 51.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>
+<a name="No_126" id="No_126"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 126.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Steele.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br />From <i>Thursday, Jan. 26</i>, to <i>Saturday, Jan. 28, 1709-10</i></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Anguillam caud&acirc; tenes.&mdash;<span class="smcap">T. D'Urfey.</span><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>From my own Apartment, January 27.</i></p>
+
+<p>There is no sort of company so agreeable as that of women who have good
+sense without affectation, and can converse with men without any private
+design of imposing chains and fetters. Belvidera, whom I visited this
+evening, is one of these. There is an invincible prejudice in favour of
+all she says, from her being a beautiful woman, because she does not
+consider herself as such when she talks to you. This amiable temper
+gives a certain tincture to all her discourse, and made it very
+agreeable to me, till we were interrupted by Lydia, a creature who has
+all the charms that can adorn a woman. Her attractions would indeed be
+irresistible, but that she thinks them so, and is always employing them
+in stratagems and conquests. When I turned my eye upon her as she sat
+down, I saw she was a person of that character, which, for the further
+information of my country correspondents, I had long wanted an
+opportunity of explaining. Lydia is a finished coquette, which is a sect
+among women of all others the most mischievous, and makes the greatest
+havoc and disorder in society. I went on in the discourse I was in with
+Belvidera, without showing that I had observed anything extraordinary in
+Lydia: upon which, I immediately saw her look me over as some very
+ill-bred fellow; and casting a scornful glance on my dress, gave a shrug
+at Belvidera. But as much as she despised me, she wanted my admiration,
+and made twenty offers to bring my eyes her way: but I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> reduced her to a
+restlessness in her seat, an impertinent playing of her fan, and many
+other motions and gestures, before I took the least notice of her. At
+last I looked at her with a kind of surprise, as if she had before been
+unobserved by reason of an ill light where she sat. It is not to be
+expressed what a sudden joy I saw rise in her countenance, even at the
+approbation of such a very old fellow: but she did not long enjoy her
+triumph without a rival; for there immediately entered Castabella, a
+lady of a quite contrary character, that is to say, as eminent a prude
+as Lydia is a coquette. Belvidera gave me a glance, which methought
+intimated, that they were both curiosities in their kind, and worth
+remarking. As soon as we were again seated, I stole looks at each lady,
+as if I was comparing their perfections. Belvidera observed it, and
+began to lead me into a discourse of them both to their faces, which is
+to be done easily enough; for one woman is generally so intent upon the
+faults of another, that she has not reflection enough to observe when
+her own are represented. "I have taken notice, Mr. Bickerstaff," said
+Belvidera, "that you have in some parts of your writings drawn
+characters of our sex, in which you have not, to my apprehension, been
+clear enough and distinct, particularly in those of a prude and a
+coquette." Upon the mention of this, Lydia was roused with the
+expectation of seeing Castabella's picture, and Castabella with the
+hopes of that of Lydia. "Madam," said I to Belvidera, "when we consider
+nature, we shall often find very contrary effects flow from the same
+cause. The prude and coquette (as different as they appear in their
+behaviour) are in reality the same kind of women: the motive of action
+in both is the affectation of pleasing men. They are sisters of the same
+blood and constitution, only one chooses a grave, the other a light,
+dress. The prude appears more virtuous, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> coquette more vicious, than
+she really is. The distant behaviour of the prude tends to the same
+purpose as the advances of the coquette; and you have as little reason
+to fall into despair from the severity of the one, as to conceive hope
+from the familiarity of the latter. What leads you into a clear sense of
+their character is, that you may observe each of them has the
+distinction of sex in all her thoughts, words and actions. You can never
+mention any assembly you were lately in, but one asks you with a rigid,
+the other with a sprightly air, 'Pray, what men were there?' As for
+prudes, it must be confessed, that there are several of them, who, like
+hypocrites, by long practice of a false part, become sincere; or at
+least delude themselves into a belief that they are so."</p>
+
+<p>For the benefit of this society of ladies, I shall propose one rule to
+them as a test of their virtue. I find in a very celebrated modern
+author, that the great foundress of the Pietists, Madame de
+Bourignon,<a name="FNanchor_53_53" id="FNanchor_53_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> who was no less famous for the sanctity of her life than
+for the singularity of some of her opinions, was used to boast, that she
+had not only the spirit of continency in herself, but that she had also
+the power of communicating it to all who beheld her. This the scoffers
+of those days called the Gift of Infrigidation, and took occasion from
+it to rally her face, rather than<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> admire her virtue. I would therefore
+advise the prude, who has a mind to know the integrity of her own heart,
+to lay her hand seriously upon it, and to examine herself, whether she
+could sincerely rejoice in such a gift of conveying chaste thoughts to
+all her male beholders. If she has any aversion to the power of
+inspiring so great a virtue, whatever notion she may have of her
+perfection, she deceives her own heart, and is still in the state of
+prudery. Some perhaps will look upon the boast of Madame de Bourignon as
+the utmost ostentation of a prude.</p>
+
+<p>If you would see the humour of a coquette pushed to the last excess, you
+may find an instance of it in the following story, which I will set down
+at length, because it pleased me when I read it, though I cannot
+recollect in what author.</p>
+
+<p>A young coquette widow in France having been followed by a Gascon of
+quality, who had boasted among his companions of some favours which he
+had never received, to be revenged of him, sent for him one evening, and
+told him, it was in his power to do her a very particular service. The
+Gascon, with much profession of his readiness to obey her commands,
+begged to hear in what manner she designed to employ him. "You know,"
+said the widow, "my friend Belinda, and must often have heard of the
+jealousy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> of that impotent wretch her husband. Now it is absolutely
+necessary, for the carrying on a certain affair, that his wife and I
+should be together a whole night. What I have to ask of you, is, to
+dress yourself in her night-clothes, and lie by him a whole night in her
+place, that he may not miss her while she is with me." The Gascon
+(though of a very lively and undertaking complexion) began to startle at
+the proposal. "Nay," says the widow, "if you have not the courage to go
+through what I ask of you, I must employ somebody else that will."
+"Madam," says the Gascon, "I'll kill him for you if you please; but for
+lying with him!&mdash;How is it possible to do it without being discovered?"
+"If you do not discover yourself," says the widow, "you will lie safe
+enough, for he is past all curiosity. He comes in at night while she is
+asleep, and goes out in the morning before she awakes, and is in pain
+for nothing, so he knows she is there." "Madam," replied the Gascon,
+"how can you reward me for passing a night with this old fellow?" The
+widow answered with a laugh, "Perhaps by admitting you to pass a night
+with one you think more agreeable." He took the hint, put on his
+night-clothes, and had not been a-bed above an hour before he heard a
+knocking at the door, and the treading of one who approached the other
+side of the bed, and who he did not question was the good man of the
+house. I do not know, whether the story would be better by telling you
+in this place, or at the end of it, that the person who went to bed to
+him was our young coquette widow. The Gascon was in a terrible fright
+every time she moved in the bed, or turned towards him, and did not fail
+to shrink from her till he had conveyed himself to the very ridge of the
+bed. I will not dwell upon the perplexity he was in the whole night,
+which was augmented, when he observed that it was now broad day, and
+that the husband did not yet offer to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> get up and go about his business.
+All that the Gascon had for it, was to keep his face turned from him,
+and to feign himself asleep, when, to his utter confusion, the widow at
+last puts out her arm, and pulls the bell at her bed's head. In came her
+friend, and two or three companions, to whom the Gascon had boasted of
+her favours. The widow jumped into a wrapping-gown, and joined with the
+rest in laughing at this man of intrigue.<a name="FNanchor_54_54" id="FNanchor_54_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a></p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> Bayle, in his life of this devotee, 1697, says that
+Antoinette Bourignon was born at Lisle in 1616, so deformed, that it was
+debated for some days in the family, whether it was not proper to stifle
+her as a monster. Her deformity diminishing, they laid aside the
+thought. Although she was of a morose and peevish temper, and embroiled
+in troubles most part of her life, she seemed to be but forty years of
+age when she was above sixty; never made use of spectacles, and died at
+Franeker, in the province of Frise, in 1680. From her childhood to her
+old age she had an extraordinary turn of mind. She published a multitude
+of books, filled with singular doctrines, such as might be expected from
+a person who roundly asserted, on the express declaration, she said, of
+God Himself, "That the examination of things by reason, was the most
+accursed of all heresies, formal atheism, a rejection of God, and the
+substitution of corrupt reason in his place." She pretended to
+inspiration, and boasted of extraordinary communications with God; but
+appears to have been exceedingly defective in the essential duties of
+humility and charity. She was a woman of such ill conditions and odd
+behaviour, that nobody could live with her; and she seriously
+maintained, that anger was a real virtue. She contrived to accumulate
+money, but continued always uncharitable upon principle, alleging the
+errors of her understanding in defence of the inhumanity of her
+conduct.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_54_54" id="Footnote_54_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> "<i>Advertisement.</i>&mdash;Proposals for printing the Lucubrations
+of Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq., by subscriptions, are to be seen, and
+subscriptions taken by Charles Lillie, a perfumer, at the corner of
+Beaufort Buildings, in the Strand, and John Morphew, near Stationers
+Hall." See No. 80, note. The same proposals are advertised at the end of
+the subsequent papers in the original folio, with the following
+variation and addition: Proposals for printing, &amp;c. by subscriptions,
+"in two volumes in octavo, on a large character and fine royal paper,"
+&amp;c. In No. 134, &amp;c., there was this addition: "All persons that desire
+to subscribe to this work are desired to send their subscriptions before
+the 25th instant, it being intended to print no more than what shall be
+subscribed for, and to begin on the 27th in order to have it published
+before Easter." In No. 139 (Feb. 25-28) was the announcement, "this day
+put to press." The idea of publishing by Easter was given up after No.
+153. The books were not ready for the subscribers until July 10 (see No.
+195, Advertisement). The third and fourth volumes of the <i>Tatler</i> were
+advertised as "ready to be delivered" in No. 227
+of the <i>Spectator</i> (Nov. 20, 1711). The copies on royal paper were issued at a guinea a
+volume, and copies on medium paper at half a guinea. "I am one of your
+two-guinea subscribers," says the writer of No. 5 of the <i>Examiner</i>
+(Aug. 31, 1710).</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<div>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>
+</div>
+<a name="No_127" id="No_127"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 127.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Steele.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br />From <i>Saturday, Jan. 28</i>, to <i>Tuesday, Jan. 31, 1709-10</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Nimirum insanus paucis videatur, eo quod<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Maxima pars hominum morbo jactatur eodem.<br /></span>
+<span class="i20"><span class="smcap">Hor.</span>, 2 Sat. iii. 120.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>From my own Apartment, January 30.</i></p>
+
+<p>There is no affection of the mind so much blended in human nature, and
+wrought into our very constitution, as pride. It appears under a
+multitude of disguises, and breaks out in ten thousand different
+symptoms. Every one feels it in himself, and yet wonders to see it in
+his neighbour. I must confess, I met with an instance of it the other
+day where I should very little have expected it. Who would believe the
+proud person I am going to speak of, is a cobbler upon Ludgate Hill?
+This artist being naturally a lover of respect, and considering that his
+circumstances are such that no man living will give it him, has
+contrived the figure of a beau in wood, who stands before him in a
+bending posture, with his hat under his left arm, and his right hand
+extended in such a manner as to hold a thread, a piece of wax, or an
+awl, according to the particular service in which his master thinks fit
+to employ him. When I saw him, he held a candle in this obsequious
+posture. I was very well pleased with the cobbler's invention, that had
+so ingeniously contrived an inferior, and stood a little while
+contemplating this inverted idolatry, wherein the image did homage to
+the man. When we meet with such a fantastic vanity in one of this order,
+it is no wonder if we may trace it through all degrees above it, and
+particularly through all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> the steps of greatness. We easily see the
+absurdity of pride when it enters into the heart of a cobbler; though in
+reality it is altogether as ridiculous and unreasonable wherever it
+takes possession of a human creature. There is no temptation to it from
+the reflection upon our being in general, or upon any comparative
+perfection, whereby one man may excel another. The greater a man's
+knowledge is, the greater motive he may seem to have for pride; but in
+the same proportion as the one rises, the other sinks, it being the
+chief office of wisdom to discover to us our weaknesses and
+imperfections.</p>
+
+<p>As folly is the foundation of pride, the natural superstructure of it is
+madness. If there was an occasion for the experiment, I would not
+question to make a proud man a lunatic in three weeks' time, provided I
+had it in my power to ripen his frenzy with proper applications. It is
+an admirable reflection in Terence, where it is said of a parasite,
+"<i>Hic homines ex stultis facit insanos!</i>"<a name="FNanchor_55_55" id="FNanchor_55_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> "This fellow,' says he,
+"has an art of converting fools into madmen." When I was in France (the
+region of complaisance and vanity), I have often observed, that a great
+man who has entered a levy of flatterers humble and temperate, has grown
+so insensibly heated by the court which was paid him on all sides, that
+he has been quite distracted before he could get into his coach.</p>
+
+<p>If we consult the collegiates of Moorfields, we shall find most of them
+are beholden to their pride for their introduction into that magnificent
+palace.<a name="FNanchor_56_56" id="FNanchor_56_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a> I had some years ago the curiosity to inquire into the
+particular circumstances of these whimsical freeholders, and learned
+from their own mouths the condition and character of each of them.
+Indeed I found, that all I spoke to were persons of quality. There were
+at that time five duchesses, three<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> earls, two heathen gods, an emperor,
+and a prophet. There were also a great number of such as were locked up
+from their estates, and others who concealed their titles. A
+leather-seller of Taunton whispered me in my ear, that he was the Duke
+of Monmouth; but begged me not to betray him. At a little distance from
+him sat a tailor's wife, who asked me as I went by, if I had seen the
+sword-bearer? Upon which I presumed to ask her, who she was; and was
+answered, "My Lady Mayoress."</p>
+
+<p>I was very sensibly touched with compassion towards these miserable
+people; and indeed, extremely mortified to see human nature capable of
+being thus disfigured. However, I reaped this benefit from it, that I
+was resolved to guard myself against a passion which makes such havoc in
+the brain, and produces so much disorder in the imagination. For this
+reason, I have endeavoured to keep down the secret swellings of
+resentment, and stifle the very first suggestions of self-esteem; to
+establish my mind in tranquillity, and over-value nothing in my own, or
+in another's possession.</p>
+
+<p>For the benefit of such whose heads are a little turned, though not to
+so great a degree as to qualify them for the place of which I have been
+now speaking, I shall assign one of the sides of the college which I am
+erecting, for the cure of this dangerous distemper.</p>
+
+<p>The most remarkable of the persons whose disturbance arises from pride,
+and whom I shall use all possible diligence to cure, are such as are
+bidden in the appearance of quite contrary habits and dispositions.
+Among such, I shall in the first place take care of one who is under the
+most subtle species of pride that I have observed in my whole
+experience.</p>
+
+<p>This patient is a person for whom I have a great respect, as being an
+old courtier, and a friend of mine in my youth.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> The man has but a bare
+subsistence, just enough to pay his reckoning with us at the
+Trumpet:<a name="FNanchor_57_57" id="FNanchor_57_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> but by having spent the beginning of his life in the
+hearing of great men and persons of power, he is always promising to do
+good offices, to introduce every man he converses with into the world;
+will desire one of ten times his substance to let him see him sometimes,
+and hints to him, that he does not forget him. He answers to matters of
+no consequence with great circumspection; but however, maintains a
+general civility in his words and actions, and an insolent benevolence
+to all whom he has to do with: this he practises with a grave tone and
+air; and though I am his senior by twelve years, and richer by forty
+pounds per annum, he had yesterday the impudence to commend me to my
+face, and tell me, he should be always ready to encourage me. In a-word,
+he is a very insignificant fellow, but exceeding gracious. The best
+return I can make him for his favours, is, to carry him myself to
+Bedlam, and see him well taken care of.<a name="FNanchor_58_58" id="FNanchor_58_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_58_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a></p>
+
+<p>The next person I shall provide for, is of a quite contrary character;
+that has in him all the stiffness and insolence of quality, without a
+grain of sense or good nature to make it either respected or beloved.
+His pride has infected every muscle of his face; and yet, after all his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>
+endeavours to show mankind that he contemns them, he is only neglected
+by all that see him, as not of consequence enough to be hated.</p>
+
+<p>For the cure of this particular sort of madness, it will be necessary to
+break through all forms with him, and familiarise<a name="FNanchor_59_59" id="FNanchor_59_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_59_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a> his carriage by
+the use of a good cudgel. It may likewise be of great benefit to make
+him jump over a stick half a dozen times every morning.</p>
+
+<p>A third whom I have in my eye is a young fellow, whose lunacy is such,
+that he boasts of nothing but what he ought to be ashamed of. He is vain
+of being rotten, and talks publicly of having committed crimes, which he
+ought to be hanged for by the laws of his country.</p>
+
+<p>There are several others whose brains are hurt with pride, and whom I
+may hereafter attempt to recover; but shall conclude my present list
+with an old woman, who is just dropping into her grave, that talks of
+nothing but her birth. Though she has not a tooth in her head, she
+expects to be valued for the blood in her veins, which she fancies is
+much better than that which glows in the cheeks of Belinda,<a name="FNanchor_60_60" id="FNanchor_60_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_60_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a> and sets
+half the town on fire.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_55_55" id="Footnote_55_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> "Eunuchus," II. ii. 23. See No. 208.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_56_56" id="Footnote_56_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_56_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> Bedlam.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_57_57" id="Footnote_57_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> In Shire Lane.
+See No. <a href="#No_132">132</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_58_58" id="Footnote_58_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a> "Perhaps the most consummately drawn of all his characters
+is introduced in the Essay, No. 127.... We have a portrait of that kind
+which, though produced by a few apparently careless touches, never
+ceases to charm, and is a study for all succeeding time and painters"
+(Forster's Essay on Steele). "This character," wrote Leigh Hunt, "is one
+of the finest that ever proceeded from his pen. It shows his contempt of
+that absurdest of all the passions of mortality&mdash;pride. The reader will
+take notice of the exquisite expression 'insolent benevolence,' and the
+'very insignificant fellow, but exceeding gracious'" ("A Book for a
+Corner," ii. 78-9).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_59_59" id="Footnote_59_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a> Bring down from its state of superiority.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_60_60" id="Footnote_60_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a> Nichols suggests an allusion to Mary Ann, daughter of
+Baron Spanheim, the Bavarian ambassador. She married the Marquis de
+Montandre in April 1710, and was a Kit-Cat toast. The reference&mdash;if
+there is any personal reference at all&mdash;may equally well be to any one
+of the beauties of the time.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<a name="No_128" id="No_128"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 128.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Steele.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br />From <i>Tuesday, Jan. 31</i>, to <i>Thursday, Feb. 2, 1709-10</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&mdash;&mdash;Veniunt a dote sagitt&aelig;.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Juv.</span>, Sat. vi. 139.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>From my own Apartment, February 1.</i></p>
+
+<p>This morning I received a letter from a fortune-hunter, which being
+better in its kind than men of that character usually write, I have
+thought fit to communicate to the public:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="center">"<i>To Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq.</i></p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Sir</span>,</p>
+
+<p>"I take the boldness to recommend to your care the enclosed letter,
+not knowing how to communicate it but by your means to the
+agreeable country maid you mention with so much honour in your
+discourse concerning the lottery.<a name="FNanchor_61_61" id="FNanchor_61_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_61_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a></p>
+
+<p>"I should be ashamed to give you this trouble without offering at
+some small requital: I shall therefore direct a new pair of globes
+and a telescope of the best maker, to be left for you at Mr.
+Morphew's, as a testimony of the great respect with which I am</p>
+
+<div class="sig">
+"Your most humble Servant, &amp;c."
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br />"<i>To Mopsa in Sheer Lane.</i></p>
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Fairest Unknown</span>,</p>
+
+<p>"It being discovered by the stars, that about ten<a name="FNanchor_62_62" id="FNanchor_62_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_62_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a> months hence,
+you will run the hazard of being persecuted by many worthless
+pretenders to your person, unless<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> timely prevented, I now offer my
+service for your security against the persecution that threatens
+you. This is therefore to let you know, that I have conceived a
+most extraordinary passion for you; and that for several days I
+have been perpetually haunted with the vision of a person I have
+never yet seen. To satisfy you that I am in my senses, and that I
+do not mistake you for any one of higher rank, I assure you, that
+in your daily employment, you appear to my imagination more
+agreeable in a short scanty petticoat, than the finest woman of
+quality in her spreading farthingale; and that the dexterous twirl
+of your mop has more native charms than the studied airs of a
+lady's fan. In a word, I am captivated with your menial
+qualifications: the domestic virtues adorn you like attendant
+Cupids; cleanliness and healthful industry wait on all your
+motions; and dust and cobwebs fly your approach.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, to give you an honest account of myself, and that you may see
+my designs are honourable, I am an esquire of an ancient family,
+born to about fifteen hundred pounds a year, half of which I have
+spent in discovering myself to be a fool, and with the rest am
+resolved to retire with some plain honest partner, and study to be
+wiser. I had my education in a laced coat, and a French dancing
+school; and by my travel into foreign parts, have just as much
+breeding to spare, as you may think you want, which I intend to
+exchange as fast as I can for old English honesty and good sense. I
+will not impose on you by a false recommendation of my person,
+which (to show you my sincerity) is none of the handsomest, being
+of a figure somewhat short; but what I want in length, I make out
+in breadth. But in amends for that and all other defects, If you
+can like me when you see me, I shall continue to you, whether I
+find you fair, black or brown,</p>
+
+<div class="sig">
+"<span class="smcap">The most Constant of Lovers</span>.<br />
+<span class="sig14">"<i>January 27, 1709/10.</i>"</span><br />
+</div>
+</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>This letter seems to be written by a wag, and for that reason I am not
+much concerned for what reception Mopsa shall think fit to give it; but
+the following certainly proceeds from a poor heart, that languishes
+under the most deplorable misfortune that possibly can befall a woman. A
+man that is treacherously dealt with in love may have recourse to many
+consolations. He may gracefully break through all opposition to his
+mistress, or explain with his rival; urge his own constancy, or
+aggravate the falsehood by which it is repaid. But a woman that is
+ill-treated has no refuge in her griefs but in silence and secrecy. The
+world is so unjust, that a female heart which has been once touched is
+thought for ever blemished. The very grief in this case is looked upon
+as a reproach, and a complaint almost a breach of chastity. For these
+reasons, we see treachery and falsehood are become as it were male
+vices, and are seldom found, never acknowledged, in the other sex. This
+may serve to introduce Statira's letter, which, without any turn or art,
+has something so pathetical and moving in it, that I verily believe it
+to be true, and therefore heartily pity the injured creature that wrote
+it:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="center"><br /> "<i>To Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq.</i> </p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Sir</span>,</p>
+
+<p>"You seem in many of your writings to be a man of a very
+compassionate temper, and well acquainted with the passion of love.
+This encourages me to apply myself to you in my present distress,
+which I believe you will look upon to be very great, and treat with
+tenderness, notwithstanding it wholly arises from love, and that it
+is a woman that makes this confession. I am now in the twenty-third
+year of my age, and have for a great while entertained the
+addresses of a man who I thought loved me more than life. I am sure
+I did him; and must own to you, not without some confusion, that I
+have thought<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> on nothing else for these two long years, but the
+happy life we should lead together, and the means I should use to
+make myself still dearer to him. My fortune was indeed much beyond
+his; and as I was always in the company of my relations, he was
+forced to discover his inclinations, and declare himself to me by
+stories of other persons, kind looks, and many ways which he knew
+too well that I understood. Oh! Mr. Bickerstaff, it is impossible
+to tell you, how industrious I have been to make him appear lovely
+in my thoughts. I made it a point of conscience to think well of
+him, and of no man else: but he has since had an estate fallen to
+him, and makes love to another of a greater fortune than mine. I
+could not believe the report of this at first; but about a
+fortnight ago I was convinced of the truth of it by his own
+behaviour. He came to give our family a formal visit, when, as
+there were several in company, and many things talked of, the
+discourse fell upon some unhappy woman who was in my own
+circumstances. It was said by one in the room, that they could not
+believe the story could be true, because they did not believe any
+man could be so false. Upon which, I stole a look upon him with an
+anguish not to be expressed. He saw my eyes full of tears; yet had
+the cruelty to say, that he could see no falsehood in alterations
+of this nature, where there had been no contracts or vows
+interchanged. Pray, do not make a jest of misery, but tell me
+seriously your opinion of his behaviour; and if you can have any
+pity for my condition, publish this in your next paper, that being
+the only way I have of complaining of his unkindness, and showing
+him the injustice he has done me. I am</p>
+
+<div class="sig">
+<span class="sig4">"Your humble Servant,</span><br />
+<span class="sig2">"The unfortunate</span><br />
+"<span class="smcap">Statira</span>."<br />
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>The name my correspondent gives herself, puts me in mind of my old<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>
+reading in romances, and brings into my thoughts a speech of the
+renowned Don Bellianis, who, upon a complaint made him of a discourteous
+knight, that had left his injured paramour in the same manner, dries up
+her tears with a promise of relief. "Disconsolate damsel," quoth he, "a
+foul disgrace it were to all right worthy professors of chivalry, if
+such a blot to knighthood should pass unchastised. Give me to know the
+abode of this recreant lover, and I will give him as a feast to the
+fowls of the air, or drag him bound before you at my horse's tail."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>I am not ashamed to own myself a champion of distressed damsels, and
+would venture as far to relieve them as Don Bellianis; for which reason,
+I do invite this lady to let me know the name of the traitor who has
+deceived her; and do promise, not only her, but all the fair ones of
+Great Britain who lie under the same calamity, to employ my right hand
+for their redress, and serve them to my last drop of ink.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_61_61" id="Footnote_61_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_61_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="#No_124">124</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_62_62" id="Footnote_62_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a> Altered, in error, to "three," in the 1711 edition. In No.
+124 "ten months" remains. The drawing was at Michaelmas 1710.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<a name="No_129" id="No_129"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 129.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Addison.</span><a name="FNanchor_63_63" id="FNanchor_63_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_63_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br />From <i>Thursday, Feb. 2</i>, to <i>Saturday, Feb. 4, 1709-10</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Ingenio manus est et cervix c&aelig;sa.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Juv.</span>, Sat. x. 120.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>From my own Apartment, February 3.</i></p>
+
+<p>When my paper for to-morrow was prepared for the press, there came in
+this morning a mail from Holland, which brought me several advices from
+foreign<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> parts, and took my thoughts off domestic affairs. Among others,
+I have a letter from a burgher of Amsterdam, who makes me his
+compliments, and tells me, he has sent me several draughts of humorous
+and satirical pictures by the best hands of the Dutch nation. They are a
+trading people, and in their very minds mechanics. They express their
+wit in manufacture, as we do in manuscript. He informs me, that a very
+witty hand has lately represented the present posture of public affairs
+in a landscape, or rather sea-piece, wherein the potentates of the
+Alliance are figured as their interests correspond with, or affect each
+other, under the appearance of commanders of ships. These vessels carry
+the colours of the respective nations concerned in the present war. The
+whole design seems to tend to one point, which is, that several
+squadrons of British and Dutch ships are battering a French man-of-war,
+in order to make her deliver up a long-boat with Spanish colours. My
+correspondent informs me, that a man must understand the compass
+perfectly well, to be able to comprehend the beauty and invention of
+this piece, which is so skilfully drawn, that the particular views of
+every prince in Europe are seen according as the ships lie to the main
+figure in the picture, and as that figure may help or retard their
+sailing. It seems this curiosity is now on board a ship bound for
+England, and with other rarities made a present to me. As soon as it
+arrives, I design to expose it to public view at my secretary Mr.
+Lillie's, who shall have an explication of all the terms of art; and I
+doubt not but it will give as good content as the moving picture in
+Fleet Street.<a name="FNanchor_64_64" id="FNanchor_64_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_64_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a></p>
+
+<div>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>
+</div>
+<p>But above all the honours I have received from the learned world abroad,
+I am most delighted with the following epistle from Rome:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="center">"<i>Pasquin of Rome, to Isaac Bickerstaff of Great Britain,
+greeting.</i></p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Sir</span>,</p>
+
+<p>"Your reputation has passed the Alps, and would have come to my
+ears by this time, if I had any. In short, sir, you are looked upon
+here as a Northern droll, and the greatest virtuoso among the
+Tramontanes. Some indeed say, that Mr. Bickerstaff and Pasquin are
+only names invented, to father compositions which the natural
+parent does not care for owning. But however that is, all agree,
+that there are several persons, who, if they durst attack you,
+would endeavour to leave you no more limbs than I have. I need not
+tell you that my adversaries have joined in a confederacy with Time
+to demolish me, and that, if I were not a very great wit, I should
+make the worst figure in Europe, being abridged of my legs, arms,
+nose, and ears. If you think fit to accept of the correspondence of
+so facetious a cripple, I shall from time to time send you an
+account of what happens at Rome. You have only heard of it from
+Latin and Greek authors; may, perhaps, have read no accounts from
+hence, but of a triumph, ovation, or apotheosis, and will,
+doubtless, be surprised to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> see the description of a procession,
+jubilee, or canonisation. I shall however send you what the place
+affords, in return to what I shall receive from you. If you will
+acquaint me with your next promotion of general officers, I will
+send you an account of our next advancement of saints. If you will
+let me know who is reckoned the bravest warrior in Great Britain,
+I'll tell you who is the best fiddler in Rome. If you will favour
+me with an inventory of the riches that were brought into your
+nation by Admiral Wager,<a name="FNanchor_65_65" id="FNanchor_65_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_65_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a> I will not fail giving you an account
+of a pot of medals that has been lately dug up here, and are now
+under the examination of our ministers of state.</p>
+
+<p>"There is one thing in which I desire you would be very particular.
+What I mean is an exact list of all the religions in Great Britain,
+as likewise the habits, which are said here to be the great points
+of conscience in England, whether they are made of serge or
+broadcloth, of silk or linen. I should be glad to see a model of
+the most conscientious dress amongst you, and desire you would
+send<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> me a hat of each religion; as likewise, if it be not too much
+trouble, a cravat. It would also be very acceptable here to receive
+an account of those two religious orders which are lately sprung up
+amongst you, the Whigs and the Tories, with the points of doctrine,
+severities in discipline, penances, mortifications, and good works,
+by which they differ one from another. It would be no less kind if
+you would explain to us a word which they do not understand even at
+our English monastery toasts, and let us know whether the ladies so
+called are nuns or lay-sisters.</p>
+
+<p>"In return, I will send you the secret history of several
+cardinals, which I have by me in manuscript, with gallantries,
+amours, politics, and intrigues, by which they made their way to
+the Holy Purple.</p>
+
+<p>"But when I propose a correspondence, I must not tell you what I
+intend to advise you of hereafter, and neglect to give you what I
+have at present. The Pope has been sick for this fortnight of a
+violent toothache, which has very much raised the French faction,
+and put the conclave into a great ferment. Every one of the
+pretenders to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> succession is grown twenty years older than he
+was a fortnight ago. Each candidate tries who shall cough and stoop
+most; for these are at present the great gifts that recommend to
+the apostolical seat, which he stands the fairest for, who is
+likely to resign it the soonest. I have known the time when it used
+to rain louis-d'ors on such occasions; but whatever is the matter,
+there are very few of them to be seen at present at Rome, insomuch
+that it is thought a man might purchase infallibility at a very
+reasonable rate. It is nevertheless hoped that his Holiness may
+recover, and bury these his imaginary successors.</p>
+
+<p>"There has lately been found a human tooth in a catacomb, which has
+engaged a couple of convents in a lawsuit; each of them pretending
+that it belonged to the jawbone of a saint who was of their Order.
+The colleges have sat upon it thrice, and I find there is a
+disposition among them to take it out of the possession of both the
+contending parties, by reason of a speech which was made by one of
+the cardinals, who, by reason of its being found out of the company
+of any other bones, asserted, that it might be one of the teeth
+which was coughed out by &AElig;lia, an old woman whose loss is recorded
+in Martial.<a name="FNanchor_66_66" id="FNanchor_66_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_66_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a></p>
+
+<p>"I have nothing remarkable to communicate to you of State affairs,
+excepting only, that the Pope has lately received a horse from the
+German ambassador, as an acknowledgment for the kingdom of Naples,
+which is a fief of the Church. His Holiness refused this horse from
+the Germans ever since the Duke of Anjou has been possessed of
+Spain; but as they lately took care to accompany it with a body of
+ten thousand more, they have at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> last overcome his Holiness's
+modesty, and prevailed upon him to accept the present. I am,</p>
+
+<div class="sig">
+<span class="sig12">"Sir,</span><br />
+<span class="sig4">"Your most obedient,</span><br />
+<span class="sig2">"Humble Servant,</span><br />
+"<span class="smcap">Pasquin.</span><br />
+</div>
+<p>"P.S. Morforio is very much yours."<a name="FNanchor_67_67" id="FNanchor_67_67"></a><a href="#Footnote_67_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a><br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_63_63" id="Footnote_63_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_63_63"><span class="label">[63]</span></a> There is the following note in
+No. 130 (orig. folio):
+"Errata in the last. Insert the following motto, which was overlooked by
+the printer," &amp;c. "Col. 2, line 16, for Oration read Ovation." Probably
+this paper, No. 129, was by Addison, not only because of these
+corrections, but because of the allusions to medals, &amp;c., in the letter
+from Pasquin. The paper is, however, not included in Addison's Works.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_64_64" id="Footnote_64_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_64_64"><span class="label">[64]</span></a> "To be seen daily, at the Duke of Marlborough's Head in
+Fleet Street, a new moving picture, drawn by the best hand, with great
+variety of curious motions and figures, which form a most agreeable
+prospect. It has the general approbation of all who see it, and far
+exceeds the original formerly shown at the same place.&mdash;N.B. This
+picture was never exposed to public view, before the beginning of the
+present year 1710" (No. 127, Advertisement). "The famous and curious
+original moving picture, which came from Germany, that was designed for
+the Elector of Bavaria, is still to be seen at the Duke of Marlborough's
+Head, in Fleet Street;" &amp;c.&mdash;<i>Postman</i>, March 1-3, 1709 [-10].</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_65_65" id="Footnote_65_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_65_65"><span class="label">[65]</span></a> Charles Wager was first made a captain at the battle of La
+Hogue by Admiral Russell, who recommended him on the most important
+services. He was sent commodore to the West Indies in 1707, where he
+attacked the Spanish galleons, May 28, 1708, with three ships, though
+they were fourteen in number drawn up in line of battle, and defeated
+them. His services Queen Anne distinguished by sending him a flag as
+Vice-admiral of the Blue, intended for him before this engagement, and
+by honouring him at his return with knighthood. His share of prize-money
+amounted to 100,000<i>l.</i> But the riches he acquired, on this and other
+occasions, were regarded by him only as instruments of doing good;
+accordingly he gave fortunes to his relations, that he might see them
+happy in his lifetime; and to persons in distress, his liberality was
+such, that whole families were supported, and their estates and fortunes
+saved, by his generosity. He was promoted to be Rear-admiral of the Red,
+November 9, 1709; and in that year was returned for Portsmouth to
+Parliament, where he continued to sit till his death. In April 1726, he
+was sent up the Baltic as Vice-admiral of the Red, with a large fleet on
+an important expedition; and performed all that could be expected from
+the wisdom and skill of an English admiral. He dined with the King of
+Denmark; had an audience of the King of Sweden; and exchanged many
+civilities with Prince Menzikoff, then Prime Minister of Russia. He was
+appointed Comptroller of the Navy in February 1714; a Lord of the
+Admiralty in March 1717; and, on the death of Lord Torrington in January
+1732-3, he was placed at the head of that Board, and appointed president
+of the corporation for relief of poor sea-officers' widows, and also
+president of the corporation of the Trinity House. He was appointed one
+of the Lords Regent in 1741; Vice-admiral of England and Treasurer of
+the Navy in 1742; and died May 24, 1743, aged 77. A prudent, temperate,
+wise, and honest man, he was easy of access to all, unaffected in his
+manners, steady and resolute in his conduct, affable and cheerful in his
+behaviour, and in time of action or imminent danger was never hurried or
+discomposed (Nichols).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_66_66" id="Footnote_66_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_66_66"><span class="label">[66]</span></a> "Epig." i. 20.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_67_67" id="Footnote_67_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor_67_67"><span class="label">[67]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="#Page_91">130</a>, Advertisement.</p></div>
+
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<a name="No_130" id="No_130"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 130.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[? <span class="smcap">Addison.</span><a name="FNanchor_68_68" id="FNanchor_68_68"></a><a href="#Footnote_68_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br />From <i>Saturday, Feb. 4</i>, to <i>Tuesday, Feb. 7, 1709-10</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i20">&mdash;&mdash;At me<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cum magnis vixisse invita fatebitur usque<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Invidia.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Hor.</span>, 2 Sat. i. 75.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>Sheer Lane, February 6.</i></p>
+
+<p>I find some of the most polite Latin authors, who wrote at a time when
+Rome was in its glory, speak with a certain noble vanity of the
+brightness and splendour of the age in which they lived. Pliny often
+compliments his Emperor Trajan upon this head; and when he would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>
+animate him to anything great, or dissuade him from anything that was
+improper, he insinuates, that it is befitting or unbecoming the
+<i>claritas et nitor s&aelig;culi</i>, that period of time which was made
+illustrious by his reign. When we cast our eyes back on the history of
+mankind, and trace them through their several successions to their first
+original, we sometimes see them breaking out in great and memorable
+actions, and towering up to the utmost heights of virtue and knowledge;
+when, perhaps, if we carry our observation to a little distance, we see
+them sunk into sloth and ignorance, and altogether lost in darkness and
+obscurity. Sometimes the whole species is asleep for two or three
+generations, and then again awakens into action, flourishes in heroes,
+philosophers, and poets, who do honour to human nature, and leave such
+tracts of glory behind them, as distinguish the years in which they
+acted their part from the ordinary course of time.</p>
+
+<p>Methinks a man cannot, without a secret satisfaction, consider the glory
+of the present age, which will shine as bright as any other in the
+history of mankind. It is still big with great events, and has already
+produced changes and revolutions which will be as much admired by
+posterity, as any that have happened in the days of our fathers, or in
+the old times before them. We have seen kingdoms divided and united,
+monarchs erected and deposed, nations transferred from one sovereign to
+another; conquerors raised to such a greatness as has given a terror to
+Europe, and thrown down by such a fall, as has moved their pity.</p>
+
+<p>But it is still a more pleasing view to an Englishman, to see his own
+country give the chief influence to so illustrious an age, and stand in
+the strongest point of light amidst the diffused glory that surrounds
+it.</p>
+
+<p>If we begin with learned men, we may observe, to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> honour of our
+country, that those who make the greatest figure in most arts and
+sciences, are universally allowed to be of the British nation; and what
+is more remarkable, that men of the greatest learning are among the men
+of the greatest quality.</p>
+
+<p>A nation may indeed abound with persons of such uncommon parts and
+worth, as may make them rather a misfortune than a blessing to the
+public. Those who singly might have been of infinite advantage to the
+age they live in, may, by rising up together in the same crisis of time,
+and by interfering in their pursuits of honour, rather interrupt than
+promote the service of their country. Of this we have a famous instance
+in the Republic of Rome, when C&aelig;sar, Pompey, Cato, Cicero, and Brutus,
+endeavoured to recommend themselves at the same time to the admiration
+of their contemporaries. Mankind was not able to provide for so many
+extraordinary persons at once, or find out posts suitable to their
+ambition and abilities. For this reason, they were all as miserable in
+their deaths as they were famous in their lives, and occasioned, not
+only the ruin of each other, but also that of the commonwealth.</p>
+
+<p>It is therefore a particular happiness to a people, when the men of
+superior genius and character are so justly disposed in the high places
+of honour, that each of them moves in a sphere which is proper to him,
+and requires those particular qualities in which he excels.</p>
+
+<p>If I see a general commanding the forces of his country, whose victories
+are not to be paralleled in story, and who is as famous for his
+negotiations as his victories;<a name="FNanchor_69_69" id="FNanchor_69_69"></a><a href="#Footnote_69_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a> and at the same time see the
+management of a nation's treasury in the hands of one who has always
+distinguished himself by a generous contempt of his own private wealth,
+and an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> exact frugality of that which belongs to the public;<a name="FNanchor_70_70" id="FNanchor_70_70"></a><a href="#Footnote_70_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a> I
+cannot but think a people under such an Administration may promise
+themselves conquest abroad, and plenty at home. If I were to wish for a
+proper person to preside over the public councils, it should certainly
+be one as much admired for his universal knowledge of men and things, as
+for his eloquence, courage and integrity, in the exerting of such
+extraordinary talents.<a name="FNanchor_71_71" id="FNanchor_71_71"></a><a href="#Footnote_71_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a></p>
+
+<p>Who is not pleased to see a person in the highest station in the law,
+who was the most eminent in his profession, and the most accomplished
+orator at the Bar?<a name="FNanchor_72_72" id="FNanchor_72_72"></a><a href="#Footnote_72_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a> Or at the head of the fleet a commander, under
+whose conduct the common enemy received such a blow as he has never been
+able to recover?<a name="FNanchor_73_73" id="FNanchor_73_73"></a><a href="#Footnote_73_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a></p>
+
+<p>Were we to form to ourselves the idea of one whom we should think proper
+to govern a distant kingdom, consisting chiefly of those who differ from
+us in religion, and are influenced by foreign politics, would it not be
+such a one as had signalised himself by a uniform and unshaken zeal for
+the Protestant interest, and by his dexterity in defeating the skill and
+artifice of its enemies?<a name="FNanchor_74_74" id="FNanchor_74_74"></a><a href="#Footnote_74_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a> In short, if we find a great man popular
+for his honesty and humanity, as well as famed for his learning and
+great skill in all the languages of Europe, or a person eminent for
+those qualifications which make men shine in public assemblies, or for
+that steadiness, constancy, and good sense, which carry a man to the
+desired point through all the opposition of tumult and prejudice, we
+have the happiness to behold them all in posts suitable to their
+characters.</p>
+
+<p>Such a constellation of great persons, if I may so speak,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> while they
+shine out in their own distinct capacities, reflect a lustre upon each
+other, but in a more particular manner on their Sovereign, who has
+placed them in those proper situations, by which their virtues become so
+beneficial to all her subjects. It is the anniversary of the birthday of
+this glorious Queen which naturally led me into this field of
+contemplation, and instead of joining in the public exultations that are
+made on such occasions, to entertain my thoughts with the more serious
+pleasure of ruminating upon the glories of her reign.</p>
+
+<p>While I behold her surrounded with triumphs, and adorned with all the
+prosperity and success which Heaven ever shed on a mortal, and still
+considering herself as such; though the person appears to me exceeding
+great that has these just honours paid to her, yet I must confess, she
+appears much greater in that she receives them with such a glorious
+humility, and shows she has no further regard for them, than as they
+arise from these great events which have made her subjects happy. For my
+own part, I must confess, when I see private virtues in so high a degree
+of perfection, I am not astonished at any extraordinary success that
+attends them, but look upon public triumphs as the natural consequences
+of religious retirements.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center">ADVERTISEMENT.</p>
+
+<p>Finding some persons have mistaken Pasquin who was mentioned in my last,
+for one who has been pilloried at Rome; I must here advertise them, that
+it is only a maimed statue so called, on which the private scandal of
+that city is generally pasted. Morforio is a person of the same quality,
+who is usually made to answer whatever is published by the other: the
+wits of that place, like too many of our own country, taking pleasure in
+setting innocent people together by the ears. The mentioning of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> this
+person, who is a great wit, and a great cripple, put me in mind of Mr.
+Estcourt,<a name="FNanchor_75_75" id="FNanchor_75_75"></a><a href="#Footnote_75_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a> who is under the same circumstances. He was formerly my
+apothecary, and being at present disabled by the gout and stone, I must
+recommend him to the public on Thursday next, that admirable play of Ben
+Jonson's, called, "The Silent Woman," being appointed to be acted for
+his benefit. It would be indecent for me to appear twice in a season at
+these ludicrous diversions; but as I always give my man and my maid one
+day in the year, I shall allow them this, and am promised by Mr.
+Estcourt, my ingenious apothecary, that they shall have a place kept for
+them in the first row of the middle gallery.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_68_68" id="Footnote_68_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68_68"><span class="label">[68]</span></a> Nichols suggests that this paper may be by Addison,
+because in No. 131 Addison has the following note: "For the benefit of
+my readers, I think myself obliged here to let them know that I always
+make use of an old-fashioned e, which very little differs from an o.
+This has been the reason that my printer sometimes mistakes the one for
+the other; as in my last paper, I find, <i>those</i> for <i>these</i>, <i>beheld</i>
+for <i>behold</i>, Corvix for Cervix, and the like." The internal evidence
+supports this view; but the paper is not included in Addison's Works.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_69_69" id="Footnote_69_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor_69_69"><span class="label">[69]</span></a> The Duke of Marlborough.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_70_70" id="Footnote_70_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70_70"><span class="label">[70]</span></a> Sidney, Lord Godolphin.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_71_71" id="Footnote_71_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71_71"><span class="label">[71]</span></a> Lord Somers.
+See No. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number4">4</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_72_72" id="Footnote_72_72"></a><a href="#FNanchor_72_72"><span class="label">[72]</span></a> Lord Chancellor Cowper.
+See the <a href="#Page_1">Dedication</a> to this
+volume.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_73_73" id="Footnote_73_73"></a><a href="#FNanchor_73_73"><span class="label">[73]</span></a> Edward Russell, Earl of Oxford.
+See No. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number4">4</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_74_74" id="Footnote_74_74"></a><a href="#FNanchor_74_74"><span class="label">[74]</span></a> Thomas, Earl of Wharton, the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_75_75" id="Footnote_75_75"></a><a href="#FNanchor_75_75"><span class="label">[75]</span></a>
+See Nos. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number20">20</a>, 51. Estcourt was apprenticed to an
+apothecary, and is said to have tried that business before going on the
+stage.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<a name="No_131" id="No_131"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 131.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Addison.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br />From <i>Tuesday, Feb. 7</i>, to <i>Thursday, Feb. 9, 1709-10</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&mdash;&mdash;Scelus est jugulare Falernum,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Et dare Campano toxica s&aelig;va mero.<br /></span>
+<span class="i22"><span class="smcap">Mart.</span>, Epig. i. 18.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>Sheer Lane, February 8.</i></p>
+
+<p>There is in this city a certain fraternity of chemical operators, who
+work under ground in holes, caverns, and dark retirements, to conceal
+their mysteries from the eyes and observation of mankind. These
+subterraneous philosophers are daily employed in the transmutation of
+liquors, and, by the power of magical drugs and incantations, raising
+under the streets of London the choicest products of the hills and
+valleys of France. They can<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> squeeze bordeaux out of the sloe, and draw
+champagne from an apple. Virgil in that remarkable prophecy,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Incultisque rubens pendebit sentibus uva</i>,<a name="FNanchor_76_76" id="FNanchor_76_76"></a><a href="#Footnote_76_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a><br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">(<i>The ripening grape shall hang on every thorn</i>),<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>seems to have hinted at this art which can turn a plantation of Northern
+hedges into a vineyard. These adepts are known among one another by the
+name of "wine-brewers," and I am afraid do great injury, not only to her
+Majesty's customs, but to the bodies of many of her good subjects.</p>
+
+<p>Having received sundry complaints against these invisible workmen, I
+ordered the proper officer of my court to ferret them out of their
+respective caves, and bring them before me, which was yesterday executed
+accordingly.</p>
+
+<p>The person who appeared against them was a merchant, who had by him a
+great magazine of wines that he had laid in before the war: but these
+gentlemen (as he said) had so vitiated the nation's palate, that no man
+could believe his to be French, because it did not taste like what they
+sold for such. As a man never pleads better than where his own personal
+interest is concerned, he exhibited to the court with great eloquence,
+that this new corporation of druggists had inflamed the bills of
+mortality, and puzzled the College of Physicians with diseases, for
+which they neither knew a name nor cure. He accused some of giving all
+their customers colics and megrims; and mentioned one who had boasted,
+he had a tun of claret by him, that in a fortnight's time should give
+the gout to a dozen of the healthiest men in the city, provided that
+their constitutions were prepared for it by wealth and idleness. He then
+enlarged, with a great show of reason,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> upon the prejudice which these
+mixtures and compositions had done to the brains of the English nation;
+as is too visible (said he) from many late pamphlets, speeches and
+sermons, as well as from the ordinary conversations of the youth of this
+age. He then quoted an ingenious person, who would undertake to know by
+a man's writings, the wine he most delighted in; and on that occasion
+named a certain satirist, whom he had discovered to be the author of a
+lampoon, by a manifest taste of the sloe, which showed itself in it by
+much roughness, and little spirit.</p>
+
+<p>In the last place, he ascribed to the unnatural tumults and
+fermentations which these mixtures raise in our blood, the divisions,
+heat and animosities, that reign among us; and in particular, asserted
+most of the modern enthusiasms and agitations to be nothing else but the
+effects of adulterated port.</p>
+
+<p>The counsel for the brewers had a face so extremely inflamed and
+illuminated with carbuncles, that I did not wonder to see him an
+advocate for these sophistications. His rhetoric was likewise such as I
+should have expected from the common draught, which I found he often
+drank to a great excess. Indeed, I was so surprised at his figure and
+parts, that I ordered him to give me a taste of his usual liquor; which
+I had no sooner drunk, but I found a pimple rising in my forehead; and
+felt such a sensible decay in my understanding, that I would not proceed
+in the trial till the fume of it was entirely dissipated.</p>
+
+<p>This notable advocate had little to say in the defence of his clients,
+but that they were under a necessity of making claret if they would keep
+open their doors, it being the nature of mankind to love everything that
+is prohibited. He further pretended to reason, that it might be as
+profitable to the nation to make French wine as French hats; and
+concluded with the great advantage that this had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> already brought to
+part of the kingdom. Upon which he informed the court, that the lands in
+Hertfordshire were raised two years' purchase since the beginning of the
+war.</p>
+
+<p>When I had sent out my summons to these people, I gave at the same time
+orders to each of them to bring the several ingredients he made use of
+in distinct phials, which they had done accordingly, and ranged them
+into two rows on each side of the court. The workmen were drawn up in
+ranks behind them. The merchant informed me, that in one row of phials
+were the several colours they dealt in, and in the other the tastes. He
+then showed me on the right hand one who went by the name of Tom
+Tintoret, who (as he told me) was the greatest master in his colouring
+of any vintner in London.<a name="FNanchor_77_77" id="FNanchor_77_77"></a><a href="#Footnote_77_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a> To give me a proof of his art, he took a
+glass of fair water; and by the infusion of three drops out of one of
+his phials, converted it into a most beautiful pale burgundy. Two more
+of the same kind heightened it into a perfect languedoc: from thence it
+passed into a florid hermitage: and after having gone through two or
+three other changes, by the addition of a single drop, ended in a very
+deep pontack.<a name="FNanchor_78_78" id="FNanchor_78_78"></a><a href="#Footnote_78_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a> This ingenious virtuoso seeing me very much surprised
+at his art, told me, that he had not an opportunity of showing it in
+perfection, having only made use of water for the groundwork of his
+colouring: but that if I were to see an operation upon liquors of
+stronger bodies, the art would appear to a much greater advantage. He
+added, that he doubted not that it would please my curiosity to see the
+cider of one apple take only a vermilion, when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> another, with a less
+quantity of the same infusion, would rise into a dark purple, according
+to the different texture of parts in the liquor. He informed me also,
+that he could hit the different shades and degrees of red, as they
+appear in the pink and the rose, the clove and the carnation, as he had
+Rhenish or Moselle, perry, or white port, to work in.</p>
+
+<p>I was so satisfied with the ingenuity of this virtuoso, that, after
+having advised him to quit so dishonest a profession, I promised him, in
+consideration of his great genius, to recommend him as a partner to a
+friend of mine, who has heaped up great riches, and is a scarlet dyer.</p>
+
+<p>The artists on my other hand were ordered in the second place to make
+some experiments of their skill before me: upon which the famous Harry
+Sippet stepped out, and asked me what I would be pleased to drink. At
+the same time he filled out three or four white liquors in a glass, and
+told me, that it should be what I pleased to call for; adding very
+learnedly, that the liquor before him was as the naked substance or
+first matter of his compound, to which he and his friend, who stood over
+against him, could give what accidents or form they pleased. Finding him
+so great a philosopher, I desired he would convey into it the qualities
+and essence of right bordeaux. "Coming, coming, sir," said he, with the
+air of a drawer; and after having cast his eye on the several tastes and
+flavours that stood before him; he took up a little cruet that was
+filled with a kind of inky juice, and pouring some of it out into the
+glass of white wine, presented it to me, and told me, this was the wine
+over which most of the business of the last term had been despatched. I
+must confess, I looked upon that sooty drug which he held up in his
+cruet as the quintessence of English bordeaux, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> therefore desired
+him to give me a glass of it by itself, which he did with great
+unwillingness. My cat at that time sat by me upon the elbow of my chair;
+and as I did not care for making the experiment upon myself, I reached
+it to her to sip of it, which had like to have cost her her life; for
+notwithstanding it flung her at first into freakish tricks, quite
+contrary to her usual gravity, in less than a quarter of an hour she
+fell into convulsions; and had it not been a creature more tenacious of
+life than any other, would certainly have died under the operation.</p>
+
+<p>I was so incensed by the tortures of my innocent domestic, and the
+unworthy dealings of these men, that I told them, if each of them had as
+many lives as the injured creature before them, they deserved to forfeit
+them for the pernicious arts which they used for their profit. I
+therefore bid them look upon themselves as no better than as a kind of
+assassins and murderers within the law. However, since they had dealt so
+clearly with me, and laid before me their whole practice, I dismissed
+them for that time; with a particular request, that they would not
+poison any of my friends and acquaintance, and take to some honest
+livelihood without loss of time.</p>
+
+<p>For my own part, I have resolved hereafter to be very careful in my
+liquors, and have agreed with a friend of mine in the army, upon their
+next march, to secure me two hogsheads of the best stomach-wine in the
+cellars of Versailles, for the good of my Lucubrations, and the comfort
+of my old age.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_76_76" id="Footnote_76_76"></a><a href="#FNanchor_76_76"><span class="label">[76]</span></a> Eclog. iv. 29.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_77_77" id="Footnote_77_77"></a><a href="#FNanchor_77_77"><span class="label">[77]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="#No_138">138</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_78_78" id="Footnote_78_78"></a><a href="#FNanchor_78_78"><span class="label">[78]</span></a> A fashionable eating-house in Abchurch Lane, kept by one
+Pontack, who was son of the President of Bordeaux, then owner, as Evelyn
+tells us, of the excellent vineyards of Pontaq and Haut Brion.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>
+<a name="No_132" id="No_132"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 132.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Steele.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Thursday, Feb. 9</i>, to <i>Saturday, Feb. 11, 1709-10</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Habeo senectuti magnam gratiam, qu&aelig; mihi sermonis aviditatem auxit,
+potionis et cibi sustulit.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Cicero</span>, De Sen. 46.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>Sheer Lane, February 10.</i></p>
+
+<p>After having applied my mind with more than ordinary attention to my
+studies, it is my usual custom to relax and unbend it in the
+conversation of such as are rather easy than shining companions. This I
+find particularly necessary for me before I retire to rest, in order to
+draw my slumbers upon me by degrees, and fall asleep insensibly. This is
+the particular use I make of a set of heavy honest men, with whom I have
+passed many hours, with much indolence, though not with great pleasure.
+Their conversation is a kind of preparative for sleep: it takes the mind
+down from its abstractions, leads it into the familiar traces<a name="FNanchor_79_79" id="FNanchor_79_79"></a><a href="#Footnote_79_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a> of
+thought, and lulls it into that state of tranquillity, which is the
+condition of a thinking man when he is but half awake. After this, my
+reader will not be surprised to hear the account which I am about to
+give of a club of my own contemporaries, among whom I pass two or three
+hours every evening. This I look upon as taking my first nap before I go
+to bed. The truth of it is, I should think myself unjust to posterity,
+as well as to the society at the Trumpet,<a name="FNanchor_80_80" id="FNanchor_80_80"></a><a href="#Footnote_80_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a> of which I am a member,
+did not I in some part of my writings give an account of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> persons
+among whom I have passed almost a sixth part of my time for these last
+forty years. Our club consisted originally of fifteen; but partly by the
+severity of the law in arbitrary times, and partly by the natural
+effects of old age, we are at present reduced to a third part of that
+number: in which however we have this consolation, that the best company
+is said to consist of five persons. I must confess, besides the
+aforementioned benefit which I meet with in the conversation of this
+select society, I am not the less pleased with the company, in that I
+find myself the greatest wit among them, and am heard as their oracle in
+all points of learning and difficulty.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Jeoffrey Notch, who is the oldest of the club, has been in
+possession of the right-hand chair time out of mind, and is the only man
+among us that has the liberty of stirring the fire. This our foreman is
+a gentleman of an ancient family, that came to a great estate some years
+before he had discretion, and run it out in hounds, horses, and
+cock-fighting; for which reason he looks upon himself as an honest
+worthy gentleman who has had misfortunes in the world, and calls every
+thriving man a pitiful upstart.</p>
+
+<p>Major Matchlock is the next senior, who served in the last civil wars,
+and has all the battles by heart. He does not think any action in Europe
+worth talking of since the fight of Marston Moor;<a name="FNanchor_81_81" id="FNanchor_81_81"></a><a href="#Footnote_81_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a> and every night
+tells us of his having been knocked off his horse at the rising of the
+London apprentices;<a name="FNanchor_82_82" id="FNanchor_82_82"></a><a href="#Footnote_82_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a> for which he is in great esteem amongst us.</p>
+
+<p>Honest old Dick Reptile is the third of our society: he is a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>
+good-natured indolent man, who speaks little himself, but laughs at our
+jokes, and brings his young nephew along with him, a youth of eighteen
+years old, to show him good company, and give him a taste of the world.
+This young fellow sits generally silent; but whenever he opens his
+mouth, or laughs at anything that passes, he is constantly told by his
+uncle, after a jocular manner, "Ay, ay, Jack, you young men think us
+fools; but we old men know you are."<a name="FNanchor_83_83" id="FNanchor_83_83"></a><a href="#Footnote_83_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a></p>
+
+<p>The greatest wit of our company, next to myself, is a bencher of the
+neighbouring inn, who in his youth frequented the ordinaries about
+Charing Cross, and pretends to have been intimate with Jack Ogle.<a name="FNanchor_84_84" id="FNanchor_84_84"></a><a href="#Footnote_84_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a> He
+has about ten distichs of "Hudibras" without book, and never leaves the
+club till he has applied them all. If any modern<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> wit be mentioned, or
+any town frolic spoken of, he shakes his head at the dulness of the
+present age, and tells us a story of Jack Ogle.</p>
+
+<p>For my own part, I am esteemed among them, because they see I am
+something respected by others, though at the same time I understand by
+their behaviour, that I am considered by them as a man of a great deal
+of learning, but no knowledge of the world; insomuch that the Major
+sometimes, in the height of his military pride, calls me the
+philosopher: and Sir Jeoffrey no longer ago than last night, upon a
+dispute what day of the month it was then in Holland, pulled his pipe
+out of his mouth, and cried, "What does the scholar say to it?"</p>
+
+<p>Our club meets precisely at six o'clock in the evening; but I did not
+come last night till half an hour after seven, by which means I escaped
+the battle of Naseby, which the Major usually begins at about
+three-quarters after six; I found also, that my good friend, the
+bencher, had already spent three of his distichs, and only waiting an
+opportunity to hear a sermon spoken of, that he might introduce the
+couplet where "a stick" rhymes to "ecclesiastic."<a name="FNanchor_85_85" id="FNanchor_85_85"></a><a href="#Footnote_85_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a> At my entrance
+into the room, they were naming a red petticoat and a cloak, by which I
+found that the bencher had been diverting them with a story of Jack
+Ogle.</p>
+
+<p>I had no sooner taken my seat, but Sir Jeoffrey, to show his goodwill
+towards me, gave me a pipe of his own tobacco, and stirred up the fire.
+I look upon it as a point of morality, to be obliged by those who
+endeavour to oblige me; and therefore in requital for his kindness, and
+to set the conversation a-going, I took the best occasion I could, to
+put him upon telling us the story of old Gantlett,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> which he always does
+with very particular concern. He traced up his descent on both sides for
+several generations, describing his diet and manner of life, with his
+several battles, and particularly that in which he fell. This Gantlett
+was a game-cock, upon whose head the knight in his youth had won five
+hundred pounds, and lost two thousand. This naturally set the major upon
+the account of Edge Hill fight, and ended in a duel of Jack Ogle's.</p>
+
+<p>Old Reptile was extremely attentive to all that was said, though it was
+the same he had heard every night for these twenty years, and upon all
+occasions, winked upon his nephew to mind what passed.</p>
+
+<p>This may suffice to give the world a taste of our innocent conversation,
+which we spun out till about ten of the clock, when my maid<a name="FNanchor_86_86" id="FNanchor_86_86"></a><a href="#Footnote_86_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a> came
+with a lantern to light me home. I could not but reflect with myself as
+I was going out upon the talkative humour of old men, and the little
+figure which that part of life makes in one who cannot employ this
+natural propensity in discourses which would make him venerable. I must
+own, it makes me very melancholy in company, when I hear a young man
+begin a story; and have often observed, that one of a quarter of an hour
+long in a man of five and twenty, gathers circumstances every time he
+tells it, till it grows into a long Canterbury tale of two hours by that
+time he is three-score.</p>
+
+<p>The only way of avoiding such a trifling and frivolous old age, is, to
+lay up in our way to it such stores of knowledge and observation as may
+make us useful and agreeable in our declining years. The mind of man in
+a long life will become a magazine of wisdom or folly, and will<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>
+consequently discharge itself in something impertinent or improving. For
+which reason, as there is nothing more ridiculous than an old trifling
+story-teller, so there is nothing more venerable than one who has turned
+his experience to the entertainment and advantage of mankind.</p>
+
+<p>In short, we who are in the last stage of life, and are apt to indulge
+ourselves in talk, ought to consider, if what we speak be worth being
+heard, and endeavour to make our discourse like that of Nestor, which
+Homer compares to the flowing of honey for its sweetness.<a name="FNanchor_87_87" id="FNanchor_87_87"></a><a href="#Footnote_87_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a></p>
+
+<p>I am afraid I shall be thought guilty of this excess I am speaking of,
+when I cannot conclude without observing, that Milton certainly thought
+of this passage in Homer, when in his description of an eloquent spirit,
+he says, "His tongue dropped manna."<a name="FNanchor_88_88" id="FNanchor_88_88"></a><a href="#Footnote_88_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a></p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_79_79" id="Footnote_79_79"></a><a href="#FNanchor_79_79"><span class="label">[79]</span></a> Paths.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_80_80" id="Footnote_80_80"></a><a href="#FNanchor_80_80"><span class="label">[80]</span></a> The Trumpet stood about half-way up Shire Lane, between
+Temple Bar and Carey Street, at the widest and best part of the lane,
+and remained almost entirely in its original state until demolished to
+make way for the new Law Courts. It had the old sign of the Trumpet to
+the last, as it is figured in Limbard's "Mirror," in a picture where it
+is placed side by side with a view of the house in Fulwood's Rents where
+papers for the <i>Spectator</i> were taken in.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_81_81" id="Footnote_81_81"></a><a href="#FNanchor_81_81"><span class="label">[81]</span></a> July 2, 1644.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_82_82" id="Footnote_82_82"></a><a href="#FNanchor_82_82"><span class="label">[82]</span></a> In July 1647 the London apprentices presented a petition,
+and forced their way into the House of Commons.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_83_83" id="Footnote_83_83"></a><a href="#FNanchor_83_83"><span class="label">[83]</span></a> This retort, in almost identical words, occurs in Swift's
+"Genteel Conversation" (1739), and in Defoe's "Life of Duncan Campbell"
+(1720).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_84_84" id="Footnote_84_84"></a><a href="#FNanchor_84_84"><span class="label">[84]</span></a> Jack Ogle, said to have been descended from a decent
+family in Devonshire, was a man of some genius and great extravagance,
+but rather artful than witty. Ogle had an only sister, more beautiful,
+it is said, than was necessary to arrive, as she did, at the honour of
+being a mistress to the Duke of York. This sister Ogle laid under very
+frequent contributions to supply his wants and support his extravagance.
+It is said that, by the interest of her royal keeper, Ogle was placed,
+as a private gentleman, in the first troop of foot guards, at that time
+under the command of the Duke of Monmouth. To this era of Ogle's life
+the story of the red petticoat refers. He had pawned his trooper's
+cloak, and to save appearances at a review, had borrowed his landlady's
+red petticoat, which he carried rolled up <i>en croupe</i> behind him. The
+Duke of Monmouth "smoked" it, and willing to enjoy the confusion of a
+detection, gave order to "cloak all," with which Ogle, after some
+hesitation, was obliged to comply; although he could not cloak, he said
+he would petticoat with the best of them. Such as are curious to know
+more of the history, the duels, and odd pranks of this mad fellow, may
+consult the account of them in the "Memoirs of Gamesters," 1714, 12mo,
+p. 183 (Nichols).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_85_85" id="Footnote_85_85"></a><a href="#FNanchor_85_85"><span class="label">[85]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"When pulpit drum ecclesiastic<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was beat with fist instead of a stick."<br /></span>
+<span class="i10">&mdash;"Hudibras," Part I. c. i. line 10.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_86_86" id="Footnote_86_86"></a><a href="#FNanchor_86_86"><span class="label">[86]</span></a>
+Cf. No. 130, Advertisements. The dangers of the streets at
+the beginning of the eighteenth century are described in Gay's "Trivia,"
+iii. 335 <i>seq.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_87_87" id="Footnote_87_87"></a><a href="#FNanchor_87_87"><span class="label">[87]</span></a> "Iliad," i. 249.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_88_88" id="Footnote_88_88"></a><a href="#FNanchor_88_88"><span class="label">[88]</span></a> Milton says of Belial ("Paradise Lost," ii. 112):</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"But all was false and hollow, though his tongue<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dropped manna, and could make the worse appear<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The better cause."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<a name="No_133" id="No_133"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 133.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Addison.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Saturday, Feb. 11</i>, to <i>Tuesday, Feb. 14, 1709-10</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Dum tacent, clamant.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Tull.</span><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>Sheer Lane, February 13.</i></p>
+
+<p>Silence is sometimes more significant and sublime than the most noble
+and most expressive eloquence, and is on many occasions the indication
+of a great mind. Several authors have treated of silence as a part of
+duty and discretion, but none of them have considered it in this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> light.
+Homer compares the noise and clamour of the Trojans advancing towards
+the enemy, to the cackling of cranes when they invade an army of
+pigmies.<a name="FNanchor_89_89" id="FNanchor_89_89"></a><a href="#Footnote_89_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a> On the contrary, he makes his countrymen and favourites,
+the Greeks, move forward in a regular determined march, and in the depth
+of silence. I find in the accounts which are given us of some of the
+more Eastern nations, where the inhabitants are disposed by their
+constitutions and climates to higher strains of thought, and more
+elevated raptures than what we feel in the northern regions of the
+world, that silence is a religious exercise among them. For when their
+public devotions are in the greatest fervour, and their hearts lifted up
+as high as words can raise them, there are certain suspensions of sound
+and motion for a time, in which the mind is left to itself, and supposed
+to swell with such secret conceptions as are too big for utterance. I
+have myself been wonderfully delighted with a masterpiece of music, when
+in the very tumult and ferment of their harmony, all the voices and
+instruments have stopped short on a sudden, and after a little pause
+recovered themselves again as it were, and renewed the concert in all
+its parts. Methought this short interval of silence has had more music
+in it than any the same space of time before or after it. There are two
+instances of silence in the two greatest poets that ever wrote, which
+have something in them as sublime as any of the speeches in their whole
+works. The first is that of Ajax, in the eleventh book of the
+Odyssey.<a name="FNanchor_90_90" id="FNanchor_90_90"></a><a href="#Footnote_90_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a> Ulysses, who had been the rival of this great man in his
+life, as well as the occasion of his death, upon meeting his shade in
+the region of departed heroes, makes his submission to him with a
+humility next to adoration, which the other passes over with dumb sullen
+majesty, and such a silence, as (to use<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> the words of Longinus) had more
+greatness in it than anything he could have spoken.</p>
+
+<p>The next instance I shall mention is in Virgil, where the poet,
+doubtless, imitates this silence of Ajax in that of Dido;<a name="FNanchor_91_91" id="FNanchor_91_91"></a><a href="#Footnote_91_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a> though I
+do not know that any of his commentators have taken notice of it. &AElig;neas
+finding among the shades of despairing lovers, the ghost of her who had
+lately died for him, with the wound still fresh upon her, addresses
+himself to her with expanded arms, floods of tears, and the most
+passionate professions of his own innocence as to what had happened; all
+which Dido receives with the dignity and disdain of a resenting lover,
+and an injured Queen; and is so far from vouchsafing him an answer, that
+she does not give him a single look. The poet represents her as turning
+away her face from him while he spoke to her; and after having kept her
+eyes for some time upon the ground, as one that heard and contemned his
+protestations, flying from him into the grove of myrtle, and into the
+arms of another, whose fidelity had deserved her love.<a name="FNanchor_92_92" id="FNanchor_92_92"></a><a href="#Footnote_92_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a></p>
+
+<p>I have often thought our writers of tragedy have been very defective in
+this particular, and that they might have given great beauty to their
+works, by certain stops and pauses in the representation of such
+passions, as it is not in the power of language to express. There is
+something like this in the last act of "Venice Preserved," where Pierre
+is brought to an infamous execution, and begs of his friend,<a name="FNanchor_93_93" id="FNanchor_93_93"></a><a href="#Footnote_93_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a> as a
+reparation for past injuries, and the only favour he could do him, to
+rescue him from the ignominy of the wheel by stabbing him. As he is
+going to make this dreadful request, he is not able to communicate it,
+but withdraws his face from his friend's ear, and bursts into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> tears.
+The melancholy silence that follows hereupon, and continues till he has
+recovered himself enough to reveal his mind to his friend, raises in the
+spectators a grief that is inexpressible, and an idea of such a
+complicated distress in the actor as words cannot utter. It would look
+as ridiculous to many readers to give rules and directions for proper
+silences, as for penning a whisper: but it is certain, that in the
+extremity of most passions, particularly surprise, admiration,
+astonishment, nay, rage itself, there is nothing more graceful than to
+see the play stand still for a few moments, and the audience fixed in an
+agreeable suspense during the silence of a skilful actor.</p>
+
+<p>But silence never shows itself to so great an advantage, as when it is
+made the reply to calumny and defamation, provided that we give no just
+occasion for them. One might produce an example of it in the behaviour
+of one in whom it appeared in all its majesty, and one whose silence, as
+well as his person, was altogether divine. When one considers this
+subject only in its sublimity, this great instance could not but occur
+to me; and since I only make use of it to show the highest example of
+it, I hope I do not offend in it. To forbear replying to an unjust
+reproach, and overlook it with a generous, or (if possible) with an
+entire neglect of it, is one of the most heroic acts of a great mind.
+And I must confess, when I reflect upon the behaviour of some of the
+greatest men in antiquity, I do not so much admire them that they
+deserved the praise of the whole age they lived in, as because they
+contemned the envy and detraction of it.</p>
+
+<p>All that is incumbent on a man of worth, who suffers under so ill a
+treatment, is to lie by for some time in silence and obscurity, till the
+prejudice of the times be over, and his reputation cleared. I have often
+read with a great deal of pleasure a legacy of the famous Lord Bacon,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>
+one of the greatest geniuses that our own or any country has produced:
+after having bequeathed his soul, body, and estate, in the usual form,
+he adds, "My name and memory I leave to foreign nations, and to my
+countrymen, after some time be passed over."</p>
+
+<p>At the same time that I recommend this philosophy to others, I must
+confess I am so poor a proficient in it myself, that if in the course of
+my Lucubrations it happens, as it has done more than once, that my paper
+is duller than in conscience it ought to be, I think the time an age
+till I have an opportunity of putting out another, and growing famous
+again for two days.</p>
+
+<p>I must not close my discourse upon silence, without informing my reader,
+that I have by me an elaborate treatise on the Aposiopesis called an "Et
+c&aelig;tera," it being a figure much used by some learned authors, and
+particularly by the great Littleton, who, as my Lord Chief Justice Coke
+observes, had a most admirable talent at an et cetera.<a name="FNanchor_94_94" id="FNanchor_94_94"></a><a href="#Footnote_94_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a></p>
+
+
+<p class="center">ADVERTISEMENT.</p>
+
+<p>To oblige the Pretty Fellows, and my fair readers, I have thought fit to
+insert the whole passage above mentioned relating to Dido, as it is
+translated by Mr. Dryden:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><div class="itals">
+<span class="i0">Not far from thence, the mournful fields appear;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So called, from lovers that inhabit there.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The souls, whom that unhappy flame invades,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In secret solitude, and myrtle shades,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Make endless moans, and pining with desire,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lament too late their unextinguished fire.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span><br />
+<span class="i0">Here Procris, Eryphile here, he found<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Baring her breast, yet bleeding with the wound<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Made by her son. He saw Pasiphae there,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With Ph&aelig;dra's ghost, a foul incestuous pair;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There Laodamia with Evadne moves:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Unhappy both, but loyal in their loves.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">C&aelig;neus, a woman once, and once a man;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But ending in the sex she first began.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not far from these, Ph&oelig;nician Dido stood;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fresh from her wound, her bosom bathed in blood.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whom, when the Trojan hero hardly knew,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Obscure in shades, and with a doubtful view<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(Doubtful as he who runs through dusky night,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or thinks he sees the moon's uncertain light)<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With tears he first approached the sullen shade;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And, as his love inspired him, thus he said:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Unhappy queen! Then is the common breath<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of rumour true, in your reported death;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I, alas, the cause! By Heaven, I vow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And all the powers that rule the realms below,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Unwilling I forsook your friendly state,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Commanded by the gods, and forced by Fate.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Those gods, that Fate, whose unresisted might,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Have sent me to these regions, void of light,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through the vast empire of eternal night.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor dared I to presume, that, pressed with grief,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My flight should urge you to this dire relief.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Stay, stay your steps, and listen to my vows;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'Tis the last interview that Fate allows!"<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In vain he thus attempts her mind to move,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With tears and prayers, and late repenting love.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Disdainfully she looked, then turning round;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But fixed her eyes unmoved upon the ground;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And, what he says, and swears, regards no more<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Than the deaf rocks, when the loud billows roar;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But whirled away, to shun his hateful fight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hid in the forest, and the shades of night.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then sought Sich&aelig;us through the shady grove,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who answered all her cares, and equalled all her love.<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_89_89" id="Footnote_89_89"></a><a href="#FNanchor_89_89"><span class="label">[89]</span></a> "Iliad," iii. 3.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_90_90" id="Footnote_90_90"></a><a href="#FNanchor_90_90"><span class="label">[90]</span></a> "Odyssey," xi. 563.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_91_91" id="Footnote_91_91"></a><a href="#FNanchor_91_91"><span class="label">[91]</span></a> "&AElig;neid," vi. 46.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_92_92" id="Footnote_92_92"></a><a href="#FNanchor_92_92"><span class="label">[92]</span></a> Sich&aelig;us.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_93_93" id="Footnote_93_93"></a><a href="#FNanchor_93_93"><span class="label">[93]</span></a> Jaffier. See Otway's "Venice Preserved," act v. sc. 3.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_94_94" id="Footnote_94_94"></a><a href="#FNanchor_94_94"><span class="label">[94]</span></a> In the preface to his "Institutes of the Laws of England;
+or, a Commentary upon Littleton," Coke says, "Certain it is, that there
+is never a period, nor (for the most part) a word, nor an &amp;c., but
+affordeth excellent matter of learning."</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<div>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>
+</div>
+<a name="No_134" id="No_134"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 134.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Steele.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Tuesday, Feb. 14</i>, to <i>Thursday, Feb. 16, 1709-10</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i20">&mdash;&mdash;Quis talia fando<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Myrmidonum, Dolopumve, aut duri miles Ulixi,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Temperet a lachrimis!&mdash;<span class="smcap">Virg.</span>, &AElig;n. ii. 6.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>Sheer Lane, February 15.</i></p>
+
+<p>I was awakened very early this morning by the distant crowing of a cock,
+which I thought had the finest pipe I ever heard. He seemed to me to
+strain his voice more than ordinary, as if he designed to make himself
+heard to the remotest corner of this lane. Having entertained myself a
+little before I went to bed with a discourse on the transmigration of
+men into other animals, I could not but fancy that this was the soul of
+some drowsy bellman who used to sleep upon his post, for which he was
+condemned to do penance in feathers, and distinguish the several watches
+of the night under the outside of a cock. While I was thinking of the
+condition of this poor bellman in masquerade, I heard a great knocking
+at my door, and was soon after told by my maid, that my worthy friend
+the tall black gentleman, who frequents the coffee-houses hereabouts,
+desired to speak with me. This ancient Pythagorean, who has as much
+honesty as any man living, but good nature to an excess, brought me the
+following petition, which I am apt to believe he penned himself, the
+petitioner not being able to express his mind in paper under his present
+form, however famous he might have been for writing verses when he was
+in his original shape.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="center">"<i>To Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq., Censor of Great Britain.</i></p>
+
+<p>"The humble petition of Job Chanticleer, in behalf of himself, and
+many other poor sufferers in the same condition;</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Sheweth</span>,</p>
+
+<p>"That whereas your petitioner is truly descended of the ancient
+family of the Chanticleers at Cock Hall near Romford in Essex, it
+has been his misfortune to come into the mercenary hands of a
+certain ill-disposed person, commonly called a 'higgler,' who,
+under the close confinement of a pannier, has conveyed him and many
+others up to London; but hearing by chance of your worship's great
+humanity towards robin-redbreasts and tom-tits,<a name="FNanchor_95_95" id="FNanchor_95_95"></a><a href="#Footnote_95_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a> he is
+emboldened to beseech you to take his deplorable condition into
+your tender consideration, who otherwise must suffer (with many
+thousands more as innocent as himself) that inhumane barbarity of a
+Shrove Tuesday persecution.<a name="FNanchor_96_96" id="FNanchor_96_96"></a><a href="#Footnote_96_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a> We humbly hope that our courage and
+vigilance may plead for us on this occasion.</p>
+
+<p>"Your poor petitioner most earnestly implores your immediate
+protection from the insolence of the rabble, the batteries of
+catsticks,<a name="FNanchor_97_97" id="FNanchor_97_97"></a><a href="#Footnote_97_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a> and a painful lingering death.</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+"And your petitioner, &amp;c.</p>
+<p>"From my coup in Clare
+Market, <i>February 13, 1709</i>."<br />
+</p></div>
+
+<p>Upon delivery of this petition, the worthy gentleman who presented it,
+told me the customs of many wise nations of the East, through which he
+had travelled; that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> nothing was more frequent than to see a dervish lay
+out a whole year's income in the redemption of larks or linnets that had
+unhappily fallen into the hands of bird-catchers:<a name="FNanchor_98_98" id="FNanchor_98_98"></a><a href="#Footnote_98_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a> that it was also
+usual to run between a dog and a bull to keep them from hurting one
+another, or to lose the use of a limb in parting a couple of furious
+mastiffs. He then insisted upon the ingratitude and disingenuity<a name="FNanchor_99_99" id="FNanchor_99_99"></a><a href="#Footnote_99_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a> of
+treating in this manner a necessary and domestic animal, that has made
+the whole house keep good hours, and called up the cook maid for five
+years together. "What would a Turk say," continued he, "should he hear,
+that it is a common entertainment in a nation which pretends to be one
+of the most civilised of Europe, to tie an innocent animal to a stake,
+and put him to an ignominious death, who has perhaps been the guardian
+and proveditor of a poor family, as long as he was able to get eggs for
+his mistress?"</p>
+
+<p>I thought what this gentleman said was very reasonable; and have often
+wondered, that we do not lay aside a custom which makes us appear
+barbarous to nations much more rude and unpolished than ourselves. Some
+French writers have represented this diversion of the common people much
+to our disadvantage, and imputed it to natural fierceness and cruelty of
+temper; as they do some other entertainments peculiar to our nation: I
+mean those elegant diversions of bull-baiting and prize-fighting, with
+the like ingenious recreations of the bear-garden.<a name="FNanchor_100_100" id="FNanchor_100_100"></a><a href="#Footnote_100_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a> I wish I knew
+how to answer this reproach which is cast upon us, and excuse the death
+of so many innocent cocks, bulls, dogs, and bears, as have been set
+together by the ears, or died untimely deaths only to make us sport.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It will be said, that these are the entertainments of common people. It
+is true; but they are the entertainments of no other common people.<a name="FNanchor_101_101" id="FNanchor_101_101"></a><a href="#Footnote_101_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a>
+Besides, I am afraid there is a tincture of the same savage spirit in
+the diversions of those of higher rank, and more refined relish. Rapin
+observes, that the English theatre very much delights in bloodshed,
+which he likewise represents as an indication of our tempers. I must
+own, there is something very horrid in the public executions of an
+English tragedy. Stabbing and poisoning, which are performed behind the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>
+scenes in other nations, must be done openly among us, to gratify the
+audience.<a name="FNanchor_102_102" id="FNanchor_102_102"></a><a href="#Footnote_102_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a></p>
+
+<p>When poor Sandford<a name="FNanchor_103_103" id="FNanchor_103_103"></a><a href="#Footnote_103_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a> was upon the stage, I have seen him groaning
+upon a wheel, stuck with daggers, impaled alive, calling his
+executioners, with a dying voice, cruel dogs and villains! And all this
+to please his judicious spectators, who were wonderfully delighted with
+seeing a man in torment so well acted. The truth of it is, the
+politeness of our English stage, in regard to decorum, is very
+extraordinary. We act murders to show our intrepidity, and adulteries to
+show our gallantry: both of them are frequent in our most taking plays,
+with this difference only, that the first are done in sight of the
+audience, and the other wrought up to such a height upon the stage, that
+they are almost put in execution before the actors can get behind the
+scenes.</p>
+
+<p>I would not have it thought, that there is just ground for those
+consequences which our enemies draw against us from these practices; but
+methinks one would be sorry for any manner of occasion for such
+misrepresentations of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> us. The virtues of tenderness, compassion and
+humanity, are those by which men are distinguished from brutes, as much
+as by reason itself; and it would be the greatest reproach to a nation
+to distinguish itself from all others by any defect in these particular
+virtues. For which reasons, I hope that my dear countrymen will no
+longer expose themselves by an effusion of blood, whether it be of
+theatrical heroes, cocks, or any other innocent animals, which we are
+not obliged to slaughter for our safety, convenience, or nourishment.
+Where any of these ends are not served in the destruction of a living
+creature, I cannot but pronounce it a great piece of cruelty, if not a
+kind of murder.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_95_95" id="Footnote_95_95"></a><a href="#FNanchor_95_95"><span class="label">[95]</span></a>
+See No. 112.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_96_96" id="Footnote_96_96"></a><a href="#FNanchor_96_96"><span class="label">[96]</span></a> See the date of this number.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_97_97" id="Footnote_97_97"></a><a href="#FNanchor_97_97"><span class="label">[97]</span></a> Sticks used in the game of tip-cat and trap-ball.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_98_98" id="Footnote_98_98"></a><a href="#FNanchor_98_98"><span class="label">[98]</span></a> Cf. the <i>Spectator</i>,
+No. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/12030/12030-h/12030-h/SV2/Spectator2.html#section343">343</a>, where Addison refers to Sir
+Paul Rycaut's work on the Ottoman Empire.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_99_99" id="Footnote_99_99"></a><a href="#FNanchor_99_99"><span class="label">[99]</span></a> Disingenuousness.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_100_100" id="Footnote_100_100"></a><a href="#FNanchor_100_100"><span class="label">[100]</span></a>
+See Nos. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number28">28</a>,
+<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number31">31</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_101_101" id="Footnote_101_101"></a><a href="#FNanchor_101_101"><span class="label">[101]</span></a> "Cock-fighting is diverting enough, the anger and
+eagerness of these little creatures, and the triumphant crowing of a
+cock when he strutts haughtily on the body of his enemy, has something
+in't singular and pleasant. What renders these shows less agreeable is
+the great number of wagerers, who appear as angry as the cocks
+themselves, and make such a noise that one would believe every minute
+they were going to fight; but combats among the men are another kind of
+diversion, where the spectators are more peaceable" ("Letters describing
+the Character and Customs of the English and French Nations; by Mr.
+Muralt, a Gentleman of Switzerland. 2nd ed.; translated from the
+French." London, 1726, p. 41). In Hogarth's picture of a cock-fight a
+Frenchman is depicted turning away in disgust (see Lecky's "History of
+England in the Eighteenth Century," 1878, i. 552). "There will be a
+cock-match fought at Leeds in Yorkshire, the 19th of March next; and
+another at Wakefield the 23rd of April next. At each meeting 40 Cocks on
+each side will be shewn. These are fought betwixt the people of the West
+and North Riding of Yorkshire; And every Battel 5<i>l.</i> each side, and
+50<i>l.</i> the odd Battel, and four Shake Bags for 10<i>l.</i> each Cock"
+(<i>London Gazette</i>, March 8-12, 1687). A cock-match between Surrey and
+Sussex was to commence on May 4, 1703, "and will continue the whole
+week" (<i>London Gazette</i>, April 12-15, 1703) "The Royal Pastime of
+Cock-fighting, or, the Art of Breeding, Feeding, Fighting and Curing
+Cocks of the Game. Published purely for the good and benefit of all such
+as take Delight in that Royal and Warlike Sport. To which is prefixed, a
+Short Treatise, wherein Cocking is proved not only ancient and
+honourable, but also useful and profitable. By R. H., a Lover of the
+Sport, and a friend to such as delight in Military Discipline" (<i>Post
+Boy</i>, Jan. 15-18, 1708-9).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_102_102" id="Footnote_102_102"></a><a href="#FNanchor_102_102"><span class="label">[102]</span></a> Addison, also referring to Rapin, writes to the same
+effect in the <i>Spectator</i>, No. 44. Rapin said, in his "Reflections on
+Aristotle's Treatise of Poetry," translated in 1694: "The English, our
+neighbours, love blood in their sports, by the quality of their
+temperament.... The English have more of genius for tragedy than other
+people, as well by the spirit of their nation, which delights in
+cruelty, as also by the character of their language, which is proper for
+great expressions." There is an "Address to the Cock-killers" in
+Lillie's "Letters sent to the <i>Tatler</i> and <i>Spectator</i>," i. 25-29.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_103_103" id="Footnote_103_103"></a><a href="#FNanchor_103_103"><span class="label">[103]</span></a> Samuel Sandford seems to have left the stage about 1700.
+He had a low and crooked person, and Cibber describes him as "an
+excellent actor in disagreeable parts." Charles II. called him the best
+villain in the world. There is a story of a new play being damned
+because Sandford played the part of an honest statesman, and the pit was
+therefore disappointed at not seeing the usual Iago-like or Machiavelian
+character.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<a name="No_135" id="No_135"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 135.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Steele.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Thursday, Feb. 16</i>, to <i>Saturday, Feb. 18, 1709-10</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Quod si in hoc erro, quod animos hominum immortales esse credam,
+libenter erro: nec mihi hunc errorem, quo delector, dum vivo,
+extorqueri volo: sin mortuus (ut quidam minuti philosophi censent)
+nihil sentiam; non vereor, ne hunc errorem meum mortui philosophi
+irrideant.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Cicero</span>, De Sen., cap. ult.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>Sheer Lane, February 17.</i></p>
+
+<p>Several letters which I have lately received give me information, that
+some well-disposed persons have taken offence at my using the word
+"freethinker" as a term of reproach. To set therefore this matter in a
+clear light, I must declare, that no one can have a greater veneration
+than myself for the freethinkers of antiquity, who acted the same part
+in those times, as the great men of the Reformation did in several
+nations of Europe, by exerting themselves against the idolatry and
+superstition of the times in which they lived. It was by this noble
+impulse<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> that Socrates and his disciples, as well as all the
+philosophers of note in Greece, and Cicero, Seneca, with all the learned
+men of Rome, endeavoured to enlighten their contemporaries amidst the
+darkness and ignorance in which the world was then sunk and buried. The
+great points which these freethinkers endeavoured to establish and
+inculcate into the minds of men, were, the formation of the universe,
+the superintendency of Providence, the perfection of the divine nature,
+the immortality of the soul, and the future state of rewards and
+punishments. They all complied with the religion of their country, as
+much as possible, in such particulars as did not contradict and pervert
+these great and fundamental doctrines of mankind. On the contrary, the
+persons who now set up for freethinkers, are such as endeavour by a
+little trash of words and sophistry, to weaken and destroy those very
+principles, for the vindication of which, freedom of thought at first
+became laudable and heroic.<a name="FNanchor_104_104" id="FNanchor_104_104"></a><a href="#Footnote_104_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a> These apostates, from reason and good
+sense, can look at the glorious frame of Nature, without paying an
+adoration to Him that raised it; can consider the great revolutions in
+the universe, without lifting up their minds to that Superior Power
+which hath the direction of it; can presume to censure the Deity in His
+ways towards men; can level mankind with the beasts that perish; can
+extinguish in their own minds all the pleasing hopes of a future state,
+and lull themselves into a stupid security against the terrors of it. If
+one were to take the word "priestcraft" out of the mouths of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> these
+shallow monsters, they would be immediately struck dumb. It is by the
+help of this single term that they endeavour to disappoint the good
+works of the most learned and venerable order of men, and harden the
+hearts of the ignorant against the very light of Nature, and the common
+received notions of mankind. We ought not to treat such miscreants as
+these upon the foot of fair disputants, but to pour out contempt upon
+them, and speak of them with scorn and infamy, as the pests of society,
+the revilers of human nature, and the blasphemers of a Being, whom a
+good man would rather die than hear dishonoured. Cicero, after having
+mentioned the great heroes of knowledge that recommended this divine
+doctrine of the immortality of the soul, calls those small pretenders to
+wisdom who declared against it, certain minute philosophers,<a name="FNanchor_105_105" id="FNanchor_105_105"></a><a href="#Footnote_105_105" class="fnanchor">[105]</a> using
+a diminutive even of the word "little," to express the despicable
+opinion he had of them. The contempt he throws upon them in another
+passage<a name="FNanchor_106_106" id="FNanchor_106_106"></a><a href="#Footnote_106_106" class="fnanchor">[106]</a> is yet more remarkable, where, to show the mean thoughts he
+entertains of them, he declares, he would rather be in the wrong with
+Plato, than in the right with such company. There is indeed nothing in
+the world so ridiculous as one of these grave philosophical
+freethinkers, that hath neither passions nor appetites to gratify, no
+heats of blood nor vigour of constitution that can turn his systems of
+infidelity to his advantage, or raise pleasures out of them which are
+inconsistent with the belief of a hereafter. One that has neither wit,
+gallantry, mirth, nor youth, to indulge by these notions, but only a
+poor, joyless, uncomfortable vanity of distinguishing himself from the
+rest of mankind, is rather to be regarded as a mis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>chievous lunatic,
+than a mistaken philosopher. A chaste infidel, a speculative libertine,
+is an animal that I should not believe to be in Nature, did I not
+sometimes meet with this species of men, that plead for the indulgence
+of their passions in the midst of a severe studious life, and talk
+against the immortality of the soul over a dish of coffee.</p>
+
+<p>I would fain ask a minute philosopher, what good he proposes to mankind
+by the publishing of his doctrines? Will they make a man a better
+citizen, or father of a family; a more endearing husband, friend, or
+son? Will they enlarge his public or private virtues, or correct any of
+his frailties or vices? What is there either joyful or glorious in such
+opinions? Do they either refresh or enlarge our thoughts? Do they
+contribute to the happiness, or raise the dignity of human nature? The
+only good that I have ever heard pretended to, is, that they banish
+terrors, and set the mind at ease. But whose terrors do they banish? It
+is certain, if there were any strength in their arguments, they would
+give great disturbance to minds that are influenced by virtue, honour,
+and morality, and take from us the only comforts and supports of
+affliction, sickness, and old age. The minds therefore which they set at
+ease, are only those of impenitent criminals and malefactors, and which,
+to the good of mankind, should be in perpetual terror and alarm.</p>
+
+<p>I must confess, nothing is more usual than for a freethinker, in
+proportion as the insolence of scepticism is abated in him by years and
+knowledge, or humbled and beaten down by sorrow or sickness, to
+reconcile himself to the general conceptions of reasonable creatures; so
+that we frequently see the apostates turning from their revolt toward
+the end of their lives, and employing the refuse of their parts in
+promoting those truths which they had before endeavoured to invalidate.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The history of a gentleman in France is very well known, who was so
+zealous a promoter of infidelity, that he had got together a select
+company of disciples, and travelled into all parts of the kingdom to
+make converts. In the midst of his fantastical success he fell sick, and
+was reclaimed to such a sense of his condition, that after he had passed
+some time in great agonies and horrors of mind, he begged those who had
+the care of burying him, to dress his body in the habit of a Capuchin,
+that the devil might not run away with it; and to do further justice
+upon himself, desired them to tie a halter about his neck, as a mark of
+that ignominious punishment, which in his own thoughts he had so justly
+deserved.</p>
+
+<p>I would not have persecution so far disgraced, as to wish these vermin
+might be animadverted on by any legal penalties; though I think it would
+be highly reasonable, that those few of them who die in the professions
+of their infidelity, should have such tokens of infamy fixed upon them,
+as might distinguish those bodies which are given up by the owners to
+oblivion and putrefaction, from those which rest in hope, and shall rise
+in glory. But at the same time that I am against doing them the honour
+of the notice of our laws, which ought not to suppose there are such
+criminals in being, I have often wondered how they can be tolerated in
+any mixed conversations while they are venting these absurd opinions;
+and should think, that if on any such occasion half a dozen of the most
+robust Christians in the company would lead one of these gentlemen to a
+pump, or convey him into a blanket, they would do very good service both
+to Church and State. I do not know how the laws stand in this
+particular; but I hope, whatever knocks, bangs or thumps might be given
+with such an honest intention, would not be construed as a breach of the
+peace. I daresay they would not be returned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> by the person who receives
+them; for whatever these fools may say in the vanity of their hearts,
+they are too wise to risk their lives upon the uncertainty of their
+opinions.</p>
+
+<p>When I was a young man about this town, I frequented the ordinary of the
+Black Horse, in Holborn, where the person that usually presided at the
+table was a rough old-fashioned gentleman, who, according to the custom
+of those times, had been the major and preacher of a regiment. It
+happened one day that a noisy young officer, bred in France, was venting
+some new-fangled notions, and speaking, in the gaiety of his humour,
+against the dispensations of Providence. The major at first only desired
+him to talk more respectfully of one for whom all the company had an
+honour; but finding him run on in his extravagance, began to reprimand
+him after a more serious manner. "Young man," said he, "do not abuse
+your Benefactor whilst you are eating His bread. Consider whose air you
+breathe, whose presence you are in, and who it is that gave you the
+power of that very speech which you make use of to His dishonour." The
+young fellow, who thought to turn matters into a jest, asked him if he
+was going to preach; but at the same time desired him to take care what
+he said when he spoke to a man of honour. "A man of honour?" says the
+major, "thou art an infidel and a blasphemer, and I shall use thee as
+such." In short, the quarrel ran so high, that the major was desired to
+walk out. Upon their coming into the garden, the old fellow advised his
+antagonist to consider the place into which one pass might drive him;
+but finding him grow upon him to a degree of scurrility, as believing
+the advice proceeded from fear; "Sirrah," says he, "if a thunderbolt
+does not strike thee dead before I come at thee, I shall not fail to
+chastise thee for thy profaneness to thy Maker, and thy sauciness to His
+servant." Upon this he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> drew his sword, and cried out with a loud voice,
+"The sword of the Lord and of Gideon"; which so terrified his
+antagonist, that he was immediately disarmed, and thrown upon his knees.
+In this posture he begged his life; but the major refused to grant it,
+before he had asked pardon for his offence in a short extemporary prayer
+which the old gentleman dictated to him upon the spot, and which his
+proselyte repeated after him in the presence of the whole ordinary, that
+were now gathered about him in the garden.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_104_104" id="Footnote_104_104"></a><a href="#FNanchor_104_104"><span class="label">[104]</span></a> In speaking of Collins' "Discourse of Free-Thinking"
+(1713) in the <i>Guardian</i> (No. 9), Steele says: "I cannot see any
+possible interpretation to give this work, but a design to subvert and
+ridicule the authority of scripture. The peace and tranquillity of the
+nation, and regards even above those, are so much concerned in this
+matter, that it is difficult to express sufficient sorrow for the
+offender, or indignation against him."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_105_105" id="Footnote_105_105"></a><a href="#FNanchor_105_105"><span class="label">[105]</span></a> See the motto at the head of this paper.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_106_106" id="Footnote_106_106"></a><a href="#FNanchor_106_106"><span class="label">[106]</span></a> "Tusc. Disp." i. 17. Cicero calls those who differ from
+Plato and Socrates "plebii omnes philosophi" (<i>ib.</i> i. 23).</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<a name="No_136" id="No_136"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 136.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader"> [<span class="smcap">Steele.</span><a name="FNanchor_107_107" id="FNanchor_107_107"></a><a href="#Footnote_107_107" class="fnanchor">[107]</a></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Saturday, Feb. 18</i>, to <i>Tuesday, Feb. 21, 1709-10</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Deprendi miserum est; Fabio vel judice vincam.<br /></span>
+<span class="i24"><span class="smcap">Hor.</span>, 1 Sat. ii. 134.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>White's Chocolate-house, February 18.</i></p>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>The History of Tom Varnish.</i></p>
+
+<p>Because I have a professed aversion to long beginnings of stories, I
+will go into this at once, by telling you, that there dwells near the
+Royal Exchange as happy a couple as ever entered into wedlock. These
+live in that mutual confidence of each other, which renders the
+satisfactions of marriage even greater than those of friendship, and
+makes wife and husband the dearest appellations of human life. Mr.
+Ballance is a merchant of good consideration, and understands the world
+not from speculation, but practice. His wife is the daughter of an
+honest house, ever bred in a family-way; and has, from a natural good<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>
+understanding, and great innocence, a freedom which men of sense know to
+be the certain sign of virtue, and fools take to be an encouragement to
+vice.</p>
+
+<p>Tom Varnish, a young gentleman of the Middle Temple, by the bounty of a
+good father who was so obliging as to die, and leave him in his
+twenty-fourth year, besides a good estate, a large sum, which lay in the
+hands of Mr. Ballance, had by this means an intimacy at his house; and
+being one of those hard students who read plays for improvement in the
+law, took his rules of life from thence. Upon mature deliberation, he
+conceived it very proper, that he, as a man of wit and pleasure of the
+town, should have an intrigue with his merchant's wife. He no sooner
+thought of this adventure, but he began it by an amorous epistle to the
+lady, and a faithful promise to wait upon her, at a certain hour the
+next evening, when he knew her husband was to be absent.</p>
+
+<p>The letter was no sooner received, but it was communicated to the
+husband, and produced no other effect in him, than that he joined with
+his wife to raise all the mirth they could out of this fantastical piece
+of gallantry. They were so little concerned at this dangerous man of
+mode, that they plotted ways to perplex him without hurting him. Varnish
+comes exactly at his hour; and the lady's well-acted confusion at his
+entrance, gave him opportunity to repeat some couplets very fit for the
+occasion with very much grace and spirit. His theatrical manner of
+making love was interrupted by an alarm of the husband's coming; and the
+wife, in a personated terror, beseeched him, if he had any value for the
+honour of a woman that loved him, he would jump out of the window. He
+did so, and fell upon feather-beds placed on purpose to receive him.</p>
+
+<p>It is not to be conceived how great the joy of an amorous man is when he
+has suffered for his mistress, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> is never the worse for it. Varnish
+the next day writ a most elegant billet, wherein he said all that
+imagination could form upon the occasion. He violently protested, going
+out of the window was no way terrible, but as it was going from her;
+with several other kind expressions, which procured him a second
+assignation. Upon his second visit, he was conveyed by a faithful maid
+into her bedchamber, and left there to expect the arrival of her
+mistress. But the wench, according to her instructions, ran in again to
+him, and locked the door after her to keep out her master. She had just
+time enough to convey the lover into a chest before she admitted the
+husband and his wife into the room.</p>
+
+<p>You may be sure that trunk was absolutely necessary to be opened; but
+upon her husband's ordering it, she assured him, she had taken all the
+care imaginable in packing up the things with her own hand, and he might
+send the trunk aboard as soon as he thought fit. The easy husband
+believed his wife, and the good couple went to bed; Varnish having the
+happiness to pass the night in his mistress's bedchamber without
+molestation. The morning arose, but our lover was not well situated to
+observe her blushes; so that all we know of his sentiments on this
+occasion, is, that he heard Ballance ask for the key, and say, he would
+himself go with this chest, and have it opened before the captain of the
+ship, for the greater safety of so valuable a lading.</p>
+
+<p>The goods were hoisted away, and Mr. Ballance marching by his chest with
+great care and diligence, omitted nothing that might give his passenger
+perplexity. But to consummate all, he delivered the chest, with strict
+charge, in case they were in danger of being taken, to throw it
+overboard, for there were letters in it, the matter of which might be of
+great service to the enemy.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>N.B. It is not thought advisable to proceed further in this account, Mr.
+Varnish being just returned from his travels, and willing to conceal the
+occasion of his first applying himself to the languages.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>St. James's Coffee-house, February 20.</i></p>
+
+<p>This day came in a mail from Holland, with a confirmation of our late
+advices, that a treaty of peace would very suddenly be set on foot, and
+that yachts were appointed by the States to convey the Ministers of
+France from Moerdyk to Gertruydenburg, which is appointed for the place
+wherein this important negotiation is to be transacted. It is said, this
+affair has been in agitation ever since the close of the last campaign;
+Monsieur Petticum having been appointed to receive from time to time the
+overtures of the enemy. During the whole winter, the Ministers of France
+have used their utmost skill in forming such answers as might amuse the
+Allies, in hopes of a favourable event; either in the north, or some
+other part of Europe, which might affect some part of the alliance too
+nearly to leave it in a capacity of adhering firmly to the interest of
+the whole. In all this transaction, the French king's own name has been
+as little made use of as possible: but the season of the year advancing
+too fast to admit of much longer delays in the present condition of
+France, Monsieur Torcy, in the name of the king, sent a letter to
+Monsieur Petticum, wherein he says, that "the king is willing all the
+preliminary articles shall rest as they are during the treaty for the
+37th."</p>
+
+<p>Upon the receipt of this advice, passports were sent to the French
+Court, and their Ministers are expected at Moerdyk on the 5th of the
+next month.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>Sheer Lane, February 20.</i></p>
+
+<p>I have been earnestly solicited for a further term, for wearing the
+farthingale by several of the fair sex, but more especially by the
+following petitioners:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"The humble petition of Deborah Hark, Sarah Threadpaper and Rachael
+Thimble, spinsters, and single women, commonly called
+Waiting-maids, in behalf of themselves and their sisterhood;</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Sheweth,</span></p>
+
+<p>"That your Worship hath been pleased to order and command, that no
+person or persons shall presume to wear quilted petticoats, on
+forfeiture of the said petticoats, or penalty of wearing ruffs,
+after the 17th instant now expired.</p>
+
+<p>"That your petitioners have time out of mind been entitled to wear
+their ladies' clothes, or to sell the same.</p>
+
+<p>"That the sale of the said clothes is spoiled by your Worship's
+said prohibition.</p>
+
+<p>"Your petitioners therefore most humbly pray, that your Worship
+would please to allow, that all gentlewomen's gentlewomen may be
+allowed to wear the said dress, or to repair the loss of such a
+perquisite in such manner as your Worship shall think fit.</p>
+
+<p>"And your petitioners," &amp;c.</p></div>
+
+<p>I do allow the allegations of this petition to be just, and forbid all
+persons but the petitioners, or those who shall purchase from them, to
+wear the said garment after the date hereof.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_107_107" id="Footnote_107_107"></a><a href="#FNanchor_107_107"><span class="label">[107]</span></a> Nichols suggests that this paper may be by Addison, and
+it is certainly not unlikely that he was the author of the "History of
+Tom Varnish."</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>
+<a name="No_137" id="No_137"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 137.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Steele.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Tuesday, Feb. 21</i>, to <i>Thursday, Feb. 23, 1709-10</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Ter centum tonat ore deos, Erebumque, Chaosque,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tergeminamque Hecaten.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Virg.</span>, &AElig;n. iv. 510.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>Sheer Lane, February 22.</i></p>
+
+<p>Dick Reptile and I sat this evening later than the rest of the club; and
+as some men are better company when only with one friend, others when
+there is a large number, I found Dick to be of the former kind. He was
+bewailing to me in very just terms, the offences which he frequently met
+with in the abuse of speech: some use ten times more words than they
+need, some put in words quite foreign to their purpose, and others adorn
+their discourses with oaths and blasphemies by way of tropes and
+figures. What my good friend started, dwelt upon me after I came home
+this evening, and led me into an inquiry with myself, whence should
+arise such strange excrescences in discourse? Whereas it must be obvious
+to all reasonable beings, that the sooner a man speaks his mind, the
+more complaisant he is to the man with whom he talks: but upon mature
+deliberation, I am come to this resolution, that for one man who speaks
+to be understood, there are ten who talk only to be admired.</p>
+
+<p>The ancient Greeks had little independent syllables called "expletives,"
+which they brought into their discourses both in verse and prose, for no
+other purpose but for the better grace and sound of their sentences and
+periods. I know no example but this which can authorise the use of more
+words than are necessary. But whether it be from this freedom taken by
+that wise nation, or however it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> arises, Dick Reptile hit upon a very
+just and common cause of offence in the generality of the people of all
+orders. We have one here in our lane who speaks nothing without quoting
+an authority; for it is always with him, so and so, "as the man said."
+He asked me this morning, how I did, "as the man said"; and hoped I
+would come now and then to see him, "as the man said." I am acquainted
+with another, who never delivers himself upon any subject, but he cries,
+he only speaks his "poor judgment"; this is his humble opinion; or as
+for his part, if he might presume to offer anything on that subject. But
+of all the persons who add elegances and superfluities to their
+discourses, those who deserve the foremost rank, are the swearers; and
+the lump of these may, I think, be very aptly divided into the common
+distinction of high and low. Dulness and barrenness of thought is the
+original of it in both these sects, and they differ only in
+constitution: the low is generally a phlegmatic, and the high a choleric
+coxcomb. The man of phlegm is sensible of the emptiness of his
+discourse, and will tell you, that "I'fackins," such a thing is true: or
+if you warm him a little, he may run into passion, and cry,
+"Odsbodikins," you do not say right. But the high affects a sublimity in
+dulness, and invokes hell and damnation at the breaking of a glass, or
+the slowness of a drawer.</p>
+
+<p>I was the other day trudging along Fleet Street on foot, and an old army
+friend came up with me. We were both going towards Westminster, and
+finding the streets were so crowded that we could not keep together, we
+resolved to club for a coach. This gentleman I knew to be the first of
+the order of the choleric. I must confess (were there no crime in it),
+nothing could be more diverting than the impertinence of the high juror:
+for whether there is remedy or not against what offends him, still he
+is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> to show he is offended; and he must sure not omit to be
+magnificently passionate, by falling on all things in his way. We were
+stopped by a train of coaches at Temple Bar. "What the devil!" says my
+companion, "cannot you drive on, coachman? D&mdash;&mdash;n you all, for a set of
+sons of whores, you will stop here to be paid by the hour! There is not
+such a set of confounded dogs as the coachmen unhanged! But these
+rascally Cits&mdash;&mdash; 'Ounds, why should not there be a tax to make these
+dogs widen their gates? Oh! but the hell-hounds move at last." "Ay,"
+said I, "I knew you would make them whip on if once they heard you."
+"No," says he; "but would it not fret a man to the devil, to pay for
+being carried slower than he can walk? Lookee, there is for ever a stop
+at this hole by St. Clement's Church. Blood, you dog!&mdash;Harkee,
+sirrah,&mdash;why, and be d&mdash;&mdash;d to you, do not you drive over that fellow?
+Thunder, furies, and damnation! I'll cut your ears off, you fellow
+before there. Come hither, you dog you, and let me wring your neck round
+your shoulders." We had a repetition of the same eloquence at the
+Cockpit,<a name="FNanchor_108_108" id="FNanchor_108_108"></a><a href="#Footnote_108_108" class="fnanchor">[108]</a> and the turning into Palace Yard.</p>
+
+<p>This gave me a perfect image of the insignificancy of the creatures who
+practise this enormity; and made me conclude, that it is ever want of
+sense makes a man guilty in this kind. It was excellently well said,
+that this folly had no temptation to excuse it, no man being born of a
+swearing constitution. In a word, a few rumbling words and consonants
+clapped together, without any sense, will make an accomplished swearer:
+and it is needless to dwell long upon this blustering impertinence,
+which is already<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> banished out of the society of well-bred men, and can
+be useful only to bullies and ill tragic writers, who would have sound
+and noise pass for courage and sense.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>St. James's Coffee-house, February 22.</i></p>
+
+<p>There arrived a messenger last night from Harwich, who left that place
+just as the Duke of Marlborough was going on board. The character of
+this important general going out by the command of his Queen, and at the
+request of his country, puts me in mind of that noble figure which
+Shakespeare gives Harry the Fifth upon his expedition against France.
+The poet wishes for abilities to represent so great a hero:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><div class="itals">
+<span class="i0">"Oh for a muse of fire!" says he,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">"Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Leashed in, like hounds, should Famine, Sword and Fire<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Crouch for employment."<a name="FNanchor_109_109" id="FNanchor_109_109"></a><a href="#Footnote_109_109" class="fnanchor">[109]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>A conqueror drawn like the god of battle, with such a dreadful leash of
+hell-hounds at his command, makes a picture of as much majesty and
+terror as is to be met with in any poet.</p>
+
+<p>Shakespeare understood the force of this particular allegory so well,
+that he had it in his thoughts in another passage, which is altogether
+as daring and sublime as the former. What I mean, is in the tragedy of
+"Julius C&aelig;sar," where Antony, after having foretold the bloodshed and
+destruction that should be brought upon the earth by the death of that
+great man; to fill up the horror of his description, adds the following
+verses:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><div class="itals">
+<span class="i0">"And C&aelig;sar's spirit ranging for revenge,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With Ate by his side, come hot from Hell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shall in these confines, with a monarch's voice,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cry 'Havoc'; and let slip the dogs of war."<a name="FNanchor_110_110" id="FNanchor_110_110"></a><a href="#Footnote_110_110" class="fnanchor">[110]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>I do not question but these quotations will call to mind in my readers
+of learning and taste, that imaginary person described by Virgil with
+the same spirit. He mentions it upon the occasion of a peace which was
+restored to the Roman Empire, and which we may now hope for from the
+departure of that great man who has given occasion to these reflections.
+"The Temple of Janus," says he, "shall be shut, and in the midst of it
+Military Fury shall sit upon a pile of broken arms, loaded with a
+hundred chains, bellowing with madness, and grinding his teeth in blood.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><div class="itals">
+<span class="i0">"Claudentur belli port&aelig;; Furor impius intus,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">S&aelig;va sedens super arma, et centum vinctus ahenis<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Post tergum nodis, fremit horridus ore cruento."<a name="FNanchor_111_111" id="FNanchor_111_111"></a><a href="#Footnote_111_111" class="fnanchor">[111]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div><div class="stanza"><div class="itals">
+<span class="i0">"Janus himself before his fane shall wait,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And keep the dreadful issues of his gate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With bolts and iron bars. Within remains<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Imprisoned Fury bound in brazen chains;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">High on a trophy raised of useless arms,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He sits, and threats the world with vain alarms."<br /></span>
+<span class="i28"><span class="smcap">Dryden.</span><br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+
+<p class="center">ADVERTISEMENT.</p>
+
+
+<p>The tickets which were delivered out for the benefit of Signor Nicolini
+Grimaldi<a name="FNanchor_112_112" id="FNanchor_112_112"></a><a href="#Footnote_112_112" class="fnanchor">[112]</a> on the 24th instant, will be taken on Thursday the 2nd of
+March, his benefit being deferred till that day.</p>
+
+<p>N.B. In all operas for the future, where it thunders and lightens in
+proper time and in tune, the matter of the said lightning is to be of
+the finest resin; and, for the sake of harmony, the same which is used
+to the best Cremona fiddles.</p>
+
+<p>Note also, that the true perfumed lightning is only prepared and sold by
+Mr. Charles Lillie, at the corner of Beauford Buildings.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The lady who has chosen Mr. Bickerstaff for her valentine, and is at a
+loss what to present him with, is desired to make him, with her own
+hands, a warm nightcap.<a name="FNanchor_113_113" id="FNanchor_113_113"></a><a href="#Footnote_113_113" class="fnanchor">[113]</a></p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_108_108" id="Footnote_108_108"></a><a href="#FNanchor_108_108"><span class="label">[108]</span></a> A portion of Henry VIII.'s palace at Whitehall. When
+Whitehall was burned down in 1697, the Cockpit escaped, and was used as
+a Court for the Committee of the Privy Council.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_109_109" id="Footnote_109_109"></a><a href="#FNanchor_109_109"><span class="label">[109]</span></a> "Henry the Fifth," Prologue.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_110_110" id="Footnote_110_110"></a><a href="#FNanchor_110_110"><span class="label">[110]</span></a> "Julius C&aelig;sar," act iii. sc. i.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_111_111" id="Footnote_111_111"></a><a href="#FNanchor_111_111"><span class="label">[111]</span></a> "&AElig;neid," i. 294.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_112_112" id="Footnote_112_112"></a><a href="#FNanchor_112_112"><span class="label">[112]</span></a>
+See Nos. <a href="#No_115">115</a>, <a href="#No_142">142</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_113_113" id="Footnote_113_113"></a><a href="#FNanchor_113_113"><span class="label">[113]</span></a> A description of the custom of drawing valentines, and of
+the hope and fear shown on the faces of the drawers, who in their
+earnestness gave to a scrap of paper the same effect as the person
+represented, is to be found in Lillie's "Letters sent to the <i>Tatler</i>
+and <i>Spectator</i>" (1725), i. 30. See No. <a href="#No_141">141</a>.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<a name="No_138" id="No_138"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 138.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Steele.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Thursday, Feb. 23</i>, to <i>Saturday, Feb. 25, 1709-10</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Secretosque pios, his dantem jura Catonem.<br /></span>
+<span class="i24"><span class="smcap">Virg.</span>, &AElig;n. viii. 670.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>Sheer Lane, February 24.</i></p>
+
+<p>It is an argument of a clear and worthy spirit in a man, to be able to
+disengage himself from the opinions of others, so far as not to let the
+deference due to the sense of mankind ensnare him to act against the
+dictates of his own reason. But the generality of the world are so far
+from walking by any such maxim, that it is almost a standing rule to do
+as others do, or be ridiculous. I have heard my old friend Mr. Hart<a name="FNanchor_114_114" id="FNanchor_114_114"></a><a href="#Footnote_114_114" class="fnanchor">[114]</a>
+speak it as an observation among the players, that it is impossible to
+act with grace, except the actor has forgot that he is before an
+audience. Till he has arrived at that, his motion, his air, his every
+step and gesture, has something in them which discovers he is under a
+restraint for fear of being ill received; or if he considers himself as
+in the presence of those who approve his behaviour, you see an
+affectation of that pleasure run through his whole carriage. It is as
+common in life, as upon the stage, to behold a man in the most
+indifferent action betray a sense he has of doing what he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> is about
+gracefully. Some have such an immoderate relish for applause, that they
+expect it for things, which in themselves are so frivolous, that it is
+impossible, without this affectation, to make them appear worthy either
+of blame or praise. There is Will Glare, so passionately intent upon
+being admired, that when you see him in public places, every muscle of
+his face discovers his thoughts are fixed upon the consideration of what
+figure he makes. He will often fall into a musing posture to attract
+observation, and is then obtruding himself upon the company when he
+pretends to be withdrawn from it. Such little arts are the certain and
+infallible tokens of a superficial mind, as the avoiding observation is
+the sign of a great and sublime one. It is therefore extremely difficult
+for a man to judge even of his own actions, without forming to himself
+an idea of what he should act, were it in his power to execute all his
+desires without the observation of the rest of the world. There is an
+allegorical fable in Plato,<a name="FNanchor_115_115" id="FNanchor_115_115"></a><a href="#Footnote_115_115" class="fnanchor">[115]</a> which seems to admonish us, that we are
+very little acquainted with ourselves, while we know our actions are to
+pass the censures of others; but had we the power to accomplish all our
+wishes unobserved, we should then easily inform ourselves how far we are
+possessed of real and intrinsic virtue. The fable I was going to
+mention, is that of Gyges, who is said to have had an enchanted ring,
+which had in it a miraculous quality, making him who wore it visible or
+invisible, as he turned it to or from his body. The use Gyges made of
+his occasional invisibility, was, by the advantage of it, to violate a
+queen, and murder a king. Tully takes notice of this allegory, and says
+very handsomely, that a man of honour who had such a ring, would act
+just in the same manner as he would do without it.<a name="FNanchor_116_116" id="FNanchor_116_116"></a><a href="#Footnote_116_116" class="fnanchor">[116]</a> It is indeed no
+small pitch of virtue under the tempta<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>tion of impunity, and the hopes
+of accomplishing all a man desires, not to transgress the rules of
+justice and virtue; but this is rather not being an ill man, than being
+positively a good one; and it seems wonderful, that so great a soul as
+that of Tully, should not form to himself a thousand worthy actions
+which a virtuous man would be prompted to by the possession of such a
+secret. There are certainly some part of mankind who are guardian beings
+to the other. Sallust could say of Cato, "that he had rather be than
+appear good";<a name="FNanchor_117_117" id="FNanchor_117_117"></a><a href="#Footnote_117_117" class="fnanchor">[117]</a> but indeed, this eulogium rose no higher than (as I
+just now hinted) to an inoffensiveness, rather than an active virtue.
+Had it occurred to the noble orator to represent, in his language, the
+glorious pleasures of a man secretly employed in beneficence and
+generosity, it would certainly have made a more charming page than any
+he has now left behind him. How might a man, furnished with Gyges'
+secret, employ it in bringing together distant friends, laying snares
+for creating goodwill in the room of groundless hatred; in removing the
+pangs of an unjust jealousy, the shyness of an imperfect reconciliation,
+and the tremor of an awful love! Such a one could give confidence to
+bashful merit, and confusion to overbearing impudence.</p>
+
+<p>Certain it is, that secret kindnesses done to mankind, are as beautiful
+as secret injuries are detestable. To be invisibly good, is as godlike,
+as to be invisibly ill, diabolical. As degenerate as we are apt to say
+the age we live in is, there are still amongst us men of illustrious
+minds, who enjoy all the pleasures of good actions, except that of being
+commended for them. There happens among others very worthy instances of
+a public spirit, one of which I am obliged to discover, because I know
+not otherwise how to obey the commands of the Benefactor.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> A citizen of
+London has given directions to Mr. Rayner, the writing-master of Paul's
+School,<a name="FNanchor_118_118" id="FNanchor_118_118"></a><a href="#Footnote_118_118" class="fnanchor">[118]</a> to educate at his charge ten boys (who shall be nominated
+by me) in writing and accounts, till they shall be fit for any trade. I
+desire therefore such as know any proper objects for receiving this
+bounty, to give notice thereof to Mr. Morphew, or Mr. Lillie, and they
+shall, if properly qualified, have instructions accordingly.</p>
+
+<p>Actions of this kind have in them something so transcendent, that it is
+an injury to applaud them, and a diminution of that merit which consists
+in shunning our approbation. We shall therefore leave them to enjoy that
+glorious obscurity, and silently admire their virtue, who can contemn
+the most delicious of human pleasures, that of receiving due praise.
+Such celestial dispositions very justly suspend the discovery of their
+benefactions, till they come where their actions cannot be
+misinterpreted, and receive their first congratulations in the company
+of angels.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center">ADVERTISEMENT.</p>
+
+<p>Whereas Mr. Bickerstaff, by a letter bearing date this 24th of February,
+has received information, that there are in and about the Royal Exchange
+a sort of persons commonly known by the name of "whetters,"<a name="FNanchor_119_119" id="FNanchor_119_119"></a><a href="#Footnote_119_119" class="fnanchor">[119]</a> who
+drink<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> themselves into an intermediate state of being neither drunk nor
+sober before the hours of 'change, or business, and in that condition
+buy and sell stocks, discount notes, and do many other acts of
+well-disposed citizens; this is to give notice, that from this day
+forward, no whetter shall be able to give or endorse any note, or
+execute any other point of commerce, after the third half pint, before
+the hour of one: and whoever shall transact any matter or matters with a
+whetter (not being himself of that order) shall be conducted to
+Moorfields<a name="FNanchor_120_120" id="FNanchor_120_120"></a><a href="#Footnote_120_120" class="fnanchor">[120]</a> upon the first application of his next of kin.</p>
+
+<p>N.B. No tavern near the 'Change shall deliver wine to such as drink at
+the bar standing, except the same shall be three parts of the best
+cider; and the master of the house shall produce a certificate of the
+same from Mr. Tintoret,<a name="FNanchor_121_121" id="FNanchor_121_121"></a><a href="#Footnote_121_121" class="fnanchor">[121]</a> or other credible wine-painter.</p>
+
+<p>Whereas the model of the intended Bedlam<a name="FNanchor_122_122" id="FNanchor_122_122"></a><a href="#Footnote_122_122" class="fnanchor">[122]</a> is now finished, and that
+the edifice itself will be very suddenly begun; it is desired, that all
+such as have relations, whom they would recommend to our care, would
+bring in their proofs with all speed, none being to be admitted of
+course but lovers, who are put into an immediate regimen. Young
+politicians also are received without fees or examination.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_114_114" id="Footnote_114_114"></a><a href="#FNanchor_114_114"><span class="label">[114]</span></a>
+See No. 99.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_115_115" id="Footnote_115_115"></a><a href="#FNanchor_115_115"><span class="label">[115]</span></a> "Republic," ii. 359.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_116_116" id="Footnote_116_116"></a><a href="#FNanchor_116_116"><span class="label">[116]</span></a> "De Officiis," iii. 9.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_117_117" id="Footnote_117_117"></a><a href="#FNanchor_117_117"><span class="label">[117]</span></a> "Bell. Cat." ad fin.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_118_118" id="Footnote_118_118"></a><a href="#FNanchor_118_118"><span class="label">[118]</span></a> "The Paul's scholar's copy-book, containing the round and
+round-text hands, with alphabets at large of the Greek and Hebrew, and
+joining-pieces of each. Embellished with proper ornaments of command of
+hand. By John Rayner, at the Hand and Pen, in St. Paul's Churchyard,
+London. Published for the use of schools. Sold by the author, and
+Jonathan Robinson, at the Golden Lion, in St. Paul's Churchyard. Price
+1<i>s.</i>" (No. 135, Advertisement). Rayner's book was dedicated to the
+Master and Wardens of the Mercers' Company, and was reissued in 1716 (W.
+Massey's "Origin and Progress of Letters," 1763, part ii. p. 120).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_119_119" id="Footnote_119_119"></a><a href="#FNanchor_119_119"><span class="label">[119]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="#No_141">141</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_120_120" id="Footnote_120_120"></a><a href="#FNanchor_120_120"><span class="label">[120]</span></a> Bedlam.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_121_121" id="Footnote_121_121"></a><a href="#FNanchor_121_121"><span class="label">[121]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="#No_131">131</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_122_122" id="Footnote_122_122"></a><a href="#FNanchor_122_122"><span class="label">[122]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="#No_125">125</a>.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>
+<a name="No_139" id="No_139"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 139.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Steele.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Saturday, Feb. 25</i>, to <i>Tuesday, Feb. 28, 1709-10</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i10">&mdash;&mdash;Nihil est, quod credere de se<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Non possit, cum laudatur Dis &aelig;qua potestas.<br /></span>
+<span class="i28"><span class="smcap">Juv.</span>, Sat. iv. 70.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>Sheer Lane, February 27.</i></p>
+
+<p>When I reflect upon the many nights I have sat up for some months last
+past in the greatest anxiety for the good of my neighbours and
+contemporaries, it is no small discouragement to me, to see how slow a
+progress I make in the reformation of the world. But indeed I must do my
+female readers the justice to own, that their tender hearts are much
+more susceptible of good impressions, than the minds of the other sex.
+Business and ambition take up men's thoughts too much to leave room for
+philosophy: but if you speak to women in a style and manner proper to
+approach them, they never fail to improve by your counsel. I shall
+therefore for the future turn my thoughts more particularly to their
+service, and study the best methods to adorn their persons, and inform
+their minds in the justest methods to make them what Nature designed
+them, the most beauteous objects of our eyes, and the most agreeable
+companions of our lives. But when I say this, I must not omit at the
+same time to look into their errors and mistakes, that being the
+readiest way to the intended end of adorning and instructing them. It
+must be acknowledged, that the very inadvertencies of this sex are owing
+to the other; for if men were not flatterers, women could not fall into
+that general cause of all their follies, and our misfortunes, their love
+of flattery. Were the commendation of these agreeable creatures built<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>
+upon its proper foundation, the higher we raised their opinion of
+themselves, the greater would be the advantage to our sex; but all the
+topic of praise is drawn from very senseless and extravagant ideas we
+pretend we have of their beauty and perfection. Thus when a young man
+falls in love with a young woman, from that moment she is no more Mrs.
+Alice such-a-one, born of such a father, and educated by such a mother;
+but from the first minute that he casts his eye upon her with desire, he
+conceives a doubt in his mind, what heavenly power gave so unexpected a
+blow to a heart that was ever before untouched. But who can resist Fate
+and Destiny, which are lodged in Mrs. Alice's eyes? After which he
+desires orders accordingly, whether he is to live or breathe; the smile
+or frown of his goddess is the only thing that can now either save or
+destroy him. By this means, the well-humoured girl, that would have
+romped with him before she received this declaration, assumes a state
+suitable to the majesty he has given her, and treats him as the vassal
+he calls himself. The girl's head is immediately turned by having the
+power of life and death, and takes care to suit every motion and air to
+her new sovereignty. After he has placed himself at this distance, he
+must never hope to recover his former familiarity, till she has had the
+addresses of another, and found them less sincere.</p>
+
+<p>If the application to women were justly turned, the address of flattery,
+though it implied at the same time an admonition, would be much more
+likely to succeed. Should a captivated lover, in a billet, let his
+mistress know, that her piety to her parents, her gentleness of
+behaviour, her prudent economy with respect to her own little affairs in
+a virgin condition, had improved the passion which her beauty had
+inspired him with, into so settled an esteem for her, that of all women
+breathing he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> wished her his wife; though his commending her for
+qualities she knew she had as a virgin, would make her believe he
+expected from her an answerable conduct in the character of a matron, I
+will answer for it, his suit would be carried on with less perplexity.</p>
+
+<p>Instead of this, the generality of our young women, taking all their
+notions of life from gay writings, or letters of love, consider
+themselves as goddesses, nymphs, and shepherdesses.</p>
+
+<p>By this romantic sense of things, all the natural relations and duties
+of life are forgotten, and our female part of mankind are bred and
+treated, as if they were designed to inhabit the happy fields of
+Arcadia, rather than be wives and mothers in old England. It is indeed
+long since I had the happiness to converse familiarly with this sex, and
+therefore have been fearful of falling into the error which recluse men
+are very subject to, that of giving false representations of the world
+from which they have retired, by imaginary schemes drawn from their own
+reflections. An old man cannot easily gain admittance into the
+dressing-room of ladies; I therefore thought it time well spent, to turn
+over Agrippa, and use all my occult art, to give my old cornelian ring
+the same force with that of Gyges, which I have lately spoken of.<a name="FNanchor_123_123" id="FNanchor_123_123"></a><a href="#Footnote_123_123" class="fnanchor">[123]</a>
+By the help of this, I went unobserved to a friend's house of mine, and
+followed the chamber-maid invisibly about twelve of the clock into the
+bed-chamber of the beauteous Flavia, his fine daughter, just before she
+got up.</p>
+
+<p>I drew the curtains, and being wrapped up in the safety of my old age,
+could with much pleasure, without passion, behold her sleeping with
+Waller's poems, and a letter fixed in that part of him, where every
+woman thinks herself described. The light flashing upon her face,
+awakened<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> her: she opened her eyes, and her lips too, repeating that
+piece of false wit in that admired poet:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><div class="itals">
+<span class="i0">Such Helen was, and who can blame the boy,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That in so bright a flame consumed his Troy?<a name="FNanchor_124_124" id="FNanchor_124_124"></a><a href="#Footnote_124_124" class="fnanchor">[124]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>This she pronounced with a most bewitching sweetness; but after it
+fetched a sigh, that methought had more desire than languishment, then
+took out her letter, and read aloud, for the pleasure, I suppose, of
+hearing soft words in praise of herself, the following epistle:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Madam</span>,</p>
+
+<p>"I sat near you at the Opera last night; but knew no entertainment
+from the vain show and noise about me, while I waited wholly intent
+upon the motion of your bright eyes, in hopes of a glance, that
+might restore me to the pleasures of sight and hearing in the midst
+of beauty and harmony. It is said, the hell of the accursed in the
+next life arises from an incapacity to partake the joys of the
+blessed, though they were to be admitted to them. Such I am sure
+was my condition all this evening; and if you, my deity, cannot
+have so much mercy as to make me by your influence capable of
+tasting the satisfactions of life, my being is ended, which
+consisted only in your favour."</p></div>
+
+<p>The letter was hardly read over, when she rushed out of bed in her
+wrapping-gown, and consulted her glass for the truth of his passion. She
+raised her head, and turned it to a profile, repeating the last lines,
+"my being is ended, which consisted only in your favour." The goddess
+immediately called her maid, and fell to dressing that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> mischievous face
+of hers, without any manner of consideration for the mortal who had
+offered up his petition. Nay, it was so far otherwise, that the whole
+time of her woman's combing her hair was spent in discourse of the
+impertinence of his passion, and ended, in declaring a resolution, if
+she ever had him, to make him wait. She also frankly told the favourite
+gipsy that was prating to her, that her passionate lover had put it out
+of her power to be civil to him, if she were inclined to it; "for," said
+she, "if I am thus celestial to my lover, he will certainly so far think
+himself disappointed, as I grow into the familiarity and form of a
+mortal woman."</p>
+
+<p>I came away as I went in, without staying for other remarks than what
+confirmed me in the opinion, that it is from the notions the men inspire
+them with, that the women are so fantastical in the value of themselves.
+This imaginary pre-eminence which is given to the fair sex, is not only
+formed from the addresses of people of condition; but it is the fashion
+and humour of all orders to go regularly out of their wits, as soon as
+they begin to make love. I know at this time three goddesses in the New
+Exchange;<a name="FNanchor_125_125" id="FNanchor_125_125"></a><a href="#Footnote_125_125" class="fnanchor">[125]</a> and there are two shepherdesses who sell gloves in
+Westminster Hall.<a name="FNanchor_126_126" id="FNanchor_126_126"></a><a href="#Footnote_126_126" class="fnanchor">[126]</a></p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_123_123" id="Footnote_123_123"></a><a href="#FNanchor_123_123"><span class="label">[123]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="#No_138">138</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_124_124" id="Footnote_124_124"></a><a href="#FNanchor_124_124"><span class="label">[124]</span></a> "Under a Lady's Picture" (Waller's Poems: "Epigrams,
+Epitaphs," &amp;c.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_125_125" id="Footnote_125_125"></a><a href="#FNanchor_125_125"><span class="label">[125]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/12030/12030-h/12030-h/SV1/Spectator1.html#section26">26</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_126_126" id="Footnote_126_126"></a><a href="#FNanchor_126_126"><span class="label">[126]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="#No_145">145</a>. Part of Westminster Hall was devoted to
+shopkeepers' stalls, where toys, books, &amp;c., could be brought. Tom Brown
+("Amusements," &amp;c. 1700) says: "On your left hand you hear a
+nimble-tongued painted sempstress with her charming treble invite you to
+buy some of her knick-knacks, and on your right a deep-mouthed crier,
+commanding impossibilities, viz., silence to be kept among women and
+lawyers."</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<div>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span>
+</div>
+<a name="No_140" id="No_140"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 140.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Steele</span>.</h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Tuesday, Feb. 28</i>, to <i>Thursday, March 2, 1709-10</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&mdash;&mdash;Aliena negotia centum<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Per caput, et circa saliunt latus&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i20"><span class="smcap">Hor.</span>, 2 Sat. vi. 33.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>Sheer Lane, March 1.</i></p>
+
+<p>Having the honour to be by my great-grandmother a Welshman, I have been
+among some choice spirits of that part of Great Britain, where we
+solaced ourselves in celebration of the day of St. David. I am, I
+confess, elevated above that state of mind which is proper for
+lucubration: but I am the less concerned at this, because I have for
+this day or two last past observed, that we novelists have been
+condemned wholly to the pastry-cooks, the eyes of the nation being
+turned upon greater matters.<a name="FNanchor_127_127" id="FNanchor_127_127"></a><a href="#Footnote_127_127" class="fnanchor">[127]</a> This therefore being a time when none
+but my immediate correspondents will read me, I shall speak to them
+chiefly at this present writing. It is the fate of us who pretend to
+joke, to be frequently understood to be only upon the droll when we are
+speaking the most seriously, as appears by the following letter to
+Charles Lillie:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>
+"<span class="smcap">Mr. Lillie</span>,
+<span class="salright">"London, <i>February 28, 1709/10</i>.</span></p>
+
+<p>"It being professed by 'Squire Bickerstaff, that his intention is
+to expose the vices and follies of the age, and to promote virtue
+and goodwill amongst man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span>kind; it must be a comfort, to a person
+labouring under great straits and difficulties, to read anything
+that has the appearance of succour. I should be glad to know
+therefore, whether the intelligence given in his <i>Tatler</i> of
+Saturday last,<a name="FNanchor_128_128" id="FNanchor_128_128"></a><a href="#Footnote_128_128" class="fnanchor">[128]</a> of the intended charity of a certain citizen of
+London, to maintain the education of ten boys in writing and
+accounts till they be fit for trade, be given only to encourage and
+recommend persons to the practice of such noble and charitable
+designs, or whether there be a person who really intends to do so.
+If the latter, I humbly beg Squire Bickerstaff's pardon for making
+a doubt, and impute it to my ignorance; and most humbly crave, that
+he would be pleased to give notice in his <i>Tatler</i>, when he thinks
+fit, whether his nomination of ten boys be disposed of, or whether
+there be room for two boys to be recommended to him; and that he
+will permit the writer of this to present him with two boys, who,
+it is humbly presumed, will be judged to be very remarkable objects
+of such charity.</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+<span class="sig6">"Sir,</span><br />
+"Your most humble Servant."<br />
+</p></div>
+
+<p>I am to tell this gentleman in sober sadness, and without jest, that
+there really is so good and charitable a man as the benefactor inquired
+for in his letter, and that there are but two boys yet named. The father
+of one of them was killed at Blenheim, the father of the other at
+Almanza. I do not here give the names of the children, because I should
+take it to be an insolence in me to publish them, in a charity which I
+have only the direction of as a servant,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> to that worthy and generous
+spirit who bestows upon them this bounty, without laying the bondage of
+an obligation. What I have to do is to tell them, they are beholden only
+to their Maker, to kill in them as they grow up the false shame of
+poverty, and let them know, that their present fortune, which is come
+upon them by the loss of their poor fathers on so glorious occasions, is
+much more honourable, than the inheritance of the most ample ill-gotten
+wealth.</p>
+
+<p>The next letter which lies before me is from a man of sense, who
+strengthens his own authority with that of Tully, in persuading me to
+what he very justly believes one cannot be averse:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"
+<span class="smcap">Mr. Bickerstaff</span>,
+<span class="salright">"London, <i>Feb. 27, 1709</i>.</span></p>
+
+<p>"I am so confident of your inclination to promote anything that is
+for the advancement of liberal arts, that I lay before you the
+following translation of a paragraph in Cicero's oration in defence
+of Archias the poet, as an incentive to the agreeable and
+instructive reading of the writings of the Augustan age. Most vices
+and follies proceed from a man's incapacity of entertaining
+himself, and we are generally fools in company, because we dare not
+be wise alone. I hope, on some future occasions, you will find this
+no barren hint. Tully, after having said very handsome things of
+his client, commends the arts of which he was master as follows:</p>
+
+<p>"'If so much profit be not reaped in the study of letters, and if
+pleasure only be found; yet, in my opinion, this relaxation of the
+mind should be esteemed most humane and ingenuous. Other things are
+not for all ages, places and seasons. These studies form youth,
+delight old age, adorn prosperity, and soften, and even remove
+adversity, entertain at home, are no hindrance abroad;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> don't leave
+us at night, and keep us company on the road and in the country.' I
+am,</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+<span class="sig4">"Your humble Servant,</span><br />
+"<span class="smcap">Strephon.</span>"<br />
+</p></div>
+
+<p>The following epistle seems to want the quickest despatch, because a
+lady is every moment offended till it is answered; which is best done by
+letting the offender see in her own letter how tender she is of calling
+him so:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Sir</span>,</p>
+
+<p>"This comes from a relation of yours, though unknown to you, who,
+besides the tie of consanguinity, has some value for you on the
+account of your lucubrations, those being designed to refine our
+conversation, as well as cultivate our minds. I humbly beg the
+favour of you, in one of your <i>Tatlers</i> (after what manner you
+please), to correct a particular friend of mine, for an indecorum
+he is guilty of in discourse, of calling his acquaintance, when he
+speaks of them, 'Madam': as for example, my cousin Jenny Distaff,
+'Madam Distaff'; which I am sure you are sensible is very unpolite,
+and 'tis what makes me often uneasy for him, though I cannot tell
+him of it myself, which makes me guilty of this presumption, that I
+depend upon your goodness to excuse; and I do assure you, the
+gentleman will mind your reprehension, for he is, as I am,</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+<span class="sig13">"Sir,</span><br />
+<span class="sig6">"Your most humble</span><br />
+<span class="sig4">"Servant and Cousin,</span><br />
+"<span class="smcap">Dorothy Drumstick.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"I write this in a thin under-petticoat,<a name="FNanchor_129_129" id="FNanchor_129_129"></a><a href="#Footnote_129_129" class="fnanchor">[129]</a> and never did or will
+wear a farthingale."</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I had no sooner read the just complaint of Mrs. Drumstick, but I
+received an urgent one from another of the fair sex, upon faults of more
+pernicious consequence:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Mr. Bickerstaff</span>,</p>
+
+<p>"Observing that you are entered into a correspondence with
+Pasquin,<a name="FNanchor_130_130" id="FNanchor_130_130"></a><a href="#Footnote_130_130" class="fnanchor">[130]</a> who is, I suppose, a Roman Catholic, I beg of you to
+forbear giving him any account of our religion, or manners, till
+you have rooted out certain misbehaviours even in our churches;
+among others, that of bowing, saluting, taking snuff, and other
+gestures. Lady Autumn made me a very low curtsy the other day from
+the next pew, and, with the most courtly air imaginable, called
+herself 'Miserable sinner.' Her niece soon after, in saying,
+'Forgive us our trespasses,' curtsied with a gloating look at my
+brother. He returned it, opening his snuff-box and repeating yet a
+more solemn expression. I beg of you, good Mr. Censor, not to tell
+Pasquin anything of this kind, and to believe this does not come
+from one of a morose temper, mean birth, rigid education, narrow
+fortune, or bigotry in opinion, or from one in whom Time had worn
+out all taste of pleasure. I assure you, it is far otherwise, for I
+am possessed of all the contrary advantages; and hope, wealth, good
+humour, and good breeding, may be best employed in the service of
+religion and virtue; and desire you would, as soon as possible,
+remark upon the above-mentioned indecorums, that we may not longer
+transgress against the latter, to preserve our reputation in the
+former.</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+<span class="sig2">"Your humble Servant,</span><br />
+"<span class="smcap">Lydia</span>."<br />
+</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The last letter I shall insert is what follows. This is written by a
+very inquisitive lady; and I think, such interrogative gentlewomen are
+to be answered no other way than by interrogation. Her billet is this:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Mr. Bickerstaff</span>,</p>
+
+<p>"Are you quite as good as you seem to be?</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+<span style="margin-right: 35em">"<span class="smcap">Chloe</span>."</span><br />
+</p></div>
+
+<p>To which I can only answer:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Chloe</span>,</p>
+
+<p>"Are you quite as ignorant as you seem to be?</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+<span style="margin-right: 35em">"I. B."</span><br />
+</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_127_127" id="Footnote_127_127"></a><a href="#FNanchor_127_127"><span class="label">[127]</span></a> The trial of Dr. Sacheverell, which extended from
+February 27 to March 23, 1710. A Tory pamphlet, "A Letter to the Rev.
+Dr. Henry Sacheverell, by Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq.," 1709, appeared in
+January 1710. Another pamphlet was called "The Character of Don
+Sacheverello, Knight of the Firebrand, in a Letter to Isaac Bickerstaff,
+Esq., Censor of Great Britain."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_128_128" id="Footnote_128_128"></a><a href="#FNanchor_128_128"><span class="label">[128]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="#No_138">138</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_129_129" id="Footnote_129_129"></a><a href="#FNanchor_129_129"><span class="label">[129]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="#No_136">136</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_130_130" id="Footnote_130_130"></a><a href="#FNanchor_130_130"><span class="label">[130]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="#No_129">129</a>.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<a name="No_141" id="No_141"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 141.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Steele</span>.</h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Thursday, March 2</i>, to <i>Saturday, March 4, 1709-10</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>Sheer Lane, March 3.</i></p>
+
+<p>While the attention of the town is drawn aside from the reading us
+writers of news, we all save ourselves against it is at more leisure. As
+for my own part, I shall still let the labouring oar be managed by my
+correspondents, and fill my paper with their sentiments, rather than my
+own, till I find my readers more disengaged than they are at
+present.<a name="FNanchor_131_131" id="FNanchor_131_131"></a><a href="#Footnote_131_131" class="fnanchor">[131]</a> When I came home this evening, I found several letters and
+petitions, which I shall insert with no other order, than as I
+accidentally opened them, as follows:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Sir</span>,
+<span class="salright"><i>March 1, 1709-10.</i></span></p>
+
+<p>"Having a daughter about nine years of age, I would endeavour she
+might have education; I mean such as may be useful, as working
+well, and a good deportment. In order to it, I am persuaded to
+place her at some boarding-school, situate in a good air. My wife
+opposes it, and gives for her greatest reason, that she is too much
+a woman, and understands the formalities of visiting and a
+tea-table so very nicely, that none, though much older, can exceed
+her; and with all these perfections, the girl can scarce thread a
+needle: but however, after several arguments, we have agreed to be
+decided by your judgment; and knowing your abilities, shall manage
+our daughter exactly as you shall please to direct. I am serious in
+my request, and hope you will be so in your answer, which will lay
+a deep obligation upon,</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+<span class="sig6">"Sir,</span><br />
+<span class="sig2">"Your humble Servant,</span><br />
+"T. T.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"Sir, pray answer it in your <i>Tatler</i>, that it may be serviceable
+to the public."</p></div>
+
+<p>I am as serious on this subject as my correspondent can be, and am of
+opinion, that the great happiness or misfortune of mankind depends upon
+the manner of educating and treating that sex. I have lately said, I
+design to turn my thoughts more particularly to them and their service:
+I beg therefore a little time to give my opinion on so important a
+subject, and desire the young lady may fill tea one week longer, till I
+have considered whether she shall be removed or not.<a name="FNanchor_132_132" id="FNanchor_132_132"></a><a href="#Footnote_132_132" class="fnanchor">[132]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>
+"<span class="smcap">Mr. Bickerstaff</span>,
+<span class="salright">"Chancery Lane, <i>February 27, 1709</i>.</span>
+</p>
+
+<p>"Your notice in the advertisement in your <i>Tatler</i> of Saturday last<a name="FNanchor_133_133" id="FNanchor_133_133"></a><a href="#Footnote_133_133" class="fnanchor">[133]</a>
+about 'whetters' in and about the Royal Exchange, is mightily taken
+notice of by gentlemen who use the coffee-houses near the Chancery
+office in Chancery Lane; and there being a particular certain set of
+both young and old gentlemen that belong to and near adjoining to the
+Chancery office, both in Chancery Lane and Bell Yard, that are not only
+'whetters' all the morning long, but very musically given about twelve
+at night the same days, and mightily taken with the union of the
+dulcimer, violin, and song; at which recreation they rejoice together
+with perfect harmony, however their clients disagree: you are humbly
+desired by several gentlemen to give some regulation concerning them; in
+which you will contribute to the repose of us, who are</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+<span class="sig2">"Your very humble Servants,</span><br />
+"L. T., N. F., T. W."<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>These "whetters" are a people I have considered with much pains, and
+find them to differ from a sect I have heretofore spoken of, called
+"snuff-takers,"<a name="FNanchor_134_134" id="FNanchor_134_134"></a><a href="#Footnote_134_134" class="fnanchor">[134]</a> only in the expedition they take in destroying
+their brains: the "whetter" is obliged to refresh himself every moment
+with a liquor, as the "snuff-taker" with a powder. As for their harmony
+in the evening, I have nothing to object, provided they remove to
+Wapping or the Bridge-Foot,<a name="FNanchor_135_135" id="FNanchor_135_135"></a><a href="#Footnote_135_135" class="fnanchor">[135]</a> where<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> it is not to be supposed that
+their vociferations will annoy the studious, the busy, or the
+contemplative. I once had lodgings in Gray's Inn, where we had two hard
+students, who learned to play upon the hautboy; and I had a couple of
+chamber fellows over my head not less diligent in the practice of
+backsword and single-rapier. I remember these gentlemen were assigned by
+the benchers the two houses at the end of the Terrace Walk, as the only
+places fit for their meditations. Such students as will let none improve
+but themselves, ought indeed to have their proper distances from
+societies.</p>
+
+<p>The gentlemen of loud mirth above mentioned I take to be, in the quality
+of their crime, the same as eavesdroppers; for they who will be in your
+company whether you will or no, are to as great a degree offenders, as
+they who hearken to what passes without being of your company at all.
+The ancient punishment for the latter, when I first came to this town,
+was the blanket, which I humbly conceive may be as justly applied to him
+that bawls, as to him that listens. It is therefore provided for the
+future, that (except in the Long Vacation) no retainers to the law, with
+dulcimer, violin, or any other instrument, in any tavern within a
+furlong of an inn of court, shall sing any tune, or pretended tune
+whatsoever, upon pain of the blanket, to be administered according to
+the discretion of all such peaceable people as shall be within the
+annoyance. And it is further directed, that all clerks who shall offend
+in this kind shall forfeit their indentures, and be turned over as
+assistants to the clerks of parishes within the bills of mortality, who
+are hereby empowered to demand them accordingly.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>I am not to omit the receipt of the following letter, with a nightcap,
+from my valentine;<a name="FNanchor_136_136" id="FNanchor_136_136"></a><a href="#Footnote_136_136" class="fnanchor">[136]</a> which nightcap I find<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> was finished in the year
+1588, and is too finely wrought to be of any modern stitching. Its
+antiquity will better appear by my valentine's own words:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Sir</span>,</p>
+
+<p>"Since you are pleased to accept of so mean a present as a nightcap
+from your valentine, I have sent you one, which I do assure you has
+been very much esteemed of in our family; for my
+great-grandmother's daughter who worked it, was maid of honour to
+Queen Elizabeth, and had the misfortune to lose her life by
+pricking her finger in the making of it, of which she bled to
+death, as her tomb now at Westminster will show: for which reason,
+myself, nor none of my family, have loved work ever since;
+otherwise you should have had one as you desired, made by the hands
+of,</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+<span class="sig6">"Sir,</span><br />
+<span class="sig2">"Your affectionate</span><br />
+"<span class="smcap">Valentine</span>."<br />
+</p></div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p><br />"<i>To the Right Worshipful Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq., Censor of Great
+Britain, and Governor of the Hospital erected, or to be erected, in
+Moorfields.</i></p>
+
+<p>"The petition of the inhabitants of the parish of Goatham in the
+county of Middlesex;</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Humbly Sheweth</span>,</p>
+
+<p>"That whereas 'tis the undoubted right of your said petitioners to
+repair on every Lord's Day to a chapel of ease in the said parish,
+there to be instructed in their duties in the known or vulgar
+tongue; yet so it is (may it please your Worship) that the preacher
+of the said chapel has of late given himself wholly up to matters
+of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> controversy, in no wise tending to the edification of your said
+petitioners; and in handling (as he calls it) the same, has used
+divers hard and crabbed words; such as, among many others, are
+'orthodox' and 'heterodox,' which are in no sort understood by your
+said petitioners; and it is with grief of heart that your
+petitioners beg leave to represent to you, that in mentioning the
+aforesaid words or names (the latter of which, as we have reason to
+believe, is his deadly enemy), he will fall into ravings and
+foamings, ill-becoming the meekness of his office, and tending to
+give offence and scandal to all good people.</p>
+
+<p>"Your petitioners further say, that they are ready to prove the
+aforesaid allegations; and therefore humbly hope, that from a true
+sense of their condition, you will please to receive the said
+preacher into the hospital, until he shall recover a right use of
+his senses.</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+"And your petitioners," &amp;c.<br />
+</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_131_131" id="Footnote_131_131"></a><a href="#FNanchor_131_131"><span class="label">[131]</span></a> The whole attention of the town in March 1710 was devoted
+to the Sacheverell trial.
+See Nos. <a href="#No_140">140</a>, <a href="#No_142">142</a>, <a href="#No_157">157</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_132_132" id="Footnote_132_132"></a><a href="#FNanchor_132_132"><span class="label">[132]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="#No_145">145</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_133_133" id="Footnote_133_133"></a><a href="#FNanchor_133_133"><span class="label">[133]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="#No_138">138</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_134_134" id="Footnote_134_134"></a><a href="#FNanchor_134_134"><span class="label">[134]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/12030/12030-h/12030-h/SV1/Spectator1.html#section35">35</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_135_135" id="Footnote_135_135"></a><a href="#FNanchor_135_135"><span class="label">[135]</span></a> The foot of London Bridge. There was a tavern, famous in
+the seventeenth century, called "The Bear at the Bridge-foot," below
+London Bridge.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_136_136" id="Footnote_136_136"></a><a href="#FNanchor_136_136"><span class="label">[136]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="#No_137">137</a>.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<a name="No_142" id="No_142"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 142.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Steele</span>.</h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Saturday, March 4</i>, to <i>Tuesday, March 7, 1709-10</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>Sheer Lane, March 6.</i></p>
+
+<p>All persons who employ themselves in public, are still interrupted in
+the course of their affairs: and it seems, the admired Cavalier Nicolini
+himself is commanded by the ladies, who at present employ their time
+with great assiduity in the care of the nation, to put off his day till
+he shall receive their commands, and notice that they are at leisure for
+diversions.<a name="FNanchor_137_137" id="FNanchor_137_137"></a><a href="#Footnote_137_137" class="fnanchor">[137]</a> In the meantime it is not to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> be expressed, how many
+cold chickens the fair ones have eaten since this day sennight for the
+good of their country. This great occasion has given birth to many
+discoveries of high moment for the conduct of life. There is a toast of
+my acquaintance told me, she had now found out, that it was day before
+nine in the morning;<a name="FNanchor_138_138" id="FNanchor_138_138"></a><a href="#Footnote_138_138" class="fnanchor">[138]</a> and I am very confident, if the affair holds
+many days longer, the ancient hours of eating will be revived among us,
+many having by it been made acquainted with the luxury of hunger and
+thirst.</p>
+
+<p>There appears, methinks, something very venerable in all assemblies: and
+I must confess, I envied all who had youth and health enough to make
+their appearance there, that they had the happiness of being a whole day
+in the best company in the world. During the adjournment of that awful
+court, a neighbour of mine was telling me, that it gave him a notion of
+the ancient grandeur of the English hospitality, to see Westminster Hall
+a dining-room.<a name="FNanchor_139_139" id="FNanchor_139_139"></a><a href="#Footnote_139_139" class="fnanchor">[139]</a> There is a cheerfulness at such repasts, which is
+very delightful to tempers which are so happy as to be clear of spleen
+and vapour; for to the jovial to see others pleased, is the greatest of
+all pleasures.</p>
+
+<p>But since age and infirmities forbid my appearance at such public
+places, the next happiness is to make the best use of privacy, and
+acquit myself of the demands of my correspondents. The following letter
+is what has given me no small inquietude, it being an accusation of
+partiality, and disregard to merit, in the person of a virtuoso, who is
+the most eloquent of all men upon small occasions, and is the more to be
+admired for his prodigious fertility of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> invention, which never appears
+but upon subjects which others would have thought barren. But in
+consideration of his uncommon talents, I am contented to let him be the
+hero of my next two days, by inserting his friends' recommendation of
+him at large:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Cousin</span>,
+<span class="salright">"Nando's,<a name="FNanchor_140_140" id="FNanchor_140_140"></a><a href="#Footnote_140_140" class="fnanchor">[140]</a> <i>Feb. 28, 1709</i>.</span></p>
+
+<p>"I am just come out of the country, and upon perusing your late
+Lucubrations, I find Charles Lillie to be the darling of your
+affections, that you have given him a place, and taken no small
+pains to establish him in the world; and at the same time have
+passed by his namesake<a name="FNanchor_141_141" id="FNanchor_141_141"></a><a href="#Footnote_141_141" class="fnanchor">[141]</a> at this end of the town, as if he was a
+citizen defunct, and one of no use in a commonwealth. I must own,
+his circumstances are so good, and so well known, that he does not
+stand in need of having his fame published to the world; but being
+of an ambitious spirit, and an aspiring soul, he would be rather
+proud of the honour, than desirous of the profit, which might
+result from your recommendation. He is a person of a particular
+genius, the first that brought toys in fashion, and baubles to
+perfection. He is admirably well versed in screws, springs, and
+hinges, and deeply read in knives, combs or scissors, buttons or
+buckles. He is a perfect master of words, which, uttered with a
+smooth voluble tongue, flow into a most persuasive eloquence;
+insomuch that I have known a gentleman of distinction find several
+ingenious faults with a toy of his, and show his utmost dislike to
+it, as being either useless, or ill-contrived; but when the orator
+behind the counter had harangued upon it for an hour and a half,
+displayed its hidden beauties, and revealed its secret<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span>
+perfections, he has wondered how he had been able to spend so great
+a part of his life without so important an utensil. I won't pretend
+to furnish out an inventory of all the valuable commodities that
+are to be found at his shop.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall content myself with giving an account of what I think most
+curious. Imprimis, his pocket-books are very neat, and well
+contrived, not for keeping bank bills or goldsmiths' notes,<a name="FNanchor_142_142" id="FNanchor_142_142"></a><a href="#Footnote_142_142" class="fnanchor">[142]</a> I
+confess; but they are admirable for registering the lodgings of
+Madonnas, and for preserving letters from ladies of quality: his
+whips and spurs are so nice, that they'll make one that buys them
+ride a fox-hunting, though before he hated noise and early rising,
+and was afraid of breaking his neck. His seals are curiously
+fancied, and exquisitely well cut, and of great use to encourage
+young gentlemen to write a good hand. Ned Puzzlepost had been
+ill-used by his writing-master, and writ a sort of a Chinese, or
+downright scrawlian: however, upon his buying a seal of my friend,
+he is so much improved by continual writing, that it is believed in
+a short time one may be able to read his letters, and find out his
+meaning, without guessing. His pistols and fusees are so very good,
+that they are fit to be laid up among the finest china. Then his
+tweezer-cases are incomparable: you shall have one not much bigger
+than your finger, with seventeen several instruments in it, all
+necessary every hour of the day, during the whole course of a man's
+life. But if this virtuoso excels in one thing more than another,
+it is in canes; he has spent his most select hours in the knowledge
+of them, and is arrived at that perfection, that he is able to hold
+forth upon canes longer than upon any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> one subject in the world.
