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diff --git a/78492-0.txt b/78492-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9ba1f51 --- /dev/null +++ b/78492-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2661 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78492 *** + + + + +TEN CENT POCKET SERIES NO. 328 +Edited by E. Haldeman-Julius + +Joseph Addison +and His Time + +Charles J. Finger + +HALDEMAN-JULIUS COMPANY +GIRARD, KANSAS + + + + +Copyright, 1922, +Haldeman-Julius Company + + + + +JOSEPH ADDISON AND HIS TIME. + + + + +I. + +THE MAN AND HIS FRIEND. + + +The main facts in Addison’s life could be compressed within the compass +of an ordinary telegram, thus: + + Joseph Addison was born in Wiltshire, England, in 1672, had a grammar + school education, and went to Oxford University. Between the ages of + twenty-seven and thirty-one he traveled in Europe. Later, he held + public offices, but, in 1710 devoted himself seriously to literature, + and, in five years, gained lasting fame. He died in 1719. + +If, in the style of the modern journalist, you chose to add a spice +of mild scandal, you might say that he was married to the Countess of +Warwick, but the union was not a happy one. Should a little extra tang +be required, it would be quite in order to say that on occasion he +drank too much. + +Or, supposing that you were very narrow and chose to run a dark smear +across his name, you might make much of the fact that he sometimes +loaned money to his best friend, Richard Steele, and on one such +occasion, sent the sheriff’s officer with an order for the debtor’s +arrest, two days after the loan had been made. This story, be it said, +you may not find in any existing biography, at least I have not been +able to find it, but, nevertheless, it is true, for Dick Steele told it +to his friend Richard Savage the poet, who, in turn, told it to Doctor +Johnson. Then, of course, James Boswell got hold of it and gave it to +the world. + +Still, as you know and as I know, and as Nietzsche said, men’s +wickedness is much less than the fame of it, so, rightly understood and +fairly told, even this, which might be denounced by the thoughtless +as an act of base treachery, turns out to be a very ordinary affair, +the like of which might easily have befallen me. For the fact is that +Richard Steele was Richard Steele, a mighty good fellow, as also was +Addison. You see the character of the man as soon as you look at his +picture. Ruddy and strong, full of boisterous health is he, one in +whom the sap of life rises swiftly. At a glance you see that he can +laugh heartily, like Rabelais, like Scarron. If you are supersensitive, +if you are timid, you would not go abroad with him, for he is, it is +plain to be seen, one who would take you into taverns, into baignoires +on occasion, into places where are jovial companions who love a good +song, or a jolly story over a bottle. With his kind, you may wind up +the night with either a broken head or a belly full, but which ever it +was, you would have had a good time. And Addison, a quieter sort, a +fine, sensitive type, liked his Irish friend. They had been school boys +together, and, later, college chums. They were the same age, too. It +was a friendship like that of William of Orange for Bentick, or Queen +Anne for Lady Churchill. But Dick Steele was not born with a silver +spoon in his mouth, and being a genius, was bold, reckless of life, of +health, of which the unco’ guid call honor. So his wealthy relative +cast him off before he had graduated from college, and he became a kind +of vagrant. He joined the army, soon tired of the discipline, bought +himself out, and lived by his wits. He loved women and he loved wine, +but he loved wine more than women. He was an easy going, good natured +adventurer with a strong literary gift and a tremendous imagination. +Like _Tom Jones_, he lived his life in a manner far from perfect, knew +it and regretted it. He had spurts of virtue, he made good resolutions, +then straightway forgot all about them and went on in the same old way. +Give him a guinea and immediately he went about to find a friend to +share it. A good meal and an evening spent in jolly company seemed to +him a far more attractive way to dispose of gold than the uninteresting +payment of tradesmen’s bills. Besides, do what he would, at one time in +his career, to pay off all that he owed seemed an utter impossibility. +So, as a palliative measure, he would borrow from Peter to pay Paul. + +But Richard Steele was also a letter writer. His winning personality, +his charm of manner shone on the written page. He was as irresistible +as _Micawber_, as charming as _Esmond_. Judge for yourself. I take, +almost at random, four letters of twenty. They are written to his wife, +and, as most men know, to write to a wife is not easy, and less so when +one is long overdue, or too late for dinner, and, to boot, a little far +gone in one’s cups. Then it requires both dexterity and diplomacy. The +letters are, of course, of subsequent date to the Addison loan affair, +but serve to show the peculiar, persuasive qualities of the writer. + +_To Mrs. Steele._ + + Monday, seven at night, + Sept. 27, 1708. + + Dear Prue: + + You see you are obeyed in everything, and that I write overnight + for the following day. I shall now in earnest, by Mr. Clay’s good + conduct, manage my business with that method as shall make me easy. + The news, I am told, you had last night, of the taking of Lille, + does not prove true; but I hope we shall have it soon. I shall send + by tomorrow’s coach. I am, dear Prue, a little in drink, but at all + times your faithful husband, + + RICH STEELE. + +Or this: + +_To Mrs. Steele_ (lately Mrs. Scurlock). + + Dec. 22, 1707. + + My dear, dear wife: + + I write to let you know that I do not come home to dinner, being + obliged to attend to some business abroad, of which I shall give you + an account (when I see you in the evening), as becomes your dutiful + and obedient husband. + + RICH STEELE. + +It is a little significant that nine out of ten letters written to his +wife, are graceful notes of apology because of his absence from home. +Here is another. + +_To Mrs. Steele._ + + Eleven at night, Jan. 5, 1708. + + Dear Prue: + + I was going home two hours ago, but was met by Mr. Griffith, who has + kept me ever since meeting me, as he came from Mr. Lambert’s. I will + come within a pint of wine. + + RICH STEELE. + + (We drank your health, and Mr. Griffith is your servant.) + +One more will be sufficient, especially as it seems to show that Mrs. +Steele was by no means pleased to have messengers knocking at her door +at all hours of the night with letters from the errant Richard. + + June 7, 1708. + + Dear Prue: + + I enclose you a guinea for your pocket. I dine with Lord Halifax. + I wish I knew how to court you into good humor, for two or three + quarrels will dispatch me quite. If you have any love for me, + believe I am always pursuing our mutual good. Pray consider that all + my little fortune is to (be) settled this month, and that I have + inadvertently made myself liable to impatient people, who take all + advantages. If you have (not) patience, I shall transact my business + rashly, and lose a very great sum to quicken the time of your being + rid of all people you do not like. Yours ever, + + RICH STEELE. + +On that I rest my case, as the lawyers say, as having amply proved the +persuasive powers of Richard Steele. Such letters would turn a heart of +stone. + +One day, when Addison was in funds, there came to him a touching letter +from his old school fellow. Dick was in trouble again. The letter told +all. His flint-hearted creditors pressed. His grate was fireless and +there was not as much as a candle in the house. Butcher and baker cast +a cold eye upon him. The wolf was at the door, and, eke, the bailiff +with a writ. “Impatient people who take all advantage” beset him. For +twenty-four hours he had fasted, and starvation stared him in the face. +A hundred pounds would save his life. + +Picture Addison his friend, a man of wealth and position; Under +Secretary of State; a little king surrounded by his circle of admirers; +a coffee-house wit; a conversationalist able to keep a “few friends +listening and laughing around a table from the time when a play ended +till the clock of St. Paul’s struck four o’ the morning”; the guest of +the brilliant Lady Mary Montague; collector of Elzevirs and ancient +medals. He read the letter once, twice, thrice. There is a rabble of +reasons why he should help Dick and a rabble why he should not. He +ponders awhile in doubt.... But it is his old Irish school friend in +trouble again. It is Dick the luckless. But here is sincere repentance, +and, anyway, Dick is under a cloud. Moreover, he is through with “the +well-fed wits” who batten on him. So the messenger is called in, +presently leaves with the money and Addison sleeps well. + +But not with monetary aid alone is Addison satisfied. He has some +knowledge of life in Grub Street--a knowledge also possessed by +Goldsmith who told how the luckless author in dark days + + views with keen desire + The rusty grate unconscious of a fire; + With beer and milk arrears the freeze is scored + And five cracked tea cups dress the chimney board; + A night cap dress his brows instead of bay, + A cap by night--a stocking all the day! + +So, the next day, Addison climbs Steele’s stairway. He is astonished +to find porters running up and down bearing trays loaded with soups, +fish, entrees and sweetmeats. He, himself, is elbowed out of the way +by servants. There are lights everywhere and, from within, the sound +of fiddles. It is long past sunset and no black-hearted bailiff may do +his full work. Through the open door is seen the long, crowded table, +piled high with wines and meats, champagnes and burgundies, and at the +head, brimming with happiness and good humor, without a present care in +the world, sits Dick Steele. Small wonder then that the good nature of +Addison received a shock and that he determined to give Steele and his +“well-fed wits” a lesson. + +But big men find it easy to forgive. Vindictiveness is for small +minds alone. Indeed, Addison the gentleman never told the story. He, +doubtless, soon considered it a closed incident and so forgot all about +it. It was Steele the gentleman who gave the tale to the world, and, as +a gentleman should, to illustrate his friend’s generosity. + +One day a notion struck Steele. He decided to publish a journal on a +new plan. It is true there were news sheets in plenty, but, the times +were, in some respects, very like our own, and the self-imposed task of +the journalist seemed then, as now, to be to provide the weak-minded +section of the public with a new variety of mental dissipation each +day. Then, as now, too, the spirit of sensationalism was abroad. Then, +as now, there was a very active championship of bad causes and the +only care of the journal’s owner was to increase his circulation and +keep out of the clutches of the law. Every blind popular prejudice and +every brutal fanaticism was seized upon avidly and every consideration +of decency disregarded. To cater to the baser appetites, the lowest +curiosities, the shallowest mind, was the rule. Today, picturing the +people of England as of then, from the current news sheets, you see +a nation of Yahoos that hate each other, tear each other with their +talons with hideous contortions and yells. You see, very much as you +see today with us, foul sheets doing lip service, darkening counsel by +words without knowledge, fawning on the wealthy, flattering the men in +power. To use Swift’s picture as applicable, (Gulliver’s Travels, Part +4, chap. 7): + + In most herds there was a sort of ruling Yahoo who was always more + deformed in body, and mischievous in disposition, than any of the + rest; that this ruler had usually a favorite as like himself as he + could get, whose employment was to lick his master’s feet ... and + drive the female yahoos to his kennel; for which he was now and then + rewarded with a piece of ass’s flesh.... + +I can well imagine Dick Steele, his mind busy with the idea of some +new play perhaps, turning into some coffee-house to rest, or, if +possible, to find some companion with whom he could have a pleasant +talk. It is the Cocoa Tree that he chooses, and it has a back room, +long, and low, and brown paneled, and through the window is to be seen +the red-walled rose garden. There he finds gathered company. Steele +notes the general picture, the browns and grays, here and there a coat +of brighter color, this face strongly illuminated and that in shadow, +and he also notes that there is a great deal of “goose gabble” by way +of conversation. Nothing there to interest him. He picks up the news +sheet. It is _Dawk’s Protestant Mercury_, a popular paper. It has been +well read as the coffee stains and finger marks show. He turns it over, +passing impatiently the two columns of flamboyant boastings which tell +how at any time, “one Englishman can beat three Frenchmen,” scanning +swiftly, and rejecting impatiently, its pretended statements of facts +as entirely unworthy; then his eye falls on the stirring item of the +day, the item to which men first turn as children of a low order of +intellect turn today to the funny sheet of a Sunday supplement, and he +reads this: + + + A MAN EATS A LIVE COCK ETC. + + On Tuesday last a fellow at Sadler’s Wells, near Islington, after + he had dined heartily on a buttock of beef, for the lucre of five + guineas, eat a live cock, feathers, guts and all, with only a plate + of oil and vinegar to wash it down, and afterwards preferred to lay + five guineas more, that he could do the same again in two hours time. + +The banality, the stupidity of it all startled him. It held him all +that day, and soon the idea filled Steele’s mind that a decent and +dignified journalism was possible. He was idealist enough to believe, +and optimist enough to hope that a decent paper might become a potent +agency of enlightenment and that intelligent citizens everywhere would +be only too glad to look to it for light and leading. It might contain +foreign news, dramatic reports and the literary gossip of Will’s and +the Grecian, the two coffee houses where the wits foregathered. So, +full of the idea, he wrote to Addison of his plan. No sooner did +Addison, then in Ireland, learn of it than he was all eagerness to +join in. His unexpected decision almost swept Steele off his feet. “I +fared,” he said, “like a distressed prince who calls in a powerful +neighbor to his aid. I was undone by my auxiliary. When I had once +called him in, I could not subsist without dependence on him.” And in +another place he wrote: “This paper was advanced indeed. It was raised +to a greater thing than I intended it.” + +Shortly after the paper was started, the circulation was a little short +of three thousand, but in a short time, nine or ten thousand copies +of each issue were sold, and, as Addison said each issue was read by +twenty people. Of the essays, in all, two hundred and seventy-four were +written by Addison and two hundred and thirty-six by Richard Steele. + +The plan involved the creation of a fictitious character, one known +as the _Spectator_, a gentleman who had been a studious youth, and, +after some travel on classic ground, took up the study of men and +manners. He was a kind of sublime _Pickwick_. And, like that later +glorious creation of Dickens, he was a good listener. Fixing his +residence in London, he goes hither and yon, to coffee houses, to +theaters, to churches and to notable gatherings, and, in the pages of +the _Spectator_, records his impressions and his thoughts. As Dickens +gave _Samuel Pickwick_ his lesser lights, his _Tupper_, and _Winkle_ +and _Snodgrass_, so the _Spectator_ has a few friends: a templar, a +clergyman, a soldier and a merchant, but the high lights are thrown +upon Sir Roger de Coverly, the old country baronet, and Will Honeycomb, +an old town rake, and through the eyes of these, as through a focussing +glass, was shown the life of the day. Soon, readers everywhere became +eager to know the doings of the famous club which Sir Roger visited, +the sessions of which were recorded by the _Spectator_. + +The first outline of Sir Roger was made by Steele in No. 2, of the +_Spectator_, March 2, 1711, and thereafter Addison used the character, +indeed almost seems to have identified himself with it. “We were born +for one another,” he wrote. + + “The first of our society is a gentleman of Worcestershire of an + ancient descent, a baron, his name, Sir Roger de Coverly. His + grandfather was inventor of the famous dance which is called after + him. All who know that satire, are very well acquainted with the + parts and merits of Sir Roger. He was a gentleman that is very + singular in his behavior, but his singularities proceed from a good + sense, and are contradictions to the manners of the world, only as + he thinks the world is in the wrong. However, this humor creates him + no enemies, for he does nothing with sourness or obstinacy, and his + being unconfined to modes and forms makes him but the readier and the + more capable to please and oblige all who know him. When he is in + town he lives in Soho Square. It is said he keeps himself a bachelor + by reason he was crossed in love by a perverse beautiful widow of the + next county to him. Before his disappointment, Sir Roger was what you + call a fine gentleman, had often supped with my Lord Rochester and + Sir George Etheridge, fought a duel on his first coming to town, and + kicked Bully Dawson in the coffee house for calling him youngster; + but being ill-used by the said widow, he was very serious for a year + and a half; and, though, his temper being naturally jovial, he at + last got over it, he grew careless of himself, and never dressed + afterwards. He continues to wear a coat and a doublet of the same cut + that were in fashion at the time of his repulse, which, in his merry + humors he tells us twelve times since he first wore it. He is now + in his 56th year, cheerful, gay and hearty; keeps a good house both + in town and country; a great lover of mankind; but there is such a + skilful cast in his behavior, that he is rather beloved than esteemed. + + “His tenants grow rich, his servants look satisfied, all the young + women profess to love him, and the young men are glad of his company. + When he comes into a house he calls the servants by their names, and + talks all the way upstairs to a visit. I must not omit that Sir Roger + is Justice to the Quorum, that he fills the chair at quarter sessions + with great ability, and three months ago gained universal applause by + explaining a passage in the Gane Act.” + + * * * * * + +Thus, and with that fictitious character as a nucleus, began the +greatest literary partnership in the history of literature. Thus, +also, Addison found himself. Until he wrote in the _Spectator_, he +had, or seems to have had, no knowledge of his powers. He did not know +himself. Perhaps Steele knew Addison though; knew of the vast hidden +mine of wealth and thus deliberately tapped the inexhaustible vein. +True, Addison had written before the advent of the _Spectator_, for +at college he had been distinguished in a small way, and, later, he +had written his poem, the _Campaign_ (1704). That in itself was an +excellent model of a becoming and classical style, easily and correctly +written, but, alone, it had not the excellence to ensure its author +immortality. As it turns out, as we see it from this distance, it was +the _Spectator_ that made him, as it gave him an audience to hearten +him. And through the character of Sir Roger, he set out to make +morality fashionable, and, later, by means of the essay made it his +task to reconcile virtue with elegance and to make pleasure subservient +to reason. As a by-product there came a mighty literary influence that +passed down the ages. For it was upon Addison that Benjamin Franklin +founded his style. That prince of living essayists, Michael Monahan, +has been strongly affected by the same hand. His influence has touched +such widely diverse characters as Oliver Goldsmith, Charles Lamb, +Washington Irving, Oliver Wendell Holmes, W. H. Hudson, Ford Maddox +Hueffer, Cunningham Grahame, Hilaire Belloc, H. M. Tomlinson, William +Marion Reedy. More still. The very existence of these Haldeman-Julius +booklets is, in a measure, due to the ideals promulgated by Addison, +or, at any rate, at bottom the same notion that moved Steele’s friend +moved the editor of this series. In proof, I quote from _Spectator_ No. +10, March 12, 1710: + +“It was said of Socrates that he brought Philosophy down from heaven +to inhabit among men; and I shall be ambitious to have it said of +me, that I have brought Philosophy out of closets and libraries, +schools and colleges, to dwell in clubs and assemblies, at tea tables +and coffee houses. I would, therefore, in a very particular manner, +recommend these, my speculations, to well regulated families, and +set apart an hour in every morning for tea, and bread and butter; +and would earnestly advise them for their good to order this paper +to be punctually served up, and to be looked upon as a part of the +tea-equipage.” + +If I were asked to choose from all that Addison had written in the +pages of the _Spectator_, to take a single essay which might be +adduced as evidence that posterity would assign to him the reputation +he coveted, I would at once name his Vision of Mirza. To my notion it +is the most intensely beautiful thing he wrote. I transcribe it, well +remembering the thrill with which I first read it when a mere boy. It +seemed to me then the most fantastically beautiful thing ever written. + + +No. 159 + +Spectator) (Addison + +Saturday, September 1, 1711. + +When I was at Grand Cairo, I picked up several Oriental manuscripts, +which I have still by me. Among others I met with one entitled the +Visions of Mirza, which I have read over with pleasure. I intend to +give it to the public when I have no other entertainment for them; and +shall begin with the first vision, which I have translated word by word +as follows: + +“On the fifth day of the moon, which according to the custom of my +forefathers I always keep holy, after having washed myself and offered +up my morning devotions, I ascended the high hills of the Bagdad, in +order to pass the rest of the day in meditation and prayer. As I was +here airing myself on the top of the mountains, I fell into a profound +contemplation upon the vanity of human life; and passing from one +thought to another, ‘Surely,’ said I, ‘man is but a shadow, and life a +dream.’ While I was thus musing, I cast my eyes toward the summit of a +rock that was not far from me, where I discovered one in the habit of +a shepherd, with a little musical instrument in his hand. As I looked +upon him he applied it to his lips, and began to play upon it. The +sound of it was so exceedingly sweet, and wrought into a variety of +tunes that were inexpressibly melodious, and altogether different from +anything I had ever heard. They put me in mind of those heavenly airs +that are played to the departed souls of good men upon their arrival in +Paradise, to wear out the impressions of the last agonies, and qualify +them for the pleasure of that happy place. My heart melted away in +secret raptures. + +“I had been often told that the rock before me was the haunt of genius; +and that several had been entertained by music who had passed it, but +never heard that the musician had before made himself visible. When +he had raised my thought by those transporting airs which he played, +to taste the pleasure of his conversation, as I looked upon him like +one astonished, he beckoned me and by waving his hand directed me to +approach the place where he sat. I drew near with that reverence which +is due a superior nature; and as my heart was entirely subdued by the +captivating strains I had heard, I fell down at his feet and wept. The +genius smiled upon me with a look of compassion and affability that +familiarized him to my imagination, and at once dispelled all fears +and apprehensions with which I approached him. He lifted me from the +ground, and taking me by the hand, ‘Mirza,’ said he, ‘I have heard +thee in thy soliloquies; follow me.’ + +“He then led me to the highest pinnacle of the rock, and placing me on +the top of it--‘Cast thy eyes eastward,’ said he, ‘and tell me what +thou seest.’ ‘I see,’ said I, ‘a huge valley, and a prodigious tide of +water rolling through it.’ ‘The valley that thou seest,’ said he, ‘is +the Vale of Misery, and the tide of water that thou seest is part of +the great tide of eternity.’ ‘What is the reason,’ said I, ‘that the +tide I see rises out of a thick mist at one end, and again loses itself +in a thick mist at the other.’ ‘What thou seest,’ said he, ‘is that +portion of eternity which is called time, measured out by the sun, and +reaching from the beginning of the world to its consummation.’ ‘Examine +now,’ said he, ‘this sea that is bounded with darkness at both ends, +and tell me what thou discoverest in it.’ ‘I see a bridge,’ said I, +‘standing in the midst of the tide.’ ‘The bridge thou seest,’ said he, +‘is human life; consider it attentively.’ Upon a more leisurely survey +of it, I saw that it consisted of threescore and ten entire arches, +with several broken arches, which added to those that were entire, made +up the number about a hundred. As I was counting the arches, the genius +told me that this bridge consisted first of about a thousand arches, +but that a great flood swept away the rest, and left the bridge in the +ruinous condition I now beheld it. ‘But tell me further,’ said he, +‘what thou discoverest on it.’ ‘I see multitudes of people passing over +it,’ said I, ‘and a black cloud hanging on each end of it.’ As I looked +more attentively I saw several of the passengers dropping through the +bridge into the great tide that flowed underneath it; and upon further +examination, perceived that there were innumerable trap doors that lay +concealed in the bridge, which the passengers no sooner trod upon, but +that they fell through them into the tide and immediately disappeared. +These hidden pitfalls were set very thick at the entrance to the +bridge, so that throngs of people no sooner broke through the cloud, +but many of them fell into them. They grew thinner toward the middle, +but multiplied and came closer together toward the end of the arches +that were entire. + +“There were indeed some persons, but their number was very small, that +continued a kind of hobbling march upon the broken arches, but fell +through one after another, being quite tired and spent with so long a +walk. + +“I passed some time in contemplation of this wonderful structure, and +the great variety of objects which it presented. My heart was filled +with deep melancholy to see several dropping unexpectedly in the midst +of mirth and jollity, and catching at everything that stood by them to +save themselves. Some were looking up toward heaven in a thoughtful +posture, and in the midst of a speculation stumbled and fell out +of sight. Multitudes were very busy in the pursuit of bubbles that +glittered in their eyes and danced before them; but often when they +thought themselves within reach of them, their footing failed, and down +they sank. In this confusion of objects, I observed some with scimitars +in their hands, and others with urinals, who ran to and fro upon the +bridge, thrusting several persons on trap doors which did not seem to +lie in their way, and which they might have escaped had they not thus +been forced upon them. + +“The genius seeing me indulge myself in this melancholy prospect, told +me that I had dwelt long enough on it. ‘Take thine eyes off of the +bridge,’ said he, ‘and tell me if thou seest anything thou dost not +comprehend.’ Upon looking up, ‘What mean,’ said I, ‘those great flights +of birds that are perpetually hovering about the bridge, and settling +on it from time to time? I see vultures, harpies, ravens, cormorants, +and among many other feathered creatures several little winged boys, +that perch in great numbers on the middle arches.’ ‘These,’ said the +genius, ‘are Envy, Avarice, Superstition, Despair, Love, with the like +cares and passions that infest human life.’ + +“Here I fetched a deep sigh. ‘Alas,’ said I, ‘man was made in vain! +how is he given away to misery and mortality! tortured in life, and +swallowed up in death!’ The genius, being moved with compassion towards +me, bid me quit so uncomfortable a prospect. ‘Look no more,’ said +he, ‘on man in the first stages of his existence, his setting out +for eternity; but cast thine eye onto that thick mist into which the +tide bears the several generations of mortals that fall into it.’ I +directed my sight as I was ordered, and (whether or no the good genius +strengthened it with supernatural force, or dissipated part of the mist +that was before too thick for the eye to penetrate) I saw the valley +opening at the farther end, and spreading forth into an immense ocean, +that had a huge rock of adamant running through the midst of it, and +dividing it into equal parts. The clouds still rested on one-half of +it, in so much that I could discover nothing in it: but the other +appeared to me a vast ocean planted with innumerable islands, that were +covered with fruits and interwoven with a thousand little shining seas +that ran among them. I could see people dressed in glorious habits +with garlands upon their heads, passing among the trees, lying down +by the sides of fountains, or resting on beds of flowers; and could +hear a confused harmony of singing birds, falling waters, human voices, +and musical instruments. Gladness grew within me upon the discovery +of so delightful a scene. I wished for the wings of an eagle, that I +might fly away to those happy seats: but the genius told me that there +was no passage to them, except through the gates of death that I saw +opening every moment upon the bridge. ‘The islands,’ said he, ‘that +lie so fresh and green before thee, and with which the whole face of +the ocean appears spotted as far as thou canst see, are more in number +than the sands on the seashore; there are myriads of islands behind +those which thou discoverest, reaching farther than thine eye, or even +thine imagination can extend itself. These are the mansions of good +men after death, who according to the degree and kinds of virtue in +which they excelled, are distributed among these several islands; which +abound with pleasures of different kinds and degrees, suitable to the +relish and perfection of those who are settled in them; every island is +a paradise accommodated to its respected inhabitants. Are not these, +O Mirza, habitations worth contending for? Does life appear miserable +that gives the opportunities of earning such a reward? Is death to be +feared that will convey thee to so happy an existence? Think not man +was made in vain, who has such an eternity reserved for him.’ I gazed +with inexpressible pleasure on these happy islands. ‘At length,’ said +I, ‘show me now, I beseech thee, the secrets that lie hid under those +dark clouds which cover the ocean on the other side of the rock of +adamant.’ The genius making me no answer I turned about to address +myself to him a second time, but I found that he had left me: I then +turned again to the vision which I had been so long contemplating, but +instead of the rolling tide, the arched bridge, and the happy islands, +I saw nothing but the long hollow valley of Bagdad, with oxen, sheep, +and camels, grazing upon the sides of it.” + +Remembering the peculiar habits of thought of that day, some indication +of which you will find in the chapter that follows, it will be +seen that Addison’s aim was a high one. Yet he has the modesty of +earnestness. There is no blatant claim to originality, nor verbal +pyrotechnics. You sense the quiet of the scholar with a real literary +background. “I have,” he wrote, “raised to myself so great an audience, +I shall spare no pains to make their instruction agreeable and their +diversion useful. For which reason I shall endeavor to enliven morality +with wit, and to temper wit with morality, that my readers may, if +possible, both ways find their account in the speculation of the day. +And to the end that their virtue and discretion may not be short, +transient, intermitting starts of thought, I have resolved to refresh +their memories from day to day till I have recovered them out of that +desperate state of vice and folly into which the age has fallen.” +(Spec. No. 10.) + + + + +II. + +THE DAYS HE LIVED IN. + + +The London of Addison and Steele can be very easily reconstructed, from +a reading of the _Spectator_. It did not differ from the London of +Hogarth, except in very minor details, nor from the London of Johnson +of which, in 1768, Benjamin Franklin wrote in his Memoirs, (111, 315). + + Even this capital is now a daily scene of lawless riot. Mobs + patrolling the streets at noonday, some knocking down all who will + not roar for Wilkes and liberty; courts of justice afraid to give + judgment against him; coal heavers and porters pulling down the + houses of coal merchants that refuse to give them more wages; sawyers + destroying saw mills; sailors unrigging all the outward bound ships + and suffering none to sail till merchants agreed to raise their pay; + watermen destroying private boats and threatening bridges, soldiers + firing among the mobs and killing men, women and children.... While + I am writing a great mob of coal porters fill the street, carrying a + wretch of their business upon poles to be ducked for working at the + old wages. + +That paragraph, of course, paints a special picture and goes to show +that in some respects there were incidents afoot very similar to those +we know in our day. Always there have been labor troubles and those who +would grind the faces of the poor, and interfering efficiency experts +in the camps of both parties. + +While the streets were narrow with a single kennel in the middle, +the narrow ways being impeded by coaches, sedan-chairs, carts and +barrows, it is well to bear in mind that it was but a short walk in +any direction to the suburban or genuine open country. A breath of +fresh air was thus within easy reach of workers and tradesmen. In one +direction indeed, it was a little over a mile from the most crowded +part of the city to the famous Bagnigge Wells, established on an old +residence of Nell Gwynn, where was a pump room, a formal garden, pond +and fountains and three rustic bridges crossed the Fleet River. Here +was a place open to all + + Where the frail nymphs in amorous dalliance rove, + Where prentice youths enjoy the Sunday feast, + And city madams boast their Sunday best, + Where unfledged Templars first as fops parade, + And new made ensigns sport their first cockade. + + --Gay. + +The wealthy and fortunate, with a view to getting polish, were sent to +Paris. What they saw there was not vastly different from conditions +in their native country. There would be a furtive visit to the Rue du +Haut Pave looking toward the Pantheon--a crooked, evil street, an old +and murderous street, a vile and dishonored street where murderers and +brigands puffed cigarettes in the Cafe Vachette. Or the old Pont Neuf, +heavy and forbidding, which one crossed to the gambling house to see, +perhaps on one occasion, the famous Vicomte Nucingens on suicide bent, +after having staked his all on a last card. Or the Rue de Fossoyeurs at +night, with lights swaying and flickering, as citizens abroad carried +their lanterns to awe robbers. The swift _D’Artagnan_ lived there, +you may remember, and highwaymen carried off young girls over their +shoulders, and assassins cared little whose throats they cut. + +But what of the _haut ton_ in those days? For Addison, and those in his +circle, climbed high, socially. I quote from the Journal of Madam de +Maintenon, January 22, 1713. + + As a matter of politeness, the Duc de Bourgogne and his two brothers + had been taught to eat with a fork. But when they were admitted to + sup with the king, he would not hear of it, and forbade them to do + it. He never forbade me to do anything of the kind, for all my life I + have never used anything to eat my food save my knife and my fingers. + +A Father Tixier tells of being present as spectator at a royal meal +and, “every time Marie-Terese spoke to the English King, he lifted +his hat to her, and by the end of the meal his hat was most terribly +greasy.” + +I quote Jacques Boulanger in conclusion. “... access to the royal +residences was not difficult to obtain. At Versailles there were +beggars and hucksters selling trifles on the landings and stairways. +Thieves plied their trade, and one rogue went so far, one day, as to +steal the diamonds on the hat the King had just laid on the table.” + +The gambling mania told of by Pepys in an earlier day had by no +means decreased. It culminated in the sublime madness of the South +Sea Bubble and the equally glorious Mississippi Scheme. On a famous +day in February, 1771, Charles James Fox set the pace. In Parliament +he delivered a speech on a religious question after having prepared +himself, as Gibbon put it, “by passing twenty-two hours in the pious +exercise of hazard.” During the game, he lost steadily at the rate +of five hundred pounds sterling per hour. On the next day he won six +thousand pounds, but, later in the week, he dropped twenty-one thousand +pounds in two sittings. The young Lord Stavordale, then eighteen, won +eleven thousand pounds in a single day and commented upon what would +have been the result had he “played deep.” One day, during the progress +of an extended game at Brooks’ gambling club, a new invention was born +in this wise. The Earl of Sandwich, one of the players, had sat for +several hours without interruption. Unwilling to leave the game, but +being hungry, he ordered the servant to bring him some meat without a +plate, suggesting that a slice of beef be placed between two slices of +bread. By such easy means it is given to some to achieve fame, to pass +a name to posterity! + +The most remarkable social product of the age was the coffee-house. +Coffee was known in England a century before tobacco. A passage in +Evelyn’s diary of May 10, 1637, reads: “I saw one, Nathaniel Coniopos, +a Greek, the first I ever saw drink coffee, (which custom came not into +England until thirty years after).” + +The earliest two coffee houses in England were established in 1652 +and 1656, the second, being one James Farr’s. Admission to the coffee +house cost a penny, and a cup of tea or coffee, two pence. Favored and +regular customers had their own tables and as soon as one of these +appeared, the waiting man carried to him the latest gazette or news +sheet. Hence, the statement that Addison made that his _Spectator_ +reached twenty more people than bought it, would not appear to be +extravagant. + +In a few years coffee houses spread over the whole of London and it was +currently thought that they were established on granite foundation, +but thirty years ago they had declined so that only two or three +survived fairly unchanged. I recall going to one one night and meeting +there that strange saturnine figure of the 1880’s, Lothrop Withington, +reputed to have a very extensive knowledge of Elizabethan England. It +was in Tottenham Court Road and Gissing used to frequent the place. +We sat in a long room with neatly sanded floor. The tables were bare +topped, each with a straight bench on either side, with high partitions +between each table and its neighbor. At the end of the room was the +open fire-place with a couple of shining steaming kettles at which +presided a neat woman in a print frock. There was no bill of fare and +no variety in the course served. You had a mutton chop with coffee and +bread, or nothing. Entering, a lad brought you a new, long clay pipe +called a church-warden. The surroundings were conducive to conversation +and the prices charged were extremely modest. + +At such coffee houses the affairs of the nation and universe were +settled and unsettled; clubs and social groups were formed, and, on +occasions, political plots hatched. An amusing account of the various +London resorts of this nature in the days of Addison was given in _A +Brief and Merry History of Great Britain_, and, for the information +of intellectual strangers, the subjects usually discussed at each was +listed and classified thus: + + At those Coffee Houses, near the Court, called White’s, St. + James’, William’s, the conversation turns chiefly upon Equipages, + Horse Matches, Mode of Mortgages: The Cocoa Tree upon Bribery and + Corruption, Evil Ministers, Errors and Mistakes in Government: the + Scotch Coffee-Houses towards Charing Cross, on Places and Pensions; + the Tilt Yard and Young Man’s on Affronts, Honor, Satisfaction, + Duels and Recounters.... In these Coffee-Houses about the Temple + the subjects are generally on Causes, Costs, Demurrers, Rejoiners + and Exceptions; David’s the Welch Coffee-House on Fleet Street, + on Births, Pedigrees, and Descents; Child’s and the Chapter, upon + Globes, Tithes, Rectories, and Lectureships; ... Hamlin’s, Infant + Baptism, Lay Ordination, Free Will, Election, Reprobation; ... and + all those about the Exchange, where the merchants meet to transact + their affairs, are in a perpetual hurry about Stock Jobbing, Lying, + Cheating, Tricking Widows and Orphans, and committing Spoil and + Rapine on the Publick. + +Says the _Spectator_, having in mind the atmosphere intellectual of +this coffee house and that: + + I have passed my latter years in this city, where I am frequently + seen in most public places, though there are not above half a dozen + of my select friends that know me; of whom my next paper shall give a + more particular account. There is no place of general resort wherein + I do not make my appearance; sometimes I am seen thrusting my head + into a round of politicians at Will’s, and listening with great + attention to the narratives that are made in those little circular + audiences; sometimes I smoke a pipe at Child’s, and, while I seem + attentive to nothing but the Postman, overhear the conversation of + every table in the room. I appear on Sunday nights at St. James’ + Coffee House and sometimes join the little committee in the inner + room, as one who comes there to hear and improve. My face is likewise + very well known at the Grecian, the Cocoa Tree, and in the theaters + both of Drury Lane and the Haymarket. (_Spectator_ No. 1.) + +That the coffee house was not at all times a cave of harmony is +evidenced in many places. We recall that _Sir Roger de Coverley_ had +“kicked Bully Dawson in a coffee house for calling him a youngster.” +Then, too, a letter written by Colley Cibber to Mr. Pope would seem to +show that the irascible and waspish temper of the Twickenham poet had +got him into trouble. + + “When you used to pass your hours at Button’s,” writes Cibber in + 1742, p. 65, “you were even then remarkable for your satirical itch + of provocation; scarce was there a gentleman of any pretention to + wit, whom your unguarded temper had fallen upon in some biting + epigram, among which you once caught a pastoral tartar, whose + resentment, that your punishment might be proportionate to the smart + of your poetry, had stuck up a birchen rod in the room to be ready + whenever you might come within reach of it; and at this rate, you + writ and rallied and writ on, till you rhymed yourself quite out of + the coffee-house.” + +Pope, obviously was made for a coffee house career. Dryden, Addison, +Steele and Savage on the other hand were in their glories at such +gatherings. Once, at St. James’ Coffee House, Addison and his friends +had noticed for several days a singular parson, who put his hat on the +table, walked up and down the sanded floor for half an hour without +speaking to any one, paid his money and left. They dubbed him the “mad +parson.” One day Addison saw this “mad parson” step up to a new arrival +who appeared to have come from the country, and heard him say, without +any introduction: + +“Pray sir, do you know any good weather in the world?” + +“Yes, sir,” replied the other, “thank God I remember a great deal of +good weather in my time.” + +“That is more than I can say,” grumbled the “mad” one. “I never +remember any weather that was not too hot or too cold, too dry or too +wet; but however God Almighty contrives it, at the end of the year ’tis +all very well.” + +That was the first time Addison and Swift met. + +We gather that occasional dead beats walked the world even as with us. +In the _Spectator_ of March 28, 1711, appears the following: + +ADVERTISEMENT. + + To prevent all mistakes that may happen among gentlemen of the other + end of the town, who come but once a week to St. James’ Coffee House, + either by miscalling the servants, or requiring things from them + as are not properly within their provinces; this is to give notice + that Kidney, keeper of the book debts of the outlying customers, and + observer of those who go off without paying, having resigned that + employment, is succeeded by John Sowton; to whose place of enterer + of messages and first coffee grinder, William Bird is promoted; and + Samuel Burdock comes as shoe cleaner in the room of said Bird. + +Again, to all men who believe that human nature changes and that only +in these latter and effete days are we burdened with bores, dogmatists, +pedants and prigs, read what follows. It is Richard Steele writing in +No. 145, and under date of August 16, 1711: + + You cannot employ yourself more usefully than in adjusting the laws + of disputation in coffee-houses and accidental companies, as well + as in more formal debates. Among many other things which your own + experience must suggest to you, it will be very obliging if you + will take notice of wagerers. I will not here repeat what Hudibras + says of such disputants, which is so true, that it is almost + proverbial but shall only acquaint you with a set of fellows on the + inns-of-court whose fathers have provided them so plentifully, that + they need not be anxious to get law into their heads for the service + of their country at the bar; but are of those who are sent (as the + phrase of parents is) to the temple to know how to keep their own. + One of these gentlemen is very loud and captious at a coffee house + which I frequent, and being in his nature troubled with a humor of + contradiction, though withal excessively ignorant, he has found a + way to indulge this temper, go on in idleness and ignorance, and + yet still give himself the air of a very learned and knowing man + by the strength of his pocket. The misfortune of the thing is, I + have, as it happens sometimes, a greater stock of learning than + of money. The gentleman I am speaking of takes advantage of the + narrowness of my circumstances in such a manner that he has read all + that I can pretend to, and runs me down with a positive air, and + with such powerful arguments that from a very learned person I am + thought a mere pretender. Not long ago, I was relating that I had + read a passage in Tacitus; up starts my gentleman in company, and + pulling out his purse offered to lay me ten guineas, to be staked + immediately to that gentleman’s hands, (pointing to one smoking at + another table), that I was utterly mistaken. I was dumb for want + of ten guineas.... There are several of this sort of fellows in + town, who wager themselves into statesmen, historians, geographers, + mathematicians and every other art.... + +Like any other man of cultivated taste and cosmopolitan training, +Addison had the contempt of enlightened persons for the fanaticisms +of his time. For then, as now, there was political mistrust and +suspicion and fanatics were abroad. The changes were rung upon all the +familiar phrases of political oratory, gold and pinchbeck alike, and +the political rhetorician recklessly indulged in sentiments to which +the whole tenor of his career gave the lie. The coffee houses swarmed +with those who smelt treason where none existed, who scented plots +where were none, who saw in innocent remarks dangerous tendencies, and +beheld, in the sweet fiction of the _Spectator’s_ club a diabolical +contrivance for intrigue. Very magnificently Addison handles the +situation in _Spectator_ No. 46, of April 23, 1711, and we get +incidentally a pretty side light on coffee house society. + + +ON SUSPICION. + +NO. 46, SPECTATOR--ADDISON. + +When I want material for this paper, it is my custom to go abroad in +quest of game; and when I meet any proper subject, I take the first +opportunity of setting down a hint of it upon paper. At the same time, +I look into the letters of my correspondents, and if I find anything +suggested in them that may afford matter of speculation, I likewise +enter a minute of it in my collection of materials. By this means I +frequently carry about with me a whole sheetful of hints, that would +look like a rhapsody of nonsense to anyone but myself. There is nothing +in them but obscurity and confusion, raving and inconsistency. In +short, they are my speculations in the first principles, that (like the +world in its chaos) are void of all light, distinction and order. + +About a week since, there happened to me a very odd accident, by reason +of one of these my papers of minutes which I had accidentally dropped +at Lloyd’s coffee house, where the auctions are usually kept. Before +I missed it, there was a cluster of people who had found it, and were +diverting themselves with it at one end of the coffee house. It had +raised so much laughter among them before I had observed what they were +about, that I had not the courage to own it. The boy of the coffee +house, when they had done with it, carried it about in his hand, asking +everybody if they had dropped a written paper; but nobody challenging +it, he was ordered by those merry gentlemen who had before perused it, +to get up into the auction pulpit, and read it to the whole room, that +if anyone would own it, they might. The boy accordingly mounted the +pulpit, and with a very audible voice read as follows: + +MINUTES. + + Sir Roger de Coverly’s country seat--yes, for I hate + long speeches--Query, if a good Christian may be a + conjurer--Childermas day, salt cellar, house-dog, screech-owl, + cricket--Mr. Thomas Inkle of London, in the good ship called + the Achilles--Yarico--=Aehrescitque medendo=--Ghosts--The + Lady’s Library--Lion by trade a tailor--Dromedary called + Bucephalus--Equipage the Lady’s =summum bonum=--Charles Lillie to + be taken notice of--Short face a relief to envy--Redundancies in + three professions--King Latinus a recruit--Jew devouring a ham + of bacon--Westminster Abbey--Grand Cairo--Procrastination--April + fools--Blue boars, red lions, hogs in armor--Enter a king and + two fiddlers =soius=--Admission into the Ugly Club--Beauty how + improvable--Families of true and false humor--The parrot’s + school-mistress--Face half Pict half British--No man can be a hero of + a tragedy under six foot--Club of Sighers--Letters from flower-pots, + elbow chairs, tapestry-figures, lion, thunder--The bell rings to + the puppet-show--Old woman with a beard married to a smock-faced + boy--My next coat to be turned up with blue--Fable of tongs and + gridiron--Flower dyers--The soldier’s prayer--Thank ye for nothing, + says the gallipot--Pactolus in the stockings with golden clocks to + them--Bamboos, cudgels, drum-sticks--Slip of my landlady’s eldest + daughter--The black mare with a star in her forehead--The barber’s + pole--Will Honeycomb’s coat-pocket--Caesar’s behavior and my own + in parallel circumstances--Poems in patchwork--=Nulli gravi est + percussus Achilles=--The female conventicler--The ogle-master. + +The reading of this paper made the whole coffee house very merry; +some of them concluded it was written by a mad man, and others by +somebody that had been taking notes out of the _Spectator_. One, who +had the appearance of a very substantial citizen, told us, with several +political winks and nods, that he wished there was no more in the +paper than what was expressed in it: that for his part, he looked upon +the dromedary, the gridiron, and the barber’s pole, to signify more +than was usually meant by those words: and that he thought that the +coffee man could not do better than to carry the paper to one of the +secretaries of state. He farther added, that he did not like the name +of the outlandish man with the golden clock in his stockings. A young +Oxford scholar who chanced to be with his uncle at the coffee house, +discovered to us who this Pactolus was: and by that means turned the +whole scheme of this worthy citizen into ridicule. While they were +making their several conjectures upon this innocent paper, I reached +out my arm to the boy as he was coming out of the pulpit, to give it to +me; which he did accordingly. This drew the eyes of the whole company +upon me; but after having cast a cursory glance over it, and shook my +head twice or thrice at the reading of it, I twisted it into a kind +of match, and lighted my pipe with it. My profound silence, together +with the steadiness of my countenance, and the gravity of my behavior +during this whole transaction, raised a very loud laugh on all sides of +me; but as I had escaped all suspicion of being the author, I was very +well satisfied, and applying myself to my pipe and the Postman, took no +further notice of anything that passed about me. + + * * * * * + +In No. 9, March 19, 1710, we find an account of a Social Club formed by +a few in a certain ale house. It is of a lower social strata. + + _Rules to be observed in the Two-Penny Club erected in this place + for the preservation of friendship and good neighborhoods._ + + 1. Every member at his first coming shall lay down his two-pence. + + 2. Every member shall fill his pipe out of his own box. + + 3. If any member absent himself, he shall forfeit a penny for the use + of the club, unless in case of sickness or imprisonment. + + 4. If any member curses or swears, his neighbor may give him a kick + upon the shins. + + 5. If any member tells stories in the club that are not true, he + shall forfeit for every third lie a half penny. + + 6. If any member strikes another wrongfully, he shall pay his club + for him. + + 7. If any member brings his wife into the club, he shall pay for + whatever she drinks or smokes. + + 8. If any member’s wife comes to fetch him home from the club, she + shall speak to him without the door. + + 9. If any member calls another a cuckold, he shall be turned out of + the club. + + 10. None shall be permitted into the club that is of the same trade + with any member of it. + + 11. None of the club shall have his clothes or shoes made or mended + but by a brother member. + + 12. No non-juror shall be capable of being a member. + + * * * * * + +In those days there were lively happenings. Dick Turpin on his bonny +Black Bess frightened travelers on Hounslow Heath, made his famous +ride from London to York, in twenty-four hours, and, one gray day in +November of 1714, died at Tyburn, dressed in his gayest attire with a +rose at his button hole. Nor would the crowd allow his body to be given +to the surgeons, for, seeing it taken from the gallows, they rescued +it, carried it through the town in triumph, then buried it in a deep +grave that night. + +Claude Duval, too, was a popular hero, the pink of politeness, the +gentleman thief it was an honor to be robbed by. He would stop a coach +to dance a Sarabandi with the lady, and then rob her escort. He + + Taught the wild Arabs of the road + To rob in a more gentle mode; + Take prizes more obligingly than those + Who never had been bred =filous=; + And how to hang in a more graceful fashion + Than e’er was known before to the dull English nation. + + * * * * * + +There was a period of insane speculation commencing with the