+Indeed his canes are so finely clouded, and so well made up, either
+with gold or amber heads, that I am of the opinion it is impossible
+for a gentleman to walk, talk, sit or stand as he should do,
+without one of them. He knows the value of a cane, by knowing the
+value of the buyer's estate. Sir Timothy Shallow has two thousand
+pounds per annum, and Tom Empty one. They both at several times
+bought a cane of Charles: Sir Timothy's cost ten guineas, and Tom
+Empty's five. Upon comparing them, they were perfectly alike. Sir
+Timothy surprised there should be no difference in the canes, and
+so much in the price, comes to Charles. 'Damn it, Charles,' says
+he, 'you have sold me a cane here for ten pieces, and the very same
+to Tom Empty for five.' 'Lord, Sir Timothy,' says Charles, 'I am
+concerned that you, whom I took to understand canes better than any
+baronet in town, should be so overseen;<a name="FNanchor_143_143" id="FNanchor_143_143"></a><a href="#Footnote_143_143" class="fnanchor">[143]</a> why, Sir Timothy,
+yours is a true jambee, and Squire Empty's only a plain
+dragon.'<a name="FNanchor_144_144" id="FNanchor_144_144"></a><a href="#Footnote_144_144" class="fnanchor">[144]</a></p>
+
+<p>"This virtuoso has a parcel of jambees now growing in the East
+Indies, where he keeps a man on purpose to look after them, which
+will be the finest that ever landed in Great Britain, and will be
+fit to cut about two years hence. Any gentleman may subscribe for
+as many as he pleases. Subscriptions will be taken in at his shop
+at ten guineas each joint. They that subscribe for six, shall have
+a dragon gratis. This is all I have to say at present concerning
+Charles' curiosities; and hope it may be sufficient to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> prevail
+with you to take him into your consideration, which if you comply
+with, you will oblige,</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+"Your humble Servant.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"N.B. Whereas there came out last term several gold snuff-boxes and
+others: this is to give notice, that Charles<a name="FNanchor_145_145" id="FNanchor_145_145"></a><a href="#Footnote_145_145" class="fnanchor">[145]</a> will put out a
+new edition on Saturday next, which will be the only one in fashion
+till after Easter. The gentleman that gave fifty pounds for the box
+set with diamonds, may show it till Sunday night, provided he goes
+to church; but not after that time, there being one to be published
+on Monday which will cost fourscore guineas."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_137_137" id="Footnote_137_137"></a><a href="#FNanchor_137_137"><span class="label">[137]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="#No_137">137</a>. In No. 140 there was the following
+advertisement: "At the request of all the ladies of quality, who are at
+present engaged in politics, the benefit night for Cavalier Nicolini is
+put off to Tuesday the 7th instant."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_138_138" id="Footnote_138_138"></a><a href="#FNanchor_138_138"><span class="label">[138]</span></a> Cf. "Wentworth Papers," p. 113. "Sacheverell will make
+all the Ladys good huswis, they goe att seven every mornin'," says Lady
+Wentworth.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_139_139" id="Footnote_139_139"></a><a href="#FNanchor_139_139"><span class="label">[139]</span></a> The spectators brought their lunch with them.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_140_140" id="Footnote_140_140"></a><a href="#FNanchor_140_140"><span class="label">[140]</span></a> A coffee-house in Fleet Street, at the east corner of
+Inner Temple Lane.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_141_141" id="Footnote_141_141"></a><a href="#FNanchor_141_141"><span class="label">[141]</span></a> Charles Mather, the toyman
+(see Nos. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number27">27</a>, 113).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_142_142" id="Footnote_142_142"></a><a href="#FNanchor_142_142"><span class="label">[142]</span></a> Goldsmiths' receipts for coin lodged with them as bankers
+were sometimes transferred from hand to hand, but this was always
+limited to a few merchants.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_143_143" id="Footnote_143_143"></a><a href="#FNanchor_143_143"><span class="label">[143]</span></a> Deceived.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_144_144" id="Footnote_144_144"></a><a href="#FNanchor_144_144"><span class="label">[144]</span></a> A dragon is a small malacca cane, so called from its
+blood-red colour. It comes from Penang, Singapore, and other islands in
+the Straits of Malacca. A jambee, on the contrary, is a knotty bamboo of
+a pale brown hue. As an article of commerce it is now extinct. The
+"clouded cane" of Sir Plume was a large malacca artificially coloured
+(Dobson).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_145_145" id="Footnote_145_145"></a><a href="#FNanchor_145_145"><span class="label">[145]</span></a> Charles Mather.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<a name="No_143" id="No_143"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 143.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Steele</span>.</h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Tuesday, March 7</i>, to <i>Thursday, March 9, 1709-10</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>Sheer Lane, March 8.</i></p>
+
+<p>I was this afternoon surprised with a visit from my sister Jenny, after
+an absence of some time. She had, methought, in her manner and air,
+something that was a little below that of the women of first breeding
+and quality, but at the same time above the simplicity and familiarity
+of her usual deportment. As soon as she was seated, she began to talk to
+me of the odd place I lived in, and begged of me to remove out of the
+lane where I have been so long acquainted; "for," said she, "it does so
+spoil one's horses, that I must beg your pardon if you see me much
+seldomer, when I am to make so great a journey with a single pair, and
+make visits and get home the same night." I understood her pretty well,
+but would not; therefore desired her to pay off her coach, for I had a
+great deal to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> talk to her. She very pertly told me, she came in her own
+chariot. "Why," said I, "is your husband in town? And has he set up an
+equipage?" "No," answered she, "but I have received &pound;500 by his order;
+and his letters, which came at the same time, bade me want for nothing
+that was necessary." I was heartily concerned at her folly, whose
+affairs render her but just able to bear such an expense. However I
+considered, that according to the British custom of treating women,
+there is no other method to be used in removing any of their faults and
+errors, but conducting their minds from one humour to another, with as
+much ceremony as we lead their persons from one place to another. I
+therefore dissembled my concern, and in compliance with her, as a lady
+that was to use her feet no more, I begged of her, after a short visit,
+to let me persuade her not to stay out till it was late, for fear of
+catching cold as she went into her coach in the dampness of the evening.
+The Malapert knew well enough I laughed at her, but was not ill-pleased
+with the certainty of her power over her husband, who, she knew, would
+support her in any humour he was able, rather than pass through the
+torment of an expostulation, to gainsay anything she had a mind to. As
+soon as my fine lady was gone, I writ the following letter to my
+brother:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Brother</span>,</p>
+
+<p>"I am at present under very much concern at the splendid appearance
+I saw my sister make in an equipage which she has set up in your
+absence. I beg of you not to indulge her in this vanity; and desire
+you to consider, the world is so whimsical, that though it will
+value you for being happy, it will hate you for appearing so. The
+possession of wisdom and virtue (the only solid distinctions of
+life) is allowed much more easily than<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> that of wealth and quality.
+Besides which, I must entreat you to weigh with yourself, what it
+is that people aim at in setting themselves out to show in gay
+equipages, and moderate fortunes. You are not by this means a
+better man than your neighbour is; but your horses are better than
+his are. And will you suffer care and inquietude, to have it said
+as you pass by, 'Those are very pretty punch nags!'<a name="FNanchor_146_146" id="FNanchor_146_146"></a><a href="#Footnote_146_146" class="fnanchor">[146]</a> Nay, when
+you have arrived at this, there are a hundred worthless fellows who
+are still four horses happier than you are. Remember, dear brother,
+there is a certain modesty in the enjoyment of moderate wealth,
+which to transgress, exposes men to the utmost derision; and as
+there is nothing but meanness of spirit can move a man to value
+himself upon what can be purchased with money, so he that shows an
+ambition that way, and cannot arrive at it, is more emphatically
+guilty of that meanness. I give you only my first thoughts on this
+occasion, but shall, as I am a censor, entertain you in my next
+with my sentiments in general upon the subject of equipage; and
+show, that though there are no sumptuary laws amongst us, reason
+and good sense are equally binding, and will ever prevail in
+appointing approbation or dislike in all matters of an indifferent
+nature, when they are pursued with earnestness. I am,</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+"Sir," &amp;c.<br />
+</p></div>
+
+
+<p class="center">ADVERTISEMENTS.</p>
+
+<p>To all Gentlemen, Ladies, and others, that delight in soft lines.</p>
+
+<p>These are to give notice, that the proper time of the year for writing
+pastorals now drawing near, there is a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> stage-coach settled from the One
+Bell in the Strand to Dorchester, which sets out twice a week, and
+passes through Basingstoke, Sutton, Stockbridge, Salisbury, Blandford,
+and so to Dorchester, over the finest downs in England. At all which
+places, there are accommodations of spreading beeches, beds of flowers,
+turf seats, and purling streams, for happy swains; and thunderstruck
+oaks, and left-handed ravens, to foretell misfortunes to those that
+please to be wretched; with all other necessaries for pensive passion.</p>
+
+<p>And for the convenience of such whose affairs will not permit them to
+leave this town, at the same place they may be furnished, during the
+season, with opening buds, flowering thyme, warbling birds, sporting
+lambkins, and fountain water, right and good, and bottled on the spot,
+by one sent down on purpose.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>N.B. The nymphs and swains are further given to understand, that in
+those happy climes, they are so far from being troubled with wolves,
+that for want of even foxes, a considerable pack of hounds have been
+lately forced to eat sheep.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Whereas on the 6th instant at midnight, several persons of light honour
+and loose mirth, having taken upon them in the shape of men, but with
+the voice of the players belonging to Mr. Powell's<a name="FNanchor_147_147" id="FNanchor_147_147"></a><a href="#Footnote_147_147" class="fnanchor">[147]</a> company, to call
+up surgeons at midnight, and send physicians to persons in sound sleep,
+and perfect health: this is to certify, that Mr. Powell had locked up
+the legs of all his company for fear of mischief that night; and that
+Mr. Powell will not pay for any damages done by the said persons. It is
+also further advised, that there were no midwives wanted when those
+persons called them up in the several parts of Westminster; but that
+those gentlewomen who were in the company of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> the said impostors, may
+take care to call such useful persons on the 6th of December next.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The Censor having observed, that there are fine wrought ladies' shoes
+and slippers put out to view at a great shoemaker's shop towards St.
+James's end of Pall Mall, which create irregular thoughts and desires in
+the youth of this nation; the said shopkeeper is required to take in
+those eyesores, or show cause the next court-day why he continues to
+expose the same; and he is required to be prepared particularly to
+answer to the slippers with green lace and blue heels.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>It is impossible for me to return the obliging things Mr. Joshua
+Barnes<a name="FNanchor_148_148" id="FNanchor_148_148"></a><a href="#Footnote_148_148" class="fnanchor">[148]</a> has said to me upon the account of our mutual friend Homer.
+He and I have read him now forty years with some understanding, and
+great admiration. A work to be produced by one who has enjoyed so great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>
+an intimacy with an author, is certainly to be valued more than any
+comment made by persons of yesterday: therefore, according to my friend
+Joshua's request, I recommend his<a name="FNanchor_149_149" id="FNanchor_149_149"></a><a href="#Footnote_149_149" class="fnanchor">[149]</a> work; and having used a little
+magic in the case, I give this recommendation by way of amulet or charm,
+against the malignity of envious backbiters, who speak evil of
+performances whereof themselves were never capable. If I may use my
+friend Joshua's own words, I shall at present say no more, but that we,
+Homer's oldest acquaintance now living, know best his ways; and can
+inform the world, that they are often mistaken when they think he is in
+lethargic fits, which we know he was never subject to; and shall make
+appear to be rank scandal and envy that of the Latin poet:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"<i>&mdash;&mdash;Aliquando bonus dormitat Homerus.</i>"<a name="FNanchor_150_150" id="FNanchor_150_150"></a><a href="#Footnote_150_150" class="fnanchor">[150]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_146_146" id="Footnote_146_146"></a><a href="#FNanchor_146_146"><span class="label">[146]</span></a> A punch nag is a horse well set and well knit, having a
+short back and thin shoulders, with a broad neck, and well lined with
+flesh ("Farrier's Dictionary").</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_147_147" id="Footnote_147_147"></a><a href="#FNanchor_147_147"><span class="label">[147]</span></a> The puppet-show man.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_148_148" id="Footnote_148_148"></a><a href="#FNanchor_148_148"><span class="label">[148]</span></a> "The learned and ingenious Mr. Joshua Barnes has lately
+writ an eulogium (after the manner of learned men to each other) upon
+me; and after having made me his compliments in the behalf of his
+beloved Homer, and thanked me for the justice I have done him, in the
+'Table of Fame,' has desired me to recommend the following
+advertisement: 'Whereas Mr. Joshua Barnes, B.D., her Majesty's Greek
+professor in the University of Cambridge, hath some time since published
+proposals for printing a new and accurate edition of all Homer's
+"Works," enlarged, corrected, and amended, by the help of ancient MSS.
+the best editions, scholiographers, &amp;c.: These are to certify, that the
+"Iliad" and "Odyssey" are now both actually printed off, only a small
+part of the hymns, other poems, and fragments remaining, with the
+indexes, Life of Homer, and Prolegomena, which are carried on with all
+possible expedition. All gentlemen therefore, scholars and masters of
+great schools, that are willing to reap the benefit of subscription,
+being ten shillings down, and on the delivery of the two volumes in
+sheets twenty shillings more, are desired to make their first payment to
+the said Mr. Barnes, now lodging at the printing house at Cambridge,
+before the end of March; after which time no more single subscriptions
+to be admitted'" (<i>Tatler</i>, orig. folio, No. 139). Joshua Barnes
+(1654-1712), Greek scholar and antiquary, was educated at Christ's
+Hospital and Emanuel College, Cambridge. He was appointed professor of
+Greek at Cambridge in 1695. The expenses incurred in the production of
+his "Homer" involved him in considerable difficulties. Bentley paid a
+doubtful compliment to Barnes when he said that Barnes knew as much
+Greek as a Greek cobbler. See the <i>Spectator</i>, No. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/12030/12030-h/12030-h/SV2/Spectator2.html#section245">245</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_149_149" id="Footnote_149_149"></a><a href="#FNanchor_149_149"><span class="label">[149]</span></a> Mr. Joshua Barnes' new and accurate edition of all
+Homer's Works, &amp;c. (Steele).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_150_150" id="Footnote_150_150"></a><a href="#FNanchor_150_150"><span class="label">[150]</span></a> Horace, "Ars Poet." 359 ("Quandoque bonus," &amp;c.).</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<a name="No_144" id="No_144"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 144.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Steele</span>.</h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Thursday, March 9</i>, to <i>Saturday, March 11, 1709-10</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>Sheer Lane, March 10.</i></p>
+
+<p>In a nation of liberty, there is hardly a person in the whole mass of
+the people more absolutely necessary than a censor. It is allowed, that
+I have no authority for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> assuming this important appellation, and that I
+am censor of these nations, just as one is chosen king at the game of
+questions and commands:<a name="FNanchor_151_151" id="FNanchor_151_151"></a><a href="#Footnote_151_151" class="fnanchor">[151]</a> but if, in the execution of this
+fantastical dignity, I observe upon things which do not fall within the
+cognisance of real authority, I hope it will be granted, that an idle
+man could not be more usefully employed. Among all the irregularities of
+which I have taken notice, I know none so proper to be presented to the
+world by a censor, as that of the general expense and affectation in
+equipage. I have lately hinted, that this extravagance must necessarily
+get footing where we have no sumptuary laws, and where every man may be
+dressed, attended, and carried, in what manner he pleases. But my
+tenderness to my fellow subjects will not permit me to let this enormity
+go unobserved.</p>
+
+<p>As the matter now stands, every man takes it in his head, that he has a
+liberty to spend his money as he pleases. Thus, in spite of all order,
+justice, and decorum, we the greater number of the Queen's loyal
+subjects, for no reason in the world but because we want money, do not
+share alike in the division of her Majesty's high-road. The horses and
+slaves of the rich take up the whole street, while we peripatetics are
+very glad to watch an opportunity to whisk across a passage, very
+thankful that we are not run over for interrupting the machine, that
+carries in it a person neither more handsome, wise, nor valiant than the
+meanest of us. For this reason, were I to propose a tax, it should
+certainly be upon coaches and chairs: for no man living can assign a
+reason why one man should have half a street to carry him at his ease,
+and perhaps only in pursuit of pleasures, when as good a man as him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span>self
+wants room for his own person to pass upon the most necessary and urgent
+occasion. Till such an acknowledgment is made to the public, I shall
+take upon me to vest certain rights in the scavengers of the cities of
+London and Westminster, to take the horses and servants of all such as
+do not become or deserve such distinctions into their peculiar custody.
+The offenders themselves I shall allow safe conduct to their places of
+abode in the carts of the said scavengers, but their horses shall be
+mounted by their footmen, and sent into the service abroad: and I take
+this opportunity in the first place to recruit the regiment of my good
+old friend the brave and honest Sylvius,<a name="FNanchor_152_152" id="FNanchor_152_152"></a><a href="#Footnote_152_152" class="fnanchor">[152]</a> that they be as well
+taught as they are fed. It is to me most miraculous, so unreasonable an
+usurpation as this I am speaking of should so long have been tolerated.
+We hang a poor fellow for taking any trifle from us on the road, and
+bear with the rich for robbing us of the road itself. Such a tax as this
+would be of great satisfaction to us who walk on foot; and since the
+distinction of riding in a coach is not to be appointed according to a
+man's merit or service to their country, nor that liberty given as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> a
+reward for some eminent virtue, we should be highly contented to see
+them pay something for the insult they do us in the state they take upon
+them while they are drawn by us.</p>
+
+<p>Till they have made us some reparation of this kind, we the peripatetics
+of Great Britain cannot think ourselves well treated, while every one
+that is able is allowed to set up an equipage.</p>
+
+<p>As for my part, I cannot but admire how persons, conscious to themselves
+of no manner of superiority above others, can out of mere pride or
+laziness expose themselves at this rate to public view, and put us all
+upon pronouncing those three terrible syllables, Who is that? When it
+comes to that question, our method is to consider the mien and air of
+the passenger, and comfort ourselves for being dirty to the ankles, by
+laughing at his figure and appearance who overlooks us. I must confess,
+were it not for the solid injustice of the thing, there is nothing could
+afford a discerning eye greater occasion for mirth, than this licentious
+huddle of qualities and characters in the equipages about this town. The
+overseers of the highway and constables have so little skill or power to
+rectify this matter, that you may often see the equipage<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> of a fellow
+whom all the town knows to deserve hanging, make a stop that shall
+interrupt the Lord High Chancellor and all the judges on their way to
+Westminster.</p>
+
+<p>For the better understanding of things and persons in this general
+confusion, I have given directions to all the coachmakers and
+coach-painters in town, to bring me in lists of their several customers;
+and doubt not, but with comparing the orders of each man, in the placing
+his arms on the doors of his chariot, as well as the words, devices and
+ciphers to be fixed upon them, to make a collection which shall let us
+into the nature, if not the history, of mankind, more usefully than the
+curiosities of any medallist in Europe.</p>
+
+<p>But this evil of vanity in our figure, with many, many others, proceeds
+from a certain gaiety of heart, which has crept into men's very thoughts
+and complexions. The passions and adventures of heroes, when they enter
+the lists for the tournament in romances, are not more easily
+distinguishable by their palfreys and their armour, than the secret
+springs and affections of the several pretenders to show amongst us are
+known by their equipages in ordinary life. The young bridegroom with his
+gilded cupids, and winged angels, has some excuse in the joy of his
+heart to launch out into something that may be significant of his
+present happiness: but to see men, for no reason upon earth but that
+they are rich, ascend triumphant chariots, and ride through the people,
+has at the bottom nothing else in it but an insolent transport, arising
+only from the distinction of fortune.</p>
+
+<p>It is therefore high time that I call in such coaches as are in their
+embellishments improper for the character of their owners. But if I find
+I am not obeyed herein, and that I cannot pull down these equipages
+already erected, I shall take upon me to prevent the growth of this evil
+for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> the future, by inquiring into the pretensions of the persons who
+shall hereafter attempt to make public entries with ornaments and
+decorations of his own appointment. If a man, who believed he had the
+handsomest leg in this kingdom, should take a fancy to adorn so
+deserving a limb with a blue garter, he would justly be punished for
+offending against the most noble order: and, I think, the general
+prostitution of equipage and retinue is as destructive to all
+distinction, as the impertinence of one man, if permitted, would
+certainly be to that illustrious fraternity.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center">ADVERTISEMENT.</p>
+
+<p>The Censor having lately received intelligence, that the ancient
+simplicity in the dress and manners of that part of this island, called
+Scotland, begins to decay; and that there are at this time in the good
+town of Edinburgh, beaus, fops, and coxcombs: his late correspondent<a name="FNanchor_153_153" id="FNanchor_153_153"></a><a href="#Footnote_153_153" class="fnanchor">[153]</a>
+from that place is desired to send up their names and characters with
+all expedition, that they may be proceeded against accordingly, and
+proper officers named to take in their canes, snuff-boxes, and all other
+useless necessaries commonly worn by such offenders.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_151_151" id="Footnote_151_151"></a><a href="#FNanchor_151_151"><span class="label">[151]</span></a> Cf. Steele's "Lover," No. 13: "I might have been a king
+at questions and commands." This game is mentioned several times in the
+<i>Spectator</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_152_152" id="Footnote_152_152"></a><a href="#FNanchor_152_152"><span class="label">[152]</span></a> General Cornelius Wood, son of the Rev. Seth Wood, was
+born in 1636. He served for four years as a private soldier, before he
+was advanced to be a sub-brigadier; after which his rise was rapid,
+owing entirely to his signal valour, his strict justice, and extensive
+humanity. The Prince of Orange, on his accession to the throne, gave him
+a troop of horse, in the regiment commanded by George Lord Huet; he was
+made a colonel of horse in 1693; and a brigadier-general in 1702. His
+conduct and conversation in Ireland rendered him very acceptable to
+Marshal Schomberg; his valour was conspicuous at the Battle of Blenheim,
+after which the Duke of Marlborough declared him a major-general; it was
+no less signally manifested at Ramillies in 1706; the year following he
+was made a lieutenant-general of horse, in which post he arrived to be
+the eldest. In 1708, he was Governor of Ghent, and honoured by the
+burghers, in testimony of their singular satisfaction, with a large
+piece of plate, which he left as a legacy to the Duke of Ormond, to
+evince his gratitude for services received, and his esteem for that
+nobleman's illustrious character. In 1709, he gathered fresh laurels in
+the bloody field of Tanieres, and next year was again appointed Governor
+of Ghent; but in his march to that garrison, an unruly horse on which he
+rode, reared on end, and fell backwards upon him; his collar-bone was
+broken, and his stomach so bruised by this accident, that he never was
+well after. He languished about two years, and died at the Gravel-pits
+near Kensington, on the 17th of May 1712, in the 75th year of his age.
+He never married (Nichols). Prior, in his poem on the Battle of
+Blenheim, says:
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Let generous Sylvius stand for honest Wood."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_153_153" id="Footnote_153_153"></a><a href="#FNanchor_153_153"><span class="label">[153]</span></a> "Osyris";
+see No. <a href="#No_143">143</a>.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<a name="No_145" id="No_145"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 145.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Steele</span>.</h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Saturday, March 11</i>, to <i>Tuesday, March 14, 1709-10</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Nescio quis teneros oculus mihi fascinat agnos.<br /></span>
+<span class="i24"><span class="smcap">Virg.</span>, Eclog. iii. 103.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>White's Chocolate-house, March 13.</i></p>
+
+<p>This evening was allotted for taking into consideration a late request
+of two indulgent parents, touching the care of a young daughter, whom
+they design to send to a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> boarding-school, or keep at home, according to
+my determination;<a name="FNanchor_154_154" id="FNanchor_154_154"></a><a href="#Footnote_154_154" class="fnanchor">[154]</a> but I am diverted from that subject by letters
+which I have received from several ladies, complaining of a certain sect
+of professed enemies to the repose of the fair sex, called Oglers. These
+are, it seems, gentlemen who look with deep attention on one object at
+the playhouses, and are ever staring all round them in churches. It is
+urged by my correspondents, that they do all that is possible to keep
+their eyes off these ensnarers; but that, by what power they know not,
+both their diversions and devotions are interrupted by them in such a
+manner, as that they cannot attend either without stealing looks at the
+persons whose eyes are fixed upon them. By this means, my petitioners
+say, they find themselves grow insensibly less offended, and in time
+enamoured, of these their enemies. What is required of me on this
+occasion, is, that as I love and study to preserve the better part of
+mankind, the females, I would give them some account of this dangerous
+way of assault, against which there is so little defence, that it lays
+ambush for the sight itself, and makes them seeingly, knowingly,
+willingly, and forcibly go on to their own captivity.</p>
+
+<p>This representation of the present state of affairs between the two
+sexes gave me very much alarm; and I had no more to do, but to recollect
+what I had seen at any one assembly for some years last past, to be
+convinced of the truth and justice of this remonstrance. If there be not
+a stop put to this evil art, all the modes of address, and the elegant
+embellishments of life, which arise out of the noble passion of love,
+will of necessity decay. Who would be at the trouble of rhetoric, or
+study the <i>bon mien</i>, when his introduction is so much easier obtained
+by a sudden reverence in a downcast look at the meeting the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> eye of a
+fair lady, and beginning again to ogle her as soon as she glances
+another way? I remember very well, when I was last at an opera, I could
+perceive the eyes of the whole audience cast into particular cross
+angles one upon another, without any manner of regard to the stage,
+though King Latinus was himself present when I made that observation. It
+was then very pleasant to look into the hearts of the whole company; for
+the balls of sight are so formed, that one man's eyes are spectacles to
+another to read his heart with. The most ordinary beholder can take
+notice of any violent agitation in the mind, any pleasing transport, or
+any inward grief, in the person he looks at; but one of these oglers can
+see a studied indifference, a concealed love, or a smothered resentment,
+in the very glances that are made to hide those dispositions of thought.
+The naturalists tell us, that the rattlesnake will fix himself under a
+tree where he sees a squirrel playing; and when he has once got the
+exchange of a glance from the pretty wanton, will give it such a sudden
+stroke on its imagination, that though it may play from bough to bough,
+and strive to avert its eyes from it for some time, yet it comes nearer
+and nearer by little intervals of looking another way, till it drops
+into the jaws of the animal, which it knew gazed at it for no other
+reason but to ruin it. I did not believe this piece of philosophy till
+that night I was just now speaking of; but I then saw the same thing
+pass between an ogler and a coquette. Mirtillo, the most learned of the
+former, had for some time discontinued to visit Flavia, no less eminent
+among the latter. They industriously avoided all places where they might
+probably meet, but chance brought them together to the playhouse, and
+seated them in a direct line over against each other, she in a front
+box, he in the pit next the stage. As soon as Flavia had received the
+looks of the whole<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> crowd below her with that air of insensibility which
+is necessary at the first entrance, she began to look round her and saw
+the vagabond Mirtillo, who had so long absented himself from her circle;
+and when she first discovered him, she looked upon him with that glance,
+which, in the language of oglers, is called the scornful, but
+immediately turned her observation another way, and returned upon him
+with the indifferent. This gave Mirtillo no small resentment; but he
+used her accordingly. He took care to be ready for her next glance. She
+found his eyes full in the indolent, with his lips crumpled up in the
+posture of one whistling. Her anger at this usage immediately appeared
+in every muscle of her face; and after many emotions, which glistened in
+her eyes, she cast them round the whole house, and gave them softnesses
+in the face of every man she had ever seen before. After she thought she
+had reduced all she saw to her obedience, the play began, and ended
+their dialogue. As soon as that was over, she stood up with a visage
+full of dissembled alacrity and pleasure, with which she overlooked the
+audience, and at last came to him: he was then placed in a side-way,
+with his hat slouching over his eyes, and gazing at a wench in the
+side-box,<a name="FNanchor_155_155" id="FNanchor_155_155"></a><a href="#Footnote_155_155" class="fnanchor">[155]</a> as talking of that gipsy to the gentleman who sat by him.
+But as she was fixed upon him, he turned suddenly with a full face upon
+her, and with all the respect imaginable, made her the most obsequious
+bow in the presence of the whole theatre. This gave her a pleasure not
+to be concealed, and she made him the recovering or second curtsy, with
+a smile that spoke a perfect reconciliation. Between the ensuing acts,
+they talked to each other with gestures and glances so significant, that
+they ridiculed the whole house in this silent speech, and made an
+appointment that Mirtillo should lead her to her coach.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The peculiar language of one eye, as it differs from another, as much as
+the tone of one voice from another, and the fascination or enchantment
+which is lodged in the optic nerves of the persons concerned in these
+dialogues, is, I must confess, too nice a subject for one who is not an
+adept in these speculations; but I shall, for the good and safety of the
+fair sex, call my learned friend Sir William Read<a name="FNanchor_156_156" id="FNanchor_156_156"></a><a href="#Footnote_156_156" class="fnanchor">[156]</a> to my assistance,
+and, by the help of his observations on this organ, acquaint them when
+the eye is to be believed, and when distrusted. On the contrary, I shall
+conceal the true meaning of the looks of ladies, and indulge in them all
+the art they can acquire in the management of their glances: all which
+is but too little against creatures who triumph in falsehood, and begin
+to forswear with their eyes, when their tongues can be no longer
+believed.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center">ADVERTISEMENT.</p>
+
+<p>A very clean, well-behaved young gentleman, who is in a very good way in
+Cornhill, has writ to me the following lines, and seems in some passages
+of his letter (which I omit) to lay it very much to heart, that I have
+not spoken of a supernatural beauty whom he sighs for, and complains to
+in most elaborate language. Alas! what can a monitor do? All mankind
+live in romance:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Mr. Bickerstaff</span>,
+<span class="salright">"Royal Exchange, <i>March 11</i>.</span></p>
+
+<p>"Some time since you were pleased to mention the beauties in the
+New Exchange and Westminster Hall,<a name="FNanchor_157_157" id="FNanchor_157_157"></a><a href="#Footnote_157_157" class="fnanchor">[157]</a> and in my judgment were not
+very impartial; for if you were pleased to allow there was one
+goddess in the New Exchange, and two shepherdesses in Westminster
+Hall, you very well might say, there was and is at present one
+angel in the Royal Exchange: and I humbly beg the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> favour of you to
+let justice be done her, by inserting this in your next <i>Tatler</i>;
+which will make her my good angel, and me your most humble servant,</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+"A. B."<a name="FNanchor_158_158" id="FNanchor_158_158"></a><a href="#Footnote_158_158" class="fnanchor">[158]</a><br />
+</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_154_154" id="Footnote_154_154"></a><a href="#FNanchor_154_154"><span class="label">[154]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="#No_141">141</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_155_155" id="Footnote_155_155"></a><a href="#FNanchor_155_155"><span class="label">[155]</span></a> See No. 50.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_156_156" id="Footnote_156_156"></a><a href="#FNanchor_156_156"><span class="label">[156]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number9">9</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_157_157" id="Footnote_157_157"></a><a href="#FNanchor_157_157"><span class="label">[157]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="#No_139">139</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_158_158" id="Footnote_158_158"></a><a href="#FNanchor_158_158"><span class="label">[158]</span></a> Perhaps Alexander Bayne; see No. 84.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<a name="No_146" id="No_146"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 146.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Addison.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Tuesday, March 14</i>, to <i>Thursday, March 16, 1709-10</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Permittes ipsis expendere numinibus, quid<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Conveniat nobis, rebusque sit utile nostris.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nam pro jucundis aptissima qu&aelig;que dabunt D&icirc;.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Carior est illis homo, quam sibi. Nos animorum<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Impulsu et c&aelig;ca magnaque cupidine ducti<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Conjugium petimus, partumque uxoris; at illis<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Notum, qui pueri qualisque futura sit uxor.<br /></span>
+<span class="i26"><span class="smcap">Juv.</span>, Sat. x. 347.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>From my own Apartment, March 15.</i></p>
+
+<p>Among the various sets of correspondents who apply to me for advice, and
+send up their cases from all parts of Great Britain, there are none who
+are more importunate with me, and whom I am more inclined to answer,
+than the complainers. One of them dates his letter to me from the banks
+of a purling stream, where he used to ruminate in solitude upon the
+divine Clarissa, and where he is now looking about for a convenient
+leap, which he tells me he is resolved to take, unless I support him
+under the loss of that charming perjured woman. Poor Lavinia presses as
+much for consolation on the other side, and is reduced to such an
+extremity of despair by the inconstancy of Philander, that she tells me
+she writes her letter with her pen in one hand and her garter in the
+other. A gentleman of an ancient family in Norfolk is almost out of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span>
+wits upon account of a greyhound, that after having been his inseparable
+companion for ten years, is at last run mad. Another (who I believe is
+serious) complains to me, in a very moving manner, of the loss of a
+wife; and another, in terms still more moving, of a purse of money that
+was taken from him on Bagshot Heath, and which, he tells me, would not
+have troubled him if he had given it to the poor. In short, there is
+scarce a calamity in human life that has not produced me a letter.</p>
+
+<p>It is indeed wonderful to consider, how men are able to raise affliction
+to themselves out of everything. Lands and houses, sheep and oxen, can
+convey happiness and misery into the hearts of reasonable creatures.
+Nay, I have known a muff, a scarf, or a tippet, become a solid blessing
+or misfortune. A lap-dog has broke the hearts of thousands. Flavia, who
+had buried five children, and two husbands, was never able to get over
+the loss of her parrot. How often has a divine creature been thrown into
+a fit by a neglect at a ball or an assembly? Mopsa has kept her chamber
+ever since the last masquerade, and is in greater danger of her life
+upon being left out of it, than Clarinda from the violent cold which she
+caught at it. Nor are these dear creatures the only sufferers by such
+imaginary calamities: many an author has been dejected at the censure of
+one whom he ever looked upon as an idiot; and many a hero cast into a
+fit of melancholy, because the rabble have not hooted at him as he
+passed through the streets. Theron places all his happiness in a running
+horse, Suffenus in a gilded chariot, Fulvius in a blue string, and
+Florio in a tulip root. It would be endless to enumerate the many
+fantastical afflictions that disturb mankind; but as a misery is not to
+be measured from the nature of the evil, but from the temper of the
+sufferer, I shall present my readers, who are unhappy either in reality<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span>
+or imagination, with an allegory, for which I am indebted to the great
+father and prince of poets.</p>
+
+<p>As I was sitting after dinner in my elbow-chair, I took up Homer, and
+dipped into that famous speech of Achilles to Priam, in which he tells
+him, that Jupiter has by him two great vessels, the one filled with
+blessings, and the other with misfortunes; out of which he mingles a
+composition for every man that comes into the world. This passage so
+exceedingly pleased me, that as I fell insensibly into my afternoon's
+slumber, it wrought my imagination into the following dream:</p>
+
+<p>When Jupiter took into his hands the government of the world, the
+several parts of nature, with their presiding deities, did homage to
+him. One presented him with a mountain of winds, another with a magazine
+of hail, and a third with a pile of thunderbolts. The stars offered up
+their influences; the ocean gave in his trident, the earth her fruits,
+and the sun his seasons. Among the several deities who came to make
+their court on this occasion, the destinies advanced with two great tuns
+carried before them, one of which they fixed at the right hand of
+Jupiter as he sat upon his throne, and the other on his left. The first
+was filled with all the blessings, and the other with all the calamities
+of human life. Jupiter, in the beginning of his reign, finding the world
+much more innocent than it is in this iron age, poured very plentifully
+out of the tun that stood at his right hand; but as mankind degenerated,
+and became unworthy of his blessings, he set abroach the other vessel,
+that filled the world with pain and poverty, battles and distempers,
+jealousy and falsehood, intoxicating pleasures and untimely deaths.</p>
+
+<p>He was at length so very much incensed at the great depravation of human
+nature, and the repeated provocations which he received from all parts
+of the earth, that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> having resolved to destroy the whole species, except
+Deucalion and Pyrrha, he commanded the Destinies to gather up the
+blessings which he had thrown away upon the sons of men, and lay them up
+till the world should be inhabited by a more virtuous and deserving race
+of mortals.</p>
+
+<p>The three sisters immediately repaired to the earth, in search of the
+several blessings that had been scattered on it; but found the task
+which was enjoined them, to be much more difficult than they had
+imagined. The first places they resorted to, as the most likely to
+succeed in, were cities, palaces, and courts; but instead of meeting
+with what they looked for here, they found nothing but envy, repining,
+uneasiness, and the like bitter ingredients of the left-hand vessel.
+Whereas, to their great surprise, they discovered content, cheerfulness,
+health, innocence, and other the most substantial blessings of life, in
+cottages, shades, and solitudes.</p>
+
+<p>There was another circumstance no less unexpected than the former, and
+which gave them very great perplexity in the discharge of the trust
+which Jupiter had committed to them. They observed, that several
+blessings had degenerated into calamities, and that several calamities
+had improved into blessings, according as they fell into the possession
+of wise or foolish men. They often found power, with so much insolence
+and impatience cleaving to it, that it became a misfortune to the person
+on whom it was conferred. Youth had often distempers growing about it,
+worse than the infirmities of old age: wealth was often united to such a
+sordid avarice, as made it the most uncomfortable and painful kind of
+poverty. On the contrary, they often found pain made glorious by
+fortitude, poverty lost in content, deformity beautified with virtue. In
+a word, the blessings were often like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> good fruits planted in a bad
+soil, that by degrees fall off from their natural relish, into tastes
+altogether insipid or unwholesome; and the calamities, like harsh
+fruits, cultivated in a good soil, and enriched by proper grafts and
+inoculations, till they swell with generous and delightful juices.</p>
+
+<p>There was still a third circumstance that occasioned as great a surprise
+to the three sisters as either of the foregoing, when they discovered
+several blessings and calamities which had never been in either of the
+tuns that stood by the throne of Jupiter, and were nevertheless as great
+occasions of happiness or misery as any there. These were that spurious
+crop of blessings and calamities which were never sown by the hand of
+the Deity, but grow of themselves out of the fancies and dispositions of
+human creatures. Such are dress, titles, place, equipage, false shame,
+and groundless fear, with the like vain imaginations that shoot up in
+trifling, weak, and irresolute minds.</p>
+
+<p>The Destinies finding themselves in so great a perplexity, concluded,
+that it would be impossible for them to execute the commands that had
+been given them according to their first intention; for which reason
+they agreed to throw all the blessings and calamities together into one
+large vessel, and in that manner offer them up at the feet of Jupiter.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>This was performed accordingly, the eldest sister presenting herself
+before the vessel, and introducing it with an apology for what they had
+done.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>"O Jupiter!" says she, "we have gathered together all the good and evil,
+the comforts and distresses of human life, which we thus present before
+thee in one promiscuous heap. We beseech thee that thou thyself wilt
+sort them out for the future, as in thy wisdom thou shalt think fit. For
+we acknowledge, that there is none beside thee that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> can judge what will
+occasion grief or joy in the heart of a human creature, and what will
+prove a blessing or a calamity to the person on whom it is bestowed.</p>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<a name="No_147" id="No_147"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 147.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Addison and Steele.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Thurs., March 16</i>, to <i>Satur., March 18, 1709-10</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&mdash;&mdash;Ut ameris, amabilis esto.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Ovid.</span>, Ars Am. ii. 107.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>From my own Apartment, March 17.</i></p>
+
+<p>Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. As by the one,
+health is preserved, strengthened and invigorated; by the other, virtue
+(which is the health of the mind) is kept alive, cherished and
+confirmed. But as exercise becomes tedious and painful when we make use
+of it only as the means of health, so reading is apt to grow uneasy and
+burdensome, when we apply ourselves to it only for our improvement in
+virtue. For this reason, the virtue which we gather from a fable, or an
+allegory, is like the health we get by hunting; as we are engaged in an
+agreeable pursuit that draws us on with pleasure, and makes us
+insensible of the fatigues that accompany it.</p>
+
+<p>After this preface, I shall set down a very beautiful allegorical fable
+out of the great poet whom I mentioned in my last paper, and whom it is
+very difficult to lay aside when one is engaged in the reading of him.
+And this I particularly design for the use of several of my fair
+correspondents, who in their letters have complained to me, that they
+have lost the affections of their husbands, and desire my advice how to
+recover them.</p>
+
+<p>Juno, says Homer,<a name="FNanchor_159_159" id="FNanchor_159_159"></a><a href="#Footnote_159_159" class="fnanchor">[159]</a> seeing her Jupiter seated on the top of Mount
+Ida, and knowing that he had conceived an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> aversion to her, began to
+study how she should regain his affections, and make herself amiable to
+him. With this thought she immediately retired into her chamber, where
+she bathed herself in ambrosia, which gave her person all its beauty,
+and diffused so divine an odour, as refreshed all nature, and sweetened
+both heaven and earth. She let her immortal tresses flow in the most
+graceful manner, and took a particular care to dress herself in several
+ornaments, which the poet describes at length, and which the goddess
+chose out as the most proper to set off her person to the best
+advantage. In the next place, she made a visit to Venus, the deity who
+presides over love, and begged of her, as a particular favour, that she
+would lend her for a while those charms with which she subdued the
+hearts both of gods and men. "For," says the goddess, "I would make use
+of them to reconcile the two deities who took care of me in my infancy,
+and who, at present, are at so great a variance, that they are estranged
+from each other's bed." Venus was proud of an opportunity of obliging so
+great a goddess, and therefore made her a present of the cestus which
+she used to wear about her own waist, with advice to hide it in her
+bosom till she had accomplished her intention. This cestus was a fine
+parti-coloured girdle, which, as Homer tells us, had all the attractions
+of the sex wrought into it. The four principal figures in the embroidery
+were Love, Desire, Fondness of Speech, and Conversation, filled with
+that sweetness and complacency, which, says the poet, insensibly steal
+away the hearts of the wisest men.</p>
+
+<p>Juno, after having made these necessary preparations, came as by
+accident into the presence of Jupiter, who is said to have been as much
+inflamed with her beauty, as when he first stole to her embraces without
+the consent of their parents. Juno, to cover her real thoughts, told
+him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> as she had told Venus, that she was going to make a visit to
+Oceanus and Tethys. He prevailed upon her to stay with him, protesting
+to her, that she appeared more amiable in his eye than ever any mortal,
+goddess, or even herself, had appeared to him till that day. The poet
+then represents him in so great an ardour, that (without going up to the
+house which had been built by the hands of Vulcan according to Juno's
+direction) he threw a golden cloud over their heads as they sat upon the
+top of Mount Ida, while the earth beneath them sprung up in
+lotuses,<a name="FNanchor_160_160" id="FNanchor_160_160"></a><a href="#Footnote_160_160" class="fnanchor">[160]</a> saffrons, hyacinths, and a bed of the softest flowers for
+their repose.</p>
+
+<p>This close translation of one of the finest passages in Homer, may
+suggest abundance of instruction to a woman who has a mind to preserve
+or recall the affection of her husband. The care of the person and the
+dress, with the particular blandishments woven in the cestus, are so
+plainly recommended by this fable, and so indispensably necessary in
+every female who desires to please, that they need no further
+explanation. The discretion likewise in covering all matrimonial
+quarrels from the knowledge of others, is taught in the pretended visit
+to Tethys, in the speech where Juno addresses herself to Venus; as the
+chaste and prudent management of a wife's charms is intimated by the
+same pretence for her appearing before Jupiter, and by the concealment
+of the cestus in her bosom.</p>
+
+<p>I shall leave this tale to the consideration of such good housewives who
+are never well dressed but when they are abroad, and think it necessary
+to appear more agreeable to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> all men living than their husbands: as also
+to those prudent ladies, who, to avoid the appearance of being
+overfond, entertain their husband with indifference, aversion, sullen
+silence, or exasperating language.<a name="FNanchor_161_161" id="FNanchor_161_161"></a><a href="#Footnote_161_161" class="fnanchor">[161]</a></p>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>Sheer Lane, March 17.</i></p>
+
+<p>Upon my coming home last night, I found a very handsome present of wine
+left for me, as a taste of 216 hogsheads which are to be put to sale at
+&pound;20 a hogshead, at Garraway's Coffee-house in Exchange Alley, on the
+22nd instant, at three in the afternoon, and to be tasted in Major
+Long's vaults from the 20th instant till the time of sale.<a name="FNanchor_162_162" id="FNanchor_162_162"></a><a href="#Footnote_162_162" class="fnanchor">[162]</a> This
+having been sent to me with a desire that I would give my judgment upon
+it, I immediately impanelled a jury of men of nice palates and strong
+heads, who being all of them very scrupulous, and unwilling to proceed
+rashly in a matter of so great importance, refused to bring in their
+verdict till three in the morning; at which time the foreman pronounced,
+as well as he was able, "Extra&mdash;a&mdash;ordinary French claret." For my own
+part, as I love to consult my pillow in all points of moment, I slept
+upon it before I would give my sentence, and this morning confirmed the
+verdict.</p>
+
+<p>Having mentioned this tribute of wine, I must give notice to my
+correspondents for the future, who shall apply to me on this occasion,
+that as I shall decide nothing unadvisedly in matters of this nature, I
+cannot pretend to give judgment of a right good liquor, without
+examining at least three dozen bottles of it. I must at the same time do
+myself the justice to let the world know, that I have resisted great
+temptations in this kind; as it is well known to a butcher in Clare
+Market, who endeavoured to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> corrupt me with a dozen and a half of
+marrow-bones. I had likewise a bribe sent me by a fishmonger, consisting
+of a collar of brawn, and a joll of salmon; but not finding them
+excellent in their kinds, I had the integrity to eat them both up,
+without speaking one word of them. However, for the future, I shall have
+an eye to the diet of this great city, and will recommend the best and
+most wholesome food to them, if I receive these proper and respectful
+notices from the sellers, that it may not be said hereafter, my readers
+were better taught than fed.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_159_159" id="Footnote_159_159"></a><a href="#FNanchor_159_159"><span class="label">[159]</span></a> "Iliad," xiv. 157.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_160_160" id="Footnote_160_160"></a><a href="#FNanchor_160_160"><span class="label">[160]</span></a> Lotus is the name of a native genus akin to the trefoil
+and clovers. It is best known as the supposed opium-like food of a
+people on the shores of the Mediterranean, visited by
+Ulysses,&mdash;Tennyson's "mild-eyed melancholy lotos-eaters," living in a
+land where all things always seemed the same.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_161_161" id="Footnote_161_161"></a><a href="#FNanchor_161_161"><span class="label">[161]</span></a> The preceding portion of this paper was by Addison
+(Tickell)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_162_162" id="Footnote_162_162"></a><a href="#FNanchor_162_162"><span class="label">[162]</span></a> This sale was advertised in No. 145.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<a name="No_148" id="No_148"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 148.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Addison</span>.</h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Saturday, March 18</i>, to <i>Tuesday, March 21, 1709-10</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&mdash;&mdash;Gustus elementa per omnia qu&aelig;runt,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nunquam animo pretiis obstantibus.<br /></span>
+<span class="i28"><span class="smcap">Juv.</span>, Sat. xi. 14.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>From my own Apartment, March 20.</i></p>
+
+<p>Having intimated in my last paper, that I design to take under my
+inspection the diet of this great city, I shall begin with a very
+earnest and serious exhortation to all my well-disposed readers, that
+they would return to the food of their forefathers, and reconcile
+themselves to beef and mutton. This was the diet which bred that hardy
+race of mortals who won the fields of Cressy and Agincourt. I need not
+go up so high as the history of Guy Earl of Warwick, who is well known
+to have eaten up a dun cow of his own killing.<a name="FNanchor_163_163" id="FNanchor_163_163"></a><a href="#Footnote_163_163" class="fnanchor">[163]</a> The renowned King
+Arthur<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> is generally looked upon as the first who ever sat down to a
+whole roasted ox (which was certainly the best way to preserve the
+gravy), and it is further added, that he and his knights sat about it at
+his Round Table, and usually consumed it to the very bones before they
+would enter upon any debate of moment. The Black Prince was a professed
+lover of the brisket; not to mention the history of the sirloin, or the
+institution of the Order of Beef-eaters, which are all so many evident
+and undeniable marks of the great respect which our warlike predecessors
+have paid to this excellent food. The tables of the ancient gentry of
+this nation were covered thrice a day with hot roast beef; and I am
+credibly informed, by an antiquary who has searched the registers in
+which the bills of fare of the Court are recorded, that instead of tea
+and bread and butter, which have prevailed of late years, the maids of
+honour in Queen Elizabeth's time were allowed three rumps of beef for
+their breakfast. Mutton has likewise been in great repute among our
+valiant countrymen, but was formerly observed to be the food rather of
+men of nice and delicate appetites, than those of strong and robust
+constitutions. For which reason, even to this day, we use the word
+"sheep-biter" as a term of reproach, as we do "beef-eater" in a
+respectful and honourable sense. As for the flesh of lamb, veal,
+chicken, and other animals under age, they were the invention of sickly
+and degenerate palates, according to that wholesome remark of Daniel the
+historian,<a name="FNanchor_164_164" id="FNanchor_164_164"></a><a href="#Footnote_164_164" class="fnanchor">[164]</a> who takes notice, that in all taxes upon provisions,
+during the reigns of several of our kings, there is nothing mentioned
+besides the flesh of such fowl and cattle as were arrived at their full
+growth, and were mature for slaughter. The common people of this kingdom
+do still keep up the taste of their ancestors; and it is to this that we
+in a great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> measure owe the unparalleled victories that have been gained
+in this reign: for, I would desire my reader to consider, what work our
+countrymen would have made at Blenheim and Ramillies, if they had been
+fed with fricassees and ragouts.</p>
+
+<p>For this reason, we at present see the florid complexion, the strong
+limb, and the hale constitution, are to be found chiefly among the
+meaner sort of people, or in the wild gentry, who have been educated
+among the woods or mountains. Whereas many great families are insensibly
+fallen off from the athletic constitution of their progenitors, and are
+dwindled away into a pale, sickly, spindle-legged, generation of
+valetudinarians.</p>
+
+<p>I may perhaps be thought extravagant in my notion; but I must confess, I
+am apt to impute the dishonours that sometimes happen in great families
+to the inflaming kind of diet which is so much in fashion. Many dishes
+can excite desire without giving strength, and heat the body without
+nourishing it; as physicians observe, that the poorest and most
+dispirited blood is most subject to fevers. I look upon a French ragout
+to be as pernicious to the stomach as a glass of spirits; and when I
+have seen a young lady swallow all the instigations of high soups,
+seasoned sauces, and forced meats, I have wondered at the despair or
+tedious sighing of her lovers.</p>
+
+<p>The rules among these false delicates are to be as contradictory as they
+can be to nature.</p>
+
+<p>Without expecting the return of hunger, they eat for an appetite, and
+prepare dishes not to allay, but to excite it.</p>
+
+<p>They admit of nothing at their tables, in its natural form, or without
+some disguise.</p>
+
+<p>They are to eat everything before it comes in season, and to leave it
+off as soon as it is good to be eaten.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>They are not to approve anything that is agreeable to ordinary palates;
+and nothing is to gratify their senses, but what would offend those of
+their inferiors.</p>
+
+<p>I remember I was last summer invited to a friend's house, who is a great
+admirer of the French cookery, and (as the phrase is) eats well. At our
+sitting down, I found the table covered with a great variety of unknown
+dishes. I was mightily at a loss to learn what they were, and therefore
+did not know where to help myself. That which stood before me, I took to
+be a roasted porcupine, however did not care for asking questions; and
+have since been informed, that it was only a larded turkey. I afterwards
+passed my eye over several hashes, which I do not know the names of to
+this day; and hearing that they were delicacies, did not think fit to
+meddle with them.</p>
+
+<p>Among other dainties, I saw something like a pheasant, and therefore
+desired to be helped to a wing of it; but to my great surprise, my
+friend told me it was a rabbit, which is a sort of meat I never cared
+for. At last I discovered, with some joy, a pig at the lower end of the
+table, and begged a gentleman that was near it to cut me a piece of it.
+Upon which the gentleman of the house said, with great civility, "I am
+sure you will like the pig, for it was whipped to death." I must
+confess, I heard him with horror, and could not eat of an animal that
+had died so tragical a death. I was now in great hunger and confusion,
+when, methought, I smelt the agreeable savour of roast beef, but could
+not tell from which dish it arose, though I did not question but it lay
+disguised in one of them. Upon turning my head, I saw a noble sirloin on
+the side-table smoking in the most delicious manner. I had recourse to
+it more than once, and could not see, without some indignation, that
+substantial English dish<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> banished in so ignominious a manner, to make
+way for French kickshaws.</p>
+
+<p>The dessert was brought up at last, which in truth was as extraordinary
+as anything that had come before it. The whole, when ranged in its
+proper order, looked like a very beautiful winter-piece. There were
+several pyramids of candied sweetmeats, that hung like icicles, with
+fruit scattered up and down, and hid in an artificial kind of frost. At
+the same time there were great quantities of cream beaten up into a
+snow, and near them little plates of sugar-plums, disposed like so many
+heaps of hailstones, with a multitude of congelations in jellies of
+various colours. I was indeed so pleased with the several objects which
+lay before me, that I did not care for displacing any of them, and was
+half angry with the rest of the company, that for the sake of a piece of
+lemon-peel, or a sugar-plum, would spoil so pleasing a picture. Indeed,
+I could not but smile to see several of them cooling their mouths with
+lumps of ice which they had just before been burning with salts and
+peppers.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>As soon as this show was over I took my leave, that I might finish my
+dinner at my own house: for as I in every thing love what is simple and
+natural, so particularly in my food; two plain dishes, with two or three
+good-natured, cheerful, ingenious friends, would make me more pleased
+and vain, than all that pomp and luxury can bestow. For it is my maxim,
+that he keeps the greatest table, who has the most valuable company at
+it.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_163_163" id="Footnote_163_163"></a><a href="#FNanchor_163_163"><span class="label">[163]</span></a> Butler, speaking of Talgol ("Hudibras," Part I. canto ii.
+305), says:
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"He many a boar and huge dun-cow<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Did, like another Guy, o'erthrow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But Guy, with him in fight compared,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Had like the boar or dun-cow fared."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_164_164" id="Footnote_164_164"></a><a href="#FNanchor_164_164"><span class="label">[164]</span></a> Samuel Daniel's "History" was published in 1613.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span>
+<a name="No_149" id="No_149"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 149.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Steele</span>.</h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Tuesday, March 21</i>, to <i>Thursday, March 23, 1709-10</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>From my own Apartment, March 22.</i></p>
+
+<p>It has often been a solid grief to me, when I have reflected on this
+glorious nation, which is the scene of public happiness and liberty,
+that there are still crowds of private tyrants, against whom there
+neither is any law now in being, nor can there be invented any by the
+wit of man. These cruel men are ill-natured husbands. The commerce in
+the conjugal state is so delicate, that it is impossible to prescribe
+rules for the conduct of it, so as to fit ten thousand nameless
+pleasures and disquietudes which arise to people in that condition. But
+it is in this as in some other nice cases, where touching upon the
+malady tenderly, is half way to the cure; and there are some faults
+which need only to be observed to be amended. I am put into this way of
+thinking by a late conversation which I am going to give an account of.</p>
+
+<p>I made a visit the other day to a family for which I have a great
+honour, and found the father, the mother, and two or three of the
+younger children, drop off designedly to leave me alone with the eldest
+daughter, who was but a visitant there as well as myself, and is the
+wife of a gentleman of a very fair character in the world. As soon as we
+were alone, I saw her eyes full of tears, and methought she had much to
+say to me, for which she wanted encouragement. "Madam," said I, "you
+know I wish you all as well as any friend you have: speak freely what I
+see you are oppressed with, and you may be sure, if I cannot relieve
+your distress, you may at least reap so much present<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> advantage, as
+safely to give yourself the ease of uttering it." She immediately
+assumed the most becoming composure of countenance, and spoke as
+follows: "It is an aggravation of affliction in a married life, that
+there is a sort of guilt in communicating it: for which reason it is,
+that a lady of your and my acquaintance, instead of speaking to you
+herself, desired me the next time I saw you, as you are a professed
+friend to our sex, to turn your thoughts upon the reciprocal
+complaisance which is the duty of a married state.</p>
+
+<p>"My friend was neither in fortune, birth nor education, below the
+gentleman whom she has married. Her person, her age, and her character,
+are also such as he can make no exception to. But so it is, that from
+the moment the marriage ceremony was over, the obsequiousness of a lover
+was turned into the haughtiness of a master. All the kind endeavours
+which she uses to please him, are at best but so many instances of her
+duty. This insolence takes away that secret satisfaction, which does not
+only excite to virtue, but also rewards it. It abates the fire of a free
+and generous love, and embitters all the pleasures of a social life."
+The young lady spoke all this with such an air of resentment, as
+discovered how nearly she was concerned in the distress.</p>
+
+<p>When I observed she had done speaking, "Madam," said I, "the affliction
+you mention is the greatest that can happen in human life, and I know
+but one consolation in it, if that be a consolation, that the calamity
+is a pretty general one. There is nothing so common as for men to enter
+into marriage, without so much as expecting to be happy in it. They seem
+to propose to themselves a few holidays in the beginning of it; after
+which they are to return at best to the usual course of their life; and
+for aught they know, to constant misery and uneasiness. From this false<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span>
+sense of the state they are going into, proceeds the immediate coldness
+and indifference, or hatred and aversion, which attend ordinary
+marriages, or rather bargains to cohabit." Our conversation was here
+interrupted by company which came in upon us.</p>
+
+<p>The humour of affecting a superior carriage, generally rises from a
+false notion of the weakness of a female understanding in general, or an
+overweening opinion that we have of our own: for when it proceeds from a
+natural ruggedness and brutality of temper, it is altogether
+incorrigible, and not to be amended by admonition. Sir Francis Bacon, as
+I remember, lays it down as a maxim, that no marriage can be happy in
+which the wife has no opinion of her husband's wisdom;<a name="FNanchor_165_165" id="FNanchor_165_165"></a><a href="#Footnote_165_165" class="fnanchor">[165]</a> but without
+offence to so great an authority, I may venture to say, that a
+sullen-wise man is as bad as a good-natured fool. Knowledge, softened
+with complacency and good breeding, will make a man equally beloved and
+respected; but when joined with a severe, distant and unsociable temper,
+it creates rather fear than love. I who am a bachelor, have no other
+notion of conjugal tenderness, but what I learn from books, and shall
+therefore produce three letters of Pliny,<a name="FNanchor_166_166" id="FNanchor_166_166"></a><a href="#Footnote_166_166" class="fnanchor">[166]</a> who was not only one of
+the greatest, but the most learned men in the whole Roman Empire. At the
+same time I am very much ashamed, that on such occasions I am obliged to
+have recourse to heathen authors, and shall appeal to my readers, if
+they would not think it a mark of a narrow education in a man of quality
+to write such passionate letters to any woman but a mistress. They were
+all three written at a time when she was at a distance from him: the
+first of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> them puts me in mind of a married friend of mine, who said,
+sickness itself is pleasant to a man that is attended in it by one whom
+he dearly loves.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>Pliny to Calphurnia.</i></p>
+
+<p>"I never was so much offended at business, as when it hindered me from
+going with you into the country, or following you thither: for I more
+particularly wish to be with you at present, that I might be sensible of
+the progress you make in the recovery of your strength and health; as
+also of the entertainment and diversions you can meet with in your
+retirement. Believe me, it is an anxious state of mind to live in
+ignorance of what happens to those whom we passionately love. I am not
+only in pain for your absence, but also for your indisposition. I am
+afraid of everything, fancy everything, and, as it is the nature of men
+in fear, I fancy those things most which I am most afraid of. Let me
+therefore earnestly desire you to favour me under these my apprehensions
+with one letter every day, or, if possible, with two; for I shall be a
+little at ease while I am reading your letters, and grow anxious again
+as soon as I have read them."</p>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>Second Letter.</i></p>
+
+<p>"You tell me that you are very much afflicted at my absence, and that
+you have no satisfaction in anything but my writings, which you often
+lay by you upon my pillow. You oblige me very much in wishing to see me,
+and making me your comforter in my absence. In return, I must let you
+know, I am no less pleased with the letters which you writ to me, and
+read them over a thousand times with new pleasure. If your letters are
+capable of giving me so much pleasure, what would your conversation do?
+Let me beg of you to write to me often; though at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> the same time I must
+confess, your letters give me anguish whilst they give me pleasure."</p>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>Third Letter.</i></p>
+
+<p>"It is impossible to conceive how much I languish for you in your
+absence; the tender love I bear you is the chief cause of this my
+uneasiness, which is still the more insupportable, because absence is
+wholly a new thing to us. I lie awake most part of the night in thinking
+of you, and several times of the day go as naturally to your apartment,
+as if you were there to receive me; but when I miss you, I come away
+dejected, out of humour, and like a man that had suffered a repulse.
+There is but one part of the day in which I am relieved from this
+anxiety, and that is when I am engaged in public affairs.</p>
+
+<p>"You may guess at the uneasy condition of one who has no rest but in
+business, no consolation but in trouble."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>I shall conclude this paper with a beautiful passage out of Milton,<a name="FNanchor_167_167" id="FNanchor_167_167"></a><a href="#Footnote_167_167" class="fnanchor">[167]</a>
+and leave it as a lecture to those of my own sex, who have a mind to
+make their conversation agreeable as well as instructive, to the fair
+partners who are fallen into their care. Eve, having observed that Adam
+was entering into some deep disquisitions with the angel, who was sent
+to visit him, is described as retiring from their company, with a design
+of learning what should pass there from her husband.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><div class="itals">
+<span class="i0">So spake our sire, and by his countenance seemed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Entering on studious thoughts abstruse, which Eve<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Perceiving where she sat retired in sight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With lowliness majestic from her seat<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rose, and went forth among her fruits and flowers.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet went she not, as not with such discourse</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span><br />
+<span class="i0">Delighted, or not capable her ear<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of what was high: such pleasure she reserved,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Adam relating, she sole auditress;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her husband the relater she preferred<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Before the angel, and of him to ask<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Chose rather: he, she knew, would intermix<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Grateful digressions, and solve high dispute<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With conjugal caresses; from his lip<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not words alone pleased her. O! when meet now<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Such pairs, in love and mutual honour joined?<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_165_165" id="Footnote_165_165"></a><a href="#FNanchor_165_165"><span class="label">[165]</span></a> Bacon, Essay viii., "Of marriage and single life": "It is
+one of the best bonds, both of chastity and obedience, in the wife, if
+she thinks her husband wise, which she will never do if she finds him
+jealous."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_166_166" id="Footnote_166_166"></a><a href="#FNanchor_166_166"><span class="label">[166]</span></a> "Epist.," vi. 4, 7, 5.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_167_167" id="Footnote_167_167"></a><a href="#FNanchor_167_167"><span class="label">[167]</span></a> "Paradise Lost," viii. 39.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<a name="No_150" id="No_150"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 150.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Steele</span>.</h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Thursday, March 23</i>, to <i>Saturday, March 25, 1710</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">H&aelig;c sunt jucundi causa, cibusque mali.<br /></span>
+<span class="i18"><span class="smcap">Ovid</span>, Rem. Amor. 138.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>From my own Apartment, March 24.</i></p>
+
+<p>I have received the following letter upon the subject of my last paper.
+The writer of it tells me, I there spoke of marriage as one that knows
+it only by speculation, and for that reason he sends me his sense of it,
+as drawn from experience:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Mr. Bickerstaff</span>,</p>
+
+<p>"I have read your paper of this day, and think you have done the
+nuptial state a great deal of justice in the authority you give us
+of Pliny, whose letters to his wife you have there translated: but
+give me leave to tell you, that it is impossible for you, that are
+a bachelor, to have so just a notion of this way of life, as to
+touch the affections of your readers in a particular wherein every
+man's own heart suggests more than the nicest observer can form to
+himself without experience. I therefore, who am an old married man,
+have sat down to give you an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> account of the matter from my own
+knowledge, and the observations which I have made upon the conduct
+of others in that most agreeable or wretched condition.</p>
+
+<p>"It is very commonly observed, that the most smart pangs which we
+meet with are in the beginning of wedlock, which proceed from
+ignorance of each other's humour, and want of prudence to make
+allowances for a change from the most careful respect to the most
+unbounded familiarity. Hence it arises, that trifles are commonly
+occasions of the greatest anxiety; for contradiction being a thing
+wholly unusual between a new married couple, the smallest instance
+of it is taken for the highest injury; and it very seldom happens,
+that the man is slow enough in assuming the character of a husband,
+or the woman quick enough in condescending to that of a wife. It
+immediately follows, that they think they have all the time of
+their courtship been talking in masks to each other, and therefore
+begin to act like disappointed people. Philander finds Delia
+ill-natured and impertinent; and Delia, Philander surly and
+inconstant.</p>
+
+<p>"I have known a fond couple quarrel in the very honeymoon about
+cutting up a tart: nay, I could name two, who after having had
+seven children, fell out and parted beds upon the boiling of a leg
+of mutton. My very next neighbours have not spoken to one another
+these three days, because they differed in their opinions, whether
+the clock should stand by the window, or over the chimney. It may
+seem strange to you, who are not a married man, when I tell you how
+the least trifle can strike a woman dumb for a week together. But
+if you ever enter into this state, you will find, that the soft sex
+as often express their anger by an obstinate silence, as by an
+ungovernable clamour.</p>
+
+<p>"Those indeed who begin this course of life without jars at their
+setting out, arrive within few months at a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> pitch of benevolence
+and affection, of which the most perfect friendship is but a faint
+resemblance. As in the unfortunate marriage, the most minute and
+indifferent things are objects of the sharpest resentment; so in a
+happy one, they are occasions of the most exquisite satisfaction.
+For what does not oblige in one we love? What does not offend in
+one we dislike? For these reasons I take it for a rule, that in
+marriage, the chief business is to acquire a prepossession in
+favour of each other. They should consider one another's words and
+actions with a secret indulgence: there should be always an inward
+fondness pleading for each other, such as may add new beauties to
+everything that is excellent, give charms to what is indifferent,
+and cover everything that is defective. For want of this kind
+propensity and bias of mind, the married pair often take things ill
+of each other, which no one else would take notice of in either of
+them.</p>
+
+<p>"But the most unhappy circumstance of all is, where each party is
+always laying up fuel for dissension, and gathering together a
+magazine of provocations to exasperate each other with when they
+are out of humour. These people in common discourse make no scruple
+to let those who are by know they are quarrelling with one another,
+and think they are discreet enough, if they conceal from the
+company the matters which they are hinting at. About a week ago, I
+was entertained for a whole dinner with a mysterious conversation
+of this nature; out of which I could learn no more, than that the
+husband and wife were angry at one another. We had no sooner sat
+down, but says the gentleman of the house, in order to raise
+discourse, 'I thought Margarita<a name="FNanchor_168_168" id="FNanchor_168_168"></a><a href="#Footnote_168_168" class="fnanchor">[168]</a> sung extremely well<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> last
+night.' Upon this, says the lady, looking as pale as ashes, 'I
+suppose she had cherry-coloured ribands<a name="FNanchor_169_169" id="FNanchor_169_169"></a><a href="#Footnote_169_169" class="fnanchor">[169]</a> on.' 'No,' answered
+the husband, with a flush in his face, 'but she had laced
+shoes.'<a name="FNanchor_170_170" id="FNanchor_170_170"></a><a href="#Footnote_170_170" class="fnanchor">[170]</a> I look upon it, that a bystander on such occasions has
+as much reason to be out of countenance as either of the
+combatants. To turn off my confusion, and seem regardless of what
+had passed, I desired the servant who attended to give me the
+vinegar, which unluckily created a new dialogue of hints; for as
+far as I could gather by the subsequent discourse, they had
+dissented the day before about the preference of elder<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> to wine
+vinegar. In the midst of their discourse, there appeared a dish of
+chickens and asparagus, when the husband seemed disposed to lay
+aside all disputes; and looking upon her with a great deal of good
+nature, said, 'Pray, my dear, will you help my friend to a wing of
+the fowl that lies next you, for I think it looks extremely well.'
+The lady, instead of answering him, addressing herself to me,
+'Pray, sir,' said she, 'do you in Surrey reckon the white- or the
+black-legged fowls the best?' I found the husband changed colour at
+the question; and before I could answer, asked me, whether we did
+not call hops 'broom' in our country? I quickly found, they did not
+ask questions so much out of curiosity as anger: for which reason I
+thought fit to keep my opinion to myself, and, as an honest man
+ought (when he sees two friends in warmth with each other), I took
+the first opportunity I could to leave them by themselves.</p>
+
+<p>"You see, sir, I have laid before you only small incidents, which
+are seemingly trivial; but take it from a man who am very well
+experienced in this state, they are principally evils of this
+nature which make marriages unhappy. At the same time, that I may
+do justice to this excellent institution, I must own to you, there
+are unspeakable pleasures which are as little regarded in the
+computation of the advantages of marriage, as the others are in the
+usual survey that is made of its misfortunes.</p>
+
+<p>"Lovemore and his wife live together in the happy possession of
+each other's hearts, and by that means have no indifferent moments,
+but their whole life is one continued scene of delight. Their
+passion for each other communicates a certain satisfaction, like
+that which they themselves are in, to all that approach them. When
+she enters the place where he is, you see a pleasure which he
+cannot conceal, nor he or any one else describe. In so consummate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span>
+an affection, the very presence of the person beloved has the
+effect of the most agreeable conversation. Whether they have matter
+to talk of or not, they enjoy the pleasures of society, and at the
+same time the freedom of solitude. Their ordinary life is to be
+preferred to the happiest moments of other lovers. In a word, they
+have each of them great merit, live in the esteem of all who know
+them, and seem but to comply with the opinions of their friends, in
+the just value they have for each other."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_168_168" id="Footnote_168_168"></a><a href="#FNanchor_168_168"><span class="label">[168]</span></a> Francesca Margarita de l'Epine, a native of Tuscany. This
+celebrated singer performed in many of the earlier Italian operas
+represented in England. She and Mrs. Tofts were rivals for the public
+favour, and it seems they divided pretty equally the applause of the
+town. She sung on the stage, at public entertainments, in concerts at
+York Buildings and Stationers' Hall, and once in the hall of the Middle
+Temple, in a musical performance at the Christmas revels of that
+society. One Greber, a German musician, who studied some few years in
+Italy, brought this Italian with him to England, whence she was known by
+the name of Greber's Peg. It is said that she had afterwards a criminal
+connection with Daniel Earl of Nottingham. In a shrewd epigram written
+by Lord Halifax, she is styled "The Tawny Tuscan," and he is called
+"Tall Nottingham." Margarita continued a singer till about the year
+1718, when, having, as Downes relates, scraped together above ten
+thousand guineas, she retired, and was afterwards married to Dr.
+Pepusch. The epithet "tawny" was very characteristic of her, for she was
+remarkably swarthy, and in general so destitute of personal charms, that
+her husband seldom called her by any other name than Hecate, to which
+she answered very readily. She died about 1740. See Sir J. Hawkin's
+"History of Music," vol. v. p. 153 (Nichols).&mdash;The statement that she
+had an improper connection with the Earl of Nottingham appears to rest
+solely on statements in party poems of the time.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_169_169" id="Footnote_169_169"></a><a href="#FNanchor_169_169"><span class="label">[169]</span></a> Ladies wore "commodes" as head-dresses, sometimes backed
+by dark-coloured ribbons. The prevailing fashion about 1712 was cherry
+colour; see <i>Spectator</i>, No. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/12030/12030-h/12030-h/SV2/Spectator2.html#section271">271</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_170_170" id="Footnote_170_170"></a><a href="#FNanchor_170_170"><span class="label">[170]</span></a> In a song in D'Urfey's "Wit and Mirth"&mdash;"The Young Maid's
+Portion"&mdash;the lady speaks of her laced shoes of Spanish leather. Malcolm
+says that Spanish leather shoes laced with gold were common about this
+time (Planch&eacute;'s "Cyclop&aelig;dia of Costume").</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<a name="No_151" id="No_151"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 151.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Steele.</span><a name="FNanchor_171_171" id="FNanchor_171_171"></a><a href="#Footnote_171_171" class="fnanchor">[171]</a></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Saturday, March 25</i>, to <i>Tuesday, March 28, 1710</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i14">&mdash;&mdash;Ni vis boni<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In ipsa inesset forma, h&aelig;c formam extinguerent.<br /></span>
+<span class="i24"><span class="smcap">Ter.</span>, Phorm. I. ii. 58.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>From my own Apartment, March 27.</i></p>
+
+<p>When artists would expose their diamonds to an advantage, they usually
+set them to show in little cases of black velvet. By this means the
+jewels appear in their true and genuine lustre, while there is no colour
+that can infect their brightness, or give a false cast to the water.
+When I was at the opera the other night, the assembly of ladies in
+mourning<a name="FNanchor_172_172" id="FNanchor_172_172"></a><a href="#Footnote_172_172" class="fnanchor">[172]</a> made me consider them in the same kind of view. A dress
+wherein there is so little variety, shows<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> the face in all its natural
+charms, and makes one differ from another only as it is more or less
+beautiful. Painters are ever careful of offending against a rule which
+is so essential in all just representation. The chief figure must have
+the strongest point of light, and not be injured by any gay colourings
+that may draw away the attention to any less considerable part of the
+picture. The present fashion obliges everybody to be dressed with
+propriety, and makes the ladies' faces the principal objects of sight.
+Every beautiful person shines out in all the excellence with which
+Nature has adorned her: gaudy ribands and glaring colours being now out
+of use, the sex has no opportunity given them to disfigure themselves,
+which they seldom fail to do whenever it lies in their power. When a
+woman comes to her glass, she does not employ her time in making herself
+look more advantageously what she really is, but endeavours to be as
+much another creature as she possibly can. Whether this happens, because
+they stay so long, and attend their work so diligently, that they forget
+the faces and persons which they first sat down with, or whatever it is,
+they seldom rise from the toilet the same women they appeared when they
+began to dress. What jewel can the charming Cleora place in her ears,
+that can please her beholders so much as her eyes? The cluster of
+diamonds upon the breast can add no beauty to the fair chest of ivory
+which supports it. It may indeed tempt a man to steal a woman, but never
+to love her. Let Thalestris change herself into a motley parti-coloured
+animal: the pearl necklace, the flowered stomacher, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> artificial
+nosegay, and shaded furbelow,<a name="FNanchor_173_173" id="FNanchor_173_173"></a><a href="#Footnote_173_173" class="fnanchor">[173]</a> may be of use to attract the eye of
+the beholder, and turn it from the imperfections of her features and
+shape. But if ladies will take my word for it (and as they dress to
+please men, they ought to consult our fancy rather than their own in
+this particular), I can assure them, there is nothing touches our
+imagination so much as a beautiful woman in a plain dress. There might
+be more agreeable ornaments found in our own manufacture, than any that
+rise out of the looms of Persia.</p>
+
+<p>This, I know, is a very harsh doctrine to womankind, who are carried
+away with everything that is showy, and with what delights the eye, more
+than any other species of living creatures whatsoever. Were the minds of
+the sex laid open, we should find the chief idea in one to be a tippet,
+in another a muff, in a third a fan, and in a fourth a farthingale. The
+memory of an old visiting lady is so filled with gloves, silks, and
+ribands, that I can look upon it as nothing else but a toy-shop. A
+matron of my acquaintance complaining of her daughter's vanity, was
+observing, that she had all of a sudden held up her head higher than
+ordinary, and taken an air that showed a secret satisfaction in herself,
+mixed with a scorn of others. "I did not know," says my friend, "what to
+make of the carriage of this fantastical girl, until I was informed by
+her elder sister, that she had a pair of striped garters on." This odd
+turn of mind often makes the sex unhappy, and disposes them to be struck
+with everything that makes a show, however trifling and superficial.</p>
+
+<p>Many a lady has fetched a sigh at the toss of a wig, and been ruined by
+the tapping of a snuff-box. It is impos<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span>sible to describe all the
+execution that was done by the shoulder-knot<a name="FNanchor_174_174" id="FNanchor_174_174"></a><a href="#Footnote_174_174" class="fnanchor">[174]</a> while that fashion
+prevailed, or to reckon up all the virgins that have fallen a sacrifice
+to a pair of fringed gloves.<a name="FNanchor_175_175" id="FNanchor_175_175"></a><a href="#Footnote_175_175" class="fnanchor">[175]</a> A sincere heart has not made half so
+many conquests as an open waistcoat,<a name="FNanchor_176_176" id="FNanchor_176_176"></a><a href="#Footnote_176_176" class="fnanchor">[176]</a> and I should be glad to see an
+able head make so good a figure in a woman's company as a pair of red
+heels.<a name="FNanchor_177_177" id="FNanchor_177_177"></a><a href="#Footnote_177_177" class="fnanchor">[177]</a> A Grecian hero,<a name="FNanchor_178_178" id="FNanchor_178_178"></a><a href="#Footnote_178_178" class="fnanchor">[178]</a> when he was asked whether he could play
+upon the lute, thought he had made a very good reply when he answered,
+"No, but I can make a great city of a little one." Notwithstanding his
+boasted wisdom, I appeal to the heart of any toast in town, whether she
+would not think the lutenist preferable to the statesman. I do not speak
+this out of any aversion that I have to the sex: on the contrary, I have
+always had a tenderness for them; but I must confess, it troubles me
+very much to see the generality of them place their affections on
+improper objects, and give up all the pleasures of life for gewgaws and
+trifles.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Margery Bickerstaff, my great aunt, had a thousand pounds to her
+portion, which our family was desirous of keeping among themselves, and
+therefore used all possible means to turn off her thoughts from
+marriage. The method they took was, in any time of danger to throw a new
+gown or petticoat in her way. When she was about twenty-five years of
+age, she fell in love with a man of an agreeable temper, and equal
+fortune, and would certainly have married him, had not my grandfather,
+Sir Jacob, dressed her up in a suit of flowered satin; upon which, she
+set so immoderate a value upon herself, that the lover was contemned and
+discarded. In the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> fortieth year of her age, she was again smitten, but
+very luckily transferred her passion to a tippet, which was presented to
+her by another relation who was in the plot. This, with a white sarcenet
+hood, kept her safe in the family till fifty. About sixty, which
+generally produces a kind of latter spring<a name="FNanchor_179_179" id="FNanchor_179_179"></a><a href="#Footnote_179_179" class="fnanchor">[179]</a> in amorous
+constitutions, my Aunt Margery had again a colt's-tooth<a name="FNanchor_180_180" id="FNanchor_180_180"></a><a href="#Footnote_180_180" class="fnanchor">[180]</a> in her
+head, and would certainly have eloped from the mansion-house, had not
+her brother Simon, who was a wise man, and a scholar, advised to dress
+her in cherry-coloured ribands,<a name="FNanchor_181_181" id="FNanchor_181_181"></a><a href="#Footnote_181_181" class="fnanchor">[181]</a> which was the only expedient that
+could have been found out by the wit of man to preserve the thousand
+pounds in our family, part of which I enjoy at this time.</p>
+
+<p>This discourse puts me in mind of a humorist mentioned by Horace,<a name="FNanchor_182_182" id="FNanchor_182_182"></a><a href="#Footnote_182_182" class="fnanchor">[182]</a>
+called Eutrapelus, who, when he designed to do a man a mischief, made
+him a present of a gay suit; and brings to my memory another passage of
+the same author, when he describes the most ornamental dress that a
+woman can appear in with two words, <i>simplex munditiis</i>,<a name="FNanchor_183_183" id="FNanchor_183_183"></a><a href="#Footnote_183_183" class="fnanchor">[183]</a> which I
+have quoted for the benefit of my female readers.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_171_171" id="Footnote_171_171"></a><a href="#FNanchor_171_171"><span class="label">[171]</span></a> This paper, though not included in Addison's Works, may,
+as Nichols suggested, be his. Two slight corrections were made in the
+following number in the folio issue.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_172_172" id="Footnote_172_172"></a><a href="#FNanchor_172_172"><span class="label">[172]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number8">8</a>, with reference to the long-continued mourning,
+on the decease of the Queen's husband, George Prince of Denmark, who
+died in October 1708. Lewis Duke of Bourbon, eldest son to the Dauphin
+of France, died on March 3, about three weeks before the date of this
+paper. A month before, on February 2, 1709-10, in consequence of a
+petition presented by the mercers, &amp;c., complaining of their sufferings
+from the length and frequency of public mournings, leave was given to
+bring in a Bill for ascertaining and limiting the time of them.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_173_173" id="Footnote_173_173"></a><a href="#FNanchor_173_173"><span class="label">[173]</span></a> The furbelow was a puckered flounce ornamenting the
+dress. D'Urfey wrote a play, "The Old Mode and the New, or Country Miss
+with her Furbelow."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_174_174" id="Footnote_174_174"></a><a href="#FNanchor_174_174"><span class="label">[174]</span></a> Introduced from France at the Restoration.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_175_175" id="Footnote_175_175"></a><a href="#FNanchor_175_175"><span class="label">[175]</span></a> Gloves with silver fringe round the wrists. A
+Fringe-Glove Club is mentioned in No. 30 of the <i>Spectator</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_176_176" id="Footnote_176_176"></a><a href="#FNanchor_176_176"><span class="label">[176]</span></a>
+See No. 95.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_177_177" id="Footnote_177_177"></a><a href="#FNanchor_177_177"><span class="label">[177]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number45">45</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_178_178" id="Footnote_178_178"></a><a href="#FNanchor_178_178"><span class="label">[178]</span></a> Themistocles.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_179_179" id="Footnote_179_179"></a><a href="#FNanchor_179_179"><span class="label">[179]</span></a> Cf. "1 Henry IV." act i. sc. 2, where Prince Hal says to
+Falstaff, "Farewell, thou latter spring!"</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_180_180" id="Footnote_180_180"></a><a href="#FNanchor_180_180"><span class="label">[180]</span></a> A love of youthful pleasure. Cf. "Henry VIII." act i. sc.
+3,
+</p>
+<p><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">"Well said, Lord Sands,</span><br />
+Your colt's tooth is not cast yet."<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_181_181" id="Footnote_181_181"></a><a href="#FNanchor_181_181"><span class="label">[181]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="#No_150">150</a></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_182_182" id="Footnote_182_182"></a><a href="#FNanchor_182_182"><span class="label">[182]</span></a> 1 Epist. xviii. 31.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_183_183" id="Footnote_183_183"></a><a href="#FNanchor_183_183"><span class="label">[183]</span></a> 1 Od. v. 5.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<a name="No_152" id="No_152"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 152.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Addison.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Tuesday, March 28</i>, to <i>Thursday, March 30, 1710</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Di, quibus imperium est animarum, Umbr&aelig;que silentes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Et Chaos, et Phlegethon, loca nocte silentia late,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sit mihi fas audita loqui; sit numine vestro<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pandere resalta terra et caligine mersas.<br /></span>
+<span class="i28"><span class="smcap">Virg.</span>, &AElig;n. vi. 264.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>From my own Apartment, March 29.</i></p>
+
+<p>A man who confines his speculations to the time present, has but a very
+narrow province to employ his thoughts in. For this reason, persons of
+studious and contemplative natures often entertain themselves with the
+history of past ages, or raise schemes and conjectures upon futurity.
+For my own part, I love to range through that half of eternity which is
+still to come, rather than look on that which is already run out;
+because I know I have a real share and interest in the one, whereas all
+that was transacted in the other can be only matter of curiosity to me.</p>
+
+<p>Upon this account, I have been always very much delighted with
+meditating on the soul's immortality, and in reading the several notions
+which the wisest of men, both ancient and modern, have entertained on
+that subject. What the opinions of the greatest philosophers have been,
+I have several times hinted at, and shall give an account of them from
+time to time as occasion requires. It may likewise be worth while to
+consider, what men of the most exalted genius, and elevated imagination,
+have thought of this matter. Among these, Homer stands up as a prodigy
+of mankind, that looks down upon the rest of human creatures as a
+species beneath him. Since he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> is the most ancient heathen author, we
+may guess from his relation, what were the common opinions in his time
+concerning the state of the soul after death.</p>
+
+<p>Ulysses, he tells us, made a voyage to the regions of the dead, in order
+to consult Tiresias how he should return to his own country, and
+recommend himself to the favour of the gods. The poet scarce introduces
+a single person, who does not suggest some useful precept to his reader,
+and designs his description of the dead for the amendment of the living.</p>
+
+<p>Ulysses, after having made a very plenteous sacrifice, sat him down by
+the pool of holy blood, which attracted a prodigious assembly of ghosts
+of all ages and conditions, that hovered about the hero, and feasted
+upon the steams of his oblation. The first he knew, was the shade of
+Elpenor, who, to show the activity of a spirit above that of body, is
+represented as arrived there long before Ulysses, notwithstanding the
+winds and seas had contributed all their force to hasten his voyage
+thither. This Elpenor, to inspire the reader with a detestation of
+drunkenness, and at the same time with a religious care of doing proper
+honours to the dead, describes himself as having broken his neck in a
+debauch of wine; and begs Ulysses, that for the repose of his soul, he
+would build a monument over him, and perform funeral rites to his
+memory. Ulysses with great sorrow of heart promises to fulfil his
+request, and is immediately diverted to an object much more moving than
+the former. The ghost of his own mother Anticlea, whom he still thought
+living, appears to him among the multitude of shades that surrounded
+him, and sits down at a small distance from him by the lake of blood,
+without speaking to him, or knowing who he was. Ulysses was exceedingly
+troubled at the sight, and could not forbear weeping as he looked upon
+her;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> but being all along set forth as a pattern of consummate wisdom,
+he makes his affection give way to prudence; and therefore, upon his
+seeing Tiresias, does not reveal himself to his mother, till he had
+consulted that great prophet, who was the occasion of this his descent
+into the empire of the dead. Tiresias having cautioned him to keep
+himself and his companions free from the guilt of sacrilege, and to pay
+his devotions to all the gods, promises him a safe return to his kingdom
+and family, and a happy old age in the enjoyment of them.</p>
+
+<p>The poet having thus with great art kept the curiosity of his reader in
+suspense, represents his wise man, after the despatch of his business
+with Tiresias, as yielding himself up to the calls of natural affection,
+and making himself known to his mother. Her eyes are no sooner opened,
+but she cries out in tears, "Oh my son!" and inquires into the occasions
+that brought him thither, and the fortune that attended him.</p>
+
+<p>Ulysses on the other hand desires to know, what the sickness was that
+had sent her into those regions, and the condition in which she had left
+his father, his son, and more particularly his wife. She tells him, they
+were all three inconsolable for his absence; "and as for myself," says
+she, "that was the sickness of which I died. My impatience for your
+return, my anxiety for your welfare, and my fondness for my dear
+Ulysses, were the only distempers that preyed upon my life, and
+separated my soul from my body." Ulysses was melted with these
+expressions of tenderness, and thrice endeavoured to catch the
+apparition in his arms, that he might hold his mother to his bosom and
+weep over her.</p>
+
+<p>This gives the poet occasion to describe the notion the heathens at that
+time had of an unbodied soul, in the excuse which the mother makes for
+seeming to withdraw herself<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> from her son's embraces. "The soul," says
+she, "is composed neither of bones, flesh, nor sinews, but leaves behind
+her all those encumbrances of mortality to be consumed on the funeral
+pile. As soon as she has thus cast her burden she makes her escape, and
+flies away from it like a dream."</p>
+
+<p>When this melancholy conversation is at an end, the poet draws up to
+view as charming a vision as could enter into man's imagination. He
+describes the next who appeared to Ulysses, to have been the shades of
+the finest women that had ever lived upon the earth, and who had either
+been the daughters of kings, the mistresses of gods, or mothers of
+heroes, such as Antiope, Alcmena, Leda, Ariadne, Iphimedia, Eriphyle,
+and several others of whom he gives a catalogue, with a short history of
+their adventures. The beautiful assembly of apparitions were all
+gathered together about the blood: "each of them," says Ulysses (as a
+gentle satire upon female vanity), "giving me an account of her birth
+and family." This scene of extraordinary women seems to have been
+designed by the poet as a lecture of mortality to the whole sex, and to
+put them in mind of what they must expect, notwithstanding the greatest
+perfections, and highest honours, they can arrive at.</p>
+
+<p>The circle of beauties at length disappeared, and was succeeded by the
+shades of several Grecian heroes who had been engaged with Ulysses in
+the siege of Troy. The first that approached was Agamemnon, the
+generalissimo of that great expedition, who at the appearance of his old
+friend wept very bitterly, and without saying anything to him,
+endeavoured to grasp him by the hand. Ulysses, who was much moved at the
+sight, poured out a flood of tears, and asked him the occasion of his
+death, which Agamemnon related to him in all its tragical
+circumstances;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> how he was murdered at a banquet by the contrivance of
+his own wife, in confederacy with her adulterer: from whence he takes
+occasion to reproach the whole sex, after a manner which would be
+inexcusable in a man who had not been so great a sufferer by them. "My
+wife," says he, "has disgraced all the women that shall ever be born
+into the world, even those who hereafter shall be innocent. Take care
+how you grow too fond of your wife. Never tell her all you know. If you
+reveal some things to her, be sure you keep others concealed from her.
+You indeed have nothing to fear from your Penelope, she will not use you
+as my wife has treated me; however, take care how you trust a woman."
+The poet, in this and other instances, according to the system of many
+heathen as well as Christian philosophers, shows how anger, revenge, and
+other habits which the soul had contracted in the body, subsist and grow
+in it under its stage of separation.</p>
+
+<p>I am extremely pleased with the companions which the poet in the next
+description assigns to Achilles. "Achilles," says the hero, "came up to
+me with Patroclus and Antilochus." By which we may see that it was
+Homer's opinion, and probably that of the age he lived in, that the
+friendships which are made among the living will likewise continue among
+the dead. Achilles inquires after the welfare of his son, and of his
+father, with a fierceness of the same character that Homer has
+everywhere expressed in the actions of his life. The passage relating to
+his son is so extremely beautiful, that I must not omit it. Ulysses,
+after having described him as wise in council and active in war, and
+mentioned the foes whom he had slain in battle, adds an observation that
+he himself had made of his behaviour whilst he lay in the wooden horse.
+"Most of the generals," says he, "that were with us either wept or
+trembled: as for your son, I neither saw him wipe a tear<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> from his
+cheeks, nor change his countenance. On the contrary, he would often lay
+his hand upon his sword, or grasp his spear, as impatient to employ them
+against the Trojans." He then informs his father of the great honour and
+rewards which he had purchased before Troy, and of his return from it
+without a wound. The shade of Achilles, says the poet, was so pleased
+with the account he received of his son, that he inquired no further,
+but stalked away with more than ordinary majesty over the green meadow
+that lay before them.</p>
+
+<p>This last circumstance of a deceased father's rejoicing in the behaviour
+of his son is very finely contrived by Homer, as an incentive to virtue,
+and made use of by none that I know besides himself.</p>
+
+<p>The description of Ajax, which follows, and his refusing to speak to
+Ulysses, who had won the armour of Achilles from him, and by that means
+occasioned his death, is admired by every one that reads it. When
+Ulysses relates the sullenness of his deportment, and considers the
+greatness of the hero, he expresses himself with generous and noble
+sentiments. "Oh! that I had never gained a prize which cost the life of
+so brave a man as Ajax! Who, for the beauty of his person, and greatness
+of his actions, was inferior to none but the divine Achilles." The same
+noble condescension, which never dwells but in truly great minds, and
+such as Homer would represent that of Ulysses to have been, discovers
+itself likewise in the speech which he made to the ghost of Ajax on that
+occasion. "O Ajax!" says he, "will you keep your resentments even after
+death? What destructions hath this fatal armour brought upon the Greeks,
+by robbing them of you, who were their bulwark and defence? Achilles is
+not more bitterly lamented among us than you. Impute not then your death
+to any one but Jupiter, who out of his anger to the Greeks, took<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> you
+away from among them: let me entreat you to approach me; restrain the
+fierceness of your wrath, and the greatness of your soul, and hear what
+I have to say to you." Ajax, without making a reply, turned his back
+upon him, and retired into a crowd of ghosts.</p>
+
+<p>Ulysses, after all these visions, took a view of those impious wretches
+who lay in tortures for the crimes they had committed upon the earth,
+whom he describes under the varieties of pain, as so many marks of
+divine vengeance, to deter others from following their example. He then
+tells us that notwithstanding he had a great curiosity to see the heroes
+that lived in the ages before him, the ghosts began to gather about him
+in such prodigious multitudes, and with such a confusion of voices, that
+his heart trembled as he saw himself amidst so great a scene of horrors.
+He adds, that he was afraid lest some hideous spectre should appear to
+him, that might terrify him to distraction; and therefore withdrew in
+time.</p>
+
+<p>I question not but my reader will be pleased with this description of a
+future state, represented by such a noble and fruitful imagination, that
+had nothing to direct it besides the light of nature, and the opinions
+of a dark and ignorant age.</p>
+
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<a name="No_153" id="No_153"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 153.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Addison.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Thursday, March 30</i>, to <i>Saturday, April 1, 1710</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Bambalio, clangor, stridor, taratantara, murmur.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Farn.</span>, Rhet.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>From my own Apartment, March 31.</i></p>
+
+<p>I have heard of a very valuable picture, wherein all the painters of the
+age in which it was drawn are represented sitting together in a circle,
+and joining in a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> concert of music. Each of them plays upon such a
+particular instrument as is the most suitable to his character, and
+expresses that style and manner of painting which is peculiar to him.
+The famous cupola-painter of those times, to show the grandeur and
+boldness of his figures, has a horn in his mouth, which he seems to wind
+with great strength and force. On the contrary, an eminent artist, who
+wrought up his pictures with the greatest accuracy, and gave them all
+those delicate touches which are apt to please the nicest eye, is
+represented as tuning a theorbo. The same kind of humour runs through
+the whole piece.</p>
+
+<p>I have often from this hint imagined to myself, that different talents
+in discourse might be shadowed out after the same manner by different
+kinds of music; and that the several conversable parts of mankind in
+this great city might be cast into proper characters and divisions, as
+they resemble several instruments that are in use among the masters of
+harmony. Of these therefore in their order, and first of the drum.</p>
+
+<p>Your drums are the blusterers in conversation, that with a loud laugh,
+unnatural mirth, and a torrent of noise, domineer in public assemblies,
+overbear men of sense, stun their companions, and fill the place they
+are in with a rattling sound, that has seldom any wit, humour, or good
+breeding in it. The drum notwithstanding, by this boisterous vivacity,
+is very proper to impose upon the ignorant; and in conversation with
+ladies who are not of the finest taste, often passes for a man of mirth
+and wit, and for wonderful pleasant company. I need not observe, that
+the emptiness of the drum very much contributes to its noise.</p>
+
+<p>The lute is a character directly opposite to the drum, that sounds very
+finely by itself, or in a very small concert.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> Its notes are exquisitely
+sweet, and very low, easily drowned in a multitude of instruments, and
+even lost among a few, unless you give a particular attention to it. A
+lute is seldom heard in a company of more than five, whereas a drum will
+show itself to advantage in an assembly of five hundred. The lutenists
+therefore are men of a fine genius, uncommon reflection, great
+affability, and esteemed chiefly by persons of a good taste, who are the
+only proper judges of so delightful and soft a melody.</p>
+
+<p>The trumpet is an instrument that has in it no compass of music or
+variety of sound, but is notwithstanding very agreeable, so long as it
+keeps within its pitch. It has not above four or five notes, which are
+however very pleasing, and capable of exquisite turns and modulations.
+The gentlemen who fall under this denomination, are your men of the most
+fashionable education and refined breeding, who have learned a certain
+smoothness of discourse, and sprightliness of air, from the polite
+company they have kept; but at the same time they have shallow parts,
+weak judgments, and a short reach of understanding: a playhouse, a
+drawing-room, a ball, a visiting-day, or a Ring at Hyde Park, are the
+few notes they are masters of, which they touch upon in all
+conversations. The trumpet however is a necessary instrument about a
+Court, and a proper enlivener of a concert, though of no great harmony
+by itself.</p>
+
+<p>Violins are the lively, forward, importunate wits that distinguish
+themselves by the flourishes of imagination, sharpness of repartee,
+glances of satire, and bear away the upper part in every concert. I
+cannot however but observe that, when a man is not disposed to hear
+music, there is not a more disagreeable sound in harmony than that of a
+violin.</p>
+
+<p>There is another musical instrument, which is more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> frequent in this
+nation than any other; I mean your bass-viol, which grumbles in the
+bottom of the concert, and with a surly masculine sound strengthens the
+harmony, and tempers the sweetness of the several instruments that play
+along with it. The bass-viol is an instrument of a quite different
+nature to the trumpet, and may signify men of rough sense, and
+unpolished parts, who do not love to hear themselves talk, but sometimes
+break out with an agreeable bluntness, unexpected wit, and surly
+pleasantries, to the no small diversion of their friends and companions.
+In short, I look upon every sensible true-born Briton to be naturally a
+bass-viol.</p>
+
+<p>As for your rural wits, who talk with great eloquence and alacrity of
+foxes, hounds, horses, quickset hedges, and six-bar gates, double
+ditches, and broken necks, I am in doubt, whether I should give them a
+place in the conversable world. However, if they will content themselves
+with being raised to the dignity of hunting-horns, I shall desire for
+the future that they may be known by that name.</p>
+
+<p>I must not here omit the bagpipe species, that will entertain you from
+morning to night with the repetition of the few notes, which are played
+over and over, with the perpetual humming of a drone running underneath
+them. These are your dull, heavy, tedious storytellers, the load and
+burden of conversations, that set up for men of importance, by knowing
+secret history, and giving an account of transactions, that whether they
+ever passed in the world or not, does not signify a halfpenny to its
+instruction, or its welfare. Some have observed, that the northern parts
+of this island are more particularly fruitful in bagpipes.</p>
+
+<p>There are so very few persons who are masters in every kind of
+conversation, and can talk on all subjects, that I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> don't know whether
+we should make a distinct species of them: nevertheless, that my scheme
+may not be defective, for the sake of those few who are endowed with
+such extraordinary talents, I shall allow them to be harpsichords, a
+kind of music which every one knows is a concert by itself.</p>
+
+<p>As for your passing-bells, who look upon mirth as criminal, and talk of
+nothing but what is melancholy in itself, and mortifying to human
+nature, I shall not mention them.</p>
+
+<p>I shall likewise pass over in silence all the rabble of mankind that
+crowd our streets, coffee-houses, feasts, and public tables. I cannot
+call their discourse conversation, but rather something that is
+practised in imitation of it. For which reason, if I would describe them
+by any musical instrument, it should be by those modern inventions of
+the bladder and string, tongs and key, marrow-bone and cleaver.</p>
+
+<p>My reader will doubtless observe, that I have only touched here upon
+male instruments, having reserved my female concert to another occasion.
+If he has a mind to know where these several characters are to be met
+with, I could direct him to a whole club of drums; not to mention
+another of bagpipes, which I have before given some account of in my
+description of our nightly meetings in Sheer Lane. The lutes may often
+be met with in couples upon the banks of a crystal stream, or in the
+retreats of shady woods and flowery meadows; which for different reasons
+are likewise the great resort of your hunting-horns. Bass-viols are
+frequently to be found over a glass of stale beer and a pipe of tobacco;
+whereas those who set up for violins, seldom fail to make their
+appearance at Will's once every evening. You may meet with a trumpet
+anywhere on the other side of Charing Cross.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>That we may draw something for our advantage in life out of the
+foregoing discourse, I must entreat my reader to make a narrow search
+into his life and conversation, and upon his leaving any company, to
+examine himself seriously, whether he has behaved himself in it like a
+drum or a trumpet, a violin or a bass-viol; and accordingly endeavour to
+mend his music for the future. For my own part, I must confess, I was a
+drum for many years; nay, and a very noisy one, till having polished
+myself a little in good company, I threw as much of the trumpet into my
+conversation as was possible for a man of an impetuous temper, by which
+mixture of different musics, I look upon myself, during the course of
+many years, to have resembled a tabor and pipe. I have since very much
+endeavoured at the sweetness of the lute; but in spite of all my
+resolutions, I must confess with great confusion, that I find myself
+daily degenerating into a bagpipe; whether it be the effect of my old
+age, or of the company I keep, I know not. All that I can do, is to keep
+a watch over my conversation, and to silence the drone as soon as I find
+it begin to hum in my discourse, being determined rather to hear the
+notes of others, than to play out of time, and encroach upon their parts
+in the concert by the noise of so tiresome an instrument.</p>
+
+<p>I shall conclude this paper with a letter which I received last night
+from a friend of mine, who knows very well my notions upon this subject,
+and invites me to pass the evening at his house with a select company of
+friends, in the following words:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Isaac</span>,</p>
+
+<p>"I intend to have a concert at my house this evening, having by
+great chance got a harpsichord, which I am sure will entertain you
+very agreeably. There will be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> likewise two lutes and a trumpet:
+let me beg you to put yourself in tune, and believe me</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+<span class="sig4">"Your very faithful Servant,</span><br />
+"<span class="smcap">Nicholas Humdrum</span>."<a name="FNanchor_184_184" id="FNanchor_184_184"></a><a href="#Footnote_184_184" class="fnanchor">[184]</a><br />
+</p></div>
+
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<a name="No_154" id="No_154"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 154.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Addison.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Saturday, April 1</i>, to <i>Tuesday, April 4, 1710</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Obscuris vera involvens.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Virg.</span>, &AElig;n. vi. 100.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>From my own Apartment, April 3.</i></p>
+
+<p>We have already examined Homer's description of a future state, and the
+condition in which he has placed the souls of the deceased. I shall in
+this paper make some observations on the account which Virgil has given
+us of the same subject, who, besides a greatness of genius, had all the
+lights of philosophy and human learning to assist and guide him in his
+discoveries.</p>
+
+<p>&AElig;neas is represented as descending into the empire of death, with a
+prophetess by his side, who instructs him in the secrets of those lower
+regions.</p>
+
+<p>Upon the confines of the dead, and before the very gates of this
+infernal world, Virgil describes<a name="FNanchor_185_185" id="FNanchor_185_185"></a><a href="#Footnote_185_185" class="fnanchor">[185]</a> several inhabitants, whose natures
+are wonderfully suited to the situation of the place, as being either
+the occasions or resemblances of death. Of the first kind are the
+shadows<a name="FNanchor_186_186" id="FNanchor_186_186"></a><a href="#Footnote_186_186" class="fnanchor">[186]</a> of Sickness, Old Age, Fear, Famine, and Poverty
+(apparitions very terrible to behold); with several others, as Toil,
+War, Contention, and Discord, which contribute all of them to people
+this common receptacle of human souls. As this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> was likewise a very
+proper residence for everything that resembles death, the poet tells us,
+that Sleep, whom he represents as a near relation to Death, has likewise
+his habitation in these quarters, and describes in them a huge gloomy
+elm-tree, which seems a very proper ornament for the place, and is
+possessed by an innumerable swarm of Dreams, that hang in clusters under
+every leaf of it. He then gives us a list of imaginary persons, who very
+naturally lie within the shadow of the dream-tree, as being of the same
+kind of make in themselves, and the materials or (to use Shakespeare's
+phrase) the stuff of which dreams are made. Such are the shades of the
+giant with a hundred hands, and of his brother with three bodies; of the
+double-shaped Centaur and Scylla; the Gorgon with snaky hair; the Harpy
+with a woman's face and lion's talons; the seven-headed Hydra; and the
+Chim&aelig;ra, which breathes forth a flame, and is a compound of three
+animals. These several mixed natures, the creatures of imagination, are
+not only introduced with great art after the dreams; but as they are
+planted at the very entrance, and within the very gates of those
+regions, do probably denote the wild deliriums and extravagances of
+fancy, which the Soul usually falls into when she is just upon the verge
+of death.</p>
+
+<p>Thus far &AElig;neas travels in an allegory. The rest of the description is
+drawn with great exactness, according to the religion of the heathens,
+and the opinions of the platonic philosophy. I shall not trouble my
+reader with a common dull story, that gives an account why the heathens
+first of all supposed a ferryman in hell, and his name to be Charon; but
+must not pass over in silence the point of doctrine which Virgil has
+very much insisted upon in this book, that the souls of those who are
+unburied, are not permitted to go over into their respective places of
+rest till they have wandered a hundred years<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> upon the banks of Styx.
+This was probably an invention of the heathen priesthood, to make the
+people extremely careful of performing proper rites and ceremonies to
+the memory of the dead. I shall not, however, with the infamous
+scribblers of the age, take an occasion from such a circumstance, to run
+into declamations against priestcraft, but rather look upon it even in
+this light as a religious artifice, to raise in the minds of men an
+esteem for the memory of their forefathers, and a desire to recommend
+themselves to that of posterity; as also to excite in them an ambition
+of imitating the virtues of the deceased, and to keep alive in their
+thoughts the sense of the soul's immortality. In a word, we may say in
+defence of the severe opinions relating to the shades of unburied
+persons, what has been said by some of our divines in regard to the
+rigid doctrines concerning the souls of such who die without being
+initiated into our religion, that supposing they should be erroneous,
+they can do no hurt to the dead, and will have a good effect upon the
+living, in making them cautious of neglecting such necessary
+solemnities.</p>
+
+<p>Charon is no sooner appeased, and the triple-headed dog laid asleep, but
+&AElig;neas makes his entrance into the dominions of Pluto. There are three
+kinds of persons described as being situated on the borders; and I can
+give no reason for their being stationed there in so particular a
+manner, but because none of them seem to have had a proper right to a
+place among the dead, as not having run out the whole thread of their
+days, and finished the term of life that had been allotted them upon
+earth. The first of these are the souls of infants, who are snatched
+away by untimely ends: the second, are of those who are put to death
+wrongfully, and by an unjust sentence; and the third, of those who grew
+weary of their lives, and laid<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> violent hands upon themselves. As for
+the second of these, Virgil adds with great beauty, that Minos, the
+judge of the dead, is employed in giving them a rehearing, and assigning
+them their several quarters suitable to the parts they acted in life.
+The poet, after having mentioned the souls of those unhappy men who
+destroyed themselves, breaks out into a fine exclamation: "Oh, how
+gladly," says he, "would they now endure life with all its miseries! But
+the Destinies forbid their return to earth, and the waters of Styx
+surround them with nine streams that are unpassable." It is very
+remarkable, that Virgil, notwithstanding self-murder was so frequent
+among the heathens, and had been practised by some of the greatest men
+in the very age before him, has here represented it as so heinous a
+crime. But in this particular he was guided by the doctrines of his
+great master Plato, who says on this subject, that a man is placed in
+his station of life like a soldier in his proper post, which he is not
+to quit whatever may happen, until he is called off by his commander who
+planted him in it.</p>
+
+<p>There is another point in the platonic philosophy, which Virgil has made
+the groundwork of the greatest part in the piece we are now examining,
+having with wonderful art and beauty materialised, if I may so call it,
+a scheme of abstracted notions, and clothed the most nice refined
+conceptions of philosophy in sensible images and poetical
+representations. The Platonists tell us, that the Soul, during her
+residence in the body, contracts many virtuous and vicious habits, so as
+to become a beneficent, mild, charitable, or an angry, malicious,
+revengeful being: a substance inflamed with lust, avarice, and pride;
+or, on the contrary, brightened with pure, generous, and humble
+dispositions: that these and the like habits of virtue and vice growing
+into the very essence of the Soul,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> survive and gather strength in her
+after her dissolution: that the torments of a vicious soul in a future
+state arise principally from those importunate passions which are not
+capable of being gratified without a body; and that on the contrary, the
+happiness of virtuous minds very much consists in their being employed
+in sublime speculations, innocent diversions, sociable affections, and
+all the ecstasies of passion and rapture which are agreeable to
+reasonable natures, and of which they gained a relish in this life.</p>
+
+<p>Upon this foundation, the poet raises that beautiful description of the
+secret haunts and walks which he tells us are inhabited by deceased
+lovers.</p>
+
+<p>"Not far from hence," says he, "lies a great waste of plains, that are
+called, the 'fields of melancholy.' In these grows a forest of myrtle,
+divided into many shady retirements and covered walks, and inhabited by
+the souls of those who pined away with love. The passion," says he,
+"continues with them after death." He then gives a list of this
+languishing tribe, in which his own Dido makes the principal figure, and
+is described as living in this soft romantic scene with the shade of her
+first husband Sich&aelig;us.<a name="FNanchor_187_187" id="FNanchor_187_187"></a><a href="#Footnote_187_187" class="fnanchor">[187]</a></p>
+
+<p>The poet in the next place mentions another plain that was peopled with
+the ghosts of warriors, as still delighting in each other's company, and
+pleased with the exercise of arms. He there represents the Grecian
+generals and common soldiers who perished in the siege of Troy as drawn
+up in squadrons, and terrified at the approach of &AElig;neas, which renewed
+in them those impressions of fear they had before received in battle
+with the Trojans. He afterwards likewise, upon the same notion, gives a
+view of the Trojan heroes who lived in former ages, amidst a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> visionary
+scene of chariots and arms, flowery meadows, shining spears, and
+generous steeds, which he tells us were their pleasures upon earth, and
+now make up their happiness in Elysium. For the same reason also, he
+mentions others as singing p&aelig;ans, and songs of triumph, amidst a
+beautiful grove of laurel. The chief of the concert was the poet Mus&aelig;us,
+who stood enclosed with a circle of admirers, and rose by the head and
+shoulders above the throng of shades that surrounded him. The
+habitations of unhappy spirits, to show the duration of their torments,
+and the desperate condition they are in, are represented as guarded by a
+fury, moated round with a lake of fire, strengthened with towers of
+iron, encompassed with a triple wall, and fortified with pillars of
+adamant, which all the gods together are not able to heave from their
+foundations. The noise of stripes, the clank of chains, and the groans
+of the tortured, strike the pious &AElig;neas with a kind of horror. The poet
+afterwards divides the criminals into two classes: the first and
+blackest catalogue consists of such as were guilty of outrages against
+the gods; and the next, of such who were convicted of injustice between
+man and man: the greatest number of whom, says the poet, are those who
+followed the dictates of avarice.</p>
+
+<p>It was an opinion of the Platonists, that the souls of men having
+contracted in the body great stains and pollutions of vice and
+ignorance, there were several purgations and cleansings necessary to be
+passed through both here and hereafter, in order to refine and purify
+them.<a name="FNanchor_188_188" id="FNanchor_188_188"></a><a href="#Footnote_188_188" class="fnanchor">[188]</a></p>
+
+<p>Virgil, to give this thought likewise a clothing of poetry, describes
+some spirits as bleaching in the winds, others as cleansing under great
+falls of waters, and others as purging in fire to recover the primitive
+beauty and purity of their natures.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It was likewise an opinion of the same sect of philosophers, that the
+souls of all men exist in a separate state, long before their union with
+their bodies; and that upon their immersion into flesh, they forget
+everything which passed in the state of pre-existence; so that what we
+here call knowledge, is nothing else but memory, or the recovery of
+those things which we knew before.</p>
+
+<p>In pursuance of this scheme, Virgil gives us a view of several souls,
+who, to prepare themselves for living upon earth, flock about the banks
+of the river Lethe, and swill themselves with the waters of oblivion.</p>
+
+<p>The same scheme gives him an opportunity of making a noble compliment to
+his countrymen, where Anchises is represented taking a survey of the
+long train of heroes that are to descend from him, and giving his son,
+&AElig;neas an account of all the glories of his race.</p>
+
+<p>I need not mention the revolution of the platonic year,<a name="FNanchor_189_189" id="FNanchor_189_189"></a><a href="#Footnote_189_189" class="fnanchor">[189]</a> which is
+but just touched upon in this book; and as I have consulted no author's
+thoughts in this explication, shall be very well pleased, if it can make
+the noblest piece of the most accomplished poet more agreeable to my
+female readers, when they think fit to look into Dryden's translation of
+it.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_184_184" id="Footnote_184_184"></a><a href="#FNanchor_184_184"><span class="label">[184]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="#No_157">157</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_185_185" id="Footnote_185_185"></a><a href="#FNanchor_185_185"><span class="label">[185]</span></a> "Hath placed" (folio).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_186_186" id="Footnote_186_186"></a><a href="#FNanchor_186_186"><span class="label">[186]</span></a> "Pale shadows" (folio).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_187_187" id="Footnote_187_187"></a><a href="#FNanchor_187_187"><span class="label">[187]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="#No_133">133</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_188_188" id="Footnote_188_188"></a><a href="#FNanchor_188_188"><span class="label">[188]</span></a> "Purify the soul from ignorance and vice" (folio).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_189_189" id="Footnote_189_189"></a><a href="#FNanchor_189_189"><span class="label">[189]</span></a> The Great or Platonic Year is the time in which the fixed
+stars make their revolution. See Cicero, "De Natura Deorum," ii. 20.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span>
+<a name="No_155" id="No_155"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 155.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Addison.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Tuesday, April 4</i>, to <i>Thursday, April 6, 1710</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&mdash;&mdash;Aliena negotia curat,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Excussus propriis.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Hor.</span>, 2 Sat. iii. 19.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>From my own Apartment, April</i> 5.</p>
+
+<p>There lived some years since within my neighbourhood a very grave
+person, an upholsterer,<a name="FNanchor_190_190" id="FNanchor_190_190"></a><a href="#Footnote_190_190" class="fnanchor">[190]</a> who seemed a man of more than ordinary
+application to business. He was a very early riser, and was often abroad
+two or three hours before any of his neighbours. He had a particular
+carefulness in the knitting of his brows, and a kind of impatience in
+all his motions, that plainly discovered he was always intent on matters
+of importance. Upon my inquiry into his life and conversation, I found
+him to be the greatest newsmonger in our quarter; that he rose before
+day to read the <i>Postman</i>; and that he would take two or three turns to
+the other end of the town before his neighbours were up, to see if there
+were any Dutch mails come in. He had a wife and several children; but
+was much more inquisitive to know what passed in Poland than in his own
+family, and was in greater pain and anxiety of mind for King Augustus'
+welfare than that of his nearest relations. He looked extremely thin in
+a dearth of news, and never enjoyed himself in a westerly wind. This
+indefatigable kind of life was the ruin of his shop; for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> about the time
+that his favourite prince left the crown of Poland, he broke and
+disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>This man and his affairs had been long out of my mind, till about three
+days ago, as I was walking in St. James's Park, I heard somebody at a
+distance hemming after me: and who should it be but my old neighbour the
+upholsterer! I saw he was reduced to extreme poverty, by certain shabby
+superfluities in his dress: for notwithstanding that it was a very
+sultry day for the time of the year, he wore a loose great-coat and a
+muff, with a long campaign-wig out of curl; to which he had added the
+ornament of a pair of black garters buckled under the knee. Upon his
+coming up to me, I was going to inquire into his present circumstances;
+but was prevented by his asking me, with a whisper, whether the last
+letters brought any accounts that one might rely upon from Bender? I
+told him, none that I heard of; and asked him, whether he had yet
+married his eldest daughter? He told me, No. "But pray," says he, "tell
+me sincerely, what are your thoughts of the King of Sweden?" For though
+his wife and children were starving, I found his chief concern at
+present was for this great monarch. I told him, that I looked upon him
+as one of the first heroes of the age. "But pray," says he, "do you
+think there is anything in the story of his wound?" And finding me
+surprised at the question, "Nay," says he, "I only propose it to you." I
+answered, that I thought there was no reason to doubt of it. "But why in
+the heel," says he, "more than in any other part of the body?"
+"Because," says I, "the bullet chanced to light there."</p>
+
+<p>This extraordinary dialogue was no sooner ended, but he began to launch
+out into a long dissertation upon the affairs of the North; and after
+having spent some time on them, he told me, he was in a great perplexity
+how to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> reconcile the <i>Supplement</i> with the <i>English Post</i>, and had been
+just now examining what the other papers say upon the same subject. "The
+<i>Daily Courant</i>," says he, "has these words, 'We have advices from very
+good hands, that a certain prince has some matters of great importance
+under consideration.' This is very mysterious; but the <i>Postboy</i> leaves
+us more in the dark, for he tells us, that there are private intimations
+of measures taken by a certain prince, which time will bring to light.
+Now the <i>Postman</i>," says he, "who used to be very clear, refers to the
+same news in these words: 'The late conduct of a certain prince affords
+great matter of speculation.' This certain prince," says the
+upholsterer, "whom they are all so cautious of naming, I take to
+be"&mdash;&mdash;. Upon which, though there was nobody near us, he whispered
+something in my ear, which I did not hear, or think worth my while to
+make him repeat.</p>
+
+<p>We were now got to the upper end of the Mall, where were three or four
+very odd fellows sitting together upon the bench. These I found were all
+of them politicians, who used to sun themselves in that place every day
+about dinner-time. Observing them to be curiosities in their kind, and
+my friend's acquaintance, I sat down among them.</p>
+
+<p>The chief politician of the bench was a great asserter of paradoxes. He
+told us, with a seeming concern, that by some news he had lately read
+from Muscovy, it appeared to him that there was a storm gathering in the
+Black Sea, which might in time do hurt to the naval forces of this
+nation. To this he added, that for his part, he could not wish to see
+the Turk driven out of Europe, which he believed could not but be
+prejudicial to our woollen manufacture. He then told us, that he looked
+upon those extraordinary revolutions which had lately happened in these
+parts of the world, to have risen chiefly from two<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> persons who were not
+much talked of; "and those," says he, "are Prince Menzikoff and the
+Duchess of Mirandola." He backed his assertions with so many broken
+hints, and such a show of depth and wisdom, that we gave ourselves up to
+his opinions.</p>
+
+<p>The discourse at length fell upon a point which seldom escapes a knot of
+true-born Englishmen, whether in case of a religious war, the
+Protestants would not be too strong for the Papists? This we unanimously
+determined on the Protestant side. One who sat on my right hand, and, as
+I found by his discourse, had been in the West Indies, assured us, that
+it would be a very easy matter for the Protestants to beat the Pope at
+sea; and added, that whenever such a war does break out, it must turn to
+the good of the Leeward Islands. Upon this, one who sat at the end of
+the bench, and, as I afterwards found, was the geographer of the
+company, said, that in case the Papists should drive the Protestants
+from these parts of Europe, when the worst came to the worst, it would
+be impossible to beat them out of Norway and Greenland, provided the
+Northern crowns hold together, and the Czar of Muscovy stand neuter.</p>
+
+<p>He further told us for our comfort, that there were vast tracts of land
+about the Pole, inhabited neither by Protestants nor Papists, and of
+greater extent than all the Roman Catholic dominions in Europe.</p>
+
+<p>When we had fully discussed this point, my friend the upholsterer began
+to exert himself upon the present negotiations of peace, in which he
+deposed princes, settled the bounds of kingdoms, and balanced the power
+of Europe, with great justice and impartiality.</p>
+
+<p>I at length took my leave of the company, and was going away; but had
+not been gone thirty yards, before the upholsterer hemmed again after
+me. Upon his advancing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> towards me, with a whisper, I expected to hear
+some secret piece of news which he had not thought fit to communicate to
+the bench; but instead of that, he desired me in my ear to lend him half
+a crown. In compassion to so needy a statesman, and to dissipate the
+confusion I found he was in, I told him, if he pleased, I would give him
+five shillings, to receive five pounds of him when the Great Turk was
+driven out of Constantinople; which he very readily accepted, but not
+before he had laid down to me the impossibility of such an event, as the
+affairs of Europe now stand.</p>
+
+<p>This paper I design for the particular benefit of those worthy citizens
+who live more in a coffee-house than in their shops, and whose thoughts
+are so taken up with the affairs of the Allies, that they forget their
+customers.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_190_190" id="Footnote_190_190"></a><a href="#FNanchor_190_190"><span class="label">[190]</span></a> The original of the Political Upholsterer of Nos. 155,
+160 and 178 is said to have been an Edward Arne, of Covent Garden. It is
+clear that he cannot&mdash;as some have said&mdash;be the same person as the Arne
+at whose house the Indian kings lodged (see No. <a href="#No_171">171</a>). Steele was
+attacked in the <i>Examiner</i> (vol. i. No. 11, vol. iv. No. 40) for the
+liberties here taken by Addison.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<a name="No_156" id="No_156"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 156.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Addison.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Thursday, April 6</i>, to <i>Saturday, April 8, 1710</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&mdash;Sequiturque patrem non passibus &aelig;quis.<br /></span>
+<span class="i24"><span class="smcap">Virg.</span>, &AElig;n. ii. 724.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>From my own Apartment, April 7.</i></p>
+
+<p>We have already described out of Homer the voyage of Ulysses to the
+Infernal Shades, with the several adventures that attended it.<a name="FNanchor_191_191" id="FNanchor_191_191"></a><a href="#Footnote_191_191" class="fnanchor">[191]</a> If
+we look into the beautiful romance published not many years since by the
+Archbishop of Cambray,<a name="FNanchor_192_192" id="FNanchor_192_192"></a><a href="#Footnote_192_192" class="fnanchor">[192]</a> we may see the son of Ulysses bound on the
+same expedition, and after the same manner making his discoveries among
+the regions of the dead. The story of Telemachus is formed altogether in
+the spirit of Homer,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> and will give an unlearned reader a notion of that
+great poet's manner of writing, more than any translation of him can
+possibly do. As it was written for the instruction of a young prince,
+who may one day sit upon the throne of France, the author took care to
+suit the several parts of his story, and particularly the description we
+are now entering upon, to the character and quality of his pupil. For
+which reason, he insists very much on the misery of bad, and the
+happiness of good kings, in the account he has given of punishments and
+rewards in the other world.</p>
+
+<p>We may however observe, notwithstanding the endeavours of this great and
+learned author to copy after the style and sentiments of Homer, that
+there is a certain tincture of Christianity running through the whole
+relation. The prelate in several places mixes himself with the poet; so
+that his future state puts me in mind of Michael Angelo's "Last
+Judgment," where Charon and his boat are represented as bearing a part
+in the dreadful solemnities of that great day.</p>
+
+<p>Telemachus, after having passed through the dark avenues of death in the
+retinue of Mercury, who every day delivers up a certain tale of ghosts
+to the ferryman of Styx, is admitted into the infernal bark. Among the
+companions of his voyage, is the shade of Nabopharzon, a king of
+Babylon, and tyrant of all the East. Among the ceremonies and pomps of
+his funeral, there were four slaves sacrificed, according to the custom
+of the country, in order to attend him among the shades. The author
+having described this tyrant in the most odious colours of pride,
+insolence, and cruelty, tells us, that his four slaves, instead of
+serving him after death, were perpetually insulting him with reproaches
+and affronts for his past usage; that they spurned him as he lay upon
+the ground, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> forced him to show his face, which he would fain have
+covered, as lying under all the confusions of guilt and infamy; and in
+short, that they kept him bound in a chain, in order to drag him before
+the tribunal of the dead.</p>
+
+<p>Telemachus, upon looking out of the bark, sees all the strand covered
+with an innumerable multitude of shades, who, upon his jumping ashore,
+immediately vanished. He then pursues his course to the palace of Pluto,
+who is described as seated on his throne in terrible majesty, with
+Proserpine by his side. At the foot of his throne was the pale hideous
+spectre, who, by the ghastliness of his visage, and the nature of the
+apparitions that surrounded him, discovers himself to be Death. His
+attendants are, Melancholy, Distrust, Revenge, Hatred, Avarice, Despair,
+Ambition, Envy, Impiety, with frightful Dreams, and waking Cares, which
+are all drawn very naturally in proper actions and postures. The author,
+with great beauty, places near his Frightful Dreams an assembly of
+phantoms, which are often employed to terrify the living, by appearing
+in the shape and likeness of the dead.</p>
+
+<p>The young hero in the next place takes a survey of the different kinds
+of criminals that lay in torture among clouds of sulphur and torrents of
+fire. The first of these were such as had been guilty of impieties,
+which every one has a horror for: to which is added, a catalogue of such
+offenders that scarce appear to be faulty in the eyes of the vulgar.
+Among these, says the author, are malicious critics, that have
+endeavoured to cast a blemish upon the perfections of others; with whom
+he likewise places such as have often hurt the reputation of the
+innocent, by passing a rash judgment on their actions, without knowing
+the occasion of them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> These crimes, says he, are more severely punished
+after death, because they generally meet with impunity upon earth.</p>
+
+<p>Telemachus, after having taken a survey of several other wretches in the
+same circumstances, arrives at that region of torments in which wicked
+kings are punished. There are very fine strokes of imagination in the
+description which he gives of this unhappy multitude. He tells us, that
+on one side of them there stood a revengeful fury, thundering in their
+ears incessant repetitions of all the crimes they had committed upon
+earth, with the aggravations of ambition, vanity, hardness of heart, and
+all those secret affections of mind that enter into the composition of a
+tyrant. At the same time, she holds up to them a large mirror, in which
+every one sees himself represented in the natural horror and deformity
+of his character. On the other side of them stands another fury, that
+with an insulting derision repeats to them all the praises that their
+flatterers had bestowed upon them while they sat upon their respective
+thrones. She too, says the author, presents a mirror before their eyes,
+in which every one sees himself adorned with all those beauties and
+perfections in which they had been drawn by the vanity of their own
+hearts, and the flattery of others. To punish them for the wantonness of
+the cruelty which they formerly exercised, they are now delivered up to
+be treated according to the fancy and caprice of several slaves, who
+have here an opportunity of tyrannising in their turns.</p>
+
+<p>The author having given us a description of these ghastly spectres, who,
+says he, are always calling upon Death, and are placed under the
+distillation of that burning vengeance which falls upon them drop by
+drop, and is never to be exhausted, leads us into a pleasing scene of
+groves, filled with the melody of birds, and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> odours of a thousand
+different plants. These groves are represented as rising among a great
+many flowery meadows, and watered with streams that diffuse a perpetual
+freshness, in the midst of an eternal day, and a never-fading spring.
+This, says the author, was the habitation of those good princes who were
+friends of the gods, and parents of the people. Among these, Telemachus
+converses with the shade of one of his ancestors, who makes a most
+agreeable relation of the joys of Elysium, and the nature of its
+inhabitants. The residence of Sesostris among these happy shades, with
+his character and present employment, is drawn in a very lively manner,
+and with a great elevation of thought.</p>
+
+<p>The description of that pure and gentle light which overflows these
+happy regions, and clothes the spirits of these virtuous persons, has
+something in it of that enthusiasm which this author was accused of by
+his enemies in the Church of Rome; but however it may look in religion,
+it makes a very beautiful figure in poetry.</p>
+
+<p>The rays of the sun, says he, are darkness in comparison with this
+light, which rather deserves the name of glory, than that of light. It
+pierces the thickest bodies, in the same manner as the sunbeams pass
+through crystal: it strengthens the sight instead of dazzling it; and
+nourishes in the most inward recesses of the mind, a perpetual serenity
+that is not to be expressed. It enters and incorporates itself with the
+very substance of the soul: the spirits of the blessed feel it in all
+their senses, and in all their perceptions. It produces a certain source
+of peace and joy that arises in them for ever, running through all the
+faculties, and refreshing all the desires of the soul. External
+pleasures and delights, with all their charms and allurements, are
+regarded with the utmost indifference and neglect by these happy spirits
+who have this great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> principle of pleasure within them, drawing the
+whole mind to itself, calling off their attention from the most
+delightful objects, and giving them all the transports of inebriation,
+without the confusion and the folly of it.</p>
+
+<p>I have here only mentioned some master-touches of this admirable piece,
+because the original itself is understood by the greater part of my
+readers. I must confess, I take a particular delight in these prospects
+of futurity, whether grounded upon the probable suggestions of a fine
+imagination, or the more severe conclusions of philosophy; as a man
+loves to hear all the discoveries or conjectures relating to a foreign
+country which he is, at some time, to inhabit. Prospects of this nature
+lighten the burden of any present evil, and refresh us under the worst
+and lowest circumstances of mortality. They extinguish in us both the
+fear and envy of human grandeur. Insolence shrinks its head, Power
+disappears; Pain, Poverty and Death fly before them. In short, the mind
+that is habituated to the lively sense of a hereafter, can hope for what
+is the most terrifying to the generality of mankind, and rejoice in what
+is the most afflicting.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_191_191" id="Footnote_191_191"></a><a href="#FNanchor_191_191"><span class="label">[191]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="#No_152">152</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_192_192" id="Footnote_192_192"></a><a href="#FNanchor_192_192"><span class="label">[192]</span></a> F&eacute;nelon's "T&eacute;l&eacute;maque."</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<a name="No_157" id="No_157"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 157.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Addison.</span><a name="FNanchor_193_193" id="FNanchor_193_193"></a><a href="#Footnote_193_193" class="fnanchor">[193]</a></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Saturday, April 8</i>, to <i>Tuesday, April 11, 1710</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&mdash;&mdash;Facile est inventis addere.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>From my own Apartment, April 10.</i></p>
+
+<p>I was last night in an assembly of very fine women. How I came among
+them is of no great importance to the reader. I shall only let him know,
+that I was betrayed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> into so good company by the device of an old
+friend, who had promised to give some of his female acquaintance a sight
+of Mr. Bickerstaff. Upon hearing my name mentioned, a lady who sat by me
+told me, they had brought together a female concert for my
+entertainment. "You must know," says she, "that we all of us look upon
+ourselves to be musical instruments,<a name="FNanchor_194_194" id="FNanchor_194_194"></a><a href="#Footnote_194_194" class="fnanchor">[194]</a> though we do not yet know of
+what kind, which we hope to learn from you, if you will give us leave to
+play before you." This was followed by a general laugh, which I always
+look upon as a necessary flourish in the opening of a female concert.
+They then struck up together, and played a whole hour upon two grounds,
+viz., the Trial,<a name="FNanchor_195_195" id="FNanchor_195_195"></a><a href="#Footnote_195_195" class="fnanchor">[195]</a> and the Opera. I could not but observe, that
+several of their notes were more soft, and several more sharp, than any
+that ever I heard in a male concert; though I must confess, there was
+not any regard to time, nor any of those rests and pauses which are
+frequent in the harmony of the other sex: besides, that the music was
+generally full, and no particular instrument permitted to play long by
+itself.</p>
+
+<p>I seemed so very well pleased with what every one said, and smiled with
+so much compliance at all their pretty fancies, that though I did not
+put one word into their discourse, I have the vanity to think they
+looked upon me as very agreeable company. I then told them, that if I
+were to draw the picture of so many charming musicians, it should be
+like one I had seen of the Muses, with their several instruments in
+their hands. Upon which the lady kettledrum tossed back her head, and
+cried, "A very pretty simile!" The concert again revived; in which, with
+nods, smiles, and approbations, I bore the part rather of one who beats
+the time, than of a performer.</p>
+
+<p>I was no sooner retired to my lodgings, but I ran over<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> in my thoughts
+the several characters of this fair assembly, which I shall give some
+account of, because they are various in their kind, and may each of them
+stand as a sample of a whole species.</p>
+
+<p>The person who pleased me most was a flute, an instrument that, without
+any great compass, has something exquisitely sweet and soft in its
+sound: it lulls and soothes the ear, and fills it with such a gentle
+kind of melody, as keeps the mind awake without startling it, and raises
+a most agreeable passion between transport and indolence. In short, the
+music of the flute is the conversation of a mild and amiable woman, that
+has nothing in it very elevated, or at the same time anything mean or
+trivial.</p>
+
+<p>I must here observe, that the hautboy is the most perfect of the flute
+species, which, with all the sweetness of the sound, has a great
+strength and variety of notes; though at the same time I must observe,
+that the hautboy in one sex is as scarce as the harpsichord in the
+other.</p>
+
+<p>By the side of the flute there sat a flageolet, for so I must call a
+certain young lady, who fancied herself a wit, despised the music of the
+flute as low and insipid, and would be entertaining the company with
+tart ill-natured observations, pert fancies, and little turns, which she
+imagined to be full of life and spirit. The flageolet therefore does not
+differ from the flute so much in the compass of its notes, as in the
+shrillness and sharpness of the sound. We must however take notice, that
+the flageolets among their own sex are more valued and esteemed than the
+flutes.</p>
+
+<p>There chanced to be a coquette in the concert, that with a great many
+skittish notes, affected squeaks, and studied inconsistencies,
+distinguished herself from the rest of the company. She did not speak a
+word during the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> whole trial; but I thought she would never have done
+upon the opera. One while she would break out upon, "That hideous king!"
+then upon the "charming blackmoor!" Then, "Oh that dear lion!" Then
+would hum over two or three notes; then run to the window to see what
+coach was coming. The coquette therefore I must distinguish by that
+musical instrument which is commonly known by the name of a kit, that is
+more jiggish than the fiddle itself, and never sounds but to a dance.</p>
+
+<p>The fourth person who bore a part in the conversation was a prude, who
+stuck to the trial, and was silent upon the whole opera. The gravity of
+her censures, and composure of her voice, which were often attended with
+supercilious casts of the eye, and a seeming contempt for the lightness
+of the conversation, put me in mind of that ancient serious matronlike
+instrument the virginal.</p>
+
+<p>I must not pass over in silence a Lancashire hornpipe, by which I would
+signify a young country lady, who with a great deal of mirth and
+innocence diverted the company very agreeably; and, if I am not
+mistaken, by that time the wildness of her notes is a little softened,
+and the redundancy of her music restrained by conversation and good
+company, will be improved into one of the most amiable flutes about the
+town. Your romps and boarding-school girls fall likewise under this
+denomination.</p>
+
+<p>On the right hand of the hornpipe sat a Welsh harp, an instrument which
+very much delights in the tunes of old historical ballads, and in
+celebrating the renowned actions and exploits of ancient British heroes.
+By this instrument I therefore would describe a certain lady, who is one
+of those female historians that upon all occasions enters into pedigrees
+and descents, and finds herself related, by some offshoot or other, to
+almost every great family in England:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> for which reason she jars and is
+out of tune very often in conversation, for the company's want of due
+attention and respect to her.</p>
+
+<p>But the most sonorous part of our concert was a shedrum, or (as the
+vulgar call it) a kettledrum, who accompanied her discourse with motions
+of the body, tosses of the head, and brandishes of the fan. Her music
+was loud, bold, and masculine. Every thump she gave, alarmed the
+company, and very often set somebody or other in it a-blushing.</p>
+
+<p>The last I shall mention was a certain romantic instrument called a
+dulcimer, who talked of nothing but shady woods, flowery meadows,
+purling streams, larks and nightingales, with all the beauties of the
+spring, and the pleasures of a country life. This instrument has a fine
+melancholy sweetness in it, and goes very well with the flute.</p>
+
+<p>I think most of the conversable part of womankind may be found under one
+of the foregoing divisions; but it must be confessed, that the
+generality of that sex, notwithstanding they have naturally a great
+genius for being talkative, are not mistresses of more than one note;
+with which however, by frequent repetition, they make a greater sound
+than those who are possessed of the whole gamut, as may be observed in
+your larums or household scolds, and in your castanets or impertinent
+tittle-tattles, who have no other variety in their discourse but that of
+talking slower or faster.</p>
+
+<p>Upon communicating this scheme of music to an old friend of mine, who
+was formerly a man of gallantry and a rover, he told me, that he
+believed he had been in love with every instrument in my concert. The
+first that smit him was a hornpipe, who lived near his father's house in
+the country; but upon his failing to meet her at an assize, according to
+appointment, she cast him off.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> His next passion was for a kettledrum,
+whom he fell in love with at a play; but when he became acquainted with
+her, not finding the softness of her sex in her conversation, he grew
+cool to her; though at the same time he could not deny, but that she
+behaved herself very much like a gentlewoman. His third mistress was a
+dulcimer, who he found took great delight in sighing and languishing,
+but would go no farther than the preface of matrimony; so that she would
+never let a lover have any more of her than her heart, which, after
+having won, he was forced to leave her, as despairing of any further
+success. "I must confess," says my friend, "I have often considered her
+with a great deal of admiration; and I find her pleasure is so much in
+this first step of an amour, that her life will pass away in dream,
+solitude, and soliloquy, till her decay of charms makes her snatch at
+the worst man that ever pretended to her. In the next place," says my
+friend, "I fell in love with a kit,<a name="FNanchor_196_196" id="FNanchor_196_196"></a><a href="#Footnote_196_196" class="fnanchor">[196]</a> who led me such a dance through
+all the varieties of a familiar, cold, fond, and indifferent behaviour,
+that the world began to grow censorious, though without any cause: for
+which reason, to recover our reputations, we parted by consent. To mend
+my hand," says he, "I made my next application to a virginal, who gave
+me great encouragement, after her cautious manner, till some malicious
+companion told her of my long passion for the kit, which made her turn
+me off as a scandalous fellow. At length, in despair," says he, "I
+betook myself to a Welsh harp, who rejected me with contempt, after
+having found that my great-grandmother was a brewer's daughter." I found
+by the sequel of my friend's discourse, that he had never aspired to a
+hautboy; that he had been exasperated by a flageolet; and that to this
+very day, he pines away for a flute.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Upon the whole, having thoroughly considered how absolutely necessary it
+is, that two instruments, which are to play together for life, should be
+exactly tuned, and go in perfect concert with each other, I would
+propose matches between the music of both sexes, according to the
+following table of marriage:</p>
+
+<p class="blockquot">
+1. Drum and kettledrum.<br />
+2. Lute and flute.<br />
+3. Harpsichord and hautboy.<br />
+4. Violin and flageolet.<br />
+5. Bass-viol and kit.<br />
+6. Trumpet and Welsh harp.<br />
+7. Hunting-horn and hornpipe.<br />
+8. Bagpipe and castanets.<br />
+9. Passing-bell and virginal.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bickerstaff, in consideration of his ancient friendship and
+acquaintance with Mr. Betterton,<a name="FNanchor_197_197" id="FNanchor_197_197"></a><a href="#Footnote_197_197" class="fnanchor">[197]</a> and great esteem for his merit,
+summons all his disciples, whether dead or living, mad or tame, Toasts,
+Smarts, Dappers, Pretty Fellows, Musicians or Scrapers, to make their
+appearance at the playhouse in the Haymarket on Thursday next; when
+there will be a play acted for the benefit of the said Mr. Betterton.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_193_193" id="Footnote_193_193"></a><a href="#FNanchor_193_193"><span class="label">[193]</span></a> This paper is not included in Tickell's edition of
+Addison's Works; but Steele ascribes it to Addison in his Dedication of
+"The Drummer" to Congreve.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_194_194" id="Footnote_194_194"></a><a href="#FNanchor_194_194"><span class="label">[194]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="#No_153">153</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_195_195" id="Footnote_195_195"></a><a href="#FNanchor_195_195"><span class="label">[195]</span></a> The trial of Dr. Sacheverell.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_196_196" id="Footnote_196_196"></a><a href="#FNanchor_196_196"><span class="label">[196]</span></a>
+See Nos. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number34">34</a> and <a href="#No_160">160</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_197_197" id="Footnote_197_197"></a><a href="#FNanchor_197_197"><span class="label">[197]</span></a>
+See Nos. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number1">1</a>, 71, <a href="#No_167">167</a>.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span>
+<a name="No_158" id="No_158"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 158.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Addison.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Tuesday, April 11</i>, to <i>Thursday, April 13, 1710</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Faciunt n&aelig; intelligendo, ut nihil intelligant.<br /></span>
+<span class="i18"><span class="smcap">Ter.</span>, Andria, Prologue, 17.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>From my own Apartment, April 12.</i></p>
+
+<p>Tom Folio<a name="FNanchor_198_198" id="FNanchor_198_198"></a><a href="#Footnote_198_198" class="fnanchor">[198]</a> is a broker in learning, employed to get together good
+editions, and stock the libraries of great men. There is not a sale of
+books begins till Tom Folio is seen at the door. There is not an auction
+where his name is not heard, and that too in the very nick of time, in
+the critical moment, before the last decisive stroke of the hammer.
+There is not a subscription goes forward, in which Tom is not privy to
+the first rough draught of the proposals; nor a catalogue printed, that
+does not come to him wet from the press. He is an universal scholar, so
+far as the title-page of all authors, knows the manuscripts in which
+they were discovered, the editions through which they have passed, with
+the praises or censures which they have received from the several
+members of the learned world. He has a greater esteem for Aldus and
+Elzevir, than for Virgil and Horace. If you talk of Herodotus, he breaks
+out into a panegyric upon Harry Stephans. He thinks he gives you an
+account of an author, when he tells you the subject he treats of, the
+name of the editor, and the year in which it was printed. Or if you draw
+him into further particulars, he cries up the goodness of the paper,
+extols the diligence of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> corrector, and is transported with the
+beauty of the letter. This he looks upon to be sound learning and
+substantial criticism. As for those who talk of the fineness of style,
+and the justness of thought, or describe the brightness of any
+particular passages; nay, though they write themselves in the genius and
+spirit of the author they admire, Tom looks upon them as men of
+superficial learning, and flashy parts.</p>
+
+<p>I had yesterday morning a visit from this learned idiot (for that is the
+light in which I consider every pedant), when I discovered in him some
+little touches of the coxcomb which I had not before observed. Being
+very full of the figure which he makes in the republic of letters, and
+wonderfully satisfied with his great stock of knowledge, he gave me
+broad intimations, that he did not "believe" in all points as his
+forefathers had done. He then communicated to me a thought of a certain
+author upon a passage of Virgil's account of the dead, which I made the
+subject of a late paper.<a name="FNanchor_199_199" id="FNanchor_199_199"></a><a href="#Footnote_199_199" class="fnanchor">[199]</a> This thought has taken very much among men
+of Tom's pitch and understanding, though universally exploded by all
+that know how to construe Virgil, or have any relish of antiquity. Not
+to trouble my reader with it, I found upon the whole, that Tom did not
+believe a future state of rewards and punishments, because &AElig;neas, at his
+leaving the empire of the dead, passed through the gate of ivory, and
+not through that of horn. Knowing that Tom had not sense enough to give
+up an opinion which he had once received, that he might avoid wrangling,
+I told him, that Virgil possibly had his oversights as well as another
+author. "Ah! Mr. Bickerstaff," says he, "you would have another opinion
+of him, if you would read him in Daniel Heinsius' edition. I have
+perused him myself several times in that edition,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> continued he; "and
+after the strictest and most malicious examination, could find but two
+faults in him: one of them is in the '&AElig;neids,' where there are two
+commas instead of a parenthesis; and another in the third 'Georgic,'
+where you may find a semicolon turned upside down." "Perhaps," said I,
+"these were not Virgil's thoughts, but those of the transcriber." "I do
+not design it," says Tom, "as a reflection on Virgil: on the contrary, I
+know that all the manuscripts 'reclaim' against such a punctuation. Oh!
+Mr. Bickerstaff," says he, "what would a man give to see one simile of
+Virgil writ in his own hand?" I asked him which was the simile he meant;
+but was answered, "Any simile in Virgil." He then told me all the secret
+history in the commonwealth of learning; of modern pieces that had the
+names of ancient authors annexed to them; of all the books that were now
+writing or printing in the several parts of Europe; of many amendments
+which are made, and not yet published; and a thousand other particulars,
+which I would not have my memory burdened with for a Vatican.</p>
+
+<p>At length, being fully persuaded that I thoroughly admired him, and
+looked upon him as a prodigy of learning, he took his leave. I know
+several of Tom's class who are professed admirers of Tasso without
+understanding a word of Italian; and one in particular, that carries a
+"Pastor Fido" in his pocket, in which I am sure he is acquainted with no
+other beauty but the clearness of the character.</p>
+
+<p>There is another kind of pedant, who, with all Tom Folio's
+impertinences, has greater superstructures and embellishments of Greek
+and Latin, and is still more unsupportable than the other, in the same
+degree as he is more learned. Of this kind very often are editors,
+commentators, interpreters, scholiasts, and critics; and in short, all
+men of deep learning without common sense.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> These persons set a greater
+value on themselves for having found out the meaning of a passage in
+Greek, than upon the author for having written it; nay, will allow the
+passage itself not to have any beauty in it, at the same time that they
+would be considered as the greatest men of the age for having
+interpreted it. They will look with contempt upon the most beautiful
+poems that have been composed by any of their contemporaries; but will
+lock themselves up in their studies for a twelvemonth together, to
+correct, publish, and expound, such trifles of antiquity as a modern
+author would be contemned for. Men of the strictest morals, severest
+lives, and the gravest professions, will write volumes upon an idle
+sonnet that is originally in Greek or Latin; give editions of the most
+immoral authors, and spin out whole pages upon the various readings of a
+lewd expression. All that can be said in excuse for them, is, that their
+works sufficiently show they have no taste of their authors; and that
+what they do in this kind, is out of their great learning, and not out
+of any levity or lasciviousness of temper.</p>
+
+<p>A pedant of this nature is wonderfully well described in six lines of
+Boileau,<a name="FNanchor_200_200" id="FNanchor_200_200"></a><a href="#Footnote_200_200" class="fnanchor">[200]</a> with which I shall conclude his character:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><div class="itals">
+<span class="i2">"Un P&eacute;dant enivr&eacute; de sa vaine science,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tout h&eacute;riss&eacute; de grec, tout bouffi d'arrogance,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Et qui, de mille auteurs retenus mot pour mot,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dans sa t&ecirc;te entass&eacute;s, n'a souvent fait qu'un sot,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Croit qu'un livre fait tout, et que, sans Aristote,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">La raison ne voit goutte, et le bon sens radote."<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_198_198" id="Footnote_198_198"></a><a href="#FNanchor_198_198"><span class="label">[198]</span></a> The original of Tom Folio is supposed to be Thomas
+Rawlinson, a great book-collector, who lived in Gray's Inn, and
+afterwards in London House, Aldersgate Street, where he died, August 6,
+1725, aged 44. His library and MSS. were sold between 1722 and 1734.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_199_199" id="Footnote_199_199"></a><a href="#FNanchor_199_199"><span class="label">[199]</span></a>
+No. <a href="#No_154">154</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_200_200" id="Footnote_200_200"></a><a href="#FNanchor_200_200"><span class="label">[200]</span></a> Satire iv.: "Les folies humaines."</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<div>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span>
+</div>
+<a name="No_159" id="No_159"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 159.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Steele.</span></h2>
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Thursday, April 13</i>, to <i>Saturday, April 15, 1710</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Nitor in adversum, nec me qui c&aelig;tera, vincit<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Impetus.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Ovid.</span>, Met. ii. 72.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>From my own Apartment, April 14.</i></p>
+
+<p>The wits of this island, for above fifty years past, instead of
+correcting the vices of the age, have done all they could to inflame
+them. Marriage has been one of the common topics of ridicule that every
+stage-scribbler has found his account in; for whenever there is an
+occasion for a clap, an impertinent jest upon matrimony is sure to raise
+it. This has been attended with very pernicious consequences. Many a
+country squire, upon his setting up for a man of the town, has gone home
+in the gaiety of his heart and beat his wife. A kind husband has been
+looked upon as a clown, and a good wife as a domestic animal, unfit for
+the company or conversation of the <i>beau monde</i>. In short, separate
+beds, silent tables, and solitary homes have been introduced by your men
+of wit and pleasure of the age.</p>
+
+<p>As I shall always make it my business to stem the torrents of prejudice
+and vice, I shall take particular care to put an honest father of a
+family in countenance, and endeavour to remove all the evils out of that
+state of life, which is either the most happy, or most miserable, that a
+man can be placed in. In order to this, let us, if you please, consider
+the wits and well-bred persons of former times. I have shown in another
+paper,<a name="FNanchor_201_201" id="FNanchor_201_201"></a><a href="#Footnote_201_201" class="fnanchor">[201]</a> that Pliny, who was a man of the greatest genius, as well as
+of the first quality of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> age, did not think it below him to be a
+kind husband, and to treat his wife as a friend, companion and
+counsellor. I shall give the like instance of another, who in all
+respects was a much greater man than Pliny, and has written a whole book
+of letters to his wife. They are not so full of turns as those
+translated out of the former author, who writes very much like a modern,
+but are full of that beautiful simplicity which is altogether natural,
+and is the distinguishing character of the best ancient writers. The
+author I am speaking of, is Cicero; who, in the following passages which
+I have taken out of his letters,<a name="FNanchor_202_202" id="FNanchor_202_202"></a><a href="#Footnote_202_202" class="fnanchor">[202]</a> shows, that he did not think it
+inconsistent with the politeness of his manners, or the greatness of his
+wisdom, to stand upon record in his domestic character.</p>
+
+<p>These letters were written at a time when he was banished from his
+country, by a faction that then prevailed at Rome.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p class="center"><br /><i>Cicero to Terentia.</i></p>
+
+<p class="center">I.</p>
+
+<p>"I learn from the letters of my friends, as well as from common
+report, that you give incredible proofs of virtue and fortitude,
+and that you are indefatigable in all kinds of good offices. How
+unhappy a man am I, that a woman of your virtue, constancy, honour,
+and good nature, should fall into so great distresses upon my
+account; and that my dear Tulliola should be so much afflicted for
+the sake of a father, with whom she had once so much reason to be
+pleased! How can I mention little Cicero, whose first knowledge of
+things began with the sense of his own misery? If all this had
+happened by the decrees of fate, as you would kindly persuade me, I
+could have borne it. But, alas! it is all befallen me by my own<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span>
+indiscretion, who thought I was beloved by those who envied me, and
+did not join with them who sought my friendship.&mdash;&mdash;At present,
+since my friends bid me hope, I shall take care of my health, that
+I may enjoy the benefit of your affectionate services.&mdash;&mdash;Plancius
+hopes we may some time or other come together into Italy. If I ever
+live to see that day; if I ever return to your dear embraces; in
+short, if I ever again recover you and myself, I shall think our
+conjugal piety very well rewarded.&mdash;&mdash;As for what you write to me
+about selling your estate, consider (my dear Terentia), consider,
+alas! what would be the event of it. If our present fortune
+continues to oppress us, what will become of our poor boy? My tears
+flow so fast, that I am not able to write any further; and I would
+not willingly make you weep with me.&mdash;&mdash;Let us take care not to
+undo the child that is already undone: if we can leave him
+anything, a little virtue will keep him from want, and a little
+fortune raise him in the world. Mind your health, and let me know
+frequently what you are doing.&mdash;&mdash;Remember me to Tulliola and
+Cicero.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center">II.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't fancy that I write longer letters to any one than to
+yourself, unless when I chance to receive a longer letter from
+another, which I am indispensably obliged to answer in every
+particular. The truth of it is, I have no subject for a letter at
+present: and as my affairs now stand, there is nothing more painful
+to me than writing. As for you and our dear Tulliola, I cannot
+write to you without abundance of tears, for I see both of you
+miserable, whom I always wished to be happy, and whom I ought to
+have made so.&mdash;&mdash;I must acknowledge, you have done everything for
+me with the utmost fortitude, and the utmost affection; nor indeed
+is it more than I expected<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> from you; though at the same time it is
+a great aggravation of my ill fortune, that the afflictions I
+suffer can be relieved only by those which you undergo for my sake.
+For honest Valerius has written me a letter, which I could not read
+without weeping very bitterly; wherein he gives me an account of
+the public procession which you have made for me at Rome. Alas! my
+dearest life, must then Terentia, the darling of my soul, whose
+favour and recommendations have been so often sought by others;
+must my Terentia droop under the weight of sorrow, appear in the
+habit of a mourner, pour out floods of tears, and all this for my
+sake; for my sake, who have undone my family, by consulting the
+safety of others!&mdash;As for what you write about selling your
+house, I am very much afflicted, that what is laid out upon my
+account may any way reduce you to misery and want. If we can bring
+about our design, we may indeed recover everything; but if Fortune
+persists in persecuting us, how can I think of your sacrificing for
+me the poor remainder of your possessions? No, my dearest life, let
+me beg you to let those bear my expenses who are able, and perhaps
+willing to do it; and if you would show your love to me, do not
+injure your health, which is already too much impaired. You present
+yourself before my eyes day and night; I see you labouring amidst
+innumerable difficulties; I am afraid lest you should sink under
+them; but I find in you all the qualifications that are necessary
+to support you: be sure therefore to cherish your health, that you
+may compass the end of your hopes and your endeavours.&mdash;&mdash;Farewell,
+my Terentia, my heart's desire, farewell."</p>
+
+
+<p class="center">III.</p>
+
+<p>"Aristocritus has delivered to me three of your letters, which I
+have almost defaced with my tears. Oh! my Terentia, I am consumed
+with grief, and feel the weight<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> of your sufferings more than of my
+own. I am more miserable than you are, notwithstanding you are very
+much so; and that for this reason, because though our calamity is
+common, it is my fault that brought it upon us. I ought to have
+died rather than have been driven out of the city: I am therefore
+overwhelmed not only with grief, but with shame. I am ashamed that
+I did not do my utmost for the best of wives, and the dearest of
+children. You are ever present before my eyes in your mourning,
+your affliction, and your sickness. Amidst all which, there scarce
+appears to me the least glimmering of hope.&mdash;&mdash;However, so long as
+you hope, I will not despair.&mdash;&mdash;I will do what you advise me. I
+have returned my thanks to those friends whom you mentioned, and
+have let them know, that you have acquainted me with their good
+offices. I am sensible of Piso's extraordinary zeal and endeavours
+to serve me. Oh! would the gods grant that you and I might live
+together in the enjoyment of such a son-in-law, and of our dear
+children.&mdash;&mdash;As for what you write of your coming to me if I desire
+it, I would rather you should be where you are, because I know you
+are my principal agent at Rome. If you succeed, I shall come to
+you: if not&mdash;&mdash;. But I need say no more. Be careful of your health,
+and be assured, that nothing is, or ever was, so dear to me as
+yourself. Farewell, my Terentia; I fancy that I see you, and
+therefore cannot command my weakness so far as to refrain from
+tears."</p>
+
+
+<p class="center">IV.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't write to you as often as I might, because notwithstanding
+I am afflicted at all times, I am quite overcome with sorrow whilst
+I am writing to you, or reading any letters that I receive from
+you.&mdash;&mdash;If these evils are not to be removed, I must desire to see
+you,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> my dearest life, as soon as possible, and to die in your
+embraces; since neither the gods, whom you always religiously
+worshipped; nor the men, whose good I always promoted, have
+rewarded us according to our deserts.&mdash;&mdash;What a distressed wretch
+am I! should I ask a weak woman, oppressed with cares and sickness,
+to come and live with me, or shall I not ask her? Can I live
+without you? But I find I must. If there be any hopes of my return,
+help it forward, and promote it as much as you are able. But if all
+that is over, as I fear it is, find out some way or other of coming
+to me. This you may be sure of, that I shall not look upon myself
+as quite undone whilst you are with me. But what will become of
+Tulliola? You must look to that; I must confess, I am entirely at a
+loss about her. Whatever happens, we must take care of the
+reputation and marriage of that dear unfortunate girl. As for
+Cicero, he shall live in my bosom and in my arms. I cannot write
+any further, my sorrows will not let me.&mdash;&mdash;Support yourself, my
+dear Terentia, as well as you are able. We have lived and
+flourished together amidst the greatest honours: it is not our
+crimes, but our virtues that have distressed us.&mdash;&mdash;Take more than
+ordinary care of your health; I am more afflicted with your sorrows
+than my own. Farewell, my Terentia, thou dearest, faithfullest, and
+best of wives."</p></div>
+
+<p>Methinks it is a pleasure to see this great man in his family, who makes
+so different a figure in the Forum or Senate of Rome. Every one admires
+the orator and the consul; but for my part, I esteem the husband and the
+father. His private character, with all the little weaknesses of
+humanity, is as amiable as the figure he makes in public is awful and
+majestic. But at the same time that I love to surprise so great an
+author in his private walks,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> and to survey him in his most familiar
+lights, I think it would be barbarous to form to ourselves any idea of
+mean-spiritedness from these natural openings of his heart, and
+disburdening of his thoughts to a wife. He has written several other
+letters to the same person, but none with so great passion as these of
+which I have given the foregoing extracts.</p>
+
+<p>It would be ill-nature not to acquaint the English reader, that his wife
+was successful in her solicitations for this great man, and saw her
+husband return to the honours of which he had been deprived, with all
+the pomp and acclamation that usually attended the greatest triumph.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_201_201" id="Footnote_201_201"></a><a href="#FNanchor_201_201"><span class="label">[201]</span></a>
+No. <a href="#No_149">149</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_202_202" id="Footnote_202_202"></a><a href="#FNanchor_202_202"><span class="label">[202]</span></a> "Epist." xiv, 1-4.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<a name="No_160" id="No_160"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 160.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Addison and Steele.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Saturday, April 15</i>, to <i>Tuesday, April 18, 1710</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>From my own Apartment, April 17.</i></p>
+
+<p>A common civility to an impertinent fellow often draws upon one a great
+many unforeseen troubles; and if one does not take particular care, will
+be interpreted by him as an overture of friendship and intimacy. This I
+was very sensible of this morning. About two hours before day, I heard a
+great rapping at my door, which continued some time, till my maid could
+get herself ready to go down and see what was the occasion of it. She
+then brought me up word, that there was a gentleman who seemed very much
+in haste, and said he must needs speak with me. By the description she
+gave me of him, and by his voice, which I could hear as I lay in my bed,
+I fancied him to be my old acquaintance the upholsterer,<a name="FNanchor_203_203" id="FNanchor_203_203"></a><a href="#Footnote_203_203" class="fnanchor">[203]</a> whom I met
+the other day in St. James's Park. For<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> which reason, I bid her tell the
+gentleman, whoever he was, that I was indisposed, that I could see
+nobody, and that, if he had anything to say to me, I desired he would
+leave it in writing. My maid, after having delivered her message, told
+me that the gentleman said he would stay at the next coffee-house till I
+was stirring, and bid her be sure to tell me, that the French were
+driven from the Scarp, and that Douay was invested. He gave her the name
+of another town, which I found she had dropped by the way.</p>
+
+<p>As much as I love to be informed of the success of my brave countrymen,
+I do not care for hearing of a victory before day, and was therefore
+very much out of humour at this unseasonable visit. I had no sooner
+recovered my temper, and was falling asleep, but I was immediately
+startled by a second rap; and upon my maid's opening the door, heard the
+same voice ask her if her master was yet up; and at the same time bid
+her tell me, that he was come on purpose to talk with me about a piece
+of home news that everybody in town will be full of two hours hence. I
+ordered my maid as soon as she came into the room, without hearing her
+message, to tell the gentleman, that whatever his news was, I would
+rather hear it two hours hence than now; and that I persisted in my
+resolution not to speak with anybody that morning. The wench delivered
+my answer presently, and shut the door. It was impossible for me to
+compose myself to sleep after two such unexpected alarms; for which
+reason I put on my clothes in a very peevish humour. I took several
+turns about my chamber, reflecting with a great deal of anger and
+contempt on these volunteers in politics, that undergo all the pain,
+watchfulness, and disquiet of a First Minister, without turning it to
+the advantage either of themselves or their country; and yet it is
+surprising to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> consider how numerous this species of men is. There is
+nothing more frequent than to find a tailor breaking his rest on the
+affairs of Europe, and to see a cluster of porters sitting upon the
+Ministry. Our streets swarm with politicians, and there is scarce a shop
+which is not held by a statesman. As I was musing after this manner, I
+heard the upholsterer at the door delivering a letter to my maid, and
+begging her, in a very great hurry, to give it to her master as soon as
+ever he was awake, which I opened, and found as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Mr. Bickerstaff</span>,</p>
+
+<p>"I was to wait upon you about a week ago, to let you know, that the
+honest gentlemen whom you conversed with upon the bench at the end
+of the Mall, having heard that I had received five shillings of
+you, to give you a hundred pounds upon the Great Turk's being
+driven out of Europe, desired me to acquaint you, that every one of
+that company would be willing to receive five shillings, to pay a
+hundred pounds on the same conditions. Our last advices from
+Muscovy making this a fairer bet than it was a week ago, I do not
+question but you will accept the wager.</p>
+
+<p>"But this is not my present business. If you remember, I whispered
+a word in your ear as we were walking up the Mall, and you see what
+has happened since. If I had seen you this morning, I would have
+told you in your ear another secret. I hope you will be recovered
+of your indisposition by to-morrow morning, when I will wait on you
+at the same hour as I did this; my private circumstances being
+such, that I cannot well appear in this quarter of the town after
+it is day.</p>
+
+<p>"I have been so taken up with the late good news from Holland, and
+expectation of further particulars, as well as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> with other
+transactions, of which I will tell you more to-morrow morning, that
+I have not slept a wink these three nights.</p>
+
+<p>"I have reason to believe that Picardy will soon follow the example
+of Artois, in case the enemy continue in their present resolution
+of flying away from us. I think I told you last time we were
+together my opinion about the Deulle.</p>
+
+<p>"The honest gentlemen upon the bench bid me tell you, they would be
+glad to see you often among them. We shall be there all the warm
+hours of the day, during the present posture of affairs.</p>
+
+<p>"This happy opening of the campaign will, I hope, give us a very
+joyful summer; and I propose to take many a pleasant walk with you,
+if you will sometimes come into the Park; for that is the only
+place in which I can be free from the malice of my enemies.
+Farewell till three o'clock to-morrow morning. I am,</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+"Your most humble Servant, &amp;c.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"P.S. The King of Sweden is still at Bender."</p></div>
+
+<p>I should have fretted myself to death at this promise of a second visit,
+if I had not found in his letter an intimation of the good news which I
+have since heard at large. I have however ordered my maid to tie up the
+knocker of my door in such a manner as she would do if I was really
+indisposed. By which means I hope to escape breaking my morning's
+rest.<a name="FNanchor_204_204" id="FNanchor_204_204"></a><a href="#Footnote_204_204" class="fnanchor">[204]</a></p>
+
+<p>Since I have given this letter to the public, I shall communicate one or
+two more, which I have lately received<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> from others of my
+correspondents. The following is from a Coquette, who is very angry at
+my having disposed of her in marriage to a Bass-viol:<a name="FNanchor_205_205" id="FNanchor_205_205"></a><a href="#Footnote_205_205" class="fnanchor">[205]</a></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Mr. Bickerstaff</span>,</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you would never have descended from the Censor of Great
+Britain, to become a match-maker. But pray, why so severe upon the
+Kit? Had I been a Jews-harp, that is nothing but tongue, you could
+not have used me worse. Of all things, a Bass-viol is my aversion.
+Had you married me to a Bagpipe, or a Passing-bell, I should have
+been better pleased. Dear Father Isaac, either choose me a better
+husband, or I will live and die a Dulcimer. In hopes of receiving
+satisfaction from you, I am yours, whilst</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+"<span class="smcap">Isabella Kit.</span>"<br />
+</p></div>
+
+<p>The pertness which this fair lady has shown in this letter, was one
+occasion of my joining her to the Bass-viol, which is an instrument that
+wants to be quickened by these little vivacities; as the sprightliness
+of the Kit ought to be checked and curbed by the gravity of the
+Bass-viol.</p>
+
+<p>My next letter is from Tom Folio,<a name="FNanchor_206_206" id="FNanchor_206_206"></a><a href="#Footnote_206_206" class="fnanchor">[206]</a> who it seems takes it amiss that
+I have published a character of him so much to his disadvantage:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Sir</span>,</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you meant Tom Fool, when you called me Tom Folio in a
+late trifling paper of yours; for I find, it is your design to run
+down all useful and solid learning. The tobacco-paper on which your
+own writings are usually printed,<a name="FNanchor_207_207" id="FNanchor_207_207"></a><a href="#Footnote_207_207" class="fnanchor">[207]</a> as well as the incorrectness
+of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> press, and the scurvy letter, sufficiently show the extent
+of your knowledge. I question not but you look upon John Morphew to
+be as great a man as Elzevir; and Aldus, to have been such another
+as Bernard Lintot.<a name="FNanchor_208_208" id="FNanchor_208_208"></a><a href="#Footnote_208_208" class="fnanchor">[208]</a> If you would give me my revenge, I would
+only desire of you to let me publish an account of your library,
+which I daresay would furnish out an extraordinary catalogue.</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+"<span class="smcap">Tom Folio.</span>"<br />
+</p></div>
+
+
+<p>It has always been my way to baffle reproach with silence, though I
+cannot but observe the disingenuous proceedings of this gentleman, who
+is not content to asperse my writings, but has wounded, through my
+sides, those eminent and worthy citizens, Mr. John Morphew, and Mr.
+Bernard Lintot.<a name="FNanchor_209_209" id="FNanchor_209_209"></a><a href="#Footnote_209_209" class="fnanchor">[209]</a></p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_203_203" id="Footnote_203_203"></a><a href="#FNanchor_203_203"><span class="label">[203]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="#No_155">155</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_204_204" id="Footnote_204_204"></a><a href="#FNanchor_204_204"><span class="label">[204]</span></a> The preceding portion of this paper is printed in
+Tickell's edition of Addison's Works.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_205_205" id="Footnote_205_205"></a><a href="#FNanchor_205_205"><span class="label">[205]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="#No_157">157</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_206_206" id="Footnote_206_206"></a><a href="#FNanchor_206_206"><span class="label">[206]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="#No_158">158</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_207_207" id="Footnote_207_207"></a><a href="#FNanchor_207_207"><span class="label">[207]</span></a>
+See No. 101.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_208_208" id="Footnote_208_208"></a><a href="#FNanchor_208_208"><span class="label">[208]</span></a> Bernard Lintot (1675-1736) was Jacob Tonson's principal
+rival in the publishing trade in the time of Queen Anne and George I.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_209_209" id="Footnote_209_209"></a><a href="#FNanchor_209_209"><span class="label">[209]</span></a> The author of a curious pamphlet, "The Critical
+Specimen," 1711, said he was much divided in his opinion, whether to
+prefer the every way excellent Mr. Jacob Tonson, junior, or Mr. Bernard
+Lintot to be his bookseller, for the latter of whom he had had a
+particular consideration since he received this eulogium from his
+honoured friend Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq.&mdash;This pamphlet purports to be a
+specimen of a proposed Life of Rinaldo Furioso, Critic of the Woful
+Countenance,&mdash;<i>i.e.</i>, John Dennis. It contains remarks upon the two good
+lines he wrote (<i>Spectator</i>, No. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/12030/12030-h/12030-h/SV1/Spectator1.html#section47">47</a>) upon the difficulty of
+distinguishing his comedies from his tragedies, &amp;c. &amp;c. There is, too,
+an allusion to the <i>Tatlers</i> and <i>Spectators</i> in the notice that the
+virtues of the critic are to be printed in a very small neat Elzevir
+character, and his extravagances in a noble large letter on royal
+paper.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span>
+<a name="No_161" id="No_161"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 161.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Addison.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Tuesday, April 18</i>, to <i>Thursday, April 20, 1710</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&mdash;&mdash;Nunquam Libertas gratior exstat<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Quam sub rege pio&mdash;&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i6"><span class="smcap">Claudian</span>, De Laudibus Stilichonis, iii. 113.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>From my own Apartment, April 19.</i></p>
+
+<p>I was walking two or three days ago in a very pleasing retirement, and
+amusing myself with the reading of that ancient and beautiful allegory,
+called "The Table of Cebes."<a name="FNanchor_210_210" id="FNanchor_210_210"></a><a href="#Footnote_210_210" class="fnanchor">[210]</a> I was at last so tired with my walk,
+that I sat down to rest myself upon a bench that stood in the midst of
+an agreeable shade. The music of the birds, that filled all the trees
+about me, lulled me asleep before I was aware of it; which was followed
+by a dream, that I impute in some measure to the foregoing author, who
+had made an impression upon my imagination, and put me into his own way
+of thinking.</p>
+
+<p>I fancied myself among the Alps, and, as it is natural in a dream,
+seemed every moment to bound from one summit to another, till at last,
+after having made this airy progress over the tops of several mountains,
+I arrived at the very centre of those broken rocks and precipices. I
+here, methought, saw a prodigious circuit of hills, that reached above
+the clouds, and encompassed a large space of ground, which I had a great
+curiosity to look into. I thereupon continued my former way of
+travelling through a great variety of winter scenes, till I had gained
+the top of these white mountains, which seemed another Alps of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> snow. I
+looked down from hence into a spacious plain, which was surrounded on
+all sides by this mound of hills, and which presented me with the most
+agreeable prospect I had ever seen. There was a greater variety of
+colours in the embroidery of the meadows, a more lively green in the
+leaves and grass, a brighter crystal in the streams, than what I ever
+met with in any other region. The light itself had something more
+shining and glorious in it than that of which the day is made in other
+places. I was wonderfully astonished at the discovery of such a paradise
+amidst the wildness of those cold, hoary landscapes which lay about it;
+but found at length, that this happy region was inhabited by the Goddess
+of Liberty; whose presence softened the rigours of the climate, enriched
+the barrenness of the soil, and more than supplied the absence of the
+sun. The place was covered with a wonderful profusion of flowers, that
+without being disposed into regular borders and parterres, grew
+promiscuously, and had a greater beauty in their natural luxuriancy and
+disorder, than they could have received from the checks and restraints
+of art. There was a river that arose out of the south side of the
+mountain, that by an infinite number of turns and windings, seemed to
+visit every plant, and cherish the several beauties of the spring, with
+which the fields abounded. After having run to and fro in a wonderful
+variety of meanders, as unwilling to leave so charming a place, it at
+last throws itself into the hollow of a mountain, from whence it passes
+under a long range of rocks, and at length rises in that part of the
+Alps where the inhabitants think it the first source of the Rhone. This
+river, after having made its progress through those free nations,
+stagnates in a huge lake,<a name="FNanchor_211_211" id="FNanchor_211_211"></a><a href="#Footnote_211_211" class="fnanchor">[211]</a> at the leaving of them, and no sooner
+enters into the regions of slavery, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> runs through them with an
+incredible rapidity, and takes its shortest way to the sea.</p>
+
+<p>I descended into the happy fields that lay beneath me, and in the midst
+of them, beheld the goddess sitting upon a throne. She had nothing to
+enclose her but the bounds of her own dominions, and nothing over her
+head but the heavens. Every glance of her eye cast a track of light
+where it fell, that revived the spring, and made all things smile about
+her. My heart grew cheerful at the sight of her, and as she looked upon
+me, I found a certain confidence growing in me, and such an inward
+resolution as I never felt before that time.</p>
+
+<p>On the left hand of the goddess sat the Genius of a Commonwealth, with
+the cap of liberty on her head, and in her hand a wand, like that with
+which a Roman citizen used to give his slaves their freedom. There was
+something mean and vulgar, but at the same time exceeding bold and
+daring, in her air; her eyes were full of fire, but had in them such
+casts of fierceness and cruelty, as made her appear to me rather
+dreadful than amiable. On her shoulder she wore a mantle, on which there
+was wrought a great confusion of figures. As it flew in the wind, I
+could not discern the particular design of them, but saw wounds in the
+bodies of some, and agonies in the faces of others; and over one part of
+it could read in letters of blood, "The Ides of March."</p>
+
+<p>On the right hand of the goddess was the Genius of Monarchy. She was
+clothed in the whitest ermine, and wore a crown of the purest gold upon
+her head. In her hand she held a sceptre like that which is borne by the
+British monarchs. A couple of tame lions lay crouching at her feet: her
+countenance had in it a very great majesty without any mixture of
+terror: her voice was like the voice of an angel, filled with so much
+sweetness, and accompanied<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> with such an air of condescension, as
+tempered the awfulness of her appearance, and equally inspired love and
+veneration into the hearts of all that beheld her.</p>
+
+<p>In the train of the Goddess of Liberty were the several Arts and
+Sciences, who all of them flourished underneath her eye. One of them in
+particular made a greater figure than any of the rest, who held a
+thunderbolt in her hand, which had the power of melting, piercing, or
+breaking everything that stood in its way. The name of this goddess was
+Eloquence.</p>
+
+<p>There were two other dependent goddesses, who made a very conspicuous
+figure in this blissful region. The first of them was seated upon a
+hill, that had every plant growing out of it, which the soil was in its
+own nature capable of producing. The other was seated in a little
+island, that was covered with groves of spices, olives, and
+orange-trees; and in a word, with the products of every foreign clime.
+The name of the first was Plenty, of the second, Commerce. The first
+leaned her right arm upon a plough, and under her left held a huge horn,
+out of which she poured a whole autumn of fruits. The other wore a
+rostral crown upon her head, and kept her eyes fixed upon a compass.</p>
+
+<p>I was wonderfully pleased in ranging through this delightful place, and
+the more so, because it was not encumbered with fences and enclosures;
+till at length, methought, I sprung from the ground, and pitched upon
+the top of a hill, that presented several objects to my sight which I
+had not before taken notice of. The winds that passed over this flowery
+plain, and through the tops of the trees which were full of blossoms,
+blew upon me in such a continued breeze of sweets, that I was
+wonderfully charmed with my situation. I here saw all the inner
+declivities of that great circuit of mountains, whose outside was
+covered with snow,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> overgrown with huge forests of fir-trees, which
+indeed are very frequently found in other parts of the Alps. These trees
+were inhabited by storks, that came thither in great flights from very
+distant quarters of the world. Methought, I was pleased in my dream to
+see what became of these birds, when, upon leaving the places to which
+they make an annual visit, they rise in great flocks so high till they
+are out of sight; and for that reason have been thought by some modern
+philosophers to take a flight to the moon. But my eyes were soon
+diverted from this prospect, when I observed two great gaps that led
+through this circuit of mountains, where guards and watches were posted
+day and night. Upon examination I found, that there were two formidable
+enemies encamped before each of these avenues, who kept the place in a
+perpetual alarm, and watched all opportunities of invading it.</p>
+
+<p>Tyranny was at the head of one of these armies, dressed in an Eastern
+habit, and grasping in her hand an iron sceptre. Behind her was
+Barbarity, with the garb and complexion of an Ethiopian; Ignorance with
+a turban upon her head; and Persecution holding up a bloody flag,
+embroidered with fleurs-de-luce. These were followed by Oppression,
+Poverty, Famine, Torture, and a dreadful train of appearances, that made
+me tremble to behold them. Among the baggage of this army, I could
+discover racks, wheels, chains, and gibbets, with all the instruments
+art could invent to make human nature miserable.</p>
+
+<p>Before the other avenue I saw Licentiousness, dressed in a garment not
+unlike the Polish cassock, and leading up a whole army of monsters, such
+as Clamour, with a hoarse voice and a hundred tongues; Confusion, with a
+misshapen body and a thousand heads; Impudence, with a forehead of
+brass; and Rapine, with hands of iron. The tumult, noise, and uproar in
+this quarter were so very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> great, that they disturbed my imagination
+more than is consistent with sleep, and by that means awaked me.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_210_210" id="Footnote_210_210"></a><a href="#FNanchor_210_210"><span class="label">[210]</span></a> Cebes, of Thebes, was a disciple of Philolaus and
+Socrates. His <span title = "Pinax">&Pi;&iota;&nu;&alpha;&xi;</span> is an account of a table on which human
+life, with all its temptations and dangers, is represented
+symbolically.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_211_211" id="Footnote_211_211"></a><a href="#FNanchor_211_211"><span class="label">[211]</span></a> The Lake of Geneva.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<a name="No_162" id="No_162"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 162.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Addison.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Thursday, April 20</i>, to <i>Saturday, April 22, 1710</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Tertius e c&oelig;lo cecidit Cato.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Juv.</span>, Sat. ii. 40.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>From my own Apartment, April 21.</i></p>
+
+<p>In my younger years I used many endeavours to get a place at Court, and
+indeed continued my pursuits till I arrived at my grand climacteric: but
+at length altogether despairing of success, whether it were for want of
+capacity, friends, or due application, I at last resolved to erect a new
+office, and for my encouragement, to place myself in it. For this
+reason, I took upon me the title and dignity of Censor of Great Britain,
+reserving to myself all such perquisites, profits, and emoluments as
+should arise out of the discharge of the said office. These in truth
+have not been inconsiderable; for, besides those weekly contributions
+which I receive from John Morphew, and those annual subscriptions which
+I propose to myself from the most elegant part of this great island, I
+daily live in a very comfortable affluence of wine, stale beer, Hungary
+water, beef, books, and marrow-bones, which I receive from many
+well-disposed citizens; not to mention the forfeitures which accrue to
+me from the several offenders that appear before me on court-days.</p>
+
+<p>Having now enjoyed this office for the space of a twelve-month, I shall
+do what all good officers ought to do, take a survey of my behaviour,
+and consider carefully whether I have discharged my duty, and acted up
+to the character with which I am invested. For my direction in this
+par<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span>ticular, I have made a narrow search into the nature of the old
+Roman censors, whom I must always regard, not only as my predecessors,
+but as my patterns in this great employment; and have several times
+asked my own heart with great impartiality, whether Cato will not bear a
+more venerable figure among posterity than Bickerstaff.</p>
+
+<p>I find the duty of the Roman censor was twofold. The first part of it
+consisted in making frequent reviews of the people, in casting up their
+numbers, ranging them under their several tribes, disposing them into
+proper classes, and subdividing them into their respective centuries.</p>
+
+<p>In compliance with this part of the office, I have taken many curious
+surveys of this great city. I have collected into particular bodies the
+Dappers<a name="FNanchor_212_212" id="FNanchor_212_212"></a><a href="#Footnote_212_212" class="fnanchor">[212]</a> and the Smarts,<a name="FNanchor_213_213" id="FNanchor_213_213"></a><a href="#Footnote_213_213" class="fnanchor">[213]</a> the Natural and Affected Rakes,<a name="FNanchor_214_214" id="FNanchor_214_214"></a><a href="#Footnote_214_214" class="fnanchor">[214]</a>
+the Pretty Fellows and the Very Pretty Fellows.<a name="FNanchor_215_215" id="FNanchor_215_215"></a><a href="#Footnote_215_215" class="fnanchor">[215]</a> I have likewise
+drawn out in several distinct parties your Pedants<a name="FNanchor_216_216" id="FNanchor_216_216"></a><a href="#Footnote_216_216" class="fnanchor">[216]</a> and Men of
+Fire,<a name="FNanchor_217_217" id="FNanchor_217_217"></a><a href="#Footnote_217_217" class="fnanchor">[217]</a> your Gamesters<a name="FNanchor_218_218" id="FNanchor_218_218"></a><a href="#Footnote_218_218" class="fnanchor">[218]</a> and Politicians.<a name="FNanchor_219_219" id="FNanchor_219_219"></a><a href="#Footnote_219_219" class="fnanchor">[219]</a> I have separated
+Cits from Citizens,<a name="FNanchor_220_220" id="FNanchor_220_220"></a><a href="#Footnote_220_220" class="fnanchor">[220]</a> Freethinkers from Philosophers,<a name="FNanchor_221_221" id="FNanchor_221_221"></a><a href="#Footnote_221_221" class="fnanchor">[221]</a> Wits from
+Snuff-takers,<a name="FNanchor_222_222" id="FNanchor_222_222"></a><a href="#Footnote_222_222" class="fnanchor">[222]</a> and Duellists from Men of Honour.<a name="FNanchor_223_223" id="FNanchor_223_223"></a><a href="#Footnote_223_223" class="fnanchor">[223]</a> I have
+likewise made a calculation of Esquires,<a name="FNanchor_224_224" id="FNanchor_224_224"></a><a href="#Footnote_224_224" class="fnanchor">[224]</a> not only considering the
+several distinct swarms of them that are settled in the different parts
+of this town, but also that more rugged species that inhabit the fields
+and woods, and are often found in pothouses, and upon haycocks.</p>
+
+<p>I shall pass the soft sex over in silence, having not yet reduced them
+into any tolerable order; as likewise the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> softer tribe of lovers, which
+will cost me a great deal of time, before I shall be able to cast them
+into their several centuries and subdivisions.</p>
+
+<p>The second part of the Roman censor's office was to look into the
+manners of the people, and to check any growing luxury, whether in diet,
+dress, or building. This duty likewise I have endeavoured to discharge,
+by those wholesome precepts which I have given my countrymen in regard
+to beef and mutton, and the severe censures which I have passed upon
+ragouts and fricassees.<a name="FNanchor_225_225" id="FNanchor_225_225"></a><a href="#Footnote_225_225" class="fnanchor">[225]</a> There is not, as I am informed, a pair of
+red heels<a name="FNanchor_226_226" id="FNanchor_226_226"></a><a href="#Footnote_226_226" class="fnanchor">[226]</a> to be seen within ten miles of London, which I may
+likewise ascribe, without vanity, to the becoming zeal which I expressed
+in that particular. I must own, my success with the petticoat<a name="FNanchor_227_227" id="FNanchor_227_227"></a><a href="#Footnote_227_227" class="fnanchor">[227]</a> is
+not so great: but as I have not yet done with it, I hope I shall in a
+little time put an effectual stop to that growing evil. As for the
+article of building, I intend hereafter to enlarge upon it, having
+lately observed several warehouses, nay private shops, that stand upon
+Corinthian pillars, and whole rows of tin pots showing themselves, in
+order to their sale, through a sash-window.</p>
+
+<p>I have likewise followed the example of the Roman censors, in punishing
+offences according to the quality of the offender. It was usual for them
+to expel a senator who had been guilty of great immoralities out of the
+senate-house, by omitting his name when they called over the list of his
+brethren. In the same manner, to remove effectually several worthless
+men who stand possessed of great honours, I have made frequent draughts
+of dead men<a name="FNanchor_228_228" id="FNanchor_228_228"></a><a href="#Footnote_228_228" class="fnanchor">[228]</a> out of the vicious part of the nobility, and given them
+up to the new society of upholders, with the necessary orders for their
+interment.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> As the Roman censors used to punish the knights or gentlemen
+of Rome, by taking away their horses from them, I have seized the
+canes<a name="FNanchor_229_229" id="FNanchor_229_229"></a><a href="#Footnote_229_229" class="fnanchor">[229]</a> of many criminals of figure, whom I had just reason to
+animadvert upon. As for the offenders among the common people of Rome,
+they were generally chastised, by being thrown out of a higher tribe,
+and placed in one which was not so honourable. My reader cannot but
+think I have had an eye to this punishment, when I have degraded one
+species of men into bombs, squibs, and crackers,<a name="FNanchor_230_230" id="FNanchor_230_230"></a><a href="#Footnote_230_230" class="fnanchor">[230]</a> and another into
+drums, bass-viols, and bagpipes;<a name="FNanchor_231_231" id="FNanchor_231_231"></a><a href="#Footnote_231_231" class="fnanchor">[231]</a> not to mention whole packs of
+delinquents whom I have shut up in kennels, and the new hospital which I
+am at present erecting, for the reception of those my countrymen who
+give me but little hopes of their amendment, on the borders of
+Moorfields.<a name="FNanchor_232_232" id="FNanchor_232_232"></a><a href="#Footnote_232_232" class="fnanchor">[232]</a> I shall only observe upon this last particular, that
+since some late surveys I have taken of this island, I shall think it
+necessary to enlarge the plan of the buildings which I design in this
+quarter.</p>
+
+<p>When my great predecessor Cato the elder stood for the Censorship of
+Rome, there were several other competitors who offered themselves; and
+to get an interest among the people, gave them great promises of the
+mild and gentle treatment which they would use towards them in that
+office. Cato on the contrary told them, he presented himself as a
+candidate, because he knew the age was sunk in immorality and
+corruption; and that if they would give him their votes, he would
+promise them to make use of such a strictness and severity of discipline
+as should recover them out of it. The Roman historians, upon this
+occasion, very much celebrate the public-spiritedness of that people,
+who chose Cato for their censor, notwithstanding his method of
+recommending<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> himself. I may in some measure extol my own countrymen
+upon the same account, who, without any respect to party, or any
+application from myself, have made such generous subscriptions for the
+Censor of Great Britain, as will give a magnificence to my old age, and
+which I esteem more than I would any post in Europe of a hundred times
+the value. I shall only add, that upon looking into my catalogue of
+subscribers, which I intend to print alphabetically in the front of my
+Lucubrations, I find the names of the greatest beauties and wits in the
+whole island of Great Britain, which I only mention for the benefit of
+any of them who have not subscribed, it being my design to close the
+subscription in a very short time.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_212_212" id="Footnote_212_212"></a><a href="#FNanchor_212_212"><span class="label">[212]</span></a>
+See No. 85.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_213_213" id="Footnote_213_213"></a><a href="#FNanchor_213_213"><span class="label">[213]</span></a>
+See Nos. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number26">26</a>,
+<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number28">28</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_214_214" id="Footnote_214_214"></a><a href="#FNanchor_214_214"><span class="label">[214]</span></a>
+See Nos. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number27">27</a>, <a href="#No_143">143</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_215_215" id="Footnote_215_215"></a><a href="#FNanchor_215_215"><span class="label">[215]</span></a>
+See Nos. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number21">21</a>,
+<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number22">22</a>,
+<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number24">24</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_216_216" id="Footnote_216_216"></a><a href="#FNanchor_216_216"><span class="label">[216]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="#No_127">158</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_217_217" id="Footnote_217_217"></a><a href="#FNanchor_217_217"><span class="label">[217]</span></a>
+See No. 61.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_218_218" id="Footnote_218_218"></a><a href="#FNanchor_218_218"><span class="label">[218]</span></a>
+See Nos. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number13">13</a>,
+<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number14">14</a>,
+<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number15">15</a>,
+56, &amp;c.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_219_219" id="Footnote_219_219"></a><a href="#FNanchor_219_219"><span class="label">[219]</span></a>
+See Nos. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number40">40</a>, <a href="#No_155">155</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_220_220" id="Footnote_220_220"></a><a href="#FNanchor_220_220"><span class="label">[220]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number25">25</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_221_221" id="Footnote_221_221"></a><a href="#FNanchor_221_221"><span class="label">[221]</span></a>
+See Nos. 108, 111, <a href="#No_135">135</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_222_222" id="Footnote_222_222"></a><a href="#FNanchor_222_222"><span class="label">[222]</span></a>
+See Nos. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number35">35</a>, <a href="#No_141">141</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_223_223" id="Footnote_223_223"></a><a href="#FNanchor_223_223"><span class="label">[223]</span></a>
+See Nos. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number25">25</a>,
+<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number26">26</a>,
+<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number28">28</a>,
+<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number29">29</a>,
+<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number30">30</a>,
+<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number39">39</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_224_224" id="Footnote_224_224"></a><a href="#FNanchor_224_224"><span class="label">[224]</span></a>
+See Nos. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number19">19</a>, <a href="#No_115">115</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_225_225" id="Footnote_225_225"></a><a href="#FNanchor_225_225"><span class="label">[225]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="#No_148">148</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_226_226" id="Footnote_226_226"></a><a href="#FNanchor_226_226"><span class="label">[226]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number26">26</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_227_227" id="Footnote_227_227"></a><a href="#FNanchor_227_227"><span class="label">[227]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="#No_116">116</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_228_228" id="Footnote_228_228"></a><a href="#FNanchor_228_228"><span class="label">[228]</span></a>
+See Nos. 96, 110.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_229_229" id="Footnote_229_229"></a><a href="#FNanchor_229_229"><span class="label">[229]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number26">26</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_230_230" id="Footnote_230_230"></a><a href="#FNanchor_230_230"><span class="label">[230]</span></a>
+See No. 88.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_231_231" id="Footnote_231_231"></a><a href="#FNanchor_231_231"><span class="label">[231]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="#No_153">153</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_232_232" id="Footnote_232_232"></a><a href="#FNanchor_232_232"><span class="label">[232]</span></a>
+See Nos. 62, <a href="#No_127">127</a>.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<a name="No_163" id="No_163"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 163.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Addison.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Saturday, April 22</i>, to <i>Tuesday, April 25, 1710</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Idem inficeto est inficetior rure,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Simul poemata attigit; neque idem unquam<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">&AElig;que est beatus, ac poema cum scribit:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tam gaudet in se, tamque se ipse miratur.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nimirum idem omnes fallimur; neque est quisquam,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Quem non in aliqua re videre Suffenum<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Possis.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Catullus</span>, xxii. 14.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>Will's Coffee-house, April 24.</i></p>
+
+<p>I yesterday came hither about two hours before the company generally
+make their appearance, with a design to read over all the newspapers;
+but upon my sitting down, I was accosted by Ned Softly, who saw me from
+a corner in the other end of the room, where I found he had been writing
+something. "Mr. Bickerstaff," says he, "I observe by a late paper of
+yours, that you and I are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> just of a humour; for you must know, of all
+impertinences, there is nothing which I so much hate as news. I never
+read a Gazette in my life; and never trouble my head about our armies,
+whether they win or lose, or in what part of the world they lie
+encamped." Without giving me time to reply, he drew a paper of verses
+out of his pocket, telling me, that he had something which would
+entertain me more agreeably, and that he would desire my judgment upon
+every line, for that we had time enough before us till the company came
+in.</p>
+
+<p>Ned Softly is a very pretty poet, and a great admirer of easy lines.
+Waller is his favourite: and as that admirable writer has the best and
+worst verses of any among our great English poets, Ned Softly has got
+all the bad ones without book, which he repeats upon occasion, to show
+his reading, and garnish his conversation. Ned is indeed a true English
+reader, incapable of relishing the great and masterly strokes of this
+art; but wonderfully pleased with the little Gothic ornaments of
+epigrammatical conceits, turns, points, and quibbles, which are so
+frequent in the most admired of our English poets, and practised by
+those who want genius and strength to represent, after the manner of the
+ancients, simplicity in its natural beauty and perfection.</p>
+
+<p>Finding myself unavoidably engaged in such a conversation, I was
+resolved to turn my pain into a pleasure, and to divert myself as well
+as I could with so very odd a fellow. "You must understand," says Ned,
+"that the sonnet I am going to read to you was written upon a lady, who
+showed me some verses of her own making, and is perhaps the best poet of
+our age. But you shall hear it." Upon which he began to read as
+follows:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span>
+</div>
+<span class="i0">"<i>To Mira on her Incomparable Poems.</i><br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"<i>When dressed in laurel wreaths you shine,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i2"><i>And tune your soft melodious notes,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>You seem a sister of the Nine,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i2"><i>Or Ph&oelig;bus' self in petticoats.</i><br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>II.</i><br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"<i>I fancy, when your song you sing</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i2"><i>(Your song you sing with so much art),</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Your pen was plucked from Cupid's wing;</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i2"><i>For ah! it wounds me like his dart.</i>"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"Why," says I, "this is a little nosegay of conceits, a very lump of
+salt: every verse has something in it that piques; and then the dart in
+the last line is certainly as pretty a sting in the tail of an epigram
+(for so I think your critics call it) as ever entered into the thought
+of a poet." "Dear Mr. Bickerstaff," says he, shaking me by the hand,
+"everybody knows you to be a judge of these things; and to tell you
+truly, I read over Roscommon's translation of Horace's 'Art of Poetry'
+three several times, before I sat down to write the sonnet which I have
+shown you. But you shall hear it again, and pray observe every line of
+it, for not one of them shall pass without your approbation.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>"When dressed in laurel wreaths you shine.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"That is," says he, "when you have your garland on; when you are writing
+verses." To which I replied, "I know your meaning: a metaphor!" "The
+same," said he, and went on:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>"And tune your soft melodious notes.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"Pray observe the gliding of that verse; there is scarce a consonant in
+it: I took care to make it run upon liquids.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> Give me your opinion of
+it." "Truly," said I, "I think it as good as the former." "I am very
+glad to hear you say so," says he; "but mind the next:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"<i>You seem a sister of the Nine.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"That is," says he, "you seem a sister of the Muses; for if you look
+into ancient authors, you will find it was their opinion, that there
+were nine of them." "I remember it very well," said I; "but pray
+proceed."</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"<i>Or Ph&oelig;bus' self in petticoats.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"Ph&oelig;bus," says he, "was the God of Poetry. These little instances,
+Mr. Bickerstaff, show a gentleman's reading. Then to take off from the
+air of learning, which Ph&oelig;bus and the Muses have given to this first
+stanza, you may observe how it falls all of a sudden into the familiar;
+'in petticoats!'</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"<i>Or Ph&oelig;bus' self in petticoats.</i>"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"Let us now," says I, "enter upon the second stanza. I find the first
+line is still a continuation of the metaphor:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"<i>I fancy, when your song you sing.</i>"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"It is very right," says he; "but pray observe the turn of words in
+those two lines. I was a whole hour in adjusting of them, and have still
+a doubt upon me, whether in the second line it should be, 'Your song you
+sing'; or, 'You sing your song'? You shall hear them both:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"<i>I fancy, when your song you sing</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i2"><i>(Your song you sing with so much art).</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Or,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"<i>I fancy, when your song you sing</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i2"><i>(You sing your song with so much art).</i>"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span>
+</div>
+<p>"Truly," said I, "the turn is so natural either way, that you have made
+me almost giddy with it." "Dear sir," said he, grasping me by the hand,
+"you have a great deal of patience; but pray what do you think of the
+next verse:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"<i>Your pen was plucked from Cupid's wing?</i>"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"Think!" says I; "I think you have made Cupid look like a little goose."
+"That was my meaning," says he; "I think the ridicule is well enough hit
+off. But we now come to the last, which sums up the whole matter:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"<i>For ah! it wounds me like his dart.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"Pray, how do you like that 'Ah!' Does it not make a pretty figure in
+that place? 'Ah!' It looks as if I felt the dart, and cried out at being
+pricked with it:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"<i>For ah! it wounds me like his dart.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"My friend Dick Easy,"<a name="FNanchor_233_233" id="FNanchor_233_233"></a><a href="#Footnote_233_233" class="fnanchor">[233]</a> continued he, "assured me he would rather
+have written that 'Ah!' than to have been the author of the '&AElig;neid.' He
+indeed objected that I made Mira's pen like a quill in one of the lines,
+and like a dart in the other. But as to that&mdash;" "Oh! as to that," says
+I, "it is but supposing Cupid to be like a porcupine, and his quills and
+darts will be the same thing." He was going to embrace me for the hint;
+but half a dozen critics coming into the room, whose faces he did not
+like, he conveyed the sonnet into his pocket, and whispered me in the
+ear, he would show it me again as soon as his man had written it over
+fair.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_233_233" id="Footnote_233_233"></a><a href="#FNanchor_233_233"><span class="label">[233]</span></a> Perhaps Henry Cromwell.
+See Nos. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/12030/12030-h/12030-h/SV1/Spectator1.html#section47">47</a>,
+<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/12030/12030-h/12030-h/SV1/Spectator1.html#section49">49</a>,
+<a href="#No_165">165</a>, and Mrs.
+Elizabeth Thomas' "Pylades and Corinna," i. 194.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span>
+<a name="No_164" id="No_164"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 164.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Steele.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Tuesday, April 25</i>, to <i>Thursday, April 27, 1710</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Qui sibi promittit cives, urbem sibi cur&aelig;,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Imperium fore et Italiam, delubra Deorum,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Quo patre sit natus, num ignot&acirc; matre inhonestus,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Omnes mortales curare et qu&aelig;rere cogit.<br /></span>
+<span class="i28"><span class="smcap">Hor.</span>, I Sat. vi. 34.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>From my own Apartment, April 26.</i></p>
+
+
+<p>I have lately been looking over the many packets of letters which I have
+received from all quarters of Great Britain, as well as from foreign
+countries, since my entering upon the office of Censor, and indeed am
+very much surprised to see so great a number of them, and pleased to
+think that I have so far increased the revenue of the Post Office. As
+this collection will grow daily, I have digested it into several
+bundles, and made proper endorsements on each particular letter, it
+being my design, when I lay down the work that I am now engaged in, to
+erect a Paper Office, and give it to the public.<a name="FNanchor_234_234" id="FNanchor_234_234"></a><a href="#Footnote_234_234" class="fnanchor">[234]</a></p>
+
+<p>I could not but make several observations upon reading over the letters
+of my correspondents: as first of all, on the different tastes that
+reign in the different parts of this city. I find, by the approbations
+which are given me, that I am seldom famous on the same days on both
+sides of Temple Bar; and that when I am in the greatest repute within
+the Liberties, I dwindle at the court end of the town. Sometimes I sink
+in both these places at the same<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> time; but for my comfort, my name has
+then been up in the districts of Wapping and Rotherhithe. Some of my
+correspondents desire me to be always serious, and others to be always
+merry. Some of them entreat me to go to bed and fall into a dream, and
+like me better when I am asleep than when I am awake: others advise me
+to sit all night upon the stars, and be more frequent in my astrological
+observations; for that a vision is not properly a lucubration. Some of
+my readers thank me for filling my paper with the flowers of antiquity,
+others desire news from Flanders. Some approve my criticisms on the
+dead, and others my censures on the living. For this reason, I once
+resolved in the new edition of my works, to range my several papers
+under distinct heads, according as their principal design was to benefit
+and instruct the different capacities of my readers, and to follow the
+example of some very great authors, by writing at the head of each
+discourse, "Ad Aulam," "Ad Academiam," "Ad Populum," "Ad Clerum."</p>
+
+<p>There is no particular in which my correspondents of all ages,
+conditions, sexes, and complexions, universally agree, except only in
+their thirst after scandal. It is impossible to conceive how many have
+recommended their neighbours to me upon this account, or how
+unmercifully I have been abused by several unknown hands, for not
+publishing the secret histories of cuckoldom that I have received from
+almost every street in town.</p>
+
+<p>It would indeed be very dangerous for me to read over the many praises
+and eulogiums which come post to me from all the corners of the nation,
+were they not mixed with many checks, reprimands, scurrilities, and
+reproaches, which several of my good-natured countrymen cannot forbear
+sending me, though it often costs them twopence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> or a groat before they
+can convey them to my hands:<a name="FNanchor_235_235" id="FNanchor_235_235"></a><a href="#Footnote_235_235" class="fnanchor">[235]</a> so that sometimes when I am put into
+the best humour in the world, after having read a panegyric upon my
+performance, and looked upon myself as a benefactor to the British
+nation, the next letter perhaps I open, begins with, "You old doting
+scoundrel;" "Are not you a sad dog?" "Sirrah, you deserve to have your
+nose slit;" and the like ingenious conceits. These little mortifications
+are necessary to surpass that pride and vanity which naturally arise in
+the mind of a received author, and enable me to bear the reputation
+which my courteous readers bestow upon me, without becoming a coxcomb by
+it. It was for the same reason, that when a Roman general entered the
+city in the pomp of a triumph, the commonwealth allowed of several
+little drawbacks to his reputation, by conniving at such of the rabble
+as repeated libels and lampoons upon him within his hearing, and by that
+means engaged his thoughts upon his weakness and imperfections, as well
+as on the merits that advanced him to so great honours. The conqueror
+however was not the less esteemed for being a man in some particulars,
+because he appeared as a god in others.</p>
+
+<p>There is another circumstance in which my countrymen have dealt very
+perversely with me; and that is, in searching not only into my own life,
+but also into the lives of my ancestors. If there has been a blot in my
+family for these ten generations, it has been discovered by some or
+other of my correspondents. In short, I find the ancient family of the
+Bickerstaffs has suffered very much through the malice and prejudice of
+my enemies. Some of them twit me in the teeth with the conduct of my
+Aunt Margery:<a name="FNanchor_236_236" id="FNanchor_236_236"></a><a href="#Footnote_236_236" class="fnanchor">[236]</a> nay, there are some who have been so disingenuous, as
+to throw Maud the Milkmaid<a name="FNanchor_237_237" id="FNanchor_237_237"></a><a href="#Footnote_237_237" class="fnanchor">[237]</a> into my dish, notwithstanding I myself
+was the first who discovered that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> alliance. I reap however many
+benefits from the malice of these my enemies, as they let me see my own
+faults, and give me a view of myself in the worst light; as they hinder
+me from being blown up by flattery and self-conceit; as they make me
+keep a watchful eye over my own actions, and at the same time make me
+cautious how I talk of others, and particularly of my friends and
+relations, or value myself upon the antiquity of my family.</p>
+
+<p>But the most formidable part of my correspondents are those whose
+letters are filled with threats and menaces. I have been treated so
+often after this manner, that not thinking it sufficient to fence well,
+in which I am now arrived at the utmost perfection,<a name="FNanchor_238_238" id="FNanchor_238_238"></a><a href="#Footnote_238_238" class="fnanchor">[238]</a> and carry
+pistols about me, which I have always tucked within my girdle; I several
+months since made my will, settled my estate, and took leave of my
+friends, looking upon myself as no better than a dead man. Nay, I went
+so far as to write a long letter to the most intimate acquaintance I
+have in the world, under the character of a departed person, giving him
+an account of what brought me to that untimely end, and of the fortitude
+with which I met it. This letter being too long for the present paper, I
+intend to print it by itself very suddenly; and at the same time I must
+confess, I took my hint of it from the behaviour of an old soldier in
+the Civil Wars, who was corporal of a company in a regiment of foot,
+about the same time that I myself was a cadet in the King's army.</p>
+
+<p>This gentleman was taken by the enemy; and the two parties were upon
+such terms at that time, that we did not treat each other as prisoners
+of war, but as traitors and rebels. The poor corporal being condemned to
+die, wrote<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> a letter to his wife when under sentence of execution. He
+writ on the Thursday, and was to be executed on the Friday: but
+considering that the letter would not come to his wife's hands till
+Saturday, the day after execution, and being at that time more
+scrupulous than ordinary in speaking exact truth, he formed his letter
+rather according to the posture of his affairs when she should read it,
+than as they stood when he sent it; though it must be confessed, there
+is a certain perplexity in the style of it, which the reader will easily
+pardon, considering his circumstances:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Wife</span>,</p>
+
+<p>"Hoping you are in good health, as I am at this present writing,
+this is to let you know, that yesterday, between the hours of
+eleven and twelve, I was hanged, drawn and quartered. I died very
+penitently, and everybody thought my case very hard. Remember me
+kindly to my poor fatherless children.</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+<span class="sig2">"Yours till death,</span><br />
+"W. B."<br />
+</p></div>
+
+<p>It so happened, that this honest fellow was relieved by a party of his
+friends, and had the satisfaction to see all the rebels hanged who had
+been his enemies. I must not omit a circumstance which exposed him to
+raillery his whole life after. Before the arrival of the next post, that
+would have set all things clear, his wife was married to a second
+husband, who lived in the peaceful possession of her; and the corporal,
+who was a man of plain understanding, did not care to stir in the
+matter, as knowing that she had the news of his death under his own
+hand, which she might have produced upon occasion.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_234_234" id="Footnote_234_234"></a><a href="#FNanchor_234_234"><span class="label">[234]</span></a> This idea was carried out in 1725, when Charles Lillie
+published, by Steele's permission, two volumes of "Original and genuine
+Letters sent to the <i>Tatler</i> and <i>Spectator</i>, during the time those
+works were publishing. None of which have been before printed." See No.
+110.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_235_235" id="Footnote_235_235"></a><a href="#FNanchor_235_235"><span class="label">[235]</span></a>
+See Nos. <a href="#No_117">117</a>, <a href="#No_186">186</a>, Advertisements.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_236_236" id="Footnote_236_236"></a><a href="#FNanchor_236_236"><span class="label">[236]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="#No_151">151</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_237_237" id="Footnote_237_237"></a><a href="#FNanchor_237_237"><span class="label">[237]</span></a>
+See No. 75.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_238_238" id="Footnote_238_238"></a><a href="#FNanchor_238_238"><span class="label">[238]</span></a> It would hardly be possible for a man of Bickerstaff's
+age to acquire perfection in fencing after only a few months' practice.
+See No. <a href="#No_173">173</a>: "I first began to learn to push this last winter."</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span>
+<a name="No_165" id="No_165"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 165.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Addison.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Thursday, April 27</i>, to <i>Saturday, April 29, 1710</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>From my own Apartment, April 28.</i></p>
+
+<p>It has always been my endeavour to distinguish between realities and
+appearances, and to separate true merit from the pretence to it. As it
+shall ever be my study to make discoveries of this nature in human life,
+and to settle the proper distinctions between the virtues and
+perfections of mankind, and those false colours and resemblances of them
+that shine alike in the eyes of the vulgar; so I shall be more
+particularly careful to search into the various merits and pretences of
+the learned world. This is the more necessary, because there seems to be
+a general combination among the pedants to extol one another's labours,
+and cry up one another's parts; while men of sense, either through that
+modesty which is natural to them, or the scorn they have for such
+trifling commendations, enjoy their stock of knowledge like a hidden
+treasure, with satisfaction and silence. Pedantry indeed in learning is
+like hypocrisy in religion, a form of knowledge without the power of it,
+that attracts the eyes of the common people, breaks out in noise and
+show, and finds its reward not from any inward pleasure that attends it,
+but from the praises and approbations which it receives from men.</p>
+
+<p>Of this shallow species there is not a more importunate, empty, and
+conceited animal, than that which is generally known by the name of a
+critic. This, in the common acceptation of the word, is one that,
+without entering into the sense and soul of an author, has a few general
+rules, which, like mechanical instruments, he applies<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> to the works of
+every writer, and as they quadrate with them, pronounces the author
+perfect or defective. He is master of a certain set of words, as "unity,
+style, fire, phlegm, easy, natural, turn, sentiment," and the like;
+which he varies, compounds, divides, and throws together, in every part
+of his discourse, without any thought or meaning. The marks you may know
+him by are, an elevated eye, and dogmatical brow, a positive voice, and
+a contempt for everything that comes out, whether he has read it or not.
+He dwells altogether in generals. He praises or dispraises in the lump.
+He shakes his head very frequently at the pedantry of Universities, and
+bursts into laughter when you mention an author that is not known at
+Will's. He has formed his judgment upon Homer, Horace, and Virgil, not
+from their own works, but from those of Rapin and Bossu. He knows his
+own strength so well, that he never dares praise anything in which he
+has not a French author for his voucher.</p>
+
+<p>With these extraordinary talents and accomplishments, Sir Timothy
+Tittle<a name="FNanchor_239_239" id="FNanchor_239_239"></a><a href="#Footnote_239_239" class="fnanchor">[239]</a> puts men in vogue, or condemns them to obscurity, and sits
+as judge of life and death upon every author that appears in public. It
+is impossible to represent the pangs, agonies, and convulsions which Sir
+Timothy expresses in every feature of his face, and muscle of his body,
+upon the reading of a bad poet.</p>
+
+<p>About a week ago I was engaged at a friend's of mine in an agreeable
+conversation with his wife and daughters, when in the height of our
+mirth, Sir Timothy, who makes love to my friend's eldest daughter, came
+in amongst us puffing and blowing as if he had been very much out of
+breath. He immediately called for a chair, and desired leave to sit
+down, without any further ceremony. I asked him where he had been?
+whether he was out of order?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> He only replied, that he was quite spent,
+and fell a-cursing in soliloquy. I could hear him cry, "A wicked rogue;"
+"An execrable wretch;" "Was there ever such a monster?" The young ladies
+upon this began to be affrighted, and asked whether any one had hurt
+him? He answered nothing, but still talked to himself. "To lay the first
+scene," says he, "in St. James's Park, and the last in Northamptonshire."
+"Is that all?" says I. "Then I suppose you have been at the rehearsal of
+a play this morning?" "Been!" says he; "I have been at Northampton, in
+the Park, in a lady's bed-chamber, in a dining-room, everywhere; the
+rogue has led me such a dance." Though I could scarce forbear laughing
+at his discourse, I told him I was glad it was no worse, and that he was
+only metaphorically weary. "In short, sir," says he, "the author has not
+observed a single unity in his whole play; the scene shifts in every
+dialogue; the villain has hurried me up and down at such a rate, that I
+am tired off my legs." I could not but observe with some pleasure, that
+the young lady whom he made love to conceived a very just aversion to
+him, upon seeing him so very passionate in trifles. And as she had that
+natural sense which makes her a better judge than a thousand critics,
+she began to rally him upon this foolish humour. "For my part," says
+she, "I never knew a play take that was written up to your rules, as you
+call them." "How, madam!" says he; "is that your opinion? I am sure you
+have a better taste." "It is a pretty kind of magic," says she, "the
+poets have, to transport an audience from place to place without the
+help of a coach and horses. I could travel round the world at such a
+rate. 'Tis such an entertainment as an enchantress finds when she
+fancies herself in a wood, or upon a mountain, at a feast, or a
+solemnity; though at the same time she has never stirred out of her
+cottage." "Your simile, madam," says Sir<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> Timothy, "is by no means
+just." "Pray," says she, "let my similes pass without a criticism. I
+must confess," continued she (for I found she was resolved to exasperate
+him), "I laughed very heartily at the last new comedy which you found so
+much fault with." "But, madam," says he, "you ought not to have laughed;
+and I defy any one to show me a single rule that you could laugh by."
+"Ought not to laugh!" says she: "pray, who should hinder me?" "Madam,"
+says he, "there are such people in the world as Rapin, Dacier, and
+several others, that ought to have spoiled your mirth." "I have heard,"
+says the young lady, "that your great critics are always very bad poets:
+I fancy there is as much difference between the works of one and the
+other, as there is between the carriage of a dancing-master and a
+gentleman. I must confess," continued she, "I would not be troubled with
+so fine a judgment as yours is; for I find you feel more vexation in a
+bad comedy than I do in a deep tragedy." "Madam," says Sir Timothy,
+"that is not my fault; they should learn the art of writing." "For my
+part," says the young lady, "I should think the greatest art in your
+writers of comedies is to please." "To please!" says Sir Timothy; and
+immediately fell a-laughing. "Truly," says she, "that is my opinion."
+Upon this, he composed his countenance, looked upon his watch, and took
+his leave.</p>
+
+<p>I hear that Sir Timothy has not been at my friend's house since this
+notable conference, to the great satisfaction of the young lady, who by
+this means has got rid of a very impertinent fop.</p>
+
+<p>I must confess, I could not but observe, with a great deal of surprise,
+how this gentleman, by his ill-nature, folly, and affectation, has made
+himself capable of suffering so many imaginary pains, and looking with
+such a senseless severity upon the common diversions of life.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_239_239" id="Footnote_239_239"></a><a href="#FNanchor_239_239"><span class="label">[239]</span></a> Perhaps Henry Cromwell;
+see Nos. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/12030/12030-h/12030-h/SV1/Spectator1.html#section47">47</a>,
+<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/12030/12030-h/12030-h/SV1/Spectator1.html#section49">49</a>,
+<a href="#No_163">163</a>.</p></div>
+
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span>
+<a name="No_166" id="No_166"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 166.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Steele</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Saturday, April 29</i>, to <i>Tuesday, May 2, 1710</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&mdash;&mdash;Dicenda tacenda loquutus.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Hor.</span>, <span class="smcap">I</span> Ep. vii. 72.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>White's Chocolate-house, May 1.</i></p>
+
+<p>The world is so overgrown with singularities in behaviour, and method of
+living, that I have no sooner laid before mankind the absurdity of one
+species of men, but there starts up to my view some new sect of
+impertinents that had before escaped notice. This afternoon, as I was
+talking with fine Mrs. Sprightly's porter, and desiring admittance upon
+an extraordinary occasion, it was my fate to be spied by Tom Modely
+riding by in his chariot. He did me the honour to stop, and asked what I
+did there of a Monday? I answered that I had business of importance,
+which I wanted to communicate to the lady of the house. Tom is one of
+those fools who look upon knowledge of the fashion to be the only
+liberal science; and was so rough as to tell me, that a well-bred man
+would as soon call upon a lady (who keeps a day) at midnight, as on any
+day but that on which she professes being at home. There are rules and
+decorums which are never to be transgressed by those who understand the
+world; and he who offends in this kind, ought not to take it ill if he
+is turned away, even when he sees the person look out at her window whom
+he inquires for. "Nay," said he, "my Lady Dimple is so positive in this
+rule, that she takes it for a piece of good breeding and distinction to
+deny herself with her own mouth. Mrs. Comma,<a name="FNanchor_240_240" id="FNanchor_240_240"></a><a href="#Footnote_240_240" class="fnanchor">[240]</a> the great scholar,
+insists upon it;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> and I myself have heard her assert, that a lord's
+porter, or a lady's woman, cannot be said to lie in that case, because
+they act by instruction; and their words are no more their own, than
+those of a puppet."</p>
+
+<p>He was going on with this ribaldry, when on a sudden he looked on his
+watch, and said, he had twenty visits to make, and drove away without
+further ceremony. I was then at leisure to reflect upon the tasteless
+manner of life, which a set of idle fellows lead in this town, and spend
+youth itself with less spirit, than other men do their old age. These
+expletives in human society, though they are in themselves wholly
+insignificant, become of some consideration when they are mixed with
+others. I am very much at a loss how to define, or under what character,
+distinction, or denomination, to place them, except you give me leave to
+call them the Order of the Insipids. This order is in its extent like
+that of the Jesuits, and you see of them in every way of life, and in
+every profession. Tom Modely has long appeared to me at the head of this
+species. By being habitually in the best company, he knows perfectly
+well when a coat is well cut, or a periwig well mounted.<a name="FNanchor_241_241" id="FNanchor_241_241"></a><a href="#Footnote_241_241" class="fnanchor">[241]</a> As soon as
+you enter the place where he is, he tells the next man to him who is
+your tailor, and judges of you more from the choice of your
+periwig-maker than of your friend. His business in this world is to be
+well dressed; and the greatest circumstance that is to be recorded in
+his annals is, that he wears twenty shirts a week. Thus, without ever
+speaking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> reason among the men, or passion among the women, he is
+everywhere well received; and without any one man's esteem, he has every
+man's indulgence.</p>
+
+<p>This order has produced great numbers of tolerable copiers in painting,
+good rhymers in poetry, and harmless projectors in politics. You may see
+them at first sight grow acquainted by sympathy, insomuch that one who
+had not studied nature, and did not know the true cause of their sudden
+familiarities, would think that they had some secret intimation of each
+other, like the freemasons. The other day at Will's I heard Modely, and
+a critic of the same order, show their equal talents with great delight.
+The learned insipid was commending Racine's turns; the genteel insipid,
+Devillier's curls.<a name="FNanchor_242_242" id="FNanchor_242_242"></a><a href="#Footnote_242_242" class="fnanchor">[242]</a></p>
+
+<p>These creatures, when they are not forced into any particular
+employment, for want of ideas in their own imaginations, are the
+constant plague of all they meet with by inquiries for news and scandal,
+which makes them the heroes of visiting-days, where they help the design
+of the meeting, which is to pass away that odious thing called Time, in
+discourses too trivial to raise any reflections which may put well-bred
+persons to the trouble of thinking.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>From my own Apartment, May 1.</i></p>
+
+<p>I was looking out of my parlour window this morning,<a name="FNanchor_243_243" id="FNanchor_243_243"></a><a href="#Footnote_243_243" class="fnanchor">[243]</a> and receiving
+the honours which Margery, the milkmaid to our lane, was doing me, by
+dancing before my door<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> with the plate of half her customers on her
+head, when Mr. Clayton,<a name="FNanchor_244_244" id="FNanchor_244_244"></a><a href="#Footnote_244_244" class="fnanchor">[244]</a> the author of "Arsinoe," made me a visit,
+and desired me to insert the following advertisement in my ensuing
+paper:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The Pastoral Masque composed by Mr. Clayton, author of "Arsinoe,"
+will be performed on Wednesday the 3rd instant, in the great room
+at York Buildings.<a name="FNanchor_245_245" id="FNanchor_245_245"></a><a href="#Footnote_245_245" class="fnanchor">[245]</a> Tickets are to be had at White's
+Chocolate-house, St. James's Coffee-house in St. James's Street,
+and Young Man's Coffee-house.<a name="FNanchor_246_246" id="FNanchor_246_246"></a><a href="#Footnote_246_246" class="fnanchor">[246]</a></p>
+
+<p>Note. The tickets delivered out for the 27th of April will be
+taken then.</p></div>
+
+<p>When I granted his request, I made one to him, which was, that the
+performers should put their instruments in tune before the audience came
+in; for that I thought the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> resentment of the Eastern Prince, who,
+according to the old story, took "tuning" for "playing," to be very just
+and natural. He was so civil, as not only to promise that favour, but
+also to assure me, that he would order the heels of the performers to be
+muffled in cotton, that the artists in so polite an age as ours, may not
+intermix with their harmony a custom which so nearly resembles the
+stamping dances of the West Indians or Hottentots.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center">ADVERTISEMENTS.</p>
+
+<p>A Bass-viol of Mr. Bickerstaff's acquaintance, whose mind and fortune do
+not very exactly agree, proposes to set himself to sale by way of
+lottery.<a name="FNanchor_247_247" id="FNanchor_247_247"></a><a href="#Footnote_247_247" class="fnanchor">[247]</a> Ten thousand pounds is the sum to be raised, at threepence
+a ticket, in consideration that there are more women who are willing to
+be married than that can spare a greater sum. He has already made over
+his person to trustees for the said money to be forthcoming, and ready
+to take to wife the fortunate woman that wins him.</p>
+
+<p>N.B. Tickets are given out by Mr. Charles Lillie, and Mr. John Morphew.
+Each adventurer must be a virgin, and subscribe her name to her
+ticket.<a name="FNanchor_248_248" id="FNanchor_248_248"></a><a href="#Footnote_248_248" class="fnanchor">[248]</a></p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Whereas the several churchwardens of most of the parishes within the
+bills of mortality, have in an earnest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> manner applied themselves by way
+of petition, and have also made a presentment of the vain and loose
+deportment during divine service, of persons of too great figure in all
+their said parishes for their reproof: And whereas it is therein set
+forth, that by salutations given each other, hints, shrugs, ogles,
+playing of fans, and fooling with canes at their mouths, and other
+wanton gesticulations, their whole congregation appears rather a
+theatrical audience, than a house of devotion: It is hereby ordered,
+that all canes, cravats, bosom-laces, muffs, fans, snuff-boxes, and all
+other instruments made use of to give persons unbecoming airs, shall be
+immediately forfeited and sold; and of the sum arising from the sale
+thereof, a ninth part shall be paid to the poor, and the rest to the
+overseers.<a name="FNanchor_249_249" id="FNanchor_249_249"></a><a href="#Footnote_249_249" class="fnanchor">[249]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_240_240" id="Footnote_240_240"></a><a href="#FNanchor_240_240"><span class="label">[240]</span></a> "I have been informed by a relation of hers, that when
+Mrs. Mary Astell has accidentally seen needless visitors coming, whom
+she knew to be incapable of discoursing upon any useful subject, she
+would look out of the window, and jestingly tell them (as Cato did
+Nasica), 'Mrs. Astell is not at home'; and in good earnest keep them
+out, not suffering such triflers to make inroads upon her more serious
+hours" (Ballard's "Memoirs of British Learned Ladies," 1775, p. 309).
+For Swift's attacks on Mary Astell, see Nos. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/12030/12030-h/12030-h/SV1/Spectator1.html#section32">32</a>, 63.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_241_241" id="Footnote_241_241"></a><a href="#FNanchor_241_241"><span class="label">[241]</span></a> "Monter une perruque" is a French barber's phrase.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_242_242" id="Footnote_242_242"></a><a href="#FNanchor_242_242"><span class="label">[242]</span></a>
+See Nos. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/12030/12030-h/12030-h/SV1/Spectator1.html#section26">26</a>,
+<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/12030/12030-h/12030-h/SV1/Spectator1.html#section29">29</a>. Duvillier or Devillier was a
+hairdresser.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_243_243" id="Footnote_243_243"></a><a href="#FNanchor_243_243"><span class="label">[243]</span></a> May Day. In the <i>Spectator</i>
+(No. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/12030/12030-h/12030-h/SV2/Spectator2.html#section365">365</a>) Budgell says: "It
+is likewise on the first day of this month that we see the ruddy
+milkmaid exerting herself in a most sprightly manner under a pyramid of
+silver tankards, and like the virgin Tarpeia, oppressed by the costly
+ornaments which her benefactors lay upon her." Similarly, Misson
+("Travels in England," p. 307) says: "On the first of May, and the five
+or six days following, all the pretty young country girls that serve the
+town with milk, dress themselves up very neatly, and borrow abundance of
+silver plate, whereof they make a pyramid, which they adorn with ribands
+and flowers, and carry upon their heads, instead of their common
+milkpails. In this equipage, accompanied by some of their fellow
+milkmaids, and a bagpipe and fiddle, they go from door to door,
+dancing before the houses of their customers."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_244_244" id="Footnote_244_244"></a><a href="#FNanchor_244_244"><span class="label">[244]</span></a> "There is a Pastoral Masque to be performed on the 27th
+inst., in York Buildings, for the benefit of Mr. Clayton, and composed
+by him. This gentleman is the person who introduced the Italian opera
+into Great Britain, and hopes he has pretensions to the favour of all
+lovers of music, who can get over the prejudice of his being their
+countryman" (<i>Tatler</i>, original folio, No. 163).
+</p>
+<p>Thomas Clayton, in association with Haym and Dieuport, began a series of
+operatic performances at Drury Lane Theatre in 1705, commencing with
+"Arsinoe," which was a success. In 1707 he produced a setting of
+Addison's "Rosamond," but it was played only three times. The opera
+performances were continued until 1711, after which Clayton gave
+concerts in York Buildings (see <i>Spectator</i>, No. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/12030/12030-h/12030-h/SV2/Spectator2.html#section258">258</a>). He died about
+1730.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_245_245" id="Footnote_245_245"></a><a href="#FNanchor_245_245"><span class="label">[245]</span></a> In the Strand. In 1713 Steele started a scheme for "a
+noble entertainment for persons of refined taste," in York Buildings.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_246_246" id="Footnote_246_246"></a><a href="#FNanchor_246_246"><span class="label">[246]</span></a> At Charing Cross, with a back door into Spring Gardens.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_247_247" id="Footnote_247_247"></a><a href="#FNanchor_247_247"><span class="label">[247]</span></a>
+See Nos. <a href="#No_153">153</a>, <a href="#No_157">157</a>, <a href="#No_168">168</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_248_248" id="Footnote_248_248"></a><a href="#FNanchor_248_248"><span class="label">[248]</span></a> In the <i>Daily Courant</i> for Aug. 18, 1710, there was
+advertised as just published a pamphlet called "A Good Husband for Five
+Shillings; or, Esquire Bickerstaff's Lottery for the London Ladies.
+Wherein those that want bedfellows, in an honest way, will have a fair
+chance to be well fitted." It was complained that husbands were scarce
+through the war. The title exhausts all that is of interest in the
+pamphlet, with the exception of the frontispiece, which represents a
+room in which a lottery is being drawn, with two wheels of fortune, &amp;c.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_249_249" id="Footnote_249_249"></a><a href="#FNanchor_249_249"><span class="label">[249]</span></a> Nichols notes that a correction in this number, intimated
+in the following paper, was actually made in a copy before him, and
+concluded that there was sometimes more than one impression of the
+original folio issue. This was certainly the case. There is a set of the
+<i>Tatlers</i> in folio in the British Museum (press-mark 628 m 13) in which
+many of the numbers are set up somewhat differently from the ordinary
+issue (Nos. 4, 28, 29, 30, &amp;c.). Sometimes there is a line more or less
+in a column; sometimes slightly different type is used in one or two
+advertisements.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<a name="No_167" id="No_167"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 167.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Steele.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Tuesday, May 2</i>, to <i>Thursday, May 4, 1710</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Segnius irritant animos demissa per aurem,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Quam qu&aelig; sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus&mdash;&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i24"><span class="smcap">Hor.</span>, Ars Poet. 180.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>From my own Apartment, May 2.</i></p>
+
+<p>Having received notice, that the famous actor Mr. Betterton<a name="FNanchor_250_250" id="FNanchor_250_250"></a><a href="#Footnote_250_250" class="fnanchor">[250]</a> was to
+be interred this evening in the cloisters near Westminster Abbey, I was
+resolved to walk thither, and see the last office done to a man whom I
+had always very much admired, and from whose action I had received more
+strong impressions of what is great and noble in human nature, than from
+the arguments of the most solid philosophers, or the descriptions of the
+most charming poets I had ever read. As the rude and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> untaught multitude
+are no way wrought upon more effectually than by seeing public
+punishments and executions, so men of letters and education feel their
+humanity most forcibly exercised, when they attend the obsequies of men
+who had arrived at any perfection in liberal accomplishments. Theatrical
+action is to be esteemed as such, except it be objected, that we cannot
+call that an art which cannot be attained by art. Voice, stature,
+motion, and other gifts, must be very bountifully bestowed by Nature, or
+labour and industry will but push the unhappy endeavourer, in that way,
+the further off his wishes.</p>
+
+<p>Such an actor as Mr. Betterton ought to be recorded with the same
+respect as Roscius among the Romans. The greatest orator<a name="FNanchor_251_251" id="FNanchor_251_251"></a><a href="#Footnote_251_251" class="fnanchor">[251]</a> has
+thought fit to quote his judgment, and celebrate his life. Roscius was
+the example to all that would form themselves into proper and winning
+behaviour. His action was so well adapted to the sentiments he
+expressed, that the youth of Rome thought they wanted only to be
+virtuous to be as graceful in their appearance as Roscius. The
+imagination took a lively impression of what was great and good; and
+they who never thought of setting up for the arts of imitation, became
+themselves imitable characters.</p>
+
+<p>There is no human invention so aptly calculated for the forming a
+free-born people as that of a theatre. Tully reports that the celebrated
+player of whom I am speaking used frequently to say, "The perfection of
+an actor is only to become what he is doing." Young men, who are too
+unattentive to receive lectures, are irresistibly taken with
+performances. Hence it is, that I extremely lament the little relish the
+gentry of this nation have at present for the just and noble
+representations in some of our tragedies. The operas which are of late
+introduced can leave no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> trace behind them that can be of service beyond
+the present moment. To sing and to dance are accomplishments very few
+have any thoughts of practising; but to speak justly, and move
+gracefully, is what every man thinks he does perform, or wishes he did.</p>
+
+<p>I have hardly a notion, that any performer of antiquity could surpass
+the action of Mr. Betterton in any of the occasions in which he has
+appeared on our stage. The wonderful agony which he appeared in, when he
+examined the circumstance of the handkerchief in "Othello"; the mixture
+of love that intruded upon his mind upon the innocent answers Desdemona
+makes, betrayed in his gesture such a variety and vicissitude of
+passions, as would admonish a man to be afraid of his own heart, and
+perfectly convince him, that it is to stab it to admit that worst of
+daggers, jealousy. Whoever reads in his closet this admirable scene,
+will find that he cannot, except he has as warm an imagination as
+Shakespeare himself, find any but dry, incoherent, and broken sentences:
+but a reader that has seen Betterton act it, observes there could not be
+a word added; that longer speeches had been unnatural, nay impossible,
+in Othello's circumstances. The charming passage in the same tragedy,
+where he tells the manner of winning the affection of his mistress, was
+urged with so moving and graceful an energy, that while I walked in the
+cloisters, I thought of him with the same concern as if I waited for the
+remains of a person who had in real life done all that I had seen him
+represent. The gloom of the place, and faint lights before the ceremony
+appeared, contributed to the melancholy disposition I was in; and I
+began to be extremely afflicted, that Brutus and Cassius had any
+difference; that Hotspur's gallantry was so unfortunate; and that the
+mirth and good humour of Falstaff could not exempt him from the grave.
+Nay, this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> occasion in me, who look upon the distinctions amongst men to
+be merely scenical, raised reflections upon the emptiness of all human
+perfection and greatness in general; and I could not but regret, that
+the sacred heads which lie buried in the neighbourhood of this little
+portion of earth in which my poor old friend is deposited, are returned
+to dust as well as he, and that there is no difference in the grave
+between the imaginary and the real monarch. This made me say of human
+life itself with Macbeth:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"<i>To-morrow, to-morrow, and to-morrow,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Creeps in a stealing pace from day to day,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>To the last moment of recorded time!</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>And all our yesterdays have lighted fools</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>To their eternal night! Out, out short candle!</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>And then is heard no more.</i>"<a name="FNanchor_252_252" id="FNanchor_252_252"></a><a href="#Footnote_252_252" class="fnanchor">[252]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The mention I have here made of Mr. Betterton, for whom I had, as long
+as I have known anything, a very great esteem and gratitude for the
+pleasure he gave me, can do him no good; but it may possibly be of
+service to the unhappy woman he has left behind him,<a name="FNanchor_253_253" id="FNanchor_253_253"></a><a href="#Footnote_253_253" class="fnanchor">[253]</a> to have it
+known, that this great tragedian was never in a scene half so moving as
+the circumstances of his affairs created at his departure. His wife,
+after the cohabitation of forty years in the strictest amity, has long
+pined away with a sense of his decay, as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> well in his person as his
+little fortune; and in proportion to that, she has herself decayed both
+in her health and her reason. Her husband's death, added to her age and
+infirmities, would certainly have determined her life, but that the
+greatness of her distress has been her relief, by a present deprivation
+of her senses. This absence of reason is her best defence against age,
+sorrow, poverty, and sickness. I dwell upon this account so distinctly,
+in obedience to a certain great spirit<a name="FNanchor_254_254" id="FNanchor_254_254"></a><a href="#Footnote_254_254" class="fnanchor">[254]</a> who hides her name, and has
+by letter applied to me to recommend to her some object of compassion,
+from whom she may be concealed.</p>
+
+<p>This, I think, is a proper occasion for exerting such heroic generosity;
+and as there is an ingenuous shame in those who have known better
+fortune to be reduced to receive obligations, as well as a becoming pain
+in the truly generous to receive thanks in this case, both those
+delicacies are preserved; for the person obliged is as incapable of
+knowing her benefactress, as her benefactress is unwilling to be known
+by her.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center">ADVERTISEMENT.</p>
+
+<p>Whereas it has been signified to the Censor, that under the pretence
+that he has encouraged the Moving Picture,<a name="FNanchor_255_255" id="FNanchor_255_255"></a><a href="#Footnote_255_255" class="fnanchor">[255]</a> and particularly admired
+the Walking Statue, some persons within the Liberties of Westminster
+have vended Walking Pictures, insomuch that the said pictures have
+within few days after sales by auction returned to the habitation of
+their first proprietors; that matter has been narrowly looked into, and
+orders are given to Pacolet to take notice<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> of all who are concerned in
+such frauds, with directions to draw their pictures, that they may be
+hanged in effigy, <i>in terrorem</i> of all auctions for the future.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_250_250" id="Footnote_250_250"></a><a href="#FNanchor_250_250"><span class="label">[250]</span></a>
+See Nos. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/12030/12030-h/12030-h/SV1/Spectator1.html#section1">1</a>, 71, <a href="#No_157">157</a>. On the 25th of April 1710, there was
+given for Betterton's benefit, "The Maid's Tragedy" of Beaumont and
+Fletcher, in which he himself performed his celebrated part of
+Melantius. This, however, was the last time he was to appear on the
+stage, for, having been suddenly seized with the gout, and being
+impatient at the thought of disappointing his friends, he made use of
+outward applications to reduce the swellings of his feet, which enabled
+him to walk on the stage, though obliged to have his foot in a slipper.
+But the fomentations he had used occasioning a revulsion of the gouty
+humour to the nobler parts, threw the distemper up into his head, and
+terminated his life on the 28th of April. On the 2nd of May his body was
+interred with much ceremony in the cloister of Westminster.&mdash;"This day
+is published, 'The Life of Mr. Thomas Betterton'" (<i>Postboy</i>, Sept. 16
+to 19, 1710). This book, attributed to Gildon, is dedicated to Richard
+Steele, Esq. "I have chosen," says the author, "to address this
+discourse to you, because the Art of which it treats is of your familiar
+acquaintance, and the graces of action and utterance come naturally
+under the consideration of a dramatic writer."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_251_251" id="Footnote_251_251"></a><a href="#FNanchor_251_251"><span class="label">[251]</span></a> Cicero.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_252_252" id="Footnote_252_252"></a><a href="#FNanchor_252_252"><span class="label">[252]</span></a> "Macbeth," act v. sc. 5, quoted inaccurately by Steele.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_253_253" id="Footnote_253_253"></a><a href="#FNanchor_253_253"><span class="label">[253]</span></a> Betterton married, in 1662, Maria Saunderson, an actress
+who seems to have been as good as she was clever. She lost her reason
+after the death of her husband, but recovered it before her death at the
+end of 1711. By her will she bequeathed to Mrs. Bracegirdle, Mrs. Barry,
+Mr. Doggett, Mr. Wilks, and Mr. Dent, twenty shillings a piece for
+rings; and her husband's picture to Mrs. Anne Stevenson, whom she
+appointed her residuary legatee.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_254_254" id="Footnote_254_254"></a><a href="#FNanchor_254_254"><span class="label">[254]</span></a> Possibly Lady Elizabeth Hastings (see Nos. 42, 49), or
+perhaps Queen Anne, though it is not likely that she consulted Steele by
+letter on the subject. The Queen gave Mrs. Betterton a pension on the
+death of her husband, "but," says Cibber, "she lived not to receive more
+than the first half year of it."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_255_255" id="Footnote_255_255"></a><a href="#FNanchor_255_255"><span class="label">[255]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="#No_129">129</a>.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<a name="No_168" id="No_168"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 168.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Steele.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Thursday, May 4</i>, to <i>Saturday, May 6, 1710</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>From my own Apartment, May 5.</i></p>
+
+<p>Never was man so much teased, or suffered half the uneasiness, as I have
+done this evening, between a couple of fellows with whom I was
+unfortunately engaged to sup, where there were also several others in
+company. One of them is the most invincibly impudent, and the other as
+incorrigibly absurd. Upon hearing my name, the man of audacity, as he
+calls himself, began to assume an awkward way of reserve, by way of
+ridicule upon me as a Censor, and said, he must have a care of his
+behaviour, for there would notes be writ upon all that should pass. The
+man of freedom and ease (for such the other thinks himself) asked me,
+whether my sister Jenny was breeding or not? After they had done with
+me, they were impertinent to a very smart, but well-bred man, who stood
+his ground very well, and let the company see they ought, but could not
+be out of countenance. I look upon such a defence as a real good action;
+for while he received their fire, there was a modest and worthy young
+gentleman sat secure by him, and a lady of the family at the same time,
+guarded against the nauseous familiarity of the one, and the more
+painful mirth of the other. This conversation, where there were a
+thousand things said not worth repeating, made me consider with myself,
+how it is that men of these disagreeable characters<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> often go great
+lengths in the world, and seldom fail of outstripping men of merit; nay,
+succeed so well, that with a load of imperfections on their heads, they
+go on in opposition to general disesteem, while they who are every way
+their superiors, languish away their days, though possessed of the
+approbation and goodwill of all who know them.</p>
+
+<p>If we would examine into the secret spring of action in the impudent and
+the absurd, we shall find, though they bear a great resemblance in their
+behaviour, that they move upon very different principles. The impudent
+are pressing, though they know they are disagreeable; the absurd are
+importunate, because they think they are acceptable. Impudence is a
+vice, and absurdity a folly. Sir Francis Bacon talks very agreeably upon
+the subject of impudence.<a name="FNanchor_256_256" id="FNanchor_256_256"></a><a href="#Footnote_256_256" class="fnanchor">[256]</a> He takes notice, that the orator being
+asked, what was the first, second, and third requisite, to make a fine
+speaker, still answered, "Action." This, said he, is the very outward
+form of speaking, and yet it is what with the generality has more force
+than the most consummate abilities. Impudence is to the rest of mankind
+of the same use which action is to orators.</p>
+
+<p>The truth is, the gross of men are governed more by appearances than
+realities, and the impudent man in his air and behaviour undertakes for
+himself that he has ability and merit, while the modest or diffident
+gives himself up as one who is possessed of neither. For this reason,
+men of front carry things before them with little opposition, and make
+so skilful a use of their talent, that they can grow out of humour like
+men of consequence, and be sour, and make their satisfaction do them the
+same service as desert. This way of thinking has often furnished me with
+an apology for great men who confer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> favours on the impudent. In
+carrying on the government of mankind, they are not to consider what men
+they themselves approve in their closets and private conversations, but
+what men will extend themselves furthest, and more generally pass upon
+the world for such as their patrons want in such and such stations, and
+consequently take so much work off the hands of those who employ them.</p>
+
+<p>Far be it that I should attempt to lessen the acceptance which men of
+this character meet with in the world; but I humbly propose only, that
+they who have merit of a different kind, would accomplish themselves in
+some degree with this quality of which I am now treating. Nay, I allow
+these gentlemen to press as forward as they please in the advancement of
+their interests and fortunes, but not to intrude upon others in
+conversation also: let them do what they can with the rich and the
+great, as far as they are suffered, but let them not interrupt the easy
+and agreeable. They may be useful as servants in ambition, but never as
+associates in pleasure. However, as I would still drive at something
+instructive in every Lucubration, I must recommend it to all men who
+feel in themselves an impulse towards attempting laudable actions, to
+acquire such a degree of assurance, as never to lose the possession of
+themselves in public or private, so far as to be incapable of acting
+with a due decorum on any occasion they are called to. It is a mean want
+of fortitude in a good man, not to be able to do a virtuous action with
+as much confidence as an impudent fellow does an ill one. There is no
+way of mending such false modesty, but by laying it down for a rule,
+that there is nothing shameful but what is criminal.</p>
+
+<p>The Jesuits, an order whose institution is perfectly calculated for
+making a progress in the world, take care<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> to accomplish their disciples
+for it, by breaking them of all impertinent bashfulness, and accustoming
+then to a ready performance of all indifferent things. I remember in my
+travels, when I was once at a public exercise in one of their schools, a
+young man made a most admirable speech, with all the beauty of action,
+cadence of voice, and force of argument imaginable, in defence of the
+love of glory. We were all enamoured with the grace of the youth, as he
+came down from the desk where he spoke to present a copy of his speech
+to the head of the society. The principal received it in a very obliging
+manner, and bid him go to the market-place and fetch a joint of meat,
+for he should dine with him. He bowed, and in a trice the orator
+returned, full of the sense of glory in this obedience, and with the
+best shoulder of mutton in the market.</p>
+
+<p>This treatment capacitates them for every scene of life. I therefore
+recommend it to the consideration of all who have the instruction of
+youth, which of the two is the most inexcusable, he who does everything
+by the mere force of his impudence, or who performs nothing through the
+oppression of his modesty? In a word, it is a weakness not to be able to
+attempt what a man thinks he ought, and there is no modesty but in
+self-denial.</p>
+
+<p>P.S. Upon my coming home I received the following petition and letter:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>
+"<span class="smcap">Sheweth</span>,
+<span class="salright">"The humble petition of Sarah Lately:</span>
+</p>
+
+<p>"That your petitioner has been one of those ladies who has had fine
+things constantly spoken to her in general terms, and lived, during
+her most blooming years, in daily expectation of declarations of
+marriage, but never had one made to her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"That she is now in her grand climacteric; which being above the
+space of four virginities, accounting at 15 years each,</p>
+
+<p>"Your petitioner most humbly prays, that in the lottery for the
+Bass-viol<a name="FNanchor_257_257" id="FNanchor_257_257"></a><a href="#Footnote_257_257" class="fnanchor">[257]</a> she may have four tickets, in consideration that her
+single life has been occasioned by the inconstancy of her lovers,
+and not through the cruelty or forwardness of your petitioner.</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+"And your Petitioner shall," &amp;c.<br />
+</p><br /></div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Mr. Bickerstaff</span>,
+<span class="salright">"<i>May 3, 1710</i>.</span></p>
+
+<p>"According to my fancy, you took a much better way to dispose of a
+Bass-viol in yesterday's paper than you did in your table of
+marriage.<a name="FNanchor_258_258" id="FNanchor_258_258"></a><a href="#Footnote_258_258" class="fnanchor">[258]</a> I desire the benefit of a lottery for myself too&mdash;&mdash;
+The manner of it I leave to your own discretion: only if you
+can&mdash;&mdash;allow the tickets at above five farthings a piece. Pray
+accept of one ticket for your trouble, and I wish you may be the
+fortunate man that wins.</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+<span class="sig4">"Your very humble Servant till then,</span><br />
+"<span class="smcap">Isabella Kit</span>."<br />
+</p></div>
+
+<p>I must own the request of the aged petitioner to be founded upon a very
+undeserved distress; and since she might, had she had justice done her,
+been mother of many pretenders to this prize, instead of being one
+herself, I do readily grant her demand; but as for the proposal of Mrs.
+Isabella Kit, I cannot project a lottery for her, until I have security
+she will surrender herself to the winner.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_256_256" id="Footnote_256_256"></a><a href="#FNanchor_256_256"><span class="label">[256]</span></a> Essay xii., "Of Boldness."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_257_257" id="Footnote_257_257"></a><a href="#FNanchor_257_257"><span class="label">[257]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="#No_166">166</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_258_258" id="Footnote_258_258"></a><a href="#FNanchor_258_258"><span class="label">[258]</span></a>
+See Nos. <a href="#No_157">157</a>, <a href="#No_160">160</a>.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span>
+<a name="No_169" id="No_169"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 169.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Steele.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Saturday, May 6</i>, to <i>Tuesday, May 9, 1710</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">O rus! Quando ego te aspiciam? quandoque licebit<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nunc veterum libris, nunc somno, et inertibus horis,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ducere sollicit&aelig; jucunda oblivia vit&aelig;?<br /></span>
+<span class="i28"><span class="smcap">Hor.</span>, 2 Sat. vi. 60.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>From my own Apartment, May 8.</i></p>
+
+<p>The summer season now approaching, several of our family have invited me
+to pass away a month or two in the country, and indeed nothing could be
+more agreeable to me than such a recess, did I not consider that I am by
+two quarts a worse companion than when I was last among my relations:
+and I am admonished by some of our club, who have lately visited
+Staffordshire, that they drink at a greater rate than they did at that
+time. As every soil does not produce every fruit or tree, so every vice
+is not the growth of every kind of life; and I have, ever since I could
+think, been astonished that drinking should be the vice of the country.
+If it were possible to add to all our senses, as we do to that of sight,
+by perspectives, we should methinks more particularly labour to improve
+them in the midst of the variety of beauteous objects which Nature has
+produced to entertain us in the country; and do we in that place destroy
+the use of what organs we have? As for my part, I cannot but lament the
+destruction that has been made of the wild beasts of the field, when I
+see large tracts of earth possessed by men who take no advantage of
+their being rational, but lead mere animal lives, making it their whole
+endeavour to kill in themselves all they have above beasts; to wit, the
+use of reason, and taste of society. It is frequently boasted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> in the
+writings of orators and poets, that it is to eloquence and poesy we owe
+that we are drawn out of woods and solitudes into towns and cities, and
+from a wild and savage being become acquainted with the laws of humanity
+and civility. If we are obliged to these arts for so great service, I
+could wish they were employed to give us a second turn; that as they
+have brought us to dwell in society (a blessing which no other creatures
+know), so they would persuade us, now they have settled us, to lay out
+all our thoughts in surpassing each other in those faculties in which
+only we excel other creatures. But it is at present so far otherwise,
+that the contention seems to be, who shall be most eminent in
+performances wherein beasts enjoy greater abilities than we have. I'll
+undertake, were the butler and swineherd, at any true esquire's in Great
+Britain, to keep and compare accounts of what wash is drunk up in so
+many hours in the parlour and the pigsty, it would appear, the gentleman
+of the house gives much more to his friends than his hogs.</p>
+
+<p>This, with many other evils, arises from the error in men's judgments,
+and not making true distinctions between persons and things. It is
+usually thought, that a few sheets of parchment, made before a male and
+female of wealthy houses come together, give the heirs and descendants
+of that marriage possession of lands and tenements; but the truth is,
+there is no man who can be said to be proprietor of an estate, but he
+who knows how to enjoy it. Nay, it shall never be allowed, that the land
+is not a waste, when the master is uncultivated. Therefore, to avoid
+confusion, it is to be noted, that a peasant with a great estate is but
+an incumbent, and that he must be a gentleman to be a landlord. A
+landlord enjoys what he has with his heart, an incumbent with his
+stomach. Gluttony, drunkenness, and riot, are the entertainments of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> an
+incumbent; benevolence, civility, social and human virtues, the
+accomplishments of a landlord. Who, that has any passion for his native
+country, does not think it worse than conquered, when so large
+diversions of it are in the hands of savages, that know no use of
+property but to be tyrants; or liberty, but to be unmannerly? A
+gentleman in a country life enjoys Paradise with a temper fit for it; a
+clown is cursed in it with all the cutting and unruly passions man could
+be tormented with when he was expelled from it.</p>
+
+<p>There is no character more deservedly esteemed than that of a country
+gentleman, who understands the station in which heaven and nature have
+placed him. He is father to his tenants, and patron to his neighbours,
+and is more superior to those of lower fortune by his benevolence than
+his possessions. He justly divides his time between solitude and
+company, so as to use the one for the other. His life is spent in the
+good offices of an advocate, a referee, a companion, a mediator, and a
+friend. His counsel and knowledge are a guard to the simplicity and
+innocence of those of lower talents, and the entertainment and happiness
+of those of equal. When a man in a country life has this turn, as it is
+to be hoped thousands have, he lives in a more happy condition than any
+is described in the pastoral descriptions of poets, or the
+vainglorious solitudes recorded by philosophers.</p>
+
+<p>To a thinking man it would seem prodigious, that the very situation in a
+country life does not incline men to a scorn of the mean gratifications
+some take in it. To stand by a stream, naturally lulls the mind into
+composure and reverence; to walk in shades, diversifies that pleasure;
+and a bright sunshine makes a man consider all nature in gladness, and
+himself the happiest being in it, as he is the most conscious of her
+gifts and enjoyments. It would be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> the most impertinent piece of
+pedantry imaginable to form our pleasures by imitation of others. I will
+not therefore mention Scipio and L&aelig;lius, who are generally produced on
+this subject as authorities for the charms of a rural life. He that does
+not feel the force of agreeable views and situations in his own mind,
+will hardly arrive at the satisfactions they bring from the reflections
+of others. However, they who have a taste that way, are more
+particularly inflamed with desire when they see others in the enjoyment
+of it, especially when men carry into the country a knowledge of the
+world as well as of nature. The leisure of such persons is endeared and
+refined by reflection upon cares and inquietudes. The absence of past
+labours doubles present pleasures, which is still augmented, if the
+person in solitude has the happiness of being addicted to letters. My
+cousin Frank Bickerstaff gives me a very good notion of this sort of
+felicity in the following letter:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Sir</span>,</p>
+
+<p>"I write this to communicate to you the happiness I have in the
+neighbourhood and conversation of the noble lord whose health you
+inquired after in your last. I have bought that little hovel which
+borders upon his royalty; but am so far from being oppressed by his
+greatness, that I who know no envy, and he who is above pride,
+mutually recommend ourselves to each other by the difference of our
+fortunes. He esteems me for being so well pleased with a little,
+and I admire him for enjoying so handsomely a great deal. He has
+not the little taste of observing the colour of a tulip, or the
+edging of a leaf of box, but rejoices in open views, the regularity
+of this plantation, and the wildness of another, as well as the
+fall of a river, the rising of a promontory, and all other objects
+fit to entertain a mind<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> like his, that has been long versed in
+great and public amusements. The make of the soul is as much seen
+in leisure as in business. He has long lived in Courts, and been
+admired in assemblies, so that he has added to experience a most
+charming eloquence; by which he communicates to me the ideas of my
+own mind upon the objects we meet with, so agreeably, that with his
+company in the fields, I at once enjoy the country, and a landscape
+of it. He is now altering the course of canals and rivulets, in
+which he has an eye to his neighbour's satisfaction, as well as his
+own. He often makes me presents by turning the water into my
+grounds, and sends me fish by their own streams. To avoid my
+thanks, he makes Nature the instrument of his bounty, and does all
+good offices so much with the air of a companion, that his
+frankness hides his own condescension, as well as my gratitude.
+Leave the world to itself, and come see us.</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+<span class="sig4">"Your affectionate Cousin,</span><br />
+"<span class="smcap">Francis Bickerstaff.</span>"<br />
+</p></div>
+
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<a name="No_170" id="No_170"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 170.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Steele.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Tuesday, May 9</i>, to <i>Thursday, May 11, 1710</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Fortuna s&aelig;vo l&aelig;ta negotio et<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ludum insolentem ludere pertinax<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Transmutat incertos honores,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Nunc mihi, nunc alii, benigna.<br /></span>
+<span class="i18"><span class="smcap">Hor.</span>, 3 Od. xxix. 49.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>From my own Apartment, May 10.</i></p>
+
+<p>Having this morning spent some time in reading on the subject of the
+vicissitude of human life, I laid aside my book, and began to ruminate
+on the discourse<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> which raised in me those reflections. I believed it a
+very good office to the world, to sit down and show others the road in
+which I am experienced by my wanderings and errors. This is Seneca's way
+of thinking, and he had half convinced me, how dangerous it is to our
+true happiness and tranquillity to fix our minds upon anything which is
+in the power of Fortune. It is excusable only in animals who have not
+the use of reason, to be catched by hooks and baits. Wealth, glory, and
+power, which the ordinary people look up at with admiration, the learned
+and wise know to be only so many snares laid to enslave them. There is
+nothing further to be sought for with earnestness, than what will clothe
+and feed us. If we pamper ourselves in our diet, or give our
+imaginations a loose in our desires, the body will no longer obey the
+mind. Let us think no further than to defend ourselves against hunger,
+thirst, and cold. We are to remember, that everything else is
+despicable, and not worth our care. To want little is true grandeur, and
+very few things are great to a great mind. Those who form their thoughts
+in this manner, and abstract themselves from the world, are out of the
+way of Fortune, and can look with contempt both on her favours and her
+frowns. At the same time, they who separate themselves from the
+immediate commerce with the busy part of mankind, are still beneficial
+to them, while by their studies and writings they recommend to them the
+small value which ought to be put upon what they pursue with so much
+labour and disquiet. Whilst such men are thought the most idle, they are
+the most usefully employed. They have all things, both human and divine,
+under consideration. To be perfectly free from the insults of fortune,
+we should arm ourselves with their reflections. We should learn, that
+none but intellectual possessions are what we can properly call our own.
+All things from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> without are but borrowed. What Fortune gives us, is not
+ours; and whatever she gives, she can take away.</p>
+
+<p>It is a common imputation to Seneca, that though he declaimed with so
+much strength of reason, and a stoical contempt of riches and power, he
+was at the same time one of the richest and most powerful men in Rome. I
+know no instance of his being insolent in that fortune, and can
+therefore read his thoughts on those subjects with the more deference. I
+will not give philosophy so poor a look, as to say it cannot live in
+courts; but I am of opinion, that it is there in the greatest eminence,
+when amidst the affluence of all the world can bestow, and the addresses
+of a crowd who follow him for that reason, a man can think both of
+himself and those about him abstracted from these circumstances. Such a
+philosopher is as much above an anchorite, as a wise matron, who passes
+through the world with innocence, is preferable to the nun who locks
+herself up from it.</p>
+
+<p>Full of these thoughts I left my lodgings, and took a walk to the Court
+end of the town; and the hurry, and busy faces I met with about
+Whitehall, made me form to myself ideas of the different prospects of
+all I saw, from the turn and cast of their countenances. All, methought,
+had the same thing in view, but prosecuted their hopes with a different
+air: some showed an unbecoming eagerness, some a surly impatience, some
+a winning deference, but the generality a servile complaisance.</p>
+
+<p>I could not but observe, as I roved about the offices, that all who were
+still but in expectation, murmured at Fortune; and all who had obtained
+their wishes, immediately began to say, there was no such being. Each
+believed it an act of blind chance that any other man was preferred, but
+owed only to service and merit what he had obtained himself. It is the
+fault of studious men to appear<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> in public with too contemplative a
+carriage; and I began to observe, that my figure, age, and dress, made
+me particular: for which reason I thought it better to remove a studious
+countenance from among busy ones, and take a turn with a friend in the
+Privy Garden.<a name="FNanchor_259_259" id="FNanchor_259_259"></a><a href="#Footnote_259_259" class="fnanchor">[259]</a></p>
+
+<p>When my friend was alone with me there, "Isaac," said he, "I know you
+came abroad only to moralise and make observations, and I will carry you
+hard by, where you shall see all that you have yourself considered or
+read in authors, or collected from experience, concerning blind Fortune
+and irresistible Destiny, illustrated in real persons and proper
+mechanisms. The Graces, the Muses, the Fates, all the beings which have
+a good or evil influence upon human life, are, you'll say, very justly
+figured in the persons of women; and where I am carrying you, you'll see
+enough of that sex together, in an employment which will have so
+important an effect upon those who are to receive their manufacture, as
+will make them be respectively called Deities or Furies, as their labour
+shall prove disadvantageous or successful to their votaries." Without
+waiting for my answer, he carried me to an apartment contiguous to the
+Banqueting House, where there were placed at two long tables a large
+company of young women, in decent and agreeable habits, making up
+tickets for the lottery appointed by the Government. There walked
+between the tables a person who presided over the work. This gentlewoman
+seemed an emblem of Fortune, she commanded as if unconcerned in their
+business; and though everything was performed by her direction, she did
+not visibly interpose in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> particulars. She seemed in pain at our near
+approach to her, and most to approve us, when we made her no advances.
+Her height, her mien, her gesture, her shape, and her countenance, had
+something that spoke both familiarity and dignity. She therefore
+appeared to me not only a picture of Fortune, but of Fortune as I liked
+her; which made me break out in the following words:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Madam</span>,</p>
+
+<p>"I am very glad to see the fate of the many who now languish in
+expectation of what will be the event of your labours in the hands
+of one who can act with so impartial an indifference. Pardon me,
+that have often seen you before, and have lost you for want of the
+respect due to you. Let me beg of you, who have both the furnishing
+and turning of that wheel of lots, to be unlike the rest of your
+sex, repulse the forward and the bold, and favour the modest and
+the humble. I know you fly the importunate, but smile no more on
+the careless. Add not to the coffers of the usurer, but give the
+power of bestowing to the generous. Continue his wants who cannot
+enjoy or communicate plenty; but turn away his poverty, who can
+bear it with more ease than he can see it in another."</p></div>
+
+
+<p class="center">ADVERTISEMENT.</p>
+
+<p>Whereas Philander signified to Clarinda by letter bearing date Thursday
+12 o'clock, that he had lost his heart by a shot from her eyes, and
+desired she would condescend to meet him the same day at eight in the
+evening at Rosamond's Pond,<a name="FNanchor_260_260" id="FNanchor_260_260"></a><a href="#Footnote_260_260" class="fnanchor">[260]</a> faithfully protesting, that in case she
+would not do him that honour, she might see the body of the said
+Philander the next day floating on the said lake of Love, and that he
+desired only three sighs upon view<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> of his said body: it is desired, if
+he has not made away with himself accordingly, that he would forthwith
+show himself to the coroner of the city of Westminster; or Clarinda,
+being an old offender, will be found guilty of wilful murder.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_259_259" id="Footnote_259_259"></a><a href="#FNanchor_259_259"><span class="label">[259]</span></a> Now Whitehall Gardens, between Parliament Street and the
+Thames. There Pepys had the pleasure of seeing Lady Castlemaine in 1662:
+"In the Privy Garden saw the finest smocks and linen petticoats of my
+Lady Castlemaine's, laced with rich lace at the bottom; and did me good
+to look at them."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_260_260" id="Footnote_260_260"></a><a href="#FNanchor_260_260"><span class="label">[260]</span></a> See No. 60.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<a name="No_171" id="No_171"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 171.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Steele.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Thursday, May 11</i>, to <i>Saturday, May 13, 1710</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Alter rixatur de lana s&aelig;pe caprina,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Propugnat nugis armatus.&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i20"><span class="smcap">Hor.</span>, I Ep. xviii. 15.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>Grecian Coffee-house, May 12.</i></p>
+
+<p>It has happened to be for some days the deliberation at the learnedest
+board in this house, whence honour and title had its first original.
+Timoleon, who is very particular in his opinions, but is thought
+particular for no other cause but that he acts against depraved custom,
+by the rules of nature and reason, in a very handsome discourse gave the
+company to understand, that in those ages which first degenerated from
+simplicity of life, and natural justice, the wise among them thought it
+necessary to inspire men with the love of virtue, by giving them who
+adhered to the interests of innocence and truth, some distinguishing
+name to raise them above the common level of mankind. This way of fixing
+appellations of credit upon eminent merit, was what gave being to titles
+and terms of honour. "Such a name," continued he, "without the qualities
+which should give a man pretence to be exalted above others, does but
+turn him to jest and ridicule. Should one see another cudgelled, or
+scurvily treated, do you think a man so used would take it kindly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> to be
+called Hector, or Alexander? Everything must bear a proportion with the
+outward value that is set upon it; or instead of being long had in
+veneration, that very term of esteem will become a word of reproach."
+When Timoleon had done speaking, Urbanus pursued the same purpose, by
+giving an account of the manner in which the Indian kings,<a name="FNanchor_261_261" id="FNanchor_261_261"></a><a href="#Footnote_261_261" class="fnanchor">[261]</a> who were
+lately in Great Britain, did honour to the person where they lodged.
+"They were placed," said he, "in a handsome apartment, at an
+upholsterer's in King Street, Covent Garden. The man of the house, it
+seems, had been very observant of them, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> ready in their service.
+These just and generous princes, who act according to the dictates of
+natural justice, thought it proper to confer some dignity upon their
+landlord before they left his house. One of them had been sick during
+his residence there, and having never before been in a bed, had a very
+great veneration for him who made that engine of repose, so useful and
+so necessary in his distress. It was consulted among the four princes,
+by what name to dignify his great merit and services. The Emperor of the
+Mohocks, and the other three kings, stood up, and in that posture
+recounted the civilities they had received, and particularly repeated
+the care which was taken of their sick brother. This, in their
+imagination, who are used to know the injuries of weather, and the
+vicissitudes of cold and heat, gave them very great impressions of a
+skilful upholsterer, whose furniture was so well contrived for their
+protection on such occasions. It is with these less instructed (I will
+not say less knowing) people, the manner of doing honour, to impose some
+name significant of the qualities of the person they distinguish, and
+the good offices received from him. It was therefore resolved, to call
+their landlord Cadaroque, which is the name of the strongest fort in
+their part of the world. When they had agreed upon the name, they sent
+for their landlord, and as he entered into their presence, the Emperor
+of the Mohocks taking him by the hand, called him Cadaroque. After which
+the other three princes repeated the same word and ceremony."</p>
+
+<p>Timoleon appeared much satisfied with this account, and having a
+philosophic turn, began to argue against the modes and manners of those
+nations which we esteem polite, and express himself with disdain at our
+usual method of calling such as are strangers to our innovations,
+barbarous. "I have," says he, "so great a deference for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> distinction
+given by these princes, that Cadaroque shall be my upholsterer&mdash;&mdash;" He
+was going on, but the intended discourse was interrupted by Minucio, who
+sat near him, a small philosopher, who is also somewhat of a politician;
+one of those who sets up for knowledge by doubting, and has no other way
+of making himself considerable, but by contradicting all he hears said.
+He has, besides much doubt and spirit of contradiction, a constant
+suspicion as to State affairs. This accomplished gentleman, with a very
+awful brow, and a countenance full of weight, told Timoleon, that it was
+a great misfortune men of letters seldom looked into the bottom of
+things. "Will any man," continued he, "persuade me, that this was not
+from the beginning to the end a concerted affair? Who can convince the
+world, that four kings shall come over here, and lie at the Two Crowns
+and Cushion,<a name="FNanchor_262_262" id="FNanchor_262_262"></a><a href="#Footnote_262_262" class="fnanchor">[262]</a> and one of them fall sick, and the place be called
+King Street, and all this by mere accident? No, no: to a man of very
+small penetration, it appears, that Tee Yee Neen Ho Ga Row, Emperor of
+the Mohocks, was prepared for this adventure beforehand. I do not care
+to contradict any gentleman in his discourse; but I must say, however,
+Sa Ga Yeath Rua Geth Ton, and E Tow Oh Koam, might be surprised in this
+matter; nevertheless, Ho Nee Yeth Taw No Row knew it before he set foot
+on the English shore."</p>
+
+<p>Timoleon looked steadfastly at him for some time, then shaked his head,
+paid for his tea, and marched off. Several others who sat around him,
+were in their turns attacked by this ready disputant. A gentleman who
+was at some distance, happened in discourse to say it was four miles to
+Hammersmith. "I must beg your pardon," says Minucio, "when we say a
+place is so far off, we do not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> mean exactly from the very spot of earth
+we are in, but from the town where we are; so that you must begin your
+account from the end of Piccadilly; and if you do so, I'll lay any man
+ten to one, it is not above three good miles off." Another, about
+Minucio's level of understanding, began to take him up in this important
+argument, and maintained, that considering the way from Pimlico at the
+end of St. James's Park, and the crossing from Chelsea by Earl's Court,
+he would stand to it, that it was full four miles. But Minucio replied
+with great vehemence, and seemed so much to have the better of the
+dispute, that this adversary quitted the field, as well as the other. I
+sat till I saw the table almost all vanished, where, for want of
+discourse, Minucio asked me, how I did? To which I answered, "Very
+well." "That's very much," said he; "I assure you, you look paler than
+ordinary." "Nay," thought I, "if he won't allow me to know whether I am
+well or not, there is no staying for me neither." Upon which I took my
+leave, pondering as I went home at this strange poverty of imagination,
+which makes men run into the fault of giving contradiction. They want in
+their minds entertainment for themselves or their company, and therefore
+build all they speak upon what is started by others; and since they
+cannot improve that foundation, they strive to destroy it. The only way
+of dealing with these people is to answer in monosyllables, or by way of
+question. When one of them tells you a thing that he thinks
+extraordinary, I go no further than, "Say you so, sir? Indeed! Heyday!"
+or "Is it come to that!" These little rules, which appear but silly in
+the repetition, have brought me with great tranquillity to this age. And
+I have made it an observation, that as assent is more agreeable than
+flattery, so contradiction is more odious than culumny.</p>
+
+<div>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span>
+</div>
+<p class="center">ADVERTISEMENT.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bickerstaff's a&euml;rial messenger has brought him a report of what
+passed at the auction of pictures which was in Somerset House Yard on
+Monday last, and finds there were no "screens" present, but all
+transacted with great justice.</p>
+
+<p>N.B. All false buyers at auctions being employed only to hide others,
+are from this day forward to be known in Mr. Bickerstaff's writings by
+the word "screens."</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_261_261" id="Footnote_261_261"></a><a href="#FNanchor_261_261"><span class="label">[261]</span></a> The four kings were Iroquois chiefs who had been
+persuaded by adjacent British colonists to come and pay their respects
+to Queen Anne, and satisfy themselves of the untruth of the assertion
+made by the Jesuits, that the English and all other nations were vassals
+to the French king. They were said also to have been told that the
+Saviour was born in France and crucified in England. The names of the
+kings, according to Boyer's "Annals," were: Tee Yee Neen Ho Ga Prow, and
+Sa Ga Yean Qua Prah Ton, of the Maquas; Elow Oh Kaom, and Oh Nee Yeath
+Ton No Prow, of the River Sachem, and the Ganajoh-hore Sachem. They had
+an audience of the Queen on April 19, 1710, and were afterwards
+entertained by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, the Duke of
+Ormonde, &amp;c., until their departure for Boston on the 8th of May. See
+Addison's paper in the <i>Spectator</i>, No. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/12030/12030-h/12030-h/SV1/Spectator1.html#section50">50</a>, and Swift's remark upon it
+in the "Journal to Stella," April 28, 1711. A concert at York Buildings
+on May 1, 1710, "for the entertainment of the Emperor of the Mohocks and
+the three Indian kings," was advertised in No. 165 of the <i>Tatler</i>. The
+kings were lodged at the Two Crowns and Cushion, the house of an
+upholsterer in Covent Garden, probably Thomas Arne, the father of Dr.
+Thomas Arne the musician, and Mrs. Cibber, the actress. The following
+advertisement appeared at the end of No. 250, dated Nov. 14, 1710, and
+with some variation was reprinted in Nos. 253, 256, and 267 of the
+original edition: "This is to give notice, that the metzotinto-prints,
+by John Simmonds, in whole lengths, of the four Indian kings, that are
+done from the original pictures drawn by John Verelst, which her Majesty
+has at her palace at Kensington, are now to be delivered to subscribers,
+and sold at the Rainbow and Dove, the corner of Ivy Bridge in the
+Strand."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_262_262" id="Footnote_262_262"></a><a href="#FNanchor_262_262"><span class="label">[262]</span></a> Arne's shop.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<a name="No_172" id="No_172"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 172.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Steele.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Saturday, May 13</i>, to <i>Tuesday, May 16, 1710</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Quid quisque vitet, nunquam homini satis<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cautum est in horas.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Hor.</span>, 2 Od. xiii. 13.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>From my own Apartment, May 15.</i></p>
+
+<p>When a man is in a serious mood, and ponders upon his own make, with a
+retrospect to the actions of his life, and the many fatal miscarriages
+in it, which he owes to ungoverned passions, he is then apt to say to
+himself, that experience has guarded him against such errors for the
+future: but nature often recurs in spite of his best resolutions, and it
+is to the very end of our days a struggle between our reason and our
+temper, which shall have the empire over us. However, this is very much
+to be helped by circumspection, and a constant alarm against the first
+onsets of passion. As this is in general a necessary care to make a
+man's life easy and agreeable to himself, so it is more particularly the
+duty of such as are engaged in friendship and more near commerce with
+others. Those who have their joys, have also their griefs in proportion,
+and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> none can extremely exalt or depress friends, but friends. The harsh
+things which come from the rest of the world, are received and repulsed
+with that spirit which every honest man bears for his own vindication;
+but unkindness in words or actions among friends, affects us at the
+first instant in the inmost recesses of our souls. Indifferent people,
+if I may so say, can wound us only in heterogeneous parts, maim us in
+our legs or arms; but the friend can make no pass but at the heart
+itself. On the other side, the most impotent assistance, the mere
+well-wishes of a friend, gives a man constancy and courage against the
+most prevailing force of his enemies. It is here only a man enjoys and
+suffers to the quick. For this reason, the most gentle behaviour is
+absolutely necessary to maintain friendship in any degree above the
+common level of acquaintance. But there is a relation of life much more
+near than the most strict and sacred friendship, that is to say,
+marriage. This union is of too close and delicate a nature to be easily
+conceived by those who do not know that condition by experience. Here a
+man should, if possible, soften his passions; if not for his own ease,
+in compliance to a creature formed with a mind of a quite different make
+from his own. I am sure, I do not mean it an injury to women, when I say
+there is a sort of sex in souls. I am tender of offending them, and know
+it is hard not to do it on this subject; but I must go on to say, that
+the soul of a man and that of a woman are made very unlike, according to
+the employments for which they are designed. The ladies will please to
+observe, I say, our minds have different, not superior qualities to
+theirs. The virtues have respectively a masculine and a feminine cast.
+What we call in men wisdom, is in women prudence. It is a partiality to
+call one greater than the other. A prudent woman is in the same class of
+honour as a wise man, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> the scandals in the way of both are equally
+dangerous. But to make this state anything but a burden, and not hang a
+weight upon our very beings, it is very proper each of the couple should
+frequently remember, that there are many things which grow out of their
+very natures that are pardonable, nay becoming, when considered as such,
+but without that reflection must give the quickest pain and vexation. To
+manage well a great family is as worthy an instance of capacity, as to
+execute a great employment; and for the generality, as women perform the
+considerable part of their duties as well as men do theirs, so in their
+common behaviour, those of ordinary genius are not more trivial than the
+common rate of men; and in my opinion, the playing of a fan is every
+whit as good an entertainment as the beating a snuff-box.</p>
+
+<p>But however I have rambled in this libertine manner of writing by way of
+essay, I now sat down with an intention to represent to my readers, how
+pernicious, how sudden, and how fatal surprises of passion are to the
+mind of man; and that in the more intimate commerces of life they are
+most liable to arise, even in our most sedate and indolent hours.
+Occurrences of this kind have had very terrible effects; and when one
+reflects upon them, we cannot but tremble to consider what we are
+capable of being wrought up to against all the ties of nature, love,
+honour, reason, and religion, though the man who breaks through them
+all, had, an hour before he did so, a lively and virtuous sense of their
+dictates. When unhappy catastrophes make up part of the history of
+princes, and persons who act in high spheres, or are represented in the
+moving language and well-wrought scenes of tragedians, they do not fail
+of striking us with terror; but then they affect us only in a transient
+manner, and pass through our imaginations, as incidents in which our
+fortunes are too<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> humble to be concerned, or which writers form for the
+ostentation of their own force; or, at most, as things fit rather to
+exercise the powers of our minds, than to create new habits in them.
+Instead of such high passages, I was thinking it would be of great use
+(if anybody could hit it) to lay before the world such adventures as
+befall persons not exalted above the common level. This, methought,
+would better prevail upon the ordinary race of men, who are so
+prepossessed with outward appearances, that they mistake fortune for
+nature, and believe nothing can relate to them that does not happen to
+such as live and look like themselves.</p>
+
+<p>The unhappy end of a gentleman whose story an acquaintance of mine was
+just now telling me, would be very proper for this end if it could be
+related with all the circumstances as I heard it this evening; for it
+touched me so much, that I cannot forbear entering upon it.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Eustace,<a name="FNanchor_263_263" id="FNanchor_263_263"></a><a href="#Footnote_263_263" class="fnanchor">[263]</a> a young gentleman of a good estate near Dublin in
+Ireland, married a lady of youth, beauty, and modesty, and lived with
+her in general with much ease and tranquillity; but was in his secret
+temper impatient of rebuke: she is apt to fall into little sallies of
+passion, yet as suddenly recalled by her own reflection on her fault,
+and the consideration of her husband's temper. It happened, as he, his
+wife, and her sister, were at supper together about two months ago, that
+in the midst of a careless and familiar conversation, the sisters fell
+into a little warmth and contradiction. He, who was one of that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> sort of
+men who are never unconcerned at what passes before them, fell into an
+outrageous passion on the side of the sister. The person about whom they
+disputed was so near, that they were under no restraint from running
+into vain repetitions of past heats: on which occasion all the
+aggravations of anger and distaste boiled up, and were repeated with the
+bitterness of exasperated lovers. The wife observing her husband
+extremely moved, began to turn it off, and rally him for interposing
+between two people who from their infancy had been angry and pleased
+with each other every half-hour. But it descended deeper into his
+thoughts, and they broke up with a sullen silence. The wife immediately
+retired to her chamber, whither her husband soon after followed. When
+they were in bed, he soon dissembled a sleep, and she, pleased that his
+thoughts were composed, fell into a real one. Their apartment was very
+distant from the rest of their family, in a lonely country house. He now
+saw his opportunity, and with a dagger he had brought to bed with him,
+stabbed his wife in the side. She awaked in the highest terror; but
+immediately imagined it was a blow designed for her husband by ruffians,
+began to grasp him, and strive to awake and rouse him to defend himself.
+He still pretended himself sleeping, and gave her a second wound.</p>
+
+<p>She now drew open the curtains, and by the help of moonlight saw his
+hand lifted up to stab her. The horror disarmed her from further
+struggling; and he, enraged anew at being discovered, fixed his poniard
+in her bosom. As soon as he believed he had despatched her, he attempted
+to escape out of the window: but she, still alive, called to him not to
+hurt himself; for she might live. He was so stung with the insupportable
+reflection upon her goodness and his own villainy, that he jumped to the
+bed, and wounded her all over with as much rage as if every blow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> was
+provoked by new aggravations. In this fury of mind he fled away. His
+wife had still strength to go to her sister's apartment, and give her an
+account of this wonderful tragedy; but died the next day. Some weeks
+after, an officer of justice, in attempting to seize the criminal, fired
+upon him, as did the criminal upon the officer. Both their balls took
+place, and both immediately expired.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_263_263" id="Footnote_263_263"></a><a href="#FNanchor_263_263"><span class="label">[263]</span></a> "Last Sunday Mr. Francis Eustace committed a most
+barbarous murder on the body of his wife, by giving her seven or eight
+stabs with his sword, of which she died instantly. He jumped out of the
+window, and falling on a palisado pale, tore his legs and thighs in such
+a manner that he was forced to have them dressed by the surgeon, who is
+since sent to Newgate for letting him escape, and a proclamation is
+issued out for apprehending him" (<i>British Mercury</i>, 1710).</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<a name="No_173" id="No_173"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 173.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Steele.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Tuesday, May 16</i>, to <i>Thursday, May 18, 1710</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i8">&mdash;&mdash;Sapientia prima est<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Stultitia caruisse.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Hor.</span>, I Ep. i. 41.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>Sheer Lane, May 17.</i></p>
+
+<p>When I first began to learn to push<a name="FNanchor_264_264" id="FNanchor_264_264"></a><a href="#Footnote_264_264" class="fnanchor">[264]</a> this last winter, my master had
+a great deal of work upon his hands to make me unlearn the postures and
+motions which I had got by having in my younger years practised
+backsword, with a little eye to the single falchion. "Knock-down"<a name="FNanchor_265_265" id="FNanchor_265_265"></a><a href="#Footnote_265_265" class="fnanchor">[265]</a>
+was the word in the Civil Wars, and we generally added to this skill the
+knowledge of the Cornish hug, as well as the grapple, to play with hand
+and foot. By this means I was for defending my head when the French
+gentleman was making a full pass at my bosom, insomuch that he told me I
+was fairly killed seven times in one morning, without having done my
+master any other mischief than one knock on the pate. This was a great
+misfortune to me; and I believe I may say, without vanity, I am the
+first who ever pushed so erroneously, and yet conquered the prejudice of
+education so well, as to make my passes so clear, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> recover hand and
+foot with that agility, as I do at this day. The truth of it is, the
+first rudiments of education are given very indiscreetly by most
+parents, as much with relation to the more important concerns of the
+mind, as in the gestures of the body. Whatever children are designed
+for, and whatever prospects the fortune or interest of their parents may
+give them in their future lives, they are all promiscuously instructed
+the same way; and Horace and Virgil must be thrummed by a boy as well
+before he goes to an apprenticeship as to the University. This
+ridiculous way of treating the under-aged of this island has very often
+raised both my spleen and mirth, but I think never both at once so much
+as to-day. A good mother of our neighbourhood made me a visit with her
+son and heir, a lad somewhat above five foot, and wants but little of
+the height and strength of a good musketeer in any regiment in the
+service. Her business was to desire I would examine him, for he was far
+gone in a book, the first letters of which she often saw in my papers.
+The youth produced it, and I found it was my friend Horace. It was very
+easy to turn to the place the boy was learning in, which was the fifth
+Ode of the first Book, to Pyrrha. I read it over aloud, as well because
+I am always delighted when I turn to the beautiful parts of that author,
+as also to gain time for considering a little how to keep up the
+mother's pleasure in her child, which I thought barbarity to interrupt.
+In the first place I asked him, who this same Pyrrha was? He answered
+very readily, she was the wife of Pyrrhus, one of Alexander's captains.
+I lifted up my hands. The mother curtsies. "Nay," says she, "I knew you
+would stand in admiration."&mdash;&mdash;"I assure you," continued she, "for all
+he looks so tall, he is but very young. Pray ask him some more, never
+spare him." With that I took the liberty to ask him, what was the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span>
+character of this gentlewoman? He read the three first verses:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><div class="itals">
+<span class="i0">Quis multa gracilis te puer in rosa<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Perfusus liquidis urget odoribus,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Grato, Pyrrha, sub antro?<a name="FNanchor_266_266" id="FNanchor_266_266"></a><a href="#Footnote_266_266" class="fnanchor">[266]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>and very gravely told me, she lived at the sign of the Rose in a cellar.
+I took care to be very much astonished at the lad's improvements; but
+withal advised her, as soon as possible, to take him from school, for he
+could learn no more there. This very silly dialogue was a lively image
+of the impertinent method used in breeding boys without genius or
+spirit, to the reading things for which their heads were never framed.
+But this is the natural effect of a certain vanity in the minds of
+parents, who are wonderfully delighted with the thought of breeding
+their children to accomplishments, which they believe nothing but want
+of the same care in their own fathers prevented them from being masters
+of. Thus it is, that the part of life most fit for improvement is
+generally employed in a method against the bent of Nature; and a lad of
+such parts as are fit for an occupation, where there can be no calls out
+of the beaten path, is two or three years of his time wholly taken up in
+knowing how well Ovid's mistress became such a dress; how such a nymph
+for her cruelty was changed into such an animal; and how it is made
+generous in &AElig;neas to put Turnus to death, gallantries that can no more
+come within the occurrences of the lives of ordinary men, than they can
+be relished by their imaginations. However, still the humour goes on
+from one generation to another; and the pastrycook here in the lane the
+other night told me, he would not yet take away his son from his
+learning, but has resolved, as soon as he had a little smattering in the
+Greek, to put him apprentice to a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> soap-boiler. These wrong beginnings
+determine our success in the world; and when our thoughts are originally
+falsely biased, their agility and force do but carry us the further out
+of our way in proportion to our speed. But we are half-way our journey
+when we have got into the right road. If all our days were usefully
+employed, and we did not set out impertinently, we should not have so
+many grotesque professors in all the arts of life, but every man would
+be in a proper and becoming method of distinguishing or entertaining
+himself suitably to what Nature designed him. As they go on now, our
+parents do not only force us upon what is against our talents, but our
+teachers are also as injudicious in what they put us to learn. I have
+hardly ever since suffered so much by the charms of any beauty, as I did
+before I had a sense of passion, for not apprehending that the smile of
+Lalage was what pleased Horace;<a name="FNanchor_267_267" id="FNanchor_267_267"></a><a href="#Footnote_267_267" class="fnanchor">[267]</a> and I verily believe, the stripes I
+suffered about <i>digito male pertinaci</i><a name="FNanchor_268_268" id="FNanchor_268_268"></a><a href="#Footnote_268_268" class="fnanchor">[268]</a> has given that
+irreconcilable aversion, which I shall carry to my grave, against
+coquettes.</p>
+
+<p>As for the elegant writer of whom I am talking, his excellences are to
+be observed as they relate to the different concerns of his life; and he
+is always to be looked upon as a lover, a courtier, or a man of wit. His
+admirable odes have numberless instances of his merit in each of these
+characters. His epistles and satires are full of proper notices for the
+conduct of life in a Court; and what we call good breeding, most
+agreeably intermixed with his morality. His addresses to the persons who
+favour him are so inimitably engaging, that Augustus<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> complained of him
+for so seldom writing to him, and asked him, whether he was afraid
+posterity should read their names together? Now for the generality of
+men to spend much time in such writings, is as pleasant a folly as any
+he ridicules. Whatever the crowd of scholars may pretend, if their way
+of life, or their own imaginations, do not lead them to a taste of him,
+they may read, nay write, fifty volumes upon him, and be just as they
+were when they began. I remember to have heard a great painter say,
+there are certain faces for certain painters, as well as certain
+subjects for certain poets. This is as true in the choice of studies,
+and no one will ever relish an author thoroughly well, who would not
+have been fit company for that author had they lived at the same time.
+All others are mechanics in learning, and take the sentiments of writers
+like waiting-servants, who report what passed at their master's table;
+but debase every thought and expression, for want of the air with which
+they were uttered.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_264_264" id="Footnote_264_264"></a><a href="#FNanchor_264_264"><span class="label">[264]</span></a> Fence.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_265_265" id="Footnote_265_265"></a><a href="#FNanchor_265_265"><span class="label">[265]</span></a> Hence the phrase, "a knock-down argument."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_266_266" id="Footnote_266_266"></a><a href="#FNanchor_266_266"><span class="label">[266]</span></a> Horace, 1 Od. v. 1.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_267_267" id="Footnote_267_267"></a><a href="#FNanchor_267_267"><span class="label">[267]</span></a> See 1 Od. xxii. 23:
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Dulce ridentem Lalagen amabo,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Dulce loquentem."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_268_268" id="Footnote_268_268"></a><a href="#FNanchor_268_268"><span class="label">[268]</span></a> Horace, 1 Od. ix. 24.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<a name="No_174" id="No_174"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 174.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Steele.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Thursday, May 18</i>, to <i>Saturday, May 20, 1710</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Quem mala stultitia, et qu&aelig;cunque inscitia veri,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">C&aelig;cum agit, insanum Chrysippi porticus et grex<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Autumat.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Hor.</span>, 2 Sat. iii. 43.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>From my own Apartment, May 19.</i></p>
+
+<p>The learned Scotus, to distinguish the race of mankind, gives every
+individual of that species what he calls a "seity," something peculiar
+to himself, which makes him different from all other persons in the
+world. This particularity renders him either venerable or ridiculous,
+according as he uses his talents, which always grow out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> into faults, or
+improve into virtues. In the office I have undertaken, you are to
+observe, that I have hitherto presented only the more insignificant and
+lazy part of mankind under the denomination of "dead men," together with
+the degrees towards non-existence, in which others can neither be said
+to live nor be defunct, but are only animals merely dressed up like men,
+and differ from each other but as flies do by a little colouring or
+fluttering of their wings. Now as our discourses heretofore have chiefly
+regarded the indolent part of the species, it remains that we do justice
+also upon the impertinently active and enterprising. Such as these I
+shall take particular care to place in safe custody, and have used all
+possible diligence to run up my edifice in Moorfields for that
+service.<a name="FNanchor_269_269" id="FNanchor_269_269"></a><a href="#Footnote_269_269" class="fnanchor">[269]</a></p>
+
+<p>We who are adept in astrology, can impute it to several causes in the
+planets, that this quarter of our great city is the region of such
+persons as either never had, or have lost, the use of reason. It has
+indeed been time out of mind the receptacle of fools as well as madmen.
+The care and information of the former I assign to other learned men,
+who have for that end taken up their habitation in those parts; as,
+among others, to the famous Dr. Trotter, and my ingenious friend Dr.
+Langham.<a name="FNanchor_270_270" id="FNanchor_270_270"></a><a href="#Footnote_270_270" class="fnanchor">[270]</a> These oraculous proficients are day and night employed in
+deep searches, for the direction of such as run astray after their lost
+goods: but at present they are more particularly serviceable to their
+country, in foretelling the fate of such as have chances in the public
+lottery. Dr. Langham shows a peculiar generosity on this occasion,
+taking only one half-crown for a prediction, eighteenpence of which to
+be paid out of the prizes; which method the doctor is willing to comply
+with in favour of every adventurer in the whole<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span> lottery. Leaving
+therefore the whole generation of such inquirers to such <i>literati</i> as I
+have now mentioned, we are to proceed towards peopling our house, which
+we have erected with the greatest cost and care imaginable.</p>
+
+<p>It is necessary in this place to premise, that the superiority and force
+of mind which is born with men of great genius, and which, when it falls
+in with a noble imagination, is called "poetical fury," does not come
+under my consideration; but the pretence to such an impulse without
+natural warmth, shall be allowed a fit object of this charity; and all
+the volumes written by such hands shall be from time to time placed in
+proper order upon the rails of the unhoused booksellers within the
+district of the college<a name="FNanchor_271_271" id="FNanchor_271_271"></a><a href="#Footnote_271_271" class="fnanchor">[271]</a> (who have long inhabited this quarter), in
+the same manner as they are already disposed soon after their
+publication. I promise myself from these writings my best opiates for
+those patients whose high imaginations, and hot spirits, have waked them
+into distraction. Their boiling tempers are not to be wrought upon by my
+gruels and juleps, but must ever be employed, or appear to be so, or
+their recovery will be impracticable. I shall therefore make use of such
+poets as preserve so constant a mediocrity as never to elevate the mind
+into joy, or depress it into sadness, yet at the same time keep the
+faculties of the readers in suspense, though they introduce no ideas of
+their own. By this means, a disordered mind, like a broken limb, will
+recover its strength by the sole benefit of being out of use, and lying
+without motion. But as reading is not an entertainment that can take up
+the full time of my patients, I have now in pension a proportionable
+number of storytellers, who are by turns to walk about the galleries of
+the house, and by their narra<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span>tions second the labours of my pretty good
+poets. There are among these storytellers some that have so earnest
+countenances, and weighty brows, that they will draw a madman, even when
+his fit is just coming on, into a whisper, and by the force of shrugs,
+nods, and busy gestures, make him stand amazed so long as that we may
+have time to give him his broth without danger.</p>
+
+<p>But as Fortune has the possession of men's minds, a physician may cure
+all the sick people of ordinary degree in the whole town, and never come
+into reputation. I shall therefore begin with persons of condition; and
+the first I shall undertake, shall be the Lady Fidget, the general
+visitant, and Will Voluble, the fine talker. These persons shall be
+first locked up, for the peace of all whom the one visits, and all whom
+the other talks to.</p>
+
+<p>The passion which first touched the brain of both these persons was
+envy; and has had such wondrous effects, that to this, Lady Fidget owes
+that she is so courteous; to this, Will Voluble that he is eloquent.
+Fidget has a restless torment in hearing of any one's prosperity, and
+cannot know any quiet till she visits her, and is eyewitness of
+something that lessens it. Thus her life is a continual search after
+what does not concern her, and her companions speak kindly even of the
+absent and the unfortunate, to tease her. She was the first that visited
+Flavia after the small-pox, and has never seen her since because she is
+not altered. Call a young woman handsome in her company, and she tells
+you, it is a pity she has no fortune: say she is rich, and she is as
+sorry that she is silly. With all this ill nature, Fidget is herself
+young, rich, and handsome; but loses the pleasure of all those
+qualities, because she has them in common with others.</p>
+
+<p>To make up her misery, she is well-bred, she hears<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span> commendations till
+she is ready to faint for want of venting herself in contradictions.
+This madness is not expressed by the voice; but is uttered in the eyes
+and features: its first symptom is upon beholding an agreeable object, a
+sudden approbation immediately checked with dislike.</p>
+
+<p>This lady I shall take the liberty to conduct into a bed of straw and
+darkness, and have some hopes, that after long absence from the light,
+the pleasure of seeing at all may reconcile her to what she shall see,
+though it proves to be never so agreeable.</p>
+
+<p>My physical remarks on the distraction of envy in other persons, and
+particularly in Will Voluble, is interrupted by a visit from Mr.
+Kidney,<a name="FNanchor_272_272" id="FNanchor_272_272"></a><a href="#Footnote_272_272" class="fnanchor">[272]</a> with advices which will bring matter of new disturbance to
+many possessed with this sort of disorder, which I shall publish to
+bring out the symptoms more kindly, and lay the distemper more open to
+my view.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>St. James's Coffee-house, May 19.</i></p>
+
+<p>This evening a mail from Holland brought the following advices:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>From the Camp before Douay,<a name="FNanchor_273_273" id="FNanchor_273_273"></a><a href="#Footnote_273_273" class="fnanchor">[273]</a> May 26, N.S. On the 23rd the French
+assembled their army, and encamped with their right near Bouchain, and
+their left near Crevec&oelig;ur. Upon this motion of the enemy, the Duke of
+Marlborough and Prince Eugene made a movement with their army on the
+24th, and encamped from Arlieux<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span> to Vitry and Isez-Esquerchien, where
+they are so advantageously posted, that they not only cover the siege,
+secure our convoys of provisions, forage, and ammunition, from Lille and
+Tournay, and the canals and dykes we have made to turn the water of the
+Scarp and La Cense to Bouchain; but are in a readiness, by marching from
+the right, to possess themselves of the field of battle marked out
+betwixt Vitry and Montigny, or from the left to gain the lines of
+circumvallation betwixt Fierin and Dechy: so that whatever way the enemy
+shall approach to attack us, whether by the plains of Lens, or by
+Bouchain and Valenciennes, we have but a very small movement to make, to
+possess ourselves of the ground on which it will be most advantageous to
+receive them. The enemy marched this morning from their left, and are
+encamped with their right at Oisy, and their left towards Arras, and,
+according to our advices, will pass the Scarp to-morrow, and enter on
+the plains of Lens, though several regiments of horse, the German and
+Li&egrave;ge troops, which are destined to compose part of their army, have not
+yet joined them. If they pass the Scarp, we shall do the like at the
+same time, to possess ourselves with all possible advantage of the field
+of battle: but if they continue where they are, we shall not remove,
+because in our present station we sufficiently cover from all insults
+both our siege and convoys.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Villars cannot yet go without crutches, and it is believed will
+have much difficulty to ride. He and the Duke of Berwick are to command
+the French army, the rest of the marshals being only to assist in
+council.</p>
+
+<p>Last night we entirely perfected four bridges over the <i>avant foss&eacute;</i> at
+both attacks; and our saps are so far advanced, that in three or four
+days batteries will be raised on the <i>glacis</i>, to batter in breach both
+the outworks and ramparts of the town.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Letters from the Hague of the 27th, N.S., say, that the Deputies of the
+States of Holland, who set out for Gertruydenburg on the 23rd, to renew
+the conferences with the French Ministers, returned on the 26th, and had
+communicated to the States-General the new overtures that were made on
+the part of France, which it is believed, if they are in earnest, may
+produce a general treaty.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_269_269" id="Footnote_269_269"></a><a href="#FNanchor_269_269"><span class="label">[269]</span></a>
+See Nos. <a href="#No_125">125</a>, <a href="#No_127">127</a>, <a href="#No_175">175</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_270_270" id="Footnote_270_270"></a><a href="#FNanchor_270_270"><span class="label">[270]</span></a> Two of the numerous astrologers who lived in Moorfields.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_271_271" id="Footnote_271_271"></a><a href="#FNanchor_271_271"><span class="label">[271]</span></a> During the first half of the eighteenth century the walls
+of Bedlam were made use of by dealers in second-hand books.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_272_272" id="Footnote_272_272"></a><a href="#FNanchor_272_272"><span class="label">[272]</span></a>
+The waiter; see No. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/12030/12030-h/12030-h/SV1/Spectator1.html#section1">1</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_273_273" id="Footnote_273_273"></a><a href="#FNanchor_273_273"><span class="label">[273]</span></a> Douay capitulated on the 25th of June, after a fifty-four
+days siege, which cost the Allies eight thousand men. Two English
+regiments were cut to pieces at a sortie made by the besieged French
+troops. Two years later Douay was recaptured by Villars.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<a name="No_175" id="No_175"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 175.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Steele.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Saturday, May 20</i>, to <i>Tuesday, May 23, 1710</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>From my own Apartment, May 22.</i></p>
+
+<p>In the distribution of the apartments in the new Bedlam, proper regard
+is had to the different sexes, and the lodgings accommodated
+accordingly. Among other necessaries, as I have thought fit to appoint
+storytellers to soothe the men, so I have allowed tale-bearers to
+indulge the intervals of my female patients. But before I enter upon
+disposing of the main of the great body that wants my assistance, it is
+necessary to consider the human race abstracted from all other
+distinctions and considerations except that of sex. This will lead us to
+a nearer view of their excellences and imperfections, which are to be
+accounted the one or the other, as they are suitable to the design for
+which the persons so defective or accomplished came into the world.</p>
+
+<p>To make this inquiry aright, we must speak of the life of people of
+condition, and the proportionable applications to those below them will
+be easily made, so as to value the whole species by the same rule. We
+will begin with the woman, and behold her as a virgin in her father's
+house. This state of her life is infinitely more delightful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span> than that
+of her brother at the same age. While she is entertained with learning
+melodious airs at her spinet, is led round a room in the most
+complaisant manner to a fiddle, who is entertained with applauses of her
+beauty and perfection in the ordinary conversation she meets with: the
+young man is under the dictates of a rigid schoolmaster or instructor,
+contradicted in every word he speaks, and curbed in all the inclinations
+he discovers. Mrs. Elizabeth is the object of desire and admiration,
+looked upon with delight, courted with all the powers of eloquence and
+address, approached with a certain worship, and defended with a certain
+loyalty. This is her case as to the world: in her domestic character,
+she is the companion, the friend, and confidante of her mother, and the
+object of a pleasure something like the love between angels, to her
+father. Her youth, her beauty, her air, are by him looked upon with an
+ineffable transport beyond any other joy in this life, with as much
+purity as can be met with in the next.</p>
+
+<p>Her brother William, at the same years, is but in the rudiments of those
+acquisitions which must gain him esteem in the world. His heart beats
+for applause among men, yet is he fearful of every step towards it. If
+he proposes to himself to make a figure in the world, his youth is
+damped with a prospect of difficulties, dangers, and dishonours; and an
+opposition in all generous attempts, whether they regard his love or his
+ambition.</p>
+
+<p>In the next stage of life she has little else to do, but (what she is
+accomplished for by the mere gifts of nature) to appear lovely and
+agreeable to her husband, tender to her children, and affable to her
+servants: but a man, when he enters into this way, is but in the first
+scene, far from the accomplishment of his designs. He is now in all
+things to act for others as well as himself. He is to have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span> industry and
+frugality in his private affairs, and integrity and addresses in public.
+To these qualities, he must add a courage and resolution to support his
+other abilities, lest he be interrupted in the prosecution of his just
+endeavours, in which the honour and interest of posterity are as much
+concerned as his own personal welfare.</p>
+
+<p>This little sketch may in some measure give an idea of the different
+parts which the sexes have to act, and the advantageous as well as
+inconvenient terms on which they are to enter upon their several parts
+of life. This may also be some rule to us in the examination of their
+conduct. In short, I shall take it for a maxim, that a woman who resigns
+the purpose of being pleasing, and the man who gives up the thoughts of
+being wise, do equally quit their claim to the true causes of living;
+and are to be allowed the diet and discipline of my charitable structure
+to reduce them to reason.</p>
+
+<p>On the other side, the woman who hopes to please by methods which should
+make her odious, and the man who would be thought wise by a behaviour
+that renders him ridiculous, are to be taken into custody for their
+false industry, as justly as they ought for their negligence.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>N.B. Mr. Bickerstaff is taken extremely ill with the toothache, and
+cannot proceed in this discourse.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>St. James's Coffee-house, May 22.</i></p>
+
+<p>Advices from Flanders of the 30th instant, N.S., say, that the Duke of
+Marlborough having intelligence of the enemy's passing the Scarp on the
+29th in the evening, and their march towards the plains of Lens, had put
+the Confederate army in motion, which was advancing towards the camp on
+the north side of that river between Vitry and Henin-Lietard. The
+Confederates, since the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> approach of the enemy, have added several new
+redoubts to their camp, and drawn the cannon out of the lines of
+circumvallation in a readiness for the batteries.</p>
+
+<p>It is not believed, notwithstanding these appearances, that the enemy
+will hazard a battle for the relief of Douay; the siege of which place
+is carried on with all the success that can be expected, considering the
+difficulties they meet with occasioned by the inundations. On the 28th
+at night we made a lodgment on the salient angle of the glacis of the
+second counterscarp, and our approaches are so far advanced, that it is
+believed the town will be obliged to surrender before the 8th of the
+next month.</p>
+
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<a name="No_176" id="No_176"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 176.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Steele.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Tuesday, May 23</i>, to <i>Thursday, May 25, 1710</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Nul lum numen abest, si sit Prudentia.<br /></span>
+<span class="i24"><span class="smcap">Juv.</span>, Sat. x. 365.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>From my own Apartment, May 23.</i></p>
+
+<p>This evening, after a little ease from the raging pain caused by so
+small an organ as an aching tooth, under which I had behaved myself so
+ill as to have broke two pipes and my spectacles, I began to reflect
+with admiration on those heroic spirits, which in the conduct of their
+lives seem to live so much above the condition of our make, as not only
+under the agonies of pain to forbear any intemperate word or gesture,
+but also in their general and ordinary behaviour to resist the impulses
+of their very blood and constitution. This watch over a man's self, and
+the command of his temper, I take to be the greatest of human
+perfections, and is the effect of a strong and resolute mind. It is not
+only the most<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span> expedient practice for carrying on our own designs, but
+is also very deservedly the most amiable quality in the sight of others.
+It is a winning deference to mankind, which creates an immediate
+imitation of itself whenever it appears, and prevails upon all (who have
+to do with a person endued with it) either through shame or emulation. I
+do not know how to express this habit of mind, except you will let me
+call it equanimity. It is a virtue, which is necessary at every hour, in
+every place, and in all conversations, and is the effect of a regular
+and exact prudence. He that will look back upon all the acquaintances he
+has had in his whole life, will find he has seen more men capable of the
+greatest employments and performances, than such as could in the general
+bent of their carriage act otherwise than according to their own
+complexion and humour. But the indulgence of ourselves in wholly giving
+way to our natural propensity, is so unjust and improper a licence, that
+when people take it up, there is very little difference, with relation
+to their friends and families, whether they are good- or ill-natured
+men: for he that errs by being wrought upon by what we call the
+sweetness of his temper, is as guilty as he that offends through the
+perverseness of it.</p>
+
+<p>It is not therefore to be regarded what men are in themselves, but what
+they are in their actions. Eucrates<a name="FNanchor_274_274" id="FNanchor_274_274"></a><a href="#Footnote_274_274" class="fnanchor">[274]</a> is the best-natured of all men;
+but that natural softness has effects quite contrary to itself, and for
+want of due bounds to his benevolence, while he has a will to be a
+friend to all, he has the power of being such to none. His constant
+inclination to please makes him never fail of doing so; though (without
+being capable of falsehood) he is a friend only to those who are
+present; for the same humour which makes him the best companion,
+renders<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span> him the worst correspondent. It is a melancholy thing to
+consider, that the most engaging sort of men in conversation are
+frequently the most tyrannical in power, and least to be depended upon
+in friendship. It is certain this is not to be imputed to their own
+disposition; but he that is to be led by others, has only good luck if
+he is not the worst, though in himself the best man living. For this
+reason, we are no more wholly to indulge our good than our ill
+dispositions. I remember a crafty old cit, one day speaking of a
+well-natured young fellow who set up with a good stock in Lombard
+Street, "I will," says he, "lay no more money in his hands, for he never
+denied me anything." This was a very base, but with him a prudential
+reason for breaking off commerce: and this acquaintance of mine carried
+this way of judging so far, that he has often told me, he never cared to
+deal with a man he liked, for that our affections must never enter into
+our business.</p>
+
+<p>When we look round us in this populous city, and consider how credit and
+esteem are lodged, you find men have a great share of the former,
+without the least portion of the latter. He who knows himself for a
+beast of prey, looks upon others in the same light, and we are so apt to
+judge of others by ourselves, that the man who has no mercy, is as
+careful as possible never to want it. Hence it is, that in many
+instances men gain credit by the very contrary methods by which they do
+esteem; for wary traders think every affection of the mind a key to
+their cash.</p>
+
+<p>But what led me into this discourse was my impatience of pain; and I
+have, to my great disgrace, seen an instance of the contrary carriage in
+so high a degree, that I am out of countenance that I ever read Seneca.
+When I look upon the conduct of others in such occur<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span>rences, as well as
+behold their equanimity in the general tenor of their life, it very much
+abates the self-love, which is seldom well-governed by any sort of men,
+and least of all by us authors.</p>
+
+<p>The fortitude of a man who brings his will to the obedience of his
+reason is conspicuous, and carries with it a dignity in the lowest state
+imaginable. Poor Martius,<a name="FNanchor_275_275" id="FNanchor_275_275"></a><a href="#Footnote_275_275" class="fnanchor">[275]</a> who now lies languishing in the most
+violent fever, discovers in the faintest moments of his distemper such a
+greatness of mind, that a perfect stranger who should now behold him,
+would indeed see an object of pity, but at the same time that it was
+lately an object of veneration. His gallant spirit resigns, but resigns
+with an air that speaks a resolution which could yield to nothing but
+fate itself. This is conquest in the philosophic sense; but the empire
+over ourselves is, methinks, no less laudable in common life, where the
+whole tenor of a man's carriage is in subservience to his own reason,
+and conformity both to the good sense and inclination of other men.</p>
+
+<p>Arist&aelig;us<a name="FNanchor_276_276" id="FNanchor_276_276"></a><a href="#Footnote_276_276" class="fnanchor">[276]</a> is, in my opinion, a perfect master of himself in all
+circumstances. He has all the spirit that man can have, and yet is as
+regular in his behaviour as a mere machine. He is sensible of every
+passion, but ruffled by none. In conversation, he frequently seems to be
+less knowing to be more obliging, and chooses to be on a level with
+others rather than oppress with the superiority of his genius. In
+friendship he is kind without profession; in business, expeditious
+without ostentation. With the greatest softness and benevolence
+imaginable, he is impartial in spite of all importunity, even that of
+his own good nature. He is ever clear in his judgment; but in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span>
+complaisance to his company, speaks with doubt, and never shows
+confidence in argument, but to support the sense of another. Were such
+an equality of mind the general endeavour of all men, how sweet would be
+the pleasures of conversation? He that is loud would then understand,
+that we ought to call a constable, and know, that spoiling good company
+is the most heinous way of breaking the peace. We should then be
+relieved from these zealots in society, who take upon them to be angry
+for all the company, and quarrel with the waiters to show they have no
+respect for anybody else in the room. To be in a rage before you, is in
+a kind being angry with you. You may as well stand naked before company,
+as to use such familiarities; and to be careless of what you say, is the
+most clownish way of being undressed.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>Sheer Lane, May 24.</i></p>
+
+<p>When I came home this evening, I found the following letters; and
+because I think one a very good answer to the other, as well as that it
+is the affair of a young lady, it must be immediately dismissed:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Sir</span>,</p>
+
+<p>"I have a good fortune, partly paternal and partly acquired. My
+younger years I spent in business; but age coming on, and having no
+more children than one daughter, I resolved to be a slave no
+longer: and accordingly I have disposed of my effects, placed my
+money in the funds, bought a pretty seat in a pleasant country; am
+making a garden, and have set up a pack of little beagles. I live
+in the midst of a good many well-bred neighbours, and several
+well-tempered clergymen. Against a rainy day I have a little
+library; and against the gout in my stomach a little good claret.
+With all this I am the miserablest man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span> in the world; not that I've
+lost the relish of any of these pleasures, but am distracted with
+such a multiplicity of entertaining objects, that I am lost in the
+variety. I am in such a hurry of idleness, that I do not know with
+what diversion to begin. Therefore, sir, I must beg the favour of
+you, when your more weighty affairs will permit, to put me in some
+method of doing nothing; for I find Pliny makes a great difference
+betwixt <i>Nihil agere</i> and <i>Agere nihil</i>; and I fancy, if you would
+explain him, you would do a very great kindness to many in Great
+Britain, as well as to</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+<span class="sig2">"Your humble Servant,</span><br />
+"J. B."<br />
+</p></div>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Sir</span>,</p>
+
+<p>"The enclosed is written by my father in one of his pleasant
+humours. He bids me seal it up, and send you a word or two from
+myself, which he won't desire to see till he hears of it from you.
+Desire him before he begins his method of doing nothing, to have
+nothing to do; that is to say, let him marry off his daughter. I
+am,</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+<span class="sig2">"Your gentle Reader,</span><br />
+"S. B."<br />
+</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_274_274" id="Footnote_274_274"></a><a href="#FNanchor_274_274"><span class="label">[274]</span></a> Eucrates reminds us in some respects of Steele himself.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_275_275" id="Footnote_275_275"></a><a href="#FNanchor_275_275"><span class="label">[275]</span></a>
+Perhaps Cornelius Wood. See No. <a href="#No_144">144</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_276_276" id="Footnote_276_276"></a><a href="#FNanchor_276_276"><span class="label">[276]</span></a> In writing of Arist&aelig;us, Steele seems to have had Addison
+in his mind. His friend had recently left London for Ireland.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span>
+<a name="No_177" id="No_177"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 177.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Steele.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Thursday, May 25</i>, to <i>Saturday, May 27, 1710</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&mdash;Male si palpere, recalcitrat undique tutus.<br /></span>
+<span class="i26"><span class="smcap">Hor.</span>, 2 Sat. i. 20.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>Sheer Lane, May 26.</i></p>
+
+<p>The ingenious Mr. Penkethman,<a name="FNanchor_277_277" id="FNanchor_277_277"></a><a href="#Footnote_277_277" class="fnanchor">[277]</a> the comedian, has lately left here a
+paper or ticket, to which is affixed a small silver medal, which is to
+entitle the bearer to see one-and-twenty plays at his theatre for a
+guinea. Greenwich is the place where, it seems, he has erected his
+house; and his time of action is to be so contrived, that it is to fall
+in with going and returning with the tide: besides, that the bearer of
+this ticket may carry down with him a particular set of company to the
+play, striking off for each person so introduced one of his twenty-one
+times of admittance. In this warrant of his, he has made me a high
+compliment in a facetious distich, by way of dedication of his
+endeavours, and desires I would recommend them to the world. I must
+needs say, I have not for some time seen a properer choice than he has
+made of a patron: who more fit to publish his work than a novelist<a name="FNanchor_278_278" id="FNanchor_278_278"></a><a href="#Footnote_278_278" class="fnanchor">[278]</a>?
+who to recommend it than a censor? This honour done me, has made me turn
+my thoughts upon the nature of dedications in general, and the abuse of
+that custom, as well by a long practice of my predecessors, as the
+continued folly of my contemporary authors.</p>
+
+<p>In ancient times, it was the custom to address their works to some
+eminent for their merit to mankind, or particular patronage of the
+writers themselves, or knowledge in the matter of which they treated.
+Under these<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span> regards, it was a memorable honour to both parties, and a
+very agreeable record of their commerce with each other. These
+applications were never stuffed with impertinent praises, but were the
+native product of their esteem, which was implicitly received, or
+generally known to be due to the patron of the work: but vain flourishes
+came into the world, with other barbarous embellishments; and the
+enumeration of titles, and great actions, in the patrons themselves, or
+their sires, are as foreign to the matter in hand as the ornaments are
+in a Gothic building. This is clapping together persons which have no
+manner of alliance, and can for that reason have no other effect than
+making both parties justly ridiculous. What pretence is there in Nature
+for me to write to a great man, and tell him, "My lord, because your
+Grace is a duke, your Grace's father before you was an earl, his
+lordship's father was a baron, and his lordship's father both a wise and
+a rich man, I, Isaac Bickerstaff, am obliged, and could not possibly
+forbear addressing to you the following treatise." Though this is the
+plain exposition of all I could possibly say to him with a good
+conscience, yet the silly custom has so universally prevailed, that my
+lord duke and I must necessarily be particular friends from this time
+forward, or else I have just room for being disobliged, and may turn my
+panegyric into a libel. But to carry this affair still more home, were
+it granted that praises in dedications were proper topics, what is it
+that gives a man authority to commend, or what makes it a favour to me
+that he does commend me? It is certain, that there is no praise valuable
+but from the praiseworthy. Were it otherwise, blame might be as much in
+the same hands. Were the good and evil of fame laid upon a level among
+mankind, the judge on the bench, and the criminal at the bar, would
+differ only in their stations; and if one's word is to pass<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span> as much as
+the other's, their reputation would be much alike to the jury.