South Sea +Company originated by Harley, Earl of Oxford, with a view to restore +public credit. Visions of ingots danced before everyone’s eyes, and +stock in any scheme rose rapidly. One bright genius, forerunner of +a Ponzi, announced the formation of a company “for carrying on an +undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is.” The +prospectus announced that it required a capital of a half million +pounds, of 5,000 shares of a hundred pounds each with a deposit of two +pounds on application. Each subscriber paying his initial deposit would +be entitled to a hundred pounds per annum per share. The following +morning after the prospectus had gone forth, he opened his office in +Cornhill, and when he closed that day at three, he was the winner of +two thousand pounds clear, so did not re-open his office, nor stay in +the country. + +In the papers of the period are to be found advertisements and notices, +all kinds of mad money-making propositions, as filed at the Council +Chamber Whitehall. To name a few: + + Petition for a wheel for perpetual motion. + + For the philosopher’s stone. (Steele was interested in this question.) + + Petition for incorporation to carry on a whale fishery. + + On paving London Streets. Capital two million pounds. + + For trading in human hair. + + For the transmutation of quicksilver into malleable fine metal. + + For changing lead into gold. + + * * * * * + +Duelling was very prevalent. Addison and Steele in the _Spectator_ +were untiring in the reprobation of it. Steele constantly exposed +the absurdity of the practice and endeavored to bring his readers to +his way of thinking. His comedy, _The Conscious Lover_, contains an +admirable exposure of the abuse of the word honor, which led men to so +fanatic an absurdity. Swift, in his own savage way, remarked that he +could “see no harm in rogues and fools shooting one another.” Addison +summed up nearly all that could be said on the subject in the following +powerful paragraph: + +“A Christian and a gentleman are made inconsistent appellations of +the same person. You are not to expect eternal life if you are not to +forgive injuries, and your mortal life is rendered uncomfortable if you +are not ready to commit a murder in resentment of an affront; for good +sense, as well as religion, is so utterly banished in the world that +men glory in their very passions, and pursue trifles with the utmost +vengeance, so little do they know that to forgive is the most arduous +pitch human nature can arrive at. A coward has often fought--a coward +has often conquered, but a coward never forgave.” + +Again in No. 99, June 23, 1711, Addison writes: + +“The placing the point of honor in this false kind of courage, has +given occasion to the very refuse of mankind, who have neither virtue +nor common sense, to set up for men of honor. An English peer who has +not long been dead, (this was William Cavendish, the first duke of +Devonshire, who died August 18, 1707) used to tell a pleasant story of +a French gentleman that visited him early one morning at Paris, and +after great professions of respect, let him know that he had it in his +power to oblige him; which in short, amounted to this--that he believed +that he could tell his lordship the person’s name who jostled him as he +came out from the opera: but before he would proceed, he begged his +lordship that he would not deny him the honor of making him his second. +The English Lord to avoid being drawn into a very foolish affair, told +him that he was under engagements for his two next duels to a couple +of particular friends; upon which the gentleman immediately withdrew, +hoping his lordship would not take it ill if he meddled no further in +an affair from whence he was to receive no advantage. + +“The beating down of this false notion of honor in so vain and lively +a people as those of France, is deservedly looked upon as one of the +most glorious parts of their present king’s reign. It is a pity but +the punishment of these mischievous notions should have in it some +particular circumstance of shame or infamy: that those who are slaves +to them may see, that instead of advancing their reputations, they lead +them to ignominy and dishonor. + +“Death is not sufficient to deter men who make it their glory to +despise it; but if every one that fought a duel were to stand in the +pillory, it would quickly lessen the number of these imaginary men of +honor, and put an end to so absurd a practice. + +“When honor is to support virtue’s principles, and runs parallel to +the laws of God and our country, it cannot be too much cherished and +encouraged: but when the dictates of honor are contrary to those of +religion and equity, they are the greatest depravations of human +nature, by giving wrong ambitions and ideas of what is good and +laudable; and should therefore be exploded by all governments, and +driven out of the bane and plague of human society.” + + * * * * * + +The article was penned in consequence of an affair on the 8th of May, +1711, when Sir Cholmely Deering, M.P., for the county of Kent, was +slain in a duel by Mr. Richard Thornhill, also member of the House +of Commons. Three days after, by the efforts of Addison, Sir Peter +King brought the subject under the notice of the Legislature, and +after dwelling at considerable length on the alarming increase of the +practice, obtained leave to bring in a bill for the prevention and +punishment of duelling. + +As an Irishman, fighting against duelling, Steele was going contrary +to all the traditions of his countrymen. In Ireland, not only military +men, but men of every profession had to work a way to eminence with +pistol or sword. Each political party had its regular corps of fire +eaters who qualified themselves for the position by spending their +whole time at target practice. They boasted that they could hit upon an +opponent in any part of his body they pleased, and made up their minds +before the encounter began whether they should kill him, disable him, +or disfigure him for life. + +We have it on the authority of Sir Jonah Barrington in his “Personal +Sketches of His Own Time” that “no young fellow could finish his +education till he had exchanged shots with some of his acquaintances. +The first questions always asked as to a young man’s respectability +and qualifications, particularly when he proposed for a lady-wife +were--‘What family is he of?’ ‘Did he ever blaze?’” + +Everywhere, as you see, there are coarse things, great and gross +sensuality, wild animality, unrestrained joy and not a little bestial +pleasure. Virtue had the semblance of puritanism and the memory of +the days under the rule of the kill-joys was a nightmare. So, men who +wrote the news sheets of the day saw nothing for it but to foster +that brutal bloody impulse that seemed to sway the masses of their +readers. If it was necessary to feed them, then the fare given was raw +flesh, violence, blood. This must be borne in mind in order to fully +appreciate the wonderful change brought about in five short years by +two men of fine tastes and delicate sensibilities. Steele in No. cxxxiv +of the _Tatler_, condemning the cruelty of the age, says he has “often +wondered that we do not lay outside a custom which makes us appear +barbarous to nations much more rude and unpolished than ourselves. Some +French writers have represented this diversion of the common people +much to our disadvantage, and imputed it to natural fierceness and +cruelty of temper, as they do some other entertainments peculiar to +our nation. I mean these elegant diversions and bull baiting and prize +fighting, with the like ingenious recreation of the Bear-garden. I wish +I knew how to answer this reproach that is cast upon us, and excuse the +death of many innocent cocks, bulls, dogs, and bears, as have been set +together by the ears, or died untimely deaths, only to make us sport.” + +Bearing that in mind, I call your attention to an advertisement of the +time which I copy from the Harlean MSS. 5931,46. Here it is, word for +word: + + At the Bear Garden in Hockley in the Hole, 1710. This is to give + notice to all Gentlemen, Gamesters, and Others, that on this present + Monday is a match to be fought by two dogs, one from Newgate Market + against one from Honey Lane Market, at a Bull, for a Guinea to be + spent. Five Let goes out off Hand, which goes fairest and farthest + in, wins all; likewise a Green Bull to be baited, which was never + baited before, and a Bull to be turned loose with fireworks all over + him; also a Mad Ass to be baited; with variety of Bull Baiting, and + Bear Baiting, and a dog to be drawn up with Fireworks. + +One named Mission, a writer of the day, describes a bull fight as +follows: + + They tie a rope to the foot of the ox or bull, and fasten the other + end of the cord to an iron ring fix’d to a stake driven into the + ground, so that this cord being 15 feet long, the bull is confined + to a sphere of about 30 foot diameter. Several butchers or other + gentlemen, that are desirous to exercise their dogs, stand round + about, each holding his own by the ears; and, when the sport begins, + they let loose one of the dogs; the dog runs at the bull. The bull + immovable, looks down upon the dog with an eye of scorn, and only + turns a horn to him to hinder him from coming under; the dog is not + daunted at this, he turns round him, and tries to get beneath his + belly, in order to seize him by the muzzle, or the dew lap or the + pendant glands; the bull then puts himself in a Posture of Defense; + he beats the ground with his feet, which he joins together as close + as possible, and his chief aim is not to gore the dog with the + point of his horn, but to slide one of them into the dog’s belly + (who creeps close to the ground to hinder it) and to throw him so + high in the air that he may break his neck in the fall. This often + happens; when the dog thinks he is sure of fixing his teeth, a turn + of the horn which seems to be done with all the negligence in the + world, gives him a sprawl thirty foot high, and puts him in danger + of a damnable squelch when he comes down. This danger would be + unavoidable, if the dog’s friends were not ready beneath him, some + with their backs to give him a soft reception, and others with long + poles which may offer him slant ways, to the intent that, sliding + down them, he may break the force of his fall. Notwithstanding all + this care a toss generally makes him sing to a very scurvy tune and + draw his phiz into a pitiful grimace; but, unless he is totally + stunned with the fall, he is sure to crawl again towards the bull, + with his old antipathy, come on’t what will. Some times a second + frisk into the air disables him forever from playing his old tricks; + but, some times, too, he fastens on his enemy, and when he has seized + him with his eye teeth, he sticks to him like a leech, and would + sooner die than leave his hold. The bull bellows and bounds, and + kicks about to shake off the dog; by his leaping, the dog seems to + be no matter of weight to him though in all appearances he puts him + to great pain. In the end, either the dog tears out the piece he + has laid hold of, and falls, or else remains fixed to him, with an + obstinacy that would never end, if they did not put him off. To call + him away would be in vain; to give him a hundred blows would be as + much so; you might cut him to pieces joint by joint before he would + let him loose. What is to be done then? While some hold the bull, + others thrust staves into the dog’s mouth and open it by main force. + That is the only way to part them. + + * * * * * + +I copy the advertisement that follows from the Harl. MSS. 5931,50: + + At the Bear Garden in the Hockley-in-the-Hole. + + A Trial of Skill to be performed between two Profound Masters of the + Noble Science of Defense on Wednesday next, being the 13th inst. + July, 1709 at two of the clock precisely. + + I, George Gray, born in the City of Norwich, who has fought in most + parts of the West Indies, viz., Jamaica, Baradoes, and several other + parts of the world, in all twenty-five times upon a stage and never + yet was worsted, and now come to London, do invite James Harris, to + meet and exercise at these following weapons, viz.: + + Back Sword + Sword and Dagger + Sword and Buckler + Single Falchion and + Case of Falchions. + + I, James Harris, Master of the Noble Science of Defense, who formerly + was in the Horse Guards, and hath fought a 110 prizes, and never left + a stage to any man, will not fail God willing, to meet this brave and + bold inviter, at the time and place appointed desiring sharp swords, + and from him no favor. + + =Note.=--No persons to be upon the stage but the seconds. =Vivat + Regina.= + +There is report of a similar entertainment by the hand of Steele in No. +436 of the _Spectator_, July 21, 1712. Steele does not plunge into the +blood and the filth; he passes through on tiptoe and so daintily that +the mire does not stick. + +“Being a person of insatiable curiosity, I could not forbear going +on Wednesday last to a place of no small renown for the gallantry +of the lower order of Britons, namely, the Bear-garden, at +Hockley-in-the-Hole; where, (as a whitish-brown paper, put into my +hands in the street, informed me) there was to be a trial of skill +exhibited between two masters of the noble science of defense, at two +of the clock precisely. I was not a little charmed at the solemnity of +the challenge, which ran thus: + + I, James Miller, sergeant (lately come from the frontiers of + Portugal), master of the noble science of defense, hearing in most + places where I have been of the fame of Timothy Buck, of London, + master of the said science, do invite him to meet me and exercise at + the several weapons following, viz.: + + Back Sword + Sword and Dagger + Sword and Buckler + Single Falchion + Case of Falchions + Quarter Staff. + +“If the generous ardor of James Miller to dispute the reputation of +Timothy Buck had something resembling the old heroes of romance, +Timothy Buck returned answer in the same paper with the light spirit, +adding a little indignation at being challenged, and seeming to +condescend to fight James Miller, not in regard of Miller himself, but +in that, as the fame went out, he had fought Parkes of Coventry. The +acceptance of the combat ran in these words: + + I, Timothy Buck, of Clare-market, master of the noble science of + defense, hearing he did fight Mr. Parkes of Coventry, will not + fail, God willing, to meet this fair inviter at the time and place + appointed, desiring a clear stage and no favor. =Vivat Regina.= + +“I shall not here look back on the spectacles of the Greeks and Romans +of this kind, but must believe that this custom took its rise from the +ages of knight-errantry; from those who loved one woman so well that +they hated all men and women else; from those who would fight you, +whether you were or were not of their mind; from those who demanded +the combat of their contemporaries both for admiring their mistress +or discommending her. I cannot therefore but lament that the terrible +part of the ancient fight is preserved, when the amorous side of it is +forgotten. We have retained the barbarity but not the gallantry of the +old combatants. I could wish, me thinks, these gentlemen had consulted +me in the promulgation of the conflict. I was obliged by a fair young +maid, whom I understood to be called Elizabeth Preston, daughter of the +keeper of the garden, with a glass of water; who I imagined might have +been, for form’s sake, the general representative for the lady fought +for, and from her beauty the proper Amaryllis on these occasions. It +would have run better in the challenge, ‘I, James Miller, sergeant, +who have traveled parts abroad, and came last from the frontiers of +Portugal, for the love of Elizabeth Preston, do assert that the said +Elizabeth is the fairest of women.’ Then the answer, ‘I, Timothy Buck, +who have stayed in Great Britain during all the war in foreign parts +for the sake of Susannah Page, do deny that Elizabeth Preston is so +fair as the said Susannah Page. Let Susannah Page look on, and I desire +no favor of James Miller.’ + +“This would give the battle quite another turn; and a proper station +for the ladies whose complexion was disputed by the sword, would +animate the disputants with a more gallant incentive than the +expectation of money from the spectators; though I would not have that +neglected, but thrown to that fair one whose lover was approved by the +donor. + +“Yet considering the thing wants such amendments, it was carried with +great order. James Miller came on first, preceded by two disabled +drummers, to show, I suppose, that the prospect of maimed bodies did +not in the least deter him. There ascended with the daring Miller +a gentleman, whose name I could not learn, with a dogged air, as +unsatisfied that he was not principal. This son of anger lowered at the +whole assembly, and, weighing himself as he marched around from side +to side, with a stiff knee and shoulder, he gave intimations of the +purpose he smothered till he saw the issue of this encounter. Miller +had a blue ribbon tied around the sword arm; which ornament I conceive +to be the remain of that custom of wearing a mistress’s favor on such +occasions of old. + +“Miller is a man of six foot eight inches in height, of a kind but +bold aspect, well fashioned, and ready of his limbs, and such a +readiness as spoke his ease in them was obtained from a habit of motion +in military exercise. + +“The expectation of the spectators was now almost at its height; and +the crowd pressing in, several active persons thought they were placed +rather according to their fortune than their merit, and took it in +their heads to prefer themselves from the open area or pit to the +galleries. This dispute between desert and property brought many to +the ground, and raised others in proportion to seats by turns, for the +space of ten minutes till Timothy Buck came on, and the whole assembly +giving up their disputes, turned their eyes upon the champions. Then +it was that every man’s affections turned from one or the other +irresistibly. A judicious gentleman near me said, ‘I could methinks +be Miller’s second, but I had rather have Buck for mine.’ Miller had +an audacious look that took the eye; Buck had a perfect composure +that engaged the judgment. Buck came on in a plain coat, and kept all +his air till the instant of engaging, at which time he undressed to +his shirt, his arm adorned with a bandage of red ribbon. No one can +describe the sudden concern in the whole assembly; the most tumultuous +crowd in nature was as still and as much engaged as if all their lives +depended upon the first blow. The combatants met in the middle of the +stage, and shaking hands, as removing all malice, with much grace to +the extremities of it; from whence they immediately faced about, and +approached each other, Miller with a heart full of resolution, Buck +with a watchful, untroubled countenance: Buck regarding principally his +own defense, Miller chiefly thoughtful of annoying his opponent. It +is not easy to describe the many escapes and imperceptible defenses +between two men of quick eyes and ready limbs. But Miller’s heat +laid him open to the rebuke of the calm Buck, by a large cut on the +forehead. Much effusion of blood covered his eyes in a moment, and the +huzzas of the crowd undoubtedly quickened the anguish. The assembly was +divided into parties upon their different ways of fighting; while a +poor nymph in one of the galleries apparently suffered for Miller, and +burst into a flood of tears. As soon as his wound was wrapped up, he +came on again with a little rage, which disabled him further. But what +brave man can be wounded into more caution and patience? The next was a +warm, eager onset, which ended in a decisive stroke on the left leg of +Miller. The Lady in the gallery during this second strife, covered her +face, and for my part, I could not keep my thoughts from being mostly +employed on the consideration of her most unhappy circumstance that +moment, hearing the clash of swords, and apprehending life or victory +concerned her lover in every blow, but not daring to satisfy herself +on whom they fell. The wound was exposed to the view of all who could +delight in it, and sewed up on the stage. The surly second of Miller +declared at this time that he would that day fortnight fight Mr. Buck +at the same weapons, declaring himself the master of the renowned +Gorman; but Buck denied him the honor of that courageous disciple, +and, asserting that he himself had taught that champion, accepted the +challenge. + +“There is something in human nature very unaccountable on such +occasions, when we see the people take a painful gratification in +beholding these encounters. Is it cruelty that administers this sort of +delight? Or is it a pleasure that is taken in the exercise of pity? It +was, methought, pretty remarkable that the business of the day being a +trial of skill, the popularity did not run so high as one would have +expected on the side of Buck. Is it that the people’s passions have +their rise in self love, and thought themselves (in spite of all the +courage they had) liable to the fate of Miller, but could not so easily +think themselves qualified like Buck? + +“Tully speaks of this custom with less horror than one would expect, +though he confesses it was much abused in his time, and seems directly +to approve of it under its first regulations, when criminals only +fought before the people. _Crudele gladiatorum spectaculum et inhumanum +nonnullis videri solet; et haud scio annon ita sit ut nunc fit; cum +vero sontes ferro depugnabant, auribus fortasse multa, oculis quidem +nulla, poterat esse fortior contra dolorem et mortem disciplina._ The +shows of gladiators may be thought barbarous and inhuman, and I know +not but it is so as it is now practiced; but in those times when only +criminals were combatants, the ear might perhaps receive many better +instructions, but it is impossible that anything which affects our eyes +should fortify us so well against pain and death.” + + * * * * * + +But brave, bellicose, blood-thirsty as was the Briton in the days of +Addison, he was very fearful of unseen things. He feared a witch as we +fear a microbe. He was full of morbid possibilities, his nerves were +strangely susceptible. As a man in our day will fight the daily fight +fearlessly, will declare his intellectual independence, will be bold +in the expression of his opinions, yet quail and cringe at the name of +the unseen Mrs. Grundy, so those who yelled at bull fights, glorified +in the bloodshed of the ring side or went forth in the street to do +battle for a political cause, feared with a most lively fear dark +demoniac powers who worked by occult means and subtle fascinations of +evil. + +In the paper that next follows, there is an exquisite touch when Sir +Roger catches sight of a cat and the broomstick behind the old woman’s +door. That to him seems to be proof positive of dark and nefarious +doings--proof as positive as, not so long ago, it was considered +proof positive by an excited crowd in a small town, when an old woman +with a German name was found to have in her house a blue print of a +railroad bridge. That it might have a perfectly legitimate origin was, +to illogical minds, unthinkable. No. There was a blue print, and blue +prints were sometimes used by spies. Germany had spies, and the old +woman had a German name. So she went to jail. What further proof was +needed? And who dare object to summary proceedings, lest he also be +judged tainted? + + +ON WITCHCRAFT. + +NO. 117, SPECTATOR--ADDISON. + +“There are some opinions in which man should stand neuter, without +engaging his assent to one side or the other. Such a hovering faith as +this, which refuses to settle upon his determination, is absolutely +necessary in a mind that is careful to avoid errors and prepossessions. +When the arguments press equally on both sides in matters that are +indifferent to us, the safest method is to give up ourselves to neither. + +“It is with this temper of mind that I consider the subject of +witchcraft. Whenever I hear the relations that are made from all parts +of the world, not only from Norway and Lapland, from the East and West +Indies, but from every particular nation in Europe, I cannot forbear +thinking that there is such an intercourse and commerce with evil +spirits, as that which we express by the name of witchcraft. But when +I consider that the ignorant and credulous parts of the world abound +most in these relations, and the persons among us who are supposed to +engage in such an infernal commerce, are people of weak understanding +and crazed imagination--and at the same time reflect upon the many +impostures and delusions of this nature that I have detected in all +ages, I endeavor to suspend my belief till I hear more certain accounts +than any which have yet come to my knowledge. In short, when I consider +the question, whether there are such persons in the world as those we +call witches, my mind is divided between two opposite opinions, or +rather (to speak my thoughts freely) I believe there is, and has been, +such a thing as witchcraft; at the same time can give no credit to any +particular instance of it. + +“I am engaged in this speculation, by some occurrences that I met with +yesterday, which I shall give my reader an account of at large. As I +was walking with my friend Sir Roger by the side of one of his woods, +an old woman applied herself to me for charity. Her dress and figure +put me in the mind of the following description in Otway: + + In a close lane as I pursu’d my journey + I spied a wrinkled hag, with age grown double, + Picking dry sticks, and mumbling to herself. + Her eyes with scalding rheum were gall’d and red; + Cold palsy shook her head; her hands seemed wither’d; + And on her crooked shoulders had she wrapt + The tatter’d remnant of an old striped hanging, + Which served to keep her carcass from the cold: + So there was nothing of a piece about her. + Her lower weeds were all o’er coarsely patch’d + With different colored rags, black, red, white, yellow, + And seemed to speak variety of wretchedness. + +“As I was musing on this description, and comparing it with the object +before me, the knight told me, that this very old woman had the +reputation of a witch all over the country; that her lips were observed +to be always in motion; and that there was not a switch about her house +which her neighbors did not believe had carried her several hundred +miles. If she chanced to stumble, they always found sticks or straws +that lay in the figure of a cross before her. If she made any mistake +at church, and cried amen in the wrong place, they never failed to +conclude that she was saying her prayers backward. There was not a maid +in the parish that would take a pin of her, though she should offer a +bag of money with it. She goes by the name of Moll White, and has made +the country ring with several imaginary exploits which are palmed upon +her. If the dairy-maid does not make her butter come so soon as she +would have it, Moll White is at the bottom of the churn. If a horse +sweats in the stable, Moll White has been upon his back. If a hare +makes an unexpected escape from the hounds, the huntsman curses Moll +White. ‘Nay,’ says Sir Roger, ‘I have known the master of the pack, +upon such an occasion, send one of his servants to see if Moll White +had been out that morning.’ + +“This account raised my curiosity so far, that I begged my friend Sir +Roger to go with me into her hovel, which stood in a solitary corner +under the side of the wood. Upon our first entering, Sir Roger winked +to me, and pointed to something that stood behind the door, which upon +looking that way, I found to be an old broom-staff. At the same time he +whispered to me in the ear to take notice of a tabby cat that sat in +the chimney corner, which, as the old knight told me, lay under as bad +a report as Moll herself; for beside that Moll is said to accompany her +in the same shape, the cat is reported to have spoken twice or thrice +in her life, and to have played several pranks above the capacity of an +ordinary cat. + +“I was secretly concerned to see human nature in so much wretchedness +and disgrace, but at the same time could not forbear smiling to hear +Sir Roger, who is a little puzzled about the old woman, advising her as +a justice of peace to avoid all communication with the devil, and never +to hurt any of her neighbors’ cattle. We concluded our visit with a +bounty which was very acceptable. + +“In our return Sir Roger told me that Moll had been often brought +before him for making children spit pins, and giving maids the +nightmare; and that the country people would be tossing her into a pond +and trying experiments with her every day, if it was not for him and +his chaplain. + +“I have since found upon inquiry that Sir Roger was several times +staggered with the reports that had been brought him concerning this +old woman, and would frequently have bound her over to the county +sessions, had not his chaplain with much ado persuaded him to the +contrary. + +“I have been the more particular in this account, because I hear there +is scarcely a village in England that has not a Moll White in it. +When an old woman begins to doat, and grow chargeable to a parish, she +is generally turned into a witch, and fills the whole country into +extravagant fancies, imaginary distempers, and terrifying dreams. In +the meantime, the poor wretch that is the innocent occasion of so many +evils, begins to be frightened at herself, and sometimes confesses +secret commerces and familiarities that her imagination forms in a +delirious old age. This frequently cuts off charity from the greatest +objects of compassion, and inspires people with a malevolence towards +those poor discrepit parts of our species, in whom human nature is +defaced by infirmity and dotage.” + + * * * * * + +A word of explanation here seems necessary. At the time of Sir Roger’s +supposed movements, memory of the great Matthew Hopkins was lively in +many places, and, now and then, imitators sprang up, just as today, +while the idea is generally discarded and thrown on the scrap heap of +exploded opinions, you will find in back country districts, “water +witches” who will undertake to locate water or minerals and tell the +depth at which they are to be found. + +Matthew Hopkins lived in Essex and had made himself conspicuous in +discovering the devil’s mark on many witches. He had a peculiar +monopoly for a time, and, being a specialist, was much sought after, +aiding the judges with his knowledge of “such cattle” as he called +them, whenever a witch was suspected. Lesser lights in the way of +specialists soon appeared. + +Later, he assumed the title of “Witch Finder General” and traveled +through the central counties witch hunting. In one year, he brought +more than sixty old women to the stake. His favorite method was that +advocated by King James in his “Demonologie.” The hands and feet of +the suspected one were cross tied, then, wrapped in a blanket, they +were laid on their backs in a pond. If they sank, they were adjudged +innocent, but if they floated for a short time, as was often the case, +especially when they were laid carefully on the water, they were judged +guilty and burned. + +Another test was to make the suspected one repeat the Lord’s Prayer +and the Creed. If a word was missed or wrongly pronounced, she was +accounted guilty. It was said that witches could not weep more than +three tears, and those only from the left eye. Thus, the natural +excitement and its effect became a proof of guilt. + +Hopkins traveled through his counties like a man of consideration, +attended by two assistants, put up at the chief inn of the place, +and always at the cost of the authorities. His charges were twenty +shillings a town, his expenses of living while there, and his +transportation. This he claimed whether he found witches or not. If he +found any, he charged twenty shillings a head in addition when they +were brought to execution. For three years he carried on this infamous +trade, success making him so insolent and rapacious, that high and +low became his enemies. The Rev. Mr. Gaul, a clergyman of Houghton, +in Huntingdonshire, wrote a pamphlet accusing him of being a common +nuisance. Hopkins replied in an angry letter to the mayor of Houghton, +stating his intention of visiting their town, but desiring to know +whether it held many such sticklers for witchcraft as Mr. Gaul, and +asking whether they were willing to receive and entertain him with +the customary hospitality. He added by way of threat, that in case +he did not receive a satisfactory reply, “He would waive their shire +altogether and betake himself to such places where he might do and +punish, not only without control, but with thanks and recompense.” + +Mr. Gaul describes, in his pamphlet, one of the modes employed by +Hopkins. It was proof even more atrocious than the swimming test. He +says, that the “witch-finding general” used to take the suspected +witch and place her in the middle of a room, upon a stool or table, +cross-legged, or in some other uneasy posture. If she refused to sit +in this manner, she was bound with strong cords. Hopkins then placed +persons to watch her, for four and twenty hours, during which time she +was to be kept with meat and drink. It was supposed that one of her +imps would come during that interval, and suck her blood. As the imp +might come in the shape of a wasp, a moth, a fly or other insect, a +hole was made in the door or window to let it enter. The watchers were +ordered to keep a sharp lookout, and endeavor to kill any insect that +appeared in the room. If any fly escaped, or if they could not kill it, +the woman was guilty; the fly was her imp, and she was sentenced to be +burned, and twenty shillings went into the pockets of master Hopkins. +In this manner he made one old woman confess because four flies had +appeared in the room, that she was attended by four imps, named +“Ilemazar,” “Pyewackett,” “Peck-in-the-crown,” and “Grizel-Greedigut.” + +Hopkins was eventually caught in his own trap. Suspected presently, +he was beset by a mob in the village of Suffolk, and accused of being +himself a wizard. An old reproach was brought against him, that he had, +by means of sorcery, cheated the devil out of a certain memorandum +book, in which Satan had entered the names of all the witches in +England. “Thus,” said someone, “you find out witches, not by God’s +aid, but by the devil’s.” In vain he denied his guilt. The crowd put +him to his own test. He was stripped and given the swimming test. Some +say that he floated, was taken out, tried and executed upon no other +proof of his guilt. Others assert that he was drowned. As no judicial +entry of his trial and execution is found in any register, it appears +most probable that he was killed. + + +SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY. + +We come to Sir Roger himself, the character that Addison loved as +Dickens loved _Pickwick_, as Cervantes loved _Don Quixote_, as Rabelais +loved his _Pantagruel_. Sir Roger was no wooden puppet, no dummy +stuffed with straw. He lived. He had his faults, his opinions, his +character. His is a type that has passed away. The county squire, +in his position as magistrate, land owner, benefactor, respected +authority, no longer exists. Be it remembered, there was, as William +Morris used to point out, much of good, as well as much of evil, in +the feudal system. In that day the land owner’s domain, was a little +state, paternally governed. We have freed ourselves from that, to +become institution governed. A Sir Roger scolded his tenants, knew +their affairs, gave them advice, assistance, orders. There was indeed, +a “mixture of the father and the master of the family” in him. He lived +with his people and was respected, obeyed, loved; the simplicity of +his tastes put him on something very near a level with them. That was +something, as it is always something to see authority face to face. + + * * * * * + + +A VISIT TO SIR ROGER. + +NO. 106, SPECTATOR, JULY 2, 1711--ADDISON. + +“Having often received an invitation from my friend Sir Roger de +Coverley to pass away a month, with him in the country, I last week +accompanied him hither, and am settled with him for some time at his +country-house. Sir Roger, who is well acquainted with my humor, lets me +rise and go to bed when I please; dine at his own table or in my own +chamber as I see fit; sit still and say nothing without bidding me be +merry. When the gentlemen of the country come to see him, he only shows +me at a distance: as I have been walking in his field I have observed +them stealing a sight of me over an hedge, and have heard the knight +desiring them not to let me see them, for that I hated to be stared at. + +“I am the more at ease in Sir Roger’s family, because it consists of +sober and staid persons: for, as the knight is the best master in the +world, he seldom changes his servants; and, as he is beloved by all +about him, his servants never care for leaving him; by this means his +domestics are all in years, and grown old with their master. You would +take his valet-de-chambre for his