+Pliny,<a name="FNanchor_279_279" id="FNanchor_279_279"></a><a href="#Footnote_279_279" class="fnanchor">[279]</a> speaking of the death of Martial, expresses himself with
+great gratitude to him for the honours done him in the writings of that
+author; but he begins it with an account of his character, which only
+made the applause valuable. He indeed in the same Epistle says, it is a
+sign we have left off doing things which deserve praise, when we think
+commendation impertinent. This is asserted with a just regard to the
+persons whose good opinion we wish for; otherwise reputation would be
+valued according to the number of voices a man has for it, which are not
+always to be insured on the more virtuous side. But however we pretend
+to model these nice affairs, true glory will never attend anything but
+truth; and there is something so peculiar in it, that the very self-same
+action done by different men cannot merit the same degree of applause.
+The Roman, who was surprised in the enemy's camp before he had
+accomplished his design, and thrust his bare arm into a flaming pile,
+telling the general, there were many as determined as himself who
+(against sense of danger) had conspired his death, wrought in the very
+enemy an admiration of his fortitude, and a dismission with
+applause.<a name="FNanchor_280_280" id="FNanchor_280_280"></a><a href="#Footnote_280_280" class="fnanchor">[280]</a> But the condemned slave who represented him in the
+theatre, and consumed his arm in the same manner, with the same
+resolution, did not raise in the spectators a great idea of his virtue,
+but of him whom he imitated in an action no way differing from that of
+the real Sc&aelig;vola, but in the motive to it.</p>
+
+<p>Thus true glory is inseparable from true merit, and whatever you call
+men, they are no more than what they are in themselves; but a romantic
+sense has crept into the minds of the generality, who will ever mistake
+words and appearances for persons and things.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The simplicity of the ancients was as conspicuous in the address of
+their writings, as in any other monuments they have left behind them.
+C&aelig;sar and Augustus were much more high words of respect, when added to
+occasions fit for their characters to appear in, than any appellations
+which have ever been since thought of. The latter of these great men had
+a very pleasant way of dealing with applications of this kind. When he
+received pieces of poetry which he thought had worth in them, he
+rewarded the writer; but where he thought them empty, he generally
+returned the compliment made him with some verses of his own.</p>
+
+<p>This latter method I have at present occasion to imitate. A female
+author has dedicated a piece to me,<a name="FNanchor_281_281" id="FNanchor_281_281"></a><a href="#Footnote_281_281" class="fnanchor">[281]</a> wherein she would make my name
+(as she has others) the introduction of whatever is to follow in her
+book; and has spoke some panegyrical things which I know not how to
+return, for want of better acquaintance with the lady, and consequently
+being out of a capacity of giving her praise or blame. All therefore
+that is left for me, according to the foregoing rules, is to lay the
+picture of a good and evil woman before her eyes, which are but mere
+words if they do not concern her. Now you are to observe, the way in a
+dedication is to make all the rest of the world as little like the
+person we address to as possible, according to the following epistle:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>
+"<span class="smcap">Madam</span>,
+"But, M&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+<span class="sig4">"&mdash;&mdash;<i>Memorabile nullum</i></span><br />
+<i>F&oelig;minea in p&oelig;na est.</i>&mdash;&mdash;"<a name="FNanchor_282_282" id="FNanchor_282_282"></a><a href="#Footnote_282_282" class="fnanchor">[282]</a>
+</p></div>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_277_277" id="Footnote_277_277"></a><a href="#FNanchor_277_277"><span class="label">[277]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number4">4</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_278_278" id="Footnote_278_278"></a><a href="#FNanchor_278_278"><span class="label">[278]</span></a> Writer of news.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_279_279" id="Footnote_279_279"></a><a href="#FNanchor_279_279"><span class="label">[279]</span></a> "Epist." iii. 21.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_280_280" id="Footnote_280_280"></a><a href="#FNanchor_280_280"><span class="label">[280]</span></a> Livy, ii. 12.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_281_281" id="Footnote_281_281"></a><a href="#FNanchor_281_281"><span class="label">[281]</span></a> Mrs. Manley's "Memoirs of Europe ... by the translator of
+the 'New Atalantis.'" See Nos. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number35">35</a>, 63.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_282_282" id="Footnote_282_282"></a><a href="#FNanchor_282_282"><span class="label">[282]</span></a>
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"&mdash;&mdash;Nullum memorabile nomen<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">F&oelig;minea in p&oelig;na est."&mdash;"&AElig;neid," ii. 583-4.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span>
+<a name="No_178" id="No_178"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 178.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Steele.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Saturday, May 27</i>, to <i>Tuesday, May 30, 1710</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>Sheer Lane, May 29.</i></p>
+
+<p>When we look into the delightful history of the most ingenious Don
+Quixote of the Mancha, and consider the exercises and manner of life of
+that renowned gentleman, we cannot but admire the exquisite genius and
+discerning spirit of Michael Cervantes, who has not only painted his
+adventurer with great mastery in the conspicuous parts of his story,
+which relate to love and honour, but also intimated in his ordinary
+life, economy, and furniture, the infallible symptoms he gave of his
+growing frenzy, before he declared himself a knight-errant. His hall was
+furnished with old lances, halberds, and morions; his food, lentils; his
+dress, amorous. He slept moderately, rose early, and spent his time in
+hunting. When by watchfulness and exercise he was thus qualified for the
+hardships of his intended peregrinations, he had nothing more to do but
+to fall hard to study; and before he should apply himself to the
+practical part, get into the methods of making love and war by reading
+books of knighthood. As for raising tender passion in him, Cervantes
+reports<a name="FNanchor_283_283" id="FNanchor_283_283"></a><a href="#Footnote_283_283" class="fnanchor">[283]</a> that he was wonderfully delighted with a smooth intricate
+sentence; and when they listened at his study-door, they could
+frequently hear him read aloud, "The reason of the unreasonableness,
+which against my reason is wrought, doth so weaken my reason, as with
+all reason I do justly complain on your beauty." Again, he would pause
+till he came to another charming sentence, and with the most pleasing
+accent imaginable be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span> loud at a new paragraph: "The high heavens, which,
+with your divinity, do fortify you divinely with the stars, make you
+deserveress of the deserts that your greatness deserves." With these,
+and other such passages (says my author) the poor gentleman grew
+distracted, and was breaking his brains day and night to understand and
+unravel their sense.</p>
+
+<p>As much as the case of this distempered knight is received by all the
+readers of his history as the most incurable and ridiculous of all
+phrensies, it is very certain we have crowds among us far gone in as
+visible a madness as his, though they are not observed to be in that
+condition. As great and useful discoveries are sometimes made by
+accidental and small beginnings, I came to the knowledge of the most
+epidemic ill of this sort, by falling into a coffee-house where I saw my
+friend the upholsterer,<a name="FNanchor_284_284" id="FNanchor_284_284"></a><a href="#Footnote_284_284" class="fnanchor">[284]</a> whose crack<a name="FNanchor_285_285" id="FNanchor_285_285"></a><a href="#Footnote_285_285" class="fnanchor">[285]</a> towards politics I have
+heretofore mentioned. This touch in the brain of the British subject is
+as certainly owing to the reading newspapers, as that of the Spanish
+worthy above mentioned to the reading works of chivalry. My
+contemporaries the novelists<a name="FNanchor_286_286" id="FNanchor_286_286"></a><a href="#Footnote_286_286" class="fnanchor">[286]</a> have, for the better spinning out
+paragraphs, and working down to the end of their columns, a most happy
+art in saying and unsaying, giving hints of intelligence, and
+interpretations of indifferent actions, to the great disturbance of the
+brains of ordinary readers. This way of going on in the words, and
+making no progress in the sense, is more particularly the excellence of
+my most ingenious and renowned fellow-labourer, the <i>Postman</i><a name="FNanchor_287_287" id="FNanchor_287_287"></a><a href="#Footnote_287_287" class="fnanchor">[287]</a>; and
+it is to this talent in him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span> that I impute the loss of my upholsterer's
+intellects. That unfortunate tradesman has for years past been the chief
+orator in ragged assemblies, and the reader in alley coffee-houses. He
+was yesterday surrounded by an audience of that sort, among whom I sat
+unobserved through the favour of a cloud of tobacco, and saw him with
+the <i>Postman</i> in his hand, and all the other papers safe under his left
+elbow. He was intermixing remarks, and reading the Paris article of May
+30, which says that "it is given out that an express arrived this day,
+with advice, that the armies were so near in the plain of Lens, that
+they cannonaded each other." ("Ay, ay, here we shall have sport.") "And
+that it was highly probable the next express would bring us an account
+of an engagement." ("They are welcome as soon as they please.") "Though
+some others say, that the same will be put off till the 2nd or 3rd of
+June, because the Marshal Villars expects some further reinforcements
+from Germany, and other parts, before that time." ("What-a-pox does he
+put it off for? Does he think our horse is not marching up at the same
+time? But let us see what he says further.") "They hope that Monsieur
+Albergotti,<a name="FNanchor_288_288" id="FNanchor_288_288"></a><a href="#Footnote_288_288" class="fnanchor">[288]</a> being encouraged by the presence of so great an army,
+will make an extraordinary defence." ("Why then I find, Albergotti is
+one of those that love to have a great many on their side. Nay, I'll say
+that for this paper, he makes the most natural inferences of any of them
+all.") "The Elector of Bavaria being uneasy to be without any command,
+has desired leave to come to Court to communicate a certain project to
+his Majesty. Whatever it be, it is said that prince is suddenly
+expected, and then we shall have a more certain account of his project,
+if this report has any foundation." ("Nay, this paper never imposes upon
+us, he goes upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span> sure grounds; for he won't be positive the Elector has
+a project, or that he will come, or if he does come at all; for he
+doubts, you see, whether the report has any foundation.")</p>
+
+<p>What makes this the more lamentable is, that this way of writing falls
+in with the imagination of the cooler and duller part of her Majesty's
+subjects. The being kept up with one line contradicting another, and the
+whole, after many sentences of conjecture, vanishing in a doubt whether
+there is anything at all in what the person has been reading, puts an
+ordinary head into a vertigo, which his natural dulness would have
+secured him from. Next to the labours of the <i>Postman</i>, the upholsterer
+took from under his elbow honest Ichabod Dawks' <i>Letter</i>,<a name="FNanchor_289_289" id="FNanchor_289_289"></a><a href="#Footnote_289_289" class="fnanchor">[289]</a> and
+there, among other speculations, the historian takes upon him to say
+that "it is discoursed that there will be a battle in Flanders before
+the armies separate, and many will have it to be to-morrow, the great
+battle of Ramillies being fought on a Whit Sunday." A gentleman who was
+a wag in this company laughed at the expression, and said, "By Mr.
+Dawks' favour, I warrant ye, if we meet them on Whit Sunday, or Monday,
+we shall not stand upon the day<a name="FNanchor_290_290" id="FNanchor_290_290"></a><a href="#Footnote_290_290" class="fnanchor">[290]</a> with them, whether it be before or
+after the holidays." An admirer of this gentleman stood up, and told a
+neighbour at a distant table the conceit, at which indeed we were all
+very merry. These reflections in the writers of the transactions of the
+times, seize the noddles of such as were not born to have thoughts of
+their own, and consequently lay a weight upon everything which they read
+in print. But<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span> Mr. Dawks concluded his paper with a courteous sentence,
+which was very well taken and applauded by the whole company. "We wish,"
+says he, "all our customers a merry Whitsuntide, and many of them."
+Honest Ichabod is as extraordinary a man as any of our fraternity, and
+as particular. His style is a dialect between the familiarity of talking
+and writing, and his letter such as you cannot distinguish whether print
+or manuscript, which gives us a refreshment<a name="FNanchor_291_291" id="FNanchor_291_291"></a><a href="#Footnote_291_291" class="fnanchor">[291]</a> of the idea from what
+has been told us from the press by others. This wishing a good tide had
+its effect upon us, and he was commended for his salutation, as showing
+as well the capacity of a bellman as an historian. My distempered old
+acquaintance read in the next place the account of the affairs abroad in
+the <i>Courant</i>;<a name="FNanchor_292_292" id="FNanchor_292_292"></a><a href="#Footnote_292_292" class="fnanchor">[292]</a> but the matter was told so distinctly, that these
+wanderers thought there was no news in it; this paper differing from the
+rest as a history from a romance. The tautology, the contradictions, the
+doubts, and wants of confirmations, are what keep up imaginary
+entertainments in empty heads, and produce neglect of their own affairs,
+poverty, and bankruptcy, in many of the shop-statesmen; but turn the
+imaginations of those of a little higher orb into deliriums of
+dissatisfaction, which is seen in a continual fret upon all that touches
+their brains, but more particularly upon any advantage obtained by their
+country, where they are considered as lunatics, and therefore tolerated
+in their ravings.</p>
+
+<p>What I am now warning the people of is, that the newspapers of this
+island are as pernicious to weak heads in England as ever books of
+chivalry to Spain; and therefore shall do all that in me lies, with the
+utmost care and vigilance imaginable, to prevent these growing evils. A
+flaming instance of this malady appeared in my old<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span> acquaintance at this
+time, who, after he had done reading all his papers, ended with a
+thoughtful air, "If we should have a peace, we should then know for
+certain whether it was the King of Sweden that lately came to Dunkirk."
+I whispered him, and desired him to step aside a little with me. When I
+had opportunity, I decoyed him into a coach, in order for his more easy
+conveyance to Moorfields. The man went very quietly with me; and by that
+time he had brought the Swede from the defeat by the Czar to the
+Boristhenes, we were passing by Will's Coffeehouse, where the man of the
+house beckoned to us. We made a full stop, and could hear from above a
+very loud voice swearing, with some expressions towards treason, that
+the subject in France was as free as in England. His distemper would not
+let him reflect, that his own discourse was an argument of the contrary.
+They told him, one would speak with him below. He came immediately to
+our coach-side. I whispered him, that I had an order to carry him to the
+Bastile. He immediately obeyed with great resignation: for to this sort
+of lunatic, whose brain is touched for the French, the name of a gaol in
+that kingdom has a more agreeable sound than that of a paternal seat in
+this their own country. It happened a little unluckily bringing these
+lunatics together, for they immediately fell into a debate concerning
+the greatness of their respective monarchs; one for the King of Sweden,
+the other for the Grand Monarch of France. This gentleman from Will's is
+now next door to the upholsterer, safe in his apartment in my Bedlam,
+with proper medicaments, and the <i>Mercure Galant</i><a name="FNanchor_293_293" id="FNanchor_293_293"></a><a href="#Footnote_293_293" class="fnanchor">[293]</a> to soothe his
+imagination that he is actually in France. If therefore he should escape
+to Covent Garden again, all persons are desired to lay hold of him, and
+deliver him to Mr. Morphew, my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span> overseer. At the same time, I desire all
+true subjects to forbear discourse with him, any otherwise than when he
+begins to fight a battle for France, to say, "Sir, I hope to see you in
+England."</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_283_283" id="Footnote_283_283"></a><a href="#FNanchor_283_283"><span class="label">[283]</span></a> "Don Quixote," Part I. chap. i.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_284_284" id="Footnote_284_284"></a><a href="#FNanchor_284_284"><span class="label">[284]</span></a>
+See Nos. <a href="#No_155">155</a>, <a href="#No_160">160</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_285_285" id="Footnote_285_285"></a><a href="#FNanchor_285_285"><span class="label">[285]</span></a> In the <i>Spectator</i>, No. 251, Addison applies the word to
+a crazy person: "A crack and a projector."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_286_286" id="Footnote_286_286"></a><a href="#FNanchor_286_286"><span class="label">[286]</span></a> Writers of newspapers.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_287_287" id="Footnote_287_287"></a><a href="#FNanchor_287_287"><span class="label">[287]</span></a> The <i>Postman</i> was edited by a French Protestant named
+Fontive, whom Dunton describes as "the glory and mirror of news-writers;
+a very grave, learned, orthodox man."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_288_288" id="Footnote_288_288"></a><a href="#FNanchor_288_288"><span class="label">[288]</span></a> Albergotti was then holding Douay for Lewis XIV.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_289_289" id="Footnote_289_289"></a><a href="#FNanchor_289_289"><span class="label">[289]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number35">18</a>. The news-letter was printed to imitate
+handwriting.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_290_290" id="Footnote_290_290"></a><a href="#FNanchor_290_290"><span class="label">[290]</span></a> Cf. "Macbeth," act iii. sc. 4:
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Stand not upon the order of your going,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But go at once!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_291_291" id="Footnote_291_291"></a><a href="#FNanchor_291_291"><span class="label">[291]</span></a> A <i>r&eacute;chauff&eacute;</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_292_292" id="Footnote_292_292"></a><a href="#FNanchor_292_292"><span class="label">[292]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number35">18</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_293_293" id="Footnote_293_293"></a><a href="#FNanchor_293_293"><span class="label">[293]</span></a>
+See No. 67.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<a name="No_179" id="No_179"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 179.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Steele.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Tuesday, May 30</i>, to <i>Thursday, June 1, 1710</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&mdash;&mdash;O! quis me gelidis sub montibus H&aelig;mi<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sistat, et ingenti ramorum protegat umbra?<br /></span>
+<span class="i24"><span class="smcap">Virg.</span>, Georg. ii. 488.<a name="FNanchor_294_294" id="FNanchor_294_294"></a><a href="#Footnote_294_294" class="fnanchor">[294]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>From my own Apartment, May 31.</i></p>
+
+<p>In this parched season, next to the pleasure of going into the country,
+is that of hearing from it, and partaking the joys of it in description,
+as in the following letter:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Sir</span>,</p>
+
+<p>"I believe you will forgive me, though I write to you a very long
+epistle, since it relates to the satisfaction of a country life,
+which I know you would lead, if you could. In the first place I
+must confess to you, that I am one of the most luxurious men
+living; and as I am such, I take care to make my pleasures lasting,
+by following none but such as are innocent and refined, as well as,
+in some measure, improving. You have in your labours been so much
+concerned to represent the actions and passions of mankind, that
+the whole vegetable world has almost escaped your observation: but
+sure there are gratifications to be drawn from thence, which
+deserve to be recommended. For your better information, I wish you
+could visit your old friend in Cornwall: you would be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span> leased to
+see the many alterations I have made about my house, and how much I
+have improved my estate without raising the rents of it.</p>
+
+<p>"As the winter engrosses with us near a double portion of the year
+(the three delightful vicissitudes being crowded almost within the
+space of six months), there is nothing upon which I have bestowed
+so much study and expense, as in contriving means to soften the
+severity of it, and, if possible, to establish twelve cheerful
+months about my habitation. In order to this, the charges I have
+been at in building and furnishing a greenhouse will, perhaps, be
+thought somewhat extravagant by a great many gentlemen whose
+revenues exceed mine. But when I consider, that all men of any life
+and spirit have their inclinations to gratify, and when I compute
+the sums laid out by the generality of the men of pleasure (in the
+number of which I always rank myself) in riotous eating and
+drinking, in equipage and apparel, upon wenching, gaming, racing
+and hunting; I find, upon the balance, that the indulging of my
+humour comes at a reasonable rate.</p>
+
+<p>"Since I communicate to you all incidents serious and trifling,
+even to the death of a butterfly, that fall out within the compass
+of my little empire, you will not, I hope, be ill pleased with the
+draught I now send you of my little winter paradise, and with an
+account of my way of amusing myself and others in it.</p>
+
+<p>"The younger Pliny, you know, writes a long letter to his friend
+Gallus,<a name="FNanchor_295_295" id="FNanchor_295_295"></a><a href="#Footnote_295_295" class="fnanchor">[295]</a> in which he gives him a very particular plan of the
+situation, the conveniences, and the agreeableness of his villa. In
+my last, you may remember, I promised you something of this kind.
+Had Pliny lived in a northern climate, I doubt not but we should
+have found a very complete orangery amongst his Epistles; and I,
+prob<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span>ably, should have copied his model, instead of building after
+my own fancy, and you had been referred to him for the history of
+my late exploits in architecture: by which means my performances
+would have made a better figure, at least in writing, than they are
+like to make at present.</p>
+
+<p>"The area of my greenhouse is a hundred paces long, fifty broad,
+and the roof thirty feet high. The wall toward the north is of
+solid stone. On the south side, and at both the ends, the stonework
+rises but three feet from the ground, excepting the pilasters,
+placed at convenient distances to strengthen and beautify the
+building. The intermediate spaces are filled up with large sashes
+of the strongest and most transparent glass. The middle sash (which
+is wider than any of the others) serves for the entrance, to which
+you mount by six easy steps, and descend on the inside by as many.
+This opens and shuts with greater ease, keeps the wind out better,
+and is at the same time more uniform than folding-doors.</p>
+
+<p>"In the middle of the roof there runs a ceiling thirty feet broad
+from one end to the other. This is enlivened by a masterly pencil,
+with all the variety of rural scenes and prospects, which he has
+peopled with the whole tribe of sylvan deities. Their characters
+and their stories are so well expressed, that the whole seems a
+collection of all the most beautiful fables of the ancient poets
+translated into colours. The remaining spaces of the roof, ten feet
+on each side of the ceiling, are of the clearest glass, to let in
+the sky and clouds from above. The building points full east and
+west, so that I enjoy the sun while he is above the horizon. His
+rays are improved through the glass, and I receive through it what
+is desirable in a winter-sky, without the coarse alloy of the
+season, which is a kind of sifting or straining the weather. My
+greens and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span> lowers are as sensible as I am of this benefit: they
+flourish and look cheerful as in the spring, while their fellow
+creatures abroad are starved to death. I must add, that a moderate
+expense of fire, over and above the contributions I receive from
+the sun, serves to keep this large room in a due temperature; it
+being sheltered from the cold winds by a hill on the north, and a
+wood on the east.</p>
+
+<p>"The shell, you see, is both agreeable and convenient; and now you
+shall judge, whether I have laid out the floor to advantage. There
+goes through the whole length of it a spacious walk of the finest
+gravel, made to bind and unite so firmly, that it seems one
+continued stone; with this advantage, that it is easier to the
+foot, and better for walking, than if it were what it seems to be.
+At each end of the walk, on the one and on the other side of it,
+lies a square plot of grass of the finest turf and brightest
+verdure. What ground remains on both sides, between these little
+smooth fields of green, is flagged with large quarries of white
+marble, where the blue veins trace out such a variety of irregular
+windings through the clear surface, that these bright plains seem
+full of rivulets and streaming meanders. This to my eye, that
+delights in simplicity, is inexpressibly more beautiful than the
+chequered floors which are so generally admired by others. Upon the
+right and upon the left, along the gravel walk, I have ranged
+interchangeably the bay, the myrtle, the orange and the lemon
+trees, intermixed with painted hollies, silver firs, and pyramids
+of yew; all so disposed, that every tree receives an additional
+beauty from its situation; besides the harmony that rises from the
+disposition of the whole, no shade cuts too strongly, or breaks in
+harshly upon the other; but the eye is cheered with a mild rather
+than gorgeous diversity of greens.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"The borders of the four grass plots are garnished with pots of
+flowers: those delicacies of Nature create two senses at once, and
+leave such delightful and gentle impressions upon the brain, that I
+cannot help thinking them of equal force with the softest airs of
+music, toward the smoothing of our tempers. In the centre of every
+plot is a statue. The figures I have made choice of are a Venus, an
+Adonis, a Diana, and an Apollo; such excellent copies, as to raise
+the same delight as we should draw from the sight of the ancient
+originals.</p>
+
+<p>"The north wall would have been but a tiresome waste to the eye, if
+I had not diversified it with the most lively ornaments, suitable
+to the place. To this intent, I have been at the expense to lead
+over arches from a neighbouring hill a plentiful store of spring
+water, which a beautiful Naiad, placed as high as is possible in
+the centre of the wall, pours out from an urn. This, by a fall of
+above twenty foot, makes a most delightful cascade into a basin,
+that opens wide within the marble floor on that side. At a
+reasonable distance, on either hand of the cascade, the wall is
+hollowed into two spreading scallops, each of which receives a
+couch of green velvet, and forms at the same time a canopy over
+them. Next to them come two large aviaries, which are likewise let
+into the stone. These are succeeded by two grottoes, set off with
+all the pleasing rudeness of shells and moss, and cragged stones,
+imitating in miniature rocks and precipices, the most dreadful and
+gigantic works of Nature. After the grottoes, you have two niches,
+the one inhabited by Ceres, with her sickle and sheaf of wheat; and
+the other by Pomona, who, with a countenance full of good cheer,
+pours a bounteous autumn of fruits out of her horn. Last of all
+come two colonies of bees, whose stations lying east and west, the
+one is saluted by the rising, the other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span> by the setting sun. These,
+all of them being placed at proportioned intervals, furnish out the
+whole length of the wall; and the spaces that lie between are
+painted in fresco, by the same hand that has enriched my ceiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, sir, you see my whole contrivance to elude the rigour of the
+year, to bring a northern climate nearer the sun, and to exempt
+myself from the common fate of my countrymen. I must detain you a
+little longer, to tell you, that I never enter this delicious
+retirement, but my spirits are revived, and a sweet complacency
+diffuses itself over my whole mind. And how can it be otherwise,
+with a conscience void of offence, where the music of falling
+waters, the symphony of birds, the gentle humming of bees, the
+breath of flowers, the fine imagery of painting and sculpture: in a
+word, the beauties and the charms of nature and of art court all my
+faculties, refresh the fibres of the brain and smooth every avenue
+of thought. What pleasing meditations, what agreeable wanderings of
+the mind, and what delicious slumbers, have I enjoyed here! And
+when I turn up some masterly writer to my imagination, methinks
+here his beauties appear in the most advantageous light, and the
+rays of his genius shoot upon me with greater force and brightness
+than ordinary. This place likewise keeps the whole family in good
+humour, in a season wherein gloominess of temper prevails
+universally in this island. My wife does often touch her lute in
+one of the grottoes, and my daughter sings to it, while the ladies
+with you, amidst all the diversions of the town, and in the most
+affluent fortunes, are fretting and repining beneath a lowering sky
+for they know not what. In this greenhouse we often dine, we drink
+tea, we dance country dances; and what is the chief pleasure of
+all, we entertain our neighbours in it, and by this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span> means
+contribute very much to mend the climate five or six miles about
+us. I am,</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+<span class="sig2">"Your most humble Servant,</span> <br />
+"T. S."<a name="FNanchor_296_296" id="FNanchor_296_296"></a><a href="#Footnote_296_296" class="fnanchor">[296]</a><br />
+</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_294_294" id="Footnote_294_294"></a><a href="#FNanchor_294_294"><span class="label">[294]</span></a> The correct reading is, "O, qui me gellidis in vallibus,"
+&amp;c.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_295_295" id="Footnote_295_295"></a><a href="#FNanchor_295_295"><span class="label">[295]</span></a> "Epist." ii. 17.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_296_296" id="Footnote_296_296"></a><a href="#FNanchor_296_296"><span class="label">[296]</span></a> Thomas Smith, who voted against Steele's expulsion, was
+member for the borough of Eye, and may have been the person who wrote
+this letter, to which the initials of his name are subscribed. In the
+preface to the <i>Examiner</i>, the first number of which was published Aug.
+3, 1710, there is the following passage: "All descriptions of
+stage-players and statesmen, the erecting of greenhouses, the forming of
+constellations, the beaus' red heels, and the furbelows of the ladies,
+shall remain entire to the use and benefit of their first proprietor."
+</p><p>
+The description of stage-players and statesmen, here mentioned, is an
+allusion to Downes' letter. See No. <a href="#No_193">193</a>.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<a name="No_180" id="No_180"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 180.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Steele.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Thursday, June 1</i>, to <i>Saturday, June 3, 1710</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Stultitiam patiuntur opes.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Hor.</span>, 1 Ep. xviii. 29.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>From my own Apartment, June 2.</i></p>
+
+<p>I have received a letter which accuses me of partiality in the
+administration of the Censorship, and says, that I have been very free
+with the lower part of mankind, but extremely cautious in
+representations of matters which concern men of condition. This
+correspondent takes upon him also to say, the upholsterer was not undone
+by turning politician, but became bankrupt by trusting his goods to
+persons of quality; and demands of me, that I should do justice upon
+such as brought poverty and distress upon the world below them, while
+they themselves were sunk in pleasures and luxury, supported at the
+expense of those very persons whom they treated with a negligence, as
+if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span> they did not know whether they dealt with them or not. This is a
+very heavy accusation, both of me and such as the man aggrieved accuses
+me of tolerating. For this reason, I resolved to take this matter into
+consideration, and upon very little meditation could call to my memory
+many instances which made this complaint far from being groundless. The
+root of this evil does not always proceed from injustice in the men of
+figure, but often from a false grandeur which they take upon them in
+being unacquainted with their own business, not considering how mean a
+part they act when their names and characters are subjected to the
+little arts of their servants and dependants. The overseers of the poor
+are a people who have no great reputation for the discharge of their
+trust, but are much less scandalous than the overseers of the rich. Ask
+a young fellow of a great estate, who was that odd fellow spoke to him
+in a public place? He answers, "One that does my business." It is, with
+many, a natural consequence of being a man of fortune, that they are not
+to understand the disposal of it; and they long to come to their
+estates, only to put themselves under new guardianship. Nay, I have
+known a young fellow who was regularly bred an attorney, and was a very
+expert one till he had an estate fallen to him. The moment that
+happened, he who could before prove the next land he cast his eye upon
+his own, and was so sharp, that a man at first sight would give him a
+small sum for a general receipt, whether he owed him anything or not:
+such a one, I say, have I seen, upon coming to an estate, forget all his
+diffidence of mankind, and become the most manageable thing breathing.
+He immediately wanted a stirring man to take upon him his affairs, to
+receive and pay, and do everything which he himself was now too fine a
+gentleman to understand. It is pleasant to consider, that he who would
+have got an estate had he not come to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span> one, will certainly starve
+because one fell to him: but such contradictions are we to ourselves,
+and any change of life is insupportable to some natures.</p>
+
+<p>It is a mistaken sense of superiority, to believe a figure or equipage
+gives men precedence to their neighbours. Nothing can create respect
+from mankind, but laying obligations upon them; and it may very
+reasonably be concluded, that if it were put into a due balance,
+according to the true state of the account, many who believe themselves
+in possession of a large share of dignity in the world, must give place
+to their inferiors. The greatest of all distinctions in civil life is
+that of debtor and creditor, and there needs no great progress in logic
+to know which, in that case, is the advantageous side. He who can say to
+another, "Pray, master," or "Pray, my lord, give me my own," can as
+justly tell him, "It is a fantastical distinction you take upon you, to
+pretend to pass upon the world for my master or lord, when at the same
+time that I wear your livery, you owe me wages; or, while I wait at your
+door, you are ashamed to see me till you have paid my bill."</p>
+
+<p>The good old way among the gentry of England to maintain their
+pre-eminence over the lower rank, was by their bounty, munificence, and
+hospitality; and it is a very unhappy change, if at present, by
+themselves or their agents, the luxury of the gentry is supported by the
+credit of the trader. This is what my correspondent pretends to prove
+out of his own books, and those of his whole neighbourhood. He has the
+confidence to say, that there is a mug-house near Long Acre, where you
+may every evening hear an exact account of distresses of this kind. One
+complains, that such a lady's finery is the occasion that his own wife
+and daughter appear so long in the same gown: another, that all the
+furniture of her visiting apartment are no more hers, than the scenery
+of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span> play are the proper goods of the actress. Nay, at the lower end of
+the same table, you may hear a butcher and poulterer say, that at their
+proper charge all that family has been maintained since they last came
+to town.</p>
+
+<p>The free manner in which people of fashion are discoursed on at such
+meetings, is but a just reproach for their failures in this kind; but
+the melancholy relations of the great necessities tradesmen are driven
+to, who support their credit in spite of the faithless promises which
+are made them, and the abatement which they suffer when paid, by the
+extortion of upper servants, is what would stop the most thoughtless man
+in the career of his pleasures, if rightly represented to him.</p>
+
+<p>If this matter be not very speedily amended, I shall think fit to print
+exact lists of all persons who are not at their own disposal, though
+above the age of twenty-one; and as the trader is made bankrupt for
+absence from his abode, so shall the gentleman for being at home, if,
+when Mr. Morphew calls, he cannot give him an exact account of what
+passes in his own family. After this fair warning, no one ought to think
+himself hardly dealt with, if I take upon me to pronounce him no longer
+master of his estate, wife, or family, than he continues to improve,
+cherish, and maintain them upon the basis of his own property, without
+incursions upon his neighbour in any of these particulars.</p>
+
+<p>According to that excellent philosopher Epictetus, we are all but acting
+parts in a play; and it is not a distinction in itself to be high or
+low, but to become the parts we are to perform. I am by my office
+prompter on this occasion, and shall give those who are a little out in
+their parts such soft hints as may help them to proceed, without letting
+it be known to the audience they were out: but if they run quite out of
+character, they must be called off the stage, and receive parts more
+suitable to their genius.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span> Servile complaisance shall degrade a man from
+his honour and quality, and haughtiness be yet more debased. Fortune
+shall no longer appropriate distinctions, but Nature direct us in the
+disposition both of respect and discountenance. As there are tempers
+made for command, and others for obedience; so there are men born for
+acquiring possessions, and others incapable of being other than mere
+lodgers in the houses of their ancestors, and have it not in their very
+composition to be proprietors of anything. These men are moved only by
+the mere effects of impulse: their goodwill and disesteem are to be
+regarded equally, for neither is the effect of their judgment. This
+loose temper is that which makes a man, what Sallust so well remarks to
+happen frequently in the same person, to be covetous of what is
+another's, and profuse of what is his own.<a name="FNanchor_297_297" id="FNanchor_297_297"></a><a href="#Footnote_297_297" class="fnanchor">[297]</a> This sort of men is
+usually amiable to ordinary eyes; but in the sight of reason, nothing is
+laudable but what is guided by reason. The covetous prodigal is of all
+others the worst man in society: if he would but take time to look into
+himself, he would find his soul all over gashed with broken vows and
+promises, and his retrospect on his actions would not consist of
+reflections upon those good resolutions after mature thought, which are
+the true life of a reasonable creature, but the nauseous memory of
+imperfect pleasures, idle dreams, and occasional amusements. To follow
+such dissatisfying pursuits, is it possible to suffer the ignominy of
+being unjust? I remember in Tully's Epistle, in the recommendation of a
+man to an affair which had no manner of relation to money, it is said,
+"You may trust him, for he is a frugal man." It is certain, he who has
+not a regard to strict justice in the commerce of life, can be capable
+of no good action in any other kind; but he who lives below his income,
+lays up every moment of life armour against a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span> base world, that will
+cover all his frailties while he is so fortified, and exaggerate them
+when he is naked and defenceless.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center">ADVERTISEMENT.</p>
+
+<p>A stage-coach sets out exactly at six from Nando's Coffee-house<a name="FNanchor_298_298" id="FNanchor_298_298"></a><a href="#Footnote_298_298" class="fnanchor">[298]</a> to
+Mr. Tiptoe's dancing school, and returns at eleven every evening, for
+16<i>d.</i></p>
+
+<p>N.B. Dancing-shoes not exceeding four inches height in the heel, and
+periwigs not exceeding three feet in length, are carried in the
+coach-box gratis.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_297_297" id="Footnote_297_297"></a><a href="#FNanchor_297_297"><span class="label">[297]</span></a> "Alieni appetens, sui profusus" ("Bell. Cat." cap. i.).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_298_298" id="Footnote_298_298"></a><a href="#FNanchor_298_298"><span class="label">[298]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="#No_142">142</a>.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<a name="No_181" id="No_181"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 181.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Steele.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Saturday, June 3</i>, to <i>Tuesday, June 6, 1710</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&mdash;&mdash;Dies, ni fallor, adest, quem semper acerbum,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Semper honoratum (sic di voluistis), habebo.<br /></span>
+<span class="i26"><span class="smcap">Virg.</span>, &AElig;n. v. 49.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>From my own Apartment, June 5.</i></p>
+
+<p>There are those among mankind, who can enjoy no relish of their being,
+except the world is made acquainted with all that relates to them, and
+think everything lost that passes unobserved; but others find a solid
+delight in stealing by the crowd, and modelling their life after such a
+manner, as is as much above the approbation as the practice of the
+vulgar. Life being too short to give instances great enough of true
+friendship or goodwill, some sages have thought it pious to preserve a
+certain reverence for the manes of their deceased friends, and have
+withdrawn themselves from the rest of the world at certain seasons, to
+commemorate in their own thoughts such of their acquaintance who have
+gone before them out of this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span> life: and indeed, when we are advanced in
+years, there is not a more pleasing entertainment, than to recollect in
+a gloomy moment the many we have parted with that have been dear and
+agreeable to us, and to cast a melancholy thought or two after those
+with whom, perhaps, we have indulged ourselves in whole nights of mirth
+and jollity. With such inclinations in my heart I went to my closet
+yesterday in the evening, and resolved to be sorrowful; upon which
+occasion, I could not but look with disdain upon myself, that though all
+the reasons which I had to lament the loss of many of my friends are now
+as forcible as at the moment of their departure, yet did not my heart
+swell with the same sorrow which I felt at that time; but I could,
+without tears, reflect upon many pleasing adventures I have had with
+some who have long been blended with common earth. Though it is by the
+benefit of nature that length of time thus blots out the violence of
+afflictions; yet with tempers too much given to pleasure, it is almost
+necessary to revive the old places of grief in our memory, and ponder
+step by step on past life, to lead the mind into that sobriety of
+thought which poises the heart, and makes it beat with due time, without
+being quickened with desire, or retarded with despair, from its proper
+and equal motion. When we wind up a clock that is out of order, to make
+it go well for the future, we do not immediately set the hand to the
+present instant, but we make it strike the round of all its hours,
+before it can recover the regularity of its time. "Such," thought I,
+"shall be my method this evening; and since it is that day of the year
+which I dedicate to the memory of such in another life as I much
+delighted in when living, an hour or two shall be sacred to sorrow and
+their memory, while I run over all the melancholy circumstances of this
+kind which have occurred to me in my whole life."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The first sense of sorrow I ever knew was upon the death of my
+father,<a name="FNanchor_299_299" id="FNanchor_299_299"></a><a href="#Footnote_299_299" class="fnanchor">[299]</a> at which time I was not quite five years of age; but was
+rather amazed at what all the house meant, than possessed with a real
+understanding why nobody was willing to play with me. I remember I went
+into the room where his body lay, and my mother sat weeping alone by it.
+I had my battledore in my hand, and fell a beating the coffin, and
+calling "Papa"; for I know not how I had some slight idea that he was
+locked up there. My mother catched me in her arms, and transported
+beyond all patience of the silent grief she was before in, she almost
+smothered me in her embrace, and told me in a flood of tears, papa could
+not hear me, and would play with me no more, for they were going to put
+him under ground, whence he could never come to us again. She was a very
+beautiful woman, of a noble spirit, and there was a dignity in her grief
+amidst all the wildness of her transport, which, methought, struck me
+with an instinct of sorrow, which, before I was sensible of what it was
+to grieve, seized my very soul, and has made pity the weakness of my
+heart ever since. The mind in infancy is, methinks, like the body in
+embryo, and receives impressions so forcible, that they are as hard to
+be removed by reason, as any mark with which a child is born is to be
+taken away by any future application. Hence it is, that good nature in
+me is no merit; but having been so frequently overwhelmed with her tears
+before I knew the cause of any affliction, or could draw defences from
+my own judgment, I imbibed commiseration, remorse, and an unmanly
+gentleness of mind, which has since ensnared me into ten thousand
+calamities, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span> from whence I can reap no advantage, except it be, that
+in such a humour as I am now in, I can the better indulge myself in the
+softnesses of humanity, and enjoy that sweet anxiety which arises from
+the memory of past afflictions.<a name="FNanchor_300_300" id="FNanchor_300_300"></a><a href="#Footnote_300_300" class="fnanchor">[300]</a></p>
+
+<p>We that are very old, are better able to remember things which befell us
+in our distant youth, than the passages of later days. For this reason
+it is, that the companions of my strong and vigorous years present
+themselves more immediately to me in this office of sorrow. Untimely or
+unhappy deaths are what we are most apt to lament, so little are we able
+to make it indifferent when a thing happens, though we know it must
+happen. Thus we groan under life, and bewail those who are relieved from
+it. Every object that returns to our imagination raises different
+passions according to the circumstance of their departure. Who can have
+lived in an army, and in a serious hour reflect upon the many gay and
+agreeable men that might long have flourished in the arts of peace, and
+not join with the imprecations of the fatherless and widow on the tyrant
+to whose ambition they fell sacrifices? But gallant men, who are cut off
+by the sword, move rather our veneration than our pity, and we gather
+relief enough from their own<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span> contempt of death, to make it no evil,
+which was approached with so much cheerfulness, and attended with so
+much honour. But when we turn our thoughts from the great parts of life
+on such occasions, and instead of lamenting those who stood ready to
+give death to those from whom they had the fortune to receive it; I say,
+when we let our thoughts wander from such noble objects, and consider
+the havoc which is made among the tender and the innocent, pity enters
+with an unmixed softness, and possesses all our souls at once.</p>
+
+<p>Here (were there words to express such sentiments with proper
+tenderness) I should record the beauty, innocence, and untimely death,
+of the first object my eyes ever beheld with love. The beauteous virgin!
+How ignorantly did she charm, how carelessly excel! O Death! thou hast
+right to the bold, to the ambitious, to the high, and to the haughty,
+but why this cruelty to the humble, to the meek, to the undiscerning, to
+the thoughtless?<a name="FNanchor_301_301" id="FNanchor_301_301"></a><a href="#Footnote_301_301" class="fnanchor">[301]</a> Nor age, nor business, nor distress, can erase the
+dear image from my imagination. In the same week, I saw her dressed for
+a ball, and in a shroud. How ill did the habit of Death become the
+pretty trifler? I still behold the smiling earth&mdash;A large train of
+disasters were coming on to my memory, when my servant knocked at my
+closet door, and interrupted me with a letter, attended with a hamper of
+wine, of the same sort with that which is to be put to sale on Thursday
+next at Garraway's Coffee-house.<a name="FNanchor_302_302" id="FNanchor_302_302"></a><a href="#Footnote_302_302" class="fnanchor">[302]</a> Upon the receipt of it, I sent for
+three of my friends. We are so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span> intimate, that we can be company in
+whatever state of mind we meet, and can entertain each other without
+expecting always to rejoice. The wine we found to be generous and
+warming, but with such a heat as moved us rather to be cheerful than
+frolicsome. It revived the spirits without firing the blood. We
+commended it till two of the clock this morning, and having to-day met a
+little before dinner, we found, that though we drank two bottles a man,
+we had much more reason to recollect than forget what had passed the
+night before.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_299_299" id="Footnote_299_299"></a><a href="#FNanchor_299_299"><span class="label">[299]</span></a> Steele's father, Richard Steele, was a Dublin solicitor.
+His mother, whose maiden name was Elinor Sheyles, had married Thomas
+Symes, of Dublin, as her first husband.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_300_300" id="Footnote_300_300"></a><a href="#FNanchor_300_300"><span class="label">[300]</span></a> Thackeray has compared the treatment of Death by Swift,
+Addison, and Steele. After speaking of Addison's "lovely serenity" and
+Swift's "savage indignation," he turns to Steele: "The third, whose
+theme is Death, too, and who will speak his word of mortal as Heaven
+teaches him, leads you up to his father's coffin, and shows you his
+beautiful mother weeping, and himself an unconscious little boy
+wondering at her side. His own natural tears flow as he takes your hand,
+and confidingly asks for your sympathy; 'See how good and innocent and
+beautiful women are,' he says, 'how tender little children! Let us love
+these and one another, brother&mdash;God knows we have need of love and
+pardon!'" ("English Humourists," 1864, 158-9).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_301_301" id="Footnote_301_301"></a><a href="#FNanchor_301_301"><span class="label">[301]</span></a> The unsuspecting.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_302_302" id="Footnote_302_302"></a><a href="#FNanchor_302_302"><span class="label">[302]</span></a> "Notice is hereby given, that 46 hogsheads and one half
+of extraordinary French claret will be put up to sale, at &pound;20 per
+hogshead, at Garraway's Coffee-house in Exchange Alley, on Thursday the
+8th instant, at three in the afternoon, and to be tasted in a vault
+under Messrs. Lane and Harrison's, in Sweething's Lane, Lombard Street,
+from this day till the time of sale," &amp;c. (No. 181, Advertisement).</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<a name="No_182" id="No_182"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 182.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Steele.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Tuesday, June 6</i>, to <i>Thursday, June 8, 1710</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Spectaret populum ludis attentius ipsis.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Hor.</span>, 2 Ep. i. 197.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>Sheer Lane, June 7.</i></p>
+
+<p>The town grows so very empty, that the greater number of my gay
+characters are fled out of my sight into the country. My beaus are now
+shepherds, and my belles wood-nymphs. They are lolling over rivulets,
+and covered with shades, while we who remain in town hurry through the
+dust about impertinences, without knowing the happiness of leisure and
+retirement. To add to this calamity, even the actors are going to desert
+us for a season, and we shall not shortly have so much as a landscape or
+frost-scene to refresh ourselves within the midst of our fatigues. This
+may not perhaps be so sensible a loss to any other as to me; for I
+confess it is one of my greatest delights to sit unobserved and unknown
+in the gallery, and entertain myself either with what is personated on
+the stage, or observe what appearances present themselves in the
+audience. If there were no other good con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span>sequences in a playhouse, than
+that so many persons of different ranks and conditions are placed there
+in their most pleasing aspects, that prospect only would be very far
+from being below the pleasures of a wise man. There is not one person
+you can see, in whom, if you look with an inclination to be pleased, you
+may not behold something worthy or agreeable. Our thoughts are in our
+features; and the visage of those in whom love, rage, anger, jealousy or
+envy, have their frequent mansions, carries the traces of those passions
+wherever the amorous, the choleric, the jealous, or the envious, are
+pleased to make their appearance. However, the assembly at a play is
+usually made up of such as have a sense of some elegance in pleasure, by
+which means the audience is generally composed of those who have gentle
+affections, or at least of such as at that time are in the best humour
+you can ever find them. This has insensibly a good effect upon our
+spirits; and the musical airs which are played to us, put the whole
+company into a participation of the same pleasure, and by consequence
+for that time equal in humour, in fortune, and in quality. Thus far we
+gain only by coming into an audience; but if we find added to this, the
+beauties of proper action, the force of eloquence, and the gaiety of
+well-placed lights and scenes, it is being happy, and seeing others
+happy for two hours; a duration of bliss not at all to be slighted by so
+short-lived a creature as man. Why then should not the duty of the
+player be had in much more esteem than it is at present? If the merit of
+a performance be to be valued according to the talents which are
+necessary to it, the qualifications of a player should raise him much
+above the arts and ways of life which we call mercenary or mechanic.
+When we look round a full house, and behold so few that can (though they
+set themselves out to show as much as the persons on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span> the stage do) come
+up to what they would appear even in dumb show, how much does the actor
+deserve our approbation, who adds to the advantage of looks and motions
+the tone of voice, the dignity, the humility, the sorrow, the triumph
+suitable to the character he personates?</p>
+
+<p>It may possibly be imagined by severe men, that I am too frequent in the
+mention of the theatrical representations; but who is not excessive in
+the discourse of what he extremely likes? Eugenio can lead you to a
+gallery of fine pictures, which collection he is always increasing:
+Crassus through woods and forests, to which he designs to add the
+neighbouring counties. These are great and noble instances of their
+magnificence. The players are my pictures, and their scenes my
+territories. By communicating the pleasure I take in them, it may in
+some measure add to men's gratifications this way, as viewing the choice
+and wealth of Eugenio and Crassus augments the enjoyments of those whom
+they entertain, with a prospect of such possessions as would not
+otherwise fall within the reach of their fortunes.</p>
+
+<p>It is a very good office one man does another, when he tells him the
+manner of his being pleased; and I have often thought, that a comment
+upon the capacities of the players would very much improve the delight
+that way, and impart it to those who otherwise have no sense of it.</p>
+
+<p>The first of the present stage are Wilks,<a name="FNanchor_303_303" id="FNanchor_303_303"></a><a href="#Footnote_303_303" class="fnanchor">[303]</a> and Cibber,<a name="FNanchor_304_304" id="FNanchor_304_304"></a><a href="#Footnote_304_304" class="fnanchor">[304]</a> perfect
+actors in their different kinds. Wilks has a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span> singular talent in
+representing the graces of Nature, Cibber the deformity in the
+affectation of them. Were I a writer of plays, I should never employ
+either of them in parts which had not their bent this way. This is seen
+in the inimitable strain and run of good humour which is kept up in the
+character of Wildair,<a name="FNanchor_305_305" id="FNanchor_305_305"></a><a href="#Footnote_305_305" class="fnanchor">[305]</a> and in the nice and delicate abuse of
+understanding in that of Sir Novelty.<a name="FNanchor_306_306" id="FNanchor_306_306"></a><a href="#Footnote_306_306" class="fnanchor">[306]</a> Cibber, in another light,
+hits exquisitely the flat civility of an affected gentleman-usher, and
+Wilks the easy frankness of a gentleman.</p>
+
+<p>If you would observe the force of the same capacities in higher life,
+can anything be more ingenuous than the behaviour of Prince Harry when
+his father checks him? Anything more exasperating, than that of Richard,
+when he insults his superiors? To beseech gracefully, to approach
+respectfully, to pity, to mourn, to love, are the places wherein Wilks
+may be made to shine with the utmost beauty: to rally pleasantly, to
+scorn artfully, to flatter, to ridicule, and to neglect, are what Cibber
+would perform with no less excellence.</p>
+
+<p>When actors are considered with a view to their talents, it is not only
+the pleasure of that hour of action which the spectators gain from their
+performance, but the opposition of right and wrong on the stage would
+have its force in the assistance of our judgments on other occasions. I
+have at present under my tutelage a young poet, who, I design, shall
+entertain the town the ensuing winter. And as he does me the honour to
+let me see his comedy as he writes it, I shall endeavour to make the
+parts fit the genius of the several actors, as exactly as their habits
+can their bodies: and because the two I have mentioned are to perform
+the principal parts, I have prevailed with the house to let "The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span>
+Careless Husband"<a name="FNanchor_307_307" id="FNanchor_307_307"></a><a href="#Footnote_307_307" class="fnanchor">[307]</a> be acted on Tuesday next, that my young author
+may have a view of a play which is acted to perfection, both by them and
+all concerned in it, as being born within the walls of the theatre, and
+written with an exact knowledge of the abilities of the performers. Mr.
+Wilks will do his best in this play, because it is for his own benefit;
+and Mr. Cibber, because he writ it. Besides which, all the great
+beauties we have left in town, or within call of it, will be present,
+because it is the last play this season. This opportunity will, I hope,
+inflame my pupil with such generous notions from seeing this fair
+assembly as will be then present, that his play may be composed of
+sentiments and characters proper to be presented to such an audience.
+His drama at present has only the outlines drawn. There are, I find, to
+be in it all the reverent offices of life, such as regard to parents,
+husbands, and honourable lovers, preserved with the utmost care; and at
+the same time that agreeableness of behaviour, with the intermixture of
+pleasing passions as arise from innocence and virtue, interspersed in
+such a manner, as that to be charming and agreeable shall appear the
+natural consequence of being virtuous. This great end is one of those I
+propose to do in my Censorship; but if I find a thin house, on an
+occasion when such a work is to be promoted, my pupil shall return to
+his commons at Oxford, and Sheer Lane and the theatres be no longer
+correspondents.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_303_303" id="Footnote_303_303"></a><a href="#FNanchor_303_303"><span class="label">[303]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number14">14</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_304_304" id="Footnote_304_304"></a><a href="#FNanchor_304_304"><span class="label">[304]</span></a> Colley Cibber, actor and dramatist, was born in 1671. He
+was admirable alike as an actor of comic parts and a critic of acting,
+and some of his comedies are excellent. In 1714 Cibber became associated
+with Steele in the management of Drury Lane Theatre. After his
+retirement from the stage in 1733 he published his famous "Apology"
+(1740). He died in 1757. Steele wrote several times in his praise in the
+<i>Spectator</i> (Nos. 370, 546).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_305_305" id="Footnote_305_305"></a><a href="#FNanchor_305_305"><span class="label">[305]</span></a> Sir Harry Wildair, in Farquhar's "Constant Couple."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_306_306" id="Footnote_306_306"></a><a href="#FNanchor_306_306"><span class="label">[306]</span></a> Sir Novelty Fashion, in Cibber's "Love's Last Shift."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_307_307" id="Footnote_307_307"></a><a href="#FNanchor_307_307"><span class="label">[307]</span></a> In this play, produced in 1705, Wilks was Sir Charles
+Easy; Cibber, Lord Foppington; and Mrs. Oldfield, Lady Betty Modish. In
+his "Apology" Cibber said that it was only just to place to the account
+of Mrs. Oldfield a large share of the favourable reception accorded to
+"The Careless Husband."</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span>
+<a name="No_183" id="No_183"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 183.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Steele.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Thursday, June 8</i>, to <i>Saturday, June 10, 1710</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&mdash;&mdash;Fuit h&aelig;c sapientia quondam,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Publica privatis secernere.<br /></span>
+<span class="i20"><span class="smcap">Hor.</span>, Ars Poet. 396.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>From my own Apartment, June 9.</i></p>
+
+<p>When men look into their own bosoms, and consider the generous seeds
+which are there planted, that might, if rightly cultivated, ennoble
+their lives, and make their virtue venerable to futurity; how can they,
+without tears, reflect on the universal degeneracy from that public
+spirit, which ought to be the first and principal motive of all their
+actions? In the Grecian and Roman nations, they were wise enough to keep
+up this great incentive, and it was impossible to be in the fashion
+without being a patriot. All gallantry had its first source from hence;
+and to want a warmth for the public welfare was a defect so scandalous,
+that he who was guilty of it had no pretence to honour or manhood. What
+makes the depravity among us in this behalf the more vexatious and
+irksome to reflect upon, is, that the contempt of life is carried as far
+amongst us as it could be in those memorable people; and we want only a
+proper application of the qualities which are frequent among us to be as
+worthy as they. There is hardly a man to be found who will not fight
+upon any occasion which he thinks may taint his own honour. Were this
+motive as strong in everything that regards the public, as it is in this
+our private case, no man would pass his life away without having
+distinguished himself by some gallant instance of his zeal towards it in
+the respective incidents of his life and profession. But it is so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span> far
+otherwise, that there cannot at present be a more ridiculous animal than
+one who seems to regard the good of others. He in civil life whose
+thoughts turn upon schemes which may be of general benefit, without
+further reflection, is called a "projector"; and the man whose mind
+seems intent upon glorious achievements, a "knight-errant." The ridicule
+among us runs strong against laudable actions. Nay, in the ordinary
+course of things, and the common regards of life, negligence of the
+public is an epidemic vice. The brewer in his excise, the merchant in
+his customs, and for aught we know the soldier in his muster-rolls,
+think never the worse of themselves for being guilty of their respective
+frauds towards the public. This evil is come to such a fantastical
+height, that he is a man of a public spirit, and heroically affected to
+his country, who can go so far as even to turn usurer with all he has in
+her funds. There is not a citizen in whose imagination such a one does
+not appear in the same light of glory as Codrus, Sc&aelig;vola, or any other
+great name in old Rome. Were it not for the heroes of so much per cent.
+as have regard enough for themselves and their nation to trade with her
+with their wealth, the very notion of public love would long ere now
+have vanished from among us. But however general custom may hurry us
+away in the stream of a common error, there is no evil, no crime, so
+great as that of being cold in matters which relate to the common good.
+This is in nothing more conspicuous than in a certain willingness to
+receive anything that tends to the diminution of such as have been
+conspicuous instruments in our service. Such inclinations proceed from
+the most low and vile corruption of which the soul of man is capable.
+This effaces not only the practice, but the very approbation of honour
+and virtue; and has had such an effect that, to speak freely, the very
+sense of public good has no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span> longer a part even in our conversations.
+Can then the most generous motive of life, the good of others, be so
+easily banished from the breast of man? Is it possible to draw all our
+passions inward? Shall the boiling heat of youth be sunk in pleasures,
+the ambition of manhood in selfish intrigues? Shall all that is
+glorious, all that is worth the pursuit of great minds, be so easily
+rooted out? When the universal bent of a people seems diverted from the
+sense of their common good and common glory, it looks like a fatality,
+and crisis of impending misfortune.</p>
+
+<p>The generous nations we just now mentioned understood this so very well,
+that there was hardly an oration ever made which did not turn upon this
+general sense, that the love of their country was the first and most
+essential quality in an honest mind. Demosthenes, in a cause wherein his
+fame, reputation, and fortune were embarked, puts his all upon this
+issue: "Let the Athenians," says he, "be benevolent to me, as they think
+I have been zealous for them." This great and discerning orator knew
+there was nothing else in nature could bear him up against his
+adversaries, but this one quality of having shown himself willing or
+able to serve his country. This certainly is the test of merit; and the
+first foundation for deserving goodwill, is having it yourself. The
+adversary of this orator at that time was &AElig;schines, a man of wily arts
+and skill in the world, who could, as occasion served, fall in with a
+national start of passion, or sullenness of humour (which a whole nation
+is sometimes taken with as well as a private man), and by that means
+divert them from their common sense, into an aversion for receiving
+anything in its true light. But when Demosthenes had awaked his audience
+with that one hint of judging by the general tenor of his life towards
+them, his services bore down his opponent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span> before him, who fled to the
+covert of his mean arts till some more favourable occasion should offer,
+against the superior merit of Demosthenes.</p>
+
+<p>It were to be wished, that love of their country were the first
+principle of action in men of business, even for their own sakes; for
+when the world begins to examine into their conduct, the generality, who
+have no share in, or hopes of any part in power or riches, but what is
+the effect of their own labour or property, will judge of them by no
+other method, than that of how profitable their administration has been
+to the whole. They who are out of the influence of men's fortune or
+favour, will let them stand or fall by this one only rule; and men who
+can bear being tried by it, are always popular in their fall: those who
+cannot suffer such a scrutiny, are contemptible in their advancement.</p>
+
+<p>But I am here running into shreds of maxims from reading Tacitus this
+morning, which has driven me from my recommendation of public spirit,
+which was the intended purpose of this Lucubration. There is not a more
+glorious instance of it, than in the character of Regulus. This same
+Regulus was taken prisoner by the Carthagenians, and was sent by them to
+Rome, in order to demand some Punic noblemen who were prisoners in
+exchange for himself, and was bound by an oath that he would return to
+Carthage if he failed in his commission. He proposes this to the Senate,
+who were in suspense upon it; which Regulus observing (without having
+the least notion of putting the care of his own life in competition with
+the public good), desired them to consider that he was old, and almost
+useless; that those demanded in exchange were men of daring tempers, and
+great merit in military affairs, and wondered they would make any doubt
+of permitting him to go back to the short tortures prepared for him at
+Car<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span>thage, where he should have the advantage of ending a long life both
+gloriously and usefully. This generous advice was consented to, and he
+took his leave of his country and his weeping friends to go to certain
+death, with that cheerful composure, as a man, after the fatigue of
+business in a Court or a city, retires to the next village for the air.</p>
+
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<a name="No_184" id="No_184"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 184.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Steele.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Saturday, June 10</i>, to <i>Tuesday, June 13, 1710</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Una de multis face nuptiali<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Digna.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Hor.</span>, 3 Od. xi. 33.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>From my own Apartment, June 12.</i></p>
+
+<p>There are certain occasions of life which give propitious omens of the
+future good conduct of it, as well as others which explain our present
+inward state, according to our behaviour in them. Of the latter sort are
+funerals; of the former, weddings. The manner of our carriage when we
+lose a friend, shows very much our temper, in the humility of our words
+and actions, and a general sense of our destitute condition, which runs
+through all our deportment. This gives a solemn testimony of the
+generous affection we bore our friends, when we seem to disrelish
+everything now we can no more enjoy them, or see them partake in our
+enjoyments. It is very proper and human to put ourselves as it were in
+their livery after their decease, and wear a habit unsuitable to
+prosperity, while those we loved and honoured are mouldering in the
+grave. As this is laudable on the sorrowful side; so on the other,
+incidents of success may no less justly be represented and acknowledged
+in our outward figure and carriage. Of all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span> such occasions, that great
+change of a single life into marriage is the most important, as it is
+the source of all relations, and from whence all other friendship and
+commerce do principally arise. The general intent of both sexes is to
+dispose of themselves happily and honourably in this state; and as all
+the good qualities we have are exerted to make our way into it, so the
+best appearance, with regard to their minds, their persons, and their
+fortunes, at the first entrance into it, is a due to each other in the
+married pair, as well as a compliment to the rest of the world. It was
+an instruction of a wise lawgiver, that unmarried women should wear such
+loose habits which, in the flowing of their garb, should incite their
+beholders to a desire of their persons; and that the ordinary motion of
+their bodies might display the figure and shape of their limbs in such a
+manner, as at once to preserve the strictest decency, and raise the
+warmest inclinations.</p>
+
+<p>This was the economy of the legislator for the increase of people, and
+at the same time for the preservation of the genial bed. She who was the
+admiration of all who beheld her while unmarried, was to bid adieu to
+the pleasure of shining in the eyes of many, as soon as she took upon
+her the wedded condition. However, there was a festival of life allowed
+the new-married, a sort of intermediate state between celibacy and
+matrimony, which continued certain days. During that time,
+entertainments, equipages, and other circumstances of rejoicing, were
+encouraged, and they were permitted to exceed the common mode of living,
+that the bride and bridegroom might learn from such freedoms of
+conversation to run into a general conduct to each other, made out of
+their past and future state, so to temper the cares of the man and the
+wife with the gaieties of the lover and the mistress.</p>
+
+<p>In those wise ages the dignity of life was kept up, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span> on the
+celebration of such solemnities there were no impertinent whispers and
+senseless interpretations put upon the unaffected cheerfulness or
+accidental seriousness of the bride; but men turned their thoughts upon
+the general reflections, upon what issue might probably be expected from
+such a couple in the succeeding course of their life, and felicitated
+them accordingly upon such prospects.</p>
+
+<p>I must confess, I cannot from any ancient manuscripts, sculptures, or
+medals, deduce the rise of our celebrated custom of throwing the
+stocking; but have a faint memory of an account a friend gave me of an
+original picture in the palace of Aldobrandini in Rome. This seems to
+show a sense of this affair very different from what is usual among us.
+It is a Grecian wedding, and the figures represented are, a person
+offering sacrifice, a beautiful damsel dancing, and another playing on
+the harp. The bride is placed in her bed, the bridegroom sits at the
+foot of it, with an aspect which intimates his thoughts were not only
+entertained with the joys with which he was surrounded, but also with a
+noble gratitude, and divine pleasure in the offering, which was then
+made to the gods to invoke their influence on his new condition. There
+appears in the face of the woman a mixture of fear, hope, and modesty;
+in the bridegroom, a well-governed rapture. As you see in great spirits
+grief which discovers itself the more by forbearing tears and
+complaints, you may observe also the highest joy is too big for
+utterance, the tongue being of all the organs the least capable of
+expressing such a circumstance. The nuptial torch, the bower, the
+marriage song, are all particulars which we meet with in the allusions
+of the ancient writers; and in every one of them something is to be
+observed which denotes their industry to aggrandise and adorn this
+occasion above all others.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>With us all order and decency in this point is perverted by the insipid
+mirth of certain animals we usually call "wags." These are a species of
+all men the most insupportable. One cannot without some reflection say,
+whether their flat mirth provokes us more to pity or to scorn; but if
+one considers with how great affectation they utter their frigid
+conceits, commiseration immediately changes itself into contempt.</p>
+
+<p>A wag is the last order even of pretenders to wit and good humour. He
+has generally his mind prepared to receive some occasion of merriment,
+but is of himself too empty to draw any out of his own set of thoughts,
+and therefore laughs at the next thing he meets, not because it is
+ridiculous, but because he is under a necessity of laughing. A wag is
+one that never in its life saw a beautiful object, but sees what it does
+see in the most low and most inconsiderable light it can be placed.
+There is a certain ability necessary to behold what is amiable and
+worthy of our approbation, which little minds want, and attempt to hide
+by a general disregard to everything they behold above what they are
+able to relish. Hence it is, that a wag in an assembly is ever guessing
+how well such a lady slept last night, and how much such a young fellow
+is pleased with himself. The wag's gaiety consists in a certain
+professed ill-breeding, as if it were an excuse for committing a fault,
+that a man knows he does so. Though all public places are full of
+persons of this order, yet, because I will not allow impertinence and
+affectation to get the better of native innocence and simplicity of
+manners, I have, in spite of such little disturbers of public
+entertainments, persuaded my brother Tranquillus and his wife my sister
+Jenny, in favour of Mr. Wilks, to be at the play to-morrow evening.</p>
+
+<p>They, as they have so much good sense as to act<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span> naturally, without
+regard to the observation of others, will not, I hope, be discomposed if
+any of the fry of wags should take upon them to make themselves merry
+upon the occasion of their coming, as they intend, in their wedding
+clothes. My brother is a plain, worthy, and honest man, and as it is
+natural for men of that turn to be mightily taken with sprightly and
+airy women, my sister has a vivacity which may perhaps give hopes to
+impertinents, but will be esteemed the effect of innocence among wise
+men. They design to sit with me in the box, which the house have been so
+complaisant to offer me whenever I think fit to come thither in my
+public character.<a name="FNanchor_308_308" id="FNanchor_308_308"></a><a href="#Footnote_308_308" class="fnanchor">[308]</a></p>
+
+<p>I do not in the least doubt, but the true figure of conjugal affection
+will appear in their looks and gestures. My sister does not affect to be
+gorgeous in her dress, and thinks the happiness of a wife is more
+visible in a cheerful look than a gay apparel. It is a hard task to
+speak of persons so nearly related to one with decency, but I may say,
+all who shall be at the play will allow him to have the mien of a worthy
+English gentleman; her, that of a notable and deserving wife.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_308_308" id="Footnote_308_308"></a><a href="#FNanchor_308_308"><span class="label">[308]</span></a>
+See Nos. <a href="#No_120">120</a>, <a href="#No_122">122</a>. "I remember Mr. Bickerstaff at the
+playhouse, and with what a modest, decent gravity he behaved himself"
+(<i>Examiner</i>, vol. iii. No. 46). This passage occurs in a notice of
+Addison's "Cato," where it is said that on the first night a crowd of
+silly people "were drawn up under the leading of the renowned Ironside,
+and appointed to clap at his signals.... The <i>Spectator</i> never appeared
+in public with a worse grace."</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span>
+<a name="No_185" id="No_185"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 185.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Steele.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Tuesday, June 13</i>, to <i>Thursday, June 15, 1710</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Notitiam primosque gradus vicinia fecit;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tempore crevit amor, t&aelig;d&aelig; quoque jure coissent;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sed vetuere patres, quod non potuere vetare,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ex &aelig;quo captis ardebant mentibus ambo.<br /></span>
+<span class="i30"><span class="smcap">Ovid</span>, Met. iv. 59.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>From my own Apartment, June 14.</i></p>
+
+<p>As soon as I was up this morning, my man gave me the following letter,
+which, since it leads to a subject that may prove of common use to the
+world, I shall take notice of with as much expedition as my fair
+petitioner could desire:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Mr. Bickerstaff</span>,</p>
+
+<p>"Since you have so often declared yourself a patron of the
+distressed, I must acquaint you, that I am daughter to a country
+gentleman of good sense, and may expect &pound;3000 or &pound;4000 for my
+fortune. I love and am beloved by Philander, a young gentleman who
+has an estate of &pound;500 per annum, and is our near neighbour in the
+country every summer. My father, though he has been a long time
+acquainted with it, constantly refuses to comply with our mutual
+inclinations: but what most of all torments me, is, that if ever I
+speak in commendation of my lover, he is much louder in his praises
+than myself; and professes that it is out of pure love and esteem
+for Philander, as well as his daughter, that he can never consent
+we should marry each other; when (as he terms it) we may both do so
+much better. It must indeed be confessed, that two gentlemen of
+considerable fortunes, made<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span> their addresses to me last winter, and
+Philander (as I have since learned) was offered a young heiress
+with &pound;15,000, but it seems we could neither of us think, that
+accepting those matches would be doing better than remaining
+constant to our first passion. Your thoughts upon the whole may
+perhaps have some weight with my father, who is one of your
+admirers, as is</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+<span class="sig2">"Your humble Servant,</span><br />
+"<span class="smcap">Sylvia.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"P.S. You are desired to be speedy, since my father daily presses
+me to accept of what he calls an 'advantageous offer.'"</p></div>
+
+<p>There is no calamity in life that falls heavier upon human nature than a
+disappointment in love, especially when it happens between two persons
+whose hearts are mutually engaged to each other. It is this distress
+which has given occasion to some of the finest tragedies that were ever
+written, and daily fills the world with melancholy, discontent, frenzy,
+sickness, despair, and death. I have often admired at the barbarity of
+parents, who so frequently interpose their authority in this grand
+article of life. I would fain ask Sylvia's father, whether he thinks he
+can bestow a greater favour on his daughter, than to put her in a way to
+live happily? Whether a man of Philander's character, with &pound;500 per
+annum, is not more likely to contribute to that end, than many a young
+fellow whom he may have in his thoughts with so many thousands? Whether
+he can make amends to his daughter by any increase of riches, for the
+loss of that happiness she proposes to herself in her Philander? Or
+whether a father should compound with his daughter to be miserable,
+though she were to get &pound;20,000 by the bargain? I suppose<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span> he would have
+her reflect with esteem on his memory after his death: and does he think
+this a proper method to make her do so, when, as often as she thinks on
+the loss of her Philander, she must at the same time remember him as the
+cruel cause of it? Any transient ill-humour is soon forgotten; but the
+reflection of such a cruelty must continue to raise resentments as long
+as life itself; and by this one piece of barbarity, an indulgent father
+loses the merit of all his past kindnesses. It is not impossible but she
+may deceive herself in the happiness which she proposes from Philander;
+but as in such a case she can have no one to blame but herself, she will
+bear the disappointment with greater patience; but if she never makes
+the experiment, however happy she may be with another, she will still
+think she might have been happier with Philander. There is a kind of
+sympathy in souls that fits them for each other; and we may be assured,
+when we see two persons engaged in the warmths of a mutual affection,
+that there are certain qualities in both their minds which bear a
+resemblance to one another. A generous and constant passion in an
+agreeable lover, where there is not too great a disparity in other
+circumstances, is the greatest blessing that can befall the person
+beloved; and if overlooked in one, may perhaps never be found in
+another. I shall conclude this with a celebrated instance of a father's
+indulgence in this particular, which, though carried to an extravagance,
+has something in it so tender and amiable, as may justly reproach the
+hardness of temper that is to be met with in many a British father.</p>
+
+<p>Antiochus, a prince of great hopes, fell passionately in love with the
+young Queen Stratonice, who was his mother-in-law, and had bore a son to
+the old King Seleucus his father. The prince finding it impossible to
+extinguish<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span> his passion, fell sick, and refused all manner of
+nourishment, being determined to put an end to that life which was
+become insupportable.</p>
+
+<p>Erasistratus the physician soon found that love was his distemper; and
+observing the alteration in his pulse and countenance whenever
+Stratonice made him a visit, was soon satisfied that he was dying for
+his young mother-in-law. Knowing the old king's tenderness for his son,
+when he one morning inquired of his health, he told him, that the
+prince's distemper was love; but that it was incurable, because it was
+impossible for him to possess the person whom he loved. The king,
+surprised at this account, desired to know how his son's passion could
+be incurable? "Why, sir," replied Erasistratus, "because he is in love
+with the person I am married to."</p>
+
+<p>The old king immediately conjured him by all his past favours to save
+the life of his son and successor. "Sir," said Erasistratus, "would your
+majesty but fancy yourself in my place, you would see the
+unreasonableness of what you desire!" "Heaven is my witness," said
+Seleucus, "I could resign even my Stratonice to save my Antiochus." At
+this the tears ran down his cheeks, which when the physician saw, taking
+him by the hand, "Sir," says he, "if these are your real sentiments, the
+prince's life is out of danger; it is Stratonice for whom he dies."
+Seleucus immediately gave orders for solemnising the marriage; and the
+young queen, to show her obedience, very generously exchanged the father
+for the son.</p>
+
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span>
+<a name="No_186" id="No_186"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 186.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Steele.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Thursday, June 15</i>, to <i>Saturday, June 17, 1710</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Emitur sola virtute potestas.<br /></span>
+<span class="i10"><span class="smcap">Claudian</span>, De Tertio Consulatu Honorii, 188.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>Sheer Lane, June 16.</i></p>
+
+<p>As it has been the endeavour of these our labours to extirpate from
+among the polite or busy part of mankind, all such as are either
+prejudicial or insignificant to society; so it ought to be no less our
+study to supply the havoc we have made by an exact care of the growing
+generation. But when we begin to inculcate proper precepts to the
+children of this island, except we could take them out of their nurses'
+arms, we see an amendment is almost impracticable; for we find the whole
+species of our youth and grown men is incorrigibly prepossessed with
+vanity, pride, or ambition, according to the respective pursuits to
+which they turn themselves: by which means the world is infatuated with
+the love of appearances instead of things. Thus the vain man takes
+praise for honour, the proud man ceremony for respect, the ambitious man
+power for glory. These three characters are, indeed, of very near
+resemblance, but differently received by mankind. Vanity makes men
+ridiculous; pride, odious; and ambition, terrible. The foundation of all
+which is, that they are grounded upon falsehood: for if men, instead of
+studying to appear considerable, were in their own hearts possessors of
+the requisites for esteem, the acceptance they otherwise unfortunately
+aim at would be as inseparable from them, as approbation is from truth
+itself. By this means they would have some rule to walk by; and they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span>
+may ever be assured, that a good cause of action will certainly receive
+a suitable effect. It may be a useful hint in such cases for a man to
+ask of himself, whether he really is what he has a mind to be
+thought?<a name="FNanchor_309_309" id="FNanchor_309_309"></a><a href="#Footnote_309_309" class="fnanchor">[309]</a> If he is, he need not give himself much further anxiety.
+"What will the world say?" is the common question in matters of
+difficulty; as if the terror lay wholly in the sense which others, and
+not we ourselves, shall have of our actions. From this one source arise
+all the impostors in every art and profession, in all places, among all
+persons in conversation, as well as in business. Hence it is, that a
+vain fellow takes twice as much pains to be ridiculous, as would make
+him sincerely agreeable.</p>
+
+<p>Can any one be better fashioned, better bred, or has any one more good
+nature, than Damasippus? But the whole scope of his looks and actions
+tends so immediately to gain the good opinion of all he converses with,
+that he loses it for that only reason. As it is the nature of vanity to
+impose false shows for truths, so does it also turn real possessions
+into imaginary ones. Damasippus, by assuming to himself what he has not,
+robs himself of what he has.</p>
+
+<p>There is nothing more necessary to establish reputation, than to suspend
+the enjoyment of it. He that cannot bear the sense of merit with
+silence, must of necessity destroy it: for fame being the general
+mistress of mankind, whoever gives it to himself, insults all to whom he
+relates any circumstances to his own advantage. He is considered as an
+open ravisher of that beauty, for whom all others pine in silence. But
+some minds are so incapable of any temperance in this particular, that
+on every second in their discourse you may observe an earnestness in
+their eyes, which shows they wait for your approbation, and perhaps the
+next instant cast an eye on a glass to see how they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span> like themselves.
+Walking the other day in a neighbouring Inn of Court, I saw a more happy
+and more graceful orator than I ever before had heard or read of. A
+youth, of about nineteen years of age, was in an Indian nightgown and
+laced cap pleading a cause before a glass: the young fellow had a very
+good air, and seemed to hold his brief in his hand rather to help his
+action, than that he wanted notes for his further information. When I
+first began to observe him, I feared he would soon be alarmed; but he
+was so zealous for his client, and so favourably received by the court,
+that he went on with great fluency to inform the bench, that he humbly
+hoped they would not let the merit of the cause suffer by the youth and
+inexperience of the pleader; that in all things he submitted to their
+candour; and modestly desired they would not conclude, but that strength
+of argument and force of reason may be consistent with grace of action
+and comeliness of person.</p>
+
+<p>To me, who see people every day in the midst of crowds (whomsoever they
+seem to address to) talk only to themselves and of themselves, this
+orator was not so extravagant a man as perhaps another would have
+thought him; but I took part in his success, and was very glad to find
+he had in his favour judgment and costs without any manner of
+opposition.</p>
+
+<p>The effects of pride and vanity are of consequence only to the proud and
+the vain, and tend to no further ill than what is personal to
+themselves, in preventing their progress in anything that is worthy and
+laudable, and creating envy instead of emulation of superior virtue.
+These ill qualities are to be found only in such as have so little
+minds, as to circumscribe their thoughts and designs within what
+properly relates to the value which they think due to their dear and
+amiable selves: but ambition, which is the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span> third great impediment to
+honour and virtue, is a fault of such as think themselves born for
+moving in a higher orb, and prefer being powerful and mischievous to
+being virtuous and obscure. The parent of this mischief in life, so far
+as to regulate it into schemes, and make it possess a man's whole heart,
+without his believing himself a demon, was Machiavelli. He first taught,
+that a man must necessarily appear weak to be honest. Hence it gains
+upon the imagination, that a great is not so despicable as a little
+villain; and men are insensibly led to a belief, that the aggravation of
+crimes is the diminution of them. Hence the impiety of thinking one
+thing and speaking another. In pursuance of this empty and unsatisfying
+dream, to betray, to undermine, to kill in themselves all natural
+sentiments of love to friends or country, is the willing practice of
+such as are thirsty of power, for any other reason than that of being
+useful and acceptable to mankind.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center">ADVERTISEMENT.</p>
+
+<p>Whereas Mr. Bickerstaff has lately received a letter out of Ireland,
+dated June 9, importing that he is grown very dull, for the postage of
+which Mr. Morphew charges one shilling; and another without date of
+place or time, for which he the said Morphew charges twopence: it is
+desired, that for the future his courteous and uncourteous readers will
+go a little further in expressing their good and ill-will, and pay for
+the carriage of their letters, otherwise the intended pleasure or pain
+which is designed for Mr. Bickerstaff will be wholly disappointed.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_309_309" id="Footnote_309_309"></a><a href="#FNanchor_309_309"><span class="label">[309]</span></a>
+See Nos. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number30">30</a>,
+<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number39">39</a>,
+<a href="#No_138">138</a>.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span>
+<a name="No_187" id="No_187"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 187.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Steele.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Saturday, June 17</i>, to <i>Tuesday, June 20, 1710</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&mdash;&mdash;Pudet h&aelig;c opprobria nobis<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Et dici potuisse et non potuisse refelli.<br /></span>
+<span class="i24"><span class="smcap">Ovid</span>, Met. i. 758.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>From my own Apartment, June 19.</i></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p class="center"><br /><i>Pasquin of Rome to Isaac Bickerstaff of London.</i><a name="FNanchor_310_310" id="FNanchor_310_310"></a><a href="#Footnote_310_310" class="fnanchor">[310]</a></p>
+
+<p>"His Holiness is gone to Castel Gandolpho, much discomposed at some
+late accounts from the missionaries in your island: for a committee
+of cardinals, which lately sat for the reviving the force of some
+obsolete doctrines, and drawing up amendments to certain points of
+faith, have represented the Church of Rome to be in great danger,
+from a treatise written by a learned Englishman, which carries
+spiritual power much higher than we could have dared to have
+attempted even here. His book is called, 'An Epistolary Discourse,
+proving from the Scriptures and the First Fathers, that the Soul is
+a Principle naturally Mortal: wherein is proved, that none have the
+Power of giving this Divine immortalising Spirit since the
+Apostles, but the Bishops.' By Henry Dodwell, A.M.<a name="FNanchor_311_311" id="FNanchor_311_311"></a><a href="#Footnote_311_311" class="fnanchor">[311]</a> The
+assertion appeared to our <i>literati</i> so short and effectual<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span> method
+of subjecting the laity, that it is feared auricular confession and
+absolution will not be capable of keeping the clergy of Rome in any
+degree of greatness, in competition with such teachers whose flocks
+shall receive this opinion. What gives the greater jealousy here
+is, that in the catalogue of treatises which have been lately burnt
+within the British territories, there is no mention made of this
+learned work; which circumstance is a sort of implication, that the
+tenet is not held erroneous, but that the doctrine is received
+amongst you as orthodox. The youth of this place are very much
+divided in opinion, whether a very memorable quotation which the
+author repeats out of Tertullian, be not rather of the style and
+manner of Meursius? <i>In illo ipso voluptatis &aelig;stu quo genitale
+virus expellitur, nonne aliquid de anima quoque, sentimus exire,
+atque, adeo marcessimus et devigescimus cum lucis detrimento?</i> This
+piece of Latin goes no further than to tell us how our fathers got
+us, so that we are still at a loss how we afterwards commence
+eternal; for <i>creando infunditur, et infundendo creatur</i>, which is
+mentioned soon after, may allude only to flesh and blood as well as
+the former. Your readers in this city, some of whom have very much
+approved the warmth with which you have attacked free-thinkers,
+atheists, and other enemies to religion and virtue, are very much
+disturbed that you have given them no account of this remarkable
+dissertation: and I am employed by them to desire you would with
+all possible expedition send me over the ceremony of the creation
+of souls, as well as a list of all the mortal and immortal men
+within the dominions of Great Britain. When you have done me this
+favour, I must trouble you for other tokens of your kindness, and
+particularly I desire you would let me have the religious
+handkerchief,<a name="FNanchor_312_312" id="FNanchor_312_312"></a><a href="#Footnote_312_312" class="fnanchor">[312]</a> which is of late so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span> much worn in England, for I
+have promised to make a present of it to a courtesan of a French
+Minister.</p>
+
+<p>"Letters from the frontiers of France inform us, that a young
+gentleman<a name="FNanchor_313_313" id="FNanchor_313_313"></a><a href="#Footnote_313_313" class="fnanchor">[313]</a> who was to have been created a cardinal on the next
+promotion, has put off his design of coming to Rome so soon as was
+intended, having, as it is said, received letters from Great
+Britain, wherein several virtuosi of that island have desired him
+to suspend his resolutions towards a monastic life, till the
+British grammarians shall publish their explication of the words
+'indefeasible' and 'revolution.' According as these two hard terms
+are made to fit the mouths of the people, this gentleman takes his
+measures for his journey hither.</p>
+
+<p>"Your 'New Bedlam' has been read and considered by some of your
+countrymen among us; and one gentleman, who is now here as a
+traveller, says your design is impracticable, for that there can be
+no place large enough to contain the number of your lunatics. He
+advises you therefore to name the ambient sea for the boundary of
+your hospital. If what he says be true, I do not see how you can
+think of any other enclosure; for according to his discourse, the
+whole people are taken with a vertigo; great and popular actions
+are received with coldness and discontent; ill news hoped for with
+impatience; heroes in your service are treated with calumny, while
+criminals pass through your towns with acclamations.<a name="FNanchor_314_314" id="FNanchor_314_314"></a><a href="#Footnote_314_314" class="fnanchor">[314]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"This Englishman went on to say, you seemed at present to flag
+under a satiety of success, as if you wanted misfortune as a
+necessary vicissitude. Yet, alas! though men have but a cold relish
+of prosperity, quick is the anguish of the contrary fortune. He
+proceeded to make comparisons of times, seasons, and great
+incidents. After which he grew too learned for my understanding,
+and talked of Hanno the Carthaginian, and his irreconcilable hatred
+to the glorious commander Hannibal. Hannibal, said he, was able to
+march to Rome itself, and brought that ambitious people, which
+designed no less than the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span> empire of the world, to sue for peace in
+the most abject and servile manner; when faction at home detracted
+from the glory of his actions, and after many artifices, at last
+prevailed with the Senate to recall him from the midst of his
+victories, and in the very instant when he was to reap the benefit
+of all his toils, by reducing the then common enemy of all nations
+which had liberty to reason. When Hannibal heard the message of the
+Carthaginian senators who were sent to recall him, he was moved
+with a generous and disdainful sorrow, and is reported to have
+said, 'Hannibal then must be conquered not by the arms of the
+Romans, whom he has often put to flight, but by the envy and
+detraction of his countrymen. Nor shall Scipio triumph so much in
+his fall as Hanno, who will smile to have purchased the ruin of
+Hannibal, though attended with the fall of Carthage.'<a name="FNanchor_315_315" id="FNanchor_315_315"></a><a href="#Footnote_315_315" class="fnanchor">[315]</a></p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+<span class="sig4">"I am, Sir, &amp;c.</span><br />
+"<span class="smcap">Pasquin.</span>"<br />
+</p></div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>Will's Coffee-house, June 19.</i></p>
+
+<p>There is a sensible satisfaction in observing the countenance and action
+of the people on some occasions. To gratify myself in this pleasure, I
+came hither with all speed this evening with an account of the surrender
+of Douay. As soon as the battle-critics<a name="FNanchor_316_316" id="FNanchor_316_316"></a><a href="#Footnote_316_316" class="fnanchor">[316]</a> heard it, they immediately
+drew some comfort, in that it must have cost us a great deal of men.
+Others were so negligent of the glory of their country, that they went
+on in their discourse on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</a></span> full house which is to be at "Othello" on
+Thursday, and the curiosity they should go with to see Wilks play a part
+so very different from what he had ever before appeared in, together
+with the expectation that was raised in the gay part of the town on that
+occasion.</p>
+
+<p>This universal indolence and inattention among us to things that concern
+the public, made me look back with the highest reverence on the glorious
+instances in antiquity, of a contrary behaviour in the like
+circumstances. Harry English, upon observing the room so little roused
+on the news, fell into the same way of thinking. "How unlike," said he,
+"Mr. Bickerstaff, are we to the old Romans! There was not a subject of
+their State but thought himself as much concerned in the honour of his
+country, as the first officer of the commonwealth. How do I admire the
+messenger, who ran with a thorn in his foot to tell the news of a
+victory to the Senate! He had not leisure for his private pain, till he
+had expressed his public joy; nor could he suffer as a man, till he had
+triumphed as a Roman."</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_310_310" id="Footnote_310_310"></a><a href="#FNanchor_310_310"><span class="label">[310]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="#No_129">129</a>. In Lillie's "Letters sent to the <i>Tatler</i>
+and <i>Spectator</i>" (i. 56) there is a letter from "Orontes" to Mr.
+Bickerstaff, dated July 6, 1710, referring to this and to No. 190, in
+which the writer says: "You would do yourself a grand favour, if you
+would break off acquaintance with the Italian Pasquin, and not disturb
+yourself with principles which are as far above your thoughts as the
+probability of your discovering the philosopher's stone." A censor
+should not be among the factions.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_311_311" id="Footnote_311_311"></a><a href="#FNanchor_311_311"><span class="label">[311]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="#No_118">118</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_312_312" id="Footnote_312_312"></a><a href="#FNanchor_312_312"><span class="label">[312]</span></a> Handkerchiefs printed with pictures of Dr. Sacheverell.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_313_313" id="Footnote_313_313"></a><a href="#FNanchor_313_313"><span class="label">[313]</span></a> The Pretender.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_314_314" id="Footnote_314_314"></a><a href="#FNanchor_314_314"><span class="label">[314]</span></a> Dr. Sacheverell received many popular ovations while he
+was suspended from preaching: "Lest these brethren in iniquity [the
+<i>Observator</i> and the <i>Review</i>] should not prove sufficient to poison the
+nation, sow sedition plentifully, and ripen rebellion to a fruitful
+harvest of blood and rapine, a third person [the <i>Tatler</i>] who for a
+considerable time hath diverted the Town with the most useful and
+pleasing amusements our age ever produced, hath joined in the cry with
+them, in hopes, no doubt, that by his additional strength they shall
+become such a formidable Triumvirate that all opposition must fall
+before them, and the Church irresistibly submit to that fate which the
+other two have so long endeavoured to procure by their seditious popular
+harangues.... Our third gentleman is pleased to tell us, '<i>That great
+and popular actions</i>,' &amp;c. This is a subtle way to create jealousies and
+divisions amongst us, noways becoming the character of a gentleman, or
+an ingenuous education. Pray, sir, speak plain, and don't instil your
+poison secretly, and stab in the dark. What heroes in our service are
+treated with calumny? Who do you mean by your Hanno and Hannibal? All
+the nation owns and glories in the noble actions of our great Duke of
+Marlborough" (<i>Moderator</i>, No. 13, June 30 to July 3, 1710). The next
+number of the <i>Moderator</i>, No. 14, is upon the same subject, and is
+largely occupied with a discussion of the legal question mentioned in
+the <i>Tatler</i>, No. 190. The writer speaks of the brains of the common
+people, who are too apt to censure the actions of their superiors, as
+"set on work by a person who has gained their esteem by his learned
+Lucubrations." "They are assured that a gentleman of his bright parts
+and learning must be intimately acquainted with persons of the first
+rank and quality, from whom he learns these high and important secrets
+which he thus generously communicates to the world." If any one,
+therefore, pretends that the author's meaning is that the "Duke of
+Marlborough is likely to be ruined by the Lord Treasurer's converting to
+other uses that money which our Senate voted for our General's service,
+who is to be blamed for the vile aspersion?" Ministers should take care
+that the spreaders of such false reports shall know to their cost that
+the Act respecting false and slanderous news is still in force.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_315_315" id="Footnote_315_315"></a><a href="#FNanchor_315_315"><span class="label">[315]</span></a> The conclusion of Pasquin's letter alludes to the
+following allegorical piece, the publication of which was just then
+recent: "The History of Hannibal and Hanno, &amp;c., collected from the best
+authors, by A. M., Esq." It is reprinted in "The Life and Posthumous
+Writings" of Arthur Maynwaring, 1715. See No. <a href="#No_190">190</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_316_316" id="Footnote_316_316"></a><a href="#FNanchor_316_316"><span class="label">[316]</span></a> See No. 65.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<a name="No_188" id="No_188"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 188.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Steele.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Tuesday, June 20</i>, to <i>Thursday, June 22, 1710</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Qu&aelig; regio in terris nostri non plena laboris?<br /></span>
+<span class="i24"><span class="smcap">Virg.</span>, &AElig;n. i. 460.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>From my own Apartment. June 21.</i></p>
+
+<p>I was this morning looking over my letters that I have lately received
+from my several correspondents; some of which referring to my late
+papers, I have laid aside, with an intent to give my reader a sight of
+them. The first criticises upon my greenhouse, and is as follows:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Mr. Bickerstaff</span>,
+<span class="salright">"South Wales, <i>June 7</i>.</span></p>
+
+<p>"This letter comes to you from my orangery, which I intend to
+reform as much as I can, according to your ingenious model, and
+shall only beg of you to communicate to me your secret of
+preserving grass-plots in a covered room;<a name="FNanchor_317_317" id="FNanchor_317_317"></a><a href="#Footnote_317_317" class="fnanchor">[317]</a> for in the climate
+where my country-seat lies, they require rain and dews as well as
+sun and fresh air, and cannot live upon such fine food as your
+'sifted weather.' I must likewise desire you to write over your
+greenhouse the following motto:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"<i>Hic ver perpetuum, atque alienis mensibus &aelig;stas.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>instead of your</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"<i>O! qui me gelidis sub montibus H&aelig;mi</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Sistat, et ingenti ramorum protegat umbr&acirc;!</i><a name="FNanchor_318_318" id="FNanchor_318_318"></a><a href="#Footnote_318_318" class="fnanchor">[318]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>which, under favour, is the panting of one in summer after cool
+shades, and not of one in winter after a summer-house. The rest of
+your plan is very beautiful; and that your friend who has so well
+described it may enjoy it many winters, is the hearty wish of</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+"His and your Unknown," &amp;c.<br />
+</p></div>
+
+<p>This oversight of a grass-plot in my friend's greenhouse, puts me in
+mind of a like inconsistency in a celebrated picture, where Moses is
+represented as striking a rock, and the Children of Israel quenching
+their thirst at the waters that flow from it, and run through a
+beautiful landscape of groves and meadows, which could not flourish in a
+place where water was to have been found only by a miracle.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The next letter comes to me from a Kentish yeoman, who is very angry
+with me for my advice to parents, occasioned by the amours of Sylvia and
+Philander, as related in my paper, No. 185:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Squire Bickerstaff</span>,</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know by what chance one of your <i>Tatlers</i> is got into my
+family, and has almost turned the brains of my eldest daughter
+Winifred, who has been so undutiful as to fall in love of her own
+head, and tells me a foolish heathen story that she has read in
+your paper to persuade me to give my consent. I am too wise to let
+children have their own wills in a business like marriage. It is a
+matter in which neither I myself, nor any of my kindred, were ever
+humoured. My wife and I never pretended to love one another like
+your Sylvias and Philanders; and yet if you saw our fireside, you
+would be satisfied we are not always a-squabbling. For my part, I
+think that where man and woman come together by their own good
+liking, there is so much fondling and fooling, that it hinders
+young people from minding their business. I must therefore desire
+you to change your note, and instead of advising us old folks, who
+perhaps have more wit than yourself, to let Sylvia know, that she
+ought to act like a dutiful daughter, and marry the man that she
+does not care for. Our great-grandmothers were all bid to marry
+first, and love would come afterwards; and I don't see why their
+daughters should follow their own inventions. I am resolved
+Winifred shan't.</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+"Yours," &amp;c.<br />
+</p></div>
+
+<p>This letter is a natural picture of ordinary contracts, and of the
+sentiments of those minds that lie under a kind of intellectual
+rusticity. This trifling occasion made me<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</a></span> run over in my imagination
+the many scenes I have observed of the married condition, wherein the
+quintessence of pleasure and pain are represented as they accompany that
+state, and no other. It is certain, there are a thousand thousand like
+the above-mentioned yeoman and his wife, who are never highly pleased or
+distasted in their whole lives: but when we consider the more informed
+part of mankind, and look upon their behaviour, it then appears that
+very little of their time is indifferent, but generally spent in the
+most anxious vexation, or the highest satisfaction. Shakespeare has
+admirably represented both the aspects of this state in the most
+excellent tragedy of "Othello." In the character of Desdemona, he runs
+through all the sentiments of a virtuous maid and a tender wife. She is
+captivated by his virtue, and faithful to him, as well from that motive,
+as regard to her own honour. Othello is a great and noble spirit, misled
+by the villany of a false friend to suspect her innocence, and resents
+it accordingly. When after the many instances of passion the wife is
+told her husband is jealous, her simplicity makes her incapable of
+believing it, and say, after such circumstances as would drive another
+woman into distraction,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"<i>I think the sun where he was born</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Drew all such humours from him.</i>"<a name="FNanchor_319_319" id="FNanchor_319_319"></a><a href="#Footnote_319_319" class="fnanchor">[319]</a><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>This opinion of him is so just, that his noble and tender heart beats
+itself to pieces before he can affront her with the mention of his
+jealousy; and owns, this suspicion has blotted out all the sense of
+glory and happiness which before it was possessed with, when he laments
+himself in the warm allusions of a mind accustomed to entertainments so
+very different from the pangs of jealousy and revenge. How moving is his
+sorrow, when he cries out as follows:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"<i>I had been happy, if the general camp,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Pioneers and all, had tasted her sweet body,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>So I had nothing known. Oh now! for ever</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Farewell the tranquil mind! Farewell content,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Farewell the plum&egrave;d troops, and the big wars,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>That make ambition virtue! Oh farewell!</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Farewell the neighing steed and the shrill trump,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>The spirit-stirring drum, th' ear-piercing fife,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>The royal banner, and all quality,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war!</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>And oh ye mortal engines! whose rude throats</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>The immortal Jove's dread clamours counterfeit,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Farewell! Othello's occupation's gone.</i><a name="FNanchor_320_320" id="FNanchor_320_320"></a><a href="#Footnote_320_320" class="fnanchor">[320]</a>"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>I believe I may venture to say, there is not in any other part of
+Shakespeare's works more strong and lively pictures of nature than in
+this. I shall therefore steal incog. to see it, out of curiosity to
+observe how Wilks and Cibber touch those places where Betterton<a name="FNanchor_321_321" id="FNanchor_321_321"></a><a href="#Footnote_321_321" class="fnanchor">[321]</a> and
+Sandford<a name="FNanchor_322_322" id="FNanchor_322_322"></a><a href="#Footnote_322_322" class="fnanchor">[322]</a> so very highly excelled. But now I am got into a discourse
+of acting, with which I am so professedly pleased, I shall conclude this
+paper with a note I have just received from the two ingenious friends,
+Mr. Penkethman<a name="FNanchor_323_323" id="FNanchor_323_323"></a><a href="#Footnote_323_323" class="fnanchor">[323]</a> and Mr. Bullock:<a name="FNanchor_324_324" id="FNanchor_324_324"></a><a href="#Footnote_324_324" class="fnanchor">[324]</a></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Sir</span>,</p>
+
+<p>"Finding by your paper, No. 182, that you are drawing parallels
+between the greatest actors of the age; as you have already begun
+with Mr. Wilks and Mr. Cibber, we desire you would do the same
+justice to your humble Servants,</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+<span class="sig4">"<span class="smcap">William Bullock</span>, and</span><br />
+"<span class="smcap">William Penkethman</span>."<br />
+</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>For the information of posterity, I shall comply with this letter, and
+set these two great men in such a light as Sallust has placed his Cato
+and C&aelig;sar.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. William Bullock and Mr. William Penkethman are of the same age,
+profession, and sex. They both distinguish themselves in a very
+particular manner under the discipline of the crabtree, with this only
+difference, that Mr. Bullock has the most agreeable squawl, and Mr.
+Penkethman the more graceful shrug. Penkethman devours a cold chicken
+with great applause; Bullock's talent lies chiefly in asparagus.
+Penkethman is very dexterous at conveying himself under a table; Bullock
+is no less active at jumping over a stick. Mr. Penkethman has a great
+deal of money, but Mr. Bullock is the taller man.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_317_317" id="Footnote_317_317"></a><a href="#FNanchor_317_317"><span class="label">[317]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="#No_179">179</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_318_318" id="Footnote_318_318"></a><a href="#FNanchor_318_318"><span class="label">[318]</span></a> Virgil, "Georg." ii. 488 ("In vallibus H&aelig;mi").</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_319_319" id="Footnote_319_319"></a><a href="#FNanchor_319_319"><span class="label">[319]</span></a> "Othello," act iii. sc. 4.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_320_320" id="Footnote_320_320"></a><a href="#FNanchor_320_320"><span class="label">[320]</span></a> "Othello," act iii. sc. 3.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_321_321" id="Footnote_321_321"></a><a href="#FNanchor_321_321"><span class="label">[321]</span></a>
+See Nos. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number1">1</a>,
+71, <a href="#No_157">157</a>, <a href="#No_167">167</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_322_322" id="Footnote_322_322"></a><a href="#FNanchor_322_322"><span class="label">[322]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="#No_134">134</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_323_323" id="Footnote_323_323"></a><a href="#FNanchor_323_323"><span class="label">[323]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number4">4</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_324_324" id="Footnote_324_324"></a><a href="#FNanchor_324_324"><span class="label">[324]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number7">7</a>.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<a name="No_189" id="No_189"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 189.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Steele.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Thursday, June 22</i>, to <i>Saturday, June 24, 1710</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Est in juvencis, est in equis patrum<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Virtus; neque imbellem feroces<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Progenerant aquil&aelig; columbam.<br /></span>
+<span class="i20"><span class="smcap">Hor.</span>, 4 Od. iv. 30.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>From my own Apartment, June 23.</i></p>
+
+<p>Having lately turned my thoughts upon the consideration of the behaviour
+of parents to children in the great affair of marriage,<a name="FNanchor_325_325" id="FNanchor_325_325"></a><a href="#Footnote_325_325" class="fnanchor">[325]</a> I took much
+delight in turning over a bundle of letters which a gentleman's steward
+in the country had sent me some time ago. This parcel is a collection of
+letters written by the children of the family to which he belongs to
+their father, and contain all the little passages of their lives, and
+the new ideas they received<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</a></span> as their years advanced. There is in them
+an account of their diversions as well as their exercises; and what I
+thought very remarkable, is, that two sons of the family, who now make
+considerable figures in the world, gave omens of that sort of character
+which they now bear, in the first rudiments of thought which they show
+in their letters. Were one to point out a method of education, one could
+not, methinks, frame one more pleasing or improving than this; where the
+children get a habit of communicating their thoughts and inclinations to
+their best friend with so much freedom, that he can form schemes for
+their future life and conduct from an observation of their tempers, and
+by that means be early enough in choosing their way of life, to make
+them forward in some art or science at an age when others have not
+determined what profession to follow. As to the persons concerned in
+this packet I am speaking of, they have given great proofs of the force
+of this conduct of their father in the effect it has had upon their
+lives and manners. The elder, who is a scholar, showed from his infancy
+a propensity to polite studies, and has made a suitable progress in
+literature; but his learning is so well woven into his mind, that from
+the impressions of it, he seems rather to have contracted a habit of
+life, than manner of discourse. To his books he seems to owe a good
+economy in his affairs, and a complacency in his manners, though in
+others that way of education has commonly a quite different effect. The
+epistles of the other son are full of accounts of what he thought most
+remarkable in his reading. He sends his father for news the last noble
+story he had read. I observe, he is particularly touched with the
+conduct of Codrus, who plotted his own death, because the oracle had
+said, if he were not killed, the enemy should prevail over his country.
+Many other incidents in his little letters<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</a></span> give omens of a soul capable
+of generous undertakings; and what makes it the more particular is, that
+this gentleman had, in the present war, the honour and happiness of
+doing an action for which only it was worth coming into the world. Their
+father is the most intimate friend they have, and they always consult
+him rather than any other, when any error has happened in their conduct
+through youth and inadvertency. The behaviour of this gentleman to his
+sons has made his life pass away with the pleasures of a second youth;
+for as the vexations which men receive from their children hasten the
+approach of age and double the force of years; so the comforts which
+they reap from them are balm to all other sorrows, and disappoint the
+injuries of time. Parents of children repeat their lives in their
+offspring, and their concern for them is so near, that they feel all
+their sufferings and enjoyments as much as if they regarded their own
+proper persons. But it is generally so far otherwise, that the common
+race of squires in this kingdom use their sons as persons that are
+waiting only for their funerals, and spies upon their health and
+happiness; as indeed they are by their own making them such. In cases
+where a man takes the liberty after this manner to reprehend others, it
+is commonly said, "Let him look at home." I am sorry to own it; but
+there is one branch of the house of the Bickerstaffs, who have been as
+erroneous in their conduct this way as any other family whatsoever. The
+head of this branch is now in town, and has brought up with him his son
+and daughter (who are all the children he has) in order to be put some
+way into the world, and see fashions. They are both very ill-bred cubs,
+and having lived together from their infancy without knowledge of the
+distinctions and decencies that are proper to be paid to each other's
+sex, they squabble like two brothers. The father is one of those who
+knows no better<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</a></span> than that all pleasure is debauchery, and imagines,
+when he sees a man become his estate, that he will certainly spend it.
+This branch are a people who never had among them one man eminent either
+for good or ill; however, have all along kept their heads just above
+water, not by a prudent and regular economy, but by expedients in the
+matches they have made into their house. When one of the family has, in
+the pursuit of foxes, and in the entertainment of clowns, run out the
+third part of the value of his estate, such a spendthrift has dressed up
+his eldest son, and married what they call a good fortune, who has
+supported the father as a tyrant over them, during his life, in the same
+house or neighbourhood. The son in succession has just taken the same
+method to keep up his dignity, till the mortgages he has ate and drank
+himself into, have reduced him to the necessity of sacrificing his son
+also, in imitation of his progenitor. This had been for many generations
+the whole that had happened in the family of Sam. Bickerstaff, till the
+time of my present cousin Samuel, the father of the young people we have
+just now spoken of.</p>
+
+<p>Samuel Bickerstaff, Esq., is so happy, as that by several legacies from
+distant relations, deaths of maiden sisters, and other instances of good
+fortune, he has, besides his real estate, a great sum of ready money.
+His son at the same time knows he has a good fortune, which the father
+cannot alienate, though he strives to make him believe he depends only
+on his will for maintenance. Tom is now in his nineteenth year, Mrs.
+Mary in her fifteenth. Cousin Samuel, who understands no one point of
+good behaviour as it regards all the rest of the world, is an exact
+critic in the dress, the motion, the looks and gestures of his children.
+What adds to their misery is, that he is excessively fond of them, and
+the greatest part of their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</a></span> time is spent in the presence of this nice
+observer. Their life is one continued constraint. The girl never turns
+her head, but she is warned not to follow the proud minxes of the town.
+The boy is not to turn fop, or be quarrelsome; at the same time not to
+take an affront. I had the good fortune to dine with him to-day, and
+heard his fatherly table-talk as we sat at dinner, which, if my memory
+does not fail me, for the benefit of the world, I shall set down as he
+spoke it, which was much as follows, and may be of great use to those
+parents who seem to make it a rule, that their children's turn to enjoy
+the world is not to commence till they themselves have left it.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Now, Tom, I have bought you chambers in the Inns of Court. I allow
+you to take a walk once or twice a day round the garden. If you
+mind your business, you need not study to be as great a lawyer as
+Coke upon Littleton. I have that that will keep you; but be sure
+you keep an exact account of your linen. Write down what you give
+out to your laundress, and what she brings home again. Go as little
+as possible to the other end of the town; but if you do, come home
+early. I believe I was as sharp as you for your years, and I had my
+hat snatched off my head coming home late at a shop by St.
+Clement's Church, and I don't know from that day to this who took
+it. I do not care if you learn to fence a little, for I would not
+have you be made a fool of. Let me have an account of everything
+every post; I am willing to be at that charge, and I think you need
+not spare your pains. As for you, daughter Molly, don't mind one
+word that is said to you in London, for it is only for your
+money."<a name="FNanchor_326_326" id="FNanchor_326_326"></a><a href="#Footnote_326_326" class="fnanchor">[326]</a></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_325_325" id="Footnote_325_325"></a><a href="#FNanchor_325_325"><span class="label">[325]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="#No_185">185</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_326_326" id="Footnote_326_326"></a><a href="#FNanchor_326_326"><span class="label">[326]</span></a> It has been suggested that the latter part of this paper
+may refer to Dr. Gilbert Budgell and his son Eustace, Addison's cousin.
+(See "Grand Magazine," i. 391, <i>seq.</i>; and Cibber's "Lives of the
+Poets," vol. v.) On the death of his father in 1711, Eustace Budgell
+came into possession of an estate of &pound;950 a year.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</a></span>
+<a name="No_190" id="No_190"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 190.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Steele.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Saturday, June 24</i>, to <i>Tuesday, June 27, 1710</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&mdash;&mdash;Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Virg.</span>, &AElig;n. ii. 49.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>Sheer Lane, June 26.</i></p>
+
+<p>There are some occasions in life, wherein regards to a man's self is the
+most pitiful and contemptible of all passions; and such a time certainly
+is when the true public spirit of a nation is run into a faction against
+their friends and benefactors. I have hinted heretofore some things
+which discover the real sorrow I am in at the observation, that it is
+now very much so in Great Britain, and have had the honour to be pelted
+with several epistles to expostulate with me on that subject;<a name="FNanchor_327_327" id="FNanchor_327_327"></a><a href="#Footnote_327_327" class="fnanchor">[327]</a> among
+others, one from a person of the number of those they call Quakers, who
+seems to admonish me out of pure zeal and goodwill. But as there is no
+character so unjust as that of talking in party upon all occasions,
+without respect to merit or worth on the contrary side, so there is no
+part we can act so justifiable as to speak our mind when we see things
+urged to extremity, against all that is praiseworthy or valuable in
+life, upon general and groundless suggestions. But if I have talked too
+frankly upon such reflections, my correspondent has laid before me,
+after his way, the error of it in a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</a></span> manner that makes me indeed
+thankful for his kindness, but the more inclinable to repeat the
+imprudence from the necessity of the circumstance:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>
+"<span class="smcap">Friend Isaac</span>,
+<span class="salright">"The 23rd of the 6th month,
+which is the month <i>June</i>.</span>
+</p>
+
+<p>"Forasmuch as I love thee, I cannot any longer refrain declaring my
+mind unto thee concerning some things. Thou didst thyself indite
+the epistle inserted in one of thy late Lucubrations, as thou
+wouldst have us call them: for verily thy friend of stone,<a name="FNanchor_328_328" id="FNanchor_328_328"></a><a href="#Footnote_328_328" class="fnanchor">[328]</a> and
+I speak according to knowledge, hath no fingers; and though he hath
+a mouth, yet speaketh he not therewith; nor yet did that epistle at
+all come unto thee from the mansion-house of the Scarlet Whore. It
+is plain therefore, that the truth is not in thee: but since thou
+wouldst lie, couldst thou not lie with more discretion? Wherefore
+shouldst thou insult over the afflicted, or add sorrow unto the
+heavy of heart? Truly this gall proceedeth not from the spirit of
+meekness. I tell thee moreover, the people of this land be
+marvellously given to change; insomuch that it may likely come to
+pass, that before thou art many years nearer to thy dissolution,
+thou mayest behold him sitting on a high place whom thou now
+laughest to scorn: and then how wilt thou be glad to humble thyself
+to the ground, and lick the dust of his feet, that thou mayest find
+favour in his sight? If thou didst meditate as much upon the Word
+as thou dost upon the profane scribblings of the wise ones of this
+generation, thou wouldst have remembered what happened unto Shimei,
+the son of Gera the Benjamite, who cursed the good man David in his
+distress.<a name="FNanchor_329_329" id="FNanchor_329_329"></a><a href="#Footnote_329_329" class="fnanchor">[329]</a> David pardoned his transgression, yet was he
+afterwards taken as in a snare by the words of his own mouth, and
+fell by the sword of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</a></span> Solomon the chief ruler.<a name="FNanchor_330_330" id="FNanchor_330_330"></a><a href="#Footnote_330_330" class="fnanchor">[330]</a>
+Furthermore, I do not remember to have heard in the days of my youth and
+vanity, when, like thine, my conversation was with the Gentiles, that
+the men of Rome, which is Babylon, ever sued unto the men of Carthage
+for tranquillity, as thou dost aver: neither was Hannibal, the son of
+Hamilcar, called home by his countrymen, till these saw the sword of
+their enemies at their gates; and then was it not time for him, thinkest
+thou, to return? It appeareth therefore that thou dost prophecy
+backwards; thou dost row one way, and look another; and indeed in all
+things art thou too much a time-server; yet seemest thou not to consider
+what a day may bring forth. Think of this, and take tobacco.</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+<span class="sig4">"Thy Friend,</span><br />
+"<span class="smcap">Aminadab.</span>"<br />
+</p></div>
+
+<p>If the zealous writer of the above letter has any meaning, it is of too
+high a nature to be the subject of my Lucubrations. I shall therefore
+waive such high points, and be as useful as I can to persons of less
+moment than any he hints at. When a man runs into a little fame in the
+world, as he meets with a great deal of reproach which he does not
+deserve, so does he also a great deal of esteem to which he has in
+himself no pretensions. Were it otherwise, I am sure no one would offer
+to put a law case to me: but because I am an adept in physic and
+astrology, they will needs persuade me that I am no less a proficient in
+all other sciences. However, the point mentioned in the following letter
+is so plain a one, that I think I need not trouble myself to cast a
+figure to be able to discuss it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[Pg 393]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Mr. Bickerstaff</span>,</p>
+
+<p>"It is some years ago since the entail of the estate of our family
+was altered, by passing a fine in favour of me (who now am in
+possession of it) after some others deceased. The heirs-general,
+who live beyond sea, were excluded by this settlement, and the
+whole estate is to pass in a new channel after me and my heirs. But
+several tenants of the lordship persuade me to let them hereafter
+hold their lands of me according to the old customs of the barony,
+and not oblige them to act by the limitations of the last
+settlement. This, they say, will make me more popular among my
+dependants, and the ancient vassals of the estate, to whom any
+deviation from the line of succession is always invidious.</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+"Yours," &amp;c.<br />
+</p></div>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><br />
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Sir</span>,
+<span class="salright">"Sheer Lane, <i>June 24.</i></span></p>
+
+<p>"You have by the fine a plain right, in which none else of your
+family can be your competitor; for which reason, by all means
+demand vassalage upon that title. The contrary advice can be given
+for no other purpose in nature but to betray you, and favour other
+pretenders, by making you place a right which is in you only, upon
+a level with a right which you have in common with others. I am,</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+<span class="sig8">"Sir,</span><br />
+<span class="sig4">"Your most faithful</span><br />
+<span class="sig2">"Servant till death,</span><br />
+"I. B."<br />
+</p></div>
+
+<p>There is nothing so dangerous or so pleasing, as compliments made to us
+by our enemies: and my corre<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[Pg 394]</a></span>spondent tells me, that though he knows
+several of those who give him this counsel were at first against passing
+the fine in favour of him; yet is he so touched with their homage to
+him, that he can hardly believe they have a mind to set it aside, in
+order to introduce the heirs-general into his estate.</p>
+
+<p>These are great evils; but since there is no proceeding with success in
+this world, without complying with the arts of it, I shall use the same
+method as my correspondent's tenants did with him, in relation to one
+whom I never had a kindness for; but shall, notwithstanding, presume to
+give him my advice.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<i>Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq., of Great Britain, to Lewis XIV. of
+France.</i></p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Sir</span>,</p>
+
+<p>"Your Majesty will pardon me while I take the liberty to acquaint
+you, that some passages written from your side of the water do very
+much obstruct your interests. We take it very unkindly that the
+prints of Paris are so very partial in favour of one set of men
+among us, and treat the others as irreconcilable to your interests.
+Your writers are very large in recounting anything which relates to
+the figure and power of one party, but are dumb when they should
+represent the actions of the other. This is a trifling circumstance
+many here are apt to lay some stress upon; therefore I thought fit
+to offer it to your consideration before you despatch the next
+courier.</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+"I. B."<a name="FNanchor_331_331" id="FNanchor_331_331"></a><a href="#Footnote_331_331" class="fnanchor">[331]</a><br />
+</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_327_327" id="Footnote_327_327"></a><a href="#FNanchor_327_327"><span class="label">[327]</span></a>
+Swift may have been among those who protested at the
+introduction of politics into the <i>Tatler</i> (see No. <a href="#No_187">187</a>), and Nichols
+thought that he was the writer of the letter signed "Aminadab" in this
+number. In June 1710, the fall of the Whigs was rapidly approaching.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_328_328" id="Footnote_328_328"></a><a href="#FNanchor_328_328"><span class="label">[328]</span></a>
+Pasquin. See Nos. <a href="#No_129">129</a>, <a href="#No_130">130</a>, <a href="#No_187">187</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_329_329" id="Footnote_329_329"></a><a href="#FNanchor_329_329"><span class="label">[329]</span></a> 2 Sam. xvi. 13.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_330_330" id="Footnote_330_330"></a><a href="#FNanchor_330_330"><span class="label">[330]</span></a> 1 Kings ii. 36.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_331_331" id="Footnote_331_331"></a><a href="#FNanchor_331_331"><span class="label">[331]</span></a> "The Tories happen now to have other work upon their
+hands, and are not at leisure to return the civilities that are paid
+them; however, having had the honour of a letter from the King of France
+... they have sent in their answer to me, and desire me to forward it;
+but I am at a loss how to do this, unless my brother the <i>Tatler</i> will
+convey it under his cover, for I protest I know no man in England but
+him that holds a correspondence with his Christian Majesty" (<i>Examiner</i>,
+No. 2, August 10, 1710).</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[Pg 395]</a></span>
+<a name="No_191" id="No_191"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 191.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Steele.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Tuesday, June 27</i>, to <i>Thursday, June 29, 1710</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&mdash;&mdash;Propter vitam vivendi perdere causas.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Juv.</span>, Sat. viii. 84.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>From my own Apartment, June 28.</i></p>
+
+<p>Of all the evils under the sun, that of making vice commendable is the
+greatest: for it seems to be the basis of society, that applause and
+contempt should be always given to proper objects. But in this age we
+behold things for which we ought to have an abhorrence, not only
+received without disdain, but even valued as motives of emulation. This
+is naturally the destruction of simplicity of manners, openness of
+heart, and generosity of temper. When one gives oneself the liberty to
+range, and run over in one's thoughts the different geniuses of men
+which one meets in the world, one cannot but observe, that most of the
+indirection and artifice which is used among men, does not proceed so
+much from a degeneracy in Nature, as an affectation of appearing men of
+consequence by such practices. By this means it is, that a cunning man
+is so far from being ashamed of being esteemed such, that he secretly
+rejoices in it. It has been a sort of maxim, that the greatest art is to
+conceal art; but I know not how, among some people we meet with, their
+greatest cunning is to appear cunning. There is Polypragmon<a name="FNanchor_332_332" id="FNanchor_332_332"></a><a href="#Footnote_332_332" class="fnanchor">[332]</a> makes
+it the whole business of his life to be thought a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</a></span> cunning fellow, and
+thinks it a much greater character to be terrible than agreeable. When
+it has once entered into a man's head to have an ambition to be thought
+crafty, all other evils are necessary consequences. To deceive is the
+immediate endeavour of him who is proud of the capacity of doing it. It
+is certain, Polypragmon does all the ill he possibly can, but pretends
+to much more than he performs. He is contented in his own thoughts, and
+hugs himself in his closet, that though he is locked up there and doing
+nothing, the world does not know but that he is doing mischief. To
+favour this suspicion, he gives half-looks and shrugs in his general
+behaviour, to give you to understand that you don't know what he means.
+He is also wonderfully adverbial in his expressions, and breaks off with
+a "perhaps" and a nod of the head, upon matters of the most indifferent
+nature. It is a mighty practice with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[Pg 397]</a></span> men of this genius to avoid
+frequent appearance in public, and to be as mysterious as possible when
+they do come into company. There is nothing to be done, according to
+them, the common way; and let the matter in hand be what it will, it
+must be carried with an air of importance, and transacted, if we may so
+speak, with an ostentatious secrecy. These are your persons of long
+heads, who would fain make the world believe their thoughts and ideas
+are very much superior to their neighbours', and do not value what these
+their neighbours think of them, provided they do not reckon them fools.
+These have such a romantic touch in business, that they hate to perform
+anything like other men. Were it in their choice, they had rather bring
+their purposes to bear by overreaching the persons they deal with, than
+by a plain and simple manner. They make difficulties for the honour of
+surmounting them. Polypragmon is eternally busied after this manner,
+with no other prospect, than that he is in hopes to be thought the most
+cunning of all men, and fears the imputation of want of understanding
+much more than that of the abuse of it. But alas! how contemptible is
+such an ambition, which is the very reverse of all that is truly
+laudable, and the very contradiction to the only means to a just
+reputation, simplicity of manners? Cunning can in no circumstance
+imaginable be a quality worthy a man except in his own defence, and
+merely to conceal himself from such as are so; and in such cases it is
+no longer craft, but wisdom. The monstrous affectation of being thought
+artful immediately kills all thoughts of humanity and goodness, and
+gives men a sense of the soft affections and impulses of the mind (which
+are imprinted in us for our mutual advantage and succour) as of mere
+weaknesses and follies. According to the men of cunning, you are to put
+off the nature of a man as fast as you can, and acquire that of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[Pg 398]</a></span>
+demon, as if it were a more eligible character to be a powerful enemy
+than an able friend. But it ought to be a mortification to men affected
+this way, that there wants but little more than instinct to be
+considerable in it; for when a man has arrived at being very bad in his
+inclination, he has not much more to do, but to conceal himself, and he
+may revenge, cheat, and deceive, without much employment for
+understanding, and go on with great cheerfulness with the high applause
+of being a prodigious cunning fellow. But indeed, when we arrive at that
+pitch of false taste, as not to think cunning a contemptible quality, it
+is, methinks, a very great injustice that pick-pockets are had in so
+little veneration, who must be admirably well turned, not only for the
+theoretic, but also the practical behaviour of cunning fellows. After
+all the endeavour of this family of men whom we call cunning, their
+whole work falls to pieces, if others will lay down all esteem for such
+artifices, and treat it as an unmanly quality, which they forbear to
+practise only because they abhor it. When the spider is ranging in the
+different apartments of his web, it is true that he only can weave so
+fine a thread; but it is in the power of the merest drone that has wings
+to fly through and destroy it.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>Will's Coffee-house, June 28.</i></p>
+
+<p>Though the taste of wit and pleasure is at present but very low in this
+town, yet there are some that preserve their relish undebauched with
+common impressions, and can distinguish between reality and imposture. A
+gentleman was saying here this evening, that he would go to the play
+to-morrow night to see heroism, as it has been represented by some of
+our tragedians, represented in burlesque. It seems, the play of
+"Alexander" is to be then turned into ridicule for its bombast, and
+other false<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[Pg 399]</a></span> ornaments in the thought as well as the language.<a name="FNanchor_333_333" id="FNanchor_333_333"></a><a href="#Footnote_333_333" class="fnanchor">[333]</a> The
+bluster Alexander makes, is as much inconsistent with the character of a
+hero, as the roughness of Clytus is an instance of the sincerity of a
+bold artless soldier. To be plain is not to be rude, but rather inclines
+a man to civility and deference; not indeed to show it in the gestures
+of the body, but in the sentiments of the mind. It is, among other
+things, from the impertinent figures unskilful dramatists draw of the
+characters of men, that youth are bewildered and prejudiced in their
+sense of the world, of which they have no notions but what they draw
+from books and such representations. Thus talk to a very young man, let
+him be of never so good sense, and he shall smile when you speak of
+sincerity in a courtier, good sense in a soldier, or honesty in a
+politician. The reason of this is, that you hardly see one play wherein
+each of these ways of life is not drawn by hands that know nothing of
+any one of them: and the truth is so far of the opposite side to what
+they paint, that it is more impracticable to live in esteem in Courts
+than anywhere else without sincerity. Good sense is the great requisite
+in a soldier, and honesty the only thing that can support a politician.
+This way of thinking made the gentleman of whom I was just now speaking
+say, he was glad any one had taken upon him to depreciate such unnatural
+fustian as the tragedy of "Alexander." The character of that prince
+indeed was, that he was unequal, and given to intemperance; but in his
+sober moments, when he had warm in his imagination the precepts of his
+great instructor, he was a pattern of generous thoughts and
+dispositions, in opposi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[Pg 400]</a></span>tion to the strongest desires which are incident
+to a youth and conqueror. But instead of representing that hero in the
+glorious character of generosity and chastity, in his treatment of the
+beauteous family of Darius, he is drawn all along as a monster of lust,
+or of cruelty; as if the way to raise him to the degree of a hero were
+to make his character as little like that of a worthy man as possible.
+Such rude and indigested draughts of things are the proper objects of
+ridicule and contempt, and depreciating Alexander, as we have him drawn,
+is the only way of restoring him to what he was in himself. It is well
+contrived of the players to let this part be followed by a true picture
+of life, in the comedy called, "The Chances,"<a name="FNanchor_334_334" id="FNanchor_334_334"></a><a href="#Footnote_334_334" class="fnanchor">[334]</a> wherein Don John and
+Constantia are acted to the utmost perfection. There need not be a
+greater instance of the force of action than in many incidents of this
+play, where indifferent passages, and such that conduce only to the
+tacking of the scenes together, are enlivened with such an agreeable
+gesture and behaviour, as apparently shows what a play might be, though
+it is not wholly what a play should be.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_332_332" id="Footnote_332_332"></a><a href="#FNanchor_332_332"><span class="label">[332]</span></a> In reply to this suggestion that the character of
+Polypragmon was meant for Harley, Steele said, in the <i>Guardian</i>, No.
+53: "I drew it as the most odious image I could paint of ambition....
+Whoever seeks employment for his own private interest, vanity, or pride,
+and not for the good of his prince and country, has his share in the
+picture of Polypragmon; and let this be the rule in examining that
+description, and I believe the Examiner will find others to whom he
+would rather give a part of it, than to the person on whom I believe he
+bestows it, because he thinks he is the most capable of having his
+vengeance on me.... I have not, like him, fixed odious images on
+persons, but on vices." To this the <i>Examiner</i> (vol. iv. No. 2) replied:
+"He would insinuate, that Timon and Polypragmon are general characters,
+and stand for a whole species, or, as he quaintly words it, for Knights
+of the Shire. If this be true, why did he not before now silence the
+industrious clamours of his party, who both in print and public
+conversation applied those characters to persons of the first rank,
+though without any regard to the rules of resemblance?" The writer of
+"Annotations on the <i>Tatler</i>," 1710, in the preface to the second part,
+regretted that Steele had become a politician, and said, in allusion to
+Steele's experiments in alchemy: "Turning statesman and drudging for the
+Philosopher's Stone, are toils not altogether unlike each other;
+buffeting with fire, labouring in smoke, wearing out of lungs, and
+tiring oneself with expectation, are misfortunes common to both these
+projects; 'tis converting real gold to dross, out of a prospect of
+converting dross into real gold."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_333_333" id="Footnote_333_333"></a><a href="#FNanchor_333_333"><span class="label">[333]</span></a> A burlesque of Lee's "Rival Queens; or, the Death of
+Alexander the Great," by Gibber, called "The Rival Queans; or, the
+Humours of Alexander the Great," was acted at Drury Lane in 1710, but
+not printed until 1729.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_334_334" id="Footnote_334_334"></a><a href="#FNanchor_334_334"><span class="label">[334]</span></a> An adaptation of Beaumont and Fletcher's comedy, by the
+Duke of Buckingham, 1682.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<a name="No_192" id="No_192"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 192.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader">[<span class="smcap">Addison.</span></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Thursday, June 29</i>, to <i>Saturday, July 1, 1710</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Tecum vivere amem, tecum obeam libens.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Hor.</span>, 3 Od. ix. 24.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>From my own Apartment, June 30.</i></p>
+
+<p>Some years since I was engaged with a coachful of friends to take a
+journey as far as the Land's End. We were very well pleased with one
+another the first day, every one endeavouring to recommend himself by
+his good<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[Pg 401]</a></span> humour and complaisance to the rest of the company. This good
+correspondence did not last long; one of our party was soured the very
+first evening by a plate of butter which had not been melted to his
+mind, and which spoiled his temper to such a degree, that he continued
+upon the fret to the end of our journey. A second fell off from his good
+humour the next morning, for no other reason that I could imagine, but
+because I chanced to step into the coach before him, and place myself on
+the shady side. This however was but my own private guess, for he did
+not mention a word of it, nor indeed of anything else, for three days
+following. The rest of our company held out very near half the way, when
+of a sudden Mr. Sprightly fell asleep; and instead of endeavouring to
+divert and oblige us, as he had hitherto done, carried himself with an
+unconcerned, careless, drowsy behaviour, till we came to our last stage.
+There were three of us who still held up our heads, and did all we could
+to make our journey agreeable; but, to my shame be it spoken, about
+three miles on this side Exeter, I was taken with an unaccountable fit
+of sullenness, that hung upon me for above three-score miles; whether
+it were for want of respect, or from an accidental tread upon my foot,
+or from a foolish maid's calling me "The old gentleman," I cannot tell.
+In short, there was but one who kept his good humour to the Land's End.</p>
+
+<p>There was another coach that went along with us, in which I likewise
+observed, that there were many secret jealousies, heartburnings, and
+animosities: for when we joined companies at night, I could not but take
+notice, that the passengers neglected their own company, and studied how
+to make themselves esteemed by us, who were altogether strangers to
+them; till at length they grew so well acquainted with us, that they
+liked us as little as they did one another. When I reflect upon this
+journey, I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[Pg 402]</a></span> often fancy it to be a picture of human life, in respect to
+the several friendships, contracts, and alliances that are made and
+dissolved in the several periods of it. The most delightful and most
+lasting engagements are generally those which pass between man and
+woman; and yet upon what trifles are they weakened, or entirely broken?
+Sometimes the parties fly asunder, even in the midst of courtship, and
+sometimes grow cool in the very honey month. Some separate before the
+first child, and some after the fifth; others continue good till thirty,
+others till forty; while some few, whose souls are of a happier make,
+and better fitted to one another, travel on together to the end of their
+journey in a continual intercourse of kind offices and mutual
+endearments.</p>
+
+<p>When we therefore choose our companions for life, if we hope to keep
+both them and ourselves in good humour to the last stage of it, we must
+be extremely careful in the choice we make, as well as in the conduct on
+our own part. When the persons to whom we join ourselves can stand an
+examination, and bear the scrutiny, when they mend upon our acquaintance
+with them, and discover new beauties the more we search into their
+characters, our love will naturally rise in proportion to their
+perfections.</p>
+
+<p>But because there are very few possessed of such accomplishments of body
+and mind, we ought to look after those qualifications both in ourselves
+and others, which are indispensably necessary towards this happy union,
+and which are in the power of every one to acquire, or at least to
+cultivate and improve. These, in my opinion, are cheerfulness and
+constancy. A cheerful temper joined with innocence will make beauty
+attractive, knowledge delightful, and wit good-natured. It will lighten
+sickness, poverty, and affliction; convert ignorance into an amiable
+simplicity, and render deformity itself agreeable.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[Pg 403]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Constancy is natural to persons of even tempers and uniform
+dispositions, and may be acquired by those of the greatest fickleness,
+violence, and passion, who consider seriously the terms of union upon
+which they come together, the mutual interest in which they are engaged,
+with all the motives that ought to incite their tenderness and
+compassion towards those who have their dependence upon them, and are
+embarked with them for life in the same state of happiness or misery.
+Constancy, when it grows in the mind upon considerations of this nature,
+becomes a moral virtue, and a kind of good nature, that is not subject
+to any change of health, age, fortune, or any of those accidents which
+are apt to unsettle the best dispositions that are founded rather in
+constitution than in reason. Where such a constancy as this is wanting,
+the most inflamed passion may fall away into coldness and indifference,
+and the most melting tenderness degenerate into hatred and aversion. I
+shall conclude this paper with a story that is very well known in the
+North of England.</p>
+
+<p>About thirty years ago, a packet-boat that had several passengers on
+board was cast away upon a rock, and in so great danger of sinking, that
+all who were in it endeavoured to save themselves as well as they could,
+though only those who could swim well had a bare possibility of doing
+it. Among the passengers there were two women of fashion, who seeing
+themselves in such a disconsolate condition, begged of their husbands
+not to leave them. One of them chose rather to die with his wife than to
+forsake her; the other, though he was moved with the utmost compassion
+for his wife, told her, that for the good of their children it was
+better one of them should live, than both perish. By a great piece of
+good luck, next to a miracle, when one of our good men had taken the
+last and long farewell in order to save himself, and the other held in
+his arms the person<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[Pg 404]</a></span> that was dearer to him than life, the ship was
+preserved. It is with a secret sorrow and vexation of mind that I must
+tell the sequel of the story, and let my reader know, that this faithful
+pair who were ready to have died in each other's arms, about three years
+after their escape, upon some trifling disgust, grew to a coldness at
+first, and at length fell out to such a degree, that they left one
+another and parted for ever. The other couple lived together in an
+uninterrupted friendship and felicity; and what was remarkable, the
+husband whom the shipwreck had like to have separated from his wife,
+died a few months after her, not being able to survive the loss of her.</p>
+
+<p>I must confess, there is something in the changeableness and inconstancy
+of human nature, that very often both dejects and terrifies me. Whatever
+I am at present, I tremble to think what I may be. While I find this
+principle in me, how can I assure myself that I shall be always true to
+my God, my friend, or myself? In short, without constancy there is
+neither love, friendship, nor virtue in the world.</p>
+
+
+<div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
+<div class="numberheader">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[Pg 405]</a></span>
+<a name="No_193" id="No_193"></a>
+<h2 class="leftheader">No. 193.</h2>
+<h2 class="rightheader"><span class="smcap">Steele</span>.<a name="FNanchor_335_335" id="FNanchor_335_335"></a><a href="#Footnote_335_335" class="fnanchor">[335]</a></h2>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><i>Saturday, July 1</i>, to <i>Tuesday, July 4, 1710</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Qui didicit, patri&aelig; quid debeat et quid amicis,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Quo sit amore parens, quo frater amandus, et hospes ...<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Scribere<a name="FNanchor_336_336" id="FNanchor_336_336"></a><a href="#Footnote_336_336" class="fnanchor">[336]</a> person&aelig; scit convenientia cuique.<br /></span>
+<span class="i30"><span class="smcap">Hor.</span>, Ars Poet. 312.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><i>Will's Coffee-house, July 3.</i></p>
+
+<p>I have of late received many epistles, wherein the writers treat me as a
+mercenary person, for some late hints concerning matters which they
+think I should not have touched upon but for sordid considerations. It
+is apparent, that my motive could not be of that kind; for when a man
+declares himself openly on one side, that party will take no more notice
+of him, because he is sure; and the set of men whom he declares against,
+for the same reason are violent against him. Thus it is folly in a
+plain-dealer to expect, that either his friends will reward him, or his
+enemies forgive him. For which reason, I thought it was the shortest way
+to impartiality, to put myself beyond further hopes or fears, by
+declaring myself, at a time when the dispute is not about persons and
+parties, but things and causes. To relieve myself from the vexation
+which naturally attends such reflections, I came hither this evening to
+give my thoughts quite a new turn, and converse with men of pleasure and
+wit, rather than those of business and intrigue. I had hardly entered
+the room, when I was accosted by Mr. Thomas Doggett, who desired my
+favour in relation to the play which was to be acted for his benefit on
+Thursday. He pleased me in saying it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[Pg 406]</a></span> was "The Old Bachelor,"<a name="FNanchor_337_337" id="FNanchor_337_337"></a><a href="#Footnote_337_337" class="fnanchor">[337]</a> in
+which comedy there is a necessary circumstance observed by the author,
+which most other poets either overlook or do not understand, that is to
+say, the distinction of characters. It is very ordinary with writers to
+indulge a certain modesty of believing all men as witty as themselves,
+and making all the persons of the play speak the sentiments of the
+author, without any manner of respect to the age, fortune, or quality of
+him that is on the stage. Ladies talk like rakes, and footmen make
+similes: but this writer knows men, which makes his plays reasonable
+entertainments, while the scenes of most others are like the tunes
+between the acts. They are perhaps agreeable sounds, but they have no
+ideas affixed to them. Doggett thanked me for my visit to him in the
+winter,<a name="FNanchor_338_338" id="FNanchor_338_338"></a><a href="#Footnote_338_338" class="fnanchor">[338]</a> and, after his comical manner, spoke his request with so
+arch a leer, that I promised the droll I would speak to all my
+acquaintance to be at his play.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever the world may think of the actors, whether it be that their
+parts have an effect on their lives, or whatever it is, you see a
+wonderful benevolence among them towards the interests and necessities
+of each other. Doggett therefore would not let me go, without delivering
+me a letter from poor old Downes the prompter,<a name="FNanchor_339_339" id="FNanchor_339_339"></a><a href="#Footnote_339_339" class="fnanchor">[339]</a> wherein that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[Pg 407]</a></span>
+retainer to the theatre desires my advice and assistance in a matter of
+concern to him. I have sent him my private opinion for his conduct; but
+the stage and the State affairs being so much canvassed by parties and
+factions, I shall for some time hereafter take leave of subjects which
+relate to either of them, and employ my care in consideration of matters
+which regard that part of mankind who live without interesting
+themselves with the troubles or pleasures of either. However, for a mere
+notion of the present posture of the stage, I shall give you the letter
+at large as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Honoured Sir</span>,
+<span class="salright"><i>July 1, 1710.</i></span></p>
+
+<p>"Finding by divers of your late papers, that you are a friend to
+the profession of which I was many years an unworthy member, I the
+rather make bold to crave your advice, touching a proposal that has
+been lately made me of coming into business, and the
+sub-administration of stage affairs. I have, from my youth, been
+bred up behind the curtain, and been a prompter from the time of
+the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[Pg 408]</a></span> Restoration.<a name="FNanchor_340_340" id="FNanchor_340_340"></a><a href="#Footnote_340_340" class="fnanchor">[340]</a> I have seen many changes, as well of scenes
+as of actors, and have known men within my remembrance arrive to
+the highest dignities of the theatre, who made their entrance in
+the quality of mutes, joint-stools, flowerpots, and tapestry
+hangings. It cannot be unknown to the nobility and gentry, that a
+gentleman of the Inns of Court, and a deep intriguer, had some time
+since worked himself into the sole management and direction of the
+theatre.<a name="FNanchor_341_341" id="FNanchor_341_341"></a><a href="#Footnote_341_341" class="fnanchor">[341]</a> Nor is it less notorious, that his restless ambition,
+and subtle machinations, did manifestly tend to the extirpation of
+the good old British actors, and the introduction of foreign
+pretenders; such as harlequins, French dancers, and Roman singers;
+which, though they impoverished the proprietors, and imposed on the
+audience, were for some time tolerated, by reason of his dexterous
+insinuations, which prevailed upon a few deluded women, especially
+the vizard masks, to believe that the stage was in danger. But his
+schemes were soon exposed, and the great ones that supported him
+withdrawing their favour, he made his exit, and remained for a
+season in obscurity. During this retreat the Machiavelian was not
+idle, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[Pg 409]</a></span> secretly fomented divisions, and wrought over to his
+side some of the inferior actors, reserving a trap-door to himself,
+to which only he had a key. This entrance secured, this cunning
+person, to complete his company, bethought himself of calling in
+the most eminent of strollers from all parts of the kingdom. I have
+seen them all ranged together behind the scenes; but they are many
+of them persons that never trod the stage before, and so very
+awkward and ungainly, that it is impossible to believe the audience
+will bear them. He was looking over his catalogue of plays, and
+indeed picked up a good tolerable set of grave faces for
+counsellors, to appear in the famous scene of 'Venice Preserved,'
+when the danger is over; but they being but mere outsides, and the
+actors having a great mind to play 'The Tempest,' there is not a
+man of them, when he is to perform anything above dumb show, is
+capable of acting with a good grace so much as the part of
+Trinculo. However, the master persists in his design, and is
+fitting up the old 'storm'; but I am afraid he will not be able to
+procure able sailors or experienced officers for love or money.</p>
+
+<p>"Besides all this, when he comes to cast the parts, there is so
+great a confusion amongst them for want of proper actors, that for
+my part I am wholly discouraged. The play with which they design to
+open is, 'The Duke and No Duke';<a name="FNanchor_342_342" id="FNanchor_342_342"></a><a href="#Footnote_342_342" class="fnanchor">[342]</a> and they are so put to it,
+that the master himself is to act the conjurer, and they have no
+one for the general but honest George Powell.<a name="FNanchor_343_343" id="FNanchor_343_343"></a><a href="#Footnote_343_343" class="fnanchor">[343]</a></p>
+
+<p>"Now, sir, they being so much at a loss for the <i>dramatis person&aelig;</i>,
+viz., the persons to enact, and the whole frame of the house being
+designed to be altered, I desire your opinion, whether you think it
+advisable for me to undertake to prompt them? For though I can
+clash swords<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[Pg 410]</a></span> when they represent a battle, and have yet lungs
+enough to huzza their victories, I question, if I should prompt
+them right, whether they would act accordingly. I am</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+<span class="sig2">"Your Honour's most humble Servant,</span><br />
+"J. Downes.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"P.S. Sir, since I writ this, I am credibly informed, that they
+design a new house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, near the Popish
+chapel,<a name="FNanchor_344_344" id="FNanchor_344_344"></a><a href="#Footnote_344_344" class="fnanchor">[344]</a> to be ready by Michaelmas next; which indeed is but
+repairing an old one that has already failed. You know the honest
+man who kept the office is gone already."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_335_335" id="Footnote_335_335"></a><a href="#FNanchor_335_335"><span class="label">[335]</span></a> The authorship of the greater part of this paper is
+uncertain; see note on next page.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_336_336" id="Footnote_336_336"></a><a href="#FNanchor_336_336"><span class="label">[336]</span></a> "Reddere" (Horace).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_337_337" id="Footnote_337_337"></a><a href="#FNanchor_337_337"><span class="label">[337]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number9">9</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_338_338" id="Footnote_338_338"></a><a href="#FNanchor_338_338"><span class="label">[338]</span></a>
+See Nos. <a href="#No_120">120</a>, <a href="#No_122">122</a>. In the continuation of the Tatler
+which Swift and Harrison conducted (No. 28, March 24, 1710-11) there is
+this passage: "The person produced as mine in the playhouse, last
+winter, did in no wise appertain to me. It was such a one, however, as
+agreed well with the impression my writings had made, and served the
+purpose I intended it for: which was to continue the awe and reverence
+due to the character I was vested with, and at the same time to let my
+enemies see how much I was the delight and favourite of this town," &amp;c.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_339_339" id="Footnote_339_339"></a><a href="#FNanchor_339_339"><span class="label">[339]</span></a> This letter, in ridicule of Harley's newly formed
+Ministry, has been attributed to the joint authorship of Anthony Henley
+(see No. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number11">11</a>) and Temple Stanyan. Harley is supposed to be the gentleman
+referred to in the letter, and Downes, it has been suggested, is Thomas
+Osborne, first Duke of Leeds. Steele expressly disavowed responsibility
+for the letter from Downes the prompter. In No. 53 of the <i>Guardian</i> he
+wrote: "Old Downes is a fine piece of raillery, of which I wish I had
+been author. All I had to do in it, was to strike out what related to a
+gentlewoman about the Queen, whom I thought a woman free from ambition,
+and I did it out of regard to innocence." And in the Preface to the
+<i>Tatler</i>, he said that this letter was by an unknown correspondent. A
+writer in the <i>Examiner</i> (vol. iv. No. 2) mentions Old Downes among the
+sufferers of figure under our author's satire. The same writer, or
+another in the same paper, expresses himself in the following words:
+"Steele broke his own maxim for trifles in which his country had no
+manner of concern; and by entering into party disputes, violated the
+most solemn repeated promises and that perfect neutrality he had engaged
+to maintain. As a proof that I did not wrong him, he now openly takes
+upon himself Downes' letter, by wishing the raillery (as he calls it)
+were his own." In the "Essays Divine, Moral, and Political" (1714), p.
+42, Swift is made to say, "I advised him [Steele] to the publishing that
+letter from Downes the prompter, which was the beginning of his ruin,
+though I here declare I did not write it." Forster ("Biographical
+Essays," 3rd ed.) concludes that this fictitious letter was certainly by
+Mainwaring himself. In the "Journal to Stella" (Oct. 22, 1710), Swift
+wrote: "He [Steele] has lost his place of Gazetteer, three hundred
+pounds a year, for writing a <i>Tatler</i>, some months ago, against Mr.
+Harley, who gave it him at first, and raised the salary from sixty to
+three hundred pounds." See also Swift's "The Importance of the
+<i>Guardian</i> considered."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_340_340" id="Footnote_340_340"></a><a href="#FNanchor_340_340"><span class="label">[340]</span></a> John Downes was prompter to "The Duke's Servants" until
+1706. In 1708 he published his valuable "Roscius Anglicanus, or an
+Historical Review of the Stage."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_341_341" id="Footnote_341_341"></a><a href="#FNanchor_341_341"><span class="label">[341]</span></a> Christopher Rich, who began life as an attorney. See Nos.
+<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number12">12</a>, 99.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_342_342" id="Footnote_342_342"></a><a href="#FNanchor_342_342"><span class="label">[342]</span></a> A farce by Nahum Tate, 1685.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_343_343" id="Footnote_343_343"></a><a href="#FNanchor_343_343"><span class="label">[343]</span></a>
+See No. <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13645/13645-h/13645-h.htm#number3">3</a>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_344_344" id="Footnote_344_344"></a><a href="#FNanchor_344_344"><span class="label">[344]</span></a> The theatre built by Betterton and his friends in 1695,
+in Portugal Row, Lincoln's Inn Fields, was pulled down and rebuilt by
+Christopher Rich in 1714. The Roman Catholic Church here referred to was
+in Duke (now Sardinia) Street, on the west side of the square.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br />
+END OF VOL. III.<br />
+<br /><br />
+Printed by <span class="smcap">Ballantyne, Hanson &amp; Co.</span><br />
+London &amp; Edinburgh<br />
+</p>
+
+<p class="notes">
+Transcriber's Notes:<br />
+Standardized Punctuation<br />
+Page 163: Changed confess, where to confess, were<br />
+Page 301: Changed Ho Nec to Ho Nee"
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Tatler, Volume 3, by Various
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+</pre>
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+</body>
+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Tatler, Volume 3, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Tatler, Volume 3
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: George A. Aitken
+
+Release Date: March 15, 2010 [EBook #31645]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TATLER, VOLUME 3 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Joseph R. Hauser and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+ +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
+ |TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:                                                    |
+ |                                                                       |
+ |There is Greek in this text which has been transliterated into Arabic  |
+ |letters.  The Greek is notated as: [Greek: Pinax]                      |
+ +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+
+
+#The Tatler#
+Edited by
+George A. Aitken
+
+
+
+
+In Four Volumes
+Volume Three
+
+
+
+
+#The Tatler#
+
+
+Edited with Introduction & Notes
+by
+George A. Aitken
+
+
+_Author of_
+"The Life of Richard Steele," &c.
+
+
+
+
+VOL. III
+
+
+New York
+Hadley & Mathews
+156 Fifth Avenue
+London: Duckworth & Co.
+1899
+
+Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
+At the Ballantyne Press
+
+
+
+
+     _To the_ Right Honourable
+     #William Lord Cowper#
+     Baron of Wingham[1]
+
+
+     MY LORD,
+
+     After having long celebrated the superior graces and excellences
+     among men, in an imaginary character, I do myself the honour to
+     show my veneration for transcendent merit, under my own name, in
+     this address to your lordship. The just application of those high
+     accomplishments of which you are master, has been an advantage to
+     all your fellow subjects; and it is from the common obligation you
+     have laid upon all the world, that I, though a private man, can
+     pretend to be affected with, or take the liberty to acknowledge
+     your great talents and public virtues.
+
+     It gives a pleasing prospect to your friends, that is to say, to
+     the friends of your country, that you have passed through the
+     highest offices, at an age when others usually do but form to
+     themselves the hopes of them.[2] They may expect to see you in the
+     House of Lords as many years as you were ascending to it. It is our
+     common good, that your admirable eloquence can now no longer be
+     employed but in the expression of your own sentiments and judgment.
+     The skilful pleader is now for ever changed into the just judge;
+     which latter character your lordship exerts with so prevailing an
+     impartiality, that you win the approbation even of those who
+     dissent from you, and you always obtain favour, because you are
+     never moved by it.
+
+     This gives you a certain dignity peculiar to your present
+     situation, and makes the equity, even of a Lord High Chancellor,
+     appear but a degree towards the magnanimity of a peer of Great
+     Britain.
+
+     Forgive me, my lord, when I cannot conceal from you, that I shall
+     never hereafter behold you, but I shall behold you, as lately,
+     defending the brave, and the unfortunate.[3]
+
+     When we attend to your lordship, engaged in a discourse, we cannot
+     but reflect upon the many requisites which the vainglorious
+     speakers of antiquity have demanded in a man who is to excel in
+     oratory; I say, my lord, when we reflect upon the precepts by
+     viewing the example, though there is no excellence proposed by
+     those rhetoricians wanting, the whole art seems to be resolved into
+     that one motive of speaking, sincerity in the intention. The
+     graceful manner, the apt gesture, and the assumed concern, are
+     impotent helps to persuasion, in comparison of the honest
+     countenance of him who utters what he really means. From hence it
+     is, that all the beauties which others attain with labour, are in
+     your lordship but the natural effects of the heart that dictates.
+
+     It is this noble simplicity which makes you surpass mankind in the
+     faculties wherein mankind are distinguished from other creatures,
+     reason and speech.
+
+     If these gifts were communicated to all men in proportion to the
+     truth and ardour of their hearts, I should speak of you with the
+     same force as you express yourself on any other subject. But I
+     resist my present impulse, as agreeable as it is to me; though
+     indeed, had I any pretensions to a fame of this kind, I should,
+     above all other themes, attempt a panegyric upon my Lord Cowper:
+     for the only sure way to a reputation for eloquence, in an age
+     wherein that perfect orator lives, is to choose an argument, upon
+     which he himself must of necessity be silent. I am,
+
+                              My Lord, your Lordship's
+                                Most devoted, most obedient, and
+                                               Most humble Servant,
+                                                      RICHARD STEELE.
+
+
+[Footnote 1: William Cowper was appointed King's counsel about 1694; he
+succeeded Sir Nathan Wright, as Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, October
+11, 1705; was created Baron Cowper of Wingham, November 9, 1706; and was
+appointed Lord Chancellor, May 4, 1707, which post he held till
+September 14, 1710. On the accession of King George, he was again
+appointed Lord Chancellor, and, on resigning the Great Seal, was created
+Earl Cowper and Viscount Fordwich, March 18, 1717-18. He died in 1723.
+Lord Cowper refused to accept New Year's gifts from the counsellors at
+law, which had been long given to his predecessors, and, when he was
+Chancellor, though in friendship with the Duke of Marlborough, and of
+the same political principles, he refused to put the broad seal of his
+office to a commission for making his Grace generalissimo for life.
+"When Steele's patent, as Governor of the Theatre Royal, passed the
+Great Seal, Lord Chancellor Cowper, in compliment to Sir Richard, would
+receive no fee" (Cibber's "Apology"). He was praised by Hughes, under
+the name of "Manilius," in No. 467 of the _Spectator_.]
+
+[Footnote 2: The date of Lord Cowper's birth is not known, but in 1710
+he was probably about 46. He entered the Middle Temple in 1682.]
+
+[Footnote 3: In a pamphlet entitled "A Letter to Isaac Bickerstaff,"
+1710, Lord Cowper defended the character of the Duchess of Marlborough
+against an attack by Bolingbroke in a "Letter to the _Examiner_."]
+
+
+
+
+#THE TATLER#
+BY ISAAC BICKERSTAFF, ESQ.
+
+
+
+
+No. 115.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Saturday, Dec. 31, 1709_, to _Tuesday, Jan. 3, 1709-10_.
+
+    --Novum intervenit vitium et calamitas,
+    Ut neque spectari, neque cognosci potuerit:
+    Ita populus studio stupidus in funambulo
+    Animum occuparat.--TER., Hecyra, Prologue.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, January 2._
+
+I went on Friday last to the opera, and was surprised to find a thin
+house at so noble an entertainment, till I heard that the tumbler[4] was
+not to make his appearance that night. For my own part, I was fully
+satisfied with the sight of an actor, who, by the grace and propriety of
+his action and gesture, does honour to a human figure, as much as the
+other vilifies and degrades it. Every one will easily imagine I mean
+Signor Nicolini,[5] who sets off the character he bears in an opera by
+his action, as much as he does the words of it by his voice. Every limb,
+and every finger, contributes to the part he acts, insomuch that a deaf
+man might go along with him in the sense of it. There is scarce a
+beautiful posture in an old statue which he does not plant himself in,
+as the different circumstances of the story give occasion for it. He
+performs the most ordinary action in a manner suitable to the greatness
+of his character, and shows the prince even in the giving of a letter,
+or the despatching of a message. Our best actors are somewhat at a loss
+to support themselves with proper gesture, as they move from any
+considerable distance to the front of the stage; but I have seen the
+person of whom I am now speaking, enter alone at the remotest part of
+it, and advance from it with such greatness of air and mien, as seemed
+to fill the stage, and at the same time commanding the attention of the
+audience with the majesty of his appearance. But notwithstanding the
+dignity and elegance of this entertainment, I find for some nights past,
+that Punchinello has robbed the gentleman of the greater part of his
+female spectators. The truth of it is, I find it so very hard a task to
+keep that sex under any manner of government, that I have often resolved
+to give them over entirely, and leave them to their own inventions. I
+was in hopes that I had brought them to some order, and was employing my
+thoughts on the reformation of their petticoats, when on a sudden I
+received information from all parts, that they run gadding after a
+puppet-show. I know very well, that what I here say will be thought by
+some malicious persons to flow from envy to Mr. Powell; for which
+reason, I shall set the late dispute between us in a true light.[6] Mr.
+Powell and I had some difference about four months ago, which we managed
+by way of letter, as learned men ought to do; and I was very well
+contented to bear such sarcasms as he was pleased to throw upon me, and
+answered them with the same freedom. In the midst of this our
+misunderstanding and correspondence, I happened to give the world an
+account of the order of esquires[7]; upon which, Mr. Powell was so
+disingenuous, as to make one of his puppets (I wish I knew which of them
+it was) declare by way of prologue, that one Isaac Bickerstaff, a
+pretended esquire, had wrote a scurrilous piece to the dishonour of that
+rank of men; and then, with more art than honesty, concluded, that all
+the esquires in the pit were abused by his antagonist as much he was.
+This public accusation made all the esquires of that county, and several
+of other parts, my professed enemies. I do not in the least question but
+that he will proceed in his hostilities; and I am informed, that part of
+his design in coming up to town was to carry the war into my own
+quarters. I do therefore solemnly declare (notwithstanding that I am a
+great lover of art and ingenuity) that if I hear he opens any of his
+people's mouths against me, I shall not fail to write a critique upon
+his whole performance; for I must confess, that I have naturally so
+strong a desire of praise, that I cannot bear reproach, though from a
+piece of timber. As for Punch, who takes all opportunities of
+bespattering me, I know very well his original, and have been assured by
+the joiner who put him together, that he was in long dispute with
+himself, whether he should turn him into several pegs and utensils, or
+make him the man he is. The same person confessed to me, that he had
+once actually laid aside his head for a nutcracker. As for his scolding
+wife (however she may value herself at present), it is very well known
+that she is but a piece of crabtree. This artificer further whispered in
+my ear, that all his courtiers and nobles were taken out of a quickset
+hedge not far from Islington; and that Dr. Faustus himself, who is now
+so great a conjurer, is supposed to have learned his whole art from an
+old woman in that neighbourhood, whom he long served in the figure of a
+broomstaff.
+
+But perhaps it may look trivial to insist so much upon men's persons; I
+shall therefore turn my thoughts rather to examine their behaviour, and
+consider, whether the several parts are written up to that character
+which Mr. Powell piques himself upon, of an able and judicious
+dramatist. I have for this purpose provided myself with the works of
+above twenty French critics, and shall examine (by the rules which they
+have laid down upon the art of the stage) whether the unity of time,
+place and action, be rightly observed in any one of this celebrated
+author's productions; as also, whether in the parts of his several
+actors, and that of Punch in particular, there is not sometimes an
+impropriety of sentiments, and an impurity of diction.
+
+
+_White's Chocolate-house, January 2._
+
+I came in here to-day at an hour when only the dead appear in places of
+resort and gallantry, and saw hung up the escutcheon of Sir Hannibal,[8]
+a gentleman who used to frequent this place, and was taken up and
+interred by the Company of Upholders, as having been seen here at an
+unlicensed hour. The coat of the deceased is, three bowls and a jack in
+a green field; the crest, a dice-box, with the king of clubs and Pam for
+supporters. Some days ago the body was carried out of town with great
+pomp and ceremony, in order to be buried with his ancestors at the Peak.
+It is a maxim in morality, that we are to speak nothing but truth of the
+living, nothing but good of the dead. As I have carefully observed the
+first during his lifetime, I shall acquit myself as to the latter now he
+is deceased.
+
+He was knighted very young, not in the ordinary form, but by the common
+consent of mankind.
+
+He was in his person between round and square; in the motion and gesture
+of his body he was unaffected and free, as not having too great a
+respect for superiors. He was in his discourse bold and intrepid; and as
+every one has an excellence as well as a failing which distinguishes him
+from other men, eloquence was his predominant quality, which he had to
+so great a perfection, that it was easier to him to speak than to hold
+his tongue. This sometimes exposed him to the derision of men who had
+much less parts than himself: and indeed his great volubility and
+inimitable manner of speaking, as well as the great courage he showed on
+those occasions, did sometimes betray him into that figure of speech
+which is commonly distinguished by the name of "gasconade." To mention
+no other, he professed in this very place some few days before he died,
+that he would be one of the six that would undertake to assault me; for
+which reason I have had his figure upon my wall till the hour of his
+death: and am resolved for the future to bury every one forthwith who I
+hear has an intention to kill me.
+
+Since I am upon the subject of my adversaries, I shall here publish a
+short letter which I have received from a well-wisher, and is as
+follows:
+
+     "SAGE SIR,
+
+     "You cannot but know, there are many scribblers and others who
+     revile you and your writings. It is wondered that you do not exert
+     yourself, and crush them at once. I am,
+
+                                        "Sir (with great respect),
+                                            "Your most humble Admirer
+                                                "and Disciple."
+
+In answer to this, I shall act like my predecessor AEsop, and give him a
+fable instead of a reply.
+
+It happened one day, as a stout and honest mastiff (that guarded the
+village where he lived against thieves and robbers) was very gravely
+walking, with one of his puppies by his side, all the little dogs in the
+street gathered about him, and barked at him. The little puppy was so
+offended at this affront done to his sire, that he asked him why he
+would not fall upon them, and tear them to pieces?
+
+To which the sire answered, with a great composure of mind, "If there
+were no curs, I should be no mastiff."[9]
+
+
+[Footnote 4: See No. 108.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Cavalier Nicolini Grimaldi was a Neapolitan actor and
+singer, who appeared first in England in McSwiney's "Pyrrhus and
+Demetrius." He is often mentioned in the _Spectator_ (see Nos. 5, 13,
+405), and seems to have been a friend of both Addison and Steele.
+Addison praises him alike as an actor and as a singer. The following
+letter from Hughes to Nicolini, dated February 4, 1709-10, is given in
+Hughes' "Correspondence" (Dublin, 1773, i. 33-4): "Depuis que j'ai eu
+l'honneur d'etre chez vous a la repetition de l'opera, j'ai dine avec
+Mr. Steele, et la conversation roulante sur vous, je lui dis la maniere
+obligeante dont je vous avois ou parler de Mr. Bickerstaff, en disant
+que vous aviez beaucoup d'inclination a etudier l'Anglois pour avoir
+seulement le plaisir de lire le _Tatler_. Il trouvre que votre
+compliment a l'auteur du _Tatler_ est fort galant." Nicolini sang in
+Italian to the English of Mrs. Tofts (see No. 20, and _Spectator_, No.
+22), but Cibber observes that "whatever defect the fashionably skilful
+might find in her manner, she had, in the general sense of her
+spectators, charms that few of the most learned singers ever arrive at."
+A letter from Lady Wentworth, dated December 10, 1708, gives us a
+curious glimpse of Nicolini and Mrs. Tofts: "My dearest and best of
+children ... Yesterday I had lyke to have been ketched in a trap, your
+Brother Wentworth had almoste persuaded me to have gon last night to
+hear the fyne muisick the famous Etallion sing att the rehersall of the
+Operer, which he asured me it was soe dark none could see me. Indeed
+musick was the greatest temtation I could have, but I was afraid he
+deceaved me, soe Betty only went with his wife and him; and I rejoysed I
+did not, for thear was a vast deal of company and good light--but the
+Dutchis of Molbery had gott the Etallion to sing and he sent an excuse,
+but the Dutchis of Shrosberry made him com, brought him in her coach,
+but Mrs. Taufs huft and would not sing becaus he had first put it ofe;
+though she was thear yet she would not, but went away. I wish the house
+would al joyne to humble her and not receav her again. This man out dus
+Sefachoe, they say that has hard both" ("Wentworth Papers," 1883, p.
+66). Mr. Cartwright quotes from a letter in Lord Egmont's collection,
+dated March 17, 1709: "This day the opera of 'Camilla' is acted
+expressly for Lord Marlborough. Our famous Nicolini got 800 guineas for
+his day; and 'tis thought Mrs. Tofts, whose turn it is on Tuesday next,
+will get a vast deal. She was on Sunday last at the Duke of Somerset's,
+where there was about thirty gentlemen, and every kiss was one guinea;
+some took three, others four, others five, at that rate, but none less
+than one." (Seventh Report of Hist. MSS. Commission, p. 246).]
+
+[Footnote 6: See Nos. 11, 44, 45.]
+
+[Footnote 7: See No. 19.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Sir James Baker, known as the "Knight of the Peak"; see No.
+118. Steele's comments on gambling in the _Tatler_ brought upon him the
+anger of many of the sharpers. There is a well-known story that Lord
+Forbes, Major-General Davenport, and Brigadier Bisset were in the St.
+James's Coffee-house when some well-dressed men entered, and began to
+abuse Steele as the author of the _Tatler_. One of them swore that he
+would cut Steele's throat or teach him better manners. "In this
+country," said Lord Forbes, "you will find it easier to cut a purse than
+to cut a throat"; and the cut-throats were soon turned out of the house
+with every mark of disgrace. A similar incident is described in a
+recently published letter from Lady Marow to her daughter, Lady Kaye
+("Manuscripts of the Earl of Dartmouth," iii. 148; Hist. MSS. Comm.,
+Fifteenth Report, Part I.). Writing on January 5, 1709-10, Lady Marow
+says: "All the town are full of the _Tatler_, which I hope you have to
+prepare you for discourse, for no visit is made that I hear of but Mr.
+Bickerstaff is mentioned, and I am told he has done so much good that
+the sharpers cannot increase their stocks as they did formerly; for one
+Young came into the chocolate-house, and said he would stop Mr.
+Bickerstaff if he knew him. Mr. Steele, who is thought to write the
+_Tatler_, heard Young say so, and, when he went out of the house, said
+he should walk in St. James's Park an hour, if any would speak with him;
+but the Hector took no notice."]
+
+[Footnote 9: In the original folio number, after indication of certain
+errata in No. 114, comes the following note: "The reader is desired not
+to pronounce anything in any one of these writings _nonsense_, till the
+following paper comes out."]
+
+
+
+
+No. 116.                                                    [ADDISON.
+
+From _Tuesday, Jan. 3_, to _Thursday, Jan. 5, 1709-10._
+
+    --Pars minima est ipsa puella sui.
+                        OVID, Rem. Amor. 344.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, January 4._
+
+The court being prepared for proceeding on the cause of the petticoat, I
+gave orders to bring in a criminal who was taken up as she went out of
+the puppet-show about three nights ago, and was now standing in the
+street with a great concourse of people about her. Word was brought me,
+that she had endeavoured twice or thrice to come in, but could not do it
+by reason of her petticoat, which was too large for the entrance of my
+house, though I had ordered both the folding-doors to be thrown open for
+its reception. Upon this, I desired the jury of matrons, who stood at my
+right hand, to inform themselves of her condition, and know whether
+there were any private reasons why she might not make her appearance
+separate from her petticoat. This was managed with great discretion, and
+had such an effect, that upon the return of the verdict from the bench
+of matrons, I issued out an order forthwith, that the criminal should be
+stripped of her encumbrances, till she became little enough to enter my
+house. I had before given directions for an engine of several legs, that
+could contract or open itself like the top of an umbrello,[10] in order
+to place the petticoat upon it, by which means I might take a leisurely
+survey of it, as it should appear in its proper dimensions. This was all
+done accordingly; and forthwith, upon the closing of the engine, the
+petticoat was brought into court. I then directed the machine to be set
+upon the table, and dilated in such a manner as to show the garment in
+its utmost circumference; but my great hall was too narrow for the
+experiment; for before it was half unfolded, it described so immoderate
+a circle, that the lower part of it brushed upon my face as I sate in my
+chair of judicature. I then inquired for the person that belonged to the
+petticoat; and to my great surprise, was directed to a very beautiful
+young damsel, with so pretty a face and shape, that I bid her come out
+of the crowd, and seated her upon a little crock at my left hand. "My
+pretty maid," said I, "do you own yourself to have been the inhabitant
+of the garment before us?" The girl I found had good sense, and told me
+with a smile, that notwithstanding it was her own petticoat, she should
+be very glad to see an example made of it; and that she wore it for no
+other reason, but that she had a mind to look as big and burly as other
+persons of her quality; that she had kept out of it as long as she
+could, and till she began to appear little in the eyes of all her
+acquaintance; that if she laid it aside, people would think she was not
+made like other women. I always give great allowances to the fair sex
+upon account of the fashion, and therefore was not displeased with the
+defence of my pretty criminal. I then ordered the vest which stood
+before us to be drawn up by a pulley to the top of my great hall, and
+afterwards to be spread open by the engine it was placed upon, in such a
+manner, that it formed a very splendid and ample canopy over our heads,
+and covered the whole court of judicature with a kind of silken rotunda,
+in its form not unlike the cupola of St. Paul's. I entered upon the
+whole cause with great satisfaction as I sat under the shadow of it.
+
+The counsel for the petticoat was now called in, and ordered to produce
+what they had to say against the popular cry which was raised against
+it. They answered the objections with great strength and solidity of
+argument, and expatiated in very florid harangues, which they did not
+fail to set off and furbelow (if I may be allowed the metaphor) with
+many periodical sentences and turns of oratory. The chief arguments for
+their client were taken, first, from the great benefit that might arise
+to our woollen manufactury from this invention, which was calculated as
+follows: the common petticoat has not above four yards in the
+circumference; whereas this over our heads had more in the
+semi-diameter; so that by allowing it twenty-four yards in the
+circumference, the five millions of woollen petticoats, which (according
+to Sir William Petty) supposing what ought to be supposed in a
+well-governed state, that all petticoats are made of that stuff, would
+amount to thirty millions of those of the ancient mode. A prodigious
+improvement of the woollen trade! and what could not fail to sink the
+power of France in a few years.
+
+To introduce the second argument, they begged leave to read a petition
+of the ropemakers, wherein it was represented, that the demand for
+cords, and the price of them, were much risen since this fashion came
+up. At this, all the company who were present lifted up their eyes into
+the vault; and I must confess, we did discover many traces of cordage
+which were interwoven in the stiffening of the drapery.
+
+A third argument was founded upon a petition of the Greenland trade,
+which likewise represented the great consumption of whalebone which
+would be occasioned by the present fashion, and the benefit which would
+thereby accrue to that branch of the British trade.
+
+To conclude, they gently touched upon the weight and unwieldiness of the
+garment, which they insinuated might be of great use to preserve the
+honour of families.
+
+These arguments would have wrought very much upon me (as I then told the
+company in a long and elaborate discourse) had I not considered the
+great and additional expense which such fashions would bring upon
+fathers and husbands; and therefore by no means to be thought of till
+some years after a peace. I further urged, that it would be a prejudice
+to the ladies themselves, who could never expect to have any money in
+the pocket, if they laid out so much on the petticoat. To this I added,
+the great temptation it might give to virgins, of acting in security
+like married women, and by that means give a check to matrimony, an
+institution always encouraged by wise societies.
+
+At the same time, in answer to the several petitions produced on that
+side, I showed one subscribed by the women of several persons of
+quality, humbly setting forth, that since the introduction of this mode,
+their respective ladies had, instead of bestowing on them their cast
+gowns, cut them into shreds, and mixed them with the cordage and
+buckram, to complete the stiffening of their under-petticoats. For
+which, and sundry other reasons, I pronounced the petticoat a
+forfeiture: but to show that I did not make that judgment for the sake
+of filthy lucre, I ordered it to be folded up, and sent it as a present
+to a widow gentlewoman, who has five daughters, desiring she would make
+each of them a petticoat out of it, and send me back the remainder,
+which I design to cut into stomachers, caps, facings of my waistcoat
+sleeves, and other garnitures suitable to my age and quality.
+
+I would not be understood, that, while I discard this monstrous
+invention, I am an enemy to the proper ornaments of the fair sex. On
+the contrary, as the hand of nature has poured on them such a profusion
+of charms and graces, and sent them into the world more amiable and
+finished than the rest of her works; so I would have them bestow upon
+themselves all the additional beauties that art can supply them with,
+provided it does not interfere with, disguise, or pervert, those of
+nature.
+
+I consider woman as a beautiful romantic animal, that may be adorned
+with furs and feathers, pearls and diamonds, ores and silks. The lynx
+shall cast its skin at her feet to make her a tippet; the peacock,
+parrot, and swan, shall pay contributions to her muff; the sea shall be
+searched for shells, and the rocks for gems; and every part of nature
+furnish out its share towards the embellishment of a creature that is
+the most consummate work of it. All this I shall indulge them in; but as
+for the petticoat I have been speaking of, I neither can, nor will allow
+it.
+
+
+[Footnote 10: Swift uses this form of the word: "It served him for a
+nightcap when he went to bed, and for an umbrello in rainy whether."]
+
+
+
+
+No. 117.                                                    [ADDISON.
+
+From _Thursday, Jan. 5_, to _Saturday, Jan. 7, 1709-10_.
+
+Durate, et vosmet rebus servate secundis.
+                           VIRG., AEn. i. 207.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, January 6._
+
+When I look into the frame and constitution of my own mind, there is no
+part of it which I observe with greater satisfaction, than that
+tenderness and concern which it bears for the good and happiness of
+mankind. My own circumstances are indeed so narrow and scanty, that I
+should taste but very little pleasure, could I receive it only from
+those enjoyments which are in my own possession; but by this great
+tincture of humanity, which I find in all my thoughts and reflections,
+I am happier than any single person can be, with all the wealth,
+strength, beauty, and success, that can be conferred upon a mortal, if
+he only relishes such a proportion of these blessings as is vested in
+himself, and is his own private property. By this means, every man that
+does himself any real service, does me a kindness. I come in for my
+share in all the good that happens to a man of merit and virtue, and
+partake of many gifts of fortune and power that I was never born to.
+There is nothing in particular in which I so much rejoice, as the
+deliverance of good and generous spirits out of dangers, difficulties,
+and distresses. And because the world does not supply instances of this
+kind to furnish out sufficient entertainments for such a humanity and
+benevolence of temper, I have ever delighted in reading the history of
+ages past, which draws together into a narrow compass the great
+occurrences and events that are but thinly sown in those tracts of time
+which lie within our own knowledge and observation. When I see the life
+of a great man, who has deserved well of his country, after having
+struggled through all the oppositions of prejudice and envy, breaking
+out with lustre, and shining forth in all the splendour of success, I
+close my book, and am a happy man for a whole evening.
+
+But since in history events are of a mixed nature, and often happen
+alike to the worthless and the deserving, insomuch that we frequently
+see a virtuous man dying in the midst of disappointments and calamities,
+and the vicious ending their days in prosperity and peace, I love to
+amuse myself with the accounts I meet with in fabulous histories and
+fictions: for in this kind of writings we have always the pleasure of
+seeing vice punished, and virtue rewarded. Indeed, were we able to view
+a man in the whole circle of his existence, we should have the
+satisfaction of seeing it close with happiness or misery, according to
+his proper merit: but though our view of him is interrupted by death
+before the finishing of his adventures (if I may so speak), we may be
+sure that the conclusion and catastrophe is altogether suitable to his
+behaviour. On the contrary, the whole being of a man, considered as a
+hero, or a knight-errant, is comprehended within the limits of a poem or
+romance, and therefore always ends to our satisfaction; so that
+inventions of this kind are like food and exercise to a good-natured
+disposition, which they please and gratify at the same time that they
+nourish and strengthen. The greater the affliction is in which we see
+our favourites in these relations engaged, the greater is the pleasure
+we take in seeing them relieved.
+
+Among the many feigned histories which I have met with in my reading,
+there is none in which the hero's perplexity is greater, and the winding
+out of it more difficult, than that in a French author whose name I have
+forgot. It so happens, that the hero's mistress was the sister of his
+most intimate friend, who for certain reasons was given out to be dead,
+while he was preparing to leave his country in quest of adventures. The
+hero having heard of his friend's death, immediately repaired to his
+mistress, to condole with her, and comfort her. Upon his arrival in her
+garden, he discovered at a distance a man clasped in her arms, and
+embraced with the most endearing tenderness. What should he do? It did
+not consist with the gentleness of a knight-errant either to kill his
+mistress, or the man whom she was pleased to favour. At the same time,
+it would have spoiled a romance, should he have laid violent hands on
+himself. In short, he immediately entered upon his adventures; and after
+a long series of exploits, found out by degrees, that the person he saw
+in his mistress's arms was her own brother, taking leave of her before
+he left his country, and the embrace she gave him nothing else but the
+affectionate farewell of a sister: so that he had at once the two
+greatest satisfactions that could enter into the heart of man, in
+finding his friend alive, whom he thought dead; and his mistress
+faithful, whom he had believed inconstant.
+
+There are indeed some disasters so very fatal, that it is impossible for
+any accidents to rectify them. Of this kind was that of poor Lucretia;
+and yet we see Ovid has found an expedient even in this case. He
+describes a beautiful and royal virgin walking on the seashore, where
+she was discovered by Neptune, and violated after a long and
+unsuccessful importunity. To mitigate her sorrow, he offers her whatever
+she would wish for. Never certainly was the wit of woman more puzzled in
+finding out a stratagem to retrieve her honour. Had she desired to be
+changed into a stock or stone, a beast, fish or fowl, she would have
+been a loser by it: or had she desired to have been made a sea-nymph, or
+a goddess, her immortality would but have perpetuated her disgrace.
+"Give me therefore," said she, "such a shape as may make me incapable of
+suffering again the like calamity, or of being reproached for what I
+have already suffered." To be short, she was turned into a man, and by
+that only means avoided the danger and imputation she so much dreaded.
+
+I was once myself in agonies of grief that are unutterable, and in so
+great a distraction of mind, that I thought myself even out of the
+possibility of receiving comfort. The occasion was as follows: When I
+was a youth in a part of the army which was then quartered at Dover, I
+fell in love with an agreeable young woman, of a good family in those
+parts, and had the satisfaction of seeing my addresses kindly received,
+which occasioned the perplexity I am going to relate.
+
+We were in a calm evening diverting ourselves upon the top of the cliff
+with the prospect of the sea, and trifling away the time in such little
+fondnesses as are most ridiculous to people in business, and most
+agreeable to those in love.
+
+In the midst of these our innocent endearments, she snatched a paper of
+verses out of my hand, and ran away with them. I was following her, when
+on a sudden the ground, though at a considerable distance from the verge
+of the precipice, sank under her, and threw her down from so prodigious
+a height upon such a range of rocks, as would have dashed her into ten
+thousand pieces, had her body been made of adamant. It is much easier
+for my reader to imagine my state of mind upon such an occasion, than
+for me to express it. I said to myself, "It is not in the power of
+heaven to relieve me!" when I awoke, equally transported and astonished,
+to see myself drawn out of an affliction which the very moment before
+appeared to me altogether inextricable.
+
+The impressions of grief and horror were so lively on this occasion,
+that while they lasted, they made me more miserable than I was at the
+real death of this beloved person (which happened a few months after, at
+a time when the match between us was concluded), inasmuch as the
+imaginary death was untimely, and I myself in a sort an accessory;
+whereas her real decease had at least these alleviations, of being
+natural and inevitable.
+
+The memory of the dream I have related still dwells so strongly upon me,
+that I can never read the description of Dover Cliff in Shakespeare's
+tragedy of "King Lear,"[11] without a fresh sense of my escape. The
+prospect from that place is drawn with such proper incidents, that
+whoever can read it without growing giddy, must have a good head, or a
+very bad one.
+
+    "_Come on, sir, here's the place; stand still! How fearful
+    And dizzy 'tis to cast one's eyes so low?
+    The crows and choughs that wing the midway air,
+    Show scarce as gross as beetles. Half-way down
+    Hangs one that gathers samphire. Dreadful trade!
+    Methinks he seems no bigger than his head.
+    The fishermen that walk upon the beach,
+    Appear like mice, and yond' tall anchoring bark
+    Diminished to her boat;[12] her boat![12] a buoy
+    Almost too small for sight. The murmuring surge
+    (That on the unnumbered idle pebble beats)
+    Cannot be heard so high. I'll look no more,
+    Lest my brain turn._"[13]
+
+
+[Footnote 11: "King Lear," act iv. sc. 6.]
+
+[Footnote 12: Altered from Shakespeare's "cock."]
+
+[Footnote 13: "The parcel of letters, value 10_s._ 3_d._, with the
+subsequent letter, is received, for which Mr. Bickerstaff gives his
+thanks and humble service" (folio).]
+
+
+
+
+No. 118.                                                 [STEELE.[14]
+
+From _Saturday, Jan. 7_, to _Tuesday, Jan. 10, 1709-10_.
+
+    Lusisti satis, edisti satis atque bibisti;
+    Tempus abire tibi....--HOR., 2 Ep. ii. 214.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, January 8._
+
+I thought to have given over my prosecution of the dead for this season,
+having by me many other projects for the reformation of mankind; but I
+have received so many complaints from such different hands, that I shall
+disoblige multitudes of my correspondents, if I do not take notice of
+them. Some of the deceased, who I thought had been laid quietly in their
+graves, are such hobgoblins in public assemblies, that I must be forced
+to deal with them as Evander did with his triple-lived adversary, who,
+according to Virgil, was forced to kill him thrice over before he could
+despatch him.
+
+    "_Ter leto sternendus erat._"[15]
+
+I am likewise informed, that several wives of my dead men have, since
+the decease of their husbands, been seen in many public places without
+mourning, or regard to common decency.
+
+I am further advised, that several of the defunct, contrary to the
+Woollen Act,[16] presume to dress themselves in lace, embroidery, silks,
+muslins, and other ornaments forbidden to persons in their condition.
+These and other the like informations moving me thereunto, I must
+desire, for distinction-sake, and to conclude this subject for ever,
+that when any of these posthumous persons appear, or are spoken of,
+their wives may be called "widows"; their houses, "sepulchres"; their
+chariots, "hearses"; and their garments, "flannel": on which condition,
+they shall be allowed all the conveniences that dead men can in reason
+desire.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As I was writing this morning on this subject, I received the following
+letter:
+
+     "MR. BICKERSTAFF,                      _From the Banks of Styx_.
+
+     "I must confess I treated you very scurrilously when you first sent
+     me hither; but you have despatched such multitudes after me to keep
+     me in countenance, that I am very well reconciled both to you and
+     my condition. We live very lovingly together; for as death makes
+     us all equal, it makes us very much delight in one another's
+     company. Our time passes away much after the same manner as it did
+     when we were among you: eating, drinking, and sleeping, are our
+     chief diversions. Our quidnuncs between whiles go to a
+     coffee-house, where they have several warm liquors made of the
+     waters of Lethe, with very good poppy tea. We that are the
+     sprightly geniuses of the place, refresh ourselves frequently with
+     a bottle of mum,[17] and tell stories till we fall asleep. You
+     would do well to send among us Mr. Dodwell's[18] book against the
+     immortality of the soul, which would be of great consolation to our
+     whole fraternity, who would be very glad to find that they are dead
+     for good and all, and would in particular make me rest for ever,
+
+                                                "Yours,
+                                                     "JOHN PARTRIDGE.
+
+     "P.S.--Sir James[19] is just arrived here in good health."
+
+The foregoing letter was the more pleasing to me, because I perceive
+some little symptoms in it of a resuscitation; and having lately seen
+the predictions of this author, which are written in a true Protestant
+spirit of prophecy, and a particular zeal against the French king, I
+have some thoughts of sending for him from the Banks of Styx, and
+reinstating him in his own house, at the sign of the Globe in Salisbury
+Street. For the encouragement of him and others, I shall offer to their
+consideration a letter which gives me an account of the revival of one
+of their brethren:
+
+     "SIR,                                             _December 31._
+
+     "I have perused your _Tatler_ of this day,[20] and have wept over
+     it with great pleasure: I wish you would be more frequent in your
+     family pieces. For as I consider you under the notion of a great
+     designer, I think these are not your least valuable performances. I
+     am glad to find you have given over your face painting for some
+     time, because, I think, you have employed yourself more in
+     grotesque figures, than in beauties; for which reason, I would
+     rather see you work upon history pieces, than on single portraits.
+     Your several draughts of dead men appear to me as pictures of still
+     life, and have done great good in the place where I live. The
+     squire of a neighbouring village, who had been a long time in the
+     number of nonentities, is entirely recovered by them. For these
+     several years past, there was not a hare in the county that could
+     be at rest for him; and I think, the greatest exploit he ever
+     boasted of, was, that when he was high sheriff of the county, he
+     hunted a fox so far, that he could not follow him any farther by
+     the laws of the land. All the hours he spent at home, were in
+     swilling[21] himself with October, and rehearsing the wonders he
+     did in the field. Upon reading your papers, he has sold his dogs,
+     shook off his dead companions, looked into his estate, got the
+     multiplication table by heart, paid his tithes, and intends to take
+     upon him the office of churchwarden next year. I wish the same
+     success with your other patients, and am, &c."
+
+     _Ditto, January 9._
+
+When I came home this evening, a very tight middle-aged woman presented
+to me the following petition:
+
+     "_To the Worshipful Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq., Censor of Great
+     Britain._
+
+     "The humble petition of Penelope Prim, widow;
+
+     "Sheweth,
+
+     "That your petitioner was bred a clear-starcher and sempstress, and
+     for many years worked to the Exchange; and to several aldermen's
+     wives, lawyers' clerks, and merchants' apprentices.
+
+     "That through the scarcity caused by regraters of bread-corn (of
+     which starch is made) and the gentry's immoderate frequenting the
+     operas, the ladies, to save charges, have their heads washed at
+     home, and the beaus put out their linen to common laundresses, so
+     that your petitioner hath little or no work at her trade: for want
+     of which she is reduced to such necessity, that she and her seven
+     fatherless children must inevitably perish, unless relieved by your
+     worship.
+
+     "That your petitioner is informed, that in contempt of your
+     judgment pronounced on Tuesday the third instant against the
+     new-fashioned petticoat, or old-fashioned farthingale,[22] the
+     ladies design to go on in that dress. And since it is presumed your
+     worship will not suppress them by force, your petitioner humbly
+     desires you would order, that ruffs may be added to the dress; and
+     that she may be heard by her counsel, who has assured your
+     petitioner, he has such cogent reasons to offer to your court, that
+     ruffs and farthingales are inseparable; and that he questions not
+     but two-thirds of the greatest beauties about town will have
+     cambric collars on their necks before the end of Easter Term next.
+     He further says, that the design of our great-grandmothers in this
+     petticoat, was to appear much bigger than the life; for which
+     reason, they had false shoulder-blades, like wings, and the ruff
+     above mentioned, to make their upper and lower parts of their
+     bodies appear proportionable; whereas the figure of a woman in the
+     present dress, bears (as he calls it) the figure of a cone, which
+     (as he advises) is the same with that of an extinguisher, with a
+     little knob at the upper end, and widening downward, till it ends
+     in a basis of a most enormous circumference.
+
+     "Your petitioner therefore most humbly prays, that you would
+     restore the ruff to the farthingale, which in their nature ought to
+     be as inseparable as the two Hungarian twins.[23]
+
+                               "And your Petitioner shall ever pray."
+
+I have examined into the allegations of this petition, and find, by
+several ancient pictures of my own predecessors, particularly that of
+Dame Deborah Bickerstaff, my great-grandmother, that the ruff and
+farthingale are made use of as absolutely necessary to preserve the
+symmetry of the figure; and Mrs. Pyramid Bickerstaff, her second sister,
+is recorded in our family-book, with some observations to her
+disadvantage, as the first female of our house that discovered, to any
+besides her nurse and her husband, an inch below her chin or above her
+instep. This convinces me of the reasonableness of Mrs. Prim's demand;
+and therefore I shall not allow the reviving of any one part of that
+ancient mode, except the whole is complied with. Mrs. Prim is therefore
+hereby empowered to carry home ruffs to such as she shall see in the
+above-mentioned petticoats, and require payment on demand.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. Bickerstaff has under consideration the offer from the Corporation
+of Colchester of four hundred pounds per annum, to be paid quarterly,
+provided that all his dead persons shall be obliged to wear the baize of
+that place.
+
+
+[Footnote 14: Nichols suggests that Addison was at least partly
+responsible for this paper.]
+
+[Footnote 15: "AEneid," viii. 566.]
+
+[Footnote 16: The Act "for burying in wool" (30 Charles II. cap. 3) was
+intended to protect homespun goods. Sometimes a fine was paid for
+allowing a person of position to be "buried in linen, contrary to the
+Act of Parliament." The widow in Steele's "Funeral" (act v. sc. 2) says:
+"Take care I ain't buried in flannel; 'twould never become me, I'm
+sure." See, too, Pope's "Moral Essays," i. 246:
+
+    "'Odious! in woollen! 'twould a saint provoke,'
+    Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke."
+]
+
+[Footnote 17: Ale brewed with wheat. John Philips ("Cyder," ii. 231)
+speaks of "bowls of fattening mum."]
+
+[Footnote 18: Henry Dodwell, the nonjuror, died in 1711, in his
+seventieth year. He tried to prove that immortality was conferred on the
+soul only at baptism, by the gift of God, through the hands of the
+ordained clergy. The title of the book alluded to is "An Epistolary
+Discourse concerning the Soul's Immortality."]
+
+[Footnote 19: Sir James Baker. See No. 115.]
+
+[Footnote 20: No. 114.]
+
+[Footnote 21: The original editions read "swelling."]
+
+[Footnote 22: See No. 116.]
+
+[Footnote 23: Helen and Judith, two united twin-sisters, were born at
+Tzoni, in Hungary, October 26, 1701; lived to the age of twenty-one, and
+died in a convent at Petersburg, February 23, 1723. The mother, it is
+said, survived their birth, bore another child afterwards, and was alive
+when her singular twins were shown here, at a house in the Strand, near
+Charing Cross, in 1708. The writers of a periodical publication at that
+time seem to have examined them carefully, with a view to enable
+themselves to answer the many questions of their correspondents
+concerning them. See "The British Apollo," vol. i, Nos. 35, 36, 37, &c.
+(1708), and the Royal Society's "Phil. Transact." vol. I. part 1, for
+the year 1757, art. 39. Nothing more can be well said of the Hungarian
+twins here, but that they were well shaped, had beautiful faces, and
+loved each other tenderly; they could read, write, and sing very
+prettily; they spoke the Hungarian, High and Low Dutch, and French
+languages, and learnt English when they were in this country (Nichols).]
+
+
+
+
+No. 119.                                                    [ADDISON.
+
+From _Tuesday, Jan. 10_, to _Thursday, Jan. 12, 1709-10_.
+
+    In tenui labor.--VIRG., Georg. iv. 6.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, January 11._
+
+I have lately applied myself with much satisfaction to the curious
+discoveries that have been made by the help of microscopes, as they are
+related by authors of our own and other nations. There is a great deal
+of pleasure in prying into this world of wonders, which Nature has laid
+out of sight, and seems industrious to conceal from us. Philosophy had
+ranged over all the visible creation, and began to want objects for her
+inquiries, when the present age, by the invention of glasses, opened a
+new and inexhaustible magazine of rarities, more wonderful and amazing
+than any of those which astonished our forefathers. I was yesterday
+amusing myself with speculations of this kind, and reflecting upon
+myriads of animals that swim in those little seas of juices that are
+contained in the several vessels of a human body. While my mind was thus
+filled with that secret wonder and delight, I could not but look upon
+myself as in an act of devotion, and am very well pleased with the
+thought of the great heathen anatomist,[24] who calls his description of
+the parts of a human body, "A Hymn to the Supreme Being." The reading of
+the day produced in my imagination an agreeable morning's dream, if I
+may call it such; for I am still in doubt, whether it passed in my
+sleeping or waking thoughts. However it was, I fancied that my good
+genius stood at my bed's head, and entertained me with the following
+discourse; for upon my rising, it dwelt so strongly upon me, that I
+wrote down the substance of it, if not the very words.
+
+"If," said he, "you can be so transported with those productions of
+nature which are discovered to you by those artificial eyes that are the
+works of human invention, how great will your surprise be, when you
+shall have it in your power to model your own eye as you please, and
+adapt it to the bulk of objects, which, with all these helps, are by
+infinite degrees too minute for your perception. We who are unbodied
+spirits can sharpen our sight to what degree we think fit, and make the
+least work of the creation distinct and visible. This gives us such
+ideas as cannot possibly enter into your present conceptions. There is
+not the least particle of matter which may not furnish one of us
+sufficient employment for a whole eternity. We can still divide it, and
+still open it, and still discover new wonders of Providence, as we look
+into the different texture of its parts, and meet with beds of
+vegetables, mineral and metallic mixtures, and several kinds of animals
+that lie hid, and as it were lost in such an endless fund of matter. I
+find you are surprised at this discourse; but as your reason tells you
+there are infinite parts in the smallest portion of matter, it will
+likewise convince you, that there is as great a variety of secrets, and
+as much room for discoveries, in a particle no bigger than the point of
+a pin, as in the globe of the whole earth. Your microscopes bring to
+sight shoals of living creatures in a spoonful of vinegar; but we who
+can distinguish them in their different magnitudes, see among them
+several huge leviathans, that terrify the little fry of animals about
+them, and take their pastime as in an ocean, or the great deep." I could
+not but smile at this part of his relation, and told him, I doubted not
+but he could give me the history of several invisible giants,
+accompanied with their respective dwarfs, in case that any of these
+little beings are of a human shape. "You may assure yourself," said he,
+"that we see in these little animals different natures, instincts and
+modes of life, which correspond to what you observe in creatures of
+bigger dimensions. We descry millions of species subsisted on a green
+leaf, which your glasses represent only in crowds and swarms. What
+appears to your eye but as hair or down rising on the surface of it, we
+find to be woods and forests, inhabited by beasts of prey, that are as
+dreadful in those their little haunts, as lions and tigers in the
+deserts of Libya." I was much delighted with his discourse, and could
+not forbear telling him, that I should be wonderfully pleased to see a
+natural history of imperceptibles, containing a true account of such
+vegetables and animals as grow and live out of sight. "Such
+disquisitions," answered he, "are very suitable to reasonable creatures;
+and you may be sure, there are many curious spirits amongst us who
+employ themselves in such amusements. For as our hands, and all our
+senses, may be formed to what degree of strength and delicacy we please,
+in the same manner as our sight, we can make what experiments we are
+inclined to, how small soever the matter be in which we make them. I
+have been present at the dissection of a mite, and have seen the
+skeleton of a flea. I have been shown a forest of numberless trees,
+which has been picked out of an acorn. Your microscope can show you in
+it a complete oak in miniature; and could you suit all your organs as we
+do, you might pluck an acorn from this little oak, which contains
+another tree; and so proceed from tree to tree, as long as you would
+think fit to continue your disquisitions. It is almost impossible,"
+added he, "to talk of things so remote from common life, and the
+ordinary notions which mankind receive from blunt and gross organs of
+sense, without appearing extravagant and ridiculous. You have often seen
+a dog opened, to observe the circulation of the blood, or make any other
+useful inquiry; and yet would be tempted to laugh if I should tell you,
+that a circle of much greater philosophers than any of the Royal
+Society, were present at the cutting up of one of those little animals
+which we find in the blue of a plum: that it was tied down alive before
+them; and that they observed the palpitations of the heart, the course
+of the blood, the working of the muscles, and the convulsions in the
+several limbs, with great accuracy and improvement." "I must confess,"
+said I, "for my own part, I go along with you in all your discoveries
+with great pleasure; but it is certain, they are too fine for the gross
+of mankind, who are more struck with the description of everything that
+is great and bulky. Accordingly we find the best judge of human nature
+setting forth his wisdom, not in the formation of these minute animals
+(though indeed no less wonderful than the other) but in that of the
+leviathan and behemoth, the horse and the crocodile."[25] "Your
+observation," said he, "is very just; and I must acknowledge for my own
+part, that although it is with much delight that I see the traces of
+Providence in these instances, I still take greater pleasure in
+considering the works of the creation in their immensity, than in their
+minuteness. For this reason, I rejoice when I strengthen my sight so as
+to make it pierce into the most remote spaces, and take a view of those
+heavenly bodies which lie out of the reach of human eyes, though
+assisted by telescopes. What you look upon as one confused white in the
+Milky Way, appears to me a long tract of heavens, distinguished by stars
+that are ranged in proper figures and constellations. While you are
+admiring the sky in a starry night, I am entertained with a variety of
+worlds and suns placed one above another, and rising up to such an
+immense distance, that no created eye can see an end of them."
+
+The latter part of his discourse flung me into such an astonishment,
+that he had been silent for some time before I took notice of it; when
+on a sudden I started up and drew my curtains, to look if any one was
+near me, but saw nobody, and cannot tell to this moment whether it was
+my good genius or a dream that left me.
+
+
+[Footnote 24: Galen, "De Usu Partium."]
+
+[Footnote 25: See Job, chaps. 39-41.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 120.                                                    [ADDISON.
+
+From _Thursday, Jan. 12_, to _Saturday, Jan. 14, 1709-10_.
+
+    ----Velut silvis, ubi passim
+    Palantes error certo de tramite pellit;
+    Ille sinistrorsum, hic dextrorsum abit.
+                                  HOR., 2 Sat. iii. 48.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, January 13._
+
+Instead of considering any particular passion or character in any one
+set of men, my thoughts were last night employed on the contemplation of
+human life in general; and truly it appears to me, that the whole
+species are hurried on by the same desires, and engaged in the same
+pursuits, according to the different stages and divisions of life. Youth
+is devoted to lust, middle age to ambition, old age to avarice. These
+are the three general motives and principles of action both in good and
+bad men; though it must be acknowledged, that they change their names,
+and resign their natures, according to the temper of the person whom
+they direct and animate. For with the good, lust becomes virtuous love;
+ambition, true honour; and avarice, the care of posterity. This scheme
+of thought amused me very agreeably till I retired to rest, and
+afterwards formed itself into a pleasing and regular vision, which I
+shall describe in all its circumstances, as the objects presented
+themselves, whether in a serious or ridiculous manner.
+
+I dreamed that I was in a wood, of so prodigious an extent, and cut into
+such a variety of walks and alleys, that all mankind were lost and
+bewildered in it. After having wandered up and down some time, I came
+into the centre of it, which opened into a wide plain, that was filled
+with multitudes of both sexes. I here discovered three great roads, very
+wide and long, that led into three different parts of the forest. On a
+sudden, the whole multitude broke into three parts, according to their
+different ages, and marched in their respective bodies into the three
+great roads that lay before them. As I had a mind to know how each of
+these roads terminated, and whither it would lead those who passed
+through them, I joined myself with the assembly that were in the flower
+and vigour of their age, and called themselves, "The Band of Lovers." I
+found to my great surprise, that several old men besides myself had
+intruded into this agreeable company; as I had before observed, there
+were some young men who had united themselves to the Band of Misers, and
+were walking up the path of avarice; though both made a very ridiculous
+figure, and were as much laughed at by those they joined, as by those
+they forsook. The walk which we marched up, for thickness of shades,
+embroidery of flowers, and melody of birds, with the distant purling of
+streams, and falls of water, was so wonderfully delightful, that it
+charmed our senses, and intoxicated our minds with pleasure. We had not
+been long here, before every man singled out some woman to whom he
+offered his addresses and professed himself a lover; when on a sudden we
+perceived this delicious walk to grow more narrow as we advanced in it,
+till it ended in many intricate thickets, mazes and labyrinths, that
+were so mixed with roses and brambles, brakes of thorns, and beds of
+flowers, rocky paths and pleasing grottoes, that it was hard to say,
+whether it gave greater delight or perplexity to those who travelled in
+it.
+
+It was here that the lovers began to be eager in their pursuits. Some of
+their mistresses, who only seemed to retire for the sake of form and
+decency, led them into plantations that were disposed into regular
+walks; where, after they had wheeled about in some turns and windings,
+they suffered themselves to be overtaken, and gave their hands to those
+who pursued them. Others withdrew from their followers into little
+wildernesses, where there were so many paths interwoven with each other
+in so much confusion and irregularity, that several of the lovers
+quitted the pursuit, or broke their hearts in the chase. It was
+sometimes very odd to see a man pursuing a fine woman that was following
+another, whose eye was fixed upon a fourth, that had her own game in
+view in some other quarter of the wilderness. I could not but observe
+two things in this place which I thought very particular, that several
+persons who stood only at the end of the avenues, and cast a careless
+eye upon the nymphs during their whole flight, often caught them, when
+those who pressed them the most warmly through all their turns and
+doubles, were wholly unsuccessful: and that some of my own age, who were
+at first looked upon with aversion and contempt, by being well
+acquainted with the wilderness, and by dodging their women in the
+particular corners and alleys of it, caught them in their arms, and took
+them from those they really loved and admired. There was a particular
+grove, which was called, "The Labyrinth of Coquettes"; where many were
+enticed to the chase, but few returned with purchase. It was pleasant
+enough to see a celebrated beauty, by smiling upon one, casting a glance
+upon another, beckoning to a third, and adapting her charms and graces
+to the several follies of those that admired her, drawing into the
+labyrinth a whole pack of lovers, that lost themselves in the maze, and
+never could find their way out of it. However, it was some satisfaction
+to me, to see many of the fair ones who had thus deluded their
+followers, and left them among the intricacies of the labyrinth, obliged
+when they came out of it, to surrender to the first partner that
+offered himself. I now had crossed over all the difficult and perplexed
+passages that seemed to bound our walk, when on the other side of them,
+I saw the same great road running on a little way, till it was
+terminated by two beautiful temples. I stood here for some time, and saw
+most of the multitude who had been dispersed amongst the thickets,
+coming out two by two, and marching up in pairs towards the temples that
+stood before us. The structure on the right hand was (as I afterwards
+found) consecrated to virtuous love, and could not be entered but by
+such as received a ring, or some other token, from a person who was
+placed as a guard at the gate of it. He wore a garland of roses and
+myrtles on his head, and on his shoulders a robe like an imperial
+mantle, white and unspotted all over, excepting only, that where it was
+clasped at his breast, there were two golden turtle-doves that buttoned
+it by their bills, which were wrought in rubies. He was called by the
+name of Hymen, and was seated near the entrance of the temple, in a
+delicious bower, made up of several trees, that were embraced by
+woodbines, jessamines, and amaranths, which were as so many emblems of
+marriage, and ornaments to the trunks that supported them. As I was
+single and unaccompanied, I was not permitted to enter the temple, and
+for that reason am a stranger to all the mysteries that were performed
+in it. I had however the curiosity to observe how the several couples
+that entered were disposed of; which was after the following manner.
+There were two great gates on the back side of the edifice, at which the
+whole crowd was let out. At one of these gates were two women, extremely
+beautiful, though in a different kind, the one having a very careful and
+composed air, the other a sort of smile and ineffable sweetness in her
+countenance. The name of the first was Discretion, and of the other
+Complacency, All who came out of this gate, and put themselves under the
+direction of these two sisters, were immediately conducted by them into
+gardens, groves, and meadows, which abounded in delights, and were
+furnished with everything that could make them the proper seats of
+happiness. The second gate of this temple let out all the couples that
+were unhappily married, who came out linked together by chains, which
+each of them strove to break, but could not. Several of these were such
+as had never been acquainted with each other before they met in the
+great walk, or had been too well acquainted in the thicket. The entrance
+to this gate was possessed by three sisters, who joined themselves with
+these wretches, and occasioned most of their miseries. The youngest of
+the sisters was known by the name of Levity, who with the innocence of a
+virgin, had the dress and behaviour of a harlot. The name of the second
+was Contention, who bore on her right arm a muff made of the skin of a
+porcupine; and on her left carried a little lap-dog, that barked and
+snapped at every one that passed by her.
+
+The eldest of the sisters, who seemed to have a haughty and imperious
+air, was always accompanied with a tawny Cupid, who generally marched
+before her with a little mace on his shoulder, the end of which was
+fashioned into the horns of a stag. Her garments were yellow, and her
+complexion pale. Her eyes were piercing, but had odd casts in them, and
+that particular distemper, which makes persons who are troubled with it,
+see objects double. Upon inquiry, I was informed that her name was
+Jealousy.
+
+Having finished my observations upon this temple, and its votaries, I
+repaired to that which stood on the left hand, and was called, "The
+Temple of Lust." The front of it was raised on Corinthian pillars, with
+all the meretricious ornaments that accompany that order; whereas that
+of the other was composed of the chaste and matronlike Ionic. The sides
+of it were adorned with several grotesque figures of goats, sparrows,
+heathen gods, satyrs, and monsters made up of half-man half-beast. The
+gates were unguarded, and open to all that had a mind to enter. Upon my
+going in, I found the windows were blinded, and let in only a kind of
+twilight, that served to discover a prodigious number of dark corners
+and apartments, into which the whole temple was divided. I was here
+stunned with a mixed noise of clamour and jollity: on one side of me, I
+heard singing and dancing; on the other, brawls and clashing of swords.
+In short, I was so little pleased with the place, that I was going out
+of it; but found I could not return by the gate where I entered, which
+was barred against all that were come in, with bolts of iron, and locks
+of adamant. There was no going back from this temple through the paths
+of pleasure which led to it: all who passed through the ceremonies of
+the place, went out at an iron wicket, which was kept by a dreadful
+giant called Remorse, that held a scourge of scorpions in his hand, and
+drove them into the only outlet from that temple. This was a passage so
+rugged, so uneven, and choked with so many thorns and briars, that it
+was a melancholy spectacle to behold the pains and difficulties which
+both sexes suffered who walked through it. The men, though in the prime
+of their youth, appeared weak and enfeebled with old age: the women
+wrung their hands, and tore their hair; and several lost their limbs
+before they could extricate themselves out of the perplexities of the
+path in which they were engaged. The remaining part of this vision, and
+the adventures I met with in the two great roads of ambition and
+avarice, must be the subject of another paper.
+
+
+ADVERTISEMENT.
+
+I have this morning received the following letter from the famous Mr.
+Thomas Doggett:[26]
+
+     "SIR,
+
+     "On Monday next will be acted for my benefit, the comedy of 'Love
+     for Love': if you will do me the honour to appear there, I will
+     publish on the bills, that it is to be performed at the request of
+     Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq.; and question not but it will bring me as
+     great an audience, as ever was at the house since the Morocco
+     ambassador was there.[27] I am, (with the greatest respect)
+
+                                       "Your most obedient and
+                                            "Most humble Servant,
+                                                    "THOMAS DOGGETT."
+
+Being naturally an encourager of wit, as well as bound to it in the
+quality of censor, I returned the following answer:
+
+     "MR. DOGGETT,
+
+     "I am very well pleased with the choice you have made of so
+     excellent a play, and have always looked upon you as the best of
+     comedians; I shall therefore come in between the first and second
+     act, and remain in the right-hand box over the pit till the end of
+     the fourth, provided you take care that everything be rightly
+     prepared for my reception."[28]
+
+
+[Footnote 26: See No. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 27: The Morocco ambassador made his public entry into London
+in April 1706. Don Venturo Zary, another Morocco minister, visited the
+Haymarket Theatre on May 4, 1710, with his "attendants in their several
+habits, &c., having never as yet appeared in public." There was no play
+at Drury Lane Theatre that night (_Postboy_, April 29 to May 2, 1710).]
+
+[Footnote 28: See No. 122.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 121.                                                    [ADDISON.
+
+From _Saturday, Jan. 14_, to _Tuesday, Jan. 17, 1709-10_.
+
+    ----Similis tibi, Cynthia, vel tibi, cujus
+    Turbavit nitidos extinctus passer ocellos.
+                                        JUV., Sat. vi. 7.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, January 16._
+
+I was recollecting the remainder of my vision, when my maid came to me,
+and told me, there was a gentlewoman below who seemed to be in great
+trouble, and pressed very much to see me. When it lay in my power to
+remove the distress of an unhappy person, I thought I should very ill
+employ my time in attending matters of speculation, and therefore
+desired the lady would walk in. When she entered, I saw her eyes full of
+tears. However, her grief was not so great as to make her omit rules;
+for she was very long and exact in her civilities, which gave me time to
+view and consider her. Her clothes were very rich, but tarnished; and
+her words very fine, but ill applied. These distinctions made me without
+hesitation (though I had never seen her before) ask her, if her lady had
+any commands for me? She then began to weep afresh, and with many broken
+sighs told me, that their family was in very great affliction. I
+beseeched her to compose herself, for that I might possibly be capable
+of assisting them. She then cast her eye upon my little dog, and was
+again transported with too much passion to proceed; but with much ado,
+she at last gave me to understand, that Cupid, her lady's lap-dog, was
+dangerously ill, and in so bad a condition, that her lady neither saw
+company, nor went abroad, for which reason she did not come herself to
+consult me; that as I had mentioned with great affection my own dog
+(here she curtsied, and looking first at the cur, and then on me, said,
+indeed I had reason, for he was very pretty) her lady sent to me rather
+than to any other doctor, and hoped I would not laugh at her sorrow, but
+send her my advice. I must confess, I had some indignation to find
+myself treated like something below a farrier; yet well knowing, that
+the best, as well as most tender way of dealing with a woman, is to fall
+in with her humours, and by that means to let her see the absurdity of
+them, I proceeded accordingly: "Pray, madam," said I, "can you give me
+any methodical account of this illness, and how Cupid was first taken?"
+"Sir," said she, "we have a little ignorant country girl who is kept to
+tend him: she was recommended to our family by one, that my lady never
+saw but once, at a visit; and you know, persons of quality are always
+inclined to strangers; for I could have helped her to a cousin of my
+own, but----" "Good madam," said I, "you neglect the account of the sick
+body, while you are complaining of this girl." "No, no, sir," said she,
+"begging your pardon: but it is the general fault of physicians, they
+are so in haste, that they never hear out the case. I say, this silly
+girl, after washing Cupid, let him stand half an hour in the window
+without his collar, where he caught cold, and in an hour after began to
+bark very hoarse. He had however a pretty good night, and we hoped the
+danger was over; but for these two nights last past, neither he nor my
+lady have slept a wink." "Has he," said I, "taken anything?" "No," said
+she, "but my lady says, he shall take anything that you prescribe,
+provided you do not make use of Jesuits' powder[29], or the cold bath.
+Poor Cupid," continued she, "has always been phthisical, and as he lies
+under something like a chin-cough, we are afraid it will end in a
+consumption." I then asked her, if she had brought any of his water to
+show me. Upon this, she stared me in the face, and said, "I am afraid,
+Mr. Bickerstaff, you are not serious; but if you have any receipt that
+is proper on this occasion, pray let us have it; for my mistress is not
+to be comforted." Upon this, I paused a little without returning any
+answer, and after some short silence, I proceeded in the following
+manner: "I have considered the nature of the distemper, and the
+constitution of the patient, and by the best observation that I can make
+on both, I think it is safest to put him into a course of kitchen
+physic. In the meantime, to remove his hoarseness, it will be the most
+natural way to make Cupid his own druggist; for which reason, I shall
+prescribe to him, three mornings successively, as much powder as will
+lie on a groat, of that noble remedy which the apothecaries call 'Album
+Graecum.'" Upon hearing this advice, the young woman smiled, as if she
+knew how ridiculous an errand she had been employed in; and indeed I
+found by the sequel of her discourse, that she was an arch baggage, and
+of a character that is frequent enough in persons of her employment, who
+are so used to conform themselves in everything to the humours and
+passions of their mistresses, that they sacrifice superiority of sense
+to superiority of condition, and are insensibly betrayed into the
+passions and prejudices of those whom they serve, without giving
+themselves leave to consider, that they are extravagant and ridiculous.
+However I thought it very natural, when her eyes were thus open, to see
+her give a new turn to her discourse, and from sympathising with her
+mistress in her follies, to fall a-railing at her. "You cannot imagine,"
+said she, "Mr. Bickerstaff, what a life she makes us lead for the sake
+of this little ugly cur: if he dies, we are the most unhappy family in
+town. She chanced to lose a parrot last year, which, to tell you truly,
+brought me into her service; for she turned off her woman upon it, who
+had lived with her ten years, because she neglected to give him water,
+though every one of the family says, she was as innocent of the bird's
+death as the babe that is unborn. Nay, she told me this very morning,
+that if Cupid should die, she would send the poor innocent wench I was
+telling you of, to Bridewell, and have the milkwoman tried for her life
+at the Old Bailey, for putting water into his milk. In short, she talks
+like any distracted creature."
+
+"Since it is so, young woman," said I, "I will by no means let you
+offend her, by staying on this message longer than is absolutely
+necessary," and so forced her out.
+
+While I am studying to cure those evils and distresses that are
+necessary or natural to human life, I find my task growing upon me,
+since by these accidental cares, and acquired calamities, if I may so
+call them, my patients contract distempers to which their constitution
+is of itself a stranger. But this is an evil I have for many years
+remarked in the fair sex; and as they are by nature very much formed for
+affection and dalliance, I have observed, that when by too obstinate a
+cruelty, or any other means, they have disappointed themselves of the
+proper objects of love, as husbands, or children, such virgins have
+exactly at such a year grown fond of lap-dogs, parrots, or other
+animals. I know at this time a celebrated toast, whom I allow to be one
+of the most agreeable of her sex, that in the presence of her admirers,
+will give a torrent of kisses to her cat, any one of which a Christian
+would be glad of. I do not at the same time deny, but there are as great
+enormities of this kind committed by our sex as theirs. A Roman emperor
+had so very great an esteem for a horse of his, that he had thoughts of
+making him a consul; and several moderns of that rank of men whom we
+call country squires, won't scruple to kiss their hounds before all the
+world, and declare in the presence of their wives, that they had rather
+salute a favourite of the pack, than the finest woman in England. These
+voluntary friendships between animals of different species, seem to
+arise from instinct; for which reason, I have always looked upon the
+mutual goodwill between the squire and the hound, to be of the same
+nature with that between the lion and the jackal.
+
+The only extravagance of this kind which appears to me excusable, is one
+that grew out of an excess of gratitude, which I have somewhere met with
+in the life of a Turkish emperor. His horse had brought him safe out of
+a field of battle, and from the pursuit of a victorious enemy. As a
+reward for such his good and faithful service, his master built him a
+stable of marble, shod him with gold, fed him in an ivory manger, and
+made him a rack of silver. He annexed to the stable several fields and
+meadows, lakes, and running streams. At the same time he provided for
+him a seraglio of mares, the most beautiful that could be found in the
+whole Ottoman Empire. To these were added a suitable train of domestics,
+consisting of grooms, farriers, rubbers, &c., accommodated with proper
+liveries and pensions. In short, nothing was omitted that could
+contribute to the ease and happiness of his life who had preserved the
+emperor's.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+By reason of the extreme cold, and the changeableness of the weather, I
+have been prevailed upon to allow the free use of the farthingale, till
+the 20th of February next ensuing.
+
+
+[Footnote 29: Peruvian Bark, then comparatively little used.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 122.                                                    [ADDISON.
+
+From _Tuesday, Jan. 17_, to _Thursday, Jan. 19, 1709-10_.
+
+    Cur in theatrum, Cato severe, venisti?
+                          MART., Epig. i. Prol. 21.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, January 18._
+
+I find it is thought necessary, that I (who have taken upon me to
+censure the irregularities of the age) should give an account of my own
+actions when they appear doubtful, or subject to misconstruction. My
+appearing at the play on Monday last,[30] is looked upon as a step in my
+conduct, which I ought to explain, that others may not be misled by my
+example. It is true in matter of fact, I was present at the ingenious
+entertainment of that day, and placed myself in a box which was prepared
+for me with great civility and distinction. It is said of Virgil, when
+he entered a Roman theatre, where there were many thousands of
+spectators present, that the whole assembly rose up to do him honour; a
+respect which was never before paid to any but the emperor. I must
+confess, that universal clap, and other testimonies of applause, with
+which I was received at my first appearance in the theatre of Great
+Britain, gave me as sensible a delight, as the above-mentioned reception
+could give to that immortal poet. I should be ungrateful at the same
+time, if I did not take this opportunity of acknowledging the great
+civilities that were shown me by Mr. Thomas Doggett, who made his
+compliments to me between the acts, after a most ingenuous and discreet
+manner; and at the same time communicated to me, that the Company of
+Upholders desired to receive me at their door at the end of the
+Haymarket, and to light me home to my lodgings. That part of the
+ceremony I forbad, and took particular care during the whole play to
+observe the conduct of the drama, and give no offence by my own
+behaviour. Here I think it will not be foreign to my character, to lay
+down the proper duties of an audience, and what is incumbent upon each
+individual spectator in public diversions of this nature. Every one
+should on these occasions show his attention, understanding and virtue.
+I would undertake to find out all the persons of sense and breeding by
+the effect of a single sentence, and to distinguish a gentleman as much
+by his laugh, as his bow. When we see the footman and his lord diverted
+by the same jest, it very much turns to the diminution of the one, or
+the honour of the other. But though a man's quality may appear in his
+understanding and taste, the regard to virtue ought to be the same in
+all ranks and conditions of men, however they make a profession of it
+under the name of honour, religion, or morality. When therefore we see
+anything divert an audience, either in tragedy or comedy, that strikes
+at the duties of civil life, or exposes what the best men in all ages
+have looked upon as sacred and inviolable, it is the certain sign of a
+profligate race of men, who are fallen from the virtue of their
+forefathers, and will be contemptible in the eyes of their posterity.
+For this reason I took great delight in seeing the generous and
+disinterested passion of the lovers in this comedy (which stood so many
+trials, and was proved by such a variety of diverting incidents)
+received with an universal approbation. This brings to my mind a passage
+in Cicero,[31] which I could never read without being in love with the
+virtue of a Roman audience. He there describes the shouts and applause
+which the people gave to the persons who acted the parts of Pylades and
+Orestes, in the noblest occasion that a poet could invent to show
+friendship in perfection. One of them had forfeited his life by an
+action which he had committed; and as they stood in judgment before the
+tyrant, each of them strove who should be the criminal, that he might
+save the life of his friend. Amidst the vehemence of each asserting
+himself to be the offender, the Roman audience gave a thunder of
+applause, and by that means, as the author hints, approved in others
+what they would have done themselves on the like occasion. Methinks, a
+people of so much virtue were deservedly placed at the head of mankind:
+But alas! pleasures of this nature are not frequently to be met with on
+the English stage.
+
+The Athenians, at a time when they were the most polite, as well as the
+most powerful, government in the world, made the care of the stage one
+of the chief parts of the administration: and I must confess, I am
+astonished at the spirit of virtue which appeared in that people upon
+some expressions in a scene of a famous tragedy; an account of which we
+have in one of Seneca's epistles.[32] A covetous person is represented
+speaking the common sentiments of all who are possessed with that vice
+in the following soliloquy, which I have translated literally:
+
+     "Let me be called a base man, so I am called a rich one. If a man is
+     rich, who asks if he is good? The question is, How much we have;
+     not from whence, or by what means, we have it. Every one has so
+     much merit as he has wealth. For my own part, let me be rich, O ye
+     gods! or let me die. The man dies happily, who dies increasing his
+     treasure. There is more pleasure in the possession of wealth, than
+     in that of parents, children, wife, or friends."
+
+The audience were very much provoked by the first words of this speech;
+but when the actor came to the close of it, they could bear no longer.
+In short, the whole assembly rose up at once in the greatest fury, with
+a design to pluck him off the stage, and brand the work itself with
+infamy. In the midst of the tumult, the author came out from behind the
+scenes, begging the audience to be composed for a little while, and they
+should see the tragical end which this wretch should come to
+immediately. The promise of punishment appeased the people, who sat with
+great attention and pleasure to see an example made of so odious a
+criminal. It is with shame and concern that I speak it; but I very much
+question, whether it is possible to make a speech so impious, as to
+raise such a laudable horror and indignation in a modern audience. It is
+very natural for an author to make ostentation of his reading, as it is
+for an old man to tell stories; for which reason I must beg the reader
+will excuse me, if I for once indulge myself in both these inclinations.
+We see the attention, judgment, and virtue of a whole audience, in the
+foregoing instances. If we would imitate the behaviour of a single
+spectator, let us reflect upon that of Socrates, in a particular which
+gives me as great an idea of that extraordinary man, as any circumstance
+of his life; or what is more, of his death. This venerable person often
+frequented the theatre, which brought a great many thither, out of a
+desire to see him; on which occasions it is recorded of him, that he
+sometimes stood to make himself the more conspicuous, and to satisfy the
+curiosity of the beholders. He was one day present at the first
+representation of a tragedy of Euripides, who was his intimate friend,
+and whom he is said to have assisted in several of his plays. In the
+midst of the tragedy, which had met with very great success, there
+chanced to be a line that seemed to encourage vice and immorality.
+
+This was no sooner spoken, but Socrates rose from his seat, and without
+any regard to his affection for his friend, or to the success of the
+play, showed himself displeased at what was said, and walked out of the
+assembly. I question not but the reader will be curious to know what the
+line was that gave this divine heathen so much offence. If my memory
+fails me not, it was in the part of Hippolitus, who when he is pressed
+by an oath, which he had taken to keep silence, returned for answer,
+that he had taken the oath with his tongue, but not with his heart. Had
+a person of a vicious character made such a speech, it might have been
+allowed as a proper representation of the baseness of his thoughts: but
+such an expression out of the mouth of the virtuous Hippolitus, was
+giving a sanction to falsehood, and establishing perjury by a maxim.
+
+Having got over all interruptions, I have set apart tomorrow for the
+closing of my vision.[33]
+
+
+[Footnote 30: See No. 120. "A person dressed for Isaac Bickerstaff did
+appear at the playhouse on this occasion" (Addison's "Works,"
+Birmingham, ii. 246).]
+
+[Footnote 31: "De Amicitia," vii.]
+
+[Footnote 32: L. A. Senecae Opera, Lips., 1741, ii. 520.]
+
+[Footnote 33: See Nos. 120, 123.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 123.                                                    [ADDISON.
+
+From _Thursday, Jan. 19_, to _Saturday, Jan. 21, 1709-10_.
+
+    Audire, atque togam jubeo componere, quisquis
+    Ambitione mala, aut argenti pallet amore.
+                                    HOR., 2 Sat. iii. 77.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, January 20._
+
+_A Continuation of the Vision._[34]
+
+With much labour and difficulty I passed through the first part of my
+vision, and recovered the centre of the wood, from whence I had the
+prospect of the three great roads. I here joined myself to the
+middle-aged party of mankind, who marched behind the standard of
+Ambition. The great road lay in a direct line, and was terminated by the
+Temple of Virtue. It was planted on each side with laurels, which were
+intermixed with marble trophies, carved pillars, and statues of
+lawgivers, heroes, statesmen, philosophers, and poets. The persons who
+travelled up this great path, were such whose thoughts were bent upon
+doing eminent services to mankind, or promoting the good of their
+country. On each side of this great road were several paths, that were
+also laid out in straight lines, and ran parallel with it. These were
+most of them covered walks, and received into them men of retired
+virtue, who proposed to themselves the same end of their journey, though
+they chose to make it in shade and obscurity. The edifices at the
+extremity of the walk were so contrived, that we could not see the
+Temple of Honour by reason of the Temple of Virtue, which stood before
+it. At the gates of this temple we were met by the goddess of it, who
+conducted us into that of Honour, which was joined to the other edifice
+by a beautiful triumphal arch, and had no other entrance into it. When
+the deity of the inner structure had received us, she presented us in a
+body to a figure that was placed over the high altar, and was the emblem
+of eternity. She sat on a globe in the midst of a golden zodiac, holding
+the figure of a sun in one hand, and a moon in the other. Her head was
+veiled, and her feet covered. Our hearts glowed within us as we stood
+amidst the sphere of light which this image cast on every side of it.
+
+Having seen all that happened to this band of adventurers, I repaired to
+another pile of buildings that stood within view of the Temple of
+Honour, and was raised in imitation of it, upon the very same model; but
+at my approach to it, I found that the stones were laid together without
+mortar, and that the whole fabric stood upon so weak a foundation, that
+it shook with every wind that blew. This was called the Temple of
+Vanity. The goddess of it sat in the midst of a great many tapers, that
+burned day and night, and made her appear much better than she would
+have done in open daylight. Her whole art was to show herself more
+beautiful and majestic than she really was. For which reason, she had
+painted her face, and wore a cluster of false jewels upon her breast:
+but what I more particularly observed, was, the breadth of her
+petticoat, which was made altogether in the fashion of a modern
+farthingale. This place was filled with hypocrites, pedants,
+freethinkers, and prating politicians; with a rabble of those who have
+only titles to make them great men. Female votaries crowded the temple,
+choked up the avenues of it, and were more in number than the sand upon
+the seashore. I made it my business in my return towards that part of
+the wood from whence I first set out, to observe the walks which led to
+this temple; for I met in it several who had begun their journey with
+the band of virtuous persons, and travelled some time in their company:
+but upon examination I found, that there were several paths which led
+out of the great road into the sides of the wood, and ran into so many
+crooked turns and windings, that those who travelled through them often
+turned their backs upon the Temple of Virtue, then crossed the straight
+road, and sometimes marched in it for a little space, till the crooked
+path which they were engaged in again led them into the wood. The
+several alleys of these wanderers had their particular ornaments: one of
+them I could not but take notice of, in the walk of the mischievous
+pretenders to politics, which had at every turn the figure of a person,
+whom by the inscription I found to be Machiavel, pointing out the way
+with an extended finger like a Mercury.
+
+I was now returned in the same manner as before, with a design to
+observe carefully everything that passed in the region of Avarice, and
+the occurrences in that assembly, which was made up of persons of my own
+age. This body of travellers had not gone far in the third great road,
+before it led them insensibly into a deep valley, in which they
+journeyed several days with great toil and uneasiness, and without the
+necessary refreshments of food and sleep. The only relief they met with,
+was in a river that ran through the bottom of the valley on a bed of
+golden sand: they often drank of this stream, which had such a
+particular quality in it, that though it refreshed them for a time, it
+rather inflamed than quenched their thirst. On each side of the river
+was a range of hills full of precious ore; for where the rains had
+washed off the earth, one might see in several parts of them long veins
+of gold, and rocks that looked like pure silver. We were told that the
+deity of the place had forbade any of his votaries to dig into the
+bowels of these hills, or convert the treasures they contained to any
+use, under pain of starving. At the end of the valley stood the Temple
+of Avarice, made after the manner of a fortification, and surrounded
+with a thousand triple-headed dogs, that were placed there to keep off
+beggars. At our approach they all fell a-barking, and would have very
+much terrified us, had not an old woman who had called herself by the
+forged name of Competency offered herself for our guide. She carried
+under her garment a golden bow, which she no sooner held up in her hand,
+but the dogs lay down, and the gates flew open for our reception. We
+were led through a hundred iron doors, before we entered the temple. At
+the upper end of it sat the god of Avarice, with a long filthy beard,
+and a meagre starved countenance, enclosed with heaps of ingots and
+pyramids of money, but half naked and shivering with cold. On his right
+hand was a fiend called Rapine, and on his left a particular favourite
+to whom he had given the title of Parsimony. The first was his
+collector, and the other his cashier.
+
+There were several long tables placed on each side of the temple, with
+respective officers attending behind them. Some of these I inquired
+into. At the first table was kept the office of Corruption. Seeing a
+solicitor extremely busy, and whispering everybody that passed by, I
+kept my eye upon him very attentively, and saw him often going up to a
+person that had a pen in his hand, with a multiplication table and an
+almanac before him, which as I afterwards heard, was all the learning he
+was master of. The solicitor would often apply himself to his ear, and
+at the same time convey money into his hand, for which the other would
+give him out a piece of paper or parchment, signed and sealed in form.
+The name of this dexterous and successful solicitor was Bribery. At the
+next table was the office of Extortion. Behind it sat a person in a
+bob-wig, counting over a great sum of money. He gave out little purses
+to several, who after a short tour brought him, in return, sacks full of
+the same kind of coin. I saw at the same time a person called Fraud, who
+sat behind a counter with false scales, light weights, and scanty
+measures; by the skilful application of which instruments, she had got
+together an immense heap of wealth. It would be endless to name the
+several officers, or describe the votaries that attended in this temple.
+There were many old men panting and breathless, reposing their heads on
+bags of money; nay many of them actually dying, whose very pangs and
+convulsions, which rendered their purses useless to them, only made them
+grasp them the faster. There were some tearing with one hand all things,
+even to the garments and flesh of many miserable persons who stood
+before them, and with the other hand, throwing away what they had
+seized, to harlots, flatterers, and panders, that stood behind them.
+
+On a sudden the whole assembly fell a-trembling, and upon inquiry, I
+found, that the great room we were in was haunted with a spectre, that
+many times a day appeared to them, and terrified them to distraction.
+
+In the midst of their terror and amazement the apparition entered, which
+I immediately knew to be Poverty. Whether it were by my acquaintance
+with this phantom, which had rendered the sight of her more familiar to
+me, or however it was, she did not make so indigent or frightful a
+figure in my eye, as the god of this loathsome temple. The miserable
+votaries of this place, were, I found, of another mind. Every one
+fancied himself threatened by the apparition as she stalked about the
+room, and began to lock their coffers, and tie their bags, with the
+utmost fear and trembling.
+
+I must confess, I look upon the passion which I saw in this unhappy
+people to be of the same nature with those unaccountable antipathies
+which some persons are born with, or rather as a kind of frenzy, not
+unlike that which throws a man into terrors and agonies at the sight of
+so useful and innocent a thing as water. The whole assembly was
+surprised, when, instead of paying my devotions to the deity whom they
+all adored, they saw me address myself to the phantom.
+
+     "O Poverty!" said I, "my first petition to thee is, that thou
+     wouldst never appear to me hereafter; but if thou wilt not grant me
+     this, that thou wouldst not bear a form more terrible than that in
+     which thou appearest to me at present. Let not thy threats and
+     menaces betray me to anything that is ungrateful or unjust. Let me
+     not shut my ears to the cries of the needy. Let me not forget the
+     person that has deserved well of me. Let me not, for any fear of
+     thee, desert my friend, my principles, or my honour. If Wealth is
+     to visit me, and to come with her usual attendants, Vanity and
+     Avarice, do thou, O Poverty! hasten to my rescue; but bring along
+     with thee the two sisters, in whose company thou art always
+     cheerful, Liberty and Innocence."
+
+The conclusion of this vision must be deferred to another opportunity.
+
+
+[Footnote 34: See No. 120.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 124.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Saturday, Jan. 21_, to _Tuesday, Jan. 24, 1709-10_.
+
+    ----Ex humili summa ad fastigia rerum
+    Extollit, quoties voluit Fortuna jocari.
+                                      JUV., Sat. iii. 39.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, January 23._
+
+I went on Saturday last to make a visit in the city; and as I passed
+through Cheapside, I saw crowds of people turning down towards the Bank,
+and struggling who should first get their money into the new-erected
+lottery.[35] It gave me a great notion of the credit of our present
+government and administration, to find people press as eagerly to pay
+money, as they would to receive it; and at the same time a due respect
+for that body of men who have found out so pleasing an expedient for
+carrying on the common cause, that they have turned a tax into a
+diversion. The cheerfulness of spirit, and the hopes of success, which
+this project has occasioned in this great city, lightens the burden of
+the war, and puts me in mind of some games which they say were invented
+by wise men who were lovers of their country, to make their fellow
+citizens undergo the tediousness and fatigues of a long siege. I think
+there is a kind of homage due to fortune (if I may call it so), and that
+I should be wanting to myself if I did not lay in my pretences to her
+favour, and pay my compliments to her by recommending a ticket to her
+disposal. For this reason, upon my return to my lodgings, I sold off a
+couple of globes and a telescope,[36] which, with the cash I had by me,
+raised the sum that was requisite for that purpose. I find by my
+calculations, that it is but a hundred and fifty thousand to one against
+my being worth a thousand pounds per annum for thirty-two years;[37] and
+if any plum[38] in the City will lay me a hundred and fifty thousand
+pounds to twenty shillings (which is an even bet), that I am not this
+fortunate man, I will take the wager, and shall look upon him as a man
+of singular courage and fair-dealing, having given orders to Mr. Morphew
+to subscribe such a policy in my behalf, if any person accepts of the
+offer. I must confess, I have had such private intimations from the
+twinkling of a certain star in some of my astronomical observations,
+that I should be unwilling to take fifty pounds a year for my chance,
+unless it were to oblige a particular friend. My chief business at
+present is, to prepare my mind for this change of fortune: for as
+Seneca, who was a great moralist, and a much richer man than I shall be
+with this addition to my present income, says, "_Munera ista Fortunae
+putatis? Insidiae sunt._"[39] "What we look upon as gifts and presents of
+Fortune, are traps and snares which she lays for the unwary." I am
+arming myself against her favours with all my philosophy; and that I may
+not lose myself in such a redundance of unnecessary and superfluous
+wealth, I have determined to settle an annual pension out of it upon a
+family of Palatines, and by that means give these unhappy strangers a
+taste of British property. At the same time, as I have an excellent
+servant-maid, whose diligence in attending me has increased in
+proportion to my infirmities, I shall settle upon her the revenue
+arising out of the ten pounds, and amounting to fourteen shillings per
+annum, with which she may retire into Wales, where she was born a
+gentlewoman, and pass the remaining part of her days in a condition
+suitable to her birth and quality. It was impossible for me to make an
+inspection into my own fortune on this occasion, without seeing at the
+same time the fate of others who are embarked in the same adventure. And
+indeed it was a great pleasure to me to observe, that the war, which
+generally impoverishes those who furnish out the expense of it, will by
+this means give estates to some, without making others the poorer for
+it. I have lately seen several in liveries, who will give as good of
+their own very suddenly; and took a particular satisfaction in the sight
+of a young country wench, whom I this morning passed by as she was
+whirling her mop,[40] with her petticoats tucked up very agreeably, who,
+if there is any truth in my art, is within ten[41] months of being the
+handsomest great fortune in town. I must confess, I was so struck with
+the foresight of what she is to be, that I treated her accordingly, and
+said to her, "Pray, young lady, permit me to pass by." I would for this
+reason advise all masters and mistresses to carry it with great
+moderation and condescension towards their servants till next
+Michaelmas, lest the superiority at that time should be inverted. I must
+likewise admonish all my brethren and fellow adventurers, to fill their
+minds with proper arguments for their support and consolation in case of
+ill-success. It so happens in this particular, that though the gainers
+will have reason to rejoice, the losers will have no reason to complain.
+I remember, the day after the thousand pound prize was drawn in the
+penny lottery,[42] I went to visit a splenetic acquaintance of mine, who
+was under much dejection, and seemed to me to have suffered some great
+disappointment. Upon inquiry, I found he had put twopence for himself
+and his son into the lottery and that neither of them had drawn the
+thousand pound. Hereupon this unlucky person took occasion to enumerate
+the misfortunes of his life, and concluded with telling me, that he
+never was successful in any of his undertakings. I was forced to comfort
+him with the common reflection upon such occasions, that men of the
+greatest merit are not always men of the greatest success, and that
+persons of his character must not expect to be as happy as fools. I
+shall proceed in the like manner with my rivals and competitors for the
+thousand pounds a year which we are now in pursuit of; and that I may
+give general content to the whole body of candidates, I shall allow all
+that draw prizes to be fortunate, and all that miss them to be wise.
+
+I must not here omit to acknowledge, that I have received several
+letters upon this subject, but find one common error running through
+them all, which is, that the writers of them believe their fate in these
+cases depends upon the astrologer, and not upon the stars, as in the
+following letter from one, who, I fear, flatters himself with hopes of
+success, which are altogether groundless, since he does not seem to me
+so great a fool as he takes himself to be:
+
+     "SIR,
+
+     "Coming to town, and finding my friend Mr. Partridge dead and
+     buried, and you the only conjurer in repute, I am under a necessity
+     of applying myself to you for a favour, which nevertheless I
+     confess it would better become a friend to ask, than one who is, as
+     I am altogether, a stranger to you; but poverty, you know, is
+     impudent; and as that gives me the occasion, so that alone could
+     give me the confidence to be thus importunate.
+
+     "I am, sir, very poor, and very desirous to be otherwise: I have
+     got ten pounds, which I design to venture in the lottery now on
+     foot. What I desire of you is, that by your art, you will choose
+     such a ticket for me as shall arise a benefit sufficient to
+     maintain me. I must beg leave to inform you, that I am good for
+     nothing, and must therefore insist upon a larger lot than would
+     satisfy those who are capable by their own abilities of adding
+     something to what you should assign them; whereas I must expect an
+     absolute, independent maintenance, because, as I said, I can do
+     nothing. 'Tis possible, after this free confession of mine, you may
+     think I don't deserve to be rich; but I hope you'll likewise
+     observe, I can ill afford to be poor. My own opinion is, I am well
+     qualified for an estate, and have a good title to luck in a
+     lottery; but I resign myself wholly to your mercy, not without
+     hopes that you will consider, the less I deserve, the greater the
+     generosity in you. If you reject me, I have agreed with an
+     acquaintance of mine to bury me for my ten pounds. I once more
+     recommend myself to your favour, and bid you adieu."
+
+I cannot forbear publishing another letter which I have received,
+because it redounds to my own credit, as well as to that of a very
+honest footman:
+
+     "MR. BICKERSTAFF, _January 23, 1709/10._
+
+     "I am bound in justice to acquaint you, that I put an
+     advertisement[43] into your last paper about a watch which was
+     lost, and was brought to me on the very day your paper came out by
+     a footman, who told me, that he would [not] have brought it, if he
+     had not read your discourse of that day against avarice;[44] but
+     that since he had read it, he scorned to take a reward for doing
+     what in justice he ought to do. I am,
+
+                                  "Sir,
+                                      "Your most humble Servant,
+                                                      "JOHN HAMMOND."
+
+
+[Footnote 35: The first State lottery of 1710; see No. 87. Various
+passages in the "Wentworth Papers" (pages 126, 127, 129, 130, 148, 165)
+throw light upon this subject. Thus, "I hear the Million Lottery is
+drawing and thear is a prise of 400_l._ a year drawn, and Col. St. Pear
+has gott 5 (_sic_) a year; it will be hard fate if you mis a pryse that
+put so much in. I long tel its all drawn; they say it will be six weeks
+drawing" (Aug. 1, 1710). "It will be a long time first if ever, except I
+win ye thoussand p^d a year, for mony now adays is the raening passion"
+(July (?) 1710). "Some very ordenary creeture has gott 400_l._ a year"
+(Aug. 4, 1710). "Thear is a lady gave her footman in the last before
+this, mony for a lot, and he got five hundred a year, and she would have
+half, and they had a law suit, but the lawyers gave it all to him" (Aug.
+7, 1710). "Betty has lost all her hopse of the Lottery, als drawn now"
+(Oct. 6, 1710). "You know your grandfather's Butler (?), they say he put
+ten thousand pd in the lottry and lost it all, and is really worth forty
+thousand pd" (Dec. 15, 1710). Swift refers to the drawing in September:
+"To-day Mr. Addison, Colonel Freind and I went to see the million
+lottery drawn at Guildhall. The jackanapes of blue-coat boys gave
+themselves such airs in pulling out the tickets, and shewed white hands
+open to the company to let us see there was no cheat" ("Journal to
+Stella," Sept. 15, 1710). See also Nos. 170, 203, and the _Spectator_,
+No. 191.]
+
+[Footnote 36: See No. 128.]
+
+[Footnote 37: "There were 150,000 tickets at L10 each, making
+L1,500,000, the principal of which was to be sunk, and 9 per cent. to be
+allowed on it for thirty-two years. Three thousand seven hundred and
+fifty tickets were prizes from L1000 to L5 per annum; the rest were
+blanks--a proportion of thirty-nine to one prize, but, as a consolation,
+each blank was entitled to fourteen shillings per annum during the
+thirty-two years" (Ashton's "Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne," i.
+114).]
+
+[Footnote 38: The possessor of a fortune of L100,000.]
+
+[Footnote 39: L. A. Senecae Opera, Epist. viii. sect. 3 (Lips., Tauchn.,
+1832, iii. 14).]
+
+[Footnote 40: Cf. Swift's "City Shower," in No. 238: "She, singing,
+still whirls on her mop."]
+
+[Footnote 41: Cf. No. 128.]
+
+[Footnote 42: This penny lottery seems to have been a private
+undertaking, not warranted by Act of Parliament, or intended to raise
+any part of the public revenue. In the year 1698, a "Penny Lottery" was
+drawn at the theatre in Dorset Garden, as appears from the title of the
+following pamphlet, apparently alluded to here: "The Wheel of Fortune:
+or, Nothing for a Penny. Being remarks on the drawing of the Penny
+Lottery at the Theatre Royal in Dorset Garden. With the characters of
+some of the honourable trustees, and all due acknowledgment to his
+Honour the Undertaker. Written by a person who was cursed mad that he
+had not the Thousand Pounds Lot" (Nichols).]
+
+[Footnote 43: The following was the advertisement: "A plain gold watch,
+made by Tompion, with a gold hook and chain, a cornelian seal set in
+gold, and a cupid sifting hearts, was dropt from a lady's side in or
+near Great Marlborough Street on Thursday night last. Whoever took it
+up, if they will bring it to Mr. Plaistow's, at the Hand and Star
+between the two Temple Gates, in Fleet Street, shall receive five
+guineas reward.--Signed JOHN HAMMOND."]
+
+[Footnote 44: See No. 123.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 125.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Tuesday, Jan. 24_, to _Thursday, Jan. 26, 1709-10_.
+
+    Quem mala stultitia, et quaecunque inscitia veri
+    Caecum agit, insanum Chrysippi porticus, et grex
+    Autumat. Haec populos, haec magnos formula reges,
+    Excepto sapiente, tenet.--HOR., 2 Sat. iii. 43.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, January 25._
+
+There is a sect of ancient philosophers, who, I think, have left more
+volumes behind them, and those better written, than any other of the
+fraternities in philosophy. It was a maxim of this sect, that all those
+who do not live up to the principles of reason and virtue, are madmen.
+Every one, who governs himself by these rules, is allowed the title of
+wise, and reputed to be in his senses; and every one in proportion, as
+he deviates from them, is pronounced frantic and distracted. Cicero
+having chosen this maxim for his theme, takes occasion to argue from it
+very agreeably with Clodius, his implacable adversary, who had procured
+his banishment. "A city," says he, "is an assembly distinguished into
+bodies of men, who are in possession of their respective rights and
+privileges, cast under proper subordinations, and in all its parts
+obedient to the rules of law and equity." He then represents the
+government from whence he was banished, at a time when the consul,
+senate, and laws, had lost their authority, as a commonwealth of
+lunatics. For this reason, he regards his expulsion from Rome, as a man
+would being turned out of Bedlam, if the inhabitants of it should drive
+him out of their walls as a person unfit for their community.[45] We are
+therefore to look upon every man's brain to be touched, however he may
+appear in the general conduct of his life, if he has an unjustifiable
+singularity in any part of his conversation or behaviour: or if he
+swerves from right reason, however common his kind of madness may be, we
+shall not excuse him for its being epidemical, it being our present
+design to clap up all such as have the marks of madness upon them, who
+are now permitted to go about the streets, for no other reason, but
+because they do no mischief in their fits. Abundance of imaginary great
+men are put in straw to bring them to a right sense of themselves: and
+is it not altogether as reasonable, that an insignificant man, who has
+an immoderate opinion of his merits, and a quite different notion of his
+own abilities from what the rest of the world entertain, should have the
+same care taken of him, as a beggar who fancies himself a duke or a
+prince? Or, why should a man, who starves in the midst of plenty, be
+trusted with himself, more than he who fancies he is an emperor in the
+midst of poverty? I have several women of quality in my thoughts, who
+set so exorbitant a value upon themselves, that I have often most
+heartily pitied them, and wished them, for their recovery, under the
+same discipline with the pewterer's wife. I find by several hints in
+ancient authors, that when the Romans were in the height of power and
+luxury, they assigned out of their vast dominions, an island called
+Anticyra, as an habitation for madmen. This was the Bedlam of the Roman
+Empire, whither all persons who had left their wits used to resort from
+all parts of the world in quest of them. Several of the Roman emperors
+were advised to repair to this island; but most of them, instead of
+listening to such sober counsels, gave way to their distraction, till
+the people knocked them in the head as despairing of their cure. In
+short, it was as usual for men of distempered brains to take a voyage to
+Anticyra[46] in those days, as it is in ours for persons who have a
+disorder in their lungs to go to Montpellier.
+
+The prodigious crops of hellebore[47] with which this whole island
+abounded, did not only furnish them with incomparable tea, snuff, and
+Hungary water,[48] but impregnated the air of the country with such
+sober and salutiferous streams, as very much comforted the heads, and
+refreshed the senses, of all that breathed in it. A discarded statesman,
+that at his first landing appeared stark staring mad, would become calm
+in a week's time; and upon his return home, live easy and satisfied in
+his retirement. A moping lover would grow a pleasant fellow by that time
+he had ridden thrice about the island; and a hair-brained rake, after a
+short stay in the country, go home again a composed, grave, worthy
+gentleman.
+
+I have premised these particulars before I enter on the main design of
+this paper, because I would not be thought altogether notional[49] in
+what I have to say, and pass only for a projector in morality. I could
+quote Horace, and Seneca, and some other ancient writers of good repute,
+upon the same occasion, and make out by their testimony, that our
+streets are filled with distracted persons; that our shops and taverns,
+private and public houses, swarm with them; and that it is very hard to
+make up a tolerable assembly without a majority of them. But what I have
+already said, is, I hope, sufficient to justify the ensuing project,
+which I shall therefore give some account of without any further
+preface.
+
+     1. It is humbly proposed, that a proper receptacle or habitation be
+     forthwith erected for all such persons as, upon due trial and
+     examination, shall appear to be out of their wits.
+
+     2. That to serve the present exigency, the College in
+     Moorfields[50] be very much extended at both ends; and that it be
+     converted into a square, by adding three other sides to it.
+
+     3. That nobody be admitted into these three additional sides, but
+     such whose frenzy can lay no claim to an apartment in that row of
+     building which is already erected.
+
+     4. That the architect, physician, apothecary, surgeon, keepers,
+     nurses, and porters, be all and each of them cracked, provided that
+     their frenzy does not lie in the profession or employment to which
+     they shall severally and respectively be assigned.
+
+     N.B. It is thought fit to give the foregoing notice, that none may
+     present himself here for any post of honour or profit who is not
+     duly qualified.
+
+     5. That over all the gates of the additional buildings, there be
+     figures placed in the same manner as over the entrance of the
+     edifice already erected;[51] provided, they represent such
+     distractions only as are proper for those additional buildings; as,
+     of an envious man gnawing his own flesh, a gamester pulling himself
+     by the ears, and knocking his head against a marble pillar, a
+     covetous man warming himself over a heap of gold, a coward flying
+     from his own shadow, and the like.
+
+Having laid down this general scheme of my design, I do hereby invite
+all persons who are willing to encourage so public-spirited a project,
+to bring in their contributions as soon as possible, and to apprehend
+forthwith any politician whom they shall catch raving in a coffee-house,
+or any freethinker whom they shall find publishing his deliriums, or any
+other person who shall give the like manifest signs of a crazed
+imagination; and I do at the same time give this public notice to all
+the madmen about this great city, that they may return to their senses
+with all imaginable expedition, lest if they should come into my hands,
+I should put them into a regimen which they would not like; for if I
+find any one of them persist in his frantic behaviour, I will make him
+in a month's time as famous as ever Oliver's porter[52] was.
+
+
+[Footnote 45: Cicero, Tusc. Disp. iii. 4, &c.; Orat. pro Dom. 33, &c.]
+
+[Footnote 46: Mr. Dobson quotes from Burton's "Anatomie of Melancholy"
+(1628), p. 18: "I will evince it, that most men are mad, that they had
+as much need to go a pilgrimage to the Anticyrae (as in Strabo's time
+they did) as in our dayes they run to Compostella, our Lady of Sichim,
+or Lauretta, to seeke for helpe; that it is likely to be as prosperous a
+voyage as that of Guiana, and there is much more need of Hellebor than
+of Tobacco."]
+
+[Footnote 47: Hellebore was much used by the ancients as a cure for
+madness and melancholy.]
+
+[Footnote 48: The best Hungary water (a popular scent) was made of
+spirits of wine, rosemary in bloom, lavender flowers, and oil of
+rosemary.]
+
+[Footnote 49: Dealing in ideas instead of realities.]
+
+[Footnote 50: Bedlam; see No. 30.]
+
+[Footnote 51: The statues by C. G. Cibber.]
+
+[Footnote 52: See No. 51.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 126.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Thursday, Jan. 26_, to _Saturday, Jan. 28, 1709-10_
+
+    Anguillam cauda tenes.--T. D'URFEY.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, January 27._
+
+There is no sort of company so agreeable as that of women who have good
+sense without affectation, and can converse with men without any private
+design of imposing chains and fetters. Belvidera, whom I visited this
+evening, is one of these. There is an invincible prejudice in favour of
+all she says, from her being a beautiful woman, because she does not
+consider herself as such when she talks to you. This amiable temper
+gives a certain tincture to all her discourse, and made it very
+agreeable to me, till we were interrupted by Lydia, a creature who has
+all the charms that can adorn a woman. Her attractions would indeed be
+irresistible, but that she thinks them so, and is always employing them
+in stratagems and conquests. When I turned my eye upon her as she sat
+down, I saw she was a person of that character, which, for the further
+information of my country correspondents, I had long wanted an
+opportunity of explaining. Lydia is a finished coquette, which is a sect
+among women of all others the most mischievous, and makes the greatest
+havoc and disorder in society. I went on in the discourse I was in with
+Belvidera, without showing that I had observed anything extraordinary in
+Lydia: upon which, I immediately saw her look me over as some very
+ill-bred fellow; and casting a scornful glance on my dress, gave a shrug
+at Belvidera. But as much as she despised me, she wanted my admiration,
+and made twenty offers to bring my eyes her way: but I reduced her to a
+restlessness in her seat, an impertinent playing of her fan, and many
+other motions and gestures, before I took the least notice of her. At
+last I looked at her with a kind of surprise, as if she had before been
+unobserved by reason of an ill light where she sat. It is not to be
+expressed what a sudden joy I saw rise in her countenance, even at the
+approbation of such a very old fellow: but she did not long enjoy her
+triumph without a rival; for there immediately entered Castabella, a
+lady of a quite contrary character, that is to say, as eminent a prude
+as Lydia is a coquette. Belvidera gave me a glance, which methought
+intimated, that they were both curiosities in their kind, and worth
+remarking. As soon as we were again seated, I stole looks at each lady,
+as if I was comparing their perfections. Belvidera observed it, and
+began to lead me into a discourse of them both to their faces, which is
+to be done easily enough; for one woman is generally so intent upon the
+faults of another, that she has not reflection enough to observe when
+her own are represented. "I have taken notice, Mr. Bickerstaff," said
+Belvidera, "that you have in some parts of your writings drawn
+characters of our sex, in which you have not, to my apprehension, been
+clear enough and distinct, particularly in those of a prude and a
+coquette." Upon the mention of this, Lydia was roused with the
+expectation of seeing Castabella's picture, and Castabella with the
+hopes of that of Lydia. "Madam," said I to Belvidera, "when we consider
+nature, we shall often find very contrary effects flow from the same
+cause. The prude and coquette (as different as they appear in their
+behaviour) are in reality the same kind of women: the motive of action
+in both is the affectation of pleasing men. They are sisters of the same
+blood and constitution, only one chooses a grave, the other a light,
+dress. The prude appears more virtuous, the coquette more vicious, than
+she really is. The distant behaviour of the prude tends to the same
+purpose as the advances of the coquette; and you have as little reason
+to fall into despair from the severity of the one, as to conceive hope
+from the familiarity of the latter. What leads you into a clear sense of
+their character is, that you may observe each of them has the
+distinction of sex in all her thoughts, words and actions. You can never
+mention any assembly you were lately in, but one asks you with a rigid,
+the other with a sprightly air, 'Pray, what men were there?' As for
+prudes, it must be confessed, that there are several of them, who, like
+hypocrites, by long practice of a false part, become sincere; or at
+least delude themselves into a belief that they are so."
+
+For the benefit of this society of ladies, I shall propose one rule to
+them as a test of their virtue. I find in a very celebrated modern
+author, that the great foundress of the Pietists, Madame de
+Bourignon,[53] who was no less famous for the sanctity of her life than
+for the singularity of some of her opinions, was used to boast, that she
+had not only the spirit of continency in herself, but that she had also
+the power of communicating it to all who beheld her. This the scoffers
+of those days called the Gift of Infrigidation, and took occasion from
+it to rally her face, rather than admire her virtue. I would therefore
+advise the prude, who has a mind to know the integrity of her own heart,
+to lay her hand seriously upon it, and to examine herself, whether she
+could sincerely rejoice in such a gift of conveying chaste thoughts to
+all her male beholders. If she has any aversion to the power of
+inspiring so great a virtue, whatever notion she may have of her
+perfection, she deceives her own heart, and is still in the state of
+prudery. Some perhaps will look upon the boast of Madame de Bourignon as
+the utmost ostentation of a prude.
+
+If you would see the humour of a coquette pushed to the last excess, you
+may find an instance of it in the following story, which I will set down
+at length, because it pleased me when I read it, though I cannot
+recollect in what author.
+
+A young coquette widow in France having been followed by a Gascon of
+quality, who had boasted among his companions of some favours which he
+had never received, to be revenged of him, sent for him one evening, and
+told him, it was in his power to do her a very particular service. The
+Gascon, with much profession of his readiness to obey her commands,
+begged to hear in what manner she designed to employ him. "You know,"
+said the widow, "my friend Belinda, and must often have heard of the
+jealousy of that impotent wretch her husband. Now it is absolutely
+necessary, for the carrying on a certain affair, that his wife and I
+should be together a whole night. What I have to ask of you, is, to
+dress yourself in her night-clothes, and lie by him a whole night in her
+place, that he may not miss her while she is with me." The Gascon
+(though of a very lively and undertaking complexion) began to startle at
+the proposal. "Nay," says the widow, "if you have not the courage to go
+through what I ask of you, I must employ somebody else that will."
+"Madam," says the Gascon, "I'll kill him for you if you please; but for
+lying with him!--How is it possible to do it without being discovered?"
+"If you do not discover yourself," says the widow, "you will lie safe
+enough, for he is past all curiosity. He comes in at night while she is
+asleep, and goes out in the morning before she awakes, and is in pain
+for nothing, so he knows she is there." "Madam," replied the Gascon,
+"how can you reward me for passing a night with this old fellow?" The
+widow answered with a laugh, "Perhaps by admitting you to pass a night
+with one you think more agreeable." He took the hint, put on his
+night-clothes, and had not been a-bed above an hour before he heard a
+knocking at the door, and the treading of one who approached the other
+side of the bed, and who he did not question was the good man of the
+house. I do not know, whether the story would be better by telling you
+in this place, or at the end of it, that the person who went to bed to
+him was our young coquette widow. The Gascon was in a terrible fright
+every time she moved in the bed, or turned towards him, and did not fail
+to shrink from her till he had conveyed himself to the very ridge of the
+bed. I will not dwell upon the perplexity he was in the whole night,
+which was augmented, when he observed that it was now broad day, and
+that the husband did not yet offer to get up and go about his business.
+All that the Gascon had for it, was to keep his face turned from him,
+and to feign himself asleep, when, to his utter confusion, the widow at
+last puts out her arm, and pulls the bell at her bed's head. In came her
+friend, and two or three companions, to whom the Gascon had boasted of
+her favours. The widow jumped into a wrapping-gown, and joined with the
+rest in laughing at this man of intrigue.[54]
+
+
+[Footnote 53: Bayle, in his life of this devotee, 1697, says that
+Antoinette Bourignon was born at Lisle in 1616, so deformed, that it was
+debated for some days in the family, whether it was not proper to stifle
+her as a monster. Her deformity diminishing, they laid aside the
+thought. Although she was of a morose and peevish temper, and embroiled
+in troubles most part of her life, she seemed to be but forty years of
+age when she was above sixty; never made use of spectacles, and died at
+Franeker, in the province of Frise, in 1680. From her childhood to her
+old age she had an extraordinary turn of mind. She published a multitude
+of books, filled with singular doctrines, such as might be expected from
+a person who roundly asserted, on the express declaration, she said, of
+God Himself, "That the examination of things by reason, was the most
+accursed of all heresies, formal atheism, a rejection of God, and the
+substitution of corrupt reason in his place." She pretended to
+inspiration, and boasted of extraordinary communications with God; but
+appears to have been exceedingly defective in the essential duties of
+humility and charity. She was a woman of such ill conditions and odd
+behaviour, that nobody could live with her; and she seriously
+maintained, that anger was a real virtue. She contrived to accumulate
+money, but continued always uncharitable upon principle, alleging the
+errors of her understanding in defence of the inhumanity of her
+conduct.]
+
+[Footnote 54: "_Advertisement._--Proposals for printing the Lucubrations
+of Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq., by subscriptions, are to be seen, and
+subscriptions taken by Charles Lillie, a perfumer, at the corner of
+Beaufort Buildings, in the Strand, and John Morphew, near Stationers
+Hall." See No. 80, note. The same proposals are advertised at the end of
+the subsequent papers in the original folio, with the following
+variation and addition: Proposals for printing, &c. by subscriptions,
+"in two volumes in octavo, on a large character and fine royal paper,"
+&c. In No. 134, &c., there was this addition: "All persons that desire
+to subscribe to this work are desired to send their subscriptions before
+the 25th instant, it being intended to print no more than what shall be
+subscribed for, and to begin on the 27th in order to have it published
+before Easter." In No. 139 (Feb. 25-28) was the announcement, "this day
+put to press." The idea of publishing by Easter was given up after No.
+153. The books were not ready for the subscribers until July 10 (see No.
+195, Advertisement). The third and fourth volumes of the _Tatler_ were
+advertised as "ready to be delivered" in No. 227 of the _Spectator_
+(Nov. 20, 1711). The copies on royal paper were issued at a guinea a
+volume, and copies on medium paper at half a guinea. "I am one of your
+two-guinea subscribers," says the writer of No. 5 of the _Examiner_
+(Aug. 31, 1710).]
+
+
+
+
+No. 127.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Saturday, Jan. 28_, to _Tuesday, Jan. 31, 1709-10_.
+
+    Nimirum insanus paucis videatur, eo quod
+    Maxima pars hominum morbo jactatur eodem.
+                        HOR., 2 Sat. iii. 120.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, January 30._
+
+There is no affection of the mind so much blended in human nature, and
+wrought into our very constitution, as pride. It appears under a
+multitude of disguises, and breaks out in ten thousand different
+symptoms. Every one feels it in himself, and yet wonders to see it in
+his neighbour. I must confess, I met with an instance of it the other
+day where I should very little have expected it. Who would believe the
+proud person I am going to speak of, is a cobbler upon Ludgate Hill?
+This artist being naturally a lover of respect, and considering that his
+circumstances are such that no man living will give it him, has
+contrived the figure of a beau in wood, who stands before him in a
+bending posture, with his hat under his left arm, and his right hand
+extended in such a manner as to hold a thread, a piece of wax, or an
+awl, according to the particular service in which his master thinks fit
+to employ him. When I saw him, he held a candle in this obsequious
+posture. I was very well pleased with the cobbler's invention, that had
+so ingeniously contrived an inferior, and stood a little while
+contemplating this inverted idolatry, wherein the image did homage to
+the man. When we meet with such a fantastic vanity in one of this order,
+it is no wonder if we may trace it through all degrees above it, and
+particularly through all the steps of greatness. We easily see the
+absurdity of pride when it enters into the heart of a cobbler; though in
+reality it is altogether as ridiculous and unreasonable wherever it
+takes possession of a human creature. There is no temptation to it from
+the reflection upon our being in general, or upon any comparative
+perfection, whereby one man may excel another. The greater a man's
+knowledge is, the greater motive he may seem to have for pride; but in
+the same proportion as the one rises, the other sinks, it being the
+chief office of wisdom to discover to us our weaknesses and
+imperfections.
+
+As folly is the foundation of pride, the natural superstructure of it is
+madness. If there was an occasion for the experiment, I would not
+question to make a proud man a lunatic in three weeks' time, provided I
+had it in my power to ripen his frenzy with proper applications. It is
+an admirable reflection in Terence, where it is said of a parasite,
+"_Hic homines ex stultis facit insanos!_"[55] "This fellow," says he,
+"has an art of converting fools into madmen." When I was in France (the
+region of complaisance and vanity), I have often observed, that a great
+man who has entered a levy of flatterers humble and temperate, has grown
+so insensibly heated by the court which was paid him on all sides, that
+he has been quite distracted before he could get into his coach.
+
+If we consult the collegiates of Moorfields, we shall find most of them
+are beholden to their pride for their introduction into that magnificent
+palace.[56] I had some years ago the curiosity to inquire into the
+particular circumstances of these whimsical freeholders, and learned
+from their own mouths the condition and character of each of them.
+Indeed I found, that all I spoke to were persons of quality. There were
+at that time five duchesses, three earls, two heathen gods, an emperor,
+and a prophet. There were also a great number of such as were locked up
+from their estates, and others who concealed their titles. A
+leather-seller of Taunton whispered me in my ear, that he was the Duke
+of Monmouth; but begged me not to betray him. At a little distance from
+him sat a tailor's wife, who asked me as I went by, if I had seen the
+sword-bearer? Upon which I presumed to ask her, who she was; and was
+answered, "My Lady Mayoress."
+
+I was very sensibly touched with compassion towards these miserable
+people; and indeed, extremely mortified to see human nature capable of
+being thus disfigured. However, I reaped this benefit from it, that I
+was resolved to guard myself against a passion which makes such havoc in
+the brain, and produces so much disorder in the imagination. For this
+reason, I have endeavoured to keep down the secret swellings of
+resentment, and stifle the very first suggestions of self-esteem; to
+establish my mind in tranquillity, and over-value nothing in my own, or
+in another's possession.
+
+For the benefit of such whose heads are a little turned, though not to
+so great a degree as to qualify them for the place of which I have been
+now speaking, I shall assign one of the sides of the college which I am
+erecting, for the cure of this dangerous distemper.
+
+The most remarkable of the persons whose disturbance arises from pride,
+and whom I shall use all possible diligence to cure, are such as are
+bidden in the appearance of quite contrary habits and dispositions.
+Among such, I shall in the first place take care of one who is under the
+most subtle species of pride that I have observed in my whole
+experience.
+
+This patient is a person for whom I have a great respect, as being an
+old courtier, and a friend of mine in my youth. The man has but a bare
+subsistence, just enough to pay his reckoning with us at the
+Trumpet:[57] but by having spent the beginning of his life in the
+hearing of great men and persons of power, he is always promising to do
+good offices, to introduce every man he converses with into the world;
+will desire one of ten times his substance to let him see him sometimes,
+and hints to him, that he does not forget him. He answers to matters of
+no consequence with great circumspection; but however, maintains a
+general civility in his words and actions, and an insolent benevolence
+to all whom he has to do with: this he practises with a grave tone and
+air; and though I am his senior by twelve years, and richer by forty
+pounds per annum, he had yesterday the impudence to commend me to my
+face, and tell me, he should be always ready to encourage me. In a-word,
+he is a very insignificant fellow, but exceeding gracious. The best
+return I can make him for his favours, is, to carry him myself to
+Bedlam, and see him well taken care of.[58]
+
+The next person I shall provide for, is of a quite contrary character;
+that has in him all the stiffness and insolence of quality, without a
+grain of sense or good nature to make it either respected or beloved.
+His pride has infected every muscle of his face; and yet, after all his
+endeavours to show mankind that he contemns them, he is only neglected
+by all that see him, as not of consequence enough to be hated.
+
+For the cure of this particular sort of madness, it will be necessary to
+break through all forms with him, and familiarise[59] his carriage by
+the use of a good cudgel. It may likewise be of great benefit to make
+him jump over a stick half a dozen times every morning.
+
+A third whom I have in my eye is a young fellow, whose lunacy is such,
+that he boasts of nothing but what he ought to be ashamed of. He is vain
+of being rotten, and talks publicly of having committed crimes, which he
+ought to be hanged for by the laws of his country.
+
+There are several others whose brains are hurt with pride, and whom I
+may hereafter attempt to recover; but shall conclude my present list
+with an old woman, who is just dropping into her grave, that talks of
+nothing but her birth. Though she has not a tooth in her head, she
+expects to be valued for the blood in her veins, which she fancies is
+much better than that which glows in the cheeks of Belinda,[60] and sets
+half the town on fire.
+
+
+[Footnote 55: "Eunuchus," II. ii. 23. See No. 208.]
+
+[Footnote 56: Bedlam.]
+
+[Footnote 57: In Shire Lane. See No. 132.]
+
+[Footnote 58: "Perhaps the most consummately drawn of all his characters
+is introduced in the Essay, No. 127.... We have a portrait of that kind
+which, though produced by a few apparently careless touches, never
+ceases to charm, and is a study for all succeeding time and painters"
+(Forster's Essay on Steele). "This character," wrote Leigh Hunt, "is one
+of the finest that ever proceeded from his pen. It shows his contempt of
+that absurdest of all the passions of mortality--pride. The reader will
+take notice of the exquisite expression 'insolent benevolence,' and the
+'very insignificant fellow, but exceeding gracious'" ("A Book for a
+Corner," ii. 78-9).]
+
+[Footnote 59: Bring down from its state of superiority.]
+
+[Footnote 60: Nichols suggests an allusion to Mary Ann, daughter of
+Baron Spanheim, the Bavarian ambassador. She married the Marquis de
+Montandre in April 1710, and was a Kit-Cat toast. The reference--if
+there is any personal reference at all--may equally well be to any one
+of the beauties of the time.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 128.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Tuesday, Jan. 31_, to _Thursday, Feb. 2, 1709-10_.
+
+    ----Veniunt a dote sagittae.--JUV., Sat. vi. 139.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, February 1._
+
+This morning I received a letter from a fortune-hunter, which being
+better in its kind than men of that character usually write, I have
+thought fit to communicate to the public:
+
+     "_To Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq._
+     "SIR,
+
+     "I take the boldness to recommend to your care the enclosed letter,
+     not knowing how to communicate it but by your means to the
+     agreeable country maid you mention with so much honour in your
+     discourse concerning the lottery.[61]
+
+     "I should be ashamed to give you this trouble without offering at
+     some small requital: I shall therefore direct a new pair of globes
+     and a telescope of the best maker, to be left for you at Mr.
+     Morphew's, as a testimony of the great respect with which I am
+
+                        "Your most humble Servant, &c."
+
+     "_To Mopsa in Sheer Lane._
+     "FAIREST UNKNOWN,
+
+     "It being discovered by the stars, that about ten[62] months hence,
+     you will run the hazard of being persecuted by many worthless
+     pretenders to your person, unless timely prevented, I now offer my
+     service for your security against the persecution that threatens
+     you. This is therefore to let you know, that I have conceived a
+     most extraordinary passion for you; and that for several days I
+     have been perpetually haunted with the vision of a person I have
+     never yet seen. To satisfy you that I am in my senses, and that I
+     do not mistake you for any one of higher rank, I assure you, that
+     in your daily employment, you appear to my imagination more
+     agreeable in a short scanty petticoat, than the finest woman of
+     quality in her spreading farthingale; and that the dexterous twirl
+     of your mop has more native charms than the studied airs of a
+     lady's fan. In a word, I am captivated with your menial
+     qualifications: the domestic virtues adorn you like attendant
+     Cupids; cleanliness and healthful industry wait on all your
+     motions; and dust and cobwebs fly your approach.
+
+     "Now, to give you an honest account of myself, and that you may see
+     my designs are honourable, I am an esquire of an ancient family,
+     born to about fifteen hundred pounds a year, half of which I have
+     spent in discovering myself to be a fool, and with the rest am
+     resolved to retire with some plain honest partner, and study to be
+     wiser. I had my education in a laced coat, and a French dancing
+     school; and by my travel into foreign parts, have just as much
+     breeding to spare, as you may think you want, which I intend to
+     exchange as fast as I can for old English honesty and good sense. I
+     will not impose on you by a false recommendation of my person,
+     which (to show you my sincerity) is none of the handsomest, being
+     of a figure somewhat short; but what I want in length, I make out
+     in breadth. But in amends for that and all other defects, If you
+     can like me when you see me, I shall continue to you, whether I
+     find you fair, black or brown,
+
+                                        "THE MOST CONSTANT OF LOVERS.
+     "_January 27, 1709/10._"
+
+This letter seems to be written by a wag, and for that reason I am not
+much concerned for what reception Mopsa shall think fit to give it; but
+the following certainly proceeds from a poor heart, that languishes
+under the most deplorable misfortune that possibly can befall a woman. A
+man that is treacherously dealt with in love may have recourse to many
+consolations. He may gracefully break through all opposition to his
+mistress, or explain with his rival; urge his own constancy, or
+aggravate the falsehood by which it is repaid. But a woman that is
+ill-treated has no refuge in her griefs but in silence and secrecy. The
+world is so unjust, that a female heart which has been once touched is
+thought for ever blemished. The very grief in this case is looked upon
+as a reproach, and a complaint almost a breach of chastity. For these
+reasons, we see treachery and falsehood are become as it were male
+vices, and are seldom found, never acknowledged, in the other sex. This
+may serve to introduce Statira's letter, which, without any turn or art,
+has something so pathetical and moving in it, that I verily believe it
+to be true, and therefore heartily pity the injured creature that wrote
+it:
+
+                                        "_To Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq._
+     "SIR,
+
+     "You seem in many of your writings to be a man of a very
+     compassionate temper, and well acquainted with the passion of love.
+     This encourages me to apply myself to you in my present distress,
+     which I believe you will look upon to be very great, and treat with
+     tenderness, notwithstanding it wholly arises from love, and that it
+     is a woman that makes this confession. I am now in the twenty-third
+     year of my age, and have for a great while entertained the
+     addresses of a man who I thought loved me more than life. I am sure
+     I did him; and must own to you, not without some confusion, that I
+     have thought on nothing else for these two long years, but the
+     happy life we should lead together, and the means I should use to
+     make myself still dearer to him. My fortune was indeed much beyond
+     his; and as I was always in the company of my relations, he was
+     forced to discover his inclinations, and declare himself to me by
+     stories of other persons, kind looks, and many ways which he knew
+     too well that I understood. Oh! Mr. Bickerstaff, it is impossible
+     to tell you, how industrious I have been to make him appear lovely
+     in my thoughts. I made it a point of conscience to think well of
+     him, and of no man else: but he has since had an estate fallen to
+     him, and makes love to another of a greater fortune than mine. I
+     could not believe the report of this at first; but about a
+     fortnight ago I was convinced of the truth of it by his own
+     behaviour. He came to give our family a formal visit, when, as
+     there were several in company, and many things talked of, the
+     discourse fell upon some unhappy woman who was in my own
+     circumstances. It was said by one in the room, that they could not
+     believe the story could be true, because they did not believe any
+     man could be so false. Upon which, I stole a look upon him with an
+     anguish not to be expressed. He saw my eyes full of tears; yet had
+     the cruelty to say, that he could see no falsehood in alterations
+     of this nature, where there had been no contracts or vows
+     interchanged. Pray, do not make a jest of misery, but tell me
+     seriously your opinion of his behaviour; and if you can have any
+     pity for my condition, publish this in your next paper, that being
+     the only way I have of complaining of his unkindness, and showing
+     him the injustice he has done me. I am
+
+                                       "Your humble Servant,
+                                                 "The unfortunate
+                                                           "STATIRA."
+
+The name my correspondent gives herself, puts me in mind of my old
+reading in romances, and brings into my thoughts a speech of the
+renowned Don Bellianis, who, upon a complaint made him of a discourteous
+knight, that had left his injured paramour in the same manner, dries up
+her tears with a promise of relief. "Disconsolate damsel," quoth he, "a
+foul disgrace it were to all right worthy professors of chivalry, if
+such a blot to knighthood should pass unchastised. Give me to know the
+abode of this recreant lover, and I will give him as a feast to the
+fowls of the air, or drag him bound before you at my horse's tail."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I am not ashamed to own myself a champion of distressed damsels, and
+would venture as far to relieve them as Don Bellianis; for which reason,
+I do invite this lady to let me know the name of the traitor who has
+deceived her; and do promise, not only her, but all the fair ones of
+Great Britain who lie under the same calamity, to employ my right hand
+for their redress, and serve them to my last drop of ink.
+
+
+[Footnote 61: See No. 124.]
+
+[Footnote 62: Altered, in error, to "three," in the 1711 edition. In No.
+124 "ten months" remains. The drawing was at Michaelmas 1710.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 129.                                                [ADDISON.[63]
+
+From _Thursday, Feb. 2_, to _Saturday, Feb. 4, 1709-10_.
+
+    Ingenio manus est et cervix caesa.--JUV., Sat. x. 120.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, February 3._
+
+When my paper for to-morrow was prepared for the press, there came in
+this morning a mail from Holland, which brought me several advices from
+foreign parts, and took my thoughts off domestic affairs. Among others,
+I have a letter from a burgher of Amsterdam, who makes me his
+compliments, and tells me, he has sent me several draughts of humorous
+and satirical pictures by the best hands of the Dutch nation. They are a
+trading people, and in their very minds mechanics. They express their
+wit in manufacture, as we do in manuscript. He informs me, that a very
+witty hand has lately represented the present posture of public affairs
+in a landscape, or rather sea-piece, wherein the potentates of the
+Alliance are figured as their interests correspond with, or affect each
+other, under the appearance of commanders of ships. These vessels carry
+the colours of the respective nations concerned in the present war. The
+whole design seems to tend to one point, which is, that several
+squadrons of British and Dutch ships are battering a French man-of-war,
+in order to make her deliver up a long-boat with Spanish colours. My
+correspondent informs me, that a man must understand the compass
+perfectly well, to be able to comprehend the beauty and invention of
+this piece, which is so skilfully drawn, that the particular views of
+every prince in Europe are seen according as the ships lie to the main
+figure in the picture, and as that figure may help or retard their
+sailing. It seems this curiosity is now on board a ship bound for
+England, and with other rarities made a present to me. As soon as it
+arrives, I design to expose it to public view at my secretary Mr.
+Lillie's, who shall have an explication of all the terms of art; and I
+doubt not but it will give as good content as the moving picture in
+Fleet Street.[64]
+
+But above all the honours I have received from the learned world abroad,
+I am most delighted with the following epistle from Rome:
+
+     "_Pasquin of Rome, to Isaac Bickerstaff of Great Britain, greeting._
+     "SIR,
+
+     "Your reputation has passed the Alps, and would have come to my
+     ears by this time, if I had any. In short, sir, you are looked upon
+     here as a Northern droll, and the greatest virtuoso among the
+     Tramontanes. Some indeed say, that Mr. Bickerstaff and Pasquin are
+     only names invented, to father compositions which the natural
+     parent does not care for owning. But however that is, all agree,
+     that there are several persons, who, if they durst attack you,
+     would endeavour to leave you no more limbs than I have. I need not
+     tell you that my adversaries have joined in a confederacy with Time
+     to demolish me, and that, if I were not a very great wit, I should
+     make the worst figure in Europe, being abridged of my legs, arms,
+     nose, and ears. If you think fit to accept of the correspondence of
+     so facetious a cripple, I shall from time to time send you an
+     account of what happens at Rome. You have only heard of it from
+     Latin and Greek authors; may, perhaps, have read no accounts from
+     hence, but of a triumph, ovation, or apotheosis, and will,
+     doubtless, be surprised to see the description of a procession,
+     jubilee, or canonisation. I shall however send you what the place
+     affords, in return to what I shall receive from you. If you will
+     acquaint me with your next promotion of general officers, I will
+     send you an account of our next advancement of saints. If you will
+     let me know who is reckoned the bravest warrior in Great Britain,
+     I'll tell you who is the best fiddler in Rome. If you will favour
+     me with an inventory of the riches that were brought into your
+     nation by Admiral Wager,[65] I will not fail giving you an account
+     of a pot of medals that has been lately dug up here, and are now
+     under the examination of our ministers of state.
+
+     "There is one thing in which I desire you would be very particular.
+     What I mean is an exact list of all the religions in Great Britain,
+     as likewise the habits, which are said here to be the great points
+     of conscience in England, whether they are made of serge or
+     broadcloth, of silk or linen. I should be glad to see a model of
+     the most conscientious dress amongst you, and desire you would
+     send me a hat of each religion; as likewise, if it be not too much
+     trouble, a cravat. It would also be very acceptable here to receive
+     an account of those two religious orders which are lately sprung up
+     amongst you, the Whigs and the Tories, with the points of doctrine,
+     severities in discipline, penances, mortifications, and good works,
+     by which they differ one from another. It would be no less kind if
+     you would explain to us a word which they do not understand even at
+     our English monastery toasts, and let us know whether the ladies so
+     called are nuns or lay-sisters.
+
+     "In return, I will send you the secret history of several
+     cardinals, which I have by me in manuscript, with gallantries,
+     amours, politics, and intrigues, by which they made their way to
+     the Holy Purple.
+
+     "But when I propose a correspondence, I must not tell you what I
+     intend to advise you of hereafter, and neglect to give you what I
+     have at present. The Pope has been sick for this fortnight of a
+     violent toothache, which has very much raised the French faction,
+     and put the conclave into a great ferment. Every one of the
+     pretenders to the succession is grown twenty years older than he
+     was a fortnight ago. Each candidate tries who shall cough and stoop
+     most; for these are at present the great gifts that recommend to
+     the apostolical seat, which he stands the fairest for, who is
+     likely to resign it the soonest. I have known the time when it used
+     to rain louis-d'ors on such occasions; but whatever is the matter,
+     there are very few of them to be seen at present at Rome, insomuch
+     that it is thought a man might purchase infallibility at a very
+     reasonable rate. It is nevertheless hoped that his Holiness may
+     recover, and bury these his imaginary successors.
+
+     "There has lately been found a human tooth in a catacomb, which has
+     engaged a couple of convents in a lawsuit; each of them pretending
+     that it belonged to the jawbone of a saint who was of their Order.
+     The colleges have sat upon it thrice, and I find there is a
+     disposition among them to take it out of the possession of both the
+     contending parties, by reason of a speech which was made by one of
+     the cardinals, who, by reason of its being found out of the company
+     of any other bones, asserted, that it might be one of the teeth
+     which was coughed out by AElia, an old woman whose loss is recorded
+     in Martial.[66]
+
+     "I have nothing remarkable to communicate to you of State affairs,
+     excepting only, that the Pope has lately received a horse from the
+     German ambassador, as an acknowledgment for the kingdom of Naples,
+     which is a fief of the Church. His Holiness refused this horse from
+     the Germans ever since the Duke of Anjou has been possessed of
+     Spain; but as they lately took care to accompany it with a body of
+     ten thousand more, they have at last overcome his Holiness's
+     modesty, and prevailed upon him to accept the present. I am,
+
+                                     "Sir,
+                                         "Your most obedient,
+                                                 "Humble Servant,
+                                                            "PASQUIN.
+     "P.S. Morforio is very much yours."[67]
+
+
+[Footnote 63: There is the following note in No. 130 (orig. folio):
+"Errata in the last. Insert the following motto, which was overlooked by
+the printer," &c. "Col. 2, line 16, for Oration read Ovation." Probably
+this paper, No. 129, was by Addison, not only because of these
+corrections, but because of the allusions to medals, &c., in the letter
+from Pasquin. The paper is, however, not included in Addison's Works.]
+
+[Footnote 64: "To be seen daily, at the Duke of Marlborough's Head in
+Fleet Street, a new moving picture, drawn by the best hand, with great
+variety of curious motions and figures, which form a most agreeable
+prospect. It has the general approbation of all who see it, and far
+exceeds the original formerly shown at the same place.--N.B. This
+picture was never exposed to public view, before the beginning of the
+present year 1710" (No. 127, Advertisement). "The famous and curious
+original moving picture, which came from Germany, that was designed for
+the Elector of Bavaria, is still to be seen at the Duke of Marlborough's
+Head, in Fleet Street;" &c.--_Postman_, March 1-3, 1709 [-10].]
+
+[Footnote 65: Charles Wager was first made a captain at the battle of La
+Hogue by Admiral Russell, who recommended him on the most important
+services. He was sent commodore to the West Indies in 1707, where he
+attacked the Spanish galleons, May 28, 1708, with three ships, though
+they were fourteen in number drawn up in line of battle, and defeated
+them. His services Queen Anne distinguished by sending him a flag as
+Vice-admiral of the Blue, intended for him before this engagement, and
+by honouring him at his return with knighthood. His share of prize-money
+amounted to 100,000_l._ But the riches he acquired, on this and other
+occasions, were regarded by him only as instruments of doing good;
+accordingly he gave fortunes to his relations, that he might see them
+happy in his lifetime; and to persons in distress, his liberality was
+such, that whole families were supported, and their estates and fortunes
+saved, by his generosity. He was promoted to be Rear-admiral of the Red,
+November 9, 1709; and in that year was returned for Portsmouth to
+Parliament, where he continued to sit till his death. In April 1726, he
+was sent up the Baltic as Vice-admiral of the Red, with a large fleet on
+an important expedition; and performed all that could be expected from
+the wisdom and skill of an English admiral. He dined with the King of
+Denmark; had an audience of the King of Sweden; and exchanged many
+civilities with Prince Menzikoff, then Prime Minister of Russia. He was
+appointed Comptroller of the Navy in February 1714; a Lord of the
+Admiralty in March 1717; and, on the death of Lord Torrington in January
+1732-3, he was placed at the head of that Board, and appointed president
+of the corporation for relief of poor sea-officers' widows, and also
+president of the corporation of the Trinity House. He was appointed one
+of the Lords Regent in 1741; Vice-admiral of England and Treasurer of
+the Navy in 1742; and died May 24, 1743, aged 77. A prudent, temperate,
+wise, and honest man, he was easy of access to all, unaffected in his
+manners, steady and resolute in his conduct, affable and cheerful in his
+behaviour, and in time of action or imminent danger was never hurried or
+discomposed (Nichols).]
+
+[Footnote 66: "Epig." i. 20.]
+
+[Footnote 67: See No. 130, Advertisement.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 130.                                              [? ADDISON.[68]
+
+From _Saturday, Feb. 4_, to _Tuesday, Feb. 7, 1709-10_.
+
+                          ----At me
+    Cum magnis vixisse invita fatebitur usque
+    Invidia.--HOR., 2 Sat. i. 75.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, February 6._
+
+I find some of the most polite Latin authors, who wrote at a time when
+Rome was in its glory, speak with a certain noble vanity of the
+brightness and splendour of the age in which they lived. Pliny often
+compliments his Emperor Trajan upon this head; and when he would
+animate him to anything great, or dissuade him from anything that was
+improper, he insinuates, that it is befitting or unbecoming the
+_claritas et nitor saeculi_, that period of time which was made
+illustrious by his reign. When we cast our eyes back on the history of
+mankind, and trace them through their several successions to their first
+original, we sometimes see them breaking out in great and memorable
+actions, and towering up to the utmost heights of virtue and knowledge;
+when, perhaps, if we carry our observation to a little distance, we see
+them sunk into sloth and ignorance, and altogether lost in darkness and
+obscurity. Sometimes the whole species is asleep for two or three
+generations, and then again awakens into action, flourishes in heroes,
+philosophers, and poets, who do honour to human nature, and leave such
+tracts of glory behind them, as distinguish the years in which they
+acted their part from the ordinary course of time.
+
+Methinks a man cannot, without a secret satisfaction, consider the glory
+of the present age, which will shine as bright as any other in the
+history of mankind. It is still big with great events, and has already
+produced changes and revolutions which will be as much admired by
+posterity, as any that have happened in the days of our fathers, or in
+the old times before them. We have seen kingdoms divided and united,
+monarchs erected and deposed, nations transferred from one sovereign to
+another; conquerors raised to such a greatness as has given a terror to
+Europe, and thrown down by such a fall, as has moved their pity.
+
+But it is still a more pleasing view to an Englishman, to see his own
+country give the chief influence to so illustrious an age, and stand in
+the strongest point of light amidst the diffused glory that surrounds
+it.
+
+If we begin with learned men, we may observe, to the honour of our
+country, that those who make the greatest figure in most arts and
+sciences, are universally allowed to be of the British nation; and what
+is more remarkable, that men of the greatest learning are among the men
+of the greatest quality.
+
+A nation may indeed abound with persons of such uncommon parts and
+worth, as may make them rather a misfortune than a blessing to the
+public. Those who singly might have been of infinite advantage to the
+age they live in, may, by rising up together in the same crisis of time,
+and by interfering in their pursuits of honour, rather interrupt than
+promote the service of their country. Of this we have a famous instance
+in the Republic of Rome, when Caesar, Pompey, Cato, Cicero, and Brutus,
+endeavoured to recommend themselves at the same time to the admiration
+of their contemporaries. Mankind was not able to provide for so many
+extraordinary persons at once, or find out posts suitable to their
+ambition and abilities. For this reason, they were all as miserable in
+their deaths as they were famous in their lives, and occasioned, not
+only the ruin of each other, but also that of the commonwealth.
+
+It is therefore a particular happiness to a people, when the men of
+superior genius and character are so justly disposed in the high places
+of honour, that each of them moves in a sphere which is proper to him,
+and requires those particular qualities in which he excels.
+
+If I see a general commanding the forces of his country, whose victories
+are not to be paralleled in story, and who is as famous for his
+negotiations as his victories;[69] and at the same time see the
+management of a nation's treasury in the hands of one who has always
+distinguished himself by a generous contempt of his own private wealth,
+and an exact frugality of that which belongs to the public;[70] I
+cannot but think a people under such an Administration may promise
+themselves conquest abroad, and plenty at home. If I were to wish for a
+proper person to preside over the public councils, it should certainly
+be one as much admired for his universal knowledge of men and things, as
+for his eloquence, courage and integrity, in the exerting of such
+extraordinary talents.[71]
+
+Who is not pleased to see a person in the highest station in the law,
+who was the most eminent in his profession, and the most accomplished
+orator at the Bar?[72] Or at the head of the fleet a commander, under
+whose conduct the common enemy received such a blow as he has never been
+able to recover?[73]
+
+Were we to form to ourselves the idea of one whom we should think proper
+to govern a distant kingdom, consisting chiefly of those who differ from
+us in religion, and are influenced by foreign politics, would it not be
+such a one as had signalised himself by a uniform and unshaken zeal for
+the Protestant interest, and by his dexterity in defeating the skill and
+artifice of its enemies?[74] In short, if we find a great man popular
+for his honesty and humanity, as well as famed for his learning and
+great skill in all the languages of Europe, or a person eminent for
+those qualifications which make men shine in public assemblies, or for
+that steadiness, constancy, and good sense, which carry a man to the
+desired point through all the opposition of tumult and prejudice, we
+have the happiness to behold them all in posts suitable to their
+characters.
+
+Such a constellation of great persons, if I may so speak, while they
+shine out in their own distinct capacities, reflect a lustre upon each
+other, but in a more particular manner on their Sovereign, who has
+placed them in those proper situations, by which their virtues become so
+beneficial to all her subjects. It is the anniversary of the birthday of
+this glorious Queen which naturally led me into this field of
+contemplation, and instead of joining in the public exultations that are
+made on such occasions, to entertain my thoughts with the more serious
+pleasure of ruminating upon the glories of her reign.
+
+While I behold her surrounded with triumphs, and adorned with all the
+prosperity and success which Heaven ever shed on a mortal, and still
+considering herself as such; though the person appears to me exceeding
+great that has these just honours paid to her, yet I must confess, she
+appears much greater in that she receives them with such a glorious
+humility, and shows she has no further regard for them, than as they
+arise from these great events which have made her subjects happy. For my
+own part, I must confess, when I see private virtues in so high a degree
+of perfection, I am not astonished at any extraordinary success that
+attends them, but look upon public triumphs as the natural consequences
+of religious retirements.
+
+
+ADVERTISEMENT.
+
+Finding some persons have mistaken Pasquin who was mentioned in my last,
+for one who has been pilloried at Rome; I must here advertise them, that
+it is only a maimed statue so called, on which the private scandal of
+that city is generally pasted. Morforio is a person of the same quality,
+who is usually made to answer whatever is published by the other: the
+wits of that place, like too many of our own country, taking pleasure in
+setting innocent people together by the ears. The mentioning of this
+person, who is a great wit, and a great cripple, put me in mind of Mr.
+Estcourt,[75] who is under the same circumstances. He was formerly my
+apothecary, and being at present disabled by the gout and stone, I must
+recommend him to the public on Thursday next, that admirable play of Ben
+Jonson's, called, "The Silent Woman," being appointed to be acted for
+his benefit. It would be indecent for me to appear twice in a season at
+these ludicrous diversions; but as I always give my man and my maid one
+day in the year, I shall allow them this, and am promised by Mr.
+Estcourt, my ingenious apothecary, that they shall have a place kept for
+them in the first row of the middle gallery.
+
+
+[Footnote 68: Nichols suggests that this paper may be by Addison,
+because in No. 131 Addison has the following note: "For the benefit of
+my readers, I think myself obliged here to let them know that I always
+make use of an old-fashioned e, which very little differs from an o.
+This has been the reason that my printer sometimes mistakes the one for
+the other; as in my last paper, I find, _those_ for _these_, _beheld_
+for _behold_, Corvix for Cervix, and the like." The internal evidence
+supports this view; but the paper is not included in Addison's Works.]
+
+[Footnote 69: The Duke of Marlborough.]
+
+[Footnote 70: Sidney, Lord Godolphin.]
+
+[Footnote 71: Lord Somers. See No. 4.]
+
+[Footnote 72: Lord Chancellor Cowper. See the Dedication to this
+volume.]
+
+[Footnote 73: Edward Russell, Earl of Oxford. See No. 4.]
+
+[Footnote 74: Thomas, Earl of Wharton, the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland.]
+[Footnote 75: See Nos. 20, 51. Estcourt was apprenticed to an
+apothecary, and is said to have tried that business before going on the
+stage.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 131.                                                    [ADDISON.
+
+From _Tuesday, Feb. 7_, to _Thursday, Feb. 9, 1709-10_.
+
+    ----Scelus est jugulare Falernum,
+    Et dare Campano toxica saeva mero.
+                              MART., Epig. i. 18.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, February 8._
+
+There is in this city a certain fraternity of chemical operators, who
+work under ground in holes, caverns, and dark retirements, to conceal
+their mysteries from the eyes and observation of mankind. These
+subterraneous philosophers are daily employed in the transmutation of
+liquors, and, by the power of magical drugs and incantations, raising
+under the streets of London the choicest products of the hills and
+valleys of France. They can squeeze bordeaux out of the sloe, and draw
+champagne from an apple. Virgil in that remarkable prophecy,
+
+    _Incultisque rubens pendebit sentibus uva_,[76]
+
+    (_The ripening grape shall hang on every thorn_),
+
+seems to have hinted at this art which can turn a plantation of Northern
+hedges into a vineyard. These adepts are known among one another by the
+name of "wine-brewers," and I am afraid do great injury, not only to her
+Majesty's customs, but to the bodies of many of her good subjects.
+
+Having received sundry complaints against these invisible workmen, I
+ordered the proper officer of my court to ferret them out of their
+respective caves, and bring them before me, which was yesterday executed
+accordingly.
+
+The person who appeared against them was a merchant, who had by him a
+great magazine of wines that he had laid in before the war: but these
+gentlemen (as he said) had so vitiated the nation's palate, that no man
+could believe his to be French, because it did not taste like what they
+sold for such. As a man never pleads better than where his own personal
+interest is concerned, he exhibited to the court with great eloquence,
+that this new corporation of druggists had inflamed the bills of
+mortality, and puzzled the College of Physicians with diseases, for
+which they neither knew a name nor cure. He accused some of giving all
+their customers colics and megrims; and mentioned one who had boasted,
+he had a tun of claret by him, that in a fortnight's time should give
+the gout to a dozen of the healthiest men in the city, provided that
+their constitutions were prepared for it by wealth and idleness. He then
+enlarged, with a great show of reason, upon the prejudice which these
+mixtures and compositions had done to the brains of the English nation;
+as is too visible (said he) from many late pamphlets, speeches and
+sermons, as well as from the ordinary conversations of the youth of this
+age. He then quoted an ingenious person, who would undertake to know by
+a man's writings, the wine he most delighted in; and on that occasion
+named a certain satirist, whom he had discovered to be the author of a
+lampoon, by a manifest taste of the sloe, which showed itself in it by
+much roughness, and little spirit.
+
+In the last place, he ascribed to the unnatural tumults and
+fermentations which these mixtures raise in our blood, the divisions,
+heat and animosities, that reign among us; and in particular, asserted
+most of the modern enthusiasms and agitations to be nothing else but the
+effects of adulterated port.
+
+The counsel for the brewers had a face so extremely inflamed and
+illuminated with carbuncles, that I did not wonder to see him an
+advocate for these sophistications. His rhetoric was likewise such as I
+should have expected from the common draught, which I found he often
+drank to a great excess. Indeed, I was so surprised at his figure and
+parts, that I ordered him to give me a taste of his usual liquor; which
+I had no sooner drunk, but I found a pimple rising in my forehead; and
+felt such a sensible decay in my understanding, that I would not proceed
+in the trial till the fume of it was entirely dissipated.
+
+This notable advocate had little to say in the defence of his clients,
+but that they were under a necessity of making claret if they would keep
+open their doors, it being the nature of mankind to love everything that
+is prohibited. He further pretended to reason, that it might be as
+profitable to the nation to make French wine as French hats; and
+concluded with the great advantage that this had already brought to
+part of the kingdom. Upon which he informed the court, that the lands in
+Hertfordshire were raised two years' purchase since the beginning of the
+war.
+
+When I had sent out my summons to these people, I gave at the same time
+orders to each of them to bring the several ingredients he made use of
+in distinct phials, which they had done accordingly, and ranged them
+into two rows on each side of the court. The workmen were drawn up in
+ranks behind them. The merchant informed me, that in one row of phials
+were the several colours they dealt in, and in the other the tastes. He
+then showed me on the right hand one who went by the name of Tom
+Tintoret, who (as he told me) was the greatest master in his colouring
+of any vintner in London.[77] To give me a proof of his art, he took a
+glass of fair water; and by the infusion of three drops out of one of
+his phials, converted it into a most beautiful pale burgundy. Two more
+of the same kind heightened it into a perfect languedoc: from thence it
+passed into a florid hermitage: and after having gone through two or
+three other changes, by the addition of a single drop, ended in a very
+deep pontack.[78] This ingenious virtuoso seeing me very much surprised
+at his art, told me, that he had not an opportunity of showing it in
+perfection, having only made use of water for the groundwork of his
+colouring: but that if I were to see an operation upon liquors of
+stronger bodies, the art would appear to a much greater advantage. He
+added, that he doubted not that it would please my curiosity to see the
+cider of one apple take only a vermilion, when another, with a less
+quantity of the same infusion, would rise into a dark purple, according
+to the different texture of parts in the liquor. He informed me also,
+that he could hit the different shades and degrees of red, as they
+appear in the pink and the rose, the clove and the carnation, as he had
+Rhenish or Moselle, perry, or white port, to work in.
+
+I was so satisfied with the ingenuity of this virtuoso, that, after
+having advised him to quit so dishonest a profession, I promised him, in
+consideration of his great genius, to recommend him as a partner to a
+friend of mine, who has heaped up great riches, and is a scarlet dyer.
+
+The artists on my other hand were ordered in the second place to make
+some experiments of their skill before me: upon which the famous Harry
+Sippet stepped out, and asked me what I would be pleased to drink. At
+the same time he filled out three or four white liquors in a glass, and
+told me, that it should be what I pleased to call for; adding very
+learnedly, that the liquor before him was as the naked substance or
+first matter of his compound, to which he and his friend, who stood over
+against him, could give what accidents or form they pleased. Finding him
+so great a philosopher, I desired he would convey into it the qualities
+and essence of right bordeaux. "Coming, coming, sir," said he, with the
+air of a drawer; and after having cast his eye on the several tastes and
+flavours that stood before him; he took up a little cruet that was
+filled with a kind of inky juice, and pouring some of it out into the
+glass of white wine, presented it to me, and told me, this was the wine
+over which most of the business of the last term had been despatched. I
+must confess, I looked upon that sooty drug which he held up in his
+cruet as the quintessence of English bordeaux, and therefore desired
+him to give me a glass of it by itself, which he did with great
+unwillingness. My cat at that time sat by me upon the elbow of my chair;
+and as I did not care for making the experiment upon myself, I reached
+it to her to sip of it, which had like to have cost her her life; for
+notwithstanding it flung her at first into freakish tricks, quite
+contrary to her usual gravity, in less than a quarter of an hour she
+fell into convulsions; and had it not been a creature more tenacious of
+life than any other, would certainly have died under the operation.
+
+I was so incensed by the tortures of my innocent domestic, and the
+unworthy dealings of these men, that I told them, if each of them had as
+many lives as the injured creature before them, they deserved to forfeit
+them for the pernicious arts which they used for their profit. I
+therefore bid them look upon themselves as no better than as a kind of
+assassins and murderers within the law. However, since they had dealt so
+clearly with me, and laid before me their whole practice, I dismissed
+them for that time; with a particular request, that they would not
+poison any of my friends and acquaintance, and take to some honest
+livelihood without loss of time.
+
+For my own part, I have resolved hereafter to be very careful in my
+liquors, and have agreed with a friend of mine in the army, upon their
+next march, to secure me two hogsheads of the best stomach-wine in the
+cellars of Versailles, for the good of my Lucubrations, and the comfort
+of my old age.
+
+
+[Footnote 76: Eclog. iv. 29.]
+
+[Footnote 77: See No. 138.]
+
+[Footnote 78: A fashionable eating-house in Abchurch Lane, kept by one
+Pontack, who was son of the President of Bordeaux, then owner, as Evelyn
+tells us, of the excellent vineyards of Pontaq and Haut Brion.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 132.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Thursday, Feb. 9_, to _Saturday, Feb. 11, 1709-10_.
+
+     Habeo senectuti magnam gratiam, quae mihi sermonis aviditatem auxit,
+     potionis et cibi sustulit.--CICERO, De Sen. 46.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, February 10._
+
+After having applied my mind with more than ordinary attention to my
+studies, it is my usual custom to relax and unbend it in the
+conversation of such as are rather easy than shining companions. This I
+find particularly necessary for me before I retire to rest, in order to
+draw my slumbers upon me by degrees, and fall asleep insensibly. This is
+the particular use I make of a set of heavy honest men, with whom I have
+passed many hours, with much indolence, though not with great pleasure.
+Their conversation is a kind of preparative for sleep: it takes the mind
+down from its abstractions, leads it into the familiar traces[79] of
+thought, and lulls it into that state of tranquillity, which is the
+condition of a thinking man when he is but half awake. After this, my
+reader will not be surprised to hear the account which I am about to
+give of a club of my own contemporaries, among whom I pass two or three
+hours every evening. This I look upon as taking my first nap before I go
+to bed. The truth of it is, I should think myself unjust to posterity,
+as well as to the society at the Trumpet,[80] of which I am a member,
+did not I in some part of my writings give an account of the persons
+among whom I have passed almost a sixth part of my time for these last
+forty years. Our club consisted originally of fifteen; but partly by the
+severity of the law in arbitrary times, and partly by the natural
+effects of old age, we are at present reduced to a third part of that
+number: in which however we have this consolation, that the best company
+is said to consist of five persons. I must confess, besides the
+aforementioned benefit which I meet with in the conversation of this
+select society, I am not the less pleased with the company, in that I
+find myself the greatest wit among them, and am heard as their oracle in
+all points of learning and difficulty.
+
+Sir Jeoffrey Notch, who is the oldest of the club, has been in
+possession of the right-hand chair time out of mind, and is the only man
+among us that has the liberty of stirring the fire. This our foreman is
+a gentleman of an ancient family, that came to a great estate some years
+before he had discretion, and run it out in hounds, horses, and
+cock-fighting; for which reason he looks upon himself as an honest
+worthy gentleman who has had misfortunes in the world, and calls every
+thriving man a pitiful upstart.
+
+Major Matchlock is the next senior, who served in the last civil wars,
+and has all the battles by heart. He does not think any action in Europe
+worth talking of since the fight of Marston Moor;[81] and every night
+tells us of his having been knocked off his horse at the rising of the
+London apprentices;[82] for which he is in great esteem amongst us.
+
+Honest old Dick Reptile is the third of our society: he is a
+good-natured indolent man, who speaks little himself, but laughs at our
+jokes, and brings his young nephew along with him, a youth of eighteen
+years old, to show him good company, and give him a taste of the world.
+This young fellow sits generally silent; but whenever he opens his
+mouth, or laughs at anything that passes, he is constantly told by his
+uncle, after a jocular manner, "Ay, ay, Jack, you young men think us
+fools; but we old men know you are."[83]
+
+The greatest wit of our company, next to myself, is a bencher of the
+neighbouring inn, who in his youth frequented the ordinaries about
+Charing Cross, and pretends to have been intimate with Jack Ogle.[84] He
+has about ten distichs of "Hudibras" without book, and never leaves the
+club till he has applied them all. If any modern wit be mentioned, or
+any town frolic spoken of, he shakes his head at the dulness of the
+present age, and tells us a story of Jack Ogle.
+
+For my own part, I am esteemed among them, because they see I am
+something respected by others, though at the same time I understand by
+their behaviour, that I am considered by them as a man of a great deal
+of learning, but no knowledge of the world; insomuch that the Major
+sometimes, in the height of his military pride, calls me the
+philosopher: and Sir Jeoffrey no longer ago than last night, upon a
+dispute what day of the month it was then in Holland, pulled his pipe
+out of his mouth, and cried, "What does the scholar say to it?"
+
+Our club meets precisely at six o'clock in the evening; but I did not
+come last night till half an hour after seven, by which means I escaped
+the battle of Naseby, which the Major usually begins at about
+three-quarters after six; I found also, that my good friend, the
+bencher, had already spent three of his distichs, and only waiting an
+opportunity to hear a sermon spoken of, that he might introduce the
+couplet where "a stick" rhymes to "ecclesiastic."[85] At my entrance
+into the room, they were naming a red petticoat and a cloak, by which I
+found that the bencher had been diverting them with a story of Jack
+Ogle.
+
+I had no sooner taken my seat, but Sir Jeoffrey, to show his goodwill
+towards me, gave me a pipe of his own tobacco, and stirred up the fire.
+I look upon it as a point of morality, to be obliged by those who
+endeavour to oblige me; and therefore in requital for his kindness, and
+to set the conversation a-going, I took the best occasion I could, to
+put him upon telling us the story of old Gantlett, which he always does
+with very particular concern. He traced up his descent on both sides for
+several generations, describing his diet and manner of life, with his
+several battles, and particularly that in which he fell. This Gantlett
+was a game-cock, upon whose head the knight in his youth had won five
+hundred pounds, and lost two thousand. This naturally set the major upon
+the account of Edge Hill fight, and ended in a duel of Jack Ogle's.
+
+Old Reptile was extremely attentive to all that was said, though it was
+the same he had heard every night for these twenty years, and upon all
+occasions, winked upon his nephew to mind what passed.
+
+This may suffice to give the world a taste of our innocent conversation,
+which we spun out till about ten of the clock, when my maid[86] came
+with a lantern to light me home. I could not but reflect with myself as
+I was going out upon the talkative humour of old men, and the little
+figure which that part of life makes in one who cannot employ this
+natural propensity in discourses which would make him venerable. I must
+own, it makes me very melancholy in company, when I hear a young man
+begin a story; and have often observed, that one of a quarter of an hour
+long in a man of five and twenty, gathers circumstances every time he
+tells it, till it grows into a long Canterbury tale of two hours by that
+time he is three-score.
+
+The only way of avoiding such a trifling and frivolous old age, is, to
+lay up in our way to it such stores of knowledge and observation as may
+make us useful and agreeable in our declining years. The mind of man in
+a long life will become a magazine of wisdom or folly, and will
+consequently discharge itself in something impertinent or improving. For
+which reason, as there is nothing more ridiculous than an old trifling
+story-teller, so there is nothing more venerable than one who has turned
+his experience to the entertainment and advantage of mankind.
+
+In short, we who are in the last stage of life, and are apt to indulge
+ourselves in talk, ought to consider, if what we speak be worth being
+heard, and endeavour to make our discourse like that of Nestor, which
+Homer compares to the flowing of honey for its sweetness.[87]
+
+I am afraid I shall be thought guilty of this excess I am speaking of,
+when I cannot conclude without observing, that Milton certainly thought
+of this passage in Homer, when in his description of an eloquent spirit,
+he says, "His tongue dropped manna."[88]
+
+
+[Footnote 79: Paths.]
+
+[Footnote 80: The Trumpet stood about half-way up Shire Lane, between
+Temple Bar and Carey Street, at the widest and best part of the lane,
+and remained almost entirely in its original state until demolished to
+make way for the new Law Courts. It had the old sign of the Trumpet to
+the last, as it is figured in Limbard's "Mirror," in a picture where it
+is placed side by side with a view of the house in Fulwood's Rents where
+papers for the _Spectator_ were taken in.]
+
+[Footnote 81: July 2, 1644.]
+
+[Footnote 82: In July 1647 the London apprentices presented a petition,
+and forced their way into the House of Commons.]
+
+[Footnote 83: This retort, in almost identical words, occurs in Swift's
+"Genteel Conversation" (1739), and in Defoe's "Life of Duncan Campbell"
+(1720).]
+
+[Footnote 84: Jack Ogle, said to have been descended from a decent
+family in Devonshire, was a man of some genius and great extravagance,
+but rather artful than witty. Ogle had an only sister, more beautiful,
+it is said, than was necessary to arrive, as she did, at the honour of
+being a mistress to the Duke of York. This sister Ogle laid under very
+frequent contributions to supply his wants and support his extravagance.
+It is said that, by the interest of her royal keeper, Ogle was placed,
+as a private gentleman, in the first troop of foot guards, at that time
+under the command of the Duke of Monmouth. To this era of Ogle's life
+the story of the red petticoat refers. He had pawned his trooper's
+cloak, and to save appearances at a review, had borrowed his landlady's
+red petticoat, which he carried rolled up _en croupe_ behind him. The
+Duke of Monmouth "smoked" it, and willing to enjoy the confusion of a
+detection, gave order to "cloak all," with which Ogle, after some
+hesitation, was obliged to comply; although he could not cloak, he said
+he would petticoat with the best of them. Such as are curious to know
+more of the history, the duels, and odd pranks of this mad fellow, may
+consult the account of them in the "Memoirs of Gamesters," 1714, 12mo,
+p. 183 (Nichols).]
+
+[Footnote 85:
+
+    "When pulpit drum ecclesiastic
+    Was beat with fist instead of a stick."
+              --"Hudibras," Part I. c. i. line 10.
+]
+
+[Footnote 86: Cf. No. 130, Advertisements. The dangers of the streets at
+the beginning of the eighteenth century are described in Gay's "Trivia,"
+iii. 335 _seq._]
+
+[Footnote 87: "Iliad," i. 249.]
+
+[Footnote 88: Milton says of Belial ("Paradise Lost," ii. 112):
+
+    "But all was false and hollow, though his tongue
+    Dropped manna, and could make the worse appear
+    The better cause."
+]
+
+
+
+
+No. 133.                                                    [ADDISON.
+
+From _Saturday, Feb. 11_, to _Tuesday, Feb. 14, 1709-10_.
+
+    Dum tacent, clamant.--TULL.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, February 13._
+
+Silence is sometimes more significant and sublime than the most noble
+and most expressive eloquence, and is on many occasions the indication
+of a great mind. Several authors have treated of silence as a part of
+duty and discretion, but none of them have considered it in this light.
+Homer compares the noise and clamour of the Trojans advancing towards
+the enemy, to the cackling of cranes when they invade an army of
+pigmies.[89] On the contrary, he makes his countrymen and favourites,
+the Greeks, move forward in a regular determined march, and in the depth
+of silence. I find in the accounts which are given us of some of the
+more Eastern nations, where the inhabitants are disposed by their
+constitutions and climates to higher strains of thought, and more
+elevated raptures than what we feel in the northern regions of the
+world, that silence is a religious exercise among them. For when their
+public devotions are in the greatest fervour, and their hearts lifted up
+as high as words can raise them, there are certain suspensions of sound
+and motion for a time, in which the mind is left to itself, and supposed
+to swell with such secret conceptions as are too big for utterance. I
+have myself been wonderfully delighted with a masterpiece of music, when
+in the very tumult and ferment of their harmony, all the voices and
+instruments have stopped short on a sudden, and after a little pause
+recovered themselves again as it were, and renewed the concert in all
+its parts. Methought this short interval of silence has had more music
+in it than any the same space of time before or after it. There are two
+instances of silence in the two greatest poets that ever wrote, which
+have something in them as sublime as any of the speeches in their whole
+works. The first is that of Ajax, in the eleventh book of the
+Odyssey.[90] Ulysses, who had been the rival of this great man in his
+life, as well as the occasion of his death, upon meeting his shade in
+the region of departed heroes, makes his submission to him with a
+humility next to adoration, which the other passes over with dumb sullen
+majesty, and such a silence, as (to use the words of Longinus) had more
+greatness in it than anything he could have spoken.
+
+The next instance I shall mention is in Virgil, where the poet,
+doubtless, imitates this silence of Ajax in that of Dido;[91] though I
+do not know that any of his commentators have taken notice of it. AEneas
+finding among the shades of despairing lovers, the ghost of her who had
+lately died for him, with the wound still fresh upon her, addresses
+himself to her with expanded arms, floods of tears, and the most
+passionate professions of his own innocence as to what had happened; all
+which Dido receives with the dignity and disdain of a resenting lover,
+and an injured Queen; and is so far from vouchsafing him an answer, that
+she does not give him a single look. The poet represents her as turning
+away her face from him while he spoke to her; and after having kept her
+eyes for some time upon the ground, as one that heard and contemned his
+protestations, flying from him into the grove of myrtle, and into the
+arms of another, whose fidelity had deserved her love.[92]
+
+I have often thought our writers of tragedy have been very defective in
+this particular, and that they might have given great beauty to their
+works, by certain stops and pauses in the representation of such
+passions, as it is not in the power of language to express. There is
+something like this in the last act of "Venice Preserved," where Pierre
+is brought to an infamous execution, and begs of his friend,[93] as a
+reparation for past injuries, and the only favour he could do him, to
+rescue him from the ignominy of the wheel by stabbing him. As he is
+going to make this dreadful request, he is not able to communicate it,
+but withdraws his face from his friend's ear, and bursts into tears.
+The melancholy silence that follows hereupon, and continues till he has
+recovered himself enough to reveal his mind to his friend, raises in the
+spectators a grief that is inexpressible, and an idea of such a
+complicated distress in the actor as words cannot utter. It would look
+as ridiculous to many readers to give rules and directions for proper
+silences, as for penning a whisper: but it is certain, that in the
+extremity of most passions, particularly surprise, admiration,
+astonishment, nay, rage itself, there is nothing more graceful than to
+see the play stand still for a few moments, and the audience fixed in an
+agreeable suspense during the silence of a skilful actor.
+
+But silence never shows itself to so great an advantage, as when it is
+made the reply to calumny and defamation, provided that we give no just
+occasion for them. One might produce an example of it in the behaviour
+of one in whom it appeared in all its majesty, and one whose silence, as
+well as his person, was altogether divine. When one considers this
+subject only in its sublimity, this great instance could not but occur
+to me; and since I only make use of it to show the highest example of
+it, I hope I do not offend in it. To forbear replying to an unjust
+reproach, and overlook it with a generous, or (if possible) with an
+entire neglect of it, is one of the most heroic acts of a great mind.
+And I must confess, when I reflect upon the behaviour of some of the
+greatest men in antiquity, I do not so much admire them that they
+deserved the praise of the whole age they lived in, as because they
+contemned the envy and detraction of it.
+
+All that is incumbent on a man of worth, who suffers under so ill a
+treatment, is to lie by for some time in silence and obscurity, till the
+prejudice of the times be over, and his reputation cleared. I have often
+read with a great deal of pleasure a legacy of the famous Lord Bacon,
+one of the greatest geniuses that our own or any country has produced:
+after having bequeathed his soul, body, and estate, in the usual form,
+he adds, "My name and memory I leave to foreign nations, and to my
+countrymen, after some time be passed over."
+
+At the same time that I recommend this philosophy to others, I must
+confess I am so poor a proficient in it myself, that if in the course of
+my Lucubrations it happens, as it has done more than once, that my paper
+is duller than in conscience it ought to be, I think the time an age
+till I have an opportunity of putting out another, and growing famous
+again for two days.
+
+I must not close my discourse upon silence, without informing my reader,
+that I have by me an elaborate treatise on the Aposiopesis called an "Et
+caetera," it being a figure much used by some learned authors, and
+particularly by the great Littleton, who, as my Lord Chief Justice Coke
+observes, had a most admirable talent at an et cetera.[94]
+
+
+ADVERTISEMENT.