brother; his butler is gray-headed, +his groom is one of the gravest men I have ever seen, and his coachman +has the looks of a privy-counsellor. You see the goodness of the master +even in the old house dog, and in a gray pad that is kept in the stable +with great care and tenderness out of regard to his past services, +though he has been useless for several years. + +“I could not but observe with a great deal of pleasure the joy that +appeared in the countenances of these ancient domestics upon my +friend’s arrival at his country seat. Some of them could not refrain +from tears at the sight of their old master! every one of them pressed +forward to do something for him, and seemed discouraged if they were +not employed. At the same time the old knight, with a mixture of the +father and master of the family, tempered the inquiries after his +own affairs with several kind questions relating to themselves. This +humanity and good nature engages everybody to him, so that, when he is +pleasant upon any of them, all his family are in good humour, and none +so much as the person whom he diverts himself with: on the contrary, +if he coughs, or betrays any infirmity of old age, it is easy for a +bystander to observe a secret concern in the looks of all his servants. + +“My worthy friend has put me under the particular care of his +butler, who is a very prudent man, and as well as the rest of his +fellow-servants, wonderfully desirous of pleasing me, because they have +often heard their master talk of me as his particular friend. + +“My chief companion, when Sir Roger is diverting himself in the woods +or in the fields, is a very venerable man who is ever with Sir Roger, +and has lived in his house in the nature of a chaplain above thirty +years. This gentleman is a person of good sense and some learning, of +a very regular life and obliging conversation: he heartily loves Sir +Roger, and knows that he is very much in the old knight’s esteem, so +that he lives in the family rather as a relation than a dependent. + +“I have observed in several of my papers, that my friend Sir Roger, +amidst all his good qualities, is something of a humorist; and that +his virtues, as well as his imperfections, are, as it were, tinged +by a certain extravagance, which makes them particularly his, and +distinguishes them from those of other men. This cast of mind, as it +is generally very innocent in itself, so it renders his conversation +highly agreeable, and more delightful than the same degree of sense +and virtue would appear in their common colours. As I was walking +with him last night, he asked me how I liked the good man whom I have +just mentioned; and without staying for my answer, told me that he +was afraid of being insulted with Latin and Greek at his own table; +for which he desired a particular friend of his at the university to +find him out a clergyman rather of plain sense than much learning, of +a good aspect, a clear voice, a sociable temper; and, if possible, +a man that understood a little of the back-gammon. My friend, says +Sir Roger, found me out this gentleman, who, besides the endowments +required of him, is, they tell me, a good scholar, though he does not +show it. I have given him the parsonage of the parish; and, because I +know his value, have settled upon him a good annuity for life. If he +outlives me, he shall find that he was higher in my esteem than perhaps +he thinks he is. He has now been with me thirty years; and, though he +does not know I have taken notice of it, has never in all that time +asked anything of me for himself, though he is every day soliciting +me for something in behalf of one or the other of my tenants, his +parishioners. There has not been a law-suit in the parish since he has +lived among them; if any dispute arises they apply themselves to him +for the decision; if they do not acquiesce in his judgment, which I +think never happened above once or twice at the most, they appeal to +me. At his first settling with me, I made him a present of all the good +sermons which have been printed in English, and only begged of him that +every Sunday he would pronounce one of them in the pulpit. Accordingly +he has digested them into such a series, that they follow one another +naturally, and make a continued system of practical divinity. + +“As Sir Roger was going on in his story, the gentleman we were talking +of came up to us; and, upon the knight’s asking him who preached +tomorrow, (for it was Saturday night,) told us, the Bishop of St. +Asaph in the morning, and Dr. South in the afternoon. He then showed +us a list of preachers for the whole year, where I saw with a great +deal of pleasure Archbishop Tillotson, Bishop Sanderson, Dr. Barrow, +Dr. Calamy, with several living authors who have published discourses +of practical divinity. I no sooner saw this venerable man in the +pulpit, but I very much approved of my friend’s insisting upon the +qualifications of a good aspect and a clear voice; for I was so charmed +with the gracefulness of his figure and delivery, as well as with the +discourses he pronounced, that I think I never passed any time more +to my satisfaction. The sermon repeated after this manner is like the +composition of a poet in the mouth of a graceful actor. + +“I could heartily wish that more of our country clergy would follow +this example; and, instead of wasting their spirits in laborious +compositions of their own, would endeavor after a handsome elocution, +and all those other talents that are proper to enforce what has +been penned by greater masters. This would not only be more easy to +themselves, but more edifying to the people.” + + * * * * * + +The peculiar relations between landowner and tenant as pictured by +Addison, seem to be confirmed quite independently by that crusted old +Tory, Sir Jonah Barrington. He writes: + +“At the great house all disputes among the tenants were then settled, +quarrels reconciled, old debts arbitrated; a kind Irish landlord +reigned despotic in the ardent affections of the tenantry, their pride +and pleasure being to obey and support him. + +“But there existed a happy reciprocity of interest. The landlord of +that period protected the tenant by his influence; any wanton injury to +a tenant being considered as an insult to a landlord; and if either of +the landlord’s sons were grown up, no time was lost by him in demanding +satisfaction from any gentleman, for maltreating even his father’s +blacksmith. + +“No gentleman of this degree ever distrained a tenant for rent: indeed +the parties appeared to be quite united and knit together. The greatest +abhorrence, however, prevailed as to tithe protectors, coupled with +no great predilection for the clergy who employed them. These latter +certainly were, in principle and practice, the real country tyrants of +that day, and first caused the assembling of the White Boys. + +“I have heard it often said that at the time I speak of, every estated +gentleman in the Queen’s county was _honored_ by the gout. I have since +considered that its extraordinary prevalence was not difficult to be +accounted for, by the disproportionate quantity of acid contained in +their seductive beverage, called rum-shrub, which was then universally +drunk in quantities incredible, generally from supper time till +morning, by all country gentlemen, as they said, to keep down their +claret. + +“My grandfather could not refrain, and therefore he suffered well; +he piqued himself on procuring, through the interests of Batty Lodge +(a follower of the family who had married a Dublin grocer’s widow), +the very first importation of oranges and lemons to the Irish capital +every season. Horse loads of these packed boxes, were immediately sent +to the great house of Cullenaghmore; and no sooner did they arrive, +than the good news of _fresh fruit_ was communicated to the colonel’s +neighboring friends, accompanied by the usual invitation. + +“Night after night the revel afforded uninterrupted pleasure to the +joyous gentry: the festivity being subsequently renewed at some other +mansion, till the gout thought proper to put the whole party _hors de +combat_; having the satisfaction of making cripples for a few months of +each as he did not kill. + +“While the convivials bellowed with only toe or finger agonies, it was +a mere bagatelle; but when Mr. Gout marched up the country, and invaded +the head or the stomach, it was then called _no joke_; and Drogheda +usquebaugh, the hottest distilled drinkable liquor ever invented, was +applied to for aid, and generally drove the tormentor in a few minutes +to his former quarters. It was, indeed, counted specific; and I allude +to it more particularly, as my poor grandfather was finished thereby. + +“It was his custom to sit under a very large branching bay-tree in his +armchair, placed in a fine, sunny aspect at the entrance to the garden. +I particularly remember his cloak, for I kept it twelve years after his +death; it was called a _cartouche_ cloak, from a famous French gang +who, it was said, invented it for his gang for the purpose of evasion. +It was made of very fine broadcloth, of a bright blue color on one +side, and a bright scarlet on the other; so that on being turned, it +might deceive even a vigilant pursuer. + +“There my grandfather used to sit of a hot sunny day, receive any rents +he could collect, and settle any accounts which his indifference on +that head permitted him to think of. + +“At one time he suspected a young rogue of having slipped some money +off his table when paying rent; and therefore, when afterwards the +tenants began to count out their money, he used to throw the focus +of his large reading glass upon their hands: the smart, without any +visible cause, astonished the ignorant creatures! they shook their +hands, and thought it must be the devil who was scorching them. The +priest was let into the secret: he seriously told them all it _was_ +the devil, who had mistaken them for the fellow that had stolen the +money from the colonel; but that if he (the priest) was _properly +considered_, he would say as many masses as would bother fifty devils, +were it necessary. The priest got his fee; and another farthing never +was taken from my grandfather.” + + * * * * * + +Addison is too true an artist to give the impression that his +character, his Sir Roger, is a type of the squire in general. Lightly, +at the close of the essay on Sir Roger at church, he sketches another +sort of man, the country squire full of pride and prejudice, who +like Fielding’s _Squire Western_ in _Tom Jones_, is a good fellow in +the main, but hard, violent, dogmatic. Such a man is like a bull, +headstrong, sometimes offensive, quick to anger, always ready to give +battle. He is like a badly broken horse and ready to rear and kick +at the least sign of opposition to his own will. He will storm and +rage, then, of a sudden there is a change and he is swiftly at the +other extreme. Consider that glorious creation of Fielding’s, _Squire +Western_, a contemporary of Sir Roger. + +He is told that _Tom Jones_ has dared to fall in love with his +daughter. Then the storm breaks: + + It’s well for ’un I could not get at ’un; I’d a licked ’un; I’d a + spoiled his caterwaulin; I’d ha’ taught the son of a whore to meddle + with meat for his master. He shan’t ever have a morsel o’ meat o’ + mine, or a farden to buy it. If she will have ’un, one smock shall be + her portion. I’d sooner give my estate to the sinking fund that it + may be sent to Hanover to corrupt our nation with. + +Then, soon, there is the change. He is reconciled to _Tom_. He becomes +as full of love as he was formerly of hate. The marriage shall not be +delayed a day: + + To her, boy, to her, go to her. Hath she appointed the day, boy? + What, shall it be tomorrow or the next day? I shan’t be put off a + minute longer than the next day, I am resolved.... I tell thee it’s + all flim flam. Zoodikers! she’d have the wedding tonight with all + her heart. Woulds’t not Sophy?... Where the devil is Allworthy?... + Harkee, Allworthy, I bet thee five pounds to a crown, we have a + boy tomorrow nine months. But prithee, tell me what wut ha? Wut ha + Burgandy, Champagne, or what? For please Jupiter, we’ll make a night + on’t. + +Nor again must it be supposed that the picture which Addison gives +of the well kept church is actually representative of the condition +of all church buildings in that day. Sir Roger, interested in his +surroundings, was at no time unwilling to spend time and money on +improvements. Others did not. There was another side to the picture. +Cowper, writing an article for the _Connoiseur_, (No. 26, August 19, +1756) says: + +“The ruinous condition of some of these edifices gave me great +offence; and I could not help wishing that the honest vicar, instead +of indulging his genius for improvements, by inclosing his gooseberry +bushes within a Chinese rail, and converting half an acre of his +globe land into a bowling green, would have applied part of his +income to the more laudable purpose of sheltering his parishioners +from the weather, during their attendance on the divine service. It +is no uncommon thing to see the parsonage house well thatched, and in +exceeding good repair, while the church, perhaps, has scarce any other +roof than the ivy that grows upon it. The noise of owls, bats and +magpies, makes the principal part of the church music in many of these +ancient edifices; and the walls, like a large map, seem to be portioned +out into capes, seas and promontories, by the various colors by which +the damps have stained them. Sometimes, the foundation being too weak +to support the steeple any longer, it has been expedient to pull down +that part of the building, and to hang the bells under a wooden shed on +the ground beside it. This is the case in a parish in Norfolk, through +which I lately passed, and where the clerk and the sexton, like the two +figures in St. Dunstan’s, serve the bells in capacity of clappers, by +striking them alternately with a hammer. + +“In other churches I have observed that nothing unseemly or ruinous is +to be found, except in the clergyman, and the appendages of his person. +The squire of the parish or his ancestors, perhaps, to testify their +devotion, and leave a lasting memorial of their magnificence, have +adorned the altar piece with the richest crimson velvet, embroidered +with vine leaves and ears of wheat; and have dressed up the pulpit +with the same splendor and expense; while the gentleman who fills it, +is exalted in the midst of all this finery, with a surplice as dirty +as a farmer’s frock, and a periwig that seems to have transferred its +faculty of curling to the band which appears in full buckle beneath it. + +“But if I was concerned to see several distressed pastors, as well +as many of our country churches in a tottering condition, I was more +offended with the indecency of worship in others. I could wish that the +clergy would inform their congregations, that there is no occasion to +scream themselves hoarse in making the responses; that the town crier +is not the only person qualified to pray with due devotion; and that he +who bawls the loudest may, nevertheless, be the wickedest fellow in the +parish. The old women, too, in the aisle might be told that their time +would be better employed in attending to the sermon than in fumbling +over their tattered testaments till they have found the text; by which +time the discourse is drawing to its conclusion.... + +“The good old practice of psalm singing is, indeed, wonderfully +improved in many country churches since the days of Sternhold and +Hopkins; and there is scarce a parish clerk who has so little taste +as not to pick his staves out of the New Version. This has occasioned +great complaints in some places, where the clerk has been forced to +bawl by himself, because the rest of the congregation cannot find the +psalm at the end of the prayer book; while others are highly disgusted +with the innovation, and stick as obstinately to the Old Version as +to the Old Style. The tunes themselves have also been set to jiggish +measures; and the sober drawl, which used to accompany the two first +staves of the 100th psalm with the _Gloria patri_, is now split into +as many quavers as an Italian air. For this purpose there is in every +county an itinerant band of vocal musicians, who make it their business +to go round to all the churches in their turns, and, after a prelude +with the pitch pipe, astonish the audience with hymns set to the new +Winchester measure and anthems of their own composing. As these new +fashioned psalmodists are necessarily made up of young men and maids, +we may naturally suppose that there is a perfect concord and symphony +between them; and, indeed, I have known it happen that these sweet +singers have more than once been brought into disgrace by too close +unison between the thorough bass and the treble. + +“... The Squire, like the King, may be styled Head of the Church in +his own parish. If the benifice be in his own gift, the vicar is his +creature, and of consequence entirely at his devotion; or, if the care +of the church be left to a curate, the Sunday fees of roast beef and +plum pudding, and a liberty to shoot in the manor, will bring him as +much under the Squire’s command as his dogs and horses. For this reason +the bell is often kept tolling, and the people waiting in the church +yard an hour longer than the usual time; nor must the service begin +till the Squire has strutted up the aisle, and seated himself in the +great pew in the chancel. The length of the sermon is also measured +by the will of the Squire, as formerly by the hour glass; and I know +one parish where the preacher has always the complaisance to conclude +his discourse, however abruptly, the minute that the Squire gives the +signal, by rising up after his nap.... + +“... The ladies, immediately on their entrance, breathe a pious +ejaculation through their fan sticks, and the beaux very gravely +address themselves to the haberdasher’s bills glued upon the lining of +their hats....” + + * * * * * + +One incident of Addison’s boyhood is particularly interesting as +exemplifying the conflict of opinion on matters religious. All pleasure +had been barred under the Puritan rule, and the nation oppressed as +never before under a religious despotism. Then, under Charles II, the +pendulum swung too far in the other direction and sensual pleasure was +exalted into a worship, and impiety into a creed. The aftermath of all +that had its effect. + +So we have a key to what follows, taken from an essay by Addison in +_Spectator_ No. 125: + + The worthy knight, being but a stripling, had occasion to inquire + which was