+
+To oblige the Pretty Fellows, and my fair readers, I have thought fit to
+insert the whole passage above mentioned relating to Dido, as it is
+translated by Mr. Dryden:
+
+    _Not far from thence, the mournful fields appear;
+    So called, from lovers that inhabit there.
+    The souls, whom that unhappy flame invades,
+    In secret solitude, and myrtle shades,
+    Make endless moans, and pining with desire,
+    Lament too late their unextinguished fire.
+    Here Procris, Eryphile here, he found
+    Baring her breast, yet bleeding with the wound
+    Made by her son. He saw Pasiphae there,
+    With Phaedra's ghost, a foul incestuous pair;
+    There Laodamia with Evadne moves:
+    Unhappy both, but loyal in their loves.
+    Caeneus, a woman once, and once a man;
+    But ending in the sex she first began.
+    Not far from these, Phoenician Dido stood;
+    Fresh from her wound, her bosom bathed in blood.
+    Whom, when the Trojan hero hardly knew,
+    Obscure in shades, and with a doubtful view
+    (Doubtful as he who runs through dusky night,
+    Or thinks he sees the moon's uncertain light)
+    With tears he first approached the sullen shade;
+    And, as his love inspired him, thus he said:
+    "Unhappy queen! Then is the common breath
+    Of rumour true, in your reported death;
+    And I, alas, the cause! By Heaven, I vow,
+    And all the powers that rule the realms below,
+    Unwilling I forsook your friendly state,
+    Commanded by the gods, and forced by Fate.
+    Those gods, that Fate, whose unresisted might,
+    Have sent me to these regions, void of light,
+    Through the vast empire of eternal night.
+    Nor dared I to presume, that, pressed with grief,
+    My flight should urge you to this dire relief.
+    Stay, stay your steps, and listen to my vows;
+    'Tis the last interview that Fate allows!"
+    In vain he thus attempts her mind to move,
+    With tears and prayers, and late repenting love.
+    Disdainfully she looked, then turning round;
+    But fixed her eyes unmoved upon the ground;
+    And, what he says, and swears, regards no more
+    Than the deaf rocks, when the loud billows roar;
+    But whirled away, to shun his hateful fight,
+    Hid in the forest, and the shades of night.
+    Then sought Sichaeus through the shady grove,
+    Who answered all her cares, and equalled all her love._
+
+
+[Footnote 89: "Iliad," iii. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 90: "Odyssey," xi. 563.]
+
+[Footnote 91: "AEneid," vi. 46.]
+
+[Footnote 92: Sichaeus.]
+
+[Footnote 93: Jaffier. See Otway's "Venice Preserved," act v. sc. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 94: In the preface to his "Institutes of the Laws of England;
+or, a Commentary upon Littleton," Coke says, "Certain it is, that there
+is never a period, nor (for the most part) a word, nor an &c., but
+affordeth excellent matter of learning."]
+
+
+
+
+No. 134.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Tuesday, Feb. 14_, to _Thursday, Feb. 16, 1709-10_.
+
+                       ----Quis talia fando
+    Myrmidonum, Dolopumve, aut duri miles Ulixi,
+    Temperet a lachrimis!--VIRG., AEn. ii. 6.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, February 15._
+
+I was awakened very early this morning by the distant crowing of a cock,
+which I thought had the finest pipe I ever heard. He seemed to me to
+strain his voice more than ordinary, as if he designed to make himself
+heard to the remotest corner of this lane. Having entertained myself a
+little before I went to bed with a discourse on the transmigration of
+men into other animals, I could not but fancy that this was the soul of
+some drowsy bellman who used to sleep upon his post, for which he was
+condemned to do penance in feathers, and distinguish the several watches
+of the night under the outside of a cock. While I was thinking of the
+condition of this poor bellman in masquerade, I heard a great knocking
+at my door, and was soon after told by my maid, that my worthy friend
+the tall black gentleman, who frequents the coffee-houses hereabouts,
+desired to speak with me. This ancient Pythagorean, who has as much
+honesty as any man living, but good nature to an excess, brought me the
+following petition, which I am apt to believe he penned himself, the
+petitioner not being able to express his mind in paper under his present
+form, however famous he might have been for writing verses when he was
+in his original shape.
+
+     "_To Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq., Censor of Great Britain._
+
+     "The humble petition of Job Chanticleer, in behalf of himself, and
+     many other poor sufferers in the same condition;
+
+     "SHEWETH,
+
+     "That whereas your petitioner is truly descended of the ancient
+     family of the Chanticleers at Cock Hall near Romford in Essex, it
+     has been his misfortune to come into the mercenary hands of a
+     certain ill-disposed person, commonly called a 'higgler,' who,
+     under the close confinement of a pannier, has conveyed him and many
+     others up to London; but hearing by chance of your worship's great
+     humanity towards robin-redbreasts and tom-tits,[95] he is
+     emboldened to beseech you to take his deplorable condition into
+     your tender consideration, who otherwise must suffer (with many
+     thousands more as innocent as himself) that inhumane barbarity of a
+     Shrove Tuesday persecution.[96] We humbly hope that our courage and
+     vigilance may plead for us on this occasion.
+
+     "Your poor petitioner most earnestly implores your immediate
+     protection from the insolence of the rabble, the batteries of
+     catsticks,[97] and a painful lingering death.
+
+                                    "And your petitioner, &c.
+
+     "From my coup in Clare
+     Market, _February 13, 1709_."
+
+Upon delivery of this petition, the worthy gentleman who presented it,
+told me the customs of many wise nations of the East, through which he
+had travelled; that nothing was more frequent than to see a dervish lay
+out a whole year's income in the redemption of larks or linnets that had
+unhappily fallen into the hands of bird-catchers:[98] that it was also
+usual to run between a dog and a bull to keep them from hurting one
+another, or to lose the use of a limb in parting a couple of furious
+mastiffs. He then insisted upon the ingratitude and disingenuity[99] of
+treating in this manner a necessary and domestic animal, that has made
+the whole house keep good hours, and called up the cook maid for five
+years together. "What would a Turk say," continued he, "should he hear,
+that it is a common entertainment in a nation which pretends to be one
+of the most civilised of Europe, to tie an innocent animal to a stake,
+and put him to an ignominious death, who has perhaps been the guardian
+and proveditor of a poor family, as long as he was able to get eggs for
+his mistress?"
+
+I thought what this gentleman said was very reasonable; and have often
+wondered, that we do not lay aside a custom which makes us appear
+barbarous to nations much more rude and unpolished than ourselves. Some
+French writers have represented this diversion of the common people much
+to our disadvantage, and imputed it to natural fierceness and cruelty of
+temper; as they do some other entertainments peculiar to our nation: I
+mean those elegant diversions of bull-baiting and prize-fighting, with
+the like ingenious recreations of the bear-garden.[100] I wish I knew
+how to answer this reproach which is cast upon us, and excuse the death
+of so many innocent cocks, bulls, dogs, and bears, as have been set
+together by the ears, or died untimely deaths only to make us sport.
+
+It will be said, that these are the entertainments of common people. It
+is true; but they are the entertainments of no other common people.[101]
+Besides, I am afraid there is a tincture of the same savage spirit in
+the diversions of those of higher rank, and more refined relish. Rapin
+observes, that the English theatre very much delights in bloodshed,
+which he likewise represents as an indication of our tempers. I must
+own, there is something very horrid in the public executions of an
+English tragedy. Stabbing and poisoning, which are performed behind the
+scenes in other nations, must be done openly among us, to gratify the
+audience.[102]
+
+When poor Sandford[103] was upon the stage, I have seen him groaning
+upon a wheel, stuck with daggers, impaled alive, calling his
+executioners, with a dying voice, cruel dogs and villains! And all this
+to please his judicious spectators, who were wonderfully delighted with
+seeing a man in torment so well acted. The truth of it is, the
+politeness of our English stage, in regard to decorum, is very
+extraordinary. We act murders to show our intrepidity, and adulteries to
+show our gallantry: both of them are frequent in our most taking plays,
+with this difference only, that the first are done in sight of the
+audience, and the other wrought up to such a height upon the stage, that
+they are almost put in execution before the actors can get behind the
+scenes.
+
+I would not have it thought, that there is just ground for those
+consequences which our enemies draw against us from these practices; but
+methinks one would be sorry for any manner of occasion for such
+misrepresentations of us. The virtues of tenderness, compassion and
+humanity, are those by which men are distinguished from brutes, as much
+as by reason itself; and it would be the greatest reproach to a nation
+to distinguish itself from all others by any defect in these particular
+virtues. For which reasons, I hope that my dear countrymen will no
+longer expose themselves by an effusion of blood, whether it be of
+theatrical heroes, cocks, or any other innocent animals, which we are
+not obliged to slaughter for our safety, convenience, or nourishment.
+Where any of these ends are not served in the destruction of a living
+creature, I cannot but pronounce it a great piece of cruelty, if not a
+kind of murder.
+
+
+[Footnote 95: See No. 112.]
+
+[Footnote 96: See the date of this number.]
+
+[Footnote 97: Sticks used in the game of tip-cat and trap-ball.]
+
+[Footnote 98: Cf. the _Spectator_, No. 343, where Addison refers to Sir
+Paul Rycaut's work on the Ottoman Empire.]
+
+[Footnote 99: Disingenuousness.]
+
+[Footnote 100: See Nos. 28, 31.]
+
+[Footnote 101: "Cock-fighting is diverting enough, the anger and
+eagerness of these little creatures, and the triumphant crowing of a
+cock when he strutts haughtily on the body of his enemy, has something
+in't singular and pleasant. What renders these shows less agreeable is
+the great number of wagerers, who appear as angry as the cocks
+themselves, and make such a noise that one would believe every minute
+they were going to fight; but combats among the men are another kind of
+diversion, where the spectators are more peaceable" ("Letters describing
+the Character and Customs of the English and French Nations; by Mr.
+Muralt, a Gentleman of Switzerland. 2nd ed.; translated from the
+French." London, 1726, p. 41). In Hogarth's picture of a cock-fight a
+Frenchman is depicted turning away in disgust (see Lecky's "History of
+England in the Eighteenth Century," 1878, i. 552). "There will be a
+cock-match fought at Leeds in Yorkshire, the 19th of March next; and
+another at Wakefield the 23rd of April next. At each meeting 40 Cocks on
+each side will be shewn. These are fought betwixt the people of the West
+and North Riding of Yorkshire; And every Battel 5_l._ each side, and
+50_l._ the odd Battel, and four Shake Bags for 10_l._ each Cock"
+(_London Gazette_, March 8-12, 1687). A cock-match between Surrey and
+Sussex was to commence on May 4, 1703, "and will continue the whole
+week" (_London Gazette_, April 12-15, 1703) "The Royal Pastime of
+Cock-fighting, or, the Art of Breeding, Feeding, Fighting and Curing
+Cocks of the Game. Published purely for the good and benefit of all such
+as take Delight in that Royal and Warlike Sport. To which is prefixed, a
+Short Treatise, wherein Cocking is proved not only ancient and
+honourable, but also useful and profitable. By R. H., a Lover of the
+Sport, and a friend to such as delight in Military Discipline" (_Post
+Boy_, Jan. 15-18, 1708-9).]
+
+[Footnote 102: Addison, also referring to Rapin, writes to the same
+effect in the _Spectator_, No. 44. Rapin said, in his "Reflections on
+Aristotle's Treatise of Poetry," translated in 1694: "The English, our
+neighbours, love blood in their sports, by the quality of their
+temperament.... The English have more of genius for tragedy than other
+people, as well by the spirit of their nation, which delights in
+cruelty, as also by the character of their language, which is proper for
+great expressions." There is an "Address to the Cock-killers" in
+Lillie's "Letters sent to the _Tatler_ and _Spectator_," i. 25-29.]
+
+[Footnote 103: Samuel Sandford seems to have left the stage about 1700.
+He had a low and crooked person, and Cibber describes him as "an
+excellent actor in disagreeable parts." Charles II. called him the best
+villain in the world. There is a story of a new play being damned
+because Sandford played the part of an honest statesman, and the pit was
+therefore disappointed at not seeing the usual Iago-like or Machiavelian
+character.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 135.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Thursday, Feb. 16_, to _Saturday, Feb. 18, 1709-10_.
+
+     Quod si in hoc erro, quod animos hominum immortales esse credam,
+     libenter erro: nec mihi hunc errorem, quo delector, dum vivo,
+     extorqueri volo: sin mortuus (ut quidam minuti philosophi censent)
+     nihil sentiam; non vereor, ne hunc errorem meum mortui philosophi
+     irrideant.--CICERO, De Sen., cap. ult.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, February 17._
+
+Several letters which I have lately received give me information, that
+some well-disposed persons have taken offence at my using the word
+"freethinker" as a term of reproach. To set therefore this matter in a
+clear light, I must declare, that no one can have a greater veneration
+than myself for the freethinkers of antiquity, who acted the same part
+in those times, as the great men of the Reformation did in several
+nations of Europe, by exerting themselves against the idolatry and
+superstition of the times in which they lived. It was by this noble
+impulse that Socrates and his disciples, as well as all the
+philosophers of note in Greece, and Cicero, Seneca, with all the learned
+men of Rome, endeavoured to enlighten their contemporaries amidst the
+darkness and ignorance in which the world was then sunk and buried. The
+great points which these freethinkers endeavoured to establish and
+inculcate into the minds of men, were, the formation of the universe,
+the superintendency of Providence, the perfection of the divine nature,
+the immortality of the soul, and the future state of rewards and
+punishments. They all complied with the religion of their country, as
+much as possible, in such particulars as did not contradict and pervert
+these great and fundamental doctrines of mankind. On the contrary, the
+persons who now set up for freethinkers, are such as endeavour by a
+little trash of words and sophistry, to weaken and destroy those very
+principles, for the vindication of which, freedom of thought at first
+became laudable and heroic.[104] These apostates, from reason and good
+sense, can look at the glorious frame of Nature, without paying an
+adoration to Him that raised it; can consider the great revolutions in
+the universe, without lifting up their minds to that Superior Power
+which hath the direction of it; can presume to censure the Deity in His
+ways towards men; can level mankind with the beasts that perish; can
+extinguish in their own minds all the pleasing hopes of a future state,
+and lull themselves into a stupid security against the terrors of it. If
+one were to take the word "priestcraft" out of the mouths of these
+shallow monsters, they would be immediately struck dumb. It is by the
+help of this single term that they endeavour to disappoint the good
+works of the most learned and venerable order of men, and harden the
+hearts of the ignorant against the very light of Nature, and the common
+received notions of mankind. We ought not to treat such miscreants as
+these upon the foot of fair disputants, but to pour out contempt upon
+them, and speak of them with scorn and infamy, as the pests of society,
+the revilers of human nature, and the blasphemers of a Being, whom a
+good man would rather die than hear dishonoured. Cicero, after having
+mentioned the great heroes of knowledge that recommended this divine
+doctrine of the immortality of the soul, calls those small pretenders to
+wisdom who declared against it, certain minute philosophers,[105] using
+a diminutive even of the word "little," to express the despicable
+opinion he had of them. The contempt he throws upon them in another
+passage[106] is yet more remarkable, where, to show the mean thoughts he
+entertains of them, he declares, he would rather be in the wrong with
+Plato, than in the right with such company. There is indeed nothing in
+the world so ridiculous as one of these grave philosophical
+freethinkers, that hath neither passions nor appetites to gratify, no
+heats of blood nor vigour of constitution that can turn his systems of
+infidelity to his advantage, or raise pleasures out of them which are
+inconsistent with the belief of a hereafter. One that has neither wit,
+gallantry, mirth, nor youth, to indulge by these notions, but only a
+poor, joyless, uncomfortable vanity of distinguishing himself from the
+rest of mankind, is rather to be regarded as a mischievous lunatic,
+than a mistaken philosopher. A chaste infidel, a speculative libertine,
+is an animal that I should not believe to be in Nature, did I not
+sometimes meet with this species of men, that plead for the indulgence
+of their passions in the midst of a severe studious life, and talk
+against the immortality of the soul over a dish of coffee.
+
+I would fain ask a minute philosopher, what good he proposes to mankind
+by the publishing of his doctrines? Will they make a man a better
+citizen, or father of a family; a more endearing husband, friend, or
+son? Will they enlarge his public or private virtues, or correct any of
+his frailties or vices? What is there either joyful or glorious in such
+opinions? Do they either refresh or enlarge our thoughts? Do they
+contribute to the happiness, or raise the dignity of human nature? The
+only good that I have ever heard pretended to, is, that they banish
+terrors, and set the mind at ease. But whose terrors do they banish? It
+is certain, if there were any strength in their arguments, they would
+give great disturbance to minds that are influenced by virtue, honour,
+and morality, and take from us the only comforts and supports of
+affliction, sickness, and old age. The minds therefore which they set at
+ease, are only those of impenitent criminals and malefactors, and which,
+to the good of mankind, should be in perpetual terror and alarm.
+
+I must confess, nothing is more usual than for a freethinker, in
+proportion as the insolence of scepticism is abated in him by years and
+knowledge, or humbled and beaten down by sorrow or sickness, to
+reconcile himself to the general conceptions of reasonable creatures; so
+that we frequently see the apostates turning from their revolt toward
+the end of their lives, and employing the refuse of their parts in
+promoting those truths which they had before endeavoured to invalidate.
+
+The history of a gentleman in France is very well known, who was so
+zealous a promoter of infidelity, that he had got together a select
+company of disciples, and travelled into all parts of the kingdom to
+make converts. In the midst of his fantastical success he fell sick, and
+was reclaimed to such a sense of his condition, that after he had passed
+some time in great agonies and horrors of mind, he begged those who had
+the care of burying him, to dress his body in the habit of a Capuchin,
+that the devil might not run away with it; and to do further justice
+upon himself, desired them to tie a halter about his neck, as a mark of
+that ignominious punishment, which in his own thoughts he had so justly
+deserved.
+
+I would not have persecution so far disgraced, as to wish these vermin
+might be animadverted on by any legal penalties; though I think it would
+be highly reasonable, that those few of them who die in the professions
+of their infidelity, should have such tokens of infamy fixed upon them,
+as might distinguish those bodies which are given up by the owners to
+oblivion and putrefaction, from those which rest in hope, and shall rise
+in glory. But at the same time that I am against doing them the honour
+of the notice of our laws, which ought not to suppose there are such
+criminals in being, I have often wondered how they can be tolerated in
+any mixed conversations while they are venting these absurd opinions;
+and should think, that if on any such occasion half a dozen of the most
+robust Christians in the company would lead one of these gentlemen to a
+pump, or convey him into a blanket, they would do very good service both
+to Church and State. I do not know how the laws stand in this
+particular; but I hope, whatever knocks, bangs or thumps might be given
+with such an honest intention, would not be construed as a breach of the
+peace. I daresay they would not be returned by the person who receives
+them; for whatever these fools may say in the vanity of their hearts,
+they are too wise to risk their lives upon the uncertainty of their
+opinions.
+
+When I was a young man about this town, I frequented the ordinary of the
+Black Horse, in Holborn, where the person that usually presided at the
+table was a rough old-fashioned gentleman, who, according to the custom
+of those times, had been the major and preacher of a regiment. It
+happened one day that a noisy young officer, bred in France, was venting
+some new-fangled notions, and speaking, in the gaiety of his humour,
+against the dispensations of Providence. The major at first only desired
+him to talk more respectfully of one for whom all the company had an
+honour; but finding him run on in his extravagance, began to reprimand
+him after a more serious manner. "Young man," said he, "do not abuse
+your Benefactor whilst you are eating His bread. Consider whose air you
+breathe, whose presence you are in, and who it is that gave you the
+power of that very speech which you make use of to His dishonour." The
+young fellow, who thought to turn matters into a jest, asked him if he
+was going to preach; but at the same time desired him to take care what
+he said when he spoke to a man of honour. "A man of honour?" says the
+major, "thou art an infidel and a blasphemer, and I shall use thee as
+such." In short, the quarrel ran so high, that the major was desired to
+walk out. Upon their coming into the garden, the old fellow advised his
+antagonist to consider the place into which one pass might drive him;
+but finding him grow upon him to a degree of scurrility, as believing
+the advice proceeded from fear; "Sirrah," says he, "if a thunderbolt
+does not strike thee dead before I come at thee, I shall not fail to
+chastise thee for thy profaneness to thy Maker, and thy sauciness to His
+servant." Upon this he drew his sword, and cried out with a loud voice,
+"The sword of the Lord and of Gideon"; which so terrified his
+antagonist, that he was immediately disarmed, and thrown upon his knees.
+In this posture he begged his life; but the major refused to grant it,
+before he had asked pardon for his offence in a short extemporary prayer
+which the old gentleman dictated to him upon the spot, and which his
+proselyte repeated after him in the presence of the whole ordinary, that
+were now gathered about him in the garden.
+
+
+[Footnote 104: In speaking of Collins' "Discourse of Free-Thinking"
+(1713) in the _Guardian_ (No. 9), Steele says: "I cannot see any
+possible interpretation to give this work, but a design to subvert and
+ridicule the authority of scripture. The peace and tranquillity of the
+nation, and regards even above those, are so much concerned in this
+matter, that it is difficult to express sufficient sorrow for the
+offender, or indignation against him."]
+
+[Footnote 105: See the motto at the head of this paper.]
+
+[Footnote 106: "Tusc. Disp." i. 17. Cicero calls those who differ from
+Plato and Socrates "plebii omnes philosophi" (_ib._ i. 23).]
+
+
+
+
+No. 136.                                                [STEELE.[107]
+
+From _Saturday, Feb. 18_, to _Tuesday, Feb. 21, 1709-10_.
+
+    Deprendi miserum est; Fabio vel judice vincam.
+                                  HOR., 1 Sat. ii. 134.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_White's Chocolate-house, February 18._
+
+_The History of Tom Varnish._
+
+Because I have a professed aversion to long beginnings of stories, I
+will go into this at once, by telling you, that there dwells near the
+Royal Exchange as happy a couple as ever entered into wedlock. These
+live in that mutual confidence of each other, which renders the
+satisfactions of marriage even greater than those of friendship, and
+makes wife and husband the dearest appellations of human life. Mr.
+Ballance is a merchant of good consideration, and understands the world
+not from speculation, but practice. His wife is the daughter of an
+honest house, ever bred in a family-way; and has, from a natural good
+understanding, and great innocence, a freedom which men of sense know to
+be the certain sign of virtue, and fools take to be an encouragement to
+vice.
+
+Tom Varnish, a young gentleman of the Middle Temple, by the bounty of a
+good father who was so obliging as to die, and leave him in his
+twenty-fourth year, besides a good estate, a large sum, which lay in the
+hands of Mr. Ballance, had by this means an intimacy at his house; and
+being one of those hard students who read plays for improvement in the
+law, took his rules of life from thence. Upon mature deliberation, he
+conceived it very proper, that he, as a man of wit and pleasure of the
+town, should have an intrigue with his merchant's wife. He no sooner
+thought of this adventure, but he began it by an amorous epistle to the
+lady, and a faithful promise to wait upon her, at a certain hour the
+next evening, when he knew her husband was to be absent.
+
+The letter was no sooner received, but it was communicated to the
+husband, and produced no other effect in him, than that he joined with
+his wife to raise all the mirth they could out of this fantastical piece
+of gallantry. They were so little concerned at this dangerous man of
+mode, that they plotted ways to perplex him without hurting him. Varnish
+comes exactly at his hour; and the lady's well-acted confusion at his
+entrance, gave him opportunity to repeat some couplets very fit for the
+occasion with very much grace and spirit. His theatrical manner of
+making love was interrupted by an alarm of the husband's coming; and the
+wife, in a personated terror, beseeched him, if he had any value for the
+honour of a woman that loved him, he would jump out of the window. He
+did so, and fell upon feather-beds placed on purpose to receive him.
+
+It is not to be conceived how great the joy of an amorous man is when he
+has suffered for his mistress, and is never the worse for it. Varnish
+the next day writ a most elegant billet, wherein he said all that
+imagination could form upon the occasion. He violently protested, going
+out of the window was no way terrible, but as it was going from her;
+with several other kind expressions, which procured him a second
+assignation. Upon his second visit, he was conveyed by a faithful maid
+into her bedchamber, and left there to expect the arrival of her
+mistress. But the wench, according to her instructions, ran in again to
+him, and locked the door after her to keep out her master. She had just
+time enough to convey the lover into a chest before she admitted the
+husband and his wife into the room.
+
+You may be sure that trunk was absolutely necessary to be opened; but
+upon her husband's ordering it, she assured him, she had taken all the
+care imaginable in packing up the things with her own hand, and he might
+send the trunk aboard as soon as he thought fit. The easy husband
+believed his wife, and the good couple went to bed; Varnish having the
+happiness to pass the night in his mistress's bedchamber without
+molestation. The morning arose, but our lover was not well situated to
+observe her blushes; so that all we know of his sentiments on this
+occasion, is, that he heard Ballance ask for the key, and say, he would
+himself go with this chest, and have it opened before the captain of the
+ship, for the greater safety of so valuable a lading.
+
+The goods were hoisted away, and Mr. Ballance marching by his chest with
+great care and diligence, omitted nothing that might give his passenger
+perplexity. But to consummate all, he delivered the chest, with strict
+charge, in case they were in danger of being taken, to throw it
+overboard, for there were letters in it, the matter of which might be of
+great service to the enemy.
+
+N.B. It is not thought advisable to proceed further in this account, Mr.
+Varnish being just returned from his travels, and willing to conceal the
+occasion of his first applying himself to the languages.
+
+
+_St. James's Coffee-house, February 20._
+
+This day came in a mail from Holland, with a confirmation of our late
+advices, that a treaty of peace would very suddenly be set on foot, and
+that yachts were appointed by the States to convey the Ministers of
+France from Moerdyk to Gertruydenburg, which is appointed for the place
+wherein this important negotiation is to be transacted. It is said, this
+affair has been in agitation ever since the close of the last campaign;
+Monsieur Petticum having been appointed to receive from time to time the
+overtures of the enemy. During the whole winter, the Ministers of France
+have used their utmost skill in forming such answers as might amuse the
+Allies, in hopes of a favourable event; either in the north, or some
+other part of Europe, which might affect some part of the alliance too
+nearly to leave it in a capacity of adhering firmly to the interest of
+the whole. In all this transaction, the French king's own name has been
+as little made use of as possible: but the season of the year advancing
+too fast to admit of much longer delays in the present condition of
+France, Monsieur Torcy, in the name of the king, sent a letter to
+Monsieur Petticum, wherein he says, that "the king is willing all the
+preliminary articles shall rest as they are during the treaty for the
+37th."
+
+Upon the receipt of this advice, passports were sent to the French
+Court, and their Ministers are expected at Moerdyk on the 5th of the
+next month.
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, February 20._
+
+I have been earnestly solicited for a further term, for wearing the
+farthingale by several of the fair sex, but more especially by the
+following petitioners:
+
+     "The humble petition of Deborah Hark, Sarah Threadpaper and Rachael
+     Thimble, spinsters, and single women, commonly called
+     Waiting-maids, in behalf of themselves and their sisterhood;
+
+     "SHEWETH,
+
+     "That your Worship hath been pleased to order and command, that no
+     person or persons shall presume to wear quilted petticoats, on
+     forfeiture of the said petticoats, or penalty of wearing ruffs,
+     after the 17th instant now expired.
+
+     "That your petitioners have time out of mind been entitled to wear
+     their ladies' clothes, or to sell the same.
+
+     "That the sale of the said clothes is spoiled by your Worship's
+     said prohibition.
+
+     "Your petitioners therefore most humbly pray, that your Worship
+     would please to allow, that all gentlewomen's gentlewomen may be
+     allowed to wear the said dress, or to repair the loss of such a
+     perquisite in such manner as your Worship shall think fit.
+
+     "And your petitioners," &c.
+
+I do allow the allegations of this petition to be just, and forbid all
+persons but the petitioners, or those who shall purchase from them, to
+wear the said garment after the date hereof.
+
+
+[Footnote 107: Nichols suggests that this paper may be by Addison, and
+it is certainly not unlikely that he was the author of the "History of
+Tom Varnish."]
+
+
+
+
+No. 137.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Tuesday, Feb. 21_, to _Thursday, Feb. 23, 1709-10_.
+
+    Ter centum tonat ore deos, Erebumque, Chaosque,
+    Tergeminamque Hecaten.--VIRG., AEn. iv. 510.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, February 22._
+
+Dick Reptile and I sat this evening later than the rest of the club; and
+as some men are better company when only with one friend, others when
+there is a large number, I found Dick to be of the former kind. He was
+bewailing to me in very just terms, the offences which he frequently met
+with in the abuse of speech: some use ten times more words than they
+need, some put in words quite foreign to their purpose, and others adorn
+their discourses with oaths and blasphemies by way of tropes and
+figures. What my good friend started, dwelt upon me after I came home
+this evening, and led me into an inquiry with myself, whence should
+arise such strange excrescences in discourse? Whereas it must be obvious
+to all reasonable beings, that the sooner a man speaks his mind, the
+more complaisant he is to the man with whom he talks: but upon mature
+deliberation, I am come to this resolution, that for one man who speaks
+to be understood, there are ten who talk only to be admired.
+
+The ancient Greeks had little independent syllables called "expletives,"
+which they brought into their discourses both in verse and prose, for no
+other purpose but for the better grace and sound of their sentences and
+periods. I know no example but this which can authorise the use of more
+words than are necessary. But whether it be from this freedom taken by
+that wise nation, or however it arises, Dick Reptile hit upon a very
+just and common cause of offence in the generality of the people of all
+orders. We have one here in our lane who speaks nothing without quoting
+an authority; for it is always with him, so and so, "as the man said."
+He asked me this morning, how I did, "as the man said"; and hoped I
+would come now and then to see him, "as the man said." I am acquainted
+with another, who never delivers himself upon any subject, but he cries,
+he only speaks his "poor judgment"; this is his humble opinion; or as
+for his part, if he might presume to offer anything on that subject. But
+of all the persons who add elegances and superfluities to their
+discourses, those who deserve the foremost rank, are the swearers; and
+the lump of these may, I think, be very aptly divided into the common
+distinction of high and low. Dulness and barrenness of thought is the
+original of it in both these sects, and they differ only in
+constitution: the low is generally a phlegmatic, and the high a choleric
+coxcomb. The man of phlegm is sensible of the emptiness of his
+discourse, and will tell you, that "I'fackins," such a thing is true: or
+if you warm him a little, he may run into passion, and cry,
+"Odsbodikins," you do not say right. But the high affects a sublimity in
+dulness, and invokes hell and damnation at the breaking of a glass, or
+the slowness of a drawer.
+
+I was the other day trudging along Fleet Street on foot, and an old army
+friend came up with me. We were both going towards Westminster, and
+finding the streets were so crowded that we could not keep together, we
+resolved to club for a coach. This gentleman I knew to be the first of
+the order of the choleric. I must confess (were there no crime in it),
+nothing could be more diverting than the impertinence of the high juror:
+for whether there is remedy or not against what offends him, still he
+is to show he is offended; and he must sure not omit to be
+magnificently passionate, by falling on all things in his way. We were
+stopped by a train of coaches at Temple Bar. "What the devil!" says my
+companion, "cannot you drive on, coachman? D----n you all, for a set of
+sons of whores, you will stop here to be paid by the hour! There is not
+such a set of confounded dogs as the coachmen unhanged! But these
+rascally Cits---- 'Ounds, why should not there be a tax to make these
+dogs widen their gates? Oh! but the hell-hounds move at last." "Ay,"
+said I, "I knew you would make them whip on if once they heard you."
+"No," says he; "but would it not fret a man to the devil, to pay for
+being carried slower than he can walk? Lookee, there is for ever a stop
+at this hole by St. Clement's Church. Blood, you dog!--Harkee,
+sirrah,--why, and be d----d to you, do not you drive over that fellow?
+Thunder, furies, and damnation! I'll cut your ears off, you fellow
+before there. Come hither, you dog you, and let me wring your neck round
+your shoulders." We had a repetition of the same eloquence at the
+Cockpit,[108] and the turning into Palace Yard.
+
+This gave me a perfect image of the insignificancy of the creatures who
+practise this enormity; and made me conclude, that it is ever want of
+sense makes a man guilty in this kind. It was excellently well said,
+that this folly had no temptation to excuse it, no man being born of a
+swearing constitution. In a word, a few rumbling words and consonants
+clapped together, without any sense, will make an accomplished swearer:
+and it is needless to dwell long upon this blustering impertinence,
+which is already banished out of the society of well-bred men, and can
+be useful only to bullies and ill tragic writers, who would have sound
+and noise pass for courage and sense.
+
+
+_St. James's Coffee-house, February 22._
+
+There arrived a messenger last night from Harwich, who left that place
+just as the Duke of Marlborough was going on board. The character of
+this important general going out by the command of his Queen, and at the
+request of his country, puts me in mind of that noble figure which
+Shakespeare gives Harry the Fifth upon his expedition against France.
+The poet wishes for abilities to represent so great a hero:
+
+    "_Oh for a muse of fire!" says he,
+    "Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,
+    Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels,
+    Leashed in, like hounds, should Famine, Sword and Fire
+    Crouch for employment._"[109]
+
+A conqueror drawn like the god of battle, with such a dreadful leash of
+hell-hounds at his command, makes a picture of as much majesty and
+terror as is to be met with in any poet.
+
+Shakespeare understood the force of this particular allegory so well,
+that he had it in his thoughts in another passage, which is altogether
+as daring and sublime as the former. What I mean, is in the tragedy of
+"Julius Caesar," where Antony, after having foretold the bloodshed and
+destruction that should be brought upon the earth by the death of that
+great man; to fill up the horror of his description, adds the following
+verses:
+
+    "_And Caesar's spirit ranging for revenge,
+    With Ate by his side, come hot from Hell,
+    Shall in these confines, with a monarch's voice,
+    Cry 'Havoc'; and let slip the dogs of war._"[110]
+
+I do not question but these quotations will call to mind in my readers
+of learning and taste, that imaginary person described by Virgil with
+the same spirit. He mentions it upon the occasion of a peace which was
+restored to the Roman Empire, and which we may now hope for from the
+departure of that great man who has given occasion to these reflections.
+"The Temple of Janus," says he, "shall be shut, and in the midst of it
+Military Fury shall sit upon a pile of broken arms, loaded with a
+hundred chains, bellowing with madness, and grinding his teeth in blood.
+
+    "_Claudentur belli portae; Furor impius intus,
+    Saeva sedens super arma, et centum vinctus ahenis
+    Post tergum nodis, fremit horridus ore cruento._"[111]
+
+    "_Janus himself before his fane shall wait,
+    And keep the dreadful issues of his gate,
+    With bolts and iron bars. Within remains
+    Imprisoned Fury bound in brazen chains;
+    High on a trophy raised of useless arms,
+    He sits, and threats the world with vain alarms._"
+                                DRYDEN.
+
+
+ADVERTISEMENT.
+
+
+The tickets which were delivered out for the benefit of Signor Nicolini
+Grimaldi[112] on the 24th instant, will be taken on Thursday the 2nd of
+March, his benefit being deferred till that day.
+
+N.B. In all operas for the future, where it thunders and lightens in
+proper time and in tune, the matter of the said lightning is to be of
+the finest resin; and, for the sake of harmony, the same which is used
+to the best Cremona fiddles.
+
+Note also, that the true perfumed lightning is only prepared and sold by
+Mr. Charles Lillie, at the corner of Beauford Buildings.
+
+The lady who has chosen Mr. Bickerstaff for her valentine, and is at a
+loss what to present him with, is desired to make him, with her own
+hands, a warm nightcap.[113]
+
+
+[Footnote 108: A portion of Henry VIII.'s palace at Whitehall. When
+Whitehall was burned down in 1697, the Cockpit escaped, and was used as
+a Court for the Committee of the Privy Council.]
+
+[Footnote 109: "Henry the Fifth," Prologue.]
+
+[Footnote 110: "Julius Caesar," act iii. sc. i.]
+
+[Footnote 111: "AEneid," i. 294.]
+
+[Footnote 112: See Nos. 115, 142.]
+
+[Footnote 113: A description of the custom of drawing valentines, and of
+the hope and fear shown on the faces of the drawers, who in their
+earnestness gave to a scrap of paper the same effect as the person
+represented, is to be found in Lillie's "Letters sent to the _Tatler_
+and _Spectator_" (1725), i. 30. See No. 141.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 138.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Thursday, Feb. 23_, to _Saturday, Feb. 25, 1709-10_.
+
+    Secretosque pios, his dantem jura Catonem.
+                                  VIRG., AEn. viii. 670.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, February 24._
+
+It is an argument of a clear and worthy spirit in a man, to be able to
+disengage himself from the opinions of others, so far as not to let the
+deference due to the sense of mankind ensnare him to act against the
+dictates of his own reason. But the generality of the world are so far
+from walking by any such maxim, that it is almost a standing rule to do
+as others do, or be ridiculous. I have heard my old friend Mr. Hart[114]
+speak it as an observation among the players, that it is impossible to
+act with grace, except the actor has forgot that he is before an
+audience. Till he has arrived at that, his motion, his air, his every
+step and gesture, has something in them which discovers he is under a
+restraint for fear of being ill received; or if he considers himself as
+in the presence of those who approve his behaviour, you see an
+affectation of that pleasure run through his whole carriage. It is as
+common in life, as upon the stage, to behold a man in the most
+indifferent action betray a sense he has of doing what he is about
+gracefully. Some have such an immoderate relish for applause, that they
+expect it for things, which in themselves are so frivolous, that it is
+impossible, without this affectation, to make them appear worthy either
+of blame or praise. There is Will Glare, so passionately intent upon
+being admired, that when you see him in public places, every muscle of
+his face discovers his thoughts are fixed upon the consideration of what
+figure he makes. He will often fall into a musing posture to attract
+observation, and is then obtruding himself upon the company when he
+pretends to be withdrawn from it. Such little arts are the certain and
+infallible tokens of a superficial mind, as the avoiding observation is
+the sign of a great and sublime one. It is therefore extremely difficult
+for a man to judge even of his own actions, without forming to himself
+an idea of what he should act, were it in his power to execute all his
+desires without the observation of the rest of the world. There is an
+allegorical fable in Plato,[115] which seems to admonish us, that we are
+very little acquainted with ourselves, while we know our actions are to
+pass the censures of others; but had we the power to accomplish all our
+wishes unobserved, we should then easily inform ourselves how far we are
+possessed of real and intrinsic virtue. The fable I was going to
+mention, is that of Gyges, who is said to have had an enchanted ring,
+which had in it a miraculous quality, making him who wore it visible or
+invisible, as he turned it to or from his body. The use Gyges made of
+his occasional invisibility, was, by the advantage of it, to violate a
+queen, and murder a king. Tully takes notice of this allegory, and says
+very handsomely, that a man of honour who had such a ring, would act
+just in the same manner as he would do without it.[116] It is indeed no
+small pitch of virtue under the temptation of impunity, and the hopes
+of accomplishing all a man desires, not to transgress the rules of
+justice and virtue; but this is rather not being an ill man, than being
+positively a good one; and it seems wonderful, that so great a soul as
+that of Tully, should not form to himself a thousand worthy actions
+which a virtuous man would be prompted to by the possession of such a
+secret. There are certainly some part of mankind who are guardian beings
+to the other. Sallust could say of Cato, "that he had rather be than
+appear good";[117] but indeed, this eulogium rose no higher than (as I
+just now hinted) to an inoffensiveness, rather than an active virtue.
+Had it occurred to the noble orator to represent, in his language, the
+glorious pleasures of a man secretly employed in beneficence and
+generosity, it would certainly have made a more charming page than any
+he has now left behind him. How might a man, furnished with Gyges'
+secret, employ it in bringing together distant friends, laying snares
+for creating goodwill in the room of groundless hatred; in removing the
+pangs of an unjust jealousy, the shyness of an imperfect reconciliation,
+and the tremor of an awful love! Such a one could give confidence to
+bashful merit, and confusion to overbearing impudence.
+
+Certain it is, that secret kindnesses done to mankind, are as beautiful
+as secret injuries are detestable. To be invisibly good, is as godlike,
+as to be invisibly ill, diabolical. As degenerate as we are apt to say
+the age we live in is, there are still amongst us men of illustrious
+minds, who enjoy all the pleasures of good actions, except that of being
+commended for them. There happens among others very worthy instances of
+a public spirit, one of which I am obliged to discover, because I know
+not otherwise how to obey the commands of the Benefactor. A citizen of
+London has given directions to Mr. Rayner, the writing-master of Paul's
+School,[118] to educate at his charge ten boys (who shall be nominated
+by me) in writing and accounts, till they shall be fit for any trade. I
+desire therefore such as know any proper objects for receiving this
+bounty, to give notice thereof to Mr. Morphew, or Mr. Lillie, and they
+shall, if properly qualified, have instructions accordingly.
+
+Actions of this kind have in them something so transcendent, that it is
+an injury to applaud them, and a diminution of that merit which consists
+in shunning our approbation. We shall therefore leave them to enjoy that
+glorious obscurity, and silently admire their virtue, who can contemn
+the most delicious of human pleasures, that of receiving due praise.
+Such celestial dispositions very justly suspend the discovery of their
+benefactions, till they come where their actions cannot be
+misinterpreted, and receive their first congratulations in the company
+of angels.
+
+
+ADVERTISEMENT.
+
+Whereas Mr. Bickerstaff, by a letter bearing date this 24th of February,
+has received information, that there are in and about the Royal Exchange
+a sort of persons commonly known by the name of "whetters,"[119] who
+drink themselves into an intermediate state of being neither drunk nor
+sober before the hours of 'change, or business, and in that condition
+buy and sell stocks, discount notes, and do many other acts of
+well-disposed citizens; this is to give notice, that from this day
+forward, no whetter shall be able to give or endorse any note, or
+execute any other point of commerce, after the third half pint, before
+the hour of one: and whoever shall transact any matter or matters with a
+whetter (not being himself of that order) shall be conducted to
+Moorfields[120] upon the first application of his next of kin.
+
+N.B. No tavern near the 'Change shall deliver wine to such as drink at
+the bar standing, except the same shall be three parts of the best
+cider; and the master of the house shall produce a certificate of the
+same from Mr. Tintoret,[121] or other credible wine-painter.
+
+Whereas the model of the intended Bedlam[122] is now finished, and that
+the edifice itself will be very suddenly begun; it is desired, that all
+such as have relations, whom they would recommend to our care, would
+bring in their proofs with all speed, none being to be admitted of
+course but lovers, who are put into an immediate regimen. Young
+politicians also are received without fees or examination.
+
+
+[Footnote 114: See No. 99.]
+
+[Footnote 115: "Republic," ii. 359.]
+
+[Footnote 116: "De Officiis," iii. 9.]
+
+[Footnote 117: "Bell. Cat." ad fin.]
+
+[Footnote 118: "The Paul's scholar's copy-book, containing the round and
+round-text hands, with alphabets at large of the Greek and Hebrew, and
+joining-pieces of each. Embellished with proper ornaments of command of
+hand. By John Rayner, at the Hand and Pen, in St. Paul's Churchyard,
+London. Published for the use of schools. Sold by the author, and
+Jonathan Robinson, at the Golden Lion, in St. Paul's Churchyard. Price
+1_s._" (No. 135, Advertisement). Rayner's book was dedicated to the
+Master and Wardens of the Mercers' Company, and was reissued in 1716 (W.
+Massey's "Origin and Progress of Letters," 1763, part ii. p. 120).]
+
+[Footnote 119: See No. 141.]
+
+[Footnote 120: Bedlam.]
+
+[Footnote 121: See No. 131.]
+
+[Footnote 122: See No. 125.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 139.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Saturday, Feb. 25_, to _Tuesday, Feb. 28, 1709-10_.
+
+             ----Nihil est, quod credere de se
+    Non possit, cum laudatur Dis aequa potestas.
+                                      JUV., Sat. iv. 70.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, February 27._
+
+When I reflect upon the many nights I have sat up for some months last
+past in the greatest anxiety for the good of my neighbours and
+contemporaries, it is no small discouragement to me, to see how slow a
+progress I make in the reformation of the world. But indeed I must do my
+female readers the justice to own, that their tender hearts are much
+more susceptible of good impressions, than the minds of the other sex.
+Business and ambition take up men's thoughts too much to leave room for
+philosophy: but if you speak to women in a style and manner proper to
+approach them, they never fail to improve by your counsel. I shall
+therefore for the future turn my thoughts more particularly to their
+service, and study the best methods to adorn their persons, and inform
+their minds in the justest methods to make them what Nature designed
+them, the most beauteous objects of our eyes, and the most agreeable
+companions of our lives. But when I say this, I must not omit at the
+same time to look into their errors and mistakes, that being the
+readiest way to the intended end of adorning and instructing them. It
+must be acknowledged, that the very inadvertencies of this sex are owing
+to the other; for if men were not flatterers, women could not fall into
+that general cause of all their follies, and our misfortunes, their love
+of flattery. Were the commendation of these agreeable creatures built
+upon its proper foundation, the higher we raised their opinion of
+themselves, the greater would be the advantage to our sex; but all the
+topic of praise is drawn from very senseless and extravagant ideas we
+pretend we have of their beauty and perfection. Thus when a young man
+falls in love with a young woman, from that moment she is no more Mrs.
+Alice such-a-one, born of such a father, and educated by such a mother;
+but from the first minute that he casts his eye upon her with desire, he
+conceives a doubt in his mind, what heavenly power gave so unexpected a
+blow to a heart that was ever before untouched. But who can resist Fate
+and Destiny, which are lodged in Mrs. Alice's eyes? After which he
+desires orders accordingly, whether he is to live or breathe; the smile
+or frown of his goddess is the only thing that can now either save or
+destroy him. By this means, the well-humoured girl, that would have
+romped with him before she received this declaration, assumes a state
+suitable to the majesty he has given her, and treats him as the vassal
+he calls himself. The girl's head is immediately turned by having the
+power of life and death, and takes care to suit every motion and air to
+her new sovereignty. After he has placed himself at this distance, he
+must never hope to recover his former familiarity, till she has had the
+addresses of another, and found them less sincere.
+
+If the application to women were justly turned, the address of flattery,
+though it implied at the same time an admonition, would be much more
+likely to succeed. Should a captivated lover, in a billet, let his
+mistress know, that her piety to her parents, her gentleness of
+behaviour, her prudent economy with respect to her own little affairs in
+a virgin condition, had improved the passion which her beauty had
+inspired him with, into so settled an esteem for her, that of all women
+breathing he wished her his wife; though his commending her for
+qualities she knew she had as a virgin, would make her believe he
+expected from her an answerable conduct in the character of a matron, I
+will answer for it, his suit would be carried on with less perplexity.
+
+Instead of this, the generality of our young women, taking all their
+notions of life from gay writings, or letters of love, consider
+themselves as goddesses, nymphs, and shepherdesses.
+
+By this romantic sense of things, all the natural relations and duties
+of life are forgotten, and our female part of mankind are bred and
+treated, as if they were designed to inhabit the happy fields of
+Arcadia, rather than be wives and mothers in old England. It is indeed
+long since I had the happiness to converse familiarly with this sex, and
+therefore have been fearful of falling into the error which recluse men
+are very subject to, that of giving false representations of the world
+from which they have retired, by imaginary schemes drawn from their own
+reflections. An old man cannot easily gain admittance into the
+dressing-room of ladies; I therefore thought it time well spent, to turn
+over Agrippa, and use all my occult art, to give my old cornelian ring
+the same force with that of Gyges, which I have lately spoken of.[123]
+By the help of this, I went unobserved to a friend's house of mine, and
+followed the chamber-maid invisibly about twelve of the clock into the
+bed-chamber of the beauteous Flavia, his fine daughter, just before she
+got up.
+
+I drew the curtains, and being wrapped up in the safety of my old age,
+could with much pleasure, without passion, behold her sleeping with
+Waller's poems, and a letter fixed in that part of him, where every
+woman thinks herself described. The light flashing upon her face,
+awakened her: she opened her eyes, and her lips too, repeating that
+piece of false wit in that admired poet:
+
+    _Such Helen was, and who can blame the boy,
+    That in so bright a flame consumed his Troy?_[124]
+
+This she pronounced with a most bewitching sweetness; but after it
+fetched a sigh, that methought had more desire than languishment, then
+took out her letter, and read aloud, for the pleasure, I suppose, of
+hearing soft words in praise of herself, the following epistle:
+
+     "MADAM,
+
+     "I sat near you at the Opera last night; but knew no entertainment
+     from the vain show and noise about me, while I waited wholly intent
+     upon the motion of your bright eyes, in hopes of a glance, that
+     might restore me to the pleasures of sight and hearing in the midst
+     of beauty and harmony. It is said, the hell of the accursed in the
+     next life arises from an incapacity to partake the joys of the
+     blessed, though they were to be admitted to them. Such I am sure
+     was my condition all this evening; and if you, my deity, cannot
+     have so much mercy as to make me by your influence capable of
+     tasting the satisfactions of life, my being is ended, which
+     consisted only in your favour."
+
+The letter was hardly read over, when she rushed out of bed in her
+wrapping-gown, and consulted her glass for the truth of his passion. She
+raised her head, and turned it to a profile, repeating the last lines,
+"my being is ended, which consisted only in your favour." The goddess
+immediately called her maid, and fell to dressing that mischievous face
+of hers, without any manner of consideration for the mortal who had
+offered up his petition. Nay, it was so far otherwise, that the whole
+time of her woman's combing her hair was spent in discourse of the
+impertinence of his passion, and ended, in declaring a resolution, if
+she ever had him, to make him wait. She also frankly told the favourite
+gipsy that was prating to her, that her passionate lover had put it out
+of her power to be civil to him, if she were inclined to it; "for," said
+she, "if I am thus celestial to my lover, he will certainly so far think
+himself disappointed, as I grow into the familiarity and form of a
+mortal woman."
+
+I came away as I went in, without staying for other remarks than what
+confirmed me in the opinion, that it is from the notions the men inspire
+them with, that the women are so fantastical in the value of themselves.
+This imaginary pre-eminence which is given to the fair sex, is not only
+formed from the addresses of people of condition; but it is the fashion
+and humour of all orders to go regularly out of their wits, as soon as
+they begin to make love. I know at this time three goddesses in the New
+Exchange;[125] and there are two shepherdesses who sell gloves in
+Westminster Hall.[126]
+
+
+[Footnote 123: See No. 138.]
+
+[Footnote 124: "Under a Lady's Picture" (Waller's Poems: "Epigrams,
+Epitaphs," &c.).]
+
+[Footnote 125: See No. 26.]
+
+[Footnote 126: See No. 145. Part of Westminster Hall was devoted to
+shopkeepers' stalls, where toys, books, &c., could be brought. Tom Brown
+("Amusements," &c. 1700) says: "On your left hand you hear a
+nimble-tongued painted sempstress with her charming treble invite you to
+buy some of her knick-knacks, and on your right a deep-mouthed crier,
+commanding impossibilities, viz., silence to be kept among women and
+lawyers."]
+
+
+
+
+No. 140.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Tuesday, Feb. 28_, to _Thursday, March 2, 1709-10_.
+
+    ----Aliena negotia centum
+    Per caput, et circa saliunt latus--
+                              HOR., 2 Sat. vi. 33.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, March 1._
+
+Having the honour to be by my great-grandmother a Welshman, I have been
+among some choice spirits of that part of Great Britain, where we
+solaced ourselves in celebration of the day of St. David. I am, I
+confess, elevated above that state of mind which is proper for
+lucubration: but I am the less concerned at this, because I have for
+this day or two last past observed, that we novelists have been
+condemned wholly to the pastry-cooks, the eyes of the nation being
+turned upon greater matters.[127] This therefore being a time when none
+but my immediate correspondents will read me, I shall speak to them
+chiefly at this present writing. It is the fate of us who pretend to
+joke, to be frequently understood to be only upon the droll when we are
+speaking the most seriously, as appears by the following letter to
+Charles Lillie:
+
+     "MR. LILLIE,                    "London, _February 28, 1709/10_.
+
+     "It being professed by 'Squire Bickerstaff, that his intention is
+     to expose the vices and follies of the age, and to promote virtue
+     and goodwill amongst mankind; it must be a comfort, to a person
+     labouring under great straits and difficulties, to read anything
+     that has the appearance of succour. I should be glad to know
+     therefore, whether the intelligence given in his _Tatler_ of
+     Saturday last,[128] of the intended charity of a certain citizen of
+     London, to maintain the education of ten boys in writing and
+     accounts till they be fit for trade, be given only to encourage and
+     recommend persons to the practice of such noble and charitable
+     designs, or whether there be a person who really intends to do so.
+     If the latter, I humbly beg Squire Bickerstaff's pardon for making
+     a doubt, and impute it to my ignorance; and most humbly crave, that
+     he would be pleased to give notice in his _Tatler_, when he thinks
+     fit, whether his nomination of ten boys be disposed of, or whether
+     there be room for two boys to be recommended to him; and that he
+     will permit the writer of this to present him with two boys, who,
+     it is humbly presumed, will be judged to be very remarkable objects
+     of such charity.
+
+                                                  "Sir,
+                                          "Your most humble Servant."
+
+I am to tell this gentleman in sober sadness, and without jest, that
+there really is so good and charitable a man as the benefactor inquired
+for in his letter, and that there are but two boys yet named. The father
+of one of them was killed at Blenheim, the father of the other at
+Almanza. I do not here give the names of the children, because I should
+take it to be an insolence in me to publish them, in a charity which I
+have only the direction of as a servant, to that worthy and generous
+spirit who bestows upon them this bounty, without laying the bondage of
+an obligation. What I have to do is to tell them, they are beholden only
+to their Maker, to kill in them as they grow up the false shame of
+poverty, and let them know, that their present fortune, which is come
+upon them by the loss of their poor fathers on so glorious occasions, is
+much more honourable, than the inheritance of the most ample ill-gotten
+wealth.
+
+The next letter which lies before me is from a man of sense, who
+strengthens his own authority with that of Tully, in persuading me to
+what he very justly believes one cannot be averse:
+
+     "MR. BICKERSTAFF,                      "London, _Feb. 27, 1709_.
+
+     "I am so confident of your inclination to promote anything that is
+     for the advancement of liberal arts, that I lay before you the
+     following translation of a paragraph in Cicero's oration in defence
+     of Archias the poet, as an incentive to the agreeable and
+     instructive reading of the writings of the Augustan age. Most vices
+     and follies proceed from a man's incapacity of entertaining
+     himself, and we are generally fools in company, because we dare not
+     be wise alone. I hope, on some future occasions, you will find this
+     no barren hint. Tully, after having said very handsome things of
+     his client, commends the arts of which he was master as follows:
+
+     "'If so much profit be not reaped in the study of letters, and if
+     pleasure only be found; yet, in my opinion, this relaxation of the
+     mind should be esteemed most humane and ingenuous. Other things are
+     not for all ages, places and seasons. These studies form youth,
+     delight old age, adorn prosperity, and soften, and even remove
+     adversity, entertain at home, are no hindrance abroad; don't leave
+     us at night, and keep us company on the road and in the country.' I
+     am,
+
+                                           "Your humble Servant,
+                                                          "STREPHON."
+
+The following epistle seems to want the quickest despatch, because a
+lady is every moment offended till it is answered; which is best done by
+letting the offender see in her own letter how tender she is of calling
+him so:
+
+     "SIR,
+
+     "This comes from a relation of yours, though unknown to you, who,
+     besides the tie of consanguinity, has some value for you on the
+     account of your lucubrations, those being designed to refine our
+     conversation, as well as cultivate our minds. I humbly beg the
+     favour of you, in one of your _Tatlers_ (after what manner you
+     please), to correct a particular friend of mine, for an indecorum
+     he is guilty of in discourse, of calling his acquaintance, when he
+     speaks of them, 'Madam': as for example, my cousin Jenny Distaff,
+     'Madam Distaff'; which I am sure you are sensible is very unpolite,
+     and 'tis what makes me often uneasy for him, though I cannot tell
+     him of it myself, which makes me guilty of this presumption, that I
+     depend upon your goodness to excuse; and I do assure you, the
+     gentleman will mind your reprehension, for he is, as I am,
+
+                                            "Sir,
+                                              "Your most humble
+                                                "Servant and Cousin,
+                                                  "DOROTHY DRUMSTICK.
+
+     "I write this in a thin under-petticoat,[129] and never did or will
+     wear a farthingale."
+
+I had no sooner read the just complaint of Mrs. Drumstick, but I
+received an urgent one from another of the fair sex, upon faults of more
+pernicious consequence:
+
+     "MR. BICKERSTAFF,
+
+     "Observing that you are entered into a correspondence with
+     Pasquin,[130] who is, I suppose, a Roman Catholic, I beg of you to
+     forbear giving him any account of our religion, or manners, till
+     you have rooted out certain misbehaviours even in our churches;
+     among others, that of bowing, saluting, taking snuff, and other
+     gestures. Lady Autumn made me a very low curtsy the other day from
+     the next pew, and, with the most courtly air imaginable, called
+     herself 'Miserable sinner.' Her niece soon after, in saying,
+     'Forgive us our trespasses,' curtsied with a gloating look at my
+     brother. He returned it, opening his snuff-box and repeating yet a
+     more solemn expression. I beg of you, good Mr. Censor, not to tell
+     Pasquin anything of this kind, and to believe this does not come
+     from one of a morose temper, mean birth, rigid education, narrow
+     fortune, or bigotry in opinion, or from one in whom Time had worn
+     out all taste of pleasure. I assure you, it is far otherwise, for I
+     am possessed of all the contrary advantages; and hope, wealth, good
+     humour, and good breeding, may be best employed in the service of
+     religion and virtue; and desire you would, as soon as possible,
+     remark upon the above-mentioned indecorums, that we may not longer
+     transgress against the latter, to preserve our reputation in the
+     former.
+
+                                             "Your humble Servant,
+                                                             "LYDIA."
+
+The last letter I shall insert is what follows. This is written by a
+very inquisitive lady; and I think, such interrogative gentlewomen are
+to be answered no other way than by interrogation. Her billet is this:
+
+     "DEAR MR. BICKERSTAFF,
+
+     "Are you quite as good as you seem to be?
+
+                                                             "CHLOE."
+
+To which I can only answer:
+
+     "DEAR CHLOE,
+
+     "Are you quite as ignorant as you seem to be?
+
+                                                              "I. B."
+
+
+[Footnote 127: The trial of Dr. Sacheverell, which extended from
+February 27 to March 23, 1710. A Tory pamphlet, "A Letter to the Rev.
+Dr. Henry Sacheverell, by Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq.," 1709, appeared in
+January 1710. Another pamphlet was called "The Character of Don
+Sacheverello, Knight of the Firebrand, in a Letter to Isaac Bickerstaff,
+Esq., Censor of Great Britain."]
+
+[Footnote 128: See No. 138.]
+
+[Footnote 129: See No. 136.]
+
+[Footnote 130: See No. 129.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 141.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Thursday, March 2_, to _Saturday, March 4, 1709-10_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, March 3._
+
+While the attention of the town is drawn aside from the reading us
+writers of news, we all save ourselves against it is at more leisure. As
+for my own part, I shall still let the labouring oar be managed by my
+correspondents, and fill my paper with their sentiments, rather than my
+own, till I find my readers more disengaged than they are at
+present.[131] When I came home this evening, I found several letters and
+petitions, which I shall insert with no other order, than as I
+accidentally opened them, as follows:
+
+     "SIR, _March 1, 1709-10._
+
+     "Having a daughter about nine years of age, I would endeavour she
+     might have education; I mean such as may be useful, as working
+     well, and a good deportment. In order to it, I am persuaded to
+     place her at some boarding-school, situate in a good air. My wife
+     opposes it, and gives for her greatest reason, that she is too much
+     a woman, and understands the formalities of visiting and a
+     tea-table so very nicely, that none, though much older, can exceed
+     her; and with all these perfections, the girl can scarce thread a
+     needle: but however, after several arguments, we have agreed to be
+     decided by your judgment; and knowing your abilities, shall manage
+     our daughter exactly as you shall please to direct. I am serious in
+     my request, and hope you will be so in your answer, which will lay
+     a deep obligation upon,
+
+                                                   "Sir,
+                                             "Your humble Servant,
+                                                               "T. T.
+
+     "Sir, pray answer it in your _Tatler_, that it may be serviceable
+     to the public."
+
+I am as serious on this subject as my correspondent can be, and am of
+opinion, that the great happiness or misfortune of mankind depends upon
+the manner of educating and treating that sex. I have lately said, I
+design to turn my thoughts more particularly to them and their service:
+I beg therefore a little time to give my opinion on so important a
+subject, and desire the young lady may fill tea one week longer, till I
+have considered whether she shall be removed or not.[132]
+
+                                 "Chancery Lane, _February 27, 1709_.
+     "MR. BICKERSTAFF,
+
+     "Your notice in the advertisement in your _Tatler_ of Saturday
+     last[133] about 'whetters' in and about the Royal Exchange, is
+     mightily taken notice of by gentlemen who use the coffee-houses
+     near the Chancery office in Chancery Lane; and there being a
+     particular certain set of both young and old gentlemen that belong
+     to and near adjoining to the Chancery office, both in Chancery Lane
+     and Bell Yard, that are not only 'whetters' all the morning long,
+     but very musically given about twelve at night the same days, and
+     mightily taken with the union of the dulcimer, violin, and song; at
+     which recreation they rejoice together with perfect harmony,
+     however their clients disagree: you are humbly desired by several
+     gentlemen to give some regulation concerning them; in which you
+     will contribute to the repose of us, who are
+
+                                     "Your very humble Servants,
+                                                "L. T., N. F., T. W."
+
+These "whetters" are a people I have considered with much pains, and
+find them to differ from a sect I have heretofore spoken of, called
+"snuff-takers,"[134] only in the expedition they take in destroying
+their brains: the "whetter" is obliged to refresh himself every moment
+with a liquor, as the "snuff-taker" with a powder. As for their harmony
+in the evening, I have nothing to object, provided they remove to
+Wapping or the Bridge-Foot,[135] where it is not to be supposed that
+their vociferations will annoy the studious, the busy, or the
+contemplative. I once had lodgings in Gray's Inn, where we had two hard
+students, who learned to play upon the hautboy; and I had a couple of
+chamber fellows over my head not less diligent in the practice of
+backsword and single-rapier. I remember these gentlemen were assigned by
+the benchers the two houses at the end of the Terrace Walk, as the only
+places fit for their meditations. Such students as will let none improve
+but themselves, ought indeed to have their proper distances from
+societies.
+
+The gentlemen of loud mirth above mentioned I take to be, in the quality
+of their crime, the same as eavesdroppers; for they who will be in your
+company whether you will or no, are to as great a degree offenders, as
+they who hearken to what passes without being of your company at all.
+The ancient punishment for the latter, when I first came to this town,
+was the blanket, which I humbly conceive may be as justly applied to him
+that bawls, as to him that listens. It is therefore provided for the
+future, that (except in the Long Vacation) no retainers to the law, with
+dulcimer, violin, or any other instrument, in any tavern within a
+furlong of an inn of court, shall sing any tune, or pretended tune
+whatsoever, upon pain of the blanket, to be administered according to
+the discretion of all such peaceable people as shall be within the
+annoyance. And it is further directed, that all clerks who shall offend
+in this kind shall forfeit their indentures, and be turned over as
+assistants to the clerks of parishes within the bills of mortality, who
+are hereby empowered to demand them accordingly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I am not to omit the receipt of the following letter, with a nightcap,
+from my valentine;[136] which nightcap I find was finished in the year
+1588, and is too finely wrought to be of any modern stitching. Its
+antiquity will better appear by my valentine's own words:
+
+     "SIR,
+
+     "Since you are pleased to accept of so mean a present as a nightcap
+     from your valentine, I have sent you one, which I do assure you has
+     been very much esteemed of in our family; for my
+     great-grandmother's daughter who worked it, was maid of honour to
+     Queen Elizabeth, and had the misfortune to lose her life by
+     pricking her finger in the making of it, of which she bled to
+     death, as her tomb now at Westminster will show: for which reason,
+     myself, nor none of my family, have loved work ever since;
+     otherwise you should have had one as you desired, made by the hands
+     of,
+
+                                                  "Sir,
+                                              "Your affectionate
+                                                         "VALENTINE."
+
+     "_To the Right Worshipful Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq., Censor of Great
+     Britain, and Governor of the Hospital erected, or to be erected, in
+     Moorfields._
+
+     "The petition of the inhabitants of the parish of Goatham in the
+     county of Middlesex;
+
+     "HUMBLY SHEWETH,
+
+     "That whereas 'tis the undoubted right of your said petitioners to
+     repair on every Lord's Day to a chapel of ease in the said parish,
+     there to be instructed in their duties in the known or vulgar
+     tongue; yet so it is (may it please your Worship) that the preacher
+     of the said chapel has of late given himself wholly up to matters
+     of controversy, in no wise tending to the edification of your said
+     petitioners; and in handling (as he calls it) the same, has used
+     divers hard and crabbed words; such as, among many others, are
+     'orthodox' and 'heterodox,' which are in no sort understood by your
+     said petitioners; and it is with grief of heart that your
+     petitioners beg leave to represent to you, that in mentioning the
+     aforesaid words or names (the latter of which, as we have reason to
+     believe, is his deadly enemy), he will fall into ravings and
+     foamings, ill-becoming the meekness of his office, and tending to
+     give offence and scandal to all good people.
+
+     "Your petitioners further say, that they are ready to prove the
+     aforesaid allegations; and therefore humbly hope, that from a true
+     sense of their condition, you will please to receive the said
+     preacher into the hospital, until he shall recover a right use of
+     his senses.
+
+                                          "And your petitioners," &c.
+
+
+[Footnote 131: The whole attention of the town in March 1710 was devoted
+to the Sacheverell trial. See Nos. 140, 142, 157.]
+
+[Footnote 132: See No. 145.]
+
+[Footnote 133: See No. 138.]
+
+[Footnote 134: See No. 35.]
+
+[Footnote 135: The foot of London Bridge. There was a tavern, famous in
+the seventeenth century, called "The Bear at the Bridge-foot," below
+London Bridge.]
+
+[Footnote 136: See No. 137.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 142.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Saturday, March 4_, to _Tuesday, March 7, 1709-10_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, March 6._
+
+All persons who employ themselves in public, are still interrupted in
+the course of their affairs: and it seems, the admired Cavalier Nicolini
+himself is commanded by the ladies, who at present employ their time
+with great assiduity in the care of the nation, to put off his day till
+he shall receive their commands, and notice that they are at leisure for
+diversions.[137] In the meantime it is not to be expressed, how many
+cold chickens the fair ones have eaten since this day sennight for the
+good of their country. This great occasion has given birth to many
+discoveries of high moment for the conduct of life. There is a toast of
+my acquaintance told me, she had now found out, that it was day before
+nine in the morning;[138] and I am very confident, if the affair holds
+many days longer, the ancient hours of eating will be revived among us,
+many having by it been made acquainted with the luxury of hunger and
+thirst.
+
+There appears, methinks, something very venerable in all assemblies: and
+I must confess, I envied all who had youth and health enough to make
+their appearance there, that they had the happiness of being a whole day
+in the best company in the world. During the adjournment of that awful
+court, a neighbour of mine was telling me, that it gave him a notion of
+the ancient grandeur of the English hospitality, to see Westminster Hall
+a dining-room.[139] There is a cheerfulness at such repasts, which is
+very delightful to tempers which are so happy as to be clear of spleen
+and vapour; for to the jovial to see others pleased, is the greatest of
+all pleasures.
+
+But since age and infirmities forbid my appearance at such public
+places, the next happiness is to make the best use of privacy, and
+acquit myself of the demands of my correspondents. The following letter
+is what has given me no small inquietude, it being an accusation of
+partiality, and disregard to merit, in the person of a virtuoso, who is
+the most eloquent of all men upon small occasions, and is the more to be
+admired for his prodigious fertility of invention, which never appears
+but upon subjects which others would have thought barren. But in
+consideration of his uncommon talents, I am contented to let him be the
+hero of my next two days, by inserting his friends' recommendation of
+him at large:
+
+     "DEAR COUSIN,                    "Nando's,[140] _Feb. 28, 1709_.
+
+     "I am just come out of the country, and upon perusing your late
+     Lucubrations, I find Charles Lillie to be the darling of your
+     affections, that you have given him a place, and taken no small
+     pains to establish him in the world; and at the same time have
+     passed by his namesake[141] at this end of the town, as if he was a
+     citizen defunct, and one of no use in a commonwealth. I must own,
+     his circumstances are so good, and so well known, that he does not
+     stand in need of having his fame published to the world; but being
+     of an ambitious spirit, and an aspiring soul, he would be rather
+     proud of the honour, than desirous of the profit, which might
+     result from your recommendation. He is a person of a particular
+     genius, the first that brought toys in fashion, and baubles to
+     perfection. He is admirably well versed in screws, springs, and
+     hinges, and deeply read in knives, combs or scissors, buttons or
+     buckles. He is a perfect master of words, which, uttered with a
+     smooth voluble tongue, flow into a most persuasive eloquence;
+     insomuch that I have known a gentleman of distinction find several
+     ingenious faults with a toy of his, and show his utmost dislike to
+     it, as being either useless, or ill-contrived; but when the orator
+     behind the counter had harangued upon it for an hour and a half,
+     displayed its hidden beauties, and revealed its secret
+     perfections, he has wondered how he had been able to spend so great
+     a part of his life without so important an utensil. I won't pretend
+     to furnish out an inventory of all the valuable commodities that
+     are to be found at his shop.
+
+     "I shall content myself with giving an account of what I think most
+     curious. Imprimis, his pocket-books are very neat, and well
+     contrived, not for keeping bank bills or goldsmiths' notes,[142] I
+     confess; but they are admirable for registering the lodgings of
+     Madonnas, and for preserving letters from ladies of quality: his
+     whips and spurs are so nice, that they'll make one that buys them
+     ride a fox-hunting, though before he hated noise and early rising,
+     and was afraid of breaking his neck. His seals are curiously
+     fancied, and exquisitely well cut, and of great use to encourage
+     young gentlemen to write a good hand. Ned Puzzlepost had been
+     ill-used by his writing-master, and writ a sort of a Chinese, or
+     downright scrawlian: however, upon his buying a seal of my friend,
+     he is so much improved by continual writing, that it is believed in
+     a short time one may be able to read his letters, and find out his
+     meaning, without guessing. His pistols and fusees are so very good,
+     that they are fit to be laid up among the finest china. Then his
+     tweezer-cases are incomparable: you shall have one not much bigger
+     than your finger, with seventeen several instruments in it, all
+     necessary every hour of the day, during the whole course of a man's
+     life. But if this virtuoso excels in one thing more than another,
+     it is in canes; he has spent his most select hours in the knowledge
+     of them, and is arrived at that perfection, that he is able to hold
+     forth upon canes longer than upon any one subject in the world.
+     Indeed his canes are so finely clouded, and so well made up, either
+     with gold or amber heads, that I am of the opinion it is impossible
+     for a gentleman to walk, talk, sit or stand as he should do,
+     without one of them. He knows the value of a cane, by knowing the
+     value of the buyer's estate. Sir Timothy Shallow has two thousand
+     pounds per annum, and Tom Empty one. They both at several times
+     bought a cane of Charles: Sir Timothy's cost ten guineas, and Tom
+     Empty's five. Upon comparing them, they were perfectly alike. Sir
+     Timothy surprised there should be no difference in the canes, and
+     so much in the price, comes to Charles. 'Damn it, Charles,' says
+     he, 'you have sold me a cane here for ten pieces, and the very same
+     to Tom Empty for five.' 'Lord, Sir Timothy,' says Charles, 'I am
+     concerned that you, whom I took to understand canes better than any
+     baronet in town, should be so overseen;[143] why, Sir Timothy,
+     yours is a true jambee, and Squire Empty's only a plain
+     dragon.'[144]
+
+     "This virtuoso has a parcel of jambees now growing in the East
+     Indies, where he keeps a man on purpose to look after them, which
+     will be the finest that ever landed in Great Britain, and will be
+     fit to cut about two years hence. Any gentleman may subscribe for
+     as many as he pleases. Subscriptions will be taken in at his shop
+     at ten guineas each joint. They that subscribe for six, shall have
+     a dragon gratis. This is all I have to say at present concerning
+     Charles' curiosities; and hope it may be sufficient to prevail
+     with you to take him into your consideration, which if you comply
+     with, you will oblige,
+
+                                                "Your humble Servant.
+
+     "N.B. Whereas there came out last term several gold snuff-boxes and
+     others: this is to give notice, that Charles[145] will put out a
+     new edition on Saturday next, which will be the only one in fashion
+     till after Easter. The gentleman that gave fifty pounds for the box
+     set with diamonds, may show it till Sunday night, provided he goes
+     to church; but not after that time, there being one to be published
+     on Monday which will cost fourscore guineas."
+
+
+[Footnote 137: See No. 137. In No. 140 there was the following
+advertisement: "At the request of all the ladies of quality, who are at
+present engaged in politics, the benefit night for Cavalier Nicolini is
+put off to Tuesday the 7th instant."]
+
+[Footnote 138: Cf. "Wentworth Papers," p. 113. "Sacheverell will make
+all the Ladys good huswis, they goe att seven every mornin'," says Lady
+Wentworth.]
+
+[Footnote 139: The spectators brought their lunch with them.]
+
+[Footnote 140: A coffee-house in Fleet Street, at the east corner of
+Inner Temple Lane.]
+
+[Footnote 141: Charles Mather, the toyman (see Nos. 27, 113).]
+
+[Footnote 142: Goldsmiths' receipts for coin lodged with them as bankers
+were sometimes transferred from hand to hand, but this was always
+limited to a few merchants.]
+
+[Footnote 143: Deceived.]
+
+[Footnote 144: A dragon is a small malacca cane, so called from its
+blood-red colour. It comes from Penang, Singapore, and other islands in
+the Straits of Malacca. A jambee, on the contrary, is a knotty bamboo of
+a pale brown hue. As an article of commerce it is now extinct. The
+"clouded cane" of Sir Plume was a large malacca artificially coloured
+(Dobson).]
+
+[Footnote 145: Charles Mather.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 143.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Tuesday, March 7_, to _Thursday, March 9, 1709-10_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, March 8._
+
+I was this afternoon surprised with a visit from my sister Jenny, after
+an absence of some time. She had, methought, in her manner and air,
+something that was a little below that of the women of first breeding
+and quality, but at the same time above the simplicity and familiarity
+of her usual deportment. As soon as she was seated, she began to talk to
+me of the odd place I lived in, and begged of me to remove out of the
+lane where I have been so long acquainted; "for," said she, "it does so
+spoil one's horses, that I must beg your pardon if you see me much
+seldomer, when I am to make so great a journey with a single pair, and
+make visits and get home the same night." I understood her pretty well,
+but would not; therefore desired her to pay off her coach, for I had a
+great deal to talk to her. She very pertly told me, she came in her own
+chariot. "Why," said I, "is your husband in town? And has he set up an
+equipage?" "No," answered she, "but I have received L500 by his order;
+and his letters, which came at the same time, bade me want for nothing
+that was necessary." I was heartily concerned at her folly, whose
+affairs render her but just able to bear such an expense. However I
+considered, that according to the British custom of treating women,
+there is no other method to be used in removing any of their faults and
+errors, but conducting their minds from one humour to another, with as
+much ceremony as we lead their persons from one place to another. I
+therefore dissembled my concern, and in compliance with her, as a lady
+that was to use her feet no more, I begged of her, after a short visit,
+to let me persuade her not to stay out till it was late, for fear of
+catching cold as she went into her coach in the dampness of the evening.
+The Malapert knew well enough I laughed at her, but was not ill-pleased
+with the certainty of her power over her husband, who, she knew, would
+support her in any humour he was able, rather than pass through the
+torment of an expostulation, to gainsay anything she had a mind to. As
+soon as my fine lady was gone, I writ the following letter to my
+brother:
+
+     "DEAR BROTHER,
+
+     "I am at present under very much concern at the splendid appearance
+     I saw my sister make in an equipage which she has set up in your
+     absence. I beg of you not to indulge her in this vanity; and desire
+     you to consider, the world is so whimsical, that though it will
+     value you for being happy, it will hate you for appearing so. The
+     possession of wisdom and virtue (the only solid distinctions of
+     life) is allowed much more easily than that of wealth and quality.
+     Besides which, I must entreat you to weigh with yourself, what it
+     is that people aim at in setting themselves out to show in gay
+     equipages, and moderate fortunes. You are not by this means a
+     better man than your neighbour is; but your horses are better than
+     his are. And will you suffer care and inquietude, to have it said
+     as you pass by, 'Those are very pretty punch nags!'[146] Nay, when
+     you have arrived at this, there are a hundred worthless fellows who
+     are still four horses happier than you are. Remember, dear brother,
+     there is a certain modesty in the enjoyment of moderate wealth,
+     which to transgress, exposes men to the utmost derision; and as
+     there is nothing but meanness of spirit can move a man to value
+     himself upon what can be purchased with money, so he that shows an
+     ambition that way, and cannot arrive at it, is more emphatically
+     guilty of that meanness. I give you only my first thoughts on this
+     occasion, but shall, as I am a censor, entertain you in my next
+     with my sentiments in general upon the subject of equipage; and
+     show, that though there are no sumptuary laws amongst us, reason
+     and good sense are equally binding, and will ever prevail in
+     appointing approbation or dislike in all matters of an indifferent
+     nature, when they are pursued with earnestness. I am,
+
+                                                           "Sir," &c.
+
+
+ADVERTISEMENTS.
+
+To all Gentlemen, Ladies, and others, that delight in soft lines.
+
+These are to give notice, that the proper time of the year for writing
+pastorals now drawing near, there is a stage-coach settled from the One
+Bell in the Strand to Dorchester, which sets out twice a week, and
+passes through Basingstoke, Sutton, Stockbridge, Salisbury, Blandford,
+and so to Dorchester, over the finest downs in England. At all which
+places, there are accommodations of spreading beeches, beds of flowers,
+turf seats, and purling streams, for happy swains; and thunderstruck
+oaks, and left-handed ravens, to foretell misfortunes to those that
+please to be wretched; with all other necessaries for pensive passion.
+
+And for the convenience of such whose affairs will not permit them to
+leave this town, at the same place they may be furnished, during the
+season, with opening buds, flowering thyme, warbling birds, sporting
+lambkins, and fountain water, right and good, and bottled on the spot,
+by one sent down on purpose.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+N.B. The nymphs and swains are further given to understand, that in
+those happy climes, they are so far from being troubled with wolves,
+that for want of even foxes, a considerable pack of hounds have been
+lately forced to eat sheep.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Whereas on the 6th instant at midnight, several persons of light honour
+and loose mirth, having taken upon them in the shape of men, but with
+the voice of the players belonging to Mr. Powell's[147] company, to call
+up surgeons at midnight, and send physicians to persons in sound sleep,
+and perfect health: this is to certify, that Mr. Powell had locked up
+the legs of all his company for fear of mischief that night; and that
+Mr. Powell will not pay for any damages done by the said persons. It is
+also further advised, that there were no midwives wanted when those
+persons called them up in the several parts of Westminster; but that
+those gentlewomen who were in the company of the said impostors, may
+take care to call such useful persons on the 6th of December next.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Censor having observed, that there are fine wrought ladies' shoes
+and slippers put out to view at a great shoemaker's shop towards St.
+James's end of Pall Mall, which create irregular thoughts and desires in
+the youth of this nation; the said shopkeeper is required to take in
+those eyesores, or show cause the next court-day why he continues to
+expose the same; and he is required to be prepared particularly to
+answer to the slippers with green lace and blue heels.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is impossible for me to return the obliging things Mr. Joshua
+Barnes[148] has said to me upon the account of our mutual friend Homer.
+He and I have read him now forty years with some understanding, and
+great admiration. A work to be produced by one who has enjoyed so great
+an intimacy with an author, is certainly to be valued more than any
+comment made by persons of yesterday: therefore, according to my friend
+Joshua's request, I recommend his[149] work; and having used a little
+magic in the case, I give this recommendation by way of amulet or charm,
+against the malignity of envious backbiters, who speak evil of
+performances whereof themselves were never capable. If I may use my
+friend Joshua's own words, I shall at present say no more, but that we,
+Homer's oldest acquaintance now living, know best his ways; and can
+inform the world, that they are often mistaken when they think he is in
+lethargic fits, which we know he was never subject to; and shall make
+appear to be rank scandal and envy that of the Latin poet:
+
+    "_----Aliquando bonus dormitat Homerus._"[150]
+
+
+[Footnote 146: A punch nag is a horse well set and well knit, having a
+short back and thin shoulders, with a broad neck, and well lined with
+flesh ("Farrier's Dictionary").]
+
+[Footnote 147: The puppet-show man.]
+
+[Footnote 148: "The learned and ingenious Mr. Joshua Barnes has lately
+writ an eulogium (after the manner of learned men to each other) upon
+me; and after having made me his compliments in the behalf of his
+beloved Homer, and thanked me for the justice I have done him, in the
+'Table of Fame,' has desired me to recommend the following
+advertisement: 'Whereas Mr. Joshua Barnes, B.D., her Majesty's Greek
+professor in the University of Cambridge, hath some time since published
+proposals for printing a new and accurate edition of all Homer's
+"Works," enlarged, corrected, and amended, by the help of ancient MSS.
+the best editions, scholiographers, &c.: These are to certify, that the
+"Iliad" and "Odyssey" are now both actually printed off, only a small
+part of the hymns, other poems, and fragments remaining, with the
+indexes, Life of Homer, and Prolegomena, which are carried on with all
+possible expedition. All gentlemen therefore, scholars and masters of
+great schools, that are willing to reap the benefit of subscription,
+being ten shillings down, and on the delivery of the two volumes in
+sheets twenty shillings more, are desired to make their first payment to
+the said Mr. Barnes, now lodging at the printing house at Cambridge,
+before the end of March; after which time no more single subscriptions
+to be admitted'" (_Tatler_, orig. folio, No. 139). Joshua Barnes
+(1654-1712), Greek scholar and antiquary, was educated at Christ's
+Hospital and Emanuel College, Cambridge. He was appointed professor of
+Greek at Cambridge in 1695. The expenses incurred in the production of
+his "Homer" involved him in considerable difficulties. Bentley paid a
+doubtful compliment to Barnes when he said that Barnes knew as much
+Greek as a Greek cobbler. See the _Spectator_, No. 245.]
+
+[Footnote 149: Mr. Joshua Barnes' new and accurate edition of all
+Homer's Works, &c. (Steele).]
+
+[Footnote 150: Horace, "Ars Poet." 359 ("Quandoque bonus," &c.).]
+
+
+
+
+No. 144.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Thursday, March 9_, to _Saturday, March 11, 1709-10_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, March 10._
+
+In a nation of liberty, there is hardly a person in the whole mass of
+the people more absolutely necessary than a censor. It is allowed, that
+I have no authority for assuming this important appellation, and that I
+am censor of these nations, just as one is chosen king at the game of
+questions and commands:[151] but if, in the execution of this
+fantastical dignity, I observe upon things which do not fall within the
+cognisance of real authority, I hope it will be granted, that an idle
+man could not be more usefully employed. Among all the irregularities of
+which I have taken notice, I know none so proper to be presented to the
+world by a censor, as that of the general expense and affectation in
+equipage. I have lately hinted, that this extravagance must necessarily
+get footing where we have no sumptuary laws, and where every man may be
+dressed, attended, and carried, in what manner he pleases. But my
+tenderness to my fellow subjects will not permit me to let this enormity
+go unobserved.
+
+As the matter now stands, every man takes it in his head, that he has a
+liberty to spend his money as he pleases. Thus, in spite of all order,
+justice, and decorum, we the greater number of the Queen's loyal
+subjects, for no reason in the world but because we want money, do not
+share alike in the division of her Majesty's high-road. The horses and
+slaves of the rich take up the whole street, while we peripatetics are
+very glad to watch an opportunity to whisk across a passage, very
+thankful that we are not run over for interrupting the machine, that
+carries in it a person neither more handsome, wise, nor valiant than the
+meanest of us. For this reason, were I to propose a tax, it should
+certainly be upon coaches and chairs: for no man living can assign a
+reason why one man should have half a street to carry him at his ease,
+and perhaps only in pursuit of pleasures, when as good a man as himself
+wants room for his own person to pass upon the most necessary and urgent
+occasion. Till such an acknowledgment is made to the public, I shall
+take upon me to vest certain rights in the scavengers of the cities of
+London and Westminster, to take the horses and servants of all such as
+do not become or deserve such distinctions into their peculiar custody.
+The offenders themselves I shall allow safe conduct to their places of
+abode in the carts of the said scavengers, but their horses shall be
+mounted by their footmen, and sent into the service abroad: and I take
+this opportunity in the first place to recruit the regiment of my good
+old friend the brave and honest Sylvius,[152] that they be as well
+taught as they are fed. It is to me most miraculous, so unreasonable an
+usurpation as this I am speaking of should so long have been tolerated.
+We hang a poor fellow for taking any trifle from us on the road, and
+bear with the rich for robbing us of the road itself. Such a tax as this
+would be of great satisfaction to us who walk on foot; and since the
+distinction of riding in a coach is not to be appointed according to a
+man's merit or service to their country, nor that liberty given as a
+reward for some eminent virtue, we should be highly contented to see
+them pay something for the insult they do us in the state they take upon
+them while they are drawn by us.
+
+Till they have made us some reparation of this kind, we the peripatetics
+of Great Britain cannot think ourselves well treated, while every one
+that is able is allowed to set up an equipage.
+
+As for my part, I cannot but admire how persons, conscious to themselves
+of no manner of superiority above others, can out of mere pride or
+laziness expose themselves at this rate to public view, and put us all
+upon pronouncing those three terrible syllables, Who is that? When it
+comes to that question, our method is to consider the mien and air of
+the passenger, and comfort ourselves for being dirty to the ankles, by
+laughing at his figure and appearance who overlooks us. I must confess,
+were it not for the solid injustice of the thing, there is nothing could
+afford a discerning eye greater occasion for mirth, than this licentious
+huddle of qualities and characters in the equipages about this town. The
+overseers of the highway and constables have so little skill or power to
+rectify this matter, that you may often see the equipage of a fellow
+whom all the town knows to deserve hanging, make a stop that shall
+interrupt the Lord High Chancellor and all the judges on their way to
+Westminster.
+
+For the better understanding of things and persons in this general
+confusion, I have given directions to all the coachmakers and
+coach-painters in town, to bring me in lists of their several customers;
+and doubt not, but with comparing the orders of each man, in the placing
+his arms on the doors of his chariot, as well as the words, devices and
+ciphers to be fixed upon them, to make a collection which shall let us
+into the nature, if not the history, of mankind, more usefully than the
+curiosities of any medallist in Europe.
+
+But this evil of vanity in our figure, with many, many others, proceeds
+from a certain gaiety of heart, which has crept into men's very thoughts
+and complexions. The passions and adventures of heroes, when they enter
+the lists for the tournament in romances, are not more easily
+distinguishable by their palfreys and their armour, than the secret
+springs and affections of the several pretenders to show amongst us are
+known by their equipages in ordinary life. The young bridegroom with his
+gilded cupids, and winged angels, has some excuse in the joy of his
+heart to launch out into something that may be significant of his
+present happiness: but to see men, for no reason upon earth but that
+they are rich, ascend triumphant chariots, and ride through the people,
+has at the bottom nothing else in it but an insolent transport, arising
+only from the distinction of fortune.
+
+It is therefore high time that I call in such coaches as are in their
+embellishments improper for the character of their owners. But if I find
+I am not obeyed herein, and that I cannot pull down these equipages
+already erected, I shall take upon me to prevent the growth of this evil
+for the future, by inquiring into the pretensions of the persons who
+shall hereafter attempt to make public entries with ornaments and
+decorations of his own appointment. If a man, who believed he had the
+handsomest leg in this kingdom, should take a fancy to adorn so
+deserving a limb with a blue garter, he would justly be punished for
+offending against the most noble order: and, I think, the general
+prostitution of equipage and retinue is as destructive to all
+distinction, as the impertinence of one man, if permitted, would
+certainly be to that illustrious fraternity.
+
+
+ADVERTISEMENT.
+
+The Censor having lately received intelligence, that the ancient
+simplicity in the dress and manners of that part of this island, called
+Scotland, begins to decay; and that there are at this time in the good
+town of Edinburgh, beaus, fops, and coxcombs: his late correspondent[153]
+from that place is desired to send up their names and characters with
+all expedition, that they may be proceeded against accordingly, and
+proper officers named to take in their canes, snuff-boxes, and all other
+useless necessaries commonly worn by such offenders.
+
+
+[Footnote 151: Cf. Steele's "Lover," No. 13: "I might have been a king
+at questions and commands." This game is mentioned several times in the
+_Spectator_.]
+
+[Footnote 152: General Cornelius Wood, son of the Rev. Seth Wood, was
+born in 1636. He served for four years as a private soldier, before he
+was advanced to be a sub-brigadier; after which his rise was rapid,
+owing entirely to his signal valour, his strict justice, and extensive
+humanity. The Prince of Orange, on his accession to the throne, gave him
+a troop of horse, in the regiment commanded by George Lord Huet; he was
+made a colonel of horse in 1693; and a brigadier-general in 1702. His
+conduct and conversation in Ireland rendered him very acceptable to
+Marshal Schomberg; his valour was conspicuous at the Battle of Blenheim,
+after which the Duke of Marlborough declared him a major-general; it was
+no less signally manifested at Ramillies in 1706; the year following he
+was made a lieutenant-general of horse, in which post he arrived to be
+the eldest. In 1708, he was Governor of Ghent, and honoured by the
+burghers, in testimony of their singular satisfaction, with a large
+piece of plate, which he left as a legacy to the Duke of Ormond, to
+evince his gratitude for services received, and his esteem for that
+nobleman's illustrious character. In 1709, he gathered fresh laurels in
+the bloody field of Tanieres, and next year was again appointed Governor
+of Ghent; but in his march to that garrison, an unruly horse on which he
+rode, reared on end, and fell backwards upon him; his collar-bone was
+broken, and his stomach so bruised by this accident, that he never was
+well after. He languished about two years, and died at the Gravel-pits
+near Kensington, on the 17th of May 1712, in the 75th year of his age.
+He never married (Nichols). Prior, in his poem on the Battle of
+Blenheim, says:
+
+    "Let generous Sylvius stand for honest Wood."
+]
+
+[Footnote 153: "Osyris"; see No. 143.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 145.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Saturday, March 11_, to _Tuesday, March 14, 1709-10_.
+
+    Nescio quis teneros oculus mihi fascinat agnos.
+                                  VIRG., Eclog. iii. 103.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_White's Chocolate-house, March 13._
+
+This evening was allotted for taking into consideration a late request
+of two indulgent parents, touching the care of a young daughter, whom
+they design to send to a boarding-school, or keep at home, according to
+my determination;[154] but I am diverted from that subject by letters
+which I have received from several ladies, complaining of a certain sect
+of professed enemies to the repose of the fair sex, called Oglers. These
+are, it seems, gentlemen who look with deep attention on one object at
+the playhouses, and are ever staring all round them in churches. It is
+urged by my correspondents, that they do all that is possible to keep
+their eyes off these ensnarers; but that, by what power they know not,
+both their diversions and devotions are interrupted by them in such a
+manner, as that they cannot attend either without stealing looks at the
+persons whose eyes are fixed upon them. By this means, my petitioners
+say, they find themselves grow insensibly less offended, and in time
+enamoured, of these their enemies. What is required of me on this
+occasion, is, that as I love and study to preserve the better part of
+mankind, the females, I would give them some account of this dangerous
+way of assault, against which there is so little defence, that it lays
+ambush for the sight itself, and makes them seeingly, knowingly,
+willingly, and forcibly go on to their own captivity.
+
+This representation of the present state of affairs between the two
+sexes gave me very much alarm; and I had no more to do, but to recollect
+what I had seen at any one assembly for some years last past, to be
+convinced of the truth and justice of this remonstrance. If there be not
+a stop put to this evil art, all the modes of address, and the elegant
+embellishments of life, which arise out of the noble passion of love,
+will of necessity decay. Who would be at the trouble of rhetoric, or
+study the _bon mien_, when his introduction is so much easier obtained
+by a sudden reverence in a downcast look at the meeting the eye of a
+fair lady, and beginning again to ogle her as soon as she glances
+another way? I remember very well, when I was last at an opera, I could
+perceive the eyes of the whole audience cast into particular cross
+angles one upon another, without any manner of regard to the stage,
+though King Latinus was himself present when I made that observation. It
+was then very pleasant to look into the hearts of the whole company; for
+the balls of sight are so formed, that one man's eyes are spectacles to
+another to read his heart with. The most ordinary beholder can take
+notice of any violent agitation in the mind, any pleasing transport, or
+any inward grief, in the person he looks at; but one of these oglers can
+see a studied indifference, a concealed love, or a smothered resentment,
+in the very glances that are made to hide those dispositions of thought.
+The naturalists tell us, that the rattlesnake will fix himself under a
+tree where he sees a squirrel playing; and when he has once got the
+exchange of a glance from the pretty wanton, will give it such a sudden
+stroke on its imagination, that though it may play from bough to bough,
+and strive to avert its eyes from it for some time, yet it comes nearer
+and nearer by little intervals of looking another way, till it drops
+into the jaws of the animal, which it knew gazed at it for no other
+reason but to ruin it. I did not believe this piece of philosophy till
+that night I was just now speaking of; but I then saw the same thing
+pass between an ogler and a coquette. Mirtillo, the most learned of the
+former, had for some time discontinued to visit Flavia, no less eminent
+among the latter. They industriously avoided all places where they might
+probably meet, but chance brought them together to the playhouse, and
+seated them in a direct line over against each other, she in a front
+box, he in the pit next the stage. As soon as Flavia had received the
+looks of the whole crowd below her with that air of insensibility which
+is necessary at the first entrance, she began to look round her and saw
+the vagabond Mirtillo, who had so long absented himself from her circle;
+and when she first discovered him, she looked upon him with that glance,
+which, in the language of oglers, is called the scornful, but
+immediately turned her observation another way, and returned upon him
+with the indifferent. This gave Mirtillo no small resentment; but he
+used her accordingly. He took care to be ready for her next glance. She
+found his eyes full in the indolent, with his lips crumpled up in the
+posture of one whistling. Her anger at this usage immediately appeared
+in every muscle of her face; and after many emotions, which glistened in
+her eyes, she cast them round the whole house, and gave them softnesses
+in the face of every man she had ever seen before. After she thought she
+had reduced all she saw to her obedience, the play began, and ended
+their dialogue. As soon as that was over, she stood up with a visage
+full of dissembled alacrity and pleasure, with which she overlooked the
+audience, and at last came to him: he was then placed in a side-way,
+with his hat slouching over his eyes, and gazing at a wench in the
+side-box,[155] as talking of that gipsy to the gentleman who sat by him.
+But as she was fixed upon him, he turned suddenly with a full face upon
+her, and with all the respect imaginable, made her the most obsequious
+bow in the presence of the whole theatre. This gave her a pleasure not
+to be concealed, and she made him the recovering or second curtsy, with
+a smile that spoke a perfect reconciliation. Between the ensuing acts,
+they talked to each other with gestures and glances so significant, that
+they ridiculed the whole house in this silent speech, and made an
+appointment that Mirtillo should lead her to her coach.
+
+The peculiar language of one eye, as it differs from another, as much as
+the tone of one voice from another, and the fascination or enchantment
+which is lodged in the optic nerves of the persons concerned in these
+dialogues, is, I must confess, too nice a subject for one who is not an
+adept in these speculations; but I shall, for the good and safety of the
+fair sex, call my learned friend Sir William Read[156] to my assistance,
+and, by the help of his observations on this organ, acquaint them when
+the eye is to be believed, and when distrusted. On the contrary, I shall
+conceal the true meaning of the looks of ladies, and indulge in them all
+the art they can acquire in the management of their glances: all which
+is but too little against creatures who triumph in falsehood, and begin
+to forswear with their eyes, when their tongues can be no longer
+believed.
+
+
+ADVERTISEMENT.
+
+A very clean, well-behaved young gentleman, who is in a very good way in
+Cornhill, has writ to me the following lines, and seems in some passages
+of his letter (which I omit) to lay it very much to heart, that I have
+not spoken of a supernatural beauty whom he sighs for, and complains to
+in most elaborate language. Alas! what can a monitor do? All mankind
+live in romance:
+
+                                         "Royal Exchange, _March 11_.
+     "MR. BICKERSTAFF,
+
+     "Some time since you were pleased to mention the beauties in the
+     New Exchange and Westminster Hall,[157] and in my judgment were not
+     very impartial; for if you were pleased to allow there was one
+     goddess in the New Exchange, and two shepherdesses in Westminster
+     Hall, you very well might say, there was and is at present one
+     angel in the Royal Exchange: and I humbly beg the favour of you to
+     let justice be done her, by inserting this in your next _Tatler_;
+     which will make her my good angel, and me your most humble servant,
+
+                                                         "A. B."[158]
+
+
+[Footnote 154: See No. 141.]
+
+[Footnote 155: See No. 50.]
+
+[Footnote 156: See No. 9.]
+
+[Footnote 157: See No. 139.]
+
+[Footnote 158: Perhaps Alexander Bayne; see No. 84.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 146.                                                    [ADDISON.
+
+From _Tuesday, March 14_, to _Thursday, March 16, 1709-10_.
+
+    Permittes ipsis expendere numinibus, quid
+    Conveniat nobis, rebusque sit utile nostris.
+    Nam pro jucundis aptissima quaeque dabunt Di.
+    Carior est illis homo, quam sibi. Nos animorum
+    Impulsu et caeca magnaque cupidine ducti
+    Conjugium petimus, partumque uxoris; at illis
+    Notum, qui pueri qualisque futura sit uxor.
+                                        JUV., Sat. x. 347.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, March 15._
+
+Among the various sets of correspondents who apply to me for advice, and
+send up their cases from all parts of Great Britain, there are none who
+are more importunate with me, and whom I am more inclined to answer,
+than the complainers. One of them dates his letter to me from the banks
+of a purling stream, where he used to ruminate in solitude upon the
+divine Clarissa, and where he is now looking about for a convenient
+leap, which he tells me he is resolved to take, unless I support him
+under the loss of that charming perjured woman. Poor Lavinia presses as
+much for consolation on the other side, and is reduced to such an
+extremity of despair by the inconstancy of Philander, that she tells me
+she writes her letter with her pen in one hand and her garter in the
+other. A gentleman of an ancient family in Norfolk is almost out of his
+wits upon account of a greyhound, that after having been his inseparable
+companion for ten years, is at last run mad. Another (who I believe is
+serious) complains to me, in a very moving manner, of the loss of a
+wife; and another, in terms still more moving, of a purse of money that
+was taken from him on Bagshot Heath, and which, he tells me, would not
+have troubled him if he had given it to the poor. In short, there is
+scarce a calamity in human life that has not produced me a letter.
+
+It is indeed wonderful to consider, how men are able to raise affliction
+to themselves out of everything. Lands and houses, sheep and oxen, can
+convey happiness and misery into the hearts of reasonable creatures.
+Nay, I have known a muff, a scarf, or a tippet, become a solid blessing
+or misfortune. A lap-dog has broke the hearts of thousands. Flavia, who
+had buried five children, and two husbands, was never able to get over
+the loss of her parrot. How often has a divine creature been thrown into
+a fit by a neglect at a ball or an assembly? Mopsa has kept her chamber
+ever since the last masquerade, and is in greater danger of her life
+upon being left out of it, than Clarinda from the violent cold which she
+caught at it. Nor are these dear creatures the only sufferers by such
+imaginary calamities: many an author has been dejected at the censure of
+one whom he ever looked upon as an idiot; and many a hero cast into a
+fit of melancholy, because the rabble have not hooted at him as he
+passed through the streets. Theron places all his happiness in a running
+horse, Suffenus in a gilded chariot, Fulvius in a blue string, and
+Florio in a tulip root. It would be endless to enumerate the many
+fantastical afflictions that disturb mankind; but as a misery is not to
+be measured from the nature of the evil, but from the temper of the
+sufferer, I shall present my readers, who are unhappy either in reality
+or imagination, with an allegory, for which I am indebted to the great
+father and prince of poets.
+
+As I was sitting after dinner in my elbow-chair, I took up Homer, and
+dipped into that famous speech of Achilles to Priam, in which he tells
+him, that Jupiter has by him two great vessels, the one filled with
+blessings, and the other with misfortunes; out of which he mingles a
+composition for every man that comes into the world. This passage so
+exceedingly pleased me, that as I fell insensibly into my afternoon's
+slumber, it wrought my imagination into the following dream:
+
+When Jupiter took into his hands the government of the world, the
+several parts of nature, with their presiding deities, did homage to
+him. One presented him with a mountain of winds, another with a magazine
+of hail, and a third with a pile of thunderbolts. The stars offered up
+their influences; the ocean gave in his trident, the earth her fruits,
+and the sun his seasons. Among the several deities who came to make
+their court on this occasion, the destinies advanced with two great tuns
+carried before them, one of which they fixed at the right hand of
+Jupiter as he sat upon his throne, and the other on his left. The first
+was filled with all the blessings, and the other with all the calamities
+of human life. Jupiter, in the beginning of his reign, finding the world
+much more innocent than it is in this iron age, poured very plentifully
+out of the tun that stood at his right hand; but as mankind degenerated,
+and became unworthy of his blessings, he set abroach the other vessel,
+that filled the world with pain and poverty, battles and distempers,
+jealousy and falsehood, intoxicating pleasures and untimely deaths.
+
+He was at length so very much incensed at the great depravation of human
+nature, and the repeated provocations which he received from all parts
+of the earth, that having resolved to destroy the whole species, except
+Deucalion and Pyrrha, he commanded the Destinies to gather up the
+blessings which he had thrown away upon the sons of men, and lay them up
+till the world should be inhabited by a more virtuous and deserving race
+of mortals.
+
+The three sisters immediately repaired to the earth, in search of the
+several blessings that had been scattered on it; but found the task
+which was enjoined them, to be much more difficult than they had
+imagined. The first places they resorted to, as the most likely to
+succeed in, were cities, palaces, and courts; but instead of meeting
+with what they looked for here, they found nothing but envy, repining,
+uneasiness, and the like bitter ingredients of the left-hand vessel.
+Whereas, to their great surprise, they discovered content, cheerfulness,
+health, innocence, and other the most substantial blessings of life, in
+cottages, shades, and solitudes.
+
+There was another circumstance no less unexpected than the former, and
+which gave them very great perplexity in the discharge of the trust
+which Jupiter had committed to them. They observed, that several
+blessings had degenerated into calamities, and that several calamities
+had improved into blessings, according as they fell into the possession
+of wise or foolish men. They often found power, with so much insolence
+and impatience cleaving to it, that it became a misfortune to the person
+on whom it was conferred. Youth had often distempers growing about it,
+worse than the infirmities of old age: wealth was often united to such a
+sordid avarice, as made it the most uncomfortable and painful kind of
+poverty. On the contrary, they often found pain made glorious by
+fortitude, poverty lost in content, deformity beautified with virtue. In
+a word, the blessings were often like good fruits planted in a bad
+soil, that by degrees fall off from their natural relish, into tastes
+altogether insipid or unwholesome; and the calamities, like harsh
+fruits, cultivated in a good soil, and enriched by proper grafts and
+inoculations, till they swell with generous and delightful juices.
+
+There was still a third circumstance that occasioned as great a surprise
+to the three sisters as either of the foregoing, when they discovered
+several blessings and calamities which had never been in either of the
+tuns that stood by the throne of Jupiter, and were nevertheless as great
+occasions of happiness or misery as any there. These were that spurious
+crop of blessings and calamities which were never sown by the hand of
+the Deity, but grow of themselves out of the fancies and dispositions of
+human creatures. Such are dress, titles, place, equipage, false shame,
+and groundless fear, with the like vain imaginations that shoot up in
+trifling, weak, and irresolute minds.
+
+The Destinies finding themselves in so great a perplexity, concluded,
+that it would be impossible for them to execute the commands that had
+been given them according to their first intention; for which reason
+they agreed to throw all the blessings and calamities together into one
+large vessel, and in that manner offer them up at the feet of Jupiter.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This was performed accordingly, the eldest sister presenting herself
+before the vessel, and introducing it with an apology for what they had
+done.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"O Jupiter!" says she, "we have gathered together all the good and evil,
+the comforts and distresses of human life, which we thus present before
+thee in one promiscuous heap. We beseech thee that thou thyself wilt
+sort them out for the future, as in thy wisdom thou shalt think fit. For
+we acknowledge, that there is none beside thee that can judge what will
+occasion grief or joy in the heart of a human creature, and what will
+prove a blessing or a calamity to the person on whom it is bestowed."
+
+
+
+
+No. 147.                                         [ADDISON AND STEELE.
+
+From _Thurs., March 16_, to _Satur., March 18, 1709-10_.
+
+    ----Ut ameris, amabilis esto.--OVID., Ars Am. ii. 107.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, March 17._
+
+Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. As by the one,
+health is preserved, strengthened and invigorated; by the other, virtue
+(which is the health of the mind) is kept alive, cherished and
+confirmed. But as exercise becomes tedious and painful when we make use
+of it only as the means of health, so reading is apt to grow uneasy and
+burdensome, when we apply ourselves to it only for our improvement in
+virtue. For this reason, the virtue which we gather from a fable, or an
+allegory, is like the health we get by hunting; as we are engaged in an
+agreeable pursuit that draws us on with pleasure, and makes us
+insensible of the fatigues that accompany it.
+
+After this preface, I shall set down a very beautiful allegorical fable
+out of the great poet whom I mentioned in my last paper, and whom it is
+very difficult to lay aside when one is engaged in the reading of him.
+And this I particularly design for the use of several of my fair
+correspondents, who in their letters have complained to me, that they
+have lost the affections of their husbands, and desire my advice how to
+recover them.
+
+Juno, says Homer,[159] seeing her Jupiter seated on the top of Mount
+Ida, and knowing that he had conceived an aversion to her, began to
+study how she should regain his affections, and make herself amiable to
+him. With this thought she immediately retired into her chamber, where
+she bathed herself in ambrosia, which gave her person all its beauty,
+and diffused so divine an odour, as refreshed all nature, and sweetened
+both heaven and earth. She let her immortal tresses flow in the most
+graceful manner, and took a particular care to dress herself in several
+ornaments, which the poet describes at length, and which the goddess
+chose out as the most proper to set off her person to the best
+advantage. In the next place, she made a visit to Venus, the deity who
+presides over love, and begged of her, as a particular favour, that she
+would lend her for a while those charms with which she subdued the
+hearts both of gods and men. "For," says the goddess, "I would make use
+of them to reconcile the two deities who took care of me in my infancy,
+and who, at present, are at so great a variance, that they are estranged
+from each other's bed." Venus was proud of an opportunity of obliging so
+great a goddess, and therefore made her a present of the cestus which
+she used to wear about her own waist, with advice to hide it in her
+bosom till she had accomplished her intention. This cestus was a fine
+parti-coloured girdle, which, as Homer tells us, had all the attractions
+of the sex wrought into it. The four principal figures in the embroidery
+were Love, Desire, Fondness of Speech, and Conversation, filled with
+that sweetness and complacency, which, says the poet, insensibly steal
+away the hearts of the wisest men.
+
+Juno, after having made these necessary preparations, came as by
+accident into the presence of Jupiter, who is said to have been as much
+inflamed with her beauty, as when he first stole to her embraces without
+the consent of their parents. Juno, to cover her real thoughts, told
+him as she had told Venus, that she was going to make a visit to
+Oceanus and Tethys. He prevailed upon her to stay with him, protesting
+to her, that she appeared more amiable in his eye than ever any mortal,
+goddess, or even herself, had appeared to him till that day. The poet
+then represents him in so great an ardour, that (without going up to the
+house which had been built by the hands of Vulcan according to Juno's
+direction) he threw a golden cloud over their heads as they sat upon the
+top of Mount Ida, while the earth beneath them sprung up in
+lotuses,[160] saffrons, hyacinths, and a bed of the softest flowers for
+their repose.
+
+This close translation of one of the finest passages in Homer, may
+suggest abundance of instruction to a woman who has a mind to preserve
+or recall the affection of her husband. The care of the person and the
+dress, with the particular blandishments woven in the cestus, are so
+plainly recommended by this fable, and so indispensably necessary in
+every female who desires to please, that they need no further
+explanation. The discretion likewise in covering all matrimonial
+quarrels from the knowledge of others, is taught in the pretended visit
+to Tethys, in the speech where Juno addresses herself to Venus; as the
+chaste and prudent management of a wife's charms is intimated by the
+same pretence for her appearing before Jupiter, and by the concealment
+of the cestus in her bosom.
+
+I shall leave this tale to the consideration of such good housewives who
+are never well dressed but when they are abroad, and think it necessary
+to appear more agreeable to all men living than their husbands: as also
+to those prudent ladies, who, to avoid the appearance of being
+overfond, entertain their husband with indifference, aversion, sullen
+silence, or exasperating language.[161]
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, March 17._
+
+Upon my coming home last night, I found a very handsome present of wine
+left for me, as a taste of 216 hogsheads which are to be put to sale at
+L20 a hogshead, at Garraway's Coffee-house in Exchange Alley, on the
+22nd instant, at three in the afternoon, and to be tasted in Major
+Long's vaults from the 20th instant till the time of sale.[162] This
+having been sent to me with a desire that I would give my judgment upon
+it, I immediately impanelled a jury of men of nice palates and strong
+heads, who being all of them very scrupulous, and unwilling to proceed
+rashly in a matter of so great importance, refused to bring in their
+verdict till three in the morning; at which time the foreman pronounced,
+as well as he was able, "Extra--a--ordinary French claret." For my own
+part, as I love to consult my pillow in all points of moment, I slept
+upon it before I would give my sentence, and this morning confirmed the
+verdict.
+
+Having mentioned this tribute of wine, I must give notice to my
+correspondents for the future, who shall apply to me on this occasion,
+that as I shall decide nothing unadvisedly in matters of this nature, I
+cannot pretend to give judgment of a right good liquor, without
+examining at least three dozen bottles of it. I must at the same time do
+myself the justice to let the world know, that I have resisted great
+temptations in this kind; as it is well known to a butcher in Clare
+Market, who endeavoured to corrupt me with a dozen and a half of
+marrow-bones. I had likewise a bribe sent me by a fishmonger, consisting
+of a collar of brawn, and a joll of salmon; but not finding them
+excellent in their kinds, I had the integrity to eat them both up,
+without speaking one word of them. However, for the future, I shall have
+an eye to the diet of this great city, and will recommend the best and
+most wholesome food to them, if I receive these proper and respectful
+notices from the sellers, that it may not be said hereafter, my readers
+were better taught than fed.
+
+
+[Footnote 159: "Iliad," xiv. 157.]
+
+[Footnote 160: Lotus is the name of a native genus akin to the trefoil
+and clovers. It is best known as the supposed opium-like food of a
+people on the shores of the Mediterranean, visited by
+Ulysses,--Tennyson's "mild-eyed melancholy lotos-eaters," living in a
+land where all things always seemed the same.]
+
+[Footnote 161: The preceding portion of this paper was by Addison
+(Tickell)]
+
+[Footnote 162: This sale was advertised in No. 145.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 148.                                                    [ADDISON.
+
+From _Saturday, March 18_, to _Tuesday, March 21, 1709-10_.
+
+    ----Gustus elementa per omnia quaerunt,
+    Nunquam animo pretiis obstantibus.
+                                      JUV., Sat. xi. 14.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, March 20._
+
+Having intimated in my last paper, that I design to take under my
+inspection the diet of this great city, I shall begin with a very
+earnest and serious exhortation to all my well-disposed readers, that
+they would return to the food of their forefathers, and reconcile
+themselves to beef and mutton. This was the diet which bred that hardy
+race of mortals who won the fields of Cressy and Agincourt. I need not
+go up so high as the history of Guy Earl of Warwick, who is well known
+to have eaten up a dun cow of his own killing.[163] The renowned King
+Arthur is generally looked upon as the first who ever sat down to a
+whole roasted ox (which was certainly the best way to preserve the
+gravy), and it is further added, that he and his knights sat about it at
+his Round Table, and usually consumed it to the very bones before they
+would enter upon any debate of moment. The Black Prince was a professed
+lover of the brisket; not to mention the history of the sirloin, or the
+institution of the Order of Beef-eaters, which are all so many evident
+and undeniable marks of the great respect which our warlike predecessors
+have paid to this excellent food. The tables of the ancient gentry of
+this nation were covered thrice a day with hot roast beef; and I am
+credibly informed, by an antiquary who has searched the registers in
+which the bills of fare of the Court are recorded, that instead of tea
+and bread and butter, which have prevailed of late years, the maids of
+honour in Queen Elizabeth's time were allowed three rumps of beef for
+their breakfast. Mutton has likewise been in great repute among our
+valiant countrymen, but was formerly observed to be the food rather of
+men of nice and delicate appetites, than those of strong and robust
+constitutions. For which reason, even to this day, we use the word
+"sheep-biter" as a term of reproach, as we do "beef-eater" in a
+respectful and honourable sense. As for the flesh of lamb, veal,
+chicken, and other animals under age, they were the invention of sickly
+and degenerate palates, according to that wholesome remark of Daniel the
+historian,[164] who takes notice, that in all taxes upon provisions,
+during the reigns of several of our kings, there is nothing mentioned
+besides the flesh of such fowl and cattle as were arrived at their full
+growth, and were mature for slaughter. The common people of this kingdom
+do still keep up the taste of their ancestors; and it is to this that we
+in a great measure owe the unparalleled victories that have been gained
+in this reign: for, I would desire my reader to consider, what work our
+countrymen would have made at Blenheim and Ramillies, if they had been
+fed with fricassees and ragouts.
+
+For this reason, we at present see the florid complexion, the strong
+limb, and the hale constitution, are to be found chiefly among the
+meaner sort of people, or in the wild gentry, who have been educated
+among the woods or mountains. Whereas many great families are insensibly
+fallen off from the athletic constitution of their progenitors, and are
+dwindled away into a pale, sickly, spindle-legged, generation of
+valetudinarians.
+
+I may perhaps be thought extravagant in my notion; but I must confess, I
+am apt to impute the dishonours that sometimes happen in great families
+to the inflaming kind of diet which is so much in fashion. Many dishes
+can excite desire without giving strength, and heat the body without
+nourishing it; as physicians observe, that the poorest and most
+dispirited blood is most subject to fevers. I look upon a French ragout
+to be as pernicious to the stomach as a glass of spirits; and when I
+have seen a young lady swallow all the instigations of high soups,
+seasoned sauces, and forced meats, I have wondered at the despair or
+tedious sighing of her lovers.
+
+The rules among these false delicates are to be as contradictory as they
+can be to nature.
+
+Without expecting the return of hunger, they eat for an appetite, and
+prepare dishes not to allay, but to excite it.
+
+They admit of nothing at their tables, in its natural form, or without
+some disguise.
+
+They are to eat everything before it comes in season, and to leave it
+off as soon as it is good to be eaten.
+
+They are not to approve anything that is agreeable to ordinary palates;
+and nothing is to gratify their senses, but what would offend those of
+their inferiors.
+
+I remember I was last summer invited to a friend's house, who is a great
+admirer of the French cookery, and (as the phrase is) eats well. At our
+sitting down, I found the table covered with a great variety of unknown
+dishes. I was mightily at a loss to learn what they were, and therefore
+did not know where to help myself. That which stood before me, I took to
+be a roasted porcupine, however did not care for asking questions; and
+have since been informed, that it was only a larded turkey. I afterwards
+passed my eye over several hashes, which I do not know the names of to
+this day; and hearing that they were delicacies, did not think fit to
+meddle with them.
+
+Among other dainties, I saw something like a pheasant, and therefore
+desired to be helped to a wing of it; but to my great surprise, my
+friend told me it was a rabbit, which is a sort of meat I never cared
+for. At last I discovered, with some joy, a pig at the lower end of the
+table, and begged a gentleman that was near it to cut me a piece of it.
+Upon which the gentleman of the house said, with great civility, "I am
+sure you will like the pig, for it was whipped to death." I must
+confess, I heard him with horror, and could not eat of an animal that
+had died so tragical a death. I was now in great hunger and confusion,
+when, methought, I smelt the agreeable savour of roast beef, but could
+not tell from which dish it arose, though I did not question but it lay
+disguised in one of them. Upon turning my head, I saw a noble sirloin on
+the side-table smoking in the most delicious manner. I had recourse to
+it more than once, and could not see, without some indignation, that
+substantial English dish banished in so ignominious a manner, to make
+way for French kickshaws.
+
+The dessert was brought up at last, which in truth was as extraordinary
+as anything that had come before it. The whole, when ranged in its
+proper order, looked like a very beautiful winter-piece. There were
+several pyramids of candied sweetmeats, that hung like icicles, with
+fruit scattered up and down, and hid in an artificial kind of frost. At
+the same time there were great quantities of cream beaten up into a
+snow, and near them little plates of sugar-plums, disposed like so many
+heaps of hailstones, with a multitude of congelations in jellies of
+various colours. I was indeed so pleased with the several objects which
+lay before me, that I did not care for displacing any of them, and was
+half angry with the rest of the company, that for the sake of a piece of
+lemon-peel, or a sugar-plum, would spoil so pleasing a picture. Indeed,
+I could not but smile to see several of them cooling their mouths with
+lumps of ice which they had just before been burning with salts and
+peppers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As soon as this show was over I took my leave, that I might finish my
+dinner at my own house: for as I in every thing love what is simple and
+natural, so particularly in my food; two plain dishes, with two or three
+good-natured, cheerful, ingenious friends, would make me more pleased
+and vain, than all that pomp and luxury can bestow. For it is my maxim,
+that he keeps the greatest table, who has the most valuable company at
+it.
+
+
+[Footnote 163: Butler, speaking of Talgol ("Hudibras," Part I. canto ii.
+305), says:
+
+    "He many a boar and huge dun-cow
+    Did, like another Guy, o'erthrow,
+    But Guy, with him in fight compared,
+    Had like the boar or dun-cow fared."
+]
+
+[Footnote 164: Samuel Daniel's "History" was published in 1613.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 149.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Tuesday, March 21_, to _Thursday, March 23, 1709-10_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, March 22._
+
+It has often been a solid grief to me, when I have reflected on this
+glorious nation, which is the scene of public happiness and liberty,
+that there are still crowds of private tyrants, against whom there
+neither is any law now in being, nor can there be invented any by the
+wit of man. These cruel men are ill-natured husbands. The commerce in
+the conjugal state is so delicate, that it is impossible to prescribe
+rules for the conduct of it, so as to fit ten thousand nameless
+pleasures and disquietudes which arise to people in that condition. But
+it is in this as in some other nice cases, where touching upon the
+malady tenderly, is half way to the cure; and there are some faults
+which need only to be observed to be amended. I am put into this way of
+thinking by a late conversation which I am going to give an account of.
+
+I made a visit the other day to a family for which I have a great
+honour, and found the father, the mother, and two or three of the
+younger children, drop off designedly to leave me alone with the eldest
+daughter, who was but a visitant there as well as myself, and is the
+wife of a gentleman of a very fair character in the world. As soon as we
+were alone, I saw her eyes full of tears, and methought she had much to
+say to me, for which she wanted encouragement. "Madam," said I, "you
+know I wish you all as well as any friend you have: speak freely what I
+see you are oppressed with, and you may be sure, if I cannot relieve
+your distress, you may at least reap so much present advantage, as
+safely to give yourself the ease of uttering it." She immediately
+assumed the most becoming composure of countenance, and spoke as
+follows: "It is an aggravation of affliction in a married life, that
+there is a sort of guilt in communicating it: for which reason it is,
+that a lady of your and my acquaintance, instead of speaking to you
+herself, desired me the next time I saw you, as you are a professed
+friend to our sex, to turn your thoughts upon the reciprocal
+complaisance which is the duty of a married state.
+
+"My friend was neither in fortune, birth nor education, below the
+gentleman whom she has married. Her person, her age, and her character,
+are also such as he can make no exception to. But so it is, that from
+the moment the marriage ceremony was over, the obsequiousness of a lover
+was turned into the haughtiness of a master. All the kind endeavours
+which she uses to please him, are at best but so many instances of her
+duty. This insolence takes away that secret satisfaction, which does not
+only excite to virtue, but also rewards it. It abates the fire of a free
+and generous love, and embitters all the pleasures of a social life."
+The young lady spoke all this with such an air of resentment, as
+discovered how nearly she was concerned in the distress.
+
+When I observed she had done speaking, "Madam," said I, "the affliction
+you mention is the greatest that can happen in human life, and I know
+but one consolation in it, if that be a consolation, that the calamity
+is a pretty general one. There is nothing so common as for men to enter
+into marriage, without so much as expecting to be happy in it. They seem
+to propose to themselves a few holidays in the beginning of it; after
+which they are to return at best to the usual course of their life; and
+for aught they know, to constant misery and uneasiness. From this false
+sense of the state they are going into, proceeds the immediate coldness
+and indifference, or hatred and aversion, which attend ordinary
+marriages, or rather bargains to cohabit." Our conversation was here
+interrupted by company which came in upon us.
+
+The humour of affecting a superior carriage, generally rises from a
+false notion of the weakness of a female understanding in general, or an
+overweening opinion that we have of our own: for when it proceeds from a
+natural ruggedness and brutality of temper, it is altogether
+incorrigible, and not to be amended by admonition. Sir Francis Bacon, as
+I remember, lays it down as a maxim, that no marriage can be happy in
+which the wife has no opinion of her husband's wisdom;[165] but without
+offence to so great an authority, I may venture to say, that a
+sullen-wise man is as bad as a good-natured fool. Knowledge, softened
+with complacency and good breeding, will make a man equally beloved and
+respected; but when joined with a severe, distant and unsociable temper,
+it creates rather fear than love. I who am a bachelor, have no other
+notion of conjugal tenderness, but what I learn from books, and shall
+therefore produce three letters of Pliny,[166] who was not only one of
+the greatest, but the most learned men in the whole Roman Empire. At the
+same time I am very much ashamed, that on such occasions I am obliged to
+have recourse to heathen authors, and shall appeal to my readers, if
+they would not think it a mark of a narrow education in a man of quality
+to write such passionate letters to any woman but a mistress. They were
+all three written at a time when she was at a distance from him: the
+first of them puts me in mind of a married friend of mine, who said,
+sickness itself is pleasant to a man that is attended in it by one whom
+he dearly loves.
+
+
+_Pliny to Calphurnia._
+
+"I never was so much offended at business, as when it hindered me from
+going with you into the country, or following you thither: for I more
+particularly wish to be with you at present, that I might be sensible of
+the progress you make in the recovery of your strength and health; as
+also of the entertainment and diversions you can meet with in your
+retirement. Believe me, it is an anxious state of mind to live in
+ignorance of what happens to those whom we passionately love. I am not
+only in pain for your absence, but also for your indisposition. I am
+afraid of everything, fancy everything, and, as it is the nature of men
+in fear, I fancy those things most which I am most afraid of. Let me
+therefore earnestly desire you to favour me under these my apprehensions
+with one letter every day, or, if possible, with two; for I shall be a
+little at ease while I am reading your letters, and grow anxious again
+as soon as I have read them."
+
+
+_Second Letter._
+
+"You tell me that you are very much afflicted at my absence, and that
+you have no satisfaction in anything but my writings, which you often
+lay by you upon my pillow. You oblige me very much in wishing to see me,
+and making me your comforter in my absence. In return, I must let you
+know, I am no less pleased with the letters which you writ to me, and
+read them over a thousand times with new pleasure. If your letters are
+capable of giving me so much pleasure, what would your conversation do?
+Let me beg of you to write to me often; though at the same time I must
+confess, your letters give me anguish whilst they give me pleasure."
+
+
+_Third Letter._
+
+"It is impossible to conceive how much I languish for you in your
+absence; the tender love I bear you is the chief cause of this my
+uneasiness, which is still the more insupportable, because absence is
+wholly a new thing to us. I lie awake most part of the night in thinking
+of you, and several times of the day go as naturally to your apartment,
+as if you were there to receive me; but when I miss you, I come away
+dejected, out of humour, and like a man that had suffered a repulse.
+There is but one part of the day in which I am relieved from this
+anxiety, and that is when I am engaged in public affairs.
+
+"You may guess at the uneasy condition of one who has no rest but in
+business, no consolation but in trouble."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I shall conclude this paper with a beautiful passage out of Milton,[167]
+and leave it as a lecture to those of my own sex, who have a mind to
+make their conversation agreeable as well as instructive, to the fair
+partners who are fallen into their care. Eve, having observed that Adam
+was entering into some deep disquisitions with the angel, who was sent
+to visit him, is described as retiring from their company, with a design
+of learning what should pass there from her husband.
+
+    _So spake our sire, and by his countenance seemed
+    Entering on studious thoughts abstruse, which Eve
+    Perceiving where she sat retired in sight,
+    With lowliness majestic from her seat
+    Rose, and went forth among her fruits and flowers.
+    Yet went she not, as not with such discourse
+    Delighted, or not capable her ear
+    Of what was high: such pleasure she reserved,
+    Adam relating, she sole auditress;
+    Her husband the relater she preferred
+    Before the angel, and of him to ask
+    Chose rather: he, she knew, would intermix
+    Grateful digressions, and solve high dispute
+    With conjugal caresses; from his lip
+    Not words alone pleased her. O! when meet now
+    Such pairs, in love and mutual honour joined?_
+
+
+[Footnote 165: Bacon, Essay viii., "Of marriage and single life": "It is
+one of the best bonds, both of chastity and obedience, in the wife, if
+she thinks her husband wise, which she will never do if she finds him
+jealous."]
+
+[Footnote 166: "Epist.," vi. 4, 7, 5.]
+
+[Footnote 167: "Paradise Lost," viii. 39.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 150.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Thursday, March 23_, to _Saturday, March 25, 1710_.
+
+    Haec sunt jucundi causa, cibusque mali.
+                          OVID, Rem. Amor. 138.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, March 24._
+
+I have received the following letter upon the subject of my last paper.
+The writer of it tells me, I there spoke of marriage as one that knows
+it only by speculation, and for that reason he sends me his sense of it,
+as drawn from experience:
+
+     "MR. BICKERSTAFF,
+
+     "I have read your paper of this day, and think you have done the
+     nuptial state a great deal of justice in the authority you give us
+     of Pliny, whose letters to his wife you have there translated: but
+     give me leave to tell you, that it is impossible for you, that are
+     a bachelor, to have so just a notion of this way of life, as to
+     touch the affections of your readers in a particular wherein every
+     man's own heart suggests more than the nicest observer can form to
+     himself without experience. I therefore, who am an old married man,
+     have sat down to give you an account of the matter from my own
+     knowledge, and the observations which I have made upon the conduct
+     of others in that most agreeable or wretched condition.
+
+     "It is very commonly observed, that the most smart pangs which we
+     meet with are in the beginning of wedlock, which proceed from
+     ignorance of each other's humour, and want of prudence to make
+     allowances for a change from the most careful respect to the most
+     unbounded familiarity. Hence it arises, that trifles are commonly
+     occasions of the greatest anxiety; for contradiction being a thing
+     wholly unusual between a new married couple, the smallest instance
+     of it is taken for the highest injury; and it very seldom happens,
+     that the man is slow enough in assuming the character of a husband,
+     or the woman quick enough in condescending to that of a wife. It
+     immediately follows, that they think they have all the time of
+     their courtship been talking in masks to each other, and therefore
+     begin to act like disappointed people. Philander finds Delia
+     ill-natured and impertinent; and Delia, Philander surly and
+     inconstant.
+
+     "I have known a fond couple quarrel in the very honeymoon about
+     cutting up a tart: nay, I could name two, who after having had
+     seven children, fell out and parted beds upon the boiling of a leg
+     of mutton. My very next neighbours have not spoken to one another
+     these three days, because they differed in their opinions, whether
+     the clock should stand by the window, or over the chimney. It may
+     seem strange to you, who are not a married man, when I tell you how
+     the least trifle can strike a woman dumb for a week together. But
+     if you ever enter into this state, you will find, that the soft sex
+     as often express their anger by an obstinate silence, as by an
+     ungovernable clamour.
+
+     "Those indeed who begin this course of life without jars at their
+     setting out, arrive within few months at a pitch of benevolence
+     and affection, of which the most perfect friendship is but a faint
+     resemblance. As in the unfortunate marriage, the most minute and
+     indifferent things are objects of the sharpest resentment; so in a
+     happy one, they are occasions of the most exquisite satisfaction.
+     For what does not oblige in one we love? What does not offend in
+     one we dislike? For these reasons I take it for a rule, that in
+     marriage, the chief business is to acquire a prepossession in
+     favour of each other. They should consider one another's words and
+     actions with a secret indulgence: there should be always an inward
+     fondness pleading for each other, such as may add new beauties to
+     everything that is excellent, give charms to what is indifferent,
+     and cover everything that is defective. For want of this kind
+     propensity and bias of mind, the married pair often take things ill
+     of each other, which no one else would take notice of in either of
+     them.
+
+     "But the most unhappy circumstance of all is, where each party is
+     always laying up fuel for dissension, and gathering together a
+     magazine of provocations to exasperate each other with when they
+     are out of humour. These people in common discourse make no scruple
+     to let those who are by know they are quarrelling with one another,
+     and think they are discreet enough, if they conceal from the
+     company the matters which they are hinting at. About a week ago, I
+     was entertained for a whole dinner with a mysterious conversation
+     of this nature; out of which I could learn no more, than that the
+     husband and wife were angry at one another. We had no sooner sat
+     down, but says the gentleman of the house, in order to raise
+     discourse, 'I thought Margarita[168] sung extremely well last
+     night.' Upon this, says the lady, looking as pale as ashes, 'I
+     suppose she had cherry-coloured ribands[169] on.' 'No,' answered
+     the husband, with a flush in his face, 'but she had laced
+     shoes.'[170] I look upon it, that a bystander on such occasions has
+     as much reason to be out of countenance as either of the
+     combatants. To turn off my confusion, and seem regardless of what
+     had passed, I desired the servant who attended to give me the
+     vinegar, which unluckily created a new dialogue of hints; for as
+     far as I could gather by the subsequent discourse, they had
+     dissented the day before about the preference of elder to wine
+     vinegar. In the midst of their discourse, there appeared a dish of
+     chickens and asparagus, when the husband seemed disposed to lay
+     aside all disputes; and looking upon her with a great deal of good
+     nature, said, 'Pray, my dear, will you help my friend to a wing of
+     the fowl that lies next you, for I think it looks extremely well.'
+     The lady, instead of answering him, addressing herself to me,
+     'Pray, sir,' said she, 'do you in Surrey reckon the white- or the
+     black-legged fowls the best?' I found the husband changed colour at
+     the question; and before I could answer, asked me, whether we did
+     not call hops 'broom' in our country? I quickly found, they did not
+     ask questions so much out of curiosity as anger: for which reason I
+     thought fit to keep my opinion to myself, and, as an honest man
+     ought (when he sees two friends in warmth with each other), I took
+     the first opportunity I could to leave them by themselves.
+
+     "You see, sir, I have laid before you only small incidents, which
+     are seemingly trivial; but take it from a man who am very well
+     experienced in this state, they are principally evils of this
+     nature which make marriages unhappy. At the same time, that I may
+     do justice to this excellent institution, I must own to you, there
+     are unspeakable pleasures which are as little regarded in the
+     computation of the advantages of marriage, as the others are in the
+     usual survey that is made of its misfortunes.
+
+     "Lovemore and his wife live together in the happy possession of
+     each other's hearts, and by that means have no indifferent moments,
+     but their whole life is one continued scene of delight. Their
+     passion for each other communicates a certain satisfaction, like
+     that which they themselves are in, to all that approach them. When
+     she enters the place where he is, you see a pleasure which he
+     cannot conceal, nor he or any one else describe. In so consummate
+     an affection, the very presence of the person beloved has the
+     effect of the most agreeable conversation. Whether they have matter
+     to talk of or not, they enjoy the pleasures of society, and at the
+     same time the freedom of solitude. Their ordinary life is to be
+     preferred to the happiest moments of other lovers. In a word, they
+     have each of them great merit, live in the esteem of all who know
+     them, and seem but to comply with the opinions of their friends, in
+     the just value they have for each other."
+
+
+[Footnote 168: Francesca Margarita de l'Epine, a native of Tuscany. This
+celebrated singer performed in many of the earlier Italian operas
+represented in England. She and Mrs. Tofts were rivals for the public
+favour, and it seems they divided pretty equally the applause of the
+town. She sung on the stage, at public entertainments, in concerts at
+York Buildings and Stationers' Hall, and once in the hall of the Middle
+Temple, in a musical performance at the Christmas revels of that
+society. One Greber, a German musician, who studied some few years in
+Italy, brought this Italian with him to England, whence she was known by
+the name of Greber's Peg. It is said that she had afterwards a criminal
+connection with Daniel Earl of Nottingham. In a shrewd epigram written
+by Lord Halifax, she is styled "The Tawny Tuscan," and he is called
+"Tall Nottingham." Margarita continued a singer till about the year
+1718, when, having, as Downes relates, scraped together above ten
+thousand guineas, she retired, and was afterwards married to Dr.
+Pepusch. The epithet "tawny" was very characteristic of her, for she was
+remarkably swarthy, and in general so destitute of personal charms, that
+her husband seldom called her by any other name than Hecate, to which
+she answered very readily. She died about 1740. See Sir J. Hawkin's
+"History of Music," vol. v. p. 153 (Nichols).--The statement that she
+had an improper connection with the Earl of Nottingham appears to rest
+solely on statements in party poems of the time.]
+
+[Footnote 169: Ladies wore "commodes" as head-dresses, sometimes backed
+by dark-coloured ribbons. The prevailing fashion about 1712 was cherry
+colour; see _Spectator_, No. 271.]
+
+[Footnote 170: In a song in D'Urfey's "Wit and Mirth"--"The Young Maid's
+Portion"--the lady speaks of her laced shoes of Spanish leather. Malcolm
+says that Spanish leather shoes laced with gold were common about this
+time (Planche's "Cyclopaedia of Costume").]
+
+
+
+
+No. 151.                                                [STEELE.[171]
+
+From _Saturday, March 25_, to _Tuesday, March 28, 1710_.
+
+                         ----Ni vis boni
+    In ipsa inesset forma, haec formam extinguerent.
+                                    TER., Phorm. I. ii. 58.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, March 27._
+
+When artists would expose their diamonds to an advantage, they usually
+set them to show in little cases of black velvet. By this means the
+jewels appear in their true and genuine lustre, while there is no colour
+that can infect their brightness, or give a false cast to the water.
+When I was at the opera the other night, the assembly of ladies in
+mourning[172] made me consider them in the same kind of view. A dress
+wherein there is so little variety, shows the face in all its natural
+charms, and makes one differ from another only as it is more or less
+beautiful. Painters are ever careful of offending against a rule which
+is so essential in all just representation. The chief figure must have
+the strongest point of light, and not be injured by any gay colourings
+that may draw away the attention to any less considerable part of the
+picture. The present fashion obliges everybody to be dressed with
+propriety, and makes the ladies' faces the principal objects of sight.
+Every beautiful person shines out in all the excellence with which
+Nature has adorned her: gaudy ribands and glaring colours being now out
+of use, the sex has no opportunity given them to disfigure themselves,
+which they seldom fail to do whenever it lies in their power. When a
+woman comes to her glass, she does not employ her time in making herself
+look more advantageously what she really is, but endeavours to be as
+much another creature as she possibly can. Whether this happens, because
+they stay so long, and attend their work so diligently, that they forget
+the faces and persons which they first sat down with, or whatever it is,
+they seldom rise from the toilet the same women they appeared when they
+began to dress. What jewel can the charming Cleora place in her ears,
+that can please her beholders so much as her eyes? The cluster of
+diamonds upon the breast can add no beauty to the fair chest of ivory
+which supports it. It may indeed tempt a man to steal a woman, but never
+to love her. Let Thalestris change herself into a motley parti-coloured
+animal: the pearl necklace, the flowered stomacher, the artificial
+nosegay, and shaded furbelow,[173] may be of use to attract the eye of
+the beholder, and turn it from the imperfections of her features and
+shape. But if ladies will take my word for it (and as they dress to
+please men, they ought to consult our fancy rather than their own in
+this particular), I can assure them, there is nothing touches our
+imagination so much as a beautiful woman in a plain dress. There might
+be more agreeable ornaments found in our own manufacture, than any that
+rise out of the looms of Persia.
+
+This, I know, is a very harsh doctrine to womankind, who are carried
+away with everything that is showy, and with what delights the eye, more
+than any other species of living creatures whatsoever. Were the minds of
+the sex laid open, we should find the chief idea in one to be a tippet,
+in another a muff, in a third a fan, and in a fourth a farthingale. The
+memory of an old visiting lady is so filled with gloves, silks, and
+ribands, that I can look upon it as nothing else but a toy-shop. A
+matron of my acquaintance complaining of her daughter's vanity, was
+observing, that she had all of a sudden held up her head higher than
+ordinary, and taken an air that showed a secret satisfaction in herself,
+mixed with a scorn of others. "I did not know," says my friend, "what to
+make of the carriage of this fantastical girl, until I was informed by
+her elder sister, that she had a pair of striped garters on." This odd
+turn of mind often makes the sex unhappy, and disposes them to be struck
+with everything that makes a show, however trifling and superficial.
+
+Many a lady has fetched a sigh at the toss of a wig, and been ruined by
+the tapping of a snuff-box. It is impossible to describe all the
+execution that was done by the shoulder-knot[174] while that fashion
+prevailed, or to reckon up all the virgins that have fallen a sacrifice
+to a pair of fringed gloves.[175] A sincere heart has not made half so
+many conquests as an open waistcoat,[176] and I should be glad to see an
+able head make so good a figure in a woman's company as a pair of red
+heels.[177] A Grecian hero,[178] when he was asked whether he could play
+upon the lute, thought he had made a very good reply when he answered,
+"No, but I can make a great city of a little one." Notwithstanding his
+boasted wisdom, I appeal to the heart of any toast in town, whether she
+would not think the lutenist preferable to the statesman. I do not speak
+this out of any aversion that I have to the sex: on the contrary, I have
+always had a tenderness for them; but I must confess, it troubles me
+very much to see the generality of them place their affections on
+improper objects, and give up all the pleasures of life for gewgaws and
+trifles.
+
+Mrs. Margery Bickerstaff, my great aunt, had a thousand pounds to her
+portion, which our family was desirous of keeping among themselves, and
+therefore used all possible means to turn off her thoughts from
+marriage. The method they took was, in any time of danger to throw a new
+gown or petticoat in her way. When she was about twenty-five years of
+age, she fell in love with a man of an agreeable temper, and equal
+fortune, and would certainly have married him, had not my grandfather,
+Sir Jacob, dressed her up in a suit of flowered satin; upon which, she
+set so immoderate a value upon herself, that the lover was contemned and
+discarded. In the fortieth year of her age, she was again smitten, but
+very luckily transferred her passion to a tippet, which was presented to
+her by another relation who was in the plot. This, with a white sarcenet
+hood, kept her safe in the family till fifty. About sixty, which
+generally produces a kind of latter spring[179] in amorous
+constitutions, my Aunt Margery had again a colt's-tooth[180] in her
+head, and would certainly have eloped from the mansion-house, had not
+her brother Simon, who was a wise man, and a scholar, advised to dress
+her in cherry-coloured ribands,[181] which was the only expedient that
+could have been found out by the wit of man to preserve the thousand
+pounds in our family, part of which I enjoy at this time.
+
+This discourse puts me in mind of a humorist mentioned by Horace,[182]
+called Eutrapelus, who, when he designed to do a man a mischief, made
+him a present of a gay suit; and brings to my memory another passage of
+the same author, when he describes the most ornamental dress that a
+woman can appear in with two words, _simplex munditiis_,[183] which I
+have quoted for the benefit of my female readers.
+
+
+[Footnote 171: This paper, though not included in Addison's Works, may,
+as Nichols suggested, be his. Two slight corrections were made in the
+following number in the folio issue.]
+
+[Footnote 172: See No. 8, with reference to the long-continued mourning,
+on the decease of the Queen's husband, George Prince of Denmark, who
+died in October 1708. Lewis Duke of Bourbon, eldest son to the Dauphin
+of France, died on March 3, about three weeks before the date of this
+paper. A month before, on February 2, 1709-10, in consequence of a
+petition presented by the mercers, &c., complaining of their sufferings
+from the length and frequency of public mournings, leave was given to
+bring in a Bill for ascertaining and limiting the time of them.]
+
+[Footnote 173: The furbelow was a puckered flounce ornamenting the
+dress. D'Urfey wrote a play, "The Old Mode and the New, or Country Miss
+with her Furbelow."]
+
+[Footnote 174: Introduced from France at the Restoration.]
+
+[Footnote 175: Gloves with silver fringe round the wrists. A
+Fringe-Glove Club is mentioned in No. 30 of the _Spectator_.]
+
+[Footnote 176: See No. 95.]
+
+[Footnote 177: See No. 45.]
+
+[Footnote 178: Themistocles.]
+
+[Footnote 179: Cf. "1 Henry IV." act i. sc. 2, where Prince Hal says to
+Falstaff, "Farewell, thou latter spring!"]
+
+[Footnote 180: A love of youthful pleasure. Cf. "Henry VIII." act i. sc.
+3,
+
+            "Well said, Lord Sands,
+ Your colt's tooth is not cast yet."
+]
+
+[Footnote 181: See No. 150]
+
+[Footnote 182: 1 Epist. xviii. 31.]
+
+[Footnote 183: 1 Od. v. 5.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 152.                                                    [ADDISON.
+
+From _Tuesday, March 28_, to _Thursday, March 30, 1710_.
+
+    Di, quibus imperium est animarum, Umbraeque silentes,
+    Et Chaos, et Phlegethon, loca nocte silentia late,
+    Sit mihi fas audita loqui; sit numine vestro
+    Pandere resalta terra et caligine mersas.
+                                          VIRG., AEn. vi. 264.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, March 29._
+
+A man who confines his speculations to the time present, has but a very
+narrow province to employ his thoughts in. For this reason, persons of
+studious and contemplative natures often entertain themselves with the
+history of past ages, or raise schemes and conjectures upon futurity.
+For my own part, I love to range through that half of eternity which is
+still to come, rather than look on that which is already run out;
+because I know I have a real share and interest in the one, whereas all
+that was transacted in the other can be only matter of curiosity to me.
+
+Upon this account, I have been always very much delighted with
+meditating on the soul's immortality, and in reading the several notions
+which the wisest of men, both ancient and modern, have entertained on
+that subject. What the opinions of the greatest philosophers have been,
+I have several times hinted at, and shall give an account of them from
+time to time as occasion requires. It may likewise be worth while to
+consider, what men of the most exalted genius, and elevated imagination,
+have thought of this matter. Among these, Homer stands up as a prodigy
+of mankind, that looks down upon the rest of human creatures as a
+species beneath him. Since he is the most ancient heathen author, we
+may guess from his relation, what were the common opinions in his time
+concerning the state of the soul after death.
+
+Ulysses, he tells us, made a voyage to the regions of the dead, in order
+to consult Tiresias how he should return to his own country, and
+recommend himself to the favour of the gods. The poet scarce introduces
+a single person, who does not suggest some useful precept to his reader,
+and designs his description of the dead for the amendment of the living.
+
+Ulysses, after having made a very plenteous sacrifice, sat him down by
+the pool of holy blood, which attracted a prodigious assembly of ghosts
+of all ages and conditions, that hovered about the hero, and feasted
+upon the steams of his oblation. The first he knew, was the shade of
+Elpenor, who, to show the activity of a spirit above that of body, is
+represented as arrived there long before Ulysses, notwithstanding the
+winds and seas had contributed all their force to hasten his voyage
+thither. This Elpenor, to inspire the reader with a detestation of
+drunkenness, and at the same time with a religious care of doing proper
+honours to the dead, describes himself as having broken his neck in a
+debauch of wine; and begs Ulysses, that for the repose of his soul, he
+would build a monument over him, and perform funeral rites to his
+memory. Ulysses with great sorrow of heart promises to fulfil his
+request, and is immediately diverted to an object much more moving than
+the former. The ghost of his own mother Anticlea, whom he still thought
+living, appears to him among the multitude of shades that surrounded
+him, and sits down at a small distance from him by the lake of blood,
+without speaking to him, or knowing who he was. Ulysses was exceedingly
+troubled at the sight, and could not forbear weeping as he looked upon
+her; but being all along set forth as a pattern of consummate wisdom,
+he makes his affection give way to prudence; and therefore, upon his
+seeing Tiresias, does not reveal himself to his mother, till he had
+consulted that great prophet, who was the occasion of this his descent
+into the empire of the dead. Tiresias having cautioned him to keep
+himself and his companions free from the guilt of sacrilege, and to pay
+his devotions to all the gods, promises him a safe return to his kingdom
+and family, and a happy old age in the enjoyment of them.
+
+The poet having thus with great art kept the curiosity of his reader in
+suspense, represents his wise man, after the despatch of his business
+with Tiresias, as yielding himself up to the calls of natural affection,
+and making himself known to his mother. Her eyes are no sooner opened,
+but she cries out in tears, "Oh my son!" and inquires into the occasions
+that brought him thither, and the fortune that attended him.
+
+Ulysses on the other hand desires to know, what the sickness was that
+had sent her into those regions, and the condition in which she had left
+his father, his son, and more particularly his wife. She tells him, they
+were all three inconsolable for his absence; "and as for myself," says
+she, "that was the sickness of which I died. My impatience for your
+return, my anxiety for your welfare, and my fondness for my dear
+Ulysses, were the only distempers that preyed upon my life, and
+separated my soul from my body." Ulysses was melted with these
+expressions of tenderness, and thrice endeavoured to catch the
+apparition in his arms, that he might hold his mother to his bosom and
+weep over her.
+
+This gives the poet occasion to describe the notion the heathens at that
+time had of an unbodied soul, in the excuse which the mother makes for
+seeming to withdraw herself from her son's embraces. "The soul," says
+she, "is composed neither of bones, flesh, nor sinews, but leaves behind
+her all those encumbrances of mortality to be consumed on the funeral
+pile. As soon as she has thus cast her burden she makes her escape, and
+flies away from it like a dream."
+
+When this melancholy conversation is at an end, the poet draws up to
+view as charming a vision as could enter into man's imagination. He
+describes the next who appeared to Ulysses, to have been the shades of
+the finest women that had ever lived upon the earth, and who had either
+been the daughters of kings, the mistresses of gods, or mothers of
+heroes, such as Antiope, Alcmena, Leda, Ariadne, Iphimedia, Eriphyle,
+and several others of whom he gives a catalogue, with a short history of
+their adventures. The beautiful assembly of apparitions were all
+gathered together about the blood: "each of them," says Ulysses (as a
+gentle satire upon female vanity), "giving me an account of her birth
+and family." This scene of extraordinary women seems to have been
+designed by the poet as a lecture of mortality to the whole sex, and to
+put them in mind of what they must expect, notwithstanding the greatest
+perfections, and highest honours, they can arrive at.
+
+The circle of beauties at length disappeared, and was succeeded by the
+shades of several Grecian heroes who had been engaged with Ulysses in
+the siege of Troy. The first that approached was Agamemnon, the
+generalissimo of that great expedition, who at the appearance of his old
+friend wept very bitterly, and without saying anything to him,
+endeavoured to grasp him by the hand. Ulysses, who was much moved at the
+sight, poured out a flood of tears, and asked him the occasion of his
+death, which Agamemnon related to him in all its tragical
+circumstances; how he was murdered at a banquet by the contrivance of
+his own wife, in confederacy with her adulterer: from whence he takes
+occasion to reproach the whole sex, after a manner which would be
+inexcusable in a man who had not been so great a sufferer by them. "My
+wife," says he, "has disgraced all the women that shall ever be born
+into the world, even those who hereafter shall be innocent. Take care
+how you grow too fond of your wife. Never tell her all you know. If you
+reveal some things to her, be sure you keep others concealed from her.
+You indeed have nothing to fear from your Penelope, she will not use you
+as my wife has treated me; however, take care how you trust a woman."
+The poet, in this and other instances, according to the system of many
+heathen as well as Christian philosophers, shows how anger, revenge, and
+other habits which the soul had contracted in the body, subsist and grow
+in it under its stage of separation.
+
+I am extremely pleased with the companions which the poet in the next
+description assigns to Achilles. "Achilles," says the hero, "came up to
+me with Patroclus and Antilochus." By which we may see that it was
+Homer's opinion, and probably that of the age he lived in, that the
+friendships which are made among the living will likewise continue among
+the dead. Achilles inquires after the welfare of his son, and of his
+father, with a fierceness of the same character that Homer has
+everywhere expressed in the actions of his life. The passage relating to
+his son is so extremely beautiful, that I must not omit it. Ulysses,
+after having described him as wise in council and active in war, and
+mentioned the foes whom he had slain in battle, adds an observation that
+he himself had made of his behaviour whilst he lay in the wooden horse.
+"Most of the generals," says he, "that were with us either wept or
+trembled: as for your son, I neither saw him wipe a tear from his
+cheeks, nor change his countenance. On the contrary, he would often lay
+his hand upon his sword, or grasp his spear, as impatient to employ them
+against the Trojans." He then informs his father of the great honour and
+rewards which he had purchased before Troy, and of his return from it
+without a wound. The shade of Achilles, says the poet, was so pleased
+with the account he received of his son, that he inquired no further,
+but stalked away with more than ordinary majesty over the green meadow
+that lay before them.
+
+This last circumstance of a deceased father's rejoicing in the behaviour
+of his son is very finely contrived by Homer, as an incentive to virtue,
+and made use of by none that I know besides himself.
+
+The description of Ajax, which follows, and his refusing to speak to
+Ulysses, who had won the armour of Achilles from him, and by that means
+occasioned his death, is admired by every one that reads it. When
+Ulysses relates the sullenness of his deportment, and considers the
+greatness of the hero, he expresses himself with generous and noble
+sentiments. "Oh! that I had never gained a prize which cost the life of
+so brave a man as Ajax! Who, for the beauty of his person, and greatness
+of his actions, was inferior to none but the divine Achilles." The same
+noble condescension, which never dwells but in truly great minds, and
+such as Homer would represent that of Ulysses to have been, discovers
+itself likewise in the speech which he made to the ghost of Ajax on that
+occasion. "O Ajax!" says he, "will you keep your resentments even after
+death? What destructions hath this fatal armour brought upon the Greeks,
+by robbing them of you, who were their bulwark and defence? Achilles is
+not more bitterly lamented among us than you. Impute not then your death
+to any one but Jupiter, who out of his anger to the Greeks, took you
+away from among them: let me entreat you to approach me; restrain the
+fierceness of your wrath, and the greatness of your soul, and hear what
+I have to say to you." Ajax, without making a reply, turned his back
+upon him, and retired into a crowd of ghosts.
+
+Ulysses, after all these visions, took a view of those impious wretches
+who lay in tortures for the crimes they had committed upon the earth,
+whom he describes under the varieties of pain, as so many marks of
+divine vengeance, to deter others from following their example. He then
+tells us that notwithstanding he had a great curiosity to see the heroes
+that lived in the ages before him, the ghosts began to gather about him
+in such prodigious multitudes, and with such a confusion of voices, that
+his heart trembled as he saw himself amidst so great a scene of horrors.
+He adds, that he was afraid lest some hideous spectre should appear to
+him, that might terrify him to distraction; and therefore withdrew in
+time.
+
+I question not but my reader will be pleased with this description of a
+future state, represented by such a noble and fruitful imagination, that
+had nothing to direct it besides the light of nature, and the opinions
+of a dark and ignorant age.
+
+
+
+
+No. 153.                                                    [ADDISON.
+
+From _Thursday, March 30_, to _Saturday, April 1, 1710_.
+
+    Bambalio, clangor, stridor, taratantara, murmur.--FARN., Rhet.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, March 31._
+
+I have heard of a very valuable picture, wherein all the painters of the
+age in which it was drawn are represented sitting together in a circle,
+and joining in a concert of music. Each of them plays upon such a
+particular instrument as is the most suitable to his character, and
+expresses that style and manner of painting which is peculiar to him.
+The famous cupola-painter of those times, to show the grandeur and
+boldness of his figures, has a horn in his mouth, which he seems to wind
+with great strength and force. On the contrary, an eminent artist, who
+wrought up his pictures with the greatest accuracy, and gave them all
+those delicate touches which are apt to please the nicest eye, is
+represented as tuning a theorbo. The same kind of humour runs through
+the whole piece.
+
+I have often from this hint imagined to myself, that different talents
+in discourse might be shadowed out after the same manner by different
+kinds of music; and that the several conversable parts of mankind in
+this great city might be cast into proper characters and divisions, as
+they resemble several instruments that are in use among the masters of
+harmony. Of these therefore in their order, and first of the drum.
+
+Your drums are the blusterers in conversation, that with a loud laugh,
+unnatural mirth, and a torrent of noise, domineer in public assemblies,
+overbear men of sense, stun their companions, and fill the place they
+are in with a rattling sound, that has seldom any wit, humour, or good
+breeding in it. The drum notwithstanding, by this boisterous vivacity,
+is very proper to impose upon the ignorant; and in conversation with
+ladies who are not of the finest taste, often passes for a man of mirth
+and wit, and for wonderful pleasant company. I need not observe, that
+the emptiness of the drum very much contributes to its noise.
+
+The lute is a character directly opposite to the drum, that sounds very
+finely by itself, or in a very small concert. Its notes are exquisitely
+sweet, and very low, easily drowned in a multitude of instruments, and
+even lost among a few, unless you give a particular attention to it. A
+lute is seldom heard in a company of more than five, whereas a drum will
+show itself to advantage in an assembly of five hundred. The lutenists
+therefore are men of a fine genius, uncommon reflection, great
+affability, and esteemed chiefly by persons of a good taste, who are the
+only proper judges of so delightful and soft a melody.