the way to St. Anne’s Lane, upon which, the person he spoke + to instead of answering his question called him a young Popish cur, + and asked him who made Anne a saint. The boy, in some confusion, + inquired of the next he met which was the way to Anne’s Lane, but was + called a prick ear’d cur, for his pains, and, instead of being shown + the way, was told that she had been a saint before he was born and + would be one after he was hanged. “Upon this,” said Sir Roger, “I did + not see fit to repeat the former question, but going into every lane + of the neighborhood, asked what they called the name of that lane.” + +Again in a _Spectator_ of an earlier date, we find a semi-humorous +letter setting forth the troubles of a man, a member of the Established +Church, whose wife has become a dissenter. Thus: + + I am one of the most unhappy men that are plagued with a gospel + gossip so common among dissenters (especially friends). Lectures in + the morning, church-meetings at noon, and preparation sermons at + night, take up so much of her time, it is very rare she knows what we + have for dinner, unless when the preacher is to be at it. With him, + come a tribe, all brothers and sisters it seems; while others, really + such, are deemed no relations. If at any time I have her company + alone, she is a mere sermon pop-gun, repeating and discharging texts, + proofs, and applications so perpetually, that however weary I may to + bed, the noise in my head will not let me sleep till toward morning. + The misery of my case, and great numbers of such sufferers, plead + your pity and speedy relief; otherwise, I must expect in a little + time, to be lectured, preached, and prayed into want, unless the + happiness of being sooner talked to death prevent it. I am, etc., + + R. G. + + * * * * * + + +SIR ROGER AT CHURCH. + +NO. 112, SPECTATOR, JULY 9, 1711--ADDISON. + +I am always very well pleased with a country Sunday, and think, if +keeping holy the seventh day were only a human institution, it would +be the best method that could have been thought of for the polishing +and civilizing of mankind. It is certain the country people would soon +degenerate into a kind of savage and barbarians, were there not such +frequent returns of a stated time in which the whole village meet +together with their best faces and in their cleanliest habits, to +converse with one another upon different subjects, hear their duties +explained to them, and join together in adoration of the Supreme Being. +Sunday clears away the rust of the whole week, not only as it refreshes +in their minds the notion of religion, but as it puts both the sexes +upon appearing in their most agreeable forms, and exerting all such +qualities as are apt to give them a figure in the eye of the village. A +country fellow distinguishes himself as much in the church-yard, as a +citizen does upon the Change, the whole parish politics being generally +discussed in that place either after sermon or before the bell rings. + +My friend Sir Roger, being a good churchman, has beautified the inside +of his church with several texts of his own choosing; he has likewise +given a handsome pulpit-cloth, and railed-in the communion table at his +own expense. He has often told me that, at his coming to his estate, he +found his parishioners very irregular; and that, in order to make them +kneel and join in the responses, he gave every one of them a hassock +and a common prayer book; and, at the same time, employed an itinerant +singing-master, who goes about the country for that purpose, to +instruct them rightly in the tunes of the psalms; upon which they very +much value themselves, and indeed outdo most of the country churches +that I have ever heard. + +As Sir Roger is landlord to the whole congregation, he keeps them in +very good order, and will suffer nobody to sleep in it besides himself; +for if by chance he has been surprised into a short nap at sermon, upon +recovering out of it he stands up and looks about him, and, if he sees +anybody else nodding, either wakes them himself or sends his servants +to them. Several other of the old knight’s peculiarities break out upon +these occasions; sometimes he will be lengthening out a verse in the +singing-psalms, half a minute after the rest of the congregation have +done with it; sometimes, when he is pleased with the matter of his +devotion, he pronounces _Amen_ three or four times in the same prayer; +and sometimes stands up when everybody else is upon their knees, to +count the congregation, or see if any of his tenants are missing. + +I was yesterday very much surprised to hear my friend, in the midst +of the service, calling out to one John Matthews to mind what he was +about, and not disturb the congregation. This John Matthews, it seems, +is remarkable for being an idle fellow, and at that time was kicking +his heels for diversion. This authority of the knight, though exerted +in that odd manner which accompanies him in all circumstances in life, +has had very good effect upon the parish, who are not polite enough to +see anything ridiculous in his behaviour; besides that the general good +sense and worthiness of his character makes his friends observe these +little singularities as foils that rather set off than blemish his good +qualities. + +As soon as the sermon is finished, nobody presumes to stir until Sir +Roger is gone out of the church. The knight walks down from his seat +in the chancel between a double row of his tenants, that stand bowing +to him on each side; and every now and then inquires how such-an-one’s +wife, or mother, or son, or father do, whom he does not see at church; +which is understood as a secret reprimand to the person that is absent. + +The chaplain has often told me, that upon a catechising day, when Sir +Roger has been pleased with a boy that answers well, he has ordered a +bible to be given to him next day for his encouragement; and sometimes +accompanies it with a fitch of bacon to his mother. Sir Roger has +likewise to add five pounds a year to the clerk’s place; and, that +he may encourage the young fellows to make themselves perfect in the +church service, has promised, upon the death of the present incumbent, +who is very old, to bestow it according to merit. + +This fair understanding between Sir Roger and his chaplain, and their +mutual concurrence in doing good, is the more remarkable, because the +very next village is famous for the differences and contentions that +arise between the parson and the squire, who live in a perpetual state +of war. The parson is always preaching at the squire, and the squire, +to be revenged on the parson, never comes to church. The squire has +made all his tenants atheists and tithe-stealers; while the parson +instructs them every Sunday in the dignity of his order, and insinuates +to them in almost every sermon that he is a better man than his patron. +In short, matters have come to such an extremity, that the squire has +not said his prayers either in public or private this half-year; and +that the parson threatens him, if he does not mend his manners, to pray +for him in the face of the whole congregation. + +Feuds of this nature, though too frequent in the country, are very +fatal to the ordinary people; who are so used to be dazzled with +riches, that they pay as much difference to the understanding of a man +of an estate, as of a man of learning; and are very hardly brought to +regard any truth, how important soever it may be, that is preached to +them, when they know there are several men of five hundred a-year who +do not believe it. + + * * * * * + +Without any doubt whatsoever, the outstanding characteristic of our +present day life is the extreme lack of sociability. It is the more +apparent to me, because I have lived in countries at times, especially +in Patagonia, where, in some respects, the manners and the customs of +the people closely approached the manners and customs of the early +eighteenth century. There were scandalous roisterers and hard drinkers +there, and vice was in fashion, nor was it a delicate kind of vice. +Many of the ladies would lend an ear to obscene ballads, on occasions +swear and blaspheme very prettily, and consider as a good joke, the +coarse words and oaths that flowed through their lovers’ conversation +like filth through a sewer. We were never in a hurry and a horseback +journey was an occasion for sociability. It was much so in the Addison +days. People on the highway had a will to companionship. _Will Wimble_, +as you see in the paper that follows, “joined a couple of plain men who +rode before,” and “conversed with them.” It was always so. You pick up +your Fielding to see _Tom Jones_ traveling mile after mile in company +with a chance acquaintance. _Joseph Andrews_ is carried on his way +by a man with a spare horse. _Peregrine Pickle_ on the road to Dover +overtakes and journeys with all sorts and conditions of sociable men +and _Roderick Random_ never lacks a chance friend. + +Indeed, in the days when men were not so eager to save time which, when +saved, they knew not what to do with, to encounter a fellow wayfarer +was counted a high and joyful privilege. It meant companionship and +a “God be wi’ ye” at parting. If fellowship is Heaven, as Morris put +it, and the lack of fellowship is hell, then indeed we of today are +much further advanced along the downward path that is paved with +good intentions. Your present-day autoist is far more prone to knock +the wayfarer down than to pick him up, or to insult his ears with a +derisive fanfare on his klaxon than he is to bid him “God speed.” And +so to Sir Roger. + + +SIR ROGER AT THE ASSIZES. + +NO. 122, 1711, SPECTATOR--ADDISON. + +A man’s first care should be to avoid the reproaches of his own heart; +his next, to escape the censures of the world; if the last interferes +with the former, it ought to be entirely neglected; but otherwise there +cannot be a greater satisfaction to an honest mind than to see those +approbations which it gives itself seconded by the applauses of the +public: a man is more sure of his conduct, when the verdict which he +passes upon his own behavior is thus warranted and confirmed by the +opinion of all that know him. + +My worthy friend Sir Roger is one of those who is not only at peace +within himself, but beloved and esteemed by all about him. He receives +a suitable tribute for his universal benevolence to mankind, in the +returns of affection and good will, which are paid him by every one +that lives within his neighborhood. I lately met with two or three +odd instances of that respect which is shown to the good old knight. +He would needs carry Will Wimble and myself with him to the country +assizes: as we were upon the road Will Wimble joined a couple of plain +men who rode before us, and conversed with them for some time; during +which my friend Sir Roger acquainted me with their characters. + +“The first of them,” says he, “that has a spaniel by his side, is a +yeoman of about a hundred pounds a year, an honest man: he is just +within the Game-Act, and qualified to kill an hare or a pheasant: he +knocks down a dinner with his gun twice or thrice a week; and by that +means lives much cheaper than those that have not so good an estate +as himself. He would be a good neighbor if he did not destroy so many +partridges: in short, he is a very sensible man; shoots flying; and has +been several times foreman of the petty jury. + +“The other that rides along with him is Tom Touchy, a fellow for taking +the law of everybody. There is not one in the town where he lives that +he has not sued at quarter-sessions. The rogue had once the impudence +to go to law with the Widow. His head is full of costs, damages, and +ejectments; he plagued a couple of gentlemen so long for a trespass in +breaking one of his hedges, till he was forced to sell the ground it +enclosed to defray the charges of the prosecution: his father left him +fourscore pounds a year; but he has cast and been cast so often, that +is not now worth thirty. I suppose he is going upon the old business of +the willow-tree.” + +As Sir Roger was giving me this account of Tom Touchy, Will Wimble and +his two companions stopped short until we came up to them. Will it +seems had been giving his fellow traveler an account of his angling one +day in such a hole; when Tom Touchy, instead of hearing out his story, +told him, that Mr. Such-an-one, if he pleased, might take the law of +him for fishing in that part of the river. My friend Sir Roger heard +them both upon a round trot; and, after having paused some time, told +them, with the air of a man who would not give his judgment rashly, +that _much might be said on both sides_. They were neither of them +dissatisfied with the knight’s determination, because neither of them +found himself in the wrong by it; and upon which we made the best of +our way to the assizes. + +The court was set before Sir Roger came, but notwithstanding all the +justices had taken their places upon the bench, they made room for +the old knight at the head of them; who, for his reputation in the +country, took occasion to whisper in the judge’s ear, _that he was +glad his lordship had met with so much good weather in his circuit_. +I was listening to the proceedings of the court with much attention, +and infinitely pleased with the great appearance of solemnity which so +properly accompanies such a public administration of our laws; when, +after about an hour’s sitting, I observed to my great surprise, in the +midst of a trial, that my friend Sir Roger was getting up to speak. I +was in some pain for him till I found he had acquitted himself of two +or three sentences, with a look of much business and great intrepidity. + +Upon his first rising the court was hushed, and a general whisper ran +among the country people that Sir Roger _was up_. The speech he made +was so little to the purpose, that I shall not trouble my readers with +an account of it; and I believe was not so much designed by the knight +himself to inform the court, as to give him a figure in my eye, and +keep up his credit in the country. + +I was highly delighted, when the court rose, to see the gentlemen of +the country gathering about my old friend, and striving who should +compliment him the most; at the same time that the ordinary people +gazed upon him at a distance, not a little admiring his courage, that +was not afraid to speak to the judge. + +In our return home we met with a very odd accident; which I cannot +forbear relating, because it shows how desirous all who know Sir Roger +are of giving him marks of their esteem. When we reappeared upon the +verge of his estate, we stopped at a little inn to rest ourselves and +our horses. The man of the house had, it seems, been formerly a servant +in the knight’s family; and, to do honor to his old master, had some +time since, unknown to Sir Roger, put him up in a sign-post before the +door; so that the _Knight’s Head_ had hung out upon the road a week +before he himself knew anything of the matter. As soon as Sir Roger was +acquainted with it, finding that the servant’s indiscretion proceeded +wholly from affection and good-will, he only told him that he had made +him too high a compliment; and, when the fellow seemed to think that +hardly could be, added with a more decisive look, that it was too great +an honor for any man under a duke; but told him at the same time, that +it might be altered with a very few touches, and that he himself would +be at the charge of it. Accordingly they got a painter by the knight’s +directions to add a pair of whiskers to the face, and by a little +aggravation of the features to change it into the _Saracen’s Head_. +I should not have known this story, had not the innkeeper, upon Sir +Roger’s alighting, told him in my hearing, that his Honor’s head was +brought back last night with the alterations that he had ordered to be +made in it. Upon this my friend with his usual cheerfulness related the +particulars above mentioned, and ordered the head to be brought into +the room. I could not forbear discovering greater expressions of mirth +than ordinary upon the appearance of this monstrous face, under which, +notwithstanding it was made to frown and stare in a most extraordinary +manner, I could still discover a distant resemblance of my old friend. +Sir Roger, upon seeing me laugh, desired me to tell him truly if I +thought it possible for the people to know him in that disguise. I +at first kept my usual silence; but, upon the knight conjuring me to +tell him whether it was not still more like himself than a Saracen, I +composed my countenance in the best manner I could, and replied, _that +much might be said on both sides_. + +These several adventures, with the knight’s behavior in them, gave me +as pleasant a day as ever I met with in any of my travels. + + * * * * * + +If you went abroad at night in those days, it was better to carry a +stout cudgel than a walking cane. Says the poet Gay, in his “Trivia, +or the Art of Walking the Streets of London” Part III, ii, 326, + + Who has not trembled at the Mohock’s name? + Was there a watchman took his hourly rounds, + Safe from their blows or new invented wounds? + I pass their desperate deeds and mischief done, + Where from Snow hill black steepy torrents run; + How matrons, hoop’d within the hogshead womb, + Were tumbled furious hence. + +The young men of the age, like everyone else, mistook brutality for +pleasure just as do shallow minds today. The difference is, that +whereas we take it out at second hand, looking at blood letting in a +moving picture, or wasting time on a so-called funny sheet where the +humor turns on someone being hurt, they were more sincere and honest +about it. Gay, in his “hogshead womb” refers to the curious practice +of the Mohocks, (which seemed to have something in common with our Ku +Klux Klans in a love for cruelty and mob work), by which they caught a +woman, packed her in a barrel, and set her rolling down a steep hill. +You have seen, and perhaps enjoyed that kind of thing in a screen +“comedy.” As the screen men at times picture impossible cowboys making +innocent citizens dance by firing revolvers close to their feet, so +the Mohocks made them dance by pricking their legs with their swords. +Sometimes they went further, and, like latter day self-appointed +patriotic leagues, killed those they tortured. Of the Mohocks, Swift +writes, in his Journal to Stella, “Did I tell you of a race of rakes, +called the Mohocks, that play the devil about this town every night, +slit people’s noses and beat them? Faith, they shan’t cut mine; I like +it better as it is. The dogs will cost me at least a crown a week in +chairs.” + +The good knight had sufficient reason for his fear, for the Mohocks +at one time were a very serious menace. Eustace Bludgell in No. 347 +of the _Spectator_, of April 8, 1712, has a paper on the subject. The +fellows who banded themselves together to terrorize quiet citizens, +sometimes worked upon the superstitious fears of the ignorant, “like +those specters and apparitions which frighten several towns and +villages in her majesty’s dominions,” says Bludgell. The Mohocks tried +to form a sort of invisible empire, like the Ku Klux Klan of today. +They had their Emperor of the Mohocks, who sent anonymous letters of +a threatening nature, which were signed, ridiculously enough “Taw +Waw Eben Zan Kalader.” They pretended to constitute themselves into +guardians of law and order, issuing manifestoes setting forth that +“We have received information, from sundry quarters of this great and +populous city, of several outrages committed” and so on. They were, +of course, full of the sentimentality that finds absurd expression in +proclamations that they were defenders of the honor of women. Read +this, from Bludgell’s paper: + + And whereas, we have nothing more at our imperial heart than the + reformation of the cities of London and Westminster, which to our + unspeakable satisfaction we have in some measure already affected. + We do hereby earnestly pray and exhort all husbands, fathers, + housekeepers and masters of families ... not only to repair + themselves to their habitations at early and seasonable hours, but + also to keep their daughters, wives, sons, servants and apprentices, + from appearing in the streets at those times and seasons which may + expose them to military discipline as it is practiced by our good + subjects the Mohocks; and we do further promise on our imperial word, + that as soon as the reformation aforesaid shall be brought about. We + will forthwith cause all hostilities to cease. + + Given from our Court at the Devil Tavern, March 15th, 1712. + + +SIR ROGER AT THE THEATRE. + +SPECTATOR, NO. 335, MARCH 1712--ADDISON. + +My friend Sir Roger De Coverley, when we last met together at the +club, told me that he had a great mind to see the new tragedy with me, +assuring me, at the same time, that he had not been at a play these +twenty years. “The last I saw,” said Sir Roger, “was the Committee, +which I should not have gone to neither, had I not been told beforehand +that it was a good Church of England comedy.” He then proceeded to +inquire of me who this distressed mother was; and upon hearing that +she was Hector’s widow, he told me that her husband was a brave man, +and that when he was a school boy he had read his life at the end of +the dictionary. My friend asked me, in the next place, if there would +not be some danger in coming home late, lest the Mohocks should be +abroad. “I assure you,” says he, “I thought I had fallen into their +hands last night; for I observed two or three lusty black men that +followed me half way up Fleet Street, and mended their pace behind me, +in proportion as I put on to get away from them. You must know,” said +the Knight with a smile, “I fancied they had a mind to hunt me; for I +remember an honest gentleman in my neighborhood, who was served such a +trick in King Charles the Second’s time; for which reason he has not +ventured himself in town ever since. I might have shown them very good +sport, had this been their design; for as I am an old fox hunter, I +should have turned and dodged, and have played them a thousand tricks +they had never seen in their lives before.” Sir Roger added, that if +these gentlemen had any such intention, they did not succeed very well +in it; “for I threw them out,” says he, “at the end of Norfolk Street, +where I doubled the corner and got shelter in my lodgings before they +could imagine what had become of me, however,” says the knight, “if +Captain Sentry will make one with us tomorrow night, and you will both +call on me about four o’clock, that we may be at the house before it +is full, I will have my own coach in readiness to attend you, for John +tells me he has got the fore wheels mended.” + +The Captain, who did not fail to meet me there at the appointed hour, +bid Sir Roger fear nothing, for that he had put on the same sword +which he made use of at the battle of Steenkirk. Sir Roger’s servants, +and among the rest my old friend the butler, had, I found, provided +themselves with good oaken plants, to attend their master on this +occasion. When he had placed him in the coach, with myself at his +left hand, the Captain before him, and his butler at the head of his +footmen in the rear, we convoyed him in safety to the play house, +where, after having marched up the entry in good order, the Captain +and I went in with him, and seated him betwixt us in the pit. As soon +as the house was full, and the candles were lighted, my old friend +stood up and looked about him with that pleasure, which a mind seasoned +with humanity naturally feels in itself, at the sight of a multitude +of people who seem pleased with one another, and partake of the same +common entertainment, I could not but fancy to myself as the old man +hearing a cluster of them praise Orestes, struck in with them, and told +them, that he thought his friend Pylades was a very sensible man; as +they were afterwards applauding Pyrrhus Sir Roger put in a second time: +“And let me tell you,” says he, “though he speaks but little, I like +the old fellow in whiskers as well as any of them.” Captain Sentry +seeing two or three wags, who sat near us, lean with an attentive +ear toward Sir Roger, and fearing lest they should smoke the knight, +plucked him by the elbow, and whispered something in his ear, that +lasted till the opening of the fifth act. The knight was wonderfully +attentive to the account which Orestes gives of Pyrrhus’s death; and +at the conclusion of it, told me it was such a bloody piece of work +that he was glad it was not done upon the stage. Seeing afterwards +Orestes in his raving fit, he grew more than ordinary serious, and took +occasion to moralize (in his way) upon an evil conscience; adding that +Orestes in his madness, looked as if he saw something. + +As we were the first that came into the house, so we were the last +that went out of it; being resolved to have a clear passage for our +old friend, whom we did not care to venture among the justling of the +crowd. Sir Roger went out fully satisfied with his entertainment, and +we guarded him to his lodging in the same manner that we brought him to +the playhouse; being highly pleased, for my own part, not only with the +performance of the excellent piece which had been presented, but with +the satisfaction which it had given the old man. + + * * * * * + +_Note._ Much as the simple knight seemed to have been pleased with the +play, _The Distrest Mother_ was a dull version by Ambrose Philips of +Racine’s _Andromaque_. Fielding made a burlesque of it in his _Covent +Garden Tragedy_, 1712. The _Committee_, to which Sir Roger refers, had +a sub-title by which it was better known, _The Faithful Irishman_. +It was written by Robert Howard, Dryden’s brother-in-law, and first +produced in 1665. + + * * * * * + +A country cousin could no more pass a week in London in those days +without going to Vauxhall, than could a countryman stay any length of +time in New York without finding his way to Coney Island. The earliest +mention of the place is in Evelyn’s diary, 2nd July, 1661, when he went +to see the “New Spring Garden at Lambeth; a pretty contrived plantation +where sometimes they would have music and sit upon barges on the +water.” Charles II, who missed nothing in the line of gaiety, had built +for him “a fine room, the inside all of looking glass, and fountains +very pleasant to behold,” which, the grave Morland, his Master Mechanic +reports, was for the reception of “the King and his ladies.” + +Later, little improvements were made and there was an artificial +cascade, a water mill, a bridge with a mail coach passing over it, a +cottage scene with animated figures drinking and smoking by machinery. +Samuel Pepys, who missed nothing, says, “July 27, 1688--So over the +water with my wife and Deb and Mercer, to Spring Garden, and there +ate and walked, and observed how rude some of the young gallants of +the town are become, to go into people’s arbors, where there are not +men, and almost gore the women--which troubled me to see the vice +and confidence of the age.” Tom Brown, a little later, speaks of the +close walks and wildernesses, which “are so intricate, that the most +experienced mothers have often lost themselves looking for their +daughters.” + +In the days of Sir Roger, the fashionable way of going to the gardens +was by water, and an evening there, with a glass of ale and a slice of +hung beef was the usual course. Walpole, in a letter of 1750, gives +an interesting account of a Vauxhall party: “I had a card from Lady +Petersham to go with her to Vauxhall. I went accordingly to her house +and found her and the little Asche, or the Pollard Ashe as they call +her; they had just finished their last layer of red, and looked as +handsome as crimson could make them.... We marched to our barge, with +a boat of French horns attending, and little Ashe singing. We paraded +some time up the river and at last debarked at Vauxhall.... Here we +picked up Lord Granby, arrived very drunk from Jenny Whim’s (a tavern +between Chelsea and Pimlico). At last we assembled in our booth, Lady +Caroline in the front, with the visor of her hat erect, and looking +gloriously handsome. She had fetched my brother Orford from the next +box, where he was enjoying himself with his _petite partie_, to help +us to mince the chickens. We minced seven chickens in a china dish, +which Lady Caroline stewed over a lamp with three pats of butter and +a flagon of water, stirring and rattling and laughing, and we, every +minute, expecting the dish to fly about our ears. She had brought +Betty the fruit girl, with hampers of strawberries and cherries, from +Roger’s, and made her wait on table and then made her sit by herself at +a little table.... In short, the air of our party was sufficient, as +you will easily imagine, to take up the whole attention of the gardens; +so much so, that from eleven o’clock to half an hour after one, we had +the whole concourse round our booth. At last they came into the little +garden of each booth on the sides of ours, till Harry Vane took up a +bumper, and drank their healths, and was proceeding to treat them with +greater freedom. It was three o’clock before we got home.” + +Oliver Goldsmith in his “Beau Tibbs at Vauxhall” makes his hero say, +significantly, “As for virgins, it is true they are a fruit that don’t +much abound in our gardens here: but if ladies, as plenty as apples in +autumn, and as complying as any _houri_ of them all, can content you, I +fancy we have no need to go to heaven for paradise.” + + +SIR ROGER AT VAUXHALL GARDENS. + +SPECTATOR NO. 383, MAY, 1712--ADDISON. + +As I was sitting in my chamber, and thinking on a subject for my next +_Spectator_, I heard two or three irregular bounces at my landlady’s +door, and, upon the opening of it, a loud cheerful voice inquiring +whether the philosopher was at home. The child who went to the door +answered very innocently, that he did not lodge there. I immediately +recollected that it was my good friend Sir Roger’s voice; and that I +had promised to go with him on the water to Spring-garden, in case it +proved a good evening. The knight put me in mind of my promise from +the bottom of the staircase, but told me, that if I was speculating, +he would stay below till I had done. Upon my coming down, I found all +the children of the family got about my old friend, and my landlady +herself, who is a notable prating gossip, engaged in a conference with +him; being mightily pleased with his stroking her little boy upon the +head, and bidding him be a good child, and mind his book. + +We were no sooner come to the Temple-stairs, but we were surrounded +with a crowd of watermen, offering us their respective services. Sir +Roger, after having looked about him very attentively, spied one with a +wooden leg, and immediately gave him orders to get his boat ready. As +we were walking toward it, “You must know,” said Sir Roger, “I never +make use of anybody to row me, that has not either lost a leg or an +arm. I would rather bate him a few strokes of his oar than not employ +an honest man that has been wounded in the Queen’s service. If I was +a lord or a bishop, and kept a barge, I would not put a fellow in my +livery that had not a wooden leg.” + +My old friend, after having seated himself and trimmed the boat with +his coachman, who, being a very sober man, always serves for ballast +on these occasions, we made the best of our way for Vauxhall. Sir +Roger obliged the waterman to give us the history of his right leg; +and, hearing that he had left it at La Hogne, with many particulars +which passed in that glorious action, the knight, in the triumph of +his heart, made several reflections as to the greatness of the British +nation; as, that one Englishman could beat three Frenchmen; that we +could never be in danger of popery so long as we took care of our +fleet; that the Thames was the noblest river in Europe; that London +bridge was a greater piece of work than any of the seven wonders of the +world; with many other honest prejudices which naturally cleave to the +heart of a true Englishman. + +After some short pause, the old knight, turning about his head twice or +thrice, to take a survey of this great metropolis, bid me observe how +thick the city was with churches, and that there was scarce a single +steeple on this side Temple-bar. “A most heathenish sight!” says Sir +Roger: “there is no religion at this end of the town. The fifty new +churches will very much mend the prospect: but church-work is slow, +church-work is slow.” + +I do not remember I have anywhere mentioned, in Sir Roger’s character, +his custom of saluting everybody that passes by him with a good-morrow +or good-night. This the old man does out of the overflowings of his +humanity, though at the same time it renders him so popular among all +his country neighbours, that it is thought to have gone a good way in +making him once or twice knight of the shire. He cannot forbear this +exercise of benevolence even in town, when he meets with any one in his +morning or evening walk. It broke from him to several boats that passed +by upon the water; but to the knight’s great surprise, as he gave the +good-night to two or three of the young fellows a little before our +landing, one of them, instead of returning the civility, asked us what +queer old put we had in the boat, and whether he was not ashamed to go +a-wenching at his years; with a great deal of the like Thames ribaldry. +Sir Roger seemed a little shocked at first; but, at length assuming a +face of magistracy, told us, “That if we were a Middlesex justice, he +would make such vagrants know that her Majesty’s subjects were no more +to be abused by water than by land.” + +We were now arrived at Spring-garden, which is exquisitely pleasant +at this time of the year. When I consider the fragrancy of the walks +and bowers, with the choirs of birds that sung upon the trees, and the +loose tribe of people that walked under the shades, I could not but +look upon the place as a kind of Mahometan paradise. Sir Roger told me +it put him in mind of a little coppice by his house in the country, +which his chaplain used to call an aviary of nightingales. “You must +understand,” says the knight, “there is nothing in the world that +pleases a man in love so much as your nightingales. Ah, Mr. Spectator! +the many moonlight nights that I have walked by myself, and thought +on the Widow by the music of the nightingale!” He here fetched a deep +sigh, and was falling into a fit of musing, when a mask, who came +behind him, gave him a gentle tap upon the shoulder, and asked him if +he would drink a bo mead with her. But the knight, being startled by +so unexpected a familiarity, and displeased to be interrupted in his +thoughts of the Widow, told her, _She was a wanton baggage_, and bid +her go about her business. + +We concluded our walk with a glass of Burton ale, and a slice of hung +beef. When we had done eating, ourselves, the knight called a waiter to +him, and bid him carry the remainder to the waterman that had but one +leg. I perceived that the fellow stared upon him at the oddness of the +message, and was going to be saucy; upon which I ratified the knight’s +commands with a peremptory look. + +As we were going out of the garden, my old friend thinking himself +obliged, as a member of the _quorus_, to animadvert upon the morals of +the place, told the mistress of the house, who sat at the bar, that +he should be a better customer to her garden, “if there were more +nightingales and fewer improper persons.” + + * * * * * + + + + +Transcriber’s note + + +Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice. Hyphenation +and italicization were standardized. + +Spelling was retained as in the original except for the following +change: + + Page 3: “smear acros his” “smear across his” + Page 4: “Rabelias, like Scarron” “Rabelais, like Scarron” + Page 4: “bagnois on occasion” “baignoires on occasion” + Page 5: “He was irresistible” “He was as irresistible” + Page 7: “under Secretary of State” “Under Secretary of State” + Page 7: “collector of Elizivirs and” “collector of Elzevirs and” + Page 14: “Hilare Belloc, H. M.” “Hilaire Belloc, H. M.” + Page 22: “sawyers dstroying saw” “sawyers destroying saw” + Page 24: “at Brook’s gambling” “at Brooks’ gambling” + Page 27: “atention to the narratives” “attention to the narratives” + Page 27: “a letter writer by” “a letter written by” + Page 31: “Thomas Incl of London” “Thomas Inkle of London” + Page 35: “formation af a company” “formation of a company” + Page 37: “would quickly lesson” “would quickly lessen” + Page 40: “tried to get beneath” “tries to get beneath” + Page 42: “Hockley-inthe-Hole; where” “Hockley-in-the-Hole; where” + Page 64: “figures in St. Dustan’s” “figures in St. Dunstan’s” + Page 66: “pleasuse had been” “pleasure had been” + Page 76: “Acordingly they got” “Accordingly they got” + Page 76: “himself than a Sarcacen” “himself than a Saracen” + Page 77: “so the Mohawks made” “so the Mohocks made” + Page 78: “only to repair thmselves” “only to repair themselves” + Page 81: “applauding Pyrrhu Sir” “applauding Pyrrhus Sir” + Page 81: “gives of Pyrrhu’s death” “gives of Pyrrhus’s death” + Page 86: “work that any” “work than any” + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78492 *** |