+
+The trumpet is an instrument that has in it no compass of music or
+variety of sound, but is notwithstanding very agreeable, so long as it
+keeps within its pitch. It has not above four or five notes, which are
+however very pleasing, and capable of exquisite turns and modulations.
+The gentlemen who fall under this denomination, are your men of the most
+fashionable education and refined breeding, who have learned a certain
+smoothness of discourse, and sprightliness of air, from the polite
+company they have kept; but at the same time they have shallow parts,
+weak judgments, and a short reach of understanding: a playhouse, a
+drawing-room, a ball, a visiting-day, or a Ring at Hyde Park, are the
+few notes they are masters of, which they touch upon in all
+conversations. The trumpet however is a necessary instrument about a
+Court, and a proper enlivener of a concert, though of no great harmony
+by itself.
+
+Violins are the lively, forward, importunate wits that distinguish
+themselves by the flourishes of imagination, sharpness of repartee,
+glances of satire, and bear away the upper part in every concert. I
+cannot however but observe that, when a man is not disposed to hear
+music, there is not a more disagreeable sound in harmony than that of a
+violin.
+
+There is another musical instrument, which is more frequent in this
+nation than any other; I mean your bass-viol, which grumbles in the
+bottom of the concert, and with a surly masculine sound strengthens the
+harmony, and tempers the sweetness of the several instruments that play
+along with it. The bass-viol is an instrument of a quite different
+nature to the trumpet, and may signify men of rough sense, and
+unpolished parts, who do not love to hear themselves talk, but sometimes
+break out with an agreeable bluntness, unexpected wit, and surly
+pleasantries, to the no small diversion of their friends and companions.
+In short, I look upon every sensible true-born Briton to be naturally a
+bass-viol.
+
+As for your rural wits, who talk with great eloquence and alacrity of
+foxes, hounds, horses, quickset hedges, and six-bar gates, double
+ditches, and broken necks, I am in doubt, whether I should give them a
+place in the conversable world. However, if they will content themselves
+with being raised to the dignity of hunting-horns, I shall desire for
+the future that they may be known by that name.
+
+I must not here omit the bagpipe species, that will entertain you from
+morning to night with the repetition of the few notes, which are played
+over and over, with the perpetual humming of a drone running underneath
+them. These are your dull, heavy, tedious storytellers, the load and
+burden of conversations, that set up for men of importance, by knowing
+secret history, and giving an account of transactions, that whether they
+ever passed in the world or not, does not signify a halfpenny to its
+instruction, or its welfare. Some have observed, that the northern parts
+of this island are more particularly fruitful in bagpipes.
+
+There are so very few persons who are masters in every kind of
+conversation, and can talk on all subjects, that I don't know whether
+we should make a distinct species of them: nevertheless, that my scheme
+may not be defective, for the sake of those few who are endowed with
+such extraordinary talents, I shall allow them to be harpsichords, a
+kind of music which every one knows is a concert by itself.
+
+As for your passing-bells, who look upon mirth as criminal, and talk of
+nothing but what is melancholy in itself, and mortifying to human
+nature, I shall not mention them.
+
+I shall likewise pass over in silence all the rabble of mankind that
+crowd our streets, coffee-houses, feasts, and public tables. I cannot
+call their discourse conversation, but rather something that is
+practised in imitation of it. For which reason, if I would describe them
+by any musical instrument, it should be by those modern inventions of
+the bladder and string, tongs and key, marrow-bone and cleaver.
+
+My reader will doubtless observe, that I have only touched here upon
+male instruments, having reserved my female concert to another occasion.
+If he has a mind to know where these several characters are to be met
+with, I could direct him to a whole club of drums; not to mention
+another of bagpipes, which I have before given some account of in my
+description of our nightly meetings in Sheer Lane. The lutes may often
+be met with in couples upon the banks of a crystal stream, or in the
+retreats of shady woods and flowery meadows; which for different reasons
+are likewise the great resort of your hunting-horns. Bass-viols are
+frequently to be found over a glass of stale beer and a pipe of tobacco;
+whereas those who set up for violins, seldom fail to make their
+appearance at Will's once every evening. You may meet with a trumpet
+anywhere on the other side of Charing Cross.
+
+That we may draw something for our advantage in life out of the
+foregoing discourse, I must entreat my reader to make a narrow search
+into his life and conversation, and upon his leaving any company, to
+examine himself seriously, whether he has behaved himself in it like a
+drum or a trumpet, a violin or a bass-viol; and accordingly endeavour to
+mend his music for the future. For my own part, I must confess, I was a
+drum for many years; nay, and a very noisy one, till having polished
+myself a little in good company, I threw as much of the trumpet into my
+conversation as was possible for a man of an impetuous temper, by which
+mixture of different musics, I look upon myself, during the course of
+many years, to have resembled a tabor and pipe. I have since very much
+endeavoured at the sweetness of the lute; but in spite of all my
+resolutions, I must confess with great confusion, that I find myself
+daily degenerating into a bagpipe; whether it be the effect of my old
+age, or of the company I keep, I know not. All that I can do, is to keep
+a watch over my conversation, and to silence the drone as soon as I find
+it begin to hum in my discourse, being determined rather to hear the
+notes of others, than to play out of time, and encroach upon their parts
+in the concert by the noise of so tiresome an instrument.
+
+I shall conclude this paper with a letter which I received last night
+from a friend of mine, who knows very well my notions upon this subject,
+and invites me to pass the evening at his house with a select company of
+friends, in the following words:
+
+     "DEAR ISAAC,
+
+     "I intend to have a concert at my house this evening, having by
+     great chance got a harpsichord, which I am sure will entertain you
+     very agreeably. There will be likewise two lutes and a trumpet:
+     let me beg you to put yourself in tune, and believe me
+
+                                "Your very faithful Servant,
+                                             "NICHOLAS HUMDRUM."[184]
+
+
+
+
+No. 154.                                                    [ADDISON.
+
+From _Saturday, April 1_, to _Tuesday, April 4, 1710_.
+
+    Obscuris vera involvens.--VIRG., AEn. vi. 100.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, April 3._
+
+We have already examined Homer's description of a future state, and the
+condition in which he has placed the souls of the deceased. I shall in
+this paper make some observations on the account which Virgil has given
+us of the same subject, who, besides a greatness of genius, had all the
+lights of philosophy and human learning to assist and guide him in his
+discoveries.
+
+AEneas is represented as descending into the empire of death, with a
+prophetess by his side, who instructs him in the secrets of those lower
+regions.
+
+Upon the confines of the dead, and before the very gates of this
+infernal world, Virgil describes[185] several inhabitants, whose natures
+are wonderfully suited to the situation of the place, as being either
+the occasions or resemblances of death. Of the first kind are the
+shadows[186] of Sickness, Old Age, Fear, Famine, and Poverty
+(apparitions very terrible to behold); with several others, as Toil,
+War, Contention, and Discord, which contribute all of them to people
+this common receptacle of human souls. As this was likewise a very
+proper residence for everything that resembles death, the poet tells us,
+that Sleep, whom he represents as a near relation to Death, has likewise
+his habitation in these quarters, and describes in them a huge gloomy
+elm-tree, which seems a very proper ornament for the place, and is
+possessed by an innumerable swarm of Dreams, that hang in clusters under
+every leaf of it. He then gives us a list of imaginary persons, who very
+naturally lie within the shadow of the dream-tree, as being of the same
+kind of make in themselves, and the materials or (to use Shakespeare's
+phrase) the stuff of which dreams are made. Such are the shades of the
+giant with a hundred hands, and of his brother with three bodies; of the
+double-shaped Centaur and Scylla; the Gorgon with snaky hair; the Harpy
+with a woman's face and lion's talons; the seven-headed Hydra; and the
+Chimaera, which breathes forth a flame, and is a compound of three
+animals. These several mixed natures, the creatures of imagination, are
+not only introduced with great art after the dreams; but as they are
+planted at the very entrance, and within the very gates of those
+regions, do probably denote the wild deliriums and extravagances of
+fancy, which the Soul usually falls into when she is just upon the verge
+of death.
+
+Thus far AEneas travels in an allegory. The rest of the description is
+drawn with great exactness, according to the religion of the heathens,
+and the opinions of the platonic philosophy. I shall not trouble my
+reader with a common dull story, that gives an account why the heathens
+first of all supposed a ferryman in hell, and his name to be Charon; but
+must not pass over in silence the point of doctrine which Virgil has
+very much insisted upon in this book, that the souls of those who are
+unburied, are not permitted to go over into their respective places of
+rest till they have wandered a hundred years upon the banks of Styx.
+This was probably an invention of the heathen priesthood, to make the
+people extremely careful of performing proper rites and ceremonies to
+the memory of the dead. I shall not, however, with the infamous
+scribblers of the age, take an occasion from such a circumstance, to run
+into declamations against priestcraft, but rather look upon it even in
+this light as a religious artifice, to raise in the minds of men an
+esteem for the memory of their forefathers, and a desire to recommend
+themselves to that of posterity; as also to excite in them an ambition
+of imitating the virtues of the deceased, and to keep alive in their
+thoughts the sense of the soul's immortality. In a word, we may say in
+defence of the severe opinions relating to the shades of unburied
+persons, what has been said by some of our divines in regard to the
+rigid doctrines concerning the souls of such who die without being
+initiated into our religion, that supposing they should be erroneous,
+they can do no hurt to the dead, and will have a good effect upon the
+living, in making them cautious of neglecting such necessary
+solemnities.
+
+Charon is no sooner appeased, and the triple-headed dog laid asleep, but
+AEneas makes his entrance into the dominions of Pluto. There are three
+kinds of persons described as being situated on the borders; and I can
+give no reason for their being stationed there in so particular a
+manner, but because none of them seem to have had a proper right to a
+place among the dead, as not having run out the whole thread of their
+days, and finished the term of life that had been allotted them upon
+earth. The first of these are the souls of infants, who are snatched
+away by untimely ends: the second, are of those who are put to death
+wrongfully, and by an unjust sentence; and the third, of those who grew
+weary of their lives, and laid violent hands upon themselves. As for
+the second of these, Virgil adds with great beauty, that Minos, the
+judge of the dead, is employed in giving them a rehearing, and assigning
+them their several quarters suitable to the parts they acted in life.
+The poet, after having mentioned the souls of those unhappy men who
+destroyed themselves, breaks out into a fine exclamation: "Oh, how
+gladly," says he, "would they now endure life with all its miseries! But
+the Destinies forbid their return to earth, and the waters of Styx
+surround them with nine streams that are unpassable." It is very
+remarkable, that Virgil, notwithstanding self-murder was so frequent
+among the heathens, and had been practised by some of the greatest men
+in the very age before him, has here represented it as so heinous a
+crime. But in this particular he was guided by the doctrines of his
+great master Plato, who says on this subject, that a man is placed in
+his station of life like a soldier in his proper post, which he is not
+to quit whatever may happen, until he is called off by his commander who
+planted him in it.
+
+There is another point in the platonic philosophy, which Virgil has made
+the groundwork of the greatest part in the piece we are now examining,
+having with wonderful art and beauty materialised, if I may so call it,
+a scheme of abstracted notions, and clothed the most nice refined
+conceptions of philosophy in sensible images and poetical
+representations. The Platonists tell us, that the Soul, during her
+residence in the body, contracts many virtuous and vicious habits, so as
+to become a beneficent, mild, charitable, or an angry, malicious,
+revengeful being: a substance inflamed with lust, avarice, and pride;
+or, on the contrary, brightened with pure, generous, and humble
+dispositions: that these and the like habits of virtue and vice growing
+into the very essence of the Soul, survive and gather strength in her
+after her dissolution: that the torments of a vicious soul in a future
+state arise principally from those importunate passions which are not
+capable of being gratified without a body; and that on the contrary, the
+happiness of virtuous minds very much consists in their being employed
+in sublime speculations, innocent diversions, sociable affections, and
+all the ecstasies of passion and rapture which are agreeable to
+reasonable natures, and of which they gained a relish in this life.
+
+Upon this foundation, the poet raises that beautiful description of the
+secret haunts and walks which he tells us are inhabited by deceased
+lovers.
+
+"Not far from hence," says he, "lies a great waste of plains, that are
+called, the 'fields of melancholy.' In these grows a forest of myrtle,
+divided into many shady retirements and covered walks, and inhabited by
+the souls of those who pined away with love. The passion," says he,
+"continues with them after death." He then gives a list of this
+languishing tribe, in which his own Dido makes the principal figure, and
+is described as living in this soft romantic scene with the shade of her
+first husband Sichaeus.[187]
+
+The poet in the next place mentions another plain that was peopled with
+the ghosts of warriors, as still delighting in each other's company, and
+pleased with the exercise of arms. He there represents the Grecian
+generals and common soldiers who perished in the siege of Troy as drawn
+up in squadrons, and terrified at the approach of AEneas, which renewed
+in them those impressions of fear they had before received in battle
+with the Trojans. He afterwards likewise, upon the same notion, gives a
+view of the Trojan heroes who lived in former ages, amidst a visionary
+scene of chariots and arms, flowery meadows, shining spears, and
+generous steeds, which he tells us were their pleasures upon earth, and
+now make up their happiness in Elysium. For the same reason also, he
+mentions others as singing paeans, and songs of triumph, amidst a
+beautiful grove of laurel. The chief of the concert was the poet Musaeus,
+who stood enclosed with a circle of admirers, and rose by the head and
+shoulders above the throng of shades that surrounded him. The
+habitations of unhappy spirits, to show the duration of their torments,
+and the desperate condition they are in, are represented as guarded by a
+fury, moated round with a lake of fire, strengthened with towers of
+iron, encompassed with a triple wall, and fortified with pillars of
+adamant, which all the gods together are not able to heave from their
+foundations. The noise of stripes, the clank of chains, and the groans
+of the tortured, strike the pious AEneas with a kind of horror. The poet
+afterwards divides the criminals into two classes: the first and
+blackest catalogue consists of such as were guilty of outrages against
+the gods; and the next, of such who were convicted of injustice between
+man and man: the greatest number of whom, says the poet, are those who
+followed the dictates of avarice.
+
+It was an opinion of the Platonists, that the souls of men having
+contracted in the body great stains and pollutions of vice and
+ignorance, there were several purgations and cleansings necessary to be
+passed through both here and hereafter, in order to refine and purify
+them.[188]
+
+Virgil, to give this thought likewise a clothing of poetry, describes
+some spirits as bleaching in the winds, others as cleansing under great
+falls of waters, and others as purging in fire to recover the primitive
+beauty and purity of their natures.
+
+It was likewise an opinion of the same sect of philosophers, that the
+souls of all men exist in a separate state, long before their union with
+their bodies; and that upon their immersion into flesh, they forget
+everything which passed in the state of pre-existence; so that what we
+here call knowledge, is nothing else but memory, or the recovery of
+those things which we knew before.
+
+In pursuance of this scheme, Virgil gives us a view of several souls,
+who, to prepare themselves for living upon earth, flock about the banks
+of the river Lethe, and swill themselves with the waters of oblivion.
+
+The same scheme gives him an opportunity of making a noble compliment to
+his countrymen, where Anchises is represented taking a survey of the
+long train of heroes that are to descend from him, and giving his son,
+AEneas an account of all the glories of his race.
+
+I need not mention the revolution of the platonic year,[189] which is
+but just touched upon in this book; and as I have consulted no author's
+thoughts in this explication, shall be very well pleased, if it can make
+the noblest piece of the most accomplished poet more agreeable to my
+female readers, when they think fit to look into Dryden's translation of
+it.
+
+
+[Footnote 184: See No. 157.]
+
+[Footnote 185: "Hath placed" (folio).]
+
+[Footnote 186: "Pale shadows" (folio).]
+
+[Footnote 187: See No. 133.]
+
+[Footnote 188: "Purify the soul from ignorance and vice" (folio).]
+
+[Footnote 189: The Great or Platonic Year is the time in which the fixed
+stars make their revolution. See Cicero, "De Natura Deorum," ii. 20.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 155.                                                    [ADDISON.
+
+From _Tuesday, April 4_, to _Thursday, April 6, 1710_.
+
+    ----Aliena negotia curat,
+    Excussus propriis.--HOR., 2 Sat. iii. 19.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, April_ 5.
+
+There lived some years since within my neighbourhood a very grave
+person, an upholsterer,[190] who seemed a man of more than ordinary
+application to business. He was a very early riser, and was often abroad
+two or three hours before any of his neighbours. He had a particular
+carefulness in the knitting of his brows, and a kind of impatience in
+all his motions, that plainly discovered he was always intent on matters
+of importance. Upon my inquiry into his life and conversation, I found
+him to be the greatest newsmonger in our quarter; that he rose before
+day to read the _Postman_; and that he would take two or three turns to
+the other end of the town before his neighbours were up, to see if there
+were any Dutch mails come in. He had a wife and several children; but
+was much more inquisitive to know what passed in Poland than in his own
+family, and was in greater pain and anxiety of mind for King Augustus'
+welfare than that of his nearest relations. He looked extremely thin in
+a dearth of news, and never enjoyed himself in a westerly wind. This
+indefatigable kind of life was the ruin of his shop; for about the time
+that his favourite prince left the crown of Poland, he broke and
+disappeared.
+
+This man and his affairs had been long out of my mind, till about three
+days ago, as I was walking in St. James's Park, I heard somebody at a
+distance hemming after me: and who should it be but my old neighbour the
+upholsterer! I saw he was reduced to extreme poverty, by certain shabby
+superfluities in his dress: for notwithstanding that it was a very
+sultry day for the time of the year, he wore a loose great-coat and a
+muff, with a long campaign-wig out of curl; to which he had added the
+ornament of a pair of black garters buckled under the knee. Upon his
+coming up to me, I was going to inquire into his present circumstances;
+but was prevented by his asking me, with a whisper, whether the last
+letters brought any accounts that one might rely upon from Bender? I
+told him, none that I heard of; and asked him, whether he had yet
+married his eldest daughter? He told me, No. "But pray," says he, "tell
+me sincerely, what are your thoughts of the King of Sweden?" For though
+his wife and children were starving, I found his chief concern at
+present was for this great monarch. I told him, that I looked upon him
+as one of the first heroes of the age. "But pray," says he, "do you
+think there is anything in the story of his wound?" And finding me
+surprised at the question, "Nay," says he, "I only propose it to you." I
+answered, that I thought there was no reason to doubt of it. "But why in
+the heel," says he, "more than in any other part of the body?"
+"Because," says I, "the bullet chanced to light there."
+
+This extraordinary dialogue was no sooner ended, but he began to launch
+out into a long dissertation upon the affairs of the North; and after
+having spent some time on them, he told me, he was in a great perplexity
+how to reconcile the _Supplement_ with the _English Post_, and had been
+just now examining what the other papers say upon the same subject. "The
+_Daily Courant_," says he, "has these words, 'We have advices from very
+good hands, that a certain prince has some matters of great importance
+under consideration.' This is very mysterious; but the _Postboy_ leaves
+us more in the dark, for he tells us, that there are private intimations
+of measures taken by a certain prince, which time will bring to light.
+Now the _Postman_," says he, "who used to be very clear, refers to the
+same news in these words: 'The late conduct of a certain prince affords
+great matter of speculation.' This certain prince," says the
+upholsterer, "whom they are all so cautious of naming, I take to
+be"----. Upon which, though there was nobody near us, he whispered
+something in my ear, which I did not hear, or think worth my while to
+make him repeat.
+
+We were now got to the upper end of the Mall, where were three or four
+very odd fellows sitting together upon the bench. These I found were all
+of them politicians, who used to sun themselves in that place every day
+about dinner-time. Observing them to be curiosities in their kind, and
+my friend's acquaintance, I sat down among them.
+
+The chief politician of the bench was a great asserter of paradoxes. He
+told us, with a seeming concern, that by some news he had lately read
+from Muscovy, it appeared to him that there was a storm gathering in the
+Black Sea, which might in time do hurt to the naval forces of this
+nation. To this he added, that for his part, he could not wish to see
+the Turk driven out of Europe, which he believed could not but be
+prejudicial to our woollen manufacture. He then told us, that he looked
+upon those extraordinary revolutions which had lately happened in these
+parts of the world, to have risen chiefly from two persons who were not
+much talked of; "and those," says he, "are Prince Menzikoff and the
+Duchess of Mirandola." He backed his assertions with so many broken
+hints, and such a show of depth and wisdom, that we gave ourselves up to
+his opinions.
+
+The discourse at length fell upon a point which seldom escapes a knot of
+true-born Englishmen, whether in case of a religious war, the
+Protestants would not be too strong for the Papists? This we unanimously
+determined on the Protestant side. One who sat on my right hand, and, as
+I found by his discourse, had been in the West Indies, assured us, that
+it would be a very easy matter for the Protestants to beat the Pope at
+sea; and added, that whenever such a war does break out, it must turn to
+the good of the Leeward Islands. Upon this, one who sat at the end of
+the bench, and, as I afterwards found, was the geographer of the
+company, said, that in case the Papists should drive the Protestants
+from these parts of Europe, when the worst came to the worst, it would
+be impossible to beat them out of Norway and Greenland, provided the
+Northern crowns hold together, and the Czar of Muscovy stand neuter.
+
+He further told us for our comfort, that there were vast tracts of land
+about the Pole, inhabited neither by Protestants nor Papists, and of
+greater extent than all the Roman Catholic dominions in Europe.
+
+When we had fully discussed this point, my friend the upholsterer began
+to exert himself upon the present negotiations of peace, in which he
+deposed princes, settled the bounds of kingdoms, and balanced the power
+of Europe, with great justice and impartiality.
+
+I at length took my leave of the company, and was going away; but had
+not been gone thirty yards, before the upholsterer hemmed again after
+me. Upon his advancing towards me, with a whisper, I expected to hear
+some secret piece of news which he had not thought fit to communicate to
+the bench; but instead of that, he desired me in my ear to lend him half
+a crown. In compassion to so needy a statesman, and to dissipate the
+confusion I found he was in, I told him, if he pleased, I would give him
+five shillings, to receive five pounds of him when the Great Turk was
+driven out of Constantinople; which he very readily accepted, but not
+before he had laid down to me the impossibility of such an event, as the
+affairs of Europe now stand.
+
+This paper I design for the particular benefit of those worthy citizens
+who live more in a coffee-house than in their shops, and whose thoughts
+are so taken up with the affairs of the Allies, that they forget their
+customers.
+
+
+[Footnote 190: The original of the Political Upholsterer of Nos. 155,
+160 and 178 is said to have been an Edward Arne, of Covent Garden. It is
+clear that he cannot--as some have said--be the same person as the Arne
+at whose house the Indian kings lodged (see No. 171). Steele was
+attacked in the _Examiner_ (vol. i. No. 11, vol. iv. No. 40) for the
+liberties here taken by Addison.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 156.                                                    [ADDISON.
+
+From _Thursday, April 6_, to _Saturday, April 8, 1710_.
+
+    --Sequiturque patrem non passibus aequis.
+                                VIRG., AEn. ii. 724.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, April 7._
+
+We have already described out of Homer the voyage of Ulysses to the
+Infernal Shades, with the several adventures that attended it.[191] If
+we look into the beautiful romance published not many years since by the
+Archbishop of Cambray,[192] we may see the son of Ulysses bound on the
+same expedition, and after the same manner making his discoveries among
+the regions of the dead. The story of Telemachus is formed altogether in
+the spirit of Homer, and will give an unlearned reader a notion of that
+great poet's manner of writing, more than any translation of him can
+possibly do. As it was written for the instruction of a young prince,
+who may one day sit upon the throne of France, the author took care to
+suit the several parts of his story, and particularly the description we
+are now entering upon, to the character and quality of his pupil. For
+which reason, he insists very much on the misery of bad, and the
+happiness of good kings, in the account he has given of punishments and
+rewards in the other world.
+
+We may however observe, notwithstanding the endeavours of this great and
+learned author to copy after the style and sentiments of Homer, that
+there is a certain tincture of Christianity running through the whole
+relation. The prelate in several places mixes himself with the poet; so
+that his future state puts me in mind of Michael Angelo's "Last
+Judgment," where Charon and his boat are represented as bearing a part
+in the dreadful solemnities of that great day.
+
+Telemachus, after having passed through the dark avenues of death in the
+retinue of Mercury, who every day delivers up a certain tale of ghosts
+to the ferryman of Styx, is admitted into the infernal bark. Among the
+companions of his voyage, is the shade of Nabopharzon, a king of
+Babylon, and tyrant of all the East. Among the ceremonies and pomps of
+his funeral, there were four slaves sacrificed, according to the custom
+of the country, in order to attend him among the shades. The author
+having described this tyrant in the most odious colours of pride,
+insolence, and cruelty, tells us, that his four slaves, instead of
+serving him after death, were perpetually insulting him with reproaches
+and affronts for his past usage; that they spurned him as he lay upon
+the ground, and forced him to show his face, which he would fain have
+covered, as lying under all the confusions of guilt and infamy; and in
+short, that they kept him bound in a chain, in order to drag him before
+the tribunal of the dead.
+
+Telemachus, upon looking out of the bark, sees all the strand covered
+with an innumerable multitude of shades, who, upon his jumping ashore,
+immediately vanished. He then pursues his course to the palace of Pluto,
+who is described as seated on his throne in terrible majesty, with
+Proserpine by his side. At the foot of his throne was the pale hideous
+spectre, who, by the ghastliness of his visage, and the nature of the
+apparitions that surrounded him, discovers himself to be Death. His
+attendants are, Melancholy, Distrust, Revenge, Hatred, Avarice, Despair,
+Ambition, Envy, Impiety, with frightful Dreams, and waking Cares, which
+are all drawn very naturally in proper actions and postures. The author,
+with great beauty, places near his Frightful Dreams an assembly of
+phantoms, which are often employed to terrify the living, by appearing
+in the shape and likeness of the dead.
+
+The young hero in the next place takes a survey of the different kinds
+of criminals that lay in torture among clouds of sulphur and torrents of
+fire. The first of these were such as had been guilty of impieties,
+which every one has a horror for: to which is added, a catalogue of such
+offenders that scarce appear to be faulty in the eyes of the vulgar.
+Among these, says the author, are malicious critics, that have
+endeavoured to cast a blemish upon the perfections of others; with whom
+he likewise places such as have often hurt the reputation of the
+innocent, by passing a rash judgment on their actions, without knowing
+the occasion of them. These crimes, says he, are more severely punished
+after death, because they generally meet with impunity upon earth.
+
+Telemachus, after having taken a survey of several other wretches in the
+same circumstances, arrives at that region of torments in which wicked
+kings are punished. There are very fine strokes of imagination in the
+description which he gives of this unhappy multitude. He tells us, that
+on one side of them there stood a revengeful fury, thundering in their
+ears incessant repetitions of all the crimes they had committed upon
+earth, with the aggravations of ambition, vanity, hardness of heart, and
+all those secret affections of mind that enter into the composition of a
+tyrant. At the same time, she holds up to them a large mirror, in which
+every one sees himself represented in the natural horror and deformity
+of his character. On the other side of them stands another fury, that
+with an insulting derision repeats to them all the praises that their
+flatterers had bestowed upon them while they sat upon their respective
+thrones. She too, says the author, presents a mirror before their eyes,
+in which every one sees himself adorned with all those beauties and
+perfections in which they had been drawn by the vanity of their own
+hearts, and the flattery of others. To punish them for the wantonness of
+the cruelty which they formerly exercised, they are now delivered up to
+be treated according to the fancy and caprice of several slaves, who
+have here an opportunity of tyrannising in their turns.
+
+The author having given us a description of these ghastly spectres, who,
+says he, are always calling upon Death, and are placed under the
+distillation of that burning vengeance which falls upon them drop by
+drop, and is never to be exhausted, leads us into a pleasing scene of
+groves, filled with the melody of birds, and the odours of a thousand
+different plants. These groves are represented as rising among a great
+many flowery meadows, and watered with streams that diffuse a perpetual
+freshness, in the midst of an eternal day, and a never-fading spring.
+This, says the author, was the habitation of those good princes who were
+friends of the gods, and parents of the people. Among these, Telemachus
+converses with the shade of one of his ancestors, who makes a most
+agreeable relation of the joys of Elysium, and the nature of its
+inhabitants. The residence of Sesostris among these happy shades, with
+his character and present employment, is drawn in a very lively manner,
+and with a great elevation of thought.
+
+The description of that pure and gentle light which overflows these
+happy regions, and clothes the spirits of these virtuous persons, has
+something in it of that enthusiasm which this author was accused of by
+his enemies in the Church of Rome; but however it may look in religion,
+it makes a very beautiful figure in poetry.
+
+The rays of the sun, says he, are darkness in comparison with this
+light, which rather deserves the name of glory, than that of light. It
+pierces the thickest bodies, in the same manner as the sunbeams pass
+through crystal: it strengthens the sight instead of dazzling it; and
+nourishes in the most inward recesses of the mind, a perpetual serenity
+that is not to be expressed. It enters and incorporates itself with the
+very substance of the soul: the spirits of the blessed feel it in all
+their senses, and in all their perceptions. It produces a certain source
+of peace and joy that arises in them for ever, running through all the
+faculties, and refreshing all the desires of the soul. External
+pleasures and delights, with all their charms and allurements, are
+regarded with the utmost indifference and neglect by these happy spirits
+who have this great principle of pleasure within them, drawing the
+whole mind to itself, calling off their attention from the most
+delightful objects, and giving them all the transports of inebriation,
+without the confusion and the folly of it.
+
+I have here only mentioned some master-touches of this admirable piece,
+because the original itself is understood by the greater part of my
+readers. I must confess, I take a particular delight in these prospects
+of futurity, whether grounded upon the probable suggestions of a fine
+imagination, or the more severe conclusions of philosophy; as a man
+loves to hear all the discoveries or conjectures relating to a foreign
+country which he is, at some time, to inhabit. Prospects of this nature
+lighten the burden of any present evil, and refresh us under the worst
+and lowest circumstances of mortality. They extinguish in us both the
+fear and envy of human grandeur. Insolence shrinks its head, Power
+disappears; Pain, Poverty and Death fly before them. In short, the mind
+that is habituated to the lively sense of a hereafter, can hope for what
+is the most terrifying to the generality of mankind, and rejoice in what
+is the most afflicting.
+
+
+[Footnote 191: See No. 152.]
+
+[Footnote 192: Fenelon's "Telemaque."]
+
+
+
+
+No. 157.                                               [ADDISON.[193]
+
+From _Saturday, April 8_, to _Tuesday, April 11, 1710_.
+
+    ----Facile est inventis addere.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, April 10._
+
+I was last night in an assembly of very fine women. How I came among
+them is of no great importance to the reader. I shall only let him know,
+that I was betrayed into so good company by the device of an old
+friend, who had promised to give some of his female acquaintance a sight
+of Mr. Bickerstaff. Upon hearing my name mentioned, a lady who sat by me
+told me, they had brought together a female concert for my
+entertainment. "You must know," says she, "that we all of us look upon
+ourselves to be musical instruments,[194] though we do not yet know of
+what kind, which we hope to learn from you, if you will give us leave to
+play before you." This was followed by a general laugh, which I always
+look upon as a necessary flourish in the opening of a female concert.
+They then struck up together, and played a whole hour upon two grounds,
+viz., the Trial,[195] and the Opera. I could not but observe, that
+several of their notes were more soft, and several more sharp, than any
+that ever I heard in a male concert; though I must confess, there was
+not any regard to time, nor any of those rests and pauses which are
+frequent in the harmony of the other sex: besides, that the music was
+generally full, and no particular instrument permitted to play long by
+itself.
+
+I seemed so very well pleased with what every one said, and smiled with
+so much compliance at all their pretty fancies, that though I did not
+put one word into their discourse, I have the vanity to think they
+looked upon me as very agreeable company. I then told them, that if I
+were to draw the picture of so many charming musicians, it should be
+like one I had seen of the Muses, with their several instruments in
+their hands. Upon which the lady kettledrum tossed back her head, and
+cried, "A very pretty simile!" The concert again revived; in which, with
+nods, smiles, and approbations, I bore the part rather of one who beats
+the time, than of a performer.
+
+I was no sooner retired to my lodgings, but I ran over in my thoughts
+the several characters of this fair assembly, which I shall give some
+account of, because they are various in their kind, and may each of them
+stand as a sample of a whole species.
+
+The person who pleased me most was a flute, an instrument that, without
+any great compass, has something exquisitely sweet and soft in its
+sound: it lulls and soothes the ear, and fills it with such a gentle
+kind of melody, as keeps the mind awake without startling it, and raises
+a most agreeable passion between transport and indolence. In short, the
+music of the flute is the conversation of a mild and amiable woman, that
+has nothing in it very elevated, or at the same time anything mean or
+trivial.
+
+I must here observe, that the hautboy is the most perfect of the flute
+species, which, with all the sweetness of the sound, has a great
+strength and variety of notes; though at the same time I must observe,
+that the hautboy in one sex is as scarce as the harpsichord in the
+other.
+
+By the side of the flute there sat a flageolet, for so I must call a
+certain young lady, who fancied herself a wit, despised the music of the
+flute as low and insipid, and would be entertaining the company with
+tart ill-natured observations, pert fancies, and little turns, which she
+imagined to be full of life and spirit. The flageolet therefore does not
+differ from the flute so much in the compass of its notes, as in the
+shrillness and sharpness of the sound. We must however take notice, that
+the flageolets among their own sex are more valued and esteemed than the
+flutes.
+
+There chanced to be a coquette in the concert, that with a great many
+skittish notes, affected squeaks, and studied inconsistencies,
+distinguished herself from the rest of the company. She did not speak a
+word during the whole trial; but I thought she would never have done
+upon the opera. One while she would break out upon, "That hideous king!"
+then upon the "charming blackmoor!" Then, "Oh that dear lion!" Then
+would hum over two or three notes; then run to the window to see what
+coach was coming. The coquette therefore I must distinguish by that
+musical instrument which is commonly known by the name of a kit, that is
+more jiggish than the fiddle itself, and never sounds but to a dance.
+
+The fourth person who bore a part in the conversation was a prude, who
+stuck to the trial, and was silent upon the whole opera. The gravity of
+her censures, and composure of her voice, which were often attended with
+supercilious casts of the eye, and a seeming contempt for the lightness
+of the conversation, put me in mind of that ancient serious matronlike
+instrument the virginal.
+
+I must not pass over in silence a Lancashire hornpipe, by which I would
+signify a young country lady, who with a great deal of mirth and
+innocence diverted the company very agreeably; and, if I am not
+mistaken, by that time the wildness of her notes is a little softened,
+and the redundancy of her music restrained by conversation and good
+company, will be improved into one of the most amiable flutes about the
+town. Your romps and boarding-school girls fall likewise under this
+denomination.
+
+On the right hand of the hornpipe sat a Welsh harp, an instrument which
+very much delights in the tunes of old historical ballads, and in
+celebrating the renowned actions and exploits of ancient British heroes.
+By this instrument I therefore would describe a certain lady, who is one
+of those female historians that upon all occasions enters into pedigrees
+and descents, and finds herself related, by some offshoot or other, to
+almost every great family in England: for which reason she jars and is
+out of tune very often in conversation, for the company's want of due
+attention and respect to her.
+
+But the most sonorous part of our concert was a shedrum, or (as the
+vulgar call it) a kettledrum, who accompanied her discourse with motions
+of the body, tosses of the head, and brandishes of the fan. Her music
+was loud, bold, and masculine. Every thump she gave, alarmed the
+company, and very often set somebody or other in it a-blushing.
+
+The last I shall mention was a certain romantic instrument called a
+dulcimer, who talked of nothing but shady woods, flowery meadows,
+purling streams, larks and nightingales, with all the beauties of the
+spring, and the pleasures of a country life. This instrument has a fine
+melancholy sweetness in it, and goes very well with the flute.
+
+I think most of the conversable part of womankind may be found under one
+of the foregoing divisions; but it must be confessed, that the
+generality of that sex, notwithstanding they have naturally a great
+genius for being talkative, are not mistresses of more than one note;
+with which however, by frequent repetition, they make a greater sound
+than those who are possessed of the whole gamut, as may be observed in
+your larums or household scolds, and in your castanets or impertinent
+tittle-tattles, who have no other variety in their discourse but that of
+talking slower or faster.
+
+Upon communicating this scheme of music to an old friend of mine, who
+was formerly a man of gallantry and a rover, he told me, that he
+believed he had been in love with every instrument in my concert. The
+first that smit him was a hornpipe, who lived near his father's house in
+the country; but upon his failing to meet her at an assize, according to
+appointment, she cast him off. His next passion was for a kettledrum,
+whom he fell in love with at a play; but when he became acquainted with
+her, not finding the softness of her sex in her conversation, he grew
+cool to her; though at the same time he could not deny, but that she
+behaved herself very much like a gentlewoman. His third mistress was a
+dulcimer, who he found took great delight in sighing and languishing,
+but would go no farther than the preface of matrimony; so that she would
+never let a lover have any more of her than her heart, which, after
+having won, he was forced to leave her, as despairing of any further
+success. "I must confess," says my friend, "I have often considered her
+with a great deal of admiration; and I find her pleasure is so much in
+this first step of an amour, that her life will pass away in dream,
+solitude, and soliloquy, till her decay of charms makes her snatch at
+the worst man that ever pretended to her. In the next place," says my
+friend, "I fell in love with a kit,[196] who led me such a dance through
+all the varieties of a familiar, cold, fond, and indifferent behaviour,
+that the world began to grow censorious, though without any cause: for
+which reason, to recover our reputations, we parted by consent. To mend
+my hand," says he, "I made my next application to a virginal, who gave
+me great encouragement, after her cautious manner, till some malicious
+companion told her of my long passion for the kit, which made her turn
+me off as a scandalous fellow. At length, in despair," says he, "I
+betook myself to a Welsh harp, who rejected me with contempt, after
+having found that my great-grandmother was a brewer's daughter." I found
+by the sequel of my friend's discourse, that he had never aspired to a
+hautboy; that he had been exasperated by a flageolet; and that to this
+very day, he pines away for a flute.
+
+Upon the whole, having thoroughly considered how absolutely necessary it
+is, that two instruments, which are to play together for life, should be
+exactly tuned, and go in perfect concert with each other, I would
+propose matches between the music of both sexes, according to the
+following table of marriage:
+
+     1. Drum and kettledrum.
+     2. Lute and flute.
+     3. Harpsichord and hautboy.
+     4. Violin and flageolet.
+     5. Bass-viol and kit.
+     6. Trumpet and Welsh harp.
+     7. Hunting-horn and hornpipe.
+     8. Bagpipe and castanets.
+     9. Passing-bell and virginal.
+
+Mr. Bickerstaff, in consideration of his ancient friendship and
+acquaintance with Mr. Betterton,[197] and great esteem for his merit,
+summons all his disciples, whether dead or living, mad or tame, Toasts,
+Smarts, Dappers, Pretty Fellows, Musicians or Scrapers, to make their
+appearance at the playhouse in the Haymarket on Thursday next; when
+there will be a play acted for the benefit of the said Mr. Betterton.
+
+
+[Footnote 193: This paper is not included in Tickell's edition of
+Addison's Works; but Steele ascribes it to Addison in his Dedication of
+"The Drummer" to Congreve.]
+
+[Footnote 194: See No. 153.]
+
+[Footnote 195: The trial of Dr. Sacheverell.]
+
+[Footnote 196: See Nos. 34 and 160.]
+
+[Footnote 197: See Nos. 1, 71, 167.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 158.                                                    [ADDISON.
+
+From _Tuesday, April 11_, to _Thursday, April 13, 1710_.
+
+    Faciunt nae intelligendo, ut nihil intelligant.
+                          TER., Andria, Prologue, 17.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, April 12._
+
+Tom Folio[198] is a broker in learning, employed to get together good
+editions, and stock the libraries of great men. There is not a sale of
+books begins till Tom Folio is seen at the door. There is not an auction
+where his name is not heard, and that too in the very nick of time, in
+the critical moment, before the last decisive stroke of the hammer.
+There is not a subscription goes forward, in which Tom is not privy to
+the first rough draught of the proposals; nor a catalogue printed, that
+does not come to him wet from the press. He is an universal scholar, so
+far as the title-page of all authors, knows the manuscripts in which
+they were discovered, the editions through which they have passed, with
+the praises or censures which they have received from the several
+members of the learned world. He has a greater esteem for Aldus and
+Elzevir, than for Virgil and Horace. If you talk of Herodotus, he breaks
+out into a panegyric upon Harry Stephans. He thinks he gives you an
+account of an author, when he tells you the subject he treats of, the
+name of the editor, and the year in which it was printed. Or if you draw
+him into further particulars, he cries up the goodness of the paper,
+extols the diligence of the corrector, and is transported with the
+beauty of the letter. This he looks upon to be sound learning and
+substantial criticism. As for those who talk of the fineness of style,
+and the justness of thought, or describe the brightness of any
+particular passages; nay, though they write themselves in the genius and
+spirit of the author they admire, Tom looks upon them as men of
+superficial learning, and flashy parts.
+
+I had yesterday morning a visit from this learned idiot (for that is the
+light in which I consider every pedant), when I discovered in him some
+little touches of the coxcomb which I had not before observed. Being
+very full of the figure which he makes in the republic of letters, and
+wonderfully satisfied with his great stock of knowledge, he gave me
+broad intimations, that he did not "believe" in all points as his
+forefathers had done. He then communicated to me a thought of a certain
+author upon a passage of Virgil's account of the dead, which I made the
+subject of a late paper.[199] This thought has taken very much among men
+of Tom's pitch and understanding, though universally exploded by all
+that know how to construe Virgil, or have any relish of antiquity. Not
+to trouble my reader with it, I found upon the whole, that Tom did not
+believe a future state of rewards and punishments, because AEneas, at his
+leaving the empire of the dead, passed through the gate of ivory, and
+not through that of horn. Knowing that Tom had not sense enough to give
+up an opinion which he had once received, that he might avoid wrangling,
+I told him, that Virgil possibly had his oversights as well as another
+author. "Ah! Mr. Bickerstaff," says he, "you would have another opinion
+of him, if you would read him in Daniel Heinsius' edition. I have
+perused him myself several times in that edition," continued he; "and
+after the strictest and most malicious examination, could find but two
+faults in him: one of them is in the 'AEneids,' where there are two
+commas instead of a parenthesis; and another in the third 'Georgic,'
+where you may find a semicolon turned upside down." "Perhaps," said I,
+"these were not Virgil's thoughts, but those of the transcriber." "I do
+not design it," says Tom, "as a reflection on Virgil: on the contrary, I
+know that all the manuscripts 'reclaim' against such a punctuation. Oh!
+Mr. Bickerstaff," says he, "what would a man give to see one simile of
+Virgil writ in his own hand?" I asked him which was the simile he meant;
+but was answered, "Any simile in Virgil." He then told me all the secret
+history in the commonwealth of learning; of modern pieces that had the
+names of ancient authors annexed to them; of all the books that were now
+writing or printing in the several parts of Europe; of many amendments
+which are made, and not yet published; and a thousand other particulars,
+which I would not have my memory burdened with for a Vatican.
+
+At length, being fully persuaded that I thoroughly admired him, and
+looked upon him as a prodigy of learning, he took his leave. I know
+several of Tom's class who are professed admirers of Tasso without
+understanding a word of Italian; and one in particular, that carries a
+"Pastor Fido" in his pocket, in which I am sure he is acquainted with no
+other beauty but the clearness of the character.
+
+There is another kind of pedant, who, with all Tom Folio's
+impertinences, has greater superstructures and embellishments of Greek
+and Latin, and is still more unsupportable than the other, in the same
+degree as he is more learned. Of this kind very often are editors,
+commentators, interpreters, scholiasts, and critics; and in short, all
+men of deep learning without common sense. These persons set a greater
+value on themselves for having found out the meaning of a passage in
+Greek, than upon the author for having written it; nay, will allow the
+passage itself not to have any beauty in it, at the same time that they
+would be considered as the greatest men of the age for having
+interpreted it. They will look with contempt upon the most beautiful
+poems that have been composed by any of their contemporaries; but will
+lock themselves up in their studies for a twelvemonth together, to
+correct, publish, and expound, such trifles of antiquity as a modern
+author would be contemned for. Men of the strictest morals, severest
+lives, and the gravest professions, will write volumes upon an idle
+sonnet that is originally in Greek or Latin; give editions of the most
+immoral authors, and spin out whole pages upon the various readings of a
+lewd expression. All that can be said in excuse for them, is, that their
+works sufficiently show they have no taste of their authors; and that
+what they do in this kind, is out of their great learning, and not out
+of any levity or lasciviousness of temper.
+
+A pedant of this nature is wonderfully well described in six lines of
+Boileau,[200] with which I shall conclude his character:
+
+      "_Un Pedant enivre de sa vaine science,
+    Tout herisse de grec, tout bouffi d'arrogance,
+    Et qui, de mille auteurs retenus mot pour mot,
+    Dans sa tete entasses, n'a souvent fait qu'un sot,
+    Croit qu'un livre fait tout, et que, sans Aristote,
+    La raison ne voit goutte, et le bon sens radote._"
+
+
+[Footnote 198: The original of Tom Folio is supposed to be Thomas
+Rawlinson, a great book-collector, who lived in Gray's Inn, and
+afterwards in London House, Aldersgate Street, where he died, August 6,
+1725, aged 44. His library and MSS. were sold between 1722 and 1734.]
+
+[Footnote 199: No. 154.]
+
+[Footnote 200: Satire iv.: "Les folies humaines."]
+
+
+
+
+No. 159.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Thursday, April 13_, to _Saturday, April 15, 1710_.
+
+    Nitor in adversum, nec me qui caetera, vincit
+    Impetus.--OVID., Met. ii. 72.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, April 14._
+
+The wits of this island, for above fifty years past, instead of
+correcting the vices of the age, have done all they could to inflame
+them. Marriage has been one of the common topics of ridicule that every
+stage-scribbler has found his account in; for whenever there is an
+occasion for a clap, an impertinent jest upon matrimony is sure to raise
+it. This has been attended with very pernicious consequences. Many a
+country squire, upon his setting up for a man of the town, has gone home
+in the gaiety of his heart and beat his wife. A kind husband has been
+looked upon as a clown, and a good wife as a domestic animal, unfit for
+the company or conversation of the _beau monde_. In short, separate
+beds, silent tables, and solitary homes have been introduced by your men
+of wit and pleasure of the age.
+
+As I shall always make it my business to stem the torrents of prejudice
+and vice, I shall take particular care to put an honest father of a
+family in countenance, and endeavour to remove all the evils out of that
+state of life, which is either the most happy, or most miserable, that a
+man can be placed in. In order to this, let us, if you please, consider
+the wits and well-bred persons of former times. I have shown in another
+paper,[201] that Pliny, who was a man of the greatest genius, as well as
+of the first quality of his age, did not think it below him to be a
+kind husband, and to treat his wife as a friend, companion and
+counsellor. I shall give the like instance of another, who in all
+respects was a much greater man than Pliny, and has written a whole book
+of letters to his wife. They are not so full of turns as those
+translated out of the former author, who writes very much like a modern,
+but are full of that beautiful simplicity which is altogether natural,
+and is the distinguishing character of the best ancient writers. The
+author I am speaking of, is Cicero; who, in the following passages which
+I have taken out of his letters,[202] shows, that he did not think it
+inconsistent with the politeness of his manners, or the greatness of his
+wisdom, to stand upon record in his domestic character.
+
+These letters were written at a time when he was banished from his
+country, by a faction that then prevailed at Rome.
+
+
+     _Cicero to Terentia._
+
+     I.
+
+     "I learn from the letters of my friends, as well as from common
+     report, that you give incredible proofs of virtue and fortitude,
+     and that you are indefatigable in all kinds of good offices. How
+     unhappy a man am I, that a woman of your virtue, constancy, honour,
+     and good nature, should fall into so great distresses upon my
+     account; and that my dear Tulliola should be so much afflicted for
+     the sake of a father, with whom she had once so much reason to be
+     pleased! How can I mention little Cicero, whose first knowledge of
+     things began with the sense of his own misery? If all this had
+     happened by the decrees of fate, as you would kindly persuade me, I
+     could have borne it. But, alas! it is all befallen me by my own
+     indiscretion, who thought I was beloved by those who envied me, and
+     did not join with them who sought my friendship.----At present,
+     since my friends bid me hope, I shall take care of my health, that
+     I may enjoy the benefit of your affectionate services.----Plancius
+     hopes we may some time or other come together into Italy. If I ever
+     live to see that day; if I ever return to your dear embraces; in
+     short, if I ever again recover you and myself, I shall think our
+     conjugal piety very well rewarded.----As for what you write to me
+     about selling your estate, consider (my dear Terentia), consider,
+     alas! what would be the event of it. If our present fortune
+     continues to oppress us, what will become of our poor boy? My tears
+     flow so fast, that I am not able to write any further; and I would
+     not willingly make you weep with me.----Let us take care not to
+     undo the child that is already undone: if we can leave him
+     anything, a little virtue will keep him from want, and a little
+     fortune raise him in the world. Mind your health, and let me know
+     frequently what you are doing.----Remember me to Tulliola and
+     Cicero."
+
+
+     II.
+
+     "Don't fancy that I write longer letters to any one than to
+     yourself, unless when I chance to receive a longer letter from
+     another, which I am indispensably obliged to answer in every
+     particular. The truth of it is, I have no subject for a letter at
+     present: and as my affairs now stand, there is nothing more painful
+     to me than writing. As for you and our dear Tulliola, I cannot
+     write to you without abundance of tears, for I see both of you
+     miserable, whom I always wished to be happy, and whom I ought to
+     have made so.----I must acknowledge, you have done everything for
+     me with the utmost fortitude, and the utmost affection; nor indeed
+     is it more than I expected from you; though at the same time it is
+     a great aggravation of my ill fortune, that the afflictions I
+     suffer can be relieved only by those which you undergo for my sake.
+     For honest Valerius has written me a letter, which I could not read
+     without weeping very bitterly; wherein he gives me an account of
+     the public procession which you have made for me at Rome. Alas! my
+     dearest life, must then Terentia, the darling of my soul, whose
+     favour and recommendations have been so often sought by others;
+     must my Terentia droop under the weight of sorrow, appear in the
+     habit of a mourner, pour out floods of tears, and all this for my
+     sake; for my sake, who have undone my family, by consulting the
+     safety of others!----As for what you write about selling your
+     house, I am very much afflicted, that what is laid out upon my
+     account may any way reduce you to misery and want. If we can bring
+     about our design, we may indeed recover everything; but if Fortune
+     persists in persecuting us, how can I think of your sacrificing for
+     me the poor remainder of your possessions? No, my dearest life, let
+     me beg you to let those bear my expenses who are able, and perhaps
+     willing to do it; and if you would show your love to me, do not
+     injure your health, which is already too much impaired. You present
+     yourself before my eyes day and night; I see you labouring amidst
+     innumerable difficulties; I am afraid lest you should sink under
+     them; but I find in you all the qualifications that are necessary
+     to support you: be sure therefore to cherish your health, that you
+     may compass the end of your hopes and your endeavours.----Farewell,
+     my Terentia, my heart's desire, farewell."
+
+
+     III.
+
+     "Aristocritus has delivered to me three of your letters, which I
+     have almost defaced with my tears. Oh! my Terentia, I am consumed
+     with grief, and feel the weight of your sufferings more than of my
+     own. I am more miserable than you are, notwithstanding you are very
+     much so; and that for this reason, because though our calamity is
+     common, it is my fault that brought it upon us. I ought to have
+     died rather than have been driven out of the city: I am therefore
+     overwhelmed not only with grief, but with shame. I am ashamed that
+     I did not do my utmost for the best of wives, and the dearest of
+     children. You are ever present before my eyes in your mourning,
+     your affliction, and your sickness. Amidst all which, there scarce
+     appears to me the least glimmering of hope.----However, so long as
+     you hope, I will not despair.----I will do what you advise me. I
+     have returned my thanks to those friends whom you mentioned, and
+     have let them know, that you have acquainted me with their good
+     offices. I am sensible of Piso's extraordinary zeal and endeavours
+     to serve me. Oh! would the gods grant that you and I might live
+     together in the enjoyment of such a son-in-law, and of our dear
+     children.----As for what you write of your coming to me if I desire
+     it, I would rather you should be where you are, because I know you
+     are my principal agent at Rome. If you succeed, I shall come to
+     you: if not----. But I need say no more. Be careful of your health,
+     and be assured, that nothing is, or ever was, so dear to me as
+     yourself. Farewell, my Terentia; I fancy that I see you, and
+     therefore cannot command my weakness so far as to refrain from
+     tears."
+
+
+     IV.
+
+     "I don't write to you as often as I might, because notwithstanding
+     I am afflicted at all times, I am quite overcome with sorrow whilst
+     I am writing to you, or reading any letters that I receive from
+     you.----If these evils are not to be removed, I must desire to see
+     you, my dearest life, as soon as possible, and to die in your
+     embraces; since neither the gods, whom you always religiously
+     worshipped; nor the men, whose good I always promoted, have
+     rewarded us according to our deserts.----What a distressed wretch
+     am I! should I ask a weak woman, oppressed with cares and sickness,
+     to come and live with me, or shall I not ask her? Can I live
+     without you? But I find I must. If there be any hopes of my return,
+     help it forward, and promote it as much as you are able. But if all
+     that is over, as I fear it is, find out some way or other of coming
+     to me. This you may be sure of, that I shall not look upon myself
+     as quite undone whilst you are with me. But what will become of
+     Tulliola? You must look to that; I must confess, I am entirely at a
+     loss about her. Whatever happens, we must take care of the
+     reputation and marriage of that dear unfortunate girl. As for
+     Cicero, he shall live in my bosom and in my arms. I cannot write
+     any further, my sorrows will not let me.----Support yourself, my
+     dear Terentia, as well as you are able. We have lived and
+     flourished together amidst the greatest honours: it is not our
+     crimes, but our virtues that have distressed us.----Take more than
+     ordinary care of your health; I am more afflicted with your sorrows
+     than my own. Farewell, my Terentia, thou dearest, faithfullest, and
+     best of wives."
+
+Methinks it is a pleasure to see this great man in his family, who makes
+so different a figure in the Forum or Senate of Rome. Every one admires
+the orator and the consul; but for my part, I esteem the husband and the
+father. His private character, with all the little weaknesses of
+humanity, is as amiable as the figure he makes in public is awful and
+majestic. But at the same time that I love to surprise so great an
+author in his private walks, and to survey him in his most familiar
+lights, I think it would be barbarous to form to ourselves any idea of
+mean-spiritedness from these natural openings of his heart, and
+disburdening of his thoughts to a wife. He has written several other
+letters to the same person, but none with so great passion as these of
+which I have given the foregoing extracts.
+
+It would be ill-nature not to acquaint the English reader, that his wife
+was successful in her solicitations for this great man, and saw her
+husband return to the honours of which he had been deprived, with all
+the pomp and acclamation that usually attended the greatest triumph.
+
+
+[Footnote 201: No. 149.]
+
+[Footnote 202: "Epist." xiv, 1-4.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 160.                                         [ADDISON AND STEELE.
+
+From _Saturday, April 15_, to _Tuesday, April 18, 1710_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, April 17._
+
+A common civility to an impertinent fellow often draws upon one a great
+many unforeseen troubles; and if one does not take particular care, will
+be interpreted by him as an overture of friendship and intimacy. This I
+was very sensible of this morning. About two hours before day, I heard a
+great rapping at my door, which continued some time, till my maid could
+get herself ready to go down and see what was the occasion of it. She
+then brought me up word, that there was a gentleman who seemed very much
+in haste, and said he must needs speak with me. By the description she
+gave me of him, and by his voice, which I could hear as I lay in my bed,
+I fancied him to be my old acquaintance the upholsterer,[203] whom I met
+the other day in St. James's Park. For which reason, I bid her tell the
+gentleman, whoever he was, that I was indisposed, that I could see
+nobody, and that, if he had anything to say to me, I desired he would
+leave it in writing. My maid, after having delivered her message, told
+me that the gentleman said he would stay at the next coffee-house till I
+was stirring, and bid her be sure to tell me, that the French were
+driven from the Scarp, and that Douay was invested. He gave her the name
+of another town, which I found she had dropped by the way.
+
+As much as I love to be informed of the success of my brave countrymen,
+I do not care for hearing of a victory before day, and was therefore
+very much out of humour at this unseasonable visit. I had no sooner
+recovered my temper, and was falling asleep, but I was immediately
+startled by a second rap; and upon my maid's opening the door, heard the
+same voice ask her if her master was yet up; and at the same time bid
+her tell me, that he was come on purpose to talk with me about a piece
+of home news that everybody in town will be full of two hours hence. I
+ordered my maid as soon as she came into the room, without hearing her
+message, to tell the gentleman, that whatever his news was, I would
+rather hear it two hours hence than now; and that I persisted in my
+resolution not to speak with anybody that morning. The wench delivered
+my answer presently, and shut the door. It was impossible for me to
+compose myself to sleep after two such unexpected alarms; for which
+reason I put on my clothes in a very peevish humour. I took several
+turns about my chamber, reflecting with a great deal of anger and
+contempt on these volunteers in politics, that undergo all the pain,
+watchfulness, and disquiet of a First Minister, without turning it to
+the advantage either of themselves or their country; and yet it is
+surprising to consider how numerous this species of men is. There is
+nothing more frequent than to find a tailor breaking his rest on the
+affairs of Europe, and to see a cluster of porters sitting upon the
+Ministry. Our streets swarm with politicians, and there is scarce a shop
+which is not held by a statesman. As I was musing after this manner, I
+heard the upholsterer at the door delivering a letter to my maid, and
+begging her, in a very great hurry, to give it to her master as soon as
+ever he was awake, which I opened, and found as follows:
+
+     "MR. BICKERSTAFF,
+
+     "I was to wait upon you about a week ago, to let you know, that the
+     honest gentlemen whom you conversed with upon the bench at the end
+     of the Mall, having heard that I had received five shillings of
+     you, to give you a hundred pounds upon the Great Turk's being
+     driven out of Europe, desired me to acquaint you, that every one of
+     that company would be willing to receive five shillings, to pay a
+     hundred pounds on the same conditions. Our last advices from
+     Muscovy making this a fairer bet than it was a week ago, I do not
+     question but you will accept the wager.
+
+     "But this is not my present business. If you remember, I whispered
+     a word in your ear as we were walking up the Mall, and you see what
+     has happened since. If I had seen you this morning, I would have
+     told you in your ear another secret. I hope you will be recovered
+     of your indisposition by to-morrow morning, when I will wait on you
+     at the same hour as I did this; my private circumstances being
+     such, that I cannot well appear in this quarter of the town after
+     it is day.
+
+     "I have been so taken up with the late good news from Holland, and
+     expectation of further particulars, as well as with other
+     transactions, of which I will tell you more to-morrow morning, that
+     I have not slept a wink these three nights.
+
+     "I have reason to believe that Picardy will soon follow the example
+     of Artois, in case the enemy continue in their present resolution
+     of flying away from us. I think I told you last time we were
+     together my opinion about the Deulle.
+
+     "The honest gentlemen upon the bench bid me tell you, they would be
+     glad to see you often among them. We shall be there all the warm
+     hours of the day, during the present posture of affairs.
+
+     "This happy opening of the campaign will, I hope, give us a very
+     joyful summer; and I propose to take many a pleasant walk with you,
+     if you will sometimes come into the Park; for that is the only
+     place in which I can be free from the malice of my enemies.
+     Farewell till three o'clock to-morrow morning. I am,
+
+                                       "Your most humble Servant, &c.
+
+     "P.S. The King of Sweden is still at Bender."
+
+I should have fretted myself to death at this promise of a second visit,
+if I had not found in his letter an intimation of the good news which I
+have since heard at large. I have however ordered my maid to tie up the
+knocker of my door in such a manner as she would do if I was really
+indisposed. By which means I hope to escape breaking my morning's
+rest.[204]
+
+Since I have given this letter to the public, I shall communicate one or
+two more, which I have lately received from others of my
+correspondents. The following is from a Coquette, who is very angry at
+my having disposed of her in marriage to a Bass-viol:[205]
+
+     "MR. BICKERSTAFF,
+
+     "I thought you would never have descended from the Censor of Great
+     Britain, to become a match-maker. But pray, why so severe upon the
+     Kit? Had I been a Jews-harp, that is nothing but tongue, you could
+     not have used me worse. Of all things, a Bass-viol is my aversion.
+     Had you married me to a Bagpipe, or a Passing-bell, I should have
+     been better pleased. Dear Father Isaac, either choose me a better
+     husband, or I will live and die a Dulcimer. In hopes of receiving
+     satisfaction from you, I am yours, whilst
+
+                                                      "ISABELLA KIT."
+
+The pertness which this fair lady has shown in this letter, was one
+occasion of my joining her to the Bass-viol, which is an instrument that
+wants to be quickened by these little vivacities; as the sprightliness
+of the Kit ought to be checked and curbed by the gravity of the
+Bass-viol.
+
+My next letter is from Tom Folio,[206] who it seems takes it amiss that
+I have published a character of him so much to his disadvantage:
+
+     "SIR,
+
+     "I suppose you meant Tom Fool, when you called me Tom Folio in a
+     late trifling paper of yours; for I find, it is your design to run
+     down all useful and solid learning. The tobacco-paper on which your
+     own writings are usually printed,[207] as well as the incorrectness
+     of the press, and the scurvy letter, sufficiently show the extent
+     of your knowledge. I question not but you look upon John Morphew to
+     be as great a man as Elzevir; and Aldus, to have been such another
+     as Bernard Lintot.[208] If you would give me my revenge, I would
+     only desire of you to let me publish an account of your library,
+     which I daresay would furnish out an extraordinary catalogue.
+
+                                                         "TOM FOLIO."
+
+It has always been my way to baffle reproach with silence, though I
+cannot but observe the disingenuous proceedings of this gentleman, who
+is not content to asperse my writings, but has wounded, through my
+sides, those eminent and worthy citizens, Mr. John Morphew, and Mr.
+Bernard Lintot.[209]
+
+
+[Footnote 203: See No. 155.]
+
+[Footnote 204: The preceding portion of this paper is printed in
+Tickell's edition of Addison's Works.]
+
+[Footnote 205: See No. 157.]
+
+[Footnote 206: See No. 158.]
+
+[Footnote 207: See No. 101.]
+
+[Footnote 208: Bernard Lintot (1675-1736) was Jacob Tonson's principal
+rival in the publishing trade in the time of Queen Anne and George I.]
+
+[Footnote 209: The author of a curious pamphlet, "The Critical
+Specimen," 1711, said he was much divided in his opinion, whether to
+prefer the every way excellent Mr. Jacob Tonson, junior, or Mr. Bernard
+Lintot to be his bookseller, for the latter of whom he had had a
+particular consideration since he received this eulogium from his
+honoured friend Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq.--This pamphlet purports to be a
+specimen of a proposed Life of Rinaldo Furioso, Critic of the Woful
+Countenance,--_i.e._, John Dennis. It contains remarks upon the two good
+lines he wrote (_Spectator_, No. 47) upon the difficulty of
+distinguishing his comedies from his tragedies, &c. &c. There is, too,
+an allusion to the _Tatlers_ and _Spectators_ in the notice that the
+virtues of the critic are to be printed in a very small neat Elzevir
+character, and his extravagances in a noble large letter on royal
+paper.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 161.                                                    [ADDISON.
+
+From _Tuesday, April 18_, to _Thursday, April 20, 1710_.
+
+    ----Nunquam Libertas gratior exstat
+    Quam sub rege pio----
+          CLAUDIAN, De Laudibus Stilichonis, iii. 113.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, April 19._
+
+I was walking two or three days ago in a very pleasing retirement, and
+amusing myself with the reading of that ancient and beautiful allegory,
+called "The Table of Cebes."[210] I was at last so tired with my walk,
+that I sat down to rest myself upon a bench that stood in the midst of
+an agreeable shade. The music of the birds, that filled all the trees
+about me, lulled me asleep before I was aware of it; which was followed
+by a dream, that I impute in some measure to the foregoing author, who
+had made an impression upon my imagination, and put me into his own way
+of thinking.
+
+I fancied myself among the Alps, and, as it is natural in a dream,
+seemed every moment to bound from one summit to another, till at last,
+after having made this airy progress over the tops of several mountains,
+I arrived at the very centre of those broken rocks and precipices. I
+here, methought, saw a prodigious circuit of hills, that reached above
+the clouds, and encompassed a large space of ground, which I had a great
+curiosity to look into. I thereupon continued my former way of
+travelling through a great variety of winter scenes, till I had gained
+the top of these white mountains, which seemed another Alps of snow. I
+looked down from hence into a spacious plain, which was surrounded on
+all sides by this mound of hills, and which presented me with the most
+agreeable prospect I had ever seen. There was a greater variety of
+colours in the embroidery of the meadows, a more lively green in the
+leaves and grass, a brighter crystal in the streams, than what I ever
+met with in any other region. The light itself had something more
+shining and glorious in it than that of which the day is made in other
+places. I was wonderfully astonished at the discovery of such a paradise
+amidst the wildness of those cold, hoary landscapes which lay about it;
+but found at length, that this happy region was inhabited by the Goddess
+of Liberty; whose presence softened the rigours of the climate, enriched
+the barrenness of the soil, and more than supplied the absence of the
+sun. The place was covered with a wonderful profusion of flowers, that
+without being disposed into regular borders and parterres, grew
+promiscuously, and had a greater beauty in their natural luxuriancy and
+disorder, than they could have received from the checks and restraints
+of art. There was a river that arose out of the south side of the
+mountain, that by an infinite number of turns and windings, seemed to
+visit every plant, and cherish the several beauties of the spring, with
+which the fields abounded. After having run to and fro in a wonderful
+variety of meanders, as unwilling to leave so charming a place, it at
+last throws itself into the hollow of a mountain, from whence it passes
+under a long range of rocks, and at length rises in that part of the
+Alps where the inhabitants think it the first source of the Rhone. This
+river, after having made its progress through those free nations,
+stagnates in a huge lake,[211] at the leaving of them, and no sooner
+enters into the regions of slavery, but runs through them with an
+incredible rapidity, and takes its shortest way to the sea.
+
+I descended into the happy fields that lay beneath me, and in the midst
+of them, beheld the goddess sitting upon a throne. She had nothing to
+enclose her but the bounds of her own dominions, and nothing over her
+head but the heavens. Every glance of her eye cast a track of light
+where it fell, that revived the spring, and made all things smile about
+her. My heart grew cheerful at the sight of her, and as she looked upon
+me, I found a certain confidence growing in me, and such an inward
+resolution as I never felt before that time.
+
+On the left hand of the goddess sat the Genius of a Commonwealth, with
+the cap of liberty on her head, and in her hand a wand, like that with
+which a Roman citizen used to give his slaves their freedom. There was
+something mean and vulgar, but at the same time exceeding bold and
+daring, in her air; her eyes were full of fire, but had in them such
+casts of fierceness and cruelty, as made her appear to me rather
+dreadful than amiable. On her shoulder she wore a mantle, on which there
+was wrought a great confusion of figures. As it flew in the wind, I
+could not discern the particular design of them, but saw wounds in the
+bodies of some, and agonies in the faces of others; and over one part of
+it could read in letters of blood, "The Ides of March."
+
+On the right hand of the goddess was the Genius of Monarchy. She was
+clothed in the whitest ermine, and wore a crown of the purest gold upon
+her head. In her hand she held a sceptre like that which is borne by the
+British monarchs. A couple of tame lions lay crouching at her feet: her
+countenance had in it a very great majesty without any mixture of
+terror: her voice was like the voice of an angel, filled with so much
+sweetness, and accompanied with such an air of condescension, as
+tempered the awfulness of her appearance, and equally inspired love and
+veneration into the hearts of all that beheld her.
+
+In the train of the Goddess of Liberty were the several Arts and
+Sciences, who all of them flourished underneath her eye. One of them in
+particular made a greater figure than any of the rest, who held a
+thunderbolt in her hand, which had the power of melting, piercing, or
+breaking everything that stood in its way. The name of this goddess was
+Eloquence.
+
+There were two other dependent goddesses, who made a very conspicuous
+figure in this blissful region. The first of them was seated upon a
+hill, that had every plant growing out of it, which the soil was in its
+own nature capable of producing. The other was seated in a little
+island, that was covered with groves of spices, olives, and
+orange-trees; and in a word, with the products of every foreign clime.
+The name of the first was Plenty, of the second, Commerce. The first
+leaned her right arm upon a plough, and under her left held a huge horn,
+out of which she poured a whole autumn of fruits. The other wore a
+rostral crown upon her head, and kept her eyes fixed upon a compass.
+
+I was wonderfully pleased in ranging through this delightful place, and
+the more so, because it was not encumbered with fences and enclosures;
+till at length, methought, I sprung from the ground, and pitched upon
+the top of a hill, that presented several objects to my sight which I
+had not before taken notice of. The winds that passed over this flowery
+plain, and through the tops of the trees which were full of blossoms,
+blew upon me in such a continued breeze of sweets, that I was
+wonderfully charmed with my situation. I here saw all the inner
+declivities of that great circuit of mountains, whose outside was
+covered with snow, overgrown with huge forests of fir-trees, which
+indeed are very frequently found in other parts of the Alps. These trees
+were inhabited by storks, that came thither in great flights from very
+distant quarters of the world. Methought, I was pleased in my dream to
+see what became of these birds, when, upon leaving the places to which
+they make an annual visit, they rise in great flocks so high till they
+are out of sight; and for that reason have been thought by some modern
+philosophers to take a flight to the moon. But my eyes were soon
+diverted from this prospect, when I observed two great gaps that led
+through this circuit of mountains, where guards and watches were posted
+day and night. Upon examination I found, that there were two formidable
+enemies encamped before each of these avenues, who kept the place in a
+perpetual alarm, and watched all opportunities of invading it.
+
+Tyranny was at the head of one of these armies, dressed in an Eastern
+habit, and grasping in her hand an iron sceptre. Behind her was
+Barbarity, with the garb and complexion of an Ethiopian; Ignorance with
+a turban upon her head; and Persecution holding up a bloody flag,
+embroidered with fleurs-de-luce. These were followed by Oppression,
+Poverty, Famine, Torture, and a dreadful train of appearances, that made
+me tremble to behold them. Among the baggage of this army, I could
+discover racks, wheels, chains, and gibbets, with all the instruments
+art could invent to make human nature miserable.
+
+Before the other avenue I saw Licentiousness, dressed in a garment not
+unlike the Polish cassock, and leading up a whole army of monsters, such
+as Clamour, with a hoarse voice and a hundred tongues; Confusion, with a
+misshapen body and a thousand heads; Impudence, with a forehead of
+brass; and Rapine, with hands of iron. The tumult, noise, and uproar in
+this quarter were so very great, that they disturbed my imagination
+more than is consistent with sleep, and by that means awaked me.
+
+
+[Footnote 210: Cebes, of Thebes, was a disciple of Philolaus and
+Socrates. His [Greek: Pinax] is an account of a table on which human
+life, with all its temptations and dangers, is represented
+symbolically.]
+
+[Footnote 211: The Lake of Geneva.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 162.                                                    [ADDISON.
+
+From _Thursday, April 20_, to _Saturday, April 22, 1710_.
+
+    Tertius e coelo cecidit Cato.--JUV., Sat. ii. 40.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, April 21._
+
+In my younger years I used many endeavours to get a place at Court, and
+indeed continued my pursuits till I arrived at my grand climacteric: but
+at length altogether despairing of success, whether it were for want of
+capacity, friends, or due application, I at last resolved to erect a new
+office, and for my encouragement, to place myself in it. For this
+reason, I took upon me the title and dignity of Censor of Great Britain,
+reserving to myself all such perquisites, profits, and emoluments as
+should arise out of the discharge of the said office. These in truth
+have not been inconsiderable; for, besides those weekly contributions
+which I receive from John Morphew, and those annual subscriptions which
+I propose to myself from the most elegant part of this great island, I
+daily live in a very comfortable affluence of wine, stale beer, Hungary
+water, beef, books, and marrow-bones, which I receive from many
+well-disposed citizens; not to mention the forfeitures which accrue to
+me from the several offenders that appear before me on court-days.
+
+Having now enjoyed this office for the space of a twelve-month, I shall
+do what all good officers ought to do, take a survey of my behaviour,
+and consider carefully whether I have discharged my duty, and acted up
+to the character with which I am invested. For my direction in this
+particular, I have made a narrow search into the nature of the old
+Roman censors, whom I must always regard, not only as my predecessors,
+but as my patterns in this great employment; and have several times
+asked my own heart with great impartiality, whether Cato will not bear a
+more venerable figure among posterity than Bickerstaff.
+
+I find the duty of the Roman censor was twofold. The first part of it
+consisted in making frequent reviews of the people, in casting up their
+numbers, ranging them under their several tribes, disposing them into
+proper classes, and subdividing them into their respective centuries.
+
+In compliance with this part of the office, I have taken many curious
+surveys of this great city. I have collected into particular bodies the
+Dappers[212] and the Smarts,[213] the Natural and Affected Rakes,[214]
+the Pretty Fellows and the Very Pretty Fellows.[215] I have likewise
+drawn out in several distinct parties your Pedants[216] and Men of
+Fire,[217] your Gamesters[218] and Politicians.[219] I have separated
+Cits from Citizens,[220] Freethinkers from Philosophers,[221] Wits from
+Snuff-takers,[222] and Duellists from Men of Honour.[223] I have
+likewise made a calculation of Esquires,[224] not only considering the
+several distinct swarms of them that are settled in the different parts
+of this town, but also that more rugged species that inhabit the fields
+and woods, and are often found in pothouses, and upon haycocks.
+
+I shall pass the soft sex over in silence, having not yet reduced them
+into any tolerable order; as likewise the softer tribe of lovers, which
+will cost me a great deal of time, before I shall be able to cast them
+into their several centuries and subdivisions.
+
+The second part of the Roman censor's office was to look into the
+manners of the people, and to check any growing luxury, whether in diet,
+dress, or building. This duty likewise I have endeavoured to discharge,
+by those wholesome precepts which I have given my countrymen in regard
+to beef and mutton, and the severe censures which I have passed upon
+ragouts and fricassees.[225] There is not, as I am informed, a pair of
+red heels[226] to be seen within ten miles of London, which I may
+likewise ascribe, without vanity, to the becoming zeal which I expressed
+in that particular. I must own, my success with the petticoat[227] is
+not so great: but as I have not yet done with it, I hope I shall in a
+little time put an effectual stop to that growing evil. As for the
+article of building, I intend hereafter to enlarge upon it, having
+lately observed several warehouses, nay private shops, that stand upon
+Corinthian pillars, and whole rows of tin pots showing themselves, in
+order to their sale, through a sash-window.
+
+I have likewise followed the example of the Roman censors, in punishing
+offences according to the quality of the offender. It was usual for them
+to expel a senator who had been guilty of great immoralities out of the
+senate-house, by omitting his name when they called over the list of his
+brethren. In the same manner, to remove effectually several worthless
+men who stand possessed of great honours, I have made frequent draughts
+of dead men[228] out of the vicious part of the nobility, and given them
+up to the new society of upholders, with the necessary orders for their
+interment. As the Roman censors used to punish the knights or gentlemen
+of Rome, by taking away their horses from them, I have seized the
+canes[229] of many criminals of figure, whom I had just reason to
+animadvert upon. As for the offenders among the common people of Rome,
+they were generally chastised, by being thrown out of a higher tribe,
+and placed in one which was not so honourable. My reader cannot but
+think I have had an eye to this punishment, when I have degraded one
+species of men into bombs, squibs, and crackers,[230] and another into
+drums, bass-viols, and bagpipes;[231] not to mention whole packs of
+delinquents whom I have shut up in kennels, and the new hospital which I
+am at present erecting, for the reception of those my countrymen who
+give me but little hopes of their amendment, on the borders of
+Moorfields.[232] I shall only observe upon this last particular, that
+since some late surveys I have taken of this island, I shall think it
+necessary to enlarge the plan of the buildings which I design in this
+quarter.
+
+When my great predecessor Cato the elder stood for the Censorship of
+Rome, there were several other competitors who offered themselves; and
+to get an interest among the people, gave them great promises of the
+mild and gentle treatment which they would use towards them in that
+office. Cato on the contrary told them, he presented himself as a
+candidate, because he knew the age was sunk in immorality and
+corruption; and that if they would give him their votes, he would
+promise them to make use of such a strictness and severity of discipline
+as should recover them out of it. The Roman historians, upon this
+occasion, very much celebrate the public-spiritedness of that people,
+who chose Cato for their censor, notwithstanding his method of
+recommending himself. I may in some measure extol my own countrymen
+upon the same account, who, without any respect to party, or any
+application from myself, have made such generous subscriptions for the
+Censor of Great Britain, as will give a magnificence to my old age, and
+which I esteem more than I would any post in Europe of a hundred times
+the value. I shall only add, that upon looking into my catalogue of
+subscribers, which I intend to print alphabetically in the front of my
+Lucubrations, I find the names of the greatest beauties and wits in the
+whole island of Great Britain, which I only mention for the benefit of
+any of them who have not subscribed, it being my design to close the
+subscription in a very short time.
+
+
+[Footnote 212: See No. 85.]
+
+[Footnote 213: See Nos. 26, 28.]
+
+[Footnote 214: See Nos. 27, 143.]
+
+[Footnote 215: See Nos. 21, 22, 24.]
+
+[Footnote 216: See No. 158.]
+
+[Footnote 217: See No. 61.]
+
+[Footnote 218: See Nos. 13, 14, 15, 56, &c.]
+
+[Footnote 219: See Nos. 40, 155.]
+
+[Footnote 220: See No. 25.]
+
+[Footnote 221: See Nos. 108, 111, 135.]
+
+[Footnote 222: See Nos. 35, 141.]
+
+[Footnote 223: See Nos. 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 39.]
+
+[Footnote 224: See Nos. 19, 115.]
+
+[Footnote 225: See No. 148.]
+
+[Footnote 226: See No. 26.]
+
+[Footnote 227: See No. 116.]
+
+[Footnote 228: See Nos. 96, 110.]
+
+[Footnote 229: See No. 26.]
+
+[Footnote 230: See No. 88.]
+
+[Footnote 231: See No. 153.]
+
+[Footnote 232: See Nos. 62, 127.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 163.                                                    [ADDISON.
+
+From _Saturday, April 22_, to _Tuesday, April 25, 1710_.
+
+    Idem inficeto est inficetior rure,
+    Simul poemata attigit; neque idem unquam
+    AEque est beatus, ac poema cum scribit:
+    Tam gaudet in se, tamque se ipse miratur.
+    Nimirum idem omnes fallimur; neque est quisquam,
+    Quem non in aliqua re videre Suffenum
+    Possis.--CATULLUS, xxii. 14.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Will's Coffee-house, April 24._
+
+I yesterday came hither about two hours before the company generally
+make their appearance, with a design to read over all the newspapers;
+but upon my sitting down, I was accosted by Ned Softly, who saw me from
+a corner in the other end of the room, where I found he had been writing
+something. "Mr. Bickerstaff," says he, "I observe by a late paper of
+yours, that you and I are just of a humour; for you must know, of all
+impertinences, there is nothing which I so much hate as news. I never
+read a Gazette in my life; and never trouble my head about our armies,
+whether they win or lose, or in what part of the world they lie
+encamped." Without giving me time to reply, he drew a paper of verses
+out of his pocket, telling me, that he had something which would
+entertain me more agreeably, and that he would desire my judgment upon
+every line, for that we had time enough before us till the company came
+in.
+
+Ned Softly is a very pretty poet, and a great admirer of easy lines.
+Waller is his favourite: and as that admirable writer has the best and
+worst verses of any among our great English poets, Ned Softly has got
+all the bad ones without book, which he repeats upon occasion, to show
+his reading, and garnish his conversation. Ned is indeed a true English
+reader, incapable of relishing the great and masterly strokes of this
+art; but wonderfully pleased with the little Gothic ornaments of
+epigrammatical conceits, turns, points, and quibbles, which are so
+frequent in the most admired of our English poets, and practised by
+those who want genius and strength to represent, after the manner of the
+ancients, simplicity in its natural beauty and perfection.
+
+Finding myself unavoidably engaged in such a conversation, I was
+resolved to turn my pain into a pleasure, and to divert myself as well
+as I could with so very odd a fellow. "You must understand," says Ned,
+"that the sonnet I am going to read to you was written upon a lady, who
+showed me some verses of her own making, and is perhaps the best poet of
+our age. But you shall hear it." Upon which he began to read as
+follows:
+
+    "_To Mira on her Incomparable Poems._
+
+    I.
+
+    "_When dressed in laurel wreaths you shine,
+      And tune your soft melodious notes,
+    You seem a sister of the Nine,
+      Or Phoebus' self in petticoats._
+
+    II.
+
+    "_I fancy, when your song you sing
+      (Your song you sing with so much art),
+    Your pen was plucked from Cupid's wing;
+      For ah! it wounds me like his dart._"
+
+"Why," says I, "this is a little nosegay of conceits, a very lump of
+salt: every verse has something in it that piques; and then the dart in
+the last line is certainly as pretty a sting in the tail of an epigram
+(for so I think your critics call it) as ever entered into the thought
+of a poet." "Dear Mr. Bickerstaff," says he, shaking me by the hand,
+"everybody knows you to be a judge of these things; and to tell you
+truly, I read over Roscommon's translation of Horace's 'Art of Poetry'
+three several times, before I sat down to write the sonnet which I have
+shown you. But you shall hear it again, and pray observe every line of
+it, for not one of them shall pass without your approbation.
+
+    "_When dressed in laurel wreaths you shine._
+
+"That is," says he, "when you have your garland on; when you are writing
+verses." To which I replied, "I know your meaning: a metaphor!" "The
+same," said he, and went on:
+
+    "_And tune your soft melodious notes._
+
+"Pray observe the gliding of that verse; there is scarce a consonant in
+it: I took care to make it run upon liquids. Give me your opinion of
+it." "Truly," said I, "I think it as good as the former." "I am very
+glad to hear you say so," says he; "but mind the next:
+
+    "_You seem a sister of the Nine._
+
+"That is," says he, "you seem a sister of the Muses; for if you look
+into ancient authors, you will find it was their opinion, that there
+were nine of them." "I remember it very well," said I; "but pray
+proceed."
+
+    "_Or Phoebus' self in petticoats._
+
+"Phoebus," says he, "was the God of Poetry. These little instances,
+Mr. Bickerstaff, show a gentleman's reading. Then to take off from the
+air of learning, which Phoebus and the Muses have given to this first
+stanza, you may observe how it falls all of a sudden into the familiar;
+'in petticoats!'
+
+    "_Or Phoebus' self in petticoats._"
+
+"Let us now," says I, "enter upon the second stanza. I find the first
+line is still a continuation of the metaphor:
+
+    "_I fancy, when your song you sing._"
+
+"It is very right," says he; "but pray observe the turn of words in
+those two lines. I was a whole hour in adjusting of them, and have still
+a doubt upon me, whether in the second line it should be, 'Your song you
+sing'; or, 'You sing your song'? You shall hear them both:
+
+    "_I fancy, when your song you sing
+      (Your song you sing with so much art)._"
+
+Or,
+
+    "_I fancy, when your song you sing
+      (You sing your song with so much art)._"
+
+"Truly," said I, "the turn is so natural either way, that you have made
+me almost giddy with it." "Dear sir," said he, grasping me by the hand,
+"you have a great deal of patience; but pray what do you think of the
+next verse:
+
+    "_Your pen was plucked from Cupid's wing?_"
+
+"Think!" says I; "I think you have made Cupid look like a little goose."
+"That was my meaning," says he; "I think the ridicule is well enough hit
+off. But we now come to the last, which sums up the whole matter:
+
+    "_For ah! it wounds me like his dart._
+
+"Pray, how do you like that 'Ah!' Does it not make a pretty figure in
+that place? 'Ah!' It looks as if I felt the dart, and cried out at being
+pricked with it:
+
+    "_For ah! it wounds me like his dart._
+
+"My friend Dick Easy,"[233] continued he, "assured me he would rather
+have written that 'Ah!' than to have been the author of the 'AEneid.' He
+indeed objected that I made Mira's pen like a quill in one of the lines,
+and like a dart in the other. But as to that--" "Oh! as to that," says
+I, "it is but supposing Cupid to be like a porcupine, and his quills and
+darts will be the same thing." He was going to embrace me for the hint;
+but half a dozen critics coming into the room, whose faces he did not
+like, he conveyed the sonnet into his pocket, and whispered me in the
+ear, he would show it me again as soon as his man had written it over
+fair.
+
+
+[Footnote 233: Perhaps Henry Cromwell. See Nos. 47, 49, 165, and Mrs.
+Elizabeth Thomas' "Pylades and Corinna," i. 194.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 164.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Tuesday, April 25_, to _Thursday, April 27, 1710_.
+
+    Qui sibi promittit cives, urbem sibi curae,
+    Imperium fore et Italiam, delubra Deorum,
+    Quo patre sit natus, num ignota matre inhonestus,
+    Omnes mortales curare et quaerere cogit.
+                                    HOR., I Sat. vi. 34.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, April 26._
+
+
+I have lately been looking over the many packets of letters which I have
+received from all quarters of Great Britain, as well as from foreign
+countries, since my entering upon the office of Censor, and indeed am
+very much surprised to see so great a number of them, and pleased to
+think that I have so far increased the revenue of the Post Office. As
+this collection will grow daily, I have digested it into several
+bundles, and made proper endorsements on each particular letter, it
+being my design, when I lay down the work that I am now engaged in, to
+erect a Paper Office, and give it to the public.[234]
+
+I could not but make several observations upon reading over the letters
+of my correspondents: as first of all, on the different tastes that
+reign in the different parts of this city. I find, by the approbations
+which are given me, that I am seldom famous on the same days on both
+sides of Temple Bar; and that when I am in the greatest repute within
+the Liberties, I dwindle at the court end of the town. Sometimes I sink
+in both these places at the same time; but for my comfort, my name has
+then been up in the districts of Wapping and Rotherhithe. Some of my
+correspondents desire me to be always serious, and others to be always
+merry. Some of them entreat me to go to bed and fall into a dream, and
+like me better when I am asleep than when I am awake: others advise me
+to sit all night upon the stars, and be more frequent in my astrological
+observations; for that a vision is not properly a lucubration. Some of
+my readers thank me for filling my paper with the flowers of antiquity,
+others desire news from Flanders. Some approve my criticisms on the
+dead, and others my censures on the living. For this reason, I once
+resolved in the new edition of my works, to range my several papers
+under distinct heads, according as their principal design was to benefit
+and instruct the different capacities of my readers, and to follow the
+example of some very great authors, by writing at the head of each
+discourse, "Ad Aulam," "Ad Academiam," "Ad Populum," "Ad Clerum."
+
+There is no particular in which my correspondents of all ages,
+conditions, sexes, and complexions, universally agree, except only in
+their thirst after scandal. It is impossible to conceive how many have
+recommended their neighbours to me upon this account, or how
+unmercifully I have been abused by several unknown hands, for not
+publishing the secret histories of cuckoldom that I have received from
+almost every street in town.
+
+It would indeed be very dangerous for me to read over the many praises
+and eulogiums which come post to me from all the corners of the nation,
+were they not mixed with many checks, reprimands, scurrilities, and
+reproaches, which several of my good-natured countrymen cannot forbear
+sending me, though it often costs them twopence or a groat before they
+can convey them to my hands:[235] so that sometimes when I am put into
+the best humour in the world, after having read a panegyric upon my
+performance, and looked upon myself as a benefactor to the British
+nation, the next letter perhaps I open, begins with, "You old doting
+scoundrel;" "Are not you a sad dog?" "Sirrah, you deserve to have your
+nose slit;" and the like ingenious conceits. These little mortifications
+are necessary to surpass that pride and vanity which naturally arise in
+the mind of a received author, and enable me to bear the reputation
+which my courteous readers bestow upon me, without becoming a coxcomb by
+it. It was for the same reason, that when a Roman general entered the
+city in the pomp of a triumph, the commonwealth allowed of several
+little drawbacks to his reputation, by conniving at such of the rabble
+as repeated libels and lampoons upon him within his hearing, and by that
+means engaged his thoughts upon his weakness and imperfections, as well
+as on the merits that advanced him to so great honours. The conqueror
+however was not the less esteemed for being a man in some particulars,
+because he appeared as a god in others.
+
+There is another circumstance in which my countrymen have dealt very
+perversely with me; and that is, in searching not only into my own life,
+but also into the lives of my ancestors. If there has been a blot in my
+family for these ten generations, it has been discovered by some or
+other of my correspondents. In short, I find the ancient family of the
+Bickerstaffs has suffered very much through the malice and prejudice of
+my enemies. Some of them twit me in the teeth with the conduct of my
+Aunt Margery:[236] nay, there are some who have been so disingenuous, as
+to throw Maud the Milkmaid[237] into my dish, notwithstanding I myself
+was the first who discovered that alliance. I reap however many
+benefits from the malice of these my enemies, as they let me see my own
+faults, and give me a view of myself in the worst light; as they hinder
+me from being blown up by flattery and self-conceit; as they make me
+keep a watchful eye over my own actions, and at the same time make me
+cautious how I talk of others, and particularly of my friends and
+relations, or value myself upon the antiquity of my family.
+
+But the most formidable part of my correspondents are those whose
+letters are filled with threats and menaces. I have been treated so
+often after this manner, that not thinking it sufficient to fence well,
+in which I am now arrived at the utmost perfection,[238] and carry
+pistols about me, which I have always tucked within my girdle; I several
+months since made my will, settled my estate, and took leave of my
+friends, looking upon myself as no better than a dead man. Nay, I went
+so far as to write a long letter to the most intimate acquaintance I
+have in the world, under the character of a departed person, giving him
+an account of what brought me to that untimely end, and of the fortitude
+with which I met it. This letter being too long for the present paper, I
+intend to print it by itself very suddenly; and at the same time I must
+confess, I took my hint of it from the behaviour of an old soldier in
+the Civil Wars, who was corporal of a company in a regiment of foot,
+about the same time that I myself was a cadet in the King's army.
+
+This gentleman was taken by the enemy; and the two parties were upon
+such terms at that time, that we did not treat each other as prisoners
+of war, but as traitors and rebels. The poor corporal being condemned to
+die, wrote a letter to his wife when under sentence of execution. He
+writ on the Thursday, and was to be executed on the Friday: but
+considering that the letter would not come to his wife's hands till
+Saturday, the day after execution, and being at that time more
+scrupulous than ordinary in speaking exact truth, he formed his letter
+rather according to the posture of his affairs when she should read it,
+than as they stood when he sent it; though it must be confessed, there
+is a certain perplexity in the style of it, which the reader will easily
+pardon, considering his circumstances:
+
+     "DEAR WIFE,
+
+     "Hoping you are in good health, as I am at this present writing,
+     this is to let you know, that yesterday, between the hours of
+     eleven and twelve, I was hanged, drawn and quartered. I died very
+     penitently, and everybody thought my case very hard. Remember me
+     kindly to my poor fatherless children.
+
+                                              "Yours till death,
+                                                              "W. B."
+
+It so happened, that this honest fellow was relieved by a party of his
+friends, and had the satisfaction to see all the rebels hanged who had
+been his enemies. I must not omit a circumstance which exposed him to
+raillery his whole life after. Before the arrival of the next post, that
+would have set all things clear, his wife was married to a second
+husband, who lived in the peaceful possession of her; and the corporal,
+who was a man of plain understanding, did not care to stir in the
+matter, as knowing that she had the news of his death under his own
+hand, which she might have produced upon occasion.
+
+
+[Footnote 234: This idea was carried out in 1725, when Charles Lillie
+published, by Steele's permission, two volumes of "Original and genuine
+Letters sent to the _Tatler_ and _Spectator_, during the time those
+works were publishing. None of which have been before printed." See No.
+110.]
+
+[Footnote 235: See Nos. 117, 186, Advertisements.]
+
+[Footnote 236: See No. 151.]
+
+[Footnote 237: See No. 75.]
+
+[Footnote 238: It would hardly be possible for a man of Bickerstaff's
+age to acquire perfection in fencing after only a few months' practice.
+See No. 173: "I first began to learn to push this last winter."]
+
+
+
+
+No. 165.                                                    [ADDISON.
+
+From _Thursday, April 27_, to _Saturday, April 29, 1710_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, April 28._
+
+It has always been my endeavour to distinguish between realities and
+appearances, and to separate true merit from the pretence to it. As it
+shall ever be my study to make discoveries of this nature in human life,
+and to settle the proper distinctions between the virtues and
+perfections of mankind, and those false colours and resemblances of them
+that shine alike in the eyes of the vulgar; so I shall be more
+particularly careful to search into the various merits and pretences of
+the learned world. This is the more necessary, because there seems to be
+a general combination among the pedants to extol one another's labours,
+and cry up one another's parts; while men of sense, either through that
+modesty which is natural to them, or the scorn they have for such
+trifling commendations, enjoy their stock of knowledge like a hidden
+treasure, with satisfaction and silence. Pedantry indeed in learning is
+like hypocrisy in religion, a form of knowledge without the power of it,
+that attracts the eyes of the common people, breaks out in noise and
+show, and finds its reward not from any inward pleasure that attends it,
+but from the praises and approbations which it receives from men.
+
+Of this shallow species there is not a more importunate, empty, and
+conceited animal, than that which is generally known by the name of a
+critic. This, in the common acceptation of the word, is one that,
+without entering into the sense and soul of an author, has a few general
+rules, which, like mechanical instruments, he applies to the works of
+every writer, and as they quadrate with them, pronounces the author
+perfect or defective. He is master of a certain set of words, as "unity,
+style, fire, phlegm, easy, natural, turn, sentiment," and the like;
+which he varies, compounds, divides, and throws together, in every part
+of his discourse, without any thought or meaning. The marks you may know
+him by are, an elevated eye, and dogmatical brow, a positive voice, and
+a contempt for everything that comes out, whether he has read it or not.
+He dwells altogether in generals. He praises or dispraises in the lump.
+He shakes his head very frequently at the pedantry of Universities, and
+bursts into laughter when you mention an author that is not known at
+Will's. He has formed his judgment upon Homer, Horace, and Virgil, not
+from their own works, but from those of Rapin and Bossu. He knows his
+own strength so well, that he never dares praise anything in which he
+has not a French author for his voucher.
+
+With these extraordinary talents and accomplishments, Sir Timothy
+Tittle[239] puts men in vogue, or condemns them to obscurity, and sits
+as judge of life and death upon every author that appears in public. It
+is impossible to represent the pangs, agonies, and convulsions which Sir
+Timothy expresses in every feature of his face, and muscle of his body,
+upon the reading of a bad poet.
+
+About a week ago I was engaged at a friend's of mine in an agreeable
+conversation with his wife and daughters, when in the height of our
+mirth, Sir Timothy, who makes love to my friend's eldest daughter, came
+in amongst us puffing and blowing as if he had been very much out of
+breath. He immediately called for a chair, and desired leave to sit
+down, without any further ceremony. I asked him where he had been?
+whether he was out of order? He only replied, that he was quite spent,
+and fell a-cursing in soliloquy. I could hear him cry, "A wicked rogue;"
+"An execrable wretch;" "Was there ever such a monster?" The young ladies
+upon this began to be affrighted, and asked whether any one had hurt
+him? He answered nothing, but still talked to himself. "To lay the first
+scene," says he, "in St. James's Park, and the last in Northamptonshire."
+"Is that all?" says I. "Then I suppose you have been at the rehearsal of
+a play this morning?" "Been!" says he; "I have been at Northampton, in
+the Park, in a lady's bed-chamber, in a dining-room, everywhere; the
+rogue has led me such a dance." Though I could scarce forbear laughing
+at his discourse, I told him I was glad it was no worse, and that he was
+only metaphorically weary. "In short, sir," says he, "the author has not
+observed a single unity in his whole play; the scene shifts in every
+dialogue; the villain has hurried me up and down at such a rate, that I
+am tired off my legs." I could not but observe with some pleasure, that
+the young lady whom he made love to conceived a very just aversion to
+him, upon seeing him so very passionate in trifles. And as she had that
+natural sense which makes her a better judge than a thousand critics,
+she began to rally him upon this foolish humour. "For my part," says
+she, "I never knew a play take that was written up to your rules, as you
+call them." "How, madam!" says he; "is that your opinion? I am sure you
+have a better taste." "It is a pretty kind of magic," says she, "the
+poets have, to transport an audience from place to place without the
+help of a coach and horses. I could travel round the world at such a
+rate. 'Tis such an entertainment as an enchantress finds when she
+fancies herself in a wood, or upon a mountain, at a feast, or a
+solemnity; though at the same time she has never stirred out of her
+cottage." "Your simile, madam," says Sir Timothy, "is by no means
+just." "Pray," says she, "let my similes pass without a criticism. I
+must confess," continued she (for I found she was resolved to exasperate
+him), "I laughed very heartily at the last new comedy which you found so
+much fault with." "But, madam," says he, "you ought not to have laughed;
+and I defy any one to show me a single rule that you could laugh by."
+"Ought not to laugh!" says she: "pray, who should hinder me?" "Madam,"
+says he, "there are such people in the world as Rapin, Dacier, and
+several others, that ought to have spoiled your mirth." "I have heard,"
+says the young lady, "that your great critics are always very bad poets:
+I fancy there is as much difference between the works of one and the
+other, as there is between the carriage of a dancing-master and a
+gentleman. I must confess," continued she, "I would not be troubled with
+so fine a judgment as yours is; for I find you feel more vexation in a
+bad comedy than I do in a deep tragedy." "Madam," says Sir Timothy,
+"that is not my fault; they should learn the art of writing." "For my
+part," says the young lady, "I should think the greatest art in your
+writers of comedies is to please." "To please!" says Sir Timothy; and
+immediately fell a-laughing. "Truly," says she, "that is my opinion."
+Upon this, he composed his countenance, looked upon his watch, and took
+his leave.
+
+I hear that Sir Timothy has not been at my friend's house since this
+notable conference, to the great satisfaction of the young lady, who by
+this means has got rid of a very impertinent fop.
+
+I must confess, I could not but observe, with a great deal of surprise,
+how this gentleman, by his ill-nature, folly, and affectation, has made
+himself capable of suffering so many imaginary pains, and looking with
+such a senseless severity upon the common diversions of life.
+
+
+[Footnote 239: Perhaps Henry Cromwell; see Nos. 47, 49, 163.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 166.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Saturday, April 29_, to _Tuesday, May 2, 1710_.
+
+    ----Dicenda tacenda loquutus.--HOR., I Ep. vii. 72.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_White's Chocolate-house, May 1._
+
+The world is so overgrown with singularities in behaviour, and method of
+living, that I have no sooner laid before mankind the absurdity of one
+species of men, but there starts up to my view some new sect of
+impertinents that had before escaped notice. This afternoon, as I was
+talking with fine Mrs. Sprightly's porter, and desiring admittance upon
+an extraordinary occasion, it was my fate to be spied by Tom Modely
+riding by in his chariot. He did me the honour to stop, and asked what I
+did there of a Monday? I answered that I had business of importance,
+which I wanted to communicate to the lady of the house. Tom is one of
+those fools who look upon knowledge of the fashion to be the only
+liberal science; and was so rough as to tell me, that a well-bred man
+would as soon call upon a lady (who keeps a day) at midnight, as on any
+day but that on which she professes being at home. There are rules and
+decorums which are never to be transgressed by those who understand the
+world; and he who offends in this kind, ought not to take it ill if he
+is turned away, even when he sees the person look out at her window whom
+he inquires for. "Nay," said he, "my Lady Dimple is so positive in this
+rule, that she takes it for a piece of good breeding and distinction to
+deny herself with her own mouth. Mrs. Comma,[240] the great scholar,
+insists upon it; and I myself have heard her assert, that a lord's
+porter, or a lady's woman, cannot be said to lie in that case, because
+they act by instruction; and their words are no more their own, than
+those of a puppet."
+
+He was going on with this ribaldry, when on a sudden he looked on his
+watch, and said, he had twenty visits to make, and drove away without
+further ceremony. I was then at leisure to reflect upon the tasteless
+manner of life, which a set of idle fellows lead in this town, and spend
+youth itself with less spirit, than other men do their old age. These
+expletives in human society, though they are in themselves wholly
+insignificant, become of some consideration when they are mixed with
+others. I am very much at a loss how to define, or under what character,
+distinction, or denomination, to place them, except you give me leave to
+call them the Order of the Insipids. This order is in its extent like
+that of the Jesuits, and you see of them in every way of life, and in
+every profession. Tom Modely has long appeared to me at the head of this
+species. By being habitually in the best company, he knows perfectly
+well when a coat is well cut, or a periwig well mounted.[241] As soon as
+you enter the place where he is, he tells the next man to him who is
+your tailor, and judges of you more from the choice of your
+periwig-maker than of your friend. His business in this world is to be
+well dressed; and the greatest circumstance that is to be recorded in
+his annals is, that he wears twenty shirts a week. Thus, without ever
+speaking reason among the men, or passion among the women, he is
+everywhere well received; and without any one man's esteem, he has every
+man's indulgence.
+
+This order has produced great numbers of tolerable copiers in painting,
+good rhymers in poetry, and harmless projectors in politics. You may see
+them at first sight grow acquainted by sympathy, insomuch that one who
+had not studied nature, and did not know the true cause of their sudden
+familiarities, would think that they had some secret intimation of each
+other, like the freemasons. The other day at Will's I heard Modely, and
+a critic of the same order, show their equal talents with great delight.
+The learned insipid was commending Racine's turns; the genteel insipid,
+Devillier's curls.[242]
+
+These creatures, when they are not forced into any particular
+employment, for want of ideas in their own imaginations, are the
+constant plague of all they meet with by inquiries for news and scandal,
+which makes them the heroes of visiting-days, where they help the design
+of the meeting, which is to pass away that odious thing called Time, in
+discourses too trivial to raise any reflections which may put well-bred
+persons to the trouble of thinking.
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, May 1._
+
+I was looking out of my parlour window this morning,[243] and receiving
+the honours which Margery, the milkmaid to our lane, was doing me, by
+dancing before my door with the plate of half her customers on her
+head, when Mr. Clayton,[244] the author of "Arsinoe," made me a visit,
+and desired me to insert the following advertisement in my ensuing
+paper:
+
+     The Pastoral Masque composed by Mr. Clayton, author of "Arsinoe,"
+     will be performed on Wednesday the 3rd instant, in the great room
+     at York Buildings.[245] Tickets are to be had at White's
+     Chocolate-house, St. James's Coffee-house in St. James's Street,
+     and Young Man's Coffee-house.[246]
+
+     Note. The tickets delivered out for the 27th of April will be
+     taken then.
+
+When I granted his request, I made one to him, which was, that the
+performers should put their instruments in tune before the audience came
+in; for that I thought the resentment of the Eastern Prince, who,
+according to the old story, took "tuning" for "playing," to be very just
+and natural. He was so civil, as not only to promise that favour, but
+also to assure me, that he would order the heels of the performers to be
+muffled in cotton, that the artists in so polite an age as ours, may not
+intermix with their harmony a custom which so nearly resembles the
+stamping dances of the West Indians or Hottentots.
+
+
+ADVERTISEMENTS.
+
+A Bass-viol of Mr. Bickerstaff's acquaintance, whose mind and fortune do
+not very exactly agree, proposes to set himself to sale by way of
+lottery.[247] Ten thousand pounds is the sum to be raised, at threepence
+a ticket, in consideration that there are more women who are willing to
+be married than that can spare a greater sum. He has already made over
+his person to trustees for the said money to be forthcoming, and ready
+to take to wife the fortunate woman that wins him.
+
+N.B. Tickets are given out by Mr. Charles Lillie, and Mr. John Morphew.
+Each adventurer must be a virgin, and subscribe her name to her
+ticket.[248]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Whereas the several churchwardens of most of the parishes within the
+bills of mortality, have in an earnest manner applied themselves by way
+of petition, and have also made a presentment of the vain and loose
+deportment during divine service, of persons of too great figure in all
+their said parishes for their reproof: And whereas it is therein set
+forth, that by salutations given each other, hints, shrugs, ogles,
+playing of fans, and fooling with canes at their mouths, and other
+wanton gesticulations, their whole congregation appears rather a
+theatrical audience, than a house of devotion: It is hereby ordered,
+that all canes, cravats, bosom-laces, muffs, fans, snuff-boxes, and all
+other instruments made use of to give persons unbecoming airs, shall be
+immediately forfeited and sold; and of the sum arising from the sale
+thereof, a ninth part shall be paid to the poor, and the rest to the
+overseers.[249]
+
+
+[Footnote 240: "I have been informed by a relation of hers, that when
+Mrs. Mary Astell has accidentally seen needless visitors coming, whom
+she knew to be incapable of discoursing upon any useful subject, she
+would look out of the window, and jestingly tell them (as Cato did
+Nasica), 'Mrs. Astell is not at home'; and in good earnest keep them
+out, not suffering such triflers to make inroads upon her more serious
+hours" (Ballard's "Memoirs of British Learned Ladies," 1775, p. 309).
+For Swift's attacks on Mary Astell, see Nos. 32, 63.]
+
+[Footnote 241: "Monter une perruque" is a French barber's phrase.]
+
+[Footnote 242: See Nos. 26, 29. Duvillier or Devillier was a
+hairdresser.]
+
+[Footnote 243: May Day. In the _Spectator_ (No. 365) Budgell says: "It
+is likewise on the first day of this month that we see the ruddy
+milkmaid exerting herself in a most sprightly manner under a pyramid of
+silver tankards, and like the virgin Tarpeia, oppressed by the costly
+ornaments which her benefactors lay upon her." Similarly, Misson
+("Travels in England," p. 307) says: "On the first of May, and the five
+or six days following, all the pretty young country girls that serve the
+town with milk, dress themselves up very neatly, and borrow abundance of
+silver plate, whereof they make a pyramid, which they adorn with ribands
+and flowers, and carry upon their heads, instead of their common
+milkpails. In this equipage, accompanied by some of their fellow
+milkmaids, and a bagpipe and fiddle, they go from door to door,
+dancing before the houses of their customers."]
+
+[Footnote 244: "There is a Pastoral Masque to be performed on the 27th
+inst., in York Buildings, for the benefit of Mr. Clayton, and composed
+by him. This gentleman is the person who introduced the Italian opera
+into Great Britain, and hopes he has pretensions to the favour of all
+lovers of music, who can get over the prejudice of his being their
+countryman" (_Tatler_, original folio, No. 163).
+
+Thomas Clayton, in association with Haym and Dieuport, began a series of
+operatic performances at Drury Lane Theatre in 1705, commencing with
+"Arsinoe," which was a success. In 1707 he produced a setting of
+Addison's "Rosamond," but it was played only three times. The opera
+performances were continued until 1711, after which Clayton gave
+concerts in York Buildings (see _Spectator_, No. 258). He died about
+1730.]
+
+[Footnote 245: In the Strand. In 1713 Steele started a scheme for "a
+noble entertainment for persons of refined taste," in York Buildings.]
+
+[Footnote 246: At Charing Cross, with a back door into Spring Gardens.]
+
+[Footnote 247: See Nos. 153, 157, 168.]
+
+[Footnote 248: In the _Daily Courant_ for Aug. 18, 1710, there was
+advertised as just published a pamphlet called "A Good Husband for Five
+Shillings; or, Esquire Bickerstaff's Lottery for the London Ladies.
+Wherein those that want bedfellows, in an honest way, will have a fair
+chance to be well fitted." It was complained that husbands were scarce
+through the war. The title exhausts all that is of interest in the
+pamphlet, with the exception of the frontispiece, which represents a
+room in which a lottery is being drawn, with two wheels of fortune, &c.]
+
+[Footnote 249: Nichols notes that a correction in this number, intimated
+in the following paper, was actually made in a copy before him, and
+concluded that there was sometimes more than one impression of the
+original folio issue. This was certainly the case. There is a set of the
+_Tatlers_ in folio in the British Museum (press-mark 628 m 13) in which
+many of the numbers are set up somewhat differently from the ordinary
+issue (Nos. 4, 28, 29, 30, &c.). Sometimes there is a line more or less
+in a column; sometimes slightly different type is used in one or two
+advertisements.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 167.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Tuesday, May 2_, to _Thursday, May 4, 1710_.
+
+    Segnius irritant animos demissa per aurem,
+    Quam quae sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus----
+                                HOR., Ars Poet. 180.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, May 2._
+
+Having received notice, that the famous actor Mr. Betterton[250] was to
+be interred this evening in the cloisters near Westminster Abbey, I was
+resolved to walk thither, and see the last office done to a man whom I
+had always very much admired, and from whose action I had received more
+strong impressions of what is great and noble in human nature, than from
+the arguments of the most solid philosophers, or the descriptions of the
+most charming poets I had ever read. As the rude and untaught multitude
+are no way wrought upon more effectually than by seeing public
+punishments and executions, so men of letters and education feel their
+humanity most forcibly exercised, when they attend the obsequies of men
+who had arrived at any perfection in liberal accomplishments. Theatrical
+action is to be esteemed as such, except it be objected, that we cannot
+call that an art which cannot be attained by art. Voice, stature,
+motion, and other gifts, must be very bountifully bestowed by Nature, or
+labour and industry will but push the unhappy endeavourer, in that way,
+the further off his wishes.
+
+Such an actor as Mr. Betterton ought to be recorded with the same
+respect as Roscius among the Romans. The greatest orator[251] has
+thought fit to quote his judgment, and celebrate his life. Roscius was
+the example to all that would form themselves into proper and winning
+behaviour. His action was so well adapted to the sentiments he
+expressed, that the youth of Rome thought they wanted only to be
+virtuous to be as graceful in their appearance as Roscius. The
+imagination took a lively impression of what was great and good; and
+they who never thought of setting up for the arts of imitation, became
+themselves imitable characters.
+
+There is no human invention so aptly calculated for the forming a
+free-born people as that of a theatre. Tully reports that the celebrated
+player of whom I am speaking used frequently to say, "The perfection of
+an actor is only to become what he is doing." Young men, who are too
+unattentive to receive lectures, are irresistibly taken with
+performances. Hence it is, that I extremely lament the little relish the
+gentry of this nation have at present for the just and noble
+representations in some of our tragedies. The operas which are of late
+introduced can leave no trace behind them that can be of service beyond
+the present moment. To sing and to dance are accomplishments very few
+have any thoughts of practising; but to speak justly, and move
+gracefully, is what every man thinks he does perform, or wishes he did.
+
+I have hardly a notion, that any performer of antiquity could surpass
+the action of Mr. Betterton in any of the occasions in which he has
+appeared on our stage. The wonderful agony which he appeared in, when he
+examined the circumstance of the handkerchief in "Othello"; the mixture
+of love that intruded upon his mind upon the innocent answers Desdemona
+makes, betrayed in his gesture such a variety and vicissitude of
+passions, as would admonish a man to be afraid of his own heart, and
+perfectly convince him, that it is to stab it to admit that worst of
+daggers, jealousy. Whoever reads in his closet this admirable scene,
+will find that he cannot, except he has as warm an imagination as
+Shakespeare himself, find any but dry, incoherent, and broken sentences:
+but a reader that has seen Betterton act it, observes there could not be
+a word added; that longer speeches had been unnatural, nay impossible,
+in Othello's circumstances. The charming passage in the same tragedy,
+where he tells the manner of winning the affection of his mistress, was
+urged with so moving and graceful an energy, that while I walked in the
+cloisters, I thought of him with the same concern as if I waited for the
+remains of a person who had in real life done all that I had seen him
+represent. The gloom of the place, and faint lights before the ceremony
+appeared, contributed to the melancholy disposition I was in; and I
+began to be extremely afflicted, that Brutus and Cassius had any
+difference; that Hotspur's gallantry was so unfortunate; and that the
+mirth and good humour of Falstaff could not exempt him from the grave.
+Nay, this occasion in me, who look upon the distinctions amongst men to
+be merely scenical, raised reflections upon the emptiness of all human
+perfection and greatness in general; and I could not but regret, that
+the sacred heads which lie buried in the neighbourhood of this little
+portion of earth in which my poor old friend is deposited, are returned
+to dust as well as he, and that there is no difference in the grave
+between the imaginary and the real monarch. This made me say of human
+life itself with Macbeth:
+
+    "_To-morrow, to-morrow, and to-morrow,
+    Creeps in a stealing pace from day to day,
+    To the last moment of recorded time!
+    And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
+    To their eternal night! Out, out short candle!
+    Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
+    That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
+    And then is heard no more._"[252]
+
+The mention I have here made of Mr. Betterton, for whom I had, as long
+as I have known anything, a very great esteem and gratitude for the
+pleasure he gave me, can do him no good; but it may possibly be of
+service to the unhappy woman he has left behind him,[253] to have it
+known, that this great tragedian was never in a scene half so moving as
+the circumstances of his affairs created at his departure. His wife,
+after the cohabitation of forty years in the strictest amity, has long
+pined away with a sense of his decay, as well in his person as his
+little fortune; and in proportion to that, she has herself decayed both
+in her health and her reason. Her husband's death, added to her age and
+infirmities, would certainly have determined her life, but that the
+greatness of her distress has been her relief, by a present deprivation
+of her senses. This absence of reason is her best defence against age,
+sorrow, poverty, and sickness. I dwell upon this account so distinctly,
+in obedience to a certain great spirit[254] who hides her name, and has
+by letter applied to me to recommend to her some object of compassion,
+from whom she may be concealed.
+
+This, I think, is a proper occasion for exerting such heroic generosity;
+and as there is an ingenuous shame in those who have known better
+fortune to be reduced to receive obligations, as well as a becoming pain
+in the truly generous to receive thanks in this case, both those
+delicacies are preserved; for the person obliged is as incapable of
+knowing her benefactress, as her benefactress is unwilling to be known
+by her.
+
+
+ADVERTISEMENT.
+
+Whereas it has been signified to the Censor, that under the pretence
+that he has encouraged the Moving Picture,[255] and particularly admired
+the Walking Statue, some persons within the Liberties of Westminster
+have vended Walking Pictures, insomuch that the said pictures have
+within few days after sales by auction returned to the habitation of
+their first proprietors; that matter has been narrowly looked into, and
+orders are given to Pacolet to take notice of all who are concerned in
+such frauds, with directions to draw their pictures, that they may be
+hanged in effigy, _in terrorem_ of all auctions for the future.
+
+
+[Footnote 250: See Nos. 1, 71, 157. On the 25th of April 1710, there was
+given for Betterton's benefit, "The Maid's Tragedy" of Beaumont and
+Fletcher, in which he himself performed his celebrated part of
+Melantius. This, however, was the last time he was to appear on the
+stage, for, having been suddenly seized with the gout, and being
+impatient at the thought of disappointing his friends, he made use of
+outward applications to reduce the swellings of his feet, which enabled
+him to walk on the stage, though obliged to have his foot in a slipper.
+But the fomentations he had used occasioning a revulsion of the gouty
+humour to the nobler parts, threw the distemper up into his head, and
+terminated his life on the 28th of April. On the 2nd of May his body was
+interred with much ceremony in the cloister of Westminster.--"This day
+is published, 'The Life of Mr. Thomas Betterton'" (_Postboy_, Sept. 16
+to 19, 1710). This book, attributed to Gildon, is dedicated to Richard
+Steele, Esq. "I have chosen," says the author, "to address this
+discourse to you, because the Art of which it treats is of your familiar
+acquaintance, and the graces of action and utterance come naturally
+under the consideration of a dramatic writer."]
+
+[Footnote 251: Cicero.]
+
+[Footnote 252: "Macbeth," act v. sc. 5, quoted inaccurately by Steele.]
+
+[Footnote 253: Betterton married, in 1662, Maria Saunderson, an actress
+who seems to have been as good as she was clever. She lost her reason
+after the death of her husband, but recovered it before her death at the
+end of 1711. By her will she bequeathed to Mrs. Bracegirdle, Mrs. Barry,
+Mr. Doggett, Mr. Wilks, and Mr. Dent, twenty shillings a piece for
+rings; and her husband's picture to Mrs. Anne Stevenson, whom she
+appointed her residuary legatee.]
+
+[Footnote 254: Possibly Lady Elizabeth Hastings (see Nos. 42, 49), or
+perhaps Queen Anne, though it is not likely that she consulted Steele by
+letter on the subject. The Queen gave Mrs. Betterton a pension on the
+death of her husband, "but," says Cibber, "she lived not to receive more
+than the first half year of it."]
+
+[Footnote 255: See No. 129.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 168.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Thursday, May 4_, to _Saturday, May 6, 1710_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, May 5._
+
+Never was man so much teased, or suffered half the uneasiness, as I have
+done this evening, between a couple of fellows with whom I was
+unfortunately engaged to sup, where there were also several others in
+company. One of them is the most invincibly impudent, and the other as
+incorrigibly absurd. Upon hearing my name, the man of audacity, as he
+calls himself, began to assume an awkward way of reserve, by way of
+ridicule upon me as a Censor, and said, he must have a care of his
+behaviour, for there would notes be writ upon all that should pass. The
+man of freedom and ease (for such the other thinks himself) asked me,
+whether my sister Jenny was breeding or not? After they had done with
+me, they were impertinent to a very smart, but well-bred man, who stood
+his ground very well, and let the company see they ought, but could not
+be out of countenance. I look upon such a defence as a real good action;
+for while he received their fire, there was a modest and worthy young
+gentleman sat secure by him, and a lady of the family at the same time,
+guarded against the nauseous familiarity of the one, and the more
+painful mirth of the other. This conversation, where there were a
+thousand things said not worth repeating, made me consider with myself,
+how it is that men of these disagreeable characters often go great
+lengths in the world, and seldom fail of outstripping men of merit; nay,
+succeed so well, that with a load of imperfections on their heads, they
+go on in opposition to general disesteem, while they who are every way
+their superiors, languish away their days, though possessed of the
+approbation and goodwill of all who know them.
+
+If we would examine into the secret spring of action in the impudent and
+the absurd, we shall find, though they bear a great resemblance in their
+behaviour, that they move upon very different principles. The impudent
+are pressing, though they know they are disagreeable; the absurd are
+importunate, because they think they are acceptable. Impudence is a
+vice, and absurdity a folly. Sir Francis Bacon talks very agreeably upon
+the subject of impudence.[256] He takes notice, that the orator being
+asked, what was the first, second, and third requisite, to make a fine
+speaker, still answered, "Action." This, said he, is the very outward
+form of speaking, and yet it is what with the generality has more force
+than the most consummate abilities. Impudence is to the rest of mankind
+of the same use which action is to orators.
+
+The truth is, the gross of men are governed more by appearances than
+realities, and the impudent man in his air and behaviour undertakes for
+himself that he has ability and merit, while the modest or diffident
+gives himself up as one who is possessed of neither. For this reason,
+men of front carry things before them with little opposition, and make
+so skilful a use of their talent, that they can grow out of humour like
+men of consequence, and be sour, and make their satisfaction do them the
+same service as desert. This way of thinking has often furnished me with
+an apology for great men who confer favours on the impudent. In
+carrying on the government of mankind, they are not to consider what men
+they themselves approve in their closets and private conversations, but
+what men will extend themselves furthest, and more generally pass upon
+the world for such as their patrons want in such and such stations, and
+consequently take so much work off the hands of those who employ them.
+
+Far be it that I should attempt to lessen the acceptance which men of
+this character meet with in the world; but I humbly propose only, that
+they who have merit of a different kind, would accomplish themselves in
+some degree with this quality of which I am now treating. Nay, I allow
+these gentlemen to press as forward as they please in the advancement of
+their interests and fortunes, but not to intrude upon others in
+conversation also: let them do what they can with the rich and the
+great, as far as they are suffered, but let them not interrupt the easy
+and agreeable. They may be useful as servants in ambition, but never as
+associates in pleasure. However, as I would still drive at something
+instructive in every Lucubration, I must recommend it to all men who
+feel in themselves an impulse towards attempting laudable actions, to
+acquire such a degree of assurance, as never to lose the possession of
+themselves in public or private, so far as to be incapable of acting
+with a due decorum on any occasion they are called to. It is a mean want
+of fortitude in a good man, not to be able to do a virtuous action with
+as much confidence as an impudent fellow does an ill one. There is no
+way of mending such false modesty, but by laying it down for a rule,
+that there is nothing shameful but what is criminal.
+
+The Jesuits, an order whose institution is perfectly calculated for
+making a progress in the world, take care to accomplish their disciples
+for it, by breaking them of all impertinent bashfulness, and accustoming
+then to a ready performance of all indifferent things. I remember in my
+travels, when I was once at a public exercise in one of their schools, a
+young man made a most admirable speech, with all the beauty of action,
+cadence of voice, and force of argument imaginable, in defence of the
+love of glory. We were all enamoured with the grace of the youth, as he
+came down from the desk where he spoke to present a copy of his speech
+to the head of the society. The principal received it in a very obliging
+manner, and bid him go to the market-place and fetch a joint of meat,
+for he should dine with him. He bowed, and in a trice the orator
+returned, full of the sense of glory in this obedience, and with the
+best shoulder of mutton in the market.
+
+This treatment capacitates them for every scene of life. I therefore
+recommend it to the consideration of all who have the instruction of
+youth, which of the two is the most inexcusable, he who does everything
+by the mere force of his impudence, or who performs nothing through the
+oppression of his modesty? In a word, it is a weakness not to be able to
+attempt what a man thinks he ought, and there is no modesty but in
+self-denial.
+
+P.S. Upon my coming home I received the following petition and letter:
+
+                                "The humble petition of Sarah Lately:
+     "SHEWETH,
+
+     "That your petitioner has been one of those ladies who has had fine
+     things constantly spoken to her in general terms, and lived, during
+     her most blooming years, in daily expectation of declarations of
+     marriage, but never had one made to her.
+
+     "That she is now in her grand climacteric; which being above the
+     space of four virginities, accounting at 15 years each,
+
+     "Your petitioner most humbly prays, that in the lottery for the
+     Bass-viol[257] she may have four tickets, in consideration that her
+     single life has been occasioned by the inconstancy of her lovers,
+     and not through the cruelty or forwardness of your petitioner.
+
+                                     "And your Petitioner shall," &c.
+
+     "MR. BICKERSTAFF,                                "_May 3, 1710_.
+
+     "According to my fancy, you took a much better way to dispose of a
+     Bass-viol in yesterday's paper than you did in your table of
+     marriage.[258] I desire the benefit of a lottery for myself too----
+     The manner of it I leave to your own discretion: only if you
+     can----allow the tickets at above five farthings a piece. Pray
+     accept of one ticket for your trouble, and I wish you may be the
+     fortunate man that wins.
+
+                         "Your very humble Servant till then,
+                                                      "ISABELLA KIT."
+
+I must own the request of the aged petitioner to be founded upon a very
+undeserved distress; and since she might, had she had justice done her,
+been mother of many pretenders to this prize, instead of being one
+herself, I do readily grant her demand; but as for the proposal of Mrs.
+Isabella Kit, I cannot project a lottery for her, until I have security
+she will surrender herself to the winner.
+
+
+[Footnote 256: Essay xii., "Of Boldness."]
+
+[Footnote 257: See No. 166.]
+
+[Footnote 258: See Nos. 157, 160.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 169.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Saturday, May 6_, to _Tuesday, May 9, 1710_.
+
+    O rus! Quando ego te aspiciam? quandoque licebit
+    Nunc veterum libris, nunc somno, et inertibus horis,
+    Ducere sollicitae jucunda oblivia vitae?
+                                        HOR., 2 Sat. vi. 60.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, May 8._
+
+The summer season now approaching, several of our family have invited me
+to pass away a month or two in the country, and indeed nothing could be
+more agreeable to me than such a recess, did I not consider that I am by
+two quarts a worse companion than when I was last among my relations:
+and I am admonished by some of our club, who have lately visited
+Staffordshire, that they drink at a greater rate than they did at that
+time. As every soil does not produce every fruit or tree, so every vice
+is not the growth of every kind of life; and I have, ever since I could
+think, been astonished that drinking should be the vice of the country.
+If it were possible to add to all our senses, as we do to that of sight,
+by perspectives, we should methinks more particularly labour to improve
+them in the midst of the variety of beauteous objects which Nature has
+produced to entertain us in the country; and do we in that place destroy
+the use of what organs we have? As for my part, I cannot but lament the
+destruction that has been made of the wild beasts of the field, when I
+see large tracts of earth possessed by men who take no advantage of
+their being rational, but lead mere animal lives, making it their whole
+endeavour to kill in themselves all they have above beasts; to wit, the
+use of reason, and taste of society. It is frequently boasted in the
+writings of orators and poets, that it is to eloquence and poesy we owe
+that we are drawn out of woods and solitudes into towns and cities, and
+from a wild and savage being become acquainted with the laws of humanity
+and civility. If we are obliged to these arts for so great service, I
+could wish they were employed to give us a second turn; that as they
+have brought us to dwell in society (a blessing which no other creatures
+know), so they would persuade us, now they have settled us, to lay out
+all our thoughts in surpassing each other in those faculties in which
+only we excel other creatures. But it is at present so far otherwise,
+that the contention seems to be, who shall be most eminent in
+performances wherein beasts enjoy greater abilities than we have. I'll
+undertake, were the butler and swineherd, at any true esquire's in Great
+Britain, to keep and compare accounts of what wash is drunk up in so
+many hours in the parlour and the pigsty, it would appear, the gentleman
+of the house gives much more to his friends than his hogs.
+
+This, with many other evils, arises from the error in men's judgments,
+and not making true distinctions between persons and things. It is
+usually thought, that a few sheets of parchment, made before a male and
+female of wealthy houses come together, give the heirs and descendants
+of that marriage possession of lands and tenements; but the truth is,
+there is no man who can be said to be proprietor of an estate, but he
+who knows how to enjoy it. Nay, it shall never be allowed, that the land
+is not a waste, when the master is uncultivated. Therefore, to avoid
+confusion, it is to be noted, that a peasant with a great estate is but
+an incumbent, and that he must be a gentleman to be a landlord. A
+landlord enjoys what he has with his heart, an incumbent with his
+stomach. Gluttony, drunkenness, and riot, are the entertainments of an
+incumbent; benevolence, civility, social and human virtues, the
+accomplishments of a landlord. Who, that has any passion for his native
+country, does not think it worse than conquered, when so large
+diversions of it are in the hands of savages, that know no use of
+property but to be tyrants; or liberty, but to be unmannerly? A
+gentleman in a country life enjoys Paradise with a temper fit for it; a
+clown is cursed in it with all the cutting and unruly passions man could
+be tormented with when he was expelled from it.
+
+There is no character more deservedly esteemed than that of a country
+gentleman, who understands the station in which heaven and nature have
+placed him. He is father to his tenants, and patron to his neighbours,
+and is more superior to those of lower fortune by his benevolence than
+his possessions. He justly divides his time between solitude and
+company, so as to use the one for the other. His life is spent in the
+good offices of an advocate, a referee, a companion, a mediator, and a
+friend. His counsel and knowledge are a guard to the simplicity and
+innocence of those of lower talents, and the entertainment and happiness
+of those of equal. When a man in a country life has this turn, as it is
+to be hoped thousands have, he lives in a more happy condition than any
+is described in the pastoral descriptions of poets, or the
+vainglorious solitudes recorded by philosophers.
+
+To a thinking man it would seem prodigious, that the very situation in a
+country life does not incline men to a scorn of the mean gratifications
+some take in it. To stand by a stream, naturally lulls the mind into
+composure and reverence; to walk in shades, diversifies that pleasure;
+and a bright sunshine makes a man consider all nature in gladness, and
+himself the happiest being in it, as he is the most conscious of her
+gifts and enjoyments. It would be the most impertinent piece of
+pedantry imaginable to form our pleasures by imitation of others. I will
+not therefore mention Scipio and Laelius, who are generally produced on
+this subject as authorities for the charms of a rural life. He that does
+not feel the force of agreeable views and situations in his own mind,
+will hardly arrive at the satisfactions they bring from the reflections
+of others. However, they who have a taste that way, are more
+particularly inflamed with desire when they see others in the enjoyment
+of it, especially when men carry into the country a knowledge of the
+world as well as of nature. The leisure of such persons is endeared and
+refined by reflection upon cares and inquietudes. The absence of past
+labours doubles present pleasures, which is still augmented, if the
+person in solitude has the happiness of being addicted to letters. My
+cousin Frank Bickerstaff gives me a very good notion of this sort of
+felicity in the following letter:
+
+     "SIR,
+
+     "I write this to communicate to you the happiness I have in the
+     neighbourhood and conversation of the noble lord whose health you
+     inquired after in your last. I have bought that little hovel which
+     borders upon his royalty; but am so far from being oppressed by his
+     greatness, that I who know no envy, and he who is above pride,
+     mutually recommend ourselves to each other by the difference of our
+     fortunes. He esteems me for being so well pleased with a little,
+     and I admire him for enjoying so handsomely a great deal. He has
+     not the little taste of observing the colour of a tulip, or the
+     edging of a leaf of box, but rejoices in open views, the regularity
+     of this plantation, and the wildness of another, as well as the
+     fall of a river, the rising of a promontory, and all other objects
+     fit to entertain a mind like his, that has been long versed in
+     great and public amusements. The make of the soul is as much seen
+     in leisure as in business. He has long lived in Courts, and been
+     admired in assemblies, so that he has added to experience a most
+     charming eloquence; by which he communicates to me the ideas of my
+     own mind upon the objects we meet with, so agreeably, that with his
+     company in the fields, I at once enjoy the country, and a landscape
+     of it. He is now altering the course of canals and rivulets, in
+     which he has an eye to his neighbour's satisfaction, as well as his
+     own. He often makes me presents by turning the water into my
+     grounds, and sends me fish by their own streams. To avoid my
+     thanks, he makes Nature the instrument of his bounty, and does all
+     good offices so much with the air of a companion, that his
+     frankness hides his own condescension, as well as my gratitude.
+     Leave the world to itself, and come see us.
+
+                                   "Your affectionate Cousin,
+                                               "FRANCIS BICKERSTAFF."
+
+
+
+
+No. 170.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Tuesday, May 9_, to _Thursday, May 11, 1710_.
+
+    Fortuna saevo laeta negotio et
+    Ludum insolentem ludere pertinax
+      Transmutat incertos honores,
+        Nunc mihi, nunc alii, benigna.
+                          HOR., 3 Od. xxix. 49.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, May 10._
+
+Having this morning spent some time in reading on the subject of the
+vicissitude of human life, I laid aside my book, and began to ruminate
+on the discourse which raised in me those reflections. I believed it a
+very good office to the world, to sit down and show others the road in
+which I am experienced by my wanderings and errors. This is Seneca's way
+of thinking, and he had half convinced me, how dangerous it is to our
+true happiness and tranquillity to fix our minds upon anything which is
+in the power of Fortune. It is excusable only in animals who have not
+the use of reason, to be catched by hooks and baits. Wealth, glory, and
+power, which the ordinary people look up at with admiration, the learned
+and wise know to be only so many snares laid to enslave them. There is
+nothing further to be sought for with earnestness, than what will clothe
+and feed us. If we pamper ourselves in our diet, or give our
+imaginations a loose in our desires, the body will no longer obey the
+mind. Let us think no further than to defend ourselves against hunger,
+thirst, and cold. We are to remember, that everything else is
+despicable, and not worth our care. To want little is true grandeur, and
+very few things are great to a great mind. Those who form their thoughts
+in this manner, and abstract themselves from the world, are out of the
+way of Fortune, and can look with contempt both on her favours and her
+frowns. At the same time, they who separate themselves from the
+immediate commerce with the busy part of mankind, are still beneficial
+to them, while by their studies and writings they recommend to them the
+small value which ought to be put upon what they pursue with so much
+labour and disquiet. Whilst such men are thought the most idle, they are
+the most usefully employed. They have all things, both human and divine,
+under consideration. To be perfectly free from the insults of fortune,
+we should arm ourselves with their reflections. We should learn, that
+none but intellectual possessions are what we can properly call our own.
+All things from without are but borrowed. What Fortune gives us, is not
+ours; and whatever she gives, she can take away.
+
+It is a common imputation to Seneca, that though he declaimed with so
+much strength of reason, and a stoical contempt of riches and power, he
+was at the same time one of the richest and most powerful men in Rome. I
+know no instance of his being insolent in that fortune, and can
+therefore read his thoughts on those subjects with the more deference. I
+will not give philosophy so poor a look, as to say it cannot live in
+courts; but I am of opinion, that it is there in the greatest eminence,
+when amidst the affluence of all the world can bestow, and the addresses
+of a crowd who follow him for that reason, a man can think both of
+himself and those about him abstracted from these circumstances. Such a
+philosopher is as much above an anchorite, as a wise matron, who passes
+through the world with innocence, is preferable to the nun who locks
+herself up from it.
+
+Full of these thoughts I left my lodgings, and took a walk to the Court
+end of the town; and the hurry, and busy faces I met with about
+Whitehall, made me form to myself ideas of the different prospects of
+all I saw, from the turn and cast of their countenances. All, methought,
+had the same thing in view, but prosecuted their hopes with a different
+air: some showed an unbecoming eagerness, some a surly impatience, some
+a winning deference, but the generality a servile complaisance.
+
+I could not but observe, as I roved about the offices, that all who were
+still but in expectation, murmured at Fortune; and all who had obtained
+their wishes, immediately began to say, there was no such being. Each
+believed it an act of blind chance that any other man was preferred, but
+owed only to service and merit what he had obtained himself. It is the
+fault of studious men to appear in public with too contemplative a
+carriage; and I began to observe, that my figure, age, and dress, made
+me particular: for which reason I thought it better to remove a studious
+countenance from among busy ones, and take a turn with a friend in the
+Privy Garden.[259]
+
+When my friend was alone with me there, "Isaac," said he, "I know you
+came abroad only to moralise and make observations, and I will carry you
+hard by, where you shall see all that you have yourself considered or
+read in authors, or collected from experience, concerning blind Fortune
+and irresistible Destiny, illustrated in real persons and proper
+mechanisms. The Graces, the Muses, the Fates, all the beings which have
+a good or evil influence upon human life, are, you'll say, very justly
+figured in the persons of women; and where I am carrying you, you'll see
+enough of that sex together, in an employment which will have so
+important an effect upon those who are to receive their manufacture, as
+will make them be respectively called Deities or Furies, as their labour
+shall prove disadvantageous or successful to their votaries." Without
+waiting for my answer, he carried me to an apartment contiguous to the
+Banqueting House, where there were placed at two long tables a large
+company of young women, in decent and agreeable habits, making up
+tickets for the lottery appointed by the Government. There walked
+between the tables a person who presided over the work. This gentlewoman
+seemed an emblem of Fortune, she commanded as if unconcerned in their
+business; and though everything was performed by her direction, she did
+not visibly interpose in particulars. She seemed in pain at our near
+approach to her, and most to approve us, when we made her no advances.
+Her height, her mien, her gesture, her shape, and her countenance, had
+something that spoke both familiarity and dignity. She therefore
+appeared to me not only a picture of Fortune, but of Fortune as I liked
+her; which made me break out in the following words:
+
+     "MADAM,
+
+     "I am very glad to see the fate of the many who now languish in
+     expectation of what will be the event of your labours in the hands
+     of one who can act with so impartial an indifference. Pardon me,
+     that have often seen you before, and have lost you for want of the
+     respect due to you. Let me beg of you, who have both the furnishing
+     and turning of that wheel of lots, to be unlike the rest of your
+     sex, repulse the forward and the bold, and favour the modest and
+     the humble. I know you fly the importunate, but smile no more on
+     the careless. Add not to the coffers of the usurer, but give the
+     power of bestowing to the generous. Continue his wants who cannot
+     enjoy or communicate plenty; but turn away his poverty, who can
+     bear it with more ease than he can see it in another."
+
+
+ADVERTISEMENT.
+
+Whereas Philander signified to Clarinda by letter bearing date Thursday
+12 o'clock, that he had lost his heart by a shot from her eyes, and
+desired she would condescend to meet him the same day at eight in the
+evening at Rosamond's Pond,[260] faithfully protesting, that in case she
+would not do him that honour, she might see the body of the said
+Philander the next day floating on the said lake of Love, and that he
+desired only three sighs upon view of his said body: it is desired, if
+he has not made away with himself accordingly, that he would forthwith
+show himself to the coroner of the city of Westminster; or Clarinda,
+being an old offender, will be found guilty of wilful murder.
+
+
+[Footnote 259: Now Whitehall Gardens, between Parliament Street and the
+Thames. There Pepys had the pleasure of seeing Lady Castlemaine in 1662:
+"In the Privy Garden saw the finest smocks and linen petticoats of my
+Lady Castlemaine's, laced with rich lace at the bottom; and did me good
+to look at them."]
+
+[Footnote 260: See No. 60.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 171.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Thursday, May 11_, to _Saturday, May 13, 1710_.
+
+    Alter rixatur de lana saepe caprina,
+    Propugnat nugis armatus.--
+                            HOR., I Ep. xviii. 15.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Grecian Coffee-house, May 12._
+
+It has happened to be for some days the deliberation at the learnedest
+board in this house, whence honour and title had its first original.
+Timoleon, who is very particular in his opinions, but is thought
+particular for no other cause but that he acts against depraved custom,
+by the rules of nature and reason, in a very handsome discourse gave the
+company to understand, that in those ages which first degenerated from
+simplicity of life, and natural justice, the wise among them thought it
+necessary to inspire men with the love of virtue, by giving them who
+adhered to the interests of innocence and truth, some distinguishing
+name to raise them above the common level of mankind. This way of fixing
+appellations of credit upon eminent merit, was what gave being to titles
+and terms of honour. "Such a name," continued he, "without the qualities
+which should give a man pretence to be exalted above others, does but
+turn him to jest and ridicule. Should one see another cudgelled, or
+scurvily treated, do you think a man so used would take it kindly to be
+called Hector, or Alexander? Everything must bear a proportion with the
+outward value that is set upon it; or instead of being long had in
+veneration, that very term of esteem will become a word of reproach."
+When Timoleon had done speaking, Urbanus pursued the same purpose, by
+giving an account of the manner in which the Indian kings,[261] who were
+lately in Great Britain, did honour to the person where they lodged.
+"They were placed," said he, "in a handsome apartment, at an
+upholsterer's in King Street, Covent Garden. The man of the house, it
+seems, had been very observant of them, and ready in their service.
+These just and generous princes, who act according to the dictates of
+natural justice, thought it proper to confer some dignity upon their
+landlord before they left his house. One of them had been sick during
+his residence there, and having never before been in a bed, had a very
+great veneration for him who made that engine of repose, so useful and
+so necessary in his distress. It was consulted among the four princes,
+by what name to dignify his great merit and services. The Emperor of the
+Mohocks, and the other three kings, stood up, and in that posture
+recounted the civilities they had received, and particularly repeated
+the care which was taken of their sick brother. This, in their
+imagination, who are used to know the injuries of weather, and the
+vicissitudes of cold and heat, gave them very great impressions of a
+skilful upholsterer, whose furniture was so well contrived for their
+protection on such occasions. It is with these less instructed (I will
+not say less knowing) people, the manner of doing honour, to impose some
+name significant of the qualities of the person they distinguish, and
+the good offices received from him. It was therefore resolved, to call
+their landlord Cadaroque, which is the name of the strongest fort in
+their part of the world. When they had agreed upon the name, they sent
+for their landlord, and as he entered into their presence, the Emperor
+of the Mohocks taking him by the hand, called him Cadaroque. After which
+the other three princes repeated the same word and ceremony."
+
+Timoleon appeared much satisfied with this account, and having a
+philosophic turn, began to argue against the modes and manners of those
+nations which we esteem polite, and express himself with disdain at our
+usual method of calling such as are strangers to our innovations,
+barbarous. "I have," says he, "so great a deference for the distinction
+given by these princes, that Cadaroque shall be my upholsterer----" He
+was going on, but the intended discourse was interrupted by Minucio, who
+sat near him, a small philosopher, who is also somewhat of a politician;
+one of those who sets up for knowledge by doubting, and has no other way
+of making himself considerable, but by contradicting all he hears said.
+He has, besides much doubt and spirit of contradiction, a constant
+suspicion as to State affairs. This accomplished gentleman, with a very
+awful brow, and a countenance full of weight, told Timoleon, that it was
+a great misfortune men of letters seldom looked into the bottom of
+things. "Will any man," continued he, "persuade me, that this was not
+from the beginning to the end a concerted affair? Who can convince the
+world, that four kings shall come over here, and lie at the Two Crowns
+and Cushion,[262] and one of them fall sick, and the place be called
+King Street, and all this by mere accident? No, no: to a man of very
+small penetration, it appears, that Tee Yee Neen Ho Ga Row, Emperor of
+the Mohocks, was prepared for this adventure beforehand. I do not care
+to contradict any gentleman in his discourse; but I must say, however,
+Sa Ga Yeath Rua Geth Ton, and E Tow Oh Koam, might be surprised in this
+matter; nevertheless, Ho Nee Yeth Taw No Row knew it before he set foot
+on the English shore."
+
+Timoleon looked steadfastly at him for some time, then shaked his head,
+paid for his tea, and marched off. Several others who sat around him,
+were in their turns attacked by this ready disputant. A gentleman who
+was at some distance, happened in discourse to say it was four miles to
+Hammersmith. "I must beg your pardon," says Minucio, "when we say a
+place is so far off, we do not mean exactly from the very spot of earth
+we are in, but from the town where we are; so that you must begin your
+account from the end of Piccadilly; and if you do so, I'll lay any man
+ten to one, it is not above three good miles off." Another, about
+Minucio's level of understanding, began to take him up in this important
+argument, and maintained, that considering the way from Pimlico at the
+end of St. James's Park, and the crossing from Chelsea by Earl's Court,
+he would stand to it, that it was full four miles. But Minucio replied
+with great vehemence, and seemed so much to have the better of the
+dispute, that this adversary quitted the field, as well as the other. I
+sat till I saw the table almost all vanished, where, for want of
+discourse, Minucio asked me, how I did? To which I answered, "Very
+well." "That's very much," said he; "I assure you, you look paler than
+ordinary." "Nay," thought I, "if he won't allow me to know whether I am
+well or not, there is no staying for me neither." Upon which I took my
+leave, pondering as I went home at this strange poverty of imagination,
+which makes men run into the fault of giving contradiction. They want in
+their minds entertainment for themselves or their company, and therefore
+build all they speak upon what is started by others; and since they
+cannot improve that foundation, they strive to destroy it. The only way
+of dealing with these people is to answer in monosyllables, or by way of
+question. When one of them tells you a thing that he thinks
+extraordinary, I go no further than, "Say you so, sir? Indeed! Heyday!"
+or "Is it come to that!" These little rules, which appear but silly in
+the repetition, have brought me with great tranquillity to this age. And
+I have made it an observation, that as assent is more agreeable than
+flattery, so contradiction is more odious than culumny.
+
+
+ADVERTISEMENT.
+
+Mr. Bickerstaff's aerial messenger has brought him a report of what
+passed at the auction of pictures which was in Somerset House Yard on
+Monday last, and finds there were no "screens" present, but all
+transacted with great justice.
+
+N.B. All false buyers at auctions being employed only to hide others,
+are from this day forward to be known in Mr. Bickerstaff's writings by
+the word "screens."
+
+
+[Footnote 261: The four kings were Iroquois chiefs who had been
+persuaded by adjacent British colonists to come and pay their respects
+to Queen Anne, and satisfy themselves of the untruth of the assertion
+made by the Jesuits, that the English and all other nations were vassals
+to the French king. They were said also to have been told that the
+Saviour was born in France and crucified in England. The names of the
+kings, according to Boyer's "Annals," were: Tee Yee Neen Ho Ga Prow, and
+Sa Ga Yean Qua Prah Ton, of the Maquas; Elow Oh Kaom, and Oh Nee Yeath
+Ton No Prow, of the River Sachem, and the Ganajoh-hore Sachem. They had
+an audience of the Queen on April 19, 1710, and were afterwards
+entertained by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, the Duke of
+Ormonde, &c., until their departure for Boston on the 8th of May. See
+Addison's paper in the _Spectator_, No. 50, and Swift's remark upon it
+in the "Journal to Stella," April 28, 1711. A concert at York Buildings
+on May 1, 1710, "for the entertainment of the Emperor of the Mohocks and
+the three Indian kings," was advertised in No. 165 of the _Tatler_. The
+kings were lodged at the Two Crowns and Cushion, the house of an
+upholsterer in Covent Garden, probably Thomas Arne, the father of Dr.
+Thomas Arne the musician, and Mrs. Cibber, the actress. The following
+advertisement appeared at the end of No. 250, dated Nov. 14, 1710, and
+with some variation was reprinted in Nos. 253, 256, and 267 of the
+original edition: "This is to give notice, that the metzotinto-prints,
+by John Simmonds, in whole lengths, of the four Indian kings, that are
+done from the original pictures drawn by John Verelst, which her Majesty
+has at her palace at Kensington, are now to be delivered to subscribers,
+and sold at the Rainbow and Dove, the corner of Ivy Bridge in the
+Strand."]
+
+[Footnote 262: Arne's shop.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 172.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Saturday, May 13_, to _Tuesday, May 16, 1710_.
+
+    Quid quisque vitet, nunquam homini satis
+    Cautum est in horas.--HOR., 2 Od. xiii. 13.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, May 15._
+
+When a man is in a serious mood, and ponders upon his own make, with a
+retrospect to the actions of his life, and the many fatal miscarriages
+in it, which he owes to ungoverned passions, he is then apt to say to
+himself, that experience has guarded him against such errors for the
+future: but nature often recurs in spite of his best resolutions, and it
+is to the very end of our days a struggle between our reason and our
+temper, which shall have the empire over us. However, this is very much
+to be helped by circumspection, and a constant alarm against the first
+onsets of passion. As this is in general a necessary care to make a
+man's life easy and agreeable to himself, so it is more particularly the
+duty of such as are engaged in friendship and more near commerce with
+others. Those who have their joys, have also their griefs in proportion,
+and none can extremely exalt or depress friends, but friends. The harsh
+things which come from the rest of the world, are received and repulsed
+with that spirit which every honest man bears for his own vindication;
+but unkindness in words or actions among friends, affects us at the
+first instant in the inmost recesses of our souls. Indifferent people,
+if I may so say, can wound us only in heterogeneous parts, maim us in
+our legs or arms; but the friend can make no pass but at the heart
+itself. On the other side, the most impotent assistance, the mere
+well-wishes of a friend, gives a man constancy and courage against the
+most prevailing force of his enemies. It is here only a man enjoys and
+suffers to the quick. For this reason, the most gentle behaviour is
+absolutely necessary to maintain friendship in any degree above the
+common level of acquaintance. But there is a relation of life much more
+near than the most strict and sacred friendship, that is to say,
+marriage. This union is of too close and delicate a nature to be easily
+conceived by those who do not know that condition by experience. Here a
+man should, if possible, soften his passions; if not for his own ease,
+in compliance to a creature formed with a mind of a quite different make
+from his own. I am sure, I do not mean it an injury to women, when I say
+there is a sort of sex in souls. I am tender of offending them, and know
+it is hard not to do it on this subject; but I must go on to say, that
+the soul of a man and that of a woman are made very unlike, according to
+the employments for which they are designed. The ladies will please to
+observe, I say, our minds have different, not superior qualities to
+theirs. The virtues have respectively a masculine and a feminine cast.
+What we call in men wisdom, is in women prudence. It is a partiality to
+call one greater than the other. A prudent woman is in the same class of
+honour as a wise man, and the scandals in the way of both are equally
+dangerous. But to make this state anything but a burden, and not hang a
+weight upon our very beings, it is very proper each of the couple should
+frequently remember, that there are many things which grow out of their
+very natures that are pardonable, nay becoming, when considered as such,
+but without that reflection must give the quickest pain and vexation. To
+manage well a great family is as worthy an instance of capacity, as to
+execute a great employment; and for the generality, as women perform the
+considerable part of their duties as well as men do theirs, so in their
+common behaviour, those of ordinary genius are not more trivial than the
+common rate of men; and in my opinion, the playing of a fan is every
+whit as good an entertainment as the beating a snuff-box.
+
+But however I have rambled in this libertine manner of writing by way of
+essay, I now sat down with an intention to represent to my readers, how
+pernicious, how sudden, and how fatal surprises of passion are to the
+mind of man; and that in the more intimate commerces of life they are
+most liable to arise, even in our most sedate and indolent hours.
+Occurrences of this kind have had very terrible effects; and when one
+reflects upon them, we cannot but tremble to consider what we are
+capable of being wrought up to against all the ties of nature, love,
+honour, reason, and religion, though the man who breaks through them
+all, had, an hour before he did so, a lively and virtuous sense of their
+dictates. When unhappy catastrophes make up part of the history of
+princes, and persons who act in high spheres, or are represented in the
+moving language and well-wrought scenes of tragedians, they do not fail
+of striking us with terror; but then they affect us only in a transient
+manner, and pass through our imaginations, as incidents in which our
+fortunes are too humble to be concerned, or which writers form for the
+ostentation of their own force; or, at most, as things fit rather to
+exercise the powers of our minds, than to create new habits in them.
+Instead of such high passages, I was thinking it would be of great use
+(if anybody could hit it) to lay before the world such adventures as
+befall persons not exalted above the common level. This, methought,
+would better prevail upon the ordinary race of men, who are so
+prepossessed with outward appearances, that they mistake fortune for
+nature, and believe nothing can relate to them that does not happen to
+such as live and look like themselves.
+
+The unhappy end of a gentleman whose story an acquaintance of mine was
+just now telling me, would be very proper for this end if it could be
+related with all the circumstances as I heard it this evening; for it
+touched me so much, that I cannot forbear entering upon it.
+
+Mr. Eustace,[263] a young gentleman of a good estate near Dublin in
+Ireland, married a lady of youth, beauty, and modesty, and lived with
+her in general with much ease and tranquillity; but was in his secret
+temper impatient of rebuke: she is apt to fall into little sallies of
+passion, yet as suddenly recalled by her own reflection on her fault,
+and the consideration of her husband's temper. It happened, as he, his
+wife, and her sister, were at supper together about two months ago, that
+in the midst of a careless and familiar conversation, the sisters fell
+into a little warmth and contradiction. He, who was one of that sort of
+men who are never unconcerned at what passes before them, fell into an
+outrageous passion on the side of the sister. The person about whom they
+disputed was so near, that they were under no restraint from running
+into vain repetitions of past heats: on which occasion all the
+aggravations of anger and distaste boiled up, and were repeated with the
+bitterness of exasperated lovers. The wife observing her husband
+extremely moved, began to turn it off, and rally him for interposing
+between two people who from their infancy had been angry and pleased
+with each other every half-hour. But it descended deeper into his
+thoughts, and they broke up with a sullen silence. The wife immediately
+retired to her chamber, whither her husband soon after followed. When
+they were in bed, he soon dissembled a sleep, and she, pleased that his
+thoughts were composed, fell into a real one. Their apartment was very
+distant from the rest of their family, in a lonely country house. He now
+saw his opportunity, and with a dagger he had brought to bed with him,
+stabbed his wife in the side. She awaked in the highest terror; but
+immediately imagined it was a blow designed for her husband by ruffians,
+began to grasp him, and strive to awake and rouse him to defend himself.
+He still pretended himself sleeping, and gave her a second wound.
+
+She now drew open the curtains, and by the help of moonlight saw his
+hand lifted up to stab her. The horror disarmed her from further
+struggling; and he, enraged anew at being discovered, fixed his poniard
+in her bosom. As soon as he believed he had despatched her, he attempted
+to escape out of the window: but she, still alive, called to him not to
+hurt himself; for she might live. He was so stung with the insupportable
+reflection upon her goodness and his own villainy, that he jumped to the
+bed, and wounded her all over with as much rage as if every blow was
+provoked by new aggravations. In this fury of mind he fled away. His
+wife had still strength to go to her sister's apartment, and give her an
+account of this wonderful tragedy; but died the next day. Some weeks
+after, an officer of justice, in attempting to seize the criminal, fired
+upon him, as did the criminal upon the officer. Both their balls took
+place, and both immediately expired.
+
+
+[Footnote 263: "Last Sunday Mr. Francis Eustace committed a most
+barbarous murder on the body of his wife, by giving her seven or eight
+stabs with his sword, of which she died instantly. He jumped out of the
+window, and falling on a palisado pale, tore his legs and thighs in such
+a manner that he was forced to have them dressed by the surgeon, who is
+since sent to Newgate for letting him escape, and a proclamation is
+issued out for apprehending him" (_British Mercury_, 1710).]
+
+
+
+
+No. 173.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Tuesday, May 16_, to _Thursday, May 18, 1710_.
+
+              ----Sapientia prima est
+    Stultitia caruisse.--HOR., I Ep. i. 41.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, May 17._
+
+When I first began to learn to push[264] this last winter, my master had
+a great deal of work upon his hands to make me unlearn the postures and
+motions which I had got by having in my younger years practised
+backsword, with a little eye to the single falchion. "Knock-down"[265]
+was the word in the Civil Wars, and we generally added to this skill the
+knowledge of the Cornish hug, as well as the grapple, to play with hand
+and foot. By this means I was for defending my head when the French
+gentleman was making a full pass at my bosom, insomuch that he told me I
+was fairly killed seven times in one morning, without having done my
+master any other mischief than one knock on the pate. This was a great
+misfortune to me; and I believe I may say, without vanity, I am the
+first who ever pushed so erroneously, and yet conquered the prejudice of
+education so well, as to make my passes so clear, and recover hand and
+foot with that agility, as I do at this day. The truth of it is, the
+first rudiments of education are given very indiscreetly by most
+parents, as much with relation to the more important concerns of the
+mind, as in the gestures of the body. Whatever children are designed
+for, and whatever prospects the fortune or interest of their parents may
+give them in their future lives, they are all promiscuously instructed
+the same way; and Horace and Virgil must be thrummed by a boy as well
+before he goes to an apprenticeship as to the University. This
+ridiculous way of treating the under-aged of this island has very often
+raised both my spleen and mirth, but I think never both at once so much
+as to-day. A good mother of our neighbourhood made me a visit with her
+son and heir, a lad somewhat above five foot, and wants but little of
+the height and strength of a good musketeer in any regiment in the
+service. Her business was to desire I would examine him, for he was far
+gone in a book, the first letters of which she often saw in my papers.
+The youth produced it, and I found it was my friend Horace. It was very
+easy to turn to the place the boy was learning in, which was the fifth
+Ode of the first Book, to Pyrrha. I read it over aloud, as well because
+I am always delighted when I turn to the beautiful parts of that author,
+as also to gain time for considering a little how to keep up the
+mother's pleasure in her child, which I thought barbarity to interrupt.
+In the first place I asked him, who this same Pyrrha was? He answered
+very readily, she was the wife of Pyrrhus, one of Alexander's captains.
+I lifted up my hands. The mother curtsies. "Nay," says she, "I knew you
+would stand in admiration."----"I assure you," continued she, "for all
+he looks so tall, he is but very young. Pray ask him some more, never
+spare him." With that I took the liberty to ask him, what was the
+character of this gentlewoman? He read the three first verses:
+
+    _Quis multa gracilis te puer in rosa
+    Perfusus liquidis urget odoribus,
+        Grato, Pyrrha, sub antro?_[266]
+
+and very gravely told me, she lived at the sign of the Rose in a cellar.
+I took care to be very much astonished at the lad's improvements; but
+withal advised her, as soon as possible, to take him from school, for he
+could learn no more there. This very silly dialogue was a lively image
+of the impertinent method used in breeding boys without genius or
+spirit, to the reading things for which their heads were never framed.
+But this is the natural effect of a certain vanity in the minds of
+parents, who are wonderfully delighted with the thought of breeding
+their children to accomplishments, which they believe nothing but want
+of the same care in their own fathers prevented them from being masters
+of. Thus it is, that the part of life most fit for improvement is
+generally employed in a method against the bent of Nature; and a lad of
+such parts as are fit for an occupation, where there can be no calls out
+of the beaten path, is two or three years of his time wholly taken up in
+knowing how well Ovid's mistress became such a dress; how such a nymph
+for her cruelty was changed into such an animal; and how it is made
+generous in AEneas to put Turnus to death, gallantries that can no more
+come within the occurrences of the lives of ordinary men, than they can
+be relished by their imaginations. However, still the humour goes on
+from one generation to another; and the pastrycook here in the lane the
+other night told me, he would not yet take away his son from his
+learning, but has resolved, as soon as he had a little smattering in the
+Greek, to put him apprentice to a soap-boiler. These wrong beginnings
+determine our success in the world; and when our thoughts are originally
+falsely biased, their agility and force do but carry us the further out
+of our way in proportion to our speed. But we are half-way our journey
+when we have got into the right road. If all our days were usefully
+employed, and we did not set out impertinently, we should not have so
+many grotesque professors in all the arts of life, but every man would
+be in a proper and becoming method of distinguishing or entertaining
+himself suitably to what Nature designed him. As they go on now, our
+parents do not only force us upon what is against our talents, but our
+teachers are also as injudicious in what they put us to learn. I have
+hardly ever since suffered so much by the charms of any beauty, as I did
+before I had a sense of passion, for not apprehending that the smile of
+Lalage was what pleased Horace;[267] and I verily believe, the stripes I
+suffered about _digito male pertinaci_[268] has given that
+irreconcilable aversion, which I shall carry to my grave, against
+coquettes.
+
+As for the elegant writer of whom I am talking, his excellences are to
+be observed as they relate to the different concerns of his life; and he
+is always to be looked upon as a lover, a courtier, or a man of wit. His
+admirable odes have numberless instances of his merit in each of these
+characters. His epistles and satires are full of proper notices for the
+conduct of life in a Court; and what we call good breeding, most
+agreeably intermixed with his morality. His addresses to the persons who
+favour him are so inimitably engaging, that Augustus complained of him
+for so seldom writing to him, and asked him, whether he was afraid
+posterity should read their names together? Now for the generality of
+men to spend much time in such writings, is as pleasant a folly as any
+he ridicules. Whatever the crowd of scholars may pretend, if their way
+of life, or their own imaginations, do not lead them to a taste of him,
+they may read, nay write, fifty volumes upon him, and be just as they
+were when they began. I remember to have heard a great painter say,
+there are certain faces for certain painters, as well as certain
+subjects for certain poets. This is as true in the choice of studies,
+and no one will ever relish an author thoroughly well, who would not
+have been fit company for that author had they lived at the same time.
+All others are mechanics in learning, and take the sentiments of writers
+like waiting-servants, who report what passed at their master's table;
+but debase every thought and expression, for want of the air with which
+they were uttered.
+
+
+[Footnote 264: Fence.]
+
+[Footnote 265: Hence the phrase, "a knock-down argument."]
+
+[Footnote 266: Horace, 1 Od. v. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 267: See 1 Od. xxii. 23:
+
+    "Dulce ridentem Lalagen amabo,
+        Dulce loquentem."
+]
+
+[Footnote 268: Horace, 1 Od. ix. 24.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 174.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Thursday, May 18_, to _Saturday, May 20, 1710_.
+
+    Quem mala stultitia, et quaecunque inscitia veri,
+    Caecum agit, insanum Chrysippi porticus et grex
+    Autumat.--HOR., 2 Sat. iii. 43.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, May 19._
+
+The learned Scotus, to distinguish the race of mankind, gives every
+individual of that species what he calls a "seity," something peculiar
+to himself, which makes him different from all other persons in the
+world. This particularity renders him either venerable or ridiculous,
+according as he uses his talents, which always grow out into faults, or
+improve into virtues. In the office I have undertaken, you are to
+observe, that I have hitherto presented only the more insignificant and
+lazy part of mankind under the denomination of "dead men," together with
+the degrees towards non-existence, in which others can neither be said
+to live nor be defunct, but are only animals merely dressed up like men,
+and differ from each other but as flies do by a little colouring or
+fluttering of their wings. Now as our discourses heretofore have chiefly
+regarded the indolent part of the species, it remains that we do justice
+also upon the impertinently active and enterprising. Such as these I
+shall take particular care to place in safe custody, and have used all
+possible diligence to run up my edifice in Moorfields for that
+service.[269]
+
+We who are adept in astrology, can impute it to several causes in the
+planets, that this quarter of our great city is the region of such
+persons as either never had, or have lost, the use of reason. It has
+indeed been time out of mind the receptacle of fools as well as madmen.
+The care and information of the former I assign to other learned men,
+who have for that end taken up their habitation in those parts; as,
+among others, to the famous Dr. Trotter, and my ingenious friend Dr.
+Langham.[270] These oraculous proficients are day and night employed in
+deep searches, for the direction of such as run astray after their lost
+goods: but at present they are more particularly serviceable to their
+country, in foretelling the fate of such as have chances in the public
+lottery. Dr. Langham shows a peculiar generosity on this occasion,
+taking only one half-crown for a prediction, eighteenpence of which to
+be paid out of the prizes; which method the doctor is willing to comply
+with in favour of every adventurer in the whole lottery. Leaving
+therefore the whole generation of such inquirers to such _literati_ as I
+have now mentioned, we are to proceed towards peopling our house, which
+we have erected with the greatest cost and care imaginable.
+
+It is necessary in this place to premise, that the superiority and force
+of mind which is born with men of great genius, and which, when it falls
+in with a noble imagination, is called "poetical fury," does not come
+under my consideration; but the pretence to such an impulse without
+natural warmth, shall be allowed a fit object of this charity; and all
+the volumes written by such hands shall be from time to time placed in
+proper order upon the rails of the unhoused booksellers within the
+district of the college[271] (who have long inhabited this quarter), in
+the same manner as they are already disposed soon after their
+publication. I promise myself from these writings my best opiates for
+those patients whose high imaginations, and hot spirits, have waked them
+into distraction. Their boiling tempers are not to be wrought upon by my
+gruels and juleps, but must ever be employed, or appear to be so, or
+their recovery will be impracticable. I shall therefore make use of such
+poets as preserve so constant a mediocrity as never to elevate the mind
+into joy, or depress it into sadness, yet at the same time keep the
+faculties of the readers in suspense, though they introduce no ideas of
+their own. By this means, a disordered mind, like a broken limb, will
+recover its strength by the sole benefit of being out of use, and lying
+without motion. But as reading is not an entertainment that can take up
+the full time of my patients, I have now in pension a proportionable
+number of storytellers, who are by turns to walk about the galleries of
+the house, and by their narrations second the labours of my pretty good
+poets. There are among these storytellers some that have so earnest
+countenances, and weighty brows, that they will draw a madman, even when
+his fit is just coming on, into a whisper, and by the force of shrugs,
+nods, and busy gestures, make him stand amazed so long as that we may
+have time to give him his broth without danger.
+
+But as Fortune has the possession of men's minds, a physician may cure
+all the sick people of ordinary degree in the whole town, and never come
+into reputation. I shall therefore begin with persons of condition; and
+the first I shall undertake, shall be the Lady Fidget, the general
+visitant, and Will Voluble, the fine talker. These persons shall be
+first locked up, for the peace of all whom the one visits, and all whom
+the other talks to.
+
+The passion which first touched the brain of both these persons was
+envy; and has had such wondrous effects, that to this, Lady Fidget owes
+that she is so courteous; to this, Will Voluble that he is eloquent.
+Fidget has a restless torment in hearing of any one's prosperity, and
+cannot know any quiet till she visits her, and is eyewitness of
+something that lessens it. Thus her life is a continual search after
+what does not concern her, and her companions speak kindly even of the
+absent and the unfortunate, to tease her. She was the first that visited
+Flavia after the small-pox, and has never seen her since because she is
+not altered. Call a young woman handsome in her company, and she tells
+you, it is a pity she has no fortune: say she is rich, and she is as
+sorry that she is silly. With all this ill nature, Fidget is herself
+young, rich, and handsome; but loses the pleasure of all those
+qualities, because she has them in common with others.
+
+To make up her misery, she is well-bred, she hears commendations till
+she is ready to faint for want of venting herself in contradictions.
+This madness is not expressed by the voice; but is uttered in the eyes
+and features: its first symptom is upon beholding an agreeable object, a
+sudden approbation immediately checked with dislike.
+
+This lady I shall take the liberty to conduct into a bed of straw and
+darkness, and have some hopes, that after long absence from the light,
+the pleasure of seeing at all may reconcile her to what she shall see,
+though it proves to be never so agreeable.
+
+My physical remarks on the distraction of envy in other persons, and
+particularly in Will Voluble, is interrupted by a visit from Mr.
+Kidney,[272] with advices which will bring matter of new disturbance to
+many possessed with this sort of disorder, which I shall publish to
+bring out the symptoms more kindly, and lay the distemper more open to
+my view.
+
+
+_St. James's Coffee-house, May 19._
+
+This evening a mail from Holland brought the following advices:
+
+     From the Camp before Douay,[273] May 26, N.S. On the 23rd the
+     French assembled their army, and encamped with their right near
+     Bouchain, and their left near Crevecoeur. Upon this motion of the
+     enemy, the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene made a movement
+     with their army on the 24th, and encamped from Arlieux to Vitry
+     and Isez-Esquerchien, where they are so advantageously posted, that
+     they not only cover the siege, secure our convoys of provisions,
+     forage, and ammunition, from Lille and Tournay, and the canals and
+     dykes we have made to turn the water of the Scarp and La Cense to
+     Bouchain; but are in a readiness, by marching from the right, to
+     possess themselves of the field of battle marked out betwixt Vitry
+     and Montigny, or from the left to gain the lines of circumvallation
+     betwixt Fierin and Dechy: so that whatever way the enemy shall
+     approach to attack us, whether by the plains of Lens, or by
+     Bouchain and Valenciennes, we have but a very small movement to
+     make, to possess ourselves of the ground on which it will be most
+     advantageous to receive them. The enemy marched this morning from
+     their left, and are encamped with their right at Oisy, and their
+     left towards Arras, and, according to our advices, will pass the
+     Scarp to-morrow, and enter on the plains of Lens, though several
+     regiments of horse, the German and Liege troops, which are destined
+     to compose part of their army, have not yet joined them. If they
+     pass the Scarp, we shall do the like at the same time, to possess
+     ourselves with all possible advantage of the field of battle: but
+     if they continue where they are, we shall not remove, because in
+     our present station we sufficiently cover from all insults both our
+     siege and convoys.
+
+     Monsieur Villars cannot yet go without crutches, and it is believed
+     will have much difficulty to ride. He and the Duke of Berwick are
+     to command the French army, the rest of the marshals being only to
+     assist in council.
+
+     Last night we entirely perfected four bridges over the _avant
+     fosse_ at both attacks; and our saps are so far advanced, that in
+     three or four days batteries will be raised on the _glacis_, to
+     batter in breach both the outworks and ramparts of the town.
+
+     Letters from the Hague of the 27th, N.S., say, that the Deputies of
+     the States of Holland, who set out for Gertruydenburg on the 23rd,
+     to renew the conferences with the French Ministers, returned on the
+     26th, and had communicated to the States-General the new overtures
+     that were made on the part of France, which it is believed, if they
+     are in earnest, may produce a general treaty.
+
+
+[Footnote 269: See Nos. 125, 127, 175.]
+
+[Footnote 270: Two of the numerous astrologers who lived in Moorfields.]
+
+[Footnote 271: During the first half of the eighteenth century the walls
+of Bedlam were made use of by dealers in second-hand books.]
+
+[Footnote 272: The waiter; see No. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 273: Douay capitulated on the 25th of June, after a fifty-four
+days siege, which cost the Allies eight thousand men. Two English
+regiments were cut to pieces at a sortie made by the besieged French
+troops. Two years later Douay was recaptured by Villars.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 175.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Saturday, May 20_, to _Tuesday, May 23, 1710_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, May 22._
+
+In the distribution of the apartments in the new Bedlam, proper regard
+is had to the different sexes, and the lodgings accommodated
+accordingly. Among other necessaries, as I have thought fit to appoint
+storytellers to soothe the men, so I have allowed tale-bearers to
+indulge the intervals of my female patients. But before I enter upon
+disposing of the main of the great body that wants my assistance, it is
+necessary to consider the human race abstracted from all other
+distinctions and considerations except that of sex. This will lead us to
+a nearer view of their excellences and imperfections, which are to be
+accounted the one or the other, as they are suitable to the design for
+which the persons so defective or accomplished came into the world.
+
+To make this inquiry aright, we must speak of the life of people of
+condition, and the proportionable applications to those below them will
+be easily made, so as to value the whole species by the same rule. We
+will begin with the woman, and behold her as a virgin in her father's
+house. This state of her life is infinitely more delightful than that
+of her brother at the same age. While she is entertained with learning
+melodious airs at her spinet, is led round a room in the most
+complaisant manner to a fiddle, who is entertained with applauses of her
+beauty and perfection in the ordinary conversation she meets with: the
+young man is under the dictates of a rigid schoolmaster or instructor,
+contradicted in every word he speaks, and curbed in all the inclinations
+he discovers. Mrs. Elizabeth is the object of desire and admiration,
+looked upon with delight, courted with all the powers of eloquence and
+address, approached with a certain worship, and defended with a certain
+loyalty. This is her case as to the world: in her domestic character,
+she is the companion, the friend, and confidante of her mother, and the
+object of a pleasure something like the love between angels, to her
+father. Her youth, her beauty, her air, are by him looked upon with an
+ineffable transport beyond any other joy in this life, with as much
+purity as can be met with in the next.
+
+Her brother William, at the same years, is but in the rudiments of those
+acquisitions which must gain him esteem in the world. His heart beats
+for applause among men, yet is he fearful of every step towards it. If
+he proposes to himself to make a figure in the world, his youth is
+damped with a prospect of difficulties, dangers, and dishonours; and an
+opposition in all generous attempts, whether they regard his love or his
+ambition.
+
+In the next stage of life she has little else to do, but (what she is
+accomplished for by the mere gifts of nature) to appear lovely and
+agreeable to her husband, tender to her children, and affable to her
+servants: but a man, when he enters into this way, is but in the first
+scene, far from the accomplishment of his designs. He is now in all
+things to act for others as well as himself. He is to have industry and
+frugality in his private affairs, and integrity and addresses in public.
+To these qualities, he must add a courage and resolution to support his
+other abilities, lest he be interrupted in the prosecution of his just
+endeavours, in which the honour and interest of posterity are as much
+concerned as his own personal welfare.
+
+This little sketch may in some measure give an idea of the different
+parts which the sexes have to act, and the advantageous as well as
+inconvenient terms on which they are to enter upon their several parts
+of life. This may also be some rule to us in the examination of their
+conduct. In short, I shall take it for a maxim, that a woman who resigns
+the purpose of being pleasing, and the man who gives up the thoughts of
+being wise, do equally quit their claim to the true causes of living;
+and are to be allowed the diet and discipline of my charitable structure
+to reduce them to reason.
+
+On the other side, the woman who hopes to please by methods which should
+make her odious, and the man who would be thought wise by a behaviour
+that renders him ridiculous, are to be taken into custody for their
+false industry, as justly as they ought for their negligence.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+N.B. Mr. Bickerstaff is taken extremely ill with the toothache, and
+cannot proceed in this discourse.
+
+
+_St. James's Coffee-house, May 22._
+
+Advices from Flanders of the 30th instant, N.S., say, that the Duke of
+Marlborough having intelligence of the enemy's passing the Scarp on the
+29th in the evening, and their march towards the plains of Lens, had put
+the Confederate army in motion, which was advancing towards the camp on
+the north side of that river between Vitry and Henin-Lietard. The
+Confederates, since the approach of the enemy, have added several new
+redoubts to their camp, and drawn the cannon out of the lines of
+circumvallation in a readiness for the batteries.
+
+It is not believed, notwithstanding these appearances, that the enemy
+will hazard a battle for the relief of Douay; the siege of which place
+is carried on with all the success that can be expected, considering the
+difficulties they meet with occasioned by the inundations. On the 28th
+at night we made a lodgment on the salient angle of the glacis of the
+second counterscarp, and our approaches are so far advanced, that it is
+believed the town will be obliged to surrender before the 8th of the
+next month.
+
+
+
+
+No. 176.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Tuesday, May 23_, to _Thursday, May 25, 1710_.
+
+    Nul lum numen abest, si sit Prudentia.
+                                  JUV., Sat. x. 365.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, May 23._
+
+This evening, after a little ease from the raging pain caused by so
+small an organ as an aching tooth, under which I had behaved myself so
+ill as to have broke two pipes and my spectacles, I began to reflect
+with admiration on those heroic spirits, which in the conduct of their
+lives seem to live so much above the condition of our make, as not only
+under the agonies of pain to forbear any intemperate word or gesture,
+but also in their general and ordinary behaviour to resist the impulses
+of their very blood and constitution. This watch over a man's self, and
+the command of his temper, I take to be the greatest of human
+perfections, and is the effect of a strong and resolute mind. It is not
+only the most expedient practice for carrying on our own designs, but
+is also very deservedly the most amiable quality in the sight of others.
+It is a winning deference to mankind, which creates an immediate
+imitation of itself whenever it appears, and prevails upon all (who have
+to do with a person endued with it) either through shame or emulation. I
+do not know how to express this habit of mind, except you will let me
+call it equanimity. It is a virtue, which is necessary at every hour, in
+every place, and in all conversations, and is the effect of a regular
+and exact prudence. He that will look back upon all the acquaintances he
+has had in his whole life, will find he has seen more men capable of the
+greatest employments and performances, than such as could in the general
+bent of their carriage act otherwise than according to their own
+complexion and humour. But the indulgence of ourselves in wholly giving
+way to our natural propensity, is so unjust and improper a licence, that
+when people take it up, there is very little difference, with relation
+to their friends and families, whether they are good- or ill-natured
+men: for he that errs by being wrought upon by what we call the
+sweetness of his temper, is as guilty as he that offends through the
+perverseness of it.
+
+It is not therefore to be regarded what men are in themselves, but what
+they are in their actions. Eucrates[274] is the best-natured of all men;
+but that natural softness has effects quite contrary to itself, and for
+want of due bounds to his benevolence, while he has a will to be a
+friend to all, he has the power of being such to none. His constant
+inclination to please makes him never fail of doing so; though (without
+being capable of falsehood) he is a friend only to those who are
+present; for the same humour which makes him the best companion,
+renders him the worst correspondent. It is a melancholy thing to
+consider, that the most engaging sort of men in conversation are
+frequently the most tyrannical in power, and least to be depended upon
+in friendship. It is certain this is not to be imputed to their own
+disposition; but he that is to be led by others, has only good luck if
+he is not the worst, though in himself the best man living. For this
+reason, we are no more wholly to indulge our good than our ill
+dispositions. I remember a crafty old cit, one day speaking of a
+well-natured young fellow who set up with a good stock in Lombard
+Street, "I will," says he, "lay no more money in his hands, for he never
+denied me anything." This was a very base, but with him a prudential
+reason for breaking off commerce: and this acquaintance of mine carried
+this way of judging so far, that he has often told me, he never cared to
+deal with a man he liked, for that our affections must never enter into
+our business.
+
+When we look round us in this populous city, and consider how credit and
+esteem are lodged, you find men have a great share of the former,
+without the least portion of the latter. He who knows himself for a
+beast of prey, looks upon others in the same light, and we are so apt to
+judge of others by ourselves, that the man who has no mercy, is as
+careful as possible never to want it. Hence it is, that in many
+instances men gain credit by the very contrary methods by which they do
+esteem; for wary traders think every affection of the mind a key to
+their cash.
+
+But what led me into this discourse was my impatience of pain; and I
+have, to my great disgrace, seen an instance of the contrary carriage in
+so high a degree, that I am out of countenance that I ever read Seneca.
+When I look upon the conduct of others in such occurrences, as well as
+behold their equanimity in the general tenor of their life, it very much
+abates the self-love, which is seldom well-governed by any sort of men,
+and least of all by us authors.
+
+The fortitude of a man who brings his will to the obedience of his
+reason is conspicuous, and carries with it a dignity in the lowest state
+imaginable. Poor Martius,[275] who now lies languishing in the most
+violent fever, discovers in the faintest moments of his distemper such a
+greatness of mind, that a perfect stranger who should now behold him,
+would indeed see an object of pity, but at the same time that it was
+lately an object of veneration. His gallant spirit resigns, but resigns
+with an air that speaks a resolution which could yield to nothing but
+fate itself. This is conquest in the philosophic sense; but the empire
+over ourselves is, methinks, no less laudable in common life, where the
+whole tenor of a man's carriage is in subservience to his own reason,
+and conformity both to the good sense and inclination of other men.
+
+Aristaeus[276] is, in my opinion, a perfect master of himself in all
+circumstances. He has all the spirit that man can have, and yet is as
+regular in his behaviour as a mere machine. He is sensible of every
+passion, but ruffled by none. In conversation, he frequently seems to be
+less knowing to be more obliging, and chooses to be on a level with
+others rather than oppress with the superiority of his genius. In
+friendship he is kind without profession; in business, expeditious
+without ostentation. With the greatest softness and benevolence
+imaginable, he is impartial in spite of all importunity, even that of
+his own good nature. He is ever clear in his judgment; but in
+complaisance to his company, speaks with doubt, and never shows
+confidence in argument, but to support the sense of another. Were such
+an equality of mind the general endeavour of all men, how sweet would be
+the pleasures of conversation? He that is loud would then understand,
+that we ought to call a constable, and know, that spoiling good company
+is the most heinous way of breaking the peace. We should then be
+relieved from these zealots in society, who take upon them to be angry
+for all the company, and quarrel with the waiters to show they have no
+respect for anybody else in the room. To be in a rage before you, is in
+a kind being angry with you. You may as well stand naked before company,
+as to use such familiarities; and to be careless of what you say, is the
+most clownish way of being undressed.
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, May 24._
+
+When I came home this evening, I found the following letters; and
+because I think one a very good answer to the other, as well as that it
+is the affair of a young lady, it must be immediately dismissed:
+
+     "SIR,
+
+     "I have a good fortune, partly paternal and partly acquired. My
+     younger years I spent in business; but age coming on, and having no
+     more children than one daughter, I resolved to be a slave no
+     longer: and accordingly I have disposed of my effects, placed my
+     money in the funds, bought a pretty seat in a pleasant country; am
+     making a garden, and have set up a pack of little beagles. I live
+     in the midst of a good many well-bred neighbours, and several
+     well-tempered clergymen. Against a rainy day I have a little
+     library; and against the gout in my stomach a little good claret.
+     With all this I am the miserablest man in the world; not that I've
+     lost the relish of any of these pleasures, but am distracted with
+     such a multiplicity of entertaining objects, that I am lost in the
+     variety. I am in such a hurry of idleness, that I do not know with
+     what diversion to begin. Therefore, sir, I must beg the favour of
+     you, when your more weighty affairs will permit, to put me in some
+     method of doing nothing; for I find Pliny makes a great difference
+     betwixt _Nihil agere_ and _Agere nihil_; and I fancy, if you would
+     explain him, you would do a very great kindness to many in Great
+     Britain, as well as to
+
+                                             "Your humble Servant,
+                                                              "J. B."
+
+     "SIR,
+
+     "The enclosed is written by my father in one of his pleasant
+     humours. He bids me seal it up, and send you a word or two from
+     myself, which he won't desire to see till he hears of it from you.
+     Desire him before he begins his method of doing nothing, to have
+     nothing to do; that is to say, let him marry off his daughter. I
+     am,
+
+                                              "Your gentle Reader,
+                                                              "S. B."
+
+
+[Footnote 274: Eucrates reminds us in some respects of Steele himself.]
+
+[Footnote 275: Perhaps Cornelius Wood. See No. 144.]
+
+[Footnote 276: In writing of Aristaeus, Steele seems to have had Addison
+in his mind. His friend had recently left London for Ireland.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 177.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Thursday, May 25_, to _Saturday, May 27, 1710_.
+
+    --Male si palpere, recalcitrat undique tutus.
+                                    HOR., 2 Sat. i. 20.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, May 26._
+
+The ingenious Mr. Penkethman,[277] the comedian, has lately left here a
+paper or ticket, to which is affixed a small silver medal, which is to
+entitle the bearer to see one-and-twenty plays at his theatre for a
+guinea. Greenwich is the place where, it seems, he has erected his
+house; and his time of action is to be so contrived, that it is to fall
+in with going and returning with the tide: besides, that the bearer of
+this ticket may carry down with him a particular set of company to the
+play, striking off for each person so introduced one of his twenty-one
+times of admittance. In this warrant of his, he has made me a high
+compliment in a facetious distich, by way of dedication of his
+endeavours, and desires I would recommend them to the world. I must
+needs say, I have not for some time seen a properer choice than he has
+made of a patron: who more fit to publish his work than a novelist[278]?
+who to recommend it than a censor? This honour done me, has made me turn
+my thoughts upon the nature of dedications in general, and the abuse of
+that custom, as well by a long practice of my predecessors, as the
+continued folly of my contemporary authors.
+
+In ancient times, it was the custom to address their works to some
+eminent for their merit to mankind, or particular patronage of the
+writers themselves, or knowledge in the matter of which they treated.
+Under these regards, it was a memorable honour to both parties, and a
+very agreeable record of their commerce with each other. These
+applications were never stuffed with impertinent praises, but were the
+native product of their esteem, which was implicitly received, or
+generally known to be due to the patron of the work: but vain flourishes
+came into the world, with other barbarous embellishments; and the
+enumeration of titles, and great actions, in the patrons themselves, or
+their sires, are as foreign to the matter in hand as the ornaments are
+in a Gothic building. This is clapping together persons which have no
+manner of alliance, and can for that reason have no other effect than
+making both parties justly ridiculous. What pretence is there in Nature
+for me to write to a great man, and tell him, "My lord, because your
+Grace is a duke, your Grace's father before you was an earl, his
+lordship's father was a baron, and his lordship's father both a wise and
+a rich man, I, Isaac Bickerstaff, am obliged, and could not possibly
+forbear addressing to you the following treatise." Though this is the
+plain exposition of all I could possibly say to him with a good
+conscience, yet the silly custom has so universally prevailed, that my
+lord duke and I must necessarily be particular friends from this time
+forward, or else I have just room for being disobliged, and may turn my
+panegyric into a libel. But to carry this affair still more home, were
+it granted that praises in dedications were proper topics, what is it
+that gives a man authority to commend, or what makes it a favour to me
+that he does commend me? It is certain, that there is no praise valuable
+but from the praiseworthy. Were it otherwise, blame might be as much in
+the same hands. Were the good and evil of fame laid upon a level among
+mankind, the judge on the bench, and the criminal at the bar, would
+differ only in their stations; and if one's word is to pass as much as
+the other's, their reputation would be much alike to the jury.
+Pliny,[279] speaking of the death of Martial, expresses himself with
+great gratitude to him for the honours done him in the writings of that
+author; but he begins it with an account of his character, which only
+made the applause valuable. He indeed in the same Epistle says, it is a
+sign we have left off doing things which deserve praise, when we think
+commendation impertinent. This is asserted with a just regard to the
+persons whose good opinion we wish for; otherwise reputation would be
+valued according to the number of voices a man has for it, which are not
+always to be insured on the more virtuous side. But however we pretend
+to model these nice affairs, true glory will never attend anything but
+truth; and there is something so peculiar in it, that the very self-same
+action done by different men cannot merit the same degree of applause.
+The Roman, who was surprised in the enemy's camp before he had
+accomplished his design, and thrust his bare arm into a flaming pile,
+telling the general, there were many as determined as himself who
+(against sense of danger) had conspired his death, wrought in the very
+enemy an admiration of his fortitude, and a dismission with
+applause.[280] But the condemned slave who represented him in the
+theatre, and consumed his arm in the same manner, with the same
+resolution, did not raise in the spectators a great idea of his virtue,
+but of him whom he imitated in an action no way differing from that of
+the real Scaevola, but in the motive to it.
+
+Thus true glory is inseparable from true merit, and whatever you call
+men, they are no more than what they are in themselves; but a romantic
+sense has crept into the minds of the generality, who will ever mistake
+words and appearances for persons and things.
+
+The simplicity of the ancients was as conspicuous in the address of
+their writings, as in any other monuments they have left behind them.
+Caesar and Augustus were much more high words of respect, when added to
+occasions fit for their characters to appear in, than any appellations
+which have ever been since thought of. The latter of these great men had
+a very pleasant way of dealing with applications of this kind. When he
+received pieces of poetry which he thought had worth in them, he
+rewarded the writer; but where he thought them empty, he generally
+returned the compliment made him with some verses of his own.
+
+This latter method I have at present occasion to imitate. A female
+author has dedicated a piece to me,[281] wherein she would make my name
+(as she has others) the introduction of whatever is to follow in her
+book; and has spoke some panegyrical things which I know not how to
+return, for want of better acquaintance with the lady, and consequently
+being out of a capacity of giving her praise or blame. All therefore
+that is left for me, according to the foregoing rules, is to lay the
+picture of a good and evil woman before her eyes, which are but mere
+words if they do not concern her. Now you are to observe, the way in a
+dedication is to make all the rest of the world as little like the
+person we address to as possible, according to the following epistle:
+
+
+     "MADAM,
+       "But, M----
+                  "----_Memorabile nullum
+                  Foeminea in poena est._----"[282]
+
+
+[Footnote 277: See No. 4.]
+
+[Footnote 278: Writer of news.]
+
+[Footnote 279: "Epist." iii. 21.]
+
+[Footnote 280: Livy, ii. 12.]
+
+[Footnote 281: Mrs. Manley's "Memoirs of Europe ... by the translator of
+the 'New Atalantis.'" See Nos. 35, 63.]
+
+[Footnote 282:
+
+    "----Nullum memorabile nomen
+    Foeminea in poena est."--"AEneid," ii. 583-4.
+]
+
+
+
+
+No. 178.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Saturday, May 27_, to _Tuesday, May 30, 1710_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, May 29._
+
+When we look into the delightful history of the most ingenious Don
+Quixote of the Mancha, and consider the exercises and manner of life of
+that renowned gentleman, we cannot but admire the exquisite genius and
+discerning spirit of Michael Cervantes, who has not only painted his
+adventurer with great mastery in the conspicuous parts of his story,
+which relate to love and honour, but also intimated in his ordinary
+life, economy, and furniture, the infallible symptoms he gave of his
+growing frenzy, before he declared himself a knight-errant. His hall was
+furnished with old lances, halberds, and morions; his food, lentils; his
+dress, amorous. He slept moderately, rose early, and spent his time in
+hunting. When by watchfulness and exercise he was thus qualified for the
+hardships of his intended peregrinations, he had nothing more to do but
+to fall hard to study; and before he should apply himself to the
+practical part, get into the methods of making love and war by reading
+books of knighthood. As for raising tender passion in him, Cervantes
+reports[283] that he was wonderfully delighted with a smooth intricate
+sentence; and when they listened at his study-door, they could
+frequently hear him read aloud, "The reason of the unreasonableness,
+which against my reason is wrought, doth so weaken my reason, as with
+all reason I do justly complain on your beauty." Again, he would pause
+till he came to another charming sentence, and with the most pleasing
+accent imaginable be loud at a new paragraph: "The high heavens, which,
+with your divinity, do fortify you divinely with the stars, make you
+deserveress of the deserts that your greatness deserves." With these,
+and other such passages (says my author) the poor gentleman grew
+distracted, and was breaking his brains day and night to understand and
+unravel their sense.
+
+As much as the case of this distempered knight is received by all the
+readers of his history as the most incurable and ridiculous of all
+phrensies, it is very certain we have crowds among us far gone in as
+visible a madness as his, though they are not observed to be in that
+condition. As great and useful discoveries are sometimes made by
+accidental and small beginnings, I came to the knowledge of the most
+epidemic ill of this sort, by falling into a coffee-house where I saw my
+friend the upholsterer,[284] whose crack[285] towards politics I have
+heretofore mentioned. This touch in the brain of the British subject is
+as certainly owing to the reading newspapers, as that of the Spanish
+worthy above mentioned to the reading works of chivalry. My
+contemporaries the novelists[286] have, for the better spinning out
+paragraphs, and working down to the end of their columns, a most happy
+art in saying and unsaying, giving hints of intelligence, and
+interpretations of indifferent actions, to the great disturbance of the
+brains of ordinary readers. This way of going on in the words, and
+making no progress in the sense, is more particularly the excellence of
+my most ingenious and renowned fellow-labourer, the _Postman_[287]; and
+it is to this talent in him that I impute the loss of my upholsterer's
+intellects. That unfortunate tradesman has for years past been the chief
+orator in ragged assemblies, and the reader in alley coffee-houses. He
+was yesterday surrounded by an audience of that sort, among whom I sat
+unobserved through the favour of a cloud of tobacco, and saw him with
+the _Postman_ in his hand, and all the other papers safe under his left
+elbow. He was intermixing remarks, and reading the Paris article of May
+30, which says that "it is given out that an express arrived this day,
+with advice, that the armies were so near in the plain of Lens, that
+they cannonaded each other." ("Ay, ay, here we shall have sport.") "And
+that it was highly probable the next express would bring us an account
+of an engagement." ("They are welcome as soon as they please.") "Though
+some others say, that the same will be put off till the 2nd or 3rd of
+June, because the Marshal Villars expects some further reinforcements
+from Germany, and other parts, before that time." ("What-a-pox does he
+put it off for? Does he think our horse is not marching up at the same
+time? But let us see what he says further.") "They hope that Monsieur
+Albergotti,[288] being encouraged by the presence of so great an army,
+will make an extraordinary defence." ("Why then I find, Albergotti is
+one of those that love to have a great many on their side. Nay, I'll say
+that for this paper, he makes the most natural inferences of any of them
+all.") "The Elector of Bavaria being uneasy to be without any command,
+has desired leave to come to Court to communicate a certain project to
+his Majesty. Whatever it be, it is said that prince is suddenly
+expected, and then we shall have a more certain account of his project,
+if this report has any foundation." ("Nay, this paper never imposes upon
+us, he goes upon sure grounds; for he won't be positive the Elector has
+a project, or that he will come, or if he does come at all; for he
+doubts, you see, whether the report has any foundation.")
+
+What makes this the more lamentable is, that this way of writing falls
+in with the imagination of the cooler and duller part of her Majesty's
+subjects. The being kept up with one line contradicting another, and the
+whole, after many sentences of conjecture, vanishing in a doubt whether
+there is anything at all in what the person has been reading, puts an
+ordinary head into a vertigo, which his natural dulness would have
+secured him from. Next to the labours of the _Postman_, the upholsterer
+took from under his elbow honest Ichabod Dawks' _Letter_,[289] and
+there, among other speculations, the historian takes upon him to say
+that "it is discoursed that there will be a battle in Flanders before
+the armies separate, and many will have it to be to-morrow, the great
+battle of Ramillies being fought on a Whit Sunday." A gentleman who was
+a wag in this company laughed at the expression, and said, "By Mr.
+Dawks' favour, I warrant ye, if we meet them on Whit Sunday, or Monday,
+we shall not stand upon the day[290] with them, whether it be before or
+after the holidays." An admirer of this gentleman stood up, and told a
+neighbour at a distant table the conceit, at which indeed we were all
+very merry. These reflections in the writers of the transactions of the
+times, seize the noddles of such as were not born to have thoughts of
+their own, and consequently lay a weight upon everything which they read
+in print. But Mr. Dawks concluded his paper with a courteous sentence,
+which was very well taken and applauded by the whole company. "We wish,"
+says he, "all our customers a merry Whitsuntide, and many of them."
+Honest Ichabod is as extraordinary a man as any of our fraternity, and
+as particular. His style is a dialect between the familiarity of talking
+and writing, and his letter such as you cannot distinguish whether print
+or manuscript, which gives us a refreshment[291] of the idea from what
+has been told us from the press by others. This wishing a good tide had
+its effect upon us, and he was commended for his salutation, as showing
+as well the capacity of a bellman as an historian. My distempered old
+acquaintance read in the next place the account of the affairs abroad in
+the _Courant_;[292] but the matter was told so distinctly, that these
+wanderers thought there was no news in it; this paper differing from the
+rest as a history from a romance. The tautology, the contradictions, the
+doubts, and wants of confirmations, are what keep up imaginary
+entertainments in empty heads, and produce neglect of their own affairs,
+poverty, and bankruptcy, in many of the shop-statesmen; but turn the
+imaginations of those of a little higher orb into deliriums of
+dissatisfaction, which is seen in a continual fret upon all that touches
+their brains, but more particularly upon any advantage obtained by their
+country, where they are considered as lunatics, and therefore tolerated
+in their ravings.
+
+What I am now warning the people of is, that the newspapers of this
+island are as pernicious to weak heads in England as ever books of
+chivalry to Spain; and therefore shall do all that in me lies, with the
+utmost care and vigilance imaginable, to prevent these growing evils. A
+flaming instance of this malady appeared in my old acquaintance at this
+time, who, after he had done reading all his papers, ended with a
+thoughtful air, "If we should have a peace, we should then know for
+certain whether it was the King of Sweden that lately came to Dunkirk."
+I whispered him, and desired him to step aside a little with me. When I
+had opportunity, I decoyed him into a coach, in order for his more easy
+conveyance to Moorfields. The man went very quietly with me; and by that
+time he had brought the Swede from the defeat by the Czar to the
+Boristhenes, we were passing by Will's Coffeehouse, where the man of the
+house beckoned to us. We made a full stop, and could hear from above a
+very loud voice swearing, with some expressions towards treason, that
+the subject in France was as free as in England. His distemper would not
+let him reflect, that his own discourse was an argument of the contrary.
+They told him, one would speak with him below. He came immediately to
+our coach-side. I whispered him, that I had an order to carry him to the
+Bastile. He immediately obeyed with great resignation: for to this sort
+of lunatic, whose brain is touched for the French, the name of a gaol in
+that kingdom has a more agreeable sound than that of a paternal seat in
+this their own country. It happened a little unluckily bringing these
+lunatics together, for they immediately fell into a debate concerning
+the greatness of their respective monarchs; one for the King of Sweden,
+the other for the Grand Monarch of France. This gentleman from Will's is
+now next door to the upholsterer, safe in his apartment in my Bedlam,
+with proper medicaments, and the _Mercure Galant_[293] to soothe his
+imagination that he is actually in France. If therefore he should escape
+to Covent Garden again, all persons are desired to lay hold of him, and
+deliver him to Mr. Morphew, my overseer. At the same time, I desire all
+true subjects to forbear discourse with him, any otherwise than when he
+begins to fight a battle for France, to say, "Sir, I hope to see you in
+England."
+
+
+[Footnote 283: "Don Quixote," Part I. chap. i.]
+
+[Footnote 284: See Nos. 155, 160.]
+
+[Footnote 285: In the _Spectator_, No. 251, Addison applies the word to
+a crazy person: "A crack and a projector."]
+
+[Footnote 286: Writers of newspapers.]
+
+[Footnote 287: The _Postman_ was edited by a French Protestant named
+Fontive, whom Dunton describes as "the glory and mirror of news-writers;
+a very grave, learned, orthodox man."]
+
+[Footnote 288: Albergotti was then holding Douay for Lewis XIV.]
+
+[Footnote 289: See No. 18. The news-letter was printed to imitate
+handwriting.]
+
+[Footnote 290: Cf. "Macbeth," act iii. sc. 4:
+
+    "Stand not upon the order of your going,
+    But go at once!"
+]
+
+[Footnote 291: A _rechauffe_.]
+
+[Footnote 292: See No. 18.]
+
+[Footnote 293: See No. 67.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 179.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Tuesday, May 30_, to _Thursday, June 1, 1710_.
+
+    ----O! quis me gelidis sub montibus Haemi
+    Sistat, et ingenti ramorum protegat umbra?
+                                  VIRG., Georg. ii. 488.[294]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, May 31._
+
+In this parched season, next to the pleasure of going into the country,
+is that of hearing from it, and partaking the joys of it in description,
+as in the following letter:
+
+     "SIR,
+
+     "I believe you will forgive me, though I write to you a very long
+     epistle, since it relates to the satisfaction of a country life,
+     which I know you would lead, if you could. In the first place I
+     must confess to you, that I am one of the most luxurious men
+     living; and as I am such, I take care to make my pleasures lasting,
+     by following none but such as are innocent and refined, as well as,
+     in some measure, improving. You have in your labours been so much
+     concerned to represent the actions and passions of mankind, that
+     the whole vegetable world has almost escaped your observation: but
+     sure there are gratifications to be drawn from thence, which
+     deserve to be recommended. For your better information, I wish you
+     could visit your old friend in Cornwall: you would be leased to
+     see the many alterations I have made about my house, and how much I
+     have improved my estate without raising the rents of it.
+
+     "As the winter engrosses with us near a double portion of the year
+     (the three delightful vicissitudes being crowded almost within the
+     space of six months), there is nothing upon which I have bestowed
+     so much study and expense, as in contriving means to soften the
+     severity of it, and, if possible, to establish twelve cheerful
+     months about my habitation. In order to this, the charges I have
+     been at in building and furnishing a greenhouse will, perhaps, be
+     thought somewhat extravagant by a great many gentlemen whose
+     revenues exceed mine. But when I consider, that all men of any life
+     and spirit have their inclinations to gratify, and when I compute
+     the sums laid out by the generality of the men of pleasure (in the
+     number of which I always rank myself) in riotous eating and
+     drinking, in equipage and apparel, upon wenching, gaming, racing
+     and hunting; I find, upon the balance, that the indulging of my
+     humour comes at a reasonable rate.
+
+     "Since I communicate to you all incidents serious and trifling,
+     even to the death of a butterfly, that fall out within the compass
+     of my little empire, you will not, I hope, be ill pleased with the
+     draught I now send you of my little winter paradise, and with an
+     account of my way of amusing myself and others in it.
+
+     "The younger Pliny, you know, writes a long letter to his friend
+     Gallus,[295] in which he gives him a very particular plan of the
+     situation, the conveniences, and the agreeableness of his villa. In
+     my last, you may remember, I promised you something of this kind.
+     Had Pliny lived in a northern climate, I doubt not but we should
+     have found a very complete orangery amongst his Epistles; and I,
+     probably, should have copied his model, instead of building after
+     my own fancy, and you had been referred to him for the history of
+     my late exploits in architecture: by which means my performances
+     would have made a better figure, at least in writing, than they are
+     like to make at present.
+
+     "The area of my greenhouse is a hundred paces long, fifty broad,
+     and the roof thirty feet high. The wall toward the north is of
+     solid stone. On the south side, and at both the ends, the stonework
+     rises but three feet from the ground, excepting the pilasters,
+     placed at convenient distances to strengthen and beautify the
+     building. The intermediate spaces are filled up with large sashes
+     of the strongest and most transparent glass. The middle sash (which
+     is wider than any of the others) serves for the entrance, to which
+     you mount by six easy steps, and descend on the inside by as many.
+     This opens and shuts with greater ease, keeps the wind out better,
+     and is at the same time more uniform than folding-doors.
+
+     "In the middle of the roof there runs a ceiling thirty feet broad
+     from one end to the other. This is enlivened by a masterly pencil,
+     with all the variety of rural scenes and prospects, which he has
+     peopled with the whole tribe of sylvan deities. Their characters
+     and their stories are so well expressed, that the whole seems a
+     collection of all the most beautiful fables of the ancient poets
+     translated into colours. The remaining spaces of the roof, ten feet
+     on each side of the ceiling, are of the clearest glass, to let in
+     the sky and clouds from above. The building points full east and
+     west, so that I enjoy the sun while he is above the horizon. His
+     rays are improved through the glass, and I receive through it what
+     is desirable in a winter-sky, without the coarse alloy of the
+     season, which is a kind of sifting or straining the weather. My
+     greens and lowers are as sensible as I am of this benefit: they
+     flourish and look cheerful as in the spring, while their fellow
+     creatures abroad are starved to death. I must add, that a moderate
+     expense of fire, over and above the contributions I receive from
+     the sun, serves to keep this large room in a due temperature; it
+     being sheltered from the cold winds by a hill on the north, and a
+     wood on the east.
+
+     "The shell, you see, is both agreeable and convenient; and now you
+     shall judge, whether I have laid out the floor to advantage. There
+     goes through the whole length of it a spacious walk of the finest
+     gravel, made to bind and unite so firmly, that it seems one
+     continued stone; with this advantage, that it is easier to the
+     foot, and better for walking, than if it were what it seems to be.
+     At each end of the walk, on the one and on the other side of it,
+     lies a square plot of grass of the finest turf and brightest
+     verdure. What ground remains on both sides, between these little
+     smooth fields of green, is flagged with large quarries of white
+     marble, where the blue veins trace out such a variety of irregular
+     windings through the clear surface, that these bright plains seem
+     full of rivulets and streaming meanders. This to my eye, that
+     delights in simplicity, is inexpressibly more beautiful than the
+     chequered floors which are so generally admired by others. Upon the
+     right and upon the left, along the gravel walk, I have ranged
+     interchangeably the bay, the myrtle, the orange and the lemon
+     trees, intermixed with painted hollies, silver firs, and pyramids
+     of yew; all so disposed, that every tree receives an additional
+     beauty from its situation; besides the harmony that rises from the
+     disposition of the whole, no shade cuts too strongly, or breaks in
+     harshly upon the other; but the eye is cheered with a mild rather
+     than gorgeous diversity of greens.
+
+     "The borders of the four grass plots are garnished with pots of
+     flowers: those delicacies of Nature create two senses at once, and
+     leave such delightful and gentle impressions upon the brain, that I
+     cannot help thinking them of equal force with the softest airs of
+     music, toward the smoothing of our tempers. In the centre of every
+     plot is a statue. The figures I have made choice of are a Venus, an
+     Adonis, a Diana, and an Apollo; such excellent copies, as to raise
+     the same delight as we should draw from the sight of the ancient
+     originals.
+
+     "The north wall would have been but a tiresome waste to the eye, if
+     I had not diversified it with the most lively ornaments, suitable
+     to the place. To this intent, I have been at the expense to lead
+     over arches from a neighbouring hill a plentiful store of spring
+     water, which a beautiful Naiad, placed as high as is possible in
+     the centre of the wall, pours out from an urn. This, by a fall of
+     above twenty foot, makes a most delightful cascade into a basin,
+     that opens wide within the marble floor on that side. At a
+     reasonable distance, on either hand of the cascade, the wall is
+     hollowed into two spreading scallops, each of which receives a
+     couch of green velvet, and forms at the same time a canopy over
+     them. Next to them come two large aviaries, which are likewise let
+     into the stone. These are succeeded by two grottoes, set off with
+     all the pleasing rudeness of shells and moss, and cragged stones,
+     imitating in miniature rocks and precipices, the most dreadful and
+     gigantic works of Nature. After the grottoes, you have two niches,
+     the one inhabited by Ceres, with her sickle and sheaf of wheat; and
+     the other by Pomona, who, with a countenance full of good cheer,
+     pours a bounteous autumn of fruits out of her horn. Last of all
+     come two colonies of bees, whose stations lying east and west, the
+     one is saluted by the rising, the other by the setting sun. These,
+     all of them being placed at proportioned intervals, furnish out the
+     whole length of the wall; and the spaces that lie between are
+     painted in fresco, by the same hand that has enriched my ceiling.
+
+     "Now, sir, you see my whole contrivance to elude the rigour of the
+     year, to bring a northern climate nearer the sun, and to exempt
+     myself from the common fate of my countrymen. I must detain you a
+     little longer, to tell you, that I never enter this delicious
+     retirement, but my spirits are revived, and a sweet complacency
+     diffuses itself over my whole mind. And how can it be otherwise,
+     with a conscience void of offence, where the music of falling
+     waters, the symphony of birds, the gentle humming of bees, the
+     breath of flowers, the fine imagery of painting and sculpture: in a
+     word, the beauties and the charms of nature and of art court all my
+     faculties, refresh the fibres of the brain and smooth every avenue
+     of thought. What pleasing meditations, what agreeable wanderings of
+     the mind, and what delicious slumbers, have I enjoyed here! And
+     when I turn up some masterly writer to my imagination, methinks
+     here his beauties appear in the most advantageous light, and the
+     rays of his genius shoot upon me with greater force and brightness
+     than ordinary. This place likewise keeps the whole family in good
+     humour, in a season wherein gloominess of temper prevails
+     universally in this island. My wife does often touch her lute in
+     one of the grottoes, and my daughter sings to it, while the ladies
+     with you, amidst all the diversions of the town, and in the most
+     affluent fortunes, are fretting and repining beneath a lowering sky
+     for they know not what. In this greenhouse we often dine, we drink
+     tea, we dance country dances; and what is the chief pleasure of
+     all, we entertain our neighbours in it, and by this means
+     contribute very much to mend the climate five or six miles about
+     us. I am,
+
+                                   "Your most humble Servant,
+                                                         "T. S."[296]
+
+
+[Footnote 294: The correct reading is, "O, qui me gellidis in vallibus,"
+&c.]
+
+[Footnote 295: "Epist." ii. 17.]
+
+[Footnote 296: Thomas Smith, who voted against Steele's expulsion, was
+member for the borough of Eye, and may have been the person who wrote
+this letter, to which the initials of his name are subscribed. In the
+preface to the _Examiner_, the first number of which was published Aug.
+3, 1710, there is the following passage: "All descriptions of
+stage-players and statesmen, the erecting of greenhouses, the forming of
+constellations, the beaus' red heels, and the furbelows of the ladies,
+shall remain entire to the use and benefit of their first proprietor."
+
+The description of stage-players and statesmen, here mentioned, is an
+allusion to Downes' letter. See No. 193.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 180.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Thursday, June 1_, to _Saturday, June 3, 1710_.
+
+    Stultitiam patiuntur opes.--HOR., 1 Ep. xviii. 29.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, June 2._
+
+I have received a letter which accuses me of partiality in the
+administration of the Censorship, and says, that I have been very free
+with the lower part of mankind, but extremely cautious in
+representations of matters which concern men of condition. This
+correspondent takes upon him also to say, the upholsterer was not undone
+by turning politician, but became bankrupt by trusting his goods to
+persons of quality; and demands of me, that I should do justice upon
+such as brought poverty and distress upon the world below them, while
+they themselves were sunk in pleasures and luxury, supported at the
+expense of those very persons whom they treated with a negligence, as
+if they did not know whether they dealt with them or not. This is a
+very heavy accusation, both of me and such as the man aggrieved accuses
+me of tolerating. For this reason, I resolved to take this matter into
+consideration, and upon very little meditation could call to my memory
+many instances which made this complaint far from being groundless. The
+root of this evil does not always proceed from injustice in the men of
+figure, but often from a false grandeur which they take upon them in
+being unacquainted with their own business, not considering how mean a
+part they act when their names and characters are subjected to the
+little arts of their servants and dependants. The overseers of the poor
+are a people who have no great reputation for the discharge of their
+trust, but are much less scandalous than the overseers of the rich. Ask
+a young fellow of a great estate, who was that odd fellow spoke to him
+in a public place? He answers, "One that does my business." It is, with
+many, a natural consequence of being a man of fortune, that they are not
+to understand the disposal of it; and they long to come to their
+estates, only to put themselves under new guardianship. Nay, I have
+known a young fellow who was regularly bred an attorney, and was a very
+expert one till he had an estate fallen to him. The moment that
+happened, he who could before prove the next land he cast his eye upon
+his own, and was so sharp, that a man at first sight would give him a
+small sum for a general receipt, whether he owed him anything or not:
+such a one, I say, have I seen, upon coming to an estate, forget all his
+diffidence of mankind, and become the most manageable thing breathing.
+He immediately wanted a stirring man to take upon him his affairs, to
+receive and pay, and do everything which he himself was now too fine a
+gentleman to understand. It is pleasant to consider, that he who would
+have got an estate had he not come to one, will certainly starve
+because one fell to him: but such contradictions are we to ourselves,
+and any change of life is insupportable to some natures.
+
+It is a mistaken sense of superiority, to believe a figure or equipage
+gives men precedence to their neighbours. Nothing can create respect
+from mankind, but laying obligations upon them; and it may very
+reasonably be concluded, that if it were put into a due balance,
+according to the true state of the account, many who believe themselves
+in possession of a large share of dignity in the world, must give place
+to their inferiors. The greatest of all distinctions in civil life is
+that of debtor and creditor, and there needs no great progress in logic
+to know which, in that case, is the advantageous side. He who can say to
+another, "Pray, master," or "Pray, my lord, give me my own," can as
+justly tell him, "It is a fantastical distinction you take upon you, to
+pretend to pass upon the world for my master or lord, when at the same
+time that I wear your livery, you owe me wages; or, while I wait at your
+door, you are ashamed to see me till you have paid my bill."
+
+The good old way among the gentry of England to maintain their
+pre-eminence over the lower rank, was by their bounty, munificence, and
+hospitality; and it is a very unhappy change, if at present, by
+themselves or their agents, the luxury of the gentry is supported by the
+credit of the trader. This is what my correspondent pretends to prove
+out of his own books, and those of his whole neighbourhood. He has the
+confidence to say, that there is a mug-house near Long Acre, where you
+may every evening hear an exact account of distresses of this kind. One
+complains, that such a lady's finery is the occasion that his own wife
+and daughter appear so long in the same gown: another, that all the
+furniture of her visiting apartment are no more hers, than the scenery
+of a play are the proper goods of the actress. Nay, at the lower end of
+the same table, you may hear a butcher and poulterer say, that at their
+proper charge all that family has been maintained since they last came
+to town.
+
+The free manner in which people of fashion are discoursed on at such
+meetings, is but a just reproach for their failures in this kind; but
+the melancholy relations of the great necessities tradesmen are driven
+to, who support their credit in spite of the faithless promises which
+are made them, and the abatement which they suffer when paid, by the
+extortion of upper servants, is what would stop the most thoughtless man
+in the career of his pleasures, if rightly represented to him.
+
+If this matter be not very speedily amended, I shall think fit to print
+exact lists of all persons who are not at their own disposal, though
+above the age of twenty-one; and as the trader is made bankrupt for
+absence from his abode, so shall the gentleman for being at home, if,
+when Mr. Morphew calls, he cannot give him an exact account of what
+passes in his own family. After this fair warning, no one ought to think
+himself hardly dealt with, if I take upon me to pronounce him no longer
+master of his estate, wife, or family, than he continues to improve,
+cherish, and maintain them upon the basis of his own property, without
+incursions upon his neighbour in any of these particulars.
+
+According to that excellent philosopher Epictetus, we are all but acting
+parts in a play; and it is not a distinction in itself to be high or
+low, but to become the parts we are to perform. I am by my office
+prompter on this occasion, and shall give those who are a little out in
+their parts such soft hints as may help them to proceed, without letting
+it be known to the audience they were out: but if they run quite out of
+character, they must be called off the stage, and receive parts more
+suitable to their genius. Servile complaisance shall degrade a man from
+his honour and quality, and haughtiness be yet more debased. Fortune
+shall no longer appropriate distinctions, but Nature direct us in the
+disposition both of respect and discountenance. As there are tempers
+made for command, and others for obedience; so there are men born for
+acquiring possessions, and others incapable of being other than mere
+lodgers in the houses of their ancestors, and have it not in their very
+composition to be proprietors of anything. These men are moved only by
+the mere effects of impulse: their goodwill and disesteem are to be
+regarded equally, for neither is the effect of their judgment. This
+loose temper is that which makes a man, what Sallust so well remarks to
+happen frequently in the same person, to be covetous of what is
+another's, and profuse of what is his own.[297] This sort of men is
+usually amiable to ordinary eyes; but in the sight of reason, nothing is
+laudable but what is guided by reason. The covetous prodigal is of all
+others the worst man in society: if he would but take time to look into
+himself, he would find his soul all over gashed with broken vows and
+promises, and his retrospect on his actions would not consist of
+reflections upon those good resolutions after mature thought, which are
+the true life of a reasonable creature, but the nauseous memory of
+imperfect pleasures, idle dreams, and occasional amusements. To follow
+such dissatisfying pursuits, is it possible to suffer the ignominy of
+being unjust? I remember in Tully's Epistle, in the recommendation of a
+man to an affair which had no manner of relation to money, it is said,
+"You may trust him, for he is a frugal man." It is certain, he who has
+not a regard to strict justice in the commerce of life, can be capable
+of no good action in any other kind; but he who lives below his income,
+lays up every moment of life armour against a base world, that will
+cover all his frailties while he is so fortified, and exaggerate them
+when he is naked and defenceless.
+
+
+ADVERTISEMENT.
+
+A stage-coach sets out exactly at six from Nando's Coffee-house[298] to
+Mr. Tiptoe's dancing school, and returns at eleven every evening, for
+16_d._
+
+N.B. Dancing-shoes not exceeding four inches height in the heel, and
+periwigs not exceeding three feet in length, are carried in the
+coach-box gratis.
+
+
+[Footnote 297: "Alieni appetens, sui profusus" ("Bell. Cat." cap. i.).]
+
+[Footnote 298: See No. 142.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 181.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Saturday, June 3_, to _Tuesday, June 6, 1710_.
+
+    ----Dies, ni fallor, adest, quem semper acerbum,
+    Semper honoratum (sic di voluistis), habebo.
+                                        VIRG., AEn. v. 49.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, June 5._
+
+There are those among mankind, who can enjoy no relish of their being,
+except the world is made acquainted with all that relates to them, and
+think everything lost that passes unobserved; but others find a solid
+delight in stealing by the crowd, and modelling their life after such a
+manner, as is as much above the approbation as the practice of the
+vulgar. Life being too short to give instances great enough of true
+friendship or goodwill, some sages have thought it pious to preserve a
+certain reverence for the manes of their deceased friends, and have
+withdrawn themselves from the rest of the world at certain seasons, to
+commemorate in their own thoughts such of their acquaintance who have
+gone before them out of this life: and indeed, when we are advanced in
+years, there is not a more pleasing entertainment, than to recollect in
+a gloomy moment the many we have parted with that have been dear and
+agreeable to us, and to cast a melancholy thought or two after those
+with whom, perhaps, we have indulged ourselves in whole nights of mirth
+and jollity. With such inclinations in my heart I went to my closet
+yesterday in the evening, and resolved to be sorrowful; upon which
+occasion, I could not but look with disdain upon myself, that though all
+the reasons which I had to lament the loss of many of my friends are now
+as forcible as at the moment of their departure, yet did not my heart
+swell with the same sorrow which I felt at that time; but I could,
+without tears, reflect upon many pleasing adventures I have had with
+some who have long been blended with common earth. Though it is by the
+benefit of nature that length of time thus blots out the violence of
+afflictions; yet with tempers too much given to pleasure, it is almost
+necessary to revive the old places of grief in our memory, and ponder
+step by step on past life, to lead the mind into that sobriety of
+thought which poises the heart, and makes it beat with due time, without
+being quickened with desire, or retarded with despair, from its proper
+and equal motion. When we wind up a clock that is out of order, to make
+it go well for the future, we do not immediately set the hand to the
+present instant, but we make it strike the round of all its hours,
+before it can recover the regularity of its time. "Such," thought I,
+"shall be my method this evening; and since it is that day of the year
+which I dedicate to the memory of such in another life as I much
+delighted in when living, an hour or two shall be sacred to sorrow and
+their memory, while I run over all the melancholy circumstances of this
+kind which have occurred to me in my whole life."
+
+The first sense of sorrow I ever knew was upon the death of my
+father,[299] at which time I was not quite five years of age; but was
+rather amazed at what all the house meant, than possessed with a real
+understanding why nobody was willing to play with me. I remember I went
+into the room where his body lay, and my mother sat weeping alone by it.
+I had my battledore in my hand, and fell a beating the coffin, and
+calling "Papa"; for I know not how I had some slight idea that he was
+locked up there. My mother catched me in her arms, and transported
+beyond all patience of the silent grief she was before in, she almost
+smothered me in her embrace, and told me in a flood of tears, papa could
+not hear me, and would play with me no more, for they were going to put
+him under ground, whence he could never come to us again. She was a very
+beautiful woman, of a noble spirit, and there was a dignity in her grief
+amidst all the wildness of her transport, which, methought, struck me
+with an instinct of sorrow, which, before I was sensible of what it was
+to grieve, seized my very soul, and has made pity the weakness of my
+heart ever since. The mind in infancy is, methinks, like the body in
+embryo, and receives impressions so forcible, that they are as hard to
+be removed by reason, as any mark with which a child is born is to be
+taken away by any future application. Hence it is, that good nature in
+me is no merit; but having been so frequently overwhelmed with her tears
+before I knew the cause of any affliction, or could draw defences from
+my own judgment, I imbibed commiseration, remorse, and an unmanly
+gentleness of mind, which has since ensnared me into ten thousand
+calamities, and from whence I can reap no advantage, except it be, that
+in such a humour as I am now in, I can the better indulge myself in the
+softnesses of humanity, and enjoy that sweet anxiety which arises from
+the memory of past afflictions.[300]
+
+We that are very old, are better able to remember things which befell us
+in our distant youth, than the passages of later days. For this reason
+it is, that the companions of my strong and vigorous years present
+themselves more immediately to me in this office of sorrow. Untimely or
+unhappy deaths are what we are most apt to lament, so little are we able
+to make it indifferent when a thing happens, though we know it must
+happen. Thus we groan under life, and bewail those who are relieved from
+it. Every object that returns to our imagination raises different
+passions according to the circumstance of their departure. Who can have
+lived in an army, and in a serious hour reflect upon the many gay and
+agreeable men that might long have flourished in the arts of peace, and
+not join with the imprecations of the fatherless and widow on the tyrant
+to whose ambition they fell sacrifices? But gallant men, who are cut off
+by the sword, move rather our veneration than our pity, and we gather
+relief enough from their own contempt of death, to make it no evil,
+which was approached with so much cheerfulness, and attended with so
+much honour. But when we turn our thoughts from the great parts of life
+on such occasions, and instead of lamenting those who stood ready to
+give death to those from whom they had the fortune to receive it; I say,
+when we let our thoughts wander from such noble objects, and consider
+the havoc which is made among the tender and the innocent, pity enters
+with an unmixed softness, and possesses all our souls at once.
+
+Here (were there words to express such sentiments with proper
+tenderness) I should record the beauty, innocence, and untimely death,
+of the first object my eyes ever beheld with love. The beauteous virgin!
+How ignorantly did she charm, how carelessly excel! O Death! thou hast
+right to the bold, to the ambitious, to the high, and to the haughty,
+but why this cruelty to the humble, to the meek, to the undiscerning, to
+the thoughtless?[301] Nor age, nor business, nor distress, can erase the
+dear image from my imagination. In the same week, I saw her dressed for
+a ball, and in a shroud. How ill did the habit of Death become the
+pretty trifler? I still behold the smiling earth--A large train of
+disasters were coming on to my memory, when my servant knocked at my
+closet door, and interrupted me with a letter, attended with a hamper of
+wine, of the same sort with that which is to be put to sale on Thursday
+next at Garraway's Coffee-house.[302] Upon the receipt of it, I sent for
+three of my friends. We are so intimate, that we can be company in
+whatever state of mind we meet, and can entertain each other without
+expecting always to rejoice. The wine we found to be generous and
+warming, but with such a heat as moved us rather to be cheerful than
+frolicsome. It revived the spirits without firing the blood. We
+commended it till two of the clock this morning, and having to-day met a
+little before dinner, we found, that though we drank two bottles a man,
+we had much more reason to recollect than forget what had passed the
+night before.
+
+
+[Footnote 299: Steele's father, Richard Steele, was a Dublin solicitor.
+His mother, whose maiden name was Elinor Sheyles, had married Thomas
+Symes, of Dublin, as her first husband.]
+
+[Footnote 300: Thackeray has compared the treatment of Death by Swift,
+Addison, and Steele. After speaking of Addison's "lovely serenity" and
+Swift's "savage indignation," he turns to Steele: "The third, whose
+theme is Death, too, and who will speak his word of mortal as Heaven
+teaches him, leads you up to his father's coffin, and shows you his
+beautiful mother weeping, and himself an unconscious little boy
+wondering at her side. His own natural tears flow as he takes your hand,
+and confidingly asks for your sympathy; 'See how good and innocent and
+beautiful women are,' he says, 'how tender little children! Let us love
+these and one another, brother--God knows we have need of love and
+pardon!'" ("English Humourists," 1864, 158-9).]
+
+[Footnote 301: The unsuspecting.]
+
+[Footnote 302: "Notice is hereby given, that 46 hogsheads and one half
+of extraordinary French claret will be put up to sale, at L20 per
+hogshead, at Garraway's Coffee-house in Exchange Alley, on Thursday the
+8th instant, at three in the afternoon, and to be tasted in a vault
+under Messrs. Lane and Harrison's, in Sweething's Lane, Lombard Street,
+from this day till the time of sale," &c. (No. 181, Advertisement).]
+
+
+
+
+No. 182.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Tuesday, June 6_, to _Thursday, June 8, 1710_.
+
+    Spectaret populum ludis attentius ipsis.--HOR., 2 Ep. i. 197.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, June 7._
+
+The town grows so very empty, that the greater number of my gay
+characters are fled out of my sight into the country. My beaus are now
+shepherds, and my belles wood-nymphs. They are lolling over rivulets,
+and covered with shades, while we who remain in town hurry through the
+dust about impertinences, without knowing the happiness of leisure and
+retirement. To add to this calamity, even the actors are going to desert
+us for a season, and we shall not shortly have so much as a landscape or
+frost-scene to refresh ourselves within the midst of our fatigues. This
+may not perhaps be so sensible a loss to any other as to me; for I
+confess it is one of my greatest delights to sit unobserved and unknown
+in the gallery, and entertain myself either with what is personated on
+the stage, or observe what appearances present themselves in the
+audience. If there were no other good consequences in a playhouse, than
+that so many persons of different ranks and conditions are placed there
+in their most pleasing aspects, that prospect only would be very far
+from being below the pleasures of a wise man. There is not one person
+you can see, in whom, if you look with an inclination to be pleased, you
+may not behold something worthy or agreeable. Our thoughts are in our
+features; and the visage of those in whom love, rage, anger, jealousy or
+envy, have their frequent mansions, carries the traces of those passions
+wherever the amorous, the choleric, the jealous, or the envious, are
+pleased to make their appearance. However, the assembly at a play is
+usually made up of such as have a sense of some elegance in pleasure, by
+which means the audience is generally composed of those who have gentle
+affections, or at least of such as at that time are in the best humour
+you can ever find them. This has insensibly a good effect upon our
+spirits; and the musical airs which are played to us, put the whole
+company into a participation of the same pleasure, and by consequence
+for that time equal in humour, in fortune, and in quality. Thus far we
+gain only by coming into an audience; but if we find added to this, the
+beauties of proper action, the force of eloquence, and the gaiety of
+well-placed lights and scenes, it is being happy, and seeing others
+happy for two hours; a duration of bliss not at all to be slighted by so
+short-lived a creature as man. Why then should not the duty of the
+player be had in much more esteem than it is at present? If the merit of
+a performance be to be valued according to the talents which are
+necessary to it, the qualifications of a player should raise him much
+above the arts and ways of life which we call mercenary or mechanic.
+When we look round a full house, and behold so few that can (though they
+set themselves out to show as much as the persons on the stage do) come
+up to what they would appear even in dumb show, how much does the actor
+deserve our approbation, who adds to the advantage of looks and motions
+the tone of voice, the dignity, the humility, the sorrow, the triumph
+suitable to the character he personates?
+
+It may possibly be imagined by severe men, that I am too frequent in the
+mention of the theatrical representations; but who is not excessive in
+the discourse of what he extremely likes? Eugenio can lead you to a
+gallery of fine pictures, which collection he is always increasing:
+Crassus through woods and forests, to which he designs to add the
+neighbouring counties. These are great and noble instances of their
+magnificence. The players are my pictures, and their scenes my
+territories. By communicating the pleasure I take in them, it may in
+some measure add to men's gratifications this way, as viewing the choice
+and wealth of Eugenio and Crassus augments the enjoyments of those whom
+they entertain, with a prospect of such possessions as would not
+otherwise fall within the reach of their fortunes.
+
+It is a very good office one man does another, when he tells him the
+manner of his being pleased; and I have often thought, that a comment
+upon the capacities of the players would very much improve the delight
+that way, and impart it to those who otherwise have no sense of it.
+
+The first of the present stage are Wilks,[303] and Cibber,[304] perfect
+actors in their different kinds. Wilks has a singular talent in
+representing the graces of Nature, Cibber the deformity in the
+affectation of them. Were I a writer of plays, I should never employ
+either of them in parts which had not their bent this way. This is seen
+in the inimitable strain and run of good humour which is kept up in the
+character of Wildair,[305] and in the nice and delicate abuse of
+understanding in that of Sir Novelty.[306] Cibber, in another light,
+hits exquisitely the flat civility of an affected gentleman-usher, and
+Wilks the easy frankness of a gentleman.
+
+If you would observe the force of the same capacities in higher life,
+can anything be more ingenuous than the behaviour of Prince Harry when
+his father checks him? Anything more exasperating, than that of Richard,
+when he insults his superiors? To beseech gracefully, to approach
+respectfully, to pity, to mourn, to love, are the places wherein Wilks
+may be made to shine with the utmost beauty: to rally pleasantly, to
+scorn artfully, to flatter, to ridicule, and to neglect, are what Cibber
+would perform with no less excellence.
+
+When actors are considered with a view to their talents, it is not only
+the pleasure of that hour of action which the spectators gain from their
+performance, but the opposition of right and wrong on the stage would
+have its force in the assistance of our judgments on other occasions. I
+have at present under my tutelage a young poet, who, I design, shall
+entertain the town the ensuing winter. And as he does me the honour to
+let me see his comedy as he writes it, I shall endeavour to make the
+parts fit the genius of the several actors, as exactly as their habits
+can their bodies: and because the two I have mentioned are to perform
+the principal parts, I have prevailed with the house to let "The
+Careless Husband"[307] be acted on Tuesday next, that my young author
+may have a view of a play which is acted to perfection, both by them and
+all concerned in it, as being born within the walls of the theatre, and
+written with an exact knowledge of the abilities of the performers. Mr.
+Wilks will do his best in this play, because it is for his own benefit;
+and Mr. Cibber, because he writ it. Besides which, all the great
+beauties we have left in town, or within call of it, will be present,
+because it is the last play this season. This opportunity will, I hope,
+inflame my pupil with such generous notions from seeing this fair
+assembly as will be then present, that his play may be composed of
+sentiments and characters proper to be presented to such an audience.
+His drama at present has only the outlines drawn. There are, I find, to
+be in it all the reverent offices of life, such as regard to parents,
+husbands, and honourable lovers, preserved with the utmost care; and at
+the same time that agreeableness of behaviour, with the intermixture of
+pleasing passions as arise from innocence and virtue, interspersed in
+such a manner, as that to be charming and agreeable shall appear the
+natural consequence of being virtuous. This great end is one of those I
+propose to do in my Censorship; but if I find a thin house, on an
+occasion when such a work is to be promoted, my pupil shall return to
+his commons at Oxford, and Sheer Lane and the theatres be no longer
+correspondents.
+
+
+[Footnote 303: See No. 14.]
+
+[Footnote 304: Colley Cibber, actor and dramatist, was born in 1671. He
+was admirable alike as an actor of comic parts and a critic of acting,
+and some of his comedies are excellent. In 1714 Cibber became associated
+with Steele in the management of Drury Lane Theatre. After his
+retirement from the stage in 1733 he published his famous "Apology"
+(1740). He died in 1757. Steele wrote several times in his praise in the
+_Spectator_ (Nos. 370, 546).]
+
+[Footnote 305: Sir Harry Wildair, in Farquhar's "Constant Couple."]
+
+[Footnote 306: Sir Novelty Fashion, in Cibber's "Love's Last Shift."]
+
+[Footnote 307: In this play, produced in 1705, Wilks was Sir Charles
+Easy; Cibber, Lord Foppington; and Mrs. Oldfield, Lady Betty Modish. In
+his "Apology" Cibber said that it was only just to place to the account
+of Mrs. Oldfield a large share of the favourable reception accorded to
+"The Careless Husband."]
+
+
+
+
+No. 183.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Thursday, June 8_, to _Saturday, June 10, 1710_.
+
+    ----Fuit haec sapientia quondam,
+    Publica privatis secernere.
+                              HOR., Ars Poet. 396.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, June 9._
+
+When men look into their own bosoms, and consider the generous seeds
+which are there planted, that might, if rightly cultivated, ennoble
+their lives, and make their virtue venerable to futurity; how can they,
+without tears, reflect on the universal degeneracy from that public
+spirit, which ought to be the first and principal motive of all their
+actions? In the Grecian and Roman nations, they were wise enough to keep
+up this great incentive, and it was impossible to be in the fashion
+without being a patriot. All gallantry had its first source from hence;
+and to want a warmth for the public welfare was a defect so scandalous,
+that he who was guilty of it had no pretence to honour or manhood. What
+makes the depravity among us in this behalf the more vexatious and
+irksome to reflect upon, is, that the contempt of life is carried as far
+amongst us as it could be in those memorable people; and we want only a
+proper application of the qualities which are frequent among us to be as
+worthy as they. There is hardly a man to be found who will not fight
+upon any occasion which he thinks may taint his own honour. Were this
+motive as strong in everything that regards the public, as it is in this
+our private case, no man would pass his life away without having
+distinguished himself by some gallant instance of his zeal towards it in
+the respective incidents of his life and profession. But it is so far
+otherwise, that there cannot at present be a more ridiculous animal than
+one who seems to regard the good of others. He in civil life whose
+thoughts turn upon schemes which may be of general benefit, without
+further reflection, is called a "projector"; and the man whose mind
+seems intent upon glorious achievements, a "knight-errant." The ridicule
+among us runs strong against laudable actions. Nay, in the ordinary
+course of things, and the common regards of life, negligence of the
+public is an epidemic vice. The brewer in his excise, the merchant in
+his customs, and for aught we know the soldier in his muster-rolls,
+think never the worse of themselves for being guilty of their respective
+frauds towards the public. This evil is come to such a fantastical
+height, that he is a man of a public spirit, and heroically affected to
+his country, who can go so far as even to turn usurer with all he has in
+her funds. There is not a citizen in whose imagination such a one does
+not appear in the same light of glory as Codrus, Scaevola, or any other
+great name in old Rome. Were it not for the heroes of so much per cent.
+as have regard enough for themselves and their nation to trade with her
+with their wealth, the very notion of public love would long ere now
+have vanished from among us. But however general custom may hurry us
+away in the stream of a common error, there is no evil, no crime, so
+great as that of being cold in matters which relate to the common good.
+This is in nothing more conspicuous than in a certain willingness to
+receive anything that tends to the diminution of such as have been
+conspicuous instruments in our service. Such inclinations proceed from
+the most low and vile corruption of which the soul of man is capable.
+This effaces not only the practice, but the very approbation of honour
+and virtue; and has had such an effect that, to speak freely, the very
+sense of public good has no longer a part even in our conversations.
+Can then the most generous motive of life, the good of others, be so
+easily banished from the breast of man? Is it possible to draw all our
+passions inward? Shall the boiling heat of youth be sunk in pleasures,
+the ambition of manhood in selfish intrigues? Shall all that is
+glorious, all that is worth the pursuit of great minds, be so easily
+rooted out? When the universal bent of a people seems diverted from the
+sense of their common good and common glory, it looks like a fatality,
+and crisis of impending misfortune.
+
+The generous nations we just now mentioned understood this so very well,
+that there was hardly an oration ever made which did not turn upon this
+general sense, that the love of their country was the first and most
+essential quality in an honest mind. Demosthenes, in a cause wherein his
+fame, reputation, and fortune were embarked, puts his all upon this
+issue: "Let the Athenians," says he, "be benevolent to me, as they think
+I have been zealous for them." This great and discerning orator knew
+there was nothing else in nature could bear him up against his
+adversaries, but this one quality of having shown himself willing or
+able to serve his country. This certainly is the test of merit; and the
+first foundation for deserving goodwill, is having it yourself. The
+adversary of this orator at that time was AEschines, a man of wily arts
+and skill in the world, who could, as occasion served, fall in with a
+national start of passion, or sullenness of humour (which a whole nation
+is sometimes taken with as well as a private man), and by that means
+divert them from their common sense, into an aversion for receiving
+anything in its true light. But when Demosthenes had awaked his audience
+with that one hint of judging by the general tenor of his life towards
+them, his services bore down his opponent before him, who fled to the
+covert of his mean arts till some more favourable occasion should offer,
+against the superior merit of Demosthenes.
+
+It were to be wished, that love of their country were the first
+principle of action in men of business, even for their own sakes; for
+when the world begins to examine into their conduct, the generality, who
+have no share in, or hopes of any part in power or riches, but what is
+the effect of their own labour or property, will judge of them by no
+other method, than that of how profitable their administration has been
+to the whole. They who are out of the influence of men's fortune or
+favour, will let them stand or fall by this one only rule; and men who
+can bear being tried by it, are always popular in their fall: those who
+cannot suffer such a scrutiny, are contemptible in their advancement.
+
+But I am here running into shreds of maxims from reading Tacitus this
+morning, which has driven me from my recommendation of public spirit,
+which was the intended purpose of this Lucubration. There is not a more
+glorious instance of it, than in the character of Regulus. This same
+Regulus was taken prisoner by the Carthagenians, and was sent by them to
+Rome, in order to demand some Punic noblemen who were prisoners in
+exchange for himself, and was bound by an oath that he would return to
+Carthage if he failed in his commission. He proposes this to the Senate,
+who were in suspense upon it; which Regulus observing (without having
+the least notion of putting the care of his own life in competition with
+the public good), desired them to consider that he was old, and almost
+useless; that those demanded in exchange were men of daring tempers, and
+great merit in military affairs, and wondered they would make any doubt
+of permitting him to go back to the short tortures prepared for him at
+Carthage, where he should have the advantage of ending a long life both
+gloriously and usefully. This generous advice was consented to, and he
+took his leave of his country and his weeping friends to go to certain
+death, with that cheerful composure, as a man, after the fatigue of
+business in a Court or a city, retires to the next village for the air.
+
+
+
+
+No. 184.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Saturday, June 10_, to _Tuesday, June 13, 1710_.
+
+    Una de multis face nuptiali
+    Digna.--HOR., 3 Od. xi. 33.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, June 12._
+
+There are certain occasions of life which give propitious omens of the
+future good conduct of it, as well as others which explain our present
+inward state, according to our behaviour in them. Of the latter sort are
+funerals; of the former, weddings. The manner of our carriage when we
+lose a friend, shows very much our temper, in the humility of our words
+and actions, and a general sense of our destitute condition, which runs
+through all our deportment. This gives a solemn testimony of the
+generous affection we bore our friends, when we seem to disrelish
+everything now we can no more enjoy them, or see them partake in our
+enjoyments. It is very proper and human to put ourselves as it were in
+their livery after their decease, and wear a habit unsuitable to
+prosperity, while those we loved and honoured are mouldering in the
+grave. As this is laudable on the sorrowful side; so on the other,
+incidents of success may no less justly be represented and acknowledged
+in our outward figure and carriage. Of all such occasions, that great
+change of a single life into marriage is the most important, as it is
+the source of all relations, and from whence all other friendship and
+commerce do principally arise. The general intent of both sexes is to
+dispose of themselves happily and honourably in this state; and as all
+the good qualities we have are exerted to make our way into it, so the
+best appearance, with regard to their minds, their persons, and their
+fortunes, at the first entrance into it, is a due to each other in the
+married pair, as well as a compliment to the rest of the world. It was
+an instruction of a wise lawgiver, that unmarried women should wear such
+loose habits which, in the flowing of their garb, should incite their
+beholders to a desire of their persons; and that the ordinary motion of
+their bodies might display the figure and shape of their limbs in such a
+manner, as at once to preserve the strictest decency, and raise the
+warmest inclinations.
+
+This was the economy of the legislator for the increase of people, and
+at the same time for the preservation of the genial bed. She who was the
+admiration of all who beheld her while unmarried, was to bid adieu to
+the pleasure of shining in the eyes of many, as soon as she took upon
+her the wedded condition. However, there was a festival of life allowed
+the new-married, a sort of intermediate state between celibacy and
+matrimony, which continued certain days. During that time,
+entertainments, equipages, and other circumstances of rejoicing, were
+encouraged, and they were permitted to exceed the common mode of living,
+that the bride and bridegroom might learn from such freedoms of
+conversation to run into a general conduct to each other, made out of
+their past and future state, so to temper the cares of the man and the
+wife with the gaieties of the lover and the mistress.
+
+In those wise ages the dignity of life was kept up, and on the
+celebration of such solemnities there were no impertinent whispers and
+senseless interpretations put upon the unaffected cheerfulness or
+accidental seriousness of the bride; but men turned their thoughts upon
+the general reflections, upon what issue might probably be expected from
+such a couple in the succeeding course of their life, and felicitated
+them accordingly upon such prospects.
+
+I must confess, I cannot from any ancient manuscripts, sculptures, or
+medals, deduce the rise of our celebrated custom of throwing the
+stocking; but have a faint memory of an account a friend gave me of an
+original picture in the palace of Aldobrandini in Rome. This seems to
+show a sense of this affair very different from what is usual among us.
+It is a Grecian wedding, and the figures represented are, a person
+offering sacrifice, a beautiful damsel dancing, and another playing on
+the harp. The bride is placed in her bed, the bridegroom sits at the
+foot of it, with an aspect which intimates his thoughts were not only
+entertained with the joys with which he was surrounded, but also with a
+noble gratitude, and divine pleasure in the offering, which was then
+made to the gods to invoke their influence on his new condition. There
+appears in the face of the woman a mixture of fear, hope, and modesty;
+in the bridegroom, a well-governed rapture. As you see in great spirits
+grief which discovers itself the more by forbearing tears and
+complaints, you may observe also the highest joy is too big for
+utterance, the tongue being of all the organs the least capable of
+expressing such a circumstance. The nuptial torch, the bower, the
+marriage song, are all particulars which we meet with in the allusions
+of the ancient writers; and in every one of them something is to be
+observed which denotes their industry to aggrandise and adorn this
+occasion above all others.
+
+With us all order and decency in this point is perverted by the insipid
+mirth of certain animals we usually call "wags." These are a species of
+all men the most insupportable. One cannot without some reflection say,
+whether their flat mirth provokes us more to pity or to scorn; but if
+one considers with how great affectation they utter their frigid
+conceits, commiseration immediately changes itself into contempt.
+
+A wag is the last order even of pretenders to wit and good humour. He
+has generally his mind prepared to receive some occasion of merriment,
+but is of himself too empty to draw any out of his own set of thoughts,
+and therefore laughs at the next thing he meets, not because it is
+ridiculous, but because he is under a necessity of laughing. A wag is
+one that never in its life saw a beautiful object, but sees what it does
+see in the most low and most inconsiderable light it can be placed.
+There is a certain ability necessary to behold what is amiable and
+worthy of our approbation, which little minds want, and attempt to hide
+by a general disregard to everything they behold above what they are
+able to relish. Hence it is, that a wag in an assembly is ever guessing
+how well such a lady slept last night, and how much such a young fellow
+is pleased with himself. The wag's gaiety consists in a certain
+professed ill-breeding, as if it were an excuse for committing a fault,
+that a man knows he does so. Though all public places are full of
+persons of this order, yet, because I will not allow impertinence and
+affectation to get the better of native innocence and simplicity of
+manners, I have, in spite of such little disturbers of public
+entertainments, persuaded my brother Tranquillus and his wife my sister
+Jenny, in favour of Mr. Wilks, to be at the play to-morrow evening.
+
+They, as they have so much good sense as to act naturally, without
+regard to the observation of others, will not, I hope, be discomposed if
+any of the fry of wags should take upon them to make themselves merry
+upon the occasion of their coming, as they intend, in their wedding
+clothes. My brother is a plain, worthy, and honest man, and as it is
+natural for men of that turn to be mightily taken with sprightly and
+airy women, my sister has a vivacity which may perhaps give hopes to
+impertinents, but will be esteemed the effect of innocence among wise
+men. They design to sit with me in the box, which the house have been so
+complaisant to offer me whenever I think fit to come thither in my
+public character.[308]
+
+I do not in the least doubt, but the true figure of conjugal affection
+will appear in their looks and gestures. My sister does not affect to be
+gorgeous in her dress, and thinks the happiness of a wife is more
+visible in a cheerful look than a gay apparel. It is a hard task to
+speak of persons so nearly related to one with decency, but I may say,
+all who shall be at the play will allow him to have the mien of a worthy
+English gentleman; her, that of a notable and deserving wife.
+
+
+[Footnote 308: See Nos. 120, 122. "I remember Mr. Bickerstaff at the
+playhouse, and with what a modest, decent gravity he behaved himself"
+(_Examiner_, vol. iii. No. 46). This passage occurs in a notice of
+Addison's "Cato," where it is said that on the first night a crowd of
+silly people "were drawn up under the leading of the renowned Ironside,
+and appointed to clap at his signals.... The _Spectator_ never appeared
+in public with a worse grace."]
+
+
+
+
+No. 185.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Tuesday, June 13_, to _Thursday, June 15, 1710_.
+
+    Notitiam primosque gradus vicinia fecit;
+    Tempore crevit amor, taedae quoque jure coissent;
+    Sed vetuere patres, quod non potuere vetare,
+    Ex aequo captis ardebant mentibus ambo.
+                                      OVID, Met. iv. 59.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, June 14._
+
+As soon as I was up this morning, my man gave me the following letter,
+which, since it leads to a subject that may prove of common use to the
+world, I shall take notice of with as much expedition as my fair
+petitioner could desire:
+
+     "MR. BICKERSTAFF,
+
+     "Since you have so often declared yourself a patron of the
+     distressed, I must acquaint you, that I am daughter to a country
+     gentleman of good sense, and may expect L3000 or L4000 for my
+     fortune. I love and am beloved by Philander, a young gentleman who
+     has an estate of L500 per annum, and is our near neighbour in the
+     country every summer. My father, though he has been a long time
+     acquainted with it, constantly refuses to comply with our mutual
+     inclinations: but what most of all torments me, is, that if ever I
+     speak in commendation of my lover, he is much louder in his praises
+     than myself; and professes that it is out of pure love and esteem
+     for Philander, as well as his daughter, that he can never consent
+     we should marry each other; when (as he terms it) we may both do so
+     much better. It must indeed be confessed, that two gentlemen of
+     considerable fortunes, made their addresses to me last winter, and
+     Philander (as I have since learned) was offered a young heiress
+     with L15,000, but it seems we could neither of us think, that
+     accepting those matches would be doing better than remaining
+     constant to our first passion. Your thoughts upon the whole may
+     perhaps have some weight with my father, who is one of your
+     admirers, as is
+
+                                            "Your humble Servant,
+                                                             "SYLVIA.
+
+     "P.S. You are desired to be speedy, since my father daily presses
+     me to accept of what he calls an 'advantageous offer.'"
+
+There is no calamity in life that falls heavier upon human nature than a
+disappointment in love, especially when it happens between two persons
+whose hearts are mutually engaged to each other. It is this distress
+which has given occasion to some of the finest tragedies that were ever
+written, and daily fills the world with melancholy, discontent, frenzy,
+sickness, despair, and death. I have often admired at the barbarity of
+parents, who so frequently interpose their authority in this grand
+article of life. I would fain ask Sylvia's father, whether he thinks he
+can bestow a greater favour on his daughter, than to put her in a way to
+live happily? Whether a man of Philander's character, with L500 per
+annum, is not more likely to contribute to that end, than many a young
+fellow whom he may have in his thoughts with so many thousands? Whether
+he can make amends to his daughter by any increase of riches, for the
+loss of that happiness she proposes to herself in her Philander? Or
+whether a father should compound with his daughter to be miserable,
+though she were to get L20,000 by the bargain? I suppose he would have
+her reflect with esteem on his memory after his death: and does he think
+this a proper method to make her do so, when, as often as she thinks on
+the loss of her Philander, she must at the same time remember him as the
+cruel cause of it? Any transient ill-humour is soon forgotten; but the
+reflection of such a cruelty must continue to raise resentments as long
+as life itself; and by this one piece of barbarity, an indulgent father
+loses the merit of all his past kindnesses. It is not impossible but she
+may deceive herself in the happiness which she proposes from Philander;
+but as in such a case she can have no one to blame but herself, she will
+bear the disappointment with greater patience; but if she never makes
+the experiment, however happy she may be with another, she will still
+think she might have been happier with Philander. There is a kind of
+sympathy in souls that fits them for each other; and we may be assured,
+when we see two persons engaged in the warmths of a mutual affection,
+that there are certain qualities in both their minds which bear a
+resemblance to one another. A generous and constant passion in an
+agreeable lover, where there is not too great a disparity in other
+circumstances, is the greatest blessing that can befall the person
+beloved; and if overlooked in one, may perhaps never be found in
+another. I shall conclude this with a celebrated instance of a father's
+indulgence in this particular, which, though carried to an extravagance,
+has something in it so tender and amiable, as may justly reproach the
+hardness of temper that is to be met with in many a British father.
+
+Antiochus, a prince of great hopes, fell passionately in love with the
+young Queen Stratonice, who was his mother-in-law, and had bore a son to
+the old King Seleucus his father. The prince finding it impossible to
+extinguish his passion, fell sick, and refused all manner of
+nourishment, being determined to put an end to that life which was
+become insupportable.
+
+Erasistratus the physician soon found that love was his distemper; and
+observing the alteration in his pulse and countenance whenever
+Stratonice made him a visit, was soon satisfied that he was dying for
+his young mother-in-law. Knowing the old king's tenderness for his son,
+when he one morning inquired of his health, he told him, that the
+prince's distemper was love; but that it was incurable, because it was
+impossible for him to possess the person whom he loved. The king,
+surprised at this account, desired to know how his son's passion could
+be incurable? "Why, sir," replied Erasistratus, "because he is in love
+with the person I am married to."
+
+The old king immediately conjured him by all his past favours to save
+the life of his son and successor. "Sir," said Erasistratus, "would your
+majesty but fancy yourself in my place, you would see the
+unreasonableness of what you desire!" "Heaven is my witness," said
+Seleucus, "I could resign even my Stratonice to save my Antiochus." At
+this the tears ran down his cheeks, which when the physician saw, taking
+him by the hand, "Sir," says he, "if these are your real sentiments, the
+prince's life is out of danger; it is Stratonice for whom he dies."
+Seleucus immediately gave orders for solemnising the marriage; and the
+young queen, to show her obedience, very generously exchanged the father
+for the son.
+
+
+
+
+No. 186.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Thursday, June 15_, to _Saturday, June 17, 1710_.
+
+    Emitur sola virtute potestas.
+                  CLAUDIAN, De Tertio Consulatu Honorii, 188.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, June 16._
+
+As it has been the endeavour of these our labours to extirpate from
+among the polite or busy part of mankind, all such as are either
+prejudicial or insignificant to society; so it ought to be no less our
+study to supply the havoc we have made by an exact care of the growing
+generation. But when we begin to inculcate proper precepts to the
+children of this island, except we could take them out of their nurses'
+arms, we see an amendment is almost impracticable; for we find the whole
+species of our youth and grown men is incorrigibly prepossessed with
+vanity, pride, or ambition, according to the respective pursuits to
+which they turn themselves: by which means the world is infatuated with
+the love of appearances instead of things. Thus the vain man takes
+praise for honour, the proud man ceremony for respect, the ambitious man
+power for glory. These three characters are, indeed, of very near
+resemblance, but differently received by mankind. Vanity makes men
+ridiculous; pride, odious; and ambition, terrible. The foundation of all
+which is, that they are grounded upon falsehood: for if men, instead of
+studying to appear considerable, were in their own hearts possessors of
+the requisites for esteem, the acceptance they otherwise unfortunately
+aim at would be as inseparable from them, as approbation is from truth
+itself. By this means they would have some rule to walk by; and they
+may ever be assured, that a good cause of action will certainly receive
+a suitable effect. It may be a useful hint in such cases for a man to
+ask of himself, whether he really is what he has a mind to be
+thought?[309] If he is, he need not give himself much further anxiety.
+"What will the world say?" is the common question in matters of
+difficulty; as if the terror lay wholly in the sense which others, and
+not we ourselves, shall have of our actions. From this one source arise
+all the impostors in every art and profession, in all places, among all
+persons in conversation, as well as in business. Hence it is, that a
+vain fellow takes twice as much pains to be ridiculous, as would make
+him sincerely agreeable.
+
+Can any one be better fashioned, better bred, or has any one more good
+nature, than Damasippus? But the whole scope of his looks and actions
+tends so immediately to gain the good opinion of all he converses with,
+that he loses it for that only reason. As it is the nature of vanity to
+impose false shows for truths, so does it also turn real possessions
+into imaginary ones. Damasippus, by assuming to himself what he has not,
+robs himself of what he has.
+
+There is nothing more necessary to establish reputation, than to suspend
+the enjoyment of it. He that cannot bear the sense of merit with
+silence, must of necessity destroy it: for fame being the general
+mistress of mankind, whoever gives it to himself, insults all to whom he
+relates any circumstances to his own advantage. He is considered as an
+open ravisher of that beauty, for whom all others pine in silence. But
+some minds are so incapable of any temperance in this particular, that
+on every second in their discourse you may observe an earnestness in
+their eyes, which shows they wait for your approbation, and perhaps the
+next instant cast an eye on a glass to see how they like themselves.
+Walking the other day in a neighbouring Inn of Court, I saw a more happy
+and more graceful orator than I ever before had heard or read of. A
+youth, of about nineteen years of age, was in an Indian nightgown and
+laced cap pleading a cause before a glass: the young fellow had a very
+good air, and seemed to hold his brief in his hand rather to help his
+action, than that he wanted notes for his further information. When I
+first began to observe him, I feared he would soon be alarmed; but he
+was so zealous for his client, and so favourably received by the court,
+that he went on with great fluency to inform the bench, that he humbly
+hoped they would not let the merit of the cause suffer by the youth and
+inexperience of the pleader; that in all things he submitted to their
+candour; and modestly desired they would not conclude, but that strength
+of argument and force of reason may be consistent with grace of action
+and comeliness of person.
+
+To me, who see people every day in the midst of crowds (whomsoever they
+seem to address to) talk only to themselves and of themselves, this
+orator was not so extravagant a man as perhaps another would have
+thought him; but I took part in his success, and was very glad to find
+he had in his favour judgment and costs without any manner of
+opposition.
+
+The effects of pride and vanity are of consequence only to the proud and
+the vain, and tend to no further ill than what is personal to
+themselves, in preventing their progress in anything that is worthy and
+laudable, and creating envy instead of emulation of superior virtue.
+These ill qualities are to be found only in such as have so little
+minds, as to circumscribe their thoughts and designs within what
+properly relates to the value which they think due to their dear and
+amiable selves: but ambition, which is the third great impediment to
+honour and virtue, is a fault of such as think themselves born for
+moving in a higher orb, and prefer being powerful and mischievous to
+being virtuous and obscure. The parent of this mischief in life, so far
+as to regulate it into schemes, and make it possess a man's whole heart,
+without his believing himself a demon, was Machiavelli. He first taught,
+that a man must necessarily appear weak to be honest. Hence it gains
+upon the imagination, that a great is not so despicable as a little
+villain; and men are insensibly led to a belief, that the aggravation of
+crimes is the diminution of them. Hence the impiety of thinking one
+thing and speaking another. In pursuance of this empty and unsatisfying
+dream, to betray, to undermine, to kill in themselves all natural
+sentiments of love to friends or country, is the willing practice of
+such as are thirsty of power, for any other reason than that of being
+useful and acceptable to mankind.
+
+
+ADVERTISEMENT.
+
+Whereas Mr. Bickerstaff has lately received a letter out of Ireland,
+dated June 9, importing that he is grown very dull, for the postage of
+which Mr. Morphew charges one shilling; and another without date of
+place or time, for which he the said Morphew charges twopence: it is
+desired, that for the future his courteous and uncourteous readers will
+go a little further in expressing their good and ill-will, and pay for
+the carriage of their letters, otherwise the intended pleasure or pain
+which is designed for Mr. Bickerstaff will be wholly disappointed.
+
+
+[Footnote 309: See Nos. 30, 39, 138.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 187.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Saturday, June 17_, to _Tuesday, June 20, 1710_.
+
+    ----Pudet haec opprobria nobis
+    Et dici potuisse et non potuisse refelli.
+                                    OVID, Met. i. 758.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, June 19._
+
+     _Pasquin of Rome to Isaac Bickerstaff of London._[310]
+
+     "His Holiness is gone to Castel Gandolpho, much discomposed at some
+     late accounts from the missionaries in your island: for a committee
+     of cardinals, which lately sat for the reviving the force of some
+     obsolete doctrines, and drawing up amendments to certain points of
+     faith, have represented the Church of Rome to be in great danger,
+     from a treatise written by a learned Englishman, which carries
+     spiritual power much higher than we could have dared to have
+     attempted even here. His book is called, 'An Epistolary Discourse,
+     proving from the Scriptures and the First Fathers, that the Soul is
+     a Principle naturally Mortal: wherein is proved, that none have the
+     Power of giving this Divine immortalising Spirit since the
+     Apostles, but the Bishops.' By Henry Dodwell, A.M.[311] The
+     assertion appeared to our _literati_ so short and effectual method
+     of subjecting the laity, that it is feared auricular confession and
+     absolution will not be capable of keeping the clergy of Rome in any
+     degree of greatness, in competition with such teachers whose flocks
+     shall receive this opinion. What gives the greater jealousy here
+     is, that in the catalogue of treatises which have been lately burnt
+     within the British territories, there is no mention made of this
+     learned work; which circumstance is a sort of implication, that the
+     tenet is not held erroneous, but that the doctrine is received
+     amongst you as orthodox. The youth of this place are very much
+     divided in opinion, whether a very memorable quotation which the
+     author repeats out of Tertullian, be not rather of the style and
+     manner of Meursius? _In illo ipso voluptatis aestu quo genitale
+     virus expellitur, nonne aliquid de anima quoque, sentimus exire,
+     atque, adeo marcessimus et devigescimus cum lucis detrimento?_ This
+     piece of Latin goes no further than to tell us how our fathers got
+     us, so that we are still at a loss how we afterwards commence
+     eternal; for _creando infunditur, et infundendo creatur_, which is
+     mentioned soon after, may allude only to flesh and blood as well as
+     the former. Your readers in this city, some of whom have very much
+     approved the warmth with which you have attacked free-thinkers,
+     atheists, and other enemies to religion and virtue, are very much
+     disturbed that you have given them no account of this remarkable
+     dissertation: and I am employed by them to desire you would with
+     all possible expedition send me over the ceremony of the creation
+     of souls, as well as a list of all the mortal and immortal men
+     within the dominions of Great Britain. When you have done me this
+     favour, I must trouble you for other tokens of your kindness, and
+     particularly I desire you would let me have the religious
+     handkerchief,[312] which is of late so much worn in England, for I
+     have promised to make a present of it to a courtesan of a French
+     Minister.
+
+     "Letters from the frontiers of France inform us, that a young
+     gentleman[313] who was to have been created a cardinal on the next
+     promotion, has put off his design of coming to Rome so soon as was
+     intended, having, as it is said, received letters from Great
+     Britain, wherein several virtuosi of that island have desired him
+     to suspend his resolutions towards a monastic life, till the
+     British grammarians shall publish their explication of the words
+     'indefeasible' and 'revolution.' According as these two hard terms
+     are made to fit the mouths of the people, this gentleman takes his
+     measures for his journey hither.
+
+     "Your 'New Bedlam' has been read and considered by some of your
+     countrymen among us; and one gentleman, who is now here as a
+     traveller, says your design is impracticable, for that there can be
+     no place large enough to contain the number of your lunatics. He
+     advises you therefore to name the ambient sea for the boundary of
+     your hospital. If what he says be true, I do not see how you can
+     think of any other enclosure; for according to his discourse, the
+     whole people are taken with a vertigo; great and popular actions
+     are received with coldness and discontent; ill news hoped for with
+     impatience; heroes in your service are treated with calumny, while
+     criminals pass through your towns with acclamations.[314]
+
+     "This Englishman went on to say, you seemed at present to flag
+     under a satiety of success, as if you wanted misfortune as a
+     necessary vicissitude. Yet, alas! though men have but a cold relish
+     of prosperity, quick is the anguish of the contrary fortune. He
+     proceeded to make comparisons of times, seasons, and great
+     incidents. After which he grew too learned for my understanding,
+     and talked of Hanno the Carthaginian, and his irreconcilable hatred
+     to the glorious commander Hannibal. Hannibal, said he, was able to
+     march to Rome itself, and brought that ambitious people, which
+     designed no less than the empire of the world, to sue for peace in
+     the most abject and servile manner; when faction at home detracted
+     from the glory of his actions, and after many artifices, at last
+     prevailed with the Senate to recall him from the midst of his
+     victories, and in the very instant when he was to reap the benefit
+     of all his toils, by reducing the then common enemy of all nations
+     which had liberty to reason. When Hannibal heard the message of the
+     Carthaginian senators who were sent to recall him, he was moved
+     with a generous and disdainful sorrow, and is reported to have
+     said, 'Hannibal then must be conquered not by the arms of the
+     Romans, whom he has often put to flight, but by the envy and
+     detraction of his countrymen. Nor shall Scipio triumph so much in
+     his fall as Hanno, who will smile to have purchased the ruin of
+     Hannibal, though attended with the fall of Carthage.'[315]
+
+                                                "I am, Sir, &c.
+                                                           "PASQUIN."
+
+
+_Will's Coffee-house, June 19._
+
+There is a sensible satisfaction in observing the countenance and action
+of the people on some occasions. To gratify myself in this pleasure, I
+came hither with all speed this evening with an account of the surrender
+of Douay. As soon as the battle-critics[316] heard it, they immediately
+drew some comfort, in that it must have cost us a great deal of men.
+Others were so negligent of the glory of their country, that they went
+on in their discourse on the full house which is to be at "Othello" on
+Thursday, and the curiosity they should go with to see Wilks play a part
+so very different from what he had ever before appeared in, together
+with the expectation that was raised in the gay part of the town on that
+occasion.
+
+This universal indolence and inattention among us to things that concern
+the public, made me look back with the highest reverence on the glorious
+instances in antiquity, of a contrary behaviour in the like
+circumstances. Harry English, upon observing the room so little roused
+on the news, fell into the same way of thinking. "How unlike," said he,
+"Mr. Bickerstaff, are we to the old Romans! There was not a subject of
+their State but thought himself as much concerned in the honour of his
+country, as the first officer of the commonwealth. How do I admire the
+messenger, who ran with a thorn in his foot to tell the news of a
+victory to the Senate! He had not leisure for his private pain, till he
+had expressed his public joy; nor could he suffer as a man, till he had
+triumphed as a Roman."
+
+
+[Footnote 310: See No. 129. In Lillie's "Letters sent to the _Tatler_
+and _Spectator_" (i. 56) there is a letter from "Orontes" to Mr.
+Bickerstaff, dated July 6, 1710, referring to this and to No. 190, in
+which the writer says: "You would do yourself a grand favour, if you
+would break off acquaintance with the Italian Pasquin, and not disturb
+yourself with principles which are as far above your thoughts as the
+probability of your discovering the philosopher's stone." A censor
+should not be among the factions.]
+
+[Footnote 311: See No. 118.]
+
+[Footnote 312: Handkerchiefs printed with pictures of Dr. Sacheverell.]
+
+[Footnote 313: The Pretender.]
+
+[Footnote 314: Dr. Sacheverell received many popular ovations while he
+was suspended from preaching: "Lest these brethren in iniquity [the
+_Observator_ and the _Review_] should not prove sufficient to poison the
+nation, sow sedition plentifully, and ripen rebellion to a fruitful
+harvest of blood and rapine, a third person [the _Tatler_] who for a
+considerable time hath diverted the Town with the most useful and
+pleasing amusements our age ever produced, hath joined in the cry with
+them, in hopes, no doubt, that by his additional strength they shall
+become such a formidable Triumvirate that all opposition must fall
+before them, and the Church irresistibly submit to that fate which the
+other two have so long endeavoured to procure by their seditious popular
+harangues.... Our third gentleman is pleased to tell us, '_That great
+and popular actions_,' &c. This is a subtle way to create jealousies and
+divisions amongst us, noways becoming the character of a gentleman, or
+an ingenuous education. Pray, sir, speak plain, and don't instil your
+poison secretly, and stab in the dark. What heroes in our service are
+treated with calumny? Who do you mean by your Hanno and Hannibal? All
+the nation owns and glories in the noble actions of our great Duke of
+Marlborough" (_Moderator_, No. 13, June 30 to July 3, 1710). The next
+number of the _Moderator_, No. 14, is upon the same subject, and is
+largely occupied with a discussion of the legal question mentioned in
+the _Tatler_, No. 190. The writer speaks of the brains of the common
+people, who are too apt to censure the actions of their superiors, as
+"set on work by a person who has gained their esteem by his learned
+Lucubrations." "They are assured that a gentleman of his bright parts
+and learning must be intimately acquainted with persons of the first
+rank and quality, from whom he learns these high and important secrets
+which he thus generously communicates to the world." If any one,
+therefore, pretends that the author's meaning is that the "Duke of
+Marlborough is likely to be ruined by the Lord Treasurer's converting to
+other uses that money which our Senate voted for our General's service,
+who is to be blamed for the vile aspersion?" Ministers should take care
+that the spreaders of such false reports shall know to their cost that
+the Act respecting false and slanderous news is still in force.]
+
+[Footnote 315: The conclusion of Pasquin's letter alludes to the
+following allegorical piece, the publication of which was just then
+recent: "The History of Hannibal and Hanno, &c., collected from the best
+authors, by A. M., Esq." It is reprinted in "The Life and Posthumous
+Writings" of Arthur Maynwaring, 1715. See No. 190.]
+
+[Footnote 316: See No. 65.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 188.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Tuesday, June 20_, to _Thursday, June 22, 1710_.
+
+    Quae regio in terris nostri non plena laboris?
+                                      VIRG., AEn. i. 460.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment. June 21._
+
+I was this morning looking over my letters that I have lately received
+from my several correspondents; some of which referring to my late
+papers, I have laid aside, with an intent to give my reader a sight of
+them. The first criticises upon my greenhouse, and is as follows:
+
+     "MR. BICKERSTAFF,                     "South Wales, _June 7_.
+
+     "This letter comes to you from my orangery, which I intend to
+     reform as much as I can, according to your ingenious model, and
+     shall only beg of you to communicate to me your secret of
+     preserving grass-plots in a covered room;[317] for in the climate
+     where my country-seat lies, they require rain and dews as well as
+     sun and fresh air, and cannot live upon such fine food as your
+     'sifted weather.' I must likewise desire you to write over your
+     greenhouse the following motto:
+
+         "_Hic ver perpetuum, atque alienis mensibus aestas._
+
+     instead of your
+
+         "_O! qui me gelidis sub montibus Haemi
+         Sistat, et ingenti ramorum protegat umbra!_[318]
+
+     which, under favour, is the panting of one in summer after cool
+     shades, and not of one in winter after a summer-house. The rest of
+     your plan is very beautiful; and that your friend who has so well
+     described it may enjoy it many winters, is the hearty wish of
+
+                                          "His and your Unknown," &c.
+
+This oversight of a grass-plot in my friend's greenhouse, puts me in
+mind of a like inconsistency in a celebrated picture, where Moses is
+represented as striking a rock, and the Children of Israel quenching
+their thirst at the waters that flow from it, and run through a
+beautiful landscape of groves and meadows, which could not flourish in a
+place where water was to have been found only by a miracle.
+
+The next letter comes to me from a Kentish yeoman, who is very angry
+with me for my advice to parents, occasioned by the amours of Sylvia and
+Philander, as related in my paper, No. 185:
+
+     "SQUIRE BICKERSTAFF,
+
+     "I don't know by what chance one of your _Tatlers_ is got into my
+     family, and has almost turned the brains of my eldest daughter
+     Winifred, who has been so undutiful as to fall in love of her own
+     head, and tells me a foolish heathen story that she has read in
+     your paper to persuade me to give my consent. I am too wise to let
+     children have their own wills in a business like marriage. It is a
+     matter in which neither I myself, nor any of my kindred, were ever
+     humoured. My wife and I never pretended to love one another like
+     your Sylvias and Philanders; and yet if you saw our fireside, you
+     would be satisfied we are not always a-squabbling. For my part, I
+     think that where man and woman come together by their own good
+     liking, there is so much fondling and fooling, that it hinders
+     young people from minding their business. I must therefore desire
+     you to change your note, and instead of advising us old folks, who
+     perhaps have more wit than yourself, to let Sylvia know, that she
+     ought to act like a dutiful daughter, and marry the man that she
+     does not care for. Our great-grandmothers were all bid to marry
+     first, and love would come afterwards; and I don't see why their
+     daughters should follow their own inventions. I am resolved
+     Winifred shan't.
+
+                                                         "Yours," &c.
+
+This letter is a natural picture of ordinary contracts, and of the
+sentiments of those minds that lie under a kind of intellectual
+rusticity. This trifling occasion made me run over in my imagination
+the many scenes I have observed of the married condition, wherein the
+quintessence of pleasure and pain are represented as they accompany that
+state, and no other. It is certain, there are a thousand thousand like
+the above-mentioned yeoman and his wife, who are never highly pleased or
+distasted in their whole lives: but when we consider the more informed
+part of mankind, and look upon their behaviour, it then appears that
+very little of their time is indifferent, but generally spent in the
+most anxious vexation, or the highest satisfaction. Shakespeare has
+admirably represented both the aspects of this state in the most
+excellent tragedy of "Othello." In the character of Desdemona, he runs
+through all the sentiments of a virtuous maid and a tender wife. She is
+captivated by his virtue, and faithful to him, as well from that motive,
+as regard to her own honour. Othello is a great and noble spirit, misled
+by the villany of a false friend to suspect her innocence, and resents
+it accordingly. When after the many instances of passion the wife is
+told her husband is jealous, her simplicity makes her incapable of
+believing it, and say, after such circumstances as would drive another
+woman into distraction,
+
+    "_I think the sun where he was born
+    Drew all such humours from him._"[319]
+
+This opinion of him is so just, that his noble and tender heart beats
+itself to pieces before he can affront her with the mention of his
+jealousy; and owns, this suspicion has blotted out all the sense of
+glory and happiness which before it was possessed with, when he laments
+himself in the warm allusions of a mind accustomed to entertainments so
+very different from the pangs of jealousy and revenge. How moving is his
+sorrow, when he cries out as follows:
+
+    "_I had been happy, if the general camp,
+    Pioneers and all, had tasted her sweet body,
+    So I had nothing known. Oh now! for ever
+    Farewell the tranquil mind! Farewell content,
+    Farewell the plumed troops, and the big wars,
+    That make ambition virtue! Oh farewell!
+    Farewell the neighing steed and the shrill trump,
+    The spirit-stirring drum, th' ear-piercing fife,
+    The royal banner, and all quality,
+    Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war!
+    And oh ye mortal engines! whose rude throats
+    The immortal Jove's dread clamours counterfeit,
+    Farewell! Othello's occupation's gone._[320]"
+
+I believe I may venture to say, there is not in any other part of
+Shakespeare's works more strong and lively pictures of nature than in
+this. I shall therefore steal incog. to see it, out of curiosity to
+observe how Wilks and Cibber touch those places where Betterton[321] and
+Sandford[322] so very highly excelled. But now I am got into a discourse
+of acting, with which I am so professedly pleased, I shall conclude this
+paper with a note I have just received from the two ingenious friends,
+Mr. Penkethman[323] and Mr. Bullock:[324]
+
+     "SIR,
+
+     "Finding by your paper, No. 182, that you are drawing parallels
+     between the greatest actors of the age; as you have already begun
+     with Mr. Wilks and Mr. Cibber, we desire you would do the same
+     justice to your humble Servants,
+
+                                       "WILLIAM BULLOCK, and
+                                                "WILLIAM PENKETHMAN."
+
+For the information of posterity, I shall comply with this letter, and
+set these two great men in such a light as Sallust has placed his Cato
+and Caesar.
+
+Mr. William Bullock and Mr. William Penkethman are of the same age,
+profession, and sex. They both distinguish themselves in a very
+particular manner under the discipline of the crabtree, with this only
+difference, that Mr. Bullock has the most agreeable squawl, and Mr.
+Penkethman the more graceful shrug. Penkethman devours a cold chicken
+with great applause; Bullock's talent lies chiefly in asparagus.
+Penkethman is very dexterous at conveying himself under a table; Bullock
+is no less active at jumping over a stick. Mr. Penkethman has a great
+deal of money, but Mr. Bullock is the taller man.
+
+
+[Footnote 317: See No. 179.]
+
+[Footnote 318: Virgil, "Georg." ii. 488 ("In vallibus Haemi").]
+
+[Footnote 319: "Othello," act iii. sc. 4.]
+
+[Footnote 320: "Othello," act iii. sc. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 321: See Nos. 1, 71, 157, 167.]
+
+[Footnote 322: See No. 134.]
+
+[Footnote 323: See No. 4.]
+
+[Footnote 324: See No. 7.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 189.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Thursday, June 22_, to _Saturday, June 24, 1710_.
+
+    Est in juvencis, est in equis patrum
+      Virtus; neque imbellem feroces
+        Progenerant aquilae columbam.
+                              HOR., 4 Od. iv. 30.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, June 23._
+
+Having lately turned my thoughts upon the consideration of the behaviour
+of parents to children in the great affair of marriage,[325] I took much
+delight in turning over a bundle of letters which a gentleman's steward
+in the country had sent me some time ago. This parcel is a collection of
+letters written by the children of the family to which he belongs to
+their father, and contain all the little passages of their lives, and
+the new ideas they received as their years advanced. There is in them
+an account of their diversions as well as their exercises; and what I
+thought very remarkable, is, that two sons of the family, who now make
+considerable figures in the world, gave omens of that sort of character
+which they now bear, in the first rudiments of thought which they show
+in their letters. Were one to point out a method of education, one could
+not, methinks, frame one more pleasing or improving than this; where the
+children get a habit of communicating their thoughts and inclinations to
+their best friend with so much freedom, that he can form schemes for
+their future life and conduct from an observation of their tempers, and
+by that means be early enough in choosing their way of life, to make
+them forward in some art or science at an age when others have not
+determined what profession to follow. As to the persons concerned in
+this packet I am speaking of, they have given great proofs of the force
+of this conduct of their father in the effect it has had upon their
+lives and manners. The elder, who is a scholar, showed from his infancy
+a propensity to polite studies, and has made a suitable progress in
+literature; but his learning is so well woven into his mind, that from
+the impressions of it, he seems rather to have contracted a habit of
+life, than manner of discourse. To his books he seems to owe a good
+economy in his affairs, and a complacency in his manners, though in
+others that way of education has commonly a quite different effect. The
+epistles of the other son are full of accounts of what he thought most
+remarkable in his reading. He sends his father for news the last noble
+story he had read. I observe, he is particularly touched with the
+conduct of Codrus, who plotted his own death, because the oracle had
+said, if he were not killed, the enemy should prevail over his country.
+Many other incidents in his little letters give omens of a soul capable
+of generous undertakings; and what makes it the more particular is, that
+this gentleman had, in the present war, the honour and happiness of
+doing an action for which only it was worth coming into the world. Their
+father is the most intimate friend they have, and they always consult
+him rather than any other, when any error has happened in their conduct
+through youth and inadvertency. The behaviour of this gentleman to his
+sons has made his life pass away with the pleasures of a second youth;
+for as the vexations which men receive from their children hasten the
+approach of age and double the force of years; so the comforts which
+they reap from them are balm to all other sorrows, and disappoint the
+injuries of time. Parents of children repeat their lives in their
+offspring, and their concern for them is so near, that they feel all
+their sufferings and enjoyments as much as if they regarded their own
+proper persons. But it is generally so far otherwise, that the common
+race of squires in this kingdom use their sons as persons that are
+waiting only for their funerals, and spies upon their health and
+happiness; as indeed they are by their own making them such. In cases
+where a man takes the liberty after this manner to reprehend others, it
+is commonly said, "Let him look at home." I am sorry to own it; but
+there is one branch of the house of the Bickerstaffs, who have been as
+erroneous in their conduct this way as any other family whatsoever. The
+head of this branch is now in town, and has brought up with him his son
+and daughter (who are all the children he has) in order to be put some
+way into the world, and see fashions. They are both very ill-bred cubs,
+and having lived together from their infancy without knowledge of the
+distinctions and decencies that are proper to be paid to each other's
+sex, they squabble like two brothers. The father is one of those who
+knows no better than that all pleasure is debauchery, and imagines,
+when he sees a man become his estate, that he will certainly spend it.
+This branch are a people who never had among them one man eminent either
+for good or ill; however, have all along kept their heads just above
+water, not by a prudent and regular economy, but by expedients in the
+matches they have made into their house. When one of the family has, in
+the pursuit of foxes, and in the entertainment of clowns, run out the
+third part of the value of his estate, such a spendthrift has dressed up
+his eldest son, and married what they call a good fortune, who has
+supported the father as a tyrant over them, during his life, in the same
+house or neighbourhood. The son in succession has just taken the same
+method to keep up his dignity, till the mortgages he has ate and drank
+himself into, have reduced him to the necessity of sacrificing his son
+also, in imitation of his progenitor. This had been for many generations
+the whole that had happened in the family of Sam. Bickerstaff, till the
+time of my present cousin Samuel, the father of the young people we have
+just now spoken of.
+
+Samuel Bickerstaff, Esq., is so happy, as that by several legacies from
+distant relations, deaths of maiden sisters, and other instances of good
+fortune, he has, besides his real estate, a great sum of ready money.
+His son at the same time knows he has a good fortune, which the father
+cannot alienate, though he strives to make him believe he depends only
+on his will for maintenance. Tom is now in his nineteenth year, Mrs.
+Mary in her fifteenth. Cousin Samuel, who understands no one point of
+good behaviour as it regards all the rest of the world, is an exact
+critic in the dress, the motion, the looks and gestures of his children.
+What adds to their misery is, that he is excessively fond of them, and
+the greatest part of their time is spent in the presence of this nice
+observer. Their life is one continued constraint. The girl never turns
+her head, but she is warned not to follow the proud minxes of the town.
+The boy is not to turn fop, or be quarrelsome; at the same time not to
+take an affront. I had the good fortune to dine with him to-day, and
+heard his fatherly table-talk as we sat at dinner, which, if my memory
+does not fail me, for the benefit of the world, I shall set down as he
+spoke it, which was much as follows, and may be of great use to those
+parents who seem to make it a rule, that their children's turn to enjoy
+the world is not to commence till they themselves have left it.
+
+     "Now, Tom, I have bought you chambers in the Inns of Court. I allow
+     you to take a walk once or twice a day round the garden. If you
+     mind your business, you need not study to be as great a lawyer as
+     Coke upon Littleton. I have that that will keep you; but be sure
+     you keep an exact account of your linen. Write down what you give
+     out to your laundress, and what she brings home again. Go as little
+     as possible to the other end of the town; but if you do, come home
+     early. I believe I was as sharp as you for your years, and I had my
+     hat snatched off my head coming home late at a shop by St.
+     Clement's Church, and I don't know from that day to this who took
+     it. I do not care if you learn to fence a little, for I would not
+     have you be made a fool of. Let me have an account of everything
+     every post; I am willing to be at that charge, and I think you need
+     not spare your pains. As for you, daughter Molly, don't mind one
+     word that is said to you in London, for it is only for your
+     money."[326]
+
+
+[Footnote 325: See No. 185.]
+
+[Footnote 326: It has been suggested that the latter part of this paper
+may refer to Dr. Gilbert Budgell and his son Eustace, Addison's cousin.
+(See "Grand Magazine," i. 391, _seq._; and Cibber's "Lives of the
+Poets," vol. v.) On the death of his father in 1711, Eustace Budgell
+came into possession of an estate of L950 a year.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 190.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Saturday, June 24_, to _Tuesday, June 27, 1710_.
+
+    ----Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.--VIRG., AEn. ii. 49.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Sheer Lane, June 26._
+
+There are some occasions in life, wherein regards to a man's self is the
+most pitiful and contemptible of all passions; and such a time certainly
+is when the true public spirit of a nation is run into a faction against
+their friends and benefactors. I have hinted heretofore some things
+which discover the real sorrow I am in at the observation, that it is
+now very much so in Great Britain, and have had the honour to be pelted
+with several epistles to expostulate with me on that subject;[327] among
+others, one from a person of the number of those they call Quakers, who
+seems to admonish me out of pure zeal and goodwill. But as there is no
+character so unjust as that of talking in party upon all occasions,
+without respect to merit or worth on the contrary side, so there is no
+part we can act so justifiable as to speak our mind when we see things
+urged to extremity, against all that is praiseworthy or valuable in
+life, upon general and groundless suggestions. But if I have talked too
+frankly upon such reflections, my correspondent has laid before me,
+after his way, the error of it in a manner that makes me indeed
+thankful for his kindness, but the more inclinable to repeat the
+imprudence from the necessity of the circumstance:
+
+                                          "The 23rd of the 6th month,
+                                           which is the month _June_.
+     "FRIEND ISAAC,
+
+     "Forasmuch as I love thee, I cannot any longer refrain declaring my
+     mind unto thee concerning some things. Thou didst thyself indite
+     the epistle inserted in one of thy late Lucubrations, as thou
+     wouldst have us call them: for verily thy friend of stone,[328] and
+     I speak according to knowledge, hath no fingers; and though he hath
+     a mouth, yet speaketh he not therewith; nor yet did that epistle at
+     all come unto thee from the mansion-house of the Scarlet Whore. It
+     is plain therefore, that the truth is not in thee: but since thou
+     wouldst lie, couldst thou not lie with more discretion? Wherefore
+     shouldst thou insult over the afflicted, or add sorrow unto the
+     heavy of heart? Truly this gall proceedeth not from the spirit of
+     meekness. I tell thee moreover, the people of this land be
+     marvellously given to change; insomuch that it may likely come to
+     pass, that before thou art many years nearer to thy dissolution,
+     thou mayest behold him sitting on a high place whom thou now
+     laughest to scorn: and then how wilt thou be glad to humble thyself
+     to the ground, and lick the dust of his feet, that thou mayest find
+     favour in his sight? If thou didst meditate as much upon the Word
+     as thou dost upon the profane scribblings of the wise ones of this
+     generation, thou wouldst have remembered what happened unto Shimei,
+     the son of Gera the Benjamite, who cursed the good man David in his
+     distress.[329] David pardoned his transgression, yet was he
+     afterwards taken as in a snare by the words of his own mouth, and
+     fell by the sword of Solomon the chief ruler.[330]Furthermore, I do
+     not remember to have heard in the days of my youth and vanity, when,
+     like thine, my conversation was with the Gentiles, that the men of
+     Rome, which is Babylon, ever sued unto the men of Carthage for
+     tranquillity, as thou dost aver: neither was Hannibal, the son of
+     Hamilcar, called home by his countrymen, till these saw the sword
+     of their enemies at their gates; and then was it not time for him,
+     thinkest thou, to return? It appeareth therefore that thou dost
+     prophecy backwards; thou dost row one way, and look another; and
+     indeed in all things art thou too much a time-server; yet seemest
+     thou not to consider what a day may bring forth. Think of this, and
+     take tobacco.
+
+                                                "Thy Friend,
+                                                          "AMINADAB."
+
+If the zealous writer of the above letter has any meaning, it is of too
+high a nature to be the subject of my Lucubrations. I shall therefore
+waive such high points, and be as useful as I can to persons of less
+moment than any he hints at. When a man runs into a little fame in the
+world, as he meets with a great deal of reproach which he does not
+deserve, so does he also a great deal of esteem to which he has in
+himself no pretensions. Were it otherwise, I am sure no one would offer
+to put a law case to me: but because I am an adept in physic and
+astrology, they will needs persuade me that I am no less a proficient in
+all other sciences. However, the point mentioned in the following letter
+is so plain a one, that I think I need not trouble myself to cast a
+figure to be able to discuss it.
+
+     "MR. BICKERSTAFF,
+
+     "It is some years ago since the entail of the estate of our family
+     was altered, by passing a fine in favour of me (who now am in
+     possession of it) after some others deceased. The heirs-general,
+     who live beyond sea, were excluded by this settlement, and the
+     whole estate is to pass in a new channel after me and my heirs. But
+     several tenants of the lordship persuade me to let them hereafter
+     hold their lands of me according to the old customs of the barony,
+     and not oblige them to act by the limitations of the last
+     settlement. This, they say, will make me more popular among my
+     dependants, and the ancient vassals of the estate, to whom any
+     deviation from the line of succession is always invidious.
+
+                                                         "Yours," &c.
+
+     "SIR,                                    "Sheer Lane, _June 24._
+
+     "You have by the fine a plain right, in which none else of your
+     family can be your competitor; for which reason, by all means
+     demand vassalage upon that title. The contrary advice can be given
+     for no other purpose in nature but to betray you, and favour other
+     pretenders, by making you place a right which is in you only, upon
+     a level with a right which you have in common with others. I am,
+
+                                   "Sir,
+                                        "Your most faithful
+                                            "Servant till death,
+                                                              "I. B."
+
+There is nothing so dangerous or so pleasing, as compliments made to us
+by our enemies: and my correspondent tells me, that though he knows
+several of those who give him this counsel were at first against passing
+the fine in favour of him; yet is he so touched with their homage to
+him, that he can hardly believe they have a mind to set it aside, in
+order to introduce the heirs-general into his estate.
+
+These are great evils; but since there is no proceeding with success in
+this world, without complying with the arts of it, I shall use the same
+method as my correspondent's tenants did with him, in relation to one
+whom I never had a kindness for; but shall, notwithstanding, presume to
+give him my advice.
+
+     "_Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq., of Great Britain, to Lewis XIV. of
+     France._
+
+     "SIR,
+
+     "Your Majesty will pardon me while I take the liberty to acquaint
+     you, that some passages written from your side of the water do very
+     much obstruct your interests. We take it very unkindly that the
+     prints of Paris are so very partial in favour of one set of men
+     among us, and treat the others as irreconcilable to your interests.
+     Your writers are very large in recounting anything which relates to
+     the figure and power of one party, but are dumb when they should
+     represent the actions of the other. This is a trifling circumstance
+     many here are apt to lay some stress upon; therefore I thought fit
+     to offer it to your consideration before you despatch the next
+     courier.
+
+                                                         "I. B."[331]
+
+
+[Footnote 327: Swift may have been among those who protested at the
+introduction of politics into the _Tatler_ (see No. 187), and Nichols
+thought that he was the writer of the letter signed "Aminadab" in this
+number. In June 1710, the fall of the Whigs was rapidly approaching.]
+
+[Footnote 328: Pasquin. See Nos. 129, 130, 187.]
+
+[Footnote 329: 2 Sam. xvi. 13.]
+
+[Footnote 330: 1 Kings ii. 36.]
+
+[Footnote 331: "The Tories happen now to have other work upon their
+hands, and are not at leisure to return the civilities that are paid
+them; however, having had the honour of a letter from the King of France
+... they have sent in their answer to me, and desire me to forward it;
+but I am at a loss how to do this, unless my brother the _Tatler_ will
+convey it under his cover, for I protest I know no man in England but
+him that holds a correspondence with his Christian Majesty" (_Examiner_,
+No. 2, August 10, 1710).]
+
+
+
+
+No. 191.                                                     [STEELE.
+
+From _Tuesday, June 27_, to _Thursday, June 29, 1710_.
+
+    ----Propter vitam vivendi perdere causas.--JUV., Sat. viii. 84.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, June 28._
+
+Of all the evils under the sun, that of making vice commendable is the
+greatest: for it seems to be the basis of society, that applause and
+contempt should be always given to proper objects. But in this age we
+behold things for which we ought to have an abhorrence, not only
+received without disdain, but even valued as motives of emulation. This
+is naturally the destruction of simplicity of manners, openness of
+heart, and generosity of temper. When one gives oneself the liberty to
+range, and run over in one's thoughts the different geniuses of men
+which one meets in the world, one cannot but observe, that most of the
+indirection and artifice which is used among men, does not proceed so
+much from a degeneracy in Nature, as an affectation of appearing men of
+consequence by such practices. By this means it is, that a cunning man
+is so far from being ashamed of being esteemed such, that he secretly
+rejoices in it. It has been a sort of maxim, that the greatest art is to
+conceal art; but I know not how, among some people we meet with, their
+greatest cunning is to appear cunning. There is Polypragmon[332] makes
+it the whole business of his life to be thought a cunning fellow, and
+thinks it a much greater character to be terrible than agreeable. When
+it has once entered into a man's head to have an ambition to be thought
+crafty, all other evils are necessary consequences. To deceive is the
+immediate endeavour of him who is proud of the capacity of doing it. It
+is certain, Polypragmon does all the ill he possibly can, but pretends
+to much more than he performs. He is contented in his own thoughts, and
+hugs himself in his closet, that though he is locked up there and doing
+nothing, the world does not know but that he is doing mischief. To
+favour this suspicion, he gives half-looks and shrugs in his general
+behaviour, to give you to understand that you don't know what he means.
+He is also wonderfully adverbial in his expressions, and breaks off with
+a "perhaps" and a nod of the head, upon matters of the most indifferent
+nature. It is a mighty practice with men of this genius to avoid
+frequent appearance in public, and to be as mysterious as possible when
+they do come into company. There is nothing to be done, according to
+them, the common way; and let the matter in hand be what it will, it
+must be carried with an air of importance, and transacted, if we may so
+speak, with an ostentatious secrecy. These are your persons of long
+heads, who would fain make the world believe their thoughts and ideas
+are very much superior to their neighbours', and do not value what these
+their neighbours think of them, provided they do not reckon them fools.
+These have such a romantic touch in business, that they hate to perform
+anything like other men. Were it in their choice, they had rather bring
+their purposes to bear by overreaching the persons they deal with, than
+by a plain and simple manner. They make difficulties for the honour of
+surmounting them. Polypragmon is eternally busied after this manner,
+with no other prospect, than that he is in hopes to be thought the most
+cunning of all men, and fears the imputation of want of understanding
+much more than that of the abuse of it. But alas! how contemptible is
+such an ambition, which is the very reverse of all that is truly
+laudable, and the very contradiction to the only means to a just
+reputation, simplicity of manners? Cunning can in no circumstance
+imaginable be a quality worthy a man except in his own defence, and
+merely to conceal himself from such as are so; and in such cases it is
+no longer craft, but wisdom. The monstrous affectation of being thought
+artful immediately kills all thoughts of humanity and goodness, and
+gives men a sense of the soft affections and impulses of the mind (which
+are imprinted in us for our mutual advantage and succour) as of mere
+weaknesses and follies. According to the men of cunning, you are to put
+off the nature of a man as fast as you can, and acquire that of a
+demon, as if it were a more eligible character to be a powerful enemy
+than an able friend. But it ought to be a mortification to men affected
+this way, that there wants but little more than instinct to be
+considerable in it; for when a man has arrived at being very bad in his
+inclination, he has not much more to do, but to conceal himself, and he
+may revenge, cheat, and deceive, without much employment for
+understanding, and go on with great cheerfulness with the high applause
+of being a prodigious cunning fellow. But indeed, when we arrive at that
+pitch of false taste, as not to think cunning a contemptible quality, it
+is, methinks, a very great injustice that pick-pockets are had in so
+little veneration, who must be admirably well turned, not only for the
+theoretic, but also the practical behaviour of cunning fellows. After
+all the endeavour of this family of men whom we call cunning, their
+whole work falls to pieces, if others will lay down all esteem for such
+artifices, and treat it as an unmanly quality, which they forbear to
+practise only because they abhor it. When the spider is ranging in the
+different apartments of his web, it is true that he only can weave so
+fine a thread; but it is in the power of the merest drone that has wings
+to fly through and destroy it.
+
+
+_Will's Coffee-house, June 28._
+
+Though the taste of wit and pleasure is at present but very low in this
+town, yet there are some that preserve their relish undebauched with
+common impressions, and can distinguish between reality and imposture. A
+gentleman was saying here this evening, that he would go to the play
+to-morrow night to see heroism, as it has been represented by some of
+our tragedians, represented in burlesque. It seems, the play of
+"Alexander" is to be then turned into ridicule for its bombast, and
+other false ornaments in the thought as well as the language.[333] The
+bluster Alexander makes, is as much inconsistent with the character of a
+hero, as the roughness of Clytus is an instance of the sincerity of a
+bold artless soldier. To be plain is not to be rude, but rather inclines
+a man to civility and deference; not indeed to show it in the gestures
+of the body, but in the sentiments of the mind. It is, among other
+things, from the impertinent figures unskilful dramatists draw of the
+characters of men, that youth are bewildered and prejudiced in their
+sense of the world, of which they have no notions but what they draw
+from books and such representations. Thus talk to a very young man, let
+him be of never so good sense, and he shall smile when you speak of
+sincerity in a courtier, good sense in a soldier, or honesty in a
+politician. The reason of this is, that you hardly see one play wherein
+each of these ways of life is not drawn by hands that know nothing of
+any one of them: and the truth is so far of the opposite side to what
+they paint, that it is more impracticable to live in esteem in Courts
+than anywhere else without sincerity. Good sense is the great requisite
+in a soldier, and honesty the only thing that can support a politician.
+This way of thinking made the gentleman of whom I was just now speaking
+say, he was glad any one had taken upon him to depreciate such unnatural
+fustian as the tragedy of "Alexander." The character of that prince
+indeed was, that he was unequal, and given to intemperance; but in his
+sober moments, when he had warm in his imagination the precepts of his
+great instructor, he was a pattern of generous thoughts and
+dispositions, in opposition to the strongest desires which are incident
+to a youth and conqueror. But instead of representing that hero in the
+glorious character of generosity and chastity, in his treatment of the
+beauteous family of Darius, he is drawn all along as a monster of lust,
+or of cruelty; as if the way to raise him to the degree of a hero were
+to make his character as little like that of a worthy man as possible.
+Such rude and indigested draughts of things are the proper objects of
+ridicule and contempt, and depreciating Alexander, as we have him drawn,
+is the only way of restoring him to what he was in himself. It is well
+contrived of the players to let this part be followed by a true picture
+of life, in the comedy called, "The Chances,"[334] wherein Don John and
+Constantia are acted to the utmost perfection. There need not be a
+greater instance of the force of action than in many incidents of this
+play, where indifferent passages, and such that conduce only to the
+tacking of the scenes together, are enlivened with such an agreeable
+gesture and behaviour, as apparently shows what a play might be, though
+it is not wholly what a play should be.
+
+
+[Footnote 332: In reply to this suggestion that the character of
+Polypragmon was meant for Harley, Steele said, in the _Guardian_, No.
+53: "I drew it as the most odious image I could paint of ambition....
+Whoever seeks employment for his own private interest, vanity, or pride,
+and not for the good of his prince and country, has his share in the
+picture of Polypragmon; and let this be the rule in examining that
+description, and I believe the Examiner will find others to whom he
+would rather give a part of it, than to the person on whom I believe he
+bestows it, because he thinks he is the most capable of having his
+vengeance on me.... I have not, like him, fixed odious images on
+persons, but on vices." To this the _Examiner_ (vol. iv. No. 2) replied:
+"He would insinuate, that Timon and Polypragmon are general characters,
+and stand for a whole species, or, as he quaintly words it, for Knights
+of the Shire. If this be true, why did he not before now silence the
+industrious clamours of his party, who both in print and public
+conversation applied those characters to persons of the first rank,
+though without any regard to the rules of resemblance?" The writer of
+"Annotations on the _Tatler_," 1710, in the preface to the second part,
+regretted that Steele had become a politician, and said, in allusion to
+Steele's experiments in alchemy: "Turning statesman and drudging for the
+Philosopher's Stone, are toils not altogether unlike each other;
+buffeting with fire, labouring in smoke, wearing out of lungs, and
+tiring oneself with expectation, are misfortunes common to both these
+projects; 'tis converting real gold to dross, out of a prospect of
+converting dross into real gold."]
+
+[Footnote 333: A burlesque of Lee's "Rival Queens; or, the Death of
+Alexander the Great," by Gibber, called "The Rival Queans; or, the
+Humours of Alexander the Great," was acted at Drury Lane in 1710, but
+not printed until 1729.]
+
+[Footnote 334: An adaptation of Beaumont and Fletcher's comedy, by the
+Duke of Buckingham, 1682.]
+
+
+
+
+No. 192.                                                    [ADDISON.
+
+From _Thursday, June 29_, to _Saturday, July 1, 1710_.
+
+    Tecum vivere amem, tecum obeam libens.--HOR., 3 Od. ix. 24.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_From my own Apartment, June 30._
+
+Some years since I was engaged with a coachful of friends to take a
+journey as far as the Land's End. We were very well pleased with one
+another the first day, every one endeavouring to recommend himself by
+his good humour and complaisance to the rest of the company. This good
+correspondence did not last long; one of our party was soured the very
+first evening by a plate of butter which had not been melted to his
+mind, and which spoiled his temper to such a degree, that he continued
+upon the fret to the end of our journey. A second fell off from his good
+humour the next morning, for no other reason that I could imagine, but
+because I chanced to step into the coach before him, and place myself on
+the shady side. This however was but my own private guess, for he did
+not mention a word of it, nor indeed of anything else, for three days
+following. The rest of our company held out very near half the way, when
+of a sudden Mr. Sprightly fell asleep; and instead of endeavouring to
+divert and oblige us, as he had hitherto done, carried himself with an
+unconcerned, careless, drowsy behaviour, till we came to our last stage.
+There were three of us who still held up our heads, and did all we could
+to make our journey agreeable; but, to my shame be it spoken, about
+three miles on this side Exeter, I was taken with an unaccountable fit
+of sullenness, that hung upon me for above three-score miles; whether
+it were for want of respect, or from an accidental tread upon my foot,
+or from a foolish maid's calling me "The old gentleman," I cannot tell.
+In short, there was but one who kept his good humour to the Land's End.
+
+There was another coach that went along with us, in which I likewise
+observed, that there were many secret jealousies, heartburnings, and
+animosities: for when we joined companies at night, I could not but take
+notice, that the passengers neglected their own company, and studied how
+to make themselves esteemed by us, who were altogether strangers to
+them; till at length they grew so well acquainted with us, that they
+liked us as little as they did one another. When I reflect upon this
+journey, I often fancy it to be a picture of human life, in respect to
+the several friendships, contracts, and alliances that are made and
+dissolved in the several periods of it. The most delightful and most
+lasting engagements are generally those which pass between man and
+woman; and yet upon what trifles are they weakened, or entirely broken?
+Sometimes the parties fly asunder, even in the midst of courtship, and
+sometimes grow cool in the very honey month. Some separate before the
+first child, and some after the fifth; others continue good till thirty,
+others till forty; while some few, whose souls are of a happier make,
+and better fitted to one another, travel on together to the end of their
+journey in a continual intercourse of kind offices and mutual
+endearments.
+
+When we therefore choose our companions for life, if we hope to keep
+both them and ourselves in good humour to the last stage of it, we must
+be extremely careful in the choice we make, as well as in the conduct on
+our own part. When the persons to whom we join ourselves can stand an
+examination, and bear the scrutiny, when they mend upon our acquaintance
+with them, and discover new beauties the more we search into their
+characters, our love will naturally rise in proportion to their
+perfections.
+
+But because there are very few possessed of such accomplishments of body
+and mind, we ought to look after those qualifications both in ourselves
+and others, which are indispensably necessary towards this happy union,
+and which are in the power of every one to acquire, or at least to
+cultivate and improve. These, in my opinion, are cheerfulness and
+constancy. A cheerful temper joined with innocence will make beauty
+attractive, knowledge delightful, and wit good-natured. It will lighten
+sickness, poverty, and affliction; convert ignorance into an amiable
+simplicity, and render deformity itself agreeable.
+
+Constancy is natural to persons of even tempers and uniform
+dispositions, and may be acquired by those of the greatest fickleness,
+violence, and passion, who consider seriously the terms of union upon
+which they come together, the mutual interest in which they are engaged,
+with all the motives that ought to incite their tenderness and
+compassion towards those who have their dependence upon them, and are
+embarked with them for life in the same state of happiness or misery.
+Constancy, when it grows in the mind upon considerations of this nature,
+becomes a moral virtue, and a kind of good nature, that is not subject
+to any change of health, age, fortune, or any of those accidents which
+are apt to unsettle the best dispositions that are founded rather in
+constitution than in reason. Where such a constancy as this is wanting,
+the most inflamed passion may fall away into coldness and indifference,
+and the most melting tenderness degenerate into hatred and aversion. I
+shall conclude this paper with a story that is very well known in the
+North of England.
+
+About thirty years ago, a packet-boat that had several passengers on
+board was cast away upon a rock, and in so great danger of sinking, that
+all who were in it endeavoured to save themselves as well as they could,
+though only those who could swim well had a bare possibility of doing
+it. Among the passengers there were two women of fashion, who seeing
+themselves in such a disconsolate condition, begged of their husbands
+not to leave them. One of them chose rather to die with his wife than to
+forsake her; the other, though he was moved with the utmost compassion
+for his wife, told her, that for the good of their children it was
+better one of them should live, than both perish. By a great piece of
+good luck, next to a miracle, when one of our good men had taken the
+last and long farewell in order to save himself, and the other held in
+his arms the person that was dearer to him than life, the ship was
+preserved. It is with a secret sorrow and vexation of mind that I must
+tell the sequel of the story, and let my reader know, that this faithful
+pair who were ready to have died in each other's arms, about three years
+after their escape, upon some trifling disgust, grew to a coldness at
+first, and at length fell out to such a degree, that they left one
+another and parted for ever. The other couple lived together in an
+uninterrupted friendship and felicity; and what was remarkable, the
+husband whom the shipwreck had like to have separated from his wife,
+died a few months after her, not being able to survive the loss of her.
+
+I must confess, there is something in the changeableness and inconstancy
+of human nature, that very often both dejects and terrifies me. Whatever
+I am at present, I tremble to think what I may be. While I find this
+principle in me, how can I assure myself that I shall be always true to
+my God, my friend, or myself? In short, without constancy there is
+neither love, friendship, nor virtue in the world.
+
+
+
+
+No. 193.                                                [STEELE.[335]
+
+From _Saturday, July 1_, to _Tuesday, July 4, 1710_.
+
+    Qui didicit, patriae quid debeat et quid amicis,
+    Quo sit amore parens, quo frater amandus, et hospes ...
+    Scribere[336] personae scit convenientia cuique.
+                                              HOR., Ars Poet. 312.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Will's Coffee-house, July 3._
+
+I have of late received many epistles, wherein the writers treat me as a
+mercenary person, for some late hints concerning matters which they
+think I should not have touched upon but for sordid considerations. It
+is apparent, that my motive could not be of that kind; for when a man
+declares himself openly on one side, that party will take no more notice
+of him, because he is sure; and the set of men whom he declares against,
+for the same reason are violent against him. Thus it is folly in a
+plain-dealer to expect, that either his friends will reward him, or his
+enemies forgive him. For which reason, I thought it was the shortest way
+to impartiality, to put myself beyond further hopes or fears, by
+declaring myself, at a time when the dispute is not about persons and
+parties, but things and causes. To relieve myself from the vexation
+which naturally attends such reflections, I came hither this evening to
+give my thoughts quite a new turn, and converse with men of pleasure and
+wit, rather than those of business and intrigue. I had hardly entered
+the room, when I was accosted by Mr. Thomas Doggett, who desired my
+favour in relation to the play which was to be acted for his benefit on
+Thursday. He pleased me in saying it was "The Old Bachelor,"[337] in
+which comedy there is a necessary circumstance observed by the author,
+which most other poets either overlook or do not understand, that is to
+say, the distinction of characters. It is very ordinary with writers to
+indulge a certain modesty of believing all men as witty as themselves,
+and making all the persons of the play speak the sentiments of the
+author, without any manner of respect to the age, fortune, or quality of
+him that is on the stage. Ladies talk like rakes, and footmen make
+similes: but this writer knows men, which makes his plays reasonable
+entertainments, while the scenes of most others are like the tunes
+between the acts. They are perhaps agreeable sounds, but they have no
+ideas affixed to them. Doggett thanked me for my visit to him in the
+winter,[338] and, after his comical manner, spoke his request with so
+arch a leer, that I promised the droll I would speak to all my
+acquaintance to be at his play.
+
+Whatever the world may think of the actors, whether it be that their
+parts have an effect on their lives, or whatever it is, you see a
+wonderful benevolence among them towards the interests and necessities
+of each other. Doggett therefore would not let me go, without delivering
+me a letter from poor old Downes the prompter,[339] wherein that
+retainer to the theatre desires my advice and assistance in a matter of
+concern to him. I have sent him my private opinion for his conduct; but
+the stage and the State affairs being so much canvassed by parties and
+factions, I shall for some time hereafter take leave of subjects which
+relate to either of them, and employ my care in consideration of matters
+which regard that part of mankind who live without interesting
+themselves with the troubles or pleasures of either. However, for a mere
+notion of the present posture of the stage, I shall give you the letter
+at large as follows:
+
+
+     "HONOURED SIR,                                   _July 1, 1710._
+
+     "Finding by divers of your late papers, that you are a friend to
+     the profession of which I was many years an unworthy member, I the
+     rather make bold to crave your advice, touching a proposal that has
+     been lately made me of coming into business, and the
+     sub-administration of stage affairs. I have, from my youth, been
+     bred up behind the curtain, and been a prompter from the time of
+     the Restoration.[340] I have seen many changes, as well of scenes
+     as of actors, and have known men within my remembrance arrive to
+     the highest dignities of the theatre, who made their entrance in
+     the quality of mutes, joint-stools, flowerpots, and tapestry
+     hangings. It cannot be unknown to the nobility and gentry, that a
+     gentleman of the Inns of Court, and a deep intriguer, had some time
+     since worked himself into the sole management and direction of the
+     theatre.[341] Nor is it less notorious, that his restless ambition,
+     and subtle machinations, did manifestly tend to the extirpation of
+     the good old British actors, and the introduction of foreign
+     pretenders; such as harlequins, French dancers, and Roman singers;
+     which, though they impoverished the proprietors, and imposed on the
+     audience, were for some time tolerated, by reason of his dexterous
+     insinuations, which prevailed upon a few deluded women, especially
+     the vizard masks, to believe that the stage was in danger. But his
+     schemes were soon exposed, and the great ones that supported him
+     withdrawing their favour, he made his exit, and remained for a
+     season in obscurity. During this retreat the Machiavelian was not
+     idle, but secretly fomented divisions, and wrought over to his
+     side some of the inferior actors, reserving a trap-door to himself,
+     to which only he had a key. This entrance secured, this cunning
+     person, to complete his company, bethought himself of calling in
+     the most eminent of strollers from all parts of the kingdom. I have
+     seen them all ranged together behind the scenes; but they are many
+     of them persons that never trod the stage before, and so very
+     awkward and ungainly, that it is impossible to believe the audience
+     will bear them. He was looking over his catalogue of plays, and
+     indeed picked up a good tolerable set of grave faces for
+     counsellors, to appear in the famous scene of 'Venice Preserved,'
+     when the danger is over; but they being but mere outsides, and the
+     actors having a great mind to play 'The Tempest,' there is not a
+     man of them, when he is to perform anything above dumb show, is
+     capable of acting with a good grace so much as the part of
+     Trinculo. However, the master persists in his design, and is
+     fitting up the old 'storm'; but I am afraid he will not be able to
+     procure able sailors or experienced officers for love or money.
+
+     "Besides all this, when he comes to cast the parts, there is so
+     great a confusion amongst them for want of proper actors, that for
+     my part I am wholly discouraged. The play with which they design to
+     open is, 'The Duke and No Duke';[342] and they are so put to it,
+     that the master himself is to act the conjurer, and they have no
+     one for the general but honest George Powell.[343]
+
+     "Now, sir, they being so much at a loss for the _dramatis personae_,
+     viz., the persons to enact, and the whole frame of the house being
+     designed to be altered, I desire your opinion, whether you think it
+     advisable for me to undertake to prompt them? For though I can
+     clash swords when they represent a battle, and have yet lungs
+     enough to huzza their victories, I question, if I should prompt
+     them right, whether they would act accordingly. I am
+
+                              "Your Honour's most humble Servant,
+                                                          "J. Downes.
+
+     "P.S. Sir, since I writ this, I am credibly informed, that they
+     design a new house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, near the Popish
+     chapel,[344] to be ready by Michaelmas next; which indeed is but
+     repairing an old one that has already failed. You know the honest
+     man who kept the office is gone already."
+
+
+[Footnote 335: The authorship of the greater part of this paper is
+uncertain; see note on next page.]
+
+[Footnote 336: "Reddere" (Horace).]
+
+[Footnote 337: See No. 9.]
+
+[Footnote 338: See Nos. 120, 122. In the continuation of the Tatler
+which Swift and Harrison conducted (No. 28, March 24, 1710-11) there is
+this passage: "The person produced as mine in the playhouse, last
+winter, did in no wise appertain to me. It was such a one, however, as
+agreed well with the impression my writings had made, and served the
+purpose I intended it for: which was to continue the awe and reverence
+due to the character I was vested with, and at the same time to let my
+enemies see how much I was the delight and favourite of this town," &c.]
+
+[Footnote 339: This letter, in ridicule of Harley's newly formed
+Ministry, has been attributed to the joint authorship of Anthony Henley
+(see No. 11) and Temple Stanyan. Harley is supposed to be the gentleman
+referred to in the letter, and Downes, it has been suggested, is Thomas
+Osborne, first Duke of Leeds. Steele expressly disavowed responsibility
+for the letter from Downes the prompter. In No. 53 of the _Guardian_ he
+wrote: "Old Downes is a fine piece of raillery, of which I wish I had
+been author. All I had to do in it, was to strike out what related to a
+gentlewoman about the Queen, whom I thought a woman free from ambition,
+and I did it out of regard to innocence." And in the Preface to the
+_Tatler_, he said that this letter was by an unknown correspondent. A
+writer in the _Examiner_ (vol. iv. No. 2) mentions Old Downes among the
+sufferers of figure under our author's satire. The same writer, or
+another in the same paper, expresses himself in the following words:
+"Steele broke his own maxim for trifles in which his country had no
+manner of concern; and by entering into party disputes, violated the
+most solemn repeated promises and that perfect neutrality he had engaged
+to maintain. As a proof that I did not wrong him, he now openly takes
+upon himself Downes' letter, by wishing the raillery (as he calls it)
+were his own." In the "Essays Divine, Moral, and Political" (1714), p.
+42, Swift is made to say, "I advised him [Steele] to the publishing that
+letter from Downes the prompter, which was the beginning of his ruin,
+though I here declare I did not write it." Forster ("Biographical
+Essays," 3rd ed.) concludes that this fictitious letter was certainly by
+Mainwaring himself. In the "Journal to Stella" (Oct. 22, 1710), Swift
+wrote: "He [Steele] has lost his place of Gazetteer, three hundred
+pounds a year, for writing a _Tatler_, some months ago, against Mr.
+Harley, who gave it him at first, and raised the salary from sixty to
+three hundred pounds." See also Swift's "The Importance of the
+_Guardian_ considered."]
+
+[Footnote 340: John Downes was prompter to "The Duke's Servants" until
+1706. In 1708 he published his valuable "Roscius Anglicanus, or an
+Historical Review of the Stage."]
+
+[Footnote 341: Christopher Rich, who began life as an attorney. See Nos.
+12, 99.]
+
+[Footnote 342: A farce by Nahum Tate, 1685.]
+
+[Footnote 343: See No. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 344: The theatre built by Betterton and his friends in 1695,
+in Portugal Row, Lincoln's Inn Fields, was pulled down and rebuilt by
+Christopher Rich in 1714. The Roman Catholic Church here referred to was
+in Duke (now Sardinia) Street, on the west side of the square.]
+
+
+
+
+END OF VOL. III.
+
+Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
+London & Edinburgh
+
+ +-------------------------------------------+
+ |Transcriber's Notes:                       |
+ |Standardized Punctuation.                  |
+ |Page 163: Changed I must confess, where to |
+ |           I must confess, were            |
+ |Page 301: Changed Ho Nec to Ho Nee         |
+ |Footnote 18: Changed I. 137. to i. 137.    |
+ +-------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+
+
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